{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_40435/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_40435","id":"gutenberg_40435","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40435","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Ancient","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Philosophy, Ancient","Plato","Socrates, 470 BC-399 BC"],"text":"PLATO, AND THE OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.\n\n\n\nABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS.\n\n\n\nPLATO,\n\nAND THE\n\nOTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.\n\nBY\n\nGEORGE GROTE\n\n\n\n_A NEW EDITION._\n\nIN FOUR VOLUMES.\n\nVOL. I.\n\n\n\nLONDON:\n\nJOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.\n\n1885.\n\n_The right of Translation is reserved._\n\n\n\n\nADVERTISEMENT.\n\nIn the present Edition, with a view to the distribution into four\nvolumes, there is a slight transposition of the author's arrangement.\nHis concluding chapters (XXXVIII., XXXIX.), entitled \"Other Companions\nof Sokrates,\" and \"Xenophon,\" are placed in the First Volume, as\nchapters III. and IV. By this means each volume is made up of nearly\nrelated subjects, so as to possess a certain amount of unity.\n\nVolume First contains the following subjects:--Speculative Philosophy\nin Greece before Sokrates; Growth of Dialectic; Other Companions of\nSokrates; Xenophon; Life of Plato; Platonic Canon; Platonic\nCompositions generally; Apology of Sokrates; Kriton; Euthyphron.\n\nVolume Second comprises:--Alkibiades I. and II.; Hippias\nMajor--Hippias Minor; Hipparchus--Minos; Theages; Erast\u00e6 or\nAnterast\u00e6--Rivales; Ion; Laches; Charmides; Lysis; Euthydemus;\nMenon; Protagoras; Gorgias; Ph\u00e6don.\n\nVolume Third:--Ph\u00e6drus--Symposion; Parmenides; The\u00e6tetus; Sophistes;\nPolitikus; Kratylus; Philebus; Menexenus; Kleitophon.\n\nVolume Fourth:--Republic; Tim\u00e6us and Kritias; Leges and Epinomis;\nGeneral Index.\n\nThe Volumes may be obtained separately.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThe present work is intended as a sequel and supplement to my History\nof Greece. It describes a portion of Hellenic philosophy: it dwells\nupon eminent individuals, enquiring, theorising, reasoning, confuting,\n&c., as contrasted with those collective political and social\nmanifestations which form the matter of history, and which the modern\nwriter gathers from Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon.\n\nBoth Sokrates and Plato, indeed, are interesting characters in history\nas well as in philosophy. Under the former aspect, they were described\nby me in my former work as copiously as its general purpose would\nallow. But it is impossible to do justice to either of them--above\nall, to Plato, with his extreme variety and abundance--except in a\nbook of which philosophy is the principal subject, and history only\nthe accessory.\n\nThe names of Plato and Aristotle tower above all others in Grecian\nphilosophy. Many compositions from both have been preserved, though\nonly a small proportion of the total number left by Aristotle. Such\npreservation must be accounted highly fortunate, when we read in\nDiogenes Laertius and others, the long list of works on various topics\nof philosophy, now irrecoverably lost, and known by little except\ntheir titles. Respecting a few of them, indeed, we obtain some partial\nindications from fragmentary extracts and comments of later critics.\nBut none of these once celebrated philosophers, except Plato and\nAristotle, can be fairly appreciated upon evidence furnished by\nthemselves. The Platonic dialogues, besides the extraordinary genius\nwhich they display as compositions, bear thus an increased price (like\nthe Sibylline books) as the scanty remnants of a lost philosophical\nliterature, once immense and diversified.\n\nUnder these two points of view, I trust that the copious analysis and\ncommentary bestowed upon them in the present work will not be\nconsidered as unnecessarily lengthened. I maintain, full and\nundiminished, the catalogue of Plato's works as it was inherited from\nantiquity and recognised by all critics before the commencement of the\npresent century. Yet since several subsequent critics have contested\nthe canon, and set aside as spurious many of the dialogues contained\nin it,--I have devoted a chapter to this question, and to the\nvindication of the views on which I have proceeded.\n\nThe title of these volumes will sufficiently indicate that I intend to\ndescribe, as far as evidence permits, the condition of Hellenic\nphilosophy at Athens during the half century immediately following the\ndeath of Sokrates in 399 B.C. My first two chapters do indeed furnish\na brief sketch of Pre-Sokratic philosophy: but I profess to take my\ndeparture from Sokrates himself, and these chapters are inserted\nmainly in order that the theories by which he found himself surrounded\nmay not be altogether unknown. Both here, and in the sixty-ninth\nchapter of my History, I have done my best to throw light on the\nimpressive and eccentric personality of Sokrates: a character original\nand unique, to whose peculiar mode of working on other minds I\nscarcely know a parallel in history. He was the generator, indirectly\nand through others, of a new and abundant crop of compositions--the\n\"Sokratic dialogues\": composed by many different authors, among whom\nPlato stands out as unquestionable coryph\u00e6us, yet amidst other names\nwell deserving respectful mention as seconds, companions, or\nopponents.\n\nIt is these Sokratic dialogues, and the various companions of Sokrates\nfrom whom they proceeded, that the present work is intended to\nexhibit. They form the dramatic manifestation of Hellenic philosophy--as\ncontrasted with the formal and systematising, afterwards prominent\nin Aristotle.\n\nBut the dialogue is a process containing commonly a large\nintermixture, often a preponderance, of the negative vein: which was\nmore abundant and powerful in Sokrates than in any one. In discussing\nthe Platonic dialogues, I have brought this negative vein into the\nforeground. It reposes upon a view of the function and value of\nphilosophy which is less dwelt upon than it ought to be, and for which\nI here briefly prepare the reader.\n\nPhilosophy is, or aims at becoming, reasoned truth: an aggregate of\nmatters believed or disbelieved after conscious process of examination\ngone through by the mind, and capable of being explained to others:\nthe beliefs being either primary, knowingly assumed as self-evident--or\nconclusions resting upon them, after comparison of all relevant\nreasons favourable and unfavourable. \"Philosophia\" (in the words of\nCicero), \"ex rationum collatione consistit.\" This is not the form in\nwhich beliefs or disbeliefs exist with ordinary minds: there has been\nno conscious examination--there is no capacity of explaining to\nothers--there is no distinct setting out of primary truths assumed--nor\nhave any pains been taken to look out for the relevant reasons on\nboth sides, and weigh them impartially. Yet the beliefs nevertheless\nexist as established facts generated by traditional or other\nauthority. They are sincere and often earnest, governing men's\ndeclarations and conduct. They represent a cause in which sentence has\nbeen pronounced, or a rule made absolute, without having previously\nheard the pleadings.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Napol\u00e9on, qui de temps en temps, au milieu de sa fortune\net de sa puissance, songeait \u00e0 Robespierre et \u00e0 sa triste\nfin--interrogeait un jour son archi-chancelier Cambac\u00e9r\u00e8s sur le neuf\nThermidor. \"_C'est un proc\u00e8s jug\u00e9 et non plaid\u00e9_,\" r\u00e9pondait\nCambac\u00e9r\u00e8s, avec la finesse d'un jurisconsulte courtisan.--(Hippolyte\nCarnot--Notice sur Bar\u00e8re, p. 109; Paris, 1842.)]\n\nNow it is the purpose of the philosopher, first to bring this omission\nof the pleadings into conscious notice--next to discover, evolve, and\nbring under hearing the matters omitted, as far as they suggest\nthemselves to his individual reason. He claims for himself, and he\nought to claim for all others alike, the right of calling for proof\nwhere others believe without proof--of rejecting the received\ndoctrines, if upon examination the proof given appears to his mind\nunsound or insufficient--and of enforcing instead of them any others\nwhich impress themselves upon his mind as true. But the truth which he\ntenders for acceptance must of necessity be _reasoned truth_;\nsupported by proofs, defended by adequate replies against\npreconsidered objections from others. Only hereby does it properly\nbelong to the history of philosophy: hardly even hereby has any such\nnovelty a chance of being fairly weighed and appreciated.\n\nWhen we thus advert to the vocation of philosophy, we see that (to use\nthe phrase of an acute modern author[2]) it is by necessity polemical:\nthe assertion of independent reason by individual reasoners, who\ndissent from the unreasoning belief which reigns authoritative in the\nsocial atmosphere around them, and who recognise no correction or\nrefutation except from the counter-reason of others. We see besides,\nthat these dissenters from the public will also be, probably, more or\nless dissenters from each other. The process of philosophy may be\ndifferently performed by two enquirers equally free and sincere, even\nof the same age and country: and it is sure to be differently\nperformed, if they belong to ages and countries widely apart. It is\nessentially relative to the individual reasoning mind, and to the\nmedium by which the reasoner is surrounded. Philosophy herself has\nevery thing to gain by such dissent; for it is only thereby that the\nweak and defective points of each point of view are likely to be\nexposed. If unanimity is not attained, at least each of the\ndissentients will better understand what he rejects as well as what he\nadopts.\n\n[Footnote 2: Professor Ferrier, in his instructive volume, 'The\nInstitutes of Metaphysic,' has some valuable remarks on the scope and\npurpose of Philosophy. I transcribe some of them, in abridgment.\n\n(Sections 1-8) \"A system of philosophy is bound by two main\nrequisitions: it ought to be true--and it ought to be reasoned.\nPhilosophy, in its ideal perfection, is a body of reasoned truth. Of\nthese obligations, the latter is the more stringent. It is more proper\nthat philosophy should be reasoned, than that it should be true:\nbecause, while truth may perhaps be unattainable by man, to reason is\ncertainly his province and within his power. . . . A system is of the\nhighest value only when it embraces both these requisitions--that is,\nwhen it is both true, and reasoned. But a system which is reasoned\nwithout being true, is always of higher value than a system which is\ntrue without being reasoned. The latter kind of system is of no value:\nbecause philosophy is the attainment of truth _by the way of reason_.\nThat is its definition. A system, therefore, which reaches the truth\nbut not by the way of reason, is not philosophy at all, and has\ntherefore no scientific worth. Again, an unreasoned philosophy, even\nthough true, carries no guarantee of its truth. It may be true, but it\ncannot be certain. On the other hand, a system, which is reasoned\nwithout being true, has always some value. It creates reason by\nexercising it. It is employing the proper means to reach truth, though\nit may fail to reach it.\" (Sections 38-41)--\"The student will find\nthat the system here submitted to his attention is of a very polemical\ncharacter. Why! Because philosophy exists only to correct the\ninadvertencies of man's ordinary thinking. She has no other mission to\nfulfil. If man naturally thinks aright, he need not be taught to think\naright. If he is already in possession of the truth, he does not\nrequire to be put in possession of it. The occupation of philosophy is\ngone: her office is superfluous. Therefore philosophy assumes and must\nassume that man does not naturally think aright, but must be taught to\ndo so: that truth does not come to him spontaneously, but must be\nbrought to him by his own exertions. If man does not naturally think\naright, he must think, we shall not say wrongly (for that implies\nmalice prepense) but inadvertently: the native occupant of his mind\nmust be, we shall not say falsehood (for that too implies malice\nprepense) but error. The original dowry then of universal man is\ninadvertency and error. This assumption is the ground and only\njustification of the existence of philosophy. The circumstance that\nphilosophy exists only to put right the oversights of common\nthinking--renders her polemical not by choice, but by necessity. She is\ncontroversial as the very tenure and condition of her existence: for\nhow can she correct the slips of common opinion, the oversights of\nnatural thinking, except by controverting them?\" Professor Ferrier\ndeserves high commendation for the care taken in this volume to set\nout clearly Proposition and Counter-Proposition: the thesis which he\nimpugns, as well as that which he sustains.]\n\nThe number of individual intellects, independent, inquisitive, and\nacute, is always rare everywhere; but was comparatively less rare in\nthese ages of Greece. The first topic, on which such intellects broke\nloose from the common consciousness of the world around them, and\nstruck out new points of view for themselves, was in reference to the\nKosmos or the Universe. The received belief, of a multitude of unseen\ndivine persons bringing about by volitions all the different phenomena\nof nature, became unsatisfactory to men like Thales, Anaximander,\nParmenides, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras. Each of these volunteers,\nfollowing his own independent inspirations, struck out a new\nhypothesis, and endeavoured to commend it to others with more or less\nof sustaining reason. There appears to have been little of negation or\nrefutation in their procedure. None of them tried to disprove the\nreceived point of view, or to throw its supporters upon their defence.\nEach of them unfolded his own hypothesis, or his own version of\naffirmative reasoned truth, for the adoption of those with whom it\nmight find favour.\n\nThe dialectic age had not yet arrived. When it did arrive, with\nSokrates as its principal champion, the topics of philosophy were\naltered, and its process revolutionised. We have often heard repeated\nthe Ciceronian dictum--that Sokrates brought philosophy down from the\nheavens to the earth: from the distant, abstruse, and complicated\nphenomena of the Kosmos--in respect to which he adhered to the vulgar\npoint of view, and even disapproved any enquiries tending to\nrationalise it--to the familiar business of man, and the common\ngeneralities of ethics and politics. But what has been less observed\nabout Sokrates, though not less true, is, that along with this change\nof topics he introduced a complete revolution in method. He placed the\nnegative in the front of his procedure; giving to it a point, an\nemphasis, a substantive value, which no one had done before. His\npeculiar gift was that of cross-examination, or the application of his\nElenchus to discriminate pretended from real knowledge. He found men\nfull of confident beliefs on these ethical and political\ntopics--affirming with words which they had never troubled themselves\nto define--and persuaded that they required no farther teaching: yet at\nthe same time unable to give clear or consistent answers to his\nquestions, and shown by this convincing test to be destitute of real\nknowledge. Declaring this false persuasion of knowledge, or confident\nunreasoned belief, to be universal, he undertook, as the mission of\nhis life, to expose it: and he proclaimed that until the mind was\ndisabused thereof and made painfully conscious of ignorance, no\naffirmative reasoned truth could be presented with any chance of\nsuccess.\n\nSuch are the peculiar features of the Sokratic dialogue, exemplified\nin the compositions here reviewed. I do not mean that Sokrates always\ntalked so; but that such was the marked peculiarity which\ndistinguished his talking from that of others. It is philosophy, or\nreasoned truth, approached in the most polemical manner; operative at\nfirst only to discredit the natural, unreasoned intellectual growths\nof the ordinary mind, and to generate a painful consciousness of\nignorance. I say this here, and I shall often say it again throughout\nthese volumes. It is absolutely indispensable to the understanding of\nthe Platonic dialogues; one half of which must appear unmeaning,\nunless construed with reference to this separate function and value of\nnegative dialectic. Whether readers may themselves agree in such\nestimation of negative dialectic, is another question: but they must\nkeep it in mind as the governing sentiment of Plato during much of his\nlife, and of Sokrates throughout the whole of life: as being moreover\none main cause of that antipathy which Sokrates inspired to many\nrespectable orthodox contemporaries. I have thought it right to take\nconstant account of this orthodox sentiment among the ordinary public,\nas the perpetual drag-chain, even when its force is not absolutely\nrepressive, upon free speculation.\n\nProceeding upon this general view, I have interpreted the numerous\nnegative dialogues in Plato as being really negative and nothing\nbeyond. I have not presumed, still less tried to divine, an ulterior\nAffirmative beyond what the text reveals--neither _arcana coelestia_,\nlike Proklus and Ficinus,[3] nor any other _arcanum_ of terrestrial\ncharacter. While giving such an analysis of each dialogue as my space\npermitted and as will enable the reader to comprehend its general\nscope and peculiarities--I have studied each as it stands written, and\nhave rarely ascribed to Plato any purpose exceeding what he himself\nintimates. Where I find difficulties forcibly dwelt upon without any\nsolution, I imagine, not that he had a good solution kept back in his\ncloset, but that he had failed in finding one: that he thought it\nuseful, as a portion of the total process necessary for finding and\nauthenticating reasoned truth, both to work out these unsolved\ndifficulties for himself, and to force them impressively upon the\nattention of others.[4]\n\n[Footnote 3: F. A. Wolf, Vorrede, Plato, Sympos. p. vi.\n\n\"Ficinus suchte, wie er sich in der Zueignungsschrift seiner Vision\nausdr\u00fcckt, im Platon allenthalben _arcana coelestia_: und da er sie\nin seinem Kopfe mitbrachte, so konnte es ihm nicht sauer werden,\netwas zu finden, was freilich jedem andern verborgen bleiben muss.\"]\n\n[Footnote 4: A striking passage from Bentham illustrates very well\nboth the Sokratic and the Platonic point of view. (Principles of\nMorals and Legislation, vol. ii. ch. xvi. p. 57, ed. 1823.)\n\n\"Gross ignorance descries no difficulties. Imperfect knowledge finds\nthem out and struggles with them. It must be perfect knowledge that\novercomes them.\"\n\nOf the three different mental conditions here described, the first is\nthat against which Sokrates made war, _i.e._ real ignorance, and false\npersuasion of knowledge, which therefore descries no difficulties.\n\nThe second, or imperfect knowledge struggling with difficulties, is\nrepresented by the Platonic negative dialogues.\n\nThe third--or perfect knowledge victorious over difficulties--will be\nfound in the following pages marked by the character [Greek: to\\\ndu/nasthai lo/gon dido/nai kai\\ de/chesthai]. You do not possess \"perfect\nknowledge,\" until you are able to answer, with unfaltering promptitude\nand consistency, all the questions of a Sokratic cross-examiner--and\nto administer effectively the like cross-examination yourself, for the\npurpose of testing others. [Greek: O(\\l\u00f4s de\\ s\u00eamei=on tou= ei)do/tos\nto\\ du/nasthai dida/skein e)/stin.] (Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 981, b.\n8.)\n\nPerfect knowledge, corresponding to this definition, will not be found\nmanifested in Plato. Instead of it, we note in his latter years the\nlawgiver's assumed infallibility.]\n\nMoreover, I deal with each dialogue as a separate composition. Each\nrepresents the intellectual scope and impulse of a peculiar moment,\nwhich may or may not be in harmony with the rest. Plato would have\nprotested not less earnestly than Cicero,[5] against those who sought\nto foreclose debate, in the grave and arduous struggles for searching\nout reasoned truth--and to bind down the free inspirations of his\nintellect in one dialogue, by appealing to sentence already pronounced\nin another preceding. Of two inconsistent trains of reasoning, both\ncannot indeed be true--but both are often useful to be known and\nstudied: and the philosopher, who professes to master the theory of\nhis subject, ought not to be a stranger to either. All minds athirst\nfor reasoned truth will be greatly aided in forming their opinions by\nthe number of points which Plato suggests, though they find little\nwhich he himself settles for them finally.\n\n[Footnote 5: Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 11, 38.\n\nThe collocutor remarks that what Cicero says is inconsistent with\nwhat he (Cicero) had written in the fourth book De Finibus.\nTo which Cicero replies:--\n\n\"Tu quidem tabellis obsignatis agis mecum, et testificaris, quid\ndixerim aliquando aut scripserim. Cum aliis isto modo, qui legibus\nimpositis disputant. Nos in diem vivimus: quodcunque nostros animos\nprobabilitate percussit, id dicimus: itaque soli sumus liberi.\"]\n\nThere have been various critics, who, on perceiving inconsistencies in\nPlato, either force them into harmony by a subtle exeg\u00easis, or discard\none of them as spurious.[6] I have not followed either course. I\nrecognise such inconsistencies, when found, as facts--and even as very\ninteresting facts--in his philosophical character. To the marked\ncontradiction in the spirit of the Leges, as compared with the earlier\nPlatonic compositions, I have called special attention. Plato has been\ncalled by Plutarch a mixture of Sokrates with Lykurgus. The two\nelements are in reality opposite, predominant at different times:\nPlato begins his career with the confessed ignorance and philosophical\nnegative of Sokrates: he closes it with the peremptory, dictatorial,\naffirmative of Lykurgus.\n\n[Footnote 6: Since the publication of the first edition of this work,\nthere have appeared valuable commentaries on the philosophy of the\nlate Sir William Hamilton, by Mr. John Stuart Mill, and Mr. Stirling\nand others. They have exposed inconsistencies, both grave and\nnumerous, in some parts of Sir William Hamilton's writings as compared\nwith others. But no one has dreamt of drawing an inference from this\nfact, that one or other of the inconsistent trains of reasoning must\nbe spurious, falsely ascribed to Sir William Hamilton.\n\nNow in the case of Plato, this same fact of inconsistency is accepted\nby nearly all his commentators as a sound basis for the inference that\nboth the inconsistent treatises cannot be genuine: though the dramatic\ncharacter of Plato's writings makes inconsistencies much more easily\nsupposable than in dogmatic treatises such as those of Hamilton.]\n\nTo Xenophon, who belongs only in part to my present work, and whose\ncharacter presents an interesting contrast with Plato, I have devoted\na separate chapter. To the other less celebrated Sokratic Companions\nalso, I have endeavoured to do justice, as far as the scanty means of\nknowledge permit: to them, especially, because they have generally\nbeen misconceived and unduly depreciated.\n\nThe present volumes, however, contain only one half of the speculative\nactivity of Hellas during the fourth century B.C. The second half, in\nwhich Aristotle is the hero, remains still wanting. If my health and\nenergies continue, I hope one day to be able to supply this want: and\nthus to complete from my own point of view, the history, speculative\nas well as active, of the Hellenic race, down to the date which I\nprescribed to myself in the Preface of my History near twenty years\nago.\n\nThe philosophy of the fourth century B.C. is peculiarly valuable and\ninteresting, not merely from its intrinsic speculative worth--from the\noriginality and grandeur of its two principal heroes--from its\ncoincidence with the full display of dramatic, rhetorical, artistic\ngenius--but also from a fourth reason not unimportant--because it is\npurely Hellenic; preceding the development of Alexandria, and the\namalgamation of Oriental veins of thought with the inspirations of the\nAcademy or the Lyceum. The Orontes[7] and the Jordan had not yet begun\nto flow westward, and to impart their own colour to the waters of\nAttica and Latium. Not merely the real world, but also the ideal\nworld, present to the minds of Plato and Aristotle, were purely\nHellenic. Even during the century immediately following, this had\nceased to be fully true in respect to the philosophers of Athens: and\nit became less and less true with each succeeding century. New foreign\ncentres of rhetoric and literature--Asiatic and Alexandrian\nHellenism--were fostered into importance by regal encouragement. Plato\nand Aristotle are thus the special representatives of genuine Hellenic\nphilosophy. The remarkable intellectual ascendancy acquired by them in\ntheir own day, and maintained over succeeding centuries, was one main\nreason why the Hellenic vein was enabled so long to maintain itself,\nthough in impoverished condition, against adverse influences from the\nEast, ever increasing in force. Plato and Aristotle outlasted all\ntheir Pagan successors--successors at once less purely Hellenic and\nless highly gifted. And when Saint Jerome, near 750 years after the\ndecease of Plato, commemorated with triumph the victory of unlettered\nChristians over the accomplishments and genius of Paganism--he\nillustrated the magnitude of the victory, by singling out Plato and\nAristotle as the representatives of vanquished philosophy.[8]\n\n[Footnote 7: Juvenal iii. 62:--\n\n\"Jampridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes,\" &c.]\n\n[Footnote 8: The passage is a remarkable one, as marking both the\neffect produced on a Latin scholar by Hebrew studies, and the neglect\ninto which even the greatest writers of classical antiquity had then\nfallen (about 400 A.D.).\n\nHieronymus--Comment. in Epist. ad Galatas, iii. 5, p. 486-487, ed.\nVenet. 1769:--\n\n\"Sed omnem sermonis elegantiam, et Latini sermonis venustatem, stridor\nlectionis Hebraic\u00e6 sordidavit. Nostis enim et ips\u00e6\" (_i.e._ Paula and\nEustochium, to whom his letter is addressed) \"quod plus quam quindecim\nanni sunt, ex quo in manus meas nunquam Tullius, nunquam Maro, nunquam\nGentilium literarum quilibet Auctor ascendit: et si quid forte inde,\ndum loquimur, obrepit, quasi antiqua per nebulam somnii recordamur.\nQuod autem profecerim ex lingu\u00e6 illius infatigabili studio, aliorum\njudicio derelinquo: _ego quid in me\u00e2 amiserim, scio_ . . . Si quis\neloquentiam qu\u00e6rit vel declamationibus delectatur, habet in utr\u00e2que\nlingu\u00e2 Demosthenem et Tullium, Polemonem et Quintilianum. Ecclesia\nChristi non de Academi\u00e2 et Lyceo, sed de vili plebecul\u00e2 congregata\nest. . . . Quotusquisque nunc Aristotelem legit? Quanti Platonis vel\nlibros nov\u00eare vel nomen? Vix in angulis otiosi eos senes recolunt.\nRusticanos vero et piscatores nostros totus orbis loquitur, universus\nmundus sonat.\"]\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\nPRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY.\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nSpeculative Philosophy in Greece, before and in the time of Sokrates.\n\n\nChange in the political condition of Greece during the life of Plato   1\n\nEarly Greek mind, satisfied with the belief in polytheistic personal\nagents, as the real producing causes of phenomena   2\n\nBelief in such agency continued among the general public, even after\nthe various sects of philosophy had arisen   3\n\nThales, the first Greek who propounded the hypothesis of physical\nagency in place of personal. Water, the primordial substance, or\n[Greek: a)rch\u00ea/]   4\n\nAnaximander--laid down as [Greek: a)rch\u00ea/] the Infinite or\nIndeterminate--generation of the elements out of it, by evolution of\nlatent, fundamental contraries--astronomical and geological doctrines\n_ib._\n\nAnaximenes--adopted Air as [Greek: a)rch\u00ea/]--rise of substances out of\nit, by condensation and rarefaction   7\n\nPythagoras--his life and career--Pythagorean brotherhood--great\npolitical influence which it acquired among the Greco-Italian\ncities--incurred great enmity, and was violently put down   8\n\nThe Pythagoreans continue as a recluse sect, without political power   9\n\nDoctrine of the Pythagoreans--Number the Essence of Things   _ib._\n\nThe Monas--[Greek: a)rch\u00ea/], or principle of Number--geometrical\nconception of number--symbolical attributes of the first ten numbers,\nespecially of the Dekad   11\n\nPythagorean Kosmos and Astronomy--geometrical and harmonic laws\nguiding the movements of the cosmical bodies   12\n\nMusic of the Spheres   14\n\nPythagorean list of fundamental Contraries--Ten opposing pairs   _ib._\n\nEleatic philosophy--Xenophanes   16\n\nHis censures upon the received Theogony and religious rites   _ib._\n\nHis doctrine of Pankosmism; or Pantheism--the whole Kosmos is Ens Unum\nor God--[Greek: E(\\n kai\\ Pan]. Non-Ens inadmissible   17\n\nScepticism of Xenophanes--complaint of philosophy as unsatisfactory   18\n\nHis conjectures on physics and astronomy   _ib._\n\nParmenides continues the doctrine of Xenophanes--Ens Parmenideum,\nself-existent, eternal, unchangeable, extended--Non-Ens, an unmeaning\nphrase   19\n\nHe recognises a region of opinion, phenomenal and relative, apart from\nEns   20\n\nParmenidean ontology--stands completely apart from phenomenology   21\n\nParmenidean phenomenology--relative and variable   23\n\nParmenides recognises no truth, but more or less of probability, in\nphenomenal explanations.--His physical and astronomical conjectures   24\n\nHerakleitus--his obscure style, impressive metaphors, confident and\ncontemptuous dogmatism   26\n\nDoctrine of Herakleitus--perpetual process of generation and\ndestruction--everything flows, nothing stands--transition of the\nelements into each other backwards and forwards   27\n\nVariety of metaphors employed by Herakleitus, signifying the same\ngeneral doctrine   28\n\nNothing permanent except the law of process and implication of\ncontraries--the transmutative force. Fixity of particulars is an\nillusion for the most part: so far as it exists, it is a sin against\nthe order of Nature   29\n\nIllustrations by which Herakleitus symbolized his perpetual force,\ndestroying and generating   30\n\nWater--Intermediate between Fire (Air) and Earth   31\n\nSun and Stars--not solid bodies, but meteoric aggregations dissipated\nand renewed--Eclipses--[Greek: e)kpu/r\u00f4sis], or destruction of the\nKosmos by fire   32\n\nHis doctrines respecting the human soul and human knowledge. All\nwisdom resided in the Universal Reason--individual Reason is\nworthless   34\n\nBy Universal Reason, he did not mean the Reason of most men as it is,\nbut as it ought to be   35\n\nHerakleitus at the opposite pole from Parmenides   37\n\nEmpedokles--his doctrine of the four elements and two moving or\nrestraining forces   _ib._\n\nConstruction of the Kosmos from these elements and forces--action and\ncounteraction of love and enmity. The Kosmos alternately made and\nunmade   38\n\nEmpedoklean predestined cycle of things--complete empire of Love\nSph\u00e6rus--Empire of Enmity--disengagement or separation of the\nelements--astronomy and meteorology   39\n\nFormation of the Earth, of Gods, men, animals, and plants   41\n\nPhysiology of Empedokles--Procreation--Respiration--movement of the\nblood   43\n\nDoctrine of effluvia and pores--explanation of\nperceptions--intercommunication of the elements with the sentient\nsubject--like acting upon like   44\n\nSense of vision   45\n\nSenses of hearing, smell, taste   46\n\nEmpedokles declared that justice absolutely forbade the killing of\nanything that had life. His belief in the metempsychosis. Sufferings\nof life, are an expiation for wrong done during an antecedent life.\nPretensions to magical power   46\n\nComplaint of Empedokles on the impossibility of finding out truth   47\n\nTheory of Anaxagoras denied--generation and destruction--recognised\nonly mixture and severance of pre-existing kinds of matter   48\n\nHomoeomeries--small particles of diverse kinds of matter, all mixed\ntogether   _ib._\n\nFirst condition of things all--the primordial varieties of matter were\nhuddled together in confusion. [Greek: Nou=s] or reason, distinct from\nall of them, supervened and acted upon this confused mass, setting the\nconstituent particles in movement   49\n\nMovement of rotation in the mass, originated by [Greek: Nou=s] on a\nsmall scale, but gradually extending itself. Like particles congregate\ntogether--distinguishable aggregates are formed   50\n\nNothing (except [Greek: Nou=s]) can be entirely pure or unmixed; but\nother things may be comparatively pure. Flesh, Bone, &c., are purer\nthan Air or Earth   51\n\nTheory of Anaxagoras, compared with that of Empedokles   52\n\nSuggested partly by the phenomena of of animal nutrition   53\n\nChaos common to both Empedokles and Anaxagoras: moving agency,\ndifferent in one from the other theory   54\n\n[Greek: Nou=s], or mind, postulated by Anaxagoras--how understood by\nlater writers--how intended by Anaxagoras himself   _ib._\n\nPlato and Aristotle blame Anaxagoras for deserting his own theory   56\n\nAstronomy and physics of Anaxagoras   57\n\nHis geology, meteorology, physiology   58\n\nThe doctrines of Anaxagoras were regarded as offensive and impious   59\n\nDiogenes of Apollonia recognises one primordial element   60\n\nAir was the primordial, universal element   61\n\nAir possessed numerous and diverse properties; was eminently\nmodifiable   _ib._\n\nPhysiology of Diogenes--his description of the veins in the human\nbody   62\n\nKosmology and Meteorology   64\n\nLeukippus and Demokritus--Atomic theory   65\n\nLong life, varied travels, and numerous compositions, of Demokritus\n_ib._\n\nRelation between the theory of Demokritus and that of Parmenides   66\n\nDemokritean theory--Atoms Plena and Vacua--Ens and Non-Ens   67\n\nPrimordial atoms differed only in magnitude, figure, position, and\narrangement--they had no qualities, but their movements and\ncombinations generated qualities   69\n\nCombination of atoms--generating different qualities in the compound   70\n\nAll atoms essentially separate from each other   71\n\nAll properties of objects, except weight and hardness, were phenomenal\nand relative to the observer. Sensation could give no knowledge of the\nreal and absolute   _ib._\n\nReason alone gave true and real knowledge, but very little of it was\nattainable   72\n\nNo separate force required to set the atoms in motion--they moved by\nan inherent force of their own. Like atoms naturally tend towards\nlike. Rotatory motion, the capital fact of the Kosmos   72\n\nResearches of Demokritus on zoology and animal generation   75\n\nHis account of mind--he identified it with heat or fire, diffused\nthroughout animals, plants, and nature generally. Mental particles\nintermingled throughout all frame with corporeal particles   _ib._\n\nDifferent mental aptitudes attached to different parts of the body   76\n\nExplanation of different sensations and perceptions. Colours   77\n\nVision caused by the outflow of effluvia or images from objects.\nHearing   78\n\nDifference of tastes--how explained   _ib._\n\nThought or intelligence--was produced by influx of atoms from without   79\n\nSensation, obscure knowledge relative to the sentient: Thought,\ngenuine knowledge--absolute, or object _per se_   80\n\nIdola or images were thrown off from objects, which determined the\ntone of thoughts, feelings, dreams, divinations, &c.   81\n\nUniversality of Demokritus--his ethical views   82\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\n\nGeneral Remarks on the Earlier Philosophers--Growth of Dialectic--Zeno\nand Gorgias.\n\nVariety of sects and theories--multiplicity of individual authorities\nis the characteristic of Greek philosophy   84\n\nThese early theorists are not known from their own writings, which\nhave been lost. Importance of the information of Aristotle about them   85\n\nAbundance of speculative genius and invention--a memorable fact in the\nHellenic mind   86\n\nDifficulties which a Grecian philosopher had to overcome--prevalent\nview of Nature, established, impressive, and misleading   _ib._\n\nViews of the Ionic philosophers--compared with the more recent\nabstractions of Plato and Aristotle   87\n\nParmenides and Pythagoras--more nearly akin to Plato and Aristotle   89\n\nAdvantage derived from this variety of constructive imagination among\nthe Greeks   90\n\nAll these theories were found in circulation by Sokrates, Zeno, Plato,\nand the dialecticians. Importance of the scrutiny of negative\nDialectic   91\n\nThe early theorists were studied, along with Plato and Aristotle, in\nthe third and second centuries B.C.   92\n\nNegative attribute common to all the early theorists--little or no\ndialectic   93\n\nZeno of Elea--Melissus   _ib._\n\nZeno's Dialectic--he refuted the opponents of Parmenides, by showing\nthat their assumptions led to contradictions and absurdities   93\n\nConsequences of their assumption of Entia Plura Discontinua.\nReductiones ad absurdum   94\n\nEach thing must exist in its own place--Grain of millet not sonorous   95\n\nZenonian arguments in regard to motion   97\n\nGeneral purpose and result of the Zenonian Dialectic. Nothing is\nknowable except the relative   98\n\nMistake of supposing Zeno's _reductiones ad absurdum_ of an opponent's\ndoctrine, to be contradictions of data generalized from experience   99\n\nZenonian Dialectic--Platonic Parmenides   100\n\nViews of historians of philosophy, respecting Zeno   101\n\nAbsolute and relative--the first, unknowable   _ib._\n\nZeno did not deny motion, as a fact, phenomenal and relative   102\n\nGorgias the Leontine--did not admit the Absolute, even as conceived by\nParmenides   103\n\nHis reasonings against the Absolute, either as Ens or Entia   _ib._\n\nEns, incogitable and unknowable   104\n\nEns, even if granted to be knowable, is still incommunicable to others\n_ib._\n\nZeno and Gorgias--contrasted with the earlier Grecian philosophers   105\n\nNew character of Grecian philosophy--antithesis of affirmative and\nnegative--proof and disproof   _ib._\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\n\nOther Companions of Sokrates.\n\nInfluence exercised by Sokrates over his companions   110\n\nNames of those companions   111\n\n\u00c6schines--Oration of Lysias against him   112\n\nWritten Sokratic Dialogues--their general character   114\n\nRelations between the companions of Sokrates--Their proceedings after\nthe death of Sokrates   116\n\nNo Sokratic school--each of the companions took a line of his own   117\n\nEukleides of Megara--he blended Parmenides with Sokrates   118\n\nDoctrine of Eukleides about _Bonum_   119\n\nThe doctrine compared to that of Plato--changes in Plato   _ib._\n\nLast doctrine of Plato nearly the same as Eukleides   120\n\nMegaric succession of philosophers. Eleian or Eretrian succession   121\n\nDoctrines of Antisthenes and Aristippus--Ethical, not transcendental   122\n\nPreponderance of the negative vein in the Platonic age   123\n\nHarsh manner in which historians of philosophy censure the negative\nvein   _ib._\n\nNegative method in philosophy essential to the controul of the\naffirmative   _ib._\n\nSokrates--the most persevering and acute Eristic of his age   124\n\nPlatonic Parmenides--its extreme negative character   125\n\nThe Megarics shared the negative impulse with Sokrates and Plato   126\n\nEubulides--his logical problems or puzzles--difficulty of solving\nthem--many solutions attempted   128\n\nReal character of the Megaric sophisms, not calculated to deceive, but\nto guard against deception   129\n\nIf the process of theorising be admissible, it must include negative\nas well as affirmative   130\n\nLogical position of the Megaric philosophers erroneously described by\nhistorians of philosophy. Necessity of a complete collection of\ndifficulties   131\n\nSophisms propounded by Eubulides. 1. Mentiens. 2. The Veiled Man. 3.\nSorites. 4. Cornutus   133\n\nCauses of error constant--The Megarics were sentinels against them   135\n\nControversy of the Megarics with Aristotle about Power. Arguments of\nAristotle   _ib._\n\nThese arguments not valid against the Megarici   136\n\nHis argument cited and criticised   137\n\nPotential as distinguished from the Actual--What it is   139\n\nDiod\u00f4rus Kronus--his doctrine about [Greek: to\\ dunato/n]   140\n\nSophism of Diod\u00f4rus [Greek: O( Kurieu/\u00f4n]   141\n\nQuestion between Aristotle and Diod\u00f4rus, depends upon whether\nuniversal regularity of sequence be admitted or denied   _ib._\n\nConclusion of Diod\u00f4rus defended by Hobbes--Explanation given by\nHobbes   143\n\nReasonings of Diod\u00f4rus--respecting Hypothetical\nPropositions--respecting Motion. His difficulties about the _Now_\nof time   145\n\nMotion is always present, past, and future   146\n\nStilpon of Megara--His great celebrity   147\n\nMened\u00eamus and the Eretriacs   148\n\nOpen speech and licence of censure assumed by Mened\u00eamus   149\n\nAntisthenes took up Ethics principally, but with negative Logic\nintermingled   _ib._\n\nHe copied the manner of life of Sokrates, in plainness and rigour   150\n\nDoctrines of Antisthenes exclusively ethical and ascetic. He despised\nmusic, literature, and physics   151\n\nConstant friendship of Antisthenes with Sokrates--Xenophontic\nSymposion   152\n\nDiogenes, successor of Antisthenes--His Cynical perfection--striking\neffect which he produced   _ib._\n\nDoctrines and smart sayings of Diogenes--Contempt of\npleasure--training and labour required--indifference to literature\nand geometry   154\n\nAdmiration of Epikt\u00eatus for Diogenes, especially for his consistency\nin acting out his own ethical creed   157\n\nAdmiration excited by the asceticism of the Cynics--Asceticism extreme\nin the East. Comparison of the Indian Gymnosophists with Diogenes\n_ib._\n\nThe precepts and principles laid down by Sokrates were carried into\nfullest execution by the Cynics   160\n\nAntithesis between Nature and Law or Convention insisted on by the\nIndian Gymnosophists   162\n\nThe Greek Cynics--an order of ascetic or mendicant friars   163\n\nLogical views of Antisthenes and Diogenes--they opposed the Platonic\nIdeas   _ib._\n\nFirst protest of Nominalism against Realism   164\n\nDoctrine of Antisthenes about predication--He admits no other\npredication but identical   165\n\nThe same doctrine asserted by Stilpon, after the time of Aristotle   166\n\nNominalism of Stilpon. His reasons against accidental predication   167\n\nDifficulty of understanding how the same predicate could belong to\nmore than one subject   169\n\nAnalogous difficulties in the Platonic Parmenides   _ib._\n\nMened\u00eamus disallowed all negative predications   170\n\nDistinction ascribed to Antisthenes between simple and complex\nobjects. Simple objects undefinable   171\n\nRemarks of Plato on this doctrine   172\n\nRemarks of Aristotle upon the same   _ib._\n\nLater Grecian Cynics--Monimus--Krates--Hipparchia   173\n\nZeno of Kitium in Cyprus   174\n\nAristippus--life, character, and doctrine   175\n\nDiscourse of Sokrates with Aristippus   _ib._\n\nChoice of H\u00earakl\u00eas   177\n\nIllustration afforded of the views of Sokrates respecting Good and\nEvil   _ib._\n\nComparison of the Xenophontic Sokrates with the Platonic Sokrates   178\n\nXenophontic Sokrates talking to Aristippus--Kallikl\u00eas in Platonic\nGorgias   179\n\nLanguage held by Aristippus--his scheme of life   181\n\nDiversified conversations of Sokrates, according to the character of\nthe hearer   182\n\nConversation between Sokrates and Aristippus about the Good and\nBeautiful   184\n\nRemarks on the conversation--Theory of Good   185\n\nGood is relative to human beings and wants in the view of Sokrates\n_ib._\n\nAristippus adhered to the doctrine of Sokrates   186\n\nLife and dicta of Aristippus--His type of character   _ib._\n\nAristippus acted conformably to the advice of Sokrates   187\n\nSelf mastery and independence--the great aspiration of Aristippus   188\n\nAristippus compared with Antisthenes and Diogenes--Points of agreement\nand disagreement between them   190\n\nAttachment of Aristippus to ethics and philosophy--contempt for other\nstudies   192\n\nAristippus taught as a Sophist. His reputation thus acquired procured\nfor him the attentions of Dionysius and others   193\n\nEthical theory of Aristippus and the Kyrenaic philosophers   195\n\nPrudence--good, by reason of the pleasure which it ensured, and of the\npains which it was necessary to avoid. Just and honourable, by law or\ncustom--not by nature   197\n\nTheir logical theory--nothing knowable except the phenomenal, our own\nsensations and feelings--no knowledge of the absolute   197\n\nDoctrines of Antisthenes and Aristippus passed to the Stoics and\nEpikureans   198\n\nEthical theory of Aristippus is identical with that of the Platonic\nSokrates in the Protagoras   199\n\nDifference in the manner of stating the theory by the two   200\n\nDistinction to be made between a general theory--and the particular\napplication of it made by the theorist to his own tastes and\ncircumstances   201\n\nKyrenaic theorists after Aristippus   202\n\nTheod\u00f4rus--Annikeris--Hegesias   _ib._\n\nHegesias--Low estimation of life--renunciation of\npleasure--coincidence with the Cynics   203\n\nDoctrine of Relativity affirmed by the Kyrenaics, as well as by\nProtagoras   204\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\n\nXenophon.\n\n\nXenophon--his character--essentially a man of action and not a\ntheorist--the Sokratic element is in him an accessory   206\n\nDate of Xenophon--probable year of his birth   207\n\nHis personal history--He consults Sokrates--takes the opinion of the\nDelphian oracle   208\n\nHis service and command with the Ten Thousand Greeks, afterwards under\nAgesilaus and the Spartans.--He is banished from Athens   209\n\nHis residence at Skillus near Olympia   210\n\nFamily of Xenophon--his son Gryllus killed at Mantineia   _ib._\n\nDeath of Xenophon at Corinth--Story of the Eleian Exeget\u00e6   211\n\nXenophon different from Plato and the other Sokratic brethren   212\n\nHis various works--Memorabilia, Oekonomikus, &c.   213\n\nIschomachus, hero of the Oekonomikus--ideal of an active citizen,\ncultivator, husband, house-master, &c.   214\n\nText upon which Xenophon insists--capital difference between command\nover subordinates willing and subordinates unwilling   215\n\nProbable circumstances generating these reflections in Xenophon's\nmind   215\n\nThis text affords subjects for the Hieron and Cyrop\u00e6dia--Name of\nSokrates not suitable   216\n\nHieron--Persons of the dialogue--Simonides and Hieron   _ib._\n\nQuestions put to Hieron, view taken by Simonides. Answer of Hieron   217\n\nMisery of governing unwilling subjects declared by Hieron   218\n\nAdvice to Hieron by Simonides--that he should govern well, and thus\nmake himself beloved by his subjects   219\n\nProbable experience had by Xenophon of the feelings at Olympia against\nDionysius   220\n\nXenophon could not have chosen a Grecian despot to illustrate his\ntheory of the happiness of governing willing subjects   222\n\nCyrop\u00e6dia--blending of Spartan and Persian customs--Xenophon's\nexperience of Cyrus the Younger   _ib._\n\nPortrait of Cyrus the Great--his education--Preface to the Cyrop\u00e6dia   223\n\nXenophon does not solve his own problem--The governing aptitude and\npopularity of Cyrus come from nature, not from education   225\n\nViews of Xenophon about public and official training of all citizens   226\n\nDetails of (so called) Persian education--Severe\ndiscipline--Distribution of four ages   227\n\nEvidence of the good effect of this discipline--Hard and dry condition\nof the body   228\n\nExemplary obedience of Cyrus to the public discipline--He had learnt\njustice well--His award about the two coats--Lesson inculcated upon\nhim by the Justice-Master   229\n\nXenophon's conception of the Sokratic problems--He does not recognise\nthe Sokratic order of solution of those problems   230\n\nDefinition given by Sokrates of Justice--Insufficient to satisfy the\nexigencies of the Sokratic Elenchus   231\n\nBiography of Cyrus--constant military success earned by suitable\nqualities--Variety of characters and situations   232\n\nGenerous and amiable qualities of Cyrus. Abradates and Pantheia   233\n\nScheme of government devised by Cyrus when his conquests are\ncompleted--Oriental despotism, wisely arranged   234\n\nPersian present reality--is described by Xenophon as thoroughly\ndepraved, in striking contrast to the establishment of Cyrus   236\n\nXenophon has good experience of military and equestrian\nproceedings--No experience of finance and commerce   236\n\nDiscourse of Xenophon on Athenian finance and the condition of Athens.\nHis admiration of active commerce and variety of pursuits   _ib._\n\nRecognised poverty among the citizens. Plan for improvement   238\n\nAdvantage of a large number of Metics. How these may be encouraged\n_ib._\n\nProposal to raise by voluntary contributions a large sum to be\nemployed as capital by the city. Distribution of three oboli per head\nper day to all the citizens   _ib._\n\nPurpose and principle of this distribution   240\n\nVisionary anticipations of Xenophon, financial and commercial   241\n\nXenophon exhorts his countrymen to maintain peace   243\n\nDifference of the latest compositions of Xenophon and Plato, from\ntheir point of view in the earlier   244\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\n\nLife of Plato.\n\n\nScanty information about Plato's life   246\n\nHis birth, parentage, and early education   247\n\nEarly relations of Plato with Sokrates   248\n\nPlato's youth--service as a citizen and soldier   249\n\nPeriod of political ambition   251\n\nHe becomes disgusted with politics   252\n\nHe retires from Athens after the death of Sokrates--his travels   253\n\nHis permanent establishment at Athens--386 B.C.   _ib._\n\nHe commences his teaching at the Academy   254\n\nPlato as a teacher--pupils numerous and wealthy, from different\ncities   255\n\nVisit of Plato to the younger Dionysius at Syracuse, 367 B.C. Second\nvisit to the same--mortifying failure   258\n\nExpedition of Dion against Dionysius--sympathies of Plato and the\nAcademy   259\n\nSuccess, misconduct, and death of Dion   _ib._\n\nDeath of Plato, aged 80, 347 B.C.   260\n\nScholars of Plato--Aristotle   _ib._\n\nLittle known about Plato's personal history   262\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\n\nPlatonic Canon, as Recognised by Thrasyllus.\n\nPlatonic Canon--Ancient and modern discussions   264\n\nCanon established by Thrasyllus. Presumption in its favour   265\n\nFixed residence and school at Athens--founded by Plato and transmitted\nto successors   _ib._\n\nImportance of this foundation. Preservation of Plato's manuscripts.\nSchool library   266\n\nSecurity provided by the school for distinguishing what were Plato's\ngenuine writings   267\n\nUnfinished fragments and preparatory sketches, preserved and published\nafter Plato's death   268\n\nPeripatetic school at the Lykeum--its composition and arrangement   269\n\nPeripatetic school library, its removal from Athens to Sk\u00eapsis--its\nultimate restitution in a damaged state to Athens, then to Rome   270\n\nInconvenience to the Peripatetic school from the loss of its library\n_ib._\n\nAdvantage to the Platonic school from having preserved its MSS.   272\n\nConditions favourable, for preserving the genuine works of Plato\n_ib._\n\nHistorical facts as to their preservation   _ib._\n\nArrangement of them into Trilogies, by Aristophanes   273\n\nAristophanes, librarian at the Alexandrine library   _ib._\n\nPlato's works in the Alexandrine library, before the time of\nAristophanes   274\n\nKallimachus--predecessor of Aristophanes--his published Tables of\nauthors whose works were in the library   275\n\nLarge and rapid accumulation of the Alexandrine Library   _ib._\n\nPlato's works--in the library at the time of Kallimachus   276\n\nFirst formation of the library--intended as a copy of the Platonic and\nAristotelian [Greek: Mousei=a] at Athens   277\n\nFavour of Ptolemy Soter towards the philosophers at Athens   279\n\nDemetrius Phalereus--his history and character   _ib._\n\nHe was chief agent in the first establishment of the Alexandrine\nLibrary   280\n\nProceedings of Demetrius in beginning to collect the library   282\n\nCertainty that the works of Plato and Aristotle were among the\nearliest acquisitions made by him for the library   283\n\nLarge expenses incurred by the Ptolemies for procuring good MSS.   285\n\nCatalogue of Platonic works, prepared by Aristophanes, is trustworthy\n_ib._\n\nNo canonical or exclusive order of the Platonic dialogues, when\narranged by Aristophanes   286\n\nOther libraries and literary centres, besides Alexandria, in which\nspurious Platonic works might get footing   _ib._\n\nOther critics, besides Aristophanes, proposed different arrangements\nof the Platonic dialogues   287\n\nPan\u00e6tius, the Stoic--considered the Ph\u00e6don to be spurious--earliest\nknown example of a Platonic dialogue disallowed upon internal\ngrounds   288\n\nClassification of Platonic works by the rhetor\nThrasyllus--dramatic--philosophical   289\n\nDramatic principle--Tetralogies   _ib._\n\nPhilosophical principle--Dialogues of Search--Dialogues of\nExposition   291\n\nIncongruity and repugnance of the two classifications   294\n\nDramatic principle of classification--was inherited by Thrasyllus from\nAristophanes   295\n\nAuthority of the Alexandrine library--editions of Plato published,\nwith the Alexandrine critical marks   _ib._\n\nThrasyllus followed the Alexandrine library and Aristophanes, as to\ngenuine Platonic works   296\n\nTen spurious dialogues, rejected by all other critics as well as by\nThrasyllus--evidence that these critics followed the common authority\nof the Alexandrine library   297\n\nThrasyllus did not follow an internal sentiment of his own in\nrejecting dialogues as spurious   298\n\nResults as to the trustworthiness of the Thrasyllean Canon   299\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\n\nPlatonic Canon, as Appreciated and Modified by Modern Critics.\n\nThe Canon of Thrasyllus continued to be generally acknowledged, by the\nNeo-Platonists, as well as by Ficinus and the succeeding critics after\nthe revival of learning   301\n\nSerranus--his six Syzygies--left the aggregate Canon unchanged,\nTennemann--importance assigned to the Ph\u00e6drus   302\n\nSchleiermacher--new theory about the purposes of Plato. One\nphilosophical scheme, conceived by Plato from the beginning--essential\norder and interdependence of the dialogues, as contributing to the\nfull execution of this scheme. Some dialogues not constituent items in\nthe series, but lying alongside of it. Order of arrangement   303\n\nTheory of Ast--he denies the reality of any preconceived\nscheme--considers the dialogues as distinct philosophical dramas   304\n\nHis order of arrangement. He admits only fourteen dialogues as\ngenuine, rejecting all the rest   305\n\nSocher agrees with Ast in denying preconceived scheme--his arrangement\nof the dialogues, differing from both Ast and Schleiermacher--he\nrejects as spurious Parmenid\u00eas, Sophist\u00eas, Politikus, Kritias, with\nmany others   306\n\nSchleiermacher and Ast both consider Ph\u00e6drus and Protagoras as early\ncompositions--Socher puts Protagoras into the second period, Ph\u00e6drus\ninto the third   307\n\nK. F. Hermann--Stallbaum--both of them consider the Ph\u00e6drus as a late\ndialogue--both of them deny preconceived order and system--their\narrangements of the dialogues--they admit new and varying\nphilosophical points of view   _ib._\n\nThey reject several dialogues   309\n\nSteinhart--agrees in rejecting Schleiermacher's fundamental\npostulate--his arrangement of the dialogues--considers the Ph\u00e6drus\nas late in order--rejects several   _ib._\n\nSusemihl--coincides to a great degree with K. F. Hermann--his order of\narrangement   310\n\nEdward Munk--adopts a different principle of arrangement, founded upon\nthe different period which each dialogue exhibits of the life,\nphilosophical growth, and old age, of Sokrates--his arrangement,\nfounded on this principle. He distinguishes the chronological order of\ncomposition from the place allotted to each dialogue in the systematic\nplan   311\n\nViews of Ueberweg--attempt to reconcile Schleiermacher and\nHermann--admits the preconceived purpose for the later dialogues,\ncomposed after the foundation of the school, but not for the\nearlier   313\n\nHis opinions as to authenticity and chronology of the dialogues, He\nrejects Hippias Major, Erast\u00e6, Theag\u00eas, Kleitophon, Parmenid\u00eas: he is\ninclined to reject Euthyphron and Menexenus   314\n\nOther Platonic critics--great dissensions about scheme and order of\nthe dialogues   316\n\nContrast of different points of view instructive--but no solution has\nbeen obtained   _ib._\n\nThe problem incapable of solution. Extent and novelty of the theory\npropounded by Schleiermacher--slenderness of his proofs   317\n\nSchleiermacher's hypothesis includes a preconceived scheme, and a\nperemptory order of interdependence among the dialogues   318\n\nAssumptions of Schleiermacher respecting the Ph\u00e6drus inadmissible   319\n\nNeither Schleiermacher, nor any other critic, has as yet produced any\ntolerable proof for an internal theory of the Platonic dialogues\n_ib._\n\nMunk's theory is the most ambitious, and the most gratuitous, next to\nSchleiermacher's   320\n\nThe age assigned to Sokrates in any dialogue is a circumstance of\nlittle moment   _ib._\n\nNo intentional sequence or interdependence of the dialogues can be\nmade out   322\n\nPrinciple of arrangement adopted by Hermann is reasonable--successive\nchanges in Plato's point of view: but we cannot explain either the\norder or the causes of these changes   _ib._\n\nHermann's view more tenable than Schleiermacher's   323\n\nSmall number of certainties, or even reasonable presumptions, as to\ndate or order of the dialogues   324\n\nTrilogies indicated by Plato himself   325\n\nPositive dates of all the dialogues--unknown   326\n\nWhen did Plato begin to compose? Not till after the death of Sokrates\n_ib._\n\nReasons for this opinion. Labour of the composition--does not consist\nwith youth of the author   327\n\nReasons founded on the personality of Sokrates, and his relations with\nPlato   328\n\nReasons, founded on the early life, character, and position of Plato   330\n\nPlato's early life--active by necessity, and to some extent\nambitious   331\n\nPlato did not retire from political life until after the restoration\nof the democracy, nor devote himself to philosophy until after the\ndeath of Sokrates   333\n\nAll Plato's dialogues were composed during the fifty-one years after\nthe death of Sokrates   334\n\nThe Thrasyllean Canon is more worthy of trust than the modern critical\ntheories by which it has been condemned   335\n\nUnsafe grounds upon which those theories proceed   336\n\nOpinions of Schleiermacher, tending to show this   337\n\nAny true theory of Plato must recognise all his varieties, and must be\nbased upon all the works in the Canon, not upon some to the exclusion\nof the rest   339\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\n\nPlatonic Compositions Generally.\n\nVariety and abundance visible in Plato's writings   342\n\nPlato both sceptical and dogmatical   _ib._\n\nPoetical vein predominant in some compositions, but not in all   343\n\nForm of dialogue--universal to this extent, that Plato never speaks in\nhis own name   344\n\nNo one common characteristic pervading all Plato's works   _ib._\n\nThe real Plato was not merely a writer of dialogues, but also lecturer\nand president of a school. In this last important function he is\nscarcely at all known to us. Notes of his lectures taken by\nAristotle   346\n\nPlato's lectures De Bono obscure and transcendental. Effect which they\nproduced on the auditors   347\n\nThey were delivered to miscellaneous auditors. They coincide mainly\nwith what Aristotle states about the Platonic Ideas   348\n\nThe lectures De Bono may perhaps have been more transcendental than\nPlato's other lectures   349\n\nPlato's Epistles--in them only he speaks in his own person   _ib._\n\nIntentional obscurity of his Epistles in reference to philosophical\ndoctrine   350\n\nLetters of Plato to Dionysius II. about philosophy. His anxiety to\nconfine philosophy to discussion among select and prepared minds   351\n\nHe refuses to furnish any written, authoritative exposition of his own\nphilosophical doctrine   352\n\nHe illustrates his doctrine by the successive stages of geometrical\nteaching. Difficulty to avoid the creeping in of error at each of\nthese stages   353\n\nNo written exposition can keep clear of these chances of error   355\n\nRelations of Plato with Dionysius II. and the friends of the deceased\nDion. Pretensions of Dionysius to understand and expound Plato's\ndoctrines   _ib._\n\nImpossibility of teaching by written exposition assumed by Plato; the\nassumption intelligible in his day   357\n\nStandard by which Plato tested the efficacy of the expository\nprocess.--Power of sustaining a Sokratic cross-examination   358\n\nPlato never published any of the lectures which he delivered at the\nAcademy   _ib._\n\nPlato would never publish his philosophical opinions in his own name;\nbut he may have published them in the dialogues under the name of\nothers   360\n\nGroups into which the dialogues admit of being thrown   361\n\nDistribution made by Thrasyllus defective, but still useful--Dialogues\nof Search, Dialogues of Exposition   _ib._\n\nDialogues of Exposition--present affirmative result. Dialogues of\nSearch are wanting in that attribute   362\n\nThe distribution coincides mainly with that of Aristotle--Dialectic,\nDemonstrative   363\n\nClassification of Thrasyllus in its details. He applies his own\nprinciples erroneously   364\n\nThe classification, as it would stand, if his principles were applied\ncorrectly   365\n\nPreponderance of the searching and testing dialogues over the\nexpository and dogmatical   366\n\nDialogues of Search--sub-classes among them recognised by\nThrasyllus--Gymnastic and Agonistic, &c.   _ib._\n\nPhilosophy, as now understood, includes authoritative teaching,\npositive results, direct proofs   _ib._\n\nThe Platonic Dialogues of Search disclaim authority and\nteaching--assume truth to be unknown to all alike--follow a process\ndevious as well as fruitless   367\n\nThe questioner has no predetermined course, but follows the lead given\nby the respondent in his answers   _ib._\n\nRelation of teacher and learner. Appeal to authority is suppressed   368\n\nIn the modern world the search for truth is put out of sight. Every\nwriter or talker professes to have already found it, and to proclaim\nit to others   369\n\nThe search for truth by various interlocutors was a recognised process\nin the Sokratic age. Acute negative Dialectic of Sokrates   370\n\nNegative procedure supposed to be represented by the Sophists and the\nMegarici; discouraged and censured by historians of philosophy   371\n\nVocation of Sokrates and Plato for the negative procedure: absolute\nnecessity of it as a condition of reasoned truth. Parmenid\u00eas of\nPlato   372\n\nSokrates considered the negative procedure to be valuable by itself,\nand separately. His theory of the natural state of the human mind; not\nignorance, but false persuasion of knowledge   373\n\nDeclaration of Sokrates in the Apology; his constant mission to make\nwar against the false persuasion of knowledge   374\n\nOpposition of feeling between Sokrates and the Dikasts   375\n\nThe Dialogues of Search present an end in themselves. Mistake of\nsupposing that Plato had in his mind an ulterior affirmative end, not\ndeclared   _ib._\n\nFalse persuasion of knowledge--had reference to topics social,\npolitical, ethical   376\n\nTo those topics, on which each community possesses established dogmas,\nlaws, customs, sentiments, consecrated and traditional, peculiar to\nitself. The local creed, which is never formally proclaimed or taught,\nbut is enforced unconsciously by every one upon every one else.\nOmnipotence of King Nomos   377\n\nSmall minority of exceptional individual minds, who do not yield to\nthe established orthodoxy, but insist on exercising their own\njudgment   382\n\nEarly appearance of a few free-judging individuals, or free-thinkers\nin Greece   384\n\nRise of Dialectic--Effect of the Drama and the Dikastery   386\n\nApplication of Negative scrutiny to ethical and social topics by\nSokrates   _ib._\n\nEmphatic assertion by Sokrates of the right of satisfaction for his\nown individual reason   386\n\nAversion of the Athenian public to the negative procedure of Sokrates.\nMistake of supposing that that negative procedure belongs peculiarly\nto the Sophists and the Megarici   387\n\nThe same charges which the historians of philosophy bring against the\nSophists were brought by contemporary Athenians against Sokrates. They\nrepresent the standing dislike of free inquiry, usual with an orthodox\npublic 388\n\nAversion towards Sokrates aggravated by his extreme publicity of\nspeech. His declaration, that false persuasion of knowledge is\nuniversal; must be understood as a basis in appreciating Plato's\nDialogues of Search   393\n\nResult called _Knowledge_, which Plato aspires to. Power of going\nthrough a Sokratic cross-examination; not attainable except through\nthe Platonic process and method   396\n\nPlatonic process adapted to Platonic topics--man and society   397\n\nPlato does not provide solutions for the difficulties which he has\nraised. The affirmative and negative veins are in him completely\ndistinct. His dogmas are enunciations _\u00e0 priori_ of some impressive\nsentiment   399\n\nHypothesis--that Plato had solved all his own difficulties for\nhimself; but that he communicated the solution only to a few select\nauditors in oral lectures--Untenable   401\n\nCharacteristic of the oral lectures--that they were delivered in\nPlato's own name. In what other respects they departed from the\ndialogues, we cannot say   402\n\nApart from any result, Plato has an interest in the process of search\nand debate _per se_. Protracted enquiry is a valuable privilege, not a\ntiresome obligation   403\n\nPlato has done more than any one else to make the process of enquiry\ninteresting to others, as it was to himself   405\n\nProcess of generalisation always kept in view and illustrated\nthroughout the Platonic Dialogues of Search--general terms and\npropositions made subjects of conscious analysis   406\n\nThe Dialogues must be reviewed as distinct compositions by the same\nauthor, illustrating each other, but without assignable\ninter-dependence   407\n\nOrder of the Dialogues, chosen for bringing them under separate\nreview. Apology will come first; Tim\u00e6us, Kritias, Leges, Epinomis last\n_ib._\n\nKriton and Euthyphron come immediately after Apology. The intermediate\ndialogues present no convincing grounds for any determinate order   408\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\n\nApology of Sokrates.\n\nThe Apology is the real defence delivered by Sokrates before the\nDikasts, reported by Plato, without intentional transformation   410\n\nEven if it be Plato's own composition, it comes naturally first in the\nreview of his dialogues   411\n\nGeneral character of the Apology--Sentiments entertained towards\nSokrates at Athens   412\n\nDeclaration from the Delphian oracle respecting the wisdom of\nSokrates, interpreted by him as a mission to cross-examine the\ncitizens generally--The oracle is proved to be true   413\n\nFalse persuasion of wisdom is universal--the God alone is wise   414\n\nEmphatic assertion by Sokrates of the cross-examining mission imposed\nupon him by the God   _ib._\n\nHe had devoted his life to the execution of this mission, and he\nintended to persevere in spite of obloquy or danger   416\n\nHe disclaims the function of a teacher--he cannot teach, for he is not\nwiser than others. He differs from others by being conscious of his\nown ignorance   _ib._\n\nHe does not know where competent teachers can be found. He is\nperpetually seeking for them, but in vain   417\n\nImpression made by the Platonic Apology on Zeno the Stoic   418\n\nExtent of efficacious influence claimed by Sokrates for\nhimself--exemplified by Plato throughout the Dialogues of\nSearch--Xenophon and Plato enlarge it   _ib._\n\nAssumption by modern critics, that Sokrates is a positive teacher,\nemploying indirect methods for the inculcation of theories of his\nown   419\n\nIncorrectness of such assumption--the Sokratic Elenchus does not\nfurnish a solution, but works upon the mind of the respondent,\nstimulating him to seek for a solution of his own   420\n\nValue and importance of this process--stimulating active individual\nminds to theorise each for itself   421\n\nView taken by Sokrates about death. Other men profess to know what it\nis, and think it a great misfortune: he does not know   422\n\nReliance of Sokrates on his own individual reason, whether agreeing or\ndisagreeing with others   423\n\nFormidable efficacy of established public beliefs, generated without\nany ostensible author   424\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\n\nKriton.\n\nGeneral purpose of the Kriton   425\n\nSubject of the dialogue--interlocutors   _ib._\n\nAnswer of Sokrates to the appeal made by Kriton   426\n\nHe declares that the judgment of the general public is not worthy of\ntrust: he appeals to the judgment of the one Expert, who is wise on\nthe matter in debate   _ib._\n\nPrinciples laid down by Sokrates for determining the question with\nKriton. Is the proceeding recommended just or unjust? Never in any\ncase to act unjustly   427\n\nSokrates admits that few will agree with him, and that most persons\nhold the opposite opinion: but he affirms that the point is cardinal\n_ib._\n\nPleading supposed to be addressed by the Laws of Athens to Sokrates,\ndemanding from him implicit obedience   428\n\nPurpose of Plato in this pleading--to present the dispositions of\nSokrates in a light different from that which the Apology had\npresented--unqualified submission instead of defiance   _ib._\n\nHarangue of Sokrates delivered in the name of the Laws, would have\nbeen applauded by all the democratical patriots of Athens   430\n\nThe harangue insists upon topics common to Sokrates with other\ncitizens, overlooking the specialties of his character   431\n\nStill Sokrates is represented as adopting the resolution to obey, from\nhis own conviction; by a reason which weighs with him, but which would\nnot weigh with others   _ib._\n\nThe harangue is not a corollary from this Sokratic reason, but\nrepresents feelings common among Athenian citizens   432\n\nEmphatic declaration of the authority of individual reason and\nconscience, for the individual himself   _ib._\n\nThe Kriton is rhetorical, not dialectical. Difference between Rhetoric\nand Dialectic   433\n\nThe Kriton makes powerful appeal to the emotions, but overlooks the\nratiocinative difficulties, or supposes them to be solved   _ib._\n\nIncompetence of the general public or [Greek: i)di\u00f4=tai]--appeal to\nthe professional Expert   435\n\nProcedure of Sokrates after this comparison has been declared--he does\nnot name who the trustworthy Expert is   _ib._\n\nSokrates acts as the Expert himself: he finds authority in his own\nreason and conscience   436\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\n\nEuthyphron.\n\nSituation supposed in the dialogue--interlocutors   437\n\nIndictment by Mel\u00eatus against Sokrates--Antipathy of the Athenians\ntowards those who spread heretical opinions   437\n\nEuthyphron recounts that he is prosecuting an indictment for murder\nagainst his own father--Displeasure of his friends at the proceeding\n438\n\nEuthyphron expresses full confidence that this step of his is both\nrequired and warranted by piety or holiness. Sokrates asks him--What\nis Holiness?   439\n\nEuthyphron alludes to the punishment of Uranus by his son Kronus and\nof Kronus by his son Zeus   440\n\nSokrates intimates his own hesitation in believing these stories of\ndiscord among the Gods. Euthyphron declares his full belief in them,\nas well as in many similar narratives, not in so much circulation\n_ib._\n\nBearing of this dialogue on the relative position of Sokrates and the\nAthenian public   441\n\nDramatic moral set forth by Aristophanes against Sokrates and the\nfreethinkers, is here retorted by Plato against the orthodox\nchampion   442\n\nSequel of the dialogue--Euthyphron gives a particular example as the\nreply to a general question   444\n\nSuch mistake frequent in dialectic discussion   _ib._\n\nFirst general answer given by Euthyphron--that which is pleasing to\nthe Gods is holy. Comments of Sokrates thereon   445\n\nTo be loved by the Gods is not the essence of the Holy--they love it\nbecause it is holy. In what then does its essence consist? Perplexity\nof Euthyphron   446\n\nSokrates suggests a new answer. The Holy is one branch or variety of\nthe Just. It is that branch which concerns ministration by men to the\nGods   447\n\nMinistration to the Gods? How? To what purpose?   _ib._\n\nHoliness--rectitude in sacrifice and prayer--right traffic between men\nand the Gods   448\n\nThis will not stand--the Gods gain nothing--they receive from men\nmarks of honour and gratitude--they are pleased therewith--the Holy,\ntherefore, must be that which is pleasing to the Gods   448\n\nThis is the same explanation which was before declared insufficient. A\nfresh explanation is required from Euthyphron. He breaks off the\ndialogue   _ib._\n\nSokratic spirit of the dialogue--confessed ignorance applying the\nElenchus to false persuasion of knowledge   449\n\nThe questions always difficult, often impossible to answer. Sokrates\nis unable to answer them, though he exposes the bad answers of others\n_ib._\n\nObjections of Theopompus to the Platonic procedure   450\n\nObjective view of Ethics, distinguished by Sokrates from the\nsubjective   451\n\nSubjective unanimity coincident with objective dissent   _ib._\n\nCross-examination brought to bear upon this mental condition by\nSokrates--position of Sokrates and Plato in regard to it   452\n\nThe Holy--it has an essential characteristic--what is this?--not the\nfact that it is loved by the Gods--this is true, but is not its\nconstituent essence   454\n\nViews of the Xenophontic Sokrates respecting the Holy--different from\nthose of the Platonic Sokrates--he disallows any common absolute\ngeneral type of the Holy--he recognises an indefinite variety of\ntypes, discordant and relative   _ib._\n\nThe Holy a branch of the Just--not tenable as a definition, but useful\nas bringing to view the subordination of logical terms   455\n\nThe Euthyphron represents Plato's way of replying to the charge of\nimpiety, preferred by Mel\u00eatus against Sokrates--comparison with\nXenophon's way of replying   _ib._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n\n\nPLATO.\n\n\n\nPRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nSPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY IN GREECE, BEFORE AND IN THE TIME OF SOKRATES.\n\n\n[Side-note: Change in the political condition of Greece during the\nlife of Plato.]\n\nThe life of Plato extends from 427-347 B.C. He was born in the fourth\nyear of the Peloponnesian war, and he died at the age of 80, about the\ntime when Olynthus was taken by the Macedonian Philip. The last years\nof his life thus witnessed a melancholy breach in the integrity of the\nHellenic world, and even exhibited data from which a far-sighted\nHellenic politician might have anticipated something like the coming\nsubjugation, realised afterwards by the victory of Philip at\nCh\u00e6roneia. But during the first half of Plato's life, no such\nanticipations seemed even within the limits of possibility. The forces\nof Hellas, though discordant among themselves, were superabundant as\nto defensive efficacy, and were disposed rather to aggression against\nforeign enemies, especially against a country then so little\nformidable as Macedonia. It was under this contemplation of Hellas\nself-acting and self-sufficing--an aggregate of cities, each a\npolitical unit, yet held together by strong ties of race, language,\nreligion, and common feelings of various kinds--that the mind of Plato\nwas both formed and matured.\n\nIn appreciating, as far as our scanty evidence allows, the\ncircumstances which determined his intellectual and speculative\ncharacter, I shall be compelled to touch briefly upon the various\nphilosophical theories which were propounded anterior to Sokrates--as\nwell as to repeat some matters already brought to view in the\nsixteenth, sixty-seventh, and sixty-eighth chapters of my History of\nGreece.\n\n[Side-note: Early Greek mind, satisfied with the belief in\npolytheistic personal agents as the real producing causes of\nphenomena.]\n\nTo us, as to Herodotus, in his day, the philosophical speculation of\nthe Greeks begins with the theology and cosmology of Homer and Hesiod.\nThe series of divine persons and attributes, and generations presented\nby these poets, and especially the Theogony of Hesiod, supplied at one\ntime full satisfaction to the curiosity of the Greeks respecting the\npast history and present agencies of the world around them. In the\nemphatic censure bestowed by Herakleitus on the poets and philosophers\nwho preceded him, as having much knowledge but no sense--he includes\nHesiod, as well as Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Hekat\u00e6us: upon Homer\nand Archilochus he is still more severe, declaring that they ought to\nbe banished from the public festivals and scourged.[1] The sentiment\nof curiosity as it then existed was only secondary and derivative,\narising out of some of the strong primary or personal sentiments--fear\nor hope, antipathy or sympathy,--impression of present\nweakness,--unsatisfied appetites and longings,--wonder and awe under the\npresence of the terror-striking phenomena of nature, &c. Under this state\nof the mind, when problems suggested themselves for solution, the answers\nafforded by Polytheism gave more satisfaction than could have been\nafforded by any other hypothesis. Among the indefinite multitude of\ninvisible, personal, quasi-human agents, with different attributes and\ndispositions, some one could be found to account for every perplexing\nphenomenon. The question asked was, not What are the antecedent\nconditions or causes of rain, thunder, or earthquakes, but Who rains\nand thunders? Who produces earthquakes?[2] The Hesiodic Greek was\nsatisfied when informed that it was Zeus or Poseidon. To be told of\nphysical agencies would have appeared to him not merely\nunsatisfactory, but absurd, ridiculous, and impious. It was the task\nof a poet like Hesiod to clothe this general polytheistic sentiment in\nsuitable details: to describe the various Gods, Goddesses, Demigods,\nand other quasi-human agents, with their characteristic attributes,\nwith illustrative adventures, and with sufficient relations of\nsympathy and subordination among each other, to connect them in men's\nimaginations as members of the same brotherhood. Okeanus, G\u00e6a, Uranus,\nHelios, Sel\u00ean\u00ea,--Zeus, Poseidon, Hades--Apollo and Artemis, Dionysus\nand Aphrodit\u00ea--these and many other divine personal agents, were\ninvoked as the producing and sustaining forces in nature, the past\nhistory of which was contained in their filiations or contests.\nAnterior to all of them, the primordial matter or person, was Chaos.\n\n[Footnote 1: Diogen. Laert. ix. 1. [Greek: Polumathi/\u00ea no/on ou)\ndida/skei;] ([Greek: ou) phu/ei,] ap. Proclum in Platon. Tim\u00e6. p. 31 F.,\np. 72, ed. Schneider), [Greek: \u00ca(si/odon ga\\r a)\\n e)di/daxe kai\\\nPuthago/r\u00ean, auti/s te Xenopha/nea/ te kai\\ E(katai=on; to/n th'\nO(/m\u00earon e)/phasken a)/xion ei)=nai e)k t\u00f4=n ag\u00f4/n\u00f4n e)kba/llesthai\nkai\\ rhapi/zesthai, kai\\ A)rchi/lochon o(moi/\u00f4s.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Aristophanes, Nubes, 368, [Greek: A)lla\\ ti/s u(/ei?]\nHerodot. vii. 129.]\n\n[Side-note: Belief in such agency continued among the general public,\neven after the various sects of philosophy had arisen.]\n\nHesiod represents the point of view ancient and popular (to use\nAristotle's expression[3]) among the Greeks, from whence all their\nphilosophical speculation took its departure; and which continued\nthroughout their history, to underlie all the philosophical\nspeculations, as the faith of the ordinary public who neither\nfrequented the schools nor conversed with philosophers. While\nAristophanes, speaking in the name of this popular faith, denounces\nand derides Sokrates as a searcher, alike foolish and irreligious,\nafter astronomical and physical causes--Sokrates himself not only\ndenies the truth of the allegation, but adopts as his own the\nsentiment which dictated it; proclaiming Anaxagoras and others to be\nculpable for prying into mysteries which the Gods intentionally kept\nhidden.[4] The repugnance felt by a numerous public, against\nscientific explanation--as eliminating the divine agents and\nsubstituting in their place irrational causes,[5]--was a permanent\nfact of which philosophers were always obliged to take account, and\nwhich modified the tone of their speculations without being powerful\nenough to repress them.\n\n[Footnote 3: Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 8, p. 989, a. 10. [Greek: Ph\u00easi\\\nde/ kai\\ \u00ca(si/odos t\u00ea\\n g\u00ea=n pr\u00f4/t\u00ean gene/sthai t\u00f4=n s\u00f4ma/t\u00f4n; ou(/t\u00f4s\na)rchai/an kai\\ d\u00eamotik\u00ea\\n sumbe/b\u00eaken ei)=nai t\u00ea\\n u(po/l\u00eapsin.]\n\nAgain in the beginning of the second book of the Meteorologica,\nAristotle contrasts the ancient and primitive theology with the \"human\nwisdom\" which grew up subsequently: [Greek: Oi( a)rchai=oi kai\\\ndiatri/bontes peri\\ ta\\s theologi/as--oi( soph\u00f4/teroi t\u00ea\\n\na)nthr\u00f4pi/n\u00ean sophi/an] (Meteor, ii. i. p. 353, a.)]\n\n[Footnote 4: Xenophon, Memor. iv. 7, 5; i. 1, 11-15. Plato, Apolog. p.\n26 E.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Plutarch, Nikias, c. 23. [Greek: Ou) ga\\r \u00ea)neichonto\ntou\\s phusikou\\s kai\\ mete\u00f4role/schas to/te kaloume/nous, \u00f4(s ei)s\nai)ti/as a)lo/gous kai\\ duna/meis a)prono\u00ea/tous kai\\ kat\u00eanagkasme/na\npa/th\u00ea diatri/bontas to\\ thei=on.]]\n\n[Side-note: Thales, the first Greek who propounded the hypothesis of\nphysical agency in place of personal. Water, the primordial substance,\nor [Greek: a)rch\u00ea/].]\n\nEven in the sixth century B.C., when the habit of composing in prose\nwas first introduced, Pherekydes and Akusilaus still continued in\ntheir prose the theogony, or the mythical cosmogony, of Hesiod and the\nother old Poets: while Epimenides and the Orphic poets put forth\ndifferent theogonies, blended with mystical dogmas. It was, however,\nin the same century, and in the first half of it, that Thales of\nMiletus (620-560 B.C.), set the example of a new vein of thought.\nInstead of the Homeric Okeanus, father of all things, Thales assumed\nthe material substance, Water, as the primordial matter and the\nuniversal substratum of everything in nature. By various\ntransmutations, all other substances were generated from water; all of\nthem, when destroyed, returned into water. Like the old poets, Thales\nconceived the surface of the earth to be flat and round; but he did\nnot, like them, regard it as stretching down to the depths of\nTartarus: he supposed it to be flat and shallow, floating on the\nimmensity of the watery expanse or Ocean.[6] This is the main feature\nof the Thaletian hypothesis, about which, however, its author seems to\nhave left no writing. Aristotle says little about Thales, and that\nlittle in a tone of so much doubt,[7] that we can hardly confide in\nthe opinions and discoveries ascribed to him by others.[8]\n\n[Footnote 6: Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 3, p. 983, b. 21. De Coelo, ii.\n13, p. 294, a. 29. [Greek: Thal\u00ea=s, o( t\u00ea=s toiau/t\u00eas a)rch\u00eago\\s\nphilosophi/as], &c. Seneca, Natural. Qu\u00e6st. vi. 6.\n\nPherekydes, Epimenides, &c., were contemporary with the earliest Ionic\nphilosophers (Brandis, Handbuch der Gesch. der Gr.-R\u00f6m. Phil., s. 23).\n\nAccording to Plutarch (Aqu\u00e6 et Ignis Comparatio, p. 955, init.), most\npersons believed that Hesiod, by the word Chaos, meant Water. Zeno the\nStoic adopted this interpretation (Schol. Apollon. Rhod. i. 498). On\nthe other hand, Bacchylides the poet, and after him Zenodotus, called\nAir by the name Chaos (Schol. Hesiod. Theogon. p. 392, Gaisf.).\nHermann considers that the Hesiodic Chaos means empty space (see note,\nBrandis, Handb. d. Gesch. d. Gr.-R\u00f6m. Phil., vol. i., p. 71).]\n\n[Footnote 7: See two passages in Aristotle De Anim\u00e2, i. 2, and i. 5.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Cicero says (De Natur\u00e2 Deorum, i. 10), \"Thales--aquam\ndixit esse initium rerum, Deum autem eam mentem, qu\u00e6 ex aqu\u00e2 cuncta\nfingeret.\" That the latter half of this Ciceronian statement,\nrespecting the doctrines of Thales, is at least unfounded, and\nprobably erroneous, is recognised by Preller, Brandis, and Zeller.\nPreller, Histor. Philos. Gr\u00e6c. ex Fontium Locis Contexta, sect. 15;\nBrandis, Handbuch der Gr.-R. Philos. sect. 31, p. 118; Zeller, Die\nPhilos. der Griechen, vol. i., p. 151, ed. 2.\n\nIt is stated by Herodotus that Thales foretold the year of the\nmemorable solar eclipse which happened during the battle between the\nMedes and the Lydians (Herod. i. 74). This eclipse seems to have\noccurred in B.C. 585, according to the best recent astronomical\nenquiries by Professor Airy.]\n\n[Side-note: Anaximander--laid down as [Greek: a)rch\u00ea/] the Infinite or\nindeterminate--generation of the elements out of it, by evolution of\nlatent fundamental contraries--astronomical and geological doctrines.]\n\nThe next of the Ionic philosophers, and the first who published his\nopinions in writing, was Anaximander, of Miletus, the countryman and\nyounger contemporary of Thales (570-520 B.C.). He too searched for an\n[Greek: A)rch\u00ea/], a primordial Something or principle, self-existent\nand comprehending in its own nature a generative, motive, or\ntransmutative force. Not thinking that water, or any other known and\ndefinite substance fulfilled these conditions, he adopted as the\nfoundation of his hypothesis a substance which he called the Infinite\nor Indeterminate. Under this name he conceived Body simply, without\nany positive or determinate properties, yet including the fundamental\ncontraries, Hot, Cold, Moist, Dry, &c., in a potential or latent\nstate, including farther a self-changing and self-developing force,[9]\nand being moreover immortal and indestructible.[10] By this inherent\nforce, and by the evolution of one or more of these dormant contrary\nqualities, were generated the various definite substances of\nnature--Air, Fire, Water, &c. But every determinate substance thus\ngenerated was, after a certain time, destroyed and resolved again into\nthe Indeterminate mass. \"From thence all substances proceed, and into\nthis they relapse: each in its turn thus making atonement to the others,\nand suffering the penalty of injustice.\"[11] Anaximander conceived\nseparate existence (determinate and particular existence, apart from\nthe indeterminate and universal) as an unjust privilege, not to be\ntolerated except for a time, and requiring atonement even for that. As\nthis process of alternate generation and destruction was unceasing, so\nnothing less than an Infinite could supply material for it. Earth,\nWater, Air, Fire, having been generated, the two former, being cold\nand heavy, remained at the bottom, while the two latter ascended. Fire\nformed the exterior circle, encompassing the air like bark round a\ntree: this peripheral fire was broken up and aggregated into separate\nmasses, composing the sun, moon, and stars. The sphere of the fixed\nstars was nearest to the earth: that of the moon next above it: that\nof the sun highest of all. The sun and moon were circular bodies\ntwenty-eight times larger than the earth: but the visible part of them\nwas only an opening in the centre, through which[12] the fire or light\nbehind was seen. All these spheres revolved round the earth, which was\nat first semi-fluid or mud, but became dry and solid through the heat\nof the sun. It was in shape like the section of a cylinder, with a\ndepth equal to one-third of its breadth or horizontal surface, on\nwhich men and animals live. It was in the centre of the Kosmos; it\nremained stationary because of its equal distance from all parts of\nthe outer revolving spheres; there was no cause determining it to move\nupward rather than downward or sideways, therefore it remained\nstill.[13] Its exhalations nourished the fire in the peripheral\nregions of the Kosmos. Animals were produced from the primitive muddy\nfluid of the earth: first, fishes and other lower animals--next, in\nprocess of time man, when circumstances permitted his development.[14]\nWe learn farther respecting the doctrines of Anaximander, that he\nproposed physical explanations of thunder, lightning, and other\nmeteorological phenomena:[15] memorable as the earliest attempt of\nspeculation in that department, at a time when such events inspired\nthe strongest religious awe, and were regarded as the most especial\nmanifestations of purposes of the Gods. He is said also to have been\nthe first who tried to represent the surface and divisions of the\nearth on a brazen plate, the earliest rudiment of a map or chart.[16]\n\n[Footnote 9: See Zeller, Philosophie der Griechen, vol. i. p. 157,\nseq., ed. 2nd.\n\nAnaximander conceived [Greek: to\\ a)peiron] as _infinite matter_; the\nPythagoreans and Plato conceived it as a distinct nature by itself--as\na subject, not as a predicate (Aristotel. Physic. iii. 4, p. 203, a.\n2).\n\nAbout these fundamental contraries, Aristotle says (Physic. i. 4,\ninit.): [Greek: oi( d' e)k tou e(no\\s e)nou/sas ta\\s e)nantio/t\u00eatas\ne)kkri/nesthai, \u00f4(/sper A)naxi/mandro/s ph\u00easi]. Which Simplikius\nexplains, [Greek: e)nantio/t\u00eate/s ei)si, thermo\\n, psuchro\\n, x\u00earo\\n,\nu(gro\\n, kai\\ ai( a)/llai], &c.\n\nCompare also Schleiermacher, \"Ueber Anaximandros,\" in his Vermischte\nSchriften, vol. ii. p. 178, seq. Deutinger (Gesch. der Philos. vol. i.\np. 165, Regensb. 1852) maintains that this [Greek: e)/krisis] of\ncontraries is at variance with the hypothesis of Anaximander, and has\nbeen erroneously ascribed to him. But the testimony is sufficiently\ngood to outweigh this suspicion.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Anaximander spoke of his [Greek: a)/peiron] as [Greek:\na)tha/naton kai\\ a)n\u00f4/lethron] (Aristotel. Physic. iii. 4, 7, p. 203,\nb. 15).]\n\n[Footnote 11: Simplikius ad Aristotel. Physic. fol. 6 a. apud Preller,\nHistor. Philos. Gr\u00e6co-Rom. \u00a7 57, [Greek: e)x \u00f4(=n de\\ \u00ea( ge/nesi/s\ne)sti toi=s ou)=si, kai\\ t\u00ea\\n phthora\\n ei)s tau)ta\\ gi/nesthai kata\\\nto\\ chre\u00f4/n; dido/nai ga\\r au)ta\\ ti/sin kai\\ di/k\u00ean a)ll\u00ea/lois t\u00ea=s\na)diki/as kata\\ t\u00ea\\n tou= chro/nou ta/xin.] Simplikius remarks upon\nthe poetical character of this phraseology, [Greek: poi\u00eatik\u00f4te/rois\no)no/masin au)ta\\ le/g\u00f4n].]\n\n[Footnote 12: Origen. Philosophumen. p. 11, ed. Miller; Plutarch ap.\nEusebium Pr\u00e6p. Evang. i. 8, xv. 23-46-47; Stob\u00e6us Eclog. i. p. 510.\nAnaximander supposed that eclipses of the sun and moon were caused by\nthe occasional closing of these apertures (Euseb. xv. 50-61). The part\nof the sun visible to us was, in his opinion, not smaller than the\nearth, and of the purest fire (Diog. Laert. ii. 1).\n\nEud\u00eamus, in his history of astronomy, mentioned Anaximander as the\nfirst who had discussed the magnitudes and distances of the celestial\nbodies (Simplikius ad Aristot. De Coelo, ap. Schol. Brand, p. 497, a.\n12).]\n\n[Footnote 13: Aristotel. Meteorol. ii. 2, p. 355, a. 21, which is\nreferred by Alexander of Aphrodisias to Anaximander; also De Coelo,\nii. 13, p. 295, b. 12.\n\nA doctrine somewhat like it is ascribed even to Thales. See\nAlexander's Commentary on Aristotel. Metaphys. i. p. 983, b. 17.\n\nThe reason here assigned by Anaximander why the Earth remained still,\nis the earliest example in Greek philosophy of that fallacy called the\nprinciple of the Sufficient Reason, so well analysed and elucidated by\nMr. John Stuart Mill, in his System of Logic, book v., ch. 3, sect. 5.\n\nThe remarks which Aristotle himself makes upon it are also very\ninteresting, when he cites the opinion of Anaximander. Compare Plato,\nPh\u00e6don, p. 109, c. 132, with the citations in Wyttenbach's note.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Plutarch, Placit. Philos. v. 19.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Plutarch, Placit. Philos. iii. 3; Seneca, Qu\u00e6st. Nat.\nii. 18-19.]\n\n[Footnote 16: Strabo, i. p. 7. Diogenes Laertius (ii. 1) states that\nAnaximander affirmed the figure of the earth to be spherical; and Dr.\nWhewell, in his History of the Inductive Sciences, follows his\nstatement. But Schleiermacher (Ueber Anaximandros, vol. ii. p. 204 of\nhis S\u00e4mmtliche Werke) and Gruppe (Die Kosmischen Systeme der Griechen,\np. 38) contest this assertion, and prefer that of Plutarch (ap.\nEusebium Pr\u00e6p. Evang. i. 8, Placit. Philos. iii. 10), which I have\nadopted in the text. It is to be remembered that Diogenes himself, in\nanother place (ix. 3, 21), affirms Parmenides to have been the first\nwho propounded the spherical figure of the earth. See the facts upon\nthis subject collected and discussed in the instructive dissertation\nof L. Oettinger, Die Vorstellungen der Griechen und R\u00f6mer ueber die\nErde als Himmelsk\u00f6rper, p. 38; Freiburg, 1850.]\n\n[Side-note: Anaximenes--adopted Air as [Greek: a)rch\u00ea/]--rise of\nsubstances out of it, by condensation and rarefaction.]\n\nThe third physical philosopher produced by Miletus, seemingly before\nthe time of her terrible disasters suffered from the Persians after\nthe Ionic revolt between 500-494 B.C., was Anaximenes, who struck out\na third hypothesis. He assumed, as the primordial substance, and as\nthe source of all generation or transmutation, Air, eternal in\nduration, infinite in extent. He thus returned to the principle of the\nThaletian theory, selecting for his beginning a known substance,\nthough not the same substance as Thales. To explain how generation of\nnew products was possible (as Anaximander had tried to explain by his\ntheory of evolution of latent contraries), Anaximenes adverted to the\nfacts of condensation and rarefaction, which he connected respectively\nwith cold and heat.[17] The Infinite Air, possessing and exercising an\ninherent generative and developing power, perpetually in motion,\npassing from dense to rare or from rare to dense, became in its utmost\nrarefaction, Fire and \u00c6ther; when passing through successive stages of\nincreased condensation it became first cloud, next water, then earth,\nand, lastly, in its utmost density, stone.[18] Surrounding, embracing,\nand pervading the Kosmos, it also embodied and carried with it a vital\nprinciple, which animals obtained from it by inspiration, and which\nthey lost as soon as they ceased to breathe.[19] Anaximenes included\nin his treatise (which was written in a clear Ionic dialect) many\nspeculations on astronomy and meteorology, differing widely from those\nof Anaximander. He conceived the Earth as a broad, flat, round plate,\nresting on the air.[20] Earth, Sun, and Moon were in his view\ncondensed air, the Sun acquiring heat by the extreme and incessant\nvelocity with which he moved. The Heaven was not an entire hollow\nsphere encompassing the Earth below as well as above, but a hemisphere\ncovering the Earth above, and revolving laterally round it like a cap\nround the head.[21]\n\n[Footnote 17: Origen. Philosophumen. c. 7; Simplikius in Aristot.\nPhysic. f. 32; Brandis, Handb. d. Gesch. d. Gr.-R. Phil. p. 144.\n\nCicero, Academic. ii. 37, 118. \"Anaximenes infinitum aera, sed ea, qu\u00e6\nex eo orirentur, definita.\"\n\nThe comic poet Philemon introduced in one of his dramas, of which a\nshort fragment is preserved (Frag. 2, Meineke, p. 840), the\nomnipresent and omniscient Air, to deliver the prologue:\n\n[Greek:             ----ou(to/s ei)m' e)g\u00f4\\\nA)\u00ea/r, o(\\n a)/n tis o)noma/seie kai\\ Di/a.\ne)g\u00f4\\ d', o(\\ theou=' stin e)/rgon, ei)mi\\ pantachou=--\npa/nt' e)x a)na/gk\u00eas oi)=da, pantachou= par\u00f4/n.]]\n\n[Footnote 18: Plutarch, De Primo Frigido, p. 917; Plutarch, ap. Euseb.\nP. E. i. 8.]\n\n[Footnote 19: Plutarch, Placit. Philosophor, i. 3, p. 878.]\n\n[Footnote 20: Aristotel. De Coelo, ii. 13; Plutarch, Placit.\nPhilosoph. iii. 10, p. 895.]\n\n[Footnote 21: Origen. Philosophum. p. 12, ed. Miller: [Greek:\n\u00f4(sperei\\ peri\\ t\u00ea\\n \u00ea(mete/ran kephal\u00ea\\n stre/phetai to\\ pili/on.]]\n\nThe general principle of cosmogony, involved in the hypothesis of\nthese three Milesians--one primordial substance or Something endued\nwith motive and transmutative force, so as to generate all the variety\nof products, each successive and transient, which our senses\nwitness--was taken up with more or less modification by others, especially\nby Diogenes of Apollonia, of whom I shall speak presently. But there were\nthree other men who struck out different veins of thought--Pythagoras,\nXenophanes, and Herakleitus: the two former seemingly contemporary\nwith Anaximenes (550-490 B.C.), the latter somewhat later.\n\n[Side-note: Pythagoras--his life and career--Pythagorean brotherhood,\ngreat political influence which it acquired among the Greco-Italian\ncities--incurred great enmity and was violently put down.]\n\nOf Pythagoras I have spoken at some length in the thirty-seventh\nchapter of my History of Greece. Speculative originality was only one\namong many remarkable features in his character. He was an\ninquisitive traveller, a religious reformer or innovator, and the\nfounder of a powerful and active brotherhood, partly ascetic, partly\npolitical, which stands without parallel in Grecian history. The\nimmortality of the soul, with its transmigration (metempsychosis)\nafter death into other bodies, either of men or of other animals--the\nuniversal kindred thus recognised between men and other animals, and\nthe prohibition which he founded thereupon against the use of animals\nfor food or sacrifice--are among his most remarkable doctrines: said\nto have been borrowed (together with various ceremonial observances)\nfrom the Egyptians.[22] After acquiring much celebrity in his native\nisland of Samos and throughout Ionia, Pythagoras emigrated (seemingly\nabout 530 B.C.) to Kroton and Metapontum in Lower Italy, where the\nPythagorean brotherhood gradually acquired great political ascendancy:\nand from whence it even extended itself in like manner over the\nneighbouring Greco-Italian cities. At length it excited so much\npolitical antipathy among the body of the citizens,[23] that its rule\nwas violently put down, and its members dispersed about 509 B.C.\nPythagoras died at Metapontum.\n\n[Footnote 22: Herodot. ii. 81; Isokrates, Busirid. Encom. s. 28.]\n\n[Footnote 23: Polybius, ii. 39; Porphyry, Vit. Pythag. 54, seq.]\n\n[Side-note: The Pythagoreans continue as a recluse sect, without\npolitical power.]\n\nThough thus stripped of power, however, the Pythagoreans still\nmaintained themselves for several generations as a social, religious,\nand philosophical brotherhood. They continued and extended the vein of\nspeculation first opened by the founder himself. So little of\nproclaimed individuality was there among them, that Aristotle, in\ncriticising their doctrine, alludes to them usually under the\ncollective name Pythagoreans. Epicharmus, in his comedies at Syracuse\n(470 B.C.) gave occasional utterance to various doctrines of the sect;\nbut the earliest of them who is known to have composed a book, was\nPhilolaus,[24] the contemporary of Sokrates. Most of the opinions\nascribed to the Pythagoreans originated probably among the successors\nof Pythagoras; but the basis and principle upon which they proceed\nseems undoubtedly his.\n\n[Footnote 24: Diogen. Laert. viii. 7-15-78-85.\n\nSome passages of Aristotle, however, indicate divergences of doctrine\namong the Pythagoreans themselves (Metaphys. A. 5, p. 986, a. 22). He\nprobably speaks of the Pythagoreans of his own time when dialectical\ndiscussion had modified the original orthodoxy of the order. Compare\nGruppe, Ueber die Fragmente des Archytas, cap. 5, p. 61-63. About the\ngradual development of the Pythagorean doctrine, see Brandis, Handbuch\nder Gr.-R. Philos. s. 74, 75.]\n\n[Side-note: Doctrine of the Pythagoreans--Number the Essence of\nThings.]\n\nThe problem of physical philosophy, as then conceived, was to find\nsome primordial and fundamental nature, by and out of which the\nsensible universe was built up and produced; something which\nco-existed always underlying it, supplying fresh matter and force for\ngeneration of successive products. The hypotheses of Thales,\nAnaximander, and Anaximenes, to solve this problem, have been already\nnoticed: Pythagoras solved it by saying, That the essence of things\nconsisted in Number. By this he did not mean simply that all things\nwere numerable, or that number belonged to them as a predicate.\nNumbers were not merely predicates inseparable from subjects, but\nsubjects in themselves: substances or magnitudes, endowed with active\nforce, and establishing the fundamental essences or types according to\nwhich things were constituted. About water,[25] air, or fire,\nPythagoras said nothing.[26] He conceived that sensible phenomena had\ngreater resemblance to numbers than to any one of these substrata\nassigned by the Ionic philosophers. Number was (in his doctrine) the\nself-existent reality--the fundamental material and in-dwelling force\npervading the universe. Numbers were not separate from things[27]\n(like the Platonic Ideas), but _fundamenta_ of things--their essences\nor determining principles: they were moreover conceived as having\nmagnitude and active force.[28] In the movements of the celestial\nbodies, in works of human art, in musical harmony--measure and number\nare the producing and directing agencies. According to the Pythagorean\nPhilolaus, \"the Dekad, the full and perfect number, was of supreme and\nuniversal efficacy as the guide and principle of life, both to the\nKosmos and to man. The nature of number was imperative and lawgiving,\naffording the only solution of all that was perplexing or unknown;\nwithout number all would be indeterminate and unknowable.\"[29]\n\n[Footnote 25: Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 5, p. 985, b. 27. [Greek: E)n\nde\\ toi=s a)rithmoi=s, e)ndo/koun the\u00f4rei=n o(moi\u00f4/mata polla\\ toi=s\nou)=si kai\\ gignome/nois, ma=llon \u00ea)\\ e)n puri\\ kai\\ g\u00ea=| kai\\\nu(/dati], &c. Cf. N. 3, p. 1090, a. 21.]\n\n[Footnote 26: Aristotel. Metaph. A. 9, p. 990, a. 16. [Greek: Dio\\\nperi\\ puro\\s \u00ea)\\ g\u00ea=s \u00ea)\\ t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n t\u00f4=n toiou/t\u00f4n s\u00f4ma/t\u00f4n ou)d'\no(tiou=n ei)r\u00ea/kasin], &c. (the Pythagoreans); also N. 3.]\n\n[Footnote 27: Physic. iii. 4, p. 203, a. 6. [Greek: Ou) ga\\r\nch\u00f4risto\\n poiou=si] (the Pythagoreans) [Greek: to\\n a)rithmo/n], &c.\nMetaphys. M. 6, p. 1080, b. 19: [Greek: ta\\s mona/das u(polamba/nousin\ne)/chein me/gethos]. M. 8, p. 1083, b. 17: [Greek: e)kei=noi] (the\nPythagoreans) [Greek: to\\n a)rithmo\\n ta\\ o)/nta le/gousin; ta\\ gou=n\nthe\u00f4r\u00ea/mata prosa/ptousi toi=s s\u00f4/masin \u00f4(s e)x e)kei/n\u00f4n o)/nt\u00f4n t\u00f4=n\na)rithm\u00f4=n.]]\n\n[Footnote 28: An analogous application of this principle (Number as\nthe fundamental substance and universal primary agent) may be seen in\nan eminent physical philosopher of the nineteenth century, Oken's\nElements of Physio-Philosophy, translated by Tulk. Aphorism\n57:--\"While numbers in a mathematical sense are positions and negations\nof nothing, in the philosophical sense they are positions and negations\nof the Eternal. Every thing which is real, posited, finite, has become\nthis, out of numbers; or more strictly speaking, every Real is\nabsolutely nothing else than a number. This must be the sense\nentertained of numbers in the Pythagorean doctrine--namely, that every\nthing, or the whole universe, had arisen from numbers. This is not to\nbe taken in a merely quantitative sense, as it has hitherto been\nerroneously; but in an intrinsic sense, as implying that all things\nare numbers themselves, or the acts of the Eternal. The essence in\nnumbers is nought else than the Eternal. The Eternal only is or\nexists, and nothing else is when a number exists. There is therefore\nnothing real but the Eternal itself; for every Real, or every thing\nthat is, is only a number and only exists by virtue of a number.\"\n\nIbid., Aphorism 105-107:--\"Arithmetic is the science of the second\nidea, or that of time or motion, or life. It is therefore the first\nscience. Mathematics not only begin with it, but creation also, with\nthe becoming of time and of life. Arithmetic is, accordingly, the\ntruly absolute or divine science; and therefore every thing in it is\nalso directly certain, because every thing in it resembles the Divine.\nTheology is arithmetic personified.\"--\"A natural thing is nothing but\na self-moving number. An organic or living thing is a number moving\nitself out of itself or spontaneously: an inorganic thing, however, is\na number moved by another thing: now as this other thing is also a\nreal number, so then is every inorganic thing a number moved by\nanother number, and so on _ad infinitum_. The movements in nature are\nonly movements of numbers by numbers: even as arithmetical computation\nis none other than a movement of numbers by numbers; but with this\ndifference--that in the latter, this operates in an ideal manner, in\nthe former after a real.\"]\n\n[Footnote 29: Philolaus, ed. Boeckh, p. 139. seqq.\n\n[Greek: The\u00f4rei=n dei= ta\\ e)/rga kai\\ ta\\n e)ssi/an (ou)si/an) t\u00f4=\na)rithm\u00f4= katta\\n du/namin, a(/tis e)nti\\ e)n ta=| deka/di; mega/la\nga\\r kai\\ pantel\u00ea\\s kai\\ pantoergo\\s kai\\ thei/\u00f4 kai\\ ou)rani/\u00f4 bi/\u00f4\nkai\\ a)nthr\u00f4pi/n\u00f4 a)rcha\\ kai\\ a(gem\u00f4\\n . . . a)/neu de\\ tau/tas pa/nta\na)/peira kai\\ a)/d\u00eala kai\\ a)phan\u00ea=; nomika\\ ga\\r a( phu/sis t\u00f4=\na)rithm\u00f4= kai\\ a(gemonika\\ kai\\ didaskalika\\ t\u00f4= a)poroume/n\u00f4 panto\\s\nkai\\ a)gnooume/n\u00f4 panti/]. Compare the Fr. p. 58, of the same work.\n\nAccording to Plato, as well as the Pythagoreans, number extended to\nten, and not higher: all above ten were multiples and increments of\nten. (Aristot. Physic. iii. 6, p. 203, b. 30).]\n\n[Side-note: The Monas--[Greek: a)rch\u00ea/], or principle of\nNumber--geometrical conception of number--symbolical attributes of the\nfirst ten numbers, especially of the Dekad.]\n\nThe first principle or beginning of Number, was the One or\nMonas--which the Pythagoreans conceived as including both the two\nfundamental contraries--the Determining and the Indeterminate.[30] All\nparticular numbers, and through them all things, were compounded from\nthe harmonious junction and admixture of these two fundamental\ncontraries.[31] All numbers being either odd or even, the odd numbers\nwere considered as analogous to the Determining, the even numbers to\nthe Indeterminate. In One or the Monad, the Odd and Even were supposed\nto be both contained, not yet separated: Two was the first\nindeterminate even number; Three, the first odd and the first\ndeterminate number, because it included beginning, middle, and end.\nThe sum of the first four numbers--One, Two, Three, Four = Ten (1 + 2\n+ 3 + 4) was the most perfect number of all.[32] To these numbers,\none, two, three, four, were understood as corresponding the\nfundamental conceptions of Geometry--Point, Line, Plane, Solid. _Five_\nrepresented colour and visible appearance: _Six_, the phenomenon of\nLife: _Seven_, Health, Light, Intelligence, &c.: _Eight_, Love or\nFriendship.[33] Man, Horse, Justice and Injustice, had their\nrepresentative numbers: that corresponding to Justice was a square\nnumber, as giving equal for equal.[34]\n\n[Footnote 30: See the instructive explanations of Boeckh, in his work\non the Fragments of Philolaus, p. 54 seq.]\n\n[Footnote 31: Philolaus, Fr., p. 62, Boeckh.--Diogen. L. viii. 7, 85.\n\nBy [Greek: a(rmoni/a], Philolaus meant the musical octave: and his\nwork included many explanations and comparisons respecting the\nintervals of the musical scale. (Boeckh, p. 65 seq.)]\n\n[Footnote 32: Aristotel. De Coelo, i. 1, p. 268, a. 10. [Greek:\nkatha/per ga/r phasin oi( Puthago/reioi, to\\ pa=n kai\\ ta\\ pa/nta\ntoi=s tri/sin \u00f4(/ristai; teleut\u00ea\\ ga\\r kai\\ me/son kai\\ a)rch\u00ea\\ to\\n\na)rithmo\\n e)/chei to\\n tou= panto\\s, tau=ta de\\ to\\n t\u00ea=s tria/dos.\nDio\\ para\\ t\u00ea=s phu/se\u00f4s ei)l\u00eapho/tes \u00f4(/sper no/mous e)kei/n\u00eas, kai\\\npro\\s ta\\s a(gistei/as chr\u00f4/metha t\u00f4=n the\u00f4=n t\u00f4=| a)rithm\u00f4=| tou/t\u00f4|]\n(i. e. three). It is remarkable that Aristotle here adopts and\nsanctions, in regard to the number Three, the mystic and fanciful\nattributes ascribed by the Pythagoreans.]\n\n[Footnote 33: Str\u00fcmpell, Geschichte der theoretischen Philosophie der\nGriechen, s. 78. Brandis, Handbuch der Gr.-R\u00f6m. Phil., sect. 80, p.\n467 seq.\n\nThe number Five also signified marriage, because it was a junction of\nthe first masculine number Three with the first feminine Two. Seven\nsignified also [Greek: kairo\\s] or Right Season. See Aristotel.\nMetaphys. A. 5, p. 985, b. 26, and M. 4, p. 1078, b. 23, compared with\nthe commentary of Alexander on the former passage.]\n\n[Footnote 34: Aristotel. Ethica Magna, i. 1.]\n\n[Side-note: Pythagorean Kosmos and Astronomy--geometrical and harmonic\nlaws guiding the movements of the cosmical bodies.]\n\nThe Pythagoreans conceived the Kosmos, or the universe, as one single\nsystem, generated out of numbers.[35] Of this system the central\npoint--the determining or limiting One--was first in order of time,\nand in order of philosophical conception. By the determining influence\nof this central constituted One, portions of the surrounding Infinite\nwere successively attracted and brought into system: numbers,\ngeometrical figures, solid substances, were generated. But as the\nKosmos thus constituted was composed of numbers, there could be no\ncontinuum: each numerical unit was distinct and separated from the\nrest by a portion of vacant space, which was imbibed, by a sort of\ninhalation, from the infinite space or spirit without.[36] The central\npoint was fire, called by the Pythagoreans the Hearth of the Universe\n(like the public hearth or perpetual fire maintained in the prytaneum\nof a Grecian city), or the watch-tower of Zeus. Around it revolved,\nfrom West to East, ten divine bodies, with unequal velocities, but in\nsymmetrical movement or regular dance.[37] Outermost was the circle of\nthe fixed stars, called by the Pythagoreans Olympus, and composed of\nfire like the centre. Within this came successively,--with orbits more\nand more approximating to the centre,--the five planets, Saturn,\nJupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury: next, the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth.\nLastly, between the Earth and the central fire, an hypothetical body,\ncalled the Antichthon or Counter-Earth, was imagined for the purpose\nof making up a total represented by the sacred number Ten, the symbol\nof perfection and totality. The Antichthon was analogous to a\nseparated half of the Earth; simultaneous with the Earth in its\nrevolutions, and corresponding with it on the opposite side of the\ncentral fire.\n\n[Footnote 35: Aristot. Metaph. M. 6, p. 1080, b. 18. [Greek: to\\n ga\\r\no(/lon ou)/ranon kataskeua/zousin e)x a)rithm\u00f4=n]. Compare p. 1075, b.\n37, with the Scholia.\n\nA poet calls the tetraktys (consecrated as the sum total of the first\nfour numbers 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10) [Greek: p\u00eag\u00ea\\n a)ena/ou phu/se\u00f4s\nrhiz\u00f4/mat' e)/chousan]. Sextus Empiric. adv. Mathemat. vii. 94.]\n\n[Footnote 36: Philolaus, ed. Boeckh, p. 91-95. [Greek: to\\ pra=ton\na(rmosthe\\n, to\\ e(/n e)n t\u00f4=| me/s\u00f4| t\u00ea=s sphai/ras e(sti/a\nkalei=tai--b\u00f4mo/n te kai\\ sunoch\u00ea\\n kai\\ me/tron phu/se\u00f4s--pr\u00f4=ton\nei)=nai phu/sei to\\ me/son].\n\nAristot. Metaph. N. 3, p. 1091, a. 15. [Greek: phaner\u00f4=s ga\\r\nle/gousin] (the Pythagoreans) [Greek: \u00f4(s tou= e(no\\s\nsustathe/ntos--eu)thu\\s to\\ e)/ggista tou= a)pei/rou o(/ti ei(lketo\nkai\\ e)perai/neto u(po\\ tou= pe/ratos].\n\nAristot. Physic. iv. 6, p. 213, b. 21. [Greek: Ei)=nai d' e)/phasan\nkai\\ oi( Puthago/reioi keno/n, kai\\ e)peisie/nai au)to\\ t\u00f4=| ou)ra/n\u00f4|\ne)k tou= a)pei/rou pneu/matos, \u00f4(s a)napne/onti; kai\\ to\\ keno/n, o(\\\ndiori/zei ta\\s phu/seis, \u00f4(s o)/ntos tou= kenou= ch\u00f4rismou= tinos t\u00f4=n\ne)phex\u00ea=s kai\\ t\u00ea=s diori/se\u00f4s, kai\\ tou=t' ei)=nai pr\u00f4=ton e)n toi=s\na)rithmoi=s; to\\ ga\\r keno\\n diori/zein t\u00ea\\n phu/sin au)t\u00f4=n]. Stob\u00e6us\n(Eclog. Phys. i. 18, p. 381, Heer.) states the same, referring to the\nlost work of Aristotle on the Pythagorean philosophy. Compare Preller,\nHistor. Philos. Gr. ex Font. Loc. Context., sect. 114-115.]\n\n[Footnote 37: Philolaus, p. 94. Boeckh. [Greek: peri\\ de\\ tou=to de/ka\ns\u00f4/mata thei=a choreu/ein], &c. Aristot. De Coelo, ii. 13. Metaphys. A.\n5.]\n\nThe inhabited portion of the Earth was supposed to be that which was\nturned away from the central fire and towards the Sun, from which it\nreceived light. But the Sun itself was not self-luminous: it was\nconceived as a glassy disk, receiving and concentrating light from the\ncentral fire, and reflecting it upon the Earth, so long as the two\nwere on the same side of the central fire. The Earth revolved, in an\norbit obliquely intersecting that of the Sun, and in twenty-four\nhours, round the central fire, always turning the same side towards\nthat fire. The alternation of day and night was occasioned by the\nEarth being during a part of such revolution on the same side of the\ncentral fire with the Sun, and thus receiving light reflected from\nhim: and during the remaining part of her revolution on the side\nopposite to him, so that she received no light at all from him. The\nEarth, with the Antichthon, made this revolution in one day: the Moon,\nin one month:[38] the Sun, with the planets, Mercury and Venus, in one\nyear: the planets, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, in longer periods\nrespectively, according to their distances from the centre: lastly,\nthe outermost circle of the fixed stars (the Olympus, or the Aplanes),\nin some unknown period of very long duration.[39]\n\n[Footnote 38: The Pythagoreans supposed that eclipses of the moon took\nplace, sometimes by the interposition of the earth, sometimes by that\nof the Antichthon, to intercept from the moon the light of the sun\n(Stob\u00e6us, Eclog. Phys. i. 27, p. 560. Heeren). Stob\u00e6us here cites the\nhistory ([Greek: i(stori/an]) of the Pythagorean philosophy by\nAristotle, and the statement of Philippus of Opus, the friend of\nPlato.]\n\n[Footnote 39: Aristot. de Coelo, ii. 13. Respecting this Pythagorean\ncosmical system, the elucidations of Boeckh are clear and valuable.\nUntersuchungen \u00fcber das Kosmische System des Platon, Berlin, 1852, p.\n99-102; completing those which he had before given in his edition of\nthe fragments of Philolaus.\n\nMartin (in his \u00c9tudes sur le Tim\u00e9e de Platon, vol. ii. p. 107) and\nGruppe (Die Kosmischen Systeme der Griechen, ch. iv.) maintain that\nthe original system proposed by Pythagoras was a geocentric system,\nafterwards transformed by Philolaus and other Pythagoreans into that\nwhich stands in the text. But I agree with Boeckh (Ueber das Kosmische\nSystem des Platon, p. 89 seqq.), and with Zeller (Phil. d. Griech.,\nvol. i. p. 308, ed. 2), that this point is not made out. That which\nMartin and Gruppe (on the authority of Alexander Polyhistor, Diog.\nviii. 25, and others) consider to be a description of the original\nPythagorean system as it stood before Philolaus, is more probably a\nsubsequent transformation of it; introduced after the time of\nAristotle, in order to suit later astronomical views.]\n\n[Side-note: Music of the Spheres.]\n\nThe revolutions of such grand bodies could not take place, in the\nopinion of the' Pythagoreans, without producing a loud and powerful\nsound; and as their distances from the central fire were supposed to\nbe arranged in musical ratios,[40] so the result of all these separate\nsounds was full and perfect harmony. To the objection--Why were not\nthese sounds heard by us?--they replied, that we had heard them\nconstantly and without intermission from the hour of our birth; hence\nthey had become imperceptible by habit.[41]\n\n[Footnote 40: Playfair observes (in his dissertation on the Progress\nof Natural Philosophy, p. 87) respecting Kepler--\"Kepler was perhaps\nthe first person who conceived that there must be always a law capable\nof being expressed by arithmetic or geometry, which connects such\nphenomena as have a physical dependence on each other\". But this seems\nto be exactly the fundamental conception of the Pythagoreans: or\nrather a part of their fundamental conception, for they also\nconsidered their numbers as active forces bringing such law into\nreality. To illustrate the determination of the Pythagoreans to make\nup the number of Ten celestial bodies, I transcribe another passage\nfrom Playfair (p. 98). Huygens, having discovered one satellite of\nSaturn, \"believed that there were no more, and that the number of the\nplanets was now complete. The planets, primary and secondary, thus\nmade up twelve--the double of six, the first of the perfect numbers.\"]\n\n[Footnote 41: Aristot. De Coelo, ii. 9; Pliny, H.N. ii. 20.\n\nSee the Pythagorean system fully set forth by Zeller, Die Philosophie\nder Griechen, vol. i. p. 302-310, ed. 2nd.]\n\n[Side-note: Pythagorean list of fundamental Contraries--Ten opposing\npairs.]\n\nTen was, in the opinion of the Pythagoreans, the perfection and\nconsummation of number. The numbers from One to Ten were all that they\nrecognised as primary, original, generative. Numbers greater than ten\nwere compounds and derivatives from the decad. They employed this\nperfect number not only as a basis on which to erect a bold\nastronomical hypothesis, but also as a sum total for their list of\ncontraries. Many Hellenic philosophers[42] recognised pairs of\nopposing attributes as pervading nature, and as the fundamental\ncategories to which the actual varieties of the sensible world might\nbe reduced. While others laid down Hot and Cold, Wet and Dry, as the\nfundamental contraries, the Pythagoreans adopted a list of ten pairs.\n1. Limit and Unlimited; 2. Odd and Even; 3. One and Many; 4. Right and\nLeft; 5. Male and Female; 6. Rest and Motion; 7. Straight and Curve;\n8. Light and Darkness; 9. Good and Evil; 10. Square and Oblong.[43] Of\nthese ten pairs, five belong to arithmetic or to geometry, one to\nmechanics, one to physics, and three to anthropology or ethics. Good\nand Evil, Regularity and Irregularity, were recognised as alike\nprimordial and indestructible.[44]\n\n[Footnote 42: Aristot. Metaphys. [Greek: G]. 2, p. 1004, b. 30.\n[Greek: ta\\ d' o)/nta kai\\ t\u00ea\\n ou)sian o(mologou=sin e)x e)nanti/\u00f4n\nschedo\\n a(/pantes sugkei=sthai.]]\n\n[Footnote 43: Aristot. Metaphys. A. 5, p. 986, a. 22. He goes on to\nsay that Alkm\u00e6on, a semi-Pythagorean and a younger contemporary of\nPythagoras himself, while agreeing in the general principle that\n\"human affairs were generally in pairs,\" ([Greek: ei)=nai du/o ta\\\npolla\\ t\u00f4=n a)nthr\u00f4pi/n\u00f4n]), laid down pairs of fundamental contraries\nat random ([Greek: ta\\s e)nantio/t\u00eatas ta\\s tuchou/sas])--black and\nwhite, sweet and bitter, good and evil, great and little. All that you\ncan extract from these philosophers is (continues Aristotle) the\ngeneral axiom, that \"contraries are the principia of existing\nthings\"--[Greek: o(/ti ta)na/ntia a)rchai\\ t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n].\n\nThis axiom is to be noted as occupying a great place in the minds of\nthe Greek philosophers.]\n\n[Footnote 44: Theophrast. Metaphys. 9. Probably the recognition of one\ndominant antithesis--[Greek: To\\ E(/n--\u00ea( a)o/ristos Dua\\s]--is the\nform given by Plato to the Pythagorean doctrine. Eudorus (in\nSimplikius ad Aristot. Physic. fol. 39) seems to blend the two\ntogether.]\n\nThe arithmetical and geometrical view of nature, to which such\nexclusive supremacy is here given by the Pythagoreans, is one of the\nmost interesting features of Grecian philosophy. They were the\nearliest cultivators of mathematical science,[45] and are to be\nrecognised as having paved the way for Euclid and Archimedes,\nnotwithstanding the symbolical and mystical fancies with which they\nso largely perverted what are now regarded as the clearest and most\nrigorous processes of the human intellect. The important theorem which\nforms the forty-seventh Proposition of Euclid's first book, is\naffirmed to have been discovered by Pythagoras himself: but how much\nprogress was made by him and his followers in the legitimate province\nof arithmetic and geometry, as well as in the applications of these\nsciences to harmonics,[46] which they seem to have diligently\ncultivated, we have not sufficient information to determine with\ncertainty.\n\n[Footnote 45: Aristot. Metaph. A. 5, p. 985, b. 23. [Greek: oi(\nPuthagorei=oi t\u00f4=n math\u00eama/t\u00f4n a)psa/menoi _pr\u00f4=toi tau=ta\npro\u00ea/gagon_, kai\\ e)ntraphe/ntes e)n au)toi=s ta\\s tou/t\u00f4n a)rcha\\s\nt\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n a)rcha\\s \u00f4)|\u00ea/th\u00easan ei)=nai pa/nt\u00f4n.]]\n\n[Footnote 46: Concerning the Pythagorean doctrines on Harmonics, see\nBoeckh's Philolaus, p. 60-84, with his copious and learned comments.]\n\n[Side-note: Eleatic philosophy--Xenophanes.]\n\nContemporary with Pythagoras, and like him an emigrant from Ionia to\nItaly, was Xenophanes of Kolophon. He settled at the Phok\u00e6an colony of\nElea, on the Gulf of Poseidonia; his life was very long, but his\nperiod of eminence appears to belong (as far as we can make out amidst\nconflicting testimony) to the last thirty years of the sixth century\nB.C. (530-500 B.C.). He was thus contemporary with Anaximander and\nAnaximenes, as well as with Pythagoras, the last of whom he may have\npersonally known.[47] He composed, and recited in person, poems--epic,\nelegiac, and iambic--of which a very few fragments remain.\n\n[Footnote 47: Karsten. Xenophanis Fragm., s. 4, p. 9, 10.]\n\n[Side-note: His censures upon the received Theogony and religious\nrites.]\n\nXenophanes takes his point of departure, not from Thales or\nAnaximander, but from the same ancient theogonies which they had\nforsaken. But he follows a very different road. The most prominent\nfeature in his poems (so far as they remain), is the directness and\nasperity with which he attacks the received opinions respecting the\nGods--and the poets Hesiod and Homer, the popular exponents of those\nopinions. Xenophanes not only condemns these poets for having ascribed\nto the Gods discreditable exploits, but even calls in question the\nexistence of the Gods, and ridicules the anthropomorphic conception\nwhich pervaded the Hellenic faith. \"If horses or lions could paint,\nthey would delineate their Gods in form like themselves. The\nEthiopians conceive their Gods as black, the Thracians conceive theirs\nas fair and with reddish hair.\"[48] Dissatisfied with much of the\ncustomary worship and festivals, Xenophanes repudiated divination**\naltogether, and condemned the extravagant respect shown to victors in\nOlympic contests,[49] not less than the lugubrious ceremonies in\nhonour of Leukothea. He discountenanced all Theogony, or assertion of\nthe birth of Gods, as impious, and as inconsistent with the prominent\nattribute of immortality ascribed to them.[50] He maintained that\nthere was but one God, identical with, or a personification of, the\nwhole Uranus. \"The whole Kosmos, or the whole God, sees, hears, and\nthinks.\" The divine nature (he said) did not admit of the conception\nof separate persons one governing the other, or of want and\nimperfection in any way.[51]\n\n[Footnote 48: Xenophanis Fragm. 5-6-7, p. 39 seq. ed. Karsten; Clemens\nAlexandr. Strom. v. p. 601; vii. p. 711.]\n\n[Footnote 49: Xenophan. Fragm. 19, p. 60, ed. Karsten; Cicero,\nDivinat. i. 3, 5.]\n\n[Footnote 50: Xenophanis Fragment. 34-35, p. 85, ed. Karsten;\nAristotel. Rhetoric. ii. 23; Metaphys. A. 5, p. 986, b. 19.]\n\n[Footnote 51: Xenoph. Frag. 1-2, p. 35.\n\n[Greek: Ou)=los o(ra=|, ou)=los de\\ noei=, ou)=los de t' a)kou/ei.]\n\nPlutarch ap. Eusebium, Pr\u00e6p. Evang. i. 8; Diogen. Laert. ix. 19.]\n\n[Side-note: His doctrine of Pankosmism, or Pantheism--The whole Kosmos\nis Ens Unum or God--[Greek: E(\\n kai\\ Pa=n]. Non-Ens inadmissible.]\n\nThough Xenophanes thus appears (like Pythagoras) mainly as a religious\ndogmatist, yet theogony and cosmogony were so intimately connected in\nthe sixth century B.C., that he at the same time struck out a new\nphilosophical theory. His negation of theogony was tantamount to a\nnegation of cosmogony. In substituting Ens Unum--one God for many, he\nset aside all distinct agencies in the universe, to recognise only one\nagent, single, all-pervading, indivisible. He repudiated all genesis\nof a new reality, all actual existence of parts, succession, change,\nbeginning, end, etc., in reference to the universe, as well as in\nreference to God. \"Wherever I turned my mind (he exclaimed) everything\nresolved itself into One and the same: all things existing came back\nalways and everywhere into one similar and permanent nature.\"[52] The\nfundamental tenet of Xenophanes was partly religious, partly\nphilosophical, Pantheism, or Pankosmism: looking upon the universe as\none real all-comprehensive Ens, which he would not call either finite\nor infinite, either in motion or at rest.[53] Non-Ens he pronounced to\nbe an absurdity--an inadmissible and unmeaning phrase.\n\n[Footnote 52: Timon, fragment of the Silli ap. Sext. Empiric. Hypot.\nPyrrh. i. 33, sect. 224.\n\n[Greek: o)/pp\u00ea ga\\r e)mo\\n no/on ei)ru/saimi,\nei)s e(\\n tau)to/ te pa=n a)nelu/eto, pa=n de o)\\n ai)ei\\\npa/nt\u00ea a)nelko/menon mi/an ei)s phu/sin i)/stath' o(moi/an].\n\n[Greek: Ai)ei\\] here appears to be more conveniently construed with\n[Greek: i)/stath'] not (as Karsten construes it, p. 118) with [Greek:\no)/n].\n\nIt is fair to presume that these lines are a reproduction of the\nsentiments of Xenophanes, if not a literal transcript of his words.]\n\n[Footnote 53: Theophrastus ap. Simplikium in Aristotel. Physic. f. 6,\nKarsten, p. 106; Arist. Met. A. 5, p. 986, b. 21: [Greek: Xenopha/n\u00eas\nde\\ pr\u00f4=tos tou/t\u00f4n e(ni/sas, o( ga\\r Parmeni/d\u00eas tou/ton le/getai\nmath\u00eat\u00ea/s,--eis to\\n o(/lon ou)/ranon a)poble/psas to\\ e(\\n ei)=nai/\nph\u00easi to\\n theo/n.]]\n\n[Side-note: Scepticism of Xenophanes--complaint of philosophy as\nunsatisfactory.]\n\nIt was thus from Xenophanes that the doctrine of Pankosmism obtained\nintroduction into Greek philosophy, recognising nothing real except\nthe universe as an indivisible and unchangeable whole. Such a creed\nwas altogether at variance with common perception, which apprehends\nthe universe as a plurality of substances, distinguishable, divisible,\nchangeable, &c. And Xenophanes could not represent his One and All,\nwhich excluded all change, to be the substratum out of which\nphenomenal variety was generated--as Water, Air, the Infinite, had\nbeen represented by the Ionic philosophers. The sense of this\ncontradiction, without knowing how to resolve it, appears to have\noccasioned the mournful complaints of irremediable doubt and\nuncertainty, preserved as fragments from his poems. \"No man (he\nexclaims) knows clearly about the Gods or the universe: even if he\nspeak what is perfectly true, he himself does not know it to be true:\nall is matter of opinion.\"[54]\n\n[Footnote 54: Xenophan. Fragm. 14, p. 51, ed. Karsten.\n\n[Greek: kai\\ to\\ me\\n ou)=n saphe\\s ou)/tis a)n\u00ea\\r ge/net' ou)/de tis\ne)/stai\nei)d\u00f4\\s, a)mphi\\ the\u00f4=n te kai\\ a)/ssa le/g\u00f4 peri\\ pa/nt\u00f4n;\nei) ga\\r kai\\ ta\\ ma/lista tu/choi tetelesme/non ei)p\u00f4\\n,\nau)to\\s o(m\u00f4=s ou)k oi)=de; do/kos d' e)pi\\ pa=si te/tuktai].\n\nCompare the extract from the Silli of Timon in Sextus\nEmpiricus--Pyrrhon. Hypot. i. 224; and the same author, adv.\nMathemat. vii. 48-52.]\n\nNevertheless while denying all real variety or division in the\nuniverse, Xenophanes did not deny the variety of human perceptions and\nbeliefs. But he allowed them as facts belonging to man, not to the\nuniverse--as subjective or relative, not as objective or absolute. He\neven promulgated opinions of his own respecting many of the physical\nand cosmological subjects treated by the Ionic philosophers.\n\n[Side-note: His conjectures on physics and astronomy.]\n\nWithout attempting to define the figure of the Earth, he considered it\nto be of vast extent and of infinite depth;[55] including, in its\ninterior cavities, prodigious reservoirs both of fire and water. He\nthought that it had at one time been covered with water, in proof of\nwhich he noticed the numerous shells found inland and on mountain\ntops, together with the prints of various fish which he had observed\nin the quarries of Syracuse, in the island of Paros, and elsewhere.\nFrom these facts he inferred that the earth had once been covered with\nwater, and even that it would again be so covered at some future time,\nto the destruction of animal and human life.[56] He supposed that the\nsun, moon, and stars were condensations of vapours exhaled from the\nEarth, collected into clouds, and alternately inflamed and\nextinguished.[57]\n\n[Footnote 55: Aristot. De Coelo, ii. 13.]\n\n[Footnote 56: Xenophan. Fragm. p. 178, ed. Karsten; Achilles Tatius,\n[Greek: Ei)sag\u00f4g\u00ea\\] in Arat. Ph\u00e6nom. p. 128, [Greek: ta\\ ka/t\u00f4 d' e)s\na)/peiron i(ka/nei].\n\nThis inference from the shells and prints of fishes is very remarkable\nfor so early a period. Compare Herodotus (ii. 12) who notices the\nfact, and draws the same inference, as to Lower Egypt; also Plutarch,\nDe Isid. et Osirid. c. 40, p. 367; and Strabo, i. p. 49-50, from whom\nwe learn that the Lydian historian Xanthus had made the like\nobservation, and also the like inference, for himself. Straton of\nLampsakus, Eratosthenes, and Strabo himself, approved what Xanthus\nsaid.]\n\n[Footnote 57: Xenophanes Frag. p. 161 seq., ed. Karsten. Compare\nLucretius, v. 458.\n\n  \"per rara foramina, terr\u00e6\nPartibus erumpens primus se sustulit \u00e6ther\nIgnifer et multos secum levis abstulit ignis . . . .\nSic igitur tum se levis ac diffusilis \u00e6ther\nCorpore concreto circumdatus undique flexit: . . . .\nHunc exordia sunt solis lun\u00e6que secuta.\"]\n\n[Side-note: Parmenides continues the doctrine of Xenophanes--Ens\nParmenideum, self-existent, eternal, unchangeable, extended,--Non-Ens,\nan unmeaning phrase.]\n\nParmenides, of Elea, followed up and gave celebrity to the Xenophanean\nhypothesis in a poem, of which the striking exordium is yet preserved.\nThe two veins of thought, which Xenophanes had recognised and lamented\nhis inability to reconcile, were proclaimed by Parmenides as a sort of\ninherent contradiction in the human mind--Reason or Cogitation\ndeclaring one way, Sense (together with the remembrances and\ncomparisons of sense) suggesting a faith altogether opposite. Dropping\nthat controversy with the popular religion which had been raised by\nXenophanes, Parmenides spoke of many different Gods or Goddesses, and\ninsisted on the universe as one, without regarding it as one God. He\ndistinguished Truth from matter of Opinion.[58] Truth was knowable\nonly by pure mental contemplation or cogitation, the object of which\nwas Ens or Being, the Real or Absolute: here the Cogitans and the\nCogitatum were identical, one and the same.[59] Parmenides conceived\nEns not simply as existent, but as self-existent, without beginning or\nend,[60] as extended, continuous, indivisible, and unchangeable. The\nEns Parmenideum comprised the two notions of Extension and\nDuration:[61] it was something Enduring and Extended; Extension\nincluding both space, and matter so far forth as filling space.\nNeither the contrary of Ens (Non-Ens), nor anything intermediate\nbetween Ens and Non-Ens, could be conceived, or named, or reasoned\nabout. Ens comprehended all that was Real, without beginning or end,\nwithout parts or difference, without motion or change, perfect and\nuniform like a well-turned sphere.[62]\n\n[Footnote 58: Parmenid. Fr. v. 29.]\n\n[Footnote 59: Parm. Frag. v. 40, 52-56.\n\n    [Greek: to\\ ga\\r au)to\\ noei=n e)sti/n te kai\\ ei)=nai.\nA)lla\\ su\\ t\u00ea=s d' a)ph' o(dou= diz\u00ea/sios ei)=rge no/\u00eama,\nm\u00eade/ s' e)/thos polu/peiron o(do\\n kata\\ t\u00ea/nde bia/sth\u00f4,\nn\u00f4ma=|n a)/skopon o)/mma kai\\ \u00ea)ch\u00ea/essan a)kou\u00ea\\n\nkai\\ gl\u00f4=ssan; kri=nai de\\ lo/g\u00f4| polu/d\u00eanin e)/legchon\ne)x e)me/then rh\u00eathe/nta.]]\n\n[Footnote 60: Parm. Frag. v. 81.\n\n[Greek: au)ta\\r a)ki/n\u00eaton mega/l\u00f4n e)n pei/rasi desm\u00f4=n\ne)sti\\n, a)/narchon, a)/pauston], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 61: Zeller (Die Philosophie der Griech., i. p. 403, ed. 2)\nmaintains, in my opinion justly, that the Ens Parmenideum is conceived\nby its author as extended. Str\u00fcmpell (Geschichte der theor. Phil. der\nGriech., s. 44) represents it as unextended: but this view seems not\nreconcilable with the remaining fragments.]\n\n[Footnote 62: Parm. Frag. v. 102.]\n\n[Side-note: He recognises a region of opinion, phenomenal and\nrelative, apart from Ens.]\n\nIn this subject Ens, with its few predicates, chiefly negative,\nconsisted all that Parmenides called Truth. Everything else belonged\nto the region of Opinion, which embraced all that was phenomenal,\nrelative, and transient: all that involved a reference to man's\nsenses, apprehension, and appreciation, all the indefinite diversity\nof observed facts and inferences. Plurality, succession, change,\nmotion, generation, destruction, division of parts, &c., belonged to\nthis category. Parmenides did not deny that he and other men had\nperceptions and beliefs corresponding to these terms, but he denied\ntheir application to the Ens or the self-existent. We are conscious of\nsuccession, but the self-existent has no succession: we perceive\nchange of colour and other sensible qualities, and change of place or\nmotion, but Ens neither changes nor moves. We talk of things generated\nor destroyed--things coming into being or going out of being--but this\nphrase can have no application to the self-existent Ens, which _is_\nalways and cannot properly be called either past or future.[63]\nNothing is really generated or destroyed, but only in appearance to\nus, or relatively to our apprehension.[64] In like manner we perceive\nplurality of objects, and divide objects into parts. But Ens is\nessentially One, and cannot be divided.[65] Though you may divide a\npiece of matter you cannot divide the extension of which that matter\nforms part: you cannot (to use the expression of Hobbes[66]) pull\nasunder the first mile from the second, or the first hour from the\nsecond. The milestone, or the striking of the clock, serve as marks to\nassist you in making a mental division, and in considering or\ndescribing one hour and one mile apart from the next. This, however,\nis your own act, relative to yourself: there is no real division of\nextension into miles, or of duration into hours. You may consider the\nsame space or time as one or as many, according to your convenience:\nas one hour or as sixty minutes, as one mile or eight furlongs. But\nall this is a process of your own mind and thoughts; another man may\ndivide the same total in a way different from you. Your division noway\nmodifies the reality without you, whatever that may be--the Extended\nand Enduring Ens--which remains still a continuous one, undivided and\nunchanged.\n\n[Footnote 63: Parm. Frag. v. 96.\n\n[Greek: ----e)pei\\ to/ ge moi=r' e)pe/d\u00easen\nOi)=on a)ki/n\u00eaton tele/thein t\u00f4=| pa/nt' o)/nom' _ei)=nai_,\nO)/ssa brotoi\\ kate/thento, pepoitho/tes ei)=nai a)l\u00eath\u00ea=,\ngi/gnesthai/ te kai\\ o)/llusthai, ei)=nai/ te kai\\ ou)ki\\,\nkai\\ to/pon a)lla/ssein, dia/ te chro/a phano\\n a)mei/bein;\n\nv. 75:--\n\nei)/ ge ge/noit', ou)k e)/st'; ou)d' ei)/ po/te me/llei e)/sesthai;\nt\u00f4=s ge/nesis me\\n a)pe/sbestai, kai\\ a)/pistos o)/lethros.]]\n\n[Footnote 64: Aristotel. De Coelo, iii. 1. [Greek: Oi( me\\n ga\\r\nau)t\u00f4=n o(/l\u00f4s a)nei=lon ge/nesin kai\\ phthora/n; ou)the\\n ga\\r ou)/te\ngi/gnesthai/ phasin ou)/te phthei/resthai t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n, _a)lla\\ mo/non\ndokei=n \u00ea(mi=n_; oi)=on oi( peri\\ Me/lisson kai\\ Parmeni/d\u00ean], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 65: Parm. Frag. v. 77.\n\n[Greek: Ou)de\\ diai/reto/n e)stin, e)pei\\ pa=n e)sti\\n o(/moion,\nou)de/ ti t\u00ea=| ma=llon to/ ken ei)/rgoi min xune/chesthai,\nou)de/ ti cheiro/teron; pa=n de\\ ple/on e)sti\\n e)o/ntos;\nt\u00f4=| xuneche\\s pa=n e)sti/n; e)o\\n ga\\r e)o/nti pela/zei].\n\nAristotel. Metaphys. A. 5, p. 986, b. 29, with the Scholia, and\nPhysic. i. 2, 3. Simplikius Comm. in Physic. Aristot. (apud Tennemann\nGeschichte der Philos. b. i. s. 4, vol. i. p. 170) [Greek: pa/nta ga/r\nph\u00easi (Parmeni/d\u00eas) ta\\ o)/nta, katho\\ o)/nta, e(n e)sti/n]. This\nchapter, in which Tennemann gives an account of the Eleatic\nphilosophy, appears to me one of the best and most instructive in his\nwork.]\n\n[Footnote 66: \"To make parts,--or to part or divide, Space or Time,--is\nnothing else but to consider one and another within the same: so\nthat if any man divide space or time, the diverse conceptions he has\nare more, by one, than the parts which he makes. For his first\nconception is of that which is to be divided--then, of some part of\nit--and again of some other part of it: and so forwards, as long as he\ngoes in dividing. But it is to be noted, that here, by _division_, I\ndo not mean the severing or pulling asunder of one space or time from\nanother (for does any man think that one hemisphere may be separated\nfrom the other hemisphere, or the first hour from the second?), but\n_diversity of consideration_: so that division is not made by the\noperation of the hands, but of the mind.\"--Hobbes, First Grounds of\nPhilosophy, chap. vii. 5, vol. i. p. 96, ed. Molesworth.\n\n\"Expansion and duration have this farther agreement, that though they\nare both considered by us as having parts, yet their parts are not\nseparable one from another, not even in thought; though the parts of\nbodies from which we take our measure of the one--and the parts of\nmotion, from which we may take the measure of the other--may be\ninterrupted or separated.\"--Locke, Essay on the Human Understanding,\nbook ii. ch. 15. s. 11.\n\nIn the Platonic Parmenides, p. 156 D., we find the remarkable\nconception of what he calls [Greek: to\\ e)xai/phn\u00eas, a)/topo/s tis\nphu/sis]--a break in the continuity of duration, an extra-temporal\nmoment.]\n\n[Side-note: Parmenidean ontology stands completely apart from\nphenomenology.]\n\nThe Ens of Parmenides thus coincided mainly with that which (since\nKant) has been called the Noumenon--the Thing in itself--the Absolute;\nor rather with that which, by a frequent illusion, passes for the\nabsolute--no notice being taken of the cogitant and believing apart\nfrom mind, as if cogitation and belief, _cogitata_ and _credita_,\nwould be had without it. By Ens was understood the remnant in his\nmind, after leaving out all that abstraction, as far as it had then\nbeen carried, could leave out. It was the minimum indispensable to the\ncontinuance of thought; you cannot think (Parmenides says) without\nthinking of Something, and that Something Extended and Enduring.\nThough he and others talk of this Something as an Absolute (_i.e._\napart from or independent of his own thinking mind), yet he also uses\nsome juster language ([Greek: to\\ ga\\r au)to\\ noei=n e)/stin te kai\\\nei)=nai]), showing that it is really relative: that if the Cogitans\nimplies a Cogitatum, the Cogitatum also implies no less its\ncorrelative Cogitans: and that though we may divide the two in words,\nwe cannot divide them in fact. It is to be remarked that Parmenides\ndistinguishes the Enduring or Continuous from the Transient or\nSuccessive, Duration from Succession (both of which are included in\nthe meaning of the word Time), and that he considers Duration alone as\nbelonging to Ens or the Absolute--to the region of Truth--setting it\nin opposition or antithesis to Succession, which he treats as relative\nand phenomenal. We have thus (with the Eleates) the first appearance\nof Ontology, the science of Being or Ens, in Grecian philosophy. Ens\nis everything, and everything is Ens. In the view of Parmenides,\nOntology is not merely narrow, but incapable of enlargement or\napplication; we shall find Plato and others trying to expand it into\nnumerous imposing generalities.[67]\n\n[Footnote 67: Leibnitz says, R\u00e9ponse \u00e0 M. Foucher, p. 117, ed.\nErdmann, \"Comment seroit il possible qu'aucune chose exist\u00e2t, si\nl'\u00eatre m\u00eame, ipsum Esse, n'avoit l'existence? Mais bien au contraire\nne pourrait on pas dire avec beaucoup plus de raison, qu'il n'y a que\nlui qui existe v\u00e9ritablement, les \u00eatres particuliers n'ayant rien de\npermanent? Semper generantur, et nunquam sunt.\"]\n\n[Side-note: Parmenidean phenomenology--relative and variable.]\n\nApart from Ontology, Parmenides reckons all as belonging to human\nopinions. These were derived from the observations of sense (which he\nespecially excludes from Ontology) with the comparisons, inferences,\nhypothesis, &c., founded thereupon: the phenomena of Nature\ngenerally.[68] He does not attempt (as Plato and Aristotle do after\nhim) to make Ontology serve as a principle or beginning for anything\nbeyond itself,[69] or as a premiss from which the knowledge of nature\nis to be deduced. He treats the two--Ontology and Phenomenology, to\nemploy an Hegelian word--as radically disparate, and incapable of any\nlegitimate union. Ens was essentially one and enduring: Nature was\nessentially multiform, successive, ever changing and moving relative\nto the observer, and different to observers at different times and\nplaces. Parmenides approached the study of Nature from its own\nstarting point, the same as had been adopted by the Ionic\nphilosophers--the data of sense, or certain agencies selected among\nthem, and vaguely applied to explain the rest. Here he felt that he\nrelinquished the full conviction, inseparable from his intellectual\nconsciousness, with which he announced his few absolute truths\nrespecting Ens and Non-Ens, and that he entered upon a process of\nmingled observation and conjecture, where there was great room for\ndiversity of views between man and man.\n\n[Footnote 68: Karsten observes that the Parmenidean region of opinion\ncomprised not merely the data of sense, but also the comparisons,\ngeneralisations, and notions, derived from sense.\n\n\"[Greek: Doxasto\\n] et [Greek: no\u00eato\\n] vocantur duo genera inter se\ndiversa, quorum alterum complectitur res externas et fluxas,\n_notionesque qu\u00e6 ex his ducuntur_--alterum res \u00e6ternas et \u00e0 conspectu\nremotas,\" &c. (Parm. Fragm. p. 148-149).]\n\n[Footnote 69: Marbach (Lehrbuch der Gesch. der Philos., s. 71, not. 3)\nafter pointing out the rude philosophical expression of the\nParmenidean verses, has some just remarks upon the double aspect of\nphilosophy as there proclaimed, and upon the recognition by Parmenides\nof that which he calls the \"illegitimate\" vein of enquiry along with\nthe \"legitimate.\"\n\n\"Learn from me (says Parmenides) the opinions of mortals, brought to\nyour ears in the deceitful arrangement of my words. This is not\nphilosophy (Marbach says): it is Physics. We recognise in modern times\ntwo perfectly distinct ways of contemplating Nature: the philosophical\nand the physical. Of these two, the second dwells in plurality, the\nfirst in unity: the first teaches everything as infallible truth, the\nsecond as multiplicity of different opinions. We ought not to ask why\nParmenides, while recognising the fallibility of this second road of\nenquiry, nevertheless undertook to march in it,--any more than we can\nask, Why does not modern philosophy render physics superfluous?\"\n\nThe observation of Marbach is just and important, that the line of\nresearch which Parmenides treated as illegitimate and deceitful, but\nwhich he nevertheless entered upon, is the analogon of modern Physics.\nParmenides (he says) indicated most truly the contrast and divergence\nbetween Ontology and Physics; but he ought to have gone farther, and\nshown how they could be reconciled and brought into harmony. This\n(Marbach affirms) was not even attempted, much less achieved, by\nParmenides: but it was afterwards attempted by Plato, and achieved by\nAristotle.\n\nMarbach is right in saying that the reconciliation was attempted by\nPlato; but he is not right (I think) in saying that it was achieved by\nAristotle--nor by any one since Aristotle. It is the merit of\nParmenides to have brought out the two points of view as radically\ndistinct, and to have seen that the phenomenal world, if explained at\nall, must be explained upon general principles of its own, raised out\nof its own data of facts--not by means of an illusory Absolute and\nReal. The subsequent philosophers, in so far as they hid and slurred\nover this distinction, appear to me to have receded rather than\nadvanced.]\n\n[Side-note: Parmenides recognises no truth, but more or less\nprobability, in phenomenal explanations.--His physical and\nastronomical conjectures.]\n\nYet though thus passing from Truth to Opinions, from full certainty to\ncomparative and irremediable uncertainty,[70] Parmenides does not\nconsider all opinions as equally true or equally untrue. He announces\nan opinion of his own--what he thinks most probable or least\nimprobable--respecting the structure and constitution of the Kosmos,\nand he announces it without the least reference to his own doctrines\nabout Ens. He promises information respecting Earth, Water, Air, and\nthe heavenly bodies, and how they work, and how they came to be what\nthey are.[71] He recognises two elementary principles or beginnings,\none contrary to the other, but both of them positive--Light,\ncomprehending the Hot, the Light, and the Rare--Darkness,\ncomprehending the Cold, the Heavy, and the Dense.[72] These two\nelements, each endued with active and vital properties, were brought\ninto junction and commixture by the influence of a Dea Genitalis\nanalogous to Aphrodit\u00ea,[73] with her first-born son Eros, a personage\nborrowed from the Hesiodic Theogony. From hence sprang the other\nactive forces of nature, personified under various names, and the\nvarious concentric circles or spheres of the Kosmos. Of those spheres,\nthe outer-most was a solid wall of fire--\"flammantia moenia\nmundi\"--next under this the \u00c6ther, distributed into several circles of\nfire unequally bright and pure--then the circle called the Milky Way,\nwhich he regarded as composed of light or fire combined with denser\nmaterials--then the Sun and Moon, which were condensations of fire\nfrom the Milky Way--lastly, the Earth, which he placed in the centre\nof the Kosmos.[74] He is said to have been the first who pronounced\nthe earth to be spherical, and even distributed it into two or five\nzones.[75] He regarded it as immovable, in consequence of its exact\nposition in the centre. He considered the stars to be fed by\nexhalation from the Earth. Midway between the Earth and the outer\nflaming circle, he supposed that there dwelt a Goddess--Justice or\nNecessity--who regulated all the movements of the Kosmos, and\nmaintained harmony between its different parts. He represented the\nhuman race as having been brought into existence by the power of the\nsun,[76] and he seems to have gone into some detail respecting animal\nprocreation, especially in reference to the birth of male and female\noffspring. He supposed that the human mind, as well as the human body,\nwas compounded of a mixture of the two elemental influences, diffused\nthroughout all Nature: that like was perceived and known by like: that\nthought and sensation were alike dependent upon the body, and upon the\nproportions of its elemental composition: that a certain limited\nknowledge was possessed by every object in Nature, animate or\ninanimate.[77]\n\n[Footnote 70: Parmen. Fr. v. 109.\n\n[Greek: e)n t\u00f4=| soi\\ pau/\u00f4 pisto\\n lo/gon \u00ea)de\\ no/\u00eama\na)mphi\\s a)l\u00eathei/\u00eas; do/xas d' a)po\\ tou=de brotei/as\nma/nthane, ko/smon e)m\u00f4=n e)pe/\u00f4n a)pat\u00ealo\\n a)kou/\u00f4n.]]\n\n[Footnote 71: Parm. Frag. v. 132-142.]\n\n[Footnote 72: Aristotle (Metaphys. A. 5, p. 987, a. 1) represents\nParmenides as assimilating one of his phenomenal principles (Heat) to\nEns, and the other (Cold) to Non-Ens. There is nothing in the\nfragments of Parmenides to justify this supposed analogy. Heat as well\nas Cold belongs to Non-Ens, not to Ens, in the Parmenidean doctrine.\nMoreover Cold or Dense is just as much a positive principle as Hot or\nRare, in the view of Parmenides; it is the female to the male (Parm.\nFragm. v. 129; comp. Karsten, p. 270). Aristotle conceives Ontology as\na substratum for Phenomenology; and his criticisms on Parmenides imply\n(erroneously in my judgment) that Parmenides did the same. The remarks\nwhich Brucker makes both on Aristotle's criticism and on the Eleatic\ndoctrine are in the main just, though the language is not very\nsuitable.\n\nBrucker, Hist. Philosoph., part ii. lib. ii. ch. xi. tom. 1, p.\n1152-3, about Xenophanes:--\"Ex iis enim qu\u00e6 apud Aristotelem ex ejus\nmente contra motum disputantur, patet Xenophanem mot\u00fbs notionem aliam\nquam qu\u00e6 in physicis obtinet, sibi concepisse; et ad verum motum\nprogressum a nonente ad ens ejusque existentiam requisivisse. Quo sensu\nnotionis hujus semel admisso, sequebatur (cum illud impossibile sit, ut\nex nihilo fiat aliquid) universum esse immobile, adeoque et partes ejus\nnon ita moveri, ut ex statu nihili procederent ad statum existenti\u00e6.\nQuibus admissis, de rerum tamen mutationibus disserere poterat, quas\nnon alterationes, generationes, et extinctiones, rerum naturalium, sed\nmodificationes, esse putabat: hoc nomine indignas, eo quod rerum\nuniversi natura semper maneret immutabilis, soliusque materi\u00e6 \u00e6ternum\nfluentis particul\u00e6 varie inter se modificarentur. H\u00e2c ratione si\nEleaticos priores explicemus de motu disserentes, rationem facile\ndabimus, qu\u00ee de rebus physicis disserere et phenomena naturalia\nexplicare, salv\u00e2 ist\u00e2 hypothesi, potuerint. Quod tamen de iis negat\nAristoteles, _conceptum mot\u00fbs metaphysicum ad physicum transferens_:\nut, more suo, Eleatico systemate corrupto, e\u00f2 vehementius illud\npremeret.\"]\n\n[Footnote 73: Parmenides, ap. Simplik. ad Aristot. Physic. fol. 9 a.\n\n[Greek: e)n de\\ me/s\u00f4| tou/t\u00f4n Daim\u00f4n, \u00ea(\\ pa/nta kuberna=|], &c.\n\nPlutarch, Amator, 13.]\n\n[Footnote 74: See especially the remarkable passage from Stob\u00e6us,\nEclog. Phys. i. 23, p. 482, cited in Karsten, Frag. Parm. p. 241, and\nCicero, De Natur. Deor, i. 11, s. 28, with the Commentary of Krische,\nForschungen auf dem Gebiete der alten Philosophie, viii. p. 98, seqq.\n\nIt is impossible to make out with any clearness the Kosmos and its\ngeneration as conceived by Parmenides. We cannot attain more than a\ngeneral approximation to it.]\n\n[Footnote 75: Diogen. Laert. ix. 21, viii. 48; Strabo, ii. p. 93 (on\nthe authority of Poseidonius). Plutarch (Placit. Philos. iii. 11) and\nothers ascribe to Parmenides the recognition not of five zones, but\nonly of two. If it be true that Parmenides held this opinion about the\nfigure of the earth, the fact is honourable to his acuteness; for\nLeukippus, Anaxagoras, Archelaus, Diogenes the Apolloniate, and\nDemokritus, all thought the earth to be a flat, round surface, like a\ndish or a drum: Plato speaks about it in so confused a manner that his\nopinion cannot be made out: and Aristotle was the first who both\naffirmed and proved it to be spherical. The opinion had been\npropounded by some philosophers earlier than Anaxagoras, who\ncontroverted it. See the dissertation of L. Oettinger. Die\nVorstellungen der Griechen \u00fcber die Erde als Himmelsk\u00f6rper, Freiburg,\n1850, p. 42-46.]\n\n[Footnote 76: Diogen. Laert. ix. 22.]\n\n[Footnote 77: Parmen. Frag. v. 145; Theophrastus, De Sensu, Karsten.\npp. 268, 270.\n\nParmenides (according to Theophrastus) thought that the dead body,\nhaving lost its fiery element, had no perception of light, or heat, or\nsound; but that it had perception of darkness, cold, and\nsilence--[Greek: kai\\ o(/l\u00f4s de\\ pa=n to\\ o)\\n e)/chein tina gn\u00f4=sin].]\n\nBefore we pass from Parmenides to his pupil and successor Zeno, who\ndeveloped the negative and dialectic side of the Eleatic doctrine, it\nwill be convenient to notice various other theories of the same\ncentury: first among them that of Herakleitus, who forms as it were\nthe contrast and antithesis to Xenophanes and Parmenides.\n\n[Side-note: Herakleitus--his obscure style, impressive metaphors,\nconfident and contemptuous dogmatism.]\n\nHerakleitus of Ephesus, known throughout antiquity by the denomination\nof the Obscure, comes certainly after Pythagoras and Xenophanes and\napparently before Parmenides. Of the two first he made special\nmention, in one of the sentences, alike brief and contemptuous which\nhave been preserved from his lost treatise:--\"Much learning does not\nteach reason: otherwise it would have taught Hesiod and Pythagoras,\nXenophanes and Hekat\u00e6us.\" In another passage Herakleitus spoke of the\n\"extensive knowledge, cleverness, and wicked arts\" of Pythagoras. He\ndeclared that Homer as well as Archilochus deserved to be scourged and\nexpelled from the public festivals.[78] His thoughts were all embodied\nin one single treatise, which he is said to have deposited in the\ntemple of the Ephesian Artemis. It was composed in a style most\nperplexing and difficult to understand, full of metaphor, symbolical\nillustration, and antithesis: but this very circumstance imparted to\nit an air of poetical impressiveness and oracular profundity.[79] It\nexercised a powerful influence on the speculative minds of Greece,\nboth in the Platonic age, and subsequently: the Stoics especially both\ncommented on it largely (though with many dissentient opinions among\nthe commentators), and borrowed with partial modifications much of its\ndoctrine.[80]\n\n[Footnote 78: Diogen. L. ix. 1. [Greek: Polumathi/\u00ea no/on ou)\ndida/skei; \u00ca(si/odon ga\\r a)\\n e)di/daxe kai\\ Puthago/r\u00ean, au)=tis te\nXenopha/nea kai\\ E(katai=on], &c. Ib. viii. 1, 6. [Greek: Puthago/r\u00eas\nMn\u00easa/rchou i(stori/\u00ean \u00ea)/sk\u00easen a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n ma/lista pa/nt\u00f4n, kai\\\ne)klexa/menos tau/tas ta\\s suggrapha\\s e)poi/\u00easen e(\u00f4u+tou= sophi/\u00ean,\npolumathi/\u00ean, kakotechni/\u00ean.]]\n\n[Footnote 79: Diogen. Laert. ix. 1-6. Theophrastus conceived that\nHerakleitus had left the work unfinished, from eccentricity of\ntemperament ([Greek: u(po\\ melagcholi/as]). Of him, as of various\nothers, it was imagined by some that his obscurity was intentional\n(Cicero, Nat. Deor. i. 26, 74, De Finib. 2, 5). The words of Lucretius\nabout Herakleitus are remarkable (i. 641):--\n\nClarus ob obscuram linguam magis inter inanes\nQuamde graves inter Gr\u00e6cos qui vera requirunt:\nOmnia enim stolidi magis admirantur amantque\nInversis qu\u00e6 sub verbis latitantia cernunt.\n\nEven Aristotle complains of the difficulty of understanding\nHerakleitus, and even of determining the proper punctuation (Rhetoric.\niii. 5).]\n\n[Footnote 80: Cicero, Nat. Deor., iii. 14, 35.]\n\n[Side-note: Doctrine of Herakleitus--perpetual process of generation\nand destruction--everything flows, nothing stands--transition of the\nelements into each other, backwards and forwards.]\n\nThe expositors followed by Lucretius and Cicero conceived Herakleitus\nas having proclaimed Fire to be the universal and all-pervading\nelement of nature;[81] as Thales had recognised water, and Anaximenes\nair. This interpretation was countenanced by some striking passages of\nHerakleitus: but when we put together all that remains from him, it\nappears that his main doctrine was not physical, but metaphysical or\nontological: that the want of adequate general terms induced him to\nclothe it in a multitude of symbolical illustrations, among which fire\nwas only one, though the most prominent and most significant.[82]\nXenophanes and the Eleates had recognised, as the only objective\nreality, One extended Substance or absolute Ens, perpetual, infinite,\nindeterminate, incapable of change or modification. They denied the\nobjective reality of motion, change, generation, and\ndestruction--considering all these to be purely relative and phenomenal.\nHerakleitus on the contrary denied everything in the nature of a\npermanent and perpetual substratum: he laid down nothing as permanent\nand perpetual except the process of change--the alternate sequence of\ngeneration and destruction, without beginning or end--generation and\ndestruction being in fact coincident or identical, two sides of the\nsame process, since the generation of one particular state was the\ndestruction of its antecedent contrary. All reality consisted in the\nsuccession and transition, the coming and going, of these finite and\nparticular states: what he conceived as the infinite and universal,\nwas the continuous process of transition from one finite state to the\nnext--the perpetual work of destruction and generation combined, which\nterminated one finite state in order to make room for a new and\ncontrary state.\n\n[Footnote 81: To some it appeared that Herakleitus hardly\ndistinguished Fire from Air. Aristotel. De Anim\u00e2, i. 2; Sext. Empiric.\nadv. Mathemat. vii. 127-129, ix. 360.]\n\n[Footnote 82: Zeller's account of the philosophy of Herakleitus in the\nsecond edition of his Philosophie der Griechen, vol. i. p. 450-496, is\ninstructive. Marbach also is useful (Gesch. der Phil. s. 46-49); and\nhis (Hegelian) exposition of Herakleitus is further developed by\nFerdinand Lassalle (Die Philosophie Herakleitos des Dunklen, published\n1858). This last work is very copious and elaborate, throwing great\nlight upon a subject essentially obscure and difficult.]\n\n[Side-note: Variety of metaphors employed by Herakleitus, signifying\nthe same general doctrine.]\n\nThis endless process of transition, or ever-repeated act of generation\nand destruction in one, was represented by Herakleitus under a variety\nof metaphors and symbols--fire consuming its own fuel--a stream of\nwater always flowing--opposite currents meeting and combating each\nother--the way from above downwards, and the way from below upwards,\none and the same--war, contest, penal destiny or retributive justice,\nthe law or decree of Zeus realising each finite condition of things\nand then destroying its own reality to make place for its contrary and\nsuccessor. Particulars are successively generated and destroyed, none\nof them ever arriving at permanent existence:[83] the universal\nprocess of generation and destruction alone continues. There is no\nEsse, but a perpetual Fieri: a transition from Esse to Non-Esse, from\nNon-Esse to Esse, with an intermediate temporary halt between them: a\nceaseless meeting and confluence of the stream of generation with the\nopposite stream of destruction: a rapid and instant succession, or\nrather coincidence and coalescence, of contraries. Living and dead,\nwaking and sleeping, light and dark, come into one or come round into\neach other: everything twists round into its contrary: everything both\nis and is not.[84]\n\n[Footnote 83: Plato, Kratylus, p. 402, and The\u00e6tet. p. 152, 153.\n\nPlutarch, De [Greek: Ei] apud Delphos, c. 18, p. 392. [Greek: Potam\u00f4=|\nga\\r ou)/k e)stin e)mb\u00ea=nai di\\s t\u00f4=| au)t\u00f4=| kath' \u00ca(ra/kleiton,\nou)de\\ thn\u00eat\u00ea=s ou)si/as di\\s a(/psasthai kata\\ e(/xin; a)ll'\no)xu/t\u00eati kai\\ tachei metabol\u00eas skidn\u00easi kai\\ pa/lin suna/gei,\n_ma=llon de\\ ou)de\\ pa/lin ou)de\\ u(/steron, a)ll' a(/ma suni/statai\nkai\\ a)polei/pei, pro/seisi kai\\ a)/peisi. O(/then ou)d' ei)s to\\\nei)=nai perai/nei to\\ gigno/menon au)t\u00ea=s_, t\u00f4=| m\u00eade/pote l\u00ea/gein\nm\u00ead' i(/stasthai t\u00ea\\n ge/nesin, a)ll' a)po\\ spe/rmatos a)ei\\\nmetaba/llousan--ta\\s pr\u00f4/tas phthei/rousan gene/seis kai\\ \u00ea(liki/as\ntai=s e)pigignome/nais].\n\nClemens Alex. Strom. v. 14, p. 711. [Greek: Ko/smon to\\n au)to\\n\na(pa/nt\u00f4n ou)/te tis the\u00f4=n ou)/t' a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n e)poi/\u00easen; a)ll' \u00ea=n\na)ei\\ kai\\ e)/stai pu=r a)ei/z\u00f4on, a(pto/menon me/tra kai\\\na)posbennu/menon me/tra]. Compare also Eusebius, Pr\u00e6par. Evang. xiv.\n3, 8; Diogen. L. ix. 8.]\n\n[Footnote 84: Plato, Sophist. p. 242 E. [Greek: Diaphero/menon ga\\r\na)ei\\ xumphe/retai].\n\nPlutarch, Consolat. ad Apollonium c. 10, p. 106. [Greek: Po/te ga\\r\ne)n \u00ea(mi=n au)toi=s ou)k e)/stin o( tha/natos? kai\\ \u00ea(=| ph\u00easin\n\u00ca(ra/kleitos, tau)to/ t' e)/ni z\u00f4=n kai\\ tethn\u00eako/s, kai\\ to\\\ne)gr\u00eagoro\\s kai\\ to\\ katheu=don, kai\\ ne/on kai\\ g\u00earaio/n; ta/de ga\\r\nmetapeso/nta e)kei=na e)sti, ka)kei=na pa/lin metapeso/nta tau=ta].\n\nPseudo-Origenes, Refut. H\u00e6r. ix. 10, [Greek: O( theo\\s \u00ea(me/r\u00ea,\neu)phro/n\u00ea--chei/m\u00f4n, the/ros--po/lemos, ei)r\u00ea/n\u00ea--ko/ros, li/mos],\n&c.]\n\n[Side-note: Nothing permanent except the law of process and\nimplication of contraries--the transmutative force. Fixity of\nparticulars is an illusion for most part, so far as it exists, it is a\nsin against the order of Nature.]\n\nThe universal law, destiny, or divine working (according to\nHerakleitus), consists in this incessant process of generation and\ndestruction, this alternation of contraries. To carry out such law\nfully, each of the particular manifestations ought to appear and pass\naway instantaneously--to have no duration of its own, but to be\nsupplanted by its contrary at once. And this happens to a great\ndegree, even in cases where it does not appear to happen: the river\nappears unchanged, though the water which we touched a short time ago\nhas flowed away:[85] we and all around us are in rapid movement,\nthough we appear stationary: the apparent sameness and fixity is thus\na delusion. But Herakleitus does not seem to have thought that his\nabsolute universal force was omnipotent, or accurately carried out in\nrespect to all particulars. Some positive and particular\nmanifestations, when once brought to pass, had a certain measure of\nfixity, maintaining themselves for more or less time before they were\ndestroyed. There was a difference between one particular and another,\nin this respect of comparative durability: one was more durable,\nanother less.[86] But according to the universal law or destiny, each\nparticular ought simply to make its appearance, then to be supplanted\nand re-absorbed; so that the time during which it continued on the\nscene was, as it were, an unjust usurpation, obtained by encroaching\non the equal right of the next comer, and by suspending the negative\nagency of the universal. Hence arises an antithesis or hostility\nbetween the universal law or process on one side, and the persistence\nof particular states on the other. The universal law or process is\ngenerative and destructive, positive and negative, both in one: but\nthe particular realities in which it manifests itself are all\npositive, each succeeding to its antecedent, and each striving to\nmaintain itself against the negativity or destructive interference of\nthe universal process. Each particular reality represented rest and\nfixity: each held ground as long as it could against the pressure of\nthe cosmical force, essentially moving, destroying, and renovating.\nHerakleitus condemns such pretensions of particular states to separate\nstability, inasmuch as it keeps back the legitimate action of the\nuniversal force, in the work of destruction and renovation.\n\n[Footnote 85: Aristot. De Coelo, iii. 1, p. 298, b. 30; Physic. viii.\n3, p. 253, b. 9. [Greek: Phasi/ tines kinei=sthai t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n ou) ta\\\nme\\n ta\\ d' ou)/, a)lla\\ pa/nta kai\\ a)ei\\, a)lla\\ lantha/nein tou=to\nt\u00ea\\n \u00ea(mete/ran ai)/sth\u00easin]--which words doubtless refer to\nHerakleitus. See Preller, Hist. Phil. Gr\u00e6c. Rom. s. 47.]\n\n[Footnote 86: Lassalle, Philosophie des Herakleitos, vol. i. pp. 54,\n55. \"Andrerseits bieten die sinnlichen Existenzen _graduelle_ oder\n_Mass-Unterschiede_ dar, je nachdem in ihnen das Moment des festen\nSeins \u00fcber die Unruhe des Werdens vorwiegt oder nicht; und diese\nGraduation wird also zugleich den Leitfaden zur Classification der\nverschiedenen Existenz-formen bilden.\"]\n\n[Side-note: Illustrations by which Herakleitus symbolized his\nperpetual force, destroying and generating.]\n\nThe theory of Herakleitus thus recognised no permanent substratum, or\nEns, either material or immaterial--no category either of substance or\nquality--but only a ceaseless principle of movement or change,\ngeneration and destruction, position and negation, immediately\nsucceeding, or coinciding with each other.[87] It is this principle or\neverlasting force which he denotes under so many illustrative\nphrases--\"the common ([Greek: to\\ xuno\\n]), the universal, the\nall-comprehensive ([Greek: to\\ perie/chon]), the governing, the divine,\nthe name or reason of Zeus, fire, the current of opposites, strife or\nwar, destiny, justice, equitable measure, Time or the Succeeding,\" &c.\nThe most emphatic way in which this theory could be presented was, as\nembodied, in the coincidence or co-affirmation of contraries. Many of\nthe dicta cited and preserved out of Herakleitus are of this\nparadoxical tenor.[88] Other dicta simply affirm perpetual flow,\nchange, or transition, without express allusion to contraries: which\nlatter, however, though not expressed, must be understood, since\nchange was conceived as a change from one contrary to the other.[89]\nIn the Herakleitean idea, contrary forces come simultaneously into\naction: destruction and generation always take effect together: there\nis no negative without a positive, nor positive without a\nnegative.[90]\n\n[Footnote 87: Aristot. De Coelo, iii. 1, p. 298, b. 30. [Greek: Oi(\nde\\ ta\\ me\\n a)/lla pa/nta gi/nesthai/ te/ phasi kai\\ rhei=n, ei)=nai\nde\\ pagi/\u00f4s ou)de/n, e(\\n de/ ti mo/non u(pome/nein, e)x ou(= tau=ta\npa/nta metasch\u00eamati/zesthai pe/phuken; o(/per e)oi/kasin bou/lesthai\nle/gein a)/lloi te polloi\\ kai\\ \u00ca(ra/kleitos o( E)phe/sios]. See the\nexplanation given of this passage by Lassalle, vol. ii. p. 21, 39, 40,\nfounded on the comment of Simplikius. He explains it as an universal\nlaw or ideal force--die reine Idee des Werdens selbst (p. 24), and\n\"eine unsinnliche Potenz\" (p. 25). Yet, in i. p. 55 of his elaborate\nexposition, he does indeed say, about the theory of Herakleitus, \"Hier\nsind zum erstenmale die sinnlichen Bestimmtheiten zu bloss\nverschiedenen und absolut in einander \u00fcbergehenden Formen eines\nidentischen, ihnen zu Grunde liegenden, _Substrats_ herabgesetzt\".\nBut this last expression appears to me to contradict the whole tenor\nand peculiarity of Lassalle's own explanation of the Herakleitean\ntheory. He insists almost in every page (compare ii. p. 156) that \"das\nAllgemeine\" of Herakleitus is \"reines Werden; reiner, steter,\nerzeugender, Prozess\". This process cannot with any propriety be\ncalled a _substratum_, and Herakleitus admitted no other. In thus\nrejecting any substratum he stood alone. Lassalle has been careful in\nshowing that Fire was not understood by Herakleitus as a substratum\n(as water by Thales), but as a symbol for the universal force or law.\nIn the theory of Herakleitus no substratum was recognised--no [Greek:\nto/de ti] or [Greek: ou)si/a]--in the same way as Aristotle observes\nabout [Greek: to\\ a)/peiron] (Physic. iii. 6, a. 22-31) [Greek: \u00f4(/ste\nto\\ a)/peiron ou) dei= lamba/nein \u00f4(s to/de ti, oi(=on a)/nthr\u00f4pon \u00ea)\\\noi)ki/an, a)ll' \u00f4(s \u00ea( \u00ea(me/ra le/getai kai\\ o( a)g\u00f4\\n, oi(=s to\\\nei)=nai _ou)ch' \u00f4(s ou)si/a tis ge/gonen, a)ll' a)ei\\ e)n gene/sei \u00ea(\\\nphthora=|_, ei) kai\\ peperasme/non, _a)ll' a)ei/ ge e(/teron kai\\\ne(/teron_.]]\n\n[Footnote 88: Aristotle or Pseudo-Aristotle, De Mundo, c. 5, p. 396,\nb. 20. [Greek: Tau)to\\ de\\ tou=to \u00ea)=n kai\\ to\\ para\\ t\u00f4=| skotein\u00f4=|\nlego/menon \u00ca(rakleit\u00f4=|: \"suna/pseias ou)=la kai\\ ou)chi\\ ou)=la,\nsumphero/menon kai\\ diaphero/menon, suna=|don kai\\ dia=|don, kai\\ e)k\npa/nt\u00f4n e(\\n kai\\ e)x e(no\\s pa/nta.\"] Heraclid. Allegor. ap.\nSchleiermacher (Herakleitos, p. 529), [Greek: potamoi=s toi=s au)toi=s\ne)mbai/nome/n te kai\\ ou)k e)mbai/nomen, ei)me/n te kai\\ ou)k\nei)me/n]: Plato, Sophist, p. 242, E., [Greek: diaphero/menon a)ei\\\nxumphe/retai]: Aristotle, Metaphys. iii. 7, p. 1012, b. 24, [Greek:\ne)/oike d' o( me\\n \u00ca(raklei/tou lo/gos, le/g\u00f4n pa/nta ei)=nai kai\\ m\u00ea\\\nei)=nai, a(/panta a)l\u00eath\u00ea= poei=n]: Aristot. Topic. viii. 5, p. 155,\nb., [Greek: oi(=on a)gatho\\n kai\\ kako\\n ei)=nai tau)to\\n, katha/per\n\u00ca(ra/kleito/s ph\u00easin]: also Aristot. Physic. i. 2, p. 185, b. Compare\nthe various Herakleitean phrases cited in Pseudo-Origen. Refut. H\u00e6res.\nFragm. ix. 10; also Krische, Forschungen auf dem Gebiete der alten\nPhilosophie, vol. i. p. 370-468.\n\nBernays and Lassalle (vol. i. p. 81) contend, on reasonable grounds\n(though in opposition to Zeller, p. 495), that the following verses in\nthe Fragments of Parmenides refer to Herakleitus:\n\n[Greek: oi(=s to\\ pe/lein te kai\\ ou)k ei)=nai tau)to\\n neno/mistai\nkou) tau)to\\n, pa/nt\u00f4n de\\ pali/ntropo/s e)sti ke/leuthos].\n\nThe commentary of Alexander Aphrodis. on the Metaphysica says,\n\"Heraclitus ergo cum diceret omnem rem esse et non esse et opposita\nsimul consistere, contradictionem veram simul esse statuebat, et omnia\ndicebat esse vera\" (Lassalle, p. 83).\n\nOne of the metaphors by which Herakleitus illustrated his theory of\nopposite and co-existent forces, was the pulling and pushing of two\nsawyers with the same saw. See Bernays, Heraclitea, part i. p. 16; Bonn,\n1848.]\n\n[Footnote 89: Aristot. Physic. viii. 3, p. 253, b. 30, [Greek: ei)s\ntou)nanti/on ga\\r \u00ea( a)lloi/\u00f4sis]: also iii. 5, p. 205, a. 6, [Greek:\npa/nta ga\\r metaba/llei e)x e)nanti/ou ei)s e)nanti/on, oi(=on e)k\nthermou= ei)s psuchro/n.]]\n\n[Footnote 90: Lassalle, Herakleitos, vol. i. p. 323.]\n\n[Side-note: Water--intermediate between Fire (Air) and Earth.]\n\nSuch was the metaphysical or logical foundation of the philosophy of\nHerakleitus: the idea of an eternal process of change, manifesting\nitself in the perpetual destruction and renovation of particular\nrealities, but having itself no reality apart from these\nparticulars, and existing only in them as an immanent principle or\ncondition. This principle, from the want of appropriate abstract\nterms, he expressed in a variety of symbolical and metaphorical\nphrases, among which Fire stood prominent.[91] But though Fire was\nthus often used to denote the principle or ideal process itself, the\nsame word was also employed to denote that one of the elements which\nformed the most immediate manifestation of the principle. In this\nlatter sense, Fire was the first stage of incipient reality: the\nsecond stage was water, the third earth. This progression, fire,\nwater, earth, was in Herakleitean language \"the road downwards,\" which\nwas the same as \"the road upwards,\" from earth to water and again to\nfire. The death of fire was its transition into water: that of water\nwas its transition partly into earth, partly into flame. As fire was\nthe type of extreme mobility, perpetual generation and destruction--so\nearth was the type of fixed and stationary existence, resisting\nmovement or change as much as possible.[92] Water was intermediate\nbetween the two.\n\n[Footnote 91: See a striking passage cited from Gregory of Nyssa by\nLassalle (vol. i. p. 287), illustrating this characteristic of fire;\nthe flame of a lamp appears to continue the same, but it is only a\nsuccession of flaming particles, each of which takes fire and is\nextinguished in the same instant: [Greek: \u00f4(/sper to\\ e)pi\\ t\u00ea=s\nthrualli/dos pu=r t\u00f4=| me\\n dokei=n a)ei\\ to\\ au)to\\ phai/netai--to\\\nga\\r suneche\\s a)ei\\ t\u00ea=s kin\u00ea/se\u00f4s a)dia/spaston au)to\\ kai\\\n\u00ea(n\u00f4me/non pro\\s e(auto\\ dei/knusi--t\u00ea=| de\\ a)l\u00eathei/a| pa/ntote\nau)to\\ e(auto\\ diadecho/menon, ou)de/pote to\\ au)to\\ me/nei--\u00ea( ga\\r\ne)xelkusthei=sa dia\\ t\u00ea=s thermo/t\u00eatos i)kma\\s _o(mou= te\ne)xephlog\u00f4/th\u00ea kai\\ ei)s lignu\\n e)kkauthei=sa metapoi\u00ea/th\u00ea_], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 92: Diogen. Laert. ix. 9; Clemens Alexand. Strom. v. 14, p.\n599, vi. 2, p. 624. [Greek: Puro\\s tropai\\ pr\u00f4=ton tha/lassa,\nthala/tt\u00eas de\\ to\\ me\\n \u00ea(/misu g\u00ea=, to\\ d' \u00ea(/misu pr\u00east\u00ea/r]. A full\nexplanation of the curious expression [Greek: pr\u00east\u00ea/r] is given by\nLassalle (Herakl. vol. ii. p. 87-90). See Brandis (Handbuch der Gr.\nPhilos. sect, xliii. p. 164), and Plutarch (De Primo Frigido, c. 17,\np. 952, F.).\n\nThe distinction made by Herakleitus, but not clearly marked out or\npreserved, between the _ideal fire_ or universal process, and the\n_elementary fire_ or first stage towards realisation, is brought out\nby Lassalle (Herakleitos, vol. ii. p. 25-29).]\n\n[Side-note: Sun and stars--not solid bodies but meteoric aggregations\ndissipated and renewed--Eclipses--[Greek: e)kpu/r\u00f4sis], or\ndestructions of the Kosmos by fire.]\n\nHerakleitus conceived the sun and stars, not as solid bodies, but as\nmeteoric aggregations perpetually dissipated and perpetually renewed\nor fed, by exhalation upward from the water and earth. The sun became\nextinguished and rekindled in suitable measure and proportion, under\nthe watch of the Erinnyes, the satellites of Justice. These celestial\nlights were contained in troughs, the open side of which was turned\ntowards our vision. In case of eclipses the trough was for the time\nreversed, so that the dark side was turned towards us; and the\ndifferent phases of the moon were occasioned by the gradual turning\nround of the trough in which her light was contained. Of the phenomena\nof thunder and lightning also, Herakleitus offered some explanation,\nreferring them to aggregations and conflagrations of the clouds, and\nviolent currents of winds.[93] Another hypothesis was often ascribed\nto Herakleitus, and was really embraced by several of the Stoics in\nlater times--that there would come a time when all existing things\nwould be destroyed by fire ([Greek: e)kpu/r\u00f4sis]), and afterwards\nagain brought into reality in a fresh series of changes. But this\nhypothesis appears to have been conceived by him metaphysically rather\nthan physically. Fire was not intended to designate the physical\nprocess of combustion, but was a symbolical phrase for the universal\nprocess; the perpetual agency of conjoint destruction and renovation,\nmanifesting itself in the putting forth and re-absorption of\nparticulars, and having no other reality except as immanent in these\nparticulars.[94] The determinate Kosmos of the present moment is\nperpetually destroyed, passing into fire or the indeterminate: it is\nperpetually renovated or passes out of fire into water, earth--out of\nthe indeterminate, into the various determinate modifications. At the\nsame time, though Herakleitus seems to have mainly employed these\nsymbols for the purpose of signifying or typifying a metaphysical\nconception, yet there was no clear apprehension, even in his own mind,\nof this generality, apart from all symbols: so that the illustration\ncame to count as a physical fact by itself, and has been so understood\nby many.[95] The line between what he meant as the ideal or\nmetaphysical process, and the elementary or physical process, is not\neasy to draw, in the fragments which now remain.\n\n[Footnote 93: Aristot. Meteorol. ii. e. p. 355, a. Plato, Republ. vi.\np. 498, c. 11; Plutarch, De Exilio, c. 11, p. 604 A.; Plutarch. De\nIsid. et Osirid. c. 48, p. 370, E.; Diogen. L. ix. 10; Plutarch,\nPlacit. Philos. ii. 17-22-24-28, p. 889-891; Stob\u00e6us, Eclog. Phys. i.\np. 594.\n\nAbout the doctrine of the Stoics, built in part upon this of\nHerakleitus, see Cicero, Natur. Deor. ii. 46; Seneca, Qu\u00e6st. Natur.\nii. 5, vi. 16.]\n\n[Footnote 94: Aristot. or Pseudo-Aristot., De Mundo, [Greek: e)k\npa/nt\u00f4n e(\\n kai\\ e)x e(no\\s pa/nta].]\n\n[Footnote 95: See Lassalle, Herakleitos, vol. ii. s. 26-27,\np. 182-258.\n\nCompare about the obscure and debated meaning of the Herakleitean\n[Greek: e)kpu/r\u00f4sis], Schleiermacher, Herakleitos, p. 103; Zeller,\nPhilos. der Griech. vol. i. p. 477-479.\n\nThe word [Greek: diako/sm\u00easis] stands as the antithesis (in the\nlanguage of Herakleitus) to [Greek: e)kpu/r\u00f4sis]. A passage from Philo\nJud\u00e6us is cited by Lassalle illustrating the Herakleitean movement\nfrom ideal unity into totality of sensible particulars, forwards and\nbackwards--[Greek: o( de\\ gonorrhu\u00ea\\s (lo/gos) e)k ko/smou pa/nta kai\\\nei)s ko/smon a)na/g\u00f4n, u(po\\ theou= de\\ m\u00eade\\n oi)o/menos,\n\u00ca(rakleitei/ou do/x\u00eas e(tai=ros, ko/ron kai\\ chr\u00easmosu/n\u00ean, kai\\ e(\\n\nto\\ pa=n kai\\ pa/nta a)moib\u00ea=| ei)sa/g\u00f4n]--where [Greek: ko/ros] and\n[Greek: chr\u00easmosu/n\u00ea] are used to illustrate the same ideal antithesis\nas [Greek: diako/sm\u00easis] and [Greek: e)kpu/r\u00f4sis] (Lassalle, vol. i.\np. 232).]\n\n[Side-note: His doctrines respecting the human soul and human\nknowledge. All wisdom resided in the Universal Wisdom--individual\nReason is worthless.]\n\nThe like blending of metaphysics and physics--of the abstract and the\nconcrete and sensible--is to be found in the statements remaining from\nHerakleitus respecting the human soul and human knowledge. The human\nsoul, according to him, was an effluence or outlying portion of the\nUniversal[96]--the fire--the perpetual movement or life of things. As\nsuch, its nature was to be ever in movement: but it was imprisoned and\nobstructed by the body, which represented the stationary, the fixed,\nthe particular--that which resisted the universal force of change. So\nlong as a man lived, his soul or mind, though thus confined,\nparticipated more or less in the universal movement: but when he died,\nhis body ceased to participate in it, and became therefore vile, \"fit\nonly to be cast out like dung\". Every man, individually considered,\nwas irrational;[97] reason belonged only to the universal or the\nwhole, with which the mind of each living man was in conjunction,\nrenewing itself by perpetual absorption, inspiration or inhalation,\nvaporous transition, impressions through the senses and the pores, &c.\nDuring sleep, since all the media of communication, except only those\nthrough respiration, were suspended, the mind became stupefied and\ndestitute of memory. Like coals when the fire is withdrawn, it lost\nits heat and tended towards extinction.[98] On waking, it recovered\nits full communication with the great source of intelligence\nwithout--the universal all-comprehensive process of life and movement.\nStill, though this was the one and only source of intelligence open to all\nwaking men, the greater number of men could neither discern it for\nthemselves, nor understand it without difficulty even when pointed out\nto them. Though awake, they were not less unconscious or forgetful of\nthe process going on around them, than if they had been asleep.[99]\nThe eyes and ears of men with barbarous or stupid souls, gave them\nfalse information.[100] They went wrong by following their own\nindividual impression or judgment: they lived as if reason or\nintelligence belonged to each man individually. But the only way to\nattain truth was, to abjure all separate reason, and to follow the\ncommon or universal reason. Each man's mind must become identified and\nfamiliar with that common process which directed and transformed the\nwhole: in so far as he did this, he attained truth: whenever he\nfollowed any private or separate judgment of his own, he fell into\nerror.[101] The highest pitch of this severance of the individual\njudgment was seen during sleep, at which time each man left the common\nworld to retire into a world of his own.[102]\n\n[Footnote 96: Sext. Empiric. adv. Mathem. vii. 130. [Greek: \u00ea(\ne)pixen\u00f4thei=sa toi=s \u00ea(mete/rois s\u00f4/masin a)po\\ tou= perie/chontos\nmoi=ra].\n\nPlutarch, Sympos., p. 644. [Greek: neku/es kopri/\u00f4n e)kbl\u00eato/teroi].\n\nPlutarch, Placit. Philos. i. 23, p. 884. [Greek: \u00ca(ra/kleitos\n\u00ea)remi/an kai\\ sta/sin e)k t\u00f4=n o(/l\u00f4n a)n\u00ea/|rei; e)sti\\ ga\\r tou=to\nt\u00f4=n nekr\u00f4=n.]]\n\n[Footnote 97: See Schleiermacher, Herakleitos, p. 522; Sext. Empir.\nadv. Mathem. viii. 286.]\n\n[Footnote 98: The passage of Sextus Empiricus (adv. Mathem. vii.\n127-134) is curious and instructive about Herakleitus.\n\n[Greek: A)re/skei ga\\r t\u00f4=| phusik\u00f4=|] (Herakleitus) [Greek: to\nperie/chon \u00ea(ma=s logiko/n te o)\\n kai\\ phren\u00ea=res--tou=ton d\u00ea\\ to\\n\nthei=on lo/gon, kath' \u00ca(ra/kleiton, di' a)napno\u00ea=s spa/santes noeroi\\\ngino/metha, kai\\ e)n me\\n u(/pnois l\u00eathai=oi, kata\\ de\\ e)/gersin\npa/lin e)/mphrones. e)n ga\\r toi=s u(/pnois musa/nt\u00f4n t\u00f4=n\nai)sth\u00eatik\u00f4=n po/r\u00f4n ch\u00f4ri/zetai t\u00ea=s pro\\s to\\ perie/chon sumphui+/as\no( e)n \u00ea(mi=n nou=s, mon\u00ea=s t\u00ea=s kata\\ a)napno\u00ea\\n prosphu/se\u00f4s\ns\u00f4zome/n\u00eas oi(onei/ tinos rhi/z\u00eas, ch\u00f4risthei/s te a)poba/llei \u00ea)\\n\npro/teron ei)=che mn\u00eamonik\u00ea\\n du/namin. e)n de\\ e)gr\u00eagoro/si pa/lin\ndia\\ t\u00f4=n ai)sth\u00eatik\u00f4=n po/r\u00f4n \u00f4(/sper dia\\ tin\u00f4=n thuri/d\u00f4n\nproku/psas kai\\ t\u00f4=| perie/chonti sumba/ll\u00f4n logik\u00ea\\n e)ndu/etai\ndu/namin.] Then follows the simile about coals brought near to, or\nremoved away from, the fire.\n\nThe Stoic version of this Herakleitean doctrine, is to be seen in\nMarcus Antoninus, viii. 54. [Greek: M\u00eake/ti mo/non _sumpnei=n t\u00f4=|\nperie/chonti a)e/ri, a)ll' \u00ea)/d\u00ea kai\\ sumphronei=n t\u00f4=| perie/chonti\npa/nta noer\u00f4=|_. Ou) ga\\r \u00ea(=tton \u00ea( noera\\ du/namis pa/nt\u00ea ke/chutai\nkai\\ diapephoi/t\u00eake t\u00f4=| spa=sai boulome/n\u00f4|, \u00ea(/per \u00ea( a)er\u00f4/d\u00eas t\u00f4=|\na)napneu=sai duname/n\u00f4|].\n\nThe Stoics, who took up the doctrine of Herakleitus with farther\nabstraction and analysis, distinguished and named separately matters\nwhich he conceived in one and named together--the physical inhalation\nof air--the metaphysical supposed influx of\nintelligence--_inspiration_ in its literal and metaphorical senses. The\nword [Greek: to\\ perie/chon], as he conceives it, seems to denote, not any\ndistinct or fixed local region, but the rotatory movement or circulation\nof the elements, fire, water, earth, reverting back into each other.\nLassalle, vol. ii. p. 119-120; which transition also is denoted by the\nword [Greek: a)nathumi/asis] in the Herakleitean sense--cited from\nHerakleitus by Aristotle. De Anim\u00e2, i. 2, 16.]\n\n[Footnote 99: Sextus Empiricus (adv. Math. vii. 132) here cites the\nfirst words of the treatise of Herakleitus (compare also Aristotle,\nRhet. iii. 5). [Greek: lo/gou tou=de e)o/ntos a)xu/netoi gi/gnontai\na)/nthr\u00f4poi kai\\ pro/sthen \u00ea)\\ a)kou=sai kai\\ a)kou/santes to\\\npr\u00f4=ton;--tou\\s de\\ a)/llous a)nthr\u00f4/pous lantha/nei o(ko/sa\ne)gerthe/ntes poiou=sin o(/k\u00f4sper o(ko/sa eu(/dontes\ne)pilantha/nontai.]]\n\n[Footnote 100: Sext. Empiric. ib. vii. 126, a citation from\nHerakleitus.]\n\n[Footnote 101: Sext. Emp. ib. vii. 133 (the words of Herakleitus)\n[Greek: dio\\ dei= _e(/pesthai t\u00f4=| xun\u00f4=|_;--tou= lo/gou de\\ e)o/ntos\nxunou=, z\u00f4/ousin oi( polloi\\ \u00f4(s i)di/an e)/chontes phro/n\u00easin; \u00ea( d'\ne)/stin ou)k a)/llo ti _a)ll' e)x\u00ea/g\u00easis tou= tro/pou t\u00ea=s tou=\npa/ntos dioik\u00ea/se\u00f4s_; dio\\ kath' o(/ ti a)\\n au)tou= t\u00ea=s mn\u00ea/m\u00eas\nkoin\u00f4n\u00ea/s\u00f4men, a)l\u00eatheu/omen, a(\\ de\\ a)\\n i)dia/s\u00f4men,\npseudo/metha.]]\n\n[Footnote 102: Plutarch, De Superstit. c. 3, p. 166, C. See also the\npassage in Clemens Alexandr. Strom. iv. 22, about the comparison of\nsleep to death by Herakleitus.]\n\n[Side-note: By Universal Reason he did not mean the Reason of most men\nas it is, but as it ought to be.]\n\nBy this denunciation of the mischief of private judgment, Herakleitus\ndid not mean to say that a man ought to think like his neighbours or\nlike the public. In his view the public were wrong, collectively as\nwell as individually. The universal reason to which he made appeal,\nwas not the reason of most men as it actually is but that which, in\nhis theory, ought to be their reason:[103] that which formed the\nperpetual and governing process throughout all nature, though most men\nneither recognised nor attended to it, but turned away from it in\ndifferent directions equally wrong. No man was truly possessed of\nreason, unless his individual mind understood the general scheme of\nthe universe, and moved in full sympathy with its perpetual movement\nand alternation or unity of contraries.[104] The universal process\ncontained in itself a sum-total of particular contraries which were\nsuccessively produced and destroyed: to know the universal was to know\nthese contraries in one, and to recognise them as transient, but\ncorrelative and inseparable, manifestations, each implying the\nother--not as having each a separate reality and each excluding its\ncontrary.[105] In so far as a man's mind maintained its kindred nature\nand perpetual conjoint movement with the universal, he acquired true\nknowledge; but the individualising influences arising from the body\nusually overpowered this kindred with the universal, and obstructed\nthe continuity of this movement, so that most persons became plunged\nin error and illusion.\n\n[Footnote 103: Sextus Empiricus misinterprets the Herakleitean theory\nwhen he represents it (vii. 134) as laying down--[Greek: ta\\ koin\u00ea=|\nphaino/mena, pista\\, \u00f4(s a)\\n t\u00f4=| koin\u00f4=| krino/mena lo/g\u00f4|, ta\\ de\\\nkat' i)di/an e(ka/st\u00f4|, pseud\u00ea=]. Herakleitus denounces mankind\ngenerally as in error. Origen. Philosophum. i. 4; Diog. Laert. ix. 1.]\n\n[Footnote 104: The analogy and sympathy between the individual mind\nand the Kosmical process--between the knowing and the known--was\nreproduced in many forms among the ancient philosophers. It appears in\nthe Platonic Tim\u00e6us, c. 20, p. 47 C.\n\n[Greek: To\\ kinou/menon t\u00f4=| kinoume/n\u00f4| gign\u00f4/skesthai] was the\ndoctrine of several philosophers. Aristot. De Anim\u00e2, i. 2. Plato,\nKratylus, p. 412 A: [Greek: kai\\ m\u00ea\\n \u00ea)/ ge e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea m\u00eanu/ei \u00f4(s\npherome/nois toi=s pra/gmasin e)pome/n\u00eas t\u00ea=s psuch\u00ea=s t\u00ea=s a)xi/as\nlo/gou, kai\\ ou)/te a)poleipome/n\u00eas ou)/te protheou/s\u00eas]. A remarkable\npassage from the comment of Philoponus (on the treatise of Aristotle\nDe Anim\u00e2) is cited by Lassalle, ii. p. 339, describing the Herakleitean\ndoctrine, [Greek: dia\\ tou=to e)k t\u00ea=s a)nathumia/se\u00f4s au)t\u00ea\\n\ne)/legen] (Herakleitus); [Greek: t\u00f4=n ga\\r pragma/t\u00f4n e)n kin\u00ea/sei\no)/nt\u00f4n dei=n kai\\ to\\ gi/n\u00f4skon ta\\ pra/gmata e)n kin\u00ea/sei ei)=nai,\ni(/na _sumpara/theon au)toi=s e)pha/pt\u00eatai kai\\ e)pharmo/z\u00ea|_\nau)toi=s]. Also Simplikius ap. Lassalle, p. 341: [Greek: e)n\nmetabol\u00ea=| ga\\r sunechei= ta\\ o)/nta u(potithe/menos o( \u00ca(ra/kleitos,\nkai\\ to\\ gn\u00f4so/menon au)ta\\ t\u00ea=| e)paph\u00ea=| gi/n\u00f4skon, sune/pesthai\ne)bou/leto \u00f4(s a)ei\\ ei)=nai kata\\ to\\ gn\u00f4stiko\\n e)n kin\u00ea/sei.]]\n\n[Footnote 105: Stob\u00e6us, Eclog. Phys. p. 58; and the passage of Philo\nJud\u00e6us, cited by Schleiermacher, p. 437; as well as more fully by\nLassalle, vol. ii. p. 265-267 (Quis rerum divinar. h\u00e6res, p. 503,\nMangey): [Greek: e(\\n ga\\r to\\ e)x a)mphoi=n t\u00f4=n e)nanti/\u00f4n, ou(=\ntm\u00eathe/ntos gn\u00f4/rima ta\\ e)nanti/a. Ou) tou=t' e)sti\\n o(/ phasin\nE(/ll\u00eanes to\\n me/gan kai\\ a)oi/dimon par' au)toi=s \u00ca(ra/kleiton,\nkephalai=on t\u00ea=s au)tou= prost\u00easa/menon philosophi/as, au)chei=n \u00f4(s\neu(re/sei kain\u00ea=|? palaio\\n ga\\r eu(/r\u00eama M\u00f4u/se\u00f4/s e)stin.]]\n\n[Side-note: Herakleitus at the opposite pole from Parmenides]\n\nThe absolute of Herakleitus stands thus at the opposite pole as\ncompared with that of Parmenides: it is absolute movement, change,\ngeneration and destruction--negation of all substance and\nstability,[106] temporary and unbecoming resistance of each successive\nparticular to the destroying and renewing current of the universal.\nThe Real, on this theory, was a generalisation, not of substances, but\nof facts, events, changes, revolutions, destructions, generations,\n&c., determined by a law of justice or necessity which endured, and\nwhich alone endured, for ever. Herakleitus had many followers, who\nadopted his doctrine wholly or partially, and who gave to it\ndevelopments which he had not adverted to, perhaps might not have\nacknowledged.[107] It was found an apt theme by those who, taking a\nreligious or poetical view of the universe, dwelt upon the transitory\nand contemptible value of particular existences, and extolled the\ngrandeur or power of the universal. It suggested many doubts and\ndebates respecting the foundations of logical evidence, and the\ndistinction of truth from falsehood; which debates will come to be\nnoticed hereafter, when we deal with the dialectical age of Plato and\nAristotle.\n\n[Footnote 106: The great principle of Herakleitus, which Aristotle\nstates in order to reject (Physic. viii. 3, p. 253, b. 10, [Greek:\nphasi/ tines kinei=sthai t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n ou) ta\\ me\\n ta\\ d' ou), a)lla\\\npa/nta kai\\ a)ei\\; a)lla\\ lantha/nein tou=to t\u00ea\\n \u00ea(mete/ran\nai)/sth\u00easin]) now stands averred in modern physical philosophy. Mr.\nGrove observes, in his instructive Treatise on the Correlation of\nPhysical Forces, p. 22:\n\n\"Of absolute rest, Nature gives us no evidence. All matter, as far as\nwe can discern, is ever in movement: not merely in masses, as in the\nplanetary spheres, but also molecularly, or throughout its intimate\nstructure. Thus every alteration of temperature produces a molecular\nchange throughout the whole substance heated or cooled: slow chemical\nor electrical forces, actions of light or invisible radiant forces,\nare always at play; so that, as a fact, we cannot predicate of any\nportion of matter, that it is absolutely at rest.\"]\n\n[Footnote 107: Many references to Herakleitus are found in the\nrecently published books of the Refutatio H\u00e6resium by Pseudo-Origen or\nHippolytus--especially Book ix. p. 279-283, ed. Miller. To judge by\nvarious specimens there given, it would appear that his\njuxta-positions of contradictory predicates, with the same subject,\nwould be recognised as paradoxes merely in appearance, and not in\nreality, if we had his own explanation. Thus he says (p. 282) \"the pure\nand the corrupt, the drinkable and the undrinkable, are one and the\nsame.\" Which is explained as follows: \"The sea is most pure and most\ncorrupt: to fish, it is drinkable and nutritive; to men, it is\nundrinkable and destructive.\" This explanation appears to have been\ngiven by Herakleitus himself, [Greek: tha/lassa, _ph\u00easi\\n_], &c.\n\nThese are only paradoxes in appearance--the relative predicate being\naffirmed without mention of its correlate. When you supply the\ncorrelate to each predicate, there remains no contradiction at all.]\n\n[Side-note: Empedokles--his doctrine of the four elements, and two\nmoving or restraining forces.]\n\nAfter Herakleitus, and seemingly at the same time with Parmenides, we\narrive at Empedokles (about 500-430 B. C.) and his memorable doctrine\nof the Four Elements. This philosopher, a Sicilian of Agrigentum, and\na distinguished as well as popular-minded citizen, expounded his views\nin poems, of which Lucretius[108] speaks with high admiration, but of\nwhich few fragments are preserved. He agreed with Parmenides, and\ndissented from Herakleitus and the Ionic philosophers, in rejecting\nall real generation and destruction.[109] That which existed had not\nbeen generated and could not be destroyed. Empedokles explained what\nthat was, which men mistook for generation and destruction. There\nexisted four distinct elements--Earth, Water, Air, and Fire--eternal,\ninexhaustible, simple, homogeneous, equal, and co-ordinate with each\nother. Besides these four substances, there also existed two moving\nforces, one contrary to the other--Love or Friendship, which brought\nthe elements into conjunction--Enmity or Contest, which separated\nthem. Here were alternate and conflicting agencies, either bringing\ntogether different portions of the elements to form a new product, or\nbreaking up the product thus formed and separating the constituent\nelements. Sometimes the Many were combined into One; sometimes the One\nwas decomposed into Many. Generation was simply this combination of\nelements already existing separately--not the calling into existence\nof anything new: destruction was in like manner the dissolution of\nsome compound, not the termination of any existent simple substance.\nThe four simple substances or elements (which Empedokles sometimes\ncalls by names of the popular Deities--Zeus, H\u00ear\u00ea, Aidoneus, &c.),\nwere the roots or foundations of everything.[110]\n\n[Footnote 108: Lucretius, i. 731.\n\nCarmina quin etiam divini pectoris ejus\nVociferantur, et exponunt pr\u00e6clara reperta:\nUt vix human\u00e2 videatur stirpe creatus.]\n\n[Footnote 109: Empedokles, Frag. v. 77-83, ed. Karsten, p. 96:\n\n[Greek: phu/sis ou)deno/s e)stin a(pa/nt\u00f4n\nthn\u00eat\u00f4=n, ou)de/ tis ou)lome/nou thanatoi=o teleut\u00ea\\,\na)lla\\ mo/non mi/xis te dia/llaxi/s te mige/nt\u00f4n\ne)sti, phu/sis d' e)pi\\ toi=s o)noma/zetai a)nthr\u00f4/poisin. . . . ]\n\n[Greek: Phu/sis] here is remarkable, in its primary sense, as\nderivative from [Greek: phu/omai], equivalent to [Greek: ge/nesis].\nCompare Plutarch adv. Koloten, p. 1111, 1112.]\n\n[Footnote 110: Emp. Fr. v. 55. [Greek: Te/ssara t\u00f4=n pa/nt\u00f4n\nrhiz\u00f4/mata].]\n\n[Side-note: Construction of the Kosmos from these elements and\nforces--action and counter action of love and enmity. The Kosmos\nalternately made and unmade.]\n\nFrom the four elements--acted upon by these two forces, abstractions\nor mythical personifications--Empedokles showed how the Kosmos was\nconstructed. He supposed both forces to be perpetually operative, but\nnot always with equal efficacy: sometimes the one was predominant,\nsometimes the other, sometimes there was equilibrium between them.\nThings accordingly pass through a perpetual and ever-renewed cycle.\nThe complete preponderance of Love brings alternately all the elements\ninto close and compact unity, Enmity being for the time eliminated.\nPresently the action of the latter recommences, and a period ensues in\nwhich Love and Enmity are simultaneously operative; until at length\nEnmity becomes the temporary master, and all union is for the time\ndissolved. But this condition of things does not last. Love again\nbecomes active, so that partial and increasing combination of the\nelements is produced, and another period commences--the simultaneous\naction of the two forces, which ends in renewed empire of Love,\ncompact union of the elements, and temporary exclusion of Enmity.[111]\n\n[Footnote 111: Zeller, Philos. der Griech., vol. i. p. 525-528, ed.\n2nd.]\n\n[Side-note: Empedoklean predestined cycle of things--complete empire\nof Love--Sph\u00e6rus--Empire of Enmity--disengagement or separation of the\nelements--astronomy and meteorology.]\n\nThis is the Empedoklean cycle of things,[112] divine or predestined,\nwithout beginning or end: perpetual substitution of new for old\ncompounds--constancy only in the general principle of combination and\ndissolution. The Kosmos which Empedokles undertakes to explain, takes\nits commencement from the period of complete empire of Love, or\ncompact and undisturbed union of all the elements. This he conceives\nand divinises under the name of Sph\u00e6rus--as One sphere, harmonious,\nuniform, and universal, having no motion, admitting no parts or\nseparate existences within it, exhibiting no one of the four elements\ndistinctly, \"instabilis tellus, innabilis unda\"--a sort of chaos.[113]\nAt the time prescribed by Fate or Necessity, the action of Enmity\nrecommenced, penetrating gradually through the interior of Sph\u00e6rus,\n\"agitating the members of the God one after another,\"[114] disjoining\nthe parts from each other, and distending the compact ball into a vast\nporous mass. This mass, under the simultaneous and conflicting\ninfluences of Love and Enmity, became distributed partly into\nhomogeneous portions, where each of the four elements was accumulated\nby itself--partly into compounds or individual substances, where two\nor more elements were found in conjunction. Like had an appetite for\nLike--Air for Air, Fire for Fire, and so forth: and a farther\nextension of this appetite brought about the mixture of different\nelements in harmonious compounds. First, the Air disengaged itself,\nand occupied a position surrounding the central mass of Earth and\nWater: next, the Fire also broke forth, and placed itself externally\nto the Air, immediately in contact with the outermost crystalline\nsphere, formed of condensed and frozen air, which formed the wall\nencompassing the Kosmos. A remnant of Fire and Air still remained\nembodied in the Earth, but the great mass of both so distributed\nthemselves, that the former occupied most part of one hemisphere, the\nlatter most part of the other.[115] The rapid and uniform rotation of\nthe Kosmos, caused by the exterior Fire, compressed the interior\nelements, squeezed the water out of the earth like perspiration from\nthe living body, and thus formed the sea. The same rotation caused the\nearth to remain unmoved, by counterbalancing and resisting its\ndownward pressure or gravity.[116] In the course of the rotation, the\nlight hemisphere of Fire, and the comparatively dark hemisphere of\nAir, alternately came above the horizon: hence the interchange of day\nand night. Empedokles (like the Pythagoreans) supposed the sun to be\nnot self-luminous, but to be a glassy or crystalline body which\ncollected and reflected the light from the hemisphere of Fire. He\nregarded the fixed stars as fastened to the exterior crystalline\nsphere, and revolving along with it, but the planets as moving free\nand detached from any sphere.[117] He supposed the alternations of\nwinter and summer to arise from a change in the proportions of Air and\nFire in the atmospheric regions: winter was caused by an increase of\nthe Air, both in volume and density, so as to drive back the exterior\nFire to a greater distance from the Earth, and thus to produce a\ndiminution of heat and light: summer was restored when the Fire, in\nits turn increasing, extruded a portion of the Air, approached nearer\nto the Earth, and imparted to the latter more heat and light.[118]\nEmpedokles farther supposed (and his contemporaries, Anaxagoras and\nDiogenes, held the same opinion) that the Earth was round and flat at\ntop and bottom, like a drum or tambourine: that its surface had been\noriginally horizontal, in reference to the rotation of the Kosmos\naround it, but that it had afterwards tilted down to the south and\nupward towards the north, so as to lie aslant instead of horizontal.\nHence he explained the fact that the north pole of the heavens now\nappeared obliquely elevated above the horizon.[119]\n\n[Footnote 112: Emp. Frag. v. 96, Karst., p. 98:\n\n[Greek: Ou(/t\u00f4s \u00ea)=| me\\n e(\\n e)k pleo/n\u00f4n mema/th\u00eake phu/esthai,\n\u00ea)de\\ pa/lin diaphunto\\s e(no\\s ple/on e)ktele/thousi,\nt\u00ea=| me\\n gi/gnontai/ te kai\\ ou)/ sphisin e)/mpedos ai)\u00f4/n;\n\u00ea(=| de\\ ta/d' a)lla/ssonta diampere\\s ou)dama\\ l\u00ea/gei,\ntau/t\u00ea| d' ai)e\\n e)/asin a)ki/n\u00eata kata\\ ku/klon.]\n\nAlso:--\n\n[Greek: kai\\ ga\\r kai\\ paro\\s \u00ea(=n te kai\\ e)/ssetai ou)de/ pot',\noi)/\u00f4,\ntou/t\u00f4n a)mphote/r\u00f4n] (Love and Discord) [Greek: kein\u00f4/setai a)/spetos\nai)\u00f4/n].\n\nThese are new Empedoklean verses, derived from the recently published\nfragments of Hippolytus (H\u00e6r. Refut.) printed by Stein, v. 110, in his\ncollection of the Fragments of Empedokles, p. 43. Compare another\npassage in the same treatise of Hippolytus, p. 251.]\n\n[Footnote 113: Emped. Fr. v. 59, Karsten:\n\n[Greek: Ou(/t\u00f4s a(rmoni/\u00eas pukin\u00f4=| kruph\u00f4=| e)st\u00ea/riktai\nsphai/ros kuklote/r\u00eas, moni\u00ea=| peri\u00eage/i+ gai/\u00f4n].\n\nPlutarch, De Facie in Orbe Lun\u00e6, c. 12.\n\nAbout the divinity ascribed by Empedokles to Sph\u00e6rus, see Aristot.\nMetaphys. B. 4, p. 1000, a. 29. [Greek: a(/panta ga\\r e)k tou/tou\n(nei/kous) ta)/lla/ e)sti pl\u00ea\\n o( theo/s] (i.e. Sph\u00e6rus).--[Greek:\nEi) ga\\r m\u00ea\\ \u00ea)=n to\\ nei=kos e)n toi=s pra/gmasi, e(\\n a)\\n \u00ea)=n\na(/panta, \u00f4(s ph\u00easi/n] (Empedokles). See Preller, Hist. Philos. ex\nFont. Loc. Contexta, sect. 171, 172, ed. 3.\n\nThe condition of things which Empedokles calls Sph\u00e6rus may be\nillustrated (translating his Love and Enmity into the modern\nphraseology of _attraction_ and _repulsion_) from an eminent modern\nwork on Physics:--\"Were there only atoms and attraction, as now\nexplained, the whole material of creation would rush into close\ncontact, and the universe would be one huge solid mass of stillness\nand death. There is heat or caloric, however, which directly\ncounteracts attraction and singularly modifies the results. It has\nbeen described by some as a most subtile fluid pervading things, as\nwater does a sponge: others have accounted it merely a vibration among\nthe atoms. The truth is, that we know little more of heat as a cause\nof repulsion, than of gravity as a cause of attraction: but we can\nstudy and classify the phenomena of both most accurately.\" (Dr.\nArnott, Elements of Physics, vol. i. p. 26.)]\n\n[Footnote 114: Emp. Fr. v. 66-70, Karsten:\n\n[Greek: pa/nta ga\\r e)xei/\u00eas pelemi/zeto gui=a theoi=o.]]\n\n[Footnote 115: Plutarch ap. Euseb. Pr\u00e6p. Evang. i. 8, 10; Plutarch,\nPlacit. Philos. ii. 6, p. 887; Aristot. Ethic. Nic. viii. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 116: Emped. Fr. 185, Karsten. [Greek: ai)th\u00ea\\r sphi/gg\u00f4n\nperi\\ ku/klon a(/panta]. Aristot. De Coelo, ii. 13, 14; iii. 2, 2.\n[Greek: t\u00ea\\n g\u00ea=n u(po\\ t\u00ea=s di/n\u00eas \u00ea)remei=n], &c. Empedokles called\nthe sea [Greek: i(/dr\u00f4ta t\u00ea=s g\u00ea=s]. Emp. Fr. 451, Karsten; Aristot.\nMeteor. ii. 3.]\n\n[Footnote 117: Plutarch, Placit. Phil. ii. 20, p. 890.]\n\n[Footnote 118: Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., i. p. 532-535, 2nd ed.:\nKarsten--De Emped. Philos. p. 424-431.\n\nThe very imperfect notices which remain, of the astronomical and\nmeteorological doctrines of Empedokles, are collected and explained by\nthese two authors.]\n\n[Footnote 119: Plutarch, Placit. Philos. ii. 8; Schaubach, Anaxag.\nFragm. p. 175. Compare the remarks of Gruppe (Ueber die Kosmischen**\nSysteme der Griechen, p. 98) upon the obscure Welt-Geb\u00e4ude of\nEmpedokles.]\n\n[Side-note: Formation of the Earth, of Gods, men, animals, and\nplants.]\n\nFrom astronomy and meteorology Empedokles[120] proceeded to describe\nthe Earth, its tenants, and its furniture; how men were first\nproduced, and how put together. All were produced by the Earth: being\nthrown up under the stimulus of Fire still remaining within it. In its\nearliest manifestations, and before the influence of Discord had been\nsufficiently neutralized, the Earth gave birth to plants only, being\nas yet incompetent to produce animals.[121] After a certain time she\ngradually acquired power to produce animals, first imperfectly and\npiecemeal, trunks without limbs and limbs without trunks; next,\ndiscordant and monstrous combinations, which did not last, such as\ncreatures half man half ox; lastly, combinations with parts suited to\neach other, organizations perfect and durable, men, horses, &c., which\ncontinued and propagated.[122] Among these productions were not only\nplants, birds, fishes, and men, but also the \"long-lived Gods\".[123]\nAll compounds were formed by intermixture of the four elements, in\ndifferent proportions, more or less harmonious.[124] These elements\nremained unchanged: no one of them was transformed into another. But\nthe small particles of each flowed into the pores of the others, and\nthe combination was more or less intimate, according as the structure\nof these pores was more or less adapted to receive them. So intimate\ndid the mixture of these fine particles become, when the effluvia of\none and the pores of another were in symmetry, that the constituent\ningredients, like colours compounded together by the painter,[125]\ncould not be discerned or handled separately. Empedokles rarely\nassigned any specific ratio in which he supposed the four elements to\nenter into each distinct compound, except in the case of flesh and\nblood, which were formed of all the four in equal portions; and of\nbones, which he affirmed to be composed of one-fourth earth,\none-fourth water, and the other half fire. He insisted merely on the\ngeneral fact of such combinations, as explaining what passed for\ngeneration of new substances without pointing out any reason to\ndetermine one ratio of combination rather than another, and without\nascribing to each compound a distinct ratio of its own. This omission\nin his system is much animadverted on by Aristotle.\n\n[Footnote 120: Hippokrates--[Greek: Peri\\ a)rchai/\u00eas i)\u00eatrik\u00ea=s]--c.\n20, p. 620, vol. i. ed. Littr\u00e9. [Greek: katha/per E)mpedokl\u00ea=s \u00ea)\\\na)/lloi oi(\\ peri\\ phu/sios gegra/phasin e)x a)rch\u00ea=s o(/ ti/ e)stin\na)/nthr\u00f4pos, kai\\ o(/p\u00f4s e)geneto pr\u00f4/ton, kai\\ o(/p\u00f4s xunepa/g\u00ea].\n\nThis is one of the most ancient allusions to Empedokles, recently\nprinted by M. Littr\u00e9, out of one of the MSS. in the Parisian library.]\n\n[Footnote 121: Emp. Fr. v. 253, Kar. [Greek: tou\\s me\\n pu=r a)nepemp'\ne)/thelon pro\\s o(/moion i(ke/sthai], &c.\n\nAristot., or Pseudo-Aristot. De Plantis, i. 2. [Greek: ei)=pe pa/lin\no( E)mpedokl\u00ea=s, o(/ti ta\\ phuta\\ e)/chousi ge/nesin e)n ko/sm\u00f4|\n\u00ea)latt\u00f4me/n\u00f4|, kai\\ ou) telei/\u00f4| kata\\ t\u00ea\\n sumpl\u00ea/r\u00f4sin au)tou=;\ntau/t\u00eas de\\ sumpl\u00earoume/n\u00eas] (while it is in course of being\ncompleted), [Greek: ou) genna=tai z\u00f4=on.]]\n\n[Footnote 122: Emp. Frag. v. 132, 150, 233, 240, ed. Karst. Ver. 238:--\n\n[Greek: polla\\ me\\n a)mphipro/s\u00f4pa kai\\ a)mphi/stern' e)phu/onto,\nbougen\u00ea= a)ndro/pr\u00f4ra], &c. Ver. 251:--\n[Greek: Ou)lophuei=s me\\n pr\u00f4=ta tu/poi chthono\\s e(xane/tellon], &c.\n\nLucretius, v. 834; Aristotel. Gen. Animal. i. 18, p. 722, b. 20;\nPhysic. ii. 8, 2, p. 198, b. 32; De Coelo, iii. 2, 5, p. 300, b. 29;\nwith the commentary of Simplikius ap. Schol. Brand. b. 512.]\n\n[Footnote 123: Emp. Frag. v. 135, Kar.]\n\n[Footnote 124: Plato, Menon. p. 76 A.; Aristot. Gen. et Corr. i. 8, p.\n324, b. 30 seq.]\n\n[Footnote 125: [Greek: E)mpedokl\u00ea=s e)x a)metabl\u00ea/t\u00f4n t\u00f4=n tetta/r\u00f4n\nstoichei/\u00f4n \u00ea(gei=to gi/gnesthai t\u00ea\\n t\u00f4=n sunthe/t\u00f4n s\u00f4ma/t\u00f4n\nphu/sin, ou(/t\u00f4s a)namemigme/n\u00f4n a)ll\u00ea/lois t\u00f4=n pr\u00f4/t\u00f4n, \u00f4(s ei)/ tis\nlei\u00f4/sas a)krib\u00f4=s kai\\ chno\u00f4/d\u00ea poi\u00ea/sas i)o\\n kai\\ chalki=tin kai\\\nkadmei/an kai\\ mi/su mi/xeien, \u00f4(s m\u00eade\\n e)x au)tou=\nmetacheiri/sasthai ch\u00f4ri\\s e(te/rou].\n\nGalen, Comm. in Hippokrat. De Homin. Nat. t. iii. p. 101. See Karsten,\nDe Emped. Phil. p. 407, and Emp. Fr. v. 155.\n\nGalen says, however (after Aristot. Gen. et Corr. ii. 7, p. 334, a.\n30), that this mixture, set forth by Empedokles, is not mixture\nproperly speaking, but merely close proximity. Hippokrates (he says)\nwas the first who propounded the doctrine of real mixture. But\nEmpedokles seems to have intended a real mixture, in all cases where the\nstructure of the pores was in symmetry with the inflowing particles.\nOil and water (he said) would not mix together, because there was no\nsuch symmetry between them--[Greek: o(/l\u00f4s ga\\r poiei=] (Empedokles)\n[Greek: t\u00ea\\n mi/xin t\u00ea=| summetri/a| t\u00f4=n po/r\u00f4n; dio/per e)/laion\nme\\n kai\\ u(/d\u00f4r ou) mi/gnusthai, ta\\ de\\ a)/lla u(gra\\ kai\\ peri\\\no(/s\u00f4n d\u00ea\\ katarithmei=tai ta\\s i)di/as kra/seis] (Theophrastus, De\nSensu et Sensili, s. 12, vol. i. p. 651, ed. Schneider).]\n\n[Side-note: Physiology of\nEmpedokles--Procreation--Respiration--movement of the blood.]\n\nEmpedokles farther laid down many doctrines respecting physiology. He\ndwelt on the procreation of men and animals, entered upon many details\nrespecting gestation and the foetus, and even tried to explain what it\nwas that determined the birth of male or female offspring. About\nrespiration, alimentation, and sensation, he also proposed theories:\nhis explanation of respiration remains in one of the fragments. He\nsupposed that man breathed, partly through the nose, mouth, and lungs,\nbut partly also through the whole surface of the body, by the pores\nwherewith it was pierced, and by the internal vessels connected with\nthose pores. Those internal vessels were connected with the blood\nvessels, and the portion of them near the surface was alternately\nfilled with blood or emptied of blood, by the flow outwards from the\ncentre or the ebb inwards towards the centre. Such was the movement\nwhich Empedokles considered as constantly belonging to the blood:\nalternately a projection outwards from the centre and a recession\nbackwards towards the centre. When the blood thus receded, the\nextremities of the vessels were left empty, and the air from without\nentered: when the outward tide of blood returned, the air which had\nthus entered was expelled.[126] Empedokles conceived this outward tide\nof blood to be occasioned by the effort of the internal fire to escape\nand join its analogous element without.[127]\n\n[Footnote 126: Emp. Fr. v. 275, seqq. Karst.\n\nThe comments of Aristotle on this theory of Empedokles are hardly\npertinent: they refer to respiration by the nostrils, which was not\nwhat Empedokles had in view (Aristot. De Respirat. c. 3).]\n\n[Footnote 127: Karsten, De Emp. Philosoph. p. 480.\n\nEmp. Fr. v. 307--[Greek: to/ t' e)n m\u00ea/nigxin e)ergme/non \u00f4)gu/gion\npu=r--pu=r d' e)/x\u00f4 diathr\u00f4=skon], &c.\n\nEmpedokles illustrates this influx and efflux of air in respiration by\nthe klepsydra, a vessel with one high and narrow neck, but with a\nbroad bottom pierced with many small holes. When the neck was kept\nclosed by the finger or otherwise, the vessel might be plunged into\nwater, but no water would ascend into it through the holes in the\nbottom, because of the resistance of the air within. As soon as the\nneck was freed from pressure, and the air within allowed to escape,\nthe water would immediately rush up through the holes in the bottom.\n\nThis illustration is interesting. It shows that Empedokles was\ndistinctly aware of the pressure of the air as countervailing the\nascending movement of the water, and the removal of that pressure as\nallowing such movement. Vers. 286:--\n\n[Greek: ou)de/ t' e)s a)/ggos d' o)/mbros e)se/rchetai, a)lla/ min\nei)/rgei\na)e/ros o)/gkos e)/s\u00f4the pes\u00f4\\n e)pi\\ tr\u00ea/mata pukna/], &c.\n\nThis dealing with the klepsydra seems to have been a favourite\namusement with children.]\n\n[Side-note: Doctrine of effluvia and pores--explanation of\nperceptions--Intercommunication of the elements with the sentient\nsubject--like acting upon like.]\n\nThe doctrine of pores and effluvia, which formed so conspicuous an\nitem in the physics of Empedokles, was applied by him to explain\nsensation. He maintained the general doctrine (which Parmenides had\nadvanced before him, and which Plato retained after him), that\nsensation was produced by like acting upon like: Herakleitus before\nhim, and Anaxagoras after him, held that it was produced by unlike\nacting upon unlike. Empedokles tried (what Parmenides had not tried)\nto apply his doctrine to the various senses separately.[128] Man was\ncomposed of the same four elements as the universe around him: and\nsince like always tended towards like, so by each of the four elements\nwithin himself, he perceived and knew the like element without.\nEffluvia from all bodies entered his pores, wherever they found a\nsuitable channel: hence he perceived and knew earth by earth, water by\nwater, and so forth.[129] Empedokles, assuming perception and\nknowledge to be produced by such intercommunication of the four\nelements, believed that not man and animals only, but plants and other\nsubstances besides, perceived and knew in the same way. Everything\npossessed a certain measure of knowledge, though less in degree, than\nman, who was a more compound structure.[130] Perception and knowledge\nwas more developed in different animals in proportion as their\nelementary composition was more mixed and varied. The blood, as the\nmost compound portion of the whole body, was the principal seat of\nintelligence.[131]\n\n[Footnote 128: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 2, p. 647, Schneid.]\n\n[Footnote 129: Emp. Frag. Karst. v. 267, seq.\n\n[Greek: gn\u00f4=th', o(/ti pa/nt\u00f4n ei)si\\n a)por)r(oai\\ o(/ss' e)ge/nonto],\n&c.\n\nib. v. 321:\n\n[Greek: gai/\u00ea| me\\n ga\\r gai=an o)p\u00f4/pamen, u(/dati d' u(/d\u00f4r,\nai)the/ri d' ai)the/ra di=on, a)ta\\r puri\\ pu=r a)i+\\d\u00ealon,\nstorg\u00ea=| de\\ storg\u00ea/n, nei=kos de/ te nei/kei+ lugr\u00f4=|].\n\nTheophrastus, De Sensu, c. 10, p. 650, Schneid.\n\nAristotle says that Empedokles regarded each of these six as a [Greek:\npsuch\u00ea\\] (_soul_, _vital principle_) by itself. Sextus Empiricus\ntreats Empedokles as considering each of the six to be a [Greek:\nkrit\u00ea/rion a)l\u00eathei/as] (Aristot. De Anim\u00e2, i. 2; Sext. Emp. adv.\nMathem. vii. 116).]\n\n[Footnote 130: Emp. Fr. v. 313, Karst. ap. Sext. Empir. adv. Mathem.\nviii. 286; also apud Diogen. L. viii. 77.\n\n[Greek: pa/nta ga\\r i)/sth' phro/n\u00easin e)/chein kai\\ n\u00f4/matos\nai)=san].\n\nStein gives (Emp. Fr. v. 222-231) several lines immediately preceding\nthis from the treatise of Hippolytus; but they are sadly corrupt.\n\nParmenides had held the same opinion before--[Greek: kai\\ o(/l\u00f4s pa=n\nto\\ o)\\n e)/chein tina\\ gn\u00f4=sin]--ap. Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 4.\n\nTheophrastus, in commenting upon the doctrine of Empedokles, takes as\none of his grounds of objection--That Empedokles, in maintaining\nsensation and knowledge to be produced by influx of the elements into\npores, made no difference between animated and inanimate substances\n(Theophr. De Sens. s. 12-23). Theophrastus puts this as if it were an\ninconsistency or oversight of Empedokles: but it cannot be so\nconsidered, for Empedokles (as well as Parmenides) appears to have\naccepted the consequence, and to have denied all such difference,\nexcept one of degree, as to perception and knowledge.]\n\n[Footnote 131: Emp. Frag. 316, Karst. [Greek: ai(=ma ga\\r a)nthr\u00f4/pois\nperika/rdio/n e)sti no/\u00eama.] Comp. Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 11.]\n\n[Side-note: Sense of vision.]\n\nIn regard to vision, Empedokles supposed that it was operated mainly\nby the fire or light within the eye, though aided by the light\nwithout. The interior of the eye was of fire and water, the exterior\ncoat was a thin layer of earth and air. Colours were brought to the\neye as effluvia from objects, and became apprehended as sensations by\npassing into the alternate pores or ducts of fire and water: white\ncolour was fitted to (or in symmetry with) the pores of fire, black\ncolour with those of water.[132] Some animals had the proportions of\nfire and water in their eyes better adjusted, or more conveniently\nlocated, than others: in some, the fire was in excess, or too much on\nthe outside, so as to obstruct the pores or ducts of water: in others,\nwater was in excess, and fire in defect. The latter were the animals\nwhich saw better by day than by night, a great force of external light\nbeing required to help out the deficiency of light within: the former\nclass of animals saw better by night, because, when there was little\nlight without, the watery ducts were less completely obstructed--or\nleft more free to receive the influx of black colour suited to\nthem.[133]\n\n[Footnote 132: Emp. Frag. v. 301-310, Karst. [Greek: to/ t' e)n\nm\u00ea/nigxin e)ergme/non \u00f4)gu/gion pu=r], &c. Theophr. De Sensu, s. 7, 8;\nAristot. De Sensu, c. 3; Aristot. De Gen. et Corrupt. i. 8.]\n\n[Footnote 133: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 7, 8.]\n\n[Side-note: Senses of hearing, smell, taste.]\n\nIn regard to hearing, Empedokles said that the ear was like a bell or\ntrumpet set in motion by the air without; through which motion the\nsolid parts were brought into shock against the air flowing in, and\ncaused the sensation of sound within.[134] Smell was, in his view, an\nadjunct of the respiratory process: persons of acute smell were those\nwho had the strongest breathing: olfactory effluvia came from many\nbodies, and especially from such as were light and thin. Respecting\ntaste and touch, he gave no further explanation than his general\ndoctrine of effluvia and pores: he seems to have thought that such\ninterpenetration was intelligible by itself, since here was immediate\nand actual contact. Generally, in respect to all the senses, he laid\nit down that pleasure ensued when the matter which flows in was not\nmerely fitted in point of structure to penetrate the interior pores or\nducts (which was the condition of all sensation), but also harmonious\nwith them in respect to elementary mixture.[135]\n\n[Footnote 134: Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 9-21.\n\nEmpedokles described the ear under the metaphor of [Greek: sa/rkinon\no)/zon], \"the fleshy branch.\"]\n\n[Footnote 135: Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 9, 10. The criticisms of\nTheophrastus upon this theory of Empedokles are extremely interesting,\nas illustrating the change in the Grecian physiological point of view\nduring a century and a half, but I reserve them until I come to the\nAristotelian age. I may remark, however, that Theophrastus, disputing\nthe doctrine of sensory effluvia generally, disputes the existence of\nthe olfactory effluvia not less than the rest (s. 20).]\n\n[Side-note: Empedokles declared that justice absolutely forbade the\nkilling of anything that had life. His belief in the metempsychosis.\nSufferings of life are an expiation for wrong done during an\nantecedent life. Pretensions to magic power.]\n\nEmpedokles held various opinions in common with the Pythagoreans and\nthe brotherhood of the Orphic mysteries--especially that of the\nmetempsychosis. He represented himself as having passed through prior\nstates of existence, as a boy, a girl, a shrub, a bird, and a fish. He\nproclaims it as an obligation of justice, absolute and universal, not\nto kill anything that had life: he denounces as an abomination the\nsacrificing of or eating of an animal, in whom perhaps might dwell the\nsoul of a deceased friend or brother.[136] His religious faith,\nhowever, and his opinions about Gods, D\u00e6mons, and the human soul,\nstood apart (mostly in a different poem) from his doctrines on\nkosmology and physiology. In common with many Pythagoreans, he laid\ngreat stress on the existence of D\u00e6mons (of intermediate order and\npower between Gods and men), some of whom had been expelled from the\nGods in consequence of their crimes, and were condemned to pass a long\nperiod of exile, as souls embodied in various men or animals. He\nlaments the misery of the human soul, in himself as well as in others,\ncondemned to this long period of expiatory degradation, before they\ncould regain the society of the Gods.[137] In one of his remaining\nfragments, he announces himself almost as a God upon earth, and\nprofesses his willingness as well as ability to impart to a favoured\npupil the most wonderful gifts--powers to excite or abate the winds,\nto bring about rain or dry weather, to raise men from the dead.[138]\nHe was in fact a man of universal pretensions; not merely an expositor\nof nature, but a rhetorician, poet, physician, prophet, and conjurer.\nGorgias the rhetor had been personally present at his magical\nceremonies.[139]\n\n[Footnote 136: Emp. Frag. v. 380-410, Karsten; Plutarch, De Esu\nCarnium, p. 997-8.\n\nAristot. Rhetoric. i. 13, 2: [Greek: e)sti\\ ga\\r, o(\\ manteu/ontai/ ti\npa/ntes, phu/sei koino\\n di/kaion kai\\ a)/dikon, ka)\\n m\u00eademi/a\nkoin\u00f4ni/a pro\\s a)ll\u00ea/lous \u00ea)=|, m\u00eade\\ sunth\u00ea/k\u00ea--\u00f4(s E)mpedokl\u00ea=s\nle/gei peri\\ tou= m\u00ea\\ ktei/nein to\\ e)/mpsuchon; tou=to ga\\r ou) tisi\\\nme\\n di/kaion, tisi\\ d' ou) di/kaion,\n\nA)lla\\ to\\ me\\n pa/nt\u00f4n no/mimon dia/ t' eu)rume/dontos\nAi)the/ros \u00ea)neke/\u00f4s te/tatai dia/ t' a)ple/tou au)g\u00ea=s].\n\nSext. Empiric. adv. Mathem. ix. 127.]\n\n[Footnote 137: Emp. Frag. v. 5-18, Karst.; compare Herod. ii. 123;\nPlato, Ph\u00e6drus, 55, p. 246 C.; Plutarch, De Isid. et Osirid. c. 26.\nPlutarch observes in another place on the large proportion of\nreligious mysticism blended with the philosophy of Empedokles--[Greek:\nS\u00f4kra/t\u00eas, phasma/t\u00f4n kai\\ deisidaimoni/as a)naple/\u00f4 philosophi/an\na)po\\ Puthago/rou kai\\ E)mpedokle/ous dexa/menos, eu)= ma/la\nbebakcheume/n\u00ean], &c. (Plutarch, De Genio Socratis, p. 580, C.)\n\nSee Fr. Aug. Ukert, Ueber Daemonen, Heroen, und Genien, p. 151.]\n\n[Footnote 138: Emp. Fr. v. 390-425, Karst.]\n\n[Footnote 139: Diog. Laert. viii. 59.]\n\n[Side-note: Complaint of Empedokles on the impossibility of finding\nout truth.]\n\nNone of the remaining fragments of Empedokles are more remarkable than\na few in which he deplores the impossibility of finding out any great\nor comprehensive truth, amidst the distraction and the sufferings\nof our short life. Every man took a different road, confiding only in\nhis own accidental experience or particular impressions; but no man\ncould obtain or communicate satisfaction about the whole.[140]\n\n[Footnote 140: Emp. Fr. v. 34, ed. Karst., p. 88.\n\n[Greek: pau=ron de\\ z\u00f4/\u00eas a)bi/ou me/ros a)thl\u00ea/santes\n\u00f4)ku/moroi, ka/pnoio di/k\u00ean a)rthe/ntes, a)pe/ptan,\nau)to\\ mo/non peisthe/ntes o(/t\u00f4| prose/kursen e(/kastos,\npa/ntos' e)launo/menoi; to\\ de\\ ou)=lon e)peu/chetai eu(rei=n\nau)/t\u00f4s. ou)/t' e)piderkta\\ ta/d' a)ndra/sin ou)/t' e)pakousta\\\nou)/te no/\u00f4| peril\u00eapta/.]]\n\n[Side-note: Theory of Anaxagoras--denied generation and\ndestruction--recognises only mixture and severance of pre-existing\nkinds of matter.]\n\nAnaxagoras of Klazomen\u00e6, a friend of the Athenian Perikles, and\ncontemporary of Empedokles, was a man of far simpler and less\nambitious character: devoted to physical contemplation and geometry,\nwithout any of those mystical pretentions common among the\nPythagoreans. His doctrines were set forth in prose, and in the Ionic\ndialect.[141] His theory, like all those of his age, was\nall-comprehensive in its purpose, starting from a supposed beginning,\nand shewing how heaven, earth, and the inhabitants of earth, had come\ninto those appearances which were exhibited to sense. He agreed with\nEmpedokles in departing from the point of view of Thales and other\nIonic theorists, who had supposed one primordial matter, out of which,\nby various transformations, other sensible things were generated--and\ninto which, when destroyed, they were again resolved. Like Empedokles,\nand like Parmenides previously, he declared that generation,\nunderstood in this sense, was a false and impossible notion: that no\nexisting thing could have been generated, or could be destroyed, or\ncould undergo real transformation into any other thing different from\nwhat it was.[142] Existing things were what they were, possessing\ntheir several inherent properties: there could be no generation except\nthe putting together of these things in various compounds, nor any\ndestruction except the breaking up of such compounds, nor any\ntransformation except the substitution of one compound for another.\n\n[Footnote 141: Aristotel. Ethic. Eudem. i. 4, 5; Diogen. Laert. ii.\n10.]\n\n[Footnote 142: Anaxagor. Fr. 22, p. 135, ed. Schaubach. [Greek: to\\\nde\\ gi/nesthai kai\\ a)po/llusthai ou)k o)rth\u00f4=s nomi/zousin oi(\nE(/ll\u00eanes. Ou)de\\n ga\\r chr\u00ea=ma gi/netai, ou)de\\ a)po/llutai, a)ll'\na)p' e)o/nt\u00f4n chr\u00eama/t\u00f4n summi/sgetai/ te kai\\ diakri/netai; kai\\\nou(/t\u00f4s a)\\n o)rth\u00f4=s kaloi=en to/ te gi/nesthai summi/sgesthai kai\\\nto\\ a)po/llusthai diakri/nesthai.]]\n\n[Side-note: Homoeomeries--small particles of diverse kinds of matter,\nall mixed together.]\n\nBut Anaxagoras did not accept the Empedoklean four elements as the sum\ntotal of first substances. He reckoned all the different sorts of\nmatter as original and prim\u00e6val existences: he supposed them all to\nlie ready made, in portions of all sizes, whereof there was no\ngreatest and no least.[143] Particles of the same sort he called\nHomoeomeries: the aggregates of which formed bodies of like parts;\nwherein the parts were like each other and like the whole. Flesh,\nbone, blood, fire,[144] earth, water, gold, &c., were aggregations of\nparticles mostly similar, in which each particle was not less flesh,\nbone, and blood, than the whole mass.\n\n[Footnote 143: Anaxag. Fr. 5, ed. Schaub, p. 94.\n\n[Greek: Ta\\ o(moiomer\u00ea=] are the primordial particles themselves:\n[Greek: o(moiome/reia] is the abstract word formed from this\nconcrete--existence in the form or condition of [Greek: o(moiomer\u00ea=].\nEach distinct substance has its own [Greek: o(moiomer\u00ea=], little\nparticles like each other, and each possessing the characteristics of\nthe substance. But the state called [Greek: o(moiome/reia] pervades all\nsubstances (Marbach, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie, s. 53,\nnote 3.)]\n\n[Footnote 144: Lucretius, i. 830:\n\nNunc et Anaxagor\u00e6 scrutemur Homoeomerian,\nQuam Grai memorant, nec nostr\u00e2 dicere lingu\u00e2\nConcedit nobis patrii sermonis egestas.\n\nLucretius calls this theory Homoeomeria, and it appears to me that\nthis name must have been bestowed upon it by its author. Zeller and\nseveral others, after Schleiermacher, conceive the name to date first\nfrom Aristotle and his physiological classification. But what other\nname was so natural or likely for Anaxagoras himself to choose?]\n\nBut while Anaxagoras held that each of these Homoeomeries[145] was a\nspecial sort of matter with its own properties, and each of them\nunlike every other: he held farther the peculiar doctrine, that no one\nof them could have an existence apart from the rest. Everything was\nmixed with everything: each included in itself all the others: not one\nof them could be obtained pure and unmixed. This was true of any\nportion however small. The visible and tangible bodies around us\naffected our senses, and received their denominations according to\nthat one peculiar matter of which they possessed a decided\npreponderance and prominence. But each of them included in itself all\nthe other matters, real and inseparable, although latent.[146]\n\n[Footnote 145: Anaxag. Fr. 8; Schaub. p. 101; compare p. 113. [Greek:\ne(/teron de\\ ou)de/n e)stin o(/moion ou)deni\\ a)/ll\u00f4|. A)ll' o(/te\u00f4|\nplei=sta e)/ni, tau=ta e)nd\u00ealo/tata e(\\n e(/kasto/n e)sti kai\\ \u00ea)=n.]]\n\n[Footnote 146: Lucretius, i. 876:\n\nId quod Anaxagoras sibi sumit, ut omnibus omnes\nRes putet inmixtas rebus latitare, sed illud\nApparere unum cujus sint plurima mixta,**\nEt magis in promptu prim\u00e2que in fronte** locata.\n\nAristotel. Physic. i. 4, 3. [Greek: Dio/ phasi pa=n e)n panti\\\nmemi=chthai, dio/ti pa=n e)k panto\\s e(\u00f4/r\u00f4n gigno/menon; phai/nesthai\nde\\ diaphe/ronta kai/ prosagoreu/esthai e(/tera a)ll\u00ea/l\u00f4n, e)k tou=\nma/lista u(pere/chontos, dia\\ to\\ pl\u00ea=thos e)n t\u00ea=| mi/xei t\u00f4=n\na)pei/r\u00f4n; ei)likrin\u00f4=s me\\n ga\\r o(/lon leuko\\n \u00ea)\\ me/lan \u00ea)\\ sa/rka\n\u00ea)\\ o)stou=n, ou)k ei)=nai; o(/tou de\\ plei=ston e(/kaston e)/chei,\ntou=to dokei=n ei)=nai t\u00ea\\n phu/sin tou= pra/gmatos.] Also Aristot. De\nCoelo, iii. 3; Gen. et Corr. i. 1.]\n\n[Side-note: First condition of things--all the primordial varieties of\nmatter were huddled together in confusion. Nous, or Reason, distinct\nfrom all of them, supervened and acted upon this confused mass,\nsetting the constituent particles in movement.]\n\nIn the beginning (said Anaxagoras) all things (all sorts of matter)\nwere together, in one mass or mixture. Infinitely numerous and\ninfinite in diversity of magnitude, they were so packed and confounded\ntogether that no one could be distinguished from the rest: no definite\nfigure, or colour, or other property, could manifest itself. Nothing\nwas distinguishable except the infinite mass of Air and \u00c6ther (Fire),\nwhich surrounded the mixed mass and kept it together.[147] Thus all\nthings continued for an infinite time in a state of rest and nullity.\nThe fundamental contraries--wet, dry, hot, cold, light, dark, dense,\nrare,--in their intimate contact neutralised each other.[148] Upon\nthis inert mass supervened the agency of Nous or Mind. The\ncharacteristic virtue of mind was, that it alone was completely\ndistinct, peculiar, pure in itself, unmixed with anything else: thus\nmarked out from all other things which were indissolubly mingled with\neach other. Having no communion of nature with other things, it was\nnoway acted upon by them, but was its own master or autocratic, and\nwas of very great force. It was moreover the thinnest and purest of\nall things; possessing complete knowledge respecting all other things.\nIt was like to itself throughout--the greater manifestations of mind\nsimilar to the less.[149]\n\n[Footnote 147: Anaxag. Frag. 1; Schaub. p. 65; [Greek: O(mou= pa/nta\nchr\u00ea/mata \u00ea)=n, a)/peira kai\\ pl\u00ea=thos kai\\ smikro/t\u00eata. Kai\\ ga\\r to\\\nsmikro\\n a)/peiron \u00ea)=n. Kai\\ pa/nt\u00f4n o(mou= e)o/nt\u00f4n ou)de\\n\neu)/d\u00ealon \u00ea)=n u(po\\ smikro/t\u00eatos. Pa/nta ga\\r a)\u00ea/r te kai\\ ai)th\u00ea\\r\nkatei=chen, a)mpho/tera a)/peira e)o/nta. Tau=ta ga\\r me/gista\ne)/nestin e)n toi=s sumpa=si kai\\ pl\u00ea/thei kai\\ mege/thei].\n\nThe first three words--[Greek: o(mou= pa/nta chr\u00ea/mata]--were the\ncommencement of the Anaxagorean treatise, and were more recollected\nand cited than any other words in it. See Fragm. 16, 17, Schaubach,\nand p. 66-68. Aristotle calls this primeval chaos [Greek: to\\ mi/gma].]\n\n[Footnote 148: Anax. Frag. 6, Schaub. p. 97; Aristotel. Physic. i. 4,\np. 187, a, with the commentary of Simplikius ap. Scholia, p. 335;\nBrandis also, iii. 203, a. 25; and De Coelo, iii. 301, a. 12, [Greek:\ne)x a)kin\u00ea/t\u00f4n ga\\r a)/rchetai] (Anaxagoras) [Greek: kosmopoiei=n.]]\n\n[Footnote 149: Anaxag. Fr. 8, p. 100, Schaub. [Greek: Ta\\ me\\n a)/lla\npanto\\s moi=ran e)/chei, nou=s de/ e)stin a)/peiron kai\\ au)tokrate\\s\nkai\\ me/miktai ou)deni\\ chr\u00ea/mati, a)lla\\ mo/nos au)to\\s e)ph'\ne(\u00f4u+tou= e)stin. Ei) m\u00ea\\ ga\\r e)ph' e(\u00f4u+tou= \u00ea)=n, a)lla/ te\u00f4|\ne)me/mikto a)/ll\u00f4|, metei=chen a)\\n a(pa/nt\u00f4n chr\u00eama/t\u00f4n ei)/\ne)me/mikto te\u00f4| . . . . Kai\\ a)nek\u00f4/luen au)to\\n ta\\ summemigme/na,\n\u00f4(/ste m\u00eadeno\\s chr\u00ea/matos kratei=n o(moi/\u00f4s, \u00f4(s kai\\ mo/non e)o/nta\ne)ph' e(\u00f4u+tou=. E)sti\\ ga\\r lepto/tato/n te pa/nt\u00f4n chr\u00eama/t\u00f4n kai\\\nkathar\u00f4/taton, kai\\ gn\u00f4/m\u00ean ge peri\\ panto\\s pa=san i)/schei, kai\\\ni)schu/ei me/giston.]\n\nCompare Plato, Kratylus, c. 65, p. 413, c. [Greek: nou=n au)tokra/tora\nkai\\ ou)deni\\ memigme/non (o(\\ le/gei A)naxago/ras).]]\n\n[Side-note: Movement of rotation in the mass initiated by Nous on a\nsmall scale, but gradually extending itself. Like particles congregate\ntogether--distinguishable aggregates are formed.]\n\nBut though other things could not act upon mind, mind could act upon\nthem. It first originated movement in the quiescent mass. The movement\nimpressed was that of rotation, which first began on a small scale,\nthen gradually extended itself around, becoming more efficacious as it\nextended, and still continuing to extend itself around more and more.\nThrough the prodigious velocity of this rotation, a separation was\neffected of those things which had been hitherto undistinguishably\nhuddled together.[150] Dense was detached from rare, cold from hot,\ndark from light, dry from wet.[151] The Homoeomeric particles\ncongregated together, each to its like; so that bodies were\nformed--definite and distinguishable aggregates, possessing such a\npreponderance of some one ingredient as to bring it into clear\nmanifestation.[152] But while the decomposition of the multifarious\nmass was thus carried far enough to produce distinct bodies, each of\nthem specialised, knowable, and regular--still the separation can\nnever be complete, nor can any one thing be \"cut away as with a\nhatchet\" from the rest. Each thing, great or small, must always\ncontain in itself a proportion or trace, latent if not manifest, of\neverything else.[153] Nothing except mind can be thoroughly pure and\nunmixed.\n\n[Footnote 150: Anaxag. Fr. 8, p. 100, Sch. [Greek: kai\\ t\u00ea=s\nperich\u00f4r\u00ea/sios t\u00ea=s sumpa/s\u00eas nou=s e)kra/t\u00easen, \u00f4(/ste perich\u00f4r\u00ea=sai\nt\u00ea\\n a)rch\u00ea/n. Kai\\ pr\u00f4=ton a)po\\ tou= smikrou= \u00ea)/rxato\nperich\u00f4r\u00ea=sai, e)/peiten plei=on perich\u00f4re/ei, kai\\ perich\u00f4r\u00ea/sei\ne)pi\\ ple/on. Kai\\ ta\\ summisgo/mena/ te kai\\ a)pokrino/mena kai\\\ndiakrino/mena, pa/nta e)/gn\u00f4 nou=s]. Also Fr. 18, p. 129; Fr. 21, p.\n134, Schau.]\n\n[Footnote 151: Anaxag. Fr. 8-19, Schaubach.]\n\n[Footnote 152: Anaxag. Fr. 8, p. 101, Schaub. [Greek: o(/te\u00f4| plei=sta\ne)/ni, tau=ta e)nd\u00ealo/tata e(/n e(/kasto/n e)sti kai\\ \u00ea)=n].\nPseudo-Origen. Philosophumen. 8. [Greek: kin\u00ea/se\u00f4s de mete/chein ta\\\npa/nta u(po\\ tou= nou= kinou/mena, sunelthei=n te ta\\ o(/moia], &c.\nSimplikius ad Aristot. Physic. i. p. 188, a. 13 (p. 337, Schol.\nBrandis).]\n\n[Footnote 153: Aristotel. Physic. iii. 4, 5, p. 203, a. 23, [Greek:\no(tiou=n t\u00f4=n mori/\u00f4n ei)=nai mi=gma o(moi/\u00f4s t\u00f4=| pa/nti], &c. Anaxag.\nFr. 16, p. 126, Schaub.\n\nAnaxag. Fr. 11, p. 119, Schaub. [Greek: ou) kech\u00f4/ristai ta\\ e(n e(ni\\\nko/sm\u00f4|, ou)de\\ _a)poke/koptai pele/kei_], &c. Frag. 12, p. 122.\n[Greek: e)n panti\\ pa/nta, ou)de\\ ch\u00f4ri\\s e)/stin ei)=nai].--Frag. 15,\np. 125.]\n\n[Side-note: Nothing (except [Greek: Nou=s]) can be entirely pure or\nunmixed, but other things may be comparatively pure. Flesh, Bone, &c.\nare purer than Air or Earth.]\n\nNevertheless other things approximate in different degrees to purity,\naccording as they possess a more or less decided preponderance of some\nfew ingredients over the remaining multitude. Thus flesh, bone, and\nother similar portions of the animal organism, were (according to\nAnaxagoras) more nearly pure (with one constituent more thoroughly\npreponderant and all other coexistent natures more thoroughly\nsubordinate and latent) than the four Empedoklean elements, Air, Fire,\nEarth, &c.; which were compounds wherein many of the numerous\ningredients present were equally effective, so that the manifestations\nwere more confused and complicated. In this way the four Empedoklean\nelements formed a vast seed-magazine, out of which many distinct\ndevelopments might take place, of ingredients all pre-existing within\nit. Air and Fire appeared to generate many new products, while flesh\nand bone did not.[154] Amidst all these changes, however, the infinite\ntotal mass remained the same, neither increased nor diminished.[155]\n\n[Footnote 154: Aristotle, in two places (De Coelo, iii. 3, p. 302, a.\n28, and Gen. et Corr. i. 1, p. 314, a. 18) appears to state that\nAnaxagoras regarded flesh and bone as simple and elementary: air,\nfire, and earth, as compounds from these and other Homoeomeries. So\nZeller (Philos. d. Griech., v. i. p. 670, ed. 2), with Ritter, and\nothers, understand him. Schaubach (Anax. Fr. p. 81, 82) dissents from\nthis opinion, but does not give a clear explanation. Another passage\nof Aristotle (Metaphys. A. 3, p. 984, a. 11) appears to contradict the\nabove two passages, and to put fire and water, in the Anaxagorean\ntheory, in the same general category as flesh and bone: the\nexplanatory note of Bonitz, who tries to show that the passage in the\nMetaphysica is in harmony with the other two above named passages,\nseems to me not satisfactory.\n\nLucretius (i. 835, referred to in a previous note) numbers flesh,\nbone, fire, and water, all among the Anaxagorean Homoeomeries; and I\ncannot but think that Aristotle, in contrasting Anaxagoras with\nEmpedokles, has ascribed to the former language which could only have\nbeen used by the latter. [Greek: E)nanti/\u00f4s de\\ phai/nontai le/gontes\noi( peri\\ A)naxago/ran toi=s peri\\ E)mpedokle/a. O( me\\n ga/r] (Emp.)\n[Greek: ph\u00easi pu=r kai\\ u(/d\u00f4r kai\\ a)e/ra kai\\ g\u00ea=n stoichei=a\nte/ssara kai\\ a(pla= ei)=nai, ma=llon \u00ea)\\ sa/rka kai\\ o)stou=n kai\\\nta\\ toiau=ta t\u00f4=n o(moiomer\u00f4=n. Oi( de\\] (Anaxag.) [Greek: tau=ta me\\n\na(pla= kai\\ stoichei=a, g\u00ea=n de\\ kai\\ pu=r kai\\ a)e/ra su/ntheta;\npanspermi/an ga\\r ei)=nai tou/t\u00f4n.] (Gen. et Corr. i. 1.) The last\nwords ([Greek: panspermi/an]) are fully illustrated by a portion of\nthe other passage, De Coelo, iii. 3, [Greek: a)e/ra de\\ kai\\ pu=r\nmi=gma tou/t\u00f4n] (the Homoeomeries, such as flesh and blood) [Greek:\nkai\\ t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n sperma/t\u00f4n pa/nt\u00f4n; ei)=nai ga\\r e(ka/teron au)t\u00f4=n\ne)x a)ora/t\u00f4n o(moiomer\u00f4=n pa/nt\u00f4n \u00ea)throisme/n\u00f4n; dio\\ kai\\\ngi/gnesthai pa/nta e)k tou/t\u00f4n].\n\nNow it can hardly be said that Anaxagoras recognised one set of bodies\nas simple and elementary, and that Empedokles recognised another set\nof bodies as such. Anaxagoras expressly denied _all simple bodies_. In\nhis theory, all bodies were compound: _Nous_ alone formed an\nexception. Everything existed in everything. But they were compounds\nin which particles of one sort, or of a definite number of sorts, had\ncome together into such positive and marked action, as practically to\nnullify the remainder. The generation of the Homoeomeric aggregate was\nby disengaging these like particles from the confused mixture in which\ntheir agency had before lain buried ([Greek: ge/nesis, e)/kphansis\nmo/non kai\\ e)/kkrisis tou= pri\\n kruptome/nou]. Simplikius ap.\nSchaub. Anax. Fr. p. 115). The Homoeomeric aggregates or bodies were\ninfinite in number: for ingredients might be disengaged and recombined\nin countless ways, so that the result should always be some positive\nand definite manifestations. Considered in reference to the\nHomoeomeric body, the constituent particles might in a certain sense\nbe called elements.]\n\n[Footnote 155: Anaxag. Fr. 14, p. 125, Schaub.]\n\n[Side-note: Theory of Anaxagoras compared with that of Empedokles.]\n\nIn comparing the theory of Anaxagoras with that of Empedokles, we\nperceive that both of them denied not only the generation of new\nmatter out of nothing (in which denial all the ancient physical\nphilosophers concurred), but also the transformation of one form of\nmatter into others, which had been affirmed by Thales and others. Both\nof them laid down as a basis the existence of matter in a variety of\nprimordial forms. They maintained that what others called generation\nor transformation, was only a combination or separation of these\npre-existing materials, in great diversity of ratios. Of such primordial\nforms of matter Empedokles recognised only four, the so-called\nElements; each simple and radically distinct from the others, and\ncapable of existing apart from them, though capable also of being\ncombined with them. Anaxagoras recognised primordial forms of matter\nin indefinite number, with an infinite or indefinite stock of\nparticles of each; but no one form of matter (except Nous) capable of\nbeing entirely severed from the remainder. In the constitution of\nevery individual body in nature, particles of all the different forms\nwere combined; but some one or a few forms were preponderant and\nmanifest, all the others overlaid and latent. Herein consisted the\ndifference between one body and another. The Homoeomeric body was one\nin which a confluence of like particles had taken place so numerous\nand powerful, as to submerge all the coexistent particles of other\nsorts. The majority thus passed for the whole, the various minorities\nnot being allowed to manifest themselves, yet not for that reason\nceasing to exist: a type of human society as usually constituted,\nwherein some one vein of sentiment, ethical, \u00e6sthetical, religious,\npolitical, &c., acquires such omnipotence as to impose silence on\ndissentients, who are supposed not to exist because they cannot\nproclaim themselves without ruin.\n\n[Side-note: Suggested partly by the phenomena of animal nutrition.]\n\nThe hypothesis of multifarious forms of matter, latent yet still real\nand recoverable, appears to have been suggested to Anaxagoras mainly\nby the phenomena of animal nutrition.[156] The bread and meat on which\nwe feed nourishes all the different parts of our body--blood, flesh,\nbones, ligaments, veins, trachea, hair, &c. The nutriment must contain\nin itself different matters homogeneous with all these tissues and\norgans; though we cannot see such matters, our reason tells us that\nthey must be there. This physiological divination is interesting from\nits general approximation towards the results of modern analysis.\n\n[Footnote 156: See a remarkable passage in Plutarch, Placit.\nPhilosoph. i. 3.]\n\n[Side-note: Chaos common to both Empedokles and Anaxagoras: moving\nagency, different in one from the other theory.]\n\nBoth Empedokles and Anaxagoras begin their constructive process from a\nstate of stagnation and confusion both tantamount to Chaos; which is\nnot so much active discord (as Ovid paints it), as rest and nullity\narising from the equilibrium of opposite forces. The chaos is in fact\nalmost a reproduction of the Infinite of Anaximander.[157] But\nAnaxagoras as well as Empedokles enlarged his hypothesis by\nintroducing (what had not occurred or did not seem necessary to\nAnaximander) a special and separate agency for eliciting positive\nmovement and development out of the negative and stationary Chaos. The\nNous or Mind is the Agency selected for this purpose by Anaxagoras:\nLove and Enmity by Empedokles. Both the one and the other initiate the\nrotatory cosmical motion; upon which follows as well the partial\ndisgregation of the chaotic mass, as the congregation of like\nparticles of it towards each other.\n\n[Footnote 157: This is a just comparison of Theophrastus. See the\npassage from his [Greek: phusik\u00ea\\ i(stori/a], referred to by\nSimplikius ad Aristot. Physic. i. p. 187, a. 21 (p. 335, Schol.\nBrand.).]\n\n[Side-note: Nous, or mind, postulated by Anaxagoras--how understood by\nlater writers--how intended by Anaxagoras himself.]\n\nThe Nous of Anaxagoras was understood by later writers as a God;[158]\nbut there is nothing in the fragments now remaining to justify the\nbelief that the author himself conceived it in that manner--or that he\nproposed it (according to Aristotle's expression[159]) as the cause of\nall that was good in the world, assigning other agencies as the causes\nof all evil. It is not characterised by him as a person--not so much\nas the Love and Enmity of Empedokles. It is not one but multitudinous,\nand all its separate manifestations are alike, differing only as\ngreater or less. It is in fact identical with the soul, the vital\nprinciple, or vitality, belonging not only to all men and to all\nplants also.[160] It is one substance, or form of matter among the\nrest, but thinner than all of them (thinner than even fire or air),\nand distinguished by the peculiar characteristic of being absolutely\nunmixed. It has moving power and knowledge, like the air of Diogenes\nthe Apolloniate: it initiates movement; and it knows about all the\nthings which either pass into or pass out of combination. It disposes\nor puts in order all things that were, are, or will be; but it effects\nthis only by acting as a fermenting principle, to break up the huddled\nmass, and to initiate rotatory motion, at first only on a small scale,\nthen gradually increasing. Rotation having once begun, and the mass\nhaving been as it were unpacked and liberated the component\nHomoeomeries are represented as coming together by their own inherent\nattraction.[161] The Anaxagorean Nous introduces order and symmetry\ninto Nature, simply by stirring up rotatory motion in the inert mass,\nso as to release the Homoeomeries from prison. It originates and\nmaintains the great cosmical fact of rotatory motion; which variety of\nmotion, from its perfect regularity and sameness, is declared by Plato\nalso to be the one most consonant to Reason and Intelligence.[162]\nSuch rotation being once set on foot, the other phenomena of the\nuniverse are supposed to be determined by its influence, and by their\nown tendencies and properties besides: but there is no farther agency\nof Nous, which only _knows_ these phenomena as and when they occur.\nAnaxagoras tried to explain them as well as he could; not by reference\nto final causes, nor by assuming good purposes of Nous which each\ncombination was intended to answer--but by physical analogies, well or\nill chosen, and especially by the working of the grand cosmical\nrotation.[163]\n\n[Footnote 158: Cicero, Academ. iv. 37; Sext. Empiric. adv.\nMathematicos, ix. 6, [Greek: to\\n me\\n nou=n, o(/s e)sti kat' au)to\\n\ntheo\\s], &c.\n\nCompare Schaubach, Anax. Frag. p. 153.]\n\n[Footnote 159: Aristot. Metaphys. A. p. 984, b. 17. He praises\nAnaxagoras for this, [Greek: oi(=on n\u00ea/ph\u00f4n par' ei)k\u00ea= le/gontas\ntou\\s pro/teron], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 160: Aristoteles (or Pseudo-Aristot.) De Plantis, i. 1.\n\nAristot. De Anim\u00e2, i. 2, 65-6-13.\n\nAristotle says that the language of Anaxagoras about [Greek: nou=s]\nand [Greek: psuch\u00ea\\] was not perfectly clear or consistent. But it\nseems also from Plato De Legg. xii. p. 967, B, that Anaxagoras made no\ndistinction between [Greek: nou=s] and [Greek: psuch\u00ea/]. Compare\nPlato, Kratylus, p. 400 A.]\n\n[Footnote 161: Anaxag. Fr. 8, and Schaubach's Comm. p. 112-116.\n\n\"Mens erat id, quod movebat molem homoeomeriarum: h\u00e2c ratione, per\nhunc motum \u00e0 mente excitatum, secretio facta est . . . . Materi\u00e6 autem\npropri\u00e6 insunt vires: proprio suo pondere h\u00e6c, qu\u00e6 mentis vi mota et\nsecreta sunt, feruntur in eum locum, quo nunc sunt.\"\n\nCompare Alexand. Aphrod. ap. Scholia ad Aristot. Physic. ii. p. 194,\na. (Schol. p. 348 a. Brandis); Marbach, Lehrbuch der Gesch. Philos. s.\n54, note 2, p. 82; Preller, Hist. Phil. ex Font. Loc. Contexta, s. 53,\nwith his comment.]\n\n[Footnote 162: Plato, Ph\u00e6do, c. 107, 108, p. 98; Plato, De Legg. xii.\np. 967 B; Aristot. Metaphys. A. 4, p. 985, b. 18; Plato, Tim\u00e6us, 34 A.\n88 E.]\n\n[Footnote 163: Aristoph. Nub. 380, 828. [Greek: ai)the/rios\nDi=nos--Di=nos basileu/ei, to\\n Di/' e)xel\u00ealak\u00f4/s]--the sting of which\napplies to Anaxagoras and his doctrines.\n\nAnaxagoras [Greek: di/nous tina\\s a)no\u00ea/tous a)naz\u00f4graph\u00f4=n, su\\n t\u00ea=|\ntou= nou= a)praxi/a| kai\\ a)noi/a|] (Clemens. Alexandrin. Stromat. ii.\np. 365).\n\nTo _move_ (in the active sense, _i.e._ to cause movement in) and to\n_know_, are the two attributes of the Anaxagorean [Greek: Nou=s]\n(Aristotel. De Anim\u00e2, i. 2, p. 405, a. 18).]\n\n[Side-note: Plato and Aristotle blame Anaxagoras for deserting his own\ntheory.]\n\nThis we learn from Plato and Aristotle, who blame Anaxagoras for\ninconsistency in deserting his own hypothesis, and in invoking\nexplanations from physical agencies, to the neglect of Nous and its\nsupposed optimising purposes. But Anaxagoras, as far as we can judge\nby his remaining fragments, seems not to have committed any such\ninconsistency. He did not proclaim his Nous to be a powerful\nextra-cosmical Architect, like the Demiurgus of Plato--nor an\nintra-cosmical, immanent, undeliberating instinct (such as Aristotle\ncalls Nature), tending towards the production and renewal of regular\nforms and conjunctions, yet operating along with other agencies which\nproduced concomitants irregular, unpredictable, often even obstructive\nand monstrous. Anaxagoras appears to conceive his Nous as one among\nnumerous other real agents in Nature, material like the rest, yet\ndiffering from the rest as being powerful, simple, and pure from all\nmixture,[164] as being endued with universal cognizance, as being the\nearliest to act in point of time, and as furnishing the primary\ncondition to the activity of the rest by setting on foot the cosmical\nrotation. The Homoeomeries are coeternal with, if not anterior to,\nNous. They have laws and properties of their own, which they follow,\nwhen once liberated, without waiting for the dictation of Nous. What\nthey do is known by, but not ordered by, Nous.[165] It is therefore no\ninconsistency in Anaxagoras that he assigns to mind one distinct and\npeculiar agency, but nothing more; and that when trying to explain the\nvariety of phenomena he makes reference to other physical agencies, as\nthe case seems to require.[166]\n\n[Footnote 164: Anaxagoras, Fr. 8,** p. 100, Schaub.\n\n[Greek: e)sti\\ ga\\r lepto/tato/n te pa/nt\u00f4n chr\u00eama/t\u00f4n], &c.\n\nThis means, not that [Greek: nou=s] was unextended or immaterial, but\nthat it was thinner or more subtle than either fire or air.\nHerakleitus regarded [Greek: to\\ perie/chon] as [Greek: logiko\\n kai\\\nphren\u00ea=res]. Diogenes of Apollonia considered air as endued with\ncognition, and as imparting cognition by being inhaled. Compare\nPlutarch, De Placit. Philos. iv. 3.\n\nI cannot think, with Br\u00fccker (Hist. Philosop. part ii. b. ii. De Sect\u00e2\nIonic\u00e2, p. 504, ed. 2nd), and with Tennemann, Ges. Ph. i. 8, p. 312,\nthat Anaxagoras was \"primus qui Dei ideam inter Gr\u00e6cos \u00e0 materialitate\nquasi purificavit,\" &c. I agree rather with Zeller (Philos. der\nGriech. i. p. 680-683, ed. 2nd), that the Anaxagorean Nous is not\nconceived as having either immateriality or personality.]\n\n[Footnote 165: Simplikius, in Physic. Aristot. p. 73. [Greek: kai\\\nA)naxago/ras de\\ to\\n nou=n e)a/sas, \u00f4(/s ph\u00easin Eu)/d\u00eamos, kai\\\nau)tomati/z\u00f4n ta\\ polla\\ suni/st\u00easin.]]\n\n[Footnote 166: Diogen. Laert. ii. 8. [Greek: Nou=n . . . a)rch\u00ea\\n\nkin\u00ea/se\u00f4s].\n\nBr\u00fccker, Hist. Philos. ut supra. \"Scilicet, semel inducto in materiam\n\u00e0 mente motu, sufficere putavit Anaxagoras, juxta leges natur\u00e6\nmot\u00fbsque, rerum ortum describere.\"]\n\n[Side-note: Astronomy and physics of Anaxagoras.]\n\nIn describing the formation of the Kosmos, Anaxagoras supposed that,\nas a consequence of the rotation initiated by mind, the primitive\nchaos broke up. \"The Dense, Wet, Cold, Dark, Heavy, came together into\nthe place where now Earth is: Hot, Dry, Bare, Light, Bright, departed\nto the exterior region of the revolving \u00c6ther.\"[167] In such\nseparation each followed its spontaneous and inherent tendency. Water\nwas disengaged from air and clouds, earth from water: earth was still\nfarther consolidated into stones by cold.[168] Earth remained\nstationary in the centre, while fire and air were borne round it by\nthe force and violence of the rotatory movement. The celestial\nbodies--Sun, Moon, and Stars--were solid bodies analogous to the earth,\neither caught originally in the whirl of the rotatory movement, or\ntorn from the substance of the earth and carried away into the outer\nregion of rotation.[169] They were rendered hot and luminous by the\nfiery fluid in the rapid whirl of which they were hurried along. The\nSun was a stone thus made red-hot, larger than Peloponnesus: the Moon\nwas of earthy matter, nearer to the Earth, deriving its light from the\nSun, and including not merely plains and mountains, but also cities\nand inhabitants.[170] Of the planetary movements, apart from the\ndiurnal rotation of the celestial sphere, Anaxagoras took no\nnotice.[171] He explained the periodical changes in the apparent\ncourse of the sun and moon by resistances which they encountered, the\nformer from accumulated and condensed air, the latter from the\ncold.[172] Like Anaximenes and Demokritus, Anaxagoras conceived the\nEarth as flat, round in the surface, and not deep, resting on and\nsupported by the air beneath it. Originally (he thought) the earth was\nhorizontal, with the axis of celestial rotation perpendicular, and the\nnorth pole at the zenith, so that this rotation was then lateral, like\nthat of a dome or roof; it was moreover equable and unchanging with\nreference to every part of the plane of the earth's upper surface, and\ndistributed light and heat equally to every part. But after a certain\ntime the Earth tilted over of its own accord to the south, thus\nlowering its southern half, raising the northern half, and causing the\ncelestial rotation to appear oblique.[173]\n\n[Footnote 167: Anaxag. Fr. 19, p. 131, Schaub.; compare Fr. 6, p. 97;\nDiogen. Laert. ii. 8.]\n\n[Footnote 168: Anaxag. Fr. 20, p. 133, Schau.]\n\n[Footnote 169: See the curious passage in Plutarch, Lysander 12, and\nPlato, Legg. xii. p. 967 B; Diogen. Laert. ii. 12; Plutarch, Placit.\nPhilos. ii. 13.]\n\n[Footnote 170: Plato, Kratylus, p. 409 A; Plato, Apol. Sok. c. 14;\nXenophon, Memorab. iv. 7.]\n\n[Footnote 171: Schaubach, ad Anax. Fr. p. 165.]\n\n[Footnote 172: Plutarch, Placit. Philosoph. ii. 23.]\n\n[Footnote 173: Diogenes Laert. ii. 9. [Greek: ta\\ d' a)/stra kat'\na)rcha\\s tholoeid\u00f4=s e)nechth\u00ea=nai, \u00f4(/ste kata\\ koruph\u00ea\\n t\u00ea=s g\u00ea=s\nto\\n a)ei\\ phaino/menon ei)=nai po/lon, u(/steron de\\ t\u00ea\\n (g\u00ea=n)\ne)/gklisin labei=n.] Plutarch, Placit. Phil. ii. 8.]\n\n[Side-note: His geology, meteorology, physiology.]\n\nBesides these doctrines respecting the great cosmical bodies,\nAnaxagoras gave explanations of many among the striking phenomena in\ngeology and meteorology--the sea, rivers, earthquakes, hurricanes,\nhail, snow, &c.[174] He treated also of animals and plants--their\nprimary origin, and the manner of their propagation.[175] He thought\nthat animals were originally produced by the hot and moist earth; but\nthat being once produced, the breeds were continued by propagation.\nThe seeds of plants he supposed to have been originally contained in\nthe air, from whence they fell down to the warm and moist earth, where\nthey took root and sprung up.[176] He believed that all plants, as\nwell as all animals, had a certain measure of intelligence and\nsentiment, differing not in kind but only in degree from the\nintelligence and sentiment of men; whose superiority of intelligence\nwas determined, to a great extent, by their possession of hands.[177]\nHe explained sensation by the action of unlike upon unlike (contrary\nto Empedokles, who referred it to the action of like upon like),[178]\napplying this doctrine to the explanation of the five senses\nseparately. But he pronounced the senses to be sadly obscure and\ninsufficient as means of knowledge. Apparently, however, he did not\ndiscard their testimony, nor assume any other means of knowledge\nindependent of it, but supposed a concomitant and controlling effect\nof intelligence as indispensable to compare and judge between the\nfacts of sense when they appeared contradictory.[179] On this point,\nhowever, it is difficult to make out his opinions.\n\n[Footnote 174: See Schaubach, ad Anax. Fr. p. 174-181. Among the\npoints to which Anaxagoras addressed himself was the annual inundation\nof the Nile, which he ascribed to the melting of the snows in\n\u00c6thiopia, in the higher regions of the river's course.--Diodor. i. 38.\nHerodotus notices this opinion (ii. 22), calling it plausible, but\nfalse, yet without naming any one as its author. Compare Euripides,\nHelen. 3.]\n\n[Footnote 175: Aristotel. De Generat. Animal. iii. 6, iv. 1.]\n\n[Footnote 176: Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. iii. 2; Diogen. Laert. ii.\n9; Aristot. De Plantis, i. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 177: Aristot. De Plantis, i. 1; Aristot. Part. Animal. iv.\n10.]\n\n[Footnote 178: Theophrastus, De Sensu, sect. 1--sect. 27-30.\n\nThis difference followed naturally from the opinions of the two\nphilosophers on the nature of the soul or mind. Anaxagoras supposed it\npeculiar in itself, and dissimilar to the Homoeomeries without.\nEmpedokles conceived it as a compound of the four elements, analogous\nto all that was without: hence man knew each exterior element by its\nlike within himself--earth by earth, water by water, &c.]\n\n[Footnote 179: Anaxag. Fr. 19, Schaub.; Sextus Empiric. adv. Mathem.\nvii. 91-140; Cicero, Academ. i. 12.\n\nAnaxagoras remarked that the contrast between black and white might be\nmade imperceptible to sense by a succession of numerous intermediate\ncolours very finely graduated. He is said to have affirmed that snow\nwas really black, notwithstanding that it appeared white to our\nsenses: since water was black, and snow was only frozen water (Cicero,\nAcadem. iv. 31; Sext. Empir. Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. i. 33). \"Anaxagoras non\nmodo id ita esse (_sc._ albam nivem esse) negabat, sed sibi, quia\nsciret aquam nigram esse, unde illa concreta esset, albam ipsam esse\n_ne videri quidem_.\" Whether Anaxagoras ever affirmed that snow did\nnot _appear to him_ white, may reasonably be doubted: his real\naffirmation probably was, that snow, though it appeared white, was not\nreally white. And this affirmation depended upon the line which he\ndrew between the fact of sense, the phenomenal, the relative, on one\nside--and the substratum, the real, the absolute, on the other. Most\nphilosophers recognise a distinction between the two; but the line\nbetween the two has been drawn in very different directions.\nAnaxagoras assumed as his substratum, real, or absolute, the\nHomoeomeries--numerous primordial varieties of matter, each with its\ninherent qualities. Among these varieties he reckoned _water_, but he\ndid not reckon _snow_. He also considered that water was really and\nabsolutely black or dark (the Homeric [Greek: me/lan u(/d\u00f4r])--that\nblackness was among its primary qualities. Water, when consolidated\ninto snow, was so disguised as to produce upon the spectator the\nappearance of whiteness; but it did not really lose, nor could it\nlose, its inherent colour. A negro covered with white paint, and\ntherefore looking white, is still really black: a wheel painted with\nthe seven prismatic colours, and made to revolve rapidly, will look\nwhite, but it is still really septi-coloured: _i.e._ the state of\nrapid revolution would be considered as an exceptional state, not\nnatural to it. Compare Plato, Lysis, c. 32, p. 217 D.]\n\n[Side-note: The doctrines of Anaxagoras were regarded as offensive and\nimpious.]\n\nAnaxagoras, residing at Athens and intimately connected with Perikles,\nincurred not only unpopularity, but even legal prosecution, by the\ntenor of his philosophical opinions, especially those on astronomy. To\nGreeks who believed in Helios and Sel\u00ean\u00ea as not merely living beings\nbut Deities, his declaration that the Sun was a luminous and fiery\nstone, and the Moon an earthy mass, appeared alike absurd and impious.\nSuch was the judgment of Sokrates, Plato, and Xenophon, as well as of\nAristophanes and the general Athenian public.[180] Anaxagoras was\nthreatened with indictment for blasphemy, so that Perikles was\ncompelled to send him away from Athens.\n\n[Footnote 180: Plato, Apol. So. c. 14; Xenoph. Memor. iv. 7.]\n\nThat physical enquiries into the nature of things, and attempts to\nsubstitute scientific theories in place of the personal agency of the\nGods, were repugnant to the religious feelings of the Greeks, has been\nalready remarked.[181] Yet most of the other contemporary philosophers\nmust have been open to this reproach, not less than Anaxagoras; and we\nlearn that the Apolloniate Diogenes left Athens from the same cause.\nIf others escaped the like prosecution which fell upon Anaxagoras, we\nmay probably ascribe this fact to the state of political party at\nAthens, and to the intimacy of the latter with Perikles. The numerous\npolitical enemies of that great man might fairly hope to discredit him\nin the public mind--at the very least to vex and embarrass him--by\nprocuring the trial and condemnation of Anaxagoras. Against other\nphilosophers, even when propounding doctrines not less obnoxious\nrespecting the celestial bodies, there was not the same collateral\nmotive to stimulate the aggressive hostility of individuals.\n\n[Footnote 181: Plutarch, Nikias, 23.]\n\n[Side-note: Diogenes of Apollonia recognises one primordial element.]\n\nContemporary with Anaxagoras--yet somewhat younger, as far as we can\njudge, upon doubtful evidence--lived the philosopher Diogenes, a\nnative of Apollonia in Krete. Of his life we know nothing except that\nhe taught during some time at Athens, which city he was forced to quit\non the same ground as Anaxagoras. Accusations of impiety were either\nbrought or threatened against him:[182] physical philosophy being\noffensive generally to the received religious sentiment, which was\nspecially awakened and appealed to by the political opponents of\nPerikles.\n\n[Footnote 182: Diogen. Laert. ix. 52. The danger incurred by Diogenes\nthe Apolloniate at Athens is well authenticated, on the evidence of\nDemetrius the Phalerean, who had good means of knowing. And the fact\nmay probably be referred to some time after the year B.C. 440, when\nAthens was at the height of her power and of her attraction for\nforeign visitors--when the visits of philosophers to the city had been\nmultiplied by the countenance of Perikles--and when the political\nrivals of that great man had set the fashion of assailing them in\norder to injure him. This seems to me one probable reason for\ndetermining the chronology of the Apolloniate Diogenes: another is,\nthat his description of the veins in the human body is so minute and\ndetailed as to betoken an advanced period of philosophy between B.C.\n440-410. See the point discussed in Panzerbieter, Fragment. Diogen.\nApoll. c. 12-18 (Leipsic, 1830).\n\nSimplikius (ad Aristot. Phys. fol. 6 A) describes Diogenes as having\nbeen [Greek: schedo\\n ne\u00f4/tatos] in the series of physical theorists.]\n\nDiogenes the Apolloniate, the latest in the series of Ionic\nphilosophers or physiologists, adopted, with modifications and\nenlargements, the fundamental tenet of Anaximenes. There was but one\nprimordial element--and that element was air. He laid it down as\nindisputable that all the different objects in this Kosmos must be at\nthe bottom one and the same thing: unless this were the fact, they\nwould not act upon each other, nor mix together, nor do good and harm\nto each other, as we see that they do. Plants would not grow out of\nthe earth, nor would animals live and grow by nutrition, unless there\nexisted as a basis this universal sameness of nature. No one thing\ntherefore has a peculiar nature of its own: there is in all the same\nnature, but very changeable and diversified.[183]\n\n[Footnote 183: Diogen. Ap. Fragm. ii. c. 29 Panzerb.; Theophrastus, De\nSensu, s. 39.\n\n[Greek: ei) ga\\r ta\\ e)n t\u00f4=|de t\u00f4=| ko/sm\u00f4| e)o/nta nu=n g\u00ea= kai\\\nu(/d\u00f4r kai\\ ta)/lla, o(/sa phainetai e)n t\u00f4=|de t\u00f4=| ko/sm\u00f4| e)o/nta,\nei) toute/\u00f4n ti \u00ea)=n to\\ e(/teron tou= e(te/rou e(/teron e)o\\n t\u00ea=|\ni)di/\u00ea| phu/sei, kai\\ m\u00ea\\ to\\ au)to\\ e)o\\n mete/pipte pollach\u00f4=s kai\\\n\u00ea(teroiou=to; ou)dam\u00ea= ou)/te mi/sgesthai a)ll\u00ea/lois \u00ea)du/nato ou)/te\n\u00f4)phe/l\u00easis t\u00f4=| e(te/r\u00f4| ou)/te bla/b\u00ea], &c.\n\nAristotle approves this fundamental tenet of Diogenes, the conclusion\nthat there must be one common Something out of which all things\ncame--[Greek: e)x e(no\\s a(/panta] (Gen. et Corrupt. i. 6-7,\np. 322, a. 14), inferred from the fact that they acted upon each other.]\n\n[Side-note: Air was the primordial, universal element.]\n\nNow the fundamental substance, common to all, was air. Air was\ninfinite, eternal, powerful; it was, besides, full of intelligence and\nknowledge. This latter property Diogenes proved by the succession of\nclimatic and atmospheric phenomena of winter and summer, night and\nday, rain, wind, and fine weather. All these successions were disposed\nin the best possible manner by the air: which could not have laid out\nthings in such regular order and measure, unless it had been endowed\nwith intelligence. Moreover, air was the source of life, soul, and\nintelligence, to men and animals: who inhaled all these by\nrespiration, and lost all of them as soon as they ceased to\nrespire.[184]\n\n[Footnote 184: Diog. Apoll. Fr. iv.-vi. c. 36-42, Panz.--[Greek: Ou)\nga\\r a)\\n ou(/t\u00f4 de/dasthai oi(=o/n te \u00ea)=n a)/neu no\u00ea/sios, \u00f4(/ste\npa/nt\u00f4n me/tra e)/chein, cheim\u00f4=no/s te kai\\ the/reos kai nukto\\s kai\\\n\u00ea(me/r\u00eas kai\\ u(et\u00f4=n kai\\ a)ne/m\u00f4n kai\\ eu)di\u00f4=n. kai\\ ta\\ a)/lla\nei)/ tis bou/letai e)nnoe/esthai, eu(/riskoi a)\\n ou(/t\u00f4 diakei/mena,\n\u00f4(s a)nusto\\n ka/llista. E)/ti de pro\\s tou/tois kai\\ ta/de mega/la\ns\u00eamei=a; a)/nthr\u00f4pos ga\\r kai\\ ta\\ a)/lla z\u00f4=a a)napne/onta z\u00f4/ei t\u00f4=|\na)e/ri. Kai\\ tou=to au)toi=s kai\\ psuch\u00ea/ e)sti kai\\ no/\u00easis----\n\n--Kai\\ moi\\ doke/ei to\\ t\u00ea\\n no/\u00easin e)/chon ei)=nai o( a)\u00ea\\r\nkaleo/menos u(po\\ t\u00f4=n a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n], &c.\n\nSchleiermacher has an instructive commentary upon these fragments of\nthe Apolloniate Diogenes (Vermischte Schriften, vol. ii. p. 157-162;\nUeber Diogenes von Apollonia).]\n\n[Side-note: Air possessed numerous and diverse properties; was\neminently modifiable.]\n\nAir, life-giving and intelligent, existed everywhere, formed the\nessence of everything, comprehended and governed everything. Nothing\nin nature could be without it: yet at the same time all things in\nnature partook of it in a different manner.[185] For it was\ndistinguished by great diversity of properties and by many gradations\nof intelligence. It was hotter or colder--moister or drier--denser or\nrarer--more or less active and movable--exhibiting differences of\ncolour and taste. All these diversities were found in objects, though\nall at the bottom were air. Reason and intelligence resided in the\nwarm air. So also to all animals as well as to men, the common source\nof vitality, whereby they lived, saw, heard, and understood, was air;\nhotter than the atmosphere generally, though much colder than that\nnear the sun.[186] Nevertheless, in spite of this common\ncharacteristic, the air was in other respects so indefinitely\nmodifiable, that animals were of all degrees of diversity, in form,\nhabits, and intelligence. Men were doubtless more alike among\nthemselves: yet no two of them could be found exactly alike, furnished\nwith the same dose of aerial heat or vitality. All other things,\nanimate and inanimate, were generated and perished, beginning from air\nand ending in air: which alone continued immortal and\nindestructible.[187]\n\n[Footnote 185: Diog. Ap. Fr. vi. [Greek: kai\\ e)sti m\u00eade\\ e(\\n o(/, ti\nm\u00ea\\ mete/chei tou/tou] (air). [Greek: Mete/chei de\\ ou)de\\ e(\\n\no(moi/\u00f4s to\\ e(/teron t\u00f4=| e(te/r\u00f4|; a)lla\\ polloi\\ tro/poi\\ kai\\\nau)tou\\ tou= a)e/ros kai\\ t\u00ea=s no\u00ea/sio/s ei)sin.]\n\nAristotel. De Anim\u00e2, i. 2, p. 405, a. 21. [Greek: Dioge/n\u00eas d',\n\u00f4(/sper kai\\ e(teroi/ tines, a)e/ra [u(pe/labe t\u00ea\\n psuch\u00ea/n]], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 186: Diog. Ap. Fr. vi. [Greek: kai\\ pa/nt\u00f4n z\u00f4/\u00f4n d\u00ea\\ \u00ea(\npsuch\u00ea\\ to\\ au)to/ e)stin, a)\u00ea\\r thermo/teros me\\n tou= e)/x\u00f4 e)n \u00f4(=|\ne)sme/n, tou= me/ntoi para\\ t\u00f4=| \u00ea(eli/\u00f4| pollo\\n psuchro/teros.]]\n\n[Footnote 187: Diogen. Apoll. Fr. v. ch. 38, Panz.]\n\n[Side-note: Physiology of Diogenes--his description of the veins in\nthe human body.]\n\nThe intelligence of men and animals, very unequal in character and\ndegree, was imbibed by respiration, the inspired air passing by means\nof the veins and along the blood into all parts of the body. Of the\nveins Diogenes gave a description remarkable for its minuteness of\ndetail, in an age when philosophers dwelt almost exclusively in loose\ngeneral analogies.[188] He conceived the principal seat of\nintelligence in man to be in the thoracic cavity, or in the ventricle\nof the heart, where a quantity of air was accumulated ready for\ndistribution.[189] The warm and dry air concentrated round the brain,\nand reached by veins from the organs of sense, was the centre of\nsensation. Taste was explained by the soft and porous nature of the\ntongue, and by the number of veins communicating with it. The juices\nof sapid bodies were sucked up by it as by a sponge: the odorous\nstream of air penetrated from without through the nostrils: both were\nthus brought into conjunction with the sympathising cerebral air. To\nthis air also the image impressed upon the eye was transmitted,\nthereby causing vision:[190] while pulsations and vibrations of the\nair without, entering through the ears and impinging upon the same\ncentre, generated the sensation of sound. If the veins connecting the\neye with the brain were inflamed, no visual sensation could take\nplace;[191] moreover if our minds or attention were absorbed in other\nthings, we were often altogether insensible to sensations either of\nsight or of sound: which proved that the central air within us was the\nreal seat of sensation.[192] Thought and intelligence, as well as\nsensation, was an attribute of the same central air within us,\ndepending especially upon its purity, dryness, and heat, and impeded\nor deadened by moisture or cold. Both children and animals had less\nintelligence than men: because they had more moisture in their bodies,\nso that the veins were choked up, and the air could not get along them\nfreely to all parts. Plants had no intelligence; having no apertures\nor ducts whereby the air could pervade their internal structure. Our\nsensations were pleasurable when there was much air mingled with the\nblood, so as to lighten the flow of it, and to carry it easily to all\nparts: they were painful when there was little air, and when the blood\nwas torpid and thick.[193]\n\n[Footnote 188: Diogen. Apoll. Fr. vii. ch. 48, Panz. The description\nof the veins given by Diogenes is preserved in Aristotel. Hist.\nAnimal, iii. 2: yet seemingly only in a defective abstract, for\nTheophrastus alludes to various opinions of Diogenes on the veins,\nwhich are not contained in Aristotle. See Philippson, [Greek: U(/l\u00ea\na)nthr\u00f4pi/n\u00ea], p. 203.]\n\n[Footnote 189: Plutarch, Placit. Philos. iv. 5. [Greek: E)n t\u00ea=|\na)rt\u00eariak\u00ea=| koili/a| t\u00ea=s kardi/as, \u00ea(/tis e)sti\\ kai\\ pneumatik\u00ea/].\nSee Panzerbieter's commentary upon these words, which are not very\nclear (c. 50), nor easy to reconcile with the description given by\nDiogenes himself of the veins.]\n\n[Footnote 190: Plutarch, Placit. Philosoph. iv. 18. Theophrast. De\nSensu, s. 39-41-43. [Greek: Kritik\u00f4/taton de\\ \u00ea(don\u00ea=s t\u00ea\\n gl\u00f4=ttan;\na(pal\u00f4/taton ga\\r ei)=nai kai\\ mano\\n kai\\ ta\\s phle/bas a(pa/sas\na)n\u00ea/kein ei)s au)t\u00ea/n.]]\n\n[Footnote 191: Plutarch, Placit. Philosoph. iv. 16; Theophrastus, De\nSensu, s. 40.]\n\n[Footnote 192: Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 42. [Greek: O(/ti de\\ o(\ne)nto\\s a)\u00ea\\r ai)stha/netai, mikro\\n \u00f4)\\n mo/rion tou= theou=,\ns\u00eamei=on ei)=nai, o(/ti polla/kis pro\\s a)/lla to\\n nou=n e)/chontes\nou)/th' o(r\u00f4=men ou)/t' a)kou/omen]. The same opinion--that sensation,\nlike thought, is a mental process, depending on physical conditions--is\nascribed to Strato (the disciple and successor of Theophrastus) by\nPorphyry, De Abstinenti\u00e2, iii. 21. [Greek: Stra/t\u00f4nos tou= phusikou=\nlo/gos e)sti\\n a)podeiknu/\u00f4n, \u00f4(s ou)de\\ ai)stha/nesthai to para/pan\na)/neu tou= noei=n u(pa/rchei. kai\\ ga\\r gra/mmata polla/kis\ne)piporeuome/nous t\u00ea=| o)/psei kai\\ lo/goi prospi/ptontes t\u00ea=| a)ko\u00ea=|\ndialantha/nousin \u00ea(ma=s kai\\ diapheu/gousi pro\\s e(te/rous to\\n nou=n\ne)/chontas--\u00ea(=| kai\\ le/lektai, nou=s o(r\u00ea= kai\\ nou=s a)kou/ei,\nta)/lla k\u00f4pha\\ kai\\ tuphla/.]\n\nThe expression ascribed to Diogenes by Theophrastus--[Greek: o(\ne)nto\\s a)\u00ea\\r, mikro\\n \u00f4)\\n mo/rion _tou= theou=_]--is so printed by\nPhilippson; but the word [Greek: theou=] seems not well avouched as to\nthe text, and Schneider prints [Greek: thumou=]. It is not impossible\nthat Diogenes may have called the air God, without departing from his\nphysical theory; but this requires proof.]\n\n[Footnote 193: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 43-46; Plutarch, Placit.\nPhilos. v. 20. That moisture is the cause of dulness, and that the dry\nsoul is the best and most intelligent--is cited among the doctrines of\nHerakleitus, with whom Diogenes of Apollonia is often in harmony.\n[Greek: Au)/\u00ea psuch\u00ea\\ soph\u00f4ta/t\u00ea kai\\ a)ri/st\u00ea.] See Schleiermach.\nHerakleitos, sect. 59-64.]\n\n[Side-note: Kosmology and meteorology.]\n\nThe structure of the Kosmos Diogenes supposed to have been effected by\nportions of the infinite air, taking upon them new qualities and\nundergoing various transformations. Some air, becoming cold, dense,\nand heavy, sunk down to the centre, and there remained stationary as\nearth and water: while the hotter, rarer, and lighter air ascended and\nformed the heavens, assuming through the intelligence included in it a\nrapid rotatory movement round the earth, and shaping itself into sun,\nmoon, and stars, which were light and porous bodies like pumice stone.\nThe heat of this celestial matter acted continually upon the earth and\nwater beneath, so that the earth became comparatively drier, and the\nwater was more and more drawn up as vapour, to serve for nourishment\nto the heavenly bodies. The stars also acted as breathing-holes to the\nKosmos, supplying the heated celestial mass with fresh air from the\ninfinite mass without.[194] Like Anaxagoras, Diogenes conceived the\nfigure of the earth as flat and round, like a drum; and the rotation\nof the heavens as lateral, with the axis perpendicular to the surface\nof the earth, and the north pole always at the zenith. This he\nsupposed to have been the original arrangement; but after a certain\ntime, the earth tilted over spontaneously towards the south--the\nnorthern half was elevated and the southern half depressed--so that\nthe north pole was no longer at the zenith, and the axis of rotation\nof the heavens became apparently oblique.[195] He thought, moreover,\nthat the existing Kosmos was only of temporary duration; that it would\nperish and be succeeded by future analogous systems, generated from\nthe same common substance of the infinite and indestructible air.[196]\nRespecting animal generation--and to some extent respecting\nmeteorological phenomena[197]--Diogenes also propounded several\nopinions, which are imperfectly known, but which appear to have\nresembled those of Anaxagoras.\n\n[Footnote 194: Plutarch ap. Eusebium Pr\u00e6p. Evang. i. 8; Aristotel. De\nAnim\u00e2, i. 2; Diogen. Laert. ix. 53. [Greek: Dioge/n\u00eas kiss\u00earoeid\u00ea= ta\\\na)/stra, diapnoi/as de\\ au)ta\\ nomi/zei tou= ko/smou, ei)=nai de\\\ndia/pura; sumperiphe/resthai de\\ toi=s phaneroi=s a)/strois a)phanei=s\nli/thous kai\\ par' au)to\\ tou=t' a)n\u00f4nu/mous; pi/ptonta de\\ polla/kis\ne)pi\\ t\u00ea=s g\u00ea=s sbe/nnusthai; katha/per to\\n e)n Ai)go\\s potamoi=s\npur\u00f4d\u00f4=s katenechthe/nta _a)ste/ra_ pe/trinon.] This remarkable\nanticipation of modern astronomy--the recognition of aerolithes as a\nclass of non-luminous earthy bodies revolving round the sun, but\noccasionally coming within the sphere of the earth's attraction,\nbecoming luminous in our atmosphere, falling on the earth, and there\nbeing extinguished--is noticed by Alex. von Humboldt in his Kosmos,\nvol. i. p. 98-104, Eng. trans. He says--\"The opinion of Diogenes of\nApollonia entirely accords with that of the present day,\" p. 110. The\ncharm and value of that interesting book is greatly enhanced by his\nfrequent reference to the ancient points of view on astronomical\nsubjects.]\n\n[Footnote 195: Plutarch, Placit. Philos. ii. 8; Panzerbieter ad Diog.\nAp. c. 76-78; Schaubach ad Anaxagor. Fr. p. 175.]\n\n[Footnote 196: Plut. Ap. Euseb. Pr\u00e6p. Evang. i. 8.]\n\n[Footnote 197: Preller, Hist. Philosoph. Gr\u00e6c.-Rom. ex Font. Loc.\nContexta, sect. 68. Preller thinks that Diogenes employed his chief\nattention \"in animantium natur\u00e2 ex aeris principio repetend\u00e2\"; and\nthat he was less full \"in cognitione [Greek: t\u00f4=n mete\u00f4/r\u00f4n]\". But the\nfragments scarcely justify this.]\n\n[Side-note: Leukippus and Demokritus--Atomic theory.]\n\nNearly contemporary with Anaxagoras and Empedokles, two other\nenquirers propounded a new physical theory very different from those\nalready noticed--usually known under the name of the atomic theory.\nThis Atomic theory, though originating with the Eleate Leukippus,\nobtained celebrity chiefly from his pupil Demokritus of Abdera, its\nexpositor and improver. Demokritus (born seemingly in B.C. 460, and\nreported to have reached extreme old age) was nine years younger than\nSokrates, thirty-three years older than Plato, and forty years younger\nthan Anaxagoras.[198] The age of Leukippus is not known, but he can\nhardly have been much younger than Anaxagoras.\n\n[Footnote 198: Diogen. Laert. ix. 41. See the chronology of Demokritus\ndiscussed in Mullach, Frag. Dem. p. 12-25; and in Zeller, Phil. der\nGriech., vol. i. p. 576-681, 2nd edit. The statement of Apollodorus as\nto the date of his birth, appears more trustworthy than the earlier\ndate assigned by Thrasyllus (B.C. 470). Demokritus declared himself to\nbe forty years younger than Anaxagoras.]\n\n[Side-note: Long life, varied travels, and numerous compositions of\nDemokritus.]\n\nOf Leukippus we know nothing: of Demokritus, very little--yet enough\nto exhibit a life, like that of Anaxagoras, consecrated to\nphilosophical investigation, and neglectful not merely of politics,\nbut even of inherited patrimony.[199] His attention was chiefly turned\ntowards the study of Nature, with conceptions less vague, and a more\nenlarged observation of facts, than any of his contemporaries had ever\nbestowed. He was enabled to boast that no one had surpassed him in\nextent of travelling over foreign lands, in intelligent research and\nconverse with enlightened natives, or in following out the geometrical\nrelations of lines.[200] He spent several years in visiting Egypt,\nAsia Minor, and Persia. His writings were numerous, and on many\ndifferent subjects, including ethics, as well as physics, astronomy,\nand anthropology. None of them have been preserved. But we read, even\nfrom critics like Dionysius of Halikarnassus and Cicero, that they\nwere composed in an impressive and semi-poetical style, not unworthy\nto be mentioned in analogy with Plato; while in range and diversity of\nsubjects they are hardly inferior to Aristotle.[201]\n\n[Footnote 199: Dionys. ix. 36-39.]\n\n[Footnote 200: Demokrit. Fragm. 6, p. 238, ed. Mullach. Compare ib. p.\n41; Diogen. Laert. ix. 35; Strabo, xv. p. 703.\n\nPliny, Hist. Natur. \"Democritus--vitam inter experimenta consumpsit,\"\n&c.]\n\n[Footnote 201: Cicero, Orat. c. 20; Dionys. De Comp. Verbor. c. 24;\nSextus Empir. adv. Mathem. vii. 265. [Greek: D\u00eamo/kritos, o( t\u00ea=|\nDio\\s ph\u00f4/n\u00ea| pareikazo/menos], &c.\n\nDiogenes (ix. 46-48) enumerates the titles of the treatises of\nDemokritus, as edited in the days of Tiberius by the rhetor\nThrasyllus: who distributed them into tetralogies, as he also\ndistributed the dialogues of Plato. It was probably the charm of\nstyle, common to Demokritus with Plato, which induced the rhetor thus\nto edit them both. In regard to scope and spirit of philosophy, the\ndifference between the two was so marked, that Plato is said to have\nhad a positive antipathy to the works of Demokritus, and a desire to\nburn them (Aristoxenus ap. Diog. Laert. ix. 40). It could hardly be\nfrom congeniality of doctrine that the same editor attached himself to\nboth. It has been remarked that Plato never once names Demokritus,\nwhile Aristotle cites him very frequently, sometimes with marked\npraise.]\n\n[Side-note: Relation between the theory of Demokritus and that of\nParmenides.]\n\nThe theory of Leukippus and Demokritus (we have no means of\ndistinguishing the two) appears to have grown out the Eleatic\ntheory.[202] Parmenides the Eleate (as I have already stated) in\ndistinguishing Ens, the self-existent, real, or absolute, on one\nside--from the phenomenal and relative on the other--conceived the former\nin such a way that its connection with the latter was dissolved. The\nreal and absolute, according to him, was One, extended, enduring,\ncontinuous, unchangeable, immovable: the conception of Ens included\nthese affirmations, and at the same time excluded peremptorily\nNon-Ens, or the contrary of Ens. Now the plural, unextended, transient,\ndiscontinuous, changeable, and moving, implied a mixture of Ens and\nNon-Ens, or a partial transition from one to the other. Hence (since\nNon-Ens was inadmissible) such plurality, &c., could not belong to the\nreal or absolute (ultra-phenomenal), and could only be affirmed as\nphenomenal or relative. In the latter sense, Parmenides _did_ affirm\nit, and even tried to explain it: he explained the phenomenal facts\nfrom phenomenal assumptions, apart from and independent of the\nabsolute. While thus breaking down the bridge between the phenomenal\non one side and the absolute on the other, he nevertheless recognised\neach in a sphere of its own.\n\n[Footnote 202: Simplikius, in Aristotel. Physic. fol. 7 A. [Greek:\nLeu/kippos . . . . koin\u00f4n\u00ea/sas Parmeni/d\u00ea| t\u00ea=s philosophi/as, ou) t\u00ea\\n\nau)t\u00ea\\n e)ba/dise Parmeni/d\u00ea| kai\\ Xenopha/nei peri\\ t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n\ndo/xan, a)ll', \u00f4(s dokei=, t\u00ea\\n e)nanti/an]. Aristotel. De Gener. et\nCorr. i. 8, p. 251, a. 31. Diogen. Laert. ix. 30.]\n\n[Side-note: Demokritean theory--Atoms--Plena and Vacua--Ens and\nNon-Ens.]\n\nThis bridge the atomists undertook to re-establish. They admitted that\nEns could not really change--that there could be no real generation,\nor destruction--no transformation of qualities--no transition of many\ninto one, or of one into many. But they denied the unity and\ncontinuity and immobility of Ens: they affirmed that it was\nessentially discontinuous, plural, and moving. They distinguished the\nextended, which Parmenides had treated as an _Unum continuum_, into\nextension with body, and extension without body: into _plenum_ and\n_vacuum_, matter and space. They conceived themselves to have thus\nfound positive meanings both for Ens and Non-Ens. That which\nParmenides called Non-Ens or nothing, was in their judgment the\n_vacuum_; not less self-existent than that which he called Something.\nThey established their point by showing that Ens, thus interpreted,\nwould become reconcilable to the phenomena of sense: which latter they\nassumed as their basis to start from. Assuming motion as a phenomenal\nfact, obvious and incontestable, they asserted that it could not even\nappear to be a fact, without supposing _vacuum_ as well as body to be\nreal: and the proof that both of them were real was, that only in this\nmanner could sense and reason be reconciled. Farther, they proved the\nexistence of a _vacuum_ by appeal to direct physical observation,\nwhich showed that bodies were porous, compressible, and capable of\nreceiving into themselves new matter in the way of nutrition. Instead\nof the Parmenidean Ens, one and continuous, we have a Demokritean Ens,\nessentially many and discontinuous: _plena_ and _vacua_, spaces full\nand spaces empty, being infinitely intermingled.[203] There existed\natoms innumerable, each one in itself essentially a plenum, admitting\nno vacant space within it, and therefore indivisible as well as\nindestructible: but each severed from the rest by surrounding vacant\nspace. The atom could undergo no change: but by means of the empty\nspace around, it could freely move. Each atom was too small to be\nvisible: yet all atoms were not equally small; there were fundamental\ndifferences between them in figure and magnitude: and they had no\nother qualities except figure and magnitude. As no atom could be\ndivided into two, so no two atoms could merge into one. Yet though two\nor more atoms could not so merge together as to lose their real\nseparate individuality, they might nevertheless come into such close\napproximation as to appear one, and to act on our senses as a\nphenomenal combination manifesting itself by new sensible\nproperties.[204]\n\n[Footnote 203: It is chiefly in the eighth chapter of the treatise De\nGener. et Corr. (i. 8) that Aristotle traces the doctrine of Leukippus\nas having grown out of that of the Eleates. [Greek: Leu/kippos d'\ne)/chein \u00f4)|\u00ea/th\u00ea lo/gous, oi(/tines pro\\s t\u00ea\\n ai)/sth\u00easin\no(mologou/mena le/gontes ou)k a)nair\u00ea/sousin ou)/te ge/nesin ou)/te\nphthora\\n ou)/te ki/n\u00easin kai\\ to\\ pl\u00ea=thos t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n], &c.\n\nCompare also Aristotel. De Coelo, iii. 4, p. 303, a. 6; Metaphys. A.\n4, p. 985, b. 5; Physic. iv. 6: [Greek: le/gousi de\\] (Demokritus,\n&c., in proving a vacuum) [Greek: e(\\n me\\n o(/ti \u00ea( ki/n\u00easis \u00ea( kata\\\nto/pon ou)k a)\\n ei)/\u00ea, _ou) ga\\r a)\\n dokei=n_ ei)=nai ki/n\u00easin ei)\nm\u00ea\\ ei)/\u00ea keno/n; to\\ ga\\r pl\u00ea=res a)du/naton ei)=nai de/xasthai/ ti],\n&c.\n\nPlutarch adv. Kolot. p. 1108. [Greek: Oi(=s ou)d' o)/nar e)ntuch\u00f4\\n o(\nKol\u00f4/t\u00eas, e)spha/l\u00ea peri\\ le/xin tou= a)ndro\\s] (Demokritus) [Greek:\ne)n \u00ea)=| diori/zetai, m\u00ea\\ ma=llon to\\ de\\n, \u00ea)\\ to\\ m\u00eade\\n ei)=nai;\nde\\n me\\n o)noma/z\u00f4n to\\ s\u00f4=ma m\u00eade\\n de\\ to\\ keno/n, \u00f4(s kai\\ tou/tou\nphu/sin tina\\ kai\\ u(po/stasin i)di/an e)/chontos.]\n\nThe affirmation of Demokritus--That Nothing existed, just as much as\nSomething--appears a paradox which we must probably understand as\nimplying that he here adopted, for the sake of argument, the language\nof the Eleates, his opponents. They called the vacuum _Nothing_, but\nDemokritus did not so call it. If (said Demokritus) you call vacuum\n_Nothing_, then I say that Nothing exists as well as Something.\n\nThe direct observations by which Demokritus showed the existence of a\nvacuum were--1. A vessel with ashes in it will hold as much water as\nif it were empty: hence we know that there are pores in the ashes,\ninto which the water is received. 2. Wine can be compressed in skins.\n3. The growth of organised bodies proves that they have pores, through\nwhich new matter in the form of nourishment is admitted. (Aristot.\nPhysic. iv. 6, p. 213, b.)\n\nBesides this, Demokritus set forth motion as an indisputable fact,\nascertained by the evidence of sense: and affirmed that motion was\nimpossible, except on the assumption that vacuum existed. Melissus,\nthe disciple of Parmenides, inverted the reasoning, in arguing against\nthe reality of motion. If it be real (he said), then there must exist\na vacuum: but no vacuum does or can exist: therefore there is no real\nmotion. (Aristot. Physic. iv. 6.)\n\nSince Demokritus started from these facts of sense, as the base of his\nhypothesis of atoms and vacua, so Aristotle (Gen. et Corr. i. 2; De\nAnim\u00e2, i. 2) might reasonably say that he took sensible appearances as\ntruth. But we find Demokritus also describing reason as an improvement\nand enlightenment of sense, and complaining how little of truth was\ndiscoverable by man. See Mullach, Demokritus (pp. 414, 415). Compare\nPhilippson--[Greek: U(=l\u00ea a)nthr\u00f4pi/n\u00ea]--Berlin, 1831.]\n\n[Footnote 204: Aristotel. Gen. et Corr. i. 8, p. 325, a. 25, [Greek:\nta\\ pr\u00f4=ta mege/th\u00ea ta\\ a)diai/reta sterea/]. Diogen. Laert. ix. 44;\nPlutarch, adv. Koloten, p. 1110 seq.\n\nZeller, Philos. der Griech., vol. i. p. 583-588, ed. 2nd; Aristotel.\nMetaphys. Z. 13, p. 1039, a. 10, [Greek: a)du/naton ei)=nai/ ph\u00easi\nD\u00eamo/kritos e)k du/o e(\\n \u00ea)\\| e)x e(no\\s du/o gene/sthai; ta\\ ga\\r\nmege/th\u00ea ta\\ a)/toma ta\\s ou)si/as poiei=.]]\n\n[Side-note: Primordial atoms differed only in magnitude, figure,\nposition, and arrangement--they had no qualities, but their movements\nand combinations generated qualities.]\n\nThe bridge, broken down by Parmenides, between the real and the\nphenomenal world, was thus in theory re-established. For the real\nworld, as described by Demokritus, differed entirely from the sameness\nand barrenness of the Parmenidean Ens, and presented sufficient\nmovement and variety to supply a basis of explanatory hypothesis,\naccommodated to more or less of the varieties in the phenomenal world.\nIn respect of quality, indeed, all the atoms were alike, not less than\nall the vacua: such likeness was (according to Demokritus) the\ncondition of their being able to act upon each other, or to combine as\nphenomenal aggregates.[205] But in respect to quantity or magnitude as\nwell as in respect to figure, they differed very greatly: moreover,\nbesides all these diversities, the ordination and position of each\natom with regard to the rest were variable in every way. As all\nobjects of sense were atomic compounds, so, from such fundamental\ndifferences--partly in the constituent atoms themselves, partly in the\nmanner of their arrangement when thrown into combination--arose all\nthe diverse qualities and manifestations of the compounds. When atoms\npassed into new combination, then there was generation of a new\nsubstance: when they passed out of an old combination there was\ndestruction: when the atoms remained the same, but were merely\narranged anew in order and relative position, then the phenomenon was\nsimply change. Hence all qualities and manifestations of such\ncompounds were not original, but derivative: they had no \"nature of\ntheir own,\" or law peculiar to them, but followed from the atomic\ncomposition of the body to which they belonged. They were not real and\nabsolute, like the magnitude and figure of the constituent atoms, but\nphenomenal and relative--_i.e._ they were powers of acting upon\ncorrelative organs of sentient beings, and nullities in the absence of\nsuch organs.[206] Such were the colour, sonorousness, taste, smell,\nheat, cold, &c., of the bodies around us: they were relative, implying\ncorrelative percipients. Moreover they were not merely relative, but\nperpetually fluctuating; since the compounds were frequently changing\neither in arrangement or in diversity of atoms, and every such atomic\nchange, even to a small extent, caused it to work differently upon our\norgans.[207]\n\n[Footnote 205: Aristotel. Gener. et Corr. i. 7, p. 323, b. 12. It was\nthe opinion of Demokritus, that there could be no action except where\nagent and patient were alike. [Greek: Ph\u00easi\\ ga\\r to\\ au)to\\ kai\\\no(/moion ei)=nai to/ te poiou=n kai\\ to\\ pa/schon; ou) ga\\r\ne)gch\u00f4rei=n ta\\ e(/tera kai\\ diaphe/ronta pa/schein u(p' a)ll\u00ea/l\u00f4n;\na)lla\\ ka)\\n e(/tera o)/nta poi\u00ea=| ti ei)s a)/ll\u00eala, ou)ch \u00ea(=|\ne(/tera, a)ll' \u00ea(=| tau)to/n ti u(pa/rchei, tau/t\u00ea| tou=to sumbai/nein\nau)toi=s]. Many contemporary philosophers affirmed distinctly the\nopposite. [Greek: To\\ o(/moion u(po\\ tou= o(moi/ou pa=n a)pathe/s],\n&c. Diogenes the Apolloniate agreed on this point generally with\nDemokritus; see above, p. 61, note 1 [*Footnote 185*]. The facility\nwith which these philosophers laid down general maxims is constantly\nobservable.]\n\n[Footnote 206: Aristot. Gen. et Corr. i. 2, p. 316, a. 1; Theophrast.\nDe Sensu, s. 63, 64. [Greek: Peri\\ me\\n ou)=n bare/os kai\\ kou/phou\nkai\\ skl\u00earou= kai\\ malakou= e)n tou/tois a)phori/zei; t\u00f4=n de\\ a)/ll\u00f4n\nai)sth\u00eat\u00f4=n ou)deno\\s ei)=nai phu/sin, a)lla\\ pa/nta pa/th\u00ea t\u00ea=s\nai)sth\u00ea/se\u00f4s a)lloioume/n\u00eas, e)x \u00ea(=s gi/nesthai t\u00ea\\n phantasi/an],\n&c.\n\nStob\u00e6us, Eclog. Physic. i. c. 16. [Greek: Phu/sin me\\n m\u00eade\\n ei)=nai\nchr\u00f4=ma, ta\\ me\\n ga\\r stoichei=a a)/poia, ta/ te mesta\\ kai\\ to\\\nkeno/n; ta\\ d' e)x au)t\u00f4=n sugkri/mata ke/chr\u00f4=sthai diatag\u00ea=| te kai\\\nr(uthm\u00f4=| kai\\ protrop\u00ea=|], &c.\n\nDemokritus restricted the term [Greek: Phu/sis]--Nature--to the\nprimordial atoms and vacua (Simplikius ad Aristot. Physic. p. 310\nA.).]\n\n[Footnote 207: Aristotel. Gener. et Corr. i. 2, p. 315, b. 10. [Greek:\n\u00d4(/ste tai=s metabolai=s tou= sugkeime/nou to\\ au)to\\ e)nanti/on\ndokei=n a)/ll\u00f4| kai\\ a)/ll\u00f4|, kai\\ metakinei=sthai mikrou=\ne)mmignume/nou, _kai\\ o(/l\u00f4s e(/teron phai/nesthai e(no\\s\nmetakin\u00eathe/ntos_.]]\n\n[Side-note: Combinations of atoms--generating different qualities in\nthe compounds.]\n\nAmong the various properties of bodies, however, there were two which\nDemokritus recognised as not merely relative to the observer, but also\nas absolute and belonging to the body in itself. These were weight and\nhardness--primary qualities (to use the phraseology of Locke and\nReid), as contrasted with the secondary qualities of colour, taste,\nand the like. Weight, or tendency downward, belonged (according to\nDemokritus) to each individual atom separately, in proportion to its\nmagnitude: the specific gravity of all atoms was supposed to be equal.\nIn compound bodies one body was heavier than another, in proportion as\nits bulk was more filled with atoms and less with vacant space.[208]\nThe hardness and softness of bodies Demokritus explained by the\npeculiar size and peculiar junction of their component atoms. Thus,\ncomparing lead with iron, the former is heavier and softer, the latter\nis lighter and harder. Bulk for bulk, the lead contained a larger\nproportion of solid, and a smaller proportion of interstices, than the\niron: hence it was heavier. But its structure was equable throughout;\nit had a greater multitude of minute atoms diffused through its bulk,\nequally close to and coherent with each other on every side, but not\nmore close and coherent on one side than on another. The structure of\nthe iron, on the contrary, was unequal and irregular, including larger\nspaces of vacuum in one part, and closer approach of its atoms in\nother parts: moreover these atoms were in themselves larger, hence\nthere was a greater force of cohesion between them on one particular\nside, rendering the whole mass harder and more unyielding than the\nlead.[209]\n\n[Footnote 208: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 61. [Greek: Baru\\ me\\n ou)=n\nkai\\ kou=phon t\u00f4=| mege/thei diairei= D\u00eamo/kritos], &c.\n\nAristotel. De Coelo, iv. 2, 7, p. 309, a. 10; Gen. et Corr. i. 8, p.\n326, a. 9. [Greek: Kai/toi baru/teron ge kata\\ t\u00ea\\n u(peroch\u00ea/n ph\u00easin\nei)=nai D\u00eamo/kritos e(/kaston t\u00f4=n a)diaire/t\u00f4n], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 209: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 62.]\n\n[Side-note: All atoms essentially separate from each other.]\n\nWe thus see that Demokritus, though he supposed single atoms to be all\nof the same specific gravity, yet recognised a different specific\ngravity in the various compounds of atoms or material masses. It is to\nbe remembered that, when we speak of contact or combination of atoms,\nthis is not to be understood literally and absolutely, but only in a\nphenomenal and relative sense; as an approximation, more or less\nclose, but always sufficiently close to form an atomic combination\nwhich our senses apprehended as one object. Still every atom was\nessentially separate from every other, and surrounded by a margin of\nvacant space: no two atoms could merge into one, any more than one\natom could be divided into two.\n\n[Side-note: All properties of objects, except weight and hardness,\nwere phenomenal and relative to the observer. Sensation could give no\nknowledge of the real and absolute.]\n\nPursuant to this theory, Demokritus proclaimed that all the properties\nof objects, except weight, hardness, and softness, were not inherent\nin the objects themselves, but simply phenomenal and relative to the\nobserver--\"modifications of our sensibility\". Colour, taste, smell,\nsweet and bitter, hot and cold, &c., were of this description. In\nrespect to all of them, man differed from other animals, one man from\nanother, and even the same man from himself at different times and\nages. There was no sameness of impression, no unanimity or constancy\nof judgment, because there was no real or objective \"nature\"\ncorresponding to the impression. From none of these senses could we at\nall learn what the external thing was in itself. \"Sweet and bitter,\nhot and cold (he said) are by law or convention (_i.e._ these names\ndesignate the impressions of most men on most occasions, taking no\naccount of dissentients): what really exists is, atoms and vacuum. The\nsensible objects which we suppose and believe to exist do not exist in\ntruth; there exist only atoms and vacuum. We know nothing really and\ntruly about an object, either what it is or what it is not: our\nopinions depend upon influences from without, upon the position of our\nbody, upon the contact and resistances of external objects. There are\ntwo phases of knowledge, the obscure and the genuine. To the obscure\nbelong all our senses--sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. The\ngenuine is distinct from these. When the obscure phase fails, when we\ncan no longer see, nor hear, nor smell, nor taste, nor touch--from\nminuteness and subtlety of particles--then the genuine phase, or\nreason and intelligence, comes into operation.\"[210]\n\n[Footnote 210: Demokritus, Fr. p. 205, Mullach; Sextus Empiric. adv.\nMathemat. vii. p. 135; Diogen. Laert. ix. 72.]\n\n[Side-note: Reason alone gave true and real knowledge, but very little\nof it was attainable.]\n\nTrue knowledge (in the opinion of Demokritus) was hardly at all\nattainable; but in so far as it could be attained, we must seek it,\nnot merely through the obscure and insufficient avenues of sense, but\nby reason or intelligence penetrating to the ultimatum of corpuscular\nstructure, farther than sense could go. His atoms were not pure\nAbstracta (like Plato's Ideas and geometrical plane figures, and\nAristotle's materia prima), but concrete bodies, each with its\nown[211] magnitude, figure, and movement; too small to be seen or felt\nby us, yet not too small to be seen or felt by beings endowed with\nfiner sensitive power. They were abstractions mainly in so far as all\nother qualities were supposed absent. Demokritus professed to show how\nthe movements, approximations, and collisions of these atoms, brought\nthem into such combinations as to form the existing Kosmos; and not\nthat system alone, but also many other cosmical systems, independent\nof and different from each other, which he supposed to exist.\n\n[Footnote 211: Aristotel. Gen. et Corr. i. 8, p. 325, a. 29. [Greek:\nA)/peira to\\ pl\u00ea=thos kai\\ a)o/rata dia\\ smikro/t\u00eata t\u00f4=n o)/gk\u00f4n],\n&c.\n\nMarbach observes justly that the Demokritean atoms, though not really\nobjects of sense in consequence of their smallness (of their\ndisproportion to our visual power), are yet spoken of as objects of\nsense: they are as it were microscopic objects, and the [Greek:\ngn\u00easi/\u00ea gn\u00f4/m\u00ea], or intelligence, is conceived as supplying something\nof a microscopic power. (Marbach, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der\nPhilosophie, sect. 58, vol. i. p. 94.)]\n\n[Side-note: No separate force required to set the atoms in\nmotion--they moved by an inherent force of their own. Like atoms\nnaturally tend towards like. Rotatory motion, the capital fact of the\nKosmos.]\n\nHow this was done we cannot clearly make out, not having before us the\noriginal treatise of Demokritus, called the Great Diakosmos. It is\ncertain, however, that he did not invoke any separate agency to set\nthe atoms in motion--such as the Love and Discord of Empedokles--the\nNous or Intelligence of Anaxagoras. Demokritus supposed that the atoms\nmoved by an inherent force of their own: that this motion was as much\nwithout beginning as the atoms themselves:[212] that eternal motion\nwas no less natural, no more required any special cause to account for\nit, than eternal rest. \"Such is the course of nature--such is and\nalways has been the fact,\" was his ultimatum.[213] He farther\nmaintained that all the motions of the atoms were necessary--that is,\nthat they followed each other in a determinate order, each depending\nupon some one or more antecedents, according to fixed laws, which he\ncould not explain.[214] Fixed laws, known or unknown, he recognised\nalways. Fortune or chance was only a fiction imagined by men to cover\ntheir own want of knowledge and foresight.[215] Demokritus seems to\nhave supposed that like atoms had a spontaneous tendency towards like;\nthat all, when uncombined, tended naturally downwards, yet with\nunequal force, owing to their different size, and weight proportional\nto size; that this unequal force brought them into impact and\ncollision one with another, out of which was generated a rotatory\nmotion, gradually extending itself, and comprehending a larger and\nlarger number of them, up to a certain point, when an exterior\nmembrane or shell was formed around them.[216] This rotatory motion\nwas the capital fact which both constituted the Kosmos, and maintained\nthe severance of its central and peripheral masses--Earth and Water in\nthe centre--Air, Fire, and the celestial bodies, near the\ncircumference. Demokritus, Anaxagoras, and Empedokles, imagined\ndifferent preliminary hypotheses to get at the fact of rotation; but\nall employed the fact, when arrived at, as a basis from which to\ndeduce the formation of the various cosmical bodies and their known\nmanifestations.[217] In respect to these bodies--Sun, Moon, Stars,\nEarth, &c.--Demokritus seems to have held several opinions like those\nof Anaxagoras. Both of them conceived the Sun as a redhot mass, and\nthe Earth as a flat surface above and below, round horizontally like a\ndrum, stationary in the centre of the revolving celestial bodies, and\nsupported by the resistance of air beneath.[218]\n\n[Footnote 212: Aristotel. De Coelo, iii. 2, 3, p. 300, b. 9. [Greek:\nLeuki/pp\u00f4| kai\\ D\u00ea/mokrit\u00f4|, toi=s le/gousin a)ei\\ kinei=sthai, ta\\\npr\u00f4=ta s\u00f4/mata], &c. (Physic. viii. 3, 3, p. 253, b. 12, viii. 9, p.\n265, b. 23; Cicero, De Finib. i. 6, 17.)]\n\n[Footnote 213: Aristot. Generat. Animal. ii. 6, p. 742, b. 20; Physic.\nviii. 1, p. 252, b. 32.\n\nAristotle blames Demokritus for thus acquiescing in the general course\nof nature as an ultimatum, and for omitting all reference to final\ncauses. M. Lafaist, in a good dissertation, Sur la Philosophie\nAtomistique (Paris, 1833, p. 78), shows that this is exactly the\nultimatum of natural philosophers at the present day. \"Un ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne se\npassait-il, si on lui en demandait la raison, il (Demokritus)\nr\u00e9pondait, 'La chose se passe ainsi, parcequ'elle s'est toujours\npass\u00e9e ainsi.' C'est, en d'autres termes, la seule r\u00e9ponse que font\nencore aujourd'hui les naturalistes. Suivant eux, une pierre, quand\nelle n'est pas soutenue, tombe en vertu de la loi de la pesanteur.\nQu'est-ce que la loi de la pesanteur? La g\u00e9n\u00e9ralisation de ce fait\nplusieurs fois observ\u00e9, qu'une pierre tombe quand elle n'est pas\nsoutenue. Le ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne dans un cas particulier arrive ainsi, parceque\ntoujours il est arriv\u00e9 ainsi. Le principe qu'implique l'explication\ndes naturalistes modernes est celle de D\u00e9mokrite, c'est que la nature\ndemeure constante \u00e0 elle-m\u00eame. La proposition de D\u00e9mokrite--'Tel\nph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne a lieu de cette fa\u00e7on, parceque toujours il a eu lieu de\ncette m\u00eame fa\u00e7on'--est la premi\u00e8re forme qu' ait rev\u00eatue le principe\nde la stabilit\u00e9 des lois naturelles.\"]\n\n[Footnote 214: Aristotle (Physic. ii. 4, p. 196, a. 25) says that\nDemokritus (he seems to mean Demokritus) described the motion of the\natoms to form the cosmical system, as having taken place [Greek: a)po\\\ntou= au)toma/tou]. Upon which Mullach (Dem. Frag. p. 382) justly\nremarks--\"Casu ([Greek: a)po\\ tau)toma/tou]) videntur fieri, qu\u00e6\nnaturali qu\u00e2dam necessitate cujus leges ignoramus evenire dicuntur.\nSed quamvis Aristoteles naturalem Abderitani philosophi necessitatem,\nvitato [Greek: a)na/gk\u00eas] vocabulo, quod alii aliter usurpabant, casum\net fortunam vocaret--ipse tamen Democritus, abhorrens ab iis omnibus\nqu\u00e6 destinatam causarum seriem tollerent rerumque naturam\nperturbarent, nihil juris fortun\u00e6 et casui in singulis rebus\nconcessit.\"\n\nZeller has a like remark upon the phrase of Aristotle, which is\ncalculated to mislead as to the doctrine of Demokritus (Phil. d.\nGriech., i. p. 600, 2nd.** ed.).\n\nDugald Stewart, in one of the Dissertations prefixed to the\nEncyclop\u00e6dia Britannica, has the like comment respecting the\nfundamental principle of the Epicurean (identical _quoad hoc_ with the\nDemokritean) philosophy.\n\n\"I cannot conclude this note without recurring to an observation\nascribed by Laplace to Leibnitz--'that the _blind chance_ of the\nEpicureans involves the supposition of an effect taking place without\na cause'. This is a very incorrect statement of the philosophy taught\nby Lucretius, which nowhere gives countenance to such a supposition.\nThe distinguishing tenet of this sect was, that the order of the\nuniverse does not imply the existence of _intelligent_ causes, but may\nbe accounted for by the active powers belonging to the atoms of\nmatter: which active powers, being exerted through an indefinitely\nlong period of time, might have produced, nay must have produced,\nexactly such a combination of things as that with which we are\nsurrounded. This does not call in question the necessity of a cause to\nproduce every effect, but, on the contrary, virtually assumes the\ntruth of that axiom. It only excludes from these causes the attribute\nof intelligence. In the same way, when I apply the words _blind\nchance_ to the throw of a die, I do not mean to deny that I am\nultimately the cause of the particular event that is to take place:\nbut only to intimate that I do not here act as a _designing_ cause, in\nconsequence of my ignorance of the various accidents to which the die\nis subjected while shaken in the box. If I am not mistaken, this\nEpicurean theory approaches very nearly to the scheme which it is the\nmain object of the Essay on Probabilities (by Laplace) to inculcate.\"\n(Stewart--First Dissertation, part ii. p. 139, note.)]\n\n[Footnote 215: Demokrit. Frag. p. 167, ed. Mullach; Eusebius, Pr\u00e6p.\nEvang. xiv. 27. [Greek: a)/nthr\u00f4poi tu/ch\u00eas ei)/d\u00f4lon e)pla/santo\npro/phasin i)di/\u00eas a)bouli/\u00eas.]]\n\n[Footnote 216: Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., i. p. 604 seq.; Demokrit.\nFragm. p. 207, Mull.; Sext. Empiricus adv. Mathem. vii. 117.]\n\n[Footnote 217: Demokrit. Fragm. p. 208, Mullach. [Greek: D\u00eamo/kritos\ne)n oi(=s ph\u00easi di/n\u00ea a)po\\ panto\\s a)pokri/nesthai pantoi/\u00f4n\nei)de/\u00f4n], &c.\n\nDiog. Laert. ix. 31-44.]\n\n[Footnote 218: Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., i. p. 612, ed. 2nd.]\n\n[Side-note: Researches of Demokritus on zoology and animal\ngeneration.]\n\nAmong the researches of Demokritus there were some relating to animal\ngeneration, and zoology; but we cannot find that his opinions on these\nsubjects were in peculiar connection with his atomic theory.[219] Nor\ndo we know how far he carried out that theory into detail by tracing\nthe various phenomenal manifestations to their basis in atomic\nreality, and by showing what particular magnitude, figure, and\narrangement of atoms belonged to each. It was only in some special\ncases that he thus connected determinate atoms with compounds of\ndeterminate quality; for example, in regard to the four Empedoklean\nelements. The atoms constituting heat or fire he affirmed to be small\nand globular, the most mobile, rapid, and penetrating of all; those\nconstituting air, water, and earth, were an assemblage of all\nvarieties of figures, but differed from each other in magnitude--the\natoms of air being apparently smallest, those of earth largest.[220]\n\n[Footnote 219: Mullach, Demokr. Fragm. p. 395 seqq.]\n\n[Footnote 220: Aristotle, Gen. et Corr. i. 8, p. 326, a. 5; De Coelo,\niii. 8, p. 306, b. 35; Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 64.]\n\n[Side-note: His account of mind--he identified it with heat or fire\ndiffused throughout animals, plants, and nature generally. Mental\nparticles intermingled throughout all the frame with corporeal\nparticles.]\n\nIn regard to mind or soul generally, he identified it with heat or\nfire, conceiving it to consist in the same very small, globular,\nrapidly movable atoms, penetrating everywhere: which he illustrated by\ncomparison with the fine dust seen in sunbeams when shining through a\ndoorway. That these were the constituent atoms of mind, he proved by\nthe fact, that its first and most essential property was to move the\nbody, and to be itself moved.[221] Mind, soul, the vital principle,\nfire, heat, &c., were, in the opinion of Demokritus, substantially\nidentical--not confined to man or even to animals, but\ndiffused, in unequal proportions, throughout plants, the air, and\nnature generally. Sensation, thought, knowledge, were all motions of\nmind or of these restless mental particles, which Demokritus supposed\nto be distributed over every part of the living body, mingling and\nalternating with the corporeal particles.[222] It was the essential\ncondition of life, that the mental particles should be maintained in\nproper number and distribution throughout the body; but by their\nsubtle nature they were constantly tending to escape, being squeezed\nor thrust out at all apertures by the pressure of air on all the\nexternal parts. Such tendency was counteracted by the process of\nrespiration, whereby mental or vital particles, being abundantly\ndistributed throughout the air, were inhaled along with air, and\nformed an inward current which either prevented the escape, or\ncompensated the loss, of those which were tending outwards. When\nbreathing ceased, such inward current being no longer kept up, the\nvital particles in the interior were speedily forced out, and death\nensued.[223]\n\n[Footnote 221: Aristotel. De Anim\u00e2, i. 2, 2-3, p. 403, b. 28; i. 3, p.\n406, b. 20; Cicero, Tuscul. Disput. i. 11; Diogen. Laert. ix. 44.]\n\n[Footnote 222: Aristotel. De Respirat. (c. 4, p. 472, a. 5), [Greek:\nle/gei] (Demokritus) [Greek: \u00f4(s \u00ea( psuch\u00ea\\ kai\\ to\\ thermo\\n\ntau)to\\n, ta\\ pr\u00f4=ta sch\u00ea/mata t\u00f4=n sphairoeid\u00f4=n].\n\nLucretius, iii. 370.\n\nIllud in his rebus nequaquam sumere possis,\nDemocriti quod sancta viri sententia ponit;\nCorporis atque animi primordia singula privis\nAdposita alternis variare ac nectere membra.]\n\n[Footnote 223: Aristotel. De Respiratione, c. 4, p. 472, a. 10; De\nAnim\u00e2, i. 2, p. 404, a. 12.]\n\n[Side-note: Different mental aptitudes attached to different parts of\nthe body.]\n\nThough Demokritus conceived those mental particles as distributed all\nover the body, yet he recognised different mental aptitudes attached\nto different parts of the body. Besides the special organs of sense,\nhe considered intelligence as attached to the brain, passion to the\nheart, and appetite to the liver:[224] the same tripartite division\nafterwards adopted by Plato. He gave an explanation of perception or\nsensation in its different varieties, as well as of intelligence or\nthought. Sensation and thought were, in his opinion, alike material,\nand alike mental. Both were affections of the same peculiar particles,\nvital or mental, within us: both were changes operated in these\nparticles by effluvia or images from without; nevertheless the one\nchange was different from the other.[225]\n\n[Footnote 224: Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., i. p. 618, ed. 2nd.\n\nPlutarch (Placit. Philos. iv. 4), ascribes a bipartite division of the\nsoul to Demokritus: [Greek: to\\ logiko\\n], in the thorax: [Greek: to\\\na)/logon], distributed over all the body. But in the next section (iv.\n6), he departs from this statement, affirming that both Demokritus and\nPlato supposed [Greek: to\\ \u00ea(gemoniko\\n] of the soul to be in the\nhead.]\n\n[Footnote 225: Plutarch, Placit. Philos. iv. 8. Demokritus and\nLeukippus affirm [Greek: t\u00ea\\n ai)/sth\u00easin kai\\ t\u00ea\\n no/\u00easin\ngi/nesthai, ei)d\u00f4/l\u00f4n e)/x\u00f4then prosio/nt\u00f4n; m\u00eadeni\\ ga\\r e)piba/llein\nm\u00eadete/ran ch\u00f4ri\\s tou= prospi/ptontos ei)d\u00f4/lou].\n\nCicero, De Finibus, i. 6, 21, \"imagines, qu\u00e6 idola nominant, quorum\nincursione non solum videamus, sed etiam cogitemus,\" &c.]\n\nIn regard to sensations, Demokritus said little about those of touch,\nsmell, and hearing; but he entered at some length into those of sight\nand taste.[226]\n\n[Footnote 226: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 64.]\n\n[Side-note: Explanation of different sensations and perceptions.\nColours.]\n\nProceeding upon his hypothesis of atoms and vacua as the only\nobjective existences, he tried to show what particular modifications\nof atoms, in figure, size, and position, produced upon the sentient\nthe impressions of different colours. He recognised four fundamental\nor simple colours--white, black, red, and green--of which all other\ncolours were mixtures and combinations.[227] White colour (he said)\nwas caused by smooth surfaces, which presented straight pores and a\ntransparent structure, such as the interior surface of shells: where\nthese smooth substances were brittle or friable, this arose from the\nconstituent atoms being at once spherical and loosely connected\ntogether, whereby they presented the clearest passage through their\npores, the least amount of shadow, and the purest white colour. From\nsubstances thus constituted, the effluvia flowed out easily, and\npassed through the intermediate air without becoming entangled or\nconfused with it. Black colour was caused by rough, irregular, unequal\nsubstances, which had their pores crooked and obstructed, casting much\nshadow, and sending forth slowly their effluvia, which became hampered\nand entangled with the intervening medium of air. Red colour arose\nfrom the effluvia of spherical atoms, like those of fire, though of\nlarger size: the connection between red colour and fire was proved by\nthe fact that heated substances, man as well as the metals, became\nred. Green was produced by atoms of large size and wide vacua, not\nrestricted to any determinate shape, but arranged in peculiar order\nand position. These four were given by Demokritus as the simple\ncolours. But he recognised an infinite diversity of compound colours,\narising from mixture of them in different proportions, several of\nwhich he explained--gold-colour, purple, blue, violet, leek-green,\nnut-brown, &c.[228]\n\n[Footnote 227: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 73 seq.; Aristotel. De\nSensu, c. iv. p. 442, b. 10. The opinions of Demokritus on colour are\nillustrated at length by Prantl in his Uebersicht der Farbenlehre der\nAlten (p. 49 seq.), appended to his edition of the Aristotelian or\nPseudo-Aristotelian treatise, [Greek: Peri\\ Chr\u00f4ma/t\u00f4n] (Munich,\n1849).\n\nDemokritus seems also to have attempted to show, that the sensation of\ncold and shivering was produced by the irruption of jagged and acute\natoms. See Plutarch, De Primo Frigido, p. 947, 948, c. 8.]\n\n[Footnote 228: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 76-78. [Greek: a)/peira ta\\\nchr\u00f4/mata kai\\ tou\\s chulou\\s kata\\ ta\\s mi/xeis--ou)de\\n ga\\r\no(/moion e)/sesthai tha)/teron tha)te/rou.]]\n\n[Side-note: Vision caused by the outflow of effluvia or images from\nobjects. Hearing.]\n\nBesides thus setting forth those varieties of atoms and atomic motions\nwhich produced corresponding varieties of colour, Demokritus also\nbrought to view the intermediate stages whereby they realised the act\nof vision. All objects, compounds of the atoms, gave out effluvia or\nimages resembling themselves. These effluvia stamped their impression,\nfirst upon the intervening air, next upon the eye beyond: which, being\ncovered by a fine membrane, and consisting partly of water, partly of\nvacuum, was well calculated to admit the image. Such an image, the\nlike of which any one might plainly see by looking into another\nperson's eye, was the immediate cause of vision.[229] The air,\nhowever, was no way necessary as an intervening medium, but rather\nobstructive: the image proceeding from the object would be more\nclearly impressed upon the eye through a vacuum: if the air did not\nexist, vision would be so distinct, even at the farthest distance,\nthat an object not larger than an ant might be seen in the\nheavens.[230] Demokritus believed that the visual image, after having\nbeen impressed upon the eye, was distributed or multiplied over the\nremaining body.[231] In like manner, he believed that, in hearing, the\ncondensed air carrying the sound entered with some violence through\nthe ears, passed through the veins to the brain, and was from thence\ndispersed over the body.[232] Both sight and hearing were thus not\nsimply acts of the organ of sense, but concurrent operations of the\nentire frame: over all which (as has been already stated) the mental\nor vital particles were assumed to be disseminated.\n\n[Footnote 229: Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 50. [Greek: to\\n a)e/ra to\\n\nmetaxu\\ t\u00ea=s o)/pse\u00f4s kai\\ tou= o(r\u00f4me/nou tupou=sthai], &c.\nAristotel. De Sensu, c. 2, p. 438, a. 6.\n\nTheophrastus notices this intermediate [Greek: a)potu/p\u00f4sis e)n t\u00f4=|\na)e/ri] as a doctrine peculiar ([Greek: i)di/\u00f4s]) to Demokritus: he\nhimself proceeds to combat it (51, 52).]\n\n[Footnote 230: Aristotel. De Anim\u00e2, ii. 7-9, p. 419, a. 16.]\n\n[Footnote 231: Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 54.]\n\n[Footnote 232: Theophrastus, De Sensu, 55, 56. [Greek: t\u00ea\\n ga\\r\nph\u00f4n\u00ea\\n ei)=nai puknoume/nou tou= a)e/ros kai\\ meta\\ bi/as\nei)sio/ntos], &c.\n\nDemokritus thought that air entered into the system not only through\nthe ears, but also through pores in other parts of the body, though so\ngently as to be imperceptible to our consciousness: the ears afforded\na large aperture, and admitted a considerable mass.]\n\n[Side-note: Differences of taste--how explained.]\n\nFarther, Demokritus conceived that the diversities of taste were\ngenerated by corresponding diversities of atoms, or compounds of\natoms, of particular figure, magnitude and position. Acid taste was\ncaused by atoms rough, angular, twisted, small, and subtle, which\nforced their way through all the body, produced large interior vacant\nspaces, and thereby generated great heat: for heat was always\nproportional to the amount of vacuum within.[233] Sweet taste was\nproduced by spherical atoms of considerable bulk, which slid gently\nalong and diffused themselves equably over the body, modifying and\nsoftening the atoms of an opposite character. Astringent taste was\ncaused by large atoms with many angles, which got into the vessels,\nobstructing the movement of fluids both in the veins and intestines.\nSalt taste was produced by large atoms, much entangled with each\nother, and irregular. In like manner Demokritus assigned to other\ntastes particular varieties of generating atoms: adding, however, that\nin every actual substance, atoms of different figures were\nintermingled, so that the effect of each on the whole was only\nrealised in the ratio of the preponderating figure.[234] Lastly, the\nworking of all atoms, in the way of taste, was greatly modified by the\nparticular system upon which they were brought to act: effects totally\nopposite being sometimes produced by like atoms upon different\nindividuals.[235]\n\n[Footnote 233: Theophrast. De Sensu, 65-68.]\n\n[Footnote 234: Theophrast. De Sensu, 67. [Greek: a(pa/nt\u00f4n de\\ t\u00f4=n\nsch\u00eama/t\u00f4n ou)de\\n a)ke/raion ei)=nai kai\\ a)mige\\s toi=s a)/llois,\na)ll' e)n e(ka/st\u00f4| polla\\ ei)=nai . . . . ou)= d' a)\\n e)n\u00ea=| plei=ston,\ntou=to ma/lista e)nischu/ein pro/s te t\u00ea\\n ai)/sth\u00easin kai\\ t\u00ea\\n\ndu/namin].\n\nThis essential intermixture, in each distinct substance, of atoms of\nall different shapes, is very analogous to the essential intermixture\nof all sorts of Homoeomeries in the theory of Anaxagoras.]\n\n[Footnote 235: Theophrast. De Sensu, 67. [Greek: ei)s o(poi/an e(/xin\na)\\n ei)se/lth\u00ea|, diaphe/rein ou)k o)li/gon; kai\\ dia\\ tou=to to\\\nau)to\\ ta)nanti/a, kai\\ ta)nanti/a to\\ au)to\\ pa/thos poiei=n\ne)ni/ote.]]\n\n[Side-note: Thought or Intelligence--was produced by influx of atoms\nfrom without.]\n\nAs sensation, so also thought or intelligence, was produced by the\nworking of atoms from without. But in what manner the different\nfigures and magnitudes of atoms were understood to act, in producing\ndiverse modifications of thought, we do not find explained. It was,\nhowever, requisite that there should be a symmetry, or correspondence\nof condition between the thinking mind within and the inflowing atoms\nfrom without, in order that these latter might work upon a man\nproperly: if he were too hot, or too cold, his mind went astray.[236]\nThough Demokritus identified the mental or vital particles with the\nspherical atoms constituting heat or fire, he nevertheless seems to\nhave held that these particles might be in excess as well as in\ndeficiency, and that they required, as a condition of sound mind, to\nbe diluted or attempered with others. The soundest mind, however, did\nnot work by itself or spontaneously, but was put in action by atoms or\neffluvia from without: this was true of the intellectual mind, not\nless than of the sensational mind. There was an objective something\nwithout, corresponding to and generating every different thought--just\nas there was an objective something corresponding to every different\nsensation. But first, the object of sensation was an atomic compound\nhaving some appreciable bulk, while that of thought might be separate\natoms or vacua so minute as to be invisible and intangible. Next, the\nobject of sensation did not reveal itself as it was in its own nature,\nbut merely produced changes in the percipient, and different changes\nin different percipients (except as to heavy and light, hard and soft,\nwhich were not simply modifications of our sensibility, but were also\nprimary qualities inherent in the objects themselves[237]): while the\nobject of thought, though it worked a change in the thinking subject,\nyet also revealed itself as it was, and worked alike upon all.\n\n[Footnote 236: Theophrast. De Sensu, 58. [Greek: Peri\\ de\\ tou=\nphronei=n e)pi\\ tosou=ton ei)/r\u00eaken, o(/ti gi/netai summe/tr\u00f4s\ne)chou/s\u00eas t\u00ea=s psuch\u00ea=s meta\\ t\u00ea\\n ki/n\u00easin; e)a\\n de\\ peri/thermo/s\ntis \u00ea)\\ peri/psuchros ge/n\u00eatai, metalla/ttein ph\u00easi/.]]\n\n[Footnote 237: Theophrastus, De Sensu, 71. [Greek: nu=n de\\ skl\u00earou=\nme\\n kai\\ malakou= kai\\ bare/os kai\\ kou/phou poiei= t\u00ea\\n ou)si/an,\n_o(/per (a(/per) ou)ch' \u00ea(=tton e)/doxe le/gesthai pro\\s \u00ea(ma=s,_\nthermou= de\\ kai\\ psuchrou= kai\\ t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n ou)deno/s].\n\nThis is a remarkable point to be noted in the criticisms of\nTheophrastus on the doctrine of Demokritus. Demokritus maintains that\n_hot_ and _cold_ are relative to us: _hard_ and _soft_, _heavy_ and\n_light_, are not only relative to us, but also absolute, objective,\nthings in their own nature,--though causing in us sensations which are\nlike them. Theophrastus denies this distinction altogether: and denies\nit with the best reason. Not many of his criticisms on Demokritus are\nso just and pertinent as this one.]\n\n[Side-note: Sensation, obscure knowledge relative to the sentient;\nThought, genuine knowledge--absolute, or object per se.]\n\nHence Demokritus termed sensation, _obscure knowledge_--thought,\n_genuine knowledge_.[238] It was only by thought (reason,\nintelligence) that the fundamental realities of nature, atoms and\nvacua, could be apprehended: even by thought, however, only\nimperfectly, since there was always more or less of subjective\nmovements and conditions, which partially clouded the pure objective\napprehension--and since the atoms themselves were in perpetual\nmovement, as well as inseparably mingled one with another. Under such\nobstructions, Demokritus proclaimed that no clear or certain knowledge\nwas attainable: that the sensible objects, which men believed to be\nabsolute realities, were only phenomenal and relative to us,--while\nthe atoms and vacua, the true existences or things in themselves,\ncould scarce ever be known as they were:[239] that truth was hidden in\nan abyss, and out of our reach.\n\n[Footnote 238: Demokritus Fragm. Mullach, p. 205, 206; ap. Sext.\nEmpir. adv. Mathemat. vii. 135-139, [Greek: gn\u00f4/m\u00eas du/o ei)si\\n\ni)de/ai; \u00ea( me\\n gn\u00easi/\u00ea, \u00ea( de\\ skoti/\u00ea], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 239: Democr. Frag., Mull., p. 204-5. [Greek: A(/per\nnomi/zetai me\\n ei)=nai kai\\ doxa/zetai ta\\ ai)sth\u00eata/, _ou)k e)/sti\nde\\ kata\\ a)l\u00ea/theian tau=ta;_ a)lla\\ ta\\ a)/toma mo/non kai\\ keno/n.\n\u00ea(me/es de\\ t\u00f4=| me\\n e)o/nti ou)de\\n a)treke\\s xuni/emen, meta/pipton\nde\\ kata/ te s\u00f4/matos diathig\u00ea/n, kai\\ t\u00f4=n e)peisio/nt\u00f4n, kai\\ t\u00f4=n\na)ntist\u00earizo/nt\u00f4n . . . . e)te\u00ea=| me/n nun, o(/ti oi(/on e(/kasto/n\ne)stin \u00ea)\\ ou)/k e)stin, ou) xuni/emen, pollach\u00ea= ded\u00ea/l\u00f4tai], &c.\n\nCompare Cicero, Acad. Qu\u00e6st. i. 13, ii. 10; Diog. Laert. ix. 72;\nAristotel. Metaphys. iii. 5, p. 1009, b. 10.]\n\n[Side-note: Idola or images were thrown off from objects, which\ndetermined the tone of thoughts, feelings, dreams, divinations, &c.]\n\nAs Demokritus supposed both sensations and thoughts to be determined\nby effluvia from without, so he assumed a similar cause to account for\nbeliefs, comfortable or uncomfortable dispositions, fancies, dreams,\npresentiments, &c. He supposed that the air contained many effluences,\nspectres, images, cast off from persons and substances in\nnature--sometimes even from outlying very distant objects which lay\nbeyond the bounds of the Kosmos. Of these images, impregnated with the\nproperties, bodily and mental, of the objects from whence they came,\nsome were beneficent, others mischievous: they penetrated into the\nhuman body through the pores and spread their influence all through\nthe system.[240] Those thrown off by jealous and vindictive men were\nespecially hurtful,[241] as they inflicted suffering corresponding to\nthe tempers of those with whom they originated. Trains of thought and\nfeeling were thus excited in men's minds; in sleep,[242] dreams,\ndivinations, prophetic warnings, and threats, were communicated:\nsometimes, pestilence and other misfortunes were thus begun.\nDemokritus believed that men's happiness depended much upon the nature\nand character of the images which might approach them, expressing an\nanxious wish that he might himself meet with such as were\npropitious.[243] It was from grand and terrific images of this nature,\nthat he supposed the idea and belief of the Gods to have arisen: a\nsupposition countenanced by the numerous tales, respecting appearances\nof the Gods both to dreaming and to waking men, current among the\npoets and in the familiar talk of Greece.\n\n[Footnote 240: Demokriti Frag. p. 207, Mullach; Sext. Empiric. adv.\nMathemat. ix. 19; Plutarch, Symposiac. viii. 10, p. 735 A.]\n\n[Footnote 241: Plutarch, Symposiac. v. 7, p. 683 A.]\n\n[Footnote 242: Aristotel. De Divinat. per Somnum, p. 464, a. 5;\nPlutarch, Symposiac. viii. 9, p. 733 E. [Greek: o(/ti kai\\ ko/sm\u00f4n\ne)kto\\s phthare/nt\u00f4n kai\\ s\u00f4ma/t\u00f4n a)llophu/l\u00f4n e)k t\u00ea=s a)por)r(oi/as\ne)pir)r(eo/nt\u00f4n, e)ntau=tha polla/kis a)rchai\\ parempi/ptousi loim\u00f4=n\nkai\\ path\u00f4=n ou) sun\u00ea/th\u00f4n.]]\n\n[Footnote 243: Plutarch, De Oraculor. Defectu, p. 419. [Greek: au)to\\s\neu)/chetai eu)lo/gch\u00f4n ei)d\u00f4l\u00f4n tugcha/nein.]]\n\n[Side-note: Universality of Demokritus--his ethical views.]\n\nAmong the lost treasures of Hellenic intellect, there are few which\nare more to be regretted than the works of Demokritus. Little is known\nof them except the titles: but these are instructive as well as\nmultifarious. The number of different subjects which they embrace is\nastonishing. Besides his atomic theory, and its application to\ncosmogony and physics, whereby he is chiefly known, and from whence\nhis title of _physicus_ was derived--we find mention of works on\ngeometry, arithmetic, astronomy, optics, geography or geology,\nzoology, botany, medicine, music, and poetry, grammar, history,\nethics, &c.[244] In such universality he is the predecessor, perhaps\nthe model, of Aristotle. It is not likely that this wide range of\nsubjects should have been handled in a spirit of empty generality,\nwithout facts or particulars: for we know that his life was long, his\ncuriosity insatiable, and his personal travel and observation greater\nthan that of any contemporary. We know too that he entered more or\nless upon the field of dialectics, discussing those questions of\nevidence which became so rife in the Platonic age. He criticised, and\nis said to have combated, the doctrine laid down by Protagoras, \"Man\nis the measure of all things\". It would have been interesting to know\nfrom what point of view he approached it: but we learn only the fact\nthat he criticised it adversely.[245] The numerous treatises of\nDemokritus, together with the proportion of them which relate to\nethical and social subjects, rank him with the philosophers of the\nPlatonic and Aristotelian age. His Summum Bonum, as far as we can make\nout, appears to have been the maintenance of mental serenity and\ncontentment: in which view he recommended a life of tranquil\ncontemplation, apart from money-making, or ambition, or the exciting\npleasures of life.[246]\n\n[Footnote 244: See the list of the works of Demokritus in Diogen.\nLaert. ix. 46, and in Mullach's edition of the Fragments, p. 105-107.\nMullach mentions here (note 18) that Demokritus is cited seventy-eight\ntimes in the extant works of Aristotle, and sometimes with honourable\nmention. He is never mentioned by Plato. In the fragment of Philodemus\nde Musica, Demokritus is called [Greek: a)n\u00ea\\r ou) phusiolog\u00f4/tatos\nmo/non t\u00f4=n a)rchai/\u00f4n, a)lla\\ kai\\ peri\\ ta\\ i(storou/mena ou)deno\\s\n\u00ea)=tton polupra/gm\u00f4n] (Mullach, p. 237). Seneca calls him \"Democritus,\nsubtilissimus antiquorum omnium\".--Qu\u00e6stion. Natural. vii. 2. And\nDionysius of Hal. (De Comp. Verb. p. 187, R.) characterises\nDemokritus, Plato, and Aristotle (he arranges them in that order) as\nfirst among all the philosophers, in respect of [Greek: su/nthesis\nt\u00f4=n o)noma/t\u00f4n].]\n\n[Footnote 245: Plutarch, adv. Kol\u00f4ten, p. 1108.\n\nAmong the Demokritean treatises, was one entitled Pythagoras, which\ncontained probably a comment on the life and doctrines of that eminent\nman, written in an admiring spirit. (Diog. Laert. ix. 38.)]\n\n[Footnote 246: Seneca, De Tranquill. Anim\u00e6, cap. 2. \"Hanc stabilem\nanimi sedem Gr\u00e6ci [Greek: Eu)thumi/an] vocant, de quo Democriti\nvolumen egregium est.\" Compare Cicero De Finib. v. 29; Diogen. Laert.\nix. 45. For [Greek: eu)thumi/a] Demokritus used as synonyms [Greek:\neu)est\u00f4/, a)thambi/\u00ea, a)taraxi/\u00ea], &c. See Mullach, p. 416.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nGENERAL REMARKS ON THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHERS\n--GROWTH OF DIALECTIC--ZENO AND GORGIAS.\n\n\n[Side-note: Variety of sects and theories--multiplicity of individual\nauthorities is the characteristic of Greek philosophy.]\n\nThe first feeling of any reader accustomed to the astronomy and\nphysics of the present century, on considering the various theories\nnoticed in the preceding chapter, is a sort of astonishment that such\ntheories should have been ever propounded or accepted as true. Yet\nthere can be no doubt that they represent the best thoughts of\nsincere, contemplative, and ingenious men, furnished with as much\nknowledge of fact, and as good a method, as was then attainable. The\nrecord of what such men have received as scientific truth or\nprobability, in different ages, is instructive in many ways, but in\nnone more than in showing how essentially relative and variable are\nthe conditions of human belief; how unfounded is the assumption of\nthose modern philosophers who proclaim certain first truths or first\nprinciples as universal, intuitive, self-evident; how little any\ntheorist can appreciate _\u00e0 priori_ the causes of belief in an age\nmaterially different from his own, or can lay down maxims as to what\nmust be universally believed or universally disbelieved by all\nmankind. We shall have farther illustration of this truth as we\nproceed: here I only note variety of belief, even on the most\nfundamental points, as being the essential feature of Grecian\nphilosophy even from its outset, long before the age of those who are\nusually denounced as the active sowers of discord, the Sophists and\nthe professed disputants. Each philosopher followed his own individual\nreason, departing from traditional or established creeds, and\nincurring from the believing public more or less of obloquy; but no\none among the philosophers acquired marked supremacy over the rest.\nThere is no established philosophical orthodoxy, but a collection of\nDissenters--[Greek: a)/ll\u00ea d' a)/ll\u00f4n gl\u00f4=ssa memigme/n\u00ea]--small\nsects, each with its own following, each springing from a special\nindividual as authority, each knowing itself to be only one among\nmany.\n\n[Side-note: These early theorists are not known from their own writings,\nwhich have been lost. Importance of the information of Aristotle about\nthem.]\n\nIt is a misfortune that we do not possess a complete work, or even\nconsiderable fragments, from any one of these philosophers, so as to\nknow what their views were when stated by themselves, and upon what\nreasons they insisted. All that we know is derived from a few detached\nnotices, in very many cases preserved by Aristotle; who, not content\n(like Plato) with simply following out his own vein of ideas, exhibits\nin his own writings much of that polymathy which he transmitted to the\nPeripatetics generally, and adverts often to the works of\npredecessors. Being a critic as well as a witness, he sometimes blends\ntogether inconveniently the two functions, and is accused (probably\nwith reason to a certain extent) of making unfair reports; but if it\nwere not for him, we should really know nothing of the Hellenic\nphilosophers before Plato. It is curious to read the manner in which\nAristotle speaks of these philosophical predecessors as \"the ancients\"\n([Greek: oi( a)rchai=oi]), and takes credit to his own philosophy for\nhaving attained a higher and more commanding point of view.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Bacon ascribes the extinction of these early Greek\nphilosophers to Aristotle, who thought that he could not assure his\nown philosophical empire, except by putting to death all his brothers,\nlike the Turkish Sultan. This remark occurs more than once in Bacon\n(Nov. Org. Aph. 67; Redargutio Philosoph. vol. xi. p. 450, ed.\nMontagu). In so far as it is a reproach, I think it is not deserved.\nAristotle's works, indeed, have been preserved, and those of his\npredecessors have not: but Aristotle, far from seeking to destroy\ntheir works, has been the chief medium for preserving to us the little\nwhich we know about them. His attention to the works of his\npredecessors is something very unusual among the theorists of the\nancient world. His friends Eud\u00eamus and Theophrastus followed his\nexample, in embodying the history of the earlier theories in distinct\nworks of their own, now unfortunately lost.\n\nIt is much to be regretted that no scholar has yet employed himself in\ncollecting and editing the fragments of the lost scientific histories\nof Eud\u00eamus (the Rhodian) and Theophrastus. A new edition of the\nCommentaries of Simplikius is also greatly wanted: those which exist\nare both rare and unreadable.\n\nZeller remarks that several of the statements contained in Proklus's\ncommentary on Euclid, respecting the earliest Grecian mathematicians,\nare borrowed from the [Greek: ge\u00f4metrikai\\ i(stori/ai] of the Rhodian\nEud\u00eamus (Zeller--De Hermodoro Ephesio et Hermodoro Platonico, p. 12).]\n\n[Side-note: Abundance of speculative genius and invention--a memorable\nfact in the Hellenic mind.]\n\nDuring the century and a half between Thales and the beginning of the\nPeloponnesian war, we have passed in review twelve distinct schemes of\nphilosophy--Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Xenophanes, Pythagoras,\nParmenides, Herakleitus, Empedokles, Anaxagoras, the Apolloniate\nDiogenes, Leukippus, and Demokritus. Of most of these philosophers it\nmay fairly be said that each speculated upon nature in an original\nvein of his own. Anaximenes and Diogenes, Xenophanes and Parmenides,\nLeukippus and Demokritus, may indeed be coupled together as kindred\npairs yet by no means in such manner that the second of the two is a\nmere disciple and copyist of the first. Such abundance and variety of\nspeculative genius and invention is one of the most memorable facts in\nthe history of the Hellenic mind. The prompting of intelligent\ncuriosity, the thirst for some plausible hypothesis to explain the\nKosmos and its generation, the belief that a basis or point of\ndeparture might be found in the Kosmos itself, apart from those\nmythical personifications which dwelt both in the popular mind and in\nthe poetical Theogonies, the mental effort required to select some\nknown agency and to connect it by a chain of reasoning with the\nresult--all this is a new phenomenon in the history of the human mind.\n\n[Side-note: Difficulties which a Grecian philosopher had to\novercome--prevalent view of Nature, established, impressive, and\nmisleading.]\n\nAn early Greek philosopher found nothing around him to stimulate or\nassist the effort, and much to obstruct it. He found Nature disguised\nunder a diversified and omnipresent Polytheistic agency, eminently\ncaptivating and impressive to the emotions--at once mysterious and\nfamiliar--embodied in the ancient Theogonies, and penetrating deeply\nall the abundant epic and lyric poetry, the only literature of the\ntime. It is perfectly true (as Aristotle remarks[2]) that Hesiod and\nthe other theological poets, who referred everything to the generation\nand agency of the Gods, thought only of what was plausible to\nthemselves, without enquiring whether it would appear equally\nplausible to their successors; a reproach which bears upon many\nsubsequent philosophers also. The contemporary public, to whom they\naddressed themselves, knew no other way of conceiving Nature than\nunder this religious and poetical view, as an aggregate of\nmanifestations by divine personal agents, upon whose\nvolition--sometimes signified beforehand by obscure warnings intelligible\nto the privileged interpreters, but often inscrutable--the turn of events\ndepended. Thales and the other Ionic philosophers were the first who\nbecame dissatisfied with this point of view, and sought for some\n\"causes and beginnings\" more regular, knowable, and predictable. They\nfixed upon the common, familiar, widely-extended, material substances,\nwater, air, fire, &c.; and they could hardly fix upon any others.\nTheir attempt to find a scientific basis was unsuccessful; but the\nmemorable fact consisted in their looking for one.\n\n[Footnote 2: Aristot. Metaphys. B. 4, p. 1000, a. 10.\n\n[Greek: Oi( me\\n ou)=n peri\\ \u00ca(si/odon, kai\\ pa/ntes o(/soi\ntheo/logoi, mo/non e)phro/ntisan tou= pithanou= tou= pro\\s au)tou/s,\n\u00ea(m\u00f4=n d' \u00f4)lig\u00f4/r\u00easan; Theou\\s ga\\r poiou=ntes ta\\s a)rcha\\s kai\\ e)k\nthe\u00f4=n gegone/nai], &c. Aristotle mentions them a few lines afterwards\nas not worth serious notice, [Greek: peri\\ t\u00f4=n muthik\u00f4=s\nsophizome/n\u00f4n ou)k a)/xion meta\\ spoud\u00ea=s skopei=n.]]\n\n[Side-note: Views of the Ionic philosophers--compared with the more\nrecent abstractions of Plato and Aristotle.]\n\nIn the theories of these Ionic philosophers, the physical ideas of\ngeneration, transmutation, local motion, are found in the foreground:\ngeneration in the Kosmos to replace generation by the God. Pythagoras\nand Empedokles blend with their speculations a good deal both of\nethics and theology, which we shall find yet more preponderant when we\ncome to the cosmical theories of Plato. He brings us back to the\nmythical Prometheus, armed with the geometrical and arithmetical\ncombinations of the Pythagoreans: he assumes a chaotic substratum,\nmodified by the intentional and deliberate construction of the\nDemiurgus and his divine sons, who are described as building up and\nmixing like a human artisan or chemist. In the theory of Aristotle we\nfind Nature half personified, and assumed to be perpetually at work\nunder the influence of an appetite for good or regularity, which\ndetermines her to aim instinctively and without deliberation (like\nbees or spiders) at constant ends, though these regular tendencies are\nalways accompanied, and often thwarted, by accessories, irregular,\nundefinable, unpredictable. Both Plato and Aristotle, in their\ndialectical age, carried abstraction farther than it had been carried\nby the Ionic philosophers.[3] Aristotle imputes to the Ionic\nphilosophers that they neglected three out of his four causes (the\nefficient, formal, and final), and that they attended only to the\nmaterial. This was a height of abstraction first attained by Plato and\nhimself; in a way sometimes useful, sometimes misleading. The earlier\nphilosophers had not learnt to divide substance from its powers or\nproperties; nor to conceive substance without power as one thing, and\npower without substance as another. Their primordial substance, with\nits powers and properties, implicated together as one concrete and\nwithout any abstraction, was at once an efficient, a formal, and a\nmaterial cause: a final cause they did not suppose themselves to want,\ninasmuch as they always conceived a fixed terminus towards which the\nagency was directed, though they did not conceive such fixed tendency\nunder the symbol of an appetite and its end. Water, Air, Fire, were in\ntheir view not simply inert and receptive patients, impotent until\nthey were stimulated by the active force residing in the ever\nrevolving celestial spheres--but positive agents themselves,\nproductive of important effects. So also a geologist of the present\nday, when he speculates upon the early condition[4] of the Kosmos,\nreasons upon gaseous, fluid, solid, varieties of matter, as\nmanifesting those same laws and properties which experience attests,\nbut manifesting them under different combinations and circumstances.\nThe defect of the Ionic philosophers, unavoidable at the time, was,\nthat possessing nothing beyond a superficial experience, they either\nascribed to these physical agents powers and properties not real, or\nexaggerated prodigiously such as were real; so that the primordial\nsubstance chosen, though bearing a familiar name, became little better\nthan a fiction. The Pythagoreans did the same in regard to numbers,\nascribing to them properties altogether fanciful and imaginary.\n\n[Footnote 3: Plato (Sophistes, 242-243) observes respecting these\nearly theorists--what Aristotle says about Hesiod and the\nTheogonies--that they followed out their own subjective veins of thought\nwithout asking whether we, the many listeners, were able to follow them\nor were left behind in the dark. I dare say that this was true (as indeed\nit is true respecting most writers on speculative matters), but I am\nsure that all of them would have made the same complaint if they had\nheard Plato read his Tim\u00e6us.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Bacon has some striking remarks on the contrast in this\nrespect between the earlier philosophers and Aristotle.\n\nBacon, after commending the early Greek philosophers for having\nadopted as their first principle some known and positive matter, not a\nmere abstraction, goes on to say:--\n\n\"Videntur antiqui illi, in inquisitione principiorum, rationem non\nadmodum acutam instituisse, sed hoc solummodo egisse, ut ex corporibus\napparentibus et manifestis, quod maxim\u00e9 excelleret, qu\u00e6rerent, et quod\ntale videbatur, principium rerum ponerent: tanquam per excellentiam,\nnon ver\u00e9 aut realiter. . . . Quod si principium illud suum teneant non\nper excellentiam, sed simpliciter, videntur utique in duriorem tropum\nincidere: cum res plan\u00e9 deducatur ad \u00e6quivocum, neque de igne\nnaturali, aut naturali \u00e6re, aut aqu\u00e2, quod asserunt, pr\u00e6dicari\nvideatur, sed de igne aliquo phantastico et notionali (et sic de\nc\u00e6teris) qui nomen ignis retineat, definitionem abneget. . . .\nPrincipium statuerunt secundum sensum, aliquod ens verum: modum autem\nejus dispensandi (liberius se gerentes) phantasticum.\" (Bacon,\nParmenidis, Telesii, et Democriti Philosophia, vol. xi., p. 115-116,\ned. Montagu.)\n\n\"Materia illa spoliata et passiva prorsus human\u00e6 mentis commentum\nquoddam videtur. Materia prima ponenda est conjuncta cum principio\nmot\u00fbs primo, ut invenitur. H\u00e6c tria (materia, forma, motus) nullo modo\ndiscerpenda, sed tantummodo distinguenda, atque asserenda materia\n(qualiscunque ea sit), ita ornata et apparata et formata, ut omnis\nvirtus, essentia, actio, atque motus naturalis, ejus consecutio et\nemanatio esse possit. Omnes fer\u00e8 antiqui, Empedocles, Anaxagoras,\nAnaximenes. Heraclitus, Democritus, de materi\u00e2 prim\u00e2 in c\u00e6teris\ndissidentes, in hoc convenerunt, quod materiam activam form\u00e2 nonnull\u00e2,\net formam suam dispensantem, atque intra se principium mot\u00fbs habentem,\nposuerunt.\" (Bacon, De Parmenidis, Telesii, et Campanell\u00e6, Philosoph.,\np. 653-654, t. v.)\n\nCompare Aphorism I. 50 of the Novum Organum.\n\nBacon, Parmenidis, Telesii, et Democriti Philosophia, vol. xi. ed.\nMontagu, p. 106-107. \"Sed omnes fer\u00e8 antiqui (anterior to Plato),\nEmpedocles, Anaxagoras, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, Democritus, de materi\u00e2\nprim\u00e2 in c\u00e6teris dissidentes, in hoc convenerunt, quod materiam\nactivam, form\u00e2 nonnull\u00e2, et formam suam dispensantem, atque intra se\nprincipium mot\u00fbs habentem, posuerunt. Neque aliter cuiquam opinari\nlicebit, qui non experienti\u00e6 plan\u00e9 desertor esse velit. Itaque hi\nomnes mentem rebus submiserunt. At Plato mundum cogitationibus,\nAristoteles ver\u00f2 etiam cogitationes verbis, adjudicarunt.\" . . . .\n\"Omnino materia prima ponenda est conjuncta cum form\u00e2 prim\u00e2, ac etiam\ncum principio mot\u00fbs primo, ut invenitur. Nam et mot\u00fbs quoque\nabstractio infinitas phantasias peperit, de animis, vitis, et\nsimilibus--ac si iis per materiam et formam non satisfieret, sed ex\nsuis propriis penderent illa principiis. Sed h\u00e6c tria nullo modo\ndiscerpenda, sed tantummodo distinguenda: atque asserenda materia\n(qualiscunque ea sit) ita ornata et apparata et formata, ut omnis\nvirtus, essentia, actio, atque motus naturalis, ejus consecutio et\nemanatio esse possit. Neque propterea metuendum, ne res torpeant, aut\nvarietas ista, quam cernimus, explicari non possit--ut postea\ndocebimus.\"\n\nPlayfair also observes, in his Dissertation on the Progress of Natural\nPhilosophy, prefixed to the Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica, p. 31:--\n\n\"Science was not merely stationary, but often retrograde; and the\nreasonings of Democritus and Anaxagoras were in many respects more\nsolid than those of Plato and Aristotle.\"\n\nSee a good summary of Aristotle's cosmical views, in Ideler, Comm. in\nAristotel. Meteorologica, i. 2, p. 328-329.]\n\n[Side-note: Parmenides and Pythagoras--more nearly akin to Plato and\nAristotle.]\n\nParmenides and Pythagoras, taking views of the Kosmos metaphysical and\ngeometrical rather than physical, supplied the basis upon which\nPlato's speculations were built. Aristotle recognises Empedokles and\nAnaxagoras as having approached to his own doctrine--force abstracted\nor considered apart from substance, yet not absolutely detached from\nit. This is true about Empedokles to a certain extent, since his\ntheory admits Love and Enmity as agents, the four elements as\npatients: but it is hardly true about Anaxagoras, in whose theory No\u00fbs\nimparts nothing more than a momentary shock, exercising what modern\nchemists call a catalytic agency in originating movement among a\nstationary and stagnant mass of Homoeomeries, which, as soon as they\nare liberated from imprisonment, follow inherent tendencies of their\nown, not receiving any farther impulse or direction from No\u00fbs.\n\n[Side-note: Advantage derived from this variety of constructive\nimagination among the Greeks.]\n\nIn the number of cosmical theories proposed, from Thales to\nDemokritus, as well as in the diversity and even discordance of the\nprinciples on which they were founded--we note not merely the growth\nand development of scientific curiosity, but also the spontaneity and\nexuberance of constructive imagination.[5] This last is a prominent\nattribute of the Hellenic mind, displayed to the greatest advantage in\ntheir poetical, oratorical, historical, artistic, productions, and\ntransferred from thence to minister to their scientific curiosity.\nNone of their known contemporaries showed the like aptitudes, not even\nthe Babylonians and Egyptians, who were diligent in the observation of\nthe heavens. Now the constructive imagination is not less\nindispensable to the formation of scientific theories than to the\ncompositions of art, although in the two departments it is subject to\ndifferent conditions, and appeals to different canons and tests in the\nhuman mind. Each of these early Hellenic theories, though all were\nhypotheses and \"anticipations of nature,\" yet as connecting together\nvarious facts upon intelligible principles, was a step in advance;\nwhile the very number and discordance of them (urged by Sokrates[6] as\nan argument for discrediting the purpose common to all), was on the\nwhole advantageous. It lessened the mischief arising from the\nimperfections of each, increased the chance of exposing such\nimperfections, and prevented the consecration of any one among them\n(with that inveterate and peremptory orthodoxy which Plato so much\nadmires[7] in the Egyptians) as an infallible dogma and an exclusive\nmode of looking at facts. All the theorists laboured under the common\ndefect of a scanty and inaccurate experience: all of them were\nprompted by a vague but powerful emotion of curiosity to connect\ntogether the past and present of Nature by some threads intelligible\nand satisfactory to their own minds; each of them followed out some\nanalogy of his own, such as seemed to carry with it a self-justifying\nplausibility; and each could find some phenomena which countenanced\nhis own peculiar view. As far as we can judge, Leukippus and\nDemokritus greatly surpassed the others, partly in the pains which\nthey took to elaborate their theory, partly in the number of facts\nwhich they brought into consistency with it. The loss of the\nvoluminous writings of Demokritus is deeply to be regretted.[8]\n\n[Footnote 5: Karsten observes, in his account of the philosophy of\nParmenides (sect, 23, p. 241):--\n\n\"Primum mundi descriptionem consideremus. Argumentum illustre et\nmagnificum, cujus quanto major erat veterum in contemplando admiratio,\ntanto minor fer\u00e8 in observando diligentia fuit. Quippe universi\n_ornatum et pulcritudinem admirati_, ejus _naturam partiumque ordinem\nnon sensu assequi_ studuerunt, sed _mente informarunt ad eam pulcri\nperfectique speciem qu\u00e6 in ipsorum animis_ insideret: sic ut\nAristoteles ait, non sua cogitata suasque notiones ad mundi naturam,\nsed hanc illa accommodantes. Hujusmodi quoque fuit Parmenidea ratio.\"]\n\n[Footnote 6: Xenophon, Memor. i. 1, 13-14.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Plato, Legg. ii. 656-657.]\n\n[Footnote 8: About the style of Demokritus, see Cicero De Orat. i. 11.\nOrator. c. 20.]\n\n[Side-note: All these theories were found in circulation by Sokrates,\nZeno, Plato, and the dialecticians. Importance of the scrutiny of\nnegative Dialectic.]\n\nIn studying the writings of Plato and Aristotle, we must recollect\nthat they found all these theories pre-existent or contemporaneous. We\nare not to imagine that they were the first who turned an enquiring\neye on Nature. So far is this from being the case that Aristotle is,\nas it were, oppressed both by the multitude and by the discordance of\nhis predecessors, whom he cites, with a sort of indulgent\nconsciousness of superiority, as \"the ancients\" ([Greek: oi(\na)rchai=oi]).[9] The dialectic activity, inaugurated by Sokrates and\nZeno, lowered the estimation of these cosmical theories in more ways\nthan one: first, by the new topics of man and society, which Sokrates\nput in the foreground for discussion, and treated as the only topics\nworthy of discussion: next, by the great acuteness which each of them\ndisplayed in the employment of the negative weapons, and in bringing\nto view the weak part of an opponent's case. When we look at the\nnumber of these early theories, and the great need which all of them\nhad to be sifted and scrutinised, we shall recognise the value of\nnegative procedure under such circumstances, whether the negationist\nhad or had not any better affirmative theory of his own. Sokrates,\nmoreover, not only turned the subject-matter of discussion from\nphysics to ethics, but also brought into conscious review the _method_\nof philosophising: which was afterwards still farther considered and\nillustrated by Plato. General and abstract terms and their meaning,\nstood out as the capital problems of philosophical research, and as\nthe governing agents of the human mind during the process: in Plato\nand Aristotle, and the Dialectics of their age, we find the meaning or\nconcept corresponding to these terms invested with an objective\ncharacter, and represented as a cause or beginning; by which, or out\nof which, real concrete things were produced. Logical, metaphysical,\nethical, entities, whose existence consists in being named and\nreasoned about, are presented to us (by Plato) as the real antecedents\nand producers of the sensible Kosmos and its contents, or (by\nAristotle) as coeternal with the Kosmos, but as its underlying\nconstituents--the [Greek: a)rchai\\], primordia or ultimata--into which\nit was the purpose and duty of the philosopher to resolve sensible\nthings. The men of words and debate, the dialecticians or metaphysical\nspeculators of the period since Zeno and Sokrates, who took little\nnotice of the facts of Nature, stand contrasted in the language of\nAristotle with the antecedent physical philosophers who meddled less\nwith debate and more with facts. The contrast is taken in his mind\nbetween Plato and Demokritus.[10]\n\n[Footnote 9: Aristot. Gen. et Corr. i. 314, a. 6; 325, a. 2; Metaphys.\n[Greek: L]. 1069, a. 25. See the sense of [Greek: a)rchai+k\u00f4=s], Met.\nN. 1089, a. 2, with the note of Bonitz.\n\nAdam Smith, in his very instructive examination of the ancient systems\nof Physics and Metaphysics, is too much inclined to criticise Plato\nand Aristotle as if they were the earliest theorizers, and as if they\nhad no predecessors.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Aristotel. Gen. et Corr. i. 316, a. 6.--[Greek: dio\\\no(/soi e)n\u00f4|k\u00ea/kasi ma=llon e)n toi=s phusikoi=s, ma=llon du/nantai\nu(poti/thesthai toiau/tas a)rcha\\s, ai(\\ e)pi\\ polu\\ du/nantai\nsunei/rein; oi( d' e)k t\u00f4=n poll\u00f4=n lo/g\u00f4n a)the\u00f4/r\u00eatoi t\u00f4=n\nu(parcho/nt\u00f4n o)/ntes, pro\\s o)li/ga ble/psantes, a)pophai/nontai\nr(a=|on; i)/doi d' a)/n tis kai\\ e)k tou/t\u00f4n o(/son diaphe/rousin oi(\nphusik\u00f4=s kai\\ logik\u00f4=s skopou=ntes], &c. This remark is thoroughly\nBaconian.\n\n[Greek: Oi( en toi=s lo/gois] is the phrase by which Aristotle\ncharacterises the Platonici.--Metaphys. [Greek: Th]. 1050, b. 35.]\n\n[Side-note: The early theorists were studied along with Plato and\nAristotle, in the third and second centuries B.C.]\n\nBoth by Stoics and by Epikureans, during the third and second\ncenturies B.C., Demokritus, Empedokles, Anaxagoras, and Herakleitus\nwere studied along with Plato and Aristotle--by some, even more.\nLucretius mentions and criticises all the four, though he never names\nPlato or Aristotle. Cicero greatly admires the style of Demokritus,\nwhose works were arranged in tetralogies by Thrasyllus, as those of\nPlato were.[11]\n\n[Footnote 11: Epikurus is said to have especially admired Anaxagoras\n(Diog. L. x. 12).]\n\n[Side-note: Negative attribute common to all the early\ntheorists--little or no dialectic.]\n\nIn considering the early theorists above enumerated, there is great\ndifficulty in finding any positive characteristic applicable to all of\nthem. But a negative characteristic may be found, and has already been\nindicated by Aristotle. \"The earlier philosophers (says he) had no\npart in dialectics: Dialectical force did not yet exist.\"[12] And the\nperiod upon which we are now entering is distinguished mainly by the\nintroduction and increasing preponderance of this new\nelement--Dialectic--first made conspicuously manifest in the Eleatic\nZeno and Sokrates; two memorable persons, very different from each other,\nbut having this property in common.\n\n[Footnote 12: Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 987, b. 32. [Greek: Oi( ga\\r\npro/teroi dialektik\u00ea=s ou) metei=chon].--M. 1078, b. 25; [Greek:\ndialektik\u00ea\\ ga\\r i)schu\\s ou)/p\u00f4 to/t' \u00ea)=n, \u00f4(/ste du/nasthai], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Zeno of Elea--Melissus.]\n\nIt is Zeno who stands announced, on the authority of Aristotle, as the\ninventor of dialectic: that is, as the first person of whose skill in\nthe art of cross-examination and refutation conspicuous illustrative\nspecimens were preserved. He was among the first who composed written\ndialogues on controversial matters of philosophy.[13] Both he, and his\ncontemporary the Samian Melissus, took up the defence of the\nParmenidean doctrine. It is remarkable that both one and the other\nwere eminent as political men in their native cities. Zeno is even\nsaid to have perished miserably, in generous but fruitless attempts to\npreserve Elea from being enslaved by the despot Nearchus.\n\n[Footnote 13: Diogen. Laert. ix. 25-28.\n\nThe epithets applied to Zeno by Timon are remarkable.\n\n[Greek: A)mphoterogl\u00f4/ssou te me/ga sthe/nos ou)k a)lapadno\\n\nZ\u00ea/n\u00f4nos pa/nt\u00f4n e)pil\u00ea/ptoros], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Zeno's Dialectic--he refuted the opponents of Parmenides,\nby showing that their assumptions led to contradictions and\nabsurdities.]\n\nWe know the reasonings of Zeno and Melissus only through scanty\nfragments, and those fragments transmitted by opponents. But it is\nplain that both of them, especially Zeno, pressed their adversaries\nwith grave difficulties, which it was more easy to deride than to\nelucidate. Both took their departure from the ground occupied by\nParmenides. They agreed with him in recognising the phenomenal,\napparent, or relative world, the world of sense and experience, as a\nsubject of knowledge, though of uncertain and imperfect knowledge.\nEach of them gave, as Parmenides had done, certain affirmative\nopinions, or at least probable conjectures, for the purpose of\nexplaining it.[14] But beyond this world of appearances, there lay the\nreal, absolute, ontological, ultra-phenomenal, or Noumenal world,\nwhich Parmenides represented as _Ens unum continuum_, and which his\nopponents contended to be plural and discontinuous. These opponents\ndeduced absurd and ridiculous consequences from the theory of the One.\nHerein both Zeno and Melissus defended Parmenides. Zeno, the better\ndialectician of the two, retorted upon the advocates of absolute\nplurality and discontinuousness, showing that their doctrine led to\nconsequences not less absurd and contradictory than the _Ens unum_ of\nParmenides. He advanced many distinct arguments; some of them\nantinomies, deducing from the same premisses both the affirmative and\nthe negative of the same conclusion.[15]\n\n[Footnote 14: Diog. Laert. ix. 24-29.\n\nZeller (Phil. d. Griech. i. p. 424, note 2) doubts the assertion that\nZeno delivered probable opinions and hypotheses, as Parmenides had\ndone before him, respecting phenomenal nature. But I see no adequate\nground for such doubt.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Simplikius, in Aristotel. Physic. f. 30. [Greek: e)n\nme/ntoi t\u00f4=| suggra/mmati au)tou=, polla\\ e)/chonti e)picheir\u00ea/mata,\nkath' e(/kaston dei/knusin, o(/ti t\u00f4=| polla\\ ei)=nai le/gonti\nsumbai/nei ta\\ e)nanti/a le/gein], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Consequences of their assumption of Entia Plura\nDiscontinua. Reductiones ad absurdum.]\n\nIf things in themselves were many (he said) they must be both\ninfinitely small and infinitely great. _Infinitely small_, because the\nmany things must consist in a number of units, each essentially\nindivisible: but that which is indivisible has no magnitude, or is\ninfinitely small if indeed it can be said to have any existence\nwhatever:[16] _Infinitely great_, because each of the many things, if\nassumed to exist, must have magnitude. Having magnitude, each thing\nhas parts which also have magnitude: these parts are, by the\nhypothesis, essentially discontinuous, but this implies that they are\nkept apart from each other by other intervening parts--and these\nintervening parts must be again kept apart by others. Each body will\nthus contain in itself an infinite number of parts, each having\nmagnitude. In other words, it will be infinitely great.[17]\n\n[Footnote 16: Aristotel. Metaphys. B. 4, p. 1001, b. 7. [Greek: e)/ti\nei) a)diai/reton au)to\\ to\\ e(/n, kata\\ me\\n to\\ Z\u00ea/n\u00f4nos a)xi/\u00f4ma,\nou)the\\n a)\\n ei)/\u00ea.\n\no(\\ ga\\r m\u00ea/te prostithe/menon m\u00eate\\ a)phairou/menon poiei= ti mei=zon\nm\u00eade\\ e(/latton, ou)/ ph\u00easin ei)=nai tou=to t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n, \u00f4(s d\u00ea=lon\no(/ti o)/ntos mege/thous tou= o)/ntos].\n\nSeneca (Epistol. 88) and Alexander of Aphrodisias (see the passages of\nThemistius and Simplikius cited by Brandis, Handbuch Philos. i. p.\n412-416) conceive Zeno as having dissented from Parmenides, and as\nhaving denied the existence, not only of [Greek: ta\\ polla\\], but also\nof [Greek: to\\ e(/n]. But Zeno seems to have adhered to Parmenides;\nand to have denied the existence of [Greek: to\\ e(/n], only upon the\nhypothesis opposed to Parmenides--namely, that [Greek: ta\\ polla\\]\nexisted. Zeno argued thus:--Assuming that the Real or Absolute is\nessentially divisible and discontinuous, divisibility must be pushed\nto infinity, so that you never arrive at any ultimatum, or any real\nunit ([Greek: a)krib\u00f4=s e(/n]). If you admit [Greek: ta\\ polla\\], you\nrenounce [Greek: to\\ e(/n]. The reasoning of Zeno, as far as we know\nit, is nearly all directed against the hypothesis of _Entia plura\ndiscontinua_. Tennemann (Gesch. Philos. i. 4, p. 205) thinks that the\nreasoning of Zeno is directed against the world of sense: in which I\ncannot agree with him.]\n\n[Footnote 17: Scholia ad Aristotel. Physic. p. 334, a. ed. Brandis.]\n\nAgain--If things in themselves were many, they would be both finite\nand infinite in number. _Finite_, because they are as many as they\nare, neither more nor less: and every number is a finite number.\n_Infinite_, because being essentially separate, discontinuous, units,\neach must be kept apart from the rest by an intervening unit; and this\nagain by something else intervening. Suppose a multitude A, B, C, D,\n&c. A and B would be continuous unless they were kept apart by some\nintervening unit Z. But A and Z would then be continuous unless they\nwere kept apart by something else--Y: and so on ad infinitum:\notherwise the essential discontinuousness could not be maintained.[18]\n\n[Footnote 18: See the argument cited by Simplikius in the words of the\nZenonian treatise, in Preller, Hist. Philos. Gr\u00e6c. ex font. context.\np. 101, sect. 156.]\n\nBy these two arguments,[19] drawn from the hypothesis which affirmed\nperpetual divisibility and denied any Continuum, Zeno showed that such\n_Entia multa discontinua_ would have contradictory attributes: they\nwould be both infinitely great and infinitely small--they would be\nboth finite and infinite in number. This he advanced as a _reductio ad\nabsurdum_ against the hypothesis.\n\n[Footnote 19: Simplikius ad Aristot. Physic. f. 30. [Greek: kai\\\nou)/t\u00f4 me\\n to\\ kata\\ to\\ pl\u00ea=thos a)/peiron e)k t\u00ea=s dichotomi/as\ne)/deixe, to\\ de\\ kata\\ to\\ me/gethos pro/teron kata\\ t\u00ea\\n au)t\u00ea\\n\ne)pichei/r\u00easin]. Compare Zeller, Phil. d. Griech. i. p. 427.]\n\n[Side-note: Each thing must exist in its own place--Grain of millet\nnot sonorous.]\n\nAgain--If existing things be many and discontinuous, each of these\nmust exist in a place of its own. Nothing can exist except in some\nplace. But the place is itself an existing something: each place must\ntherefore have a place of its own to exist in: the second place must\nhave a third place to exist in and so forth ad infinitum.[20] We have\nhere a farther _reductio ad impossibile_ of the original hypothesis:\nfor that hypothesis denies the continuity of space, and represents\nspace as a multitude of discontinuous portions or places.\n\n[Footnote 20: Aristotel. Physic. iv. 1, p. 209, a. 22; iv. 3, p. 210,\nb. 23.\n\nAristotle here observes that the Zenonian argument respecting place is\neasy to be refuted; and he proceeds to give the refutation. But his\nrefutation is altogether unsatisfactory. Those who despise these\nZenonian arguments as _sophisms_, ought to look at the way in which\nthey were answered, at or near the time.\n\nEud\u00eamus ap. Simplik. ad Aristot. Physic. f. 131. [Greek: a)/xion ga\\r\npa=n t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n pou= ei)=nai; ei) de\\ o( to/pos t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n, pou=\na)\\n ei)/\u00ea?]]\n\nAnother argument of Zeno is to the following effect:--\"Does a grain of\nmillet, when dropped upon the floor, make sound? No.--Does a bushel of\nmillet make sound under the same circumstances? Yes.--Is there not a\ndeterminate proportion between the bushel and the grain? There\nis.--There must therefore be the same proportion between the\nsonorousness of the two. If one grain be not sonorous, neither can ten\nthousand grains be so.\"[21]\n\n[Footnote 21: Aristotel. Physic. vii. 5, p. 250, a. 20, with the\nScholia of Simplikius on the passage, p. 423, ed. Brandis.]\n\nTo appreciate the contradiction brought out by Zeno, we must recollect\nthat he is not here reasoning about facts of sense, phenomenal and\nrelative--but about things in themselves, absolute and\nultra-phenomenal** realities. He did not deny the fact of sense:\nto appeal to that fact in reply, would have been to concede his point.\nThe adversaries against whom he reasoned (Protagoras is mentioned, but he\ncan hardly have been among them, if we have regard to his memorable\ndogma, of which more will be said presently) were those who maintained\nthe plurality of absolute substances, each for itself, with absolute\nattributes, apart from the fact of sense, and independent of any\nsentient subject. One grain of millet (Zeno argues) has no absolute\nsonorousness, neither can ten thousand such grains taken together have\nany. Upon the hypothesis of absolute reality as a discontinuous\nmultitude, you are here driven to a contradiction which Zeno intends\nas an argument against the hypothesis. There is no absolute\nsonorousness in the ten thousand grains: the sound which they make is\na phenomenal fact, relative to us as sentients of sound, and having no\nreality except in correlation with a hearer.[22]\n\n[Footnote 22: It will be seen that Aristotle in explaining this\n[Greek: a)pori/a], takes into consideration the difference of force in\nthe vibrations of air, and the different impressibility of the ear.\nThe explanation is pertinent and just, if applied to the fact of\nsense: but it is no reply to Zeno, who did not call in question the\nfact of sense. Zeno is impugning the doctrine of absolute substances\nand absolute divisibility. To say that ten thousand grains are\nsonorous, but that no one of them separately taken is so, appears to\nhim a contradiction, similar to what is involved in saying that a real\nmagnitude is made up of mathematical points. Aristotle does not meet\nthis difficulty.]\n\n[Side-note: Zenonian arguments in regard to motion.]\n\nOther memorable arguments of Zeno against the same hypothesis were\nthose by which he proved that if it were admitted, motion would be\nimpossible. Upon the theory of absolute plurality and\ndiscontinuousness, every line or portion of distance was divisible\ninto an infinite number of parts: before a moving body could get from\nthe beginning to the end of this line, it must pass in succession over\nevery one of these parts: but to do this in a finite time was\nimpossible: therefore motion was impossible.[23]\n\n[Footnote 23: Aristot. Physic. vi. 9, p. 239 b., with the Scholia, p.\n412 seq. ed. Brandis; Aristotel. De Lineis Insecabilibus, p. 968, a.\n19.\n\nThese four arguments against absolute motion caused embarrassment to\nAristotle and his contemporaries. [Greek: te/ttares d' ei)si\\ lo/goi\nZ\u00ea/n\u00f4nos oi( pare/chontes ta\\s duskoli/as toi=s lu/ousin], &c.]\n\nA second argument of the same tendency was advanced in the form of\ncomparison between Achilles and the tortoise--the swiftest and slowest\nmovers. The two run a race, a certain start being given to the\ntortoise. Zeno contends that Achilles can never overtake the tortoise.\nIt is plain indeed, according to the preceding argument, that motion\nboth for the one and for the other is an impossibility. Neither one\nnor the other can advance from the beginning to the end of any line,\nexcept by passing successively through all the parts of that line: but\nthose parts are infinite in number, and cannot therefore be passed\nthrough in any finite time. But suppose such impossibility to be got\nover: still Achilles will not overtake the tortoise. For while\nAchilles advances one hundred yards, the tortoise has advanced ten:\nwhile Achilles passes over these additional ten yards, the tortoise\nwill have passed over one more yard: while Achilles is passing over\nthis remaining one yard, the tortoise will have got over one-tenth of\nanother yard: and so on ad infinitum: the tortoise will always be in\nadvance of him by a certain distance, which, though ever diminishing,\nwill never vanish into nothing.\n\nThe third Zenonian argument derived its name from the flight of an\narrow shot from a bow. The arrow while thus carried forward (says\nZeno) is nevertheless at rest.[24] For the time from the beginning to\nthe end of its course consists of a multitude of successive instants.\nDuring each of these instants the arrow is in a given place of equal\ndimension with itself. But that which is during any instant in a given\nplace, is at rest. Accordingly during each successive instant of its\nflight, the arrow is at rest. Throughout its whole flight it is both\nin motion and at rest. This argument is a deduction from the doctrine\nof discontinuous time, as the preceding is a deduction from that of\ndiscontinuous space.\n\n[Footnote 24: Aristotel. Physic. vi. 9, p. 239, b. 30. [Greek: tri/tos\no( nu=n r(\u00eathei/s, o(/ti \u00ea( o)i+sto\\s pherome/n\u00ea e(/st\u00eaken.]]\n\nA fourth argument[25] was derived from the case of two equal bodies\nmoved with equal velocity in opposite directions, and passing each\nother. If the body A B were at rest, the other body C D would move\nalong the whole length of C D in two minutes. But if C D be itself\nmoving with equal velocity in the opposite direction, A B will pass\nalong the whole length of C D in half that time, or one minute. Hence\nZeno infers that the motion of A B is nothing absolute, or belonging\nto the thing in itself--for if that were so, it would not be varied\naccording to the movement of C D. It is no more than a phenomenal\nfact, relative to us and our comparison.\n\n[Footnote 25: See the illustration of this argument at some length by\nSimplikius, especially the citation from Eud\u00eamus at the close of\nit--ap. Scholia ad Aristotel. p. 414, ed. Brandis.]\n\nThis argument, so far as I can understand its bearing, is not deduced\n(as those preceding are) from the premisses of opponents: but rests\nupon premisses of its own, and is intended to prove that motion is\nonly relative.\n\n[Side-note: General result and purpose of the Zenonian Dialectic.\nNothing is knowable except the relative.]\n\nThese Zenonian reasonings are memorable as the earliest known\nmanifestations of Grecian dialectic, and are probably equal in\nacuteness and ingenuity to anything which it ever produced. Their\nbearing is not always accurately conceived. Most of them are\n_argumenta ad hominem_: consequences contradictory and inadmissible,\nbut shown to follow legitimately from a given hypothesis, and\ntherefore serving to disprove the hypothesis itself.[26] The\nhypothesis was one relating to the real, absolute, or\nultra-phenomenal, which Parmenides maintained to be _Ens Unum\nContinuum_, while his opponents affirmed it to be essentially\nmultiple and discontinuous. Upon the hypothesis of Parmenides, the\nReal and Absolute, being a continuous One, was obviously inconsistent\nwith the movement and variety of the phenomenal world: Parmenides\nhimself recognised the contradiction of the two, and his opponents\nmade it a ground for deriding his doctrine.[27] The counter-hypothesis,\nof the discontinuous many, appeared at first sight not to be open to\nthe same objection: it seemed to be more in harmony with the facts of\nthe phenomenal and relative world, and to afford an absolute basis for\nthem to rest upon. Against this delusive appearance the dialectic of\nZeno was directed. He retorted upon the opponents, and showed that if\nthe hypothesis of the _Unum Continuum_ led to absurd consequences,\nthat of the discontinuous many was pregnant with deductions yet more\nabsurd and contradictory. He exhibits in detail several of these\ncontradictory deductions, with a view to refute the hypothesis from\nwhence they flow; and to prove that, far from performing what it\npromises, it is worse than useless, as entangling us in contradictory\nconclusions. The result of his reasoning, implied rather than\nannounced, is--That neither of the two hypotheses are of any avail to\nsupply a real and absolute basis for the phenomenal and relative\nworld: That the latter must rest upon its own evidence, and must be\ninterpreted, in so far as it can be interpreted at all, by its own\nanalogies.\n\n[Footnote 26: The scope of the Zenonian dialectic, as I have here\ndescribed it, is set forth clearly by Plato, in his Parmenides, c.\n3-6, p. 127, 128. [Greek: P\u00f4=s \u00f4)= Z\u00ea/n\u00f4n, tou=to le/geis? _ei) polla/\ne)sti ta\\ o)/nta,_ \u00f4(s a)/ra dei= au)ta\\ o(/moia/ te ei)=nai kai\\\na)no/moia, tou=to de\\ d\u00ea\\ a)du/naton.--Ou)kou=n ei) a)du/naton ta/ te\na)no/moia o(/moia ei)=nai kai\\ ta\\ o(/moia a)no/moia, _a)du/naton d\u00ea\\\nkai\\ polla\\ ei)=nai?_ ei) ga\\r polla\\ ei)/\u00ea, pa/schoi a)\\n ta\\\na)du/nata. A)=ra _tou=to/ e)stin o(\\ bou/lontai/ sou oi( lo/goi?_ ou)k\n_a)llo ti \u00ea)\\ diama/chesthai para\\ pa/nta ta\\ lego/mena, \u00f4(s ou)\npolla/ e)stin?_] Again, p. 128 D. [Greek: A)ntile/gei ou)=n tou=to to\\\ngra/mma pro\\s tou\\s ta polla\\ le/gontas, kai\\ a)ntapodi/d\u00f4si tau=ta\nkai\\ plei/\u00f4, tou=to boulo/menon d\u00ealou=n, \u00f4(s e)/ti geloio/tera\npa/schoi a)\\n _au)t\u00f4=n \u00ea( u(po/thesis, \u00ea( ei) polla/ e)stin--\u00ea)\\ \u00ea(\ntou= e(\\n ei)=nai--ei)/ tis i(kan\u00f4=s e)pexi/oi_].\n\nHere Plato evidently represents Zeno as merely proving that\ncontradictory conclusions followed, _if you assumed a given\nhypothesis_; which hypothesis was thereby shown to be inadmissible.\nBut Plato alludes to Zeno in another place (Ph\u00e6drus, c. 97, p. 261)\nunder the name of the Eleatic Palamedes, as \"showing his art in\nspeaking, by making the same things appear to the hearers like and\nunlike, one and many, at rest and in motion\". In this last passage,\nthe impression produced by Zeno's argumentation is brought to view,\napart from the scope and purpose with which he employed it: which\nscope and purpose are indicated in the passage above cited from the\nParmenides.\n\nSo also Isokrates (Encom. Helen. init.) [Greek: Z\u00ea/n\u00f4na, to\\n tau)ta\\\ndunata\\ kai\\ pa/lin a)du/nata peir\u00f4/menon a)pophai/nein.]]\n\n[Footnote 27: Plato, Parmenides, p. 128 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Mistake of supposing Zeno's _reductiones ad absurdum_ of\nan opponents doctrines to be generalisations of data gathered from\nexperience.]\n\nBut the purport of Zeno's reasoning is mistaken, when he is conceived\nas one who wishes to delude his hearers by proving both sides of a\ncontradictory proposition. Zeno's contradictory conclusions are\nelicited with the express purpose of disproving the premisses from\nwhich they are derived. For these premisses Zeno himself is not to be\nheld responsible, since he borrows them from his opponents: a\ncircumstance which Aristotle forgets, when he censures the Zenonian\narguments as paralogisms, because they assume the Continua, Space, and\nTime, to be discontinuous or divided into many distinct parts.[28] Now\nthis absolute discontinuousness of matter, space, and time, was not\nadvanced by Zeno as a doctrine of his own, but is the very doctrine of\nhis opponents, taken up by him for the purpose of showing that it led\nto contradictory consequences, and thus of indirectly refuting it. The\nsentence of Aristotle is thus really in Zeno's favour, though\napparently adverse to him. In respect to motion, a similar result\nfollowed from the Zenonian reasonings; namely, to show That motion, as\nan attribute of the Real and Absolute, was no less inconsistent with\nthe hypothesis of those who opposed Parmenides, than with the\nhypothesis of Parmenides himself:--That absolute motion could no more\nbe reconciled with the doctrine of the discontinuous Many, than with\nthat of the Continuous One:--That motion therefore was only a\nphenomenal fact, relative to our sensations, conceptions, and\ncomparisons; and having no application to the absolute. In this\nphenomenal point of view, neither Zeno nor Parmenides nor Melissus\ndisputed the fact of motion. They recognised it as a portion of the\nworld of sensation and experience; which world they tried to explain,\nwell or ill, by analogies and conjectures derived from itself.\n\n[Footnote 28: Aristotel. Physic. vi. 9, p. 239 b. [Greek: Z\u00ea/n\u00f4n de\\\nparalogi/zetai; ou) ga\\r su/gketai o( chro/nos e)k t\u00f4=n nu=n o)/nt\u00f4n\nt\u00f4=n a)diaire/t\u00f4n, \u00f4(/sper ou)d' a)/llo me/gethos ou)de/n] &c.\n\nAristotle, in the second and third chapters of his Physica, canvasses\nand refutes the doctrine of Parmenides and Zeno respecting Ens and\nUnum. He maintains that Ens and Unum are equivocal--[Greek: pollach\u00f4=s\nlego/mena]. He farther maintained that no one before him had succeeded\nin refuting Zeno. See the Scholia of Alexander ad Sophistic. Elench.\np. 320 b. 6, ed. Brandis.]\n\n[Side-note: Zenonian Dialectic--Platonic Parmenides.]\n\nThough we have not the advantage of seeing the Zenonian dialectics as\nthey were put forth by their author, yet if we compare the substance\nof them as handed down to us, with those dialectics which form the\nlatter half of the Platonic dialogue called Parmenides, we shall find\nthem not inferior in ingenuity, and certainly more intelligible in\ntheir purpose. Zeno furnishes no positive support to the Parmenidean\ndoctrine, but he makes out a good negative case against the\ncounter-doctrine.\n\n[Side-note: Views of historians of philosophy respecting Zeno.]\n\nZeller and other able modern critics, while admitting the reasoning of\nZeno to be good against this counter-doctrine, complain that he takes\nit up too exclusively; that One and Many did not exclude each other,\nand that the doctrines of Parmenides and his opponents were both true\ntogether, but neither of them true to the exclusion of the other. But\nwhen we reflect that the subject of predication on both sides was the\nReal (Ens _per se_) it was not likely that either Parmenides or his\nopponents would affirm it to be both absolutely One and Continuous,\nand absolutely Many and Discontinuous.[29] If the opponents of\nParmenides had taken this ground, Zeno need not have imagined\ndeductions for the purpose of showing that their hypothesis led to\ncontradictory conclusions; for the contradictions would have stood\navowedly registered in the hypothesis itself. If a man affirms both at\nonce, he divests the predication of its absolute character, as\nbelonging unconditionally to Ens _per se_; and he restricts it to the\nphenomenal, the relative, the conditioned--dependent upon our\nsensations and our fluctuating point of view. This was not intended\neither by Parmenides or by his opponents.\n\n[Footnote 29: That both of them could not be true respecting Ens _per\nse_, seems to have been considered indisputable. See the argument of\nSokrates in the Parmenides of Plato, p. 129 B-E.]\n\n[Side-note: Absolute and relative--the first unknowable.]\n\nIf, indeed, we judge the question, not from their standing-point, but\nfrom our own, we shall solve the difficulty by adopting the\nlast-mentioned answer. We shall admit that One and Many are predicates\nwhich do not necessarily exclude each other; but we shall refrain from\naffirming or denying either of them respecting the Real, the Absolute,\nthe Unconditioned. Of an object absolutely one and continuous--or of\nobjects absolutely many and discontinuous, apart from the facts of our\nown sense and consciousness, and independent of any sentient subject--we\nneither know nor can affirm anything. Both these predicates (One--Many)\nare relative and phenomenal, grounded on the facts and\ncomparisons of our own senses and consciousness, and serving only to\ndescribe, to record, and to classify, those facts. Discrete quantity\nor number, or succession of distinct unities--continuous quantity, or\nmotion and extension--are two conceptions derived from comparison,\nabstracted and generalised from separate particular phenomena of our\nconsciousness; the continuous, from our movements and the\nconsciousness of persistent energy involved therein--the\ndiscontinuous, from our movements, intermitted and renewed, as well as\nfrom our impressions of sense. We compare one discrete quantity with\nanother, or one continual quantity with another, and we thus ascertain\nmany important truths: but we select our unit, or our standard of\nmotion and extension, as we please, or according to convenience,\nsubject only to the necessity of adapting our ulterior calculations\nconsistently to this unit, when once selected. The same object may\nthus be considered sometimes as one, sometimes as many; both being\nrelative, and depending upon our point of view. Motion, Space, Time,\nmay be considered either as continuous or as discontinuous: we may\nreason upon them either as one or the other, but we must not confound\nthe two points of view with each other. When, however, we are called\nupon to travel out of the Relative, and to decide between Parmenides\nand his opponents--whether the Absolute be One or Multitudinous--we\nhave only to abstain from affirming either, or (in other words) to\nconfess our ignorance. We know nothing of an absolute, continuous,\nself-existent One, or of an absolute, discontinuous Many.\n\n[Side-note: Zeno did not deny motion as a fact, phenomenal and\nrelative.]\n\nSome critics understand Zeno to have denied motion as a fact--opposing\nsophistical reasoning to certain and familiar experience. Upon this\nview is founded the well-known anecdote, that Diogenes the Cynic\nrefuted the argument by getting up and walking. But I do not so\nconstrue the scope of his argument. He did not deny motion as a fact.\nIt rested with him on the evidence of sense, acknowledged by every\none. It was therefore only a phenomenal fact relative to our\nconsciousness, sensation, movements, and comparisons. As such, but as\nsuch only, did Zeno acknowledge it. What he denied was, motion as a\nfact belonging to the Absolute, or as deducible from the Absolute. He\ndid not deny the Absolute or Thing in itself, as an existing object,\nbut he struck out variety, divisibility, and motion, from the list of\nits predicates. He admitted only the Parmenidean Ens, one, continuous,\nunchanged, and immovable, with none but negative predicates, and\nsevered from the relative world of experience and sensation.\n\n[Side-note: Gorgias the Leontine--did not admit the Absolute, even as\nconceived by Parmenides.]\n\nOther reasoners, contemporary with Zeno, did not agree with him, in\nadmitting the Absolute, even as an object with no predicates, except\nunity and continuity. They denied it altogether, both as substratum\nand as predicate. To establish this negation is the purpose of a short\ntreatise ascribed to the rhetor or Sophist Gorgias, a contemporary of\nZeno; but we are informed that all the reasonings, which Gorgias\nemployed, were advanced, or had already been advanced, by others\nbefore him.[30] Those reasonings are so imperfectly preserved, that we\ncan make out little more than the general scope.\n\n[Footnote 30: See the last words of the Aristotelian or\nPseudo-Aristotelian treatise, De Melisso, Xenophane et Gorgi\u00e2, p. 980.\n\n[Greek: A(/pasai de\\ au)=tai kai\\ e(te/r\u00f4n a)rchaiote/r\u00f4n ei)si\\n\na)po/riai, \u00f4(/ste e)n t\u00ea=| peri\\ e)kei/n\u00f4n ske/psei kai\\ tau/tas\ne)xetaste/on].\n\n[Greek: A(/pasai] is the reading of Mullach in his edition of this\ntreatise (p. 79), in place of [Greek: a(/pantes] or [Greek:\na(/panta].]\n\n[Side-note: His reasonings against the Absolute, either as Ens or\nEntia.]\n\nEns, or Entity _per se_ (he contended), did not really exist. Even\ngranting that it existed, it was unknowable by any one. And even\ngranting that it both existed, and was known by any one, still such\nperson could not communicate his knowledge of it to others.[31]\n\n[Footnote 31: See the treatise of Aristotle or Pseudo-Aristotle, De\nMelisso, Xenophane, et Gorgi\u00e2, in Aristot. p. 979-980, Bekker, also in\nMullach's edition, p. 62-78. The argument of Gorgias is also abridged\nby Sextus Empiric. adv. Mathemat. vii. p. 384, sect. 65-86.\n\nSee also a copious commentary on the Aristotelian treatise in Foss, De\nGorgi\u00e2 Leontino, p. 115 seq.\n\nThe text of the Aristotelian treatise is so corrupt as to be often\nunintelligible.]\n\nAs to the first point, Ens was no more real or existent than Non-Ens:\nthe word Non-Ens must have an objective meaning, as well as the word\nEns: it was Non-Ens, therefore it _was_, or existed. Both of them\nexisted alike, or rather neither of them existed. Moreover, if Ens\nexisted, it must exist either as One or as Many--either as eternal or\nas generated--either in itself, or in some other place. But Melissus,\nZeno, and other previous philosophers, had shown sufficient cause\nagainst each of these alternatives separately taken. Each of the\nalternative essential predicates had been separately disproved;\ntherefore the subject, Ens, could not exist under either of them, or\ncould not exist at all.\n\n[Side-note: Ens, incogitable and unknowable.]\n\nAs to the second point, let us grant that Ens or Entia exist; they\nwould nevertheless (argued Gorgias) be incogitable and unknowable. To\nbe cogitated is no more an attribute of Ens than of Non-Ens. The fact\nof cogitation does not require Ens as a condition, or attest Ens as an\nabsolute or thing in itself. If our cogitation required or attained\nEns as an indispensable object, then there could be no fictitious\n_cogitata_ nor any false propositions. We think of a man flying in the\nair, or of a chariot race on the surface of the sea. If our _cogitata_\nwere realities, these must be so as well as the rest: if realities\nalone were the object of cogitation, then these could not be thought\nof. As Non-Ens was thus undeniably the object of cogitation, so Ens\ncould not be its object: for what was true respecting one of these\ncontraries, could not be true respecting the other.\n\n[Side-note: Ens, even if granted to be knowable, is still\nincommunicable to others.]\n\nAs to the third point: Assuming Ens both to exist and to be known by\nyou, you cannot (said Gorgias) declare or explain it to any one else.\nYou profess to have learnt what Ens is in itself, by your sight or\nother perceptions but you declare to others by means of words, and\nthese words are neither themselves the absolute Ens, nor do they bring\nEns before the hearer. Even though you yourself know Ens, you cannot,\nby your words, enable _him_ to know it. If he is to know Ens, he must\nknow it in the same way as you. Moreover, neither your words, nor Ens\nitself, will convey to the hearer the same knowledge as to you; for\nthe same cannot be at once in two distinct subjects; and even if it\nwere, yet since you and the hearer are not completely alike, so the\neffect of the same object on both of you will not appear to be\nlike.[32]\n\n[Footnote 32: In this third branch of the argument, showing that Ens,\neven if known, cannot be communicable to others, Gorgias travels\nbeyond the Absolute, and directs his reasoning against the\ncommunicability of the Relative or Phenomenal also. Both of his\narguments against such communicability have some foundation, and serve\nto prove that the communicability cannot be exact or entire, even in\nthe case of sensible facts. The sensations thoughts, emotions, &c., of\none person are not _exactly_ like those of another.]\n\nSuch is the reasoning, as far as we can make it out, whereby Gorgias\nsought to prove that the absolute Ens was neither existent, nor\nknowable, nor communicable by words from one person to another.\n\n[Side-note: Zeno and Gorgias--contrasted with the earlier Grecian\nphilosophers.]\n\nThe arguments both of Zeno and of Gorgias (the latter presenting the\nthoughts of others earlier than himself), dating from a time\ncoinciding with the younger half of the life of Sokrates, evince a new\nspirit and purpose in Grecian philosophy, as compared with the\nIonians, the two first Eleates, and the Pythagoreans. Zeno and Gorgias\nexhibit conspicuously the new element of dialectic: the force of the\nnegative arm in Grecian philosophy, brought out into the arena,\nagainst those who dogmatized or propounded positive theories: the\nfertility of Grecian imagination in suggesting doubts and\ndifficulties, for which the dogmatists, if they aspired to success and\nreputation, had to provide answers. Zeno directed his attack against\none scheme of philosophy--the doctrine of the Absolute Many: leaving\nby implication the rival doctrine--the Absolute One of Parmenides in\nexclusive possession of the field, yet not reinforcing it with any new\ndefences against objectors. Gorgias impugned the philosophy of the\nAbsolute in either or both of its forms--as One or as Many: not with a\nview of leaving any third form as the only survivor, or of providing\nany substitute from his own invention, but of showing that Ens, the\nobject of philosophical research, could neither be found nor known.\nThe negative purpose, disallowing altogether the philosophy of Nature\n(as then conceived, not as now conceived), was declared without\nreserve by Gorgias, as we shall presently find that it was by Sokrates\nalso.\n\n[Side-note: New character of Grecian philosophy--antithesis of\naffirmative and negative--proof and disproof.]\n\nIt is the opening of the negative vein which imparts from this time\nforward a new character to Grecian philosophy. The positive and\nnegative forces, emanating from different aptitudes in the human mind,\nare now both of them actively developed, and in strenuous antithesis\nto each other. Philosophy is no longer exclusively confined to\ndogmatists, each searching in his imagination for the Absolute Ens of\nNature, and each propounding what seems to him the only solution of\nthe problem. Such thinkers still continue their vocation, but under\nnew conditions of success, and subject to the scrutiny of numerous\ndissentient critics. It is no longer sufficient to propound a\ntheory,[33] either in obscure, oracular metaphors and\nhalf-intelligible aphorisms, like Herakleitus--or in verse more or\nless impressive, like Parmenides or Empedokles. The theory must be\nsustained by proofs, guarded against objections, defended against\nimputations of inconsistency: moreover, it must be put in comparison\nwith other rival theories, the defects of which must accordingly be\nshown up along with it. Here are new exigencies, to which dogmatic\nphilosophers had not before been obnoxious. They were now required to\nbe masters of the art of dialectic attack and defence, not fearing the\ncombat of question and answer--a combat in which, assuming tolerable\nequality between the duellists, the questioner had the advantage of\nthe sun, or the preferable position,[34] and the farther advantage of\nchoosing where to aim his blows. To expose fallacy or inconsistency,\nwas found to be both an easier process, and a more appreciable display\nof ingenuity, than the discovery and establishment of truth in such\nmanner as to command assent. The weapon of negation, refutation,\ncross-examination, was wielded for its own results, and was found hard\nto parry by the affirmative philosophers of the day.\n\n[Footnote 33: The repugnance of the Herakleitean philosophers to the\nscrutiny of dialectical interrogation is described by Plato in strong\nlanguage, it is indeed even caricatured. (The\u00e6t\u00eatus, 179-180.)]\n\n[Footnote 34: Theokritus, Idyll, xxii. 83; the description of the\npugilistic contest between Pollux and Amykus:--\n\n[Greek: e)/ntha polu/s sphisi mo/chthos e)peigome/noisin e)tu/chth\u00ea,\no(ppo/teros kata\\ n\u00f4=ta la/b\u00ea| pha/os \u00ea)eli/oio;\na)ll' i)dri/\u00ea| me/gan a)/ndra par\u00ea/luthes \u00f4)= Polu/deukes;\nba/lleto d' a)kti/nessin a(/pan A)mu/koio pro/s\u00f4pon].\n\nTo toss up for the sun, was a practice not yet introduced between\npugilists.]\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\n\nTo illustrate by comparison the form of Grecian philosophy, before\nDialectic was brought to bear upon it, I transcribe from two eminent\nFrench scholars (M. Barth\u00e9lemy St. Hilaire and Professor Robert Mohl)\nsome account of the mode in which the Indian philosophy has always\nbeen kept on record and communicated.\n\nM. Barth\u00e9lemy St. Hilaire (in his Premier M\u00e9moire sur le S\u00e2nkhya, pp.\n5-11) gives the following observations upon the S\u00e2nkhya or philosophy\nof Kapila, one of the principal systems of Sanskrit philosophy: date\n(as supposed) about 700 B.C.\n\nThere are two sources from whence the S\u00e2nkhya philosophy is known:--\n\n\"1. Les So\u00fbtras ou aphorismes de Kapila.\n\n\"2. Le trait\u00e9 d\u00e9j\u00e0 connu et traduit sous le nom de S\u00e2nkhya K\u00e2rik\u00e2,\nc'est \u00e0 dire Vers M\u00e9moriaux du S\u00e2nkhya.\n\n\"Les So\u00fbtras de Kapila sont en tout au nombre de 499, divis\u00e9s en six\nlectures, et r\u00e9partis in\u00e9galement entre chacune d'elles. Les So\u00fbtras\nsont accompagn\u00e9s d'un commentaire qui les explique, et qui est d'un\nbrahmane nomm\u00e9 le Mendiant. Le commentateur explique avec des\ndeveloppements plus ou moins longs les So\u00fbtras de Kapila, qu'il cite\nun \u00e0 un.\n\n\"Les So\u00fbtras sont en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral tres concis: parfois ils ne se composent\nque de deux ou trois mots, et jamais ils ne comprennent plus d'une\nphrase. Cette forme aphoristique, sous laquelle se pr\u00e9sente \u00e0 nous la\nphilosophie Indienne--est celle qu'a prise la science Indienne dans\ntoutes ses branches, depuis la grammaire jusqu'\u00e0 la philosophie. Les\nSo\u00fbtras de Panini, qui a r\u00e9duit toutes les r\u00e9gles de la grammaire\nsanscrite en 3996 aphorismes, ne sont pas moins concis que ceux de\nKapila. Ce mode \u00e9trange d'exposition tient dans l'Inde \u00e0 la mani\u00e8re\nm\u00eame dont la science s'est transmise d'\u00e2ge en \u00e2ge. Un ma\u00eetre n'a\ng\u00e9n\u00e9ralement qu'un disciple: il lui suffit, pour la doctrine qu'il\ncommunique, d'avoir des points de rep\u00e8re, et le commentaire oral qu'il\najoute \u00e0 ces sentences pour leur expliquer, met le disciple en \u00e9tat de\nles bien comprendre. Le disciple lui-m\u00eame, une fois qu'il en a p\u00e9n\u00e9tr\u00e9\nle sens veritable, n'a pas besoin d'un symbole plus d\u00e9velopp\u00e9, et la\nconcision m\u00eame des aphorismes l'aide a les mieux retenir. _C'est une\ninitiation qu'il a re\u00e7ue: et les sentences, dans lesquelles cette\ninitiation se r\u00e9sume, restent toujours assez claires pour lui._\n\n\"Mais il n'en est pas de m\u00eame pour les lecteurs \u00e9trangers, et il\nserait difficile de trouver rien de plus obscur que ces So\u00fbtras. Les\ncommentaires m\u00eames ne suffisent pas toujours \u00e0 les rendre parfaitement\nintelligibles.\n\n\"Le seul exemple d'une forme analogue dans l'histoire de l'esprit\nhumain et de la science en Occident, nous est fourni par les\nAphorismes d'Hippocrate: eux aussi s'adressaient \u00e0 des adeptes, et ils\nr\u00e9clamaient, comme les So\u00fbtras Indiens, l'explication des ma\u00eetres pour\n\u00eatre bien compris par les disciples. Mais cet exemple unique n'a point\ntir\u00e9 \u00e0 cons\u00e9quence dans le monde occidental, tandis que dans le monde\nIndien l'aphorisme est rest\u00e9 pendant de longs si\u00e8cles la forme\nsp\u00e9ciale de la science: et les d\u00e9veloppements de pens\u00e9e qui nous sont\nhabituels, et qui nous semblent indispensables, ont \u00e9t\u00e9 reserv\u00e9s aux\ncommentaires.\n\n\"La S\u00e2nkhya K\u00e2rik\u00e2 est en vers: En Gr\u00e8ce, la po\u00e9sie a \u00e9t\u00e9 pendant\nquelque temps la langue de la philosophie; Emp\u00e9docle, Parm\u00e9nide, ont\n\u00e9crit leurs syst\u00e8mes en vers. Ce n'est pas Kapila qui l'a \u00e9crite.\nEntre Kapila, et l'auteur de la K\u00e2rik\u00e2, Isvara Krishna, on doit\ncompter quelques centaines d'ann\u00e9es tout au moins: et le second n'a\nfait que rediger en vers, pour aider la m\u00e9moire des \u00e9l\u00e8ves, la\ndoctrine que le ma\u00eetre avait laiss\u00e9e sous la forme axiomatique.\n\n\"On con\u00e7oit, du reste, sans peine, que l'usage des vers m\u00e9moriaux se\nsoit introduit dans l'Inde pour l'enseignement et la transmission de\nla science: c'\u00e9tait une cons\u00e9quence n\u00e9cessaire de l'usage des\naphorismes. Les sciences les plus abstraites (mathematics, astronomy,\nalgebra), emploient aussi ce proc\u00e9d\u00e9, quoiqu'il semble peu fait pour\nleur aust\u00e9rit\u00e9 et leur precision. Ainsi, le rhythme est, avec les\naphorismes, et par le m\u00eame motif, la forme \u00e0 peu pres g\u00e9n\u00e9rale de la\nscience dans l'Inde.\"\n\n(Kapila as a personage is almost legendary; nothing exact is known\nabout him. His doctrine passes among the Indians \"comme une sorte de\nr\u00e9v\u00e9lation divine\".--Pp. 252, 253.)\n\nM. Mohl observes as follows:--\n\n\"Ceci m'am\u00e8ne aux Pouranas. Nous n'avons plus rien du Pourana\nprimitif, qui para\u00eet avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 une cosmogonie, suivie d'une histoire\ndes Dieux et des families h\u00e9ro\u00efques. Les sectes ont fini par\ns'approprier ce cadre, apr\u00e8s des transformations dont nous ne savons\nni le nombre ni les \u00e9poques: et s'en sont servies, pour exalter\nchacune son dieu, et y fondre, avec des d\u00e9bris de l'ancienne\ntradition, leur mythologie plus moderne. Ce que les Pouranas sont pour\nle peuple, les six syst\u00e8mes de philosophie le sont pour les savants.\nNous trouvons ces syst\u00e8mes dans la forme abstruse que les Hindous\naiment \u00e0 donner \u00e0 leur science: chaque \u00e9cole a ses aphorismes, qui,\nsous forme de vers mn\u00e9moniques, contiennent dans le moins grand nombre\nde mots possible tous les r\u00e9sultats d'une \u00e9cole. Mais nous n'avons\naucun renseignement sur les commencements de l'\u00e9cole, sur les\ndiscussions que l'\u00e9laboration du syst\u00e8me a d\u00fb provoquer, sur les\nhommes qui y ont pris part, sur la marche et le d\u00e9veloppement des\nid\u00e9es: nous avons le syst\u00e8me dans sa derni\u00e8re forme, et rien ne nous\npermet de remplir l'espace qui le s\u00e9pare des th\u00e9ories plus vagues que\nl'on trouve dans les derniers \u00e9crits de l'\u00e9poque v\u00e9dique, \u00e0 laquelle\npourtant tout pr\u00e9tend se rattacher. \u00c0 partir de ces aphorismes, nous\navons des commentaires et des trait\u00e9s d'exposition et\nd'interpr\u00e9tation: mais les id\u00e9es premi\u00e8res, les termes techniques, et\nle systeme en tier, sont fix\u00e9s ant\u00e9rieurement. Tous ces syst\u00e8mes\nreposent sur une analyse psychologique tr\u00e8s raffin\u00e9e; et chacun a sa\nterminologie pr\u00e9cise, et \u00e0 laquelle la n\u00f4tre ne r\u00e9pond que fort\nimparfaitement: il faut donc, sous peine de se tromper et de tromper\nses lecteurs, que les traducteurs cr\u00e9ent une foule de termes\ntechniques, ce qui n'est pas la moindre difficult\u00e9 de ce travail.\" R.\nMohl, 'Rapport Annuel Fait \u00e0 la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 As\u00efatique,' 1863, pp. 103-105;\ncollected edition, 'Vingt-sept ans d'histoire des \u00c9tudes Orientales,'\nvol. ii. pp. 496, 498-9.\n\nWhen the purpose simply is to imprint affirmations on the memory, and\nto associate them with strong emotions of reverential belief--mnemonic\nverses and aphorisms are suitable enough; Empedokles employed verse,\nHerakleitus and the Pythagoreans expressed themselves in\naphorisms--brief, half-intelligible, impressive symbols. But if philosophy\nis ever to be brought out of such twilight into the condition of\n\"reasoned truth,\" this cannot be done without submitting all the\naffirmations to cross-examining opponents--to the scrutiny of a\nnegative Dialectic. It is the theory and application of this Dialectic\nwhich we are about to follow in Sokrates and Plato.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.*\n\n[Footnote *: As stated in the prefatory note to this edition, the\npresent and the following chapter have been, for convenience,\ntransferred from the place given to them by the author, to their\npresent position.]\n\nOTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.\n\n\nHaving dwelt at some length on the life and compositions of Plato, I\nnow proceed to place in comparison with him some other members of the\nSokratic philosophical family: less eminent, indeed, than the\nillustrious author of the Republic, yet still men of marked character,\nability, and influence.[1] Respecting one of the brethren, Xenophon,\nwho stands next to Plato in celebrity, I shall say a few words\nseparately in my next and concluding chapter.\n\n[Footnote 1: Dionysius of Halikarnassus contrasts Plato with [Greek:\nto\\ S\u00f4kra/tous didaskalei=on pa=n] (De Adm. Vi Dic. Demosthen. p.\n956.) Compare also Epistol. ad Cn. Pomp. p. 762, where he contrasts\nthe style and phraseology of Plato with that of the [Greek:\nS\u00f4kratikoi\\ dia/logoi] generally.]\n\n[Side-note: Influence exercised by Sokrates over his companions.]\n\nThe ascendancy of Sokrates over his contemporaries was powerfully\nexercised in more than one way. He brought into vogue new subjects\nboth of indefinite amplitude, and familiar as well as interesting to\nevery one. On these subjects, moreover, he introduced, or at least\npopularised, a new method of communication, whereby the relation of\nteacher and learner, implying a direct transfer of ready-made\nknowledge from the one to the other, was put aside. He substituted an\ninterrogatory process, at once destructive and suggestive, in which\nthe teacher began by unteaching and the learner by unlearning what was\nsupposed to be already known, for the purpose of provoking in the\nlearner's mind a self-operative energy of thought, and an internal\ngeneration of new notions. Lastly, Sokrates worked forcibly upon the\nminds of several friends, who were in the habit of attending him when\nhe talked in the market-place or the pal\u00e6stra. Some tried to copy his\nwonderful knack of colloquial cross-examination: how far they did so\nwith success or reputation we do not know: but Xenophon says that\nseveral of them would only discourse with those who paid them a fee,\nand that they thus sold for considerable sums what were only small\nfragments obtained gratuitously from the rich table of their\nmaster.[2] There were moreover several who copied the general style of\nhis colloquies by composing written dialogues. And thus it happened\nthat the great master,--he who passed his life in the oral application\nof his Elenchus, without writing anything,--though he left no worthy\nrepresentative in his own special career, became the father of\nnumerous written dialogues and of a rich philosophical literature.[3]\n\n[Footnote 2: Xenophon, Memor. i. 2, 60. [Greek: \u00f4(=n tine\\s mikra\\\nme/r\u00ea par' e)kei/nou proi=ka labo/ntes pollou= toi=s a)/llois\ne)p\u00f4/loun, kai\\ ou)k \u00ea)=san \u00f4(/sper e)kei=nos d\u00eamotikoi/; toi=s ga\\r\nm\u00ea\\ e)/chousi chr\u00ea/mata dido/nai ou)k \u00ea)/thelon diale/gesthai.]]\n\n[Footnote 3: We find a remarkable proof how long the name and\nconception of Sokrates lasted in the memory of the Athenian public, as\nhaving been the great progenitor of the philosophy and philosophers of\nthe fourth century B.C. in Athens. It was about 306 B.C., almost a\ncentury after the death of Sokrates, that Demochar\u00eas (the nephew of\nthe orator Demosthenes) delivered an oration before the Athenian\njudicature for the purpose of upholding the law proposed by Sophokles,\nforbidding philosophers or Sophists to lecture without a license\nobtained from the government; which law, passed a year before, had\ndetermined the secession of all the philosophers from Athens until the\nlaw was repealed. In this oration Demochar\u00eas expatiated on the\ndemerits of many philosophers, their servility, profligate ambition,\nrapacity, want of patriotism, &c., from which Athen\u00e6us makes several\nextracts. [Greek: Toiou=toi ei)sin oi( a)po\\ philosophi/as strat\u00eagoi/;\nperi\\ \u00f4(=n D\u00eamocha/r\u00eas e)/legen,--\u00d4(/sper e)k thu/mbras ou)dei\\s a)\\n\ndu/naito kataskeua/sai lo/gch\u00ean, ou)/d' e)k _S\u00f4kra/tous strati\u00f4/t\u00ean\na)/mempton_].\n\nDemetrius Phalereus also, in or near that same time, composed a\n[Greek: S\u00f4kra/tous a)pologi/an] (Diog. La. ix. 37-57). This shows how\nlong the interest in the personal fate and character of Sokrates\nendured at Athens.]\n\n[Side-note: Names of those companions.]\n\nBesides Plato and Xenophon, whose works are known to us, we hear of\nAlexamenus, Antisthenes, \u00c6schines, Aristippus, Bryson, Eukleides,\nPh\u00e6don, Kriton, Simmias, Keb\u00eas, &c., as having composed dialogues of\nthis sort. All of them were companions of Sokrates; several among them\neither set down what they could partially recollect of his\nconversations, or employed his name as a dramatic speaker of their own\nthoughts. Seven of these dialogues were ascribed to \u00c6schines,\ntwenty-five to Aristippus, seventeen to Kriton, twenty-three to Simmias,\nthree to Keb\u00eas, six to Eukleides, four to Ph\u00e6don. The compositions of\nAntisthenes were far more numerous: ten volumes of them, under a\nvariety of distinct titles (some of them probably not in the form of\ndialogues) being recorded by Diogenes.[4] Aristippus was the first of\nthe line of philosophers called Kyrenaic or Hedonic, afterwards (with\nvarious modifications) Epikurean: Antisthenes, of the Cynics and\nStoics: Eukleides, of the Megaric school. It seems that Aristippus,\nAntisthenes, Eukleides, and Bryson, all enjoyed considerable\nreputation, as contemporaries and rival authors of Plato: \u00c6schines,\nAntisthenes (who was very poor), and Aristippus, are said to have\nreceived money for their lectures; Aristippus being named as the first\nwho thus departed from the Sokratic canon.[5]\n\n[Footnote 4: Diogenes Laert. 1. 47-61-83, vi. 15; Athen\u00e6. xi. p. 505\nC.\n\nBryson is mentioned by Theopompus ap. Athen\u00e6um, xi. p. 508 D.\nTheopompus, the contemporary of Aristotle and pupil of Isokrates, had\ncomposed an express treatise or discourse against Plato's dialogues,\nin which discourse he affirmed that most of them were not Plato's own,\nbut borrowed in large proportion from the dialogues of Antisthenes,\nAristippus, and Bryson. Ephippus also, the comic writer (of the fourth\ncentury B.C., contemporary with Theopompus, perhaps even earlier),\nspoke of Bryson as contemporary with Plato (Athen\u00e6. xi. 509 C). This\nis good proof to authenticate Bryson as a composer of \"Sokratic\ndialogues\" belonging to the Platonic age, along with Antisthenes and\nAristippus: whether Theopompus is correct when he asserts that Plato\nborrowed _much_, from the three, is very doubtful.\n\nMany dialogues were published by various writers, and ascribed falsely\nto one or other of the _viri Sokratici_: Diogenes (ii. 64) reports the\njudgment delivered by Pan\u00e6tius, which among them were genuine and\nwhich not so. Pan\u00e6tius considered that the dialogues ascribed to\nPlato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and \u00c6schines, were genuine; that those\nassigned to Ph\u00e6don and Eukleides were doubtful; and that the rest were\nall spurious. He thus regarded as spurious those of Alexamenus,\nKriton, Simmias, Keb\u00eas, Simon, Bryson, &c., or he did not know them\nall. It is possible that Pan\u00e6tius may not have known the dialogues of\nBryson; if he did know them and believed them to be spurious, I should\nnot accept his assertion, because I think that it is outweighed by the\ncontrary testimony of Theopompus. Moreover, though Pan\u00e6tius was a very\nable man, confidence in his critical estimate is much shaken when we\nlearn that he declared the Platonic Ph\u00e6don to be spurious.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Diogen. Laert. i. 62-65; Athen\u00e6us, xi. p. 507 C.\n\nDion Chrysostom (Orat. lv. De Homero et Socrate, vol. ii. p. 289,\nReiske) must have had in his view some of these other Sokratic\ndialogues, not those composed by Plato or Xenophon, when he alludes to\nconversations of Sokrates with Lysikles, Glykon, and Anytus; what he\nsays about Anytus can hardly refer to the Platonic Menon.]\n\n[Side-note: \u00c6schines--oration of Lysias against him.]\n\n\u00c6schines the companion of Sokrates did not become (like Eukleides,\nAntisthenes, Aristippus) the founder of a succession or sect of\nphilosophers. The few fragments remaining of his dialogues do not\nenable us to appreciate their merit. He seems to have employed the\nname of Aspasia largely as a conversing personage, and to have\nesteemed her highly. He also spoke with great admiration of\nThemistokles. But in regard to present or recent characters, he stands\ncharged with much bitterness and ill-nature: especially we learn that\nhe denounced the Sophists Prodikus and Anaxaras, the first on the\nground of having taught Theramenes, the second as the teacher of two\nworthless persons--Ariphrades and Arign\u00f4tus. This accusation deserves\ngreater notice, because it illustrates the odium raised by Mel\u00eatus\nagainst Sokrates as having instructed Kritias and Alkibiades.[6]\nMoreover, we have \u00c6schines presented to us in another character, very\nunexpected in a _vir Socraticus_. An action for recovery of money\nalleged to be owing was brought in the Athenian Dikastery against\n\u00c6schines, by a plaintiff, who set forth his case in a speech composed\nby the rhetor Lysias. In this speech it is alleged that \u00c6schines,\nhaving engaged in trade as a preparer and seller of unguents, borrowed\na sum of money at interest from the plaintiff; who affirms that he\ncounted with assurance upon honest dealing from a disciple of\nSokrates, continually engaged in talking about justice and virtue.[7]\nBut so far was this expectation from being realized, that \u00c6schines had\nbehaved most dishonestly. He repaid neither principal nor interest;\nthough a judgment of the Dikastery had been obtained against him, and\na branded slave belonging to him had been seized under it. Moreover,\n\u00c6schines had been guilty of dishonesty equally scandalous in his\ndealings with many other creditors also. Furthermore, he had made love\nto a rich woman seventy years old, and had got possession of her\nproperty; cheating and impoverishing her family. His character as a\nprofligate and cheat was well known and could be proved by many\nwitnesses. Such are the allegations against \u00c6schines, contained in the\nfragment of a lost speech of Lysias, and made in open court by a real\nplaintiff. How much of them could be fairly proved, we cannot say: but\nit seems plain at least that \u00c6schines must have been a trader as well\nas a philosopher. All these writers on philosophy must have had their\nroot and dealings in real life, of which we know scarce anything.\n\n[Footnote 6: Plutarch, Perikles, c. 24-32; Cicero, De Invent. i. 31;\nAthen\u00e6us, v. 220. Some other citations will be found in Fischer's\ncollection of the few fragments of \u00c6schines Sokraticus (Leipsic, 1788,\np. 68 seq.), though some of the allusions which he produces seem\nrather to belong to the orator \u00c6schines. The statements of Athen\u00e6us,\nfrom the dialogue of \u00c6schines called Telaug\u00eas, are the most curious.\nThe dialogue contained, among other things, [Greek: t\u00ea\\n Prodi/kou\nkai\\ A)naxago/rous _t\u00f4=n sophist\u00f4=n_ diam\u00f4/k\u00easin], where we see\nAnaxagoras denominated a Sophist (see also Diodor. xii. 39) as well as\nProdikus. Fischer considers the three Pseudo-Platonic\ndialogues--[Greek: Peri\\ A)ret\u00ea=s, Peri\\ Plou/tou, Peri\\ Thana/tou]--as\nthe works of \u00c6schines. But this is noway established.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Athen\u00e6us, xiii. pp. 611-612. [Greek: Peisthei\\s d' u(p'\nau)tou= toiau=ta le/gontos, kai\\ a(/ma oi)o/menos tou=ton Ai)schi/n\u00ean\nS\u00f4kra/tous gegone/nai math\u00eat\u00ea/n, kai\\ peri\\ dikaiosu/n\u00eas kai\\ a)ret\u00ea=s\npollou\\s kai\\ semnou\\s le/gonta lo/gous, ou)k a)/n pote e)picheir\u00ea=sai\nou)de\\ tolm\u00ea=sai a(/per oi( pon\u00earo/tatoi kai\\ a)dik\u00f4/tatoi a)/nthr\u00f4poi\ne)picheirou=si pra/ttein].\n\nWe read also about another oration of Lysias against \u00c6schines--[Greek:\nperi\\ sukophanti/as] (Diogen. Laert. ii. 63), unless indeed it be the\nsame oration differently described.]\n\n[Side-note: Written Sokratic Dialogues--their general character.]\n\nThe dialogues known by the title of Sokratic dialogues,[8] were\ncomposed by all the principal companions of Sokrates, and by many who\nwere not companions. Yet though thus composed by many different\nauthors, they formed a recognised class of literature, noticed by the\nrhetorical critics as distinguished for plain, colloquial, unstudied,\ndramatic execution, suiting the parts to the various speakers: from\nwhich general character Plato alone departed--and he too not in all of\nhis dialogues. By the Sokratic authors generally Sokrates appears to\nhave been presented under the same main features: his proclaimed\nconfession of ignorance was seldom wanting: and the humiliation which\nhis cross-questioning inflicted even upon insolent men like\nAlkibiades, was as keenly set forth by \u00c6schines as by Plato: moreover\nthe Sokratic disciples generally were fond of extolling the D\u00e6mon or\ndivining prophecy of their master.[9] Some dialogues circulating under\nthe name of some one among the companions of Sokrates, were spurious,\nand the authorship was a point not easy to determine. Simon, a currier\nat Athens, in whose shop Sokrates often conversed, is said to have\nkept memoranda of the conversations which he heard, and to have\nafterwards published them: \u00c6schines also, and some other of the\nSokratic companions, were suspected of having preserved or procured\nreports of the conversations of the master himself, and of having made\nmuch money after his death by delivering them before select\naudiences.[10] Aristotle speaks of the followers of Antisthenes as\nunschooled, vulgar men: but Cicero appears to have read with\nsatisfaction the dialogues of Antisthenes, whom he designates as acute\nthough not well-instructed.[11] Other accounts describe his dialogues\nas composed in a rhetorical style, which is ascribed to the fact of\nhis having received lessons from Gorgias:[12] and Theopompus must have\nheld in considerable estimation the dialogues of that same author, as\nwell as those of Aristippus and Bryson, when he accused Plato of\nhaving borrowed from them largely.[13]\n\n[Footnote 8: Aristotel. ap. Athen\u00e6um, xi. p. 505 C; Rhetoric. iii. 16.\n\nDionys. Halikarnass. ad Cn. Pomp. de Platone, p. 762, Reiske. [Greek:\nTraphei\\s] (Plato) [Greek: e)n toi=s S\u00f4kratikoi=s dialo/gois\ni)schnota/tois ou)=si kai\\ a)kribesta/tois, ou) mei/nas d' e)n\nau)toi=s, a)lla\\ t\u00ea=s Gorgi/ou kai\\ Thoukudi/dou kataskeu\u00ea=s\ne)rasthei/s]: also, De Admir. Vi Dicend. in Demosthene, p. 968. Again\nin the same treatise De Adm. V. D. Demosth. p. 956. [Greek: \u00ea( de\\\ne(te/ra le/xis, \u00ea( lit\u00ea\\ kai\\ a)phel\u00ea\\s kai\\ dokou=sa kataskeu\u00ea/n te\nkai\\ i)schu\\n t\u00ea\\n pro\\s i)di\u00f4/t\u00ean e)/chein lo/gon kai\\ o(moio/t\u00eata,\npollou\\s me\\n e)/sche kai\\ a)gathou\\s a)/ndras prosta/tas--kai\\ oi(\nt\u00f4=n \u00ea)thik\u00f4=n dialo/g\u00f4n poi\u00eatai/, \u00f4(=n \u00ea)=n to\\ S\u00f4kratiko\\n\ndidaskalei=on pa=n, e)/x\u00f4 Pla/t\u00f4nos], &c.\n\nDionysius calls this style [Greek: o( S\u00f4kratiko\\s charakt\u00ea\\r] p. 1025.\nI presume it is the same to which the satirist Timon applies the\nwords:--\n\n[Greek: A)sthenik\u00ea/ te lo/g\u00f4n duas \u00ea)\\ tria\\s \u00ea)\\ e)/ti po/rs\u00f4,\nOi)=os Xeinopho/\u00f4n, \u00ea)/t' Ai)schi/nou ou)k e)pipeith\u00ea\\s\ngra/psai--] Diogen. La. ii. 55.\n\nLucian, Hermogenes, Phrynichus, Longinus, and some later rhetorical\ncritics of Greece judged more favourably than Timon about the style of\n\u00c6schines as well as of Xenophon. See Zeller, Phil. d. Griech. ii. p.\n171, sec. ed. And Demetrius Phalereus (or the author of the treatise\nwhich bears his name), as well as the rhetor Aristeides, considered\n\u00c6schines and Plato as the best representatives of the [Greek:\nS\u00f4kratiko\\s charakt\u00ea/r], Demetr. Phaler. De Interpretat. 310;\nAristeides, Orat. Platon. i. p. 35; Photius, Cods. 61 and 158;\nLonginus, ap. Walz. ix. p. 559, c. 2. Lucian says (De Parasito, 33)\nthat \u00c6schines passed some time with the elder Dionysius at Syracuse,\nto whom he read aloud his dialogue, entitled Miltiades, with great\nsuccess.\n\nAn inedited discourse of Mich\u00e6l Psellus, printed by Mr. Cox in his\nvery careful and valuable catalogue of the MSS. in the Bodleian\nLibrary, recites the same high estimate as having been formed of\n\u00c6schines by the chief ancient rhetorical critics: they reckoned him\namong and alongside of the foremost Hellenic classical writers, as\nhaving his own peculiar merits of style--[Greek: para\\ me\\n Pla/t\u00f4ni,\nt\u00ea\\n dialogik\u00ea\\n phra/sin, para\\ de\\ tou= S\u00f4kratikou= Ai)schi/nou,\nt\u00ea\\n e)mmel\u00ea= sunth\u00ea/k\u00ean t\u00f4=n le/xe\u00f4n, para\\ de\\ Thoukudi/dou], &c.\nSee Mr. Cox's Catalogue, pp. 743-745. Cicero speaks of the Sokratic\nphilosophers generally, as writing with an elegant playfulness of\nstyle (De Officiis, i. 29, 104): which is in harmony with Lucian's\nphrase--[Greek: Ai)schi/n\u00eas o( tou\\s dialo/gous makrou\\s kai\\\na)stei/ous gra/psas], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Cicero, Brutus, 85, s. 292; De Divinatione, i. 54-122;\nAristeides, Orat. xlv. [Greek: peri\\ R(\u00eatorik\u00ea=s] Orat. xlvi. [Greek:\nU(pe\\r t\u00f4=n Tetta/r\u00f4n], vol. ii. pp. 295-369, ed. Dindorf. It appears\nby this that some of the dialogues composed by \u00c6schines were mistaken\nby various persons for actual conversations held by Sokrates. It was\nargued, that because \u00c6schines was inferior to Plato in ability, he was\nmore likely to have repeated accurately what he had heard Sokrates\nsay.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Diog. L. ii. 122. He mentions a collection of\nthirty-three dialogues in one volume, purporting to be reports of real\ncolloquies of Sokrates, published by Simon. But they can hardly be\nregarded as genuine.\n\nThe charge here mentioned is advanced by Xenophon (see a preceding\nnote, Memorab. i. 2, 60), against some persons ([Greek: tine\\s]), but\nwithout specifying names. About \u00c6schines, see Athen\u00e6us, xiii. p. 611\nC; Diogen. Laert. ii. 62.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, xii. 38:--\"viri acuti magis\nquam eruditi,\" is the judgment of Cicero upon Antisthenes. I presume\nthat these words indicate the same defect as that which is intended by\nAristotle when he says--[Greek: oi( A)nthisthe/neioi kai\\ oi( ou(/t\u00f4s\n_a)pai/deutoi_], Metaphysic. [Greek: \u00ca]. 3, p. 1043, b. 24. It is\nplain, too, that Lucian considered the compositions of Antisthenes as\nnot unworthy companions to those of Plato (Lucian, adv. Indoctum, c.\n27).]\n\n[Footnote 12: Diogen. Laert. vi. 1. If it be true that Antisthenes\nreceived lessons from Gorgias, this proves that Gorgias must sometimes\nhave given lessons _gratis_; for the poverty of Antisthenes is well\nknown. See the Symposion of Xenophon.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Theopomp. ap. Athen\u00e6. xi. p. 508. See K. F. Hermann,\nUeber Plato's Schriftsteller. Motive, p. 300. An extract of some\nlength, of a dialogue composed by \u00c6schines between Sokrates and\nAlkibiades, is given by Aristeides, Or. xlvi. [Greek: U(pe\\r t\u00f4=n\nTetta/r\u00f4n], vol. ii. pp. 292-294, ed. Dindorf.]\n\n[Side-note: Relations between the companions of Sokrates--Their\nproceedings after the death of Sokrates.]\n\nEukleides, Antisthenes, and Aristippus, were all companions and\nadmirers of Sokrates, as was Plato. But none of them were his\ndisciples, in the strict sense of the word: none of them continued or\nenforced his doctrines, though each used his name as a spokesman.\nDuring his lifetime the common attachment to his person formed a bond\nof union, which ceased at his death. There is indeed some ground for\nbelieving that Plato then put himself forward in the character of\nleader, with a view to keep the body united.[14] We must recollect\nthat Plato though then no more than twenty-eight years of age, was the\nonly one among them who combined the advantages of a noble Athenian\ndescent, opulent circumstances, an excellent education, and great\nnative genius. Eukleides and Aristippus were neither of them\nAthenians: Antisthenes was very poor: Xenophon was absent on service\nin the Cyreian army. Plato's proposition, however, found no favour\nwith the others and was even indignantly repudiated by Apollodorus: a\nman ardently attached to Sokrates, but violent and overboiling in all\nhis feelings.[15] The companions of Sokrates, finding themselves\nunfavourably looked upon at Athens after his death, left the city for\na season and followed Eukleides to Megara. How long they stayed there\nwe do not know. Plato is said, though I think on no sufficient\nauthority, to have remained absent from Athens for several years\ncontinuously. It seems certain (from an anecdote recounted by\nAristotle)[16] that he talked with something like arrogance among the\ncompanions of Sokrates: and that Aristippus gently rebuked him by\nreminding him how very different had been the language of Sokrates\nhimself. Complaints too were made by contemporaries, about Plato's\njealous, censorious, spiteful, temper. The critical and disparaging\ntone of his dialogues, notwithstanding the admiration which they\ninspire, accounts for the existence of these complaints: and anecdotes\nare recounted, though not verified by any sufficient evidence, of\nill-natured dealing on his part towards other philosophers who were\npoorer than himself.[17] Dissension or controversy on philosophical\ntopics is rarely carried on without some invidious or hostile feeling.\nAthens, and the _viri Sokratici_, Plato included, form no exception to\nthis ordinary malady of human nature.\n\n[Footnote 14: Athen\u00e6us, xi. p. 507 A-B. from the [Greek: u(pomn\u00ea/mata]\nof the Delphian Hegesander. Who Hegesander was, I do not know: but\nthere is nothing improbable in the anecdote which he recounts.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Plato, Ph\u00e6don. pp. 59 A. 117 D. Eukleides, however,\nthough his school was probably at Megara, seems to have possessed\nproperty in Attica: for there existed, among the orations of Is\u00e6us, a\npleading composed by that rhetor for some client--[Greek: Pro\\s\nEu)klei/d\u00ean to\\n S\u00f4kratiko\\n a)mphisb\u00ea/t\u00easis u(pe\\r t\u00ea=s tou= ch\u00f4ri/ou\nlu/se\u00f4s] (Dion. Hal., Is\u00e6., c. 14, p. 612 Reiske) Harpokr.--[Greek:\nO(/ti ta\\ e)pik\u00earutto/mena]: also under some other words by\nHarpokration and by Pollux, viii. 48.]\n\n[Footnote 16: Aristot. Rhet. ii. 23, p. 1398, b. 30. [Greek: \u00ea)\\ \u00f4(s\nA)ri/stippos, pro\\s Pla/t\u00f4na e)paggeltik\u00f4/tero/n ti ei)po/nta, \u00f4(s\n\u00f4(/|eto--a)lla\\ m\u00ea\\n o( g' e(tai=ros \u00ea(m\u00f4=n, e)/ph\u00ea, ou)the\\n\ntoiou=ton--le/g\u00f4n to\\n S\u00f4kra/t\u00ean].\n\nThis anecdote, mentioned by Aristotle, who had good means of knowing,\nappears quite worthy of belief. The jealousy and love of supremacy\ninherent in Plato's temper ([Greek: to\\ philo/timon]), were noticed by\nDionysius Hal. (Epist. ad Cn. Pompeium, p. 756).]\n\n[Footnote 17: Athen\u00e6us, xi. pp. 505-508. Diog. Laert. ii. 60-65, iii.\n36.\n\nThe statement made by Plato in the Ph\u00e6don--That Aristippus and\nKleombrotus were not present at the death of Sokrates, but were said\nto be in \u00c6gina--is cited as an example of Plato's ill-will and\ncensorious temper (Demetr. Phaler. s. 306). But this is unfair. The\nstatement ought not to be so considered, if it were true: and if not\ntrue, it deserves a more severe epithet. We read in Athen\u00e6us various\nother criticisms, citing or alluding to passages of Plato, which are\nalleged to indicate ill-nature; but many of the passages cited do not\ndeserve the remark.]\n\n[Side-note: No Sokratic school--each of the companions took a line of\nhis own.]\n\nIt is common for historians of philosophy to speak of a Sokratic\nschool: but this phrase, if admissible at all, is only admissible in\nthe largest and vaguest sense. The effect produced by Sokrates upon\nhis companions was, not to teach doctrine, but to stimulate\nself-working enquiry, upon ethical and social subjects. Eukleides,\nAntisthenes, Aristippus, each took a line of his own, not less\ndecidedly than Plato. But unfortunately we have no compositions\nremaining from either of the three. We possess only brief reports\nrespecting some leading points of their doctrine, emanating altogether\nfrom those who disagreed with it: we have besides aphorisms, dicta,\nrepartees, bons-mots, &c., which they are said to have uttered. Of\nthese many are evident inventions; some proceeding from opponents and\nprobably coloured or exaggerated, others hardly authenticated at all.\nBut if they were ever so well authenticated, they would form very\ninsufficient evidence on which to judge a philosopher--much less to\ncondemn him with asperity.[18] Philosophy (as I have already observed)\naspires to deliver not merely truth, but reasoned truth. We ought to\nknow not only what doctrines a philosopher maintained, but how he\nmaintained them:--what objections others made against him, and how he\nreplied:--what objections he made against dissentient doctrines, and\nwhat replies were made to him. Respecting Plato and Aristotle, we\npossess such information to a considerable extent:--respecting\nEukleides, Antisthenes, and Aristippus, we are without it. All their\ncompositions (very numerous, in the case of Antisthenes) have\nperished.\n\n[Footnote 18: Respecting these ancient philosophers, whose works are\nlost, I transcribe a striking passage from Descartes, who complains,\nin his own case, of the injustice of being judged from the statements\nof others, and not from his own writings:--\"Quod adeo in h\u00e2c materi\u00e2\nverum est, ut quamvis s\u00e6pe _aliquas ex meis opinionibus explicaverim\nviris acutissimis_, et qui _me loquente videbantur eas vald\u00e9 distinct\u00e9\nintelligere: attamen cum eas retulerunt, observavi_ ipsos fere _semper\nillas ita mutavisse, ut pro meis agnoscere amplius non possem._ Qu\u00e2\noccasione posteros hic oratos volo, ut nunquam credant, quidquam \u00e0 me\nesse profectum, quod ipse in lucem non edidero. _Et nullo modo miror\nabsurda illa dogmata, qu\u00e6 veteribus illis philosophis tribuuntur,\nquorum scripta non habemus_: nec propterea judico ipsorum cogitationes\nvald\u00e9 \u00e0 ratione fuisse alienas, cum habuerint pr\u00e6stantissima suorum\ns\u00e6culorum ingenia; sed tantum nobis perperam esse relatas.\"\n(Descartes, Diss. De Methodo, p. 43.)]\n\n * * * * *\n\nEUKLEIDES.\n\n[Side-note: Eukleides of Megara--he blended Parmenides with Sokrates.]\n\nEukleides was a Parmenidean, who blended the ethical point of view of\nSokrates with the ontology of Parmenides, and followed out that\nnegative Dialectic which was common to Sokrates with Zeno. Parmenides\n(I have with already said)[19] and Zeno after him, recognised no\nabsolute reality except Ens Unum, continuous, indivisible: they denied\nall real plurality: they said that the plural was Non-Ens or Nothing,\n_i.e._ nothing real or absolute, but only apparent, perpetually\ntransient and changing, relative, different as appreciated by one man\nand by another. Now Sokrates laid it down that wisdom or knowledge of\nGood, was the sum total of ethical perfection, including within it all\nthe different virtues: he spoke also about the divine wisdom inherent\nin, or pervading the entire Kosmos or universe.[20] Eukleides blended\ntogether the Ens of Parmenides with the Good of Sokrates, saying that\nthe two names designated one and the same thing: sometimes called\nGood, Wisdom, Intelligence, God, &c., and by other names also, but\nalways one and the same object named and meant. He farther maintained\nthat the opposite of Ens, and the opposite of Bonum (Non-Ens,\nNon-Bonum, or Malum) were things non-existent, unmeaning names,\nNothing,[21] &c.: _i.e._ that they were nothing really, absolutely,\npermanently, but ever varying and dependent upon our ever varying\nconceptions. The One--the All--the Good--was absolute, immoveable,\ninvariable, indivisible. But the opposite thereof was a non-entity or\nnothing: there was no one constant meaning corresponding to Non-Ens--but\na variable meaning, different with every man who used it.\n\n[Footnote 19: See ch. i. pp. 19-22.]\n\n[Footnote 20: Xenophon. Memor. i. 4, 17. [Greek: t\u00ea\\n e)n t\u00f4=| panti\\\nphro/n\u00easin]. Compare Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 29-30; Cicero, Nat. Deor.\nii. 6, 6, iii. 11.]\n\n[Footnote 21: Diog. L. ii. 106. [Greek: Ou)=tos e)\\n to\\ a)gatho\\n\na)peph\u00ea/|nato polloi=s o)no/masi kalou/menon; o(/te me\\n ga\\r\nphro/n\u00easin, o(/te de\\ theo/n, kai\\ a)/llote nou=n kai\\ ta\\ loipa/. Ta\\\nde\\ a)ntikei/mena t\u00f4=| a)gath\u00f4=| a)n\u00ea/|rei, m\u00ea\\ ei)=nai pha/sk\u00f4n].\nCompare also vii. 2, 161, where the Megarici are represented as\nrecognising only [Greek: mi/an a)ret\u00ea\\n polloi=s o)no/masi\nkaloume/n\u00ean]. Cicero, Academ. ii. 42.]\n\n[Side-note: Doctrine of Eukleides about _Bonum_.]\n\nIt was in this manner that Eukleides solved the problem which Sokrates\nhad brought into vogue--What is the Bonum--or (as afterwards phrased)\nthe Summum Bonum? Eukleides pronounced the Bonum to be coincident with\nthe Ens Unum of Parmenides. The Parmenidean thesis, originally\nbelonging to Transcendental Physics or Ontology, became thus\nimplicated with Transcendental Ethics.[22]\n\n[Footnote 22: However, in the verse of Xenophanes, the predecessor of\nParmenides--[Greek: Ou(=los o(ra=|, ou(=los de\\ noei=, ou(=los de/ t'\na)kou/ei]--the Universe is described as a thinking, seeing, hearing\nGod--[Greek: E(\\n kai\\ Pa=n]. Sextus Empir. adv. Mathemat. ix. 144;\nXenophan. Fragm. p. 36, ed. Karsten.]\n\n[Side-note: The doctrine compared to that of Plato--changes in Plato.]\n\nPlato departs from Sokrates on the same point. He agrees with\nEukleides in recognising a Transcendental Bonum. But it appears that\nhis doctrines on this head underwent some change. He held for some\ntime what is called the doctrine of Ideas: transcendental Forms,\nEntia, Essences: he considered the Transcendental to be essentially\nmultiple, or to be an aggregate--whereas Eukleides had regarded it as\nessentially One. This is the doctrine which we find in some of the\nPlatonic dialogues. In the Republic, the Idea of Good appears as one\nof these, though it is declared to be the foremost in rank and the\nmost ascendant in efficacy.[23] But in the later part of his life, and\nin his lectures (as we learn from Aristotle), Plato came to adopt a\ndifferent view. He resolved the Ideas into numbers. He regarded them\nas made up by the combination of two distinct factors:--1. The One--the\nEssentially One. 2. The Essentially Plural: The Indeterminate\nDyad: the Great and Little.--Of these two elements he considered the\nIdeas to be compounded. And he identified the Idea of Good with the\nessentially One--[Greek: to\\ a)gatho\\n] with [Greek: to\\ e(/n]: the\nprinciple of Good with the principle of Unity: also the principle of\nEvil with the Indeterminate. But though Unity and Good were thus\nidentical, he considered Unity as logically antecedent, or the\nsubject--Good as logically consequent, or the predicate.[24]\n\n[Footnote 23: Plato, Republic, vi. p. 508 E, vii. p. 517 A.]\n\n[Footnote 24: The account given by Aristotle of Plato's doctrine of\nIdeas, as held by Plato in his later years, appears in various\npassages of the Metaphysica, and in the curious account repeated by\nAristoxenus (who had often heard it from Aristotle--[Greek:\nA)ristote/l\u00eas a)ei\\ di\u00eagei=to]) of the [Greek: a)kro/asis] or lecture\ndelivered by Plato, De Bono. See Aristoxen. Harmon. ii. p. 30, Meibom.\nCompare the eighth chapter in this work,--Platonic Compositions\nGenerally. Metaphys. N. 1091, b. 13.[Greek: t\u00f4=n de\\ ta\\s a)kin\u00ea/tous\nou)si/as ei)=nai lego/nt\u00f4n] (sc. Platonici) [Greek: oi( me/n phasin\nau)to\\ to\\ e(\\n to\\ a)gatho\\n au)to\\ ei)=nai; ou)si/an me/ntoi to\\\ne(\\n au)tou= \u00f4)/|onto ei)=nai ma/lista], which words are very clearly\nexplained by Bonitz in the note to his Commentary, p. 586: also\nMetaphys. 987, b. 20, and Scholia, p. 551, b. 20, p. 567, b. 34, where\nthe work of Aristotle, [Greek: Peri\\ Ta\\gathou=], is referred to:\nprobably the memoranda taken down by Aristotle from Plato's lecture on\nthat subject, accompanied by notes of his own.\n\nIn Schol. p. 573, a. 18, it is stated that the astronomer Eudoxus was\na hearer both of Plato and of Eukleides.\n\nThe account given by Zeller (Phil. der Griech. ii. p. 453, 2nd ed.) of\nthis latter phase of the Platonic doctrine of Ideas, applies exactly\nto that which we hear about the main doctrine of Eukleides. Zeller\ndescribes the Platonic doctrine as being \"Eine Vermischung des\nethischen Begriffes vom h\u00f6chsten Gut, mit dem Metaphysischen des\nAbsoluten: Der Begriff des Guten ist zun\u00e4chst aus dem menschlichen\nLeben abstrahirt; er bezeichnet das, was dem Menschen zutr\u00e4glich ist.\nSo noch bei Sokrates. Plato verallgemeinert ihn nun zum Begriff des\nAbsoluten; dabei spielt aber seine urspr\u00fcngliche Bedeutung noch\nfortw\u00e4hrend herein, und so entsteht die Unklarheit, dass weder der\nethische noch der metaphysische Begriff des Guten rein gefasst wird.\"\n\nThis remark is not less applicable to Eukleides than to Plato, both of\nthem agreeing in the doctrine here criticised. Zeller says truly, that\nthe attempt to identify Unum and Bonum produces perpetual confusion.\nThe two notions are thoroughly distinct and independent. It ought not\nto be called (as he phrases it) \"a generalization of Bonum\". There is\nno common property on which to found a generalization. It is a forced\nconjunction between two disparates.]\n\n[Side-note: Last doctrine of Plato nearly the same as that of\nEukleides.]\n\nThis last doctrine of Plato in his later years (which does not appear\nin the dialogues, but seems, as far as we can make out, to have been\ndelivered substantially in his oral lectures, and is ascribed to him\nby Aristotle) was nearly coincident with that of Eukleides. Both held\nthe identity of [Greek: to\\ e(/n] with [Greek: to\\ a)gatho/n]. This\none doctrine is all that we know about Eukleides: what consequences he\nderived from it, or whether any, we do not know. But Plato combined,\nwith this transcendental Unum = Bonum, a transcendental indeterminate\nplurality: from which combination he considered his Ideas or Ideal\nNumbers to be derivatives.\n\n[Side-note: Megaric succession of philosophers. Eleian or Eritrean\nsuccession.]\n\nEukleides is said to have composed six dialogues, the titles of which\nalone remain. The scanty information which we possess respecting him\nrelates altogether to his negative logical procedure. Whether he\ndeduced any consequences from his positive doctrine of the\nTranscendental Ens, Unum, Bonum, we do not know: but he, as Zeno had\nbeen before him,[25] was acute in exposing contradictions and\ndifficulties in the positive doctrines of opponents. He was a citizen\nof Megara, where he is said to have harboured Plato and the other\ncompanions of Sokrates, when they retired for a time from Athens after\nthe death of Sokrates. Living there as a teacher or debater on\nphilosophy, he founded a school or succession of philosophers who were\ndenominated _Megarici_. The title is as old as Aristotle, who both\nnames them and criticises their doctrines.[26] None of their\ncompositions are preserved. The earliest who becomes known to us is\nEubulides, the contemporary and opponent of Aristotle; next Ichthyas,\nApollonius, Diod\u00f4rus Kronus, Stilpon, Alexinus, between 340-260 B.C.\n\n[Footnote 25: Plato, Parmenides, p. 128 C, where Zeno represents\nhimself as taking for his premisses the conclusions of opponents, to\nshow that they led to absurd consequences. This seems what is meant,\nwhen Diogenes says about Eukleides--[Greek: tai=s a)podei/xesin\ne)ni/stato ou) kata\\ l\u00ea/mmata, a)lla\\ kat' e)piphora/n] (ii. 107);\nDeycks, De Megaricorum Doctrin\u00e2, p. 34.]\n\n[Footnote 26: Aristot. Metaph. iv. p. 1046, b. 29.\n\nThe sarcasm ascribed to Diogenes the Cynic implies that Eukleides was\nreally known as the founder of a _school_--[Greek: kai\\ t\u00ea\\n me\\n\nEu)klei/dou schol\u00ea\\n e)/lege chol\u00ea/n] (Diog. L. vi. 24)--the earliest\nmention (I apprehend) of the word [Greek: schol\u00ea\\] in that sense.]\n\nWith the Megaric philosophers there soon become confounded another\nsuccession, called Eleian or Eretrian, who trace their origin to\nanother Sokratic man--Ph\u00e6don. The chief Eretrians made known to us are\nPleistanus, Mened\u00eamus, Asklepiades. The second of the three acquired\nsome reputation.\n\n[Side-note: Doctrines of Antisthenes and Aristippus--Ethical, not\ntranscendental.]\n\nThe Megarics and Eretrians, as far as we know them, turned their\nspeculative activity altogether in the logical or intellectual\ndirection, paying little attention to the ethical and emotional field.\nBoth Antisthenes and Aristippus, on the contrary, pursued the ethical\npath. To the Sokratic question, What is the Bonum? Eukleides had\nanswered by a transcendental definition: Antisthenes and Aristippus\neach gave to it an ethical answer, having reference to human wants and\nemotions, and to the different views which they respectively took\nthereof. Antisthenes declared it to consist in virtue, by which he\nmeant an independent and self-sufficing character, confining all wants\nwithin the narrowest limits: Aristippus placed it in the moderate and\neasy pleasures, in avoiding ambitious struggles, and in making the\nbest of every different situation, yet always under the guidance of a\nwise calculation and self-command. Both of them kept clear of the\ntranscendental: they neither accepted it as Unum et Omne (the view of\nEukleides), nor as Plura (the Eternal Ideas or Forms, the Platonic\nview). Their speculations had reference altogether to human life and\nfeelings, though the one took a measure of this wide subject very\ndifferent from the other: and in thus confining the range of their\nspeculations, they followed Sokrates more closely than either\nEukleides or Plato followed him. They not only abstained from\ntranscendental speculation, but put themselves in declared opposition\nto it. And since the intellectual or logical philosophy, as treated by\nPlato, became intimately blended with transcendental\nhypothesis--Antisthenes and Aristippus are both found on the negative side\nagainst its pretensions. Aristippus declared the mathematical sciences to\nbe useless, as conducing in no way to happiness, and taking no account of\nwhat was better or what was worse.[27] He declared that we could know\nnothing except in so far as we were affected by it, and as it was or\nmight be in correlation with ourselves: that as to causes not relative\nto ourselves, or to our own capacities and affections, we could know\nnothing about them.[28]\n\n[Footnote 27: Aristotel. Metaph. B. 906, a. 32. [Greek: \u00f4(/ste dia\\\ntau=ta t\u00f4=n _sophist\u00f4=n tines_ oi(=on A)ri/stippos proep\u00eala/kizon\nau)ta\\s (ta\\s math\u00eamatika\\s te/chnas);--e)n me\\n ga\\r tai=s a)/llais\nte/chnais, kai\\ tai=s banau/sois, oi(=on e)n tektonik\u00ea=| kai\\\nskutik\u00ea=|, dio/ti be/ltion \u00ea)\\ chei=ron le/gesthai pa/nta, ta\\s de\\\nmath\u00eamatika\\s ou)the/na poiei=sthai lo/gon peri\\ a)gath\u00f4=n kai\\\nkak\u00f4=n.]\n\nAristotle here ranks Aristippus among the [Greek: sophistai/].\n\nAristippus, in discountenancing [Greek: phusiologi/an], cited the\nfavourite saying of Sokrates that the proper study of mankind was\n[Greek: o(/tti toi e)n mega/roisi kako/n t' a)gatho/n te te/tuktai].\n\nPlutarch, ap. Euseb. Pr\u00e6p. Evang. i. 8.]\n\n[Footnote 28: Sext. Emp. adv. Math. vii. 191; Diog. L. ii. 92.]\n\n[Side-note: Preponderance of the negative vein in the Platonic age.]\n\nSuch were the leading writers and talkers contemporary with Plato, in\nthe dialectical age immediately following on the death of Sokrates.\nThe negative vein greatly preponderates in them, as it does on the\nwhole even in Plato--and as it was pretty sure to do, so long as the\nform of dialogue was employed. Affirmative exposition and proof is\nindeed found in some of the later Platonic works, carried on by\ncolloquy between two speakers. But the colloquial form manifests\nitself evidently as unsuitable for the purpose: and we must remember\nthat Plato was a lecturer as well as a writer, so that his doctrines\nmade their way, at least in part, through continuous exposition. But\nit is Aristotle with whom the form of affirmative continuous\nexposition first becomes predominant, in matters of philosophy. Though\nhe composed dialogues (which are now lost), and though he appreciates\ndialectic as a valuable exercise, yet he considers it only as a\ndiscursive preparation; antecedent, though essential, to the more\nclose and concentrated demonstrations of philosophy.\n\n[Side-note: Harsh manner in which historians of philosophy censure the\nnegative vein.]\n\nMost historians deal hardly with this negative vein. They depreciate\nthe Sophists, the Megarics and Eretrians, the Academics and Sceptics\nof the subsequent ages--under the title of Eristics, or lovers of\ncontention for itself--as captious and perverse enemies of truth.\n\n[Side-note: Negative method in philosophy essential to the controul of\nthe affirmative.]\n\nI have already said that my view of the importance and value of the\nnegative vein of philosophy is altogether different. It appears to me\nquite as essential as the affirmative. It is required as an\nantecedent, a test, and a corrective. Aristotle deserves all honour\nfor his attempts to construct and defend various affirmative theories:\nbut the value of these theories depends upon their being defensible\nagainst all objectors. Affirmative philosophy, as a body not only of\ntruth but of reasoned truth, holds the champion's belt, subject to the\nchallenge not only of competing affirmants, but of all deniers and\ndoubters. And this is the more indispensable, because of the vast\nproblems which these affirmative philosophers undertake to solve:\nproblems especially vast during the age of Plato and Aristotle. The\nquestion has to be determined, not only which of two proposed\nsolutions is the best, but whether either of them is tenable, and even\nwhether any solution at all is attainable by the human faculties:\nwhether there exist positive evidence adequate to sustain any\nconclusion, accompanied with adequate replies to the objections\nagainst it. The burthen of proof lies upon the affirmant: and the\nproof produced must be open to the scrutiny of every dissentient.\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates--the most persevering and acute Eristic of his\nage.]\n\nAmong these dissentients or negative dialecticians, Sokrates himself,\nduring his life, stood prominent. In his footsteps followed Eukleides\nand the Megarics: who, though they acquired the unenviable surname of\nEristics or Controversialists, cannot possibly have surpassed Sokrates,\nand probably did not equal him, in the refutative Elenchus. Of no one\namong the Megarics, probably, did critics ever affirm, what the admiring\nXenophon says about Sokrates--\"that he dealt with every one in colloquial\ndebate just as he chose,\" _i.e._, that he baffled and puzzled his\nopponents whenever he chose. No one of these Megarics probably ever\nenunciated so sweeping a negative programme, or declared so emphatically\nhis own inability to communicate positive instruction, as Sokrates in the\nPlatonic Apology. A person more thoroughly Eristic than Sokrates never\nlived. And we see perfectly, from the Memorabilia of Xenophon (who\nnevertheless strives to bring out the opposite side of his character),\nthat he was so esteemed among his contemporaries. Plato, as well as\nEukleides, took up this vein in the Sokratic character, and worked it\nwith unrivalled power in many of his dialogues. The Platonic Sokrates\nis compared, and compares himself, to Ant\u00e6us, who compelled every\nnew-comer, willing or unwilling, to wrestle with him.[29]\n\n[Footnote 29: Plato, The\u00e6tet. p. 169 A. _Theodorus_. [Greek: Ou)\nr(a/|dion, \u00f4)= S\u00f4/krates, soi\\ parakath\u00ea/menon m\u00ea\\ dido/nai lo/gon,\na)ll' e)g\u00f4\\ a)/rti parel\u00ea/r\u00easa pha/sk\u00f4n se e)pitre/psein moi m\u00ea\\\na)podu/esthai, kai\\ ou)chi\\ a)nagka/sein katha/per Lakedaimo/nioi; su\\\nde/ moi dokei=s pro\\s to\\n Ski/r)r(\u00f4na ma=llon tei/nein.\nLakedaimo/nioi me\\n ga\\r a)pie/nai \u00ea(\\ a)podu/esthai keleu/ousi, su\\\nde\\ kat' A)ntai=o/n ti/ moi ma=llon dokei=s to\\ dra=ma dra=|n; to\\n\nga\\r proseltho/nta ou)k a)ni/\u00eas pri\\n a)nagka/s\u00ea|s a)podu/sas e)n\ntoi=s lo/gois prospalai=sai.]\n\n_Sokrates_. [Greek: _A)=rista ge_, \u00f4)= Theo/d\u00f4re, _t\u00ea\\n no/son mou\na)pei/kasas_; i)schurik\u00f4/teros me/ntoi e)g\u00f4\\ e)kei/n\u00f4n; muri/oi ga\\r\n\u00ea)/d\u00ea moi \u00ca(rakle/es te kai\\ Th\u00ease/es e)ntucho/ntes karteroi\\ pro\\s\nto\\ le/gein ma/l' eu)= xugkeko/phasin, a)ll' e)g\u00f4\\ ou)de/n ti ma=llon\na)phi/stamai. ou(/t\u00f4 _tis e)r\u00f4\\s deino\\s e)nde/duke t\u00ea=s peri\\ tau=ta\ngumnasi/as_; m\u00ea\\ ou)=n m\u00eade\\ su\\ phthon\u00ea/s\u00ea|s prosanatripsa/menos\nsauto/n te a(/ma kai\\ e)me\\ o)n\u00ea=sai].\n\nHow could the eristic appetite be manifested in stronger language\neither by Eukleides, or Eubulides, or Diod\u00f4rus Kronus, or any of those\nSophists upon whom the Platonic commentators heap so many harsh\nepithets?\n\nAmong the compositions ascribed to Protagoras by Diogenes Laertius\n(ix. 55), one is entitled [Greek: Te/chn\u00ea E)ristik\u00f4=n]. But if we look\nat the last chapter of the Treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis, we shall\nfind Aristotle asserting explicitly that there existed no [Greek:\nTe/chn\u00ea E)ristik\u00f4=n] anterior to his own work the Topica.]\n\n[Side-note: Platonic Parmenides--its extreme negative character.]\n\nOf the six dialogues composed by Eukleides, we cannot speak\npositively, because they are not preserved. But they cannot have been\nmore refutative, and less affirmative, than most of the Platonic\ndialogues; and we can hardly be wrong in asserting that they were very\ninferior both in energy and attraction. The The\u00e6t\u00eatus and the\nParmenides, two of the most negative among the Platonic dialogues,\nseem to connect themselves, by the _personnel_ of the drama, with the\nMegaric philosophers: the former dialogue is ushered in by Eukleides,\nand is, as it were, dedicated to him: the latter dialogue exhibits, as\nits _protagonistes_, the veteran Parmenides himself, who forms the one\nfactor of the Megaric philosophy, while Sokrates forms the other.\nParmenides (in the Platonic dialogue so called) is made to enforce the\nnegative method in general terms, as a philosophical duty co-ordinate\nwith the affirmative; and to illustrate it by a most elaborate\nargumentation, directed partly against the Platonic Ideas (here\nadvocated by the youthful Sokrates), partly against his own (the\nParmenidean) dogma of Ens Unum. Parmenides adduces unanswerable\nobjections against the dogma of Transcendental Forms or Ideas; yet\nsays at the same time that there can be no philosophy unless you admit\nit. He reproves the youthful Sokrates for precipitancy in affirming\nthe dogma, and contends that you are not justified in affirming any\ndogma until you have gone through a bilateral scrutiny of it--that is,\nfirst assuming the doctrine to be true, next assuming it to be false,\nand following out the deductions arising from the one assumption as\nwell as from the other.[30] Parmenides then gives a string of\nsuccessive deductions (at great length, occupying the last half of the\ndialogue)--four pairs of counter-demonstrations or Antinomies--in\nwhich contradictory conclusions appear each to be alike proved. He\nenunciates the final result as follows:--\"Whether Unum exists, or does\nnot exist, Unum itself and C\u00e6tera, both exist and do not exist, both\nappear and do not appear, all things and in all ways--both in relation\nto themselves and in relation to each other\".[31]\n\n[Footnote 30: Plato, Parmen. p. 136.]\n\n[Footnote 31: Plato, Parmen. p. 166. [Greek: e(\\n ei)/t' e)/stin,\nei)/te m\u00ea\\ e)/stin, au)to/ te kai\\ ta)/lla kai\\ pro\\s au)ta\\ kai\\\npro\\s a)/ll\u00eala pa/nta pa/nt\u00f4s e)sti/ te kai\\ ou)k e)/sti, kai\\\nphai/netai/ te kai\\ ou) phai/netai.--A)l\u00eathe/stata].\n\nSee below, vol. iii. chap. xxvii. Parmenides.]\n\nIf this memorable dialogue, with its concluding string of elaborate\nantinomies, had come down to us under the name of Eukleides,\nhistorians would probably have denounced it as a perverse exhibition\nof ingenuity, worthy of \"that litigious person, who first infused into\nthe Megarians the fury of disputation \"[32] But since it is of\nPlatonic origin, we must recognise Plato not only as having divided\nwith the Megaric philosophers the impulse of negative speculation\nwhich they had inherited from Sokrates, but as having carried that\nimpulse to an extreme point of invention, combination, and dramatic\nhandling, much beyond their powers. Undoubtedly, if we pass from the\nParmenid\u00eas to other dialogues, we find Plato very different. He has\nvarious other intellectual impulses, an abundant flow of ideality and\nof constructive fancy, in many distinct channels. But negative\nphilosophy is at least one of the indisputable and prominent items of\nthe Platonic aggregate.\n\n[Footnote 32: This is the phrase of the satirical sillographer Timon,\nwho spoke with scorn of all the philosophers except Pyrrhon:--\n\n[Greek: A)ll' ou)/ moi tou/t\u00f4n phledo/n\u00f4n me/lei, ou)de\\ me\\n a)/llou\nOu)deno/s, ou) Phai/d\u00f4nos, o(/tis ge me\\n--ou)/d' e)rida/nte\u00f4\nEu)klei/dou, Megareu=sin o(\\s e)/mbale lu/ssan e)rismou=.]]\n\n[Side-note: The Megarics shared the negative impulse with Sokrates and\nPlato.]\n\nWhile then we admit that the Megaric succession of philosophers\nexhibited negative subtlety and vehement love of contentious debate,\nwe must recollect that these qualities were inherited from Sokrates\nand shared with Plato. The philosophy of Sokrates, who taught nothing\nand cross-examined every one, was essentially more negative and\ncontroversial, both in him and his successors, than any which had\npreceded it. In an age when dialectic colloquy was considered as\nappropriate for philosophical subjects, and when long continuous\nexposition was left to the rhetor--Eukleides established a succession\nor school[33] which was more distinguished for impugning dogmas of\nothers than for defending dogmas of its own. Schleiermacher and others\nsuppose that Plato in his dialogue Euthyd\u00eamus intends to expose the\nsophistical fallacies of the Megaric school:[34] and that in the\ndialogue Sophist\u00eas, he refutes the same philosophers (under the vague\ndesignation of \"the friends of Forms\") in their speculations about\nEns and Non-Ens. The first of these two opinions is probably true to\nsome extent, though we cannot tell how far: the second of the two is\nsupported by some able critics--yet it appears to me untenable.[35]\n\n[Footnote 33: If we may trust a sarcastic bon-mot ascribed to Diogenes\nthe Cynic, the contemporary of the _viri Sokratici_ and the follower\nof Antisthenes, the term [Greek: schol\u00ea\\] was applied to the visitors\nof Eukleides rather than to those of Plato--[Greek: kai\\ t\u00ea\\n me\\n\nEu)klei/dou schol\u00ea\\n e)/lege _chol\u00ea/n_, t\u00ea\\n de\\ Pla/t\u00f4nos diatrib\u00ea/n,\n_katatrib\u00ea/n_]. Diog. L. vi. 24.]\n\n[Footnote 34: Schleierm. Einleitung to Plat. Euthyd. p. 403 seq.]\n\n[Footnote 35: Schleierm. Introduction to the Sophist\u00eas, pp. 134-135.\n\nSee Deycks, Megaricorum Doctrina, p. 41 seq. Zeller, Phil. der Griech.\nvol. ii. p. 180 seq., with his instructive note. Prantl, Gesch. der\nLogik, vol. i. p. 37, and others cited by Zeller.--Ritter dissents\nfrom this view, and I concur in his dissent. To affirm that Eukleides\nadmitted a plurality of Ideas or Forms, is to contradict the only one\ndeposition, certain and unequivocal, which we have about his\nphilosophy. His doctrine is that of the Transcendental Unum, Ens,\nBonum; while the doctrine of the Transcendental Plura (Ideas or Forms)\nbelongs to Plato and others. Both Deycks and Zeller (p. 185) recognise\nthis as a difficulty. But to me it seems fatal to their hypothesis;\nwhich, after all, is only an hypothesis--first originated by\nSchleiermacher. If it be true that the Megarici are intended by Plato\nunder the appellation [Greek: oi( t\u00f4=n ei)d\u00f4=n phi/loi], we must\nsuppose that the school had been completely transformed before the\ntime of Stilpon, who is presented as the great opponent of [Greek: ta\\\nei)/d\u00ea].]\n\nOf Eukleides himself, though he is characterised as strongly\ncontroversial, no distinct points of controversy have been preserved:\nbut his successor Eubulides is celebrated for various sophisms. He was\nthe contemporary and rival of Aristotle: who, without however\nexpressly naming him, probably intends to speak of him when alluding\nto the Megaric philosophers generally.[36] Another of the same school,\nAlexinus (rather later than Eubulides) is also said to have written\nagainst Aristotle.\n\n[Footnote 36: Aristokles, ap. Euseb. Pr\u00e6p. Ev. xv. 2. Eubulides is\nsaid not merely to have controverted the philosophical theories of\nAristotle, but also to have attacked his personal character with\nbitterness and slander: a practice not less common in ancient\ncontroversy than in modern. About Alexinus, Diog. L. ii. 109.\n\nAmong those who took lessons in rhetoric and pronunciation from\nEubulides, we read the name of the orator Demosthenes, who is said to\nhave improved his pronunciation thereby. Diog. Laert. ii. p. 108.\nPlutarch, x. Orat. 21, p. 845 C.]\n\n[Side-note: Eubulides--his logical problems or puzzles--difficulty of\nsolving them--many solutions attempted.]\n\nSix sophisms are ascribed to Eubulides. 1.--[Greek: O(\npseudo/menos]--Mentiens. 2.--[Greek: O( dialantha/n\u00f4n], or\n[Greek: e)gkekalumme/nos]--the person hidden under a veil.\n3.--[Greek: \u00ca)le/ktra]. 4.--[Greek: S\u00f4rei/t\u00eas]--Sorites.\n5.--[Greek: Kerati/n\u00eas]--Cornutus. 6.--[Greek: Pha/lakros]--Calvus.\nOf these the second is substantially the same with the third; and the\nfourth the same with the sixth, only inverted.[37]\n\n[Footnote 37: Diog. L. ii. pp. 108-109; vii. 82. Lucian vit. Auct. 22.\n\n1. Cicero, Academ. ii. pp. 30-96. \"Si dicis te mentiri verumque dicis,\nmentiris. Dicis autem te mentiri, verumque dicis: mentiris igitur.\" 2,\n3. [Greek: O( e)gkekalumme/nos]. You know your father: you are placed\nbefore a person covered and concealed by a thick veil: you do not know\nhim. But this person is your father. Therefore you both know your\nfather and do not know him. 5. [Greek: Kerati/n\u00eas]. That which you\nhave not lost, you have: but you have not lost horns; therefore you\n_have_ horns. 4, 6. [Greek: S\u00f4rei/t\u00eas--Pha/lakros]. What number of\ngrains make a heap--or are many? what number are few? Are three grains\nfew, and four _many_?--or, where will you draw the line between Few\nand Many? The like question about the hairs on a man's head--How many\nmust he lose before he can be said to have only a few, or to be bald?]\n\nThese sophisms are ascribed to Eubulides, and belonged probably to the\nMegaric school both before and after him. But it is plain both from\nthe Euthyd\u00eamus of Plato, and from the Topica of Aristotle, that there\nwere many others of similar character; frequently employed in the\nabundant dialectic colloquies which prevailed at Athens during the\nfourth and third centuries B.C. Plato and Aristotle handle such\nquestions and their authors contemptuously, under the name of Eristic:\nbut it was more easy to put a bad name upon them, as well as upon the\nEleate Zeno, than to elucidate the logical difficulties which they\nbrought to view. Neither Aristotle nor Plato provided a sufficient\nanswer to them: as is proved by the fact, that several subsequent\nphilosophers wrote treatises expressly in reference to them--even\nphilosophers of reputation, like Theophrastus and Chrysippus.[38] How\nthese two latter philosophers performed their task, we cannot say. But\nthe fact that they attempted the task, exhibits a commendable anxiety\nto make their logical theory complete, and to fortify it against\nobjections.\n\n[Footnote 38: Diog. L. v. p. 49; vii. pp. 192-198. Seneca, Epistol. p.\n45. Plutarch (De Stoicor. Repugnantiis, p. 1087) has some curious\nextracts and remarks from Chrysippus; who (he says) spoke in the\nharshest terms against the [Greek: Megarika\\ e)r\u00f4t\u00ea/mata], as having\npuzzled and unsettled men's convictions without ground--while he\n(Chrysippus) had himself proposed puzzles and difficulties still more\nformidable, in his treatise [Greek: kata\\ Sun\u00eathei/as].]\n\n[Side-note: Real character of the Megaric sophisms, not calculated to\ndeceive but to guard against deception.]\n\nIt is in this point of view--in reference to logical theory--that the\nMegaric philosophers have not been fairly appreciated. They, or\npersons reasoning in their manner, formed one essential encouragement\nand condition to the formation of any tolerable logical theory. They\nadministered, to minds capable and constructive, that painful sense of\ncontradiction, and shock of perplexity, which Sokrates relied upon as\nthe stimulus to mental parturition--and which Plato extols as a lever\nfor raising the student to general conceptions.[39] Their sophisms\nwere not intended to impose upon any one, but on the contrary, to\nguard against imposition.[40] Whoever states a fallacy clearly and\nnakedly, applying it to a particular case in which it conducts to a\nconclusion known upon other evidence not to be true--contributes to\ndivest it of its misleading effect. The persons most liable to be\ndeceived by the fallacy are those who are not forewarned:--in cases\nwhere the premisses are stated not nakedly, but in an artful form of\nwords--and where the conclusion, though false, is not known beforehand\nto be false by the hearer. To use Mr. John Stuart Mill's phrase,[41]\nthe fallacy is a case of apparent evidence mistaken for real evidence:\nyou expose it to be evidence only apparent and not real, by giving a\ntype of the fallacy, in which the conclusion obtained is obviously\nfalse: and the more obviously false it is, the better suited for its\ntutelary purpose. Aristotle recognises, as indispensable in\nphilosophical enquiry, the preliminary wrestling into which he\nconducts his reader, by means of a long string of unsolved\ndifficulties or puzzles--([Greek: a)po/riai]). He declares distinctly\nand forcibly, that whoever attempts to lay out a positive theory,\nwithout having before his mind a full list of the difficulties with\nwhich he is to grapple, is like one who searches without knowing what\nhe is looking for; without being competent to decide whether what he\nhits upon as a solution be really a solution or not.[42] Now that\nenumeration of puzzles which Aristotle here postulates (and in part\nundertakes, in reference to Philosophia Prima) is exactly what the\nMegarics, and various other dialecticians (called by Plato and\nAristotle Sophists) contributed to furnish for the use of those who\ntheorised on Logic.\n\n[Footnote 39: Plato, Republic, vii. pp. 523 A, 524. [Greek: ta\\ me\\n\ne)n tai=s ai)sth\u00ea/sesin ou) parakalou=nta t\u00ea\\n no/\u00easin ei)s\ne)pi/skepsin, \u00f4(s i(kan\u00f4=s u(po\\ t\u00ea=s ai)sth\u00ea/se\u00f4s krino/mena--ta\\ de\\\npanta/pasi diakeleuo/mena e)kei/n\u00ean e)piske/psasthai, \u00f4(s t\u00ea=s\nai)sth\u00ea/se\u00f4s ou)de\\n u(gie\\s poiou/s\u00eas . . . Ta\\ me\\n ou)\nparakalou=nta, o(/sa m\u00ea\\ e)kbai/nei ei)s e)nanti/an ai)/sth\u00easin a(/ma;\nta\\ d' e)kbai/nonta, \u00f4(s parakalou=nta ti/th\u00eami, e)peida\\n \u00ea(\nai)/sth\u00easis m\u00eade\\n ma=llon tou=to \u00ea)\\ to\\ e)nanti/on d\u00ealoi=]. Compare\np. 524 E: the whole passage is very interesting.]\n\n[Footnote 40: The remarks of Ritter (Gesch. der Philos. ii. p. 189.\n2nd ed.) upon these Megaric philosophers are more just and discerning\nthan those made by most of the historians of philosophy \"Doch darf man\nwohl annehmen, dass sie solche Trugschl\u00fcsse nicht zur T\u00e4uschung,**\nsondern zur Belehrung f\u00fcr unvorsichtige, oder zur Warnung vor der\nSeichtigkeit gew\u00f6hnlicher Vorstellungsweisen, gebrauchen wollten. So\nviel ist gewiss, dass die Megariker sich viel mit den Formen des\nDenken besch\u00e4ftigten, vielleicht mehr zu Aufsuchung einzelner Regeln,\nals zur Begr\u00fcndung eines wissenschaftlichen Zusammenhangs unter ihnen;\nobwohl auch besondere Theile der Logik unter ihren Schriften erw\u00e4hnt\nwerden.\"\n\nThis is much more reasonable than the language of Prantl, who\ndenounces \"the shamelessness of doctrinarism\" (die Unversch\u00e4mtheit des\nDoctrinarismus) belonging to these Megarici \"the petulance and vanity\nwhich prompted them to seek celebrity by intentional offences against\nsound common sense,\" &c. (Gesch. der Logik, pp. 39-40.--Sir Wm.\nHamilton has some good remarks on these sophisms, in his Lectures on\nLogic, Lect. xxiii. p. 452 seq.)]\n\n[Footnote 41: See the first chapter of his book v. on Fallacies,\nSystem of Logic, vol. ii.]\n\n[Footnote 42: Aristotel. Metaphys. B. 1, p. 995, a. 33.\n\n[Greek: dio\\ dei= ta\\s duscherei/as tethe\u00f4r\u00eake/nai pa/sas pro/teron,\ntou/t\u00f4n de\\ cha/rin kai\\ dia\\ to\\ tou\\s z\u00eatou=ntas a)/neu tou=\ndiapor\u00ea=sai pr\u00f4=ton o(moi/ous ei)=nai toi=s poi= dei= badi/zein\na)gnoou=si, kai\\ pro\\s tou/tois ou)d' ei) pote to\\ z\u00eatou/menon\neu(/r\u00eaken \u00ea)\\ m\u00ea\\ gign\u00f4/skein; to\\ ga\\r te/los tou/t\u00f4| me\\n ou)\nd\u00ea=lon, t\u00f4=| de\\ pro\u00eapor\u00eako/ti d\u00ea=lon].\n\nAristotle devotes the whole of this Book to an enumeration of [Greek:\na)po/riai].]\n\n[Side-note: If the process of theorising be admissible, it must\ninclude negative as well as affirmative.]\n\nYou may dislike philosophy: you may undervalue, or altogether\nproscribe, the process of theorising. This is the standing-point usual\nwith the bulk of mankind, ancient as well as modern: who generally\ndislike all accurate reasoning, or analysis and discrimination of\nfamiliar abstract words, as mean and tiresome hair-splitting.[43] But\nif you admit the business of theorising to be legitimate, useful, and\neven honourable, you must reckon on free working of independent,\nindividual, minds as the operative force--and on the necessity of\ndissentient, conflicting, manifestations of this common force, as\nessential conditions to any successful result. Upon no other\nconditions can you obtain any tolerable body of reasoned truth--or\neven reasoned _quasi-truth_.\n\n[Footnote 43: See my account of the Platonic dialogue Hippias Major,\nvol. ii. chap. xiii. Aristot. Metaphys. A. minor, p. 995, a. 9.\n[Greek: tou\\s de\\ lupei= to\\ a)kribe\\s, \u00ea)\\ dia\\ to\\ m\u00ea\\ du/nasthai\nsunei/rein, \u00ea)\\ dia\\ t\u00ea\\n mikrologi/an; e)/chei ga/r ti to\\ a)kribe\\s\ntoiou=ton, \u00f4(/ste katha/per e)pi\\ t\u00f4=n sumbolai/\u00f4n, kai\\ e)pi\\ t\u00f4=n\nlo/g\u00f4n a)neleu/theron ei)=nai tisi dokei=]. Cicero (Paradoxa, c. 2)\ntalks of the \"minut\u00e6 interrogatiuncul\u00e6\" of the Stoics as tedious and\ntiresome.]\n\n[Side-note: Logical position of the Megaric philosophers erroneously\ndescribed by historians of philosophy. Necessity of a complete\ncollection of difficulties.]\n\nNow the historians of philosophy seldom take this view of philosophy\nas a whole--as a field to which the free antithesis of affirmative and\nnegative is indispensable. They consider true philosophy as\nrepresented by Sokrates, Plato, and Aristotle, one or other of them:\nwhile the contemporaries of these eminent men are discredited under\nthe name of Sophists, Eristics, or sham-philosophers, sowing tares\namong the legitimate crop of wheat--or as devils whom the miraculous\nvirtue of Sokrates and Plato is employed in expelling from the\nAthenian mind. Even the companions of Sokrates, and the Megarics among\nthem, whom we know only upon the imperfect testimony of opponents,\nhave fallen under this unmerited sentence:[44] as if they were\ndestructive agents breaking down an edifice of well-constituted\nphilosophy--no such edifice in fact having ever existed in Greece,\nthough there were several dissenting lecture rooms and conflicting\nveins of speculation promoted by eminent individuals.\n\n[Footnote 44: The same charge is put by Cicero into the mouth of\nLucullus against the Academics: \"Similiter vos (Academici) quum\nperturbare, ut illi\" (the Gracchi and others) \"rempublicam, sic vos\nphilosophiam, ben\u00e8 jam constitutam velitis. . . . Tum exortus est, ut\nin optim\u00e2 republic\u00e2 Tib. Gracchus, qui otium perturbaret, sic\nArcesilas, qui constitutam philosophiam everteret\" (Acad. Prior, ii. 5,\n14-15).\n\nEven in the liberal and comprehensive history of the Greek philosophy\nby Zeller (vol. ii. p. 187, ed. 2nd), respecting Eukleides' and the\nMegarians;--\"Dagegen bot der _Streit gegen die geltenden Meinungen_\ndem Scharfsinn, der Rechthaberei, und dem wissenschaftlichen Ehrgeiz,\nein unersch\u00f6pfliches Feld dar, welches denn auch die Megarischen\nPhilosophen r\u00fcstig ausbeuteten.\"\n\nIf by \"die geltenden Meinungen\" Zeller means the common sense of the\nday that is, the opinions and beliefs current among the [Greek:\ni)di\u00f4=tai], the working, enjoying, non-theorising public--it is very\ntrue that the Megaric philosophers contended against them: but\nSokrates and Plato contended against them quite as much: we see this\nin the Platonic Apology, Gorgias, Republic, Tim\u00e6us, Parmenid\u00eas, &c.\n\nIf, on the other hand, by \"die geltenden Meinungen\" Zeller means any\nphilosophical or logical theories generally or universally admitted by\nthinking men as valid, the answer is that there were none such in the\nfourth and third centuries B.C. Various eminent speculative\nindividuals were labouring to construct such theories, each in his own\nway, and each with a certain congregation of partisans; but\nestablished theory there was none. Nor can any theory (whether\naccepted or not) be firm or trustworthy, unless it be exposed to the\ncontinued thrusts of the negative weapon, searching out its vulnerable\npoints. We know of the Megarics only what they furnished towards that\nnegative testing; without which, however,--as we may learn from Plato\nand Aristotle themselves,--the true value of the affirmative defences\ncan never be measured.]\n\nWhoever undertakes, _bon\u00e2 fide_, to frame a complete and defensible\nlogical theory, will desire to have before him a copious collection of\nsuch difficulties, and will consider those who propound them as useful\nauxiliaries.[45] If he finds no one to propound them, he will have to\nimagine them for himself. \"The philosophy of reasoning\" (observes Mr.\nJohn Stuart Mill) \"must comprise the philosophy of bad as well as of\ngood reasoning.\"[46] The one cannot be complete without the other. To\nenumerate the different varieties of apparent evidence which is not\nreal evidence (called Fallacies), and of apparent contradictions which\nare not real contradictions--referred as far as may be to classes,\neach illustrated by a suitable type--is among the duties of a\nlogician. He will find this duty much facilitated, if there happen to\nexist around him an active habit of dialectic debate: ingenious men\nwho really study the modes of puzzling and confuting a well-armed\nadversary, as well as of defending themselves against the like. Such a\nhabit did exist at Athens: and unless it had existed, the Aristotelian\ntheories on logic would probably never have been framed. Contemporary\nand antecedent dialecticians, the Megarici among them, supplied the\nstock of particular examples enumerated and criticised by Aristotle in\nthe Topica:[47] which treatise (especially the last book, De\nSophisticis Elenchis) is intended both to explain the theory, and to\ngive suggestions on the practice, of logical controversy. A man who\ntakes lessons in fencing must learn not only how to thrust and parry,\nbut also how to impose on his opponent by feints, and to meet the\nfeints employed against himself: a general who learns the art of war\nmust know how to take advantage of the enemy by effective cheating and\ntreachery (to use the language of Xenophon), and how to avoid being\ncheated himself. The Aristotelian Topica, in like manner, teach the\narts both of dialectic attack and of dialectic defence.[48]\n\n[Footnote 45: Marbach (Gesch. der Philos. s. 91), though he treats the\nMegarics as jesters (which I do not think they were), yet adds very\njustly: \"Nevertheless these puzzles (propounded by the Megarics) have\ntheir serious and scientific side. We are forced to inquire, how it\nhappens that the contradictions shown up in them are not merely\npossible but even necessary.\"\n\nBoth Tiedemann and Winckelmann also remark that the debaters called\nEristics contributed greatly to the formation of the theory and\nprecepts of Logic, afterwards laid out by Aristotle. Winckelmann,\nProlegg. ad Platon. Euthydem. pp. xxiv.-xxxi. Even Stallbaum, though\nfull of harshness towards those Sophists whom he describes as\nbelonging to the school of Protagoras, treats the Megaric philosophers\nwith much greater respect. Prolegom. ad Platon. Euthydem. p. 9.]\n\n[Footnote 46: System of Logic, Book v. 1, 1.]\n\n[Footnote 47: Prantl (Gesch. der Logik, vol. i. pp. 43-50) ascribes to\nthe Megarics all or nearly all the sophisms which Aristotle notices in\nthe Treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis. This is more than can be proved,\nand more than I think probable. Several of them are taken from the\nPlatonic Euthyd\u00eamus.]\n\n[Footnote 48: See the remarkable passages in the discourses of\nSokrates (Memorab. iii. 1, 6; iv. 2, 15), and in that of Kambyses to\nCyrus, which repeats the same opinion--Cyrop\u00e6d. i. 6, 27--respecting\nthe amount of deceit, treachery, the thievish and rapacious qualities\nrequired for conducting war against an enemy--([Greek: ta\\ pro\\s tou\\s\npolemi/ous no/mima], i. 6, 34).\n\nAristotle treats of Dialectic, as he does of Rhetoric, as an art\nhaving its theory, and precepts founded upon that theory. I shall have\noccasion to observe in a future chapter (xxi.), that logical Fallacies\nare not generated or invented by persons called Sophists, but are\ninherent liabilities to error in the human intellect; and that the\nhabit of debate affords the only means of bringing them into clear\ndaylight, and guarding against being deceived by them. Aristotle gives\nprecepts both how to thrust, and how to parry with the best effect: if\nhe had taught only how to parry, he would have left out one-half of\nthe art.\n\nOne of the most learned and candid of the Aristotelian\ncommentators--M. Barth\u00e9lemy St. Hilaire--observes as follows (Logique\nd'Aristote, p. 435, Paris, 1838) respecting De Sophist. Elenchis:--\n\n\"Aristote va donc s'occuper de la marche qu'il faut donner aux\ndiscussions sophistiques: et ici il serait difficile quelquefois de\nd\u00e9cider, \u00e0 la mani\u00e8re dont les choses sont pr\u00e9sent\u00e9es par lui, si ce\nsont des conseils qu'il donne aux Sophistes, ou \u00e0 ceux qui veulent\n\u00e9viter leurs ruses. Tout ce qui pr\u00e9c\u00e8de, prouve, au reste, que c'est\nen ce dernier sens qu'il faut entendre la pens\u00e9e du philosophe. Ceci\nest d'ailleurs la seconde portion du tra\u00eet\u00e9.\"\n\nIt appears to me that Aristotle intended to teach or to suggest both\nthe two things which are here placed in Antithesis--though I do not\nagree with M. St. Hilaire's way of putting the alternative--as if\nthere were one class of persons, professional Sophists, who fenced\nwith poisoned weapons, while every one except them refrained from such\nweapons. Aristotle intends to teach the art of Dialectic as a whole;\nhe neither intends nor wishes that any learners shall make a bad use\nof his teaching; but if they do use it badly, the fault does not lie\nwith him. See the observations in the beginning of the Rhetorica, i.\np. 1355, a. 26, and the observations put by Plato into the mouth of\nGorgias (Gorg. p. 456 E).\n\nEven in the Analytica Priora (ii. 19, a. 34) (independent of the\nTopica) Aristotle says:--[Greek: chr\u00ea\\ d' o(/per phula/ttesthai\nparagge/llomen a)pokrinome/nous, au)tou\\s e)picheirou=ntas\npeira=sthtai lantha/nein]. Investigations of the double or triple\nsenses of words (he says) are useful--[Greek: kai\\ pro\\s to\\ m\u00ea\\\nparalogisth\u00ea=nai, kai\\ pro\\s to\\ paralogi/sasthai], Topica, i. 18, p.\n108, a. 26. See also other passages of the Topica where artifices are\nindicated for the purpose of concealing your own plan of proceeding\nand inducing your opponent to make answer in the sense which you wish,\nTopica, i. 2, p. 101, a. 25; vi. 10, p. 148, a. 37; viii. 1, p. 151,\nb. 23; viii. 1, p. 153, a. 6; viii. 2, p. 154, a. 5; viii. 11, p. 161,\na. 24 seq. You must be provided with the means of meeting every sort\nand variety of objection--[Greek: pro\\s ga\\r to\\n pa/nt\u00f4s\ne)nista/menon pa/nt\u00f4s a)ntitakte/on e)sti/n]. Topic. v. 4, p. 134, a.\n4.\n\nI shall again have to touch on the Topica, in this point of view, as\nfounded upon and illustrating the Megaric logical puzzles (ch. viii.\nof the present volume).]\n\n[Side-note: Sophisms propounded by Eubulides. 1. Mentiens. 2. The\nVeiled Man. 3. Sorites. 4. Cornutus.]\n\nThe Sophisms ascribed to Eubulid\u00eas, looked at from the point of view\nof logical theory, deserve that attention which they seem to have\nreceived. The logician lays down as a rule that no affirmative\nproposition can be at the same time true and false. Now the first\nsophism (called _Mentiens_) exhibits the case of a proposition which\nis, or appears to be, at the same time true and false.[49] It is for\nthe logician to explain how this proposition can be brought under his\nrule--or else to admit it as an exception. Again, the second sophism\nin the list (the Veiled or Hidden Man) is so contrived as to involve\nthe respondent in a contradiction: he is made to say both that he\nknows his father, and that he does not know his father. Both the one\nanswer and the other follow naturally from the questions and\ncircumstances supposed. The contradiction points to the loose and\nequivocal way in which the word _to know_ is used in common speech.\nSuch equivocal meaning of words is not only one of the frequent\nsources of error and fallacy in reasoning, but also one of the least\nheeded by persons untrained in dialectics; who are apt to presume that\nthe same word bears always the same meaning. To guard against this\ncause of error, and to determine (or impel others to determine) the\naccurate meaning or various distinct meanings of each word, is among\nthe duties of the logician: and I will add that the verb _to know_\nstands high in the list of words requiring such determination--as the\nPlatonic The\u00e6t\u00eatus[50] alone would be sufficient to teach us.\nFarthermore, when we examine what is called the Sorit\u00eas of Eubulides,\nwe perceive that it brings to view an inherent indeterminateness of\nvarious terms: indeterminateness which cannot be avoided, but which\nmust be pointed out in order that it may not mislead. You cannot say\nhow many grains are _much_--or how many grains make _a heap_. When\nthis want of precision, pervading many words in the language, was\nfirst brought to notice in a suitable special case, it would naturally\nappear a striking novelty. Lastly, the sophism called [Greek:\nKerati/n\u00eas] or Cornutus, is one of great plausibility, which would\nprobably impose upon most persons, if the question were asked for the\nfirst time without any forewarning. It serves to administer a lesson,\nnowise unprofitable or superfluous, that before you answer a question,\nyou should fully weigh its import and its collateral bearings.\n\n[Footnote 49: Theophrastus wrote a treatise in three books on the\nsolution of the puzzle called [Greek: O( pseudo/menos] (see the list\nof his lost works in Diogenes L. v. 49). We find also other treatises\nentitled [Greek: Megariko\\s a/] (which Diogenes cites, vi.\n22),--[Greek: A)g\u00f4nistiko\\n t\u00ea=s peri\\ tou\\s e)ristikou\\s lo/gous\nthe\u00f4ri/as--Sophisma/t\u00f4n a/, b]--besides several more titles relating to\ndialectics, and bearing upon the solution of syllogistic problems.\nChrysippus also, in the ensuing century, wrote a treatise in three\nbooks, [Greek: Peri\\ t\u00ea=s tou= pseudome/non lu/se\u00f4s] (Diog. vii. 107).\nSuch facts show the importance of these problems in their bearing upon\nlogical theory, as conceived by the ancient world. Epikurus also wrote\nagainst the [Greek: Megarikoi/] (Diog. x. 27).\n\nThe discussion of sophisms, or logical difficulties ([Greek: lu/seis\na)pori/\u00f4n]), was a favourite occupation at the banquets of\nphilosophers at Athens, on or about 100 B.C. [Greek: A)nti/patros d'\no( philo/sophos, sumpo/sio/n pote suna/g\u00f4n, sune/taxe toi=s\ne)rchome/nois \u00f4(s peri\\ sophisma/t\u00f4n e(rou=sin] (Athen\u00e6us, v. 186 C).\nPlutarch, Non posse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, p. 1096 C; De\nSanitate Pr\u00e6cepta, c. 20, p. 133 B.]\n\n[Footnote 50: Various portions of the The\u00e6t\u00eatus illustrate this\nMegaric sophism (pp. 165-188). The situation assumed in the question\nof Eubulid\u00eas--having before your eyes a person veiled--might form a\nsuitable addition to the various contingencies specified in The\u00e6t\u00eat.\npp. 192-193.\n\nThe manner in which the Platonic Sokrates proves (The\u00e6t. 165) that you\nat the same time see, and do not see, an object before you, is quite\nas sophistical as the way in which Eubulid\u00eas proves that you both\nknow, and do not know, your father.]\n\n[Side-note: Causes of error constant--the Megarics were sentinals\nagainst them.]\n\nThe causes of error and fallacy are inherent in the complication of\nnature, the imperfection of language, the small range of facts which\nwe know, the indefinite varieties of comparison possible among those\nfacts, and the diverse or opposite predispositions, intellectual as\nwell as emotional, of individual minds. They are not fabricated by\nthose who first draw attention to them.[51] The Megarics, far from\nbeing themselves deceivers, served as sentinels against deceit. They\nplanted conspicuous beacons upon some of the sunken rocks whereon\nunwary reasoners were likely to be wrecked. When the general type of a\nfallacy is illustrated by a particular case in which the conclusion is\nmanifestly untrue, the like fallacy is rendered less operative for the\nfuture.\n\n[Footnote 51: Cicero, in his Academ. Prior, ii. 92-94, has very just\nremarks on the obscurities and difficulties in the reasoning process,\nwhich the Megarics and others brought to view--and were blamed for so\ndoing, as unfair and captious reasoners--as if they had themselves\ncreated the difficulties--\"(Dialectica) primo progressu festiv\u00e9 tradit\nelementa loquendi et ambiguorum intelligentiam concludendique\nrationem; tum paucis additis venit ad soritas, lubricum san\u00e9 et\npericulosum locum, quod tu modo dicebas esse vitiosum interrogandi\ngenus. Quid ergo? _istius vitii num nostra culpa est_? Rerum natura\nnullam nobis dedit cognitionem finium, ut ull\u00e2 in re statuere possimus\nquatenus. Nec hoc in acervo tritici solum, unde nomen est, sed null\u00e2\nomnino in re minutatim interroganti--dives, pauper--clarus, obscurus,\nsit--multa, pauca, magna, parva, longa, brevia, lata, angusta, quanto\naut addito aut dempto certum respondeamus, non habemus. At vitiosi\nsunt sorit\u00e6. Frangite igitur eos, si potestis, ne molesti sint. . .\nSic me (inquit) sustineo, neque diutius captios\u00e9 interroganti\nrespondes. Si habes quod liqueat neque respondes, superbis: si non\nhabes, ne tu quidem percipis.\"\n\nThe principle of the Sorites ([Greek: \u00ea( s\u00f4ritik\u00ea\\ a)pori/a]--Sextus\nadv. Gramm. s. 68), though differently applied, is involved in the\nargument of Zeno the Eleate, addressed to Protagoras--see Simplikius\nad Aristot. Physic. 250, p. 423, b. 42. Sch. Brand. Compare chap. ii.\nof this volume.]\n\n[Side-note: Controversy of the Megarics with Aristotle about Power.\nArguments of Aristotle.]\n\nOf the positive doctrines of the Megarics we know little: but there is\none upon which Aristotle enters into controversy with them, and upon\nwhich (as far as can be made out) I think they were in the right. In\nthe question about Power, they held that the power to do a thing did\nnot exist, except when the thing was actually done: that an architect,\nfor example, had no power to build a house, except when he actually\ndid build one. Aristotle controverts this opinion at some length;\ncontending that there exists a sort of power or cause which is in\nitself irregular and indeterminate, sometimes turning to the\naffirmative, sometimes to the negative, to do or not to do;[52] that\nthe architect _has_ the _power to build_ constantly, though he exerts\nit only on occasion: and that many absurdities would follow if we did\nnot admit, That a given power or energy--and the exercise of that\npower--are things distinct and separable.[53]\n\n[Footnote 52: Aristot. De Interpret. p. 19, a. 6-20. [Greek: o(/l\u00f4s\ne)/stin e)n toi=s m\u00ea\\ a)ei\\ e)nergou=si to\\ dunato\\n ei)=nai kai\\ m\u00ea\\\no(moi/\u00f4s; e)n oi(=s a)mph\u00f4 e)nde/chetai, kai\\ to\\ ei)=nai kai\\ to\\ m\u00ea\\\nei)=nai, \u00f4(/ste kai\\ to\\ gene/sthai kai\\ to\\ m\u00ea\\ gene/sthai.]]\n\n[Footnote 53: Aristot. Metaph. [Greek: Th]. 3, p. 1046, b. 29. [Greek:\nEi)si\\ de/ tines, oi)/ phasin, oi(=on oi( Megarikoi/, o(/tan\ne)nerg\u00ea=|, mo/non du/nasthai, o(/tan de\\ m\u00ea\\ e)nerg\u00ea=|, m\u00ea\\\ndu/nasthai--oi(=on to\\n m\u00ea\\ oi)kodomou=nta ou) du/nasthai oi)kodomei=n,\na)lla\\ to\\n oi)kodomou=nta o(/tan oi)kodom\u00ea=|; o(moi/\u00f4s de\\ kai\\ e)pi\\\nt\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n].\n\nDeycks (De Megaricorum Doctrin\u00e2, pp. 70-71) considers this opinion of\nthe Megarics to be derived from their general Eleatic theory of the\nEns Unum et Immotum. But I see no logical connection between the two.]\n\n[Side-note: These arguments not valid against the Megarici.]\n\nNow these arguments of Aristotle are by no means valid against the\nMegarics, whose doctrine, though apparently paradoxical, will appear\nwhen explained to be no paradox at all, but perfectly true. When we\nsay that the architect has power to build, we do not mean that he has\npower to do so under all supposable circumstances, but only under\ncertain conditions: we wish to distinguish him from non-professional\nmen, who under those same conditions have no power to build. The\narchitect must be awake and sober: he must have the will or\ndisposition to build:[54] he must be provided with tools and\nmaterials, and be secure against destroying enemies. These and other\nconditions being generally understood, it is unnecessary to enunciate\nthem in common speech. But when we engage in dialectic analysis, the\naccurate discussion ([Greek: a)kribologi/a]) indispensable to\nphilosophy requires us to bring under distinct notice, that which the\nelliptical character of common speech implies without enunciating.\nUnless these favourable conditions be supposed, the architect is no\nmore able to build than an ordinary non-professional man. Now the\nMegarics did not deny the distinctive character of the architect, as\ncompared with the non-architect: but they defined more accurately in\nwhat it consisted, by restoring the omitted conditions. They went a\nstep farther: they pointed out that whenever the architect finds\nhimself in concert with these accompanying conditions (his own\nvolition being one of the conditions) he goes to work--and the\nbuilding is produced. As the house is not built, unless he wills to\nbuild, and has tools and materials, &c.--so conversely, whenever he\nhas the will to build and has tools and materials, &c., the house is\nactually built. The effect is not produced, except when the full\nassemblage of antecedent conditions come together: but as soon as they\ndo come together, the effect is assuredly produced. The\naccomplishments of the architect, though an essential item, are yet\nonly one item among several, of the conditions necessary to building\nthe house. He has no power to build, except when those other\nconditions are assumed along with him: in other words, he has no such\npower except when he actually does build.\n\n[Footnote 54: About this condition implied in the predicate [Greek:\ndunato/s], see Plato, Hippias Minor, p. 366 D.]\n\n[Side-note: His arguments cited and criticised.]\n\nAristotle urges against the Megarics various arguments, as\nfollows:--1. Their doctrine implies that the architect is not an\narchitect, and does not possess his professional skill,[55] except at\nthe moment when he is actually building.--But the Megarics would have\ndenied that their doctrine did imply this. The architect possesses his\nart at all times: but his art does not constitute a power of building\nexcept under certain accompanying conditions.\n\n[Footnote 55: Aristot. Metaph. [Greek: Th]. 3, 1047, a. 3. [Greek:\no(/tan pau/s\u00eatai (oi)kodom\u00f4=n) ou)ch e(/xei t\u00ea\\n te/chn\u00ean.]]\n\n2. The Megaric doctrine is the same as that of Protagoras, implying\nthat there exists no perceivable Object, and no Subject capable of\nperceiving, except at the moment when perception actually takes\nplace.[56] On this we may observe, that the Megarics coincide with\nProtagoras thus far, that they bring into open daylight the relative\nand conditional, which the received phraseology tends to hide. But\nneither they nor he affirm what is here put upon them. When we speak\nof a perceivable Object, we mean that which may and will be perceived,\n_if_ there be a proper Subject to perceive it: when we affirm a\nSubject capable of perception, we mean, one which will perceive, under\nthose circumstances which we call the presence of an Object suitably\nplaced. The Subject and Object are correlates: but it is convenient to\nhave a language in which one of them alone is introduced\nunconditionally, while the conditional sign is applied to the\ncorrelate: though the matter affirmed involves a condition common to\nboth.\n\n[Footnote 56: Aristot. Metaph. [Greek: Th]. 3, 1047, a. 8-13.]\n\n3. According to the Megaric doctrine (Aristotle argues) every man when\nnot actually seeing, is blind; every man when not actually speaking,\nis dumb.--Here the Megarics would have said that this is a\nmisinterpretation of the terms dumb and blind; which denote a person\nwho cannot speak or see, even though he wishes it. One who is now\nsilent, though not dumb, may speak if he wills it: but his own\nvolition is an essential condition.[57]\n\n[Footnote 57: The question between Aristotle and the Megarics has not\npassed out of debate with modern philosophers.\n\nDr. Thomas Brown observes, in his inquiry into Cause and Effect--\"From\nthe mere silence of any one, we cannot infer that he is dumb in\nconsequence of organic imperfection. He may be silent only because he\nhas no desire of speaking, not because speech would not have followed\nhis desire: and it is not with the mere _existence_ of any one, but\n_with his desire of speaking_, that we suppose utterance to be\nconnected. A man who has _no desire of speaking, has in truth_, and in\nstrictness of language, _no power of speaking, when in that state of\nmind_: since he has not a circumstance which, as immediately prior, is\nessential to speech. But since he has that power, as soon as the new\ncircumstance of desire arises--and as the presence or absence of the\ndesire cannot be perceived but in its effects--_there is no\ninconvenience in the common language_, which ascribes the power, _as\nif it were possessed at all times, and in all circumstances of mind_,\nthough unquestionably, nothing more is meant than that the desire\nexisting will be followed by utterance.\" (Brown, Essay on the Relation\nof Cause and Effect, p. 200.)\n\nThis is the real sense of what Aristotle calls [Greek: to\\ de\\\n(le/getai) dunato/n, oi(=on dunato\\n ei)=nai badi/zein o(/ti badiseien\na)\\n], _i.e._ he will walk _if_ he desires to do so (De Interpret. p.\n23, a. 9-15).]\n\n4. According to the Megaric doctrine (says Aristotle) when you are now\nlying down, you have no power to rise: when you are standing up, you\nhave no power to lie down: so that the present condition of affairs\nmust continue for ever unchanged: nothing can come into existence\nwhich is not now in being.--Here again, the Megarics would have denied\nhis inference. The man who is now standing up, has power to lie down,\n_if he wills_ to do so--or he may be thrown down by a superior force:\nthat is, he will lie down, _if_ some new fact of a certain character\nshall supervene. The Megarics do not deny that he has power, _if_--so\nand so: they deny that he has power, without the _if_--that is,\nwithout the farther accompaniments essential to energy.\n\n[Side-note: Potential as distinguished from the Actual--What it is.]\n\nOn the whole, it seems to me that Aristotle's refutation of the\nMegarics is unsuccessful. A given assemblage of conditions is\nrequisite for the production of any act: while there are other\ncircumstances, which, if present at the same time, would defeat its\nproduction. We often find it convenient to describe a state of things\nin which some of the antecedent conditions are present without the\nrest: in which therefore the act is not produced, yet would be\nproduced, if the remaining circumstances were present, and if the\nopposing circumstances were absent.[58] The state of things thus\ndescribed is the _potential_ as distinguished from the _actual_:\npower, distinguished from act or energy: it represents an incomplete\nassemblage of the antecedent positive conditions--or perhaps a\ncomplete assemblage, but counteracted by some opposing circumstances.\nAs soon as the assemblage becomes complete, and the opposing\ncircumstances removed, the potential passes into the actual. The\narchitect, when he is not building, possesses, not indeed the full or\nplenary power to build, but an important fraction of that power, which\nwill become plenary when the other fractions supervene, but will then\nat the same time become operative, so as to produce the actual\nbuilding.[59]\n\n[Footnote 58: Hobbes, in his Computation or Logic (chaps. ix. and x.\nOf Cause and Effect. Of Power and Act) expounds this subject with his\nusual perspicuity.\n\n\"A Cause simply, or an Entire Cause, is the aggregate of all the\naccidents, both of the agents, how many soever they be, and of the\npatient, put together; which, when they are all supposed to be\npresent, it cannot be understood but that the effect is produced at\nthe same instant: and if any one of them be wanting, it cannot be\nunderstood but that the effect is not produced\" (ix. 3).\n\n\"Correspondent to Cause and Effect are Power and Act: nay, those and\nthese are the same things, though for divers considerations they have\ndivers names. For whensoever any agent has all those accidents which\nare necessarily requisite for the production of some effect in the\npatient, then we say that agent has power to produce that effect if it\nbe applied to a patient. In like manner, whensoever any patient has\nall those accidents which it is requisite it should have for the\nproduction of some effect in it, we say it is in the power of that\npatient to produce that effect if it be applied to a fitting agent.\nPower, active and passive, are parts only of plenary and entire power:\nnor, except they be joined, can any effect proceed from them. And\ntherefore these powers are but conditional: namely, the agent has\npower if it be applied to a patient, and the patient has power if it\nbe applied to an agent. _Otherwise neither of them have power, nor can\nthe accidents which are in them severally be properly called powers_:\nnor any action be said to be possible for the power of the agent alone\nor the patient alone.\"]\n\n[Footnote 59: Aristotle does in fact grant all that is here said, in\nthe same book and in the page next subsequent to that which contains\nhis arguments against the Megaric doctrine, Metaphys. [Greek: Th]. 5,\n1048, a. 1-24.\n\nIn this chapter Aristotle distinguishes powers belonging to things,\nfrom powers belonging to persons--powers irrational from powers\nrational--powers in which the agent acts without any will or choice,\nfrom those in which the will or choice of the agent is one item of the\naggregate of conditions. He here expressly recognises that the power\nof the agent, separately considered, is only _conditional_; that is,\nconditional on the presence and suitable state of the patient, as well\nas upon the absence of counteracting circumstances. But he contends\nthat such absence of counteracting circumstances is plainly implied,\nand need not be expressly mentioned in the definition.\n\n[Greek: e)pei\\ de\\ to\\ dunato\\n ti\\ dunato\\n kai\\ pote\\ kai\\ p\u00f4=s kai\\\no(/sa a)/lla a)na/gk\u00ea prosei=nai e)n t\u00f4=| diorism\u00f4=|--\n\nto\\ dunato\\n kata\\ lo/gon a(/pan a)na/gk\u00ea, o(/tan o)re/g\u00eatai, ou)= t'\ne)/chei t\u00ea\\n du/namin kai\\ \u00f4(s e)/chei, tou=to poiei=n; e)/chei de\\\nparo/ntos tou= path\u00eatikou= kai\\ \u00f4(di\\ e)/chontos poiei=n; _ei) de\\\nm\u00ea/, poiei=n ou) dun\u00ea/setai_. to\\ ga\\r m\u00eatheno\\s t\u00f4=n e(/x\u00f4 k\u00f4lu/ontos\nprosdiori/zesthai, ou)the\\n e)/ti dei=; t\u00ea\\n ga\\r du/namin e)/chei\n\u00f4(/s e)/sti du/namis tou= poiei=n, _e)/sti d' ou) pa/nt\u00f4s_, a)ll'\ne)cho/nt\u00f4n p\u00f4=s, e)n oi(=s a)phoristh\u00ea/setai kai\\ ta\\ e(/x\u00f4 k\u00f4lu/onta;\na)phairei=tai ga\\r tau=ta t\u00f4=n e)n t\u00f4=| diorism\u00f4=| proso/nt\u00f4n e)/nia].\nThe commentary of Alexander Aphr. upon this chapter is well worth\nconsulting (pp. 546-548 of the edition of his commentary by Bonitz,\n1847). Moreover Aristotle affirms in this chapter, that when [Greek:\nto\\ poi\u00eatiko\\n] and [Greek: to\\ path\u00eatiko\\n] come together under\nsuitable circumstances, the power will certainly pass into act.\n\nHere then, it seems to me, Aristotle concedes the doctrine which the\nMegarics affirmed; or, if there be any difference between them, it is\nrather verbal than real. In fact, Aristotle's reasoning in the third\nchapter (wherein he impugns the doctrine of the Megarics), and the\ndefinition of [Greek: dunato\\n] which he gives in that chapter (1047,\na. 25), are hardly to be reconciled with his reasoning in the fifth\nchapter. Bonitz (Notes on the Metaphys. pp. 393-395) complains of the\n_mira levitas_ of Aristotle in his reasoning against the Megarics, and\nof his omitting to distinguish between _Verm\u00f6gen_ and _M\u00f6glichkeit_. I\nwill not use so uncourteous a phrase; but I think his refutation of\nthe Megarics is both unsatisfactory and contradicted by himself. I\nagree with the following remark of Bonitz:--\"Nec mirum, quod Megarici,\naliis illi quidem in rebus arguti, in h\u00e2c autem satis acuti,\nexistentiam [Greek: t\u00f4=| duna/mei o)/nti] tribuere recusarint,\" &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Diod\u00f4rus Kronus--his doctrine about [Greek: to\\ dunato/n].]\n\nThe doctrine which I have just been canvassing is expressly cited by\nAristotle as a Megaric doctrine, and was therefore probably held by\nhis contemporary Eubulid\u00eas. From the pains which Aristotle takes (in\nthe 'De Interpretatione' and elsewhere) to explain and vindicate his\nown doctrine about the Potential and the Actual, we may see that it\nwas a theme much debated among the dialecticians of the day. And we\nread of another Megaric, Diodorus[60] Kronus, perhaps contemporary\n(yet probably a little later than Aristotle), as advancing a position\nsubstantially the same as that of Eubulid\u00eas. That alone is possible\n(Diodorus affirmed) which either is happening now, or will happen at\nsome future time. As in speaking about facts of an unrecorded past, we\nknow well that a given fact either occurred or did not occur, yet\nwithout knowing which of the two is true--and therefore we affirm only\nthat the fact _may_ have occurred: so also about the future, either\nthe assertion that a given fact will at some time occur, is positively\ntrue, or the assertion that it will never occur, is positively true:\nthe assertion that it may or may not occur some time or other,\nrepresents only our ignorance, which of the two is true. That which\nwill never at any time occur, is impossible.\n\n[Footnote 60: The dialectic ingenuity of Diodorus is powerfully\nattested by the verse of Ariston, applied to describe Arkesilaus\n(Sextus Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. i. p. 234):\n\n[Greek: Pro/sthe Pla/t\u00f4n, o)/pithen Pu/r)r(\u00f4n, me/ssos Dio/d\u00f4ros.]]\n\n[Side-note: Sophism of Diodorus--[Greek: O( Kurieu/\u00f4n].]\n\nThe argument here recited must have been older than Diodorus, since\nAristotle states and controverts it: but it seems to have been handled\nby him in a peculiar dialectic arrangement, which obtained the title\nof [Greek: O( Kurieu/\u00f4n].[61] The Stoics (especially Chrysippus), in\ntimes somewhat later, impugned the opinion of Diodorus, though\nseemingly upon grounds not quite the same as Aristotle. This problem\nwas one upon which speculative minds occupied themselves for several\ncenturies. Aristotle and Chrysippus maintained that affirmations\nrespecting the past were _necessary_ (one necessarily true and the\nother necessarily false)--affirmations respecting the future,\n_contingent_ (one must be true and the other false, but either might\nbe true). Diodorus held that both varieties of affirmations were\nequally necessary--Kleanthes the Stoic thought that both were equally\ncontingent.[62]\n\n[Footnote 61: Aristot. De Interpret. p. 18, a. pp. 27-38. Alexander ad\nAristot. Analyt. Prior. 34, p. 163, b. 34, Schol. Brandis. See also\nSir William Hamilton's Lectures on Logic, Lect. xxiii. p. 464.]\n\n[Footnote 62: Arrian ad Epiktet. ii. p. 19. Upton, in his notes on\nthis passage of Arrian (p. 151) has embodied a very valuable and\nelaborate commentary by Mr. James Harris (the great English\nAristotelian scholar of the 18th century), explaining the nature of\nthis controversy, and the argument called [Greek: o( Kurieu/\u00f4n].\n\nCompare Cicero, De Fato, c. 7-9. Epistol. Fam. ix. 4.]\n\nIt was thus that the Megaric dialecticians, with that fertility of\nmind which belonged to the Platonic and Aristotelian century, stirred\nup many real problems and difficulties connected with logical\nevidence, and supplied matters for discussion which not only occupied\nthe speculative minds of the next four or five centuries, but have\ncontinued in debate down to the present day.\n\n[Side-note: Question between Aristotle and Diod\u00f4rus depends upon\nwhether universal regularity of sequence be admitted or denied.]\n\nThe question about the Possible and Impossible, raised between\nAristotle and Diodorus, depends upon the larger question, Whether\nthere are universal laws of Nature or not? whether the sequences are,\nuniversally and throughout, composed of assemblages of conditions\nregularly antecedent, and assemblages of events regularly consequent;\nthough from the number and complication of causes, partly co-operating\nand partly conflicting with each other, we with our limited\nintelligence are often unable to predict the course of events in each\nparticular situation. Sokrates, Plato, and Aristotle, all maintained\nthat regular sequence of antecedent and consequent was not universal,\nbut partial only:[63] that there were some agencies essentially\nregular, in which observation of the past afforded ground for\npredicting the future--other agencies (or the same agencies on\ndifferent occasions) essentially irregular, in which the observation\nof the past afforded no such ground. Aristotle admitted a graduation\nof causes from perfect regularity to perfect irregularity:--1. The\nCelestial Spheres, with their included bodies or divine persons, which\nrevolved and exercised a great and preponderant influence throughout\nthe Kosmos, with perfect uniformity; having no power of contraries,\n_i.e._, having no power of doing anything else but what they actually\ndid (having [Greek: e)nergei/a] without [Greek: du/namis]). 2. The\nfour Elements, in which the natural agencies were to a great degree\nnecessary and uniform, but also in a certain degree otherwise--either\nalways or for the most part uniform ([Greek: to\\ \u00f4(s e)pi\\ to\\\npolu/])--tending by inherent appetency towards uniformity, but not\nalways attaining it. 3. Besides these there were two other varieties\nof Causes accidental, or perfectly irregular--Chance and Spontaneity:\npowers of contraries, or with equal chance of contrary\nmanifestations--essentially capricious, undeterminable, unpredictable.[64]\nThis _Chance_ of Aristotle--with one of two contraries sure to turn up,\nthough you could never tell beforehand which of the two--was a\nconception analogous to what logicians sometimes call an Indefinite\nProposition, or to what some grammarians have reckoned as a special\nvariety of genders called the _doubtful gender_. There were thus\npositive causes of regularity, and positive causes of irregularity,\nthe co-operation or conflict of which gave the total manifestations of\nthe actual universe. The principle of irregularity, or the\nIndeterminate, is sometimes described under the name of Matter,[65] as\ndistinguishable from, yet co-operating with, the three determinate\nCauses--Formal, Efficient, Final. The Potential--the Indeterminate--the\n_May or May not be_--is characterised by Aristotle as one of the inherent\nprinciples operative in the Kosmos.\n\n[Footnote 63: Xenophon, Memor. i. 1; Plato, Tim\u00e6us, p. 48 A. [Greek:\n\u00ea( plan\u00f4me/n\u00ea ai)ti/a], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 64: [Greek: \u00ca( tu/ch\u00ea--to\\ o(po/ter' e)/tuche--to\\\nau)to/maton] are in the conception of Aristotle independent [Greek:\nA)rchai/], attached to and blending with [Greek: a)na/gk\u00ea] and [Greek:\nto\\ \u00f4(s e)pi\\ to\\ polu/]. See Physic. ii. 196, b. 11; Metaphys. E.\n1026-1027.\n\nSometimes [Greek: to\\ o(po/ter' e)/tuche] is spoken of as an [Greek:\nA)rch\u00ea/], but not as an [Greek: ai)/tion], or belonging to [Greek:\nu(/l\u00ea] as the [Greek: A)rch\u00ea/]. 1027, b. 11. [Greek: d\u00ea=lon a)/ra\no(/ti me/chri tino\\s badi/zei a)rch\u00ea=s, au)/t\u00ea d' ou)/keti ei)s\na)/llo; e)/stai ou)=n \u00ea( tou= o(po/ter' e)/tuchen au)/t\u00ea, kai\\\nai)/tioi t\u00ea=s gene/se\u00f4s au)t\u00ea=s ou)the/n].\n\nSee, respecting the different notions of Cause held by ancient\nphilosophers, my remarks on the Platonic Ph\u00e6don infr\u00e0, vol. iii.** ch.\nxxv.]\n\n[Footnote 65: Aristot. Metaph. E. 1027, a. 13; A. 1071, a. 10.\n\n[Greek: \u00f4(/ste \u00ea( u(/l\u00ea e)/stai ai)ti/a, \u00ea( e)ndechome/n \u00ea para\\ to\\\n\u00f4(s e)pi\\ to polu\\ a)/ll\u00f4s tou= sumbeb\u00eako/tos].\n\nMatter is represented as the principle of irregularity, of [Greek: to\\\no(po/ter' e)/tuche]--as the [Greek: du/namis t\u00f4=n e)nanti/\u00f4n].\n\nIn the explanation given by Alexander of Aphrodisias of the\nPeripatetic doctrine respecting chance--free-will, the principle of\nirregularity--[Greek: tu/ch\u00ea] is no longer assigned to the material\ncause, but is treated as an [Greek: ai)ti/a kata\\ sumbeb\u00eako/s],\ndistinguished from [Greek: ai)ti/a pro\u00eagou/mena] or [Greek: kath'\nau(ta/]. The exposition given of the doctrine by Alexander is valuable\nand interesting. See his treatise De Fato, addressed to the Emperor\nSeverus, in the edition of Orelli, Zurich. 1824 (a very useful volume,\ncontaining treatises of Ammonius, Plotinus, Bardesanes, &c., on the\nsame subject); also several sections of his Qu\u00e6stiones Naturales et\nMorales, ed. Spengel, Munich, 1842, pp. 22-61-65-123, &c. He gives,\nhowever, a different explanation of [Greek: to\\ dunato\\n] and [Greek:\nto\\ a)du/naton] in pp. 62-63, which would not be at variance with the\ndoctrine of Diodorus. We may remark that Alexander puts the antithesis\nof the two doctrines differently from Aristotle,--in this way. 1.\nEither all events happen [Greek: kath' ei(marme/n\u00ean]. 2. Or all events\ndo not happen [Greek: kath' ei(marme/n\u00ean], but some events are [Greek:\ne)ph' \u00ea(mi=n]. See De Fato, p. 14 seq. This way of putting the\nquestion is directed more against the Stoics, who were the great\nadvocates of [Greek: ei(marme/n\u00ea], than against the Megaric Diodorus.\nThe treatises of Chrysippus and the other Stoics alter both the\nwording and the putting of the thesis. We know that Chrysippus\nimpugned the doctrine of Diodorus, but I do not see how.\n\nThe Stoic antithesis of [Greek: ta kath' ei(marme/n\u00ean--ta\\ e)ph'\n\u00ea(mi=n] is different from the antithesis conceived by Aristotle and\ndoes not touch the question about the universality of regular\nsequence. [Greek: Ta\\ e)ph' \u00ea(mi=n] describes those sequences in which\nhuman volition forms one among the appreciable conditions determining\nor modifying the result; [Greek: ta\\ kath' ei(marme/n\u00ean] includes all\nthe other sequences wherein human volition has no appreciable\ninfluence. But the sequence [Greek: t\u00f4=n e)ph' \u00ea(mi=n] is just as\nregular as the sequence [Greek: t\u00f4=n kath' ei(marme/n\u00ean]: both the one\nand the other are often imperfectly predictable, because our knowledge\nof facts and power of comparison is so imperfect.\n\nTheophrastus discussed [Greek: to\\ kath' ei(marme/n\u00ean], and explained\nit to mean the same as [Greek: to\\ kata\\ phu/sin. phaner\u00f4/tata de\\\nTheo/phrastos dei/knusi tau)to\\n o(\\n to\\ kath' ei(marme/n\u00ean t\u00f4=|\nkata\\ phu/sin] (Alexander Aphrodisias ad Aristot. De Anim\u00e2, ii.).]\n\n[Side-note: Conclusion of Diod\u00f4rus--defended by Hobbes--Explanation\ngiven by Hobbes.]\n\nIn what manner Diodorus stated and defended his opinion upon this\npoint, we have no information. We know only that he placed\naffirmations respecting the future on the same footing as affirmations\nrespecting the past: maintaining that our potential affirmation--_May\nor May not be_--respecting some future event, meant no more than it\nmeans respecting some past event, viz.: no inherent indeterminateness\nin the future sequence, but our ignorance of the determining\nconditions, and our inability to calculate their combined working.[66]\nIn regard to scientific method generally, this problem is of the\nhighest importance: for it is only so far as uniformity of sequence\nprevails, that facts become fit matter for scientific study.[67]\nConsistently with the doctrine of all-pervading uniformity of\nsequence, the definition of Hobbes gives the only complete account of\nthe Impossible and Possible: _i.e._ an account such as would appear to\nan omniscient calculator, where _May or May not_ merge in _Will or\nWill not_. According as each person falls short of or approaches this\nideal standard--according to his knowledge and mental resource,\ninductive and deductive--will be his appreciation of what may be or\nmay not be--as of what may have been or may not have been during the\npast. But such appreciation, being relative to each individual mind,\nis liable to vary indefinitely, and does not admit of being embodied\nin one general definition.\n\n[Footnote 66: The same doctrine as that of the Megaric Diodorus is\ndeclared by Hobbes in clear and explicit language (First Grounds of\nPhilosophy, ii. 10, 4-5):--\"That is an impossible act, for the\nproduction of which there is no power plenary. For seeing plenary\npower is that in which all things concur which are requisite for the\nproduction of an act,** if the power shall never be plenary, there will\nalways be wanting some of those things, without which the act cannot\nbe produced. Wherefore that act shall never be produced: that is, that\nact is _impossible_. And every act, which is not impossible, is\n_possible_. Every act therefore which is possible, shall at some time\nor other be produced. For if it shall never be produced, then those\nthings shall never concur which are requisite for the production of\nit; wherefore the act is _impossible_, by the definition; which is\ncontrary to what was supposed.\n\n\"A _necessary act_ is that, the production of which it is impossible\nto hinder: and therefore every act that shall be produced, shall\nnecessarily be produced; for that it shall not be produced is\nimpossible, because, as has already been demonstrated, every possible\nact shall at some time be produced. Nay, this proposition--_What shall\nbe shall be_--is as necessary a proposition as this--_A man is a man_.\n\n\"But here, perhaps, some man will ask whether those future things\nwhich are commonly called _contingents_, are necessary. I say, then,\nthat generally all contingents have their necessary causes, but are\ncalled _contingents_, in respect of other events on which they do not\ndepend--as the rain which shall be to-morrow shall be necessary, that\nis, from necessary causes; but we think and say, it happens by chance,\nbecause we do not yet perceive the causes thereof, though they exist\nnow. For men commonly call that _casual_ or _contingent_, whereof they\ndo not perceive the necessary cause: _and in the same manner they use\nto speak of things past, when not knowing whether a thing be done or\nnot, they say, It is possible it never was done._\n\n\"Wherefore all propositions concerning future things, contingent or\nnot contingent, as this--It will rain to-morrow, or To-morrow the sun\nwill rise--are either necessarily true or necessarily false: but we\ncall them contingent, because we do not yet know whether they be true\nor false; whereas their verity depends not upon our knowledge, but\nupon the foregoing of their causes. But there are some, who, though\nthey will confess this whole proposition--_ To-morrow it will either\nrain or not rain_--to be true, yet they will not acknowledge the parts\nof it, as, _To-morrow it will rain_, or _To-morrow it will not rain_,\nto be either of them true by itself; because (they say) neither this\nnor that is true _determinately_. But what is this _true\ndeterminately_, but true _upon our knowledge_ or _evidently true_? And\ntherefore they say no more but that it is not yet known whether it be\ntrue or not; but they say it more obscurely, and darken the evidence\nof the truth with the same words by which they endeavour to hide their\nown ignorance.\"]\n\n[Footnote 67: The reader will find this problem admirably handled in\nMr. John Stuart Mill's System of Logic, Book iii. ch. 21, and Book vi.\nchs. 2 and 8; also in the volume of Professor Bain on the Emotions and\nthe Will, Chapter on Belief.]\n\nBesides the above doctrine respecting Possible and Impossible, there\nis also ascribed to Diodorus a doctrine respecting Hypothetical\nPropositions, which, as far as I comprehend it, appears to have been a\ncorrect one.[68] He is also said to have reasoned against the reality\nof motion, renewing the arguments of Zeno the Eleate.\n\n[Footnote 68: Sextus Emp. Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. ii. pp. 110-115. [Greek:\na)l\u00eathe\\s sun\u00eamme/non]. Adv. Mathemat. viii. 112. Philo maintained\nthat an hypothetical proposition was true, if both the antecedent and\nconsequent were true--\"If it be day, I am conversing\". Diodorus denied\nthat this proposition, as an Hypothetical proposition, was true: since\nthe consequent might be false, though the antecedent were true. An\nHypothetical proposition was true only when, assuming the antecedent\nto be true, the consequent must be true also.]\n\n[Side-note: Reasonings of Diod\u00f4rus--respecting Hypothetical\nPropositions--respecting Motion. His difficulties about the _Now_ of\ntime.]\n\nBut if he reproduced the arguments of Zeno, he also employed another,\npeculiar to himself. He admitted the reality of _past_ motion: but he\ndenied the reality of _present_ motion. You may affirm truly (he said)\nthat a thing _has been moved_: but you cannot truly affirm that any\nthing _is being moved_. Since it was _here_ before, and is _there_\nnow, you may be sure that it has been moved: but actual present motion\nyou cannot perceive or prove. Affirmation in the perfect tense may be\ntrue, when affirmation in the present tense neither is nor ever was\ntrue: thus it is true to say--Helen _had_ three husbands (Menelaus,\nParis, Deiphobus): but it was never true to say--Helen _has_ three\nhusbands, since they became her husbands in succession.[69] Diodorus\nsupported this paradox by some ingenious arguments, and the opinion\nwhich he denied seems to have presented itself to him as involving the\nposition of indivisible minima--atoms of body, points of space,\ninstants of time. He admitted such minima of atoms, but not of space\nor time: and without such admission he could not make intelligible to\nhimself the fact of present or actual motion. He could find no present\n_Now_ or Minimum of Time; without which neither could any present\nmotion be found. Plato in the Parmenid\u00eas[70] professes to have found\nthis inexplicable moment of transition, but he describes it in terms\nnot likely to satisfy a dialectical mind: and Aristotle denying that\nthe Now is any portion or constituent part of time, considers it only\nas a boundary of the past and future.[71]\n\n[Footnote 69: Sextus Empir. adv. Mathemat. x. pp. 85-101.]\n\n[Footnote 70: Plato, Parmenid\u00eas, p. 156 D-E. [Greek: Po/t' ou)=n,\nmetaba/llei? ou)/te ga\\r e(sto\\s a)\\n ou)/te kenou/menon meta/balloi,\nou)/te e)n chro/n\u00f4| o)/n]. (Here Plato adverts to the difficulties\nattending the supposition of actual [Greek: metabol\u00ea/], as Diodorus to\nthose of actual [Greek: ki/n\u00easis]. Next we have Plato's hypothesis for\ngetting over the difficulties.) [Greek: A)=r' ou)=n e)sti/ to\\\na)/topon tou=to, e)n \u00f4)=| to/t' a)\\n ei)/\u00ea o(/te metaba/llei? To\\\npoi=on d\u00ea/? _To\\ e)xai/phn\u00eas; \u00ea( e)xai/phn\u00eas au)/t\u00ea phu/sis a)/topos_\ntis e)gka/th\u00eatai metaxu\\ t\u00ea=s kin\u00ea/se\u00f4s te kai\\ sta/se\u00f4s, e)n chro/n\u00f4|\nou)deni\\ ou)=sa, kai\\ ei)s tau/t\u00ean d\u00ea\\ kai\\ e)k tau/t\u00eas to/ te\nkinou/menon metaba/llei e)pi\\ to\\ e)sta/nai kai\\ to\\ e)sto\\s e)pi\\ to\\\nkinei=sthai].\n\nDiodorus could not make out this [Greek: phu/sis a)/topos] which Plato\ncalls [Greek: to\\ e)xai/phn\u00eas].]\n\n[Footnote 71: To illustrate this apparent paradox of Diodorus,\naffirming past motion, but denying present motion, we may compare what\nis said by Aristotle about the Now or Point of Present Time--that it\nis not a part, but a boundary between Past and Future.\n\nAristot. Physic. iv. p. 218, a. 4-10. [Greek: tou= de\\ chro/non ta\\\nme\\n ge/gone, ta\\ de\\ me/llei, e)sti d' ou)de\\n, o)/ntos meristou=;\nto\\ de\\ nu=n ou) me/ros--to\\ de\\ nu=n pe/ras e)/sti] (a. 24)--p. 222,\na. 10-20-223, a. 20. [Greek: o( de\\ chro/nos kai\\ \u00ea( ki/n\u00easis a(/ma\nkata/ te du/namin kai\\ kat' e)nergei/an].\n\nWhich doctrine is thus rendered by Harris in his Hermes, ch. vii. pp.\n101-103-105:--\"Both Points and Nows being taken as Bounds, and not as\nParts, it will follow that in the same manner as the same point may be\nthe end of one line and the beginning of another--so the same Now may\nbe the End of one time, and the beginning of another. . . I say of\nthese two times, that with respect to the _Now_, or Instant which they\ninclude, the first of them is necessarily Past time, as being previous\nto it: the other is necessarily Future, as being subsequent. . . From\nthe above speculations, there follow some conclusions, which may be\ncalled paradoxes, till they have been attentively considered. In the\nfirst place, there cannot (strictly speaking) be any such thing as\nTime Present. For if all Time be transient, as well as continuous, it\ncannot like a line be present altogether, but part will necessarily be\ngone and part be coming. If therefore any portion of its continuity\nwere to be present at once, it would so far quit its transient nature,\nand be Time no longer. But if no portion of its continuity can be thus\npresent, how can Time possibly be present, to which such continuity is\nessential?\"--Compare Sir William Hamilton's Discussions on Philosophy,\np. 581.]\n\n[Side-note: Motion is always present, past, and future.]\n\nThis opinion of Aristotle is in the main consonant with that of\nDiodorus; who, when he denied the reality of present motion, meant\nprobably only to deny the reality of _present motion apart from past\nand future motion_. Herein also we find him agreeing with Hobbes, who\ndenies the same in clearer language.[72] Sextus Empiricus declares\nDiodorus to have been inconsistent in admitting past motion while he\ndenied present motion.[73] But this seems not more inconsistent than\nthe doctrine of Aristotle respecting the _Now_ of time. I know, when I\ncompare a child or a young tree with what they respectively were a\nyear ago, that they have grown: but whether they actually are growing,\nat every moment of the intervening time, is not ascertainable by\nsense, and is a matter of probable inference only.[74] Diodorus could\nnot understand present motion, except in conjunction with past and\nfuture motion, as being the common limit of the two: but he could\nunderstand past motion, without reference to present or future. He\ncould not state to himself a satisfactory theory respecting the\nbeginning of motion: as we may see by his reasonings distinguishing\nthe motion of a body all at once in its integrity, from the motion of\na body considered as proceeding from the separate motion of its\nconstituent atoms--the moving atoms preponderating over the atoms at\nrest, and determining them to motion,[75] until gradually the whole\nbody came to move. The same argument re-appears in another example,\nwhen he argues--The wall does not fall while its component stones hold\ntogether, for then it is still standing: nor yet when they have come\napart, for then it _has_ fallen.[76]\n\n[Footnote 72: Hobbes, First Grounds of Philosophy, ii. 8, 11. \"That is\nsaid to be at rest which, during any time, is in one place; and that\nto be moved, or to have been moved, which whether it be now at rest or\nmoved, was formerly in another place from that which it is now in.\nFrom which definition it may be inferred, first, that whatsoever is\nmoved _has been_ moved: for if it still be in the same place in which\nit was formerly, it is at rest: but if it be in another place, it _has\nbeen_ moved, by the definition of moved. Secondly, that what _is_\nmoved, _will yet_ be moved: for that which is moved, leaveth the place\nwhere it is, and consequently will be moved still. Thirdly, that\nwhatsoever is moved, is not in one place during any time, how little\nsoever that may be: for by the definition of rest, that which is in\none place during any time, is at rest. . . . From what is above\ndemonstrated--namely, that whatsoever _is_ moved, _has also been_\nmoved, and _will be_ moved: this also may be collected, That there can\nbe no conception of motion without conceiving past and future time.\"]\n\n[Footnote 73: Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. x. pp. 91-97-112-116.]\n\n[Footnote 74: See this point touched by Plato in Phil\u00eabus, p. 43 B.]\n\n[Footnote 75: Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. x. 113. [Greek: ki/n\u00easis kat'\nei)likri/neian . . . ki/n\u00easis kat' e)pikra/teian]. Compare Zeller, Die\nPhilosophie der Griech. ii. p. 191, ed. 2nd.]\n\n[Footnote 76: Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. x. pp. 346-348.]\n\n[Side-note: Stilpon of Megara--His great celebrity.]\n\nThat Diodorus was a person seriously anxious to solve logical\ndifficulties, as well as to propose them, would be incontestably\nproved if we could believe the story recounted of him--that he hanged\nhimself because he could not solve a problem proposed by Stilpon in\nthe presence of Ptolemy Soter.[77] But this story probably grew out of\nthe fact, that Stilpon succeeded Diodorus at Megara, and eclipsed him\nin reputation. The celebrity of Stilpon, both at Megara and at Athens\n(between 320-300 B.C., but his exact date can hardly be settled), was\nequal, if not superior, to that of any contemporary philosopher. He\nwas visited by listeners from all parts of Greece, and he drew away\npupils from the most renowned teachers of the day; from Theophrastus\nas well as the others.[78] He was no less remarkable for fertility of\ninvention than for neatness of expression. Two persons, who came for\nthe purpose of refuting him, are said to have remained with him as\nadmirers and scholars. All Greece seemed as it were looking towards\nhim, and inclining towards the Megaric doctrines.[79] He was much\nesteemed both by Ptolemy Soter and by Demetrius Poliork\u00eates, though he\nrefused the presents and invitations of both: and there is reason to\nbelieve that his reputation in his own day must have equalled that of\neither Plato or Aristotle in theirs. He was formidable in disputation;\nbut the nine dialogues which he composed and published are\ncharacterised by Diogenes as cold.[80]\n\n[Footnote 77: Diog. L. ii. 112.]\n\n[Footnote 78: This is asserted by Diogenes upon the authority of\n[Greek: Phi/lippos o( Megriko/s], whom he cites [Greek: kata\\ le/xin].\nWe do not know anything about Philippus.\n\nMened\u00eamus, who spoke with contempt of the other philosophers, even of\nPlato and Xenokrates, admired Stilpon (Diog. L. ii. 134).]\n\n[Footnote 79: The phrase of Diogenes is here singular, and must\nprobably have been borrowed from a partisan--[Greek: \u00f4(/ste mikrou=\nde\u00ea=sai pa=san t\u00ea\\n E(lla/da a)phor\u00f4=san ei)s au)to\\n megari/sai].\nStilpon [Greek: eu(resilogi/a| kai\\ sophistei/a| pro\u00ea=ge tou\\s\na)/llous--kompso/tatos] (Diog. L. ii. 113-115).]\n\n[Footnote 80: Diog. L. ii. 119-120. [Greek: psuchroi/].]\n\n[Side-note: Mened\u00eamus and the Eretriacs.]\n\nContemporary with Stilpon (or perhaps somewhat later) was Mened\u00eamus of\nEretria, whose philosophic parentage is traced to Ph\u00e6don. The name of\nPh\u00e6don has been immortalised, not by his own works, but by the\nsplendid dialogue of which Plato has made him the reciter. He is said\n(though I doubt the fact) to have been a native of Elis. He was of\ngood parentage, a youthful companion of Sokrates in the last years of\nhis life.[81] After the death of Sokrates, Ph\u00e6don went to Elis,\ncomposed some dialogues, and established a succession or sect of\nphilosophers--Pleistanus, Anchipylus, Moschus. Of this sect\nMened\u00eamus,[82] contemporary and hearer of Stilpon, became the most\neminent representative, and from him it was denominated Eretriac\ninstead of Eleian. The Eretriacs, as well as the Megarics, took up the\nnegative arm of philosophy, and were eminent as puzzlers and\ncontroversialists.\n\n[Footnote 81: The story given by Diogenes L. (ii. 31 and 106; compare\nAulus Gellius, ii. 18) about Ph\u00e6don's adventures antecedent to his\nfriendship with Sokrates, is unintelligible to me. \"Ph\u00e6don was made\ncaptive along with his country (Elis), sold at Athens, and employed in\na degrading capacity; until Sokrates induced Alkibiades or Kriton to\npay his ransom.\" Now, no such event as the capture of Elis, and the\nsale of its Eupatrids as slaves, happened at that time: the war\nbetween Sparta and Elis (described by Xenophon, Hell. iii. 2, 21 seq.)\nled to no such result, and was finished, moreover, after the death of\nSokrates. Alkibiades had been long in exile. If, in the text of\nDiogenes, where we now read [Greek: Phai/d\u00f4n, _\u00ca(/leios_, t\u00f4=n\neu)patrid\u00f4=n]--we were allowed to substitute [Greek: Phai/d\u00f4n,\n_M\u00ea/lios_, t\u00f4=n eu)patrid\u00f4=n]--the narrative would be rendered\nconsistent with known historical facts. The Athenians captured the\nisland of Melos in 415 B.C., put to death the Melians of military age,\nand sold into slavery the younger males as well as the females\n(Thucyd. v. 116). If Ph\u00e6don had been a Melian youth of good family, he\nwould have been sold at Athens, and might have undergone the\nadventures narrated by Diogenes. We know that Alkibiades purchased a\nfemale Melian as slave (Pseudo-Andokides cont. Alkibiad.).]\n\n[Footnote 82: Diog. L. ii. 105, 126 seq. There was a statue of\nMened\u00eamus in the ancient stadium of Eretria: Diogenes speaks as if it\nexisted in his time, and as if he himself had seen it (ii. 132).]\n\n[Side-note: Open speech and licence of censure assumed by Mened\u00eamus.]\n\nBut though this was the common character of the two, in a logical\npoint of view, yet in Stilpon, as well as Mened\u00eamus, other elements\nbecame blended with the logical. These persons combined, in part at\nleast, the free censorial speech of Antisthenes with the subtlety of\nEukleides. What we hear of Mened\u00eamus is chiefly his bitter, stinging\nsarcasms, and clever repartees. He did not, like the Cynic Diogenes,\nlive in contented poverty, but occupied a prominent place (seemingly\nunder the patronage of Antigonus and Demetrius) in the government of\nhis native city Eretria. Nevertheless he is hardly less celebrated\nthan Diogenes for open speaking of his mind, and carelessness of\ngiving offence to others.[83]\n\n[Footnote 83: Diog. L. ii. 129-142.]\n\n * * * * *\n\nANTISTHENES.\n\n\n[Side-note: Antisthenes took up Ethics principally, but with negative\nLogic intermingled.]\n\nAntisthenes, the originator of the Cynic succession of philosophers,\nwas one of those who took up principally the ethical element of the\nSokratic discoursing, which the Megarics left out or passed lightly\nover. He did not indeed altogether leave out the logical element: all\nhis doctrines respecting it, as far as we hear of them, appear to have\nbeen on the negative side. But respecting ethics, he laid down\naffirmative propositions,[84] and delivered peremptory precepts. His\naversion to pleasure, by which he chiefly meant sexual pleasure, was\ndeclared in the most emphatic language. He had therefore, in the\nnegative logic, a point of community with Eukleides and the Megarics:\nso that the coalescence of the two successions, in Stilpon and\nMened\u00eamus, is a fact not difficult to explain.\n\n[Footnote 84: Clemens Alexandr. Stromat. ii. 20, p. 485, Potter.\n[Greek: e)g\u00f4\\ d' a)pode/chomai to\\n A)phrodi/t\u00ean le/gonta ka)\\|n\nkatatoxeu/saimi, ei) la/boimi], &c.\n\n[Greek: Manei/\u00ean ma=llon \u00ea)\\ \u00ea)sthei/\u00ean], Diog. L. vi. 3.]\n\nThe life of Sokrates being passed in conversing with a great variety\nof persons and characters, his discourses were of course multifarious,\nand his ethical influence operated in different ways. His mode of\nlife, too, exercised a certain influence of its own.\n\n[Side-note: He copied the manner of life of Sokrates, in plainness and\nrigour.]\n\nAntisthenes, and his disciple Diogenes, were in many respects closer\napproximations to Sokrates than either Plato or any other of the\nSokratic companions. The extraordinary colloquial and cross-examining\nforce was indeed a peculiar gift, which Sokrates bequeathed to none of\nthem: but Antisthenes took up the Sokratic purpose of inculcating\npractical ethics not merely by word of mouth, but also by manner of\nlife. He was not inferior to his master in contentment under poverty,\nin strength of will and endurance,[85] in acquired insensibility both\nto pain and pleasure, in disregard of opinion around him, and in\nfearless exercise of a self-imposed censorial mission. He learnt from\nSokrates indifference to conventional restraints and social\nsuperiority, together with the duty of reducing wants to a minimum,\nand stifling all such as were above the lowest term of necessity. To\nthis last point, Sokrates gave a religious colour, proclaiming that\nthe Gods had no wants, and that those who had least came nearest to\nthe Gods.[86] By Antisthenes, these qualities were exhibited in\neminent measure; and by his disciple Diogenes they were still farther\nexaggerated. Epiktetus, a warm admirer of both, considers them as\nfollowing up the mission from Zeus which Sokrates (in the Platonic\nApology) sets forth as his authority, to make men independent of the\nevils of life by purifying and disciplining the appreciation of good\nand evil in the mind of each individual.[87]\n\n[Footnote 85: Cicero, de Orator. iii. 17, 62; Diog. L. vi. 2. [Greek:\npar' ou)=] (Sokrates) [Greek: kai\\ to\\ karteriko\\n lab\u00f4\\n kai\\ to\\\na)pathe\\s z\u00eal\u00f4/sas kat\u00ea=rxe pr\u00f4=tos tou= kunismou=]: also vi. 15. The\nappellation of Cynics is said to have arisen from the practice of\nAntisthenes to frequent the gymnasium called [Greek: Kuno/sarges] (D.\nL. vi. 13), though other causes are also assigned for the denomination\n(Winckelmann, Antisth. Frag. pp. 8-10).]\n\n[Footnote 86: Sokrates had said, [Greek: to\\ m\u00eadeno\\s de/esthai,\nthei=on ei)=nai; to\\ d' \u00f4(s e)lachi/st\u00f4n, e)gguta/t\u00f4 tou= thei/ou]\n(Xenophon, Memor. i. 6, 10. Compare Apuleius, Apol. p. 25). Plato,\nGorgias, p. 492 E. The same dictum is ascribed to Diogenes (Diog. L.\nvi. 105).]\n\n[Footnote 87: Epiktetus, Dissert. iii. 1, 19-22, iii. 21-19, iii.\n24-40-60-69. The whole of the twenty-second Dissertation, [Greek: Peri\\\nKunismou=], is remarkable. He couples Sokrates with Diogenes more\nclosely than with any one else.]\n\n[Side-note: Doctrines of Antisthenes exclusively ethical and ascetic.\nHe despised music, literature, and physics.]\n\nAntisthenes declared virtue to be the End for men to aim at--and to be\nsufficient _per se_ for conferring happiness; but he also declared\nthat virtue must be manifested in acts and character, not by words.\nNeither much discourse nor much learning was required for virtue;\nnothing else need be postulated except bodily strength like that of\nSokrates.[88] He undervalued theory even in regard to Ethics: much\nmore in regard to Nature (Physics) and to Logic: he also despised\nliterary, geometrical, musical teaching, as distracting men's\nattention from the regulation of their own appreciative sentiment, and\nthe adaptation of their own conduct to it. He maintained strenuously\n(what several Platonic dialogues call in question) that virtue both\ncould be taught and must be taught: when once learnt, it was\npermanent, and could not be eradicated. He prescribed the simplest\nmode of life, the reduction of wants to a minimum, with perfect\nindifference to enjoyment, wealth, or power. The reward was, exemption\nfrom fear, anxiety, disappointments, and wants: together with the\npride of approximation to the Gods.[89] Though Antisthenes thus\ndespised both literature and theory, yet he had obtained a rhetorical\neducation, and had even heard the rhetor Gorgias. He composed a large\nnumber of dialogues and other treatises, of which only the titles\n(very multifarious) are preserved to us.[90] One dialogue, entitled\nSathon, was a coarse attack on Plato: several treated of Homer and of\nother poets, whose verses he seems to have allegorised. Some of his\ndialogues are also declared by Athen\u00e6us to contain slanderous abuse of\nAlkibiades and other leading Athenians. On the other hand, the\ndialogues are much commended by competent judges; and Theopompus even\naffirmed that much in the Platonic dialogues had been borrowed from\nthose of Antisthenes, Aristippus, and Bryson.[91]\n\n[Footnote 88: Diog. L. vi. 11.]\n\n[Footnote 89: Diog. L. vi. 102-104.]\n\n[Footnote 90: Diog. L. vi. 1, 15-18. The two remaining\nfragments--[Greek: Ai)/as, O)/dusseu\\s] (Winckelmann, Antisth. Fragm.\npp. 38-42)--cannot well be genuine, though Winckelmann seems to think\nthem so.]\n\n[Footnote 91: Athen\u00e6us, v. 220, xi. 508; Diog. L. iii. 24-35;\nPhrynichus ap. Photium, cod. 158; Epikt\u00eatus, ii. 16-35. Antisthenes is\nplaced in the same line with Kritias and Xenophon, as a Sokratic\nwriter, by Dionysius of Halikarnassus, De Thucyd. Jud. p. 941. That\nthere was standing reciprocal hostility between Antisthenes and Plato\nwe can easily believe. Plato never names Antisthenes: and if the\nlatter attacked Plato, it was under the name of Sathon. How far Plato\nin his dialogues intends to attack Antisthenes without naming him--is\ndifficult to determine. Probably he does intend to designate\nAntisthenes as [Greek: ge/r\u00f4n o)psimath\u00ea/s], in Sophist. 251.\nSchleiermacher and other commentators think that he intends to attack\nAntisthenes in Phil\u00eabus, The\u00e6t\u00eatus, Euthyd\u00eamus, &c. But this seems to\nme not certain. In Phil\u00eabus, p. 44, he can hardly include Antisthenes\namong the [Greek: ma/la deinoi\\ peri\\ phu/sin]. Antisthenes neglected\nthe study of [Greek: phu/sis].]\n\n[Side-note: Constant friendship of Antisthenes with\nSokrates--Xenophontic Symposion.]\n\nAntisthenes was among the most constant friends and followers of\nSokrates, both in his serious and in his playful colloquies.[92] The\nSymposion of Xenophon describes both of them, in their hours of\njoviality. The picture drawn by an author, himself a friend and\ncompanion, exhibits Antisthenes (so far as we can interpret caricature\nand jocular inversion) as poor, self-denying, austere, repulsive, and\ndisputatious--yet bold and free-spoken, careless of giving offence,\nand forcible in colloquial repartee.[93]\n\n[Footnote 92: Xenophon, Memor. iii. 11, 17.]\n\n[Footnote 93: Xenophon, Memorab. iii. 11, 17; Symposion, ii. 10, iv.\n2-3-44. Plutarch (Qu\u00e6st. Symp. ii. 1, 6, p. 632) and Diogenes Laertius\n(vi. 1, 15) appear to understand the description of Xenophon as\nascribing to Antisthenes a winning and conciliatory manner. To me it\nconveys the opposite impression. We must recollect that the pleasantry\nof the Xenophontic Symposion (not very successful as pleasantry) is\nfounded on the assumption, by each person, of qualities and\npretensions the direct reverse of that which he has in reality--and on\nhis professing to be proud of that which is a notorious disadvantage.\nThus Sokrates pretends to possess great personal beauty, and even puts\nhimself in competition with the handsome youth Kritobulus; he also\nprides himself on the accomplishments of a good [Greek: mastropo/s].\nAntisthenes, quite indigent, boasts of his wealth; the neglected\nHermogenes boasts of being powerfully friended. The passage, iv. 57,\n61, which talks of the winning manners of Antisthenes, and his power\nof imparting popular accomplishments, is to be understood in this\nironical and inverted sense.]\n\n[Side-note: Diogenes, successor of Antisthenes--His Cynical\nperfection--striking effect which he produced.]\n\nIn all these qualities, however, Antisthenes was surpassed by his\npupil and successor Diogenes of Sin\u00f4p\u00ea; whose ostentatious austerity\nof life, eccentric and fearless character, indifference to what was\nconsidered as decency, great acuteness and still greater power of\nexpression, freedom of speech towards all and against all--constituted\nhim the perfect type of the Cynical sect. Being the son of a\nmoney-agent at Sin\u00f4p\u00ea, he was banished with his father for fraudulently\ncounterfeiting the coin of the city. On coming to Athens as an exile,\nhe was captivated with the character of Antisthenes, who was at first\nunwilling to admit him, and was only induced to do so by his\ninvincible importunity. Diogenes welcomed his banishment, with all its\npoverty and destitution, as having been the means of bringing him to\nAntisthenes,[94] and to a life of philosophy. It was Antisthenes (he\nsaid) who emancipated him from slavery, and made him a freeman. He was\nclothed in one coarse garment with double fold: he adopted the wallet\n(afterwards the symbol of cynicism) for his provisions, and is said to\nhave been without any roof or lodging--dwelling sometimes in a tub\nnear the Metroon, sometimes in one of the public porticoes or temples:\nhe is also said to have satisfied all his wants in the open day. He\nhere indulged unreservedly in that unbounded freedom of speech, which\nhe looked upon as the greatest blessing of life. No man ever turned\nthat blessing to greater account: the string of repartees, sarcasms,\nand stinging reproofs, which are attributed to him by Diogenes\nLaertius, is very long, but forms only a small proportion of those\nwhich that author had found recounted.[95] Plato described Diogenes as\nSokrates running mad:[96] and when Diogenes, meeting some Sicilian\nguests at his house and treading upon his best carpet, exclaimed \"I am\ntreading on Plato's empty vanity and conceit,\" Plato rejoined \"Yes,\nwith a different vanity of your own \". The impression produced by\nDiogenes in conversation with others, was very powerfully felt both by\nyoung and old. Phokion, as well as Stilpon, were among his\nhearers.[97] In crossing the sea to \u00c6gina, Diogenes was captured by\npirates, taken to Krete, and there put up to auction as a slave: the\nherald asked him what sort of work he was fit for: whereupon Diogenes\nreplied--To command men. At his own instance, a rich Corinthian named\nXeniades bought him and transported him to Corinth. Diogenes is said\nto have assumed towards Xeniades the air of a master: Xeniades placed\nhim at the head of his household, and made him preceptor of his sons.\nIn both capacities Diogenes discharged his duty well.[98] As a slave\nwell treated by his master, and allowed to enjoy great freedom of\nspeech, he lived in greater comfort than he had ever enjoyed as a\nfreeman: and we are not surprised that he declined the offers of\nfriends to purchase his liberation. He died at Corinth in very old\nage: it is said, at ninety years old, and on the very same day on\nwhich Alexander the Great died at Babylon (B.C. 323). He was buried at\nthe gate of Corinth leading to the Isthmus: a monument being erected\nto his honour, with a column of Parian marble crowned by the statue of\na dog.[99]\n\n[Footnote 94: Diog. L. vi. 2, 21-49; Plutarch Qu\u00e6st. Sympos. ii. 1, 7;\nEpiktetus, iii. 22, 67, iv. 1, 114; Dion Chrysostom. Orat. viii.-ix.-x.\n\nPlutarch quotes two lines from Diogenes respecting Antisthenes:--\n\n[Greek: O(/s me r(a/k\u00ea t' \u00ea)/mpische ka\\x\u00eana/gkase\nPt\u00f4cho\\n gene/sthai kai\\ do/m\u00f4n a)na/staton--\n  ou) ga\\r a)\\n o(moi/\u00f4s pithano\\s \u00ea)=n le/g\u00f4n--O(/s me sopho\\n kai\\\nau)ta/rk\u00ea kai\\ maka/rion e)poi/\u00ease].\n\nThe interpretation given of the passage by Plutarch is curious, but\nquite in the probable meaning of the author. However, it is not easy\nto reconcile with the fact of this extreme poverty another fact\nmentioned about Diogenes, that he asked fees from listeners, in one\ncase as much as a mina (Diog. L. vi. 2, 67).]\n\n[Footnote 95: Diog. L. v. 18, vi. 2, 69. [Greek: e)r\u00f4t\u00eathei\\s ti/\nka/lliston e)n a)nthr\u00f4/pois e)/ph\u00ea--par)r(\u00easi/a]. Among the numerous\nlost works of Theophrastus (enumerated by Diogen. Laert. v. 43) one is\n[Greek: T\u00f4=n Dioge/nous Sunag\u00f4g\u00ea\\, a/], a remarkable evidence of the\nimpression made by the sayings and proceedings of Diogenes upon his\ncontemporaries. Compare Dion Chrysostom. Or. ix. (vol. i. 288 seq.\nReiske) for the description of the conduct of Diogenes at the Isthmian\nfestival, and the effect produced by it on spectators.\n\nThese smart sayings, of which so many are ascribed to Diogenes, and\nwhich he is said to have practised beforehand, and to have made\noccasions for--[Greek: o(/ti chrei/an ei)/\u00ea memelet\u00eak\u00f4/s] (Diog. L. v.\n18, vi. 91, vii. 26)--were called by the later rhetors [Greek:\nChrei=ai]. See Hermogenes and Theon, apud Walz, Rhetor. Gr\u00e6c. i. pp.\n19-201; Quintilian, i. 9, 4.\n\nSuch collections of _Ana_ were ascribed to all the philosophers in\ngreater or less number. Photius, in giving the list of books from\nwhich the Sophist Sopater collected extracts, indicates one as [Greek:\nTa\\ Dioge/nous tou= Kunikou= A)pophthe/gmata] (Codex 161).]\n\n[Footnote 96: Diog. L. vi. 54: [Greek: S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas maino/ menos]. vi. 26:\n[Greek: Oi( de\\ phasi to\\n Dioge/n\u00ean ei)pei=n, Pat\u00f4= to\\n Pla/t\u00f4nos\ntu=phon; to\\n de\\ pha/nai, E(te/r\u00f4| ge tu/ph\u00f4|, Dio/genes]. The term\n[Greek: tu=phos] (\"vanity, self-conceit, assumption of knowing better\nthan others, being puffed up by the praise of vulgar minds\") seems to\nhave been mach interchanged among the ancient philosophers, each of\nthem charging it upon his opponents; while the opponents of philosophy\ngenerally imputed it to all philosophers alike. Pyrrho the Sceptic\ntook credit for being the only [Greek: a)/tuphos]: and he is\ncomplimented as such by his panegyrist Timon in the Silli. Aristokles\naffirmed that Pyrrho had just as much [Greek: tu=phon] as the rest.\nEusebius, Pr\u00e6p. Evang. xiv. 18.]\n\n[Footnote 97: Diog. L. vi. 2, 75-76.]\n\n[Footnote 98: Diog. L. vi. 2, 74. Xeniades was mentioned by\nDemocritus: he is said to have been a sceptic (Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem.\nvii. 48-53), at least he did not recognise any [Greek: krit\u00ea/rion].]\n\n[Footnote 99: Diog. L. vi. 2, 77-78.\n\nDiogenes seems to have been known by his contemporaries under the\ntitle of [Greek: o( Ku/\u00f4n]. Aristotle cites from him a witty comparison\nunder that designation, Rhetoric. iii. 10, 1410, a. 24. [Greek: kai\\\no( Ku/\u00f4n (e)ka/lei) ta\\ kap\u00ealei=a, ta\\ A)ttika\\ phidi/tia.]]\n\n[Side-note: Doctrines and smart sayings of Diogenes--Contempt of\npleasure--training and labour required--indifference to literature and\ngeometry.]\n\nIn politics, ethics, and rules for human conduct, Diogenes adopted\nviews of his own, and spoke them out freely. He was a freethinker\n(like Antisthenes) as to the popular religion: and he disapproved of\nmarriage laws, considering that the intercourse of the sexes ought to\nbe left to individual taste and preference.[100] Though he respected\nthe city and conformed to its laws, yet he had no reverence for\nexisting superstitions, or for the received usages as to person, sex,\nor family. He declared himself to be a citizen of the Kosmos and of\nNature.[101] His sole exigency was, independence of life, and freedom\nof speech: having these, he was satisfied, fully sufficient to himself\nfor happiness, and proud of his own superiority to human weakness. The\nmain benefit which he derived from philosophy (he said) was, that he\nwas prepared for any fortune that might befall him. To be ready to\naccept death easily, was the sure guarantee of a free and independent\nlife.[102] He insisted emphatically upon the necessity of exercise or\ntraining ([Greek: a)/sk\u00easis]) both as to the body and as to the mind.\nWithout this, nothing could be done: by means of it everything might\nbe achieved. But he required that the labours imposed should be\ndirected to the acquisition of habits really useful; instead of being\nwasted, as they commonly were, upon objects frivolous and showy. The\ntruly wise man ought to set before him as a model the laborious life\nof H\u00earakl\u00eas: and he would find, after proper practice and training,\nthat the contempt of pleasures would afford him more enjoyment than\nthe pleasures themselves.[103]\n\n[Footnote 100: Diog. L. vi. 2, 72. Cicero, De Nat. Deor. i. 13.]\n\n[Footnote 101: Diog. L. vi. 2, 63-71. The like declaration is ascribed\nto Sokrates. Epikt\u00eatus, i. 9, 1.]\n\n[Footnote 102: Diog. L. vi. 2, 63, 72. [Greek: m\u00eade\\n e)leutheri/as\nprokri/n\u00f4n]. Epikt\u00eatus, iv. 1, 30. [Greek: Ou(/t\u00f4 kai\\ Dioge/n\u00eas\nle/gei, mi/an ei)=nai m\u00eachan\u00ea\\n pro\\s e)leutheri/an--to\\ eu)ko/l\u00f4s\na)pothn\u00ea/skein]. Compare iv. 7-28, i. 24, 6.]\n\n[Footnote 103: Diog. L. vi. 2, 70-71. [Greek: kai\\ ga\\r au)t\u00ea\\ t\u00ea=s\n\u00ea(don\u00ea=s \u00ea( kataphro/n\u00easis \u00ea(duta/t\u00ea promelet\u00eathei=sa, kai\\ \u00f4(/sper\noi( sunethisthe/ntes \u00ea(de/\u00f4s z\u00ea=|n, a)\u00ead\u00f4=s e)pi\\ tou)nanti/on\nmeti/asin, ou(/t\u00f4 oi( tou)nanti/on a)sk\u00eathe/ntes \u00ea(/dion au)t\u00f4=n t\u00f4=n\n\u00ea(don\u00f4=n kataphronou=si]. See Lucian, Vitar. Auct. c. 9, about the\nhard life and the happiness of Diogenes. Compare s. 26 about the\n[Greek: tu=phos] of Diogenes treading down the different [Greek:\ntu=phos] of Plato, and Epikt\u00eatus iii. 22, 57. Antisthenes, in his\ndialogue or discourse called [Greek: \u00ca(rakl\u00ea=s], appears to have\nenforced the like appeal to that hero as an example to others. See\nWinckelmann, Fragm. Antisthen. pp. 15-18.]\n\n[Side-note: Admiration of Epikt\u00eatus for Diogenes, especially for his\nconsistency in acting out his own ethical creed.]\n\nDiogenes declared that education was sobriety to the young,\nconsolation to the old, wealth to the poor, ornament to the rich. But\nhe despised much of what was commonly imparted as education--music,\ngeometry, astronomy, &c.: and he treated with equal scorn Plato and\nEukleides.[104] He is said however to have conducted the education of\nthe sons of his master Xeniades[105] without material departure from\nthe received usage. He caused them to undergo moderate exercise (not\nwith a view to athletic success) in the pal\u00e6stra, and afterwards to\npractise riding, shooting with the bow, hurling the javelin, slinging\nand hunting: he cultivated their memories assiduously, by recitations\nfrom poets and prose authors, and even from his own compositions: he\nkept them on bread and water, without tunic or shoes, with clothing\nonly such as was strictly necessary, with hair closely cut, habitually\nsilent, and fixing their eyes on the ground when they walked abroad.\nThese latter features approximate to the training at Sparta (as\ndescribed by Xenophon) which Diogenes declared to contrast with Athens\nas the apartments of the men with those of the women. Diogenes is said\nto have composed several dialogues and even some tragedies.[106] But\nhis most impressive display (like that of Sokrates) was by way of\ncolloquy--prompt and incisive interchange of remarks. He was one of\nthe few philosophers who copied Sokrates in living constantly before\nthe public--in talking with every one indiscriminately and fearlessly,\nin putting home questions like a physician to his patient.[107]\nEpikt\u00eatus,--speaking of Diogenes as equal, if not superior, to\nSokrates--draws a distinction pertinent and accurate. \"To Sokrates\"\n(says he) \"Zeus assigned the elenchtic or cross-examining function: to\nDiogenes, the magisterial and chastising function: to Zeno (the Stoic)\nthe didactic and dogmatical.\" While thus describing Diogenes justly\nenough, Epiktetus nevertheless insists upon his agreeable person and\nhis extreme gentleness and good-nature:[108] qualities for which\nprobably Diogenes neither took credit himself, nor received credit\nfrom his contemporaries. Diogenes seems to have really possessed--that\nwhich his teacher Antisthenes postulated as indispensable--the\nSokratic physical strength and vigour. His ethical creed, obtained\nfrom Antisthenes, was adopted by many successors, and (in the main) by\nZeno and the Stoics in the ensuing century. But the remarkable feature\nin Diogenes which attracts to him the admiration of Epikt\u00eatus, is--that\nhe set the example of acting out his creed, consistently and\nresolutely, in his manner of life:[109] an example followed by some of\nhis immediate successors, but not by the Stoics, who confined\nthemselves to writing and preaching. Contemporary both with Plato and\nAristotle, Diogenes stands to both of them in much the same relation\nas Phokion to Demosthenes in politics and oratory: he exhibits\nstrength of will, insensibility to applause as well as to reproach,\nand self-acting independence--in antithesis to their higher gifts and\ncultivation of intellect. He was undoubtedly, next to Sokrates, the\nmost original and unparalleled manifestation of Hellenic philosophy.\n\n[Footnote 104: Diog. L. vi. 2, 68-73-24-27.]\n\n[Footnote 105: Diog. L. vi. 2, 30-31.]\n\n[Footnote 106: Diog. L. vi. 2, 80. Diogenes Laertius himself cites a\nfact from one of the dialogues--Pordalus (vi. 2, 20): and Epikt\u00eatus\nalludes to the treatise on Ethics by Diogenes--[Greek: e)n t\u00ea=|\n\u00ca)thik\u00ea=|]--ii. 20, 14. It appears however that the works ascribed to\nDiogenes were not admitted by all authors as genuine (Diog. L. c.).]\n\n[Footnote 107: Dion Chrysost. Or. x.; De Servis, p. 295 E. Or. ix.;\nIsthmicus, p. 289 R. [Greek: \u00f4(/sper i)atroi\\ a)nakri/nousi tou\\s\na)sthenou=ntas, ou(/t\u00f4s Dioge/n\u00eas a)ne/krine to\\n a)/nthr\u00f4pon], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 108: Epikt\u00eatus, iii. 21, 19. [Greek: \u00f4(s S\u00f4kra/tei\nsunebou/leue t\u00ea\\n e)legktik\u00ea\\n ch\u00f4/ran e)/chein, \u00f4(s Dioge/nei t\u00ea\\n\nbasilik\u00ea\\n kai\\ e)pipl\u00eaktik\u00ea/n, \u00f4(s Z\u00ea/n\u00f4ni t\u00ea\\n didaskalik\u00ea\\n kai\\\ndogmatik\u00ea/n].\n\nAbout [Greek: to\\ \u00ea(/meron kai\\ phila/nthr\u00f4pon] of Diogenes, see\nEpikt\u00eatus, iii. 24, 64; who also tells us (iv. 11, 19), professing to\nfollow the statements of contemporaries, that the bodies both of\nSokrates and Diogenes were by nature so sweet and agreeable ([Greek:\ne)pi/chari kai\\ \u00ea(du/]) as to dispense with the necessity of washing.\n\n\"Ego cert\u00e9\" (says Seneca, Epist. 108, 13-14, about the lectures of the\neloquent Stoic Attalus) \"cum Attalum audirem, in vitia, in errores, in\nmala vit\u00e6 perorantem, s\u00e6p\u00e9 misertus sum generis humani, et illum\nsublimem altioremque humano fastigio credidi. Ipse regem se esse\ndicebat: sed plus quam regnare mihi videbatur, cui liceret censuram\nagere regnantium.\" See also his treatises De Beneficiis, v. 4-6, and\nDe Tranquillitate Animi (c. 8), where, after lofty encomium on\nDiogenes, he exclaims--\"Si quis de felicitate Diogenis dubitat, potest\nidem dubitare et de Deorum immortalium statu, an parum beat\u00e9 degant,\"\n&c.]\n\n[Footnote 109: Cicero, in his Oration in defence of Murena (30-61-62)\ncompliments Cato (the accuser) as one of the few persons who adopted\nthe Stoic tenets with a view of acting them out, and who did really\nact them out--\"H\u00e6c homo ingeniosissimus M. Cato, autoribus\neruditissimis inductus, arripuit: neque disputandi causa, ut magna\npars, sed ita vivendi\". Tacitus (Histor. iv. 5) pays the like\ncompliment to Helvidius Priscus.\n\nM. Gaston Boissier (\u00c9tude sur la Vie et les Ouvrages de Varron, pp.\n113-114, Paris, 1861) expresses an amount of surprise which I should\nnot have expected, on the fact that persons adopted a philosophical\ncreed for the purpose only of debating it and defending it, and not of\nacting it out. But he recognises the fact, in regard to Varro and his\ncontemporaries, in terms not less applicable to the Athenian world:\namidst such general practice, Antisthenes, Diogenes, Krates, &c.,\nstood out as memorable exceptions. \"Il ne faut pas non plus oublier de\nquelle mani\u00e8re, et dans quel esprit, les Romains lettr\u00e9s \u00e9tudiaient la\nphilosophie Grecque. Ils venaient \u00e9couter les plus habiles ma\u00eetres,\nconna\u00eetre les sectes les plus c\u00e9l\u00e8bres: mais ils les \u00e9tudiaient plut\u00f4t\nen curieux, qu'ils ne s'y attachaient en adeptes. On ne les voit\ngu\u00e8res approfondir un syst\u00e8me et s'y tenir, adopter un ensemble de\ncroyances, et y conformer leur conduite. On \u00e9tudiait le plus souvent\nla philosophie pour discuter. C'\u00e9tait seulement une mati\u00e8re \u00e0 des\nconversations savantes, un exercice et un aliment pour les esprits\ncurieux. Voil\u00e0 pourquoi la secte Acad\u00e9mique \u00e9toit alors mieux\naccueillie que les autres,\" &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Admiration excited by the asceticism of the\nCynics--Asceticism extreme in the East--Comparison of the Indian\nGymnosophists with Diogenes.]\n\nRespecting Diogenes and the Cynic philosophers generally, we have to\nregard not merely their doctrines, but the effect produced by their\nseverity of life. In this point Diogenes surpassed his master\nAntisthenes, whose life he criticised as not fully realising the lofty\nspirit of his doctrine. The spectacle of man not merely abstaining\nfrom enjoyment, but enduring with indifference hunger, thirst, heat,\ncold, poverty, privation, bodily torture, death, &c., exercises a\npowerful influence on the imagination of mankind. It calls forth\nstrong feelings of reverence and admiration in the beholders: while in\nthe sufferer himself also, self-reverence and self-admiration, the\nsense of power and exaltation above the measure of humanity, is\nlargely developed. The extent to which self-inflicted hardships and\npains have prevailed in various regions of the earth, the\nlong-protracted and invincible resolution with which they have been\nendured, and the veneration which such practices have procured for the\nascetics who submitted to them are among the most remarkable chapters\nin history.[110] The East, especially India, has always been, and\nstill is, the country in which these voluntary endurances have reached\ntheir extreme pitch of severity; even surpassing those of the\nChristian monks in Egypt and Syria, during the fourth and fifth\ncenturies of the Christian era.[111] When Alexander the Great first\nopened India to the observation of Greeks, one of the novelties which\nmost surprised him and his followers was, the sight of the\nGymnosophists or naked philosophers. These men were found lying on the\nground, either totally uncovered or with nothing but a cloth round the\nloins; abstaining from all enjoyment, nourishing themselves upon a\nminimum of coarse vegetables or fruits, careless of the extreme heat\nof the plain, and the extreme cold of the mountain; and often\nsuperadding pain, fatigue, or prolonged and distressing uniformity of\nposture. They passed their time either in silent meditation or in\ndiscourse on religion and philosophy: they were venerated as well as\nconsulted by every one, censuring even the most powerful persons in\nthe land. Their fixed idea was to stand as examples to all, of\nendurance, insensibility, submission only to the indispensable\nnecessities of nature, and freedom from all other fear or authority.\nThey acted out the doctrine, which Plato so eloquently preaches under\nthe name of Sokrates in the Ph\u00e6don--That the whole life of the\nphilosopher is a preparation for death: that life is worthless, and\ndeath an escape from it into a better state.[112] It is an interesting\nfact to learn that when Onesikritus (one of Alexander's officers, who\nhad known and frequented the society of Diogenes in Greece), being\ndespatched during the Macedonian march through India for the purpose\nof communicating with these Gymnosophists, saw their manner of life\nand conversed with them he immediately compared them with Diogenes,\nwhom he had himself visited--as well as with Sokrates and Pythagoras,\nwhom he knew by reputation. Onesikritus described to the Gymnosophists\nthe manner of life of Diogenes: but Diogenes wore a threadbare mantle,\nand this appeared to them a mark of infirmity and imperfection. They\nremarked that Diogenes was right to a considerable extent; but wrong\nfor obeying convention in preference to nature, and for being ashamed\nof going naked, as they did.[113]\n\n[Footnote 110: Dion Chrysostom, viii. p. 275, Reiske.]\n\n[Footnote 111: See the striking description in Gibbon, Decl. and Fall,\nch. xxxvii. pp. 253-265.]\n\n[Footnote 112: Strabo, xv. 713 A (probably from Onesikritus, see\nGeier, Fragment. Alexandr. Magn. Histor. p. 379). [Greek: Plei/stous\nd' au)toi=s ei)=nai lo/gous peri\\ tou= thana/tou; nomi/zein ga\\r d\u00ea\\\nto\\n me\\n e)ntha/de bi/on \u00f4(s a)\\n a)km\u00ea\\n kuome/n\u00f4n ei)=nai, to\\n de\\\ntha/naton ge/nesin ei)s to\\n o)/nt\u00f4s bi/on kai\\ to\\n eu)dai/mona toi=s\nphilosoph\u00ea/sasi; dio\\ t\u00ea=| a)sk\u00ea/sei plei/st\u00ea| chr\u00ea=sthai pro\\s to\\\ne)toimotha/naton; a)gatho\\n de\\ \u00ea)\\ kako\\n m\u00eade\\n ei)=nai t\u00f4=n\nsumbaino/nt\u00f4n a)nthr\u00f4/pois], &c.\n\nThis is an application of the doctrines laid down by the Platonic\nSokrates in the Ph\u00e6don, p. 64 A: [Greek: Kinduneu/ousi ga\\r o(/soi\ntugcha/nousin o)rth\u00f4=s a)pto/menoi philosophi/as lel\u00eathe/nai tou\\s\na)/llous, o(/ti ou)de\\n a)/llo au)toi\\ e)pit\u00eadeu/ousin \u00ea)\\\na)pothn\u00ea/skein te kai\\ tethna/nai]. Compare p. 67 D.; Cicero. Tusc. D.\ni. 30. Compare Epikt\u00eatus, iv. i. 30 (cited in a former note) about\nDiogenes the Cynic. Also Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 27; Valerius Maximus,\niii. 3, 6; Diogen. L. Prooem. s. 6; Pliny, H. N. vii. 2.\n\nBohlen observes (Das Alte Indien, ch. ii. pp. 279-289), \"It is a\nremarkable fact that Indian writings of the highest antiquity depict\nas already existing the same ascetic exercises as we see existing at\npresent: they were even then known to the ancients, who were\nespecially astonished at such fanaticism.]\n\n[Footnote 113: Strabo gives a condensed summary of this report, made\nby Onesikritus respecting his conversation with the Indian\nGymnosophist Mandanis, or Dandamis (Strabo, xv. p. 716 B):--[Greek:\nTau=t' ei)po/nta e)xere/sthai] (Dandamis asked Onesikritus), [Greek:\nei) kai\\ e)n toi=s E(/ll\u00easi lo/goi toiou=toi le/gointo. Ei)po/ntos d'\n(O)n\u00easikri/tou), o(/ti kai\\ Puthago/ras toiau=ta le/goi, keleu/oi te\ne)mpsu/ch\u00f4n a)pe/chesthai, kai\\ S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas, kai\\ Dioge/n\u00eas, _ou(= kai\\\nau)to\\s_] (Onesikritus) [Greek: _a)kroa/saito_, a)pokri/nasthai]\n(Dandamis), [Greek: o(/ti ta)/lla me\\n nomi/zoi phroni/m\u00f4s au)toi=s\ndokei=n, e(\\n d' a(marta/nein--no/mon pro\\ t\u00ea=s phu/se\u00f4s titheme/nous;\nou) ga\\r a)\\n ai)schu/nesthai gumnou/s, \u00f4(/sper au)to/n, dia/gein,\na)po\\ lit\u00f4=n z\u00f4=ntas; kai\\ ga\\r oi)ki/an a)ri/st\u00ean ei)=nai, \u00ea)/tis\na)\\n e)piskeu\u00ea=s e)lachi/st\u00eas de/\u00eatai].\n\nAbout Onesikritus, Diog. Laert. vi. 75-84; Plutarch, Alexand. c. 65;\nPlutarch, De Fortuna Alexandri, p. 331.\n\nThe work of August Gladitsch (Einleitung in das Verst\u00e4ndniss der\nWeltgeschichte, Posen, 1841) contains an instructive comparison\nbetween the Gymnosophists and the Cynics, as well as between the\nPythagoreans and the Chinese philosophers--between the Eleatic sect\nand the Hindoo philosophers. The points of analogy, both in doctrine\nand practice, are very numerous and strikingly brought out, pp.\n356-377. I cannot, however, agree in his conclusion, that the doctrines\nand practice of Antisthenes were borrowed, not from Sokrates with\nexaggeration, but from the Parmenidean theory, and the Vedanta theory\nof the Ens Unum, leading to negation and contempt of the phenomenal\nworld.]\n\n[Side-note: The precepts and principles laid down by Sokrates were\ncarried into fullest execution by the Cynics.]\n\nThese observations of the Indian Gymnosophist are a reproduction and\nan application in practice[114] of the memorable declaration of\nprinciple enunciated by Sokrates--\"That the Gods had no wants: and\nthat the man who had fewest wants, approximated most nearly to the\nGods\". This principle is first introduced into Grecian ethics by\nSokrates: ascribed to him both by Xenophon and Plato, and seemingly\napproved by both. In his life, too, Sokrates carried the principle\ninto effect, up to a certain point. Both admirers and opponents attest\nhis poverty, hard fare, coarse clothing, endurance of cold and\nprivation:[115] but he was a family man, with a wife and children to\nmaintain, and he partook occasionally, of indulgences which made him\nfall short of his own ascetic principle. Plato and Xenophon--both of\nthem well-born Athenians, in circumstances affluent, or at least easy,\nthe latter being a knight, and even highly skilled in horses and\nhorsemanship--contented themselves with preaching on the text,\nwhenever they had to deal with an opponent more self-indulgent than\nthemselves; but made no attempt to carry it into practice.[116] Zeno\nthe Stoic laid down broad principles of self-denial and apathy: but in\npractice he was unable to conquer the sense of shame, as the Cynics\ndid, and still more the Gymnosophists. Antisthenes, on the other hand,\ntook to heart, both in word and act, the principle of Sokrates: yet\neven he, as we know from the Xenophontic Symposion, was not altogether\nconstant in rigorous austerity. His successors Diogenes and Krates\nattained the maximum of perfection ever displayed by the Cynics of\nfree Greece. They stood forth as examples of endurance,\nabnegation--insensibility to shame and fear--free-spoken censure of\nothers. Even they however were not so recognised by the Indian\nGymnosophists; who, having reduced their wants, their fears, and\ntheir sensibilities, yet lower, had thus come nearer to that which they\ncalled the perfection of Nature, and which Sokrates called the close\napproach to divinity.[117] When Alexander the Great (in the first year of\nhis reign and prior to any of his Asiatic conquests) visited Diogenes at\nCorinth, found him lying in the sun, and asked if there was anything\nwhich he wanted--Diogenes made the memorable reply--\"Only that you and\nyour guards should stand out of my sunshine\". This reply doubtless\nmanifests the self-satisfied independence of the philosopher. Yet it\nis far less impressive than the fearless reproof which the Indian\nGymnosophists administered to Alexander, when they saw him in the\nPunjab at the head of his victorious army, after exploits, dangers,\nand fatigues almost superhuman, as conqueror of Persia and\nacknowledged son of Zeus.[118]\n\n[Footnote 114: Onesikritus observes, respecting the Indian\nGymnosophists, that \"they were more striking in act than in discourse\"\n([Greek: e)n e)/rgois ga\\r au)tou\\s krei/ttous \u00ea)\\ lo/gois ei)=nai],\nStrabo, xv. 713 B); and this is true about the Cynic succession of\nphilosophers, in Greece as well as in Rome. Diogenes Laertius (compare\nhis prooem, s. 19, 20, and vi. 103) ranks the Cynic philosophy as a\ndistinct [Greek: ai(/resis]: but he tells us that other writers\n(especially Hippobotus) would not reckon it as an [Greek: ai(/resis],\nbut only as an [Greek: e)/nstasis bi/ou]--practice without theory.]\n\n[Footnote 115: Xenophon, Memor. i. 6, 2-5; Plato, Sympos. 219, 220.\n\nThe language of contemporary comic writers, Ameipsias, Eupolis,\nAristophanes, &c., about Sokrates--is very much the same as that of\nMenander a century afterwards about Krat\u00eas. Sokrates is depicted as a\nCynic in mode of life (Diogen. L. ii. 28; Aristophan. Nubes,\n104-362-415).]\n\n[Footnote 116: Zeno, though he received instructions from Krat\u00eas, was\n[Greek: a)/ll\u00f4s me\\n eu)/tonos pro\\s t\u00ea\\n philosophi/an, ai)d\u00ea/m\u00f4n de\\\n\u00f4(s pro\\s t\u00ea\\n kunik\u00ea\\n a)naischunti/an] (Diog. L. vii. 3).\n\n\"Disputare cum Socrate licet, dubitare cum Carneade, cum Epicure\nquiescere, hominis naturam cum Stoicis vincere, cum Cynicis excedere,\"\n&c. This is the distinction which Seneca draws between Stoic and Cynic\n(De Brevitat. Vit\u00e6, 14, 5). His admiration for the \"seminudus\" Cynic\nDemetrius, his contemporary and companion, was extreme (Epist. 62, 2,\nand Epist. 20, 18).]\n\n[Footnote 117: Xenoph. Memor. i. 6, 10 (the passage is cited in a\nprevious note). The Emperor Julian (Orat. vi. p. 192 Spanh.) says\nabout the Cynics--[Greek: a)pa/theian ga\\r poiou=ntai to\\ te/los,\ntou=to de\\ i)/son e)sti\\ t\u00f4=| theo\\n gene/sthai]. Dion Chrysostom (Or.\nvi. p. 208) says also about Diogenes the Cynic--[Greek: kai\\ ma/lista\ne)mimei=to t\u00f4=n the\u00f4=n to\\n bi/on.]]\n\n[Footnote 118: Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 32, 92, and the Anabasis of\nArrian, vii. 1-2-3, where both the reply of Diogenes and that of the\nIndian Gymnosophists are reported. Dion Chrysostom (Orat. iv. p. 145\nseq. Reiske) gives a prolix dialogue between Alexander and Diogenes.\nHis picture of the effect produced by Diogenes upon the different\nspectators at the Isthmian festival, is striking and probable.\n\nKalanus, one of the Indian Gymnosophists, was persuaded, by the\ninstances of Alexander, to abandon his Indian mode of life and to come\naway with the Macedonian army--very much to the disgust of his\nbrethren, who scornfully denounced him as infirm and even as the\nslave of appetite ([Greek: a)ko/laston], Strabo, xv. 718). He was\ntreated with the greatest consideration and respect by Alexander and\nhis officers; yet when the army came into Persis, he became sick of\nbody and tired of life. He obtained the reluctant consent of Alexander\nto allow him to die. A funeral pile was erected, upon which he\nvoluntarily burnt himself in presence of the whole army; who witnessed\nthe scene with every demonstration of military honour. See the\nremarkable description in Arrian, Anab. vii. 3. Cicero calls him\n\"Indus indoctus ac barbarus\" (Tusc. Disp. ii. 22, 52); but the\nimpression which he made on Alexander himself, Onesikritus,\nLysimachus, and generally upon all who saw him, was that of respectful\nadmiration (Strabo, xv. 715; Arrian, l. c.). One of these Indian\nsages, who had come into Syria along with the Indian envoys sent by an\nIndian king to the Roman Emperor Augustus, burnt himself publicly at\nAthens, with an exulting laugh when he leaped upon the funeral pile\n(Strabo, xv. 720 A)--[Greek: kata\\ ta\\ pa/tria t\u00f4=n I)nd\u00f4=n e)/th\u00ea].\n\nThe like act of self-immolation was performed by the Grecian Cynic\nPeregrinus Proteus, at the Olympic festival in the reign of Marcus\nAntoninus, 165 A.D. (See Clinton, Fasti Romani.) Lucian, who was\npresent and saw the proceeding, has left an animated description of\nit, but ridicules it as a piece of silly vanity. Theagenes, the\nadmiring disciple of Peregrinus, and other Cynics, who were present in\nconsiderable numbers--and also Lucian himself compare this act to that\nof the Indian Gymnosophists--[Greek: ou(=tos de\\ ti/nos ai)ti/as\ne(/neken e)mba/llei phe/r\u00f4n e(auto\\n ei)s to\\ pu=r? n\u00ea\\ Di/', o(/p\u00f4s\nt\u00ea\\n karteri/an e)pidei/x\u00eatai, katha/per oi( Brachma=nes] (Lucian, De\nMorte Peregrini, 25-39, &c.).]\n\n[Side-note: Antithesis between Nature--and Law or Convention--insisted\non by the Indian Gymnosophists.]\n\nAnother point, in the reply made by the Indian Gymnosophist to\nOnesikritus, deserves notice: I mean the antithesis between law (or\nconvention) and nature ([Greek: no/mos--phu/sis])--the supremacy which\nhe asserts for Nature over law--and the way in which he understands\nNature and her supposed ordinances. This antithesis was often put\nforward and argued in the ancient Ethics: and it is commonly said,\nwithout any sufficient proof, that the Sophists (speaking of them\ncollectively) recognised only the authority of law--while Sokrates and\nPlato had the merit of vindicating against them the superior authority\nof Nature. The Indian Gymnosophist agrees with the Athenian speaker in\nthe Platonic treatise De Legibus, and with the Platonic Kallikles in\nthe Gorgias, thus far--that he upholds the paramount authority of\nNature. But of these three interpreters, each hears and reports the\noracles of Nature differently from the other two: and there are many\nother dissenting interpreters besides.[119] Which of them are we to\nfollow? And if, adopting any one of them, we reject the others, upon\nwhat grounds are we to justify our preference? When the Gymnosophist\npoints out, that nakedness is the natural condition of man; when he\nfarther infers, that because natural it is therefore right and that\nthe wearing of clothes, being a departure from nature, is also a\ndeparture from right--how are we to prove to him that his\ninterpretation of nature is the wrong one? These questions have\nreceived no answer in any of the Platonic dialogues: though we have\nseen that Plato is very bitter against those who dwell upon the\nantithesis between Law and Nature, and who undertake to decide between\nthe two.\n\n[Footnote 119: Though Seneca (De Brevitate Vit. 14) talks of the\nStoics as \"conquering Nature, and the Cynics as exceeding Nature,\" yet\nthe Stoic Epikt\u00eatus considers his morality as the only scheme\nconformable to Nature (Epikt\u00eat. Diss. iv. 1, 121-128); while the\nEpikurean Lucretius claims the same conformity for the precepts of\nEpikurus.]\n\n[Side-note: The Greek Cynics--an order of ascetic or mendicant\nfriars.]\n\nReverting to the Cynics, we must declare them to be in one respect the\nmost peculiar outgrowth of Grecian philosophy: because they are not\nmerely a doctrinal sect, with phrases, theories, reasonings, and\nteachings, of their own--but still more prominently a body of\npractical ascetics, a mendicant order[120] in philosophy, working up\nthe bystanders by exhibiting themselves as models of endurance and\napathy. These peculiarities seem to have originated partly with\nPythagoras, partly with Sokrates--for there is no known prior example\nof it in Grecian history, except that of the anomalous priests of Zeus\nat Dodona, called Selli, who lay on the ground with unwashed feet. The\ndiscipline of Lykurgus at Sparta included severe endurance; but then\nit was intended to form, and actually did form, good soldiers. The\nCynics had no view to military action. They exaggerated the\npeculiarities of Sokrates, and we should call their mode of life the\nSokratic life, if we followed the example of those who gave names to\nthe Pythagorean or Orphic life, as a set of observances derived from\nthe type of Pythagoras or Orpheus.[121]\n\n[Footnote 120: Respecting the historical connexion between the Grecian\nCynics and the ascetic Christian monks, see Zeller, Philos. der\nGriech. ii. p. 241, ed. 2nd.\n\nHomer, Iliad xvi. 233-5:--\n\n[Greek: Zeu= a)/na, D\u00f4d\u00f4nai=e, Pelasgike/, t\u00ealo/thi nai/\u00f4n,\nD\u00f4d\u00f4/n\u00eas mede/\u00f4n duscheime/rou, a)mphi\\ de\\ Se/lloi\nSoi\\ nai/ous' u(poph\u00ea=tai a)nipto/podes, chamaieu=nai].\n\nThere is no analogy in Grecian history to illustrate this very curious\npassage: the Excursus of Heyne furnishes no information (see his\nedition of the Iliad, vol. vii. p. 289) except the general\nremark:--\"Selli--vit\u00e6 genus et institutum affectarunt abhorrens \u00e0 communi\nusu, vit\u00e6 monachorum mendicantium haud absimile, cum sine vit\u00e6 cultu\nviverent, nec corpus abluerent, et humi cubarent. Ita inter barbaros\nnon modo, sed inter ipsas feras gentes intellectum est, eos qui\nauctoritatem apud multitudinem consequi vellent, extern\u00e2 specie, vit\u00e6\ncultu austeriore, abstinenti\u00e2 et continenti\u00e2, oculos hominum in se\nconvertere et mirationem facere debere.\"]\n\n[Footnote 121: Plato, Republic, x. 600 B; Legib. vi. 782 C; Eurip.\nHippol. 955; Fragm. [Greek: Kr\u00ea=tes].\n\nSee also the citations in Athen\u00e6us (iv. pp. 161-163) from the writers\nof the Attic middle comedy, respecting the asceticism of the\nPythagoreans, analogous to that of the Cynics.]\n\n[Side-note: Logical views of Antisthenes and Diogenes--they opposed\nthe Platonic Ideas.]\n\nThough Antisthenes and Diogenes laid chief stress upon ethical topics,\nyet they also delivered opinions on logic and evidence.[122]\nAntisthenes especially was engaged in controversy, and seemingly in\nacrimonious controversy, with Plato; whose opinions he impugned in an\nexpress dialogue entitled Sathon. Plato on his side attacked the\nopinions of Antisthenes, and spoke contemptuously of his intelligence,\nyet without formally naming him. At least there are some criticisms in\nthe Platonic dialogues (especially in the Sophist\u00eas, p. 251) which the\ncommentators pronounce, on strong grounds, to be aimed at Antisthenes:\nwho is also unfavourably criticised by Aristotle. We know but little\nof the points which Antisthenes took up against Plato and still less\nof the reasons which he urged in support of them. Both he and\nDiogenes, however, are said to have declared express war against the\nPlatonic theory of self-existent Ideas. The functions of general\nConcepts and general propositions, together with the importance of\ndefining general terms, had been forcibly insisted on in the\ncolloquies of Sokrates; and his disciple Plato built upon this\nfoundation the memorable hypothesis of an aggregate of eternal,\nsubstantive realities, called Ideas or Forms, existing separate from\nthe objects of sense, yet affording a certain participation in\nthemselves to those objects: not discernible by sense, but only by the\nReason or understanding. These bold creations of the Platonic fancy\nwere repudiated by Antisthenes and Diogenes: who are both said to have\ndeclared \"We see Man, and we see Horse; but Manness and Horseness we\ndo not see\". Whereunto Plato replied \"You possess that eye by which\nHorse is seen: but you have not yet acquired that eye by which\nHorseness is seen\".[123]\n\n[Footnote 122: Among the titles of the works of Antisthenes, preserved\nby Diogenes Laertius (vi. 15), several relate to dialectic or logic.\n[Greek: A)l\u00ea/theia. Peri\\ tou= diale/gesthai, a)ntilogiko/s. Sa/th\u00f4n,\nperi\\ tou= a)ntile/gein, a, b, g. Peri\\ Diale/kton. Peri\\ Paidei/as\n\u00ea)\\ o)noma/t\u00f4n, a, b, g, d, e. Peri\\ o)noma/t\u00f4n chr\u00ease\u00f4s, \u00ea)\\\ne)ristiko/s. Peri\\ e)r\u00f4t\u00ea/se\u00f4s kai\\ a)pokri/se\u00f4s], &c., &c.\n\nDiogenes Laertius refers to _ten_ [Greek: to/moi] of these treatises.]\n\n[Footnote 123: Simplikius, ad Aristot. Categ. p. 66, b. 47, 67, b. 18,\n68, b. 25, Schol. Brand.; Tzetzes, Chiliad. vii. 606.\n\n[Greek: t\u00f4=n de\\ palai\u00f4=n oi( me\\n a)n\u00ea/|roun ta\\s poio/t\u00eatas tele/\u00f4s,\nto\\ poio\\n sugch\u00f4rou=ntos ei)=nai; \u00f4(/sper A)ntisthe/n\u00eas, o(/s pote\nPla/t\u00f4ni diamphisb\u00eat\u00f4=n--\u00f4(= Pla/t\u00f4n, e)/ph\u00ea, i(/ppon me\\n o(r\u00f4=,\ni(ppo/t\u00eata d' ou)ch o(r\u00f4=; kai\\ o(\\s ei)=pen, e)/cheis me\\n \u00f4(=|\ni(/ppos o(ra=tai to/de to\\ o)/mma, \u00f4(=| de\\ i(ppo/t\u00eas the\u00f4rei=tai,\nou)de/p\u00f4 ke/kt\u00easai. kai\\ a)/lloi de/ tines \u00ea)=san tau/t\u00eas t\u00ea=s do/x\u00eas.\noi( de\\ tina\\s men a)n\u00ea/|roun poio/t\u00eatas, tina\\s de\\ kateli/mpanon].\n\n[Greek: Anthr\u00f4po/t\u00eas] occurs p. 58, a. 31. Compare p. 20, a. 2.\n\nThe same conversation is reported as having taken place between\nDiogenes and Plato, except that instead of [Greek: i(ppo/t\u00eas] and\n[Greek: a)nthr\u00f4po/t\u00eas], we have [Greek: trapezo/t\u00eas] and [Greek:\nkuatho/t\u00eas] (Diog. L. vi, 53).\n\nWe have [Greek: z\u00f4o/t\u00eas--A)th\u00eanaio/t\u00eas]--in Galen's argument against\nthe Stoics (vol. xix. p. 481, K\u00fchn).]\n\n[Side-note: First protest of Nominalism against Realism.]\n\nThis debate between Antisthenes and Plato marks an interesting point\nin the history of philosophy. It is the first protest of Nominalism\nagainst the doctrine of an extreme Realism. The Ideas or Forms of\nPlato (according to many of his phrases, for he is not always\nconsistent with himself) are not only real existences distinct from\nparticulars, but absorb to themselves all the reality of particulars.\nThe real universe in the Platonic theory was composed of Ideas or\nForms such as Manness or Horseness[124] (called by Plato the [Greek:\nAu)to\\-A)/nthr\u00f4pos] and [Greek: Au)to\\-I(/ppos]), of which particular\nmen and horses were only disfigured, transitory, and ever-varying\nphotographs. Antisthenes denied what Plato affirmed, and as Plato\naffirmed it. Aristotle denied it also; maintaining that genera,\nspecies, and attributes, though distinguishable as separate predicates\nof, or inherencies in, individuals--yet had no existence apart from\nindividuals. Aristotle was no less wanting than Antisthenes, in the\nintellectual eye required for discerning the Platonic Ideas.\nAntisthenes is said to have declared these Ideas to be mere thoughts\nor conceptions ([Greek: psila\\s e)nnoi/as]): _i.e._, merely subjective\nor within the mind, without any object corresponding to them. This is\none of the various modes of presenting the theory of Ideas, resorted\nto even in the Platonic Parmenid\u00eas, not by one who opposes that\ntheory, but by one seeking to defend it--_viz._, by Sokrates, when he\nis hard pressed by the objections of the Eleate against the more\nextreme and literal version of the theory.[125] It is remarkable, that\nthe objections ascribed to Parmenides against that version which\nexhibits the Ideas as mere Concepts of and in the mind, are decidedly\nless forcible than those which he urges against the other versions.\n\n[Footnote 124: We know from Plato himself (The\u00e6t\u00eatus, p. 182 A) that\neven the word [Greek: poio/t\u00eas], if not actually first introduced by\nhimself, was at any rate so recent as to be still repulsive, and to\nrequire an Apology, If [Greek: poio/t\u00eas] was strange, [Greek:\na)nthr\u00f4po/t\u00eas] and [Greek: i(ppo/t\u00eas] would be still more strange.\nAntisthenes probably invented them, to present the doctrine which he\nimpugned in a dress of greater seeming absurdity.]\n\n[Footnote 125: Plato, Parmenid\u00eas, p. 132 B. See, afterwards, chapter\nxxvii., Parmenides.]\n\n[Side-note: Doctrines of Antisthenes about predication--he admits no\nother predication but identical.]\n\nThere is another singular doctrine, which Aristotle ascribes to\nAntisthenes, and which Plato notices and confutes; alluding to its\nauthor contemptuously, but not mentioning his name. Every name\n(Antisthenes argued) has its own special reason or meaning ([Greek:\noi)kei=os[126] lo/gos]), declaring the essence of the thing named, and\ndiffering from every other word: you cannot therefore truly predicate\nany one word of any other, because the reason or meaning of the two is\ndifferent: there can be no true propositions except identical\npropositions, in which the predicate is the same with the subject--\"man\nis man, good is good\". \"Man is good\" was an inadmissible\nproposition: affirming different things to be the same, or one thing\nto be many.[127] Accordingly, it was impossible for two speakers\nreally to contradict each other. There can be no contradiction between\nthem if both declare the essence of the same thing--nor if neither of\nthem declare the essence of it--nor if one speaker declares the\nessence of one thing, and another speaker that of another. But one of\nthese three cases must happen: therefore there can be no\ncontradiction.[128]\n\n[Footnote 126: Diogen. L. vi. 3. [Greek: Pr\u00f4to/s te \u00f4(ri/sato]\n(Antisthenes) [Greek: lo/gon, ei)p\u00f4/n, lo/gos e)sti\\n o( to\\ ti/ \u00ea)=n\n\u00ea)/ e)sti d\u00eal\u00f4=n.]]\n\n[Footnote 127: Aristotle, Metaphy. [Greek: D]. 1024, b. 32, attributes\nthis doctrine to Antisthenes by name; which tends to prove that Plato\nmeant Antisthenes, though not naming him, in Sophist, p. 251 B, where\nhe notices the same doctrine. Compare Phil\u00eabus, p. 14 D.\n\nIt is to be observed that a doctrine exactly the same as that which\nPlato here censures in Antisthenes, will be found maintained by the\nPlatonic Sokrates himself, in Plato, Hippias Major, p. 304 A. See\nchap, xiii. vol. ii. of the present work.]\n\n[Footnote 128: Aristot. Topic. i. p. 104, b. 20. [Greek: the/sis de/\ne)stin u(po/l\u00eapsis para/doxos t\u00f4=n gn\u00f4ri/m\u00f4n tino\\s kata\\\nphilosophi/an; oi(=on o(/ti ou)k e)/stin a)ntile/gein, katha/per\ne)/ph\u00ea A)ntisthe/n\u00eas].\n\nPlato puts this [Greek: the/sis] into the mouth of Dionysodorus, in\nthe Euthyd\u00eamus--p. 286 B; but he says (or makes Sokrates say) that it\nwas maintained by many persons, and that it had been maintained by\nProtagoras, and even by others yet more ancient.\n\nAntisthenes had discussed it specially in a treatise of three sections\npolemical against Plato--[Greek: Sa/th\u00f4n, \u00ea)\\ peri\\ tou= a)ntile/gein,\na, b, g] (Diog. L. vi. 16).]\n\n[Side-note: The same doctrine asserted by Stilpon, after the time of\nAristotle.]\n\nThe works of Antisthenes being lost, we do not know how he himself\nstated his own doctrine, nor what he said on behalf of it, declaring\ncontradiction to be impossible. Plato sets aside the doctrine as\nabsurd and silly; Aristotle--since he cites it as a paradox, apt for\ndialectical debate, where the opinion of a philosopher stood opposed\nto what was generally received--seems to imply that there were\nplausible arguments to be urged in its favour.[129] And that the\ndoctrine actually continued to be held and advocated, in the\ngeneration not only after Antisthenes but after Aristotle--we may see\nby the case of Stilpon: who maintained (as Antisthenes had done) that\nnone but identical propositions, wherein the predicate was a\nrepetition of the subject, were admissible: from whence it followed\n(as Aristotle observed) that there could be no propositions either\nfalse or contradictory. Plutarch,[130] in reciting this doctrine of\nStilpon (which had been vehemently impugned by the Epikurean Kol\u00f4t\u00eas),\ndeclares it to have been intended only in jest. There is no ground for\nbelieving that it was so intended: the analogy of Antisthenes goes to\nprove the contrary.\n\n[Footnote 129: Aristotle (Met. [Greek: D]. 1024) represents the\ndoctrine of Antisthenes, That contradictory and false propositions are\nimpossible--as a consequence deduced from the position laid down--That\nno propositions except identical propositions were admissible. If you\ngrant this last proposition, the consequences will be undeniable.\nPossibly Antisthenes may have reasoned in this way:\"There are many\ncontradictory and false propositions now afloat; but this arises from\nthe way in which predication is conducted. So long as the predicate is\ndifferent from the subject, there is nothing _in the form of a\nproposition_ to distinguish falsehood from truth (to distinguish\n_The\u00e6t\u00eatus sedet_, from _The\u00e6t\u00eatus volat_--to take the instance in the\nPlatonic Sophist\u00eas--p. 263). There ought to be no propositions except\nidentical propositions: the form itself will then guarantee you\nagainst both falsehood and contradiction: you will be sure always to\ngive [Greek: to\\n oi)kei=on lo/gon tou= pra/gmatos].\" There would be\nnothing inconsistent in such a precept: but Aristotle might call it\nsilly [Greek: eu)\u00eath\u00f4=s]), because, while shutting out falsehood and\ncontradiction, it would also shut out the great body of useful truth,\nand would divest language of its usefulness as a means of\ncommunication.\n\nBrandis (Gesch. der Gr. R\u00f6misch. Phil. vol. ii. xciii. 1) gives\nsomething like this as the probable purpose of Antisthenes--\"Nur Eins\nbezeichne die Wesenheit eines Dinges--die Wesenheit als einfachen\nTr\u00e4ger des mannichfaltigen der Eigenschaften\"(this is rather too\nAristotelian)--\"zur Abwehr von Streitigkeiten auf dem Gebiete der\nErscheinungen\". Compare also Ritter, Gesch. Phil. vol. ii. p. 130. We\nread in the Kratylus, that there were persons who maintained the\nrectitude of all names: to say that a name was not right, was (in\ntheir view) tantamount to saying that it was no name at all, but only\nan unmeaning sound (Plato, Krat. pp. 429-430).]\n\n[Footnote 130: Plutarch, adv. Kol\u00f4ten, p. 1119 C-D.]\n\n[Side-note: Nominalism of Stilpon. His reasons against accidental\npredication.]\n\nStilpon, however, while rejecting (as Antisthenes had done) the\nuniversal Ideas[131] or Forms, took a larger ground of objection. He\npronounced them to be inadmissible both as subject and as predicate.\nIf you speak of Man in general (he said), what, or whom, do you mean?\nYou do not mean A or B, or C or D, &c.: that is, you do not mean any\none of these more than any other. You have no determinate meaning at\nall: and beyond this indefinite multitude of individuals, there is\nnothing that the term can mean. Again, as to predicates--when you say,\n_The man runs_, or _The man is good_, what do you mean by the\npredicate _runs_, or is _good_? You do not mean any thing specially\nbelonging to man: for you apply the same predicates to many other\nsubjects: you say _runs_, about a horse, a dog, or a cat--you say\n_good_ in reference to food, medicine, and other things besides. Your\npredicate, therefore, being applied to many and diverse subjects,\nbelongs not to one of them more than to another: in other words, it\nbelongs to neither: the predication is not admissible.[132]\n\n[Footnote 131: Hegel (Geschichte der Griech. Philos. i. p. 123) and\nMarbach (Geschichte der Philos. s. 91) disallow the assertion of\nDiogenes, that Stilpon [Greek: a)n\u00ea/rei ta\\ ei)/d\u00ea]. They maintain\nthat Stilpon rejected the particular affirmations, and allowed only\ngeneral or universal affirmations. This construction appears to me\nerroneous.]\n\n[Footnote 132: Diog. L. ii. 113; Plutarch, adv. Kol\u00f4ten, 1119-1120.\n[Greek: ei) peri\\ i(/ppou to\\ tre/chein kat\u00eagorou=men, ou)/ ph\u00easi]\n(Stilpon) [Greek: tau)to\\n ei)=nai t\u00f4=| peri\\ ou)= kat\u00eagorei=tai to\\\nkat\u00eagorou/menon--e)kate/rou ga\\r a)paitou/menoi to\\n lo/gon, ou) to\\n\nau)to\\n a)podi/domen u(pe\\r a)mphoi=n. O(/then a(marta/nein tou\\s\ne(/teron e(te/rou kat\u00eagorou=ntas. Ei) me\\n ga\\r tau)ton e)sti t\u00f4=|\na)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4| to\\ a)gatho/n, kai\\ t\u00f4=| i(/pp\u00f4| to\\ tre/chein, p\u00f4=s kai\\\nsiti/ou kai\\ pharma/kou to\\ a)gatho/n? kai\\ n\u00ea\\ Di/a pa/lin le/ontos\nkai\\ kuno\\s to\\ tre/chein, kat\u00eagorou=men? ei) d' e(/teron, ou)k\no)rth\u00f4=s _a)/nthr\u00f4pon a)gatho\\n kai\\ i(/ppon tre/chein_ le/gomen].\n\nSextus Empiricus (adv. Mathem. vii. p. 269-282) gives a different vein\nof reasoning respecting predication,--yet a view which illustrates\nthis doctrine of Antisthenes. Sextus does not require that all\npredication shall be restricted to identical predication: but he\nmaintains that you cannot define any general word. To define, he says,\nis to enunciate the essence of that which is defined. But when you\ndefine Man--\"a mortal, rational animal, capable of reason and\nknowledge\"--you give only certain attributes of Man, which go along\nwith the essence--you do not give the essence itself. If you enumerate\neven all the accompaniments ([Greek: sumbeb\u00eako/ta]), you will still\nfail to tell me what the essence of Man is: which is what I desire to\nknow, and what you profess to do by your definition. It is useless to\nenumerate accompaniments, until you explain to me what the essence is\nwhich they accompany.\n\nThese are ingenious objections, which seem to me quite valid, if you\nassume the logical subject to be a real, absolute essence, apart from\nall or any of its predicates. And this is a frequent illusion,\nfavoured even by many logicians. We enunciate the subject first, then\nthe predicate; and because the subject can be conceived after\nabstraction of this, that, _or_ the other predicates--we are apt to\nimagine that it may be conceived without _all or any_ of the\npredicates. But this is an illusion. If you suppress all predicates,\nthe subject or supposed substratum vanishes along with them: just as\nthe Genus vanishes, if you suppress all the different species of it.\n\n\"Scais-tu au moins ce que c'est que la mati\u00e8re? Tr\u00e8s-bien. . . Par\nexemple, cette pierre est grise, est d'une telle forme, a ses trois\ndimensions; elle est p\u00e9sante et divisible. Eh bien (dit le Sirien),\ncette chose qui te paro\u00eet \u00eatre divisible, p\u00e9sante, et grise, me dirois\ntu bien ce que c'est? Tu vois quelques attributs: mais le fond de la\nchose, le connois tu? Non, dit l'autre. Tu ne scais donc point ce que\nc'est que la mati\u00e8re.\" (Voltaire, Microm\u00e9gas, c. 7.)\n\n\"Le fond de la chose\"--the Ding an sich--is nothing but the name\nitself, divested of every fraction of meaning: it is _titulus sine\nre_. But the name being familiar, and having been always used with a\nmeaning, still appears invested with much of the old emotional\nassociations, even though it has been stripped of all its meaning by\nsuccessive acts of abstraction. If you subtract from four, 1 + 1 + 1 +\n1, there will remain zero. But by abstracting, from the subject _man_,\nall its predicates, real and possible, you cannot reduce it to zero.\nThe _name_ man always remains, and appears by old association to carry\nwith it some meaning--though the meaning can no longer be defined.\n\nThis illusion is well pointed out in a valuable passage of Cabanis (Du\nDegr\u00e9 de Certitude de la M\u00e9decine, p. 61):--\n\n\"Je pourrois d'ailleurs demander ce qu'on entend par la nature et les\ncauses premi\u00e8res des maladies. Nous connoissons de leur nature, ce que\nles faits en manifestent. Nous savons, par exemple, que la fi\u00e8vre\nproduit tels et tels changements: ou plut\u00f4t, c'est par ces changements\nqu'elle se montre \u00e0 nos yeux: c'est _par eux seuls qu'elle existe pour\nnous_. Quand un homme tousse, crache du sang, respire avec peine,\nressent une douleur de c\u00f4t\u00e9, a le pouls plus vite et plus dur, la peau\nplus chaude que dans l'\u00e9tat naturel--l'on dit qu'il est attaqu\u00e9 d'une\npleur\u00e9sie. Mais qu'est ce donc _qu'une pleur\u00e9sie_? On vous r\u00e9pliquera\nque c'est une maladie, dans laquelle tous, ou presque tous, ces\naccidents se trouvent combin\u00e9s. S'il en manque un ou plusieurs, ce\nn'est point la pleur\u00e9sie, du moins la vraie pleur\u00e9sie essentielle des\n\u00e9coles. _C'est donc le concours de ces accidents qui la constitue._ Le\nmot _pleur\u00e9sie ne fait que les retracer d'une mani\u00e8re plus courte. Ce\nmot n'est pas un \u00eatre par lui-m\u00eame_: il exprime une abstraction de\nl'esprit, et r\u00e9veille par un seul trait toutes les images d'un assez\ngrand tableau.\n\n\"Ainsi lorsque, non content de conno\u00eetre une maladie par ce qu'elle\noffre \u00e0 nos sens, par ce qui seul la constitue, et sans quoi elle\nn'existeroit pas, _vous demandez encore quelle est sa nature en\nelle-m\u00eame, quelle est son essence--c'est comme si vous demandiez quelle\nest la nature ou l'essence d'un mot, d'une pure abstraction._ Il n'y a\ndonc pas beaucoup de justesse \u00e0 dire, d'un air de triomphe, que les\nm\u00e9decins ignorent m\u00eame la nature de la fi\u00e8vre, et que sans cesse ils\nagissent dans des circonstances, ou manient des instruments, dont\nl'essence leur est inconnue.\"]\n\n[Side-note: Difficulty of understanding how the same predicate could\nbelong to more than one subject.]\n\nStilpon (like Antisthenes, as I have remarked above) seems to have had\nin his mind a type of predication, similar to the type of reasoning\nwhich Aristotle laid down the syllogism: such that the form of the\nproposition should be itself a guarantee for the truth of what was\naffirmed. Throughout the ancient philosophy, especially in the more\nmethodised debates between the Academics and Sceptics on one side, and\nthe Stoics on the other--what the one party affirmed and the other\nparty denied, was, the existence of a Criterion of Truth: some\ndistinguishable mark, such as falsehood could not possibly carry. To\nfind this infallible mark in propositions, Stilpon admitted none\nexcept identical. While agreeing with Antisthenes, that no predicate\ncould belong to a subject different from itself, he added a new\nargument, by pointing out that predicates applied to one subject were\nalso applied to many other subjects. Now if the predicates belonged to\none, they could not (in his view) belong to the others: and therefore\nthey did not really belong to any. He considered that predication\ninvolved either identity or special and exclusive implication of the\npredicate with the subject.\n\n[Side-note: Analogous difficulties in the Platonic Parmenid\u00eas.]\n\nStilpon was not the first who had difficulty in explaining to himself\nhow one and the same predicate could be applied to many different\nsubjects. The difficulty had already been set forth in the Platonic\nParmenid\u00eas.[133] How can the Form (Man, White, Good, &c.) be present\nat one and the same time in many distinct individuals? It cannot be\npresent as a whole in each: nor can it be divided, and thus present\npartly in one, partly in another. How therefore can it be present at\nall in any of them? In other words, how can the One be Many, and how\ncan the Many be One? Of this difficulty (as of many others) Plato\npresents no solution, either in the Parmenid\u00eas or anywhere else.[134]\nAristotle alludes to several contemporaries or predecessors who felt\nit. Stilpon reproduces it in his own way. It is a very real\ndifficulty, requiring to be dealt with by those who lay down a theory\nof predication; and calling upon them to explain the functions of\ngeneral propositions, and the meaning of general terms.\n\n[Footnote 133: Plato, Parmenid\u00eas, p. 131. Compare also Phil\u00eabus, p.\n15, and Stallbaum's Proleg. to the Parmenid\u00eas, pp. 46-47. The long\ncommentary of Proklus (v. 100-110. pp. 670-682 of the edition of\nStallbaum) amply attests the [Greek: duskoli/an] of the problem.\n\nThe argument of Parmenid\u00eas (in the dialogue called Parmenid\u00eas) is\napplied to the Platonic [Greek: ei)/d\u00ea] and to [Greek: ta\\\nmete/chonta]. But the argument is just as much applicable to\nattributes, genera, species: to all general predicates.]\n\n[Footnote 134: Aristot. Physic. i. 2, 185, b. 26-36.\n\nLykophron and some others anterior to Aristotle proposed to elude the\ndifficulty, by ceasing to use the substantive verb as copula in\npredication: instead of saying [Greek: S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas e)sti\\ leuko/s], they\nsaid either [Greek: S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas leuko/s], simply, or [Greek: S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas\nleleu/k\u00f4tai].\n\nThis is a remarkable evidence of the difficulty arising, even in these\nearly days of logic, about the logical function of the copula.]\n\n[Side-note: Mened\u00eamus disallowed all negative predication.]\n\nMened\u00eamus the Eretrian, one among the hearers and admirers of Stilpon,\ncombined even more than Stilpon the attributes of the Cynic with those\nof the Megaric. He was fearless in character, and uncontrouled in\nspeech, delivering harsh criticisms without regard to offence given:\nhe was also a great master of ingenious dialectic and puzzling\ncontroversy.[135] His robust frame, grave deportment, and simplicity\nof life, inspired great respect; especially as he occupied a\nconspicuous position, and enjoyed political influence at Eretria. He\nis said to have thought meanly both of Plato and Xenokrates. We are\ntold that Mened\u00eamus, like Antisthenes and Stilpon, had doctrines of\nhis own on the subject of predication. He disallowed all negative\npropositions, admitting none but affirmative: moreover even of the\naffirmative propositions, he disallowed all the hypothetical,\napproving only the simple and categorical.[136]\n\n[Footnote 135: Diog. L. ii. 127-134. [Greek: \u00ea)=n ga\\r kai\\\ne)piko/pt\u00eas kai\\ par)r(\u00easiast\u00ea/s.]]\n\n[Footnote 136: Diog. L. ii. 134.]\n\nIt is impossible to pronounce confidently respecting these doctrines,\nwithout knowing the reasons upon which they were grounded.\nUnfortunately these last have not been transmitted to us. But we may\nbe very sure that there were reasons, sufficient or insufficient: and\nthe knowledge of those reasons would have enabled us to appreciate\nmore fully the state of the Greek mind, in respect to logical theory,\nin and before the year 300 B.C.\n\n[Side-note: Distinction ascribed to Antisthenes between simple and\ncomplex objects. Simple objects undefinable.]\n\nAnother doctrine, respecting knowledge and definition, is ascribed by\nAristotle to \"the disciples of Antisthenes and other such uninstructed\npersons\": it is also canvassed by Plato in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus,[137] without\nspecifying its author, yet probably having Antisthenes in view. As far\nas we can make out a doctrine which both these authors recite as\nopponents, briefly and their own way, it is as follows:--\"Objects must\nbe distinguished into--1. Simple or primary; and 2. Compound or\nsecondary combinations of these simple elements. This last class, the\ncompounds, may be explained or defined, because you can enumerate the\ncomponent elements. By such analysis, and by the definition founded\nthereupon, you really come to _know_ them--describe them--predicate\nabout them. But the first class, the simple or primary objects, can\nonly be perceived by sense and named: they cannot be analysed,\ndefined, or known. You can only predicate about them that they are\nlike such and such other things: _e.g., silver_, you cannot say what\nit is in itself, but only that it is like tin, or like something else.\nThere may thus be a _ratio_ and a definition of any compound object,\nwhether it be an object of perception or of conception: because one of\nthe component elements will serve as Matter or Subject of the\nproposition, and the other as Form or Predicate. But there can be no\ndefinition of any one of the component elements separately taken:\nbecause there is neither Matter nor Form to become the Subject and\nPredicate of a defining proposition.\"\n\n[Footnote 137: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat, pp. 201-202. Aristotel. Metaph. [Greek:\n\u00ca]. 1043, b. 22.]\n\nThis opinion, ascribed to the followers of Antisthenes, is not in\nharmony with the opinion ascribed by Aristotle to Antisthenes himself\n(_viz._, That no propositions, except identical propositions, were\nadmissible): and we are led to suspect that the first opinion must\nhave been understood or qualified by its author in some manner not now\ndeterminable. But the second opinion, drawing a marked logical\ndistinction between simple and complex Objects, has some interest from\nthe criticisms of Plato and Aristotle: both of whom select, for the\nexample illustrating the opinion, the syllable as the compound made up\nof two or more letters which are its simple constituent elements.\n\n[Remarks of Plato on this doctrine.]\n\nPlato refutes the doctrine,[138] but in a manner not so much to prove\nits untruth, as to present it for a verbal incongruity. How can you\nproperly say (he argues) that you _know_ the compound AB, when you\nknow neither A nor B separately? Now it may be incongruous to\nrestrict in this manner the use of the words _know--knowledge_: but\nthe distinction between the two cases is not denied by Plato.\nAntisthenes said--\"I feel a simple sensation (A or B) and can name it,\nbut I do not _know_ it: I can affirm nothing about it in itself, or\nabout its real essence. But the compound AB I do know, for I know its\nessence: I can affirm about it that _it is_ compounded of A and B, and\nthis is its essence.\" Here is a real distinction: and Plato's argument\namounts only to affirming that it is an incorrect use of words to call\nthe compound _known_, when the component elements are not known.\nUnfortunately the refutation of Plato is not connected with any\ndeclaration of his own counter-doctrine, for The\u00e6t\u00eatus ends in a\nresult purely negative.\n\n[Footnote 138: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. ut supr\u00e2.]\n\n[Side-note: Remarks of Aristotle upon the same.]\n\nAristotle, in his comment on the opinion of Antisthenes, makes us\nunderstand better what it really is:--\"Respecting simple essences (A\nor B), I cannot tell what they really are: but I can tell what they\nare like or unlike, _i.e._, I can compare them with other essences,\nsimple or compound. But respecting the compound AB, I can tell what it\nreally is: its essence is, to be compounded of A and B. And this I\ncall _knowing_ or _knowledge_.\"[139] The distinction here taken by\nAntisthenes (or by his followers) is both real and useful: Plato does\nnot contest it: while Aristotle distinctly acknowledges it, only that\namong the simple items he ranks both Percepta and Concepta.\n\n[Footnote 139: Aristot. Metaphys. [Greek: \u00ca]. 1043, b. 24-32, with the\nScholia, p. 774, b. Br.\n\nMr. J. S. Mill observes, Syst. of Logic, i. 5, 6, p. 116,\ned. 9:--\"There is still another exceptional case, in which, though\nthe predicate is the name of a class, yet in predicating it we affirm\nnothing but resemblance: the class being founded not on resemblance in\nany given particular, but on general unanalysable resemblance. The\nclasses in question are those into which our simple sensations, or\nother simple feelings, are divided. Sensations of white, for instance,\nare classed together, not because we can take them to pieces, and say,\nthey are alike in this, not alike in that but because we feel them to\nbe alike altogether, though in different degrees. When therefore I\nsay--The colour I saw yesterday was a white colour, or, The sensation\nI feel is one of tightness--in both cases the attribute I affirm of\nthe colour or of the other sensation is mere resemblance: simple\nlikeness to sensations which I have had before, and which have had\nthat name bestowed upon them. The names of feelings, like other\nconcrete general names, are connotative: but they connote a mere\nresemblance. When predicated of any individual feelings, the\ninformation they convey is that of its likeness to the other feelings\nwhich we have been accustomed to call by the same name.\"]\n\n[Side-note: Later Grecian Cynics--Monimus--Krates--Hipparchia.]\n\nMonimus a Syracusan, and Krates a Theban, with his wife\nHipparchia,[140] were successors of Diogenes in the Cynic vein of\nphilosophy: together with several others of less note. Both Monimus\nand Krates are said to have been persons of wealthy condition,[141]\nyet their minds were so powerfully affected by what they saw of\nDiogenes, that they followed his example, renounced their wealth, and\nthrew themselves upon a life of poverty; with nothing beyond the\nwallet and the threadbare cloak, but with fearless independence of\ncharacter, free censure of every one, and indifference to opinion. \"I\nchoose as my country\" (said Krates) \"poverty and low esteem, which\nfortune cannot assail: I am the fellow-citizen of Diogenes, whom the\nsnares of envy cannot reach.\"[142] Krates is said to have admonished\nevery one, whether they invited it or not: and to have gone unbidden\nfrom house to house for the purpose of exhortation. His persistence in\nthis practice became so obtrusive that he obtained the title of \"the\nDoor-Opener\".[143] This feature, common to several other Cynics,\nexhibits an approximation to the missionary character of Sokrates, as\ndescribed by himself in the Platonic Apology: a feature not found in\nany of the other eminent heads of philosophy--neither in Plato nor in\nAristotle, Zeno, or Epikurus.\n\n[Footnote 140: Hipparchia was a native of Maroneia in Thrace; born in\na considerable station, and belonging to an opulent family. She came\nto Athens with her brother M\u00eatrokl\u00eas, and heard both Theophrastus and\nKrat\u00eas. Both she and her brother became impressed with the strongest\nadmiration for Krat\u00eas: for his mode of life, as well as for his\ndiscourses and doctrine. Rejecting various wealthy suitors, she\ninsisted upon becoming his wife, both against his will and against the\nwill of her parents. Her resolute enthusiasm overcame the reluctance\nof both. She adopted fully his hard life, poor fare, and threadbare\ncloak. She passed her days in the same discourses and controversies,\nindifferent to the taunts which were addressed to her for having\nrelinquished the feminine occupations of spinning and weaving.\nDiogenes Laertius found many striking dicta or replies ascribed to her\n([Greek: a)/lla muri/a t\u00ea=s philoso/phou] vi. 96-98). He gives an\nallusion made to her by the contemporary comic poet Menander, who (as\nI before observed) handled the Cynics of his time as Aristophanes,\nEupolis, &c., had handled Sokrates--\n\n[Greek: Sumperipat\u00ea/seis ga\\r tri/b\u00f4n' e)/chous e)moi\\,\n\u00f4(/sper Kra/t\u00eati t\u00f4=| Kunik\u00f4=| poth' \u00ea( gun\u00ea\\.\nKai\\ thugate/r' e)xe/d\u00f4k' e)kei=nos, \u00f4(s e)/ph\u00ea\nau)to\\s, e)pi\\ peira=| dou\\s tria/konth' \u00ea(me/ras].\n(vi. 93.)]\n\n[Footnote 141: Diog, L. vi. 82-88. [Greek: Mo/nimos o( Ku/\u00f4n], Sext.\nEmp. adv. Mathem. vii. 48-88.\n\nAbout Krates, Plutarch, De Vit. Aere Alieno, 7, p. 831 F.]\n\n[Footnote 142: Diog. L. vi. 93. [Greek: e)/chein de\\ patri/da a)doxi/an\nte kai\\ peni/an, a)na/l\u00f4ta t\u00ea=| tu/ch\u00ea|: kai\\--Dioge/nous ei)=nai\npoli/t\u00eas a)nepibouleu/tou phtho/n\u00f4|]. The parody or verses of Krates,\nabout his city of Pera (the Wallet), vi. 85, are very spirited--\n\n[Greek: P\u00ea/r\u00ea tis po/lis e)sti\\ me/s\u00f4| e)ni\\ oi)/nopi tu/ph\u00f4|], &c.\n\nKrates composed a collection of philosophical Epistles, which Diogenes\npronounces to be excellent, and even to resemble greatly the style of\nPlato (vi. 98).]\n\n[Footnote 143: Diog. L. vi. 86, [Greek: e)kalei=to de\\\n_thurepanoi/kt\u00eas_, dia\\ to\\ ei)s pa=san ei)sie/nai oi)ki/an kai\\\nnouthetei=n]. Compare Seneca, Epist. 29.]\n\n[Side-note: Zeno of Kitium in Cyprus.]\n\nAmong other hearers of Krates, who carried on, and at the same time\nmodified, the Cynic discipline, we have to mention Zeno, of Kitium in\nCyprus, who became celebrated as the founder of the Stoic sect. In him\nthe Cynic, Megaric, and Herakleitean tendencies may be said to have\npartially converged, though with considerable modifications:[144] the\nascetic doctrines (without the ascetic practices or obtrusive\nforwardness) of the Cynics--and the logical subtleties of the others.\nHe blended them, however, with much of new positive theory, both\nphysical and cosmological. His compositions were voluminous; and those\nof the Stoic Chrysippus, after him, were still more numerous. The\nnegative and oppugning function, which in the fourth century B.C. had\nbeen directed by the Megarics against Aristotle, was in the third\ncentury B.C. transferred to the Platonists, or Academy represented by\nArkesilaus: whose formidable dialectic was brought to bear upon the\nStoic and Epikurean schools--both of them positive, though greatly\nopposed to each other.\n\n[Footnote 144: Numenius ap. Euseb. Pr\u00e6p. Evang. xiv. 5.]\n\n* * * * *\n\nARISTIPPUS.\n\n\nAlong with Antisthenes, among the hearers and companions of Sokrates,\nstood another Greek of very opposite dispositions, yet equally marked\nand original--Aristippus of Kyr\u00ean\u00ea. The stimulus of the Sokratic\nmethod, and the novelty of the topics on which it was brought to bear,\noperated forcibly upon both, prompting each of them to theorise in his\nown way on the best plan of life.\n\n[Side-note: Aristippus--life, character, and doctrine.]\n\nAristippus, a Kyrenean of easy circumstances, having heard of the\npowerful ascendancy exercised by Sokrates over youth, came to Athens\nfor the express purpose of seeing him, and took warm interest in his\nconversation.[145] He set great value upon mental cultivation and\naccomplishments; but his habits of life were inactive, easy, and\nluxurious. Upon this last count, one of the most interesting chapters\nin the Xenophontic Memorabilia reports an interrogative lecture\naddressed to him by Sokrates, in the form of dialogue.[146]\n\n[Footnote 145: Plutarch (De Curiositate, p. 516 A) says that\nAristippus informed himself, at the Olympic games, from Ischomachus\nrespecting the influence of Sokrates.]\n\n[Footnote 146: See the first chapter of the Second Book of the\nMemorabilia.\n\nI give an abstract of the principal points in the dialogue, not a\nliteral translation.]\n\n[Side-note: Discourse of Sokrates with Aristippus.]\n\nSokrates points out to Aristippus that mankind may be distributed into\ntwo classes: 1. Those who have trained themselves to habits of\ncourage, energy, bodily strength, and command over their desires and\nappetites, together with practice in the actual work of life:--these\nare the men who become qualified to rule, and who do actually rule. 2.\nThe rest of mankind, inferior in these points, who have no choice but\nto obey, and who do obey.[147]--Men of the first or ruling class\npossess all the advantages of life: they perform great exploits, and\nenjoy a full measure of delight and happiness, so far as human\ncircumstances admit. Men of the second class are no better than\nslaves, always liable to suffer, and often actually suffering,\nill-treatment and spoliation of the worst kind. To which of these\nclasses (Sokrates asks Aristippus) do you calculate on belonging--and\nfor which do you seek to qualify yourself?--To neither of them (replies\nAristippus). I do not wish to share the lot of the subordinate\nmultitude: but I have no relish for a life of command, with all the\nfatigues, hardships, perils, &c., which are inseparable from it. I\nprefer a middle course: I wish neither to rule, nor to be ruled, but\nto be a freeman: and I consider freedom as the best guarantee for\nhappiness.[148] I desire only to pass through life as easily and\npleasantly as possible.[149]--Which of the two do you consider to live\nmost pleasantly, the rulers or the ruled? asks Sokrates.--I do not\nrank myself with either (says Aristippus): nor do I enter into active\nduties of citizenship anywhere: I pass from one city to another, but\neverywhere as a stranger or non-citizen.--Your scheme is impracticable\n(says Sokrates). You cannot obtain security in the way that you\npropose. You will find yourself suffering wrong and distress along\nwith the subordinates[150]--and even worse than the subordinates: for\na stranger, wherever he goes, is less befriended and more exposed to\ninjury than the native citizens. You will be sold into slavery, though\nyou are fit for no sort of work: and your master will chastise you\nuntil you become fit for work.--But (replies Aristippus) this very art\nof ruling, which you consider to be happiness,[151] is itself a hard\nlife, a toilsome slavery, not only stripped of enjoyment, but full of\nprivation and suffering. A man must be a fool to embrace such\ndiscomforts of his own accord.--It is that very circumstance (says\nSokrates), that he does embrace them of his own accord--which renders\nthem endurable, and associates them with feelings of pride and\ndignity. They are the price paid beforehand, for a rich reward to\ncome. He who goes through labour and self-denial, for the purpose of\ngaining good friends or subduing enemies, and for the purpose of\nacquiring both mental and bodily power, so that he may manage his own\nconcerns well and may benefit both his friends and his country--such a\nman will be sure to find his course of labour pleasurable. He will\npass his life in cheerful[152] satisfaction, not only enjoying his own\nesteem and admiration, but also extolled and envied by others. On the\ncontrary, whoever passes his earlier years in immediate pleasures and\nindolent ease, will acquire no lasting benefit either in mind or body.\nHe will have a soft lot at first, but his future will be hard and\ndreary.[153]\n\n[Footnote 147: Xen. Memor. ii. 1, 1 seq. [Greek: to\\n me\\n o(/p\u00f4s\ni(kano\\s e)/stai a)/rchein, to\\n de\\ o(/p\u00f4s m\u00ea/d' a)ntipoi\u00ea/setai\na)rch\u00ea=s--tou\\s a)rchikou/s.]]\n\n[Footnote 148: Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 11. [Greek: a)ll' ei)=nai ti/s moi\ndokei= me/s\u00ea tou/t\u00f4n o(do/s, \u00ea)\\n peir\u00f4=mai badi/zein, ou)/te di'\na)rch\u00ea=s, ou)/te dia\\ doulei/as, a)lla\\ di' e)leutheri/as, \u00ea)/per\nma/lista pro\\s eu)daimoni/an a)/gei.]]\n\n[Footnote 149: Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 9. [Greek: e)mauton toi/nun ta/tt\u00f4\nei)s tou\\s boulome/nous \u00ea)=| r(a=|sta kai\\ \u00ea(/dista bioteu/ein.]]\n\n[Footnote 150: Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 12. [Greek: ei) me/ntoi e)n\na)nthr\u00f4/pois \u00f4)\\n m\u00ea/te a)/rchein a)xi\u00f4/seis m\u00ea/te a)/rchesthai, m\u00ea/te\ntou\\s a)/rchontas e(k\u00f4\\n therapeu/seis, oi)=mai/ se o(ra=|n \u00f4(s\ne)pi/stantai oi( krei/ttones tou\\s \u00ea(/ttonas kai\\ koin\u00ea=| kai\\ i)di/a|\nklai/ontas kathi/santes, \u00f4(s dou/lois chr\u00ea=sthai].\n\nWhat follows is yet more emphatic, about the unjust oppression of\nrulers, and the suffering on the part of subjects.]\n\n[Footnote 151: Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 17. [Greek: A)lla\\ ga\\r, \u00f4)=\nS\u00f4/krates, oi( ei)s t\u00ea\\n basilik\u00ea\\n te/chn\u00ean paideuo/menoi, \u00ea)\\n\ndokei=s moi su\\ nomi/zein eu)daimoni/an ei)=nai].\n\nCompare Memor. ii. 3, 4.]\n\n[Footnote 152: Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 19. [Greek: p\u00f4=s ou)k oi)/esthai chr\u00ea\\\ntou/tous kai\\ ponei=n \u00ea(de/\u00f4s ei)s ta\\ toiau=ta, kai\\ z\u00ea=n\neu)phronome/nous, a)game/nous me\\n e(autou\\s, e)painoume/nous de\\ kai\\\nz\u00ealoume/nous u(po\\ t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n?]\n\n[Footnote 153: Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 20, cited from Epicharmus:--\n\n[Greek: m\u00ea\\ ta\\ malaka\\ m\u00f4/eo, m\u00ea\\ ta\\ skl\u00ea/r' e)/ch\u00ea|s.]]\n\n[Side-note: Choice of H\u00earakl\u00eas.]\n\nSokrates enforces his lecture by reciting to Aristippus the memorable\nlecture or apologue, which the Sophist Prodikus was then delivering in\nlofty diction to numerous auditors[154]--the fable still known as the\nChoice of H\u00earakl\u00eas. Virtue and Pleasure (the latter of the two being\nhere identified with Evil or Vice) are introduced as competing for the\ndirection of the youthful H\u00earakl\u00eas. Each sets forth her case, in\ndramatic antithesis. Pleasure is introduced as representing altogether\nthe gratification of the corporeal appetites and the love of repose:\nwhile Virtue replies by saying, that if youth be employed altogether\nin pursuing such delights, at the time when the appetites are most\nvigorous--the result will be nothing but fatal disappointment,\naccompanied with entire loss of the different and superior pleasures\navailable in mature years and in old age. Youth is the season of\nlabour: the physical appetites must be indulged sparingly, and only at\nthe call of actual want: accomplishments of body and mind must be\nacquired in that season, which will enable the mature man to perform\nin after life great and glorious exploits. He will thus realise the\nhighest of all human delights--the love of his friends and the\nadmiration of his countrymen--the sound of his own praises and the\nreflexion upon his own deserts. At the price of a youth passed in\nlabour and self-denial, he will secure the fullest measure of mature\nand attainable happiness.\n\n[Footnote 154: Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 21-34. [Greek: e)n t\u00f4=| suggra/mmati\nt\u00f4=| peri\\ \u00ca(rakle/ous, o(/per d\u00ea\\ kai\\ plei/stois\ne)pidei/knutai--megaleiote/rois r(\u00ea/masin.]]\n\n\"It is worth your while, Aristippus\" (says Sokrates, in concluding\nthis lecture), \"to bestow some reflexion on what is to happen in the\nlatter portions of your life.\"\n\n[Side-note: Illustration afforded of the views of Sokrates respecting\nGood and Evil.]\n\nThis dialogue (one of the most interesting remnants of antiquity, and\nprobably reported by Xenophon from actual hearing) is valuable in\nreference not only to Aristippus, but also to Sokrates himself. Many\nrecent historians of philosophy describe Sokrates and Plato as setting\nup an idea of Virtue or Good Absolute (_i.e._ having no essential\nreference to the happiness or security of the agent or of any one\nelse) which they enforce--and an idea of Vice or Evil Absolute (_i.e._\nhaving no essential reference to suffering or peril, or\ndisappointment, either of the agent or of any one else) which they\ndenounce and discommend and as thereby refuting the Sophists, who are\nsaid to have enforced Virtue and denounced Vice only relatively--_i.e._\nin consequence of the bearing of one and the other upon the\nsecurity and happiness of the agent or of others. Whether there be any\none doctrine or style of preaching which can be fairly ascribed to the\nSophists as a class, I will not again discuss here: but I believe that\nthe most eminent among them, Protagoras and Prodikus, held the\nlanguage here ascribed to them. But it is a mistake to suppose that\nupon this point Sokrates was their opponent. The Xenophontic Sokrates\n(a portrait more resembling reality than the Platonic) always holds\nthis same language: the Platonic Sokrates not always, yet often. In\nthe dialogue between Sokrates and Aristippus, as well as in the\napologue of Prodikus, we see that the devotion of the season of youth\nto indulgence and inactive gratification of appetite, is blamed as\nproductive of ruinous consequences--as entailing loss of future\npleasures, together with a state of weakness which leaves no\nprotection against future suffering; while great care is taken to\nshow, that though laborious exercise is demanded during youth, such\nlabour will be fully requited by the increased pleasures and happiness\nof after life. The pleasure of being praised, and the pleasure of\nseeing good deeds performed by one's self, are especially insisted on.\nOn this point both Sokrates and Prodikus concur.[155]\n\n[Footnote 155: Xenoph. Mem. ii. 1, 31. [Greek: tou= de\\ pa/nt\u00f4n\n\u00ea(di/stou a)kou/smatos, e)pai/nou seaut\u00ea=s, a)n\u00ea/koos ei)=, kai\\ tou=\npa/nt\u00f4n \u00ea(distou thea/matos a)the/atos; ou)de\\n ga\\r p\u00f4/pote seaut\u00ea=s\ne)/rgon kalo\\n tethe/asai. . . .\n\nta\\ me\\n \u00ea(de/a e)n t\u00ea=| veo/t\u00eati diadramo/ntes, ta\\ de\\ chalepa\\ e)s\nto\\ g\u00ea=ras a)pothe/menoi.]]\n\n[Side-note: Comparison of the Xenophontic Sokrates with the Platonic\nSokrates.]\n\nIf again we compare the Xenophontic Sokrates with the Platonic\nSokrates, we shall find that the lecture of the former to Aristippus\ncoincides sufficiently with the theory laid down by the latter in the\ndialogue Protagoras; to which theory the Sophist Protagoras is\nrepresented as yielding a reluctant adhesion. But we shall find also\nthat it differs materially from the doctrine maintained by Sokrates in\nthe Platonic Gorgias. Nay, if we follow the argument addressed by the\nXenophontic Sokrates to Aristippus, we perceive that it is in\nsubstance similar to that which the Platonic dialogue Gorgias puts in\nthe mouth of the rhetor P\u00f4lus and the politician Kallikl\u00eas. The\nXenophontic Sokrates distributes men into two classes--the rulers and\nthe ruled: the former strong, well-armed, and well-trained, who enjoy\nlife at the expense of the submission and suffering of the latter: the\nformer committing injustice, the latter enduring injustice. He\nimpresses upon Aristippus the misery of being confounded with the\nsuffering many, and exhorts him to qualify himself by a laborious\napprenticeship for enrolment among the ruling few. If we read the\nPlatonic Gorgias, we shall see that this is the same strain in which\nP\u00f4lus and Kallikl\u00eas address Sokrates, when they invite him to exchange\nphilosophy for rhetoric, and to qualify himself for active political\nlife. \"Unless you acquire these accomplishments, you will be helpless\nand defenceless against injury and insult from others: while, if you\nacquire them, you will raise yourself to political influence, and will\nexercise power over others, thus obtaining the fullest measure of\nenjoyment which life affords: see the splendid position to which the\nMacedonian usurper Archelaus has recently exalted himself.[156]\nPhilosophy is useful, when studied in youth for a short time as\npreface to professional and political apprenticeship: but if a man\nperseveres in it and makes it the occupation of life, he will not only\nbe useless to others, but unable to protect himself; he will be\nexposed to suffer any injustice which the well-trained and powerful\nmen may put upon him.\" To these exhortations of P\u00f4lus and Kallikl\u00eas\nSokrates replies by admitting their case as true matter of fact. \"I\nknow that I am exposed to such insults and injuries: but my life is\njust and innocent. If I suffer, I shall suffer wrong: and those who do\nthe wrong will thereby inflict upon themselves a greater mischief than\nthey inflict upon me. Doing wrong is worse for the agent than\nsuffering wrong.\"[157]\n\n[Footnote 156: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 466-470-486.]\n\n[Footnote 157: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 508-509-521-527 C. [Greek: kai\\\ne)/aso/n tina sou= kataphron\u00ea=sai \u00f4(s a)no\u00ea/tou, kai\\ prop\u00ealaki/sai\ne)a\\n bou/l\u00eatai, kai\\ nai\\ ma\\ Di/a su/ ge thar)r(\u00f4=n pata/xai t\u00ea\\n\na)/timon tau/t\u00ean pl\u00eag\u00ea/n; ou)de\\n ga\\r deino\\n pei/sei, e)a\\n t\u00f4=|\no)/nti \u00ea(=|s kalo\\s ka)gatho/s, a)sk\u00f4=n a)ret\u00ea/n.]]\n\n[Side-note: Xenophontic Sokrates talking to Aristippus--Kallikes in\nPlatonic Gorgias.]\n\nThere is indeed this difference between the Xenophontic Sokrates in\nhis address to Aristippus, and the Platonic Kallikl\u00eas in his\nexhortation to Sokrates: That whereas Kallikl\u00eas proclaims and even\nvindicates it as natural justice and right, that the strong should\ngratify their desires by oppressing and despoiling the weak--the\nXenophontic Sokrates merely asserts such oppression as an actual fact,\nnotorious and undeniable,[158] without either approving or blaming it.\nPlato, constructing an imaginary conversation with the purpose that\nSokrates shall be victorious, contrives intentionally and with\ndramatic consistency that the argument of Kallikl\u00eas shall be advanced\nin terms so invidious and revolting that no one else would be bold\nenough to speak it out:[159] which contrivance was the more necessary,\nas Sokrates is made not only to disparage the poets, rhetors, and most\nillustrious statesmen of historical Athens, but to sustain a thesis in\nwhich he admits himself to stand alone, opposed to aristocrats as well\nas democrats.[160] Yet though there is this material difference in the\nmanner of handling, the plan of life which the Xenophontic Sokrates\nurges upon Aristippus, and the grounds upon which he enforces it, are\nreally the same as those which Kallikl\u00eas in the Platonic Gorgias urges\nupon Sokrates. \"Labour to qualify yourself for active political\npower\"--is the lesson addressed in the one case to a wealthy man who\npassed his life in ease and indulgence, in the other case to a poor\nman who devoted himself to speculative debate on general questions,\nand to cross-examination of every one who would listen and answer. The\nman of indulgence, and the man of speculation,[161] were both of them\nequally destitute of those active energies which were necessary to\nconfer power over others, or even security against oppression by\nothers.\n\n[Footnote 158: If we read the conversation alleged by Thucydides (v.\n94-105-112) to have taken place between the Athenian generals and the\nexecutive council of Melos, just before the siege of that island by\nthe Athenians, we shall see that this same language is held by the\nAthenians. \"You, the Melians, being much weaker, must submit to us who\nare much stronger; this is the universal law and necessity of nature,\nwhich we are not the first to introduce, but only follow out, as\nothers have done before us, and will do after us. Submit--or it will\nbe worse for you. No middle course, or neutrality, is open to you.\"]\n\n[Footnote 159: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 482-487-492.]\n\n[Footnote 160: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 472-521.]\n\n[Footnote 161: If we read the treatise of Plutarch, [Greek: Peri\\\nSt\u00f4i/k\u00f4n e)nanti\u00f4ma/t\u00f4n] (c. 2-3, p. 1033 C-D), we shall see that the\nStoic writers, Zeno, Kleanthes, Chrysippus, Diogenes, Antipater, all\nof them earnestly recommended a life of active citizenship and\nlaborious political duty, as incumbent upon philosophers not less than\nupon others; and that they treated with contempt a life of literary\nleisure and speculation. Chrysippus explicitly declared [Greek:\nou)de\\n diaphe/rein to\\n scholastiko\\n bi/on tou= \u00ea(donikou=] _i. e._\nthat the speculative philosopher who kept aloof from political\nactivity, was in substance a follower of Epikurus. Tacitus holds much\nthe same language (Hist. iv. 5) when he says about Helvidius\nPriscus:--\"ingenium illustre altioribus studiis juvenis admodum dedit:\nnon, ut plerique, ut nomine magnifico segne otium velaret, sed quo\nconstantior adversus fortuita rempublicam capesseret,\" &c.\n\nThe contradiction which Plutarch notes is, that these very Stoic\nphilosophers (Chrysippus and the others) who affected to despise all\nmodes of life except active civic duty--were themselves, all, men of\nliterary leisure, spending their lives away from their native cities,\nin writing and talking philosophy. The same might have been said about\nSokrates and Plato (except as to leaving their native cities), both of\nwhom incurred the same reproach for inactivity as Sokrates here\naddresses to Aristippus.]\n\n[Side-note: Language held by Aristippus--his scheme of life.]\n\nIn the Xenophontic dialogue, Aristippus replies to Sokrates that the\napprenticeship enjoined upon him is too laborious, and that the\nexercise of power, itself laborious, has no charm for him. He desires\na middle course, neither to oppress nor to be oppressed: neither to\ncommand, nor to be commanded--like Otanes among the seven Persian\nconspirators.[162] He keeps clear of political obligation, and seeks\nto follow, as much as he can, his own individual judgment. Though\nSokrates, in the Xenophontic dialogue, is made to declare this middle\ncourse impossible, yet it is substantially the same as what the\nPlatonic Sokrates in the Gorgias aspires to:--moreover the same as\nwhat the real Sokrates at Athens both pursued as far as he could, and\ndeclared to be the only course consistent with his security.[163] The\nPlatonic Sokrates in the Gorgias declares emphatically that no man can\nhope to take active part in the government of a country, unless he be\nheartily identified in spirit with the ethical and political system of\nthe country: unless he not merely professes, but actually and\nsincerely shares, the creed, doctrines, tastes, and modes of\nappreciation prevalent among the citizens.[164] Whoever is deficient\nin this indispensable condition, must be content \"to mind his own\nbusiness and to abstain from active meddling with public affairs\".\nThis is the course which the Platonic Sokrates claims both for himself\nand for the philosopher generally:[165] it is also the course which\nAristippus chooses for himself, under the different title of a middle\nway between the extortion of the ruler and the suffering of the\nsubordinate. And the argument of Sokrates that no middle way is\npossible--far from refuting Aristippus (as Xenophon says that it\ndid)[166] is founded upon an incorrect assumption: had it been\ncorrect, neither literature nor philosophy could have been developed.\n\n[Footnote 162: Herodot. iii. 80-83.]\n\n[Footnote 163: Plato, Apol. So. p. 32 A. [Greek: i)di\u00f4teu/ein, a)lla\\\nm\u00ea\\ d\u00eamosieu/ein].]\n\n[Footnote 164: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 510-513. [Greek: Ti/s ou)=n pot'\ne)sti\\ te/chn\u00ea t\u00ea=s paraskeu\u00ea=s tou= m\u00eade\\n a)dikei=sthai \u00ea)\\ \u00f4(s\no)li/gista? ske/psai ei)/ soi dokei= \u00ea(=|per e)moi/. e)moi\\ me\\n ga\\r\ndokei= \u00ea(/de; \u00ea)\\ au)to\\n a)/rchein dei=n e)n t\u00ea=| po/lei \u00ea)\\ kai\\\nturannei=n, \u00ea)\\ t\u00ea=s u(parchou/s\u00eas politei/as e(tai=ron ei)=nai].\n(This is exactly the language which Sokrates holds to Aristippus,\nXenoph. Memor. ii. 1, 12.)\n\n[Greek: o(\\s a)\\n o(mo\u00ea/th\u00eas \u00f4)\\n, tau)ta pse/g\u00f4n kai\\ e)pain\u00f4=n,\ne)the/l\u00ea| a)/rchesthai kai\\ u(pokei=sthai t\u00f4=| a)/rchonti--eu)thu\\s\ne)k ne/ou e)thi/zein au(to\\n toi=s au)toi=s chai/rein kai\\\na)/chthesthai t\u00f4=| despo/t\u00ea|] (510 D). [Greek: ou) ga\\r mim\u00eat\u00ea\\n dei=\nei)=nai a)ll' au)tophu\u00f4=s o(/moion tou/tois] (513 B).]\n\n[Footnote 165: Plato, Gorgias, p. 526 C-D. (Compare Republic, vi. p.\n496 D.) [Greek: a)ndro\\s i)di\u00f4/tou \u00ea)\\ a)/llou tino/s, ma/lista me/n,\ne)/g\u00f4ge/ ph\u00eami, \u00f4)= Kalli/kleis, philoso/phou ta\\ au(tou= pra/xantos\nkai\\ ou) polupragmon\u00ea/santos e)n t\u00f4=| bi/\u00f4|--kai\\ d\u00ea\\ kai\\ se\\\na)ntiparakal\u00f4=] (Sokrates to Kallikl\u00eas) [Greek: e)pi\\ tou=ton to\\n\nbi/on]. Upon these words Routh remarks: \"Respicitur inter h\u00e6c verba ad\nCalliclis orationem, qu\u00e2 rerum civilium tractatio et [Greek:\npolupragmosu/n\u00ea] Socrati persuadentur,\"--which is the same invitation\nas the Xenophontic Sokrates addresses to Aristippus. Again, in Plat.\nRepubl. viii. pp. 549 C, 550 A, we read, that corruption of the\nvirtuous character begins by invitations to the shy youth to depart\nfrom the quiet plan of life followed by a virtuous father (who is\n[Greek: ta\\ e(autou= pra/ttei]) and to enter on a career of active\npolitical ambition. The youth is induced, by instigation of his mother\nand relatives without, to pass from [Greek: a)pragmosu/n\u00ea] to [Greek:\nphilopragmosu/n\u00ea], which is described as a change for the worse. Even\nin Xenophon (Memor. iii. 11, 16) Sokrates recognises and jests upon\nhis own [Greek: a)pragmosu/n\u00ea].]\n\n[Footnote 166: Xen. Mem. iii. 8, 1. Diogenes L. says (and it is\nprobable enough, from radical difference of character) that Xenophon\nwas adversely disposed to Aristippus. In respect to other persons\nalso, Xenophon puts invidious constructions (for which at any rate no\nground is shown) upon their purposes in questioning Sokrates: thus, in\nthe dialogue (i. 6) with the Sophist Antiphon, he says that Antiphon\nquestioned Sokrates in order to seduce him away from his companions\n(Mem. i. 6, 1).]\n\n[Side-note: Diversified conversations of Sokrates, according to the\ncharacter of the hearer.]\n\nThe real Sokrates, since he talked incessantly and with every one,\nmust of course have known how to diversify his conversation and adapt\nit to each listener. Xenophon not only attests this generally,[167]\nbut has preserved the proofs of it in his Memorabilia--real\nconversations, reported though doubtless dressed up by himself. The\nconversations which he has preserved relate chiefly to piety and to\nthe duties and proceedings of active life: and to the necessity of\ncontrouling the appetites: these he selected partly because they\nsuited his proclaimed purpose of replying to the topics of indictment,\npartly because they were in harmony with his own _id\u00e9al_. Xenophon was\na man of action, resolute in mind and vigorous in body, performing\nwith credit the duties of the general as well as of the soldier. His\nheroes were men like Cyrus, Agesilaus, Ischomachus--warriors,\nhorsemen, hunters, husbandmen, always engaged in active competition\nfor power, glory, or profit, and never shrinking from danger, fatigue,\nor privation. For a life of easy and unambitious indulgence, even\nthough accompanied by mental and speculative activity--\"homines ignav\u00e2\noper\u00e2 et philosophi\u00e2 sententi\u00e2\"--he had no respect. It was on this\nside that the character of Aristippus certainly seemed to be, and\nprobably really was, the most defective. Sokrates employed the\narguments the most likely to call forth within him habits of action--to\nrender him [Greek: praktik\u00f4/teron].[168] In talking with the\npresumptuous youth Glaukon, and with the diffident Charmides,[169]\nSokrates used language adapted to correct the respective infirmities\nof each. In addressing Kritias and Alkibiades, he would consider it\nnecessary not only to inculcate self-denial as to appetite, but to\nrepress an exorbitance of ambition.[170] But in dealing with\nAristippus, while insisting upon command of appetite and acquirement\nof active energy, he at the same time endeavours to kindle ambition,\nand the love of command: he even goes so far as to deny the\npossibility of a middle course, and to maintain (what Kritias and\nAlkibiades[171] would have cordially approved) that there was no\nalternative open, except between the position of the oppressive\ngovernors and that of the suffering subjects. Addressed to Aristippus,\nthese topics were likely to thrust forcibly upon his attention the\ndanger of continued indulgences during the earlier years of life, and\nthe necessity, in view to his own future security, for training in\nhabits of vigour, courage, self-command, endurance.\n\n[Footnote 167: Xen. Mem. iv. 1, 2-3.]\n\n[Footnote 168: Xenoph. Memor. iv. 5, 1. [Greek: \u00f4(s de\\ kai\\\npraktik\u00f4te/rous e)poi/ei tou\\s suno/ntas au)t\u00f4=|, nu=n au)= tou=to\nle/x\u00f4.]]\n\n[Footnote 169: Xenoph. Mem. iii. capp. 6 and 7.]\n\n[Footnote 170: Xenoph. Memor. i. 2, 15-18-24. Respecting the different\ntone and arguments employed by Sokrates, in his conversations with\ndifferent persons, see a good passage in the Rhetor Aristeides, Orat.\nxlvi. [Greek: U(pe\\r t\u00f4=n tetta/r\u00f4n], p. 161, Dindorf.]\n\n[Footnote 171: We see from the first two chapters of the Memorabilia\nof Xenophon (as well as from the subsequent intimation of \u00c6schines, in\nthe oration against Timarchus, p. 173) how much stress was laid by the\naccusers of Sokrates on the fact that he had educated Kritias and\nAlkibiades; and how the accusers alleged that his teaching tended to\nencourage the like exorbitant aspirations in others, dangerous to\nestablished authority, traditional, legal, parental, divine. I do not\ndoubt (what Xenophon affirms) that Sokrates, when he conversed with\nKritias and Alkibiades, held a very opposite language. But it was\notherwise when he talked with men of ease and indulgence without\nambition, such as Aristippus. If Mel\u00eatus and Anytus could have put in\nevidence the conversation of Sokrates with Aristippus, many points of\nit would have strengthened their case against Sokrates before the\nDikasts. We read in Xenophon (Mem. i. 2, 58) how the point was made to\ntell, that Sokrates often cited and commented on the passage of the\nIliad (ii. 188) in which the Grecian chiefs, retiring from the agora\nto their ships, are described as being respectfully addressed by\nOdysseus--while the common soldiers are scolded and beaten by him, for\nthe very same conduct: the relation which Sokrates here dwells on as\nsubsisting between [Greek: oi( a)rchikoi\\] and [Greek: oi(\na)rcho/menoi], would favour the like colouring.]\n\n[Side-note: Conversations between Sokrates and Aristippus about the\nGood and Beautiful.]\n\nXenophon notices briefly two other colloquies between Sokrates and\nAristippus. The latter asked Sokrates, \"Do you know anything good?\" in\norder (says Xenophon) that if Sokrates answered in the affirmative and\ngave as examples, health, wealth, strength, courage, bread, &c., he\n(Aristippus) might show circumstances in which this same particular\nwas evil; and might thus catch Sokrates in a contradiction, as\nSokrates had caught him before.[172] But Sokrates (says Xenophon) far\nfrom seeking to fence with the question, retorted it in such a way as\nto baffle the questioner, and at the same time to improve and instruct\nthe by-standers.[173] \"Do you ask me if I know anything good for a\nfever?--No. Or for ophthalmic distemper?-No. Or for hunger?--No. Oh!\nthen, if you mean to ask me, whether I know anything good, which is\ngood for nothing--I reply that I neither know any such thing, nor care\nto know it.\"\n\n[Footnote 172: Xenoph. Memor. iii. 8, 1. Both Xenophon and some of his\ncommentators censure this as a captious string of questions put by\nAristippus--'captiosas Aristippi qu\u00e6stiunculas\". Such a criticism is\npreposterous, when we recollect that Sokrates was continually\nexamining and questioning others in the same manner. See in particular\nhis cross-examination of Euthyd\u00eamus, reported by Xenophon, Memor. iv.\n2; and many others like it, both in Xenophon and in Plato.]\n\n[Footnote 173: Xenoph. Memor. iii. 8, 1. [Greek: boulo/menos tou\\s\nsuno/ntas \u00f4(phelei=n.]]\n\nAgain, on another occasion Aristippus asked him \"Do you know anything\nbeautiful?--Yes; many things.--Are they all like to each other?--No;\nthey are as unlike as possible to each other.--How then (continues\nAristippus) can that which is unlike to the beautiful, be itself\nbeautiful?--Easily enough (replies Sokrates); one man is beautiful for\nrunning; another man, altogether unlike him, is beautiful for\nwrestling. A shield which is beautiful for protecting your body, is\naltogether unlike to a javelin, which is beautiful for being swiftly\nand forcibly hurled.--Your answer (rejoined Aristippus) is exactly the\nsame as it was when I asked you whether you knew anything\ngood.--Certainly (replies Sokrates). Do you imagine, that the Good is one\nthing, and the Beautiful another? Do you not know that all things are\ngood and beautiful in relation to the same purpose? Virtue is not good\nin relation to one purpose, and beautiful in relation to another. Men\nare called both good and beautiful in reference to the same ends: the\nbodies of men, in like manner: and all things which men use, are\nconsidered both good and beautiful, in consideration of their serving\ntheir ends well.--Then (says Aristippus) a basket for carrying dung is\nbeautiful?--To be sure (replied Sokrates), and a golden shield is\nugly; if the former be well made for doing its work, and the latter\nbadly.--Do you then assert (asked Aristippus) that the same things are\nbeautiful and ugly?--Assuredly (replied Sokrates); and the same things\nare both good and evil. That which is good for hunger, is often bad\nfor a fever: that which is good for a fever, is often bad for hunger.\nWhat is beautiful for running is often ugly for wrestling--and _vice\nvers\u00e2_. All things are good and beautiful, in relation to the ends\nwhich they serve well: all things are evil and ugly, in relation to\nthe ends which they serve badly.\"[174]\n\n[Footnote 174: Xenoph. Memor. iii. 8, 1-9.]\n\n[Side-note: Remarks on the conversation--Theory of Good.]\n\nThese last cited colloquies also, between Sokrates and Aristippus, are\namong the most memorable remains of Grecian philosophy: belonging to\none of the years preceding 399 B.C., in which last year Sokrates\nperished. Here (as in the former dialogue) the doctrine is distinctly\nenunciated by Sokrates--That Good and Evil--Beautiful (or Honourable)\nand Ugly (or Dishonourable--Base)--have no intelligible meaning except\nin relation to human happiness and security. Good or Evil Absolute\n(_i.e._, apart from such relation) is denied to exist. The theory of\nAbsolute Good (a theory traceable to the Parmenidean doctrines, and\nadopted from them by Eukleides) becomes first known to us as\nelaborated by Plato. Even in his dialogues it is neither always nor\nexclusively advocated, but is often modified by, and sometimes even\nexchanged for, the eud\u00e6monistic or relative theory.\n\n[Side-note: Good is relative to human beings and wants, in the view of\nSokrates.]\n\nSokrates declares very explicitly, in his conversation with\nAristippus, what _he_ means by the Good and the Beautiful: and when\ntherefore in the name of the Good and the Beautiful, he protests\nagainst an uncontrolled devotion to the pleasures of sense (as in one\nof the Xenophontic dialogues with Euthydemus[175]), what he means is,\nthat a man by such intemperance ruins his prospects of future\nhappiness, and his best means of being useful both to himself and\nothers. Whether Aristippus first learnt from Sokrates the relative\ntheory of the Good and the Beautiful, or had already embraced it\nbefore, we cannot say. Some of his questions, as reported in Xenophon,\nwould lead us to suspect that it took him by surprise: just as we\nfind, in the Protagoras of Plato that a theory substantially the same,\nthough in different words, is proposed by the Platonic Sokrates to the\nSophist Protagoras: who at first repudiates it, but is compelled\nultimately to admit it by the elaborate dialectic of Sokrates.[176] If\nAristippus did not learn the theory from Sokrates, he was at any rate\nfortified in it by the authority of Sokrates; to whose doctrine, in\nthis respect, he adhered more closely than Plato.\n\n[Footnote 175: Xenoph. Memor. iv. 5.\n\nSokrates exhorts those with whom he converses to be sparing in\nindulgences, and to cultivate self-command and fortitude as well as\nbodily energy and activity. The reason upon which these exhortations\nare founded is eud\u00e6monistic: that a person will thereby escape or be\nable to confront serious dangers--and will obtain for himself\nultimately greater pleasures than those which he foregoes (Memor. i.\n6, 8; ii. 1, 31-33; iii. 12, 2-5). [Greek: Tou= de\\ m\u00ea\\ douleu/ein\ngastri\\ m\u00eade\\ u(/pn\u00f4| kai\\ lagnei/a| oi)/ei ti a)/llo ai)ti\u00f4/teron\nei)=nai, \u00ea)\\ to\\ e(/tera e)/chein tou/t\u00f4n \u00ea(di/\u00f4, a(\\ ou) mo/non e)n\nchrei/a| o)/nta eu)phrai/nei, a)lla\\ kai\\ e)/lpidas pare/chonta\n\u00f4)phel\u00ea/sein a)ei/?] See also Memor. ii. 4, ii. 10, 4, about the\nimportance of acquiring and cultivating friends, because a good friend\nis the most useful and valuable of all possessions. Sokrates, like\nAristippus, adopts the prudential view of life, and not the\ntranscendental; recommending sobriety and virtue on the ground of\npleasures secured and pains averted. We find Plutarch, in his very\nbitter attacks on Epikurus, reasoning on the Hedonistic basis, and\nprofessing to prove that Epikurus discarded pleasures more and greater\nfor the sake of obtaining pleasures fewer and less. See Plutarch, Non\nposse suaviter vivi secundum Epicurum, pp. 1096-1099.]\n\n[Footnote 176: Plato, Protagoras, pp. 351-361.]\n\n[Side-note: Aristippus adhered to the doctrine of Sokrates.]\n\nAristippus is recognised by Aristotle[177] in two characters: both as\na Sophist, and as a companion of Sokrates and Plato. Moreover it is\nremarkable that the doctrine, in reference to which Aristotle cites\nhim as one among the Sophists, is a doctrine unquestionably\nSokratic--contempt of geometrical science as useless, and as having no\nbearing on the good or evil of life.[178] Herein also Aristippus followed\nSokrates, while Plato departed from him.\n\n[Footnote 177: Aristot. Rhetoric. ii. 24; Metaphysic. B. 996, a. 32.]\n\n[Footnote 178: Xenophon. Memor. iv. 7, 2.]\n\n[Side-note: Life and dicta of Aristippus--His type of character.]\n\nIn estimating the character of Aristippus, I have brought into\nparticular notice the dialogues reported by Xenophon, because the\nXenophontic statements, with those of Aristotle, are the only\ncontemporary evidence (for Plato only names him once to say that he\nwas not present at the death of Sokrates, and was reported to be in\n\u00c6gina). The other statements respecting Aristippus, preserved by\nDiogenes and others, not only come from later authorities, but give us\nhardly any facts; though they ascribe to him a great many sayings and\nrepartees, adapted to a peculiar type of character. That type of\ncharacter, together with an imperfect notion of his doctrines, is all\nthat we can make out. Though Aristippus did not follow the\nrecommendation of Sokrates, to labour and qualify himself for a ruler,\nyet both the advice of Sokrates, to reflect and prepare himself for\nthe anxieties and perils of the future--and the spectacle of\nself-sufficing independence which the character of Sokrates\nafforded--were probably highly useful to him. Such advice being adverse\nto the natural tendencies of his mind, impressed upon him forcibly those\npoints of the case which he was most likely to forget: and contributed\nto form in him that habit of self-command which is a marked feature in\nhis character. He wished (such are the words ascribed to him by\nXenophon) to pass through life as easily and agreeably as possible.\nEase comes before pleasure: but his plan of life was to obtain as much\npleasure as he could, consistent with ease, or without difficulty and\ndanger. He actually realised, as far as our means of knowledge extend,\nthat middle path of life which Sokrates declared to be impracticable.\n\n[Side-note: Aristippus acted conformably to the advice of Sokrates.]\n\nMuch of the advice given by Sokrates, Aristippus appears to have\nfollowed, though not from the reasons which Sokrates puts forward for\ngiving it. When Sokrates reminds him that men liable to be tempted and\nensnared by the love of good eating, were unfit to command--when he\nanimadverts on the insanity of the passionate lover, who exposed\nhimself to the extremity of danger for the purpose of possessing a\nmarried woman, while there were such abundant means of gratifying the\nsexual appetite without any difficulty or danger whatever[179]--to all\nthis Aristippus assents: and what we read about his life is in perfect\nconformity therewith. Reason and prudence supply ample motives for\nfollowing such advice, whether a man be animated with the love of\ncommand or not. So again, when Sokrates impresses upon Aristippus that\nthe Good and the Beautiful were the same, being relative only to human\nwants or satisfaction--and that nothing was either good or beautiful,\nexcept in so far as it tended to confer relief, security, or\nenjoyment--this lesson too Aristippus laid to heart, and applied in a\nway suitable to his own peculiar dispositions and capacities.\n\n[Footnote 179: Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 5. [Greek: kai\\ t\u00ealikou/t\u00f4n me\\n\ne)pikeime/n\u00f4n t\u00f4=| moicheu/onti kak\u00f4=n te kai\\ ai)schr\u00f4=n, o)/nt\u00f4n de\\\npoll\u00f4=n t\u00f4=n a)poluso/nt\u00f4n t\u00ea=s t\u00f4=n a)phrodisi\u00f4=n e)pithumi/as e)n\na)dei/a|, o(/m\u00f4s ei)s ta\\ e)piki/nduna phe/resthai, a)=r' ou)k \u00ea)/d\u00ea\ntou=to panta/pasi kakodaimon\u00f4=nto/s e)stin? E)/moige dokei=, e)/ph\u00ea\n(A)ri/stippos).]]\n\n[Side-note: Self-mastery and independence--the great aspiration of\nAristippus.]\n\nThe type of character represented by Aristippus is the man who enjoys\nwhat the present affords, so far as can be done without incurring\nfuture mischief, or provoking the enmity of others--but who will on no\naccount enslave himself to any enjoyment; who always maintains his own\nself-mastery and independence and who has prudence and intelligence\nenabling him to regulate each separate enjoyment so as not to incur\npreponderant evil in future.[180] This self-mastery and independence\nis in point of fact the capital aspiration of Aristippus, hardly less\nthan of Antisthenes and Diogenes. He is competent to deal suitably\nwith all varieties of persons, places, and situations, and to make the\nbest of each--[Greek: Ou(= ga\\r toiou/t\u00f4n dei=, touou=tos ei)=m'\ne)g\u00f4/]:[181] but he accepts what the situation presents, without\nyearning or struggling for that which it cannot present.[182] He\nenjoys the society both of the Syracusan despot Dionysius, and of the\nHet\u00e6ra Lais; but he will not make himself subservient either to one or\nto the other: he conceives himself able to afford, to both, as much\nsatisfaction as he receives.[183] His enjoyments are not enhanced by\nthe idea that others are excluded from the like enjoyment, and that he\nis a superior, privileged man: he has no jealousy or antipathy, no\npassion for triumphing over rivals, no demand for envy or admiration\nfrom spectators. Among the Het\u00e6r\u00e6 in Greece were included all the most\nengaging and accomplished women--for in Grecian matrimony, it was\nconsidered becoming and advantageous that the bride should be young\nand ignorant, and that as a wife she should neither see nor know any\nthing beyond the administration of her own feminine apartments and\nhousehold.[184] Aristippus attached himself to those Het\u00e6r\u00e6 who\npleased him; declaring that the charm of their society was in no way\nlessened by the knowledge that others enjoyed it also, and that he\ncould claim no exclusive privilege.[185] His patience and mildness in\nargument is much commended. The main lesson which he had learnt from\nphilosophy (he said), was self-appreciation--to behave himself with\nconfidence in every man's society: even if all laws were abrogated,\nthe philosopher would still, without any law, live in the same way as\nhe now did.[186] His confidence remained unshaken, when seized as a\ncaptive in Asia by order of the Persian satrap Artaphernes: all that\nhe desired was, to be taken before the satrap himself.[187] Not to\nrenounce pleasure, but to enjoy pleasure moderately and to keep\ndesires under controul,--was in his judgment the true policy of life.\nBut he was not solicitous to grasp enjoyment beyond what was easily\nattainable, nor to accumulate wealth or power which did not yield\npositive result.[188] While Sokrates recommended, and Antisthenes\npractised, the precaution of deadening the sexual appetite by\napproaching no women except such as were ugly and\nrepulsive,[189]--while Xenophon in the Cyrop\u00e6dia,[190] working out the\nSokratic idea of the dangerous fascination of beauty, represents Cyrus\nas refusing to see the captive Pantheia, and depicts the too confident\nAraspes (who treats such precaution as exaggerated timidity, and fully\ntrusts his own self-possession), when appointed to the duty of guarding\nher, as absorbed against his will in a passion which makes him forget all\nreason and duty--Aristippus has sufficient self-mastery to visit the\nmost seductive Het\u00e6r\u00e6 without being drawn into ruinous extravagance or\nhumiliating subjugation. We may doubt whether he ever felt, even for\nLais, a more passionate sentiment than Plato in his Epigram expresses\ntowards the Kolophonian Het\u00e6ra Archeanassa.\n\n[Footnote 180: Diog. L. ii. 67. [Greek: ou)/t\u00f4s \u00ea)=n kai\\ e(le/sthai\nkai\\ kataphron\u00ea=sai polu\\s.]]\n\n[Footnote 181: Diog. L. ii. 66. [Greek: \u00ea)=n de\\ i(kano\\s\na(rmo/sasthai kai\\ to/p\u00f4| kai\\ chro/n\u00f4| kai\\ pros\u00f4/p\u00f4|, kai\\ pa=san\nperi/stasin a(rmoni/\u00f4s u(pokri/nasthai; dio\\ kai\\ para\\ Dionusi/\u00f4|\nt\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n \u00eau)doki/mei ma=llon, a)ei\\ to\\ prospeso\\n eu)=\ndiatithe/menos; a)pe/laue me\\n ga\\r \u00ea(don\u00ea=s t\u00f4=n paro/nt\u00f4n, ou)k\ne)th\u00ea/ra de\\ po/n\u00f4| t\u00ea\\n a)po/lausin t\u00f4=n ou) paro/nt\u00f4n].\n\nHorat. Epistol. i. 17, 23-24:--\n\n\"Omnis Aristippum decuit color et status et res,\nTentantem majora, fer\u00e8 pr\u00e6sentibus \u00e6quum.\"]\n\n[Footnote 182: Sophokles, Philokt\u00eates, 1049 (the words of Odysseus).]\n\n[Footnote 183: Diog. L. ii. 75. [Greek: e)/chr\u00eato kai\\ Lai+/di t\u00ea=|\ne(tai/ra|; pro\\s ou)=n tou\\s memphome/nous e)/ph\u00ea, E)/ch\u00f4 Lai+/da,\na)ll' ou)k e)/chomai; e)pei\\ to\\ kratei=n kai\\ m\u00ea\\ \u00ea(tta=sthai\n\u00ea(don\u00f4=n, a)/riston--ou) to\\ m\u00ea\\ chr\u00ea=sthai]. ii. 77, [Greek:\nDionusi/ou pote\\ e)rome/nou, e)pi\\ ti/ \u00ea(/koi, e)/ph\u00ea, e)pi\\ t\u00f4=|\nmetad\u00f4/sein \u00f4(=n e)/choi, kai\\ metal\u00ea/psesthai \u00f4(=n m\u00ea\\ e)/choi].\n\nLucian introduces [Greek: A)ret\u00ea\\] and [Greek: Truph\u00ea\\] as litigating\nbefore [Greek: Di/k\u00ea] for the possession of Aristippus: the litigation\nis left undecided (Bis Accusatus, c. 13-23).]\n\n[Footnote 184 Xenophon, Oeconomic. iii. 13, vii. 6, Ischomachus says\nto Sokrates about his wife, [Greek: Kai\\ ti/ a)\\n e)pistame/n\u00ean\nau)t\u00ea\\n pare/labon, \u00ea(\\ e)/t\u00ea me\\n ou)/p\u00f4 pentekai/deka gegonui=a\n\u00ea)=lthe pro\\s e)me/, to\\n d' e)mprosthen _chro/non e)/z\u00ea u(po\\ poll\u00ea=s\ne)pimelei/as, o(/p\u00f4s \u00f4(s e)/lachista me\\n o)/psoito, e)la/chista d'\na)kou/soito, e)la/chista de\\ e)/roito?_]]\n\n[Footnote 185: Diog.** L. ii. 74. On this point his opinion coincided\nwith that of Diogenes, and of the Stoics Zeno and Chrysippus (D. L.\nvii. 131), who maintained, that among the wise wives ought to be in\ncommon, and that all marital jealousy ought to be discarded. [Greek:\nA)re/skei d' au)toi=s kai\\ koina\\s ei)=nai ta\\s gunai=kas dei=n para\\\ntoi=s sophoi=s \u00f4(/ste to\\n e)ntucho/nta t\u00ea=| e)ntuchou/s\u00ea| chr\u00ea=sthai,\nkatha/ ph\u00easi Z\u00ea/n\u00f4n e)n t\u00ea=| Politei/a| kai\\ Chru/sippos e)n t\u00f4=|\nperi\\ Politei/as, a)lla/ te Dioge/n\u00eas o( Kuniko\\s kai\\ Pla/t\u00f4n;\npa/ntas te pai=das e)pi/s\u00eas ste/rxomen pate/r\u00f4n tro/pon, kai\\ \u00ea( e)pi\\\nmoichei/a| z\u00ealotupi/a periaireth\u00ea/setai]. Compare Sextus Emp. Pyrrh.\nH. iii. 205.]\n\n[Footnote 186: Diog. L. ii. 68. The like reply is ascribed to\nAristotle. Diog. L. v. 20; Plutarch, De Profect. in Virtut. p. 80 D.]\n\n[Footnote 187: Diog. L. ii. 79.]\n\n[Footnote 188: Diog. L. ii. 72-74.]\n\n[Footnote 189: Xenoph. Memor. i. 3, 11-14; Symposion, iv. 38; Diog. L.\nvi. 3. [Greek: (A)ntisthe/n\u00eas) e)/lege suneche\\s--Manei/\u00ean ma=llon \u00ea)\\\n\u00ea(sthei/\u00ean--kai\\--chr\u00ea\\ toiau/tais pl\u00easia/zein gunaixi/n, ai(\\ cha/rin\nei)/sontai.]]\n\n[Footnote 190: Xenoph. Cyrop\u00e6d. v. 1, 2-18.]\n\n[Side-note: Aristippus compared with Antisthenes and Diogenes--Points\nof agreement and disagreement between them.]\n\nAristippus is thus remarkable, like the Cynics Antisthenes and\nDiogenes, not merely for certain theoretical doctrines, but also for\nacting out a certain plan of life.[191] We know little or nothing of\nthe real life of Aristippus, except what appears in Xenophon. The\nbiography of him (as of the Cynic Diogenes) given by Diogenes\nLaertius, consists of little more than a string of anecdotes, mostly\nsayings, calculated to illustrate a certain type of character.[192]\nSome of these are set down by those who approved the type, and who\ntherefore place it in a favourable point of view--others by those who\ndisapprove it and give the opposite colour.\n\n[Footnote 191: Sextus Empiricus and others describe this by the Greek\nword [Greek: a)g\u00f4g\u00ea/] (Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. i. 150). Plato's beautiful\nepigram upon Archeanassa is given by Diogenes L. iii. 31. Compare this\nwith the remark of Aristippus--Plutarch, Amatorius, p. 750 E.\n\nThat the society of these fascinating Het\u00e6r\u00e6 was dangerous, and\nexhaustive to the purses of those who sought it, may be seen from the\nexpensive manner of life of Theodot\u00ea, described in Xenophon, Mem. iii.\n11, 4.\n\nThe amorous impulses or fancies of Plato were censured by Dik\u00e6archus.\nSee Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iv. 34, 71, with Davies's note.]\n\n[Footnote 192: This is justly remarked by Wendt in his instructive\nDissertation, De Philosophi\u00e2 Cyrenaic\u00e2, p. 8 (G\u00f6ttingen, 1841).]\n\nWe can understand and compare the different types of character\nrepresented by Antisthenes or Diogenes, and by Aristippus: but we have\nlittle knowledge of the real facts of their lives. The two types, each\nmanifesting that marked individuality which belongs to the Sokratic\nband, though in many respects strongly contrasted, have also some\npoints of agreement. Both Aristippus and Diogenes are bent on\nindividual freedom and independence of character: both of them stand\nupon their own appreciation of life and its phenomena: both of them\nare impatient of that servitude to the opinions and antipathies of\nothers, which induces a man to struggle for objects, not because they\nafford him satisfaction, but because others envy him for possessing\nthem--and to keep off evils, not because he himself feels them as\nsuch, but because others pity or despise him for being subject to\nthem; both of them are exempt from the competitive and ambitious\nfeelings, from the thirst after privilege and power, from the sense of\nsuperiority arising out of monopolised possession and exclusion of\nothers from partnership. Diogenes kept aloof from political life and\ncivil obligations as much as Aristippus; and would have pronounced (as\nAristippus replies to Sokrates in the Xenophontic dialogue) that the\ntask of ruling others, instead of being a prize to be coveted, was\nnothing better than an onerous and mortifying servitude,[193] not at\nall less onerous because a man took up the burthen of his own accord.\nThese points of agreement are real: but the points of disagreement are\nnot less real. Diogenes maintains his free individuality, and puts\nhimself out of the reach of human enmity, by clothing himself in\nimpenetrable armour: by attaining positive insensibility, as near as\nhuman life permits. This is with him not merely the acting out of a\nscheme of life, but also a matter of pride. He is proud of his ragged\ngarment and coarse[194] fare, as exalting him above others, and as\nconstituting him a pattern of endurance: and he indulges this\nsentiment by stinging and contemptuous censure of every one.\nAristippus has no similar vanity: he achieves his independence without\nso heavy a renunciation: he follows out his own plan of life, without\nsetting himself up as a pattern for others. But his plan is at the\nsame time more delicate; requiring greater skill and intelligence,\nmore of manifold sagacity, in the performer. Horace, who compares the\ntwo and gives the preference to Aristippus, remarks that Diogenes,\nthough professing to want nothing, was nevertheless as much dependent\nupon the bounty of those who supplied his wallet with provisions, as\nAristippus upon the favour of princes: and that Diogenes had only one\nfixed mode of proceeding, while Aristippus could master and turn to\naccount a great diversity of persons and situations--could endure\nhardship with patience and dignity, when it was inevitable, and enjoy\nthe opportunities of pleasure when they occurred. \"To Aristippus alone\nit is given to wear both fine garments and rags\" is a remark ascribed\nto Plato.[195] In truth, Aristippus possesses in eminent measure that\naccomplishment, the want of which Plato proclaims to be so misleading\nand mischievous--artistic skill in handling human affairs, throughout\nhis dealings with mankind.[196]\n\n[Footnote 193: It is this servitude of political life, making the\npolitician the slave of persons and circumstances around him, which\nHorace contrasts with the philosophical independence of Aristippus:--\n\nAc ne fort\u00e9 roges, quo me duce, quo lare tuter;\nNullius addictus jurare in verba magistri\nQuo me cunque rapit tempestas, deferor hospes.\nNunc agilis fio et mersor civilibus undis,\nVirtutis ver\u00e6 custos rigidusque satelles:\nNunc in Aristippi furtim pr\u00e6cepta relabor,\nEt mihi res, non me rebus, subjungere conor.\n(Epist. i. 1, 15.)\n\nSo also the Platonic Sokrates (The\u00e6t\u00eat. pp. 172-175) depicts forcibly\nthe cramped and fettered lives of rhetors and politicians; contrasting\nthem with the self-judgment and independence of speculative and\nphilosophical enquirers--[Greek: \u00f4(s oi)ke/tai pro\\s e)leuthe/rous\ntethra/phthai--o( me\\n t\u00f4=| o)/nti e)n e)leutheri/a| te kai\\ schol\u00ea=|\ntethramme/nos, o(\\n d\u00ea\\ philo/sophon kalei=s.]]\n\n[Footnote 194: Diog. L. ii. 36. [Greek: stre/psantos A)ntisthe/nous\nto\\ dier)r(\u00f4go\\s tou= tri/b\u00f4nos ei)s tou)mphane/s, O(r\u00f4= sou=, e)/ph\u00ea\n(S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas), dia\\ tou= tri/b\u00f4nos t\u00ea\\n kenodoxi/an.]]\n\n[Footnote 195: Horat. Epistol. i. 17, 13-24; Diog. L. vi. 46-56-66.\n\n\"Si pranderet olus patienter, regibus uti\nNollet Aristippus.\" \"Si sciret regibus uti,\nFastidiret olus, qui me notat.\" Utrius horum\nVerba probes et facta, doce: vel junior audi\nCur sit Aristippi potior sententia. Namque\nMordacem Cynicum sic eludebat, ut aiunt:\n\"Scurror ego ipse mihi, populo tu: rectius hoc et\nSplendidius mult\u00f2 est. Equus ut me portet, alat rex,\nOfficium facio: tu poscis vilia rerum,\nDante minor, quamvis fers te nullius egentem.\"\nOmnis Aristippum decuit color, et status, et res,\nTentantem majora, fer\u00e8 pr\u00e6sentibus \u00e6quum.\n\n(Compare Diog. L. ii. 102, vi. 58, where this anecdote is reported as\nof Plato instead of Aristippus.)\n\nHorace's view and scheme of life are exceedingly analogous to those of\nAristippus. Plutarch, Fragm. De Homero, p. 1190; De Fortun\u00e2 Alex. p.\n330 D. Diog. Laert. ii. 67. [Greek: dio/ pote Stra/t\u00f4na, oi( de\\\nPla/t\u00f4na, pro\\s au)to\\n ei)pei=n, Soi\\ mo/n\u00f4| de/dotai kai\\ chlani/da\nphorei=n kai\\ r(a/kos]. The remark cannot have been made by Straton,\nwho was not contemporary with Aristippus. Even Sokrates lived by the\nbounty of his rich friends, and indeed could have had no other means\nof supporting his wife and children; though he accepted only a portion\nof what they tendered to him, declining the remainder. See the remark\nof Aristippus, Diog. L. ii. 74.]\n\n[Footnote 196: Plato, Ph\u00e6don, p. 89 E. [Greek: o(/ti a)/neu te/chn\u00eas\nt\u00ea=s peri\\ ta)nthr\u00f4/peia o( toiou=tos chr\u00ea=sthai e)picheirei= toi=s\na)nthr\u00f4/pois.]]\n\n[Side-note: Attachment of Aristippus to ethics and\nphilosophy--contempt for other studies.]\n\nThat the scheme of life projected by Aristippus was very difficult\nrequiring great dexterity, prudence, and resolution, to execute it--we\nmay see plainly by the Xenophontic dialogue; wherein Sokrates\npronounces it to be all but impracticable. As far as we can judge, he\nsurmounted the difficulties of it: yet we do not know enough of his\nreal life to determine with accuracy what varieties of difficulties he\nexperienced. He followed the profession of a Sophist, receiving fees\nfor his teaching: and his attachment to philosophy (both as contrasted\nwith ignorance and as contrasted with other studies not philosophy)\nwas proclaimed in the most emphatic language. It was better (he said)\nto be a beggar, than an uneducated man:[197] the former was destitute\nof money, but the latter was destitute of humanity. He disapproved\nvaried and indiscriminate instruction, maintaining that persons ought\nto learn in youth what they were to practise in manhood: and he\ncompared those who, neglecting philosophy, employed themselves in\nliterature or physical science, to the suitors in the Odyssey who\nobtained the favours of Melantho and the other female servants, but\nwere rejected by the Queen Penelop\u00ea herself.[198] He treated with\ncontempt the study of geometry, because it took no account, and made\nno mention, of what was good and evil, beautiful and ugly. In other\narts (he said), even in the vulgar proceeding of the carpenter and the\ncurrier, perpetual reference was made to good, as the purpose intended\nto be served and to evil as that which was to be avoided: but in\ngeometry no such purpose was ever noticed.[199]\n\n[Footnote 197: Diog. L. ii. 70; Plutarch, Fragm. [Greek: U(pomn\u00ea/mat'\nei)s \u00ca(si/odon], s. 9. [Greek: A)ri/stippos de\\ a)p' e)nanti/as o(\nS\u00f4kratiko\\s e)/lege, sumbou/lou dei=sthai chei=ron ei)=nai \u00ea)\\\nprosaitei=n.]]\n\n[Footnote 198: Diog. L. ii. 79-80. [Greek: tou\\s t\u00f4=n e)gkukli/\u00f4n\npaideuma/t\u00f4n metascho/ntas, philosophi/as de\\ a)poleiphthe/ntas], &c.\nPlutarch, Fragm. [Greek: Str\u00f4mate/\u00f4n], sect. 9.]\n\n[Footnote 199: Aristot. Metaph. B. 996, a 32, M. 1078, a. 35. [Greek:\n\u00f4(/ste dia\\ tau=ta kai\\ t\u00f4=n sophist\u00f4=n tine\\s oi(=on A)ri/stippos\n_proep\u00eala/kizon_ au)ta\\s], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Aristippus taught as a Sophist. His reputation thus\nacquired procured for him the attentions of Dionysius and others.]\n\nThis last opinion of Aristippus deserves particular attention,\nbecause it is attested by Aristotle. And it confirms what we hear upon\nless certain testimony, that Aristippus discountenanced the department\nof physical study generally (astronomy and physics) as well as\ngeometry; confining his attention to facts and reasonings which bore\nupon the regulation of life.[200] In this restrictive view he followed\nthe example and precepts of Sokrates--of Isokrates--seemingly also of\nProtagoras and Prodikus though not of the Eleian Hippias, whose course\nof study was larger and more varied.[201] Aristippus taught as a\nSophist, and appears to have acquired great reputation in that\ncapacity both at Athens and elsewhere.[202] Indeed, if he had not\nacquired such intellectual and literary reputation at Athens, he would\nhave had little chance of being invited elsewhere, and still less\nchance of receiving favours and presents from Dionysius and other\nprinces:[203] whose attentions did not confer celebrity, but waited\nupon it when obtained, and doubtless augmented it. If Aristippus lived\na life of indulgence at Athens, we may fairly presume that his main\nresources for sustaining it, like those of Isokrates, were derived\nfrom his own teaching: and that the presents which he received from\nDionysius of Syracuse, like those which Isokrates received from\nNikokles of Cyprus, were welcome additions, but not his main income.\nThose who (like most of the historians of philosophy) adopt the\nopinion of Sokrates and Plato, that it is disgraceful for an\ninstructor to receive payment from the persons taught will doubtless\ndespise Aristippus for such a proceeding: for my part I dissent from\nthis opinion, and I therefore do not concur in the disparaging\nepithets bestowed upon him. And as for the costly indulgences, and\nsubservience to foreign princes, of which Aristippus stands accused,\nwe must recollect that the very same reproaches were advanced against\nPlato and Aristotle by their contemporaries: and as far as we know,\nwith quite as much foundation.[204]\n\n[Footnote 200: Diog. L. ii. 92. Sext. Emp. adv. Math. vii. 11.\nPlutarch, apud Eusebium Pr\u00e6p. Ev. i. 8, 9.]\n\n[Footnote 201: Plato, Protagor. p. 318 E, where the different methods\nfollowed by Protagoras and Hippias are indicated.]\n\n[Footnote 202: Diog. Laert. ii. 62. Alexis Comicus ap. Athen\u00e6. xii.\n544.\n\nAristokles (ap. Euseb. Pr\u00e6p. Ev. xiv. 18) treats the first Aristippus\nas a mere voluptuary, who said nothing generally [Greek: peri\\ tou=\nte/lous]. All the doctrine (he says) came from the younger Aristippus.\nI think this very improbable. To what did the dialogues composed by\nthe first Aristippus refer? How did he get his reputation?]\n\n[Footnote 203: Several anecdotes are recounted about sayings and\ndoings of Aristippus in his intercourse with _Dionysius_. _Which_\nDionysius is meant?--the elder or the younger? Probably the elder.\n\nIt is to be remembered that Dionysius the Elder lived and reigned\nuntil the year 367 B.C., in which year his son Dionysius the Younger\nsucceeded him. The death of Sokrates took place in 399 B.C.: between\nwhich, and the accession of Dionysius the Younger, an interval of 32\nyears occurred. Plato was old, being sixty years of age, when he first\nvisited the younger Dionysius, shortly after the accession of the\nlatter. Aristippus cannot well have been younger than Plato, and he is\nsaid to have been older than \u00c6schines Sokraticus (D. L. ii. 83).\nCompare D. L. ii. 41.\n\nWhen, with these dates present to our minds, we read the anecdotes\nrecounted by Diogenes L. respecting the sayings and doings of\nAristippus with _Dionysius_, we find: that several of them relate to\nthe contrast between the behaviour of Aristippus and that of Plato at\nSyracuse. Now it is certain that Plato went _once_ to Syracuse when he\nwas forty years of age (Epist. vii. init.), in 387 B.C.--and according\nto one report (Lucian, De Parasito, 34), he went there _twice_--while\nthe elder Dionysius was in the plenitude of power: but he made an\nunfavourable impression, and was speedily sent away in displeasure. I\nthink it very probable that Aristippus may have visited the elder\nDionysius, and may have found greater favour with him than Plato found\n(see Lucian, l. c.), since Dionysius was an accomplished man and a\ncomposer of tragedies. Moreover Aristippus was a Kyren\u00e6an, and\nAristippus wrote about Libya (D. L. ii. 83).]\n\n[Footnote 204: See the epigram of the contemporary poet, Theokritus of\nChios, in Diog. L. v. 11; compare Athen\u00e6us, viii. 354, xiii. 566.\nAristokles, ap. Eusebium Pr\u00e6p. Ev. xv. 2.]\n\nAristippus composed several dialogues, of which the titles alone are\npreserved.[205] They must however have been compositions of\nconsiderable merit, since Theopompus accused Plato of borrowing\nlargely from them.\n\n[Footnote 205: Diog. L. ii. 84-85.]\n\n[Side-note: Ethical theory of Aristippus and the Kyrenaic\nphilosophers.]\n\nAs all the works of Aristippus are lost, we cannot pretend to\nunderstand fully his theory from the meagre abstract given in Sextus\nEmpiricus and Diogenes. Yet the theory is of importance in the history\nof ancient speculation, since it passed with some modifications to\nEpikurus, and was adopted by a large proportion of instructed men. The\nKyrenaic doctrine was transmitted by Aristippus to his disciples\n\u00c6thiops and Antipater: but his chief disciple appears to have been his\ndaughter Ar\u00eat\u00ea: whom he instructed so well, that she was able to\ninstruct her own son, the second Aristippus, called for that reason\nMetrodidactus. The basis of his ethical theory was, pleasure and pain:\npleasure being _smooth motion_, pain, _rough motion_:[206] pleasure\nbeing the object which all animals, by nature and without\ndeliberation, loved, pursued, and felt satisfaction in obtaining pain\nbeing the object which they all by nature hated and tried to avoid.\nAristippus considered that no one pleasure was different from another,\nnor more pleasurable than another:[207] that the attainment of these\nspecial pleasurable moments, or as many of them as practicable, was\nThe End to be pursued in life. By _Happiness_, they understood the sum\ntotal of these special pleasures, past, present, and future: yet\nHappiness was desirable not on its own account, but on account of its\nconstituent items, especially such of those items as were present and\ncertainly future.[208] Pleasures and pains of memory and expectation\nwere considered to be of little importance. Absence of pain or relief\nfrom pain, on the one hand--they did not consider as equivalent to\npositive pleasure--nor absence of pleasure or withdrawal of pleasure,\non the other hand--as equivalent to positive pain. Neither the one\nsituation nor the other was a _motion_ ([Greek: ki/n\u00easis]), _i.e._ a\npositive situation, appreciable by the consciousness: each was a\nmiddle state--a mere negation of consciousness, like the phenomena of\nsleep.[209] They recognised some mental pleasures and pains as\nderivative from bodily sensation and as exclusively individual--others\nas not so: for example, there were pleasures and pains of sympathy;\nand a man often felt joy at the prosperity of his friends and\ncountrymen, quite as genuine as that which he felt for his own good\nfortune. But they maintained that the bodily pleasures and pains were\nmuch more vehement than the mental which were not bodily: for which\nreason, the pains employed by the laws in punishing offenders were\nchiefly bodily. The fear of pain was in their judgments more operative\nthan the love of pleasure: and though pleasure was desirable for its\nown sake, yet the accompanying conditions of many pleasures were so\npainful as to deter the prudent man from aiming at them. These\nobstructions rendered it impossible for any one to realise the sum\ntotal of pleasures constituting Happiness. Even the wise man sometimes\nfailed, and the foolish man sometimes did well, though in general the\nreverse was the truth: but under the difficult conditions of life, a\nman must be satisfied if he realised some particular pleasurable\nconjunctions, without aspiring to a continuance or totality of the\nlike.[210]\n\n[Footnote 206: Diog. L. ii. 86-87. [Greek: du/o pa/th\u00ea u(phi/stanto,\npo/non kai\\ \u00ea(don\u00ea/n; t\u00ea\\n me\\n lei/an ki/n\u00easin, t\u00ea\\n \u00ea(don\u00ea/n, to\\n\nde\\ po/non, trachei=an ki/n\u00easin; m\u00ea\\ diaphe/rein te \u00ea(don\u00ea\\n \u00ea(don\u00ea=s,\nm\u00eade\\ \u00ea(/dion ti ei)=nai; kai\\ t\u00ea\\n me\\n, eu)dok\u00eat\u00ea\\n** pa=si z\u00f4/ois,\nto\\n de\\ a)pokroustiko/n.]]\n\n[Footnote 207: Diog. L. ii. p. 87. [Greek: m\u00ea\\ diaphe/rein te \u00ea(don\u00ea\\n\n\u00ea(don\u00ea=s, m\u00eade\\ \u00ea(/dion ti ei)=nai]. They did not mean by these words\nto deny that one pleasure was more vehement and attractive than\nanother pleasure, or that one pain is more vehement and deterrent than\nanother pain: for it is expressly said afterwards (s. 90) that they\nadmitted this. They meant to affirm that one pleasure did not differ\nfrom another _so far forth as pleasure_: that all pleasures must be\nranked as a class, and compared with each other in respect of\nintensity, durability, and other properties possessed in greater or\nless degree.]\n\n[Footnote 208: Diog. L. ii. pp. 88-89. Athen\u00e6us, xii. p. 544.]\n\n[Footnote 209: Diog. L. ii. 89-90. [Greek: m\u00ea\\ ou)/s\u00eas t\u00ea=s a)poni/as\n\u00ea)\\ t\u00ea=s a)\u00eadoni/as kin\u00ea/se\u00f4s, e)pei\\ \u00ea( a)poni/a oi(onei\\\nkatheu/donto/s e)sti kata/stasis--me/sas katasta/seis \u00f4)no/mazon\na)\u00eadoni/an kai\\ a)poni/an].\n\nA doctrine very different from this is ascribed to Aristippus in\nGalen--Placit. Philos. (xix. p. 230, K\u00fchn). It is there affirmed that\nby pleasure Aristippus understood, not the pleasure of sense, but that\ndisposition of mind whereby a person becomes insensible to pain, and\nhard to be imposed upon ([Greek: a)na/lg\u00eatos kai\\ dusgo\u00ea/teutos]).]\n\n[Footnote 210: Diog. L. ii. 91.\n\nIt does not appear that the Kyrenaic sect followed out into detail the\nderivative pleasures and pains; nor the way in which, by force of\nassociation, these come to take precedence of the primary, exercising\ninfluence on the mind both more forcible and more constant. We find\nthis important fact remarkably stated in the doctrine of Kalliphon.\n\nClemens Alexandr. Stromat. ii. p. 415, ed. 1629. [Greek: Kata\\ de\\\ntou\\s peri\\ Kalliph\u00f4=nta, e(/neka me\\n t\u00ea=s \u00ea(don\u00ea=s pareis\u00ea=lthen \u00ea(\na)ret\u00ea/; chro/n\u00f4| de\\ u(/steron, to\\ peri\\ au)t\u00ea\\n ka/llos katidou=sa,\ni)so/timon e(aut\u00ea\\n t\u00ea=| a)rch\u00ea=|, toute/sti t\u00ea=| \u00ea(don\u00ea=|,\npare/schen.]]\n\n[Side-note: Prudence--good, by reason of the pleasure which it\nensured, and of the pains which it was necessary to avoid. Just and\nhonourable, by law or custom--not by nature.]\n\nAristippus regarded prudence or wisdom as good, yet not as good _per\nse_, but by reason of the pleasures which it enabled us to procure and\nthe pains which it enabled us to avoid--and wealth as a good, for the\nsame reason. A friend also was valuable, for the use and necessities\nof life: just as each part of one's own body was precious, so long as\nit was present and could serve a useful purpose.[211] Some branches of\nvirtue might be possessed by persons who were not wise: and bodily\ntraining was a valuable auxiliary to virtue. Even the wise man could\nnever escape pain and fear, for both of these were natural:\nbut he would keep clear of envy, passionate love, and superstition,\nwhich were not natural, but consequences of vain opinion. A thorough\nacquaintance with the real nature of Good and Evil would relieve him\nfrom superstition as well as from the fear of death.[212]\n\n[Footnote 211: Diog. L. ii. 91. [Greek: t\u00ea\\n phro/n\u00easin a)gatho\\n me\\n\nei)=nai le/gousin, ou) di' e(aut\u00ea\\n de\\ ai(ret\u00ea/n, a)lla\\ dia\\ ta\\ e)x\nau)t\u00ea=s perigino/mena; to\\n phi/lon t\u00ea=s chrei/as e(/neka; kai\\ ga\\r\nme/ros s\u00f4/matos, me/chris a)\\n par\u00ea=|, a)spa/zesthai].\n\nThe like comparison is employed by the Xenophontic Sokrates in the\nMemorabilia (i. 2, 52-55), that men cast away portions of their own\nbody, so soon as these portions cease to be useful.]\n\n[Footnote 212: Diog. L. ii. p. 92.]\n\nThe Kyrenaics did not admit that there was anything just, or\nhonourable, or base, by nature: but only by law and custom:\nnevertheless the wise man would be sufficiently restrained, by the\nfear of punishment and of discredit, from doing what was repugnant to\nthe society in which he lived. They maintained that wisdom was\nattainable; that the senses did not at first judge truly, but might be\nimproved by study; that progress was realised in philosophy as in\nother arts, and that there were different gradations of it, as well as\ndifferent gradations of pain and suffering, discernible in different\nmen. The wise man, as they conceived him, was a reality; not (like the\nwise man of the Stoics) a sublime but unattainable ideal.[213]\n\n[Footnote 213: Diog. L. ii. p. 93.]\n\n[Side-note: Their logical theory--nothing knowable except the\nphenomenal, our own sensations and feelings--no knowledge of the\nabsolute.]\n\nSuch were (as far as our imperfect evidence goes) the ethical and\nemotional views of the Kyrenaic school: their theory and precepts\nrespecting the plan and prospects of life. In regard to truth and\nknowledge, they maintained that we could have no knowledge of anything\nbut human sensations, affections, feelings, &c. ([Greek: pa/th\u00ea]):\nthat respecting the extrinsic, extra-sensational, absolute, objects or\ncauses from whence these feelings proceeded, we could know nothing at\nall. Partly for this reason, they abstained from all attention to the\nstudy of nature--to astronomy and physics: partly also because they\ndid not see any bearing of these subjects upon good and evil, or upon\nthe conduct of life. They turned their attention mainly to ethics,\npartly also to logic as subsidiary to ethical reasoning.[214]\n\n[Footnote 214: Diog. L. ii. p. 92. Sextus Empiric. adv. Mathemat. vi.\n53.]\n\nSuch low estimation of mathematics and physics and attention given\nalmost exclusively to the feelings and conduct of human life--is a\npoint common to the opposite schools of Aristippus and Antisthenes,\nderived by both of them from Sokrates. Herein Plato stands apart from\nall the three.\n\nThe theory of Aristippus, as given above, is only derived from a\nmeagre abstract and from a few detached hints. We do not know how he\nhimself stated it: still less how he enforced and vindicated it.--He,\nas well as Antisthenes, composed dialogues: which naturally implies\ndiversity of handling. Their main thesis, therefore--the text, as it\nwere, upon which they debated or expatiated (which is all that the\nabstract gives)--affords very inadequate means, even if we could rely\nupon the accuracy of the statement, for appreciating their\nphilosophical competence. We should form but a poor idea of the acute,\nabundant, elastic and diversified dialectic of Plato, if all his\ndialogues had been lost--and if we had nothing to rely upon except the\nsummary of Platonism prepared by Diogenes Laertius: which summary,\nnevertheless, is more copious and elaborate than the same author has\nfurnished either of Aristippus or Antisthenes.\n\n[Side-note: Doctrines of Antisthenes and Aristippus passed to the\nStoics and Epikureans.]\n\nIn the history of the Greek mind these two last-mentioned philosophers\n(though included by Cicero among the _plebeii philosophi_) are not\nless important than Plato and Aristotle. The speculations and precepts\nof Antisthenes passed, with various enlargements and modifications,\ninto the Stoic philosophy: those of Aristippus into the Epikurean: the\ntwo most widely extended ethical sects in the subsequent Pagan\nworld.--The Cynic sect, as it stood before it embraced the enlarged\nphysical, kosmical, and social theories of Zeno and his contemporaries,\nreducing to a minimum all the desires and appetites--cultivating\ninsensibility to the pains of life, and even disdainful insensibility to\nits pleasures--required extraordinary force of will and obstinate\nresolution, but little beyond. Where there was no selection or\ndiscrimination, the most ordinary prudence sufficed. It was otherwise\nwith the scheme of Aristippus and the Kyrenaics: which, if it tasked\nless severely the powers of endurance, demanded a far higher measure\nof intelligent prudence. Selection of that which might safely be\nenjoyed, and determination of the limit within which enjoyment must be\nconfined, were constantly indispensable. Prudence, knowledge, the art\nof mensuration or calculation, were essential to Aristippus, and ought\nto be put in the foreground when his theory is stated.\n\n[Side-note: Ethical theory of Aristippus is identical with that of the\nPlatonic Sokrates in the Protagoras.]\n\nThat theory is, in point of fact, identical with the theory expounded\nby the Platonic Sokrates in Plato's Protagoras. The general features\nof both are the same. Sokrates there lays it down explicitly, that\npleasure _per se_ is always good, and pain _per se_ always evil: that\nthere is no other good (_per se_) except pleasure and diminution of\npain--no other evil (_per se_) except pain and diminution of pleasure:\nthat there is no other object in life except to live through it as\nmuch as possible with pleasures and without pains;[215] but that many\npleasures become evil, because they cannot be had without depriving us\nof greater pleasures or imposing upon us greater pains while many\npains become good, because they prevent greater pains or ensure\ngreater pleasures: that the safety of life thus lies in a correct\ncomparison of the more or less in pleasures and pains, and in a\nselection founded thereupon. In other words, the safety of life\ndepends upon calculating knowledge or prudence, the art or science of\nmeasuring.\n\n[Footnote 215: Plato, Protag. p. 355 A. [Greek: \u00ea)\\ a)rkei= u(mi=n to\\\n\u00ea(de/\u00f4s katabi\u00f4=nai to\\n bi/on a)/neu lup\u00f4=n? ei) de\\ a)rkei=, kai\\\nm\u00ea\\ e)/chete m\u00eade\\n a)/llo pha/nai ei)=nai a)gatho\\n \u00ea)\\ kako/n, o(\\\nm\u00ea\\ ei)s tau=ta teleuta=|, to\\ meta\\ tou=to a)kou/ete].\n\nThe exposition of this theory, by the Platonic Sokrates, occupies the\nlatter portion of the Protagoras, from p. 351 to near the conclusion.\nSee below, ch. xxiii. of the present work.\n\nThe language held by Aristippus to Sokrates, in the Xenophontic\ndialogue (Memor. ii. 1. 9), is exactly similar to that of the Platonic\nSokrates, as above cited--[Greek: e)mauto\\n ta/tt\u00f4 ei)s tou\\s\nboulome/nous \u00ea(=| r(a=|sta/ te kai\\ \u00ea(/dista bioteu/ein.]]\n\n[Side-note: Difference in the manner of stating the theory by the\ntwo.]\n\nThe theory here laid down by the Platonic Sokrates is the same as that\nof Aristippus. The purpose of life is stated almost in the same words\nby both: by the Platonic Sokrates, and by Aristippus in the\nXenophontic dialogue--\"to live through with enjoyment and without\nsuffering.\" The Platonic Sokrates denies, quite as emphatically as\nAristippus, any good or evil, honourable or base, except as\nrepresenting the result of an intelligent comparison of pleasures and\npains. Judicious calculation is postulated by both: pleasures and\npains being assumed by both as the only ends of pursuit and avoidance,\nto which calculation is to be applied. The main difference is, that\nthe prudence, art, or science, required for making this calculation\nrightly, are put forward by the Platonic Sokrates as the prominent\nitem in his provision for passing through life: whereas, in the scheme\nof Aristippus, as far as we know it, such accomplished intelligence,\nthough equally recognised and implied, is not equally thrust into the\nforeground. So it appears at least in the abstract which we possess of\nhis theory; if we had his own exposition of it, perhaps we might find\nthe case otherwise. In that abstract, indeed, we find the writer\nreplying to those who affirmed prudence or knowledge, to be good _per\nse_--and maintaining that it is only good by reason of its\nconsequences:[216] that is, that it is not good as End, in the same\nsense in which pleasure or mitigation, of pain are good. This point of\nthe theory, however, coincides again with the doctrine of the Platonic\nSokrates in the Protagoras: where the art of calculation is extolled\nsimply as an indispensable condition to the most precious results of\nhuman happiness.\n\n[Footnote 216: Diog. L. ii. p. 91.]\n\nWhat I say here applies especially to the Protagoras: for I am well\naware that in other dialogues the Platonic Sokrates is made to hold\ndifferent language.[217] But in the Protagoras he defends a theory the\nsame as that of Aristippus, and defends it by an elaborate argument\nwhich silences the objections of the Sophist Protagoras; who at first\nwill not admit the unqualified identity of the pleasurable,\njudiciously estimated and selected, with the good. The general and\ncomprehensive manner in which Plato conceives and expounds the theory,\nis probably one evidence of his superior philosophical aptitude as\ncompared with Aristippus and his other contemporaries. He enunciates,\nside by side, and with equal distinctness, the two conditions\nrequisite for his theory of life. 1. The calculating or measuring art.\n2. A description of the items to which alone such measurement must be\napplied--pleasures and pains.--These two together make the full\ntheory. In other dialogues Plato insists equally upon the necessity of\nknowledge or calculating prudence: but then he is not equally distinct\nin specifying the items to which such prudence or calculation is to be\napplied. On the other hand, it is quite possible that Aristippus, in\nlaying out the same theory, may have dwelt with peculiar emphasis upon\nthe other element in the theory: _i.e._ that while expressly insisting\nupon pleasures and pains, as the only data to be compared, he may have\ntacitly assumed the comparing or calculating intelligence, as if it\nwere understood by itself, and did not require to be formally\nproclaimed.\n\n[Footnote 217: See chapters xxiii., xxiv.,** xxxii. of the present work,\nin which I enter more fully into the differences between the\nProtagoras, Gorgias, and Phil\u00eabus, in respect to this point.\n\nAristippus agrees with the Platonic Sokrates in the Protagoras, as to\nthe general theory of life respecting pleasure and pain.\n\nHe agrees with the Platonic Sokrates _in the Gorgias_ (see pp.\n500-515), in keeping aloof from active political life. [Greek: a\\\nau(tou= pra/ttein, kai\\ ou) polupragmonei=n e)n t\u00f4=| bi/\u00f4|]--which\nSokrates, in the Gorgias (p. 526 C), proclaims as the conduct of the true\nphilosopher, proclaimed with equal emphasis by Aristippus. Compare the\nPlatonic Apology, p. 31 D-E.]\n\n[Side-note: Distinction to be made between a general theory--and the\nparticular application of it made by the theorist to his own tastes\nand circumstances.]\n\nA distinction must here be made between the general theory of life\nlaid down by Aristippus--and the particular application which he made\nof that theory to his own course of proceeding. What we may observe\nis, that the Platonic Sokrates (in the Protagoras) agrees in the\nfirst, or general theory: whether he would have agreed in the second\n(or application to the particular case) we are not informed, but we\nmay probably assume the negative. And we find Sokrates (in the\nXenophontic dialogue) taking the same negative ground against\nAristippus--upon the second point, not upon the first. He seeks to\nprove that the course of conduct adopted by Aristippus, instead of\ncarrying with it a preponderance of pleasure, will entail a\npreponderance of pain. He does not dispute the general theory.\n\n[Side-note: Kyrenaic theorists after Aristippus.]\n\nThough Aristippus and the Kyrenaic sect are recognised as the first\npersons who laid down this general theory, yet various others apart\nfrom them adopted it likewise. We may see this not merely from the\nProtagoras of Plato, but also from the fact that Aristotle, when\ncommenting upon the theory in his Ethics,[218] cites Eudoxus (eminent\nboth as mathematician and astronomer, besides being among the hearers\nof Plato) as its principal champion. Still the school of Kyr\u00ean\u00ea are\nrecorded as a continuous body, partly defending, partly modifying the\ntheory of Aristippus.[219] Hegesias, Annikeris, and Theod\u00f4rus are the\nprincipal Kyrenaics named: the last of them contemporary with Ptolemy\nSoter, Lysimachus, Epikurus, Theophrastus, and Stilpon.\n\n[Footnote 218: Aristot. Ethic. Nikom. x. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 219: Sydenham, in his notes on Phil\u00eabus (note 39, p. 76),\naccuses Aristippus and the Kyrenaics of prevarication and sophistry in\nthe statement of their doctrine respecting Pleasure. He says that they\ncalled it indiscriminately [Greek: a)gatho\\n] and\n[Greek: ta)gatho/n]--(a good--The Good)--\"they used the fallacy of\nchanging a particular term for a term which is universal, or vice vers\u00e2,\nby the sly omission or insertion of the definite article _The_ before\nthe word Good\" (p. 78). He contrasts with this prevarication the\ningenuousness of Eudoxus, as the advocate of Pleasure (Aristot. Eth.\nN. x. 2). I know no evidence for either of these allegations: either\nfor the prevarication of Aristippus or the ingenuousness of Eudoxus.]\n\n[Side-note: Theod\u00f4rus--Annikeris--Hegesias.]\n\nDiogenes Laertius had read a powerfully written book of Theod\u00f4rus,\ncontroverting openly the received opinions respecting the Gods:--which\nfew of the philosophers ventured to do. Cicero also mentions a\ncomposition of Hegesias.[220] Of Annikeris we know none; but he, too,\nprobably, must have been an author. The doctrines which we find\nascribed to these Kyrenaics evince how much affinity there was, at\nbottom, between them and the Cynics, in spite of the great apparent\nopposition. Hegesias received the surname of the Death-Persuader: he\nconsidered happiness to be quite unattainable, and death to be an\nobject not of fear, but of welcome acceptance, in the eyes of a wise\nman. He started from the same basis as Aristippus: pleasure as the\n_expetendum_, pain as the _fugiendum_, to which all our personal\nfriendships and aversions were ultimately referable. But he considered\nthat the pains of life preponderated over the pleasures, even under\nthe most favourable circumstances. For conferring pleasure, or for\nsecuring continuance of pleasure--wealth, high birth, freedom, glory,\nwere of no greater avail than their contraries poverty, low birth,\nslavery, ignominy. There was nothing which was, by nature or\nuniversally, either pleasurable or painful. Novelty, rarity, satiety,\nrendered one thing pleasurable, another painful, to different persons\nand at different times. The wise man would show his wisdom, not in the\nfruitless struggle for pleasures, but in the avoidance or mitigation\nof pains: which he would accomplish more successfully by rendering\nhimself indifferent to the causes of pleasure. He would act always for\nhis own account, and would value himself higher than other persons:\nbut he would at the same time reflect that the mistakes of these\nothers were involuntary, and he would give them indulgent counsel,\ninstead of hating them. He would not trust his senses as affording any\nreal knowledge: but he would be satisfied to act upon the probable\nappearances of sense, or upon phenomenal knowledge.[221]\n\n[Footnote 220: Diog. L. ii. 97. [Greek: Theo/d\u00f4ros--panta/pasin\na)nair\u00f4=n ta\\s peri\\ the\u00f4=n do/xas]. Diog. L. ii. 86, 97. Cicero, Tusc.\nDisp. i. 34, 83-84. [Greek: \u00ca(g\u00easi/as o( peisitha/natos].]\n\n[Footnote 221: Diog. L. ii. 93, 94.]\n\n[Side-note: Hegesias--Low estimation of life--renunciation of\npleasure--coincidence with the Cynics.]\n\nSuch is the summary which we read of the doctrines of Hegesias: who is\nsaid to have enforced his views,[222]--of the real character of life,\nas containing a great preponderance of misfortune and suffering--in a\nmanner so persuasive, that several persons were induced to commit\nsuicide. Hence he was prohibited by the first Ptolemy from lecturing\nin such a strain. His opinions respecting life coincide in the main\nwith those set forth by Sokrates in the Ph\u00e6don of Plato: which\ndialogue also is alleged to have operated so powerfully on the\nPlatonic disciple Kleombrotus, that he was induced to terminate his\nown existence. Hegesias, agreeing with Aristippus that pleasure would\nbe the Good, if you could get it--maintains that the circumstances of\nlife are such as to render pleasure unattainable: and therefore\nadvises to renounce pleasure at once and systematically, in order that\nwe may turn our attention to the only practicable end--that of\nlessening pain. Such deliberate renunciation of pleasure brings him\ninto harmony with the doctrine of the Cynics.\n\n[Footnote 222: Compare the Pseudo-Platonic dialogue entitled Axiochus,\npp. 366, 367, and the doctrine of Kleanthes in Sext. Empiric. adv.\nMathemat. ix. 88-92. Lucretius, v. 196-234.]\n\n[Side-note: Doctrine of Relativity affirmed by the Kyrenaics, as well\nas by Protagoras.]\n\nOn another point, however, Hegesias repeats just the same doctrine as\nAristippus. Both deny any thing like absolute knowledge: they maintain\nthat all our knowledge is phenomenal, or relative to our own\nimpressions or affections: that we neither do know, nor can know,\nanything about any real or supposed ultra-phenomenal object, _i.e._,\nthings in themselves, as distinguished from our own impressions and\napart from our senses and other capacities. Having no writings of\nAristippus left, we know this doctrine only as it is presented by\nothers, and those too opponents. We cannot tell whether Aristippus or\nhis supporters stated their own doctrine in such a way as to be open\nto the objections which we read as urged by opponents. But the\ndoctrine itself is not, in my judgment, refuted by any of those\nobjections. \"Our affections ([Greek: pa/th\u00ea]) alone are known to us,\nbut not the supposed objects or causes from which they proceed.\" The\nword rendered by _affections_ must here be taken in its most general\nand comprehensive sense--as including not merely sensations, but also\nremembrances, emotions, judgments, beliefs, doubts, volitions,\nconscious energies, &c. Whatever we know, we can know only as it\nappears to, or implicates itself somehow with, our own minds. All the\nknowledge which I possess, is an aggregate of propositions affirming\nfacts, and the order or conjunction of facts, as they are, or have\nbeen, or may be, relative to myself. This doctrine of Aristippus is in\nsubstance the same as that which Protagoras announced in other words\nas--\"Man is the measure of all things\". I have already explained and\nillustrated it, at considerable length, in my chapter on the Platonic\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus, where it is announced by The\u00e6tetus and controverted by\nSokrates.[223]\n\n[Footnote 223: See below, vol. iii. ch. xxviii. Compare Aristokles ap.\nEusebium, Pr\u00e6p. Ev. xiv. 18, 19, and Sextus Emp. adv. Mathemat. vii.\n190-197, vi. 53. Sextus gives a summary of this doctrine of the\nKyrenaics, more fair and complete than that given by Aristokles--at\nleast so far as the extract from the latter in Eusebius enables us to\njudge. Aristokles impugns it vehemently, and tries to fasten upon it\nmany absurd consequences--in my judgment without foundation. It is\nprobable that by the term [Greek: pa/thos] the Kyrenaics meant simply\nsensations internal and external: and that the question, as they\nhandled it, was about the reality of the supposed Substratum or Object\nof sense, independent of any sentient Subject. It is also probable\nthat, in explaining their views, they did not take account of the\nmemory of past sensations--and the expectation of future sensations,\nin successions or conjunctions more or less similar--associating in\nthe mind with the sensation present and actual, to form what is called\na permanent object of sense. I think it likely that they set forth\ntheir own doctrine in a narrow and inadequate manner.\n\nBut this defect is noway corrected by Aristokles their opponent. On\nthe contrary, he attacks them on their strong side: he vindicates\nagainst them the hypothesis of the ultra phenomenal, absolute,\ntranscendental Object, independent of and apart from any sensation,\npresent, past, or future--and from any sentient Subject. Besides that,\nhe assumes them to deny, or ignore, many points which their theory\nnoway requires them to deny. He urges one argument which, when\nproperly understood, goes not against them, but strongly in their\nfavour. \"If these philosophers,\" says Aristokles (Eus. xiv. 19, 1),\n\"know that they experience sensation and perceive, they must know\nsomething beyond the sensation itself. If I say [Greek: e)g\u00f4\\\nkai/omai], 'I am being burned,' this is a proposition, not a\nsensation. These three things are of necessity co-essential--the\nsensation itself, the Object which causes it, the Subject which feels\nit ([Greek: a)na/gk\u00ea ge tri/a tau=ta sunuphi/stasthai--to/ te pa/thos\nau)to\\ kai\\ to\\ poiou=n kai\\ to\\ pa/schon]).\" In trying to make good\nhis conclusion--That you cannot know the sensation without the Object\nof sense--Aristokles at the same time asserts that the Object cannot\nbe known apart from the sensation, nor apart from the knowing Subject.\nHe asserts that the three are by necessity _co-essential--i.e._\nimplicated and indivisible in substance and existence: if\ndistinguishable therefore, distinguishable only logically ([Greek:\nlo/g\u00f4| ch\u00f4rista\\]), admitting of being looked at in different points\nof view. But this is exactly the case of his opponents, when properly\nstated. They do not deny Object: they do not deny Subject: but they\ndeny the independent and separate existence of the one as well as of\nthe other: they admit the two only as relative to each other, or as\nreciprocally implicated in the indivisible fact of cognition. The\nreasoning of Aristokles thus goes to prove the opinion which he is\ntrying to refute. Most of the arguments, which Sextus adduces in\nfavour of the Kyrenaic doctrine, show forcibly that the Objective\nSomething, apart from its Subjective correlate, is unknowable and a\nnon-entity; but he does not include in the Subjective as much as ought\nto be included; he takes note only of the present sensation, and does\nnot include sensations remembered or anticipated. Another very\nforcible part of Sextus's reasoning may be found, vii. sect. 269-272,\nwhere he shows that a logical Subject _per se_ is undefinable and\ninconceivable--that those who attempt to define Man (_e.g._) do so by\nspecifying more or fewer of the predicates of Man--and that if you\nsuppose all the predicates to vanish, the Subject vanishes along with\nthem.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nXENOPHON.\n\n\n[Side-note: Xenophon--his character--essentially a man of action and\nnot a theorist--the Sokratic element in him an accessory.]\n\nThere remains one other companion of Sokrates, for whom a dignified\nplace must be reserved in this volume--Xenophon the son of Gryllus. It\nis to him that we owe, in great part, such knowledge as we possess of\nthe real Sokrates. For the Sokratic conversations related by\nXenophon, though doubtless dressed up and expanded by him, appear to\nme reports in the main of what Sokrates actually said. Xenophon was\nsparing in the introduction of his master as titular spokesman for\nopinions, theories, or controversial difficulties, generated in his\nown mind: a practice in which Plato indulged without any reserve, as\nwe have seen by the numerous dialogues already passed in review.\n\nI shall not however give any complete analysis of Xenophon's works:\nbecause both the greater part of them, and the leading features of his\npersonal character, belong rather to active than to speculative\nHellenic life. As such, I have dealt with them largely in my History\nof Greece. What I have here to illustrate is the Sokratic element in\nhis character, which is important indeed as accessory and modifying--yet\nnot fundamental. Though he exemplifies and attests, as a witness,\nthe theorising negative vein, the cross-examining Elenchus of Sokrates\nit is the preceptorial vein which he appropriates to himself and\nexpands in its bearing on practical conduct. He is the\nsemi-philosophising general; undervalued indeed as a hybrid by Plato--but\nby high-minded Romans like Cato, Agricola, Helvidius Priscus, &c.\nlikely to be esteemed higher than Plato himself.[1] He is the military\nbrother of the Sokratic family, distinguished for ability and energy\nin the responsible functions of command: a man of robust frame,\ncourage, and presence of mind, who affronts cheerfully the danger and\nfatigues of soldiership, and who extracts philosophy from experience\nof the variable temper of armies, together with the multiplied\ndifficulties and precarious authority of a Grecian general.[2] For our\nknowledge, imperfect as it is, of real Grecian life, we are greatly\nindebted to his works. All historians of Greece must draw largely from\nhis Hellenica and Anabasis: and we learn much even from his other\nproductions, not properly historical; for he never soars high in the\nregion of ideality, nor grasps at etherial visions--\"nubes et\ninania\"--like Plato.\n\n[Footnote 1: See below, my remarks on the Platonic Euthyd\u00eamus, vol.\nii. chap, xxi.**]\n\n[Footnote 2: We may apply to Plato and Xenophon the following\ncomparison by Euripides, Supplices, 905. (Tydeus and Meleager.)\n\n[Greek: gn\u00f4/m\u00ea| d' a)delphou= Melea/grou leleimme/nos,\ni)son pare/schen o)/noma dia\\ te/chn\u00ean doro/s,\neu(r\u00f4\\n a)krib\u00ea= mousik\u00ea\\n e)n a)spi/di;\nphilo/timon \u00ea)=thos, plou/sion phro/n\u00eama de\\\ne)n toi=sin e)/rgois, ou)chi\\ toi=s lo/gois e)/ch\u00f4n.]]\n\n[Side-note: Date of Xenophon--probable year of his birth.]\n\nRespecting the personal history of Xenophon himself, we possess but\nlittle information: nor do we know the year either of his birth or\ndeath. His Hellenica concludes with the battle of Mantineia in 362\nB.C. But he makes incidental mention in that work of an event five\nyears later--the assassination of Alexander, despot of Pher\u00e6, which\ntook place in 357 B.C.[3]--and his language seems to imply that the\nevent was described shortly after it took place. His pamphlet De\nVectigalibus appears to have been composed still later--not before 355\nB.C. In the year 400 B.C., when Xenophon joined the Grecian military\nforce assembled at Sardis to accompany Cyrus the younger in his march\nto Babylon, he must have been still a young man: yet he had even then\nestablished an intimacy with Sokrates at Athens: and he was old enough\nto call himself the \"ancient guest\" of the Boeotian Proxenus, who\nengaged him to come and take service with Cyrus.[4] We may suppose him\nto have been then about thirty years of age; and thus to have been\nborn about 430 B.C.--two or three years earlier than Plato. Respecting\nhis early life, we have no facts before us: but we may confidently\naffirm (as I have already observed about[5] Plato), that as he became\nliable to military service in 412 B.C., the severe pressure of the war\nupon Athens must have occasioned him to be largely employed, among\nother citizens, for the defence of his native city, until its capture\nin 405 B.C. He seems to have belonged to an equestrian family in the\ncensus, and therefore to have served on horseback. More than one of\nhis compositions evinces both intelligent interest in horsemanship,\nand great familiarity with horses.\n\n[Footnote 3: Xenoph. Hellen. vi. 4, 37. [Greek: t\u00f4=n de\\ tau=ta\npraxa/nt\u00f4n] (_i.e._ of the brothers of Th\u00eab\u00ea, which brothers had\nassassinated Alexander) [Greek: a)/chri ou)= o(de o( lo/gos\ne)gra/pheto, Tisi/phonos, presbu/tatos \u00f4(=n t\u00f4=n a)delph\u00f4=n, t\u00ea\\n\na)rch\u00ea\\n ei)=che.]]\n\n[Footnote 4: That he was still a young man appears from his language,\nAnabas. iii. 1, 25. His intimacy with Sokrates, whose advice he asked\nabout the propriety of accepting the invitation of Proxenus to go to\nAsia, is shown iii. 1, 5. Proxenus was his [Greek: xe/nos a)rchai=os],\niii. 1, 4.\n\nThe story mentioned by Strabo (ix. 403) that Xenophon served in the\nAthenian cavalry at the battle of Delium (424 B.C.), and that his life\nwas saved by Sokrates, I consider to be not less inconsistent with any\nreasonable chronology, than the analogous anecdote--that Plato\ndistinguished himself at the battle of Delium. See below, ch. v.]\n\n[Footnote 5: See ch. v.]\n\n[Side-note: His personal history--He consults Sokrates--takes the\nopinion of the Delphian oracle.]\n\nOur knowledge of his personal history begins with what he himself\nrecounts in the Anabasis. His friend Proxenus, then at Sardis\ncommanding a regiment of Hellenic mercenaries under Cyrus the younger,\nwrote recommending him earnestly to come over and take service, in the\narmy prepared ostensibly against the Pisidians. Upon this Xenophon\nasked the advice of Sokrates: who exhorted him to go and consult the\nDelphian oracle--being apprehensive that as Cyrus had proved himself\nthe strenuous ally of Sparta, and had furnished to her the principal\nmeans for crushing Athens, an Athenian taking service under him would\nincur unpopularity at home. Xenophon accordingly went to Delphi: but\ninstead of asking the question broadly--\"Shall I go, or shall I\ndecline to go?\"--he put to Apollo the narrower question--\"Having in\ncontemplation a journey, to which of the Gods must I sacrifice and\npray, in order to accomplish it best, and to come back with safety and\nsuccess?\" Apollo indicated to him the Gods to whom he ought to address\nhimself: but Sokrates was displeased with him for not having first\nasked, whether he ought to go at all. Nevertheless (continued\nSokrates), since you have chosen to put the question in your own way\nyou must act as the God has prescribed.[6]\n\n[Footnote 6: Xenoph. Anab. iii. 1, 4-6.]\n\n[Side-note: His service and command with the Ten Thousand Greeks;\nafterwards under Agesilaus and the Spartans.--He is banished from\nAthens.]\n\nThe anecdote here recounted by Xenophon is interesting, as it\nillustrates his sincere faith, as well as that of Sokrates, in the\nDelphian oracle: though we might have expected that on this occasion,\nSokrates would have been favoured with some manifestation of that\ndivine sign, which he represents to have warned him afterwards so\nfrequently and on such trifling matters. Apollo however was perhaps\ndispleased (as Sokrates was) with Xenophon, for not having submitted\nthe question to him with full frankness: since the answer given was\nproved by subsequent experience to be incomplete.[7] After fifteen\nmonths passed, first, in the hard upward march--next, in the still\nharder retreat--of the Ten Thousand, to the preservation of whom he\nlargely contributed by his energy, presence of mind, resolute\ninitiative, and ready Athenian eloquence, as one of their\nleaders--Xenophon returned to Athens. It appears that he must have come\nback not long after the death of Sokrates. But Athens was not at that time\na pleasant residence for him. The Sokratic companions shared in the\nunpopularity of their deceased master, and many of them were absent:\nmoreover Xenophon himself was unpopular as the active partisan of\nCyrus. After a certain stay, we know not how long, at Athens, Xenophon\nappears to have gone back to Asia; and to have resumed his command of\nthe remaining Cyreian soldiers, then serving under the Laced\u00e6monian\ngenerals against the Persian satraps Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus. He\nserved first under Derkyllidas, next under Agesilaus. For the latter\nhe conceived the warmest admiration, and contracted with him an\nintimate friendship. At the time when Xenophon rejoined the Cyreians\nin Asia, Athens was not at war with the Laced\u00e6monians: but after some\ntime, the hostile confederacy of Athens, Thebes, and Corinth, against\nthem was organised: and Agesilaus was summoned home by them from Asia,\nto fight their battles in Greece. Xenophon and his Cyreians were still\na portion of the army of Agesilaus, and accompanied him in his march\ninto Boeotia; where they took part in his desperate battle and bloody\nvictory at Koroneia.[8] But he was now lending active aid to the\nenemies of Athens, and holding conspicuous command in their armies. A\nsentence of banishment, on the ground of Laconism, was passed against\nhim by the Athenians, on the proposition of Eubulus.[9]\n\n[Footnote 7: Compare Anabas. vi. 1, 22, and vii. 8, 1-6.\n\nSee also Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 33 C, and Plato, Theag\u00eas, p. 129; also\nbelow, vol. ii. ch. xv.\n\nSokrates and Xenophon are among the most imposing witnesses cited by\nQuintus Cicero, in his long pleading to show the reality of divination\n(Cicero, De Divinatione, i. 25, 52, i. 54, 122). Antipater the Stoic\ncollected a large number of examples, illustrating the miraculous\ndivining power of Sokrates. Several of these examples appear much more\ntrifling than this incident of Xenophon.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Xenoph. Anab. v. 3, 6; Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 18.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Diog. L. ii. 51-69. [Greek: e)pi\\ Lak\u00f4nism\u00f4=| phug\u00ea\\n\nu(p' A)th\u00eanai/\u00f4n kategn\u00f4/sth\u00ea.]]\n\n[Side-note: His residence at Skillus near Olympia.]\n\nHow long he served with Agesilaus, we are not told. At the end of his\nservice, the Laced\u00e6monians provided him with a house and land at the\nTriphylian town of Skill\u00fbs near Olympia, which they had seemingly\ntaken from the Eleians and re-colonised. Near this residence he also\npurchased, under the authority of the God (perhaps Olympian Zeus) a\nlanded estate to be consecrated to the Goddess Artemis: employing\ntherein a portion of the tithe of plunder devoted to Artemis by the\nCyreian army, and deposited by him for the time in the care of\nMegabyzus, priest of Artemis at Ephesus. The estate of the Goddess\ncontained some cultivated ground, but consisted chiefly of pasture;\nwith wild ground, wood and mountain, abounding in game and favourable\nfor hunting. Xenophon became Conservator of this property for Artemis:\nto whom he dedicated a shrine and a statue, in miniature copy of the\ngreat temple at Ephesus. Every year he held a formal hunting-match, to\nwhich he invited all the neighbours, with abundant hospitality, at the\nexpense of the Goddess. The Conservator and his successors were bound\nby formal vow, on pain of her displeasure, to employ one tenth of the\nwhole annual produce in sacrifices to her: and to keep the shrine and\nstatue in good order, out of the remainder.[10]\n\n[Footnote 10: Xenoph. Anab. v. 3, 8-12; Diog. L. ii. 52: Pausanias, v.\n6, 3.\n\n[Greek: ph\u00easi\\ d' o( Dei/narchos o(/ti kai\\ oi)ki/an kai\\ a)/gron\nau)t\u00f4=| e(/dosan Lakedaimo/nioi].\n\nDeinarchus appears to have composed for a client at Athens a judicial\nspeech against Xenophon, the grandson of Xenophon Sokraticus. He\nintroduced into the speech some facts relating to the grandfather.]\n\n[Side-note: Family of Xenophon--his son Gryllus killed at Mantinea.]\n\nXenophon seems to have passed many years of his life either at Skillus\nor in other parts of Peloponnesus, and is said to have died very old\nat Corinth. The sentence of banishment passed against him by the\nAthenians was revoked after the battle of Leuktra, when Athens came\ninto alliance with the Laced\u00e6monians against Thebes. Some of\nXenophon's later works indicate that he must have availed himself of\nthis revocation to visit Athens: but whether he permanently resided\nthere is uncertain. He had brought over with him from Asia a wife\nnamed Philesia, by whom he had two sons, Gryllus and Diodorus.[11] He\nsent these two youths to be trained at Sparta, under the countenance\nof Agesilaus:[12] afterwards the eldest of them, Gryllus, served with\nhonour in the Athenian cavalry which assisted the Laced\u00e6monians and\nMantineians against Epameinondas, B.C. 362. In the important\ncombat[13] of the Athenian and Theban cavalry, close to the gates of\nMantineia--shortly preceding the general battle of Mantineia, in which\nEpameinondas was slain--Gryllus fell, fighting with great bravery. The\ndeath of this gallant youth--himself seemingly of great promise, and\nthe son of so eminent a father--was celebrated by Isokrates and several\nother rhetors, as well as by the painter Euphranor at Athens, and by\nsculptors at Mantineia itself.[14]\n\n[Footnote 11: \u00c6schines Sokraticus, in one of his dialogues, introduced\nAspasia conversing with Xenophon and his (Xenophon's) wife. Cicero, De\nInvent. i. 31, 51-54; Quintil. Inst. Orat. v. p. 312.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 20.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Xenoph. Hellen. vii. 5, 15-16-17. This combat of cavalry\nnear the gates of Mantineia was very close and sharply contested; but\nat the great battle fought a few days afterwards the Athenian cavalry\nwere hardly at all engaged, vii. 5, 25.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Pausanias, i. 3, 3, viii. 11, 4, ix. 15, 3; Diogenes L.\nii. 54. Harpokration v. [Greek: K\u00eaphiso/d\u00f4ros].\n\nIt appears that Euphranor, in his picture represented Gryllus as\nengaged in personal conflict with Epameinondas and wounding him--a\ncompliment not justified by the facts. The Mantineians believed\nAntikrates, one of their own citizens, to have mortally wounded the\ngreat Theban general with his spear, and they awarded to him as\nrecompense immunity from public burthens ([Greek: a)te/leian]), both\nfor himself and his descendants. One of his descendants, Kallikrates,\ncontinued even in Plutarch's time to enjoy this immunity. Plutarch,\nAgesilaus, c. 35.]\n\n[Side-note: Death of Xenophon at Corinth--Story of the Eleian\nExeget\u00e6.]\n\nSkillus, the place in which the Laced\u00e6monians had established\nXenophon, was retaken by the Eleians during the humiliation of\nLaced\u00e6monian power, not long before the battle of Mantineia. Xenophon\nhimself was absent at the time; but his family were constrained to\nretire to Lepreum. It was after this, we are told, that he removed to\nCorinth, where he died in 355 B.C. or in some year later. The Eleian\nExeget\u00e6 told the traveller Pausanias, when he visited the spot five\ncenturies afterwards, that Xenophon had been condemned in the judicial\nCouncil of Olympia as wrongful occupant of the property at Skillus,\nthrough Laced\u00e6monian violence; but that the Eleians had granted him\nindulgence, and had allowed him to remain.[15] As it seems clearly\nasserted that he died at Corinth, he can hardly have availed himself\nof the indulgence; and I incline to suspect that the statement is an\ninvention of subsequent Eleian Exeget\u00e6, after they had learnt to\nappreciate his literary eminence.\n\n[Footnote 15: Pausan. v. 6, 3; Diog. L. ii. 53-56.]\n\n[Side-note: Xenophon different from Plato and the other Sokratic\nbrethren.]\n\nFrom the brief outline thus presented of Xenophon's life, it will\nplainly appear that he was quite different in character and habits\nfrom Plato and the other Sokratic brethren. He was not only a man of\nthe world (as indeed Aristippus was also), but he was actively engaged\nin the most responsible and difficult functions of military command:\nhe was moreover a landed proprietor and cultivator, fond of strong\nexercise with dogs and horses, and an intelligent equestrian. His\ncircumstances were sufficiently easy to dispense with the necessity of\neither composing discourses or taking pupils for money. Being thus\nenabled to prosecute letters and philosophy in an independent way, he\ndid not, like Plato and Aristotle, open a school.[16] His relations,\nas active coadjutor and subordinate, with Agesilaus, form a striking\ncontrast to those of Plato with Dionysius, as tutor and pedagogue. In\nhis mind, the Sokratic conversations, suggestive and stimulating to\nevery one, fell upon the dispositions and aptitudes of a\ncitizen-soldier, and fructified in a peculiar manner. My present work\ndeals with Xenophon, not as an historian of Grecian affairs or of the\nCyreian expedition, but only on the intellectual and theorising side:--as\nauthor of the Memorabilia, the Cyrop\u00e6dia, Oekonomikus, Symposion,\nHieron, De Vectigalibus, &c.\n\n[Footnote 16: See, in the account of Theopompus by Photius (Cod. 176,\np. 120; compare also Photius, Cod. 159, p. 102, a. 41), the\ndistinction taken by Theopompus: who said that the four most\ncelebrated literary persons of his day were, his master Isokrates,\nTheodekt\u00eas of Phas\u00ealis, Naukrates of Erythr\u00e6, and himself\n(Theopompus). He himself and Naukrates were in good circumstances, so\nthat he passed his life in independent prosecution of philosophy and\nphilomathy. But Isokrates and Theodekt\u00eas were compelled [Greek: di'\na)pori/an bi/ou, misthou= lo/gous gra/phein kai\\ sophisteu/ein,\ne)kpaideu/ontes tou\\s ne/ous, ka)kei=then karpoume/nous ta\\s\nu(phelei/as].\n\nTheopompus does not here present the profession of a Sophist (as most\nPlatonic commentators teach us to regard it) as a mean,\nunprincipled, and corrupting employment.]\n\n[Side-note: His various works--Memorabilia, Oekonomikus, &c.]\n\nThe Memorabilia were composed as records of the conversations of\nSokrates, expressly intended to vindicate Sokrates against charges of\nimpiety and of corrupting youthful minds, and to show that he\ninculcated, before every thing, self-denial, moderation of desires,\nreverence for parents, and worship of the Gods. The Oekonomikus and\nthe Symposion are expansions of the Memorabilia: the first[17]\nexhibiting Sokrates not only as an attentive observer of the facts of\nactive life (in which character the Memorabilia present him also), but\neven as a learner of husbandry[18] and family management from\nIschomachus--the last describing Sokrates and his behaviour amidst the\nfun and joviality of a convivial company. Sokrates declares[19] that\nas to himself, though poor, he is quite as rich as he desires to be;\nthat he desires no increase, and regards poverty as no disadvantage.\nYet since Kratobulus, though rich, is beset with temptations to\nexpense quite sufficient to embarrass him, good proprietary management\nis to him a necessity. Accordingly, Sokrates, announcing that he has\nalways been careful to inform himself who were the best economists in\nthe city,[20] now cites as authority Ischomachus, a citizen of wealth\nand high position, recognised by all as one of the\n\"super-excellent\".[21] Ischomachus loves wealth, and is anxious to\nmaintain and even enlarge his property: desiring to spend magnificently\nfor the honour of the Gods, the assistance of friends, and the support\nof the city.[22] His whole life is arranged, with intelligence and\nforethought, so as to attain this object, and at the same time to keep\nup the maximum of bodily health and vigour, especially among the\nhorsemen of the city as an accomplished rider[23] and cavalry\nsoldier. He speaks with respect, and almost with enthusiasm, of\nhusbandry, as an occupation not merely profitable, but improving to\nthe character: though he treats with disrespect other branches of\nindustry and craft.[24] In regard to husbandry, too, as in regard to\nwar or steersmanship, he affirms that the difference between one\npractitioner and another consists, not so much in unequal knowledge,\nas in unequal care to practise what both of them know.[25]\n\n[Footnote 17: Galen calls the Oekonomicus the last book of the\nMemorabilia (ad Hippokrat. De Articulis, t. xviii. p. 301, K\u00fchn). It\nprofesses to be repeated by Xenophon from what he himself _heard_\nSokrates say--[Greek: \u00ea)/kousa de/ pote au)tou= kai\\ peri\\\noi)konomi/as toia/de dialegome/nou], &c. Sokrates first instructs\nKritobulus that economy, or management of property, is an art,\ngoverned by rules, and dependent upon principles; next, he recounts to\nhim the lessons which he professes to have himself received from\nIschomachus.\n\nI have already adverted to the Xenophontic Symposion as containing\njocular remarks which some erroneously cite as serious.]\n\n[Footnote 18: To _learn_ in this way the actualities of life, and the\nway of extracting the greatest amount of wheat and barley from a given\npiece of land, is the sense which Xenophon puts on the word [Greek:\nphilo/sophos] (Xen. Oek. xvi. 9; compare Cyrop\u00e6dia, vi. 1, 41).]\n\n[Footnote 19: Xenoph. Oekonom. ii. 3; xi. 3, 4.\n\nI have made some observations on the Xenophontic Symposion, comparing\nit with the Platonic Symposion, in a subsequent chapter of this work,\nch. xxvi.]\n\n[Footnote 20: Xen. Oekon. ii. 16.]\n\n[Footnote 21: Xen. Oekon. vi. 17, xi. 3. [Greek: pro\\s pa/nt\u00f4n kai\\\na)ndr\u00f4=n kai\\ gunaik\u00f4=n, kai\\ xe/n\u00f4n kai\\ a)st\u00f4=n, kalo/n te\nka)gatho\\n e)ponomazo/menon.]]\n\n[Footnote 22: Xen. Oekon. xi. 9.]\n\n[Footnote 23: Xen. Oekon. xi. 17-21. [Greek: e)n toi=s i(ppok\u00f4ta/tois\nte kai\\ plousi\u00f4ta/tois].]\n\n[Footnote 24: Xen. Oekon. iv. 2-3, vi. 5-7. Ischomachus asserts that\nhis father had been more devoted to agriculture ([Greek:\nphiloge\u00f4rgo/tatos]) than any man at Athens; that he had bought several\npieces of land ([Greek: ch\u00f4/rous]) when out of order, improved them,\nand then resold them with very large profit, xx. 26.]\n\n[Footnote 25: Xen. Oekon. xx. 2-10.]\n\n[Side-note: Ischomachus, hero of the Oekonomikus--ideal of an active\ncitizen, cultivator, husband, house-master, &c.]\n\nIschomachus describes to Sokrates, in reply to a string of successive\nquestions, both his scheme of life and his scheme of husbandry. He had\nmarried his wife before she was fifteen years of age: having first\nascertained that she had been brought up carefully, so as to have seen\nand heard as little as possible, and to know nothing but spinning and\nweaving.[26] He describes how he took this very young wife into\ntraining, so as to form her to the habits which he himself approved.\nHe declares that the duties and functions of women are confined to\nin-door work and superintendence, while the out-door proceedings,\nacquisition as well as defence, belong to men:[27] he insists upon\nsuch separation of functions emphatically, as an ordinance of\nnature--holding an opinion the direct reverse of that which we have seen\nexpressed by Plato.[28] He makes many remarks on the arrangements of\nthe house, and of the stores within it: and he dwells particularly on\nthe management of servants, male and female.\n\n[Footnote 26: Xen. Oekon. vii. 3-7. [Greek: to\\n d' e)/mprosthen\nchro/non e)/z\u00ea u(po\\ poll\u00ea=s e)pimelei/as, o(/p\u00f4s \u00f4(s e)la/chista me\\n\no)/psoito, e)la/chista de\\ a)kou/soito, e)la/chista de\\ e)/roito].\n\nThe [Greek: didaskali/a] addressed to Sokrates by Ischomachus is in\nthe form of [Greek: e)r\u00f4/t\u00easis], xix. 15. The Sokratic interrogation\nis here brought to bear _upon_ Sokrates, instead of by Sokrates: like\nthe Elenchus in the Parmenid\u00eas of Plato.]\n\n[Footnote 27: Xen. Oekon. vii. 22-32.]\n\n[Footnote 28: See below, ch. xxxvii.\n\nCompare also Aristotel. Politic. iii. 4, 1277, b. 25, where Aristotle\nlays down the same principle as Xenophon.]\n\n[Side-note: Text upon which Xenophon insists--capital difference\nbetween command over subordinates willing, and subordinates\nunwilling.]\n\nIt is upon this last point that he lays more stress than upon any\nother. To know how to command men--is the first of all accomplishments\nin the mind of Xenophon. Ischomachus proclaims it as essential that\nthe superior shall not merely give orders to his subordinates, but\nalso see them executed, and set the example of personal active\nwatchfulness in every way. Xenophon aims at securing not simply\nobedience, but cheerful and willing obedience--even attachment from\nthose who obey. \"To exercise command over willing subjects\"[29] (he\nsays) \"is a good more than human, granted only to men truly\nconsummated in virtue of character essentially divine. To exercise\ncommand over unwilling subjects, is a torment like that of Tantalus.\"\n\n[Footnote 29: Xen. Oekon. xxi. 10-12. [Greek: \u00ea)/thous\nbasilikou=--thei=on gene/sthai. Ou) ga\\r pa/nu moi\\ dokei= touti\\ to\\\na)gatho\\n a)nthr\u00f4/pinon ei)=nai, a)lla\\ thei=on, to\\ _e)thelo/nt\u00f4n\na)/rchein_; saph\u00f4=s de\\ di/dotai toi=s a)l\u00eathin\u00f4=s s\u00f4phrosu/n\u00ea|\ntetelesme/nois. To\\ de\\ a)ko/nt\u00f4n turannei=n dido/asin, \u00f4(s e)moi\\\ndokei=, ou(\\s a)\\n \u00ea(g\u00f4=ntai a)xi/ous ei)=nai bioteu/ein, \u00f4(/sper o(\nTa/ntalos e)n a(/|dou le/getai]. Compare also iv. 19, xiii. 3-7.]\n\n[Side-note: Probable circumstances generating these reflections in\nXenophon's mind.]\n\nThe sentence just transcribed (the last sentence in the Oekonomikus)\nbrings to our notice a central focus in Xenophon's mind, from whence\nmany of his most valuable speculations emanate. \"What are the\nconditions under which subordinates will cheerfully obey their\ncommanders?\"--was a problem forced upon his thoughts by his own\npersonal experience, as well as by contemporary phenomena in Hellas.\nHe had been elected one of the generals of the Ten Thousand: a large\nbody of brave warriors from different cities, most of them unknown to\nhim personally, and inviting his authority only because they were in\nextreme peril, and because no one else took the initiative.[30] He\ndischarged his duties admirably: and his ready eloquence was an\ninvaluable accomplishment, distinguishing him from all his colleagues.\nNevertheless when the army arrived at the Euxine, out of the reach of\nurgent peril, he was made to feel sensibly the vexations of authority\nresting upon such precarious basis, and perpetually traversed by\njealous rivals. Moreover, Xenophon, besides his own personal\nexperience, had witnessed violent political changes running\nextensively through the cities of the Grecian world: first, at the\nclose of the Peloponnesian war--next, after the battle of Knidus--again,\nunder Laced\u00e6monian supremacy, after the peace of Antalkidas,\nand the subsequent seizure of the citadel of Thebes--lastly, after the\nThebans had regained their freedom and humbled the Laced\u00e6monians by\nthe battle of Leuktra. To Xenophon--partly actor, partly\nspectator--these political revolutions were matters of anxious interest;\nespecially as he ardently sympathised with Agesilaus, a political\npartisan interested in most of them, either as conservative or\nrevolutionary.\n\n[Footnote 30: The reader will find in my 'History of Greece,' ch. 70,\n p. 103 seq., a narrative of the circumstances under which Xenophon\nwas first chosen to command, as well as his conduct afterwards.]\n\n[Side-note: This text affords subjects for the Hieron and\nCyrop\u00e6dia--Name of Sokrates not suitable.]\n\nWe thus see, from the personal history of Xenophon, how his attention\ncame to be peculiarly turned to the difficulty of ensuring steady\nobedience from subordinates, and to the conditions by which such\ndifficulty might be overcome. The sentence, above transcribed from the\nOekonomikus, embodies two texts upon which he has discoursed in two of\nhis most interesting compositions--Cyrop\u00e6dia and Hieron. In Cyrop\u00e6dia\nhe explains and exemplifies the divine gift of ruling over cheerful\nsubordinates: in Hieron, the torment of governing the disaffected and\nrefractory. For neither of these purposes would the name and person of\nSokrates have been suitable, exclusively connected as they were with\nAthens. Accordingly Xenophon, having carried that respected name\nthrough the Oekonomikus and Symposion, now dismisses it, yet retaining\nstill the familiar and colloquial manner which belonged to Sokrates.\nThe Epilogue, or concluding chapter, of the Cyrop\u00e6dia, must\nunquestionably have been composed after 364 B.C.--in the last ten\nyears of Xenophon's life: the main body of it may perhaps have been\ncomposed earlier.\n\n[Side-note: Hieron--Persons of the dialogue--Simonides and Hieron.]\n\nThe Hieron gives no indication of date: but as a picture purely\nHellenic, it deserves precedence over the Cyrop\u00e6dia, and conveys to my\nmind the impression of having been written earlier. It describes a\nsupposed conversation (probably suggested by current traditional\nconversations, like that between Solon and Kroesus) between the poet\nSimonides and Hieron the despot of Syracuse; who, shortly after the\nPersian invasion of Greece by Xerxes, had succeeded his brother Gelon\nthe former despot.[31] Both of them had been once private citizens, of\nno remarkable consequence: but Gelon, an energetic and ambitious\nmilitary man, having raised himself to power in the service of\nHippokrates despot of Gela, had seized the sceptre on the death of his\nmaster: after which he conquered Syracuse, and acquired a formidable\ndominion, enjoyed after his death by his brother Hieron. This last was\na great patron of eminent poets--Pindar, Simonides, \u00c6schylus,\nBacchylides: but he laboured under a painful internal complaint, and\nappears to have been of an irritable and oppressive temper.[32]\n\n[Footnote 31: Plato, Epistol. ii. p. 311 A. Aristot. Rhetor. ii. 16,\n1391, a. 9; Cicero, Nat. Deo. i. 22, 60. How high was the opinion\nentertained about Simonides as a poet, may be seen illustrated in a\npassage of Aristophanes, Vesp\u00e6, 1362.]\n\n[Footnote 32: See the first and second Pythian Odes of Pindar,\naddressed to Hieron, especially Pyth. i. 55-61-90, with the Scholia\nand Boeckh's Commentary. Pindar compliments Hieron upon having founded\nhis new city of \u00c6tna--[Greek: theodma/t\u00f4| su\\n e)leutheria|]. This does\nnot coincide with the view of Hieron's character taken by Xenophon;\nbut Pindar agrees with Xenophon in exhorting Hieron to make himself\npopular by a liberal expenditure.]\n\n[Side-note: Questions put to Hieron; view taken by Simonides. Answer\nof Hieron.]\n\nSimonides asks of Hieron, who had personally tried both the life of a\nprivate citizen and that of a despot, which of the two he considered\npreferable, in regard to pleasures and pains. Upon this subject, a\nconversation of some length ensues, in which Hieron declares that the\nlife of a despot has much more pain, and much less pleasure, than that\nof a private citizen under middling circumstances:[33] while Simonides\ntakes the contrary side, and insists in detail upon the superior means\nof enjoyment, apparent at least, possessed by the despot. As each of\nthese means is successively brought forward, Hieron shews that however\nthe matter may appear to the spectator, the despot feels no greater\nreal happiness in his own bosom: while he suffers many pains and\nprivations, of which the spectator takes no account. As to the\npleasures of sight, the despot forfeits altogether the first and\ngreatest, because it is unsafe for him to visit the public festivals\nand matches. In regard to hearing--many praises, and no reproach,\nreach his ears: but then he knows that the praises are insincere--and\nthat reproach is unheard, only because speakers dare not express what\nthey really feel. The despot has finer cookery and richer unguents;\nbut others enjoy a modest banquet as much or more--while the scent of\nthe unguents pleases those who are near him more than himself.[34]\nThen as to the pleasures of love, these do not exist, except where the\nbeloved person manifests spontaneous sympathy and return of\nattachment. Now the despot can never extort such return by his power;\nwhile even if it be granted freely, he cannot trust its sincerity and\nis compelled even to be more on his guard, since successful\nconspiracies against his life generally proceed from those who profess\nattachment to him.[35] The private citizen on the contrary knows that\nthose who profess to love him, may be trusted, as having no motive for\nfalsehood.\n\n[Footnote 33: Xenoph. Hier. i. 8. [Greek: eu)= i)/sthi, \u00f4)= Sim\u00f4ni/d\u00ea,\no(/ti polu\\ mei/\u00f4 eu)phrai/nontai oi( tu/rannoi t\u00f4=n metri/\u00f4s\ndiago/nt\u00f4n i)di\u00f4t\u00f4=n, polu\\ de\\ plei/\u00f4 kai\\ mei/z\u00f4 lupou=ntai.]]\n\n[Footnote 34: Xen. Hieron, i. 12-15-24.]\n\n[Footnote 35: Xen. Hier. i. 26-38. [Greek: T\u00f4=| tura/nn\u00f4| ou)/ pot'\ne)sti\\ pisteu=sai, \u00f4(s philei=tai. Ai( e)piboulai\\ e)x ou)de/n\u00f4n\nple/ones toi=s tura/nnois ei)si\\n \u00ea)\\ a)po\\ t\u00f4=n ma/lista philei=n\nau)tou\\s prospoi\u00easame/n\u00f4n].\n\nThis chapter affords remarkable illustration of Grecian manners,\nespecially in the-distinction drawn between [Greek: ta\\ paidika\\\na)phrodi/sia] and [Greek: ta\\ teknopoia\\ a)phrodi/sia].]\n\n[Side-note: Misery of governing unwilling subjects declared by\nHieron.]\n\nStill (contends Simonides) there are other pleasures greater than\nthose of sense. You despots possess the greatest abundance and variety\nof possessions--the finest chariots and horses, the most splendid\narms, the finest palaces, ornaments, and furniture--the most brilliant\nornaments for your wives--the most intelligent and valuable servants.\nYou execute the greatest enterprises: you can do most to benefit your\nfriends, and hurt your enemies: you have all the proud consciousness\nof superior might.[36]--Such is the opinion of the multitude (replies\nHieron), who are misled by appearances: but a wise man like you,\nSimonides, ought to see the reality in the background, and to\nrecollect that happiness or unhappiness reside only in a man's\ninternal feelings. You cannot but know that a despot lives in\nperpetual insecurity, both at home and abroad: that he must always go\narmed himself, and have armed guards around him: that whether at war\nor at peace, he is always alike in danger: that, while suspecting\nevery one as an enemy, he nevertheless knows that when he has put to\ndeath the persons suspected, he has only weakened the power of the\ncity:[37] that he has no sincere friendship with any one: that he\ncannot count even upon good faith, and must cause all his food to be\ntasted by others, before he eats it: that whoever has slain a private\ncitizen, is shunned in Grecian cities as an abomination--while the\ntyrannicide is everywhere honoured and recompensed: that there is no\nsafety for the despot even in his own family, many having been killed\nby their nearest relatives:[38] that he is compelled to rely upon\nmercenary foreign soldiers and liberated slaves, against the free\ncitizens who hate him: and that the hire of such inauspicious\nprotectors compels him to raise money, by despoiling individuals and\nplundering temples:[39] that the best and most estimable citizens are\nincurably hostile to him, while none but the worst will serve him for\npay: that he looks back with bitter sorrow to the pleasures and\nconfidential friendships which he enjoyed as a private man, but from\nwhich he is altogether debarred as a despot.[40]\n\n[Footnote 36: Xen. Hier. ii. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 37: Xen. Hieron, ii. 5-17.]\n\n[Footnote 38: Xenoph. Hieron, ii. 8, iii. 1, 5. Compare Xenophon,\nHellenic. iii. 1, 14.]\n\n[Footnote 39: Xen. Hieron, iv. 7-11.]\n\n[Footnote 40: Xen. Hieron, vi. 1-12.]\n\nNothing brings a man so near to the Gods (rejoins Simonides) as the\nfeeling of being honoured. Power and a brilliant position must be of\ninestimable value, if they are worth purchasing at the price which you\ndescribe.[41] Otherwise, why do you not throw up your sceptre? How\nhappens it that no despot has ever yet done this? To be honoured\n(answers Hieron) is the greatest of earthly blessings, when a man\nobtains honour from the spontaneous voice of freemen. But a despot\nenjoys no such satisfaction. He lives like a criminal under sentence\nof death by every one: and it is impossible for him to lay down his\npower, because of the number of persons whom he has been obliged to\nmake his enemies. He can neither endure his present condition, nor yet\nescape from it. The best thing he can do is to hang himself.[42]\n\n[Footnote 41: Xen. Hieron, vii. 1-5.]\n\n[Footnote 42: Xen. Hieron, vii. 5-13. [Greek: O( de\\ tu/rannos, \u00f4(s\nu(po\\ pa/nt\u00f4n a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n katakekrime/nos di' a)diki/an\na)pothn\u00ea/skein--kai\\ nu/kta kai\\ \u00ea(me/ran dia/gei. . . . A)ll' ei)/per\nt\u00f4| a)/ll\u00f4| lusitelei= a)pa/gxasthai, i)/sthi o(/ti tura/nn\u00f4| e)/g\u00f4ge\neu(ri/sk\u00f4 ma/lista tou=to lusitelou=n poi\u00ea=sai. Mo/n\u00f4| ga\\r au(t\u00f4=|\nou)/te e)/chein, ou)/te katathe/sthai ta\\ kaka\\ lusitelei=].\n\nSolon in his poems makes the remark, that for the man who once usurps\nthe sceptre no retreat is possible. See my 'History of Greece,' chap.\nxi. p. 132 seq.\n\nThe impressive contrast here drawn by Hieron (c. vi.) between his\ncondition as a despot and the past enjoyments of private life and\ncitizenship which he has lost, reminds one of the still more sorrowful\ncontrast in the Atys of Catullus, v. 58-70.]\n\n[Side-note: Advice to Hieron by Simonides--that he should govern well,\nand thus make himself beloved by his subjects.]\n\nSimonides in reply, after sympathising with Hieron's despondency,\nundertakes to console him by showing that such consequences do not\nnecessarily attend despotic rule. The despot's power is an instrument\navailable for good as well as for evil. By a proper employment of it,\nhe may not only avoid being hated, but may even make himself beloved,\nbeyond the measure attainable by any private citizen. Even kind words,\nand petty courtesies, are welcomed far more eagerly when they come\nfrom a powerful man than from an equal: moreover a showy and brilliant\nexterior seldom fails to fascinate the spectator.[43] But besides\nthis, the despot may render to his city the most substantial and\nimportant services. He may punish criminals and reward meritorious\nmen: the punishments he ought to inflict by the hands of others, while\nhe will administer the rewards in person--giving prizes for superior\nexcellence in every department, and thus endearing himself to all.[44]\nSuch prizes would provoke a salutary competition in the performance of\nmilitary duties, in choric exhibitions, in husbandry, commerce, and\npublic usefulness of every kind. Even the foreign mercenaries, though\nusually odious, might be so handled and disciplined as to afford\ndefence against foreign danger,--to ensure for the citizens\nundisturbed leisure in their own private affairs--to protect and\nbefriend the honest man, and to use force only against criminals.[45]\nIf thus employed, such mercenaries, instead of being hated, would be\nwelcome companions: and the despot himself may count, not only upon\nsecurity against attack, but upon the warmest gratitude and\nattachment. The citizens will readily furnish contributions to him\nwhen asked, and will regard him as their greatest benefactor. \"You\nwill obtain in this way\" (Simonides thus concludes his address to\nHieron), \"the finest and most enviable of all acquisitions. You will\nhave your subjects obeying you willingly, and caring for you of their\nown accord. You may travel safely wherever you please, and will be a\nwelcome visitor at all the crowded festivals. You will be happy,\nwithout jealousy from any one.\"[46]\n\n[Footnote 43: Xen. Hieron, viii. 2-7.]\n\n[Footnote 44: Xen. Hieron, ix. 1-4.]\n\n[Footnote 45: Xen. Hieron, x. 6-8.]\n\n[Footnote 46: Xen. Hieron, xi. 10-12-15. [Greek: ka)\\n tau=ta pa/nta\npoi\u00ea=s, eu)= i)/sthi pa/nt\u00f4n t\u00f4=n a)nthr\u00f4/pois ka/lliston kai\\\nmakari\u00f4/taton kt\u00ea=ma kekt\u00eame/nos; eu)daimon\u00f4=n ga\\r ou)\nphthon\u00eath\u00ea/s\u00ea|.]]\n\n[Side-note: Probable experience had by Xenophon of the feelings at\nOlympia against Dionysius.]\n\nThe dialogue of which I have given this short abstract, illustrates\nwhat Xenophon calls the torment of Tantalus--the misery of a despot\nwho has to extort obedience from unwilling subjects:--especially if\nthe despot be one who has once known the comfort and security of\nprivate life, under tolerably favourable circumstances. If we compare\nthis dialogue with the Platonic Gorgias, where we have seen a thesis\nvery analogous handled in respect to Archelaus,--we shall find Plato\nsoaring into a sublime ethical region of his own, measuring the\ndespot's happiness and misery by a standard peculiar to himself, and\nmaking good what he admits to be a paradox by abundant eloquence\ncovering faulty dialectic: while Xenophon, herein following his\nmaster, applies to human life the measure of a rational common sense,\ntalks about pleasures and pains which every one can feel to be such,\nand points out how many of these pleasures the despot forfeits, how\nmany of these pains and privations he undergoes,--in spite of that\ngreat power of doing hurt, and less power, though still considerable,\nof doing good, which raises the envy of spectators. The Hieron gives\nutterance to an interesting vein of sentiment, more common at Athens\nthan elsewhere in Greece; enforced by the conversation of Sokrates,\nand serving as corrective protest against that unqualified worship of\npower which prevailed in the ancient world no less than in the modern.\nThat the Syrakusan Hieron should be selected as an exemplifying name,\nmay be explained by the circumstance, that during thirty-eight years\nof Xenophon's mature life (405-367 B.C.), Dionysius the elder was\ndespot of Syrakuse; a man of energy and ability, who had extinguished\nthe liberties of his native city, and acquired power and dominion\ngreater than that of any living Greek. Xenophon, resident at Skillus,\nwithin a short distance from Olympia, had probably[47] seen the\nsplendid Th\u00eaory (or sacred legation of representative envoys)\ninstalled in rich and ornamented tents, and the fine running horses\nsent by Dionysius, at the ninety-ninth Olympic festival (384 B.C.):\nbut he probably also heard the execration with which the name of\nDionysius himself had been received by the spectators, and he would\nfeel that the despot could hardly shew himself there in person. There\nwere narratives in circulation about the interior life of\nDionysius,[48] analogous to those statements which Xenophon puts into\nthe mouth of Hieron. A predecessor of Dionysius as despot of\nSyracuse[49] and also as patron of poets, was therefore a suitable\nperson to choose for illustrating the first part of Xenophon's\nthesis--the countervailing pains and penalties which spoilt all the\nvalue of power, if exercised over unwilling and repugnant subjects.[50]\n\n[Footnote 47: Xenoph. Anab. v. 3, 11.]\n\n[Footnote 48: See chap. 83, vol. xi. pp. 40-50, of my 'History of\nGreece,' where this memorable scene at Olympia is described.]\n\n[Footnote 49: Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 20, 57-63; De Officiis, ii. 7,\n24-25.\n\n\"Multos timebit ille, quem multi timent.\"]\n\n[Footnote 50: An anecdote is told about a visit of Xenophon to\nDionysius at Syracuse--whether the elder or the younger is not\nspecified--but the tenor of the anecdote points to the younger; if so\nthe visit must have been later than 367 B.C. (Athen\u00e6us x. 427).]\n\n[Side-note: Xenophon could not have chosen a Grecian despot to\nillustrate his theory of the happiness of governing willing subjects.]\n\nBut when Xenophon came to illustrate the second part of his thesis--the\npossibility of exercising power in such manner as to render the\nholder of it popular and beloved--it would have been scarcely possible\nfor him to lay the scene in any Grecian city. The repugnance of the\ncitizens of a Grecian city towards a despot who usurped power over\nthem, was incurable--however much the more ambitious individuals\nsubjects among them might have wished to obtain such power for\nthemselves: a repugnance as great among oligarchs as among\ndemocrats--perhaps even greater. When we read the recommendations\naddressed by Simonides, teaching Hieron how he might render himself\npopular, we perceive at once that they are alike well intentioned and\nineffectual. Xenophon could neither find any real Grecian despot\ncorresponding to this portion of his illustrative purpose--nor could he\ninvent one with any shew of plausibility. He was forced to resort to\nother countries and other habits different from those of Greece.\n\n[Side-note: Cyrop\u00e6dia--blending of Spartan and Persian\ncustoms--Xenophon's experience of Cyrus the Younger.]\n\nTo this necessity probably we owe the Cyrop\u00e6dia: a romance in which\nPersian and Grecian experience are singularly blended, and both of\nthem so transformed as to suit the philosophical purpose of the\nnarrator. Xenophon had personally served and communicated with Cyrus\nthe younger: respecting whom also he had large means of information,\nfrom his intimate friend Proxenus, as well as from the other Grecian\ngenerals of the expedition. In the first book of the Anabasis, we find\nthis young prince depicted as an energetic and magnanimous character,\nfaithful to his word and generous in his friendships--inspiring strong\nattachment in those around him, yet vigorous in administration and in\npunishing criminals--not only courting the Greeks as useful for his\nambitious projects, but appreciating sincerely the superiority of\nHellenic character and freedom over Oriental servitude.[51] And in the\nOekonomikus, Cyrus is quoted as illustrating in his character the\ntrue virtue of a commander; the test of which Xenophon declares to\nbe--That his subordinates follow him willingly, and stand by him to the\ndeath.[52]\n\n[Footnote 51: Xenoph. Anab. i. 9, also i. 7, 3, the address of Cyrus\nto the Greek soldiers--[Greek: O(/p\u00f4s ou)=n e)/sesthe a)/ndres a)/xioi\nt\u00ea=s e)leutheri/as \u00ea(=s ke/kt\u00easthe, kai\\ u(pe\\r \u00ea(=s u(ma=s\neu)daimoni/z\u00f4. Eu)= ga\\r i)/ste, o(/ti te\\n e)leutheri/an e(loi/m\u00ean\na)\\n, a)nti\\ \u00f4(=n e)/ch\u00f4 pa/nt\u00f4n kai\\ a)/ll\u00f4n pollaplasi/\u00f4n],\ncompared with i. 5, 16, where Cyrus gives his appreciation of the\nOriental portion of his army, and the remarkable description of the\ntrial of Orontes, i. 6.]\n\n[Footnote 52: Xenoph. Oeconom. iv. 18-19. [Greek: Ku=ros, ei)\ne)bi/\u00f4sen, a)/ristos a)\\n dokei= a)/rch\u00f4n gene/sthai--\u00ea(gou=mai me/ga\ntekm\u00ea/rion a)/rchontos a)ret\u00ea=s ei)=nai, \u00f4(=| a)\\n e(ko/ntes\ne(/p\u00f4ntai, kai\\ e)n toi=s deinoi=s parame/nein e)the/l\u00f4sin]. Compare\nAnab. i. 9, 29-30.]\n\n[Side-note: Portrait of Cyrus the Great--his education--Preface to the\nCyrop\u00e6dia.]\n\nIt is this character Hellenised, Sokratised, idealised--that Xenophon\npaints into his glowing picture of Cyrus the founder of the Persian\nmonarchy, or the Cyrop\u00e6dia. He thus escapes the insuperable difficulty\narising from the position of a Grecian despot; who never could acquire\nwilling or loving obedience, because his possession of power was felt\nby a majority of his subjects to be wrongful, violent, tainted. The\nCyrus of the Cyrop\u00e6dia begins as son of Kambyses, king or chief of\nPersia, and grandson of Astyages, king of Media; recognised according\nto established custom by all, as the person to whom they look for\norders. Xenophon furnishes him with a splendid outfit of heroic\nqualities, suitable to this ascendant position: and represents the\nfoundation of the vast Persian empire, with the unshaken fidelity of\nall the heterogeneous people composing it, as the reward of a\nlaborious life spent in the active display of such qualities. In his\ninteresting Preface to the Cyrop\u00e6dia, he presents this as the solution\nof a problem which had greatly perplexed him. He had witnessed many\nrevolutions in the Grecian cities--subversions of democracies,\noligarchies, and despotisms: he had seen also private establishments,\nsome with numerous servants, some with few, yet scarcely any\nhouse-master able to obtain hearty or continued obedience. But as to\nherds of cattle or flocks of sheep, on the contrary, he had seen them\nuniformly obedient; suffering the herdsman or shepherd to do what he\npleased with, them, and never once conspiring against him. The first\ninference of Xenophon from these facts was, that man was by nature the\nmost difficult of all animals to govern.[53] But he became satisfied\nthat he was mistaken, when he reflected on the history of Cyrus; who\nhad acquired and maintained dominion over more men than had ever been\nunited under one empire, always obeying him cheerfully and\naffectionately. This history proved to Xenophon that it was not\nimpossible, nor even difficult,[54] to rule mankind, provided a man\nundertook it with scientific or artistic competence. Accordingly, he\nproceeded to examine what Cyrus was in birth, disposition, and\neducation--and how he came to be so admirably accomplished in the\ngovernment of men.[55] The result is the Cyrop\u00e6dia. We must observe,\nhowever, that his solution of the problem is one which does not meet\nthe full difficulties. These difficulties, as he states them, had been\nsuggested to him by his Hellenic experience: by the instability of\ngovernment in Grecian cities. But the solution which he provides\ndeparts from Hellenic experience, and implies what Aristotle and\nHippokrates called the more yielding and servile disposition of\nAsiatics:[56] for it postulates an hereditary chief of heroic or\ndivine lineage, such as was nowhere acknowledged in Greece, except at\nSparta--and there, only under restrictions which would have rendered\nthe case unfit for Xenophon's purpose. The heroic and regal lineage of\nCyrus was a condition not less essential to success than his\ndisposition and education:[57] and not merely his lineage, but also\nthe farther fact, that besides being constant in the duties of prayer\nand sacrifice to the Gods, he was peculiarly favoured by them with\npremonitory signs and warnings in all difficult emergencies.[58]\n\n[Footnote 53: Xen. Cyrop. i. 1, 2.]\n\n[Footnote 54: Xen. Cyrop. i. 1, 3. [Greek: e)k tou/tou d\u00ea\\\n\u00ea)nagkazo/metha metanoei=n, m\u00ea\\ ou)/te t\u00f4=n a)duna/t\u00f4n ou)/te t\u00f4=n\nchalep\u00f4=n e)/rg\u00f4n \u00ea(=| to\\ a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n a)/rchein, _\u00ea)/n tis\ne)pistame/n\u00f4s_ tou=to pra/tt\u00ea|.]]\n\n[Footnote 55: Xen. Cyrop. i. 1, 3-8.]\n\n[Footnote 56: Aristot. Politic. vii. 7, 1327, b. 25. [Greek: ta\\ de\\\nperi\\ t\u00ea\\n A)si/an, diano\u00eatika\\ me\\n kai\\ te\\chnika\\ t\u00ea\\n psuch\u00ea/n,\na)/thuma de/; dio/per a)rcho/mena kai\\ douleu/onta diatelei=].\n\nHippokrates, De Aere, Locis, et Aquis, c. 19-23.]\n\n[Footnote 57: So it is stated by Xenophon himself, in the speech\naddressed by Kroesus after his defeat and captivity to Cyrus, vii. 2,\n24--[Greek: a)gno\u00f4=n e)mauto\\n o(/ti soi a)ntipolemei=n i(kano\\s\n\u00f4(=|m\u00ean ei)=nai, pr\u00f4=ton me\\n e)k the\u00f4=n gegono/ti, e)/peita de\\ dia\\\nbasile/\u00f4n pephuko/ti, e)/peita de\\ e)k paido\\s a)ret\u00ea\\n a)skou=nti;\nt\u00f4=n d' e)m\u00f4=n progo/n\u00f4n a)kou/\u00f4 to\\n pr\u00f4=ton basileu/santa a)/ma te\nbasile/a kai\\ e)leu/theron gene/sthai]. Cyrop. i. 2, 1: [Greek: tou=\nPerseid\u00f4=n ge/nous], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 58: See the remarkable words addressed by Cyrus, shortly\nbefore his death, in sacrificing on the hill-top to [Greek: Zeu\\s\nPatr\u00f4=|os] and [Greek: \u00ca(/lios], Cyrop. viii. 7, 3.\n\nThe special communications of the Gods to Cyrus are insisted on by\nXenophon, like those made to Sokrates, and like the constant aid of\nAth\u00ean\u00ea to Odysseus in Homer, Odyss. iii. 221:--\n\n[Greek: Ou) ga\\r p\u00f4 i)/don \u00f4(=de theou\\s a)naphanda\\ phileu=ntas\n\u00f4(s kei/n\u00f4| a)naphanda\\ pari/stato Palla\\s A)th\u00ea/n\u00ea.]]\n\n[Side-note: Xenophon does not solve his own problem--The governing\naptitude and popularity of Cyrus come from nature, not from\neducation.]\n\nThe fundamental principle of Xenophon is, that to obtain hearty and\nunshaken obedience is not difficult for a ruler, provided he possesses\nthe science or art of ruling. This is a principle expressly laid down\nby Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia.[59] We have seen Plato\naffirming in the Politikus[60] that this is the only true government,\nthough very few individuals are competent to it: Plato gives to it a\npeculiar application in the Republic, and points out a philosophical\nor dialectic tuition whereby he supposes that his Elders will acquire\nthe science or art of command. The Cyrop\u00e6dia presents to us an\nillustrative example. Cyrus is a young prince who, from twenty-six\nyears of age to his dying day, is always ready with his initiative,\nprovident in calculation of consequences, and personally active in\nenforcement: giving the right order at the right moment, with good\nassignable reasons. As a military man, he is not only personally\nforward, but peculiarly dexterous in the marshalling and management of\nsoldiers; like the Homeric Agamemnon[61]--\n\n[Greek: A)mpho/teron, basileu/s t' a)gatho/s, kratero/s t'\nai)chm\u00eat\u00ea/s].\n\nBut we must consider this aptitude for command as a spontaneous growth\nin Cyrus--a portion of his divine constitution or of the golden\nelement in his nature (to speak in the phrase of the Platonic\nRepublic): for no means are pointed out whereby he acquired it, and\nthe Platonic Sokrates would have asked in vain, where teachers of it\nwere to be found. It is true that he is made to go through a rigorous\nand long-continued training: but this training is common to him with\nall the other Persian youths of good family, and is calculated to\nteach obedience, not to communicate aptitude for command; while the\nmaster of tactics, whose lessons he receives apart, is expressly\ndeclared to have known little about the duties of a commander.[62]\nKambyses indeed (father of Cyrus) gives to his son valuable general\nexhortations respecting the multiplicity of exigencies which press\nupon a commander, and the constant watchfulness, precautions,\nfertility of invention, required on his part to meet them. We read the\nlike in the conversations of Sokrates in the Memorabilia:[63] but\nneither Kambyses nor Sokrates are teachers of the art of commanding.\nFor this art, Cyrus is assumed to possess a natural aptitude; like the\nother elements of his dispositions--his warm sympathies, his frank and\nengaging manners, his ardent emulation combined with perfect freedom\nfrom jealousy, his courage, his love of learning, his willingness to\nendure any amount of labour for the purpose of obtaining praise, &c.,\nall which Xenophon represents as belonging to him by nature, together\nwith a very handsome person.[64]\n\n[Footnote 59: Xenoph. Mem. iii. 9, 10-12.]\n\n[Footnote 60: See what is said below about the Platonic Politikus,\nchap. xxx.]\n\n[Footnote 61: Cicero, when called upon in his province of Cilicia to\nconduct warlike operations against the Parthians, as well as against\nsome refractory mountaineers, improved his military knowledge by\nstudying and commenting on the Cyrop\u00e6dia. Epist. ad Famil. ix. 25.\nCompare the remarkable observation made by Cicero (Academic. Prior.\nii. init.) about the way in which Lucullus made up his deficiency of\nmilitary experience by reading military books.]\n\n[Footnote 62: Xen. Cyrop. i. 6, 12-15.]\n\n[Footnote 63: Compare Cyrop\u00e6d. i. 6, with Memorab. iii. 1.]\n\n[Footnote 64: Cyrop\u00e6d. i. 2, 1. [Greek: _phu=nai_ de\\ o( Ku=ros\nle/getai], &c. i. 3, 1-2. [Greek: pa/nt\u00f4n t\u00f4=n \u00ea(li/k\u00f4n diaphe/r\u00f4n\ne)phai/neto . . . pai=s phu/sei philo/storgos], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Views of Xenophon about public and official training of\nall citizens.]\n\nThe Cyrop\u00e6dia is a title not fairly representing the contents of the\nwork, which contains a more copious biography of the hero than any\nwhich we read in Plutarch or Suetonius. But the education of Cyrus[65]\nis the most remarkable part of it, in which the ethico-political\ntheory of Xenophon, generated by Sokratic refining criticism brought\nto bear on the Spartan drill and discipline, is put forth. Professing\nto describe the Persian polity, he in reality describes only the\nPersian education; which is public, and prescribed by law, intended to\nform the character of individuals so that they shall stand in no need\nof coercive laws or penalties. Most cities leave the education of\nyouth to be conducted at the discretion of their parents, and think it\nsufficient to enact and enforce laws forbidding, under penal sanction,\ntheft, murder, and various other acts enumerated as criminal. But\nXenophon (like Plato and Aristotle) disapproves of this system.[66]\nHis Persian polity places the citizen even from infancy under official\ntuition, and aims at forming his first habits and character, as well\nas at upholding them when formed, so that instead of having any\ndisposition of his own to commit such acts, he shall contract a\nrepugnance to them. He is kept under perpetual training, drill, and\nactive official employment throughout life, but the supervision is\nmost unremitting during boyhood and youth.\n\n[Footnote 65: I have already observed that the phrase of Plato in\nLegg. iii. p. 694 C may be considered as conveying his denial of the\nassertion, that Cyrus had received a good education.]\n\n[Footnote 66: Xenophon says the same about the scheme of Lykurgus at\nSparta, De Lac. Repub. c. 2.]\n\n[Side-note: Details of (so-called) Persian education--Severe\ndiscipline--Distribution of four ages.]\n\nThere are four categories of age:--boys, up to sixteen--young men or\neph\u00eabi, from sixteen to twenty-six--mature men, as far as\nfifty-one--above that age, elders. To each of these four classes there is\nassigned a certain portion of the \"free agora\": _i.e._, the great\nsquare of the city, where no buying or selling or vulgar occupation is\nallowed--where the regal residence is situated, and none but dignified\nfunctions, civil or military, are carried on. Here the boys and the\nmature men assemble every day at sunrise, continue under drill, and\ntake their meals; while the young men even pass the night on guard\nnear the government house. Each of the four sections is commanded by\nsuperintendents or officers: those superintending the boys are Elders,\nwho are employed in administering justice to the boys, and in teaching\nthem what justice is. They hold judicial trials of the boys for\nvarious sorts of misconduct: for violence, theft, abusive words,\nlying, and even for ingratitude. In cases of proved guilt, beating or\nflogging is inflicted. The boys go there to learn justice (says\nXenophon), as boys in Hellas go to school to learn letters. Under this\ndiscipline, and in learning the use of the bow and javelin besides,\nthey spend the time until sixteen years of age. They bring their food\nwith them from home (wheaten bread, with a condiment of kardamon, or\nbruised seed of the nasturtium), together with a wooden cup to draw\nwater from the river: and they dine at public tables under the eye of\nthe teacher. The young men perform all the military and police duty\nunder the commands of the King and the Elders: moreover, they\naccompany the King when he goes on a hunting expedition--which\naccustoms them to fatigue and long abstinence, as well as to the\nencounter of dangerous wild animals. The Elders do not take part in\nthese hunts, nor in any foreign military march, nor are they bound,\nlike the others, to daily attendance in the agora. They appoint all\nofficers, and try judicially the cases shown up by the\nsuperintendents, or other accusers, of all youths or mature men who\nhave failed in the requirements of the public discipline. The gravest\nderelictions they punish with death: where this is not called for,\nthey put the offender out of his class, so that he remains degraded\nall his life.[67]\n\n[Footnote 67: Xen. Cyrop. i. 2, 6-16. [Greek: kai\\ \u00ea)/n tis \u00ea)\\ e)n\ne)ph\u00ea/bois \u00ea)\\ e)n telei/ois a)ndra/sin e)lli/p\u00ea| ti t\u00f4=n nomi/m\u00f4n,\nphai/nousi me\\n oi( phu/larchoi e(/kaston, kai\\ t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n o(\nboulo/menos; oi( de\\ gerai/teroi a)kou/santes e)kkri/nousin; o( de\\\ne)kkrithei\\s a)/timos to\\n loipo\\n bi/on diatelei=.]]\n\n[Side-note: Evidence of the good effect of this discipline--Hard and\ndry condition of the body.]\n\nThis severe discipline is by law open to all Persians who choose to\nattend and the honours of the state are attainable by all equally. But\nin practice it is confined to a few: for neither boys nor men can\nattend it continuously, except such as possess an independent\nmaintenance; nor is any one allowed to enter the regiment of youths or\nmature men, unless he has previously gone through the discipline of\nboyhood. The elders, by whom the higher functions are exercised, must\nbe persons who have passed without reproach through all the three\npreceding stages: so that these offices, though legally open to all,\nare in practice confined to a few--the small class of Homotimoi.[68]\n\n[Footnote 68: Cyrop\u00e6d. i. 2, 14-15.]\n\nSuch is Xenophon's conception of a perfect Polity. It consists in an\neffective public discipline and drill, begun in early boyhood and\ncontinued until old age. The evidence on which he specially insists to\nprove its good results relates first to the body. The bodies of the\nPersians become so dry and hard, that they neither spit, nor have\noccasion to wipe their noses, nor are full of wind, nor are ever seen\nto retire for the satisfaction of natural wants.[69] Besides this, the\ndiscipline enforces complete habits of obedience, sobriety, justice,\nendurance of pain and privation.\n\n[Footnote 69: Cyrop. i. 2, 16.]\n\nWe may note here both the agreement, and the difference, between\nXenophon and Plato, as to the tests applied for measuring the goodness\nof their respective disciplinarian schemes. In regard to the ethical\neffects desirable (obedience, sobriety, &c.) both were agreed. But\nwhile Plato (in Republic) dwells much besides upon the musical\ntraining necessary, Xenophon omits this, and substitutes in its place\nthe working off of all the superfluous moisture of the body.[70]\n\n[Footnote 70: See below, chap. xxxvii.]\n\n[Side-note: Exemplary obedience of Cyrus to the public discipline--He\nhad learnt justice well--His award about the two coats--Lesson\ninculcated upon him by the Justice-Master.]\n\nThrough the two youthful stages of this discipline Cyrus is\nrepresented as having passed; undergoing all the fatigues as well as\nthe punishment (he is beaten or flogged by the superintendent[71])\nwith as much rigour as the rest, and even surpassing all his comrades\nin endurance and exemplary obedience, not less than in the bow and the\njavelin. In the lessons about justice he manifests such pre-eminence,\nthat he is appointed by the superintendent to administer justice to\nother boys: and it is in this capacity that he is chastised for his\nwell-known decision, awarding the large coat to the great boy and the\nlittle coat to the little boy, as being more convenient to both,[72]\nthough the proprietorship was opposite: the master impressing upon\nhim, as a general explanation, that the lawful or customary was the\nJust.[73] Cyrus had been brought as a boy by his mother Mandan\u00ea to\nvisit her father, the Median king Astyages. The boy wins the affection\nof Astyages and all around by his child-like frankness and\naffectionate sympathy (admirably depicted in Xenophon): while he at\nthe same time resists the corruptions of a luxurious court, and\nadheres to the simplicity of his Persian training. When Mandan\u00ea is\nabout to depart and to rejoin her husband Kambyses in Persis, she is\nentreated by Astyages to allow Cyrus to remain with him. Cyrus himself\nalso desires to remain: but Mandan\u00ea hesitates to allow it: putting to\nCyrus, among other difficulties, the question--How will you learn\njustice here, when the teachers of it are in Persis? To which Cyrus\nreplies--I am already well taught in justice: as you may see by the\nfact, that my teacher made me a judge over other boys, and compelled\nme to render account to him of all my proceedings.[74] Besides which,\nif I am found wanting, my grandfather Astyages will make up the\ndeficient teaching. But (says Mandan\u00ea) justice is not the same here\nunder Astyages, as it is in Persis. Astyages has made himself master\nof all the Medes: while among the Persians equality is accounted\njustice. Your father Kambyses both performs all that the city directs,\nand receives nothing more than what the city allows: the measure for\nhim is, not his own inclination, but the law. You must therefore be\ncautious of staying here, lest you should bring back with you to\nPersia habits of despotism, and of grasping at more than any one else,\ncontracted from your grandfather: for if you come back in this spirit,\nyou will assuredly be flogged to death. Never fear, mother (answered\nCyrus): my grandfather teaches every one round him to claim less than\nhis due--not more than his due: and he will teach me the same.[75]\n\n[Footnote 71: Cyrop. i. 3, 17; i. 5, 4.]\n\n[Footnote 72: Cyrop. i. 3, 17. This is an ingenious and apposite\nillustration of the law of property.]\n\n[Footnote 73: Cyrop. i. 3, 17. [Greek: e)/peita de\\ e)/ph\u00ea to\\ me\\n\nno/mimon di/kaion ei)=nai; to\\ de\\ a)/nomon, bi/aion.]]\n\n[Footnote 74: Cyrop\u00e6d. i. 4, 2.]\n\n[Footnote 75: Cyrop. i. 3, 17-18. [Greek: O(/p\u00f4s ou)=n m\u00ea\\ a)pol\u00ea=|\nmastigou/menos, e)peida\\n oi)/koi \u00ea)=|s, a)\\n para\\ tou/tou math\u00f4\\n\n\u00ea(/k\u00ea|s a)nti\\ tou= basilikou= to\\ turanniko/n, e)n \u00f4(=| e)sti to\\\nple/on oi)/esthai chr\u00ea=nai pa/nt\u00f4n e)/chein.]]\n\n[Side-note: Xenophon's conception of the Sokratic problems--He does\nnot recognise the Sokratic order of solution of those problems.]\n\nThe portion of the Cyrop\u00e6dia just cited deserves especial attention,\nin reference to Xenophon as a companion and pupil of Sokrates. The\nreader has been already familiarised throughout this work with the\nquestions habitually propounded and canvassed by Sokrates--What is\nJustice, Temperance, Courage, &c.? Are these virtues teachable? If\nthey are so, where are the teachers of them to be found?--for he\nprofessed to have looked in vain for any teachers.[76] I have farther\nremarked that Sokrates required these questions to be debated in the\norder here stated. That is--you must first know what Justice is,\nbefore you can determine whether it be teachable or not--nay, before\nyou are in a position to affirm any thing at all about it, or to\ndeclare any particular acts to be either just or unjust.[77]\n\n[Footnote 76: Xenoph. Memor. i. 16, iv. 4, 5.]\n\n[Footnote 77: See below, ch. xiii., ch. xxii, and ch. xxiii.]\n\nNow Xenophon, in his description of the Persian official discipline,\nprovides a sufficient answer to the second question--Whether justice\nis teachable--and where are the teachers thereof? It _is_ teachable:\nthere are official teachers appointed: and every boy passes through a\ncourse of teaching prolonged for several years.--But Xenophon does not\nat all recognise the Sokratic requirement, that the first question\nshall be fully canvassed and satisfactorily answered, before the\nsecond is approached. The first question is indeed answered in a\ncertain way--though the answer appears here only as an _obiter\ndictum_, and is never submitted to any Elenchus at all. The master\nexplains--What is Justice?--by telling Cyrus, \"That the lawful is\njust, and that the lawless is violent\". Now if we consider this as\npreceptorial--as an admonition to the youthful Cyrus how he ought to\ndecide judicial cases--it is perfectly reasonable: \"Let your decisions\nbe conformable to the law or custom of the country\". But if we\nconsider it as a portion of philosophy or reasoned truth--as a\ndefinition or rational explanation of Justice, advanced by a\nrespondent who is bound to defend it against the Sokratic\ncross-examination--we shall find it altogether insufficient. Xenophon\nhimself tells us here, that Law or Custom is one thing among the\nMedes, and the reverse among the Persians: accordingly an action which\nis just in the one place will be unjust in the other. It is by\nobjections of this kind that Sokrates, both in Plato and Xenophon,\nrefutes explanations propounded by his respondents.[78]\n\n[Footnote 78: Plato, Republ. v. p. 479 A. [Greek: tou/t\u00f4n t\u00f4=n poll\u00f4=n\nkal\u00f4=n m\u00f4=n ti e)/stin, o( ou)k ai)schro\\n phan\u00ea/setai? kai\\ t\u00f4=n\ndikai/\u00f4n, o(\\ ou)k a)/dikon? kai\\ t\u00f4=n o(si/\u00f4n, o(\\ ou)k a)no/sion?]\nCompare Republ. i. p. 331 C, and the conversation of So krates with\nEuthyd\u00eamus in the Xenophontic Memorab. iv. 2, 18-19, and Cyrop\u00e6dia, i.\n6, 27-34, about what is just and good morality towards enemies.\n\nWe read in Pascal, Pens\u00e9es, i. 6, 8-9:--\n\n\"On ne voit presque rien de juste et d'injuste, qui ne change de\nqualit\u00e9 en changeant de climat. Trois degr\u00e9s d'\u00e9l\u00e9vation du p\u00f4le\nrenversent toute la jurisprudence. Un m\u00e9ridien d\u00e9cide de la verit\u00e9: en\npeu d'ann\u00e9es de possession, les loix fondamentales changent: le droit\na ses \u00e9poques. Plaisante justice, qu'une rivi\u00e8re ou une montagne\nborne! V\u00e9rit\u00e9 au de\u00e7\u00e0 des Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es--erreur au del\u00e0!\n\n\"Ils confessent que la justice n'est pas dans les coutumes, mais\nqu'elle reside dans les loix naturelles, connues en tout pays.\nCertainement ils la soutiendraient opini\u00e2trement, si la t\u00e9m\u00e9rit\u00e9 du\nhasard qui a sem\u00e9 les loix humaines en avait rencontr\u00e9 au moins une\nqui fut universelle: mais la plaisanterie est telle, que le caprice\ndes hommes s'est si bien diversifi\u00e9, qu'il n'y en a point.\n\n\"Le larcin, l'inceste, le meurtre des enfans et des p\u00e8res, tout a eu\nsa place entre les actions vertueuses. Se peut-il rien de plus\nplaisant, qu'un homme ait droit de me tuer parcequ'il demeure au-del\u00e0\nde l'eau, et que son prince a querelle avec le mien, quoique je n'en\naie aucune avec lui?\n\n\"L'un dit que l'essence de la justice est l'autorit\u00e9 du l\u00e9gislateur:\nl'autre, la commodit\u00e9 du souverain: l'autre, la coutume pr\u00e9sente--et\nc'est le plus s\u00fbr. Rien, suivant la seule raison, n'est juste de soi:\ntout branle avec le temps. La coutume fait toute l'\u00e9quit\u00e9, par cela\nseul qu'elle est re\u00e7ue: c'est le fondement mystique de son autorit\u00e9.\nQui la ram\u00e8ne \u00e0 son principe, l'an\u00e9antit.\"]\n\n[Side-note: Definition given by Sokrates of Justice--Insufficient to\nsatisfy the exigencies of the Sokratic Elenchus.]\n\nThough the explanation of Justice here given is altogether untenable,\nyet we shall find it advanced by Sokrates himself as complete and\nconclusive, in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, where he is conversing\nwith the Sophist Hippias. That Sophist is represented as at first\nurging difficulties against it, but afterwards as concurring with\nSokrates: who enlarges upon the definition, and extols it as perfectly\nsatisfactory. If Sokrates really delivered this answer to Hippias, as\na general definition of Justice--we may learn from it how much greater\nwas his negative acuteness in overthrowing the definitions of others,\nthan his affirmative perspicacity in discovering unexceptionable\ndefinitions of his own. This is the deficiency admitted by himself in\nthe Platonic Apology--lamented by friends like Kleitophon--arraigned\nby opponents like Hippias and Thrasymachus. Xenophon, whose intellect\nwas practical rather than speculative, appears not to be aware of it.\nHe does not feel the depth and difficulty of the Sokratic problems,\neven while he himself enunciates them. He does not appreciate all the\nconditions of a good definition, capable of being maintained against\nthat formidable cross-examination (recounted by himself) whereby\nSokrates humbled the youth Euthyd\u00eamus: still less does he enter into\nthe spirit of that Sokratic order of precedence (declared in the\nnegative Platonic dialogues), in the study of philosophical\nquestions:--First define Justice, and find a definition of it such as\nyou can maintain against a cross-examining adversary before you\nproceed either to affirm or deny any predicates concerning it. The\npractical advice and reflexions of Xenophon are, for the most part,\njudicious and penetrating. But he falls very short when he comes to\ndeal with philosophical theory:--with reasoned truth, and with the\nSokratic Elenchus as a test for discriminating such truth from the\nfalse, the doubtful, or the not-proven.\n\n[Side-note: Biography of Cyrus--constant military success earned by\nsuitable qualities--Variety of characters and situations.]\n\nCyrus is allowed by his mother to remain amidst the luxuries of the\nMedian court. It is a part of his admirable disposition that he\nresists all its temptations,[79] and goes back to the hard fare and\ndiscipline of the Persians with the same exemplary obedience as\nbefore. He is appointed by the Elders to command the Persian\ncontingent which is sent to assist Kyaxares (son of Astyages), king of\nMedia; and he thus enters upon that active military career which is\ndescribed as occupying his whole life, until his conquest of Babylon,\nand his subsequent organization of the great Persian empire. His\nfather Kambyses sends him forth with excellent exhortations, many of\nwhich are almost in the same words as those which we read ascribed to\nSokrates in the Memorabilia. In the details of Cyrus's biography which\nfollow, the stamp of Sokratic influence is less marked, yet seldom\naltogether wanting. The conversation of Sokrates had taught Xenophon\nhow to make the most of his own large experience and observation. His\nbiography of Cyrus represents a string of successive situations,\ncalling forth and displaying the aptitude of the hero for command. The\nepical invention with which these situations are imagined--the variety\nof characters introduced, Araspes, Abradates, Pantheia, Chrysantas,\nHystaspes, Gadatas, Gobryas, Tigranes, &c.--the dramatic propriety\nwith which each of these persons is animated as speaker, and made to\nteach a lesson bearing on the predetermined conclusion--all these are\nhighly honourable to the Xenophontic genius, but all of them likewise\nbespeak the Companion of Sokrates. Xenophon dwells, with evident\npleasure, on the details connected with the _rationale_ of military\nproceedings: the wants and liabilities of soldiers, the advantages or\ndisadvantages of different weapons or different modes of marshalling,\nthe duties of the general as compared with those of the soldier, &c.\nCyrus is not merely always ready with his orders, but also competent\nas a speaker to explain the propriety of what he orders.[80] We have\nthe truly Athenian idea, that persuasive speech is the precursor of\nintelligent and energetic action: and that it is an attribute\nessentially necessary for a general, for the purpose of informing,\nappeasing, re-assuring, the minds of the soldiers.[81] This, as well\nas other duties and functions of a military commander, we find laid\ndown generally in the conversations of Sokrates,[82] who conceives\nthese functions, in their most general aspect, as a branch of the\ncomprehensive art of guiding or governing men. What Sokrates thus\nenunciates generally, is exemplified in detail throughout the life of\nCyrus.\n\n[Footnote 79: Cyrop\u00e6d. i. 5, 1.]\n\n[Footnote 80: Cyrop\u00e6d. v. 5, 46. [Greek: lektik\u00f4/tatos kai\\\npraktik\u00f4/tatos]. Compare the Memorabilia, iv. 6, 1-15.]\n\n[Footnote 81: Memorab. iii. 3, 11; Hipparch. viii. 22; Cyrop\u00e6d. vi. 2,\n13. Compare the impressive portion of the funeral oration delivered by\nPerikles in Thucydides, ii. 40.]\n\n[Footnote 82: See the four first chapters of the third book of the\nXenophontic Memorabilia. The treatise of Xenophon called [Greek:\nI(pparchiko\\s] enumerates also the general duties required from a\ncommander of cavalry: among these, [Greek: pseudauto/moloi] are\nmentioned (iv. 7). Now the employment, with effect, of a [Greek:\npseudauto/molos], is described with much detail in the Cyrop\u00e6dia. See\nthe case of Araspes (vi. 1, 37, vi. 3, 16).]\n\n[Side-note: Generous and amiable qualities of Cyrus, Abradates and\nPantheia.]\n\nThroughout all the Cyrop\u00e6dia, the heroic qualities and personal agency\nof Cyrus are always in the foreground, working with unerring success\nand determining every thing. He is moreover recommended to our\nsympathies, not merely by the energy and judgment of a leader, but\nalso by the amiable qualities of a generous man--by the remarkable\ncombination of self-command with indulgence towards others--by\nconsiderate lenity towards subdued enemies like Kroesus and the\nArmenian prince--even by solicitude shown that the miseries of war\nshould fall altogether on the fighting men, and that the cultivators\nof the land should be left unmolested by both parties.[83] Respecting\nseveral other persons in the narrative, too--the Armenian Tigranes,\nGadatas, Gobryas, &c.--the adventures and scenes described are\ntouching: but the tale of Abradates and Pantheia transcends them all,\nand is perhaps the most pathetic recital embodied in the works of\nHellenic antiquity.[84] In all these narratives the vein of sentiment\nis neither Sokratic nor Platonic, but belongs to Xenophon himself.\n\n[Footnote 83: Cyrop. iii. 1, 10-38, vii. 2, 9-29, v. 4, 26, vi. 1, 37.\n[Greek: A)lla\\ su\\ me\\n, \u00f4)= Ku=re, kai\\ tau=ta o(/moios ei)=,\npra=|o/s te kai\\ suggn\u00f4/m\u00f4n t\u00f4=n a)nthr\u00f4pi/n\u00f4n a(mart\u00eama/t\u00f4n].\\\n\n[Footnote 84: Cyrop. vii. 3.]\n\n[Side-note: Scheme of government devised by Cyrus when his conquests\nare completed--Oriental despotism, wisely arranged.]\n\nThis last remark may also be made respecting the concluding\nproceedings of Cyrus, after he has thoroughly completed his conquests,\nand when he establishes arrangements for governing them permanently.\nThe scheme of government which Xenophon imagines and introduces him as\norganizing, is neither Sokratic nor Platonic, nor even Hellenic: it\nwould probably have been as little acceptable to his friend Agesilaus,\nthe marked \"hater of Persia,\"[85] as to any Athenian politician. It is\naltogether an Oriental despotism, skilfully organized both for the\nsecurity of the despot and for enabling him to keep a vigorous hold on\nsubjects distant as well as near: such as the younger Cyrus might\npossibly have attempted, if his brother Artaxerxes had been slain at\nKunaxa, instead of himself. \"Eam conditionem esse imperandi, ut non\naliter ratio constet, quam si uni reddatur\"[86]--is a maxim repugnant\nto Hellenic ideas, and not likely to be rendered welcome even by the\nregulations of detail with which Xenophon surrounds it; judicious as\nthese regulations are for their contemplated purpose. The amiable and\npopular character which Cyrus has maintained from youth upwards, and\nby means of which he has gained an uninterrupted series of victories,\nis difficult to be reconciled with the insecurity, however imposing,\nin which he dwells as Great King. When we find that he accounts it a\nnecessary precaution to surround himself with eunuchs, on the express\nground that they are despised by every one else and therefore likely\nto be more faithful to their master--when we read also that in\nconsequence of the number of disaffected subjects, he is forced to\nkeep a guard composed of twenty thousand soldiers taken from poor\nPersian mountaineers[87]--we find realised, in the case of the\ntriumphant Cyrus, much of that peril and insecurity which the despot\nHieron had so bitterly deplored in his conversation with Simonides.\nHowever unsatisfactory the ideal of government may be, which Plato\nlays out either in the Republic or the Leges--that which Xenophon sets\nbefore us is not at all more acceptable, in spite of the splendid\nindividual portrait whereby he dazzles our imagination. Few Athenians\nwould have exchanged Athens either for Babylon under Cyrus, or for\nPlato's Magn\u00eatic colony in Krete.\n\n[Footnote 85: Xenoph. Agesilaus, vii. 7. [Greek: ei) d' au)= kalo\\n\nkai\\ _misope/rs\u00ean_ ei)=nai--e)xe/pleusen, o(/, ti du/naito kako\\n;\npoi\u00ea/s\u00f4n to\\n ba/rbaron.]]\n\n[Footnote 86: Tacit. Annal. i. 6.]\n\n[Footnote 87: Xen. Cyrop. vii. 5, 58-70.]\n\n[Side-note: Persian present reality--is described by Xenophon as\nthoroughly depraved, in striking contrast to the establishment of\nCyrus.]\n\nThe Xenophontic government is thus noway admirable, even as an ideal.\nBut he himself presents it only as an ideal--or (which is the same\nthing in the eyes of a present companion of Sokrates) as a\nquasi-historical fact, belonging to the unknown and undetermined past.\nWhen Xenophon talks of what the Persians _are now_, he presents us with\nnothing but a shocking contrast to this ideal; nothing but vice,\ncorruption, degeneracy of every kind, exorbitant sensuality,\nfaithlessness and cowardice.[88] His picture of Persia is like that of\nthe of Platonic Kosmos, which we can read in the Tim\u00e6us:[89] a\nsplendid Kosmos in its original plan and construction, but full of\ndefects and evil as it actually exists. The strength and excellence of\nthe Xenophontic orderly despotism dies with its heroic beginner. His\ntwo sons (as Plato remarked) do not receive the same elaborate\ntraining and discipline as himself: nor can they be restrained, even\nby the impressive appeal which he makes to them on his death-bed, from\nviolent dissension among themselves, and misgovernment of every\nkind.[90]\n\n[Footnote 88: Cyrop. viii. 8.]\n\n[Footnote 89: See below, ch. xxxviii.]\n\n[Footnote 90: Cyrop\u00e6d. viii. 7, 9-19: Plato, Legg. iii. p. 694 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Xenophon has good experience of military and equestrian\nproceedings--No experience of finance and commerce.]\n\nWhatever we may think of the political ideal of Xenophon, his\nCyrop\u00e6dia is among the glories of the Sokratic family; as an excellent\nspecimen of the philosophical imagination, in carrying a general\ndoctrine into illustrative details--and of the epical imagination in\nrespect to varied characters and touching incident. In stringing\ntogether instructive conversations, moreover, it displays the same art\nwhich we trace in the Memorabilia, Oekonomikus, Hieron, &c., and which\nis worthy of the attentive companion of Sokrates. Whenever Xenophon\ntalks about military affairs, horsemanship, agriculture,\nhouse-management, &c., he is within the range of personal experience of\nhis own; and his recommendations, controlled as they thus are by known\nrealities, are for the most part instructive and valuable. Such is the\ncase not merely with the Cyrop\u00e6dia and Oekonomikus, but also in his\ntwo short treatises, De Re Equestri and De Officio Magistri Equitum.\n\nBut we cannot say so much when he discusses plans of finance.\n\n[Side-note: Discourse of Xenophon on Athenian finance and the\ncondition of Athens. His admiration of active commerce and variety of\npursuits.]\n\nWe read among his works a discourse composed after his sentence of\nexile had been repealed, and when he was very old, seemingly not\nearlier than 355 B.C.[91]--criticising the actual condition of Athens,\nand proposing various measures for the improvement of the finances, as\nwell as for relief of the citizens from poverty. He begins this\ndiscourse by a sentiment thoroughly Sokratic and Platonic, which would\nserve almost as a continuation of the Cyrop\u00e6dia. The government of a\ncity will be measured by the character and ability of its leaders.[92]\nHe closes it by another sentiment equally Sokratic and Platonic;\nadvising that before his measures are adopted, special messengers\nshall be sent to Delphi and Dodona; to ascertain whether the Gods\napprove them--and if they approve, to which Gods they enjoin that the\ninitiatory sacrifices shall be offered.[93] But almost everything in\nthe discourse, between the first and last sentences, is in a vein not\nat all Sokratic--in a vein, indeed, positively anti-Platonic and\nanti-Spartan. We have already seen that wealth, gold and silver,\ncommerce, influx of strangers, &c., are discouraged as much as possible\nby Plato, and by the theory (though evaded partially in practice) of\nSparta. Now it is precisely these objects which Xenophon, in the\ntreatise before us, does his utmost to foster and extend at Athens.\nNothing is here said about the vulgarising influence of trade as\ncompared with farming, which we read in the Oekonomikus: nor about the\nethical and p\u00e6dagogic dictation which pervades so much of the\nCyrop\u00e6dia, and reigns paramount throughout the Platonic Republic and\nLeges. Xenophon takes Athens as she stands, with great variety of\ntastes, active occupation, and condition among the inhabitants: her\nmild climate and productive territory, especially her veins of silver\nand her fine marble: her importing and exporting merchants, her\ncentral situation, as convenient entrep\u00f4t for commodities produced in\nthe most distant lands:[94] her skilful artisans and craftsmen: her\nmonied capitalists: and not these alone, but also the congregation and\naffluence of fine artists, intellectual men, philosophers, Sophists,\npoets, rhapsodes, actors, &c.: last, though not least, the temples\nadorning her akropolis, and the dramatic representations exhibited at\nher Dionysiac festivals, which afforded the highest captivation to eye\nas well as ear, and attracted strangers from all quarters as\nvisitors.[95] Xenophon extols these charms of Athens with a warmth\nwhich reminds us of the Periklean funeral oration in Thucydides.[96]\nHe no longer speaks like one whose heart and affections are with the\nSpartan drill: still less does he speak like Plato--to whom (as we see\nboth by the Republic and the Leges) such artistic and poetical\nexhibitions were abominations calling for censorial repression--and in\nwhose eyes gold, silver, commerce, abundant influx of strangers, &c.,\nwere dangerous enemies of all civic virtue.\n\n[Footnote 91: Xenophon, [Greek: Po/roi--\u00ea(\\ peri\\ Proso/d\u00f4n]. De\nVectigalibus. See Schneider's Proleg. to this treatise, pp. 138-140.]\n\n[Footnote 92: De Vectig. i. 1. [Greek: e)g\u00f4\\ me\\n tou=to a)ei/ pote\nnomi/zo, o(poi=oi/ tines a)\\n oi( prosta/tai \u00f4)=si, toiau/tas kai\\\nta\\s politei/as gi/gnesthai.]]\n\n[Footnote 93: De Vect. vi. 2. Compare this with Anabas. iii. 1, 5,\nwhere Sokrates reproves Xenophon for his evasive manner of putting a\nquestion to the Delphian God. Xenophon here adopts the plenary manner\nenjoined by Sokrates.]\n\n[Footnote 94: De Vectig. c. i. 2-3.]\n\n[Footnote 95: De Vect. v. 3-4. [Greek: Ti/ de\\ oi( polue/laioi? ti/\nde\\ oi( polupro/batoi? ti/ de\\ oi( gn\u00f4/m\u00ea| kai\\ a)rguri/\u00f4| duna/menoi\nchr\u00eamati/zesthai? Kai\\ m\u00ea\\n cheirote/chnai te kai\\ sophistai\\ kai\\\nphilo/sophoi; oi( de\\ poi\u00eatai\\, oi( de\\ ta\\ tou/t\u00f4n\nmetacheirizo/menoi, oi( de\\ a)xiothea/t\u00f4n \u00ea)\\ a)xiakou/st\u00f4n i(er\u00f4=n\n\u00ea)\\ o(si/\u00f4n e)pithumou=ntes], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 96: Thucydid. ii. 34-42; Plutarch, Perikl\u00eas, c. 12. Compare\nXenophon, Republ. Athen. ii. 7, iii. 8.]\n\n[Side-note: Recognised poverty among the citizens. Plan for\nimprovement.]\n\nYet while recognising all these charms and advantages, Xenophon finds\nhimself compelled to lament great poverty among the citizens; which\npoverty (he says) is often urged by the leading men as an excuse for\nunjust proceedings. Accordingly he comes forward with various\nfinancial suggestions, by means of which he confidently anticipates\nthat every Athenian citizen may obtain a comfortable maintenance from\nthe public.[97]\n\n[Footnote 97: De Vectig. iv. 33. [Greek: kai\\ e)moi\\ me\\n d\u00ea\\\nei)/r\u00eatai, \u00f4(s a)\\n \u00ea(gou=mai kataskeuasthei/s\u00eas t\u00ea=s po/le\u00f4s i(kan\u00ea\\n\na)\\n pa=sin A)th\u00eanai/ois troph\u00ea\\n a)po\\ koinou= gene/sthai.]]\n\n[Side-note: Advantage of a large number of Metics. How these may be\nencouraged.]\n\nFirst, he dwells upon the great advantage of encouraging metics, or\nforeigners resident at Athens, each of whom paid an annual capitation\ntax to the treasury. There were already many such, not merely Greeks,\nbut Orientals also, Lydians, Phrygians, Syrians, &c.:[98] and by\njudicious encouragement all expatriated men everywhere might be made\nto prefer the agreeable residence at Athens, thus largely increasing\nthe annual amount of the tax. The metics ought (he says) to be\nexempted from military service (which the citizens ought to perform\nand might perform alone), but to be admitted to the honours of the\nequestrian duty, whenever they were rich enough to afford it: and\nfarther, to be allowed the liberty of purchasing land and building\nhouses in the city. Moreover not merely resident metics, but also\nforeign merchants who came as visitors, conducting an extensive\ncommerce--ought to be flattered by complimentary votes and occasional\nhospitalities: while the curators of the harbour, whose function it\nwas to settle disputes among them, should receive prizes if they\nadjudicated equitably and speedily.[99]\n\n[Footnote: 98: De Vect. ii. 3-7.]\n\n[Footnote: 99: De Vect. iii. 2-6.]\n\n[Side-note: Proposal to raise by voluntary contributions a large sum\nto be employed as capital by the city. Distribution of three oboli per\nhead per day to all the citizens.]\n\nAll this (Xenophon observes) will require only friendly and\nconsiderate demonstrations. His farther schemes are more ambitious,\nnot to be effected without a large outlay. He proposes to raise an\nample fund for the purposes of the city, by voluntary contributions;\nwhich he expects to obtain not merely from private Athenians and\nmetics, rich and in easy circumstances--but also from other cities,\nand even from foreign despots, kings, satraps, &c. The tempting\ninducement will be, that the names of all contributors with their\nrespecting contributions will be inscribed on public tablets, and\npermanently commemorated as benefactors of the city.[100] Contributors\n(he says) are found, for the outfit of a fleet, where they expect no\nreturn: much more will they come forward here, where a good return\nwill accrue. The fund so raised will be employed under public\nauthority with the most profitable result, in many different ways. The\ncity will build docks and warehouses for bonding goods--houses near\nthe harbour to be let to merchants--merchant-vessels to be let out on\nfreight. But the largest profit will be obtained by working the silver\nmines at Laureion in Attica. The city will purchase a number of\nforeign slaves, and will employ them under the superintendence of old\nfree citizens who are past the age of labour, partly in working these\nmines for public account, each of the ten tribes employing one tenth\npart of the number--partly by letting them out to private mining\nundertakers, at so much per diem for each slave: the slaves being\ndistinguished by a conspicuous public stamp, and the undertaker\nbinding himself under penalty always to restore the same number of\nthem as he received.[101] Such competition between the city and the\nprivate mining undertakers will augment the total produce, and will be\nno loss to either, but wholesome for both. The mines will absorb as\nmany workmen as are put into them: for in the production of silver\n(Xenophon argues) there can never be any glut, as there is sometimes\nin corn, wine, or oil. Silver is always in demand, and is not lessened\nin value by increase of quantity. Every one is anxious to get it, and\nhas as much pleasure in hoarding it under ground as in actively\nemploying it.[102] The scheme, thus described, may (if found\nnecessary) be brought into operation by degrees, a certain number of\nslaves being purchased annually until the full total is made up. From\nthese various financial projects, and especially from the fund thus\nemployed as capital under the management of the Senate, the largest\nreturns are expected. Amidst the general abundance which will ensue,\nthe religious festivals will be celebrated with increased splendour--the\ntemples will be repaired, the docks and walls will be put in\ncomplete order--the priests, the Senate, the magistrates, the\nhorsemen, will receive the full stipends which the old custom of\nAthens destined for them.[103] But besides all these, the object which\nXenophon has most at heart will be accomplished: the poor citizens\nwill be rescued from poverty. There will be a regular distribution\namong all citizens, per head and equally. Three oboli, or half a\ndrachma, will be allotted daily to each, to poor and rich alike. For\nthe poor citizens, this will provide a comfortable subsistence,\nwithout any contribution on their part: the poverty now prevailing\nwill thus be alleviated. The rich, like the poor, receive the daily\ntriobolon as a free gift: but if they even compute it as interest for\ntheir investments, they will find that the rate of interest is full\nand satisfactory, like the rate on bottomry. Three oboli per day\namount in the year of 360 days to 180 drachm\u00e6: now if a rich man has\ncontributed ten min\u00e6 ( = 1000 drachm\u00e6), he will thus receive interest\nat the rate of 18 per cent. per annum: if another less rich citizen\nhas contributed one mina ( = 100 drachm\u00e6), he will receive interest at\nthe rate of 180 per cent. per annum: more than he could realise in any\nother investment.[104]\n\n[Footnote 100: De Vect. iii. 11.]\n\n[Footnote 101: De Vect. iv. 13-19.]\n\n[Footnote 102: De Vect. iv. 4-7.]\n\n[Footnote 103: De Vectig. vi. 1-2. [Greek: Kai\\ o( me\\n d\u00ea=mos\ntroph\u00ea=s eu)por\u00ea/sei, oi( de\\ plou/sioi t\u00ea=s ei)s to\\n po/lemon\ndapa/n\u00eas a)pallag\u00ea/sontai, periousi/as de\\ poll\u00ea=s genome/n\u00eas,\nmegaloprepe/steron me\\n e)/ti \u00ea(\\ nu=n ta\\s e(orta\\s a)/xomen, i(era\\\nd' e)piskeua/somen, tei/ch\u00ea de\\ kai\\ ne\u00f4/ria a)north\u00f4/somen, i(ereu=si\nde\\ kai\\ boul\u00ea=| kai\\ a)rchai=s kai\\ i(ppeu=si ta\\ pa/tria\na)pod\u00f4/somen--p\u00f4=s ou)k a)/xion \u00f4(s ta/chista tou/tois e)gcheirei=n,\ni(/na e)/ti e)ph' \u00ea(m\u00f4=n e)pi/d\u00f4men t\u00ea\\n po/lin met' a)sphalei/as\neu)daimonou=san?]\n\n[Footnote 104: De Vectig. iii. 9-12.]\n\n[Side-note: Purpose and principle of this distribution.]\n\nHalf a drachma, or three oboli, per day, was the highest rate of pay\never received (the rate varied at different times) by the citizens as\nDikasts and Ekklesiasts, for attending in judicature or in assembly.\nIt is this amount of pay which Xenophon here proposes to ensure to\nevery citizen, without exception, out of the public treasury; which\n(he calculates) would be enriched by his project so as easily to bear\nsuch a disbursement. He relieves the poor citizens from poverty by\nmaking them all pensioners on the public treasury, with or without\nservice rendered, or the pretence of service. He strains yet farther\nthe dangerous principle of the The\u00f4rikon, without the same excuse as\ncan be shown for the The\u00f4rikon itself on religious grounds.[105] If\nsuch a proposition had been made by Kleon, Hyperbolus, Kleophon,\nAgyrrhius, &c., it would have been dwelt upon by most historians of\nGreece as an illustration of the cacoethes of democracy--to extract\nmoney, somehow or other, from the rich, for the purpose of keeping the\npoor in comfort. Not one of the democratical leaders, so far as we\nknow, ever ventured to propose so sweeping a measure: we have it here\nfrom the pen of the oligarchical Xenophon.\n\n[Footnote 105: Respecting the The\u00f4rikon at Athens, see my 'History of\nGreece,' ch. 88, pp. 492-498.]\n\n[Side-note: Visionary anticipations of Xenophon, financial and\ncommercial.]\n\nBut we must of course discuss Xenophon's scheme as a whole: the\naggregate enlargement of revenue, from his various visionary new ways\nand means, on one side--against the new mode and increased amount of\nexpenditure, on the other side. He would not have proposed such an\nexpenditure, if he had not thoroughly believed in the correctness of\nhis own anticipations, both as to the profits of the mining scheme,\nand as to the increase of receipts from other sources: such as the\nmultiplication of tax-paying Metics, the rent paid by them for the new\nhouses to be built by the city, the increase of the harbour dues from\nexpanded foreign trade. But of these anticipations, even the least\nunpromising are vague and uncertain: while the prospects of the mining\nscheme appear thoroughly chimerical. Nothing is clear or certain\nexcept the disbursement. We scarcely understand how Xenophon could\nseriously have imagined, either that voluntary contributors could have\nbeen found to subscribe the aggregate fund as he proposes--or that, if\nsubscribed, it could have yielded the prodigious return upon which he\nreckons. We must, however, recollect that he had no familiarity with\nfinance, or with the conditions and liabilities of commerce, or with\nthe raising of money from voluntary contributors for any collective\npurpose. He would not have indulged in similar fancies if the question\nhad been about getting together supplies for an army. Practical\nAthenian financiers would probably say, in criticising his financial\nproject--what Heraldus[106] observes upon some views of his opponent\nSalmasius, about the relations of capital and interest in\nAttica--\"Somnium est hominis harum rerum, etiam cum vigilat, nihil\nscientis\".[107] The financial management of Athens was doubtless\ndefective in many ways: but it would not have been improved in the\nhands of Xenophon--any more than the administrative and judiciary\ndepartment of Athens would have become better under the severe regimen\nof Plato.[108] The merits of the Sokratic companions--and great merits\nthey were--lay in the region of instructive theory.\n\n[Footnote 106: This passage of Heraldus is cited by M. Boeckh in his\nPublic Economy of Athens, B. iv. ch. 21, p. 606, Eng. Trans. In that\nchapter of M. Boeckh's work (pp. 600-610) some very instructive pages\nwill be found about the Xenophontic scheme here noticed.\n\nI will however mention one or two points on which my understanding of\nthe scheme differs from his. He says (p. 605):--\"The author supposes\nthat the profit upon this speculation would amount to three oboli per\nday, so that the subscribers would obtain a very high per centage on\ntheir shares. Xenophon supposes unequal contributions, according to\nthe different amounts of property, agreeable to the principles of a\nproperty-tax, but an equal distribution of the receipts for the\npurpose of favouring and aiding the poor. What Xenophon is speaking of\nis an income annually arising upon each share, either equal to or\nexceeding the interest of the loans on bottomry. Where, however, is\nthe security that the undertaking would produce three oboli a day to\neach subscriber?\"\n\nI concur in most of what is here said; but M. Boeckh states the matter\ntoo much as if the three oboli per diem were a real return arising\nfrom the scheme, and payable to each shareholder upon each _share_ as\nhe calls it. This is an accident of the case, not the essential\nfeature. The poorest citizens--for whose benefit, more than for any\nother object, the scheme is contrived--would not be shareholders at\nall: they would be too poor to contribute anything, yet each of them\nwould receive his triobolon like the rest. Moreover, many citizens,\neven though able to pay, might hold back, and decline to pay: yet\nstill each would receive as much. And again, the foreigners, kings,\nsatraps, &c., would be contributors, but would receive nothing at all.\nThe distribution of the triobolon would be made to citizens only.\nXenophon does indeed state the proportion of receipt to payments in\nthe cases of some rich contributors, as an auxiliary motive to\nconciliate them. Bat we ought not to treat this receipt as if it were\na real return yielded by the public mining speculation, or as profit\nactually brought in.\n\nAs I conceive the scheme, the daily triobolon, and the respective\ncontributions furnished, have no premeditated ratio, no essential\nconnection with each other. The daily payment of the triobolon to\nevery citizen indiscriminately, is a new and heavy burden which\nXenophon imposes upon the city. But this is only one among many other\nburdens, as we may see by cap. 6. In order to augment the wealth of\nthe city, so as to defray these large expenses, he proposes several\nnew financial measures. Of these the most considerable was the public\nmining speculation; but it did not stand alone. The financial scheme\nof Xenophon, both as to receipts and as to expenditure, is more\ngeneral than M. Boeckh allows for.]\n\n[Footnote 107: It is truly surprising to read in one of Hume's Essays\nthe following sentence. Essay XII. on Civil Liberty, p. 107 ed. of\nHume's Philosophical Works, 1825.\n\n\"The Athenians, though governed by a Republic, paid near two hundred\nper cent for those sums of money which any emergence made it necessary\nfor them to borrow, as we learn from Xenophon.\"\n\nIn the note Hume quotes the following passage from this discourse, De\nVectigalibus:--[Greek: Kt\u00ea=sin de\\ a)p' ou)deno\\s a)\\n ou(/t\u00f4 kal\u00ea\\n\nkt\u00ea/sainto, \u00f4(/sper a)ph' ou)= a)\\n protele/s\u00f4sin ei)s t\u00ea\\n\na)phorm\u00ea/n. Oi( de/ ge plei=stoi A)th\u00eanai/\u00f4n plei/ona l\u00ea/psontai kat'\ne)niauto\\n \u00ea)\\ o(/sa a)\\n ei)sene/gk\u00f4sin. Oi( ga\\r mna=n\nprotele/santes, e)ggu\\s duoi=n mna=|n pro/sodon e)/xousi. O(\\ dokei=\nt\u00f4=n a)nthr\u00f4pi/n\u00f4n a)sphale/stato/n te kai\\ poluchroni\u00f4/taton\nei)=nai].\n\nHume has been misled by dwelling upon one or two separate sentences.\nIf he had taken into consideration the whole discourse and its\ndeclared scope, he would have seen that it affords no warrant for any\ninference as to the rate of interest paid by the Athenian public when\nthey wanted to borrow. In Xenophon's scheme there is no fixed\nproportion between what a contributor to the fund would pay and what\nhe would receive. The triobolon received is a fixed sum to each\ncitizen, whereas the contributions of _each_ would be different.\nMoreover the foreigners and metics would contribute without receiving\nanything, while the poor citizens would receive their triobolon per\nhead, without having contributed anything.]\n\n[Footnote 108: Aristeides the Rhetor has some forcible remarks in\ndefending Rhetoric and the Athenian statesmen against the bitter\ncriticisms of Plato in the Gorgias: pointing out that Plato himself\nhad never made trial of the difficulty of governing any real community\nof men, or of the necessities under which a statesman in actual\npolitical life was placed (Orat. xlv. [Greek: Peri\\ R(\u00eatorik\u00ea=s], pp.\n109-110, Dindorf).]\n\n[Side-note: Xenophon exhorts his countrymen to maintain peace.]\n\nXenophon accompanies his financial scheme with a strong recommendation\nto his countrymen that they should abstain from warlike enterprises\nand maintain peace with every one. He expatiates on the manifest\nadvantages, nay, even on the necessity, of continued peace, under the\nactual poverty of the city: for the purpose of recruiting the\nexhausted means of the citizens, as well as of favouring his own new\nprojects for the improvement of finance and commerce. While he\nespecially deprecates any attempt on the part of Athens to regain by\nforce her lost headship over the Greeks, he at the same time holds out\nhopes that this dignity would be spontaneously tendered to her, if,\nbesides abstaining from all violence, she conducted herself with a\nliberal and conciliatory spirit towards all: if she did her best to\nadjust differences among other cities, and to uphold the autonomy of\nthe Delphian temple.[109] As far as we can judge, such pacific\nexhortations were at that time wise and politic. Athens had just then\nconcluded peace (355 B.C.) after the three years of ruinous and\nunsuccessful war, called the Social War, carried on against her\nrevolted allies Chios, Kos, Rhodes, and Byzantium. To attempt the\nrecovery of empire by force was most mischievous. There was indeed one\npurpose, for which she was called upon by a wise forecast to put forth\nher strength--to check the aggrandisement of Philip in Macedonia. But\nthis was a distant purpose: and the necessity, though it became every\nyear more urgent, was not so prominently manifest[110] in 355 B.C. as\nto affect the judgment of Xenophon. At that early day, Demosthenes\nhimself did not see the danger from Macedonia: his first Philippic was\ndelivered in 351 B.C., and even then his remonstrances, highly\ncreditable to his own forecast, made little impression on others. But\nwhen we read the financial oration De Symmoriis we appreciate his\nsound administrative and practical judgment; compared with the\nbenevolent dreams and ample public largess in which Xenophon here\nindulges.[111]\n\n[Footnote 109: Xenoph. De Vectig. v. 3-8.]\n\n[Footnote 110: See my 'History of Greece,' ch. 86, p. 325 seq.\n\nI agree with Boeckh, Public Econ. of Athens, ut supr\u00e0, p. 601, that\nthis pamphlet of Xenophon is probably to be referred to the close of\nthe Social War, about 355 B.C.]\n\n[Footnote 111: Respecting the first Philippic, and the Oratio De\nSymmoriis of Demosthenes, see my 'History of Greece,' ch. 87,\npp. 401-431.]\n\n[Side-note: Difference of the latest compositions of Xenophon and\nPlato, from their point of view in the earlier.]\n\nWe have seen that Plato died in 347 B.C., having reached the full age\nof eighty: Xenophon must have attained the same age nearly, and may\nperhaps have attained it completely--though we do not know the exact\nyear of his death. With both these two illustrious companions of\nSokrates, the point of view is considerably modified in their last\ncompositions as compared to their earlier. Xenophon shows the\nalteration not less clearly than Plato, though in an opposite\ndirection. His discourse on the Athenian revenues differs quite as\nmuch from the Anabasis, Cyrop\u00e6dia, and Oekonomikus--as the Leges and\nEpinomis differ from any of Plato's earlier works. Whatever we may\nthink of the financial and commercial anticipations of Xenophon, his\npamphlet on the Athenian revenues betokens a warm sympathy for his\nnative city--a genuine appreciation of her individual freedom and her\nmany-sided intellectual activity--an earnest interest in her actual\ncareer, and even in the extension of her commercial and manufacturing\nwealth. In these respects it recommends itself to our feelings more\nthan the last Platonic production--Leges and Epinomis--composed nearly\nat the same time, between 356-347 B.C. While Xenophon in old age,\nbecoming reconciled to his country, forgets his early passion for the\nSpartan drill and discipline, perpetual, monotonous, unlettered--we\nfind in the senility of Plato a more cramping limitation of the\nvarieties of human agency--a stricter compression, even of individual\nthought and speech, under the infallible official orthodoxy--a more\nextensive use of the p\u00e6dagogic rod and the censorial muzzle than he\nhad ever proposed before.\n\nIn thus taking an unwilling leave of the Sokratic family, represented\nby these two venerable survivors--to both of whom the students of\nAthenian letters and philosophy are so deeply indebted--I feel some\nsatisfaction in the belief, that both of them died, as they were born,\ncitizens of free Athens and of unconquered Hellas: and that neither of\nthem was preserved to an excessive old age, like their contemporary\nIsokrates, to witness the extinction of Hellenic autonomy by the\nbattle of Ch\u00e6roneia.[112]\n\n[Footnote 112: Compare the touching passage in Tacitus's description\nof the death of Agricola, c. 44-45.\n\n\"Festinat\u00e6 mortis grande solatium tulit, evasisse postremum illud\ntempus,\" &c.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nLIFE OF PLATO.\n\n[Side-note: Scanty information about Plato's life.]\n\nOf Plato's biography we can furnish nothing better than a faint\noutline. We are not fortunate enough to possess the work on Plato's\nlife,[1] composed by his companion and disciple Xenokrates, like the\nlife of Plotinus by Porphyry, or that of Proklus by Marinus. Though\nPlato lived eighty years, enjoying extensive celebrity--and though\nDiogenes Laertius employed peculiar care in collecting information\nabout him--yet the number of facts recounted is very small, and of\nthose facts a considerable proportion is poorly attested.[2]\n\n[Footnote 1: This is cited by Simplikius, Schol. ad Aristot. De Coelo,\n470, a. 27; 474, a. 12, ed. Brandis.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Diogen. Laert. iv. 1. The person to whom Diogenes\naddressed his biography of Plato was a female: possibly the wife of\nthe emperor Septimius Severus (see Philostr. Vit. Apoll. i. 3), who\ngreatly loved and valued the Platonic philosophy (Diog. Laert. iii.\n47). M\u00e9nage (in his commentary on the Prooemium) supposes the person\nsignified to be Arria: this also is a mere conjecture, and in my\njudgment less probable. We know that the empress gave positive\nencouragement to writers on philosophy. The article devoted by\nDiogenes to Plato is of considerable length, including both biography\nand exposition of doctrine. He makes reference to numerous\nwitnesses--Speusippus, Aristotle, Hermod\u00f4rus, Aristippus, Dik\u00e6archus,\nAristoxenus, Klearchus, Herakleides, Theopompus, Timon in his Silli or\nsatirical poem, Pamphila, Hermippus, Neanthes, Antileon, Favorinus,\nAthenod\u00f4rus. Timotheus, Idomeneus, Alexander [Greek: e)n diadochai=s\nkath' \u00ca(ra/kleiton], Satyrus, On\u00eator, Alkimus, Euphorion, Pan\u00e6tius,\nMyronianus, Polemon, Aristophanes of Byzantium, the Alexandrine\ncritic, Antigonus of Karystus, Thrasyllus, &c.\n\nOf the other biographers of Plato, Olympiodorus and the Auctor\nAnonymus cite no authorities. Apuleius, in his survey of the doctrine\nof Plato (De Habitudine doctrinarum Platonis, init. p. 567, ed.\nParis), mentions only Speusippus, as having attested the early\ndiligence and quick apprehension of Plato. \"Speusippus, domesticis\ninstructus documentis, et pueri ejus acre in percipiendo ingenium, et\nadmirand\u00e6 verecundi\u00e6 indolem laudat, et pubescentis primitias labore\natque amore studendi imbutas refert,\" &c.\n\nSpeusippus had composed a funeral Discourse or Encomium on Plato\n(Diogen. iii. 1, 2; iv. 1, 11). Unfortunately Diogenes refers to it\nonly once in reference to Plato. We can hardly make out whether any of\nthe authors, whom he cites, had made the life of Plato a subject of\nattentive study. Hermod\u00f4rus is cited by Simplikius as having written a\ntreatise [Greek: peri\\ Pla/t\u00f4nos]. Aristoxenus, Dik\u00e6archus, and\nTheopompus--perhaps also Hermippus, and Klearchus--had good means of\ninformation.\n\nSee K. F. Hermann, Geschichte und System der Platonischen Philosophie,\np. 97, not. 45.]\n\n[Side-note: His birth, parentage, and early education.]\n\nPlato was born in \u00c6gina (in which island his father enjoyed an estate\nas kleruch or out-settled citizen) in the month Thargelion (May) of\nthe year B.C. 427.[3] His family, belonging to the D\u00eame Kollytus, was\nboth ancient and noble, in the sense attached to that word at Athens.\nHe was son of Ariston (or, according to some admirers, of the God\nApollo) and Periktion\u00ea: his maternal ancestors had been intimate\nfriends or relatives of the law-giver Solon, while his father belonged\nto a Gens tracing its descent from Kodrus, and even from the God\nPoseidon. He was also nearly related to Charmides and to Kritias--this\nlast the well-known and violent leader among the oligarchy called the\nThirty Tyrants.[4] Plato was first called Aristokl\u00eas, after his\ngrandfather; but received when he grew up the name of Plato--on\naccount of the breadth (we are told) either of his forehead or of his\nshoulders. Endowed with a robust physical frame, and exercised in\ngymnastics, not merely in one of the pal\u00e6str\u00e6 of Athens (which he\ndescribes graphically in the Charmides) but also under an Argeian\ntrainer, he attained such force and skill as to contend (if we may\ncredit Dik\u00e6archus) for the prize of wrestling among boys at the\nIsthmian festival.[5] His literary training was commenced under a\nschoolmaster named Dionysius, and pursued under Drakon, a celebrated\nteacher of music in the large sense then attached to that word. He is\nsaid to have displayed both diligence and remarkable quickness of\napprehension, combined too with the utmost gravity and modesty.[6] He\nnot only acquired great familiarity with the poets, but composed\npoetry of his own--dithyrambic, lyric, and tragic: and he is even\nreported to have prepared a tragic tetralogy, with the view of\ncompeting for victory at the Dionysian festival. We are told that he\nburned these poems, when he attached himself to the society of\nSokrates. No compositions in verse remain under his name, except a few\nepigrams--amatory, affectionate, and of great poetical beauty. But\nthere is ample proof in his dialogues that the cast of his mind was\nessentially poetical. Many of his philosophical speculations are\nnearly allied to poetry, and acquire their hold upon the mind rather\nthrough imagination and sentiment than through reason or evidence.\n\n[Footnote 3: It was affirmed distinctly by Hermod\u00f4rus (according to\nthe statement of Diogenes Laertius, iii. 6) that Plato was\ntwenty-eight years old at the time of the death of Sokrates: that is,\nin May, 399 B.C. (Zeller, Phil. der Griech. vol. ii. p. 39, ed. 2nd.)\nThis would place the birth of Plato in 427 B.C. Other critics refer\nhis birth to 428 or 429: but I agree with Zeller in thinking that the\ndeposition of Hermod\u00f4rus is more trustworthy than any other evidence\nbefore us.\n\nHermod\u00f4rus was a friend and disciple of Plato, and is even said to\nhave made money by publishing Plato's dialogues without permission\n(Cic., Epist. ad Attic. xiii. 21). Suidas, [Greek: E(rmo/d\u00f4ros]. He\nwas also an author: he published a treatise [Greek: Peri\\ Math\u00eama/t\u00f4n]\n(Diog. L., Prooem. 2).\n\nSee the more recent Dissertation of Zeller, De Hermodoro Ephesio et\nHermodoro Platonico, Marburg, 1859, p. 19 seq. He cites two important\npassages (out of the commentary of Simplikius on Aristot. Physic.)\nreferring to the work of Hermod\u00f4rus [Greek: o( Pla/t\u00f4nos e(/tairos]--a\nwork [Greek: Peri\\ Pla/t\u00f4nos], on Plato.]\n\n[Footnote 4: The statements respecting Plato's relatives are obscure\nand perplexing: unfortunately the _domestica documenta_, which were\nwithin the knowledge of his nephew Speusippus, are no longer\naccessible to us. It is certain that he had two brothers, Glaukon and\nAdeimantus: besides which, it would appear from the Parmenides (126 B)\nthat he had a younger half-brother by the mother's side, named\nAntiphon, and son of Pyrilampes (compare Charmides, p. 158 A, and\nPlut., De Frat. Amore, 12, p. 484 E). But the age, which this would\nassign to Antiphon, does not harmonise well with the chronological\npostulates assumed in the exordium of the Parmenides. Accordingly, K.\nF. Hermann and Stallbaum are led to believe, that besides the brothers\nof Plato named Glaukon and Adeimantus, there must also have been two\nuncles of Plato bearing these same names, and having Antiphon for\ntheir younger brother. (See Stallbaum's Prolegg. ad Charm. pp. 84, 85,\nand Prolegg. ad Parmen., Part iii. pp. 304-307.) This is not unlikely:\nbut we cannot certainly determine the point--more especially as we do\nnot know what amount of chronological inaccuracy Plato might hold to\nbe admissible in the _personnel_ of his dialogues.\n\nIt is worth mentioning, that in the discourse of Andokides de\nMysteriis, persons named Plato, Charmides, Antiphon, are named among\nthose accused of concern in the sacrileges of 415 B.C.--the mutilation\nof the Herm\u00e6 and the mock celebration of the mysteries. Speusippus is\nalso named as among the Senators of the year (Andokides de Myst. p.\n13-27, seq.). Whether these persons belonged to the same family as the\nphilosopher Plato, we cannot say. He himself was then only twelve\nyears old.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Diog. L. iii. 4; Epikt\u00eatus, i. 8-13, [Greek: ei) de\\\nkalo\\s \u00ea)=n Pla/t\u00f4n kai\\ i)schuro/s], &c.\n\nThe statement of Sextus Empiricus--that Plato in his boyhood had his\nears bored and wore ear-rings--indicates the opulent family to which\nhe belonged. (Sex. Emp. adv. Gramm. s. 258.) Probably some of the old\nhabits of the great Athenian families, as to ornaments worn on the\nhead or hair, were preserved with the children after they had been\ndiscontinued with adults. See Thuc. i. 6.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Diog. L. iii. 26.]\n\n[Side-note: Early relations of Plato with Sokrates.]\n\nAccording to Diogenes[7] (who on this point does not cite his\nauthority), it was about the twentieth year of Plato's age (407 B.C.)\nthat his acquaintance with Sokrates began. It may possibly have begun\nearlier, but certainly not later--since at the time of the\nconversation (related by Xenophon) between Sokrates and Plato's\nyounger brother Glaukon, there was already a friendship established\nbetween Sokrates and Plato: and that time can hardly be later than 406\nB.C., or the beginning of 405 B.C.[8] From 406 B.C. down to 399 B.C.,\nwhen Sokrates was tried and condemned, Plato seems to have remained in\nfriendly relation and society with him: a relation perhaps interrupted\nduring the severe political struggles between 405 B.C. and 403 B.C.,\nbut revived and strengthened after the restoration of the democracy in\nthe last-mentioned year.\n\n[Footnote 7: Ibid. 6.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Xen. Mem. iii. 6, 1. Sokrates was induced by his\nfriendship for Plato and for Charmides the cousin of Plato, to\nadmonish the forward youth Glaukon (Plato's younger brother), who\nthrust himself forward obtrusively to speak in the public assembly\nbefore he was twenty years of age. The two discourses of Sokrates--one\nwith the presumptuous Glaukon, the other with the diffident\nCharmides--are both reported by Xenophon.\n\nThese discourses must have taken place before the battle of\n\u00c6gospotami: for Charmides was killed during the Anarchy, and Glaukon\ncertainly would never have attempted such acts of presumption\nafter the restoration of the democracy, at a time when the tide of\npublic feeling had become vehemently hostile to Kritias, Charmides,\nand all the names and families connected with the oligarchical rule\njust overthrown.\n\nI presume the conversation of Sokrates with Glaukon to have taken\nplace in 406 B.C. or 405 B.C.: it was in 405 B.C. that the disastrous\nbattle of \u00c6gospotami occurred.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's youth--service as a citizen and soldier.]\n\nBut though Plato may have commenced at the age of twenty his\nacquaintance with Sokrates, he cannot have been exclusively occupied\nin philosophical pursuits between the nineteenth and the twenty-fifth\nyear of his age--that is, between 409-403 B.C. He was carried, partly\nby his own dispositions, to other matters besides philosophy; and even\nif such dispositions had not existed, the exigencies of the time\npressed upon him imperatively as an Athenian citizen. Even under\nordinary circumstances, a young Athenian of eighteen years of age, as\nsoon as he was enrolled on the public register of citizens, was\nrequired to take the memorable military oath in the chapel of\nAglaurus, and to serve on active duty, constant or nearly constant,\nfor two years, in various posts throughout Attica, for the defence of\nthe country.[9] But the six years from 409-403 B.C. were years of an\nextraordinary character. They included the most strenuous public\nefforts, the severest suffering, and the gravest political revolution,\nthat had ever occurred at Athens. Every Athenian citizen was of\nnecessity put upon constant (almost daily) military service; either\nabroad, or in Attica against the Laced\u00e6monian garrison established in\nthe permanent fortified post of Dekeleia, within sight of the Athenian\nAkropolis. So habitually were the citizens obliged to be on guard,\nthat Athens, according to Thucydides,[10] became a military post\nrather than a city. It is probable that Plato, by his family and its\nplace on the census, belonged to the Athenian Hippeis or Horsemen, who\nwere in constant employment for the defence of the territory. But at\nany rate, either on horseback, or on foot, or on shipboard, a robust\nyoung citizen like Plato, whose military age commenced in 409, must\nhave borne his fair share in this hard but indispensable duty. In the\ndesperate emergency, which preceded the battle of Arginus\u00e6 (406 B.C.),\nthe Athenians put to sea in thirty days a fleet of 110 triremes for\nthe relief of Mitylen\u00ea; all the men of military age, freemen, and\nslaves, embarking.[11] We can hardly imagine that at such a season\nPlato can have wished to decline service: even if he had wished it,\nthe Strategi would not have permitted him. Assuming that he remained\nat home, the garrison-duty at Athens must have been doubled on account\nof the number of departures. After the crushing defeat of the\nAthenians at \u00c6gospotami, came the terrible apprehension at Athens,\nthen the long blockade and famine of the city (wherein many died of\nhunger); next the tyranny of the Thirty, who among their other\noppressions made war upon all free speech, and silenced even the voice\nof Sokrates: then the gallant combat of Thrasybulus followed by the\nintervention of the Laced\u00e6monians--contingencies full of uncertainty\nand terror, but ending in the restoration of the democracy. After such\nrestoration, there followed all the anxieties, perils, of reaction,\nnew enactments and provisions, required for the revived democracy,\nduring the four years between the expulsion of the Thirty and the\ndeath of Sokrates.\n\n[Footnote 9: Read the oath sworn by the Eph\u00eabi in Pollux viii. 105.\n\u00c6schines tells us that he served his two ephebic years as [Greek:\nperi/polos t\u00ea=s ch\u00f4/ras], when there no was remarkable danger or foreign\npressure. See \u00c6sch. De Fals. Legat. s. 178. See the facts about the\nAthenian Eph\u00eabi brought together in a Dissertation by W. Dittenberger,\np. 9-12.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Thuc. vii. 27: [Greek: o(s\u00eame/rai e)xelauno/nt\u00f4n t\u00f4=n\ni(ppe/\u00f4n], &c. Cf., viii. 69. Antiphon, who is described in the\nbeginning of the Parmenides, as devoted to [Greek: i(ppik\u00ea\\], must\nhave been either brother or uncle of Plato.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Xen. Hell. i. 6, 24. [Greek: Oi( de\\ A)th\u00eanai=oi, ta\\\ngegen\u00eame/na kai\\ t\u00ea\\n poliorki/an e)pei\\ \u00ea)/kousan, e)ps\u00eaphi/santo\nbo\u00eathei=n nausi\\n e(kato\\n kai\\ de/ka, ei)sbiba/zontes tou\\s e)n\n\u00ea(liki/a| o)/ntas a(/pantas, kai\\ dou/lous kai\\ e)leuthe/rous; kai\\\npl\u00ear\u00f4/santes ta\\s de/ka kai\\ e(kato\\n e)n tria/konta \u00ea(me/rais,\na)p\u00ea=ran; ei)se/b\u00easan de\\ kai\\ t\u00f4=n i(ppe/\u00f4n polloi/]. In one of the\nanecdotes given by Diogenes (iii. 24) Plato alludes to his own\nmilitary service. Aristoxenus (Diog. L. iii. 8) said that Plato had\nbeen engaged thrice in military expeditions out of Attica: once to\nTanagra, a second time to Corinth, a third time to Delium, where he\ndistinguished himself. Aristoxenus must have had fair means of\ninformation, yet I do not know what to make of this statement. All the\nthree places named are notorious for battles fought by Athens;\nnevertheless chronology utterly forbids the supposition that Plato\ncould have been present either at _the_ battle of Tanagra or at _the_\nbattle of Delium. At the battle of Delium Sokrates was present, and is\nsaid to have distinguished himself: hence there is ground for\nsuspecting some confusion between his name and that of Plato. It is\nhowever possible that there may have been, during the interval between\n410-405 B.C., partial invasions of the frontiers of Boeotia by\nAthenian detachments: both Tanagra and Delium were on the Boeotian\nfrontier. The great battle of Corinth took place in 394 B.C. Plato\nleft Athens immediately after the death of Sokrates in 399 B.C., and\nvisited several foreign countries during the years immediately\nfollowing; but he may have been at Athens in 394 B.C., and may have\nserved in the Athenian force at Corinth. See Mr. Clinton, Fast. Hell.\nad ann. 395 B.C. I do not see how Plato could have been engaged in any\nbattle of Delium _after_ the battle of Corinth, for Athens was not\nthen at war with the Boeotians.\n\nAt the same time I confess that the account given by or ascribed to\nAristoxenus appears to me to have been founded on little positive\ninformation, when we compare it with the military duty which Plato\nmust have done between 410-405 B.C.\n\nIt is curious that Antisthenes also is mentioned as having\ndistinguished himself at the battle of Tanagra (Diog. vi. 1). The same\nremarks are applicable to him as have just been made upon Plato.]\n\n[Side-note: Period of political ambition.]\n\nFrom the dangers, fatigues, and sufferings of such an historical\ndecad, no Athenian citizen could escape, whatever might be his feeling\ntowards the existing democracy, or however averse he might be to\npublic employment by natural temper. But Plato was not thus averse,\nduring the earlier years of his adult life. We know, from his own\nletters, that he then felt strongly the impulse of political ambition\nusual with young Athenians of good family;[12] though probably not\nwith any such premature vehemence as his younger brother Glaukon,\nwhose impatience Sokrates is reported to have so judiciously\nmoderated.[13] Whether Plato ever spoke with success in the public\nassembly, we do not know: he is said to have been shy by nature, and\nhis voice was thin and feeble, ill adapted for the Pnyx.[14] However,\nwhen the oligarchy of Thirty was established, after the capture and\nsubjugation of Athens, Plato was not only relieved from the necessity\nof addressing the assembled people, but also obtained additional\nfacilities for rising into political influence, through Kritias (his\nnear relative) and Charmides, leading men among the new oligarchy.\nPlato affirms that he had always disapproved the antecedent democracy,\nand that he entered on the new scheme of government with full hope of\nseeing justice and wisdom predominant. He was soon undeceived. The\ngovernment of the Thirty proved a sanguinary and rapacious\ntyranny,[15] filling him with disappointment and disgust. He was\nespecially revolted by their treatment of Sokrates, whom they not only\ninterdicted from continuing his habitual colloquy with young men,[16]\nbut even tried to implicate in nefarious murders, by ordering him\nalong with others to arrest Leon the Salaminian, one of their intended\nvictims: an order which Sokrates, at the peril of his life, disobeyed.\n\n[Footnote 12: Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 324-325.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Xen., Mem. iii. 6.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Diogen. Laert. iii. 5: [Greek: I)schno/ph\u00f4no/s te \u00ea)=n],\n&c. iii. 26: [Greek: ai)d\u00ea/m\u00f4n kai\\ ko/smios].]\n\n[Footnote 15: History of Greece, vol. viii. ch. 65.]\n\n[Footnote 16: Xen. Mem. i. 2, 36; Plato, Apol. Sokrat. c. 20, p. 32.]\n\n[Side-note: He becomes disgusted with politics.]\n\nThus mortified and disappointed, Plato withdrew from public functions.\nWhat part he took in the struggle between the oligarchy and its\ndemocratical assailants under Thrasybulus, we are not informed. But\nwhen the democracy was re-established, his political ambition revived,\nand he again sought to acquire some active influence on public\naffairs. Now however the circumstances had become highly unfavourable\nto him. The name of his deceased relative Kritias was generally\nabhorred, and he had no powerful partisans among the popular leaders.\nWith such disadvantages, with anti-democratical sentiments, and with a\nthin voice, we cannot wonder that Plato soon found public life\nrepulsive;[17] though he admits the remarkable moderation displayed by\nthe restored Demos. His repugnance was aggravated to the highest pitch\nof grief and indignation by the trial and condemnation of Sokrates\n(399 B.C.), four years after the renewal of the democracy. At that\nmoment doubtless the Sokratic men or companions were unpopular in a\nbody. Plato, after having yielded his best sympathy and aid at the\ntrial of Sokrates, retired along with several others of them to\nMegara. He made up his mind that for a man of his views and opinions,\nit was not only unprofitable, but also unsafe, to embark in active\npublic life, either at Athens or in any other Grecian city. He\nresolved to devote himself to philosophical speculation, and to\nabstain from practical politics; unless fortune should present to him\nsome exceptional case, of a city prepared to welcome and obey a\nrenovator upon exalted principles.[18]\n\n[Footnote 17: \u00c6lian (V. H. iii. 27) had read a story to the effect,\nthat Plato, in consequence of poverty, was about to seek military\nservice abroad, and was buying arms for the purpose, when he was\ninduced to stay by the exhortation of Sokrates, who prevailed upon him\nto devote himself to philosophy at home.\n\nIf there be any truth in this story, it must refer to some time in the\ninterval between the restoration of the democracy (403 B.C.) and the\ndeath of Sokrates (399 B.C.). The military service of Plato, prior to\nthe battle of \u00c6gospotami (405 B.C.), must have been obligatory, in\ndefence of his country, not depending on his own free choice. It is\npossible also that Plato may have been for the time impoverished, like\nmany other citizens, by the intestine troubles in Attica, and may have\ncontemplated military service abroad, like Xenophon.\n\nBut I am inclined to think that the story is unfounded, and that it\narises from some confusion between Plato and Xenophon.]\n\n[Footnote 18: The above account of Plato's proceedings, perfectly\nnatural and interesting, but unfortunately brief, is to be found in\nhis seventh Epistle, p. 325-326.]\n\n[Side-note: He retires from Athens after the death of Sokrates--his\ntravels.]\n\nAt Megara Plato passed some time with the Megarian Eukleides, his\nfellow-disciple in the society of Sokrates, and the founder of what is\ntermed the Megaric school of philosophers. He next visited Kyr\u00ean\u00ea,\nwhere he is said to have become acquainted with the geometrician\nTheod\u00f4rus, and to have studied geometry under him. From Kyr\u00ean\u00ea he\nproceeded to Egypt, interesting himself much in the antiquities of the\ncountry as well as in the conversation of the priests. In or about 394\nB.C.--if we may trust the statement of Aristoxenus about the military\nservice of Plato at Corinth, he was again at Athens. He afterwards\nwent to Italy and Sicily, seeking the society of the Pythagorean\nphilosophers, Archytas, Echekrates, Tim\u00e6us, &c., at Tarentum and\nLokri, and visiting the volcanic manifestations of \u00c6tna. It appears\nthat his first visit to Sicily was made when he was about forty years\nof age, which would be 387 B.C. Here he made acquaintance with the\nyouthful Dion, over whom he acquired great intellectual ascendancy. By\nDion Plato was prevailed upon to visit the elder Dionysius at\nSyracuse:[19] but that despot, offended by the free spirit of his\nconversation and admonitions, dismissed him with displeasure, and even\ncaused him to be sold into slavery at \u00c6gina in his voyage home. Though\nreally sold, however, Plato was speedily ransomed by friends. After\nfarther incurring some risk of his life as an Athenian citizen, in\nconsequence of the hostile feelings of the \u00c6ginetans, he was conveyed\naway safely to Athens, about 386 B.C.[20]\n\n[Footnote 19: Plato. Epistol. vii. p. 324 A, 327 A.]\n\n[Footnote 20: Plut. Dion. c. 5: Corn. Nep., Dion, ii. 3; Diog. Laert.\niii. 19-20; Aristides, Or. xlvi., [Greek: U(pe\\r t\u00f4=n Tetta/r\u00f4n], p.\n305-306, ed. Dindorf.\n\nCicero (De Fin. v. 29; Tusc. Disp. i. 17), and others, had contracted a\nlofty idea of Plato's Travels, more than the reality seems to warrant.\nVal. Max. viii. 7, 3; Plin. Hist. Nat. xxx. 2.\n\nThe Sophist Himerius repeats the same general statements about Plato's\nearly education, and extensive subsequent travels, but without adding\nany new particulars (Orat. xiv. 21-25).\n\nIf we can trust a passage of Tzetzes, cited by Mr. Clinton (F. H. ad\nB.C. 366) and by Welcker (Trag. Gr. p. 1236), Dionysius the elder of\nSyracuse had composed (among his various dramas) a tragi-comedy\ndirected against Plato.]\n\n[Side-note: His permanent establishment at Athens--386 B.C.]\n\nIt was at this period, about 386 B.C., that the continuous and formal\npublic teaching of Plato, constituting as it does so great an epoch in\nphilosophy, commenced. But I see no ground for believing, as many\nauthors assume, that he was absent from Athens during the entire\ninterval between 399-386 B.C. I regard such long-continued absence as\nextremely improbable. Plato had not been sentenced to banishment, nor\nwas he under any compulsion to stay away from his native city. He was\nnot born \"of an oak-tree or a rock\" (to use an Homeric phrase,\nstrikingly applied by Sokrates in his Apology to the Dikasts[21]), but\nof a noble family at Athens, where he had brothers and other\nconnections. A temporary retirement, immediately after the death of\nSokrates, might be congenial to his feelings and interesting in many\nways; but an absence of moderate length would suffice for such\nexigencies, and there were surely reasonable motives to induce him to\nrevisit his friends at home. I conceive Plato as having visited\nKyr\u00ean\u00ea, Egypt, and Italy during these thirteen years, yet as having\nalso spent part of this long time at Athens. Had he been continuously\nabsent from that city he would have been almost forgotten, and would\nscarcely have acquired reputation enough to set up with success as a\nteacher.[22]\n\n[Footnote 21: Plato, Apol. p. 34 D.]\n\n[Footnote 22: Stallbaum insists upon it as \"certum et indubium\" that\nPlato was absent from Athens continuously, without ever returning to\nit, for the thirteen years immediately succeeding the death of\nSokrates. But I see no good evidence of this, and I think it highly\nimprobable. See Stallbaum, Prolegg. ad Platon. Politicum, p. 38, 39.\nThe statement of Strabo (xvii. 806), that Plato and Eudoxus passed\nthirteen years in Egypt, is not admissible.\n\nUeberweg examines and criticises the statements about Plato's travels.\nHe considers it probable that Plato passed some part of these thirteen\nyears at Athens (Ueber die Aechtheit und Zeitfolge der Platon.\nSchrift. p. 126, 127). Mr Fynes Clinton thinks the same. F. H. B.C.\n394; Append. c. 21, p. 366.]\n\n[Side-note: He commences his teaching at the Academy.]\n\nThe spot selected by Plato for his lectures or teaching was a garden\nadjoining the precinct sacred to the Hero Hekad\u00eamus or Akad\u00eamus,\ndistant from the gate of Athens called Dipylon somewhat less than a\nmile, on the road to Eleusis, towards the north. In this precinct\nthere were both walks, shaded by trees, and a gymnasium for bodily\nexercise; close adjoining, Plato either inherited or acquired a small\ndwelling-house and garden, his own private property.[23] Here, under\nthe name of the Academy, was founded the earliest of those schools of\nphilosophy, which continued for centuries forward to guide and\nstimulate the speculative minds of Greece and Rome.\n\n[Footnote 23: Diog. Laert. iii. 7, 8; Cic. De Fin. v. 1; C. G. Zumpt,\nUeber den Bestand der philosophischen Schulen in Athen, p. 8 (Berlin,\n1843). The Academy was consecrated to Ath\u00ean\u00ea; there was, however, a\nstatue of Eros there, to whom sacrifice was offered, in conjunction\nwith Ath\u00ean\u00ea. Athen\u00e6us, xiii. 561.\n\nAt the time when Aristophanes assailed Sokrates in the comedy of the\nNubes (423 B.C.), the Academy was known and familiar as a place for\ngymnastic exercise; and Aristophanes (Nub. 995) singles it out as the\nproper scene of action for the honest and muscular youth, who despises\nrhetoric and philosophy. Aristophanes did not anticipate that within a\nshort time after the representation of his last comedy, the most\nillustrious disciple of Sokrates would select the Academy as the spot\nfor his residence and philosophical lectures, and would confer upon\nthe name a permanent intellectual meaning, as designating the earliest\nand most memorable of the Hellenic schools.\n\nIn 369 B.C., when the school of Plato was in existence, the Athenian\nhoplites, marching to aid the Laced\u00e6monians in Peloponnesus, were\nordered by Iphikrates to make their evening meal in the Academy (Xen.\nHell. vi. 5, 49).\n\nThe garden, afterwards established by Epikurus, was situated between\nthe gate of Athens and the Academy: so that a person passed by it,\nwhen he walked forth from Athens to the Academy (Cic. De Fin. i. 1).]\n\n[Side-note: Plato as a teacher--pupils numerous and wealthy, from\ndifferent cities.]\n\nWe have scarce any particulars respecting the growth of the Academy\nfrom this time to the death of Plato, in 347 B.C. We only know\ngenerally that his fame as a lecturer became eminent and widely\ndiffused: that among his numerous pupils were included Speusippus,\nXenokrates, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Hyperides, Lykurgus, &c.: that he\nwas admired and consulted by Perdikkas in Macedonia and Dionysius at\nSyracuse: that he was also visited by listeners and pupils from all\nparts of Greece. Among them was Eudoxus of Knidus, who afterwards\nbecame illustrious both in geometry and astronomy. At the age of\ntwenty-three, and in poor circumstances, Eudoxus was tempted by the\nreputation of the Sokratic men, and enabled by the aid of friends, to\nvisit Athens: where, however, he was coldly received by Plato. Besides\npreparing an octennial period or octaet\u00earis, and a descriptive map of\nthe Heavens, Eudoxus also devised the astronomical hypothesis of\nConcentric Spheres--the earliest theory proposed to show that the\napparent irregularity in the motion of the Sun and the Planets might\nbe explained, and proved to result from a multiplicity of co-operating\nspheres or agencies, each in itself regular.[24] This theory of\nEudoxus is said to have originated in a challenge of Plato, who\npropounded to astronomers, in his oral discourse, the problem which\nthey ought to try to solve.[25]\n\n[Footnote 24: For an account of Eudoxus himself, of his theory of\nconcentric spheres, and the subsequent extensions of it, see the\ninstructive volume of the late lamented Sir George Cornewall\nLewis,--Historical Survey of the Ancient Astronomy, ch. iii. sect. 3,\np. 146 seq.\n\nM. Boeckh also (in his recent publication, Ueber die vierj\u00e4hrigen\nSonnenkreise der Alten, vorz\u00fcglich den Eudoxischen, Berlin, 1863) has\ngiven an account of the life and career of Eudoxus, not with reference\nto his theory of concentric spheres, but to his Calendar and Lunisolar\nCycles or Periods, quadrennial and octennial. I think Boeckh is right\nin placing the voyage of Eudoxus to Egypt at an _earlier_ period of\nthe life of Eudoxus; that is, about 378 B.C.; and not in 362 B.C.,\nwhere it is placed by Letronne and others. Boeckh shows that the\nletters of recommendation from Agesilaus to Nektanebos, which Eudoxus\ntook with him, do not necessarily coincide in time with the military\nexpedition of Agesilaus to Egypt, but were more probably of earlier\ndate. (Boeckh, p. 140-148.)\n\nEudoxus lived 53 years (406-353 B.C., about); being born when Plato\nwas 21, and dying when Plato was 75. He was one of the most\nillustrious men of the age. He was born in poor circumstances; but so\nmarked was his early promise, that some of the medical school at\nKnidus assisted him to prosecute his studies--to visit Athens and hear\nthe Sophists, Plato among them--to visit Egypt, Tarentum (where he\nstudied geometry with Archytas), and Sicily (where he studied [Greek:\nta\\ i)atrika\\] with Philistion). These facts depend upon the [Greek:\nPi/nakes] of Kallimachus, which are good authority. (Diog. L. viii.\n86.)\n\nAfter thus preparing himself by travelling and varied study, Eudoxus\ntook up the profession of a Sophist, at Kyzikus and the neighbouring\ncities in the Propontis. He obtained great celebrity, and a large\nnumber of pupils. M. Boeckh says, \"Dort lebte er als Sophist, sagt\nSotion: das heisst, er lehrte, und hielt Vortrage. Dasselbe bezeugt\nPhilostratos.\"\n\nI wish to call particular attention to the way in which M. Boeckh here\ndescribes** a Sophist of the fourth century B.C. Nothing can be more\ncorrect. Every man who taught and gave lectures to audiences more or\nless numerous, was so called. The Platonic critics altogether darken\nthe history of philosophy, by using the word _Sophist_ with its modern\nassociations (and the unmeaning abstract _Sophistic_ which they derive\nfrom it), to represent a supposed school of speculative and deceptive\ncorruptors.\n\nEudoxus, having been coldly received when young and poor by Plato, had\nsatisfaction in revisiting Athens at the height of his reputation,\naccompanied by numerous pupils--and in showing himself again to Plato.\nThe two then became friends. Men\u00e6chmus and Helikon, geometrical pupils\nof Eudoxus, received instruction from Plato also; and Helikon\naccompanied Plato on his third voyage to Sicily (Plato, Epist. xiii.\np. 360 D; Plut. Dion, c. 19). Whether Eudoxus accompanied him there\nalso, as Boeckh supposes, is doubtful: I think it improbable.\n\nEudoxus ultimately returned to his native city of Knidus, where he was\nreceived with every demonstration of honour: a public vote of esteem\nand recognition being passed to welcome him. He is said to have been\nsolicited to give laws to the city, and to have actually done so: how\nfar this may be true, we cannot say. He also visited the neighbouring\nprince Maus\u00f4lus of Karia, by whom he was much honoured.\n\nWe know from Aristotle, that Eudoxus was not only illustrious as an\nastronomer and geometer, but that he also proposed a theory of Ethics,\nsimilar in its general formula to that which was afterwards laid down\nby Epikurus. Aristotle dissents from the theory, but he bears express\ntestimony, in a manner very unusual with him, to the distinguished\npersonal merit and virtue of Eudoxus (Ethic. Nikom. x. 3, p. 1172, b.\n16).]\n\n[Footnote 25: Respecting Eudoxus, see Diog. L. viii. 86-91. As the\nlife of Eudoxus probably extended from about 406-353 B.C., his first\nvisit to Athens would be about 383 B.C., some three years after Plato\ncommenced his school. Strabo (xvii. 806), when he visited Heliopolis\nin Egypt, was shown by the guides certain cells or chambers which were\nsaid to have been occupied by Plato and Eudoxus, and was assured that\nthe two had passed thirteen years together in Egypt. This account\ndeserves no credit. Plato and Eudoxus visited Egypt, but not together,\nand neither of them for so long as thirteen years. Eudoxus stayed\nthere sixteen months (Diog. L. viii. 87). Simplikius, Schol. ad\nAristot. De Coelo, p. 497, 498, ed. Brandis, 498, a. 45. [Greek: Kai\\\npr\u00f4=tos t\u00f4=n E(ll\u00ea/n\u00f4n Eu)/doxos o( Kni/dios. \u00f4(s Eu)/d\u00eamo/s te e)n\nt\u00f4=| deute/r\u00f4| t\u00ea=s A)strologik\u00ea=s I)stori/as a)pemn\u00eamo/neuse kai\\\nS\u00f4sige/n\u00eas para\\ _Eu)d\u00ea/mou tou=to lab\u00f4\\n_, a(/psasthai le/getai t\u00f4=n\ntoiou/t\u00f4n u(pothe/se\u00f4n; Pla/t\u00f4nos, _\u00f4(s ph\u00easi S\u00f4sige/n\u00eas_, pro/bl\u00eama\ntou=to poi\u00easame/nou toi=s peri\\ tau=ta e)spoudako/si--ti/n\u00f4n\nu(potethei/s\u00f4n o(mal\u00f4=n kai\\ tetagme/n\u00f4n kin\u00ea/se\u00f4n dias\u00f4th\u00ea=| ta\\\nperi\\ ta\\s kin\u00ea/seis t\u00f4=n plan\u00f4me/n\u00f4n phaino/mena]. The Scholion of\nSimplikius, which follows at great length, is exceedingly interesting\nand valuable, in regard to the astronomical theory of Eudoxus, with\nthe modifications introduced into it by Kallippus, Aristotle, and\nothers. All the share in it which is claimed for Plato, is, that he\ndescribed in clear language the problem to be solved: and even _that_\nshare depends simply upon the statement of the Alexandrine Sosigenes\n(contemporary of Julius C\u00e6sar), not upon the statement of Eudemus. At\nleast the language of Simplikius affirms, that Sosigenes copied from\nEudemus the fact, that Eudoxus was the first Greek who proposed a\nsystematic astronomical hypothesis to explain the motions of the\nplanets--([Greek: par' Eu)d\u00ea/mou _tou=to_ lab\u00f4/n]) not the\ncircumstance, that Plato propounded the problem afterwards mentioned.\nFrom whom Sosigenes derived this last information, is not indicated.\nAbout his time, various fictions had gained credit in Egypt respecting\nthe connection of Plato with Eudoxus, as we may see by the story of\nStrabo above cited. If Plato impressed upon others that which is here\nascribed to him, he must have done so in _conversation or oral\ndiscourse_--for there is nothing in his written dialogues to that\neffect. Moreover, there is nothing in the dialogues to make us suppose\nthat Plato adopted or approved the theory of Eudoxus. When Plato\nspeaks of astronomy, either in the Republic, or in Leges, or in\nEpinomis, it is in a totally different spirit--not manifesting any\ncare to save the astronomical phenomena. Both Aristotle himself\n(Metaphys. A. p. 1073 b.) and Simplikius, make it clear that Aristotle\nwarmly espoused and enlarged the theory of Eudoxus. Theophrastus,\nsuccessor of Aristotle, did the same. But we do not hear that either\nSpeusippus or Xenokrates (successor of Plato) took any interest in the\ntheory. This is one remarkable point of divergence between Plato and\nthe Platonists on one side--Aristotle and the Aristotelians on the\nother--and much to the honour of the latter: for the theory of\nEudoxus, though erroneous, was a great step towards improved\nscientific conceptions on astronomy, and a great provocative to\nfarther observation of astronomical facts.]\n\nThough Plato demanded no money as a fee for admission of pupils, yet\nneither did he scruple to receive presents from rich men such as\nDionysius, Dion, and others.[26] In the jests of Ephippus, Antiphanes,\nand other poets of the middle comedy, the pupils of Plato in the\nAcademy are described as finely and delicately clad, nice in their\npersons even to affectation, with elegant caps and canes; which is the\nmore to be noticed because the preceding comic poets derided Sokrates\nand his companions for qualities the very opposite--as prosing\nbeggars, in mean attire and dirt.[27] Such students must have belonged\nto opulent families; and we may be sure that they requited their\nmaster by some valuable present, though no fee may have been formally\ndemanded from them. Some conditions (though we do not know what) were\ndoubtless required for admission. Moreover the example of Eudoxus\nshows that in some cases even ardent and promising pupils were\npractically repelled. At any rate, the teaching of Plato formed a\nmarked contrast with that extreme and indiscriminate publicity which\ncharacterised the conversation of Sokrates, who passed his days in the\nmarket-place or in the public porticoes or pal\u00e6str\u00e6; while Plato both\ndwelt and discoursed in a quiet residence and garden a little way out\nof Athens. The title of Athens to be considered the training-city of\nHellas (as Perikles had called her fifty years before), was fully\nsustained by the Athenian writers and teachers between 390-347;\nespecially by Plato and Isokrates, the most celebrated and largely\nfrequented. So many foreign pupils came to Isokrates that he affirms\nmost of his pecuniary gains to have been derived from non-Athenians.\nSeveral of his pupils stayed with him three or four years. The like is\ndoubtless true about the pupils of Plato.[28]\n\n[Footnote 26: Plato, Epistol. xiii. p. 361, 362. We learn from this\nepistle that Plato received pecuniary remittances not merely from\nDionysius, but also from other friends ([Greek: a)/ll\u00f4n\ne)pit\u00eadei/\u00f4n]--361 C); that he employed these not only for choregies and\nother costly functions of his own, but also to provide dowry for female\nrelatives, and presents to friends (363 A).]\n\n[Footnote 27: See Meineke, Hist. Crit. Comic. Gr\u00e6c. p. 288, 289--and\nthe extracts there given from Ephippus and Antiphanes--apud Athen\u00e6um,\nxi. 509, xii. 544. About the poverty and dirt which was reproached to\nSokrates and his disciples, see the fragment of Ameipsias in Meineke,\nibid. p. 203. Also Aristoph. Aves, 1555; Nubes, 827; and the Fragm. of\nEupolis in Meineke, p. 552--[Greek: Mis\u00f4= d' e)g\u00f4\\ kai\\ S\u00f4kra/t\u00ean,\nto\\n pt\u00f4cho\\n a)dole/sch\u00ean].\n\nMeineke thinks that Aristophanes, in the Ekklesiazus\u00e6, 646, and in the\nPlutus, 313, intends to ridicule Plato under the name of Aristyllus:\nPlato's name having been originally Aristokles. But I see no\nsufficient ground for this opinion.]\n\n[Footnote 28: Perikles in the Funeral Oration (Thuc. ii. 41) calls\nAthens [Greek: t\u00ea=s E(lla/dos pai/deusin]: the same eulogium is\nrepeated, with greater abundance of words, by Isokrates in his\nPanegyrical Oration (Or. iv. sect. 56, p. 51).\n\nThe declaration of Isokrates, that most of his money was acquired from\nforeign (non-Athenian) pupils, and the interesting fact that many of\nthem not only stayed with him three or four years but were even then\nloth to depart, will be found in Orat. xv. De Permutatione, sect.\n93-175. Plutarch (Vit. x. Orat. 838 E) goes so far as to say that\nIsokrates never required any pay from an Athenian pupil.\n\nNearly three centuries after Plato's decease, Cicero sent his son\nMarcus to Athens, where the son spent a considerable time, frequenting\nthe lectures of the Peripatetic philosopher Kratippus. Young Cicero,\nin an interesting letter addressed to Tiro (Cic. Epist. Fam. xvi. 23),\ndescribes in animated terms both his admiration for the person and\nabilities, and his delight in the private society, of Kratippus.\nSeveral of Plato's pupils probably felt as much or more towards him.]\n\n[Side-note: Visit of Plato to the younger Dionysius at Syracuse, 367\nB.C. Second visit to the same--mortifying failure.]\n\nIt was in the year 367-366 that Plato was induced, by the earnest\nentreaties of Dion, to go from Athens to Syracuse, on a visit to the\nyounger Dionysius, who had just become despot, succeeding to his\nfather of the same name. Dionysius II., then very young, had\nmanifested some dispositions towards philosophy, and prodigious\nadmiration for Plato: who was encouraged by Dion to hope that he would\nhave influence enough to bring about an amendment or thorough reform\nof the government at Syracuse. This ill-starred visit, with its\nmomentous sequel, has been described in my 'History of Greece'. It not\nonly failed completely, but made matters worse rather than better:\nDionysius became violently alienated from Dion, and sent him into\nexile. Though turning a deaf ear to Plato's recommendations, he\nnevertheless liked his conversation, treated him with great respect,\ndetained him for some time at Syracuse, and was prevailed upon, only\nby the philosopher's earnest entreaties, to send him home. Yet in\nspite of such uncomfortable experience Plato was induced, after a\ncertain interval, again to leave Athens and pay a second visit to\nDionysius, mainly in hopes of procuring the restoration of Dion. In\nthis hope too he was disappointed, and was glad to return, after a\nlonger stay than he wished, to Athens.\n\n[Side-note: Expedition of Dion against Dionysius--sympathies of Plato\nand the Academy.]\n\n[Side-note: Success, misconduct, and death of Dion.]\n\nIt was in 359 B.C. that Dion, aided by friends in Peloponnesus, and\nencouraged by warm sympathy and co-operation from many of Plato's\npupils in the Academy,[29] equipped an armament against Dionysius.\nNotwithstanding the inadequacy of his force he had the good fortune to\nmake himself master of Syracuse, being greatly favoured by the popular\ndiscontent of Syracusans against the reigning despot: but he did not\nknow how to deal with the people, nor did he either satisfy their\naspirations towards liberty, or realise his own engagements. Retaining\nin his hands a despotic power, similar in the main to that of\nDionysius, he speedily became odious, and was assassinated by the\ntreachery of Kallippus, his companion in arms as well as fellow-pupil\nof the Platonic Academy. The state of Syracuse, torn by the joint\nevils of anarchy and despotism, and partially recovered by Dionysius,\nbecame more unhappy than ever.\n\n[Footnote 29: Plutarch, Dion, c. 22.\n\nXenokrates as well as Speusippus accompanied Plato to Sicily (Diog. L.\niv. 6).\n\nTo show the warm interest taken, not only by Plato himself but also by\nthe Platonic pupils in the Academy in the conduct of Dion after he had\nbecome master of Syracuse, Plutarch quotes both from the letter of\nPlato to Dion (which now stands fourth among the Epistol\u00e6 Platonic\u00e6,\np. 320) and also from a letter which he had read, written by\nSpeusippus to Dion; in which Speusippus exhorts Dion emphatically to\nbless Sicily with good laws and government, \"in _order that he may\nglorify the Academy_\"--[Greek: o(/p\u00f4s . . . eu)klea= th\u00ea/sei t\u00ea\\n\nA)kad\u00eami/an] (Plutarch, De Adulator. et Amic. c. 29, p. 70 A).]\n\n[Side-note: Death of Plato, aged 80, 347 B.C.]\n\nThe visits of Plato to Dionysius were much censured, and his\nmotives[30] misrepresented by unfriendly critics; and these reproaches\nwere still further embittered by the entire failure of his hopes. The\nclosing years of his long life were saddened by the disastrous turn of\nevents at Syracuse, aggravated by the discreditable abuse of power and\nviolent death of his intimate friend Dion, which brought dishonour\nboth upon himself and upon the Academy. Nevertheless he lived to the\nage of eighty, and died in 348-347 B.C., leaving a competent property,\nwhich he bequeathed by a will still extant.[31] But his foundation,\nthe Academy, did not die with him. It passed to his nephew Speusippus,\nwho succeeded him as teacher, conductor of the school, or Scholarch:\nand was himself succeeded after eight years by Xenokrates of\nChalk\u00eadon: while another pupil of the Academy, Aristotle, after an\nabsence of some years from Athens, returned thither and established a\nschool of his own at the Lykeum, at another extremity of the city.\n\n[Footnote 30: Themistius, Orat. xxiii. (Sophistes) p. 285 C;\nAristeides, Orat. xlvi., [Greek: U(pe\\r t\u00f4=n Tetta/r\u00f4n], p. 234-235;\nApuleius, De Habit. Philos. Platon. p. 571.]\n\n[Footnote 31: Diog. Laert. iii. 41-42. Seneca (Epist. 58) says that\nPlato died on the anniversary of his birth, in the month Thargelion.]\n\n[Side-note: Scholars of Plato--Aristotle.]\n\nThe latter half of Plato's life in his native city must have been one\nof dignity and consideration, though not of any of political activity.\nHe is said to have addressed the Dikastery as an advocate for the\naccused general Chabrias: and we are told that he discharged the\nexpensive and showy functions of Chor\u00eagus, with funds supplied by\nDion.[32] Out of Athens also his reputation was very great. When he\nwent to the Olympic festival of B.C. 360, he was an object of\nconspicuous attention and respect: he was visited by hearers, young\nmen of rank and ambition, from the most distant Hellenic cities; and\nhis advice was respectfully invoked both by Perdikkas in Macedonia and\nby Dionysius II. at Syracuse. During his last visit to Syracuse, it is\nsaid that some of the students in the Academy, among whom Aristotle is\nmentioned, became dissatisfied with his absence, and tried to set up a\nnew school; but were prevented by Iphikrates and Chabrias, the\npowerful friends of Plato at Athens. This story is connected with\nalleged ingratitude on the part of Aristotle towards Plato, and with\nalleged repugnance on the part of Plato towards Aristotle.[33] The\nfact itself--that during Plato's absence in Sicily his students sought\nto provide for themselves instruction and discussion elsewhere--is\nneither surprising nor blameable. And as to Aristotle, there is ground\nfor believing that he passed for an intimate friend and disciple of\nPlato, even during the last ten years of Plato's life. For we read\nthat Aristotle, following speculations and principles of teaching of\nhis own, on the subject of rhetoric, found himself at variance with\nIsokrates and the Isokratean school. Aristotle attacked Isokrates and\nhis mode of dealing with the subject: upon which Kephisod\u00f4rus (one of\nthe disciples of Isokrates) retaliated by attacking Plato and the\nPlatonic Ideas, considering Aristotle as one of Plato's scholars and\nadherents.[34]\n\n[Footnote 32: Plut. Aristeides, c. 1; Diog. Laert. iii. 23-24.\nDiogenes says that no other Athenian except Plato dared to speak\npublicly in defence of Chabrias; but this can hardly be correct, since\nAristotle mentions another [Greek: sun\u00ea/goraos] named Lykoleon (Rhet.\niii. 10, p. 1411, b. 6). We may fairly presume that the trial of\nChabrias alluded to by Aristotle is the same as that alluded to by\nDiogenes, that which arose out of the wrongful occupation of Or\u00f4pus by\nthe Thebans. If Plato appeared at the trial, I doubt whether it could\nhave occurred in 366 B.C., as Clinton supposes; Plato must have been\nabsent during that year in Sicily.\n\nThe anecdote given by Diogenes, in relation to Plato's appearance at\nthis trial, deserves notice. Krobylus, one of the accusers, said to\nhim, \"Are _you_ come to plead on behalf of another? Are not you aware\nthat the hemlock of Sokrates is in store for _you_ also?\" Plato\nreplied: \"I affronted dangers formerly, when I went on military\nexpedition, for my country, and I am prepared to affront them now in\ndischarge of my duty to a friend\" (iii. 24).\n\nThis anecdote is instructive, as it exhibits the continuance of the\nanti-philosophical antipathies at Athens among a considerable portion\nof the citizens, and as it goes to attest the military service\nrendered personally by Plato.\n\nDiogenes (iii. 46) gives a long list of hearers; and Athen\u00e6us (xi.\n506-509) enumerates several from different cities in Greece: Euphr\u00e6us\nof Oreus (in Euboea), who acquired through Plato's recommendation\ngreat influence with Perdikkas, king of Macedonia, and who is said to\nhave excluded from the society of that king every one ignorant of\nphilosophy and geometry; Euagon of Lampsakus, Tim\u00e6us of Kyzikus,\nCh\u00e6ron of Pell\u00ean\u00ea, all of whom tried, and the last with success, to\nusurp the sceptre in their respective cities; Eud\u00eamus of Cyprus;\nKallippus the Athenian, fellow-learner with Dion in the Academy,\nafterwards his companion in his expedition to Sicily, ultimately his\nmurderer; Herakleides and Python from \u00c6nus in Thrace, Chion and\nLeonides, also Klearchus the despot from the Pontic Herakleia (Justin,\nxvi. 5).\n\nSeveral of these examples seem to have been cited by the orator\nDemochar\u00eas (nephew of Demosthenes) in his speech at Athens vindicating\nthe law proposed by Sophokles for the expulsion of the philosophers\nfrom Athens (Athen\u00e6. xi. 508 F), a speech delivered about 306 B.C.\nPlutarch compliments Plato for the active political liberators and\ntyrannicides who came forth from the Academy: he considers Plato as\nthe real author and planner of the expedition of Dion against\nDionysius, and expatiates on the delight which Plato must have derived\nfrom it--a supposition very incorrect (Plutarch, Non Posse Suav. p.\n1097 B; adv. Kol\u00f4ten, p. 1126 B-C).]\n\n[Footnote 33: Aristokles, ap. Eusebium, Pr\u00e6p. Evang. xv. 2: \u00c6lian, V.\nH. iii. 19: Aristeides, Or. 46, [Greek: U(pe\\r t\u00f4=n Tetta/r\u00f4n] vol.\nii. p. 324-325. Dindorf.\n\nThe friendship and reciprocity of service between Plato and Chabrias\nis an interesting fact. Compare Stahr, Aristotelia, vol. i. p. 50\nseqq.\n\nCicero affirms, on the authority of the Epistles of Demosthenes, that\nDemosthenes describes himself as an assiduous hearer as well as reader\nof Plato (Cic. Brut. 31 121; Orat. 4, 15). I think this fact highly\nprobable, but the epistles which Cicero read no longer exist. Among\nthe five Epistles remaining, Plato is once mentioned with respect in\nthe fifth (p. 1490), but this epistle is considered by most critics\nspurious.]\n\n[Footnote 34: Numenius, ap. Euseb. Pr\u00e6p. Ev. xiv. 6, 9. [Greek:\noi)\u00eathei\\s] (Kephisod\u00f4rus) [Greek: kata\\ Pla/t\u00f4na to\\n A)ristote/l\u00ean\nphilosophei=n, e)pole/mei me\\n A)ristote/lei, e)/balle de\\ Pla/t\u00f4na],\n&c. This must have happened in the latter years of Plato's life, for\nAristotle must have been at least twenty-five or twenty-six years of\nage when he engaged in such polemics. He was born in 384 B.C.]\n\n[Side-note: Little known about Plato's personal history.]\n\nSuch is the sum of our information respecting Plato. Scanty as it is,\nwe have not even the advantage of contemporary authority for any\nportion of it. We have no description of Plato from any contemporary\nauthor, friendly or adverse. It will be seen that after the death of\nSokrates we know nothing about Plato as a man and a citizen, except\nthe little which can be learnt from his few Epistles, all written when\nhe was very old, and relating almost entirely to his peculiar\nrelations with Dion and Dionysius. His dialogues, when we try to\ninterpret them collectively, and gather from them general results as\nto the character and purposes of the author, suggest valuable\narguments and perplexing doubts, but yield few solutions. In no one of\nthe dialogues does Plato address us in his own person. In the Apology\nalone (which is not a dialogue) is he alluded to even as present: in\nthe Ph\u00e6don he is mentioned as absent from illness. Each of the\ndialogues, direct or indirect, is conducted from beginning to end by\nthe persons whom he introduces.[35] Not one of the dialogues affords\nany positive internal evidence showing the date of its composition. In\na few there are allusions to prove that they must have been composed\nat a period later than others, or later than some given event of known\ndate; but nothing more can be positively established. Nor is there any\ngood extraneous testimony to determine the date of any one among them.\nFor the remark ascribed to Sokrates about the dialogue called Lysis\n(which remark, if authentic, would prove the dialogue to have been\ncomposed during the life-time of Sokrates) appears altogether\nuntrustworthy. And the statement of some critics, that the Ph\u00e6drus was\nPlato's earliest composition, is clearly nothing more than an\ninference (doubtful at best, and, in my judgment, erroneous) from its\ndithyrambic style and erotic subject.[36]\n\n[Footnote 35: On this point Aristotle, in the dialogues which he\ncomposed, did not follow Plato's example. Aristotle introduced two or\nmore persons debating a question, but he appeared in his own person to\ngive the solution, or at least to wind up the debate. He sometimes\nalso opened the debate by a prooem or prefatory address in his own\nperson (Cic. ad Attic. iv. 16, 2, xiii. 19, 4). Cicero followed the\nmanner of Aristotle, not that of Plato. His dialogues are rhetorical\nrather than dramatic.\n\nAll the dialogues of Aristotle are lost.]\n\n[Footnote 36: Diog. L. iii. 38. Compare the Prolegomena [Greek: t\u00ea=s\nPla/t\u00f4nos Philosophi/as], c. 24, in the Appendix Platonica of K. F.\nHermann's edition, p. 217.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nPLATONIC CANON, AS RECOGNISED BY THRASYLLUS.\n\n\nAs we know little about Plato except from his works, the first\nquestion to be decided is, Which _are_ his real works? Where are we to\nfind a trustworthy Platonic Canon?\n\n[Side-note: Platonic Canon--Ancient and modern discussions.]\n\nDown to the close of the last century this question was not much\nraised or discussed. The catalogue recognised by the rhetor Thrasyllus\n(contemporary with the Emperor Tiberius) was generally accepted as\nincluding none but genuine works of Plato; and was followed as such by\neditors and critics, who were indeed not very numerous.[1] But the\ndiscussions carried on during the present century have taken a\ndifferent turn. While editors, critics, and translators have been\ngreatly multiplied, some of the most distinguished among them,\nSchleiermacher at the head, have either professedly set aside, or in\npractice disregarded, the Thrasyllean catalogue, as if it carried no\nauthority and very faint presumption. They have reasoned upon each\ndialogue as if its title to be considered genuine were now to be\nproved for the first time; either by external testimony (mentioned in\nAristotle or others), or by internal evidences of style, handling, and\nthoughts:[2] as if, in other words, the _onus probandi_ lay upon any\none who believed the printed works of Plato to be genuine--not upon an\nopponent who disputes the authenticity of any one or more among them,\nand rejects it as spurious. Before I proceed to examine the\nconclusions, alike numerous and discordant, which these critics have\nproclaimed, I shall enquire how far the method which they have pursued\nis warrantable. Is there any presumption at all--and if so, what\namount of presumption--in favour of the catalogue transmitted from\nantiquity by Thrasyllus, as a canon containing genuine works of Plato\nand no others?\n\n[Footnote 1: The following passage from Wyttenbach, written in 1776,\nwill give an idea of the state of Platonic criticism down to the last\nquarter of the last century. To provide a new Canon for Plato seems\nnot to have entered his thoughts.\n\nWyttenbach, Bibliotheca Critica, vol. i. p. 28. Review of Fischer's\nedition of Plato's Phil\u00eabus and Symposion. \"Qu\u00e6 Ciceroni obtigit\ninterpretum et editorum felicitas, e\u00e2 adeo caruit Plato, ut non solum\npaucos nactus sit qui ejus scripta typis ederent--sed qui ejus\norationi nitorem restitueret, eamque a corruptelarum labe purgaret, et\nsensus obscuros atque abditos ex interiore doctrin\u00e2 patefaceret,\nomnino repererit neminem. Et ex ipso hoc editionum parvo numero--nam\nsex omnino sunt--nulla est recentior anno superioris seculi secundo:\nut mirandum sit, centum et septuaginta annorum spatio neminem ex tot\nviris doctis extitisse, qui ita suam crisin Platoni addiceret, ut\nintelligentiam ejus ver\u00e6 eruditionis amantibus aperiret.\n\n\"Qui Platonem legant, pauci sunt: qui intelligant, paucissimi; qui\nvero, vel ex versionibus, vel ex jejuno histori\u00e6 philosophic\u00e6\ncompendio, de eo judicent et cum supercilio pronuncient, plurimi\nsunt.\"]\n\n[Footnote 2: To see that this is the general method of proceeding, we\nhave only to look at the work of Ueberweg, one of the most recent and\ncertainly one of the ablest among the Platonic critics. Untersuchungen\n\u00fcber die Aechtheit und Zeitfolge der Platonischen Schriften, Wien,\n1861, p. 130-131.]\n\n[Side-note: Canon established by Thrasyllus. Presumption in its\nfavour.]\n\nUpon this question I hold an opinion opposite to that of the Platonic\ncritics since Schleiermacher. The presumption appears to me\nparticularly strong, instead of particularly weak: comparing the\nPlatonic writings with those of other eminent writers, dramatists,\norators, historians, of the same age and country.\n\n[Side-note: Fixed residence and school at Athens--founded by Plato and\ntransmitted to successors.]\n\nWe have seen that Plato passed the last thirty-eight years of his life\n(except his two short visits to Syracuse) as a writer and lecturer at\nAthens; that he purchased and inhabited a fixed residence at the\nAcademy, near the city. We know, moreover, that his principal pupils,\nespecially (his nephew) Speusippus and Xenokrates, were constantly\nwith him in this residence during his life; that after his death the\nresidence became permanently appropriated as a philosophical school\nfor lectures, study, conversation, and friendly meetings of studious\nmen, in which capacity it served for more than two centuries;[3] that\nhis nephew Speusippus succeeded him there as teacher, and taught there\nfor eight years, being succeeded after his death first by Xenokrates\n(for twenty-five years), afterwards by Polemon, Krantor, Krates,\nArkesilaus, and others in uninterrupted series; that the school always\ncontinued to be frequented, though enjoying greater or less celebrity\naccording to the reputation of the Scholarch.\n\n[Footnote 3: The teaching and conversation of the Platonic School\ncontinued fixed in the spot known as the Academy until the siege of\nAthens by Sylla in 87 B.C. The teacher was then forced to confine\nhimself to the interior of the city, where he gave lectures in the\ngymnasium called Ptolem\u00e6um. In that gymnasium Cicero heard the\nlectures of the Scholarch Antiochus, B.C. 79; walking out afterwards\nto visit the deserted but memorable site of the Academy (Cic. De Fin.\nv. 1; C. G. Zumpt, Ueber den Bestand der Philosophischen Schulen in\nAthen, p. 14, Berlin, 1843). The ground of the Academy, when once\ndeserted, speedily became unhealthy, and continues to be so now, as\nZumpt mentions that he himself experienced in 1835.]\n\n[Side-note: Importance of this foundation. Preservation of Plato's\nmanuscripts. School library.]\n\nBy thus perpetuating the school which his own genius had originated,\nand by providing for it permanent support with a fixed domicile, Plato\ninaugurated a new epoch in the history of philosophy: this example was\nfollowed a few years afterwards by Aristotle, Zeno, and Epikurus.\nMoreover the proceeding was important in another way also, as it\naffected the preservation and authentication of his own manuscripts\nand compositions. It provided not only safe and lasting custody, such\nas no writer had ever enjoyed before, for Plato's original\nmanuscripts, but also a guarantee of some efficacy against any fraud\nor error which might seek to introduce other compositions into the\nlist. That Plato himself was not indifferent on this head we may\nfairly believe, since we learn from Dionysius of Halikarnassus, that\nhe was indefatigable in the work of correction: and his disciples, who\ntook the great trouble of noting down themselves what he spoke in his\nlectures, would not be neglectful as to the simpler duty of preserving\nhis manuscripts.[4] Now Speusippus and Xenokrates (also Aristotle,\nHesti\u00e6us, the Opuntian Philippus, and the other Platonic pupils) must\nhave had personal knowledge of all that Plato had written, whether\nfinished dialogues, unfinished fragments, or preparatory sketches.\nThey had perfect means of distinguishing his real compositions from\nforgeries passed off in his name: and they had every motive to expose\nsuch forgeries (if any were attempted) wherever they could, in order\nto uphold the reputation of their master. If any one composed a\ndialogue and circulated it under the name of Plato, the school was a\nknown place, and its occupants were at hand to give information to all\nwho enquired about the authenticity of the composition. The original\nMSS. of Plato (either in his own handwriting or in that of his\nsecretary, if he employed one[5]) were doubtless treasured up in the\nschool as sacred memorials of the great founder, and served as\noriginals from which copies of unquestionable fidelity might be made,\nwhenever the Scholarch granted permission. How long they continued to\nbe so preserved we cannot say: nor do we know what was the condition\nof the MSS., or how long they were calculated to last. But probably\nmany of the students frequenting the school would come for the express\npurpose of reading various works of Plato (either in the original\nMSS., or in faithful copies taken from them) with the exposition of\nthe Scholarch; just as we know that the Roman M. Crassus (mentioned by\nCicero), during his residence at Athens, studied the Platonic Gorgias\nwith the aid of the Scholarch Charmadas.[6] The presidency of\nSpeusippus and Xenokrates (taken jointly) lasted for thirty-three\nyears; and even when they were replaced by successors who had enjoyed\nno personal intimacy with Plato, the motive to preserve the Platonic\nMSS. would still be operative, and the means of verifying what was\nreally Platonic would still be possessed in the school. The original\nMSS. would be preserved, along with the treatises or dialogues which\neach successive Scholarch himself composed; thus forming a permanent\nand increasing school-library, probably enriched more or less by works\nacquired or purchased from others.\n\n[Footnote 4: Simplikius, Schol. Aristotel. Physic. f. 32, p. 334, b.\n28, Brandis: [Greek: la/boi d' a)/n tis kai\\ para\\ Speusi/ppou kai\\\npara\\ Xenokra/tous, kai\\ t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n oi(\\ parege/nonto e)n t\u00ea=| peri\\\nTa)gathou= tou= Pla/t\u00f4nos a)kroa/sei; pa/ntes ga\\r sune/grapsan kai\\\ndies\u00f4/santo t\u00ea\\n do/xan au)tou=]. In another passage of the same\nScholia (p. 362, a. 12) Simplikius mentions Herakleides (of Pontus),\nHesti\u00e6us, and even Aristotle himself, as having taken notes of the\nsame lectures.\n\nHermod\u00f4rus appears to have carried some of Plato's dialogues to\nSicily, and to have made money by selling them. See Cicero ad Atticum,\nxiii. 21: Suidas et Zenobius--[Greek: lo/goisin E(rmo/d\u00f4ros\ne)mporeu/etai]. See Zeller, Dissert. De Hermodoro, p. 19. In the\nabove-mentioned epistle Cicero compares his own relations with\nAtticus, to those of Plato with Hermod\u00f4rus. Hermod\u00f4rus had composed a\ntreatise respecting Plato, from which some extracts were given by\nDerkyllides (the contemporary of Thrasyllus) as well as by Simplikius\n(Zeller, De Hermod. p. 20-21).]\n\n[Footnote 5: We read in Cicero, (Academic. Priora, ii. 4, 11) that the\nhandwriting of the Scholarch Philo, when his manuscript was brought\nfrom Athens to Alexandria, was recognised at once by his friends and\npupils.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Cicero, De Oratore, i. 11, 45-47: \"florente Academi\u00e2,\nquod eam Charmadas et Clitomachus et \u00c6schines obtinebant. . . Platoni,\ncujus tum Athenis cum Charmad\u00e2 diligentius legi Gorgiam,\" &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Security provided by the school for distinguishing what\nwere Plato's genuine writings.]\n\nIt appears to me that the continuance of this school--founded by Plato\nhimself at his own abode, permanently domiciliated, and including all\nthe MSS. which he left in it--gives us an amount of assurance for the\nauthenticity of the so-called Platonic compositions, such as does not\nbelong to the works of other eminent contemporary authors, Aristippus,\nAntisthenes, Isokrates, Lysias, Demosthenes, Euripides, Aristophanes.\nAfter the decease of these last-mentioned authors, who can say what\nbecame of their MSS.? Where was any certain permanent custody provided\nfor them? Isokrates had many pupils during his life, but left no\nschool or [Greek: mousei=on] after his death. If any one composed a\ndiscourse, and tried to circulate it as the composition of Isokrates,\namong the bundles of judicial orations which were sold by the\nbooksellers[7] as his (according to the testimony of Aristotle)--where\nwas the person to be found, notorious and accessible, who could say:\n\"I possess all the MSS. of Isokrates, and I can depose that this is\nnot among them!\" The chances of success for forgery or mistake were\ndecidedly greater, in regard to the works of these authors, than they\ncould be for those of Plato.\n\n[Footnote 7: Dionys. Halik. de Isocrate, p. 576 R. [Greek: desma\\s\npa/nu polla\\s dikanik\u00f4=n lo/g\u00f4n I)sokratei/\u00f4n periphe/resthai/ ph\u00easin\nu(po\\ t\u00f4=n bibliop\u00f4l\u00f4=n A)ristote/l\u00eas.]]\n\n[Side-note: Unfinished fragments and preparatory sketches, preserved\nand published after Plato's death.]\n\nAgain, the existence of this school-library explains more easily how\nit is that unfinished, inferior, and fragmentary Platonic compositions\nhave been preserved. That there must have existed such compositions I\nhold to be certain. How is it supposable that any author, even Plato\ncould have brought to completion such masterpieces as Republic,\nGorgias, Protagoras, Symposion, &c., without tentative and preparatory\nsketches, each of course in itself narrow, defective, perhaps of\nlittle value, but serving as material to be worked up or worked in?\nMost of these would be destroyed, but probably not all. If (as I\nbelieve) it be the fact, that all the Platonic MSS. were preserved as\ntheir author left them, some would probably be published (and some\nindeed are said to have been published) after his death; and among\nthem would be included more or fewer of these unfinished performances,\nand sketches projected but abandoned. We can hardly suppose that Plato\nhimself would have published fragments never finished, such as\nKleitophon and Kritias[8]--the last ending in the middle of a\nsentence.\n\n[Footnote 8: Straton, the Peripatetic Scholarch who succeeded\nTheophrastus, B.C. 287, bequeathed to Lykon by his will both the\nsuccession to his school ([Greek: diatrib\u00ea\\n]) and all his books,\nexcept what he had written himself ([Greek: pl\u00ea\\n \u00f4(=n au)toi\\\ngegra/phamen]). What is to be done with these latter he does not say.\nLykon, in his last will, says:--[Greek: kai\\ du/o mna=s au)t\u00f4=|]\n(Chares, a manumitted slave) [Greek: di/d\u00f4mi kai\\ ta)ma\\ bi/blia ta\\\na)negn\u00f4sme/na; ta\\ de\\ a)ne/kdota Kalli/n\u00f4|, o(/p\u00f4s e)pimel\u00f4=s au)ta\\\ne)kd\u00f4=|]. See Diog. L. v. 62, 73. Here Lykon directs expressly that\nKallinus shall edit with care his (Lykon's) unpublished works.\nProbably Straton may have given similar directions during his life, so\nthat it was unnecessary to provide in the will. [Greek: Ta\\\na)negn\u00f4sme/na] is equivalent to [Greek: ta\\ e)kdedome/na]. Publication\nwas constituted by reading the MSS. aloud before a chosen audience of\nfriends or critics; which readings often led to such remarks as\ninduced the author to take his work back, and to correct it for a\nsecond recitation. See the curious sentence extracted from the letter\nof Theophrastus to Phanias (Diog. L. v. 37). Boeckh and other critics\nagree that both the Kleitophon and the Kritias were transmitted from\nantiquity in the fragmentary state in which we now read them: that\nthey were compositions never completed. Boeckh affirms this with\nassurance respecting the Kleitophon, though he thinks that it is not a\ngenuine work of Plato; on which last point I dissent from him. He\nthinks that the Kritias is a real work of Plato, though uncompleted\n(Boeckh in Platonis Minoem, p. 11).\n\nCompare the remarks of M. Littr\u00e9 respecting the unfinished sketches,\ntreatises, and notes not intended for publication, included in the\nCollectio Hippocratica (Oeuvres d' Hippocrate, vol. x. p. liv. seq.)]\n\n[Side-note: Peripatetic school at the Lykeum--its composition and\narrangement.]\n\nThe second philosophical school, begun by Aristotle and perpetuated\n(after his death in 322 B.C.) at the Lykeum on the eastern side of\nAthens, was established on the model of that of Plato. That which\nformed the centre or consecrating point was a Museum or chapel of the\nMuses: with statues of those goddesses of place, and also a statue of\nthe founder. Attached to this Museum were a portico, a hall with seats\n(one seat especially for the lecturing professor), a garden, and a\nwalk, together with a residence, all permanently appropriated to the\nteacher and the process of instruction.[9] Theophrastus, the friend\nand immediate successor of Aristotle, presided over the school for\nthirty-five years; and his course, during part of that time at least,\nwas prodigiously frequented by students.\n\n[Footnote 9: Respecting the domicile of the Platonic School, and that\nof the Aristotelian or Peripatetic school which followed it, the\nparticulars given by Diogenes are nearly coincident: we know more in\ndetail about the Peripatetic, from what he cites out of the will of\nTheophrastus. See iv. 1-6-19, v. 51-63.\n\nThe [Greek: mousei=on] at the Academy was established by Plato\nhimself. Speusippus placed in it statues of the Charities or Graces.\nTheophrastus gives careful directions in his about repairing and\nputting in the best condition, the Peripatetic [Greek: mousei=on],\nwith its altar, its statues of the Goddesses, and its statue of the\nfounder Aristotle. The [Greek: stoa\\, e)xe/dra, k\u00ea=pos, peri/patos],\nattached to both schools, are mentioned: the most zealous students\nprovided for themselves lodgings close adjoining. Cicero, when he\nwalked out from Athens to see the deserted Academy, was particularly\naffected by the sight of the _exedra_, in which Charmadas had lectured\n(De Fin. v. 2, 4).\n\nThere were periodical meetings, convivial and conversational, among\nthe members both of the Academic and Peripatetic schools; and [Greek:\nxumpotikoi\\ no/moi] by Xenokrates and Aristotle to regulate them\n(Athen\u00e6us, v. 184).\n\nEpikurus (in his interesting testament given by Diogen. Laert. x.\n16-21) bequeaths to two Athenian citizens his garden and property, in\ntrust for his principal disciple the Mitylen\u00e6an Hermarchus, [Greek:\nkai\\ toi=s sumphilosophou=sin au)t\u00f4=|, kai\\ oi(=s a)\\n E(/rmarchos\nkatali/p\u00ea| diado/chois t\u00ea=s philosophi/as, e)ndiatri/bein kata\\\nphilosophi/an]. He at the same time directs all his books to be given\nto Hermarchus: they would form the school-library.]\n\n[Side-note: Peripatetic school library, its removal from Athens to\nSk\u00eapsis--its ultimate restitution in a damaged state to Athens, then\nto Rome.]\n\nMoreover, the school-library at the Lykeum acquired large development\nand importance. It not only included all the MS. compositions,\npublished or unpublished, of Aristotle and Theophrastus, each of them\na voluminous writer--but also a numerous collection (numerous for that\nday) of other works besides; since both of them were opulent and fond\nof collecting books. The value of the school-library is shown by what\nhappened after the decease of Theophrastus, when Straton succeeded him\nin the school (B.C. 287). Theophrastus--thinking himself entitled to\ntreat the library not as belonging to the school but as belonging to\nhimself--bequeathed it at his death to Neleus, a favourite scholar,\nand a native of Sk\u00eapsis (in the Troad), by whom it was carried away to\nAsia, and permanently separated from the Aristotelian school at\nAthens. The manuscripts composing it remained in the possession of\nNeleus and his heirs for more than a century and a half, long hidden\nin a damp cellar, neglected, and sustaining great damage--until about\nthe year 100 B.C., when they were purchased by a rich Athenian named\nApellikon, and brought back to Athens. Sylla, after he had captured\nAthens (86 B.C.), took for himself the library of Apellikon, and\ntransported it to Rome, where it became open to learned men\n(Tyrannion, Andronikus, and others), but under deplorable\ndisadvantage--in consequence of the illegible state of the MSS. and\nthe unskilful conjectures and restitutions which had been applied, in\nthe new copies made since it passed into the hands of Apellikon.[10]\n\n[Footnote 10: The will of Theophrastus, as given in Diogenes (v. 52),\nmentions the bequest of all his books to Neleus. But it is in Strabo\nthat we read the fullest account of this displacement of the\nPeripatetic school-library, and the consequences which ensued from it\n(xiii. 608, 609). [Greek: N\u00ealeu\\s, a)n\u00ea\\r kai\\ A)ristote/lous\n\u00ea)kroame/nos kai\\ Theophra/stou, diadedegme/nos de\\ t\u00ea\\n biblioth\u00ea/k\u00ean\ntou= Theophra/stou, e)n \u00ea(=| \u00ea)=n kai\\ \u00ea( tou= A)ristote/lous. o(\ngou=n A)ristote/l\u00eas t\u00ea\\n e(autou= Theophra/st\u00f4| pare/d\u00f4ken, \u00f4(=|per\nkai\\ t\u00ea\\n schol\u00ea\\n a)pe/lipe, _pr\u00f4=tos, \u00f4(=n i)/smen, sunagag\u00f4\\n\nbi/blia, kai\\ dida/xas tou\\s e)n Ai)gu/pt\u00f4| basile/as biblioth\u00ea/k\u00eas\nsu/ntaxin_].\n\nThe kings of Pergamus, a few years after the death of Theophrastus,\nacquired possession of the town and territory of Sk\u00eapsis; so that the\nheirs of Neleus became numbered among their subjects. These kings\n(from about the year B.C. 280 downwards) manifested great eagerness to\ncollect a library at Pergamus, in competition with that of the\nPtolemies at Alexandria. The heirs of Neleus were afraid that these\nkings would strip them of their Aristotelian MSS., either for nothing\nor for a small price. They therefore concealed the MSS. in a cellar,\nuntil they found an opportunity of selling them to a stranger out of\nthe country. (Strabo, l. c.)\n\nThis narrative of Strabo is one of the most interesting pieces of\ninformation remaining to us about literary antiquity. He had himself\nreceived instruction from Tyrannion (xii. 548): he had gone through a\ncourse of Aristotelian philosophy (xvi. 757), and he had good means of\nknowing the facts from the Aristotelian critics, including his master\nTyrannion. Plutarch (Vit. Syll\u00e6, c. 26) and Athen\u00e6us (i. 3) allude to\nthe same story. Athen\u00e6us says that Ptolemy Philadelphus purchased the\nMSS. from the heirs of Neleus, which cannot be correct.\n\nSome critics have understood the narrative of Strabo, as if he had\nmeant to affirm, that the works of Aristotle had never got into\ncirculation until the time of Apellikon. It is against this\nsupposition that Stahr contends (very successfully) in his work\n\"Aristotelia\". But Strabo does not affirm so much as this. He does not\nsay anything to contradict the supposition that there were copies of\nvarious books of Aristotle in circulation, during the lives of\nAristotle and Theophrastus.]\n\n[Side-note: Inconvenience to the Peripatetic school from the loss of\nits library.]\n\nIf we knew the truth, it might probably appear that the transfer of\nthe Aristotelian library, from the Peripatetic school at Athens to the\ndistant and obscure town of Sk\u00eapsis, was the result of some jealousy\non the part of Theophrastus; that he wished to secure to Neleus the\nhonourable and lucrative post of becoming his successor in the school,\nand conceived that he was furthering that object by bequeathing the\nlibrary to Neleus. If he entertained any such wish, it was\ndisappointed. The succession devolved upon another pupil of the\nschool, Straton of Lampsakus. But Straton and his successors were\nforced to get on as well as they could without their library. The\nPeripatetic school at Athens suffered severely by the loss. Its\nprofessors possessed only a few of the manuscripts of Aristotle, and\nthose too the commonest and best known. If a student came with a view\nto read any of the other Aristotelian works (as Crassus went to read\nthe Gorgias of Plato), the Scholarch was unable to assist him: as far\nas Aristotle was concerned, they could only expand and adorn, in the\nway of lecture, a few of his familiar doctrines.[11] We hear that the\ncharacter of the school was materially altered. Straton deserted the\ntrack of Aristotle, and threw himself into speculations of his own\n(seemingly able and ingenious), chiefly on physical topics.[12] The\ncritical study, arrangement, and exposition of Aristotle was postponed\nuntil the first century before the Christian era--the Ciceronian age,\nimmediately preceding Strabo.\n\n[Footnote 11: Strabo, xiii. 609. [Greek: sune/b\u00ea de\\ toi=s e)k t\u00f4=n\nperipa/t\u00f4n toi=s me\\n pa/lai, toi=s meta\\ Theo/phraston, ou)k\ne)/chousin o(/l\u00f4s ta\\ bi/blia pl\u00ea\\n o)li/g\u00f4n, kai\\ ma/lista t\u00f4=n\ne)x\u00f4terik\u00f4=n, m\u00eade\\n e)/chein philosophei=n pragmatik\u00f4=s, a)lla\\\n_the/seis l\u00eakuthi/zein_.]]\n\n[Footnote 12: The change in the Peripatetic school, after the death of\nTheophrastus, is pointed out by Cicero, Fin. v. 5, 18. Compare Academ.\nPoster. i. 9.]\n\n[Side-note: Advantage to the Platonic school from having preserved its\nMSS.]\n\nThis history of the Aristotelian library illustrates forcibly, by way\nof contrast, the importance to the Platonic school of having preserved\nits MSS. from the beginning, without any similar interruption. What\nPlato left in manuscript we may presume to have never been removed:\nthose who came to study his works had the means of doing so: those who\nwanted to know whether any composition was written by him, what works\nhe had written altogether, or what was the correct reading in a case\nof obscurity or dispute--had always the means of informing themselves.\nWhereas the Peripatetic Scholarch, after the death of Theophrastus,\ncould give no similar information as to the works of Aristotle.[13]\n\n[Footnote 13: An interesting citation by Simplikius (in his commentary\non the Physica of Aristotle, fol. 216, a. 7, p. 404, b. 11, Schol.\nBrandis shows us that Theophrastus, while he was resident at Athens as\nPeripatetic Scholarch, had custody of the original MSS. of the works\nof Aristotle and that he was applied to by those who wished to procure\ncorrect copies. Eud\u00eamus (of Rhodes) having only a defective copy of\nthe Physica, wrote to request that Theophrastus would cause to be\nwritten out a certain portion of the fifth book, and send it to him,\n[Greek: marturou=ntos peri\\ t\u00f4=n pr\u00f4/t\u00f4n kai\\ Theophra/stou,\ngra/psantos Eu)d\u00ea/m\u00f4|, peri/ tinos au)tou= t\u00f4=n di\u00eamart\u00eame/n\u00f4n\na)ntigra/ph\u00f4n; u(pe\\r \u00f4(=n, ph\u00easin] (_sc._ Theophrastus) [Greek:\ne)pe/steilas, keleu/\u00f4n me gra/phein kai\\ apostei=lai e)k t\u00f4=n\nPhusik\u00f4=n, \u00ea(/toi e)g\u00f4\\ ou) suni/\u00eami, \u00ea)\\ mikro/n ti pantel\u00f4=s e)/chei\ntou= a)na/meson tou= o(/per \u00ea)remei=n kal\u00f4= t\u00f4=n a)kin\u00ea/t\u00f4n mo/non],\n&c.]\n\n[Side-note: Conditions favourable, for preserving the genuine works of\nPlato.]\n\nWe thus see that the circumstances, under which Plato left his\ncompositions, were unusually favourable (speaking by comparison with\nancient authors generally) in regard to the chance of preserving them\nall, and of keeping them apart from counterfeits. We have now to\nenquire what information exists as to their subsequent diffusion.\n\n[Side-note: Historical facts as to their preservation.]\n\nThe earliest event of which notice is preserved, is, the fact stated\nby Diogenes, that \"Some persons, among whom is the _Grammaticus_\nAristophanes, distribute the dialogues of Plato into Trilogies;\nplacing as the first Trilogy--Republic, Tim\u00e6us, Kritias. 2. Sophistes,\nPoliticus, Kratylus. 3. Leges, Minos, Epinomis. 4.** The\u00e6t\u00eatus,\nEuthyphron, Apology. 5. Kriton, Ph\u00e6don, Epistol\u00e6. The other dialogues\nthey place one by one, without any regular grouping.\"[14]\n\n[Footnote 14: Diog. L. iii. 61-62: [Greek: E)/nioi de/, \u00f4(=n e)/sti\nkai\\ A)ristopha/n\u00eas o( grammatiko/s, ei)s trilogi/as e(/lkousi tou\\s\ndialo/gous; kai\\ pr\u00f4/t\u00ean me\\n tithe/asin \u00ea(=s \u00ea(gei=tai Politei/a,\nTi/maios, Kriti/as; deute/ran, Sophist\u00ea/s, Politiko/s, Kra/tulos;\ntri/t\u00ean, No/moi, Mi/n\u00f4s, E)pinomi/s; teta/rt\u00ean, Theai/t\u00eatos,\nEu)thu/phr\u00f4n, A)pologi/a; pe/mpt\u00ean, Kri/t\u00f4n, Phai/d\u00f4n, E)pistolai/;\nta\\ de\\ a)/lla kath' e)\\n kai\\ a)ta/kt\u00f4s].\n\nThe word [Greek: grammatiko\\s], unfortunately, has no single English\nword exactly corresponding to it.\n\nThrasyllus, when he afterwards applied the classification by\nTetralogies to the works of Demokritus (as he did also to those of\nPlato) could only include a certain portion of the works in his\nTetralogies, and was forced to enumerate the remainder as [Greek:\na)su/ntakta] (Diog. L. ix. 46, 47). It appears that he included all\nPlato's works in his Platonic Tetralogies.]\n\n[Side-note: Arrangement of them into Trilogies, by Aristophanes.]\n\nThe name of Aristophanes lends special interest to this arrangement of\nthe Platonic compositions, and enables us to understand something of\nthe date and the place to which it belongs. The literary and critical\nstudents (_Grammatici_) among whom he stood eminent, could scarcely be\nsaid to exist as a class the time when Plato died. Beginning with\nAristotle, Herakleides of Pontus, Theophrastus, Demetrius Phalereus,\n&c., at Athens, during the half century immediately succeeding Plato's\ndecease--these laborious and useful erudites were first called into\nfull efficiency along with the large collection of books formed by the\nPtolemies at Alexandria during a period beginning rather before 300\nB.C.: which collection served both as model and as stimulus to the\nlibraries subsequently formed by the kings at Pergamus and elsewhere.\nIn those libraries alone could materials be found for their\nindefatigable application.\n\n[Side-note: Aristophanes, librarian at the Alexandrine library.]\n\nOf these learned men, who spent their lives in reading, criticising,\narranging, and correcting, the MSS. accumulated in a great library,\nAristophanes of Byzantium was the most distinguished representative,\nin the eyes of men like Varro, Cicero, and Plutarch.[15] His life was\npassed at Alexandria, and seems to have been comprised between 260-184\nB.C.; as far as can be made out. During the latter portion of it he\nbecame chief librarian--an appointment which he had earned by long\nprevious studies in the place, as well as by attested experience in\nthe work of criticism and arrangement. He began his studious career at\nAlexandria at an early age: and he received instruction, as a boy from\nZenodotus, as a young man from Kallimachus--both of whom were, in\nsuccession, librarians of the Alexandrine library.[16] We must observe\nthat Diogenes does not expressly state the distribution of the\nPlatonic works into trilogies to have been _first proposed_ or\noriginated by Aristophanes (as he states that the tetralogies were\nafterwards proposed by the rhetor Thrasyllus, of which presently): his\nlanguage is rather more consistent with the supposition, that it was\nfirst proposed by some one earlier, and adopted or sanctioned by the\neminent authority of Aristophanes. But at any rate, the distribution\nwas proposed either by Aristophanes himself, or by some one before him\nand known to him.\n\n[Footnote 15: Varro, De Lingu\u00e2 Latin\u00e2, v. 9, ed. M\u00fcller. \"Non solum ad\nAristophanis lucernam, sed etiam ad Cleanthis, lucubravi.\" Cicero, De\nFin. v. 19, 50; Vitruvius, Pr\u00e6f. Lib. vii.; Plutarch, \"Non posse\nsuaviter vivi sec. Epicurum,\" p. 1095 E.\n\nAristophanes composed Argumenta to many of the Attic tragedies and\ncomedies: he also arranged in a certain order the songs of Alk\u00e6us and\nthe odes of Pindar. Boeckh (Pr\u00e6fat. ad Scholia Pindari, p. x. xi.)\nremarks upon the mistake made by Quintilian as well as by others, in\nsupposing that Pindar arranged his own odes. Respecting the wide range\nof erudition embraced by Aristophanes, see F. A. Wolf, Prolegg. in\nHomer, pp. 218-220, and Schneidewin, De Hypothes. Traged. Gr\u00e6c.\nAristophani vindicandis, pp. 26, 27.]\n\n[Footnote 16: Suidas, vv. [Greek: A)ristopha/n\u00eas, Kalli/machos].\nCompare Clinton, Fast. Hellen. B.C. 256-200.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's works in the Alexandrine library, before the time\nof Aristophanes.]\n\nThis fact is of material importance, because it enables us to Plato's\ninfer with confidence, that the Platonic works were included in the\nAlexandrine library, certainly during the lifetime of Aristophanes,\nand probably before it. It is there only that Aristophanes could have\nknown them; his whole life having been passed in Alexandria. The first\nformal appointment of a librarian to the Alexandrine Museum was made\nby Ptolemy Philadelphus, at some time after the commencement of his\nreign in 285 B.C., in the person of Zenodotus; whose successors were\nKallimachus, Eratosthenes, Apollonius, Aristophanes, comprising in all\na period of a century.[17]\n\n[Footnote 17: See Ritschl, Die Alexandrinischen Bibliotheken, pp.\n16-17, &c.; Nauck, De Aristophanis Vit\u00e2 et Scriptis, cap. i. p. 68\n(Halle, 1848). \"Aristophanis et Aristarchi opera, cum opibus\nBibliothec\u00e6 Alexandrin\u00e6 digerendis et ad tabulas revocandis arct\u00e8\nconjuncta, in eo substitisse censenda est, ut scriptores, in quovis\ndicendi genere conspicuos, aut breviori indice comprehenderent, aut\nuberiore enarratione describerent,\" &c.\n\nWhen Zenodotus was appointed, the library had already attained\nconsiderable magnitude, so that the post and title of librarian was\nthen conspicuous and dignified. But Demetrius Phalereus, who preceded\nZenodotus, began his operations when there was no library at all, and\ngradually accumulated the number of books which Zenodotus found. Heyne\nobserves justly: \"Primo loco Demetrius Phalereus pr\u00e6fuisse dicitur,\n_forte re verius quam nomine_, tum Zenodotus Ephesius, hic quidem sub\nPtolem\u00e6o Philadelpho,\" &c. (Heyne, De Genio S\u00e6culi Ptolem\u00e6orum in\nOpuscul. i. p. 129).]\n\n[Side-note: Kallimachus--predecessor of Aristophanes--his published\nTables of authors whose works were in the library.]\n\nKallimachus, born at Kyr\u00ean\u00ea, was a teacher of letters at Alexandria\nbefore he was appointed to the service and superintendence of the\nAlexandrine library or museum. His life seems to have terminated about\n230 B.C.: he acquired reputation as a poet, by his hymns, epigrams,\nelegies, but less celebrity as a _Grammaticus_ than Aristophanes:\nnevertheless the titles of his works still remaining indicate very\ngreat literary activity. We read as titles of his works:--\n\n1. The Museum (a general description of the Alexandrine\nestablishment).\n\n2. Tables of the persons who have distinguished themselves in every\nbranch of instruction, and of the works which they have composed--in\n120 books.\n\n3. Table and specification of the (Didaskalies) recorded dramatic\nrepresentations and competitions; with dates assigned, and from the\nbeginning.\n\n4. Table of the peculiar phrases belonging to Demokritus, and of his\nworks.\n\n5. Table and specification of the rhetorical authors.[18]\n\n[Footnote 18: See Blomfleld's edition of the Fragm. of Kallimachus, p.\n220-221. Suidas, v. [Greek: Kalli/machos], enumerates a large number\nof titles of poetical, literary, historical, compositions of\nKallimachus; among them are--\n\n[Greek: Mousei=on. Pi/nakes t\u00f4=n e)n pa/s\u00ea| paidei/a| dialampsa/nt\u00f4n,\nkai\\ \u00f4(=n sune/grapsan, e)n bibli/ois k' kai\\ r'. Pi/nax kai\\\na)nagraph\u00ea\\ t\u00f4=n kata\\ chro/nous kai\\ a)p' a)rch\u00ea=s genome/n\u00f4n\ndidaskali\u00f4=n. Pi/nax t\u00f4=n D\u00eamokri/tou gl\u00f4ss\u00f4=n kai\\ suntagma/t\u00f4n.\nPi/nax kai\\ a)nagraph\u00ea\\ t\u00f4=n r(\u00eatorik\u00f4=n]. See also Athen\u00e6us, xv. 669.\nIt appears from Dionys. Hal. that besides the Tables of Kallimachus,\nenumerating and reviewing the authors whose works were contained in\nthe Alexandrine library or museum, there existed also [Greek:\nPergam\u00eanoi\\ Pi/nakes], describing the contents of the library at\nPergamus (Dion. H. de Adm. Vi Dic. in Demosthene, p. 994; De Dinarcho,\npp. 630, 653, 661).\n\nCompare Bernhardy, Grundriss der Griech. Litt. sect. 36, pp. 132-133\nseq.]\n\n[Side-note: Large and rapid accumulation of the Alexandrine Library.]\n\nThese tables of Kallimachus (of which one by itself, No. 2, reached to\n120 books) must have been an encyclop\u00e6dia, far more comprehensive than\nany previously compiled, of Greek authors and literature. Such tables\nindeed could not have been compiled before the existence of the\nAlexandrine Museum. They described what Kallimachus had before him in\nthat museum, as we may see by the general title [Greek: Mousei=on]\nprefixed: moreover we may be sure that nowhere else could he have had\naccess to the multitude of books required. Lastly, the tables also\nshow how large a compass the Alexandrine Museum and library had\nattained at the time when Kallimachus put together his compilation:\nthat is, either in the reign of Ptolemy II. Philadelphia (285-247\nB.C.), or in the earlier portion of the reign of Ptolemy III., called\nEuergetes (247-222 B.C.). Nevertheless, large as the library then was,\nit continued to increase. A few years afterwards, Aristophanes\npublished a work commenting upon the tables of Kallimachus, with\nadditions and enlargements: of which work the title alone remains.[19]\n\n[Footnote 19: Athen\u00e6us, ix. 408. [Greek: A)ristopha/n\u00eas o(\ngrammatiko\\s e)n toi=s pro\\s tou\\s Kallima/chou pi/nakas].\n\nWe see by another passage, Athen\u00e6. viii. 336, that this work included\nan addition or supplement to the Tables of Kallimachus.\n\nCompare Etymol. Magn. v. [Greek: Pi/nax].]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's works--in the library at the time of Kallimachus.]\n\nNow, I have already observed, that the works of Plato were certainly\nin the Alexandrine library, at the time when Aristophanes either\noriginated or sanctioned the distribution of them into Trilogies. Were\nthey not also in the library at the time when Kallimachus compiled his\ntables? I cannot but conclude that they were in it at that time also.\nWhen we are informed that the catalogue of enumerated authors filled\nso many books, we may be sure that it must have descended, and we know\nin fact that it did descend, to names far less important and\ndistinguished than that of Plato.[20] The name of Plato himself can\nhardly have been omitted. Demokritus and his works, especially the\npeculiar and technical words ([Greek: gl\u00f4=ssai]) in them, received\nspecial attention from Kallimachus: which proves that the latter was\nnot disposed to pass over the philosophers. But Demokritus, though an\neminent philosopher, was decidedly less eminent than Plato: moreover\nhe left behind him no permanent successors, school, or [Greek:\nmousei=on], at Athens, to preserve his MSS. or foster his celebrity.\nAs the library was furnished at that time with a set of the works of\nDemokritus, so I infer that it could not have been without a set of\nthe works of Plato. That Kallimachus was acquainted with Plato's\nwritings (if indeed such a fact requires proof), we know, not only\nfrom his epigram upon the Ambrakiot Kleombrotus (whom he affirms to\nhave killed himself after reading the Ph\u00e6don), but also from a curious\nintimation that he formally impugned Plato's competence to judge or\nappreciate poets--alluding to the severe criticisms which we read in\nthe Platonic Republic.[21]\n\n[Footnote 20: Thus the Tables of Kallimachus included a writer named\nLysimachus, a disciple of Theodorus or Theophrastus, and his writings\n(Athen\u00e6. vi. 252)--a rhetor and poet named Dionysius with the epithet\nof [Greek: chalkou=s] (Athen\u00e6. xv. 669))--and even the treatises of\nseveral authors on cakes and cookery (Athen\u00e6. xiv. 643). The names of\nauthors absolutely unknown to us were mentioned by him (Athen\u00e6. ii.\n70). Compare Dionys. Hal. de Dinarcho, 630, 653, 661.]\n\n[Footnote 21: Kallimachus, Epigram. 23.\n\nProklus in Tim\u00e6um, p. 28 C. p. 64. Schneid. [Greek: ma/t\u00ean ou)=n\nphl\u00eanaphou=si Kalli/machos kai\\ Dou=ris, \u00f4(s Pla/t\u00f4nos ou)k o)/ntos\ni(kanou= kri/nein poi\u00eata/s].\n\nEratosthenes, successor of Kallimachus as librarian at Alexandria,\ncomposed a work (now lost) entitled [Greek: Plat\u00f4niko\\n], as well as\nvarious treatises on philosophy and philosophers (Eratosthenica,\nBernhardy, p. 168, 187, 197; Suidas, v. [Greek: E)ratosthe/n\u00eas]). He\nhad passed some time at Athens, had enjoyed the lessons and\nconversation of Zeno the Stoic, but expressed still warmer admiration\nof Arkesilaus and Ariston. He spoke in animated terms of Athens as the\ngreat centre of congregation for philosophers in his day. He had\ncomposed a treatise, [Greek: Peri\\ t\u00f4=n a)gath\u00f4=n]: but Strabo\ndescribes him as mixing up other subjects with philosophy (Strabo, i.\np. 15).]\n\nIt would indeed be most extraordinary if, among the hundreds of\nauthors whose works must have been specified in the Tables of\nKallimachus as constituting the treasures of the Alexandrine\nMuseum,[22] the name of Plato had not been included. Moreover, the\ndistribution of the Platonic compositions into Trilogies, pursuant to\nthe analogy of the Didaskali\u00e6 or dramatic records, may very probably\nhave originated with Kallimachus; and may have been simply approved\nand continued, perhaps with some modifications, by Aristophanes. At\nleast this seems more consonant to the language of Diogenes Laertius,\nthan the supposition that Aristophanes was the first originator of it.\n\n[Footnote 22: About the number of books, or more properly of _rolls_\n(_volumina_), in the Alexandrine library, see the enquiries of\nParthey, Das Alexandrinische Museum, p. 76-84. Various statements are\nmade by ancient authors, some of them with very large numbers; and no\ncertainty is attainable. Many rolls would go to form one book. Parthey\nconsiders the statement made by Epiphanius not improbable--54,800\nrolls in the library under Ptolemy Philadelphus (p. 83).\n\nThe magnitude of the library at Alexandria in the time of\nEratosthenes, and the multitude of writings which he consulted in his\nvaluable geographical works, was admitted by his opponent Hipparchus\n(Strabo, ii. 69).]\n\n[Side-note: First formation of the library--intended as a copy of the\nPlatonic and Aristotelian [Greek: Mousei=a] at Athens.]\n\nIf we look back to the first commencement of the Alexandrine Museum\nand library, we shall be still farther convinced that the works of\nPlato, complete as well as genuine, must have been introduced into it\nbefore the days of Kallimachus. Strabo expressly tells us that the\nfirst stimulus and example impelling the Ptolemies to found this\nmuseum and library, were furnished by the school of Aristotle and\nTheophrastus at Athens.[23] I believe this to be perfectly true; and\nit is farther confirmed by the fact that the institution at Alexandria\ncomprised the same constituent parts and arrangements, described by\nthe same titles, as those which are applied to the Aristotelian and\nPlatonic schools at Athens.[24] Though the terms library, museum, and\nlecture-room, have now become familiar, both terms and meaning were at\nthat time alike novel. Nowhere, as far as we know, did there exist a\nknown and fixed domicile, consecrated in perpetuity to these purposes,\nand to literary men who took interest therein. A special stimulus was\nneeded to suggest and enforce the project on Ptolemy Soter. That\nstimulus was supplied by the Aristotelian school at Athens, which the\nAlexandrine institution was intended to copy: [Greek: Mousei=on] (with\n[Greek: e)xe/dra] and [Greek: peri/patos], a covered portico with\nrecesses and seats, and a walk adjacent), on a far larger scale and\nwith more extensive attributions.[25] We must not however imagine that\nwhen this new museum was first begun, the founders entertained any\nidea of the vast magnitude to which it ultimately attained.\n\n[Footnote 23: Strabo, xiii. 608. [Greek: o( gou=n A)ristote/l\u00eas t\u00ea\\n\ne(autou= (biblioth\u00ea/k\u00ean) Theophra/st\u00f4| pare/d\u00f4ken, \u00f4(=|per kai\\ t\u00ea\\n\nschol\u00ea\\n a)pe/lipe; _pr\u00f4=tos_, \u00f4(=n i)/smen, _sunagag\u00f4\\n bi/blia_,\nkai\\ _dida/xas tou\\s e)n Ai)gu/pt\u00f4| basile/as biblioth\u00ea/k\u00eas\nsu/ntaxin_.]]\n\n[Footnote 24: Strabo (xvii. 793-794) describes the Museum at\nAlexandria in the following terms--[Greek: t\u00f4=n de\\ basilei/\u00f4n me/ros\ne)sti\\ kai\\ _to\\ Mousei=on, e)/chon peri/paton kai\\ e)xe/dran_, kai\\\noi)=kon me/gan e)n \u00f4(=| to\\ sussi/tion t\u00f4=n metecho/nt\u00f4n tou=\nMousei/ou philolo/g\u00f4n a)ndr\u00f4=n], &c. Vitruvius, v. 11.\n\nIf we compare this with the language in Diogenes Laertius respecting\nthe Academic and Peripatetic school residences at Athens, we shall\nfind the same phrases employed--[Greek: mousei=on, e)xe/dra], &c. (D.\nL. iv. 19, v. 51-54). Respecting Speusippus, Diogenes tells us (iv,\n1)--[Greek: Chari/t\u00f4n t' a)ga/lmat' a)ne/th\u00eaken e)n t\u00f4=| mousei/\u00f4|\nt\u00f4=| u(po\\ Pla/t\u00f4nos e)n A)kad\u00eami/a| i)druthe/nti.]]\n\n[Footnote 25: We see from hence what there was peculiar in the\nPlatonic and Aristotelian literary establishments. They included\nsomething consecrated, permanent, and intended more or less for public\nuse. The collection of books was not like a private library, destined\nonly for the proprietor and such friends as he might allow--nor was it\nlike that of a bookseller, intended for sale and profit. I make this\nremark in regard to the Excursus of Bekker, in his Charikles, i. 206,\n216, a very interesting note on the book-trade and libraries of\nancient Athens. Bekker disputes the accuracy of Strabo's statement\nthat Aristotle was the first person at Athens who collected a library,\nand who taught the kings of Egypt to do the like. In the literal sense\nof the words Bekker is right. Other persons before Aristotle had\ncollected books (though I think Bekker makes more of the passages\nwhich he cites than they strictly deserve); one example is the\nyouthful Euthydemus in Xenophon, Memorab. iv. 2; and Bekker alludes\njustly to the remarkable passage in the Anabasis of Xenophon, about\nbooks exported to the Hellenic cities in the Euxine (Anabas. vii. 5,\n14). There clearly existed in Athens regular professional booksellers;\nwe see that the bookseller read aloud to his visitors a part of the\nbooks which he had to sell, in order to tempt them to buy, a feeble\nforeshadowing of the advertisements and reviews of the present day\n(Diogen. L. vii. 2). But there existed as yet nothing of the nature of\nthe Platonic and Aristotelian [Greek: mousei=on], whereof the\ncollection of books, varied, permanent, and intended for the use of\ninmates and special visitors, was one important fraction. In this\nsense it served as a model for Demetrius Phalereus and Ptolemy Soter\nin regard to Alexandria.\n\nVitruvius (v. 11) describes the _exhedr\u00e6_ as seats placed under a\ncovered portico--\"in quibus philosophi, rhetores, reliquique qui\nstudiis delectantur, sedentes disputare possint\".]\n\n[Side-note: Favour of Ptolemy Soter towards the philosophers at\nAthens.]\n\nPtolemy Soter was himself an author,[26] and himself knew and\nrespected Aristotle, not only as a philosopher but also as the\npreceptor of his friend and commander Alexander. To Theophrastus also,\nthe philosophical successor of Aristotle, Ptolemy showed peculiar\nhonour; inviting him by special message to come and establish himself\nat Alexandria, which invitation however Theophrastus declined.[27]\nMoreover Ptolemy appointed Straton (afterwards Scholarch in succession\nto Theophrastus) preceptor to his youthful son Ptolemy Philadelphus,\nfrom whom Straton subsequently received a large present of money:[28]\nhe welcomed at Alexandria the Megaric philosophers, Diodorus Kronus,\nand Stilpon, and found pleasure in their conversation; he not only\nbefriended, but often confidentially consulted, the Kyrenaic\nphilosopher Theod\u00f4rus.[29] Kol\u00f4tes, the friend of Epikurus, dedicated\na work to Ptolemy Soter. Menander, the eminent comic writer, also\nreceived an invitation from him to Egypt.[30]\n\n[Footnote 26: Respecting Ptolemy as an author, and the fragments of\nhis work on the exploits of Alexander, see R. Geier, Alexandri M.\nHistor. Scriptores, p. 4-26.]\n\n[Footnote 27: Diog. L. v. 37. Probably this invitation was sent about\n306 B.C., during the year in which Theophrastus was in banishment from\nAthens, in consequence of the restrictive law proposed by Sophokles\nagainst the schools of the philosophers, which law was repealed in the\nensuing year.]\n\n[Footnote 28: Diog. L. v. 58. Straton became Scholarch at the death of\nTheophrastus in 287 B.C. He must have been preceptor to Ptolemy\nPhiladelphus before this time, during the youth of the latter; for he\ncould not have been at the same time Scholarch at Athens, and\npreceptor of the king at Alexandria.]\n\n[Footnote 29: Diog. L. ii. 102, 111, 115. Plutarch adv. Kol\u00f4ten, p.\n1107. The Ptolemy here mentioned by Plutarch may indeed be\nPhiladelphus.]\n\n[Footnote 30: Meineke, Menand. et Philem. Reliq. Pr\u00e6f. p. xxxii.]\n\n[Side-note: Demetrius Phalereus--his history and character.]\n\nThese favourable dispositions, on the part of the first Ptolemy,\ntowards philosophy and the philosophers at Athens, Demetrius appear to\nhave been mainly instigated and guided by the Phalerean Demetrius: an\nAthenian citizen of good station, who enjoyed for ten years at Athens\n(while that city was subject to Kassander) full political ascendancy,\nbut who was expelled about 307 B.C., by the increased force of the\npopular party, seconded by the successful invasion of Demetrius\nPoliork\u00eat\u00eas. By these political events Demetrius Phalereus was driven\ninto exile: a portion of which exile was spent at Thebes, but a much\nlarger portion of it at Alexandria, where he acquired the full\nconfidence of Ptolemy Soter, and retained it until the death of that\nprince in 285 B.C. While active in politics, and possessing rhetorical\ntalent, elegant without being forcible--Demetrius Phalereus was yet\nmore active in literature and philosophy. He employed his influence,\nduring the time of his political power, to befriend and protect both\nXenokrates the chief of the Platonic school, and Theophrastus the\nchief of the Aristotelian. In his literary and philosophical views he\nfollowed Theophrastus and the Peripatetic sect, and was himself among\ntheir most voluminous writers. The latter portion of his life was\nspent at Alexandria, in the service of Ptolemy Soter; after whose\ndeath, however, he soon incurred the displeasure of Ptolemy\nPhiladelphus, and died, intentionally or accidentally, from the bite\nof an asp.[31]\n\n[Footnote 31: Diog. L. iv. 14, v. 39, 75, 80; Strabo, ix. 398; Plut.,\nDe Exil. p. 601; Apophth. p. 189; Cic., De Fin. v. 19; Pro Rab. 30.\n\nDiogenes says about Demetrius Phalereus, (v. 80) [Greek: Pl\u00ea/thei de\\\nbibli/\u00f4n kai\\ a)rithm\u00f4=| sti/ch\u00f4n, schedo\\n a(/pantas parel\u00ea/lake\ntou=s kat' au)to\\n Peripat\u00eatikou/s, eu)pai/deutos \u00f4)\\n kai\\\npolu/peiros par' o(ntinou=n.]]\n\n[Side-note: He was chief agent in the first establishment of the\nAlexandrine Library.]\n\nThe Alexandrine Museum or library first acquired celebrity under the\nreign of Ptolemy (II.) Philadelphus, by whom moreover it was greatly\nenlarged and its treasures multiplied. Hence that prince is sometimes\nentitled the founder. But there can be no doubt that its first\ninitiation and establishment is due to Ptolemy (I.) Soter.[32]\nDemetrius Phalereus was his adviser and auxiliary, the link of\nconnection between him and the literary or philosophical world of\nGreece. We read that Julius C\u00e6sar, when he conceived the scheme (which\nhe did not live to execute) of establishing a large public library at\nRome, fixed upon the learned Varro to regulate the selection and\narrangement of the books.[33] None but an eminent literary man could\ncarry such an enterprise into effect, even at Rome, when there existed\nthe precedent of the Alexandrine library: much more when Ptolemy\ncommenced his operations at Alexandria, and when there were only the\ntwo [Greek: Mousei=a] at Athens to serve as precedents. Demetrius, who\ncombined an organising head and political experience, with an\nerudition not inferior to Varro, regard being had to the stock of\nlearning accessible--was eminently qualified for the task. It procured\nfor him great importance with Ptolemy, and compensated him for that\nloss of political ascendancy at Athens, which unfavourable fortune had\nbrought about.\n\n[Footnote 32: Mr. Clinton says, Fast. Hell. App. 5, p. 380, 381:\n\"Athen\u00e6us distinctly ascribes the institution of the [Greek:\nMousei=on] to Philadelphus in v. 203, where he is describing the acts\nof Philadelphus.\" This is a mistake: the passage in Athen\u00e6us does not\nspecify which of the two first Ptolemies was the founder: it is\nperfectly consistent with the supposition that Ptolemy Soter founded\nit. The same may be said about the passage cited by Mr. Clinton from\nPlutarch; that too does not determine between the two Ptolemies, which\nwas the founder. Perizonius was in error (as Mr. Clinton points out)\nin affirming that the passage in Plutarch determined the foundation to\nthe first Ptolemy: Mr. Clinton is in error by affirming that the\npassage in Athen\u00e6us determines it to the second. Mr. Clinton has also\nbeen misled by Vitruvius and Scaliger (p. 389), when he affirms that\nthe library at Alexandria was not formed until after the library at\nPergamus. Bernhardy (Grundriss der Griech. Litt., Part i. p. 359, 367,\n369) has followed Mr. Clinton too implicitly in recognising\nPhiladelphus as the founder: nevertheless he too admits (p. 366) that\nthe foundations were laid by Ptolemy Soter, under the advice and\nassistance of Demetrius Phalereus.\n\nThe earliest declared king of the Attalid family at Pergamus acquired\nthe throne in 241 B.C. The library at Pergamus could hardly have been\ncommenced before his time: and it is his successor, Eumenes II. (whose\nreign began in 197 B.C.), who is mentioned as the great collector and\nadorner of the library at Pergamus. See Strabo, xiii. 624; Clinton,\nFast. Hellen. App. 6, p. 401-403. It is plain that the library at\nPergamus could hardly have been begun before the close of the reign of\nPtolemy Philadelphus in Egypt, by which time the library of Alexandria\nhad already acquired great extension and renown.]\n\n[Footnote 33: Sueton. Jul. C\u00e6s. c. 44. Melissus, one of the Illustres\nGrammatici of Rome, undertook by order of Augustus, \"curam\nordinandarum bibliothecarum in Octavi\u00e6 porticu\". (Sueton. De Illustr.\nGrammat. c. 21.)\n\nCicero replies in the following terms to his brother Quintus, who had\nwritten to him, requesting advice and aid in getting together for his\nown use a collection of Greek and Latin books. \"De bibliothec\u00e2 tu\u00e2\nGr\u00e6c\u00e2 supplend\u00e2, libris commutandis, Latinis comparandis--vald\u00e9 velim\nista confici, pr\u00e6sertim cum ad meum quoque usum spectent. Sed ego,\nmihi ipsi ista per quem agam, non habeo. _Neque enim venalia sunt, qu\u00e6\nquidem placeant: et confici nisi per hominem et peritum et diligentem\nnon possunt._ Chrysippo tamen imperabo, et cum Tyrannione loquar.\"\n(Cic., Epist. ad Q. Fratr. iii. 4, 5.)\n\nNow the circulation of books was greatly increased, and the book trade\nfar more developed, at Rome when this letter was written (about three\ncenturies after Plato's decease) than it was at Athens during the\ntime of Demetrius Phalereus (320-300 B.C.). Yet we see the difficulty\nwhich the two brothers Cicero had in collecting a mere private library\nfor use of the owner simply. _Good books, in a correct and\nsatisfactory condition, were not to be had for money_: it was\nnecessary to get access to the best MSS., and to have special copies\nmade, neatly and correctly: and this could not be done, except under\nthe superintendence of a laborious literary man like Tyrannion, by\nwell taught slaves subordinate to him.\n\nWe may understand, from this analogy, the far greater obstacles which\nthe collectors of the Alexandrine museum and library must have had to\novercome, when _they_ began their work. No one could do it, except a\npractised literary man such as Demetrius Phalereus: nor even he,\nexcept by finding out the best MSS., and causing special copies to be\nmade for the use of the library. Respecting the extent and facility of\nbook-diffusion in the Roman world, information will be found in the\nlate Sir George Cornewall Lewis's _Enquiry into the Credibility of\nEarly Roman History_, vol. i. p. 196, seqq.; also, in the fifth\nchapter of the work of Adolf Schmidt, _Geschichte der Denk-und\nGlaubens-Freiheit im ersten Jahrhunderte der Kaiser-herrschaft_,\nBerlin, 1847; lastly in a valuable review of Adolf Schmidt's work by\nSir George Lewis himself, in Fraser's Magazine for April, 1862, pp.\n432-439. Adolf Schmidt represents the multiplication and cheapness of\nbooks in that day as something hardly inferior to what it is\nnow--citing many authorities for this opinion. Sir G. Lewis has shown,\nin my judgment most satisfactorily, that these authorities are\ninsufficient, and that the opinion is incorrect: this might have been\nshown even more fully, if the review had been lengthened. I perfectly\nagree with Sir G. Lewis on the main question: yet I think he narrows\nthe case on his own side too much, and that the number of copies of\nsuch authors as Virgil and Horace, in circulation at one time, cannot\nhave been so small as he imagines.]\n\n[Side-note: Proceedings of Demetrius in beginning to collect the\nlibrary.]\n\nWe learn that the ardour of Demetrius Phalereus was unremitting, and\nthat his researches were extended everywhere, to obtain for the new\nmuseum literary monuments from all countries within contemporary\nknowledge.[34] This is highly probable: such universality of literary\ninterest was adapted to the mixed and cosmopolitan character of the\nAlexandrine population. But Demetrius was a Greek, born about the time\nof Plato's death (347 B.C.), and identified with the political,\nrhetorical, dramatic, literary, and philosophical, activity of Athens,\nin which he had himself taken a prominent part. To collect the\nmemorials of Greek literature would be his first object, more\nespecially such as Aristotle and Theophrastus possessed in their\nlibraries. Without doubt he would procure the works of Homer and the\nother distinguished poets, epic, lyric, and dramatic, as well as the\nrhetors, orators, &c. He probably would not leave out the works of the\n_viri Sokratici_ (Antisthenes, Aristippus, \u00c6schines, &c.) and the\nother philosophers (Demokritus, Anaxagoras, Parmenides, &c.). But\nthere are two authors, whose compositions he would most certainly take\npains to obtain--Plato and Aristotle. These were the two commanding\nnames of Grecian philosophy in that day: the founders of the two\nschools existing in Athens, upon the model of which the Alexandrine\nMuseum was to be constituted.\n\n[Footnote 34: Josephus, Antiquit. xii. 2, 1. [Greek: D\u00eam\u00ea/trios o(\nPhal\u00eareu/s, o(\\s \u00ea)=n e)pi\\ t\u00f4=n biblioth\u00eak\u00f4=n tou= basile/\u00f4s,\nspouda/z\u00f4n ei) dunato\\n ei)/\u00ea pa/nta ta\\ kata\\ t\u00ea\\n oi)koume/n\u00ean\nsuna/gein bi/blia, kai\\ sun\u00f4nou/menos ei)/ ti/ pou mo/non a)kou/seie\nspoud\u00ea=s a)/xion \u00ea)\\ \u00ea(du/, t\u00ea=| tou= basile/\u00f4s proaire/sei (ma/lista\nga\\r peri\\ t\u00ea\\n sullog\u00ea\\n t\u00f4=n bibli/\u00f4n ei)=che philoka/l\u00f4s)\nsun\u00eag\u00f4ni/zeto].\n\nWhat Josephus affirms here, I apprehend to be perfectly true; though\nhe goes on to state much that is fabulous and apocryphal, respecting\nthe incidents which preceded and accompanied the translation of the\nHebrew Scriptures. Josephus is also mistaken in connecting Demetrius\nPhalereus with Ptolemy Philadelphus. Demetrius Phalereus was\ndisgraced, and died shortly after that prince's accession. His time of\ninfluence was under Ptolemy Soter.\n\nRespecting the part taken by Demetrius Phalereus in the first getting\nup of the Alexandrine Museum, see Valckenaer, Dissertat. De Aristobulo\nJudaico, p. 52-57; Ritschl, Die Alexandrin. Biblioth. p. 17, 18;\nParthey, Das Alexandrinische Museum, p. 70, 71 seq.]\n\n[Side-note: Certainty that the works of Plato and Aristotle were among\nthe earliest acquisitions made by him for the library.]\n\nAmong all the books which would pass over to Alexandria as the\nearliest stock of the new library, I know nothing upon which we can\nreckon more certainly than upon the works of Plato.[35] For they were\nacquisitions not only desirable, but also easily accessible. The\nwritings of Aristippus or Demokritus--of Lysias or Isokrates--might\nrequire to be procured (or good MSS. thereof, fit to be specially\ncopied) at different places and from different persons, without any\nsecurity that the collection, when purchased, would be either complete\nor altogether genuine. But the manuscripts of Plato and of Aristotle\nwere preserved in their respective schools at Athens, the Academic and\nPeripatetic:[36] a collection complete as well as verifiable.\nDemetrius could obtain permission, from Theophrastus in the\nPeripatetic school, from Polemon or Krantor in the Academic school, to\nhave these MSS. copied for him by careful and expert hands. The cost\nof such copying must doubtless have been considerable; amounting to a\nsum which few private individuals would have been either able or\nwilling to disburse. But the treasures of Ptolemy were amply\nsufficient for the purpose:[37] and when he once conceived the project\nof founding a museum in his new capital, a large outlay, incurred for\ntranscribing from the best MSS. a complete and authentic collection of\nthe works of illustrious authors, was not likely to deter him. We know\nfrom other anecdotes,[38] what vast sums the third Ptolemy spent, for\nthe mere purpose of securing better and more authoritative MSS. of\nworks which the Alexandrine library already possessed.\n\n[Footnote 35: Stahr, in the second part of his work \"Aristotelia,\"\ncombats and refutes with much pains the erroneous supposition, that\nthere was no sufficient publication of the works of Aristotle, until\nafter the time when Apellikon purchased the MSS. from the heirs of\nNeleus--_i.e._ B.C. 100. Stahr shows evidence to prove, that the\nworks, at least many of the works, of Aristotle were known and studied\nbefore the year 100 B.C.: that they were in the library at Alexandria,\nand that they were procured for that library by Demetrius Phalereus.\nStahr says (Thl. ii. p. 59): \"Is it indeed credible--is it even\nconceivable--that Demetrius, who recommended especially to his regal\nfriend Ptolemy the study of the political works of the\nphilosophers--that Demetrius, the friend both of the Aristotelian\nphilosophy and of Theophrastus, should have left the works of the two\ngreatest Peripatetic philosophers out of his consideration? May we not\nrather be sure that he would take care to secure their works, before all\nothers, for his nascent library--if indeed he did not bring them with\nhim when he came to Alexandria?\" The question here put by Stahr (and\nfarther insisted on by Ravaisson, Essai sur la M\u00e9taphysique\nd'Aristote, Introd. p. 14) is very pertinent: and I put the like\nquestion, with slight change of circumstances, respecting the works of\nPlato. Demetrius Phalereus was the friend and patron of Xenokrates, as\nwell as of Theophrastus.]\n\n[Footnote 36: In respect to the Peripatetic school, this is true only\nduring the lifetime of Theophrastus, who died 287 B.C. I have already\nmentioned that after the death of Theophrastus, the MSS. were\nwithdrawn from Athens. But all the operations of Demetrius Phalereus\nwere carried on during the lifetime of Theophrastus; much of them,\nprobably, in concert with Theophrastus, whose friend and pupil he was.\nThe death of Theophrastus, the death of Ptolemy Soter, and the\ndiscredit and subsequent death of Demetrius are separated only by an\ninterval of two or three years.]\n\n[Footnote 37: We find interesting information, in the letters of\nCicero, respecting the _librarii_ or copyists whom he had in his\nservice; and the still more numerous and effective band of _librarii_\nand _anagnost\u00e6_: (slaves, mostly home-born) whom his friend Atticus\npossessed and trained (Corn. Nep., Vit. Attici, c. 13). See Epist. ad\nAttic. xii. 6; xiii. 21-44; v. 12 seq.\n\nIt appears that many of the compositions of Cicero were copied,\nprepared for publication, and published, by the _librarii_ of Atticus:\nwho, in the case of the _Academica_, incurred a loss, because\nCicero--after having given out the work to be copied and published, and\nafter progress had been made in doing this--thought fit to alter\nmaterially both the form and the speakers introduced (xiii. 13). In\nregard to the Oration pro Ligario, Atticus sold it well, and brought\nhimself home (\"Ligarianam pr\u00e6clar\u00e9 vendidisti: posthac, quicquid\nscripsero, tibi pr\u00e6conium deferam,\" xiii. 12). Cicero (xiii. 21)\ncompares the relation of Atticus towards himself, with that of\nHermod\u00f4rus towards Plato, as expressed in the Greek verse,\n[Greek: lo/goisin E(rmo/d\u00f4ros [e)mporeu/etai]]. (Suidas, s, v.\n[Greek: lo/goisin E(rm. e)mp].)\n\nPrivate friends, such as Balbus and C\u00e6rellia (xiii. 21), considered it\na privilege to be allowed to take copies of his compositions at their\nown cost, through _librarii_ employed for the purpose. And we find\nGalen enumerating this among the noble and dignified ways for an\nopulent man to expend money, in a remarkable passage, [Greek: ble/p\u00f4\nga\\r se ou)de\\ pro\\s ta\\ kala\\ t\u00f4=n e)/rg\u00f4n dapan\u00ea=sai tolm\u00f4=nta, m\u00ead'\nei)s bibli/\u00f4n \u00f4)n\u00ea\\n kai\\ kataskeu\u00ea\\n kai\\ t\u00f4=n grapho/nt\u00f4n a)/sk\u00easin,\n\u00ea)/toi ge ei)s ta/chos dia\\ s\u00eamei/\u00f4n, \u00ea)\\ ei)s kal\u00f4=n a)kri/beian,\n\u00f4(/sper ou)de\\ t\u00f4=n a)nagin\u00f4sko/nt\u00f4n o)rth\u00f4=s]. (De Cognoscendis\nCurandisque Animi Morbis, t. v. p. 48, K\u00fchn.)]\n\n[Footnote 38: Galen, Comm. ad Hippokrat. [Greek: E)pid\u00eami/as], vol.\nxvii. p. 606, 607, ed. K\u00fchn.\n\nLykurgus, the contemporary of Demosthenes as an orator, conspicuous\nfor many years in the civil and financial administration of Athens,\ncaused a law to be passed, enacting that an official MS. should be\nmade of the plays of \u00c6schylus, Sophokles, and Euripides. No permission\nwas granted to represent any of these dramas at the Dionysiac\nfestival, except upon condition that the applicant and the actors whom\nhe employed, should compare the MS. on which they intended to proceed,\nwith the official MS. in the hands of the authorised secretary. The\npurpose was to prevent arbitrary amendments or omissions in these\nplays, at the pleasure of [Greek: u(pokri/tai].\n\nPtolemy Euergetes borrowed from the Athenians these public and\nofficial MSS. of \u00c6schylus, Sophokles, and Euripides on the plea that\nhe wished to have exact copies of them taken at Alexandria, and under\nengagement to restore them as soon as this was done. He deposited with\nthem the prodigious sum of fifteen talents, as a guarantee for the\nfaithful restitution. When he got the MSS. at Alexandria, he caused\ncopies of them to be taken on the finest paper. He then sent these\ncopies to Athens, keeping the originals for the Alexandrine library;\ndesiring the Athenians to retain the deposit of fifteen talents for\nthemselves. Ptolemy Euergetes here pays, not merely the cost of the\nfinest copying, but fifteen talents besides, for the possession of\nofficial MSS. of the three great Athenian tragedians; whose works in\nother manuscripts must have been in the library long before.\n\nRespecting these official MSS. of the three great tragedians, prepared\nduring the administration and under the auspices of the rhetor\nLykurgus, see Plutarch, Vit. X. Orator, p. 841, also Boeckh, Gr\u00e6c\u00e6\nTragoed. Principia, pp. 13-15. The time when Lykurgus caused this to\nbe done, must have been nearly coincident with the decease of Plato,\n347 B.C. See Boeckh, Staatshaushaltung der Athener, vol. i. p. 468,\nii. p. 244; Welcker, Griech. Trag. iii. p. 908; Korn, De Publico\n\u00c6schyli, &c., Exemplari, Lykurgo Auctore Confecto, p. 6-9, Bonn, 1863.\n\nIn the passage cited above from Galen, we are farther informed, that\nPtolemy Euergetes caused inquiries to be made, from the masters of all\nvessels which came to Alexandria, whether there were any MSS. on\nboard; if there were, the MSS. were brought to the library, carefully\ncopied out, and the copies given to the owners; the original MSS.\nbeing retained in the library, and registered in a\nseparate compartment, under the general head of [Greek: Ta\\ e)k\nploi/\u00f4n], and with the name of the person from whom the acquisition\nhad been made, annexed. Compare Wolf, Prolegg. ad Homerum, p. clxxv.\nThese statements tend to show the care taken by the Alexandrine\nlibrarians, not only to acquire the best MSS., but also to keep good\nMSS. apart from bad, and to record the person and the quarter from\nwhich each acquisition had been made.]\n\n[Side-note: Large expenses incurred by the Ptolemies for procuring\ngood MSS.]\n\nWe cannot doubt that Demetrius could obtain permission, if he asked\nit, from the Scholarchs, to have such copies made. To them the\noperation was at once complimentary and lucrative; while among the\nAthenian philosophers generally, the name of Demetrius was acceptable,\nfrom the favour which he had shown to them during his season of\npolitical power--and that of Ptolemy popular from his liberalities. Or\nif we even suppose that Demetrius, instead of obtaining copies of the\nPlatonic MSS. from the school, purchased copies from private persons\nor book-sellers (as he must have purchased the works of Demokritus and\nothers)--he could, at any rate, assure himself of the authenticity of\nwhat he purchased, by information from the Scholarch.\n\n[Side-note: Catalogue of Platonic works, prepared by Aristophanes, is\ntrustworthy.]\n\nMy purpose, in thus calling attention to the Platonic school and the\nAlexandrine Museum, is to show that the chance for preservation of\nPlato's works complete and genuine after his decease, was unusually\nfavourable. I think that they existed complete and genuine in the\nAlexandrine Museum before the time of Kallimachus, and, of course,\nduring that of Aristophanes. If there were in the Museum any other\nworks obtained from private vendors and professing to be Platonic,\nKallimachus and Aristophanes had the means of distinguishing these\nfrom such as the Platonic school had furnished and could authenticate,\nand motive enough for keeping them apart from the certified Platonic\ncatalogue. Whether there existed any spurious works of this sort in\nthe Museum, Diogenes Laertius does not tell us; nor, unfortunately,\ndoes he set forth the full list of those which Aristophanes,\nrecognising as Platonic, distributed either in triplets or in units.\nDiogenes mentions only the principle of distribution adopted, and a\nselect portion of the compositions distributed. But as far as his\npositive information goes, I hold it to be perfectly worthy of trust.\nI consider that all the compositions recognised by Aristophanes as\nworks of Plato are unquestionably such; and that his testimony greatly\nstrengthens our assurance for the received catalogue, in many of those\nitems which have been most contested by critics, upon supposed\ninternal grounds. Aristophanes authenticates, among others, not merely\nthe Leges, but also the Epinomis, the Minos, and the Epistol\u00e6.\n\n[Side-note: No canonical or exclusive order of the Platonic dialogues,\nwhen arranged by Aristophanes.]\n\nThere is another point also which I conceive to be proved by what we\nhear about Aristophanes. He (or Kallimachus before him) introduced a\nnew order or distribution of his own--the Trilogies--founded on the\nanalogy of the dramatic Didaskalies. This shows that the Platonic\ndialogues were not received into the library in any canonical or\n_exclusive order_ of their own, or in any interdependence as first,\nsecond, third, &c., essential to render them intelligible as a system.\nHad there been any such order, Kallimachus and Aristophanes would no\nmore have altered it, than they would have transposed the order of the\nbooks in the Republic and Leges. The importance of what is here\nobserved will appear presently, when we touch upon the theory of\nSchleiermacher.\n\n[Side-note: Other libraries and literary centres, besides Alexandria,\nin which spurious Platonic works might get footing.]\n\nThe distributive arrangement, proposed or sanctioned by Aristophanes,\napplied (as I have already remarked) to the materials in the\nAlexandrine library only. But this library, though it was the most\nconspicuous portion, was not the whole, of the Grecian literary\naggregate. There were other great regal libraries (such as those of\nthe kings of Pergamus and the Seleukid kings[39]) commenced after the\nAlexandrine library had already attained importance, and intended to\nrival it: there was also an active literary and philosophising class,\nin various Grecian cities, of which Athens was the foremost, but in\nwhich Rhodes, Kyr\u00ean\u00ea, and several cities in Asia Minor, Kilikia, and\nSyria, were included: ultimately the cultivated classes at Rome, and\nthe Western Hellenic city of Massalia, became comprised in the number.\nAmong this widespread literary public, there were persons who neither\nknew nor examined the Platonic school or the Alexandrine library, nor\ninvestigated what title either of them had to furnish a certificate\nauthenticating the genuine works of Plato. It is not certain that even\nthe great library at Pergamus, begun nearly half a century after that\nof Alexandria, had any such initiatory agent as Demetrius Phalereus,\nable as well as willing to go to the fountain-head of Platonism at\nAthens: nor could the kings of Pergamus claim aid from Alexandria,\nwith which they were in hostile rivalry, and from which they were even\nforbidden (so we hear) to purchase papyrus. Under these circumstances,\nit is quite possible that spurious Platonic writings, though they\nobtained no recognition in the Alexandrine library, might obtain more\nor less recognition elsewhere, and pass under the name of Plato. To a\ncertain extent, such was the case. There existed some spurious\ndialogues at the time when Thrasyllus afterwards formed his\narrangement.\n\n[Footnote 39: The library of Antiochus the Great or of his\npredecessor, is mentioned by Suidas, [Greek: Eu)phori/\u00f4n]. Euphorion\nwas librarian of it, seemingly about 230-220 B.C. See Clinton, Fast.\nHell. B.C. 221.\n\nGalen states (Comm. in Hippok. De Nat. Hom. vol. xv. p. 105, K\u00fchn)\nthat the forgeries of books, and the practice of tendering books for\nsale under the false names of celebrated authors, did not commence\nuntil the time when the competition between the kings of Egypt and the\nkings of Pergamus for their respective libraries became vehement. If\nthis be admitted, there could have been no forgeries tendered at\nAlexandria until after the commencement of the reign of Euergetes\n(B.C. 247-222): for the competition from Pergamus could hardly have\ncommenced earlier than 230 B.C. In the times of Soter and\nPhiladelphus, there would be no such forgeries tendered. I do not\ndoubt that such forgeries were sometimes successfully passed off:** but\nI think Galen does not take sufficient account of the practice\n(mentioned by himself) at the Alexandrine library, to keep faithful\nrecord of the person and quarter from whence each book had been\nacquired.]\n\n[Side-note: Other critics, besides Aristophanes, proposed different\narrangements of the Platonic dialogues.]\n\nMoreover the distribution made by Aristophanes of the Platonic\ndialogues into Trilogies, and the order of priority which he\nestablished among them was by no means universally accepted. Some\nrejected altogether the dramatic analogy of Trilogies as a principle\nof distribution. They arranged the dialogues into three classes:[40]\n1. The Direct, or purely dramatic. 2. The Indirect, or narrative\n(diegematic). 3. The Mixed--partly one, partly the other. Respecting\nthe order of priority, we read that while Aristophanes placed the\nRepublic first, there were eight other arrangements, each recognising\na different dialogue as first in order; these eight were, Alkibiades\nI., Theag\u00eas, Euthyphron, Kleitophon, Tim\u00e6us, Ph\u00e6drus, The\u00e6t\u00eatus,\nApology. More than one arrangement began with the Apology. Some even\nselected the Epistol\u00e6 as the proper commencement for studying Plato's\nworks.[41]\n\n[Footnote 40: Diog. L. iii. 49. Sch\u00f6ne, in his commentary on the\nProtagoras (pp. 8-12), lays particular stress on this division into\nthe direct or dramatic, and indirect or diegematic. He thinks it\nprobable, that Plato preferred one method to the other at different\nperiods of life: that all of one sort, and all of the other sort, come\nnear together in time.]\n\n[Footnote 41: Diog. L. iii. 62. Albinus, [Greek: Ei)sag\u00f4g\u00ea\\], c. 4, in\nK. F. Hermann's Appendix Platonica, p. 149.]\n\n[Side-note: Pan\u00e6tius, the Stoic--considered the Ph\u00e6don to be\nspurious--earliest known example of a Platonic dialogue disallowed upon\ninternal grounds.]\n\nWe hear with surprise that the distinguished Stoic philosopher at\nAthens, Pan\u00e6tius, rejected the Ph\u00e6don as not being the work of\nPlato.[42] It appears that he did not believe in the immortality of\nthe soul, and that he profoundly admired Plato; accordingly, he\nthought it unworthy of so great a philosopher to waste so much logical\nsubtlety, poetical metaphor, and fable, in support of such a\nconclusion. Probably he was also guided, in part, by one singularity\nin the Ph\u00e6don: it is the only dialogue wherein Plato mentions himself\nin the third person.[43] If Pan\u00e6tius was predisposed, on other\ngrounds, to consider the dialogue as unworthy of Plato, he might be\ninduced to lay stress upon such a singularity, as showing that the\nauthor of the dialogue must be some person other than Plato. Pan\u00e6tius\nevidently took no pains to examine the external attestations of the\ndialogue, which he would have found to be attested both by Aristotle\nand by Kallimachus as the work of Plato. Moreover, whatever any one\nmay think of the cogency of the reasoning--the beauty of Platonic\nhandling and expression is manifest throughout the dialogue. This\nverdict of Pan\u00e6tius is the earliest example handed down to us of a\nPlatonic dialogue disallowed on internal grounds that is, because it\nappeared to the critic unworthy of Plato: and it is certainly among\nthe most unfortunate examples.\n\n[Footnote 42: See the Epigram out of the Anthology, and the extract\nfrom the Scholia on the Categories of Aristotle, cited by Wyttenbach\nin his note on the beginning of the Ph\u00e6don. A more important passage\n(which he has not cited) from the Scholia on Aristotle, is, that of\nAsklepius on the Metaphysica, p. 991; Scholia, ed. Brandis, p. 576, a.\n38. [Greek: O(/ti tou= Pla/t\u00f4nos e)stin o( Phai/d\u00f4n, saph\u00f4=s o(\nA)ristote/l\u00eas d\u00ealoi=--Panai/tios ga\\r tis e)to/lm\u00ease notheu=sai to\\n\ndia/logon. e)peid\u00ea\\ ga\\r e)/legen ei)=nai thn\u00eat\u00ea\\n t\u00ea\\n psuch\u00ea/n,\ne)bou/leto sugkataspa/sai to\\n Pla/t\u00f4na; e)pei\\ ou)=n e)n t\u00f4=|\nPhai/d\u00f4ni saph\u00f4=s a)pathanati/zei] (Plato) [Greek: t\u00ea\\n logik\u00ea\\n\npsuch\u00ea/n, tou/tou cha/rin e)no/theuse to\\n dia/logon]. Wyttenbach\nvainly endeavours to elude the force of the passages cited by himself,\nand to make out that the witnesses did not mean to assert that\nPan\u00e6tius had declared the Ph\u00e6don to be spurious. One of the reasons\nurged by Wyttenbach is--\"Nec illud negligendum, quod dicitur [Greek:\nu(po\\ Panaiti/ou tino\\s], \u00e0 _Pan\u00e6tio quodam_ neque per contemptum dici\npotuisse neque a Syriano neque ab hoc anonymo; quorum neuter e\u00e2 fuit\ndoctrin\u00e6 inopia, ut Pan\u00e6tii laudes et pr\u00e6stantiam ignoraret.\" But in\nthe Scholion of Asklepius on the Metaphysica (which passage was not\nbefore Wyttenbach), we find the very same expression [Greek:\nPanai/tio/s tis], and plainly used _per contemptum_: for Asklepius\nprobably considered it a manifestation of virtuous feeling to\ndescribe, in contemptuous language, a philosopher who did not believe\nin the immortality of the soul. We have only to read the still harsher\nand more contemptuous language which he employs towards the\nManicheans, in another Scholion, p. 666, b. 5, Brandis.\n\nFavorinus said (Diog. iii. 37) that when Plato read aloud the Ph\u00e6don,\nAristotle was the only person present who remained to the end: all the\nother hearers went away in the middle. I have no faith in this\nanecdote: I consider it, like so many others in Diogenes, as a myth:\nbut the invention of it indicates, that there were many persons who\nhad no sympathy with the Ph\u00e6don, taking at the bottom the same view as\nPan\u00e6tius.]\n\n[Footnote 43: Plato, Ph\u00e6don, p. 59. Plato is named also in the\nApology: but this is a report, more or less exact, of the real defence\nof Sokrates.]\n\n[Side-note: Classification of Platonic works by the rhetor\nThrasyllus--dramatic--philosophical.]\n\nBut the most elaborate classification of the Platonic works was that\nmade by Thrasyllus, in the days of Augustus or Tiberius, near to, or\nshortly after, the Christian era: a rhetor of much reputation,\nconsulted and selected as travelling companion by the Emperor\nAugustus.[44]\n\n[Footnote 44: Diog. L. iii. 56; Themistius, Orat. viii. ([Greek:\nPentet\u00eariko\\s]) p. 108 B.\n\nIt appears that this classification by Thrasyllus was approved, or\njointly constructed, by his contemporary Derkyllides. (Albinus,\n[Greek: Ei)sag\u00f4g\u00ea\\], c. 4, p. 149, in K. F. Hermann's Appendix\nPlatonica.)]\n\nThrasyllus adopted two different distributions of the Platonic works:\none was dramatic, the other philosophical. The two were founded on\nperfectly distinct principles, and had no inherent connection with\neach other; but Thrasyllus combined them together, and noted, in\nregard to each dialogue, its place in the one classification as well\nas in the other.\n\n[Side-note: Dramatic principle--Tetralogies.]\n\nOne of these distributions was into Tetralogies, or groups of four\neach. This was in substitution for the Trilogies introduced by\nAristophanes or by Kallimachus, and was founded upon the same\ndramatic analogy: the dramas, which contended for the prize at the\nDionysiac festivals, having been sometimes exhibited in batches of\nthree, or Trilogies, sometimes in batches of four, or\nTetralogies--three tragedies, along with a satirical piece as\naccompaniment. Because the dramatic writer brought forth four pieces at\na birth, it was assumed as likely that Plato would publish four dialogues\nall at once. Without departing from this dramatic analogy, which seems to\nhave been consecrated by the authority of the Alexandrine Grammatici,\nThrasyllus gained two advantages. First, he included ALL the Platonic\ncompositions, whereas Aristophanes, in his Trilogies, had included\nonly a part, and had left the rest not grouped. Thrasyllus included\nall the Platonic compositions, thirty-six in number, reckoning the\nRepublic, the Leges, and the Epistol\u00e6 in bulk, each as one--in nine\nTetralogies or groups of four each. Secondly, he constituted his first\ntetralogy in an impressive and appropriate manner--Euthyphron,\nApology, Kriton, Ph\u00e6don--four compositions really resembling a\ndramatic tetralogy, and bound together by their common bearing, on the\nlast scenes of the life of a philosopher.[45] In Euthyphron, Sokrates\nappears as having been just indicted and as thinking on his defence;\nin the Apology, he makes his defence; in the Kriton, he appears as\nsentenced by the legal tribunal, yet refusing to evade the sentence by\nescaping from his prison; in the Ph\u00e6don, we have the last dying scene\nand conversation. None of the other tetralogies present an equal bond\nof connection between their constituent items; but the first tetralogy\nwas probably intended to recommend the rest, and to justify the\nsystem.\n\n[Footnote 45: Diog. L. iii. 57. [Greek: pr\u00f4/t\u00ean me\\n ou)=n\ntetralogi/an ti/th\u00easi t\u00ea\\n koin\u00ea\\n u(po/thesin e)/chousan; paradei=xai\nga\\r bou/letai o(/poiois a)\\n ei)/\u00ea o( tou= philoso/phou bi/os].\nAlbinus, Introduct. ad Plat. c. 4, p. 149, in K. F. Hermann's Append.\nPlaton.\n\nThrasyllus appears to have considered the Republic as ten dialogues\nand the Leges as twelve, each book (of Republic and of Leges)\nconstituting a separate dialogue, so that he made the Platonic works\nfifty-six in all. But for the purpose of his tetralogies he reckoned\nthem only as thirty-six--nine groups.\n\nThe author of the Prolegomena [Greek: t\u00ea=s Pla/t\u00f4nos Philosophi/as] in\nHermann's Append. Platon. pp. 218-219, gives the same account of the\ntetralogies, and of the connecting bond which united the four** members\nof the first tetralogical group: but he condemns altogether the\nprinciple of the tetralogical division. He does not mention the name\nof Thrasyllus. He lived after Proklus (p. 218), that is, after 480\nA.D.\n\nThe argument urged by Wyttenbach and others--that Varro must have\nconsidered the Ph\u00e6don as _fourth_ in the order of the Platonic\ncompositions--an argument founded on a passage in Varro. L. L. vii.\n37, which refers to the Ph\u00e6don under the words _Plato in quarto_--this\nargument becomes inapplicable in the text as given by O. M\u00fcller--not\n_Varro in quarto_ but _Varro in quattuor fluminibus_, &c. Mullach\n(Democriti Frag. p. 98) has tried unsuccessfully to impugn M\u00fcller's\ntext, and to uphold the word _quarto_ with the inference resting upon\nit.]\n\n[Side-note: Philosophical principle--Dialogues of Search--Dialogues of\nExposition.]\n\nIn the other distribution made by Thrasyllus,[46] Plato was regarded\nnot as a quasi-dramatist, but as a philosopher. The dialogues were\nclassified with reference partly to their method and spirit, partly to\ntheir subject. His highest generic distinction was into:--1. Dialogues\nof Investigation or Search. 2. Dialogues of Exposition or\nConstruction. The Dialogues of Investigation he subdivided into two\nclasses:--1. Gymnastic. 2. Agonistic. These were again subdivided,\neach into two sub-classes; the Gymnastic, into 1. Obstetric. 2.\nPeirastic. The Agonistic, into 1. Probative. 2. Refutative. Again, the\nDialogues of Exposition were divided into two classes: 1. Theoretical.\n2. Practical. Each of these classes was divided into two sub-classes:\nthe Theoretical into 1. Physical. 2. Logical. The Practical into 1.\nEthical. 2. Political.\n\n[Footnote 46: The statement in Diogenes Laertius, in his life of\nPlato, is somewhat obscure and equivocal; but I think it certain that\nthe classification which he gives in iii. 49, 50, 51, of the Platonic\ndialogues, was made by Thrasyllus. It is a portion of the same\nsystematic arrangement as that given somewhat farther on (iii. 56-61),\nwhich is ascribed by name to Thrasyllus, enumerating the Tetralogies.\nDiogenes expressly states that Thrasyllus was the person who annexed\nto each dialogue its double denomination, which it has since borne in\nthe published editions--[Greek: Eu)thu/phr\u00f4n--peri\\\no(si/ou--peirastiko/s]. In the Dialogues of examination or Search, one of\nthese names is derived from the subject, the other from the method, as in\nthe instance of Euthyphron just cited: in the Dialogues of Exposition\nboth names are derived from the subject, first the special, next the\ngeneral. [Greek: Phai/d\u00f4n, \u00ea)\\ peri\\ psuch\u00ea=s, \u00ea)thiko/s. Parmeni/d\u00eas,\n\u00ea)\\ peri\\ i)de\u00f4=n, logiko/s].\n\nSchleiermacher (in the Einleitung prefixed to his translation of\nPlato, p. 24) speaks somewhat loosely about \"the well-known\ndialectical distributions of the Platonic dialogues, which Diogenes\nhas preserved without giving the name of the author\". Diogenes gives\nonly _one_ such dialectical (or logical) distribution; and though he\ndoes not mention the name of Thrasyllus in direct or immediate\nconnection with it, we may clearly see that he is copying Thrasyllus.\nThis is well pointed out in an acute commentary on Schleiermacher, by\nYxem, Logos Protreptikos, Berlin, 1841, p. 12-13.\n\nDiogenes remarks (iii. 50) that the distribution of the dialogues into\nnarrative, dramatic, and mixed, is made [Greek: tragik\u00f4=s ma=llon \u00ea)\\\nphiloso/ph\u00f4s]. This remark would seem to apply more precisely to the\narrangement of the dialogues into trilogies and tetralogies. His word\n[Greek: philoso/ph\u00f4s] belongs very justly to the logical distribution\nof Thrasyllus, apart from the tetralogies.\n\nPorphyry tells us that Plotinus did not bestow any titles upon his own\ndiscourses. The titles were bestowed by his disciples; who did not\nalways agree, but gave different titles to the same discourse\n(Porphyry, Vit. Plotin. 4).]\n\nThe following table exhibits this philosophical classification of\nThrasyllus:--\n\nTable I.\n\nPHILOSOPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE WORKS OF PLATO BY THRASYLLUS.\n\nI. Dialogues of Investigation.       II. Dialogues of Exposition.\n\n_Searching Dialogues_.                       _Guiding Dilogues_\n[Greek: Z\u00eat\u00eatikoi/].                         [Greek: U(ph\u00eag\u00eatikoi/].\n\n\n                 I. Dialogues of investigation.\n\n      Gymnastic.                                Agonistic.\n\n[Greek:\nMaieutikoi/. Peirastikoi/.            E)ndeiktikoi/. A)natreptikpoi/.]\n\nObstetric.    Peirastic.              Probative.       Refutative.\n ----            ----                  ----               ----\nAlkibiades I.  Charmid\u00eas.             Protagoras.       Euthyd\u00eamus.\nAlkibiades II. Menon.                                   Gorgias.\nTheag\u00eas.       Ion.                                     Hippias I.\nLach\u00eas.        Euthyphron.                              Hippias II.\nLysis.\n\n                II. Dialogues of Exposition.\n\n\n       Theoretical.                            Practical\n\n[Greek:\nPhusikoi/. Logikoi/.                 \u00ca)thikoi/.       Politikoi/.]\n\nPhysical   Logical.                  Ethical.         Political.\n ----       ----                       ----              ----\n\nTim\u00e6us.    Kratylus.                Apology.         Republic.\n           Sophist\u00eas.               Kriton.          Kritias.\n           Politikus.               Ph\u00e6don.          Minos.\n           Parmenid\u00eas.              Ph\u00e6drus.         Leges.\n           The\u00e6t\u00eatus.               Symposion.       Epinomis.\n                                    Menexenus.\n                                    Kleitophon.\n                                    Epistol\u00e6.\n                                    Phil\u00eabus.\n                                    Hipparchus.\n                                    Rivales.\n\nI now subjoin a second Table, containing the Dramatic Distribution of\nthe Platonic Dialogues, with the Philosophical Distribution combined\nor attached to it.\n\nTable II.\n\nDRAMATIC DISTRIBUTION. PLATONIC DIALOGUES, AS ARRANGED IN TETRALOGIES\nBY THRASYLLUS.\n\n         Tetralogy 1.\n\n1. Euthyphron           On Holiness              Peirastic or Testing.\n2. Apology of Sokrates  Ethical                  Ethical.\n3. Kriton               On Duty in Action        Ethical.\n4. Ph\u00e6don               On the Soul              Ethical.\n\n                   2.\n\n1. Kratylus             On Rectitude in Naming   Logical.\n2. The\u00e6t\u00eatus            On Knowledge             Logical.\n3. Sophist\u00eas            On Ens or the Existent   Logical.\n4. Politikus            On the Art of Governing  Logical.\n\n                   3.\n\n1. Parmenid\u00eas           On Ideas                 Logical.\n2. Phil\u00eabus             On Pleasure              Ethical.\n3. Symposion            On Good                  Ethical.\n4. Ph\u00e6drus              On Love                  Ethical.\n\n                  4.\n\n1. Alkibiad\u00eas I         On the Nature of Man     Obstetric or Evolving.\n2. Alkibiad\u00eas II        On Prayer                Obstetric.\n3. Hipparchus           On the Love of Gain.     Ethical.\n4. Erast\u00e6               On Philosophy            Ethical.\n\n                  5.\n\n1. Theag\u00eas              On Philosophy            Obstetric.\n2. Charmid\u00eas            On Temperance            Peirastic.\n3. Lach\u00eas               On Courage               Obstetric.\n4. Lysis                On Friendship            Obstetric.\n\n                  6.\n\n1. Euthyd\u00eamus           The Disputatious Man     Refutative.\n2. Protagoras           The Sophists             Probative.\n3. Gorgias              On Rhetoric              Refutative.\n4. Menon                On Virtue                Peirastic.\n\n                  7.\n\n1. Hippias I            On the Beautiful         Refutative.\n2. Hippias II           On Falsehood             Refutative.\n3. Ion                  On the Iliad             Peirastic.\n4. Menexenus            The Funeral Oration      Ethical.\n\n                  8.\n\n1. Kleitophon           The Impulsive            Ethical.\n2. Republic             On Justice               Political.\n3. Tim\u00e6us               On Nature                Physical.\n4. Kritias              The Atlantid             Ethical.\n\n                  9.\n\n1. Minos                On Law                   Political.\n2. Leges                On Legislation           Political.\n3. Epinomis             The Night-Assembly,      Political\n                        or the Philosopher\n4. Epistol\u00e6 XIII                                 Ethical.\n\nThe second Table, as it here stands, is given by Diogenes Laertius,\nand is extracted by him probably from the work of Thrasyllus, or from\nthe edition of Plato as published by Thrasyllus. The reader will see\nthat each Platonic composition has a place assigned to it in two\nclassifications--1. The dramatic--2. The philosophical--each in itself\ndistinct and independent of the other, but here blended together.\n\n[Side-note: Incongruity and repugnance of the two classifications.]\n\nWe may indeed say more. The two classifications are not only\nindependent, but incongruous and even repugnant. The better of the two\nis only obscurely and imperfectly apprehended, because it is presented\nas an appendage to the worse. The dramatic classification, which\nstands in the foreground, rests upon a purely fanciful analogy,\ndetermining preference for the number _four_. If indeed this objection\nwere urged against Thrasyllus, he might probably have replied that the\ngroup of four volumes together was in itself convenient, neither too\nlarge nor too small, for an elementary subdivision; and that the\nfanciful analogy was an artifice for recommending it to the feelings,\nbetter (after all) than selection of another number by haphazard. Be\nthat as it may, however, the fiction was one which Thrasyllus\ninherited from Aristophanes: and it does some honour to his ability,\nthat he has built, upon so inconvenient a fiction, one tetralogy (the\nfirst), really plausible and impressive.[47] But it does more honour\nto his ability that he should have originated the philosophical\nclassification; distinguishing the dialogues by important attributes\ntruly belonging to each, and conducting the Platonic student to points\nof view which ought to be made known to him. This classification forms\na marked improvement upon every thing (so far as we know) which\npreceded it.\n\n[Footnote 47: It is probable that Aristophanes, in distributing Plato\ninto trilogies, was really influenced by the dramatic form of the\ncompositions to put them in a class with real dramas. But Thrasyllus\ndoes not seem to have been influenced by such a consideration. He took\nthe number _four_ on its own merits, and adopted, as a way of\nrecommending it, the traditional analogy sanctioned by the Alexandrine\nlibrarians.\n\nThat such was the case, we may infer pretty clearly when we learn,\nthat Thrasyllus applied the same distribution (into tetralogies) to\nthe works of Demokritus, which were _not_ dramatic in form. (Diog. L.\nix. 45; Mullach, Democ. Frag. p. 100-107, who attempts to restore the\nThrasyllean tetralogies.)\n\nThe compositions of Demokritus were not merely numerous, but related\nto the greatest diversity of subjects. To them Thrasyllus could not\napply the same logical or philosophical distribution which he applied\nto Plato. He published, along with the works of Demokritus, a preface,\nwhich he entitled [Greek: Ta\\ pro\\ t\u00ea=s a)nagn\u00f4/se\u00f4s t\u00f4=n D\u00eamokri/tou\nbibli/\u00f4n] (Diog. L. ix. 41).\n\nPorphyry tells us, that when he undertook, as literary executor, the\narrangement and publication of the works of his deceased master\nPlotinus, he found fifty-four discourses: which he arranged into six\nEnneads or groups of nine each. He was induced to prefer this\ndistribution, by regard to the perfection of the number six ([Greek:\nteleio/t\u00eati]). He placed in each Ennead discourses akin to each other,\nor on analogous subjects (Porphyry, Vit. Plotin. 24).]\n\n[Side-note: Dramatic principle of classification--was inherited by\nThrasyllus from Aristophanes.]\n\n[Side-note: Authority of the Alexandrine library--editions of Plato\npublished, with the Alexandrine critical marks.]\n\nThat Thrasyllus followed Aristophanes in the principle of his\nclassification, is manifest: that he adopted the dramatic ground and\nprinciple of classification (while amending its details), not because\nhe was himself guided by it, but because he found it already in use\nand sanctioned by the high authority of the Alexandrines--is also\nmanifest, because he himself constructed and tacked to it a better\nclassification, founded upon principles new and incongruous with the\ndramatic. In all this we trace the established ascendancy of the\nAlexandrine library and its eminent literati. Of which ascendancy a\nfarther illustration appears, when we read in Diogenes Laertius that\neditions of Plato were published, carrying along with the text the\nspecial marks of annotation applied by the Alexandrines to Homer and\nother poets: the obelus to indicate a spurious passage, the obelus\nwith two dots to denote a passage which had been improperly declared\nspurious, the X to signify peculiar locutions, the double line or\nDipl\u00ea to mark important or characteristic opinions of Plato--and\nothers in like manner. A special price was paid for manuscripts of\nPlato with these illustrative appendages:[48] which must have been\napplied either by Alexandrines themselves, or by others trained in\ntheir school. When Thrasyllus set himself to edit and re-distribute\nthe Platonic works, we may be sure that he must have consulted one or\nmore public libraries, either at Alexandria, Athens, Rome, Tarsus, or\nelsewhere. Nowhere else could he find all the works together. Now the\nproceedings ascribed to him show that he attached himself to the\nAlexandrine library, and to the authority of its most eminent critics.\n\n[Footnote 48: Diog. L. iii. 65, 66. [Greek: E)pei\\ de\\ kai\\ s\u00eamei=a/\ntina toi=s bibli/ois au)tou= parati/thetai, phe/re kai\\ peri\\ tou/t\u00f4n\nti ei)/p\u00f4men], &c. He then proceeds to enumerate the [Greek: s\u00eamei=a].\n\nIt is important to note that Diogenes cites this statement (respecting\nthe peculiar critical marks appended to manuscripts of the Platonic\nworks) from Antigonus of Karystus in his Life of Zeno the Stoic. Now\nthe date of Antigonus is placed by Mr. Fynes Clinton in B.C. 225,\nbefore the death of Ptolemy III. Euergetes (see Fasti Hellen. B.C.\n225, also Appendix, 12, 80). Antigonus must thus have been\ncontemporary both with Kallimachus and with Aristophanes of Byzantium:\nhe notices the marked manuscripts of Plato as something newly\nedited--[Greek: ne\u00f4sti\\ e)kdothe/nta]): and we may thus see that the work\nof critical marking must have been performed either by Kallimachus and\nAristophanes themselves (one or both) or by some of their\ncontemporaries. Among the titles of the lost treatises of Kallimachus,\none is--about the [Greek: gl\u00f4=ssai] or peculiar phrases of Demokritus.\nIt is therefore noway improbable that Kallimachus should have bestowed\nattention upon the peculiarities of the Platonic text, and the\ninaccuracies of manuscripts. The library had probably acquired several\ndifferent manuscripts of the Platonic compositions, as it had of the\nIliad and Odyssey, and of the Attic tragedies.]\n\n[Side-note: Thrasyllus followed the Alexandrine library and\nAristophanes, as to genuine Platonic works.]\n\nProbably it was this same authority that Thrasyllus followed in\ndetermining which were the real works of Plato, and in setting aside\npretended works. He accepted the collection of Platonic compositions\nsanctioned by Aristophanes and recognised as such in the Alexandrine\nlibrary. As far as our positive knowledge goes, it fully bears out\nwhat is here stated: all the compositions recognised by Aristophanes\n(unfortunately Diogenes does not give a complete enumeration of those\nwhich he recognised) are to be found in the catalogue of Thrasyllus.\nAnd the evidentiary value of this fact is so much the greater, because\nthe most questionable compositions (I mean, those which modern critics\nreject or even despise) are expressly included in the recognition of\nAristophanes, and passed from him to Thrasyllus--Leges, Epinomis,\nMinos, Epistol\u00e6, Sophist\u00eas, Politikus. Exactly on those points on\nwhich the authority of Thrasyllus requires to be fortified against\nmodern objectors, it receives all the support which coincidence with\nAristophanes can impart. When we know that Thrasyllus adhered to\nAristophanes on so many disputable points of the catalogue, we may\ninfer pretty certainly that he adhered to him in the remainder. In\nregard to the question, Which were Plato's genuine works? it was\nperfectly natural that Thrasyllus should accept the recognition of the\ngreatest library then existing: a library, the written records of\nwhich could be traced back to Demetrius Phalereus. He followed this\nexternal authority: he did not take each dialogue to pieces, to try\nwhether it conformed to a certain internal standard--a \"platonisches\nGef\u00fchl\"--of his own.\n\n[Side-note: Ten spurious dialogues, rejected by all other critics as\nwell as by Thrasyllus--evidence that these critics followed the common\nauthority of the Alexandrine library.]\n\nThat the question between genuine and spurious Platonic dialogues was\ntried in the days of Thrasyllus, by external authority and not by\ninternal feeling--we may see farther by the way in which Diogenes\nLaertius speaks of the spurious dialogues. \"The following dialogues\n(he says) are declared to be spurious _by common consent_: 1. Eryxias\nor Erasistratus. 2. Akephali or Sisyphus. 3. Demodokus. 4. Axiochus.\n5. Halkyon. 6. Midon or Hippotrophus. 7. Ph\u00e6akes. 8. Chelidon. 9.\nHebdom\u00ea. 10. Epimenides.\"[49] There was, then, unanimity, so far as\nthe knowledge of Diogenes Laertius reached, as to genuine and\nspurious. All the critics whom he valued, Thrasyllus among them,\npronounced the above ten dialogues to be spurious: all of them agreed\nalso in accepting the dialogues in the list of Thrasyllus as\ngenuine.[50] Of course the ten spurious dialogues must have been\ntalked of by some persons, or must have got footing in some editions\nor libraries, as real works of Plato: otherwise there could have been\nno trial had or sentence passed upon them. But what Diogenes affirms\nis, that Thrasyllus and all the critics whose opinion he esteemed,\nconcurred in rejecting them. We may surely presume that this unanimity\namong the critics, both as to all that they accepted and all that they\nrejected, arose from common acquiescence in the authority of the\nAlexandrine library.[51] The ten rejected dialogues were not in the\nAlexandrine library--or at least not among the rolls therein\nrecognised as Platonic.\n\n[Footnote 49: Diog. L. iii. 62: [Greek: notheu/ontai de\\ t\u00f4=n\ndialo/g\u00f4n o(mologoume/n\u00f4s].\n\nCompare Prolegomena [Greek: t\u00ea=s Pla/t\u00f4nos Philosophi/as], in\nHermann's Appendix Platonica, p. 219.]\n\n[Footnote 50: It has been contended by some modern critics, that\nThrasyllus himself doubted whether the Hipparchus was Plato's work.\nWhen I consider that dialogue, I shall show that there is no adequate\nground for believing that Thrasyllus doubted its genuineness.]\n\n[Footnote 51: Diogenes (ix. 49) uses the same phrase in regard to the\nspurious works ascribed to Demokritus, [Greek: ta\\ d' o(mologoume/n\u00f4s\ne)sti\\n a)llo/tria]. And I believe that he means the same thing by it:\nthat the works alluded to were not recognised in the Alexandrine\nlibrary as belonging to Demokritus, and were accordingly excluded from\nthe tetralogies (of Demokritus) prepared by Thrasyllus.]\n\n[Side-note: Thrasyllus did not follow an internal sentiment of his own\nin rejecting dialogues as spurious.]\n\nIf Thrasyllus and the others did not proceed upon this evidence in\nrejecting the ten dialogues, and did not find in them any marks of\ntime such as to exclude the supposition of Platonic authorship--they\ndecided upon what is called internal evidence: a critical sentiment,\nwhich satisfied them that these dialogues did not possess the Platonic\ncharacter, style, manner, doctrines, merits, &c. Now I think it highly\nimprobable that Thrasyllus could have proceeded upon any such\nsentiment. For when we survey the catalogue of works which he\nrecognised as genuine, we see that it includes the widest diversity of\nstyle, manner, doctrine, purpose, and merits: that the disparate\nepithets, which he justly applies to discriminate the various\ndialogues, cannot be generalised so as to leave any intelligible\n\"Platonic character\" common to all. Now since Thrasyllus reckoned\namong the genuine works of Plato, compositions so unlike, and so\nunequal in merit, as the Republic, Protagoras, Gorgias, Lysis,\nParmenid\u00eas, Symposion, Phil\u00eabus, Menexenus, Leges, Epinomis,\nHipparchus, Minos, Theag\u00eas, Epistol\u00e6, &c., not to mention a\ncomposition obviously unfinished, such as the Kritias--he could have\nlittle scruple in believing that Plato also composed the Eryxias,\nSisyphus, Demodokus, and Halkyon. These last-mentioned dialogues still\nexist, and can be appreciated.[52] Allowing, for the sake of argument,\nthat we are entitled to assume our own sense of worth as a test of\nwhat is really Plato's composition, it is impossible to deny, that if\nthese dialogues are not worthy of the author of Republic and\nProtagoras, they are at least worthy of the author of the Leges,\nEpinomis, Hipparchus, Minos, &c. Accordingly, if the internal\nsentiment of Thrasyllus did not lead him to reject these last four,\nneither would it lead him to reject the Eryxias, Sisyphus, and\nHalkyon. I conclude therefore that if he, and all the other critics\nwhom Diogenes esteemed, agreed in rejecting the ten dialogues as\nspurious--their verdict depended not upon any internal sentiment, but\nupon the authority of the Alexandrine library.[53]\n\n[Footnote 52: The Axiochus, Eryxias, Sisyphus, and Demodokus, are\nprinted as Apocrypha annexed to most editions of Plato, together with\ntwo other dialogues entitled De Justo and De Virtute. The Halkyon has\ngenerally appeared among the works of Lucian, but K. F. Hermann has\nrecently printed it in his edition of Plato among the Platonic\nApocrypha.\n\nThe Axiochus contains a mark of time (the mention of [Greek:\nA)kad\u00eami/a] and [Greek: Lukei=on], p. 367), as F. A. Wolf has\nobserved, proving that it was not composed until the Platonic and\nPeripatetic schools were both of them in full establishment at\nAthens--that is, certainly after the death of Plato, and probably after\nthe death of Aristotle. It is possible that Thrasyllus may have proceeded\nupon this evidence of time, at least as collateral proof, in\npronouncing the dialogue not to be the work of Plato. The other four\ndialogues contain no similar evidence of date.\n\nFavorinus affirmed that Halkyon was the work of an author named Leon.\n\nSome said (Diog. L. iii. 37) that Philippus of Opus, one of the\ndisciples of Plato, transcribed the Leges, which were on waxen tablets\n([Greek: e)n k\u00ear\u00f4=|]), and that the Epinomis was his work ([Greek:\ntou/tou de\\ kai\\ t\u00ea\\n E)pinomi/da phasi\\n ei)=nai]). It was probably\nthe work of Philippus only in the sense in which the Leges were his\nwork--that he made a fair and durable copy of parts of it from the\nwax. Thrasyllus admitted it with the rest as Platonic.]\n\n[Footnote 53: Mullach (Democr. Fragm. p. 100) accuses Thrasyllus of an\nentire want of critical sentiment, and pronounces his catalogue to be\naltogether without value as an evidence of genuine Platonic\nworks--because Thrasyllus admits many dialogues, \"quos doctorum nostri\ns\u00e6culi virorum acumen \u00e8 librorum Platonicorum numero exemit\".\n\nThis observation exactly illustrates the conclusion which I desire to\nbring out. I admit that Thrasyllus had a critical sentiment different\nfrom that of the modern Platonic commentators; but I believe that in\nthe present case he proceeded upon other evidence--recognition by the\nAlexandrine library. My difference with Mullach is, that I consider\nthis recognition (in a question of genuine or spurious) as more\ntrustworthy evidence than the critical sentiment of modern literati.]\n\n[Side-note: Results as to the trustworthiness of the Thrasyllean\nCanon.]\n\nOn this question, then, of the Canon of Plato's works (as compared\nwith the works of other contemporary authors) recognised by\nThrasyllus--I consider that its claim to trustworthiness is very high,\nas including all the genuine works, and none but the genuine works, of\nPlato: the following facts being either proved, or fairly presumable.\n\n1. The Canon rests on the authority of the Alexandrine library and its\nerudite librarians;[54] whose written records went back to the days of\nPtolemy Soter, and Demetrius Phalereus, within a generation after the\ndeath of Plato.\n\n2. The manuscripts of Plato at his death were preserved in the school\nwhich he founded; where they continued for more than thirty years\nunder the care of Speusippus and Xenokrates, who possessed personal\nknowledge of all that Plato had really written. After Xenokrates, they\ncame under the care of Polemon and the succeeding Scholarchs, from\nwhom Demetrius Phalereus probably obtained permission to take copies\nof them for the nascent museum or library at Alexandria or through\nwhom at least (if he purchased from booksellers) he could easily\nascertain which were Plato's works, and which, if any, were spurious.\n\n3. They were received into that library without any known canonical\norder, prescribed system, or interdependence essential to their being\nproperly understood. Kallimachus or Aristophanes devised an order of\narrangement for themselves, such as they thought suitable.\n\n[Footnote 54: Suckow adopts and defends the opinion here stated--that\nThrasyllus, in determining which were the genuine works of Plato and\nwhich were not genuine, was guided mainly by the authority of the\nAlexandrine library and librarians (G. F. W. Suckow, Form der\nPlatonischen Schriften, pp. 170-175). Ueberweg admits this opinion as\njust (Untersuchungen, p. 195).\n\nSuckow farther considers (p. 175) that the catalogue of works of\nesteemed authors, deposited in the Alexandrine library, may be\nregarded as dating from the [Greek: Pi/nakes] of Kallimachus.\n\nThis goes far to make out the presumption which I have endeavoured to\nestablish in favour of the Canon recognised by Thrasyllus, which,\nhowever, these two authors do not fully admit.\n\nK. F. Hermann, too (see Gesch. und Syst. der Platon. Philos. p. 44),\nargues sometimes strongly in favour of this presumption, though\nelsewhere he entirely departs from it.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nPLATONIC CANON AS APPRECIATED AND MODIFIED BY MODERN CRITICS.\n\n\n[Side-note: The Canon of Thrasyllus continued to be generally\nacknowledged, by the Neo-Platonists, as well as by Ficinus and the\nsucceeding critics after the revival of learning.]\n\nThe Platonic Canon established by Thrasyllus maintained its authority\nuntil the close of the last century, in regard to the distinction\nbetween what was genuine and spurious. The distribution indeed did not\ncontinue to be approved: the Tetralogies were neglected, and the order\nof the dialogues varied: moreover, doubts were intimated about\nKleitophon and Epinomis. But nothing was positively removed from, or\npositively added to, the total recognised by Thrasyllus. The\nNeo-Platonists (from the close of the second century B.C., down to the\nbeginning of the sixth A.D.) introduced a new, mystic, and theological\ninterpretation, which often totally changed and falsified Plato's\nmeaning. Their principles of interpretation would have been strange\nand unintelligible to the rhetors Thrasyllus and Dionysius of\nHalikarnassus--or to the Platonic philosopher Charmadas, who expounded\nPlato to Marcus Crassus at Athens. But they still continued to look\nfor Plato in the nine Tetralogies of Thrasyllus, in each and all of\nthem. So also continued Ficinus, who, during the last half of the\nfifteenth century, did so much to revive in the modern world the study\nof Plato. He revived along with it the neo-platonic interpretation.\nThe Argumenta, prefixed to the different dialogues by Ficinus, are\nremarkable, as showing what an ingenious student, interpreting in that\nspirit, discovered in them.\n\nBut the scholars of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth\ncenturies, speaking generally--though not neglecting these\nneo-platonic refinements, were disposed to seek out, wherever they could\nfind it, a more literal interpretation of the Platonic text, correctly\npresented and improved. The next great edition of the works of Plato\nwas published by Serranus and Stephens, in the latter portion of the\nsixteenth century.\n\n[Side-note: Serranus--his six Syzygies--left the aggregate Canon\nunchanged, Tennemann--importance assigned to the Ph\u00e6drus.]\n\nSerranus distributed the dialogues of Plato into six groups which he\ncalled Syzygies. In his first Syzygy were comprised Euthyphron,\nApologia, Kriton, Ph\u00e6don (coinciding with the first Tetralogy of\nThrasyllus), as setting forth the defence of Sokrates and of his\ndoctrine. The second Syzygy included the dialogues introductory to\nphilosophy generally, and impugning the Sophists--Theag\u00eas, Erast\u00e6,\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus, Sophist\u00eas, Euthyd\u00eamus, Protagoras, Hippias II. In the third\nSyzygy were three dialogues considered as bearing on Logic--Kratylus,\nGorgias, Ion. The fourth Syzygy contained the dialogues on Ethics\ngenerally--Phil\u00eabus, Menon, Alkibiad\u00eas I.; on special points of\nEthics--Alkibiad\u00eas II., Charmid\u00eas, Lysis, Hipparchus; and on\nPolitics--Menexenus, Politikus, Minos, Republic, Leges, Epinomis. The\nfifth Syzygy included the dialogues on Physics, and Metaphysics (or\nTheology)--Tim\u00e6us, Kritias, Parmenid\u00eas, Symposion, Ph\u00e6drus, Hippias\nI.** In the sixth Syzygy were ranged the thirteen Epistles, the various\ndialogues which Serranus considered spurious (Kleitophon among them,\nwhich he regarded as doubtful), and the Definitions.\n\nSerranus, while modifying the distribution of the Platonic works, left\nthe entire Canon very much as he found it. So it remained throughout\nthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: the scholars who devoted\nthemselves to Plato were content with improvement of the text,\nphilological illustration, and citations from the ancient\ncommentators. But the powerful impulse, given by Kant to the\nspeculative mind of Europe during the last quarter of the eighteenth\ncentury, materially affected the point of view from which Plato was\nregarded. Tennemann, both in his System of the Platonic Philosophy,\nand in dealing with Plato as a portion of his general history of\nphilosophy, applied the doctrines of Kant largely and even excessively\nto the exposition of ancient doctrines. Much of his comment is\ninstructive, greatly surpassing his predecessors. Without altering the\nPlatonic Canon, he took a new view of the general purposes of Plato,\nand especially he brought forward the dialogue Ph\u00e6drus into a\nprominence which had never before belonged to it, as an index or\nkey-note ([Greek: e)ndo/simon]) to the whole Platonic series. Shortly\nafter Tennemann, came Schleiermacher, who introduced a theory of his\nown, ingenious as well as original, which has given a new turn to all\nthe subsequent Platonic criticism.\n\n[Side-note: Schleiermacher--new theory about the purposes of Plato.\nOne philosophical scheme, conceived by Plato from the\nbeginning--essential order and interdependence of the dialogues, as\ncontributing to the full execution of this scheme. Some dialogues not\nconstituent items in the series, but lying alongside of it. Order of\narrangement.]\n\nSchleiermacher begins by assuming two fundamental postulates, both\naltogether new. 1. A systematic unity of philosophic theme and\npurpose, conceived by Plato in his youth, at first\nobscurely--afterwards worked out through successive dialogues; each\ndialogue disclosing the same purpose, but the later disclosing it more\nclearly and fully, until his old age. 2. A peremptory, exclusive, and\nintentional order by Plato of the dialogues, composed by Plato with a\nview to the completion of this philosophical scheme. Schleiermacher\nundertakes to demonstrate what this order was, and to point out the\ncontribution brought by each successive dialogue to the accomplishment\nof Plato's premeditated scheme.\n\nTo those who understand Plato, the dialogues themselves reveal (so\nSchleiermacher affirms) their own essential order of sequence--their\nown mutual relations of antecedent and consequent. Each presupposes\nthose which go before: each prepares for those which follow.\nAccordingly, Schleiermacher distributes the Platonic dialogues into\nthree groups: the first, or elementary, beginning with Ph\u00e6drus,\nfollowed by Lysis, Protagoras, Lach\u00eas, Charmid\u00eas, Euthyphron,\nParmenid\u00eas: the second, or preparatory, comprising Gorgias, The\u00e6t\u00eatus,\nMenon, Euthyd\u00eamus, Kratylus, Sophist\u00eas, Politikus, Symposion, Ph\u00e6don,\nPhil\u00eabus: the third, or constructive, including Republic, Tim\u00e6us, and\nKritias. These groups or files are all supposed to be marshalled under\nPlatonic authority: both the entire files as first, second, third and\nthe dialogues composing each file, carrying their own place in the\norder, imprinted in visible characters. But to each file, there is\nattached what Schleiermacher terms an Appendix, containing one or more\ndialogues, each a composition by itself, and lying not in the series,\nbut alongside of it (Nebenwerke). The Appendix to the first file\nincludes Apologia, Kriton, Ion, Hippias II., Hipparchus, Minos,\nAlkibiad\u00eas II. The Appendix to the second file consists of Theag\u00eas,\nErast\u00e6, Alkibiad\u00eas I., Menexenus, Hippias I., Kleitophon. That of the\nthird file consists of the Leges. The Appendix is not supposed to\nimply any common positive character in the dialogues which it\nincludes, but simply the negative attribute of not belonging to the\nmain philosophical column, besides a greater harmony with the file to\nwhich it is attached than with the other two files. Some dialogues\nassigned to the Appendixes are considered by Schleiermacher as\nspurious; some however he treats as compositions on special occasions,\nor adjuncts to the regular series. To this latter category belong the\nApologia, Kriton, and Leges. Schleiermacher considers the Charmid\u00eas to\nhave been composed during the time of the Anarchy, B.C. 404: the\nPh\u00e6drus (earliest of all), in Olymp. 93 (B.C. 406), two years\nbefore:[1] the Lysis, Protagoras, and Lach\u00eas, to lie between them in\nrespect of date.\n\n[Footnote 1: Schleierm. vol. i. p. 72; vol. ii. p. 8.]\n\n[Side-note: Theory of Ast--he denies the reality of any preconceived\nscheme--considers the dialogues as distinct philosophical dramas.]\n\nSuch is the general theory of Schleiermacher, which presents to us\nPlato in the character of a Demiurgus, contemplating from the first an\nIdea of philosophy, and constructing a series of dialogues (like a\nKosmos of Schleiermacher), with the express purpose of giving\nembodiment to it as far as practicable. We next come to Ast, who\ndenies this theory altogether. According to Ast, there never was any\nphilosophical system, to the exposition and communication of which\neach successive dialogue was deliberately intended to contribute:\nthere is no scientific or intentional connection between the\ndialogues,--no progressive arrangement of first and second, of\nfoundation and superstructure: there is no other unity or connecting\nprinciple between them than that which they involve as all emanating\nfrom the same age, country, and author, and the same general view of\nthe world (Welt-Ansicht) or critical estimate of man and nature.[2]\nThe dialogues are dramatic (Ast affirms), not merely in their external\nform, but in their internal character: each is in truth a\nphilosophical drama.[3] Their purpose is very diverse and many-sided:\nwe mistake if we imagine the philosophical purpose to stand alone. If\nthat were so (Ast argues), how can we explain the fact, that in most\nof the dialogues there is no philosophical result at all? Nothing but\na discussion without definite end, which leaves every point\nunsettled.[4] Plato is poet, artist, philosopher, blended in one. He\ndoes not profess to lay down positive opinions. Still less does he\nproclaim his own opinions as exclusive orthodoxy, to be poured\nready-prepared into the minds of recipient pupils. He seeks to urge the\npupils to think and investigate for themselves. He employs the form of\ndialogue, as indispensable to generate in their minds this impulse of\nactive research, and to arm them with the power of pursuing it\neffectively.[5] But each Platonic dialogue is a separate composition\nin itself, and each of the greater dialogues is a finished and\nsymmetrical whole, like a living organism.[6]\n\n[Footnote 2: Ast, Leben und Schriften Platon's, p. 40.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Ast, ib. p. 46.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Ast, ibid. p. 89.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Ast, ib. p. 42.]\n\n[Footnote 6: The general view here taken by Ast--dwelling upon the\nseparate individuality as well as upon the dramatic character of each\ndialogue--calling attention to the purpose of intellectual\nstimulation, and of reasoning out different aspects of ethical and\ndialectical questions, as distinguished from endoctrinating purpose--this\ngeneral view coincides more nearly with my own than that of any\nother critic. But Ast does not follow it out consistently. If he were\nconsistent with it, he ought to be more catholic than other critics,\nin admitting a large and undefinable diversity in the separate\nPlatonic manifestations: instead of which, he is the most sweeping of\nall repudiators, on internal grounds. He is not even satisfied with\nthe Parmenides as it now stands; he insists that what is now the\ntermination was not the real and original termination; but that Plato\nmust have appended to the dialogue an explanation of its [Greek:\na)pori/ai], puzzles, and antinomies; which explanation is now lost.]\n\n[Side-note: His order of arrangement. He admits only fourteen\ndialogues as genuine, rejecting all the rest.]\n\nThough Ast differs thus pointedly from Schleiermacher in the\nenunciation of his general principle, yet he approximates to him more\nnearly when he comes to detail: for he recognises three classes of\ndialogues, succeeding each other in a chronological order verifiable\n(as he thinks) by the dialogues themselves. His first class (in which\nhe declares the poetical and dramatic element to be predominant)\nconsists of Protagoras, Ph\u00e6drus, Gorgias, Ph\u00e6don. His second class,\ndistinguished by the dialectic element, includes The\u00e6t\u00eatus, Sophist\u00eas,\nPolitikus, Parmenid\u00eas, Kratylus. His third class, wherein the poetical\nand dialectic element are found both combined, embraces Phil\u00eabus,\nSymposion, Republic, Tim\u00e6us, Kritias. These fourteen dialogues, in\nAst's view, constitute the whole of the genuine Platonic works. All\nthe rest he pronounces to be spurious. He rejects Leges, Epinomis,\nMenon, Euthyd\u00eamus, Lach\u00eas, Charmid\u00eas, Lysis, Alkibiades I. and II.,\nHippias I. and II., Ion, Erast\u00e6, Theages, Kleitophon, Apologia,\nKriton, Minos, Epistol\u00e6--together with all the other dialogues which\nwere rejected in antiquity by Thrasyllus. Lastly, Ast considers the\nProtagoras to have been composed in 408 B.C., when Plato was not more\nthan 21 years of age--the Ph\u00e6drus in 407 B.C.--the Gorgias in 404\nB.C.[7]\n\n[Footnote 7: Ast, Leben und Schriften Platon's, p. 376.]\n\n[Side-note: Socher agrees with Ast in denying preconceived scheme--his\narrangement of the dialogues, differing from both Ast and\nSchleiermacher--he rejects as spurious Parmenid\u00eas, Sophist\u00eas,\nPolitikus, Kritias, with many others.]\n\nSocher agrees with Ast in rejecting the fundamental hypothesis of\nSchleiermacher--that of a preconceived scheme systematically worked\nout by Plato. But on many points he differs from Ast no less than from\nSchleiermacher. He assigns the earliest Platonic composition (which he\nsupposes to be Theag\u00eas), to a date preceding the battle of Arginus\u00e6,\nin 406 B.C., when Plato was about 22-23 years of age.[8] Assuming it\nis certain that Plato composed dialogues during the lifetime of\nSokrates, he conceives that the earliest of them would naturally be\nthe most purely Sokratic in respect of theme, as well as the least\ncopious, comprehensive, and ideal, in manner of handling. During the\nsix and a half years between the battle of Arginus\u00e6 and the death of\nSokrates, Socher registers the following succession of Platonic\ncompositions: Theag\u00eas, Lach\u00eas, Hippias II., Alkibiad\u00eas I., Dialogus de\nVirtute (usually printed with the spurious, but supposed by Socher to\nbe a sort of preparatory sketch for the Menon), Menon, Kratylus,\nEuthyphron. These three last he supposes to precede very shortly the\ndeath of Sokrates. After that event, and very shortly after, were\ncomposed the Apologia, Kriton, and Ph\u00e6don.\n\n[Footnote 8: Socher, Ueber Platon's Schriften, p. 102. These critics\nadopt 429** B.C. as the year of Plato's birth: I think 427** B.C.\nis the true year.]\n\nThese eleven dialogues fill up what Socher regards as the first period\nof Plato's life, ending when he was somewhat more than thirty years of\nage. The second period extends to the commencement of his teaching at\nthe Academy, when about 41 or 42 years old (B.C. 386). In this second\nperiod were composed Ion, Euthyd\u00eamus, Hippias I, Protagoras,\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus, Gorgias, Phil\u00eabus--in the order here set forth. During the\nthird period of Plato's life, continuing until he was 65 or more, he\ncomposed Ph\u00e6drus, Menexenus, Symposion, Republic, Tim\u00e6us. To the\nfourth and last period, that of extreme old age, belongs the\ncomposition of the Leges.[9]\n\n[Footnote 9: Socher, Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp. 301-459-460.]\n\nSocher rejects as spurious Hipparchus, Minos, Kleitophon, Alkibiad\u00eas\nII., Erast\u00e6, Epinomis, Epistol\u00e6, Parmenid\u00eas, Sophist\u00eas, Politikus,\nKritias: also Charmid\u00eas, and Lysis, these two last however not quite\nso decisively.\n\n[Side-note: Schleiermacher and Ast both consider Ph\u00e6drus and\nProtagoras as early compositions--Socher puts Protagoras into the\nsecond period, Ph\u00e6drus into the third.]\n\nBoth Ast and Schleiermacher consider Ph\u00e6drus and Protagoras as among\nthe earliest compositions of Plato. Herein Socher dissents from them.\nHe puts Protagoras into the second period, and Ph\u00e6drus into the third.\nBut the most peculiar feature in his theory is, that he rejects as\nspurious Parmenid\u00eas, Sophist\u00eas, Politikus, Kritias.\n\n[Side-note: K. F. Hermann--Stallbaum--both of them consider the\nPh\u00e6drus as a late dialogue--both of them deny preconceived order and\nsystem--their arrangements of the dialogues--they admit new and\nvarying philosophical points of view.]\n\nFrom Schleiermacher, Ast, and Socher, we pass to K. F. Hermann[10]--and\nto Stallbaum, who has prefixed Prolegomena to his edition of each\ndialogue. Both these critics protest against Socher's rejection of the\nfour dialogues last indicated: but they agree with Socher and Ast in\ndenying the reality of any preconceived system, present to Plato's\nmind in his first dialogue, and advanced by regular steps throughout\neach of the succeeding dialogues. The polemical tone of K. F. Hermann\nagainst this theory, and against Schleiermacher, its author, is\nstrenuous and even unwarrantably bitter.[11] Especially the position\nlaid down by Schleiermacher--that Ph\u00e6drus is the earliest of Plato's\ndialogues, written when he was 22 or 23 years of age, and that the\ngeneral system presiding over all the future dialogues is indicated\ntherein as even then present to his mind, afterwards to be worked\nout--is controverted by Hermann and Stallbaum no less than by Ast and\nSocher. All three concur in the tripartite distribution of the life of\nPlato. But Hermann thinks that Plato acquired gradually and\nsuccessively, new points of view, with enlarged philosophical\ndevelopment: and that the dialogues as successively composed are\nexpressions of these varying phases. Moreover, Hermann thinks that\nsuch variations in Plato's philosophy may be accounted for by external\ncircumstances. He reckons Plato's first period as ending with the\ndeath of Sokrates, or rather at an epoch not long after the death of\nSokrates: the second as ending with the commencement of Plato's\nteaching at the Academy, after his return from Sicily--about 385 B.C.:\nthe third, as extending from thence to his old age. To the first, or\nSokratic stadium, Hermann assigns the smaller dialogues: the earliest\nof which he declares to be--Hippias II., Ion, Alkibiad\u00eas I., Lysis,\nCharmid\u00eas, Lach\u00eas: after which come Protagoras and Euthyd\u00eamus, wherein\nthe batteries are opened against the Sophists, shortly before the\ndeath of Sokrates. Immediately after the last mentioned event, come a\nseries of dialogues reflecting the strong and fresh impression left by\nit upon Plato's mind--Apologia, Kriton, Gorgias, Euthyphron, Menon,\nHippias I.--occupying a sort of transition stage between the first and\nthe second period. We now enter upon the second or dialectic period;\npassed by Plato greatly at Megara, and influenced by the philosophical\nintercourse which he there enjoyed, and characterised by the\ncomposition of The\u00e6t\u00eatus, Kratylus, Sophist\u00eas, Politikus,\nParmenid\u00eas.[12] To the third, or constructive period, greatly\ndetermined by the influence of the Pythagorean philosophy, belong\nPh\u00e6drus, Menexenus, Symposion, Ph\u00e6don, Phil\u00eabus, Republic, Tim\u00e6us,\nKritias: a series composed during Plato's teaching at the Academy, and\ncommencing with Ph\u00e6drus, which last Hermann considers to be a sort of\n(Antritts-Programme) inauguratory composition for the opening of his\nschool of oral discourse or colloquy. Lastly, during the final years\nof the philosopher, after all the three periods, come the Leges or\ntreatise de Legibus: placed by itself as the composition of his old\nage.\n\n[Footnote 10: K. F. Hermann, Geschichte und System der Platonischen\nPhilosophie, p. 368, seq. Stallbaum, Disputatio de Platonis Vit\u00e2 et\nScriptis, prefixed to his edition of Plato's Works, p. xxxii., seq.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Ueberweg (Untersuchungen, pp. 50-52) has collected\nseveral citations from K. F. Hermann, in which the latter treats\nSchleiermacher \"wie einen Sophisten, der sich in absichtlicher\nUnwahrhaftigkeit gefalle, mitunter fast als einen Mann der innerlich\nwohl wisse, wie die Sache stehe (n\u00e4mlich, dass sie so sei, wie\nHermann lehrt), der sich aber, etwa aus Lust, seine \u00fcberlegene\nDialektik zu beweisen, M\u00fche gebe, sie in einem anderen Lichte\nerscheinen zu lassen; also--[Greek: to\\n \u00ea(/tt\u00f4 lo/gon krei/tt\u00f4\npoiei=n]--recht in rhetorisch sophistischer Manier.\"\n\nWe know well, from other and independent evidence, what Schleiermacher\nreally was, that he was not only one of the most accomplished\nscholars, but one of the most liberal and estimable men of his age.\nBut how different would be our appreciation if we had no other\nevidence to judge by except the dicta of opponents, and even\ndistinguished opponents, like Hermann! If there be any point clear in\nthe history of philosophy, it is the uncertainty of all judgments,\nrespecting writers and thinkers, founded upon the mere allegations of\nopponents. Yet the Athenian Sophists, respecting whom we have no\nindependent evidence (except the general fact that they had a number\nof approvers and admirers), are depicted confidently by the Platonic\ncritics in the darkest colours, upon the evidence of their bitter\nopponent Plato--and in colours darker than even his evidence warrants.\nThe often-repeated calumny, charged against almost all\ndebaters--[Greek: to\\ to\\n \u00ea(/tto lo/gon krei/tt\u00f4 poiei=n]--by Hermann\nagainst Schleiermacher, by Mel\u00eatus against Sokrates, by Plato against the\nSophists--is believed only against these last.]\n\n[Footnote 12: K. F. Hermann, Gesch. u. Syst. d. Plat. Phil., p. 496,\nseq. Stallbaum (p. xxxiii.) places the Kratylus during the lifetime of\nSokrates, a little earlier than Euthyd\u00eamus and Protagoras, all three\nof which he assigns to Olymp. 94, 402-400 B.C. See also his Proleg. to\nKratylus, tom. v. p. 26.\n\nMoreover, Stallbaum places the Menon and Ion about the same time--a\nfew months or weeks before the trial of Sokrates (Proleg. ad Menonem,\ntom. vi. pp. 20, 21; Proleg. ad Ionem, tom. iv. p. 289). He considers\nthe Euthyphron to have been actually composed at the moment to which\nit professes to refer (viz., after Mel\u00eatus had preferred indictment\nagainst Sokrates), and with a view of defending Sokrates against the\ncharge of impiety (Proleg. ad Euthyphron. tom. vi. pp. 138-139-142).\nHe places the composition of the Charmid\u00eas about six years before the\ndeath of Sokrates (Proleg. ad Charm. p. 86). He seems to consider,\nindeed, that the Menon and Euthyd\u00eamus were both written for the\npurpose of defending Sokrates: thus implying that they too were\nwritten _after_ the indictment was preferred (Proleg. ad Euthyphron.\np. 145).\n\nIn regard to the date of the Euthyphron, Schleiermacher also had\ndeclared, prior to Stallbaum, that it was _unquestionably_\n(unstreitig) composed at a period between the indictment and the trial\nof Sokrates (Einl. zum Euthyphron, vol. ii. p. 53, of his transl. of\nPlato).]\n\n[Side-note: They reject several dialogues.]\n\nHermann and Stallbaum reject (besides the dialogues already rejected\nby Thrasyllus) Alkibiad\u00eas II., Theag\u00eas, Erast\u00e6, Hipparchus, Minos,\nEpinomis: Stallbaum rejects the Kleitophon: Hermann hesitates, and is\nsomewhat inclined to admit it, as he also admits, to a considerable\nextent, the Epistles.[13]\n\n[Footnote 13: Stallbaum, p. xxxiv. Hermann,** pp. 424, 425.]\n\n[Side-note: Steinhart--agrees in rejecting Schleiermacher's\nfundamental postulate--his arrangement of the dialogues--considers the\nPh\u00e6drus as late in order--rejects several.]\n\nSteinhart, in his notes and prefaces to H. M\u00fcller's translation of the\nPlatonic dialogues, agrees in the main with K. F. Hermann, both in\ndenying the fundamental postulate of Schleiermacher, and in settling\nthe general order of the dialogues, though with some difference as to\nindividual dialogues. He considers Ion as the earliest, followed by\nHippias I, Hippias II., Alkibiad\u00eas I., Lysis, Charmid\u00eas, Lach\u00eas,\nProtagoras. These constitute what Steinhart calls the\nethico-Sokratical series of Plato's compositions, having the common\nattributes--That they do not step materially beyond the philosophical\nrange of Sokrates himself--That there is a preponderance of the mimic\nand plastic element--That they end, to all appearance, with unsolved\ndoubts and unanswered questions.[14] He supposes the Charmid\u00eas to have\nbeen composed during the time of the Thirty, the Lach\u00eas shortly\nafterwards, and the Protagoras about two years before the death of\nSokrates. He lays it down as incontestable that the Protagoras was not\ncomposed after the death of Sokrates.[15] Immediately prior to this\nlast-mentioned event, and posterior to the Protagoras, he places the\nEuthyd\u00eamus, Menon, Euthyphron, Apologia, Kriton, Gorgias, Kratylus:\npreparatory to the dialectic series consisting of Parmenid\u00eas,\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus, Sophist\u00eas, Politikus, the result of Plato's stay at Megara,\nand contact with the Eleatic and Megaric philosophers. The third\nseries of dialogues, the mature and finished productions of Plato at\nthe Academy, opens with Ph\u00e6drus. Steinhart rejects as spurious\nAlkibiad\u00eas II., Erast\u00e6, Theag\u00eas, &c.\n\n[Footnote 14: See Steinhart's Proleg. to the Protag. vol. i. p. 430.\nof M\u00fcller's transl. of Plato.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Steinhart, Prolegg. to Charmid\u00eas, p. 295.]\n\n[Side-note: Susemihl--coincides to a great degree with K. F. Hermann\nhis order of arrangement.]\n\nAnother author, also, Susemihl, coincides in the main with the\nprinciples of arrangement adopted by K. F. Hermann for the Platonic\ndialogues. First in the order of chronological composition he places\nthe shorter dialogues--the exclusively ethical, least systematic; and\nhe ranges them in a series, indicating the progressive development of\nPlato's mind, with approach towards his final systematic\nconceptions.[16] Susemihl begins this early series with Hippias II.,\nfollowed by Lysis, Charmid\u00eas, Lach\u00eas, Protagoras, Menon, Apologia,\nKriton, Gorgias, Euthyphron. The seven first, ending with the Menon,\nhe conceives to have been published successively during the lifetime\nof Sokrates: the Menon itself, during the interval between his\nindictment and his death;[17] the Apologia and Kriton, very shortly\nafter his death; followed, at no long interval, by Gorgias and\nEuthyphron.[18] The Ion and Alkibiad\u00eas I. are placed by Susemihl among\nthe earliest of the Platonic compositions, but as not belonging to the\nregular series. He supposes them to have been called forth by some\nspecial situation, like Apologia and Kriton, if indeed they be\nPlatonic at all, of which he does not feel assured.[19]\n\n[Footnote 16: F. Susemihl, Die Genetische Entwickelung der\nPlatonischen Philosophie, Leipsic, 1865, p. 9.]\n\n[Footnote 17: Susemihl, ibid. pp. 40-61-89.]\n\n[Footnote 18: Susemihl, ib. pp. 113-125.]\n\n[Footnote 19: Susemihl, ib. p. 9.]\n\nImmediately after Euthyphron, Susemihl places Euthyd\u00eamus, which he\ntreats as the commencement of a second series of dialogues: the first\nseries, or ethical, being now followed by the dialectic, in which the\nprinciples, process, and certainty of cognition are discussed, though\nin an indirect and preparatory way. This second series consists of\nEuthyd\u00eamus, Kratylus, The\u00e6t\u00eatus, Ph\u00e6drus, Sophist\u00eas, Politikus,\nParmenid\u00eas, Symposion, Ph\u00e6don. Through all these dialogues Susemihl\nprofesses to trace a thread of connection, each successively unfolding\nand determining more of the general subject: but all in an indirect,\nnegative, round-about manner. Allowing for this manner, Susemihl\ncontends that the dialectical counter-demonstrations or Antinomies,\noccupying the last half of the Parmenid\u00eas, include the solution of\nthose difficulties, which have come forward in various forms from the\nEuthyd\u00eamus up to the Sophist\u00eas, against Plato's theory of Ideas.[20]\nThe Ph\u00e6don closes the series of dialectic compositions, and opens the\nway to the constructive dialogues following, partly ethical, partly\nphysical--Phil\u00eabus, Republic, Tim\u00e6us, Kritias.[21] The Leges come last\nof all.\n\n[Footnote 20: Susemihl, ib. p. 355, seq.]\n\n[Footnote 21: Susemihl, pp. 466-470. The first volume of Susemihl's\nwork ends with the Ph\u00e6don.]\n\n[Side-note Edward Munk--adopts a different principle of arrangement,\nfounded upon the different period which each dialogue exhibits of the\nlife, philosophical growth, and old age, of Sokrates--his arrangement,\nfounded on this principle. He distinguishes the chronological order of\ncomposition from the place allotted to each dialogue in the systematic\nplan.]\n\nA more recent critic, Dr. Edward Munk, has broached a new and very\ndifferent theory as to the natural order of the Platonic dialogues.\nUpon his theory, they were intended by Plato[22] to depict the life\nand working of a philosopher, in successive dramatic exhibitions, from\nyouth to old age. The different moments in the life of Sokrates,\nindicated in each dialogue, mark the place which Plato intended it\nto occupy in the series. The Parmenid\u00eas is the first, wherein Sokrates\nis introduced as a young man, initiated into philosophy by the ancient\nParmenid\u00eas: the Ph\u00e6don is last, describing as it does the closing\nscene of Sokrates. Plato meant his dialogues to be looked at partly in\nartistic sequence, as a succession of historical dramas--partly in\nphilosophical sequence, as a record of the progressive development of\nhis own doctrine: the two principles are made to harmonize in the\nmain, though sometimes the artistic sequence is obscured for the\npurpose of bringing out the philosophical, sometimes the latter is\npartially sacrificed to the former.[23] Taken in the aggregate, the\ndialogues from Parmenid\u00eas to Ph\u00e6don form a Sokratic cycle, analogous\nto the historical plays of Shakespeare, from King John to Henry\nVIII.[24] But Munk at the same time contends that this natural order\nof the dialogues--or the order in which Plato intended them to be\nviewed--is not to be confounded with the chronological order of their\ncomposition.[25] The Parmenid\u00eas, though constituting the opening\nPrologue of the whole cycle, was not composed first: nor the Ph\u00e6don\nlast. All of them were probably composed after Plato had attained the\nfull maturity of his philosophy: that is, probably after the opening\nof his school at the Academy in 386 B.C. But in composing each, he had\nalways two objects jointly in view: he adapted the tone of each to the\nage and situation in which he wished to depict Sokrates:[26] he\ncommemorated, in each, one of the past phases of his own\nphilosophising mind.\n\n[Footnote 22: Dr. Edward Munk. Die nat\u00fcrliche Ordnung der Platonischen\nSchriften, Berlin, 1857. His scheme of arrangement is explained\ngenerally, pp. 25-48, &c.]\n\n[Footnote 23: Munk, ib. p. 29.]\n\n[Footnote 24: Munk, ib. p. 27.]\n\n[Footnote 25: Munk, ibid. p. 27.]\n\n[Footnote 26: Munk, ib. p. 54; Preface, p. viii.]\n\nThe Cycle taken in its intentional or natural order, is distributed by\nMunk into three groups, after the Parmenid\u00eas as general prologue.[27]\n\n1. Sokratic or Indirect Dialogues.--Protagoras, Charmid\u00eas, Lach\u00eas,\nGorgias, Ion, Hippias I., Kratylus, Euthyd\u00eamus, Symposion.\n\n2. Direct or Constructive Dialogues.--Ph\u00e6drus, Phil\u00eabus, Republic,\nTim\u00e6us, Kritias.\n\n3. Dialectic and Apologetic Dialogues.--Menon, The\u00e6t\u00eatus, Sophist\u00eas,\nPolitikus, Euthyphron, Apologia, Kriton, Ph\u00e6don.\n\nThe Leges and Menexenus stand apart from the Cycle, as compositions on\nspecial occasion. Alkibiad\u00eas I., Hippias II., Lysis, are also placed\napart from the Cycle, as compositions of Plato's earlier years, before\nhe had conceived the general scheme of it.[28]\n\n[Footnote 27: Munk, ib. p. 50.]\n\n[Footnote 28: Munk, ib. pp. 25-34.]\n\nThe first of the three groups depicts Sokrates in the full vigour of\nlife, about 35 years of age: the second represents him an elderly man,\nabout 60: the third, immediately prior to his death.[29] In the first\ngroup he is represented as a combatant for truth: in the second as a\nteacher of truth: in the third, as a martyr for truth.[30]\n\n[Footnote 29: Munk, ib. p. 26.]\n\n[Footnote 30: Munk, ib. p. 31.]\n\n[Side-note: Views of Ueberweg--attempt to reconcile Schleiermacher and\nHermann--admits the preconceived purpose for the later dialogues,\ncomposed after the foundation of the school, but not for the earlier.]\n\nLastly, we have another German author still more recent, Frederick\nUeberweg, who has again investigated the order and authenticity of the\nPlatonic dialogues, in a work of great care and ability: reviewing the\ntheories of his predecessors, as well as proposing various\nmodifications of his own.[31] Ueberweg compares the different opinions\nof Schleiermacher and K. F. Hermann, and admits both of them to a\ncertain extent, each concurrent with and limiting the other.[32] The\ntheory of a preconceived system and methodical series, proposed by\nSchleiermacher, takes its departure from the Ph\u00e6drus, and postulates\nas an essential condition that that dialogue shall be recognised as\nthe earliest composition.[33] This condition Ueberweg does not admit.\nHe agrees with Hermann, Stallbaum, and others, in referring the\nPh\u00e6drus to a later date (about 386 B.C.), shortly after Plato had\nestablished his school in Athens, when he was rather above forty years\nof age. At this period (Ueberweg thinks) Plato may be considered as\nhaving acquired methodical views which had not been present to him\nbefore; and the dialogues composed after the Ph\u00e6drus follow out, to a\ncertain extent, these methodical views. In the Ph\u00e6drus, the Platonic\nSokrates delivers the opinion that writing is unavailing as a means of\nimparting philosophy: that the only way in which philosophy can be\nimparted is, through oral colloquy adapted by the teacher to the\nmental necessities, and varying stages of progress, of each individual\nlearner: and that writing can only serve, after such oral instruction\nhas been imparted, to revive it if forgotten, in the memory both of\nthe teacher and of the learner who has been orally taught. For the\ndialogues composed after the opening of the school, and after the\nPh\u00e6drus, Ueberweg recognises the influence of a preconceived method\nand of a constant bearing on the oral teaching of the school: for\nthose anterior to that date, he admits no such influence: he refers\nthem (with Hermann) to successive enlargements, suggestions,\ninspirations, either arising in Plato's own mind, or communicated from\nwithout. Ueberweg does not indeed altogether exclude the influence of\nthis non-methodical cause, even for the later dialogues: he allows its\noperation to a certain extent, in conjunction with the methodical:\nwhat he excludes is, the influence of any methodical or preconceived\nscheme for the earlier dialogues.[34] He thinks that Plato composed\nthe later portion of his dialogues (_i.e._, those subsequent to the\nPh\u00e6drus and to the opening of his school), not for the instruction of\nthe general reader, but as reminders to his disciples of that which\nthey had already learnt from oral teaching: and he cites the analogy\nof Paul and the apostles, who wrote epistles not to convert the\nheathen, but to admonish or confirm converts already made by\npreaching.[35]\n\n[Footnote 31: Ueberweg, Untersuchungen.]\n\n[Footnote 32: Ueberweg, p. 111.]\n\n[Footnote 33: Ueberweg, pp. 23-26.]\n\n[Footnote 34: Ueberweg, pp. 107-110-111. \"Sind beide Gesichtspunkte,\nder einer methodischen Absicht und der einer Selbst-Entwicklung\nPlaton's durchweg mit einander zu verbinden, so liegt es auch in der\nNatur der Sache und wird auch von einigen seiner Nachfolger\n(insbesondere nachdr\u00fccklich von Susemihl) anerkannt, dass der erste\nGesichtspunkt vorzugsweise f\u00fcr die sp\u00e4teren Schriften von der Gr\u00fcndung\nder Schule an--der andere vorzugsweise f\u00fcr die fr\u00fcheren--gilt.\"]\n\n[Footnote 35: Ueberweg, pp. 80-86, \"Ist unsere obige Deutung richtig,\nwonach Platon nicht f\u00fcr Fremde zur Belehrung, sondern wesentlich f\u00fcr\nseine Sch\u00fcler zur Erinnerung an den m\u00fcndlichen Unterricht, schrieb\n(wie die Apostel nicht f\u00fcr Fremde zur Bekehrung, sondern f\u00fcr die\nchristlichen Gemeinden zur St\u00e4rke und L\u00e4uterung, nachdem denselben der\nGlaube aus der Predigt gekommen war)--so folgt, dass jede\nArgumentation, die auf den Phaedrus gegr\u00fcndet wird, nur f\u00fcr die Zeit\ngelten kann, in welcher bereits die Platonische Schule bestand.\"]\n\n[Side-note: His opinions as to authenticity and chronology of the\ndialogues, He rejects Hippias Major, Erast\u00e6, Theag\u00eas, Kleitophon,\nParmenid\u00eas: he is inclined to reject Euthyphron and Menexenus.]\n\nUeberweg investigates the means which we possess, either from external\ntestimony (especially that of Aristotle) or from internal evidence, of\ndetermining the authenticity as well as the chronological order of the\ndialogues. He remarks that though, in contrasting the expository\ndialogues with those which are simply enquiring and debating, we may\npresume the expository to belong to Plato's full maturity of life, and\nto have been preceded by some of the enquiring and debating--yet we\ncannot safely presume _all_ these latter to be of his early\ncomposition. Plato may have continued to inclined to compose dialogues\nof mere search, even after the time when he began to compose\nexpository dialogues.[36] Ueberweg considers that the earliest of\nPlato's dialogues are, Lysis, Hippias Minor, Lach\u00eas, Charmid\u00eas,\nProtagoras, composed during the lifetime of Sokrates: next the\nApologia, and Kriton, not long after his death. All these (even the\nProtagoras) he reckons among the \"lesser Platonic writings\".[37] None\nof them allude to the Platonic Ideas or Objective Concepts. The\nGorgias comes next, probably soon after the death of Sokrates, at\nleast at some time earlier than the opening of the school in 386\nB.C.[38] The Menon and Ion may be placed about the same general\nperiod.[39] The Ph\u00e6drus (as has been already observed) is considered\nby Ueberweg to be nearly contemporary with the opening of the school:\nshortly afterwards Symposion and Euthyd\u00eamus:[40] at some subsequent\ntime, Republic, Tim\u00e6us, Kritias, and Leges. In regard to the four\nlast, Ueberweg does not materially differ from Schleiermacher,\nHermann, and other critics: but on another point he differs from them\nmaterially, _viz._: that instead of placing the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, Sophist\u00eas,\nand Politikus, in the Megaric period or prior to the opening of the\nschool, he assigns them (as well as the Ph\u00e6don and Phil\u00eabus) to the\nlast twenty years of Plato's life. He places Ph\u00e6don later than Tim\u00e6us,\nand Politikus later than Ph\u00e6don: he considers that Sophist\u00eas,\nPolitikus, and Phil\u00eabus are among the latest compositions of\nPlato.[41] He rejects Hippias Major, Erast\u00e6, Theag\u00eas, Kleitophon, and\nParmenid\u00eas: he is inclined to reject Euthyphron. He scarcely\nrecognises Menexenus, in spite of the direct attestation of Aristotle,\nwhich attestation he tries (in my judgment very unsuccessfully) to\ninvalidate.[42] He recognises the Kratylus, but without determining\nits date. He determines nothing about Alkibiad\u00eas I. and II.\n\n[Footnote 36: Ueberweg, p. 81.]\n\n[Footnote 37: Ueberweg, pp. 100-105-296. \"Eine Anzahl kleinerer\nPlatonischer Schriften.\"]\n\n[Footnote 38: Ueberweg, pp. 249-267-296.]\n\n[Footnote 39: Ueberweg, pp. 226, 227.]\n\n[Footnote 40: Ueberweg, p. 265.]\n\n[Footnote 41: Ueberweg, pp. 204-292.]\n\n[Footnote 42: Ueberweg, pp. 143-176-222-250.]\n\n[Side-note: Other Platonic critics--great dissensions about scheme and\norder of the dialogues.]\n\nThe works above enumerated are those chiefly deserving of notice,\nthough there are various others also useful, amidst the abundance of\nrecent Platonic criticism. All these writers, Schleiermacher, Ast,\nSocher, K. F. Hermann, Stallbaum, Steinhart, Susemihl, Munk, Ueberweg,\nhave not merely laid down general schemes of arrangement for the\nPlatonic dialogues, but have gone through the dialogues seriatim, each\nendeavouring to show that his own scheme fits them well, and each\nraising objections against the schemes earlier than his own. It is\nindeed truly remarkable to follow the differences of opinion among\nthese learned men, all careful students of the Platonic writings. And\nthe number of dissents would be indefinitely multiplied, if we took\ninto the account the various historians of philosophy during the last\nfew years. Ritter and Brandis accept, in the main, the theory of\nSchleiermacher: Zeller also, to a certain extent. But each of these\nauthors has had a point of view more or less belonging to himself\nrespecting the general scheme and purpose of Plato, and respecting the\nauthenticity, sequence, and reciprocal illustration of the\ndialogues.[43]\n\n[Footnote 43: Socher remarks (Ueber, Platon. p. 225) (after\nenumerating twenty-two dialogues of the Thrasyllean canon, which he\nconsiders the earliest) that of these twenty-two, there are _only two_\nwhich have not been declared spurious by some one or more critics. He\nthen proceeds to examine the remainder, among which are Sophist\u00eas,\nPolitikus, Parmenid\u00eas. He (Socher) declares these three last to be\nspurious, which no critic had declared before.]\n\n[Side-note: Contrast of different points of view instructive--but no\nsolution has been obtained.]\n\nBy such criticisms much light has been thrown on the dialogues in\ndetail. It is always interesting to read the different views taken by\nmany scholars, all careful students of Plato, respecting the order and\nrelations of the dialogues: especially as the views are not merely\ndifferent but contradictory, so that the weak points of each are put\nbefore us as well as the strong. But as to the large problem which\nthese critics have undertaken to solve--though several solutions have\nbeen proposed, in favour of which something may be urged, yet we look\nin vain for any solution at once sufficient as to proof and defensible\nagainst objectors.\n\n[Side-note: The problem incapable of solution. Extent and novelty of\nthe theory propounded by Schleiermacher--slenderness of his proofs.]\n\nIt appears to me that the problem itself is one which admits of no\nsolution. Schleiermacher was the first who proposed it with the large\npretensions which it has since embraced, and which have been present\nmore or less to the minds of subsequent critics, even when they differ\nfrom him. He tells us himself that he comes forward as _Restitutor\nPlatonis_, in a character which no one had ever undertaken before.[44]\nAnd he might fairly have claimed that title, if he had furnished\nproofs at all commensurate to his professions. As his theory is\nconfessedly novel as well as comprehensive, it required greater\nsupport in the way of evidence. But when I read the Introductions (the\ngeneral as well as the special) in which such evidence ought to be\nfound, I am amazed to find that there is little else but easy and\nconfident assumption. His hypothesis is announced as if the simple\nannouncement were sufficient to recommend it[45]--as if no other\nsupposition were consistent with the recognised grandeur of Plato as a\nphilosopher--as if any one, dissenting from it, only proved thereby\nthat he did not understand Plato. Yet so far from being of this\nself-recommending character, the hypothesis is really loaded with the\nheaviest antecedent improbability. That in 406 B.C., and at the age of\n23, in an age when schemes of philosophy elaborated in detail were\nunknown--Plato should conceive a vast scheme of philosophy, to be\nworked out underground without ever being proclaimed, through numerous\nSokratic dialogues one after the other, each ushering in that which\nfollows and each resting upon that which precedes: that he should have\npersisted throughout a long life in working out this scheme, adapting\nthe sequence of his dialogues to the successive stages which he had\nattained, so that none of them could be properly understood unless\nwhen studied immediately after its predecessors and immediately before\nits successors--and yet that he should have taken no pains to impress\nthis one peremptory arrangement on the minds of readers, and that\nSchleiermacher should be the first to detect it--all this appears to\nme as improbable as any of the mystic interpretations of Iamblichus or\nProklus. Like other improbabilities, it may be proved by evidence, if\nevidence can be produced: but here nothing of the kind is producible.\nWe are called upon to grant the general hypothesis without proof, and\nto follow Schleiermacher in applying it to the separate dialogues.\n\n[Footnote 44: Schleiermacher, Einleitung, pp. 22-29. \"Diese nat\u00fcrliche\nFolge (der Platonischen Gespr\u00e4che) wieder herzustellen, diess ist,\nwie jedermann sieht, eine Absicht, welche sich sehr weit entfernt von\nallen bisherigen Versuchen zur Anordnung der Platonischen Werke,\" &c.]\n\n[Footnote 45: What I say about Schleiermacher here will be assented to\nby any one who reads his Einleitung, pp. 10, 11, seq.]\n\n[Side-note: Schleiermacher's hypothesis includes a preconceived\nscheme, and a peremptory order of interdependence among the\ndialogues.]\n\nSchleiermacher's hypothesis includes two parts. 1. A premeditated\nphilosophical scheme, worked out continuously from the first dialogue\nto the last. 2. A peremptory canonical order, essential to this\nscheme, and determined thereby. Now as to the scheme, though on the\none hand it cannot be proved, yet on the other hand it cannot be\ndisproved. But as to the canonical order, I think it may be disproved.\nWe know that no such order was recognised in the days of Aristophanes,\nand Schleiermacher himself admits that before those days it had been\nlost.[46] But I contend that if it was lost within a century after the\ndecease of Plato, we may fairly presume that it never existed at all,\nas peremptory and indispensable to the understanding of what Plato\nmeant. A great philosopher such as Plato (so Schleiermacher argues)\nmust be supposed to have composed all his dialogues with some\npreconceived comprehensive scheme: but a great philosopher (we may\nadd), if he does work upon a preconceived scheme, must surely be\nsupposed to take some reasonable precautions to protect the order\nessential to that scheme from dropping out of sight. Moreover,\nSchleiermacher himself admits that there are various dialogues which\nlie apart from the canonical order and form no part of the grand\npremeditated scheme. The distinction here made between these outlying\ncompositions (Nebenwerke) and the members of the regular series, is\nindeed altogether arbitrary: but the admission of it tends still\nfarther to invalidate the fundamental postulate of a grand Demiurgic\nuniverse of dialogues, each dovetailed and fitted into its special\nplace among the whole. The universe is admitted to have breaks: so\nthat the hypothesis does not possess the only merit which can belong\nto gratuitous hypothesis--that of introducing, if granted, complete\nsymmetry throughout the phenomena.\n\n[Footnote 46: Schleiermacher, Einleitung, p. 24.]\n\n[Side-note: Assumptions of Schleiermacher respecting the Ph\u00e6drus\ninadmissible.]\n\nTo these various improbabilities we may add another--that\nSchleiermacher's hypothesis requires us to admit that the Ph\u00e6drus is\nPlato's earliest dialogue, composed about 406 B.C., when he was 21\nyears of age, on my computation, and certainly not more than 23: that\nit is the first outburst of the inspiration which Sokrates had\nimparted to him,[47] and that it embodies, though in a dim and\npoetical form, the lineaments of that philosophical system which he\nworked out during the ensuing half century. That Plato at this early\nage should have conceived so vast a system--that he should have\nimbibed it from Sokrates, who enunciated no system, and abounded in\nthe anti-systematic negative--that he should have been inspired to\nwrite the Ph\u00e6drus (with its abundant veins, dithyrambic,[48] erotic,\nand transcendental) by the conversation of Sokrates, which exhibited\nacute dialectic combined with practical sagacity, but neither poetic\nfervour nor transcendental fancy,--in all this hypothesis of\nSchleiermacher, there is nothing but an aggravation of\nimprobabilities.\n\n[Footnote 47: See Schleiermacher's Einleitung to the Ph\u00e6drus: \"Der\nPhaidros, der erste Ausbruch seiner Begeisterung vom Sokrates\".]\n\n[Footnote 48: If we read Dionysius of Halikarnassus (De Admirab. Vi\nDic. in Demosth. pp. 968-971, Reiske), we shall find that rhetor\npointing out the Ph\u00e6drus as a signal example of Plato's departure from\nthe manner and character of Sokrates, and as a specimen of misplaced\npoetical exaggeration. Dik\u00e6archus formed the same opinion about the\nPh\u00e6drus (Diog. L. iii. 38).]\n\n[Side-note: Neither Schleiermacher, nor any other critic, has as yet\nproduced any tolerable proof for an internal theory of the Platonic\ndialogues.]\n\nAgainst such improbabilities (partly external partly internal)\nSchleiermacher has nothing to set except internal reasons: that is,\nwhen he shall have arranged the dialogues and explained the\ninterdependence as well as the special place of each, the arrangement\nwill impress itself upon all as being the intentional work of Plato\nhimself.[49] But these \"internal reasons\" (innere Gr\u00fcnde), which are\nto serve as constructive evidence (in the absence of positive\ndeclarations) of Plato's purpose, fail to produce upon other minds the\neffect which Schleiermacher demands. If we follow them as stated in\nhis Introductions (prefixed to the successive Platonic dialogues), we\nfind a number of approximations and comparisons, often just and\ningenious, but always inconclusive for his point: proving, at the very\nbest, what Plato's intention may possibly have been--yet subject to be\ncountervailed by other \"internal reasons\" equally specious, tending to\ndifferent conclusions. And the various opponents of Schleiermacher\nprove just as much and no more, each on behalf of his own mode of\narrangement, by the like constructive evidence--appeal to \"internal\nreasons\". But the insufficient character of these \"internal reasons\"\nis more fatal to Schleiermacher than to any of his opponents: because\nhis fundamental hypothesis--while it is the most ambitious of all and\nwould be the most important, if it could be proved--is at the same\ntime burdened with the strongest antecedent improbability, and\nrequires the amplest proof to make it at all admissible.\n\n[Footnote 49: See the general Einleitung, p. 11.]\n\n[Side-note: Munk's theory is the most ambitious, and the most\ngratuitous, next to Schleiermacher's.]\n\nDr. Munk undertakes the same large problem as Schleiermacher. He\nassumes the Platonic dialogues to have been composed upon a\npreconceived system, beginning when Plato opened his school, about 41\nyears of age. This has somewhat less antecedent improbability than the\nsupposition that Plato conceived his system at 21 or 23 years of age.\nBut it is just as much destitute of positive support. That Plato\nintended his dialogues to form a fixed series, exhibiting the\nsuccessive gradations of his philosophical system--that he farther\nintended this series to coincide with a string of artistic portraits,\nrepresenting Sokrates in the ascending march from youth to old age, so\nthat the characteristic feature which marks the place and time of each\ndialogue, is to be found in the age which it assigns to Sokrates--these\nare positions for the proof of which we are referred to \"internal\nreasons\"; but which the dialogues do not even suggest, much less sanction.\n\n[Side-note: The age assigned to Sokrates in any dialogue is a\ncircumstance of little moment.]\n\nIn many dialogues, the age assigned to Sokrates is a circumstance\nneither distinctly brought out, nor telling on the debate. It is true\nthat in the Parmenid\u00eas he is noted as young, and is made to conduct\nhimself with the deference of youth, receiving hints and admonitions\nfrom the respected veteran of Elea. So too in the Protagoras, he is\ncharacterised as young, but chiefly in contrast with the extreme and\npronounced old age of the Sophist Protagoras: he does not conduct\nhimself like a youth, nor exhibit any of that really youthful or\ndeferential spirit which we find in the Parmenid\u00eas; on the contrary,\nhe stands forward as the rival, cross-examiner, and conqueror of the\nancient Sophist. On the contrary, in the Euthyd\u00eamus,[50] Sokrates is\nannounced as old; though that dialogue is indisputably very analogous\nto the Protagoras, both of them being placed by Munk in the earliest\nof his three groups. Moreover in the Lysis also, Sokrates appears as\nold;--here Munk escapes from the difficulty by setting aside the\ndialogue as a youthful composition, not included in the consecutive\nSokratic Cycle.[51] What is there to justify the belief, that the\nSokrates depicted in the Ph\u00e6drus (which dialogue has been affirmed by\nSchieiermacher and Ast, besides some ancient critics, to exhibit\ndecided marks of juvenility) is older than the Sokrates of the\nSymposion? or that Sokrates in the Phil\u00eabus and Republic is older than\nin the Kratylus or Gorgias? It is true that the dialogues The\u00e6t\u00eatus\nand Euthyphron are both represented as held a little before the death\nof Sokrates, after the indictment of Mel\u00eatus against him had already\nbeen preferred. This is a part of the hypothetical situation, in which\nthe dialogists are brought into company. But there is nothing in the\ntwo dialogues themselves (or in the Menon, which Munk places in the\nsame category) to betoken that Sokrates is old. Holiness, in the\nEuthyphron--Knowledge, in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus--is canvassed and debated just\nas Temperance and Courage are debated in the Charmid\u00eas and Lach\u00eas.\nMunk lays it down that Sokrates appears as a Martyr for Truth in the\nEuthyphron, Menon, and The\u00e6t\u00eatus and as a Combatant for Truth in the\nLach\u00eas, Charmid\u00eas, Euthyd\u00eamus, &c. But the two groups of dialogues,\nwhen compared with each other, will not be found to warrant this\ndistinctive appellation. In the Apologia, Kriton, and Ph\u00e6don, it may\nbe said with propriety that Sokrates is represented as a martyr for\ntruth: in all three he appears not merely as a talker, but as a\npersonal agent: but this is not true of the other dialogues which Munk\nplaces in his third group.\n\n[Footnote 50: Euthyd\u00eamus, c. 4, p. 272.]\n\n[Footnote 51: Lysis, p. 223, ad fin. [Greek: Katage/lastoi gego/namen\ne)g\u00f4/ te, ge/r\u00f4n a)n\u00ea/r, kai\\ u(mei=s]. See Munk, p. 25.]\n\n[Side-note: No intentional sequence or interdependence of the\ndialogues can be made out.]\n\nI cannot therefore accede to this \"natural arrangement of the Platonic\ndialogues,\" assumed to have been intended by Plato, and founded upon\nthe progress of Sokrates as he stands exhibited in each, from youth to\nage--which Munk has proposed in his recent ingenious volume. It is\ninteresting to be made acquainted with that order of the Platonic\ndialogues which any critical student conceives to be the \"natural\norder\". But in respect to Munk as well as to Schleiermacher, I must\nremark that if Plato had conceived and predetermined the dialogues, so\nas to be read in one natural peremptory order, he would never have\nleft that order so dubious and imperceptible, as to be first divined\nby critics of the nineteenth century, and understood by them too in\nseveral different ways. If there were any peremptory and intentional\nsequence, we may reasonably presume that Plato would have made it as\nclearly understood as he has determined the sequence of the ten books\nof his Republic.\n\n[Side-note: Principle of arrangement adopted by Hermann is\nreasonable--successive changes in Plato's point of view: but we cannot\nexplain either the order or the causes of these changes.]\n\nThe principle of arrangement proposed by K. F. Hermann (approved also\nby Steinhart and Susemihl) is not open to the same antecedent\nobjection. Not admitting any preconceived, methodical, intentional,\nsystem, nor the maintenance of one and the same successive\nphilosophical point of view throughout--Hermann supposes that the\ndialogues as successively composed represent successive phases of\nPlato's philosophical development and variations in his point of view.\nHermann farther considers that these variations may be assigned and\naccounted for: first pure Sokratism, next the modifications\nexperienced from Plato's intercourse with the Megaric philosophers,--then\nthe influence derived from Kyr\u00ean\u00ea and Egypt--subsequently that\nfrom the Pythagoreans in Italy--and so forth. The first portion of\nthis hypothesis, taken generally, is very reasonable and probable. But\nwhen, after assuming that there must have been determining changes in\nPlato's own mind, we proceed to inquire what these were, and whence\nthey arose, we find a sad lack of evidence for the answer to the\nquestion. We neither know the order in which the dialogues were\ncomposed,--nor the date when Plato first began to compose,--nor the\nprimitive philosophical mind which his earliest dialogues\nrepresented,--nor the order of those subsequent modifications which\nhis views underwent. We are informed, indeed, that Plato went from\nAthens to visit Megara, Kyr\u00ean\u00ea, Egypt, Italy; but the extent or kind\nof influence which he experienced in each, we do not know at all.[52]\nI think it a reasonable presumption that the points which Plato had in\ncommon with Sokrates were most preponderant in the mind of Plato\nimmediately after the death of his master: and that other trains of\nthought gradually became more and more intermingled as the\nrecollection of his master became more distant. There is also a\npresumption that the longer, more elaborate, and more transcendental\ndialogues (among which must be ranked the Ph\u00e6drus), were composed in\nthe full maturity of Plato's age and intellect: the shorter and less\nfinished may have been composed either then or earlier in his life.\nHere are two presumptions, plausible enough when stated generally, yet\ntoo vague to justify any special inferences: the rather, if we may\nbelieve the statement of Dionysius, that Plato continued to \"comb and\ncurl his dialogues until he was eighty years of age\".[53]\n\n[Footnote 52: Bonitz (in his instructive volume, Platonische Studien,\nWien, 1858, p. 5) points out how little we know about the real\ncircumstances of Plato's intellectual and philosophical development: a\nmatter which most of the Platonic critics are apt to forget.\n\nI confess that I agree with Str\u00fcmpell, that it is impossible to\ndetermine chronologically, from Plato's writings, and from the other\nscanty evidence accessible to us, by what successive steps his mind\ndeparted from the original views and doctrines held and communicated\nby Sokrates (Str\u00fcmpell, Gesch. der Griechen, p. 294, Leipsic, 1861).]\n\n[Footnote 53: Dionys. Hal. De Comp. Verbor. p. 208; Diog. L. iii. 37;\nQuintilian, viii. 6.\n\nF. A. Wolf, in a valuable note upon the [Greek: diaskeuastai\\]\n(Proleg. ad Homer. p. clii.) declares, upon this ground, that it is\nimpossible to determine the time when Plato composed his best\ndialogues. \"Ex his collatis apparet [Greek: diaskeua/zein] a veteribus\nmagistris adscitum esse in potestatem verbi [Greek:\ne)pidiaskeua/zein]: ut in Scenicis prop\u00e9 idem esset quod [Greek:\na)nadida/skein]--h. e. repetito committere fabulam, sed mutando,\naddendo, detrahendo, emendatam, refictam, et secundis curis\nelaboratam. Id enim facere solebant illi poet\u00e6 s\u00e6pissim\u00e9: mox etiam\nalii, ut Apollonius Rhodius. Neque aliter Plato fecit in optimis\ndialogis suis: _quam ob causam exquirere non licet, quando quisque\ncompositus sit_; quum in scenicis fabulis saltem ex didascaliis\nplerumque notum sit tempus, quo edit\u00e6 sunt.\"\n\nPreller has a like remark (Hist. Phil. ex Font. Loc. Context., sect.\n250).\n\nIn regard to the habit of correcting compositions, the contrast\nbetween Plato and Plotinus was remarkable. Porphyry tells us that\nPlotinus, when once he had written any matter, could hardly bear even\nto read it over--much less to review and improve it (Porph. Vit.\nPlotini, 8).]\n\n[Side-note: Hermann's view more tenable than Schleiermacher's.]\n\nIf we compare K. F. Hermann with Schleiermacher, we see that Hermann\nhas amended his position by abandoning Schleiermacher's gratuitous\nhypothesis, of a preconceived Platonic system with a canonical order\nof the dialogues adapted to that system--and by admitting only a\nchronological order of composition, each dialogue being generated by\nthe state of Plato's mind at the time when it was composed. This,\ntaken generally, is indisputable. If we perfectly knew Plato's\nbiography and the circumstances around him, we should be able to\ndetermine which dialogues were first, second, and third, &c., and what\ncircumstances or mental dispositions occasioned the successive\ncomposition of those which followed. But can we do this with our\npresent scanty information? I think not. Hermann, while abandoning the\nhypothesis of Schleiermacher, has still accepted the large conditions\nof the problem first drawn up by Schleiermacher, and has undertaken to\ndecide the real order of the dialogues, together with the special\noccasion and the phase of Platonic development corresponding to each.\nHerein, I think, he has failed.\n\n[Side-note: Small number of certainties, or even reasonable\npresumptions, as to date or order of the dialogues.]\n\nIt is, indeed, natural that critics should form some impression as to\nearlier and later in the dialogues. But though there are some peculiar\ncases in which such impression acquires much force, I conceive that in\nalmost all cases it is to a high degree uncertain. Several dialogues\nproclaim themselves as subsequent to the death of Sokrates. We know\nfrom internal allusions that the The\u00e6t\u00eatus must have been composed\nafter 394 B.C., the Menexenus after 387 B.C., and the Symposion after\n385 B.C. We are sure, by Aristotle's testimony, that the Leges were\nwritten at a later period than the Republic; Plutarch also states that\nthe Leges were composed during the old age of Plato, and this\nstatement, accepted by most modern critics, appears to me\ntrustworthy.[54] The Sophist\u00eas proclaims itself as a second meeting,\nby mutual agreement, of the same persons who had conversed in the\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus, with the addition of a new companion, the Eleatic stranger.\nBut we must remark that the subject of the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, though left\nunsettled at the close of that dialogue, is not resumed in the\nSophist\u00eas: in which last, moreover, Sokrates acts only a subordinate\npart, while the Eleatic stranger, who did not appear in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus,\nis here put forward as the prominent questioner or expositor. So too,\nthe Politikus offers itself as a third of the same triplet: with this\ndifference, that while the Eleatic stranger continues as the\nquestioner, a new respondent appears in the person of Sokrates Junior.\nThe Politikus is not a resumption of the same subject as the\nSophist\u00eas, but a second application of the same method (the method of\nlogical division and subdivision) to a different subject. Plato speaks\nalso as if he contemplated a third application of the same method--the\nPhilosophus: which, so far as we know, was never realised. Again, the\nTim\u00e6us presents itself as a sequel to the Republic, and the Kritias as\na sequel to the Tim\u00e6us: a fourth, the Hermokrates, being apparently\nannounced, as about to follow--but not having been composed.\n\n[Footnote 54: Plutarch, Isid. et Osirid. c. 48, p. 370.]\n\n[Side-note: Trilogies indicated by Plato himself.]\n\nHere then are two groups of three each (we might call them Trilogies,\nand if the intended fourth had been realised, Tetralogies), indicated\nby Plato himself. A certain relative chronological order is here\ndoubtless evident: the Sophist\u00eas must have been composed after the\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus and before the Politikus, the Tim\u00e6us after the Republic and\nbefore the Kritias. But this is all that we can infer: for it does not\nfollow that the sequence must have been immediate in point of time:\nthere may have been a considerable interval between the three forming\nthe so-called Trilogy.[55] We may add, that neither in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus\nnor in the Republic, do we find indication that either of them is\nintended as the first of a Trilogy: the marks proving an intended\nTrilogy are only found in the second and third of the series.\n\n[Footnote 55: It may seem singular that Schlelermacher is among those\nwho adopt this opinion. He maintains that the Sophistes does not\nfollow _immediately_ upon the The\u00e6t\u00eatus; that Plato, though intending\nwhen he finished the The\u00e6t\u00eatus to proceed onward to the Sophist\u00eas,\naltered his intention, and took up other views instead: that the Menon\n(and the Euthyd\u00eamus) come in between them, in immediate sequel to the\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus (Einleitung zum Menon, vol. iii. p. 326).\n\nHere Schleiermacher introduces a new element of uncertainty, which\ninvalidates yet more seriously the grounds for his hypothesis of a\npreconceived sequence throughout all the dialogues. In a case where\nPlato directly intimates an intentional sequence, we are called upon\nto believe, on \"internal grounds\" alone, that he altered his\nintention, and introduced other dialogues. He may have done this: but\nhow are we to prove it? How much does it attenuate the value of his\nintentions, as proofs of an internal philosophical sequence? We become\ninvolved more and more in unsupported hypothesis. I think that K. F.\nHermann's objections against Schleiermacher, on the above ground, have\nmuch force; and that Ueberweg's reply to them is unsatisfactory.\n(Hermann, Gesch. und Syst. der Platon. Phil. p. 350. Ueberweg,\nUntersuchungen, p. 82, seq.)]\n\n[Side-note: Positive dates of all the dialogues--unknown.]\n\nWhile even the relative chronology of the dialogues is thus faintly\nmarked in the case of a few, and left to fallible conjecture in the\nremainder--the positive chronology, or the exact year of composition,\nis not directly marked in the case of any one. Moreover, at the very\noutset of the enquiry, we have to ask, At what period of life did\nPlato begin to publish his dialogues? Did he publish any of them\nduring the lifetime of Sokrates? and if so, which? Or does the\nearliest of them date from a time after the death of Sokrates?\n\n[Side-note: When did Plato begin to compose? Not till after the death\nof Sokrates.]\n\nAmidst the many dissentient views of the Platonic critics, it is\nremarkable that they are nearly unanimous in their mode of answering\nthis question.[56] Most of them declare without hesitation, that Plato\npublished several before the death of Sokrates--that is, before he was\n28 years of age--though they do not all agree in determining which\nthese dialogues were. I do not perceive that they produce any external\nproofs of the least value. Most of them disbelieve (though Stallbaum\nand Hermann believe) the anecdote about Sokrates and his criticism on\nthe dialogue Lysis.[57] In spite of their unanimity, I cannot but\nadopt the opposite conclusion. It appears to me that Plato composed no\nSokratic dialogues during the lifetime of Sokrates.\n\n[Footnote 56: Valentine Rose (De Aristotelis Librorum ordine, p. 25,\nBerlin, 1854), Mullach (Democriti Fragm. p. 99), and R. Sch\u00f6ne (in his\nCommentary on the Platonic Protagoras), are among the critics known to\nme, who intimate their belief that Plato published no Sokratic\ndialogues during the lifetime of Sokrates. In discussing the matter,\nSch\u00f6ne adverts to two of the three lines of argument brought forward\nin my text:--1. The too early and too copious \"productivity\" which the\nreceived supposition would imply in Plato. 2. The improbability that\nthe name of Sokrates would be employed in written dialogues, as\nspokesman, by any of his scholars during his lifetime.\n\nSch\u00f6ne does not touch upon the improbability of the hypothesis,\narising out of the early position and aspirations of Plato himself\n(Sch\u00f6ne, Ueber Platon's Protagoras, p. 64, Leipsic, 1862).]\n\n[Footnote 57: Diog. Laert. iii. 85; Stallbaum, Prolegg. ad Plat. Lys.\np. 90; K. F. Hermann, Gesch. u. Syst. der Plat. Phil. p. 370.\nSchleiermacher (Einl. zum Lysis, i. p. 175) treats the anecdote about\nthe Lysis as unworthy of credence. Diogenes (iii. 38) mentions that\nsome considered the Ph\u00e6drus as Plato's earliest dialogue; the reason\nbeing that the subject of it was something puerile: [Greek: lo/gos de\\\npr\u00f4=ton gra/psai au)to\\n to\\n Phai=dron; kai\\ ga\\r e)/chei\nmeiraki\u00f4=des ti to\\ pro/bl\u00eama. Dikai/archos de\\ kai\\ to\\n tro/pon t\u00ea=s\ngraph\u00ea=s o(/lon e)pime/mphetai \u00f4(s phortiko/n]. Olympiodorus also in\nhis life of Plato mentions the same report, that the Ph\u00e6drus was\nPlato's earliest composition, and gives the same ground of belief,\n\"its dithyrambic character\". Even if the assertion were granted, that\nthe Ph\u00e6drus is the earliest Platonic composition, we could not infer\nthat it was composed during the life-time of Sokrates. But that\nassertion cannot be granted. The two statements, above cited, give it\nonly as a report, suggested to those who believed it by the character\nand subject-matter of the dialogue. I am surprised that Dr.\nVolquardsen, who in a learned volume, recently published, has\nundertaken the defence of the theory of Schleiermacher about the\nPh\u00e6drus (Ph\u00e4dros, Erste Schrift Platon's, Kiel, 1862), can represent\nthis as a \"_feste historische Ueberlieferung_\"--the rather as he\nadmits that Schleiermacher himself placed no confidence in it, and\nrelied upon other reasons (pp. 90-92-93). Comp. Schleiermacher, Einl.\nzum Phaidros, p. 76.\n\nWhoever will read the Epistle of Dionysius of Halikarnassus, addressed\nto Cneius Pompeius (pp. 751-765, Reiske), will be persuaded that\nDionysius can neither have known, nor even believed, that the Ph\u00e6drus\nwas the first composition, and a youthful composition, of Plato. If\nDionysius had believed this, it would have furnished him with the\nprecise excuse which his letter required. For the purpose of his\nletter is to mollify the displeasure of Cn. Pompey, who had written to\nblame him for some unfavourable criticisms on the style of Plato.\nDionysius justifies his criticisms by allusions to the Ph\u00e6drus. If he\nhad been able to add, that the Ph\u00e6drus was a first composition, and\nthat Plato's later dialogues were comparatively free from the like\nfaults--this would have been the most effective way of conciliating\nCn. Pompey.]\n\n[Side-note: Reasons for this opinion. Labour of the composition--does\nnot consist with youth of the author.]\n\nAll the information (scanty as it is) which we obtain from the rhetor\nDionysius and others respecting the composition of the Platonic\ndialogues, announces them to have cost much time and labour to their\nauthor: a statement illustrated by the great number of inversions of\nwords which he is said to have introduced successively in the first\nsentence of the Republic, before he was satisfied to let the sentence\nstand. This corresponds, too, with all that we read respecting the\npatient assiduity both of Isokrates and Demosthenes.[58] A first-rate\nGreek composition was understood not to be purchasable at lower cost.\nI confess therefore to great surprise, when I read in Ast the\naffirmation that the Protagoras was composed when Plato was only 22\nyears old--and when I find Schleiermacher asserting, as if it were a\nmatter beyond dispute, that Protagoras, Ph\u00e6drus, and Parmenid\u00eas, all\nbear evident marks of Plato's youthful age (Jugendlichkeit). In regard\nto the Ph\u00e6drus and Parmenid\u00eas, indeed, Hermann and other critics\ncontest the view of Schleiermacher; and detect, in those two\ndialogues, not only no marks of \"juvenility,\" but what they consider\nplain proofs of maturity and even of late age. But in regard to the\nProtagoras, most of them agree with Schleiermacher and Ast, in\ndeclaring it to be a work of Plato's youth, some time before the death\nof Sokrates. Now on this point I dissent from them: and since the\ndecision turns upon \"internal grounds,\" each must judge for himself.\nThe Protagoras appears to me one of the most finished and elaborate of\nall the dialogues: in complication of scenic arrangements, dramatic\nvivacity, and in the amount of theory worked out, it is surpassed by\nnone--hardly even by the Republic.[59] Its merits as a composition are\nindeed extolled by all the critics; who clap their hands, especially,\nat the humiliation which they believe to be brought upon the great\nSophist by Sokrates. But the more striking the composition is\nacknowledged to be, the stronger is the presumption that its author\nwas more than 22 or 24 years of age. Nothing short of good positive\ntestimony would induce me to believe that such a dialogue as the\nProtagoras could have been composed, even by Plato, before he attained\nthe plenitude of his powers. No such testimony is produced or\nproducible. I extend a similar presumption, even to the Lysis, Lach\u00eas,\nCharmid\u00eas, and other dialogues: though with a less degree of\nconfidence, because they are shorter and less artistic, not equal to\nthe Protagoras. All of them, in my judgment, exhibit a richness of\nideas and a variety of expression, which suggest something very\ndifferent from a young novice as the author.\n\n[Footnote 58: Tim\u00e6us said that Alexander the Great conquered the\nPersian empire in less time than Isokrates required for the\ncomposition of his panegyrical oration (Longinus, De Sublim. c. 4).]\n\n[Footnote 59: \"Als aesthetisches Kunstwerk ist der Dialog Protagoras\ndas meisterhafteste unter den Werken Platon's.' (Socher, Ueber Platon,\np. 226.)]\n\nBut over and above this presumption, there are other reasons which\ninduce me to believe, that none of the Platonic dialogues were\npublished during the lifetime of Sokrates. My reasons are partly\nconnected with Sokrates, partly with Plato.\n\n[Side-note: Reasons founded on the personality of Sokrates, and his\nrelations with Plato.]\n\nFirst, in reference to Sokrates--we may reasonably doubt whether any\nwritten reports of his actual conversations were published during his\nlifetime. He was the most constant, public, and indiscriminate of all\ntalkers: always in some frequented place, and desiring nothing so much\nas a respondent with an audience. Every one who chose to hear him,\nmight do so without payment and with the utmost facility. Why then\nshould any one wish to read written reports of his conversations?\nespecially when we know that the strong interest which they excited in\nthe hearers depended much upon the spontaneity of his inspirations,\nand hardly less upon the singularity of his manner and physiognomy.\nAny written report of what he said must appear comparatively tame.\nAgain, as to fictitious dialogues (like the Platonic) employing the\nname of Sokrates as spokesman--such might doubtless be published\nduring his lifetime by derisory dramatists for the purpose of raising\na laugh, but not surely by a respectful disciple and admirer for the\npurpose of giving utterance to doctrines of his own. The greater was\nthe respect felt by Plato for Sokrates, the less would he be likely to\ntake the liberty of making Sokrates responsible before the public for\nwhat Sokrates had never said.[60] There is a story in Diogenes--to the\neffect that Sokrates, when he first heard the Platonic dialogue called\nLysis, exclaimed--\"What a heap of falsehoods does the young man utter\nabout me!\"[61] This story merits no credence as a fact: but it\nexpresses the displeasure which Sokrates would be likely to feel, on\nhearing that one of his youthful companions had dramatised him as he\nappears in the Lysis. Xenophon tells us, and it is very probable, that\ninaccurate oral reports of the real colloquies of Sokrates may have\ngot into circulation. But that the friends and disciples of Sokrates,\nduring his lifetime, should deliberately publish fictitious dialogues,\nputting their own sentiments into his mouth, and thus contribute to\nmislead the public--is not easily credible. Still less credible is it\nthat Plato, during the lifetime of Sokrates, should have published\nsuch a dialogue as the Ph\u00e6drus, wherein we find ascribed to Sokrates,\npoetical and dithyrambic effusions utterly at variance with the real\nmanifestations which Athenians might hear every day from Sokrates in\nthe market-place.[62] Sokrates in the Platonic Apology, complains of\nthe comic poet Aristophanes for misrepresenting him. Had the Platonic\nPh\u00e6drus been then in circulation, or any other Platonic dialogues, he\nmight with equally good reason have warned the Dikasts against judging\nof him, a real citizen on trial, from the titular Sokrates whom even\ndisciples did not scruple to employ as spokesman for their own\ntranscendental doctrine, and their own controversial sarcasms.\n\n[Footnote 60: Valentine Rose observes, in regard to a dialogue\ncomposed by some one else, wherein Plato was introduced as one of the\ninterlocutors, that it could not have been composed until after\nPlato's death, and that the dialogues of Plato were not composed until\nafter the death of Sokrates. \"Platonis autem sermones antequam mortuus\nfuerit, scripto neminem tradidisse, neque magistri viventis person\u00e2 in\ndialogis abusos fuisse (non magis quam vivum Socratem induxerunt\nXenophon, Plato, c\u00e6teri Socratici), hoc veterum mori et religioni\nquivis facile concedet,\" &c. (V. Rose, Aristoteles Pseudepigraphus,\npp. 57, 74, Leipsic, 1863.)--Val. Rose expresses the same opinion (that\nnone of the Sokratic dialogues, either by Plato or the other\ncompanions of Sokrates, were written until after the death of\nSokrates) in his earlier work, De Aristotelis Librorum Ordine et\nAuctoritate, p. 25.]\n\n[Footnote 61: Diog. L. iii. 35.]\n\n[Footnote 62: In regard to the theory (elaborated by Schleiermacher,\nrecently again defended by Volquardsen), that the Ph\u00e6drus is the\nearliest among the Platonic dialogues, composed about 406 B.C., it\nappears to me inconsistent also with what we know about Lysias. In the\nPlatonic Ph\u00e6drus, Lysias is presented as a [Greek: logogra/phos] of\nthe highest reputation and eminence (p. 228 A, 257 C, and indeed\nthroughout the whole dialogue). Now this is quite inconsistent with\nwhat we read from Lysias himself in the indictment which he preferred\nagainst Eratosthenes, not long after the restoration of the democracy,\n403 B.C. He protests therein strenuously that he had never had\njudicial affairs of his own, nor meddled with those of others; and he\nexpresses the greatest apprehension from his own [Greek: a)peiri/a]\n(sects. 4-6). I cannot believe that this would be said by a person\nwhom Ph\u00e6drus terms [Greek: deino/tatos \u00f4(\\n t\u00f4=n nu=n gra/phein].\nMoreover, Lysias, in that same discourse, describes his own position\nat Athens, anterior to the Thirty: he belonged to a rich metic family,\nand was engaged along with his brother Polemarchus in a large\nmanufactory of shields, employing 120 slaves (s. 20). A person thus\nrich and occupied was not likely to become a professed and notorious\n[Greek: logogra/phos], though he may have been a clever and\naccomplished man. Lysias was plundered and impoverished by the Thirty;\nand he is said to have incurred much expense in aiding the efforts of\nThrasybulus. It was after this change of circumstances that he took to\nrhetoric as a profession; and it is to some one of these later years\nthat the Platonic Ph\u00e6drus refers.]\n\n[Side-note: Reasons, founded on the early life, character, and\nposition of Plato.]\n\nSecondly, in regard to Plato, the reasons leading to the same\nconclusion are yet stronger. Unfortunately, we know little of the life\nof Plato before he attained the age of 28, that is, before the death\nof Sokrates: but our best means of appreciating it are derived from\nthree sources. 1. Our knowledge of the history of Athens from 409-399\nB.C., communicated by Thucydides, Xenophon, &c. 2. The seventh Epistle\nof Plato himself, written four or five years before his death (about\n352 B.C.). 3. A few hints from the Memorabilia of Xenophon.\n\n[Side-note: Plato's early life--active by necessity, and to some\nextent ambitious.]\n\nTo these evidences about the life of Plato, it has not been customary\nto pay much attention. The Platonic critics seem to regard Plato so\nentirely as a spiritual person (\"like a blessed spirit, visiting earth\nfor a short time,\" to cite a poetical phrase applied to him by G\u00f6the),\nthat they disdain to take account of his relations with the material\nworld, or with society around him. Because his mature life was\nconsecrated to philosophy, they presume that his youth must have been\nso likewise. But this is a hasty assumption. You cannot thus abstract\n_any_ man from the social medium by which, he is surrounded. The\nhistorical circumstances of Athens from Plato's nineteenth year to his\ntwenty-sixth (409-403 B.C.) were something totally different from what\nthey afterwards became. They were so grave and absorbing, that had he\nbeen ever so much inclined to philosophy, he would have been compelled\nagainst his will to undertake active and heavy duty as a citizen.\nWithin those years (as I have observed in a preceding chapter) fell\nthe closing struggles of the Peloponnesian war; in which (to repeat\nwords already cited from Thucydides) Athens became more a military\npost than a city--every citizen being almost habitually under arms:\nthen the long blockade, starvation, and capture of the city, followed\nby the violences of the Thirty, the armed struggle under Thrasybulus,\nand the perilous, though fortunately successful and equitable,\nrenovation of the democracy. These were not times for a young citizen,\nof good family and robust frame, to devote himself exclusively to\nphilosophy and composition. I confess myself surprised at the\nassertion of Schleiermacher and Steinhart, that Plato composed the\nCharmid\u00eas and other dialogues under the Anarchy.[63] Amidst such\ndisquietude and perils he could not have renounced active duty for\nphilosophy, even if he had been disposed to do so.\n\n[Footnote 63: Steinhart, Einl. zum Laches, vol. i. p. 358, where he\nsays that Plato composed the Charmid\u00eas, Lach\u00eas, and Protagoras, all in\n404 B.C. under the Thirty. Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Charmides,\nvol. ii. p. 8.\n\nThe lines of Lucretius (i. 41) bear emphatically upon this trying\nseason:\n\nNam neque nos agere hoc patriai tempore iniquo\nPossumus \u00e6quo animo nec Memmi clara propago\nTalibus in rebus communi desse saluti.]\n\nBut, to make the case stronger, we learn from Plato's own testimony,\nin his seventh Epistle, that he was not at that time disposed to\nrenounce active political life. He tells us himself, that as a young\nman he was exceedingly eager, like others of the same age, to meddle\nand distinguish himself in active politics.[64] How natural such\neagerness was, to a young citizen of his family and condition, may be\nseen by the analogy of his younger brother Glaukon, who was\nprematurely impatient to come forward: as well as by that of his\ncousin Charmides, who had the same inclination, but was restrained by\nexaggerated diffidence of character. Now we know that the real\nSokrates (very different from the Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias)\ndid not seek to deter young men of rank from politics, and to consign\nthem to inactive speculation. Sokrates gives[65] earnest encouragement\nto Charmides; and he does not discourage Glaukon, but only presses him\nto adjourn his pretensions until the suitable stock of preliminary\ninformation has been acquired. We may thus see that assuming the young\nPlato to be animated with political aspirations, he would certainly\nnot be dissuaded,--nay, he would probably be encouraged--by Sokrates.\n\n[Footnote 64: Plato, Epist. vii. p. 324 C. [Greek: Ne/os e)g\u00f4/ pote\n\u00f4)\\n polloi=s d\u00ea\\ tau)to\\n e)/pathon; \u00f4)|\u00ea/th\u00ean, ei) tha=tton\ne)mautou= genoi/m\u00ean ku/rios, e)pi\\ ta\\ koina\\ t\u00ea=s po/le\u00f4s eu)thu\\s\ni)e/nai]. Again, 325 E: [Greek: \u00f4(/ste me, to\\ pr\u00f4=ton poll\u00ea=s mesto\\n\no)/nta o(rm\u00ea=s e)pi\\ to\\ pra/ttein ta\\ koina/], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 65: See the two interesting colloquies of Sokrates, with\nGlaukon and Charmides (Xenoph. Mem. iii. 6, 7).\n\nCharmides was killed along with Kritias during the eight months called\nThe Anarchy, at the battle fought with Thrasybulus and the democrats\n(Xen. Hell. ii. 4, 19). The colloquy of Sokrates with Charmides,\nrecorded by Xenophon in the Memorabilia, must have taken place at some\ntime before the battle of \u00c6gospotami; perhaps about 407 or 406 B.C.]\n\nPlato farther tells us that when (after the final capitulation of\nAthens) the democracy was put down and the government of the Thirty\nestablished, he embarked in it actively under the auspices of his\nrelatives (Kritias, Charmides, &c., then in the ascendant), with the\nardent hopes of youth[66] that he should witness and promote the\naccomplishment of valuable reforms. Experience showed him that he was\nmistaken. He became disgusted with the enormities of the Thirty,\nespecially with their treatment of Sokrates; and he then ceased to\nco-operate with them. Again, after the year called the Anarchy, the\ndemocracy was restored, and Plato's political aspirations revived\nalong with it. He again put himself forward for active public life,\nthough with less ardent hopes.[67] But he became dissatisfied with the\nmarch of affairs, and his relationship with the deceased Kritias was\nnow a formidable obstacle to popularity. At length, four years after\nthe restoration of the democracy, came the trial and condemnation of\nSokrates. It was that event which finally shocked and disgusted Plato,\nconverting his previous dissatisfaction into an utter despair of\nobtaining any good results from existing governments. From\nthenceforward, he turned away from practice and threw himself into\nspeculation.[68]\n\n[Footnote 66: Plato, Epist. vii. 324 D. [Greek: Kai\\ e)g\u00f4\\ thaumasto\\n\nou)de\\n e)/pathon u(po\\ neo/t\u00eatos], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 67: Plato, Epist. vii. 325 A. [Greek: Pa/lin de/,\nbradu/teron me\\n, ei)=lke de/ me o(/m\u00f4s \u00ea( peri\\ to\\ pra/ttein ta\\\nkoina\\ kai\\ politika\\ e)pithumi/a.]]\n\n[Footnote 68: Plato, Epist. vii. 325 C: [Greek: Skopou=nti d\u00ea/ moi\ntau=ta te kai\\ tou\\s a)nthr\u00f4/pous tou\\s pra/ttontas ta\\ politika/],\n&c. 325 E: [Greek: Kai\\ tou= me\\n skopei=n m\u00ea\\ a)post\u00ea=nai, p\u00ea= pote\\\na)/meinon a)\\n gi/gnoito peri/ te au)ta\\ tau=ta kai\\ d\u00ea\\ kai\\ peri\\\nt\u00ea\\n pa=san politei/an, tou= de\\ pra/ttein au)= perime/nein ai)ei\\\nkairou/s, teleut\u00f4=nta de\\ no\u00ea=sai peri\\ pas\u00f4=n t\u00f4=n nu=n po/le\u00f4n o(/ti\nkak\u00f4=s xu/mpasai politeu/ontai].\n\nI have already stated in the 84th chapter of my History, describing\nthe visit of Plato to Dionysius in Sicily, that I believe the Epistles\nof Plato to be genuine, and that the seventh Epistle especially\ncontains valuable information. Some critics undoubtedly are of a\ndifferent opinion, and consider them as spurious. But even among these\ncritics, several consider that the author of the Epistles, though not\nPlato himself, was a contemporary and well informed: so that his\nevidence is trustworthy. See K. F. Hermann, Gesammelte Abhandlungen,\npp. 282-283. The question has been again discussed recently by\nUeberweg (Untersuch. \u00fcber d. Aechth. u. Zeitf. d. Plat. Schriften, pp.\n120-123-125-129), who gives his own opinion that the letters are not\nby Plato, and produces various arguments to the point. His arguments\nare noway convincing to me: for the mysticism and pedantry of the\nEpistles appear to me in full harmony with the Tim\u00e6us and Leges, and\nwith the Pythagorean bias of Plato's later years, though not in\nharmony with the Protagoras, and various other dialogues. Yet Ueberweg\nalso declares his full belief that the seventh Epistle is the\ncomposition of a well-informed contemporary, and perfectly worthy of\ncredit as to the facts and K. F. Hermann declares the same. This is\nenough for my present purpose.\n\nThe statement, trusted by all the critics, that Plato's first visit to\nSyracuse was made when he was about 40 years of age, depends\naltogether on the assertion of the seventh Epistle. How numerous are\nthe assertions made by Platonic critics respecting Plato, upon\nevidence far slighter than that of these Epistles! Boeckh considers\nthe seventh Epistle as the genuine work of Plato. Valentine Rose also\npronounces it to be genuine, though he does not consider the other\nEpistles to be so (De Aristotelis Librorum Ordine, p. 25, p. 114,\nBerlin, 1854). Tennemann admits the Epistles generally to be genuine\n(System der Platon. Philos. i. p. 106).\n\nIt is undeniable that these Epistles of Plato were recognised as\ngenuine and trusted by all the critics of antiquity from Aristophanes\ndownwards. Cicero, Plutarch, Aristeides, &c., assert facts upon the\nauthority of the Epistles. Those who declare the Epistles to be\nspurious and worthless, ought in consistency to reject the statements\nwhich Plutarch makes on the authority of the Epistles: they will find\nthemselves compelled to discredit some of the best parts of his life\nof Dion. Compare Aristeides, [Greek: Peri\\ R(\u00eatorik\u00ea=s] Or. 45, pp.\n90-106, Dindorf.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato did not retire from political life until after the\nrestoration of the democracy, nor devote himself to philosophy until\nafter the death of Sokrates.]\n\nThis very natural recital, wherein Plato (at the age of 75) describes\nhis own youth between 21 and 28--taken in conjunction with the other\nreasons just enumerated--impresses upon me the persuasion, that Plato\ndid not devote himself to philosophy, nor publish any of his\ndialogues, before the death of Sokrates: though he may probably have\ncomposed dramas, and the beautiful epigrams which Diogenes has\npreserved. He at first frequented the society of Sokrates, as many\nother aspiring young men frequented it (likewise that of Kratylus, and\nperhaps that of various Sophists[69]), from love of ethical debate,\nadmiration of dialectic power, and desire to acquire a facility of the\nsame kind in his own speech: not with any view to take up philosophy\nas a profession, or to undertake the task either of demolishing or\nconstructing in the region of speculation. No such resolution was\nadopted until after he had tried political life and had been\ndisappointed:--nor until such disappointment had been still more\nbitterly aggravated by the condemnation of Sokrates. It was under this\nfeeling that Plato first consecrated himself to that work of\nphilosophical meditation and authorship,--of inquisitive travel and\nconverse with philosophers abroad,--and ultimately of teaching in the\nAcademy,--which filled up the remaining fifty years of his life. The\ndeath of Sokrates left that venerated name open to be employed as\nspokesman in his dialogues: and there was nothing in the political\ncondition of Athens after 399 B.C., analogous to the severe and\nperilous struggle which tasked all the energies of her citizens from\n409 B.C. down to the close of the war.\n\n[Footnote 69: Compare Plat. Protag. 312 A-B, 315 A, where the\ndistinction is pointedly drawn between one who visited Protagoras\n[Greek: e)pi\\ te/chn\u00ea|, \u00f4(s d\u00eamiourgo\\s e)so/menos], and others who\ncame simply [Greek: e)pi\\ paidei/a|, \u00f4(s to\\n i)di\u00f4/t\u00ean kai\\ to\\n\ne)leu/theron pre/pei.]]\n\n[Side-note: All Plato's dialogues were composed during the fifty-one\nyears after the death of Sokrates.]\n\nI believe, on these grounds, that Plato did not publish any dialogues\nduring the life of Sokrates. An interval of fifty-one years separates\nthe death of Sokrates from that of Plato. Such an interval is more\nthan sufficient for all the existing dialogues of Plato, without the\nnecessity of going back to a more youthful period of his age. As to\ndistribution of the dialogues, earlier or later, among these fifty-one\nyears, we have little or no means of judging. Plato has kept out of\nsight--with a degree of completeness which is really surprising--not\nmerely his own personality, but also the marks of special date and the\ndetermining circumstances in which each dialogue was composed. Twice\nonly does he mention his own name, and that simply in passing, as if\nit were the name of a third person.[70] As to the point of time to\nwhich he himself assigns each dialogue, much discussion has been held\nhow far Plato has departed from chronological or historical\npossibility; how far he has brought persons together in Athens who\nnever could have been there together, or has made them allude to\nevents posterior to their own decease. A speaker in Athen\u00e6us[71]\ndwells, with needless acrimony, on the anachronisms of Plato, as if\nthey were gross faults. Whether they are faults or not, may fairly be\ndoubted: but the fact of such anachronisms cannot be doubted, when we\nhave before us the Menexenus and the Symposion. It cannot be supposed,\nin the face of such evidence, that Plato took much pains to keep clear\nof anachronisms: and whether they be rather more or rather less\nnumerous, is a question of no great moment.\n\n[Footnote 70: In the Apologia, c. 28, p. 38, Sokrates alludes to Plato\nas present in court, and as offering to become guarantee, along with\nothers, for his fine. In the Ph\u00e6don, Plato is mentioned as being sick;\nto explain why he was not present at the last scene of Sokrates\n(Ph\u00e6don, p. 59 B). Diog. L. iii. 37.\n\nThe pathos as well as the detail of the narrative in the Ph\u00e6don makes\none imagine that Plato really was present at the scene. But being\nobliged, by the uniform scheme of his compositions, to provide another\nnarrator, he could not suffer it to be supposed that he was himself\npresent.\n\nI have already remarked that this mention of Plato in the third person\n([Greek: Pla/t\u00f4n de/, oi)=mai, \u00ea)sthe/nei]) was probably one of the\nreasons which induced Pan\u00e6tius to declare the Ph\u00e6don _not_ to be the\nwork of Plato.]\n\n[Footnote 71: Athen\u00e6us, v. pp. 220, 221. Didymus also attacked Plato\nas departing from historical truth--[Greek: e)piphuo/menos t\u00f4=|\nPla/t\u00f4ni \u00f4(s paristorou=nti]--against which the scholiast (ad Leges,\ni. p. 630) defends him. Groen van Prinsterer, Prosopogr. Plat. p. 16.\nThe rhetor Aristeides has some remarks of the same kind, though less\nacrimonious (Orat. xlvii. p. 435, Dind.) than the speaker in\nAthen\u00e6us.]\n\n[Side-note: The Thrasyllean Canon is more worthy of trust than the\nmodern critical theories by which it has been condemned.]\n\nI now conclude my enquiry respecting the Platonic Canon. The\npresumption in favour of that Canon, as laid down by Thrasyllus, is\nstronger (as I showed in the preceding chapter) than it is in regard\nto ancient authors generally of the same age: being traceable, in the\nlast resort, through the Alexandrine Museum, to authenticating\nmanuscripts in the Platonic school, and to members of that school who\nhad known and cherished Plato himself.[72] I have reviewed the\ndoctrines of several recent critics who discard this Canon as unworthy\nof trust, and who set up for themselves a type of what Plato _must\nhave_ been, derived from a certain number of items in the\nCanon--rejecting the remaining items as unconformable to their\nhypothetical type. The different theories which they have laid down\nrespecting general and systematic purposes of Plato (apart from the\npurpose of each separate composition), appear to me uncertified and\ngratuitous. The \"internal reasons,\" upon which they justify rejection\nof various dialogues, are only another phrase for expressing their own\ndifferent theories respecting Plato as a philosopher and as a writer. For\nmy part I decline to discard any item of the Thrasyllean Canon, upon such\nevidence as they produce: I think it a safer and more philosophical\nproceeding to accept the entire Canon, and to accommodate my general\ntheory of Plato (in so far as I am able to frame one) to each and all\nof its contents.\n\n[Footnote 72: I find this position distinctly asserted, and the\nauthority of the Thrasyllean catalogue, as certifying the genuine\nworks of Plato, vindicated, by Yxem, in his able dissertation on the\nKleitophon of Plato (pp. 1-3, Berlin, 1846). But Yxem does not set\nforth the grounds of this opinion so fully as the present state of the\nquestion demands. Moreover, he combines it with another opinion, upon\nwhich he insists even at greater length, and from which I altogether\ndissent--that the tetralogies of Thrasyllus exhibit the genuine order\nestablished by Plato himself among the Dialogues.]\n\n[Side-note: Unsafe grounds upon which those theories proceed.]\n\nConsidering that Plato's period of philosophical composition extended\nover fifty years, and that the circumstances of his life are most\nimperfectly known to us--it is surely hazardous to limit the range of\nhis varieties, on the faith of a critical repugnance, not merely\nsubjective and fallible, but withal entirely of modern growth: to\nassume, as basis of reasoning, the admiration raised by a few of the\nfinest dialogues--and then to argue that no composition inferior to\nthis admired type, or unlike to it in doctrine or handling, can\npossibly be the work of Plato. \"The Minos, Theag\u00eas, Epistol\u00e6,\nEpinomis, &c., are unworthy of Plato: nothing so inferior in\nexcellence can have been composed by him. No dialogue can be admitted\nas genuine which contradicts another dialogue, or which advocates any\nlow or incorrect or un-Platonic doctrine. No dialogue can pass which\nis adverse to the general purpose of Plato as an improver of morality,\nand a teacher of the doctrine of Ideas.\" On such grounds as these we\nare called upon to reject various dialogues: and there is nothing upon\nwhich, generally speaking, so much stress is laid as upon inferior\nexcellence. For my part, I cannot recognise any of them as sufficient\ngrounds of exception. I have no difficulty in believing, not merely\nthat Plato (like Aristophanes) produced many successive novelties,\n\"not at all similar one to the other, and all clever\"[73]--but also\nthat among these novelties, there were inferior dialogues as well as\nsuperior: that in different dialogues he worked out different, even\ncontradictory, points of view--and among them some which critics\ndeclare to be low and objectionable: that we have among his works\nunfinished fragments and abandoned sketches, published without order,\nand perhaps only after his death.\n\n[Footnote 73: Aristophan. Nubes, 547-8.\n\n[Greek: A)ll' a)ei\\ kaina\\s i)de/as ei)sphe/r\u00f4n sophi/zomai,\nOu)de\\n a)ll\u00ea/laisin o(moi/as, kai\\ pa/sas dexia/s.]]\n\n[Side-note: Opinions of Schleiermacher, tending to show this.]\n\nIt may appear strange, but it is true, that Schleiermacher, the\nleading champion of Plato's central purpose and systematic unity from\nthe beginning, lays down a doctrine to the same effect. He says,\n\"Truly, nothing can be more preposterous, than when people demand that\nall the works even of a great master shall be of equal perfection--or\nthat such as are not equal, shall be regarded as not composed by him\".\nZeller expresses himself in the same manner, and with as little\nreserve.[74] These eminent critics here proclaim a general rule which\nneither they nor others follow out.\n\n[Footnote 74: Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Menon, vol. iii. p. 337.\n\"Und wahrlich, nichts ist wohl wunderlicher, als wenn man verlangt,\ndass alle Werke auch eines grossen Meisters von gleicher Volkommenheit\nseyn sollten--oder die es nicht sind, soll er nicht verfertigt haben.\"\n\nCompare Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., vol. ii. p. 322, ed. 2nd.\n\nIt is to be remembered that this opinion of Schleiermacher refers only\nto _completed works_ of the same master. You are not authorised in\nrejecting any completed work as spurious, on the ground that it is not\nequal in merit to some other. Still less, then, are you authorised in\nrejecting, on the like ground, an uncompleted work--a professed\nfragment, or a preliminary sketch. Of this nature are several of the\nminor items in the Thrasyllean canon.\n\nM. Boeckh, in his Commentary on the dialogue called Minos, has\nassigned the reasons which induce him to throw out that dialogue,\ntogether with the Hipparchus, from the genuine works of Plato (and\nfarther to consider both of them, and the pseudo-Platonic dialogues De\nJusto and De Virtute, as works of [Greek: Si/m\u00f4n o( skuteu/s]: with\nthis latter hypothesis I have here no concern). He admits fully that\nthe Minos is of the Platonic age and irreproachable in style--\"veteris\nesse et Attici scriptoris, probus sermo, antiqui mores totus denique\ncharacter, spondent\" (p. 32). Next, he not only admits that it is like\nPlato, but urges the _too great likeness_ to Plato as one of the\npoints of his case. He says that it is a bad, stupid, and unskilful\nimitation of different Platonic dialogues: \"Pergamus ad alteram partem\nnostr\u00e6 argumentationis, eamque etiam firmiorem, de _nimi\u00e2\nsimilitudine_ Platonicorum aliquot locorum. Nam de hoc quidem\nconveniet inter omnes doctos et indoctos, Platonem se ipsum haud posse\nimitari: ni fort\u00e9 quis dubitet de san\u00e2 ejus mente\" (p. 23). In the\nsense which Boeckh intends, I agree that Plato did not imitate\nhimself: in another sense, I think that he did. I mean that his\nconsummate compositions were preceded by shorter, partial, incomplete\nsketches, which he afterwards worked up, improved, and re-modelled. I\ndo not understand how Plato could have composed such works as\nRepublic, Protagoras, Gorgias, Symposion, Ph\u00e6drus, Ph\u00e6don, &c.,\nwithout having before him many of these preparatory sketches. That\nsome of these sketches should have been preserved is what we might\nnaturally expect; and I believe Minos and Hipparchus to be among them.\nI do not wonder that they are of inferior merit. One point on which\nBoeckh (pp. 7, 8) contends that Hipparchus and Minos are unlike to\nPlato is, that the _collocutor_ with Sokrates is anonymous. But we\nfind anonymous talkers in the Protagoras, Sophist\u00eas, Politikus, and\nLeges.]\n\nI find elsewhere in Schleiermacher, another opinion, not less\nimportant, in reference to disallowance of dialogues, on purely\ninternal grounds. Take the Gorgias and the Protagoras: both these two\ndialogues are among the most renowned of the catalogue: both have\nescaped all suspicion as to legitimacy, even from Ast and Socher, the\ntwo boldest of all disfranchising critics. In the Protagoras, Sokrates\nmaintains an elaborate argument to prove, against the unwilling\nProtagoras, that the Good is identical with the Pleasurable, and the\nEvil identical with the Painful--in the Gorgias, Sokrates holds an\nargument equally elaborate, to show that Good is essentially different\nfrom Pleasurable, Evil from Painful. What the one affirms, the other\ndenies. Moreover, Schleiermacher himself characterises the thesis\nvindicated by Sokrates in the Protagoras, as \"entirely un-Sokratic and\nun-Platonic\".[75] If internal grounds of repudiation are held to be\navailable against the Thrasyllean canon, how can such grounds exist in\ngreater force than those which are here admitted to bear against the\nProtagoras--That it exhibits Sokrates as contradicting the Sokrates of\nthe Gorgias--That it exhibits him farther as advancing and proving, at\ngreat length, a thesis \"entirely un-Sokratic and un-Platonic\"? Since\nthe critics all concur in disregarding these internal objections, as\ninsufficient to raise even a suspicion against the Protagoras, I\ncannot concur with them when they urge the like objections as valid\nand irresistible against other dialogues.\n\n[Footnote 75: Schleiermacher, Einl. zum Protag. vol. i. p. 232. \"Jene\nganz unsokratische und unplatonische Ansicht, dass das Gute nichts\nanderes ist als das Angenehme.\"\n\nSo also, in the Parmenides, we find a host of unsolved objections\nagainst the doctrine of Ideas; upon which in other dialogues Plato so\nemphatically insists. Accordingly, Socher, resting upon this\ndiscrepancy as an \"internal ground,\" declares the Parmenides not to be\nthe work of Plato. But the other critics refuse to go along with this\ninference. I think they are right in so refusing. But this only shows\nhow little such internal grounds are to be trusted, as evidence to\nprove spuriousness.]\n\nI may add, as farther illustrating this point, that there are few\ndialogues in the list against which stronger objections on internal\ngrounds can be brought, than Leges and Menexenus. Yet both of them\nstand authenticated, beyond all reasonable dispute, as genuine works\nof Plato, not merely by the Canon of Thrasyllus, but also by the\ntestimony of Aristotle.[76]\n\n[Footnote 76: See Ast, Platon's Leben und Schriften, p. 384: and still\nmore, Zeller, Plat. Studien, pp. 1-131, T\u00fcbingen, 1839. In that\ntreatise, where Zeller has set forth powerfully the grounds for\ndenying the genuineness of the Leges, he relied so much upon the\nstrength of this negative case, as to discredit the direct testimony\nof Aristotle affirming the Leges to be genuine. In his Phil. d.\nGriech. Zeller altered this opinion, and admitted the Leges to be\ngenuine. But Str\u00fcmpell adheres to the earlier opinion given by Zeller,\nand maintains that the partial recantation is noway justified. (Gesch.\nd. Prakt. Phil. d. Griech. p. 457.)\n\nSuckow mentions (Form der Plat. Schriften, 1855, p. 135) that Zeller\nhas in a subsequent work reverted to his former opinion, denying the\ngenuineness of the Leges. Suckow himself denies it also; relying not\nmerely on the internal objections against it, but also on a passage of\nIsokrates (ad Philippum, p. 84), which he considers to sanction his\nopinion, but which (in my judgment) entirely fails to bear him out.\n\nSuckow attempts to show (p. 55), and Ueberweg partly countenances the\nsame opinion, that the two passages in which Aristotle alludes to the\nMenexenus (Rhet. i. 9, 30; iii. 14, 11) do not prove that he\n(Aristotle) considered it as a work of Plato, because he mentions the\nname of Sokrates only, and not that of Plato. But this is to require\nfrom a witness such precise specification as we cannot reasonably\nexpect. Aristotle, alluding to the Menexenus, says, [Greek: S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas\ne)n t\u00f4=| E)pitaphi/\u00f4|]: just as, in alluding to the Gorgias in another\nplace (Sophist. Elench. 12, p. 173), he says, [Greek: Kallikl\u00ea=s e)n\nt\u00f4=| Gorgi/a|]: and again, in alluding to the Ph\u00e6don, [Greek: o( e)n\nPhai/d\u00f4ni S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas] (De Gen. et Corrupt. ii. 9, p. 335): not to\nmention his allusions in the Politica to the Platonic Republic, under\nthe name of Sokrates. No instance can be produced in which Aristotle\ncites any Sokratic dialogue, composed by Antisthenes, \u00c6schines, &c.,\nor any other of the Sokratic companions except Plato. And when we read\nin Aristotle's Politica (ii. 3, 3) the striking compliment\npaid--[Greek: To\\ me\\n ou)=n peritto\\n e)/chousi pa/ntes oi( tou=\nS\u00f4kra/tous lo/goi, kai\\ to\\ kompso/n, kai\\ to\\ kaino/tomon, kai\\ to\\\nz\u00eat\u00eatiko/n; kal\u00f4=s de\\ pa/nta i)/s\u00f4s chalepo/n]--we cannot surely\nimagine that he intends to designate any other dialogues than those\ncomposed by Plato.]\n\n[Side-note: Any true theory of Plato must recognise all his varieties,\nand must be based upon all the works in the Canon, not upon some to\nthe exclusion of the rest.]\n\nWhile adhering therefore to the Canon of Thrasyllus, I do not think\nmyself obliged to make out that Plato is either like to himself, or\nequal to himself, or consistent with himself, throughout all the\ndialogues included therein, and throughout the period of fifty years\nduring which these dialogues were composed. Plato is to be found in\nall and each of the dialogues, not in an imaginary type abstracted\nfrom some to the exclusion of the rest. The critics reverence so much\nthis type of their own creation, that they insist on bringing out a\nresult consistent with it, either by interpretation specially\ncontrived, or by repudiating what will not harmonise. Such sacrifice\nof the inherent diversity, and separate individuality, of the\ndialogues, to the maintenance of a supposed unity of type, style, or\npurpose, appears to me an error. In fact,[77] there exists, for us, no\npersonal Plato any more than there is a personal Shakespeare. Plato\n(except in the Epistol\u00e6) never appears before us, nor gives us any\nopinion as his own: he is the unseen prompter of different characters\nwho converse aloud in a number of distinct dramas--each drama a\nseparate work, manifesting its own point of view, affirmative or\nnegative, consistent or inconsistent with the others, as the case may\nbe. In so far as I venture to present a general view of one who keeps\nconstantly in the dark--who delights to dive, and hide himself, not\nless difficult to catch than the supposed Sophist in his own dialogue\ncalled Sophist\u00eas--I shall consider it as subordinate to the dialogues,\neach and all: and above all, it must be such as to include and\nacknowledge not merely diversities, but also inconsistencies and\ncontradictions.[78]\n\n[Footnote 77: The only manifestation of the personal Plato is in the\nEpistol\u00e6. I have already said that I accept these as genuine, though\nmost critics do not. I consider them valuable illustrations of his\ncharacter, as far as they go. They are all written after he was more\nthan sixty years of age. And most of them relate to his relations with\nDionysius the younger, with Dion, and with Sicilian affairs generally.\nThis was a peculiar and outlying phase of Plato's life, during which\n(through the instigation of Dion, and at the sacrifice of his own\npeace of mind) he became involved in the world of political action: he\nhad to deal with real persons, passions, and interests--with the\nfeeble character, literary velleities, and jealous apprehensions of\nDionysius--the reforming vehemence and unpopular harshness of Dion--the\ncourtiers, the soldiers, and the people of Syracuse, all moved by\ndifferent passions of which he had had no practical experience. It\ncould not be expected that, amidst such turbulent elements, Plato as\nan adviser could effect much: yet I do not think that he turned his\nchances, doubtful as they were, to the best account. I have\nendeavoured to show this in the tenth volume of my History of Greece,\nc. 84. But at all events, these operations lay apart from Plato's true\nworld--the speculation, dialectic, and lectures of the Academy at\nAthens. The Epistol\u00e6, however, present some instructive points,\nbearing upon Plato's opinions about writing as a medium of\nphilosophical communication and instruction to learners, which I shall\nnotice in the suitable place.]\n\n[Footnote 78: I transcribe from the instructive work of M. Ernest\nRenan, _Averro\u00e8s et l'Averro\u00efsme_, a passage in which he deprecates\nthe proceeding of critics who presume uniform consistency throughout\nthe works of Aristotle, and make out their theory partly by forcible\nexegesis, partly by setting aside as spurious all those compositions\nwhich oppose them. The remark applies more forcibly to the dialogues\nor Plato, who is much less systematic than Aristotle:--\n\n\"On a combattu l'interpr\u00e9tation d'Ibn-Rosehd (Averro\u00e8s), et soutenu\nque l'intellect actif n'est pour Aristote qu'une facult\u00e9 de l'ame.\nL'intellect passif n'est alors que la facult\u00e9 de recevoir les [Greek:\nphanta/smata]: l'intellect actif n'est que l'induction s'exer\u00e7ant sur\nles [Greek: phanta/smata] et en tirant les id\u00e9es g\u00e9n\u00e9rales. Ainsi l'on\nfait concorder la th\u00e9orie expos\u00e9e dans le troisi\u00e8me livre du Trait\u00e9 de\nl'Ame, avec celle des Seconds Analytiques, o\u00f9 Aristote semble r\u00e9duire\nle r\u00f4le de la raison \u00e0 l'induction g\u00e9n\u00e9ralisant les faits de la\nsensation. Certes, je ne me dissimule pas qu'Aristote para\u00eet souvent\nenvisager le [Greek: nou=s] comme personnel \u00e0 l'homme. Son attention\nconstante \u00e0 rep\u00e9ter que l'intellect est identique \u00e0 l'intelligible,\nque l'intellect passe \u00e0 l'acte quand il devient l'objet qu'il pense,\nest difficile \u00e0 concilier avec l'hypoth\u00e8se d'un intellect s\u00e9par\u00e9 de\nl'homme. Mais il est dangereux de faire ainsi coincider de force les\ndiff\u00e9rents aper\u00e7us des anciens. Les anciens philosophaient souvent\nsans se limiter dans un syst\u00e8me, traitant le m\u00eame sujet selon les\npoints de vue qui s'offraient \u00e0 eux, ou qui leur \u00e9taient offerts par\nles \u00e9coles ant\u00e9rieures, sans s'inqui\u00e9ter des dissonances qui pouvaient\nexister entre ces divers tron\u00e7ons de th\u00e9orie. Il est pu\u00e9ril de\nchercher \u00e0 les mettre d'accord avec eux-m\u00eames, quand eux-m\u00eames s'en\nsont peu souci\u00e9s. Autant vaudrait, comme certains critiques Allemands,\nd\u00e9clarer interpol\u00e9s tous les passages que l'on ne peut concilier avec\nles autres. Ainsi, la th\u00e9orie des Seconds Analytiques et celles du\ntroisi\u00e8me livre de l'Ame, sans se contredire express\u00e9ment,\nrepr\u00e9sentent deux aper\u00e7us profond\u00e9ment distincts et d'origine\ndiff\u00e9rente, sur le fait de l'intelligence.\" (Averro\u00e8s et l'Averro\u00efsme,\np. 96-98, Paris, 1852.)\n\nThere is also in Str\u00fcmpell (Gesch. der Prakt. Phil. der Griech. vor\nAristot. p. 200) a good passage to the same purpose as the above from\nM. Renan: disapproving this presumption,--that the doctrines of every\nancient philosopher must of course be systematic and coherent with\neach other--as \"a phantom of modern times\": and pointing out that both\nPlato and Aristotle founded their philosophy, not upon any one\ngoverning [Greek: a)rch\u00ea\\] alone, from which exclusively consequences\nare deduced, but upon several distinct, co-ordinate, independent,\npoints of view: each of which is by turns followed out, not always\nconsistently with the others.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nPLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY.\n\n\n[Side-note: Variety and abundance visible in Plato's writings.]\n\nOn looking through the collection of works enumerated in the\nThrasyllean Canon, the first impression made upon us respecting the\nauthor is, that which is expressed in the epithets applied to him by\nCicero--\"varius et multiplex et copiosus\". Such epithets bring before\nus the variety in Plato's points of view and methods of handling--the\nmultiplicity of the topics discussed--the abundance of the premisses\nand illustrations suggested:[1] comparison being taken with other\nliterary productions of the same age. It is scarcely possible to find\nany one predicate truly applicable to all of Plato's works. Every\npredicate is probably true in regard to some:--none in regard to all.\n\n[Footnote 1: The rhetor Aristeides, comparing Plato with \u00c6schines\n(_i.e._ \u00c6schines Socraticus, disciple of Sokrates also), remarks that\n\u00c6schines was more likely to report what Sokrates really said, from\nbeing inferior in productive imagination. Plato (as he truly says\nOrat. xlvi. [Greek: U(pe\\r t\u00f4=n Tetta/r\u00f4n], p. 295, Dindorf) [Greek:\nt\u00ea=s phu/se\u00f4s chr\u00ea=tai periousi/a|], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato both sceptical and dogmatical.]\n\nSeveral critics of antiquity considered Plato as essentially a\nsceptic--that is, a Searcher or Enquirer, not reaching any assured or\nproved result. They denied to him the character of a dogmatist: they\nmaintained that he neither established nor enforced any affirmative\ndoctrines.[2] This latter statement is carried too far. Plato is\nsceptical in some dialogues, dogmatical in others. And the catalogue\nof Thrasyllus shows that the sceptical dialogues (Dialogues of Search\nor Investigation) are more numerous than the dogmatical (Dialogues of\nExposition)--as they are also, speaking generally, more animated and\ninteresting.\n\n[Footnote 2: Diogen. Laert. iii. 52. Prolegom. Platon. Philosoph. c.\n10, vol. vi. 205, of K. F. Hermann's edition of Plato.]\n\n[Side-note: Poetical vein predominant in some compositions, but not in\nall.]\n\nAgain, Aristotle declared the writing of Plato to be something between\npoetry and prose, and even the philosophical doctrine of Plato\nrespecting Ideas, to derive all its apparent plausibility from poetic\nmetaphors. The affirmation is true, up to a certain point. Many of the\ndialogues display an exuberant vein of poetry, which was declared--not\nby Aristotle alone, but by many other critics contemporary with Plato--to\nbe often misplaced and excessive--and which appeared the more\nstriking because the dialogues composed by the other Sokratic\ncompanions were all of them plain and unadorned.[3] The various\nmythes, in the Ph\u00e6drus and elsewhere, are announced expressly as\nsoaring above the conditions of truth and logical appreciation.\nMoreover, we find occasionally an amount of dramatic vivacity, and of\nartistic antithesis between the speakers introduced, which might have\nenabled Plato, had he composed for the drama as a profession, to\ncontend with success for the prizes at the Dionysiac festivals. But\nhere again, though this is true of several dialogues, it is not true\nof others. In the Parmenid\u00eas, Tim\u00e6us, and the Leges, such elements\nwill be looked for in vain. In the Tim\u00e6us, they are exchanged for a\nprofessed cosmical system, including much mystic and oracular\naffirmation, without proof to support it, and without opponents to\ntest it: in the Leges, for ethical sermons, and religious\nfulminations, proclaimed by a dictatorial authority.\n\n[Footnote 3: See Dionys. Hal. Epist. ad Cn. Pomp. 756, De Adm. Vi Dic.\nDem. 956, where he recognises the contrast between Plato and [Greek:\nto\\ S\u00f4kratiko\\n didaskalei=on pa=n]. His expression is remarkable:\n[Greek: Tau=ta ga\\r oi(/ te kat' au)to\\n geno/menoi pa/ntes\ne)pitim\u00f4=sin \u00f4(=n ta\\ o)no/mata ou)de\\n dei= me le/gein]. Epistol. ad\nCn. Pomp. p. 761; also 757. See also Diog. L. iii. 37; Aristotel.\nMetaph. A. 991, a. 22.\n\nCicero and Quintilian say the same about Plato's style: \"Multum supra\nprosam orationem, et quam pedestrem Gr\u00e6ci vocant, surgit: ut mihi non\nhominis ingenio, sed quodam Delphico videatur oraculo instinctus\".\nQuintil. x. 1, 81. Cicero, Orator, c. 20. Lucian, Piscator, c. 22.\n\nSextus Empiricus designates the same tendency under the words [Greek:\nt\u00ea\\n Pla/t\u00f4nos a)neid\u00f4lopoi/\u00easin]. Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. iii. 189.\n\nThe Greek rhetors of the Augustan age--Dionysius of Halikarnassus and\nK\u00e6kilius of Kalakt\u00ea--not only blamed the style of Plato for excessive,\noverstrained, and misplaced metaphor, but K\u00e6kilius goes so far as to\ndeclare a decided preference for Lysias over Plato. (Dionys. Hal. De\nVi Demosth. pp. 1025-1037, De Comp. Verb. p. 196 R; Longinus, De\nSublimitat. c. 32.) The number of critics who censured the manner and\ndoctrine of Plato (critics both contemporary with him and subsequent)\nwas considerable (Dionys. H. Ep. ad Pomp. p. 757). Dionysius and the\ncritics of his age had before their eyes the contrast of the Asiatic\nstyle of rhetoric, prevalent in their time, with the Attic style\nrepresented by Demosthenes and Lysias. They wished to uphold the force\nand simplicity of the Attic, against the tumid, wordy, pretensive\nAsiatic: and they considered the Ph\u00e6drus, with other compositions of\nPlato, as falling under the same censure with the Asiatic. See Theoph.\nBurckhardt, C\u00e6cili Rhet. Frag., Berlin, 1863, p. 15.]\n\n[Side-note: Form of dialogue--universal to this extent, that Plato\nnever speaks in his own name.]\n\nOne feature there is, which is declared by Schleiermacher and others\nto be essential to all the works of Plato--the form of dialogue. Here\nSchleiermacher's assertion, literally taken, is incontestable. Plato\nalways puts his thoughts into the mouth of some spokesman: he never\nspeaks in his own name. All the works of Plato which we possess\n(excepting the Epistles, and the Apology, which last I consider to be\na report of what Sokrates himself said) are dialogues. But under this\nsame name, many different realities are found to be contained. In the\nTim\u00e6us and Kritias the dialogue is simply introductory to a continuous\nexposition--in the Menexenus, to a rhetorical discourse: while in the\nLeges, and even in Sophist\u00eas, Politikus, and others, it includes no\nantithesis nor interchange between two independent minds, but is\nsimply a didactic lecture, put into interrogatory form, and broken\ninto fragments small enough for the listener to swallow at once: he by\nhis answer acknowledging the receipt. If therefore the affirmation of\nSchleiermacher is intended to apply to all the Platonic compositions,\nwe must confine it to the form, without including the spirit, of\ndialogue.\n\n[Side-note: No one common characteristic pervading all Plato's works.]\n\nIt is in truth scarcely possible to resolve all the diverse\nmanifestations of the Platonic mind into one higher unity; or to\npredicate, about Plato as an intellectual person, anything which shall\nbe applicable at once to the Protagoras, Gorgias, Parmenid\u00eas, Ph\u00e6drus,\nSymposion, Phil\u00eabus, Ph\u00e6don, Republic, Tim\u00e6us, and Leges. Plato was\nsceptic, dogmatist, religious mystic and inquisitor, mathematician,\nphilosopher, poet (erotic as well as satirical), rhetor, artist--all\nin one:[4] or at least, all in succession, throughout the fifty years\nof his philosophical life. At one time his exuberant dialectical\nimpulse claims satisfaction, manifesting itself in a string of\ningenious doubts and unsolved contradictions: at another time, he is\nfull of theological antipathy against those who libel Helios and\nSel\u00ean\u00ea, or who deny the universal providence of the Gods: here, we\nhave unqualified confessions of ignorance, and protestations against\nthe false persuasion of knowledge, as alike widespread and\ndeplorable--there, we find a description of the process of building up\nthe Kosmos from the beginning, as if the author had been privy to the\ninmost purposes of the Demiurgus. In one dialogue the erotic fever is\nin the ascendant, distributed between beautiful youths and philosophical\nconcepts, and confounded with a religious inspiration and _furor_\nwhich supersedes and transcends human sobriety (Ph\u00e6drus): in another,\nall vehement impulses of the soul are stigmatised and repudiated, no\nhonourable scope being left for anything but the calm and passionless\nNous (Phil\u00eabus, Ph\u00e6don). Satire is exchanged for dithyramb, and mythe,\nand one ethical point of view for another (Protagoras, Gorgias). The\nall-sufficient dramatising power of the master gives full effect to\neach of these multifarious tendencies. On the whole--to use a\ncomparison of Plato himself[5]--the Platonic sum total somewhat\nresembles those fanciful combinations of animals imagined in the\nHellenic mythology--an aggregate of distinct and disparate\nindividualities, which look like one because they are packed in the\nsame external wrapper.\n\n[Footnote 4: Dik\u00e6archus affirmed that Plato was a compound of Sokrates\nwith Pythagoras. Plutarch calls him also a compound of Sokrates with\nLykurgus. (Plutarch, Symposiac. viii. 2, p. 718 B.)\n\nNemesius the Platonist (Eusebius, Pr\u00e6p. Evang. xiv. 5-7-8) repeats the\nsaying of Dik\u00e6archus, and describes Plato as midway between Pythagoras\nand Sokrates; [Greek: meseu/\u00f4n Puthago/rou kai\\ S\u00f4kra/tous]. No three\npersons could be more disparate than Lykurgus, Pythagoras, and\nSokrates. But there are besides various other attributes of Plato,\nwhich are not included under either of the heads of this tripartite\ncharacter.\n\nThe Stoic philosopher Sph\u00e6rus composed a work in three books--[Greek:\nPeri\\ Lukou/rgou kai\\ S\u00f4kra/tous]--(Diog. La. vii. 178). He probably\ncompared therein the Platonic Republic with the Spartan constitution\nand discipline.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Plato, Republ. ix. 588 C. [Greek: Oi(=ai muthologou=ntai\npalaiai\\ gene/sthai phu/seis, \u00ea(/ te Chimai/ras kai\\ \u00ea( Sku/ll\u00eas kai\\\nKerbe/rou, kai\\ a)/llai tine\\s suchnai\\ le/gontai xumpephukui=ai\ni)de/ai pollai\\ ei)s e(\\n gene/sthai . . . . Peri/plason d\u00ea\\ au)toi=s\ne)/x\u00f4then e(no\\s ei)ko/na, t\u00ea\\n tou= a)nthr\u00f4/pou, \u00f4(/ste t\u00f4=| m\u00ea\\\nduname/n\u00f4| ta\\ e)nto\\s o(ra=|n, a)lla\\ to\\ e)/x\u00f4 mo/non e)/lutron\no(r\u00f4=nti, e(\\n z\u00f4=on phai/nesthai--a)/nthr\u00f4pon.]]\n\n[Side-note: The real Plato was not merely a writer of dialogues, but\nalso lecturer and president of a school. In this last important\nfunction he is scarcely at all known to us. Notes of his lectures\ntaken by Aristotle.]\n\nFurthermore, if we intend to affirm anything about Plato as a whole,\nthere is another fact which ought to be taken into account.[6] We know\nhim only from his dialogues, and from a few scraps of information. But\nPlato was not merely a composer of dialogues. He was lecturer, and\nchief of a school, besides. The presidency of that school, commencing\nabout 386 B.C., and continued by him with great celebrity for the last\nhalf (nearly forty years) of his life, was his most important\nfunction. Among his contemporaries he must have exercised greater\ninfluence through his school than through his writings.[7] Yet in this\ncharacter of school-teacher and lecturer, he is almost unknown to us:\nfor the few incidental allusions which have descended to us, through\nthe Aristotelian commentators, only raise curiosity without satisfying\nit. The little information which we possess respecting Plato's\nlectures, relates altogether to those which he delivered upon the\nIpsum Bonum or Summum Bonum at some time after Aristotle became his\npupil--that is, during the last eighteen years of Plato's life.\nAristotle and other hearers took notes of these lectures: Aristotle\neven composed an express work now lost (De Bono or De Philosophi\u00e2),\nreporting with comments of his own these oral doctrines of Plato,\ntogether with the analogous doctrines of the Pythagoreans. We learn\nthat Plato gave continuous lectures, dealing with the highest and most\ntranscendental concepts (with the constituent elements or factors of\nthe Platonic Ideas or Ideal Numbers: the first of these factors being\nThe One the second, The Indeterminate Dyad, or The Great and Little,\nthe essentially indefinite), and that they were mystic and\nenigmatical, difficult to understand.[8]\n\n[Footnote 6: Trendelenburg not only adopts Schleiermacher's theory of\na preconceived and systematic purpose connecting together all Plato's\ndialogues, but even extends this purpose to Plato's oral lectures: \"Id\npro certo habendum est. sicut prioribus dialogis quasi pr\u00e6eparat\n(Plato) posteriores, posterioribus evolvit priores--ita et in scholis\ncontinuasse dialogos; qu\u00e6 reliquerit, absolvisse; atque omnibus ad\nsumma principia perductis, intima quasi semina aperuisse\".\n(Trendelenburg, De Ideis et Numeris Platonis, p. 6.)\n\nThis opinion is surely not borne out--it seems even contradicted--by\nall the information which we possess (very scanty indeed) about the\nPlatonic lectures. Plato delivered therein his Pythagorean doctrines,\nmerging his Ideas in the Pythagorean numerical symbols: and Aristotle,\nfar from considering this as a systematic and intended evolution of\ndoctrine at first imperfectly unfolded, treats it as an additional\nperversion and confusion, introduced into a doctrine originally\nerroneous. In regard to the transition of Plato from the doctrine of\nIdeas to that of Ideal Numbers, see Aristotel. Metaphys. M. 1078, b.\n9, 1080, a. 12 (with the commentary of Bonitz, pp. 539-541), A. 987,\nb. 20.\n\nM. Boeckh, too, accounts for the obscure and enigmatical speaking of\nPlato in various dialogues, by supposing that he cleared up all the\ndifficulties in his oral lectures. \"Platon deutet nur an--spricht\nmeinethalben r\u00e4thselhaft (in den Gesetzen); aber gerade so r\u00e4thselhaft\nspricht er von diesen Sachen im Timaeus: er pflegt mathematische\nTheoreme nur anzudeuten, nicht zu entwickeln: ich glaube, weil er sie\nin den Vortr\u00e4gen ausf\u00fchrte,\" &c. (Untersuchungen \u00fcber das Kosmische\nSystem des Platon, p. 50.)\n\nThis may be true about the mathematical theorems; but I confess that I\nsee no proof of it. Though Plato admits that his doctrine in the\nTim\u00e6us is [Greek: a)\u00ea/th\u00eas lo/gos], yet he expressly intimates that\nthe hearers are instructed persons, able to follow him (Tim\u00e6us, p. 53\nC.).]\n\n[Footnote 7: M. Renan, in his work, 'Averro\u00e8s et l'Averro\u00efsme,' pp.\n257-325, remarks that several of the Italian professors of philosophy,\nat Padua and other universities, exercised far greater influence\nthrough their lectures than through their published works. He says (p.\n325-6) respecting Cremonini (Professor at Padua, 1590-1620):--\"Il a\n\u00e9t\u00e9 jusqu'ici appr\u00e9ci\u00e9 d'une mani\u00e8re fort incompl\u00e8te par les\nhistoriens de la philosophie. On ne l'a jug\u00e9 que par ses \u00e9crits\nimprim\u00e9s, qui ne sont que des dissertations de peu d'importance, et ne\npeuvent en aucune mani\u00e8re faire comprendre la renomm\u00e9e colossale \u00e0\nlaquelle il parvint. Cremonini n'est qu'un professeur: ses _cours_\nsont sa v\u00e9ritable philosophie. Aussi, tandis que ses \u00e9crits imprim\u00e9s\nse vendaient fort mal, les r\u00e9dactions de ses le\u00e7ons se r\u00e9pandaient\ndans toute l'Italie et m\u00eame au del\u00e0 des monts. On sait que les \u00e9l\u00e8ves\npr\u00e9f\u00e8rent souvent aux textes imprim\u00e9s, les cahiers qu'ils ont ainsi\nrecueillis de la bouche de leurs professeurs. . . En g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, c'est\ndans les cahiers, beaucoup plus que dans les sources imprim\u00e9es, qu'il\nfaut \u00e9tudier l'\u00e9cole de Padoue. Pour Cremonini, cette t\u00e2che est\nfacile; car les copies de ses cours sont innombrables dans le nord de\nl'Italie.\"]\n\n[Footnote 8: Aristotle (Physic. iv. p. 209, b. 34) alludes to [Greek:\nta\\ lego/mena a)/grapha do/gmata] of Plato, and their discordance on\none point with the Tim\u00e6us.\n\nSimplikius ad Aristot. Physic. f. 104 b. p. 362, a. 11, Brandis.\n[Greek: A)rcha\\s ga\\r kai\\ t\u00f4=n ai)sth\u00eat\u00f4=n to\\ e(\\n kai\\ t\u00ea\\n\na)o/risto/n phasi dua/da le/gein to\\n Pla/t\u00f4na. T\u00ea\\n de\\ a)o/riston\ndua/da kai\\ e)n toi=s no\u00eatoi=s tithei\\s a)/peiron ei)=nai e)/legen,\nkai\\ to\\ me/ga de\\ kai\\ to\\ mikro\\n a)rcha\\s tithei\\s a)/peira ei)=nai\ne)/legen e)n toi=s peri\\ Ta)gathou= lo/gois, oi(=s o( A)ristote/l\u00eas\nkai\\ \u00ca(raklei/d\u00eas kai\\ E)stiai=os kai\\ a)/lloi tou= Pla/t\u00f4nos\ne(tai=roi _parageno/menoi a)negra/psanto ta\\ r(\u00eathe/nta,\nai)nigmat\u00f4d\u00f4=s \u00f4(s e)r)r(\u00ea/th\u00ea_; Porphu/rios de\\ diarthrou=n au)ta\\\ne)paggello/menos ta/de peri\\ au)t\u00f4=n ge/graphen e)n t\u00f4| Phil\u00ea/b\u00f4|].\nCompare another passage of the same Scholia, p. 334, b. 28, p. 371, b.\n26. [Greek: Ta\\s a)gra/phous sunousi/as tou= Pla/t\u00f4nos au)to\\s o(\nA)ristote/l\u00eas a)pegra/psato]. 372, a. [Greek: To\\ methektiko\\n e)n\nme\\n tai=s peri\\ Ta)gathou sunousi/ais me/ga kai\\ mikro\\n e)ka/lei,\ne)n de\\ t\u00f4=| Timai/\u00f4| u(/l\u00ean, \u00ea)\\n kai\\ ch\u00f4/ran kai\\ to/pon\n\u00f4)no/maze]. Comp 371, a. 5, and the two extracts from Simplikius,\ncited by Zeller, De Hermodoro, pp. 20, 21. By [Greek: a)/grapha\ndo/gmata], or [Greek: a)/graphoi sunou/siai], we are to understand\nopinions or colloquies not written down (or not communicated to others\nas writings) _by Plato himself_: thus distinguished from his written\ndialogues. Aristotle, in the treatise, De Anim\u00e2, i. 2, p. 404, b. 18,\nrefers to [Greek: e)n toi=s peri\\ Philosophi/as]: which Simplikius\nthus explains [Greek: peri\\ philosophi/as nu=n le/gei ta\\ peri\\ tou=\nA)gathou= au)t\u00f4=| e)k t\u00ea=s Pla/t\u00f4nos a)nagegramme/na sunousi/as, e)n\noi(=s i(storei= ta/s te Puthagorei/ous kai\\ Plat\u00f4nika\\s peri\\ t\u00f4=n\no)/nt\u00f4n do/xas]. Philoponus reports the same thing: see\nTrendelenburg's Comm. on De Anim\u00e2, p. 226. Compare Alexand. ad\nAristot. Met. A. 992, p. 581, a. 2, Schol. Brandis.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's lectures De Bono obscure and transcendental.\nEffect which they produced on the auditors.]\n\nOne remarkable observation, made upon them by Aristotle, has been\ntransmitted to us.[9] There were lectures announced to be, On the\nSupreme Good. Most of those who came to hear, expected that Plato\nwould enumerate and compare the various matters usually considered\n_good_--_i.e._ health, strength, beauty, genius, wealth, power, &c.\nBut these hearers were altogether astonished at what they really\nheard: for Plato omitting the topics expected, descanted only upon\narithmetic, geometry, and astronomy; and told them that The Good was\nidentical with The One (as contrasted with the Infinite or\nIndeterminate which was Evil).\n\n[Footnote 9: Aristoxenus, Harmon. ii. p. 30. [Greek: Katha/per\nA)ristote/l\u00eas a)ei\\ di\u00eagei=to tou\\s plei/stous t\u00f4=n a)kousa/nt\u00f4n para\\\nPla/t\u00f4nos t\u00ea\\n peri\\ tou= a)gathou= a)kro/asin pathei=n; prosei=nai\nga\\r e(/kaston u(polamba/nonta l\u00ea/psesthai/ ti t\u00f4=n nomizome/n\u00f4n\na)nthr\u00f4pi/n\u00f4n a)gath\u00f4=n;--o(/te de\\ phanei/\u00easan oi( lo/goi peri\\\nmath\u00eama/t\u00f4n kai\\ a)rithm\u00f4=n kai\\ ge\u00f4metri/as kai\\ a)strologi/as, kai\\\nto\\ pe/ras o(/ti a)gatho/n e)stin e(/n, pantel\u00f4=s oi)=mai para/doxon\ne)phai/neto au)toi=s].\n\nCompare Themistius, Orat. xxi. p. 245 D. Proklus also alludes to this\nstory, and to the fact that most of the [Greek: polu\\s kai\\ pantoi=os\no)/chlos], who were attracted to Plato's [Greek: a)kro/asis peri\\\nTa)gathou=], were disappointed or unable to understand him, and went\naway. (Proklus ad Platon. Parmen. p. 92, Cousin. 528, Stallb.)]\n\n[Side-note: They were delivered to miscellaneous auditors. They\ncoincide mainly with what Aristotle states about the Platonic Ideas.]\n\nWe see farther from this remark:--First, that Plato's lectures were\noften above what his auditors could appreciate--a fact which we learn\nfrom other allusions also: Next, that they were not confined to a\nselect body of advanced pupils, who had been worked up by special\ntraining into a state fit for comprehending them.[10] Had such been\nthe case, the surprise which Aristotle mentions could never have\nbeen felt. And we see farther, that the transcendental doctrine\ndelivered in the lectures De Bono (though we find partial analogies to\nit in Phil\u00eabus, Epinomis, and parts of Republic) coincides more with\nwhat Aristotle states and comments upon as Platonic doctrine, than\nwith any reasonings which we find in the Platonic dialogues. It\nrepresents the latest phase of Platonism: when the Ideas originally\nconceived by him as Entities in themselves, had become merged or\nidentified in his mind with the Pythagorean numbers or symbols.\n\n[Footnote 10: Respecting Plato's lectures, see Brandis (Gesch. der\nGriech.-R\u00f6m. Phil. vol. ii. p. 180 seq., 306-319); also Trendelenburg,\nPlatonis De Ideis et Numeris Doctrina, pp. 3, 4, seq.\n\nBrandis, though he admits that Plato's lectures were continuous\ndiscourses, thinks that they were intermingled with discussion and\ndebate: which may have been the case, though there is no proof of it.\nBut Schleiermacher goes further, and says (Einleitung. p. 18), \"Any\none who can think that Plato in these oral _Vortr\u00e4gen_ employed the\nSophistical method of long speeches, shows such an ignorance as to\nforfeit all right of speaking about Plato\". Now the passage from\nAristoxenus, given in the preceding note, is our only testimony; and\nit distinctly indicates a continuous lecture to an unprepared\nauditory, just as Protagoras or Prodikus might have given. K. F.\nHermann protests, with good reason, against Schleiermacher's opinion.\n(Ueber Plato's schriftstellerische Motive, p. 289.)\n\nThe confident declaration just produced from Schleiermacher\nillustrates the unsound basis on which he and various other Platonic\ncritics proceed. They find, in some dialogues of Plato, a strong\nopinion proclaimed, that continuous discourse is useless for the\npurpose of instruction. This was a point of view which, at the time\nwhen he composed these dialogues, he considered to be of importance,\nand desired to enforce. But we are not warranted in concluding that he\nmust always have held the same conviction throughout his long\nphilosophical life, and in rejecting as un-platonic all statements and\nall compositions which imply an opposite belief. We cannot with reason\nbind down Plato to a persistence in one and the same type of\ncompositions.]\n\n[Side-note: The lectures De Bono may perhaps have been more\ntranscendental than Plato's other lectures.]\n\nThis statement of Aristotle, alike interesting and unquestionable,\nattests the mysticism and obscurity which pervaded Plato's doctrine in\nhis later years. But whether this lecture on _The Good_ is to be taken\nas a fair specimen of Plato's lecturing generally, and from the time\nwhen he first began to lecture, we may perhaps doubt:[11] since we\nknow that as a lecturer and converser he acquired extraordinary\nascendency over ardent youth. We see this by the remarkable instance\nof Dion.[12]\n\n[Footnote 11: Themistius says (Orat. xxi. p. 245 D) that Plato sometimes\nlectured in the Peir\u00e6us, and that a crowd then collected to hear him,\nnot merely from the city, but also from the country around: if he\nlectured De Bono, however, the ordinary hearers became tired and\ndispersed, leaving only [Greek: tou\\s sun\u00ea/theis o(mil\u00eata/s].\n\nIt appears that Plato in his lectures delivered theories on the\nprinciples of geometry. He denied the reality of geometrical points--or\nat least admitted them only as hypotheses for geometrical\nreasoning. He maintained that what others called _a point_ ought to be\ncalled \"_an indivisible line_\". Xenokrates maintained the same\ndoctrine after him. Aristotle controverts it (see Metaphys. A., 992,\nb. 20). Aristotle's words citing Plato's opinion ([Greek: tou/t\u00f4| me\\n\nou)=n t\u00f4=| ge/nei kai\\ diema/cheto Pla/t\u00f4n \u00f4(s o)/nti ge\u00f4metrik\u00f4=|\ndo/gmati, a)ll' e)ka/lei a)rch\u00ea\\n gramm\u00ea=s; tou=to de\\ polla/kis\ne)ti/thei ta\\s a)to/mous gramma/s]) must be referred to Plato's oral\nlectures; no such opinion occurs in the dialogues. This is the opinion\nboth of Bonitz and Schwegler in their comments on the passage: also of\nTrendelenburg, De Ideis et Numeris Platonis, p. 66. That geometry and\narithmetic were matters of study and reflection both to Plato himself\nand to many of his pupils in the Academy, appears certain; and perhaps\nPlato may have had an interior circle of pupils, to which he applied\nthe well-known exclusion--[Greek: m\u00eadei\\s a)ge\u00f4me/tr\u00eatos ei)si/t\u00f4].\nBut we cannot make out clearly what was Plato's own proficiency, or\nwhat improvements he may have introduced, in geometry, nor what there\nis to justify the comparison made by Montucla between Plato and\nDescartes. In the narrative respecting the Delian problem--the\nduplication of the cube--Archytas, Men\u00e6chmus, and Eudoxus, appear as\nthe inventors of solutions, Plato as the superior who prescribes and\ncriticises (see the letter and epigram of Eratosthenes: Bernhardy,\nEratosthenica, pp. 176-184). The three are said to have been blamed by\nPlato for substituting instrumental measurement in place of\ngeometrical proof (Plutarch, Problem. Sympos. viii. 2, pp. 718, 719;\nPlutarch, Vit. Marcelli, c. 14). The geometrical construction of the\n[Greek: Ko/smos], which Plato gives us in the Tim\u00e6us, seems borrowed\nfrom the Pythagoreans, though applied probably in a way peculiar to\nhimself (see Finger, De Primordiis Geometri\u00e6 ap. Gr\u00e6cos, p. 38,\nHeidelb. 1831).]\n\n[Footnote 12: See Epist. vii. pp. 327, 328.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's Epistles--in them only he speaks in his own\nperson.]\n\nThe only occasions on which we have experience of Plato as speaking in\nhis own person, and addressing himself to definite individuals, are\npresented by his few Epistles; all of them (as I have before remarked)\nwritten after he he was considerably above sixty years of age, and\nnearly all addressed to Sicilians or Italians--Dionysius II., Dion,\nthe friends of Dion after the death of the latter, and Archytas.[13]\nIn so far as these letters bear upon Plato's manner of lecturing or\nteaching, they go to attest, first, his opinion that direct written\nexposition was useless for conveying real instruction to the reader--next,\nhis reluctance to publish any such exposition under his own\nname, and carrying with it his responsibility. When asked for\nexposition, he writes intentionally with mystery, so that ordinary\npersons cannot understand.\n\n[Footnote 13: Of the thirteen Platonic Epistles, Ep. 2, 3, 13, are\naddressed to the second or younger Dionysius; Ep. 4 to Dion; Ep. 7, 8,\nto the friends and relatives of Dion after Dion's death. The 13th\nEpistle appears to be the earliest of all, being seemingly written\nafter the first voyage of Plato to visit Dionysius II. at Syracuse, in\n367-366 B.C., and before his second visit to the same place and\nperson, about 363-362 B.C. Epistles 2 and 3 were written after his\nreturn from that second visit, in 360 B.C., and prior to the\nexpedition of Dion against Dionysius in 357 B.C. Epistle 4 was written\nto Dion shortly after Dion's victorious career at Syracuse, about 355\nB.C. Epistles 7 and 8 were written not long after the murder of Dion\nin 354 B.C. The first in order, among the Platonic Epistles, is not\nwritten by Plato, but by Dion, addressed to Dionysius, shortly after\nthe latter had sent Dion away from Syracuse. The fifth is addressed by\nPlato to the Macedonian prince Perdikkas. The sixth, to Hermeias of\nAtarneus, Erastus, and Koriskus. The ninth and twelfth, to Archytas of\nTarentum. The tenth, to Aristod\u00f4rus. The eleventh, to Laodamas. I\nconfess that I see nothing in these letters which compels me to depart\nfrom the judgment of the ancient critics, who unanimously acknowledged\nthem as genuine. I do not think myself competent to determine _\u00e0\npriori_ what the style of Plato's letters _must_ have been; what\ntopics he _must_ have touched upon, and what topics he _could not_\nhave touched upon. I have no difficulty in believing that Plato,\nwriting a letter on philosophy, may have expressed himself with as\nmuch mysticism and obscurity as we now read in Epist. 2 and 7. Nor\ndoes it surprise me to find Plato (in Epist. 13) alluding to details\nwhich critics, who look upon him altogether as a spiritual person,\ndisallow as mean and unworthy. His recommendation of the geometer,\nHelikon of Kyzikus, to Dionysius and Archytas, is to me interesting:\nto make known the theorems of Eudoxus, through the medium of Helikon,\nto Archytas, was no small service to geometry in those days. I have an\ninterest in learning how Plato employed the money given to him by\nDionysius and other friends: that he sent to Dionysius a statue of\nApollo by a good Athenian sculptor named Leochares (this sculptor\nexecuted a bust of Isokrates also, Plut. Vit. x. Orat. p. 838); and\nanother statue by the same sculptor for the wife of Dionysius, in\ngratitude for the care which she had taken of him (Plato) when sick at\nSyracuse; that he spent the money of Dionysius partly in discharging\nhis own public taxes and liturgies at Athens, partly in providing\ndowries for poor maidens among his friends; that he was so beset by\napplications, which he could not refuse, for letters of recommendation\nto Dionysius, as to compel him to signify, by a private mark, to\nDionysius, which among the letters he wished to be most attended to.\n\"These latter\" (he says) \"I shall begin with [Greek: theo\\s] (sing.\nnumber), the others I shall begin with [Greek: theoi\\] (plural).\"\n(Epist. xiii. 361, 362, 363.)]\n\n[Side-note: Intentional obscurity of his Epistles in reference to\nphilosophical doctrine.]\n\nKnowing as we do that he had largely imbued himself with the tenets of\nthe Pythagoreans (who designedly adopted a symbolical manner of\nspeaking--published no writings--for Philolaus is cited as an\nexception to their rule--and did not care to be understood, except by\ntheir own adepts after a long apprenticeship) we cannot be surprised\nto find Plato holding a language very similar. He declares that the\nhighest principles of his philosophy could not be set forth in writing\nso as to be intelligible to ordinary persons: that they could only be\napprehended by a few privileged recipients, through an illumination\nkindled in the mind by multiplied debates and much mental effort: that\nsuch illumination was always preceded by a painful feeling of want,\nusually long-continued, sometimes lasting for nearly thirty years, and\nexchanged at length for relief at some unexpected moment.[14]\n\n[Footnote 14: Plato, Epist. ii. pp. 313, 314.]\n\nPlato during his second visit had had one conversation, and only one,\nwith Dionysius respecting the higher mysteries of philosophy. He had\nimpressed upon Dionysius the prodigious labour and difficulty of\nattaining truth upon these matters. The despot professed to thirst\nardently for philosophy, and the conversation turned upon the Natura\nPrimi--upon the first and highest principles of Nature.[15] Dionysius,\nafter this conversation with Plato, intimated that he had already\nconceived in his own mind the solution of these difficulties, and the\ntruth upon philosophy in its greatest mysteries. Upon which Plato\nexpressed his satisfaction that such was the case,[16] so as to\nrelieve him from the necessity of farther explanations, though the\nlike had never happened to him with any previous hearer.\n\n[Footnote 15: Plat. Epist. ii. 312: [Greek: peri\\ t\u00ea=s tou= pr\u00f4/ton\nphu/se\u00f4s]. Epist. vii. 344: [Greek: t\u00f4=n peri\\ phu/se\u00f4s a)/kr\u00f4n kai\\\npr\u00f4/t\u00f4n].--One conversation only--Epist. vii. 345.]\n\n[Footnote 16: Plato, Epist. ii. 313 B. Plato asserts the same about\nDionysius in Epist. vii. 341 B.]\n\n[Side-note: Letters of Plato to Dionysius II. about philosophy. His\nanxiety to confine philosophy to discussion among select and prepared\nminds.]\n\nBut Dionysius soon found that he could not preserve the explanation in\nhis mind, after Plato's departure--that difficulties again crowded\nupon him--and that it was necessary to send a confidential messenger\nto Athens to entreat farther elucidations. In reply, Plato sends back\nby the messenger what is now numbered as the second of his Epistles.\nHe writes avowedly in enigmatical language, so that, if the letter be\nlost, the finder will not be able to understand it; and he enjoins\nDionysius to burn it after frequent perusal.[17] He expresses his hope\nthat when Dionysius has debated the matter often with the best minds\nnear him, the clouds will clear away of themselves, and the moment of\nillumination will supervene.[18] He especially warns Dionysius against\ntalking about these matters to unschooled men, who will be sure to\nlaugh at them; though by minds properly prepared, they will be\nreceived with the most fervent welcome.[19] He affirms that Dionysius\nis much superior in philosophical debate to his companions; who were\novercome in debate with him, not because they suffered themselves\ndesignedly to be overcome (out of flattery towards the despot, as some\nill-natured persons alleged), but because they could not defend\nthemselves against the Elenchus as applied by Dionysius.[20] Lastly,\nPlato advises Dionysius to write down nothing, since what has once\nbeen written will be sure to disappear from the memory; but to trust\naltogether to learning by heart, meditation, and repeated debate, as a\nguarantee for retention in his mind. \"It is for that reason\" (Plato\nsays)[21] \"that I have never myself written anything upon these\nsubjects. There neither is, nor shall there ever be, any treatise of\nPlato. The opinions called by the name of Plato are those of Sokrates,\nin his days of youthful vigour and glory.\"\n\n[Footnote 17: Plat. Epist. ii. 312 E: [Greek: phraste/on d\u00ea/ soi di'\nai)nigm\u00f4=n i(/n a)/n ti \u00ea( de/ltos \u00ea)\\ po/ntos \u00ea)\\ g\u00ea=s e)n ptuchai=s\npa/th\u00ea|, o( a)nagnou\\s m\u00ea\\ gn\u00f4=|]. 314 C: [Greek: e)/r)r(h\u00f4so kai\\\npei/thou, kai\\ t\u00ea\\n e)pistol\u00ea\\n tau/t\u00ean nu=n pr\u00f4=ton polla/kis\na)nagnou\\s kata/kauson].\n\nProklus, in his Commentary on the Tim\u00e6us (pp. 40, 41), remarks the\nfondness of Plato for [Greek: to\\ ai)nigmat\u00f4de/s].]\n\n[Footnote 18: Plat. Epist. ii. 313 D.]\n\n[Footnote 19: Plat. Epist. ii. 314 A. [Greek: eu)labou= me/ntoi m\u00ea/\npote e)kpe/s\u00ea| tau=ta ei)s a)nthr\u00f4/pous a)paideu/tous.]]\n\n[Footnote 20: Plat. Epist. ii. 314 D.]\n\n[Footnote 21: Plat. Epist. ii. 314 C. [Greek: megi/st\u00ea de\\ phulak\u00ea\\\nto\\ m\u00ea\\ gra/phein a)ll' e)kmantha/nein; ou) ga\\r e)sti ta\\ graphe/nta\nm\u00ea\\ ou)k e)kpesei=n. dia\\ tau=ta ou)de\\n p\u00f4/pot' e)g\u00f4\\ peri\\ tou/t\u00f4n\nge/grapha, ou)/d' e)/sti su/ggramma Pla/t\u00f4nos ou)de\\n ou)/d' e)/stai;\nta\\ de\\ nu=n lego/mena, S\u00f4kra/tous e)sti\\ kalou= kai\\ ne/ou\ngegono/tos].\n\n\"Addamus ad superiora\" (says Wesseling, Epist. ad Venemam, p. 41,\nUtrecht, 1748), \"Platonem videri semper voluisse, dialogos, in quibus\nde Philosophi\u00e2, deque Republic\u00e2, atque ejus Legibus, inter\nconfabulantes actum fuit, non sui ingenii sed Socratici, foetus\nesse\".]\n\n[Side-note: He refuses to furnish any written, authoritative\nexposition of his own philosophical doctrine.]\n\nSuch is the language addressed by Plato to the younger Dionysius, in a\nletter written seemingly between 362-357 B.C. In another letter,\nwritten about ten years afterwards (353-352 B.C.) to the friends of\nDion (after Dion's death), he expresses the like repugnance to the\nidea of furnishing any written authoritative exposition of his\nprincipal doctrines. \"There never shall be any expository treatise of\nmine upon them\" (he declares). \"Others have tried, Dionysius among the\nnumber, to write them down; but they do not know what they attempt. I\ncould myself do this better than any one, and I should consider it the\nproudest deed in my life, as well as a signal benefit to mankind, to\nbring forward an exposition of Nature luminous to all.[22] But I think\nthe attempt would be nowise beneficial, except to a few, who require\nonly slight direction to enable them to find it for themselves: to\nmost persons it would do no good, but would only fill them with empty\nconceit of knowledge, and with contempt for others.[23] These matters\ncannot be communicated in words as other sciences are. Out of repeated\ndebates on them, and much social intercourse, there is kindled\nsuddenly a light in the mind, as from fire bursting forth, which, when\nonce generated, keeps itself alive.\"[24]\n\n[Footnote 22: Plato, Epist. vii. 341, B, C. [Greek: ti/ tou/tou\nka/llion e)pe/prakt' a)\\n \u00ea(mi=n e)n t\u00f4=| bi/\u00f4| \u00ea)\\ toi=s te\na)nthr\u00f4/poisi me/ga o)/phelos gra/psai _kai\\ t\u00ea\\n phu/sin ei)s ph\u00f4=s\npa=si proagagei=n_?]]\n\n[Footnote 23: Plat. Epist. vii. 341 E.]\n\n[Footnote 24: Plato, Epist. vii. 341 C. [Greek: ou)/koun e)mo/n ge\nperi\\ au)t\u00f4=n e)/sti su/ggramma ou)de m\u00ea/ pote ge/n\u00eatai; r(\u00eato\\n ga\\r\nou)dam\u00f4=s e)stin \u00f4(s a)/lla math\u00ea/mata, a)ll' e)k poll\u00ea=s sunousi/as\ngignome/n\u00eas peri\\ to\\ pra=gma au)to\\ kai\\ tou= suz\u00ea=|n, e)xai/phn\u00eas,\noi(=on a)po\\ puro\\s p\u00ead\u00ea/santos e)xaphthe\\n ph\u00f4=s, e)n t\u00ea=| psuch\u00ea=|\ngeno/menon au)to\\ e(auto\\ \u00ea)/d\u00ea tre/phei].\n\nThis sentence, as a remarkable one, I have translated literally in the\ntext: that which precedes is given only in substance.\n\nWe see in the Republic that Sokrates, when questioned by Glaukon, and\nurged emphatically to give some solution respecting [Greek: \u00ea( tou=\na)gathou= i)de/a] and [Greek: \u00ea( tou= diale/gesthai du/namis], answers\nonly by an evasion or a metaphor (Republic, vi. 506 E, vii. 533 A).\nNow these are much the same points as what are signified in the letter\nto Dionysius, under the terms [Greek: ta\\ pr\u00f4=ta kai\\ a)/kra t\u00ea=s\nphu/se\u00f4s--\u00ea( tou= pr\u00f4/tou phu/sis] (312 E): as to which Plato, when\nquestioned, replies in a mystic and unintelligible way.]\n\n[Side-note: He illustrates his doctrine by the successive stages of\ngeometrical teaching. Difficulty to avoid the creeping in of error at\neach of these stages.]\n\nPlato then proceeds to give an example from geometry, illustrating the\nuselessness both of writing and of direct exposition. In acquiring a\nknowledge of the circle, he distinguishes five successive stages. 1.\nThe Name. 2. The Definition, a proposition composed of nouns and\nverbs. 3. The Diagram. 4. Knowledge, Intelligence, True Opinion,\n[Greek: Nou=s]. 5. The Noumenon--[Greek: Au)to\\-Ku/klos]--ideal or\nintelligible circle, the only true object of knowledge.[25] The fourth\nstage is a purely mental result, not capable of being exposed either\nin words or figure: it presupposes the three first, but is something\ndistinct from them; and it is the only mental condition immediately\ncognate and similar to the fifth stage, or the self-existent idea.[26]\n\n[Footnote 25: Plato, Epist. vii. 342 A, B. The geometrical\nillustration which follows is intended merely as an illustration, of\ngeneral principles which Plato asserts to be true about all other\nenquiries, physical or ethical.]\n\n[Footnote 26: Plat. Epist. vii. 342 C. [Greek: \u00f4(s de\\ e(\\n tou=to\nau)= pa=n thete/on, ou)k e)n ph\u00f4nai=s ou)d' e)n s\u00f4ma/t\u00f4n sch\u00ea/masin\na)ll' e)n psuchai=s e)no/n, \u00f4(=| d\u00ea=lon e(/teron te o)\\n au)tou= tou=\nku/klou t\u00ea=s phu/se\u00f4s, t\u00f4=n te e)/mprosthen lechthe/nt\u00f4n tri\u00f4=n.\ntou/t\u00f4n de\\ e)ggu/tata me\\n xuggenei/a| kai\\ o(moio/t\u00eati, tou=\npe/mptou] (_i. e._ [Greek: tou= Au)to\\-ku/klou]) [Greek: nou=s] (the\nfourth stage) [Greek: pepl\u00easi/ake, ta)/lla de\\ ple/on a)pe/chei].\n\nIn Plato's reckoning, [Greek: o( nou=s] is counted as the fourth, in\nthe ascending scale, from which we ascend to the fifth, [Greek: to\\\nnoou/menon], or [Greek: no\u00eato/n]. [Greek: O( nou=s] and [Greek: to\\\nno\u00eato\\n] are cognate or homogeneous--according to a principle\noften insisted on in ancient metaphysics--like must be known by like.\n(Aristot. De Anim\u00e2, i. 2, 404, b. 15.)]\n\nNow in all three first stages (Plato says) there is great liability to\nerror and confusion. The name is unavoidably equivocal, uncertain,\nfluctuating: the definition is open to the same reproach, and often\ngives special and accidental properties along with the universal and\nessential, or instead of them: the diagram cannot exhibit the\nessential without some variety of the accidental, nor without some\nproperties even contrary to reality, since any circle which you draw,\ninstead of touching a straight line in one point alone, will be sure\nto touch it in several points.[27] Accordingly no intelligent man will\nembody the pure concepts of his mind in fixed representation, either\nby words or by figures.[28] If we do this, we have the _quid_ or\nessence, which we are searching for, inextricably perplexed by\naccompaniments of the _quale_ or accidents, which we are not searching\nfor.[29] We acquire only a confused cognition, exposing us to be\npuzzled, confuted, and humiliated, by an acute cross-examiner, when he\nquestions us on the four stages which we have gone through to attain\nit.[30] Such confusion does not arise from any fault in the mind, but\nfrom the defects inherent in each of the four stages of progress. It\nis only by painful effort, when each of these is naturally good--when\nthe mind itself also is naturally good, and when it has gone through\nall the stages up and down, dwelling upon each--that true knowledge\ncan be acquired.[31] Persons whose minds are naturally bad, or have\nbecome corrupt, morally or intellectually, cannot be taught to see\neven by Lynkeus himself. In a word, if the mind itself be not cognate\nto the matter studied, no quickness in learning nor force of memory\nwill suffice. He who is a quick learner and retentive, but not cognate\nor congenial with just or honourable things--he who, though cognate\nand congenial, is stupid in learning or forgetful--will never\neffectually learn the truth about virtue or wickedness.[32] These can\nonly be learnt along with truth and falsehood as it concerns entity\ngenerally, by long practice and much time.[33] It is only with\ndifficulty,--after continued friction, one against another, of all the\nfour intellectual helps, names and definitions, acts of sight and\nsense,--after application of the Elenchus by repeated question and\nanswer, in a friendly temper and without spite--it is only after all\nthese preliminaries, that cognition and intelligence shine out with as\nmuch intensity as human power admits.[34]\n\n[Footnote 27: Plat. Epist. vii. 343 B. This illustrates what is said\nin the Republic about the geometrical [Greek: u(pothe/seis] (vi. 510\nE, 511 A; vii. 533 B.)]\n\n[Footnote 28: Plat. Epist. vii. 343 A. [Greek: \u00f4(=n e(/neka nou=n\ne)/ch\u00f4n ou)dei\\s tolm\u00ea/sei pote\\ ei)s au)to\\ tithe/nai ta\\ neno\u00eame/na,\nkai\\ tau=ta ei)s a)metaki/n\u00eaton, o(\\ d\u00ea\\ pa/schei ta\\ gegramme/na\ntu/pois.]]\n\n[Footnote 29: Plat. Epist. vii. 343 C.]\n\n[Footnote 30: Plat. Epist. vii. 343 D.]\n\n[Footnote 31: Plat. Epistol. vii. 343 E. [Greek: \u00ea( de\\ dia\\ pa/nt\u00f4n\nau)t\u00f4=n diag\u00f4g\u00ea/, a)/n\u00f4 kai\\ ka/t\u00f4 metabai/nousa e)ph' e(/kaston,\nmo/gis e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ean e)ne/teken eu)= pephuko/tos eu)= pephuko/ti.]]\n\n[Footnote 32: Plato, Epistol. vii. 344 A.]\n\n[Footnote 33: Plato, Epist. vii. 344 B. [Greek: a(/ma ga\\r au)ta\\\na)na/gk\u00ea mantha/nein, kai\\ to\\ pseu=dos a(/ma kai\\ a)l\u00eathe\\s t\u00ea=s\no(/l\u00eas ou)si/as.]]\n\n[Footnote 34: Plat. Epist. vii. 344 B. [Greek: mo/gis de\\ tribo/mena\npro\\s a)/ll\u00eala au)t\u00f4=n e(/kasta, o)no/mata kai\\ lo/goi, o)/pseis te\nkai\\ ai)sth\u00ea/seis, e)n eu)mene/sin e)le/gchos e)legcho/mena kai\\\na)/neu phtho/n\u00f4n e)r\u00f4t\u00ea/sesi kai\\ a)pokri/sesi chr\u00f4me/n\u00f4n, e)xe/lampse\nphro/n\u00easis peri\\ e(/kaston kai\\ nou=s, suntei/n\u00f4n o(/ti ma/list' ei)s\ndu/namin a)nthr\u00f4pi/n\u00ean.]]\n\n[Side-note: No written exposition can keep clear of these chances of\nerror.]\n\nFor this reason, no man of real excellence will ever write and publish\nhis views, upon the gravest matters, into a world of spite and\npuzzling contention. In one word, when you see any published writings,\neither laws proclaimed by the law-giver or other compositions by\nothers, you may be sure that, if he be himself a man of worth, these\nwere not matters of first-rate importance in his estimation. If they\nreally were so, and if he has published his views in writing, some\nevil influence must have destroyed his good sense.[35]\n\n[Footnote 35: Plat. Epist. vii. 344 C-D.]\n\n[Side-note: Relations of Plato with Dionysius II. and the friends of\nthe deceased Dion. Pretensions of Dionysius to understand and expound\nPlato's doctrines.]\n\nWe see by these letters that Plato disliked and disapproved the idea\nof publishing, for the benefit of readers generally, any written\nexposition of _philosophia prima_, carrying his own name, and making\nhim responsible for it. His writings are altogether dramatic. All\nopinions on philosophy are enunciated through one or other of his\nspokesmen: that portion of the Athenian drama called the Parabasis, in\nwhich the Chorus addressed the audience directly and avowedly in the\nname of the poet, found no favour with Plato. We read indeed in\nseveral of his dialogues (Ph\u00e6don, Republic, Tim\u00e6us, and others) dogmas\nadvanced about the highest and most recondite topics of philosophy:\nbut then they are all advanced under the name of Sokrates, Tim\u00e6us,\n&c.--[Greek: Ou)k e)mo\\s o( mu=thos], &c. There never was any written\nprogramme issued by Plato himself, declaring the Symbolum Fidei to\nwhich he attached his own name.[36] Even in the Leges, the most\ndogmatical of all his works, the dramatic character and the borrowed\nvoice are kept up. Probably at the time when Plato wrote his letter to\nthe friends of the deceased Dion, from which I have just quoted--his\naversion to written expositions was aggravated by the fact, that\nDionysius II., or some friend in his name, had written and published a\nphilosophical treatise of this sort, passing himself off as editor of\na Platonic philosophy, or of improved doctrines of his own built\nthereupon, from oral communication with Plato.[37] We must remember\nthat Plato himself (whether with full sincerity or not) had\ncomplimented Dionysius for his natural ability and aptitude in\nphilosophical debate:[38] so that the pretension of the latter to come\nforward as an expositor of Plato appears the less preposterous. On the\nother hand, such pretension was calculated to raise a belief that\nDionysius had been among the most favoured and confidential companions\nof Plato: which belief Plato, writing as he was to the surviving\nfriends of Dion the enemy of Dionysius, is most anxious to remove,\nwhile on the other hand he extols the dispositions and extenuates the\nfaults of his friend Dion. It is to vindicate himself from\nmisconception of his own past proceedings, as well as to exhort with\nregard to the future, that Plato transmits to Sicily his long seventh\nand eighth Epistles, wherein are embodied his objections against the\nusefulness of written exposition intended for readers generally.\n\n[Footnote 36: The Platonic dialogue was in this respect different from\nthe Aristotelian dialogue. Aristotle, in his composed dialogues,\nintroduced other speakers, but delivered the principal arguments in\nhis own name. Cicero followed his example, in the De Finibus and\nelsewhere: \"Qu\u00e6 his temporibus scripsi, [Greek: A)ristote/leion] morem\nhabent: in quo sermo ita inducitur c\u00e6terorum, ut penes ipsum sit\nprincipatus\". (Cic. ad Att. xiii. 19.)\n\nHerakleides of Pontus (Cicero, ibid.), in his composed dialogues,\nintroduced himself as a [Greek: k\u00f4pho\\n pro/s\u00f4pon]. Plato does not\neven do thus much.]\n\n[Footnote 37: We see this from Epist. vii. 341 B, 344 D, 345 A. Plato\nspeaks of the impression as then prevalent (when he wrote) in the mind\nof Dionysius:--[Greek: po/teron Dionu/sios a)kou/sas mo/non a(/pax\nou(/t\u00f4s _ei)de/nai te oi)/etai_ kai\\ i(kan\u00f4s oi)=den], &c.]]\n\n[Footnote 38: Plat. Epist. ii. 314 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Impossibility of teaching by written exposition assumed by\nPlato; the assumption intelligible in his day.]\n\nThese objections (which Plato had often insisted on,[39] and which are\nalso, in part, urged by Sokrates in the Ph\u00e6drus) have considerable\nforce, if we look to the way in which Plato conceives them. In the\nfirst place, Plato conceives the exposition as not merely written but\npublished: as being, therefore, presented to all minds, the large\nmajority being ignorant, unprepared, and beset with that false\npersuasion of knowledge which Sokrates regarded as universal. In so\nfar as it comes before these latter, nothing is gained, and something\nis lost; for derision is brought upon the attempt to teach.[40] In the\nnext place, there probably existed, at that time, no elementary work\nwhatever for beginners in any science: the Elements of Geometry by\nEuclid were published more than a century after Plato's death, at\nAlexandria. Now, when Plato says that written expositions, then\nscarcely known, would be useless to the student--he compares them with\nthe continued presence and conversation of a competent teacher; whom\nhe supposes not to rely upon direct exposition, but to talk much\n\"about and about\" the subject, addressing the pupil with a large\nvariety of illustrative interrogations, adapting all that was said to\nhis peculiar difficulties and rate of progress, and thus evoking the\ninherent cognitive force of the pupil's own mind. That any Elements of\nGeometry (to say nothing of more complicated inquiries) could be\nwritten and published, such that an [Greek: a)ge\u00f4me/tr\u00eatos] might take\nup the work and learn geometry by means of it, without being misled by\nequivocal names, bad definitions, and diagrams exhibiting the\ndefinition as clothed with special accessories--this is a possibility\nwhich Plato contests, and which we cannot wonder at his\ncontesting.[41] The combination of a written treatise, with the oral\nexposition of a tutor, would have appeared to Plato not only useless\nbut inconvenient, as restraining the full liberty of adaptive\ninterrogation necessary to be exercised, different in the case of each\ndifferent pupil.\n\n[Footnote 39: Plato, Epist. vii. 342. [Greek: lo/gos a)l\u00eath\u00ea/s,\npolla/kis me\\n u(p' e)mou= kai\\ pro/sthen r(\u00eathei/s], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 40: Plato (Epist. ii. 314 A) remarks this expressly: also in\nthe Ph\u00e6drus, 275 E, 276 A.\n\n[Greek: A)/threi d\u00ea\\ periskop\u00f4=n, m\u00ea/ tis t\u00f4=n a)mu\u00ea/t\u00f4n e)pakou/s\u00ea|]\nis the language of the Platonic Sokrates as a speaker in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus\n(155 E).]\n\n[Footnote 41: Some just and pertinent remarks, bearing on this\nsubject, are made by Condorcet, in one of his Academic \u00c9loges: \"Les\nlivres ne peuvent remplacer les le\u00e7ons des ma\u00eetres habiles, lorsque\nles sciences n'ont pas encore fait assez de progr\u00e8s, pour que les\nv\u00e9rit\u00e9s, qui en forment l'ensemble, puissent \u00eatres distribu\u00e9es et\nrapproch\u00e9es entre elles suivant un ordre syst\u00e9matique: lorsque la\nm\u00e9thode d'en chercher de nouvelles n'a pas \u00e9t\u00e9 r\u00e9duite \u00e0 des proc\u00e9d\u00e9s\nexacts et simples, \u00e0 des r\u00e8gles s\u00fbres et pr\u00e9cises. Avant cette \u00e9poque,\nil faut \u00eatre d\u00e9j\u00e0 consomm\u00e9 dans une science pour lire avec utilit\u00e9 les\nouvrages qui en traitent: et comme cette esp\u00e8ce d'enfance de l'art est\nle temps o\u00f9 les pr\u00e9jug\u00e9s y regnent avec le plus d'empire, o\u00f9 les\nsavants sont les plus expos\u00e9s \u00e0 donner leurs hypoth\u00e8ses pour de\nv\u00e9ritables principes, on risquerait encore de s'\u00e9garer si l'on se\nbornait aux le\u00e7ons d'un seul ma\u00eetre, quand m\u00eame on aurait choisi celui\nque la renomm\u00e9e place au premier rang; car ce temps est aussi celui\ndes reputations usurp\u00e9es. Les voyages sont donc alors le seul moyen de\ns'instruire, comme ils l'\u00e9taient dans l'antiquit\u00e9 et avant la\nd\u00e9couverte de l'imprimerie.\" (Condorcet, \u00c9loge de M. Margraaf, p. 349,\nOeuvres Complets, Paris, 1804. \u00c9loges, vol. ii. Or Ed. Firmin Didot\nFr\u00e8res, Paris, 1847, vol. ii. pp. 598-9.)]\n\n[Side-note: Standard by which Plato tested the efficacy of the\nexpository process.--Power of sustaining a Sokratic\ncross-examination.]\n\nLastly, when we see by what standard Plato tests the efficacy of any\nexpository process, we shall see yet more clearly how he came to\nconsider written exposition unavailing. The standard which he applies\nis, that the learner shall be rendered able both to apply to others,\nand himself to endure from others, a Sokratic Elenchus or\ncross-examination as to the logical difficulties involved in all the\nsteps and helps to learning. Unless he can put to others and follow up\nthe detective questions--unless he can also answer them, when put to\nhimself, pertinently and consistently, so as to avoid being brought to\nconfusion or contradiction--Plato will not allow that he has attained\ntrue knowledge.[42] Now, if we try knowledge by a test so severe as\nthis, we must admit that no reading of written expositions will enable\nthe student to acquire it. The impression made is too superficial, and\nthe mind is too passive during such a process, to be equal to the task\nof meeting new points of view, and combating difficulties not\nexpressly noticed in the treatise which has been studied. The only way\nof permanently arming and strengthening the mind, is (according to\nPlato) by long-continued oral interchange and stimulus, multiplied\ncomment and discussion from different points of view, and active\nexercise in dialectic debate: not aiming at victory over an opponent,\nbut reasoning out each question in all its aspects, affirmative and\nnegative. It is only after a long course of such training--the living\nword of the competent teacher, applied to the mind of the pupil, and\nstimulating its productive and self-defensive force--that any such\nknowledge can be realised as will suffice for the exigencies of the\nSokratic Elenchus.[43]\n\n[Footnote 42: Plato, Epist. vii. 343 D. The difficulties which Plato\nhad here in his eye, and which he required to be solved as conditions\nindispensable to real knowledge--are jumped over in geometrical and\nother scientific expositions, as belonging not to geometry, &c., but\nto logic. M. Jouffroy remarks, in the Preface to his translation of\nReid's works (p. clxxiv.):--\"Toute science particuli\u00e8re qui, au lieu\nde prendre pour accord\u00e9es les donn\u00e9es _\u00e0 priori_ qu'elle implique,\ndiscute l'autorit\u00e9 de ces donn\u00e9es--ajoute \u00e0 son objet propre celui de\nla logique, confond une autre mission avec la sienne, et par cela m\u00eame\ncompromet la sienne: car nous verrons tout \u00e0-l'heure, et l'histoire de\nla philosophic montre, quelles difficult\u00e9s pr\u00e9sentent ces probl\u00e8mes\nqui sont l'objet propre de la logique; et nous demeurerons convaincus\nque, si les _diff\u00e9rentes sciences avaient eu la pr\u00e9tention de les\n\u00e9claircir avant de passer outre, toutes peut-\u00eatre en seraient encore \u00e0\ncette pr\u00e9face_, et aucune n'aurait entam\u00e9 sa v\u00e9ritable t\u00e2che.\"\n\nRemarks of a similar bearing will be found in the second paragraph of\nMr. John Stuart Mill's Essay on Utilitarianism. It has been found\nconvenient to distinguish the logic of a science from the expository\nmarch of the same science. But Plato would not have acknowledged\n[Greek: e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea], except as including both. Hence his view about\nthe uselessness of written expository treatises.\n\nAristotle, in a remarkable passage of the Metaphysica ([Greek: G]. p.\n1005, a. 20 seqq.) takes pains to distinguish the Logic of Mathematics\nfrom Mathematics themselves--as a separate province and matter of\nstudy. He claims the former as belonging to Philosophia Prima or\nOntology. Those principles which mathematicians called Axioms were not\npeculiar to Mathematics (he says), but were affirmations respecting\nEns quatenus Ens: the mathematician was entitled to assume them so far\nas concerned his own department, and his students must take them for\ngranted: but if he attempted to explain or appreciate them in their\nfull bearing, he overstepped his proper limits, through want of proper\nschooling in Analytica ([Greek: o(/sa d' e)gcheirou=si t\u00f4=n lego/nt\u00f4n\ntine\\s peri\\ t\u00ea=s a)l\u00eathei/as, o(\\n tro/pon dei= a)pode/chesthai, di'\na)paideusi/an t\u00f4=n a)nalutik\u00f4=n tou=to dr\u00f4=sin; dei= ga\\r peri\\\ntou/t\u00f4n \u00ea(/kein proepistame/nous, a)lla\\ m\u00ea\\ a)kou/ontas z\u00eatei=n]--p.\n1005, b. 2.) We see from the words of Aristotle that many mathematical\nenquirers of his time did not recognise (any more than Plato\nrecognised) the distinction upon which he here insists: we see also\nthat the term _Axioms_ had become a technical one for the _principia_\nof mathematical demonstration ([Greek: peri\\ t\u00f4=n e)n toi=s math\u00ea/masi\nkaloume/n\u00f4n a)xi\u00f4ma/t\u00f4n]--p. 1005, a. 20); I do not concur in Sir\nWilliam Hamilton's doubts on this point. (Dissertations on Reid's\nWorks, note A. p. 764.)\n\nThe distinction which Aristotle thus brings to notice, seemingly for\nthe first time, is one of considerable importance.]\n\n[Footnote 43: This is forcibly put by Plato, Epistol. vii. 344 B.\nCompare Plato, Republic, vi. 499 A. Ph\u00e6drus, 276 A-E. [Greek: to\\n\ntou= ei)do/tos lo/gon z\u00f4=nta kai\\ e)/mpsuchon], &c.\n\nThough Plato, in the Ph\u00e6drus, declares oral teaching to be the only\neffectual way of producing a permanent and deep-seated effect--as\ncontrasted with the more superficial effect produced by reading a\nwritten exposition: yet even oral teaching, when addressed in the form\nof continuous lecture or sermon ([Greek: a)/neu a)nakri/se\u00f4s kai\\\ndidach\u00ea=s], Ph\u00e6drus, 277 E; [Greek: to\\ nouthet\u00eatiko\\n ei)=dos],\nSophist\u00eas, p. 230), is represented elsewhere as of little effect. To\nproduce any permanent result, you must diversify the point of view--you\nmust test by circumlocutory interrogation--you must begin by\ndispelling established errors, &c. See the careful explanation of the\npassage in the Ph\u00e6drus (277 E), given by Ueberweg, Aechtheit der\nPlaton. Schrift. pp. 16-22. Direct teaching, in many of the Platonic\ndialogues, is not counted as capable of producing serious improvement.\n\nWhen we come to the Menon and the Ph\u00e6don, we shall hear more of the\nPlatonic doctrine--that knowledge was to be evolved out of the mind,\nnot poured into it from without.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato never published any of the lectures which he\ndelivered at the Academy.]\n\nSince we thus find that Plato was unconquerably averse to publication\nin his own name and with his own responsibility attached to the\nwriting, on grave matters of philosophy--we cannot be surprised that,\namong the numerous lectures which he must have delivered to his pupils\nand auditors in the Academy, none were ever published. Probably he may\nhimself have destroyed them, as he exhorts Dionysius to destroy the\nEpistle which we now read as second, after reading it over frequently.\nAnd we may doubt whether he was not displeased with Aristotle and\nHesti\u00e6us[44] for taking extracts from his lectures De Bono, and making\nthem known to the public: just as he was displeased with Dionysius for\nhaving published a work purporting to be derived from conversations\nwith Plato.\n\n[Footnote 44: Themistius mentions it as a fact recorded (I wish he had\ntold us where or by whom) that Aristotle stoutly opposed the Platonic\ndoctrine of Objective Ideas, even during the lifetime of Plato,\n[Greek: i(storei=tai de\\ o(/ti kai\\ z\u00f4=ntos tou= Pla/t\u00f4nos\nkarter\u00f4/tata peri\\ tou/tou tou= do/gmatos e)ne/st\u00ea o( A)ristote/l\u00eas\nt\u00f4=| Pla/t\u00f4ni]. (Scholia ad Aristotel. Analyt. Poster. p. 228 b. 16\nBrandis.)]\n\n[Side-note: Plato would never publish his philosophical opinions in\nhis own name; but he may have published them in the dialogues under\nthe name of others.]\n\nThat Plato would never consent to write for the public in his own\nname, must be taken as a fact in his character; probably arising from\nearly caution produced by the fate of Sokrates, combined with\npreference for the Sokratic mode of handling. But to what extent he\nreally kept back his opinions from the public, or whether he kept them\nback at all, by design--I do not undertake to say. The borrowed names\nunder which he wrote, and the veil of dramatic fiction, gave him\ngreater freedom as to the thoughts enunciated, and were adopted for\nthe express purpose of acquiring greater freedom. How far the lectures\nwhich he delivered to his own special auditory differed from the\nopinions made known in his dialogues to the general reader, or how far\nhis conversation with a few advanced pupils differed from both--are\nquestions which we have no sufficient means of answering. There\nprobably was a considerable difference. Aristotle alludes to various\ndoctrines of Plato which we cannot find in the Platonic writings: but\nthese doctrines are not such as could have given peculiar offence, if\npublished; they are, rather abstruse and hard to understand. It may\nalso be true (as Tennemann says) that Plato had two distinct modes of\nhandling philosophy--a popular and a scientific: but it cannot be true\n(as the same learned author[45] asserts) that his published dialogues\ncontained the popular and not the scientific. No one surely can regard\nthe Tim\u00e6us, Parmenid\u00eas, Phil\u00eabus, The\u00e6t\u00eatus, Sophist\u00eas, Politikus,\n&c., as works in which dark or difficult questions are kept out of\nsight for the purpose of attracting the ordinary reader. Among the\ndialogues themselves (as I have before remarked) there exist the\nwidest differences; some highly popular and attractive, others\naltogether the reverse, and many gradations between the two. Though I\ndo not doubt therefore that Plato produced powerful effect both as\nlecturer to a special audience, and as talker with chosen students--yet\nin what respect such lectures and conversation differed from what\nwe read in his dialogues, I do not feel that we have any means of\nknowing.\n\n[Footnote 45: See Tennemann, Gesch. d. Phil. vol. ii. p. 205, 215, 221\nseq. This portion of Tennemann's History is valuable, as it takes due\naccount of the seventh Platonic Epistle, compared with the remarkable\npassage in the Ph\u00e6drus about the inefficacy of written exposition for\nthe purpose of teaching.\n\nBut I cannot think that Tennemann rightly interprets the Epistol. vii.\nI see no proof that Plato had any secret or esoteric philosophy,\nreserved for a few chosen pupils, and not proclaimed to the public\nfrom apprehension of giving offence to established creeds: though I\nbelieve such apprehension to have operated as one motive, deterring\nhim from publishing any philosophical exposition under his own\nname--any [Greek: Pla/t\u00f4nos su/ggramma].]\n\n[Side-note: Groups into which the dialogues admit of being thrown.]\n\nIn judging of Plato, we must confine ourselves to the evidence\nfurnished by one or more of the existing Platonic compositions, adding\nthe testimony of Aristotle and a few others respecting Platonic views\nnot declared in the dialogues. Though little can be predicated\nrespecting the dialogues collectively, I shall say something about the\nvarious groups into which they admit of being thrown, before I touch\nupon them separately and _seriatim_.\n\n[Side-note: Distribution made by Thrasyllus defective, but still\nuseful--Dialogues of Search, Dialogues of Exposition.]\n\nThe scheme proposed by Thrasyllus, so far as intended to furnish a\nsymmetrical arrangement of all the Platonic works, is defective,\npartly because the apportionment of the separate works between the two\nleading classes is in several cases erroneous--partly because the\ndiscrimination of the two leading classes, as well as the sub-division\nof one of the two, is founded on diversity of Method, while the\nsub-division of the other class is founded on diversity of Subject. But\nthe scheme is nevertheless useful, as directing our attention to real\nand important attributes belonging in common to considerable groups of\ndialogues. It is in this respect preferable to the fanciful dramatic\npartnership of trilogies and tetralogies, as well as to the mystical\ninterpretation and arrangement suggested by the Neo-platonists. The\nDialogues of Exposition--in which one who knows (or professes to know)\nsome truth, announces and developes it to those who do not know\nit--are contrasted with those of Search or Investigation, in which the\nelement of knowledge and affirmative communication is wanting. All the\ninterlocutors are at once ignorant and eager to know; all of them are\njointly engaged in searching for the unknown, though one among them\nstands prominent both in suggesting where to look and in testing all\nthat is found, whether it be really the thing looked for. Among the\nexpository dialogues, the most marked specimens are Tim\u00e6us and\nEpinomis, in neither of which is there any searching or testing debate\nat all. Republic, Ph\u00e6don, Phil\u00eabus, exhibit exposition preceded or\naccompanied by a search. Of the dialogues of pure investigation, the\nmost elaborate specimen is the The\u00e6t\u00eatus: Menon, Lach\u00eas, Charmid\u00eas,\nLysis, Euthyphron, &c., are of the like description, yet less worked\nout. There are also several others. In the Menon, indeed,[46] Sokrates\ngoes so far as to deny that there can be any real teaching, and to\ncontend that what appears teaching is only resuscitation of buried or\nforgotten knowledge.\n\n[Footnote 46: Plato, Menon, p. 81-82.]\n\n[Side-note: Dialogues of Exposition--present affirmative result.\nDialogues of Search are wanting in that attribute.]\n\nOf these two classes of Dialogues, the Expository are those which\nexhibit the distinct attribute--an affirmative result or doctrine,\nannounced and developed by a person professing to know, and proved in\na manner more or less satisfactory. The other class--the Searching or\nInvestigative--have little else in common except the absence of this\nproperty. We find in them debate, refutation, several points of view\ncanvassed and some shown to be untenable; but there is no affirmative\nresult established, or even announced as established, at the close.\nOften there is even a confession of disappointment. In other respects,\nthe dialogues of this class are greatly diversified among one another:\nthey have only the one common attribute--much debate, with absence of\naffirmative result.\n\n[Side-note: The distribution coincides mainly with that of\nAristotle--Dialectic, Demonstrative.]\n\nNow the distribution made by Thrasyllus of the dialogues under two\ngeneral heads (1. Dialogues of Search or Investigation, 2. Dialogues\nof Exposition) coincides, to a considerable extent, with the two\ndistinct intellectual methods recognised by Aristotle as Dialectic and\nDemonstrative: Dialectic being handled by Aristotle in the Topica, and\nDemonstration in the Posterior Analytica. \"Dialectic\" (says Aristotle)\n\"is tentative, respecting those matters of which philosophy aims at\ncognizance.\" Accordingly, Dialectic (as well as Rhetoric) embraces all\nmatters without exception, but in a tentative and searching way,\nrecognising arguments _pro_ as well as _con_, and bringing to view the\nantithesis between the two, without any preliminary assumption or\npredetermined direction, the questioner being bound to proceed only on\nthe answers given by the respondent: while philosophy comes\nafterwards, dividing this large field into appropriate compartments,\nlaying down authoritative _principia_ in regard to each, and deducing\nfrom them, by logical process, various positive results.[47] Plato\ndoes not use the term Dialectic exactly in the same sense as\nAristotle. He implies by it two things: 1. That the process shall be\ncolloquial, two or more minds engaged in a joint research, each of\nthem animating and stimulating the others. 2. That the matter\ninvestigated shall be general--some general question or proposition:\nthat the premisses shall all be general truths, and that the objects\nkept before the mind shall be Forms or Species, apart from\nparticulars.[48] Here it stands in contrast with Rhetoric, which aims\nat the determination of some particular case or debated course of\nconduct, judicial or political, and which is intended to end in some\nimmediate practical verdict or vote. Dialectic, in Plato's sense,\ncomprises the whole process of philosophy. His Dialogues of Search\ncorrespond to Aristotle's Dialectic, being machinery for generating\narguments and for ensuring that every argument shall be subjected to\nthe interrogation of an opponent: his Dialogues of Exposition, wherein\nsome definite result is enunciated and proved (sufficiently or not),\ncorrespond to what Aristotle calls Demonstration.\n\n[Footnote 47: Aristot. Metaphys. [Greek: G]. 1004, b. 25. [Greek:\ne)/sti de\\ \u00ea( dialektik\u00ea\\ peirastik\u00ea\\, peri\\ \u00f4(=n \u00ea( philosophi/a\ngn\u00f4ristik\u00ea/]. Compare also Rhet. i. 2, p. 1356, a. 33, i. 4, p. 1359,\nb. 12, where he treats Dialectic (as well as Rhetoric) not as methods\nof acquiring instruction on any definite matter, but as inventive and\nargumentative aptitudes--powers of providing premisses and\narguments--[Greek: duna/meis tine\\s tou= pori/sai lo/gous]. If (he says)\nyou try to convert Dialectic from a method of discussion into a method of\ncognition, you will insensibly eliminate its true nature and\ncharacter:--[Greek: o(/s\u00f4| d' a)/n tis \u00ea)\\ t\u00ea\\n dialektik\u00ea\\n \u00ea)\\\ntau/t\u00ean, m\u00ea\\ katha/per a)\\n duna/meis a)ll' e)pist\u00ea/mas peira=tai\nkataskeua/zein, l\u00ea/setai t\u00ea\\n phu/sin au)t\u00f4=n a)phani/sas, t\u00f4=|\nmetabai/nein e)piskeua/z\u00f4n ei)s e)pist\u00ea/mas u(pokeime/n\u00f4n tin\u00f4=n\npragma/t\u00f4n, a)lla\\ m\u00ea\\ mo/non lo/g\u00f4n].\n\nThe Platonic Dialogues of Search are [Greek: duna/meis tou= pori/sai\nlo/gous]. Compare the Prooemium of Cicero to his Paradoxa.]\n\n[Footnote 48: Plato, Republ. vi. 511, vii. 582. Respecting the\ndifference between Plato and Aristotle about Dialectic, see\nRavaisson--Essai sur la M\u00e9taphysique d'Aristote--iii. 1, 2, p. 248.]\n\n[Side-note: Classification of Thrasyllus in its details. He applies\nhis own principles erroneously.]\n\nIf now we take the main scheme of distributing the Platonic Dialogues,\nproposed by Thrasyllus--1. Dialogues of Exposition, with an\naffirmative result; 2. Dialogues of Investigation or Search, without\nan affirmative result--and if we compare the number of Dialogues (out\nof the thirty-six in all), which he specifies as belonging to each--we\nshall find twenty-two specified under the former head, and fourteen\nunder the latter. Moreover, among the twenty-two are ranked Republic\nand Leges: each of them greatly exceeding in bulk any other\ncomposition of Plato. It would appear thus that there is a\npreponderance both in number and bulk on the side of the Expository.\nBut when we analyse the lists of Thrasyllus, we see that he has unduly\nenlarged that side of the account, and unduly contracted the other. He\nhas enrolled among the Expository--1. The Apology, the Epistol\u00e6, and\nthe Menexenus, which ought not properly to be ranked under either\nhead. 2. The The\u00e6t\u00eatus, Parmenid\u00eas, Hipparchus, Erast\u00e6, Minos,\nKleitophon--every one of which ought to be transferred to the other\nhead. 3. The Ph\u00e6drus, Symposion, and Kratylus, which are admissible by\nindulgence, since they do indeed present affirmative exposition, but\nin small proportion compared to the negative criticism, the rhetorical\nand poetical ornament: they belong in fact to both classes, but more\npreponderantly to one. 4. The Republic. This he includes with perfect\njustice, for the eight last books of it are expository. Yet the first\nbook exhibits to us a specimen of negative and refutative dialectic\nwhich is not surpassed by anything in Plato.\n\nOn the other hand, Thrasyllus has placed among the Dialogues of Search\none which might, with equal or greater propriety, be ranked among the\nExpository--the Protagoras. It is true that this dialogue involves\nmuch of negation, refutation, and dramatic ornament: and that the\nquestion propounded in the beginning (Whether virtue be teachable?) is\nnot terminated. But there are two portions of the dialogue which are,\nboth of them, decided specimens of affirmative exposition--the speech\nof Protagoras in the earlier part (wherein the growth of virtue,\nwithout special teaching or professional masters, is elucidated)--and\nthe argument of Sokrates at the close, wherein the identity of the\nGood and the Pleasurable is established.[49]\n\n[Footnote 49: We may remark that Thrasyllus, though he enrols the\nProtagoras under the class Investigative, and the sub-class Agonistic,\nplaces it alone in a still lower class which he calls [Greek:\nE)ndeiktiko/s]. Now, if we turn to the Platonic dialogue Euthyd\u00eamus,\np. 278 D, we shall see that Plato uses the words [Greek: e)ndei/xomai]\nand [Greek: u(ph\u00eag\u00ea/somai] as exact equivalents: so that [Greek:\ne)ndeiktiko\\s] would have the same meaning as [Greek: u(ph\u00eag\u00eatiko/s].]\n\n[Side-note: The classification, as it would stand, if his principles\nwere applied correctly.]\n\nIf then we rectify the lists of Thrasyllus, they will stand as\nfollows, with the Expository Dialogues much diminished in number:\n\n_Dialogues of Investigation or Search._\n\n[Greek: Z\u00eat\u00eatikoi/].\n\n1. The\u00e6t\u00eatus.\n2. Parmenid\u00eas.\n3. Alkibiad\u00eas I.\n4. Alkibiad\u00eas II.\n5. Theag\u00eas.\n6. Lach\u00eas.\n7. Lysis.\n8. Charmid\u00eas.\n9. Menon.\n10. Ion.\n11. Euthyphron.\n12. Euthyd\u00eamus.\n13. Gorgias.\n14. Hippias I.\n15. Hippias II.\n16. Kleitophon.\n17. Hipparchus.\n18. Erast\u00e6.\n19. Minos.\n\n_Dialogues of Exposition_\n\n[Greek: U(ph\u00eag\u00eatikoi/].\n\n1. Tim\u00e6us.\n2. Leges.\n3. Epinomis.\n4. Kritias.\n5. Republic.\n6. Sophist\u00eas.\n7. Politikus.\n8. Ph\u00e6don.\n9. Phil\u00eabus.\n10. Protagoras.\n11. Ph\u00e6drus.\n12. Symposion.\n13. Kratylus.\n14. Kriton.\n\nThe Apology, Menexenus, Epistol\u00e6, do not properly belong to either\nhead.\n\n[Side-note: Preponderance of the searching and testing dialogues over\nthe expository and dogmatical.]\n\nIt will thus appear, from a fair estimate and comparison of lists,\nthat the relation which Plato bears to philosophy is more that of a\nsearcher, tester, and impugner, than that of an expositor and\ndogmatist--though he undertakes both the two functions: more negative\nthan affirmative--more ingenious in pointing out difficulties, than\nsuccessful in solving them. I must again repeat that though this\nclassification is just, as far as it goes, and the best which can be\napplied to the dialogues, taken as a whole--yet the dialogues have\nmuch which will not enter into the classification, and each has its\nown peculiarities.\n\n[Side-note: Dialogues of Search--sub-classes among them recognised by\nThrasyllus--Gymnastic and Agonistic, &c.]\n\nThe Dialogues of Search, thus comprising more than half the Platonic\ncompositions, are again distributed by Thrasyllus into two\nsub-classes--Gymnastic and Agonistic: the Gymnastic, again, into\nObstetric and Peirastic; the Agonistic, into Probative and Refutative.\nHere, again, there is a pretence of symmetrical arrangement, which will\nnot hold good if we examine it closely. Nevertheless, the epithets point\nto real attributes of various dialogues, and deserve the more\nattention, inasmuch as they imply a view of philosophy foreign to the\nprevalent way of looking at it. Obstetric and Tentative or Testing\n(Peirastic) are epithets which a reader may understand; but he will\nnot easily see how they bear upon the process of philosophy.\n\n[Side-note: Philosophy, as now understood, includes authoritative\nteaching, positive results, direct proofs.]\n\nThe term _philosopher_ is generally understood to mean something else.\nIn appreciating a philosopher, it is usual to ask, What authoritative\ncreed has he proclaimed, for disciples to swear allegiance to? What\npositive system, or positive truths previously unknown or unproved,\nhas he established? Next, by what arguments has he enforced or made\nthem good? This is the ordinary proceeding of an historian of\nphilosophy, as he calls up the roll of successive names. The\nphilosopher is assumed to speak as one having authority; to have\nalready made up his mind; and to be prepared to explain what his mind\nis. Readers require positive results announced, and positive evidence\nset before them, in a clear and straightforward manner. They are\nintolerant of all that is prolix, circuitous, not essential to the\nproof of the thesis in hand. Above all, an affirmative result is\nindispensable.\n\nWhen I come to the Tim\u00e6us, and Republic, &c., I shall consider what\nreply Plato could make to these questions. In the meantime, I may\nobserve that if philosophers are to be estimated by such a scale, he\nwill not stand high on the list. Even in his expository dialogues, he\ncares little about clear proclamation of results, and still less about\nthe shortest, straightest, and most certain road for attaining them.\n\n[Side-note: The Platonic Dialogues of Search disclaim authority and\nteaching--assume truth to be unknown to all alike--follow a process\ndevious as well as fruitless.]\n\nBut as to those numerous dialogues which are not expository, Plato\ncould make no reply to the questions at all. There are no affirmative\nresults:--and there is a process of enquiry, not only fruitless, but\ndevious, circuitous, and intentionally protracted. The authoritative\ncharacter of a philosopher is disclaimed. Not only Plato never\ndelivers sentence in his own name, but his principal spokesman, far\nfrom speaking with authority, declares that he has not made up his own\nmind, and that he is only a searcher along with others, more eager in\nthe chase than they are.[50] Philosophy is conceived as the search for\ntruth still unknown; not as an explanation of truth by one who knows\nit, to others who do not know it. The process of search is considered\nas being in itself profitable and invigorating, even though what is\nsought be not found. The ingenuity of Sokrates is shown, not by what\nhe himself produces, for he avows himself altogether barren--but by\nhis obstetric aid: that is, by his being able to evolve, from a\nyouthful mind, answers of which it is pregnant, and to test the\nsoundness and trustworthiness of those answers when delivered: by his\npower, besides, of exposing or refuting unsound answers, and of\nconvincing others of the fallacy of that which they confidently\nbelieved themselves to know.\n\n[Footnote 50: In addition to the declarations of Sokrates to this\neffect in the Platonic Apology (pp. 21-23), we read the like in many\nPlatonic dialogues. Gorgias, 506 A. [Greek: ou)de\\ ga/r toi e)/g\u00f4ge\nei)d\u00f4\\s le/g\u00f4 a(\\ le/g\u00f4, a)lla\\ z\u00eat\u00f4= koin\u00ea=| meth' u(m\u00f4=n] (see\nRouth's note): and even in the Republic, in many parts of which there\nis much dogmatism and affirmation: v. p. 450 E. [Greek: a)pistou=nta\nde\\ kai\\ z\u00eatou=nta a(/ma tou\\s lo/gous poiei=sthai, o(\\ d\u00ea\\ e)g\u00f4\\\ndr\u00f4=], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: The questioner has no predetermined course, but follows\nthe lead given by the respondent in his answers.]\n\nTo eliminate affirmative, authoritative exposition, which proceeds\nupon the assumption that truth is already known--and to consider\nphilosophy as a search for unknown truth, carried on by several\ninterlocutors all of them ignorant--this is the main idea which Plato\ninherited from Sokrates, and worked out in more than one half of his\ndialogues. It is under this general head that the subdivisions of\nThrasyllus fall--the Obstetric, the Testing or Verifying, the\nRefutative. The process is one in which both the two concurrent minds\nare active, but each with an inherent activity peculiar to itself. The\nquestioner does not follow a predetermined course of his own, but\nproceeds altogether on the answer given to him. He himself furnishes\nonly an indispensable stimulus to the parturition of something with\nwhich the respondent is already pregnant, and applies testing\nquestions to that which he hears, until the respondent is himself\nsatisfied that the answer will not hold. Throughout all this, there is\na constant appeal to the free, self-determining judgment of the\nrespondent's own mind, combined with a stimulus exciting the\nintellectual productiveness of that mind to the uttermost.\n\n[Side-note: Relation of teacher and learner. Appeal to authority is\nsuppressed.]\n\nWhat chiefly deserves attention here, as a peculiar phase in the\nhistory of philosophy, is, that the relation of teacher and learner is\naltogether suppressed. Sokrates not only himself disclaims the\nprovince and title of a teacher, but treats with contemptuous banter\nthose who assume it. Now \"the learner\" (to use a memorable phrase of\nAristotle[51]) \"is under obligation to believe\": he must be a passive\nrecipient of that which is communicated to him by the teacher. The\nrelation between the two is that of authority on the one side, and of\nbelief generated by authority on the other. But Sokrates requires from\nno man implicit trust: nay he deprecates it as dangerous.[52] It is\none peculiarity in these Sokratic dialogues, that the sentiment of\nauthority, instead of being invoked and worked up, as is generally\ndone in philosophy, is formally disavowed and practically set aside.\n\"I have not made up my mind: I am not prepared to swear allegiance to\nany creed: I give you the reasons for and against each: you must\ndecide for yourself.\"[53]\n\n[Footnote 51: Aristot. De Sophist. Elenchis, Top. ix. p. 165, b. 2.\n[Greek: dei= ga\\r pisteu/ein to\\n mantha/nonta.]]\n\n[Footnote 52: Plato, Protagor. p. 314 B.]\n\n[Footnote 53: The sentiment of the Academic sect--descending from\nSokrates and Plato, not through Xenokrates and Polemon, but through\nArkesilaus and Karneades--illustrates the same elimination of the idea\nof authority. \"Why are you so curious to know what _I myself_ have\ndetermined on the point? Here are the reasons _pro_ and _con_: weigh\nthe one against the other, and then judge for yourself.\"\n\nSee Sir William Hamilton's Discussions on Philosophy--Appendix, p.\n681--about medi\u00e6val disputations: also Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iv. 4-7.\n\"Sed defendat quod quisque sentit: sunt enim judicia libera: nos\ninstitutum tenebimus, nulliusque unius disciplin\u00e6 legibus adstricti,\nquibus in philosophi\u00e2 necessario pareamus, quid sit in qu\u00e2que re\nmaxim\u00e9 probabile, semper requiremus.\"\n\nAgain, Cicero, De Nat. Deor. i. 5, 10-13. \"Qui autem requirunt, quid\nqu\u00e2que de re ipsi sentiamus, curiosius id faciunt quam necesse est.\n_Non enim tam auctoritatis in disputando quam rationis momenta\nqu\u00e6renda sunt._ Quin etiam obest plorumque iis, qui discere volunt,\nauctoritas eorum qui se docere profitentur; desinunt enim suum\njudicium adhibere; id habent ratum, quod ab eo quem probant judicatum\nvident. . . . Si singulas disciplinas percipere magnum est, quanto\nmajus omnes? Quod facere iis necesse est, quibus propositum est, veri\nreperiendi caus\u00e2, et contra omnes philosophos et pro omnibus\ndicere. . . Nec tamen fieri potest, ut qui h\u00e2c ratione philosophentur,\nii nihil habeant quod sequantur. . . Non enim sumus ii quibus nihil\nverum esse videatur, sed ii, qui omnibus veris falsa qu\u00e6dam adjuncta\nesse dicamus, tant\u00e2 similitudine ut in iis nulla insit certa judicandi\net assentiendi nota. Ex quo exsistit illud, multa esse probabilia, qu\u00e6\nquanquam non perciperentur, tamen quia visum haberent quendam insignem\net illustrem, his sapientis vita regeretur.\"\n\nCompare Cicero, Tusc. Disp. ii. sect. 2-3-5-9. Quintilian, xii. 2-25.]\n\n[Side-note: In the modern world the search for truth is put out of\nsight. Every writer or talker professes to have already found it, and\nto proclaim it to others.]\n\nThis process--the search for truth as an unknown--is in the modern\nworld put out of sight. All discussion is conducted by persons who\nprofess to have found it or learnt it, and to be in condition to\nproclaim it to others. Even the philosophical works of Cicero are\nusually pleadings by two antagonists, each of whom professes to know\nthe truth, though Cicero does not decide between them: and in this\nrespect they differ from the groping and fumbling of the Platonic\ndialogues. Of course the search for truth must go on in modern times,\nas it did in ancient: but it goes on silently and without notice. The\nmost satisfactory theories have been preceded by many infructuous\nguesses and tentatives. The theorist may try many different hypotheses\n(we are told that Kepler tried nineteen) which he is forced\nsuccessively to reject; and he may perhaps end without finding any\nbetter. But all these tentatives, verifying tests, doubts, and\nrejections, are confined to his own bosom or his own study. He looks\nback upon them without interest, sometimes even with disgust; least of\nall does he seek to describe them in detail as objects of interest to\nothers. They are probably known to none but himself: for it does not\noccur to him to follow the Platonic scheme of taking another mind into\npartnership, and entering upon that distribution of active\nintellectual work which we read in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus. There are cases in\nwhich two chemists have carried on joint researches, under many\nfailures and disappointments, perhaps at last without success. If a\nrecord were preserved of their parley during the investigation, the\ngrounds for testing and rejecting one conjecture, and for selecting\nwhat should be tried after it--this would be in many points a parallel\nto the Platonic process.\n\n[Side-note: The search for truth by various interlocutors was a\nrecognised process in the Sokratic age. Acute negative Dialectic of\nSokrates.]\n\nBut at Athens in the fourth century, B.C., the search for truth by two\nor more minds in partnership was not so rare a phenomenon. The active\nintellects of Athens were distributed between Rhetoric, which\naddressed itself to multitudes, accepted all established sentiments,\nand handled for the most part particular issues--and Dialectic, in\nwhich a select few debated among themselves general questions.[54] Of\nthis Dialectic, the real Sokrates was the greatest master that Athens\never saw: he could deal as he chose (says Xenophon[55]) with all\ndisputants: he turned them round his finger. In this process, one\nperson set up a thesis, and the other cross-examined him upon it: the\nmost irresistible of all cross-examiners was the real Sokrates. The\nnine books of Aristotle's Topica (including the book De Sophisticis\nElenchis) are composed with the object of furnishing suggestions, and\nindicating rules, both to the cross-examiner and to the respondent, in\nsuch Dialectic debates. Plato does not lay down any rules: but he has\ngiven us, in his dialogues of search, specimens of dialectic procedure\nshaped in his own fashion. Several of his contemporaries, companions\nof Sokrates, like him, did the same each in his own way: but their\ncompositions have not survived.[56]\n\n[Footnote 54: The habit of supposing a general question to be\nundecided, and of having it argued by competent advocates before\nauditors who have not made up their minds--is now so disused\n(everywhere except in a court of law), that one reads with surprise\nGalen's declaration that the different competing medical theories were\nso discussed in his day. His master Pelops maintained a disputation of\ntwo days with a rival;--[Greek: \u00ea(ni/ka Pe/lops meta\\ Phili/ppou tou=\ne)mpeirikou= diele/chth\u00ea duoi=n \u00ea(mer\u00f4=n; tou= me\\n Pe/lopos, \u00f4(s m\u00ea\\\nduname/n\u00eas t\u00ea=s i)atrik\u00ea=s di' e)mpeiri/as mo/n\u00eas sust\u00ea=nai, tou=\nPhili/ppou de\\ e)pideiknu/ntos du/nasthai]. (Galen, De Propriis\nLibris, c. 2, p. 16, K\u00fchn.)\n\nGalen notes (ib. 2, p. 21) the habit of literary men at Rome to\nassemble in the temple of Pax, for the purpose of discussing logical\nquestions, prior to the conflagration which destroyed that temple.]\n\n[Footnote 55: Xenophon, Memorab. i. 2.]\n\n[Footnote 56: The dialogues composed by Aristotle himself were in\ngreat measure dialogues of search, exercises of argumentation _pro_\nand _con_ (Cicero, De Finib. v. 4). \"Aristoteles, ut solet, qu\u00e6rendi\ngrati\u00e2, qu\u00e6dam subtilitatis su\u00e6 argumenta excogitavit in Gryllo,\" &c.\n(Quintilian, Inst. Orat. ii. 17.)\n\nBernays indicates the probable titles of many among the lost\nAristotelian Dialogues (Die Dialoge des Aristoteles, pp. 132, 133,\nBerlin, 1868), and gives in his book many general remarks upon them.\n\nThe observations of Aristotle in the Metaphys. (A. [Greek: e)la/tt\u00f4n]\n993, b. 1-16) are conceived in a large and just spirit. He says that\namong all the searchers for truth, none completely succeed, and none\ncompletely fail: those, from whose conclusions we dissent, do us\nservice by exercising our intelligence--[Greek: t\u00ea\\n ga\\r e(/xin\npro\u00ea/sk\u00easan \u00ea(m\u00f4=n]. The enumeration of [Greek: a)pori/ai] in the\nfollowing book B of the Metaphysica is a continuation of the same\nviews. Compare Scholia, p. 604, b. 29, Brandis.]\n\nSuch compositions give something like fair play to the negative arm of\nphilosophy; in the employment of which the Eleate Zeno first became\ncelebrated, and the real Sokrates yet more celebrated. This negative\narm is no less essential than the affirmative, to the validity of a\nbody of reasoned truth, such as philosophy aspires to be. To know how\nto disprove is quite as important as to know how to prove: the one is\nco-ordinate and complementary to the other. And the man who disproves\nwhat is false, or guards mankind against assenting to it,[57] renders\na service to philosophy, even though he may not be able to render the\nulterior service of proving any truth in its place.\n\n[Footnote 57: The Stoics had full conviction of this. In Cicero's\nsummary of the Stoic doctrine (De Finibus, iii. 21, 72) we read:--\"Ad\neasque virtutes, de quibus disputatum est, Dialecticam etiam adjungunt\n(Stoici) et Physicam: easque ambas virtutum nomine appellant: alteram\n(_sc._ Dialecticam), quod habeat rationem, ne cui falso adsentiamur,\nneve unquam captios\u00e2 probabilitate fallamur; eaque, qu\u00e6 de bonis et\nmalis didicerimus, ut tenere tuerique possimus.\"]\n\n[Side-note: Negative procedure supposed to be represented by the\nSophists and the Megarici; discouraged and censured by historians of\nphilosophy.]\n\nBy historians of ancient philosophy, negative procedure is generally\nconsidered as represented by the Sophists and the Megarici, and is the\nmain ground for those harsh epithets which are commonly applied to\nboth of them. The negative (they think) can only be tolerated in small\ndoses, and even then merely as ancillary to the affirmative. That is,\nif you have an affirmative theory to propose, you are allowed to urge\nsuch objections as you think applicable against rival theories, but\nonly in order to make room for your own. It seems to be assumed as\nrequiring no proof that the confession of ignorance is an intolerable\ncondition; which every man ought to be ashamed of in himself, and\nwhich no man is justified in inflicting on any one else. If yon\ndeprive the reader of one affirmative solution, you are required to\nfurnish him with another which you are prepared to guarantee as the\ntrue one. \"Le Roi est mort--Vive le Roi\": the throne must never be\nvacant. It is plain that under such a restricted application, the full\nforce of the negative case is never brought out. The pleadings are\nleft in the hands of counsel, each of whom takes up only such\nfragments of the negative case as suit the interests of his client,\nand suppresses or slurs over all such other fragments of it as make\nagainst his client. But to every theory (especially on the topics\ndiscussed by Sokrates and Plato) there are more or less of objections\napplicable--even the best theory being true only on the balance. And\nif the purpose be to ensure a complete body of reasoned truth, all\nthese objections ought to be faithfully exhibited, by one who stands\nforward as their express advocate, without being previously retained\nfor any separate or inconsistent purpose.\n\n[Side-note: Vocation of Sokrates and Plato for the negative procedure:\nabsolute necessity of it as a condition of reasoned truth. Parmenid\u00eas\nof Plato.]\n\nHow much Plato himself, in his dialogues of search, felt his own\nvocation as champion of the negative procedure, we see marked\nconspicuously in the dialogue called Parmenid\u00eas. This dialogue is\nthroughout a protest against forward affirmation, and an assertion of\nindependent _locus standi_ for the negationist and objector. The\nclaims of the latter must first be satisfied, before the affirmant can\nbe considered as solvent. The advocacy of those claims is here\nconfided to veteran Parmenides, who sums them up in a formidable\ntotal: Sokrates being opposed to him under the unusual disguise of a\nyouthful and forward affirmant. Parmenides makes no pretence of\nadvancing any rival doctrine. The theories which he selects for\ncriticism are the Platonic theory of intelligible Concepts, and his\nown theory of the Unum: he indicates how many objections must be\nremoved--how many contradictions must be solved--how many opposite\nhypotheses must be followed out to their results--before either of\nthese theories can be affirmed with assurance. The exigencies\nenumerated may and do appear insurmountable:[58] but of that Plato\ntakes no account. Such laborious exercises are inseparable from the\nprocess of searching for truth, and unless a man has strength to go\nthrough them, no truth, or at least no reasoned truth, can be found\nand maintained.[59]\n\n[Footnote 58: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 B. [Greek: dei= skopei=n--ei)\nme/lleis tele/\u00f4s gumnasa/menos kuri/\u00f4s dio/psesthai to\\ a)l\u00eathe/s.\nA)m\u00ea/chanon, e)/ph\u00ea, le/geis, \u00f4)= Parmeni/d\u00ea, pragmatei/an], &c.\n\nAristotle declares that no man can be properly master of any\naffirmative truth without having examined and solved all the\nobjections and difficulties--the negative portion of the enquiry. To\ngo through all these [Greek: a)pori/as] is the indispensable first\nstage, and perhaps the enquirer may not be able to advance farther,\nsee Metaphysic. B. 995, a. 26, 996, a. 16--one of the most striking\npassages in his works. Compare also what he says, De Coelo, ii. 294, b.\n10, [Greek: dio\\ dei= to\\n me/llonta kal\u00f4=s z\u00eat\u00ea/sein e)nstatiko\\n\nei)=nai dia\\ t\u00f4=n oi)kei/\u00f4n e)nsta/se\u00f4n t\u00f4=| ge/nei, tou=to de\\\ne)sti\\n e)k tou= pa/sas tethe\u00f4r\u00eake/nai ta\\s diaphora/s.]]\n\n[Footnote 59: That the only road to trustworthy affirmation lies\nthrough a string of negations, unfolded and appreciated by systematic\nprocedure, is strongly insisted on by Bacon, Novum Organum, ii. 15,\n\"Omnino Deo (formarum inditori et opifici), aut fortasse angelis et\nintelligentiis competit formas per affirmationem immediate nosse,\natque ab initio contemplationis. Sed certe supra hominem est: cui\ntantum conceditur, procedere primo per negativas, et postremo loco\ndesinere in affirmativas, post omnimodam exclusionem.\" Compare another\nAphorism, i. 46.\n\nThe following passage, transcribed from the Lectures of a\ndistinguished physical philosopher of the present day, is conceived in\nthe spirit of the Platonic Dialogues of Search, though Plato would\nhave been astonished at such patient multiplication of experiments:--\n\n\"I should hardly sustain your interest in stating the difficulties\nwhich at first beset the investigation conducted with this apparatus,\nor the numberless precautions which the exact balancing of the two\npowerful sources of heat, here resorted to, rendered necessary. I\nbelieve the experiments, made with atmospheric air alone, might be\nnumbered by tens of thousands. Sometimes for a week, or even for a\nfortnight, coincident and satisfactory results would be obtained: the\nstrict conditions of accurate experimenting would appear to be found,\nwhen an additional day's experience would destroy this hope and\nnecessitate a recommencement, under changed conditions, of the whole\ninquiry. It is this which daunts the experimenter. It is this\npreliminary fight with the entanglements of a subject so dark, so\ndoubtful, so uncheering, without any knowledge whether the conflict is\nto lead to anything worth possessing, that renders discovery difficult\nand rare. But the experimenter, and particularly the _young_\nexperimenter, ought to know that as regards his own moral manhood, he\ncannot but win, if he only contend aright. _Even, with a negative\nresult, his consciousness that he has gone fairly to the bottom of his\nsubject, as far as his means allowed_--the feeling that he has not\nshunned labour, _though that labour may have resulted in laying bare\nthe nakedness of his case_--re-acts upon his own mind, and gives it\nfirmness for future work.\" (Tyndall, Lectures on Heat, considered as a\nMode of Motion, Lect x. p. 332.)]\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates considered the negative procedure to be valuable\nby itself, and separately. His theory of the natural state of the\nhuman mind; not ignorance, but false persuasion of knowledge.]\n\nIt will thus appear that among the conditions requisite for\nphilosophy, both Sokrates and Plato regarded the negative procedure as\nco-ordinate in value with the affirmative, and indispensable as a\npreliminary stage. But Sokrates went a step farther. He assigned to\nthe negative an intrinsic importance by itself, apart from all\nimplication with the affirmative; and he rested that opinion upon a\npsychological ground, formally avowed, and far larger than anything\nlaid down by the Sophists. He thought that the natural state of the\nhuman mind, among established communities, was not simply ignorance,\nbut ignorance mistaking itself for knowledge--false or uncertified\nbelief--false persuasion of knowledge. The only way of dissipating\nsuch false persuasion was, the effective stimulus of the negative\ntest, or cross-examining Elenchus; whereby a state of non-belief, or\npainful consciousness of ignorance, was substituted in its place. Such\nsecond state was indeed not the best attainable. It ought to be\npreliminary to a third, acquired by the struggles of the mind to\nescape from such painful consciousness; and to rise, under the\ncontinued stimulus of the tutelary Elenchus, to improved affirmative\nand defensible beliefs. But even if this third state were never\nreached, Sokrates declared the second state to be a material amendment\non the first, which he deprecated as alike pernicious and disgraceful.\n\n[Side-note: Declaration of Sokrates in the Apology; his constant\nmission to make war against the false persuasion of knowledge.]\n\nThe psychological conviction here described stands proclaimed by\nSokrates himself, with remarkable earnestness and emphasis, in his\nApology before the Dikasts, only a month before his death. So deeply\ndid he take to heart the prevalent false persuasion of knowledge,\nalike universal among all classes, mischievous, and difficult to\ncorrect--that he declared himself to have made war against it\nthroughout his life, under a mission imposed upon him by the Delphian\nGod; and to have incurred thereby wide-spread hatred among his\nfellow-citizens. To convict men, by cross-examination, of ignorance in\nrespect to those matters which each man believed himself to know well\nand familiarly--this was the constant employment and the mission of\nSokrates: not to teach--for he disclaimed the capacity of teaching--but\nto make men feel their own ignorance instead of believing\nthemselves to know. Such cross-examination, conducted usually before\nan audience, however it might be salutary and indispensable, was\nintended to humiliate the respondent, and could hardly fail to offend\nand exasperate him. No one felt satisfaction except some youthful\nauditors, who admired the acuteness with which it was conducted. \"I\n(declared Sokrates) am distinguished from others, and superior to\nothers, by this character only--that I am conscious of my own\nignorance: the wisest of men would be he who had the like\nconsciousness; but as yet I have looked for such a man in vain.\"[60]\n\n[Footnote 60: Plat. Apol. S. pp. 23-29. It is not easy to select\nparticular passages for reference; for the sentiments which I have\nindicated pervade nearly the whole discourse.]\n\n[Side-note: Opposition of feeling between Sokrates and the Dikasts.]\n\nIn delivering this emphatic declaration, Sokrates himself intimates\nhis apprehension that the Dikasts will treat his discourse as mockery;\nthat they will not believe him to be in earnest: that they will\nscarcely have patience to hear him claim a divine mission for so\nstrange a purpose.[61] The declaration is indeed singular, and\nprobably many of the Dikasts did so regard it; while those who thought\nit serious, heard it with repugnance. The separate value of the\nnegative procedure or Elenchus was never before so unequivocally\nasserted, or so highly estimated. To disabuse men of those false\nbeliefs which they mistook for knowledge, and to force on them the\npainful consciousness that they knew nothing--was extolled as the\ngreatest service which could be rendered to them, and as rescuing them\nfrom a degraded and slavish state of mind.[62]\n\n[Footnote 61: Plato, Apol. S. pp. 20-38.]\n\n[Footnote 62: Aristotle, in the first book of Metaphysica (982, b.\n17), when repeating a statement made in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus of Plato (155\nD), that wonder is the beginning, or point of departure, of\nphilosophy--explains the phrase by saying, that wonder is accompanied\nby a painful conviction of ignorance and sense of embarrassment.\n[Greek: o( de\\ a)por\u00f4=n kai\\ thauma/z\u00f4n oi)/etai a)gnoei=n . . . dia\\\nto\\ pheu/gein t\u00ea\\n a)/gnoian e)philoso/ph\u00easan . . . ou) chr\u00ea/se\u00f4/s tinos\ne(/neken]. This painful conviction of ignorance is what Sokrates\nsought to bring about.]\n\n[Side-note: The Dialogues of Search present an end in themselves.\nMistake of supposing that Plato had in his mind an ulterior\naffirmative end, not declared.]\n\nTo understand the full purpose of Plato's dialogues of\nsearch--testing, exercising, refuting, but not finding or providing--we\nmust keep in mind the Sokratic Apology. Whoever, after reading the\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus, Lach\u00eas, Charmid\u00eas, Lysis, Parmenid\u00eas, &c., is tempted to\nexclaim \"But, after all, Plato _must_ have had in his mind some\nulterior doctrine of conviction which he wished to impress, but which\nhe has not clearly intimated,\" will see, by the Sokratic Apology, that\nsuch a presumption is noway justifiable. Plato is a searcher, and has\nnot yet made up his own mind: this is what he himself tells us, and\nwhat I literally believe, though few or none of his critics will admit\nit. His purpose in the dialogues of search, is plainly and\nsufficiently enunciated in the words addressed by Sokrates to\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus--\"Answer without being daunted: for if we prosecute our\nsearch, one of two alternatives is certain--either we shall find what\nwe are looking for, or we shall get clear of the persuasion that we\nknow what in reality we do not yet know. Now a recompense like this\nwill leave no room for dissatisfaction.\"[63]\n\n[Footnote 63: Plato, The\u00e6tet. 187 C. [Greek: e)a\\n ga\\r ou(/t\u00f4\ndr\u00f4=men, duoi=n tha/teron--\u00ea)\\ eu(r\u00ea/somen e)ph' o(\\ e)rcho/metha, \u00ea)\\\n\u00ea(=tton oi)\u00easo/metha ei)de/nai o(\\ m\u00eadam\u00ea=| i)/smen; kai/toi ou)k a)\\n\nei)/\u00ea mempto\\s o( toiou=tos]. Bonitz (in his Platonische Studien, pp.\n8, 9, 74, 76, &c.) is one of the few critics who deprecate the\nconfidence and boldness with which recent scholars have ascribed to\nPlato affirmative opinions and systematic purpose which he does not\ndirectly announce. Bonitz vindicates the separate value and separate\n_locus standi_ of the negative process in Plato's estimation,\nparticularly in the example of the The\u00e6t\u00eatus. Susemihl, in the preface\nto his second part, has controverted these views of Bonitz--in my\njudgment without any success.\n\nThe following observations of recent French scholars are just, though\nthey imply too much the assumption that there is always some\naffirmative jewel wrapped up in Plato's complicated folds. M. Egger\nobserves (Histoire de la Critique chez les Grecs, Paris, 1849, p. 84,\nch. ii. sect. 4):\n\n\"La philosophie de Platon n'offre pas, en g\u00e9n\u00e9ral, un ensemble de\nparties tr\u00e8s rigoureusement li\u00e9es entre elles. D'abord, il ne l'expose\nque sous forme dialogu\u00e9e: et dans ses dialogues, o\u00f9 il ne prend jamais\nde r\u00f4le personnel, on ne voit pas clairement auquel des interlocuteurs\nil a confi\u00e9 la d\u00e9fense de ses propres opinions. Parmi ces\ninterlocuteurs, Socrate lui-m\u00eame, le plus naturel et le plus ordinaire\ninterpr\u00e8te de la pens\u00e9e de son disciple, use fort souvent des libert\u00e9s\nde cette forme toute dramatique, pour se jouer dans les distinctions\nsubtiles, pour exag\u00e9rer certains arguments, pour couper court \u00e0 une\ndiscussion embarrassante, au moyen de quelque plaisanterie, et pour se\nretirer d'un d\u00e9bat sans conclure; en un mot, il a--ou, ce qui est plus\nvrai, Platon a, sous son nom--_des opinions de circonstance et des\nruses de dialectique_, \u00e0 travers lesquelles il est souvent difficile\nde retrouver le fond s\u00e9rieux de sa doctrine. Heureusement ces\ndifficult\u00e9s ne touchent pas aux principes g\u00e9n\u00e9raux du Platonisme. La\ncritique Platonicienne en particulier dans ce qu'elle a de plus\noriginal, et de plus \u00e9lev\u00e9, se rattache \u00e0 la grande th\u00e9orie des\n_id\u00e9es_ et de la _r\u00e9miniscence_. On la retrouve expos\u00e9e dans plusieurs\ndialogues avec une clart\u00e9 qui ne permet ni le doute ni l'incertitude.\"\n\nI may also cite the following remarks made by M. Vacherot (Histoire\nCritique de l'\u00c9cole d'Alexandrie, vol. ii. p. 1, Pt. ii. Bk. ii. ch.\ni.) after his instructive analysis of the doctrines of Plotinus. I\nthink the words are as much applicable to Plato as to Plotinus: the\nrather, as Plato never speaks in his own name, Plotinus\nalways:--\"Combien faut-il prendre garde d'ajouter \u00e0 la pens\u00e9e du\nphilosophe, et de lui pr\u00eater un arrangement artificiel! Ce g\u00e9nie, plein\nd'enthousiasme et de fougue, n'a jamais connu ni mesure ni plan:\njamais il ne s'est astreint \u00e0 developper r\u00e9guli\u00e8rement une th\u00e9orie, ni\n\u00e0 exposer avec suite un ensemble de th\u00e9ories, de mani\u00e8re \u00e0 en former\nun syst\u00e8me. _Fort incertain dans sa marche, il prend, quitte, et\nreprend le m\u00eame sujet, sans jamais para\u00eetre avoir dit son dernier\nmot_; toujours il r\u00e9pand de vives et abondantes clart\u00e9s sur les\nquestions qu'il traite, mais rarement il les conduit \u00e0 leur derni\u00e8re\net d\u00e9finitive solution; sa rapide pens\u00e9e n'effleure pas seulement le\nsujet sur lequel elle passe, elle le p\u00e9n\u00e9tre et le creuse toujours,\nsans toutefois l'\u00e9puiser. Fort in\u00e9gal dans ses allures, tant\u00f4t ce\ng\u00e9nie s'\u00e9chappe en inspirations rapides et tumultueuses, tant\u00f4t il\nsemble se tra\u00eener p\u00e9niblement, et se perdre dans un d\u00e9dale de subtiles\nabstractions, &c.\"]\n\n[Side-note: False persuasion of knowledge--had reference to topics\nsocial, political, ethical.]\n\nWhat those topics were, in respect to which Sokrates found this\nuniversal belief of knowledge, without the reality of knowledge--we\nknow, not merely from the dialogues of Plato, but also from the\nMemorabilia of Xenophon. Sokrates did not touch upon recondite\nmatters--upon the Kosmos, astronomy, meteorology. Such studies he\ndiscountenanced as useless, and even as irreligious.[64] The subjects\non which he interrogated were those of common, familiar, every-day\ntalk: those which every one believed himself to know, and on which\nevery one had a confident opinion to give: the respondent being\nsurprised that any one could put the questions, or that there could be\nany doubt requiring solution. What is justice? what is injustice? what\nare temperance and courage? what is law, lawlessness, democracy,\naristocracy? what is the government of mankind, and the attributes\nwhich qualify any one for exercising such government? Here were\nmatters upon which every one talked familiarly, and would have been\nashamed to be thought incapable of delivering an opinion. Yet it was\nupon these matters that Sokrates detected universal ignorance, coupled\nwith a firm, but illusory, persuasion of knowledge. The conversation\nof Sokrates with Euthyd\u00eamus, in the Xenophontic Memorabilia[65]--the\nfirst Alkibiad\u00eas, Lach\u00eas, Charmid\u00eas, Euthyphron, &c., of Plato--are\namong the most marked specimens of such cross-examination or Elenchus--a\nstring of questions, to which there are responses in indefinite\nnumber successively given, tested, and exposed as unsatisfactory.\n\n[Footnote 64: Xenoph. Memor. i. 1.]\n\n[Footnote 65: Xenoph. Memor. iv. 2. A passage from Paley's preface to\nhis \"Principles of Moral Philosophy,\" illustrates well this Sokratic\nprocess: \"Concerning the principle of morals, it would be premature to\nspeak: but concerning the manner of unfolding and explaining that\nprinciple, I have somewhat which I wish to be remarked. An experience\nof nine years in the office of a public tutor in one of the\nUniversities, and in that department of education to which these\nsections relate, afforded me frequent opportunity to observe, that in\ndiscoursing to young minds upon topics of morality, it _required much\nmore pains to make them perceive the difficulty than to understand the\nsolution_: that unless the subject was so drawn up to a point as to\nexhibit the full force of an objection, or the exact place of a doubt,\nbefore any explanation was entered upon--in other words, unless some\ncuriosity was excited, before it was attempted to be satisfied--the\nteacher's labour was lost. When information was not desired, it was\nseldom, I found, retained. I have made this observation my guide in\nthe following work: that is, I have endeavoured, before I suffered\nmyself to proceed in the disquisition, to put the reader in complete\npossession of the question: _and to do it in a way that I thought most\nlikely to stir up his own doubts and solicitude about it_.\"]\n\n[Side-note: To those topics, on which each community possesses\nestablished dogmas, laws, customs, sentiments, consecrated and\ntraditional, peculiar to itself. The local creed, which is never\nformally proclaimed or taught, but is enforced unconsciously by every\none upon every one else. Omnipotence of King Nomos.]\n\nThe answers which Sokrates elicited and exposed were simple\nexpressions of the ordinary prevalent belief upon matters on which\neach community possesses established dogmas, laws, customs,\nsentiments, fashions, points of view, &c., belonging to itself. When\nHerodotus passed over to Egypt, he was astonished to find the\njudgment, feelings, institutions, and practices of the Egyptians,\ncontrasting most forcibly with those of all other countries. He\nremarks the same (though less in degree) respecting Babylonians,\nIndians, Scythians, and others; and he is not less impressed with the\nveneration of each community for its own creed and habits, coupled\nwith indifference or antipathy towards other creeds, disparate or\ndiscordant, prevailing elsewhere.[66]\n\n[Footnote 66: Herodot. ii. 35-36-64; iii. 38-94, seq. i. 196; iv.\n76-77-80. The discordance between the various institutions established\namong the separate aggregations of mankind, often proceeding to the\npitch of reciprocal antipathy--the imperative character of each in its\nown region, assuming the appearance of natural right and propriety--all\nthis appears brought to view by the inquisitive and observant\nHerodotus, as well as by others (Xenophon, Cyrop\u00e6d. i. 3-18): but many\nnew facts, illustrating the same thesis, were noticed by Aristotle and\nthe Peripatetics, when a larger extent of the globe became opened to\nHellenic survey. Compare Aristotle, Ethic. Nik. i. 3, 1094, b. 15;\nSextus Empiric. Pyrr. Hypotyp. i. sect 145-156, iii. sect 198-234; and\nthe remarkable extract from Bardesanes Syrus, cited by Eusebius, Pr\u00e6p.\nEvang. vi., and published in Orelli's collection, pp. 202-219,\nAlexandri Aphrodis. et Aliorum De Fato, Zurich, 1824.\n\nMany interesting passages in illustration of the same thesis might be\nborrowed from Montaigne, Pascal, and others. But the most forcible of\nall illustrations are those furnished by the Oriental world, when\nsurveyed or studied by intelligent Europeans, as it has been more\nfully during the last century. See especially Sir William Sleeman's\nRambles and Recollections of an Indian Official: two volumes which\nunfold with equal penetration and fidelity the manifestations of\nestablished sentiment among the Hindoos and Mahomedans. Vol. i. ch.\niv., describing a Suttee on the Nerbudda, is one of the most\nimpressive chapters in the work: the rather as it describes the\ncontinuance of a hallowed custom, transmitted even from the days of\nAlexander. I transcribe also some valuable matter from an eminent\nliving scholar, whose extensive erudition comprises Oriental as well\nas Hellenic philosophy.\n\nM. Barth\u00e9lemy St. Hilaire (Premier M\u00e9moire sur le S\u00e2nkhya, Paris,\n1852, pp. 392-396) observes as follows respecting the Sanscrit system\nof philosophy called _S\u00e2nkhya_, the doctrine expounded and enforced by\nthe philosopher Kapila--and respecting Buddha and Buddhism which was\nbuilt upon the S\u00e2nkhya, amending or modifying it. Buddha is believed\nto have lived about 547 B.C. Both the system of Buddha, and that of\nKapila, are atheistic, as described by M. St. Hilaire.\n\n\"Le second point o\u00f9 Bouddha se s\u00e9pare de Kapila concerne la doctrine.\nL'homme ne peut rester dans l'incertitude que Kapila lui laisse\nencore. L'\u00e2me d\u00e9livr\u00e9e, selon les doctrines de Kapila, peut toujours\nrena\u00eetre. Il n'y a qu'un moyen, un seul moyen, de le sauver,--c'est de\nl'an\u00e9antir. Le n\u00e9ant seul est un s\u00fbr asile: on ne revient pas de celui\nl\u00e0.--Bouddha lui promet le n\u00e9ant; et c'est avec cette promesse inouie\nqu'il a passionn\u00e9 les hommes et converti les peuples. Que cette\nmonstrueuse croyance, partag\u00e9e aujourd'hui par trois cents millions de\nsectateurs, r\u00e9volte en nous les instincts les plus \u00e9nergiques de notre\nnature--qu'elle soul\u00e8ve toutes les r\u00e9pugnances et toutes les horreurs\nde notre \u00e2me--qu'elle nous paraisse aussi incompr\u00e9hensible que\nhideuse--peu importe. Une partie consid\u00e9rable de l'humanit\u00e9 l'a\nre\u00e7ue,--pr\u00eate m\u00eame \u00e0 la justifier par toutes les subtilit\u00e9s de la\nmetaphysique la plus raffin\u00e9e, et \u00e0 la confesser dans les tortures des\nplus affreux supplices et les aust\u00e9rit\u00e9s homicides d'un fanatisme\naveugle. Si c'est une gloire que de dominer souverainement, \u00e0 travers\nles \u00e2ges, la foi des hommes,--jamais fondateur de religion n'en eut\nune plus grande que le Bouddha: car aucun n'eut de pros\u00e9lytes plus\nfid\u00e8les ni plus nombreux. Mais je me trompe: le Bouddha ne pr\u00e9tendait\njamais fonder une r\u00e9ligion. Il n'\u00e9tait que philosophe: et instruit\ndans toutes les sciences des Brahmans, il ne voulut personnellement\nque fonder, \u00e0 leur exemple, un nouveau syst\u00e8me. Seulement, les moyens\nqu'il employait durent mener ses disciples plus loin qu'il ne comptait\naller lui m\u00eame. En s'adressant \u00e0 la foule, il faut bient\u00f4t la\ndiscipliner et la r\u00e9gler. De l\u00e0, cette ordination r\u00e9ligieuse que le\nBouddha donnait \u00e0 ses adeptes, la hi\u00e9rarchie qu'il \u00e9tablissait entre\neux, fond\u00e9e uniquement, comme la science l'exigeait, sur le m\u00e9rite\ndivers des intelligences et des vertus--la douce et sainte morale\nqu'il pr\u00eachait,--le d\u00e9tachement de toutes choses en ce monde, si\nconvenable \u00e0 des asc\u00e8tes qui ne pensent qu'au salut \u00e9ternel--le voeu\nde pauvret\u00e9, qui est la premi\u00e8re loi des Bouddhistes--et tout cet\nensemble de dispositions qui constituent un gouvernement au lieu d'une\n\u00e9cole.\n\n\"Mais ce n'est l\u00e0 que l'ext\u00e9rieur du Bouddhisme: c'en est le\nd\u00e9veloppement mat\u00e9riel et n\u00e9cessaire. Au fond, son principe est celui\ndu S\u00e2nkhya: seulement, il l'applique en grand.--C'est la science qui\nd\u00e9livre l'homme: et le Bouddha ajoute--Pour que l'homme soit d\u00e9livr\u00e9 \u00e0\njamais, il faut qu'il arrive au Nirv\u00e2na, c'est \u00e0 dire, qu'il soit\nabsolument an\u00e9anti. Le n\u00e9ant est donc le bout de la science: et le\nsalut eternel, c'est l'an\u00e9antissement.\"\n\nThe same line of argument is insisted on by M. Barth\u00e9lemy St. Hilaire\nin his other work--Bouddha et sa r\u00e9ligion, Paris, 1862, ed. 2nd:\nespecially in his Chapter on the Nirv\u00e2na: wherein moreover he\ncomplains justly of the little notice which authors take of the\nestablished beliefs of those varieties of the human race which are\nfound apart from Christian Europe.]\n\nThis aggregate of beliefs and predispositions to believe, ethical,\nreligious, \u00e6sthetical, social, respecting what is true or false,\nprobable or improbable, just or unjust, holy or unholy, honourable or\nbase, respectable or contemptible, pure or impure, beautiful or ugly,\ndecent or indecent, obligatory to do or obligatory to avoid,\nrespecting the status and relations of each individual in the society,\nrespecting even the admissible fashions of amusement and recreation--this\nis an established fact and condition of things, the real origin\nof which is for the most part unknown, but which each new member of\nthe society is born to and finds subsisting. It is transmitted by\ntradition from parents to children, and is imbibed by the latter\nalmost unconsciously from what they see and hear around, without any\nspecial season of teaching, or special persons to teach. It becomes a\npart of each person's nature--a standing habit of mind, or fixed set\nof mental tendencies, according to which, particular experience is\ninterpreted and particular persons appreciated.[67] It is not set\nforth in systematic proclamation, nor impugned, nor defended: it is\nenforced by a sanction of its own, the same real sanction or force in\nall countries, by fear of displeasure from the Gods, and by certainty\nof evil from neighbours and fellow-citizens. The community hate,\ndespise, or deride, any individual member who proclaims his dissent\nfrom their social creed, or even openly calls it in question. Their\nhatred manifests itself in different ways at different times and\noccasions, sometimes by burning or excommunication, sometimes by\nbanishment or interdiction[68] from fire and water; at the very least,\nby exclusion from that amount of forbearance, good-will, and\nestimation, without which the life of an individual becomes\ninsupportable: for society, though its power to make an individual\nhappy is but limited, has complete power, easily exercised, to make\nhim miserable. The orthodox public do not recognise in any individual\ncitizen a right to scrutinise their creed, and to reject it if not\napproved by his own rational judgment. They expect that he will\nembrace it in the natural course of things, by the mere force of\nauthority and contagion--as they have adopted it themselves: as they\nhave adopted also the current language, weights, measures, divisions\nof time, &c. If he dissents, he is guilty of an offence described in\nthe terms of the indictment preferred against Sokrates--\"Sokrates\ncommits crime, inasmuch as he does not believe in the Gods, in whom\nthe city believes, but introduces new religious beliefs,\" &c.[69]\n\"Nomos (Law and Custom), King of All\" (to borrow the phrase which\nHerodotus cites from Pindar[70]), exercises plenary power, spiritual\nas well as temporal, over individual minds; moulding the emotions as\nwell as the intellect according to the local type--determining the\nsentiments, the belief, and the predisposition in regard to new\nmatters tendered for belief, of every one--fashioning thought, speech,\nand points of view, no less than action--and reigning under the\nappearance of habitual, self-suggested tendencies. Plato, when he\nassumes the function of Constructor, establishes special officers for\nenforcing in detail the authority of King Nomos in his Platonic\nvariety. But even where no such special officers exist, we find Plato\nhimself describing forcibly (in the speech assigned to Protagoras)[71]\nthe working of that spontaneous ever-present police by whom the\nauthority of King Nomos is enforced in detail--a police not the less\nomnipotent because they wear no uniform, and carry no recognised\ntitle.\n\n[Footnote 67: This general fact is powerfully set forth by Cicero, in\nthe beginning of the third Tusculan Disputation. Chrysippus the Stoic,\n\"ut est in omni histori\u00e2 curiosus,\" had collected striking examples of\nthese consecrated practices, cherished in one territory, abhorrent\nelsewhere. (Cic. Tusc. Disp. i. 45, 108.)]\n\n[Footnote 68: See the description of the treatment of Aristod\u00eamus, one\nof the two Spartans who survived the battle of Thermopyl\u00e6, after his\nreturn home, Herodot. vii. 231, ix. 71. The interdiction from\ncommunion of fire, water, eating, sacrifice, &c., is the strongest\nmanifestation of repugnance: so insupportable to the person\nexcommunicated, that it counted for a sentence of exile in the Roman\nlaw. (Deinarchus cont. Aristogeiton, s. 9. Heineccius, Ant. Rom. i.\n16, 9, 10.)]\n\n[Footnote 69: Xenophon. Memor. i. 1, 1. [Greek: A)dikei= S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas,\nou(\\s me\\n \u00ea( po/lis nomi/zei theou\\s ou) nomi/z\u00f4n, e(/tera de\\ kaina\\\ndaimo/nia ei)sphe/r\u00f4n], &c. Plato (Leges, x. 909, 910) and Cicero\n(Legib. ii. 19-25) forbid [Greek: kaina\\ daimo/nia], \"separatim nemo\nhabessit Deos,\" &c.]\n\n[Footnote 70: [Greek: No/mos pa/nt\u00f4n basileu/s] (Herodot. iii. 38). It\nwill be seen from Herodotus, as well as elsewhere, that the idea\nreally intended to be expressed by the word [Greek: No/mos] is much\nlarger than what is now commonly understood by _Law_. It is equivalent\nto that which Epikt\u00eatus calls [Greek: to\\ do/gma--pantachou=\na)ni/k\u00eaton to\\ do/gma] (Epiktet. iii. 16). It includes what is meant\nby [Greek: to\\ no/mimon] (Xenoph. Memor. iv. 4, 13-24), [Greek: ta\\\nno/mima, ta\\ nomizo/mena, ta pa/tria, ta\\ no/maia], including both\npositive morality, and social \u00e6sthetical precepts, as well as civil or\npolitical, and even personal habits, such as that of abstinence from\nspitting or wiping the nose (Xenoph. Cyrop. viii. 8, 8-10). The case\nwhich Herodotus quotes to illustrate his general thesis is the\ndifferent treatment which, among different nations, is considered\ndutiful and respectful towards senior relatives and the corpses of\ndeceased relatives; which matters come under [Greek: ta)/grapta\nka)sphal\u00ea= The\u00f4=n No/mima] (Soph. Antig. 440)--of immemorial\nantiquity;--\n\n[Greek: Ou) ga/r ti nu=n ge ka)chthe\\s a)ll' a)ei/ pote\nZ\u00ea=| tau=ta, kou)dei\\s oi)=den e)x' o(/tou' pha/n\u00ea].\n\n[Greek: No/mos] and [Greek: e)pit\u00ea/deuma] run together in Plato's\nmind, dictating every hour's proceeding of the citizen through life\n(Leges, vii. 807-808-823).\n\nWe find Plato, in the Leges, which represents the altered tone and\ncompressive orthodoxy of his old age, extolling the simple goodness\n([Greek: eu)\u00ea/theia]) of our early forefathers, who believed\nimplicitly all that was told them, and were not clever enough to raise\ndoubts, [Greek: \u00f4(/sper tanu=n] (Legg. iii. 679, 680). Plato dwells\nmuch upon the danger of permitting any innovation on the fixed modes\nof song and dance (Legg. v. 727, vii. 797-800), and forbids it under\nheavy penalties. He says that the lawgiver both _can_ consecrate\ncommon talk, and ought to consecrate it--[Greek: kathier\u00f4=sai t\u00ea\\n\nph\u00ea/m\u00ean] (Legg. 838), the dicta of [Greek: No/mos Basileu/s].\n\nPascal describes, in forcible terms, the wide-spread authority of\n[Greek: No/mos Basileu/s]:--\"Il ne faut pas se m\u00e9conna\u00eetre, nous\nsommes automates autant qu'esprit: et del\u00e0 vient que l'instrument, par\nlequel la persuasion se fait, n'est pas la seule d\u00e9monstration.\nCombien y a-t-il peu de choses d\u00e9montr\u00e9es! Les preuves ne convainquent\nque l'esprit. La coutume fait nos preuves les plus fortes et les plus\ncrues: _elle incline l'automate, qui entra\u00eene l'esprit sans qu'il y\npense_. Qui a d\u00e9montr\u00e9 qu'il sera demain jour, et que nous mourrons--et\nqu'y a-t-il de plus cru? C'est donc la coutume qui nous en\npersuade, c'est elle qui fait tant de Chr\u00e9tiens, c'est elle qui fait\nles Turcs les Paiens, les m\u00e9tiers, les soldats, &c. Enfin, il faut\navoir recours \u00e0 elle quand une fois l'esprit a vu o\u00f9 est la v\u00e9rit\u00e9,\nafin de nous abreuver et nous teindre de cette cr\u00e9ance, qui nous\n\u00e9chappe \u00e0 toute heure; car d'en avoir toujours les preuves pr\u00e9sentes,\nc'est trop d'affaire. Il faut acqu\u00e9rir une cr\u00e9ance plus facile, qui\nest celle de l'habitude, qui, sans violence, sans art, sans argument,\nnous fait croire les choses, et incline toutes nos puissances \u00e0 cette\ncroyance, en sorte que notre \u00e2me y tombe naturellement. Quand on ne\ncroit que par la force de la conviction, et que l'automate est inclin\u00e9\n\u00e0 croire le contraire, ce n'est pas assez.\" (Pascal, Pens\u00e9es, ch. xi.\np. 237, ed. Louandre, Paris, 1854.)\n\nHerein Pascal coincides with Montaigne, of whom he often speaks\nharshly enough: \"Comme de vray nous n'avons aultre mire de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9\net de la raison, que l'exemple et id\u00e9e des opinions et usances du pa\u00efs\no\u00f9 nous sommes: l\u00e0 est tousiours la parfaicte religion, la parfaicte\npolice, parfaict et accomply usage de toutes choses.\" (Essais de\nMontaigne, liv. i. ch. 30.) Compare the same train of thought in\nDescartes (Discours sur la M\u00e9thode, pp. 132-139, ed. Cousin).]\n\n[Footnote 71: Plat. Protag. 320-328. The large sense of the word\n[Greek: No/mos], as conceived by Pindar and Herodotus, must be kept in\nmind, comprising positive morality, religious ritual, consecrated\nhabits, the local turns of sympathy and antipathy, &c. M. Salvador\nobserves, respecting the Mosaic Law: \"Qu'on \u00e9crive tous les rapports\npublics et priv\u00e9s qui unissent les membres d'un peuple quelconque, et\ntous les principes sur lesquels ces rapports sont fond\u00e9s--il en\nr\u00e9sultera un ensemble complet, un v\u00e9ritable syst\u00e8me plus ou moins\nraisonnable, qui sera l'expression exacte de la mani\u00e8re d'exister de\nce peuple. Or, cet ensemble ou ce syst\u00e8me est ce que les H\u00e9breux\nappellent la _tora_, la loi ou la constitution publique--en prenant ce\nmot dans le sens le plus \u00e9tendu.\" (Salvador, Histoire des Institutions\nde Moise, liv. i. ch. ii. p. 96.)\n\nCompare also about the sense of the word _Lex_, as conceived by the\nArabs, M. Renan, Averro\u00e8s, p. 286, and Mr. Mill's chapter respecting\nthe all-comprehensive character of the Hindoo law (Hist. of India, ch.\niv., beginning): \"In the law books of the Hindus, the details of\njurisprudence and judicature occupy comparatively a very moderate\nspace. The doctrines and ceremonies of religion; the rules and\npractice of education; the institutions, duties, and customs of\ndomestic life; the maxims of private morality, and even of domestic\neconomy; the rules of government, of war, and of negotiation; all form\nessential parts of the Hindu code of law, and are treated in the same\nstyle, and laid down with the same authority, as the rules for the\ndistribution of justice.\"\n\nMr. Maine, in his admirable work on Ancient Law, notes both the\nall-comprehensive and the irresistible ascendancy of what is called _Law_\nin early societies. He remarks emphatically that \"the stationary\ncondition of the human race is the rule--the progressive condition the\nexception--a rare exception in the history of the world\". (Chap. i.\npp. 16-18-19; chap. ii. pp. 22-24.)\n\nAgain, Mr. Maine observes:--\"The other liability, to which the infancy\nof society is exposed, has prevented or arrested the progress of far\nthe greater part of mankind. The rigidity of ancient law, arising\nchiefly from its early association and identification with religion,\nhas chained down the mass of the human race to those views of life and\nconduct which they entertained at the time when their institutions\nwere first consolidated into a systematic form. There were one or two\nraces exempted by a marvellous fate from this calamity: and grafts\nfrom these stocks have fertilised a few modern societies. But it is\nstill true that over the larger part of the world, the perfection of\nlaw has always been considered as consisting in adherence to the\nground-plan supposed to have been marked out by the legislator. _If\nintellect has in such cases been exercised upon jurisprudence, it has\nuniformly prided itself on the subtle perversity of the conclusions it\ncould build on ancient texts, without discoverable departure from\ntheir literal tenor._\" (Maine, Ancient Law, ch. iv. pp. 77-78.)]\n\n[Side-note: Small minority of exceptional individual minds, who do not\nyield to the established orthodoxy, but insist on exercising their own\njudgment.]\n\nThere are, however, generally a few exceptional minds to whom this\nomnipotent authority of King Nomos is repugnant, and who claim a right\nto investigate and judge for themselves on many points already settled\nand foreclosed by the prevalent orthodoxy. In childhood and youth\nthese minds must have gone through the ordinary influences,[72] but\nwithout the permanent stamp which such influences commonly leave\nbehind. Either the internal intellectual force of the individual is\ngreater, or he contracts a reverence for some new authority, or (as in\nthe case of Sokrates) he believes himself to have received a special\nmission from the Gods--in one way or other the imperative character of\nthe orthodoxy around him is so far enfeebled, that he feels at liberty\nto scrutinise for himself the assemblage of beliefs and sentiments\naround him. If he continues to adhere to them, this is because they\napprove themselves to his individual reason: unless this last\ncondition be fulfilled, he becomes a dissenter, proclaiming his\ndissent more or less openly, according to circumstances. Such\ndisengagement from authority traditionally consecrated ([Greek:\ne)xallag\u00ea\\ t\u00f4=n ei)\u00f4tho/t\u00f4n nomi/m\u00f4n]),[73] and assertion of the right\nof self-judgment, on the part of a small minority of [Greek:\ni)diogn\u00f4/mones],[74] is the first condition of existence for\nphilosophy or \"reasoned truth\".\n\n[Footnote 72: Cicero, Tusc. D. iii. 2; Aristot. Ethic. Nikom. x. 10,\n1179, b. 23. [Greek: o( de\\ lo/gos kai\\ \u00ea( didach\u00ea\\ m\u00ea/ pot' ou)k e)n\na(/pasin i)schu/\u00ea|, a)lla\\ de/\u00ea| prodieirga/sthai toi=s e)/thesi t\u00ea\\n\ntou= a)kroatou= psuch\u00ea\\n pro\\s to\\ kal\u00f4=s chai/rein kai\\ misei=n,\n\u00f4(/sper g\u00ea=n t\u00ea\\n thre/psousan to\\ spe/rma]. To the same purpose\nPlato, Republ. iii. 402 A, Legg. ii. 653 B, 659 E, Plato and Aristotle\n(and even Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 2, 3), aiming at the formation of a body\nof citizens, and a community very different from anything which they\nsaw around them--require to have the means of shaping the early\nsentiments, love, hatred, &c., of children, in a manner favourable to\ntheir own ultimate views. This is exactly what [Greek: No/mos\nBasileu\\s] does effectively in existing societies, without need of\nspecial provision for the purpose. See Plato, Protagor. 325, 326.]\n\n[Footnote 73: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, 265 A. See Sir Will. Hamilton's Lectures\non Logic, Lect. 29, pp. 88-90. In the Tim\u00e6us (p. 40 E) Plato\ninterrupts the thread of his own speculations on cosmogony, to take in\nall the current theogony on the authority of King Nomos. [Greek:\na)du/naton ou)=n the\u00f4=n paisi\\n a)pistei=n, kai/per a)/neu te\nei)ko/t\u00f4n kai\\ a)nagkai/\u00f4n a)podei/xe\u00f4n le/gousin, a)ll' \u00f4(s oi)kei=a\npha/skousin a)pagge/llein e(pome/nous t\u00f4=| no/m\u00f4| pisteute/on].\n\nHegel adverts to this severance of the individual consciousness from\nthe common consciousness of the community, as the point of departure\nfor philosophical theory:--\"On one hand we are now called upon to find\nsome specific matter for the general form of Good; such closer\ndetermination of The Good is the criterion required. On the other\nhand, the exigencies of the individual subject come prominently\nforward: this is the consequence of the revolution which Sokrates\noperated in the Greek mind. So long as the religion, the laws, the\npolitical constitution, of any people, are in full force--so long as\neach individual citizen is in complete harmony with them all--no one\nraises the question, What has the Individual to do for himself? In a\nmoralised and religious social harmony, each individual finds his\ndestination prescribed by the established routine; while this positive\nmorality, religion, laws, form also the routine of _his own_ mind. On\nthe contrary, if the Individual no longer stands on the custom of his\nnation, nor feels himself in full agreement with the religion and\nlaws--he then no longer finds what he desires, nor obtains\nsatisfaction in the medium around him. When once such discord has\nbecome confirmed, the Individual must fall back on his own\nreflections, and seek his destination there. This is what gives rise\nto the question--What is the essential scheme for the Individual? To\nwhat ought he to conform--what shall he aim at? An _ideal_ is thus set\nup for the Individual. This is, the Wise Man, or the Ideal of the Wise\nMan, which is, in truth, the separate working of individual\nself-consciousness, conceived as an universal or typical character.\"\n(Hegel, Geschichte der Philosophie, Part ii. pp. 132, 133.)]\n\n[Footnote 74: This is an expression of the learned Huet, Bishop of\nAvranches:--\"Si quelqu'un me demande maintenant, ce que nous sommes,\npuisque nous ne voulons \u00eatre ni Acad\u00e9miciens, ni Sceptiques, ni\nEclectiques, ni d'aucune autre Secte, je r\u00e9pondrai que _nous sommes\nn\u00f4tres_--c'est \u00e0 dire libres: ne voulans soumettre notre esprit \u00e0\naucune autorit\u00e9, et n'approuvans que ce qui nous paroit s'approcher\nplus pr\u00e8s de la v\u00e9rit\u00e9. Que si quelqu'un, par mocquerie ou par\nflatterie, nous appelle [Greek: i)diogn\u00f4/monas]--c'est \u00e0 dire,\nattach\u00e9s \u00e0 nos propres sentimens, nous n'y r\u00e9pugnerons pas.\" (Huet,\nTrait\u00e9 Philosophique de la Foiblesse de l'Esprit Humain, liv. ii. ch.\nxi. p. 224, ed. 1741.)]\n\n[Side-note: Early appearance of a few free-judging individuals, or\nfree-thinkers in Greece.]\n\nAmidst the epic and lyric poets of Greece, with their varied\nproductive impulse--as well as amidst the Gnomic philosophers, the\nbest of whom were also poets--there are not a few manifestations of\nsuch freely judging individuality. Xenophanes the philosopher, who\nwrote in poetry, censured severely several of the current narratives\nabout the Gods and Pindar, though in more respectful terms, does the\nlike. So too, the theories about the Kosmos, propounded by various\nphilosophers, Thales, Anaximenes, Pythagoras, Herakleitus, Anaxagoras,\n&c., were each of them the free offspring of an individual mind. But\nthese were counter-affirmations: novel theories, departing from the\ncommon belief, yet accompanied by little or no debate, or attack, or\ndefence: indeed the proverbial obscurity of Herakleitus, and the\nrecluse mysticism of the Pythagoreans, almost excluded discussion.\nThese philosophers (to use the phrase of Aristotle[75]) had no concern\nwith Dialectic: which last commenced in the fifth century B.C., with\nthe Athenian drama and dikastery, and was enlisted in the service of\nphilosophy by Zeno the Eleate and Sokrates.\n\n[Footnote 75: Aristot. Metaphys. A. 987, b. 32. Eusebius, having set\nforth the dissentient and discordant opinions of the various Hellenic\nphilosophers, triumphantly contrasts with them the steady adherence of\nJews and Christians to one body of truth, handed down by an uniform\ntradition from father to son, from the first generation of\nman--[Greek: a)po\\ pr\u00f4/t\u00eas a)nthr\u00f4pogoni/as]. (Pr\u00e6p. Ev. xiv. 3.)\n\nCicero, in the treatise (not preserved) entitled _Hortensius_--set\nforth, at some length, an attack and a defence of philosophy; the\nformer he assigned to Hortensius, the latter he undertook in his own\nname. One of the arguments urged by Hortensius against philosophy, to\nprove that it was not \"vera sapientia,\" was, that it was both a human\ninvention and a recent novelty, not handed down by tradition _a\nprincipio_, therefore not natural to man. \"Qu\u00e6 si secundum hominis\nnaturam est, cum homine ipso coeperit necesse est; si vero non est,\nnec capere quidem illam posset humana natura. Ubi apud antiquiores\nlatuit amor iste investigand\u00e6 veritatis?\" (Lactantius, Inst. Divin.\niii. 16.) The loss of this Ciceronian pleading (Philosophy _versus_\nConsecrated Tradition) is much to be deplored. Lactantius and Augustin\nseem to have used it largely.\n\nThe Hermotimus of Lucian, manifesting all his lively Sokratic\nacuteness, is a dialogue intended to expose the worthlessness of all\nspeculative philosophy. The respondent Hermotimus happens to be a\nStoic, but the assailant expressly declares (c. 85) that the arguments\nwould be equally valid against Platonists or Aristotelians. Hermotimus\nis advised to desist from philosophy, to renounce inquiry, to employ\nhimself in some of the necessary affairs of life, and to acquiesce in\nthe common received opinions, which would carry him smoothly along the\nremainder of his life ([Greek: a)xi\u00f4= pra/ttein ti t\u00f4=n a)nagkai/\u00f4n,\nkai\\ o(/ se parape/mpsei e)s to\\ loipo\\n tou= bi/ou, ta\\ koina\\ tau=ta\nphronou=nta], c. 72). Among the worthless philosophical speculations\nLucian ranks geometry: the geometrical definitions (point and line) he\ndeclares to be nonsensical and inadmissible (c. 74).]\n\n[Side-note: Rise of Dialectic--Effect of the Drama and the Dikastery.]\n\nBoth the drama and the dikastery recognise two or more different ways\nof looking at a question, and require that no conclusion shall be\npronounced until opposing disputants have been heard and compared. The\nEumenides plead against Apollo, Prometheus against the mandates and\ndispositions of Zeus, in spite of the superior dignity as well as\npower with which Zeus is invested: every Athenian citizen, in his\ncharacter of dikast, took an oath to hear both the litigant parties\nalike, and to decide upon the pleadings and evidence according to law.\nZeno, in his debates with the anti-Parmenidean philosophers, did not\ntrouble himself to parry their thrusts. He assumed the aggressive,\nimpugned the theories of his opponents, and exposed the contradictions\nin which they involved themselves. The dialectic process, in which\nthere are (at the least) two opposite points of view both represented--the\nnegative and the affirmative--became both prevalent and\ninteresting.\n\n[Side-note: Application of Negative scrutiny to ethical and social\ntopics by Sokrates.]\n\nI have in a former chapter explained the dialectic of Zeno, as it bore\nupon the theories of the anti-Parmenidean philosophers. Still more\nimportant was the proceeding of Sokrates, when he applied the like\nscrutiny to ethical, social, political, religious topics. He did not\ncome forward with any counter-theories: he declared expressly that he\nhad none to propose, and that he was ignorant. He put questions to\nthose who on their side professed to know, and he invited answers from\nthem. His mission, as he himself described it, was, to scrutinise and\nexpose false pretensions to knowledge. Without such scrutiny, he\ndeclares life itself to be not worth having. He impugned the common\nand traditional creed, not in the name of any competing doctrine, but\nby putting questions on the familiar terms in which it was confidently\nenunciated, and by making its defenders contradict themselves and feel\nthe shame of their own contradictions. The persons who held it were\nshown to be incapable of defending it, when tested by an acute\ncross-examiner; and their supposed knowledge, gathered up insensibly\nfrom the tradition around them, deserved the language which Bacon applies\nto the science of his day, conducting indirectly to the necessity of\nthat remedial course which Bacon recommends. \"Nemo adhuc tant\u00e2 mentis\nconstanti\u00e2 et rigore inventus est, ut decreverit et sibi proposuerit,\ntheorias et notiones communes penitus abolere, et intellectum abrasum\net \u00e6quum ad particularia rursus applicare. Itaque ratio illa quam\nhabemus, ex mult\u00e2 fide et multo etiam casu, necnon ex puerilibus quas\nprimo hausimus notionibus, farrago qu\u00e6dam est et congeries.\"[76]\n\n[Footnote 76: Bacon, Nov. Org. Aph. 97. I have already cited this\npassage in a note on the 68th chapter of my 'History of Greece,' pp.\n612-613; in which note I have also alluded to other striking passages\nof Bacon, indicating the confusion, inconsistencies, and\nmisapprehensions of the \"_intellectus sibi permissus_\". In that note,\nand in the text of the chapter, I have endeavoured to illustrate the\nsame view of the Sokratic procedure as that which is here taken.]\n\n[Side-note: Emphatic assertion by Sokrates of the right of\nsatisfaction for his own individual reason.]\n\nNever before (so far as we know) had the authority of King Nomos been\nexposed to such an enemy as this dialectic or cross-examination by\nSokrates: the prescriptive creed and unconsciously imbibed sentiment\n(\"ratio ex fide, casu, et puerilibus notionibus\") being thrown upon\ntheir defence against negative scrutiny brought to bear upon them by\nthe inquisitive reason of an individual citizen. In the Apology,\nSokrates clothes his own strong intellectual _oestrus_ in the belief\n(doubtless sincerely entertained) of a divine mission. In the Gorgias,\nthe Platonic Sokrates asserts it in naked and simple, yet not less\nemphatic, language. \"You, Polus, bring against me the authority of the\nmultitude, as well as that of the most eminent citizens, all of whom\nagree in upholding your view. But I, one man standing here alone, do\n_not_ agree with you. And I engage to compel you, my one respondent,\nto agree with _me_.\"[77] The autonomy or independence of individual\nreason against established authority, and the title of negative reason\nas one of the litigants in the process of philosophising, are first\nbrought distinctly to view in the career of Sokrates.\n\n[Footnote 77: Plato, Gorgias, p. 472 A. [Greek: kai\\ nu=n, peri\\ \u00f4(=n\nsu\\ le/geis, o)li/gou soi\\ pa/ntes sumph\u00ea/sousi tau)ta A)th\u00eanai=oi\nkai\\ oi( xe/noi, e)a\\n bou/l\u00ea kat' e)mou= ma/rturas parasche/sthai \u00f4(s\nou)k a)l\u00eath\u00ea= le/g\u00f4; martur\u00ea/sousi/ soi, e)a\\n me\\n bou/l\u00ea|, Niki/as\no( Nik\u00eara/tou kai\\ oi( a)delphoi\\ met' au)tou=--e)a\\n de\\ bou/l\u00ea|,\nA)ristokra/t\u00eas o( Skelli/ou--e)a\\n de\\ bou/l\u00ea|, \u00ea( Perikle/ous o(/l\u00ea\noi)ki/a \u00ea)\\ a)/ll\u00ea sugge/neia, \u00ea(/ntina a)\\n bou/l\u00ea| t\u00f4=n e)/nthade\ne)kle/xasthai. _A)ll' e)g\u00f4/ soi ei)=s \u00f4(\\n ou)ch o(molog\u00f4=_; ou) ga/r\nme su\\ a)nagka/zeis], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Aversion of the Athenian public to the negative procedure\nof Sokrates. Mistake of supposing that that negative procedure belongs\npeculiarly to the Sophists and the Megarici.]\n\nWith such a career, we need not wonder that Sokrates, though esteemed\nand admired by a select band of adherents, incurred a large amount of\ngeneral unpopularity. The public (as I have before observed) do not\nadmit the claim of independent exercise for individual reason. In the\nnatural process of growth in the human mind, belief does not follow\nproof, but springs up apart from and independent of it: an immature\nintelligence believes first, and proves (if indeed it ever seeks\nproof) afterwards.[78] This mental tendency is farther confirmed by\nthe pressure and authority of King Nomos; who is peremptory in\nexacting belief, but neither furnishes nor requires proof. The\ncommunity, themselves deeply persuaded, will not hear with calmness\nthe voice of a solitary reasoner, adverse to opinions thus\nestablished; nor do they like to be required to explain, analyse, or\nreconcile those opinions.[79] They disapprove especially that\ndialectic debate which gives free play and efficacious prominence to\nthe negative arm. The like disapprobation is felt even by most of the\nhistorians of philosophy; who nevertheless, having an interest in the\nphilosophising process, might be supposed to perceive that nothing\nworthy of being called _reasoned truth_ can exist, without full and\nequal scope to negative as well as to affirmative.\n\n[Footnote 78: See Professor Bain's Chapter on Belief; one of the most\noriginal and instructive chapters in his volume on the Emotions and\nthe Will, pp. 578-584. [Third Ed., pp. 505-538.]]\n\n[Footnote 79: This antithesis and reciprocal repulsion--between the\nspeculative reason of the philosopher who thinks for himself, and the\nestablished traditional convictions of the public--is nowhere more\nstrikingly enforced than by Plato in the sixth and seventh books of\nthe Republic; together with the corrupting influence exercised by King\nNomos, at the head of his vehement and unanimous public, over those\nfew gifted natures which are competent to philosophical speculation.\nSee Plato, Rep. vi. 492-493.\n\nThe unfavourable feelings with which the attempts to analyse morality\n(especially when quite novel, as such attempts were in the time of\nSokrates) are received in a community--are noticed by Mr. John Stuart\nMill, in his tract on Utilitarianism, ch. iii. pp. 38-39:--\n\n\"The question is often asked, and properly so, in regard to any\nsupposed moral standard, What is its sanction? What are the motives to\nobey it? or more specifically, What is the source of its obligation?\nWhence does it derive its binding force? It is a necessary part of\nmoral philosophy to provide the answer to this question: which though\nfrequently assuming the shape of an objection to the utilitarian\nmorality, as if it had some special applicability to that above\nothers, really arises in _regard to all standards_. It arises in fact\nwhenever a person is called on to adopt a standard, or refer morality\nto any basis on which he has not been accustomed to rest it. For the\ncustomary morality, that which education and opinion have consecrated,\nis the only one which presents itself to the mind with the feeling of\nbeing _in itself_ obligatory: and when a person is asked to believe\nthat this morality _derives_ its obligation from some general\nprinciple round which custom has not thrown the same halo, the\nassertion is to him a paradox. The supposed corollaries seem to have a\nmore binding force than the original theorem: the superstructure seems\nto stand better without than with what is represented as its\nfoundation. . . . The difficulty has no peculiar application to the\ndoctrine of utility, but is inherent in every attempt to analyse\nmorality, and reduce it to principles: which, unless the principle is\nalready in men's minds invested with as much sacredness as any of its\napplications, always seems to divest them of a part of their\nsanctity.\"\n\nEpikt\u00eatus observes that the refined doctrines acquired by the\nself-reasoning philosopher, often failed to attain that intense hold\non his conviction, which the \"rotten doctrines\" inculcated from childhood\npossessed over the conviction of ordinary men. [Greek: Dia\\ ti/ ou)=n\ne)kei=noi (oi( polloi\\, oi( i)di\u00f4=tai) u(m\u00f4=n (t\u00f4n philoso/ph\u00f4n)\ni)schuro/teroi? O(/ti e)kei=noi me\\n ta\\ sapra\\ tau=ta a)po\\ dogma/t\u00f4n\nlalou=sin? u(mei=s de\\ ta\\ kompsa\\ a)po\\ t\u00f4=n cheil\u00f4=n . . . . . Ou(/t\u00f4s\nu(ma=s oi( i)di\u00f4=tai nik\u00f4=si; Pantachou= ga\\r i)schuro\\n to\\ do/gma;\na)ni/k\u00eaton to\\ do/gma]. (Epikt\u00eatus, iii. 16.)]\n\n[Side-note: The same charges which the historians of philosophy bring\nagainst the Sophists were brought by contemporary Athenians against\nSokrates. They represent the standing dislike of free inquiry, usual\nwith an orthodox public.]\n\nThese historians usually speak in very harsh terms of the Sophists, as\nwell as of Eukleides and the Megaric sect; who are taken as the great\napostles of negation. But the truth is, that the Megarics inherited it\nfrom Sokrates, and shared it with Plato. Eukleides cannot have laid\ndown a larger programme of negation than that which we read in the\nApology of Sokrates,--nor composed a dialogue more ultra-negative than\nthe Platonic Parmenid\u00eas: nor, again, did he depart so widely, in\nprinciple as well as in precept, from existing institutions, as Plato\nin his Republic. The charges which historians of philosophy urge\nagainst the Megarics as well as against the persons whom they call the\nSophists--such as corruption of youth--perversion of truth and\nmorality, by making the worse appear the better reason--subversion of\nestablished beliefs--innovation as well as deception--all these were\nurged against Sokrates himself by his contemporaries,[80] and indeed\nagainst all the philosophers indiscriminately, as we learn from\nSokrates himself in the Apology.[81] They are outbursts of feeling\nnatural to the practical, orthodox citizen, who represents the common\nsense of the time and place; declaring his antipathy to these\nspeculative, freethinking innovations of theory, which challenges the\nprescriptive maxims of traditional custom and tests them by a standard\napproved by herself. The orthodox citizen does not feel himself in\nneed of philosophers to tell him what is truth or what is virtue, nor\nwhat is the difference between real and fancied knowledge. On these\nmatters he holds already settled persuasions, acquired from his\nfathers and his ancestors, and from the acknowledged civic\nauthorities, spiritual and temporal;[82] who are to him exponents of\nthe creed guaranteed by tradition:--\n\n   \"Quod sapio, satis est mihi: non ego curo\nEsse quod Arcesilas \u00e6rumnosique Solones.\"\n\n[Footnote 80: Themistius, in defending himself against contemporary\nopponents, whom he represents to have calumniated him, consoles\nhimself by saying, among other observations, that these arrows have\nbeen aimed at all the philosophers successively--Sokrates, Plato,\nAristotle, Theophrastus. [Greek: O( ga\\r sophist\u00ea\\s kai\\ a)laz\u00f4\\n kai\\\nkaino/tomos pr\u00f4=ton me\\n S\u00f4kra/tous o)nei/d\u00ea \u00ea)=n, e)/peita Pla/t\u00f4nos\ne)phex\u00ea=s, ei)=th' u(/steron A)ristote/lous kai\\ Theophra/stou].\n(Orat. xxiii. p. 346, Dindorf.)\n\nWe read in Zeller's account of the Platonic philosophy (Phil. der\nGriech. vol. ii. p. 368, ed. 2nd):\n\n\"Die prop\u00e4deutische Begr\u00fcndung der Platonischen Philosophie besteht im\nAllgemeinen darin, dass der unphilosophische Standpunkt aufgel\u00f6st, und\ndie Erhebung zum philosophischen in ihrer Nothwendigkeit nachgewiesen\nwird. Im Besondern k\u00f6nnen wir drey Stadien dieses Wegs unterscheiden.\nDen Ausgangspunkt bildet das gew\u00f6hnliche Bewusstsein. Indem die\n_Voraussetzungen, welche Diesem f\u00fcr ein Erstes und Festes gegolten\nhatten, dialektisch zersetzt werden, so erhalten wir zun\u00e4chst das\nnegative Resultat der Sophistik_. Erst wenn auch diese \u00fcberwunden ist,\nkann der philosophische Standpunkt positiv entwickelt werden.\"\n\nZeller here affirms that it was the Sophists (Protagoras, Prodikus,\nHippias and others) who first applied negative analysis to the common\nconsciousness; breaking up, by their dialectic scrutiny, those\nhypotheses which had before exercised authority therein, as first\nprinciples not to be disputed.\n\nI dissent from this position. I conceive that the Sophists\n(Protagoras, Prodikus, Hippias) did _not_ do what Zeller affirms, and\nthat Sokrates (and Plato after him) _did_ do it. The negative analysis\nwas the weapon of Sokrates, and not of Protagoras, Prodikus, Hippias,\n&c. It was he who declared (see Platonic Apology) that false\npersuasion of knowledge was at once universal and ruinous, and who\ndevoted his life to the task of exposing it by cross-examination. The\nconversation of the Xenophontic Sokrates with Euthyd\u00eamus (Memor. iv.\n2), exhibits a complete specimen of that aggressive analysis, brought\nto bear on the common consciousness, which Zeller ascribes to the\nSophists: the Platonic dialogues, in which Sokrates cross-examines\nupon Justice, Temperance, Courage, Piety, Virtue, &c., are of the like\ncharacter; and we know from Xenophon (Mem. i. 1-16) that Sokrates\npassed much time in such examinations with pre-eminent success.\n\nI notice this statement of Zeller, not because it is peculiar to him\n(for most of the modern historians of philosophy affirm the same; and\nhis history, which is the best that I know, merely repeats the\nordinary view), but because it illustrates clearly the view which I\ntake of the Sophists and Sokrates. Instead of the unmeaning abstract\n\"_Sophistik_,\" given by Zeller and others, we ought properly to insert\nthe word \"_Sokratik_,\" if we are to have any abstract term at all.\n\nAgain--The negative analysis, which these authors call \"Sophistik,\"\nthey usually censure as discreditable and corrupting. To me it\nappears, on the contrary, both original and valuable, as one essential\ncondition for bringing social and ethical topics under the domain of\nphilosophy or \"reasoned truth\".\n\nProfessor Charles Thurot (in his \u00c9tudes sur Aristote, Paris, 1860, p.\n119) takes a juster view than Zeller of the difference between Plato\nand the Sophists (Protagoras, Prodikus, Hippias). \"Les Sophistes,\ncomme tous ceux qui dissertent superficiellement sur des questions de\nphilosophie, et en particulier sur la morale et la politique,\ns'appuyaient sur l'autorit\u00e9 et le t\u00e9moignage; ils all\u00e9guaient les vers\ndes po\u00e8tes c\u00e9l\u00e8bres qui passaient aux yeux des Grecs pour des oracles\nde sagesse: ils invoquaient l'opinion du commun des hommes. Platon\nr\u00e9cusait absolument ces deux esp\u00e8ces de t\u00e9moignages. Ni les po\u00e8tes ni\nle commun des hommes ne savent ce qu'ils disent, puisqu'ils ne peuvent\nen rendre raison. . . . . . Aux yeux de Platon, il n'y a d'autre m\u00e9thode,\npour arriver au vrai et pour le communiquer, que la dialectique: qui\nest \u00e0 la fois l'art d'interroger et de r\u00e9pondre, et l'art de d\u00e9finir\net de diviser.\"\n\nM. Thurot here declares (in my judgment very truly) that the Sophists\nappealed to the established ethical authorities, and dwelt upon or\nadorned the received common-places--that Plato denied these\nauthorities, and brought his battery of negative cross-examination to\nbear upon them as well as upon their defenders. M. Thurot thus gives a\ntotally different version of the procedure of the Sophists from that\nwhich is given by Zeller. Nevertheless he perfectly agrees with\nZeller, and with Anytus, the accuser of Sokrates (Plat. Menon, pp.\n91-92), in describing the Sophists as a class who made money by\ndeceiving and perverting the minds of hearers (p. 120).]\n\n[Footnote 81: Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 23 D. [Greek: i(/na de\\ m\u00ea\\\ndok\u00f4=sin a)porei=n, _ta\\ kata\\ pa/nt\u00f4n t\u00f4=n philosophou/nt\u00f4n\npro/cheira tau=ta le/gousin_, o(/ti ta\\ mete/\u00f4ra kai\\ ta\\ u(po\\ g\u00ea=s\n_kai\\ theou\\s m\u00ea\\ nomi/zein kai\\ to\\n \u00ea(/tt\u00f4 lo/gon krei/tt\u00f4\npoiei=n_], &c.\n\nXenoph. Memor. i. 2, 31. [Greek: to\\ koin\u00ea=| toi=s philoso/phois u(po\\\nt\u00f4=n poll\u00f4=n epitim\u00f4/menon]. The rich families in Athens severely\nreproached their relatives who frequented the society of Sokrates.\nXenophon, Sympos. iv. 32.]\n\n[Footnote 82: See this point strikingly set forth by Plato, Politikus,\n299: also Plutarch, [Greek: E)r\u00f4tiko/s], c. 13, 756 A.\n\nThis is the \"auctoritas majorum,\" put forward by Cotta in his official\ncharacter of _Pontifex_, as conclusive _per se_: when reasons are\nproduced to sustain it, the reasons fail. (Cic. Nat. Deor. iii. 3, 5,\n6, 9.)\n\nThe \"auctoritas maiorum,\" proclaimed by the Pontifex Cotta, may be\nillustrated by what we read in Father Paul's History of the Council of\nTrent, respecting the proceedings of that Council when it imposed the\nduty of accepting the authoritative interpretation of\nScripture:--\"Lorsqu'on fut \u00e0 opiner sur le quatri\u00e8me Article, presque tous\nse rendirent \u00e0 l'avis du Cardinal Pach\u00e8co, qui repr\u00e9senta: Que l'\u00c9criture\nayant \u00e9t\u00e9 expliqu\u00e9e par tant de gens \u00e9minens en pi\u00e9t\u00e9 et en doctrine,\nl'on ne pouvoit pas esp\u00e9rer de rien ajouter de meilleur: Que les\nnouvelles H\u00e9r\u00e9sies etant toutes n\u00e9es des nouveaux sens qu'on avoit\ndonn\u00e9s \u00e0 l'\u00c9criture, il \u00e9toit n\u00e9cessaire d'arr\u00eater la licence des\nesprits modernes, et de les obliger de se laisser gouverner par les\nAnciens et par l'\u00c9glise: Et que si quelqu'un naissoit avec un esprit\nsingulier, on devoit le forcer \u00e0 le renfermer au dedans de lui-m\u00eame,\net \u00e0 ne pas troubler le monde en publiant tout ce qu'il pensoit.\" (Fra\nPaolo, Histoire du Concile de Trente, traduction Fran\u00e7oise, par Le\nCourayer, Livre II. p. 284, 285, in 1546, pontificate of Paul III.)\n\nP. 289. \"Par le second D\u00e9cret, il \u00e9toit ordonn\u00e9 en substance, de tenir\nl'Edition Vulgate pour authentique dans les le\u00e7ons publiques, les\ndisputes, les pr\u00e9dications, et les explications; et d\u00e9fendre \u00e0 qui que\nce fut de la rejeter. On y d\u00e9fendoit aussi d'expliquer la Saint\n\u00c9criture dans un sens contraire \u00e0 celui que lui donne la Sainte \u00c9glise\nnotre M\u00e8re, et au consentement unanime des P\u00e8res, quand bien m\u00eame on\nauroit intention de tenir ces explications secr\u00e8tes; et on ordonnoit\nque ceux qui contreviendroient \u00e0 cette d\u00e9fense fussent punis par les\nOrdinaires.\"]\n\n\n* * * * *\n\n\nHe will not listen to ingenious sophistry respecting these consecrated\ntraditions; he does not approve the tribe of fools who despise what\nthey are born to, and dream of distant, unattainable novelties:[83] he\ncannot tolerate the nice discoursers, ingenious hair-splitters,\npriests of subtleties and trifles--dissenters from the established\nopinions, who corrupt the youth, teaching their pupils to be wise\nabove the laws, to despise or even beat their fathers and mothers,[84]\nand to cheat their creditors--mischievous instructors, whose\nappropriate audience are the thieves and malefactors, and who ought to\nbe silenced if they display ability to pervert others.[85] Such\nfeeling of disapprobation and antipathy against speculative philosophy\nand dialectic--against the _libertas philosophandi_--counts as a\nbranch of virtue among practical and orthodox citizens, rich or poor,\noligarchical or democratical, military or civil, ancient or modern. It\nis an antipathy common to men in other respects very different, to\nNikias as well as Kleon, to Eupolis and Aristophanes as well as to\nAnytus and Demochares. It was expressed forcibly by the Roman Cato\n(the Censor), when he censured Sokrates as a dangerous and violent\ncitizen; aiming, in his own way, to subvert the institutions and\ncustoms of the country, and poisoning the minds of his fellow-citizens\nwith opinions hostile to the laws.[86] How much courage is required in\nany individual citizen, to proclaim conscientious dissent in the face\nof wide-spread and established convictions, is recognised by Plato\nhimself, and that too in the most orthodox and intolerant of all his\ncompositions.[87] He (and Aristotle after him), far from recognising\nthe infallibility of established King Nomos, were bold enough[88] to\ntry and condemn him, and to imagine (each of them) a new [Greek:\nNo/mos] of his own, representing the political Art or Theory of\nPolitics--a notion which would not have been understood by\nThemistokles or Aristeides.\n\n[Footnote 83: Pindar, Pyth. iii. 21.\n\n[Greek: E)/sti de\\ phu=lon e)n a)nthr\u00f4/poisi mataiotaton,\nO(/stis ai)schu/n\u00f4n e)pich\u00f4/ria paptai/nei ta\\ po/rs\u00f4,\nMetam\u00f4/nia th\u00eareu/\u00f4n a)kra/ntois e)lpi/sin.]]\n\n[Footnote 84: [Greek: Ou)de\\n sophizo/mestha toi=si dai/mosi;\nPatri/ous paradocha\\s, a(\\s th' o(m\u00ea/likas chro/n\u00f4|\nKekt\u00ea/meth', ou)dei\\s au)ta\\ katabalei= lo/gos,\nOu)/d' ei) di' a)/kr\u00f4n to\\ sopho\\n \u00eau(/r\u00eatai phren\u00f4=n].\n   (Euripides, Bacch\u00e6, 200.)\n\nIllud in his rebus vereor, ne fort\u00e9 rearis\nImpia te rationis inire elementa, viamque\nEndogredi sceleris. (Lucretius, i. 85.)\n\nCompare Valckenaer, Diatrib. Eurip. pp. 38, 39, cap. 5.\n\nAbout the accusations against Sokrates, of leading the youth to\ncontract doubts and to slight the authority of their fathers, see\nXenoph. Memor. i. 2, 52; Plato, Gorgias, 522 B, p. 79, Menon, p. 70. A\ntouching anecdote, illustrating this displeasure of the fathers\nagainst Sokrates, may be found in Xenophon, Cyrop\u00e6d. iii. 1, 89, where\nthe father of Tigranes puts to death the [Greek: sophist\u00ea\\s] who had\ntaught his son, because that son had contracted a greater attachment\nto the [Greek: sophist\u00ea\\s] than to his own father.\n\nXenophon, Memor. i. 2, 9; i. 2, 49. Apolog. So. s. 20; compare the\nspeech of Kleon in Thucyd. iii. 37. Plato, Politikus, p. 299 E.\n\nTimon in the Silli bestows on Sokrates and his successors the title of\n[Greek: a)kribo/logoi]. Diog. Laert. ii. 19. Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem.\nvii. 8. Aristophan. Nubes, 130, where Strepsiades says--\n\n[Greek: p\u00f4s ou)=n ger\u00f4\\n \u00f4)=n ka)pil\u00ea/sm\u00f4n kai\\ bradu\\s\nlo/g\u00f4n a)krib\u00f4=n schindala/mous math\u00ea/somai?]\n\nCompare 320-359 of the same comedy--[Greek: su/ te leptota/t\u00f4n l\u00ea/r\u00f4n\ni(ereu=]--also Ran\u00e6, 149, b.\n\nWhen Euripides ([Greek: o( sk\u00eaniko\\s philo/sophos]) went down to\nHades, he is described by Aristophanes as giving clever exhibitions\namong the malefactors there, with great success and applause. Ran\u00e6,\n771--\n\n[Greek: O(/te d\u00ea\\ kat\u00ea=lth' Eu)ripi/d\u00eas, e)pedei/knuto\ntoi=s l\u00f4podu/tais kai\\ toi=s balanti\u00eato/mois . . .\no(/per e)/st' e)n A(/|dou pl\u00ea=thos; oi( d' a)kro\u00f4/menoi\nt\u00f4=n a)ntilogi\u00f4=n kai\\ lugism\u00f4=n kai stroph\u00f4=n\nu(perema/n\u00easan, ka)no/misan soph\u00f4/taton].\n\nThese astute cavils and quibbles of Euripides are attributed by\nAristophanes, and the other comic writers, to his frequent\nconversations with Sokrates. Ran\u00e6, 1490-1500. Dionys. Hal. Ars Rhet.\np. 301-355. Valckenaer, Diatribe in Euripid. c. 4. Aristophanes\ndescribes Sokrates as having stolen a garment from the pal\u00e6stra\n(Nubes, 180); and Eupolis also introduces him as having stolen a\nwine-ladle (Schol. ad loc. Eupolis, Fragm. Incert. ix. ed. Meineke).\nThe fragment of Eupolis (xi. p. 553, [Greek: A)doleschei=n au)to\\n\ne)kdi/daxon, \u00f4)= sophista/]) seems to apply to Sokrates. About the\nsympathy of the people with the attacks of the comic writers on\nSokrates, see Lucian, Piscat. c. 25.\n\nThe rhetor Aristeides (Orat. xlvi. [Greek: U(pe\\r t\u00f4=n Tetta/r\u00f4n], pp.\n406-407-408, Dindorf), after remarking on the very vague and general\nmanner in which the title [Greek: Sophist\u00ea\\s] was applied among the\nGreeks (Herodotus having so designated both Solon and Pythagoras),\nmentions that Androtion not only spoke of the seven wise men as\n[Greek: tou\\s e(/pta sophista/s], but also called Sokrates [Greek:\nsophist\u00ea\\n tou=ton to\\n pa/nu]: that Lysias called Plato [Greek:\nsophist\u00ea\\n], and called \u00c6schines (the Sokratic) by the same title;\nthat Isokrates represented himself, and rhetors and politicians like\nhimself, as [Greek: philoso/phous], while he termed the dialecticians\nand critics [Greek: sophista/s]. Nothing could be more indeterminate\nthan these names, [Greek: sophist\u00ea\\s] and [Greek: philo/sophos]. It\nwas Plato who applied himself chiefly to discredit the name [Greek:\nsophist\u00ea\\s (o( ma/lista e)panasta\\s t\u00f4=| o)no/mati)] but others had\ntried to discredit [Greek: philo/sophos] and [Greek: to\\\nphilosophei=n] in like manner. It deserves notice that in the\nrestrictive or censorial law (proposed by Sophokles, and enacted by\nthe Athenians in B.C. 307, but repealed in the following year) against\nthe philosophers and their schools, the philosophers generally are\ndesignated as [Greek: sophistai/]. Pollux, Onomast. ix. 42 [Greek:\ne)/sti de\\ kai\\ no/mos A)ttiko\\s kata\\ t\u00f4=n philosophou/nt\u00f4n\ngraphei/s, o(\\n Sophokl\u00ea=s A)mphiklei/dou Sounieu\\s ei)=pen, e)n \u00f4(=|\ntina kata\\ au)t\u00f4=n proeip\u00f4\\n, e)p\u00ea/gage, m\u00ea\\ e)xei=nai m\u00eadeni\\ _t\u00f4=n\nsophist\u00f4=n_ diatrib\u00ea\\n kataskeua/sasthai.]]\n\n[Footnote 85: Plato, Euthyphron, p. 3 C-D. [Greek: A)th\u00eanai/ois ga\\r\nou) spho/dra me/lei, a)\\n tina deino\\n oi)/\u00f4ntai ei)=nai, m\u00ea\\ me/ntoi\ndidaskaliko\\n t\u00ea=s au(tou= sophi/as; o(\\n d' a)\\n kai\\ a)/llous\noi)/\u00f4ntai poiei=n toiou/tous, thumou=ntai, ei)=t' ou)=n phtho/n\u00f4|, \u00f4(s\nsu le/geis, ei)/te di' a)/llo ti.]]\n\n[Footnote 86: Plato, Menon, pp. 90-92. The antipathy manifested here by\nAnytus against the Sophists, is the same feeling which led him to\nindict Sokrates, and which induced also Cato the Censor to hate the\ncharacter of Sokrates, and Greek letters generally. Plutarch, Cato,\n23: [Greek: o(/l\u00f4s philosophi/a| proskekrouk\u00f4\\s, kai\\ pa=san\nE(ll\u00eanik\u00ea\\n mou=san kai\\ paidei/an u(po\\ philotimi/as prop\u00ealaki/z\u00f4n;\no(\\s ge kai\\ S\u00f4kra/t\u00ea ph\u00easi\\ la/lon kai\\ bi/aion geno/menon\ne)picheirei=n, \u00f4(=| tro/p\u00f4| dunato\\n \u00ea)=n, turannei=n t\u00ea=s patri/dos,\nkatalu/onta ta\\ e)/th\u00ea, kai\\ pro\\s e)nanti/as toi=s no/mois do/xas\ne(/lkonta kai\\ methi/stanta tou\\s poli/tas]. Comp. Cato, Epist. ap.\nPlin. H. N. xxix. 7.]\n\n[Footnote 87: Plato, Legg. viii. p. 835 C. [Greek: nu=n de a)nthr\u00f4/pou\ntolm\u00earou= kinduneu/ei dei=sthai/ tinos, o(\\s par)r(\u00easi/an\ndiaphero/nt\u00f4s tim\u00f4=n e)rei= ta\\ dokou=nta a)/rist' ei)=nai po/lei kai\\\npoli/tais, e)n psuchai=s diephtharme/nais to\\ pre/pon kai\\ e(po/menon\npa/s\u00ea| t\u00ea=| politei/a| ta/tt\u00f4n, e)nanti/a le/g\u00f4n tai=s megi/staisin\ne)pithumi/ais kai\\ ou)k e)/ch\u00f4n bo\u00eatho\\n a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n ou)de/na, lo/g\u00f4|\ne(po/menos mo/n\u00f4| mo/nos].\n\nHere the dissenter who proclaims his sincere convictions is spoken of\nwith respect: compare the contrary feeling, Leges, ix. 881 A, and in\nthe tenth book generally. In the striking passage of the Republic,\nreferred to in a previous note (vi. 492) Plato declares the lessons\ntaught by the multitude--the contagion of established custom and\ntradition, communicated by the crowd of earnest assembled believers--to\nbe of overwhelming and almost omnipotent force. The individual\nphilosopher (he says), who examines for himself and tries to stand\nagainst it, can hardly maintain himself without special divine aid.]\n\n[Footnote 88: In the dialogue called Politikus, Plato announces\nformally and explicitly (what the historical Sokrates had asserted\nbefore him, Xen. Mem. iii. 9, 10) the exclusive pretensions of the\n[Greek: Basileu\\s Techniko\\s] (representing political science, art, or\ntheory) to rule mankind--the illusory nature of all other titles to\nrule and the mischievous working of all existing governments. The same\nview is developed in the Republic and the Leges. Compare also\nAristotel. Ethic. Nikom. x. p. 1180, b. 27 ad fin.\n\nIn a remarkable passage of the Leges (i. 637 D, 638 C), Plato\nobserves, in touching upon the discrepancy between different local\ninstitutions at Sparta, Krete, Keos. Tarentum, &c.:--\"If natives of\ndifferent cities argue with each other about their respective\ninstitutions, each of them has a good and sufficient reason. This is\nthe custom _with us; with you perhaps it is different_. But we, who\nare now conversing, do not apply our criticisms to the private\ncitizen; we criticise the lawgiver himself, and try to determine\nwhether his laws are good or bad.\" [Greek: \u00ea(mi=n d' e)sti\\n ou) peri\\\nt\u00f4=n a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n o( lo/gos, a)lla\\ peri\\ t\u00f4=n nomothet\u00f4=n\nau)t\u00f4=n kaki/as te kai\\ a)ret\u00ea=s]. King Nomos was not at all pleased\nto be thus put upon his trial.]\n\n[Side-note: Aversion towards Sokrates aggravated by his extreme\npublicity of speech. His declaration, that false persuasion of\nknowledge is universal; must be understood as a basis in appreciating\nPlato's Dialogues of Search.]\n\nThe dislike so constantly felt by communities having established\nopinions, towards free speculation and dialectic, was aggravated in\nits application to Sokrates, because his dialectic was not only novel,\nbut also public, obtrusive, and indiscriminate.[89] The name of\nSokrates, after his death, was employed not merely by Plato, but by\nall the Sokratic companions, to cover their own ethical speculations:\nmoreover, all of them either composed works or gave lectures. But in\neither case, readers or hearers were comparatively few in number, and\nwere chiefly persons prompted by some special taste or interest: while\nSokrates passed his day in the most public place, eager to interrogate\nevery one, and sometimes forcing his interrogations even upon\nreluctant hearers.[90] That he could have been allowed to persist in\nthis course of life for thirty years, when we read his own account (in\nthe Platonic Apology) of the antipathy which he provoked--and when we\nrecollect that the Thirty, during their short dominion, put him under\nan interdict--is a remarkable proof of the comparative tolerance of\nAthenian practice.\n\n[Footnote 89: Cicero, Tusc. Disp. ii. 3. \"Est enim philosophia paucis\ncontenta judicibus, multitudinem consulto ipsa fugiens, eique ipsi et\nsuspecta et invisa,\" &c.\n\nThe extreme publicity, and indiscriminate, aggressive conversation of\nSokrates, is strongly insisted on by Themistius (Orat. xxvi. p. 384,\n[Greek: U(pe\\r tou= le/gein]) as aggravating the displeasure of the\npublic against him.]\n\n[Footnote 90: Xenophon, Memor. iv. 2, 3-5-40.]\n\nHowever this may be, it is from the conversation of Sokrates that the\nPlatonic Dialogues of Search take their rise, and we must read them\nunder those same fundamental postulates which Sokrates enunciates to\nthe Dikasts. \"False persuasion of knowledge is almost universal: the\nElenchus, which eradicates this, is salutary and indispensable: the\ndialectic search for truth between two active, self-working minds,\nboth of them ignorant, yet both feeling their own ignorance, is\ninstructive, as well as fascinating, though it should end without\nfinding any truth at all, and without any other result than that of\ndiscovering some proposed hypotheses to be untrue.\" The modern reader\nmust be invited to keep these postulates in mind, if he would fairly\nappreciate the Platonic Dialogues of Search. He must learn to esteem\nthe mental exercise of free debate as valuable in itself,[91] even\nthough the goal recedes before him in proportion to the steps which he\nmakes in advance. He perceives a lively antithesis of opinions,\nseveral distinct and dissentient points of view opened, various\ntentatives of advance made and broken off. He has the first half of\nthe process of truth-seeking, without the last; and even without full\ncertainty that the last half can be worked out, or that the problem as\npropounded is one which admits of an affirmative solution.[92] But\nPlato presumes that the search will be renewed, either by the same\ninterlocutors or by others. He reckons upon responsive energy in the\nyouthful subject; he addresses himself to men of earnest purpose and\nstirring intellect, who will be spurred on by the dialectic exercise\nitself to farther pursuit--men who, having listened to the working out\nof different points of view, will meditate on these points for\nthemselves, and apply a judicial estimate conformable to the measure\nof their own minds. Those respondents, who, after having been puzzled\nand put to shame by one cross-examination, became disgusted and never\npresented themselves again--were despised by Sokrates as lazy and\nstupid.[93] For him, as well as for Plato, the search after truth\ncounted as the main business of life.\n\n[Footnote 91: Aristotel. Topica, i. p. 101, a. 29, with the Scholion\nof Alexander of Aphrodisias, who remarks that the habit of colloquial\ndebate had been very frequent in the days of Aristotle, and\nafterwards; but had comparatively ceased in his own time, haying been\nexchanged for written treatises. P. 254, b. Schol. Brandis, also\nPlato, Parmenid. pp. 135, 136, and the Commentary of Proklus\nthereupon, p. 776 seqq., and p. 917, ed. Stallbaum.]\n\n[Footnote 92: A passage in one of the speeches composed by Lysias,\naddressed by a plaintiff in court to the Dikasts, shows how debate and\nfree antithesis of opposite opinions were accounted as essential to\nthe process [Greek: tou= philosophei=n--kai\\ e)g\u00f4\\ me\\n \u00f4)/|m\u00ean\nphilosophou=ntas au)tou\\s peri\\ tou= pra/gmatos a)ntile/gein to\\n\ne)nanti/on lo/gon; oi( d' a)/ra ou)k ante/legon, a)ll' a)nte/pratton].\n(Lysias, Or. viii. [Greek: Kakologi\u00f4=n] s. 11,** p. 273; compare\nPlat. Apolog. p. 28 E.)\n\nBacon describes his own intellectual cast of mind, in terms which\nillustrate the Platonic [Greek: dia/logoi z\u00eat\u00eatikoi/],--the character\nof the searcher, doubter, and tester, as contrasted with that of the\nconfident affirmer and expositor:--\"Me ipsum autem ad veritatis\ncontemplationes quam ad alia magis fabrefactum deprehendi, ut qui\nmentem et ad rerum similitudinem (quod maximum est) agnoscendum satis\nmobilem, et ad differentiarum subtilitates observandas satis fixam et\nintentam haberem--qui et _qu\u00e6rendi desiderium_, et _dubitandi\npatientiam_, et _meditandi voluptatem_, et _asserendi cunctationem_,\net _resipiscendi facilitatem_, et disponendi sollicitudinem\ntenerem--quique nec novitatem affectarem, nec antiquitatem admirarer, et\nomnem imposturam odissem. Quare naturam meam cum veritate quandam\nfamiliaritatem et cognationem habere judicavi.\" (Impetus Philosophici,\nDe Interpretatione Natur\u00e6 Prooemium.)\n\n[Greek: S\u00f4kratik\u00f4=s ei)s e(ka/teron] is the phrase of Cicero, ad\nAtticum ii. 3.]\n\n[Footnote 93: Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2, 40.\n\nMr. John Stuart Mill, in his Essay on Liberty, has the following\nremarks, illustrating Plato's Dialogues of Search. I should have been\nglad if I could have transcribed here many other pages of that\nadmirable Essay: which stands almost alone as an unreserved\nvindication of the rights of the searching individual intelligence,\nagainst the compression and repression of King Nomos (pp. 79-80-81):--\n\n\"The loss of so important an aid to the intelligent and living\napprehension of a truth, as is afforded by the necessity of explaining\nit to or defending it against opponents, though not sufficient to\noutweigh, is no trifling drawback from, the benefits of its universal\nrecognition. Where this advantage cannot be had, I confess I should\nlike to see the teachers of mankind endeavouring to provide a\nsubstitute for it: some contrivance for making the difficulties of the\nquestion as present to the learner's consciousness, as if they were\npressed upon him by a dissentient champion eager for his conversion.\n\n\"But instead of seeking contrivances for this purpose, they have lost\nthose they formerly had. The Sokratic dialectics, so magnificently\nexemplified in the dialogues of Plato, were a contrivance of this\ndescription. They were essentially a discussion of the great questions\nof life and philosophy, directed with consummate skill to the purpose\nof convincing any one, who had merely adopted the common-places of\nreceived opinion, that he did not understand the subject--that he as\nyet attached no definite meaning to the doctrines he professed: in\norder that, becoming aware of his ignorance, he might be put in the\nway to attain a stable belief, resting on a clear apprehension both of\nthe meaning of doctrines and of their evidence. The\nschool-disputations of the middle ages had a similar object. They were\nintended to make sure that the pupil understood his own opinion, and\n(by necessary correlation) the opinion opposed to it--and could\nenforce the grounds of the one and confute those of the other. These\nlast-mentioned contests had indeed the incurable defect, that the\npremisses appealed to were taken from authority, not from reason; and\nas a discipline to the mind they were in every respect inferior to the\npowerful dialectics which formed the intellects of the 'Socratici\nviri'. But the modern mind owes far more to both than it is generally\nwilling to admit; and the present modes of instruction contain nothing\nwhich in the smallest degree supplies the place either of the one or\nof the other. . . It is the fashion of the present time to disparage\nnegative logic--that which points out weaknesses in theory or errors\nin practice, without establishing positive truths. Such negative\ncriticism would indeed be poor enough as an ultimate result, but as a\nmeans to attaining any positive knowledge or conviction worthy the\nname, it cannot be valued too highly; and until people are again\nsystematically trained to it, there will be few great thinkers, and a\nlow general average of intellect, in any but the mathematical and\nphysical departments of speculation. On any other subject no one's\nopinions deserve the name of knowledge, except so far as he has either\nhad forced upon him by others, or gone through of himself, the same\nmental process which would have been required of him in carrying on an\nactive controversy with opponents.\"]\n\n[Side-note: Result called _Knowledge_, which Plato aspires to. Power\nof going through a Sokratic cross examination; not attainable except\nthrough the Platonic process and method.]\n\nAnother matter must here be noticed, in regard to these Dialogues of\nSearch. We must understand how Plato conceived the goal towards which\nthey tend: that is the state of mind which he calls _knowledge_ or\n_cognition_. Knowledge (in his view) is not attained until the mind is\nbrought into clear view of the Universal Forms or Ideas, and intimate\ncommunion with them: but the test (as I have already observed) for\ndetermining whether a man has yet attained this end or not, is to\nascertain whether he can give to others a full account of all that he\nprofesses to know, and can extract from them a full account of all\nthat they profess to know: whether he can perform, in a manner\nexhaustive as well as unerring, the double and correlative function of\nasking and answering: in other words, whether he can administer the\nSokratic cross-examination effectively to others, and reply to it\nwithout faltering or contradiction when administered to himself.[94]\nSuch being the way in which Plato conceives knowledge, we may easily\nsee that it cannot be produced, or even approached, by direct,\ndemonstrative, didactic communication: by simply announcing to the\nhearer, and lodging in his memory, a theorem to be proved, together\nwith the steps whereby it is proved. He must be made familiar with\neach subject on many sides, and under several different aspects and\nanalogies: he must have had before him objections with their\nrefutation, and the fallacious arguments which appear to prove the\ntheorem, but do not really prove it:[95] he must be introduced to the\nprincipal counter-theorems, with the means whereby an opponent will\nenforce them: he must be practised in the use of equivocal terms and\nsophistry, either to be detected when the opponent is cross-examining\nhim, or to be employed when he is cross-examining an opponent. All\nthese accomplishments must be acquired, together with full promptitude\nand flexibility, before he will be competent to perform those two\ndifficult functions, which Plato considers to be the test of\nknowledge. You may say that such a result is indefinitely distant and\nhopeless: Plato considers it attainable, though he admits the arduous\nefforts which it will cost. But the point which I wish to show is,\nthat if attainable at all, it can only be attained through a long and\nvaried course of such dialectic discussion as that which we read in\nthe Platonic Dialogues of Search. The state and aptitude of mind\ncalled knowledge, can only be generated as a last result of this\ncontinued practice (to borrow an expression of Longinus).[96] The\nPlatonic method is thus in perfect harmony and co-ordination with the\nPlatonic result, as described and pursued.\n\n[Footnote 94: See Plato, Republic, vii. 518, B, C, about [Greek:\npaidei/a], as developing [Greek: t\u00ea\\n e)nou=san e(ka/stou du/namin e0n\nt\u00ea=| psuch\u00ea=|]: and 534, about [Greek: e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea], with its test,\n[Greek: to\\ dou=nai kai\\ de/xasthai lo/gon]. Compare also Republic, v.\n477, 478, with The\u00e6t\u00eat. 175, C, D; Ph\u00e6don, 76, B, Ph\u00e6drus, 276; and\nSympos. 202 A. [Greek: to\\ o)rtha\\ doxa/zein kai\\ a)/neu tou= e)/chein\nlo/gon dou=nai, ou)k oi)=sth' o(/ti ou)/te e)pi/stasthai e)stin?\na)/logon ga\\r pra=gma p\u00f4=s a)\\n ei)/\u00ea e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea?]\n\n[Footnote 95: On this point the scholastic manner of handling in the\nMiddle Ages furnishes a good illustration for the Platonic dialectic.\nI borrow a passage from the treatise of M Haur\u00e9au, De la Phil.\nScolastique, vol. ii. p. 190.\n\n\"Saint Thomas pouvait s'en tenir l\u00e0: nous le comprenons, nous avons\ntout son syst\u00e8me sur l'origine des id\u00e9es, et nous pouvons croire qu'il\nn'a plus rien \u00e0 nous apprendre \u00e0 ce sujet: mais en scolastique, il ne\nsuffit pas de d\u00e9montrer, par deux ou trois arguments, r\u00e9put\u00e9s\ninvincibles, ce que l'on suppose \u00eatre la v\u00e9rit\u00e9, il faut, en outre,\nr\u00e9pondre aux objections premi\u00e8re, seconde, troisi\u00e8me, &c., &c., de\ndivers interlocuteurs, souvent imaginaires; il faut \u00e9tablir la\nparfaite concordance de la conclusion enonc\u00e9e et des conclusions\nprec\u00e9dents ou subs\u00e9quentes; il faut r\u00e9produire, \u00e0 l'occasion de tout\nprobl\u00e8me controvers\u00e9, l'ensemble de la doctrine pour laquelle on s'est\nd\u00e9clar\u00e9.\"]\n\n[Footnote 96: Longinus De Sublim. s. 6. [Greek: kai/toi to\\ pra=gma\ndu/sl\u00eapton; \u00ea( ga\\r t\u00f4=n lo/g\u00f4n kri/sis poll\u00ea=s e)sti pei/ras\nteleutai=on e)pige/nn\u00eama]. Compare what is said in a succeeding\nchapter about the Hippias Minor. And see also Sir W. Hamilton's\nLectures on Logic, Lect. 35, p. 224.]\n\n[Side-note: Platonic process adapted to Platonic topics--man and\nsociety.]\n\nMoreover, not merely method and result are in harmony, but also the\ntopics discussed. These topics were ethical, social, and political:\nmatters especially human[97] (to use the phrase of Sokrates himself)\nfamiliar to every man,--handled, unphilosophically, by speakers in the\nassembly, pleaders in the dikastery, dramatists in the theatre. Now it\nis exactly upon such topics that debate can be made most interesting,\nvaried, and abundant. The facts, multifarious in themselves, connected\nwith man and society, depend upon a variety of causes, co-operating\nand conflicting. Account must be taken of many different points of\nview, each of which has a certain range of application, and each of\nwhich serves to limit or modify the others: the generalities, even\nwhen true, are true only on the balance, and under ordinary\ncircumstances; they are liable to exception, if those circumstances\nundergo important change. There are always objections, real as well as\napparent, which require to be rebutted or elucidated. To such\nchangeful and complicated states of fact, the Platonic dialectic was\nadapted: furnishing abundant premisses and comparisons, bringing into\nnotice many distinct points of view, each of which must be looked at\nand appreciated, before any tenable principle can be arrived at. Not\nonly Platonic method and result, but also Platonic topics, are thus\nwell suited to each other. The general terms of ethics were familiar\nbut undefined: the tentative definitions suggested, followed up by\nobjections available against each, included a large and instructive\nsurvey of ethical phenomena in all their bearings.\n\n[Footnote 97: Xenoph. Memor. i. 1, 12-15. I transcribe the following\npassage from an article in the Edinburgh Review (April, 1866, pp.\n325-326), on the first edition of the present work: an article not\nmerely profound and striking as to thought, but indicating the most\ncomprehensive study and appreciation of the Platonic writings:--\n\n\"The enemy against whom Plato really fought, and the warfare against\nwhom was the incessant occupation of his life and writings, was--not\nSophistry, either in the ancient or modern sense of the term,\nbut--_Commonplace_. It was the acceptance of traditional opinions and\ncurrent sentiments as an ultimate fact; and bandying of the abstract\nterms which express approbation and disapprobation, desire and\naversion, admiration and disgust, as if they had a meaning thoroughly\nunderstood and universally assented to. The men of his day (like those\nof ours) thought that they knew what Good and Evil, Just and Unjust,\nHonourable and Shameful, were--because they could use the words\nglibly, and affirm them of this or that, in agreement with existing\ncustom. But what the property was, which these several instances\npossessed in common, justifying the application of the term, nobody\nhad considered; neither the Sophists, nor the rhetoricians, nor the\nstatesmen, nor any of those who set themselves up, or were set up by\nothers, as wise. Yet whoever could not answer this question was\nwandering in darkness--had no standard by which his judgments were\nregulated, and which kept them consistent with one another--no rule\nwhich he knew and could stand by for the guidance of his life. Not\nknowing what Justice and Virtue are, it was impossible to be just and\nvirtuous: not knowing what Good is, we not only fail to reach it, but\nare certain to embrace evil instead. Such a condition, to any one\ncapable of thought, made life not worth having. The grand business of\nhuman intellect ought to consist in subjecting these terms to the most\nrigorous scrutiny, and bringing to light the ideas that lie at the\nbottom of them. Even if this cannot be done and real knowledge\nattained, it is already no small benefit to expel the false opinion of\nknowledge: to make men conscious of the things most needful to be\nknown, fill them with shame and uneasiness at their own state, and\nrouse a pungent internal stimulus, summoning up all their energies to\nattack those greatest of all problems, and never rest until, as far as\npossible, the true solutions are reached. This is Plato's notion of\nthe condition of the human mind in his time, and of what philosophy\ncould do to help it: and any one who does not think the description\napplicable, with slight modifications, to the majority of educated\nminds in our own time and in all times known to us, certainly has not\nbrought either the teachers or the practical men of any time to the\nPlatonic test.\"\n\nThe Reviewer farther illustrates this impressive description by a\nvaluable citation from Max M\u00fcller to the same purpose (Lectures on the\nScience of Language, Second Series, pp. 520-527). \"Such terms as\nNature, Law, Freedom, Necessity, Body, Substance, Matter, Church,\nState, Revelation, Inspiration, Knowledge, Belief, &c., are tossed\nabout in the war of words as if every body knew what they meant, and\nas if every body used them exactly in the same sense; whereas most\npeople, and particularly those who represent public opinion, pick up\nthese complicated terms as children, beginning with the vaguest\nconceptions, adding to them from time to time--perhaps correcting\nlikewise at haphazard some of their involuntary errors--but never\ntaking stock, never either enquiring into the history of the terms\nwhich they handle so freely, or realising the fulness of their meaning\naccording to the strict rules of logical definition.\"]\n\n[Side-note: Plato does not provide solutions for the difficulties\nwhich he has raised. The affirmative and negative veins are in him\ncompletely distinct. His dogmas are enunciations _\u00e0 priori_ of some\nimpressive sentiment.]\n\nThe negative procedure is so conspicuous, and even so preponderant, in\nthe Platonic dialogues, that no historian of philosophy can omit to\nnotice it. But many of them (like Xenophon in describing Sokrates)\nassign to it only a subordinate place and a qualified application:\nwhile some (and Schleiermacher especially) represent all the doubts\nand difficulties in the negative dialogues as exercises to call forth\nthe intellectual efforts of the reader, preparatory to full and\nsatisfactory solutions which Plato has given in the dogmatic dialogues\nat the end. The first half of this hypothesis I accept: the last half\nI believe to be unfounded. The doubts and difficulties were certainly\nexercises to the mind of Plato himself, and were intended as exercises\nto his readers; but he has nowhere provided a key to the solution of\nthem. Where he propounds positive dogmas, he does not bring them face\nto face with objections, nor verify their authority by showing that\nthey afford satisfactory solution of the difficulties exhibited in his\nnegative procedure. The two currents of his speculation, the\naffirmative and the negative, are distinct and independent of each\nother. Where the affirmative is especially present (as in Tim\u00e6us), the\nnegative altogether disappears. Tim\u00e6us is made to proclaim the most\nsweeping theories, not one of which the real Sokrates would have\nsuffered to pass without abundant cross-examination: but the Platonic\nSokrates hears them with respectful silence, and commends afterwards.\nThe declaration so often made by Sokrates that he is a searcher, not a\nteacher--that he feels doubts keenly himself, and can impress them\nupon others, but cannot discover any good solution of them--this\ndeclaration, which is usually considered mere irony, is literally\ntrue.[98] The Platonic theory of Objective Ideas separate and\nabsolute, which the commentators often announce as if it cleared up\nall difficulties--not only clears up none, but introduces fresh ones\nbelonging to itself. When Plato comes forward to affirm, his dogmas\nare altogether _\u00e0 priori_: they enunciate preconceptions or\nhypotheses, which derive their hold upon his belief, not from any\naptitude for solving the objections which he has raised, but from deep\nand solemn sentiment of some kind or other--religious, ethical,\n\u00e6sthetical, poetical, &c., the worship of numerical symmetry or\nexactness, &c. The dogmas are enunciations of some grand sentiment of\nthe divine, good, just, beautiful, symmetrical, &c.,[99] which Plato\nfollows out into corollaries. But this is a process of itself; and\nwhile he is performing it, the doubts previously raised are not called\nup to be solved, but are forgotten or kept out of sight. It is\ntherefore a mistake to suppose[100] that Plato ties knots in one\ndialogue only with a view to untie them in another; and that the\ndoubts which he propounds are already fully solved in his own mind,\nonly that he defers the announcement of the solution until the\nembarrassed hearer has struggled to find it for himself.\n\n[Footnote 98: See the conversation between Menippus and Sokrates.\n(Lucian, Dialog. Mortuor. xx.)]\n\n[Footnote 99: Dionysius of Halikarnassus remarks that the topics upon\nwhich Plato renounces the character of a searcher, and passes into\nthat of a vehement affirmative dogmatist, are those which are above\nhuman investigation and evidence--the transcendental: [Greek: kai\\\nga\\r e)kei=nos] (Plato) [Greek: ta\\ do/gmata ou)k au)to\\s\na)pophai/netai, ei)=ta peri\\ au)t\u00f4=n diag\u00f4ni/zetai; a)ll' e)n mes\u00f4|\nt\u00ea\\n z\u00ea/t\u00easin poiou/menos pro\\s tou\\s dialegome/nous, eu(ri/sk\u00f4n\nma=llon to\\ de/on do/gma, \u00ea)\\ philoneik\u00f4=n u(pe\\r au)tou= phai/netai;\npl\u00ea\\n o(/sa peri\\ t\u00f4=n kreitto/n\u00f4n, \u00ea)\\ kath' \u00ea(ma=s, le/getai] (Dion.\nHal. Ars Rhet. c. 10, p. 376, Reiske.)\n\nM. Arago, in the following passage, points to a style of theorising in\nthe physical sciences, very analogous to that of Plato, generally:--\n\nArago, Biographies, vol. i. p. 149, Vie de Fresnel. \"De ces deux\nexplications des ph\u00e9nom\u00e8nes de la lumi\u00e8re, l'une s'appelle la th\u00e9orie\nde l'\u00e9mission; l'autre est connue sous le nom de syst\u00e8me des ondes. On\ntrouve d\u00e9j\u00e0 des traces de la premi\u00e8re dans les \u00e9crits d'Emp\u00e9docle.\nChez les modernes, je pourrais citer parmi ses adh\u00e9rents K\u00e9pler,\nNewton, Laplace. Le syst\u00e8me des ondes ne compte pas des partisans\nmoins illustres: Aristote, Descartes, Hooke, Huygens, Euler, l'avaient\nadopt\u00e9 . .\n\n\"Au reste, si l'on s'\u00e9tonnait de voir d'aussi grands g\u00e9nies ainsi\ndivis\u00e9s, je dirais que de leurs temps la question on litige ne pouvait\n\u00eatre r\u00e9solue; que les exp\u00e9riences n\u00e9cessaires manquaient; qu'alors les\ndivers syst\u00e8mes sur la lumi\u00e8re \u00e9taient, non _des d\u00e9ductions logiques\ndes faits_, mais, si je puis m'exprimer ainsi, de _simples v\u00e9rit\u00e9s de\nsentiment_, qu'enfin, le don de l'infaillibilit\u00e9 n'est pas accord\u00e9\nm\u00eame aux plus habiles, des qu'en sortant du domaine des observations,\net se jetant dans celui des conjectures, ils abandonnent la marche\ns\u00e9v\u00e8re et assur\u00e9e dont les sciences se pr\u00e9valent de nos jours avec\nraison, et qui leur a fait faire de si incontestables progr\u00e8s.\"]\n\n[Footnote 100: Several of the Platonic critics speak as if they\nthought that Plato would never suggest any difficulty which he had\nnot, beforehand and ready-made, the means of solving; and Munk treats\nthe idea which I have stated in the text as ridiculous. \"Plato (he\nobserves) must have held preposterous doctrines on the subject of\np\u00e6dagogy. He undertakes to instruct others by his writings, before he\nhas yet cleared up his own ideas on the question, he proposes, in\nprop\u00e6deutic writings, enigmas for his scholars to solve, while he has\nnot yet solved them himself; and all this for the praiseworthy\n(_ironically said_) purpose of correcting in their minds the false\npersuasion of knowledge.\" (Die nat\u00fcrliche Ordnung der Platon Schrift.\np. 515.)\n\nThat which Munk here derides, appears stated, again and again, by the\nPlatonic Sokrates, as his real purpose. Munk is at liberty to treat it\nas ridiculous, but the ridicule falls upon Plato himself. The Platonic\nSokrates disclaims the p\u00e6dagogic function, describing himself as\nnothing more than a fellow searcher with the rest.\n\nSo too Munk declares (p. 79-80, and Zeller also, Philos. der Griech.\nvol. ii. p. 472, ed. 2nd) that Plato could not have composed the\nParmenid\u00eas, including, as it does, such an assemblage of difficulties\nand objections against the theory of Ideas, until he possessed the\nmeans of solving all of them himself. This is a bold assertion,\naltogether conjectural; for there is no solution of them given in any\nof Plato's writings, and the solutions to which Munk alludes as given\nby Zeller and Steinhart (even assuming them to be satisfactory, which\nI do not admit) travel much beyond the limits of Plato.\n\nUeberweg maintains the same opinion (Ueber die Aechtheit der Platon.\nSchriften, p. 103-104); that Sokrates, in the Platonic Dialogues,\nthough he appears as a Searcher, must nevertheless be looked upon as a\nmatured thinker, who has already gone through the investigation for\nhimself, and solved all the difficulties, but who goes back upon the\nwork of search over again, for the instruction of the interlocutors.\n\"The special talent and dexterity (Virtuosit\u00e4t) which Sokrates\ndisplays in conducting the dialogue, can only be explained by\nsupposing that he has already acquired for himself a firm and certain\nconviction on the question discussed.\"\n\nThis opinion of Ueberweg appears to me quite untenable, as well as\ninconsistent with a previous opinion which he had given elsewhere\n(Platonische Welt-seele, p. 69-70)--That the Platonic Ideenlehre was\naltogether insufficient for explanation. The impression which the\nDialogues of Search make upon me is directly the reverse. My\ndifficulty is, to understand how the constructor of all these puzzles,\nif he has the answer ready drawn up in his pocket, can avoid letting\nit slip out. At any rate, I stand upon the literal declarations, often\nrepeated, of Sokrates; while Munk and Ueberweg contradict them.\n\nFor the doubt and hesitation which Plato puts into the mouth of\nSokrates (even in the Republic, one of his most expository\ncompositions) see a remarkable passage, Rep. v. p. 450 E. [Greek:\na)pistou=nta de\\ kai\\ z\u00eatou=nta a)/ma tou\\s lo/gous poiei=sthai, o(\\\nd\u00ea\\ e)g\u00f4\\ dr\u00f4=], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Hypothesis--that Plato had solved all his own difficulties\nfor himself; but that he communicated the solution only to a few\nselect auditors in oral lectures--Untenable.]\n\nSome critics, assuming confidently that Plato must have produced a\nfull breadth of positive philosophy to countervail his own negative\nfertility, yet not finding enough of it in the written dialogues look\nfor it elsewhere. Tennemann thinks, and his opinion is partly shared\nby Boeckh and K. F. Hermann, that the direct, affirmative, and highest\nprinciples of Plato's philosophy were enunciated only in his lectures:\nthat the core, the central points, the great principles of his system\n(der Kern) were revealed thus orally to a few select students in plain\nand broad terms, while the dialogues were intentionally written so as\nto convey only indirect hints, illustrations, applications of these\ngreat principles, together with refutation of various errors opposed\nto them: that Plato did not think it safe or prudent to make any full,\ndirect, or systematic revelation to the general public.[101] I have\nalready said that I think this opinion untenable. Among the few points\nwhich we know respecting the oral lectures, one is, that they were\ndelivered not to a select and prepared few, but to a numerous and\nunprepared audience: while among the written dialogues, there are some\nwhich, far from being popular or adapted to an ordinary understanding,\nare highly perplexing and abstruse. The Tim\u00e6us does not confine itself\nto indirect hints, but delivers positive dogmas about the\nsuper-sensible world: though they are of a mystical cast, as we know\nthat the oral lectures De Bono were also.\n\n[Footnote 101: Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. ii. p. 205-220. Hermann,\nUeber Plato's Schriftsteller. Motive, pp. 290-294.\n\nHermann considers this reserve and double doctrine to be unworthy of\nPlato, and ascribes it to Protagoras and other Sophists, on the\nauthority of a passage in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus (152 C), which does not at all\nsustain his allegation.\n\nHermann considers \"die akroamatischen Lehren als Fortsetzung und\nSchlussstein der schriftlichen, die dort erst zur vollen Klarheit\nprincipieller Auffassung erhoben wurden, ohne jedoch \u00fcber den\nn\u00e4mlichen Gegenstand, soweit die Rede auf denselben kommen musste,\netwas wesentlich Verschiedenes zu lehren\" (p. 293).]]\n\n[Side-note: Characteristic of the oral lectures--that they were\ndelivered in Plato's own name. In what other respects they departed\nfrom the dialogues, we cannot say.]\n\nTowards filling up this gap, then, the oral lectures cannot be shown\nto lend any assistance. The cardinal point of difference between them\nand the dialogues was, that they were delivered by Plato himself, in\nhis own name; whereas he never published any written composition in\nhis own name. But we do not know enough to say, in what particular way\nthis difference would manifest itself. Besides the oral lectures,\ndelivered to a numerous auditory, it is very probable that Plato held\nspecial communications upon philosophy with a few advanced pupils.\nHere however we are completely in the dark. Yet I see nothing, either\nin these supposed private communications or in the oral lectures, to\ncontrovert what was said in the last page--that Plato's affirmative\nphilosophy is not fitted on to his negative philosophy, but grows out\nof other mental impulses, distinct and apart. Plato (as Aristotle\ntells us[102]) felt it difficult to determine, whether the march of\nphilosophy was an ascending one toward the _principia_ ([Greek:\na)rcha\\s]), or a descending one down from the _principia_. A good\nphilosophy ought to suffice for both, conjointly and alternately: in\nPlato's philosophy, there is no road explicable either upwards or\ndownwards, between the two: no justifiable mode of participation\n([Greek: me/thexis]) between the two disparate worlds--intellect and\nsense. The _principia_ of Plato take an impressive hold on the\nimagination: but they remove few or none of the Platonic difficulties;\nand they only seem to do this because the Sokratic Elenchus, so\neffective whenever it is applied, is never seriously brought to bear\nagainst them.\n\n[Footnote 102: Aristot. Eth. Nik. i. 4, 5. [Greek: eu)= ga\\r kai\\\nPla/t\u00f4n \u00ea)po/rei tou=to kai\\ e)z\u00ea/tei po/teron a)po\\ t\u00f4=n arch\u00f4=n \u00ea)\\\ne)pi\\ ta\\s a)rcha/s e)stin \u00ea( o(do/s.]]\n\n[Side-note: Apart from any result, Plato has an interest in the\nprocess of search and debate _per se_. Protracted enquiry is a\nvaluable privilege, not a tiresome obligation.]\n\nWith persons who complain of prolixity in the dialogue--of threads\nwhich are taken up only to be broken off, devious turns and \"passages\nwhich lead to nothing\"--of much talk \"about it and about it,\" without\nany peremptory decision from an authorised judge--with such\ncomplainants Plato has no sympathy. He feels a strong interest in the\nprocess of enquiry, in the debate _per se_: and he presumes a like\ninterest in his readers. He has no wish to shorten the process, nor to\nreach the end and dismiss the question as settled.[103] On the\ncontrary, he claims it as the privilege of philosophical research,\nthat persons engaged in such discussions are noway tied to time; they\nare not like judicial pleaders, who, with a klepsydra or water-clock\nto measure the length of each speech, are under slavish dependence on\nthe feelings of the Dikasts, and are therefore obliged to keep\nstrictly to the point.[104] Whoever desires accurate training of mind\nmust submit to go through a long and tiresome circuit.[105] Plato\nregards the process of enquiry as being in itself, both a stimulus and\na discipline, in which the minds both of questioner and respondent are\nimplicated and improved, each being indispensable to the other: he\nalso represents it as a process, carried on under the immediate\ninspiration of the moment, without reflection or foreknowledge of the\nresult.[106] Lastly, Plato has an interest in the dialogue, not merely\nas a mental discipline, but as an artistic piece of workmanship,\nwhereby the taste and imagination are charmed. The dialogue was to him\nwhat the tragedy was to Sophokles, and the rhetorical discourse to\nIsokrates. He went on \"combing and curling it\" (to use the phrase of\nDionysius) for as many years as Isokrates bestowed on the composition\nof the Panegyrical Oration. He handles the dialectic drama so as to\nexhibit some one among the many diverse ethical points of view, and to\nshow what it involves as well as what it excludes in the way of\nconsequence. We shall not find the ethical point of view always the\nsame: there are material inconsistencies and differences in this\nrespect between one dialogue and another.\n\n[Footnote 103: As an illustration of that class of minds which take\ndelight in the search for truth in different directions, I copy the\nfollowing passage respecting Dr. Priestley, from an excellent modern\nscientific biography. \"Dr. Priestley had seen so much of the evil of\nobstinate adherence to opinions which time had rendered decrepit, not\nvenerable--and had been so richly rewarded in his capacity of natural\nphilosopher, by his adventurous explorations of new territories in\nscience--that he unavoidably and unconsciously over-estimated the\nvalue of what was novel, and held himself free to change his opinions\nto an extent not easily sympathised with by minds of a different\norder. Some men love to _rest_ in truth, or at least in settled\nopinions, and are uneasy till they find repose. They alter their\nbeliefs with great reluctance, and dread the charge of inconsistency,\neven in reference to trifling matters. Priestley, on the other hand,\nwas a _follower after truth, who delighted in the chase, and was all\nhis life long pursuing, not resting in it_.\n\nOn all subjects which interested him he held by certain cardinal\ndoctrines, but he left the outlines of his systems to be filled up as\nhe gained experience, and to an extent very few men have done,\ndisavowed any attempt to reconcile his changing views with each other,\nor to deprecate the charge of inconsistency. . . I think it must be\nacknowledged by all who have studied his writings, that in his\nscientific researches at least he carried this feeling too far, and\nthat often when he had reached a truth in which he might and should\nhave rested, his dread of anything like a too hasty stereotyping of a\nsupposed discovery, induced him to welcome whatever seemed to justify\nhim in renewing the _pursuit_ of truth, and thus led him completely\nastray. Priestley indeed missed many a discovery, the clue to which\nwas in his hands and in his alone, by not knowing where to stop.\"\n\n(Dr. Geo Wilson--Life of the Hon. H. Cavendish, among the publications\nof the Cavendish Society, 1851, p. 110-111.)]\n\n[Footnote 104: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 172.]\n\n[Footnote 105: Plato, Republic, v. 450 B. [Greek: me/tron de/ g',\ne)/ph\u00ea, \u00f4)= S\u00f4/krates, o( Glau/k\u00f4n, toiou/t\u00f4n lo/g\u00f4n a)kou/ein, o(/los\no( bi/os nou=n e)/chousin]. vi. 504 D. [Greek: T\u00ea\\n makrote/ran\nperi+ite/on t\u00f4=| toiou/t\u00f4|, kai\\ ou)ch \u00ea(=tton mantha/nonti pon\u00eate/on\n\u00ea)\\ gumnazome/n\u00f4|]. Also Ph\u00e6drus, 274 A, Parmenid. p. 135 D, 136 D,\n[Greek: a)m\u00ea/chanon pragmatei/an--a)doleschi/as], &c. Compare\nPolitikus, 286, in respect to the charge of prolixity against him.\n\nIn the Hermotimus of Lucian, the assailant of philosophy draws one of\nhis strongest arguments from the number of years required to examine\nthe doctrines of all the philosophical sects--the whole of life would\nbe insufficient (Lucian, Hermot. c. 47-48). The passages above cited,\nespecially the first of them, show that Sokrates and Plato would not\nhave been discouraged by this protracted work.]\n\n[Footnote 106: Plato, Republic, iii. 394 D. [Greek: Manteu/omai] (says\nGlaukon) [Greek: skopei=sthai se, ei)/te paradexo/metha trag\u00f4|di/an te\nkai\\ k\u00f4m\u00f4|di/an ei)s t\u00ea\\n po/lin, ei)/te kai\\ ou)/. I)/s\u00f4s] (says\nSokrates) [Greek: kai\\ plei/\u00f4 e)/ti tou/t\u00f4n; _ou) ga\\r d\u00ea\\ e)/g\u00f4ge p\u00f4\noi)=da, a)ll' o(/p\u00ea| a)\\n o( lo/gos \u00f4(/sper pneu=ma phe/r\u00ea|, tau/t\u00ea|\ni)teon_. Kai\\ kal\u00f4=s g', e)/ph\u00ea, le/geis].\n\nThe Republic, from the second book to the close, is one of those\nPlatonic compositions in which Sokrates is most expository.\n\nWe find a remarkable passage in Des Cartes, wherein that very\nself-working philosopher expresses his conviction that the longer he\ncontinued enquiring, the more his own mind would become armed for the\nbetter appreciation of truth--and in which he strongly protests\nagainst any barrier restraining the indefinite liberty of enquiry.\n\n\"Et encore qu'il y en ait peut-\u00eatre d'aussi bien sens\u00e9s parmi les\nPerses ou les Chinois que parmi nous, il me sembloit que le plus utile\n\u00e9toit, de me r\u00e9gler selon ceux avec lesquels j'aurois \u00e0 vivre; et que,\npour savoir quelles \u00e9toient v\u00e9ritablement leurs opinions, je devois\nplut\u00f4t prendre garde \u00e0 ce qu'ils pratiquaient qu'\u00e0 ce qu'ils disaient;\nnon seulement \u00e0 cause qu'en la corruption de nos moeurs, _il y a peu\nde gens qui veuillent dire tout ce qu'ils croient--mais aussi \u00e0 cause\nque plusieurs l'ignorent eux m\u00eames; car l'action de la pens\u00e9e, par\nlaquelle on croit une chose \u00e9tant diff\u00e9rente de celle par laquelle on\nconnoit qu'on la croit, elles sont souvent l'une sans l'autre._ Et\nentre plusieurs opinions \u00e9galement re\u00e7ues, je ne choisissois que les\nplus mod\u00e9r\u00e9es; tant \u00e0 cause que ce sont toujours les plus commodes\npour la pratique, et vraisemblablement les meilleures--tous exc\u00e8s\nayans coutume d'\u00eatre mauvais--comme aussi afin de me d\u00e9tourner moins\ndu vrai chemin, en cas que je faillisse, que si, ayant choisi l'un des\ndeux extr\u00eames, c'e\u00fbt \u00e9t\u00e9 l'autre qu'il eut fallu suivre.\n\n\"Et particuli\u00e8rement, je _mettois entre les exc\u00e8s toutes les promesses\npar lesquelles on retranche quelque chose de sa libert\u00e9_; non que je\nd\u00e9sapprouvasse les lois, qui pour rem\u00e9dier \u00e0 l'inconstance des esprits\nfoibles, permettent, lorsqu'on a quelque bon dessein (ou m\u00eame, pour la\nsuret\u00e9 du commerce, quelque dessein qui n'est qu'indiff\u00e9rent), qu'on\nfasse des voeux ou des contrats qui obligent \u00e0 y pers\u00e9v\u00e9rer: mais \u00e0\ncause que je ne voyois au monde aucune chose qui demeur\u00e2t toujours en\nm\u00eame \u00e9tat, et _que comme pour mon particulier, je me promettois de\nperfectionner de plus en plus en mes jugemens, et non point de les\nrendre pires, j'eusse pens\u00e9 commettre une grande faute contre le bon\nsens, si, parceque j'approuvois alors quelque chose, je me fusse\noblig\u00e9 de la prendre pour bonne encore apr\u00e8s, lorsqu'elle auroit\npeut-\u00eatre cess\u00e9 de l'\u00eatre, ou que j'aurois cess\u00e9 de l'estimer telle_.\"\nDiscours de la M\u00e9thode, part iii. p. 147-148, Cousin edit.; p. 16,\nSimon edit.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato has done more than any one else to make the process\nof enquiry interesting to others, as it was to himself.]\n\nBut amidst all these differences--and partly indeed by reason of these\ndifferences--Plato succeeds in inspiring his readers with much of the\nsame interest in the process of dialectic enquiry which he evidently\nfelt in his own bosom. The charm, with which he invests the process of\nphilosophising, is one main cause of the preservation of his writings\nfrom the terrible ship-wreck which has overtaken so much of the\nabundant contemporary literature. It constitutes also one of his\nprinciple titles to the gratitude of intellectual men. This is a merit\nwhich may be claimed for Cicero also, but hardly for Aristotle, in so\nfar as we can judge from the preserved portion of the Aristotelian\nwritings: whether for the other _viri Socratici_ his contemporaries,\nor in what proportion, we are unable to say. Plato's works charmed and\ninstructed all; so that they were read not merely by disciples and\nadmirers (as the Stoic and Epikurean treatises were), but by those who\ndissented from him as well as by those who agreed with him.[107] The\nprocess of philosophising is one not naturally attractive except to a\nfew minds: the more therefore do we owe to the colloquy of Sokrates\nand the writing of Plato, who handled it so as to diffuse the appetite\nfor enquiry, and for sifting dissentient opinions. The stimulating and\nsuggestive influence exercised by Plato--the variety of new roads\npointed out to the free enquiring mind--are in themselves sufficiently\nvaluable: whatever we may think of the positive results in which he\nhimself acquiesced.[108]\n\n[Footnote 107: Cicero, Tusc. Disp. ii. 3, 8.\n\nCicero farther commends the Stoic Pan\u00e6tius for having relinquished the\n\"tristitiam atque asperitatem\" of his Stoic predecessors, Zeno,\nChrysippus, &c., and for endeavouring to reproduce the style and\ngraces of Plato and Aristotle, whom he was always commending to his\nstudents (De Fin. iv. 28, 79).]\n\n[Footnote 108: The observation which Cicero applies to Varro, is\napplicable to the Platonic writings also. \"Philosophiam multis locis\n_inchoasti_, ad impellendum satis, ad edocendum parum\" (Academ.\nPoster. i. 3, 9).\n\nI shall say more about this when I touch upon the Platonic Kleitophon;\nan unfinished dialogue, which takes up the point of view here\nindicated by Cicero.]\n\nI have said thus much respecting what is common to the Dialogues of\nSearch, because this is a species of composition now rare and strange.\nModern readers do not understand what is meant by publishing an\nenquiry without any result--a story without an end. Respecting the\nDialogues of Exposition, there is not the like difficulty. This is a\nspecies of composition, the purpose of which is generally understood.\nWhether the exposition be clear or obscure--orderly or confused--true\nor false--we shall see when we come to examine each separately. But\nthese Dialogues of Exposition exhibit Plato in a different character:\nas the counterpart, not of Sokrates, but of Lykurgus (Republic and\nLeges) or of Pythagoras (in Tim\u00e6us).[109]\n\n[Footnote 109: See the citation from Plutarch in an earlier note of\nthis chapter.]\n\n[Side-note: Process of generalisation always kept in view and\nillustrated throughout the Platonic Dialogues of Search--general terms\nand propositions made subjects of conscious analysis.]\n\nA farther remark which may be made, bearing upon most of the\ndialogues, relates to matter and not to manner. Everywhere (both in\nthe Dialogues of Search and in those of exposition) the process of\ngeneralisation is kept in view and brought into conscious notice,\ndirectly or indirectly. The relation of the universal to its\nparticulars, the contrast of the constant and essential with the\nvariable and accidental, are turned and returned in a thousand\ndifferent ways. The principles of classification, with the breaking\ndown of an extensive genus into species and sub-species, form the\nspecial subject of illustration in two of the most elaborate Platonic\ndialogues, and are often partially applied in the rest. To see the One\nin the Many, and the Many in the One, is represented as the great aim\nand characteristic attribute of the real philosopher. The testing of\ngeneral terms, and of abstractions already embodied in familiar\nlanguage, by interrogations applying them to many concrete and\nparticular cases--is one manifestation of the Sokratic cross-examining\nprocess, which Plato multiplies and diversifies without limit. It is\nin his writings and in the conversation of Sokrates, that general\nterms and propositions first become the subject of conscious attention\nand analysis, and Plato was well aware that he was here opening the\nnew road towards formal logic, unknown to his predecessors, unfamiliar\neven to his contemporaries. This process is indeed often overlaid in\nhis writings by exuberant poetical imagery and by transcendental\nhypothesis: but the important fact is, that it was constantly present\nto his own mind and is impressed upon the notice of his readers.\n\n[Side-note: The Dialogues must be reviewed as distinct compositions by\nthe same author, illustrating each other, but without assignable\ninter-dependence.]\n\nAfter these various remarks, having a common bearing upon all, or\nnearly all, the Platonic dialogues, I shall proceed to give some\naccount of each dialogue separately. It is doubtless both practicable\nand useful to illustrate one of them by others, sometimes in the way\nof analogy, sometimes in that of contrast. But I shall not affect to\nhandle them as contributories to one positive doctrinal system--nor as\noccupying each an intentional place in the gradual unfolding of one\npreconceived scheme--nor as successive manifestations of change,\nknowable and determinable, in the views of the author. For us they\nexist as distinct imaginary conversations, composed by the same author\nat unknown times and under unknown specialities of circumstance. Of\ncourse it is necessary to prefer some one order for reviewing the\nDialogues, and for that purpose more or less of hypothesis must be\nadmitted; but I shall endeavour to assume as little as possible.\n\n[Side-note: Order of the Dialogues, chosen for bringing them under\nseparate review. Apology will come first; Tim\u00e6us, Kritias, Leges,\nEpinomis last.]\n\nThe order which I shall adopt for considering the dialogues coincides\nto a certain extent with that which some other expositors have\nadopted. It begins with those dialogues which delineate Sokrates, and\nwhich confine themselves to the subjects and points of view belonging\nto him, known as he is upon the independent testimony of Xenophon.\nFirst of all will come the Platonic Apology, containing the explicit\nnegative programme of Sokrates, enunciated by himself a month before\nhis death, when Plato was 28 years of age.\n\nLast of all, I shall take those dialogues which depart most widely\nfrom Sokrates, and which are believed to be the products of Plato's\nmost advanced age--Tim\u00e6us, Kritias, and Leges, with the sequel,\nEpinomis. These dialogues present a glaring contrast to the searching\nquestions, the negative acuteness, the confessed ignorance, of\nSokrates: Plato in his old age has not maintained consistency with his\nyouth, as Sokrates did, but has passed round from the negative to the\naffirmative pole of philosophy.\n\n[Side-note: Kriton and Euthyphron come immediately after Apology. The\nintermediate dialogues present no convincing grounds for any\ndeterminate order.]\n\nBetween the Apology and the dialogues named as last--I shall examine\nthe intermediate dialogues according as they seem to approximate or\nrecede from Sokrates and the negative dialectic. Here, however, the\nreasons for preference are noway satisfactory. Of the many dissentient\nschemes, professing to determine the real order in which the Platonic\ndialogues were composed, I find a certain plausibility in some, but no\nconclusive reason in any. Of course the reasons in favour of each one\nscheme, count against all the rest. I believe (as I have already said)\nthat none of Plato's dialogues were composed until after the death of\nSokrates: but at what dates, or in what order, after that event, they\nwere composed, it is impossible to determine. The Republic and\nPhil\u00eabus rank among the constructive dialogues, and may suitably be\ntaken immediately before Tim\u00e6us: though the Republic belongs to the\nhighest point of Plato's genius, and includes a large measure of his\nnegative acuteness combined with his most elaborate positive\ncombinations. In the Sophist\u00eas and Politikus, Sokrates appears only in\nthe character of a listener: in the Parmenid\u00eas also, the part assigned\nto him, instead of being aggressive and victorious, is subordinate to\nthat of Parmenid\u00eas and confined to an unsuccessful defence. These\ndialogues, then, occupy a place late in the series. On the other hand,\nKriton and Euthyphron have an immediate bearing upon the trial of\nSokrates and the feelings connected with it. I shall take them in\nimmediate sequel to the Apology.\n\nFor the intermediate dialogues, the order is less marked and\njustifiable. In so far as a reason can be given, for preference as to\nformer and later, I shall give it when the case arises.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nAPOLOGY OF SOKRATES.\n\n\nAdopting the order of precedence above described, for the review of\nthe Platonic compositions, and taking the point of departure from\nSokrates or the Sokratic point of view, I begin with the memorable\ncomposition called the Apology.\n\n[Side-note: The Apology is the real defence delivered by Sokrates\nbefore the Dikasts, reported by Plato, without intentional\ntransformation.]\n\nI agree with Schleiermacher[1]--with the more recent investigations of\nUeberweg--and with what (until recent times) seems to have been the\ncommon opinion,--that this is in substance the real defence pronounced\nby Sokrates; reported, and of course drest up, yet not intentionally\ntransformed, by Plato.[2] If such be the case, it is likely to have\nbeen put together shortly after the trial, and may thus be ranked\namong the earliest of the Platonic compositions: for I have already\nintimated my belief that Plato composed no dialogues under the name of\nSokrates, during the lifetime of Sokrates.\n\n[Footnote 1: Zeller is of opinion that the Apology, as well as the\nKriton, were put together at Megara by Plato, shortly after the death\nof Sokrates. (Zeller, De Hermodoro Ephesio, p. 19.)\n\nSchleiermacher, Einl. zur Apologie, vol. ii. pp. 182-185. Ueberweg,\nUeber die Aechtheit der Plat. Schrift. p. 246.\n\nSteinhart thinks (Einleitung, pp. 236-238) that the Apology contains\nmore of Plato, and less of Sokrates: but he does not make his view\nvery clear to me. Ast, on the contrary, treats the Apology as spurious\nand unworthy of Plato. (Ueber Platon's Leben und Schriften, p. 477,\nseq.) His arguments are rather objections against the merits of the\ncomposition, than reasons for believing it not to be the work of\nPlato. I dissent from them entirely: but they show that an acute\ncritic can make out a plausible case, satisfactory to himself, against\nany dialogue. If it be once conceded that the question of genuine or\nspurious is to be tried upon such purely internal grounds of critical\nadmiration and complete harmony of sentiment, Ast might have made out\na case even stronger against the genuineness of the Ph\u00e6drus,\nSymposion, Phil\u00eabus, Parmenid\u00eas.]\n\n[Footnote 2: See chapter lxviii. of my History of Greece.\n\nThe reader will find in that chapter a full narrative of all the\ncircumstances known to us respecting both the life and the\ncondemnation of Sokrates.\n\nA very admirable account may also be seen of the character of\nSokrates, and his position with reference to the Athenian people, in\nthe article entitled _Sokrates und Sein Volk_, Akademischer Vortrag,\nby Professor Hermann K\u00f6chly; a lecture delivered at Zurich in 1855,\nand published with enlargements in 1859.\n\nProfessor K\u00f6chly's article (contained in a volume entitled\n_Akademische Vortr\u00e4ge_, Zurich, 1859) is eminently deserving of\nperusal. It not only contains a careful summary of the contemporary\nhistory, so far as Sokrates is concerned, but it has farther the great\nmerit of fairly estimating that illustrious man in reference to the\nactual feeling of the time, and to the real public among whom he\nmoved. I feel much satisfaction in seeing that Professor K\u00f6chly's\npicture, composed without any knowledge of my History of Greece,\npresents substantially the same view of Sokrates and his\ncontemporaries as that which is taken in my sixty-eighth chapter.\n\nK\u00f6chly considers that the Platonic Apology preserves the Sokratic\ncharacter more faithfully than any of Plato's writings; and that it\nrepresents what Sokrates said, as nearly as the \"dichterische Natur\"\nof Plato would permit (K\u00f6chly, pp. 302-364.)]\n\n[Side-note: Even if it be Plato's own composition, it comes naturally\nfirst in the review of his dialogues.]\n\nSuch, in my judgment, is the most probable hypothesis respecting the\nApology. But even if we discard this hypothesis; if we treat the\nApology as a pure product of the Platonic imagination (like the\ndialogues), and therefore not necessarily connected in point of time\nwith the event to which it refers--still there are good reasons for\nputting it first in the order of review. For it would then be Plato's\nown exposition, given more explicitly and solemnly than anywhere else,\nof the Sokratic point of view and life-purpose. It would be an\nexposition embodying that union of generalising impulse, mistrust of\nestablished common-places, and aggressive cross-examining ardour--with\neccentric religious persuasion, as well as with perpetual immersion in\nthe crowd of the pal\u00e6stra and the market-place: which immersion was\nnot less indispensable to Sokrates than repugnant to the feelings of\nPlato himself. An exposition, lastly, disavowing all that taste for\ncosmical speculation, and that transcendental dogmatism, which formed\none among the leading features of Plato as distinguished from\nSokrates. In whichever way we look at the Apology, whether as a real\nor as an imaginary defence, it contains more of pure Sokratism than\nany other composition of Plato, and as such will occupy the first\nplace in the arrangement which I adopt.[3]\n\n[Footnote 3: Dionysius Hal. regards the Apology, not as a report of\nwhat Sokrates really said, nor as approximating thereunto, but as a\npure composition of Plato himself, for three purposes combined:--1. To\ndefend and extol Sokrates. 2. To accuse the Athenian public and\nDikasts. 3. To furnish a picture of what a philosopher ought to be.--All\nthese purposes are to a certain extent included and merged in a\nfourth, which I hold to be the true one,--to exhibit what Sokrates was\nand had been, in relation to the Athenian public.\n\nThe comparison drawn by Dionysius between the Apology and the oration\nDe Coron\u00e2 of Demosthenes, appears to me unsuitable. The two are\naltogether disparate, in spirit, in purpose, and in execution. (See\nDion. H. Ars Rhet. pp. 295-298: De Adm. Vi Dic. Demosth. p. 1026.)]\n\nIn my History of Greece, I have already spoken of this impressive\ndiscourse as it concerns the relations between Sokrates himself and\nthe Dikasts to whom he addressed it. I here regard it only as it\nconcerns Plato; and as it forms a convenient point of departure for\nentering upon and appreciating the Platonic dialogues.\n\n[Side-note: General character of the Apology--Sentiments entertained\ntowards Sokrates at Athens.]\n\nThe Apology of Sokrates is not a dialogue but a continuous discourse\naddressed to the Dikasts, containing nevertheless a few questions and\nanswers interchanged between him and the accuser Mel\u00eatus in open\ncourt. It is occupied, partly, in rebutting the counts of the\nindictment (_viz._, 1. That Sokrates did not believe in the Gods or in\nthe D\u00e6mons generally recognised by his countrymen: 2. That he was a\ncorruptor of youth[4])--partly in setting forth those proceedings of\nhis life out of which such charges had grown, and by which he had\nbecome obnoxious to a wide-spread feeling of personal hatred. By his\ncompanions, by those who best knew him, and by a considerable number\nof ardent young men, he was greatly esteemed and admired: by the\ngeneral public, too, his acuteness as well as his self-sufficing and\nindependent character, were appreciated with a certain respect. Yet he\nwas at the same time disliked, as an aggressive disputant who \"tilted\nat all he met\"--who raised questions novel as well as perplexing, who\npretended to special intimations from the Gods--and whose views no one\ncould distinctly make out.[5] By the eminent citizens of all\nvarieties--politicians, rhetors, Sophists, tragic and comic poets,\nartisans, &c.--he had made himself both hated and feared.[6] He\nemphatically denies the accusation of general disbelief in the Gods,\nadvanced by Mel\u00eatus: and he affirms generally (though less distinctly)\nthat the Gods in whom he believed, were just the same as those in whom\nthe whole city believed. Especially does he repudiate the idea, that\nhe could be so absurd as to doubt the divinity of Helios and Sel\u00ean\u00ea,\nin which all the world believed;[7] and to adopt the heresy of\nAnaxagoras, who degraded these Divinities into physical masses.\nRespecting his general creed, he thus puts himself within the pale of\nAthenian orthodoxy. He even invokes that very sentiment (with some\ndoubt whether the Dikasts will believe him[8]) for the justification\nof the obnoxious and obtrusive peculiarities of his life; representing\nhimself as having acted under the mission of the Delphian God,\nexpressly transmitted from the oracle.\n\n[Footnote 4: Xenoph. Mem. i. 1, 1. [Greek: A)dikei= S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas, ou(\\s\nme\\n e( po/lis nomi/zei theou\\s ou) nomi/z\u00f4n; e(/tera de\\ kaina\\\ndaimo/nia ei)sphe/r\u00f4n; a)dikei= de\\ kai\\ tou\\s ne/ous diaphthei/r\u00f4n].\n\nPlato, Apolog. c. 3, p. 19 B. [Greek: S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas a)dikei= kai\\\nperierga/zetai, z\u00eat\u00f4=n ta/ te u(po\\ g\u00ea=s kai\\ ta\\ e)poura/nia, kai\\\nto\\n \u00ea(/tt\u00f4 lo/gon krei/tt\u00f4 poi\u00f4=n, kai\\ a)/llous tau)ta\\ tau=ta\ndida/sk\u00f4n].\n\nThe reading of Xenophon was conformable to the copy of the indictment\npreserved in the Metr\u00f4on at Athens in the time of Favorinus. There\nwere three distinct accusers--Mel\u00eatus, Anytus, and Lykon. Plat. Apol.\np. 23-24 B.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Plato, Apol. c. 28, p. 38 A; c. 23, p. 35 A.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Plato, Apol. c. 8-9, pp. 22-23. [Greek: e)k taut\u00easi\\ d\u00ea\\\nt\u00ea\\s e)xeta/se\u00f4s pollai\\ me\\n a)pe/chtheiai/ moi gego/nasi kai\\ oi)=ai\nchalep\u00f4/tatai kai\\ baru/tatai, \u00f4(/ste polla\\s diabola\\s a)p' au)t\u00f4=n\ngegone/nai, o)/noma de\\ tou=to le/gesthai, sopho\\s ei)=nai.]]\n\n[Footnote 7: Plato, Apol. c. 14, p. 26 D. [Greek: \u00f4)= thauma/sie\nMe/l\u00eate, i(na ti/ tau=ta le/geis? ou)de\\ \u00ea(/lion ou)de\\ sel\u00ea/n\u00ean a)/ra\nnomi/z\u00f4 theou\\s ei)=nai, \u00f4(/sper oi( a)/lloi a)/nthr\u00f4poi?]]\n\n[Footnote 8: Plato, Apol. c. 5, p. 20 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Declaration from the Delphian oracle respecting the wisdom\nof Sokrates, interpreted by him as a mission to cross-examine the\ncitizens generally--The oracle is proved to be true.]\n\nAccording to his statement, his friend and earnest admirer Ch\u00e6rephon,\nhad asked the question at the oracle of Delphi, whether any one was\nwiser than Sokrates? The reply of the oracle declared, that no one was\nwiser. On hearing this declaration from an infallible authority,\nSokrates was greatly perplexed: for he was conscious to himself of not\nbeing wise upon any matter, great or small.[9] He at length concluded\nthat the declaration of the oracle could be proved true, only on the\nhypothesis that other persons were less wise than they seemed to be or\nfancied themselves. To verify this hypothesis, he proceeded to\ncross-examine the most eminent persons in many different walks--political\nmen, rhetors, Sophists, poets, artisans. On applying his Elenchus, and\nputting to them testing interrogations, he found them all without\nexception destitute of any real wisdom, yet fully persuaded that they\n_were_ wise, and incapable of being shaken in that persuasion. The\nartisans indeed did really know each his own special trade; but then,\non account of this knowledge, they believed themselves to be wise on\nother great matters also. So also the poets were great in their own\ncompositions; but on being questioned respecting these very\ncompositions, they were unable to give any rational or consistent\nexplanations: so that they plainly appeared to have written beautiful\nverses, not from any wisdom of their own, but through inspiration from\nthe Gods, or spontaneous promptings of nature. The result was, that\nthese men were all proved to possess no more real wisdom than\nSokrates: but _he_ was aware of his own deficiency; while _they_ were\nfully convinced of their own wisdom, and could not be made sensible of\nthe contrary. In this way Sokrates justified the certificate of\nsuperiority vouchsafed to him by the oracle. He, like all other\npersons, was destitute of wisdom; but he was the only one who knew, or\ncould be made to feel, his own real mental condition. With others, and\nmost of all with the most conspicuous men, the false persuasion of\ntheir own wisdom was universal and inexpugnable.[10]\n\n[Footnote 9: Plato, Apol. c. 6, p. 21 B. [Greek: tau=ta ga\\r e)g\u00f4\\\na)kou/sas e)nethumou/m\u00ean ou(t\u00f4si/, Ti/ pote le/gei o( theo\\s kai\\ ti/\npote ai)ni/ttetai? e)g\u00f4\\ ga\\r d\u00ea\\ ou)/te me/ga ou)/te smikro\\n\nxu/noida e)maut\u00f4=| sopho\\s \u00f4)/n; ti/ ou)=n pote le/gei pha/sk\u00f4n e)me\\\nsoph\u00f4/taton ei)=nai? ou) ga\\r d\u00ea/pou pseu/detai/ ge; ou) ga\\r the/mis\nau)t\u00f4=|. Kai\\ polu\\n me\\n chro/non \u00ea)po/roun], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Plato, Apolog. c. 8-9, pp. 22-23.]\n\n[Side-note: False persuasion of wisdom is universal--the God alone is\nwise.]\n\nThis then was the philosophical mission of Sokrates, imposed upon him\nby the Delphian oracle, and in which he passed the mature portion of\nhis life: to cross-examine every one, to expose that false persuasion\nof knowledge which every one felt, and to demonstrate the truth of\nthat which the oracle really meant by declaring the superior wisdom of\nSokrates. \"People suppose me to be wise myself (says Sokrates) on\nthose matters on which I detect and prove the non-wisdom of\nothers.[11] But that is a mistake. The God alone is wise: and his\noracle declares human wisdom to be worth little or nothing, employing\nthe name of Sokrates as an example. He is the wisest of men, who, like\nSokrates, knows well that he is in truth worthless so far as wisdom is\nconcerned.[12] The really disgraceful ignorance is--to think that you\nknow what you do not really know.\"[13]\n\n[Footnote 11: Plato, Apol. c. 9, p. 23 A. [Greek: oi)/ontai ga/r me\ne(ka/stote oi( paro/ntes tau=ta au)to\\n ei)=nai sopho/n, a(\\ a)\\n\na)/llon e)xele/gx\u00f4.]]\n\n[Footnote 12: Plato, Apol. c. 9, p. 23 A; c. 17, p. 28 E.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Plato, Apol. c. 17, p. 29 B. [Greek: kai\\ tou=to p\u00f4=s\nou)k a)mathi/a e)sti\\n au)t\u00ea\\ \u00ea( e)ponei/distos, \u00ea( tou= oi)/esthai\nei)de/nai a(\\ ou)k oi)=den?]]\n\n[Side-note: Emphatic assertion by Sokrates of the cross-examining\nmission imposed upon him by the God.]\n\n\"The God has marked for me my post, to pass my life in the search for\nwisdom, cross-examining myself as well as others: I shall be\ndisgraced, if I desert that post from fear either of death or of any\nother evil.\"[14] \"Even if you Dikasts acquit me, I shall not alter my\ncourse: I shall continue, as long as I hold life and strength, to\nexhort and interrogate in my usual strain, telling every one whom I\nmeet[15]--You, a citizen of the great and intelligent Athens, are you\nnot ashamed of busying yourself to procure wealth, reputation, and\nglory, in the greatest possible quantity; while you take neither\nthought nor pains about truth, or wisdom, or the fullest measure of\ngoodness for your mind? If any one denies the charge, and professes\nthat he _does_ take thought for these objects,--I shall not let him\noff without questioning, cross-examining, and exposing him.[16] And if\nhe appears to me to affirm that he is virtuous without being so in\nreality, I shall reproach him for caring least about the greater\nmatter, and most about the smaller. This course I shall pursue with\nevery one whom I meet, young or old, citizen or non-citizen: most of\nall with you citizens, because you are most nearly connected with me.\nFor this, you know, is what the God commands, and I think that no\ngreater blessing has ever happened to the city than this ministration\nof mine under orders from the God. For I go about incessantly\npersuading you all, old as well as young, not to care about your\nbodies, or about riches, so much as about acquiring the largest\nmeasure of virtue for your minds. I urge upon you that virtue is not\nthe fruit of wealth, but that wealth, together with all the other\nthings good for mankind publicly and privately, are the fruits of\nvirtue.[17] If I am a corruptor of youth, it is by these discourses\nthat I corrupt them: and if any one gives a different version of my\ndiscourses, he talks idly. Accordingly, men of Athens, I must tell you\nplainly: decide with Anytus, or not,--acquit me or not--I shall do\nnothing different from what I have done, even if I am to die many\ntimes over for it.\"\n\n[Footnote 14: Plato, Apol. c. 17, p. 28 E.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Plato, Apol. c. 17, p. 29 D. [Greek: ou) m\u00ea\\ pau/s\u00f4mai\nphilosoph\u00f4=n kai\\ u(mi=n parakeleuo/meno/s te kai\\ e)ndeiknu/menos,\no(/t\u00f4| a)\\n a)ei\\ e)ntugcha/n\u00f4 u(m\u00f4=n, le/g\u00f4n oi(=a/per ei)/\u00f4tha],\n&c.]\n\n[Footnote 16: Plato, Apol. c. 17, p. 29 E. [Greek: kai\\ e)a/n tis\nu(m\u00f4=n a)mphisb\u00eat\u00ea/s\u00ea| kai\\ ph\u00ea=| e)pimelei=sthai, ou)k eu)thu\\s\na)ph\u00ea/s\u00f4 au)to\\n ou)d' a)/peimi, a)ll' e)r\u00ea/somai au)to\\n kai\\\ne)xeta/s\u00f4 kai\\ e)le/gx\u00f4, kai\\ e)a/n moi m\u00ea\\ dok\u00ea=| kekt\u00ea=sthai\na)ret\u00ea/n, pha/nai de/, o)neidi\u00f4=], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 17: Plato, Apol. c. 17, p. 30, B. [Greek: le/g\u00f4n o(/ti ou)k\ne)k chr\u00eama/t\u00f4n a)ret\u00ea\\ gi/gnetai, a)ll' e)x a)ret\u00ea=s chr\u00ea/mata kai\\\nta)/lla a)gatha\\ toi=s a)nthr\u00f4/pois a(/panta kai\\ i)di/a| kai\\\nd\u00eamosi/a|.]]\n\n[Side-note: He had devoted his life to the execution of this mission,\nand he intended to persevere in spite of obloquy or danger.]\n\nSuch is the description given by Sokrates of his own profession and\nstanding purpose, imposed upon him as a duty by the Delphian God. He\nneglected all labour either for profit, or for political importance,\nor for the public service; he devoted himself, from morning till\nnight, to the task of stirring up the Athenian public, as the gadfly\nworries a large and high-bred but over-sleek horse:[18] stimulating\nthem by interrogation, persuasion, reproach, to render account of\ntheir lives and to seek with greater energy the path of virtue. By\ncontinually persisting in such universal cross-examination, he had\nrendered himself obnoxious to the Athenians generally;[19] who were\noffended when called upon to render account, and when reproached that\nthey did not live rightly. Sokrates predicts that after his death,\nyounger cross-examiners, hitherto kept down by his celebrity, would\narise in numbers,[20] and would pursue the same process with greater\nkeenness and acrimony than he had done.\n\n[Footnote 18: Plato, Apol. c. 18, p. 30 E. [Greek: a)techn\u00f4=s, ei)\nkai\\ geloio/teron ei)pei=n, proskei/menon t\u00ea=| po/lei u(po\\ tou=\ntheou= \u00f4(/sper i(/pp\u00f4| mega/l\u00f4| me\\n kai\\ gennai/\u00f4|, u(po\\ mege/thous\nde\\ n\u00f4theste/r\u00f4| kai\\ _deome/n\u00f4| e)gei/resthai u(po\\ mu/\u00f4po/s tinos_;\noi(=on d\u00ea/ moi dokei= o( theo\\s e)me\\ t\u00ea=| po/lei prostetheike/nai\ntoiou=to/n tina, o(\\s u(ma=s _e)gei/r\u00f4n kai\\ pei/th\u00f4n kai\\\no)neidi/z\u00f4n_ e(/na e(/kaston ou)de\\n pau/omai t\u00ea\\n \u00ea(me/ran o(/l\u00ean\npantachou= proskathi/z\u00f4n]. Also c. 26, p. 36 D.]\n\n[Footnote 19: Plato, Apol. c. 6, p. 21 D; c. 16, p. 28 A; c. 30, p. 39\nC.]\n\n[Footnote 20 Plato, Apol. c. 30, p. 39 C. [Greek: nu=n ga\\r tou=to\nei)/rgasthe] (i.e. [Greek: e)me\\ a)pekto/nate]) [Greek: _oi)o/menoi\na)palla/xesthai tou= dido/nai e)/legchon tou= bi/ou_. to\\ de\\ u(mi=n\npolu\\ e)nanti/on a)pob\u00ea/setai, \u00f4(s e)go/ ph\u00eami. plei/ous e)/sontai\nu(ma=s oi( e)le/gchontes, ou(=s nu=n e)g\u00f4\\ katei=chon, u(mei=s de\\\nou)k \u00ea)|stha/nesthe; kai\\ chalep\u00f4/teroi e)/sontai o(/s\u00f4| ne\u00f4/teroi/\nei)si, kai\\ u(mei=s ma=llon a)ganakt\u00ea/sete], &c.\n\nI have already remarked (in chapter lxviii. of my general History of\nGreece relating to Sokrates) that this prediction was not fulfilled.]\n\n[Side-note: He disclaims the function of a teacher--he cannot teach,\nfor he is not wiser than others. He differs from others by being\nconscious of his own ignorance.]\n\nWhile Sokrates thus extols, and sanctifies under the authority of the\nDelphian God, his habitual occupation of interrogating,\ncross-examining, and stimulating to virtue, the Athenians\nindiscriminately--he disclaims altogether the function of a teacher.\nHis disclaimer on this point is unequivocal and emphatic. He cannot\nteach others, because he is not at all wiser than they. He is fully\naware that he is not wise on any point, great or small--that he knows\nnothing at all, so to speak.[21] He can convict others, by their own\nanswers, of real though unconscious ignorance, or (under another\nname) false persuasion of knowledge: and because he can do so, he is\npresumed to possess positive knowledge on the points to which the\nexposure refers. But this presumption is altogether unfounded: he\npossesses no such positive knowledge. Wisdom is not to be found in\nany man, even among the most distinguished: Sokrates is as ignorant\nas others; and his only point of superiority is, that he is fully\nconscious of his own ignorance, while others, far from having the\nlike consciousness, confidently believe themselves to be in\npossession of wisdom and truth.[22] In this consciousness of his\nown ignorance Sokrates stands alone; on which special ground he is\nproclaimed by the Delphian God as the wisest of mankind.\n\n[Footnote 21: Plato, Apol. c. 6, p. 21 B. [Greek: e)g\u00f4\\ ga\\r d\u00ea\\\nou)/te me/ga ou)/te smikro\\n xu/noida e)maut\u00f4=| sopho\\s \u00f4)/n], &c. c.\n8, p. 22 D. [Greek: e)maut\u00f4=| ga\\r xun\u00ea/|dein ou)de\\n e)pistame/n\u00f4|,\n\u00f4(s e)/pos ei)pei=n.]]\n\n[Footnote 22: Plato, Apol. c. 9, p. 23 A-B. [Greek: Ou(=tos u(m\u00f4=n,\n\u00f4)= a)/nthr\u00f4poi, soph\u00f4/tato/s e)stin, o(/stis \u00f4(/sper S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas\ne)/gn\u00f4ken o(/ti ou)deno\\s a)/xio/s e)sti t\u00ea=| a)l\u00eathei/a| pro\\s\nsophi/an.]]\n\n[Side-note: He does not know where competent teachers can be found. He\nis perpetually seeking for them, but in vain.]\n\nBeing thus a partner in the common ignorance, Sokrates cannot of\ncourse teach others. He utterly disclaims having ever taught, or\nprofessed to teach. He would be proud indeed, if he possessed the\nknowledge of human and social virtue: but he does not know it himself,\nnor can he find out who else knows it.[23] He is certain that there\ncannot be more than a few select individuals who possess the art of\nmaking mankind wiser or better--just as in the case of horses, none\nbut a few practised trainers know how to make them better, while the\nhandling of these or other animals, by ordinary men, certainly does\nnot improve the animals, and generally even makes them worse.[24] But\nwhere any such select few are to be found, who alone can train\nmen--Sokrates is obliged to inquire from others; he cannot divine for\nhimself.[25] He is perpetually going about, with the lantern of\ncross-examination, in search of a wise man: but he can find only\nthose who pretend to be wise, and whom his cross-examination exposes\nas pretenders.[26]\n\n[Footnote 23: Plato, Apol. c. 4, p. 20 B-C. [Greek: ti/s t\u00ea=s\ntoiau/t\u00eas a)ret\u00ea=s, t\u00ea=s a)nthr\u00f4pi/n\u00eas te kai\\ politik\u00ea=s, e)pist\u00ea/m\u00f4n\ne)sti/n? . . . e)g\u00f4\\ gou=n kai\\ au)to\\s e)kalluno/m\u00ean te kai\\\n\u00ea(bruno/m\u00ean a)\\n, ei) \u00ea)pista/m\u00ean tau=ta; a)ll' ou) ga\\r e)pi/stamai,\n\u00f4)= a)/ndres A)th\u00eanai=oi].\n\nc. 21, p. 33 A. [Greek: e)g\u00f4\\ de\\ dida/skalos me\\n ou)deno\\s p\u00f4/pot'\ne)geno/m\u00ean]. c. 4, p. 19 E.]\n\n[Footnote 24: Plato, Apol. c. 12, p. 25 B.]\n\n[Footnote 25: Plato, Apol. c. 4, p. 20.]\n\n[Footnote 26: Plato, Apol. c. 9, p. 23 B. [Greek: tau=t' ou)=n e)g\u00f4\\\nme\\n e)/ti kai\\ nu=n perii\u00f4\\n z\u00eat\u00f4= kai\\ e)reun\u00f4= kata\\ to\\n theo/n,\nkai\\ t\u00f4=n a)st\u00f4n kai\\ t\u00f4=n xe/n\u00f4n a)\\n tina oi)/\u00f4mai sopho\\n ei)=nai;\nkai\\ e)peida/n moi m\u00ea\\ dok\u00ea=|, t\u00f4=| the\u00f4=| bo\u00eath\u00f4=n e)ndei/knumai\no(/ti ou)k e)/sti sopho/s]. c. 32, p. 41 B.]\n\nThis _then_is the mission and vocation of Sokrates--1. To\ncross-examine men, and to destroy that false persuasion of wisdom and\nvirtue which is so widely diffused among them. 2. To reproach them,\nand make them ashamed of pursuing wealth and glory more than wisdom\nand virtue.[27]\n\n[Footnote 27: Plato, Apol. c. 33, p. 41 E.]\n\nBut Sokrates is not empowered to do more for them. He cannot impart\nany positive knowledge to heal their ignorance. He cannot teach them\nwhat WISDOM OR VIRTUE is.\n\n[Side-note: Impression made by the Platonic Apology on Zeno the\nStoic.]\n\nSuch is the substance of the Platonic Apology of Sokrates. How strong\nwas the impression which it made, on many philosophical readers, we\nmay judge from the fact, that Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school,\nbeing a native of Kition in Cyprus, derived from the perusal of the\nApology his first inducement to come over to Athens, and devote\nhimself to the study and teaching of philosophy in that city.[28]\nSokrates depicts, with fearless sincerity, what he regards as the\nintellectual and moral deficiencies of his countrymen, as well as the\nunpalatable medicine and treatment which he was enjoined to administer\nto them. With equal sincerity does he declare the limits within which\nthat treatment was confined.\n\n[Footnote 28: Themistius, Orat. xxiii. (Sophist\u00eas) p. 357, Dindorf.\n[Greek: Ta\\ de\\ a)mphi\\ Z\u00ea/n\u00f4nos a)ri/d\u00eala/ te/ e)sti kai\\ a)|do/mena\nu(po\\ poll\u00f4n, o(/ti au)to\\n \u00ea( S\u00f4kra/tous a)pologi/a e)k Phoini/k\u00eas\n\u00ea)/gagen ei)s t\u00ea\\n Poiki/l\u00ean].\n\nThis statement deserves full belief: it probably came from Zeno\nhimself, a voluminous writer. The father of Zeno was a merchant who\ntraded with Athens, and brought back books for his son to read,\nSokratic books among them. Diogen. Laert. vii. 31.\n\nRespecting another statement made by Themistius in the same page, I do\nnot feel so certain. He says that the accusatory discourse pronounced\nagainst Sokrates by Anytus was composed by Polykrates, as a [Greek:\nlogogra/phos], and paid for. This may be the fact but the words of\nIsokrates in the Busiris rather lead me to the belief that the [Greek:\nkat\u00eagori/a S\u00f4kra/tous] composed by Polykrates was a sophistical\nexercise, composed to acquire reputation and pupils, not a discourse\nreally delivered in the Dikastery.]\n\n[Side-note: Extent of efficacious influence claimed by Sokrates for\nhimself--exemplified by Plato throughout the Dialogues of\nSearch--Xenophon and Plato enlarge it.]\n\nBut neither of his two most eminent companions can endure to restrict\nhis competence within such narrow limits. Xenophon[29] affirms that\nSokrates was assiduous in communicating useful instruction and\npositive edification to his hearers. Plato sometimes, though more\nrarely, intimates the same: but for the most part, and in the\nDialogues of Search throughout, he keeps Sokrates within the circle of\nprocedure which the Apology claims for him. These dialogues exemplify\nin detail the aggressive operations, announced therein by Sokrates in\ngeneral terms as his missionary life-purpose, against contemporaries\nof note, very different from each other--against aspiring youths,\nstatesmen, generals, Rhetors, Sophists, orthodox pietists, poets,\nrhapsodes, &c. Sokrates cross-examines them all, and convicts them of\nhumiliating ignorance: but he does not furnish, nor does he profess to\nbe able to furnish, any solution of his own difficulties. Many of the\npersons cross-examined bear historical names: but I think it necessary\nto warn the reader, that all of them speak both language and\nsentiments provided for them by Plato, and not their own.[30]\n\n[Footnote 29: Xenophon, Memor. i. 2, 64, i. 3. 1, i. 4, 2, iv. 2, 40;\niv. 3, 4.]\n\n[Footnote 30: It might seem superfluous to give such a warning; but\nmany commentators speak as if they required it. They denounce the\nPlatonic speakers in harsh terms, which have no pertinence, unless\nsupposed to be applied to a real man expressing his own thoughts and\nfeelings.\n\nIt is useless to enjoin us, as Stallbaum and Steinhart do, to mark the\naristocratical conceit of Menon!--the pompous ostentation and\npretensive verbosity of Protagoras and Gorgias!--the exorbitant\nselfishness of Polus and Kallikl\u00eas!--the impudent brutality of\nThrasymachus!--when all these persons speak entirely under the\nprompting of Plato himself.\n\nYou might just as well judge of Sokrates by what we read in the Nubes\nof Aristophanes, or of Meton by what we find in the Aves, as describe\nthe historical characters of the above-named personages out of the\nPlatonic dialogues. They ought to be appreciated as dramatic pictures,\ndrest up by the author for his own purpose, and delivering such\nopinions as he assigns to them--whether he intends them to be refuted\nby others, or not.]\n\n[Side-note: Assumption by modern critics, that Sokrates is a positive\nteacher, employing indirect methods for the inculcation of theories of\nhis own.]\n\nThe disclaimer, so often repeated by Sokrates,--that he possessed\nneither positive knowledge nor wisdom in his own person,--was\nfrequently treated by his contemporaries as ironical. He was not\nsupposed to be in earnest when he made it. Every one presumed that he\nmust himself know that which he proved others not to know, whatever\nmotive he might have for affecting ignorance.[31] His personal manner\nand homely vein of illustration seemed to favour the supposition that\nhe was bantering. This interpretation of the character of Sokrates\nappears in the main to be preferred by modern critics. Of course (they\nimagine) an able man who cross-questions others on the definitions of\nLaw, Justice, Democracy, &c., has already meditated on the subject,\nand framed for himself unimpeachable definitions of these terms.\nSokrates (they suppose) is a positive teacher and theorist, employing\na method, which, though indirect and circuitous, is nevertheless\ncalculated deliberately beforehand for the purpose of introducing and\ninculcating premeditated doctrines of his own. Pursuant to this\nhypothesis, it is presumed that the positive theory of Sokrates is to\nbe found in his negative cross-examinations,--not indeed set down\nclearly in any one sentence, so that he who runs may read--yet\ndisseminated in separate syllables or letters, which may be\ndistinguished, picked out, and put together into propositions, by an\nacute detective examiner. And the same presumption is usually applied\nto the Sokrates of the Platonic dialogues: that is, to Plato employing\nSokrates as spokesman. Interpreters sift with microscopic accuracy the\nnegative dialogues of Plato, in hopes of detecting the ultimate\nelements of that positive solution which he is supposed to have lodged\ntherein, and which, when found, may be put together so as to clear up\nall the antecedent difficulties.\n\n[Footnote 31: Plato, Apol. c. 5, p. 20 D; c. 9, p. 23 A.\n\nAristeides the Rhetor furnishes a valuable confirmation of the truth\nof that picture of Sokrates, which we find in the Platonic Apology.\nAll the other companions of Sokrates who wrote dialogues about him\n(not preserved to us), presented the same general features. 1. Avowed\nignorance. 2. The same declaration of the oracle concerning him. 3.\nThe feeling of frequent signs from [Greek: to\\ daimo/nion].\n\n[Greek: O(mologei=tai me/n ge le/gein au)to\\n] (Sokrates) [Greek: \u00f4(s\na)/ra ou)de\\n e)pi/staito, _kai\\ pa/ntes tou=to/ phasin oi(\nsuggeno/menoi_; o(mologei=tai d' au)= kai\\ tou=to, soph\u00f4/taton ei)=nai\nS\u00f4kra/t\u00ea t\u00ea\\n Puthi/an ei)r\u00eake/nai], &c.\n\n(Aristeides, Orat. xlv. [Greek: Peri\\ R(\u00eatorik\u00ea=s], pp. 23, 24, 25,\nDindorf.)]\n\n[Side-note: Incorrectness of such assumption--the Sokratic Elenchus\ndoes not furnish a solution, but works upon the mind of the\nrespondent, stimulating him to seek for a solution of his own.]\n\nI have already said (in the preceding chapter) that I cannot take this\nview either of Sokrates or of Plato. Without doubt, each of them had\naffirmative doctrines and convictions, though not both the same. But\nthe affirmative vein, with both of them, runs in a channel completely\ndistinct from the negative. The affirmative theory has its roots\n_aliunde_, and is neither generated, nor adapted, with a view to\nreconcile the contradictions, or elucidate the obscurities, which the\nnegative Elenchus has exposed. That exposure does indeed render the\nembarrassed respondent painfully conscious of the want of some\nrational, consistent, and adequate theoretical explanation: it farther\nstimulates him to make efforts of his own for the supply of that want.\nBut such efforts must be really his own; the Elenchus gives no farther\nhelp: it furnishes problems, but no solutions, nor even any assurance\nthat the problems as presented, admit of affirmative solutions.\nWhoever expects that such consummate masters of the negative process\nas Sokrates and Plato, when they come to deliver affirmative dogmas of\ntheir own, will be kept under restraint by their own previous\nElenchus, and will take care that their dogmas shall not be vulnerable\nby the same weapons as they had employed against others--will be\ndisappointed. They do not employ any negative test against themselves.\nWhen Sokrates preaches in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, or the Athenian\nStranger in the Platonic Leges, they jump over, or suppose to be\nalready solved, the difficulties under the pressure of which other\ndisputants had been previously discredited: they assume all the\nundefinable common-places to be clearly understood, and all the\ninconsistent generalities to be brought into harmony. Thus it is that\nthe negative cross-examination, and the affirmative dogmatism, are\n(both in Sokrates and in Plato) two unconnected operations of thought:\nthe one does not lead to, or involve, or verify, the other.\n\n[Side-note: Value and importance of this process--stimulating active\nindividual minds to theorise each for itself.]\n\nThose who depreciate the negative process simply, unless followed up\nby some new positive doctrine which shall be proof against all such\nattack--cannot be expected to admire Sokrates greatly, even as he\nstands rated by himself. Even if I concurred in this opinion, I should\nstill think myself obliged to exhibit him as he really was. But I do\nnot concur in the opinion. I think that the creation and furtherance\nof individual, self-thinking minds, each instigated to form some\nrational and consistent theory for itself, is a material benefit, even\nthough no farther aid be rendered to the process except in the way of\nnegative suggestion. That such minds should be made to feel the\narbitrary and incoherent character of that which they have imbibed by\npassive association as ethics and \u00e6sthetics,--and that they should\nendeavour to test it by some rational and consistent standard--would\nbe an improving process, though no one theory could be framed\nsatisfactory to all. The Sokratic Elenchus went directly to this\nresult. Plato followed in the same track, not of pouring new matter of\nknowledge into the pupil, but of eliciting new thoughts and beliefs\nout of him, by kindling the latent forces of his intellect. A large\nproportion of Plato's dialogues have no other purpose or value. And in\nentering upon the consideration of these dialogues, we cannot take a\nbetter point of departure than the Apology of Sokrates, wherein the\nspeaker, alike honest and decided in his convictions, at the close of\na long cross-examining career, re-asserts expressly his devoted\nallegiance to the negative process, and disclaims with equal emphasis\nall power over the affirmative.\n\n[Side-note: View taken by Sokrates about death. Other men profess to\nknow what it is, and think it a great misfortune: he does not know.]\n\nIn that touching discourse, the Universal Cross-Examiner declares a\nthorough resolution to follow his own individual conviction and his\nown sense of duty--whether agreeing or disagreeing with the\nconvictions of his countrymen, and whether leading to danger or to\ndeath for himself. \"Where a man may have posted himself either--under\nhis own belief that it is best, or under orders from the\nmagistrate--there he must stay and affront danger, not caring for death or\nanything else in comparison with disgrace.\"[32] As to death, Sokrates\nknows very little what it is, nor whether it is good or evil. The fear\nof death, in his view, is only one case of the prevalent mental\nmalady--men believing themselves to know that of which they really\nknow nothing. If death be an extinction of all sensation, like a\nperpetual and dreamless sleep, he will regard it as a prodigious\nbenefit compared with life: even the Great King will not be a loser by\nthe exchange.[33] If on the contrary death be a transition into Hades,\nto keep company with those who have died before--Homer, Hesiod, the\nheroes of the Trojan war, &c.--Sokrates will consider it supreme\nhappiness to converse with and cross-examine the potentates and clever\nmen of the past--Agamemnon, Odysseus, Sisyphus; thus discriminating\nwhich of them are really wise, and which of them are only unconscious\npretenders. He is convinced that no evil can ever happen to the good\nman; that the protection, of the Gods can never be wanting to him,\nwhether alive or dead.[34] \"It is not lawful for a better man to be\ninjured by a worse. He may indeed be killed, or banished, or\ndisfranchised; and these may appear great evils, in the eye of others.\nBut I do not think them so. It is a far greater evil to do what\nMel\u00eatus is now doing--trying to kill a man unjustly.\"[35]\n\n[Footnote 32: Plato, Apol. c. 16, p. 28 D.]\n\n[Footnote 33: Plato, Apol. c. 17, p. 29 A. c. 32, p. 40 D. [Greek: kai\\\nei)/te d\u00ea\\ m\u00eademi/a ai)/sth\u00easi/s e)stin, a)ll' oi(=on u(/pnos,\ne)peida/n tis katheu/d\u00f4n m\u00ead' o)/nar m\u00eade\\n o(ra=|, thauma/sion\nke/rdos a)\\n ei)/\u00ea o( tha/natos].\n\nAst remarks (Plat. Leb. und Schrift. p. 488) that the language of\ndoubt and uncertainty in which Sokrates here speaks of the\nconsequences of death, is greatly at variance with the language which\nhe is made to hold in Ph\u00e6don. Ast adduces this as one of his arguments\nfor disallowing the authenticity of the Apology. I do not admit the\ninference. I am prepared for divergence between the opinions of\nSokrates in different dialogues; and I believe, moreover, that the\nSokrates of the Ph\u00e6don is spokesman chosen to argue in support of the\nmain thesis of that dialogue. But it is impossible to deny the\nvariance which Ast points out, and which is also admitted by\nStallbaum. Steinhart indeed (Einleitung, p. 246) goes the length of\ndenying it, in which I cannot follow him. The sentiment of Sokrates in\nthe Apology embodies the same alternative uncertainty, as what we read\nin Marcus Antoninus, v. 33. [Greek: Ti/ ou)=n? perime/neis i(/le\u00f4s\nt\u00ea\\n ei)/te sbe/sin ei)/te meta/stasin], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 34: Plato, Apol. c. 32, p. 41 A-B.]\n\n[Footnote 35: Plato, Apol. c. 18, p. 30 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Reliance of Sokrates on his own individual reason, whether\nagreeing or disagreeing with others.]\n\nSokrates here gives his own estimate of comparative good and evil.\nDeath, banishment, disfranchisement, &c., are no great evils: to put\nanother man to death unjustly, is a great evil to the doer: the good\nman can suffer no evil at all. These are given as the judgments of\nSokrates, and as dissentient from most others. Whether they are\nSokratic or Platonic opinions, or common to both--we shall find them\nreappearing in various other Platonic dialogues, hereafter to be\nnoticed. We have also to notice that marked feature in the character\nof Sokrates[36]--the standing upon his own individual reason and\nmeasure of good and evil: nay, even pushing his confidence in it so\nfar, as to believe in a divine voice informing and moving him. This\nreliance on the individual reason is sometimes recognised, at other\ntimes rejected, in the Platonic dialogues. Plato rejects it in his\ncomments (contained in the dialogue The\u00e6t\u00eatus) on the doctrine of\nProtagoras: he rejects it also in the constructive dialogues, Republic\nand Leges, where he constitutes himself despotic legislator,\nprescribing a standard of orthodox opinion; he proclaims it in the\nGorgias, and implies it very generally throughout the negative\ndialogues.\n\n[Footnote 36: Plat. Apol. c. 16, p. 28 D. [Greek: ou(= a)/n tis e(auto\\n\nta/x\u00ea| \u00ea)\\ \u00ea(g\u00easa/menos be/ltion ei)=nai \u00ea)\\ u(p' a)/rchontos\ntachth\u00ea=|, e)ntau=tha dei=, \u00f4(s e)moi\\ dokei=, me/nonta kinduneu/ein],\n&c.\n\nXenophon, Memorab. iv. 8, 11 [Greek: phro/nimos de/, \u00f4(/ste m\u00ea\\\ndiamarta/nein kri/n\u00f4n ta\\ belti/\u00f4 kai\\ ta\\ chei/r\u00f4, m\u00eade\\ a)/llou\nprosde/esthai, a)ll' au)ta/rch\u00eas ei)=nai pro\\s t\u00ea\\n tou/t\u00f4n gn\u00f4=sin],\n&c.\n\nCompare this with Memor. i. 1, 3-4-5, and the Xenophontic Apology, 4,\n5, 13, where this [Greek: au)tarkei/a] finds for itself a\njustification in the hypothesis of a divine monitor without.\n\nThe debaters in the treatise of Plutarch, De Genio Socratis, upon the\nquestion of the Sokratic [Greek: daimo/nion], insist upon this\nresolute persuasion and self-determination as the most indisputable\nfact in the case (c. 11, p. 581 C) [Greek: Ai( de\\ S\u00f4kra/tous o(rmai\\\nto\\ be/baion e)/chousai kai\\ sphodro/t\u00eata phai/nontai pro\\s a(/pan,\n\u00f4(s a)\\n e)x o)rth\u00ea=s kai\\ i)schura=s a)pheime/nai kri/e\u00f4s kai\\\na)rch\u00ea=s]. Compare p. 589 E. The speculations of the speakers upon the\n[Greek: ou)si/a] and [Greek: du/namis tou= S\u00f4kra/tous daimoni/ou],\ncome to little result.\n\nThere is a curious passage in Plutarch's life of Coriolanus (c. 32),\nwhere he describes the way in which the Gods act upon the minds of\nparticular men, under difficult and trying circumstances. They do not\ninspire new resolutions or volitions, but they work upon the\nassociative principle, suggesting new ideas which conduct to the\nappropriate volition--[Greek: ou)d' o(rma\\s e)nergazo/menon, a)lla\\\nphantasi/as o(rm\u00f4=n a)g\u00f4gou/s], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Formidable efficacy of established public beliefs,\ngenerated without any ostensible author.]\n\nLastly, we find also in the Apology distinct notice of the formidable\nefficacy of established public impressions, generated without any\nostensible author, circulated in the common talk, and passing without\nexamination from one man to another, as portions of accredited faith.\n\"My accusers Mel\u00eatus and Anytus (says Sokrates) are difficult enough\nto deal with: yet far less difficult than the prejudiced public, who\nhave heard false reports concerning me for years past, and have\ncontracted a settled belief about my character, from nameless authors\nwhom I cannot summon here to be confuted.\"[37]\n\n[Footnote 37: Plato, Apol. c. 2, p. 18 C-D.]\n\nIt is against this ancient, established belief, passing for\nknowledge--communicated by unconscious contagion without any rational\nprocess--against the \"proc\u00e8s jug\u00e9 mais non plaid\u00e9\", whereby King Nomos\ngoverns--that the general mission of Sokrates is directed. It is against\nthe like belief, in one of its countless manifestations, that he here\ndefends himself before the Dikastery.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nKRITON.\n\n\n[Side-note: General purpose of the Kriton.]\n\nThe dialogue called Kriton is, in one point of view, a second part or\nsequel--in another point of view, an antithesis or corrective--of the\nPlatonic Apology. For that reason, I notice it immediately after the\nApology: though I do not venture to affirm confidently that it was\ncomposed immediately after: it may possibly have been later, as I\nbelieve the Ph\u00e6don also to have been later.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Steinhart affirms with confidence that the Kriton was\ncomposed immediately after the Apology, and shortly after the death of\nSokrates (Einleitung, p. 303). The fact may be so, but I do not feel\nthus confident of it when I look to the analogy of the later Ph\u00e6don.]\n\n[Side-note: Subject of the dialogue--interlocutors.]\n\nThe Kriton describes a conversation between Sokrates and his friend\nKriton in the prison, after condemnation, and two days before the cup\nof hemlock was administered. Kriton entreats and urges Sokrates (as\nthe sympathising friends had probably done frequently during the\nthirty days of imprisonment) to make his escape from the prison,\ninforming him that arrangements have already been made for enabling\nhim to escape with ease and safety, and that money as well as good\nrecommendations will be provided, so that he may dwell comfortably\neither in Thessaly, or wherever else he pleases. Sokrates ought not,\nin justice to his children and his friends, to refuse the opportunity\noffered, and thus to throw away his life. Should he do so, it will\nappear to every one as if his friends had shamefully failed in their\nduty, when intervention on their part might easily have saved him. He\nmight have avoided the trial altogether: even when on trial, he might\neasily have escaped the capital sentence. Here is now a third\nopportunity of rescue, which if he declines, it will turn this grave\nand painful affair into mockery, as if he and his friends were\nimpotent simpletons.[2] Besides the mournful character of the event,\nSokrates and his friends will thus be disgraced in the opinion of\nevery one.\n\n[Footnote 2: Plato, Krito. c. 5, p. 45 E. [Greek: \u00f4(s e)/g\u00f4ge kai\\\nu(pe\\r sou= kai\\ u(pe\\r \u00ea(m\u00f4=n t\u00f4=n s\u00f4=n e)pit\u00eadei/\u00f4n ai)schu/nomai,\nm\u00ea\\ do/x\u00ea| a(/pan to\\ pra=gma to\\ peri\\ se\\ a)nandri/a| tini\\ t\u00ea=|\n\u00ea(mete/ra| pepra=chthai, kai\\ \u00ea( ei)/sodos t\u00ea=s di/k\u00eas ei)s to\\\ndikast\u00ea/rion, \u00f4(s ei)s\u00ea=lthes, e)xo\\n m\u00ea\\ ei)selthei=n, kai\\ au)to\\s\no( a)g\u00f4\\n t\u00ea=s di/k\u00eas \u00f4(s e)ge/neto, kai\\ to\\ teleutai=on d\u00ea\\ touti/,\n\u00f4(/sper katage/l\u00f4s t\u00ea=s pra/xe\u00f4s, kaki/a| tini\\ kai\\ a)nandri/a| t\u00ea=|\n\u00ea(mete/ra| diapepheuge/nai \u00ea(ma=s dokei=n, oi(tine/s se ou)chi\\\ne)s\u00f4/samen ou)de\\ su\\ sauto/n, oi(=o/n te o)\\n kai\\ dunato/n, ei)/ ti\nkai\\ smikro\\n \u00ea(m\u00f4=n o)/phelos \u00ea)=n].\n\nThis is a remarkable passage, as evincing both the trial and the death\nof Sokrates, even in the opinion of his own friends, might have been\navoided without anything which they conceived dishonourable to his\ncharacter.\n\nProfessor K\u00f6chly puts this point very forcibly in his _Vortrag_,\nreferred to in my notes on the Platonic Apology, p. 410 seq.]\n\n[Side-note: Answer of Sokrates to the appeal made by Kriton.]\n\n\"Disgraced in the opinion of every one,\" replies Sokrates? That is not\nthe proper test by which the propriety of your recommendation must be\ndetermined. I am now, as I always have been, prepared to follow\nnothing but that voice of reason which approves itself to me in\ndiscussion as the best and soundest.[3] We have often discussed this\nmatter before, and the conclusions on which we agreed are not to be\nthrown aside because of my impending death. We agreed that the\nopinions general among men ought not to be followed in all cases, but\nonly in some: that the good opinions, those of the wise men, were to\nbe followed--the bad opinions, those of the foolish men, to be\ndisregarded. In the treatment and exercise of the body, we must not\nattend to the praise, the blame, or the opinion of every man, but only\nto those of the one professional trainer or physician. If we disregard\nthis one skilful man, and conduct ourselves according to the praise or\nblame of the unskilful public, our body will become corrupted and\ndisabled, so that life itself will not be worth having.\n\n[Footnote 3: Plato, Krito. c. 6, p. 46 B. [Greek: \u00f4(s e)g\u00f4\\ ou) mo/non\nnu=n a)lla\\ kai\\ a)ei\\ toiou=tos, oi(=os t\u00f4=n e)m\u00f4=n m\u00eadeni\\ a)/ll\u00f4|\npei/thesthai \u00ea)\\ t\u00f4=| lo/g\u00f4|, o(\\s a)/n moi logizome/n\u00f4| be/ltistos\nphai/n\u00eatai.]]\n\n[Side-note: He declares that the judgment of the general public is not\nworthy of trust: he appeals to the judgment of the one Expert, who is\nwise on the matter in debate.]\n\nIn like manner, on the question what is just and unjust, honourable or\nbase, good or evil, to which our present subject belongs--we must not\nyield to the praise and censure of the many, but only to that of the\none, whoever he may be, who is wise on these matters.[4] We must be\nafraid and ashamed of him more than of all the rest. Not the verdict\nof the many, but that of the one man skilful about just and unjust,\nand that of truth itself, must be listened to. Otherwise we shall\nsuffer the like debasement and corruption of mind as of body in the\nformer case. Life will become yet more worthless. True--the many may\nput us to death. But what we ought to care for most, is, not simply to\nlive, but to live well, justly, honourably.[5]\n\n[Footnote 4: Plato, Krito. c. 7, p. 47 C-D. [Greek: kai\\ d\u00ea\\ kai\\\nperi\\ t\u00f4=n dikai/\u00f4n kai\\ a)di/k\u00f4n, kai\\ ai)schr\u00f4=n kai\\ kal\u00f4=n, kai\\\na)gath\u00f4=n kai\\ kak\u00f4=n, peri\\ \u00f4(=n nu=n \u00ea( boul\u00ea\\ \u00ea(mi=n e)stin,\npo/teron t\u00ea=| t\u00f4=n poll\u00f4=n do/x\u00ea| dei= \u00ea(ma=s e(/pesthai kai\\\nphobei=sthai au)t\u00ea/n, \u00ea)\\ t\u00ea=| tou= e(no/s, ei)/ ti/s e)stin\ne)pai+/\u00f4n, o(\\n dei= kai\\ ai)schu/nesthai kai\\ phobei=sthai ma=llon\n\u00ea)\\ xu/mpantas tou\\s a)/llous?]\n\nc. 8, p. 48 A. [Greek: Ou)k a)/ra pa/nu \u00ea(mi=n ou(/t\u00f4 phrontiste/on\no(/, ti e)rou=sin oi( polloi\\ \u00ea(ma=s, a)ll' o(\\, ti o( e)pai+/\u00f4n peri\\\nt\u00f4=n dikai/\u00f4n kai\\ a)di/k\u00f4n, o( ei)=s, kai\\ au)t\u00ea\\ \u00ea( a)l\u00ea/theia.]]\n\n[Footnote 5: Plato, Krito. c. 7-8, pp. 47-48.]\n\nSokrates thus proceeds:--\n\nThe point to be decided, therefore, with reference to your\nproposition, Kriton, is, not what will be generally said if I decline,\nbut whether it will be just or unjust--right or wrong--if I comply;\nthat is, if I consent to escape from prison against the will of the\nAthenians and against the sentence of law.\n\n[Side-note: Principles laid down by Sokrates for determining the\nquestion with Kriton. Is the proceeding recommended just or unjust?\nNever in any case to act unjustly.]\n\nTo decide the point, I assume this principle, which we have\n\noften before agreed upon in our reasonings, and which must stand\nunshaken now.[6]\n\n[Footnote 6: Plato, Krito. c. 9, p. 48 E. [Greek: o(/ra de\\ d\u00ea\\ _t\u00ea=s\nske/pse\u00f4s t\u00ea\\n a)rch\u00ea/n_], &c.]\n\nWe ought not in any case whatever to act wrong or unjustly. To act so\nis in every case both bad for the agent and dishonourable to the\nagent, whatever may be its consequences. Even though others act wrong\nto us, we ought not to act wrong to them in return. Even though others\ndo evil to us, we ought not to do evil to them in return.[7]\n\n[Footnote 7: Plato, Krito. c. 10, p. 49 B. [Greek: Ou)de\\\na)dikou/menon a)/ra a)ntadikei=n, _\u00f4(s oi( polloi\\ oi)/ontai_,\ne)peid\u00ea/ ge ou)dam\u00f4=s dei = a)dikei=n], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates admits that few will agree with him, and that\nmost persons hold the opposite opinion: but he affirms that the point\nis cardinal.]\n\nThis is the principle which I assume as true, though I know that very\nfew persons hold it, or ever will hold it. Most men say the contrary--that\nwhen other persons do wrong or harm to us, we may do wrong or\nharm to them in return. This is a cardinal point. Between those who\naffirm it, and those who deny it, there can be no common measure or\nreasoning. Reciprocal contempt is the sentiment with which, by\nnecessity, each contemplates the other's resolutions.[8]\n\n[Footnote 8: Plato. Krito. c. 10, p. 49 D. [Greek: Oi)=da ga\\r o(/ti\no)li/gois tisi\\ tau=ta kai\\ dokei= kai\\ do/xei; O(=is ou)=n ou(/t\u00f4\nde/doktai kai\\ oi(=s m\u00ea/, _tou/tois ou)k e)/sti koin\u00ea\\ boul\u00ea/, a)ll'\na)na/gk\u00ea tou/tous a)ll\u00ea/l\u00f4n kataphronei=n, o(r\u00f4ntas ta\\ a)ll\u00ea/l\u00f4n\nbouleu/mata_. Sko/pei d\u00ea\\ ou)=n kai\\ su\\ eu)= ma/la, po/teron\nkoin\u00f4nei=s kai\\ xundokei= soi; kai\\ _a)rch\u00f4/metha e)nteu=then\nbouleuo/menoi_, \u00f4(s ou)de/pote o)rth\u00f4=s e)/chontos ou)/te tou=\na)dikei=n ou)/te tou= a)ntadikei=n, ou)/te kak\u00f4=s pa/schonta\na)mu/nesthai a)ntidr\u00f4=nta kak\u00f4=s].\n\nCompare the opposite impulse, to revenge yourself upon your country\nfrom which you believe yourself to have received wrong, set forth in\nthe speech of Alkibiades at Sparta after he had been exiled by the\nAthenians. Thucyd. vi. 92. [Greek: to/ te philo/poli ou)k e)n \u00f4(=|\na)dikou=mai e)/ch\u00f4, a)ll' e)n \u00f4(=| a)sphal\u00f4=s e)politeu/th\u00ean.]]\n\n[Side-note: Pleading supposed to be addressed by the Laws of Athens to\nSokrates, demanding from him implicit obedience.]\n\nSokrates then delivers a well-known and eloquent pleading, wherein he\nimagines the Laws of Athens to remonstrate with him on his purpose of\nsecretly quitting the prison, in order to evade a sentence legally\npronounced. By his birth, and long residence in Athens, he has entered\ninto a covenant to obey exactly and faithfully what the laws\nprescribe. Though the laws should deal unjustly with him, he has no\nright of redress against them--neither by open disobedience, nor\nforce, nor evasion. Their rights over him are even more uncontrolled\nand indefeasible than those of his father and mother. The laws allow\nto every citizen full liberty of trying to persuade the assembled\npublic: but the citizen who fails in persuading, must obey the public\nwhen they enact a law adverse to his views. Sokrates having been\ndistinguished beyond all others for the constancy of his residence at\nAthens, has thus shown that he was well satisfied with the city, and\nwith those laws without which it could not exist as a city. If he now\nviolates his covenants and his duty, by breaking prison like a runaway\nslave, he will forfeit all the reputation to which he has pretended\nduring his long life, as a preacher of justice and virtue.[9]\n\n[Footnote 9: Plato, Krito. c. 11-17, pp. 50-54.]\n\n[Side-note: Purpose of Plato in this pleading--to present the\ndispositions of Sokrates in a light different from that which the\nApology had presented--unqualified submission instead of defiance.]\n\nThis striking discourse, the general drift of which I have briefly\ndescribed, appears intended by Plato--as far as I can pretend to guess\nat his purpose--to set forth the personal character and dispositions\nof Sokrates in a light different from that which they present in the\nApology. In defending himself before the Dikasts, Sokrates had exalted\nhimself into a position which would undoubtedly be construed by his\nauditors as disobedience and defiance to the city and its\ninstitutions. He professed to be acting under a divine mission, which\nwas of higher authority than the enactments of his countrymen: he\nwarned them against condemning him, because his condemnation would be\na mischief, not to him, but to them and because by doing so they would\nrepudiate and maltreat the missionary sent to them by the Delphian God\nas a valuable present.[10] In the judgment of the Athenian Dikasts,\nSokrates by using such language had put himself above the laws; thus\nconfirming the charge which his accusers advanced, and which they\njustified by some of his public remarks. He had manifested by\nunmistakable language the same contempt for the Athenian constitution\nas that which had been displayed in act by Kritias and Alkibiades,[11]\nwith whom his own name was associated as teacher and companion.[12]\nXenophon in his Memorabilia recognises this impression as prevalent\namong his countrymen against Sokrates, and provides what he thinks a\nsuitable answer to it. Plato also has his way of answering it; and\nsuch I imagine to be the dramatic purpose of the Kriton.\n\n[Footnote 10: Plato, Apol. c. 17-18, p. 29-30.]\n\n[Footnote 11: This was among the charges urged against Sokrates by\nAnytus and the other accusers (Xen. Mem. i. 2, 9. [Greek: u(perora=|n\ne)poi/ei t\u00f4=n kathest\u00f4/t\u00f4n no/m\u00f4n tou\\s suno/ntas]). It was also the\njudgment formed respecting Sokrates by the Roman censor, the elder\nCato; a man very much like the Athenian Anytus, constitutional and\npatriotic as a citizen, devoted to the active duties of political\nlife, but thoroughly averse to philosophy and speculative debate, as\nAnytus is depicted in the Menon of Plato.--Plutarch, Cato c. 23, a\npassage already cited in a note on the chapter next but one preceding.\n\nThe accusation of \"putting himself above the laws,\" appears in the\nsame way in the Nubes of Aristophanes, 1035-1400, &c.:--\n\n[Greek: \u00f4(s \u00ea(du\\ kainoi=s pra/gmasin kai\\ dexioi=s o(milei=n\nkai\\ t\u00f4=n kathest\u00f4/t\u00f4n no/m\u00f4n u(per phronei=n du/nasthai].\n\nCompare the rhetor Aristeides--[Greek: U(pe\\r t\u00f4=n Tetta/r\u00f4n], p. 133;\nvol. iii. p. 480, Dindorf.]\n\n[Footnote 12: The dramatic position of Sokrates has been compared by\nK\u00f6chly, p. 382, very suitably with that of Antigon\u00e9, who, in burying\nher deceased brother, acts upon her own sense of right and family\naffections, in defiance of an express interdict from sovereign\nauthority. This tragical conflict of obligations, indicated by\nAristotle as an ethical question suited for dialectic debate (Topic.\ni. p. 105, b. 22), was handled by all the three great tragedians; and\nhas been ennobled by Sophokles in one of his best remaining tragedies.\nThe Platonic Apology presents many points of analogy with the\nAntigon\u00e9, while the Platonic Kriton carries us into an opposite vein\nof sentiment. Sokrates after sentence, and Antigon\u00e9 after sentence,\nare totally different persons. The young maiden, though adhering with\nunshaken conviction to the rectitude of her past disobedience, cannot\nsubmit to the sentence of death without complaint and protestation.\nThough above all fear she is clamorous in remonstrances against both\nthe injustice of the sentence and the untimely close of her career: so\nthat she is obliged to be dragged away by the officers (Soph. Antig.\n870-877; compare 497-508, with Plato, Krito. p. 49 C; Apolog. p. 28 D,\n29 C). All these points enhance the interest of the piece, and are\nsuited to a destined bride in the flower of her age. But an old\nphilosopher of seventy years of age has no such attachment to life\nremaining. He contemplates death with the eye of calm reason: he has\nnot only silenced \"the child within us who fears death\" (to use the\nremarkable phrase of Plato, Ph\u00e6don, p. 77 E), but he knows well that\nwhat remains to him of life must be short; that it will probably be of\nlittle value, with diminished powers, mental as well as bodily; and\nthat if passed in exile, it will be of no value at all. To close his\nlife with dignity is the best thing which can happen to him. While by\nescape from the prison he would have gained little or nothing; he is\nenabled, by refusing the means of escape, to manifest an ostentatious\ndeference to the law, and to make peace with the Athenian authorities\nafter the opposition which had been declared in his Apology. Both in\nthe Kriton and in the Ph\u00e6don, Sokrates exhibits the specimen of a man\nadhering to previous conviction, unaffected by impending death, and by\nthe apprehensions which that season brings upon ordinary minds;\nestimating all things then as before, with the same tranquil and\nindependent reason.]\n\n[Side-note: Harangue of Sokrates delivered in the name of the Laws,\nwould have been applauded by all the democratical patriots of Athens.]\n\nThis dialogue puts into the mouth of Sokrates a rhetorical harangue\nforcible and impressive, which he supposes himself to hear from\npersonified Nomos or Athens, claiming for herself and her laws plenary\nand unmeasured obedience from all her citizens, as a covenant due to\nher from each. He declares his own heartfelt adhesion to the claim.\nSokrates is thus made to express the feelings and repeat the language\nof a devoted democratical patriot. His doctrine is one which every\nAthenian audience would warmly applaud--whether heard from speakers in\nthe assembly, from litigants in the Dikastery, or from dramatists in\nthe theatre. It is a doctrine which orators of all varieties\n(Perikles, Nikias, Kleon, Lysis, Isokrates, Demosthenes, \u00c6schines,\nLykurgus) would be alike emphatic in upholding: upon which probably\nSophists habitually displayed their own eloquence, and tested the\ntalents of their pupils. It may be considered as almost an Athenian\ncommon-place. Hence it is all the better fitted for Plato's purpose of\nrestoring Sokrates to harmony with his fellow-citizens. It serves as\nhis protestation of allegiance to Athens, in reply to the adverse\nimpressions prevalent against him. The only singularity which bestows\nspecial pertinence on that which is in substance a discourse of\nvenerated common-place, is--that Sokrates proclaims and applies his\ndoctrine of absolute submission, under the precise circumstances in\nwhich many others, generally patriotic, might be disposed to recede\nfrom it--where he is condemned (unjustly, in his own persuasion) to\nsuffer death--yet has the opportunity to escape. He is thus presented\nas a citizen not merely of ordinary loyalty but of extraordinary\npatriotism. Moreover his remarkable constancy of residence at Athens\nis produced as evidence, showing that the city was eminently\nacceptable to him, and that he had no cause of complaint against\nit.[13]\n\n[Footnote 13: Plato, Krito. c. 14, p. 52 B. [Greek: ou) ga\\r a)/n pote\nt\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n A)th\u00eanai/\u00f4n a(pa/nt\u00f4n diaphero/nt\u00f4s e)n au)t\u00ea=|\ne)ped\u00ea/meis, ei) m\u00ea/ soi diaphero/nt\u00f4s \u00ea)/reske;] c. 12, p. 50 D.\n[Greek: phe/re ga/r, ti/ e)gkal\u00f4=n \u00ea(li=n te kai\\ t\u00ea=| po/lei\ne)picheirei=s \u00ea(ma=s a)pollu/nai?]]\n\n[Side-note: The harangue insists upon topics common to Sokrates with\nother citizens, overlooking the specialties of his character.]\n\nThroughout all this eloquent appeal addressed by Athens to her citizen\nSokrates, the points insisted on are those common to him with other\ncitizens: the marked specialties of his character being left\nunnoticed. Such are the points suitable to the purpose (rather\nXenophontic than Platonic, herein) of the Kriton; when Sokrates is to\nbe brought back within the pale of democratical citizenship, and\nexculpated from the charge of incivism. But when we read the language\nof Sokrates both in the Apology and in the Gorgias, we find a very\ndifferent picture given of the relations between him and Athens. We\nfind him there presented as an isolated and eccentric individual, a\ndissenter, not only departing altogether from the character and\npurposes general among his fellow-citizens, but also certain to incur\ndangerous antipathy, in so far as he publicly proclaimed what he was.\nThe Kriton takes him up as having become a victim to such antipathy:\nyet as reconciling himself with the laws by voluntarily accepting the\nsentence; and as persuaded to do so, moreover, by a piece of rhetoric\nimbued with the most genuine spirit of constitutional democracy. It is\nthe compromise of his long-standing dissent with the reigning\northodoxy, just before his death. [Greek: E)n eu)ph\u00eami/a| chr\u00ea\\\nteleuta=|n].[14]\n\n[Footnote 14: Plato, Ph\u00e6don, p. 117 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Still Sokrates is represented as adopting the resolution\nto obey, from his own conviction; by a reason which weighs with him,\nbut which would not weigh with others.]\n\nStill, however, though adopting the democratical vein of sentiment for\nthis purpose, Sokrates is made to adopt it on a ground peculiar to\nhimself. His individuality is thus upheld. He holds the sentence\npronounced against him to have been unjust, but he renounces all use\nof that plea, because the sentence has been legally pronounced by the\njudicial authority of the city, and because he has entered into a\ncovenant with the city. He entertains the firm conviction that no one\nought to act unjustly, or to do evil to others, in any case; not even\nin the case in which they have done injustice or evil to him. \"This\n(says Sokrates) is my conviction, and the principle of my reasoning.\nFew persons do accept it, or ever will: yet between those who do\naccept it, and those who do not--there can be no common counsel: by\nnecessity of the case, each looks upon the other, and upon the\nreasonings of the other, with contempt.\"[15]\n\n[Footnote 15: Plato, Kriton c. 10, p. 49 D.; see p. 428, note i.]\n\n[Side-note: The harangue is not a corollary from this Sokratic reason,\nbut represents feelings common among Athenian citizens.]\n\nThis general doctrine, peculiar to Sokrates, is decisive _per se_, in\nits application to the actual case, and might have been made to\nconclude the dialogue. But Sokrates introduces it as a foundation to\nthe arguments urged by the personified Athenian Nomos:--which,\nhowever, are not corollaries from it, nor at all peculiar to Sokrates,\nbut represent sentiments held by the Athenian democrats more cordially\nthan they were by Sokrates. It is thus that the dialogue Kriton\nembodies, and tries to reconcile, both the two distinct\nelements--constitutional allegiance, and Sokratic individuality.\n\n[Side-note: Emphatic declaration of the authority of individual reason\nand conscience, for the individual himself.]\n\nApart from the express purpose of this dialogue, however, the general\ndoctrine here proclaimed by Sokrates deserves attention, in regard to\nthe other Platonic dialogues which we shall soon review. The doctrine\ninvolves an emphatic declaration of the paramount authority of\nindividual reason and conscience; for the individual himself--but for\nhim alone. \"This (says Sokrates) is, and has long been _my_\nconviction. It is the basis of the whole reasoning. Look well whether\nyou agree to it: for few persons do agree to it, or ever will: and\nbetween those who do and those who do not, there can be no common\ndeliberation: they must of necessity despise each other.\"[16] Here we\nhave the Protagorean dogma, _Homo Mensura_--which Sokrates will be\nfound combating in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus--proclaimed by Sokrates himself. As\nthings appear to me, so they are to me: as they appear to you, so they\nare to you. My reason and conscience is the measure for me: yours for\nyou. It is for you to see whether yours agrees with mine.\n\n[Footnote 16: Plato, Kriton c. 10, p. 49 D.; see p. 428, note i.]\n\nI shall revert to this doctrine in handling other Platonic dialogues,\nparticularly the The\u00e6t\u00eatus.\n\n[Side-note: The Kriton is rhetorical, not dialectical. Difference\nbetween Rhetoric and Dialectic.]\n\nI have already observed that the tone of the Kriton is rhetorical, not\ndialectical--especially the harangue ascribed to Athens. The business\nof the rhetorician is to plant and establish some given point of\npersuasion, whether as to a general resolution or a particular fact,\nin the bosoms of certain auditors before him: hence he gives\nprominence and emphasis to some views of the question, suppressing or\ndiscrediting others, and especially keeping out of sight all the\ndifficulties surrounding the conclusion at which he is aiming. On the\nother hand, the business of the dialectician is, not to establish any\nforeknown conclusion, but to find out which among all supposable\nconclusions are untenable, and which is the most tenable or best.\nHence all the difficulties attending every one of them must be brought\nfully into view and discussed: until this has been done, the process\nis not terminated, nor can we tell whether any assured conclusion is\nattainable or not.\n\nNow Plato, in some of his dialogues, especially the Gorgias, greatly\ndepreciates rhetoric and its purpose of persuasion: elsewhere he\nemploys it himself with ability and effect. The discourse which we\nread in the Kriton is one of his best specimens: appealing to\npre-established and widespread emotions, veneration for parents, love of\ncountry, respect for covenants--to justify the resolution of Sokrates\nin the actual case: working up these sentiments into fervour, but\nneglecting all difficulties, limits, and counter-considerations:\nassuming that the familiar phrases of ethics and politics are\nperfectly understood and indisputable.\n\n[Side-note: The Kriton makes powerful appeal to the emotions, but\noverlooks the ratiocinative difficulties, or supposes them to be\nsolved.]\n\nBut these last-mentioned elements--difficulties, qualifications,\nnecessity for definitions even of the most hackneyed words--would have\nbeen brought into the foreground had Sokrates pursued the dialectical\npath, which (as we know both from Xenophon and Plato) was his real\nhabit and genius. He was perpetually engaged (says Xenophon[17]) in\ndialectic enquiry. \"Wheat is the Holy, what is the Unholy? What is the\nHonourable and the Base? What is the Just and the Unjust? &c.\" Now in\nthe rhetorical appeal embodied in the Kriton, the important question,\nWhat is the Just and the Unjust (_i.e._ Justice and Injustice in\ngeneral), is assumed to be already determined and out of the reach of\ndispute. We are called upon to determine what is just and unjust in a\nparticular case, as if we already knew what justice and injustice\nmeant generally: to inquire about modifications of justice, before we\nhave ascertained its essence. This is the fundamental assumption\ninvolved in the rhetorical process; which assumption we shall find\nPlato often deprecating as unphilosophical and preposterous.\n\n[Footnote 17: Xenoph. Mem. i. 1, 16. [Greek: Au)to\\s de\\ peri\\ t\u00f4=n\na)nthr\u00f4pei/\u00f4n a)ei\\ diele/geto, skop\u00f4=n, ti/ eu)sebe/s, ti/ a)sebe/s;\nti/ kalo/n, ti/ ai)schro/n; ti/ di/kaion, ti/ a)/dikon; ti/\ns\u00f4phrosu/n\u00ea, ti/ mani/a; ti/ a)ndrei/a, ti/ deili/a; ti/ po/lis, ti/\npolitiko/s; ti/ a)rch\u00ea\\ a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n, ti/ a)rchiko\\s a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n], &c.\n\nWe see in Xenoph. Memor. i. 2, 40-46, iv. 2, 37, in the Platonic\ndialogue Minos and elsewhere, the number of dialectic questions which\nSokrates might have brought to bear upon the harangue in the Kriton,\nhad it been delivered by any opponent whom he sought to perplex or\nconfute. What is a law? what are the limits of obedience to the laws?\nAre there no limits (as Hobbes is so much denounced for maintaining)?\nWhile the oligarchy of Thirty were the constituted authority at\nAthens, they ordered Sokrates himself, together with four other\ncitizens, to go and arrest a citizen whom they considered dangerous to\nthe state, the Salaminian Leon. The other four obeyed the order;\nSokrates alone disobeyed, and takes credit for having done so,\nconsidering Leon to be innocent. Which was in the right here? the four\nobedient citizens, or the one disobedient? Might not the four have\nused substantially the same arguments to justify their obedience, as\nthose which Sokrates hears from personified Athens in the Kriton? We\nmust remember that the Thirty had come into authority by resolutions\npassed under constitutional forms, when fear of foreign enemies\ninduced the people to sanction the resolutions proposed by a party\namong themselves. The Thirty also ordered Sokrates to abstain from\ndiscourse with young men; he disobeyed (Xenoph. Memor. iv. 4, 3). Was\nhe right in disobeying?\n\nI have indicated briefly these questions, to show how completely the\nrhetorical manner of the Kriton submerges all those difficulties,\nwhich would form the special matter of genuine Sokratic dialectics.\n\nSchleiermacher (Einleit. zum Kriton, pp. 233, 234) considers the\nKriton as a composition of special occasion--Gelegenheitsschrift--which\nI think is true; but which may be said also, in my judgment, of\nevery Platonic dialogue. The term, however, in Schleiermacher's\nwriting, has a peculiar meaning, viz. a composition for which there is\nno place in the regular rank and file of the Platonic dialogues, as he\nmarshals them. He remarks the absence of dialectic in the Kriton, and\nhe adduces this as one reason for supposing it not to be genuine.\n\nBut it is no surprise to me to find Plato rhetorical in one dialogue,\ndialectical in others. Variety, and want of system, seem to me among\nhis most manifest attributes.\n\nThe view taken of the Kriton by Steinhart (Einleit. pp. 291-302), in\nthe first page of his very rhetorical Introduction, coincides pretty\nmuch with mine.]\n\nSo far indeed Sokrates goes in this dialogue, to affirm a positive\nanalogy. That Just and Honourable are, to the mind, what health and\nstrength are to the body:--Unjust and Base, what distemper and\nweakness are to the body. And he follows this up by saying, that the\ngeneral public are incompetent to determine what is just or\nhonourable--as they are incompetent to decide what is wholesome or\nunwholesome. Respecting both one and the other, you must consult some\none among the professional Experts, who alone are competent to\nadvise.[18]\n\n[Footnote 18: Plato, Kriton, c. 7, p. 47 D. [Greek: tou= e(no\\s, ei)/\nti/s e)stin e)pai+/\u00f4n], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Incompetence of the general public or\n[Greek: i)di\u00f4=tai]--appeal to the professional Expert.]\n\nBoth these two doctrines will be found recurring often, in our survey\nof the dialogues. The first of the two is an obscure and imperfect\nreply to the great Sokratic problem--What is Justice? What is\nInjustice? but it is an analogy useful to keep in mind, as a help to\nthe exposition of many passages in which Plato is yet more obscure.\nThe second of the two will also recur frequently. It sets out an\nantithesis of great moment in the Platonic dialogues--\"The one\nspecially instructed, professional, theorizing, Expert--_versus_ (the\n[Greek: i)di\u00f4=tai] of the time and place, or) common sense, common\nsentiment, intuition, instinct, prejudice,\" &c. (all these names\nmeaning the same objective reality, but diversified according as the\nspeaker may happen to regard the particular case to which he is\nalluding). This antithesis appears as an answer when we put the\nquestion--What is the ultimate authority? where does the right of\nfinal decision reside, on problems and disputes ethical, political,\n\u00e6sthetical? It resides (Sokrates here answers) with some one among a\nfew professional Experts. They are the only persons competent.\n\n[Side-note: Procedure of Sokrates after this comparison has been\ndeclared--he does not name who the trustworthy Expert is.]\n\nI shall go more fully into this question elsewhere. Here I shall\nmerely notice the application which Sokrates makes (in the Kriton) of\nthe general doctrine. We might anticipate that after having declared\nthat none was fit to pronounce upon the Just and the Unjust, except a\nprofessional Expert,--he would have proceeded to name some person\ncorresponding to that designation--to justify the title of that person\nto confidence by such evidences as Plato requires in other dialogues--and\nthen to cite the decision of the judge named, on the case in hand.\nThis is what Sokrates would have done, if the case had been one of\nhealth or sickness. He would have said \"I appeal to Hippokrates,\nAkumenus, &c., as professional Experts on medicine: they have given\nproof of competence by special study, successful practice, writing,\nteaching, &c.: they pronounce so and so\". He would not have considered\nhimself competent to form a judgment or announce a decision of his\nown.\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates acts as the Expert himself: he finds authority in\nhis own reason and conscience.]\n\nBut here, when the case in hand is that of Just and Unjust, the\nconduct of Sokrates is altogether different. He specifies no\nprofessional Expert, and he proceeds to lay down a dogma of his own;\nin which he tells us that few or none will agree, though it is\nfundamental, so that dissenters on the point must despise each other\nas heretics. We thus see that it is he alone who steps in to act\nhimself the part of professional Expert, though he does not openly\nassume the title. The ultimate authority is proclaimed in words to\nreside with some unnamed Expert: in fact and reality, he finds it in\nhis own reason and conscience. You are not competent to judge for\nyourself: you must consult the professional Expert: but your own\nreason and conscience must signify to you who the Expert is.\n\nThe analogy here produced by Plato of questions about health and\nsickness--is followed out only in its negative operation; as it serves\nto scare away the multitude, and discredit the Vox Populi. But when\nthis has been done, no oracular man can be produced or authenticated.\nIn other dialogues, we shall find Sokrates regretting the absence of\nsuch an oracular man, but professing inability to proceed without him.\nIn the Kriton, he undertakes the duty himself; unmindful of the many\nemphatic speeches in which he had proclaimed his own ignorance, and\ntaken credit for confessing it without reserve.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nEUTHYPHRON.\n\n\nThe dialogue called Euthyphron, over and above its contribution to the\nethical enquiries of Plato, has a certain bearing on the character and\nexculpation of Sokrates. It will therefore come conveniently in\nimmediate sequel to the Apology and the Kriton.\n\n[Side-note: Situation supposed in the dialogue--interlocutors.]\n\nThe indictment by Mel\u00eatus against Sokrates is assumed to have been\nformally entered in the office of the King Archon. Sokrates has come\nto plead to it. In the portico before that office, he meets\nEuthyphron: a man of ultra-pious pretensions, possessing special\nreligious knowledge (either from revelation directly to himself, or\nfrom having been initiated in the various mysteries consecrated\nthroughout Greece), delivering authoritative opinions on doubtful\ntheological points, and prophesying future events.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Plato, Euthyphr. c. 2, p. 3 D; compare Herodot. ii. 51.]\n\nWhat brings you here, Sokrates (asks Euthyphron), away from your usual\nhaunts? Is it possible that any one can have preferred an indictment\nagainst you?\n\n[Side-note: Indictment by Mel\u00eatus against Sokrates--Antipathy of the\nAthenians towards those who spread heretical opinions.]\n\nYes (replies Sokrates), a young man named Mel\u00eatus. He takes\ncommendable interest in the training of youth, and has indicted me as\na corruptor of youth. He says that I corrupt them by teaching belief\nin new gods, and unbelief in the true and ancient Gods.\n\n_Euthyph._--I understand: it is because you talk about the D\u00e6mon or\nGenius often communicating with you, that Mel\u00eatus calls you an\ninnovator in religion. He knows that such calumnies find ready\nadmission with most minds.[2] So also, people laugh at me, when I talk\nabout religion, and when I predict future events in the assembly. It\nmust be from jealousy; because all that I have predicted has come\ntrue.\n\n[Footnote 2: Plato, Euthyph. c. 2, p. 3 B: [Greek: ph\u00easi\\ ga/r me\npoi\u00eat\u00ea\\n ei)=nai the\u00f4=n kai\\ \u00f4(s kainou\\s poiou=nta theou/s, tou\\s d'\na)rchai/ous ou) nomi/zonta, e)gra/psato tou/t\u00f4n au)t\u00f4=n e(/neka, \u00f4(/s\nph\u00easin]. c. 5, p. 5 A: [Greek: au)toschedia/zonta kai\\ kainotomou=nta\nperi\\ t\u00f4=n thei/\u00f4n e)xamarta/nein].]\n\n_Sokr._--To be laughed at is no great matter. The Athenians do not\ncare much when they regard a man as overwise, but as not given to\nteach his wisdom to others: but when they regard him besides, as\nlikely to make others such as he is himself, they become seriously\nangry with him--be it from jealousy, as you say, or from any other\ncause. You keep yourself apart, and teach no one; for my part, I\ndelight in nothing so much as in teaching all that I know. If they\ntake the matter thus seriously, the result may be very doubtful.[3]\n\n[Footnote 3: Plato, Euthyphr. c. 3, p. 3 C.-D. [Greek: A)th\u00eanai/ois\nga\\r ou) spho/dra me/lei, a)/n tina deino\\n oi)/\u00f4ntai ei)=nai, m\u00ea\\\nme/ntoi didaskaliko\\n t\u00ea=s au)tou= sophi/as; o(\\n d' a)\\n kai\\\na)/llous oi)/\u00f4ntai poiei=n toiou/tous, thumou=ntai, ei)=t' ou)=n\nphtho/n\u00f4|, \u00f4(s su\\ le/geis, ei)/te di' a)/llo ti.]]\n\n[Side-note: Euthyphron recounts that he is prosecuting an indictment\nfor murder against his own father--Displeasure of his friends at the\nproceeding.]\n\nSokrates now learns what is Euthyphron's business at the archontic\noffice. Euthyphron is prosecuting an indictment before the King\nArchon, against his own father; as having caused the death of a\ndependent workman, who in a fit of intoxication had quarrelled with\nand killed a fellow-servant. The father of Euthyphron, upon this\noccurrence, bound the homicide hand and foot, and threw him into a\nditch: at the same time sending to the Ex\u00eag\u00eat\u00eas (the canonical\nadviser, supposed to be conversant with the divine sanctions, whom it\nwas customary to consult when doubts arose about sacred things) to ask\nwhat was to be done with him. The incident occurred at Naxos, and the\nmessenger was sent to the Ex\u00eag\u00eat\u00eas at Athens: before he could return,\nthe prisoner had perished, from hunger, cold, and bonds. Euthyphron\nhas indicted his father for homicide, as having caused the death of\nthe prisoner: who (it would appear) had remained in the ditch, tied\nhand and foot, without food, and with no more than his ordinary\nclothing, during the time occupied in the voyage from Naxos to Athens,\nin obtaining the answer of the Ex\u00eag\u00eat\u00eas, and in returning to Naxos.\n\nMy friends and relatives (says Euthyphron) cry out against me for this\nproceeding, as if I were mad. They say that my father did not kill the\nman:[4] that even if he had, the man had committed murder: lastly,\nthat however the case may have been, to indict my own father is\nmonstrous and inexcusable. Such reasoning is silly. The only point to\nbe considered is, whether my father killed the deceased justly or\nunjustly. If justly there is nothing to be said; if unjustly, then my\nfather becomes a man tainted with impiety and accursed. I and every\none else, who, knowing the facts, live under the same roof and at the\nsame table with him, come under the like curse; unless I purify myself\nby bringing him to justice. The course which I am now taking is\nprescribed by piety or holiness. My friends indeed tell me that it is\nunholy for a son to indict his father. But I know better than they,\nwhat holiness is and I should be ashamed of myself if I did not.[5]\n\n[Footnote 4: According to the Attic law every citizen was bound, in\ncase any one of his relatives ([Greek: me/chris a)nepsiad\u00f4=n]) or any\nmember of his household ([Greek: oi)ke/t\u00eas]) had been put to death, to\ncome forward as prosecutor and indict the murderer. This was binding\nupon the citizen alike in law and in religion.\n\nDemosthen. cont. Euerg. et Mnesibul. p. 1161. Jul. Pollux, viii. 118.\n\nEuthyphron would thus have been considered as acting with propriety,\nif the person indicted had been a stranger.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 4, p. 4. Respecting the [Greek:\nmi/asma], which a person who had committed criminal homicide was\nsupposed to carry about with him wherever he went, communicating it\nboth to places and to companions, see Antiphon. Tetralog. i. 2, 5, 10;\niii. s. 7, p. 116; and De Herodis C\u00e6de s. 81, p. 139. The argument\nhere employed by Euthyphron is used also by the Platonic Sokrates in\nthe Gorgias, 480 C-D. If a man has committed injustice, punishment is\nthe only way of curing him. That he should escape unpunished is the\nworst thing that can happen to him. If you yourself, or your father,\nor your friend, have committed injustice, do not seek to avert the\npunishment either from yourself or them, but rather invoke it. This is\nexactly what Euthyphron is doing, and what the Platonic Sokrates (in\ndialogue Euthyphron) calls in question.]\n\n[Side-note: Euthyphron expresses full confidence that this step of his\nis both required and warranted by piety or holiness. Sokrates asks\nhim--What is Holiness?]\n\nI confess myself (says Sokrates) ignorant respecting the question,[6]\nand I shall be grateful if you will teach me: the rather as I shall be\nable to defend myself better against Mel\u00eatus. Tell me what is the\ngeneral constituent feature of _Holiness_? What is that common\nessence, or same character, which belongs to and distinguishes all\nholy or pious acts?[7]\n\n[Footnote 6: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 6 B. [Greek: ti/ ga\\r kai\\\nph\u00ea/somen, oi(/ ge kai\\ au)toi\\ o(mologou=men peri\\ au)t\u00f4=n m\u00eade\\n\nei)de/nai?]]\n\n[Footnote 7: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 5 D. Among the various\nreasons (none of them valid in my judgment) given by Ueberweg\n(Untersuch. p. 251) for suspecting the authenticity of the Euthyphron,\none is that [Greek: to\\ a)no/sion] is reckoned as an [Greek: ei)=dos]\nas well as [Greek: to\\ o(/sion]. Ueberweg seems to think this absurd,\nsince he annexes to the word a note of admiration. But Plato expressly\ngives [Greek: to\\ a)/dikon] as an [Greek: ei)=dos], along with [Greek:\nto\\ di/kaion] (Repub. v. 476 A); and one of the objections taken\nagainst his theory by Aristotle was, that it would assume substantive\nIdeas corresponding to negative terms--[Greek: t\u00f4=n a)popha/se\u00f4n\ni)de/as]. See Aristot. Metaphys. A. 990, b. 13, with the Scholion of\nAlexander, p. 565, a. 81, r.]\n\n[Side-note: Euthyphron alludes to the punishment of Uranus by his son\nKronus and of Kronus by his son Zeus.]\n\nIt is holy (replies Euthyphron) to do what I am now doing: to bring to\njustice the man who commits impiety, either by homicide or sacrilege\nor any other such crime, whoever he be--even though it be your own\nfather. The examples of the Gods teach us this. Kronus punished his\nfather Uranus for wrong-doing: Zeus, whom every one holds to be the\nbest and justest of the Gods, did the like by _his_ father Kronus. I\nonly follow their example. Those who blame my conduct contradict\nthemselves when they talk about the Gods and about me.[8]\n\n[Footnote 8: Plato, Euthyphron, p. 5-6.\n\nWe see here that Euthyphron is made to follow out the precept\ndelivered by the Platonic Sokrates in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus and elsewhere--to\nmake himself as like to the Gods as possible--([Greek: o(moi/\u00f4sis\nthe\u00f4=| kata\\ to\\ dunato/n]. The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 176 B; compare Ph\u00e6drus, 252\nC)--only that he conceives the attributes and proceedings of the Gods\ndifferently from Sokrates.]\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates intimates his own hesitation in believing these\nstories of discord among the Gods. Euthyphron declares his full belief\nin them, as well as in many similar narratives, not in so much\ncirculation.]\n\nDo you really confidently believe these stories (asks Sokrates), as\nwell as many others about the discord and conflicts among the Gods,\nwhich are circulated among the public by poets and painters? For my\npart, I have some repugnance in believing them;[9] it is for reason\nprobably, I am now to be indicted, and proclaimed as doing wrong. If\nyou tell me that you are persuaded of their truth, I must bow to your\nsuperior knowledge. I cannot help doing so, since for my part I\npretend to no knowledge whatever about them.\n\n[Footnote 9: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 6 A. [Greek: A)ra/ ge tou=t'\ne)/stin, ou)= e(/neka t\u00ea\\n graph\u00ea\\n pheu/g\u00f4, o(/ti ta\\ toiau=ta\ne)peida/n tis peri\\ t\u00f4=n the\u00f4=n le/g\u00ea|, duscher\u00f4=s p\u00f4s a)pode/chomai?\ndi' a(\\ d\u00ea\\, \u00f4(s e)/oike, ph\u00ea/sei ti/s me e)xamarta/nein.]]\n\nI am persuaded that these narratives are true (says Euthyphron): and\nnot only they, but many other narratives yet more surprising, of which\nmost persons are ignorant. I can tell you some of them, if you like to\nhear. You shall tell me another time (replies Sokrates): now let me\nrepeat my question to you respecting holiness.[10]\n\n[Footnote 10: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 6 C.]\n\n[Side-note: Bearing of this dialogue on the relative position of\nSokrates and the Athenian public.]\n\nBefore we pursue this enquiry respecting holiness, which is the\nportion of the dialogue bearing on the Platonic ethics, I will say one\nword on the portion which has preceded, and which appears to bear on\nthe position and character of Sokrates. He (Sokrates) has incurred\nodium from the Dikastery and the public, because he is heretical and\nincredulous. \"He does not believe in those Gods in whom the city\nbelieves, but introduces religious novelties\"--to use the words of the\nindictment preferred against him by Mel\u00eatus. The Athenian public felt\nthe same displeasure and offence in hearing their divine legends, such\nas those of Zeus and Kronus,[11] called in question or criticised in\nan ethical spirit different from their own--as is felt by Jews or\nChristians when various narratives of the Old Testament are criticised\nin an adverse spirit, and when the proceedings ascribed to Jehovah are\nrepresented as unworthy of a just and beneficent god. We read in\nHerodotus what was the sentiment of pious contemporaries respecting\nnarratives of divine matters. Herodotus keeps back many of them by\ndesign, and announces that he will never recite them except in case of\nnecessity: while in one instance, where he has been betrayed into\ncriticism upon a few of them, as inconsiderate and incredible, he is\nseized with misgivings, and prays that Gods and heroes will not be\noffended with him.[12] The freethinkers, among whom Sokrates was\nnumbered, were the persons from whom adverse criticism came. It is\nthese men who are depicted by orthodox opponents as committing lawless\nacts, and justifying themselves by precedents drawn from the\nproceedings or Zeus.[13] They are, besides, especially accused of\nteaching children to despise or even to ill-use their parents.[14]\n\n[Footnote 11: I shall say more about Plato's views on the theological\nlegends generally believed by his countrymen, when I come to the\nlanguage which he puts into the mouth of Sokrates in the second and\nthird books of the Republic. Eusebius considers it matter of praise\nwhen he says \"that Plato rejected all the opinions of his country-men\nconcerning the Gods and exposed their absurdity\"--[Greek: o(/p\u00f4s te\npa/sas ta\\s patri/ous peri\\ t\u00f4=n the\u00f4=n u(pol\u00ea/pseis \u00ea)the/tei, kai\\\nt\u00ea\\n a)topi/an au)t\u00f4=n di\u00ea/legchen] (Pr\u00e6p. Evan. xiii. 1)--the very\nsame thing which is averred in the indictment laid by Mel\u00eatus against\nSokrates.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Herodot. ii. 65: [Greek: t\u00f4=n de\\ ei(/neken a)nei=tai\nta\\ i(ra\\, ei) le/goimi, katabai/\u00ean a)\\n t\u00f4=| lo/g\u00f4| e)s ta\\ thei=a\npr\u00ea/gmata, ta\\ e)g\u00f4\\ pheu/g\u00f4 ma/lista a)p\u00eagee/sthai. ta\\ de\\ kai\\\nei)/r\u00eaka au)t\u00f4=n e)pipsau/sas, a)nagkai/\u00ea katalambano/menos ei)=pon\n. . . .] 45. [Greek: Le/gousi de\\ polla\\ kai\\ a)/lla a)nepiske/pt\u00f4s\noi( E(/ll\u00eanes; eu)\u00ea/th\u00eas de\\ au)t\u00f4=n kai\\ o(/de o( mu=thos e)sti, to\\n\nperi\\ tou= \u00ca(rakle/os le/gousi . . . . e)/ti de\\ e(/na e)o/nta to\\n\n\u00ca(rakle/a, kai\\ e)/ti a)/nthr\u00f4pon, \u00f4(s d\u00ea/ phasi, k\u00f4=s phu/sin e)/chei\npolla\\s muria/das phoneu=sai? kai\\ peri\\ me\\n tou/t\u00f4n tosau=ta \u00ea(mi=n\nei)pou=si, kai\\ para\\ t\u00f4=n the\u00f4=n kai\\ para\\ t\u00f4=n \u00ea(r\u00f4/\u00f4n eu)me/neia\nei)/\u00ea.]\n\nAbout the [Greek: i(roi\\ lo/goi] which he keeps back, see cap. 51, 61,\n62, 81, 170, &c.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Aristoph. Nubes, 905-1080.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Aristoph. Nubes, 994-1333-1444. Xenophon, Mem. i. 2, 49.\n[Greek: S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas--tou\\s pate/ras prop\u00ealaki/zein e)di/daske]\n(accusation by Mel\u00eatus).]\n\n[Side-note: Dramatic moral set forth by Aristophanes against Sokrates\nand the freethinkers, is here retorted by Plato against the orthodox\nchampion.]\n\nNow in the dialogue here before us, Plato retorts this attack.\nEuthyphron possesses in the fullest measure the virtues of a believer.\nHe believes not only all that orthodox Athenians usually believed\nrespecting the Gods, but more besides.[15] His faith is so implicit,\nthat he proclaims it as accurate knowledge, and carries it into\npractice with full confidence; reproaching other orthodox persons with\ninconsistency and short-coming, and disregarding the judgment of the\nmultitude, as Sokrates does in the Kriton.[16] Euthyphron stands\nforward as the champion of the Gods, determined not to leave\nunpunished the man who has committed impiety, let him be who he\nmay.[17] These lofty religious pretensions impel him, with full\npersuasion of right, to indict his own father for homicide, under the\ncircumstances above described. Now in the eyes of the Athenian public,\nthere could hardly be any act more abhorrent, than that of a man thus\ninvoking upon his father the severest penalties of law. It would\nprobably be not less abhorrent than that of a son beating his own\nfather. When therefore we read, in the Nubes of Aristophanes, the\ndramatic moral set forth against Sokrates, \"See the consequences to\nwhich free-thinking and the new system of education lead[18]--the son\nPheidippides beating his own father, and justifying the action as\nright, by citing the violence of Zeus towards his father Kronus\"--we\nmay take the Platonic Euthyphron as an antithesis to this moral,\npropounded by a defender of Sokrates, \"See the consequences to which\nconsistent orthodoxy and implicit faith conduct. The son Euthyphron\nindicts his own father for homicide; he vindicates the step as\nconformable to the proceedings of the gods; he even prides himself on\nit as championship on their behalf, such as all religious men ought to\napprove.\"[19]\n\n[Footnote 15: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 6 B. [Greek: kai\\ e)/ti ge\ntou/t\u00f4n thaumasi\u00f4/tera, a(\\ oi( polloi\\ ou)k i)/sasin].\n\nEuthyphron belonged to the class described in Euripides, Hippol. 45:--\n\n[Greek: O(/soi men ou)=n grapha/s te t\u00f4=n palaite/r\u00f4n\nE)/choisin, au)toi/ t' ei)si\\n e)n mou/sais a)ei/,\nI)/sasin], &c.\n\nCompare also Euripid. Herakleid\u00e6, 404.]\n\n[Footnote 16: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 4, p. 5 A; c. 6, p. 6 A.]\n\n[Footnote 17: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 5 E. [Greek: m\u00ea\\\ne)pitre/pein t\u00f4=| a)sebou=nti m\u00ead' a)\\n o(stisou=n tugcha/n\u00ea| \u00f4)=n.]]\n\n[Footnote 18: Aristoph. Nubes, 937. [Greek: t\u00ea\\n kain\u00ea\\n pai/deusin],\n&c.]\n\n[Footnote 19: Schleiermacher (Einleitung zum Euthyphron, vol. ii. pp.\n51-54) has many remarks on the Euthyphron in which I do not concur;\nbut his conception of its \"unverkennbare apologetische Absicht\" is\nvery much the same as mine. He describes Euthyphron as a man \"der sich\nbesonders auf das G\u00f6ttliche zu verstehen vorgab, und die\nrechtglaubigen aus den alten theologischen Dichtern gezogenen Begriffe\ntapfer vertheidigte. Diesen nun gerade bei der Anklage des Sokrates\nmit ihm in Ber\u00fchrung, und durch den unsittlichen Streich, den sein\nEifer f\u00fcr die Fr\u00f6mmigkeit veranlasste, in Gegensatz zu bringen--war\nein des Platon nicht unw\u00fcrdiger Gedanke\" (p. 54). But when\nSchleiermacher affirms that the dialogue was indisputably composed\n(unstreitig) between the indictment and the trial of Sokrates,--and\nwhen he explains what he considers the defects of the dialogue, by the\nnecessity of finishing it in a hurry (p. 53), I dissent from him\naltogether, though Steinhart adopts the same opinion. Nor can I\nperceive in what way the Euthyphron is (as he affirms) either \"a\nnatural out-growth of the Protagoras,\" or \"an approximation and\npreparation for the Parmenid\u00eas\" (p. 52). Still less do I feel the\nforce of his reasons for hesitating in admitting it to be a genuine\nwork of Plato.\n\nI have given my reasons, in a preceding chapter, for believing that\nPlato composed no dialogues at all during the lifetime of Sokrates.\nBut that he should publish such a dialogue while the trial of Sokrates\nwas impending, is a supposition altogether inadmissible, in my\njudgment. The effect of it would be to make the position of Sokrates\nmuch worse on his trial. Herein I agree with Ueberweg (Untersuch. p.\n250), though I do not share his doubts of the authenticity of the\ndialogue.\n\nThe confident assertion of Stallbaum surprises me. \"Constat enim\nPlatonem eo tempore, quo Socrati tantum erat odium conflatum, ut ei\njudicii immineret periculum, complures dialogos composuisse; in quibus\nid egit, ut viri sanctissimi adversarios in eo ipso genere, in quo\nsibi plurimum sapere videbantur, insciti\u00e6 et ignoranti\u00e6 coargueret.\nNam Euthyphronem novimus, ad vates ignoranti\u00e6 rerum gravissimarum\nconvincendos, esse compositum; ut in quo eos ne pietatis quidem\nnotionem tenere ostenditur. In Menone autem id agitur, ut sophistas et\nviros civiles non scienti\u00e2 atque arte, sed coeco quodam impetu mentis\net sorte divin\u00e2 duci demonstretur: quod quidem ita fit, ut colloquium\nex parte cum Anyto, Socratis accusatore, habeatur. . . . . . Nam\nMenonem quidem et Euthyphronem Plato eo confecit tempore, quo Socratis\ncausa haud ita pridem in judicio versabatur, nec tamen jam tanta ei\nvidebatur imminere calamitas, quanta postea consecuta est. Ex quo san\u00e9\nverisimiliter colligere licet Ionem, cujus simile argumentum et\nconsilium est, circa idem tempus literis consignatum esse.\" Stallbaum,\nProlegom. ad Platonis Ionem, pp. 288-289, vol. iv. [Comp. Stallb.\nibid., 2nd ed. pp. 339-341].\n\n\"Imo uno exemplo Euthyphronis, boni quidem hominis ideoque ne Socrati\nquidem inimici, sed ejusdem _superstitiosi, vel ut hodie loquuntur,\northodoxi_, qualis Athenis vulg\u00f2 esset religionis conditio, declarare\ninstituit. Ex quo nobis quidem clarissim\u00e9 videtur apparere Platonem\nhoc unum spectavisse, ut judices admonerentur, ne populari\nsuperstitioni in sententiis ferendis plus justo tribuerent.\"\nStallbaum, Proleg. ad Euthyphron. T. vi. p. 146.\n\nSteinhart also (in his Einleitung, p. 190) calls Euthyphron \"ein\nrechtgl\u00e4ubiger von reinsten Wasser--ein ueberfrommer, fanatischer,\nMann,\" &c.\n\nIn the two preceding pages Stallbaum defends himself against\nobjections made to his view, on the ground that Plato, by composing\nsuch dialogues at this critical moment, would increase the\nunpopularity and danger of Sokrates, instead of diminishing it.\nStallbaum contends (p. 145) that neither Sokrates nor Plato nor any of\nthe other Sokratic men, believed that the trial would end in a verdict\nof guilty: which is probably true about Plato, and would have been\nborne out by the event if Sokrates had made a different defence. But\nthis does not assist the conclusion which Stallbaum wishes to bring\nout; for it is not the less true that the dialogues of Plato, if\npublished at that moment, would increase the exasperation against\nSokrates, and the chance, whatever it was, that he would be found\nguilty. Stallbaum refers by mistake to a passage in the Platonic\nApology (p. 36 A), as if Sokrates there expressed his surprise at the\nverdict of guilty, anticipating a verdict of acquittal. The passage\ndeclares the contrary: Sokrates expresses his surprise that the\nverdict of guilty had passed by so small a majority as five; he had\nexpected that it would pass by a larger majority.]\n\n[Side-note: Sequel of the dialogue--Euthyphron gives a particular\nexample as the reply to a general question.]\n\nI proceed now with that which may be called the Platonic purpose in\nthe dialogue--the enquiry into the general idea of Holiness. When the\nquestion was first put to Euthyphron, What is the Holy?--he replied,\n\"That which I am now doing.\" _Sokr._ That may be: but many other\nthings besides are also holy.--_Euthyph._ Certainly.--_Sokr._ Then\nyour answer does not meet the question. You have indicated one particular\nholy act, among many. But the question asked was--What is Holiness\ngenerally? What is that specific property, by the common possession of\nwhich all holy things are entitled to be called holy? I want to know\nthis general Idea, in order that I may keep it in view as a type\nwherewith to compare each particular case, thus determining whether\nthe case deserves to be called holy or not.[20]\n\n[Footnote 20: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 7, p. 6 E.]\n\nHere we have a genuine specimen of the dialectic interrogatory in\nwhich Xenophon affirms[21] Sokrates to have passed his life, and which\nPlato prosecutes under his master's name. The question is generalised\nmuch more than in the Kriton.\n\n[Footnote 21: Xenoph. Memor. i. 1, 16.]\n\n[Side-note: Such mistake frequent in dialectic discussion.]\n\nIt is assumed that there is one specific Idea or essence--one\nobjective characteristic or fact--common to all things called Holy.\nThe purpose of the questioner is: to determine what this Idea is: to\nprovide a good definition of the word. The first mistake made by the\nrespondent is, that he names simply one particular case, coming under\nthe general Idea. This is a mistake often recurring, and often\ncorrected in the Platonic dialogues. Even now, such a mistake is not\nunfrequent: and in the time of Plato, when general ideas, and the\ndefinition of general terms, had been made so little the subject of\ndirect attention, it was doubtless perpetually made. When the question\nwas first put, its bearing would not be properly conceived. And even\nif the bearing were properly conceived, men would find it easier then,\nand do find it easier now, to make answer by giving one particular\nexample than to go over many examples, and elicit what is common to\nall.\n\n[Side-note: First general answer given by Euthyphron--that which is\npleasing to the Gods is holy. Comments of Sokrates thereon.]\n\nEuthyphron next replies--That which is pleasing to the Gods is holy:\nthat which is not pleasing, or which is displeasing to the Gods, is\nunholy.--_Sokr._ That is the sort of answer which I desired to have:\nnow let us examine it. We learn from the received theology, which you\nimplicitly believe, that there has been much discord and quarrel among\nthe Gods. If the Gods quarrel, they quarrel about the same matters as\nmen. Now men do not quarrel about questions of quantity--for such\nquestions can be determined by calculation and measurement: nor about\nquestions of weight--for there the balance may be appealed to. The\nquestions about which you and I and other men quarrel are, What is\njust or unjust, honourable or base, good or evil? Upon these there is\nno accessible standard. Some men feel in one way, some in another; and\neach of us fights for his own opinions.[22] We all indeed agree that\nthe wrong-doer ought to be punished: but we do not agree who the\nwrong-doer is, nor what is wrong-doing. The same action which some of\nus pronounce to be just, others stigmatise as unjust.[23]\n\n[Footnote 22: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 8, p. 7 C-D. [Greek: Peri\\ ti/nos\nde\\ d\u00ea\\ dienechthe/ntes kai\\ e)pi\\ ti/na kri/sin ou) duna/menoi\na)phike/sthai e)chthroi/ ge a)\\n a)ll\u00ea/lois ei)=men kai\\\no)rgizoi/metha? i)/s\u00f4s ou) pro/cheiro/n soi/ e)stin, a)ll' e)mou=\nle/gontos sko/pei, ei) ta/d' e)sti\\ to/ te di/kaion kai\\ to\\ a)/dikon,\nkai\\ kalo\\n kai\\ ai)schro/n, kai\\ a)gatho\\n kai\\ kako/n. A)=r' ou)\ntau=ta e)sti peri\\ \u00f4(=n dienechthe/ntes kai\\ ou) duna/menoi e)pi\\\ni)kan\u00ea\\n kri/sin au)t\u00f4=n e)lthei=n e)chthroi\\ a)ll\u00ea/lois gigno/metha,\no(/tan gign\u00f4/metha, kai\\ e)g\u00f4\\ kai\\ su\\ kai\\ oi( a)/lloi a)/nthr\u00f4poi\npa/ntes?]]\n\n[Footnote 23: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 9, p. 8 D. [Greek: Ou)k a)/ra\ne)kei=no/ ge a)mphisb\u00eatou=sin, \u00f4(s ou) to\\n a)dikou=nta dei= dido/nai\ndi/k\u00ean; a)ll' e)kei=no i)/s\u00f4s a)mphisb\u00eatou=si, to\\ _ti/s e)stin o(\na)dik\u00f4n_ kai\\ _ti/ dr\u00f4=n_, kai\\ _po/te_? Pra/xe\u00f4/s tinos peri\\\ndiaphero/menoi, oi( me\\n dikai/\u00f4s phasi\\n au)t\u00ea\\n pepra=chthai, oi(\nde\\ a)di/k\u00f4s.]]\n\nSo likewise the quarrels of the Gods must turn upon these same\nmatters--just and unjust, right and wrong, good and evil. What one God\nthinks right, another God thinks wrong. What is pleasing to one God,\nis displeasing to another. The same action will be both pleasing and\ndispleasing to the Gods.\n\nAccording to your definition of holy and unholy, therefore, the same\naction may be both holy and unholy. Your definition will not hold, for\nit does not enable me to distinguish the one from the other.[24]\n\n[Footnote 24: In regard to Plato's ethical enquiries generally, and to\nwhat we shall find in future dialogues, we must take note of what is\nhere laid down, that mankind are in perpetual dispute, and have not\nyet any determinate standard for just and unjust, right and wrong,\nhonourable and base, good and evil. Plato had told us, somewhat\ndifferently, in the Kriton, that on these matters, though the judgment\nof the many was not to be trusted, yet there was another trustworthy\njudgment, that of the one wise man. This point will recur for future\ncomment.]\n\n_Euthyph._--I am convinced that there are some things which _all_ the\nGods love, and some things which _all_ the Gods hate. That which I am\ndoing, for example--indicting my father for homicide--belongs to the\nformer category. Now that which all the Gods love is the holy: that\nwhich they all hate, is the unholy.[25]\n\n[Footnote 25: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 11, p. 9.]\n\n[Side-note: To be loved by the Gods is not the essence of the\nHoly--they love it because it is holy. In what then does its essence\nconsist? Perplexity of Euthyphron.]\n\n_Sokr._--Do the Gods love the holy, because it _is_ holy? Or is it\nholy for this reason, because they do love it? _Euthyph._--They love\nit because it is holy.[26] _Sokr._--Then the holiness is one thing;\nthe fact of being loved by the Gods is another. The latter fact is not\nof the essence of holiness: it is true, but only as an accident and an\naccessory. You have yet to tell me what that essential character is,\nby virtue of which the holy comes to be loved by all the Gods, or to\nbe the subject of various other attributes.[27]\n\n[Footnote 26: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 12, p. 10 A-D. The manner in which\nSokrates conducts this argument is over-subtle. [Greek: Ou)k a)/ra\ndio/ti o(r\u00f4/menon ge/ e)sti dia\\ tou=to o(ra=tai, a)lla\\ tou)nanti/on\ndio/ti o(ra=tai, dia\\ tou=to o(r\u00f4/menon; ou)de\\ dio/ti a)go/meno/n\ne)sti, dia\\ tou=to a)/getai, a)lla\\ dio/ti a)/getai, dia\\ tou=to\na)go/menon; ou)de\\ dio/ti phero/menon, phe/retai, a)lla\\ dio/ti\nphe/retai, phero/menon.]\n\nThe difference between the meaning of [Greek: phe/retai] and [Greek:\nphero/meno/n e)sti] is not easy to see. The former may mean to affirm\nthe beginning of an action, the latter the continuance: but in this\ncase the inference would not necessarily follow.\n\nCompare Aristotel. Physica, p. 185, b. 25, with the Scholion of\nSimplikius, p. 330, a. 2nd ed. Bekk. where [Greek: badi/z\u00f4n e)/sti] is\nrecognised as equivalent to [Greek: badi/zei].]\n\n[Footnote 27: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 13, p. 11 A. [Greek: kinduneu/eis,\ne)r\u00f4t\u00f4/menos to\\ o(/sion, o(/, ti/ pot' e)/stin, t\u00ea\\n _me\\n ou)si/an_\nmoi au)tou= ou) bou/lesthai d\u00eal\u00f4=sai, _pa/thos de/ ti peri\\ au)tou=\nle/gein, o(/, ti pe/ponthe_ tou=to to\\ o(/sion, philei=sthai u(po\\\npa/nt\u00f4n t\u00f4=n the\u00f4=n; _o(/, ti de\\ o)\\n, ou)/p\u00f4 ei)=pes_. . . . pa/lin\nei)pe\\ e)x a)rch\u00ea=s, ti/ pote o)\\n to\\ o(/sion ei)/te philei=tai u(po\\\nthe\u00f4=n, ei)/te o(/ti d\u00ea\\ pa/schei.]]\n\n_Euthyph._--I hardly know how to tell you what I think. None of my\nexplanations will stand. Your ingenuity turns and twists them in every\nway. _Sokr._--If I am ingenious, it is against my own will;[28] for I\nam most anxious that some one of the answers should stand unshaken.\nBut I will now put you in the way of making a different answer. You\nwill admit that all which is holy is necessarily just. But is all that\nis just necessarily holy?\n\n[Footnote: 28: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 13, p. 11 D. [Greek: a)/k\u00f4n\nei)mi\\ sopho/s], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates suggests a new answer. The Holy is one branch or\nvariety of the Just. It is that branch which concerns ministration by\nmen to the Gods.]\n\nEuthyphron does not at first understand the question. He does not\ncomprehend the relation between two words, generic and specific with\nreference to each other: the former embracing all that the latter\nembraces, and more besides (denoting more objects, connoting fewer\nattributes). This is explained by analogies and particular examples,\nillustrating a logical distinction highly important to be brought out,\nat a time when there were no treatises on Logic.[29] So much therefore\nis made out--That the Holy is a part, or branch, of the Just. But what\npart? or how is it to be distinguished from other parts or branches of\nthe just? Euthyphron answers. The holy is that portion or branch of\nthe Just which concerns ministration to the Gods: the remaining branch\nof the Just is, what concerns ministration to men.[30]\n\n[Footnote 29: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 13-14, p. 12.]\n\n[Footnote 30: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 14, p. 12 E. [Greek: to\\ me/ros\ntou= dikai/ou ei)=nai eu)sebe/s te kai\\ o(/sion, to\\ peri\\ t\u00ea\\n t\u00f4=n\nthe\u00f4=n therapei/an; to\\ de\\ peri\\ t\u00ea\\n t\u00f4=n a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n, to\\ loipo\\n\nei)=nai tou= dikai/ou me/ros.]]\n\n[Side-note: Ministration to the Gods? How? To what purpose?]\\\n\n_Sokr._--What sort of ministration? Other ministrations, to horses,\ndogs, working cattle, &c., are intended for the improvement or benefit\nof those to whom they are rendered:--besides, they can only be\nrendered by a few trained persons. In what manner does ministration,\ncalled _holiness_, benefit or improve the Gods? _Euthyph._--In no way:\nit is of the same nature as that which slaves render to their masters.\n_Sokr._--You mean, that it is work done by us for the Gods. Tell me--to\nwhat end does the work conduce? What is that end which the Gods\naccomplish, through our agency as workmen? Physicians employ their\nslaves for the purpose of restoring the sick to health: shipbuilders\nput their slaves to the completion of ships. But what are those great\nworks which the Gods bring about by our agency? _Euthyph._--Their\nworks are numerous and great. _Sokr._--The like may be said of\ngenerals: but the summary and main purpose of all that generals do is--to\nassure victory in war. So too we may say about the husbandman: but\nthe summary of his many proceedings is, to raise corn from the earth.\nState to me, in like manner, the summary of that which the Gods\nperform through our agency.[31]\n\n[Footnote 31: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 16, pp. 13, 14.]\n\n[Side-note: Holiness--rectitude in sacrifice and prayer--right traffic\nbetween men and the Gods.]\n\n_Euthyph._--It would cost me some labour to go through the case fully.\nBut so much I tell you in plain terms. If a man, when sacrificing and\npraying, knows what deeds and what words will be agreeable to the\nGods, that is holiness: this it is which upholds the security both of\nprivate houses and public communities. The contrary is unholiness,\nwhich subverts and ruins them.[32] _Sokr._--Holiness, then, is the\nknowledge of rightly sacrificing and praying to the Gods; that is, of\ngiving to them, and asking from them. To ask rightly, is to ask what\nwe want from them: to give rightly, is to give to them what they want\nfrom us. Holiness will thus be an art of right traffic between Gods\nand men. Still, you must tell me how the Gods are gainers by that\nwhich we give to them. That we are gainers by what they give, is clear\nenough; but what do they gain on their side?\n\n[Footnote 32: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 16, p. 14 B. Compare this third\nunsuccessful answer of Euthyphron with the third answer assigned to\nHippias (Hipp. Maj. 291 C-E). Both of them appear lengthened,\nemphatic, as if intended to settle a question which had become\nvexatious.]\n\n[Side-note: This will not stand--the Gods gain nothing--they receive\nfrom men marks of honour and gratitude--they are pleased\ntherewith--the Holy, therefore, must be that which is pleasing to the\nGods.]\n\n_Euthyph._--The Gods gain nothing. The gifts which we present to them\nconsist in honour, marks of respect, gratitude. _Sokr._--The holy,\nthen, is that which obtains favour from the Gods; not that which\ngainful to them, nor that which they love. _Euthyph._--Nay: I think\nthey love it especially. _Sokr._--Then it appears that the holy is\nwhat the Gods love? _Euthyph._--Unquestionably.\n\n[Side-note: This is the same explanation which was before declared\ninsufficient. A fresh explanation is required from Euthyphron. He\nbreaks off the dialogue.]\n\n_Sokr._--But this is the very same explanation which we rejected a\nshort time ago as untenable.[33] It was agreed between us, that to be\nloved by the Gods was not of the essence of holiness, and could not\nserve as an explanation of holiness: though it might be truly affirmed\nthereof as an accompanying predicate. Let us therefore try again to\ndiscover what holiness is. I rely upon you to help me, and I am sure\nthat you must know, since under a confident persuasion that you know,\nyou are indicting your own father for homicide.\n\n[Footnote 33: Plato, Euthyphron, c. 19, p. 15 C. [Greek: me/mn\u00easai\nga/r pou, o(/ti e)n t\u00f4=| e)mprosthen to/ te o(/sion kai\\ to\\\ntheophile\\s ou) tau)to\\n \u00ea(mi=n e)pha/n\u00ea, a)ll' e(/tera a)ll\u00ea/l\u00f4n.]]\n\n_Euthyph._--\"The investigation must stand over to another time, I have\nengagements now which call me elsewhere.\"\n\n[Side-note: Sokratic spirit of the dialogue--confessed ignorance\napplying the Elenchus to false persuasion of knowledge.]\n\nSo Plato breaks off the dialogue. It is conceived in the truly\nSokratic spirit:--an Elenchus applied to implicit and unexamined\nfaith, even though that faith be accredited among the public as\northodoxy: warfare against the confident persuasion of knowledge, upon\ntopics familiar to every one, and on which deep sentiments and\nconfused notions have grown up by association in every one's mind,\nwithout deliberate study, systematic teaching, or testing\ncross-examination. Euthyphron is a man who feels unshaken confidence\nin his own knowledge, and still more in his own correct religious belief.\nSokrates appears in his received character as confessing ignorance,\nsoliciting instruction, and exposing inconsistencies and contradiction\nin that which is given to him for instruction.\n\n[Side-note: The questions always difficult, often impossible to\nanswer. Sokrates is unable to answer them, though he exposes the bad\nanswers of others.]\n\nWe must (as I have before remarked) take this ignorance on the part of\nthe Platonic Sokrates not as assumed, but as very real. In no part of\nthe Platonic writings do we find any tenable definition of the Holy\nand the Unholy, such as is here demanded from Euthyphron. The talent\nof Sokrates consists in exposing bad definitions, not in providing\ngood ones. This negative function is all that he claims for himself--with\ndeep regret that he can do no more. \"Sokrates\" (says\nAristotle[34]) \"put questions, but gave no answers: for he professed\nnot to know.\" In those dialogues where Plato makes him attempt more\n(there also, against his own will and protest, as in the Phil\u00eabus and\nRepublic), the affirmative Sokrates will be found only to stand his\nground because no negative Sokrates is allowed to attack him. I insist\nupon this the rather, because the Platonic commentators usually\npresent the dialogues in a different light, as if such modesty on the\npart of Sokrates was altogether simulated: as if he was himself,[35]\nfrom the beginning, aware of the proper answer to his own questions,\nbut refrained designedly from announcing it: nay, sometimes, as if the\nanswers were in themselves easy, and as if the respondents who failed\nmust be below par in respect of intelligence. This is an erroneous\nconception. The questions put by Sokrates, though relating to familiar\ntopics, are always difficult: they are often even impossible to\nanswer, because they postulate and require to be assigned a common\nobjective concept which is not to be found. They only appear easy to\none who has never attempted the task of answering under the pressure\nof cross-examination. Most persons indeed never make any such trial,\nbut go on affirming confidently as if they knew, without trial. It is\nexactly against such illusory confidence of knowledge that Sokrates\ndirects his questions: the fact belongs to our days no less than to\nhis.[36]\n\n[Footnote 34: Aristotel. Sophist. Elench. p. 183, b. 7. [Greek: e)pei\\\nkai\\ dia\\ tou=to S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas \u00ea)r\u00f4/ta kai\\ ou)k a)pekri/neto; \u00f4(molo/gei\nga\\r ou)k ei)de/nai.]]\n\n[Footnote 35: See Stallbaum, Prolegg. ad Euthyphron. p. 140.]\n\n[Footnote 36: Adam Smith observes, in his Essay on the Formation of\nLanguages (p. 20 of the fifth volume of his collected Works), \"Ask a\nman what relation is expressed by the preposition _of_: and if he has\nnot beforehand employed his thoughts a good deal upon these subjects,\nyou may safely allow him a week to consider of his answer.\"\n\nThe Platonic problem assumes, not only that he shall give an answer,\nbut that it shall be an answer which he can maintain against the\nElenchus of Sokrates.]\n\n[Side-note: Objections of Theopompus to the Platonic procedure.]\n\nThe assumptions of some Platonic commentators--that Sokrates and Plato\nof course knew the answers to their own questions--that an honest and\npious man, of ordinary intelligence, has the answer to the question in\nhis heart, though he cannot put it in words--these assumptions were\nalso made by many of Plato's contemporaries, who depreciated his\nquestions as frivolous and unprofitable. The rhetor and historian\nTheopompus (one of the most eminent among the numerous pupils of\nIsokrates, and at the same time unfriendly to Plato, though younger in\nage), thus criticised Plato's requirement, that these familiar terms\nshould be defined: \"What! (said he) have none of us before your time\ntalked about the Good and the Just? Or do you suppose that we cannot\nfollow out what each of them is, and that we pronounce the words as\nempty and unmeaning sounds?\"[37] Theopompus was the scholar of\nIsokrates, and both of them probably took the same view, as to the\nuselessness of that colloquial analysis which aims at determining the\ndefinition of familiar ethical or political words.[38] They considered\nthat Plato and Sokrates, instead of clearing up what was confused,\nwasted their ingenuity in perplexing what was already clear. They\npreferred the rhetorical handling (such as we noticed in the Kriton)\nwhich works upon ready-made pre-established sentiments, and impresses\na strong emotional conviction, but presumes that all the intellectual\nproblems have already been solved.\n\n[Footnote 37: Epikt\u00eatus, ii. 17, 5-10. [Greek: To\\ d' e)xapat\u00f4=n tou\\s\npollou\\s tou=t' e)/stin, o(/per kai\\ Theo/pompon to\\n r(\u00ea/tora o(/s\npou kai\\ Pla/t\u00f4ni e)gkalei= e)pi\\ t\u00f4=| bou/lesthai e(/kasta\no(ri/zesthai. Ti/ ga\\r le/gei? Ou)dei\\s \u00ea(m\u00f4=n pro\\ sou= e)/legen\na)gatho\\n \u00ea)\\ di/kaion? \u00ea)\\ m\u00ea\\ parakolouthou=ntes ti/ e)sti tou/t\u00f4n\ne(/kaston, a)s\u00ea/m\u00f4s kai\\ ken\u00f4=s e)phtheggo/metha ta\\s ph\u00f4na/s?]\n\nRespecting Theopompus, compare Dionys. Hal. Epistol. ad Cn. Pompeium\nde Platone, p. 757; also De Pr\u00e6cip. Historicis, p. 782.]\n\n[Footnote 38: Isokrates, Helen. Encom. Or. x. init. De Permut. Or. xv.\nsect. 90.\n\nThese passages do not name Sokrates and Plato, but have every\nappearance of being intended to allude to them.]\n\n[Side-note: Objective view of Ethics, distinguished by Sokrates from\nthe subjective.]\n\nAll this shows the novelty of the Sokratic point of view: the\ndistinction between the essential constituent and the objective\naccidental accompaniment,[39] and the search for a definition\ncorresponding to the former: which search was first prosecuted by\nSokrates (as Aristotle[40] points out) and was taken up from him by\nPlato. It was Sokrates who first brought conspicuously into notice the\nobjective intellectual, scientific view of ethics--as distinguished\nfrom the subjective, emotional, incoherent, and uninquiring. I mean\nthat he was the first who proclaimed himself as feeling the want of\nsuch an objective view, and who worked upon other minds so a to create\nthe like want in them: I do not mean that he provided satisfaction for\nthis requirement.\n\n[Footnote 39: This distinction is pointedly noticed in the Euthyphron,\np. 11 A.]\n\n[Footnote 40: Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 987, b. 2, M. 1078, b. 28.]\n\n[Side-note: Subjective unanimity coincident with objective dissent.]\n\nUndoubtedly (as Theopompus remarked) men had used these ethical terms\nlong before the time of Sokrates, and had used them, not as empty and\nunmeaning, but with a full body of meaning (_i.e._ emotional meaning).\nStrong and marked emotion had become associated with each term; and\nthe same emotion, similar in character, though not equal in force--was\nfelt by the greater number of different minds. Subjectively and\nemotionally, there was no difference between one man and another,\nexcept as to degree. But it was Sokrates who first called attention to\nthe fact as a matter for philosophical recognition and criticism,--that\nsuch subjective and emotional unanimity does not exclude the\nwidest objective and intellectual dissension.[41]\n\n[Footnote 41: It is this distinction between the subjective and the\nobjective which is implied in the language of Epikt\u00eatus, when he\nproceeds to answer the objection cited from Theopompus (note 1 p.\n451): [Greek: Ti/s ga\\r soi le/gei, Theo/pompe, o(/ti e)nnoi/as ou)k\nei)=chomen e(ka/stou tou/t\u00f4n phusika/s kai\\ prol\u00ea/pseis? A)ll' ou)ch\noi(=on te e)pharmo/zein ta\\s prol\u00ea/pseis tai=s katall\u00ea/lois ou)si/ais,\nm\u00ea\\ diarthr\u00f4/santa au)ta/s, kai\\ au)to\\ tou=to skepsa/menon, poi/an\ntina\\ e(ka/st\u00ea| au)t\u00f4=n ou)si/an u(potakte/on.]\n\nTo the same purpose Epikt\u00eatus, in another passage, i. 22, 4-9: [Greek:\nAu)t\u00ea\\ e)stin \u00ea( t\u00f4=n I)oudai/\u00f4n, kai\\ Su/r\u00f4n, kai\\ Ai)gupti/\u00f4n, kai\\\nR(\u00f4mai/\u00f4n ma/ch\u00ea; ou) peri\\ tou=, o(/ti to\\ o(/sion pa/nt\u00f4n\nprotim\u00eate/on, kai\\ e)n panti\\ metadi\u00f4kte/on--a)lla\\ po/tero/n e)stin\no(/sion tou=to, to\\ choirei/ou phagei=n, \u00ea)\\ a)no/sion.]\n\nAgain, Origen also, in a striking passage of his reply to Celsus (v.\np. 263, ed. Spencer; i. p. 614 ed. Delarue), observes that the name\n_Justice_ is the same among all Greeks (he means, the name with the\nemotional associations inseparable from it), but that the thing\ndesignated was very different, according to those who pronounced\nit:--[Greek: lekte/on, o(/ti to\\ t\u00ea=s dikaiosu/n\u00eas o)/noma tau)ton me\\n\ne)/stin para\\ pa=sin E(/ll\u00easin; \u00ea)/d\u00ea de\\ a)podei/knutai a)/ll\u00ea me\\n\n\u00ea( kat' E)pi/kouron dikaiosu/n\u00ea, a)/ll\u00ea de\\ \u00ea( kata\\ tou\\s a)po\\ t\u00ea=s\nStoa=s, a)rnoume/n\u00f4n to\\ trimere\\s t\u00ea=s psuch\u00ea=s, a)/ll\u00ea de\\ kata\\\ntou\\s a)po\\ Pla/t\u00f4nos, i)diopragi/an t\u00f4=n mer\u00f4=n t\u00ea=s psuch\u00ea=s\npha/skontas ei)=nai t\u00ea\\n dikaiosu/n\u00ean. Ou(/t\u00f4 de\\ kai\\ a)/ll\u00ea me\\n \u00ea(\nE)pikou/rou a)ndri/a], &c.\n\n\"Je n'aime point les mots nouveaux\" (said Saint Just, in his\nInstitutions, composed during the sitting of the French Convention,\n1793), \"je ne connais que le juste et l'injuste: ces mots sont\nentendus par toutes les consciences. Il faut ramener toutes les\nd\u00e9finitions \u00e0 la conscience: l'esprit est un sophiste qui conduit les\nvertus \u00e0 l'\u00e9chafaud.\" (Histoire Parlementaire de la R\u00e9volution\nFran\u00e7aise, t. xxxv. p. 277.) This is very much the language which\nhonest and vehement [Greek: i)di\u00f4=tai] of Athens would hold towards\nSokrates and Plato.]\n\n[Side-note: Cross-examination brought to bear upon this mental\ncondition by Sokrates--position of Sokrates and Plato in regard to\nit.]\n\nAs the Platonic Sokrates here puts it in the Euthyphron--all men agree\nthat the person who acts unjustly must be punished; but they dispute\nvery much _who it is_ that acts unjustly--_which_ of his actions are\nunjust--or under _what_ circumstances they are so. The emotion in each\nman's mind, as well as the word by which it is expressed, is the\nsame:[42] but the person, or the acts, to which it is applied by each,\nalthough partly the same, are often so different, and sometimes so\nopposite, as to occasion violent dispute. There is subjective\nagreement, with objective disagreement. It is upon this disconformity\nthat the Sokratic cross-examination is brought to bear, making his\nhearers feel its existence, for the first time, and dispelling their\nfancy of supposed knowledge as well as of supposed unanimity. Sokrates\nrequired them to define the general word--to assign some common\nobjective characteristic, corresponding in all cases to the common\nsubjective feeling represented by the word. But no man could comply\nwith his requirement, nor could he himself comply with it, any more\nthan his respondents. So far Sokrates proceeded, and no farther,\naccording to Aristotle. He never altogether lost his hold on\nparticulars: he assumed that there must be something common to them\nall, if you could but find out what it was, constituting the objective\nmeaning of the general term. Plato made a step beyond him, though\nunder the name of Sokrates as spokesman. Not being able (any more than\nSokrates) to discover or specify any real objective characteristic,\ncommon to all the particulars--he objectivised[43] the word itself:\nthat is, he assumed or imagined a new objective Ens of his own, the\nPlatonic Idea, corresponding to the general word: an idea not common\nto the particulars, but existing apart from them in a sphere of its\nown--yet nevertheless lending itself in some inexplicable way to be\nparticipated by all the particulars. It was only in this way that\nPlato could explain to himself how knowledge was possible: this\nuniversal Ens being the only object of knowledge: particulars being an\nindefinite variety of fleeting appearances, and as such in themselves\nunknowable. The imagination of Plato created a new world of Forms,\nIdeas, Concepts, or objects corresponding to general terms: which he\nrepresents as the only objects of knowledge, and as the only\nrealities.\n\n[Footnote 42: Plato, Euthyphron, p. 8, C-D, Euripides, Phoeniss\u00e6,\n499--\n\n[Greek: ei) pa=si tau)to\\ kalo\\n e)/phu, sopho/n th' a)/ma,\nou)k \u00ea)=n a)\\n a)mphilekto\\s a)nthr\u00f4/pois e)/ris;\nnu=n d' ou)th' o(/moion ou)de\\n ou)/t' i)/son bro/tois,\npl\u00ea\\n o)noma/sai; to\\ d' e)/rgon ou)k e)/stin to/de].\n\nHobbes expresses, in the following terms, this fact of subjective\nsimilarity co-existent with great objective dissimilarity among\nmankind.\n\n\"For the similitude of the thoughts and passions of one man, to the\nthoughts and passions of another, whoever looketh into himself and\nconsidereth what he does when he does _think_, _opine_, _reason_,\n_hope_, _fear_, &c., and upon what grounds, he shall thereby read and\nknow what are the thoughts and passions of all other men upon the like\noccasions. I say the similitude of _passions_, which are the same in\nall men, _desire_, _fear_, _hope_, &c., not the similitude of the\n_objects_ of the passions, which are the things _desired_, _feared_,\n_hoped_, &c., for these the constitution individual, and particular\neducation do so vary, and they are so easy to be kept from our\nknowledge, that the characters of man's heart, blotted and confounded\nas they are with lying, dissembling, counterfeiting, and erroneous\ndoctrines, are legible only to him that searcheth hearts.\"\nIntroduction to Leviathan.]\n\n[Footnote 43: Aristot. Metaphys. M. 1078, b. 30, 1086, b. 4.]\n\n[Side-note: The Holy--it has an essential characteristic--what is\nthis?--not the fact that it is loved by the Gods--this is true, but is\nnot its constituent essence.]\n\nIn the Euthyphron, however, we have not yet passed into this Platonic\nworld, of self-existent Forms--objects of conception--concepts\ndetached from sensible particulars. We are still with Sokrates and\nwith ordinary men among the world of particulars, only that Sokrates\nintroduced a new mode of looking at all the particulars, and searched\namong them for some common feature which he did not find. The Holy\n(and the Unholy) is a word freely pronounced by every speaker, and\nfamiliarly understood by every hearer, as if it denoted something one\nand the same in all these particulars.[44] What is that something--the\ncommon essence or idea? Euthyphron cannot tell; though he agrees with\nSokrates that there must be such essence. His attempts to explain it\nprove failures.\n\n[Footnote 44: Plato, Euthyphron, p. 5 D, 6 E.]\n\nThe definition of the Holy--that it is what the Gods love--is\nsuggested in this dialogue, but rejected. The Holy is not Holy because\nthe Gods love it: on the contrary, its holiness is an independent\nfact, and the Gods love it because it is Holy. The Holy is thus an\nessence, _per se_, common to, or partaken by, all holy persons and\nthings.\n\n[Side-note: Views of the Xenophontic Sokrates respecting the\nHoly--different from those of the Platonic Sokrates--he disallows any\ncommon absolute general type of the Holy--he recognises an indefinite\nvariety of types, discordant and relative.]\n\nSo at least the Platonic Sokrates here regards it. But the Xenophontic\nSokrates, if we can trust the Memorabilia, would not have concurred in\nthis view: for we read that upon all points connected with piety or\nreligious observance, he followed the precept which the Pythian\npriestess delivered as an answer to all who consulted the Delphian\noracle on similar questions--You will act piously by conforming to the\nlaw of the city. Sokrates (we are told) not only acted upon this\nprecept himself, but advised his friends to do the like, and regarded\nthose who acted otherwise as foolish and over-subtle triflers.[45] It\nis plain that this doctrine disallows all supposition of any general\nessence, called the Holy, to be discovered and appealed to, as type in\ncases of doubt; and recognises the equal title of many separate local,\ndiscordant, and variable types, each under the sanction of King Nomos.\nThe procedure of Sokrates in the Euthyphron would not have been\napproved by the Xenophontic Sokrates. It is in the spirit of Plato,\nand is an instance of that disposition which he manifests yet more\nstrongly in the Republic and elsewhere, to look for his supreme\nauthority in philosophical theory and not in the constituted societies\naround him: thus to innovate in matters religious as well as\npolitical--a reproach to him among his own contemporaries, an honour\nto him among various subsequent Christian writers. Plato, not\nconforming to any one of the modes of religious belief actually\nprevalent in his contemporary world, postulates a canon, suitable to\nthe exigencies of his own mind, of that which the Gods ought to love\nand must love. In this respect, as in others, he is in marked contrast\nwith Herodotus--a large observer of mankind, very pious in his own\nway, curious in comparing the actual practices consecrated among\ndifferent nations, but not pretending to supersede them by any canon\nof his own.\n\n[Footnote 45: Compare Xen. Mem. i. 3, 1. [Greek: \u00ea(/ te ga\\r Puthi/a\nno/m\u00f4| po/le\u00f4s a)nairei= poiou=ntas eu)seb\u00f4=s a)\\n poiei=n; S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas\nte ou(/t\u00f4s kai\\ au)to\\s e)poi/ei kai\\ toi=s a)/llois par\u00ea/|nei, tou\\s\nde\\ a)/ll\u00f4s p\u00f4s poiou=ntas perie/rgous kai\\ matai/ous e)no/mizen\nei)=nai.]]\n\n[Side-note: The Holy a branch of the Just--not tenable as a\ndefinition, but useful as bringing to view the subordination of\nlogical terms.]\n\nThough the Holy, and the Unholy, are pronounced to be each an essence,\npartaken of by all the particulars so-called; yet what that essence\nis, the dialogue Euthyphron noway determines. Even the suggestion of\nSokrates--that the Holy is a branch of the Just, only requiring to be\ndistinguished by some assignable mark from the other branches of the\nJust--is of no avail, since the Just itself had been previously\ndeclared to be one of the matters in perpetual dispute. It procures\nfor Sokrates however the opportunity of illustrating the logical\nsubordination of terms; the less general comprehended in the more\ngeneral, and requiring to be parted off by some _differentia_ from the\nrest of what this latter comprehends. Plato illustrates the matter at\nsome length;[46] and apparently with a marked purpose of drawing\nattention to it. We must keep in mind, that logical distinctions had\nat that time received neither special attention nor special\nnames--however they may have been unconsciously followed in practice.\n\n[Footnote 46: Plato, Euthyphron, p. 12.]\n\n[Side-note: The Euthyphron represents Plato's way of replying to the\ncharge of impiety, preferred by Mel\u00eatus against Sokrates--comparison\nwith Xenophon's way of replying.]\n\nWhat I remarked about the Kriton, appears to me also true about the\nEuthyphron. It represents Plato's manner of replying to the charge of\nimpiety advanced by Mel\u00eatus and his friends against Sokrates, just as\nthe four first chapters of the Memorabilia represent Xenophon's manner\nof repelling the same charge. Xenophon joins issue with the\naccusers,--describes the language and proceedings of Sokrates, so as to\nshow that he was orthodox and pious, above the measure of ordinary men, in\nconduct, in ritual, and in language; and expresses his surprise that\nagainst such a man the verdict of guilty could have been returned by\nthe Dikasts.[47] Plato handles the charge in the way in which Sokrates\nhimself would have handled it, if he had been commenting on the same\naccusation against another person and as he does in fact deal with\nMel\u00eatus, in the Platonic Apology. Plato introduces Euthyphron, a very\nreligious man, who prides himself upon being forward to prosecute\nimpiety in whomsoever it is found, and who in this case, under the\nspecial promptings of piety, has entered a capital prosecution against\nhis own father.[48] The occasion is here favourable to the Sokratic\ninterrogatories, applicable to Mel\u00eatus no less than to Euthyphron. \"Of\ncourse, before you took this grave step, you have assured yourself\nthat you are right, and that you know what piety and impiety are. Pray\ntell me, for I am ignorant on the subject: that I may know better and\ndo better for the future.[49] Tell me, what is the characteristic\nessence of piety as well as impiety?\" It turns out that the accuser\ncan make no satisfactory answer: that he involves himself in confusion\nand contradiction:--that he has brought capital indictments against\ncitizens, without having ever studied or appreciated the offence with\nwhich he charges them. Such is the manner in which the Platonic\nSokrates is made to deal with Euthyphron, and in which the real\nSokrates deals with Mel\u00eatus:[50] rendering the questions instrumental\nto two larger purposes--first, to his habitual crusade against the\nfalse persuasion of knowledge--next, to the administering of a logical\nor dialectical lesson. When we come to the Treatise De Legibus (where\nSokrates does not appear) we shall find Plato adopting the dogmatic\nand sermonising manner of the first chapters of the Xenophontic\nMemorabilia. Here, in the Euthyphron and in the Dialogues of Search\ngenerally, the Platonic Sokrates is something entirely different.[51]\n\n[Footnote 47: Xenoph. Memor. i. 1, 4; also iv. 8, 11.]\n\n[Footnote 48: Plato, Euthyphron, p. 5 E.]\n\n[Footnote 49: Compare, even in Xenophon, the conversation of Sokrates\nwith Kritias and Charikl\u00eas--Memorab. i. 2, 32-38: and his\ncross-examination of the presumptuous youth Glaukon, Plato's\nbrother (Mem. iii. 7).]\n\n[Footnote 50: Plato, Apol. c. 11, p. 24 C. [Greek: a)dikei=n ph\u00eami\\\nMe/l\u00eaton, o(/ti spoud\u00ea=| charienti/zetai, r(a|di/\u00f4s ei)s a)g\u00f4=nas\nkathista\\s a)nthr\u00f4/pous], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 51: Steinhart (Einleitung, p. 199) agrees with the opinion\nof Schleiermacher and Stallbaum, that the Euthyphron was composed and\npublished during the interval between the lodging of the indictment\nand the trial of Sokrates. K. F. Hermann considers it as posterior to\nthe death of Sokrates.\n\nI concur on this point with Hermann. Indeed I have already given my\nopinion, that not one of the Platonic dialogues was composed before\nthe death of Sokrates.]\n\n\n\n\nEND OF VOL. I.\n\n\n\n*************************************\nTranscriber's Note\n\nThe text is based on versions made available by the Internet Archive.\n\nFor the Greek transcriptions the following conventions have been used:\n) is for smooth breathing; ( for hard; + for diaeresis; / for acute\naccent; \\ for grave; = for circumflex; | for iota subscript.\nch is used for chi, ph for phi, ps for psi, th for theta;\n\u00ea for eta and \u00f4 for omega; u is used for upsilon in all cases.\n\nCorrections to the text, indicated in text with **:\n\nLocation             Text of scan of 3rd edition   Correction\nCh. 1, after fn. 47  devination                    divination\nCh. 1, fn. 119       Kosmichen                     Kosmischen\nCh. 1, fn. 146       mizta                         mixta\nCh. 1, fn. 146       front                         fronte\nCh. 1, fn. 164       &                             8,\nCh. 1, fn. 164       perie/chno                    perie/chon\nCh. 1, fn. 214       2d                            2nd.\nCh. 2, after fn. 21  ultra phenomenal              ultra-phenomenal\nCh. 3, fn. 40        Ta\u00fcschung                     T\u00e4uschung\nCh. 3, fn. 64        vol. iii.                     vol. ii.\nCh. 3, fn. 66        art                           act\nCh. 3, fn. 185       Dion.                         Diog.\nCh. 3, fn. 206       ok\u00eat\u00ea\\neu)d                   eu)dok\u00eat\u00ea\\n\nCh. 3, fn. 217       xxix.                         xxiv.\nCh. 4, fn. 1         chap. xxii.                   chap. xxi.\nCh. 5, fn. 24        de-describes                  describes\nCh. 6, before fn. 14 blank space                   4.\nCh. 6, fn. 39        passed of :                   passed off:\nCh. 6, fn. 45        the our                       the four\nCh. 7, 3rd para.     Hippias II.                   Hippias I.\nCh. 7, fn. 8         409                           429\nCh. 7, fn. 8         407                           427\nCh. 7, fn. 13        Herman                        Hermann\nCh. 8, fn. 92        s. 12,                        s. 11,","title":"Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 1","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":219570}