{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_40437/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_40437","id":"gutenberg_40437","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40437","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\n\nPLATO,\n\nAND THE\n\nOTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.\n\n\n\nBY\n\nGEORGE GROTE\n\nAUTHOR OF THE 'HISTORY OF GREECE'.\n\n\n\n_A NEW EDITION._\n\nIN FOUR VOLUMES.\n\nVOL. III.\n\nLONDON:\n\nJOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.\n\n1888.\n\n_The right of Translation is reserved._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\nCHAPTER XXVI.\n\nPH\u00c6DRUS--SYMPOSION.\n\n\nThese two are the two erotic dialogues of Plato. Ph\u00e6drus is the\noriginator of both 1\n\nEros as conceived by Plato. Different sentiment prevalent in\nHellenic antiquity and in modern times. Position of women in\nGreece _ib._\n\nEros, considered as the great stimulus to improving philosophical\ncommunion. Personal Beauty, the great point of approximation\nbetween the world of sense and the world of Ideas. Gradual\ngeneralisation of the sentiment 4\n\nAll men love Good, as the means of Happiness, but they pursue it\nby various means. The name _Eros_ is confined to one special case\nof this large variety 5\n\nDesire of mental copulation and procreation, as the only\nattainable likeness of immortality, requires the sight of personal\nbeauty as an originating stimulus 6\n\nHighest exaltation of the erotic impulse in a few privileged\nminds, when it ascends gradually to the love of Beauty in general.\nThis is the most absorbing sentiment of all 7\n\nPurpose of the Symposion, to contrast this Platonic view of Eros\nwith several different views of it previously enunciated by the\nother speakers; closing with a panegyric on Sokrates, by the\ndrunken Alkibiades 8\n\nViews of Eros presented by Ph\u00e6drus, Pausanias, Eryximachus,\nAristophanes, Agathon 9\n\nDiscourse of Sokrates from revelation of Diotima. He describes\nEros as not a God, but an intermediate D\u00e6mon between Gods and men,\nconstantly aspiring to divinity, but not attaining it 9\n\nAnalogy of the erotic aspiration with that of the philosopher, who\nknows his own ignorance and thirsts for knowledge 10\n\nEros as presented in the Ph\u00e6drus--Discourse of Lysias, and\ncounter-discourse of Sokrates, adverse to Eros--Sokrates is seized\nwith remorse, and recants in a high-flown panegyric on Eros 11\n\nPanegyric--Sokrates admits that the influence of Eros is a variety\nof madness, but distinguishes good and bad varieties of madness,\nboth coming from the Gods. Good madness is far better than\nsobriety _ib._\n\nPoetical mythe delivered by Sokrates, describing the immortality\nand pre-existence of the soul, and its pre-natal condition of\npartial companionship with\nGods and eternal Ideas 12\n\nOperation of such pre-natal experience upon the Intellectual\nfaculties of man--Comparison and combination of particular\nsensations indispensable--Reminiscence 13\n\nReminiscence is kindled up in the soul of the philosopher by the\naspect of visible Beauty, which is the great link between the\nworld of sense and the world of Ideas 14\n\nElevating influence ascribed, both in Ph\u00e6drus and Symposion, to\nEros Philosophus. Mixture in the mind of Plato, of poetical fancy\nand religious mysticism, with dialectic theory 15\n\nDifferences between Symposion and Ph\u00e6drus. In-dwelling conceptions\nassumed by the former, pre-natal experiences by the latter 17\n\nNothing but metaphorical immortality recognised in Symposion _ib._\n\nForm or Idea of Beauty presented singly and exclusively in\nSymposion 18\n\nEros recognised, both in Ph\u00e6drus and Symposion, as affording the\ninitiatory stimulus to philosophy--Not so recognised in Ph\u00e6don,\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus, and elsewhere _ib._\n\nConcluding scene and speech of Alkibiades in the\nSymposion--Behaviour of Sokrates to Alkibiades and other handsome\nyouths 19\n\nPerfect self-command of Sokrates--proof against every sort of\ntrial 20\n\nDrunkenness of others at the close of the Symposion--Sokrates is\nnot affected by it, but continues his dialectic process 21\n\nSymposion and Ph\u00e6don--each is the antithesis and complement of the\nother 22\n\nSymposion of Plato compared with that of Xenophon _ib._\n\nSmall proportion of the serious, in the Xenophontic Symposion 24\n\nPlatonic Symposion more ideal and transcendental than the\nXenophontic 25\n\nSecond half of the Ph\u00e6drus--passes into a debate on Rhetoric. Eros\nis considered as a subject for rhetorical exercise 26\n\nLysias is called a logographer by active politicians. Contempt\nconveyed by the word. Sokrates declares that the only question is,\nWhether a man writes well or ill 27\n\nQuestion about teaching the art of writing well or speaking well.\nCan it be taught upon system or principle? Or does the successful\nRhetor succeed only by unsystematic knack? 28\n\nTheory of Sokrates--that all art of persuasion must be founded\nupon a knowledge of the truth, and of gradations of resemblance to\nthe truth _ib._\n\nComparison made by Sokrates between the discourse of Lysias and\nhis own. Eros is differently understood: Sokrates defined what he\nmeant by it: Lysias did not define 29\n\nLogical processes--Definition and Division--both of them\nexemplified in the two discourses of Sokrates _ib._\n\nView of Sokrates--that there is no real Art of Rhetoric, except\nwhat is already comprised in Dialectic--The rhetorical teaching is\nempty and useless 30\n\nWhat the Art of Rhetoric ought to be--Analogy of Hippokrates and\nthe medical Art 31\n\nArt of Rhetoric ought to include a systematic classification of\nminds with all their varieties, and of discourses with all their\nvarieties. The Rhetor must know how to apply the one to the other,\nsuitably to each particular case 32\n\nThe Rhetorical Artist must farther become possessed of real truth,\nas well as that which his auditors believe to be truth. He is not\nsufficiently rewarded for this labour 33\n\nQuestion about Writing--As an Art, for the purpose of instruction,\nit can do little--Reasons why. Writing may remind the reader of\nwhat he already knows _ib._\n\nNeither written words, nor continuous speech, will produce any\nserious effect in teaching. Dialectic and cross-examination are\nnecessary 34\n\nThe Dialectician and Cross-Examiner is the only man who can really\nteach. If the writer can do this, he is more than a writer 37\n\nLysias is only a logographer: Isokrates promises to become a\nphilosopher 38\n\nDate of the Ph\u00e6drus--not an early dialogue _ib._\n\nCriticism given by Plato on the three discourses--His theory of\nRhetoric is more Platonic than Sokratic _ib._\n\nHis theory postulates, in the Rhetor, knowledge already assured--it\nassumes that all the doubts have been already removed 39\n\nThe Expositor, with knowledge and logical process, teaches minds\nunoccupied and willing to learn _ib._\n\nThe Rhetor does not teach, but persuades persons with minds\npre-occupied--guiding them methodically from error to truth 40\n\nHe must then classify the minds to be persuaded, and the means of\npersuasion or varieties of discourse. He must know how to fit on\nthe one to the other in each particular case 41\n\nPlato's _Id\u00e9al_ of the Rhetorical Art--involves in part\nincompatible conditions--the Wise man or philosopher will never be\nlistened to by the public _ib._\n\nThe other part of the Platonic _Id\u00e9al_ is grand but\nunattainable--breadth of psychological data and classified\nmodes of discourse 42\n\nPlato's ideal grandeur compared with the rhetorical\nteachers--Usefulness of these teachers for the wants of an\naccomplished man 44\n\nThe Rhetorical teachers conceived the Art too narrowly: Plato\nconceived it too widely. The principles of an Art are not required\nto be explained to all learners 45\n\nPlato includes in his conception of Art, the application thereof\nto new particular cases. This can never be taught by rule 46\n\nPlato's charge against the Rhetorical teachers is not made out\n47\n\nPlato has not treated Lysias fairly, in neglecting his greater\nworks, and selecting for criticism an erotic exercise for a\nprivate circle 47\n\nNo fair comparison can be taken between this exercise of Lysias\nand the discourses delivered by Sokrates in the Ph\u00e6drus 48\n\nContinuous discourse, either written or spoken, inefficacious as a\nmeans of instruction to the ignorant 49\n\nWritten matter is useful as a memorandum for persons who know--or\nas an elegant pastime 50\n\nPlato's didactic theories are pitched too high to be realised 51\n\nNo one has ever been found competent to solve the difficulties\nraised by Sokrates, Arkesilaus, Karneades, and the negative vein\nof philosophy _ib._\n\nPlato's _id\u00e9al_ philosopher can only be realised under the\nhypothesis of a pre-existent and omniscient soul, stimulated into\nfull reminiscence here 52\n\nDifferent proceeding of Plato in the Tim\u00e6us 53\n\nOpposite tendencies co-existent in Plato's mind--Extreme of the\nTranscendental or Absolute--Extreme of specialising adaptation to\nindividuals and occasions 54\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII.\n\nPARMENIDES.\n\nCharacter of dialogues immediately preceding--much transcendental\nassertion. Opposite character of the Parmenides 56\n\nSokrates is the juvenile defendant--Parmenides the veteran censor\nand cross-examiner. Parmenides gives a specimen of exercises to be\nperformed by the philosophical aspirant _ib._\n\nCircumstances and persons of the Parmenides 57\n\nManner in which the doctrine of Parmenides was impugned. Manner in\nwhich his partisan Zeno defended him 58\n\nSokrates here impugns the doctrine of Zeno. He affirms the\nPlatonic theory of ideas separate from sensible objects, yet\nparticipable by them 60\n\nParmenides and Zeno admire the philosophical ardour of Sokrates.\nParmenides advances objections against the Platonic theory of\nIdeas 60\n\nWhat Ideas does Sokrates recognise? Of the Just and Good? Yes. Of\nMan, Horse, &c.? Doubtful. Of Hair, Mud, &c.? No _ib._\n\nParmenides declares that no object in nature is mean to the\nphilosopher 61\n\nRemarks upon this--Contrast between emotional and scientific\nclassification _ib._\n\nObjections of Parmenides--How can objects participate in the\nIdeas. Each cannot have the whole Idea, nor a part thereof 62\n\nComparing the Idea with the sensible objects partaking in the\nIdea, there is a likeness between them which must be represented\nby a higher Idea--and so on _ad infinitum_ 63\n\nAre the Ideas conceptions of the mind, and nothing more?\nImpossible 64\n\nThe Ideas are types or exemplars, and objects partake of them by\nbeing likened to them. Impossible 65\n\nIf Ideas exist, they cannot be knowable by us. We can know only\nwhat is relative to ourselves. Individuals are relative to\nindividuals: Ideas relative to Ideas _ib._\n\nForms can be known only through the Form of Cognition, which we do\nnot possess 66\n\nForm of cognition, superior to our Cognition, belongs to the Gods.\nWe cannot know them, nor can they know us _ib._\n\nSum total of objections against the Ideas is grave. But if we do\nnot admit that Ideas exist, and that they are knowable, there can\nbe no dialectic discussion 67\n\nDilemma put by Parmenides--Acuteness of his objections 68\n\nThe doctrine which Parmenides attacks is the genuine Platonic\ntheory of Ideas. His objections are never answered in any part of\nthe Platonic dialogues _ib._\n\nViews of Stallbaum and Socher. The latter maintains that Plato\nwould never make such objections against his own theory, and\ndenies the authenticity of the Parmenid\u00eas 69\n\nPhilosophers are usually advocates, each of a positive system of\nhis own 70\n\nDifferent spirit of Plato in his Dialogues of Search _ib._\n\nThe Parmenid\u00eas is the extreme manifestation of the negative\nelement. That Plato should employ one dialogue in setting forth\nthe negative case against the Theory of Ideas is not unnatural\n71\n\nForce of the negative case in the Parmenid\u00eas. Difficulties about\nparticipation of sensible objects in the world of Ideas _ib._\n\nDifficulties about the Cognizability of Ideas. If Ideas are\nabsolute, they cannot be cognizable: if they are cognizable, they\nmust be relative. Doctrine of Homo Mensura 72\n\nAnswer of Sokrates--That Ideas are mere conceptions of the mind.\nObjection of Parmenides correct, though undeveloped 73\n\nMeaning of Abstract and General Terms, debated from ancient times\nto the present day--Different views of Plato and Aristotle upon it\n76\n\nPlato never expected to make his Ideas fit on to the facts of\nsense: Aristotle tried to do it and partly succeeded 78\n\nContinuation of the Dialogue--Parmenides admonishes Sokrates that\nhe has been premature in delivering a doctrine, without sufficient\npreliminary exercise 79\n\nWhat sort of exercise? Parmenides describes: To assume\nprovisionally both the affirmative and the negative of many\nhypotheses about the most general terms, and to trace the\nconsequences of each _ib._\n\nImpossible to do this before a numerous audience--Parmenides is\nentreated to give a specimen--After much solicitation he agrees\n80\n\nParmenides elects his own theory of the _Unum_, as the topic for\nexhibition--Aristoteles becomes respondent _ib._\n\nExhibition of Parmenides--Nine distinct deductions or\nDemonstrations, first from _Unum Est_--next from _Unum non Est_\n81\n\nThe Demonstrations in antagonising pairs, or Antinomies.\nPerplexing entanglement of conclusions given without any\nexplanation _ib._\n\nDifferent judgments of Platonic critics respecting the Antinomies\nand the dialogue generally 82\n\nNo dogmatical solution or purpose is wrapped up in the dialogue.\nThe purpose is negative, to make a theorist keenly feel all the\ndifficulties of theorising 85\n\nThis negative purpose is expressly announced by Plato himself. All\ndogmatical purpose, extending farther, is purely hypothetical, and\neven inconsistent with what is declared 87\n\nThe Demonstrations or Antinomies considered. They include much\nunwarranted assumption and subtlety. Collection of unexplained\nperplexities or [Greek: a)pori/ai] 88\n\nEven if Plato himself saw through these subtleties, he might still\nchoose to impose and to heap up difficulties in the way of a\nforward affirmative aspirant 89\n\nThe exercises exhibited by Parmenides are exhibited only as\nillustrative specimens of a method enjoined to be applied to many\nother Antinomies 91\n\nThese Platonic Antinomies are more formidable than any of the\nsophisms or subtleties broached by the Megaric philosophers\n_ib._\n\nIn order to understand fully the Platonic Antinomies, we ought to\nhave before us the problems of the Megarics and others.\nUselessness of searching for a positive result 93\n\nAssumptions of Parmenides in his Demonstrations convey the minimum\nof determinate meaning. Views of Aristotle upon these\nindeterminate predicates, Ens, Unum, &c. 94\n\nIn the Platonic Demonstrations the same proposition in words is\nmade to bear very different meanings 95\n\nFirst demonstration ends in an assemblage of negative conclusions.\n_Reductio ad Absurdum_, of the assumption--Unum non Multa 96\n\nSecond Demonstration 97\n\nIt ends in demonstrating _Both_, of that which the first\nDemonstration had demonstrated _Neither_ 98\n\nStartling paradox--Open offence against logical canon--No logical\ncanon had then been laid down 99\n\nDemonstration third--Attempt to reconcile the contradiction of\nDemonstrations I. and II. 100\n\nPlato's imagination of the Sudden or Instantaneous--Breaches or\nmomentary stoppages in the course of time _ib._\n\nReview of the successive pairs of Demonstrations or Antinomies in\neach, the first proves the Neither, the second proves the Both\n101\n\nThe third Demonstration is mediatorial but not satisfactory--The\nhypothesis of the Sudden or Instantaneous found no favour 102\n\nReview of the two last Antinomies. Demonstrations VI. and VII.\n103\n\nDemonstration VII. is founded upon the genuine doctrine of\nParmenides 104\n\nDemonstrations VI. and VII. considered--Unwarrantable steps in the\nreasoning--The fundamental premiss differently interpreted, though\nthe same in words 105\n\nDemonstrations VIII. and IX.--Analysis of Demonstration VIII.\n106\n\nDemonstration VIII. is very subtle and Zenonian 107\n\nDemonstration IX. _Neither_ following _Both_ _ib._\n\nConcluding words of the Parmenides--Declaration that he has\ndemonstrated the Both and the Neither of many different\npropositions 108\n\nComparison of the conclusion of the Parmenides to an enigma of the\nRepublic. Difference. The constructor of the enigma adapted its\nconditions to a foreknown solution. Plato did not _ib._\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII.\n\nTHE\u00c6TETUS.\n\nSubjects and personages in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus 110\n\nQuestion raised by Sokrates--What is knowledge or Cognition? First\nanswer of The\u00e6t\u00eatus, enumerating many different cognitions.\nCorrected by Sokrates 111\n\nPreliminary conversation before the second answer is given.\nSokrates describes his own peculiar efficacy--mental obstetric--He\ncannot teach, but he can evolve knowledge out of pregnant minds\n112\n\nEthical basis of the cross-examination of Sokrates--He is\nforbidden to pass by falsehood without challenge 113\n\nAnswer of The\u00e6t\u00eatus--Cognition is sensible perception: Sokrates\nsays that this is the same doctrine as the _Homo Mensura_ laid\ndown by Protagoras, and that both are in close affinity with the\ndoctrines of Homer, Herakleitus, Empedokl\u00eas, &c., all except\nParmenides _ib._\n\nPlato here blends together three distinct theories for the purpose\nof confuting them; yet he also professes to urge what can be said\nin favour of them. Difficulty of following his exposition 114\n\nThe doctrine of Protagoras is completely distinct from the other\ndoctrines. The identification of them as one and the same is only\nconstructive--the interpretation of Plato himself 115\n\nExplanation of the doctrine of Protagoras--_Homo Mensura_ 116\n\nPerpetual implication of Subject with Object--Relate and Correlate\n118\n\nSuch relativity is no less true in regard to the ratiocinative\ncombinations of each individual, than in regard to his percipient\ncapacities _ib._\n\nEvidence from Plato proving implication of Subject and Object, in\nregard to the intelligible world 121\n\nThe Protagorean measure is even more easily shown in reference to\nthe intelligible world than in reference to sense 122\n\nObject always relative to Subject--Either without the other,\nimpossible. Plato admits this in Sophistes 126\n\nPlato's representation of the Protagorean doctrine in intimate\nconjunction with the Herakleitean 126\n\nRelativity of sensible facts, as described by him _ib._\n\nRelations are nothing in the object purely and simply without a\ncomparing subject 127\n\nRelativity twofold--to the comparing Subject--to another object,\nbesides the one directly described _ib._\n\nStatement of the doctrine of Herakleitus--yet so as to implicate\nit with that of Protagoras 128\n\nAgent and Patient--No absolute Ens 129\n\nArguments derived from dreams, fevers, &c., may be answered 130\n\nExposition of the Protagorean doctrine, as given here by Sokrates\nis to a great degree just. You cannot explain the facts of\nconsciousness by independent Subject and Object 131\n\nPlato's attempt to get behind the phenomena. Reference to a double\npotentiality--Subjective and Objective 133\n\nArguments advanced by the Platonic Sokrates against the\nProtagorean doctrine. He says that it puts the wise and foolish on\na par--that it contradicts the common consciousness. Not every\none, but the wise man only, is a measure 135\n\nIn matters of present sentiment every man can judge for himself.\nWhere future consequences are involved special knowledge is\nrequired 136\n\nPlato, when he impugns the doctrine of Protagoras, states that\ndoctrine without the qualification properly belonging to it. All\nbelief relative to the condition of the believing mind 137\n\nAll exposition and discussion is an assemblage of individual\njudgments and affirmations. This fact is disguised by elliptical\nforms of language 139\n\nArgument--That the Protagorean doctrine equalises all men and\nanimals. How far true. Not true in the sense requisite to sustain\nPlato's objection 141\n\nBelief on authority is true to the believer himself--The efficacy\nof authority resides in the believer's own mind 142\n\nProtagorean formula--is false, to those who dissent from it 143\n\nPlato's argument that the wise man alone is a measure--Reply to it\n_ib._\n\nPlato's argument as to the distinction between present sensation\nand anticipation of the future 145\n\nThe formula of Relativity does not imply that every man believes\nhimself to be infallible _ib._\n\nPlato's argument is untenable--That if the Protagorean formula be\nadmitted, dialectic discussion would be annulled--The reverse is\ntrue--Dialectic recognises the autonomy of the Individual mind\n146\n\nContrast with the Treatise De Legibus--Plato assumes infallible\nauthority--sets aside dialectic 148\n\nPlato in denying the Protagorean formula, constitutes himself the\nmeasure for all. Counter proposition to the formula _ib._\n\nImport of the Protagorean formula is best seen when we state\nexplicitly the counter-proposition 150\n\nUnpopularity of the Protagorean formula--Most believers insist\nupon making themselves a measure for others, as well as for\nthemselves. Appeal to Abstractions 150\n\nAristotle failed in his attempts to refute the Protagorean\nformula--Every reader of Aristotle will claim the right of\nexamining for himself Aristotle's canons of truth 152\n\nPlato's examination of the other doctrine--That knowledge is\nSensible Perception. He adverts to sensible facts which are\ndifferent with different Percipients 153\n\nSuch is not the case with all the facts of sense. The conditions\nof unanimity are best found among select facts of sense--weighing,\nmeasuring, &c. 154\n\nArguments of Sokrates in examining this question. Divergence\nbetween one man and another arises, not merely from different\nsensual impressibility, but from mental and associative difference\n155\n\nArgument--That sensible Perception does not include\nmemory--Probability that those who held the doctrine meant to include\nmemory 157\n\nArgument from the analogy of seeing and not seeing at the same\ntime _ib._\n\nSokrates maintains that we do not see _with_ our eyes, but that\nthe mind sees _through_ the eyes: that the mind often conceives\nand judges by itself without the aid of any bodily organ 159\n\nIndication of several judgments which the mind makes by itself--It\nperceives Existence, Difference, &c. 160\n\nSokrates maintains that knowledge is to be found, not in the\nSensible Perceptions themselves, but in the comparisons add\ncomputations of the mind respecting them 161\n\nExamination of this view--Distinction from the views of modern\nphilosophers 162\n\nDifferent views given by Plato in other dialogues 163\n\nPlato's discussion of this question here exhibits a remarkable\nadvance in analytical psychology. The mind rises from Sensation,\nfirst to Opinion, then to Cognition 164\n\nPlato did not recognise Verification from experience, or from\nfacts of sense, as either necessary or possible 168\n\nSecond definition given by The\u00e6t\u00eatus--That Cognition consists in\nright or true opinion _ib._\n\nObjection by Sokrates--This definition assumes that there are\nfalse opinions. But how can false opinions be possible? How can we\nconceive Non-Ens: or confound together two distinct realities?\n_ib._\n\nWaxen memorial tablet in the mind, on which past impressions are\nengraved. False opinion consists in wrongly identifying present\nsensations with past impressions 169\n\nSokrates refutes this assumption. Dilemma. Either false opinion is\nimpossible, or else a man may know what he does not know 170\n\nHe draws distinction between possessing knowledge, and having it\nactually in hand. Simile of the pigeon-cage with caught pigeons\nturned into it and flying about _ib._\n\nSokrates refutes this. Suggestion of The\u00e6t\u00eatus--That there may be\nnon-cognitions in the mind as well as cognitions, and that false\nopinion may consist in confounding one with the other. Sokrates\nrejects this 171\n\nHe brings another argument to prove that Cognition is not the same\nas true opinion. Rhetors persuade or communicate true opinion; but\nthey do not teach or communicate knowledge 172\n\nNew answer of The\u00e6t\u00eatus--Cognition is true opinion, coupled with\nrational explanation 173\n\nCriticism on the answer by Sokrates. Analogy of letters and words,\nprimordial elements and compounds. Elements cannot be explained:\ncompounds alone can be explained _ib._\n\nSokrates refutes this criticism. If the elements are unknowable,\nthe compound must be unknowable also 174\n\nRational explanation may have one of three different meanings. 1.\nDescription in appropriate language. 2. Enumeration of all the\ncomponent elements in the compound. In neither of these meanings\nwill the definition of Cognition hold _ib._\n\nThird meaning. To assign some mark, whereby the thing to be\nexplained differs from everything else. The definition will not\nhold. For rational explanation, in this sense, is already included\nin true opinion 175\n\nConclusion of the dialogue--Summing up by Sokrates--Value of the\nresult, although purely negative 176\n\nRemarks on the dialogue. View of Plato. False persuasion of\nknowledge removed. Importance of such removal _ib._\n\nFormation of the testing or verifying power in men's minds, value\nof the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, as it exhibits Sokrates demolishing his own\nsuggestions 177\n\nComparison of the Philosopher with the Rhetor. The Rhetor is\nenslaved to the opinions of auditors 178\n\nThe Philosopher is master of his own debates 179\n\nPurpose of dialogue to qualify for a life of philosophical Search\n_ib._\n\nDifficulties of the The\u00e6t\u00eatus are not solved in any other Dialogue\n180\n\nPlato considered that the search for Truth was the noblest\noccupation of life 182\n\nContrast between the philosopher and the practical\nstatesman--between Knowledge and Opinion 183\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX.\n\nSOPHISTES--POLITIKUS.\n\n\nPersons and circumstances of the two dialogues 185\n\nRelation of the two dialogues to the The\u00e6t\u00eatus 187\n\nPlato declares that his first purpose is to administer a lesson in\nlogical method: the special question chosen, being subordinate to\nthat purpose 188\n\nMethod of logical Definition and Division _ib._\n\nSokrates tries the application of this method, first, upon a\nvulgar subject. To find the logical place and deduction of the\nAngler. Superior classes above him. Bisecting division 189\n\nSuch a lesson in logical classification was at that time both\nnovel and instructive. No logical manuals then existed 190\n\nPlato describes the Sophist as analogous to an angler. He traces\nthe Sophist by descending subdivision from the acquisitive genus\nof art 191\n\nThe Sophist traced down from the same, by a second and different\ndescending subdivision 192\n\nAlso, by a third 193\n\nThe Sophist is traced down, from the genus of separating or\ndiscriminating art 194\n\nIn a logical classification, low and vulgar items deserve as much\nattention as grand ones. Conflict between emotional and scientific\nclassification 195\n\nThe purifier--a species under the genus discriminator--separates\ngood from evil. Evil is of two sorts; the worst sort is,\nIgnorance, mistaking itself for knowledge 197\n\nExhortation is useless against this worst mode of evil.\nCross-examination, the shock of the Elenchus, must be brought to bear\nupon it. This is the sovereign purifier _ib._\n\nThe application of this Elenchus is the work of the Sophist,\nlooked at on its best side. But looked at as he really is, he is a\njuggler who teaches pupils to dispute about every thing--who palms\noff falsehood for truth 198\n\nDoubt started by the Eleate. How can it be possible either to\nthink or to speak falsely? 199\n\nHe pursues the investigation of this problem by a series of\nquestions _ib._\n\nThe Sophist will reject our definition and escape, by affirming\nthat to speak falsely is impossible. He will require us to make\nout a rational theory, explaining Non-Ens 200\n\nThe Eleate turns from Non-Ens to Ens. Theories of various\nphilosophers about Ens _ib._\n\nDifficulties about Ens are as great as those about Non-Ens 201\n\nWhether Ens is Many or One? If Many, how Many? Difficulties about\nOne and the Whole. Theorists about Ens cannot solve them 201\n\nTheories of those who do not recognise a definite number of Entia\nor elements. Two classes thereof 202\n\n1. The Materialist Philosophers. 2. The Friends of Forms or\nIdealists, who recognise such Forms as the only real Entia _ib._\n\nArgument against the Materialists--Justice must be something,\nsince it may be either present or absent, making sensible\ndifference--But Justice is not a body 203\n\nAt least many of them will concede this point, though not all Ens\nis common to the corporeal and the incorporeal. Ens is equivalent\nto potentiality 204\n\nArgument against the Idealists--who distinguish Ens from the\ngenerated, and say that we hold communion with the former through\nour minds, with the latter through our bodies and senses _ib._\n\nHolding communion--What? Implies Relativity. Ens is known by the\nmind. It therefore suffers or undergoes change. Ens includes both\nthe unchangeable and the changeable 205\n\nMotion and rest are both of them Entia or realities. Both agree in\nEns. Ens is a _tertium quid_--distinct from both. But how can\nanything be distinct from both? 206\n\nHere the Eleate breaks off without solution. He declares his\npurpose to show, That Ens is as full of puzzle as Non-Ens _ib._\n\nArgument against those who admit no predication to be legitimate,\nexcept identical. How far Forms admit of intercommunion with each\nother _ib._\n\nNo intercommunion between any distinct forms. Refuted. Common\nspeech is inconsistent with this hypothesis 207\n\nReciprocal intercommunion of all Forms--inadmissible _ib._\n\nSome Forms admit of intercommunion, others not. This is the only\nadmissible doctrine. Analogy of letters and syllables _ib._\n\nArt and skill are required to distinguish what Forms admit of\nintercommunion, and what Forms do not. This is the special\nintelligence of the Philosopher, who lives in the bright region of\nEns: the Sophist lives in the darkness of Non-Ens 208\n\nHe comes to enquire what Non-Ens is. He takes for examination five\nprincipal Forms--Motion--Rest--Ens--Same--Different _ib._\n\nForm of Diversum pervades all the others 209\n\nMotion is different from Diversum, or is not Diversum. Motion is\ndifferent from Ens--in other words, it is Non-Ens. Each of these\nForms is both Ens and Non-Ens 210\n\nBy Non-Ens, we do not mean anything contrary to Ens--we mean only\nsomething different from Ens. Non-Ens is a real Form, as well as\nEns _ib._\n\nThe Eleate claims to have refuted Parmenides, and to have shown\nboth that Non-Ens is a real Form, and also what it is 211\n\nThe theory now stated is the only one, yet given, which justifies\npredication as a legitimate process, with a predicate different\nfrom the subject 212\n\nEnquiry, whether the Form of Non-Ens can come into intercommunion\nwith the Forms of Proposition, Opinion, Judgment 213\n\nAnalysis of a Proposition. Every Proposition must have a noun and\na verb--it must be proposition of _Something_. False propositions,\ninvolve the Form of Non-Ens, in relation to the particular subject\n_ib._\n\nOpinion, Judgment, Fancy, &c., are akin to Proposition, and may be\nalso false, by coming into partnership with the Form Non-Ens 214\n\nIt thus appears that Falsehood, imitating Truth, is theoretically\npossible, and that there may be a profession, like that of the\nSophist, engaged in producing it _ib._\n\nLogical distribution of Imitators--those who imitate what they\nknow, or what they do not know--of these last, some sincerely\nbelieve themselves to know, others are conscious that they do not\nknow, and designedly impose upon others 215\n\nLast class divided--Those who impose on numerous auditors by long\ndiscourse, the Rhetor--Those who impose on select auditors, by\nshort question and answer, making the respondent contradict\nhimself--the Sophist 215\n\nDialogue closed. Remarks upon it. Characteristics ascribed to a\nSophist 216\n\nThese characteristics may have belonged to other persons, but they\nbelonged in an especial manner to Sokrates himself _ib._\n\nThe conditions enumerated in the dialogue (except the taking of a\nfee) fit Sokrates better than any other known person 217\n\nThe art which Plato calls \"the thoroughbred and noble Sophistical\nArt\" belongs to Sokrates and to no one else. The Elenchus was\npeculiar to him. Protagoras and Prodikus were not Sophists in this\nsense 218\n\nUniversal knowledge--was professed at that time by all\nPhilosophers--Plato, Aristotle, &c. 219\n\nInconsistency of Plato's argument in the Sophist\u00eas. He says that\nthe Sophist is a disputatious man who challenges every one for\nspeaking falsehood. He says also that the Sophist is one who\nmaintains false propositions to be impossible 220\n\nReasoning of Plato about Non-Ens--No predications except identical\n221\n\nMisconception of the function of the copula in predication _ib._\n\nNo formal Grammar or Logic existed at that time. No analysis or\nclassification of propositions before the works of Aristotle 222\n\nPlato's declared purpose in the Sophist\u00eas--To confute the various\nschools of thinkers--Antisthenes, Parmenides, the Materialists,\n&c. 223\n\nPlato's refutation throws light upon the doctrine of Antisthenes\n_ib._\n\nPlato's argument against the Materialists 224\n\nReply open to the Materialists _ib._\n\nPlato's argument against the Idealists or Friends of Forms. Their\npoint of view against him 225\n\nPlato argues--That to know, and be known, is action and passion, a\nmode of relativity 226\n\nPlato's reasoning--compared with the points of view of both\n_ib._\n\nThe argument of Plato goes to an entire denial of the Absolute,\nand a full establishment of the Relative 227\n\nCoincidence of his argument with the doctrine of Protagoras in the\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus _ib._\n\nThe Idealists maintained that Ideas or Forms were entirely\nunchangeable and eternal. Plato here denies this, and maintains\nthat ideas were partly changeable, partly unchangeable 228\n\nPlato's reasoning against the Materialists _ib._\n\nDifference between Concrete and Abstract, not then made\nconspicuous. Large meaning here given by Plato to\nEns--comprehending not only objects of Perception, but objects of\nConception besides 229\n\nNarrower meaning given by Materialists to Ens--they included only\nObjects of Perception. Their reasoning as opposed to Plato _ib._\n\nDifferent definitions of Ens--by Plato--the Materialists, the\nIdealists 231\n\nPlato's views about Non-Ens examined _ib._\n\nHis review of the select Five Forms 233\n\nPlato's doctrine--That Non-Ens is nothing more than different from\nEns _ib._\n\nCommunion of Non-Ens with proposition--possible and explicable\n235\n\nImperfect analysis of a proposition--Plato does not recognise the\npredicate _ib._\n\nPlato's explanation of Non-Ens is not satisfactory--Objections to\nit 236\n\nPlato's view of the negative is erroneous. Logical maxim of\ncontradiction 239\n\nExamination of the illustrative propositions chosen by Plato--How\ndo we know that one is true, the other false? _ib._\n\nNecessity of accepting the evidence of sense 240\n\nErrors of Antisthenes--depended partly on the imperfect formal\nlogic of that day 241\n\nDoctrine of the Sophist\u00eas--contradicts that of other Platonic\ndialogues 242\n\nThe persons whom Plato here attacks as Friends of Forms are those\nwho held the same doctrine as Plato himself espouses in Ph\u00e6don,\nRepublic, &c. 246\n\nThe Sophist\u00eas recedes from the Platonic point of view, and\napproaches the Aristotelian 247\n\nAristotle assumes without proof, that there are some propositions\ntrue, others false 249\n\nPlato in the Sophist\u00eas has undertaken an impossible task--He could\nnot have proved, against his supposed adversary, that there _are_\nfalse propositions _ib._\n\nWhat must be assumed in all dialectic discussion 251\n\nDiscussion and theorising presuppose belief and disbelief,\nexpressed in set forms of words. They imply predication, which\nAntisthenes discarded 252\n\nPrecepts and examples of logical partition, illustrated in the\nSophist\u00eas 253\n\nRecommendation of logical bipartition 254\n\nPrecepts illustrated by the Phil\u00eabus _ib._\n\nImportance of founding logical Partition on resemblances perceived\nby sense 255\n\nProvince of sensible perception--is not so much narrowed by Plato\nhere as it is in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus 256\n\nComparison of the Sophist\u00eas with the Ph\u00e6drus 257\n\nComparison of the Politikus with the Parmenid\u00eas 258\n\nVariety of method in dialectic research--Diversity of Plato 259\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX.\n\nPOLITIKUS.\n\n\nThe Politikus by itself, apart from the Sophist\u00eas 260\n\nViews of Plato on mensuration. Objects measured against each\nother. Objects compared with a common standard. In each Art, the\npurpose to be attained is the standard _ib._\n\nPurpose in the Sophist\u00eas and Politikus is--To attain dialectic\naptitude. This is the standard of comparison whereby to judge\nwhether the means employed are suitable 261\n\nPlato's defence of the Politikus against critics. Necessity that\nthe critic shall declare explicitly what his standard of\ncomparison is 262\n\nComparison of Politikus with Protagoras, Ph\u00e6don, Phil\u00eabus, &c.\n_ib._\n\nDefinition of the statesman, or Governor. Scientific competence.\nSokratic point of departure. Procedure of Plato in subdividing\n263\n\nKing during the Saturnian period, was of a breed superior to the\npeople--not so any longer 264\n\nDistinction of causes Principal and Causes Auxiliary. The King is\nthe only Principal Cause, but his auxiliaries pretend to be\nprincipal also 266\n\nPlato does not admit the received classification of government. It\ndoes not touch the point upon which all true distinction ought to\nbe founded--Scientific or Unscientific 267\n\nUnscientific governments are counterfeits. Government by any\nnumerous body must be counterfeit. Government by the one\nscientific man is the true government 268\n\nFixed laws, limiting the scientific Governor, are mischievous, as\nthey would be for the physician and the steersman. Absurdity of\ndetermining medical practice by laws, and presuming every one to\nknow it 269\n\nGovernment by fixed laws is better than lawless government by\nunscientific men, but worse than lawless government by scientific\nmen. It is a second-best _ib._\n\nComparison of unscientific governments. The one despot is the\nworse. Democracy is the least bad, because it is least of a\ngovernment 270\n\nThe true governor distinguished from the General, the Rhetor, &c.\nThey are all properly his subordinates and auxiliaries 271\n\nWhat the scientific Governor will do. He will aim at the formation\nof virtuous citizens. He will weave together the energetic virtues\nwith the gentle virtues. Natural dissidence between them 272\n\nIf a man sins by excess of the energetic element, he is to be\nkilled or banished: if of the gentle, he is to be made a slave.\nThe Governor must keep up in the minds of the citizens an\nunanimous standard of ethical orthodoxy 272\n\nRemarks--Sokratic Ideal--Title to govern mankind derived\nexclusively from scientific superiority in an individual person\n273\n\nDifferent ways in which this ideal is worked out by Plato and\nXenophon. The man of speculation and the man of action _ib._\n\nThe theory in the Politikus is the contradiction to that theory\nwhich is assigned to Protagoras in the Protagoras 274\n\nPoints of the Protagorean theory--rests upon common sentiment\n275\n\nCounter-Theory in the Politikus. The exigencies of the Eleate in\nthe Politikus go much farther than those of Protagoras 276\n\nThe Eleate complains that under the Protagorean theory no adverse\ncriticism is allowed. The dissenter is either condemned to silence\nor punished _ib._\n\nIntolerance at Athens, not so great as elsewhere. Plato complains\nof the assumption of infallibility in existing societies, but\nexacts it severely in that which he himself constructs 277\n\nTheory of the Politikus--distinguished three gradations of polity.\nGigantic individual force the worst 278\n\nComparison of the Politikus with the Republic. Points of analogy\nand difference 279\n\nComparison of the Politikus with the Kratylus. Dictatorial,\nconstructive, science or art, common to both: applied in the\nformer to social administration--in the latter to the formation\nand modification of names 281\n\nCourage and Temperance are assumed in the Politikus. No notice\ntaken of the doubts and difficulties raised in Lach\u00eas and\nCharmid\u00eas 282\n\nPurpose of the difficulties in Plato's Dialogues of Search--To\nstimulate the intellect of the hearer. His exposition does not\ngive solutions 284\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI.\n\nKRATYLUS.\n\n\nPersons and subjects of the dialogue Kratylus--Sokrates has no\nformed opinion, but is only a Searcher with the others 285\n\nArgument of Sokrates against Hermogenes--all proceedings of nature\nare conducted according to fixed laws--speaking and naming among\nthe rest 286\n\nThe name is a didactic instrument; fabricated by the law-giver\nupon the type of the Name-Form, and employed as well as\nappreciated, by the philosopher 287\n\nNames have an intrinsic aptitude for signifying one thing and not\nanother 289\n\nForms of Names, as well as Forms of things nameable--essence of\nthe Nomen, to signify the Essence of its Nominatum _ib._\n\nExclusive competence of a privileged lawgiver, to discern these\nessences, and to apportion names rightly 290\n\nCounter-Theory, which Sokrates here sets forth and impugns--the\nProtagorean doctrine--Homo Mensura 291\n\nObjection by Sokrates--That Protagoras puts all men on a level as\nto wisdom and folly, knowledge and ignorance 292\n\nObjection unfounded--What the Protagorean theory really\naffirms--Belief always relative to the believer's mind _ib._\n\nEach man believes others to be wiser on various points than\nhimself--Belief on authority--not inconsistent with the\naffirmation of Protagoras 293\n\nAnalogy of physical processes (cutting and burning) appealed to by\nSokrates--does not sustain his inference against Protagoras 294\n\nReply of Protagoras to the Platonic objections 295\n\nSentiments of Belief and Disbelief, common to all men--Grounds of\nbelief and disbelief, different with different men and different\nages 295\n\nProtagoras did not affirm, that Belief depended upon the will or\ninclination of each individual but that it was relative to the\ncircumstances of each individual mind 297\n\nFacts of sense--some are the same to all sentient subjects, others\nare different to different subjects. Grounds of unanimity 298\n\nSokrates exemplifies his theory of the Absolute Name or the\nName-Form. He attempts to show the inherent rectitude of many\nexisting names. His etymological transitions 299\n\nThese transitions appear violent to a modern reader. They did not\nappear so to readers of Plato until this century. Modern\ndiscovery, that they are intended as caricatures to deride the\nSophists 302\n\nDissent from this theory--No proof that the Sophists ever proposed\netymologies 304\n\nPlato did not intend to propose mock-etymologies, or to deride any\none. Protagoras could not be ridiculed here. Neither Hermogenes\nnor Kratylus understand the etymologies as caricature 306\n\nPlato intended his theory as serious, but his exemplifications as\nadmissible** guesses. He does not cite particular cases as proofs of\na theory, but only as illustrating what he means 308\n\nSokrates announces himself as Searcher. Other etymologists of\nancient times admitted etymologies as rash as those of Plato 310\n\nContinuance of the dialogue--Sokrates endeavours to explain how it\nis that the Names originally right have become so disguised and\nspoiled 312\n\nLetters, as well as things, must be distinguished with their\nessential properties, each must be\nadapted to each 313\n\nEssential significant aptitude consists in resemblance _ib._\n\nSokrates assumes that the Name-giving Lawgiver was a believer in\nthe Herakleitean theory 314\n\nBut the Name-Giver may be mistaken or incompetent--the rectitude\nof the name depends upon his knowledge 315\n\nChanges and transpositions introduced in the name--hard to follow\n315\n\nSokrates qualifies and attenuates his original thesis 316\n\nConversation of Sokrates with Kratylus; who upholds that original\nthesis without any qualification _ib._\n\nSokrates goes still farther towards retracting it 317\n\nThere are names better and worse--more like, or less like to the\nthings named: Natural Names are the best, but they cannot always\nbe had. Names may be significant by habit, though in an inferior\nway 318\n\nAll names are not consistent with the theory of Herakleitus: some\nare opposed to it 319\n\nIt is not true to say, That Things can only be known through their\nnames 320\n\nUnchangeable Platonic Forms--opposed to the Herakleitean flux,\nwhich is true only respecting\nsensible particulars _ib._\n\nHerakleitean theory must not be assumed as certain. We must not\nput implicit faith in names 321\n\nRemarks upon the dialogue. Dissent from the opinion of Stallbaum\nand others, that it is intended to deride Protagoras and other\nSophists _ib._\n\nTheory laid down by Sokrates _\u00e0 priori_, in the first part--Great\ndifficulty, and ingenuity necessary, to bring it into harmony with\nfacts 322\n\nOpposite tendencies of Sokrates in the last half of the dialogue--he\ndisconnects his theory of Naming from the Herakleitean doctrine\n324\n\nIdeal of the best system of naming--the Name-Giver ought to be\nfamiliar with the Platonic Ideas or Essences, and apportion his\nnames according to resemblances among them 325\n\nComparison of Plato's views about naming with those upon social\ninstitutions. Artistic, systematic construction--contrasted with\nunpremeditated unsystematic growth 327\n\nPolitikus compared with Kratylus 328\n\nIdeal of Plato--Postulate of the One Wise Man--Badness of all\nreality 329\n\nComparison of Kratylus, The\u00e6t\u00eatus, and Sophist\u00eas, in treatment of\nthe question respecting Non-Ens, and the possibility of false\npropositions 331\n\nDiscrepancies and inconsistencies of Plato, in his manner of\nhandling the same subject 332\n\nNo common didactic purpose pervading the Dialogues--each is a\ndistinct composition, working out its own peculiar argument\n_ib._\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII.\n\nPHILEBUS.\n\nCharacter, Personages, and Subject of the Phil\u00eabus 334\n\nProtest against the Sokratic Elenchus, and the purely negative\nprocedure 335\n\nEnquiry--What mental condition will ensure to all men a happy\nlife? Good and Happiness--correlative and co-extensive. Phil\u00eabus\ndeclares for Pleasure, Sokrates for Intelligence _ib._\n\nGood--object of universal choice and attachment by men, animals,\nand plants--all-sufficient--satisfies all desires _ib._\n\nPleasures are unlike to each other, and even opposite cognitions\nare so likewise 336\n\nWhether Pleasure, or Wisdom, corresponds to this description?\nAppeal to individual choice 337\n\nFirst Question submitted to Protarchus--Intense Pleasure, without\nany intelligence--He declines to accept it 338\n\nSecond Question--Whether he will accept a life of Intelligence\npurely without any pleasure or pain? Answer--_No_ _ib._\n\nIt is agreed on both sides, That the Good must be a Tertium Quid.\nBut Sokrates undertakes to show, That Intelligence is more cognate\nwith it than Pleasure 339\n\nDifficulties about Unum et Multa. How can the One be Many? How can\nthe Many be One? The difficulties are greatest about Generic\nUnity--how it is distributed among species and individuals _ib._\n\nActive disputes upon this question at the time 340\n\nOrder of Nature--Coalescence of the Finite with the Infinite. The\nOne--The Finite Many--The Infinite Many _ib._\n\nMistake commonly made--To look only for the One, and the Infinite\nMany, without looking for the intermediate subdivisions 341\n\nIllustration from Speech and Music 342\n\nPlato's explanation does not touch the difficulties which he had\nhimself recognised as existing 343\n\nIt is nevertheless instructive, in regard to logical division and\nclassification 344\n\nAt that time little thought had been bestowed upon classification\nas a logical process _ib._\n\nClassification--unconscious and conscious 345\n\nPlato's doctrine about classification is not necessarily connected\nwith his Theory of Ideas _ib._\n\nQuadruple distribution of Existences. 1. The Infinite. 2. The\nFinient 3. Product of the two former. 4. Combining Cause or Agency\n346\n\nPleasure and Pain belong to the first of these four\nClasses--Cognition or Intelligence belongs to the fourth 347\n\nIn the combination, essential to Good, of Intelligence with\nPleasure, Intelligence is the more important of the two\nconstituents _ib._\n\nIntelligence is the regulating principle--Pleasure is the\nIndeterminate, requiring to be regulated 348\n\nPleasure and Pain must be explained together--Pain arises from the\ndisturbance of the fundamental harmony of the system--Pleasure\nfrom the restoration of it _ib._\n\nPleasure presupposes Pain 349\n\nDerivative pleasures of memory and expectation belonging to mind\nalone. Here you may find pleasure without pain _ib._\n\nA life of Intelligence alone, without pain and without pleasure,\nis conceivable. Some may prefer it: at any rate it is second-best\n_ib._\n\nDesire belongs to the mind, presupposes both a bodily want, and\nthe memory of satisfaction previously had for it. The mind and\nbody are here opposed. No true or pure pleasure therein 350\n\nCan pleasures be true or false? Sokrates maintains that they are\nso 351\n\nReasons given by Sokrates. Pleasures attached to true opinions,\nare true pleasures. The just man is favoured by the Gods, and will\nhave true visions sent to him _ib._\n\nProtarchus disputes this--He thinks that there are some pleasures\nbad, but none false--Sokrates does not admit this, but reserves\nthe question 352\n\nNo means of truly estimating pleasures and pains--False estimate\nhabitual--These are the false pleasures _ib._\n\nMuch of what is called pleasure is false. Gentle and gradual\nchanges do not force themselves upon our notice either as pleasure\nor pain. Absence of pain not the same as pleasure 353\n\nOpinion of the pleasure-hating philosophers--That pleasure is no\nreality, but a mere juggle. There is no reality except pain, and\nthe relief from pain 354\n\nSokrates agrees with them in part, but not wholly _ib._\n\nTheory of the pleasure-haters--We must learn what pleasure is by\nlooking at the intense pleasures--These are connected with\ndistempered body and mind 355\n\nThe intense pleasures belong to a state of sickness; but there is\nmore pleasure, on the whole, enjoyed in a state of health 356\n\nSokrates acknowledges some pleasures to be true. Pleasures of\nbeautiful colours, odours, sounds, smells, &c. Pleasures of\nacquiring knowledge _ib._\n\nPure and moderate pleasures admit of measure and proportion 357\n\nPleasure is generation, not substance or essence: it cannot\ntherefore be an End, because all generation is only a means\ntowards substance--Pleasure therefore cannot be the Good _ib._\n\nOther reasons why pleasure is not the Good 358\n\nDistinction and classification of the varieties of Knowledge or\nIntelligence. Some are more true and exact than others, according\nas they admit more or less of measuring and computation _ib._\n\nArithmetic and Geometry are twofold: As studied by the philosopher\nand teacher: As applied by the artisan 359\n\nDialectic is the truest and purest of all Cognitions. Analogy\nbetween Cognition and Pleasure: in each, there are gradations of\ntruth and purity 360\n\nDifference with Gorgias, who claims superiority for Rhetoric.\nSokrates admits that Rhetoric is superior in usefulness and\ncelebrity: but he claims superiority for Dialectic, as satisfying\nthe lover of truth _ib._\n\nMost men look to opinions only, or study the phenomenal\nmanifestations of the Kosmos. They neglect the unchangeable\nessences, respecting which alone pure truth can be obtained 361\n\nApplication. Neither Intelligence nor Pleasure separately, is the\nGood, but a mixture of the two--Intelligence being the most\nimportant. How are they to be mixed? _ib._\n\nWe must include all Cognitions--not merely the truest, but the\nothers also. Life cannot be carried on without both 362\n\nBut we must include no pleasures except the true, pure, and\nnecessary. The others are not compatible with Cognition or\nIntelligence--especially the intense sexual pleasures _ib._\n\nWhat causes the excellence of this mixture? It is Measure,\nProportion, Symmetry. To these Reason is more akin than Pleasure\n363\n\nQuintuple gradation in the Constituents of the Good. 1. Measure.\n2. Symmetry. 3. Intelligence. 4. Practical Arts and Right\nOpinions. 5. True and Pure Pleasures 364\n\nRemarks. Sokrates does not claim for Good the unity of an Idea,\nbut a quasi-unity of analogy 365\n\nDiscussions of the time about Bonum. Extreme absolute view,\nmaintained by Eukleides: extreme relative by the Xenophontic\nSokrates. Plato here blends the two in part; an Eclectic doctrine\n_ib._\n\nInconvenience of his method, blending Ontology with Ethics 366\n\nComparison of Man to the Kosmos (which has reason, but no emotion)\nis unnecessary and confusing 367\n\nPlato borrows from the Pythagoreans, but enlarges their doctrine.\nImportance of his views in dwelling upon systematic classification\n368\n\nClassification broadly enunciated, and strongly recommended--yet\nfeebly applied--in this dialogue 369\n\nWhat is the Good? Discussed both in Phil\u00eabus and in Republic.\nComparison 370\n\nMistake of talking about Bonum confidently, as if it were known,\nwhile it is subject of constant dispute. Plato himself wavers\nabout it; gives different explanations, and sometimes professes\nignorance, sometimes talks about it confidently _ib._\n\nPlato lays down tests by which Bonum may be determined: but the\nanswer in the Phil\u00eabus does not satisfy those tests 371\n\nInconsistency of Plato in his way of putting the question--The\nalternative which he tenders has no fair application 372\n\nIntelligence and Pleasure cannot be fairly compared--Pleasure is\nan End, Intelligence a Means. Nothing can be compared with\nPleasure, except some other End 373\n\nThe Hedonists, while they laid down attainment of pleasure and\ndiminution of pain, postulated Intelligence as the governing\nagency 374\n\nPleasures of Intelligence may be compared, and are compared by\nPlato, with other pleasures, and declared to be of more value.\nThis is arguing upon the Hedonistic basis 375\n\nMarked antithesis in the Phil\u00eabus between pleasure and avoidance\nof pain 377\n\nThe Hedonists did not recognise this distinction--They included\nboth in their acknowledged End _ib._\n\nArguments of Plato against the intense pleasures--The Hedonists\nenforced the same reasonable view 378\n\nDifferent points of view worked out by Plato in different\ndialogues--Gorgias, Protagoras, Phil\u00eabus--True and False Pleasures\n379\n\nOpposition between the Gorgias and Phil\u00eabus, about Gorgias and\nRhetoric 380\n\nPeculiarity of the Phil\u00eabus--Plato applies the same principle of\nclassification--true and false--to Cognitions and Pleasures 382\n\nDistinction of true and false--not applicable to pleasures _ib._\n\nPlato acknowledges no truth and reality except in the\nAbsolute--Pleasures which he admits to be true--and why 385\n\nPlato could not have defended this small list of Pleasures, upon\nhis own admission, against his opponents--the Pleasure-haters, who\ndisallowed pleasures altogether 387\n\nSokrates in this dialogue differs little from these\nPleasure-haters 389\n\nForced conjunction of Kosmology and Ethics--defect of the Phil\u00eabus\n391\n\nDirective sovereignty of Measure--how explained and applied in the\nProtagoras _ib._\n\nHow explained in Phil\u00eabus--no statement to what items it is\napplied 393\n\nClassification of true and false--how Plato applies it to\nCognitions 394\n\nValuable principles of this classification--difference with other\ndialogues 395\n\nClose of the Phil\u00eabus--Graduated elements of Good 397\n\nContrast between the Phil\u00eabus and the Ph\u00e6drus, and Symposion, in\nrespect to Pulchrum, and intense Emotions generally 398\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII.\n\nMENEXENUS.\n\n\nPersons and situation of the dialogue 401\n\nFuneral harangue at Athens--Choice of a public orator--Sokrates\ndeclares the task of the public orator to be easy--Comic\nexaggeration of the effects of the harangue 401\n\nSokrates professes to have learnt a funeral harangue from Aspasia,\nand to be competent to recite it himself. Menexenus entreats him\nto do so 402\n\nHarangue recited by Sokrates 403\n\nCompliments of Menexenus after Sokrates has finished, both to the\nharangue itself and to Aspasia _ib._\n\nSupposed period--shortly after the peace of Antalkidas _ib._\n\nCustom of Athens about funeral harangues. Many such harangues\nexisted at Athens, composed by distinguished orators or\nlogographers--Established type of the harangue 404\n\nPlato in this harangue conforms to the established type--Topics on\nwhich he insists 405\n\nConsolation and exhortation to surviving relatives 407\n\nAdmiration felt for this harangue, both at the time and afterwards\n407\n\nProbable motives of Plato in composing it, shortly after he\nestablished himself at Athens as a teacher--His competition with\nLysias--Desire for celebrity both as rhetor and as dialectician\n_ib._\n\nMenexenus compared with the view of rhetoric presented in the\nGorgias--Necessity for an orator to conform to established\nsentiments 409\n\nColloquial portion of the Menexenus is probably intended as\nridicule and sneer at Rhetoric--The harangue itself is serious,\nand intended as an evidence of Plato's ability 410\n\nAnachronism of the Menexenus--Plato careless on this point 411\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV.\n\nKLEITOPHON.\n\n\nPersons and circumstances of Kleitophon 413\n\nConversation of Sokrates with Kleitophon alone: he alludes to\nobservations of an unfavourable character recently made by\nKleitophon, who asks permission to explain _ib._\n\nExplanation given. Kleitophon expresses gratitude and admiration\nfor the benefit which he has derived from long companionship with\nSokrates 414\n\nThe observations made by Sokrates have been most salutary and\nstimulating in awakening ardour for virtue. Arguments and\nanalogies commonly used by Sokrates _ib._\n\nBut Sokrates does not explain what virtue is, nor how it is to be\nattained. Kleitophon has had enough of stimulus, and now wants\ninformation how he is to act 415\n\nQuestions addressed by Kleitophon with this view, both to the\ncompanions of Sokrates and to Sokrates himself 416\n\nReplies made by the friends of Sokrates unsatisfactory _ib._\n\nNone of them could explain what the special work of justice or\nvirtue was 417\n\nKleitophon at length asked the question from Sokrates himself. But\nSokrates did not answer clearly. Kleitophon believes that Sokrates\nknows, but will not tell 417\n\nKleitophon is on the point of leaving Sokrates and going to\nThrasymachus. But before leaving he addresses one last entreaty,\nthat Sokrates will speak out clearly and explicitly 418\n\nRemarks on the Kleitophon. Why Thrasyllus placed it in the eighth\nTetralogy immediately before the Republic, and along with Kritias,\nthe other fragment 419\n\nKleitophon is genuine, and perfectly in harmony with a just theory\nof Plato 420\n\nIt could not have been published until after Plato's death _ib._\n\nReasons why the Kleitophon was never finished. It points out the\ndefects of Sokrates, just as he himself confesses them in the\nApology 421\n\nThe same defects also confessed in many of the Platonic and\nXenophontic dialogues 422\n\nForcible, yet respectful, manner in which these defects are set\nforth in the Kleitophon. Impossible to answer them in such a way\nas to hold out against the negative Elenchus of a Sokratic pupil\n423\n\nThe Kleitophon represents a point of view which many objectors\nmust have insisted on against Sokrates and Plato 424\n\nThe Kleitophon was originally intended as a first book of the\nRepublic, but was found too hard to answer. Reasons why the\nexisting first book was substituted _ib._\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI.\n\n\nPLATO.\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI.\n\nPH\u00c6DRUS--SYMPOSION.\n\n\n[Side-note: These two are the two erotic dialogues of Plato.\nPh\u00e6drus is the originator of both.]\n\nI put together these two dialogues, as distinguished by a marked\npeculiarity. They are the two erotic dialogues of Plato. They have\none great and interesting subject common to both: though in the\nPh\u00e6drus, this subject is blended with, and made contributory to,\nanother. They agree also in the circumstance, that Ph\u00e6drus is, in\nboth, the person who originates the conversation. But they differ\nmaterially in the manner of handling, in the comparisons and\nillustrations, and in the apparent purpose.\n\n[Side-note: Eros as conceived by Plato. Different sentiment\nprevalent in Hellenic antiquity and in modern times. Position of\nwomen in Greece.]\n\nThe subject common to both is, Love or Eros in its largest sense,\nand with its manifold varieties. Under the totally different vein\nof sentiment which prevails in modern times, and which recognises\npassionate love as prevailing only between persons of different\nsex--it is difficult for us to enter into Plato's eloquent\nexposition of the feeling as he conceives it. In the Hellenic\npoint of view,[1] upon which Plato builds, the attachment of man\nto woman was regarded as a natural impulse, and as a domestic,\nsocial, sentiment; yet as belonging to a common-place rather than\nto an exalted mind, and seldom or never rising to that pitch of\nenthusiasm which overpowers all other emotions, absorbs the whole\nman, and aims either at the joint performance of great exploits or\nthe joint prosecution of intellectual improvement by continued\ncolloquy. We must remember that the wives and daughters of\ncitizens were seldom seen abroad: that the wife was married very\nyoung: that she had learnt nothing except spinning and weaving:\nthat the fact of her having seen as little and heard as little as\npossible, was considered as rendering her more acceptable to her\nhusband:[2] that her sphere of duty and exertion was confined to\nthe interior of the family. The beauty of women yielded\nsatisfaction to the senses, but little beyond. It was the\nmasculine beauty of youth that fired the Hellenic imagination with\nglowing and impassioned sentiment. The finest youths, and those\ntoo of the best families and education, were seen habitually\nuncovered in the Pal\u00e6stra and at the public festival-matches;\nengaged in active contention and graceful exercise, under the\ndirection of professional trainers. The sight of the living form,\nin such perfection, movement, and variety, awakened a powerful\nemotional sympathy, blended with aesthetic sentiment, which in the\nmore susceptible natures was exalted into intense and passionate\ndevotion. The terms in which this feeling is described, both by\nPlato and Xenophon, are among the strongest which the language\naffords--and are predicated even of Sokrates himself. Far from\nbeing ashamed of the feeling, they consider it admirable and\nbeneficial; though very liable to abuse, which they emphatically\ndenounce and forbid.[3] In their view, it was an idealising\npassion, which tended to raise a man above the vulgar and selfish\npursuits of life, and even above the fear of death. The devoted\nattachments which it inspired were dreaded by the despots, who\nforbade the assemblage of youths for exercise in the pal\u00e6stra.[4]\n\n[Footnote 1: Schleiermacher (Einleit. zum Symp. p. 367) describes\nthis view of Eros as Hellenic, and as \"gerade den anti-modernen\nand anti-christlichen Pol der Platonischen Denkungsart\". Aristotle\ncomposed [Greek: The/seis E)r\u00f4tikai\\] or [Greek: E)r\u00f4tika/s],\nDiogenes Laert. v. 22-24. See Bernays, Die Dialoge des\nAristoteles, p. 133, Berlin, 1863.\n\nCompare the dialogue called [Greek: E)r\u00f4tiko/s], among the works\nof Plutarch, p. 750 seq., where some of the speakers, especially\nProtogenes, illustrate and enlarge upon this Platonic construction\nof Eros--[Greek: a)l\u00eathinou= de\\ E)/r\u00f4tos ou)d' o(tiou=n t\u00ea=|\ngunaik\u00f4ni/tidi me/testin], &c. (750 C, 761 B, &c.)\n\nIn the Treatise De Educatione Puerorum (c. 15, p. 11 D-F) Plutarch\nhesitates to give a decided opinion on the amount of restriction\nproper to be imposed on youth: he is much impressed with the\nauthority of Sokrates, Plato, Xenophon, \u00c6schines, Keb\u00eas, [Greek:\nkai\\ to\\n pa/nta cho/ron e)kei/n\u00f4n t\u00f4=n a)ndr\u00f4=n, oi( tou\\s\na)/r)r(enas e)doki/masan e)/r\u00f4tas], &c. See the anecdote about\nEpisthenes, an officer among the Ten Thousand Greeks under\nXenophon, in Xenophon, Anabasis, vii. 4, 7, and a remarkable\npassage about Zeno the Stoic, Diog. Laert. vii. 13. Respecting the\ngeneral subject of [Greek: paiderasti/a] in Greece, there is a\nvaluable Excursus in Bekker's Charikles, vol. i. pp. 347-377,\nExcurs. ii. I agree generally with his belief about the practice\nin Greece, see Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iv. 33, 70. Bekker quotes\nabundant authorities, which might be farther multiplied if\nnecessary. In appreciating the evidence upon this point, we cannot\nbe too careful to keep in mind what Sokrates says (in the\nXenophontic Symposion, viii. 34) when comparing the Thebans and\nEleians on one side with the Athenians and Spartans on the\nother--[Greek: E)kei/nois me\\n ga\\r tau=ta no/mima, \u00ea(mi=n de\\\ne)ponei/dista.] We must interpret passages of the classical\nauthors according to their fair and real meanings, not according\nto the conclusions which we might wish to find proved.\n\nIf we read the oration of Demosthenes against Ne\u00e6ra (which is full\nof information about Athenian manners), we find the speaker\nApollod\u00f4rus distributing the relations of men with women in the\nfollowing manner (p. 1386)--[Greek: to\\ ga\\r sunoikei=n tou=t'\ne)sti/n, o(\\s a)\\n paidopoi\u00ea=tai kai\\ ei)sa/g\u00ea| ei)/s te tou\\s\nd\u00eamo/tas kai\\ tou\\s phra/toras tou\\s ui(ei=s, kai\\ ta\\s\nthugate/ras e)kdid\u00f4=| \u00f4(s au)tou= ou)/sas toi=s a)ndra/si. Ta\\s\nme\\n ga\\r e(tai/ras, \u00ea(don\u00ea=s e(/neka e)/chomen--ta\\s de\\\npallaka/s, t\u00ea=s kath' \u00ea(me/ran therapei/as tou= s\u00f4/matos--ta\\s de\\\ngunai=kas, tou= paidopoiei=sthai gn\u00easi/\u00f4s, kai\\ t\u00f4=n e(/ndon\nphu/laka pi/st\u00ean e)/chein.]\n\nTo the same purpose, the speaker in Lysias ([Greek: U(pe\\r tou=\nE)ratosthe/nous pho/nou]--sect. 7), describing his wife,\nsays--[Greek: e)n me\\n ou)=n t\u00f4=| pr\u00f4/t\u00f4| chro/n\u00f4| pas\u00f4=n \u00ea)=n\nbelti/st\u00ea; kai\\ ga\\r oi)kono/mos dein\u00ea\\ kai\\ pheid\u00f4lo\\s a)gath\u00ea\\\nkai\\ a)krib\u00f4=s pa/nta dioikou=sa.]\n\nNeither of these three relations lent itself readily to the\nPlatonic vein of sentiment and ideality: neither of them led to\nany grand results either in war--or political ambition--or\nphilosophical speculation; the three great roads, in one or other\nof which the Grecian ideality travelled. We know from the Republic\nthat Plato did not appreciate the value of the family life, or the\npurposes for which men marry, according to the above passage cited\nfrom Demosthenes. In this point, Plato differs from Xenophon, who,\nin his Oeconomicus, enlarges much (in the discourse of\nIschomachus) upon the value of the conjugal union, with a view to\nprudential results and good management of the household; while he\nillustrates the sentimental and affectionate side of it, in the\nstory of Pantheia and Abradates (Cyrop\u00e6dia).]\n\n[Footnote 2: See the Oeconomicus of Xenophon, cap. iii. 12, vii.\n5.]\n\n[Footnote 3: The beginning of the Platonic Charmid\u00eas illustrates\nwhat is here said, pp. 154-155; also that of the Protagoras and\nLysis, pp. 205-206.\n\nXenophon, Sympos. i. 8-11; iv. 11, 15. Memorab. i. 3, 8-14 (what\nSokrates observes to Xenophon about Kritobulus). Dik\u00e6archus\n(companion of Aristotle) disapproved the important influence which\nPlato assigned to Eros (Cicero, Tusc. D. iv. 34-71).\n\nIf we pass to the second century after the Christian Era, we find\nsome speakers in Athen\u00e6us blaming severely the amorous sentiments\nof Sokrates and the narrative of Alkibiades, as recited in the\nPlatonic Symposium (v. 180-187; xi. 506-508 C). Athen\u00e6us remarks\nfarther, that Plato, writing in this strain, had little right to\ncomplain (as we read in the Republic) of the licentious\ncompositions of Homer and other poets, and to exclude them from\nhis model city. Maximus Tyrius, in one of his four discourses\n(23-5) on the [Greek: e)r\u00f4tik\u00ea\\] of Sokrates, makes the same remark as\nAthen\u00e6us about the inconsistency of Plato in banishing Homer from\nthe model city, and composing what we read in the Symposion; he\nfarther observes that the erotic dispositions of Sokrates provoked\nno censure from his numerous enemies at the time (though they\nassailed him upon so many other points), but had incurred great\ncensure from contemporaries of Maximus himself, to whom he\nreplies--[Greek: tou\\s nuni\\ kat\u00eago/rous] (23, 6-7). The\ncomparisons which he institutes (23, 9) between the sentiments and\nphrases of Sokrates, and those of Sappho and Anakreon, are very\ncurious.\n\nDionysius of Halikarnassus speaks of the [Greek: e)gk\u00f4/mia] on\nEros in the Symposion, as \"unworthy of serious handling or of\nSokrates\". (De Admir. Vi Dic. Demosth. p. 1027.)\n\nBut the most bitter among all the critics of Plato, is\nHerakleitus--author of the Allegori\u00e6 Homeric\u00e6. Herakleitus repels,\nas unjust and calumnious, the sentence of banishment pronounced by\nPlato against Homer, from whom all mental cultivation had been\nderived. He affirms, and tries to show, that the poems of\nHomer--which he admits to be full of immorality if literally\nunderstood--had an allegorical meaning. He blames Plato for not having\nperceived this; and denounces him still more severely for the\ncharacter of his own writings--[Greek: e)r)r(i/phth\u00f4 de\\ kai\\\nPla/t\u00f4n o( ko/lax, O(m\u00ea/rou sukopha/nt\u00eas--Tou\\s de\\ Pla/t\u00f4nos\ndialo/gous, a)/n\u00f4 kai\\ ka/t\u00f4 paidikoi\\ kathubri/zousin e)/r\u00f4tes,\nou)damou= de ou)chi t\u00ea=s a)r)r(e/nos e)pithumi/as mesto/s e)stin\no( a)n\u00ea/r] (Herakl. All. Hom., c. 4-74, ed. Mehler, Leiden,\n1851).]\n\n[Footnote 4: Plato, Sympos. 182 C. The proceedings of Harmodius\nand Aristogeiton, which illustrate this feeling, are recounted by\nThucydides, vi. 54-57. These two citizens were gratefully\nrecollected and extensively admired by the Athenian public.]\n\n[Side-note: Eros, considered as the great stimulus to improving\nphilosophical communion. Personal Beauty, the great point of\napproximation between the world of sense and the world of Ideas.\nGradual generalisation of the sentiment.]\n\nEspecially to Plato, who combined erotic and poetical imagination\nwith Sokratic dialectics and generalising theory--this passion\npresented itself in the light of a stimulus introductory to the\nwork of philosophy--an impulse at first impetuous and\nundistinguishing, but afterwards regulated towards improving\ncommunion and colloquy with an improvable youth. Personal beauty\n(this is[5] the remarkable doctrine of Plato in the Ph\u00e6drus) is\nthe main point of visible resemblance between the world of sense\nand the world of Ideas: the Idea of Beauty has a brilliant\nrepresentative of itself among concrete objects--the Ideas of\nJustice and Temperance have none. The contemplation of a beautiful\nyouth, and the vehement emotion accompanying it, was the only way\nof reviving in the soul the Idea of Beauty which it had seen in\nits antecedent stage of existence. This was the first stage\nthrough which every philosopher must pass; but the emotion of love\nthus raised, became gradually in the better minds both expanded\nand purified. The lover did not merely admire the person, but also\ncontracted the strongest sympathy with the feelings and character,\nof the beloved youth: delighting to recognise and promote in him\nall manifestations of mental beauty which were in harmony with the\nphysical, so as to raise him to the greatest attainable perfection\nof human nature. The original sentiment of admiration, having been\nthus first transferred by association from beauty in the person to\nbeauty in the mind and character, became gradually still farther\ngeneralised; so that beauty was perceived not as exclusively\nspecialised in any one individual, but as invested in all\nbeautiful objects, bodies as well as minds. The view would\npresently be farther enlarged. The like sentiment would be\ninspired, so as to worship beauty in public institutions, in\nadministrative arrangements, in arts and sciences. And the mind\nwould at last be exalted to the contemplation of that which\npervades and gives common character to all these\nparticulars--Beauty in the abstract--or the Self-Beautiful--the Idea\nor Form of the Beautiful. To reach this highest summit, after mounting\nall the previous stages, and to live absorbed in the contemplation of\n\"the great ocean of the beautiful,\" was the most glorious\nprivilege attainable by any human being. It was indeed attainable\nonly by a few highly gifted minds. But others might make more or\nless approach to it: and the nearer any one approached, the\ngreater measure would he ensure to himself of real good and\nhappiness.[6]\n\n[Footnote 5: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 249 E, 250 B-E.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Plato, Sympos. pp. 210-211.\n\nRespecting the Beautiful, I transcribe here a passage from\nFicinus, in his Argument prefixed to the Hippias Major, p. 757.\n\"Unumquodque \u00e8 singulis pulchris, _pulchrum hoc_ Plato vocat:\nformam in omnibus, pulchritudinem; speciem et ideam supra omnia,\nipsum pulchrum. Primum sensus attingit opinioque. Secundum ratio\ncogitat. Tertium mens intuetur.\n\n\"Quid ipsum Bonum? Ipsum rerum omnium principium, actus purus,\nactus sequentia cuncta vivificans. Quid ipsum Pulchrum? Vivificus\nactus e primo fonte bonorum effluens, Mentem primo divinam idearum\nordine infinit\u00e9 decorans, Numina deinde sequentia mentesque\nrationum serie complens, Animas tertio numerosis discursibus\nornans, Naturas quarto seminibus, formis quinto materiam.\"]\n\n[Side-note: All men love Good, as the means of Happiness, but they\npursue it by various means. The name _Eros_ is confined to one\nspecial case of this large variety.]\n\nSuch is Plato's conception of Eros or Love and its object. He\nrepresents it as one special form or variety of the universal law\nof gravitation pervading all mankind. Every one loves, desires, or\naspires to _happiness_: this is the fundamental or primordial law\nof human nature, beyond which we cannot push enquiry. Good, or\ngood things, are nothing else but the means to happiness:[7]\naccordingly, every man, loving happiness, loves good also, and\ndesires not only full acquisition, but perpetual possession of\ngood. In this wide sense, love belongs to all human beings: every\nman loves good and happiness, with perpetual possession of\nthem--and nothing else.[8] But different men have different ways of\npursuing this same object. One man aspires to good or happiness by\nway of money-getting, another by way of ambition, a third by\ngymnastics--or music--or philosophy. Still no one of these is said\nto love, or to be under the influence of Eros. That name is\nreserved exclusively for one special variety of it--the impulse\ntowards copulation, generation, and self-perpetuation, which\nagitates both bodies and minds throughout animal nature. Desiring\nperpetual possession of good, all men desire to perpetuate\nthemselves, and to become immortal. But an individual man or\nanimal cannot be immortal: he can only attain a quasi-immortality\nby generating a new individual to replace himself.[9] In fact even\nmortal life admits no continuity, but is only a succession of\ndistinct states or phenomena: one always disappearing and another\nalways appearing, each generated by its antecedent and generating\nits consequent. Though a man from infancy to old age is called the\nsame, yet he never continues the same for two moments together,\neither in body or mind. As his blood, flesh, bones, &c., are in\nperpetual disappearance and renovation, always coming and going--so\nlikewise are his sensations, thoughts, emotions, dispositions,\ncognitions, &c. Neither mentally nor physically does he ever\ncontinue the same during successive instants. The old man of this\ninstant perishes and is replaced by a new man during the next.[10]\nAs this is true of the individual, so it is still more true of the\nspecies: continuance or immortality is secured only by perpetual\ngeneration of new individuals.\n\n[Footnote 7: Plato, Sympos. pp. 204-205. [Greek: Phe/re, o( e)r\u00f4=n\nt\u00f4=n a)gath\u00f4=n, ti/ e)ra=|? Gene/sthai, \u00ea)=n d' e)g\u00f4/, au)t\u00f4=|.\nKai\\ ti/ e)/stai e)kei/n\u00f4| \u00f4(=| a)\\n ge/n\u00eatai ta)gatha/? Tou=t'\neu)por\u00f4/teron, \u00ea)=n d' e)g\u00f4/, e)/ch\u00f4 a)pokri/nasthai, o(/ti\neu)dai/m\u00f4n e)/stai. Kt\u00ea/sei ga/r, e)/ph\u00ea, a)gath\u00f4=n, oi(\neu)dai/mones eu)dai/mones; Kai\\ ou)ke/ti prosdei= e)re/sthai,\ni(/na ti/ de\\ bou/letai eu)dai/m\u00f4n ei)=nai o( boulo/menos, a)lla\\\nte/los dokei= e)/chein \u00ea( a)po/krisis. . . . Tau/t\u00ean d\u00ea\\ t\u00ea\\n\nbou/l\u00easin kai\\ to\\n e)/r\u00f4ta tou=ton, po/tera koino\\n ei)=nai\npa/nt\u00f4n a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n, kai\\ pa/ntas ta)gatha\\ bou/lesthai au)toi=s\nei)=nai a)ei/, \u00ea)\\ p\u00f4=s le/geis? Ou(/t\u00f4s, \u00ea)=n d' e)g\u00f4/, koino\\n\nei)=nai pa/nt\u00f4n.]]\n\n[Footnote 8: Plato, Sympos. p. 206 A. [Greek: \u00f4(s ou)de/n ge\na)/llo e)sti\\n ou)= e)r\u00f4=sin a)/nthr\u00f4poi \u00ea)\\ tou= a)gathou=.]]\n\n[Footnote 9: Plato, Sympos. p. 207 C.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Plato, Sympos. pp. 207-208.]\n\n[Side-note: Desire of mental copulation and procreation, as the\nonly attainable likeness of immortality, requires the sight of\npersonal beauty as an originating stimulus.]\n\nThe love of immortality thus manifests itself in living beings\nthrough the copulative and procreative impulse, which so\npowerfully instigates living man in mind as well as in body.\nBeauty in another person exercises an attractive force which\nenables this impulse to be gratified: ugliness on the contrary\nrepels and stifles it. Hence springs the love of beauty--or\nrather, of procreation in the beautiful--whereby satisfaction is\nobtained for this restless and impatient agitation.[11] With some,\nthis erotic impulse stimulates the body, attracting them towards\nwomen, and inducing them to immortalise themselves by begetting\nchildren: with others, it acts far more powerfully on the mind,\nand determines them to conjunction with another mind for the\npurpose of generating appropriate mental offspring and products.\nIn this case as well as in the preceding, the first stroke of\nattraction arises from the charm of physical, visible, and\nyouthful beauty: but when, along with this beauty of person, there\nis found the additional charm of a susceptible, generous,\nintelligent mind, the effect produced by the two together is\noverwhelming; the bodily sympathy becoming spiritualised and\nabsorbed by the mental. With the inventive and aspiring\nintelligences--poets like Homer and Hesiod, or legislators like\nLykurgus and Solon--the erotic impulse takes this turn. They look\nabout for some youth, at once handsome and improvable, in\nconversation with whom they may procreate new reasonings\nrespecting virtue and goodness--new excellences of\ndisposition--and new force of intellectual combination, in both\nthe communicants. The attachment between the two becomes so strong\nthat they can hardly live apart: so anxious are both of them to\nfoster and confirm the newly acquired mental force of which each\nis respectively conscious in himself.[12]\n\n[Footnote 11: Plato, Sympos. p. 206 E. [Greek: o(/then d\u00ea\\ t\u00f4=|\nkuou=nti/ te kai\\ \u00ea)/d\u00ea sparg\u00f4=nti poll\u00ea\\ \u00ea( pto/\u00easis ge/gone\nperi\\ to\\ kalo\\n dia\\ to\\ mega/l\u00eas \u00f4)di=nos a)polu/ein to\\n\ne)/chonta. E)sti\\ ga\\r ou) tou= kalou= o( e)/r\u00f4s, a)lla\\--t\u00ea=s\ngenn\u00ea/se\u00f4s kai\\ tou= to/kou e)n t\u00f4=| kal\u00f4=|.]]\n\n[Footnote 12: Plato, Sympos. p. 209.]\n\n[Side-note: Highest exaltation of the erotic impulse in a few\nprivileged minds, when it ascends gradually to the love of Beauty\n_in genere_. This is the most absorbing sentiment of all.]\n\nOccasionally, and in a few privileged natures, this erotic impulse\nrises to a still higher exaltation, losing its separate and\nexclusive attachment to one individual person, and fastening upon\nbeauty in general, or that which all beautiful persons and\nbeautiful minds have in common. The visible charm of beautiful\nbody, though it was indispensable as an initial step, comes to be\nstill farther sunk and undervalued, when the mind has ascended to\nthe contemplation of beauty _in genere_, not merely in bodies and\nminds, but in laws, institutions, and sciences. This is the\nhighest pitch of philosophical love, to which a few minds only are\ncompetent, and that too by successive steps of ascent: but which,\nwhen attained, is thoroughly soul-satisfying. If any man's vision\nbe once sharpened so that he can see beauty pure and absolute, he\nwill have no eyes for the individual manifestations of it in gold,\nfine raiment, brilliant colours, or beautiful youths.[13] Herein\nwe have the climax or consummation of that erotic aspiration which\nfirst shows itself in the form of virtuous attachment to\nyouth.[14]\n\n[Footnote 13: Plato, Symposion, p. 211.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Plato, Symposion, p. 211 B. [Greek: o(/tan d\u00ea/ tis\na)po\\ t\u00f4=nde dia\\ to\\ o)rth\u00f4=s paiderastei=n e)pani\u00f4\\n e)kei=no\nto\\ kalo\\n a)/rch\u00eatai kathora=|n, schedo\\n a)/n ti a(/ptoito tou=\nte/lous], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Purpose of the Symposion, to contrast this Platonic\nview of Eros with several different views of it previously\nenunciated by the other speakers; closing with a panegyric on\nSokrates, by the drunken Alkibiades.]\n\nIt is thus that Plato, in the Symposion, presents Love, or erotic\nimpulse: a passion taking its origin in the physical and mental\nattributes common to most men, and concentrated at first upon some\nindividual person--but gradually becoming both more intense and\nmore refined, as it ascends in the scale of logical generalisation\nand comes into intimate view of the pure idea of Beauty. The main\npurpose of the Symposion is to contrast this Platonic view of Eros\nor Love--which is assigned to Sokrates in the dialogue, and is\nrepeated by him from the communication of a prophetic woman named\nDiotima[15]--with different views assigned to other speakers. Each\nof the guests at the Banquet--Ph\u00e6drus, Pausanias, Eryximachus,\nAristophanes, Agathon, Sokrates--engages to deliver a panegyric on\nEros: while Alkibiades, entering intoxicated after the speeches\nare finished, delivers a panegyric on Sokrates, in regard to\nenergy and self-denial generally, but mainly and specially in the\ncharacter of Erastes. The pure and devoted attachment of Sokrates\ntowards Alkibiades himself--his inflexible self-command under the\nextreme of trial and temptation--the unbounded ascendancy which he\nhad acquired over that insolent youth, who seeks in every\nconceivable manner to render himself acceptable to Sokrates--are\nemphatically extolled, and illustrated by singular details.\n\n[Footnote 15: Plat. Sympos. p. 201 D. [Greek: gunaiko\\s mantik\u00ea=s\nDioti/mas, \u00ea( tau=ta/ te soph\u00ea\\ \u00ea)=n kai\\ a)/lla polla/, kai\\\nA)th\u00eanai/ois pote\\ thusame/nois pro\\ tou= loimou= de/ka e)/t\u00ea\na)nabol\u00ea\\n e)poi/\u00ease t\u00ea=s no/sou, \u00ea)\\ d\u00ea\\ kai\\ e)me\\ ta\\ e)r\u00f4tika\\\ne)di/daxen.]\n\nInstead of [Greek: gunaiko\\s mantik\u00ea=s], which was the old\nreading, Stallbaum and other editors prefer to write [Greek:\ngunaiko\\s Mantinik\u00ea=s], also 211 D. I cannot but think that\n[Greek: mantik\u00ea=s] is right. There is no pertinence or fit\nmeaning in [Greek: Mantinik\u00ea=s], whereas the word [Greek:\nmantik\u00ea=s] is in full keeping with what is said about the special\nreligious privileges and revelations of Diotima--that she procured\nfor the Athenians an adjournment of the plague for ten years. The\nDelphian oracle assured the Lydian king Kroesus that Apollo had\nobtained from the [Greek: Moi=rai] a postponement of the ruin of\nthe Lydian kingdom for three years, but that he could obtain from\nthem no more (Herodot. i. 91).]\n\n[Side-note: Views of Eros presented by Ph\u00e6drus, Pausanias,\nEryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon.]\n\nBoth Ph\u00e6drus[16] and Pausanias, in their respective encomiums upon\nEros, dwell upon that God as creating within the human bosom by\nhis inspirations the noblest self-denial and the most devoted\nheroism, together with the strongest incentives to virtuous\nbehaviour. Pausanias however makes distinctions: recognising and\ncondemning various erotic manifestations as abusive, violent,\nsensual--and supposing for these a separate inspiring Deity--Eros\nPand\u00eamus, contrasted with the good and honourable Eros Uranius[17]\nor Coelestis. In regard to the different views taken of Eros by\nEryximachus, Aristophanes, and Agathon--the first is medical,\nphysiological, cosmical[18]--the second is comic and imaginative,\neven to exuberance--the third is poetical or dithyrambic:\nimmediately upon which follows the analytical and philosophical\nexposition ascribed to Sokrates, opened in his dialectic manner by\na cross-examination of his predecessor, and proceeding to\nenunciate the opinions communicated to him by the prophetess\nDiotima.\n\n[Footnote 16: Sydenham conceives and Boeckh (ad Plat. Legg. iii.\n694) concurs with him, that this discourse, assigned to Ph\u00e6drus,\nis intended by Plato as an imitation of the style of Lysias. This\nis sufficiently probable. The encomium on Eros delivered by\nAgathon, especially the concluding part of it (p. 197), mimics the\nstyle of florid effeminate poetry, overcharged with balanced\nphrases ([Greek: i)so/k\u00f4la, a)nti/theta]), which Aristophanes\nparodies in Agathon's name at the beginning of the\nThesmophoriazus\u00e6, Athen\u00e6us, v. 187 C.]\n\n[Footnote 17: Plato, Sympos. pp. 180-181.]\n\n[Footnote 18: Respecting this view of Eros or Aphrodite, as a\ncosmical, all-pervading, procreative impulse, compare Euripides,\nFrag. Incert. 3, 6, assigned by Welcker (Griech. Trag. p. 737) to\nthe lost drama--the first Hippolytus; also the beautiful\ninvocation with which the poem of Lucretius opens, and the\nfragmentary exordium remaining from the poem of Parmenides.]\n\n[Side-note: Discourse of Sokrates from revelation of Diotima. He\ndescribes Eros as not a God, but an intermediate D\u00e6mon between\nGods and men, constantly aspiring to divinity, but not attaining\nit.]\n\nSokrates treats most of the preceding panegyrics as pleasing\nfancies not founded in truth. In his representation (cited from\nDiotima) Eros is neither beautiful, nor good, nor happy; nor is he\nindeed a God at all. He is one of the numerous intermediate body\nof D\u00e6mons, inferior to Gods yet superior to men, and serving as\ninterpreting agents of communication between the two.[19] Eros is\nthe offspring of Poverty and Resource (Porus).[20] He represents\nthe state of aspiration and striving, with ability and energy,\nafter goodness and beauty, but never actually possessing them: a\nmiddle condition, preferable to that of the person who neither\nknows that he is deficient in them, nor cares to possess them: but\ninferior to the condition of him who is actually in possession.\nEros is always Love of something--in relation to something yet\nunattained, but desired: Eros is to be distinguished carefully\nfrom the object desired.[21] He is the parallel of the\nphilosopher, who is neither ignorant nor wise: not ignorant,\nbecause genuine ignorance is unconscious of itself and fancies\nitself to be knowledge: not wise, because he does not possess\nwisdom, and is well aware that he does not possess it. He is in\nthe intermediate stage, knowing that he does not possess wisdom,\nbut constantly desiring it and struggling after it. Eros, like\nphilosophy, represents this continual aspiration and advance\ntowards a goal never attained.[22]\n\n[Footnote 19: Plato, Sympos. pp. 202-203.]\n\n[Footnote 20: What Sokrates says here in the Symposion about Eros\nis altogether at variance with what Sokrates says about Eros in\nPh\u00e6drus, wherein we find him speaking with the greatest reverence\nand awe about Eros as a powerful God, son of Aphrodit\u00ea (Ph\u00e6drus,\npp. 242 D, 243 D, 257 A).]\n\n[Footnote 21: Plato, Symposion, pp. 199-200. [Greek: O( E)/r\u00f4s\ne)/r\u00f4s e)sti\\n ou)deno\\s \u00ea(\\ tino/s? Pa/nu me\\n ou)=n\ne)/stin. . . . Po/teron o( E)/r\u00f4s e)kei/nou ou(= e)/stin e)/r\u00f4s,\ne)pithumei= au)tou= \u00ea)\\ ou)/? Pa/nu ge. . . . A)na/gk\u00ea to\\\ne)pithumou=n e)pithumei=n ou)= e)ndee/s e)stin, \u00ea)\\ m\u00ea\\\ne)pithumei=n, e)a\\n m\u00ea\\ e)ndee\\s \u00ea)=|.]]\n\n[Footnote 22: Plato, Sympos. p. 204 A. [Greek: Ti/nes ou)=n oi(\nphilosophou=ntes, ei) m\u00ea/te oi( sophoi\\ m\u00ea/te oi( a)mathei=s?\n. . . Oi( metaxu\\ tou/t\u00f4n a)mphote/r\u00f4n, \u00f4(=n au)= kai\\ o( E)/r\u00f4s.\nE)sti\\ ga\\r d\u00ea\\ t\u00f4=n kalli/st\u00f4n \u00ea( sophi/a, E)/r\u00f4s d' e)sti\\n\ne)/r\u00f4s peri\\ to\\ kalo/n; \u00f4(/ste a)nagkai=on E)/r\u00f4ta philo/sophon\nei)=nai, philo/sophon de\\ o)/nta metaxu\\ ei)=nai sophou= kai\\\na)mathou=s.]]\n\n[Side-note: Analogy of the erotic aspiration with that of the\nphilosopher, who knows his own ignorance and thirsts for\nknowledge.]\n\nIt is thus that the truly Platonic conception of Love is brought\nout, materially different from that of the preceding\nspeakers--Love, as a state of conscious want, and of aspiration or\nendeavour to satisfy that want, by striving after good or\nhappiness--Philosophy as the like intermediate state, in regard to\nwisdom. And Plato follows out this coalescence of love and philosophy\nin the manner which has been briefly sketched above: a vehement\nimpulse towards mental communion with some favoured youth, in the\nview of producing mental improvement, good, and happiness to both\npersons concerned: the same impulse afterwards expanding, so as to\ngrasp the good and beautiful in a larger sense, and ultimately to\nfasten on goodness and beauty in the pure Idea: which is\nabsolute--independent of time, place, circumstances, and all variable\nelements--moreover the object of the one and supreme science.[23]\n\n[Footnote 23: Plato, Symposion, pp. 210-211.]\n\n[Side-note: Eros as presented in the Ph\u00e6drus--Discourse of Lysias,\nand counter-discourse of Sokrates, adverse to Eros--Sokrates is\nseized with remorse, and recants in a high-flown panegyric on\nEros.]\n\nI will now compare the Symposion with the Ph\u00e6drus. In the first\nhalf of the Ph\u00e6drus also, Eros, and the Self-Beautiful or the pure\nIdea of the Beautiful, are brought into close coalescence with\nphilosophy and dialectic--but they are presented in a different\nmanner. Plato begins by setting forth the case against Eros in two\ncompeting discourses (one cited from Lysias,[24] the other\npronounced by Sokrates himself as competitor with Lysias in\neloquence) supposed to be addressed to a youth, and intended to\nconvince him that the persuasions of a calm and intelligent friend\nare more worthy of being listened to than the exaggerated promises\nand protestations of an impassioned lover, from whom he will\nreceive more injury than benefit: that the inspirations of Eros\nare a sort of madness, irrational and misguiding as well as\ncapricious and transitory: while the calm and steady friend,\nunmoved by any passionate inspiration, will show himself worthy of\npermanent esteem and gratitude.[25] By a sudden revulsion of\nfeeling, Sokrates becomes ashamed of having thus slandered the\ndivine Eros, and proceeds to deliver a counter-panegyric or\npalinode upon that God.[26]\n\n[Footnote 24: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 230 seq.]\n\n[Footnote 25: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 237 seq.]\n\n[Footnote 26: Eros, in the Ph\u00e6drus, is pronounced to be a God, son\nof Aphrodit\u00ea (p. 242 E); in the Symposion he is not a God but a\nD\u00e6mon, offspring of Porus and Penia, and attendant on Aphrodit\u00ea,\naccording to Diotima and Sokrates (p. 203).]\n\n[Side-note: Panegyric--Sokrates admits that the influence of Eros\nis a variety of madness, but distinguishes good and bad varieties\nof madness, both coming from the Gods. Good madness is far better\nthan sobriety.]\n\nEros (he says) is, mad, irrational, superseding reason and\nprudence in the individual mind.[27] This is true: yet still Eros\nexercises a beneficent and improving influence. Not all madness is\nbad. Some varieties of it are bad, but others are good. Some arise\nfrom human malady, others from the inspirations of the Gods: both\nof them supersede human reason and the orthodoxy of established\ncustom[28]--but the former substitute what is worse, the latter\nwhat is better. The greatest blessings enjoyed by man arise from\nmadness, when it is imparted by divine inspiration. And it is so\nimparted in four different phases and by four different Gods:\nApollo infuses the prophetic madness--Dionysus, the ritual or\nreligious--The Muses, the poetical--and Eros, the erotic.[29] This\nlast sort of madness greatly transcends the sober reason and\nconcentration upon narrow objects which is so much praised by\nmankind generally.[30] The inspired and exalted lover deserves\nevery preference over the unimpassioned friend.\n\n[Footnote 27: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 265-266. [Greek: to\\ a)/phron\nt\u00ea=s dianoi/as e(/n ti koin\u00ea=| ei)=dos. . . . to\\ t\u00ea=s paranoi/as\n\u00f4(s e(\\n e)n \u00ea(mi=n pephuko\\s ei)=dos.] Compare p. 236 A.]\n\n[Footnote 28: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 265 A. [Greek: Mani/as de/ ge\nei)/d\u00ea du/o; t\u00ea\\n me/n, u(po\\ nos\u00eama/t\u00f4n a)nthr\u00f4pi/n\u00f4n, t\u00ea\\n de/,\nu(po\\ thei/as e)xallag\u00ea=s t\u00f4=n ei)\u00f4tho/t\u00f4n nomi/m\u00f4n gignome/n\u00ean.]\nCompare 249 D.]\n\n[Footnote 29: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 244 A. [Greek: ei) me\\n ga\\r \u00ea)=n\na(plou=n to\\ mani/an kako\\n ei)=nai, kal\u00f4=s a)\\n e)le/geto; nu=n\nde\\ ta\\ me/gista t\u00f4=n a)gath\u00f4=n \u00ea(mi=n gi/gnetai dia\\ mani/as,\nthei/a| me/ntoi do/sei didome/n\u00eas.]\n\nCompare Plutarch, [Greek: E)r\u00f4tiko/s], c. 16. pp. 758-759, &c.]\n\n[Footnote 30: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 245 B. [Greek: m\u00eade/ tis \u00ea(ma=s\nlo/gos thorubei/t\u00f4 deditto/menos \u00f4(s pro\\ tou= kekin\u00eame/nou to\\n\ns\u00f4/phrona dei= proairei=sthai phi/lon.]\n\nP. 256 E; [Greek: \u00ea( de\\ a)po\\ tou= m\u00ea\\ e)r\u00f4=ntos oi)keio/t\u00eas,\ns\u00f4phrosu/n\u00ea| thn\u00eat\u00ea=| kekrame/n\u00ea, thn\u00eata/ te kai\\ pheid\u00f4la\\\noi)konomou=sa, a)neleutheri/an u(po\\ pl\u00ea/thous e)panoume/n\u00ean \u00f4(s\na)ret\u00ea\\n t\u00ea=| phi/l\u00ea|** psuch\u00ea=| e)ntekou=sa], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Poetical mythe delivered by Sokrates, describing the\nimmortality and pre-existence of the soul, and its pre-natal\ncondition of partial companionship with Gods and eternal Ideas.]\n\nPlato then illustrates, by a highly poetical and imaginative\nmythe, the growth and working of love in the soul. All soul or\nmind is essentially self-moving, and the cause of motion to other\nthings. It is therefore immortal, without beginning or end: the\nuniversal or cosmic soul, as well as the individual souls of Gods\nand men.[31] Each soul may be compared to a chariot with a winged\npair of horses. In the divine soul, both the horses are excellent,\nwith perfect wings: in the human soul, one only of them is good,\nthe other is violent and rebellious, often disobedient to the\ncharioteer, and with feeble or half-grown wings.[32] The Gods, by\nmeans of their wings, are enabled to ascend up to the summit of\nthe celestial firmament--to place themselves upon the outer\ncircumference or back of the heaven--and thus to be carried round\nalong with the rotation of the celestial sphere round the Earth.\nIn the course of this rotation they contemplate the pure essences\nand Ideas, truth and reality without either form or figure or\ncolour: they enjoy the vision of the Absolute--Justice,\nTemperance, Beauty, Science. The human souls, with their defective\nwings, try to accompany the Gods; some attaching themselves to one\nGod, some to another, in this ascent. But many of them fail in the\nobject, being thrown back upon earth in consequence of their\ndefective equipment, and the unruly character of one of the\nhorses: some however succeed partially, obtaining glimpses of\nTruth and of the general Ideas, though in a manner transient and\nincomplete.\n\n[Footnote 31: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 245-246. Compare Krische, De\nPlatonis Ph\u00e6dro, pp. 49-50 (G\u00f6ttingen, 1848).\n\nPlato himself calls this panegyric in the mouth of Sokrates a\n[Greek: muthiko/s tis u(/mnos] (Ph\u00e6dr. p. 265 D).]\n\n[Footnote 32: The reader will recollect Homer, Iliad, xvi. 152,\nwhere the chariot and horses of Patroklus are described, when he\nis about to attack the Trojans; the mortal horse Pedasus is\nharnessed to it alongside of the two immortal horses Xanthus and\nBalius.]\n\n[Side-note: Operation of such pre-natal experience upon the\nIntellectual faculties of man--Comparison and combination of\nparticular sensations indispensable--Reminiscence.]\n\nThose souls which have not seen Truth or general Ideas at all, can\nnever be joined with the body of a man, but only with that of some\ninferior animal. It is essential that some glimpse of truth should\nhave been obtained, in order to qualify the soul for the condition\nof man:[33] for the mind of man must possess within itself the\ncapacity of comparing and combining particular sensations, so as\nto rise to one general conception brought together by reason.[34]\nThis is brought about by the process of reminiscence; whereby it\nrecalls those pure, true, and beautiful Ideas which it had\npartially seen during its prior extra-corporeal existence in\ncompanionship with the Gods. The rudimentary faculty of thus\nreviving these general Conceptions--the visions of a prior state\nof existence--belongs to all men, distinguishing them from other\nanimals: but in most men the visions have been transient, and the\npower of reviving them is faint and dormant. It is only some few\nphilosophers, whose minds, having been effectively winged in their\nprimitive state for ascent to the super-celestial regions, have\nenjoyed such a full contemplation of the divine Ideas as to be\nable to recall them with facility and success, during the\nsubsequent corporeal existence. To the reminiscence of the\nphilosopher, these Ideas present themselves with such brilliancy\nand fascination, that he forgets all other pursuits and interests.\nHence he is set down as a madman by the generality of mankind,\nwhose minds have not ascended beyond particular and present\nphenomena to the revival of the anterior Ideas.\n\n[Footnote 33: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 249-250. [Greek: pa=sa me\\n\na)nthr\u00f4/pou psuch\u00ea\\ phu/sei tethe/atai ta\\ o)/nta--\u00ea)\\ ou)k a)\\n\n\u00ea)=lthen ei)s to/de** to\\ z\u00f4=on; a)namimn\u00ea/skesthai d' e)k t\u00f4=nde\ne)kei=na ou) r(a/|dion a(pa/s\u00ea|], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 34: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 249 B. [Greek: Ou) ga\\r \u00ea(/ ge\nm\u00ea/ pote i)dou=sa t\u00ea\\n a)l\u00ea/theian ei)s to/de \u00ea(/xei to\\ sch\u00ea=ma.\nDei= ga\\r a)/nthr\u00f4pon xunie/nai kat' ei)=dos lego/menon, e)k\npoll\u00f4=n i)o\\n ai)sth\u00ea/se\u00f4n ei)s e(\\n logism\u00f4=| xunairou/menon.\nTou=to de/ e)stin a)na/mn\u00easis e)kei/n\u00f4n, a(/ pot' ei)=den \u00ea(m\u00f4=n\n\u00ea( psuch\u00ea\\ sumporeuthei=sa the\u00f4=| kai\\ u(peridou=sa a(\\ nu=n\nei)=nai/ phamen, kai\\ a)naku/psasa ei)s to\\ o)\\n o)/nt\u00f4s.]]\n\n[Side-note: Reminiscence is kindled up in the soul of the\nphilosopher by the aspect of visible Beauty, which is the great\nlink between the world of sense and the world of Ideas.]\n\nIt is by the aspect of visible beauty, as embodied in\ndistinguished youth, that this faculty of reminiscence is first\nkindled in minds capable of the effort. It is only the embodiment\nof beauty, acting as it does powerfully upon the most intellectual\nof our senses, which has sufficient force to kindle up the first\nact or stage of reminiscence in the mind, leading ultimately to\nthe revival of the Idea of Beauty. The embodiments of justice,\nwisdom, temperance, &c., in particular men, do not strike forcibly\non the senses, nor approximate sufficiently to the original Idea,\nto effect the first stroke of reminiscence in an unprepared mind.\nIt is only the visible manifestation of beauty, which strikes with\nsufficient shock at once on the senses and the intellect, to\nrecall in the mind an adumbration of the primitive Idea of Beauty.\nThe shock thus received first develops the reminiscent faculty in\nminds apt and predisposed to it, and causes the undeveloped wings\nof the soul to begin growing. It is a passion of violent and\nabsorbing character; which may indeed take a sensual turn, by the\nmisconduct of the unruly horse in the team, producing in that case\nnothing but corruption and mischief--but which may also take a\nvirtuous, sentimental, imaginative turn, and becomes in that case\nthe most powerful stimulus towards mental improvement in both the\ntwo attached friends. When thus refined and spiritualised, it can\nfind its satisfaction only in philosophical communion, in the\ngeneration of wisdom and virtue; as well as in the complete\ncultivation of that reminiscent power, which vivifies in the mind\nremembrance of Forms or Ideas seen in a prior existence. To attain\nsuch perfection, is given to few; but a greater or less\napproximation may be made to it. And it is the only way of\ndeveloping the highest powers and virtues of the mind; which must\nspring, not from human prudence and sobriety, but from divine\nmadness or erotic inspiration.[35]\n\n[Footnote 35: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 256 B. [Greek: ou(= mei=zon\na)gatho\\n ou)/te s\u00f4phrosu/n\u00ea a)nthr\u00f4pi/n\u00ea ou)/te thei/a mani/a\ndunat\u00ea\\ pori/sai a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4|.]--245 B: [Greek: e)p' eu)tuchi/a\nt\u00ea=| megi/st\u00ea| para\\ the\u00f4=n \u00ea( toiau/t\u00ea mani/a di/dotai.]\n\nThe long and highly poetical mythe, of which I have given some of\nthe leading points, occupies from c. 51 to c. 83 (pp. 244-257) of\nthe dialogue. It is adapted to the Hellenic imagination, and\nrequires the reader to keep before him the pal\u00e6str\u00e6 of Athens, as\ndescribed in the Lysis, Erast\u00e6, and Charmid\u00eas of Plato--visited\nboth by men like Sokrates and by men like Kritias (Xenoph. Memor.\ni. 2, 29).]\n\nSuch is the general tenor of the dialogue Ph\u00e6drus, in its first\nhalf: which presents to us the Platonic love, conceived as the\nsource and mainspring of exalted virtue--as the only avenue to\nphilosophy--as contrasted, not merely with sensual love, but also\nwith the sobriety of the decent citizen who fully conforms to the\nteaching of Law and Custom. In the Symposion, the first of these\ncontrasts appears prominently, while the second is less noticed.\nIn the Ph\u00e6drus, Sokrates declares emphatically that madness, of a\ncertain sort, is greatly preferable to sobriety: that the\ntemperate, respectable, orthodox citizen, is on the middle line,\nsome madmen being worse than he, but others better: that madness\nspringing from human distemper is worse, but that when it springs\nfrom divine inspiration, it is in an equal degree better, than\nsobriety: that the philosophical _oestrus_, and the reminiscence\nof the eternal Ideas (considered by Plato as the only true and\nreal Entia), is inconsistent with that which is esteemed as\nsobriety: and is generated only by special inoculation from Eros\nor some other God. This last contrast, as I have just observed, is\nlittle marked in the Symposion. But on the other hand, the\nSymposion (especially the discourse of Sokrates and his repetition\nof the lessons of Diotima), insists much more upon the\ngeneralisation of the erotic impulse. In the Ph\u00e6drus, we still\nremain on the ground of fervent attachment between two\nindividuals--an attachment sentimental and virtuous, displaying\nitself in an intercourse which elicits from both of them active\nintelligence and exalted modes of conduct: in the Symposion, such\nintercourse is assimilated explicitly to copulation with\nprocreative consequences, but it is represented as the first stage\nof a passion which becomes more and more expanded and\ncomprehensive: dropping all restriction to any single individual,\nand enlarging itself not merely to embrace pursuits, and\ninstitutions, but also to the plenitude and great ocean of Beauty\nin its largest sense.\n\n[Side-note: Elevating influence ascribed, both in Ph\u00e6drus and\nSymposion, to Eros Philosophus. Mixture in the mind of Plato, of\npoetical fancy and religious mysticism, with dialectic theory.]\n\nThe picture here presented by Plato, of the beneficent and\nelevating influence of Eros Philosophus, is repeated by Sokrates\nas a revelation made to him by the prophetess Diotima. It was much\ntaken to heart by the Neo-Platonists.[36] It is a striking\nmanifestation of the Platonic characteristics: transition from\namorous impulse to religious and philosophical\nmysticism--implication of poetical fancy with the conception of the\nphilosophising process--surrender of the mind to metaphor and\nanalogy, which is real up to a certain point, but is forcibly\nstretched and exaggerated to serve the theorising purpose of the\nmoment. Now we may observe, that the worship of youthful masculine\nbeauty, and the belief that contemplation of such a face and form\nwas an operative cause, not only raising the admiration but also\nquickening the intelligence of the adult spectator, and serving as\na provocative to instructive dialogue--together with a decided\nattempt to exalt the spiritual side of this influence and\ndepreciate the sensual--both these are common to Plato with\nSokrates and Xenophon. But what is peculiar to Plato is, that he\ntreats this merely as an initial point to spring from, and soars\nat once into the region of abstractions, until he gets clear of\nall particulars and concomitants, leaving nothing except Beauty\nAbsolute--[Greek: to\\ Kalo\\n--to\\ au)to\\-kalo\\n]--the \"full sea of\nthe beautiful\". Not without reason does Diotima express a doubt\nwhether Sokrates (if we mean thereby the historical Sokrates)\ncould have followed so bold a flight. His wings might probably\nhave failed and dropped him: as we read in the Ph\u00e6drus respecting\nthe unprepared souls who try to rise aloft in company with the\nGods. Plato alone is the true D\u00e6dalus equal to this flight, borne\nup by wings not inferior to those of Pindar[37]--according to the\ncomparison of Dionysius of Halikarnassus.\n\n[Footnote 36: Porphyry, Vit. Plotini, 23.\n\nPlato's way of combining, in these two dialogues--so as to pass by\nan easy thread of association from one to the other--subjects\nwhich appear to us unconnected and even discordant, is certainly\nremarkable. We have to recognise material differences in the turn\nof imagination, as between different persons and ages. The\nfollowing remark of Professor Mohl, respecting the Persian lyric\npoet Hafiz, illustrates this point. \"Au reste, quand m\u00eame nous\nserions mieux renseign\u00e9s sur sa vie, il resterait toujours pour\nnous le singulier spectacle d'un homme qui tant\u00f4t c\u00e9l\u00e8bre\nl'absorption de l'\u00e2me dans l'essence de Dieu, tant\u00f4t chante le vin\net l'amour, sans grossi\u00e8ret\u00e9, il est vrai, mais avec un laisser\naller et un naturel qui exclut toute id\u00e9e de symbolisme--et qui\ng\u00e9n\u00e9ralement glisse de l'une dans l'autre de ces deux mani\u00e8res de\nsentir, qui nous paraissent si diff\u00e9rentes, sans s'apercevoir\nlui-m\u00eame qu'il change de sujet. Les Orientaux ont cherch\u00e9 la solution\nde cette difficult\u00e9 dans une interpr\u00e9tation mystique de toutes ses\npo\u00e9sies; mais les textes s'y refusent. Des critiques modernes ont\nvoulu l'expliquer en supposant une hypocrisie de l'auteur, qui lui\naurait fait m\u00ealer une certaine dose de pi\u00e9t\u00e9 mystique, \u00e0 ses vers\nplus l\u00e9gers, pour les faire passer: mais ce calcul parait \u00e9tranger\n\u00e0 la nature de l'homme. Je crois qu'il faut trouver le mot de\nl'\u00e9nigme dans l'\u00e9tat g\u00e9n\u00e9ral des esprits et de la culture de son\ntemps: et la difficult\u00e9 pour nous est seulement de nous\nr\u00e9pr\u00e9senter assez vivement l'\u00e9tat des esprits en Perse \u00e0 cette\n\u00e9poque, et la nature de l'influence que le Soufisme y exer\u00e7ait\ndepuis des si\u00e8cles sur toutes les classes cultiv\u00e9es de la\nnation.\"--Mohl (Rapport Annuel \u00e0 la Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Asiatique, 1861, p.\n89.)]\n\n[Footnote 37: Dionys. Hal. De Adm. Vi Dic. in Demosth., p. 972,\nReiske.]\n\nVarious remarks may be made, in comparing this exposition of\nDiotima in the Symposion with that which we read in the Ph\u00e6drus\nand Ph\u00e6don.\n\n[Side-note: Differences between Symposion and Ph\u00e6drus. In-dwelling\nconceptions assumed by the former, pre-natal experiences by the\nlatter.]\n\nFirst, in the Ph\u00e6drus and Ph\u00e6don (also in the Tim\u00e6us and\nelsewhere), the pre-existence of the soul, and its antecedent\nfamiliarity, greater or less, with the world of Ideas,--are\nbrought into the foreground; so as to furnish a basis for that\ndoctrine of reminiscence, which is one of the peculiar\ncharacteristics of Plato. The Form or Idea, when once disengaged\nfrom the appendages by which it has been overgrown, is said to be\nrecognised by the mind and welcomed as an old acquaintance. But in\nthe Symposion, no such doctrine is found. The mind is described as\nrising by gradual steps from the concrete and particular to the\nabstract and general, by recognising the sameness of one attribute\nas pervading many particulars, and by extending its comparisons\nfrom smaller groups of particulars to larger; until at length one\nand the same attribute is perceived to belong to all. The mind is\nsupposed to evolve out of itself, and to generate in some\ncompanion mind, certain abstract or general conceptions,\ncorrelating with the Forms or Concepta without. The fundamental\npostulate here is, not that of pre-existence, but that of\nin-dwelling conceptions.\n\n[Side-note: Nothing but metaphorical immortality recognised in\nSymposion.]\n\nSecondly, in the Ph\u00e6drus and Ph\u00e6don, the soul is declared to be\nimmortal, _\u00e0 parte post_ as well as _\u00e0 parte ante_. But in the\nSymposion, this is affirmed to be impossible.[38] The soul yearns\nfor, but is forbidden to reach, immortality: or at least can only\nreach immortality in a metaphorical sense, by its prolific\noperation--by generating in itself as long as it lasts, and in\nother minds who will survive it, a self-renewing series of noble\nthoughts and feelings--by leaving a name and reputation to survive\nin the memory of others.\n\n[Footnote 38: Plato, Sympos. pp. 207-208.]\n\n[Side-note: Form or Idea of Beauty presented singly and exclusively\nin Symposion.]\n\nThirdly, in Ph\u00e6drus, Ph\u00e6don, Republic, and elsewhere, Plato\nrecognises many distinct Forms or Ideas--a world or aggregate of\nsuch Entia Rationis[39]--among which Beauty is one, but only one.\nIt is the exalted privilege of the philosophic mind to come into\ncontemplation and cognition of these Forms generally. But in the\nSymposion, the Form of Beauty ([Greek: to\\ kalo\\n]) is presented\nsingly and exclusively--as if the communion with this one Form\nwere the sole occupation of the most exalted philosophy.\n\n[Footnote 39: Plat. Repub. v. 476. He recognises Forms of [Greek:\na)/dikon, kako/n, ai)schro/n], as well as Forms of [Greek:\ndi/kaion, a)gatho/n, kalo/n], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Eros recognised, both in Ph\u00e6drus and Symposion, as\naffording the initiatory stimulus to philosophy--Not so recognised\nin Ph\u00e6don, The\u00e6t\u00eatus, and elsewhere.]\n\nFourthly, The Ph\u00e6drus and Symposion have, both of them in common,\nthe theory of Eros as the indispensable, initiatory, stimulus to\nphilosophy. The spectacle of a beautiful youth is considered\nnecessary to set light to various elements in the mind, which\nwould otherwise remain dormant and never burn: it enables the\npregnant and capable mind to bring forth what it has within and to\nput out its hidden strength. But if we look to the Ph\u00e6don,\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus, Sophist\u00eas, or Republic, we shall not find Eros invoked\nfor any such function. The Republic describes an elaborate scheme\nfor generating and developing the philosophic capacity: but Eros\nplays no part in it. In the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, the young man so named is\nannounced as having a pregnant mind requiring to be disburthened,\nand great capacity which needs foreign aid to develop it: the\nservice needed is rendered by Sokrates, who possesses an obstetric\npatent, and a marvellous faculty of cross-examination. Yet instead\nof any auxiliary stimulus arising from personal beauty, the\npersonal ugliness of both persons in the dialogue is emphatically\nsignified.\n\nI note these peculiarities, partly of the Symposion, partly of the\nPh\u00e6drus along with it--to illustrate the varying points of view\nwhich the reader must expect to meet in travelling through the\nnumerous Platonic dialogues.\n\n[Side-note: Concluding scene and speech of Alkibiades in the\nSymposion--Behaviour of Sokrates to Alkibiades and other handsome\nyouths.]\n\nIn the strange scene with which the Symposion is wound up, the\nmain purpose of the dialogue is still farther worked out. The\nspirit and ethical character of Eros Philosophus, after having\nbeen depicted in general terms by Diotima, are specially\nexemplified in the personal history of Sokrates, as recounted and\nappreciated by Alkibiades. That handsome, high-born, and insolent\nyouth, being in a complete state of intoxication, breaks in\nunexpectedly upon the company, all of whom are as yet sober: he\nenacts the part of a drunken man both in speech and action, which\nis described with a vivacity that would do credit to any\ndramatist. His presence is the signal for beginning to drink hard,\nand he especially challenges Sokrates to drink off, after him, as\nmuch wine as will fill the large water-vessel serving as cooler;\nwhich challenge Sokrates forthwith accepts and executes, without\nbeing the least affected by it. Alkibiades instead of following\nthe example of the others by delivering an encomium on Eros,\nundertakes to deliver one upon Sokrates. He proceeds to depict\nSokrates as the votary of Eros Philosophus, wrapped up in the\ncontemplation of beautiful youths, and employing his whole time in\ncolloquy with them--yet as never losing his own self-command, even\nwhile acquiring a magical ascendency over these companions.[40]\nThe abnormal exterior of Sokrates, resembling that of a Satyr,\nthough concealing the image of a God within--the eccentric\npungency of his conversation, blending banter with seriousness,\nhomely illustrations with impressive principles--has exercised an\ninfluence at once fascinating, subjugating, humiliating. The\nimpudent Alkibiades has been made to feel painfully his own\nunworthiness, even while receiving every mark of admiration from\nothers. He has become enthusiastically devoted to Sokrates, whom\nhe has sought to attach to himself, and to lay under obligation,\nby tempting offers of every kind. The details of these offers are\ngiven with a fulness which cannot be translated to modern readers,\nand which even then required to be excused as the revelations of a\ndrunken man. They present one of the boldest fictions in the Greek\nlanguage--if we look at them in conjunction with the real\ncharacter of Alkibiades as an historical person.[41] Sokrates is\nfound proof against every variety of temptation, however seductive\nto Grecian feeling. In his case, Eros Philosophus maintains his\ndignity as exclusively pure, sentimental, and spiritual: while\nAlkibiades retires more humiliated than ever. We are given to\nunderstand that the like offers had been made to Sokrates by many\nother handsome youths also--especially by Charmides and\nEuthydemus--all of them being treated with the same quiet and\nrepellent indifference.[42] Sokrates had kept on the\nvantage-ground as regards all:--and was regarded by all with\nthe same mixture of humble veneration and earnest attachment.\n\n[Footnote 40: Plato, Sympos. p. 216 C-D.]\n\n[Footnote 41: Plato, Sympos. p. 219. See also, respecting the\nhistorical Alkibiades and his characte, Thucyd. vi. 15; Xenoph.\nMemor. i. 1; Antisthenes, apud Athen\u00e6um, xii. 534.\n\nThe invention of Plato goes beyond that of those ingenious men who\nrecounted how Phryn\u00ea and Lais had failed in attempts to overcome\nthe continence of Xenokrates, Diog. L. iv. 7: and the saying of\nLais, [Greek: \u00f4(s ou)k a)p' a)ndro/s, a)ll' a)p' a)ndri/antos,\na)nastai/\u00ea.] Quintilian (viii. 4, 22-23) aptly enough compares the\ndescription given by Alkibiades--as the maximum of testimony to\nthe \"invicta continentia\" of Sokrates--with the testimony to the\nsurpassing beauty of Helen, borne by such witnesses as the Trojan\n[Greek: d\u00eamoge/rontes] and Priam himself (Hom. Iliad iii. 156).\nOne of the speakers in Athen\u00e6us censures severely this portion of\nthe Platonic Symposion, xi. 506 C, 508 D, v. 187 D. Porphyry (in\nhis life of Plotinus, 15) tells us that the rhetor Diophanes\ndelivered an apology for Alkibiades, in the presence of Plotinus;\nwho was much displeased, and directed Porphyry to compose a\nreply.]\n\n[Footnote 42: Plato, Symp. p. 222 B.\n\nIn the Hieron of Xenophon (xi. 11)--a conversation between the\ndespot Hieron and the poet Simonides--the poet, exhorting Hieron\nto govern his subjects in a mild, beneficent, and careful spirit,\nexpatiates upon the popularity and warm affection which he will\nthereby attract to himself from them. Of this affection one\nmanifestation will be (he says) as follows:--[Greek: \u00f4(/ste ou)\nmo/non philoi=o a)/n, a)lla\\ kai\\ e)r\u00f4=|o, u(p' a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n; _kai\\\ntou\\s kalou\\s ou) peira=|n, a)lla\\ peir\u00f4/menon u(p' au)t\u00f4=n\na)ne/chesthai a)/n se de/oi_], &c.\n\nThese words illustrate the adventure described by Alkibiades in\nthe Platonic Symposion.\n\nHerakleides of Pontus, Dik\u00e6archus, and the Peripatetic Hieronymus,\nall composed treatises [Greek: Peri\\ E)r\u00f4tos], especially [Greek:\nperi\\ paidik\u00f4=n e)r\u00f4/t\u00f4n] (Athen\u00e6. xiii. 602-603).]\n\n[Side-note: Perfect self-command of Sokrates--proof against every\nsort of trial.]\n\nNot merely upon this point but upon others also, Alkibiades\nrecounts anecdotes of the perfect self-mastery of Sokrates: in\nendurance of cold, heat, hunger, and fatigue--in contempt of the\ndangers of war, in bravery on the day of battle--even in the power\nof bearing more wine than any one else, without being intoxicated,\nwhenever the occasion was such as to require him to drink: though\nhe never drank much willingly. While all his emotions are thus\ndescribed as under the full control of Reason and Eros\nPhilosophus--his special gift and privilege was that of\nconversation--not less eccentric in manner, than potent,\nsoul-subduing,[43] and provocative in its effects.\n\n[Footnote 43: Plato, Sympos. pp. 221-222.\n\nAlkibiades recites acts of distinguished courage performed by\nSokrates, at the siege of Potid\u00e6a as well as at the battle of\nDelium.\n\nAbout the potent effect produced by the conversation of Sokrates\nupon his companions, compare Sympos. p. 173 C-D.\n\nIn the Xenophontic Apology (s. 18), Sokrates adverts to the\nundisturbed equanimity which he had shown during the long blockade\nof Athens after the battle of \u00c6gospotami, while others were\nbewailing the famine and other miseries.]\n\n[Side-note: Drunkenness of others at the close of the\nSymposion--Sokrates is not affected by it, but continues his dialectic\nprocess.]\n\nAfter the speech of Alkibiades is concluded, the close of the\nbanquet is described by the primary narrator. He himself, with\nAgathon and Aristophanes, and several other fresh revellers,\ncontinue to drink wine until all of them become dead drunk. While\nPh\u00e6drus, Eryximachus, and others retire, Sokrates remains. His\ncompetency to bear the maximum of wine without being disturbed by\nit, is tested to the full. Although he had before, in acceptance\nof the challenge of Alkibiades, swallowed the contents of the wine\ncooler, he nevertheless continues all the night to drink wine in\nlarge bowls, along with the rest. All the while, however, he goes\non debating his ordinary topics, even though no one is\nsufficiently sober to attend to him. His companions successively\nfall asleep, and at day-break, he finds himself the only person\nsober,[44] except Aristodemus (the narrator of the whole scene),\nwho has recently waked after a long sleep. Sokrates quits the\nhouse of Agathon, with unclouded senses and undiminished\nactivity--bathes--and then visits the gymnasium at the Lykeion;\nwhere he passes all the day in his usual abundant colloquy.[45]\n\n[Footnote 44: In Sympos. p. 176 B, Sokrates is recognised as\n[Greek: dunat\u00f4/tatos pi/nein], above all the rest: no one can be\ncompared with him. In the two first books of the Treatise De\nLegibus, we shall find much to illustrate what is here said (in\nthe Symposion) about the power ascribed to him of drinking more\nwine than any one else, without being at all affected by it. Plato\ndiscusses the subject of strong potations ([Greek: me/th\u00ea]) at\ngreat length; indeed he seems to fear that his readers will think\nhe says too much upon it (i. 642 A). He considers it of great\nadvantage to have a test to apply, such as wine, for the purpose\nof measuring the reason and self-command of different men, and of\ndetermining how much wine is sufficient to overthrow it, in each\ndifferent case (i. 649 C-E). You can make this trial (he argues)\nin each case, without any danger or harm; and you can thus escape\nthe necessity of making the trial in a real case of emergency.\nPlato insists upon the [Greek: chrei/a t\u00ea=s me/th\u00eas], as a genuine\ntest, to be seriously employed for the purpose of testing men's\nreason and force of character (ii. p. 673). In the Republic, too\n(iii. p. 413 E), the [Greek: phu/lakes] are required to be tested,\nin regard to their capacity of resisting pleasurable temptation,\nas well as pain and danger.\n\nAmong the titles of the lost treatises of Theophrastus, we find\none [Greek: Peri\\ Me/th\u00eas] (Diog. L. v. 44). It is one of the\ncompliments that the Emperor Marcus Antoninus (i. 16) pays to his\nfather--That he was, like Sokrates, equally competent both to\npartake of, and to abstain from, the most seductive enjoyments,\nwithout ever losing his calmness and self-mastery.]\n\n[Footnote 45: Plato, Sympos. p. 223.]\n\n[Side-note: Symposion and Ph\u00e6don--each is the antithesis and\ncomplement of the other.]\n\nThe picture of Sokrates, in the Symposion, forms a natural\ncontrast and complement to the picture of him in the Ph\u00e6don;\nthough the conjecture of Schleiermacher[46]--that the two together\nare intended to make up the Philosophus, or third member of the\ntrilogy promised in the Sophist\u00eas--is ingenious rather than\nconvincing. The Ph\u00e6don depicts Sokrates in his last conversation\nwith his friends, immediately before his death; the Symposion\npresents him in the exuberance of life, health, and cheerfulness:\nin both situations, we find the same attributes\nmanifested--perfect equanimity and self-command, proof against every\nvariety of disturbing agency--whether tempting or terrible--absorbing\ninterest in philosophical dialectic. The first of these two\nelements, if it stood alone, would be virtuous sobriety, yet not\npassing beyond the limit of mortal virtue: the last of the two\nsuperadds a higher element, which Plato conceives to transcend the\nlimit of mortal virtue, and to depend upon divine inspiration or\nmadness.[47]\n\n[Footnote 46: Einleitung zum Gastmahl, p. 359 seq.]\n\n[Footnote 47: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 256 C-E. [Greek: s\u00f4phrosu/n\u00ea\nthn\u00eat\u00ea/--e)r\u00f4tik\u00ea\\ mani/a: s\u00f4phrosu/n\u00ea a)nthr\u00f4pi/n\u00ea--thei/a\nmani/a.] Compare p. 244 B.]\n\n[Side-note: Symposion of Plato compared with that of Xenophon.]\n\nThe Symposion of Plato affords also an interesting subject of\ncomparison with that of his contemporary Xenophon, as to points of\nagreement as well as of difference.[48] Xenophon states in the\nbeginning that he intends to describe what passed in a scene where\nhe himself was present; because he is of opinion that the\nproceedings of excellent men, in hours of amusement, are not less\nworthy of being recorded than those of their serious hours. Both\nPlato and Xenophon take for their main subject a festive banquet,\ndestined to celebrate the success of a young man in a competitive\nstruggle. In Plato, the success is one of mind and genius--Agathon\nhas gained the prize of tragedy: in Xenophon, it is one of bodily\nforce and skill--Autolykus victor in the pankration. The Symposion\nof Xenophon differs from that of Plato, in the same manner as the\nMemorabilia of Xenophon generally differ from the Sokratic\ndialogues of Plato--that is, by approaching much nearer to common\nlife and reality. It describes a banquet such as was likely enough\nto take place, with the usual accompaniments--a professional\njester, and a Syracusan ballet-master who brings with him a\ndancing-girl, a girl to play on the flute and harp, and a handsome\nyouth. These artists contribute to the amusement of the company by\nmusic, dancing, throwing up balls and catching them again, jumping\ninto and out of a circle of swords. All this would have occurred\nat an ordinary banquet: here, it is accompanied and followed by\nremarks of pleasantry, buffoonery and taunt, interchanged between\nthe guests. Nearly all the guests take part, more or less: but\nSokrates is made the prominent figure throughout. He repudiates\nthe offer of scented unguents: but he recommends the drinking of\nwine, though moderately, and in small cups. The whole company are\nunderstood to be somewhat elevated with wine, but not one of them\nbecomes intoxicated. Sokrates not only talks as much fun as the\nrest, but even sings, and speaks of learning to dance, jesting on\nhis own corpulence.[49] Most part of the scene is broad farce, in\nthe manner, though not with all the humour, of Aristophanes.[50]\nThe number and variety of the persons present is considerable,\ngreater than in most of the Aristophanic plays.[51] Kallias,\nLykon, Autolykus, Sokrates, Antisthenes, Hermogenes, Nikeratus,\nKritobulus, have each his own peculiarity: and a certain amount of\nvivacity and amusement arises from the way in which each of them\nis required, at the challenge of Sokrates, to declare on what it\nis that he most prides himself. Sokrates himself carries the\nburlesque farther than any of them; pretending to be equal in\npersonal beauty to Kritobulus, and priding himself upon the\nfunction of a pander, which he professes to exercise. Antisthenes,\nhowever, is offended, when Sokrates fastens upon him a similar\nfunction: but the latter softens the meaning of the term so as to\nappease him. In general, each guest is made to take pride in\nsomething the direct reverse of that which really belongs to him;\nand to defend his thesis in a strain of humorous parody.\nAntisthenes, for example, boasts of his wealth. The Syracusan\nballet-master is described as jealous of Sokrates, and as\naddressing to him some remarks of offensive rudeness; which\nSokrates turns off, and even begins to sing, for the purpose of\npreventing confusion and ill-temper from spreading among the\ncompany:[52] while he at the same time gives prudent advice to the\nSyracusan about the exhibitions likely to be acceptable.\n\n[Footnote 48: Pontianus, one of the speakers in Athen\u00e6us (xi.\n504), touches upon some points of this comparison, with a view of\nillustrating the real or supposed enmity between Plato and\nXenophon; an enmity not in itself improbable, yet not sufficiently\nproved.\n\nAthen\u00e6us had before him the Symposion of Epikurus (not preserved)\nas well as those of Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle (xv. 674); and\nwe learn from him some of its distinctive points. Masurius (the\nspeaker in Athen\u00e6us, v. init.) while he recognises in the Symposia\nof Xenophon and Plato a dramatic variety of characters and\nsmartness--finds fault with both, but especially with Plato, for\nlevity, rudeness, indecency, vulgarity, sneering, &c. The talk was\nalmost entirety upon love and joviality. In the Symposion of\nEpikurus, on the contrary, nothing was said about these topics;\nthe guests were fewer, the conversation was grave and dull, upon\ndry topics of science, such as the atomic theory ([Greek:\nproph\u00ea/tas a)to/m\u00f4n], v. 3, 187 B, 177 B. [Greek: E)pi/kouros de\\\nsumpo/sion philoso/ph\u00f4n mo/non pepoi/\u00eatai]), and even upon bodily\nailments, such as indigestion or fever (187 C). The philosophers\npresent were made by Epikurus to carry on their debate in so\nfriendly a spirit, that the critic calls them \"flatterers praising\neach other\"; while he terms the Platonic guests \"sneerers\ninsulting each other\" ([Greek: mukt\u00earist\u00f4=n a)ll\u00ea/lous\nt\u00f4thazo/nt\u00f4n], 182 A), though this is much more true about the\nXenophontic Symposion than about the Platonic. He remarks farther\nthat the Symposion of Epikurus included no libation or offering to\nthe Gods (179 D).\n\nIt is curious to note these peculiarities in the compositions (now\nlost) of a philosopher like Epikurus, whom many historians of\nphilosophy represent as thinking about nothing but convivial and\nsexual pleasure.]\n\n[Footnote 49: Xenophon, Sympos. vii. 1; ii. 18-19. [Greek:\nproga/st\u00f4r], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 50: The taunt ascribed to the jester Philippus, about\nthe cowardice of the demagogue Peisander, is completely\nAristophanic, ii. 14; also that of Antisthenes respecting the bad\ntemper of Xanthipp\u00ea, ii. 10; and the caricature of the movements\nof the [Greek: o)rch\u00eastri\\s] by Philippus, ii. 21. Compare also\niii. 11.]\n\n[Footnote 51: Xen. Symp. c. 4-5.]\n\n[Footnote 52: Xen. Symp. vi. [Greek: Au)t\u00ea\\ me\\n \u00ea( paroini/a\nou(/t\u00f4 katesbe/sth\u00ea], vii. 1-5.\n\nEpikt\u00eatus insists upon this feature in the character of Sokrates--his\npatience and power of soothing angry men (ii. 12-14).]\n\n[Side-note: Small proportion of the serious, in the Xenophontic\nSymposion.]\n\nThough the Xenophontic Symposion is declared to be an alternate\nmixture of banter and seriousness,[53] yet the only long serious\nargument or lecture delivered is by Sokrates; in which he\npronounces a professed panegyric upon Eros, but at the same time\npointedly distinguishes the sentimental from the sensual. He\ndenounces the latter, and confines his panegyric to the\nformer--selecting Kallias and Autolykus as honourable examples of it.[54]\n\n[Footnote 53: Xen. Symp. iv. 28. [Greek: a)nami\\x e)sk\u00f4psa/n te\nkai\\ e)spou/dasan], viii. 41.]\n\n[Footnote 54: Xen. Symp. viii. 24. The argument against the\nsensual is enforced with so much warmth that Sokrates is made to\nadvert to the fact of his being elate with wine--[Greek: o(/ te\nga\\r oi)=nos sunepai/rei, kai\\ o( a)ei\\ su/noikos e)moi\\ e)/r\u00f4s\nkentri/zei ei)s to\\n a)nti/palon e)/r\u00f4ta au)tou=\npar)r(\u00easia/zesthai.]\n\nThe contrast between the customs of the Thebans and Eleians, and\nthose of the Laced\u00e6monians, is again noted by Xenophon, Rep.\nLaced. ii. 13. Plato puts (Symp. 182) a like contrast into the\nmouth of Pausanias, assimilating the customs of Athens in this\nrespect to those of Sparta. The comparison between Plato and\nXenophon is here curious; we see how much more copious and\ninventive is the reasoning of Plato.]\n\nThe Xenophontic Symposion closes with a pantomimic scene of\nDionysus and Ariadn\u00ea as lovers represented (at the instance of\nSokrates) by the Syracusan ballet-master and his staff. This is\ndescribed as an exciting spectacle to most of the hearers, married\nas well as unmarried, who retire with agreeable emotions. Sokrates\nhimself departs with Lykon and Kallias, to be present at the\nexercise of Autolykus.[55]\n\n[Footnote 55: Xen. Symp. viii. 5, ix. 7. The close of the\nXenophontic Symposion is, to a great degree, in harmony with\nmodern sentiment, though what is there expressed would probably be\nleft to be understood. The Platonic Symposion departs altogether\nfrom that sentiment.]\n\n[Side-note: Platonic Symposion more ideal and transcendental than\nthe Xenophontic.]\n\nWe see thus that the Platonic Symposion is much more ideal, and\ndeparts farther from common practice and sentiment, than the\nXenophontic. It discards all the common accessories of a banquet\n(musical or dancing artists), and throws the guests altogether\nupon their own powers of rhetoric and dialectic, for amusement. If\nwe go through the different encomiums upon Eros, by Ph\u00e6drus,\nPausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Diotima--we shall\nappreciate the many-coloured forms and exuberance of the Platonic\nimagination, as compared with the more restricted range and\ncommon-place practical sense of Xenophon.[56] All the Platonic\nspeakers are accomplished persons--a man of letters, a physician,\ntwo successful poets, a prophetess: the Xenophontic personages,\nexcept Sokrates and Antisthenes, are persons of ordinary capacity.\nThe Platonic Symposion, after presenting Eros in five different\npoints of view, gives pre-eminence and emphasis to a sixth, in\nwhich Eros is regarded as the privileged minister and conductor to\nthe mysteries of philosophy, both the lowest and the highest: the\nXenophontic Symposion dwells upon one view only of Eros (developed\nby Sokrates) and cites Kallias as example of it, making no mention\nof philosophy. The Platonic Symposion exalts Sokrates, as the\nrepresentative of Eros Philosophus, to a pinnacle of elevation\nwhich places him above human fears and weaknesses[57]--coupled\nhowever with that eccentricity which makes the vulgar regard a\nphilosopher as out of his mind: the Xenophontic Symposion presents\nhim only as a cheerful, amiable companion, advising temperance,\nyet enjoying a convivial hour, and contributing more than any one\nelse to the general hilarity.\n\n[Footnote 56: The difference between the two coincides very much\nwith that which is drawn by Plato himself in the Ph\u00e6drus--[Greek:\nthei/a mani/a] as contrasted with [Greek: s\u00f4phrosu/n\u00ea thn\u00eat\u00ea\\] (p.\n256 E). Compare Athen\u00e6us, v. 187 B.]\n\n[Footnote 57: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 249 D. [Greek: nouthetei=tai me\\n\nu(po\\ t\u00f4=n poll\u00f4=n \u00f4(s parakin\u00f4=n, e)nthousia/z\u00f4n de\\ le/l\u00eathe\ntou\\s pollou\\s. . . . ai)ti/an e)/chei \u00f4(s manik\u00f4=s\ndiakei/menos.]]\n\nSuch are the points of comparison which present themselves between\nthe same subject as handled by these two eminent contemporaries,\nboth of them companions, and admirers of Sokrates: and each\nhandling it in his own manner.[58]\n\n[Footnote 58: Which of these two Symposia was the latest in date\nof composition we cannot determine with certainty: though it seems\ncertain that the latest of the two was not composed in imitation\nof the earliest.\n\nFrom the allusion to the [Greek: dioi/kisis] of Mantineia (p. 193\nA) we know that the Platonic Symposion must have been composed\nafter 385 B.C.: there is great probability also, though not full\ncertainty, that it was composed during the time when Mantineia was\nstill an aggregate of separate villages and not a town--that is,\nbetween 385-370 B.C., in which latter year Mantineia was\nre-established as a city. The Xenophontic Symposion affords no mark\nof date of composition: Xenophon reports it as having been himself\npresent. It does indeed contain, in the speech delivered by\nSokrates (viii. 32), an allusion to, and a criticism upon, an\nopinion supported by Pausanias [Greek: o( A)ga/th\u00f4nos tou=\npoi\u00eatou= e)rast\u00ea/s], who discourses in the Platonic Symposion: and\nseveral critics think that this is an allusion by Xenophon to the\nPlatonic Symposion. I think this opinion improbable. It would\nrequire us to suppose that Xenophon is inaccurate, since the\nopinion which he ascribes to Pausanias is not delivered by\nPausanias in the Platonic Symposion, but by Ph\u00e6drus. Athen\u00e6us (v.\n216) remarks that the opinion is not delivered by Pausanias, but\nhe does not mention that it _is_ delivered by Ph\u00e6drus. He remarks\nthat there was no known written composition of Pausanias himself:\nand he seems to suppose that Xenophon must have alluded to the\nPlatonic Symposion, but that he quoted it inaccurately or out of\nanother version of it, different from what we now read. Athen\u00e6us\nwastes reasoning in proving that the conversation described in the\nPlatonic Symposion cannot have really occurred at the time to\nwhich Plato assigns it. This is unimportant: the speeches are\ndoubtless all composed by Plato. If Athen\u00e6us was anxious to prove\nanachronism against Plato, I am surprised that he did not notice\nthat of the [Greek: dioi/kisis] of Mantineia mentioned in a\nconversation supposed to have taken place in the presence of\nSokrates, who died in 399 B.C.\n\nI incline to believe that the allusion of Xenophon is not intended\nto apply to the Symposion of Plato. Xenophon ascribes one opinion\nto Pausanias, Plato ascribes another; this is noway inconceivable.\nI therefore remain in doubt whether the Xenophontic or the\nPlatonic Symposion is earliest. Compare the Pr\u00e6f. of Schneider to\nthe former, pp. 140-143.]\n\n[Side-note: Second half of the Ph\u00e6drus--passes into a debate on\nRhetoric. Eros is considered as a subject for rhetorical\nexercise.]\n\nI have already stated that the first half of the Ph\u00e6drus differs\nmaterially from the second; and that its three discourses on the\nsubject of Eros (the first two depreciating Eros, the third being\nan effusion of high-flown and poetical panegyric on the same\ntheme) may be better understood by being looked at in conjunction\nwith the Symposion. The second half of the Ph\u00e6drus passes into a\ndifferent discussion, criticising the discourse of Lysias as a\nrhetorical composition: examining the principles upon which the\nteaching of Rhetoric as an Art either is founded, or ought to be\nfounded: and estimating the efficacy of written discourse\ngenerally, as a means of working upon or instructing other minds.\n\n[Side-note: Lysias is called a logographer by active politicians.\nContempt conveyed by the word. Sokrates declares that the only\nquestion is, Whether a man writes well or ill.]\n\nI heard one of our active political citizens (says Ph\u00e6drus)\nseverely denounce Lysias, and fasten upon him with contempt, many\ntimes over, the title of a logographer. Active politicians will\nnot consent to compose and leave behind them written discourses,\nfor fear of being called Sophists.[59] To write discourses\n(replies Sokrates) is noway discreditable: the real question is,\nwhether he writes them well.[60] And the same question is the only\none proper to be asked about other writers on all subjects--public\nor private, in prose or in verse. How to speak _well_,\nand how to write _well_--is the problem.[61] Is there any art or\nsystematic method, capable of being laid down beforehand and\ndefended upon principle, for accomplishing the object _well_? Or\ndoes a man succeed only by unsystematic knack or practice, such as\nhe can neither realise distinctly to his own consciousness, nor\ndescribe to others?\n\n[Footnote 59: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 257 C.]\n\n[Footnote 60: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 257 E, 258 D.\n\nThe two appellations--[Greek: logogra/phos] and [Greek:\nsophist\u00ea/s]--are here coupled together as terms of reproach, just\nas they stand coupled in Demosthenes, Fals. Leg. p. 417. It is\nplain that both appellations acquired their discreditable import\nmainly from the collateral circumstance that the persons so\ndenominated took money for their compositions or teaching. The\n[Greek: logogra/phos] wrote for pay, and on behalf of any client\nwho could pay him. In the strict etymological sense, neither of\nthe two terms would imply any reproach.\n\nYet Plato, in this dialogue, when he is discussing the worth of\nthe reproachful imputation fastened on Lysias, takes the term\n[Greek: logogra/phos] only in this etymological, literal sense,\nomitting to notice the collateral association which really gave\npoint to it and made it serve the purpose of a hostile speaker.\nThis is the more remarkable, because we find Plato multiplying\nopportunities, even on unsuitable occasions, of taunting the\nSophists with the fact that they took money. Here in the Ph\u00e6drus,\nwe should have expected that if he noticed the imputation at all,\nhe would notice it in the sense intended by the speaker. In this\nsense, indeed, it would not have suited the purpose of his\nargument, since he wishes to make it an introduction to a\nphilosophical estimate of the value of writing as a means of\ninstruction.\n\nHeindorf observes, that Plato has used a similar liberty in\ncomparing the [Greek: logogra/phos] to the proposer of a law or\ndecree. \"Igitur, quum solemne legum initium ejusmodi esset,\n[Greek: e)/doxe t\u00ea=| boul\u00ea=|], &c., Plato aliter long\u00e9 quam vulgo\nacciperetur, neque sine calumni\u00e2 qu\u00e2dam, interpretatus est\" (ad p.\n258).]\n\n[Footnote 61: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 259 E. [Greek: o(/p\u00ea| kal\u00f4=s\ne)/chei le/gein te kai\\ gra/phein, kai\\ o(/p\u00ea| m\u00ea/,\nskepte/on.]--p. 258 D. [Greek: ti/s o( tro/pos tou= kal\u00f4=s te\nkai\\ m\u00ea\\ gra/phein.]]\n\n[Side-note: Question about teaching the art of writing well or\nspeaking well. Can it be taught upon system or principle? Or does\nthe successful Rhetor succeed only by unsystematic knack?.]\n\nFirst let us ask--When an orator addresses himself to a listening\ncrowd upon the common themes--Good and Evil, Just and Unjust--is\nit necessary that he should know what is really and truly good and\nevil, just and unjust? Most rhetorical teachers affirm, that it is\nenough if he knows what the audience or the people generally\nbelieve to be so: and that to that standard he must accommodate\nhimself, if he wishes to persuade.[62]\n\n[Footnote 62: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 260 A.]\n\n[Side-note: Theory of Sokrates--that all art of persuasion must be\nfounded upon a knowledge of the truth, and of gradations of\nresemblance to the truth.]\n\nHe may persuade the people under these circumstances (replies\nSokrates), but if he does so, it will be to their misfortune and\nto his own. He ought to know the real truth--not merely what the\npublic whom he addresses believe to be the truth--respecting just\nand unjust, good and evil, &c. There can be no genuine art of\nspeaking, which is not founded upon knowledge of the truth, and\nupon adequate philosophical comprehension of the\nsubject-matter.[63] The rhetorical teachers take too narrow a view of\nrhetoric, when they confine it to public harangues addressed to\nthe assembly or to the Dikastery. Rhetoric embraces all guidance\nof the mind through words, whether in public harangue or private\nconversation, on matters important or trivial. Whether it be a\ncontroversy between two litigants in a Dikastery, causing the\nDikasts to regard the same matters now as being just and good,\npresently as being unjust and evil: or between two dialecticians\nlike Zeno, who could make his hearers view the same subjects as\nbeing both like and unlike--both one and many--both in motion and\nat rest: in either case the art (if there be any art) and its\nprinciples are the same. You ought to assimilate every thing to\nevery thing, in all cases where assimilation is possible: if your\nadversary assimilates in like manner, concealing the process from\nhis hearers, you must convict and expose his proceedings. Now the\npossibility or facility of deception in this way will depend upon\nthe extent of likeness between things. If there be much real\nlikeness, deception is easy, and one of them may easily be passed\noff as the other: if there be little likeness, deception will be\ndifficult. An extensive acquaintance with the real resemblances of\nthings, or in other words with truth, constitutes the necessary\nbasis on which all oratorical art must proceed.[64]\n\n[Footnote 63: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 260-261.]\n\n[Footnote 64: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 262.]\n\n[Side-note: Comparison made by Sokrates between the discourse of\nLysias and his own. Eros is differently understood: Sokrates\ndefined what he meant by it: Lysias did not define.]\n\nSokrates then compares the oration of Lysias with his own two\norations (the first depreciating, the second extolling, Eros) in\nthe point of view of art; to see how far they are artistically\nconstructed. Among the matters of discourse, there are some on\nwhich all men are agreed, and on which therefore the speaker may\nassume established unanimity in his audience: there are others on\nwhich great dissension and discord prevail. Among the latter (the\ntopics of dissension), questions about just and unjust, good and\nevil, stand foremost:[65] it is upon these that deception is most\neasy, and rhetorical skill most efficacious. Accordingly, an\norator should begin by understanding to which of these two\ncategories the topic which he handles belongs: If it belongs to\nthe second category (those liable to dissension) he ought, at the\noutset, to define what he himself means by it, and what he intends\nthe audience to understand. Now Eros is a topic on which great\ndissension prevails. It ought therefore to have been defined at\nthe commencement of the discourse. This Sokrates in his discourse\nhas done: but Lysias has omitted to do it, and has assumed Eros to\nbe obviously and unanimously apprehended by every one. Besides,\nthe successive points in the discourse of Lysias do not hang\ntogether by any thread of necessary connection, as they ought to\ndo, if the discourse were put together according to rule.[66]\n\n[Footnote 65: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 263 B. Compare Plato, Alkibiad.\ni. p. 109.]\n\n[Footnote 66: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 263-265.]\n\n[Side-note: Logical processes--Definition and Division--both of\nthem exemplified in the two discourses of Sokrates.]\n\nFarthermore, in the two discourses of Sokrates, not merely was the\nprocess of _logical definition_ exemplified in the case of Eros--but\nalso the process of _logical division_, in the case of Madness\nor Irrationality. This last extensive genus was divided first into\ntwo species--Madness, from human distemper--Madness, from divine\ninspiration, carrying a man out of the customary orthodoxy.[67]\nNext, this last species was again divided into four branches or\nsub-species, according to the God from whom the inspiration\nproceeded, and according to the character of the inspiration--the\nprophetic, emanating from Apollo--the ritual or mystic, from\nDionysus--the poetic, from the Muses--the amatory, from Eros and\nAphrodit\u00ea.[68] Now both these processes, definition and division,\nare familiar to the true dialectician or philosopher: but they are\nnot less essential in rhetoric also, if the process is performed\nwith genuine art. The speaker ought to embrace in his view many\nparticular cases, to gather together what is common to all, and to\ncombine them into one generic concept, which is to be embodied in\nwords as the definition. He ought also to perform the\ncounter-process: to divide the genus not into parts arbitrary and\nincoherent (like a bad cook cutting up an animal without regard to\nthe joints) but into legitimate species;[69] each founded on some\npositive and assignable characteristic. \"It is these divisions and\ncombinations (says Sokrates) to which I am devotedly attached, in\norder that I may become competent for thought and discourse: and\nif there be any one else whom I consider capable of thus\ncontemplating the One and the Many as they stand in nature--I\nfollow in the footsteps of that man as in those of a God. I call\nsuch a man, rightly or wrongly, a Dialectician.\"[70]\n\n[Footnote 67: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 265 A. [Greek: u(po\\ thei/as\ne)xallag\u00ea=s t\u00f4=n ei)\u00f4tho/t\u00f4n nomi/m\u00f4n.]]\n\n[Footnote 68: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 265.]\n\n[Footnote 69: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 265-266. 265 D: [Greek: ei)s\nmi/an te i)de/an sunor\u00f4=nta a)/gein ta\\ pollach\u00ea= diesparme/na,\ni(/n' e(/kaston o(rizo/menos d\u00ea=lon poi=\u00ea| peri\\ ou(= a)\\n a)ei\\\ndida/skein e)the/l\u00ea|.] 265 E: [Greek: to\\ pa/lin kat' ei)/d\u00ea\ndu/nasthai te/mnein kat' a)/rthra, \u00ea(=| pe/phuke, kai\\ m\u00ea\\\ne)picheirei=n katagnu/nai me/ros m\u00eade/n, kakou= magei/rou tro/p\u00f4|\nchr\u00f4/menon.]\n\nSeneca, Epist. 89, p. 395, ed. Gronov. \"Faciam ergo quod exigis,\net philosophiam in partes, non in frusta, dividam. Dividi enim\nillam, non concidi, utile est.\"]\n\n[Footnote 70: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 266 B. [Greek: Tou/t\u00f4n d\u00ea\\\ne)/g\u00f4ge au)to/s te e)rast\u00ea/s, \u00f4)= Phai=dre, t\u00f4=n diaire/se\u00f4n kai\\\nsunag\u00f4g\u00f4=n, i(/n' oi(=o/s te \u00f4)= le/gein te kai\\ phronei=n; e)a/n\nte/ tin' a)/llon \u00ea(g\u00ea/s\u00f4mai dunato\\n ei)s e(\\n kai\\ e)pi\\ polla\\\npephuko\\s o(ra=|n, tou=ton di\u00f4/k\u00f4 kato/pisthe met' i)/chnion\n\u00f4(/ste theoi=o. kai\\ me/ntoi kai\\ tou\\s duname/nous au)to\\ dra=|n\nei) me\\n o)rth\u00f4=s \u00ea)\\ m\u00ea\\ prosagoreu/\u00f4, theo\\s oi)=de; kal\u00f4= de\\\nou)=n me/chri tou=de dialektikou/s.]]\n\nThis is Dialectic (replies Ph\u00e6drus); but it is not Rhetoric, as\nThrasymachus and other professors teach the art.\n\n[Side-note: View of Sokrates--that there is no real Art of\nRhetoric, except what is already comprised in Dialectic--The\nrhetorical teaching is empty and useless.]\n\nWhat else is there worth having (says Sokrates), which these\nprofessors teach? The order and distribution of a discourse:\nfirst, the exordium, then recital, proof, second proof,\nrefutation, recapitulation at the close: advice how to introduce\nmaxims or similes: receipts for moving the anger or compassion of\nthe dikasts. Such teaching doubtless enables a speaker to produce\nconsiderable effect upon popular assemblies:[71] but it is not the\nart of rhetoric. It is an assemblage of preliminary\naccomplishments, necessary before a man can acquire the art: but\nit is not the art itself. You must know when, how far, in what\ncases, and towards what persons, to employ these\naccomplishments:[72] otherwise you have not learnt the art of\nrhetoric. You may just as well consider yourself a physician\nbecause you know how to bring about vomit and purging--or a\nmusician, because you know how to wind up or unwind the chords of\nyour lyre. These teachers mistake the preliminaries or antecedents\nof the art, for the art itself. It is in the right, measured,\nseasonable, combination and application of these preliminaries, in\ndifferent doses adapted to each special matter and audience--that\nthe art of rhetoric consists. And this is precisely the thing\nwhich the teacher does not teach, but supposes the learner to\nacquire for himself.[73]\n\n[Footnote 71: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 267-268.]\n\n[Footnote 72: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 268 B. [Greek: e)re/sthai ei)\nprosepi/statai kai\\ ou(sti/nas dei= kai\\ o(po/te e(/kasta tou/t\u00f4n\npoiei=n, kai\\ me/chri o(po/sou?]]\n\n[Footnote 73: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 269.]\n\n[Side-note: What the Art of Rhetoric ought to be--Analogy of\nHippokrates and the medical Art.]\n\nThe true art of rhetoric (continues Sokrates) embraces a larger\nrange than these teachers imagine. It deals with mind, as the\nmedical researches of Hippokrates deal with body--as a generic\ntotal with all its species and varieties, and as essentially\nrelative to the totality of external circumstances. First,\nHippokrates investigates how far the body is, in every particular\nman, simple, homogeneous, uniform: and how far it is complex,\nheterogeneous, multiform, in the diversity of individuals. If it\nbe one and the same, or in so far as it is one and the same, he\nexamines what are its properties in relation to each particular\nsubstance acting upon it or acted upon by it. In so far as it is\nmultiform and various, he examines and compares each of the\ndifferent varieties, in the same manner, to ascertain its\nproperties in relation to every substance.[74] It is in this way\nthat Hippokrates discovers the nature or essence of the human\nbody, distinguishing its varieties, and bringing the medical art\nto bear upon each, according to its different properties. This is\nthe only scientific or artistic way of proceeding.\n\n[Footnote 74: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 270 D. [Greek: A)=r' ou)ch \u00f4(=de\ndei= dianoei=sthai peri\\ o(touou=n phu/se\u00f4s? Pr\u00f4=ton me\\n,\na(plou=n \u00ea)\\ polueide/s e)stin, ou(= peri\\ boul\u00easo/metha ei)=nai\nau)toi\\ technikoi\\ kai\\ a)/llon dunatoi\\ poiei=n? e)/peita de/,\ne)a\\n me\\n a(plou=n \u00ea)=|, skopei=n t\u00ea\\n du/namin au)tou=, ti/na\npro\\s ti/ pe/phuken ei)s to\\ dra=|n e)/chon \u00ea)\\ ti/na ei)s to\\\npathei=n u(po\\ tou=? e)a\\n de\\ plei/\u00f4 ei)/d\u00ea e)/ch\u00ea|, tau=ta\na)rithm\u00easa/menos, o(/per e)ph' e(no/s, tou=t' i)dei=n e)ph'\ne(ka/stou, t\u00f4=| ti/ poiei=n au)to\\ pe/phuken \u00ea)\\ t\u00f4=| ti/ pathei=n\nu(po\\ tou=?]]\n\n[Side-note: Art of Rhetoric ought to include a systematic\nclassification of minds with all their varieties, and of\ndiscourses with all their varieties. The Rhetor must know how to\napply the one to the other, suitably to each particular case.]\n\nNow the true rhetor ought to deal with the human mind in like\nmanner. His task is to work persuasion in the minds of certain men\nby means of discourse. He has therefore, first, to ascertain how\nfar all mind is one and the same, and what are the affections\nbelonging to it universally in relation to other things: next, to\ndistinguish the different varieties of minds, together with the\nproperties, susceptibilities, and active aptitudes, of each:\ncarrying the subdivision down until he comes to a variety no\nlonger admitting division.[75] He must then proceed to distinguish\nthe different varieties of discourse, noting the effects which\neach is calculated to produce or to hinder, and the different ways\nin which it is likely to impress different minds.[76] Such and\nsuch men are persuadable by such and such discourses--or the\ncontrary. Having framed these two general classifications, the\nrhetor must on each particular occasion acquire a rapid tact in\ndiscerning to which class of minds the persons whom he is about to\naddress belong: and therefore what class of discourses will be\nlikely to operate on them persuasively.[77] He must farther know\nthose subordinate artifices of speech on which the professors\ninsist; and he must also be aware of the proper season and limit\nwithin which each can be safely employed.[78]\n\n[Footnote 75: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 277 B. [Greek: o(risa/meno/s te\npa/lin kat' ei)/d\u00ea me/chri tou= a)tm\u00ea/tou te/mnein e)pist\u00eath\u00ea=|.]]\n\n[Footnote 76: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 271 A. [Greek: _Pr\u00f4=ton_, pa/s\u00ea|\na)kribei/a| gra/psei te kai\\ poi\u00ea/sei psuch\u00ea\\n i)dei=n, po/teron\ne(\\n kai\\ o(/moion pe/phuken \u00ea)\\ kata\\ s\u00f4/matos morph\u00ea\\n\npolueide/s; tou=to ga/r phamen _phu/sin_ ei)=nai deiknu/nai.\n\n_Deu/teron_ de/ ge, o(/t\u00f4| ti/ poiei=n \u00ea)\\ pathei=n u(po\\ tou=\npe/phuken.\n\n_Tri/ton_ de\\ d\u00ea\\ diataxa/menos ta\\ lo/g\u00f4n te kai\\ psuch\u00ea=s ge/n\u00ea\nkai\\ ta\\ tou/t\u00f4n path\u00ea/mata, di/eisi ta\\s ai)ti/as, prosarmo/tt\u00f4n\ne(/kaston e(ka/st\u00f4|, kai\\ dida/sk\u00f4n oi(/a ou)=sa u(ph' oi(/\u00f4n\nlo/g\u00f4n di' \u00ea(\\n ai)ti/an e)x a)na/gk\u00eas \u00ea( me\\n pei/thetai, \u00ea( de\\\na)peithei=.]]\n\n[Footnote 77: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 271 D. [Greek: dei= m\u00ea\\ tau=ta\ni(kan\u00f4=s no\u00ea/santa, meta\\ tau=ta the\u00f4/menon au)ta\\ e)n tai=s\npra/xesin o)/nta te kai\\ pratto/mena, _o)xe/\u00f4s_ t\u00ea=| ai)sth\u00ea/sei\ndu/nasthai e)pakolouthei=n], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 78: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 272 A. [Greek: tau=ta de\\ \u00ea)/d\u00ea\npa/nt' e)/chonti, _proslabo/nti kairou\\s tou= po/te lekte/on kai\\\ne)pischete/on_, brachulogi/as te au)= kai\\ e)leeinologi/as kai\\\ndein\u00f4/se\u00f4s, e(ka/st\u00f4n te o(/s' a)\\n ei)/d\u00ea ma/th\u00ea| lo/g\u00f4n, tou/t\u00f4n\n_t\u00ea\\n eu)kairi/an te kai\\ a)kairi/an diagno/nti_, kal\u00f4=s te kai\\\ntele/\u00f4s e)sti\\n \u00ea( te/chn\u00ea a)peirgasme/n\u00ea, _pro/teron d' ou)/_.]]\n\n[Side-note: The Rhetorical Artist must farther become possessed of\nreal truth, as well as that which his auditors believe to be\ntruth. He is not sufficiently rewarded for this labour.]\n\nNothing less than this assemblage of acquirements (says Sokrates)\nwill suffice to constitute a real artist, either in speaking or\nwriting. Arduous and fatiguing indeed the acquisition is: but\nthere is no easier road. And those who tell us that the rhetor\nneed not know what is really true, but only what his audience will\nbelieve to be true--must be reminded that this belief, on the part\nof the audience, arises from the likeness of that which they\nbelieve, to the real truth. Accordingly, he who knows the real\ntruth will be cleverest in suggesting apparent or quasi-truth\nadapted to their feelings. If a man is bent on becoming an artist\nin rhetoric, he must go through the process here marked out: yet\nundoubtedly the process is so laborious, that rhetoric, when he\nhas acquired it, is no adequate reward. We ought to learn how to\nspeak and act in a way agreeable to the Gods, and this is worth\nall the trouble necessary for acquiring it. But the power of\nspeaking agreeably and effectively to men, is not of sufficient\nmoment to justify the expenditure of so much time and labour.[79]\n\n[Footnote 79: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 273-274.]\n\n[Side-note: Question about Writing--As an Art, for the purpose of\ninstruction, it can do little--Reasons why. Writing may remind the\nreader of what he already knows.]\n\nWe have now determined what goes to constitute genuine art, in\nspeaking or in writing. But how far is writing, even when art is\napplied to it, capable of producing real and permanent effect? or\nindeed of having art applied to it at all? Sokrates answers\nhimself--Only to a small degree. Writing will impart amusement and\nsatisfaction for the moment: it will remind the reader of\nsomething which he knew before, if he really did know. But in\nrespect to any thing which he did not know before, it will neither\nteach nor persuade him: it may produce in him an impression or\nfancy that he is wiser than he was before, but such impression is\nillusory, and at best only transient. Writing is like painting--one\nand the same to all readers, whether young or old, well or ill\ninformed. It cannot adapt itself to the different state of mind of\ndifferent persons, as we have declared that every finished speaker\nought to do. It cannot answer questions, supply deficiencies,\nreply to objections, rectify misunderstanding. It is defenceless\nagainst all assailants. It supersedes and enfeebles the memory,\nimplanting only a false persuasion of knowledge without the\nreality.[80]\n\n[Footnote 80: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 275 D-E. [Greek: tau)to\\n de\\\nkai\\ oi( lo/goi (oi( gegramme/noi); do/xais me\\n a)\\n \u00f4(/s ti\nphronou=ntas au)tou\\s le/gein e)a\\n de/ ti e(/r\u00ea| t\u00f4=n legome/n\u00f4n\nboulo/menos mathei=n, e(/n ti s\u00eamai/nei mo/non tau)to\\n a)ei/.\nO(/tan de\\ a(/pax graph\u00ea=|, kulindei=tai me\\n pantachou= pa=s\nlo/gos o(moi/\u00f4s para\\ toi=s e)pai+/ousin, \u00f4(s d' au)t\u00f4=s par'\noi(=s ou)de\\n pros\u00ea/kei, kai\\ ou)k e)pi/statai le/gein oi(=s dei=\nge kai\\ m\u00ea/.]]\n\n[Side-note: Neither written words, nor continuous speech, will\nproduce any serious effect in teaching. Dialectic and\ncross-examination are necessary.]\n\nAny writer therefore, in prose or verse--Homer, Solon, or\nLysias--who imagines that he can by a ready-made composition, however\ncarefully turned,[81] _if simply heard or read without\ncross-examination or oral comment_, produce any serious and permanent\neffect in persuading or teaching, beyond a temporary\ngratification--falls into a disgraceful error. If he intends to\naccomplish any thing serious, he must be competent to originate\nspoken discourse more effective than the written. The written word\nis but a mere phantom or ghost of the spoken word: which latter is\nthe only legitimate offspring of the teacher, springing fresh and\nliving out of his mind, and engraving itself profoundly on the\nmind of the hearer.[82] The speaker must know, with discriminative\ncomprehension, and in logical subdivision, both the matter on\nwhich he discourses, and the minds of the particular hearers to\nwhom he addresses himself. He will thus be able to adapt the\norder, the distribution, the manner of presenting his subject, to\nthe apprehension of the particular hearers and the exigencies of\nthe particular moment. He will submit to cross-examination,[83]\nremove difficulties, and furnish all additional explanations which\nthe case requires. By this process he will not indeed produce that\nimmediate, though flashy and evanescent, impression of suddenly\nacquired knowledge, which arises from the perusal of what is\nwritten. He will sow seed which for a long time appears buried\nunder ground; but which, after such interval, springs up and\nripens into complete and lasting fruit.[84] By repeated dialectic\ndebate, he will both familiarise to his own mind and propagate in\nhis fellow-dialogists, full knowledge; together with all the\nmanifold reasonings bearing on the subject, and with the power\nalso of turning it on many different sides, of repelling\nobjections and clearing up obscurities. It is not from writing,\nbut from dialectic debate, artistically diversified and adequately\nprolonged, that full and deep teaching proceeds; prolific in its\nown nature, communicable indefinitely from every new disciple to\nothers, and forming a source of intelligence and happiness to\nall.[85]\n\n[Footnote 81: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 277-278. [Greek: \u00f4(s oi(\nr(aps\u00f4|dou/menoi (lo/goi) a)/neu a)nakri/se\u00f4s kai\\ didach\u00ea=s\npeithou=s e(/neka e)le/chth\u00easan], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 82: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 276 A. [Greek: a)/llon o(r\u00f4=men\nlo/gon tou/tou a)delpho\\n gn\u00ea/sion t\u00f4=| tro/p\u00f4| te gi/gnetai, kai\\\no(/s\u00f4| a)mei/n\u00f4n kai\\ dunat\u00f4/teros tou/tou phu/etai? . . . . O(/s\nmet' e)pist\u00ea/m\u00eas gra/phetai e)n t\u00ea=| tou= mantha/nontos psuch\u00ea=|,\ndunato\\s me\\n a)mu=nai e(aut\u00f4=|, e)pist\u00ea/m\u00f4n de\\ le/gein te kai\\\nsiga=|n pro\\s ou(\\s dei=. To\\n tou= ei)do/tos lo/gon le/geis\nz\u00f4=nta kai\\ e)/mpsuchon, ou(= o( gegramme/nos ei)/d\u00f4lon a)/n ti\nle/goito dikai/\u00f4s], &c. 278 A.]\n\n[Footnote 83: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 278 C. [Greek: ei) me\\n ei)d\u00f4\\s\n\u00ea(=| ta)l\u00eathe\\s e)/chei sune/th\u00eake tau=ta (ta\\ suggra/mmata) kai\\\ne)/ch\u00f4n bo\u00eathei=n, ei)s e)/legchon i)\u00f4\\n peri\\ \u00f4(=n e)/grapse,\nkai\\ le/g\u00f4n au)to\\s dunato\\s ta\\ gegramme/na phau=la a)podei=xai],\n&c.]\n\n[Footnote 84: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 276 A.]\n\n[Footnote 85: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 276-277.]\n\nThis blending of philosophy with rhetoric, which pervades the\ncriticisms on Lysias in the Ph\u00e6drus, is farther illustrated by the\npraise bestowed upon Isokrates in contrast with Lysias. Isokrates\noccupied that which Plato in Euthyd\u00eamus calls \"the border country\nbetween philosophy and politics\". Many critics declare (and I\nthink with probable reason[86]) that Isokrates is the person\nintended (without being named) in the passage just cited from the\nEuthyd\u00eamus. In the Ph\u00e6drus, Isokrates is described as the intimate\nfriend of Sokrates, still young; and is pronounced already\nsuperior in every way to Lysias--likely to become superior in\nfuture to all the rhetors that have ever flourished--and destined\nprobably to arrive even at the divine mysteries of philosophy.[87]\n\n[Footnote 86: See above, vol. ii. ch. xxi. p. 227.]\n\n[Footnote 87: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 279 A.]\n\nWhen we consider that the Ph\u00e6drus was pretty sure to bring upon\nPlato a good deal of enmity--since it attacked, by name, both\nLysias, a resident at Athens of great influence and ability, and\nseveral other contemporary rhetors more or less celebrated--we can\nunderstand how Plato became disposed to lighten this amount of\nenmity by a compliment paid to Isokrates. This latter rhetor, a\nfew years older than Plato, was the son of opulent parents at\nAthens, and received a good education; but when his family became\nimpoverished by the disasters at the close of the Peloponnesian\nwar, he established himself as a teacher of rhetoric at Chios:\nafter some time, however, he returned to Athens, and followed the\nsame profession there. He engaged himself also, like Lysias, in\ncomposing discourses for pleaders before the dikastery[88] and for\nspeakers in the assembly; by which practice he acquired both\nfortune and reputation. Later in life, he relinquished these\nharangues destined for real persons on real occasions, and\nconfined himself to the composition of discourses (intended, not\nfor contentious debate, but for the pleasure and instruction of\nhearers) on general questions--social, political, and\nphilosophical: at the same time receiving numerous pupils from\ndifferent cities of Greece. Through such change, he came into a\nsort of middle position between the rhetoric of Lysias and the\ndialectic of Plato: insomuch that the latter, at the time when he\ncomposed the Ph\u00e6drus, had satisfaction in contrasting him\nfavourably with Lysias, and in prophesying that he would make yet\ngreater progress towards philosophy. But at the time when Plato\ncomposed the Euthyd\u00eamus, his feeling was different.[89] In the\nPh\u00e6drus, Isokrates is compared with Lysias and other rhetors, and\nin that comparison Plato presents him as greatly superior: in the\nEuthyd\u00eamus, he is compared with philosophers as well as with\nrhetors, and is even announced as disparaging philosophy\ngenerally: Plato then declares him to be a presumptuous half-bred,\nand extols against him even the very philosopher whom he himself\nhad just been caricaturing. To apply a Platonic simile, the most\nbeautiful ape is ugly compared with man--the most beautiful man is\nan ape compared with the Gods:[90] the same intermediate position\nbetween rhetoric and philosophy is assigned by Plato to Isokrates.\n\n[Footnote 88: Dion. Hal. De Isocrate Judicium, p. 576. [Greek:\ndesma\\s pa/nu polla\\s dikanik\u00f4=n lo/g\u00f4n periphe/resthai/ ph\u00easin\nu(po\\ t\u00f4=n bibliop\u00f4l\u00f4=n A)ristote/l\u00eas], &c.\n\nPlutarch, Vit. x. Oratt. pp. 837-838.\n\nThe Athenian Polykrates had been forced, by loss of property, to\nquit Athens and undertake the work of a Sophist in Cyprus.\nIsokrates expresses much sympathy for him: it was a misfortune\nlike what had happened to himself (Orat. xi. Busiris 1). Compare\nDe Permutation. Or. xv. s. 172.\n\nThe assertion made by Isokrates--that he did not compose political\nand judicial orations, to be spoken by individuals for real causes\nand public discussions--may be true comparatively, and with\nreference to a certain period of his life. But it is only to be\nreceived subject to much reserve and qualification. Even out of\nthe twenty-one orations of Isokrates which we possess, the last\nfive are composed to be spoken by pleaders before the dikastery.\nThey are such discourses as the logographers, Lysias among the\nrest, were called upon to furnish, and paid for furnishing.]\n\n[Footnote 89: Plato, Euthyd\u00eam. p. 306. I am inclined to agree with\nUeberweg in thinking that the Euthyd\u00eamus is later than the\nPh\u00e6drus. Ueberweg, Aechtheit der Platon. Schriften, pp.\n256-259-265.]\n\n[Footnote 90: Plato, Hipp. Major, p. 289.]\n\nFrom the pen of Isokrates also, we find various passages\napparently directed against the viri Socratici including Plato\n(though without his name): depreciating,[91] as idle and\nworthless, new political theories, analytical discussions on the\nprinciples of ethics, and dialectic subtleties; maintaining that\nthe word philosophy was erroneously interpreted and defined by\nmany contemporaries, in a sense too much withdrawn from practical\nresults: and affirming that his own teaching was calculated to\nimpart genuine philosophy. During the last half of Plato's life,\nhis school and that of Isokrates were the most celebrated among\nall that existed at Athens. There was competition between them,\ngradually kindling into rivalry. Such rivalry became vehement\nduring the last ten years of Plato's life, when his scholar\nAristotle, then an aspiring young man of twenty-five, proclaimed a\nvery contemptuous opinion of Isokrates, and commenced a new school\nof rhetoric in opposition to him.[92] Kephisod\u00f4rus, a pupil of\nIsokrates, retaliated; publishing against Aristotle, as well as\nagainst Plato, an acrimonious work which was still read some\ncenturies afterwards. Theopompus, another eminent pupil of\nIsokrates, commented unfavourably upon Plato in his writings: and\nother writers who did the same may probably have belonged to the\nIsokratean school.[93]\n\n[Footnote 91: Isokrates, Orat. x. 1 (Hel. Enc.); Orat. v.\n(Philipp.) 12; Or. xiii. (Sophist.) 9-24; Orat. xv. (Permut.)\nsect. 285-290. [Greek: philosophi/an me\\n ou)=n ou)k oi)=mai dei=n\nprosagoreu/ein t\u00ea\\n m\u00eade\\n e)n t\u00f4=| paro/nti m\u00ea/te pro\\s to\\\nle/gein m\u00ea/te pro\\s to\\ pra/ttein \u00f4(/phelou=san--t\u00ea\\n kaloume/n\u00ean\nu(po/ tin\u00f4n philosophi/an ou)k ei)=nai ph\u00eami/], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 92: Cicero, De Oratore, iii. 35, 141; Orator. 19, 62;\nNumenius, ap. Euseb. Pr\u00e6p. Evang. xiv. 6, 9. See Stahr,\nAristotelia, i. p. 63 seq., ii. p. 44 seq.\n\nSchroeder's Qu\u00e6stiones Isocrate\u00e6 (Utrecht, 1859), and Spengel's\nwork, Isokrates und Plato, are instructive in regard to these two\ncontemporary luminaries of the intellectual world at Athens. But,\nunfortunately, we can make out few ascertainable facts. When I\nread the Oration De Permut., Or. xv. (composed by Isokrates about\nfifteen years before his own death, and about five years before\nthe death of Plato, near 353 B.C.), I am impressed with the belief\nthat many of his complaints about unfriendly and bitter criticism\nrefer to the Platonic School of that day, Aristotle being one of\nits members. See sections 48-90-276, and seq. He certainly means\nthe Sokratic men, and Plato as the most celebrated of them, when\nhe talks of [Greek: oi( peri\\ ta\\s e)r\u00f4t\u00ea/seis kai\\ a)pokri/seis,\nou(\\s a)ntilogikou\\s kalou=sin--oi( peri\\ ta\\s e)/ridas\nspouda/zontes]--those who are powerful in contentious dialectic,\nand at the same time cultivate geometry and astronomy, which\nothers call [Greek: a)doleschi/a] and [Greek: mikrologi/a]\n(280)--those who exhorted hearers to virtue about which others knew\nnothing, and about which they themselves were in dispute. When he\ncomplains of the [Greek: perittolo/giai] of the ancient Sophists,\nEmpedokles, Ion, Parmenides, Melissus, &c., we cannot but suppose\nthat he had in his mind the Tim\u00e6us of Plato also, though he avoids\nmention of the name.]\n\n[Footnote 93: Athen\u00e6us, iii. p. 122, ii. 60; Dionys. Hal. Epistol.\nad Cn. Pomp. p. 757.]\n\n[Side-note: The Dialectician and Cross-Examiner is the only man who\ncan really teach. If the writer can do this, he is more than a\nwriter.]\n\nThis is the true philosopher (continues Sokrates)--the man who\nalone is competent to teach truth about the just, good, and\nhonourable.[94] He who merely writes, must not delude himself with\nthe belief that upon these important topics his composition can\nimpart any clear or lasting instruction. To mistake fancy for\nreality hereupon, is equally disgraceful, whether the mistake be\nmade by few or by many persons. If indeed the writer can explain\nto others orally the matters written--if he can answer all\nquestions, solve difficulties, and supply the deficiencies, of\neach several reader--in that case he is something far more and\nbetter than a writer, and ought to be called a philosopher. But if\nhe can do no more than write, he is no philosopher: he is only a\npoet, or nomographer, or logographer.[95]\n\n[Footnote 94: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 277 D-E.]\n\n[Footnote 95: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 278-279.]\n\n[Side-note: Lysias is only a logographer: Isokrates promises to\nbecome a philosopher.]\n\nIn this latter class stands Lysias. I expect (concludes Sokrates)\nsomething better from Isokrates, who gives promise of aspiring one\nday to genuine philosophy.[96]\n\n[Footnote 96: Respecting the manner in which Plato speaks of\nIsokrates in the Ph\u00e6drus, see what I have already observed upon\nthe Euthyd\u00eamus, vol. ii. ch. xxi. pp. 227-229.]\n\n\n* * * * *\n\n\n[Side-note: Date of the Ph\u00e6drus--not an early dialogue.]\n\nI have already observed that I dissent from the hypothesis of\nSchleiermacher, Ast, and others, who regard the Ph\u00e6drus either as\npositively the earliest, or at least among the earliest, of the\nPlatonic dialogues, composed several years before the death of\nSokrates. I agree with Hermann, Stallbaum, and those other\ncritics, who refer it to a much later period of Plato's life:\nthough I see no sufficient evidence to determine more exactly\neither its date or its place in the chronological series of\ndialogues. The views opened in the second half of the dialogue, on\nthe theory of rhetoric and on the efficacy of written compositions\nas a means of instruction, are very interesting and remarkable.\n\n[Side-note: Criticism given by Plato on the three discourses--His\ntheory of Rhetoric is more Platonic than Sokratic.]\n\nThe written discourse of Lysias (presented to us as one greatly\nadmired at the time by his friends, Ph\u00e6drus among them) is\ncontrasted first with a pleading on the same subject (though not\ndirected towards the attainment of the same end) by Sokrates\n(supposed to be improvised on the occasion); next with a second\npleading of Sokrates directly opposed to the former, and intended\nas a recantation. These three discourses are criticised from the\nrhetorical point of view,[97] and are made the handle for\nintroducing to us a theory of rhetoric. The second discourse of\nSokrates, far from being Sokratic in tenor, is the most exuberant\neffusion of mingled philosophy, poetry, and mystic theology, that\never emanated from Plato.\n\n[Footnote 97: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 235 A.]\n\n[Side-note: His theory postulates, in the Rhetor, knowledge already\nassured--it assumes that all the doubts have been already\nremoved.]\n\nThe theory of rhetoric too is far more Platonic than Sokratic. The\npeculiar vein of Sokrates is that of confessed ignorance, ardour\nin enquiry, and testing cross-examination of all who answer his\nquestions. But in the Ph\u00e6drus we find Plato (under the name of\nSokrates) assuming, as the basis of his theory, that an expositor\nshall be found who _knows_ what is really and truly just and\nunjust, good and evil, honourable and dishonourable--distinct\nfrom, and independent of, the established beliefs on these\nsubjects, traditional among his neighbours and\nfellow-citizens:[98] assuming (to express the same thing in other\nwords) that all the doubts and difficulties, suggested by the\nSokratic cross-examination, have been already considered, elucidated,\nand removed.\n\n[Footnote 98: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 259 E, 260 E, and 262 B.]\n\n[Side-note: The Expositor, with knowledge and logical process,\nteaches minds unoccupied and willing to learn.]\n\nThe expositor, master of such perfect knowledge, must farther be\nmaster (so Plato tells us) of the arts of logical definition and\ndivision: that is, he must be able to gather up many separate\nfragmentary particulars into one general notion, clearly\nidentified and embodied in a definition: and he must be farther\nable to subdivide such a general notion into its constituent\nspecific notions, each marked by some distinct characteristic\nfeature.[99] This is the only way to follow out truth in a manner\nclear and consistent with itself: and truth is equally honourable\nin matters small or great.[100]\n\n[Footnote 99: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 266.]\n\n[Footnote 100: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 261 A.\n\nThat truth upon matters small and contemptible deserves to be\nsought out and proved as much as upon matters great and sublime,\nis a doctrine affirmed in the Sophist\u00eas, Politikus, Parmenid\u00eas:\nSophist. pp. 218 E, 227 A; Politik. 266 D; Parmenid. 130 E.]\n\nThus far we are in dialectic: logical exposition proceeding by way\nof classifying and declassifying: in which it is assumed that the\nexpositor will find minds unoccupied and unprejudiced, ready to\nwelcome the truth when he lays it before them. But there are many\ntopics on which men's minds are, in the common and natural course\nof things, both pre-occupied and dissentient with each other. This\nis especially the case with Justice, Goodness, the Honourable,\n&c.[101] It is one of the first requisites for the expositor to be\nable to discriminate this class of topics, where error and\ndiscordance grow up naturally among those whom he addresses. It is\nhere that men are liable to be deceived, and require to be\nundeceived--contradict each other, and argue on opposite sides:\nsuch disputes belong to the province of Rhetoric.\n\n[Footnote 101: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 263 A.]\n\n[Side-note: The Rhetor does not teach, but persuades persons with\nminds pre-occupied--guiding them methodically from error to\ntruth.]\n\nThe Rhetor is one who does not teach (according to the logical\nprocess previously described), but persuades; guiding the mind by\ndiscourse to or from various opinions or sentiments.[102] Now if\nthis is to be done _by art_ and methodically--that is, upon\nprinciple or system explicable and defensible--it pre-supposes\n(according to Plato) a knowledge of truth, and can only be\nperformed by the logical expositor. For when men are deceived, it\nis only because they mistake what is like truth for truth itself:\nwhen they are undeceived, it is because they are made to perceive\nthat what they believe to be truth is only an apparent likeness\nthereof. Such resemblances are strong or faint, differing by many\ngradations. Now no one can detect, or bring into account, or\ncompare, these shades of resemblance, except he who knows the\ntruth to which they all ultimately refer. It is through the slight\ndifferences that deception is operated. To deceive a man, you must\ncarry him gradually away from the truth by transitional stages,\neach resembling that which immediately precedes, though the last\nin the series will hardly at all resemble the first: to undeceive\nhim (or to avoid being deceived yourself), you must conduct him\nback by the counter-process from error to truth, by a series of\ntransitional resemblances tending in that direction. You cannot do\nthis like an artist (on system and by pre-determination), unless\nyou know what the truth is.[103] By anyone who does not know, the\nprocess will be performed without art, or at haphazard.\n\n[Footnote 102: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 261 A. [Greek: \u00ea( r(\u00eatorik\u00ea\\\nte/chn\u00ea psuchag\u00f4gi/a tis dia\\ lo/g\u00f4n], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 103: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 262 A-D, 273 D.]\n\n[Side-note: He must then classify the minds to be persuaded, and\nthe means of persuasion or varieties of discourse. He must know\nhow to fit on the one to the other in each particular case.]\n\nThe Rhetor--being assumed as already knowing the truth--if he\nwishes to make persuasion an art, must proceed in the following\nmanner:--He must distribute the multiplicity of individual minds\ninto distinct classes, each marked by its characteristic features\nof differences, emotional and intellectual. He must also\ndistribute the manifold modes of discourse into distinct classes,\neach marked in like manner. Each of these modes of discourse is\nwell adapted to persuade some classes of mind--badly adapted to\npersuade other classes: for such adaptation or non-adaptation\nthere exists a rational necessity,[104] which the Rhetor must\nexamine and ascertain, informing himself which modes of discourse\nare adapted to each different class of mind. Having mastered this\ngeneral question, he must, whenever he is about to speak, be able\nto distinguish, by rapid perception,[105] to which class of minds\nthe hearer or hearers whom he is addressing belong: and\naccordingly, which mode of discourse is adapted to their\nparticular case. Moreover, he must also seize, in the case before\nhim, the seasonable moment and the appropriate limit, for the use\nof each mode of discourse. Unless the Rhetor is capable of\nfulfilling all these exigencies, without failing in any one point,\nhis Rhetoric is not entitled to be called an Art. He requires, in\norder to be an artist in persuading the mind, as great an\nassemblage of varied capacities as Hippokrates declares to be\nnecessary for a physician, the artist for curing or preserving the\nbody.[106]\n\n[Footnote 104: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 270 E, 271 A-D. [Greek: Tri/ton\nde\\ d\u00ea\\ diataxa/menos ta\\ lo/g\u00f4n te kai\\ psuch\u00ea=s ge/n\u00ea, kai\\ ta\\\ntou/t\u00f4n path\u00ea/mata, di/eisi ta\\s ai)ti/as, prosarmo/tt\u00f4n e(/kaston\ne(ka/st\u00f4|, kai\\ dida/sk\u00f4n oi(/a ou)=sa u(ph' oi(/\u00f4n lo/g\u00f4n di'\n\u00ea(\\n ai)ti/an e)x a)na/gk\u00eas \u00ea( me\\n pei/thetai, \u00ea( de\\\na)peithei=.]]\n\n[Footnote 105: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 271 D-E. [Greek: dei= d\u00ea\\ tau=ta\ni(kan\u00f4=s no\u00ea/santa, meta\\ tau=ta the\u00f4/menon au)ta\\ e)n tai=s\npra/xesin o)/nta te kai\\ pratto/mena, _o)xe/\u00f4s t\u00ea=| ai)sth\u00ea/sei\ndu/nasthai e)pakolouthei=n_, \u00ea)\\ m\u00eade\\ ei)de/nai p\u00f4 ple/on au)t\u00f4=n\n\u00f4(=n to/te \u00ea)/koue lo/g\u00f4n xun\u00f4/n.]]\n\n[Footnote 106: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 270 C.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's _Id\u00e9al_ of the Rhetorical Art--involves in part\nincompatible conditions--the Wise man or philosopher will never be\nlistened to by the public.]\n\nThe total, thus summed up by Plato, of what is necessary to\nconstitute an Art of Rhetoric, is striking and comprehensive. It\nis indeed an _id\u00e9al_, not merely unattainable by reason of its\nmagnitude, but also including impracticable conditions. He begins\nby postulating a perfectly wise man, who knows all truth on the\nmost important social subjects; on which his country-men hold\nerroneous beliefs, just as sincerely as _he_ holds his true\nbeliefs. But Plato has already told us, in the Gorgias, that such\na person will not be listened to: that in order to address\nauditors with effect, the rhetor must be in genuine harmony of\nbelief and character with them, not dissenting from them either\nfor the better or the worse: nay, that the true philosopher (so we\nread in one of the most impressive portions of the Republic) not\nonly has no chance of guiding the public mind, but incurs public\nobloquy, and may think himself fortunate if he escapes\npersecution.[107] The dissenter will never be allowed to be the\nguide of a body of orthodox believers; and is even likely enough,\nunless he be prudent, to become their victim. He may be permitted\nto lecture or discuss, in the gardens of the Academy, with a few\nchosen friends, and to write eloquent dialogues: but if he\nembodies his views in motions before the public assembly, he will\nfind only strenuous opposition, or something worse. This view,\nwhich is powerfully set forth by Sokrates both in the Gorgias and\nRepublic, is founded on a just appreciation of human societies:\nand it is moreover the basis of the Sokratic procedure--That the\nfirst step to be taken is to disabuse men's minds of their false\npersuasion of knowledge--to make them conscious of ignorance--and\nthus to open their minds for the reception of truth. But if this\nbe the fact, we must set aside as impracticable the postulate\nadvanced by Sokrates here in the Ph\u00e6drus--of a perfectly wise man\nas the employer of rhetorical artifices. Moreover I do not agree\nwith what Sokrates is here made to lay down as the philosophy of\nError:--that it derives its power of misleading from resemblance\nto truth. This is the case to a certain extent: but it is very\nincomplete as an account of the generating causes of error.\n\n[Footnote 107: Plato, Gorg. p. 513 B, see supra, ch. xxiv.;\nRepublic, vi. pp. 495-496.]\n\n[Side-note: The other part of the Platonic _Id\u00e9al_ is grand but\nunattainable--breadth of psychological data and classified modes\nof discourse.]\n\nBut the other portion of Plato's sum total of what is necessary to\nan Art of Rhetoric, is not open to the same objection. It involves\nno incompatible conditions: and we can say nothing against it,\nexcept that it requires a breadth and logical command of\nscientific data, far greater than there is the smallest chance of\nattaining. That Art is an assemblage of processes, directed to a\ndefinite end, and prescribed by rules which themselves rest upon\nscientific data--we find first announced in the works of\nPlato.[108] A vast amount of scientific research, both inductive\nand deductive, is here assumed as an indispensable foundation--and\neven as a portion--of what he calls the Art of Rhetoric: first, a\nscience of psychology, complete both in its principles and\ndetails: next, an exhaustive catalogue and classification of the\nvarious modes of operative speech, with their respective\nimpression upon each different class of minds. So prodigious a\nmeasure of scientific requirement has never yet been filled up: of\ncourse, therefore, no one has ever put together a body of precepts\ncommensurate with it. Aristotle, following partially the large\nconceptions of his master, has given a comprehensive view of many\namong the theoretical postulates of Rhetoric; and has partially\nenumerated the varieties both of persuadable auditors, and of\npersuasive means available to the speaker for guiding them.\nCicero, Dionysius of Halikarnassus, Quintilian, have furnished\nvaluable contributions towards this last category of data, but not\nmuch towards the first: being all of them defective in breadth of\npsychological theory. Nor has Plato himself done anything to work\nout his conception in detail or to provide suitable rules for it.\nWe read it only as an impressive sketch--a grand but unattainable\n_id\u00e9al_--\"qualem nequeo monstrare et sentio tantum\".\n\n[Footnote 108: I repeat the citation from the Ph\u00e6drus, one of the\nmost striking passages in Plato, p. 271 D.\n\n[Greek: e)/peid\u00ea\\ lo/gou du/namis tugcha/nei psuchag\u00f4gi/a ou)=sa,\nto\\n me/llonta r(\u00eatoriko\\n e)/sesthai a)na/gk\u00ea ei)de/nai psuch\u00ea\\\no(/sa ei)/d\u00ea e)/chei. e)/stin ou)=n to/sa kai\\ to/sa, kai\\ toi=a\nkai\\ toi=a; o(/then oi( me\\n toioi/de, oi( de\\ toioi/de\ngi/gnontai. tou/t\u00f4n de\\ d\u00ea\\ di\u00ea|r\u00eame/n\u00f4n, lo/g\u00f4n au)= to/sa kai\\\nto/sa e)/stin ei)/d\u00ea, toio/nde e(/kaston. oi( me\\n ou)=n toioi/de\nu(po\\ t\u00f4=n toi\u00f4=nde log\u00f4n dia\\ t\u00ea/nde t\u00ea\\n aiti/an e)s ta\\ toia/de\neu)peithei=s, oi( de\\ toioi/de dia\\ ta/de duspeithei=s], &c. Comp.\np. 261 A.\n\nThe relation of Art to Science is thus perspicuously stated by Mr.\nJohn Stuart Mill, in the concluding chapter of his System of\nLogic, Ratiocinative and Inductive (Book vi. ch. xii. \u00a7 2):\n\n\"The relation in which rules of Art stand to doctrines of Science\nmay be thus characterised. The Art proposes to itself an end to be\nattained, defines the end, and hands it over to the Science. The\nScience receives it, considers it as a phenomenon or effect to be\nstudied, and having investigated its causes and conditions, sends\nit back to Art with a theorem of the combinations of circumstances\nby which it could be produced. Art then examines these\ncombinations of circumstances, and according as any of them are or\nare not in human power, pronounces the end attainable or not. The\nonly one of the premisses, therefore, which Art supplies, is the\noriginal major premiss, which asserts that the attainment of the\ngiven end is desirable. Science then lends to Art the proposition\n(obtained by a series of inductions or of deductions) that the\nperformance of certain actions will attain the end. From these\npremisses Art concludes that the performance of these actions is\ndesirable; and finding it also practicable, converts the theorem\ninto a rule or precept.\"]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's ideal grandeur compared with the rhetorical\nteachers--Usefulness of these teachers for the wants of an\naccomplished man.]\n\nIndeed it seems that Plato himself regarded it as unattainable--and\nas only worth aiming at for the purpose of pleasing the Gods,\nnot with any view to practical benefit, arising from either speech\nor action among mankind.[109] This is a point to be considered,\nwhen we compare his views on Rhetoric with those of Lysias and the\nother rhetors, whom he here judges unfavourably and even\ncontemptuously. The work of speech and action among mankind, which\nPlato sets aside as unworthy of attention, was the express object\nof solicitude to Lysias, Isokrates, and rhetors generally: that\nwhich they practised efficaciously themselves, and which they\ndesired to assist, cultivate, and improve in others: that which\nPerikles, in his funeral oration preserved by Thucydides,\nrepresents as the pride of the Athenian people\ncollectively[110]--combination of full freedom of preliminary contentious\ndebate, with energy in executing the resolution which might be ultimately\nadopted. These rhetors, by the example of their composed speeches\nas well as by their teaching, did much to impart to young men the\npower of expressing themselves with fluency and effect before\nauditors, either in the assembly or in the dikastery: as Sokrates\nhere fully admits.[111] Towards this purpose it was useful to\nanalyse the constituent parts of a discourse, and to give an\nappropriate name to each part. Accordingly, all the rhetorical\nteachers (Quintilian included) continued such analysis, though\ndiffering more or less in their way of performing it, until the\nextinction of Pagan civilisation. Young men were taught to learn\nby heart regular discourses,[112]--to compose the like for\nthemselves--to understand the difference between such as were well\nor ill composed--and to acquire a command of oratorical means for\nmoving or convincing the hearer. All this instruction had a\npractical value: though Plato, both here and elsewhere, treats it\nas worthless. A citizen who stood mute and embarrassed, unable to\nargue a case with some propriety before an audience, felt himself\nhelpless and defective in one of the characteristic privileges of\na Greek and a freeman: while one who could perform the process\nwell, acquired much esteem and influence.[113] The Platonic\nSokrates in the Gorgias consoles the speechless men by\nsaying--What does this signify, provided you are just and virtuous?\nSuch consolation failed to satisfy: as it would fail to satisfy the\nsick, the lame, or the blind.\n\n[Footnote 109: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 273-274. [Greek: \u00ea(\\n ou)ch\ne(/neka tou= le/gein kai\\ pra/ttein pro\\s a)nthr\u00f4/pous dei=\ndiaponei=sthai to\\n s\u00f4/phrona, a)lla\\ tou= theoi=s kecharisme/na\nme\\n le/gein du/nasthai], &c. (273 E).]\n\n[Footnote 110: Thucyd. ii. 39-40-41.]\n\n[Footnote 111: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 288 A.]\n\n[Footnote 112: See what is said by Aristotle about [Greek: \u00ea(\nGorgi/ou pragmatei/a] in the last chapter of De Sophisticis\nElenchis.]\n\n[Footnote 113: I have illustrated this point in my History of\nGreece, by the example of Xenophon in his command of the Cyreian\narmy during its retreat.\n\nHis democratical education, and his powers of public speaking,\nwere of the greatest service not only in procuring influence to\nhimself, but also in conducting the army through its many perils\nand difficulties.\n\nSee Aristot. Rhet. i. 1, 3, p. 1355, b. 1.]\n\n[Side-note: The Rhetorical teachers conceived the Art too narrowly:\nPlato conceived it too widely. The principles of an Art are not\nrequired to be explained to all learners.]\n\nThe teaching of these rhetors thus contributed to the security,\ndignity, and usefulness of the citizens, by arming them for public\nspeech and action. But it was essentially practical, or empirical:\nit had little system, and was founded upon a narrow theory. Upon\nthese points Plato in the Ph\u00e6drus attacks them. He sets little\nvalue upon the accomplishments arming men for speech and action\n([Greek: lektikou\\s kai\\ praktikou\\s ei)=nai])--and he will not\nallow such teaching to be called an Art. He explains, in\nopposition to them, what he himself conceived the Art of Rhetoric\nto be, in the comprehensive way which I have above described.\n\nBut if the conception of the Art, as entertained by the Rhetors,\nis too narrow--that of Plato, on the other hand, is too wide.\n\nFirst, it includes the whole basis of science or theory on which\nthe Art rests: it is a Philosophy of Rhetoric, expounded by a\ntheorist--rather than an Art of Rhetoric, taught to learners by a\nmaster. To teach the observance of certain rules or precepts is\none thing: to set forth the reasons upon which those rules are\nfounded, is another--highly important indeed, and proper to be\nknown by the teacher; yet not necessarily communicated, or even\ncommunicable, to all learners. Quintilian, in his Institutio\nRhetorica, gives both:--an ample theory, as well as an ample\ndevelopment of rules, of his professional teaching. But he would\nnot have thought himself obliged to give this ample theory to all\nlearners. With many, he would have been satisfied to make them\nunderstand the rules, and to exercise them in the ready observance\nthereof.\n\n[Side-note: Plato includes in his conception of Art, the\napplication thereof to new particular cases.--This can never be\ntaught by rule.]\n\nSecondly, Plato, in defining the Art of Rhetoric, includes not\nonly its foundation of science (which, though intimately connected\nwith it, ought not to be considered as a constituent part), but\nalso the application of it to particular cases; which application\nlies beyond the province both of science and of art, and cannot be\nreduced to any rule. \"The Rhetor\" (says Plato) \"must teach his\npupils, not merely to observe the rules whereby persuasion is\noperated, but also to know the particular persons to whom those\nrules are to be applied--on what occasions--within what limits--at\nwhat peculiar moments, &c.[114] Unless the Rhetor can teach thus\nmuch, his pretended art is no art at all: all his other teaching\nis of no value.\" Now this is an amount of exigence which can never\nbe realised. Neither art nor science can communicate that which\nPlato here requires. The rules of art, together with many\ndifferent hypothetical applications thereof, may be learnt: when\nthe scientific explanation of the rules is superadded, the learner\nwill be assisted farther towards fresh applications: but after\nboth these have been learnt, the new cases which will arise can\nnever be specially foreseen. The proper way of applying the\ngeneral precepts to each case must be suggested by conjecture\nadapted to the circumstances, under the corrections of past\nexperience.[115] It is inconsistent in Plato, after affirming that\nnothing deserves the name of art[116] except what is\ngeneral--capable of being rationally anticipated and prescribed\nbeforehand--then to include in art the special treatment required\nfor the multiplicity of particular cases; the analogy of the medical\nart, which he here instructively invokes, would be against him on this\npoint.\n\n[Footnote 114: Plato, Ph\u00e6dr. pp. 268 B, 272 A.]\n\n[Footnote 115: What Longinus says about critical skill is\napplicable here also--[Greek: poll\u00ea=s e)/sti pei/ras teleutai=on\ne)pige/nn\u00eama.] Isokrates (De Permut. Or. xv. sect. 290-312-316)\nhas some good remarks about the impossibility of [Greek:\ne)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea] respecting particulars. Plato, in the Gorgias, puts\n[Greek: te/chn\u00ea], which he states to depend upon reason and\nforeknowledge, in opposition to [Greek: e)mpeiri/a] and [Greek:\ntrib\u00ea/], which he considers as dependant on the [Greek: phu/sis\nstochastik\u00ea/]. But in applying the knowledge or skill called Art to\nparticular cases, the [Greek: phu/sis stochastik\u00ea\\] is the best\nthat can be had (p. 463 A-B). The conception of [Greek: te/chn\u00ea]\ngiven in the Gorgias is open to the same remark as that which we\nfind in the Ph\u00e6drus. Plato, in another passage of the Ph\u00e6drus,\nspeaks of the necessity that [Greek: phu/sis, e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea], and\n[Greek: mele/t\u00ea], shall concur to make an accomplished orator.\nThis is very true; and Lysias, Isokrates, and all the other\nrhetors whom Plato satirises, would have concurred in it. In his\ndescription of [Greek: te/chn\u00ea] and [Greek: e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea], and in\nthe estimate which he gives of all that it comprises, he leaves no\noutlying ground for [Greek: mele/t\u00ea]. Compare Xenophon, Memor.\niii. 1, 11; also Isokrates contra Sophistas, a. 16; and a good\npassage of Dionysius Halik. De Compos. Verborum, in which that\nrhetor remarks that [Greek: kairo\\s] or opportunity neither has\nbeen nor can be reduced to art and rule.]\n\n[Footnote 116: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 464-465.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's charge against the Rhetorical teachers is not\nmade out.]\n\nWhile therefore Plato's view of the science or theory of Rhetoric\nis far more comprehensive and philosophical than any thing given\nby the rhetorical teachers--he has not made good his charge\nagainst them, that what they taught as an art of Rhetoric was\nuseless and illusory. The charge can only be sustained if we\ngrant--what appears to have been Plato's own feeling--that the\nsocial and political life of the Athenians was a dirty and corrupt\nbusiness, unworthy of a virtuous man to meddle with. This is the\nargument of Sokrates (in the Gorgias,[117] the other great\nanti-rhetorical dialogue), proclaiming himself to stand alone and\naloof, an isolated, free-thinking dissenter. As representing his\nsincere conviction, and interpreting Plato's plan of life, this\nargument deserves honourable recognition. But we must remember\nthat Lysias and the rhetorical teachers repudiated such a point of\nview. They aimed at assisting and strengthening others to perform\ntheir parts, not in speculative debate on philosophy, but in\nactive citizenship; and they succeeded in this object to a great\ndegree. The rhetorical ability of Lysias personally is attested\nnot merely by the superlative encomium on him assigned to\nPh\u00e6drus,[118] but also by his great celebrity--by the frequent\ndemand for his services as a logographer or composer of discourses\nfor others--by the number of his discourses preserved and studied\nafter his death. He, and a fair proportion of the other rhetors\nnamed in the Ph\u00e6drus, performed well the useful work which they\nundertook.\n\n[Footnote 117: Plato, Gorg. 521 D.]\n\n[Footnote 118: Plato, Ph\u00e6dr. p. 228 A.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato has not treated Lysias fairly, in neglecting his\ngreater works, and selecting for criticism an erotic exercise for\na private circle.]\n\nWhen Plato selects, out of the very numerous discourses before him\ncomposed by Lysias, one hardly intended for any real\nauditors--neither deliberative, nor judicial, nor panegyrical, but an\ningenious erotic paradox for a private circle of friends--this is\nno fair specimen of the author. Moreover Plato criticises it as if\nit were a philosophic exposition instead of an oratorical\npleading. He complains that Lysias does not begin his discourse by\ndefining--but neither do Demosthenes and other great orators\nproceed in that manner. He affirms that there is no organic\nstructure, or necessary sequence, in the discourse, and that the\nsentences of it might be read in an inverted order:[119]--and this\nremark is to a certain extent well-founded. In respect to the\nskilful marshalling of the different parts of a discourse, so as\nto give best effect to the whole, Dionysius of Halikarnassus[120]\ndeclares Lysias to be inferior to some other orators--while\nascribing to him marked oratorical superiority on various other\npoints. Yet Plato, in specifying his objections against the erotic\ndiscourses of Lysias, does not show that it offends against the\nsound general principle which he himself lays down respecting the\nart of persuasion--That the topics insisted on by the persuader\nshall be adapted to the feelings and dispositions of the\npersuadend. Far from violating this principle, Lysias kept it in\nview, and employed it to the best of his power--as we may see, not\nmerely by his remaining orations, but also by the testimonies of\nthe critics:[121] though he did not go through the large\npreliminary work of scientific classification, both of different\nminds and different persuasive apparatus, which Plato considers\nessential to a thorough comprehension and mastery of the\nprinciple.\n\n[Footnote 119: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 263-264.]\n\n[Footnote 120: Dionysius (Judicium De Lysi\u00e2, pp. 487-493) gives an\nelaborate criticism on the [Greek: pragmatiko\\s charakt\u00ea\\r] of\nLysias. The special excellence of Lysias (according to this\ncritic) lay in his judicial orations, which were highly persuasive\nand plausible: the manner of presenting thoughts was ingenious and\nadapted to the auditors: the narration of facts and details,\nespecially, was performed with unrivalled skill. But as to the\nmarshalling of the different parts of a discourse, Dionysius\nconsiders Lysias as inferior to some other orators--and still more\ninferior in respect to [Greek: deinot\u00ea\\s] and to strong emotional\neffects.]\n\n[Footnote 121: Dionys. Hal. (Ars Rhetorica, p. 381) notices the\nsevere exigencies which Plato here imposes upon the Rhetor,\nremarking that scarcely any rhetorical discourse could be produced\nwhich came up to them. The defect did not belong to Lysias alone,\nbut to all other rhetors also--[Greek: o(po/te ga\\r _kai\\ Lusi/an_\ne)le/gchei, pa=san t\u00ea\\n \u00ea(mete/ran r(\u00eatorik\u00ea\\n e)/oiken\ne)le/gchein.] Demosthenes almost alone (in the opinion of\nDionysius) contrived to avoid the fault, because he imitated\nPlato.]\n\n[Side-note: No fair comparison can be taken between this exercise\nof Lysias and the discourses delivered by Sokrates in the\nPh\u00e6drus.]\n\nThe first discourse assigned by Plato to Sokrates professes to be\nplaced in competition with the discourse of Lysias, and to aim at\nthe same object. But in reality it aims at a different object: it\ngives the dissuasive arguments, but omits the persuasive--as\nPh\u00e6drus is made to point out: so that it cannot be fairly compared\nwith the discourse of Lysias. Still more may this be said\nrespecting the second discourse of Sokrates: which is of a\ncharacter and purpose so totally disparate, that no fair\ncomparison can be taken between it and the ostensible competitor.\nThe mixture of philosophy, mysticism, and dithyrambic poetry,\nwhich the second discourse of Sokrates presents, was considered by\na rhetorical judge like Dionysius as altogether inconsistent with\nthe scope and purpose of reasonable discourse.[122] In the\nMenexenus, Plato has brought himself again into competition with\nLysias, and there the competition is fairer:[123] for Plato has\nthere entirely neglected the exigencies enforced in the Ph\u00e6drus,\nand has composed a funeral discourse upon the received type; which\nLysias and other orators before him had followed, from Perikles\ndownward. But in the Ph\u00e6drus, Plato criticises Lysias upon\nprinciples which are a medley between philosophy and rhetoric.\nLysias, in defending himself, might have taken the same ground as\nwe find Sokrates himself taking in the Euthyd\u00eamus. \"Philosophy and\npolitics are two distinct walks, requiring different aptitudes,\nand having each its own practitioners. A man may take whichever he\npleases; but he must not arrogate to himself superiority by an\nuntoward attempt to join the two together.\"[124]\n\n[Footnote 122: See the Epistol. of Dion. Halikarn. to Cneius\nPompey--De Platone--pp. 755-765.]\n\n[Footnote 123: Plato, Menexen. p. 237 seq. Stallbaum, Comm. in\nMenexenum, pp. 10-11.]\n\n[Footnote 124: Plato, Euthyd\u00eam. p. 306 A-C.]\n\n[Side-note: Continuous discourse, either written or spoken,\ninefficacious as a means of instruction to the ignorant.]\n\nAnother important subject is also treated in the Ph\u00e6drus. Sokrates\ndelivers views both original and characteristic, respecting the\nefficacy of continuous discourse--either written to be read, or\nspoken to be heard without cross-examination--as a means of\ninstruction. They are re-stated--in a manner substantially the\nsame, though with some variety and fulness of illustration--in\nPlato's seventh Epistle[125] to the surviving friends of Dion. I\nhave already touched upon these views in my eighth** Chapter, on the\nPlatonic Dialogues generally, and have pointed out how much Plato\nunderstood to be involved in what he termed _knowledge_. No man\n(in his view) could be said to know, who was not competent to\nsustain successfully, and to apply successfully, a Sokratic\ncross-examination. Now knowledge, involving such a competency,\ncertainly cannot be communicated by any writing, or by any fixed and\nunchangeable array of words, whether written or spoken. You must\nfamiliarise learners with the subject on many different sides, and\nin relation to many different points of view, each presenting more\nor less chance of error or confusion. Moreover, you must apply a\ndifferent treatment to each mind, and to the same mind at\ndifferent stages: no two are exactly alike, and the treatment\nadapted for one will be unsuitable for the other. While it is\nimpossible, for these reasons, to employ any set forms of words,\nit will be found that the process of reading or listening leaves\nthe reader or listener comparatively passive: there is nothing to\nstir the depths of the mind, or to evolve the inherent forces and\ndormant capacities. Dialectic conversation is the only process\nwhich can adapt itself with infinite variety to each particular\ncase and moment--and which stimulates fresh mental efforts ever\nrenewed on the part of each respondent and each questioner.\nKnowledge--being a slow result generated by this stimulating\noperation, when skilfully conducted, long continued, and much\ndiversified--is not infused into, but evolved out of, the mind. It\nconsists in a revival of those unchangeable Ideas or Forms, with\nwhich the mind during its state of eternal pre-existence had had\ncommunion. There are only a few privileged minds, however, that\nhave had sufficient communion therewith to render such revival\npossible: accordingly, none but these few can ever rise to\nknowledge.[126]\n\n[Footnote 125: Plato, Epistol. vii. pp. 341-344.]\n\n[Footnote 126: Schleiermacher, in his Introduction to the Ph\u00e6drus,\njustly characterises this doctrine as genuine Sokratism--\"die \u00e4cht\nSokratische erhabene Verachtung alles Schreibens and alles\nrednerischen Redens,\" p. 70.]\n\n[Side-note: Written matter is useful as a memorandum for persons\nwho know--or as an elegant pastime.]\n\nThough knowledge cannot be first communicated by written matters,\nyet if it has been once communicated and subsequently forgotten,\nit may be revived by written matters. Writing has thus a real,\nthough secondary, usefulness, as a memorandum. And Plato doubtless\naccounted written dialogues the most useful of all written\ncompositions, because they imitated portions of that long oral\nprocess whereby alone knowledge had been originally generated. His\ndialogues were reports of the conversations purporting to have\nbeen held by Sokrates with others.\n\n[Side-note: Plato's didactic theories are pitched too high to be\nrealised.]\n\nIt is an excellent feature in the didactic theories of Plato, that\nthey distinguish so pointedly between the passive and active\nconditions of the intellect; and that they postulate as\nindispensable, an habitual and cultivated mental activity, worked\nup by slow, long-continued, colloquy. To read or hear, and then to\ncommit to memory, are in his view elegant recreations, but nothing\nmore. But while, on this point, Plato's didactic theories deserve\nadmiration, we must remark on the other hand that they are pitched\nso high as to exceed human force, and to overpass all possibility\nof being realised.[127] They mark out an _id\u00e9al_, which no person\never attained, either then or since--like the Platonic theory of\nrhetoric. To be master of any subject, in the extent and\nperfection required for sustaining and administering a Sokratic\ncross-examination--is a condition which scarce any one can ever\nfulfil: certainly no one, except upon a small range of subjects.\nAssuredly, Plato himself never fulfilled it.\n\n[Footnote 127: A remark made by Sextus Empiricus (upon another\ndoctrine which he is discussing) may be applied to this view of\nPlato--[Greek: to\\ de\\ le/gein o(/ti t\u00ea=| diomalism\u00f4=| t\u00f4=n\npra/xe\u00f4n katalamba/nomen to\\n e)/chonta t\u00ea\\n peri\\ to\\n bi/on\nte/chn\u00ean, _u(perphtheggome/n\u00f4n e)/sti t\u00ea\\n a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n phu/sin_,\nkai\\ eu)chome/n\u00f4n ma=llon \u00ea)\\ a)l\u00eath\u00ea= lego/nt\u00f4n] (Pyrrh. Hyp.\niii. 244).]\n\n[Side-note: No one has ever been found competent to solve the\ndifficulties raised by Sokrates, Arkesilaus, Karneades, and the\nnegative vein of philosophy.]\n\nSuch a cross-examination involved the mastery of all the openings\nfor doubt, difficulty, deception, or refutation, bearing on the\nsubject: openings which a man is to profit by, if assailant--to\nkeep guarded, if defendant. Now when we survey the Greek negative\nphilosophy, as it appears in Plato, Aristotle, and Sextus\nEmpiricus--and when we recollect that between the second and the\nthird of these names, there appeared three other philosophers\nequally or more formidable in the same vein, all whose arguments\nhave perished (Arkesilaus, Karneades, \u00c6nesid\u00eamus)--we shall see\nthat no man has ever been known competent both to strike and parry\nwith these weapons, in a manner so skilful and ready as to amount\nto knowledge in the Platonic sense. But in so far as such\nknowledge is attainable or approachable, Plato is right in saying\nthat it cannot be attained except by long dialectic practice.\nReading books, and hearing lectures, are undoubtedly valuable\naids, but insufficient by themselves. Modern times recede from it\neven more than ancient. Regulated oral dialectic has become\nunknown; the logical and metaphysical difficulties--which negative\nphilosophy required to be solved before it would allow any farther\nprogress--are now little heeded, amidst the multiplicity of\nobserved facts, and theories adapted to and commensurate with\nthose facts. This change in the character of philosophy is\ndoubtless a great improvement. It is found that by acquiescing\nprovisionally in the _axiomata media_, and by applying at every\nstep the control of verification, now rendered possible by the\nmultitude of ascertained facts--the sciences may march safely\nonward: notwithstanding that the logical and metaphysical\ndifficulties, the puzzles ([Greek: a)pori/ai]) involved in\n_philosophia prima_ and its very high abstractions, are left\nbehind unsolved and indeterminate. But though the modern course of\nphilosophy is preferable to the ancient, it is not for that reason\nto be considered as satisfactory. These metaphysical difficulties\nare not diminished either in force or relevancy, because modern\nwriters choose to leave them unnoticed. Plato and Aristotle were\nquite right in propounding them as problems, the solution of which\nwas indispensable to the exigencies and consistent schematism of\nthe theorising intelligence, as well as to any complete\ndiscrimination between sufficient and insufficient evidence. Such\nthey still remain, overlooked yet not defunct.\n\n[Side-note: Plato's _id\u00e9al_ philosopher can only be realised under\nthe hypothesis of a pre-existent and omniscient soul, stimulated\ninto full reminiscence here.]\n\nNow all these questions would be solved by the _id\u00e9al_ philosopher\nwhom Plato in the Ph\u00e6drus conceives as possessing knowledge: a\nperson who shall be at once a negative Sokrates in excogitating\nand enforcing all the difficulties--and an affirmative match for\nSokrates, as respondent in solving them: a person competent to\napply this process to all the indefinite variety of individual\nminds, under the inspirations of the moment. This is a magnificent\n_id\u00e9al_. Plato affirms truly, that those teachers who taught\nrhetoric and philosophy by writing, could never produce such a\npupil: and that even the Sokratic dialectic training, though\nindispensable and far more efficacious, would fail in doing so,\nunless in those few cases where it was favoured by very superior\ncapacity--understood by him as superhuman, and as a remnant from\nthe pre-existing commerce of the soul with the world of Forms or\nIdeas. The foundation therefore of the whole scheme rests upon\nPlato's hypothesis of an antecedent life of the soul, proclaimed\nby Sokrates here in his second or panegyrical discourse on Eros.\nThe rhetorical teachers, with whom he here compares himself and\nwhom he despises as aiming at low practical ends--might at any\nrate reply that they avoided losing themselves in such unmeasured\nand unwarranted hypotheses.\n\n[Side-note: Different proceeding of Plato in the Tim\u00e6us.]\n\nOne remark yet remains to be made upon the doctrine here set forth\nby Plato: that no teaching is possible by means of continuous\ndiscourse spoken or written--none, except through prolonged and\nvaried oral dialectic.[128] To this doctrine Plato does not\nconstantly conform in his practice: he departs from it on various\nimportant occasions. In the Tim\u00e6us, Sokrates calls upon the\nphilosopher so named for an exposition on the deepest and most\nmysterious cosmical subjects. Tim\u00e6us delivers the exposition in a\ncontinuous harangue, without a word of remark or question\naddressed by any of the auditors: while at the beginning of the\nKritias (the next succeeding dialogue) Sokrates greatly commends\nwhat Tim\u00e6us had spoken. The Kritias itself too (though unfinished)\nis given in the form of continuous exposition. Now, as the Tim\u00e6us\nis more abstruse than any other Platonic writing, we cannot\nimagine that Plato, at the time when he composed it, thought so\nmeanly about continuous exposition, as a vehicle of instruction,\nas we find him declaring in the Ph\u00e6drus. I point this out, because\nit illustrates my opinion that the different dialogues of Plato\nrepresent very different, sometimes even opposite, points of view:\nand that it is a mistake to treat them as parts of one\npreconceived and methodical system.\n\n[Footnote 128: The historical Sokrates would not allow his oral\ndialectic process to be called teaching. He expressly says \"I have\nnever been the teacher of any one\" (Plat. Apol. Sokr. pp. 33 A, 19\nE): and he disclaimed the possession of knowledge. Aristotle too\nconsiders teaching as a presentation of truths, ready made and\nsupposed to be known, by the teacher to learners, who are bound to\nbelieve them, [Greek: dei= ga\\r pisteu/ein to\\n mantha/nonta]. The\nPlatonic Sokrates, in the Ph\u00e6drus and Symposion, differs from\nboth; he recognises no teaching except the perpetual generation of\nnew thoughts and feelings, by means of stimulating dialectic\ncolloquy, and the revival in the mind thereby of the experience of\nan antecedent life, during which some communion has been enjoyed\nwith the world of Ideas or Forms.]\n\n[Side-note: Opposite tendencies co-existent in Plato's\nmind--Extreme of the Transcendental or Absolute--Extreme of specialising\nadaptation to individuals and occasions.]\n\nPlato is usually extolled by his admirers, as the champion of the\nAbsolute--of unchangeable forms, immutable truth, objective\nnecessity cogent and binding on every one. He is praised for\nhaving refuted Protagoras; who can find no standard beyond the\nindividual recognition and belief, of his own mind or that of some\none else. There is no doubt that Plato often talks in that strain:\nbut the method followed in his dialogues, and the general\nprinciples of method which he lays down, here as well as\nelsewhere, point to a directly opposite conclusion. Of this the\nPh\u00e6drus is a signal instance. Instead of the extreme of\ngenerality, it proclaims the extreme of specialty. The objection\nwhich the Sokrates of the Ph\u00e6drus advances against the didactic\nefficacy of written discourse, is founded on the fact, that it is\nthe same to all readers--that it takes no cognizance of the\ndifferences of individual minds nor of the same mind at different\ntimes. Sokrates claims for dialectic debate the valuable\nprivilege, that it is constant action and re-action between two\nindividual minds--an appeal by the inherent force and actual\ncondition of each, to the like elements in the other--an ever\nshifting presentation of the same topics, accommodated to the\nmeasure of intelligence and cast of emotion in the talkers and at\nthe moment. The individuality of each mind--both questioner and\nrespondent--is here kept in view as the governing condition of the\nprocess. No two minds can be approached by the same road or by the\nsame interrogation. The questioner cannot advance a step except by\nthe admission of the respondent. Every respondent is the measure\nto himself. He answers suitably to his own belief; he defends by\nhis own suggestions; he yields to the pressure of contradiction\nand inconsistency, _when he feels them_, and not before. Each\ndialogist is (to use the Protagorean phrase) the measure to\nhimself of truth and falsehood, according as he himself believes\nit. Assent or dissent, whichever it may be, springs only from the\nfree working of the individual mind, in its actual condition then\nand there. It is to the individual mind alone, that appeal is\nmade, and this is what Protagoras asks for.\n\nWe thus find, in Plato's philosophical character, two extreme\nopposite tendencies and opposite poles co-existent. We must\nrecognise them both: but they can never be reconciled: sometimes\nhe obeys and follows the one, sometimes the other.\n\nIf it had been Plato's purpose to proclaim and impose upon every\none something which he called \"Absolute Truth,\" one and the same\nalike imperative upon all--he would best proclaim it by preaching\nor writing. To modify this \"Absolute,\" according to the varieties\nof the persons addressed, would divest it of its intrinsic\nattribute and excellence. If you pretend to deal with an Absolute,\nyou must turn away your eyes from all diversity of apprehending\nintellects and believing subjects.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII.\n\nPARMENIDES.\n\n\n[Side-note: Character of dialogues immediately preceding--much\ntranscendental assertion. Opposite character of the Parmenides.]\n\nIn the dialogues immediately preceding--Ph\u00e6don, Ph\u00e6drus,\nSymposion--we have seen Sokrates manifesting his usual dialectic,\nwhich never fails him: but we have also seen him indulging in a\nvery unusual vein of positive affirmation and declaration. He has\nunfolded many novelties about the states of pre-existence and\npost-existence: he has familiarised us with Ideas, Forms,\nEssences, eternal and unchangeable, as the causes of all the facts\nand particularities of nature: he has recognised the inspired\nvariety of madness, as being more worthy of trust than sober,\nuninspired, intelligence: he has recounted, with the faith of a\ncommunicant fresh from the mysteries, revelations made to him by\nthe prophetess Diotima,--respecting the successive stages of\nexaltation whereby gifted intelligences, under the stimulus of\nEros Philosophus, ascend into communion with the great sea of\nBeauty. All this is set forth with as much charm as Plato's\neloquence can bestow. But after all, it is not the true character\nof Sokrates:--I mean, the Sokrates of the Apology, whose mission\nit is to make war against the chronic malady of the human\nmind--false persuasion of knowledge, without the reality. It is, on the\ncontrary, Sokrates himself infected with the same chronic malady\nwhich he combats in others, and requiring medicine against it as\nmuch as others. Such is the exact character in which Sokrates\nappears in the Parmenides: which dialogue I shall now proceed to\nreview.\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates is the juvenile defendant--Parmenides the\nveteran censor and cross-examiner. Parmenides gives a specimen of\nexercises to be performed by the philosophical aspirant.]\n\nThe Parmenides announces its own purpose as intended to repress\npremature forwardness of affirmation, in a young philosophical\naspirant: who, with meritorious eagerness in the search for truth,\nand with his eyes turned in the right direction to look for\nit--has nevertheless not fully estimated the obstructions besetting\nhis path, nor exercised himself in the efforts necessary to\novercome them. By a curious transposition, or perhaps from\ndeference on Plato's part to the Hellenic sentiment of\nNemesis,--Sokrates, who in most Platonic dialogues stands forward\nas the privileged censor and victorious opponent, is here the juvenile\ndefendant under censorship by a superior. It is the veteran\nParmenides of Elea who, while commending the speculative impulse\nand promise of Sokrates, impresses upon him at the same time that\nthe theory which he had advanced--the self-existence, the separate\nand substantive nature, of Ideas--stands exposed to many grave\nobjections, which he (Sokrates) has not considered and cannot\nmeet. So far, Parmenides performs towards Sokrates the same\nprocess of cross-examining refutation as Sokrates himself applies\nto The\u00e6t\u00eatus and other young men elsewhere. But we find in this\ndialogue something ulterior and even peculiar. Having warned\nSokrates that his intellectual training has not yet been carried\nto a point commensurate with the earnestness of his\naspirations--Parmenides proceeds to describe to him what exercises he\nought to go through, in order to guard himself against premature assertion\nor hasty partiality. Moreover, Parmenides not only indicates in\ngeneral terms what ought to be done, but illustrates it by giving\na specimen of such exercise, on a topic chosen by himself.\n\n[Side-note: Circumstances and persons of the Parmenides.]\n\nPassing over the dramatic introduction[1] whereby the personages\ndiscoursing are brought together, we find Sokrates, Parmenides,\nand the Eleatic Zeno (the disciple of Parmenides), engaged in the\nmain dialogue. When Parmenides begins his illustrative exercise, a\nperson named Aristotle (afterwards one of the Thirty oligarchs at\nAthens), still younger than Sokrates, is made to serve as\nrespondent.\n\n[Footnote 1: This dramatic introduction is extremely complicated.\nThe whole dialogue, from beginning to end, is recounted by\nKephalus of Klazomen\u00e6; who heard it from the Athenian Antiphon--who\nhimself had heard it from Pythod\u00f4rus, a friend of Zeno,\npresent when the conversation was held. A string of circumstances\nare narrated by Kephalus, to explain how he came to wish to hear\nit, and to find out Antiphon. Plato appears anxious to throw the\nevent back as far as possible into the past, in order to justify\nthe bringing Sokrates into personal communication with Parmenides:\nfor some unfriendly critics tried to make out that the two could\nnot possibly have conversed on philosophy (Athen\u00e6us, xi. 505).\nPlato declares the ages of the persons with remarkable exactness:\nParmenides was 65, completely grey-headed, but of noble mien: Zeno\nabout 40, tall and graceful: Sokrates very young. (Plat. Parmen.\np. 127 B-C.)\n\nIt required some invention in Plato to provide a narrator,\nsuitable for recounting events so long antecedent as the young\nperiod of Sokrates.]\n\nSokrates is one among various auditors, who are assembled to hear\nZeno reading aloud a treatise of his own composition, intended to\nanswer and retort upon the opponents of his preceptor Parmenides.\n\n[Side-note: Manner in which the doctrine of Parmenides was\nimpugned. Manner in which his partisan Zeno defended him.]\n\nThe main doctrine of the real Parmenides was, \"That Ens, the\nabsolute, real, self-existent, was One and not many\": which\ndoctrine was impugned and derided by various opponents, deducing\nfrom it absurd conclusions. Zeno defended his master by showing\nthat the opposite doctrine (--\"That Ens, the absolute,\nself-existent universe, is Many--\") led to conclusions absurd in an\nequal or greater degree. If the Absolute were Many, the many would\nbe both like and unlike: but they cannot have incompatible and\ncontradictory attributes: therefore Absolute Ens is not Many. Ens,\nas Parmenides conceived it, was essentially homogeneous and\nunchangeable: even assuming it to be Many, all its parts must be\nhomogeneous, so that what was predicable of one must be predicable\nof all; it might be all alike, or all unlike: but it could not be\nboth. Those who maintained the plurality of Ens, did so on the\nground of apparent severalty, likeness, and unlikeness, in the\nsensible world. But Zeno, while admitting these phenomena in the\nsensible world, as _relative to us_, apparent, and subject to the\nvarieties of individual estimation--denied their applicability to\nabsolute and self-existent Ens.[2] Since absolute Ens or Entia are\nMany (said the opponents of Parmenides), they will be both like\nand unlike: and thus we can explain the phenomena of the sensible\nworld. The absolute (replied Zeno) cannot be both like and unlike;\ntherefore it cannot be many. We must recollect that both\nParmenides and Zeno renounced all attempt to explain the sensible\nworld by the absolute and purely intelligible Ens. They treated\nthe two as radically distinct and unconnected. The one was\nabsolute, eternal, unchangeable, homogeneous, apprehended only by\nreason. The other was relative, temporary, variable,\nheterogeneous; a world of individual and subjective opinion, upon\nwhich no absolute truth, no pure objectivity, could be reached.\n\n[Footnote 2: I have already given a short account of the Zenonian\nDialectic, ch. ii. p. 93 seq.]\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates here impugns the doctrine of Zeno. He affirms\nthe Platonic theory of ideas separate from sensible objects, yet\nparticipable by them.]\n\nSokrates, depicted here as a young man, impugns this doctrine of\nZeno: and maintains that the two worlds, though naturally\ndisjoined, were not incommunicable. He advances the Platonic\ntheory of Ideas: that is, an intelligible world of many separate\nself-existent Forms or Ideas, apprehended by reason only--and a\nsensible world of particular objects, each participating in one or\nmore of these Forms or Ideas. \"What you say (he remarks to Zeno),\nis true of the world of Forms or Ideas: the Form of Likeness _per\nse_ can never be unlike, nor can the Form of Unlikeness be ever\nlike. But in regard to the sensible world, there is nothing to\nhinder you and me, and other objects which rank and are numbered\nas separate individuals, from participating both in the Form of\nlikeness and in the Form of unlikeness.[3] In so far as I, an\nindividual object, participate in the Form of Likeness, I am\nproperly called like; in so far as I participate in the Form of\nUnlikeness, I am called unlike. So about One and Many, Great and\nLittle, and so forth: I, the same individual, may participate in\nmany different and opposite Forms, and may derive from them\ndifferent and opposite denominations. I am one and many--like and\nunlike--great and little--all at the same time. But no such\ncombination is possible between the Forms themselves,\nself-existent and opposite: the Form of Likeness cannot become unlike,\nnor _vice vers\u00e2_. The Forms themselves stand permanently apart,\nincapable of fusion or coalescence with each other: but different\nand even opposite Forms may lend themselves to participation and\npartnership in the same sensible individual object.\"[4]\n\n[Footnote 3: Plato, Parmenid. p. 129 A. [Greek: ou) nomi/zeis\nei)=nai au)to\\ kath' au)to\\ ei)=do/s ti o(moio/t\u00eatos, kai\\ t\u00f4=|\ntoiou/t\u00f4| ai)= a)/llo ti e)nanti/on, o(\\ e)/stin a)no/moion?\ntou/toin de\\ duoi=n o)/ntoin kai\\ e)me\\ kai\\ se\\ kai\\ ta\\ a)/lla\na(\\ d\u00ea\\ polla\\ kalou=men, metalamba/nein?]]\n\n[Footnote 4: Plato, Parmenid. pp. 129-130.]\n\n[Side-note: Parmenides and Zeno admire the philosophical ardour of\nSokrates. Parmenides advances objections against the Platonic\ntheory of Ideas.]\n\nParmenides and Zeno are represented as listening with surprise and\ninterest to this language of Sokrates, recognising two distinct\nworlds: one, of invisible but intelligible Forms,--the other that\nof sensible objects, participating in these Forms. \"Your ardour\nfor philosophy\" (observes Parmenides to Sokrates), \"is admirable.\nIs this distinction your own?\"[5]\n\n[Footnote 5: Plato, Parmenid. p. 130 A. [Greek: \u00d4)= S\u00f4/krates, \u00f4(s\na)/xios ei)= a)/gasthai t\u00ea=s o(rm\u00ea=s t\u00ea=s e)pi\\ tou\\s lo/gous;\nkai/ moi ei)pe/, _au)to\\s su\\ ou(/t\u00f4 di\u00ea/|r\u00easai_ \u00f4(s le/geis,\nch\u00f4ri\\s me\\n ei)/d\u00ea au)ta\\ a)/tta, ch\u00f4ri\\s de\\ ta\\ tou/t\u00f4n au)=\nmete/chonta?]]\n\nPlato now puts into the mouth of Parmenides--the advocate of One\nabsolute and unchangeable Ens, separated by an impassable gulf\nfrom the sensible world of transitory and variable appearances or\nphenomena--objections against what is called the Platonic theory\nof Ideas: that is, the theory of an intelligible world, comprising\nan indefinite number of distinct intelligible and unchangeable\nForms--in partial relation and communication with another world of\nsensible objects, each of which participates in one or more of\nthese Forms. We thus have the Absolute One pitted against the\nAbsolute Many.\n\n[Side-note: What Ideas does Sokrates recognise? Of the Just and\nGood? Yes. Of Man, Horse, &c.? Doubtful. Of Hair, Mud, &c.? No.]\n\nWhat number and variety of these intelligible Forms do you\nrecognise--(asks Parmenides)? Likeness and Unlikeness--One and\nMany--Just, Beautiful, Good, &c.--are all these Forms absolute and\nexistent _per se_? _Sokr._--Certainly they are. _Parm._--Do you\nfarther recognise an absolute and self-existent Form of Man, apart\nfrom us and all other individuals?--or a Form of fire, water, and\nthe like? _Sokr._--I do not well know how to answer:--I have often\nbeen embarrassed with the question. _Parm._--Farther, do there\nexist distinct intelligible Forms of hair, mud, dirt, and all the\nother mean and contemptible objects of sense which we see around?\n_Sokr._--No--certainly--no such Forms as these exist. Such objects\nare as we see them, and nothing beyond: it would be too absurd to\nsuppose Forms of such like things.[6] Nevertheless there are times\nwhen I have misgivings on the point; and when I suspect that there\nmust be Forms of them as well as of the others. When such\nreflections cross my mind, I shrink from the absurdity of the\ndoctrine, and try to confine my attention to Forms like those\nwhich you mentioned first.\n\n[Footnote 6: Plato, Parmenid. p. 130 D. [Greek: Ou)dam\u00f4=s, pha/nai\nto\\n S\u00f4kra/t\u00ean, a)lla\\ tau=ta me/n ge, a(/per o(r\u00f4=men, tau=ta\nkai\\ ei)=nai; ei)=dos de/ ti au)t\u00f4=n oi)\u00eath\u00ea=nai ei)=nai m\u00ea\\ li/an\n\u00ea)=| a)/topon.]\n\nAlexander, who opposes the doctrine of the Platonists about Ideas,\ntreats it as understood that they did not recognise Ideas of\nworms, gnats, and such like animals. Schol. ad Aristot. Metaphys.\nA. 991 a. p. 575, a. 30 Brandis.]\n\n[Side-note: Parmenides declares that no object in nature is mean to\nthe philosopher.]\n\n_Parm._--You are still young, Sokrates:--you still defer to the\ncommon sentiments of mankind. But the time will come when\nphilosophy will take stronger hold of you, and will teach you that\nno object in nature is mean or contemptible in her view.[7]\n\n[Footnote 7: Plato, Parmenid. p. 130 E. [Greek: Ne/os ga\\r ei)=\ne)/ti, kai\\ ou(/p\u00f4 sou a)ntei/l\u00eaptai philosophi/a \u00f4(s e(/ti\na)ntil\u00ea/psetai, kat' e)m\u00ea\\n do/xan, o(/te _ou)de\\n au)t\u00f4=n_\na)tima/seis; nu=n de\\ e)/ti _pro\\s a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n a)poble/peis\ndo/xas_ dia\\ t\u00ea\\n \u00ea(liki/an.]]\n\n\n* * * * *\n\n\n[Side-note: Remarks upon this--Contrast between emotional and\nscientific classification.]\n\nThis remark deserves attention. Plato points out the radical\ndistinction, and frequent antipathy between classifications\nconstructed by science, and those which grow up spontaneously\nunder the associating influence of a common emotion. What he calls\n\"the opinions of men,\"--in other words, the associations naturally\nworking in an untaught and unlettered mind--bring together the\nideas of objects according as they suggest a like\nemotion--veneration, love, fear, antipathy, contempt, laughter, &c.[8]\nAs things which inspire like emotions are thrown into the same\ncategory and receive the same denomination, so the opposite\nproceeding inspires great repugnance, when things creating\nantipathetic emotions are forced into the same category. A large\nproportion of objects in nature come to be regarded as unworthy of\nany serious attention, and fit only to serve for discharging on\nthem our laughter, contempt, or antipathy. The investigation of\nthe structure and manifestations of insects is one of the marked\nfeatures which Aristophanes ridicules in Sokrates: moreover the\nsame poet also brings odium on the philosopher for alleged study\nof astronomy and meteorology--the heavenly bodies being as it were\nat the opposite emotional pole, objects of such reverential\nadmiration and worship, that it was impious to watch or\ninvestigate them, or calculate their proceedings beforehand.[9]\nThe extent to which anatomy and physiology were shut out from\nstudy in antiquity, and have continued to be partially so even in\nmodern times, is well known. And the proportion of phenomena is\nboth great and important, connected with the social relations,\nwhich are excluded both from formal registration and from\nscientific review; kept away from all rational analysis either of\ncauses or remedies, because of the strong repugnances connected\nwith them. This emotional view of nature is here noted by Plato as\nconflicting with the scientific. No object (he says) is mean in\nthe eyes of philosophy. He remarks to the same effect in the\nSophist\u00eas and Politikus, and the remark is illustrated by the\nclassifying processes there exhibited:[10] mean objects and\nesteemed objects being placed side by side.\n\n[Footnote 8: Plato, himself, however, occasionally appeals [Greek:\npro\\s a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n do/xas], and becomes [Greek: a)techn\u00f4=s\nd\u00eam\u00ea/goros], when it suits his argument; see Gorgias, 494 C.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Aristophan. Nubes, 145-170-1490.\n\n[Greek: ti/ ga\\r matho/nt' e)s tou\\s theou\\s u(bri/zeton,\nkai\\ t\u00ea=s sel\u00ea/n\u00eas e)skopei=sthe t\u00ea\\n e)/dran?]\n\nCompare Xenoph. Memor. i. 1, 11-13, iv. 7, 6-7; Plutarch,\nPerikles, 23; also the second chapter of the first Book of\nMacrobius, about the discredit which is supposed to be thrown upon\ngrand and solemn subjects by a plain and naked exposition.\n\"Inimicam esse natur\u00e6 nudam expositionem sui.\"]\n\n[Footnote 10: Plato, Sophist. p. 227 B; Politik. p. 266 D; also\nThe\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 174 D.\n\nBoth the Platonic Sokrates, and the Xenophontic Sokrates,\nfrequently illustrate the education of men by comparison with the\nbringing up of young animals as well as with the training of\nhorses: they also compare the educator of young men with the\ntrainer of young horses. Indeed this comparison occurs so\nfrequently, that it excites much displeasure among various modern\ncritics (Forchhammer, K\u00f6chly, Socher, &c.), who seem to consider\nit as unseemly and inconsistent with \"the dignity of human\nnature\". The frequent allusions made by Plato to the homely arts\nand professions are noted by his interlocutors as tiresome.\n\nSee Plato, Apolog. Sokr. p. 20 A. [Greek: \u00f4)= Kalli/a, ei) me/n\nsou t\u00f4\\ ui(e/e p\u00f4/l\u00f4 \u00ea)\\ mo/sch\u00f4 e)gene/sth\u00ean], &c.\n\nThe Zoological works of Aristotle exhibit a memorable example of\nscientific intelligence, overcoming all the contempt and disgust\nusually associated with minute and repulsive organisms. To Plato,\nit would be repugnant to arrange in the same class the wolf and\nthe dog. See Sophist. p. 231 A.]\n\n\n* * * * *\n\n\nParmenides now produces various objections against the Platonic\nvariety of dualism: the two distinct but partially\ninter-communicating worlds--one, of separate, permanent, unchangeable,\nForms or Ideas--the other, of individual objects, transient and\nvariable; participating in, and receiving denomination from, these\nForms.\n\n[Side-note: Objections of Parmenides--How can objects participate\nin the Ideas. Each cannot have the whole Idea, nor a part\nthereof.]\n\n1. How (asks Parmenides) can such participation take place? Is the\nentire Form in each individual object? No: for one and the same\nForm cannot be at the same time in many distant objects. A part of\nit therefore must be in one object; another part in another. But\nthis assumes that the Form is divisible--or is not essentially\nOne. Equality is in all equal objects: but how can a part of the\nForm equality, less than the whole, make objects equal? Again,\nlittleness is in all little objects: that is, a part of the Form\nlittleness is in each. But the Form littleness cannot have parts;\nbecause, if it had, the entire Form would be greater than any of\nits parts,--and the Form littleness cannot be greater than any\nthing. Moreover, if one part of littleness were added to other\nparts, the sum of the two would be less, and not greater, than\neither of the factors. It is plain that none of these Forms can be\ndivisible, or can have parts. Objects therefore cannot participate\nin the Form by parts or piecemeal. But neither can each object\npossess the entire Form. Accordingly, since there remains no third\npossibility, objects cannot participate in the Forms at all.[11]\n\n[Footnote 11: Plato, Parmenid. p. 131. A similar argument, showing\nthe impossibility of such [Greek: me/thexis], appears in Sextus\nEmpiric. adv. Arithmeticos, sect. 11-20, p. 334 Fab., p. 724 Bek.]\n\n[Side-note: Comparing the Idea with the sensible objects partaking\nin the Idea, there is a likeness between them which must be\nrepresented by a higher Idea--and so on _ad infinitum_.]\n\n2. Parmenides now passes to a second argument. The reason why you\nassume that each one of these Forms exists, is--That when you\ncontemplate many similar objects, one and the same ideal phantom\nor Concept is suggested by all.[12] Thus, when you see many\n_great_ objects, one common impression of _greatness_ arises from\nall. Hence you conclude that The Great, or the Form of Greatness,\nexists as One. But if you take this Form of Greatness, and\nconsider it in comparison with each or all the great individual\nobjects, it will have in common with them something that makes it\ngreat. You must therefore search for some higher Form, which\nrepresents what belongs in common both to the Form of Greatness\nand to individual great objects. And this higher Form again, when\ncompared with the rest, will have something in common which must\nbe represented by a Form yet higher: so that there will be an\ninfinite series of Forms, ascending higher and higher, of which\nyou will never reach the topmost.[13]\n\n[Footnote 12: Plato, Parmenid. p. 132. [Greek: Oi)=mai se e)k tou=\ntoiou=de e(\\n e(/kaston ei)=dos oi)/esthai ei)=nai. O(/tan _po/ll'\na)/tta mega/la soi do/x\u00ea|_ ei)=nai, _mi/a tis i)/s\u00f4s dokei=\ni)de/a_ \u00ea( au)t\u00ea\\ ei)=nai _e)pi\\ pa/nta i)do/nti_, o(/then _e(\\n\nto\\ me/ga \u00ea(gei= ei)=nai_.]]\n\n[Footnote 13: Plato, Parmenid. p. 132 A. See this process, of\ncomparing the Form with particular objects denominated after the\nForm, described in a different metaphysical language by Mr. John\nStuart Mill, System of Logic, book iv. ch. 2, sect. 3. \"As the\ngeneral conception is itself obtained by a comparison of\nparticular phenomena, so, when obtained, the mode in which we\napply it to other phenomena is again by comparison. We compare\nphenomena with each other to get the conception; and we then\ncompare those and other phenomena _with_ the conception. We get\nthe conception of an animal by comparing different animals, and\nwhen we afterwards see a creature resembling an animal, we compare\nit with our general conception of an animal: and if it agrees with\nour general conception, we include it in the class. The conception\nbecomes the type of comparison. We may perhaps find that no\nconsiderable number of other objects agree with this first general\nconception: and that we must drop the conception, and beginning\nagain with a different individual case, proceed by fresh\ncomparisons to a different general conception.\"\n\nThe comparison, which the argument of the Platonic Parmenides\nassumes to be instituted, between [Greek: to\\ ei)=dos] and [Greek:\nta\\ mete/chonta au)tou=], is denied by Proklus; who says that\nthere can be no comparison, nor any [Greek: koino/t\u00eas], except\nbetween [Greek: ta\\ o(motag\u00ea=]: and that the Form is not [Greek:\no(motage\\s] with its participant particulars. (Proklus ad\nParmenidem, p. 125, p. 684 ed. Stallbaum.)\n\nThis argument of Parmenides is the memorable argument known under\nthe name of [Greek: o( tri/tos a)/nthr\u00f4pos]. Against the Platonic\n[Greek: ei)/d\u00ea] considered as [Greek: ch\u00f4rista/], it is a forcible\nargument. See Aristot. Metaphys. A. 990, b. 15 seq., where it is\nnumbered among [Greek: oi( a)kribe/steroi t\u00f4=n lo/g\u00f4n]. We find\nfrom the Scholion of Alexander (p. 566 Brandis), that it was\nadvanced in several different ways by Aristotle, in his work\n[Greek: Peri\\ I)de\u00f4=n]: by his scholar Eudemus [Greek: e)n toi=s\nperi\\ Le/xe\u00f4s]: and by a contemporary [Greek: sophist\u00ea\\s] named\nPolyxenus, as well as by other Sophists.]\n\n[Side-note: Are the Ideas conceptions of the mind, and nothing\nmore? Impossible.]\n\n3. Perhaps (suggests Sokrates) each of these Forms is a Conception\nof the mind and nothing beyond: the Form is not competent to exist\nout of the mind.[14] How? (replies Parmenides.) There cannot be in\nthe mind any Conception, which is a Conception of nothing. Every\nConception must be of something really existing: in this case, it\nis a Conception of some one thing, which you conceive as belonging\nin common to each and all the objects considered. The Something\nthus conceived as perpetually One and the same in all, is, the\nForm. Besides, if you think that individual objects participate in\nthe Forms, and that these Forms are Conceptions of the mind,--you\nmust suppose, either that all objects are made up of Conceptions,\nand are therefore themselves Concipients: or else that these\nForms, though Conceptions, are incapable of conceiving. Neither\none nor the other is admissible.[15]\n\n[Footnote 14: Plato, Parmenid. p. 132 B. [Greek: m\u00ea\\ _t\u00f4=n\nei)d\u00f4=n_ e(/kaston \u00ea)=| _tou/t\u00f4n no\u00ea/ma_, kai\\ _ou)damou= au)t\u00f4=|\npros\u00ea/k\u00ea e)ggi/gnesthai a)/llothi \u00ea)\\ e)n psuchai=s_. . . . Ti/\nou)=n? pha/nai, e(\\n e(/kasto/n e)sti t\u00f4=n no\u00eama/t\u00f4n, no/\u00eama de\\\nou)deno/s? A)ll' a)du/naton, ei)pei=n. A)lla\\ tino/s? Nai/.\nO)/ntos \u00ea)\\ ou)k o)/ntos? O)/ntos. Ou)ch e(no/s tinos, o(\\ e)pi\\\npa=sin e)kei=no to\\ no/\u00eama e)po\\n noei=, mi/an tina\\ ou)=san\ni)de/an? Nai/.]\n\nAristotle (Topic. ii. 113, a. 25) indicates one way of meeting\nthis argument, if advanced by an adversary in dialectic\ndebate--[Greek: ei) ta\\s i)de/as _e)n \u00ea(mi=n_ e)/ph\u00easen ei)=nai].]\n\n[Footnote 15: Plato, Parmenid. p. 132 D. [Greek: ou)k a)na/gk\u00ea,\nei) ta)/lla ph\u00ea\\| t\u00f4=n ei)d\u00f4=n mete/chein, \u00ea)\\ dokei=n soi e)k\nno\u00ea/mata o)/nta a)no/\u00eata ei)=nai? A)ll' ou)de\\ tou=to, pha/nai,\ne)/chei lo/gon.]\n\nThe word [Greek: a)no/\u00eata] here is used in its ordinary sense, in\nwhich it is the negation, not of [Greek: no\u00eato/s] but of [Greek:\nno\u00eatiko/s]. There is a similar confusion, Plato, Ph\u00e6don, p. 80 B.\nProklus (pp. 699-701, Stall.) is prolix but very obscure.]\n\n[Side-note: The Ideas are types or exemplars, and objects partake\nof them by being likened to them. Impossible.]\n\n4. Probably the case stands thus (says Sokrates). These Forms are\nconstants and fixtures in nature, as models or patterns.\nParticular objects are copies or likenesses of them: and the\nparticipation of such objects in the Form consists in being made\nlike to it.[16] In that case (replies Parmenides), the Form must\nitself be like to the objects which have been made like to it.\nComparing the Form with the objects, that in which they resemble\nmust itself be a Form: and thus you will have a higher Form above\nthe first Form--and so upwards in the ascending line. This follows\nnecessarily from the hypothesis that the Form is like the objects.\nThe participation of objects in the Form, therefore, cannot\nconsist in being likened to it.[17]\n\n[Footnote 16: Aristotle (Metaphys. A. 991, a. 20) characterises\nthis way of presenting the Platonic Ideas as mere [Greek:\nkenologi/a] and poetical metaphor. See also the remarkable\nScholion of Alexander, pp. 574-575, Brandis.]\n\n[Footnote 17: Plato, Parmenid. pp. 132-133.\n\nThis is again a repetition, though differently presented, of the\nsame argument--[Greek: o( tri/tos a)/nthr\u00f4pos]--enunciated p. 132\nA.]\n\n[Side-note: If Ideas exist, they cannot be knowable by us. We can\nknow only what is relative to ourselves. Individuals are relative\nto individuals: Ideas relative to Ideas.]\n\n5. Here are grave difficulties (continues Parmenides) opposed to\nthis doctrine of yours, affirming the existence of self-existent,\nsubstantive, unchangeable, yet participated, Forms. But\ndifficulties still graver remain behind. Such Forms as you\ndescribe cannot be cognizable by us: at least it is hard to show\nhow they can be cognizable. Being self-existent and substantive,\nthey are not _in us_: such of them as are relative, have their\nrelation with each other, not with those particular objects among\nus, which are called _great_, _little_, and so forth, from being\nsupposed to be similar to or participant in the forms, and bearing\nnames the same as those of the Forms. Thus, for example, if I, an\nindividual man, am in the relation of master, I bear that relation\nto another individual man who is my servant, not to servantship in\ngeneral (_i.e._ the Form of servantship, the _Servus per se_). My\nservant, again, bears the relation of servant to me, an individual\nman as master,--not to mastership in general (_i.e._ to the Form\nof mastership, the _Dominus per se_). Both terms of the relation\nare individual objects. On the other hand, the Forms also bear\nrelation to each other. The Form of servantship (_Servus per se_)\nstands in relation to the Form of mastership (_Dominus per se_).\nNeither of them correlates with an individual object. The two\nterms of the relation must be homogeneous, each of them a\nForm.[18]\n\n[Footnote 18: Plato, Parmenid. p. 133 E.]\n\n[Side-note: Forms can be known only through the Form of Cognition,\nwhich we do not possess.]\n\nNow apply this to the case of cognition. The Form of Cognition\ncorrelates exclusively with the Form of Truth: the Form of each\nspecial Cognition, geometrical or medical, or other, correlates\nwith the Form of Geometry or Medicine. But Cognition as we possess\nit, correlates only with Truth relatively to us: also, each\nspecial Cognition of ours has its special correlating Truth,\nrelatively to us.[19] Now the Forms are not in or with us, but\napart from us: the Form of Cognition is not our Cognition, the\nForm of Truth is not our Truth. Forms can be known only through\nthe Form of Cognition, which _we_ do not possess: we cannot\ntherefore know Forms. We have our own cognition, whereby we know\nwhat is relative to us; but we know nothing more. Forms, which are\nnot relative to us, lie out of our knowledge. _Bonum per se,\nPulchrum per se_, and the other self-existent Forms or Ideas, are\nto us altogether unknowable.[20]\n\n[Footnote 19: Plato, Parmenid. p. 134 A. [Greek: Ou)kou=n kai\\\ne)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea, au)t\u00ea\\ me\\n o(\\ e)/stin e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea, t\u00ea=s o(\\ e)/stin\na)l\u00ea/theia, au)t\u00ea=s a)\\n e)kei/n\u00eas ei)/\u00ea e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea? . . . \u00ca( de\\\npar' \u00ea(mi=n e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea ou) t\u00ea=s par' \u00ea(mi=n a)\\n a)l\u00eathei/as\nei)/\u00ea? kai\\ au)= e(ka/st\u00ea \u00ea( par' \u00ea(mi=n e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea t\u00f4=n par'\n\u00ea(mi=n o)/nt\u00f4n e(ka/stou a)\\n e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea su/mbainoi ei)=nai?]\n\nAristotle (Topica, vi. p. 147, a. 6) adverts to this as an\nargument against the theory of Ideas, but without alluding to the\nParmenides; indeed he puts the argument in a different\nway--[Greek: to\\ d' ei)=dos pro\\s to\\ ei)=dos dokei= le/gesthai, oi(=on\nau)t\u00ea\\ e)pithumi/a au)tou= \u00ea(de/os, kai\\ au)t\u00ea\\ bou/l\u00easis au)tou=\na)gathou=.] Aristotle argues that there is no place in this\ndoctrine for the [Greek: phaino/menon a)gatho/n], which\nnevertheless men often wish for, and he remarks, in the Nikom.\nEthica, i. 4, 1096 b. 33--that the [Greek: au)to\\-a)gatho\\n] is\nneither [Greek: prakto\\n] nor [Greek: kt\u00eato\\n a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4|].]\n\n[Footnote 20: Plato, Parmenid. p. 134 C. [Greek: A)/gn\u00f4ston a)/ra\n\u00ea(mi=n kai\\ au)to\\ to\\ kalo\\n o(\\ e)/sti, kai\\ to\\ a)gatho/n, kai\\\npa/nta a(\\ d\u00ea\\ \u00f4(s i)de/as au)ta\\s ou)/sas u(polamba/nomen.]]\n\n[Side-note: Form of cognition, superior to our Cognition, belongs\nto the Gods. We cannot know them, nor can they know us.]\n\n6. Again, if there be a real self-existent Form of Cognition,\napart from that which we or others possess--it must doubtless be\nfar superior in accuracy and perfection to that which we\npossess.[21] The Form of Beauty and the other Forms, must be in\nlike manner superior to that which is found under the same name in\nindividual objects. This perfect Form of Cognition must therefore\nbelong to the Gods, if it belong to any one. But if so, the Gods\nmust have a Form of Truth, the proper object of their Form of\nCognition. They cannot know the truth relatively to us, which\nbelongs to _our_ cognition--any more than we can know the more\nperfect truth belonging to them. So too about other Forms. The\nperfect Form of mastership belongs to the Gods, correlating with\nits proper Form of servantship. _Their_ mastership does not\ncorrelate with individual objects like us: in other words, they\nare not our masters, nor are we their servants. _Their_ cognition,\nagain, does not correlate with individual objects like us: in\nother words, they do not know us, nor do we know them. In like\nmanner, we in our capacity of masters are not masters of them--we\nas cognizant beings know nothing of them or of that which they\nknow. They can in no way correlate with us, nor can we correlate\nwith them.[22]\n\n[Footnote 21: An argument very similar is urged by Aristotle\n(Metaph. [Greek: Th]. 1050, b. 34) [Greek: ei) a)/ra tine/s ei)si\nphu/seis toiau=tai \u00ea)\\ ou)si/ai oi(/as le/gousin oi( e)n toi=s\nlo/gois ta\\s i)de/as, polu\\ ma=llon e)pist\u00ea=mon a)/n ti ei)/\u00ea \u00ea(\nau)toepist\u00ea/m\u00ea kai\\ kinou/menon \u00ea( ki/n\u00easis.]]\n\n[Footnote 22: Plato, Parmenid. p. 135 A. [Greek: Tau=ta me\\ntoi,\n\u00f4)= S\u00f4/krates, e)/ph\u00ea o( Parmeni/d\u00eas, _kai\\ e)/ti a)/lla pro\\s\ntou/tois pa/nu polla\\ a)nagkai=on e)/chein ta\\ ei)/d\u00ea_, ei)\nei)si\\n au)tai ai( i)de/ai t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Sum total of objections against the Ideas is grave. But\nif we do not admit that Ideas exist, and that they are knowable,\nthere can be no dialectic discussion.]\n\nHere are some of the objections, Sokrates (concludes Parmenides),\nwhich beset your doctrine, that there exist substantive,\nself-standing, Forms of Ideas, each respectively definable. Many\nfarther objections might also be urged.[23] So that a man may\nreasonably maintain, either that none such exist--or that,\ngranting their existence, they are essentially unknowable by us.\nHe must put forth great ingenuity to satisfy himself of the\naffirmative; and still more wonderful ingenuity to find arguments\nfor the satisfaction of others, respecting this question.\n\n[Footnote 23: Plato, Parmenid. p. 134 D-E. [Greek: Ou)/koun ei)\npara\\ t\u00f4=| the\u00f4=| au(/t\u00ea e)/stin \u00ea( a)kribesta/t\u00ea despotei/a kai\\\nau(/t\u00ea \u00ea( a)kribesta/t\u00ea e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea, ou)/t' a)\\n \u00ea( despotei/a \u00ea(\ne)kei/n\u00f4n] (i.e. [Greek: t\u00f4=n the\u00f4=n]) [Greek: \u00ea(m\u00f4=n pote\\ a)\\n\ndespo/seien, _ou)/t' a)\\n \u00ea( e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea \u00ea(ma=s gnoi/\u00ea ou)de/ ti\na)/llo t\u00f4=n par' \u00ea(mi=n_; a)lla\\ o(moi/\u00f4s \u00ea(mei=s t' e)kei/n\u00f4n\nou)k a)/rchomen t\u00ea=| par' \u00ea(mi=n a)rch\u00ea=|, ou)de gign\u00f4/skomen tou=\nthei/ou ou)de\\n t\u00ea=| \u00ea(mete/ra| e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea, _e)kei=noi/ te au)=_]\n(sc. [Greek: oi( theoi/]) [Greek: kata\\ to\\n au)to\\n lo/gon ou)/te\ndespo/tai \u00ea(m\u00f4=n ei)si\\n _ou)/te gign\u00f4/skousi ta\\ a)nthr\u00f4/peia\npra/gmata theoi\\ o)/ntes_. A)lla\\ m\u00ea\\ li/an, e)/ph\u00ea] (Sokrates),\n[Greek: \u00ea)=| thaumasto\\s o( lo/gos, ei)/ tis theo\\n a)poster\u00ea/seis\ntou= ei)de/nai.]\n\nThe inference here drawn by Parmenides supplies the first mention\nof a doctrine revived by (if not transmitted to) Averroes and\nvarious scholastic doctors of the middle ages, so as to be\nformally condemned by theological councils. M. Renan tells us--\"En\n1269, \u00c9tienne Tempier, \u00e9v\u00eaque de Paris, ayant rassembl\u00e9 le conseil\ndes ma\u00eetres en th\u00e9ologie . . . condamna, de concert avec eux,\ntreize propositions qui ne sont presque toutes que les axiomes\nfamiliers de l'averro\u00efsme: Quod intellectus hominum est unus et\nidem numero. Quod mundus est \u00e6ternus. Quod nunquam fuit primus\nhomo. _Quod Deus non cognoscit singularia_,\" &c. (Renan, Averro\u00e8s,\np. 213, 2nd ed., p. 268.)]\n\nNevertheless, on the other side (continues Parmenides), unless we\nadmit the existence of such Forms or Ideas--substantive, eternal,\nunchangeable, definable--philosophy and dialectic discussion are\nimpossible.[24]\n\n[Footnote 24: Plato, Parmenid. p. 135 B.]\n\n\n* * * * *\n\n\n[Side-note: Dilemma put by Parmenides--Acuteness of his\nobjections.]\n\nHere then, Parmenides entangles himself and his auditors in the\nperplexing dilemma, that philosophical and dialectic speculation\nis impossible, unless these Forms or Ideas, together with the\nparticipation of sensible objects in them, be granted; while at\nthe same time this cannot be granted, until objections, which\nappear at first sight unanswerable, have been disposed of.\n\nThe acuteness with which these objections are enforced, is\nremarkable. I know nothing superior to it in all the Platonic\nwritings. Moreover the objections point directly against that\ndoctrine which Plato in other dialogues most emphatically insists\nupon, and which Aristotle both announces and combats as\ncharacteristic of Plato--the doctrine of separate, self-existent,\nabsolute, Forms or Ideas. They are addressed moreover to Sokrates,\nthe chief exponent of that doctrine here as well as in other\ndialogues. And he is depicted as unable to meet them.\n\n[Side-note: The doctrine which Parmenides attacks is the genuine\nPlatonic theory of Ideas. His objections are never answered in any\npart of the Platonic dialogues.]\n\nIt is true that Sokrates is here introduced as juvenile and\nuntrained; or at least as imperfectly trained. And accordingly,\nStallbaum with others think, that this is the reason of his\ninability to meet the objections: which (they tell us), though\ningenious and plausible, yet having no application to the genuine\nPlatonic doctrine about Ideas, might easily have been answered if\nPlato had thought fit, and are answered in other dialogues.[25]\nBut to me it appears, that the doctrine which is challenged in the\nParmenid\u00eas is the genuine Platonic doctrine about Ideas, as\nenunciated by Plato in the Republic, Ph\u00e6don, Phil\u00eabus, Tim\u00e6us, and\nelsewhere--though a very different doctrine is announced in the\nSophist\u00eas. Objections are here made against it in the Parmenid\u00eas.\nIn what other dialogue has Plato answered them? and what proof can\nbe furnished that he was able to answer them? There are indeed\nmany other dialogues in which a real world of Ideas absolute and\nunchangeable, is affirmed strenuously and eloquently, with various\nconsequences and accompaniments traced to it: but there are none\nin which the Parmenidean objections are elucidated, or even\nrecited. In the Ph\u00e6don, Ph\u00e6drus, Tim\u00e6us, Symposion, &c., and\nelsewhere, Sokrates is made to talk confidently about the\nexistence and even about the cognoscibility of these Ideas; just\nas if no such objections as those which we read in the Parmenid\u00eas\ncould be produced.[26] In these other dialogues, Plato accepts\nimplicitly one horn of the Parmenidean dilemma; but without\nexplaining to us upon what grounds he allows himself to neglect\nthe other.\n\n[Footnote 25: Stallbaum, Prolegom. pp. 52-286-332.]\n\n[Footnote 26: According to Stallbaum (Prolegg. pp. 277-337) the\nParmenid\u00eas is the only dialogue in which Plato has discussed, with\nphilosophical exactness, the theory of Ideas; in all the other\ndialogues he handles it in a popular and superficial manner. There\nis truth in this--indeed more truth (I think) than Stallbaum\nhimself supposed: otherwise he would hardly have said that the\nobjections in the Parmenides could easily have been answered, if\nPlato had chosen.\n\nStallbaum tells us, not only respecting Socher but respecting\nSchleiermacher (pp. 324-332), \"Parmenidem omnino non intellexit\".\nIn my judgment, Socher understands the dialogue better than\nStallbaum, when he (Socher) says, that the objections in the first\nhalf bear against the genuine Platonic Ideas; though I do not\nagree with his inference about the spuriousness of the dialogue.]\n\n[Side-note: Views of Stallbaum and Socher. The latter maintains\nthat Plato would never make such objections against his own\ntheory, and denies the authenticity of the Parmenid\u00eas.]\n\nSocher has so much difficulty in conceiving that Plato can have\nadvanced such forcible objections against a doctrine, which\nnevertheless in other Platonic dialogues is proclaimed as true and\nimportant,--that he declares the Parmenid\u00eas (together with the\nSophist\u00eas and Politikus) not to be genuine, but to have been\ncomposed by some unknown Megaric contemporary. To pass over the\nimprobability that any unknown author should have been capable of\ncomposing works of so much ability as these--Socher's decision\nabout spuriousness is founded upon an estimate of Plato's\nphilosophical character, which I think incorrect. Socher expects\n(or at least reasons as if he expected) to find in Plato a\npreconceived system and a scheme of conclusions to which every\nthing is made subservient.\n\n[Side-note: Philosophers are usually advocates, each of a positive\nsystem of his own.]\n\nIn most philosophers, doubtless, this is what we do find. Each\nstarts with some favourite conclusions, which he believes to be\ntrue, and which he supports by all the arguments in their favour,\nas far as his power goes. If he mentions the arguments against\nthem, he usually answers the weak, slurs over or sneers at the\nstrong: at any rate, he takes every precaution that these counter\narguments shall appear unimportant in the eyes of his readers. His\npurpose is, like that of a speaker in the public assembly, to\nobtain assent and belief: whether the hearers understand the\nquestion or not, is a matter of comparative indifference: at any\nrate, they must be induced to embrace his conclusion. Unless he\nthus foregoes the character of an impartial judge, to take up that\nof an earnest advocate; unless he bends the whole force of his\nmind to the establishment of the given conclusion--he becomes\nsuspected as deficient in faith or sincerity, and loses much in\npersuasive power. For an earnest belief, expressed with eloquence\nand feeling, is commonly more persuasive than any logic.\n\n[Side-note: Different spirit of Plato in his Dialogues of Search.]\n\nNow whether this exclusive devotion to the affirmative side of\ncertain questions be the true spirit of philosophy or not, it is\ncertainly not the spirit of Plato in his Dialogues of Search;\nwherein he conceives the work of philosophy in a totally\ndifferent manner. He does not begin by stating, even to himself a\ncertain conclusion at which he has arrived, and then proceed to\nprove that conclusion to others. The search or debate (as I have\nobserved in a preceding chapter) has greater importance in his\neyes than the conclusion: nay, in a large proportion of his\ndialogues, there is no conclusion at all: we see something\ndisproved, but nothing proved. The negative element has with him a\nvalue and importance of its own, apart from the affirmative. He is\nanxious to set forth what can be said against a given conclusion;\neven though not prepared to establish any thing in its place.\n\n[Side-note: The Parmenid\u00eas is the extreme manifestation of the\nnegative element. That Plato should employ one dialogue in setting\nforth the negative case against the Theory of Ideas is not\nunnatural.]\n\nSuch negative element, manifested as it is in so many of the\nPlatonic dialogues, has its extreme manifestation in the\nParmenid\u00eas. When we see it here applied to a doctrine which Plato\nin other dialogues insists upon as truth, we must call to mind\n(what sincere believers are apt to forget) that a case may always\nbe made out against truth as well as in its favour: and that its\nprivilege as a certified portion of \"reasoned truth,\" rests upon\nno better title than the superiority of the latter case over the\nformer. It is for testing the two cases--for determining where the\nsuperiority lies--and for graduating its amount--that the process\nof philosophising is called for, and that improvements in the\nmethod thereof become desirable. That Plato should, in one of his\nmany diversified dialogues, apply this test to a doctrine which,\nin other dialogues, he holds out as true--is noway inconsistent\nwith the general spirit of these compositions. Each of his\ndialogues has its own point of view, worked out on that particular\noccasion; what is common to them all, is the process of\nphilosophising applied in various ways to the same general topics.\n\nThose who, like Socher, deny Plato's authorship of the Parmenid\u00eas,\non the ground of what is urged therein against the theory of\nIdeas, must suppose, either that he did not know that a negative\ncase could be made out against that theory; or that knowing it, he\nrefrained from undertaking the duty.[27] Neither supposition is\nconsistent with what we know both of his negative ingenuity, and\nof his multifarious manner of handling.\n\n[Footnote 27: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 14, where the distinction taken\ncoincides accurately enough with that which we read in Plato,\nParmenid. p. 129 A-D.\n\nStr\u00fcmpell thinks that the Parmenid\u00eas was composed at a time of\nPlato's life when he had become sensible of the difficulties and\ncontradictions attaching to his doctrine of self-existent Forms or\nIdeas, and when he was looking about for some way of extrication\nfrom them: which way he afterwards thought that he found in that\napproximation to Pythagorism--that exchange of Ideas for Ideal\nnumbers, &c.--which we find imputed to him by Aristotle (Gesch.\nder Griech. Phil. sect. 96, 3). This is not impossible; but I find\nno sufficient ground for affirming it. Nor can I see how the\ndoctrine which Aristotle ascribes to Plato about the Ideas (that\nthey are generated by two [Greek: stoichei=a] or elements, [Greek:\nto\\ e(/n] along with [Greek: to\\ me/ga kai\\ to\\ mikro/n]) affords\nany escape from the difficulties started in the Parmenid\u00eas.\n\nStr\u00fcmpell considers the dialogue Parmenid\u00eas to have been composed\n\"ganz ausdr\u00fccklich zur dialektischen Uebung,\" ib. s. 96, 2, p.\n128.]\n\n\n[Side-note: Force of the negative case in the Parmenid\u00eas.\nDifficulties about participation of sensible objects in the world\nof Ideas.]\n\nThe negative case, made out in the Parmenid\u00eas against the theory\nof Ideas, is indeed most powerful. The hypothesis of the Ideal\nWorld is unequivocally affirmed by Sokrates, with its four\nprincipal characteristics. 1. Complete essential separation from\nthe world of sense. 2. Absolute self-existence. 3. Plurality of\nconstituent items, several contrary to each other. 4. Unchangeable\nsameness and unity of each and all of them.--Here we have full\nsatisfaction given to the Platonic sentiment, which often delights\nin soaring above the world of sense, and sometimes (see Ph\u00e6don) in\nheaping contemptuous metaphors upon it. But unfortunately Sokrates\ncannot disengage himself from this world of sense: he is obliged\nto maintain that it partakes of, or is determined by, these\nextra-sensible Forms or Ideas. Here commence the series of difficulties\nand contradictions brought out by the Elenchus of Parmenides. Are\nall sensible objects, even such as are vulgar, repulsive, and\ncontemptible, represented in this higher world? The Platonic\nsentiment shrinks from the admission: the Platonic sense of\nanalogy hesitates to deny it. Then again, how can both assertions\nbe true--first that the two worlds are essentially separate, next,\nthat the one participates in, and derives its essence from, the\nother? How (to use Aristotelian language[28]) can the essence be\nseparated from that of which it is the essence? How can the Form,\nessentially One, belong at once to a multitude of particulars?\n\n[Footnote 28: Arist. Met. A. 991, b. 1. [Greek: a)du/naton,\nch\u00f4ri\\s ei)=nai t\u00ea\\n ou)si/an kai\\ ou)= \u00ea( ou)si/a.]]\n\nTwo points deserve notice in this debate respecting the doctrine\nof Ideas:--\n\n[Side-note: Difficulties about the Cognizability of Ideas. If Ideas\nare absolute, they cannot be cognizable: if they are cognizable,\nthey must be relative. Doctrine of Homo Mensura.]\n\n1. Parmenides shows, and Sokrates does not deny, that these Forms\nor Ideas described as absolute, self-existent, unchangeable, must\nof necessity be unknown and unknowable to us.[29] Whatever we do\nknow, or can know, is relative to us;--to our actual cognition, or\nto our cognitive power. If you declare an object to be absolute,\nyou declare it to be neither known nor knowable by us: if it be\nannounced as known or knowable by us, it is thereby implied at the\nsame time not to be absolute. If these Forms or Objects called\nabsolute are known, they can be known only by an absolute Subject,\nor the Form of a cognizant Subject: that is, by God or the Gods.\nEven thus, to call them _absolute_ is a misnomer: they are\nrelative to the Subject, and the Subject is relative to them.\n\n[Footnote 29: Plato, Parmenid. 133 B. [Greek: ei)/ tis phai/\u00ea\nm\u00eade\\ pros\u00ea/kein au)ta\\ gign\u00f4/skesthai o)/nta toiau=ta oi(=a/\nphamen dei=n ei)=nai ta\\ ei)/d\u00ea. . . . a)pi/thanos a)\\n ei)/\u00ea o(\na)/gn\u00f4sta au)ta\\ a)nagka/z\u00f4n ei)=nai.] 134 A. [Greek: \u00ea( de\\ par'\n\u00ea(mi=n e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea ou) t\u00ea=s par' \u00ea(mi=n a)\\n a)l\u00eathei/as ei)/\u00ea?\nkai\\ au)= e(ka/st\u00ea \u00ea( par' \u00ea(mi=n e(pist\u00ea/m\u00ea t\u00f4=n par' \u00ea(mi=n\no)/nt\u00f4n e(ka/stou a)\\n e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea xu/mbainoi ei)=nai?] 134 C.\n[Greek: a)/gn\u00f4ston a)/ra \u00ea(mi=n e)/sti kai\\ au)to\\ to\\ kalo\\n o(\\\ne)/sti, kai\\ to\\ a)gatho/n, kai\\ pa/nta a(\\ d\u00ea\\ \u00f4(s i)de/as\nau)ta\\s ou)/sas u(polamba/nomen.]]\n\nThe opinion here advanced by the Platonic Parmenides asserts, in\nother words, what is equivalent to the memorable dictum of\nProtagoras--\"Man is the measure of all things--of things existent,\nthat they do exist--and of things non-existent, that they do not\nexist\". This dictum affirms universal relativity, and nothing\nelse: though Plato, as we shall see in the elaborate argument\nagainst it delivered by Sokrates in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, mixed it up\nwith another doctrine altogether distinct and independent--the\ndoctrine that knowledge is sensible perception.[30] Parmenides\nhere argues that if these Forms or Ideas are known by us, they can\nbe known only as relative to us: and that if they be not relative\nto us, they cannot be known by us at all. Such relativity belongs\nas much to the world of Conception, as to the world of Perception.\nAnd it is remarkable that Plato admits this essential relativity\nnot merely here, but also in the Sophist\u00eas: in which latter\ndialogue he denies the Forms or Ideas to be absolute existences,\non the special ground that they are known:--and on the farther\nground that what is known must act upon the knowing mind, and must\nbe acted upon thereby, _i.e._, must be relative. He there defines\nthe existent to be, that which has power to act upon something\nelse, or to be acted upon by something else. Such relativeness he\ndeclares to constitute _existence_:[31] defining existence to mean\npotentiality.\n\n[Footnote 30: I shall discuss this in the coming chapter upon the\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus.]\n\n[Footnote 31: Plato, Sophist\u00eas, pp. 248-249. This reasoning is put\ninto the mouth of the Eleatic Stranger, the principal person in\nthat dialogue.]\n\n[Side-note: Answer of Sokrates--That Ideas are mere conceptions of\nthe mind. Objection of Parmenides correct, though undeveloped.]\n\n2. The second point which deserves notice in this portion of the\nParmenid\u00eas, is the answer of Sokrates (when embarrassed by some of\nthe questions of the Eleatic veteran)--\"That these Forms or Ideas\nare conceptions of the mind, and have no existence out of the\nmind\". This answer gives us the purely Subjective, or negation of\nObject: instead of the purely Objective (Absolute), or negation of\nSubject.[32] Here we have what Porphyry calls the deepest question\nof philosophy[33] explicitly raised: and, as far as we know, for\nthe first time. Are the Forms or Ideas mere conceptions of the\nmind and nothing more? Or are they external, separate,\nself-existent realities? The opinion which Sokrates had first given\ndeclared the latter: that which he now gives declares the former.\nHe passes from the pure Objective (_i.e._, without Subject) to the\npure Subjective (_i.e._, without Object). Parmenides, in his\nreply, points out that there cannot be a conception of nothing:\nthat if there be Conceptio, there must be _Conceptum aliquid_:[34]\nand that this Conceptum or Concept is what is common to a great\nmany distinct similar Percepta.\n\n[Footnote 32: Plato, Parmenid. p. 132 A-B.\n\nThe doctrine, that [Greek: poio/t\u00eates] were [Greek: philai\\\ne)/nnoiai], having no existence without the mind, was held by\nAntisthenes as well as by the Eretrian sect of philosophers,\ncontemporary with Plato and shortly after him. Simplikius, Schol.\nad Aristot. Categ. p. 68, a. 30, Brandis. See, respecting\nAntisthenes, the first volume of the present work, p. 165.]\n\n[Footnote 33: See the beginning of Porphyry's Introduction to the\nCategories of Aristotle. [Greek: bathuta/t\u00ea ou)/s\u00eas t\u00ea=s toiau/t\u00eas\npragmatei/as], &c. Simplikius (in Schol. ad Aristot. Categ. p. 68,\na. 28, ed. Brandis) alludes to the Eretrian philosophers and\nTheopompus, who considered [Greek: ta\\s poio/t\u00eatas] as [Greek:\nphila\\s mo/nas e)nnoi/as diaken\u00f4=s legome/nas kat' ou)demi/as\nu(posta/se\u00f4s, oi(=on a)nthr\u00f4po/t\u00eata \u00ea)\\ i(ppo/t\u00eata], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 34: Compare Republic, v. p. 476 B. [Greek: o( gign\u00f4/sk\u00f4n\ngign\u00f4/skei ti\\ \u00ea)\\ ou)de\\n? Gign\u00f4/skei ti/], &c.\n\nThe following passage in the learned work of Cudworth bears on the\nportion of the Parmenid\u00eas which we are now considering. Cudworth,\nTreatise of Immutable Morality, pp. 243-245.\n\n\"But if any one demand here, where this [Greek: a)ki/n\u00eatos\nou)si/a], these immutable Entities do exist? I answer, first, that\nas they are considered formally, they do not properly exist in the\nIndividuals without us, as if they were from them imprinted upon\nthe Understanding, which some have taken to be Aristotle's\nopinion; because no Individual Material thing is either Universal\nor Immutable. . . . Because they perish not together with them, it\nis a certain argument that they exist independently upon them.\nNeither, in the next place, do they exist somewhere else apart\nfrom the Individual Sensibles, and without the Mind, which is that\nopinion that Aristotle justly condemns, but either unjustly or\nunskilfully attributes to Plato. . . . Wherefore these\nIntelligible Ideas or Essences of Things, those Forms by which we\nunderstand all Things, exist nowhere but in the mind itself; for\nit was very well determined long ago by Socrates, in Plato's\nParmenid\u00eas, that these things are nothing else but Noemata: 'These\nSpecies or Ideas are all of them nothing but Noemata or Notions\nthat exist nowhere but in the Soul itself'. . . .\n\n\"And yet notwithstanding, though these Things exist only in the\nMind, they are not therefore mere Figments of the\nUnderstanding. . . .\n\n\"It is evident that though the Mind thinks of these Things at\npleasure, yet they are not arbitrarily framed by the Mind, but\nhave certain, determinate, and immutable Natures of their own,\nwhich are independent upon the Mind, and which are blown (qu\u00e6re\n_not blown_) away into Nothing at the pleasure of the same Being\nthat arbitrarily made them.\"\n\nIt is an inadvertence on the part of Cudworth to cite this passage\nof the Parmenid\u00eas as authenticating Plato's opinion that Forms or\nIdeas existed only in the mind. Certainly Sokrates is here made to\nexpress that opinion, among others; but the opinion is refuted by\nParmenid\u00eas and dropped by Sokrates. But the very different\nopinion, which Cudworth accuses Aristotle of _wrongly_ attributing\nto Plato, is repeated by Sokrates in the Ph\u00e6don, Republic, and\nelsewhere, and never refuted.]\n\nThis reply, though scanty and undeveloped, is in my judgment both\nvalid, as it negatives the Subject pure and simple, and affirms\nthat to every conception in the mind, there must correspond a\nConcept out of (or rather along with) the mind (the one\ncorrelating with or implying the other)--and correct as far as it\ngoes, in declaring what that Concept is. Such Concept is, or may\nbe, the Form. Parmenides does not show that it is not so. He\nproceeds to impugn, by a second argument, the assertion of\nSokrates--that the form is a Conception _wholly within_ the mind:\nhe goes on to argue that individual things (which are _out_ of the\nmind) cannot participate in these Forms (which are asserted to be\naltogether _in_ the mind): because, if that were admitted, either\nevery such thing must be a Concipient, or must run into the\ncontradiction of being a _Conceptio non concipiens_.[35] Now this\nargument may refute the affirmation of Sokrates literally taken,\nthat the Form is a Conception entirely belonging to the mind, and\nhaving nothing Objective corresponding to it--but does not refute\nthe doctrine that the Form is a Concept correlating with the\nmind--or out of the mind as well as in it. In this as in other\nConcepts, the subjective point of view preponderates over the\nobjective, though Object is not altogether eliminated: just as, in\nthe particular external things, the objective point of view\npredominates, though Subject cannot be altogether dismissed.\nNeither Subject nor Object can ever entirely disappear: the one is\nthe inseparable correlative and complement of the other: but\nsometimes the subjective point of view may preponderate, sometimes\nthe objective. Such preponderance (or logical priority), either of\nthe one or the other, may be implied or connoted by the\ndenomination given. Though the special connotation of the name\ncreates an illusion which makes the preponderant point of view\nseem to be all, and magnifies the Relatum so as to eclipse and\nextinguish the Correlatum--yet such preponderance, or logical\npriority, is all that is really meant when the Concepts are said\nto be \"_in the mind_\"--and the Percepts (Percepta, things\nperceived) to be \"_out of the mind_\": for both Concepts and\nPercepts are \"_of the mind_, or _relative to the mind_\".[36]\n\n[Footnote 35: On this point the argument in the dialogue itself,\nas stated by Parmenides, is not clear to follow. Str\u00fcmpell remarks\non the terms employed by Plato. \"Der Umstand, dass die Ausdr\u00fccke\n[Greek: ei)=dos] und [Greek: i)de/a] nicht sowie [Greek: lo/gos]\nden Unterschied, zwischen Begriff und dem durch diesen begriffenen\nRealen, hervortreten lassen--sondern, weil dieselben bald im\nsubjektiven Sinne den Begriff, bald im objektiven Sinne das Reale\nbezeichnen--bald in der einen bald in der andern Bedeutung zu\nnehmen sind--kann leicht eine Verwechselung und Unklarheit in der\nAuffassung veranlassen,\" &c. (Gesch. der Gr. Philos. s. 90, p.\n115).]\n\n[Footnote 36: This preponderance of the Objective point of view,\nthough without altogether eliminating the Subjective, includes all\nthat is true in the assertion of Aristotle, that the _Perceptum_\nis prior to the _Percipient_--the _Percipiendum_ prior to the\n_Perceptionis Capax_. He assimilates the former to a _Movens_, the\nlatter to a _Motum_. But he declares that he means not a priority\nin time or real existence, but simply a _priority in nature_ or\n_logical priority_; and he also declares the two to be relatives\nor reciproca. The Prius is relative to the Posterius, as the\nPosterius is relative to the Prius.--Metaphys. [Greek: G]. 1010,\nb. 36 seq. [Greek: a)ll' e)/sti ti kai\\ e(/teron para\\ t\u00ea\\n\nai)/sth\u00easin, o(\\ a)nagk\u00ea pro/teron ei)=nai t\u00ea=s ai)sth\u00ea/se\u00f4=s; to\\\nga\\r kinou=n tou= kinoume/nou _phu/sei pro/tero/n_ e)sti; ka)\\n\nei) le/getai pro\\s a)/ll\u00eala tau=ta, ou)de\\n \u00ea(=tton.]\n\nSee respecting the [Greek: pro/teron phu/sei], Aristot. Categor.\np. 12, b. 5-15, and Metaphys. [Greek: D]. 1018, b. 12--[Greek:\na(pl\u00f4=s kai\\ t\u00ea=| phu/sei pro/teron].]\n\n[Side-note: Meaning of Abstract and General Terms, debated from\nancient times to the present day--Different views of Plato and\nAristotle upon it.]\n\nThe question--What is the real and precise meaning attached to\nabstract and general words?--has been debated down to this day,\nand is still under debate. It seems to have first derived its\nimportance, if not its origin, from Sokrates, who began the\npractice of inviting persons to define the familiar generalities\nof ethics and politics, and then tested by cross-examination the\ndefinitions given by men who thought that common sense would\nenable any one to define.[37] But I see no ground for believing\nthat Sokrates ever put to himself the question--Whether that which\nan abstract term denotes is a mental conception, or a separate and\nself-existent reality. That question was raised by Plato, and\nfirst stands clearly brought to view here in the Parmenid\u00eas.\n\n[Footnote 37: Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 987, b. 3. M. 1078, b.\n18-32.]\n\nIf we follow up the opinion here delivered by the Platonic\nSokrates, together with the first correction added to it by\nParmenides, amounting to this--That the Form is a Conception of\nthe mind with its corresponding Concept: if, besides, we dismiss\nthe doctrine held by Plato, that the Form is a separate\nself-existent unchangeable Ens ([Greek: e(\\n para\\ ta\\ polla\\]):\nthere will then be no greater difficulty in understanding how it\ncan be partaken by, or be at once in, many distinct particulars,\nthan in understanding (what is at bottom the same question) how\none and the same attribute can belong at once to many different\nobjects: how hardness or smoothness can be at once in an indefinite\nnumber of hard and smooth bodies dispersed everywhere.[38] The\nobject and the attribute are both of them relative to the same\npercipient and concipient mind: we may perceive or conceive many\nobjects as distinct individuals--we may also conceive them all as\nresembling in a particular manner, making abstraction of the\nindividuality of each: both these are psychological facts, and\nthe latter of the two is what we mean when we say, that all of them\npossess or participate in one and the same attribute. The concrete\nterm, and its corresponding abstract, stand for the same facts of\nsense differently conceived. Now the word _one_, when applied to the\nattribute, has a different meaning from _one_ when applied to an\nindividual object. Plato speaks sometimes elsewhere as if he felt\nthis diversity of meaning: not however in the Parmenid\u00eas, though\nthere is great demand for it. But Aristotle (in this respect far\nsuperior) takes much pains to point out that _Unum Ens_--and the\npreposition _In_ (to be _in_ any thing)--are among the [Greek:\npollach\u00f4=s lego/mena], having several different meanings derived\nfrom one primary or radical by diverse and distant\nramifications.[39] The important logical distinction between _Unum\nnumero_ and _Unum specie_ (or _genere_, &c.) belongs first to\nAristotle.[40]\n\n[Footnote 38: That \"the attribute is in its subject,\" is explained\nby Aristotle only by saying That it is _in_ its subject, not as a\npart in the whole, yet as that which cannot exist apart from its\nsubject (Categor. 1, a. 30-3, a. 30). Compare Hobbes, Comput. or\nLogic. iii. 3, viii. 3. Respecting the number of different modes\n[Greek: tou= e)/n tini ei)=nai], see Aristot. Physic. iii. p. 210,\na. 18 seq., with the Scholia, p. 373 Brandis, and p. 446, 10\nBrand. The commentators made out, variously, nine, eleven, sixteen\ndistinct [Greek: tro/pous tou= e)/n tini ei)=nai]. In the language\nof Aristotle, _genus_, _species_, [Greek: ei)=dos], and even\n_differentia_ are not [Greek: e)n u(pokeime/n\u00f4|], but are\npredicated [Greek: kath' u(pokeime/nou] (see Cat. p. 3, a. 20).\nThe _proprium_ and _accidens_ alone are [Greek: e)n\nu(pokeime/n\u00f4|]. Here is a difference between his language and that\nof Plato, according to whom [Greek: to\\ ei)=dos] is [Greek: e)n\ne(ka/st\u00f4| t\u00f4=n poll\u00f4=n] (Parmenid. 131 A). But we remark in that\nsame dialogue, that when Parmenides questions Sokrates whether he\nrecognises [Greek: ei)/d\u00ea au)ta\\ kath' au)ta/] he first asks\nwhether Sokrates admits [Greek: dikai/ou ti ei)=dos au)to\\ kath'\nau(to/, kai\\ kalou=, kai\\ a)gathou=, kai\\ pa/nt\u00f4n t\u00f4=n toiou/t\u00f4n].\nSokrates answers without hesitation, _Yes_. Then Parmenides\nproceeds to ask, Do you recognise an [Greek: ei)=dos] of man,\nseparate and apart from all of us individual men?--or an [Greek:\nei)=dos] of fire, water, and such like? Here Sokrates hesitates:\nhe will neither admit nor deny it (130 D). The first list, which\nSokrates at once accepts, is of what Aristotle would call\n_accidents_: the second, which Sokrates doubts about, is of what\nAristotle would call _second substances_. We thus see that the\nconception of a self-existent [Greek: ei)=dos] realised itself\nmost easily and distinctly to the mind of Plato in the case of\n_accidents_. He would, therefore, naturally conceive [Greek: ta\\\nei)/d\u00ea] as being [Greek: e)n u(pokeime/n\u00f4|], agreeing\nsubstantially, though not in terms, with Aristotle. It is in the\ncase of accidents or attributes that abstract names are most\nusually invented; and it is the abstract name, or the neuter\nadjective used as its equivalent, which suggests the belief in an\n[Greek: ei)=dos].]\n\n[Footnote 39: Aristotel. Metaphys. [Greek: D]. 1015-1016, I. 1052,\na. 29 seq. [Greek: ta\\ me\\n d\u00ea\\ ou(/t\u00f4s e(\\n \u00ea)\\ suneche\\s \u00ea)\\\no(/lon; ta\\ de\\ \u00f4(=n a)\\n o( lo/gos ei(=s \u00ea)=|; toiau=ta de\\ \u00f4(=n\n\u00ea( no/\u00easis mi/a], &c.\n\nAbout abstract names, or the names of attributes, see Mr. John\nStuart Mill's 'System of Logic,' i. 2, 4, p. 30, edit. 5th. \"When\nonly one attribute, neither variable in degree nor in kind, is\ndesignated by the name--as visibleness, tangibleness, equality,\n&c.--though it denotes an attribute of many different objects,\nthe attribute itself is always considered as _one_, not as\n_many_.\" Compare, also, on this point, p. 153, and a note added by\nMr. Mill to the fifth edition, p. 203, in reply to Mr. Herbert\nSpencer. The _oneness_ of the attribute, in different subjects, is\nnot conceded by every one. Mr. Spencer thinks that the same\nabstract word denotes one attribute in Subject A, and another\nattribute, though exactly like it, in Subject B (Principles of\nPsychology, p. 126 seq.) Mr. Mill's view appears the correct one;\nbut the distinction (pointed out by Archbishop Whately) between\n_undistinguishable likeness_ and _positive identity_, becomes in\nthese cases imperceptible or forgotten.\n\nAristotle, however, in the beginning of the Categories ranks\n[Greek: \u00ea( ti/s grammatik\u00ea\\] as [Greek: a)/tomon kai\\ _e(\\n\na)rithm\u00f4=|_] (pp. 1, 6, 8), which I do not understand; and it\nseems opposed to another passage, pp. 3, 6, 15.\n\nThe argument between two such able thinkers as Mr. Mill and Mr.\nSpencer, illustrates forcibly the extreme nicety of this question\nrespecting the One and the Many, under certain supposable\ncircumstances. We cannot be surprised that it puzzled the\ndialecticians of the Platonic Aristotelian age, who fastened by\npreference on points of metaphysical difficulty.]\n\n[Footnote 40: See interesting remarks on the application of this\nlogical distinction in Galen, De Methodo Medendi, Book iii. vol.\nx. p. 130 seq. Aristotle and Theophrastus both dwelt upon it.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato never expected to make his Ideas fit on to the\nfacts of sense: Aristotle tried to do it and partly succeeded.]\n\nPlato has not followed out the hint which he has here put into the\nmouth of Sokrates in the Parmenid\u00eas--That the Ideas or Forms are\nconceptions existing only in the mind. Though the opinion thus\nstated is not strictly correct (and is so pointed out by himself),\nas falling back too exclusively on the subjective--yet if followed\nout, it might have served to modify the too objective and absolute\ncharacter which in most dialogues (though not in the Sophist\u00eas) he\nascribes to his Forms or Ideas: laying stress upon them as\nobjects--and as objects not of sensible perception--but\noverlooking or disallowing the fact of their being relative to the\nconcipient mind. The bent of Plato's philosophy was to dwell upon\nthese Forms, and to bring them into harmonious conjunction with\neach other: he neither took pains, nor expected, to make them fit\non to the world of sense. With Aristotle, on the contrary, this\nlast-mentioned purpose is kept very generally in view. Amidst all\nthe extreme abstractions which he handles, he reverts often to the\ncomparison of them with sensible particulars: indeed Substantia\nPrima was by him, for the first time in the history of philosophy,\nbrought down to designate the concrete particular object of sense:\nin Plato's Ph\u00e6don, Republic, &c, the only Substances are the Forms\nor Ideas.\n\n[Side-note: Continuation of the Dialogue--Parmenides admonishes\nSokrates that be has been premature in delivering a doctrine,\nwithout sufficient preliminary exercise.]\n\nParmenides now continues the debate. He has already fastened upon\nSokrates several difficult problems: he now proposes a new one,\ndifferent and worse. Which way are we to turn then, if these Forms\nbe beyond our knowledge? I do not see my way (says Sokrates) out\nof the perplexity. The fact is, Sokrates (replies Parmenides), you\nhave been too forward in producing your doctrine of Ideas, without\na sufficient preliminary exercise and enquiry. Your love of\nphilosophical research is highly praiseworthy: but you must employ\nyour youth in exercising and improving yourself, through that\ncontinued philosophical discourse which the vulgar call _useless\nprosing_: otherwise you will never attain truth.[41] You are\nhowever right in bestowing your attention, not on the objects of\nsense, but on those objects which we can best grasp in discussion,\nand which we presume to exist as Forms.[42]\n\n[Footnote 41: Plato, Parmenid. p. 135 C. [Greek: Pr\u00f4\\| ga/r, pri\\n\ngumnasth\u00ea=nai, \u00f4)= S\u00f4/krates, o(ri/zesthai e)picheirei=s kalo/n\nte/ ti kai\\ di/kaion kai\\ a)gatho\\n kai\\ e(\\n e(/kaston t\u00f4=n\nei)d\u00f4=n . . . kal\u00ea\\ me\\n ou)=n kai\\ thei/a, ei)= i)/sthi, \u00ea(\no(rm\u00ea\\ \u00ea(\\n o(rma=|s e)pi\\ tou\\s lo/gous; e(/lkuson de\\ sauto\\n\nkai\\ gumna/sai, ma=llon dia\\ t\u00ea=s dokou/s\u00eas a)chr\u00ea/stou ei)=nai\nkai\\ kaloume/n\u00eas u(po\\ t\u00f4=n poll\u00f4=n a)doleschi/as, e(/\u00f4s e)/ti\nne/os ei)=; ei) de\\ m\u00ea\\, se\\ diapheu/xetai \u00ea( a)l\u00ea/theia.]]\n\n[Footnote 42: Plato, Parmenid. p. 135 E.]\n\n[Side-note: What sort of exercise? Parmenides describes: To assume\nprovisionally both the affirmative and the negative of many\nhypotheses about the most general terms, and to trace the\nconsequences of each.]\n\nWhat sort of exercise must I go through? asks Sokrates. Zeno\n(replies Parmenides) has already given you a good specimen of it\nin his treatise, when he followed out the consequences flowing\nfrom the assumption--\"That the self-existent and absolute Ens is\nplural\". When you are trying to find out the truth on any\nquestion, you must assume provisionally, first the affirmative and\nthen the negative, and you must then follow out patiently the\nconsequences deducible from one hypothesis as well as from the\nother. If you are enquiring about the Form of Likeness, whether it\nexists or does not exist, you must assume successively both one\nand the other;[43] marking the deductions which follow, both with\nreference to the thing directly assumed, and with reference to\nother things also. You must do the like if you are investigating\nother Forms--Unlikeness, Motion, and Rest, or even Existence and\nNon-Existence. But you must not be content with following out only\none side of the hypothesis: you must examine both sides with equal\ncare and impartiality. This is the only sort of preparatory\nexercise which will qualify you for completely seeing through the\ntruth.[44]\n\n[Footnote 43: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 A. [Greek: kai\\ au)=this\nau)= e)a\\n u(poth\u00ea=|, ei) e)/stin o(moio/t\u00eas \u00ea)\\ ei) m\u00ea/ e)sti,\nti/ e)ph' e(kate/ras t\u00ea=s u(pothe/se\u00f4s sumb\u00ea/setai, kai\\ au)toi=s\ntoi=s u(potethei=si kai\\ toi=s a)/llois kai\\ pro\\s au(ta\\ kai\\\npro\\s a)/ll\u00eala.]]\n\n[Footnote 44: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 B.]\n\n[Side-note: Impossible to do this before a numerous\naudience--Parmenides is entreated to give a specimen--After much\nsolicitation he agrees.]\n\nYou propose to me, Parmenides (remarks Sokrates), a work of awful\nmagnitude. At any rate, show me an example of it yourself, that I\nmay know better how to begin.--Parmenides at first declines, on\nthe ground of his old age: but Zeno and the others urge him, so\nthat he at length consents.--The process will be tedious (observes\nZeno); and I would not ask it from Parmenides unless among an\naudience small and select as we are here. Before any numerous\naudience, it would be an unseemly performance for a veteran like\nhim. For most people are not aware that, without such discursive\nsurvey and travelling over the whole field, we cannot possibly\nattain truth or acquire intelligence.[45]\n\n[Footnote 45: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 D. [Greek: ei) me\\n ou)=n\nplei/ous \u00ea)=men, ou)k a)\\n a)/xion \u00ea)=n dei=sthai; _a)prep\u00ea= ga\\r\nta\\ toiau=ta poll\u00f4=n e)nanti/on le/gein_, a)/ll\u00f4s te kai\\\nt\u00ealikou/t\u00f4|; a)gnoou=si ga\\r oi( polloi\\ o(/ti a)/neu tau/t\u00eas t\u00ea=s\ndia\\ pa/nt\u00f4n diexo/dou kai\\ pla/n\u00eas, a)du/naton e)ntucho/nta t\u00f4=|\na)l\u00eathei= nou=n schei=n.] Hobbes remarks (Computatio sive Logica,\ni. 3, 12): \"Learners ought to go through logical exercises\nsilently and by themselves: for it will be thought both ridiculous\nand absurd, for a man to use such language publicly\". Proklus\ntells us, that the difficulty of the [Greek: gumnasi/a], here set\nout by the Platonic Parmenides, is so prodigious, that no one\nafter Plato employed it. (Prok. ad Parmen. p. 801, Stallb.)]\n\n[Side-note: Parmenides elects his own theory of the _Unum_, as the\ntopic for exhibition--Aristoteles becomes respondent.]\n\nIt is especially on this ground--the small number and select\ncharacter of the auditors--that Parmenides suffers himself to be\npersuaded to undertake what he calls \"amusing ourselves with a\nlaborious pastime\".[46] He selects, as the subject of his\ndialectical exhibition, his own doctrine respecting the One. He\nproceeds to trace out the consequences which flow, first, from\nassuming the affirmative thesis, _Unum Est_: next, from assuming\nthe negative thesis, or the Antithesis, _Unum non Est_. The\nconsequences are to be deduced from each hypothesis, not only as\nregards _Unum_ itself, but as regards _C\u00e6tera_, or other things\nbesides _Unum_. The youngest man of the party, Aristoteles,\nundertakes the duty of respondent.\n\n[Footnote 46: Plato, Parmenid. p. 137 A. [Greek: dei= ga\\r\nchari/zesthai, _e)peid\u00ea\\_ kai\\ o(\\ Z\u00ea/n\u00f4n le/gei, _au)toi/ e)smen_\n. . . \u00ea)\\ bou/lesthe _e)peid\u00ea/per dokei= pragmatei\u00f4/d\u00ea paidia\\n\npai/zein_,] &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Exhibition of Parmenides--Nine distinct deductions or\nDemonstrations, first from _Unum Est_--next from _Unum non Est_.]\n\nThe remaining portion of the dialogue, half of the whole, is\noccupied with nine distinct deductions or demonstrations given by\nParmenides. The first five start from the assumption, _Unum Est_:\nthe last four from the assumption, _Unum non Est_. The three first\ndraw out the deductions from _Unum Est_, in reference to _Unum_:\nthe fourth and fifth draw out the consequences from the same\npremiss, in reference to _C\u00e6tera_. Again, the sixth and seventh\nstart from _Unum non Est_, to trace what follows in regard to\n_Unum_: the eighth and ninth adopt the same hypothesis, and reason\nit out in reference to _C\u00e6tera_.\n\n[Side-note: The Demonstrations in antagonising pairs, or\nAntinomies. Perplexing entanglement of conclusions given without\nany explanation.]\n\nOf these demonstrations, one characteristic feature is, that they\nare presented in antagonising pairs or Antinomies: except the\nthird, which professes to mediate between the first and second,\nthough only by introducing new difficulties. We have four distinct\nAntinomies: the first and second, the fourth and fifth, the sixth\nand seventh, the eighth and ninth, stand respectively in emphatic\ncontradiction with each other. Moreover, to take the\ndemonstrations separately--the first, fifth, seventh, ninth, end\nin conclusions purely negative: the other four end in double and\ncontradictory conclusions. The purpose is formally proclaimed, of\nshowing that the same premisses, ingeniously handled, can be made\nto yield these contradictory results.[47] No attempt is made to\nreconcile the contradictions, except partially by means of the\nthird, in reference to the two preceding. In regard to the fourth\nand fifth, sixth and seventh, eighth and ninth, no hint is given\nthat they can be, or afterwards will be, reconciled. The dialogue\nconcludes abruptly at the end of the ninth demonstration, with\nthese words: \"We thus see that--whether Unum exists or does not\nexist--Unum and C\u00e6tera both are, and are not, all things in every\nway--both appear, and do not appear, all things in every way--each\nin relation to itself, and each in relation to the other\".[48]\nHere is an unqualified and even startling announcement of double\nand contradictory conclusions, obtained from the same premisses\nboth affirmative and negative: an announcement delivered too as\nthe fulfilment of the purpose of Parmenides. Nothing is said at\nthe end to intimate how the demonstrations are received by\nSokrates, nor what lesson they are expected to administer to him:\nnot a word of assent, or dissent, or surprise, or acknowledgment\nin any way, from the assembled company, though all of them had\njoined in entreating Parmenides, and had expressed the greatest\nanxiety to hear his dialectic exhibition. Those who think that an\nabrupt close, or an abrupt exordium, is sufficient reason for\ndeclaring a dialogue not to be the work of Plato (as Platonic\ncritics often argue), are of course consistent in disallowing the\nParmenides. For my part, I do not agree in the opinion. I take\nPlato as I find him, and I perceive both here and in the\nProtagoras and elsewhere, that he did not always think it\nincumbent upon him to adapt the end of his dialogues to the\nbeginning. This may be called a defect, but I do not feel called\nupon to make out that Plato's writings are free from defects; and\nto acknowledge nothing as his work unless I can show it to be\nfaultless.\n\n[Footnote 47: See the connecting words between the first and\nsecond demonstration, pp. 142 A, 159. [Greek: Ou)kou=n tau=ta me\\n\n\u00ea)/d\u00ea e)\u00f4=men \u00f4(s phanera/, e)piskop\u00f4=men de\\ pa/lin, e(\\n ei)\ne)/stin, _a)=ra kai\\ ou)ch ou(/t\u00f4s e)/chei ta)/lla tou= e(no\\s \u00ea)\\\nou(/t\u00f4 mo/non?_] Also p. 163 B.]\n\n[Footnote 48: Plato, Parmenid. ad fin. [Greek: Ei)r\u00ea/sth\u00f4 toi/nun\ntou=to/ te kai\\ o(/ti, \u00f4(s e)/oiken, e(\\n ei)/t' e)/stin ei)/te\nm\u00ea\\ e)/stin, au)to/ te kai\\ ta)/lla kai\\ pro\\s au(ta\\ kai\\ pro\\s\na)/ll\u00eala pa/nta pa/nt\u00f4s e)sti/ te kai\\ ou)k e)sti kai\\ phai/netai/\nte kai\\ ou) phai/netai.]]\n\n[Side-note: Different judgments of Platonic critics respecting the\nAntinomies and the dialogue generally.]\n\nThe demonstrations or Antinomies in the last half of the\nParmenides are characterised by K. F. Hermann and others as a\nmasterpiece of speculative acuteness. Yet if these same\ndemonstrations, constructed with care and labour for the purpose\nof proving that the same premisses will conduct to double and\ncontradictory conclusions, had come down to us from antiquity\nunder the name either of the Megaric Eukleides, or Protagoras, or\nGorgias--many of the Platonic critics would probably have said of\nthem (what is now said of the sceptical treatise remaining to us\nunder the name of Gorgias) that they were poor productions worthy\nof such Sophists, who are declared to have made a trade of\nperverting truth. Certainly the conclusions of the demonstrations\nare specimens of that \"Both and Neither,\" which Plato (in the\nEuthydemus[49]) puts into the mouth of the Sophist Dionysodorus as\nan answer of slashing defiance--and of that intentional evolution\nof contradictions which Plato occasionally discountenances, both\nin the Euthydemus and elsewhere.[50] And we know from Proklus[51]\nthat there were critics in ancient times, who depreciated various\nparts of the Parmenides as sophistical. Proklus himself denies the\ncharge with some warmth. He as well as the principal\nNeo-Platonists between 200-530 A.D. (especially his predecessors and\ninstructors at Athens, Jamblichus, Syrianus, and Plutarchus)\nadmired the Parmenides as a splendid effort of philosophical\ngenius in its most exalted range, inspired so as to become\ncognizant of superhuman persons and agencies. They all agreed so\nfar as to discover in the dialogue a sublime vein of mystic\ntheology and symbolism: but along with this general agreement,\nthere was much discrepancy in their interpretation of particular\nparts and passages. The commentary of Proklus attests the\nexistence of such debates, reporting his own dissent from the\ninterpretations sanctioned by his venerated masters, Plutarchus\nand Syrianus. That commentary, in spite of its prolixity, is\ncurious to read as a specimen of the fifth century, A.D., in one\nof its most eminent representatives. Proklus discovers a string of\ntheological symbols and a mystical meaning throughout the whole\ndialogue: not merely in the acute argumentation which\ncharacterises its middle part, but also in the perplexing\nantinomies of its close, and even in the dramatic details of\nplaces, persons, and incidents, with which it begins.[52]\n\n[Footnote 49: Plato, Euthydem. p. 300 C. [Greek: A)ll' ou) tou=to\ne)r\u00f4t\u00f4=, a)lla\\ ta\\ pa/nta siga=| \u00ea)\\ le/gei? _Ou)de/tera kai\\\na)mpho/tera_, e)/ph\u00ea u(pharpa/sas o( Dionuso/d\u00f4ros; eu)= ga\\r\noi)=da o(/ti t\u00ea=| a)pokri/sei ou)ch e(/xeis o(/, ti chr\u00ea=|.]]\n\n[Footnote 50: Plato, Sophist. p. 259 B. [Greek: ei)/te \u00f4(s ti\nchalepo\\n kataneno\u00eak\u00f4\\s chai/rei, tote\\ me\\n e)pi\\ tha/tera tote\\\nd' e)pi\\ tha/tera tou\\s lo/gous e(/lk\u00f4n, ou)k a)/xia poll\u00ea=s\nspoud\u00ea=s e)spou/daken, \u00f4(s oi( nu=n lo/goi phasi/n.]--Also p. 259\nD. [Greek: To\\ de\\ tau)to\\n e(/teron a)pophai/nein a(m\u00ea=| ge/ p\u00ea|,\nkai\\ to\\ tha/teron tau)to/n, kai\\ to\\ me/ga smikro/n, kai\\ to\\\no(/moion a)no/moion, kai\\ chai/rein ou(/t\u00f4 ta)nanti/a a)ei\\\nprophe/ronta e)n toi=s lo/gois, ou)/ te/ tis e)/legchos ou(=tos\na)l\u00eathino/s, a)/rti te t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n tino\\s e)phaptome/nou d\u00ea=los\nneogen\u00ea\\s \u00f4)/n.]]\n\n[Footnote 51: Proklus, ad Platon. Parmen. p. 953, ed. Stallb.;\ncompare p. 976 in the last book of the commentary, probably\ncomposed by Damaskius. K. F. Hermann, Geschichte und System der\nPlaton. Philos. p. 507.]\n\n[Footnote 52: This commentary is annexed to Stallbaum's edition of\nthe Parmenides. Compare also the opinion of Marinus (disciple and\nbiographer of Proklus) about the Parmenid\u00eas--Suidas v. [Greek:\nMari=nos]. Jamblichus declared that Plato's entire theory of\nphilosophy was embodied in the two dialogues, Parmenides and\nTim\u00e6us: in the Parmenides, all the intelligible or universal Entia\nwere deduced from [Greek: to\\ e(/n]: in the Tim\u00e6us, all cosmical\nrealities were deduced from the Demiurgus. Proklus ad Tim\u00e6eum, p.\n5 A, p. 10 Schneider.\n\nAlkinous, in his Introduction to the Platonic Dialogues (c. 6, p.\n159, in the Appendix Platonica attached to K. F. Hermann's edition\nof Plato) quotes several examples of syllogistic reasoning from\nthe Parmenides, and affirms that the ten categories of Aristotle\nare exhibited therein.\n\nPlotinus (Ennead. v. 1, 8) gives a brief summary of what he\nunderstood to be contained in the Antinomies of the Platonic\nParmenides; but the interpretation departs widely from the\noriginal.\n\nI transcribe a few sentences from the argument of Ficinus, to show\nwhat different meanings may be discovered in the same words by\ndifferent critics. (Ficini Argum. in Plat. Parmen. p. 756.) \"Cum\nPlato per omnes ejus dialogos totius sapienti\u00e6 semina sparserit,\nin libris De Republic\u00e2 cuncta moralis philosophi\u00e6 instituta\ncollegit, omnem naturalium rerum scientiam in Tim\u00e6o, universam in\nParmenide complexus est Theologiam. Cumque in aliis longo\nintervallo c\u00e6teros philosophos antecesserit, in hoc tandem seipsum\nsuperasse videtur. Hic enim divus Plato de ipso Uno subtilissim\u00e9\ndisputat: quemadmodum Ipsum Unum rerum omnium principium est,\nsuper omnia, omniaque ab illo: quo pacto ipsum extra omnia sit et\nin omnibus: omniaque ex illo, per illud, atque ad illud. Ad hujus,\nquod super essentiam est, Unius intelligentiam gradatim ascendit.\nIn iis qu\u00e6 fluunt et sensibus subjiciuntur et sensibilia\nnominantur: In iis etiam quas semper eadem sunt et sensibilia\nnuncupantur, non sensibus amplius sed sol\u00e2 mente percipienda: Nec\nin iis tantum, verum etiam supra sensum et sensibilia,\nintellectumque et intelligibilia:--ipsum Unum existit.--Illud\ninsuper advertendum est, quod in hoc dialogo cum dicitur _Unum_,\nPythagoreorum more qu\u00e6que substantia a materi\u00e2 penitus absoluta\nsignificari potest: ut Deus, Mens, Anima. Cum vero dicitur Aliud\net Alia, tam materia, quam illa qu\u00e6 in materi\u00e2 fiunt, intelligere\nlicet.\"\n\nThe Prolegomena, prefixed by Thomson to his edition of the\nParmenides, interpret the dialogue in the same general way as\nProklus and Ficinus: they suppose that by Unum is understood\nSummus Deus, and they discover in the concluding Antinomies\ntheological demonstrations of the unity, simplicity, and other\nattributes of God. Thomson observes, very justly, that the\nParmenides is one of the most difficult dialogues in Plato\n(Prolegom. iv.-x.) But in my judgment, his mode of exposition, far\nfrom smoothing the difficulties, adds new ones greater than those\nin the text.]\n\nThe various explanations of it given by more recent commentators\nmay be seen enumerated in the learned Prolegomena of\nStallbaum,[53] who has also set forth his own views at\nconsiderable length. And the prodigious opposition between the\nviews of Proklus (followed by Ficinus in the fifteenth century),\nwho extols the Parmenides as including in mystic phraseology\nsublime religious truths--and those of the modern Tiedemann, who\ndespises them as foolish subtleties and cannot read them with\npatience--is quite sufficient to inspire a reasonable Platonic\ncritic with genuine diffidence.\n\n[Footnote 53: Stallbaum, Prolegg. in Parmen. ii. 1, pp. 244-265.\nCompare K. F. Hermann, Gesch. und Syst. der Platon. Phil. pp.\n507-668-670.\n\nTo the works which he has there enumerated, may be added the\nDissertation by Dr. Kuno Fischer, Stuttgart, 1851, De Parmenide\nPlatonico, and that of Zeller, Platonische Studien, p. 169 seqq.\n\nKuno Fischer (pp. 102-103) after Hegel (Gesch. der Griech. Phil.\nI. p. 202), and some of the followers of Hegel, extol the\nParmenides as a masterpiece of dialectics, though they complain\nthat \"der philosophirende P\u00f6bel\" misunderstand it, and treat it as\nobscure. Werder, Logik, pp. 92-176, Berlin, 1841. Carl Beck,\nPlaton's Philosophie im Abriss ihrer genetischen Entwickelung, p.\n75, Reutlingen, 1852. Marbach, Gesch. der Griech. Phil. sect. 96,\npp. 210-211.]\n\n[Side-note: No dogmatical solution or purpose is wrapped up in the\ndialogue. The purpose is negative, to make a theorist keenly feel\nall the difficulties of theorising.]\n\nIn so far as these different expositions profess, each in its own\nway, to detect a positive dogmatical result or purpose in the\nParmenides,[54] none of them carry conviction to my mind, any more\nthan the mystical interpretations which we read in Proklus. If\nPlato had any such purpose, he makes no intimation of it, directly\nor indirectly. On the contrary, he announces another purpose not\nonly different, but contrary. The veteran Parmenides, while\npraising the ardour of speculative research displayed by Sokrates,\nat the same time reproves gently, but distinctly, the confident\nforwardness of two such immature youths as Sokrates and Aristotle\nin laying down positive doctrines without the preliminary exercise\nindispensable for testing them.[55] Parmenides appears from the\nbeginning to the end of the dialogue as a propounder of doubts and\nobjections, not as a doctrinal teacher. He seeks to restrain the\nhaste of Sokrates--to make him ashamed of premature affirmation\nand the false persuasion of knowledge--to force upon him a keen\nsense of real difficulties which have escaped his notice. To this\nend, a specimen is given of the exercise required. It is certainly\nwell calculated to produce the effect intended--of hampering,\nperplexing, and putting to shame, the affirmative rashness of a\nnovice in philosophy. It exhibits a tangled skein of ingenious\ncontradiction which the novice must somehow bring into order,\nbefore he is in condition to proclaim any positive dogma. If it\nanswers this purpose, it does all that Parmenides promises.\nSokrates is warned against attaching himself exclusively to one\nside of an hypothesis, and neglecting the opposite: against\nsurrendering himself to some pre-conception, traditional, or\nself-originated, and familiarising his mind with its consequences,\nwhile no pains are taken to study the consequences of the negative\nside, and bring them into comparison. It is this one-sided mental\nactivity, and premature finality of assertion, which Parmenides\nseeks to correct. Whether the corrective exercises which he\nprescribes are the best for the purpose, may be contested: but\nassuredly the malady which he seeks to correct is deeply rooted in\nour human nature, and is combated by Sokrates himself, though by\nother means, in several of the Platonic dialogues. It is a rare\nmental endowment to study both sides of a question, and suspend\ndecision until the consequences of each are fully known.\n\n[Footnote 54: I agree with Schleiermacher, in considering that the\npurpose of the Parmenides is nothing beyond [Greek: gumnasi/a], or\nexercise in the method and perplexities of philosophising (Einl.\np. 83): but I do not agree with him, when he says (pp. 90-105)\nthat the objections urged by Parmenides (in the middle of the\ndialogue) against the separate substantiality of Forms or Ideas,\nthough noway answered in the dialogue itself, are sufficiently\nanswered in other dialogues (which he considers later in time),\nespecially in the Sophistes (though, according to Brandis, Handb.\nGr.-R\u00f6m. Phil. p. 241, the Sophistes is earlier than the\nParmenides). Zeller, on the other hand, denies that these\nobjections are at all answered in the Sophistes; but he maintains\nthat the second part of the Parmenides itself clears up the\ndifficulties propounded in the first part. After an elaborate\nanalysis (in the Platon. Studien, pp. 168-178) of the Antinomies\nor contradictory Demonstrations in the concluding part of the\ndialogue, Zeller affirms the purpose of them to be \"die richtige\nAnsicht von den Ideen als der Einheit in dem Mannichfaltigen der\nErscheinung dialektisch zu begr\u00fcnden, die Ideenlehre m\u00f6glichen\nEinw\u00fcrfen und Missverst\u00e4ndnissen gegen\u00fcber dialektisch zu\nbegr\u00fcnden\" (pp. 180-182). This solution has found favour with some\nsubsequent commentators. See Susemihl, Die genetische Entwickelung\nder Platon. Philosophie, pp. 341-353; Heinrich Stein,\nVorgeschichte und System des Platonismus, pp. 217-220.\n\nTo me it appears (what Zeller himself remarks in p. 188, upon the\ndiscovery of Schleiermacher that the objections started in the\nParmenides are answered in the Sophistes) that it requires all the\nacuteness of so able a writer as Zeller to detect any such result\nas that which he here extracts from the Parmenidean Antinomies--from\nwhat Aristeides calls (Or. xlvii. p. 430) \"the One and Many,\nthe multiplied twists and doublings, of this divine dialogue\". I\nconfess that I am unable to perceive therein what Zeller has\neither found or elicited. Objections and misunderstandings\n(Einw\u00fcrfe und Missverst\u00e4ndnisse), far from being obviated or\ncorrected, are accumulated from the beginning to the end of these\nAntinomies, and are summed up in a formidable total by the final\nsentence of the dialogue. Moreover, none of these objections which\nParmenides had advanced in the earlier part of the dialogue are at\nall noticed, much less answered, in the concluding Antinomies.\n\nThe general view taken by Zeller of the Platonic Parmenides, is\nrepeated by him in his Phil. der Griech. vol. ii. pp. 394-415-429,\ned. 2nd. In the first place, I do not think that he sets forth\nexactly (see p. 415) the reasoning as we read it in Plato; but\neven if that were exactly set forth, still what we read in Plato\nis nothing but an assemblage of difficulties and contradictions.\nThese are indeed suggestive, and such as a profound critic may\nmeditate with care, until he finds himself put upon a train of\nthought conducting him to conclusions sound and tenable in his\njudgment. But the explanations, sufficient or not, belong after\nall not to Plato but to the critic himself. Other critics may\nattach, and have attached, totally different explanations to the\nsame difficulties. I see no adequate evidence to bring home any\none of them to Plato; or to prove (what is the main point to be\ndetermined) that any one of them was present to his mind when he\ncomposed the dialogue.\n\nSchwegler also gives an account of what he affirms to be the\npurpose and meaning of the Parmenides--\"The positive meaning of\nthe antinomies contained in it can only be obtained by inferences\nwhich Plato does not himself expressly enunciate, but leaves to\nthe reader to draw\" (Geschichte der Philosophie im Umriss, sect.\n14, 4 c. pp. 52-53, ed. 5).\n\nA learned man like Schwegler, who both knows the views of other\nphilosophers, and has himself reflected on philosophy, may perhaps\nfind affirmative meaning in the Parmenides; just as Sokrates, in\nthe Platonic Protagoras, finds his own ethical doctrine in the\nsong of the poet Simonides. But I venture to say that no\ncontemporary reader of Plato could have found such a meaning in\nthe Parmenides; and that if Plato intended to communicate such a\nmeaning, the whole structure of the dialogue would be only an\nelaborate puzzle calculated to prevent nearly all readers from\nreaching it.\n\nBy assigning the leadership of the dialogue to Parmenides\n(Schwegler says) Plato intends to signify that the Platonic\ndoctrine of Ideas is coincident with the doctrine of Parmenides,\nand is only a farther development thereof. How can this be\nsignified, when the discourse assigned to Parmenides consists of a\nstring of objections against the doctrine of Ideas, concluding\nwith an intimation that there are other objections, yet stronger,\nremaining behind?\n\nThe fundamental thought of the Parmenides (says Schwegler) is,\nthat the One is not conceivable in complete abstraction from the\nMany, nor the Many in complete abstraction from the One,--that\neach reciprocally supposes and serves as condition to the other.\nNot so: for if we follow the argumentation of Parmenides (p. 131\nE), we shall see that what he principally insists upon, is the\nentire impossibility of any connection or participation between\nthe One and the Many--there is an impassable gulf between them.\n\nIs the discussion of [Greek: to\\ e(\\n] (in the closing Antinomies)\nintended as an example of dialectic investigation--or is it _per\nse_ the special object of the dialogue? This last is clearly the\ntruth (says Schwegler). \"otherwise the dialogue would end without\nresult, and its two portions would be without any internal\nconnection\". Not so; for if we read the dialogue, we find\nParmenides clearly proclaiming and singling out [Greek: to\\ e(\\n]\nas only one among a great many different notions, each of which\nmust be made the subject of a bilateral hypothesis, to be followed\nout into its consequences on both sides (p. 136 A). Moreover, I\nthink that the \"internal connection\" between the first and the\nlast half of the dialogue, consists in the application of this\ndialectic method, and in nothing else. If the dialogue ends\nwithout result, this is true of many other Platonic dialogues. The\nstudent is brought face to face with logical difficulties, and has\nto find out the solution for himself; or perhaps to find out that\nno solution can be obtained.]\n\n[Footnote 55: Plato, Parmenid. p. 135 C.]\n\n[Side-note: This negative purpose is expressly announced by Plato\nhimself. All dogmatical purpose, extending farther, is purely\nhypothetical, and even inconsistent with what is declared.]\n\nSuch, in my judgment, is the drift of the contradictory\ndemonstrations here put into the mouth of Parmenides respecting\nUnum and C\u00e6tera. Thus far at least, we are perfectly safe: for we\nare conforming strictly to the language of Plato himself in the\ndialogue: we have no proof that he meant anything more. Those who\npresume that he must have had some ulterior dogmatical purpose,\nplace themselves upon hypothetical ground: but when they go\nfarther and attempt to set forth what this purpose was, they show\ntheir ingenuity only by bringing out what they themselves have\ndropped in. The number of discordant hypotheses attests[56] the\ndifficulty of the problem. I agree with those early Platonic\ncommentators (mentioned and opposed by Proklus) who could see no\nother purpose in these demonstrations than that of dialectical\nexercise. In this view Schleiermacher, Ast, Str\u00fcmpell, and others\nmainly concur: the two former however annexing to it a farther\nhypothesis--which I think improbable--that the dialogue has come\nto us incomplete; having once contained at the end (or having been\noriginally destined to contain, though the intention may never\nhave been realised) an appendix elucidating the perplexities of\nthe demonstrations.[57] This would have been inconsistent with the\npurpose declared by Parmenides: who, far from desiring to\nfacilitate the onward march of Sokrates by clearing up\ndifficulties, admonishes him that he is advancing too rapidly, and\nseeks to keep him back by giving him a heap of manifest\ncontradictions to disentangle. Plato conceives the training for\nphilosophy or for the highest exercise of intellectual force, to\nbe not less laborious than that which was required for the bodily\nperfections of an Olympic athlete. The student must not be helped\nout of difficulties at once: he must work his own way slowly out\nof them.\n\n[Footnote 56: Proklus ad Platon. Parmen. I. pp. 482-485, ed.\nStallb.; compare pp. 497-498-788-791, where Proklus is himself\ncopious upon the subject of exercise in dialectic method.\n\nStallbaum, after reciting many different hypothetical\ninterpretations from those interpreters who had preceded him, says\n(Prolegg. p. 265), \"En lustravimus tandem varias interpretum de\nhoc libro opiniones. Quid igitur? verusne fui, quum supr\u00e0 dicerem,\ntantam fuisse hominum eruditorum in eo explicando fluctuationem\natque dissensionem, ut quamvis plurimi de eo disputaverint, tamen\nfer\u00e8 alius aliter judicaverit? Nimirum his omnibus cognitis,\nfacil\u00e8 alicui in mentem veniat Terentianum illud--_Fecisti prop\u00e9,\nmulto sim quam dudum incertior_.\"\n\nBrandis (Handbuch Gr.-R\u00f6m. Phil. s. 105, pp. 257-258) cannot bring\nhimself to believe that dialectical exercise was the only purpose\nwith which Plato composed the Parmenides. He then proceeds to\nstate what Plato's ulterior purpose was, but in such very vague\nlanguage, that I hardly understand what he means, much less can I\nfind it in the Antinomies themselves. He has some clearer\nlanguage, p. 241, where he treats these Antinomies as preparatory\n[Greek: a)pori/ai].]\n\n[Footnote 57: Ast, Platon's Leben und Schriften, pp. 239-244;\nSchleiermacher, Einleit. zum Parmen. pp. 94-99; Str\u00fcmpell,\nGeschichte der Theoretischen Philosophie der Griechen, sect. 96,\npp. 128-129.\n\nI do not agree with Socher's conclusion, that the Parmenides is\nnot a Platonic composition. But I think he is quite right in\nsaying that the dialogue as it now stands performs all that\nParmenides promises, and leaves no ground for contending that it\nis an unfinished fragment (Socher, Ueber Platon's Schriften, p.\n286), so far as philosophical speculation is concerned. The\ndialogue as a dramatic or literary composition undoubtedly lacks a\nproper close; it is [Greek: a)/pous] or [Greek: kolobo\\s]\n(Aristot. Rhetor. iii. 8), sinning against the strict exigence\nwhich Plato in the Ph\u00e6drus applies to the discourse of Lysias.]\n\n[Side-note: The Demonstrations or Antinomies considered. They\ninclude much unwarranted assumption and subtlety. Collection of\nunexplained perplexities or [Greek: a)pori/ai].]\n\nThat the demonstrations include assumption both unwarranted and\ncontradictory, mingled with sophistical subtlety (in the modern\nsense of the words), is admitted by most of the commentators: and\nI think that the real amount of it is greater than they admit. How\nfar Plato was himself aware of this, I will not undertake to say.\nPerhaps he was not. The reasonings which have passed for sublime\nand profound in the estimation of so many readers, may well have\nappeared the same to their author. I have already remarked that\nPlato's ratiocinative force is much greater on the negative side\nthan on the positive: more ingenious in suggesting logical\ndifficulties than sagacious in solving them. Impressed, as\nSokrates had been before him, with the duty of combating the false\npersuasion of knowledge, or premature and untested belief,--he\nundertook to set forth the pleadings of negation in the most\nforcible manner. Many of his dialogues manifest this tendency, but\nthe Parmenides more than any other. That dialogue is a collection\nof unexplained [Greek: a)pori/ai] (such as those enumerated in the\nsecond book of Aristotle's Metaphysica) brought against a doctrine\nwhich yet Plato declares to be the indispensable condition of all\nreasoning. It concludes with a string of demonstrations by which\ncontradictory conclusions (Both and Neither) are successively\nproved, and which appear like a _reductio ad absurdum_ of all\ndemonstration. But at the time when Plato composed the dialogue, I\nthink it not improbable that these difficulties and contradictions\nappeared even to himself unanswerable: in other words, that he did\nnot himself see any answers and explanations of them. He had tied\na knot so complicated, that he could not himself untie it. I speak\nof the state of Plato's mind when he wrote the Parmenides. At the\ndates of other dialogues (whether earlier or later), he wrote\nunder different points of view; but no key to the Parmenides does\nhe ever furnish.\n\n[Side-note: Even if Plato himself saw through these subtleties, he\nmight still choose to impose and to heap up difficulties in the\nway of a forward affirmative aspirant.]\n\nIf however we suppose that Plato must have had the key present to\nhis own mind, he might still think it right to employ, in such a\ndialogue, reasonings recognised by himself as defective. It is the\ntask imposed upon Sokrates to find out and expose these defective\nlinks. There is no better way of illustrating how universal is the\nmalady of human intelligence--unexamined belief and over-confident\naffirmation--as it stands proclaimed to be in the Platonic\nApology. Sokrates is exhibited in the Parmenides as placed under\nthe screw of the Elenchus, and no more able than others to\nextricate himself from it, when it is applied by Parmenides:\nthough he bears up successfully against Zeno, and attracts to\nhimself respectful compliments, even from the aged dialectician\nwho tests him. After the Elenchus applied to himself, Sokrates\nreceives a farther lesson from the \"Neither and Both\"\ndemonstrations addressed by Parmenides to the still younger\nAristotle. Sokrates will thus be driven, with his indefatigable\nardour for speculative research, to work at the problem--to devote\nto it those seasons of concentrated meditation, which sometimes\nexhibited him fixed for hours in the same place and almost in the\nsame attitude[58]--until he can extricate himself from such\ndifficulties and contradictions. But that he shall not extricate\nhimself without arduous mental effort, is the express intention of\nParmenides: just as the Xenophontic Sokrates proceeds with the\nyouthful Euthydemus and the Platonic Sokrates with Lysis,\nThe\u00e6tetus, and others. Plausible subtlety was not unsuitable for\nsuch a lesson.[59] Moreover, in the Parmenides, Plato proclaims\nexplicitly that the essential condition of the lesson is to be\nstrictly private: that a process so roundabout and tortuous cannot\nbe appreciated by ordinary persons, and would be unseemly before\nan audience.[60] He selects as respondent the youngest person in\nthe company, one still younger than Sokrates: because (he says)\nsuch a person will reply with artless simplicity, to each question\nas the question may strike him--not carrying his mind forward to\nthe ulterior questions for which his reply may furnish the\nhandle--not afraid of being entangled in puzzling inconsistencies--not\nsolicitous to baffle the purpose of the interrogator.[61] All this\nbetokens the plan of the dialogue--to bring to light all those\ndifficulties which do not present themselves except to a\nkeen-sighted enquirer.\n\n[Footnote 58: Plato, Symposion, p. 220 C-D: compare pp. 174-175.\n\nIn the dialogue Parmenides (p. 130 E), Parmenides himself is\nintroduced as predicting that the youthful Sokrates will become\nmore and more absorbed in philosophy as he advances in years.\n\nProklus observes in his commentary on the dialogue--[Greek: o(\nga\\r S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas a)/gatai ta\\s a)pori/as], &c. (L. v. p. 252).]\n\n[Footnote 59: Xenoph. Memor. iv. 2, ad fin.]\n\n[Footnote 60: Plato, Parmenid. pp. 136 C, 137 A. Hobbes remarks\n(Computatio sive Logica, Part I, ch. iii. s. 12), \"Learners ought\nto go through logical exercises silently and by themselves: for it\nwill be thought both ridiculous and absurd, for a man to use such\nlanguage publicly\".\n\nProklus tells us, that the difficulty of the [Greek: gumnasi/a]\nhere enjoined by the Platonic Parmenides is so prodigious, that no\none after Plato employed it (Prokl. ad Parmenid. p. 306, p. 801,\nStallb.).\n\n[Greek: ei) me\\n ou)=n plei/ous \u00ea)=men, ou)k a)\\n a)/xion \u00ea)=n\ndei=sthai. a)prep\u00ea= ga\\r ta\\ toiau=ta poll\u00f4=n e)nanti/on le/gein,\na)/ll\u00f4s te kai\\ t\u00ealikou/t\u00f4|; a)gnoou=si ga\\r oi( polloi\\ o(/ti\na)neu tau/t\u00eas t\u00ea=s dia\\ pa/nt\u00f4n diexo/dou kai\\ pla/n\u00eas a)du/naton\ne)ntucho/nta t\u00f4=| a)l\u00eathei= nou=n schei=n.]]\n\n[Footnote 61: Plato, Parmenides, p. 137 B; compare Sophistes, p.\n217 D.\n\nTo understand the force of this remark of Parmenides, we should\ncontrast it with the precepts given by Aristotle in the Topica for\ndialectic debate: precepts teaching the questioner how to puzzle,\nand the respondent how to avoid being puzzled. Such precautions\nare advised to the respondent by Aristotle, not merely in the\nTopica but also in the Analytica--[Greek: chr\u00ea\\ d' o(/per\nphula/ttesthai paragge/llomen a)pokrinome/nous, au)tou\\s\ne)picheirou=ntas peira=sthai lantha/nein] (Anal. Priora, ii. p.\n66, a. 33).]\n\n[Side-note: The exercises exhibited by Parmenides are exhibited\nonly as illustrative specimens of a method enjoined to be applied\nto many other Antinomies.]\n\nWe must remark farther, that the two hypotheses here handled at\nlength by Parmenides are presented by him only as examples of a\ndialectical process which he enjoins the lover of truth to apply\nequally to many other hypotheses.[62] As he shows that in the case\nof Unum, each of the two assumptions (Unum est--Unum non est) can\nbe traced through different threads of deductive reasoning so as\nto bring out double and contradictory results--Both and Neither:\nso also in the case of those other assumptions which remain to be\ntested afterwards in like manner, antinomies of the same character\nmay be expected: antinomies apparent at least, if not real--which\nmust be formally propounded and dealt with, before we can trust\nourselves as having attained reasoned truth. Hence we see that,\nnegative and puzzling as the dialogue called Parmenides is, even\nnow--it would be far more puzzling if all that it prescribes in\ngeneral terms had been executed in detail. While it holds out, in\nthe face of an aspirant in philosophy, the necessity of giving\nequal presumptive value to the affirmative and negative sides of\neach hypothesis, and deducing with equal care, the consequences of\nboth--it warns him at the same time of the contradictions in which\nhe will thereby become involved. These contradictions are\npresented in the most glaring manner: but we must recollect a\nstriking passage in the Republic, where Plato declares that to\nconfront the aspirant with manifest contradictions, is the best\nway of provoking him to intellectual effort in the higher regions\nof speculation.[63]\n\n[Footnote 62: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 B.]\n\n[Footnote 63: Plato, Repub. vii. p. 524 E, and indeed the whole\npassage, pp. 523-524.]\n\n[Side-note: These Platonic Antinomies are more formidable than any\nof the sophisms or subtleties broached by the Megaric\nphilosophers.]\n\nI have already had occasion, when I touched upon the other _viri\nSocratici_, contemporaneous with or subsequent to Plato, to give\nsome account of the Zenonian and Megaric dialecticians, and of\ntheir sophisms or logical puzzles, which attracted so much\nattention from speculative men, in the fourth and third centuries\nB.C. These Megarics, like the Sophists, generally receive very\nharsh epithets from the historian of philosophy. They took the\nnegative side, impugned affirmative dogmas, insisted on doubts and\ndifficulties, and started problems troublesome to solve. I have\ntried to show, that such disputants, far from deserving all the\ncensure which has been poured upon them, presented one\nindispensable condition to the formation of any tolerable logical\ntheory.[64] Their sophisms were challenges to the logician,\nindicating various forms of error and confusion, against which a\ntheory of reasoning, in order to be sufficient, was required to\nguard. And the demonstrations given by Plato in the latter half of\nthe Parmenides are challenges of the same kind: only more\ningenious, elaborate, and effective, than any of those (so far as\nwe know them) proposed by the Megarics--by Zeno, or Eukleides, or\nDiodorus Kronus. The Platonic Parmenides here shows, that in\nregard to a particular question, those who believe the\naffirmative, those who believe the negative, and those who believe\nneither--can all furnish good reasons for their respective\nconclusions. In each case he gives the proof confidently as being\ngood: and whether unimpeachable or not, it is certainly very\ningenious and subtle. Such demonstrations are in the spirit of\nSextus Empiricus, who rests his theory of scepticism upon the\ngeneral fact, that there are opposite and contradictory\nconclusions, both of them supported by evidence equally good: the\naffirmative no more worthy of belief than the negative.[65] Zeno\n(or, as Plato calls him, the Eleatic Palam\u00eades[66]) did not\nprofess any systematic theory of scepticism; but he could prove by\ningenious and varied dialectic, both the thesis and the antithesis\non several points of philosophy, by reasons which few, if any,\namong his hearers could answer. In like manner the Platonic\nParmenides enunciates his contradictory demonstrations as real\nlogical problems, which must exercise the sagacity and hold back\nthe forward impulse of an eager philosophical aspirant. Even if\nthis dilemma respecting Unum Est and Unum non Est, be solved,\nParmenides intimates that he has others in reserve: so that either\nno tenable positive result will ever be attained--or at least it\nwill not be attained until after such an amount of sagacity and\npatient exercise as Sokrates himself declares to be hardly\npracticable.[67] Herein we may see the germ and premisses of that\ntheory which was afterwards formally proclaimed by \u00c6nesidemus and\nthe professed Sceptics: the same holding back ([Greek: e)poch\u00ea\\]),\nand protest against precipitation in dogmatising,[68] which these\nlatter converted into a formula and vindicated as a system.\n\n[Footnote 64: Among the commentators on the Categories of\nAristotle, there were several whose principal object it was to\npropound all the most grave and troublesome difficulties which\nthey could think of. Simplikius does not commend the style of\nthese men, but he expresses his gratitude to them for the pains\nwhich they had taken in the exposition of the negative case, and\nfor the stimulus and opportunity which they had thus administered\nto the work of affirmative exposition (Simplikius, Schol. ad\nCateg. Aristot. p. 40, a. 22-30; Schol. Brandis). David the\nArmenian, in his Scholia on the Categories (p. 27, b. 41,\nBrandis), defends the Topica of Aristotle as having been composed\n[Greek: gumnasi/as cha/rin, i(/na thlibome/n\u00ea \u00ea( psuch\u00ea\\ e)k t\u00f4=n\ne)ph' e(ka/tera e)picheir\u00eama/t\u00f4n a)pogenn\u00ea/s\u00ea| to\\ t\u00ea=s\na)l\u00eathei/as ph\u00f4=s.]]\n\n[Footnote 65: Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hypot. i. 8-12. [Greek: E)/sti de\\\n\u00ea( skeptik\u00ea\\ du/namis a)ntithetik\u00ea\\ phainome/n\u00f4n te kai\\\nnooume/n\u00f4n kath' oi(ond\u00ea/pote tro/pon, a)ph' \u00ea(=s e)rcho/metha,\ndia\\ t\u00ea\\n e)n toi=s a)ntikeime/nois pra/gmasi kai\\ lo/gois\ni)sosthe/neian, to\\ me\\n pr\u00f4=ton ei)s e)poch\u00ea\\n to\\ de\\ meta\\\ntou=to ei)s a)taraxi/an . . . _i)sosthe/neian_ de\\ le/gomen t\u00ea\\n\nkata\\ pi/stin kai\\ a)pisti/an i)so/t\u00eata, \u00f4(s m\u00eade/na m\u00eadeno\\s\nprokei=sthai t\u00f4=n machome/n\u00f4n lo/g\u00f4n \u00f4(s pisto/teron . . .\nsusta/se\u00f4s de\\ t\u00ea=s skeptik\u00ea=s e)stin a)rch\u00ea\\ ma/lista _to\\ panti\\\nlo/g\u00f4| lo/gon i)/son a)ntikei=sthai_.]]\n\n[Footnote 66: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 261 D.]\n\n[Footnote 67: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 C-D.]\n\n[Footnote 68: Sext. Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. i. 20-212. [Greek: t\u00ea\\n t\u00f4=n\ndogmatik\u00f4=n prope/teian--t\u00ea\\n dogmatik\u00ea\\n prope/teian.]]\n\n[Side-note: In order to understand fully the Platonic Antinomies,\nwe ought to have before us the problems of the Megarics and\nothers. Uselessness of searching for a positive result.]\n\nSchleiermacher has justly observed,[69] that in order to\nunderstand properly the dialectic manoeuvres of the Parmenides,\nwe ought to have had before us the works of that philosopher\nhimself, of Zeno, Melissus, Gorgias, and other sceptical reasoners\nof the age immediately preceding--which have unfortunately\nperished. Some reference to these must probably have been present\nto Plato in the composition of this dialogue.[70] At the same\ntime, if we accept the dialogue as being (what it declares itself\nto be) a string of objections and dialectical problems, we shall\ntake care not to look for any other sort of merit than what such a\ncomposition requires and admits. If the objections are forcible,\nthe problems ingenious and perplexing, the purpose of the author\nis satisfied. To search in the dialogue for some positive result,\nnot indeed directly enunciated but discoverable by groping and\ndiving--would be to expect a species of fruit inconsistent with\nthe nature of the tree. [Greek: Z\u00eat\u00f4=n eu(r\u00ea/seis ou) r(o/don\na)lla\\ ba/ton.]\n\n[Footnote 69: Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum Parmen. pp. 97-99.]\n\n[Footnote 70: Indeed, the second demonstration, among the nine\ngiven by Parmenides (pp. 143 A, 155 C), coincides to a great\ndegree with the conclusion which Zeno is represented as having\nmaintained in his published dissertation (p. 127 E); and shows\nthat the difficulties and contradictions belong to the world of\ninvisible Ideas, as well as to that of sensible particulars, which\nSokrates had called in question (p. 129 C-E).\n\nThe Aristotelian treatise (whether by Aristotle, Theophrastus, or\nany other author) De Zenone, Melisso, Xenophane, et\nGorgi\u00e2--affords some curious comparisons with the Parmenides of Plato.\nAristotel. p. 974 seq. Bekk.; also Fragmenta Philosophorum\nGr\u00e6corum, ed. Didot, pp. 278-309.]\n\n[Side-note: Assumptions of Parmenides in his Demonstrations convey\nthe minimum of determinate meaning. Views of Aristotle upon these\nindeterminate predicates, Ens, Unum, &c.]\n\nIt may indeed be useful for the critic to perform for himself the\nprocess which Parmenides intended Sokrates to perform; and to\nanalyse these subtleties with a view to measure their bearing upon\nthe work of dogmatic theorising. We see double and contradictory\nconclusions elicited, in four separate Antinomies, from the same\nhypothesis, by distinct chains of interrogatory deduction; each\nquestion being sufficiently plausible to obtain the acquiescence\nof the respondent. The two assumptions successively laid down by\nParmenides as _principia_ for deduction--_Si Unum est_--_Si Unum\nnon est_--convey the very minimum of determinate meaning. Indeed\nboth words are essentially indeterminate. Both Unum and Ens are\ndeclared by Aristotle to be not univocal or generic words,[71]\nthough at the same time not absolutely equivocal: but words\nbearing several distinct transitional meanings, derived either\nfrom each other, or from some common root, by an analogy more or\nless remote. Aristotle characterises in like manner all the most\nindeterminate predicates, which are not included in any one\ndistinct category among the ten, but are made available to\npredication sometimes in one category, sometimes in another: such\nas Ens, Unum, Idem, Diversum, Contrarium, &c. Now in the Platonic\nParmenides, the two first among these words are taken to form the\nproposition assumed as fundamental datum, and the remaining three\nare much employed in the demonstration: yet Plato neither notices\nnor discriminates their multifarious and fluctuating\nsignifications. Such contrast will be understood when we recollect\nthat the purpose of the Platonic Parmenides is, to propound\ndifficulties; while that of Aristotle is, not merely to propound,\nbut also to assist in clearing them up.\n\n[Footnote 71: Aristot. Metaphys. iv. 1015-1017, ix. 1052, a. 15;\nAnal. Poster. ii. p. 92, b. 14. [Greek: to\\ d' ei)=nai ou)k\nou)si/a ou)deni/. ou) ga\\r ge/nos to\\ o)/n.]--Topica, iv. p. 127,\na. 28. [Greek: plei/\u00f4 ga\\r ta\\ pa=sin e(po/mena; oi(=on to\\ o)\\n\nkai\\ to\\ e(\\n t\u00f4=n pa=sin e(pome/n\u00f4n e)/stin], Physica, i. p.\n185, b. 6.\n\nSimplikius noted it as one among the differences between Plato and\nAristotle--That Plato admitted Unum as having only one meaning,\nnot being aware of the diversity of meanings which it bore; while\nAristotle expressly pointed it out as a [Greek: pollak\u00f4=s\nlego/menon] (Schol. ad Aristot. Sophist. Elench. p. 320, b. 3,\nBrandis). Aristotle farther remarks that Plato considered [Greek:\nto\\ ge/nos] as [Greek: e(\\n a)rithm\u00f4=|], and that this was an\nerror; we ought rather to say that Plato did not clearly\ndiscriminate [Greek: e(\\n a)rithm\u00f4=|] from [Greek: e(\\n ei)/dei]\n(Aristot. Topic. vi. 143, b. 30).\n\nSimplikius farther remarks, that it was Aristotle who first\nrendered to Logic the important service of bringing out clearly\nand emphatically the idea of [Greek: to\\ o(m\u00f4/numon]--the same\nword with several meanings either totally distinct and disparate,\nor ramifying in different directions from the same root, so that\nthere came to be little or no affinity between many of them. It\nwas Aristotle who first classified and named these distinctions\n([Greek: sun\u00f4/numon--o(m\u00f4/numon], and the intermediate [Greek:\nkat' a)nalogi/an]), though they had been partially noticed by\nPlato and even by Sokrates. [Greek: e(/\u00f4s A)ristote/lous ou)\npa/mpan e)/kd\u00ealon \u00ea)=n to\\ o(m\u00f4/numon; a)lla\\ Pla/t\u00f4n te \u00ea)/rxato\nperi\\ tou/tou \u00ea)\\ ma=llon e)kei/nou S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas], Schol. ad Aristot.\nPhysic. p. 323, b. 24, Brandis.]\n\n[Side-note: In the Platonic Demonstrations the same proposition in\nwords is made to bear very different meanings.]\n\nCertainly, in Demonstrations 1 and 2 (as well as 4 and 5), the\nfoundation assumed is in words the same proposition--_Si Unum\nest_: but we shall find this same proposition used in two very\ndifferent senses. In the first Demonstration, the proposition is\nequivalent to _Si Unum est Unum_:[72] in the second, to _Si Unum\nest Ens_, or _Si Unum existit_. In the first the proposition is\nidentical and the verb _est_ serves only as copula: in the second,\nthe verb _est_ is not merely a copula but implies Ens as a\npredicate, and affirms existence. We might have imagined that the\nidentical proposition--_Unum est Unum_--since it really affirms\nnothing--would have been barren of all consequences: and so indeed\nit is barren of all affirmative consequences. But Plato obtains\nfor it one first step in the way of negative predicates--_Si Unum\nest Unum, Unum non est Multa_: and from hence he proceeds, by a\nseries of gentle transitions ingeniously managed, to many other\nnegative predications respecting the subject _Unum_. Since it is\nnot Multa, it can have no parts, nor can it be a whole: it has\nneither beginning, middle, nor end: it has no boundary, or it is\nboundless: it has no figure, it is neither straight nor circular:\nit has therefore no place, being neither in itself, nor in\nanything else: it is neither in motion nor at rest: it is neither\nthe same with anything else, nor the same with itself:[73] it is\nneither different from any thing else, nor different from itself:\nit is neither like, nor unlike, to itself, nor to anything else:\nit is neither equal, nor unequal, to itself nor to any thing else:\nit is neither older nor younger, nor of equal age, either with\nitself or with anything else: it exists therefore not in time, nor\nhas it any participation with time: it neither has been nor will\nbe, nor is: it does not exist in any way: it does not even exist\nso as to be Unum: you can neither name it, nor reason upon it, nor\nknow it, nor perceive it, nor opine about it.\n\n[Footnote 72: Plato, Parmenid. pp. 137 C, 142 B.]\n\n[Footnote 73: This part of the argument is the extreme of\ndialectic subtlety, p. 139 C-D-E.]\n\n[Side-note: First demonstration ends in an assemblage of negative\nconclusions. _Reductio ad Absurdum_, of the assumption--Unum non\nMulta.]\n\nAll these are impossibilities (concludes Plato). We must therefore\ngo back upon the fundamental principle from which we took our\ndeparture, in order to see whether we shall not obtain, on a\nsecond trial, any different result.[74]\n\n[Footnote 74: Plato, Parmenid. p. 142 A.]\n\nHere then is a piece of dialectic, put together with ingenuity,\nshowing that everything can be denied, and that nothing can be\naffirmed of the subject--Unum. All this follows, if you concede\nthe first step, that Unum is not Multa. If Unum be said to have\nany other attribute except that of being Unum, it would become at\nonce Multa. It cannot even be declared to be either the same with\nitself, or different from any thing else; because Idem and\nDiversum are distinct natures from Unum, and if added to it would\nconvert it into Multa.[75] Nay it cannot even be affirmed to be\nitself: it cannot be named or enunciated: if all predicates are\ndenied, the subject is denied along with them: the subject is\nnothing but the sum total of its predicates--and when they are all\nwithdrawn, no subject remains. As far as I can understand the\nbearing of this self-contradictory demonstration, it appears a\n_reductio ad absurdum_ of the proposition--_Unum is not Multa_.\nNow _Unum which is not Multa_ designates the [Greek: Au)to\\-E(\\n]\nor Unum Ideale; which Plato himself affirmed, and which Aristotle\nimpugned.[76] If this be what is meant, the dialogue Parmenides\nwould present here, as in other places, a statement of\ndifficulties understood by Plato as attaching to his own\ndoctrines.\n\n[Footnote 75: This is the main point of Demonstration 1, and is\nstated pp. 139 D, 140 A, compared with p. 137 C.]\n\n[Footnote 76: Aristot. Metaph. A. 987, b. 20; A. 992, a. 8; B.\n1001, a. 27; I. 1053, b. 18. Some ancient expositors thought that\nthe purpose of Plato in the Parmenides was to demonstrate this\n[Greek: Au)to\\-E(\\n]; see Schol. ad Aristot. Metaph. p. 786, a.\n10, Brandis.\n\nIt is not easy to find any common bearing between the\ndemonstrations given in this dialogue respecting [Greek: E(\\n] and\n[Greek: Polla\\]--and the observations which Plato makes in the\nPhil\u00eabus upon [Greek: E(\\n] and [Greek: Polla/]. Would he mean to\ninclude the demonstrations which we read in the Parmenides, in the\ncategory of what he calls in Phil\u00eabus \"childish, easy, and\nirrational debates on that vexed question?\" (Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p.\n14 D). Hardly: for they are at any rate most elaborate as well as\ningenious and suggestive. Yet neither do they suit the description\nwhich he gives in Phil\u00eabus of the genuine, serious, and difficult\ndebates on the same question.]\n\n[Side-note: Second Demonstration.]\n\nParmenides now proceeds to his second demonstration: professing to\ntake up again the same hypothesis--_Si Unum est_--from which he\nhad started in the first[77]--but in reality taking up a different\nhypothesis under the same words. In the first hypothesis, _Si Unum\nest_, was equivalent to, _Si Unum est Unum_: nothing besides\n_Unum_ being taken into the reasoning, and _est_ serving merely as\ncopula. In the second, _Si Unum est_, is equivalent to, _Si Unum\nest Ens_, or exists: so that instead of the isolated _Unum_, we\nhave now _Unum Ens_.[78] Here is a duality consisting of _Unum and\nEns_: which two are considered as separate or separable factors,\ncoalescing to form the whole _Unum Ens_, each of them being a part\nthereof. But each of these parts is again dual, containing both\n_Unum and Ens_: so that each part may be again divided into lesser\nparts, each of them alike dual: and so on ad infinitum. _Unum Ens_\nthus contains an infinite number of parts, or is _Multa_.[79] But\neven _Unum_ itself (Parmenides argues), if we consider it\nseparately from _Ens_ in which it participates, is not _Unum_\nalone, but _Multa_ also. For it is different from _Ens_, and _Ens_\nis different from it. _Unum_ therefore is not merely _Unum_ but\nalso _Diversum_: _Ens_ also is not merely _Ens_ but _Diversum_.\nNow when we speak of _Unum_ and _Ens_--of _Unum_ and _Diversum_--or\nof _Ens_ and _Diversum_--we in each case speak of two distinct\nthings, each of which is _Unum_. Since each is _Unum_, the two\nthings become three--_Ens_, _Diversum_, _Unum_--_Unum_,\n_Diversum_, _Unum_--_Unum_ being here taken twice. We thus arrive\nat two and three--twice and thrice--odd and even--in short,\nnumber, with its full extension and properties. Unum therefore is\nboth Unum and Multa--both Totum and Partes--both finite and\ninfinite in multitude.[80]\n\n[Footnote 77: Plato, Parmenid. p. 142 A. [Greek: Bou/lei ou)=n\ne)pi\\ t\u00ea\\n u(po/thesin pa/lin e)x a)rch\u00ea=s e)pane/lth\u00f4men, e)a/n\nti \u00ea(mi=n e)paniou=sin a)lloi=on phan\u00ea=|?]]\n\n[Footnote 78: This shifting of the real hypothesis, though the\nterms remain unchanged, is admitted by implication a little\nafterwards, p. 142 B. [Greek: _nu=n de\\_ ou)ch au(/t\u00ea e)/stin \u00ea(\nu(po/thesis, _ei) e(\\n e(\\n_, ti/ chr\u00ea\\ sumbai/nein, a)ll' _ei)\ne(\\n e)/stin_.]]\n\n[Footnote 79: Plato, Parmenid. pp. 142-143. This is exactly what\nSokrates in the early part of the dialogue (p. 129 B-D) had\npronounced to be utterly inadmissible, _viz._: That [Greek: o(\\\ne)/stin e(\\n] should be [Greek: polla\\]--that [Greek: o(\\ e)/stin\no(/moion] should be [Greek: a)no/moion]. The essential\ncharacteristic of the Platonic Ideas is here denied. However, it\nappears to me that Plato here reasons upon two contradictory\nassumptions; first, that _Unum Ens_ is a total composed of two\nparts separately assignable--_Unum_ and _Ens_; next, that _Unum_\nis not assignable separately from _Ens_, nor _Ens_ from _Unum_.\nProceeding upon the first, he declares that the division must be\ncarried on ad infinitum, because you can never reach either the\nseparate _Ens_ or the separate _Unum_. But these two assumptions\ncannot be admitted both together. Plato must make his election;\neither he takes the first, in which case the total Unum Ens is\ndivisible, and its two factors, Unum and Ens, can be assigned\nseparately; or he takes the second, in which case _Unum_ and _Ens_\ncannot be assigned separately--are not distinguishable factors,--so\nthat _Unum Ens_ instead of being infinitely divisible, is not\ndivisible at all.\n\nThe reasoning as it now stands is, in my judgment, fallacious.]\n\n[Footnote 80: Plato, Parmen. pp. 144 A-E, 145 A.]\n\n[Side-note: It ends in demonstrating _Both_, of that which the\nfirst Demonstration had demonstrated _Neither_.]\n\nParmenides proceeds to show that Unum has beginning, middle, and\nend--together with some figure, straight or curved: and that it is\nboth in itself, and in other things: that it is always both in\nmotion and at rest:[81] that it is both the same with itself and\ndifferent from itself--both the same with C\u00e6tera, and different\nfrom C\u00e6tera:[82] both like to itself, and unlike to itself--both\nlike to C\u00e6tera, and unlike to C\u00e6tera:[83] that it both touches,\nand does not touch, both itself and C\u00e6tera:[84] that it is both\nequal, greater, and less, in number, as compared with itself and\nas compared with C\u00e6tera:[85] that it is both older than itself,\nyounger than itself, and of the same age with itself--both older\nthan C\u00e6tera, younger than C\u00e6tera, and of the same age as\nC\u00e6tera--also that it is not older nor younger either than itself or\nthan C\u00e6tera:[86] that it grows both older and younger than itself,\nand than C\u00e6tera.[87] Lastly, Unum was, is, and will be; it has been,\nis, and will be generated: it has had, has now, and will have,\nattributes and predicates: it can be named, and can be the object\nof perception, conception, opinion, reasoning, and cognition.[88]\n\n[Footnote 81: Plato, Parmenid. p. 146 A-B.]\n\n[Footnote 82: Plato, Parmenid. pp. 146-147 C.]\n\n[Footnote 83: Plato, Parmenid. p. 148 A-D.]\n\n[Footnote 84: Plato, Parmenid. p. 149 A-D.]\n\n[Footnote 85: Plato, Parmenid. pp. 150-151 D.]\n\n[Footnote 86: Plato, Parmen. pp. 152-153-154 A.]\n\n[Footnote 87: Plato, Parmenid. pp. 154 B, 155 C. [Greek: kata\\ d\u00ea\\\npa/nta tau=ta, to\\ e(\\n au)to/ te au(tou= kai\\ t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n\npresbu/teron kai\\ ne\u00f4/teron e)/sti te kai\\ gi/gnetai, kai\\ ou(/te\npresbu/teron ou(/te ne\u00f4/teron ou(/t' e)/stin ou(/te gi/gnetai\nou(/te au(tou= ou(/te t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n.]]\n\n[Footnote 88: Plato, Parmenid. p. 155 C-D.]\n\nHere Parmenides finishes the long Demonstratio Secunda, which\ncompletes the first Antinomy. The last conclusion of all, with\nwhich it winds up, is the antithesis of that with which the first\nDemonstration wound up: affirming (what the conclusion of the\nfirst had denied) that Unum is thinkable, perceivable, nameable,\nknowable. Comparing the second Demonstration with the first, we\nsee--That the first, taking its initial step, with a negative\nproposition, carries us through a series of conclusions every one\nof which is negative (like those of the second figure of the\nAristotelian syllogism):--That whereas the conclusions professedly\nestablished in the first Demonstration are all in _Neither_ (Unum\nis neither in itself nor in any thing else--neither at rest nor in\nmotion--neither the same with itself nor different from itself,\n&c.), the conclusions of the second Demonstration are all in\n_Both_ (Unum is both in motion and at rest, both in itself and in\nother things, both the same with itself and different from\nitself):--That in this manner, while the first Demonstration\ndenies both of two opposite propositions, the second affirms them\nboth.\n\n[Side-note: Startling paradox--Open offence against logical\ncanon--No logical canon had then been laid down.]\n\nSuch a result has an air of startling paradox. We find it shown,\nrespecting various pairs of contradictory propositions, first,\nthat both are false--next, that both are true. This offends doubly\nagainst the logical canon, which declares, that of two\ncontradictory propositions, one must be true, the other must be\nfalse. We must remember, that in the Platonic age, there existed\nno systematic logic--no analysis or classification of\npropositions--no recognised distinction between such as were\ncontrary, and such as were contradictory. The Platonic Parmenides\ndeals with propositions which are, to appearance at least,\ncontradictory: and we are brought, by two different roads, first\nto the rejection of both, next to the admission of both.[89]\n\n[Footnote 89: Prantl (in his Geschichte der Logik, vol. i. s. 3,\npp. 70-71-73) maintains, if I rightly understand him, not only\nthat Plato did not adopt the _principium identitatis et\ncontradictionis_ as the basis of his reasonings, but that one of\nPlato's express objects was to demonstrate the contrary of it,\npartly in the Phil\u00eabus, but especially in the Parmenides:--\n\n\"Eine arge T\u00e4uschung ist es, zu glauben, dass das principium\nidentitatis et contradictionis oberstes logisches Princip des\nPlato sei . . Es ist gerade eine Hauptaufgabe, welche sich Plato\nstellen musste, die Coexistenz der Gegens\u00e4tze nachzuweisen, wie\ndiess bekanntlich im Philebus und _besonders im Parmenides_\ngeschieht.\"\n\nAccording to this view, the Antinomies in the Parmenides are all\nof them good proofs, and the conclusions of all of them, summed up\nas they are in the final sentence of the dialogue, constitute an\naddition to the positive knowledge of Sokrates. I confess that\nthis to me is unintelligible. I understand these Antinomies as\n[Greek: a)pori/ai] to be cleared up, but in no other character.\n\nPrantl speaks (p. 73) of \"die antinomische Begr\u00fcndung der\nIdeenlehre im Parmenides,\" &c. This is the same language as that\nused by Zeller, upon which I have already remarked.]\n\n[Side-note: Demonstration third--Attempt to reconcile the\ncontradiction of Demonstrations I. and II.]\n\nHow can this be possible? How can these four propositions all be\ntrue--_Unum est Unum_--_Unum est Multa_--_Unum non est\nUnum_--_Unum non est Multa_? Plato suggests a way out of the difficulty,\nin that which he gives as Demonstration 3. It has been shown that\nUnum \"partakes of time\"--was, is, and will be. The propositions\nare all true, but true at different times: one at this time,\nanother at that time.[90] Unum acquires and loses existence,\nessence, and other attributes: _now_, it exists and is\nUnum--_before_, it did not exist and was not Unum: so too it is\nalternately like and unlike, in motion and at rest. But how is\nsuch alternation or change intelligible? At each time, whether\npresent or past, it must be either in motion or at rest: at no\ntime, neither present nor past, can it be _neither_ in motion\n_nor_ at rest. It cannot, while in motion, change to rest--nor,\nwhile at rest, change to motion. No time can be assigned for the\nchange: neither the present, nor the past, nor the future: how\nthen can the change occur at all?[91]\n\n[Footnote 90: This is a distinction analogous to that which Plato\npoints out in the Sophistes (pp. 242-243) between the theories of\nHerakleitus and Empedokl\u00eas.]\n\n[Footnote 91: Plato, Parmenid. p. 156.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's imagination of the Sudden or\nInstantaneous--Breaches or momentary stoppages in the course of time.]\n\nTo this question the Platonic Parmenides finds an answer in what\nhe calls the _Sudden_ or the _Instantaneous_: an anomalous nature\nwhich lies out of, or apart from, the course of time, being\nneither past, present, nor future. That which changes, changes at\nonce and suddenly: at an instant when it is neither in motion nor\nat rest. This _Suddenly_ is a halt or break in the flow of\ntime:[92] an extra-temporal condition, in which the subject has no\nexistence, no attributes--though it revives again forthwith\nclothed with its new attributes: a point of total negation or\nannihilation, during which the subject with all its attributes\ndisappears. At this interval (the _Suddenly_) all predicates may\nbe truly denied, but none can be truly affirmed.[93] Unum is\nneither at rest, nor in motion--neither like nor unlike--neither\nthe same with itself nor different from itself--neither Unum nor\nMulta. Both predicates and Subject vanish. Thus all the negations\nof the first Demonstration are justified. Immediately before the\n_Suddenly_, or point of change, Unum was in motion--immediately\nafter the change, it is at rest: immediately before, it was\nlike--equal--the same with itself--Unum, &c.--immediately after,\nit is unlike--unequal--different from itself--Multa, &c. And thus\nthe double and contradictory affirmative predications, of which the\nsecond Demonstration is composed, are in their turn made good, as\nsuccessive in time. This discovery of the extra-temporal point\n_Suddenly_, enables Parmenides to uphold both the double negative\nof the first Demonstration, and the double affirmative of the\nsecond.\n\n[Footnote 92: Plato, Parmenid. p. 156 E. [Greek: a)ll' \u00ea(\n_e)xai/phn\u00eas au(/t\u00ea phu/sis a)/topo/s tis e)gka/th\u00eatai metaxu\\\nt\u00ea=s kin\u00ea/se\u00f4/s te kai\\ sta/se\u00f4s_, e)n chro/n\u00f4| ou)deni\\ ou)=sa,\nkai\\ ei)s tau/t\u00ean d\u00ea\\ kai\\ e)k tau/t\u00eas to/ te kinou/menon\nmetaba/llei e)pi\\ to\\ e(sta/nai, kai\\ to\\ e(sto\\s e)pi\\ to\\\nkinei=sthai. . . . kai\\ to\\ e(\\n d\u00ea/, ei)/per e(/st\u00eake/ te kai\\\nkinei=tai, metaba/lloi a)\\n e)ph' e(ka/tera; mo/n\u00f4s ga\\r a)\\n\nou(/t\u00f4s a)mpho/tera poioi=; metaba/llon d' e)xai/phn\u00eas\nmetaba/llei, kai\\ o(/te metaba/llei, e)n ou)deni\\ chro/n\u00f4| a)\\n\nei)/\u00ea, ou)de\\ kinoi=t' a)\\n to/te, ou)d' a)\\n stai/\u00ea.]\n\n[Greek: To\\ e)xai/phn\u00eas--\u00ea( e)xai/phn\u00eas phu/sis a)/topo/s\ntis]--may be compared to an infinitesimal; analogous to what is\nrecognised in the theory of the differential calculus.]\n\n[Footnote 93: This appears to be an illustration of the doctrine\nwhich Lassalle ascribes to Herakleitus; perpetual implication of\nnegativity and positivity--des Nichtseins mit dem Sein: perpetual\nabsorption of each particular into the universal; and perpetual\nreappearance as an opposite particular. See the two elaborate\nvolumes of Lassalle upon Herakleitus, especially i. p. 358, ii. p.\n258. He scarcely however takes notice of the Platonic Parmenides.\n\nSome of the Stoics considered [Greek: to\\ nu=n] as [Greek:\nm\u00eade/n]--and nothing in time to be real except [Greek: to\\\npar\u00f4|ch\u00eako\\s] and [Greek: to\\ me/llon] (Plutarch, De Commun.\nNotitiis contra Stoicos, p. 1081 D).]\n\n[Side-note: Review of the successive pairs of Demonstrations or\nAntinomies in each, the first proves the Neither, the second\nproves the Both.]\n\nThe theory here laid down in the third Demonstration respecting\nthis extra-temporal point--the _Suddenly_--deserves all the more\nattention, because it applies not merely to the first and second\nDemonstration which precede it, but also to the fourth and fifth,\nthe sixth and seventh, the eighth and ninth, which follow it. I\nhave already observed, that the first and second Demonstration\nform a corresponding pair, branching off from the same root or\nhypothetical proposition (at least the same in terms), respecting\nthe subject _Unum_; and destined to prove, one the Neither, the\nother the Both, of several different predicates. So also the\nfourth and fifth form a pair applying to the subject C\u00e6tera; and\ndestined to prove, that from the same hypothetical root--_Si Unum\nest_--we can deduce the Neither as well as the Both, of various\npredicates of C\u00e6tera. When we pass on to the four last\nDemonstrations, we find that in all four, the hypothesis _Si Unum\nnon est_ is substituted for that of _Si Unum est_: but the\nparallel couples, with the corresponding purpose, are still kept\nup. The sixth and seventh apply to the subject _Unum_, and\ndemonstrate respecting that subject (proceeding from the\nhypothesis _Si Unum non est_) first the _Both_, then the\n_Neither_, of various predicates: the eighth and ninth arrive at\nthe same result, respecting the subject _C\u00e6tera_. And a sentence\nat the close sums up in few words the result of all the four pairs\n(1-2, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, that is, of all the Demonstrations excepting\nthe third)--the Neither and the Both respecting all of them.\n\n[Side-note: The third Demonstration is mediatorial but not\nsatisfactory--The hypothesis of the Sudden or Instantaneous found\nno favour.]\n\nTo understand these nine Demonstrations properly, therefore, we\nought to consider eight among them (1-2, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9) as four\nAntinomies, or couples establishing dialectic contradictions: and\nthe third as a mediator satisfactory between the\ncouples--announced as if it reconciled the contradictions of the first\nAntinomy, and capable of being adapted, in the same character with\ncertain modifications, to the second, third, and fourth Antinomy.\nWhether it reconciles them successfully--in other words, whether\nthe third Demonstration will itself hold good--is a different\nquestion. It will be found to involve the singular and paradoxical\n(Plato's own phrase) doctrine of the extra-temporal\n_Suddenly_--conceiving Time as a Discretum and not a Continuum. This\ndoctrine is intended by Plato here as a means of rendering the fact\nof change logically conceivable and explicable. He first states\nbriefly the difficulty (which we know to have been largely\ninsisted on by Diodorus Kronus and other Megarics) of logically\nexplaining the fact of change--and then enunciates this doctrine\nas the solution. We plainly see that it did not satisfy\nothers--for the puzzle continued to be a puzzle long after--and that\nit did not even satisfy Plato, except at the time when he composed\nthe Parmenides--since neither the doctrine itself (the\nextra-temporal break or transition) nor the very peculiar phrase\nin which it is embodied ([Greek: to\\ e)xai/phn\u00eas, a)/topo/s tis\nphu/sis]) occur in any of his other dialogues. If the doctrine\nwere really tenable, it would have been of use in dialectic, and\nas such, would have been called in to remove the theoretical\ndifficulties raised among dialectical disputants, respecting time\nand motion. Yet Plato does not again advert to it, either in\nSophistes or Tim\u00e6us, in both of which there is special demand for\nit.[94] Aristotle, while he adopts a doctrine like it (yet without\nemploying the peculiar phrase [Greek: to\\ e)xai/phn\u00eas]) to explain\nqualitative change, does not admit the same either as to\nquantitative change, or as to local motion, or as to generation\nand destruction.[95] The doctrine served the purpose of the\nPlatonic Parmenides, as ingenious, original, and provocative to\nintellectual effort: but it did not acquire any permanent footing\nin Grecian dialectics.\n\n[Footnote 94: Steinhart represents this idea of [Greek: to\\\ne)xai/phn\u00eas]--the extra-temporal break or zero of transition--as\nan important progress made by Plato, compared with the The\u00e6t\u00eatus,\nbecause it breaks down the absoluten Gegensatz between Sein and\nWerden, Ruhe and Bewegung (Einleitung zum Parmen. p. 309).\n\nSurely, if Plato had considered it a progress, we should have seen\nthe same idea repeated in various other dialogues--which is not\nthe case.]\n\n[Footnote 95: Aristotel. Physic. p. 235, b. 32, with the Scholion\nof Simplikius, p. 410, b. 20, Brandis.\n\nThe discussion occupies two or three pages of Aristotle's Physica.\nIn regard to [Greek: a)lloi/\u00f4sis] or qualitative change, he\nrecognised what he called [Greek: a)thro/an metabol\u00ea/n]--a change\n_all at once_, which occupied no portion of time. It is plain,\nhowever, that even his own scholars Theophrastus and Eudemus had\ngreat difficulty in accepting the doctrine; see Scholia, pp.\n409-410-411, Brandis.]\n\nThe two last Antinomies, or four last Demonstrations, have, in\ncommon, for their point of departure, the negative proposition,\n_Si Unum non est_: and are likewise put together in parallel\ncouples (6-7, 8-9), a Demonstration and a Counter-Demonstration--a\nBoth and a Neither: first with reference to the subject\n_Unum_--next with reference to the subject _C\u00e6tera_.\n\n[Side-note: Review of the two last Antinomies. Demonstrations VI.\nand VII.]\n\n_Si Unum est_--_Si Unum non est_. Even from such a proposition as\nthe first of these, we might have thought it difficult to deduce\nany string of consequences--which Plato has already done: from\nsuch a proposition as the second, not merely difficult, but\nimpossible. Nevertheless the ingenious dialectic of Plato\naccomplishes the task, and elicits from each proposition a Both,\nand a Neither, respecting several predicates of Unum as well as of\nC\u00e6tera. When you say _Unum non est_ (so argues the Platonic\nParmenides in Demonstration 6), you deny existence respecting\nUnum: but the proposition _Unum non est_, is distinguishable from\n_Magnitudo non est_--_Parvitudo non est_--and such like:\npropositions wherein the subject is different, though the\npredicate is the same: so that _Unum non Ens_ is still a Something\nknowable, and distinguishable from other things--a logical subject\nof which various other predicates may be affirmed, though the\npredicate of existence cannot be affirmed.[96] It is both like and\nunlike, equal and unequal--like and equal to itself unlike and\nunequal to other things.[97] These its predicates being all true,\nare also real existences: so that Unum partakes _quodam modo_ in\nexistence: though _Unum_ be _non-Ens_, nevertheless, _Unum non-Ens\nest_. Partaking thus both of non-existence and of existence, it\nchanges: it both moves and is at rest: it is generated and\ndestroyed, yet is also neither generated nor destroyed.[98]\n\n[Footnote 96: Plato, Parmenid. pp. 160-161 A. [Greek: ei)=nai me\\n\nd\u00ea\\ t\u00f4=| e(ni\\ ou)ch oi(=o/n te, ei)/per ge m\u00ea\\ e)/sti, mete/chein\nde\\ poll\u00f4=n ou)de\\n k\u00f4lu/ei, a)lla\\ kai\\ a)na/gk\u00ea, ei)/per to/ ge\ne(\\n e)kei=no kai\\ m\u00ea\\ a)/llo m\u00ea\\ e)/stin. ei) me/ntoi m\u00ea/te to\\\ne(\\n m\u00ea/t' _e)kei=no_ m\u00ea\\ e)/stai, a)lla\\ peri\\ a)/llou tou o(\nlo/gos, ou)de\\ phthe/ggesthai dei= ou)de/n; ei) de\\ to\\ e(\\n\ne)kei=no kai\\ m\u00ea\\ a)/llo u(pokei=tai m\u00ea\\ ei)=nai, kai\\ tou=\n_e)kei/nou_ kai\\ a)/ll\u00f4n poll\u00f4=n a)na/gk\u00ea au)t\u00f4=| metei=nai.]]\n\n[Footnote 97: Plato, Parmenid. p. 161 C-D.]\n\n[Footnote 98: Plato, Parmenid. pp. 162-163 A.\n\nThe steps by which these conclusions are made out are extremely\nsubtle, and hardly intelligible to me.]\n\nHaving thus deduced from the fundamental principle this string of\nBoth opposite predicates, the Platonic Parmenides reverts (in\nDemonstration 7) to the same principium (_Si Unum non est_) to\ndeduce by another train of reasoning the Neither of these\npredicates. When you say that _Unum non est_, you must mean that\nit does not partake of existence in any way--absolutely and\nwithout reserve. It therefore neither acquires nor loses\nexistence: it is neither generated nor destroyed: it is neither in\nmotion nor at rest: it partakes of nothing existent: it is neither\nequal nor unequal--neither like nor unlike--neither great nor\nlittle--neither this, nor that: neither the object of perception,\nnor of knowledge, nor of opinion, nor of naming, nor of\ndebate.[99]\n\n[Footnote 99: Plato, Parmenid. pp. 163-164 A.]\n\n[Side-note: Demonstration VII. is founded upon the genuine doctrine\nof Parmenides.]\n\nThese two last counter-demonstrations (6 and 7), forming the third\nAntinomy, deserve attention in this respect--That the seventh is\nfounded upon the genuine Parmenidean or Eleatic doctrine about\nNon-Ens, as not merely having no attributes, but as being\nunknowable, unperceivable, unnameable: while the sixth is founded\nupon a different apprehension of Non-Ens, which is explained and\ndefended by Plato in the Sophistes, as a substitute for, and\nrefutation of, the Eleatic doctrine.[100] According to Number 7,\nwhen you deny, of Unum, the predicate existence, you deny of it\nalso all other predicates: and the name Unum is left without any\nsubject to apply to. This is the Eleatic dogma. Unum having been\ndeclared to be Non-Ens, is (like Non-Ens) neither knowable nor\nnameable. According to Number 6, the proposition _Unum est\nnon-Ens_, does not carry with it any such consequences. Existence\nis only one predicate, which may be denied of the subject Unum, but\nwhich, when denied, does not lead to the denial of all other\npredicates--nor, therefore, to the loss of the subject itself.\nUnum still remains Unum, knowable, and different from other\nthings. Upon this first premiss are built up several other\naffirmations; so that we thus arrive circuitously at the\naffirmation of existence, in a certain way: _Unum_, though\nnon-existent, does nevertheless exist _quodam modo_. This coincides\nwith that which the Eleatic stranger seeks to prove in the\nSophistes, against Parmenides.\n\n[Footnote 100: Plato, Sophistes, pp. 258-259.]\n\n[Side-note: Demonstrations VI. and VII. considered--Unwarrantable\nsteps in the reasoning--The fundamental premiss differently\ninterpreted, though the same in words.]\n\nIf we compare the two foregoing counter-demonstrations (7 and 6),\nwe shall see that the negative results of the seventh follow\nproperly enough from the assumed premisses: but that the\naffirmative results of the sixth are not obtained without very\nunwarrantable jumps in the reasoning, besides its extreme\nsubtlety. But apart from this defect, we farther remark that here\nalso (as in Numbers 1 and 2) the fundamental principle assumed is\nin terms the same, in signification materially different. The\nsignification of _Unum non est_, as it is construed in Number 7,\nis the natural one, belonging to the words: but as construed in\nNumber 6, the meaning of the predicate is altogether effaced (as\nit had been before in Number 1): we cannot tell what it is which\nis really denied about Unum. As, in Number 1, the proposition\n_Unum est_ is so construed as to affirm nothing except _Unum est\nUnum_--so in Number 7, the proposition _Unum non est_ is so\nconstrued as to deny nothing except _Unum non est Unum_, yet\nconveying along with such denial a farther affirmation--_Unum non\nest Unum, sed tamen est aliquid scibile, differens ab aliis_.[101]\nHere this _aliquid scibile_ is assumed as a substratum underlying\n_Unum_, and remaining even when Unum is taken away: contrary to\nthe opinion--that Unum was a separate nature and the fundamental\nSubject of all--which Aristotle announces as having been held by\nPlato.[102] There must be always some meaning (the Platonic\nParmenides argues) attached to the word Unum, even when you talk\nof _Unum non Ens_: and that meaning is equivalent to _Aliquid\nscibile, differens ab aliis_. From this he proceeds to evolve,\nstep by step, though often in a manner obscure and inconclusive,\nhis series of contradictory affirmations respecting Unum.\n\n[Footnote 101: Plato, Parmenid. p. 160 C.]\n\n[Footnote 102: Aristot. Metaph. B. 1001, a. 6-20.]\n\nThe last couple of Demonstrations--8 and 9--composing the fourth\nAntinomy, are in some respects the most ingenious and singular of\nall the nine. Si _Unum non est_, what is true about C\u00e6tera? The\neighth demonstrates the _Both_ of the affirmative predicates, the\nninth proves the _Neither_.\n\n[Side-note: Demonstrations VIII. and IX.--Analysis of Demonstration\nVIII.]\n\nSi _Unum non est_ (is the argument of the eighth), C\u00e6tera must\nnevertheless somehow still be C\u00e6tera: otherwise you could not talk\nabout C\u00e6tera.[103] (This is an argument like that in Demonstration\n6: What is talked about must exist, somehow.) But if C\u00e6tera can be\nnamed and talked about, they must be different from something,--and\nfrom something, which is also different from them. What can\nthis Something be? Not certainly Unum: for Unum, by the\nHypothesis, does not exist, and cannot therefore be the term of\ncomparison. _C\u00e6tera_ therefore must be different among themselves\nand from each other. But they cannot be compared with each other\nby units: for Unum does not exist. They must therefore be compared\nwith each other by heaps or multitudes: each of which will appear\nat first sight to be an unit, though it be not an unit in reality.\nThere will be numbers of such heaps, each in appearance one,\nthough not in reality:[104] numbers odd and even, great and\nlittle, in appearance: heaps appearing to be greater and less than\neach other, and equal to each other, though not being really so.\nEach of these heaps will appear to have a beginning, middle, and\nend, yet will not really have any such: for whenever you grasp any\none of them in your thoughts, there will appear another beginning\nbefore the beginning,[105] another end after the end, another\ncentre more centrical than the centre,--minima ever decreasing\nbecause you cannot reach any stable unit. Each will be a heap\nwithout any unity; looking like one, at a distance,--but when you\ncome near, each a boundless and countless multitude. They will\nthus appear one and many, like and unlike, equal and unequal, at\nrest and moving, separate and coalescing: in short, invested with\nan indefinite number of opposite attributes.[106]\n\n[Footnote 103: Plato, Parmenid. p. 164 B. [Greek: A)/lla me/n pou\ndei= au)ta\\ ei)=nai; ei) ga\\r m\u00eade\\ a)/lla e)sti/n, ou)k a)\\n\nperi\\ t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n le/goito.]]\n\n[Footnote 104: Plato, Parmenid. p. 164 D. [Greek: Ou)kou=n polloi\\\no)/gkoi e)/santai, ei)=s e(/kastos phaino/menos, \u00f4)\\n de\\ ou)/,\nei)/per e(\\n m\u00ea\\ e)/stai. Ou(/t\u00f4s.]]\n\n[Footnote 105: Plato, Parmenid. p. 165 A. [Greek: O(/ti a)ei\\\nau)t\u00f4=n o(/tan ti/s ti la/b\u00ea| t\u00ea=| dianoi/a| \u00f4(/s ti tou/t\u00f4n o(/n,\npro/ te t\u00ea=s a)rch\u00ea=s a)/ll\u00ea a)ei\\ phai/netai a)rch\u00ea/, meta/ te\nt\u00ea\\n teleut\u00ea\\n e(te/ra u(poleipome/n\u00ea teleut\u00ea/, e(/n te t\u00f4=|\nme/s\u00f4| a)/lla mesai/tera tou= me/sou, smikro/tera de\\ dia\\ to\\ m\u00ea\\\ndu/nasthai e(no\\s au)t\u00f4=n e(ka/stou lamba/nesthai, a)/te ou)k\no)/ntos tou= e(no/s.]]\n\n[Footnote 106: Plato, Parmenid. p. 165 E. Compare p. 158 E.\n[Greek: toi=s a)/llois d\u00ea\\ tou= e(no\\s. . . . \u00ea( de\\ au)t\u00f4=n\nphu/sis kath' e(auta\\ a)peiri/an (pa/resche).]]\n\n[Side-note: Demonstration VIII. is very subtle and Zenonian.]\n\nThis Demonstration 8, with its strange and subtle chain of\ninferences, purporting to rest upon the admission of C\u00e6tera\nwithout Unum, brings out the antithesis of the Apparent and the\nReal, which had not been noticed in the preceding demonstrations.\nDemonstration 8 is in its character Zenonian. It probably\ncoincides with the proof which Zeno is reported (in the earlier\nhalf of this dialogue) to have given against the existence of any\nreal Multa. If you assume Multa (Zeno argued), they must be both\nlike and unlike, and invested with many other opposite attributes;\nbut this is impossible; therefore the assumption is untrue.[107]\nThose against whom Zeno reasoned, contended for real Multa, and\nagainst a real Unum. Zeno probably showed, and our eighth\nDemonstration here shows also,--that Multa under this supposition\nare nothing real, but an assemblage of indefinite, ever-variable,\ncontradictory appearances: an [Greek: A)/peiron], Infinite, or\nChaos: an object not real and absolute, but relative and variable\naccording to the point of view of the subject.\n\n[Footnote 107: Plato, Parmenid. p. 127 E; compare this with the\nclose of the eighth Demonstration, p. 165 E--[Greek: ei) e(no\\s\nm\u00ea\\ o)/ntos polla\\ e)/stin].]\n\n[Side-note: Demonstration IX. _Neither_ following _Both_.]\n\nTo the eighth Demonstration, ingenious as it is, succeeds a\ncountervailing reversal in the ninth: the Neither following the\nBoth. The fundamental supposition is in terms the same. _Si Unum\nnon est_, what is to become of _C\u00e6tera_? _C\u00e6tera_ are not _Unum_:\nyet neither are they _Multa_: for if there were any Multa, Unum\nwould be included in them. If none of the Multa were Unum, all of\nthem would be nothing at all, and there would be no Multa. If\ntherefore Unum be not included in C\u00e6tera, C\u00e6tera would be neither\nUnum nor Multa: nor would they appear to be either Unum or Multa:\nfor C\u00e6tera can have no possible communion with Non-Entia: nor can\nany of the Non-Entia be present along with any of C\u00e6tera--since\nNon-Entia have no parts. We cannot therefore conceive or represent\nto ourselves Non-Ens as along with or belonging to C\u00e6tera.\nTherefore, _Si Unum non est_, nothing among _C\u00e6tera_ is conceived\neither as Unum or as Multa: for to conceive Multa without Unum is\nimpossible. It thus appears, _Si Unum non est_, that C\u00e6tera\nneither are Unum nor Multa. Nor are they conceived either as Unum\nor Multa--either as like or as unlike--either as the same or as\ndifferent--either as in contact or as apart.--In short, all those\nattributes which in the last preceding Demonstration were shown\n_to belong to them_ in appearance, are now shown _not to belong_\nto them either in appearance or in reality.[108]\n\n[Footnote 108: Plato, Parmenid. p. 166 A-B. [Greek: E(\\n a)/ra ei)\nm\u00ea\\ e)/sti, ta)/lla ou)/te e)/stin ou)/te doxa/zetai e(\\n ou)/te\npolla/. . . . Ou)/d' a)/ra o(/moia ou)de\\ a)no/moia. . . . Ou)de\\\nm\u00ea\\n ta\\ au)ta/ ge ou)d' e(/tera, ou)de\\ a(pto/mena ou)de\\\nch\u00f4ri/s, _ou)de\\ a)/ll' o(/sa e)n toi=s pro/sthen di\u00ea/lthomen_]\n(compare [Greek: dielthei=n], p. 165 E) [Greek: _\u00f4(s phaino/mena\nau)ta/, tou/t\u00f4n ou)/te ti e)/stin ou)/te phai/netai ta)/lla, e(\\n\nei) m\u00ea\\ e)/stin_.]]\n\n[Side-note: Concluding words of the Parmenides--Declaration that he\nhas demonstrated the Both and the Neither of many different\npropositions.]\n\nHere we find ourselves at the close of the Parmenides. Plato\nannounces his purpose to be, to elicit contradictory conclusions,\nby different trains of reasoning, out of the same fundamental\nassumption.[109] He declares, in the concluding words, that--on\nthe hypothesis of _Unum est_, as well as on that of _Unum non\nest_--he has succeeded in demonstrating the Both and the Neither\nof many distinct propositions, respecting Unum and respecting\nC\u00e6tera.\n\n[Footnote 109: Compare, with the passage cited in the last note,\nanother passage, p. 159 B, at the beginning of Demonstration 5.\n\n[Greek: Ou)kou=n tau=ta me\\n \u00ea)/d\u00ea e)\u00f4=men \u00f4(s phanera/,\ne)piskop\u00f4=men de\\ pa/lin, e(\\n ei) e)/stin, a)=ra _kai\\ ou)ch\nou(/t\u00f4s e)/chei ta)/lla tou= e(no\\s \u00ea)\\ ou(/t\u00f4 mo/non_?]\n\nHere the purpose to prove [Greek: _ou)ch ou(/t\u00f4s_], immediately on\nthe heels of [Greek: _ou(/t\u00f4s_], is plainly enunciated.]\n\n[Side-note: Comparison of the conclusion of the Parmenides to an\nenigma of the Republic. Difference. The constructor of the enigma\nadapted its conditions to a foreknown solution. Plato did not.]\n\nThe close of the Parmenides, as it stands here, may be fairly\ncompared to the enigma announced by Plato in his Republic--\"A man\nand no man, struck and did not strike, with a stone and no stone,\na bird and no bird, sitting upon wood and no wood\".[110] This is\nan enigma, propounded for youthful auditors to guess: stimulating\ntheir curiosity, and tasking their intelligence to find it out. As\nfar as I can see, the puzzling antinomies in the Parmenides have\nno other purpose. They drag back the forward and youthful Sokrates\nfrom affirmative dogmatism to negative doubt and embarrassment.\nThere is however this difference between the enigma in the\nRepublic, and the Antinomies in the Parmenides. The constructor of\nthe enigma had certainly a preconceived solution to which he\nadapted the conditions of his problem: whereas we have no\nsufficient ground for asserting that the author of the Antinomies\nhad any such solution present or operative in his mind. How much\nof truth Plato may himself have recognised, or may have wished\nothers to recognise, in them, we have no means of determining. We\nfind in them many equivocal propositions and unwarranted\ninferences--much blending of truth with error, intentionally or\nunintentionally. The veteran Parmenides imposes the severance of\nthe two, as a lesson, upon his youthful hearers Sokrates and\nAristoteles.\n\n[Footnote 110: Plato, Republ. v. 479 C. The allusion was to an\neunuch knocking down a bat seated upon a reed. [Greek: Ai)no/s tis\ne)/stin \u00f4(s a)n\u00ea/r te kou)k a)n\u00ea/r, O)/rnitha/ te kou)k o)/rnith'\ni)d\u00f4/n te kou)k i)d\u00f4/n, E)pi\\ xu/lou te kou) xu/lou kath\u00eame/n\u00ean\nLi/th\u00f4| te kou) li/th\u00f4| ba/loi te kou) ba/loi.]\n\nI read with astonishment the amount of positive philosophy which a\ncommentator like Steinhart extracts from the concluding enigma of\nthe Parmenides, and which he even affirms that no attentive reader\nof the dialogue can possibly miss (Einleitung zum Parmenides, pp.\n302-303).]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII.\n\nTHE\u00c6TETUS.\n\n\n[Side-note: Subjects and personages in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus.]\n\nIn this dialogue, as in the Parmenides immediately preceding,\nPlato dwells upon the intellectual operations of mind: introducing\nthe ethical and emotional only in a partial and subordinate way.\nThe main question canvassed is, What is Knowledge--Cognition--Science?\nAfter a long debate, turning the question over in many\ndistinct points of view, and examining three or four different\nanswers to the question--all these answers are successively\nrejected, and the problem remains unsolved.\n\nThe two persons who converse with Sokrates are, Theod\u00f4rus, an\nelderly man, eminent as a geometrician, astronomer, &c., and\nteaching those sciences--and The\u00e6t\u00eatus, a young man of great merit\nand still greater promise: acute, intelligent, and\ninquisitive--high-principled and courageous in the field, yet gentle\nand conciliatory to all: lastly, resembling Sokrates in physiognomy\nand in the flatness of his nose. The dialogue is supposed to have\ntaken place during the last weeks of the life of Sokrates, when\nhis legal appearance as defendant is required to answer the\nindictment of Mel\u00eatus, already entered in the official record.[1]\nThe dialogue is here read aloud to Eukleides of Megara and his\nfellow-citizen Terpsion, by a slave of Eukleides: this last person\nhad recorded it in writing from narrative previously made to him\nby Sokrates.[2] It is prefaced by a short discourse between\nEukleides and Terpsion, intended to attract our sympathy and\nadmiration towards the youthful The\u00e6t\u00eatus.\n\n[Footnote 1: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. ad fin. p. 210.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. i. pp. 142 E, 143 A. Plato hardly\nkeeps up the fiction about the time of this dialogue with perfect\nconsistency. When it took place, the indictment of Mel\u00eatus had\nalready been recorded: Sokrates breaks off the conversation for\nthe purpose of going to answer it: Eukleides hears the dialogue\nfrom the mouth of Sokrates afterwards. \"Immediately on getting\nhome to Megara\" (says Eukleides) \"I wrote down memoranda (of what\nI had heard): then afterwards I called it back to my mind at\nleisure, and as often as I visited Athens I questioned Sokrates\nabout such portions as I did not remember, and made corrections on\nmy return here, so that now nearly all the dialogue has been\nwritten out.\"\n\nSuch a process would require longer time than is consistent with\nthe short remainder of the life of Sokrates. Socher indeed tries\nto explain this by assuming a long interval between the indictment\nand the trial, but this is noway satisfactory. (Ueber Platon's\nSchriften, p. 251.)\n\nMr. Lewis Campbell, in the Preface to his very useful edition of\nthis dialogue (p. lxxi. Oxford, 1861), considers that the battle\nin which The\u00e6t\u00eatus is represented as having been wounded, is\nprobably meant for that battle in which Iphikrates and his\npeltasts destroyed the Spartan Mora, B.C. 390: if not that, then\nthe battle at the Isthmus of Corinth against Epaminondas. B.C.\n369. Schleiermacher in his Einleitung to the dialogue (p. 185)\nseems to prefer the supposition of some earlier battle or skirmish\nunder Iphikrates. The point can hardly be determined. Still less\ncan we fix the date at which the dialogue was written, though the\nmention of the battle of Corinth certifies that it was later than\n394 B.C. Ast affirms confidently that it was the first dialogue\ncomposed by Plato after the Ph\u00e6don, which last was composed\nimmediately after the death of Sokrates (Ast, Platon's Leben, &c.,\np. 192). I see no ground for this affirmation. Most of the\ncommentators rank it among the dialectical dialogues, which they\nconsider to belong to a later period of Plato's life than the\nethical, but to an earlier period than the constructive, such as\nRepublic, Tim\u00e6us, &c. Most of them place the The\u00e6t\u00eatus in one or\nother of the years between 393-383 B.C., though they differ much\namong themselves whether it is to be considered as later or\nearlier than other dialogues--Kratylus, Euthydemus, Menon,\nGorgias, &c. (Stallbaum, Proleg. The\u00e6t. pp. 6-10; Steinhart,\nEinleit. zum The\u00e6t. pp. 100-213.) Munk and Ueberweg, on the\ncontrary, place the The\u00e6t\u00eatus at a date considerably later,\nsubsequent to 368 B.C. Munk assigns it to 358 or 357 B.C. after\nPlato's last return from Sicily (Munk, Die nat\u00fcrliche Ordnung der\nPlaton. Schr. pp. 357-597: Ueberweg, Ueber die Aechtheit der\nPlaton. Schr. pp. 228-236).]\n\n[Side-note: Question raised by Sokrates--What is knowledge or\nCognition? First answer of The\u00e6t\u00eatus, enumerating many different\ncognitions. Corrected by Sokrates.]\n\nIn answer to the question put by Sokrates--What is Knowledge or\nCognition? The\u00e6t\u00eatus at first replies--That there are many and\ndiverse cognitions:--of geometry, of arithmetic, of arts and\ntrades, such as shoemaking, joinery, &c. Sokrates points out (as\nin the Menon, Hippias Major, and other dialogues) that such an\nanswer involves a misconception of the question: which was\ngeneral, and required a general answer, setting forth the\ncharacteristic common to all cognitions. No one can know what\ncognition is in shoemaking or any particular case--unless he first\nknows what is cognition generally.[3] Specimens of suitable\nanswers to general questions are then given (or of definition of a\ngeneral term), in the case of clay--and of numbers square and\noblong.[4] I have already observed more than once how important an\nobject it was with Plato to impress upon his readers an exact and\nadequate conception of the meaning of general terms, and the\nproper way of defining them. For this purpose he brings into\ncontrast the misconceptions likely to arise in the minds of\npersons not accustomed to dialectic.\n\n[Footnote 3: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 147 A.\n\n[Greek: Ou)d' a)/ra e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ean u(pod\u00eama/t\u00f4n suni/\u00easin, o(\ne)pist\u00ea/m\u00ean m\u00ea\\ ei)dio/s? Ou) ga/r.]]\n\n[Footnote 4: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 148. Oblong ([Greek: prom\u00ea/keis])\nnumbers are such as can be produced only from two unequal factors.\nThe explanation of this difficult passage, requiring us to keep in\nmind the geometrical conception of numbers usual among the Greek\nmathematicians, will be found clearly given in Mr. Campbell's\nedition of this dialogue, pp. 20-22.]\n\n[Side-note: Preliminary conversation before the second answer is\ngiven. Sokrates describes his own peculiar efficacy--mental\nobstetric--He cannot teach, but he can evolve knowledge out of\npregnant minds.]\n\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus, before he attempts a second answer, complains how much\nthe subject had embarrassed him. Impressed with what he had heard\nabout the interrogatories of Sokrates, he had tried to solve this\nproblem: but he had not been able to satisfy himself with any\nattempted solution--nor yet to relinquish the search altogether.\n\"You are in distress, The\u00e6t\u00eatus\" (observes Sokrates), \"because you\nare not empty, but pregnant.[5] You have that within you, of which\nyou need to be relieved; and you cannot be relieved without\nobstetric aid. It is my peculiar gift from the Gods to afford such\naid, and to stimulate the parturition of pregnant minds which\ncannot of themselves bring forth what is within them.[6] I can\nproduce no truth myself: but I can, by my art inherited from my\nmother the midwife Ph\u00e6naret\u00ea, extract truth from others, and test\nthe answers given by others: so as to determine whether such\nanswers are true and valuable, or false and worthless. I can teach\nnothing: I only bring out what is already struggling in the minds\nof youth: and if there be nothing within them, my procedure is\nunavailing. My most important function is, to test the answers\ngiven, how far they are true or false. But most people, not\ncomprehending my drift, complain of me as a most eccentric person,\nwho only makes others sceptical. They reproach me, and that truly\nenough, with always asking questions, and never saying any thing\nof my own: because I have nothing to say worth hearing.[7] The\nyoung companions who frequent my society, often suffer\nlong-continued pains of parturition night and day, before they can\nbe delivered of what is within them. Some, though apparently stupid\nwhen they first come to me, make great progress, if my divine\ncoadjutor is favourable to them: others again become tired of me,\nand go away too soon, so that the little good which I have done\nthem becomes effaced. Occasionally, some of these impatient\ncompanions wish to return to me afterwards--but my divine sign\nforbids me to receive them: where such obstacle does not\nintervene, they begin again to make progress.\"[8]\n\n[Footnote 5: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 148 E. [Greek: \u00f4)di/neis, dia\\ to\\\nm\u00ea\\ keno\\s a)ll' e)gku/m\u00f4n ei)=nai.]]\n\n[Footnote 6: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 149 A, p. 150 A.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 149 A. [Greek: oi( de/, a)/te ou)k\nei)do/tes, tou=to me\\n ou) le/gousi peri\\ e)mou=, o(/ti de\\\na)top\u00f4/tato/s ei)mi, kai\\ poi\u00f4= tou\\s a)nthr\u00f4/pous a)porei=n.] 150\nB-C [Greek: me/giston de\\ tou=t' e(/ni t\u00ea=| \u00ea(mete/ra| te/chn\u00ea|,\nbasani/zein dunato\\n ei)=nai panti\\ tro/p\u00f4|, po/teron ei)/d\u00f4lon\n\u00ea)\\ pseu=dos a)poti/ktei tou= ne/ou \u00ea( dianoi/a, \u00ea)\\ go/nimo/n te\nkai\\ a)l\u00eathe/s; e)pei\\ to/de ge kai\\ e)moi\\ u(pa/rchei o(/per\ntai=s mai/ais; a)/gono/s ei)mi sophi/as], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. pp. 150 E, 151 A. [Greek: e)ni/ois\nme\\n to\\ gigno/meno/n moi daimo/nion a)pok\u00f4lu/ei xunei=nai,\ne)ni/ois de\\ e)a=|; kai\\ pa/lin ou(=toi e)pidido/asin.]\n\nWe here see (what I have already adverted to in reviewing the\nTheag\u00eas, vol. ii. ch. xv. pp. 105-7) the character of mystery,\nunaccountable and unpredictable in its working on individuals,\nwith which Plato invests the colloquy of Sokrates.]\n\n[Side-note: Ethical basis of the cross-examination of Sokrates--He\nis forbidden to pass by falsehood without challenge.]\n\nThis passage, while it forcibly depicts the peculiar intellectual\ngift of Sokrates, illustrates at the same time the Platonic manner\nof describing, full of poetry and metaphor. Cross-examination by\nSokrates communicated nothing new, but brought out what lay buried\nin the mind of the respondent, and tested the value of his\nanswers. It was applicable only to minds endowed and productive:\nbut for them it was indispensable, in order to extract what they\nwere capable of producing, and to test its value when extracted.\n\"Do not think me unkind,\" (says Sokrates,) \"or my procedure\nuseless, if my scrutiny exposes your answers as fallacious. Many\nrespondents have been violently angry with me for doing so: but I\nfeel myself strictly forbidden either to admit falsehood, or to\nput aside truth.\"[9] Here we have a suitable prelude to a dialogue\nin which four successive answers are sifted and rejected, without\nreaching, even at last, any satisfactory solution.\n\n[Footnote 9: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 151 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Answer of The\u00e6t\u00eatus--Cognition is sensible perception:\nSokrates says that this is the same doctrine as the _Homo Mensura_\nlaid down by Protagoras, and that both are in close affinity with\nthe doctrines of Homer, Herakleitus, Empedokl\u00eas, &c., all except\nParmenides.]\n\nThe first answer given by The\u00e6t\u00eatus is--\"Cognition is sensation\n(or sensible perception)\". Upon this answer Sokrates remarks, that\nit is the same doctrine, though in other words, as what was laid\ndown by Protagoras--\"Man is the measure of all things: of things\nexistent, that they exist: of things non-existent, that they do\nnot exist. As things appear to me, so they are to me: as they\nappear to you, so they are to you.\"[10] Sokrates then proceeds to\nsay, that these two opinions are akin to, or identical with, the\ngeneral view of nature entertained by Herakleitus, Empedokl\u00eas, and\nother philosophers, countenanced moreover by poets like Homer and\nEpicharmus. The philosophers here noticed (he continues), though\ndiffering much in other respects, all held the doctrine that\nnature consisted in a perpetual motion, change, or flux: that\nthere was no real Ens or permanent substratum, but perpetual\ngenesis or transition.[11] These philosophers were opposed to\nParmenides, who maintained (as I have already stated in a previous\nchapter) that there was nothing real except Ens--One, permanent,\nand unchangeable: that all change was unreal, apparent, illusory,\nnot capable of being certainly known, but only matter of uncertain\nopinion or estimation.\n\n[Footnote 10: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. pp. 151 E--152 A.\n\n_The\u00e6t\u00eat._ [Greek: ou)k a)/llo ti/ e)stin e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea \u00ea)\\\nai)/sth\u00easis. . . .]\n\n_Sokrat._ [Greek: Kinduneu/eis me/ntoi lo/gon ou) phau=lon\nei)r\u00eake/nai peri\\ e)pist\u00ea/m\u00eas, a)ll' o(/n e)/lege kai\\\nPr\u00f4tago/ras; _tro/pon de/ tina a)/llon ei)/r\u00eake ta\\ au)ta\\ tau=ta.\nPh\u00easi\\ ga/r pou--Pa/nt\u00f4n chr\u00eama/t\u00f4n me/tron a)/nthr\u00f4pon ei)=nai,\nt\u00f4=n me\\n o)/nt\u00f4n, \u00f4(s e)/sti--t\u00f4=n de\\ m\u00ea\\ o)/nt\u00f4n, \u00f4(s ou)k\ne)/stin._ A)ne/gn\u00f4kas ga/r pou?]\n\n_The\u00e6t\u00eat._ [Greek: A)ne/gn\u00f4ka kai\\ polla/kis.]\n\n_Sokrat._ [Greek: Ou)kou=n ou(/t\u00f4 p\u00f4s le/gei, \u00f4s oi(=a me\\n\ne(/kasta e)moi\\ phai/netai, toiau=ta me/n e)stin e)moi\\--oi(=a de\\\nsoi/, toiau=ta de\\ au)= soi/; a)nthr\u00f4pos de\\ su/ te ka)g\u00f4/.]\n\n_The\u00e6t\u00eat._ [Greek: Le/gei ga\\r ou)=n ou(/t\u00f4s.]\n\nHere Plato appears to transcribe the words of Protagoras (compare\np. 161 B, and the Kratylus, p. 386 A) which distinctly affirm the\ndoctrine of _Homo Mensura_--Man is the measure of all things,--but\ndo not affirm the doctrine, that knowledge is sensible perception.\nThe identification between the two doctrines is asserted by Plato\nhimself. It is Plato who asserts \"that Protagoras affirmed the\nsame doctrine in another manner,\" citing afterwards the manner in\nwhich he supposed Protagoras to affirm it. If there had been in\nthe treatise of Protagoras any more express or peremptory\naffirmation of the doctrine \"that knowledge is sensible\nperception,\" Plato would probably have given it here.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 152 E. [Greek: kai\\ peri\\ tou/tou\n_pa/ntes e(x\u00ea=s oi( sophoi\\ pl\u00ea\\n Parmeni/dou xumphere/sth\u00f4n_,\nPr\u00f4tago/ras te kai\\ \u00ca(ra/kleitos kai\\ E)mpedokl\u00ea=s, kai\\ t\u00f4=n\npoi\u00eat\u00f4=n oi( a)/kroi t\u00ea=s poi\u00ea/se\u00f4s e(kate/ras, k\u00f4m\u00f4|di/as me\\n\nE)pi/charmos, trag\u00f4|di/as de\\ O(/m\u00earos.]]\n\n[Side-note: Plato here blends together three distinct theories for\nthe purpose of confuting them; yet he also professes to urge what\ncan be said in favour of them. Difficulty of following his\nexposition.]\n\nThe one main theme intended for examination here (as Sokrates[12]\nexpressly declares) is the doctrine--That Cognition is sensible\nperception. Nevertheless upon all the three opinions, thus\nrepresented as cognate or identical,[13] Sokrates bestows a\nlengthened comment (occupying a half of the dialogue) in\nconversation, principally with The\u00e6t\u00eatus, but partly also with\nTheod\u00f4rus. His strictures are not always easy to follow with\nassurance, because he often passes with little notice from one to\nthe other of the three doctrines which he is examining: because he\nhimself, though really opposed to them, affects in part to take\nthem up and to suggest arguments in their favour: and further\nbecause, disclaiming all positive opinion of his own, he sometimes\nleaves us in doubt what is his real purpose--whether to expound,\nor to deride, the opinions of others--whether to enlighten\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus, or to test his power of detecting fallacies.[14] We\ncannot always distinguish between the ironical and the serious.\nLastly, it is a still greater difficulty, that we have not before\nus either of the three opinions as set forth by their proper\nsupporters. There remains no work either of Protagoras or of\nHerakleitus: so that we do not clearly know the subject matter\nupon which Plato is commenting--nor whether these authors would\nhave admitted as just the view which he takes of their\nopinions.[15]\n\n[Footnote 12: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 163 A.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 160 D. _Sokrat._ [Greek:\nPagka/l\u00f4s a)/ra soi ei)/r\u00eatai o(/ti e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea ou)k a)/llo ti/\ne)stin \u00ea)\\ ai)/sth\u00easis; kai\\ _ei)s tau)to\\n sumpe/pt\u00f4ke_, kata\\\nme\\n O(/m\u00earon kai\\ \u00ca(ra/kleiton kai\\ pa=n to\\ toiou=ton phu=lon,\noi(=on r(eu/mata kinei=sthai ta\\ pa/nta--kata\\ de\\ Pr\u00f4tago/ran\nto\\n soph\u00f4/taton, pa/nt\u00f4n chr\u00eama/t\u00f4n a)/nthr\u00f4pon me/tron\nei)=nai--kata\\ de\\ Theai/t\u00eaton, tou/t\u00f4n ou(=t\u00f4s e)cho/nt\u00f4n,\nai)/sth\u00easin e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ean gi/gnesthai.]]\n\n[Footnote 14: See the answer of The\u00e6t\u00eatus and the words of\nSokrates following, p. 157 C.]\n\n[Footnote 15: It would be hardly necessary to remark, that when\nPlato professes to put a pleading into the mouth of Protagoras\n(pp. 165-166) we have no other real speaker than Plato himself, if\ncommentators did not often forget this. Steinhart indeed tells us\n(Einleit. zum The\u00e6t\u00eat. pp. 36-47) positively--that Plato in this\npleading keeps in the most accurate manner (auf das genaueste) to\nthe thoughts of Protagoras, perhaps even to his words. How\nSteinhart can know this I am at a loss to understand. To me it\nseems very improbable. The mere circumstance that Plato forces\ninto partnership three distinct theories, makes it probable that\nhe did not adhere to the thoughts or language of any one of them.]\n\n[Side-note: The doctrine of Protagoras is completely distinct from\nthe other doctrines. The identification of them as one and the\nsame is only constructive--the interpretation of Plato himself.]\n\nIt is not improbable that the three doctrines, here put together\nby Plato and subjected to a common scrutiny, may have been\nsometimes held by the same philosophers. Nevertheless, the\nlanguage[16] of Plato himself shows us that Protagoras never\nexpressly affirmed knowledge to be sensible Perception: and that\nthe substantial identity between this doctrine, and the different\ndoctrine maintained by Protagoras, is to be regarded as a\nconstruction put upon the two by Plato. That the theories of\nHerakleitus and Empedokles differed materially from each other, we\nknow certainly: the theory of each, moreover, differed from the\ndoctrine of Protagoras--\"Man is the measure of all things\". How\nthis last doctrine was defended by its promulgator, we cannot say.\nBut the defence of it noway required him to maintain--That\nknowledge is sensible perception. It might be consistently held by\none who rejected that definition of knowledge.[17] And though\nPlato tries to refute both, yet the reasonings which he brings\nagainst one do not at all tell against the other.\n\n[Footnote 16: See The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 152 A. This is admitted (to be a\nconstruction put by Plato himself) by Steinhart in his note 7, p.\n214, Einleitung zum The\u00e6t\u00eatus, though he says that Plato's\nconstruction is the right one.]\n\n[Footnote 17: Dr. Routh, in a note upon his edition of the\nEuthyd\u00eamus of Plato (p. 286 C) observes:--\"Protagoras docebat,\n[Greek: Pa/nt\u00f4n chr\u00eama/t\u00f4n me/tron a)/nthr\u00f4pon ei)=nai, t\u00f4=n me\\n\no)/nt\u00f4n, \u00f4(s e)/sti; t\u00f4=n de\\ m\u00ea\\ o)/nt\u00f4n, \u00f4(s ou)k e)/sti.] Qu\u00e2\nquidem opinione qualitatum sensilium sine animi perceptione\nexistentiam sustulisse videtur.\"\n\nThe definition here given by Routh is correct as far as it goes,\nthough too narrow. But it is sufficient to exhibit the Protagorean\ndoctrine as quite distinct from the other doctrine, [Greek: o(/ti\ne)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea ou)k a)/llo ti/ e)stin \u00ea)\\ ai)/sth\u00easis.]]\n\n[Side-note: Explanation of the doctrine of Protagoras--_Homo\nMensura_.]\n\nThe Protagorean doctrine--Man is the measure of all things--is\nsimply the presentation in complete view of a common\nfact--uncovering an aspect of it which the received phraseology hides.\nTruth and Falsehood have reference to some believing subject--and\nthe words have no meaning except in that relation. Protagoras\nbrings to view this subjective side of the same complex fact, of\nwhich Truth and Falsehood denote the objective side. He refuses to\nadmit the object absolute--the pretended _thing in itself_--Truth\nwithout a believer. His doctrine maintains the indefeasible and\nnecessary involution of the percipient mind in every perception--of\nthe concipient mind in every conception--of the cognizant mind\nin every cognition. Farther, Protagoras acknowledges many distinct\nbelieving or knowing Subjects: and affirms that every object known\nmust be relative to (or in his language, _measured by_) the\nknowing Subject: that every _cognitum_ must have its _cognoscens_,\nand every _cognoscibile_ its _cognitionis capax_: that the words\nhave no meaning unless this be supposed: that these two names\ndesignate two opposite poles or aspects of the indivisible fact of\ncognition--actual or potential--not two factors, which are in\nthemselves separate or separable, and which come together to make\na compound product. A man cannot in any case get clear of or\ndiscard his own mind as a Subject. Self is necessarily\nomnipresent; concerned in every moment of consciousness, and\nequally concerned in all, though more distinctly attended to in\nsome than in others.[18] The Subject, self, or Ego, is that which\nall our moments of consciousness have in common and alike: Object\nis that in which they do or may differ--although some object or\nother there always must be. The position laid down by\nDescartes--_Cogito, ergo sum_--might have been stated with equal\ntruth--_Cogito, ergo est (cogitatum aliquid)_: _sum cogitans--est\ncogitatum_--are two opposite aspects of the same indivisible\nmental fact--_cogitatio_. In some cases, doubtless, the objective\naspect may absorb our attention, eclipsing the subjective: in\nother cases, the subjective attracts exclusive notice: but in all\ncases and in every act of consciousness, both are involved as\nco-existent and correlative. That alone exists, to every man, which\nstands, or is believed by him to be capable of standing, in some\nmode of his consciousness as an Object correlative with himself as\na Subject. If he believes in its existence, his own believing mind\nis part and parcel of such fact of belief, not less than the\nobject believed in: if he disbelieves it, his own disbelieving\nmind is the like. Consciousness in all varieties has for its two\npoles Subject and Object: there cannot be one of these poles\nwithout the opposite pole--north without south--any more than\nthere can be concave without convex (to use a comparison familiar\nwith Aristotle), or front without back: which are not two things\noriginally different and coming into conjunction, but two\ndifferent aspects of the same indivisible fact.\n\n[Footnote 18: In regard to the impossibility of carrying\nabstraction so far as to discard the thinking subject, see Hobbes,\nComputation or Logic, ch. vii. 1.\n\n\"In the teaching of natural philosophy I cannot begin better than\nfrom _privation_; that is, from feigning the world to be\nannihilated. But if such annihilation of all things be supposed,\nit may perhaps be asked what would remain for any man (_whom only\nI except from this universal annihilation of things_) to consider\nas the subject of philosophy, or at all to reason upon; or what to\ngive names unto for ratiocination's sake.\n\n\"I say, therefore, there would remain to that man ideas of the\nworld, and of all such bodies as he had, before their\nannihilation, seen with his eyes, or perceived by any other sense;\nthat is to say, the memory and imagination of magnitudes, motions,\nsounds, colours, &c., as also of their order and parts. All which\nthings, though they be nothing but ideas and phantasms, happening\ninternally to him that imagineth, yet they will appear as if they\nwere external and not at all depending upon any power of the mind.\nAnd these are the things to which he would give names and subtract\nthem from, and compound them with one another. For seeing that\nafter the destruction of all other things I suppose man still\nremaining, and namely that he thinks, imagines, and remembers,\nthere can be nothing for him to think of but what is past. . . .\nNow things may be considered, that is, be brought into account,\n_either as internal accidents of our mind_, in which manner we\nconsider them when the question is about _some faculty of the\nmind_: or, as _species of external things, not as really existing,\nbut appearing only to exist, or to have a being without us_. And\nin this manner we are now to consider them.\"]\n\n[Side-note: Perpetual implication of Subject with Object--Relate\nand Correlate.]\n\nIn declaring that \"Man is the measure of all things\"--Protagoras\naffirms that Subject is the measure of Object, or that every\nobject is relative to a correlative Subject. When a man affirms,\nbelieves, or conceives, an object as existing, his own believing\nor concipient mind is one side of the entire fact. It may be the\ndark side, and what is called _the Object_ may be the light side,\nof the entire fact: this is what happens in the case of tangible\nand resisting substances, where Object, being the light side of\nthe fact, is apt to appear all in all:[19] a man thinks of the\nSomething which resists, without attending to the other aspect of\nthe fact of resistance, _viz._: his own energy or pressure, to\nwhich resistance is made. On the other hand, when we speak of\nenjoying any pleasure or suffering any pain, the enjoying or\nsuffering Subject appears all in all, distinguished plainly from\nother Subjects, supposed to be not enjoying or suffering in the\nsame way: yet it is no more than the light side of the fact, of\nwhich Object is the dark side. Each particular pain which we\nsuffer has its objective or differential peculiarity,\ndistinguishing it from other sensations, correlating with the same\nsentient Subject.\n\n[Footnote 19: \"Nobiscum semper est ipsa quam qu\u00e6rimus (anima);\nadest, tractat, loquitur--et, si fas est dicere, inter ista\nnescitur.\" (Cassiodorus, De Anim\u00e2, c. 1, p. 594, in the edition of\nhis Opera Omnia, Venet. 1729).\n\n\"In the primitive dualism of consciousness, the Subject and Object\nbeing inseparable, either of them apart from the other must be an\nunknown quantity: the separation of either must be the\nannihilation of both.\" (F. W. Farrar, Chapters on Language, c. 23,\np. 292: which chapter contains more on the same topic, well\ndeserving of perusal.)]\n\n[Side-note: Such relativity is no less true in regard to the\nratiocinative combinations of each individual, than in regard to\nhis percipient capacities.]\n\nThe Protagorean dictum will thus be seen, when interpreted\ncorrectly, to be quite distinct from that other doctrine with\nwhich Plato identifies it: that Cognition is nothing else but\nsensible Perception. If, rejecting this last doctrine, we hold\nthat cognition includes mental elements distinct from, though\nco-operating with, sensible perception--the principle of relativity\nlaid down by Protagoras will not be the less true. My intellectual\nactivity--my powers of remembering, imagining, ratiocinating,\ncombining, &c., are a part of my mental nature, no less than my\npowers of sensible perception: my cognitions and beliefs must all\nbe determined by, or relative to, this mental nature: to the turn\nand development which all these various powers have taken in my\nindividual case. However multifarious the mental activities may\nbe, each man has his own peculiar allotment and manifestations\nthereof, to which his cognitions must be relative. Let us grant\n(with Plato) that the Nous or intelligent Mind apprehends\nintelligible Entia or Ideas distinct from the world of sense: or\nlet us assume that Kant and Reid in the eighteenth century, and M.\nCousin with other French writers in the nineteenth, have destroyed\nthe Lockian philosophy, which took account (they say) of nothing\nbut the _\u00e0 posteriori_ element of cognition--and have established\nthe existence of other elements of cognition _\u00e0 priori_: intuitive\nbeliefs, first principles, primary or inexplicable Concepts of\nReason.[20] Still we must recollect that all such _\u00e0 priori_\nConcepts, Intuitions, Beliefs, &c., are summed up in the mind: and\nthat thus each man's mind, with its peculiar endowments, natural\nor supernatural, is still the measure or limit of his cognitions,\nacquired and acquirable. The Entia Rationis exist relatively to\nRatio, as the Entia Perceptionis exist relatively to Sense. This\nis a point upon which Plato himself insists, in this very\ndialogue. You do not, by producing this fact of innate mental\nintuitions, eliminate the intuent mind; which must be done in\norder to establish a negative to the Protagorean principle.[21]\nEach intuitive belief whether correct or erroneous--whether held\nunanimously by every one _semper et ubique_, or only held by a\nproportion of mankind--is (or would be, if proved to exist) a fact\nof our nature; capable of being looked at either on the side of\nthe believing Subject, which is its point of community with all\nother parts of our nature--or on the side of the Object believed,\nwhich is its point of difference or peculiarity. The fact with its\ntwo opposite aspects is indivisible. Without Subject, Object\nvanishes: without Object (some object or other, for this side of\nthe fact is essentially variable), Subject vanishes.\n\n[Footnote 20: See M. Jouffroy, Pr\u00e9face \u00e0 sa Traduction des\nOEuvres de Reid, pp. xcvii.-ccxiv.\n\nM. Jouffroy, following in the steps of Kant, declares these _\u00e0\npriori_ beliefs or intuitions to be altogether relative to the\nhuman mind. \"Kant, consid\u00e9rant que les conceptions de la raison\nsont des croyances aveugles auxquelles notre esprit se sent\nfatalement d\u00e9termin\u00e9 par sa nature, en conclut qu'elles sont\nr\u00e9latives \u00e0 cette nature: que si notre nature \u00e9tait autre, elles\npourraient \u00eatre diff\u00e9rentes: que par cons\u00e9quent, elles n'ont\naucune valeur absolue: et qu'ainsi notre v\u00e9rit\u00e9, notre science,\nnotre certitude, sont une v\u00e9rit\u00e9, une science, une certitude,\npurement _subjective_, purement humaine--\u00e0 laquelle nous sommes\nd\u00e9termin\u00e9s \u00e0 nous fier par notre nature, mais qui ne supporte pas\nl'examen et n'a aucune valeur _objective_\" (p. clxvii.) . . .\n\"C'est ce que r\u00e9p\u00e9te Kant quand il soutient que l'on ne peut\n_objectiver le subjectif_: c'est \u00e0 dire, faire que la v\u00e9rit\u00e9\nhumaine cesse d'\u00eatre humaine, puisque la raison qui la trouve est\nhumaine. On peut exprimer de vingt mani\u00e8res diff\u00e9rentes cette\nimpossibilit\u00e9: elle reste toujours la m\u00eame, et demeure toujours\ninsurmontable,\" p. cxc. Compare p. xcvii. of the same Preface.\n\nM. Pascal Galuppi (in his Lettres Philosophiques sur les\nVicissitudes de la Philosophie, translated from the Italian by M.\nPeisse, Paris, 1844) though not agreeing in this variety of _\u00e0\npriori_ philosophy, agrees with Kant in declaring the _\u00e0 priori_\nelement of cognition to be purely subjective, and the objective\nelement to be _\u00e0 posteriori_ (Lett. xiv. pp. 337-338), or the\nfacts of sense and experience. \"L'ordre _\u00e0 priori_, que Kant\nappelle _transcendental_, est purement id\u00e9al, et d\u00e9pourvu de toute\nr\u00e9alit\u00e9. Je vis, qu'en fondant la connaissance sur l'ordre _\u00e0\npriori_, on arrive n\u00e9cessairement au scepticisme: et je reconnus\nque la doctrine \u00c9cossaise est la m\u00e8re l\u00e9gitime du Criticisme\nKantien, et par cons\u00e9quent, du scepticisme, qui est la cons\u00e9quence\nde la philosophie critique. Je consid\u00e9rai comme de haute\nimportance ce probl\u00e8me de Kant. Il convient de d\u00e9terminer ce qu'il\ny a d'objectif, et ce qu'il y a de subjectif, dans la\nconnaissance. Les Empiriques n'admettent dans la connaissance\nd'autres \u00e9l\u00e9mens que les objectifs,\" &c.]\n\n[Footnote 21: See this point handled in Sextus Empiric. adv.\nMathemat. viii. 355-362. We may here cite a remark of Simplikius\nin his Commentary on the Categories of Aristotle (p. 64, a. in\nSchol. Brandis). Aristotle (De Anim\u00e2, iii. 2, 426, a. 19; Categor.\np. 7, b. 23) lays down the doctrine that in most cases Relata or\n([Greek: ta\\ pro/s ti]) are \"simul Natur\u00e2, [Greek: kai\\\nsunanairei= a)/ll\u00eala]\": but that in some Relata this is not true:\nfor example, [Greek: to\\ e)pist\u00eato\\n] is relative to [Greek:\ne)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea], yet still _it would seem prior_ to [Greek: e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea\n(pro/teron a)\\n do/xeie t\u00ea=s e)pist\u00ea/m\u00eas ei)=nai)]. There cannot\nbe [Greek: e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea] without some [Greek: e)pist\u00eato/n]: but\nthere may be [Greek: e)pist\u00eato\\n] without any [Greek: e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea].\nThere are few things, if any (he says), in which the [Greek:\ne)pist\u00eato\\n] (cognoscibile) is _simul natur\u00e2_ with [Greek:\ne)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea] (or cognitio) and cannot be without it.\n\nUpon which Simplikius remarks, What are these few things? [Greek:\nTi/na de\\ ta\\ o)li/ga e)sti/n, e)ph' \u00f4(=n a(/ma t\u00f4=| e)pist\u00eat\u00f4=|\n\u00ea( e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea e)sti/n? Ta\\ a)/neu u(/l\u00eas, ta\\ no\u00eata/, a(/ma t\u00f4=|\nkat' e)nergei/an a)ei\\ e)st\u00f4/s\u00ea| e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea e)/stin, ei)/te kai\\\ne)n \u00ea(mi=n e)sti/ tis toiau/t\u00ea a)ei\\ a)/n\u00f4 me/nousa, . . . ei)/te\nkai\\ e)n t\u00f4=| kat' e)nergei/an v\u00f4=| ei)/ tis kai\\ t\u00ea\\n no/\u00easin\ne)kei/n\u00ean e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ean e(/loito kalei=n. du/natai de\\ kai\\ dia\\\nt\u00ea\\n t\u00f4=n koin\u00f4=n u(po/stasin ei)r\u00ea=sthai, t\u00ea\\n e)x a)phaire/se\u00f4s;\na(/ma ga\\r t\u00ea=| u(posta/sei tou/t\u00f4n kai\\ \u00ea( e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea e)sti/n.\na)l\u00eathe\\s de\\ kai\\ e)pi\\ t\u00f4=n a)naplasma/t\u00f4n t\u00f4=n te e)n t\u00ea=|\nphantasi/a| kai\\ t\u00f4=n technit\u00f4=n; a(/ma ga\\r chi/maira kai\\ \u00ea(\ne)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea chimai/ras.]\n\nWe see from hence that Simplikius recognises Concepts,\nAbstractions, and Fictions, to be dependent on the Conceiving,\nAbstracting, Imagining, Mind--as distinguished from objects of\nSense, which he does not recognise as dependent in the like\nmanner. He agrees in the doctrine of Protagoras as to the former,\nbut not as to the latter. This illustrates what I have affirmed,\nThat the Protagorean doctrine of \"_Homo Mensura_\" is not only\nunconnected with the other principle (that Knowledge is resolvable\ninto sensible perception) to which Aristotle and Plato would trace\nit--but that there is rather a repugnance between the two. The\ndifficulty of proving the doctrine, and the reluctance to admit\nit, is greatest in the case of material objects, least in the case\nof Abstractions, and General Ideas. Yet Aristotle, in reasoning\nagainst the Protagorean doctrine (Metaphysic. [Greek: G]. pp.\n1009-1010, &c.) treats it like Plato, as a sort of corollary from\nthe theory that Cognition is Sensible Perception.\n\nSimplikius farther observes (p. 65, b. 14) that Aristotle is not\naccurate in making [Greek: e)pist\u00eato\\n] correlate with [Greek:\ne)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea]: that in Relata, the potential correlates with the\npotential, and the actual with the actual. The Cognoscible is\ncorrelative, not with actual cognition ([Greek: e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea]) but\nwith potential Cognition, or with a potential Cognoscens.\nAristotle therefore is right in saying that there may be [Greek:\ne)pist\u00eato\\n] without [Greek: e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea], but this does not prove\nwhat he wishes to establish.\n\nThemistius, in another passage of the Aristotelian Scholia,\nreasoning against Boethus, observes to the same effect as\nSimplikius, that in relatives, the actual correlates with the\nactual, and the potential with the potential:--\n\n[Greek: Kai/toi, ph\u00easi/ ge o( Bo\u00eatho/s, ou)de\\n k\u00f4lu/ei to\\n\na)rithmo\\n ei)=nai kai\\ di/cha tou= a)rithmou=ntos, \u00f4(/sper\noi)=mai to\\ ai)sth\u00eato\\n kai\\ di/cha tou= ai)sthanome/nou;\nspha/lletai de/, a(/ma ga\\r ta\\ pro\\s ti/, kai\\ ta\\ duna/mei pro\\s\nta\\ duna/mei; \u00f4(/ste ei) m\u00ea\\ kai\\ a)rithm\u00eatiko/n, ou)de\\ to\\\na)rithm\u00eato/n] (Schol. ad Aristot. Physic. iv. p. 223, a. p. 393,\nSchol. Brandis).\n\nCompare Aristotel. Metaphysic. M. 1087, a. 15, about [Greek: to\\\ne)pi/stasthai duna/mei] and [Greek: to\\ e)pi/stasthai\ne)nergei/a|].\n\nAbout the essential co-existence of relatives--Sublato uno,\ntollitur alterum--see also Sextus Empiric. adv. Mathematicos, vii.\n395, p. 449, Fabric.]\n\n[Side-note: Evidence from Plato proving implication of Subject and\nObject, in regard to the intelligible world.]\n\nThat this general doctrine is true, not merely respecting the\nfacts of sense, but also respecting the facts of mental\nconception, opinion, intellection, cognition--may be seen by the\nreasoning of Plato himself in other dialogues. How, for example,\ndoes Plato prove, in his Tim\u00e6us, the objective reality of Ideas or\nForms? He infers them from the subjective facts of his own mind.\nThe subjective fact called Cognition (he argues) is generically\ndifferent from the subjective fact called True Opinion: therefore\nthe Object correlating with the One must be distinct from the\nObject correlating with the other: there must be a Noumenon or\n[Greek: no\u00eato/n ti] correlating with Nous, distinct from the\n[Greek: doxasto/n ti] which correlates with [Greek: do/xa].[22] So\nagain, in the Ph\u00e6don,[23] Sokrates proves the pre-existence of the\nhuman soul from the fact that there were pre-existent cognizable\nIdeas: if there were knowable Objects, there must also have been a\nSubject Cognoscens or Cognitionis capax. The two are different\naspects of one and the same conception: upon which we may\ndoubtless reason abstractedly under one aspect or under the other,\nthough they cannot be separated in fact. Now Both these two\ninferences of Plato rest on the assumed implication of Subject and\nObject.[24]\n\n[Footnote 22: Plato, Tim\u00e6us, p. 51 B-E, compare Republic, v. p.\n477.\n\nSee this reasoning of Plato set forth in Zeller, Die Phil. der\nGriech. vol. ii. pp. 412-416, ed. 2nd.\n\n_Nous_, according to Plato (Tim. 51 E), belongs only to the Gods\nand to a select few among mankind. It is therefore only _to_ the\nGods and _to_ these few men that [Greek: No\u00eata\\] exist. To the\nrest of mankind [Greek: No\u00eata\\] are non-apparent and\nnon-existent.]\n\n[Footnote 23: Plato, Ph\u00e6don, pp. 76-77. [Greek: i)/s\u00ea a)na/gk\u00ea\ntau=ta/ te] (Ideas or Forms) [Greek: ei)=nai, kai\\ ta\\s \u00ea(mete/ras\npsucha\\s pri\\n kai\\ \u00ea(ma=s gegone/nai--kai\\ ei) m\u00ea\\ tau=ta, ou)de\\\nta/de. U(perphu\u00f4=s, e)/ph\u00ea o( Simmi/as, dokei= moi \u00ea( au)t\u00ea\\\na)na/gk\u00ea ei)=nai, kai\\ ei)s kalo/n ge katapheu/gei o( lo/gos ei)s\nto\\ o(moi/\u00f4s ei)=nai t\u00ea/n te psuch\u00ea\\n \u00ea(m\u00f4=n pri\\n gene/sthai\n\u00ea(ma=s kai\\ t\u00ea\\n ou)si/an \u00ea(\\n su\\ nu=n le/geis.]\n\nCompare p. 92 E of the same dialogue with the notes of Wyttenbach\nand Heindorf--\"Haec autem [Greek: ou)si/a] Idearum, rerum\nintelligibilium, [Greek: au)t\u00ea=s e)sti\\n] (_sc._ [Greek: t\u00ea=s\npsuch\u00ea=s]) ut hoc loco dicitur, est propria et possessio anim\u00e6\nnostr\u00e6,\" &c.\n\nAbout the essential implication of [Greek: Nou=s] with the [Greek:\nNo\u00eata/], as well as of [Greek: to\\ do/xazon] with [Greek: ta\\\ndoxazo/mena], and of [Greek: to\\ ai)sthano/menon] with [Greek: ta\\\nai)sth\u00eata/], see Plutarch, De Anim\u00e6 Procreat. in Tim\u00e6o, pp.\n1012-1024; and a curious passage from Joannes Philoponus ad Aristot.\nPhysica, cited by Karsten in his Commentatio De Empedoclis\nPhilosophi\u00e2, p. 372, and Olympiodorus ad Platon. Ph\u00e6don, p. 21.\n[Greek: to\\n nou=n phame\\n a)krib\u00f4=s gin\u00f4/skein, dio/ti au)to/s\ne)sti to\\ no\u00eato/n.]\n\nSydenham observes, in a note upon his translation of the Phil\u00eabus\n(note 76, p. 118), \"Being Intelligent and Being Intelligible are\nnot only correlatives, but are so in their very essence: neither\nof them can be at all, without the Being of the other\".]\n\n[Footnote 24: I think that the inference in the Ph\u00e6don is not\nnecessary to prove that conclusion, nor in itself just. For when I\nspeak of Augustus and Antony as having once lived, and as having\nfought the battle of Actium, it is noway necessary that I should\nbelieve myself to have been then alive and to have seen them: nor\nwhen I speak of civil war as being now carried on in the United\nStates of America, is it necessary that I should believe myself to\nbe or to have been on the spot as a percipient witness. I believe,\non evidence which appears to me satisfactory, that both these are\nreal facts: that is, if I had been at Actium on the day of the\nbattle, or if I were now in the United States, I should see and\nwitness the facts here affirmed. These latter words describe the\nsubjective side of the fact, without introducing any supposition\nthat I have been myself present and percipient.]\n\n[Side-note: The Protagorean measure is even more easily shown in\nreference to the intelligible world than in reference to sense.]\n\nIn truth, the Protagorean measure or limit is even more plainly\napplicable to our mental intuitions and mental processes\n(remembering, imagining, conceiving, comparing, abstracting,\ncombining of hypotheses, transcendental or inductive) than to the\nmatter of our sensible experience.[25] In regard to the Entia\nRationis, divergence between one theorist and another is quite as\nremarkable as the divergence between one percipient and another in\nthe most disputable region of Entia Perceptionis. Upon the\nseparate facts of sense, there is a nearer approach to unanimity\namong mankind, than upon the theories whereby theorising men\nconnect together those facts to their own satisfaction. An\nopponent of Protagoras would draw his most plausible arguments\nfrom the undisputed facts of sense. He would appeal to matter and\nwhat are called its primary qualities, as refuting the doctrine.\nFor in describing mental intuitions, Mind or Subject cannot well\nbe overlaid or ignored: but in regard to the external world, or\nmaterial substance with its primary qualities, the objective side\nis so lighted up and magnified in the ordinary conception and\nlanguage--and the subjective side so darkened and put out of\nsight--that Object appears as if it stood single, apart, and\nindependent.\n\n[Footnote 25: Bacon remarks that the processes called mental or\nintellectual are quite as much relative to man as those called\nsensational or perceptive. \"Idola Trib\u00fbs sunt fundata in ips\u00e2\nnatur\u00e2 human\u00e2. Falso enim asseritur, Sensum humanum esse mensuram\nrerum: quin contra, omnes perceptiones, tam Sens\u00fbs quam Mentis,\nsunt ex analogi\u00e2 hominis, non ex analogi\u00e2 Universi.\"\n\nNemesius, the Christian Platonist, has a remark bearing upon this\nquestion. He says that the lower animals have their intellectual\nmovements all determined by Nature, which acts alike in all the\nindividuals of the species, but that the human intellect is not\nwholly determined by Nature; it has a freer range, larger stores\nof ideas, and more varied combinations: hence its manifestations\nare not the same in all, but different in different\nindividuals--[Greek: e)leu/theron ga/r ti kai\\ au)texou/sion to\\\nlogiko/n, o(/then ou)ch e(\\n kai\\ tau)to\\n pa=sin e)/rgon a)nthr\u00f4/pois,\n\u00f4(s e(ka/st\u00f4| ei)/dei t\u00f4=n a)lo/g\u00f4n z\u00f4/\u00f4n; phu/sei ga\\r mo/n\u00ea| ta\\\ntoiau=ta kinei=tai, ta\\ de\\ phu/sei o(moi/\u00f4s para\\ pa=si/n e)stin;\nai( de\\ logikai\\ pra/xeis a)/llai par' a)/llois kai\\ ou)k e)x\na)na/gk\u00eas ai( au(=tai para\\ pa=sin] (De Nat. Hom., c. ii. p. 53.\ned. 1565).]\n\nA man conceives objects, like houses and trees, as existing when\nhe does not actually see or touch them, just as much as when he\ndoes see or touch them. He conceives them as existing independent\nof any actual sensations of his own: and he proceeds to describe\nthem as independent altogether of himself as a Subject--or as\nabsolute, not relative, existences. But this distinction, though\njust as applied in ordinary usage, becomes inadmissable when\nbrought to contradict the Protagorean doctrine; because the\nspeaker professes to exclude, what cannot be excluded, himself as\nconcipient Subject.[26] It is he who conceives absent objects as\nreal and existing, though he neither sees nor touches them: he\nbelieves fully, that if he were in a certain position near them,\nhe would experience those appropriate sensations of sight and\ntouch, whereby they are identified. Though he eliminates himself\nas a _percipient_, he cannot eliminate himself as a _concipient_:\n_i.e._, as conceiving and believing. He can conceive no object\nwithout being himself the Subject conceiving, nor believe in any\nfuture contingency without being himself the Subject believing. He\nmay part company with himself as percipient, but he cannot part\ncompany with himself altogether. His conception of an absent\nexternal object, therefore, when fully and accurately described,\ndoes not contradict the Protagorean doctrine. But it is far the\nmost plausible objection which can be brought against that\ndoctrine, and it is an objection deduced from the facts or\ncognitions of sense.\n\n[Footnote 26: Bishop Berkeley observes:--\n\n\"But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than to imagine\ntrees, for instance, in a park, or books existing in a closet, and\nnobody by to perceive them. I answer, you may so--there is no\ndifficulty in it. But what is all this, more than framing in your\nmind certain ideas which you call _books_ and _trees_, and at the\nsame time omitting to frame the idea of any one that may perceive\nthem? _But do not you yourself perceive or think of them all the\nwhile?_ This therefore is nothing to the purpose. It only shows\nyou have the power of imagining or forming ideas in your mind: but\nit doth not show that you can conceive it possible the objects of\nyour thought may exist without the mind. _To make out this, it is\nnecessary that you conceive them existing unconceived or unthought\nof, which is a manifest repugnancy._ When we do our utmost to\nconceive the existence of external bodies, we are all the while\nonly contemplating our own ideas. _But the mind, taking no notice\nof itself, is deluded to think it can and doth conceive bodies\nexisting unthought of or without the mind, though at the same\ntime they are apprehended by or exist in itself._\"\n\nBerkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge, sect. xxiii. p. 34, ed.\nof Berkeley's Works, 1820. The same argument is enforced in\nBerkeley's First Dialogue between Hylas and Philonous, pp. 145-146\nof the same volume.\n\nI subjoin a passage from the work of Professor Bain on Psychology,\nwhere this difficult subject is carefully analysed (The Senses and\nthe Intellect, p. 370). \"There is no possible knowledge of the\nworld except in reference to our minds. Knowledge means a state of\nmind: the knowledge of material things is a mental thing. We are\nincapable of discussing the existence of an independent material\nworld: the very act is a contradiction. We can speak only of a\nworld presented to our own minds. By an illusion of language we\nfancy that we are capable of contemplating a world which does not\nenter into our own mental existence: but the attempt belies\nitself, for this contemplation is an effort of mind.\"\n\n\"Solidity, extension, space--the foundation properties of the\nmaterial world--mean, as has been said above, certain movements\nand energies of our own bodies, and exist in our minds in the\nshape of feelings of force, allied with visible and tactile, and\nother sensible impressions. The sense of the external is the\nconsciousness of particular energies and activities of our own.\"\n\n(P. 376). \"We seem to have no better way of assuring ourselves and\nall mankind, that with the conscious movement of opening the eyes\nthere will always be a consciousness of light, than by saying that\nthe light exists as an independent fact, without any eyes to see\nit. But if we consider the fact fairly we shall see that this\nassertion errs, not simply in being beyond any evidence that we\ncan have, but also in being a self-contradiction. We are affirming\n_that_ to have an existence out of our minds, which we cannot know\nbut as in our minds. In words we assert independent existence,\nwhile in the very act of doing so we contradict ourselves. Even a\npossible world implies a possible mind to conceive it, just as\nmuch as an actual world implies an actual mind. The mistake of the\ncommon modes of expression on this matter is the mistake of\nsupposing the abstractions of the mind to have a separate and\nindependent existence. Instead of looking upon the doctrine of an\nexternal and independent world as a generalisation or abstraction\ngrounded on our particular experiences, summing up the past and\npredicting the future, we have got into the way of maintaining the\nabstraction to be an independent reality, the foundation, or\ncause, or origin, of all these experiences.\"\n\nTo the same purpose Mr. Mansel remarks in his Bampton Lectures on\n\"The Limits of Religious Thought,\" page 52:\n\n\"A second characteristic of Consciousness is, that it is only\npossible in the form of a _relation_. There must be a Subject or\nperson conscious, and an Object or thing of which he is conscious.\nThere can be no consciousness without the union of these two\nfactors; and in that union each exists only as it is related to\nthe other. The subject is a subject only in so far as it is\nconscious of an object: the object is an object only in so far as\nit is apprehended by a subject: and the destruction of either is\nthe destruction of consciousness itself. It is thus manifest that\na consciousness of the Absolute is equally self-contradictory with\nthat of the Infinite. . . Our whole notion of Existence is\nnecessarily relative, for it is existence as conceived by us. But\n_Existence_, as we conceive it, is but a name for the several ways\nin which objects are presented to our consciousness--a general\nterm embracing a variety of relations. . . To assume Absolute\nExistence as an object of thought is thus to suppose a relation\nexisting when the related terms exist no longer. An object of\nthought exists, as such, in and through its relation to a thinker;\nwhile the Absolute, as such, is independent of all relation.\"\n\nDr. Henry More has also a passage asserting the essential\ncorrelation on which I am here insisting (Immortality of the Soul,\nch. ii. p. 3). And Professor Ferrier, in his Institutes of\nMetaphysic, has given much valuable elucidation respecting the\nessential relativity of cognition.\n\nThough this note is already long, I shall venture to add from an\neminent German critic--Trendelenburg--a passage which goes to the\nsame point.\n\n\"Das Sein ist als die absolute Position erkl\u00e4rt worden. Der\nBegriff des Seins dr\u00fccke blos das aus: es werde bei dem einfachen\nSetzen eines _Was_ sein Bewenden haben. Es hat sich hier die\nabstracte Vorstellung des Seins nur in eine verwandte Anschauung\numgekleidet; denn das Gesetzte steht in dem Raum da; und insofern\nfordert die absolute Position schon den Begriff des seiendem\nEtwas, das gesetzt wird. _Fragt man weiter, so ist in der\nabsoluten Position schon derjenige mitgedacht, der da setzt._ Das\nSein wird also _nicht unabh\u00e4ngig aus sich selbst bestimmt_,\nsondern zur Erkl\u00e4rung _ein Verh\u00e4ltniss zu der Th\u00e4tigkeit des\nGedankens herbeigezogen_.\n\n\"Aehnlich w\u00fcrde jede von vorn herein versuchte Bestimmung des\nDenkens ausfallen. Man w\u00fcrde es nur durch einen Bezug zu den\nDingen erl\u00e4utern k\u00f6nnen, welche in dem Denken Grund und Mass\nfinden. Wir begeben uns daher jeder Erkl\u00e4rung, und setzen eine\nVorstellung des Denkens und Seins voraus, in der Hoffnung dass\nbeide mit jedem Schritt der Untersuchung sich in sich selbst\nbestimmen werden.\" \"Indem wir Denken und Sein unterscheiden,\nfragen wir, wie ist es m\u00f6glich, dass sich im Erkennen Denken und\nSein vereinigt? _Diese Vereinigung sprechen wir vorl\u00e4ufig als eine\nThatsache aus, die das Theoretische wie das Praktische\nbeherrscht._\" Trendelenburg, Logische Untersuchungen, sect. 3, pp.\n103-104, Berlin, 1840.]\n\n[Side-note: Object always relative to Subject--Either without the\nother, impossible. Plato admits this in Sophistes.]\n\nI cannot therefore agree with Plato in regarding the Protagorean\ndoctrine--Homo Mensura--as having any dependance upon, or any\nnecessary connection with, the other theory (canvassed in the\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus) which pronounces cognition to be sensible perception.\nObjects of thought exist in relation to a thinking Subject; as\nObjects of sight or touch exist in relation to a seeing or\ntouching Subject. And this we shall find Plato himself declaring\nin the Sophistes (where his Eleatic disputant is introduced as\nimpugning a doctrine substantially the same as that of Plato\nhimself in the Ph\u00e6don, Tim\u00e6us, and elsewhere) as well as here in\nthe The\u00e6t\u00eatus. In the Sophistes, certain philosophers (called the\nFriends of Forms or Ideas) are noticed, who admitted that all\nsensible or perceivable existence ([Greek: ge/nesis]--Fientia) was\nrelative to a (capable) sentient or percipient--but denied the\nrelativity of Ideas, and maintained that Ideas, Concepts,\nIntelligible Entia, were not relative but absolute. The Eleate\ncombats these philosophers, and establishes against them--That the\nCogitable or Intelligible existence, Ens Rationis, was just as\nmuch relative to an Intelligent or Cogitant subject, as\nperceivable existence was relative to a Subject capable of\nperceiving--That Existence, under both varieties, was nothing more\nthan a potentiality, correlating with a counter-potentiality\n([Greek: to\\ gn\u00f4sto\\n] with [Greek: to\\ gn\u00f4stiko/n], [Greek: to\\\nai)sth\u00eato\\n] with [Greek: to\\ ai)sth\u00eatiko/n], and never realised\nexcept in implication therewith.[27]\n\n[Footnote 27: Plato, Sophistes, pp. 247-248.\n\nThe view taken of this matter by Mr. John Stuart Mill, in the\nthird chapter of the first Book of his System of Logic, is very\ninstructive; see especially pp. 65-66 (ed. 4th).\n\nAristippus (one of the Sokratici viri, contemporary of Plato) and\nthe Kyrenaic sect affirmed the doctrine--[Greek: o(/ti mo/na ta\\\npa/th\u00ea katal\u00eapta/]. Aristokles refutes them by saying that there\ncan be no [Greek: pa/thos] without both Object and\nSubject--[Greek: poiou=n] and [Greek: pa/schon]. And he goes on\nto declare that these three are of necessary co-existence or\nconsubstantiality. [Greek: A)lla\\ m\u00ea\\n a)na/gk\u00ea ge tri/a tau=ta\nsunuphi/stasthai--to/ te pa/thos au)to/, kai\\ to\\ poiou=n, kai\\\nto\\ pa/schon] (ap. Eusebium, Pr\u00e6p. Ev. xiv. 19, 1).\n\nI apprehend that Aristokles by these words does not really refute\nwhat Aristippus meant to affirm. Aristippus meant to affirm the\nRelative, and to decline affirming anything beyond; and in this\nAristokles agrees, making the doctrine even more comprehensive by\nshowing that Object as well as Subject are relative also;\nimplicated both with each other and in the [Greek: pa/thos].]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's representation of the Protagorean doctrine in\nintimate conjunction with the Herakleitean.]\n\nThis doctrine of the Eleate in the Platonic Sophistes coincides\nwith the Protagorean--_Homo Mensura_--construed in its true\nmeaning: Object is implicated with, limited or measured by,\nSubject: a doctrine proclaiming the relativeness of all objects\nperceived, conceived, known, or felt--and the omnipresent\ninvolution of the perceiving, conceiving, knowing, or feeling,\nSubject: the object varying with the Subject. \"As things appear to\nme, so they are to me: as they appear to you, so they are to you.\"\nThis theory is just and important, if rightly understood and\nexplained: but whether Protagoras did so explain or understand it,\nwe cannot say; nor does the language of Plato enable us to make\nout. Plato passes on from this theory to another, which he\nsupposes Protagoras to have held without distinctly stating it:\nThat there is no Ens distinguishable in itself or permanent, or\nstationary: that all existences are in perpetual flux, motion,\nchange--acting and reacting upon each other, combining with or\ndisjoining from each other.[28]\n\n[Footnote 28: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 152 D.\n\nThough Plato states the grounds of this theory in his ironical\nway, as if it were an absurd fancy, yet it accidentally coincides\nwith the largest views of modern physical science. Absolute rest\nis unknown in nature: all matter is in perpetual movement,\nmolecular as well as in masses.]\n\n[Side-note: Relativity of sensible facts, as described by him.]\n\nTurning to the special theory of Protagoras (Homo Mensura), and\nproducing arguments, serious or ironical in its defence, Sokrates\nsays--What you call colour has no definite place or existence\neither within you or without you. It is the result of the passing\ncollision between your eyes and the flux of things suited to act\nupon them. It is neither in the agent nor in the patient, but is\nsomething special and momentary generated in passing between the\ntwo. It will vary with the subject: it is not the same to you, to\nanother man, to a dog or horse, or even to yourself at different\ntimes. The object measured or touched cannot be in itself either\ngreat, or white, or hot: for if it were, it would not appear\ndifferent to another Subject. Nor can the Subject touching or\nmeasuring be in itself great, or white, or hot: for if so, it\nwould always be so, and would not be differently modified when\napplied to a different object. _Great_, _white_, _hot_, denote no\npositive and permanent attribute either in Object or Subject, but\na passing result or impression generated between the two, relative\nto both and variable with either.[29]\n\n[Footnote 29: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. pp. 153-154. [Greek: o(\\ d\u00ea\\\ne(/kaston ei)=nai/ phamen chr\u00f4=ma, ou)/te to\\ prosba/llon ou)/te\nto\\ prosballo/menon e)/stai, a)lla\\ metaxu/ ti e(kast\u00f4| i)/dion\ngegono/s.]]\n\n[Side-note: Relations are nothing in the object purely and simply\nwithout a comparing subject.]\n\nTo illustrate this farther (continues Sokrates)--suppose we have\nhere six dice. If I compare them with three other dice placed by\nthe side of them, I shall call the six dice _more_ and _double_:\nif I put twelve other dice by the side of them, I shall call the\nsix _fewer_ and _half_. Or take an old man--and put a growing\nyouth by his side. Two years ago the old man was taller than the\nyouth: now, the youth is grown, so that the old man is the shorter\nof the two. But the old man, and the six dice, have remained all\nthe time unaltered, and equal to themselves. How then can either\nof them become either greater or less? or how can either _really\nbe_ so, when they were not so before?[30]\n\n[Footnote 30: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. pp. 154-155. Compare the reasoning\nin the Ph\u00e6don, pp. 96-97-101.]\n\n[Side-note: Relativity twofold--to the comparing Subject--to\nanother object, besides the one directly described.]\n\nThe illustration here furnished by Sokrates brings out forcibly\nthe negation of the absolute, and the affirmation of universal\nrelativity in all conceptions, judgments, and predications, which\nhe ascribes to Protagoras and Herakleitus. The predication\nrespecting the six dice denotes nothing real, independent,\nabsolute, inhering in them: for they have undergone no change. It\nis relative, and expresses a mental comparison made by me or some\none else. It is therefore relative in two different senses:--1. To\nsome other object with which the comparison of the dice is\nmade:--2. To me as comparing Subject, who determine the objects with\nwhich the comparison shall be made.[31]--Though relativity in both\nsenses is comprehended by the Protagorean affirmation--Homo\nMensura--yet relativity in the latter sense is all which that\naffirmation essentially requires. And this is true of all\npropositions, comparative or not--whether there be or be not\nreference to any other object beyond that which is directly\ndenoted. But Plato was here illustrating the larger doctrine which\nhe ascribes to Protagoras in common with Herakleitus: and\ntherefore the more complicated case of relativity might suit his\npurpose better.\n\n[Footnote 31: The Aristotelian Category of Relation ([Greek: ta\\\npro\\s ti/], Categor. p. 6, a. 36) designates one object\napprehended and named relatively to some other object--as\ndistinguished from object apprehended and named not thus\nrelatively, which Aristotle considers as _per se_ [Greek: kath'\nau(to/] (Ethica Nikomach. i. p. 1096, a. 21). Aristotle omits or\nexcludes relativity of the object apprehended to the percipient or\nconcipient subject, which is the sort of relativity directly noted\nby the Protagorean doctrine.\n\nOccasionally Aristotle passes from relativity in the former sense\nto relativity in the latter; as when he discusses [Greek:\ne)pist\u00eato\\n] and [Greek: e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea], alluded to in one of my\nformer notes on this dialogue. But he seems unconscious of any\ntransition. In the Categories, Object, as implicated with Subject\ndoes not seem to have been distinctly present to his reflection.\nIn the third book of the Metaphysica, indeed, he discusses\nprofessedly the opinion of Protagoras; and among his objections\nagainst it, one is, that it makes everything relative or [Greek:\npro\\s ti/] (Metaph. [Greek: G]. p. 1011, a. 20, b. 5). This is\nhardly true in the sense which [Greek: pro\\s ti/] bears as one of\nhis Categories: but it is true in the other sense to which I have\nadverted.\n\nA clear and full exposition of what is meant by the Relativity of\nHuman Knowledge, will be found in Mr. John Stuart Mill's most\nrecent work, 'Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy,'\nch. ii. pp. 6-15.]\n\nSokrates now re-states that larger doctrine, in general terms, as\nfollows.\n\n[Side-note: Statement of the doctrine of Herakleitus--yet so as to\nimplicate it with that of Protagoras.]\n\nThe universe is all flux or motion, divided into two immense\nconcurrent streams of force, one active, the other passive;\nadapted one to the other, but each including many varieties. One\nof these is Object: the other is, sentient, cognizant, concipient,\nSubject. Object as well as Subject is, in itself and separately,\nindeterminate and unintelligible--a mere chaotic Agent or Patient.\nIt is only by copulation and friction with each other that they\ngenerate any definite or intelligible result. Every such\ncopulation, between parts adapted to each other, generates a twin\noffspring: two correlative and inseparable results infinitely\ndiversified, but always born in appropriate pairs:[32] a definite\nperception or feeling, on the subjective side--a definite thing\nperceived or felt, on the objective. There cannot be one of these\nwithout the other: there can be no objective manifestation without\nits subjective correlate, nor any subjective without its\nobjective. This is true not merely about the external\nsenses--touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing--but also about the\ninternal,--hot and cold, pleasure and pain, desire, fear, and\nall the countless variety of our feelings which have no separate\nnames.[33] Each of these varieties of feeling has its own object\nco-existent and correlating with it. Sight, hearing, and smell,\nmove and generate rapidly and from afar; touch and taste, slowly\nand only from immediate vicinity: but the principle is the same in\nall. Thus, _e.g._, when the visual power of the eye comes into\nreciprocal action with its appropriate objective agent, the result\nbetween them is, that the visual power passes out of its abstract\nand indeterminate state into a concrete and particular act of\nvision--the seeing a white stone or wood: while the objective\nforce also passes out of its abstract and indeterminate state into\nconcrete--so that it is no longer whiteness, but a piece of white\nstone or wood actually seen.[34]\n\n[Footnote 32: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 156 A. [Greek: \u00f4(s to\\ pa=n\nki/n\u00easis \u00ea)=n, kai\\ a)/llo para\\ tou=to ou)de/n, t\u00ea=s de\\\nkin\u00ea/se\u00f4s du/o ei)/d\u00ea, pl\u00ea/thei me\\n a)/peiron e(ka/teron,\ndu/namin de\\ to\\ me\\n poiei=n e)/chon, to\\ de\\ pa/schein. E)k de\\\nt\u00ea=s tou/t\u00f4n o(mili/as te kai\\ tri/pse\u00f4s pro\\s a)/ll\u00eala gi/gnetai\ne)/kgona] pl\u00ea/thei me\\n a)/peira, di/duma de/--to\\ me\\n\nai)sth\u00eato/n, to\\ de\\ ai)/sth\u00easis], a)ei\\ sunekpi/ptousa kai\\\ngenn\u00f4me/n\u00ea meta\\ tou= ai)sth\u00eatou=.]]\n\n[Footnote 33: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 156 B.]\n\n[Footnote 34: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 156 E. [Greek: o( me\\n\no)phthalmo\\s a)/ra o)/pse\u00f4s e)/mple\u00f4s e)ge/neto kai\\ o(ra=| d\u00ea\\\nto/te kai\\ _e)ge/neto ou)/ ti o)/psis a)lla\\ o)phthalmo\\s o(r\u00f4=n_,\nto\\ de\\ xuggenn\u00ea=san to\\ chr\u00f4=ma leuko/t\u00eatos periepl\u00ea/sth\u00ea kai\\\n_e)ge/neto ou) leuko/t\u00eas au)=_ a)lla\\ leuko/n, ei)/te xu/lon\nei)/te li/thos ei)/te o(tiou=n xune/b\u00ea chr\u00ea=ma chr\u00f4sth\u00ea=nai t\u00f4=|\ntoiou/t\u00f4| chr\u00f4/mati.]\n\nPlato's conception of the act of vision was--That fire darted\nforth from the eyes of the percipient and came into confluence or\ncoalescence with fire approaching from the perceived object\n(Plato, Tim\u00e6us, pp. 45 C, 67 C).]\n\n[Side-note: Agent and Patient--No absolute Ens.]\n\nAccordingly, nothing can be affirmed to exist separately and by\nitself. All existences, come only as twin and correlative\nmanifestations of this double agency. In fact neither of these\nagencies can be conceived independently and apart from the other:\neach of them is a nullity without the other.[35] If either of them\nbe varied, the result also will vary proportionally: each may be\nin its turn agent or patient, according to the different partners\nwith which it comes into confluence.[36] It is therefore improper\nto say--Such or such a thing _exists_. Existence absolute,\nperpetual, and unchangeable is nowhere to be found: and all\nphrases which imply it are incorrect, though we are driven to use\nthem by habit and for want of knowing better. All that is real is,\nthe perpetual series of changeful and transient conjunctions; each\nObject, with a certain Subject,--each Subject, with a certain\nObject.[37] This is true not merely of individual objects, but\nalso of those complex aggregates rationally apprehended which\nreceive generic names, _man_, animal, stone, &c.[38] You must not\ntherefore say that any thing _is_, absolutely and perpetually,\ngood, honourable, hot, white, hard, great--but only that it is so\nfelt or esteemed by certain subjects more or less numerous.[39]\n\n[Footnote 35: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 157 A. [Greek: e)pei\\ kai\\ to\\\npoiou=n ei)=nai ti kai\\ to\\ pa/schon au)= ti e)pi\\ e(no\\s no\u00ea=sai,\n\u00f4(/s phasin, ou)k ei)=nai pagi/\u00f4s. Ou)/te ga\\r poiou=n e)sti/ ti,\npri\\n a)\\n t\u00f4=| pa/schonti xune/lth\u00ea|--ou)/te pa/schon, pri\\n a)\\n\nt\u00f4=| poiou=nti], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 36: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 157 A. [Greek: to/ te/ tini\nxuneltho\\n kai\\ poiou=n a)/ll\u00f4| au)= prospeso\\n pa/schon\na)nepha/n\u00ea.]]\n\n[Footnote 37: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 157 A. [Greek: ou)de\\n ei)=nai\ne(\\n au)to\\ kath' au(to/, a)lla/ tini a)ei\\ gi/gnesthai, to\\ d'\nei)=nai panta/chothen e)xairete/on], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 38: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 157 B. [Greek: dei= de\\ kai\\\nkata\\ me/ros ou(/t\u00f4 le/gein kai\\ peri\\ poll\u00f4=n a)throisthe/nt\u00f4n,\n\u00f4(=| d\u00ea\\ a)throi/smati a)/nthr\u00f4po/n te ti/thentai kai\\ li/thon\nkai\\ e(/kaston z\u00f4=o/n te kai\\ ei)=dos.]\n\nIn this passage I follow Heindorf's explanation which seems\ndictated by the last word [Greek: ei)=dos]. Yet I am not sure that\nPlato does really mean here the _generic_ aggregates. He had\nbefore talked about sights, sounds, hot, cold, hard, &c., the\nseparate sensations. He may perhaps here mean simply individual\nthings as aggregates or [Greek: a)throi/smata]--a _man_, a\n_stone_, &c.]\n\n[Footnote 39: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 157 E.]\n\n[Side-note: Arguments derived from dreams, fevers, &c., may be\nanswered.]\n\nThe arguments advanced against this doctrine from the phenomena of\ndreams, distempers, or insanity, admit (continues Sokrates) of a\nsatisfactory answer. A man who is dreaming, sick, or mad, believes\nin realities different from, and inconsistent with, those which he\nwould believe in when healthy. But this is because he is, under\nthose peculiar circumstances, a different Subject, unlike what he\nwas before. One of the two factors of the result being thus\nchanged, the result itself is changed.[40] The cardinal principle\nof Protagoras--the essential correlation, and indefeasible fusion,\nof Subject and Object, exhibits itself in a perpetual series of\ndefinite manifestations. To say that I (the Subject) perceive,--is\nto say that I perceive some Object: to perceive and perceive\nnothing, is a contradiction. Again, if an Object be sweet, it must\nbe sweet to some percipient Subject: sweet, but sweet to no one,\nis impossible.[41] Necessity binds the essence of the percipient\nto that of something perceived: so that every name which you\nbestow upon either of them implies some reference to the other;\nand no name can be truly predicated of either, which implies\nexistence (either perpetual or temporary) apart from the\nother.[42]\n\n[Footnote 40: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 159.]\n\n[Footnote 41: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 160 A.]\n\n[Footnote 42: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 160 B. [Greek: e)/peiper \u00ea(m\u00f4=n\n\u00ea( a)na/gk\u00ea t\u00ea\\n ou)si/an sundei= me/n, sundei= de ou)deni\\ t\u00f4=n\na)/ll\u00f4n, ou)d' au)= \u00ea(mi=n au)toi=s; a)ll\u00ea/lois d\u00ea\\ lei/petai\nsundede/sthai] (_i. e._ [Greek: to\\n ai)sthano/menon] and [Greek:\nto\\ poiou=n ai)stha/nesthai]). [Greek: \u00d4/ste ei)/te _tis ei)=nai\nti/ o)noma/zei, tini\\ ei)=nai, \u00ea)\\ tino/s, \u00ea)\\ pro/s ti, r(\u00eate/on\nau)t\u00f4=|, ei)/te gi/gnesthai; au)to\\ de\\ e)ph' au(tou= ti \u00ea)\\ o)\\n\n\u00ea)\\ gigno/menon ou)/te au)t\u00f4=| lekte/on, ou)/t' a)/llou le/gontos\na)podekte/on_.]\n\nCompare Aristot. Metaphys. [Greek: G]. 6, p. 1011, a. 23.]\n\n[Side-note: Exposition of the Protagorean doctrine, as given here\nby Sokrates is to a great degree just. You cannot explain the\nfacts of consciousness by independent Subject and Object.]\n\nSuch is the exposition which Sokrates is here made to give, of the\nProtagorean doctrine. How far the arguments, urged by him in its\nbehalf, are such as Protagoras himself either really urged, or\nwould have adopted, we cannot say. In so far as the doctrine\nasserts essential fusion and implication between Subject and\nObject, with actual multiplicity of distinct Subjects--denying the\nreality either of absolute and separate Subject, or of absolute\nand separate Object[43]--I think it true and instructive. We are\nreminded that when we affirm any thing about an Object, there is\nalways (either expressed or tacitly implied) a Subject or Subjects\n(one, many, or all), _to whom_ the Object _is_ what it is declared\nto be. This is the fundamental characteristic of consciousness,\nfeeling, and cognition, in all their actual varieties. All of them\nare bi-polar or bi-lateral, admitting of being looked at either on\nthe subjective or on the objective side. Comparisons and\ncontrasts, gradually multiplied, between one consciousness and\nanother, lead us to distinguish the one of these points of view\nfrom the other. In some cases, the objective view is brought into\nlight and prominence, and the subjective thrown into the dark and\nput out of sight: in other cases, the converse operation takes\nplace. Sometimes the Ego or Subject is prominent, sometimes the\nMecum or Object.[44] Sometimes the Objective is as it were\ndivorced from the Subject, and projected outwards, so as to have\nan illusory appearance of existing apart from and independently of\nany Subject. In other cases, the subjective view is so exclusively\nlighted up and conspicuous, that Object disappears, and we talk of\na mind conceiving, as if it had no correlative Concept. It is\npossible, by abstraction, to indicate, to name, and to reason\nabout, the one of these two points of view without including\ndirect notice of the other: this is abstraction or logical\nseparation--a mental process useful and largely applicable, yet\noften liable to be mistaken for real distinctness and duality. In\nthe present case, the two abstractions become separately so\nfamiliar to the mind, that this supposed duality is conceived as\nthe primordial and fundamental fact: the actual, bilateral,\nconsciousness being represented as a temporary derivative state,\ngenerated by the copulation of two factors essentially independent\nof each other. Such a theory, however, while aiming at an\nimpracticable result, amounts only to an inversion of the truth.\nIt aims at explaining our consciousness as a whole; whereas all\nthat we can really accomplish, is to explain, up to a certain\npoint, the conditions of conjunction and sequence between\ndifferent portions of our consciousness. It also puts the\nprimordial in the place of the derivative, and transfers the\nderivative to the privilege of the primordial. It attempts to find\na generation for what is really primordial--the total series of\nour manifold acts of consciousness, each of a bilateral character,\nsubjective on one side and objective on the other: and it assigns\nas the generating factors two concepts obtained by abstraction\nfrom these very acts,--resulting from multiplied comparisons,--and\nultimately exaggerated into an illusion which treats the logical\nseparation as if it were bisection in fact and reality.\n\n[Footnote 43: Aristotle, in a passage of the treatise De Anim\u00e2\n(iii. 1, 2-4-7-8, ed. Trendelenburg, p. 425, b. 25, p. 426, a.\n15-25, Bekk.), impugns an opinion of certain antecedent [Greek:\nphusio/logoi] whom he does not specify; which opinion seems\nidentical with the doctrine of Protagoras. These philosophers\nsaid, that \"there was neither white nor black without vision, nor\nsavour without the sense of taste\". Aristotle says that they were\npartly right, partly wrong. They were right in regard to the\nactual, wrong in regard to the potential. The actual manifestation\nof the perceived is one and the same with that of the percipient,\nthough the two are not the same logically in the view of the\nreflecting mind ([Greek: \u00ea( de\\ tou= ai)sth\u00eatou= e)ne/rgeia kai\\\nt\u00ea=s ai)sth\u00ea/se\u00f4s \u00ea( au)t\u00ea\\ me/n e)sti kai\\ mi/a, to\\ d' ei)=nai\nou) tau)to\\n au)tai=s]). But this is not true when we speak of\nthem potentially--[Greek: dich\u00f4=s ga\\r legome/n\u00eas t\u00ea=s\nai)sth\u00ea/se\u00f4s kai\\ tou= ai)sth\u00eatou=, t\u00f4=n me\\n kata\\ du/namin t\u00f4=n\nde\\ kat' e)ne/rgeian, e)pi/ tou/t\u00f4n me\\n sumbai/nei to\\ lechthe/n,\ne)pi\\ de\\ t\u00f4=n e(te/r\u00f4n ou) sumbai/nei. A)ll' e)kei=noi a(pl\u00f4=s\ne)/legon peri\\ t\u00f4=n legome/n\u00f4n ou)ch a(pl\u00f4=s.]\n\nI think that the distinction, which Aristotle insists upon as a\nconfutation of these philosophers, is not well founded. What he\nstates, in very just language, about _actual perception_ is\nequally true about _potential perception_. As the present fact of\nactual perception implicates essentially a determinate percipient\nsubject with a determinate perceived object, and admits of being\nlooked at either from the one point of view or from the other--so\nthe concept of potential perception implicates in like manner an\nindeterminate perceivable with an indeterminate subject competent\nto perceive. The perceivable or cogitable has no meaning except in\nrelation to some Capax Percipiendi or Capax Cogitandi.]\n\n[Footnote 44: The terms Ego and Mecum, to express the antithesis\nof these two [Greek: lo/g\u00f4| mo/non ch\u00f4rista\\], are used by\nProfessor Ferrier in his very acute treatise, the Institutes of\nMetaphysic, pp. 93-96. The same antithesis is otherwise expressed\nby various modern writers in the terms Ego and non-Ego--le moi et\nle non-moi. I cannot think that this last is the proper way of\nexpressing it. You do not want to negative the Ego, but to declare\nits essential implication with a variable correlate; to point out\nthe bilateral character of the act of consciousness. The two are\nnot merely _Relata secundum dici_ but _Relata secundum esse_, to\nuse a distinction recognised in the scholastic logic.\n\nThe implication of Subject and Object is expressed in a peculiar\nmanner (though still clearly) by Aristotle in the treatise De\nAnim\u00e2, iii. 8, 1, 431, b. 21. [Greek: \u00ea( psuch\u00ea\\ ta\\ o)/nta _p\u00f4/s_\ne)sti pa/nta; \u00ea)\\ ga\\r ai)sth\u00eata\\ ta\\ o)/nta \u00ea)\\ no\u00eata/. e)sti\\ d'\n\u00ea( e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea me\\n ta\\ e)pist\u00eata/ _p\u00f4s_, \u00ea( d' ai)/sth\u00easis ta\\\nai)sth\u00eata/.] The adverb [Greek: p\u00f4s] ([Greek: tro/pon tina/], as\nSimplikius explains it, fol. 78, b. 1) here deserves attention.\n\"The soul is all existing things _in a certain way_ (or looked at\nunder a certain aspect). All things are either Percepta or\nCogitata: now Cognition is in a certain sense the\nCognita--Perception is the Percepta.\" He goes on to say that the\nPercipient Mind is the Form of Percepta, while the matter of Percepta\nis without: but that the Cogitant Mind is identical with Cogitata,\nfor they have no matter (iii. 4, 12, p. 430, a. 3, with the\ncommentary of Simplikius p. 78, b. 17, f. 19, a. 12). This is in\nother words the Protagorean doctrine--That the mind is the measure\nof all existences; and that this is even more true about [Greek:\nno\u00eata\\] than about [Greek: ai)sth\u00eata/]. That doctrine is\ncompletely independent of the theory, that [Greek: e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea] is\n[Greek: ai)/sth\u00easis].\n\nIt is in conformity with this affirmation of Aristotle (partially\napproved even by Cudworth--see Mosheim's Transl. of Intell. Syst.\nVol. II. ch. viii. pp. 27-28)--[Greek: \u00ea( psuch\u00ea\\ ta\\ o)/nta p\u00f4/s\ne)sti pa/nta]--that Mr. John Stuart Mill makes the following\nstriking remark about the number of ultimate Laws of Nature:--\n\n\"It is useful to remark, that the ultimate Laws of Nature cannot\npossibly be less numerous than the distinguishable sensations or\nother feelings of our nature: those, I mean, which are\ndistinguishable from one another in quality, and not merely in\nquantity or degree. For example, since there is a phenomenon _sui\ngeneris_ called colour, which our consciousness testifies to be\nnot a particular degree of some other phenomenon, as heat, or\nodour, or motion, but intrinsically unlike all others, it follows\nthat there are ultimate laws of colour . . The ideal limit\ntherefore of the explanation of natural phenomena would be to show\nthat each distinguishable variety of our sensations or other\nstates of consciousness has only one sort of cause.\" (System of\nLogic, Book iii. ch. 14, s. 2.)]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's attempt to get behind the phenomena. Reference\nto a double potentiality--Subjective and Objective.]\n\nIn Plato's exposition of the Protagorean theory, the true doctrine\nheld by Protagoras,[45] and the illusory explanation (whether\nbelonging to him or to Plato himself), are singularly blended\ntogether. He denies expressly all separate existence either of\nSubject or Object--all possibility of conceiving or describing the\none as a reality distinct from the other. He thus acknowledges\nconsciousness and cognition as essentially bilateral. Nevertheless\nhe also tries to explain the generation of these acts of\nconsciousness, by the hypothesis of a _latens processus_ behind\nthem and anterior to them--two continuous moving forces, agent and\npatient, originally distinct, conspiring as joint factors to a\nsuccession of compound results. But when we examine the language\nin which Plato describes these forces, we see that he conceives\nthem only as Abstractions and Potentialities;[46] though he\nascribes to them a metaphorical copulation and generation. \"Every\nthing is motion (or change): of which there are two sorts, each\ninfinitely manifold: one, having power to act--the other having\npower to suffer.\" Here instead of a number of distinct facts of\nconsciousness, each bilateral--we find ourselves translated by\nabstraction into a general potentiality of consciousness, also\nessentially bilateral and multiple. But we ought to recollect,\nthat the Potential is only a concept abstracted from the\nactual,--and differing from it in this respect, that it includes what\nhas been and what may be, as well as what is. But it is nothing new\nand distinct by itself: it cannot be produced as a substantive\nantecedent to the actual, and as if it afforded explanation\nthereof. The general proposition about motion or change (above\ncited in the words of Plato), as far as it purports to get behind\nthe fact of consciousness and to assign its cause or antecedent--is\nillusory. But if considered as a general expression for that\nfact itself, in the most comprehensive terms--indicating the\ncontinuous thread of separate, ever-changing acts of\nconsciousness, each essentially bilateral, or subjective as well\nas objective--in this point of view the proposition is just and\ndefensible.[47]\n\n[Footnote 45: The elaborate Dissertation of Sir William Hamilton,\non the Philosophy of the Unconditioned (standing first in his\n'Discussions on Philosophy'), is a valuable contribution to\nmetaphysical philosophy. He affirms and shows, \"That the\nUnconditioned is incognisable and inconceivable: its notion being\nonly a negation of the Conditioned, which last can alone be\npositively known and conceived\" (p. 12); refuting the opposite\ndoctrine as proclaimed, with different modifications, both by\nSchelling and Cousin.\n\nIn an Appendix to this Dissertation, contained in the same volume\n(p. 608), Sir W. Hamilton not only re-asserts the doctrine (\"Our\nwhole knowledge of mind and matter is relative,\nconditioned--relatively conditioned. Of things absolutely or in\nthemselves, be they external, be they internal, we know nothing, or\nknow them only as incognisable,\" &c.)--but affirms farther that\nphilosophers of every school, with the exception of a few late absolute\ntheorisers in Germany, have always held and harmoniously re-echoed\nthe same doctrine.\n\nIn proof of such unanimous agreement, he cites passages from\nseventeen different philosophers.\n\nThe first name on his list stands as follows:--\"1. Protagoras--(as\nreported by Plato, Aristotle, Sextus Empiricus, Diogenes Laertius,\n&c.)--Man is (for himself) the measure of all things\".\n\nSir William Hamilton understands the Protagorean doctrine as I\nunderstand it, and as I have endeavoured to represent it in the\npresent chapter. It has been very generally misconceived.\n\nI cannot, however, agree with Sir William Hamilton, in thinking\nthat this theory respecting the Unconditioned and the Absolute,\nhas been the theory generally adopted by philosophers. The\npassages which he cites from other authors are altogether\ninsufficient to prove such an affirmation.]\n\n[Footnote 46: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 156 A. [Greek: t\u00ea=s de\\ kin\u00ea/se\u00f4s\ndu/o ei)/d\u00ea, pl\u00ea/thei me\\n a)/peiron e(ka/teron, du/namin de\\ to\\\nme\\n poiei=n e)/chon, to\\ de\\ pa/schein.]]\n\n[Footnote 47: In that distinction, upon which Aristotle lays so\nmuch stress, between Actus and Potentia, he declares Actus or\nactuality to be the Prius--Potentia or potentiality to be the\nPosterius. See Metaphysica, [Greek: Th]. 8, 1049, b. 5 seqq.; De\nAnim\u00e2, ii. 4, 415, a. 17. The Potential is a derivative from the\nActual--derived by comparison, abstraction, and logical analysis:\na Mental concept, helping us to describe, arrange, and reason\nabout, the multifarious acts of sense or consciousness--but not an\nanterior generating reality.\n\nTurgot observes (OEuvres, vol. iii. pp. 108-110; Article in the\nEncyclop\u00e9die, _Existence_):--\n\n\"Le premier fondement de la notion de l'_existence_ est la\nconscience de notre propre sensation, et le sentiment du _moi_ qui\nr\u00e9sulte de cette conscience. La relation n\u00e9cessaire entre l'\u00eatre\nappercevant, et l'\u00eatre apper\u00e7u consid\u00e9r\u00e9 hors du _moi_, suppose\ndans les deux termes la m\u00eame r\u00e9alit\u00e9. Il y a dans l'un et dans\nl'autre un fondement de cette relation, que l'homme, s'il avoit un\nlangage, pourroit d\u00e9signer par le nom commun d'_existence_ ou de\n_pr\u00e9sence_: car ces deux notions ne seroient point encore\ndistingu\u00e9es l'une de l'autre. . . .\n\n\"Mais il est tr\u00e8s-important d'observer que ni la simple sensation\ndes objets pr\u00e9sens, ni la peinture que fait l'imagination des\nobjets absens, ni le simple rapport de distance ou d'activit\u00e9\nr\u00e9ciproque, commun aux uns et aux autres, ne sont pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment la\nchose que l'esprit voudroit d\u00e9signer par le nom g\u00e9n\u00e9ral\nd'_existence_; c'est le fondement m\u00eame de ces rapports, suppos\u00e9\ncommun au _moi_, \u00e0 l'objet vu et \u00e0 l'objet simplement distant,\nsur lequel tombe v\u00e9ritablement et le nom d'_existence_ et notre\naffirmation, lorsque nous disons qu'une chose _existe_. Ce\nfondement n'est ni ne peut \u00eatre connu imm\u00e9diatement, et ne nous\nest indiqu\u00e9 que par les rapports diff\u00e9rents qui le supposent: nous\nnous en formons cependant une esp\u00e8ce d'id\u00e9e que nous tirons par\nvoie d'abstraction du t\u00e9moignage que la conscience nous rend de\nnous-m\u00eames et de notre sensation actuelle: c'est-\u00e0-dire, que nous\ntransportons en quelque sorte cette conscience du _moi_ sur les\nobjets ext\u00e9rieurs, par une esp\u00e8ce d'assimilation vague, d\u00e9mentie\naussit\u00f4t** par la s\u00e9paration de tout ce qui caract\u00e9rise le _moi_,\nmais qui ne suffit pas moins pour devenir le fondement _d'une\nabstraction ou d'un signe commun, et pour \u00eatre l'objet de nos\njugemens_.\"]\n\nIt is to be remembered, that the doctrine here criticised is\nbrought forward by the Platonic Sokrates as a doctrine not his\nown, but held by others; among whom he ranks Protagoras as one.\n\nHaving thus set forth in his own language, and as an advocate, the\ndoctrine of Protagoras, Sokrates proceeds to impugn it: in his\nusual rambling and desultory way, but with great dramatic charm\nand vivacity. He directs his attacks alternately against the two\ndoctrines: 1. _Homo Mensura_: 2. Cognition is sensible perception.\n\nI shall first notice what he advances against _Homo Mensura_.\n\n[Side-note: Arguments advanced by the Platonic Sokrates against the\nProtagorean doctrine. He says that it puts the wise and foolish on\na par--that it contradicts the common consciousness. Not every\none, but the wise man only, is a measure.]\n\nIt puts every man (he says) on a par as to wisdom and\nintelligence: and not only every man, but every horse, dog, frog,\nand other animal along with him. Each man is a measure for\nhimself: all his judgments and beliefs are true: he is therefore\nas wise as Protagoras and has no need to seek instruction from\nProtagoras.[48] Reflection, study, and dialectic discussion, are\nsuperfluous and useless to him: he is a measure to himself on the\nsubject of geometry, and need not therefore consult a professed\ngeometrician like Theod\u00f4rus.[49]\n\n[Footnote 48: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 161. Compare Plato, Kratylus, p.\n386 C, where the same argument is employed.]\n\n[Footnote 49: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 169 A.]\n\nThe doctrine is contradicted (continues Sokrates) by the common\nopinions of mankind: for no man esteems himself a measure on all\nthings. Every one believes that there are some things on which he\nis wiser than his neighbour--and others on which his neighbour is\nwiser than he. People are constantly on the look out for teachers\nand guides.[50] If Protagoras advances an opinion which others\ndeclare to be false, he must, since he admits their opinion to be\ntrue, admit his own opinion to be false.[51] No animal, nor any\ncommon man, is a measure; but only those men, who have gone\nthrough special study and instruction in the matter upon which\nthey pronounce.[52]\n\n[Footnote 50: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 170.]\n\n[Footnote 51: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 171 B. [Greek: Ou)kou=n t\u00ea\\n\nau(tou= a)\\n pseud\u00ea= xugch\u00f4roi=, ei) t\u00ea\\n t\u00f4=n \u00ea(goume/n\u00f4n au)to\\n\npseu/desthai o(mologei= a)l\u00eath\u00ea= ei)=nai?]]\n\n[Footnote 52: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 171 C.]\n\n[Side-note: In matters of present sentiment every man can judge for\nhimself. Where future consequences are involved special knowledge\nis required.]\n\nIn matters of present and immediate sensation, hot, cold, dry,\nmoist, sweet, bitter, &c., Sokrates acknowledges that every man\nmust judge _for himself_, and that what each pronounces is true\n_for himself_. So too, about honourable or base, just or unjust,\nholy or unholy--whatever rules any city may lay down, are true\n_for itself_: no man, no city,--is wiser upon these matters than\nany other.[53] But in regard to what is good, profitable,\nadvantageous, healthy, &c., the like cannot be conceded. Here\n(says Sokrates) one man, and one city, is decidedly wiser, and\njudges more truly, than another. We cannot say that the judgment\nof each is true;[54] or that what every man or every city\nanticipates to promise good or profit, will necessarily realise\nsuch anticipations. In such cases, not merely present sentiment,\nbut future consequences are involved.\n\n[Footnote 53: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. pp. 172 A, 177 E.]\n\n[Footnote 54: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 172.]\n\nHere then we discover the distinction which Plato would draw.[55]\nWhere present sentiment alone is involved, as in hot and cold,\nsweet and bitter, just and unjust, honourable and base, &c., there\neach is a judge for himself, and one man is no better judge than\nanother. But where future consequences are to be predicted, the\nignorant man is incapable: none but the professional Expert, or\nthe prophet,[56] is competent to declare the truth. When a dinner\nis on table, each man among the guests can judge whether it is\ngood: but while it is being prepared, none but the cook can judge\nwhether it _will be_ good.[57] This is one Platonic objection\nagainst the opinion of Protagoras, when he says that every opinion\nof every man is true. Another objection is, that opinions of\ndifferent men are opposite and contradictory,[58] some of them\ncontradicting the Protagorean dictum itself.\n\n[Footnote 55: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 178.]\n\n[Footnote 56: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 179. [Greek: ei)/ p\u00ea| tou\\s\nsuno/ntas e)/peithen, o(/ti kai\\ to\\ me/llon e)/sesthai/ te kai\\\ndo/xein ou)/te ma/ntis ou)/te tis a)/llos a)/meinon kri/neien a)\\n\n\u00ea)\\ au)to\\s au(t\u00f4=|.]]\n\n[Footnote 57: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 178.]\n\n[Footnote 58: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 179 B.\n\n_Theodor._ [Greek: E)kei/n\u00ea| moi dokei= ma/lista a(li/skesthai o(\nlo/gos, a(lisko/menos kai\\ tau/t\u00ea|, \u00ea)=| ta\\s t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n do/xas\nkuri/as poiei=, au(=tai de\\ e)pha/n\u00easan tou\\s e)kei/nou lo/gous\nou)dam\u00ea=| a)l\u00eathei=s \u00ea(gou/menai.]\n\n_Sokrat._ [Greek: Pollach\u00ea=| kai\\ a)/ll\u00ea| a)\\n to/ ge toiou=ton\na(loi/\u00ea, m\u00ea\\ pa=san panto\\s a)l\u00eath\u00ea= do/xan ei)=nai; peri\\ de\\ to\\\nparo\\n e(ka/st\u00f4| pa/thos, e)x \u00f4(=n ai( ai)sth\u00ea/seis kai\\ ai( kata\\\ntau/tas do/xai gi/gnontai . . . I)/s\u00f4s de\\ ou)de\\n le/g\u00f4,\na)na/l\u00f4toi ga/r, ei) e)/tuchon, ei)si/n.]]\n\n[Side-note: Plato, when he impugns the doctrine of Protagoras,\nstates that doctrine without the qualification properly belonging\nto it. All belief relative to the condition of the believing\nmind.]\n\nSuch are the objections urged by Sokrates against the Protagorean\ndoctrine--_Homo Mensura_. There may have been perhaps in the\ntreatise of Protagoras, which unfortunately we do not possess,\nsome reasonings or phrases countenancing the opinions against\nwhich Plato here directs his objections. But so far as I can\ncollect, even from the words of Plato himself when he professes to\nborrow the phraseology of his opponent, I cannot think that\nProtagoras ever delivered the opinion which Plato here\nrefutes--_That every opinion of every man is true_. The opinion really\ndelivered by Protagoras appears to have been[59]--_That every\nopinion delivered by every man is true, to that man himself_. But\nPlato, when he impugns it, leaves out the final qualification;\nfalling unconsciously into the fallacy of passing (as logicians\nsay) _a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter_.[60] The\nqualification thus omitted by Plato forms the characteristic\nfeature of the Protagorean doctrine, and is essential to the\nphraseology founded upon it. Protagoras would not declare any\nproposition to be true absolutely, or false absolutely. The\nphraseology belonging to that doctrine is forced upon him by\nPlato. Truth Absolute there is none, according to Protagoras. All\ntruth is and must be truth relative to some one or more persons,\neither actually accepting and believing in it, or conceived as\npotential believers under certain circumstances. Moreover since\nthese believers are a multitude of individuals, each with his own\npeculiarities--so no truth can be believed in, except under the\npeculiar measure of the believing individual mind. What a man\nadopts as true, and what he rejects as false, are conditioned\nalike by this limit: a limit not merely different in different\nindividuals, but variable and frequently varying in the same\nindividual. You cannot determine a dog, or a horse, or a child to\nbelieve in the Newtonian astronomy: you could not determine the\nauthor of the Principia in 1687 to believe what the child Newton\nhad believed in 1647.[61] To say that what is true to one man, is\nfalse to another--that what _was_ true to an individual as a child\nor as a youth, becomes false to him in his advanced years, is no\nreal contradiction: though Plato, by omitting the qualifying\nwords, presents it as if it were such. In every man's mind, the\nbeliefs of the past have been modified or reversed, and the\nbeliefs of the present are liable to be modified or reversed, by\nsubsequent operative causes: by new supervening sensations,\nemotions, intellectual comparisons, authoritative teaching, or\nsociety, and so forth.\n\n[Footnote 59: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 152 A. [Greek: Ou)kou=n ou(/t\u00f4\np\u00f4s le/gei] (Protagoras) [Greek: \u00f4(s oi(=a me\\n e(/kasta e)moi\\\nphai/netai, toiau=ta me/n e)stin e)moi/--oi(=a de\\ soi/, toiau=ta\nde\\ au)= soi/.] 158 A. [Greek: ta\\ phaino/mena e(ka/st\u00f4| tau=ta\nkai\\ ei)=nai tou/t\u00f4| \u00f4(=| phai/netai.] 160 C. [Greek: A)l\u00eath\u00ea\\s\na)/ra e)moi\\ \u00ea( e)m\u00ea\\ ai)/sth\u00easis; t\u00ea=s ga\\r e)m\u00ea=s ou)si/as a)ei/\ne)sti; kai\\ e)g\u00f4\\ krit\u00ea\\s kata\\ to\\n Pr\u00f4tago/ran t\u00f4=n te o)/nt\u00f4n\ne)moi/, \u00f4(s e)/sti, kai\\ t\u00f4=n m\u00ea\\ o)/nt\u00f4n, \u00f4(s ou)k e)/stin.]\n\nComp. also pp. 166 D, 170 A, 177 C.\n\nInstead of saying [Greek: ai)/sth\u00easis] (in the passage just cited,\np. 160 D), we might with quite equal truth put [Greek: A)l\u00eath\u00ea\\s\na)/ra e)moi\\ \u00ea( e)m\u00ea\\ _no/\u00easis_; t\u00ea=s ga\\r e)m\u00ea=s ou)si/as a)ei/\ne)/stin]. In this respect [Greek: ai)/sth\u00easis] and [Greek:\nno/\u00easis] are on a par. [Greek: No/\u00easis] is just as much relative\nto [Greek: o( no\u00f4=n] as [Greek: ai)/sth\u00easis] to [Greek: o(\nai)sthano/menos].\n\nSextus Empiricus adverts to the doctrines of Protagoras (mainly to\npoint out how they are distinguished from those of the Sceptical\nschool, to which he himself belongs) in Pyrrhon. Hypot. i. sects.\n215-219; adv. Mathematicos, vii. s. 60-64-388-400. He too imputes\nto Protagoras both the two doctrines. 1. That man is the measure\nof all things: that what appears to each person is, _to him_: that\nall truth is thus relative. 2. That all phantasms, appearances,\nopinions, are _true_. Sextus reasons at some length (390 seq.)\nagainst this doctrine No. 2, and reasons very much as Protagoras\nhimself would have reasoned, since he appeals to individual\nsentiment and movement of the individual mind ([Greek: ou)k\n\u00f4(sau/t\u00f4s ga\\r kinou/metha], 391-400). It appears to me perfectly\ncertain that Protagoras advanced the general thesis of Relativity:\nwe see this as well from Plato as from Sextus--[Greek: kai\\\nou(/t\u00f4s ei)sa/gei to\\ pro/s ti--t\u00f4=n pro/s ti ei)=nai t\u00ea\\n\na)l\u00eathei/an] (Steinhart is of opinion that these words [Greek:\nt\u00f4=n pro/s ti ei)=nai t\u00ea\\n a)l\u00eathei/an] are an addition of Sextus\nhimself, and do not describe the doctrine of Protagoras; an\nopinion from which I dissent, and which is contradicted by Plato\nhimself: Steinhart, Einleitung, note 8). If Protagoras also\nadvanced the doctrine--all opinions are true--this was not\nconsistent with his cardinal principle of relativity. Either he\nhimself did not take care always to enunciate the qualifications\nand limitations which his theory requires, and which in common\nparlance are omitted--Or his opponents left out the limitations\nwhich he annexed, and impugned the opinion as if it stood without\nany. This last supposition I think the most probable.\n\nThe doctrine of Protagoras is correctly given by Sextus in the\nPyrrhon. Hypot.]\n\n[Footnote 60: Aristotle, in commenting on the Protagorean formula,\nfalls into a similar inaccuracy in slurring over the restrictive\nqualification annexed by Protagoras. Metaphysic. [Greek: G]. p.\n1009, a. 6. Compare hereupon Bonitz's note upon the passage, p.\n199 of his edition.\n\nThis transition without warning, _\u00e0 dicto secundum quid ad dictum\nsimpliciter_, is among the artifices ascribed by Plato to the\nSophists Euthyd\u00eamus and Dionysod\u00f4rus (Plat. Euthyd. p. 297 D).]\n\n[Footnote 61: The argument produced by Plato to discredit the\nProtagorean theory--that it puts the dog or the horse on a level\nwith man--furnishes in reality a forcible illustration of the\ntruth of the theory.\n\nMr. James Harris, the learned Aristotelian of the last century,\nremarks, in his Dialogue on Happiness (Works, ed. 1772, pp.\n143-168):--\n\n\"Every particular Species is, itself to itself, the Measure of all\nthings in the Universe. As things vary in their relations to it,\nthey vary also in their value. If their value be ever doubtful, it\ncan noway be adjusted but by recurring with accuracy to the\nnatural State of the Species, and to those several Relations which\nsuch a State of course creates.\"]\n\n[Side-note: All exposition and discussion is an assemblage of\nindividual judgments and affirmations. This fact is disguised by\nelliptical forms of language.]\n\nThe fact, that all exposition and discussion is nothing more than\nan assemblage of individual judgments, depositions, affirmations,\nnegations, &c, is disguised from us by the elliptical form in\nwhich it is conducted. For example:--I, who write this book--can\ngive nothing more than my own report, as a witness, of facts known\nto me, and of what has been said, thought, or done by others,--for\nall which I cite authorities:--and my own conviction, belief or\ndisbelief, as to the true understanding thereof, and the\nconclusions deducible. I produce the reasons which justify my\nopinion: I reply to those reasons which have been supposed by\nothers to justify the opposite. It is for the reader to judge how\nfar my reasons appear satisfactory to his mind.[62] To deliver my\nown convictions, is all that is in my power: and if I spoke with\nfull correctness and amplitude, it would be incumbent on me to\navoid pronouncing any opinion to be _true_ or _false_ simply: I\nought to say, it is _true to me--or false to me_. But to repeat\nthis in every other sentence, would be a tiresome egotism. It is\nunderstood once for all by the title-page of the book: an opponent\nwill know what he has to deal with, and will treat the opinions\naccordingly. If any man calls upon me to give him absolute truth,\nand to lay down the canon of evidence for identifying it--I cannot\ncomply with the request, any farther than to deliver my own best\njudgment, what is truth--and to declare what is the canon of\nevidence which guides my own mind. Each reader must determine for\nhimself whether he accepts it or not. I might indeed clothe my own\njudgments in oracular and vehement language: I might proclaim them\nas authoritative dicta: I might speak as representing the Platonic\nIdeal, Typical Man,--or as inspired by a [Greek: dai/m\u00f4n] like\nSokrates: I might denounce opponents as worthless men, deficient\nin all the sentiments which distinguish men from brutes, and\nmeriting punishment as well as disgrace. If I used all these harsh\nphrases, I should only imitate what many authors of repute think\nthemselves entitled to say, about THEIR beliefs and convictions.\nYet in reality, I should still be proclaiming nothing beyond my\nown feelings:--the force of emotional association, and antipathy\ntowards opponents, which had grown round these convictions in my\nown mind. Whether I speak in accordance with others, or in\nopposition to others, in either case I proclaim my own reports,\nfeelings and judgments--nothing farther. I cannot escape from the\nProtagorean limit or measures.[63]\n\n[Footnote 62: M. Destutt Tracy observes as follows:--\n\n\"De m\u00eame que toutes nos propositions peuvent \u00eatre ramen\u00e9es \u00e0 la\nforme de propositions \u00e9nonciatives, parce qu'au fond elles\nexpriment toutes un jugement; de m\u00eame, toutes nos propositions\n\u00e9nonciatives peuvent ensuite \u00eatre toujours r\u00e9duites \u00e0 n'\u00eatre\nqu'une de celles-ci: 'je pense, je sens, ou je per\u00e7ois, que telle\nchose est de telle mani\u00e8re, ou que tel \u00eatre produit tel\neffet'--_propositions dont nous sommes nous-m\u00eames le sujet, parce\nqu'au fond nous sommes toujours le subjet de tous nos jugemens_,\npuisqu'ils n'expriment jamais qu'une impression que nous\n\u00e9prouvons.\" (Id\u00e9ologie: Suppl\u00e9ment \u00e0 la premi\u00e8re Section, vol. iv.\np. 165, ed. 1825 duodec.)\n\n\"On peut m\u00eame dire que comme nous ne sentons, ne savons, et ne\nconnaissons, rien que par rapport \u00e0 nous, l'id\u00e9e, sujet de la\nproposition, est toujours en d\u00e9finitif notre moi; car quand je dis\n_cet arbre est vert_, je dis r\u00e9ellement _je sens, je sais, je\nvois, que cet arbre est vert_. Mais _pr\u00e9cis\u00e9ment parce que ce\npr\u00e9ambule se trouve toujours et n\u00e9cessairement compris dans toutes\nnos propositions, nous le supprimons quand nous voulons_; et toute\nid\u00e9e peut \u00eatre le sujet de la proposition.\" (Principes Logiques,\nvol. iv. ch. viii. p. 231.)]\n\n[Footnote 63: Sokrates himself states as much as this in the\ncourse of his reply to the doctrine of Protagoras, The\u00e6t\u00eat. 171\nD.: [Greek: a)ll' \u00ea(mi=n a)na/gk\u00ea, oi)=mai, chr\u00ea=sthai \u00ea(mi=n\nau)toi=s . . . kai\\ ta\\ dokou=nta a)ei/, tau=ta le/gein.]\n\nThe necessity ([Greek: a)na/gk\u00ea]) to which Sokrates here adverts,\nis well expressed by M. Deg\u00e9rando. \"En jugeant ce que pensent les\nautres hommes, en comprenant ce qu'ils \u00e9prouvent, nous ne sortons\npoint en effet de nous-m\u00eames, comme on seroit tent\u00e9 de le croire.\nC'est dans nos propres id\u00e9es que nous voyons leurs id\u00e9es, leurs\nmani\u00e8res d'\u00eatre, leur existence m\u00eame. Le monde entier ne nous est\nconnu que dans une sorte de chambre obscure: et lorsqu'au sortir\nd'une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 nombreuse nous croyons avoir lu dans les esprits et\ndans les coeurs, avoir observ\u00e9 des caract\u00e8res, et senti (si je\npuis dire ainsi) la vie d'un grand nombre d'hommes--nous ne\nfaisons en effet que sortir d'une grande galerie dont notre\nimagination a fait tous les frais; dont elle a cr\u00e9\u00e9 tous les\npersonnages, et dessin\u00e9, avec plus ou moins de v\u00e9rit\u00e9, tous les\ntableaux.\" (Deg\u00e9rando, Des Signes et de l'Art de Penser, vol. i.\nch. v. p. 132.)]\n\n[Side-note: Argument--That the Protagorean doctrine equalises all\nmen and animals. How far true. Not true in the sense requisite to\nsustain Plato's objection.]\n\nTo this theory Plato imputes as a farther consequence, that it\nequalises all men and all animals. No doubt, the measure or limit\nas generically described, bears alike upon all: but it does not\nmark the same degree in all. Each man's bodily efforts are\nmeasured or limited by the amount of his physical force: this is\nalike true of all men: yet it does not follow that the physical\nforce of all men is equal. The dog, the horse, the new-born child,\nthe lunatic, is each a measure of truth to himself: the\nphilosopher is so also to himself: this is alike true, whatever\nmay be the disparity of intelligence: and is rather more obviously\ntrue when the disparity is great, because the lower intelligence\nhas then a very narrow stock of beliefs, and is little modifiable\nby the higher. But though the Protagorean doctrine declares the\ndog or the child to be a measure of truth--each to himself--it\ndoes not declare either of them to be a measure of truth to me, to\nyou, or to any ordinary by-stander. How far any person is a\nmeasure of truth to others, depends upon the estimation in which\nhe is held by others: upon the belief which they entertain\nrespecting his character or competence. Here is a new element let\nin, of which Plato, in his objection to the Protagorean doctrine,\ntakes no account. When he affirms that Protagoras by his\nequalising doctrine acknowledged himself to be no better in point\nof wisdom and judgment than a dog or a child, this inference must\nbe denied.[64] The Protagorean doctrine is perfectly consistent\nwith great diversities of knowledge, intellect, emotion, and\ncharacter, between one man and another. Such diversities are\nrecognised in individual belief and estimation, and are thus\ncomprehended in the doctrine. Nor does Protagoras deny that men\nare teachable and modifiable. The scholar after being taught will\nhold beliefs different from those which he held before. Protagoras\nprofessed to know more than others, and to teach them: others on\ntheir side also believed that he knew more than they, and came to\nlearn it. Such belief on both sides, noway contradicts the general\ndoctrine here under discussion. What the scholar believes to be\ntrue, is still true to him: among those things which he believes\nto be true, one is, that the master knows more than he: in coming\nto be taught, he acts upon his own conviction. To say that a man\nis wise, is to say, that he is wise _in some one's estimation_:\nyour own or that of some one else. Such estimation is always\nimplied, though often omitted in terms. Plato remarks very truly,\nthat every one believes some others to be on certain matters wiser\nthan himself. In other words, what is called authority--that\npredisposition to assent, with which we hear the statements and\nopinions delivered by some other persons--is one of the most\noperative causes in determining human belief. The circumstances of\nlife are such as to generate this predisposition in every one's\nmind to a greater or less degree, and towards some persons more\nthan towards others.\n\n[Footnote 64: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 161 D. [Greek: o( d' a)/ra\ne)tu/gchanen \u00f4)\\n ei)s phro/n\u00easin ou)de\\n belti/\u00f4n batra/chou\nguri/nou, m\u00ea\\ o(/ti a)/llou tou a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n.] I substitute the dog\nor horse as illustrations.]\n\n[Side-note: Belief on authority is true to the believer\nhimself--The efficacy of authority resides in the believer's own mind.]\n\nBelief on authority is true to the believer himself, like all his\nother beliefs, according to the Protagorean doctrine: and in\nacting upon it,--in following the guidance of A, and not following\nthe guidance of B,--he is still a measure to himself. It is not to\nbe supposed that Protagoras ever admitted all men to be equally\nwise, though Plato puts such an admission into his mouth as an\ninference undeniable and obvious. His doctrine affirms something\naltogether different:--that whether you believe yourself to be\nwise or unwise, in either case the belief is equally your\nown--equally the result of your own mental condition and\npredisposition,--equally true to yourself,--and equally an item\namong the determining conditions of your actions. That the beliefs\nand convictions of one person might be modified by another, was a\nprinciple held by Protagoras not less than by Sokrates: the former\nemployed as his modifying instrument, eloquent lecturing--the\nlatter, dialectical cross-examination. Both of them recognise the\nbelief of the person to whom they address themselves as true to\nhim, yet at the same time as something which may be modified and\ncorrected, by appealing to what they thought the better parts of\nit against the worse.\n\n[Side-note: Protagorean formula--is false, to those who dissent\nfrom it.]\n\nAgain--Sokrates imputes it as a contradiction to Protagoras--\"Your\ndoctrine is pronounced to be false by many persons: but you admit\nthat the belief of all persons is true: therefore your doctrine is\nfalse\".[65] Here also Plato omits the qualification annexed by\nProtagoras to his general principle--Every man's belief is\ntrue--that is, true _to him_. That a belief should be true, to one man,\nand false to another--is not only no contradiction to the formula\nof Protagoras, but is the very state of things which his formula\ncontemplates. He of course could only proclaim it as true to\nhimself. It is the express purpose of his doctrine to disallow the\nabsolutely true and the absolutely false. His own formula, like\nevery other opinion, is false to those who dissent from it: but it\nis not false absolutely, any more than any other doctrine. Plato\ntherefore does not make out his charge of contradiction.\n\n[Footnote 65: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 171 A. Sextus Empiric. (adv.\nMathem. vii. 61) gives a pertinent answer to this objection.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's argument--That the wise man alone is a\nmeasure--Reply to it.]\n\nSome men (says Sokrates) have learnt,--have bestowed study on\nspecial matters,--have made themselves wise upon those matters.\nOthers have not done the like, but remain ignorant. It is the wise\nman only who is a measure: the ignorant man neither is so, nor\nbelieves himself to be so, but seeks guidance from the wise.[66]\n\n[Footnote 66: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. pp. 171 C, 179 B.]\n\nUpon this we may remark--First, that even when the untaught men\nare all put aside, and the erudites or Experts remain alone--still\nthese very erudites or Experts, the men of special study, are\nperpetually differing among themselves; so that we cannot\nrecognise one as a measure, without repudiating the authority of\nthe rest.[67] If by a measure, Plato means an infallible measure,\nhe will not find it in this way: he is as far from the absolute as\nbefore. Next, it is perfectly correct that if any man be known to\nhave studied or acquired experience on special matters, his\nopinion obtains an authority with others (more or fewer), such as\nthe opinion of an ignorant man will not possess. This is a real\ndifference between the graduated man and the non-graduated. But it\nis a difference not contradicting the theory of Protagoras; who\ndid not affirm that every man's opinion was equally trustworthy in\nthe estimation of others, but that every man's opinion was alike a\nmeasure to the man himself. The authority of the guide resides in\nthe belief and opinion of those who follow him, or who feel\nprepared to follow him if necessity arises. A man gone astray on\nhis journey, asks the way to his destination from residents whom\nhe believes to know it, just as he might look at a compass, or at\nthe stars, if no other persons were near. In following their\ndirection, he is acting on his own belief, that he himself is\nignorant on the point in question and that they know. He is a\nmeasure to himself, both of the extent of his own ignorance, and\nof the extent of his own knowledge. And in this respect all are\nalike--every man, woman, child, and animal;[68] though they are by\nno means alike in the estimation of others, as trustworthy\nauthorities.\n\n[Footnote 67: \"Nam, quod dicunt omnino, se credere ei quem\njudicent fuisse sapientem--probarem, si id ipsum rudes et indocti\njudicare potuissent (statuere enim, qui sit sapiens, vel maxim\u00e9\nvidetur esse sapientis). _Sed, ut potuerint, potuerunt, omnibus\nrebus auditis, cognitis etiam reliquorum sententiis: judicaverunt\nautem re semel audit\u00e2, atque ad unius se auctoritatem\ncontulerunt._\" (Cicero, Acad. Priora, ii. 3, 9.)]\n\n[Footnote 68: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 171 E. I transcribe the following\nfrom the treatise of Fichte (Beruf des Menschen, Destination de\nl'Homme; Traduction de Barchou de Penho\u00ebn, ch. i. Le Doute, pp.\n54-55):--\n\n\"De la conscience de chaque individu, la nature se contemplant\nsous un point de vue diff\u00e9rent, il en r\u00e9sulte que je m'appelle\n_moi_, et que tu t'appelles _toi_. Pour toi, je suis hors de toi;\net pour moi, tu es hors de moi. Dans ce qui est hors de moi, je me\nsaisis d'abord de ce qui m'avoisine le plus, de ce qui est le plus\n\u00e0 ma port\u00e9e: toi, tu fais de m\u00eame. Chacun de notre c\u00f4t\u00e9, nous\nallons ensuite au del\u00e0. Puis, ayant commenc\u00e9 \u00e0 cheminer ainsi dans\nle monde de deux points de d\u00e9part diff\u00e9rens, nous suivons, pendant\nle reste de notre vie, des routes qui se coupent \u00e7\u00e0 et l\u00e0, mais\nqui jamais ne suivent exactement la m\u00eame direction, jamais ne\ncourent parall\u00e8lement l'une \u00e0 l'autre. Tous les individus\npossibles peuvent \u00eatre: par cons\u00e9quent aussi, tous les points de\nvue de conscience possibles. _La somme de ces consciences\nindividuelles fait la conscience universelle: il n'y a pas\nd'autre._ Ce n'est en effet que dans l'individu que se trouve \u00e0 la\nfois et la limitation et la r\u00e9alit\u00e9. Dans l'individu la conscience\nest enti\u00e8rement d\u00e9termin\u00e9e par la nature intime de l'individu. Il\nn'est donn\u00e9 \u00e0 personne de savoir autre chose que ce qu'il sait. Il\nne pourrait pas davantage savoir les m\u00eames choses d'une autre\nfa\u00e7on qu'il ne les sait.\"\n\nThe same doctrine is enforced with great originality and acuteness\nin a recent work of M. Eug\u00e8ne V\u00e9ron, Du Progr\u00e8s Intellectuel dans\nl'Humanit\u00e9, Sup\u00e9riorit\u00e9 des Arts Modernes sur les Arts Anciens\n(Paris, 1862, Guillaumin). M. V\u00e9ron applies his general doctrine\nmainly to the theory of Art and \u00c6sthetics: moreover he affirms\nmore than I admit respecting human progress as a certain and\nconstant matter of fact. But he states clearly, as an universal\ntruth, the relative point of view--the necessary measurement for\nitself, of each individual mind--and the consequent obligation, on\neach, to allow to other minds the like liberty. We read, pp.\n14-16-17:--\n\n\"Cela revient \u00e0 dire que dans quelque cas que nous supposions,\nnous ne pouvons sentir que dans la mesure de notre sensibilit\u00e9,\ncomprendre et juger que dans la mesure de notre intelligence; et\nque nos facult\u00e9s \u00e9tant en perpetuel developpement, les variations\nde notre personnalit\u00e9 entrainent n\u00e9cessairement celles de nos\njugemens, m\u00eame quand nous n'en avons pas conscience. . . Chaque\nhomme a son esprit particulier. Ce que l'un comprend sans peine,\nun autre ne le peut saisir; ce qui r\u00e9pugne \u00e0 l'un, plait \u00e0\nl'autre: ce qui ce me parait odieux, mon voisin l'approuve.\nQuelque bonne envie que nous semblions avoir de nous perdre dans\nla foule, de d\u00e9pouiller notre individualit\u00e9 pour emprunter des\njugemens tout faits et des opinions taill\u00e9es \u00e0 la mesure et \u00e0\nl'usage du public--il est facile de voir que, tout en ayant l'air\nde r\u00e9p\u00e9ter la le\u00e7on apprise, nous jugeons \u00e0 notre mani\u00e8re, quand\nnous jugeons: que notre jugement, tout en paraissant \u00eatre celui de\ntout le monde, n'en reste pas moins personnel, et n'est pas une\nsimple imitation: que cette ressemblance m\u00eame est souvent plus\napparente que r\u00e9elle: que l'identit\u00e9 ext\u00e9rieure des formules et\ndes expressions ne prouve pas absolument celle de la pens\u00e9e. Rien\nn'est \u00e9lastique comme les mots, et comme les principes g\u00e9n\u00e9raux\ndans lesquels on pense enfermer les intelligences. C'est souvent\nquand le langage est le plus semblable qu'on est le plus loin de\ns'entendre.\n\n\"Du reste, quand m\u00eame cette ressemblance serait aussi r\u00e9elle\nqu'elle est fausse, en quoi prouverait-il l'identit\u00e9 n\u00e9cessaire\ndes intelligences? Qu'y aurait-il d'\u00e9tonnant qu'au milieu de ce\ncommunisme intellectual qui r\u00e9git l'\u00e9ducation de chaque classe, et\nd\u00e9termine nos habitudes intellectuelles et morales, les\ndistinctions natives disparussent ou s'att\u00e9nuassent? Ne faut-il\npas plut\u00f4t admirer l'opini\u00e2tre vitalit\u00e9 des diff\u00e9rences\noriginelles qui r\u00e9sistent \u00e0 tant de causes de nivellement?\nL'identit\u00e9 primitive des intelligences n'est qu'une fiction\nlogique sans r\u00e9alit\u00e9--une simple abstraction de langage, _qui ne\nrepose que sur l'identit\u00e9 du mot avec lui-m\u00eame_. Tout se reduit \u00e0\nla possibilit\u00e9 abstraite des m\u00eames d\u00e9veloppemens, dans les m\u00eames\nconditions d'h\u00e9r\u00e9dit\u00e9 et d'\u00e9ducation--mais aussi de d\u00e9veloppemens\ndiff\u00e9rens dans des circonstances diff\u00e9rentes: c'est \u00e0 dire, que\nl'intelligence de chacun n'est identique \u00e0 celle de tous, qu'au\nmoment o\u00f9 elle n'est pas encore proprement une intelligence.\"]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's argument as to the distinction between present\nsensation and anticipation of the future.]\n\nA similar remark may be made as to Plato's distinction between the\ndifferent matters to which belief may apply: present sensation or\nsentiment in one case--anticipation of future sensations or\nsentiments, in another. Upon matters of present sensation and\nsentiment (he argues), such as hot or cold, sweet or bitter, just\nor unjust, honourable or base, &c., one man is as good a judge as\nanother: but upon matters involving future contingency, such as\nwhat is healthy or unhealthy,--profitable and good, or hurtful and\nbad,--most men judge badly: only a few persons, possessed of\nspecial skill and knowledge, judge well, each in his respective\nprovince.\n\n[Side-note: The formula of Relativity does not imply that every man\nbelieves himself to be infallible.]\n\nI for my part admit this distinction to be real and important.\nMost other persons admit the same.[69] In acting upon it, I follow\nout my belief,--and so do they. This is a general fact, respecting\nthe circumstances which determine individual belief. Like all\nother causes of belief, it operates relatively to the individual\nmind, and thus falls under that general canon of relativity, which\nit is the express purpose of the Protagorean formula to affirm.\nSokrates impugns the formula of relativity, as if it proclaimed\nevery one to believe himself more competent to predict the future\nthan any other person. But no such assumption is implied in it. To\nsay that a man is a measure to himself, is not to say that he is,\nor, that he believes himself to be, omniscient or infallible. A\nsick man may mistake the road towards future health, in many\ndifferent directions. One patient may over-estimate his own\nknowledge,--that is one way, but only one among several: another\nmay be diffident, and may undervalue his own knowledge: a third\nmay over-estimate the knowledge of his professional adviser, and\nthus follow an ignorant physician, believing him to be instructed\nand competent: a fourth, instead of consulting a physician, may\nconsult a prophet, whom Plato[70] here reckons among the\nauthoritative infallible measures in respect to future events: a\nfifth may (like the rhetor \u00c6lius Aristeides[71]) disregard the\nadvice of physicians, and follow prescriptions enjoined to him in\nhis own dreams, believing them to be sent by \u00c6sculapius the\nPreserving God. Each of these persons judges differently about the\nroad to future health: but each is alike a measure to himself: the\nbelief of each is relative to his own mental condition and\npredispositions. You, or I, may believe that one or other of them\nis mistaken: but here another measure is introduced--_your_ mind\nor _mine_.\n\n[Footnote 69: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 179 A. [Greek: pa=s a)\\n\no(mologoi=].]\n\n[Footnote 70: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 179 A, where Mr. Campbell\nobserves in his note--\"The [Greek: ma/ntis] is introduced as being\n[Greek: e)pist\u00ea/m\u00f4n] of the future generally; just as the\nphysician is of future health and disease, the musician of future\nharmony,\" &c.]\n\n[Footnote 71: See the five discourses of the rhetor\nAristeides--[Greek: I(er\u00f4=n Lo/goi], Oratt. xxiii.-xxvii.--containing\ncurious details about his habits and condition, and illustrating his\nbelief; especially Or. xxiii. p. 462 seqq. The perfect faith which\nhe reposed in his dreams, and the confidence with which he speaks\nof the benefits derived from acting upon them, are remarkable.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's argument is untenable--That if the Protagorean\nformula be admitted, dialectic discussion would be annulled--The\nreverse is true--Dialectic recognises the autonomy of the\nIndividual mind.]\n\nBut the most unfounded among all Plato's objections to the\nProtagorean formula, is that in which Sokrates is made to allege,\nthat if it be accepted, the work of dialectical discussion is at\nan end: that the Sokratic Elenchus, the reciprocal scrutiny of\nopinions between two dialogists, becomes nugatory--since every\nman's opinions are _right_.[72] Instead of _right_, we must add\nthe requisite qualification, here as elsewhere, by reading, _right\nto the man himself_. Now, dealing with Plato's affirmation thus\ncorrected, we must pronounce not only that it is not true, but\nthat the direct reverse of it is true. Dialectical discussion and\nthe Sokratic procedure, far from implying the negation of the\nProtagorean formula, involve the unqualified recognition of it.\nWithout such recognition the procedure cannot even begin, much\nless advance onward to any result. Dialectic operates altogether\nby question and answer: the questioner takes all his premisses\nfrom the answers of the respondent, and cannot proceed in any\ndirection except that in which the respondent leads him. Appeal is\nalways directly made to the affirmative or negative of the\nindividual mind, which is thus installed as measure of truth or\nfalsehood _for itself_. The peculiar and characteristic excellence\nof the Sokratic Elenchus consists in thus stimulating the interior\nmental activity of the individual hearer, in eliciting from him\nall the positive elements of the debate, and in making him feel a\nshock when one of his answers contradicts the others. Sokrates not\nonly does not profess to make himself a measure for the\nrespondent, but expressly disclaims doing so: he protests against\nbeing considered as a teacher, and avows his own entire ignorance.\nHe undertakes only the obstetric process of evolving from the\nrespondent mind what already exists in it without the means of\nescape--and of applying interrogatory tests to the answer when\nproduced: if there be nothing in the respondent's mind, his art is\ninapplicable. He repudiates all appeal to authority, except that\nof the respondent himself.[73] Accordingly there is neither sense\nnor fitness in the Sokratic cross-examination, unless you assume\nthat each person, to whom it is addressed, is a measure of truth\nand falsehood to himself. Implicitly indeed, this is assumed in\nrhetoric as well as in dialectic: wherever the speaker aims at\npersuading, he adapts his mode of speech to the predispositions of\nthe hearer's own mind; and he thus recognises that mind as a\nmeasure for itself. But the Sokratic Dialectic embodies the same\nrecognition, and the same essential relativity to the hearer's\nmind, more forcibly than any rhetoric. And the Platonic Sokrates\n(in the Ph\u00e6drus) makes it one of his objections against orators\nwho addressed multitudes, that they did not discriminate either\nthe specialties of different minds, or the specialties of\ndiscourse applicable to each.[74]\n\n[Footnote 72: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 161 E.]\n\n[Footnote 73: Read the animated passage in the conversation with\nP\u00f4lus: Plato, Gorg. 472, and The\u00e6t\u00eat. 161 A, pp. 375, 376.\n\nIn this very argument of Sokrates (in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus) against the\nProtagorean theory, we find him unconsciously adopting (as I have\nalready remarked) the very language of that theory, as a\ndescription of his own procedure, p. 171 D. Compare with this a\nremarkable passage in the colloquy of Sokrates with Thrasymachus,\nin Republic, i. 337 C.\n\nMoreover, the long and striking contrast between the philosopher\nand the man of the world, which Plato embodies in this dialogue\n(the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, from p. 172 to p. 177), is so far from assisting\nhis argument against Protagoras, that it rather illustrates the\nProtagorean point of view. The beliefs and judgments of the man of\nthe world are presented as flowing from _his_ mental condition and\npredispositions: those of the philosopher, from _his_. The two are\nradically dissentient: each appears to the other mistaken and\nmisguided. Here is nothing to refute Protagoras. Each of the two\nis a measure for himself.\n\nYes, it will be said; but Plato's measure is right, and that of\nthe man of the world is wrong. Perhaps _I_ may think so. As a\nmeasure for myself, I speak and act accordingly. But the opponents\nhave not agreed to accept _me_ any more than Plato as their judge.\nThe case remains unsettled as before.]\n\n[Footnote 74: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 271 D-E; compare 258 A.]\n\n[Side-note: Contrast with the Treatise De Legibus--Plato assumes\ninfallible authority--sets aside Dialectic.]\n\nThough Sokrates, and Plato so far forth as follower of Sokrates,\nemployed a colloquial method based on the fundamental assumption\nof the Protagorean formula--autonomy of each individual\nmind--whether they accepted the formula in terms, or not; yet we shall\nfind Plato at the end of his career, in his treatise De Legibus,\nconstructing an imaginary city upon the attempted deliberate\nexclusion of this formula. We shall find him there monopolising\nall teaching and culture of his citizens from infancy upwards,\nbarring out all freedom of speech or writing by a strict\ncensorship, and severely punishing dissent from the prescribed\northodoxy. But then we shall also find that Plato in that last\nstage of his life--when he constitutes himself as lawgiver, the\nmeasure of truth or falsehood for all his citizens--has at the\nsame time discontinued his early commerce with the Sokratic\nDialectics.\n\n[Side-note: Plato in denying the Protagorean formula, constitutes\nhimself the measure for all. Counter-proposition to the formula.]\n\nOn the whole then, looking at what Plato says about the\nProtagorean doctrine of Relativity--_Homo Mensura_--first, his\nstatement what the doctrine really is, next his strictures upon\nit--we may see that he ascribes to it consequences which it will\nnot fairly carry. He impugns it as if it excluded philosophy and\nargumentative scrutiny: whereas, on the contrary, it is the only\nbasis upon which philosophy or \"reasoned truth\" can stand. Whoever\ndenies the Protagorean autonomy of the individual judgment, must\npropound as his counter theory some heteronomy, such as he (the\ndenier) approves. If I am not allowed to judge of truth and\nfalsehood for myself, who is to judge for me? Plato, in the\nTreatise De Legibus, answers very unequivocally:--assuming to\nhimself that infallibility which I have already characterised as\nthe prerogative of King Nomos: \"I, the lawgiver, am the judge for\nall my citizens: you must take my word for what is true or false:\nyou shall hear nothing except what my censors approve--and if,\nnevertheless, any dissenters arise, there are stringent penalties\nin store for them\". Here is an explicit enunciation of the\nCounter-Proposition,[75] necessary to be maintained by those who\ndeny the Protagorean doctrine. If you pronounce a man unfit to be\nthe measure of truth for himself, you constitute yourself the\nmeasure, in his place: either directly as lawgiver--or by\nnominating censors according to your own judgment. As soon as he\nis declared a lunatic, some other person must be appointed to\nmanage his property for him. You can only exchange one individual\njudgment for another. You cannot get out of the region of\nindividual judgments, more or fewer in number: the King, the Pope,\nthe Priest, the Judges or Censors, the author of some book, or the\npromulgator of such and such doctrine. The infallible measure\nwhich you undertake to provide, must be found in some person or\npersons--if it can be found at all: in some person selected by\nyourself--that is, in the last result, _yourself_.[76]\n\n[Footnote 75: Professor Ferrier's Institutes of Metaphysic exhibit\nan excellent example of the advantages of setting forth explicitly\nthe Counter-Proposition--that which an author intends to deny, as\nwell as the Proposition which he intends to affirm and prove.]\n\n[Footnote 76: Aristotle says (Ethic. Nikomach. x. 1176, a. 15)\n[Greek: dokei= d' e)n a(/pasi toi=s toiou/tois _ei)=nai to\\\nphaino/menon t\u00f4=| spoudai/\u00f4|_.] \"That _is_, which _appears to be_\nin the judgment of the wise or virtuous man.\" The ultimate appeal\nis thus acknowledged to be, not to an abstraction, but to some one\nor more individual persons whom Aristotle recognises as wise.\n_That_ is truth which this wise man declares to be truth. You\ncannot escape from the Relative by any twist of reasoning.\n\nWhat Platonic critics call \"Der Gegensatz des Seins und des\nScheins\" (see Steinhart, Einleit. zum The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 37) is\nunattainable. All that is attainable is the antithesis between\nthat which appears to one person, and that which appears to one or\nmore others, choose them as you will: between that which appears\nat a first glance, or at a distance, or on careless inspection--and\nthat which appears after close and multiplied observations and\ncomparisons, after full discussion, &c. _Das Sein_ is that which\nappears to the person or persons whom we judge to be wise, under\nthese latter favourable circumstances.\n\nEpiktetus, i. 28, 1. [Greek: Ti/ e)/stin ai)/tion tou=\nsugkatati/thesthai/ tini? To\\ phai/nesthai o(/ti u(pa/rchei. T\u00f4=|\nou)=n phainome/n\u00f4| o(/ti ou)ch u(pa/rchei, sugkatati/thesthai\nou)ch oi(=o/n te.]]\n\n[Side-note: Import of the Protagorean formula is best seen when we\nstate explicitly the counter-proposition.]\n\nIt is only when the Counter-Proposition to the Protagorean formula\nis explicitly brought out, that the full meaning of that formula\ncan be discerned. If you deny it, the basis of all free discussion\nand scrutiny is withdrawn: philosophy, or what is properly called\nreasoned truth, disappears. In itself it says little.\n\n[Side-note: Unpopularity of the Protagorean formula--Most believers\ninsist upon making themselves a measure for others, as well as for\nthemselves. Appeal to Abstractions.]\n\nYet little as its positive import may seem to be, it clashes with\nvarious illusions, omissions, and exigencies, incident to the\nordinary dogmatising process. It substitutes the concrete in place\nof the abstract--the complete in place of the elliptical. Instead\nof Truth and Falsehood, which present to us the Abstract and\nimpersonal as if it stood alone--the Objective divested of its\nSubject--we are translated into the real world of beliefs and\ndisbeliefs, individual believers and disbelievers: matters\naffirmed or denied by some Subject actual or supposable--by you,\nby me, by him or them, perhaps by all persons within our\nknowledge. All men agree in the subjective fact, or in the mental\nstates called belief and disbelief; but all men do not agree in\nthe matters believed and disbelieved, or in what they speak of as\nTruth and Falsehood. No infallible objective mark, no common\nmeasure, no canon of evidence, recognised by all, has yet been\nfound. What is Truth to one man, is not truth, and is often\nFalsehood, to another: that which governs the mind as infallible\nauthority in one part of the globe, is treated with indifference\nor contempt elsewhere.[77] Each man's belief, though in part\ndetermined by the same causes as the belief of others, is in part\nalso determined by causes peculiar to himself. When a man speaks\nof Truth, he means what he himself (along with others, or singly,\nas the case may be) believes to be Truth; unless he expressly\nsuperadds the indication of some other persons believing in it.\nThis is the reality of the case, which the Protagorean formula\nbrings into full view; but which most men dislike to recognise,\nand disguise from themselves as well as from others in the common\nelliptical forms of speech. In most instances a believer entirely\nforgets that his own mind is the product of a given time and\nplace, and of a conjunction of circumstances always peculiar,\namidst the aggregate of mankind--for the most part narrow. He\ncannot be content (like Protagoras) to be a measure for himself\nand for those whom his arguments may satisfy. This would be to\nproclaim what some German critics denounce as Subjectivism.[78] He\ninsists upon constituting himself--or some authority worshipped by\nhimself--or some abstraction interpreted by himself--a measure for\nall others besides, whether assentient or dissentient. That which\n_he_ believes, all ought to believe.\n\n[Footnote 77: Respecting the grounds and conditions of belief\namong the Hindoos, Sir William Sleeman (Rambles and Recollections\nof an Indian Official, ch. xxvi. vol. i. pp. 226-228) observes as\nfollows:--\n\n\"Every word of this poem (the Ramaen, Ramayana) the people assured\nme was written, if not by the hand of the Deity himself, at least\nby his inspiration, which was the same thing, and it must\nconsequently be true. Ninety-nine out of a hundred, among the\nHindoos, implicitly believe, not only every word of this poem, but\nevery word of every poem that has ever been written in Sanscrit.\nIf you ask a man whether he really believes any very egregious\nabsurdity quoted from these books, he replies with the greatest\n_na\u00efvet\u00e9_ in the world, 'Is it not written in the book; and how\nshould it be there written if not true?' . . . The greater the\nimprobability, the more monstrous and preposterous the fiction,\nthe greater is the charm that it has over their minds; and the\ngreater their learning in the Sanscrit, the more are they under\nthe influence of this charm. Believing all to be written by the\nDeity, or by his inspirations, and the men and things of former\ndays to have been very different from the men and things of the\npresent day, and the heroes of these fables to have been demigods,\nor people endowed with powers far superior to those of the\nordinary men of their own day, the analogies of nature are never\nfor a moment considered; nor do questions of probability, or\npossibility, according to those analogies, ever obtrude to dispel\nthe charm with which they are so pleasingly bound. They go on\nthrough life reading and talking of these monstrous fictions,\nwhich shock the taste and understanding of other nations, without\nonce questioning the truth of one single incident, or hearing it\nquestioned. There was a time, and that not very distant, when it\nwas the same in England and in every other European nation; and\nthere are, I am afraid, some parts of Europe where it is so still.\nBut the Hindoo faith, so far as religious questions are concerned,\nis not more capacious or absurd than that of the Greeks and Romans\nin the days of Sokrates and Cicero; the only difference is, that\namong the Hindoos a greater number of the questions which interest\nmankind are brought under the head of religion.\"]\n\n[Footnote 78: This is the objection taken by Schwegler, Prantl,\nand other German thinkers, against the Protagorean doctrine\n(Prantl, Gesch. der Logik, vol. i. p. 12 seq.; Schwegler, Gesch.\nder Philos. im Umriss. s. 11, b. p. 26, ed. 5th). I had\ntranscribed from each of these works a passage of some length, but\nI cannot find room for them in this note.\n\nThese authors both say, that the Protagorean canon, properly\nunderstood, is right, but that Protagoras laid it down wrongly.\nThey admit the principle of Subjectivity, as an essential aspect\nof the case, in regard to truth; but they say that Protagoras was\nwrong in appealing to individual, empirical, accidental,\nsubjectivity of each man at every varying moment, whereas he ought\nto have appealed to an ideal or universal subjectivity. \"What\nought to be held true, right, good, &c.,\" (says Schwegler) \"must\nbe decided doubtless by _me_, but by _me_ so far forth as a\nrational, and thinking being. Now _my_ thinking, _my_ reason, is\nnot something specially belonging to me, but something common to\nall rational beings, something universal; so far therefore as I\nproceed as a rational and thinking person, my subjectivity is an\nuniversal subjectivity. Every thinking person has the\nconsciousness that what he regards as right, duty, good, evil,\n&c., presents itself not merely to him as such, but also to every\nrational person, and that, consequently, his judgment possesses\nthe character of universality, universal validity: in one word,\nObjectivity.\"\n\nHere it is explicitly asserted, that wherever a number of\nindividual men employ their reason, the specialities of each\ndisappear, and they arrive at the same conclusions--Reason being a\nguide impersonal as well as infallible. And this same view is\nexpressed by Prantl in other language, when he reforms the\nProtagorean doctrine by saying, \"Das Denken ist der Mass der\nDinge\".\n\nTo me this assertion appears so distinctly at variance with\nnotorious facts, that I am surprised when I find it advanced by\nlearned historians of philosophy, who recount the very facts which\ncontradict it. Can it really be necessary to repeat that the\nreason of one man differs most materially from that of\nanother--and the reason of the same person from itself, at different\ntimes--in respect of the arguments accepted, the authorities obeyed,\nthe conclusions embraced? The impersonal Reason is a mere fiction; the\nuniversal Reason is an abstraction, belonging alike to all\nparticular reasoners, consentient or dissentient, sound or\nunsound, &c. Schwegler admits the Protagorean canon only under a\nreserve which nullifies its meaning. To say that the Universal\nReason is the measure of truth is to assign no measure at all. The\nUniversal Reason can only make itself known through an\ninterpreter. The interpreters are dissentient; and which of them\nis to hold the privilege of infallibility? Neither Schwegler nor\nPrantl are forward to specify who the interpreter is, who is\nentitled to put dissentients to silence; both of them keep in the\nsafe obscurity of an abstraction--\"Das Denken\"--the Universal\nReason. Protagoras recognises in each dissentient an equal right\nto exercise his own reason, and to judge for himself.\n\nIn order to show how thoroughly incorrect the language of\nSchwegler and Prantl is, when they talk about the Universal Reason\nas unanimous and unerring, I transcribe from another eminent\nhistorian of philosophy a description of what philosophy has been\nfrom ancient times down to the present.\n\nDeg\u00e9rando, Histoire Compar\u00e9e des Syst\u00e8mes de Philosophie, vol. i.\np. 48:--\"Une multitude d'hypoth\u00e8ses, \u00e9lev\u00e9es en quelque sorte au\nhasard, et rapidement d\u00e9truites; une diversit\u00e9 d'opinions,\nd'autant plus sensible que la philosophie a \u00e9t\u00e9 plus developp\u00e9e;\ndes sectes, des partis m\u00eame, des disputes interminables, des\nsp\u00e9culations st\u00e9riles, des erreurs maintenues et transmises par\nune imitation aveugle; quelques d\u00e9couvertes obtenues avec lenteur,\net m\u00e9lang\u00e9es d'idees fausses; des r\u00e9formes annonc\u00e9es \u00e0 chaque\nsi\u00e8cle et jamais accomplies; une succession de doctrines qui se\nrenversent les unes les autres sans pouvoir obtenir plus de\nsolidit\u00e9: la raison humaine ainsi promen\u00e9e dans un triste cercle\nde vicissitudes, et ne s'\u00e9levant \u00e0 quelques \u00e9poques fortun\u00e9es que\npour retomber bient\u00f4t dans de nouveaux \u00e9carts, &c. . . . les m\u00eames\nquestions, enfin, qui partag\u00e8rent il y a plus de vingt si\u00e8cles les\npremiers g\u00e9nies de la Gr\u00e8ce, agit\u00e9es encore aujourd'hui** apr\u00e8s tant\nde volumineux \u00e9crits consacr\u00e9s \u00e0 les discuter\".]\n\nThis state of mind in reference to belief is usual with most men,\nnot less at the present day than in the time of Plato and\nProtagoras. It constitutes the natural intolerance prevalent among\nmankind; which each man (speaking generally), in the case of his\nown beliefs, commends and exults in, as a virtue. It flows as a\nnatural corollary from the sentiment of belief, though it may be\ncorrected by reflection and social sympathy. Hence the doctrine of\nProtagoras--equal right of private judgment to each man for\nhimself--becomes inevitably unwelcome.\n\n[Side-note: Aristotle failed in his attempts to refute the\nProtagorean formula--Every reader of Aristotle will claim the\nright of examining for himself Aristotle's canons of truth.]\n\nWe are told that Demokritus, as well as Plato and Aristotle, wrote\nagainst Protagoras. The treatise of Demokritus is lost: but we\npossess what the two latter said against the Protagorean formula.\nIn my judgment both failed in refuting it. Each of them professed\nto lay down objective, infallible, criteria of truth and\nfalsehood: Democritus on his side, and the other dogmatical\nphilosophers, professed to do the same, each in his own way--and\neach in a different way.[79] Now the Protagorean formula neither\nallows nor disallows any one of these proposed objective criteria:\nbut it enunciates the appeal to which all of them must be\nsubmitted--the subjective condition of satisfying the judgment of\neach hearer. Its protest is entered only when that condition is\noverleaped, and when the dogmatist enacts his canon of belief as\nimperative, peremptory, binding upon all (allgemeing\u00fcltig) both\nassentient and dissentient. I am grateful to Aristotle for his\nefforts to lay down objective canons in the research of truth; but\nI claim the right of examining those canons for myself, and of\njudging whether that, which satisfied Aristotle, satisfies me\nalso. The same right which I claim for myself, I am bound to allow\nto all others. The general expression of this compromise is, the\nProtagorean formula. No one demands more emphatically to be a\nmeasure for himself, even when all authority is opposed to him,\nthan Sokrates in the Platonic Gorgias.[80]\n\n[Footnote 79: Plutarch, adv. Kolot. p. 1108.\n\nAccording to Demokritus all sensible perceptions were\nconventional, or varied according to circumstances, or according\nto the diversity of the percipient Subject; but there was an\nobjective reality--minute, solid, invisible atoms, differing in\nfigure, position, and movement, and vacuum along with them. Such\nreality was intelligible only by Reason. [Greek: No/m\u00f4| gluku/,\nno/m\u00f4| pikro/n, no/m\u00f4| thermo/n, no/m\u00f4| psuchro/n, no/m\u00f4| chroi\u00ea/;\ne)te/\u00ea| de\\ a)/toma kai\\ keno/n. A(/per nomi/zetai me\\n ei)=nai\nkai\\ doxa/zetai ta\\ ai)sth\u00eata/, ou)k e)/sti de\\ kata\\ a)l\u00eathei/an\ntau=ta; a)lla\\ ta\\ a)/toma mo/non kai\\ ke/non.]\n\nSextus Empiric. adv. Mathemat. vii. 135-139; Diog. Laert. ix. 72.\nSee Mullach, Democriti Fragm. pp. 204-208.\n\nThe discourse of Protagoras [Greek: Peri\\ tou= o)/ntos], was read\nby Porphyry, who apparently cited from it a passage verbatim,\nwhich citation Eusebius unfortunately has not preserved (Eusebius,\nPr\u00e6par. Evang. x. 3, 17). One of the speakers in Porphyry's\ndialogue (describing a repast at the house of Longinus at Athens to\ncelebrate Plato's birthday) accused Plato of having copied largely\nfrom the arguments of Protagoras--[Greek: pro\\s tou\\s e(\\n to\\\no)\\n ei)sa/gontas]. Allusion is probably made to the Platonic\ndialogues Parmenides and Sophistes.]\n\n[Footnote 80: Plato, Gorgias, p. 472.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's examination of the other doctrine--That\nknowledge is Sensible Perception. He adverts to sensible facts\nwhich are different with different Percipients.]\n\nAfter thus criticising the formula--Homo Mensura--Plato proceeds\nto canvass the other doctrine, which he ascribes to Protagoras\nalong with others, and which he puts into the mouth of\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus--\"That knowledge is sensible perception\". He connects that\ndoctrine with the above-mentioned formula, by illustrations which\nexhibit great divergence between one percipient Subject and another.\nHe gives us, as examples of sensible perception, the case of the\nwind, cold to one man, not cold to another: that of the wine,\nsweet to a man in health, bitter if he be sickly.[81] Perhaps\nProtagoras may have dwelt upon cases like these, as best\ncalculated to illustrate the relativity of all affirmations: for\nthough the judgments are in reality both equally relative, whether\ntwo judges pronounce alike, or whether they pronounce differently,\nunder the same conditions--yet where they judge differently, each\nstands forth in his own individuality, and the relativity of the\njudgment is less likely to be disputed.\n\n[Footnote 81: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. pp. 152 A, 159 C.]\n\n[Side-note: Such is not the case with all the facts of sense. The\nconditions of unanimity are best found among select facts of\nsense--weighing, measuring, &c.]\n\nBut though some facts of sense are thus equivocal, generating\ndissension rather than unanimity among different individuals--such\nis by no means true of the facts of sense taken generally.[82] On\nthe contrary, it is only these facts--the world of reality,\nexperience, and particulars--which afford a groundwork and\nassurance of unanimity in human belief, under all varieties of\nteaching or locality. Counting, measuring, weighing, are facts of\nsense simple and fundamental, and comparisons of those facts:\ncapable of being so exhibited that no two persons shall either see\nthem differently or mistrust them. Of two persons exposed to the\nsame wind, one may feel cold, and the other not: but both of them\nwill see the barometer or thermometer alike.[83] [Greek: Pa/nta\nme/tr\u00f4| kai\\ a)rithm\u00f4=| kai\\ stathm\u00f4=|]--would be the perfection\nof science, if it could be obtained. Plato himself recognises, in\nmore than one place, the irresistible efficacy of weight and\nmeasure in producing unanimity; and in forestalling those disputes\nwhich are sure to arise where weight and measure cannot be\napplied.[84] It is therefore among select facts of sense,\ncarefully observed and properly compared, that the groundwork of\nunanimity is to be sought, so far as any rational and universal\ngroundwork for it is attainable. In other words, it is here that\nwe must seek for the basis of knowledge or cognition.\n\n[Footnote 82: Aristotle (Metaphysic. [Greek: G]. p. 1010, a. 25\nseq.) in arguing against Herakleitus and his followers, who dwelt\nupon [Greek: ta\\ ai)sth\u00eata\\] as ever fluctuating and undefinable,\nurges against them that this is not true of _all_ [Greek:\nai)sth\u00eata/], but only of those in the sublunary region of the\nKosmos. But this region is (he says) only an imperceptibly small\npart of the entire Kosmos; the objects in the vast superlunary or\ncelestial region of the Kosmos were far more numerous, and were\nalso eternal and unchangeable, in constant and uniform circular\nrotation. Accordingly, if you predicate one or other about [Greek:\nai)sth\u00eata\\] generally, you ought to predicate constancy and\nunchangeability, not flux and variation, since the former\npredicates are true of much the larger proportion of [Greek:\nai)sth\u00eata/]. See the Scholia on the above passage of Aristotle's\nMetaphysica, and also upon Book A. 991, a. 9.]\n\n[Footnote 83: Mr. Campbell, in his Preface to the The\u00e6t\u00eatus (p.\nlxxxiii.), while comparing the points in the dialogue with modern\nmetaphysical views, observes. \"Modern Experimental Science is\nequally distrustful of individual impressions of sense, but has\nfound means of measuring the motions by which they are caused,\nthrough _the effect of the same motions upon other things besides\nour senses_. When the same wind is blowing one of us feels warm\nand another cold (The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 152), but the mercury of the\nthermometer tells the same tale to all. And though the individual\nconsciousness remains the sole judge of the exact impression\nmomentarily received by each person, yet we are certain that the\nsensation of heat and cold, like the expansion and contraction of\nthe mercury, is in every case dependent on a universal law.\"\n\nIt might seem from Mr. Campbell's language (I do not imagine that\nhe means it so) as if Modern Experimental Science had arrived at\nsomething more trustworthy than \"individual impressions of sense\".\nBut the expansion or contraction of the mercury are just as much\nfacts of sense as the feeling of heat or cold; only they are facts\nof sense determinate and uniform to all, whereas the feeling of\nheat or cold is indeterminate and liable to differ with different\npersons. The certainty about \"universal law governing the\nsensations of heat and cold,\" was not at all felt in the days of\nPlato.]\n\n[Footnote 84: Thus in the Phil\u00eabus (pp. 55-56) Plato declares that\nnumbering, measuring, and weighing, are the characteristic marks\nof all the various processes which deserve the name of Arts; and\nthat among the different Arts those of the carpenter, builder,\n&c., are superior to those of the physician, pilot, husbandman,\nmilitary commander, musical composer, &c., because the two\nfirst-named employ more measurement and a greater number of\nmeasuring instruments, the rule, line, plummet, compass, &c.\n\n\"When we talk about iron or silver\" (says Sokrates in the Platonic\nPh\u00e6drus, p. 263 A-B) \"we are all of one mind, but when we talk\nabout the Just and the Good we are all at variance with each\nother, and each man is at variance with himself\". Compare an\nanalogous passage, Alkibiad. I. p. 109.\n\nHere Plato himself recognises the verifications of sense as the\nmain guarantee for accuracy: and the compared facts of sense, when\nselect and simplified, as ensuring the nearest approach to\nunanimity among believers.]\n\n[Side-note: Arguments of Sokrates in examining this question.\nDivergence between one man and another arises, not merely from\ndifferent sensual impressibility, but from mental and associative\ndifference.]\n\nA loose adumbration of this doctrine is here given by Plato as the\ndoctrine of Protagoras, in the words--Knowledge is sensible\nperception. To sift this doctrine is announced as his main\npurpose;[85] and we shall see how he performs the task.\n_Sokr._--Shall we admit, that when we perceive things by sight or\nhearing, we at the same time _know_ them all? When foreigners talk\nto us in a strange language, are we to say that we do not hear what\nthey say, or that we both hear and know it? When unlettered men look\nat an inscription, shall we contend that they do not see the writing,\nor that they both see and know it? _The\u00e6t\u00eat._--We shall say, under\nthese supposed circumstances, that what we see and hear, we also\nknow. We hear and we know the pitch and intonation of the\nforeigner's voice. The unlettered man sees, and also knows, the\ncolour, size, forms, of the letters. But that which the\nschoolmaster and the interpreter could tell us respecting their\nmeaning, _that_ we neither see, nor hear, nor know.\n_Sokr._--Excellent, The\u00e6t\u00eatus. I have nothing to say against your\nanswer.[86]\n\n[Footnote 85: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 163 A. [Greek: ei)s ga\\r tou=to/\npou pa=s o( lo/gos \u00ea(mi=n e)/teine, kai\\ tou/tou cha/rin ta\\\npolla\\ kai\\ a)/topa tau=ta e)kin\u00ea/samen.]]\n\n[Footnote 86: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 163 C.]\n\nThis is an important question and answer, which Plato\nunfortunately does not follow up. It brings to view, though\nwithout fully unfolding, the distinction between what is really\nperceived by sense, and what is inferred from such perception:\neither through resemblance or through conjunctions of past\nexperience treasured up in memory--or both together. Without\nhaving regard to such distinction, no one can discuss\nsatisfactorily the question under debate.[87] Plato here abandons,\nmoreover, the subjective variety of impression which he had before\nnoticed as the characteristic of sense:--(the wind which blows\ncold, and the wine which tastes sweet, to one man, but not to\nanother). Here it is assumed that all men hear the sounds, and see\nthe written letters alike: the divergence between one man and\nanother arises from the different prior condition of percipient\nminds, differing from each other in associative and reminiscent\npower.\n\n[Footnote 87: I borrow here a striking passage from Dugald\nStewart, which illustrates both the passage in Plato's text, and\nthe general question as to the relativity of Cognition. Here, the\nfact of relative Cognition is brought out most conspicuously on\nits intellectual side, not on its perceptive side. The fact of\nsense is the same to all, and therefore, though really relative,\nhas more the look of an absolute; but the mental associations with\nthat fact are different with different persons, and therefore are\nmore obviously and palpably relative.--Dugald Stewart, First\nPreliminary Dissertation to Encyclop\u00e6d. Britannica, pp. 66, 8th\ned.\n\n\"To this reference of the sensation of colour to the external\nobject, I can think of nothing so analogous as the feelings we\nexperience in surveying a library of books. We speak of the\nvolumes piled up on its shelves as _treasures_ or _magazines_ of\nthe knowledge of past ages; and contemplate them with gratitude\nand reverence as inexhaustible _sources_ of instruction and\ndelight to the mind. Even in looking at a page of print or\nmanuscript, we are apt to say that the ideas we acquire are\nreceived by the sense of sight; and we are scarcely conscious of a\nmetaphor when we apply this language. On such occasions we seldom\nrecollect that nothing is perceived by the eye but a multitude of\n_black strokes drawn upon white paper_, and that it is our own\nacquired habits which communicate to these _strokes_ the whole of\nthat significancy whereby they are distinguished from the\nunmeaning scrawling of an infant. The knowledge which we conceive\nto be preserved in books, like the fragrance of a rose, or the\ngilding of the clouds, depends, for its existence, on the\n_relation_ between the object and the percipient mind: and the\nonly difference between the two cases is, that, in the one, this\nrelation is the local and temporary effect of conventional habits:\nin the other, it is the universal and the unchangeable work of\nnature. . . What has now been remarked with respect to _written\ncharacters_, may be extended very nearly to _oral language_. When\nwe listen to the discourse of a public speaker, eloquence and\npersuasion seem to issue from his lips; and we are little aware\nthat we ourselves infuse the soul into every word that he utters.\nThe case is exactly the same when we enjoy the conversation of a\nfriend. We ascribe the charm entirely to his voice and accents;\nbut without our co-operation, its potency would vanish. How very\nsmall the comparative proportion is, which in such cases the words\nspoken contribute to the intellectual and moral effect, I have\nelsewhere endeavoured to show.\"]\n\n[Side-note: Argument--That sensible Perception does not include\nmemory--Probability that those who held the doctrine meant to\ninclude memory.]\n\nSokrates turns to another argument. If knowledge be the same thing\nas sensible perception, then it follows, that so soon as a man\nceases to see and hear, he also ceases to know. The memory of what\nhe has seen or heard, upon that supposition, is not knowledge. But\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus admits that a man who remembers what he has seen or\nheard does know it. Accordingly, the answer that knowledge is\nsensible perception, cannot be maintained.[88]\n\n[Footnote 88: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. pp. 163, 164.]\n\nHere Sokrates makes out a good case against the answer in its\npresent wording. But we may fairly doubt whether those who\naffirmed the matter of knowledge to consist in the facts of sense,\never meant to exclude memory. They meant probably the facts of\nsense both as perceived and as remembered; though the wording\ncited by Plato does not strictly include so much. Besides, we must\nrecollect, that Plato includes in the meaning of the word\nKnowledge or Cognition an idea of perfect infallibility:\ndistinguishing it generically from the highest form of opinion.\nBut memory is a fallible process: sometimes quite\ntrustworthy--under other circumstances, not so. Accordingly, memory,\nin a general sense, cannot be put on a level with present perception,\nnor said to generate what Plato calls knowledge.\n\n[Side-note: Argument from the analogy of seeing and not seeing at\nthe same time .]\n\nThe next argument of Plato is as follows. You can see, and not\nsee, the same thing at the same time: for you may close one of\nyour eyes, and look only with the other. But it is impossible\nto know a thing, and not to know it at the same time. Therefore\n_to know_ is not the same as _to see_.[89]\n\n[Footnote 89: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 165 B.]\n\nThis argument is proclaimed by Plato as a terrible puzzle, leaving\nno escape.[90] Perhaps he meant to speak ironically. In reality,\nthis puzzle is nothing but a false inference deduced from a false\npremiss. The inference is false, because if we grant the premiss,\nthat it is possible both to _see_ a thing, and _not to see_ it, at\nthe same time--there is no reason why it should not also be\npossible to _know_ a thing, and _not to know_ it, at the same\ntime. Moreover, the premiss is also false in the ordinary sense\nwhich the words bear: and not merely false, but logically\nimpossible, as a sin against the maxim of contradiction. Plato\nprocures it from a true premiss, by omitting an essential\nqualification. I see an object with my open eye: I do not see it\nwith my closed eye. From this double proposition, alike\nintelligible and true, Plato thinks himself authorised to discard\nthe qualification, and to tell me that I see a thing and do not\nsee it--passing _\u00e0 dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter_.\nThis is the same liberty which he took with the Protagorean\ndoctrine. Protagoras having said--\"Every thing which any man\nbelieves is true _to that man_\"--Plato reasons against him as if\nhe had said--\"Every thing which any man believes is _true_\".\n\n[Footnote 90: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 165 B. [Greek: to\\ deino/taton\ne)r\u00f4/t\u00eama--a)phu/kt\u00f4| e)r\u00f4t\u00ea/mati], &c.\n\nMr. Campbell observes upon this passage:--\"Perhaps there is here a\ntrace of the spirit which was afterwards developed in the sophisms\nof Eubulid\u00eas\". Stallbaum, while acknowledging the many subtleties\nof Sokrates in this dialogue, complains that other commentators\nmake the ridiculous mistake (\"errore perquam ridiculo\") of\naccepting all the reasoning of Sokrates as seriously meant,\nwhereas much of it (he says) is mere mockery and sarcasm, intended\nto retort upon the Sophists their own argumentative tricks and\nquibbles.--\"Itaqu\u00e8 s\u00e6pe per petulantiam quandam argutiis indulget\n(Socrates), quibus isti haudquaquam abstinebant: s\u00e6p\u00e8 ex\nadversariorum mente disputat, sed ita tamen disputat, ut eos suis\nipsorum capiat laqueis; s\u00e6p\u00e8 denique in disputando iisdem\nartificiis utitur, quibus illi uti consueverant, sicuti etiam in\nMenone, Cratylo, Euthydemo, fieri meminimus\". (Stallbaum, Proleg.\nad The\u00e6t. pp. 12-13, 22-29).\n\nStallbaum pushes this general principle so far as to contend that\nthe simile of the waxen tablet (p. 191 C), and that of the\npigeon-house (p. 200 C), are doctrines of opponents, which Sokrates\npretends to adopt with a view to hold them up to ridicule.\n\nI do not concur in this opinion of Stallbaum, which he reproduces\nin commenting on many other dialogues, and especially on the\nKratylus, for the purpose of exonerating Plato from the reproach\nof bad reasoning and bad etymology, at the cost of opponents\n\"inauditi et indefensi\". I see no ground for believing that Plato\nmeant to bring forward these arguments as paralogisms obviously\nand ridiculously silly. He produced them, in my judgment, as\nsuitable items in a dialogue of search: plausible to a certain\nextent, admitting both of being supported and opposed, and\nnecessary to be presented to those who wish to know a question in\nall its bearings.]\n\nAgain, argues Plato,[91] you cannot say--I _know_ sharply, dimly,\nnear, far, &c.--but you may properly say, I _see_ sharply, dimly,\nnear, far, &c.: another reason to show that knowledge and sensible\nperception are not the same. After a digression of some length\ndirected against the disciples of Herakleitus--(partly to expose\ntheir fundamental doctrine that every thing was in flux and\nmovement, partly to satirise their irrational procedure in evading\nargumentative debate, and in giving nothing but a tissue of\nmystical riddles one after another),[92] Sokrates returns back to\nthe same debate, and produces more serious arguments, as\nfollows:--\n\n[Footnote 91: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 165 D. The reasonings here given\nby Plato from the mouth of Sokrates, are compared by Steinhart to\nthe Trug-schl\u00fcsse, which in the Euthyd\u00eamus he ascribes to that\nSophist and Dionysodorus. But Steinhart says that Plato is here\nreasoning in the style of Protagoras: an assertion thoroughly\ngratuitous, for which there is no evidence at all (Steinhart,\nEinleitung zum The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 53).]\n\n[Footnote 92: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. pp. 179-183. The description which\nwe read here (put into the mouth of the geometer Theod\u00f4rus) of the\npersons in Ephesus and other parts of Ionia, who speculated in the\nvein of Herakleitus--is full of vivid fancy and smartness, but is\nfor that reason the less to be trusted as accurate.\n\nThe characteristic features ascribed to these Herakleiteans are\nquite unlike to the features of Protagoras, so far as we know\nthem; though Protagoras, nevertheless, throughout this dialogue,\nis spoken of as if he were an Herakleitean. These men are here\ndepicted as half mad--incapable of continuous attention--hating\nall systematic speech and debate--answering, when addressed, only\nin brief, symbolical, enigmatic phrases, of which they had a\nquiver-full, but which they never condescended to explain ([Greek:\n\u00f4(/sper e)k phare/tras r(\u00eamati/skia ai)nigmat\u00f4/d\u00ea a)nasp\u00f4=ntes\na)potoxeu/ousin], see Lassalle, vol. i. pp. 32-39--springing up by\nspontaneous inspiration, despising instruction, p. 180 A), and\neach looking down upon the others as ignorant. If** we compare the\npicture thus given by Plato of the Herakleiteans, with the picture\nwhich he gives of Protagoras in the dialogue so called, we shall\nsee that the two are as unlike as possible.\n\nLassalle, in his elaborate work on the philosophy of Herakleitus,\nattempts to establish the philosophical affinity between\nHerakleitus and Protagoras: but in my judgment unsuccessfully.\nAccording to Lassalle's own representation of the doctrine of\nHerakleitus, it is altogether opposed to the most eminent\nProtagorean doctrine, [Greek: A)/nthr\u00f4pos e(aut\u00f4=| me/tron]--and\nequally opposed to that which Plato seems to imply as\nProtagorean--[Greek: Ai)/sth\u00easis = E)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea]. The elucidation\ngiven by Lassalle of Herakleitus, through the analogy of Hegel, is\ncertainly curious and instructive. The Absolute Process of\nHerakleitus is at variance with Protagoras, not less than the\nAbsolute Object or Substratum of the Eleates, or the Absolute\nIdeas of Plato. Lassalle admits that Herakleitus is the entire\nantithesis to Protagoras, yet still contends that he is the prior\nstage of transition towards Protagoras (vol. i. p. 64).]\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates maintains that we do not see _with_ our eyes,\nbut that the mind sees _through_ the eyes: that the mind often\nconceives and judges by itself without the aid of any bodily\norgan.]\n\n_Sokr._--If you are asked, With what does a man perceive white and\nblack? you will answer, with his eyes: shrill or grave sounds?\nwith his ears. Does it not seem to you more correct to say, that\nwe see _through_ our eyes rather than _with_ our eyes:--that we\nhear _through_ our ears, not _with_ our ears. _The\u00e6t\u00eat._--I think\nit is more correct. _Sokr._--It would be strange if there were in\neach man many separate reservoirs, each for a distinct class of\nperceptions.[93] All perceptions must surely converge towards one\ncommon form or centre, call it soul or by any other name, which\nperceives _through_ them, as organs or instruments, all\nperceptible objects.--\n\n[Footnote 93: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 184 D. [Greek: deino\\n ga/r pou,\nei) pollai/ tines e)n \u00ea(mi=n, \u00f4(/sper e)n dourei/ois i(/ppois,\nai)sth\u00ea/sis e)gkath\u00eantai, a)lla\\ m\u00ea\\ ei)s mi/an tina\\ i)de/an,\nei)/te psuch\u00ea\\n ei)/te o(/, ti dei= kalei=n, pa/nta tau=ta\nxuntei/nei, \u00ea(=| dia\\ tou/t\u00f4n oi(=on o)rga/n\u00f4n ai)sthano/metha\no(/sa ai)sth\u00eata/.]]\n\nWe thus perceive objects of sense, according to Plato's language,\n_with_ the central form or soul, and _through_ various organs of\nthe body. The various Percepta or Percipienda of tact, vision,\nhearing--sweet, hot, hard, light--have each its special bodily\norgan. But no one of these can be perceived through the organ\naffected to any other. Whatever therefore we conceive or judge\nrespecting any two of them, is not performed through the organ\nspecial to either. If we conceive any thing common both to sound\nand colour, we cannot conceive it either through the auditory or\nthrough the visual organ.[94]\n\n[Footnote 94: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 184-185.]\n\nNow there are certain judgments (Sokrates argues) which we make\ncommon to both, and not exclusively belonging to either. First, we\njudge that they are two: that each is one, different from the\nother, and the same with itself: that each _is_ something, or has\nexistence, and that one _is not_ the other. Here are\npredicates--existence, non-existence, likeness, unlikeness, unity,\nplurality, sameness, difference, &c., which we affirm, or deny, not\nrespecting either of these sensations exclusively, but respecting\nall of them. Through what bodily organ do we derive these\njudgments respecting what is common to all? There is no special\norgan: the mind perceives, through itself these common\nproperties.[95]\n\n[Footnote 95: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 185 D. [Greek: dokei= t\u00ea\\n\na)rch\u00ea\\n ou)d' ei)=nai toiou=ton ou)de\\n tou/tois o)/rganon\ni)/dion, \u00f4(/sper e)kei/nois, a)ll' au)t\u00ea\\ di' au(t\u00ea=s \u00ea( psuch\u00ea\\\nta\\ koina/ moi phai/netai peri\\ pa/nt\u00f4n e)piskopei=n.]]\n\n[Side-note: Indication of several judgments which the mind makes by\nitself--It perceives Existence, Difference, &c.]\n\nSome matters therefore there are, which the soul or mind\napprehends through itself--others, which it perceives through the\nbodily organs. To the latter class belong the sensible qualities,\nhardness, softness, heat, sweetness, &c., which it perceives\nthrough the bodily organs; and which animals, as well as men, are\nby nature competent to perceive immediately at birth. To the\nformer class belong existence (substance, essence), sameness,\ndifference, likeness, unlikeness, honourable, base, good, evil,\n&c., which the mind apprehends through itself alone. But the mind\nis not competent to apprehend this latter class, as it perceives\nthe former, immediately at birth. Nor does such competence belong\nto all men and animals; but only to a select fraction of men, who\nacquire it with difficulty and after a long time through laborious\neducation. The mind arrives at these purely mental apprehensions,\nonly by going over, and comparing with each other, the simple\nimpressions of sense; by looking at their relations with each\nother; and by computing the future from the present and past.[96]\nSuch comparisons and computations are a difficult and gradual\nattainment; accomplished only by a few, and out of the reach of\nmost men. But without them, no one can apprehend real existence\n(essence, or substance), or arrive at truth: and without truth,\nthere can be no knowledge.\n\n[Footnote 96: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 186 B. [Greek: T\u00ea\\n de/ ge\nou)si/an kai\\ o(/ ti e)/ston kai\\ t\u00ea\\n e)nantio/t\u00eata pro\\s\na)ll\u00ea/l\u00f4] (of hardness and softness) [Greek: kai\\ t\u00ea\\n ou)si/an\nau)= t\u00ea=s e)nantio/t\u00eatos, au)t\u00ea\\ \u00ea( psuch\u00ea\\ _e)paniou=sa kai\\\nxumba/llousa pro\\s a)/ll\u00eala kri/nein peira=tai \u00ea(mi=n_ . . .\nOu)kou=n ta\\ me\\n eu)thu\\s genome/nois pa/resti phu/sei\nai)stha/nesthai a)nthr\u00f4/pois te kai\\ th\u00eari/ois, o(/sa dia\\ tou=\ns\u00f4/matos path\u00ea/mata e)pi\\ t\u00ea\\n psuch\u00ea\\n tei/nei; _ ta\\ de\\ peri\\\ntou/t\u00f4n a)nalogi/smata_, pro/s te ou)si/an kai\\ \u00f4)phelei/an\n_mo/gis_ kai\\ e)n poll\u00f4=| chro/n\u00f4| dia\\ poll\u00f4=n _pragma/t\u00f4n kai\\\npaidei/as paragi/gnetai, oi(=s a)\\n kai\\ paragi/gn\u00eatai.]]\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates maintains that knowledge is to be found, not\nin the Sensible Perceptions themselves, but in the comparisons add\ncomputations of the mind respecting them.]\n\nThe result therefore is (concludes Sokrates), _That knowledge is\nnot sensible perception_: that it is not to be found in the\nperceptions of sense themselves, which do not apprehend real\nessence, and therefore not truth--but in the comparisons and\ncomputations respecting them, and in the relations between them,\nmade and apprehended by the mind itself.[97] Plato declares good\nand evil, honourable and base, &c., to be among matters most\nespecially relative, perceived by the mind computing past and\npresent in reference to future.[98]\n\n[Footnote 97: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 186 D.** [Greek: e)n me\\n a)/ra\ntoi=s path\u00ea/masin ou)k e)/ni e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea, _e)n de\\ t\u00f4=| peri\\\ne)kei/n\u00f4n sullogism\u00f4=|_; ou)si/as ga\\r kai\\ a)l\u00eathei/as e)ntau=tha\nme/n, \u00f4(s e)/oike, dunato\\n a(/psasthai, e)kei= de\\ a)du/naton.]\nThe term [Greek: sullogismo\\s] is here interesting, before it had\nreceived that technical sense which it has borne from Aristotle\ndownwards. Mr. Campbell explains it properly as \"nearly equivalent\nto abstraction and generalisation\" (Preface to The\u00e6t\u00eatus, p.\nlxxiv., also note, p. 144).]\n\n[Footnote 98: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 186 A. [Greek: kalo\\n kai\\\nai)schro/n, kai\\ a)gatho\\n kai\\ kako/n. Kai\\ tou/t\u00f4n moi dokei=\n_e)n toi=s ma/lista pro\\s a)/ll\u00eala skopei=sthai t\u00ea\\n ou)si/an,\na)nalogizome/n\u00ea_ (\u00ea( psuch\u00ea\\) _e)n e(aut\u00ea=| ta\\ gegono/ta kai\\ ta\\\nparo/nta pro\\s ta\\ me/llonta_.]\n\nBase and honourable, evil and good, are here pointed out by\nSokrates as most evidently and emphatically _relative_. In the\ntrain of reasoning here terminated, Plato had been combating the\ndoctrine [Greek: Ai)/sth\u00easis = E)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea]. In his sense of the\nword [Greek: ai)/sth\u00easis] he has refuted the doctrine. But what\nabout the other doctrine, which he declares to be a part of the\nsame programme--_Homo Mensura_--the Protagorean formula? That\nformula, so far from being refuted, is actually sustained and\nestablished by this train of reasoning. Plato has declared [Greek:\nou)si/a, a)l\u00eathei/a, e)nantio/t\u00eas, a)gatho/n, kako/n], &c., to be\na distinct class of Objects not perceived by Sense. But he also\ntells us that they are apprehended by the Mind through its own\nworking, and that they are apprehended always in relation to each\nother. We thus see that they are just as much relative to the\nconcipient mind, as the Objects of sense are to the percipient and\nsentient mind. The Subject is the correlative limit or measure (to\nuse Protagorean phrases) of one as well as of the other. This\nconfirms what I observed above, that the two doctrines, 1. Homo\nMensura, 2. [Greek: Ai)/sth\u00easis = E)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea],--are completely\ndistinct and independent, though Plato has chosen to implicate or\nidentify them.]\n\n[Side-note: Examination of this view--Distinction from the views of\nmodern philosophers.]\n\nSuch is the doctrine which Plato here lays down, respecting the\ndifference between sensible perception, and knowledge or\ncognition. From his time to the present day, the same topic has\ncontinued to be discussed, with different opinions on the part of\nphilosophers. Plato's views are interesting, as far as his\nlanguage enables us to make them out. He does not agree with those\nwho treat sensation or sensible perception (in his language, the\ntwo are not distinguished) as a bodily phenomenon, and\nintelligence as a mental phenomenon. He regards both as belonging\nto the mind or soul. He considers that the mind is sentient as\nwell as intelligent: and moreover, that the sentient mind is the\nessential basis and preliminary--universal among men and animals,\nas well as co\u00e6val with birth--furnishing all the matter, upon\nwhich the intelligent mind has to work. He says nothing, in this\ndialogue, about the three distinct souls or minds (rational,\ncourageous, and appetitive), in one and the same body, which form\nso capital a feature in his Tim\u00e6us and Republic: nothing about\neternal, self-existent, substantial Ideas, or about the\npre-existence of the soul and its reminiscence as the process of\nacquiring knowledge. Nor does he countenance the doctrine of\ninnate ideas, instinctive beliefs, immediate mental intuitions,\ninternal senses, &c., which have been recognised by many\nphilosophers. Plato supposes the intelligent mind to work\naltogether upon the facts of sense; to review and compare them\nwith one another; and to compute facts present or past, with a\nview to the future. All this is quite different from the mental\nintuitions and instincts, assumed by various modern philosophers\nas common to all mankind. The operations, which Plato ascribes to\nthe intelligent mind, are said to be out of the reach of the\ncommon man, and not to be attainable except by a few, with\ndifficulty and labour. The distinctive feature of the sentient\nmind, according to him, is, that it operates through a special\nbodily organ of sense: whereas the intelligent mind has no such\nspecial bodily organ.\n\n[Side-note: Different views given by Plato in other dialogues.]\n\nBut this distinction, in the first place, is not consistent with\nTim\u00e6us--wherein Plato assigns to each of his three human souls a\nseparate and special region of the bodily organism, as its\nphysical basis. Nor, in the second place, is it consistent with\nthat larger range of observed facts which the farther development\nof physiology has brought to view. To Plato and Aristotle the\nnerves and the nervous system were wholly unknown: but it is now\nascertained that the optic, auditory, and other nerves of sense,\nare only branches of a complicated system of sensory and motory\nnerves, attached to the brain and spinal cord as a centre: each\nnerve of sense having its own special mode of excitability or\nmanifestation. Now the physical agency whereby sensation is\ncarried on, is, not the organ of sense alone, but the cerebral\ncentre acting along with that organ: whereas in the intellectual\nand memorial processes, the agency of the cerebral centre and\nother internal parts of the nervous system are sufficient, without\nany excitement beginning at the peripheral extremity of the\nspecial organ of sense, or even though that organ be disabled. We\nknow the intelligent mind only in an embodied condition: that is,\nas working along with and through its own physical agency. When\nPlato, therefore, says that the mind thinks, computes, compares,\n&c., by itself--this is true only as signifying that it does so\nwithout the initiatory stimulus of a special organ of sense; not\nas signifying that it does so without the central nervous force or\ncurrents--an agency essential alike to thought, to sensation, to\nemotion, and to appetite.\n\n[Side-note: Plato's discussion of this question here exhibits a\nremarkable advance in analytical psychology. The mind rises from\nSensation, first to Opinion, then to Cognition.]\n\nPutting ourselves back to the Platonic period, we must recognise\nthat the discussion of the theory [Greek: Ai)/sth\u00easis =\nE)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea], as it is conducted by Plato, exhibits a remarkable\nadvance in psychological analysis. In analysing the mental\nphenomena, Plato displayed much more subtlety and acuteness than\nhis predecessors--as far at least as we have the means of\nappreciating the latter. It is convenient to distinguish intellect\nfrom sensation (or sensible perception) and emotion, though both\nof them are essential and co-ordinate parts of our mental system,\nand are so recognised by Plato. It is also true that the\ndiscrimination of our sensations from each other, comparisons of\nlikeness or unlikeness between them, observation of co-existence\nor sequence, and apprehension of other relations between them,\n&c., are more properly classified as belonging to intellect than\nto sense. But the language of psychology is, and always has been,\nso indeterminate, that it is difficult to say how much any writer\nmeans to include under the terms Sense[99]--Sensation--Sensible\nPerception--[Greek: Ai)/sth\u00easis]. The propositions in which our\nknowledge is embodied, affirm--not sensations detached and\nisolated, but--various relations of antecedence and consequence,\nlikeness, difference, &c., between two or more sensations or facts\nof sense. We rise thus to a state of mind more complicated than\nsimple sensation: including (along with sensation), association,\nmemory, discrimination, comparison of sensations, abstraction, and\ngeneralisation. This is what Plato calls opinion[100] or belief; a\nmental process, which, though presupposing sensations and based\nupon them, he affirms to be carried on by the mind through itself,\nnot through any special bodily organ. In this respect it agrees\nwith what he calls knowledge or cognition. Opinion or belief is\nthe lowest form, possessed in different grades by all men, of this\nexclusively mental process: knowledge or cognition is the highest\nform of the same, attained only by a select few. Both opinion, and\ncognition, consist in comparisons and computations made by the\nmind about the facts of sense. But cognition (in Plato's view) has\nspecial marks:--\n\n1. That it is infallible, while opinion is fallible. You have\nit[101] or you have it not--but there is no mistake possible.\n\n2. That it apprehends what Plato calls the real essence of things,\nand real truth, which, on the contrary, Opinion does not\napprehend.\n\n3. That the person who possesses it can maintain his own\nconsistency under cross-examination, and can test the consistency\nof others by cross-examining them ([Greek: lo/gon dou=nai kai\\\nde/xasthai]).\n\n[Footnote 99: The discussion in pp. 184-186-186 of the The\u00e6t\u00eatus\nis interesting as the earliest attempt remaining to classify\npsychological phenomena. What Demokritus and others proposed with\nthe same view--the analogy or discrepancy between [Greek: to\\\nai)stha/nesthai] and [Greek: to\\ noei=n]--we gather only from the\nbrief notices of Aristotle and others. Plato considers himself to\nhave established, that \"cognition is not to be sought at all in\nsensible perception, but in that function, whatever it be, which\nis predicated of the mind when it busies itself _per se_ (_i.e._\nnot through any special bodily organ) about existences\" (p. 187\nA). We may here remark, as to the dispute between Plato and\nProtagoras, that Plato here does not at all escape from the region\nof the Relative, or from the Protagorean formula, _Homo Mensura_.\nHe passes from Mind Percipient to Mind Cogitant; but these new\nEntia cogitationis (as his language implies) are still relative,\nthough relative to the Cogitant and not to the Percipient. He\nreduces Mind Sentient to the narrowest functions, including only\neach isolated impression of one or other among the five senses.\nWhen we see a clock on the wall and hear it strike twelve--we have\na visual impression of black from the hands, of white from the\nface, and an audible impression from each stroke. But this is all\n(according to Plato) which we have from sense, or which addresses\nitself to the sentient mind. All beyond this (according to him) is\napprehended by the cogitant mind: all discrimination, comparison,\nand relation--such as the succession, or one, two, three, &c., of\nthe separate impressions, the likeness of one stroke to the\npreceding, the contrast or dissimilarity of the black with the\nwhite--even the simplest acts of discrimination or comparison\nbelong (in Plato's view) to mental powers beyond and apart from\nsense; much more, of course, apprehension of the common properties\nof all, and of those extreme abstractions to which we apply the\nwords Ens and Non-Ens ([Greek: to/ t' e)pi\\ pa=si koino\\n kai\\ to\\\ne)pi\\ tou/tois, \u00f4(=| to\\ e)/stin e)ponoma/zeis kai\\ to\\ ou)k\ne)/stin], p. 185 C).\n\nWhen Plato thus narrows the sense of [Greek: ai)/sth\u00easis], it is\neasy to prove that [Greek: e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea] is not [Greek:\nai)/sth\u00easis]; but I doubt whether those who affirmed this\nproposition intended what he here refutes. Neither unreflecting\nmen, nor early theorizers, would distinguish the impressions of\nsense from the feeling of such impressions being _successive,\ndistinct from one another, resembling, &c._ Mr. John Stuart Mill\nobserves (Logic, Book i. chap. iii. sects. 10-13)--\"The simplest\nof all relations are those expressed by the words antecedent and\nconsequent, and by the word simultaneous. If we say dawn preceded\nsunrise, the fact in which the two things dawn and sunrise were\njointly concerned, consisted only of the two things themselves. No\nthird thing entered into the fact or phenomenon at all, unless\nindeed we choose to call the succession of the two objects a third\nthing; _but their succession is not something added to the things\nthemselves_, it is something _involved in them_. To have two\nfeelings at all, implies having them either successively or\nsimultaneously. The relations of succession and simultaneity, of\nlikeness and unlikeness, not being grounded on any fact or\nphenomenon distinct from the related objects themselves, do not\nadmit of the same kind of analysis. But these relations, though\nnot (like other relations) grounded on states of consciousness,\nare themselves states of consciousness. Resemblance is nothing but\nour feeling of resemblance: succession is nothing but our feeling\nof succession.\"\n\nBy all ordinary (non-theorising) persons, these familiar\nrelations, _involved_ in the facts of sense, are conceived as an\nessential part of [Greek: ai)/sth\u00easis]: and are so conceived by\nthose modern theorists who trace all our knowledge to sense--as\nwell as (probably) by those ancient theorists who defined [Greek:\ne)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea] to be [Greek: ai)/sth\u00easis], and against whom Plato\nhere reasons. These theorists would have said (as ordinary\nlanguage recognises)--\"We _see_ the _dissimilarity_ of the black\nhands from the white face of the clock; we _hear_ the _likeness_\nof one stroke of the clock to another, and the _succession_ of the\nstrokes one, two, three, one after the other\".\n\nThe reasoning of Plato against these opponents is thus open to\nmany of the remarks made by Sir William Hamilton, in the notes to\nhis edition of Reid's works, upon Reid's objections against Locke\nand Berkeley: Reid restricted the word Sensation to a much\nnarrower meaning than that given to it by Locke and Berkeley.\n\"Berkeley's _Sensation_\" (observes S. W. Hamilton) \"was equivalent\nto Reid's _Sensation_ plus _Perception_. This is manifest even by\nthe passages adduced in the text\" (note to p. 289). But Reid in\nhis remarks omits to notice this difference in the meaning of the\nsame word. The case is similar with Plato when he refutes those\nwho held the doctrine [Greek: E)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea = Ai)/sth\u00easis]. The\nlast-mentioned word, in his construction, includes only a part of\nthe meaning which they attributed to it; but he takes no notice of\nthis verbal difference. Sir William Hamilton remarks, respecting\nM. Royer Collard's doctrine, which narrows prodigiously the\nprovince of Sense,--\"_Sense_ he so limits that, if rigorously\ncarried out, no sensible perception, as no consciousness, could be\nbrought to bear\". This is exactly true about Plato's doctrine\nnarrowing [Greek: ai)/sth\u00easis]. See Hamilton's edit. of Reid,\nAppendix, p. 844.\n\nAristotle understands [Greek: ai)/sth\u00easis--ai)sth\u00eatik\u00ea\\ psuch\u00ea\\]\nor [Greek: z\u00f4\u00ea/]--as occupying a larger sphere than that which\nPlato assigns to them in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus. Aristotle recognises the\nfive separate [Greek: ai)sth\u00ea/seis], each correlating with and\nperceiving its [Greek: i)/dion ai)sth\u00eato/n]: he also recognises\n[Greek: \u00ea( koin\u00ea\\ ai)/sth\u00easis]--common sensation or\nperception--correlating with (or perceiving) [Greek: ta\\ koina\\\nai)sth\u00eata/], which are _motion_, _rest_, _magnitude_, _figure_,\n_number_. The [Greek: koin\u00ea\\ ai)/sth\u00easis] is not a distinct or sixth\nsense, apart from the five, but a general power inhering in all of\nthem. He farther recognises [Greek: ai)/sth\u00easis] as discriminating,\njudging, comparing, knowing: this characteristic, [Greek: to\\\nkritoko\\n] and [Greek: gn\u00f4stiko/n], is common to [Greek:\nai)/sth\u00easis, phantasi/a, no/\u00easis], and distinguishes them all from\nappetite--[Greek: to\\ o)rektiko/n, kin\u00eatiko/n], &c. See the first\nand second chapters of the third Book of the Treatise De Anim\u00e2,\nand the Commentary of Simplikius upon that Treatise, especially p.\n56, b. Aristotle tells us that all animals [Greek: e)/chei\ndu/namin su/mphuton kritik\u00ea/n, \u00ea(\\n kalou=sin ai)/sth\u00easin.] Anal.\nPoster. ii. p. 99, b. 35. And Sir William Hamilton adopts a\nsimilar view, when he remarks, that Judgment is implied in every\nact of Consciousness.\n\nOccasionally indeed Aristotle partitions the soul between [Greek:\nnou=s] and [Greek: o)/rexis]--Intelligence and\nAppetite--recognising Sense as belonging to the head of Intelligence--see\nDe Motu Animalium, 6, p. 700, b. 20. [Greek: tau=ta de\\ pa/nta\na)na/getai ei)s nou=n kai\\ o)/rexin; kai\\ ga\\r \u00ea( phantasi/a kai\\\n\u00ea( ai)/sth\u00easis t\u00ea\\n au)t\u00ea\\n t\u00f4=| n\u00f4=| ch\u00f4/ran e)/chousi; _kritika\\\nga\\r pa/nta_.] Compare also the Topica, ii. 4, p. 111, a. 18.\n\nIt will thus be seen that while Plato severs pointedly [Greek:\nai)/sth\u00easis] from anything like discrimination, comparison,\njudgment, even in the most rudimentary form--Aristotle refuses to\nadopt this extreme abstraction as his basis for classifying the\nmental phenomena. He recognises a certain measure of\ndiscrimination, comparison, and judgment, as implicated in\nsensible perceptions. Moreover, that which he calls [Greek: koin\u00ea\\\nai)/sth\u00easis] is unknown to Plato, who isolates each sense, and\nindeed each act of each sense, as much as possible. Aristotle is\nopposed, as Plato is, to the doctrine [Greek: E)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea =\nAi)/sth\u00easis], but he employs a different manner of reasoning\nagainst it. See, _inter alia_, Anal. Poster. i. 31, p. 87, b. 28.\nHe confines [Greek: e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea] to one branch of the [Greek:\nno\u00eatik\u00ea/].\n\nThe Peripatetic Straton, the disciple of Theophrastus, denied that\nthere was any distinct line of demarcation between [Greek: to\\\nai)stha/nesthai] and [Greek: to\\ noei=n]: maintaining that the\nformer was impossible without a certain measure of the latter. His\nobservation is very worthy of note. Plutarch, De Solerti\u00e2\nAnimalium, iii. 6, p. 961 A. [Greek: Kai/toi Stra/t\u00f4no/s ge tou=\nphusikou= lo/gos e)sti/n, a)podeiknu/\u00f4n \u00f4(s ou)d' ai)stha/nesthai\ntopara/pan a)/neu tou= noei=n u(pa/rchei; kai\\ ga\\r gra/mmata\npolla/kis e)piporeuo/mena t\u00ea=| o)/psei, kai\\ lo/goi prospi/ptontes\nt\u00ea=| a)koi\u00ea=| _dialantha/nousin \u00ea(ma=s_ kai\\ _diapheu/gousi pro\\s\ne(te/rois to\\n nou=n e)/chontas_; ei)=t' _au)=this e)pan\u00ea=lthe_\nkai\\ _metathei= kai\\ metadi\u00f4/kei t\u00f4=n pro\u00efeme/n\u00f4n e(/kaston\na)nalego/menos_; \u00ea(=| kai\\ le/lektai. _Nou=s o(r\u00ea=|, kai\\ nou=s\na)kou/ei, ta\\ de\\ a)/lla k\u00f4pha\\ kai\\ tuphla/_;** \u00f4(s tou= peri\\ ta\\\no)/mmata kai\\ \u00f4)=ta pa/thous, a)\\n m\u00ea\\ par\u00ea=| to\\ phronou=n,\nai)/sth\u00easin ou) poiou=ntos.]\n\nStraton here notices that remarkable fact (unnoticed by Plato and\neven by Aristotle, so far as I know) in the process of\nassociation, that impressions of sense are sometimes unheeded when\nthey occur, but force themselves upon the attention afterwards,\nand are recalled by the mind in the order in which they occurred\nat first.]\n\n[Footnote 100: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 187 A. _Sokr._ [Greek: o(/m\u00f4s de\\\ntosou=to/n ge probeb\u00ea/kamen, \u00f4(/ste m\u00ea\\ z\u00eatei=n au)t\u00ea\\n\n(e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ean) e)n ai)sth\u00ea/sei topara/pan, a)ll' e)n e)kei/n\u00f4| t\u00f4=|\no)no/mati, o(/, ti pot' e)/chei \u00ea( psuch\u00ea/, o(/tan au)t\u00ea\\ kath'\nau(t\u00ea\\n pragmateu/\u00eatai peri\\ ta\\ o)/nta.] _The\u00e6t._ [Greek: A)lla\\\nm\u00ea\\n tou=to/ ge kalei=tai, \u00f4(s e)g\u00f4)=|mai, _doxa/zein_.] _Sokr._\n[Greek: O)rth\u00f4=s ga\\r oi)/ei.]\n\nPlato is quite right in distinguishing between [Greek:\nai)/sth\u00easis] and [Greek: do/xa], looking at the point as a\nquestion of psychological classification. It appears to me,\nhowever, most probable that those who maintained the theory\n[Greek: E)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea = Ai)/sth\u00easis], made no such distinction, but\nincluded that which he calls [Greek: do/xa] in [Greek:\nai)/sth\u00easis]. Unfortunately we do not possess their own\nexposition; but it cannot have included much of psychological\nanalysis.]\n\n[Footnote 101: Schleiermacher represents Plato as discriminating\nKnowledge (the region of infallibility, you either possess it or\nnot) from Opinion (the region of fallibility, true or false, as\nthe case may be) by a broad and impassable line--\n\n\"Auch hieraus erw\u00e4chst eine sehr entscheidende, nur ebenfalls\nnicht ausdr\u00fccklich gezogene, Folgerung, dass die reine Erkenntniss\ngar nicht auf demselben Gebiet liegen k\u00f6nne mit dem Irrthum--und\nes in Beziehung auf sie kein Wahr und Falsch gebe, sondern nur ein\nHaben oder Nicht Haben.\" (Schleiermacher, Einleit. zum The\u00e6t. p.\n176.)\n\nSteinhart (in his Einleit. zum The\u00e6t. p. 94) contests this opinion\nof Schleiermacher (though he seems to give the same opinion\nhimself, p. 92). He thinks that Plato does not recognise so very\nmarked a separation between Knowledge and Opinion: that he\nconsiders Knowledge as the last term of a series of mental\nprocesses, developed gradually according to constant laws, and\nascending from Sensible Perception through Opinion to Knowledge:\nthat the purpose of the The\u00e6t\u00eatus is to illustrate this theory.\n\nUeberweg, on the contrary, defends the opinion of Schleiermacher\nand maintains that Steinhart is mistaken (Aechtheit und Zeit.\nPlaton. Schriften, p. 279).\n\nPassages may be produced from Plato's writings to support both\nthese views: that of Schleiermacher, as well as that of Steinhart.\nIn Tim\u00e6us, p. 51 E, the like infallibility is postulated for\n[Greek: Nou=s] (which there represents [Greek: E)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea]) as\ncontrasted with [Greek: do/xa]. But I think that Steinhart\nascribes to the The\u00e6t\u00eatus more than can fairly be discovered in\nit. That dialogue is purely negative. It declares that [Greek:\ne)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea] is _not_ [Greek: ai)/sth\u00easis]. It then attempts to go\na step farther towards the affirmative, by declaring also that\n[Greek: e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea] is a mental process of computation, respecting\nthe impressions of [Greek: ai)/sth\u00easis]--that it is [Greek: to\\\nsullogi/zesthai], which is equivalent to [Greek: to\\ doxa/zein]:\ncompare Ph\u00e6drus, 249 B. But this affirmative attempt breaks down:\nfor Sokrates cannot explain what [Greek: to\\ doxa/zein] is, nor\nhow [Greek: to\\ doxa/zein pseud\u00ea=] is possible; in fact he says\n(p. 200 B) that this cannot be explained until we know what\n[Greek: e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea] is. The entire result of the dialogue is\nnegative, as the closing words proclaim emphatically. On this\npoint many of the commentators agree--Ast, Socher, Stallbaum,\nUeberweg, Zeller, &c.\n\nWhether it be true, as Schleiermacher, with several others, thinks\n(Einl. pp. 184-185), that Plato intends to attack Aristippus in\nthe first part of the dialogue, and Antisthenes in the latter\npart, we have no means of determining.]\n\nThis at least is the meaning which Plato assigns to the two words\ncorresponding to Cognition and to Opinion, in the present\ndialogue, and often elsewhere. But he also frequently employs the\nword Cognition in a lower and more general signification, not\nrestricted, as it is here, to the highest philosophical reach,\nwith infallibility--but comprehending much of what is here treated\nonly as _opinion_. Thus, for example, he often alludes to the\nvarious professional men as possessing _Cognition_, each in his\nrespective department: the general, the physician, the gymnast,\nthe steersman, the husbandman, &c.[102] But he certainly does not\nmean, that each of them has attained what he calls real essence\nand philosophical truths--or that any of them are infallible.\n\n[Footnote 102: Compare Plato, Sophistes, pp. 232 E, 233 A.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato did not recognise Verification from experience,\nor from facts of sense, as either necessary or possible.]\n\nOne farther remark must be made on Plato's doctrine. His\nremark--That Cognition consists not in the affections of sense, but\nin computation or reasoning respecting those affections, (_i. e._\nabstraction, generalisation, &c.)--is both true and important. But\nhe has not added, nor would he have admitted, that if we are to\ndecide whether our computation is true and right, or false and\nerroneous--our surest way is to recur to the simple facts of\nsense. Theory must be verified by observation; wherever that\ncannot be done, the best guarantee is wanting. The facts\nthemselves are not cognition: yet they are the test by which all\ncomputations, pretending to be cognitions, must be tried.[103]\n\n[Footnote 103: See the remarks on the necessity of Verification,\nas a guarantee for the Deductive Process, in Mr. John Stuart\nMill's System of Logic, Book iii. ch. xi. s. 8. Newton puts aside\nhis own computation or theory respecting gravity as the force\nwhich kept the moon in its orbit, because the facts reported by\nobservers respecting the lunar motions were for some time not in\nharmony with it. Plato certainly would not have surrendered any\n[Greek: sullogismo\\s] under the same respect to observed facts.\nAristotle might probably have done so; but this is uncertain.]\n\n[Side-note: Second definition given by The\u00e6t\u00eatus--That Cognition\nconsists in right or true opinion.]\n\nWe have thus, in enquiring--What is Knowledge or Cognition?\nadvanced so far as to discover--That it does not consist in\nsensible perception, but in some variety of that purely mental\nprocess which is called opining, believing, judging, conceiving,\n&c. And here The\u00e6t\u00eatus, being called upon for a second definition,\nanswers--_That Knowledge consists in right or true opinion_. All\nopinion is not knowledge, because opinion is often false.[104]\n\n[Footnote 104: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 187 B. It is scarcely possible to\ntranslate [Greek: doxa/zein] always by the same English word.]\n\n[Side-note: Objection by Sokrates--This definition assumes that\nthere are false opinions. But how can false opinions be possible?\nHow can we conceive Non-Ens: or confound together two distinct\nrealities?.]\n\n_Sokr._--But you are here assuming that there _are_ false\nopinions? How is this possible? How can any man judge or opine\nfalsely? What mental condition is it which bears that name? I\nconfess that I cannot tell: though I have often thought of the\nmatter myself, and debated it with others.[105] Every thing comes\nunder the head either of what a man knows, or of what he does not\nknow. If he conceives, it must be either the known, or the\nunknown. He cannot mistake either one known thing for another\nknown thing: or a known thing for an unknown: or an unknown for a\nknown: or one unknown for another unknown. But to form a false\nopinion, he must err in one or other of these four ways. It is\ntherefore impossible that he can form a false opinion.[106]\n\n[Footnote 105: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 187 C.]\n\n[Footnote 106: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 188.]\n\nIf indeed a man ascribed to any subject a predicate which was\nnon-existent, this would be evidently a false opinion. But how\ncan any one conceive the non-existent? He who conceives must conceive\n_something_: just as he who sees or touches, must see or touch\n_something_. He cannot see or touch the non-existent: for that\nwould be to see or touch nothing: in other words, not to see or\ntouch at all. In the same manner, to conceive the non-existent, or\n_nothing_, is impossible.[107] _The\u00e6t._--Perhaps he conceives two\nrealities, but confounds them together, mistaking the one for the\nother. _Sokr._--Impossible. If he conceives two distinct\nrealities, he cannot suppose the one to be the other. Suppose him\nto conceive, just and unjust, a horse and an ox--he can never\nbelieve just to be unjust, or the ox to be the horse.[108] If,\nagain, he conceives one of the two alone and singly, neither could\nhe on that hypothesis suppose it to be the other: for that would\nimply that he conceived the other also.\n\n[Footnote 107: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 188-189.]\n\n[Footnote 108: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 190.]\n\n[Side-note: Waxen memorial tablet in the mind, on which past\nimpressions are engraved. False opinion consists in wrongly\nidentifying present sensations with past impressions.]\n\nLet us look again in another direction (continues Sokrates). We\nhave been hasty in our concessions. Is it really impossible for a\nman to conceive, that a thing, which he knows, is another thing\nwhich he does not know? Let us see. Grant me the hypothesis (for\nthe sake of illustration), that each man has in his mind a waxen\ntablet--the wax of one tablet being larger, firmer, cleaner, and\nbetter in every way, than that of another: the gift of Mnemosyn\u00ea,\nfor inscribing and registering our sensible perceptions and\nthoughts. Every man remembers and knows these, so long as the\nimpressions of them remain upon his tablet: as soon as they are\nblotted out, he has forgotten them and no longer knows them.[109]\nNow false opinion may occur thus. A man having inscribed on his\nmemorial tablet the impressions of two objects A and B, which he\nhas seen before, may come to see one of these objects again; but\nhe may by mistake identify the present sensation with the wrong\npast impression, or with that past impression to which it does not\nbelong. Thus on seeing A, he may erroneously identify it with the\npast impression B, instead of A: or _vice vers\u00e2_.[110] False\nopinion will thus lie, not in the conjunction or identification of\nsensations with sensations--nor of thoughts (or past impressions)\nwith thoughts--but in that of present sensations with past\nimpressions or thoughts.[111]\n\n[Footnote 109: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 191 C. [Greek: k\u00ea/rinon\ne)kmogei=on].]\n\n[Footnote 110: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 193-194.]\n\n[Footnote 111: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 195 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates refutes this assumption. Dilemma. Either false\nopinion is impossible, or else a man may know what he does not\nknow.]\n\nHaving laid this down, however, Sokrates immediately proceeds to\nrefute it. In point of fact, false conceptions are found to\nprevail, not only in the wrong identification of present\nsensations with past impressions or thoughts, but also in the\nwrong identification of one past impression or thought with\nanother. Thus a man, who has clearly engraved on his memorial\ntablet the conceptions of five, seven, eleven, twelve,--may\nnevertheless, when asked what is the sum of seven and five, commit\nerror and answer eleven: thus mistaking eleven for twelve.\n\nWe are thus placed in this dilemma--Either false opinion is an\nimpossibility:--Or else, it is possible that what a man knows, he\nmay not know. Which of the two do you choose?[112]\n\n[Footnote 112: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 196 C. [Greek: nu=n de\\ \u00ea)/toi\nou)k e)/sti pseud\u00ea\\s do/xa, \u00ea)\\ a(/ tis oi)=den, oi(=o/n te m\u00ea\\\nei)de/nai; kai\\ tou/t\u00f4n po/tera ai(rei=?]]\n\n[Side-note: He draws distinction between possessing knowledge, and\nhaving it actually in hand. Simile of the pigeon-cage with caught\npigeons turned into it and flying about.]\n\nTo this question no answer is given. But Sokrates,--after\nremarking on the confused and unphilosophical manner in which the\ndebate has been conducted, both he and The\u00e6t\u00eatus having\nperpetually employed the words _know_, _knowledge_, and their\nequivalents, as if the meaning of the words were ascertained,\nwhereas the very problem debated is, to ascertain their\nmeaning[113]--takes up another path of enquiry. He distinguishes\nbetween possessing knowledge,--and having it actually in hand or\non his person: which distinction he illustrates by comparing the\nmind to a pigeon-cage. A man hunts and catches pigeons, then turns\nthem into the cage, within the limits of which they fly about:\nwhen he wants to catch any one of them for use, he has to go\nthrough a second hunt, sometimes very troublesome: in which he may\nperhaps either fail altogether, or catch the wrong one instead of\nthe right. The first hunt Sokrates compares to the acquisition of\nknowledge: the second, to the getting it into his hand for\nuse.[114] A man may _know_, in the first sense, and _not know_, in\nthe second: he may have to hunt about for the cognition which (in\nthe first sense) he actually possesses. In trying to catch one\ncognition, he may confound it with another: and this constitutes\nfalse opinion--the confusion of two _cognita_ one with\nanother.[115]\n\n[Footnote 113: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 196 D.]\n\n[Footnote 114: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 197-198.]\n\n[Footnote 115: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 199 C. [Greek: \u00ea( t\u00f4=n e)pist\u00eam\u00f4=n\nmetallag\u00ea/].]\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates refutes this. Suggestion of The\u00e6t\u00eatus--That\nthere may be non-cognitions in the mind as well as cognitions, and\nthat false opinion may consist in confounding one with the other.\nSokrates rejects this.]\n\nYet how can such a confusion be possible? (Sokrates here again\nreplies to himself.) How can knowledge betray a man into such\nerror? If he knows A, and knows B--how can he mistake A for B?\nUpon this supposition, knowledge produces the effect of ignorance:\nand we might just as reasonably imagine ignorance to produce the\neffects of knowledge.[116]--Perhaps (suggests The\u00e6t\u00eatus), he may\nhave _non-cognitions_ in his mind, mingled with the cognitions:\nand in hunting for a cognition, he may catch a non-cognition.\nHerein may lie false opinion.--That can hardly be (replies\nSokrates). If the man catches what is really a non-cognition, he\nwill not suppose it to be such, but to be a cognition. He will\nbelieve himself fully to _know_, that in which he is mistaken. But\nhow is it possible that he should confound a non-cognition with a\ncognition, or _vice vers\u00e2_? Does not he know the one from the\nother? We must then require him to have a separate cognition of\nhis own cognitions or non-cognitions--and so on _ad\ninfinitum_.[117] The hypothesis cannot be admitted.\n\n[Footnote 116: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 199 E.]\n\n[Footnote 117: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 200 B.]\n\nWe cannot find out (continues Sokrates) what false opinion is: and\nwe have plainly done wrong to search for it, until we have first\nascertained what knowledge is.[118]\n\n[Footnote 118: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 200 C.]\n\n[Side-note: He brings another argument to prove that Cognition is\nnot the same as true opinion. Rhetors persuade or communicate true\nopinion; but they do not teach or communicate knowledge.]\n\nMoreover, as to the question, Whether knowledge is identical with\ntrue opinion, Sokrates produces another argument to prove that it\nis not so: and that the two are widely different. You can\ncommunicate true opinion without communicating knowledge: and the\npowerful class of rhetors and litigants make it their special\nbusiness to do so. They persuade, without teaching, a numerous\naudience.[119] During the hour allotted to them for discourse,\nthey create, in the minds of the assembled dikasts, true opinions\nrespecting complicated incidents of robbery or other unlawfulness,\nat which none of the dikasts have been personally present. Upon\nthis opinion the dikasts decide, and decide rightly. But they\ncannot possibly _know_ the facts without having been personally\npresent and looking on. That is essential to knowledge or\ncognition.[120] Accordingly, they have acquired true and right\nopinions; yet without acquiring knowledge. Therefore the two are\nnot the same.[121]\n\n[Footnote 119: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 201 A. [Greek: ou(=toi ga/r pou\nt\u00ea=| e(aut\u00f4=n te/chn\u00ea| pei/thousin, ou) dida/skontes, a)lla\\\ndoxa/zein poiou=ntes a(\\ a)\\n bou/l\u00f4ntai.]]\n\n[Footnote 120: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 201 B-C. [Greek: Ou)kou=n o(/tan\ndikai/\u00f4s peisth\u00f4=si dikastai\\ peri\\ _\u00f4(=n i)do/nti mo/non e)/stin\nei)de/nai, a)/ll\u00f4s de\\ m\u00ea/_, tau=ta to/te _e)x a)ko\u00ea=s\nkri/nontes_, a)l\u00eath\u00ea= do/xan labo/ntes, a)/neu e)pist\u00ea/m\u00eas\ne)/krinan, o)rtha\\ peisthe/ntes, ei)/per eu)= e)di/kasan?]]\n\n[Footnote 121: The distinction between persuading and\nteaching--between creating opinion and imparting knowledge--has been\nbrought to view in the Gorgias, and is noted also in the Tim\u00e6us. As\nit stands here, it deserves notice, because Plato not only professes\nto affirm what _knowledge_ is, but also identifies it with\nsensible perception. The Dikasts (according to Sokrates) would\nhave _known_ the case, had they been present when it occurred, so\nas to see and hear it: there is no other way of acquiring\nknowledge.\n\nHearing the case only by the narration of speakers, they can\nacquire nothing more than a _true opinion_. Hence we learn wherein\nconsists the difference between the two. That which I see, hear,\nor apprehend by any sensible perception, I _know_: compare a\npassage in Sophistes, p. 267 A-B, where [Greek: to\\ gign\u00f4/skein]\nis explained in the same way. But that which I learn from the\ntestimony of others amounts to nothing more than opinion; and at\nbest to a true opinion.\n\nPlato's reasoning here involves an admission of the very doctrine\nwhich he had before taken so much pains to confute--the doctrine\nthat Cognition is Sensible Perception. Yet he takes no notice of\nthe inconsistency. An occasion for sneering at the Rhetors and\nDikasts is always tempting to him.\n\nSo, in the Menon (p. 97 B), the man who has been at Larissa is\nsaid to _know_ the road to Larissa; as distinguished from another\nman who, never having been there, opines correctly which the road\nis. And in the Sophistes (p. 263) when Plato is illustrating the\ndoctrine that false propositions, as well as true propositions,\nare possible, and really occur, he selects as his cases, [Greek:\nTheai/t\u00eatos ka/th\u00eatai, Theai/t\u00eatos pe/tetai]. That one of these\npropositions is false and the other true, can be known only by\n[Greek: ai)/sth\u00easis]--in the sense of that word commonly\nunderstood.]\n\n[Side-note: New answer of The\u00e6t\u00eatus--Cognition is true opinion,\ncoupled with rational explanation.]\n\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus now recollects another definition of knowledge, learnt\nfrom some one whose name he forgets. Knowledge is (he says) true\nopinion, coupled with rational explanation. True opinion without\nsuch rational explanation, is not knowledge. Those things which do\nnot admit of rational explanation, are not knowable.[122]\n\n[Footnote 122: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 201 D. [Greek: t\u00ea\\n me\\n meta\\\nlo/gou a)l\u00eath\u00ea= do/xan e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ean ei)=nai; t\u00ea\\n de\\ a)/logon,\ne)kto\\s e)pist\u00ea/m\u00eas; kai\\ \u00f4(=n me\\n m\u00ea/ e)sti lo/gos, ou)k\ne)pist\u00eata\\ ei)=nai, _ou(t\u00f4si\\ kai\\ o)noma/z\u00f4n_, a)\\ d' e)/chei,\ne)pist\u00eata/.]\n\nThe words [Greek: ou(t\u00f4si\\ kai\\ o)noma/z\u00f4n] are intended,\naccording to Heindorf and Schleiermacher, to justify the use of\nthe word [Greek: e)pist\u00eata/], which was then a neologism. Both\nthis definition, and the elucidation of it which Sokrates proceeds\nto furnish, are announced as borrowed from other persons not\nnamed.]\n\n[Side-note: Criticism on the answer by Sokrates. Analogy of letters\nand words, primordial elements and compounds. Elements cannot be\nexplained: compounds alone can be explained.]\n\nTaking up this definition, and elucidating it farther, Sokrates\nrefers to the analogy of words and letters. Letters answer to the\nprimordial elements of things; which are not matters either of\nknowledge, or of true opinion, or of rational explanation--but\nsimply of sensible perception. A letter, or a primordial element,\ncan only be perceived and called by its name. You cannot affirm of\nit any predicate or any epithet: you cannot call it _existing_, or\n_this_, or _that_, or _each_, or _single_, or by any other name\nthan its own:[123] for if you do, you attach to it something\nextraneous to itself, and then it ceases to be an element. But\nsyllables, words, propositions--_i. e._, the compounds made up by\nputting together various letters or elements--admit of being\nknown, explained, and described, by enumerating the component\nelements. You may indeed conceive them correctly, without being\nable to explain them or to enumerate their component elements: but\nthen you do not know them. You can only be said to know them, when\nbesides conceiving them correctly, you can also specify their\ncomponent elements[124]--or give explanation.\n\n[Footnote 123: Plato, The\u00e6t. pp. 201 E--202 A. [Greek: au)to\\ ga\\r\nkath' au(to\\ e(/kaston o)noma/sai mo/non ei)/\u00ea, proseipei=n de\\\nou)de\\n a)/llo dunato/n, ou)/th' \u00f4(s e)/stin, ou)/th' \u00f4(s ou)k\ne)/stin' \u00ea)/d\u00ea ga\\r a)\\n ou)si/an \u00ea)\\ m\u00ea\\ ou)si/an au)t\u00f4=|\nprosti/thesthai, dei=n de\\ ou)de\\n prosphe/rein, ei)/per au)to\\\ne)kei=no mo/non tis e)rei=; e)pei\\ ou)de\\ to\\ _au)to/_, ou)de/ to\\\n_e)kei=no_, ou)de\\ to _e(/kaston_, ou)de\\ to _mo/non_, ou)de\\ to\\\n_tou=to_, prosoiste/on, ou)d' a)/lla polla\\ toiau=ta; tau=ta me\\n\nga\\r peritre/chonta pa=si prosphe/resthai, e(/tera o)/nta\ne(kei/n\u00f4n oi(=s prosti/thetai.] Also p. 205 C.]\n\n[Footnote 124: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 202.]\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates refutes this criticism. If the elements are\nunknowable, the compound must be unknowable also.]\n\nHaving enunciated this definition, as one learnt from another\nperson not named, Sokrates proceeds to examine and confute it. It\nrests on the assumption (he says), that the primordial elements\nare themselves unknowable; and that it is only the aggregates\ncompounded of them which are knowable. Such an assumption cannot\nbe granted. The result is either a real sum total, including both\nthe two component elements: or it is a new form, indivisible and\nuncompounded, generated by the two elements, but not identical\nwith them nor including them in itself. If the former, it is not\nknowable, because if neither of the elements are knowable, both\ntogether are not knowable: when you know neither A nor B you\ncannot know either the sum or the product of A and B. If the\nlatter, then the result, being indivisible and uncompounded, is\nunknowable for the same reason as the elements are so: it can only\nbe named by its own substantive name, but nothing can be\npredicated respecting it.[125]\n\n[Footnote 125: Plato, The\u00e6t. pp. 203-206.]\n\nNor can it indeed be admitted as true--That the elements are\nunknowable, and the compound alone knowable. On the contrary, the\nelements are more knowable than the compound.[126]\n\n[Footnote 126: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 206.]\n\n[Side-note: Rational explanation may have one of three different\nmeanings. 1. Description in appropriate language. 2. Enumeration\nof all the component elements in the compound. In neither of these\nmeanings will the definition of Cognition hold.]\n\nWhen you say (continues Sokrates) that knowledge is true opinion\ncoupled with rational explanation, you may mean by _rational\nexplanation_ one of three things. 1. The power of enunciating the\nopinion in clear and appropriate words. This every one learns to\ndo, who is not dumb or an idiot: so that in this sense true\nopinion will always carry with it rational explanation.--2. The\npower of describing the thing in question by its component\nelements. Thus Hesiod says that there are a hundred distinct\nwooden pieces in a waggon: you and I do not know nor can we\ndescribe them all: we can distinguish only the more obvious\nfractions--the wheels, the axle, the body, the yoke, &c.\nAccordingly, we cannot be said to know a waggon: we have only a\ntrue opinion about it. Such is the second sense of [Greek: lo/gos]\nor rational explanation. But neither in this sense will the\nproposition hold--That knowledge is right opinion coupled with\nrational explanation. For suppose that a man can enumerate, spell,\nand write correctly, all the syllables of the name\n_The\u00e6t\u00eatus_--which would fulfil the conditions of this definition:\nyet, if he mistakes and spells wrongly in any other name, such as\n_Theod\u00f4rus_, you will not give him credit for knowledge. You will\nsay that he writes _The\u00e6t\u00eatus_ correctly, by virtue of right\nopinion simply. It is therefore possible to have right opinion\ncoupled with rational explanation, in this second sense also,--yet\nwithout possessing knowledge.[127]\n\n[Footnote 127: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 207-208 B. [Greek: e)/stin a)/ra\nmeta\\ lo/gou o)rth\u00ea\\ do/xa, \u00ea(\\n ou)/p\u00f4 dei= _e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ean_\nkalei=n.]]\n\n[Side-note: Third meaning. To assign some mark, whereby the thing\nto be explained differs from everything else. The definition will\nnot hold. For rational explanation, in this sense, is already\nincluded in true opinion.]\n\n3. A third meaning of this same word [Greek: lo/gos] or rational\nexplanation, is, that in which it is most commonly understood-To\nbe able to assign some mark whereby the thing to be explained\ndiffers from every thing else--to differentiate the thing.[128]\nPersons, who understand the word in this way, affirm, that so long\nas you only seize what the thing has in common with other things,\nyou have only a _true opinion_ concerning it: but when you seize\nwhat it has peculiar and characteristic, you then possess\n_knowledge_ of it. Such is their view: but though it seems\nplausible at first sight (says Sokrates), it will not bear close\nscrutiny. For in order to have a true opinion about any thing, I\nmust have in my mind not only what it possesses in common with\nother things, but what it possesses peculiar to itself also. Thus\nif I have a true opinion about The\u00e6t\u00eatus, I must have in my mind\nnot only the attributes which belong to him in common with other\nmen, but also those which belong to him specially and exclusively.\nRational explanation ([Greek: lo/gos]) in this sense is already\ncomprehended in true opinion, and is an essential ingredient in\nit--not any new element superadded. It will not serve therefore as\na distinction between true opinion and knowledge.[129]\n\n[Footnote 128: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 208 C. [Greek: O(/per a)\\n oi(\npolloi\\ ei)/poien, to\\ e)/chein ti s\u00eamei=on ei)pei=n \u00f4(=| t\u00f4=n\na(pa/nt\u00f4n diaphe/rei to\\ e)r\u00f4t\u00eathe/n.]]\n\n[Footnote 129: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 209.]\n\n[Side-note: Conclusion of the dialogue--Summing up by\nSokrates--Value of the result, although purely negative.]\n\nSuch is the result (continues Sokrates) of our researches\nconcerning knowledge. We have found that it is neither sensible\nperception--nor true opinion--nor true opinion along with rational\nexplanation. But what it is, we have not found. Are we still\npregnant with any other answer, The\u00e6t\u00eatus, or have we brought\nforth all that is to come?--_I_ have brought forth (replies\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus) more than I had within me, through your furtherance.\nWell (rejoins Sokrates)--and my obstetric science has pronounced\nall your offspring to be mere wind, unworthy of being\npreserved![130] If hereafter you should again become pregnant,\nyour offspring will be all the better for our recent\ninvestigation. If on the other hand you should always remain\nbarren, you will be more amiable and less vexatious to your\ncompanions--by having a just estimate of yourself and by not\nbelieving yourself to know what you really do not know.[131]\n\n[Footnote 130: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 210 B. [Greek: ou)kou=n tau=ta\nme\\n a(/panta \u00ea( maieutik\u00ea\\ \u00ea(mi=n te/chn\u00ea a)nemiai=a/ ph\u00easi\ngegen\u00ea=sthai kai\\ ou)k a)/xia troph\u00ea=s?]]\n\n[Footnote 131: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 210 C. [Greek: e)a/n te gi/gn\u00ea|\n(e)gku/m\u00f4n), beltio/n\u00f4n e)/sei pl\u00ea/r\u00eas dia\\ t\u00ea\\n nu=n e)xe/tasin;\ne)a/n te keno\\s \u00ea)=s, \u00ea(=tton e)/sei baru\\s toi=s sunou=si kai\\\n\u00ea(mer\u00f4/teros, s\u00f4phro/n\u00f4s ou)k oi)o/menos ei)de/nai a(\\ m\u00ea\\\noi)=stha.]\n\nCompare also an earlier passage in the dialogue, p. 187 B.]\n\n* * * * *\n\n[Side-note: Remarks on the dialogue. View of Plato. False\npersuasion of knowledge removed. Importance of such removal.]\n\nThe concluding observations of this elaborate dialogue deserve\nparticular attention as illustrating Plato's point of view, at the\ntime when he composed the The\u00e6t\u00eatus. After a long debate, set\nforth with all the charm of Plato's style, no result is attained.\nThree different explanations of knowledge have been rejected as\nuntenable.[132] No other can be found; nor is any suggestion\noffered, showing in what quarter we are to look for the true one.\nWhat then is the purpose or value of the dialogue? Many persons\nwould pronounce it to be a mere piece of useless ingenuity and\nelegance: but such is not the opinion of Plato himself. Sufficient\ngain (in his view) will have been ensured, if The\u00e6t\u00eatus has\nacquired a greater power of testing any fresh explanation which he\nmay attempt of this difficult subject: or even if he should\nattempt none such, by his being disabused, at all events, of the\nfalse persuasion of knowing where he is really ignorant. Such\nfalse persuasion of knowledge (Plato here intimates) renders a man\nvexatious to associates; while a right estimate of his own\nknowledge and ignorance fosters gentleness and moderation of\ncharacter. In this view, false persuasion of knowledge is an\nethical defect, productive of positive mischief in a man's\nintercourse with others: the removal of it improves his character,\neven though no ulterior step towards real and positive knowledge\nbe made. The important thing is, that he should acquire the power\nof testing and verifying all opinions, old as well as new. This,\nwhich is the only guarantee against the delusive self-satisfaction\nof sham knowledge, must be firmly established in the mind before\nit is possible to aspire effectively to positive and assured\nknowledge. The negative arm of philosophy is in its application\nprior to the positive, and indispensable, as the single protection\nagainst error and false persuasion of knowledge. Sokrates is here\ndepicted as one in whom the negative vein is spontaneous and\nabundant, even to a pitch of discomfort--as one complaining\nbitterly, that objections thrust themselves upon him, unsought and\nunwelcome, against conclusions which he had himself just\npreviously taken pains to prove at length.[133]\n\n[Footnote 132: I have already observed, however, that in one\npassage of the interrogation carried on by Sokrates (p. 201 A-B,\nwhere he is distinguishing between persuasion and teaching) he\nunconsciously admits the identity between knowledge and sensible\nperception.]\n\n[Footnote 133: See the emphatic passage, p. 195 B-C.]\n\n[Side-note: Formation of the testing or verifying power in men's\nminds, value of the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, as it exhibits Sokrates demolishing\nhis own suggestions.]\n\nTo form in men's minds this testing or verifying power, is one\nmain purpose in Plato's dialogues of Search--and in some of them\nthe predominant purpose; as he himself announces it to be in the\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus. I have already made the same remark before, and I\nrepeat it here; since it is absolutely necessary for appreciating\nthese dialogues of Search in their true bearing and value. To one\nwho does not take account of the negative arm of philosophy, as an\nauxiliary without which the positive arm will strike at\nrandom--half of the Platonic dialogues will teach nothing, and will\neven appear as enigmas--the The\u00e6t\u00eatus among the foremost. Plato excites\nand strengthens the interior mental wakefulness of the hearer, to\njudge respecting all affirmative theories, whether coming from\nhimself or from others. This purpose is well served by the manner\nin which Sokrates more than once in this dialogue first announces,\nproves, and builds up a theory--then unexpectedly changes his\nfront, disproves, and demolishes it. We are taught that it is not\ndifficult to find a certain stock of affirmative argument which\nmakes the theory look well from a distance: we must inspect\nclosely, and make sure that there are no counter-arguments in the\nbackground.[134] The way in which Sokrates pulls to pieces his own\ntheories, is farther instructive, as it illustrates the\nexhortation previously addressed by him to The\u00e6t\u00eatus--not to take\noffence when his answers were canvassed and shown to be\ninadmissible.[135]\n\n[Footnote 134: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 208 E.]\n\n[Footnote 135: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 151 C.]\n\n[Side-note: Comparison of the Philosopher with the Rhetor. The\nRhetor is enslaved to the opinions of auditors.]\n\nA portion of the dialogue to which I have not yet adverted,\nillustrates this anxiety for the preliminary training of the\nratiocinative power, as an indispensable qualification for any\nspecial research. \"We have plenty of leisure for\ninvestigation[136] (says Sokrates). We are not tied to time, nor\ncompelled to march briefly and directly towards some positive\nresult. Engaged as we are in investigating philosophical truth, we\nstand in pointed contrast with politicians and rhetors in the\npublic assembly or dikastery. We are like freemen; they, like\nslaves. They have before them the Dikasts, as their masters, to\nwhose temper and approbation they are constrained to adapt\nthemselves. They are also in presence of antagonists, ready to\nentrap and confute them. The personal interests, sometimes even\nthe life, of an individual are at stake; so that every thing must\nbe sacrificed to the purpose of obtaining a verdict. Men brought\nup in these habits become sharp in observation and emphatic in\nexpression; but merely with a view to win the assent and\napprobation of the master before them, as to the case in hand. No\nfree aspirations or spontaneous enlargement can have place in\ntheir minds. They become careless of true and sound\nreasoning--slaves to the sentiment of those whom they address--and\nadepts in crooked artifice which they take for wisdom.[137]\n\n[Footnote 136: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 155. [Greek: \u00f4(s pa/nu poll\u00ea\\n\nschol\u00ea\\n a)/gontes, pa/lin e)panaskepso/metha], &c.; also p. 172.]\n\n[Footnote 137: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 172-173.\n\nI give only an abstract of this eloquent passage, not an exact\ntranslation. Steinhart (Einleitung zum The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 37) calls it \"a\nsublime Hymn\" (einen erhabenen Hymnus). It is a fine piece of\npoetry or rhetoric, and shows that Plato was by nature quite as\nrhetorical as the rhetors whom he depreciates--though he had also,\nbesides, other lofty intellectual peculiarities of his own, beyond\nthese rivals.]\n\n[Side-note: The Philosopher is master of his own debates.]\n\nOf all this (continues Sokrates) the genuine philosopher is the\nreverse. He neither possesses, nor cares to possess, the\naccomplishments of the lawyer and politician. He takes no interest\nin the current talk of the city; nor in the scandals afloat\nagainst individual persons. He does not share in the common ardour\nfor acquiring power or money; nor does he account potentates\neither happier or more estimable for possessing them. Being\nignorant and incompetent in the affairs of citizenship as well as\nof common life, he has no taste for club-meetings or joviality.\nHis mind, despising the particular and the practical, is absorbed\nin constant theoretical research respecting universals. He spares\nno labour in investigating--What is man in general? and what are\nthe attributes, active and passive, which distinguish man from\nother things? He will be overthrown and humiliated before the\nDikastery by a clever rhetor. But if this opponent chooses to\nascend out of the region of speciality, and the particular ground\nof injustice alleged by A against B--into the general question,\nWhat is justice or injustice? Wherein do they differ from each\nother or from other things? What constitutes happiness and misery?\nHow is the one to be attained and the other avoided?--If the\nrhetor will meet the philosopher on this elevated ground, then he\nwill find himself put to shame and proved to be incompetent, in\nspite of all the acute stratagems of his petty mind.[138] He will\nlook like a child and become ashamed of himself:[139] but the\nphilosopher is noway ashamed of his incompetence for slavish\npursuits, while he is passing a life of freedom and leisure among\nhis own dialectics.[140]\n\n[Footnote 138: Plato, The\u00e6t. pp. 175-176.]\n\n[Footnote 139: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 177 B.]\n\n[Footnote 140: Plato, The\u00e6t. p. 175 E.]\n\n[Side-note: Purpose of dialogue to qualify for a life of\nphilosophical Search.]\n\nIn these words of Sokrates we read a contrast between practice and\ntheory--one of the most eloquent passages in the\ndialogues--wherein Plato throws overboard the ordinary concerns and\npurposes both of public and private life, admitting that true philosophers\nare unfit for them. The passage, while it teaches us caution in\nreceiving his criticisms on the defects of actual statesmen and\nmen of action, informs us at the same time that he regarded\nphilosophy as the only true business of life--the single pursuit\nworthy to occupy a freeman.[141] This throws light on the purpose\nof many of his dialogues. He intends to qualify the mind for a\nlife of philosophical research, and with this view to bestow\npreliminary systematic training on the ratiocinative power. To\nannounce at once his own positive conclusions with their reasons,\n(as I remarked before) is not his main purpose. A pupil who,\nhaving got all these by heart, supposed himself to have completed\nhis course of philosophy, so that nothing farther remained to be\ndone, would fall very short of the Platonic exigency. The life of\nthe philosopher--as Plato here conceives it--is a perpetual search\nafter truth, by dialectic debate and mutual cross-examination\nbetween two minds, aiding each other to disembroil that confusion\nand inconsistency which grows up naturally in the ordinary mind.\nFor such a life a man becomes rather disqualified than prepared,\nby swallowing an early dose of authoritative dogmas and proofs\ndictated by his teacher. The two essential requisites for it are,\nthat he should acquire a self-acting ratiocinative power, and an\nearnest, untiring, interest in the dialectic process. Both these\naids Plato's negative dialogues are well calculated to afford: and\nwhen we thus look at his purpose, we shall see clearly that it did\nnot require the presentation of any positive result.\n\n[Footnote 141: Plato, Sophist\u00eas, p. 253 C: [Greek: \u00ea( t\u00f4=n\ne)leuthe/r\u00f4n e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea].]\n\n[Side-note: Difficulties of the The\u00e6t\u00eatus are not solved in any\nother Dialogue.]\n\nThe course of this dialogue--the The\u00e6t\u00eatus--has been already\ndescribed as an assemblage of successive perplexities without any\nsolution. But what deserves farther notice is--That the\nperplexities, as they are not solved in this dialogue, so they are\nnot solved in any other dialogue. The view taken by Schleiermacher\nand other critics--that Plato lays out the difficulties in one\nanterior dialogue, in order to furnish the solution in another\nposterior--is not borne out by the facts. In the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, many\nobjections are propounded against the doctrine, That Opinion is\nsometimes true, sometimes false. Sokrates shows that false opinion\nis an impossibility: either therefore all opinions are true, or no\nopinion is either true or false. If we turn to the Sophist\u00eas, we\nshall find this same question discussed by the Eleatic Stranger\nwho conducts the debate. He there treats the doctrine--That false\nopinion is an impossibility and that no opinion could be false--as\none which had long embarrassed himself, and which formed the\nfavourite subterfuge of the impostors whom he calls Sophists. He\nthen states that this doctrine of the Sophists was founded on the\nParmenidean dictum--That Non-Ens was an impossible supposition.\nRefuting the dictum of Parmenides (by a course of reasoning which\nI shall examine elsewhere), he arrives at the conclusion--That\nNon-Ens exists in a certain fashion, as well as Ens: That false\nopinions are possible: That there may be false opinions as well as\ntrue. But what deserves most notice here, in illustration of\nPlato's manner, is--that though the Sophist\u00eas[142] is announced as\na continuation of the The\u00e6t\u00eatus (carried on by the same speakers,\nwith the addition of the Eleate), yet the objections taken by\nSokrates in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus against the possibility of false\nopinion, are not even noticed in the Sophist\u00eas--much less removed.\nOther objections to it are propounded and dealt with: but not\nthose objections which had arrested the march of Sokrates in the\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus.[143] Sokrates and The\u00e6t\u00eatus hear the Eleatic Stranger\ndiscussing this same matter in the Sophist\u00eas, yet neither of them\nallude to those objections against his conclusion which had\nappeared to both of them irresistible in the preceding dialogue\nknown as The\u00e6t\u00eatus. Nor are the objections refuted in any other of\nthe Platonic dialogues.\n\n[Footnote 142: See the end of the The\u00e6t\u00eatus and the opening of the\nSophist\u00eas. Note, moreover, that the Politikus makes reference not\nonly to the Sophist\u00eas, but also to the The\u00e6t\u00eatus (pp. 258 A, 266\nD, 284 B, 286 B).]\n\n[Footnote 143: In the Sophist\u00eas, the Eleate establishes (to his\nown satisfaction) that [Greek: to\\ m\u00ea\\ o)\\n] is not [Greek:\ne)nanti/on tou= o)/ntos], but [Greek: e(/teron tou= o)/ntos] (p.\n257 B), that it is one [Greek: ge/nos] among the various [Greek:\nge/n\u00ea] (p. 260 B), and that it ([Greek: to\\ m\u00ea\\ o)\\n koin\u00f4nei=])\nenters into communion or combination with [Greek: do/xa, lo/gos,\nphantasi/a], &c. It is therefore possible that there may be\n[Greek: pseud\u00ea\\s do/xa] or [Greek: pseud\u00ea\\s lo/gos], when you\naffirm, respecting any given subject, [Greek: e(/tera t\u00f4=n\no)/nt\u00f4n] or [Greek: ta\\ m\u00ea\\ o)/nta \u00f4(s o)/nta] (p. 263 B-C). Plato\nconsiders that the case is thus made out against the Sophist, as\nthe impostor and dealer in falsehoods; false opinion being proved\nto be possible and explicable.\n\nBut if we turn to the The\u00e6t\u00eatus (p. 189 seq.), we shall see that\nthis very explication of [Greek: pseud\u00ea\\s do/xa] is there\nenunciated and impugned by Sokrates in a long argument. He calls\nit there [Greek: a)llodoxi/a, e(terodoxi/a, to\\ e(terodoxei=n]\n(pp. 189 A, 190 E, 193 D). No man (he says) can mistake one thing\nfor another; if this were so, he must be supposed both to know and\nnot to know the same thing, which is impossible (pp. 196 A, 200\nA). Therefore [Greek: pseud\u00ea\\s do/xa] is impossible.\n\nOf these objections, urged by Sokrates in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, against\nthe possibility of [Greek: a)llodoxi/a], no notice is taken in the\nSophist\u00eas either by Sokrates, or by The\u00e6t\u00eatus, or by the Eleate in\nthe Sophist\u00eas. Indeed the Eleate congratulates himself upon the\nexplanation as more satisfactory than he had expected to find (p.\n264 B): and speaks with displeasure of the troublesome persons who\nstir up doubts and contradictions (p. 259 C): very different from\nthe tone of Sokrates in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus (p. 195, B-C).\n\nI may farther remark that Plato, in the Republic, reasons about\n[Greek: to\\ m\u00ea\\ o)\\n] in the Parmenidean sense, and not in the\nsense which he ascribed to it in the Sophist\u00eas, and which he\nrecognises in the Politikus, p. 284 B. (Republic, v. pp. 477 A,\n478 C.)\n\nSocher (Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp. 260-270) points out the\ndiscrepancy between the doctrines of the Eleate in the Sophist\u00eas,\nand those maintained by Sokrates in other Platonic dialogues;\ninferring from thence that the Sophist\u00eas and Politikus are not\ncompositions of Plato. As between the The\u00e6t\u00eatus and the Sophist\u00eas,\nI think a stronger case of discrepancy might be set forth than he\nhas stated; though the end of the former is tied to the beginning\nof the latter plainly, directly, and intentionally. But I do not\nagree in his inference. He concludes that the Sophist\u00eas is not\nPlato's composition: I conclude, that the scope for dissident\nviews and doctrine, within the long philosophical career and\nnumerous dialogues of Plato, is larger than his commentators\nadmit.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato considered that the search for Truth was the\nnoblest occupation of life.]\n\nSuch a string of objections never answered, and of difficulties\nwithout solution, may appear to many persons nugatory as well as\ntiresome. To Plato they did not appear so. At the time when\nmost of his dialogues were composed, he considered that the Search\nafter truth was at once the noblest occupation, and the highest\npleasure, of life. Whoever has no sympathy with such a\npursuit--whoever cares only for results, and finds the chase in\nitself fatiguing rather than attractive--is likely to take little\ninterest in the Platonic dialogues. To repeat what I said in\nChapter VIII.**--Those who expect from Plato a coherent system in\nwhich affirmative dogmas are first to be laid down, with the\nevidence in their favour--next, the difficulties and objections\nagainst them enumerated--lastly, these difficulties solved--will\nbe disappointed. Plato is, occasionally, abundant in his\naffirmations: he has also great negative fertility in starting\nobjections: but the affirmative current does not come into\nconflict with the negative. His belief is enforced by rhetorical\nfervour, poetical illustration, and a vivid emotional fancy. These\nelements stand to him in the place of positive proof; and when his\nmind is full of them, the unsolved objections, which he himself\nhad stated elsewhere, vanish out of sight. Towards the close of\nhis life (as we shall see in the Treatise De Legibus), the love of\ndialectic, and the taste for enunciating difficulties even when he\ncould not clear them up, died out within him. He becomes\nultra-dogmatical, losing even the poetical richness and fervour which\nhad once marked his affirmations, and substituting in their place\na strict and compulsory orthodoxy.\n\n[Side-note: Contrast between the philosopher and the practical\nstatesman--between Knowledge and Opinion.]\n\nThe contrast between the philosopher and the man engaged in active\nlife--which is so emphatically set forth in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus[144]--falls\nin with the distinction between Knowledge and Opinion--The\nInfallible and the Fallible. It helps the purpose of the dialogue,\nto show what knowledge is _not_: and it presents the distinction\nbetween the two on the ethical and emotional side, upon which\nPlato laid great stress. The philosopher (or man of Knowledge,\n_i.e._ Knowledge viewed on its subjective side) stands opposed to\nthe men of sensible perception and opinion, not merely in regard\nto intellect, but in regard to disposition, feeling, character,\nand appreciation of objects. He neither knows nor cares about\nparticular things or particular persons: all his intellectual\nforce, and all his emotional interests, are engaged in the\ncontemplation of Universals or Real Entia, and of the great\npervading cosmical forces. He despises the occupations of those\naround him, and the actualities of life, like the Platonic\nSokrates in the Gorgias:[145] assimilating himself as much as\npossible to the Gods; who have no other occupation (according to\nthe Aristotelian[146] Ethics), except that of contemplating and\ntheorising. He pursues these objects not with a view to any\nulterior result, but because the pursuit is in itself a life both\nof virtue and happiness; neither of which are to be found in the\nregion of opinion. Intense interest in speculation is his\nprominent characteristic. To dwell amidst these contemplations is\na self-sufficing life; even without any of the aptitudes or\naccomplishments admired by the practical men. If the philosopher\nmeddles with their pursuits, he is not merely found incompetent,\nbut also incurs general derision; because his incompetence becomes\nmanifest even to the common-place citizens. But if _they_ meddle\nwith his speculations, they fail not less disgracefully; though\ntheir failure is not appreciated by the unphilosophical spectator.\n\n[Footnote 144: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. pp. 173-176. Compare Republic, v.\npp. 476-477, vii. p. 517.]\n\n[Footnote 145: See above, chap. xxiv. p. 355.]\n\n[Footnote 146: Ethic. Nikomach. x. 8, p. 1178, b. 9-25.]\n\nThe professors of Knowledge are thus divided by the strongest\nlines from the professors of Opinion. And opinion itself--The\nFallible--is, in this dialogue, presented as an inexplicable\npuzzle. You talk about true and false opinions: but how can false\nopinions be possible? and if they are not possible, what is the\nmeaning of _true_, as applied to opinions? Not only, therefore,\nopinion can never be screwed up to the dignity of knowledge--but\nthe world of opinion itself defies philosophical scrutiny. It is a\nchaos in which there is neither true nor false; in perpetual\noscillation (to use the phrase of the Republic) between Ens and\nNon-Ens.[147]\n\n[Footnote 147: Plato, Republic, v. pp. 478-479.\n\nThe The\u00e6t\u00eatus is more in harmony (in reference to [Greek: do/xa]\nand [Greek: e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea]) with the Republic, than with the\nSophist\u00eas and Politikus. In the Politikus (p. 309 C) [Greek:\na)l\u00eath\u00ea\\s do/xa meta\\ bebai\u00f4/se\u00f4s] is placed very nearly on a par\nwith knowledge: in the Menon also, the difference between the two,\nthough clearly declared, is softened in degree, pp. 97-98.\n\nThe Alexandrine physician Herophilus attempted to draw, between\n[Greek: pro/r)r(\u00easis] and [Greek: pro/gn\u00f4sis], the same\ndistinction as that which Plato draws between [Greek: do/xa] and\n[Greek: e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea]--The Fallible as contrasted with the\nInfallible. Galen shows that the distinction is untenable (Prim.\nCommentat. in Hippokratis Prorrhetica, Tom. xvi. p. 487. ed.\nK\u00fchn).\n\nBonitz, in his Platonische Studien (pp. 41-78), has given an\ninstructive analysis and discussion of the The\u00e6t\u00eatus. I find more\nto concur with in his views, than in those of Schleiermacher or\nSteinhart. He disputes altogether the assumption of other Platonic\ncritics, that a purely negative result is unworthy of Plato; and\nthat the negative apparatus is an artifice to recommend, and a\nveil to conceal, some great affirmative truth, which acute\nexpositors can detect and enunciate plainly (Schleiermacher,\nEinleit. zum The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 124 seq.) Bonitz recognises the result of\nthe The\u00e6t\u00eatus as purely negative, and vindicates the worth of it\nas such. Moreover, instead of denouncing the opinions which Plato\ncombats, as if they were perverse heresies of dishonest\npretenders, he adverts to the great difficulty of those problems\nwhich both Plato and Plato's opponents undertook to elucidate: and\nhe remarks that, in those early days, the first attempts to\nexplain psychological phenomena were even more liable to error\nthan the first attempts to explain physical phenomena (pp. 75-77).\nSuch recognition, of the real difficulty of a problem, is rare\namong the Platonic critics.]\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX.\n\nSOPHISTES--POLITIKUS.\n\n\n[Side-note: Persons and circumstances of the two dialogues.]\n\nThese two dialogues are both of them announced by Plato as forming\nsequel to the The\u00e6t\u00eatus. The beginning of the Sophist\u00eas fits on to\nthe end of the The\u00e6t\u00eatus: and the Politikus is even presented as a\nsecond part or continuation of the Sophist\u00eas.[1] In all the three,\nthe same interlocutors are partially maintained. Thus Sokrates,\nTheod\u00f4rus, and The\u00e6t\u00eatus are present in all three: and The\u00e6t\u00eatus\nmakes the responses, not only in the dialogue which bears his\nname, but also in the Sophist\u00eas. Both in the Sophist\u00eas and\nPolitikus, however, Sokrates himself descends from the part of\nprincipal speaker to that of listener: it is he, indeed, who by\nhis question elicits the exposition, but he makes no comment\neither during the progress of it or at the close. In both the\ndialogues, the leading and expository function is confided to a\nnew personage introduced by Theod\u00f4rus:--a stranger not named, but\nannounced as coming from Elea--the friend and companion of\nParmenides and Zeno. Perhaps (remarks Sokrates) your friend may,\nwithout your knowledge, be a God under human shape; as Homer tells\nus that the Gods often go about, in the company of virtuous men,\nto inspect the good and bad behaviour of mankind. Perhaps your\nfriend may be a sort of cross-examining God, coming to test and\nexpose our feebleness in argument. No (replies Theod\u00f4rus) that is\nnot his character. He is less given to dispute than his\ncompanions. He is far from being a God, but he is a divine man:\nfor I call all true philosophers divine.[2]\n\n[Footnote 1: At the beginning of the Politikus, Plato makes\nSokrates refer both to the The\u00e6t\u00eatus and to the Sophist\u00eas (p. 258\nA). In more than one passage of the Politikus (pp. 266 D, 284 B,\n286 B), he even refers to the Sophist\u00eas directly and by name,\nnoticing certain points touched in it--a thing very unusual with\nhim. In the Sophist\u00eas also (p. 233 B), express reference is made\nto a passage in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus.\n\nSee also the allusion in Sophist\u00eas (to the appearance of the\nyounger Sokrates as respondent), p. 218 B.\n\nSocher (in his work, Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp. 258-294)\nmaintains that neither the Sophist\u00eas, nor the Politikus, nor the\nParmenid\u00eas, are genuine works of Plato. He conceives the two\ndialogues to be contemporary with the The\u00e6t\u00eatus (which he holds to\nhave been written by Plato), but to have been composed by some\nacute philosopher of the Megaric school, conversant with the\nteachings of Sokrates and with the views of Plato, after the visit\nof the latter to Megara in the period succeeding the death of\nSokrates (p. 268).\n\nEven if we grant the exclusion of Plato's authorship, the\nhypothesis of an author belonging to the Megaric school is highly\nimprobable: the rather, since many critics suppose (I think\nerroneously) that the Megarici are among those attacked in the\ndialogue. The suspicion that Plato is not the author of Sophist\u00eas\nand Politikus has undoubtedly more appearance of reason than the\nsame suspicion as applied to other dialogues--though I think the\nreasons altogether insufficient. Socher observes, justly: 1. That\nthe two dialogues are peculiar, distinguished from other Platonic\ndialogues by the profusion of logical classification, in practice\nas well as in theory. 2. That both, and especially the Sophist\u00eas,\nadvance propositions and conclusions discrepant from what we read\nin other Platonic dialogues.--But these two reasons are not\nsufficient to make me disallow them. I do not agree with those who\nrequire so much uniformity, either of matter or of manner, in the\nnumerous distinct dialogues of Plato. I recognise a much wider\narea of admissible divergence.\n\nThe plain announcement contained in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, Sophist\u00eas, and\nPolitikus themselves, that the two last are intended as sequel to\nthe first, is in my mind a proof of sameness of authorship, not\ncounterbalanced by Socher's objections. Why should a Megaric\nauthor embody in his two dialogues a false pretence and assurance,\nthat they are sequel of the Platonic The\u00e6t\u00eatus? Why should so\nacute a writer (as Socher admits him to be) go out of his way to\nsuppress his own personality, and merge his fame in that of Plato?\n\nI make the same remark on the views of Suckow (Form der\nPlatonischen Schriften, p. 87, seq., Breslau, 1855), who admits\nthe Sophistes to be a genuine work of Plato, but declares the\nPolitikus to be spurious; composed by some fraudulent author, who\nwished to give to his dialogue the false appearance of being a\ncontinuation of the Sophistes: he admits (p. 93) that it must be a\ndeliberate deceit, if the Politikus be really the work of a\ndifferent author from the Sophist\u00eas; for identity of authorship is\ndistinctly affirmed in it.\n\nSuckow gives two reasons for believing that the Politikus is not\nby Plato:--1. That the doctrines respecting government are\ndifferent from those of the Republic, and the cosmology of the\nlong mythe which it includes different from the cosmology of the\nTim\u00e6us. These are reasons similar to those advanced by Socher, and\n(in my judgment) insufficient reasons. 2. That Aristotle, in a\npassage of the Politica (iv. 2, p. 1289, b. 5), alludes to an\nopinion, which is found in the Politikus in the following terms:\n[Greek: \u00ea)/d\u00ea me\\n ou)=n tis a)peph\u00ea/nato kai\\ t\u00f4=n pro/teron\nou(/t\u00f4s], &c. Suckow maintains that Aristotle could never have\nalluded to Plato in these terms, and that he must have believed\nthe Politikus to be composed by some one else. But I think this\ninference is not justified by the premisses. It is noway\nimpossible that Aristotle might allude to Plato sometimes in this\nvague and general way: and I think that he has done so in other\npassages of the same treatise (vii. 2, 1324, a. 29--vii. 7, p.\n1327, b. 37).\n\nUeberweg (Aechtheit der Platon. Schrift. p. 162, seq.) combats\nwith much force the views of Suckow. It would be rash to build so\nmuch negative inference upon a loose phrase of Aristotle. That he\nshould have spoken of Plato in this vague manner is much more\nprobable, or much less improbable, than the counter-supposition,\nthat the author of a striking and comprehensive dialogue, such as\nthe Politikus, should have committed a fraud for the purpose of\nfastening his composition on Plato, and thus abnegating all fame\nfor himself.\n\nThe explicit affirmation of the Politikus itself ought to be\nbelieved, in my judgment, unless it can be refuted by greater\nnegative probabilities than any which Socher and Suckow produce. I\ndo not here repeat, what I have endeavoured to justify in an\nearlier chapter of this work, the confidence which I feel in the\ncanon of Thrasyllus; a confidence which it requires stronger\narguments than those of these two critics to overthrow.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Plato, Sophist. p. 216 B-C.]\n\nThis Eleate performs the whole task of exposition, by putting\nquestions to The\u00e6t\u00eatus, in the Sophist\u00eas--to the younger Sokrates\nin the Politikus. Since the true Sokrates is merely listener in\nboth dialogues, Plato provides for him an additional thread of\nconnection with both; by remarking that the youthful Sokrates is\nhis namesake, and that The\u00e6t\u00eatus resembles him in flat nose and\nphysiognomy.[3]\n\n[Footnote 3: Plato, Politik. p. 257 E.]\n\n[Side-note: Relation of the two dialogues to the The\u00e6t\u00eatus.]\n\nThough Plato himself plainly designates the Sophist\u00eas as an\nintended sequel to the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, yet the method of the two is\naltogether different, and in a certain sense even opposite. In the\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus, Sokrates extracts answers from the full and pregnant\nmind of that youthful respondent: he himself professes to teach\nnothing, but only to canvass every successive hypothesis elicited\nfrom his companion. But the Eleate is presented to us in the most\nimposing terms, as a thoroughly accomplished philosopher: coming\nwith doctrines established in his mind,[4] and already practised\nin the task of exposition which Sokrates entreats him to\nundertake. He is, from beginning to end, affirmative and\ndogmatical: and if he declines to proceed by continuous lecture,\nthis is only because he is somewhat ashamed to appropriate all the\ntalk to himself.[5] He therefore prefers to accept The\u00e6t\u00eatus as\nrespondent. But The\u00e6t\u00eatus is no longer pregnant, as in the\npreceding dialogue. He can do no more than give answers signifying\nassent and dissent, which merely serve to break and diversify the\nexposition. In fact, the dialogue in the Sophist\u00eas and Politikus\nis assimilated by Plato himself,[6] not to that in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus,\nbut to that in the last half of the Parmenides; wherein\nAristotel\u00eas the respondent answers little more than Ay or No, to\nleading questions from the interrogator.\n\n[Footnote 4: Plato, Sophist. p. 217 B. [Greek: e)pei\\ diak\u00eakoe/nai\nge/ ph\u00easin i(kan\u00f4=s kai\\ ou)k a)mn\u00eamonei=n.]]\n\n[Footnote 5: Plato, Sophist. pp. 216-217.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Plato, Sophist. p. 217 C. The words of Sokrates show\nthat he alludes to the last half of the Parmenid\u00eas, in which he is\nonly present as a listener--not to the first half, in which he\ntakes an active part. Compare the Parmenid\u00eas, p. 137 C. In this\nlast-mentioned dialogue, Sokrates (then a youth) and Aristotel\u00eas\nare the parallel of The\u00e6t\u00eatus and the younger Sokrates in the\nSophist\u00eas and Politikus. (See p. 135 D.)]\n\n[Side-note: Plato declares that his first purpose is to administer\na lesson in logical method: the special question chosen, being\nsubordinate to that purpose.]\n\nIn noticing the circumlocutory character, and multiplied negative\ncriticism, of the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, without any ultimate profit realised\nin the form of positive result--I remarked, that Plato appreciated\ndialogues, not merely as the road to a conclusion, but for the\nmental discipline and suggestive influence of the tentative and\nverifying process. It was his purpose to create in his hearers a\ndisposition to prosecute philosophical research of their own, and\nat the same time to strengthen their ability of doing so with\neffect. This remark is confirmed by the two dialogues now before\nus, wherein Plato defends himself against reproaches seemingly\nmade to him at the time.[7] \"To what does all this tend? Why do\nyou stray so widely from your professed topic? Could you not have\nreached this point by a shorter road?\" He replies by distinctly\nproclaiming--That the process, with its improving influence on the\nmind, stands first in his thoughts--the direct conclusion of the\nenquiry, only second: That the special topic which he discusses,\nthough in itself important, is nevertheless chosen principally\nwith a view to its effect in communicating general method and\ndialectic aptitude: just as a schoolmaster, when he gives out to\nhis pupils a word to be spelt, looks mainly, not to their\nexactness in spelling that particular word, but to their command\nof good spelling generally.[8] To form inquisitive, testing minds,\nfond of philosophical debate as a pursuit, and looking at opinions\non the negative as well as on the positive side, is the first\nobject in most of Plato's dialogues: to teach positive truth, is\nonly a secondary object.\n\n[Footnote 7: Plato, Politikus, pp. 283 B, 286-287.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Plato, Politikus, p. 285 D.\n\n[Greek: _Xen_.--Ti/ d' au)=? nu=n \u00ea(mi=n \u00ea( peri\\ tou= politikou=\nz\u00ea/t\u00easis e(/neka au)tou= tou/tou probe/bl\u00eatai ma=llon \u00ea)\\ tou=\nperi\\ pa/nta dialektik\u00f4te/rois gi/gnesthai?\n\n_Ne/os S\u00f4kr_.--Kai\\ tou=to d\u00ea=lon o(/ti tou= peri\\ pa/nta.]\n\nAgain, p. 288 D. [Greek: to/ te au)= pro\\s t\u00ea\\n tou=\nprobl\u00eathe/ntos z\u00ea/t\u00easin, \u00f4(s a)\\n r(a=|sta kai\\ ta/chista\neu)/roimen, deu/teron a)ll' ou) pr\u00f4=ton o( lo/gos a)gapa=|n\nparagge/lei, polu\\ de\\ ma/lista kai\\ pr\u00f4=ton t\u00ea\\n me/thodon\nau)t\u00ea\\n tima=|n, tou= kat' ei)/d\u00ea dunato\\n ei)=nai diairei=n],\n&c.]\n\n[Side-note: Method of logical Definition and Division.]\n\nBoth the Sophistes and the Politikus are lessons and specimens of\nthat process which the logical manuals recognise under the\nnames--Definition and Division. What is a Sophist? What is a politician\nor statesman? What is a philosopher? In the first place--Are the\nthree really distinct characters? for this may seem doubtful:\nsince the true philosopher, in his visits of inspection from city\nto city, is constantly misconceived by an ignorant public, and\nconfounded with the other two.[9] The Eleate replies that the\nthree are distinct. Then what is the characteristic function of\neach? How is he distinguished from other persons or other things?\nTo what class or classes does each belong: and what is the\nspecific character belonging to the class, so as to mark its place\nin the scheme descending by successive logical subdivision from\nthe highest genus down to particulars? What other professions or\noccupations are there analogous to those of Sophist and Statesman,\nso as to afford an illustrative comparison? What is there in like\nmanner capable of serving as illustrative contrast?\n\n[Footnote 9: Plato, Sophist. p. 216 E.]\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates tries the application of this method, first,\nupon a vulgar subject. To find the logical place and deduction of\nthe Angler. Superior classes above him. Bisecting division.]\n\nSuch are the problems which it is the direct purpose of the two\ndialogues before us to solve. But a large proportion of both is\noccupied by matters bearing only indirectly upon the solution. The\nprocess of logical subdivision, or the formation of classes in\nsubordination to each other, can be exhibited just as plainly in\napplication to an ordinary craft or profession, as to one of grave\nimportance. The Eleate Stranger even affirms that the former case\nwill be simpler, and will serve as explanatory introduction to the\nlatter.[10] He therefore selects the craft of an angler, for which\nto find a place in logical classification. Does not an angler\nbelong to the general class--men of art or craft? He is not a mere\nartless, non-professional, private man. This being so, we must\ndistribute the class Arts--Artists, into two subordinate classes:\nArtists who construct or put together some new substance or\ncompound--Artists who construct nothing new, but are employed in\ngetting, or keeping, or employing, substances already made. Thus\nthe class Artists is bisected into Constructive--Acquisitive. The\nangler constructs nothing: he belongs to the acquisitive branch.\nWe now bisect this latter branch. Acquirers either obtain by\nconsent, or appropriate without consent. Now the angler is one of\nthe last-mentioned class: which is again bisected into two\nsub-classes, according as the appropriation is by force or\nstratagem--Fighters and Hunters. The angler is a hunter: but many\nother persons are hunters also, from whom he must be distinguished.\nHunters are therefore divided into, Those who hunt inanimate\nthings (such as divers for sponges, &c.), and Those who hunt\nliving things or animals, including of course the angler among\nthem. The hunters of animals are distinguished into hunters of\nwalking animals, and hunters of swimming animals. Of the swimming\nanimals some are in air, others in water:[11] hence we get two\nclasses, Bird-Hunters and Fish-Hunters; to the last of whom the\nangler belongs. The fish-hunters (or fishermen) again are bisected\ninto two classes, according as they employ nets, or striking\ninstruments of one kind or another, such as tridents, &c. Of the\nstriking fishermen there are two sorts: those who do their work at\nnight by torch-light, and those who work by day. All these\nday-fishermen, including among them the angler, use instruments with\nhooks at the end. But we must still make one bisection more. Some\nof them employ tridents, with which they strike from above\ndownwards at the fishes, upon any part of the body which may\npresent itself: others use hooks, rods, and lines, which they\ncontrive to attach to the jaws of the fish, and thereby draw him\nfrom below upward.[12] This is the special characteristic of the\nangler. We have now a class comprehending the anglers alone, so\nthat no farther sub-division is required. We have obtained not\nmerely the name of the angler, but also the rational explanation\nof the function to which the name is attached.[13]\n\n[Footnote 10: Plato, Sophist. p. 218 E.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Plato, Sophist. p. 220 B. [Greek: Neustikou= m\u00ea\\n\nto\\ me\\n pt\u00eano\\n phu=lon o(r\u00f4=men, to\\ de\\ e)/nudron.]\n\nIt deserves notice that Plato here considers the air as a fluid in\nwhich birds swim.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Plato, Sophist. pp. 219-221.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Plato, Sophist. p. 221 A-B. [Greek: Nu=n a)/ra t\u00ea=s\na)spalieutik\u00ea=s--ou) mo/non tou)/noma, a)lla\\ kai\\ to\\n lo/gon\nperi\\ au)to\\ tou)/rgon, ei)l\u00ea/phamen i(kan\u00f4=s.]]\n\n[Side-note: Such a lesson in logical classification was at that\ntime both novel and instructive. No logical manuals then existed.]\n\nThis is the first specimen which Plato gives of a systematic\nclassification descending, by successive steps of bifurcation,\nthrough many subordinations of genera and species, each founded on\na real and proclaimed distinction--and ending at last in an\n_infima species_. He repeats the like process in regard to the\nSophist, the Statesman, and other professions to which he compares\nthe one or the other: but it will suffice to have given one\nspecimen of his method. If we transport ourselves back to his\ntime, I think that such a view of the principles of classification\nimplies a new and valuable turn of thought. There existed then no\ntreatises on logic; no idea of logic as a scheme of mental\nprocedure; no sciences out of which it was possible to abstract\nthe conception of a regular method more or less diversified. On no\nsubject was there any mass of facts or details collected, large\nenough to demand some regular system for the purpose of arranging\nand rendering them intelligible. Classification to a certain\nextent is of necessity involved, consciously or unconsciously, in\nthe use of general terms. But the process itself had never been\nmade a subject of distinct consciousness or reflection to any one\n(as far as our knowledge reaches), in the time of Plato. No one\nhad yet looked at it as a process natural indeed to the human\nintellect, up to a certain point and in a loose manner,--but\ncapable both of great extension and great improvement, and\nrequiring especial study, with an end deliberately set before the\nmind, in order that it might be employed with advantage to\nregularise and render intelligible even common and well-known\nfacts. To determine a series of descending classes, with\nclass-names, each connoting some assignable characteristic--to\ndistribute the whole of each class between two correlative\nsub-classes, to compare the different ways in which this could be\ndone, and to select such _membra condividentia_ as were most\nsuitable for the purpose--this was in the time of Plato an\nimportant novelty. We know from Xenophon[14] that Sokrates\nconsidered Dialectic to be founded, both etymologically and\nreally, upon the distribution of particular things into genera or\nclasses. But we find little or no intentional illustration of this\nprocess in any of the conversations of the Xenophontic Sokrates:\nand we are farther struck by the fact that Plato, in the two\ndialogues which we are here considering, assigns all the remarks\non the process of classification, not to Sokrates himself, but to\nthe nameless Eleatic Stranger.\n\n[Footnote 14: Xenoph. Memor. iv. 5, 12.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato describes the Sophist as analogous to an angler.\nHe traces the Sophist by descending subdivision from the\nacquisitive genus of art.]\n\nAfter giving the generic deduction of the angler from the\ncomprehensive idea of Art, distributed into two sections,\nconstructive and acquisitive, Plato proceeds to notice the analogy\nbetween the Sophist and an angler: after which he deduces the\nSophist also from the acquisitive section of Art. The Sophist is\nan angler for rich young men.[15] To find his place in the\npreceding descending series, we must take our departure from the\nbisection--hunters of walking animals, hunters of swimming\nanimals. The Sophist is a hunter of walking animals: which may be\ndivided into two classes, wild and tame. The Sophist hunts a\nspecies of tame animals--men. Hunters of tame animals are bisected\ninto such as hunt by violent means (robbers, enslavers, despots,\n&c.),[16] and such as hunt by persuasive means. Of the hunters by\nmeans of persuasion there are two kinds: those who hunt the\npublic, and those who hunt individuals. The latter again may be\ndivided into two classes: those who hunt to their own loss, by\nmeans of presents, such as lovers, &c., and those who hunt with a\nview to their own profit. To this latter class belongs the\nSophist: pretending to associate with others for the sake of\nvirtue, but really looking to his own profit.[17]\n\n[Footnote 15: Plato, Sophist. p. 222 A.]\n\n[Footnote 16: Plato, Sophist. p. 222 C.\n\nIt illustrates the sentiment of Plato's age respecting\nclassification, when we see the great diversity of particulars\nwhich he himself, here as well as elsewhere, ranks under the\ngeneral name [Greek: th\u00ea/ra], _hunting_--[Greek: th\u00ea/ra ga\\r\npampolu/ ti pra=gma/ e)sti, perieil\u00eamme/non o)no/mati nu=n\nschedo\\n e(ni/] (Plato, Legg. viii. 822-823-824, and Euthyd. p.\n290 B). He includes both [Greek: strat\u00eagik\u00ea\\] and [Greek:\nphtheiristik\u00ea\\] as varieties of [Greek: th\u00eareutik\u00ea/], Sophist. p.\n227 B.\n\nCompare also the interesting conversation about [Greek: th\u00ea/ra\na)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n] between Sokrates and Theodot\u00ea, Xenophon, Memorab.\niii. 11, 7; and between Sokrates and Kritobulus, ii. 6, 29.]\n\n[Footnote 17: Plato, Sophist. p. 223 A.]\n\n[Side-note: The Sophist traced down from the same, by a second and\ndifferent descending subdivision.]\n\nAgain, we may find the Sophist by descending through a different\nstring of subordinate classes from the genus--_Acquisitive Art_.\nThe professors of this latter may be bisected into two\nsorts--hunters and exchangers. Exchangers are of two sorts--givers\nand sellers. Sellers again sell either their own productions, or the\nproductions of others. Those who sell the productions of others\nare either fixed residents in one city, or hawkers travelling\nabout from city to city. Hawkers again carry about for sale either\nmerchandise for the body, or merchandise for the mind, such as\nmusic, poetry, painting, exhibitions of jugglery, learning, and\nintellectual accomplishments, and so forth. These latter (hawkers\nfor the mind) may be divided into two sorts: those who go about\nteaching; for money, arts and literary accomplishments--and those\nwho go about teaching virtue for money. They who go about teaching\nvirtue for money are the Sophists.[18] Or indeed if they sell\nvirtue and knowledge for money, they are not the less\nSophists--whether they buy what they sell from others, or prepare it\nfor themselves--whether they remain in one city or become itinerant.\n\n[Footnote 18: Plato, Sophist. p. 224 B.]\n\n[Side-note: Also, by a third.]\n\nA third series of subordinate classes will also bring us down from\nthe genus--_Acquisitive Art_--down to the _infima\nspecies_--_Sophist_. In determining the class-place of the angler,\nwe recognised a bisection of acquisitive art into acquirers by\nexchange, or mutual consent--and acquirers by appropriation, or\nwithout consent.[19] These latter we divided according as they\nemployed either force or stratagem: contenders and hunters. We\nthen proceeded to bisect the class hunters, leaving the contenders\nwithout farther notice. Now let us take up the class contenders.\nIt may be divided into two: competitors for a set prize (pecuniary\nor honorary), and fighters. The fighters go to work either body\nagainst body, violently--or tongue against tongue, as arguers.\nThese arguers again fall into two classes: the pleaders, who make\nlong speeches, about just or unjust, before the public assembly\nand dikastery: and the dialogists, who meet each other in short\nquestion and answer. The dialogists again are divided into two:\nthe private, untrained antagonists, quarrelling with each other\nabout the particular affairs of life (who form a species by\nthemselves, since characteristic attributes may be assigned to\nthem; though these attributes are too petty and too indefinite to\nhave ever received a name in common language, or to deserve a name\nfrom us[20])--and the trained practitioners or wranglers, who\ndispute not about particular incidents, but about just and unjust\nin general, and other general matters.[21] Of wranglers again\nthere are two sorts: the prosers, who follow the pursuit from\nspontaneous taste and attachment, not only without hope of gain,\nbut to the detriment of their private affairs, incurring loss\nthemselves, and wearying or bothering their hearers: and those who\nmake money by such private dialogues. This last sort of wrangler\nis the Sophist.[22]\n\n[Footnote 19: Plato, Sophist. p. 219 E.]\n\n[Footnote 20: Plato, Sophist. p. 225 C.\n\n[Greek: _Xe/nos_.--Tou= de\\ a)ntilogikou=, to\\ me\\n o(/son peri\\\nta\\ xumbolai=a a)mphisb\u00eatei=tai me/n, ei)k\u00ea= de\\ kai\\ a)techn\u00f4=s\nperi\\ au)to\\ pra/ttetai, tau=ta _thete/on me\\n ei)=dos_, e)pei/per\nau)to\\ die/gn\u00f4ken \u00f4(s e(/teron o)\\n o( lo/gos; a)ta\\r e)p\u00f4numi/as\nou)/th' u(po\\ t\u00f4=n e)/mprosthen e)/tuchen, ou)/te nu=n u(ph'\n\u00ea(m\u00f4=n tuchei=n a)/xion.\n\n_Theait\u00eat_.--A)l\u00eath\u00ea=; kata\\ _smikra\\_ ga\\r li/an kai\\\n_pantodapa\\_ di\u00ea/|r\u00eatai.]\n\nThese words illustrate Plato's view of an [Greek: ei)=dos] or\nspecies. Any distinguishable attributes, however petty, and\nhowever multifarious, might be taken to form a species upon; but\nif they were petty and multifarious, there was no advantage in\nbestowing a specific name.]\n\n[Footnote 21: Plato, Sophist. p. 225 C. [Greek: to\\ de/ ge\ne)/ntechnon, kai\\ peri\\ _dikai/\u00f4n au)t\u00f4=n_ kai\\ a)di/k\u00f4n kai\\\nperi\\ t\u00f4=n _a)/ll\u00f4n o(/l\u00f4s_ a)mphisb\u00eatou=n, a)=r' ou)k e)ristiko\\n\nau)= le/gein ei)thi/smetha?]]\n\n[Footnote 22: Plato, Sophist. p. 225 E.]\n\n[Side-note: The Sophist is traced down, from the genus of\nseparating or discriminating art.]\n\nThere is yet another road of class-distribution which will bring\nus down to the Sophist. A great number of common arts (carding\nwool, straining through a sieve, &c.) have, in common, the general\nattribute of separating matters confounded in a heap. Of\nseparation there are two sorts: you may separate like from like\n(this has no established name)--or better from worse, which is\ncalled _purification_. Purification is of two sorts: either of\nbody or of mind. In regard to body, the purifying agents are very\nmultifarious, comprising not only men and animals, but also\ninanimate things: and thus including many varieties which in\ncommon estimation are mean, trivial, repulsive, or ludicrous. But\nall these various sentiments (observes Plato) we must disregard.\nWe must follow out a real analogy wherever it leads us, and\nrecognise a logical affinity wherever we find one; whether the\ncircumstances brought together be vile or venerable, or some of\nthem vile and some venerable, in the eyes of mankind. Our sole\npurpose is to improve our intelligence. With that view, all\nparticulars are of equal value in our eyes, provided only they\nexhibit that real likeness which legitimates them as members of\nthe same class--purifiers of body: the correlate of that other\nclass which we now proceed to study--purifiers of mind.[23]\n\n[Footnote 23: Plato, Sophist. pp. 226-227. 227 A: [Greek: t\u00ea=|\nt\u00f4=n lo/g\u00f4n metho/d\u00f4| spoggistik\u00ea=s \u00ea)\\ pharmakoposi/as ou)de\\n\n\u00ea(=tton ou)de/ ti ma=llon tugcha/nei me/lon, ei) to\\ me\\n smikra/,\nto\\ de\\ mega/la \u00ea(ma=s \u00f4)phelei= kathai=ron. _Tou= kt\u00ea/sasthai\nga\\r e(/neken nou=n pas\u00f4=n techn\u00f4=n to\\ xuggene\\s kai\\ to\\ m\u00ea\\\nxuggene\\s katanoei=n peir\u00f4me/n\u00ea, tima=| pro\\s tou=to, e)x i)/sou\npa/sas_, kai\\ tha/tera t\u00f4=n e(te/r\u00f4n kata\\ t\u00ea\\n o(moio/t\u00eata\nou)de\\n \u00ea(gei=tai geloio/tera, _semno/teron de/ ti to\\n dia\\\nstrat\u00eamik\u00ea=s \u00ea)\\ phtheiristik\u00ea=s d\u00ealou=nta th\u00eareutik\u00ea\\n ou)de\\n\nneno/miken_, a)ll' _\u00f4(s to\\ polu\\ chauno/teron_. Kai\\ d\u00ea\\ kai\\\nnu=n, o(/per \u00ea)/rou, ti/ proserou=men o)/noma xumpa/sas duna/meis,\no(/sai s\u00f4=ma ei)/te e)/mpsuchon ei)/te a)/psuchon ei)l\u00ea/chasi\nkathai/rein, ou)de\\n au)t\u00ea=| dioi/sei, poi=on ti lechthe\\n\neu)prepe/staton ei)=nai do/xei; _mo/non e)che/t\u00f4 ch\u00f4ri\\s_ t\u00f4=n\nt\u00ea=s psuch\u00ea=s katha/rse\u00f4n pa/nta xund\u00ea=san o(/sa a)/llo ti\nkathai/rei.] To maintain the equal scientific position of [Greek:\nphtheiristik\u00ea/], as two different species under the genus [Greek:\nth\u00eareutik\u00ea/], is a strong illustration.\n\nCompare also Plato, Politikus, p. 266 D.\n\nA similar admonition is addressed (in the Parmenid\u00eas, p. 130 E**) by\nthe old Parmenides to the youthful Sokrates, when the latter\ncannot bring himself to admit that there exist [Greek: ei)=d\u00ea] or\nForms of vulgar and repulsive objects, such as [Greek: thri\\x] and\n[Greek: p\u00ea=los]. [Greek: Neos ga\\r ei)= e)/ti, kai\\ ou)/p\u00f4 sou=\na)ntei/l\u00eaptai philosophi/a \u00f4(s e)/ti a)ntil\u00ea/psetai kat' e)m\u00ea\\n\ndo/xan, o(/te ou)de\\n au)t\u00f4=n a)tima/seis; nu=n d' e)/ti pro\\s\na)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n a)poble/peis do/xas dia\\ t\u00ea\\n \u00ea(liki/an.]\n\nSee above, ch. xxvii. p. 60, in my review of the Parmenid\u00eas.]\n\n[Side-note: In a logical classification, low and vulgar items\ndeserve as much attention as grand ones. Conflict between\nemotional and scientific classification.]\n\nThis precept (repeated by Plato also in the Politikus) respecting\nthe principles of classification, deserves notice. It protests\nagainst, and seeks to modify, one of the ordinary turns in the\nassociating principles of the human mind. With unreflecting men,\nclassification is often emotional rather than intellectual. The\ngroups of objects thrown together in such minds, and conceived in\nimmediate association, are such as suggest the same or kindred\nemotions: pleasure or pain, love or hatred, hope or fear,\nadmiration, contempt, disgust, jealousy, ridicule. Community of\nemotion is a stronger bond of association between different\nobjects, than community in any attribute not immediately\ninteresting to the emotions, and appreciable only intellectually.\nThus objects which have nothing else in common, except appeal to\nthe same earnest emotion, will often be called by the same general\nname, and will be constituted members of the same class. To attend\nto attributes in any other point of view than in reference to the\namount and kind of emotion which they excite, is a process\nuncongenial to ordinary taste: moreover, if any one brings\ntogether, in the same wording, objects really similar, but\nexciting opposite and contradictory emotions, he usually provokes\neither disgust or ridicule. All generalizations, and all general\nterms connoting them, are results brought together by association\nand comparison of particulars somehow resembling. But if we look\nat the process of association in an unreflecting person, the\nresemblances which it fastens upon will be often emotional, not\nintellectual: and the generalizations founded upon such\nresemblances will be emotional also.\n\nIt is against this natural propensity that Plato here enters his\nprotest, in the name of intellect and science. For the purpose of\nobtaining a classification founded on real, intrinsic affinities,\nwe must exclude all reference to the emotions: we must take no\naccount whether a thing be pleasing or hateful, sublime or\nmean:[24] we must bring ourselves to rank objects useful or grand\nin the same logical compartment with objects hurtful or ludicrous.\nWe must examine only whether the resemblance is true and real,\njustifying itself to the comparing intellect: and whether the\nclass-term chosen be such as to comprise all these resemblances,\nholding them apart ([Greek: mo/non e)che/t\u00f4 ch\u00f4ri\\s]) from the\ncorrelative and opposing class.[25]\n\n[Footnote 24: Compare Politikus, p. 266 D; Parmenid\u00eas, p. 130 E.\n\nWe see that Plato has thus both anticipated and replied to the\nobjection of Socher (Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp. 260-262), who\nis displeased with the minuteness of this classification, and with\nthe vulgar objects to which it is applied. Socher contends that\nthis is unworthy of Plato, and that it was peculiar to the subtle\nMegaric philosophers.\n\nI think, on the contrary, that the purpose of illustrating the\nprocess of classification was not unworthy of Plato; that it was\nnot unnatural to do this by allusion to vulgar trades or\nhandicraft, at a time when no scientific survey of physical facts\nhad been attempted; that the allusion to such vulgar trades is\nquite in the manner of Plato, and of Sokrates before him.\n\nStallbaum, in his elaborate Prolegomena both to the Sophist\u00eas and\nto the Politikus, rejects the conclusion of Socher, and maintains\nthat both dialogues are the work of Plato. Yet he agrees to a\ncertain extent in Socher's premisses. He thinks that minuteness\nand over-refinement in classification were peculiarities of the\nMegaric philosophers, and that Plato intentionally pushes the\nclassification into an extreme subtlety and minuteness, in order\nto parody their proceedings and turn them into ridicule. (Proleg.\nad Sophist. pp. 32-36, ad Politic. pp. 54-55.)\n\nBut how do Socher and Stallbaum know that this extreme minuteness\nof subdivision into classes _was_ a characteristic of the Megaric\nphilosophers? Neither of them produce any proof of it. Indeed\nStallbaum himself says, most truly (Proleg. ad Politic. p. 55)\n\"Qu\u00e6 de Megaricorum arte dialectic\u00e2 accepimus, sane quam sunt\npaucissima\". He might have added, that the little which we do hear\nabout their dialectic, is rather adverse to this supposed\nminuteness of positive classification, than consonant with it.\nWhat we hear is, that they were extremely acute and subtle in\ncontentious disputations--able assailants of the position of a\nlogical opponent. But this talent has nothing to do with\nminuteness of positive classification: and is even indicative of a\ndifferent turn of mind. Moreover, we hear about Eukleides, the\nchief of the Megaric school, that he enlarged the signification of\nthe Summum Genus of Parmenides--the [Greek: E(\\n kai\\ Pa=n].\nEukleides called it Unum, Bonum, Simile et Idem Semper, Deus, &c.\nBut we do not hear that Eukleides acknowledged a series of\nsubordinate Genera or Species, expanding by logical procession\nbelow this primary Unum. As far as we can judge, this seems to\nhave been wanting in his philosophy. Yet it is exactly these\nsubordinate Genera or Species, which the Platonic Sophist\u00eas and\nPolitikus supply in abundance, and even excess, conformably to the\nprecept laid down by Plato in the Phil\u00eabus (p. 14). The words of\nthe Sophist\u00eas (p. 216 D) rather indicate that the Eleatic Stranger\nis declared _not_ to possess the character and attributes of\nMegaric disputation.]\n\n[Footnote 25: Though the advice here given by Plato about the\nprinciples of classification is very judicious, yet he has himself\nin this same dialogue set an example of repugnance to act upon it\n(Sophist. p. 231 A-B.) In following out his own descending series\nof partitions, he finds that the Sophist corresponds with the\ngreat mental purifier--the person who applies the Elenchus or\ncross-examining test, to youthful minds, so as to clear out that\nfalse persuasion of knowledge which is the great bar to all\nimprovement. But though brought by his own process to this point,\nPlato shrinks from admitting it. His dislike towards the Sophist\nwill not allow him. \"The Sophist is indeed\" (he says) \"very like\nto this grand educator: but so also a wolf is very like to a\ndog--the most savage of animals to the most gentle. We must always\nbe extremely careful about these likenesses: the whole body of them\nare most slippery. Still we cannot help admitting the Sophist to\nrepresent this improving process--that is, the high and true bred\nSophist.\"\n\nIt will be seen that Plato's remark here about [Greek:\no(moio/t\u00eates] contradicts what he had himself said before (p. 227\nB). The reluctance to rank _dog_ and _wolf_ together, in the same\nclass, is an exact specimen of that very mistake which he had been\njust pointing out for correction. The scientific resemblance\nbetween the two animals is very close; but the antithesis of\nsentiment, felt by men towards the one and the other, is extreme.]\n\n[Side-note: The purifier--a species under the genus\ndiscriminator--separates good from evil. Evil is of two sorts; the\nworst sort is, Ignorance, mistaking itself for knowledge.]\n\nAfter these just remarks on classification generally, the Eleate\npursues the subdivision of his own theme. To purify the mind is to\nget rid of the evil, and retain or improve the good. Now evil is\nof two sorts--disease (injustice, intemperance, cowardice, &c.)\nand ignorance. Disease, which in the body is dealt with by the\nphysician, is in the mind dealt with by the judicial tribunal:\nignorance (corresponding to ugliness, awkwardness, disability, in\nthe body, which it is the business of the gymnastic trainer to\ncorrect) falls under the treatment of the teacher or\ninstructor.[26] Ignorance again may be distributed into two heads:\none, though special, being so grave as to counterbalance all the\nrest, and requiring to be set apart by itself--that is--ignorance\naccompanied with the false persuasion of knowledge.[27]\n\n[Footnote 26: Plato, Sophist. pp. 228-229.]\n\n[Footnote 27: Plat. Soph. p. 229 C. [Greek: A)gnoi/as d' ou)=n\nme/ga ti/ moi dok\u00f4= kai\\ chalepo\\n a)ph\u00f4risme/non o(ra=|n ei)=dos,\npa=si toi=s a)/llois au)t\u00ea=s a)nti/stathmon me/resi . . . To\\ m\u00ea\\\nkateido/ta ti, dokei=n ei)de/nai.]]\n\n[Side-note: Exhortation is useless against this worst mode of evil.\nCross-examination, the shock of the Elenchus, must be brought to\nbear upon it. This is the sovereign purifier.]\n\nTo meet this special and gravest case of ignorance, we must\nrecognise a special division of the art of instruction or\neducation. Exhortation, which is the common mode of instruction,\nand which was employed by our forefathers universally, is of no\navail against this false persuasion of knowledge: which can only\nbe approached and cured by the Elenchus, or philosophical\ncross-examination. So long as a man believes himself to be wise,\nyou may lecture for ever without making impression upon him: you do no\ngood by supplying food when the stomach is sick. But the examiner,\nquestioning him upon those subjects which he professes to know,\nsoon entangles him in contradictions with himself, making him feel\nwith shame and humiliation his own real ignorance. After having\nbeen thus disabused--a painful but indispensable process, not to\nbe accomplished except by the Elenchus--his mind becomes open and\nteachable, so that positive instruction may be communicated to him\nwith profit. The Elenchus is the grand and sovereign purification:\nwhoever has not been subjected to it, were he even the Great King,\nis impure, unschooled, and incompetent for genuine happiness.[28]\n\n[Footnote 28: Plato, Sophist. p. 230 D-E.]\n\n[Side-note: The application of this Elenchus is the work of the\nSophist, looked at on its best side. But looked at as he really\nis, he is a juggler who teaches pupils to dispute about every\nthing--who palms off falsehood for truth.]\n\nThis cross-examining and disabusing process, brought to bear upon\nthe false persuasion of knowledge and forming the only antidote to\nit, is the business of the Sophist looked at on its best side.[29]\nBut Plato will not allow the Elenchus, the great Sokratic\naccomplishment and mission, to be shared by the Sophists: and he\nfinds or makes a subtle distinction to keep them off. The Sophist\n(so the Eleate proceeds) is a disputant, and teaches all his\nyouthful pupils to dispute about everything as if they knew\nit--about religion, astronomy, philosophy, arts, laws, politics,\nand everything else. He teaches them to argue in each department\nagainst the men of special science: he creates a belief in the\nminds of others that he really knows all those different subjects,\nrespecting which he is able to argue and cross-examine\nsuccessfully: he thus both possesses, and imparts to his pupils, a\nseeming knowledge, an imitation and pretence of reality.[30] He is\na sort of juggler: an imitator who palms off upon persons what\nappears like reality when seen from a distance, but what is seen\nto be not like reality when contemplated closely.[31]\n\n[Footnote 29: Plato, Sophist. p. 231 B. [Greek: t\u00ea=s de\\\npaideutik\u00ea=s a( peri\\ t\u00ea\\n ma/taion doxosophi/an gigno/menos\ne)/legchos e)n t\u00f4=| nu=n lo/g\u00f4| paraphane/nti m\u00eade\\n a)/ll' \u00ea(mi=n\nei)=nai lege/sth\u00f4 pl\u00ea\\n \u00ea( ge/nei gennai/a sophistik\u00ea/.]]\n\n[Footnote 30: Plato, Sophist. pp. 232-233 C, 235 A. Sokrates tells\nus in the Platonic Apology (p. 23 A) that this was the exact\neffect which his own cross-examination produced upon the hearers:\nthey supposed him to be wise on those topics on which he exposed\nignorance in others. The Memorabilia of Xenophon exhibit the same\nimpression as made by the conversation of Sokrates, even when he\ntalked with artisans on their own arts. Sokrates indeed professed\nnot to teach anyone--and he certainly took no fee for teaching.\nBut we see plainly that this disclaimer imposed upon no one; that\nhe did teach, though gratuitously; and that what he taught was,\nthe art of cross-examination and dispute. We learn this not merely\nfrom his enemy, Aristophanes, and from the proceedings of his\nopponents, Kritias and Charikles (Xenoph. Memor. i. 2), but also\nfrom his own statement in the Platonic Apology (pp. 23 C. 37\nE. 39 B), and from the language of Plato and Xenophon throughout.\nPlato is here puzzled to make out a clear line of distinction\nbetween the Elenchus of Sokrates, and the disputatious arguments\nof those Sophists whom he calls Eristic--name deserved quite as\nmuch by Sokrates as by any of them. Plato here accuses the\nSophists of talking upon a great many subjects which they did not\nknow, and teaching their pupils to do the same. This is exactly\nwhat Sokrates passed his life in doing, and what he did better\nthan any one--on the negative side.]\n\n[Footnote 31: Plato, Sophist. pp. 235-236.]\n\n[Side-note: Doubt started by the Eleate. How can it be possible\neither to think or to speak falsely?]\n\nHere however (continues Plato) we are involved in a difficulty.\nHow can a thing appear to be what it is not? How can a man who\nopines or affirms, opine or affirm falsely--that is, opine or\naffirm the thing that is not? To admit this, we must assume the\nthing that is not (or Non-Ens, Nothing) to have a real existence.\nSuch an assumption involves great and often debated difficulties.\nIt has been pronounced by Parmenides altogether inadmissible.[32]\n\n[Footnote 32: Plato, Sophist. pp. 236 E--237 A. [Greek: pa/nta\ntau=ta e)sti mesta\\ a)pori/as a)ei\\ e)n t\u00f4=| pro/sthen chro/n\u00f4|\nkai\\ nu=n. O(/p\u00f4s ga\\r ei)po/nta chr\u00ea\\ pseud\u00ea= le/gein \u00ea)\\\ndoxa/zein o)/nt\u00f4s ei)=nai, kai\\ tou=to phthegxa/menon\ne)nantiologi/a| m\u00ea\\ xune/chesthai, panta/pasi chalepo/n . . .\nTeto/lm\u00eaken o( lo/gos ou(=tos u(pothe/sthai to\\ m\u00ea\\ o)\\n ei)=nai;\npseu=dos ga\\r ou)k a)\\n a)/ll\u00f4s e)gi/gneto o)/n.]]\n\nWe have already seen that Plato discussed this same question in\nthe The\u00e6t\u00eatus, and that after trying and rejecting many successive\nhypotheses to show how false supposition, or false affirmation,\nmight be explained as possible, by a theory involving no\ncontradiction, he left the question unsolved. He now resumes it at\ngreat length. It occupies more than half[33] the dialogue. Near\nthe close, but only then, he reverts to the definition of the\nSophist.\n\n[Footnote 33: From p. 236 D to p. 264 D.]\n\n[Side-note: He pursues the investigation of this problem by a\nseries of questions.]\n\nFirst, the Eleate states the opinion which perplexes him, and\nwhich he is anxious either to refute or to explain away.\n(Unfortunately, we have no statement of the opinion, nor of the\ngrounds on which it was held, from those who actually held it.)\nNon-Ens, or Nothing, is not the name of any existing thing, or of\nany Something. But every one who speaks must speak something:\ntherefore if you try to speak of Non-Ens, you are trying to speak\nnothing--which is equivalent to not speaking at all.[34] Moreover,\nto every Something, you can add something farther: but to Non-Ens,\nor Nothing, you cannot add any thing. (Non-Entis nulla sunt\npr\u00e6dicata.) Now Number is something, or included among the Entia:\nyou cannot therefore apply number, either singular or plural, to\nNon-Ens: and inasmuch as every thing conceived or described must\nbe either one or many, it is impossible either to conceive or\ndescribe Non-Ens. You cannot speak of it without falling into a\ncontradiction.[35]\n\n[Footnote 34: Plato, Sophist. p. 237 E. The Eleate here recites\nthis opinion, not as his own but as entertained by others, and as\none which he did not clearly see through: in Republic (v. p. 478\nB-C) we find Sokrates advancing a similar doctrine as his own. So\nin the Kratylus, where this same topic is brought under discussion\n(pp. 429 D, 430 A), Kratylus is represented as contending that\nfalse propositions were impossible: that propositions, improperly\ncalled false, were in reality combinations of sounds without any\nmeaning, like the strokes on a bell.]\n\n[Footnote 35: Plato, Sophist. p. 238-239.]\n\n[Side-note: The Sophist will reject our definition and escape, by\naffirming that to speak falsely is impossible. He will require us\nto make out a rational theory, explaining Non-Ens.]\n\nWhen therefore we characterise the Sophist as one who builds up\nphantasms for realities--who presents to us what is not, as being\nlike to what _is_, and as a false substitute for what _is_--he\nwill ask us what we mean? If, to illustrate our meaning, we point\nto images of things in mirrors or clear water, he will pretend to\nbe blind, and will refuse the evidence of sense: he will require\nus to make out a rational theory explaining Non-Ens or\nNothing.[36] But when we try to do this, we contradict ourselves.\nA phantasm is that which, not being a true counterpart of reality,\nis yet so like it as to be mistaken for reality. _Quatenus_\nphantasm, it is Ens: _quatenus_ reality, it is Non-Ens: thus the\nsame thing is both Ens, and Non-Ens: which we declared before to\nbe impossible.[37] When therefore we accuse the Sophist of passing\noff phantasms for realities, we suppose falsely: we suppose\nmatters not existing, or contrary to those which exist: we suppose\nthe existent not to exist, or the non-existent to exist But this\nassumes as done what cannot be done: since we have admitted more\nthan once that Non-Ens can neither be described in language by\nitself, nor joined on in any manner to Ens.[38]\n\n[Footnote 36: Plato, Sophist. pp. 239-240. [Greek: katagela/setai/\nsou t\u00f4=n lo/g\u00f4n, o(/tan \u00f4(s ble/ponti le/g\u00ea|s au)t\u00f4=|,\nprospoiou/menos ou)/te ka/toptra ou)/te u(/data gign\u00f4/skein,\nou)/te to\\ para/pan o)/psin; to\\ d' e)k t\u00f4=n lo/g\u00f4n e)r\u00f4t\u00ea/sei se\nmo/non.]]\n\n[Footnote 37: Plato, Sophist. p. 240 B.]\n\n[Footnote 38: Plato, Sophist. p. 241 B. [Greek: t\u00f4=| ga\\r m\u00ea\\\no)/nti to\\ o)\\n prosa/ptein \u00ea(ma=s polla/kis a)nagka/zesthai,\ndiomolog\u00easame/nous nu=n d\u00ea/ pou tou=to ei)=nai pa/nt\u00f4n\na)dunat\u00f4/taton.]]\n\nStating the case in this manner, we find that to suppose falsely,\nor affirm falsely, is a contradiction. But there is yet another\npossible way out of the difficulty (the Eleate continues).\n\n[Side-note: The Eleate turns from Non-Ens to Ens. Theories of\nvarious philosophers about Ens.]\n\nLet us turn for a moment (he says) from Non-Ens to Ens. The\nvarious physical philosophers tell us a good deal about Ens. They\ndiffer greatly among themselves. Some philosophers represent Ens\nas triple, comprising three distinct elements, sometimes in\nharmony, sometimes at variance with each other. Others tell us\nthat it is double--wet and dry--or hot and cold. A third sect,\nespecially Xenophanes and Parmenides, pronounce it to be\nessentially One. Herakleitus blends together the different\ntheories, affirming that Ens is both many and one, always in\nprocess of disjunction and conjunction: Empedokles adopts a\nsimilar view, only dropping the _always_, and declaring the\nprocess of disjunction to alternate with that of conjunction, so\nthat Ens is sometimes Many, sometimes One.[39]\n\n[Footnote 39: Plato, Sophist. p. 242 D-E.]\n\n[Side-note: Difficulties about Ens are as great as those about\nNon-Ens.]\n\nNow when I look at these various theories (continues the Eleate),\nI find that I do not follow or understand them; and that I know\nnothing more or better about Ens than about Non-Ens. I thought, as\na young man, that I understood both: but I now find that I\nunderstand neither.[39] The difficulties about Ens are just as\ngreat as those about Non-Ens. What do these philosophers mean by\nsaying that Ens is double or triple? that there are two distinct\nexisting elements--Hot and Cold--or three? What do you mean by\nsaying that Hot and Cold _exist_? Is existence any thing distinct\nfrom Hot and Cold? If so, then there are three elements in all,\nnot two. Do you mean that existence is something belonging to both\nand affirmed of both? Then you pronounce both to be One: and Ens,\ninstead of being double, will be at the bottom only One.\n\n[Footnote 40: Plato, Sophist. p. 243 B.]\n\n[Side-note: Whether Ens is Many or One? If Many, how Many?\nDifficulties about One and the Whole. Theorists about Ens cannot\nsolve them.]\n\nSuch are the questions which the Eleatic spokesman of Plato puts\nto those philosophers who affirm Ens to be plural: He turns next\nto those who affirm Ens to be singular, or Unum. Do you mean that\nUnum is identical with Ens--and are they only two names for the\nsame One and only thing? There cannot be two distinct names\nbelonging to one and the same thing: and yet, if this be not so,\none of the names must be the name of nothing. At any rate, if\nthere be only one name and one thing, still the name itself is\ndifferent from the thing--so that duality must still be\nrecognised. Or if you take the name as identical with the One\nthing, it will either be the name of nothing, or the name of a\nname.[41]\n\n[Footnote 41: Plato, Sophist. p. 244 D.]\n\nAgain, as to the Whole:--is the Whole the same with the Ens Unum,\nor different from it. We shall be told that it is the same: but\naccording to the description given by Parmenides, the whole is\nspherical, thus having a centre and circumference, and of course\nhaving parts. Now a whole divisible into parts may have unity\npredicable of it, as an affection or accident in respect to the\nsum of its parts: but it cannot be the genuine, essential,\nself-existent, One, which does not admit of parts or division. If Ens\nbe One by accident, it is not identical with One, and we thus have\ntwo existent things: and if Ens be not really and essentially the\nWhole, while nevertheless the Whole exists--Ens must fall short of\nor be less than itself, and must to this extent be Non-Ens:\nbesides that Ens, and Totum, being by nature distinct, we have\nmore things than One existing. On the other hand, if we assume\nTotum not to be Ens, the same result will ensue. Ens will still be\nsomething less than itself;--Ens can never have any quantity, for\neach quantum is necessarily a whole in itself--and Ens can never\nbe generated, since everything generated is also necessarily a\nwhole.[42]\n\n[Footnote 42: Plato, Sophist. p. 245 A-C.]\n\n[Side-note: Theories of those who do not recognise a definite\nnumber of Entia or elements. Two classes thereof.]\n\nSuch is the examination which the Eleate bestows on the theories\nof theories of those philosophers who held one, two, or a definite\nnumber of self-existent Entia or elements. His purpose is to show,\nthat even on their schemes, Ens is just as unintelligible, and\ninvolves as many contradictions, as Non-Ens. And to complete the\nsame demonstration, he proceeds to dissect the theories of those\nwho do not recognise any definite or specific number of elements\nor Entia.[43] Of these he distinguishes two classes; in direct and\nstrenuous opposition to each other, respecting what constituted\nEssentia.[44]\n\n[Footnote 43: Plato, Sophist. p. 245 E.]\n\n[Footnote 44: Plato, Sophist. p. 246 A. [Greek: e)/oike/ ge e)n\nau)toi=s oi(=on gigantomachi/a tis ei)=nai dia\\ t\u00ea\\n\na)mphisb\u00ea/t\u00easin peri\\ t\u00ea=s ou)si/as pro\\s all\u00ea/lous.]]\n\n[Side-note: 1. The Materialist Philosophers. 2. The Friends of\nForms or Idealists, who recognise such Forms as the only real\nEntia.]\n\nFirst, the Materialist Philosophers, who recognise nothing as\nexisting except what is tangible; defining Essence as identical\nwith Body, and denying all incorporeal essence. Plato mentions no\nnames: but he means (according to some commentators) Leukippus and\nDemokritus--perhaps Aristippus also. Secondly, other philosophers\nwho, diametrically opposed to the Materialists, affirmed that\nthere were no real Entia except certain Forms, Ideas, genera or\nspecies, incorporeal and conceivable only by intellect: that true\nand real essence was not to be found in those bodies wherein the\nMaterialists sought it: that bodies were in constant generation\nand disappearance, affording nothing more than a transitory\nsemblance of reality, not tenable[45] when sifted by reason. By\nthese last are understood (so Schleiermacher and others think,\nthough in my judgment erroneously) Eukleides and the Megaric\nschool of philosophers.\n\n[Footnote 45: Plato, Sophist. p. 246 B-C. [Greek: no\u00eata\\ a)/tta\nkai\\ a)s\u00f4/mata ei)/d\u00ea biazo/menoi t\u00ea\\n a)l\u00eathin\u00ea\\n ou)si/an\nei)=nai; ta\\ de\\ e)kei/n\u00f4n s\u00f4/mata kai\\ t\u00ea\\n legome/n\u00ean u(p'\nau)t\u00f4=n] (_i. e._ the Materialists) [Greek: a)l\u00ea/theian kata\\\nsmikra\\ diathrau/ontes e)n toi=s lo/gois, ge/nesin a)nt' ou)si/as\npherome/n\u00ean tina\\ prosagoreu/ousin.]]\n\n[Side-note: Argument against the Materialists--Justice must be\nsomething, since it may be either present or absent, making\nsensible difference--But Justice is not a body.]\n\nThe Eleate proceeds to comment upon the doctrines held by these\nopposing schools of thinkers respecting Essence or Reality. It is\neasier (he says) to deal with the last-mentioned, for they are\nmore gentle. With the Materialists it is difficult, and all but\nimpossible, to deal at all. Indeed, before we can deal with them,\nwe must assume them to be for this occasion better than they show\nthemselves in reality, and ready to answer in a more becoming\nmanner than they actually do.[46] These Materialists will admit\n(Plato continues) that man exists--an animated body, or a compound\nof mind and body: they will farther allow that the mind of one man\ndiffers from that of another:--one is just, prudent, &c., another\nis unjust and imprudent. One man is just, through the habit and\npresence of justice: another is unjust, through the habit and\npresence of injustice. But justice must surely be\n_something_--injustice also must be _something_--if each may be present\nto, or absent from, any thing; and if their presence or absence makes\nso sensible a difference.[47] And justice or injustice, prudence or\nimprudence, as well as the mind in which the one or the other\ninheres, are neither visible or tangible, nor have they any body:\nthey are all invisible.\n\n[Footnote 46: Plato, Sophist. p. 246 C. [Greek: para\\ me\\n t\u00f4=n\ne)n ei)/desin au)t\u00ea\\n (t\u00ea\\n ou)si/an) titheme/n\u00f4n r(a=|on;\n\u00ea(mer\u00f4/teroi ga/r; para\\ de\\ t\u00f4=n ei)s s\u00f4=ma pa/nta e(lko/nt\u00f4n\nbi/a|, chalep\u00f4/teron; _i)/s\u00f4s de\\ kai\\ schedo\\n a)du/naton_. A)ll'\n\u00f4(=de/ moi dokei= peri\\ au)t\u00f4=n dra=|n . . . Ma/lista me/n, ei)/\np\u00ea| dunato\\n \u00ea)=n, _e)/rg\u00f4| belti/ous_ au)tou\\s poiei=n; ei) de\\\ntou=to m\u00ea\\ e)gch\u00f4rei=, _lo/g\u00f4| poi\u00f4=men_, u(potithe/menoi\n_nomim\u00f4/teron_ au)tou\\s \u00ea)\\ _nu=n e)the/lontas a)\\n\na)pokri/nasthai_.]]\n\n[Footnote 47: Plato, Sophist. p. 247 A. [Greek: A)lla\\ m\u00ea\\n to/ ge\ndunato/n t\u00f4| paragi/gnesthai kai\\ a)pogi/gnesthai, pa/nt\u00f4s\nei)=nai/ ti ph\u00ea/sousin.]]\n\n[Side-note: At least many of them will concede this point, though\nnot all Ens is common to the corporeal and the incorporeal. Ens is\nequivalent to potentiality.]\n\nProbably (replies The\u00e6t\u00eatus) these philosophers would contend that\nthe soul or mind had a body; but they would be ashamed either to\ndeny that justice, prudence, &c., existed as realities--or to\naffirm that justice, prudence, &c. were all bodies.[48] These\nphilosophers must then have become better (rejoins the Eleate):\nfor the primitive and genuine leaders of them will not concede\neven so much as that. But let us accept the concession. If they\nwill admit any incorporeal reality at all, however small, our case\nis made out. For we shall next call upon them to say, what there\nis in common between these latter, and those other realities which\nhave bodies connate with and essential to them--to justify the\nnames _real_--_essence_--bestowed upon both.[49] Perhaps they\nwould accept the following definition of Ens or the Real--of\nEssence or Reality. Every thing which possesses any sort of power,\neither to act upon any thing else or to be acted upon by any thing\nelse, be it only for once or to the smallest degree--every such\nthing is true and real Ens. The characteristic mark or definition\nof Ens or the Real is, power or potentiality.[50]\n\n[Footnote 48: Plato, Sophist. p. 247 B. [Greek: A)pokri/nontai\n. . . t\u00ea\\n me\\n psuch\u00ea\\n au)t\u00ea\\n dokei=n sphi/si s\u00f4=ma/ ti\nkekt\u00ea=sthai, phro/n\u00easin de\\ kai\\ t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n e(/kaston \u00f4(=n\n\u00ea)r\u00f4/t\u00eakas, ai)schu/nontai to\\ tolma=|n \u00ea)\\ m\u00eade\\n t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n\nau)ta\\ o(mologei=n, \u00ea)\\ pa/nt' ei)=nai s\u00f4/mata\ndii+schuri/zesthai.]]\n\n[Footnote 49: Plato, Sophist. p. 247 C-D. [Greek: ei) ga/r ti kai\\\nsmikro\\n e)the/lousi t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n sugch\u00f4rei=n a)s\u00f4/maton,\ne)xarkei=. to\\ ga\\r e)pi/ te tou/tois a(/ma kai\\ e)p' e)kei/nois\no(/sa e)/chei s\u00f4=ma xumphue\\s gegono/s, ei)s o(\\ ble/pontes\na)mpho/tera _ei)=nai_ le/gousi, tou=to au)toi=s r(\u00eate/on.]]\n\n[Footnote 50: Plato, Sophist. p. 247 D-E. [Greek: le/g\u00f4 d\u00ea\\ to\\\nkai\\ o(poianou=n kekt\u00eame/non _du/namin_, ei)/t' ei)s to\\ poiei=n\ne(/teron o(tiou=n pephuko\\s ei)/t' ei)s to\\ pathei=n kai\\\nsmikro/taton u(po\\ tou= phaulota/tou, ka)\\n ei) mo/non ei)sa/pax,\npa=n tou=to o)/nt\u00f4s ei)=nai; ti/themai ga\\r o(/ron o(ri/zein ta\\\no)/nta, \u00f4(s e)/stin ou)k a)/llo ti pl\u00ea\\n _du/namis_.]]\n\n[Side-note: Argument against the Idealists--who distinguish Ens\nfrom the generated, and say that we hold communion with the former\nthrough our minds, with the latter through our bodies and senses.]\n\nThe Eleate now turns to the philosophers of the opposite school--the\nMentalists or Idealists,--whom he terms the friends of Forms,\nIdeas, or species.[51] These men (he says) distinguish the\ngenerated, transitory and changeable--from Ens or the Real, which\nis eternal, unchanged, always the same: they distinguish\ngeneration from essence. With the generated (according to their\ndoctrine) we hold communion through our bodies and our bodily\nperceptions: with Ens, we hold communion through our mind and our\nintellectual apprehension. But what do they mean (continues the\nEleate) by this \"holding of communion\"? Is it not an action or a\npassion produced by a certain power of agent and patient coming\ninto co-operation with each other? and is not this the definition\nwhich we just now laid down, of Ens or the Real.\n\n[Footnote 51: Plato, Sophist. p. 248 A. [Greek: tou\\s t\u00f4=n ei)d\u00f4=n\nphi/lous].]\n\n[Side-note: Holding communion--What? Implies Relativity. Ens is\nknown by the mind. It therefore suffers or undergoes change. Ens\nincludes both the unchangeable and the changeable.]\n\n_No_--these philosophers will reply--we do not admit your\ndefinition as a definition of Ens: it applies only to the\ngenerated. Generation does involve, or emanate from, a reciprocity\nof agent and patient: but neither power nor action, nor suffering,\nhave any application to Ens or the Real. But you admit (says the\nEleate) that the mind knows Ens:--and that Ens is known by the\nmind. Now this _knowing_, is it not an action--and is not the\n_being known_, a passion? If _to know_ is an action, then Ens,\nbeing known, is acted upon, suffers something, or undergoes some\nchange,--which would be impossible if we assume Ens to be\neternally unchanged. These philosophers might reply, that they do\nnot admit _to know_ as an action, nor _to be known_ as a passion.\nThey affirm Ens to be eternally unchanged, and they hold to their\nother affirmation that Ens is known by the mind. But (urges the\nEleate) can they really believe that Ens is eternally the same and\nunchanged,--that it has neither life, nor mind, nor intelligence,\nnor change, nor movement? This is incredible. They must concede\nthat Change, and the Changeable, are to be reckoned as Entia or\nRealities: for if these be not so reckoned, and if all Entia are\nunchangeable, no Ens can be an object of knowledge to any mind.\nBut though the changeable belongs to Ens, we must not affirm that\n_all_ Ens is changeable. There cannot be either intellect or\nknowledge, without something constant and unchangeable. It is\nequally necessary to recognise something as constant and\nunchangeable--something else as moving and changeable: Ens or\nreality includes alike one and the other. The true philosopher\ntherefore cannot agree with those \"Friends of Forms\" who affirm\nall Ens or Reality to be at rest and unchangeable, either under\none form or under many:--still less can he agree with those\nopposite reasoners, who maintain all reality to be in perpetual\nchange and movement. He will acknowledge both and each--rest and\nmotion--the constant and the changeable--as making up together\ntotal reality or Ens Totum.\n\n[Side-note: Motion and rest are both of them Entia or realities.\nBoth agree in Ens. Ens is a _tertium quid_--distinct from both.\nBut how can anything be distinct from both?]\n\nStill, however, we have not got over our difficulties. Motion and\nRest are contraries; yet we say that each and both are Realities\nor Entia. In what is it that they both agree? Not in moving, nor\nin being at rest, but simply in existence or reality. Existence or\nreality therefore must be a _tertium quid_, apart from motion and\nrest, not the sum total of those two items. Ens or the Real is\nnot, in its own proper nature, either in motion or at rest, but is\ndistinct from both. Yet how can this be? Surely, whatever is not\nin motion, must be at rest--whatever is not at rest, must be in\nmotion. How can any thing be neither in motion nor at rest;\nstanding apart from both?[52]\n\n[Footnote 52: Plato, Sophist. p. 250 C.]\n\n[Side-note: Here the Eleate breaks off without solution. He\ndeclares his purpose to show, That Ens is as full of puzzle as\nNon-Ens,]\n\nHere the Eleate breaks off his enquiry, without solving the\nproblems which he has accumulated. My purpose was (he says[53]) to\nshow that Ens was just as full of difficulties and embarrassments\nas Non-Ens. Enough has been said to prove this clearly. When we\ncan once get clear of obscurity about Ens, we may hope to be\nequally successful with Non-Ens.\n\n[Footnote 53: Plato, Sophist. p. 250 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Argument against those who admit no predication to be\nlegitimate, except identical. How far Forms admit of\nintercommunion with each other.]\n\nLet us try (he proceeds) another path. We know that it is a common\npractice in our daily speech to apply many different predicates to\none and the same subject. We say of the same man, that he is fair,\ntall, just, brave, &c., and several other epithets. Some persons\ndeny our right to do this. They say that the predicate ought\nalways to be identical with the subject: that we can only employ\nwith propriety such propositions as the following--man is\nman--good is good, &c.: that to apply many predicates to one and\nthe same subject is to make one thing into many things.[54] But in\nreply to these opponents, as well as to those whom we have before\ncombated, we shall put before them three alternatives, of which\nthey must choose one. 1. Either all Forms admit of intercommunion\none with the other. 2. Or no Forms admit of such intercommunion.\n3. Or some Forms do admit of it, and others not. Between these\nthree an option must be made.[55]\n\n[Footnote 54: Plato, Sophist. p. 251 B. [Greek: \u00f4(s a)du/naton ta/\nte polla\\ e(\\n kai\\ to\\ e(\\n polla\\ ei)=nai], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 55: Plato, Sophist. p. 251 E.]\n\n[Side-note: No intercommunion between any distinct forms. Refuted.\nCommon speech is inconsistent with this hypothesis.]\n\nIf we take the first alternative--that there is no intercommunion\nof Forms--then the Forms _motion_ and _rest_ can have no\nintercommunion with the Forms, _essence_ or _reality_. In other\nwords, neither motion nor rest exist: and thus the theory both of\nthose who say that all things are in perpetual movement, and of\nthose who say that all things are in perpetual rest, becomes\nunfounded and impossible. Besides, these very men, who deny all\nintercommunion of Forms, are obliged to admit it implicitly and\ninvoluntarily in their common forms of speech. They cannot carry\non a conversation without it, and they thus serve as a perpetual\nrefutation of their own doctrine.[56]\n\n[Footnote 56: Plato, Sophist. p. 252 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Reciprocal intercommunion of all Forms--inadmissible.]\n\nThe second alternative--that all Forms may enter into communion\nwith each other--is also easily refuted. If this were true, motion\nand rest might be put together: motion would be at rest, and rest\nwould be in motion--which is absurd. These and other forms are\ncontrary to each other. They reciprocally exclude and repudiate\nall intercommunion.[57]\n\n[Footnote 56: Plato, Sophist. p. 252 E.]\n\n[Side-note: Some Forms admit of intercommunion, others not. This is\nthe only admissible doctrine. Analogy of letters and syllables.]\n\nRemains only the third alternative--that some forms admit of\nintercommunion--others not. This is the real truth (says the\nEleate). So it stands in regard to letters and words in language:\nsome letters come together in words frequently and\nconveniently--others rarely and awkwardly--others never do nor ever can\ncome together. The same with the combination of sounds to obtain music.\nIt requires skill and art to determine which of these combinations\nare admissible.\n\n[Side-note: Art and skill are required to distinguish what Forms\nadmit of intercommunion, and what Forms do not. This is the\nspecial intelligence of the Philosopher, who lives in the bright\nregion of Ens: the Sophist lives in the darkness of Non-Ens.]\n\nSo also, in regard to the intercommunion of Forms, skill and art\nare required to decide which of them will come together, and which\nwill not. In every special art and profession the case is similar:\nthe ignorant man will fail in deciding this question--the man of\nspecial skill alone will succeed.--So in regard to the\nintercommunion of Forms or Genera universally with each other, the\ncomprehensive science of the true philosopher is required to\ndecide.[58] To note and study these Forms, is the purpose of the\nphilosopher in his dialectics or ratiocinative debate. He can\ntrace the one Form or Idea, stretching through a great many\nseparate particulars; he can distinguish it from all different\nForms: he knows which Forms are not merely distinct from each\nother, but incapable of alliance and reciprocally repulsive--which\nof them are capable of complete conjunction, the one\ncircumscribing and comprehending the other--and which of them\nadmit conjunction partial and occasional with each other.[59] The\nphilosopher thus keeps close to the Form of eternal and\nunchangeable Ens or Reality--a region of such bright light that\nthe eyes of the vulgar cannot clearly see him: while the Sophist\non the other hand is also difficult to be seen, but for an\nopposite reason--from the darkness of that region of Non-Ens or\nNon-Reality wherein he carries on his routine-work.[60]\n\n[Footnote 58: Plato, Sophist. p. 253 B. [Greek: a)=r' ou) met'\ne)pist\u00ea/m\u00eas tino\\s a)nagkai=on dia\\ t\u00f4=n lo/g\u00f4n poreu/esthai to\\n\no)rth\u00f4=s me/llonta dei/xein poi=a poi/ois sumph\u00f4nei= t\u00f4=n gen\u00f4=n\nkai\\ poi=a a)/ll\u00eala ou) de/chetai?]]\n\n[Footnote 59: Plato, Sophist. p. 253 D-E.]\n\n[Footnote 60: Plato, Sophist. p. 254 A. [Greek: O( de/ ge\nphilo/sophos, t\u00ea=| tou= o)/ntos a)ei\\ dia\\ logism\u00f4=n proskei/menos\ni)de/a|, dia\\ to\\ lampro\\n au)= t\u00ea=s ch\u00f4/ras ou)dam\u00f4=s eu)pe/t\u00eas\no)phth\u00ea=nai; ta\\ ga\\r t\u00ea=s t\u00f4=n poll\u00f4=n psuch\u00ea=s o)/mmata\nkarterei=n pro\\s to\\ thei=on a)phor\u00f4=nta a)du/nata.]]\n\n[Side-note: He comes to enquire what Non-Ens is. He takes for\nexamination five principal\nForms--Motion--Rest--Ens--Same--Different.]\n\nWe have still to determine, however (continues Plato), what this\nNon-Ens or Non-Reality is. For this purpose we will take a survey,\nnot of all Forms or Genera, but of some few the most important. We\nwill begin with the two before noticed--Motion and Rest ( = Change\nand Permanence), which are confessedly irreconcileable and\nreciprocally exclusive. Ens however enters into partnership with\nboth: for both of them _are_, or exist.[61] This makes up three\nForms or Genera--Motion, Rest, Ens: each of the three being the\nsame with itself, and different from the other two. Here we have\npronounced two new words--Same--Different.[62] Do these words\ndesignate two other Forms, over and above the three before-named,\nyet necessarily always intermingling in partnership with those\nthree, so as to make five Forms in all? Or are these two--Same and\nDifferent--essential appendages of the three before-named? This\nlast question must be answered in the negative. Same and Different\nare not essential appendages, or attached as parts, to Motion,\nRest, Ens. Same and Different may be predicated both of Motion and\nof Rest: and whatever can be predicated alike of two contraries,\ncannot be an essential portion or appendage of either. Neither\nMotion nor Rest therefore _are_ essentially either Same or\nDifferent: though both of them partake of Same or\nDifferent--_i.e._, come into accidental co-partnership with one as\nwell as the other.[63] Neither can we say that Ens is identical\nwith either Idem or Diversum. Not with Idem--for we speak of both\nMotion and Rest as Entia or Existences: but we cannot speak of\nthem as the same. Not with Diversum--for _different_ is a name\nrelative to something else from which it is different, but Ens is\nnot thus relative. Motion and Rest _are_ or exist, each in itself:\nbut each is _different_, relatively to the other, and to other\nthings generally. Accordingly we have here five Forms or\nGenera--Ens, Motion, Rest, Idem, Diversum: each distinct from and\nindependent of all the rest.[64]\n\n[Footnote 61: Plato, Sophist. p. 254 D. [Greek: to\\ de/ ge o)\\n\nmikto\\n a)mphoi=n; _e)sto\\n_ ga\\r a)/mph\u00f4 pou.]]\n\n[Footnote 62: Plato, Sophist. p. 254 E. [Greek: ti/ pot' au)= nu=n\nou(/t\u00f4s ei)r\u00ea/kamen to/ te tau)to\\n kai\\ tha/teron? po/tera du/o\nge/n\u00ea tine\\ au)t\u00f4/, t\u00f4=n me\\n tri\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 63: Plato, Sophist. p. 255 B. [Greek: mete/cheton m\u00ea\\n\na)/mph\u00f4 tau)tou= kai\\ thate/rou . . . M\u00ea\\ toi/nun le/g\u00f4men\nki/n\u00easi/n _g' ei)=nai_ tau)to\\n \u00ea)\\ tha/teron, m\u00ead' au)=\nsta/sin.]]\n\n[Footnote 64: Plato, Sophist. p. 255 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Form of Diversum pervades all the others.]\n\nThis Form of Diversum or Different pervades all the others: for\neach one of them is different from the others, not through any\nthing in its own nature, but because it partakes of the Form of\nDifference.[65] Each of the five is different from others: or, to\nexpress the same fact in other words, each of them _is not_ any\none of the others. Thus motion is different from rest, or _is not_\nrest: but nevertheless motion _is_ or exists, because it partakes\nof the Form--Ens. Again, Motion is different from Idem: it _is\nnot_ the Same: yet nevertheless it _is_ the same, because it\npartakes of the nature of Idem, or is the same with itself. Thus\nthen both predications are true respecting motion: it _is_ the\nsame: it _is not_ the same, because it partakes of or enters into\npartnership with both Idem and Diversum.[66] If motion in any way\npartook of Rest, we should be able to talk of stationary motion:\nbut this is impossible: for we have already said that some Forms\ncannot come into intercommunion--that they absolutely exclude each\nother.\n\n[Footnote 65: Plato, Sophist. p. 255 E. [Greek: kai\\ dia\\ pa/nt\u00f4n\nge au)t\u00ea\\n ph\u00ea/somen ei)=nai diel\u00ealuthui=an (t\u00ea\\n thate/rou\nphu/sin) e(\\n e(/kaston ga\\r e(/teron ei)=nai t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n, _ou)\ndia\\ t\u00ea\\n au)tou= phu/sin_, a)lla\\ dia\\ to\\ mete/chein t\u00ea=s\ni)de/as t\u00ea=s thate/rou.]]\n\n[Footnote 66: Plato, Sophist. p. 256 A. [Greek: t\u00ea\\n ki/n\u00easin d\u00ea\\\ntau)to/n t' ei)=nai kai\\ m\u00ea\\ tau)to\\n o(molog\u00eate/on kai\\ ou)\nduscherante/on], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Motion is different from Diversum, or is not Diversum.\nMotion is different from Ens--in other words, it is Non-Ens. Each\nof these Forms is both Ens and Non-Ens.]\n\nAgain, Motion is different not only from Rest, and from Idem, but\nalso from Diversum itself. In other words, it is both Diversum in\na certain way, and also not Diversum: different and not\ndifferent.[67] As it is different from Rest, from Idem, from\nDiversum--so also it is different from Ens, the remaining one of\nthe five forms or genera. In other words Motion is not Ens,--or is\nNon-Ens. It is both Ens, and Non-Ens: Ens, so far as it partakes\nof Entity or Reality--Non-Ens, so far as it partakes of\nDifference, and is thus different from Ens as well as from the\nother Forms.[68] The same may be said of the other Forms,--Rest,\nIdem, Diversum: each of them is Ens, because it partakes of entity\nor reality: each of them is also Non-Ens, or different from Ens,\nbecause it partakes of Difference. Moreover, Ens itself is\ndifferent from the other four, and so far as these others go, it\nis Non-Ens.[69]\n\n[Footnote 67: Plato, Sophist. p. 256 C. [Greek: ou)ch e(/teron\na)]r' e)sti/ p\u00ea| kai\\ e(/teron kata\\ to\\n nu=n d\u00ea\\ lo/gon.]]\n\n[Footnote 68: Plato, Sophist. p. 256 D. [Greek: ou)kou=n d\u00ea\\\nsaph\u00f4=s \u00ea( ki/n\u00easis o)/nt\u00f4s ou)k o)/n e)sti kai\\ o)\\n, e)pei/per\ntou= o)/ntos mete/chei?]]\n\n[Footnote 69: Plato, Sophist. p. 257 A. [Greek: kai\\ to\\ o)/n\na)/r' \u00ea(mi=n, o(/sa per e)/sti ta\\ a)/lla, kata\\ tosau=ta ou)k\ne)/stin; e)kei=na ga\\r ou)k o)\\n e(\\n me\\n au)to/ e)stin,\na)pe/ranta de\\ to\\n a)rithmo\\n ta)/lla ou)k e)/stin au)=.]]\n\n[Side-note: By Non-Ens, we do not mean anything contrary to Ens--we\nmean only something different from Ens. Non-Ens is a real Form, as\nwell as Ens.]\n\nNow note the consequence (continues the Eleate). When we speak of\nNon-Ens, we do not mean any thing contrary to Ens, but only\nsomething different from Ens. When we call any thing _not great_,\nwe do not affirm it to be the contrary of great, or to be\n_little_: for it may perhaps be simply equal: we only mean that it\nis different from great.[70] A negative proposition, generally,\ndoes not signify anything contrary to the predicate, but merely\nsomething else distinct or different from the predicate.[71] The\nForm of Different, though of one and the same general nature\nthroughout, is distributed into many separate parts or\nspecialties, according as it is attached to different things. Thus\n_not beautiful_ is a special mode of the general Form or Genus\nDifferent, placed in antithesis with another Form or Genus, _the\nbeautiful_. The antithesis is that of one Ens or Real thing\nagainst another Ens or Real thing: _not beautiful_, _not great_,\n_not just_, exist just as much and are quite as real, as\n_beautiful_, _great_, _just_. If the Different be a real Form or\nGenus, all its varieties must be real also. Accordingly Different\nfrom Ens is just as much a real Form as Ens itself:[72] and this\nis what we mean by Non-Ens:--not any thing contrary to Ens.\n\n[Footnote 70: Plato, Sophist. p. 257 B. [Greek: O(po/tan to\\ m\u00ea\\\no)\\n le/g\u00f4men, \u00f4(s e)/oiken, ou)k e)nanti/on ti le/gomen tou=\no)/ntos, a)ll' e(/teron mo/non . . . Oi(=on o(/tan ei)p\u00f4me/n _ti\nm\u00ea\\ me/ga_, to/te ma=llo/n ti/ soi phaino/metha to\\ smikro\\n \u00ea)\\\nto\\ i)/son d\u00ealou=n t\u00f4=| r(\u00ea/mati.]\n\nPlato here means to imply that [Greek: to\\ smikro\\n] is the real\ncontrary of [Greek: to\\ me/ga]. When we say [Greek: m\u00ea\\ me/ga], we\ndo not necessarily mean [Greek: smikro/n]--we may mean [Greek:\ni)/son]. Therefore [Greek: to\\ m\u00ea\\ me/ga] does not (in his view)\nimply the contrary of [Greek: me/ga].]\n\n[Footnote 71: Plato, Sophist. p. 257 B. [Greek: Ou)k a)/r'\ne)nanti/on, o(/tan a)po/phasis le/g\u00eatai, s\u00eamai/nein\nsugch\u00f4r\u00easo/metha, tosou=ton de\\ mo/non, o(/ti t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n ti\nm\u00eanu/ei to\\ m\u00ea\\ kai\\ to\\ ou) protithe/mena t\u00f4=n e)pio/nt\u00f4n\no)noma/t\u00f4n, ma=llon de\\ t\u00f4=n pragma/t\u00f4n peri\\ a)/tt' a)\\n ke/\u00eatai\nta\\ e)piphtheggo/mena u(/steron t\u00ea=s a)popha/se\u00f4s o)no/mata.]]\n\n[Footnote 72: Plato, Sophist. p. 258 B. [Greek: \u00ea( t\u00ea=s thate/rou\nmori/ou phu/se\u00f4s kai\\ t\u00ea=s tou= o)/ntos pro\\s a)/ll\u00eala\na)ntikeime/n\u00f4n a)ntithesis ou)de\\n \u00ea)=tton, ei) the/mis ei)pei=n\nau)tou= tou= o)/ntos ou)si/a e)sti/n; ou)k e)nanti/on e)kei/n\u00f4|\ns\u00eamai/nousa, a)lla\\ tosou=ton mo/non, e(/teron e)kei/nou.]]\n\n[Side-note: The Eleate claims to have refuted Parmenides, and to\nhave shown both that Non-Ens is a real Form, and also what it is.]\n\nHere then the Eleate professes to have found what Non-Ens is: that\nit is a real substantive Form, numerable among the other Forms,\nand having a separate constant nature of its own, like _not\nbeautiful_, _not great_:[73] that it is real and existent, just as\nmuch as _Ens_, _beautiful_, _great_, &c. Disregarding the\nprohibition of Parmenides, we have shown (says he) not only that\nNon-Ens exists, but also what it is. Many Forms or Genera enter\ninto partnership or communion with each other; and Non-Ens is the\npartnership between Ens and Diversum. Diversum, in partnership\nwith Ens, _is_ (exists), in consequence of such partnership:--yet\n_it is not_ that with which it is in partnership, but different\ntherefrom--and being thus different from Ens, it is clearly and\nnecessarily Non-Ens: while Ens also, by virtue of its partnership\nwith Diversum, is different from all the other Forms, or _is not_\nany one of them, and to this extent therefore Ens is Non-Ens. We\ndrop altogether the idea of contrariety, without enquiring whether\nit be reasonably justifiable or not: we attach ourselves entirely\nto the Form--_Different_.[74]\n\n[Footnote 73: Plato, Sophist. p. 258 B-C. [Greek: to\\ m\u00ea\\ o)\\n\nbebai/\u00f4s e)sti\\ t\u00ea\\n au)tou= phu/sin e)/chon . . . e)na/rithmon\nt\u00f4=n poll\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4=n ei)=dos e(/n.]]\n\n[Footnote 74: Plato, Sophist. pp. 258 E--259 A. [Greek: \u00ea(mei=s\nga\\r peri\\ me\\n e)nanti/ou tino\\s au)t\u00f4=| chai/rein pa/lai\nle/gomen, ei)/t' e)/stin ei)/te m\u00ea\\ lo/gon e)/chon \u00ea)\\ kai\\\npanta/pasin a)/logon], &c.\n\n[Greek: to\\ me\\n e(/teron metascho\\n tou= o)/ntos _e)/sti_ me\\n\ndia\\ tau/t\u00ean t\u00ea\\n me/thexin, ou) m\u00ea\\n e)kei=no ge ou)= me/teschen,\na)ll' e(/teron, e(/teron de\\ tou= o)/ntos o)/n e)sti saphe/stata\ne)x a)na/gk\u00eas ei)=nai m\u00ea\\ o)/n], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: The theory now stated is the only one, yet given, which\njustifies predication as a legitimate process, with a predicate\ndifferent from the subject.]\n\nLet those refute this explanation, who can do so (continues the\nEleate), or let them propose a better of their own, if they can:\nif not, let them allow the foregoing as possible.[75] Let them not\ncontent themselves with multiplying apparent contradictions, by\nsaying that the same may be in some particular respect different,\nand that the different may be in some particular respect the same,\nthrough this or the other accidental attribute.[76] All these\nsophisms lead but to make us believe--That no one thing can be\npredicated of any other--That there is no intercommunion of the\ndistinct Forms one with another, no right to predicate of any\nsubject a second name and the possession of a new attribute--That\ntherefore there can be no dialectic debate or philosophy, which is\nall founded upon such intercommunion of Forms.[77] We have shown\nthat Forms do really come into conjunction, so as to enable us to\nconjoin, truly and properly, predicate with subject, and to\nconstitute proposition and judgment as taking place among the true\nForms or Genera. Among these true Forms or Genera, Non-Ens is\nincluded as one.[78]\n\n[Footnote 75: Plato, Sophist. p. 259 A-C. [Greek: o(\\ de\\ nu=n\nei)r\u00ea/kamen ei)=nai to\\ m\u00ea\\ o)/n, \u00ea)\\ peisa/t\u00f4 tis \u00f4(s ou) kal\u00f4=s\nle/gomen e)le/gxas, \u00ea)\\ me/chri per a)\\n a)dunat\u00ea=|, lekte/on kai\\\ne)kei=n\u00f4| katha/per \u00ea(mei=s le/gomen . . . to\\ tau=ta _e)a/santa\n\u00f4(s dunata/_. . . .]\n\nThe language of the Eleate here is altogether at variance with the\nspirit of Plato in his negative or Searching Dialogues. To say, as\nhe does, \"Either accept the explanation which I give, or propose a\nbetter of your own\"--is a dilemma which the Sokrates of the\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus, and other dialogues, would have declined altogether.\nThe complaint here made by the Eleate, against disputants who did\nnothing but propound difficulties--is the same as that which the\nhearers of Sokrates made against _him_ (see Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 20\nA, where the remark is put into the mouth, not of an opponent, but\nof a respectful young listener); and many a reader of the Platonic\nParmenid\u00eas has indulged in the complaint.]\n\n[Footnote 76: Plato, Sophist. p. 259 D. [Greek: e)kei/n\u00ea| kai\\\nkat' e)kei=no o(/ ph\u00easi tou/t\u00f4n peponthe/nai po/teron.]]\n\n[Footnote 77: Plato, Sophist. p. 259 B, E. [Greek: dia\\ ga\\r t\u00ea\\n\na)ll\u00ea/l\u00f4n t\u00f4=n ei)d\u00f4=n sumplok\u00ea\\n o( lo/gos ge/gonen \u00ea(mi=n.] 252\nB: [Greek: oi( m\u00eade\\n e)\u00f4=ntes koin\u00f4ni/a| path\u00ea/matos e(te/rou\ntha/teron prosagoreu/ein.]]\n\n[Footnote 78: Plato, Sophist. p. 260 A. [Greek: pro\\s to\\ to\\n\nlo/gon \u00ea(mi=n t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n e(/n ti gen\u00f4=n ei)=nai.] 258 B: [Greek:\nto\\ m\u00ea\\ o)\\n bebai/\u00f4s e)sti\\ t\u00ea\\n au(tou= phu/sin e)/chon.]]\n\n[Side-note: Enquiry, whether the Form of Non-Ens can come into\nintercommunion with the Forms of Proposition, Opinion, Judgment.]\n\nThe Eleate next proceeds to consider, whether these two Genera or\nForms--Proposition, Judgment, Opinion, on the one hand, and\nNon-Ens on the other--are among those which may or do enter into\npartnership and conjunction with each other. For we have admitted\nthat there are some Forms which cannot come into partnership; and\nthe Sophist against whom we are reasoning, though we have driven\nhim to concede that Non-Ens is a real Form, may still contend that\nit is one of those which cannot come into partnership with\nProposition, Judgment, Opinion--and he may allege that we can\nneither embody in language, nor in mental judgment, that which _is\nnot_.[79]\n\n[Footnote 79: Plato, Sophist. p. 260 C-D-E.]\n\n[Side-note: Analysis of a Proposition. Every Proposition must have\na noun and a verb--it must be proposition of _Something_. False\npropositions, involve the Form of Non-Ens, in relation to the\nparticular subject.]\n\nLet us look attentively what Proposition, Judgment, Opinion, are.\nAs we said about Forms and letters, so about words: it is not\nevery combination of words which is possible, so as to make up a\nsignificant proposition. A string of nouns alone will not make\none, nor a string of verbs alone. To compose the simplest\nproposition, you must put together at least one noun and one verb,\nin order to signify something respecting things existing, or\nevents past, present, and future.[80] Now every proposition must\nbe a proposition about something, or belonging to a certain\nsubject: every proposition must also be of a certain quality.[81]\n_The\u00e6t\u00eatus is sitting down_--_The\u00e6t\u00eatus is flying._ Here are two\npropositions, both belonging to the same subject, but with\nopposite qualities: the former true, the latter false. The true\nproposition affirms respecting The\u00e6t\u00eatus real things as they are;\nthe false proposition affirms respecting him things different from\nreal, or non-real, as being real. The attribute of _flying_ is\njust as real in itself as the attribute of _sitting_: but as\nrespects The\u00e6t\u00eatus, or as predicated concerning him, it is\ndifferent from the reality, or non-real.[82] But still The\u00e6t\u00eatus\nis the subject of the proposition, though the predicate _flying_\ndoes not really belong to him: for there is no other subject than\nhe, and without a subject the proposition would be no proposition\nat all. When therefore different things are affirmed as the same,\nor non-realities as realities, respecting you or any given\nsubject, the proposition so affirming is false.[83]\n\n[Footnote 80: Plato, Sophist. pp. 261-262.]\n\n[Footnote 81: Plato, Sophist. p. 262 E. [Greek: lo/gon\na)nagkai=on, o(/tan per \u00ea)=|, tino\\s ei)=nai lo/gon; m\u00ea\\ de/ tinos\na)du/naton . . . Ou)kou=n kai\\ _poi=o/n tina_ au)to\\n ei)=nai\ndei=?]]\n\n[Footnote 82: Plato, Sophist. p. 263 B [Greek: O)/nt\u00f4n de/ ge\no)/nta e(/tera peri\\ sou=.]\n\nThat is, [Greek: e(/tera t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n],--being the explanation\ngiven by Plato of [Greek: ta\\ m\u00ea\\ o)/nta].]\n\n[Footnote 83: Plato, Sophist. p. 263 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Opinion, Judgment, Fancy, &c., are akin to Proposition,\nand may be also false, by coming into partnership with the Form\nNon-Ens.]\n\nAs propositions may be true or false, so also opinion or judgment\nor conception, may be true or false: for opinion or judgment is\nonly the concluding result of deliberation or reflection--and\nreflection is the silent dialogue of the mind with itself: while\nconception or phantasy is the coalescence or conjunction of\nopinion with present perception.[84] Both opinion and conception\nare akin to proposition. It has thus been shown that false\npropositions, and false opinions or judgments, are perfectly real,\nand involve no contradiction: and that the Form or\nGenus--Proposition, Judgment, Opinion--comes properly and naturally\ninto partnership with the Form Non-Ens.\n\n[Footnote 84: Plato, Sophist. pp. 263-264. 264 A-B: [Greek:\nOu)kou=n e)/peiper lo/gos a)l\u00eath\u00ea\\s \u00ea)=n kai\\ pseud\u00ea/s, tou/t\u00f4n d'\ne)pha/n\u00ea dia/noia me\\n au)t\u00ea=s pro\\s e(aut\u00ea\\n psuch\u00ea=s dia/logos,\ndo/xa de\\ dianoi/as a)poteleu/t\u00easis, phai/netai de\\ o(\\ le/gomen\n(phantasi/a) su/mmixis ai)sth\u00ea/se\u00f4s kai\\ do/x\u00eas, a)na/gk\u00ea d\u00ea\\ kai\\\ntou/t\u00f4n t\u00f4=| lo/g\u00f4| xuggen\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n pseud\u00ea= te au)t\u00f4=n e)/nia\nkai\\ e)ni/ote ei)=nai?]]\n\nThis was the point which Plato's Eleate undertook to prove against\nParmenides, and against the plea of the Sophist founded on the\nParmenidean doctrine.\n\n* * * * *\n\n[Side-note: It thus appears that Falsehood, imitating Truth, is\ntheoretically possible, and that there may be a profession, like\nthat of the Sophist, engaged in producing it.]\n\nHere Plato closes his general philosophical discussion, and\nreverts to the process of logical division from which he had\ndeviated. In descending the predicamental steps, to find the\nlogical place of the Sophist, Plato had reached a point where he\nassumed Non-Ens, together with false propositions and judgments\naffirming Non-Ens. To which the Sophist is conceived as replying,\nthat Non-Ens was contradictory and impossible, and that no\nproposition could be false. On these points Plato has produced an\nelaborate argument intended to refute him, and to show that there\nwas such a thing as falsehood imitating truth, or passing itself\noff as truth: accordingly, that there might be an art or\nprofession engaged in producing such falsehood.\n\n[Side-note: Logical distribution of Imitators--those who imitate\nwhat they know, or what they do not know--of these last, some\nsincerely believe themselves to know, others are conscious that\nthey do not know, and designedly impose upon others.]\n\nNow the imitative profession may be distributed into those who\nknow what they imitate--and those who imitate without knowing.[85]\nThe man who mimics your figure or voice, knows what he imitates:\nthose who imitate the figure of justice and virtue often pass\nthemselves off as knowing it, yet do not really know it, having\nnothing better than fancy or opinion concerning it. Of these\nlatter again--(_i.e._ the imitators with mere opinion, but no\nknowledge, respecting that which sincerely they imitate)--there\nare two classes: one, those who sincerely mistake their own mere\nopinions for knowledge, and are falsely persuaded that they really\nknow: the other class, those who by their perpetual occupation in\ntalking, lead us to suspect and apprehend that they are conscious\nof not knowing things, which nevertheless they discuss before\nothers as if they did know.[86]\n\n[Footnote 85: Plato, Sophist. p. 267 A-D.]\n\n[Footnote 86: Plato, Sophist. p. 268 A. [Greek: to\\ de\\ thate/rou\nsch\u00ea=ma, dia\\ t\u00ea\\n e)n toi=s lo/gois kuli/nd\u00easin, e)/chei poll\u00ea\\n\nu(popsi/an kai\\ pho/bon \u00f4(s a)gnoei= tau=ta a(\\ pro\\s tou\\s\na)/llous \u00f4(s ei)d\u00f4\\s e)sch\u00eama/tistai.]]\n\n[Side-note: Last class divided--Those who impose on numerous\nauditors by long discourse, the Rhetor--Those who impose on select\nauditors, by short question and answer, making the respondent\ncontradict himself--the Sophist.]\n\nOf this latter class, again, we may recognise two sections: those\nwho impose upon a numerous audience by long discourses on public\nmatters: and those who in private, by short question and answer,\ncompel the person conversing with them to contradict himself.[87]\nThe man of long discourse is not the true statesman, but the\npopular orator: the man of short discourse, but without any real\nknowledge, is not the truly wise man, since he has no real\nknowledge--but the imitator of the wise man, or Sophist.\n\n[Footnote 87: Plato, Sophist. p. 268 B. [Greek: to\\n me\\n\nd\u00eamosi/a| te kai\\ makroi=s lo/gois pro\\s pl\u00ea/th\u00ea dunato\\n\n_ei)r\u00f4neu/esthai_ kathor\u00f4=; to\\n de\\ i)di/a| te kai\\ brache/si\nlo/gois a)nagka/zonta to\\n prosdialego/menon e)nantiologei=n\nau)to\\n au)t\u00f4=|.]]\n\n* * * * *\n\n[Side-note: Dialogue closed. Remarks upon it. Characteristics\nascribed to a Sophist.]\n\nWe have here the conclusion of this abstruse and complicated\ndialogue, called Sophist\u00eas. It ends by setting forth, as the\nleading characteristics of the Sophist--that he deals in short\nquestion and answer so as to make the respondent contradict\nhimself: That he talks with small circles of listeners, upon a\nlarge variety of subjects, on which he possesses no real\nknowledge: That he mystifies or imposes upon his auditors; not\ngiving his own sincere convictions, but talking for the production\nof a special effect. He is [Greek: e)nantiopoiologiko\\s] and\n[Greek: ei)/r\u00f4n], to employ the two original Platonic words,\nneither of which is easy to translate.\n\n[Side-note: These characteristics may have belonged to other\npersons, but they belonged in an especial manner to Sokrates\nhimself.]\n\nI dare say that there were some acute and subtle disputants in\nAthens to whom these characteristics belonged, though we do not\nknow them by name. But we know one to whom they certainly\nbelonged: and that was, Sokrates himself. They stand manifest and\nprominent both in the Platonic and in the Xenophontic dialogues.\nThe attribute which Xenophon directly predicates about him, that\n\"in conversation he dealt with his interlocutors just as he\npleased,\"[88] is amply exemplified by Plato in the Protagoras,\nGorgias, Euthyphron, Lach\u00eas, Charmides, Lysias, Alkibiad\u00eas I. and\nII., Hippias I. and II., &c. That he cross-examined and puzzled\nevery one else without knowing the subjects on which he talked,\nbetter than they did--is his own declaration in the Apology. That\nthe Athenians regarded him as a clever man mystifying\nthem--talking without sincere persuasion, or in a manner so strange\nthat you could not tell whether he was in jest or in\nearnest--overthrowing men's established convictions by subtleties which\nled to no positive truth--is also attested both by what he himself\nsays in the Apology, and by other passages of Plato and\nXenophon.[89]\n\n[Footnote 88: Xen. Memor. i. 2, 14, [Greek: toi=s de\\\ndialegome/nois au)t\u00f4=| pa=si chr\u00f4/menon e)n toi=s lo/gois o(/p\u00f4s\nbou/loito.]\n\nCompare, to the same purpose, i. 4, 1, where we are told that\nSokrates employed his colloquial Elenchus as a means of chastising\n([Greek: kolast\u00eari/ou e(/neka]) those who thought that they knew\nevery thing: and the conversation of Sokrates with the youthful\nEuthyd\u00eamus, especially what is said by Xenophon at the close of it\n(iv. 4, 39-40).\n\nThe power of Sokrates to vanquish in dialogue the persons called\nSophists, and to make them contradict themselves in answering--is\nclearly brought out, and doubtless intentionally brought out, in\nsome of Plato's most consummate dialogues. Alkibiades says, in the\nPlatonic Protagoras (p. 336), \"Sokrates confesses himself no match\nfor Protagoras in long speaking. If Protagoras on his side\nconfesses himself inferior to Sokrates in dialogue, Sokrates is\nsatisfied.\"]\n\n[Footnote 89: Plato, Apolog. p. 37 E. [Greek: e)a/n te ga\\r le/g\u00f4,\no(/ti t\u00f4=| the\u00f4=| a)peithei=n tou=t' e)/stin, kai\\ dia\\ tou=t'\na)du/naton \u00ea(suchi/an a)/gein, ou) pei/sesthe/ moi \u00f4(s\nei)r\u00f4neuome/n\u00f4|.]\n\nXen. Memor. iv. 4, 9. [Greek: a)rkei= ga\\r] (says Hippias to\nSokrates), [Greek: o(/ti t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n katagela=|s, e)r\u00f4t\u00f4=n kai\\\ne)le/gch\u00f4n pa/ntas, au)to\\s de\\ ou)deni\\ the/l\u00f4n u(pe/chein\nlo/gon, ou)de\\ gn\u00f4/m\u00ean a)pophai/nesthai peri\\ ou)deno/s.] See also\nMemorab. iii. 5, 24.\n\nCompare a striking passage in Plato's Menon, p. 80 A; also\nThe\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 149; and Plutarch, Qu\u00e6st. Platonic. p. 1000.\n\nThe attribute [Greek: ei)r\u00f4nei/a], which Plato here declares as\none of the main characteristics of the Sophists, is applied to\nSokrates in a very special manner, not merely in the Platonic\ndialogues, but also by Timon in the fragments of his Silli\nremaining--[Greek: Au)t\u00ea\\ e)kei/n\u00ea \u00ea( ei\u00f4thui=a _ei)r\u00f4nei/a\nS\u00f4kra/tous_] (Plato, Repub. i. p. 337 A); and again--[Greek:\nprou)/legon o(/ti su\\ a)pokri/nasthai me\\n ou)k e)thel\u00easois,\n_ei)r\u00f4neu/soio_ de\\ kai\\ pa/nta ma=llon poi\u00ea/sois \u00ea)\\\na)pokri/noio, ei)/ tis ti/ se e)r\u00f4ta=|.] So also in the Symposion,\np. 216 E, Alkibiades says about Sokrates [Greek: _ei)r\u00f4neuo/menos_\nde\\ kai\\ pai/z\u00f4n pa/nta to\\n bi/on pro\\s tou\\s a)nthr\u00f4/pous\ndiatelei=.] And Gorgias, p. 489 E. In another part of the Gorgias\n(p. 481 B), Kallikles says, \"Tell me, Ch\u00e6rephon, does Sokrates\nmean seriously what he says, or is he bantering?\" [Greek:\nspouda/zei tau=ta S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas \u00ea)\\ pai/zei?] Protagoras, Prodikus,\nHippias, &c., do not seem to have been [Greek: ei)/r\u00f4nes] at all,\nas far as our scanty knowledge goes.\n\nThe words [Greek: ei)/r\u00f4n, ei)r\u00f4niko/s, ei)r\u00f4nei/a] seem to\ninclude more than is implied in our words _irony_, _ironical_.\nSchleiermacher translates the words [Greek: a(plou=n mim\u00ea/t\u00ean,\nei)r\u00f4niko\\n mim\u00ea/t\u00ean], at the end of the Sophist\u00eas, by \"den\nehrlichen, den Schlauen, Nachahmer\"; which seems to me near the\ntruth,--meaning one who either speaks what he does not think, or\nevades speaking what he does think, in order to serve some special\npurpose.]\n\n[Side-note: The conditions enumerated in the dialogue (except the\ntaking of a fee) fit Sokrates better than any other known person.]\n\nMoreover, if we examine not merely the special features assigned\nto the Sophist in the conclusion of the dialogue, but also those\nindicated in the earlier part of it, we shall find that many of\nthem fit Sokrates as well as they could have fitted any one else.\nIf the Sophists hunted after rich young men,[90] Sokrates did the\nsame; seeking opportunities for conversation with them by\nassiduous frequentation of the pal\u00e6str\u00e6, as well as in other ways.\nWe see this amply attested by Plato and Xenophon:[91] we see\nfarther that Sokrates announces it as a propensity natural to him,\nand meritorious rather than otherwise. Again, the argumentative\ndialogue--disputation or eristic reduced to an art, and debating\non the general theses of just and unjust, which Plato notes as\ncharacterising the Sophists[92]--belonged in still higher\nperfection to Sokrates. It not only formed the business of his\nlife, but is extolled by Plato elsewhere,[93] as the true walk of\nvirtuous philosophy. But there was undoubtedly this difference\nbetween Sokrates and the Sophists, that he conversed and argued\ngratuitously, delighting in the process itself: while they both\nasked and received money for it. Upon this point, brought forward\nby Plato both directly and with his remarkable fertility in\nmultiplying indirect allusions, the peculiarity of the Sophist is\nmade mainly to turn. To ask or receive a fee for communicating\nknowledge, virtue, aptitude in debate, was in the view of Sokrates\nand Plato a grave enormity: a kind of simoniacal practice.[94]\n\n[Footnote 90: Plato, Sophist. p. 223. [Greek: ne/\u00f4n plousi/\u00f4n kai\\\ne)ndo/x\u00f4n th\u00ea/ra].]\n\n[Footnote 91: In the opening words of the Platonic Protagoras, we\nread as a question from the friend or companion of Sokrates,\n[Greek: Po/then, \u00f4)= S\u00f4/krates, phai/nei? \u00ea)\\ _a)po\\ kun\u00eagesi/ou\ntou=_ peri\\ t\u00ea\\n A)lkibia/dou \u00f4(/ran?]\n\nSee also the opening of the Charmides, Lysis, Alkibiad\u00eas I., and\nthe speech of Alkibiades in the Symposion.\n\nCompare also Xenophon, Memorab. iv. 2, 1-2-6, with the\ncommencement of the Platonic Protagoras; in which the youth\nHippokrates, far from being run after by the Sophist Protagoras,\nis described as an enthusiastic admirer of that Sophist from\nreputation alone, and as eagerly soliciting Sokrates to present\nhim to Protagoras (Protag. pp. 310-311).]\n\n[Footnote 92: Plato, Sophist. p. 225 C. [Greek: To\\ de/ ge\ne)/ntechnon kai\\ peri\\ dikai/\u00f4n au)t\u00f4n kai\\ a)di/k\u00f4n kai\\ peri\\\nt\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n o(/l\u00f4s a)mphisb\u00eatou=n.]\n\nSpengel says truly--in his [Greek: Sunag\u00f4g\u00ea\\ Techn\u00f4=n]\np. 40--\"Quod si sermo et locus hic esset de Sophistarum doctrin\u00e2 et\nphilosophi\u00e2, odium quod nunc vulgo in eos vertunt, majore ex parte\nsine caus\u00e2 et ratione esse conceptum, eosque laude magis quam\nvituperatione dignos esse censendos--haud mult\u00e2 cum oper\u00e2 exponi\nposset. Sic, quo proscinduntur convicio, juvenes non nisi magno\npretio eruditos esse, levissimum est: immo hoc sophistas su\u00e6\nipsorum scienti\u00e6 satis confisos esse neque eam despexisse, docet:\net vitium, si modo vitium dicendum, commune est vel potius ortum\noptimis lyric\u00e6 poeseos asseclis, Simonide, Pindaro, aliis.\"]\n\n[Footnote 93: Plato, The\u00e6tet. p. 175 C.]\n\n[Footnote 94: It is to be remembered, however, that Plato, though\ndoubtless exacting no fee, received presents from rich admirers\nlike Dion and Dionysius: and there were various teachers who found\npresents more lucrative than fees. \"M. Antonius Guipho, fuisse\ndicitur ingenii magni, memori\u00e6 singularis, nec minus Graic\u00e9, quam\nLatino, doctus: pr\u00e6terea comi fucilique natur\u00e2, _nec unquam de\nmercedibus pactus--eoque plura ex liberalitate discentium\nconsecutus._\" (Sueton. De Illustr. Grammat. 7.)]\n\n[Side-note: The art which Plato calls \"the thoroughbred and noble\nSophistical Art\" belongs to Sokrates and to no one else. The\nElenchus was peculiar to him. Protagoras and Prodikus were not\nSophists in this sense.]\n\nWe have seen also that Plato assigns to what he terms \"the\nthoroughbred and noble Sophistic Art\" ([Greek: \u00ea( ge/nei gennai/a\nsophistik\u00ea\\]), the employment of the Elenchus, for the purpose of\ndestroying, in the minds of others, that false persuasion of\nexisting knowledge which was the radical impediment to their\nimbibing acquisitions of real knowledge from the teacher.[95] Here\nPlato draws a portrait not only strikingly resembling Sokrates,\nbut resembling no one else. As far as we can make out, Sokrates\nstood alone in this original conception of the purpose of the\nElenchus, and in his no less original manner of working it out. To\nprove to others that they knew nothing, is what he himself\nrepresents to be his mission from the Delphian oracle. Sokrates is\na Sophist of the most genuine and noble stamp: others are\nSophists, but of a more degenerate variety. Plato admits the\nanalogy with reluctance, and seeks to attenuate it.[96] We may\nremark, however, that according to the characteristic of the true\nSophist here given by Plato, Protagoras and Prodikus were less of\nSophists than Sokrates. For though we know little of the two\nformer, yet there is good reason to believe, That the method which\nthey generally employed was, that of continuous and eloquent\ndiscourse, lecture, exhortation: that disputation by short\nquestion and answer was less usual with them, and was not their\nstrong point: and that the Elenchus, in the Sokratic meaning, can\nhardly be said to have been used by them at all. Now Plato, in\nthis dialogue, tells us that the true and genuine Sophist\nrenounces the method of exhortation as unprofitable; or at least\nemploys it only subject to the condition of having previously\nadministered the Elenchus with success, as his own patent\nmedicine.[97] Upon this definition, Sokrates is more truly a\nSophist than either Protagoras or Prodikus: neither of whom, so\nfar as we know, made it their business to drive the respondent to\ncontradictions.\n\n[Footnote 95: Plato, Sophist. p. 230 D. [Greek: pri\\n a)\\n\ne)le/gch\u00f4n tis to\\n e)legcho/menon ei)s ai)schu/n\u00ean katast\u00ea/sas,\nta\\s toi=s math\u00ea/masin e)mpodi/ous do/xas e)xel\u00f4/n, katharo\\n\na)poph\u00ea/n\u00ea| kai\\ tau=ta \u00ea(gou/menon, a(/per oi)=den ei)de/nai\nmo/na, plei/\u00f4 de\\ m\u00ea/.]]\n\n[Footnote 96: Plato, Sophist. p. 231 C.]\n\n[Footnote 97: Plato, Sophist. p. 230 E.]\n\n[Side-note: Universal knowledge--was professed at that time by all\nPhilosophers--Plato, Aristotle, &c.]\n\nAgain, Plato tells us that the Sophist is a person who disputes\nabout all matters, and pretends to know all matters: respecting\nthe invisible Gods, respecting the visible Gods, Sun, Moon, Stars,\nEarth, &c., respecting transcendental philosophy, generation and\nessence--and respecting all civil, social, and political\nquestions--and respecting special arts. On all these miscellaneous\ntopics, according to Plato, the Sophists pretended to be\nthemselves instructed, and to qualify their disciples for arguing\non all of them.\n\nNow it is possible that the Sophists of that day may have\npretended to this species of universal knowledge; but most\ncertainly Plato and Aristotle did the same. The dialogues of Plato\nembrace all that wide range of topics which he tells us that the\nSophists argued about, and pretended to teach. In an age when the\namount of positive knowledge was so slender, it was natural for a\nclever talker or writer to fancy that he knew every thing. In\nreference to every subject then discussed, an ingenious mind could\nreadily supply deductions from both hypotheses--generalities\nratiocinative or imaginative--strung together into an apparent\norder sufficient for the exigencies of hearers. There was no large\nrange of books to be studied; no stock of facts or experience to\nbe mastered. Every philosopher wove his own tissue of theory for\nhimself, without any restraint upon his intellectual impulse, in\nregard to all the problems then afloat. What the theories of the\nSophists were, we do not know: but Plato, author of the Tim\u00e6us,\nRepublic, Leges, Kratylus, Menon--who affirmed the pre-existence\nas well as post-existence of the mind, and the eternal\nself-existence of Ideas--has no fair ground for reproaching them with\nblamable rashness in the extent and diversity of topics which they\npresumed to discuss. They obtained indeed (he says justly) no\ntruth or knowledge, but merely a fanciful semblance of knowledge--an\nequivocal show or imitation of reality.[98] But Plato himself\nobtains nothing more in the Tim\u00e6us: and we shall find Aristotle\npronouncing the like condemnation on the Platonic self-existent\nIdeas. If the Sophists professed to be encyclopedists, this was an\nerror natural to the age; and was the character of Grecian\nphilosophy generally, even in its most illustrious manifestations.\n\n[Footnote 98: Plato, Sophist\u00eas, p. 233 C. [Greek: doxastik\u00ea\\n\na)/ra tina\\ peri\\ pa/nt\u00f4n e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ean o( sophist\u00ea\\s \u00ea(mi=n, a)ll'\nou)k a)l\u00eathei/an e)/ch\u00f4n a)nape/phantai.] 234 B: [Greek: mim\u00ea/mata\nkai\\ o(m\u00f4/numa t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n.]\n\nWhen the Eleate here says about the Sophists (p. 233 B), [Greek:\ndokou=si pro\\s tau=ta e)pist\u00eamo/n\u00f4s e)/chein au)toi\\ pro\\s a(/per\na)ntile/gousin], this is exactly what Sokrates, in the Platonic\nApology, tells us about the impression made by his own dialectics\nor refutative conversation, Plato, Apolog. p. 23 A.\n\n[Greek: e)k tau/t\u00easi d\u00ea\\ t\u00ea=s e)xeta/se\u00f4s pollai\\ me\\n\na)pe/chtheiai/ moi gego/nasi kai\\ oi(=ai chalep\u00f4/tatai kai\\\nbaru/tatai, \u00f4(/ste polla\\s diabola\\s a)p' au)t\u00f4=n gegone/nai,\no)/noma/ te tou=to le/gesthai, sopho\\s ei)=nai; oi)=ontai ga/r me\ne(ka/stoth' oi( paro/ntes tau=t' ei)=nai sopho\\n a(\\ a)\\n a)/llon\ne)xele/gx\u00f4.]]\n\n[Side-note: Inconsistency of Plato's argument in the Sophist\u00eas. He\nsays that the Sophist is a disputatious man who challenges every\none for speaking falsehood. He says also that the Sophist is one\nwho maintains false propositions to be impossible.]\n\nHaving traced the Sophist down to the character of a man of\ndelusion and imposture, passing off appearance as if it were\nreality, and falsehood as if it were truth--Plato (as we have\nseen) suddenly turns round upon himself, and asks how such a\ncharacter is possible. He represents the Sophist as maintaining\nthat no man could speak falsely[99]--that a false proposition was\nself-contradictory, inasmuch as Non-Ens was inconceivable and\nunutterable. I do not see how the argument which Plato here\nascribes to the Sophist, can be reconciled with the character\nwhich he had before given of the Sophist--as a man who passed his\nlife in disputation and controversy; which involves the perpetual\narraigning of other men's opinions as false. A professed disputant\nmay perhaps be accused of admitting nothing to be true: but he\ncannot well be charged with maintaining that nothing is false.\n\n[Footnote 99: Plato, Sophist. pp. 240-241. Compare 260 E.]\n\n[Side-note: Reasoning of Plato about Non-Ens--No predications\nexcept identical.]\n\nTo pass over this inconsistency, however--the reasoning of Plato\nhimself on the subject of Non-Ens is an interesting relic of\nancient speculation. He has made for himself an opportunity of\ncanvassing, not only the doctrine of Parmenides, who emphatically\ndenied Non-Ens--but also the opposite doctrine of other schools.\nHe farther comments upon a different opinion, advanced by other\nphilosophers--That no proposition can be admitted, in which the\npredicate is different from the subject: That no proposition is\ntrue or valid, except an identical proposition. You cannot say,\nMan is good: you can only say, Man is Man, or Good is good. You\ncannot say--Sokrates is good, brave, old, stout, flat-nosed, &c.,\nbecause you thereby multiply the one Sokrates into many. One thing\ncannot be many, nor many things one.[100]\n\n[Footnote 100: Plato, Sophist. p. 251 B-C. Compare Plato, Phil\u00eabus,\np. 14 C.]\n\n[Side-note: Misconception of the function of the copula in\npredication.]\n\nThis last opinion is said to have been held by Antisthenes, one of\nthe disciples of Sokrates. We do not know how he explained or\ndefended it, nor what reserves he may have admitted to qualify it.\nPlato takes no pains to inform us on this point. He treats the\nopinion with derision, as an absurdity. We may conceive it as one\nof the many errors arising from a misconception of the purpose and\nfunction of the copula in predication. Antisthenes probably\nconsidered that the copula implied identity between the predicate\nand the subject. Now the explanation or definition of _man_ is\ndifferent from the explanation or definition of _good_:\naccordingly, if you say, Man is good, you predicate identity\nbetween two different things: as if you were to say Two is Three,\nor Three is Four. And if the predicates were multiplied, the\ncontradiction became aggravated, because then you predicated\nidentity not merely between one thing and another different thing,\nbut between one thing and many different things. The opinion of\nAntisthenes depends upon two assumptions--That each separate word,\nwhether used as subject or as predicate, denotes a Something\nseparate and existent by itself: That the copula implies identity.\nNow the first of these two assumptions is not unfrequently\nadmitted, even in the reasonings of Plato, Aristotle, and many\nothers: while the latter is not more remarkable than various other\nerroneous conceptions which have been entertained, as to the\nfunction of the copula.\n\n[Side-note: No formal Grammar or Logic existed at that time. No\nanalysis or classification of propositions before the works of\nAristotle.]\n\nWhat is most important to observe is--That at the time which we\nare here discussing, there existed no such sciences either grammar\nor formal logic. There was a copious and flexible language--a\nlarge body of literature, chiefly poetical--and great facility as\nwell as felicity in the use of speech for the purposes of\ncommunication and persuasion. But no attempt had yet been made to\nanalyse or theorise on speech: to distinguish between the\ndifferent functions of words, and to throw them into suitable\nclasses: to generalise the conditions of good or bad use of speech\nfor proving a conclusion: or to draw up rules for grammar, syntax,\nand logic. Both Protagoras and Prodikus appear to have contributed\nsomething towards this object, and Plato gives various scattered\nremarks going still farther. But there was no regular body either\nof grammar or of formal logic: no established rules or principles\nto appeal to, no recognised teaching, on either topic. It was\nAristotle who rendered the important service of filling up this\ngap. I shall touch hereafter upon the manner in which he\nproceeded: but the necessity of laying down a good theory of\npredication, and precepts respecting the employment of\npropositions in reasoning, is best shown by such misconceptions as\nthis of Antisthenes; which naturally arise among argumentative men\nyet untrained in the generalities of grammar and logic.\n\n[Side-note: Plato's declared purpose in the Sophist\u00eas--To confute\nthe various schools of thinkers--Antisthenes, Parmenides, the\nMaterialists, &c.]\n\nPlato announces his intention, in this portion of the Sophist\u00eas,\nto confute all these different schools of thinkers, to whom he has\nmade allusion.[101] His first purpose, in reasoning against those\nwho maintained Non-Ens to be an incogitable absurdity, is, to show\nthat there are equal difficulties respecting Ens: that the\nExistent is just as equivocal and unintelligible as the\nNon-Existent. Those who recognise two co-ordinate and elementary\nprinciples (such as Hot and Cold) maintain that both are really\nexistent, and call them both, Entia. Here (argues Plato) they\ncontradict themselves: they call their two elementary principles\n_one_. What do they mean by existence, if this be not so?\n\n[Footnote 101: Plato, Sophist. p. 251 C-D. [Greek: I(/na toi/nun\npro\\s a(/pantas \u00ea(mi=n o( lo/gos \u00ea)=| tou\\s p\u00f4/pote peri\\ ou)si/as\nkai\\ o(tiou=n dialechthe/ntas, e)/st\u00f4 kai\\ pro\\s tou/tous kai\\\npro\\s tou\\s a)/llous, o(/sois e)/mprosthen dieile/gmetha, ta\\ nu=n\n\u00f4(s e)n e)r\u00f4t\u00ea/sei lechth\u00easo/mena.]]\n\nThen again, Parmenides--and those who affirm that Ens Totum was\nessentially Unum, denying all plurality--had difficulties on their\nside to surmount. Ens could not be identical with Unum, nor was\nthe name _Ens_, identical with the thing named Ens. Moreover,\nthough Ens Unum was _Totum_, yet Totum was not identical with Ens\nor with Unum. _Totum_ necessarily implied _partes_: but the _Unum\nper se_ was indivisible or implied absence of parts. Though it was\ntrue therefore that Ens was both Unum and Totum, these two were\nboth of them essentially different from Ens, and belonged to it\nonly by way of adjunct accident. Parmenides was therefore wrong in\nsaying that Unum alone existed.\n\n[Side-note: Plato's refutation throws light upon the doctrine of\nAntisthenes.]\n\nThe reasoning here given from Plato throws some light upon the\ndoctrine just now cited from Antisthenes. You cannot say (argues\nPlato against the advocates of duality) that _two_ elements (Hot\nand Cold) are both of them Entia or Existent, because by so doing\nyou call them _one_. You cannot say (argues Antisthenes) that\nSokrates is good, brave, old, &c., because by such speech you call\none thing three. Again, in controverting the doctrine of\nParmenides, Plato urges, That Ens cannot _be_ Unum, because it is\nTotum (Unum having no parts, while Totum has parts): but it may\ncarry with it the accident Unum, or may have Unum applied to it as\na predicate by accident. Here again, we have difficulties similar\nto those which perplexed Antisthenes. For the same reason that\nPlato will not admit, That Ens _is_ Unum--Antisthenes will not\nadmit, That Man _is_ good. It appeared to him to imply essential\nidentity between the predicate and the subject.\n\nAll these difficulties and others to which we shall come\npresently, noway peculiar to Antisthenes--attest the incomplete\nformal logic of the time: the want of a good theory respecting\npredication and the function of the copula.\n\n[Side-note: Plato's argument against the Materialists.]\n\nPursuing the purpose of establishing his conclusion (_viz._ That\nEns involved as many perplexities as Non-Ens), Plato comes to the\ntwo opposite sects:--1. Those (the Materialists) who recognised\nbodies and nothing else, as the real Entia or Existences. 2. Those\n(the Friends of Forms, the Idealists) who maintained that\nincorporeal and intelligible Forms or Species were the only real\nexistences; and that bodies had no existence, but were in\nperpetual generation and destruction.[102]\n\n[Footnote 102: Plato, Sophist. p. 246 B.]\n\nRespecting the first, Plato says that they must after all be\nashamed not to admit, that justice, intelligence, &c., are\nsomething real, which may be present or absent in different\nindividual men, and therefore must exist apart from all\nindividuals. Yet justice and intelligence are not bodies.\nExistence therefore is something common to body and not-body. The\ncharacteristic mark of existence is, power or potentiality.\nWhatever has power to act upon any thing else, or to be acted on\nby any thing else, is a real Ens or existent something.[103]\n\n[Footnote 103: Plato, Sophist. p. 247 D-E. [Greek: le/g\u00f4 d\u00ea\\ to\\\nkai\\ o(poianou=n kekt\u00eame/non _du/namin_, ei)/t' ei)s to\\ poiei=n\ne(/teron o(tiou=n pephuko\\s ei)/t' ei)s to\\ pathei=n** kai\\\nsmikro/taton u(po\\ tou= phaulota/tou, ka)\\n ei) mo/non ei)sa/pax,\npa=n tou=to o)/nt\u00f4s ei)=nai; ti/themai ga\\r o(/ron o(ri/zein ta\\\no)/nta, \u00f4(s e)/stin ou)k a)/llo ti pl\u00ea\\n _du/namis_.]]\n\n[Side-note: Reply open to the Materialists.]\n\nUnfortunately we never know any thing about the opponents of\nPlato, nor how they would have answered his objection--except so\nmuch as he chooses to tell us. But it appears to me that the\nopponents whom he is here confuting would have accepted his\ndefinition, and employed it for the support of their own opinion.\n\"We recognise (they would say) just men, or hard bodies, as\nexistent, because they conform to your definition: they have power\nto act and be acted upon. But justice, apart from just\nmen--hardness, apart from hard bodies--has no such power: they neither\nact upon any thing, nor are acted on by any thing: therefore we do\nnot recognise them as existent.\" According to their view, objects\nof perception acted on the mind, and therefore were to be\nrecognised as existent: objects of mere conception did not act on\nthe mind, and therefore had not the same claim to be ranked as\nexistent: or at any rate they acted on the mind in a different\nway, which constitutes the difference between the real and unreal.\nOf this difference Plato's definition takes no account.[104]\n\n[Footnote 104: Plato, Sophist. p. 247 E. [Greek: to\\ kai\\\no(poianou=n kekt\u00eame/non du/namin], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's argument against the Idealists or Friends of\nForms. Their point of view against him.]\n\nPlato now presents this same definition to the opposite class of\nphilosophers: to the Idealists, or partisans of the incorporeal--or\nof self-existent and separate Forms. These thinkers drew a\nmarked distinction between the Existent and the Generated--between\nEns and Fiens--[Greek: to\\ o)\\n] and [Greek: to\\ gigno/menon]. Ens\nor the Existent was eternal and unchangeable: Fiens or the\nGenerated was always in change or transit, coming or going. We\nhold communion (they said) with the generated or transitory,\nthrough our bodies and sensible perceptions: we hold communion\nwith unchangeable Ens through our mind and by intellection. They\ndid not admit the definition of existence just given by Plato.\nThey contended that that definition applied only to Fiens or to\nthe sensible world--not to Ens or the intelligible world.[105]\nFiens had power to act and be acted upon, and existed only under\nthe condition of being so: that is, its existence was only\ntemporary, conditional, relative: it had no permanent or absolute\nexistence at all. Ens was the real existent, absolute and\nindependent--neither acting upon any thing nor being acted upon.\nThey considered that Plato's definition was not a definition of\nExistence, or the Absolute: but rather of Non-Existence, or the\nRelative.\n\n[Footnote 105: Plato, Sophist. p. 248 C.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato argues--That to know, and be known, is action and\npassion, a mode of relativity.]\n\nBut (asks Plato in reply) what do you mean by \"the mind holding\ncommunion\" with the intelligible world? You mean that the mind\nknows, comprehends, conceives, the intelligible world: or in other\nwords, that the intelligible world (Ens) is known, is\ncomprehended, is conceived, by the mind. To be known or conceived,\nis to be acted on by the mind.[106] Ens, or the intelligible\nworld, is thus acted upon by the mind, and has a power to be so\nacted upon: which power is, in Plato's definition here given, the\ncharacteristic mark of existence. Plato thus makes good his\ndefinition as applying to Ens, the world of intelligible Forms--not\nless than to Fiens, the world of sensible phenomena.\n\n[Footnote 106: Plato, Sophist. p. 248 D. [Greek: ei)\nprosomologou=si t\u00ea\\n me\\n psuch\u00ea\\n gin\u00f4/skein, t\u00ea\\n d' ou)si/an\ngign\u00f4/skesthai . . . Ti/ de/? to\\ gin\u00f4/skein \u00ea)\\ gign\u00f4/skesthai\nphate\\ poi/\u00eama \u00ea)\\ pa/thos \u00ea)\\ a)mpho/teron?]]\n\nThe definition of _existence_, here given by Plato, and the way in\nwhich he employs it against the two different sects of\nphilosophers--Materialists and Idealists--deserves some remark.\n\n[Side-note: Plato's reasoning--compared with the points of view of\nboth.]\n\nAccording to the Idealists or Immaterialists, Plato's definition\nof existence would be supposed to establish the case of their\nopponents the Materialists, who recognised nothing as existing\nexcept the sensible world: for Plato's definition (as the\nIdealists thought) fitted the sensible world, but fitted nothing\nelse. Now these Idealists did not recognise the sensible world as\nexistent at all. They considered it merely as Fiens, ever\nappearing and vanishing. The only Existent, in their view, was the\nintelligible world--Form or Forms, absolute, eternal,\nunchangeable, but neither visible nor perceivable by any of the\nother senses. This is the opinion against which Plato _here_\nreasons, though in various other dialogues he gives it as his own\nopinion, or at least, as the opinion of his representative\nspokesman.\n\nIn this portion of the present dialogue (Sophist\u00eas) the point\nwhich he makes is, to show to the Idealists, or Absolutists, that\ntheir Forms are not really absolute, or independent of the mind:\nthat the existence of these forms is relative, just as much as\nthat of the sensible world. The sensible world exists relatively\nto our senses, really or potentially exercised: the intelligible\nworld exists relatively to our intelligence, really or potentially\nexercised. In both cases alike, we hold communion with the two\nworlds: the communion cannot be left out of sight, either in the\none case or in the other. The communion is the entire and\nfundamental fact, of which the Subject conceiving and the Object\nconceived, form the two opposite but inseparable faces--the\nconcave and convex, to employ a favourite illustration of\nAristotle. Subject conceiving, in communion with Object conceived,\nare one and the same indivisible fact, looked at on different\nsides. This is, in substance, what Plato urges against those\nphilosophers who asserted the absolute and independent existence\nof intelligible Forms. Such forms (he says) exist only in\ncommunion with, or relatively to, an intelligent mind: they are\nnot absolute, not independent: they are Objects of intelligence to\nan intelligent Subject, but they are nothing without the Subject,\njust as the Subject is nothing without them or some other Object.\nObject of intelligence implies an intelligent Subject: Object of\nsense implies a sentient Subject. Thus Objects of intelligence, and\nObjects of sense, exist alike relatively to a Subject--not\nabsolutely or independently.\n\n[Side-note: The argument of Plato goes to an entire denial of the\nAbsolute, and a full establishment of the Relative.]\n\nThis argument, then, of Plato against the Idealists is an argument\nagainst the Absolute--showing that there can be no Object of\nintelligence or conception without its obverse side, the\nintelligent or concipient Subject. The Idealists held, that by\nsoaring above the sensible world into the intelligible world, they\ngot out of the region of the Relative into that of the Absolute.\nBut Plato reminds them that this is not the fact. Their\nintelligible world is relative, not less than the sensible; that\nis, it exists only in communion with a mind or Subject, but with a\nCogitant or intelligent Subject, not a percipient Subject.\n\n[Side-note: Coincidence of his argument with the doctrine of\nProtagoras in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus.]\n\nThe argument here urged by Plato coincides in its drift and result\nwith the dictum of Protagoras--Man is the measure of all things.\nIn my remarks on the The\u00e6t\u00eatus,[107] I endeavoured to make it\nappear that the Protagorean dictum was really a negation of the\nAbsolute, of the Thing in itself, of the Object without a\nSubject:--and an affirmation of the Relative, of the Thing in\ncommunion with a percipient or concipient mind, of Object\nimplicated with Subject--as two aspects or sides of one and the\nsame conception or cognition. Though Plato in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus argued\nat length against Protagoras, yet his reasoning here in the\nSophist\u00eas establishes by implication the conclusion of Protagoras.\nHere Plato impugns the doctrine of those who (like Sokrates in his\nown The\u00e6t\u00eatus) held that the sensible world alone was relative,\nbut that the intelligible world or Forms were absolute. He shows\nthat the latter were no less relative to a mind than the former;\nand that mind, either percipient or cogitant, could never be\neliminated from \"communion\" with them.\n\n[Footnote 107: See my notice of the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, in the chapter\nimmediately preceding, where I have adverted to Plato's reasoning\nin the Sophist\u00eas.]\n\n[Side-note: The Idealists maintained that Ideas or Forms were\nentirely unchangeable and eternal. Plato here denies this, and\nmaintains that ideas were partly changeable, partly unchangeable.]\n\nThese same Idealist philosophers also maintained--That Forms, or\nthe intelligible world, were eternally the same and unchangeable.\nPlato here affirms that this ideas or opinion is not true: he\ncontends that the intelligible world includes both change and\nunchangeableness, motion and rest, difference and sameness, life,\nmind, intelligence, &c. He argues that the intelligible world,\nwhether assumed as consisting of one Form or of many Forms, could\nnot be regarded either as wholly changeable or wholly\nunchangeable: it must comprise both constituents alike. If all\nwere changeable, or if all were unchangeable, there could be no\nObject of knowledge; and, by consequence, no knowledge.[108] But\nthe fact that there _is_ knowledge (cognition, conception), is the\nfundamental fact from which we must reason; and any conclusion\nwhich contradicts this must be untrue. Therefore the intelligible\nworld is not all homogeneous, but contains different and even\nopposite Forms--change and unchangeableness--motion and\nrest--different and same.[109]\n\n[Footnote 108: Plato, Sophist. p. 249 B. [Greek: xumbai/nei d'\nou)=n a)kin\u00ea/t\u00f4n te o)/nt\u00f4n nou=n m\u00eadeni\\ peri\\ m\u00eadeno\\s ei)=nai\nm\u00eadamou=.]]\n\n[Footnote 109: Plato, Sophist. p. 249 C.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's reasoning against the Materialists.]\n\nLet us now look at Plato's argument, and his definition of\nexistence, as they bear upon the doctrine of the opposing\nMaterialist philosophers, whom he states to have held that bodies\nalone existed, and that the Incorporeal did not exist:--in other\nwords that all real existence was concrete and particular: that\nthe abstract (universals, forms, attributes) had no real\nexistence, certainly no separate existence. As I before remarked,\nit is not quite clear what or how much these philosophers denied.\nBut as far as we can gather from Plato's language, what they\ndenied was, the existence of attributes _apart from_ a substance.\nThey did not deny the existence of just and wise men, but the\nexistence of justice and wisdom, apart from men real or\nsupposable.\n\n[Side-note: Difference between Concrete and Abstract, not then made\nconspicuous. Large meaning here given by Plato to\nEns--comprehending not only objects of Perception, but objects of\nConception besides.]\n\nIn the time of Plato, distinction between the two classes of\nwords, Concrete and Abstract, had not become so clearly matter of\nreflection as to be noted by two appropriate terms: in fact,\nlogical terminology was yet in its first rudiments. It is\ntherefore the less matter of wonder that Plato should not here\nadvert to the relation between the two, or to the different sense\nin which existence might properly be predicable of both. He agrees\nwith the materialists or friends of the Concrete, in affirming\nthat sensible objects, Man, Horse, Tree, exist (which the\nIdealists or friends of the Abstract denied): but he differs from\nthem by saying that other Objects, super-sensible and merely\nintelligible, exist also--namely, Justice, Virtue, Whiteness,\nHardness, and other Forms or Attributes. He admits that these\nlast-mentioned objects do not make themselves manifest to the\nsenses; but they do make themselves manifest to the intelligence\nor the conception: and that is sufficient, in his opinion, to\nauthenticate them as existent. The word _existent_, according to\nhis definition (as given in this dialogue), includes not only all\nthat is or may be perceived, but also all that is or may be known\nby the mind; _i.e._, understood, conceived, imagined, talked or\nreasoned about. Existent, or Ens, is thus made purely relative:\nhaving its root in a Subject, but ramifying by its branches in\nevery direction. It bears the widest possible sense, co-extensive\nwith _Object_ universally, either of perception or conception. It\nincludes all fictions, as well as all (commonly called) realities.\nThe conceivable and the existent become equivalent.\n\n[Side-note: Narrower meaning given by Materialists to Ens--they\nincluded only Objects of Perception. Their reasoning as opposed to\nPlato.]\n\nNow the friends of the Concrete, against whom Plato reasons, used\nthe word _existent_ in a narrower sense, as comprising only the\nconcretes of the sensible world. They probably admitted the\nexistence of the abstract, along with and particularised in the\nconcrete: but they certainly denied the _separate_ existence of\nthe Abstract--_i.e._, of Forms, Attributes, or classes, apart from\nparticulars. They would not deny that many things were\nconceivable, more or less dissimilar from the realities of the\nsensible world: but they did not admit that all those conceivable\nthings ought to be termed existent or realities, and put upon the\nsame footing as the sensible world. They used the word _existent_\nto distinguish between Men, Horses, Trees, on the one hand--and\nCyclopes, Centaurs, [Greek: Trage/laphoi], &c., on the other. A\nCentaur is just as intelligible and conceivable as either a man or\na horse; and according to this definition of Plato, would be as\nmuch entitled to be called really existent. The attributes of\n_man_ and _horse_ are real, because the objects themselves are\nreal and perceivable: the class _man_ and the class _horse_ is\nreal, for the same reason: but the attributes of a Centaur, and\nthe class Centaurs, are not real, because no individuals\npossessing the attributes, or belonging to the class, have ever\nbeen perceived, or authenticated by induction. Plato's Materialist\nopponents would here have urged, that if he used the word\n_existent_ or Ens in so wide a sense, comprehending all that is\nconceivable or nameable, fiction as well as reality--they would\nrequire some other words to distinguish fiction from\nreality--Centaur from Man: which is what most men mean when they speak\nof one thing as non-existent, another thing as existent. At any rate,\nhere is an equivocal sense of the word Ens--a wider and a narrower\nsense--which, we shall find frequently perplexing us in the\nancient metaphysics; and which, when sifted, will often prove,\nthat what appears to be a difference of doctrine, is in reality\nlittle more than a difference of phraseology.[110]\n\n[Footnote 110: Plato here aspires to deliver one definition of\nEns, applying to all cases. The contrast between him and Aristotle\nis shown in the more cautious procedure of the latter, who\nentirely renounces the possibility of giving any one definition\nfitting all cases. Aristotle declares Ens to be an equivocal word\n([Greek: o(m\u00f4/numon]), and discriminates several different\nsignifications which it bears: all these significations having\nnevertheless an analogical affinity, more or less remote, with\neach other. See Aristot. Metaphys. [Greek: D]. 1017, a. 7, seq.;\nvi. 1028, a. 10.\n\nIt is declared by Aristotle to be the question first and most\ndisputed in Philosophia Prima, Quid est Ens? [Greek: kai\\ d\u00ea\\ kai\\\nto\\ pa/lai te kai\\ nu=n kai\\ a)ei\\ z\u00eatou/menon kai\\ a)ei\\\na)porou/menon, tou=to e)sti, ti/s \u00ea( ou)si/a] (p. 1028, b. 2).\nCompare, B. 1001, a. 6, 31.\n\nThis subject is well treated by Brentano, in his Dissertation\nUeber die Bedeutung des Seienden im Aristoteles. See pp. 49-50\nseq., of that work.\n\nAristotle observes truly, that these most general terms are the\nmost convenient hiding-places for equivocal meaning (Anal. Post.\nii. 97, b. 29).\n\nThe analogical varieties of Ens or Essence are graduated,\naccording to Aristotle: Complete, Proper, typical, [Greek:\nou)si/a], stands at the head: there are then other varieties more\nor less approaching to this proper type: some of them which\n[Greek: mikro\\n \u00ea)\\ ou)the\\n e)/chei tou= o)/ntos.] (Metaphys. vi.\n1029, b. 9.)]\n\n[Side-note: Different definitions of Ens--by Plato--the\nMaterialists, the Idealists.]\n\nThis enquiry respecting Ens is left by Plato professedly\nunsettled; according to his very frequent practice. He pretends\nonly to have brought it to this point: that Ens or the Existent is\nshown to present as many difficulties and perplexities as Non-Ens\nor the non-existent.[111] I do not think that he has shown thus\nmuch; for, according to his definition, Non-Ens is an\nimpossibility: the term is absolutely unmeaning: it is equivalent\nto the Unknowable or Inconceivable--as Parmenides affirmed it to\nbe. But he has undoubtedly shown that Ens is in itself perplexing:\nwhich, instead of lightening the difficulties about Non-Ens,\naggravates them: for all the difficulties about Ens must be\nsolved, before you can pretend to understand Non-Ens. Plato has\nshown that Ens is used in three different meanings:--\n\n1. According to the Materialists, it means only the concrete and\nparticular, including all the attributes thereof, essential and\naccidental.\n\n2. According to the Idealists or friends of Forms, it means only\nUniversals, Forms, and Attributes.\n\n3. According to Plato's own definition here given, it means both\nthe one and the other: whatever the mind can either perceive or\nconceive: whatever can act upon the mind in any way, or for any\ntime however short. It is therefore wholly relative to the mind:\nyet not exclusively to the _perceiving_ mind (as the Materialists\nsaid), nor exclusively to the _conceiving_ mind (as the friends of\nForms said): but to both alike.\n\n[Footnote 111: Plato, Sophist. p. 250 E.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's views about Non-Ens examined.]\n\nHere is much confusion, partly real but principally verbal, about\nEns. Plato proceeds to affirm, that the difficulty about Non-Ens\nis no greater, and that it admits of being elucidated. The higher\nGenera or Forms (he says) are such that some of them will combine\nor enter into communion with each other, wholly or partially,\nothers will not, but are reciprocally exclusive. Motion and Rest\nwill not enter into communion, but mutually exclude each other:\nneither of them can be predicated of the other. But each or both\nof them will enter into communion with Existence, which latter may\nbe predicated of both. Here are three Genera or Forms: motion,\nrest, and existence. Each of them is the _same_ with itself, and\n_different_ from the other two. Thus we have two new distinct\nForms or Genera--_Same_ and _Different_--which enter into\ncommunion with the preceding three, but are in themselves distinct\nfrom them.[112] Accordingly you may say, motion _partakes_ of (or\nenters into communion with) Diversum, because motion differs from\nrest: also you may say, motion _partakes_ of Idem, as being\nidentical with itself: but you cannot say, motion _is_ different,\nmotion _is_ the same; because the subject and the predicate are\nessentially distinct and not identical.[113]\n\n[Footnote 112: In the Tim\u00e6us (pp. 35-36-37), Plato declares these\nthree elements--[Greek: Tau)to/n, Tha/teron, Ou)si/a]--to be the\nthree constituent elements of the cosmical soul, and of the human\nrational soul.]\n\n[Footnote 113: Plato, Sophist. p. 255 B.\n\n[Greek: Mete/cheton m\u00ea\\n a)/mph\u00f4 (ki/n\u00easis kai\\ sta/sis) tau)tou=\nkai\\ thate/rou. . . .]\n\n[Greek: M\u00ea\\ toi/nun le/g\u00f4men ki/n\u00easin g' _ei)=nai_ tau)to\\n \u00ea)\\\ntha/teron, m\u00ead' au)= sta/sin.] He had before said--[Greek: A)ll'\nou)/ ti m\u00ea\\n ki/n\u00easi/s ge kai\\ sta/sis ou)th' e(/teron ou)/te\ntau)to/n _e)stin_] (p. 255 A).\n\nPlato here says, It is true that [Greek: ki/n\u00easis _mete/chei_\ntau)tou=], but it is not true that [Greek: ki/n\u00easi/s e)sti\ntau)to/n]. Again, p. 259 A. [Greek: to\\ me\\n e(/teron metascho\\n\ntou= o)/ntos _e)/sti_ me\\n dia\\ tau/t\u00ean t\u00ea\\n me/thexin, ou) m\u00ea\\n\ne)kei=no/ ge ou)= mete/schen a)ll' e(/teron.] He understands,\ntherefore, that [Greek: e)sti], when used as copula, implies\nidentity between the predicate and the subject.\n\nThis is the same point of view from which Antisthenes looked, when\nhe denied the propriety of saying [Greek: A)/nthr\u00f4po/s _e)stin_\na)gatho/s--A)/nthr\u00f4po/s _e)sti_ kako/s]: and when he admitted only\nidentical propositions, such as [Greek: A)/nthr\u00f4po/s _e)stin_\na)/nthr\u00f4pos--A)/gatho/s _e)stin_ a)gatho/s.] He assumed that\n[Greek: e)sti], when intervening between the subject and the\npredicate, implies identity between them; and the same assumption\nis made by Plato in the passage now before us. Whether Antisthenes\nwould have allowed the proposition--[Greek: A)/nthr\u00f4pos\n_mete/chei_ kaki/as], or other propositions in which [Greek:\ne)sti] does not appear as copula, we do not know enough of his\nopinions to say.\n\nCompare Aristotel. Physic. i. 2, 185, b. 27, with the Scholia of\nSimplikius, p. 330, a. 331, b. 18-28, ed. Brandis.]\n\nSome things are always named or spoken of _per se_, others with\nreference to something else. Thus, Diversum is always different\nfrom something else: it is relative, implying a correlate.[114] In\nthis, as well as in other points, Diversum (or Different) is a\ndistinct Form, Genus, or Idea, which runs through all other things\nwhatever. Each thing is different from every other thing: but it\ndiffers from them, not through any thing in its own nature, but\nbecause it partakes of the Form or Idea of Diversum or the\nDifferent.[115] So, in like manner, the Form or Idea of Idem (or\nSame) runs through all other things: since each thing is both\ndifferent from all others, and is also the same with itself.\n\n[Footnote 114: Plato, Sophist. p. 255 C-D. [Greek: t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n\nta\\ me\\n au)ta\\ kath' au(ta/, ta/ de\\ pro\\s a)/ll\u00eala a)ei\\\n_le/gesthai_ . . . To\\ d' e(/teron a)ei\\ pro\\s e(/teron . . . Nu=n\nde\\ a)techn\u00f4=s \u00ea(mi=n o(/, ti per a)\\n e(/teron \u00ea)=|, sumbe/b\u00eaken\ne)x a)na/gk\u00eas _e(te/rou tou=to o(/per e)sti\\n ei)=nai_.] These\nlast words partly anticipate Aristotle's explanation of [Greek:\nta\\ pro/s ti] (Categor. p. 6, a. 38).\n\nHere we have, for the first time so far as I know (certainly\nanterior to Aristotle), names _relative_ and _non-relative_,\ndistinguished as classes, and contrasted with each other. It is to\nbe observed that Plato here uses [Greek: le/gesthai] and [Greek:\nei)=nai] as equivalent; which is not very consistent with the\nsense which he assigns to [Greek: e)stin] in predication: see the\nnote immediately preceding.]\n\n[Footnote 115: Plato, Sophist. p. 255 E. [Greek: pe/mpton d\u00ea\\ t\u00ea\\n\nthate/rou phu/sin lekte/on e)n toi=s ei)/desin ou)=san, e)n oi(=s\nproairou/metha . . . kai\\ dia\\ pa/nt\u00f4n ge au)t\u00ea\\n au)t\u00f4=n\nph\u00ea/somen ei)=nai diel\u00ealuthui=an; e(\\n e(/kaston ga\\r e(/teron\nei)=nai t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n ou) dia\\ t\u00ea\\n au(tou= phu/sin, a)lla\\ dia\\\nto\\ _mete/chein t\u00ea=s i)de/as t\u00ea=s thate/rou_.]]\n\n[Side-note: His review of the select Five Forms.]\n\nNow motion is altogether different from rest Motion therefore _is\nnot_ rest. Yet still motion _is_, because it partakes of existence\nor Ens. Accordingly, motion both _is_ and _is not_.\n\nAgain, motion is different from Idem or the Same. It is therefore\n_not the same_. Yet still motion _is the same_; because every\nthing partakes of identity, or is the same with itself. Motion\ntherefore both _is_ the same and _is not_ the same. We must not\nscruple to advance both these propositions. Each of them stands on\nits own separate ground.[116] So also motion is different from\nDiversum or The Different; in other words, it _is not_ different,\nyet still it _is_ different. And, lastly, motion is different from\nEns, in other words, _it is not Ens_, or is non-Ens: yet still _it\nis Ens_, because it partakes of existence. Hence motion is both\nEns, and Non-Ens.\n\n[Footnote 116: Plato, Sophist. pp. 255-256.]\n\nHere we arrive at Plato's explanation of Non-Ens, [Greek: to\\ m\u00ea\\\no)\\n]: the main problem which he is now setting to himself.\nNon-Ens is equivalent to, _different from Ens_. It is the Form or Idea\nof Diversum, considered in reference to Ens. Every thing is Ens,\nor partakes of entity, or existence. Every thing also is different\nfrom Ens, or partakes of difference in relation to Ens: it is thus\nNon-Ens. Every thing therefore is at the same time both Ens, and\nNon-Ens. Nay, Ens itself, inasmuch as it is different from all\nother things, is Non-Ens in reference to them. It is Ens only as\none, in reference to itself: but it is Non-Ens an infinite number\nof times, in reference to all other things.[117]\n\n[Footnote 117: Plato, Sophist. pp. 256-257.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's doctrine--That Non-Ens is nothing more than\ndifferent from Ens.]\n\nWhen we say Non-Ens, therefore (continues Plato), we do not mean\nany thing _contrary_ to Ens, but merely something _different from_\nEns. When we say _Not-great_, we nothing do not mean any thing\ncontrary to Great, but only something different from great. The\nnegative generally, when annexed to any name, does not designate\nany thing contrary to what is meant by that name, but something\ndifferent from it. The general nature or Form of difference is\ndisseminated into a multitude of different parts or varieties\naccording to the number of different things with which it is\nbrought into communion: _Not-great_, _Not-just_, &c., are specific\nvarieties of this general nature, and are just as much realities\nas _great_, _just_. And thus Non-Ens is just as much a reality as\nEns being not contrary, but only that variety of the general\nnature of difference which corresponds to Ens. _Non-Ens_,\n_Not-great_, _Not-just_, &c., are each of them permanent Forms,\namong the many other Forms or Entia, having each a true and\ndistinct nature of its own.[118]\n\n[Footnote 118: Plato, Sophist. p. 258 C. [Greek: o(/ti to\\ m\u00ea\\\no)\\n bebai/\u00f4s e)sti\\ t\u00ea\\n au)tou= phu/sin e)/chon . . . ou(/t\u00f4 de\\\nkai\\ to\\ m\u00ea\\ o)\\n kata\\ tau)to\\n \u00ea)=n te kai\\ e)/stin m\u00ea\\ o)/n,\ne)na/rithmon t\u00f4=n poll\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n ei)=dos e(/n.]]\n\nI say nothing about contrariety (concludes Plato), or about any\nthing contrary to Ens; nor will I determine whether Non-Ens in\nthis sense be rationally possible or not. What I mean by Non-Ens\nis a particular case under the general doctrine of the communion\nor combination of Forms: the combination of Ens with Diversum,\ncomposing that which is different from Ens, and which is therefore\nNon-Ens. Thus Ens itself, being different from all other Forms, is\nNon-Ens in reference to them all, or an indefinite number of\ntimes[119] (_i.e._ an indefinite number of negative predications\nmay be made concerning it).\n\n[Footnote 119: Plato, Sophist. pp. 258 E-259 A. [Greek: \u00ea(mei=s\nga\\r peri\\ me\\n e)nanti/ou tino\\s au)t\u00f4=| (t\u00f4=| o)/nti) chai/rein\npa/lai le/gomen, ei)/t' e)/stin ei)/te m\u00ea\\ lo/gon e)/chon \u00ea)\\ kai\\\npanta/pasin a)/logon; o(\\ de\\ nu=n ei)r\u00ea/kamen ei)=nai to\\ m\u00ea\\\no)/n], &c.]\n\nNon-Ens being thus shown to be one among the many other Forms,\ndisseminated among all the others, and entering into communion\nwith Ens among the rest--we have next to enquire whether it enters\ninto communion with the Form of Opinion and Discourse. It is the\ncommunion of the two which constitutes false opinion and false\nproposition: if therefore such communion be possible, false\nopinion and false proposition are possible, which is the point\nthat Plato is trying to prove.[120]\n\n[Footnote 120: Plato, Sophist. p. 260 B.]\n\n[Side-note: Communion of Non-Ens with proposition--possible and\nexplicable.]\n\nNow it has been already stated (continues Plato) that some Forms\nor Genera admit of communion with each other, others do not. In\nlike manner some words admit of communion with each other--not\nothers. Those alone admit of communion, which, when put together,\nmake up a proposition significant or giving information respecting\nEssence or Existence. The smallest proposition must have a noun\nand a verb put together: the noun indicating the agent, the verb\nindicating the act. Every proposition must be a proposition\nconcerning something, or must have a logical subject: every\nproposition must also be of a certain quality. Let us take (he\nproceeds) two simple propositions: _The\u00e6t\u00eatus is sitting\ndown_--_The\u00e6t\u00eatus is flying._[121] Of both these two, the subject is\nthe same: but the first is true, the second is false. The first gives\nthings existing as they are, respecting the subject: the second\ngives respecting the subject, things different from those\nexisting, or in other words things non-existent, as if they did\nexist.[122] A false proposition is that which gives things\ndifferent as if they were the same, and things non-existent as if\nthey were existent, respecting the subject.[123]\n\n[Footnote 121: Plato, Sophist. p. 263 A. [Greek: Theai/t\u00eatos\nka/th\u00eatai . . . Theai/t\u00eatos pe/tetai.]]\n\n[Footnote 122: Plato, Sophist. p. 263 B. [Greek: le/gei de\\\nau)t\u00f4=n] ([Greek: t\u00f4=n lo/g\u00f4n] of the two propositions) [Greek: o(\nme\\n a)l\u00eath\u00ea\\s ta\\ o)/nta, \u00f4(s e)sti peri\\ sou= . . . O( de\\ d\u00ea\\\npseud\u00ea\\s e(/tera t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n . . . Ta\\ m\u00ea\\ o)/nt' a)/ra \u00f4(s\no)/nta le/gei . . . O)/nt\u00f4n de/ ge o)/nta e(/tera peri\\ sou=.\nPolla\\ me\\n ga\\r e)/phamen o)/nta peri\\ e(/kaston ei)=nai/ pou,\npolla\\ de\\ ou)k o)/nta.]]\n\n[Footnote 123: Plato, Sophist. p. 263 D. [Greek: Peri\\ d\u00ea\\ sou=\nlego/mena me/ntoi tha/tera \u00f4(s ta\\ au)ta/, kai\\ m\u00ea\\ o)/nta \u00f4(s\no)/nta, panta/pasin, \u00f4(s e)/oiken, \u00ea( toiau/t\u00ea su/nthesis e)/k te\nr(\u00eama/t\u00f4n gignome/n\u00ea kai\\ o)noma/t\u00f4n o)/nt\u00f4s te kai\\ a)l\u00eath\u00f4=s\ngi/gnesthai lo/gos pseud\u00ea/s.]\n\nIt is plain that this explanation takes no account of negative\npropositions: it applies only to affirmative propositions.]\n\n[Side-note: Imperfect analysis of a proposition--Plato does not\nrecognise the predicate.]\n\nThe foregoing is Plato's explanation of Non-Ens. Before we remark\nupon it, let us examine his mode of analysing a proposition. He\nconceives the proposition as consisting of a noun and a verb. The\nnoun marks the logical _subject_, but he has no technical word\nequivalent to _subject_: his phrase is, that a proposition must be\n_of something_ or _concerning something_. Then again, he not only\nhas no word to designate the predicate, but he does not even seem\nto conceive the predicate as distinct and separable: it stands\nalong with the copula embodied in the verb. The two essentials of\na proposition, as he states them, are--That it should have a\ncertain subject--That it should be of a certain quality, true or\nfalse.[124] This conception is just, as far as it goes: but it\ndoes not state all which ought to be known about proposition, and\nit marks an undeveloped logical analysis. It indicates moreover\nthat Plato, not yet conceiving the predicate as a distinct\nconstituent, had not yet conceived the copula as such: and\ntherefore that the substantive verb [Greek: e)/stin] had not yet\nbeen understood by him in its function of pure and simple copula.\nThe idea that the substantive verb when used in a proposition must\nmark _existence_ or _essence_, is sufficiently apparent in several\nof his reasonings.\n\n[Footnote 124: Since the time of Aristotle, the _quality_ of a\nproposition has been understood to designate its being either\naffirmative or negative: that being _formal_, or belonging to its\nform only. Whether affirmative or negative, it may be true or\nfalse: and this is doubtless a _quality_, but belonging to its\nmatter, not to its form. Plato seems to have taken no account of\nthe formal distinction, _negative_ or _affirmative_.]\n\nI shall now say a few words on Plato's explanation of Non-Ens. It\nis given at considerable length, and was, in the judgment of\nSchleiermacher, eminently satisfactory to Plato himself. Some of\nPlato's expressions[125] lead me to suspect that his satisfaction\nwas not thus unqualified: but whether he was himself satisfied or\nnot, I cannot think that the explanation ought to satisfy others.\n\n[Footnote 125: Plato, Sophist\u00eas, p. 259 A-B. Schleiermacher,\nEinleitung zum Sophistes, vol. iv. p. 134, of his translation of\nPlato.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's explanation of Non-Ens is not\nsatisfactory--Objections to it.]\n\nPlato here lays down the position--That the word _Not_ signifies\nnothing more than difference, with respect to that other word to\nwhich it is attached. It does not signify (he says) what is\ncontrary; but simply what is different. _Not-great_,\n_Not-beautiful_--mean what is different from great or beautiful:\nNon-Ens means, not what is contrary to Ens, but simply what is\ndifferent from Ens.\n\nFirst, then, even if we admit that Non-Ens has this latter meaning\nand nothing beyond--yet when we turn to Plato's own definition of\nEns, we shall find it so all-comprehensive, that there can be\nabsolutely nothing different from Ens:--these last words can have\nno place and no meaning. Plato defines Ens so as to include all\nthat is knowable, conceivable, thinkable.[126] One portion of this\ntotal differs from another: but there can be nothing which differs\nfrom it all. The Form or nature of Diversum (to use Plato's\nphrase) as it is among the knowable or conceivable, is already\nincluded in the total of Ens, and comes into communion (according\nto the Platonic phraseology) with one portion of that total as\nagainst another portion. But with Ens as a whole, it cannot come\ninto communion, for there is nothing apart from Ens. Whenever we\ntry to think of any thing apart from Ens, we do by the act of\nthought include it in Ens, as defined by Plato. _Different from\ngreat_--_different from white_ (_i.e._ not great, not white, sensu\nPlatonico) is very intelligible: but _Different from Ens_, is not\nintelligible: there is nothing except the inconceivable and\nincomprehensible: the words professing to describe it, are mere\nunmeaning sound. Now this is just[127] what Parmenides said about\nNon-Ens. Plato's definition of Ens appears to me to make out the\ncase of Parmenides about Non-Ens; and to render the Platonic\nexplanation--_different from Ens_--open to quite as many\ndifficulties, as those which attach to Non-Ens in the ordinary\nsense.\n\n[Footnote 126: Plato, Sophist. pp. 247-248.]\n\n[Footnote 127: Compare Kratylus, 430 A.]\n\nSecondly, there is an objection still graver against Plato's\nexplanation. When he resolves negation into an affirmation of\nsomething different from what is denied, he effaces or puts out of\nsight one of the capital distinctions of logic. What he says is\nindeed perfectly true: _Not-great_, _Not-beautiful_, _Non-Ens_,\nare respectively different from _great_, _beautiful_, _Ens_. But\nthis, though true, is only a part of the truth; leaving unsaid\nanother portion of the truth which, while equally essential, is at\nthe same time special and characteristic. The negative not only\ndiffers from the affirmative, but has such peculiar meaning of its\nown, as to exclude the affirmative: both cannot be true together.\n_Not-great_ is certainly different from _great_: so also, _white_,\n_hard_, _rough_, _just_, _valiant_, &c, are all different from\n_great_. But there is nothing in these latter epithets to exclude\nthe co-existence of great. _The\u00e6t\u00eatus is great_--_The\u00e6t\u00eatus is\nwhite_; in the second of these two propositions I affirm something\nrespecting The\u00e6t\u00eatus quite different from what I affirm in the\nfirst, yet nevertheless noway excluding what is affirmed in the\nfirst.[128] The two propositions may both be true. But when I\nsay--_The\u00e6t\u00eatus is dead_--_The\u00e6t\u00eatus is not dead_: here are two\npropositions which cannot both be true, from the very form of the\nwords. To explain _not-great_, as Plato does, by saying that it\nmeans _only_ something different from great,[129] is to suppress\nthis peculiar meaning and virtue of the negative, whereby it\nsimply excludes the affirmative, without affirming any thing in\nits place. Plato is right in saying that _not-great_ does not\naffirm the _contrary_ of great, by which he means _little_.[130]\nThe negative does not affirm any thing: it simply denies. Plato\nseems to consider the negative as a species of affirmative:[131]\nonly affirming something different from what is affirmed by the\nterm which it accompanies. Not-Great, Not-Beautiful, Not-Just--he\ndeclares to be Forms just as real and distinct as Great,\nBeautiful, Just: only different from these latter. This, in my\nopinion, is a conception logically erroneous. Negative stands\nopposed to affirmative, as one of the modes of distributing both\nterms and propositions. A purely negative term cannot stand alone\nin the subject of a proposition: _Non-Entis nulla sunt\npr\u00e6dicata_--was the scholastic maxim. The apparent exceptions to\nthis rule arise only from the fact, that many terms negative in\ntheir form have taken on an affirmative signification.\n\n[Footnote 128: Proklus, in his Commentary on the Parmenid\u00eas (p.\n281, p. 785, Stallbaum), says, with reference to the doctrine laid\ndown by Plato in the Sophist\u00eas, [Greek: o(/l\u00f4s ga\\r ai(\na)potha/seis e)ggonoi/ ei)si t\u00ea=s e(tero/t\u00eatos t\u00ea=s noera=s; dia\\\ntou=to ga\\r _ou)ch i(/ppos_, o(/ti e(/teron--kai\\ dia\\ tou=to\n_ou)k a)/nthr\u00f4pos_, o(/ti a)/llo.]\n\nProklus here adopts and repeats Plato's erroneous idea of the\nnegative proposition and its function. When I deny that Caius is\njust, wise, &c., my denial does not intimate simply that I know\nhim to be something _different_ from just, wise; for he may have\nfifty _different_ attributes, co-existent and consistent with\njustice and wisdom.\n\nTo employ the language of Aristotle (see a pertinent example,\nPhysic. i. 8, 191, b. 15, where he distinguishes [Greek: to\\ m\u00ea\\\no)\\n kath' au(to\\] from [Greek: to\\ m\u00ea\\ o)\\n kata\\ sumbeb\u00eako/s]),\nwe may say that it is not of the essence of the Different to deny\nor exclude that from which it is different: the Different may deny\nor exclude, but that is only by _accident_--[Greek: kata\\\nsumbeb\u00eako/s]. Plato includes, in the essence of the Different,\nthat which belongs to it only by accident.\n\nAristotle in more than one place distinguishes [Greek: diaphora\\]\nfrom [Greek: e)nanti/\u00f4sis]--not always in the same language. In\nMetaphysic. I. p. 1055 a. 33, he considers that the root of all\n[Greek: e)nanti/\u00f4sis] is [Greek: e(/xis] and [Greek: ste/r\u00easis],\nunderstood in the widest sense, _i.e._ affirmative and negative.\nSee Bonitz, not. ad loc., and Waitz, ad Categor. p. 12, a. 26. The\nlast portion of the treatise [Greek: Peri\\ E(rm\u00eanei/as] was\ninterpreted by Syrianus with a view to uphold Plato's opinion here\ngiven in the Sophistes (Schol. ad Aristot. p. 136, a. 15\nBrandis).]\n\n[Footnote 129: Plato, Sophist. p. 258 B. [Greek: ou)k e)nanti/on\ne)kei/n\u00f4| s\u00eamai/nousa, a)lla\\ _tosou=ton mo/non_, e(/teron\ne)kei/nou.]\n\nIf we look to the Euthyd\u00eamus we shall see that this confusion\nbetween what is different from A, and what is incompatible with or\nexclusive of A, is one of the fallacies which Plato puts into the\nmouth of the two Sophists Euthyd\u00eamus and Dionysod\u00f4rus, whom he\nexhibits and exposes in that dialogue. [Greek: A)/llo ti ou)=n\ne(/teros, \u00ea)= d' o(/s] (Dionysodorus), [Greek: \u00f4)\\n li/thou, ou)\nli/thos ei)=? kai\\ e(/teros \u00f4)\\n chrusou=, ou) chruso\\s ei)=?\nE)/sti tau=ta. Ou)kou=n kai\\ o( Chaire/d\u00eamos, e)/ph\u00ea, e(/teros\n\u00f4)\\n patro/s, ou)k a)\\n pat\u00ea\\r ei)/\u00ea?] (Plat. Euthydem. p. 298\nA).]\n\n[Footnote 130: Plato, Sophist. p. 257 B.]\n\n[Footnote 131: Plato, Sophist. pp. 257 E, 258 A.\n\n[Greek: O)/ntos d\u00ea\\ pro\\s o)\\n a)nti/thesis, \u00f4(s e)/oik', ei)=nai\nxumbai/nei to\\ _m\u00ea\\ kalo/n_. . . .\n\nO(moi/\u00f4s a)/ra to\\ m\u00ea\\ me/ga, kai\\ to\\ me/ga au)to\\ _ei)=nai_\nlekte/on.]\n\nPlato distinctly recognises here Forms or Ideas [Greek: t\u00f4=n\na)popha/se\u00f4n], which the Platonists professed not to do, according\nto Aristotle, Metaphys. A. 990, b. 13--see the instructive Scholia\nof Alexander, p. 565, a. Brandis.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's view of the negative is erroneous. Logical\nmaxim of contradiction.]\n\nThe view which Plato here takes of the negative deserves the\ngreater notice, because, if it were adopted, what is called the\nmaxim of contradiction would be divested of its universality.\nGiven a significant proposition with the same subject and the same\npredicate, each taken in one and the same signification--its\naffirmative and its negative cannot both be true. But if by the\nnegative, you mean to make a new affirmation, different from that\ncontained in the affirmative--the maxim just stated cannot be\nbroadly maintained as of universal application: it may or may not\nbe valid, as the case happens to stand. The second affirmation may\nbe, as a matter of fact, incompatible with the first: but this is\nnot to be presumed, from the mere fact that it is different from\nthe first: proof must be given of such incompatibility.\n\n[Side-note: Examination of the illustrative propositions chosen by\nPlato--How do we know that one is true, the other false?]\n\nWe may illustrate this remark by looking at the two propositions\nwhich Plato gives as examples of true and false. _The\u00e6t\u00eatus is\nsitting down_--_The\u00e6t\u00eatus is flying_. Both the examples are of\naffirmative propositions: and it seems clear that Plato, in all\nthis reasoning, took no account of negative propositions: those\nwhich simply deny, affirming nothing. The second of these\npropositions (says Plato) affirms _what is not_, as if it were,\nrespecting the subject But how do we know this to be so? In the\nform of the second proposition there is nothing to show it: there\nis no negation of any thing, but simply affirmation of a different\npositive attribute. Although it happens, in this particular case,\nthat the two attributes are incompatible, and that the affirmation\nof the one includes the negation of the other--yet there is\nnothing in the form of either proposition to deny the other:--no\nformal incompatibility between them. Both are alike affirmative,\nwith the same subject, but different predicates. These two\npropositions therefore do not serve to illustrate the real nature\nof the negative, which consists precisely in this formal\nincompatibility. The proper negative belonging to the\nproposition--_The\u00e6t\u00eatus is sitting down_--would be, _The\u00e6t\u00eatus\nis not sitting down_. Plato ought to maintain, if he followed out\nhis previous argument, that Not-Sitting down is as good a Form as\nSitting-down, and that it meant merely--Different from Sitting down.\nBut instead of doing this Plato gives us a new affirmative proposition,\nwhich, besides what it affirms, conceals an implied negation of the\nfirst proposition. This does not serve to illustrate the purpose\nof his reasoning--which was to set up the formal negative as a new\nsubstantive attribute, different from its corresponding\naffirmative. As between the two, the maxim of contradiction\napplies: both cannot be true. But as between the two propositions\ngiven in Plato, that maxim has no application: they are two\npropositions with the same subject, but different predicates;\nwhich happen in this case to be, the one true, the other false--but\nwhich are not formally incompatible. The second is not false\nbecause it differs from the first; it has no essential connection\nwith the first, and would be equally false, even if the first were\nfalse also.\n\nThe function of the negative is to deny. Now denial is not a\nspecies of affirmation, but the reversal or antithesis of\naffirmation: it nullifies a belief previously entertained, or\nexcludes one which might otherwise be entertained,--but it affirms\nnothing. In particular cases, indeed, the denial of one thing may\nbe tantamount to the affirmation of another: for a man may know\nthat there are only two suppositions possible, and that to shut\nout the one is to admit the other. But this is an inference drawn\nin virtue of previous knowledge possessed and contributed by\nhimself: another man without such knowledge would not draw the\nsame inference, nor could he learn it from the negative\nproposition _per se_. Such then is the genuine meaning of the\nnegative; from which Plato departs, when he tells us that the\nnegative is a kind of affirmation, only affirming something\ndifferent--and when he illustrates it by producing two affirmative\npropositions respecting the same subject, affirming different\nattributes, the one as matter of fact incompatible with the other.\n\n[Side-note: Necessity of accepting the evidence of sense.]\n\nBut how do we know that the first proposition--_The\u00e6t\u00eatus is\nsitting down_--affirms what is:--and that the second\nproposition--_The\u00e6t\u00eatus is flying_--affirms what is not? If present,\nour senses testify to us the truth of the first, and the falsehood\nof the second: if absent, we have the testimony of a witness, combined\nwith our own past experience attesting the frequency of facts\nanalogous to the one, and the non-occurrence of facts analogous to\nthe other. When we make the distinction, then,--we assume that\nwhat is attested by sense or by comparisons and inductions from\nthe facts of sense, is real, or _is_: and that what is merely\nconceived or imagined, without the attestation of sense (either\ndirectly or by way of induction), is not real, or _is not_. Upon\nthis assumption Plato himself must proceed, when he takes it for\ngranted, as a matter of course, that the first proposition is\ntrue, and the second false. But he forgets that this assumption\ncontradicts the definition which, in this same dialogue,[132] he\nhad himself given of Ens--of the real or _the thing that is_. His\ndefinition was so comprehensive, as to include not only all that\ncould be seen or felt, but also all that had capacity to be known\nor conceived by the mind: and he speaks very harshly of those who\nadmit the reality of things perceived, but refuse to admit equal\nreality to things only conceived. Proceeding then upon this\ndefinition, we can allow no distinction as to truth or falsehood\nbetween the two propositions--_The\u00e6t\u00eatus is sitting\ndown_--_The\u00e6t\u00eatus is flying_: the predicate of the second affirms\nwhat is, just as much as the predicate of the first: for it affirms\nsomething which, though neither perceived nor perceivable by\nsense, is distinctly conceivable and conceived by the mind. When\nPlato takes for granted the distinction between the two, that the\nfirst affirms _what is_, and the second _what is not_--he\nunconsciously slides into that very recognition of the testimony\nof sense (in other words, of fact and experience), as the\ncertificate of reality, which he had so severely denounced in the\nopposing materialist philosophers: and upon the ground of which he\nthought himself entitled, not merely to correct them as mistaken,\nbut to reprove them as wicked and impudent.[133]\n\n[Footnote 132: Plato, Sophist. pp. 247 D-E, 248 D-E.]\n\n[Footnote 133: Plato, Sophist. p. 246 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Errors of Antisthenes--depended partly on the imperfect\nformal logic of that day.]\n\nI have thus reviewed a long discussion--terminating in a\nconclusion which appears to me unsatisfactory--of the meaning and\nfunction of the negative. I hardly think that Plato would have\ngiven such an explanation of it, if he had had the opportunity of\nstudying the Organon of Aristotle. Prior to Aristotle, the\nprinciples and distinctions of formal logic were hardly at\nall developed; nor can we wonder that others at that time fell\ninto various errors which Plato scornfully derides, but very\nimperfectly rectifies. For example, Antisthenes did not admit the\npropriety of any predication, except identical, or at most\nessential, predication: the word [Greek: e)/stin] appeared to him\nincompatible with any other. But we perceive in this dialogue,\nthat Plato also did not conceive the substantive verb as\nperforming the simple function of copula in predication: on the\ncontrary he distinguishes [Greek: e)/stin], as marking identity\nbetween subject and predicate--from [Greek: mete/chei], as marking\naccidental communion between the two. Again, there were men in\nPlato's day who maintained that Non-Ens ([Greek: to\\ m\u00ea\\ o)\\n])\nwas inconceivable and impossible. Plato, in refuting these\nphilosophers, gives a definition of Ens ([Greek: to\\ o)\\n]), which\nputs them in the right--fails in stating what the true negative\nis--and substitutes, in place of simple denial, a second\naffirmation to overlay and supplant the first.\n\n[Side-note: Doctrine of the Sophist\u00eas--contradicts that of other\nPlatonic dialogues.]\n\nTo complete the examination of this doctrine of the Sophist\u00eas,\nrespecting Non-Ens, we must compare it with the doctrine on the\nsame subject laid down in other Platonic dialogues. It will be\nfound to contradict, very distinctly, the opinion assigned by\nPlato to Sokrates both in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus and in the fifth Book of\nthe Republic:[134] where Sokrates deals with Non-Ens in its usual\nsense as the negation of Ens: laying down the position that\nNon-Ens can be neither the object of the cognizing Mind, nor the\nobject of the opining ([Greek: doxa/z\u00f4n]) or cogitant Mind: that\nit is uncognizable and incogitable, correlating only with\nNon-Cognition or Ignorance. Now we find that this doctrine (of\nSokrates, in The\u00e6t\u00eatus and Republic) is the very same as that\nwhich is affirmed, in the Sophist\u00eas, to be taken up by the\ndelusive Sophist: the same as that which the Eleate spends much\ningenuity in trying to refute, by proving that Non-Ens is not the\nnegation of Ens, but only that which differs from Ens, being\nitself a particular variety of Ens. It is also the same doctrine\nas is declared, both by the Eleate in the Sophist\u00eas and by\nSokrates in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, to imply as an undeniable consequence,\nthat the falsehood of any proposition is impossible. \"A false\nproposition is that which speaks the thing that is not ([Greek:\nto\\ m\u00ea\\ o)/n]). But this is an impossibility. You can neither\nknow, nor think, nor speak, the thing that is not. You cannot know\nwithout knowing something: you cannot speak without speaking\nsomething (_i. e._ something that is).\" Of this consequence--which\nis expressly announced as included in the doctrine, both by the\nEleate in the Sophist\u00eas and by the Platonic Sokrates in the\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus--no notice is taken in the Republic.[135]\n\n[Footnote 134: Plato, Republic, v. pp. 477-478. The\u00e6t\u00eat. pp.\n188-189. Parmenid\u00eas, pp. 160 C, 163 C. Euthyd\u00eamus, p. 284 B-C.\n\nAristotle (De Interpretat. p. 21, a. 22) briefly expresses his\ndissent from an opinion, the same as what is given in the Platonic\nSophist\u00eas--that [Greek: to\\ m\u00ea\\ o)/n] is [Greek: o)/n ti]. He\nmakes no mention of Plato, but Ammonius in the Scholia alludes to\nPlato (p. 129, b. 20, Schol. Bekk.).\n\nWe must note that the Eleate in the Sophist\u00eas states both opinions\nrespecting [Greek: to\\ m\u00ea\\ o)/n]: first that which he\nrefutes--next that which he advances. The Scholiast may, therefore,\nrefer to both opinions, as _stated_ in the Sophist\u00eas, though one of\nthem is stated only for the purpose of being refuted.\n\nWe may contrast with these views of Plato (in the Sophist\u00eas)\nrespecting [Greek: to\\ m\u00ea\\ o)/n], as not being a negation [Greek:\ntou= o)/ntos], but simply a something [Greek: e(/teron tou=\no)/ntos], the different views of Aristotle about [Greek: to\\ m\u00ea\\\no)/n], set forth in the instructive Commentary of M. Ravaisson,\nEssai sur la M\u00e9taphysique d'Aristote, p. 360.\n\n\"Le non-\u00eatre s'oppose \u00e0 l'\u00eatre, comme sa n\u00e9gation: ce n'est donc\npas, non plus que l'\u00eatre, une chose simple; et autant il y a de\ngenres de l'\u00eatre, autant il faut que le non-\u00eatre ait de genres.\nCependant l'opposition de l'\u00eatre et du non-\u00eatre, diff\u00e9rente, en\nrealit\u00e9, dans chacune des cat\u00e9gories, est la m\u00eame dans toutes par\nsa forme. Dans cette forme, le second terme n'exprime pas autre\nchose que l'absence du premier. Le rapport de l'\u00eatre et du\nnon-\u00eatre consiste donc dans une pure contradiction: derni\u00e8re forme\n\u00e0 laquelle toute opposition doit se ramener.\"\n\nAristotle seems to allude to the Sophist\u00eas, though not mentioning\nit by its title, in three passages of the Metaphysica--E. 1026, b.\n14; K. 1064, b. 29; N. 1089, a. 5 (see the note of Bonitz on the\nlatter passage)--perhaps also elsewhere (see Ueberweg, pp.\n153-154). Plato replied in one way, Leukippus and Demokritus in\nanother, to the doctrine of Parmenides, who banished Non-Ens as\nincogitable. Leukippus maintained that Non-Ens equivalent to\n[Greek: to\\ keno/n], and that the two elements of things were\n[Greek: to\\ pl\u00ea=res] and [Greek: to\\ keno/n], for which he used\nthe expressions [Greek: de\\n] and [Greek: ou)de/n]. Plato replied\nas we read in the Sophist\u00eas: thus both he and Leukippus tried in\ndifferent ways to demonstrate a positive nature and existence for\nNon-Ens. See Aristot. Metaph. A. 985, b. 4, with the Scholia, p.\n538, Brandis. The Scholiast cites Plato [Greek: e)n t\u00ea=|\nPolitei/a|], which seems a mistake for [Greek: e)n t\u00f4=|\nSophi/st\u00ea|].]\n\n[Footnote 135: Socher (Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp. 264-265) is\nupon this point more satisfactory than the other Platonic\ncommentators. He points out--not only without disguise, but even\nwith emphasis--the discrepancies and contradictions between the\ndoctrines ascribed to the Eleate in the Sophist\u00eas, and those\nascribed to Sokrates in the Republic, Ph\u00e6don, and other Platonic\ndialogues. These are the main premisses upon which Socher rests\nhis inference, that the Sophist\u00eas is not the composition of Plato.\nI do not admit his inference: but the premisses, as matters of\nfact, appear to me undeniable. Stallbaum, in his Proleg. to the\nSophist\u00eas, p. 40 seq., attempts to explain away these\ndiscrepancies--in my opinion his remarks are obscure and\nunsatisfactory. Various other commentators, also holding the\nSophist\u00eas to be a genuine work of Plato, overlook or extenuate\nthese premisses, which they consider unfavourable to that\nconclusion. Thus Alkinous, in his [Greek: Ei)sag\u00f4g\u00ea/], sets down\nthe explanation of [Greek: to\\ m\u00ea\\ o)\\n] which is given in the\nSophist\u00eas, as if it were the true and Platonic explanation, not\nadverting to what is said in the Republic and elsewhere (Alkin. c.\n35, p. 189 in the Appendix Platonica annexed to the edition of\nPlato by K. F. Hermann). The like appears in the [Greek:\nProlego/mena t\u00ea=s Pla/t\u00f4nos philosophi/as]: c. 21, p. 215 of the\nsame edition. Proklus, in his Commentary on the Parmenid\u00eas, speaks\nin much the same manner about [Greek: to\\ m\u00ea\\ o)\\n]--considering\nthe doctrine advanced and defended by the Eleate in the Sophist\u00eas,\nto represent the opinion of Plato (p. 785 ed. Stallbaum; see also\nthe Commentary of Proklus on the Tim\u00e6us, b. iii. p. 188 E, 448 ed.\nSchneid.). So likewise Simplikius and the commentators on\nAristotle, appear to consider it--see Schol. ad Aristotel.\nPhysica, p. 332, a. 8, p. 333, b., 334, a., 343, a. 5. It is plain\nfrom these Scholia that the commentators were much embarrassed in\nexplaining [Greek: to\\ m\u00ea\\ o)/n]. They take the Sophist\u00eas as if it\ndelivered Plato's decisive opinion upon that point (Porphyry\ncompares what Plato says in the Tim\u00e6us, but not what he says in\nthe Republic or in The\u00e6t\u00eatus, p. 333, b. 25); and I think that\nthey accommodate Plato to Aristotle, in such manner as to obscure\nthe real antithesis which Plato insists upon in the Sophist\u00eas--I\nmean the antithesis according to which Plato excludes what is\n[Greek: e)nanti/on tou= o)/ntos] and admits only what is [Greek:\ne(/teron tou= o)/ntos].\n\nRitter gives an account (Gesch. der Philos. part ii. pp. 288-289)\nof Plato's doctrine in the Sophist\u00eas respecting Non-Ens; but by no\nmeans an adequate account. K. F. Hermann also omits (Geschichte\nund System der Platonischen Philos. pp. 504-505-507) to notice the\ndiscrepancy between the doctrine of the Sophist\u00eas, and the\ndoctrine of the Republic, and The\u00e6t\u00eatus, respecting [Greek: to\\\nm\u00ea\\ o)/n]--though he pronounces elsewhere that the Republic is\namong the most indisputably positive of all Plato's compositions\n(p. 536).]\n\nAgain, the doctrine maintained by the Eleate in the Sophist\u00eas\nrespecting Ens, as well as respecting Ideas or Forms, is in other\nways inconsistent with what is laid down in other Platonic\ndialogues. The Eleate in the Sophist\u00eas undertakes to refute two\ndifferent classes of opponents; first, the Materialists, of whom\nhe speaks with derision and antipathy--secondly, others of very\nopposite doctrines, whom he denominates the Friends of Ideas or\nForms, speaking of them in terms of great respect. Now by these\nFriends of Forms or Ideas, Schleiermacher conjectures that Plato\nintends to denote the Megaric philosophers. M. Cousin, and most\nother critics (except Ritter), have taken up this opinion. But to\nme it seems that Socher is right in declaring the doctrine,\nascribed to these Friends of Ideas, to be the very same as that\nwhich is laid down by Plato himself in other important\ndialogues--Republic, Tim\u00e6us, Ph\u00e6don, Ph\u00e6drus, Kratylus, &c.--and\nwhich is generally understood as that of the Platonic Ideas.[136]\nIn all these dialogues, the capital contrast and antithesis is that\nbetween Ens or Entia on one side, and Fientia (the transient, ever\ngenerated and ever perishing), on the other: between the eternal,\nunchangeable, archetypal Forms or Ideas--and the ever-changing\nflux of particulars, wherein approximative likeness of these\narchetypes is imperfectly manifested. Now it is exactly this\nantithesis which the Friends of Forms in the Sophist\u00eas are\nrepresented as upholding, and which the Eleate undertakes to\nrefute.[137] We shall find Aristotle, over and over again,\nimpugning the total separation or demarcation between Ens and\nFientia ([Greek: ei)/d\u00ea--ge/nesis--ch\u00f4rista/]), both as the\ncharacteristic dogma, and the untenable dogma, of the Platonic\nphilosophy: it is exactly the same issue which the Eleate in the\nSophist\u00eas takes with the Friends of Forms. He proves that Ens is\njust as full of perplexity, and just as difficult to understand,\nas Non-Ens:[138] whereas, in the other Platonic dialogues, Ens is\nconstantly spoken of as if it were plain and intelligible. In\nfact, he breaks down the barrier between Ens and Fientia, by\nincluding motion, change, the moving or variable, among the world\nof Entia.[139] Motion or Change belongs to Fieri; and if it be\nheld to belong to Esse also (by recognising a Form or Idea of\nMotion or Change, as in the Sophist\u00eas), the antithesis between the\ntwo, which is so distinctly declared in other Platonic dialogues,\ndisappears.[140]\n\n[Footnote 136: Socher, p. 266; Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum\nSophistes, p. 134; Cousin, Oeuvres de Platon, vol. xi. 517,\nnotes.\n\nSchleiermacher gives this as little more than a conjecture; and\ndistinctly admits that any man may easily suppose the doctrine\nascribed to these Friends of Forms to be Plato's own\ndoctrine--\"Nicht zu verwundern w\u00e4re es, wenn Mancher auf den Gedanken\nk\u00e4me, Platon meinte hier sich selbst und seine eigene Lehre,\" &c.\n\nBut most of the subsequent critics have taken up Schleiermacher's\nconjecture (that the Megarici are intended), as if it were\nsomething proved and indubitable.\n\nIt is curious that while Schleiermacher thinks that the opinions\nof the Megaric philosophers are impugned and refuted in the\nSophist\u00eas, Socher fancies that the dialogue was composed by a\nMegaric philosopher, not by Plato. Ueberweg (Aechtheit der Platon.\nSchr. pp. 275-277) points out as explicitly as Socher, the\ndiscrepancy between the Sophist\u00eas and several other Platonic\ndialogues, in respect to what is said about Forms or Ideas. But he\ndraws a different inference: he infers from it a great change in\nPlato's own opinion, and he considers that the Sophist\u00eas is later\nin its date of composition than those other dialogues which it\ncontradicts. I think this opinion about the late composition of\nthe Sophist\u00eas, is not improbable; but the premisses are not\nsufficient to prove it.\n\nMy view of the Platonic Sophist\u00eas differs from the elaborate\ncriticism on it given by Steinhart (Einleitung zum Soph. p. 417\nseq.) Moreover, there is one assertion in that Einleitung which I\nread with great surprise. Steinhart not only holds it for certain\nthat the Sophistes was composed after the Parmenid\u00eas, but also\naffirms that it solves the difficulties propounded in the\nParmenid\u00eas--discusses the points of difficulty \"in the best\npossible way\" (\"in der w\u00fcnschenwerthesten Weise\" (pp. 470-471).\n\nI confess I cannot find that the difficulties started in the\nParmenid\u00eas are even noticed, much less solved, in the Sophist\u00eas.\nAnd Steinhart himself tells that the Parmenid\u00eas places us in a\ncircle both of persons and doctrines entirely different from those\nof the Sophist\u00eas (p. 472). It is plain also that the other\nPlatonic commentators do not agree with Steinhart in finding the\nSophist\u00eas a key to the Parmenid\u00eas: for most of them (Ast, Hermann,\nZeller, Stallbaum, Brandis, &c.) consider the Parmenid\u00eas to have\nbeen composed at a later date than the Sophist\u00eas (as Steinhart\nhimself intimates; compare his Einleitung zum Parmenides, p. 312\nseq.). Ueberweg, the most recent enquirer (posterior to\nSteinhart), regards the Parmenid\u00eas as the latest of all Plato's\ncompositions--if indeed it be genuine, of which he rather doubts.\n(Aechtheit der Platon. Schrift. pp. 182-183.)\n\nM. Mallet (Histoire de l'\u00c9cole de Megare, Introd. pp. xl.-lviii.,\nParis, 1845) differs from all the three opinions of\nSchleiermacher, Ritter, and Socher. He thinks that the\nphilosophers, designated as Friends of Forms, are intended for the\nPythagoreans. His reasons do not satisfy me.]\n\n[Footnote 137: Plato, Sophist. pp. 246 B, 248 B. The same opinion\nis advanced by Sokrates in the Republic, v. p. 479 B-C. Ph\u00e6don,\npp. 78-79. Compare Sophist, p. 248 C with Symposion, p. 211 B. In\nthe former passage, [Greek: to\\ pa/schein] is affirmed of the\nIdeas: in the latter passage, [Greek: to\\ pa/schein m\u00eade/n].]\n\n[Footnote 138: Plato, Sophist p. 245 E. Yet he afterwards talks of\n[Greek: to\\ lampro\\n tou= o)/ntos a)ei\\] as contrasted with\n[Greek: to\\ skoteino\\n tou= m\u00ea\\ o)/ntos], p. 254 A, which seems\nnot consistent.]\n\n[Footnote 139: Plato, Sophist. p. 249 B. \"Ips\u00e6 ide\u00e6 per se\nsimplices sunt et immutabiles: sunt \u00e6tern\u00e6, ac semper fuerunt ab\nomni liber\u00e6 mutatione,\" says Stallbaum ad Platon. Republ. v. p.\n476; see also his Prolegg. to the Parmenid\u00eas, pp. 39-40. This is\nthe way in which the Platonic Ideas are presented in the Tim\u00e6us,\nRepublic, Ph\u00e6don, &c., and the way in which they are conceived by\nthe [Greek: ei)d\u00f4=n phi/loi] in the Sophist\u00eas, whom the Eleate\nseeks to confute.\n\nZeller's chapter on Plato seems to me to represent not so much\nwhat we read in the separate dialogues, as the attempt of an able\nand ingenious man to bring out something like a consistent and\nintelligible doctrine which will do credit to Plato, and to soften\ndown all the inconsistencies (see Philos. der Griech. vol. ii. pp.\n394-415-429 ed. 2nd).]\n\n[Footnote 140: See a striking passage about the unchangeableness\nof Forms or Ideas in the Kratylus, p. 439 D-E; also Phil\u00eabus, p.\n15.\n\nIn the Parmenid\u00eas (p. 132 D) the supposition [Greek: ta\\ ei)/d\u00ea\ne)sta/nai e)n t\u00ea=| phu/sei] is one of those set up by Sokrates and\nimpugned by Parmenides. Nevertheless in an earlier passage of that\ndialogue Sokrates is made to include [Greek: ki/n\u00easis] and [Greek:\nsta/sis] among the [Greek: ei)/d\u00ea] (p. 129 E). It will be found,\nhowever, that when Parmenides comes to question Sokrates, What\n[Greek: ei)/d\u00ea] do you recognise? attributes and subjects only\n(the latter with hesitation) are included: no such thing as\nactions, processes, events--[Greek: to\\ poiei=n kai\\ pa/schein]\n(p. 130). In Republic vii. 529 D, we find mention made of [Greek:\nto\\ o)\\n ta/chos] and [Greek: \u00ea( ou)=sa bradu/t\u00eas], which implies\n[Greek: ki/n\u00easis] as among the [Greek: ei)/d\u00ea]. In The\u00e6t\u00eat. pp.\n152 D, 156 A, [Greek: ki/n\u00easis] is noted as the constituent and\ncharacteristic of Fieri--[Greek: to\\ gigno/menon]--which belongs\nto the domain of sensible perception, as distinguished from\npermanent and unchangeable Ens.]\n\n[Side-note: The persons whom Plato here attacks as Friends of Forms\nare those who held the same doctrine as Plato himself espouses in\nPh\u00e6don, Republic, &c.]\n\nIf we examine the reasoning of the Eleate, in the Sophist\u00eas,\nagainst the persons whom he calls the Friends of Forms, we shall\nsee that these latter are not Parmenideans only, but also Plato\nhimself in the Ph\u00e6don, Republic, and elsewhere. We shall also see\nthat the ground, taken up by the Eleate, is much the same as that\nwhich was afterwards taken up by Aristotle against the Platonic\nIdeas. Plato, in most of his dialogues, declares Ideas, Forms,\nEntia, to be eternal substances distinct and apart from the flux\nand movement of particulars: yet he also declares, nevertheless,\nthat particulars have a certain communion or participation with\nthe Ideas, and are discriminated and denominated according to such\nparticipation. Aristotle controverts both these doctrines: first,\nthe essential separation of the two, which he declares to be\nuntrue: next, the participation or coming together of the two\nseparate elements--which he declares to be an unmeaning fiction or\npoetical metaphor, introduced in order to elude the consequences\nof the original fallacy.[141] He maintains that the two (Entia and\nFientia--Universals and Particulars) have no reality except in\nconjunction and implication together; though they are separable by\nreason ([Greek: lo/g\u00f4| ch\u00f4rista\\--t\u00f4=| ei)nai, ch\u00f4rista/]) or\nabstraction, and though we may reason about them apart, and must\noften reason about them apart.[142] Now it is this implication and\nconjunction of the Universal with its particulars, which is the\ndoctrine of the Sophist\u00eas, and which distinguishes it from other\nPlatonic dialogues, wherein the Universal is\ntranscendentalized--lodged in a separate world from particulars. No\nscience or intelligence is possible (says the Eleate in the Sophist\u00eas)\neither upon the theory of those who pronounce all Ens to be constant\nand unchangeable, or upon that of those who declare all Ens to be\nfluent and variable. We must recognise both together, the constant\nand the variable, as equally real and as making up the totality of\nEns.[143] This result, though not stated in the language which\nAristotle would have employed, coincides very nearly with the\nAristotelian doctrine, in one of the main points on which\nAristotle distinguishes his own teaching from that of his master.\n\n[Footnote 141: Aristot. Metaphys. A. 991-992.]\n\n[Footnote 142: Aristot. Metaph. vi. 1038, a-b. The Scholion of\nAlexander here (p. 763, b. 36, Brandis) is clearer than Aristotle\nhimself. [Greek: To\\ prokei/meno/n e)sti dei=xai \u00f4(s ou)de\\n t\u00f4=n\nkatho/lou ou)si/a e)/stin; ou)/te ga\\r o( katho/lou a)/nthr\u00f4pos\n\u00ea)\\ o( katho/lou i(/ppos, ou)/te a)/llo ou)de/n; a)ll' e(/kaston\nau)t\u00f4n _dianoi/as a)po/maxi/s_ e)stin _a)po\\ t\u00f4=n kath' e(/kasta_\nkai\\ pr\u00f4/t\u00f4s kai\\ ma/lista legome/n\u00f4n ou)si\u00f4=n kai\\ o(moi/\u00f4ma.]]\n\n[Footnote 143: Plato, Sophist. p. 249 C-D. [Greek: T\u00f4=| d\u00ea\\\nphiloso/ph\u00f4| kai\\ tau=ta ma/lista tim\u00f4=nti pa=sa a)na/gk\u00ea dia\\\ntau=ta m\u00ea/te t\u00f4=n e(\\n \u00ea)\\ kai\\ ta\\ polla\\ ei)/d\u00ea lego/nt\u00f4n to\\\npa=n e(st\u00eako\\s a)pode/chesthai, t\u00f4=n te au)= pantach\u00ea=| to\\ o)\\n\nkinou=nt\u00f4n m\u00eade\\ to\\ para/pan a)kou/ein; a)lla\\ kata\\ t\u00ea\\n t\u00f4=n\npai/d\u00f4n eu)ch\u00ea/n, o(/sa a)ki/n\u00eata/ te kai\\ kekin\u00eame/na, to\\ o)/n\nte kai\\ to\\ pa=n, xunampho/tera le/gein.]\n\nRitter states the result of this portion of the Sophist\u00eas\ncorrectly. \"Es bleibt uns als Ergebniss aller dieser\nUntersuchungen \u00fcber das Seyn, dass die Wahrheit sowohl des\nWerdens, als auch des beharrlichen Seyns, anerkannt werden m\u00fcsse\"\n(Geschichte der Philos. ii. p. 281).]\n\n[Side-note: The Sophist\u00eas recedes from the Platonic point of view,\nand approaches the Aristotelian.]\n\nThat the Eleate in the Sophistes recedes from the Platonic point\nof view and approaches towards the Aristotelian, will be seen also\nif we look at the lesson of logic which he gives to The\u00e6t\u00eatus. In\nhis analysis of a proposition--and in discriminating such\nconjunctions of words as are significant, from such as are\ninsignificant--he places himself on the same ground as that which\nis travelled over by Aristotle in the Categories and the treatise\nDe Interpretatione. That the handling of the topic by Aristotle is\nmuch superior, is what we might naturally expect from the fact\nthat he is posterior in time. But there is another difference\nbetween the two which is important to notice. Aristotle deals with\nthis topic, as he does with every other, in the way of methodical\nand systematic exposition. To expound it as a whole, to distribute\nit into convenient portions each illustrating the others, to\nfurnish suitable examples for the general principles laid down--are\nannounced as his distinct purposes. Now Plato's manner is quite\ndifferent. Systematic exposition is not his primary purpose: he\nemploys it up to a certain point, but as means towards another and\nan independent purpose--towards the solution of a particular\ndifficulty, which has presented itself in the course of the\ndialogue.--\"_Nosti morem dialogorum._\" Aristotle is demonstrative:\nPlato is dialectical. In our present dialogue (the Sophist\u00eas), the\nEleate has been giving a long explanation of Non-Ens; an\nexplanation intended to prove that Non-Ens was a particular sort\nof Ens, and that there was therefore no absurdity (though\nParmenides had said that this was absurdity) in assuming it as a\npassable object of Cognition, Opination, Affirmation. He now goes\na step further, and seeks to show that it is, actually and in\nfact, an object of Opination and Affirmation.[144] It is for this\npurpose, and for this purpose only, that he analyses a\nproposition, specifies the constituent elements requisite to form\nit, and distinguishes one proposition from another.\n\n[Footnote 144: Plato, Sophist. p. 261 D.]\n\nAccordingly, the Eleate,--after pointing out that neither a string\nof nouns repeated one after the other, nor a string of verbs so\nrepeated, would form a significant proposition,--declares that the\nconjunction of a noun with a verb is required to form one; and\nthat opination is nothing but that internal mental process which\nthe words of the proposition express. The smallest proposition\nmust combine a noun with a verb:--the former signifying the agent,\nthe latter, the action or thing done.[145] Moreover, the\nproposition must be a proposition _of something_; and it must be\nof a certain quality. By a proposition _of something_, Plato\nmeans, that what is called technically the subject of the\nproposition (in his time there were no technical terms of logic)\nmust be something positive, and cannot be negative: by the quality\nof the proposition, he means that it must be either true or\nfalse.[146]\n\n[Footnote 145: Plato, Sophist. p. 262 C.]\n\n[Footnote 146: Plato, Sophist. p. 262 E. [Greek: Lo/gon\na)nagkai=on, o(/tan per \u00ea)=|, tino\\s ei)=nai lo/gon, _m\u00ea\\ de/\ntinos_, a)du/naton . . . Ou)kou=n kai\\ poio/n tina au)to\\n ei)=nai\ndei=?] Compare p. 237 E.\n\nIn the words here cited Plato unconsciously slides back into the\nordinary acceptation of [Greek: m\u00ea/ ti]: that is, to [Greek: m\u00ea\\]\nin the sense of negation. If we adopt that peculiar sense of\n[Greek: m\u00ea/], which the Eleate has taken so much pains to prove\njust before in the case of [Greek: to\\ m\u00ea\\ o)\\n] (that is, if we\ntake [Greek: m\u00ea\\] as signifying not negation but simply\ndifference), the above argument will not hold. If [Greek: ti/s]\nsignifies one subject (A), and [Greek: m\u00ea/ tis] signifies simply\nanother subject (B) different from A ([Greek: e(/teron]), the\npredicate [Greek: a)du/naton] cannot be affirmed. But if we take\n[Greek: m\u00ea/ tis] in its proper sense of negation, the [Greek:\na)du/naton] will be so far true that [Greek: ou)k a)/nthr\u00f4pos, ou)\nTheai/t\u00eatos], cannot be the subject of a proposition. Aristotle\nsays the same in the beginning of the Treatise De Interpretatione\n(p. 16, a. 30).]\n\n[Side-note: Aristotle assumes without proof, that there are some\npropositions true, others false.]\n\nThis early example of rudimentary grammatical or logical analysis,\nrecognising only the two main and principal parts of speech, is\ninteresting as occurring prior to Aristotle; by whom it is\nrepeated in a manner more enlarged, systematic,[147] and\ninstructive. But Aristotle assumes, without proof and without\nsupposing that any one will dispute the assumption--that there are\nsome propositions true, other propositions false: that a name or\nnoun, taken separately, is neither true nor false:[148] that\npropositions (enunciations) only can be true or false.\n\n[Footnote 147: Aristotel. De Interpr. init. with Scholia of\nAmmonius, p. 98, Bekk.]\n\n[Footnote 148: In the Kratylus of Plato Sokrates maintains that\nnames may be true or false as well as propositions, pp. 385 D, 431\nB.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato in the Sophist\u00eas has undertaken an impossible\ntask--He could not have proved, against his supposed adversary,\nthat there _are_ false propositions.]\n\nThe proceeding of Plato in the Sophist\u00eas is different. He supposes\na Sophist who maintains that no proposition either is false or can\nbe false, and undertakes to prove against him that there are false\npropositions: he farther supposes this antagonist to reject the\nevidence of sense and visible analogies, and to acknowledge no\nproof except what is furnished by reason and philosophical\ndeduction.[149] Attempting, under these restrictions, to prove his\npoint, Plato's Eleatic disputant rests entirely upon the peculiar\nmeaning which he professes to have shown to attach to Non-Ens. He\napplies this to prove that Non-Ens may be predicated as well as\nEns: assuming that such predication of Non-Ens constitutes a false\nproposition. But the proof fails. It serves only to show that the\npeculiar meaning ascribed by the Eleate to Non-Ens is\ninadmissible. The Eleate compares two distinct\npropositions--_The\u00e6t\u00eatus is sitting down_--_The\u00e6t\u00eatus is flying_. The\nfirst is true: the second is false. Why? Because (says the Eleate)\nthe first predicates Ens, the second predicates Non-Ens, or (to\nsubstitute his definition of Non-Ens) another Ens different from\nthe Ens predicated in the first.[150] But here the reason\nassigned, why the second proposition is false, is not the real\nreason. Many propositions may be assigned, which predicate\nattributes different from the first, but which are nevertheless\nquite as much true as the first. I have already observed, that the\nreason why the second proposition is false is, because it\ncontradicts the direct testimony of sense, if the persons debating\nare spectators: if they are not spectators, then because it\ncontradicts the sum total of their previous sensible experience,\nremembered, compared, and generalised, which has established in\nthem the conviction that no man does or can fly. If you discard\nthe testimony of sense as unworthy of credit (which Plato assumes\nthe Sophist to do), you cannot prove that the second proposition\nis false--nor indeed that the first proposition is true. Plato has\ntherefore failed in giving that dialectic proof which he promised.\nThe Eleate is forced to rely (without formally confessing it), on\nthe testimony of sense, which he had forbidden The\u00e6t\u00eatus to\ninvoke, twenty pages before.[151] The long intervening piece of\ndialectic about Ens and Non-Ens is inconclusive for his purpose,\nand might have been omitted. The proposition--_The\u00e6t\u00eatus is\nflying_--does undoubtedly predicate attributes _which are not_ as\nif they were,[152] and is thus false. But then we must consult and\ntrust the evidence of our perception: we must farther accept _are\nnot_ in the ordinary sense of the words, and not in the sense\ngiven to them by the Eleate in the Platonic Sophist\u00eas. His attempt\nto banish the specific meaning of the negative particle, and to\ntreat it as signifying nothing more than difference, appears to me\nfallacious.[153]\n\n[Footnote 149: Plato, Sophist. p. 240 A. It deserves note that\nhere Plato presents to us the Sophist as rejecting the evidence of\nsense: in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus he presents to us the Sophist as holding\nthe doctrine [Greek: e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea = ai)/sth\u00easis]. How these\npropositions can both be true respecting the Sophists as a class I\ndo not understand. The first may be true respecting some of them;\nthe second may be true respecting others; respecting a third class\nof them, neither may be true. About the Sophists in a body there\nis hardly a single proposition which can be safely affirmed.]\n\n[Footnote 150: Plato, Sophist. p. 263 C.]\n\n[Footnote 151: The\u00e6t\u00eatus makes this attempt and is checked by the\nEleate, pp. 239-240. It is in p. 261 A that the Eleate begins his\nproof in refutation of the supposed Sophist--that [Greek: do/xa]\nand [Greek: lo/gos] may be false. The long interval between the\ntwo is occupied with the reasoning about Ens and Non-Ens.]\n\n[Footnote 152: Plato, Sophist. p. 263 E. [Greek: ta\\ m\u00ea\\ o)/nta\n\u00f4(s o)/nta lego/mena], &c.\n\nThe distinction between these two propositions, the first as true,\nthe second as false (The\u00e6t\u00eatus is sitting down, The\u00e6t\u00eatus is\nflying), is in noway connected with the distinction which Plato\nhad so much insisted upon before respecting the intercommunion of\nForms, Ideas, General Notions, &c., that some Forms will come into\ncommunion with each other, while others will not (pp. 252-253).\n\nThere is here no question of repugnancy or intercommunion of\nForms: the question turns upon the evidence of vision, which\ninforms us that The\u00e6t\u00eatus is sitting down and not standing up or\nflying. If any predicate be affirmed of a subject, contrary to\nwhat is included in the definition of that subject, then indeed\nrepugnancy of Forms might be urged.]\n\n[Footnote 153: Plato, Sophist. p. 257 B.]\n\n[Side-note: What must be assumed in all dialectic discussion.]\n\nIn all reasoning, nay in all communication by speech, you must\nassume that your hearer understands the meaning of what is spoken:\nthat he has the feelings of belief and disbelief, and is familiar\nwith those forms of the language whereby such feelings are\nexpressed: that there are certain propositions which he believes--in\nother words, which he regards as true: that there are certain\nother propositions which he disbelieves, or regards as false: that\nhe has had experience of the transition from belief to disbelief,\nand _vice vers\u00e2_--in other words, of having fallen into error and\nafterwards come to perceive that it was error. These are the\nmental facts realised in each man and assumed by him to be also\nrealised in his neighbours, when communication takes place by\nspeech. If a man could be supposed to believe nothing, and to\ndisbelieve nothing;--if he had no forms of speech to express his\nbelief, disbelief, affirmation, and denial--no information could\nbe given, no discussion would be possible. Every child has to\nlearn this lesson in infancy; and a tedious lesson it undoubtedly\nis.[154] Antisthenes (who composed several dialogues) and the\nother disputants of whom we are now speaking, must have learnt the\nlesson as other men have: but they find or make some general\ntheory which forbids them to trust the lesson when learnt. It was\nin obedience to some such theory that Antisthenes discarded all\npredication except essential predication, and discarded also the\nform suited for expressing disbelief--the negative proposition:\nmaintaining, That to contradict was impossible. I know no mode of\nrefuting him, except by showing that his fundamental theory is\nerroneous.\n\n[Footnote 154: Aristotel. Metaphys. vii. 1043, b. 25. [Greek:\n\u00f4(/ste \u00ea( a)pori/a \u00ea(\\n oi( A)ntisthe/neioi kai\\ oi( ou(/t\u00f4s\n_a)pai/deutoi_ \u00ea)po/roun, e)/chei tina\\ kairo/n], &c.\n\nCompare respecting this paradox or [Greek: the/sis] of\nAntisthenes, the scholia of Alexander on the passage of\nAristotle's Topica above cited, p. 259, b. 15, in Schol. Bekk.\n\nIf Antisthenes admitted only identical predications, of course\n[Greek: to\\ a)ntilo/gein] became impossible. I have endeavoured to\nshow, in a previous note on this dialogue, that a misconception\n(occasionally shared even by Plato) of the function of the copula,\nlay at the bottom of the Antisthenean theory respecting identical\npredication. Compare Aristotel. Physic. i. p. 185, b. 28, together\nwith the Scholia of Simplikius, pp. 329-330, ed. Bekk., and\nPlato, Sophist\u00eas, p. 245.]\n\n[Side-note: Discussion and theorising presuppose belief and\ndisbelief, expressed in set forms of words. They imply\npredication, which Antisthenes discarded.]\n\nDiscussion and theorising can only begin when these processes,\npartly intellectual, partly emotional, have become established and\nreproducible portions of the train of mental association. As\nprocesses, they are common to all men. But though two persons\nagree in having expressed the feeling of belief, and in expressing\nthat feeling by one form of proposition--also in having the\nfeeling of disbelief, and in expressing it by another form of\nproposition--yet it does not follow that the propositions which\nthese two believe or disbelieve are the same. How far such is the\ncase must be ascertained by comparison--by appeal to sense,\nmemory, inference from analogy, induction, feeling, consciousness,\n&c. The ground is now prepared for fruitful debate: for analysing\nthe meaning, often confused and complicated, of propositions: for\ndiscriminating the causes, intellectual and emotional, of belief\nand disbelief, and for determining how far they harmonise in one\nmind and another: for setting out general rules as to sequence, or\ninconsistency, or independence, of one belief as compared with\nanother. To a certain extent, the grounds of belief and disbelief\nin all men, and the grounds of consistency or inconsistency\nbetween some beliefs and others, will be found to harmonise: they\ncan be embodied in methodical forms of language, and general rules\ncan be laid down preventing in many cases inadvertence or\nerroneous combination. It is at this point that Aristotle takes up\nrational grammar and logic, with most profitable effect. But he is\nobliged to postulate (what Antisthenes professed to discard)\npredication, not merely identical, but also accidental as well as\nessential--together with names and propositions both negative and\naffirmative.[155] He cannot avoid postulating thus much: though he\nlikewise postulates a great deal more, which ought not to be\ngranted.\n\n[Footnote 155: See the remarks in Aristotel. Metaphys. [Greek: G].\n1005, b. 2, 1006, a. 6. He calls it [Greek: a)paideusi/a--a)paideusi/a\nt\u00f4=n a)nalutik\u00f4=n]--not to be able to distinguish\nthose matters which can be proved and require to be proved, from\nthose matters which are true, but require no proof and are\nincapable of being proved. But this distinction has been one of\nthe grand subjects of controversy from his day down to the\npresent day; and between different schools of philosophers, none\nof whom would allow themselves to deserve the epithet of [Greek:\na)pai/deutoi].\n\nAristotle calls Antisthenes and his followers [Greek:\na)pai/deutoi], in the passage cited in the preceding note.]\n\n[Side-note: Precepts and examples of logical partition, illustrated\nin the Sophist\u00eas.]\n\nThe long and varied predicamental series, given in the Sophist\u00eas,\nillustrates the process of logical partition, as Plato conceived\nit, and the definition of a class-name founded thereupon. You take\na logical whole, and you subtract from it part after part until\nyou find the _qu\u00e6situm_ isolated from every thing else.[156] But\nyou must always divide into two parts (he says) wherever it can be\ndone: dichotomy or bipartition is the true logical partition:\nshould this be impracticable, trichotomy, or division into the\nsmallest attainable number of parts, must be sought for.[157]\nMoreover, the bipartition must be made according to Forms (Ideas,\nKinds): the parts which you recognise must be not merely parts,\nbut Forms: every form is a part, but every part is not a\nform.[158] Next, you must draw the line of division as nearly as\nyou can through the middle of the _dividendum_, so that the parts\non both sides may be nearly equal: it is in this way that your\npartition is most likely to coincide with forms on both sides of\nthe line.[159] This is the longest way of proceeding, but the\nsafest. It is a logical mistake to divide into two parts very\nunequal: you may find a form on one side of the line, but you\nobtain none on the other side. Thus, it is bad classification to\ndistribute the human race into Hell\u00eanes + Barbari: the _Barbari_\nare of infinite number and diversity, having no one common form to\nwhich the name can apply. It is also improper to distribute Number\ninto the myriad on side, and all other numbers on the other--for a\nsimilar reason. You ought to distribute the human race into the\ntwo forms, Male--Female: and number into the two, Odd--Even.[160]\nSo also, you must not divide gregarious creatures into human\nbeings on one side, and animals on the other; because this last\nterm would comprise numerous particulars utterly disparate. Such a\nclassification is suggested only by the personal feeling of man,\nwho prides himself upon his intelligence. But if the\nclassification were framed by any other intelligent species, such\nas Cranes,[161] they would distinguish Cranes on the one side from\nanimals on the other, including Man as one among many disparate\nparticulars under _animal_.\n\n[Footnote 156: Plato, Politikus, p. 268 D. [Greek: me/ros a)ei\\\nme/rous a)phairoume/nous e)p' a)/kron e)phiknei=sthai to\\\nz\u00eatou/menon.]\n\nUeberweg thinks that Aristotle, when he talks of [Greek: ai(\ngegramme/nai diaire/seis] alludes to these logical distributions\nin the Sophist\u00eas and Politikus (Aechtheit der Platon. Schr. pp.\n153-154).]\n\n[Footnote 157: Politik. p. 287 C.]\n\n[Footnote 158: Politik. p. 263 C.]\n\n[Footnote 159: Politik. pp. 262 B, 265 A. [Greek: dei= mesotomei=n\n\u00f4(s ma/lista], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 160: Politikus, p. 262 D-E.]\n\n[Footnote 161: Politikus, p. 262 D. [Greek: semnu=non au(to\\\ne(auto/], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Recommendation of logical bipartition.]\n\nThe above-mentioned principle--dichotomy or bipartition into two\nequal or nearly equal halves, each resting upon a characteristic\nform--is to be applied as far as it will go. Many different\nschemes of partition upon this principle may be found, each\nincluding forms subordinated one to the other, descending from the\nmore comprehensive to the less comprehensive. It is only when you\ncan find no more parts which are forms, that you must be content\nto divide into parts which are not forms. Thus after all the\ncharacteristic forms, for dividing the human race, have been gone\nthrough, they may at last be partitioned into Hell\u00eanes and\nBarbari, Lydians and non-Lydians, Phrygians and non-Phrygians: in\nwhich divisions there is no guiding form at all, but only a\ncapricious distribution into fractions with separate\nnames[162]--meaning by _capricious_, a distribution founded on some\nfeeling or circumstance peculiar to the distributor, or shared by him\nonly with a few others; such as the fact, that he is himself a Lydian\nor a Phrygian, &c.\n\n[Footnote 162: Politikus, p. 262 E. [Greek: Ludou\\s de\\ \u00ea)\\\nPhru/gas \u00ea)/ tinas e(te/rous pro\\s a(/pantas ta/tt\u00f4n a)po/schizoi\nto/te, \u00ea(ni/ka a)poroi= ge/nos a)/ma kai\\ me/ros eu(ri/skein\ne(ka/teron t\u00f4=n schisthe/nt\u00f4n.]]\n\n[Side-note: Precepts illustrated by the Phil\u00eabus.]\n\nThese precepts in the Sophist\u00eas and Politikus, respecting the\nprocess of classification, are illustrated by an important passage\nof the Phil\u00eabus:[163] wherein Plato tells us that the constitution\nof things includes the Determinate and the Indeterminate\nimplicated with each other, and requiring study to disengage them.\nBetween the highest One, Form, or Genus--and the lowest array of\nindefinite particulars--there exist a certain number of\nintermediate Ones or Forms, each including more or fewer of these\nparticulars. The process of study or acquired cognition is brought\nto bear upon these intermediate Forms: to learn how many there\nare, and to discriminate them in themselves as well as in their\nposition relative to each other. But many persons do not recognise\nthis: they apprehend only the Highest One, and the Infinite Many,\nnot looking for any thing between: they take up hastily with some\nextreme and vague generality, below which they know nothing but\nparticulars. With knowledge thus imperfect, you do not get beyond\ncontentious debate. Real, instructive, dialectic requires an\nunderstanding of all the intermediate forms. But in descending\nfrom the Highest Form downwards, you must proceed as much as\npossible in the way of bipartition, or if not, then of\ntripartition, &c.: looking for the smallest number of forms which\ncan be found to cover the whole field. When no more forms can be\nfound, then and not till then, you must be content with nothing\nbetter than the countless indeterminate particulars.\n\n[Footnote 163: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 16-17.\n\nThe notes of Dr. Badham upon this passage in his edition of the\nPhil\u00eabus, p. 11, should be consulted as a just correction of\nStallbaum in regard to [Greek: pe/ras] and [Greek: t\u00f4=n e(\\n\ne)kei/n\u00f4n].]\n\nThis instructive passage of the Phil\u00eabus--while it brings to view\na widespread tendency of the human mind, to pass from the largest\nand vaguest generalities at once into the region of particulars,\nand to omit the distinctive sub-classes which lie\nbetween--illustrates usefully the drift of the Sophist\u00eas and Politikus.\nIn these two last dialogues it is the method itself of good logical\ndistribution which Plato wishes to impress upon his readers: the\nformal part of the process.[164] With this view, he not only makes\nthe process intentionally circuitous and diversified, but also\nselects by preference matters of common sensible experience,\nthough in themselves indifferent, such as the art of weaving,[165]\n&c.\n\n[Footnote 164: He states this expressly, Politik. p. 286 D.]\n\n[Footnote 165: Plato, Politik. p. 285 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Importance of founding logical Partition on\nresemblances perceived by sense.]\n\nThe reasons given for this preference deserve attention. In these\ncommon matters (he tells us) the resemblances upon which Forms are\nfounded are perceived by sense, and can be exhibited to every one,\nso that the form is readily understood and easily discriminated.\nThe general terms can there be explained by reference to sense.\nBut in regard to incorporeal matters, the higher and grander\ntopics of discussion, there is no corresponding sensible\nillustration to consult. These objects can be apprehended only by\nreason, and described only by general terms. By means of these\ngeneral terms, we must learn to give and receive rational\nexplanations, and to follow by process of reasoning from one form\nto another. But this is more difficult, and requires a higher\norder of mind, where there are no resemblances or illustrations\nexposed to sense. Accordingly, we select the common sensible\nobjects as an easier preparatory mode of a process substantially\nthe same in both.[166]\n\n[Footnote 166: Plato, Politik. pp. 285 E--286 A. [Greek: tou\\s\nplei/stous le/l\u00eathen o(/ti toi=s me\\n t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n r(a|di/\u00f4s\nkatamathei=n ai)sth\u00eatai/ tines o(moio/t\u00eates pephu/kasin, a(\\s\nou)de\\n chalepo\\n d\u00ealou=n, o(/tan au)t\u00f4=n tis boul\u00ea/th\u00ea| t\u00f4=|\nlo/gon ai)tou=nti peri\\ tou, m\u00ea\\ meta\\ pragma/t\u00f4n a)lla\\ ch\u00f4ri\\s\nlo/gou r(a|di/\u00f4s e)ndei/xasthai; toi=s d' au)= megi/stois ou)=si\nkai\\ timi\u00f4ta/tois ou)k e)/stin ei)/d\u00f4lon ou)de\\n pro\\s tou\\s\na)nthr\u00f4/pous ei)rgasme/non e)narg\u00f4=s, ou(= deichthe/ntos], &c.\n\nAbout the [Greek: ei)/d\u00f4lon ei)rgasme/non e)narg\u00f4=s], which is\naffirmed in one of these two cases and denied in the other,\ncompare a striking analogy in the Ph\u00e6drus, p. 250 A-E.]\n\n[Side-note: Province of sensible perception--is not so much\nnarrowed by Plato here as it is in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus.]\n\nThis explanation given by Plato, in itself just, deserves to be\ncompared with his view of sensible objects as knowable, and of\nsense as a source of knowledge. I noticed in a preceding chapter\nthe position which Sokrates is made to lay down in the\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus,[167]--That ([Greek: ai)/sth\u00easis]) sensible perception\nreaches only to the separate impressions of sense, and does not\napprehend the likeness and other relations between them. I have\nalso noticed the contrast which he establishes elsewhere between\nEsse and Fieri: _i.e._, between Ens which alone (according to him)\nis knowable, and the perpetual flux of Fientia which is not\nknowable at all, but is only matter of opinion or guess-work. Now\nin the dialogue before us, the Politikus, there is no such marked\nantithesis between opinion and knowledge. Nor is the province of\n[Greek: ai)/sth\u00easis] so strictly confined: on the contrary, Plato\nhere considers sensible perception as dealing with Entia, and as\nappreciating resemblances and other relations between them. It is\nby an attentive study and comparison of these facts of sense that\nForms are detected. \"When a man (he says) has first perceived by\nsense the points of communion between the Many, he must not desist\nfrom attentive observation until he has discerned in that\ncommunion all the differences which reside in Forms: and when he\nhas looked at the multifarious differences which are visible among\nthese Many, he must not rest contented until he has confined all\nsuch as are really cognate within one resemblance, tied together\nby the essence of one common Form.\"[168]\n\n[Footnote 167: Plato, The\u00e6t. pp. 185-186. See above p. 161.]\n\n[Footnote 168: Plato, Politikus, p. 285 B. [Greek: de/on, o(/tan\nme\\n t\u00ea\\n t\u00f4=n poll\u00f4=n tis pro/teron ai)/sth\u00eatai koin\u00f4ni/an, m\u00ea\\\nproaphi/stasthai pri\\n a)\\n e)n au)t\u00ea=| ta\\s diaphora\\s i)/d\u00ea|\npa/sas o(po/sai per e)n ei)/desi kei=ntai; ta\\s de\\ au)=\npantodapa\\s a)nomoio/t\u00eatas, o(/tan e)n pl\u00ea/thesin o)phth\u00f4=si, m\u00ea\\\ndunato\\n ei)=nai dus\u00f4pou/menon pau/esthai, pri\\n a)\\n xu/mpanta\nta\\ oi)kei=a e)nto\\s mia=s o(moio/t\u00eatos e(/rxas ge/nous tino\\s\nou)si/a| periba/l\u00eatai.]]\n\n[Side-note: Comparison of the Sophist\u00eas with the Ph\u00e6drus.]\n\nThese passages may be compared with others of similar import in\nthe Ph\u00e6drus.[169] Plato here considers the Form, not as an Entity\n_per se_ separate from and independent of the particulars, but as\nimplicated in and with the particulars: as a result reached by the\nmind through the attentive observation and comparison of\nparticulars: as corresponding to what is termed in modern language\nabstraction and generalisation. The self-existent Platonic Ideas\ndo not appear in the Politikus:[170] which approximates rather to\nthe Aristotelian doctrine:--that is, the doctrine of the\nuniversal, logically distinguishable from its particulars, but\nhaving no reality apart from them ([Greek: ch\u00f4rista\\ lo/g\u00f4|\nmo/non]). But in other dialogues of Plato, the separation between\nthe two is made as complete as possible, especially in the\nstriking passages of the Republic: wherein we read that the facts\nof sense are a delusive juggle--that we must turn our back upon\nthem and cease to study them--and that we must face about, away\nfrom the sensible world, to contemplate Ideas, the separate and\nunchangeable furniture of the intelligible world--and that the\nwhole process of acquiring true Cognition, consists in passing\nfrom the higher to the lower Forms or Ideas, without any\nmisleading illustrations of sense.[171] Here, in the Sophist\u00eas and\nPolitikus, instead of having the Universal behind our backs when\nthe particulars are before our faces, we see it _in and amidst_\nparticulars: the illustrations of sense, instead of deluding us,\nbeing declared to conduce, wherever they can be had, to the\nclearness and facility of the process.[172] Here, as well as in\nthe Ph\u00e6drus, we find the process of Dialectic emphatically\nrecommended, but described as consisting mainly in logical\nclassification of particulars, ascending and descending divisions\nand conjunctions, as Plato calls them[173]--analysis and\nsynthesis. We are enjoined to divide and analyse the larger genera\ninto their component species until we come to the lowest species\nwhich can no longer be divided: also, conversely, to conjoin\nsynthetically the subordinate species until the highest genus is\nattained, but taking care not to omit any of the intermediate\nspecies, in their successive gradations.[174] Throughout all this\nprocess, as described both in the Ph\u00e6drus and in the Politikus,\nthe eye is kept fixed upon the constituent individuals. The Form\nis studied in and among the particulars which it comprehends: the\nparticulars are looked at in groups put together suitably to each\ncomprehending Form. And in both dialogues, marked stress is laid\nupon the necessity of making the division dichotomous; as well as\naccording to Forms, and not according to fractions which are not\nlegitimate Forms.[175] Any other method, we are told, would be\nlike the wandering of a blind man.\n\n[Footnote 169: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 249 C, 265 D-E.]\n\n[Footnote 170: This remark is made by Stallbaum in his Prolegg. ad\nPoliticum, p. 81; and it is just, though I do not at all concur in\nhis general view of the Politikus, wherein he represents the\ndialogue as intended to deride the Megaric philosophers.]\n\n[Footnote 171: See the Republic, v. pp. 476-479, vi. pp.\n508-510-511, and especially the memorable simile about the cave\nand the shadows within it, in Book vii. pp. 518-519, together with\nthe [Greek: periag\u00f4g\u00ea\\] which he there prescribes--[Greek: a)po\\ tou=\ngignome/nou ei)s to\\ o)/n]--and the remarks respecting\nobservations in astronomy and acoustics, p. 529.]\n\n[Footnote 172: Compare the passage of the Ph\u00e6drus (p. 263 A-C)\nwhere Plato distinguishes the sensible particulars on which men\nmostly agree, from the abstractions (Just and Unjust, &c.,\ncorresponding with the [Greek: a)s\u00f4/mata, ka/llista, me/gista,\ntimi\u00f4/tata], Politikus, p. 286 A) on which they are perpetually\ndissenting.]\n\n[Footnote 173: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 266 B. [Greek: tou/t\u00f4n d\u00ea\\\ne)/g\u00f4ge au)to/s te e)rast\u00ea\\s t\u00f4=n diaire/se\u00f4n kai\\ sunag\u00f4g\u00f4=n\n. . . tou\\s duname/nous au)to\\ dra=|n . . . kal\u00f4= dialektikou/s.]\nThe reason which Sokrates gives in the Ph\u00e6drus for his attachment\nto dialectics, that he may become competent in discourse and in\nwisdom ([Greek: i(/n' oi(=o/s te \u00f4)= le/gein kai\\ phronei=n]), is\nthe same as that which the Eleate assigns in recommendation of the\nlogical exercises in the Politikus.]\n\n[Footnote 174: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 271 D, 277 B. [Greek:\no(risa/meno/s te pa/lin kat' ei)/d\u00ea me/chri tou= a)tm\u00ea/tou\nte/mnein e)pist\u00ea/th\u00ea|.]]\n\n[Footnote 175: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 265 E, 270 E. [Greek: e)oi/koi\na)\\n \u00f4(/sper tuphlou= porei/a|.]]\n\nWhat distinguishes the Sophist\u00eas and Politikus from most other\ndialogues of Plato, is, that the method of logical classification\nis illustrated by setting the classifier to work upon one or a few\ngiven subjects, some in themselves trivial, some important. Though\nthe principles of the method are enunciated in general terms, yet\ntheir application to the special example is kept constantly before\nus; so that we are never permitted, much less required, to divorce\nthe Universal from its Particulars.\n\n[Side-note: Comparison of the Politikus with the Parmenid\u00eas.]\n\nAs a dialogue illustrative of this method, the Politikus (as I\nhave already pointed out) may be compared to the Ph\u00e6drus: in\nanother point of view, we shall find instruction in comparing it\nto the Parmenid\u00eas. This last too is a dialogue illustrative of\nmethod, but of a different variety of method.\n\n[Side-note: Variety of method in dialectic research--Diversity of\nPlato.]\n\nWhat the Sophist\u00eas and Politikus are for the enforcement of\nlogical classification, the Parmenid\u00eas is for another part of the\nphilosophising process--laborious evolution of all the\nconsequences deducible from the affirmative as well as from the\nnegative of every hypothesis bearing upon the problem. And we note\nthe fact, that both in the Politikus and Parmenid\u00eas, Plato\nmanifests the consciousness that readers will complain of him as\nprolix, tiresome, and wasting ingenuity upon unprofitable\nmatters.[176] In the Parmenid\u00eas, he even goes the length of saying\nthat the method ought only to be applied before a small and select\naudience; to most people it would be repulsive, since they cannot\nbe made to comprehend the necessity for such circuitous\npreparation in order to reach truth.[177]\n\n[Footnote 176: Plato, Politikus, p. 283 B. [Greek: pro\\s d\u00ea\\ to\\\nno/s\u00eama to\\ toiou=ton], and the long series of questions and\nanswers which follows to show that the prolixity is unavoidable,\npp. 285 C, 286 B-E.]\n\n[Footnote 177: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 D-E.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX.\n\nPOLITIKUS.\n\n\n[Side-note: The Politikus by itself, apart from the Sophist\u00eas.]\n\nI have examined in the preceding sections both that which the\nSophist\u00eas and Politikus present in common--(_viz._ a lesson, as\nwell as a partial theory, of the logical processes called\nDefinition and Division)--and that which Sophist\u00eas presents apart\nfrom the Politikus. I now advert to two matters which we find in\nthe Politikus, but not in the Sophist\u00eas. Both of them will be\nfound to illustrate the Platonic mode of philosophising.\n\n[Side-note: Views of Plato on mensuration. Objects measured against\neach other. Objects compared with a common standard. In each Art,\nthe purpose to be attained is the standard.]\n\nI. Plato assumes, that there will be critics who blame the two\ndialogues as too long and circuitous; excessive in respect of\nprolixity. In replying to those objectors,[1] he enquires, What is\nmeant by long or short--excessive or deficient--great or little?\nSuch expressions denote mensuration or comparison. But there are\ntwo varieties of mensuration. We may measure two objects one\nagainst the other: the first will be called great or greater, in\nrelation to the second--the second will be called little or less\nin relation to the first. But we may also proceed in a different\nway. We may assume some third object as a standard, and then\nmeasure both the two against it: declaring the first to be great,\ngreater, excessive, &c., because it exceeds the standard--and the\nsecond to be little, less, deficient, &c., because it falls short\nof the standard. Here then are two judgments or estimations\naltogether different from each other, and yet both denoted by the\nsame words _great_ and _little_: two distinct _essences_ (in\nPlatonic phrase) of great and little, or of greatness and\nlittleness.[2] The art of mensuration has thus two varieties. One\nincludes arithmetic and geometry, where we simply compare numbers\nand magnitudes with each other, determining the proportions\nbetween them: the other assumes some independent standard; above\nwhich is excess, and below which is deficiency. This standard\npasses by different names according to circumstances: the\nModerate, Becoming, Seasonable, Proper, Obligatory, &c.[3] Such a\nstandard is assumed in every art--in every artistic or scientific\ncourse of procedure. Every art has an end to be attained, a result\nto be produced; which serves as the standard whereby each\npreparatory step of the artist is measured, and pronounced to be\neither excessive or deficient, as the case may be.[4] Unless such\na standard be assumed, you cannot have regular art or science of\nany kind; neither in grave matters, nor in vulgar matters--neither\nin the government of society, nor in the weaving of cloth.[5]\n\n[Footnote 1: The treatment of this subject begins, Politik. p. 283\nC, where Plato intimates that the coming remarks are of wide\napplication.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Plato, Politik. p. 283 E. [Greek: _di/ttas_ a)/ra\n_tau/tas ou)si/as_ kai\\ kri/seis tou= mega/lou kai\\ tou= smikrou=\nthete/on.]]\n\n[Footnote 3: Plato, Politik. p. 284 E. [Greek: to\\ me/trion, to\\\npre/pon, to\\n kairo/n, to\\ de/on], &c.\n\nThe reader will find these two varieties of mensuration, here\ndistinguished by Plato, illustrated in the \"two distinct modes of\nappreciating weight\" (the Absolute and the Relative), described\nand explained by Professor Alexander Bain in his work on The\nSenses and The Intellect, 3rd edition, p. 93. This explanation\nforms an item in the copious enumeration given by Mr. Bain of the\nfundamental sensations of our nature.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Plato, Politik. p. 283 D. [Greek: kata\\ t\u00ea\\n t\u00ea=s\ngene/se\u00f4s a)nagkai/an ou)si/an].--284 A-C. [Greek: pro\\s t\u00ea\\n tou=\nmetri/ou ge/nesin].]\n\n[Footnote 5: Plato, Politik. p. 284 C.]\n\n[Side-note: Purpose in the Sophist\u00eas and Politikus is--To attain\ndialectic aptitude. This is the standard of comparison whereby to\njudge whether the means employed are suitable.]\n\nNow what is the end to be attained, by this our enquiry into the\ndefinition of a Statesman? It is not so much to solve the\nparticular question started, as to create in ourselves dialectic\ntalent and aptitude, applicable to every thing. This is the\nstandard with reference to which our enquiry must be criticised--not\nby regard to the easy solution of the particular problem, or\nto the immediate pleasure of the hearer. And if an objector\ncomplains, that our exposition is too long or our subject-matters\ntoo vulgar--we shall require him to show that the proposed end\nmight have been attained with fewer words and with more solemn\nillustrations. If he cannot show this, we shall disregard his\ncensure as inapplicable.[6]\n\n[Footnote 6: Plato, Politik. pp. 286 D, 287 A. Compare Plato,\nPhil\u00eabus, p. 36 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's defence of the Politikus against critics.\nNecessity that the critic shall declare explicitly what his\nstandard of comparison is.]\n\nThe above-mentioned distinction between the two varieties of\nmensuration or comparison, is here given by Plato, simply to serve\nas a defence against critics who censured the peculiarities of the\nPolitikus. It is not pursued into farther applications. But it\ndeserves notice, not merely as being in itself just and useful,\nbut as illustrating one of the many phases of Plato's philosophy.\nIt is an exhibition of the relative side of Plato's character, as\ncontra-distinguished from the absolute or dogmatical: for both the\ntwo, opposed as they are to each other, co-exist in him and\nmanifest themselves alternately. It conveys a valuable lesson as\nto the apportionment of praise and blame. \"When you blame me\" (he\nsays to his critics), \"you must have in your mind some standard of\ncomparison upon which the blame turns. Declare what that standard\nis:--what you mean by the Proper, Becoming, Moderate, &c. There is\nsuch a standard, and a different one, in every different Art. What\nis it here? You must choose this standard, explain what it is, and\nadhere to it when you undertake to praise or blame.\" Such an\nenunciation (thoroughly Sokratic[7]) of the principle of\nrelativity, brings before critics the fact--which is very apt to\nbe forgotten--that there must exist in the mind of each some\nstandard of comparison, varying or unvarying, well or ill\nunderstood: while at the same time it enforces upon them the\nnecessity of determining clearly for themselves, and announcing\nexplicitly to others, what that standard is. Otherwise the\npropositions, affirming comparison, can have no uniform meaning\nwith any two debaters, nor even with the same man at different\ntimes.\n\n[Footnote 7: Xenophon, Memorab. iii. 8, 7, iii. 10, 12.]\n\n[Side-note: Comparison of Politikus with Protagoras, Ph\u00e6don,\nPhil\u00eabus, &c.]\n\nTo this relative side of Plato's mind belong his frequent\ncommendations of measurement, numbering, computation, comparison,\n&c. In the Protagoras,[8] he describes the art of measurement as\nthe main guide and protector of human life: it is there treated as\napplicable to the correct estimation of pleasures and pains. In\nthe Ph\u00e6don,[9] it is again extolled: though the elements to be\ncalculated are there specified differently. In the Phil\u00eabus, the\nantithesis of [Greek: Pe/ras] and [Greek: A)/peiron] (the\nDeterminant or Limit, and the Indeterminate or Infinite) is one of\nthe leading points of the dialogue. We read in it moreover a\nbipartite division of Mensuration or Arithmetic,[10] which is\nquite different from the bipartite division just cited out of the\nPolitikus. Plato divides it there (in the Phil\u00eabus) into\narithmetic for theorists, and arithmetic for practical life:\nbesides which, he distinguishes the various practical arts as\nbeing more or less accurate, according as they have more or less\nof measurement and sensible comparison in them. Thus the art of\nthe carpenter, who employs measuring instruments such as the line\nand rule--is more accurate than that of the physician, general,\npilot, husbandman, &c., who have no similar means of measuring.\nThis is a classification quite different from what we find in the\nPolitikus; yet tending in like manner to illustrate the relative\npoint of view, and its frequent manifestation in Plato. In the\nPolitikus, he seeks to refer praise and blame to a standard of\nmeasurement, instead of suffering them to be mere outbursts of\nsentiment unsystematic and unanalysed.\n\n[Footnote 8: Plato, Protagor. p. 357 B.]\n\n[Footnote 9: Plato, Ph\u00e6don, p. 69 B.]\n\n[Footnote 10: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 25 C, 27 D, 57. [Greek: du/o\na)rithm\u00eatikai\\ kai\\ du/o metr\u00eatikai/ . . . t\u00ea\\n didumo/t\u00eata\ne)/chousai tau/t\u00ean, o)no/matos de\\ e(no\\s kekoin\u00f4me/nai.]\n\nThis same bipartition, however, is noticed in another passage of\nthe Politikus, p. 258 D-E.]\n\n[Side-note: Definition of the statesman, or Governor. Scientific\ncompetence. Sokratic point of departure. Procedure of Plato in\nsubdividing.]\n\nII. The second peculiarity to which I call attention in the\nPolitikus, is the definition or description there furnished of the\ncharacter so-called: that is, the Statesman, the King, Governor,\nDirector, or Manager, of human society. At the outset of the\ndialogue, this person is declared to belong to the Genus--Men of\nScience or of Art (the two words are faintly distinguished in\nPlato). It is possession of the proper amount of scientific\ncompetence which constitutes a man a Governor: and which entitles\nhim to be so named, whether he actually governs any society or\nnot.[11] (This point of departure is purely Sokratic: for in the\nMemorabilia of Xenophon,[12] Sokrates makes the same express\ndeclaration.) The King knows, but does not act: yet he is not a\nsimple critic or spectator--he gives orders: and those orders are\nnot suggested to him by any one else (as in the case of the\nHerald, the Keleust\u00eas, and others),[13] but spring from his own\nbosom and his own knowledge. From thence Plato carries us through\na series of descending logical subdivisions, until we come to\ndefine the King as the shepherd and feeder of the flock of human\nbeings.[14] But many other persons, besides the King, are\nconcerned in feeding the human flock, and will therefore be\nincluded in this definition: which is thus proved to be too\nlarge, and to require farther qualification and restriction.[15]\nMoreover the feeding of the human flock belongs to others rather\nthan to the King. He tends and takes care of the flock, but does\nnot feed it: hence the definition is, in this way also,\nunsuitable.[16]\n\n[Footnote 11: Plato, Politikus, pp. 258 B, 259 B.]\n\n[Footnote 12: Xenophon, Memorab. iii. 9, 10.]\n\n[Footnote 13: Plato, Politik. p. 260 C-E. [Greek: to\\ me\\n t\u00f4=n\nbasile/\u00f4n ge/nos ei)s t\u00ea\\n au)tepitaktik\u00ea\\n the/ntes], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Plato, Politik. pp. 267 B, 268 C.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Plato, Politik. p. 268.]\n\n[Footnote 16: Plato, Politik. p. 275 D-E.]\n\n[Side-note: King during the Saturnian period, was of a breed\nsuperior to the people--not so any longer.]\n\nOur mistake (says Plato) was of this kind. In describing the King\nor Governor, we have unconsciously fallen upon the description of\nthe King, such as he was in the Saturnian period or under the\npresidency of Kronus; and not such as he is in the present period.\nUnder the presidency of Kronus, each human flock was tended and\ngoverned by a divine King or God, who managed every thing for it,\nkeeping it happy and comfortable by his own unassisted agency: the\nentire Kosmos too, with its revolutions, was at that time under\nthe immediate guidance of a divine mover. But in the present\nperiod this divine superintendance is withdrawn: both the entire\nKosmos, and each separate portion of it, is left to its own\nmovement, full of imperfection and irregularity. Each human flock\nis now tended not by a divine King, as it was then; but by a human\nKing, much less perfect, less effective, less exalted above the\nconstituent members. Now the definition which we fell upon (says\nPlato) suited the King of the Saturnian period; but does not suit\nthe King of the present or human period.[17] At the first\ncommencement of the present period, the human flock, left to\nthemselves without superintendance from the Gods, suffered great\nmisery: but various presents from some Gods (fire from Prometheus,\narts from Heph\u00e6stus and Ath\u00ean\u00ea, plants and seeds from D\u00eam\u00eat\u00ear)\nrendered their condition more endurable, though still full of\ndifficulty and hardship.[18]\n\n[Footnote 17: Plato, Politik. pp. 274-275 B.]\n\n[Footnote 18: Plato, Politik. p. 274 C.\n\nPlato embodies these last-mentioned comparisons in an elaborate\nand remarkable mythe--theological, cosmical, zoological,\nsocial--which occupies six pages of the Politikus (268 D--274 E).\nMeiners and Socher (Ueber Platon's Schriften, pp. 273-275) point out\nthat the theology of Plato in this fable differs much from what we\nread in the Ph\u00e6don, Republic, &c.: and Socher insists upon such\ndiscrepancy as one of his arguments against the genuineness of the\nPolitikus. I have already observed that I do not concur in his\ninference. I do not expect uniformity of doctrine in the various\nPlatonic dialogues: more especially on a subject so much beyond\nexperience, and so completely open to the conjectures of a rich\nimagination, as theology and cosmogony. In the Sophist\u00eas, pp.\n242-243, Plato had talked in a sort of contemptuous tone about those\nwho dealt with philosophical doctrine in the way of mythe, as a\nproceeding fit only for boys: (not unlike the manner of Aristotle,\nwhen he speaks of [Greek: oi( muthik\u00f4=s sophizo/menoi--ta\\ u(pe\\r\n\u00ea(ma=s], Metaphys. B. 1000, a. 15-18, [Greek: L]. 1071, b. 27): while\nhere, in the Politikus, he dilates upon what he admits to be a\nboyish mythe, partly because a certain portion of it may be made\navailable in illustration of his philosophical purpose, partly\nbecause he wishes to enliven the monotony of a long-continued\nclassification. Again, in the Ph\u00e6drus (**p. 229 C), the Platonic\nSokrates is made to censure as futile any attempt to find rational\nexplanations for the popular legends ([Greek: sophi/zesthai]): but\nhere, in the Politikus, the Eleate expressly adapts his theory\nabout the backward and forward rotation of the Kosmos to the\nexplanation of the popular legends--about earthborn men, and about\nHelios turning back his chariot, in order to escape the shocking\nspectacle of the Thyestean banquet: which legends, when so\nexplained, Plato declares that people would be wrong to disbelieve\n([Greek: oi( nu=n u(po\\ poll\u00f4=n ou)k o)rth\u00f4=s a)pistou=ntai], pp.\n271 B, 268 A, B, C).\n\nThe differences of doctrine and handling, between the various\nPlatonic dialogues, are facts not less worthy to be noted than the\nsimilarities. Here, in the mythe of the Politikus, we find a\npeculiar theological view, and a very remarkable cosmical\ndoctrine--the rotation and counter-rotation of the Kosmos. The\nKosmos is here declared (as in the Tim\u00e6us) to be a living and\nintelligent Subject; having received these mental gifts from its\nDemiurgus. But the Kosmos is also Body as well as Mind; so that it\nis incapable of that constant sameness or uniformity which belongs\nto the Divine: Body having in itself an incurable principle of\ndisorder (p. 269 D). The Kosmos is perpetually in movement; but\nits movement is only rotatory or circular in the same place: which\nis the nearest approximation to uniformity of movement. It does\nnot always revolve by itself; nor is it always made to revolve by\nthe Divine Steersman ([Greek: kubern\u00ea/t\u00eas], p. 272 E), but\nalternately the one and the other. This Divine Steersman presides\nover its rotation for a certain time, and along with him many\nsubordinate Deities or D\u00e6mons; until an epoch fixed by some\nunassigned destiny has been reached (p. 272 E). Then the Steersman\nwithdraws from the process to his own watch-tower ([Greek: ei)s\nt\u00ea\\n au)tou= peri\u00f4p\u00ea\\n]), and the other Deities along with him.\nThe Kosmos, being left to itself, ceases to revolve in the same\ndirection, and begins its counter rotation; revolving by itself\nbackwards, or in the contrary direction. By such violent revulsion\nmany of the living inhabitants of the Kosmos are destroyed. The\npast phenomena are successively reproduced, but in an inverse\ndirection--the old men go back to maturity, boyhood, infancy,\ndeath: the dead are born again, and pass through their lives\nbackwards from age to infancy. Yet the counter-rotation brings\nabout not simply an inverted reproduction of past phenomena, but\nnew phenomena also: for we are told that the Kosmos, when left to\nitself, did tolerably well as long as it remembered the\nSteersman's direction, but after a certain interval became\nforgetful and went wrong, generating mischief and evil: so that\nthe Steersman was at last forced to put his hand again to the\nwork, and to impart to it a fresh rotation in his own direction\n(p. 273 B-D). The Kosmos never goes satisfactorily, except when\nthe hand of the Steersman is upon it. But we are informed that\nthere are varieties of this divine administration: one named the\nperiod of Kronus or Saturn; another that of Zeus, &c. The\n_present_ is the period of Zeus (p. 272 B). The period of Kronus\nwas one of spontaneous and universal abundance, under the\nimmediate superintendence of the Deity. This Divine Ruler was\ninfinitely superior to the subjects whom he ruled, and left\nnothing to be desired. But _now_, in the present period of Zeus,\nmen are under human rule, and not divine: there is no such marked\nsuperiority of the Ruler to his subjects. The human race has been\non the point of becoming extinct; and has only been saved by\nbeneficent presents from various Gods--fire from Prometheus,\nhandicraft from Heph\u00e6stus and Ath\u00ean\u00ea (pp. 272 C, 274 C).\n\nAll this prodigious bulk of mythical invention ([Greek:\nthaumasto\\s o)/gkos], p. 277 B) seems to be introduced here for\nthe purpose of illustrating the comparative ratio between the\nRuler and his subjects; and the material difference in this\nrespect between King and Shepherd--between the government of\nmankind by kings, and that of flocks and herds by the herdsman. In\nattempting to define the True and Genuine Ruler (he lays it down),\nwe can expect nothing better than a man among other men; but\ndistinguished above his fellows, so far as wisdom, dialectic, and\nartistic accomplishment, can confer superiority.\n\nThere is much in this copious mythe which I cannot clearly\nunderstand or put together: nor do I derive much profit from the\nlong exposition of it given by Stallbaum (Proleg. ad Polit. pp.\n100-128). We cannot fairly demand either harmonious consistency or\nprofound meaning in the different features of an ingenious\nfiction. The hypothesis of a counter-rotation of the Kosmos\n(spinning like a top, [Greek: e)pi\\ smikrota/tou bai=non podo\\s\ni)e/nai], p. 270 A), with an inverted reproduction of past\nphenomena, appears to me one of the most singular fancies in the\nGreek mythology. I cannot tell how far it may have been suggested\nby any such statement as that of the Egyptian priests (Herodot.\nii. 142). I can only repeat the observation made by Ph\u00e6drus to the\nPlatonic Sokrates, in the dialogue Ph\u00e6drus (p. 275 A): \"You,\nSokrates, construct easily enough Egyptian tales, or any other\ntales that you please\".]\n\n[Side-note: Distinction of causes Principal and Causes Auxiliary.\nThe King is the only Principal Cause, but his auxiliaries pretend\nto be principal also.]\n\nThe human King, whom we shall now attempt to define, tends the\nhuman flock; but there are other persons also who assist in doing\nso, and without whose concurrent agency he could not attain his\npurpose. We may illustrate this by comparing with him the weaver\nof woollen garments: who requires many subsidiary and preparatory\nprocesses, performed by agents different from himself (such as the\ncarder of wool, the spinner, and the manufacturer of the\ninstruments for working the loom) to enable him to finish his\nwork. In all matters, important as well as vulgar, two separate\nprocesses or arts, or contributory persons, are to be\ndistinguished: Causes and Co-Causes, _i.e._, Principal Causes, and\nConcurrent, Auxiliary, Co-efficient, Subordinate, Causes.[19] The\nKing, like the Weaver, is distinguishable, from other agents\nhelping towards the same end, as a Principal Cause from Auxiliary\nCauses.[20] The Causes auxiliary to the King, in so far as they\nare inanimate, may be distributed roughly under seven heads\n(bipartition being here impracticable)--Implements, Vessels,\nVehicles, Protections surrounding the Body, Recreative Objects,\nRaw Material of every variety, Nutritive Substances, &c.[21] Other\nauxiliary Causes are, the domestic cattle, bought slaves, and all\ndescriptions of serving persons; being often freemen who\nundertake, for hire, servile occupations and low trades. There are\nmoreover ministerial officers of a higher grade: heralds, scribes,\ninterpreters, prophets, priests, Sophists, rhetors; and a great\ndiversity of other functionaries, military, judicial, forensic,\ndramatic, &c., who manage different departments of public affairs,\noften changing from one post to another.[22] But these higher\nministerial functionaries differ from the lower in this--That they\npretend to be themselves the directors and managers of the\ngovernment, not recognising the genuine King: whereas the truth\nis, that they are only ministerial and subordinate to him:--they\nare Concurrent Causes, while he is the only real or principal\nCause.[23]\n\n[Footnote 19: Plato, Politik. p. 281 D-E.]\n\n[Footnote 20: Plato, Politik. p. 287 D.]\n\n[Footnote 21: Plato, Politik. pp. 288-289.]\n\n[Footnote 22: Plato, Politik. pp. 290-291 B. Plato describes these\nmen by comparing them to lions, centaurs, satyrs, wild beasts,\nfeeble and crafty. This is not very intelligible, but I presume\nthat it alludes to the variety of functions, and the frequent\nalternation of functions. I cannot think that such an obscure jest\ndeserves Stallbaum's compliment:--\"Ceterum lepidissima h\u00e6c est\nistorum hominum irrisio, qui cum leonibus, Centauris, Satyris,\naliisque monstris comparantur\". Plato repeats it p. 303 C.]\n\n[Footnote 23: Plato, Politik. p. 291 C.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato does not admit the received classification of\ngovernment. It does not touch the point upon which all true\ndistinction ought to be founded--Scientific or Unscientific.]\n\nOur main object now (says the Eleate) is to distinguish this Real\nCause from the subordinate Causes which are mistaken for its\npartners and equals:--the genuine and intelligent Governor, from\nthose who pretend falsely to be governors, and are supposed often\nto be such.[24] We cannot admit the lines of distinction, which\nare commonly drawn between different governments, as truly\nlogical: at least they are only subordinate to ours. Most men\ndistinguish the government of one, or a few, or the many:\ngovernment of the poor or of the rich: government according to\nlaw, or without law:--by consent, or by force. The different names\ncurrent, monarchy or despotism, aristocracy, or oligarchy, &c.,\ncorrespond to these definitions. But we hold that these\ndefinitions do not touch the true characteristic: which is to be\nfound in Science, Knowledge, Intelligence, Art or scientific\nprocedure, &c., and in nothing else. The true government of\nmankind is, the scientific or artistic: whether it be carried on\nby one, or a few, or many--whether by poor or rich, by force or\nconsent--whether according to law, or without law.[25] This is the\nright and essential characteristic of genuine government:--it is\ngovernment conducted according to science or art. All governments\nnot conforming to this type are only spurious counterfeits and\napproaches to it, more or less defective or objectionable.[26]\n\n[Footnote 24: Plato, Politik. p. 292 D.]\n\n[Footnote 25: Plato, Politik. pp. 292 C, 293 B.]\n\n[Footnote 26: Plato, Politik. p. 293 E. [Greek: tau/t\u00ean to/te kai\\\nkata\\ tou\\s toiou/tous o(/rous \u00ea(mi=n mo/n\u00ean o)rth\u00ea\\n politei/an\nei)=nai r(\u00eate/on, o(/sas de\\ a)/llas le/gomen, ou) gn\u00easi/as ou)d'\no)/nt\u00f4s ou)/sas lekte/on.]]\n\n[Side-note: Unscientific governments are counterfeits. Government\nby any numerous body must be counterfeit. Government by the one\nscientific man is the true government.]\n\nLooking to the characteristic here suggested, the Eleate\npronounces that all numerous and popular governments must be\ncounterfeits. There can be no genuine government except by One\nman, or by a very small number at most. True science or art is not\nattainable by many persons, whether rich or poor: scarcely even by\na few, and probably by One alone; since the science or art of\ngoverning men is more difficult than any other science or art.[27]\nBut the government of this One is the only true and right\ngovernment, whether he proclaims laws or governs without law,\nwhether he employs severity or mildness--provided only he adheres\nto his art, and achieves its purpose, the good and improvement of\nthe governed.[28] He is like the true physician, who cuts and\nburns patients, when his art commands, for the purpose of curing\nthem. He will not be disposed to fetter himself by fixed general\nlaws: for the variety of situations and the fluctuation of\ncircumstances, is so perpetual, that no law can possibly fit all\ncases. He will recognise no other law but his art.[29] If he lays\ndown any general formula or law, it will only be from necessity,\nbecause he cannot be always at hand to watch and direct each\nindividual case: but he will not hesitate to depart from his own\nformula whenever Art enjoins it.[30] That alone is base, evil,\nunjust, which he with his political Science or Art declares to be\nso. If in any particular case he departs from his own declaration,\nand orders such a thing to be done--the public have no right to\ncomplain that he does injustice. No patient can complain of his\nphysician, if the latter, acting upon the counsels of his art,\ndisregards a therapeutic formula.[31] All the acts of the true\nGovernor are right, whether according or contrary to law, so long\nas he conducts himself with Art and Intelligence--aiming\nexclusively to preserve the people, and to render them better\ninstead of worse.[32]\n\n[Footnote 27: Plato, Politik. pp. 292 D-E, 297 B, 300 E.]\n\n[Footnote 28: Plato, Politik. p. 293 B-E.]\n\n[Footnote 29: Plato, Politik. p. 297 A. [Greek: ou) gra/mmata\ntithei\\s a)lla\\ t\u00ea\\n te/chn\u00ean no/mon parecho/menos.]]\n\n[Footnote 30: Plato, Politik. pp. 300 C, 295 B-C.]\n\n[Footnote 31: Plato, Politik. p. 296 C-D.]\n\n[Footnote 32: Plato, Politik. p. 297 A.]\n\n[Side-note: Fixed laws, limiting the scientific Governor, are\nmischievous, as they would be for the physician and the steersman.\nAbsurdity of determining medical practice by laws, and presuming\nevery one to know it.]\n\nHow mischievous would it be (continues the Eleate) if we\nprescribed by fixed laws how the physician or the steersman should\npractise their respective arts: if we held them bound to\nperemptory rules, punishing them whenever they departed from those\nrules, and making them accountable before the Dikastery, when any\none accused them of doing so: if we consecrated these rules and\ndogmas, forbidding all criticism or censure upon them, and putting\nto death the free enquirer as a dreaming, prosy, Sophist,\ncorrupting the youth and inciting lawless discontent![33] How\nabsurd, if we pretended that every citizen did know, or might or\nought to know, these two arts; because the matters concerning them\nwere enrolled in the laws, and because no one ought to be wiser\nthan the laws?[34] Who would think of imposing any such fetters on\nother arts, such as those of the general, the painter, the\nhusbandman, the carpenter, the prophet, the cattle-dealer? To\nimpose them would be to render life, hard as it is even now,\naltogether intolerable. Yet these are the trammels under which in\nactual cities the political Art is exercised.[35]\n\n[Footnote 33: Plato, Politik. pp. 298-299. 299 B: [Greek: Kai\\\ntoi/nun e)/ti de\u00ea/sei the/sthai no/mon e)pi\\ pa=si tou/tois, a)/n\ntis kubern\u00eatik\u00ea\\n kai\\ to\\ nautiko\\n \u00ea)\\ to\\ u(gieino\\n kai\\\ni)atrik\u00ea=s a)l\u00eathei/an . . . z\u00eat\u00f4=n phai/n\u00eatai para\\ ta\\ gra/mmata\nkai\\ sophizo/menos o(tiou=n peri\\ ta\\ toiau=ta, pr\u00f4=ton me\\n m\u00ea/te\ni)atriko\\n au)to\\n m\u00ea/te kubern\u00eatiko\\n o)noma/zein, a)lla\\\nmete\u00f4ro/logon a)dole/sch\u00ean tina\\ sophist\u00ea\\n ei)=th' \u00f4(s\ndiaphthei/ronta a)/llous ne\u00f4te/rous kai\\ a)napei/thonta\ne)piti/thesthai kubern\u00eatik\u00ea=|], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 34: Plato, Polit. p. 299 C. [Greek: a)\\n de\\ para\\ tou\\s\nno/mous kai\\ ta\\ gegramme/na do/x\u00ea| pei/thein ei)/te ne/ous ei)/te\npresbu/tas, kola/zein toi=s e)scha/tois. Ou)de\\n ga\\r dei=n t\u00f4=n\nno/m\u00f4n, ei)=nai soph\u00f4/teron; ou)de/na ga\\r a)gnoei=n to/ te\ni)atriko\\n kai\\ to\\ u(gieino\\n ou)de\\ to\\ kubern\u00eatiko\\n kai\\\nnautiko/n; e)xei=nai ga\\r t\u00f4=| boulome/n\u00f4| mantha/nein gegramme/na\nkai\\ pa/tria e)/th\u00ea kei/mena.]]\n\n[Footnote 35: Plato, Polit. p. 299 D-E. [Greek: \u00f4(/ste o( bi/os,\n\u00f4(n kai\\ nu=n chalepo/s, ei)s to\\n chro/non e)kei=non a)bi/\u00f4tos\ngi/gnoit' a)\\n to\\ para/pan.]]\n\n[Side-note: Government by fixed laws is better than lawless\ngovernment by unscientific men, but worse than lawless government\nby scientific men. It is a second-best.]\n\nSuch are the mischiefs inseparable, in greater or less degree,\nfrom fixed and peremptory laws. Yet grave as these mischiefs are,\nthere are others yet graver, which such laws tend to obviate. If\nthe magistrate appointed to guard and enforce the laws, ventures\nto break or contravene them, simulating, but not really\npossessing, the Art or Science of the genuine Ruler--he will make\nmatters far worse. The laws at any rate are such as the citizens\nhave been accustomed to, and such as give a certain measure of\nsatisfaction. But the arbitrary rule of this violent and\nunscientific Governor is a tyranny:[36] which is greatly worse\nthan the laws. Fixed laws are thus a second-best:[37] assuming\nthat you cannot obtain a true scientific, artistic, Governor. If\nsuch a man could be obtained, men would be delighted to live under\nhim. But they despair of ever seeing such a character, and they\ntherefore cling to fixed laws, in spite of the numerous\nconcomitant mischiefs.[38] These mischiefs are indeed so serious,\nthat when we look at actual cities, we are astonished how they get\non under such a system; and we cannot but feel how firm and deeply\nrooted a city naturally is.[39]\n\n[Footnote 36: Plato, Politik. p. 300 A-B, 301 B-C.]\n\n[Footnote 37: Plato, Politik. p. 300 C. [Greek: deu/teros\nplou=s].]\n\n[Footnote 38: Plato, Politik. p. 301 D.]\n\n[Footnote 39: Plato, Polit. p. 302 A. [Greek: \u00ea)\\ e)kei=no \u00ea(mi=n\nthaumaste/on ma=llon, \u00f4(s i)schuro/n ti po/lis e)sti\\ phu/sei?]]\n\n[Side-note: Comparison of unscientific governments. The one despot\nis the worse. Democracy is the least bad, because it is least of a\ngovernment.]\n\nWe see therefore (the Eleate goes on) that there is no true\npolity--nothing which deserves the name of a genuine political\nsociety--except the government of one chief, scientific or\nartistic. With him laws are superfluous and even inconvenient. All\nother polities are counterfeits: factions and cabals, rather than\ngovernments:[40] delusions carried on by tricksters and conjurers.\nBut among these other polities or sham polities, there is a\nmaterial difference as to greater or less badness: and the\ndifference turns upon the presence or absence of good laws. Thus,\nthe single-headed government, called monarchy (assuming the Prince\nnot to be a man of science or art) is the best of all the\nsham-polities, if the Prince rules along with and in observance of\nknown good laws: but it is the worst of them all, if he rules\nwithout such laws, as a despot or tyrant. Oligarchy, or the\ngovernment of a few--if under good laws, is less good than that of\nthe Prince under the same circumstances--if without such laws, is\nless bad than that of the despot. Lastly, the government of the\nmany is less good under the one supposition--and less bad under\nthe other. It is less effective, either for good or for evil. It\nis in fact less of a government: the administrative force being\nlost by dissipation among many hands for short intervals; and more\nfree play being thus left to individuals. Accordingly, assuming\nthe absence of laws, democracy is the least bad or most tolerable\nof the six varieties of sham-polity. Assuming the presence of\nlaws, it is the worst of them.[41]\n\n[Footnote 40: Plato, Polit. pp. 302-303 B-C. [Greek: tou\\s\nkoin\u00f4nou\\s tou/t\u00f4n t\u00f4=n politei\u00f4=n pas\u00f4=n, pl\u00ea\\n t\u00ea=s\ne)pist\u00ea/monos, a)phairete/on \u00f4(s ou)k o)/ntas politikou\\s a)lla\\\nstasiastikou/s, kai\\ ei)d\u00f4/l\u00f4n megi/st\u00f4n prosta/tas o)/ntas kai\\\nau)tou\\s ei)=nai toiou/tous, megi/stous de\\ o)/ntas mim\u00eata\\s kai\\\ngo/\u00eatas megi/stous gi/gnesthai t\u00f4=n sophist\u00f4=n sophista/s.]]\n\n[Footnote 41: Plato, Polit. p. 302 B. [Greek: ti/s d\u00ea\\ t\u00f4=n ou)k\no)rth\u00f4=n politei\u00f4=n tou/t\u00f4n \u00ea(/kista chalep\u00ea\\ suz\u00ea=n, pas\u00f4=n\nchalep\u00f4=n ou)s\u00f4=n, kai\\ ti/s baruta/t\u00ea?] Also p. 303 A-B.]\n\n[Side-note: The true governor distinguished from the General, the\nRhetor, &c. They are all properly his subordinates and\nauxiliaries.]\n\nWe have thus severed the genuine scientific Governor from the\nunworthy counterfeits by whom his agency is mimicked in actual\nsociety. But we have still to sever him from other worthier\nfunctionaries, analogous and cognate, with whom he co-operates;\nand to show by what characteristic he is distinguished from\npersons such as the General, the Judge, the Rhetor or Persuader to\ngood and just objects. The distinction is, that all these\nfunctions, however honourable functions, are still nevertheless\nessentially subordinate and ministerial, assuming a sovereign\nguidance from some other quarter to direct them. Thus the General\nmay, by his strategic art, carry on war effectively; but he must\nbe directed when, and against whom, war is to be carried on. The\nJudge may decide quarrels without fear, antipathy, or favour: but\nthe general rules for deciding them must be prescribed to him by a\nhigher authority. So too the Rhetor may apply his art well, to\npersuade people, or to work upon their emotions, without teaching\nthem: but he must be told by some one else, when and on what\noccasions persuasion is suitable, and when force must be employed\ninstead of it.[42] Each of these functionaries must learn, what\nhis own art will not teach him, the proper seasons, persons, and\nlimitations, among and under which his art is to be applied. To\nfurnish such guidance is the characteristic privilege and duty of\nthe scientific chief, for which he alone is competent. He does not\nact himself, but he originates, directs, and controls, all the\nreal agents and agencies. Without him, none of them are available\nor beneficial towards their special ends. He alone can judge of\ntheir comparative value, and of the proper reasons for invoking or\nrestraining their interference.[43]\n\n[Footnote 42: Plato, Polit. pp. 304-305.]\n\n[Footnote 43: Plato, Polit. p. 305 D. [Greek: t\u00ea\\n ga\\r o)/nt\u00f4s\nou)=san basilik\u00ea\\n ou)k au)t\u00ea\\n dei= pra/ttein, a)ll' a)/rchein\nt\u00f4=n duname/n\u00f4n pra/ttein, gign\u00f4/skousan t\u00ea\\n a)rch\u00ea/n te kai\\\no(rm\u00ea\\n t\u00f4=n megi/st\u00f4n e)n tai=s po/lesin e)gkairi/as te pe/ri\nkai\\ a)kairi/as, ta\\s d' a)/llas ta\\ prostachthe/nta dra=|n.]]\n\n[Side-note: What the scientific Governor will do. He will aim at\nthe formation of virtuous citizens. He will weave together the\nenergetic virtues with the gentle virtues. Natural dissidence\nbetween them.]\n\nThe great scientific Governor being thus defined, and logically\ndistinguished from all others liable to be confounded with him,\nPlato concludes by a brief statement what his principal functions\nare. He will aim at ensuring among his citizens the most virtuous\ncharacters and the best ethical combinations. Like the weaver (to\nwhom he has been already assimilated) he will put together the\ngreat political web or tissue of improved citizenship,\nintertwining the strong and energetic virtues (the warp) with the\nyielding and gentler virtues (the woof).[44] Both these\ndispositions are parts or branches of virtue; but there is a\nnatural variance or repulsion between them.[45] Each of them is\ngood, in proper measure and season: each of them is bad, out of\nmeasure and season. The combination of both, in due proportion, is\nindispensable to form the virtuous citizen: and that combination\nit is the business of the scientific Governor to form and uphold.\nIt is with a view to this end that he must set at work all the\nagents of teaching and education, and must even interfere to\narrange the intermarriages of the citizens; not allowing the\nstrong and courageous families to form alliance with each other,\nlest the breed should in time become too violent--nor the gentle\nand quiet families to do the like, lest the offspring should\ndegenerate into stupidity.[46]\n\n[Footnote 44: Plato, Polit. pp. 306-307. [Greek: t\u00ea\\n basilik\u00ea\\n\nsumplok\u00ea/n].]\n\n[Footnote 45: Plato, Polit. pp. 306 A-B, 307 C, 308 B.]\n\n[Footnote 46: Plato, Polit. pp. 308-309-310.]\n\n[Side-note: If a man sins by excess of the energetic element, he is\nto be killed or banished: if of the gentle, he is to be made a\nslave. The Governor must keep up in the minds of the citizens an\nunanimous standard of ethical orthodoxy.]\n\nAll persons, who, unable to take on this conjunction, sin by an\nexcess of the strong element, manifesting injustice or\nirreligion--must be banished or put to death:[47] all who sin by\nexcess of the feebler element, exhibiting stupidity and meanness,\nmust be degraded into slavery. Above all things, the scientific\nGovernor must himself dictate, and must implant and maintain,\nin the minds of all his citizens, an authoritative standard of\northodox sentiment respecting what is just, honourable, good--and the\ncontrary.[48] If this be ensured, and if the virtues naturally\ndiscordant be attempered with proper care, he will make sure of a\nfriendly and harmonious community, enjoying as much happiness as\nhuman affairs admit.[49]\n\n[Footnote 47: Plato, Polit. p. 309 A.]\n\n[Footnote 48: Plato, Polit. pp. 309 C, 310 E.]\n\n[Footnote 49: Plato, Polit. p. 311 B-C.]\n\n* * * * *\n\n[Side-note: Remarks--Sokratic Ideal--Title to govern mankind\nderived exclusively from scientific superiority in an individual\nperson.]\n\nI have thus given a brief abridgment of the main purpose of the\nPolitikus, and of the definition which Plato gives of the True\nGovernor and his function. I proceed to make a few remarks upon\nit.\n\nPlato's theory of government is founded upon the supposition of\nperfect knowledge--scientific or artistic intelligence--in the\nperson of the Governor: a partial approach, through teaching and\nacquired knowledge, to that immense superiority of the Governor\nover the Governed, which existed in the Saturnian period. It is\nthis, and this alone, which constitutes, in his estimation, the\ntitle to govern mankind. The Governor does not himself act: he\ndirects the agency of others: and the directions are dictated by\nhis knowledge. I have already observed that Sokrates had himself\nenunciated the doctrine--Superior scientific competence (the\nspecial privilege of a professor or an artist) is the only\nlegitimate title to govern.\n\n[Side-note: Different ways in which this ideal is worked out by\nPlato and Xenophon. The man of speculation and the man of action.]\n\nFrom Sokrates the idea passed both to Plato and to Xenophon: and\nthe contrast between the two is shown forcibly by the different\nway in which they deal with it. Xenophon has worked it out on a\nlarge scale, in the Cyrop\u00e6dia--on a small scale, in the\nOEconomicus. Cyrus in the former, Ischomachus in the latter,\nknows better than any one else what is to be done, and gives\norders accordingly. But both the one and the other are also\nforemost in action, setting example as well as giving orders to\nothers. Now Plato, while developing the same idea, draws a marked\nline of distinction between Science and Practice:--between\ndirection and execution.[50] His scientific Governor does not act\nat all, but he gives orders to all the different men of action,\nand he is the only person who knows on what occasions and within\nwhat limits each agent should put forth his own special aptitude.\nHerein we discern one of the distinctions between these two _viri\nSocratici_: Xenophon, the soldier and man of action--Plato, the\nspeculative philosopher. Xenophon conceives the conditions of the\nTrue Governor in a larger way than Plato, for he includes among\nthem the forward and energetic qualities requisite for acting on\nthe feelings of the subject Many, and for disposing them to follow\norders with cheerfulness and zeal:[51] whereas Plato makes\nabstraction of this part of the conditions, and postulates\nobedience on the part of the many as an item in his fundamental\nhypothesis. Indeed he perpetually presents us with the comparison\nof the physician, who cuts and burns for the purpose of ultimate\ncure. Plato either neglects, or assumes as a matter of course, the\nsentiments of the persons commanded, or the conditions of willing\nobedience; while Xenophon dwells upon the maintenance of such\nsentiments as one of the capital difficulties in the problem of\ngovernment. And we perceive a marked contrast between the\nunskilful proceedings of Plato, when he visited Dionysius II. at\nSyracuse, illustrating his (Plato's) inaptitude for dealing with a\nreal situation--and the judicious management of Xenophon, when\nacting as one of the leaders of the Cyreian army under\ncircumstances alike unexpected and perilous.\n\n[Footnote 50: Plato, Polit. pp. 259 C-D, 305 D.]\n\n[Footnote 51: See the preface to Xenophon's Cyrop\u00e6dia; also\nCyrop\u00e6d. i. 6, 20; and his Oecon. c. 21, and c. 13, 4, where we\nsee the difference between the Xenophontic idea, and the Platonic\nidea, of [Greek: o( a)rchiko\\s a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n, oi( thei=oi kai\\\na)gathoi\\ kai\\ e)pist\u00ea/mones a)/rchontes].]\n\n[Side-note: The theory in the Politikus is the contradiction to\nthat theory which is assigned to Protagoras in the Protagoras.]\n\nPlato here sets forth the business of governing as a special art,\nanalogous to the special art of the weaver, the steersman, the\nphysician. Now in each special art, the requisite knowledge and\ncompetence is possessed only by the one or few artists who\npractise them. The knowledge possessed by such one or few,\nsuffices for all the remaining community; who benefit by it, but\nare altogether ignorant on the matter, and follow orders\nblindfold. As this one Artist is the only competent person for the\ntask, so he is assumed _qu\u00e2_ Artist, to be infallible in the\nperformance of the task--never to go wrong, nor to abuse his\npower, nor to aim at any collateral end.[52] Such is Plato's\ntheory of government in the Politikus. But if we turn to the\nProtagoras, we shall find this very theory of government\nexplicitly denied, and a counter-theory affirmed, in the discourse\nput into the mouth of Protagoras. That Sophist is made to\ndistinguish the political or social art, upon which the\npossibility of constituting or keeping up human society depends,\nfrom all other arts (manual, useful, linguistic), by this express\ncharacteristic: All other arts were distributed among mankind in\nsuch manner, that knowledge and skill were confined to an\nexclusive few, whose knowledge, each in his own special\ndepartment, sufficed for the service of all the rest, not favoured\nwith the like knowledge--but the political or social art was\ndistributed (by order of Zeus to Hermes) on a principle quite\nopposite. It was imparted to every member of society without\nexception. If it had been granted only to a few, and not to all,\nsociety could not have held together. Justice and the sense of\nshame (Temperance or Moderation), which are the bonds of the city\nand the fruits of the political art, must be instilled into every\nman. Whoever cannot take on and appropriate them (Zeus proclaims\nit as his law), must be slain as a nuisance or distemper of the\ncity.[53]\n\n[Footnote 52: Compare Plato, Republic, i. pp. 340-341.]\n\n[Footnote 53: Plato, Protag. pp. 322, 325 A.]\n\n[Side-note: Points of the Protagorean theory--rests upon common\nsentiment.]\n\nSuch we have seen to be the theory enunciated by the Platonic\nProtagoras (in the dialogue so-called) respecting the political or\nsocial art. It pervades all the members of society, as a common\nand universal attribute, though each man has his own specialty\nbesides. It was thus distributed at the outset by Zeus. It stands\nembodied in the laws and in the unwritten customs, so that one man\nmay know it as well as another. Every man makes open profession of\nknowing and possessing it:--which he cannot do with any special\nart. Fathers enforce it on their children by rewards and\npunishments, schoolmasters and musicians impart it by extracts\nfrom the poets: the old teach it to the young: nay every man, far\nfrom desiring to monopolise it for himself, is forward in teaching\nit to others: for it is the interest of every one that his\nneighbour should learn it. Since every one thus teaches it, there\nare no professed or special teachers: yet there are still some few\nwho can teach it a little better than others--and among those few\nI (says Protagoras) am one.[54]\n\n[Footnote 54: Plato, Protag. pp. 327-328.]\n\n[Side-note: Counter-Theory in the Politikus. The exigencies of the\nEleate in the Politikus go much farther than those of Protagoras.]\n\nWhoever compares the doctrine of the Politikus[55] with the\nportion of the Protagoras[56] to which I have just referred, will\nsee that they stand to each other as theory and counter-theory.\nThe theory in the Politikus sets aside (intentionally or not) that\nin the Protagoras. The Platonic Protagoras, spokesman of King\nNomos, represents common sense, sentiment, sympathies and\nantipathies, written laws, and traditional customs known to all as\nwell as reverenced by the majority: the Platonic Politikus\nrepudiates all these, as preposterous fetters to the single\nGovernor who monopolises all political science and art. Let us add\ntoo, that the Platonic Protagoras (whom many commentators teach us\nto regard as a person of exorbitant arrogance and pretensions) is\na very modest man compared to the Eleate in the Platonic\nPolitikus. For the former accepts all the written laws and\nrespected customs around him,--admits that most others know them,\nin the main, as well as he,--and only professes to have acquired a\ncertain amount of superior skill in impressing them upon others:\nwhereas the latter sets them all aside, claims for himself an\nuncontradicted monopoly of social science and art, and postulates\nan extent of blind submission from society such as has never yet\nbeen yielded in history.\n\n[Footnote 55: Plato, Politik. p. 301 E.\n\nThe portion of this dialogue, from p. 296 to p. 302, enunciates\nthe doctrine of which I have given a brief abstract in the text.]\n\n[Footnote 56: Plato, Protag. pp. 321-328.]\n\n[Side-note: The Eleate complains that under the Protagorean theory\nno adverse criticism is allowed. The dissenter is either condemned\nto silence or punished.]\n\nThe Eleate here complains of it as a hardship, that amidst a\ncommunity actually established and existing, directed by written\nlaws, traditional customs and common sentiment (the Protagorean\nmodel),--he, the political artist, is interdicted from adverse\ncriticism and outspoken censure of the legal and consecrated\ndoctrines. If he talks as one wiser than the laws, or impugns them\nas he thinks that they deserve, or theorises in his own way\nrespecting the doctrines which they sanction--he is either laughed\nto scorn as a visionary, prosing, Sophist--or hated, and perhaps\npunished, as a corrupter of youth; as a person who brings the\ninstitutions of society into contempt, and encourages violators of\nthe law.[57]\n\n[Footnote 57: Plato, Politik. p. 299 B. [Greek: a)\\n tis . . .\nz\u00eat\u00f4=n phai/n\u00eatai para\\ ta\\ gra/mmata kai\\ sophizo/menos o(tiou=n\nperi\\ ta\\ toiau=ta.]\n\nIn the seventh book of Republic (p. 520 B), Plato describes the\nposition of the philosopher in an established society, springing\nup by his own internal force, against the opposition of all the\nsocial influences--[Greek: au)to/matoi ga\\r e)mphu/ontai a)kou/s\u00eas\nt\u00ea=s e)n e(ka/st\u00ea| (po/lei) politei/as], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Intolerance at Athens, not so great as elsewhere. Plato\ncomplains of the assumption of infallibility in existing\nsocieties, but exacts it severely in that which he himself\nconstructs.]\n\nThe reproach implied in these phrases of Plato is doubtless\nintended as an allusion to the condemnation of Sokrates. It is a\nreproach well-founded against that proceeding of the government of\nAthens:--and would have been still better founded against other\ncontemporary governments. That the Athenians were intolerant, is\nnot to be denied: but they were less intolerant than any of their\ncontemporaries. Nowhere else except at Athens could Sokrates have\ngone on until seventy years of age talking freely in the\nmarket-place against the received political and religious orthodoxy.\nThere was more free speech ([Greek: par)r(\u00easi/a])[58] at Athens\nthan in any part of the contemporary world. Plato, Xenophon, and\nthe other companions of Sokrates, proclaimed by lectures and\nwritings that they thought themselves wiser than the laws of\nAthens: yet though the Gorgias was intended as well as adapted to\nbring into hatred and contempt both those laws and the persons who\nadministered them, the Athenian Rhetors never indicted Plato for\nlibel. Upon this point, we can only speak comparatively: for\nperfect liberty of proclaiming opinions neither does now exist,\nnor ever has existed, any where. Most men have no genuine respect\nfor the right of another to form and express an opinion\ndissentient from theirs: if they happen to hate the opinion, they\naccount it a virtue to employ as much ill-usage or menace as will\nfrighten the holder thereof into silence. Plato here points out in\nemphatic language,[59] the deplorable consequences of assuming\ninfallibility and perfection for the legal and customary orthodoxy\nof the country, and prohibiting free censure by dissentient\nindividuals. But this is on the supposition that the laws and\ncustoms are founded only on common sense and traditional\nreverence:--and that the scientific Governor is among the\ndissenters. Plato's judgment is radically different when he\nsupposes the case reversed:--when King Nomos is superseded by the\nscientific Professor of whom Plato dreams, or by a lawgiver who\nrepresents him. We shall observe this when we come to the Treatise\nde Legibus, in which Plato constitutes an orthodoxy of his own,\nprohibiting free dissent by restrictions and penalties stricter\nthan any which were known to antiquity. He cannot recognise an\ninfallible common sense: but he has no scruple in postulating an\ninfallible scientific dictator, and in enthroning himself as such.\nThough well aware that reasoned truth presents itself to different\nphilosophers in different versions, he does not hesitate to\ncondemn those philosophers who differ from him, to silence or to\nsomething worse.\n\n[Footnote 58: See Euripides, Ion, 671.\n\n [Greek: e)k t\u00f4=n A)th\u00ean\u00f4=n m' \u00ea( tekou=s' ei)/\u00ea gun\u00ea/,\n\u00f4(/s moi ge/noito m\u00eatro/then par)r(\u00easi/a.]\n\nAlso Euripid. Hippolyt. 424, and Plato, Gorgias, p. 461 E, where\nSokrates says to Polus--[Greek: deina\\ me/nt' a)\\n pa/thois, ei)\nA)th\u00ea/naze a)phiko/menos, ou)= t\u00ea=s E(lla/dos, plei/st\u00ea e)sti\\n\ne)xousi/a tou= le/gein, e)/peita su\\ e)ntau=tha tou/tou mo/nos\na)tuch\u00ea/sais], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 59: Plato, Polit. p. 299 E.]\n\n[Side-note: Theory of the Politikus--distinguished three gradations\nof polity. Gigantic individual force the worst.]\n\nIt will appear then that the Platonic Politikus distinguishes\nthree varieties and gradations of social constitution.\n\n1. _Science or Art. Systematic Construction from the beginning,\nbased upon Theory._--That which is directed by the constant\nsupervision of a scientific or artistic Ruler. This is the only\ntrue or legitimate polity. Represented by Plato in Republic.\nIllustrated by the systematic scheme of weights, measures,\napportionment of years, months, and days, in calendar--put\ntogether on scientific principles by the French Convention in\n1793--as contrasted with the various local, incoherent, growths,\nwhich had obtained recognition through custom or arbitrary\npreference of unscientific superiors.\n\n2. _Common Sense. Unsystematic Aggregate of Customs, accepted in\nan Actual Society._--That which is directed by written laws and\nfixed traditional customs, known to every one, approved by the\ncommon sense of the community, and communicated as well as upheld\nby the spontaneous teaching of the majority. King Nomos.\n\nThis stands for the second best scheme: the least objectionable\nform of degeneracy--yet still a degeneracy. It is the scheme set\nforth by the Platonic Protagoras, in the dialogue so called.\nRepresented with improvements by Plato in Treatise De Legibus.\n\n3. _Gigantic Individual Force._--That in which some violent\nindividual--not being really scientific or artistic, but perhaps\nfalsely pretending to be so--violates and tramples under foot the\nestablished laws and customs, under the stimulus of his own\nexorbitant ambition and unmeasured desires.\n\nThis is put forward as the worst scheme of all: as the greatest\ndepravation of society, and the greatest forfeiture of public as\nwell as private happiness. We have here the proposition which\nP\u00f4lus and Kallikl\u00eas are introduced as defending in the Gorgias,\nand Thrasymachus in the Republic. In both dialogues, Sokrates\nundertakes to expose it. The great benefit conferred by King\nNomos, is, that he protects society against the maximum of evil.\n\n[Side-note: Comparison of the Politikus with the Republic. Points\nof analogy and difference.]\n\nAnother interesting comparison may be made: that between the\nPolitikus and the Republic. We must remember that the Politikus is\nannounced by Plato as having two purposes. 1. To give a lesson in\nthe method of definition and division. 2. To define the\ncharacteristic of the person bearing the name of Politikus,\ndistinguishing him from all others, analogous or disparate.--The\nmethod is here more prominent than the doctrine.\n\nBut in the Republic, no lesson of method is attempted; the\ndoctrine stands alone and independent of it. We shall find however\nthat the doctrine is essentially the same. That which the\nPolitikus lays down in brief outline, is in the Republic amplified\nand enlarged; presented with many variations and under different\npoints of view, yet, still at the bottom, the same doctrine, both\nas to affirmation and negation. The Republic affirms (as the\nPolitikus does) the exclusive legitimacy of science, art,\nintelligence, &c., as the initiatory and omnipotent authority over\nall the constituent members of society: and farther, that such\nintelligence can have no place except in one or a few privileged\npersons. The Republic (like the Politikus) presents to us the\nmarch of society with its Principal Cause--its concurrent or\nAuxiliary Causes--and its inferior governable mass or matter, the\nhuman flock, indispensable and co-essential as a part of the whole\nscheme. In the Republic, the Cause is represented by the small\ncouncil of philosophical Elders: the concurrent causes, by the\nGuardians or trained soldiers: the inferior matter, by the\nremaining society, which is distributed among various trades,\nproviding for the subsistence and wants of all. The explanation of\nJustice (which is the ostensible purpose of the Republic) is made\nto consist in the fact--That each one of these several parts does\nits own special work--nothing more--nothing less. Throughout all\nthe Republic, a constant parallelism is carried on (often indeed\noverstrained) between the community and the individual man. In the\none as well as in the other, Plato recognises the three\nconstituent elements, all essential as co-operators, but each with\nits own special function: in the individual, he recognises three\nsouls (encephalic, thoracic, and abdominal) as corresponding to\nElders, Guardians, and Producers, in the community. Here are the\nsame features as those given in outline in the Politikus: but the\ntwo higher features of the three appear greatly expanded in the\nRepublic: the training and conditions proper for the philosophic\nArtist or Governor, and for his auxiliaries the Guardians, being\ndescribed and vindicated at great length. Moreover, in the\nRepublic, Plato not only repeats the doctrine[60] that the right\nof command belongs to every art in its own province and over its\nown subject-matter (which is the cardinal point in the\nPolitikus)--but he farther proclaims that each individual neither can\nexercise, nor ought to exercise, more than one art. He allows no\ndouble men or triple men[61]--\"Quam quisque novit artem, in e\u00e2 se\nexerceat\". He would not have respected the Xenophontic Cyrus or\nIschomachus. He carries the principle of specialization to its\nextreme point. His Republic is an aggregate of special artists and\nprofessional aptitudes: among whom the Governor is only one,\nthough the first and rarest. He sets aside the common basis of\nsocial endowments essential to every man: upon which each man's\nspecialty is superinduced in the theory of the Platonic\nProtagoras. The only common quality which Plato admits is,--That\neach man, and each of the three souls composing each man, shall do\nhis own business and his own business only: this is his definition\nof Justice, in the Republic.[62]\n\n[Footnote 60: Plato, Republ. i. p. 342 C. [Greek: A)lla\\ m\u00ea\\n\na)/rchousi ge ai( te/chnai kai\\ kratou=sin e)kei/nou ou)= per\nei)si\\ te/chnai.]]\n\n[Footnote 61: Plato, Republ. ii. pp. 370 B, 374 B--395-397 E.\n[Greek: ou)k e)/sti diplou=s a)n\u00ea\\r par' \u00ea(mi=n ou)de\\\npollaplou=s, e)peid\u00ea\\ e(/kastos e(\\n pra/ttei] (p. 397 E).]\n\n[Footnote 62: Plato, Republ. iv. p. 433.]\n\n[Side-note: Comparison of the Politikus with the Kratylus.\nDictatorial, constructive, science or art, common to both: applied\nin the former to social administration--in the latter to the\nformation and modification of names.]\n\nLastly, I will illustrate the Politikus by comparison with the\nKratylus, which will be treated in the next chapter. The\nconception of dictatorial science or art, which I have stated as\nthe principal point in the Politikus, appears again in the\nKratylus applied to a different subject--naming, or the imposition\nof names. Right and legitimate name-giving is declared to be an\naffair of science or art, like right and legitimate polity: it can\nonly be performed by the competent scientific or artistic\nname-giver, or by the lawgiver considered in that special capacity.\nThe second title of the dialogue Kratylus is [Greek: Peri\\ O)noma/t\u00f4n\nO)rtho/t\u00eatos]--On the Rectitude or legitimacy of names. What\nconstitutes right and legitimate Name-giving? In like manner, we\nmight provide a second title for the Politikus--[Greek: Peri\\\nPolitei/as O)rtho/t\u00eatos]--On the rectitude or legitimacy of polity\nor sociality. What constitutes right or legitimate sociality?[63]\nPlato answers--It is the constant dictation and supervision of art\nor science--or of the scientific, artistic, dictator, who alone\nknows both the End and the means. This alone is right and true\nsociality--or sociality as it ought to be. So, if we read the\nKratylus, we find Plato defining in the same way right\nName-giving--or name-giving as it ought to be. It is when each name\nis given by an artistic name-constructor, who discerns the Form of\nthe name naturally suitable in each particular case, and can\nembody it in appropriate letters and syllables.[64] A true or\nright name signifies by likeness to the thing signified.[65] The\ngood lawgiver discerns this likeness: but all lawgivers are not\ngood: the bad lawgiver fancies that he discerns it, but is often\nmistaken.[66] It would be the ideal perfection of language, if\nevery name could be made to signify by likeness to the thing\nnamed. But this cannot be realised: sufficient likenesses cannot\nbe found to furnish an adequate stock of names. In the absence of\nsuch best standard, we are driven to eke out language by appealing\nto a _second-best_, an inferior and vulgar principle approximating\nmore or less, to rectitude--that is, custom and convention.[67]\n\n[Footnote 63: The exact expression occurs in Politikus, pp. 293 E,\n294 A. [Greek: nu=n de\\ \u00ea)/d\u00ea phanero\\n o(/ti tou=to\nboul\u00easo/metha, to\\ peri\\ t\u00ea=s t\u00f4=n a)/neu no/m\u00f4n a)rcho/nt\u00f4n\no)rtho/t\u00eatos dielthei=n \u00ea(ma=s.]\n\nThe [Greek: o)rth\u00ea/, a)l\u00eathin\u00ea/, gn\u00easi/a, politei/a] are phrases\nemployed several times--pp. 292 A-C, 293 B-E, 296 E, 297 B-D. 300\nD-E: [Greek: o( a)l\u00eathino/s, o( e)/ntechnos]. 300 E: [Greek: t\u00ea\\n\na)l\u00eathin\u00ea\\n e)kei/n\u00ean, t\u00ea\\n tou= e(no\\s meta\\ te/chn\u00eas a)/rchontos\npolitei/an]. 302 A-E.\n\nPlato sometimes speaks as if a bad [Greek: politei/a] were no\n[Greek: politei/a] at all--as if a bad [Greek: no/mos] were no\n[Greek: no/mos] at all. See above, vol. ii. ch. xiv. pp. 88, where\nI have touched on this point in reviewing the Minos. This is a\nfrequent and perplexing confusion, but purely verbal. Compare\nAristotel. Polit. iii. 2. p. 1276, a. 1, where he deals with the\nlike confusion--[Greek: a)=r' ei) m\u00ea\\ dikai/\u00f4s poli/t\u00eas, ou)\npoli/t\u00eas?]]\n\n[Footnote 64: Plato, Kratylus, p. 388 E. [Greek: Ou)/k a)/ra\npanto\\s a)ndro\\s o)/noma the/sthai e)/stin, a)lla/ tinos\no)nomatourgou/; ou(=tos d' e)/stin, \u00f4(s e)/oiken, o( nomothe/t\u00eas,\no(\\s d\u00ea\\ t\u00f4=n d\u00eamiourg\u00f4=n spani\u00f4/tatos e)n a)nthr\u00f4/pois\ngi/gnetai.] Compare Politik. p. 292 D.]\n\n[Footnote 65: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 430, 431 D, 430 C.]\n\n[Footnote 66: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 431 E, 436 B.]\n\n[Footnote 67: Plato, Kratyl. p. 435 B-C.\n\nSo in the Protagoras (p. 328 A) we find the Platonic Protagoras\ncomparing the self-originated and self-sustaining traditional\nethics, to the traditional language--[Greek: ti/s dida/skalo/s\ne)sti tou= E(ll\u00eani/zein?]]\n\nWe see thus that in the Kratylus also, as well as in the\nPolitikus, the systematic dictation of the Man of Science or Art\nis pronounced to be the only basis of complete rectitude. Below\nthis, and far short of it, yet still indispensable as a supplement\nin real life--is, the authority of unsystematic custom or\nconvention; not emanating from any systematic constructive Artist,\nbut actually established (often, no one knows how) among the\ncommunity, and resting upon their common sentiment, memory, and\ntradition.\n\n[Side-note: Courage and Temperance are assumed in the Politikus. No\nnotice taken of the doubts and difficulties raised in Lach\u00eas and\nCharmid\u00eas.]\n\nThis is the true Platonic point of view, considering human affairs\nin every department, the highest as well as the lowest, as\nsubjects of Art and Science: specialization of attributes and\nsubdivision of function, so that the business of governing falls\nto the lot of one or a few highly qualified Governors: while the\nsocial edifice is assumed to have been constructed from the\nbeginning by one of these Governors, with a view to consistent,\nsystematic, predetermined ends--instead of that incoherent\naggregate[68] which is consecrated under the empire of law and\ncustom. Here in the Politikus, we read that the great purpose of\nthe philosophical Governor is to train all the citizens into\nvirtuous characters: by a proper combination of Courage and\nTemperance, two endowments naturally discordant, yet each alike\nessential in its proper season and measure. The interweaving of\nthese two forms the true Regal Web of social life.[69]\n\n[Footnote 68:The want of coherence, or of reference to any common\nand distinct End, among the bundle of established [Greek: No/mima]\nis noted by Aristotle, Polit. vii. 2, 1324, b. 5: [Greek: dio\\ kai\\\nt\u00f4=n plei/st\u00f4n nomi/m\u00f4n chu/d\u00ean, \u00f4(s ei)pei=n _keime/n\u00f4n_ para\\\ntoi=s plei/stois, o(/m\u00f4s, ei)/ pou/ ti pro\\s e(\\n oi( no/moi\nble/pousi, tou= kratei=n stocha/zontai Kr\u00ea/t\u00ea| pro\\s tou\\s\npole/mous sunte/taktai schedo\\n \u00ea)\\ te paidei/a kai\\ to\\ t\u00f4=n\nno/m\u00f4n pl\u00ea=thos.]\n\nCustom and education surround all prohibitions with the like\nsanctity--both those most essential to the common security, and\nthose which emanate from capricious or local antipathy--in the\nminds of docile citizens.\n\n[Greek: I)=so/n toi kua/mous te phagei=n, kephala/s te tok\u00ea/\u00f4n.]\n\nAristotle dissents from Plato on the point of always vesting the\ngoverning functions in the same hands. He considers such a\nprovision dangerous and intolerable to the governed.\n\nAristot. Polit. ii. 5, 1264, b. 6.]\n\n[Footnote 69: Plato, Polit. p. 306 A. [Greek: basilik\u00ea\\\nsumplok\u00ea/], &c.\n\nSchleiermacher in his Introduction to the Politikus (pp. 254-256)\ntreats this [Greek: basilik\u00ea\\ sumplok\u00ea\\] as a poor and\ninsignificant function, for the political Artist determined and\ninstalled by so elaborate a method and classification. But the\ndialogue was already so long that Plato could not well lengthen it\nby going into fuller details. Socher points out (Ueber Platon's\nSchrift. p. 274) discrepancies between the Politikus on one side,\nand Protagoras and Gorgias on the other--which I think are really\ndiscoverable, though I do not admit the inference which he draws\nfrom them.]\n\nSuch is the concluding declaration of the accomplished Eleatic\nexpositor, to Sokrates and the other auditors. But this suggests\nto us another question, when we revert to some of the Platonic\ndialogues handled in the preceding pages. What _are_ Virtue,\nCourage, Temperance? In the Menon, the Platonic Sokrates had\nproclaimed, that he did not himself know what virtue was: that he\nhad never seen any one else who did know: that it was impossible\nto say how virtue could be communicated, until you knew what\nvirtue was--and impossible to determine any one of the parts of\nvirtue, until virtue had been determined as a whole. In the\nCharmid\u00eas, Sokrates had affirmed that he did not know what\nTemperance was; he then tested several explanations thereof,\npropounded by Charmides and Kritias: but ending only in universal\npuzzle and confessed ignorance. In the Lach\u00eas, he had done the\nsame with Courage: not without various expressions of regret for\nhis own ignorance, and of surprise at those who talked freely\nabout generalities which they had never probed to the bottom.\nPerplexed by these doubts and difficulties--which perplexed yet\nmore all his previous hearers, the modest beauty of Charmides and\nthe mature dignity of Nikias and Laches--Sokrates now finds\nhimself in presence of the Eleate, who talks about Virtue,\nTemperance, Courage, &c., as matters determinate and familiar.\nHere then would have been the opportunity for Sokrates to\nreproduce all his unsolved perplexities, and to get them cleared\nup by the divine Stranger who is travelling on a mission of\nphilosophy. The third dialogue, to be called the Philosophus,\nwhich Plato promises as sequel to the Sophist\u00eas and Politikus,\nwould have been well employed in such a work of elucidation.\n\n[Side-note: Purpose of the difficulties in Plato's Dialogues of\nSearch--To stimulate the intellect of the hearer. His exposition\ndoes not give solutions.]\n\nThis, I say, is what we might have expected, if Plato had\ncorresponded to the picture drawn by admiring commentators: if he\nhad merely tied knots in one dialogue, in order to untie them in\nanother. But we find nothing of the kind, nor is such a picture of\nPlato correct. The dialogue Philosophus does not exist, and\nprobably was never written. Respecting the embarrassments of the\nMenon, Lach\u00eas, Charmid\u00eas, Alkibiad\u00eas I., Protagoras,\nEuthyphron--Sokrates says not a word--[Greek: ou)de\\ gru/]--to urge\nthem upon the attention of the Eleate: who even alludes with\ndispleasure to contentious disputants as unfair enemies. For the\nright understanding of these mysterious but familiar words--Virtue,\nCourage, Temperance--we are thrown back upon the common passive,\nunscientific, unreasoning, consciousness: or upon such measure and\nvariety of it as each of us may have chanced to imbibe from the\nlocal atmosphere, unassisted by any special revelation from\nphilosophy. At any rate, the Eleate furnishes no interpretative\naid. He employs the words, as if the hearers understood them of\ncourse, without the slightest intimation that any difficulty\nattaches to them. Plato himself ignores all the difficulties, when\nhe is putting positive exposition into the mouth of the Eleate.\nPuzzles and perplexities belong to the Dialogues of Search; in\nwhich they serve their purpose, if they provoke the intellect of\nthe hearer to active meditation and effort, for the purpose of\nobtaining a solution.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI.\n\nKRATYLUS.\n\n\nThe dialogue entitled Kratylus presents numerous difficulties to\nthe commentators: who differ greatly in their manner of\nexplaining, First, What is its main or leading purpose? Next, How\nmuch of it is intended as serious reasoning, how much as mere\ncaricature or parody, for the purpose of exposing and reducing to\nabsurdity the doctrines of opponents? Lastly, who, if any, are the\nopponents thus intended to be ridiculed?\n\n[Side-note: Persons and subjects of the dialogue Kratylus--Sokrates\nhas no formed opinion, but is only a Searcher with the others.]\n\nThe subject proposed for discussion is, the rectitude or inherent\npropriety of names. How far is there any natural adaptation, or\nspecial fitness, of each name to the thing named? Two disputants\nare introduced who invoke Sokrates as umpire. Hermogenes asserts\nthe negative of the question; contending that each name is\ndestitute of natural significance, and acquires its meaning only\nfrom the mutual agreement and habitual usage of society.[1]\nKratylus on the contrary maintains the doctrine that each name has\na natural rectitude or fitness for its own significant\nfunction:--that there is an inherent bond of connection, a fundamental\nanalogy or resemblance between each name and the thing signified.\nSokrates carries on the first part of the dialogue with\nHermogenes, the last part with Kratylus.[2] He declares more than\nonce, that the subject is one on which he is ignorant, and has\nformed no conclusion: he professes only to prosecute the search\nfor a good conclusion, conjointly with his two companions.[3]\n\n[Footnote 1: In the arguments put into the mouth of Hermogenes, he\nis made to maintain two opinions which are not identical, but\nopposed. 1. That names are significant by habit and convention, and\nnot by nature. 2. That each man may and can give any name which he\npleases to any object (pp. 384-385).\n\nThe first of these two opinions is that which is really discussed\nhere: impugned in the first half of the dialogue, conceded in the\nsecond. It is implied that names are to serve the purpose of\nmutual communication and information among persons living in\nsociety; which purpose they would not serve if each individual\ngave a different name to the same object. The second opinion is\ntherefore not a consequence of the first, but an implied\ncontradiction of the first.\n\nHe who says that the names Horse and Dog are significant by\nconvention, will admit that at the outset they might have been\ninverted in point of signification; but he will not say that any\nindividual may invert them at pleasure, now that they are\nestablished. The purposes of naming would no longer be answered,\nif this were done.]\n\n[Footnote 2: The question between Hermogenes and Kratylus was much\ndebated among the philosophers and literary men throughout\nantiquity (Aul. Gell. x. 4). Origen says (contra Celsum, i. c.\n24)--[Greek: lo/gos bathu\\s kai\\ a)po/r)r(\u00eatos o( peri\\ phu/se\u00f4s\no)noma/t\u00f4n, po/teron, \u00f4(s oi)/etai A)ristote/l\u00eas, the/sei ei)=nai\nta\\ o)no/mata, \u00ea)\\, \u00f4(s nomi/zousin oi( a)po\\ t\u00ea=s Stoa=s,\nphu/sei.]\n\nAristotle assumes the question in favour of [Greek: the/sei], in\nhis treatise De Interpretatione, without any reasoning, against\nthe Platonic Kratylus; but his commentators, Ammonius and\nBoethius, note the controversy as one upon which eminent men in\nantiquity were much divided.\n\nPlato connects his opinion, that names have a natural rectitude of\nsignification, with his general doctrine of self-existent,\narchetypal, Forms or Ideas. The Stoics, and others who defended\nthe same opinion afterwards, seem to have disconnected it from\nthis latter doctrine.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 384 C, 391 A.]\n\n[Side-note: Argument of Sokrates against Hermogenes--all\nproceedings of nature are conducted according to fixed\nlaws--speaking and naming among the rest.]\n\nSokrates, refuting Hermogenes, lays down the following\ndoctrines.[4] If propositions are either true or false, names,\nwhich are parts of propositions, must be true or false also.[5]\nEvery thing has its own fixed and determinate essence, not\nrelative to us nor varying according to our fancy or pleasure, but\nexisting _per se_ as nature has arranged.[6] All agencies either\nby one thing upon other things, or by other things upon it, are in\nlike manner determined by nature, independent of our will and\nchoice. If we intend to cut or burn any substance, we must go to\nwork, not according to our own pleasure, but in the manner that\nnature prescribes: by attempting to do it contrary to nature, we\nshall do it badly or fail altogether.[7] Now _speaking_ is one of\nthese agencies, and _naming_ is a branch of _speaking_: what is\ntrue of other agencies is true of these also--we must name things,\nnot according to our own will and pleasure, but in the way that\nnature prescribes that they shall be named.[8] Farther, each\nagency must be performed by its appropriate instrument: cutting by\nthe axe, boring by the gimlet, weaving by the bodkin. The name is\nthe instrument of naming, whereby we communicate information and\ndistinguish things from each other. It is a didactic instrument:\nto be employed well, it must be in the hands of a properly\nqualified person for the purpose of teaching.[9] Not every man,\nbut only the professional craftsman, is competent to fabricate the\ninstruments of cutting and weaving. In like manner, not every man\nis competent to make a name: no one is competent except the\nlawgiver or the gifted name-maker, the rarest of all existing\nartists.[10]\n\n[Footnote 4: Aristot. De Interpretat. ii. 1-2: [Greek: O)/noma\nme\\n ou)=n e)sti\\ ph\u00f4n\u00ea\\ s\u00eamantik\u00ea\\ kata\\ sunth\u00ea/k\u00ean a)/neu\nchro/nou . . . to\\ de\\ kata\\ sunth\u00ea/k\u00ean, o(/ti phu/sei t\u00f4=n\no)noma/t\u00f4n ou)de/n e)stin], &c.\n\nThis is the same doctrine which Plato puts into the mouth of\nHermogenes (Kratylus, p. 384 E), and which Sokrates himself, in\nthe latter half of the dialogue, admits as true to a large extent:\nthat is, he admits that names are significant [Greek: kata\\\nsunth\u00ea/k\u00ean], though he does not deny that they are or may be\nsignificant [Greek: phu/sei].\n\n[Greek: To\\ a)po\\ tau)toma/tou] (p. 397 A) is another phrase for\nexpressing the opinion opposed to [Greek: o)noma/t\u00f4n o)rtho/t\u00eas].]\n\n[Footnote 5: Plato, Kratyl. p. 385.\n\nHere too, Aristotle affirms the contrary: he says (with far more\nexactness than Plato) that propositions alone are true or false;\nand that a name taken by itself is neither. (De Interpret. i. 2.)\n\nThe mistake of Plato in affirming Names to be true or false, is\nanalogous to that which we read in the Phil\u00eabus, where Pleasures\nare distinguished as true and false.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Plato, Kratyl. p. 386 D. [Greek: d\u00ea=lon d\u00ea\\ o(/ti\nau)ta\\ au(t\u00f4=n ou)si/an e)/chonta/ tina be/baio/n e)sti ta\\\npra/gmata, ou) pro\\s \u00ea(ma=s ou)de\\ u(ph' \u00ea(m\u00f4=n, e)lko/mena a)/n\u00f4\nkai\\ ka/t\u00f4 t\u00f4=| \u00ea(mete/r\u00f4| phanta/smati, a)lla\\ kath' au(ta\\ pro\\s\nt\u00ea\\n au(t\u00f4n ou)si/an e)/chonta \u00ea(=|per pe/phuken.]]\n\n[Footnote 7: Plato, Kratyl. p. 387 A.]\n\n[Footnote 8: Plato, Kratyl. p. 387 C. [Greek: Ou)kou=n kai\\ to\\\no)noma/zein pra=xis ti/s e)stin, ei)/per kai\\ to\\ le/gein pra=xis\ntis \u00ea)=n peri\\ ta\\ pra/gmata? . . . Ai( de\\ pra/xeis e)pha/n\u00easan\n\u00ea(mi=n ou) pro\\s \u00ea(ma=s ou)=sai, a)ll' au(t\u00f4=n tina i)di/an\nphu/sin e)/chousai? . . . Ou)kou=n kai\\ o)nomaste/on \u00ea(=| pe/phuke\nta\\ pra/gmata o)noma/zein te kai\\ o)noma/zesthai, kai\\ \u00f4(=|, a)ll'\nou)ch \u00ea(=| a)\\n \u00ea(mei=s boul\u00eath\u00f4=men, ei)/per ti toi=s\ne)/mprosthen me/llei o(mologou/menon ei)=nai? kai\\ ou(/t\u00f4 me\\n\na)\\n ple/on ti poioi=men kai\\ o)noma/zoimen, a)/ll\u00f4s de\\ ou)/?]\n\nSpeaking and naming are regarded by Plato as acts whereby the\nthing (spoken of or) named is acted upon or suffers. So in the\nSophist\u00eas (p. 248) he considers Knowing as an act performed,\nwhereby the thing known suffers. Deuschle (Die Platonische\nSprach-philosophie, p. 59, Marpurg. 1859) treats this comparison\nmade by Plato between naming and material agencies, as if it were\nmere banter--and even indifferent banter. Schleiermacher in his note\nthinks it seriously meant and Platonic; and I fully agree with him\n(Schl. p. 456).]\n\n[Footnote 9: Plato, Kratyl. p. 388 C. [Greek: O)/noma a)/ra\ndidaskaliko/n ti/ e)stin o)/rganon, kai\\ diakritiko\\n t\u00ea=s\nou)si/as, \u00f4(/sper kerki\\s u(pha/smatos.] See Boethius ap. Schol.\nad Aristot. Interp. p. 108, a. 40. Aristotle (De Interpr. iv. 3)\nsays: [Greek: e)/sti de\\ lo/gos a(/pas me\\n s\u00eamantiko/s, ou)ch \u00f4(s\no)/rganon de/, a)lla\\ kata\\ sunth\u00ea/k\u00ean.] Several even of the\nPlatonic critics consider Plato's choice of the metaphor [Greek:\no)/rganon] as inappropriate: but modern writers on logic and\npsychology often speak of names as \"_instruments_ of thought\".]\n\n[Footnote 10: Plato, Kratyl. p. 389 A. [Greek: o( nomothe/t\u00eas,\no(\\s d\u00ea\\ t\u00f4=n d\u00eamiourg\u00f4=n spani\u00f4/tatos e)n a)nthr\u00f4=pois\ngi/gnetai.]]\n\n[Side-note: The name is a didactic instrument; fabricated by the\nlaw-giver upon the type of the Name-Form, and employed as well as\nappreciated, by the philosopher.]\n\nTo what does the lawgiver look when he frames a name? Compare the\nanalogy of other instruments. The artisan who constructs a bodkin\nor shuttle for weaving, has present to his mind as a model, the\nIdea or Form of the bodkin--the self-existent bodkin of Nature\nherself. If a broken shuttle is to be replaced, it is this Idea or\ntype, not the actual broken instrument, which he seeks to copy.\nWhatever may be the variety of web for which the shuttle is\ndestined, he modifies the new instrument accordingly: but all of\nthem must embody the Form or Idea of the shuttle. He cannot choose\nanother type according to his own pleasure: he must embody the\ntype, prescribed by nature, in the iron, wood, or other material\nof which the instrument is made.[11]\n\n[Footnote 11: Plato, Kratyl. p. 389 B-C. [Greek: au)to\\ o( e)/sti\nkerki/s . . . pa/sas me\\n dei= to\\ t\u00ea=s kerki/dos e)/chein ei)=dos\n. . . ou)ch oi(=on a)\\n au)to\\s boul\u00ea/th\u00ea, a)ll' oi(=on\ne)pephu/kei.]]\n\nSo about names: the lawgiver, in distributing names, must look to\nthe Idea, Form, or type--the self-existent name of Nature--and\nmust embody this type, as it stands for each different thing, in\nappropriate syllables. The syllables indeed may admit of great\nvariety, just as the material of which the shuttle is made may be\ndiversified: but each aggregate of syllables, whether Hellenic or\nbarbaric, must embody the essential Name-Idea or Type.[12] The\nlawgiver[13] ought to know, enumerate, and classify all the sorts\nof things on the one hand, and all the varieties of letters or\nelements of language on the other; distinguishing the special\nsignificative power belonging to each letter. He ought then to\nconstruct his words, and adapt each to signify that with which it\nis naturally connected. Who is to judge whether this process has\nbeen well or ill performed? Upon that point, the judge is, the\nprofessional man who uses the instrument. It is for the working\nweaver to decide whether the shuttle given to him is well or ill\nmade. To have a good ship and rudder, it must be made by a\nprofessional builder, and appreciated by a professional pilot or\nsteersman. In like manner, the names constructed by the lawgiver\nmust be appreciated by the man who is qualified by training or\nstudy to use names skilfully: that is, by the dialectician or\nphilosopher, competent to ask and answer questions.[14]\n\n[Footnote 12: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 389 D, 390 A. [Greek: to\\\ne(ka/st\u00f4| phu/sei pephuko\\s o)/noma to\\n nomothe/t\u00ean e)kei=non\nei)s tou\\s phtho/ggous kai\\ ta\\s sullaba\\s dei= e)pi/stasthai\ntithe/nai, kai\\ ble/ponta _pro\\s au)to\\ e)kei=no o(\\ e)/stin\no)/noma_, pa/nta ta\\ o)no/mata poiei=n te kai\\ ti/thesthai, _ei)\nme/llei ku/rios ei)=nai o)noma/t\u00f4n the/t\u00eas_. . . .\n\nOu(/t\u00f4s a)xi\u00f4/seis kai\\ to\\n nomothe/t\u00ean to/n te e)ntha/de kai\\\nto\\n e)n toi=s barba/rois, e(/\u00f4s a)\\n to\\ _tou= o)no/matos\nei)=dos_ a)podid\u00f4=| _to\\ pros\u00ea=kon e(ka/st\u00f4| e)n o(poiaisou=n\nsullabai=s_, ou)de\\n chei/r\u00f4 nomothe/t\u00ean ei)=nai to\\n e)ntha/de\n\u00ea)\\ to\\n o(pouou=n a)/llothi?]]\n\n[Footnote 13: Plato, Kratyl. p. 424 D-E.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Plato, Kratyl. p. 390 C.]\n\n[Side-note: Names have an intrinsic aptitude for signifying one\nthing and not another.]\n\nIt is the fact then, though many persons may think it ridiculous,\nthat names--or the elementary constituents and letters, of which\nnames are composed--have each an intrinsic and distinctive\naptitude, fitting them to signify particular things.[15] Names\nhave thus a standard with reference to which they are correct or\nincorrect. If they are to be correct, they cannot be given either\nby the freewill of an ordinary individual, or even by the\nconvention of all society. They can be affixed only by the skilled\nlawgiver, and appreciated only by the skilled dialectician.\n\n[Footnote 15: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 425-426.]\n\n[Side-note: Forms of Names, as well as Forms of things\nnameable--essence of the Nomen, to signify the Essence of its\nNominatum.]\n\nSuch is the theory here laid down by Sokrates respecting Names. It\nis curious as illustrating the Platonic vein of speculation. It\nenlarges to an extreme point Plato's region of the absolute and\nobjective. Not merely each thing named, but each name also, is in\nhis view an Ens absolutum; not dependent upon human choice--not\neven relative (so he alleges) to human apprehension. Each name has\nits own self-existent Idea, Form, or Type, the reproduction or\ncopy of which is imperative. The Platonic intelligible world\nincluded Ideas of things, and of names correlative to them: just\nas it included Ideas of master and slave correlative to each\nother. It contained Noumena of names, as well as Noumena of\nthings.[16] The essence of the name was, to be significant of the\nessence of the thing named: though such significance admitted of\ndiversity, multiplication, or curtailment, in the letters or\nsyllables wherein it was embodied.[17] The name became\nsignificant, by imitation or resemblance: that name was right, the\nessence of which imitated the essence of the thing named.[18] The\nvocal mimic imitates sounds, the painter imitates the colours: the\nname-giver imitates in letters or syllables, the essence of\ncolours, sounds, and every thing else which is nameable.\n\n[Footnote 16: Plato, Parmenid. p. 133 E.]\n\n[Footnote 17: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 393 D, 432.]\n\n[Footnote 18: Plato, Kratyl. p. 422 D. [Greek: t\u00f4=n o)noma/t\u00f4n \u00ea(\no)rtho/t\u00eas toiau/t\u00ea tis e)bou/leto ei)=nai, oi(=a d\u00ealou=n oi(=on\ne(/kasto/n e)sti t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n.]--423 D: [Greek: ou) kai\\ _ou)si/a\ndokei=_ soi ei)=nai e(ka/st\u00f4|, \u00f4(/sper kai\\ chr\u00f4=ma kai\\ a(\\ nu=n\nd\u00ea\\ e)le/gomen? pr\u00f4=ton au)t\u00f4=| t\u00f4=| chr\u00f4/mati kai\\ t\u00ea=| ph\u00f4n\u00ea=|\nou)k e)/stin ou)si/a tis e(kate/r\u00f4| au)t\u00f4=n kai\\ toi=s a)/llois\npa=sin, _o(/sa \u00eaxi/\u00f4tai tau/t\u00eas t\u00ea=s prosr\u00ea/se\u00f4s tou= ei)=nai?_\n. . . Ti/ ou)=n?** ei)/ tis au)to\\ tou=to mimei=sthai du/naito,\ne(ka/stou** t\u00ea\\n ou)si/an, gra/mmasi/ te kai\\ sullabai=s, a)=r' ou)k\na)\\n d\u00ealoi= e(/kaston o(\\ e)/stin?] Compare p. 433.\n\nThe story given by Herodotus (ii. 2) about the experiment made by\nthe Egyptian king Psammetichus, is curious. He wished to find out\nwhether the Egyptians or the Phrygians were the oldest or first of\nmankind: he accordingly caused two children to be brought up\nwithout having a word spoken to them, with a view to ascertain\nwhat language they would come to by nature. At the age of two\nyears they uttered the Phrygian word signifying _bread_.\nPsammetichus was then satisfied that the Phrygians were the first\nof mankind.\n\nThis story undoubtedly proceeds upon the assumption that there is\none name which naturally suggests itself for each object. But when\nM. Renan says that the assumption is the same \"as Plato has\ndeveloped with so much subtlety in the Kratylus,\" I do not agree\nwith him. The Absolute Name-Form or Essence, discernible only by\nthe technical Lawgiver, is something very different. See M. Renan,\nDe l'Origine du Langage, ch. vi. p. 146, 2nd ed.]\n\nAnother point here is peculiar to Plato. The Name-Giver must\nprovide names such as can be used with effect by the dialectician\nor philosopher: who is the sole competent judge whether the names\nhave genuine rectitude or not.[19] We see from hence that the\naspirations of Plato went towards a philosophical language fit for\nthose who conversed with forms or essences: something like (to use\nmodern illustrations) a technical nomenclature systematically\nconstructed for the expositions of men of science: such as that of\nChemistry, Botany, Mineralogy, &c. Assuredly no language actually\nspoken among men, has ever been found suitable for this purpose\nwithout much artificial help.[20]\n\n[Footnote 19: Plato, Kratyl. p. 390 D. Respecting the person\ncalled [Greek: o( dialektiko/s], whom Plato describes as grasping\nIdeas, or Forms, Essences, and employing nothing else in his\nreasoning--[Greek: lo/gon didou\\s kai\\ lamba/n\u00f4n t\u00ea=s\nou)si/as]--see Republic, vi. p. 511 B, vii. pp. 533-534-537 C.]\n\n[Footnote 20: Plato, Kratyl. p. 426 A. [Greek: o( peri\\ o)noma/t\u00f4n\ntechniko/s], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Exclusive competence of a privileged lawgiver, to\ndiscern these essences, and to apportion names rightly.]\n\nAs this theory of naming is a deduction from Plato's main doctrine\nof absolute or self-existing Ideas, so it also illustrates (to\nrepeat what was said in the last chapter) his recognition of\nprofessional skill and of competence vested exclusively in a\ngifted One or Few: which he ranks as the sole producing cause of\nGood or the Best, setting it in contrast with those two causes\nwhich he considers as productive of Evil, or at any rate of the\nInferior or Second-Best: 1. The One or Few, who are ungifted and\nunphilosophical: perhaps ambitious pretenders. 2. The spontaneous,\nunbespoken inspirations, conventions, customs, or habits, which\ngrow up without formal mandate among the community. To find the\nright name of each thing, is no light matter, nor within the\ncompetence of any one or many ordinary men. It can only be done by\none of the few privileged lawgivers. Plato even glances at the\nnecessity of a superhuman name-giver: though he deprecates the\nsupposition generally, as a mere evasion or subterfuge, introduced\nto escape the confession of real ignorance.[21]\n\n[Footnote 21: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 397, 425, 438.]\n\n[Side-note: Counter-Theory, which Sokrates here sets forth and\nimpugns--the Protagorean doctrine--Homo Mensura.]\n\nIn laying down the basis of his theory respecting names, Plato\nstates another doctrine as opposed to it: _viz._, the Protagorean\ndoctrine--Man is the Measure of all things. I have already said\nsomething about this doctrine, in reviewing the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, where\nPlato impugns it: but as he here impugns it again, by arguments in\npart different--a few words more will not be misplaced.\n\nThe doctrine of Protagoras maintains that all things are relative\nto the percipient, cogitant, concipient, mind: that all Object is\nimplicated with a Subject: that as things appear to me, so they\nare to me--as they appear to you, so they are to you. Plato denies\nthis, and says: \"All things have a fixed essence of their own,\nabsolutely and in themselves, not relative to any percipient or\ncogitant--nor dependent upon any one's appreciative understanding,\nor emotional susceptibility, or will. Things are so and so,\nwithout reference to us as sentient or cogitant beings: and not\nonly the things are thus independent and absolute, but all their\nagencies are so likewise--agencies either by them or upon them.\nCutting, burning, speaking, naming, &c., must be performed in a\ncertain determinate way, whether we prefer it or not. A certain\nName belongs, by Nature or absolutely, to a certain thing, whether\nwe choose it or not: it is not relative to any adoption by us,\neither individually or collectively.\"\n\nThis Protagorean theory is here set forth by the Platonic Sokrates\nas the antithesis or counter-theory, to that which he is himself\nadvancing, _viz._--That Names are significant by nature and not by\nagreement of men:--That each Nomen is tied to its Nominatum by a\nnatural and indissoluble bond. His remarks imply, that those who\ndo not accept this last-mentioned theory must agree with\nProtagoras. But such an antithesis is noway necessary: since (not\nto speak of Hermogenes himself in this very dialogue) we find also\nthat Aristotle--who maintains that Names are significant by\nconvention and not by nature--dissents also from the theory of\nProtagoras: and would have rested his dissent from it on very\ndifferent grounds.\n\n[Side-note: Objection by Sokrates--That Protagoras puts all men on\na level as to wisdom and folly, knowledge and ignorance.]\n\nThis will show us--what I have already remarked in commenting on\nthe The\u00e6t\u00eatus--that Plato has not been very careful in\nappreciating the real bearing of the Protagorean doctrine. He\nimpugns it here by the same argument which we also read in the\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus. \"Everyone admits\" (he says) \"that there are some men\nwise and good--others foolish and wicked. Now if you admit this,\nyou disallow the Protagorean doctrine. If I contend that as things\nappear to me, so they truly are to me--as things appear to you or\nto him, so they truly are to you or to him--I cannot consistently\nallow that any one man is wiser than any other. Upon such a\ntheory, all men are put upon the same level of knowledge or\nignorance.\"\n\nBut the premisses of Plato here do not sustain his inference.\n\n[Side-note: Objection unfounded--What the Protagorean theory really\naffirms--Belief always relative to the believer's mind.]\n\nThe Protagorean doctrine is, when stated in its most general\nterms,--That every man is and must be his own measure of truth or\nfalsehood--That what appears to him true, _is true to him_,\nhowever it may appear to others--That he cannot by any effort step\nout of or beyond his own individual belief conviction,\nknowledge--That all his Cognita, Credita, Percepta, Cogitata, &c.,\nimply himself as Cognoscens, Credens, Percipiens, Cogitans, inseparably\nand indivisibly--That in affirming an object, he himself is\nnecessarily present as affirming subject, and that Object and\nSubject are only two sides of the same indivisible fact[22]--That\nthough there are some matters which all men agree in believing,\nthere is no criterion at once infallible and universally\nrecognised, in matters where they dissent: moreover, the matters\nbelieved are just as much relative where all agree, as where some\ndisagree.\n\n[Footnote 22: M. Destutt Tracy observes, Logique, ch. ix. p. 347,\ned. 1825:\n\n\n\"En effet, on ne saurait trop le redire, chacun de nous, et m\u00eame\ntout \u00eatre anim\u00e9 quelconque, est pour lui-m\u00eame le centre de tout.\nIl ne per\u00e7oit par un sentiment direct et une conscience intime,\nque ce qui affecte et \u00e9meut sa sensibilit\u00e9. Il ne con\u00e7oit et ne\nconna\u00eet son existence que par ce qu'il sent, et celle des autres\n\u00eatres que parce qu'ils lui font sentir. Il n'y a de r\u00e9el pour lui\nque ses perceptions, ses affections, ses id\u00e9es: et tout ce qu'il\npeut jamais savoir, n'est toujours que des consequences et des\ncombinaisons de ces premi\u00e8res perceptions ou idees.\"\n\nThe doctrine of the Sceptical philosophers, is explicitly\nannounced by Sextus Empiricus as his personal belief: that which\nappears true to him, as far as his enquiry had reached. The\npassage deserves to be cited.\n\nSextus Empir. Pyrrh. Hypotyp. i. Sect. 197-199.\n\n[Greek: O(/tan ou)=n ei)/p\u00ea| o( skeptiko\\s \"_ou)de\\n o(ri/z\u00f4_\"\n. . . tou=to/ ph\u00easi le/g\u00f4n to\\ _e(aut\u00f4=| phaino/menon peri\\\nt\u00f4=n prokeime/n\u00f4n_, ou)k a)paggeltik\u00f4=s, meta\\ pepoith\u00ea/se\u00f4s\na)pophaino/menos, a)ll' o(\\ pa/schei, di\u00eagou/menos. . . . Kai\\\n\u00f4(/sper o(le/g\u00f4n \"_peripat\u00f4=_,\" ou(/t\u00f4s o( le/g\u00f4n \"_pa/nta\ne)sti\\n a)o/rista_\" suss\u00eamai/nei kath' \u00ea(ma=s to\\ \u00f4(s _pro\\s e)me\n\u00ea)\\ \u00f4(s e)moi\\ phai/netai_; \u00f4(s ei)=nai to\\ lego/menon toiou=ton\n\"o(/sa e)p\u00ealthon t\u00f4=n dogmatik\u00f4=s z\u00eatoume/n\u00f4n, toiau=ta/ moi\nphai/netai_, \u00f4(s m\u00eade\\n au)t\u00f4=n tou= machome/nou prou)/chein moi\\\ndokei=n kata\\ pi/stin \u00ea)\\ a)pisti/an\".]]\n\n[Side-note: Each man believes others to be wiser on various points\nthan himself--Belief on authority--not inconsistent with the\naffirmation of Protagoras.]\n\nThis doctrine is not refuted by the fact, that every man believes\nothers to be wiser than himself on various points. A man is just\nas much a measure to himself when he acts upon the advice of\nothers, or believes a fact upon the affirmation of others, as when\nhe judges upon his own unassisted sense or reasoning. He is a\nmeasure to himself when he agrees with others, as much as when he\ndisagrees with them. Opinions of others, or facts attested by\nothers, may count as materials determining his judgment; but the\njudgment is and must be his own. The larger portion of every man's\nknowledge rests upon the testimony of others; nevertheless the\nfacts thus reported become portions of _his_ knowledge, generating\nconclusions _in him_ and relatively _to him_. I believe the\nnarrative of travellers, respecting parts of the globe which I\nhave never seen: I adopt the opinion of A a lawyer, and of B a\nphysician, on matters which I have not studied: I understand facts\nwhich I did not witness, from the description of those who did\nwitness them. In all these cases the act of adoption is my own,\nand the grounds of belief are relative to my state of mind.\nAnother man may mistrust completely the authorities which I\nfollow: just as I mistrust the authority of Mahomet or Confucius,\nor various others, regarded as infallible by a large portion of\nmankind. The grounds of belief are to a certain extent similar, to\na certain extent dissimilar, in different men's minds. Authority\nis doubtless a frequent ground of belief; but it is essentially\nvariable and essentially relative to the believer. Plato himself,\nin many passages, insists emphatically upon the dissensions in\nmankind respecting the question--\"_Who are_ the good and wise\nmen?\" He tells us that the true philosopher is accounted by the\nbulk of mankind foolish and worthless.\n\n[Side-note: Analogy of physical processes (cutting and burning)\nappealed to by Sokrates--does not sustain his inference against\nProtagoras.]\n\nIn the Kratylus, Sokrates says (and I agree with him) that there\nare laws of nature respecting the processes of cutting and\nburning: and that any one who attempts to cut or burn in a way\nunconformable to those laws, will fail in his purpose. This is\ntrue, but it proves nothing against Protagoras. It is an appeal to\na generalization from physical facts, resting upon experience and\ninduction--upon sensation and inference which we and others,\nProtagoras as well as Plato, have had, and which we believe to be\ncommon to all. We know this fact, or have a full and certain\nconviction of it; but we are not brought at all nearer to the\nAbsolute (_i.e._, to the Object without Subject) which Plato's\nargument requires. The analogy rather carries us away from the\nAbsolute: for cutting and burning, with their antecedent\nconditions, are facts of sense: and Plato himself admits, to a\ngreat extent, that the facts of sense are relative. All experience\nand induction, and all belief founded thereupon, are essentially\nrelative. The experience may be one common to all mankind, and\nupon which all are unanimous:[23] but it is not the less relative\nto each individual of the multitude. What is relative to all,\ncontinues to be relative to each: the fact that all sentient\nindividuals are in this respect alike, does not make it cease to\nbe relative, and become absolute. What I see and hear in the\ntheatre is relative to me, though it may at the same time be\nrelative to ten thousand other spectators, who are experiencing\nlike sensations. Where all men think or believe alike, it may not\nbe necessary for common purposes to distinguish the multiplicity\nof individual thinking subjects: yet the subjects are nevertheless\nmultiple, and the belief, knowledge, or fact, is relative to each\nof them, whether all agree, or whether beliefs are many and\ndivergent. We cannot suppress ourselves as sentient or cogitant\nsubjects, nor find any _locus standi_ for Object pure and simple,\napart from the ground of relativity. And the Protagorean dictum\nbrings to view these subjective conditions, as being essential, no\nless than the objective, to belief and disbelief.\n\n[Footnote 23: Proklus, in his Scholia on the Kratylus, p. 32, ed.\nBoisson, cites the argument used by Aristotle against Plato on\nthis very subject of names--[Greek: _ta\\ me\\n phu/sei, para\\ pa=si\nta\\ au)ta/_; ta\\ de\\ o)no/mata ou) para\\ pa=si ta\\ au)ta/; \u00f4/ste\nta\\ phu/sei o)/nta ou)/k e)stin o)no/mata, kai\\ ta\\ o)no/mata ou)k\nei)si phu/sei.] Ammonius ad Aristot. De Interpretat. p. 100, a.\n28, Schol. Bekk. Sextus Empiricus adv. Mathemat. i. 145-147, p.\n247, Fab.\n\nPlato had assimilated naming to cutting and burning. Aristotle\ndenies the analogy: he says that cutting and burning are the same\nto all, or _are by nature_: naming is not the same to all, and is\ntherefore not by nature.\n\nWe find here the test pointed out to distinguish what _is by\nnature_ (that which Plato calls the [Greek: ou)si/an be/baion t\u00f4=n\npragma/t\u00f4n]--p. 386 E),--_viz._ That it is the same to all or\namong all. What it is to one individual, it is to another also.\nThere are a multitude of different judging subjects, but no\ndissentient subjects: myself, and in my belief all other subjects,\nare affected alike. This is the true and real Objective: a\nparticular fact of sense, where Subject is not eliminated\naltogether, but becomes a constant quantity, and therefore escapes\nseparate notice. An Objective _absolute_ (_i.e._, without Subject\naltogether) is an impossibility.\n\nIn the Aristotelian sense of [Greek: phu/sei], it would be correct\nto say that Language, or Naming _in genere_, is natural to man. No\nhuman society has yet been found without some language--some\nnames--some speech employed and understood by each individual\nmember. But many different varieties of speech will serve the\npurpose, not indeed with equal perfection, yet tolerably: enough\nto enable a society to get on. The uniformity ([Greek: to\\\nphu/sei]) here ceases. To a certain extent, the objects and\nagencies which are named, are the same in all societies: to a\ncertain extent different. If we were acquainted with all the past\nfacts respecting the different languages which have existed or do\nexist on the globe, we should be able to assign the reason which\nbrought each particular _Nomen_ into association with its\n_Nominatum_. But this past history is lost.]\n\n[Side-note: Reply of Protagoras to the Platonic objections.]\n\nProtagoras would have agreed with Plato as to combustion--that\nthere were certain antecedent conditions under which he fully\nexpected it, and certain other conditions under which he expected\nwith confidence that it would not occur. Only he would have\ndeclared this (assuming him to speak conformably to his own\ntheory) to be his own full belief and conviction, derived from\ncertain facts and comparisons of sense, which he also _knew_ to be\nshared by most other persons. He would have pronounced farther,\nthat those who held opposite opinions were in his judgment wrong:\nbut he would have recognised that their opinion was true to\nthemselves, and that their belief must be relative to causes\noperating upon _their_ minds. Farthermore, he would have pointed\nout, that combustion itself, with its antecedents, were facts of\nsense, relative to individual sentients and observers, remembering\nand comparing what they had observed. This would have been the\ntestimony of Protagoras (always assuming him to speak in\nconformity with his own theory), but it would not have satisfied\nPlato: who would have required a peremptory, absolute affirmation,\ndiscarding all relation to observers or observed facts, and\nleaving no scope for error or fallibility.\n\n[Side-note: Sentiments of Belief and Disbelief, common to all\nmen--Grounds of belief and disbelief, different with different men\nand different ages.]\n\nThose who agree with Plato on this question, impugn the doctrine\nof Protagoras as effacing all real, intrinsic, distinction between\ntruth and falsehood. Such objectors make it a charge against\nProtagoras, that he does not erect his own mind into a peremptory\nand infallible measure for all other minds.[24] He expressly\nrecognises the distinction, so far as his own mind is concerned:\nhe admits that other men recognise it also, each for himself.\nNevertheless, to say that all men recognise one and the same\nobjective distinction between truth and falsehood, would be to\ncontradict palpable facts. Each man has a standard, an ideal of\ntruth in his own mind: but different men have different standards.\nThe grounds of belief, though in part similar with all men, are to\na great extent dissimilar also: they are dissimilar even with the\nsame man, at different periods of his life and circumstances. What\nall men have in common is the feeling of belief and the feeling of\ndisbelief: the matters believed or disbelieved, as well as the\nideal standard to which any new matter presented for belief or\ndisbelief is referred, differ considerably. By rational\ndiscussion--by facts and reasonings set forth on both sides, as in\nthe Platonic dialogues--opinions may be overthrown or modified:\ndissentients may be brought into agreement, or at least each may\nbe rendered more fully master of the case on both sides. But this\ndialectic, the Platonic question and answer, is itself an appeal\nto the free action of the individual mind. The questioner starts\nfrom premisses conceded by the respondent. He depends upon the\nacquiescence of the respondent for every step taken in advance.\nSuch a proceeding is relative, not absolute: coinciding with the\nProtagorean formula rather than with the Platonic negation of\nit.[25] No man ever claimed the right of individual judgment more\nemphatically than Sokrates: no man was ever more special in\nadapting his persuasions to the individual persons with whom he\nconversed.\n\n[Footnote 24: To illustrate the impossibility of obtaining any\nstandard absolute and purely objective, without reference to any\njudging Subject, I had transcribed a passage from Steinthal's work\non the Classification of Human languages; but I find it too long\nfor a note.\n\nSteinthal, Charakteristik der Haupts\u00e4chlichen Typen des\nSprachbaues, 2nd ed. Berlin, 1860, pp. 313-314-315.]\n\n[Footnote 25: See the striking passages in the Gorgias, pp. 472 B,\n474 B, 482 B; The\u00e6t\u00eatus, p. 171 D.\n\nAlso in proclaiming the necessity of specialty of adaptation to\nindividual minds--Plat. Ph\u00e6dr. pp. 271-272, 277 B.]\n\n[Side-note: Protagoras did not affirm, that Belief depended upon\nthe will or inclination of each individual but that it was\nrelative to the circumstances of each individual mind.]\n\nThe grounds of belief, according to Protagoras, relative to the\nindividual, are not the same with all men at all times. But it\ndoes not follow (nor does Protagoras appear to have asserted) that\nthey vary according to the _will_ or _inclination_ of the\nindividual. Plato, in impugning this doctrine, reasons as if these\ntwo things were one and the same--as if, according to Protagoras,\na man believed whatever he chose.[26] This, however, is not an\nexact representation of the doctrine \"Homo Mensura\": which does\nnot assert the voluntary or the arbitrary, but simply the relative\nas against the absolute. What a man believes does not depend upon\nhis own will or choice: it depends upon an aggregate of\ncircumstances, partly peculiar to himself, partly common to him\nwith other persons more or fewer in number:[27] upon his age,\norganisation, and temperament--his experience, education,\nhistorical and social position--his intellectual powers and\nacquirements--his passions and sentiments of every kind, &c. These\nand other ingredients--analogous, yet neither the same nor\ncombined in the same manner, even in different individuals of the\nsame time and country, much less in those of different times and\ncountries--compose the aggregate determining grounds of belief or\ndisbelief in every one. Each man has in his mind an ideal standard\nof truth and falsehood: but that ideal standard, never exactly the\nsame in any two men, nor in the same man at all times, often\nvaries in different men to a prodigious extent. Now it is to this\nstandard in the man's own mind that those reasoners refer who\nmaintain that belief is relative. They do not maintain, that it is\nrelative simply to his wishes, or that he believes and disbelieves\nwhat he chooses.\n\n[Footnote 26: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 387-389, where [Greek: pro\\s\n\u00ea(ma=s] is considered as equivalent to [Greek: \u00f4(s a)\\n \u00ea(mei=s\nboul\u00f4/metha--\u00ea(=| a)\\n \u00ea(mei=s boul\u00ea/th\u00f4men]--both of them being\nopposed to [Greek: oi(=on e)pephu/kei--to\\ kata\\ phu/sin--i)di/an\nau)t\u00f4=n phu/sin e)/chousai.]\n\nThe error here noted is enumerated by by Mr. John Stuart Mill,\namong the specimens of Fallacies of Confusion, in his System of\nLogic, Book v. ch. vii. \u00a7 1: \"The following is an argument of\nDescartes to prove, in his _\u00e0 priori_ manner, the being of a God.\nThe conception, says he, of an infinite Being proves the real\nexistence of such a Being. For if there is not really any such\nBeing, _I_ must have made the conception: but if I could make it,\nI can also unmake it--which evidently is not true: therefore there\nmust be, externally to myself, an archetype from which the\nconception was derived. In this argument (which, it may be\nobserved, would equally prove the real existence of ghosts and of\nwitches) the ambiguity is in the pronoun _I_; by which, in one\nplace, is to be understood _my will_--in another, the _laws of my\nnature_. If the conception, existing as it does in my mind, had no\noriginal without, the conclusion would unquestionably follow that\n_I_ made it--that is, the laws of my nature must have somehow\nevolved it: but that _my will_ made it, would not follow. Now when\nDescartes afterwards adds that I cannot unmake the conception, he\nmeans that I cannot get rid of it by an act of my will--which is\ntrue, but is not the proposition required. I can as much unmake\nthis conception as I can any other: no conception which I have\nonce had, can I ever dismiss by mere volition: but what some of\nthe laws of my nature have produced, other laws, or those same\nlaws in other circumstances, may, and often do, subsequently\nefface.\"]\n\n[Footnote 27: To show how constantly this Protagorean dictum is\nmisconceived, as if Protagoras had said that things were to each\nindividual what he was pleased or chose to represent them as\nbeing, I transcribe the following passage from Lassalle's\nelaborate work on Herakleitus (vol. ii. p. 381):--\"Des Protagoras\nPrinzip ist es, dass \u00fcberhaupt Nichts Objektives ist; dass\nvielmehr alles Beliebige was Einem scheint, auch f\u00fcr ihn sei. Dies\nSelbstsetzen des Subjekts ist die einzige Wahrheit der Dinge,\nwelche an sich selbst Nichts Objektives haben, sondern zur\ngleichg\u00fcltigen Fl\u00e4che geworden sind, auf die das Subjekt\nwillk\u00fchrlich und beliebig seine Charaktere schreibt.\"\n\nProtagoras does not (as is here asserted) deny the Objective: he\nonly insists on looking at it in conjunction with, or measured by,\nsome Subject; and that Subject, not simply as desiring or\npreferring, but clothed in all its attributes.]\n\n[Side-note: Facts of sense--some are the same to all sentient\nsubjects, others are different to different subjects. Grounds of\nunanimity.]\n\nWhen Plato says that combustibility and secability of objects are\nproperties fixed and determinate,[28] this is perfectly true, as\nmeaning that a certain proportion of the facts of sense affect in\nthe same way the sentient and appreciative powers of each\nindividual, determining the like belief in every man who has ever\nexperienced them. Measuring and weighing are sensible facts of\nthis character: seen alike by all, and conclusive proofs to all.\nBut this implies, to a certain point, fundamental uniformity in\nthe individual sentients and judges. Where such condition is\nwanting--where there is a fundamental difference in the sensible\napprehension manifested by different individuals--the unanimity is\nwanting also. Such is the case in regard to colours and other\nsensations: witness the peculiar vision of Dalton and many others.\nThe unanimity in the first case, the discrepancy in the second, is\nalike an aggregate of judgments, each individual, distinct, and\nrelative. You pronounce an opponent to be in error: but if you\ncannot support your opinion by evidence or authority which\nsatisfies _his_ senses or _his_ reason, he remains unconvinced.\nYour individual opinion stands good _to you_; his opinion stands\ngood _to him_. You think that he ought to believe as you do, and\nin certain cases you feel persuaded that he will be brought to\nthat result by future experience, which of course must be relative\nto him and to his appreciative powers. He entertains the like\npersuasion in regard to you.\n\n[Footnote 28: When Plato asserts not only that Objects are\nabsolute and not relative to any Subject--but that the agencies or\nproperties of Objects are also absolute--he carries the doctrine\nfarther than modern defenders of the absolute. M. Cousin, in the\neighth and ninth Lectures of his Cours d'Hist. de la Philosophie\nMorale au 18me Si\u00e8cle, lays down the contrary, maintaining that\nobjects and essences alone are absolute, though unknowable; but\nthat their agencies are relative and knowable.\n\n\"Nous savons qu'il exists quelque chose hors de nous, parceque\nnous ne pouvons expliquer nos perceptions sans les rattacher \u00e0 des\ncauses distinctes de nous m\u00eames: nous savons de plus que ces\ncauses, dont nous ne connaissons pas d'ailleurs l'essence,\n_produisent les effets les plus variables, les plus divers, et\nm\u00eame les plus contraires, selon qu'elles rencontrent telle nature\nou telle disposition du sujet._ Mais savons-nous quelque chose de\nplus? et m\u00eame, vu le caract\u00e8re ind\u00e9termin\u00e9 des causes que nous\nconcevons dans les corps, y-a-t-il quelque chose de plus \u00e0 savoir?\nY-a-t-il lieu de nous enqu\u00e9rir si nous percevons _les choses\ntelles qu'elles sont? Non, \u00e9videmment. . . Je ne dis pas que le\nprobl\u00e8me est insoluble: je dis qu'il est absurde, et renferme une\ncontradiction._ Nous ne savons pas ce que ces causes sont en\nelles-m\u00eames, et la raison nous d\u00e9fend de chercher \u00e0 les conna\u00eetre:\nmais il est bien \u00e9vident _\u00e0 priori_ qu'elles ne sont pas en\nelles-m\u00eames ce qu'elles sont par rapport \u00e0 nous, _puisque la pr\u00e9sence\ndu sujet modifie n\u00e9cessairement leur action_. Supprimez tout sujet\nsentant, il est certain que ces causes agiraient encore,\npuisqu'elles continueraient d'exister: mais elles agiraient\nautrement; elles seraient encore des qualit\u00e9s et des propri\u00e9t\u00e9s,\nmais qui ne ressembleraient \u00e0 rien de ce que nous connaissons. Le\nfeu ne manifesterait plus aucune des propri\u00e9t\u00e9s que nous lui\nconnaissons: que serait-il? C'est ce que nous ne saurons jamais.\nC'est d'ailleurs peut-\u00eatre un probl\u00e8me qui ne r\u00e9pugne pas\nseulement \u00e0 la nature de notre esprit mais \u00e0 l'essence m\u00eame des\nchoses. Quand m\u00eame en effet on supprimerait par la pens\u00e9e tous les\nsujets sentants, il faudrait encore admettre que nul corps ne\nmanifesterait ses propri\u00e9t\u00e9s autrement qu'en relation avec un\nsujet quelconque, et dans ce cas _ses propri\u00e9t\u00e9s ne seraient\nencore que relatives_: en sorte qu'il me para\u00eet fort raisonnable\nd'admettre que les propri\u00e9t\u00e9s d\u00e9termin\u00e9es des corps _n'existent\npas ind\u00e9pendamment d'un sujet quelconque_.\" (2de Partie, 8me\nLe\u00e7on, pp. 216-218, ed. Danton et Vacherot, Bruxelles, 1841.)]\n\n* * * * *\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates exemplifies his theory of the Absolute Name or\nthe Name-Form. He attempts to show the inherent rectitude of many\nexisting names. His etymological transitions.]\n\nIt is thus that Sokrates, in the first half of the Kratylus, lays\ndown his general theory that names have a natural and inherent\npropriety: and that naming is a process which cannot be performed\nexcept in one way. He at the same time announces that his theory\nrests upon a principle opposed to the \"Homo Mensura\" of\nProtagoras. He then proceeds to illustrate his doctrine by\nexemplification of many particular names, which are alleged to\nmanifest a propriety of signification in reference to the persons\nor matters to which they are applied. Many of these are proper\nnames, but some are common names or appellatives. Plato regards\nthe proper names as illustrating, even better than the common, the\ndoctrine of inherent rectitude in naming: especially the names of\nthe Gods, with respect to the use of which Plato was himself\ntimidly scrupulous--and the names reported by Homer as employed by\nthe Gods themselves. We must remember that nearly all Grecian\nproper names had some meaning: being compounds or derivatives from\nappellative nouns.\n\nThe proper names are mostly names of Gods or Heroes: then follow\nthe names of the celestial bodies (conceived as Gods), of the\nelements, of virtues and vices, &c. All of them, however, both the\nproper and the common names, are declared to be compound, or\nderivative; presupposing other simple and primitive names from\nwhich they are formed.[29] Sokrates declares the fundamental\ntheory on which the primitive roots rest; and indicates the\ntransforming processes, whereby many of the names are deduced or\ncombined from their roots. But these processes, though sometimes\nreasonable enough, are in a far greater number of instances\nforced, arbitrary, and fanciful. The transitions of meaning\nimagined, and the structural transformations of words, are alike\nstrange and violent.[30]\n\n[Footnote 29: See the Introduction to Pape's W\u00f6rterbuch der\nGriechischen Eigennamen.\n\nThus Proklus observes:--\"The recklessness about proper names, is\nshown in the case of the man who gave to his son the name of\nAthanasius\" (Proklus, Schol. ad Kratyl. p. 5, ed. Boiss.) Proklus\nadopts the distinction between divine and human names, citing the\nauthority of Plato in Kratylus. The words of Proklus are\nremarkable, ad Tim\u00e6um, ii. p. 197. Schneid. [Greek: Oi)kei=a ga/r\ne)stin o)no/mata pa/s\u00ea| ta/xei t\u00f4=n pragma/t\u00f4n, thei=a me\\n toi=s\nthei/ois, diano\u00eata\\ de\\ toi=s diano\u00eatoi=s, doxasta\\ de\\ toi=s\ndoxastoi=s.] See Tim\u00e6us, p. 29 B. Compare also Kratylus, p. 400 E,\nand Phil\u00eabus, p. 12 C.\n\nWhen Plato (Kratylus, pp. 391-392; compare Ph\u00e6drus, p. 252 A)\ncites the lines of Homer mentioning appellations bestowed by the\nGods, I do not understand him, as Gr\u00e4fenhahn and others do, to\nspeak in mockery, but _bon\u00e2 fide_. The affirmation of Clemens\nAlexandrinus (Stromat. i. 104) gives a probable account of Plato's\nbelief:--[Greek: O( Pla/t\u00f4n kai\\ toi=s theoi=s dialekto\\n\na)pone/mei tina/, ma/lista me\\n a)po\\ t\u00f4=n o)neira/t\u00f4n\ntekmairo/menos kai\\ t\u00f4=n chr\u00easm\u00f4=n.] See Gr\u00e4fenhahn, Gesch. der\nKlassischen Philologie, vol. i. p. 176.\n\nWhen we read the views of some learned modern philologists, such\nas Godfrey Hermann, we cannot be surprised that many Greeks in the\nPlatonic age should believe in an [Greek: o)rtho/t\u00eas o)noma/t\u00f4n]\napplicable to their Gods and Heroes:--\"Unde intelligitur, ex\nnominibus naturam et munia esse cognoscenda Deorum: Nec Deorum\ntantum, sed etiam heroum, omninoque rerum omnium, nominibus qu\u00e6\npropria vocantur appellatarum\" (De Mythologia Gr\u00e6corum\nAntiquissim\u00e2--in Opuscula, vol. ii. p. 167).\n\n\"Bei euch, Ihr Herrn, kann man das Wesen\nGew\u00f6hnlich aus dem Namen lesen,\" &c.\n_Goethe_, Faust.\n\nSee a remarkable passage in Plutarch, adv. Kol\u00f4ten, c. 22, p. 1119\nE, respecting the essential rectitude and indispensable employment\nof the surnames and appellations of the Gods.\n\nThe supposition of a mysterious inherent relation, between Names\nand the things named, has found acceptance among expositors of\nmany different countries.\n\nM. Jacob Salvador (Histoire des Institutions de Mo\u00efse, Liv. x.,\nch. ii.; vol. iii. p. 136) says respecting the Jewish\nCabbala:--\"Que dirai-je de leur _Cabale_? mot signifiant aussi\n_tradition_. Elle se composait originairement de tous les principes\nabstraits qui ne se r\u00e9pandent pas chez le vulgaire: elle tomba bient\u00f4t\ndans la folie. Cacher quelques id\u00e9es metaphysiques sous les figures\nles plus bizarres, et prendre ensuite une peine infinie pour retrouver\nces id\u00e9es premi\u00e8res: s'imaginer qu'il existe entre les noms et les\nchoses une corr\u00e9lation in\u00e9vitable, et que la contexture litt\u00e9rale\ndes livres sacr\u00e9s par exemple, doit \u00e9clairer sur l'essence m\u00eame et\nsur tous les secrets du Dieu qui les a dict\u00e9s: tourmenter d\u00e8s-lors\nchaque phrase, chaque mot, chaque lettre, avec la m\u00eame ardeur\nqu'on en met de nos jours \u00e0 d\u00e9composer et \u00e0 recomposer tous les\ncorps de la nature: enfin, apr\u00e8s avoir \u00e9tabli la corr\u00e9lation entre\nles mots et les choses, croire qu'en changeant, disposant,\ncombinant, ces mots, on traverse de pr\u00e9tendus _canaux_ d'influence\nqui les unissent \u00e0 ces choses, et qu'on agit sur elles: voil\u00e0, ce\nme semble, les principales pr\u00e9tentions de cette esp\u00e8ce de science\nocculte, \u00e9chapp\u00e9e de l'\u00c9gypte, qui a d\u00e9vor\u00e9 beaucoup de bons\nesprits, et qui, d'une part, donne la main \u00e0 la th\u00e9ologie, d'autre\npart, \u00e0 l'astrologie et aux combinaisons magiques.\"]\n\n[Footnote 30: I cite various specimens of the etymologies given by\nPlato:--\n\n1. [Greek: A)game/mn\u00f4n--o( a)gasto\\s kata\\ t\u00ea\\n e)pimon\u00ea/n]--in\nconsequence of his patience in remaining ([Greek: mon\u00ea\\]) with his\narmy before Troy (p. 395 A).\n\n2. [Greek: A)treu\\s--kata\\ to\\ a)teire/s, kai\\ kata\\ to\\\na)/treston, kai\\ kata\\ to\\ a)t\u00earo/n] (p. 395 C).\n\n3. [Greek: Pe/lops--o( to\\ e)ggu\\s (pe/las) mo/non o(r\u00f4=n kai\\ to\\\nparachr\u00ea=ma] (p. 395 D).\n\n4. [Greek: Ta/ntalos--tala/ntatos] (p. 395 E).\n\n5. [Greek: Zeu\\s--Di/a--Z\u00ea=na--di' o(\\n _z\u00ea=n_ a)ei\\ pa=si toi=s\nz\u00f4=sin u(pa/rchei]--ut proprie unum debuerit esse vocabulum\n[Greek: Diaz\u00ea=na]. Stallbaum, ad. p. 396 A. Proklus admired these\netymologies (ad Tim\u00e6um, ii. p. 226, ed. Schneid.).\n\n6. [Greek: Oi( theoi\\]--Sun, Moon, Earth, Stars, Uranus--[Greek:\na(/te au)ta\\ o(r\u00f4ntes pa/nta a)ei\\ i)o/nta dro/m\u00f4| kai\\ the/onta,\na)po\\ tau/t\u00eas t\u00ea=s phu/se\u00f4s t\u00ea=s tou= thei=n _theou\\s_ au)tou\\s\ne)ponoma/sai] (p. 397 D).\n\n7. [Greek: Dai/mones--o(/ti phro/nimoi kai\\ da\u00ea/mones \u00ea)=san,\ndai/monas au)tou\\s \u00f4no/masen] (Hesiod) (p. 398 B).\n\n8. [Greek: \u00ca)/r\u00f4s]--either from [Greek: e)/r\u00f4s], as one sprung\nfrom the union of Gods with human females: or from [Greek:\ne)r\u00f4ta=|n] or [Greek: ei)/rein],--from oral or rhetorical\nattributes, as being [Greek: r(\u00ea/tores kai\\ e)r\u00f4t\u00eatikoi/] (p. 398\nD).\n\n9. [Greek: Di/philos--Dii+\\ phi/los] (p. 399 B).\n\n10. [Greek: A)/nthr\u00f4pos--o( a)nathr\u00f4=n a(\\ o)/p\u00f4pen] (p. 399 C).\n\n11. [Greek: Psuch\u00ea\\]--a double derivation is proposed: first,\n[Greek: to\\ a)na/psuchon], next, a second, _i.e._ [Greek: psuch\u00ea\\\n= phuse/ch\u00ea, \u00ea)\\ phu/sin o)chei= kai\\ e)/chei], which second is\ndeclared to be [Greek: technik\u00f4/teron], and the former to be\nridiculous (pp. 399 E, 400 A-B).\n\n12. [Greek: S\u00f4=ma = to\\ s\u00ea=ma t\u00ea=s phuch\u00ea=s], because the soul is\nburied in the body. Or [Greek: s\u00f4=ma], that is, preserved or\nguarded, by the body as by an exterior wall, in order that it may\nexpiate wrongs of a preceding life (p. 400 C).\n\n13. The first imposer of names was a philosopher who followed the\ntheory of Herakleitus--perpetual flux of everything. Pursuant to\nthis theory he gave to various Gods the names Kronos, Rhea,\nTethys, &c., all signifying flux (p. 402 A-D).\n\n14. Various derivations of the names Poseidon, Hades or Pluto,\nPersephon\u00ea or Pherrephatta, &c., are given (pp. 404-405); also of\nApollo, so as to fit on to the four functions of the last-named\nGod, [Greek: mousik\u00ea/, mantik\u00ea/, i)atrik\u00ea/, toxik\u00ea/] (p. 405).\n\n15. [Greek: Mou=sa--mousik\u00ea\\], from [Greek: m\u00f4=sthai] (recognised\nin Liddell and Scott from [Greek: ma/\u00f4] p. 406 A). [Greek:\nA)phrodi/t\u00ea] from [Greek: a)phrou= ge/nesin], the Hesiodic\nderivation (p. 406 B-D).\n\n16. [Greek: A)\u00ea\\r--o(/ti ai)/rei ta\\ a)po\\ t\u00ea=s g\u00ea=s--\u00ea)\\ o(/ti\na)ei\\ r(ei=--\u00ea)\\ o(/ti pneu=ma e)x au)tou= gi/gnetai\nr(e/ontos]--quasi [Greek: a)\u00eato/r)r(oun. Ai)th\u00ea\\r--o(/ti a)ei\\\nthei= peri\\ to\\n a)e/ra r(e/\u00f4n] (p. 410 B).\n\n17. [Greek: Phro/n\u00easis--phora=s kai\\ r(ou= no/\u00easis u(polabei=n\nphora=s]. This and the following are put as derivatives from the\nHerakleitean theory (p. 411 D-E). [Greek: No/\u00easis = tou= ne/ou\ne)/sis. S\u00f4phrosu/n\u00ea--s\u00f4t\u00eari/a phron\u00ea/se\u00f4s]. This is recognised by\nAristotle in the Nikom. Ethica, vi. 5.\n\n18. [Greek: E)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea = e)pist\u00eame/n\u00ea--\u00f4(s pherome/nois toi=s\npra/gmasin e(pome/n\u00eas t\u00ea=s psuch\u00ea=s] (p. 412 A).\n\n19. [Greek: Dikaiosu/n\u00ea--e)pi\\ t\u00ea=| tou= dikai/ou sune/sei] (p.\n412 C).\n\n20. [Greek: Kaki/a = to\\ kak\u00f4=s i)o/n. Deili/a--t\u00ea=s psuch\u00ea=s\ndesmo\\s i)schuro/s--o(\\ dei= li/an. A)ret\u00ea\\ = a)eirei/t\u00ea]--that\nwhich has an easy and constant flux, or perhaps [Greek: ai(ret\u00ea/]\n(p. 415 B-D). [Greek: Ai)schro\\n = to\\ a)eischorou=n--to\\ a)ei\\\ni)/schon to\\n r(ou=n] (p. 416 B). [Greek: Su/mphero\\n = t\u00ea\\ a(/ma\nphora\\n t\u00ea=s psuch\u00ea=s meta\\ t\u00f4=n pragma/t\u00f4n] (p. 417 A). [Greek:\nLusite/loun = to\\ t\u00ea=s phora=s lu/on to\\ te/los] (p. 417 C-E).\n[Greek: Blabero\\n = to\\ bla/pton to\\n r(ou=n].\n\nThe names of favourable import are such as designate facility of\nthe universal flux, according to the Herakleitean theory. The\nnames of unfavourable import designate obstruction of the flux.\n\n21. [Greek: Zugo\\n = duogo/n] (p. 418 D).\n\n22. [Greek: Eu)phrosu/n\u00ea--a)po\\ tou= eu)= pra/gmasi t\u00ea\\n psuch\u00ea\\n\nxumphe/resthai = eu)pherosu/n\u00ea] (p. 419 D).\n\n23. [Greek: Thumo\\s--a)po\\ t\u00ea=s thu/se\u00f4s kai\\ ze/se\u00f4s t\u00ea=s\npsuch\u00ea=s. E)pithumi/a--\u00ea( e)pi\\ to\\n thumo\\n i)ou=sa du/namis] (p.\n419 E).\n\n24. [Greek: To\\ o)/n = to\\ ou)= tugcha/nei z\u00ea/t\u00eama, to\\ o)/noma.\nO)nomasto\\n = o)/n, ou)= ma/sma e)sti/n. (Ma/sma = z\u00ea/t\u00eama:\nmai/esthai = z\u00eatei=n)] (p. 421 A).\n\n25. [Greek: A)l\u00eathei/a--thei/a a)/l\u00ea], or [Greek: \u00ea( thei/a tou=\no)/ntos phora/. Pseu=dos] from [Greek: eu(/dein], with [Greek:\npsi=] prefixed, as being the opposite of movement and flux (p. 421\nB-C).\n\n26. Several derivations of names are given by Sokrates, as founded\nupon the theory opposed to Herakleitus--_i.e._, the theory that\nthings were not in perpetual flux, but stationary:--\n\n[Greek: E)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea--o(/ti i(/st\u00easin \u00ea(m\u00f4=n e)pi\\ toi=s pra/gmasi\nt\u00ea\\n psuch\u00ea/n.\n\nI(stori/a--o(/ti i(/st\u00easi to\\n r(ou=n.\n\nPisto\\n--i(sta=|n panta/pasi s\u00eamai/nei.\n\nMn\u00ea/m\u00ea--mon\u00ea\\ e)n t\u00ea=| psuch\u00ea=|] (437 A-C).\n\n27. We found before that some names of _good_ attributes were\nfounded on the Herakleitean theory. But there are also names of\n_bad_ attributes founded on it.\n\n[Greek: A)mathi/a = \u00ea( tou= a(/ma the\u00f4=| i)o/ntos porei/a.\n\nA)kolasi/a = \u00ea( a)kolouthi/a toi=s pra/gmasin] (p. 437 C).\n\nSokrates contrasts the two theories of [Greek: sta/sis] and\n[Greek: ki/n\u00easis], and says that he believes the first Name-Givers\nto have apportioned names in conformity to the theory of [Greek:\nki/n\u00easis], but that he thinks they were mistaken in adopting that\ntheory (p. 439 C).]\n\n[Side-note: These transitions appear violent to a modern reader.\nThey did not appear so to readers of Plato until this century.\nModern discovery, that they are intended as caricatures to deride\nthe Sophists.]\n\nSuch is the light in which these Platonic etymologies appear to a\nmodern critic. But such was not the light in which they appeared\neither to the ancient Platonists, or to critics earlier than the\nlast century. The Platonists even thought them full of mysterious\nand recondite wisdom. Dionysius of Halikarnassus highly commends\nPlato for his speculations on etymology, especially in the\nKratylus.[31] Plutarch cites some of the most singular etymologies\nin the Kratylus as serious and instructive. The modesty of the\nProtagorean formula becomes here especially applicable: for so\ncomplete has been the revolution of opinion, that the Platonic\netymologies are _now_ treated by _most_ critics as too absurd to\nhave been seriously intended by Plato, even as conjectures. It is\ncalled \"a valuable discovery of modern times\" (so\nSchleiermacher[32] terms it) that Plato meant all or most of them\nas mere parody and caricature. We are now told that it was not\nPlato who misconceived the analogies, conditions, and limits, of\netymological transition, but others; whom Plato has here set\nhimself to expose and ridicule, by mock etymologies intended to\nparody those which they had proposed as serious. If we ask who the\npersons thus ridiculed were, we learn that they were the Sophists,\nProtagoras, or Prodikus, with others; according to Schleiermacher,\nAntisthenes among them.[33]\n\n[Footnote 31: Dionys. Hal. De Comp. Verb. a. 16, p. 196, Schaefer.\n[Greek: ta\\ kra/tista de\\ ne/m\u00f4, \u00f4(s pr\u00f4/t\u00f4| to\\n u(pe\\r\ne)tumologi/as ei)sa/gonti lo/gon, Pla/t\u00f4ni t\u00f4=| S\u00f4kratik\u00f4=|,\npollach\u00ea=| me\\n kai\\ a)/llothi, ma/lista de\\ e)n t\u00f4=| Kratu/l\u00f4|.]\n\nAbout Plato's etymologies, as seriously intended, see Plutarch, De\nIside et Osiride, p. 375 C-D-E, with the note of Wyttenbach.\nHarris, in his Hermes (pp. 369-370-407), alludes to the\netymologies of Plato in the Kratylus as being ingenious, though\ndisputable, but not at all as being derisory caricatures. Indeed\nthe etymology of _Scientia_, which he cites from Scaliger, p. 370,\nis quite as singular as any in the Kratylus. Sydenham (Notes to\nthe translation of Plato's Phil\u00eabus, p. 35) calls the Kratylus \"a\ndialogue, in which is taught the nature of things, as well the\npermanent as the transient, from a supposed etymology of names and\nwords.\n\nI find, in the very instructive comments of Bishop Colenso on the\nPentateuch (Part iv. ch. 24, p. 250), a citation from St.\nAugustine, illustrating the view which I believe Plato to have\ntaken of these etymologies: \"Quo loco prorsus non arbitror\npr\u00e6tereundum, quod pater Valerius animadvertit admirans, in\nquorundam rusticanorum (_i.e._, Africans, near Carthage)\ncollocutione. Cum enim alter alteri dixisset _Salus_--qu\u00e6sivit ab\neo, qui et Latin\u00e9 nosset et Punic\u00e9, quid esset _Salus_: responsum\nest, _Tria_. Tum ille agnoscens cum gaudio, salutem nostram esse\nTrinitatem, convenientiam linguarum non fortuitu sic sonuisse\narbitratus est, sed occultissim\u00e2 dispensatione divin\u00e6\nprovidenti\u00e6--ut cum Latin\u00e9 nominatur _Salus_, \u00e0 Punicis intelligantur\n_Tria_--et cum Punici lingu\u00e2 su\u00e2 _Tria_ nominant, Latin\u00e9 intelligatur\n_Salus_ . . . Sed _h\u00e6c verborum consonantia_, sive provenerit sive\nprovisa sit, _non pugnaciter agendum est ut ei quisque consentiat,\nsed quantum interpretantis elegantiam hilaritas audientis\nadmittit._\"\n\nSo in the etymologies of the Kratylus: Plato follows out threads\nof analogy, which, with indulgent hearers, he reckons will be\nsufficient for proof: and which, even when not accepted as proof,\nwill be pleasing to the fancy of unbelieving hearers, as they are\nto his own. There is no intention to caricature: no obvious\nabsurdities piled up with a view to caricature.]\n\n[Footnote 32: Schleiermacher, Introduction to Kratylus, vol. iv.\np. 6: \"Dagegen ist viel gewonnen durch die Entdeckung neuerer\nZeiten,\" &c. To the same purpose, Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., part\nii. p. 402, edit. 2nd, and Brandis, Gesch. Gr. R\u00f6m. Phil., part\nii. sect. cvii. p. 285.\n\nStallbaum, Prolegg. ad Platon. Cratylum, p. 4, says: \"Quod mirum\nest non esse ab iis animadversum, qui Platonem putaverunt de\nlingu\u00e6 et vocabulorum origine hoc libro suam sententiam explicare\nvoluisse. Isti enim adeo nihil senserunt irrisionis, ut omnia\natque singula pro philosophi decretis venditarint, ideoque ei\nabsurdissima qu\u00e6que commenta affinxerint. Ita Menagius. . . . Nec\nTiedemannus Argum, Dial. Plat. multo rectius judicat. Irrisionem\nprimi senserunt Garnierius et Tennemann.\" &c. Stallbaum, moreover,\nis perpetually complaining in his notes, that the Etymological\nLexicons adopt Plato's derivations as genuine. M\u00e9nage (ad Diogen.\nLaert. iii. 25) declares most of the etymologies of Plato in the\nKratylus to be [Greek: pseude/tuma], but never hints at the\nsupposition that they are intended as caricatures. During the\ncenturies between Plato and M\u00e9nage, men had become more critical\non the subject of etymology: in the century after M\u00e9nage, they had\nbecome more critical still, as we may see by the remarks of Turgot\non the etymologies of M\u00e9nage himself.\n\nThe following are the remarks of Turgot, in the article\n'Etymologie' (Encycl. Franc. in Turgot's collected works, vol.\niii. p. 33): \"M\u00e9nage est un exemple frappant des absurdit\u00e9s dans\nlesquelles on tombe, en adoptant sans choix ce que sugg\u00e8re la\nmalheureuse facilit\u00e9 de supposer tout ce qui est possible: car il\nest tr\u00e8s vrai qu'il ne fait aucune supposition dont la possibilit\u00e9\nne soit justifi\u00e9e par des exemples. Mais nous avons prouv\u00e9 qu'en\nmultipliant \u00e0 volont\u00e9 les alt\u00e9rations interm\u00e9diaires, soit dans le\nson, soit dans la signification, il est ais\u00e9 de d\u00e9river un mot\nquelconque de tout autre mot donn\u00e9: c'est le moyen _d'expliquer\ntout, et d\u00e8s-lors de ne rien expliquer_; c'est le moyen aussi de\njustifier tous les m\u00e9pris de l'ignorance.\"\n\nSteinhart (Einleitung zum Kratylus, pp. 551-552) agrees with\nStallbaum to a certain extent, that Plato in the Kratylus intended\nto mock and caricature the bad etymologists of his own day; yet\nalso that parts of the Kratylus are seriously intended. And he\ndeclares it almost impossible to draw a line between the serious\nmatter and the caricature.\n\nIt appears to me that the Platonic critics here exculpate Plato\nfrom the charge of being a bad etymologist, only by fastening upon\nhim another intellectual defect quite as serious.\n\nDittrich, in his Dissertation De Cratylo Platonis, Leipsic, 1841,\nadopts the opinion of Schleiermacher and the other critics, that\nthe etymological examples given in this dialogue, though Sokrates\nannounces them as proving and illustrating his own theory\nseriously laid down, are really bitter jests and mockery, intended\nto destroy it--\"hanc sententiam facetissimis et irrisione plenis\nexemplis, dum comprobare videtur, rever\u00e2 infringit\" (p. 12).\nDittrich admits that Kratylus, who holds the theory derided,\nunderstands nothing of this _acerbissima irrisio_ (p. 18). He\nthinks that Protagoras, not Prodikus nor Antisthenes, is the\nperson principally caricatured (pp. 32-34-38).]\n\n[Footnote 33: Schleiermacher, Introd. to Kratyl. pp. 8-16;\nStallbaum, Proleg. ad Krat. p. 17. Winckelmann suspects that\nHermogenes in the Kratylus is intended to represent Antisthenes\n(Antisth. Fragment. p. 49).\n\nLobeck (Aglaophamus, p. 866) says that the Pythagoreans were among\nthe earliest etymologising philosophers, proposing such\netymologies as now appear very absurd.]\n\n[Side-note: Dissent from this theory--No proof that the Sophists\never proposed etymologies.]\n\nTo me this modern discovery or hypothesis appears inadmissible. It\nrests upon assumptions at best gratuitous, and in part incorrect:\nit introduces difficulties greater than those which it removes. We\nfind no proof that the Sophists ever proposed such etymologies as\nthose which are here supposed to be ridiculed--or that they\ndevoted themselves to etymology at all. If they etymologised, they\nwould doubtless do so in the manner (to our judgment loose and\nfantastic) of their own time and of times long after them. But\nwhat ground have we for presuming that Plato's views on the\nsubject were more correct? and that etymologies which to them\nappeared admissible, would be regarded by him as absurd and\nridiculous?\n\nNow if the persons concerned were other than the Sophists,\nscarcely any critic would have thought himself entitled to fasten\nupon them a discreditable imputation without some evidence. Of\nProdikus we know (and that too chiefly from some sarcasms of\nPlato) that he took pains to distinguish words apparently, but not\nreally, equivalent: and that such accurate distinction was what he\nmeant by \"rectitude of names\" (Plato, Euthyd\u00eam. 277 E.) Of\nProtagoras we know that he taught, by precept or example, correct\nspeaking or writing: but we have no information that either of\nthem pursued etymological researches, successfully or\nunsuccessfully.[34] Moreover this very dialogue (Kratylus)\ncontains strong presumptive evidence that the Platonic etymologies\ncould never have been intended to ridicule Protagoras. For these\netymologies are announced by Sokrates as exemplifying and\nillustrating a theory of his own respecting names: which theory\n(Sokrates himself expressly tells us) is founded upon the direct\nnegation of the cardinal doctrine of Protagoras.[35] That Sophist,\ntherefore, could not have been ridiculed by any applications,\nhowever extravagant, of a theory directly opposed to him.[36]\n\n[Footnote 34: See a good passage of Winckelmann, Prolegg. ad\nPlaton. Euthydemum, p. xlvii., respecting Protagoras and Prodikus,\nas writers and critics on language.\n\nStallbaum says, Proleg. ad Krat. p. 11:--\"Quibus verbis _haud\ndubi\u00e9_ notantur Sophist\u00e6; qui, neglectis lingu\u00e6 elementis,\nderivatorum et compositorum verborum originationem temer\u00e9 ad suum\narbitrium tractabant\". Ibid. p. 4:--\"In Cratylo inept\u00e6 etymologi\u00e6\nspecimina exhibentur, ita quidem ut _haudquaquam dubitari liceat_,\nquin ista omnia ad mentem sophistarum maximeque Protagoreorum\n_joculari imitatione_ explicata sint\".\n\nIn spite of these confident assertions,--first, that the Sophists\nare the persons _intended_ to be ridiculed, next, that they\n_deserved_ to be so ridiculed--Stallbaum has another passage, p.\n15, wherein he says, \"Jam vero quinam fuerint philosophi isti\natque etymologi, qui in Cratylo ridentur et exploduntur, _vulgo\nparum exploratum habetur_\". He goes on to say that neither\nProdikus nor Antisthenes is meant, but Protagoras and the\nProtagoreans. To prove this he infers, from a passage in this\ndialogue (c. 11, p. 391 C), that Protagoras had written a book\n[Greek: peri\\ o)rtho/t\u00eatos t\u00f4=n o)noma/t\u00f4n] (Heindorf and\nSchleiermacher, with better reason, infer from the passage nothing\nmore than the circumstance that Protagoras taught [Greek:\no)rthoepei/an] or correct speaking and writing). The passage does\nnot prove this; but if it did, what did Protagoras teach in the\nbook? Stallbaum tells us (p. 16):--\"Jam si qu\u00e6ras, quid tandem\nProtagoras ipse de nominum ortu censuerit, _fateor un\u00e2 conjectur\u00e2\nnitendum esse, ut de h\u00e2c re aliquid eruatur_\". He then proceeds to\n_conjecture_, from the little which we know respecting Protagoras,\nwhat that Sophist must have laid down upon the origin of names;\nand he finishes by assuming the very point which he ought to have\nproved (p. 17):--\"_ex ipso Cratylo intelligimus et cognoscimus_,\nmox inter Protagor\u00e6 amicos exstitisse qui inept\u00e9 h\u00e6c studia\npersequentes, non e verbis et nominibus mentis human\u00e6 notiones\nelicere et illustrare, sed in verba et nomina sua ipsi decreta\ntransferre et sic ea probare et confirmare niterentur. Quid quidem\nhomines \u00e0 Platone hoc libro _facetissim\u00e2 irrisione_ exagitantur,\"\n&c. I repeat, that in spite of Stallbaum's confident assertions,\nhe fails in giving the smallest proof that Protagoras or the\nSophists proposed etymologies such as to make them a suitable butt\nfor Plato on this occasion. Ast also talks with equal confidence\nand equal absence of proof about the silly and arbitrary\netymological proceedings of the Sophists, which (he says) this\ndialogue is intended throughout to ridicule (Ast, Platon's Leben\nund Schriften, pp. 253-254-264, &c.).]\n\n[Footnote 35: Plato, Kratylus, c. 4-5, pp. 386-387.]\n\n[Footnote 36: Lassalle (Herakleitos, vol. ii. pp. 379-384) asserts\nand shows very truly that Protagoras cannot be the person intended\nto be represented by Plato under the name of Kratylus, or as\nholding the opinion of Kratylus about names. Lassalle affirms that\nPlato intends Kratylus in the dialogue to represent Herakleitus\nhimself (p. 385); moreover he greatly extols the sagacity of\nHerakleitos for having laid down the principle, that \"Names are\nthe essence of things,\" in which principle Lassalle (so far as I\nunderstand him) himself concurs.\n\nAssuming this to be the case, we should naturally suppose that if\nPlato intends to ridicule any one, by presenting caricatured\netymologies as flowing from this principle, the person intended as\nbutt must be Herakleitus himself. Not so Lassalle. He asserts as\nbroadly as Stallbaum that it was Protagoras and the other Sophists\nwho grossly abused the doctrine of Herakleitus, for the purpose of\nconfusing and perverting truth by arbitrary etymologies. His\nlanguage is even more monstrous and extravagant than that of\nStallbaum; yet he does not produce (any more than Stallbaum) the\nleast fragment of proof that the Sophists or Protagoras did what\nhe imputes to them (pp. 400-401-403-422).\n\nM. Lenormant, in his recent edition of the Kratylus (Comm. p.\n7-9), maintains also that neither the Sophists nor the Rhetors\npretended to etymologise, nor are here ridiculed. But he ascribes\nto Plato in the Kratylus a mystical and theological purpose which\nI find it difficult to follow.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato did not intend to propose mock-etymologies, or to\nderide any one. Protagoras could not be ridiculed here. Neither\nHermogenes nor Kratylus understand the etymologies as caricature.]\n\nSuppose it then ascertained that Plato intended to ridicule and\nhumiliate some rash etymologists, there would still be no\npropriety in singling out the Sophists as his victims--except that\nthey are obnoxious names, against whom every unattested accusation\nis readily believed. But it is neither ascertained, nor (in my\njudgment) probable, that Plato here intended to ridicule or\nhumiliate any one. The ridicule, if any was intended, would tell\nagainst himself more than against others. For he first begins by\nlaying down a general theory respecting names: a theory\nunquestionably propounded as serious, and understood to be so by\nthe critics:[37] moreover, involving some of his favourite and\npeculiar doctrines. It is this theory that his particular\netymologies are announced as intended to carry out, in the way of\nillustration or exemplification. Moreover, he undertakes to prove\nthis theory against Hermogenes, who declares himself strongly\nopposed to it: and he proves it by a string of arguments which\n(whether valid or not) are obviously given with a serious and\nsincere purpose of establishing the conclusion. Immediately after\nhaving established that there was a real rectitude of names, and\nafter announcing that he would proceed to enquire wherein such\nrectitude consisted,[38] what sense or consistency would there be\nin his inventing a string of intentional caricatures announced as\nreal etymologies? By doing this, he would be only discrediting and\ndegrading the very theory which he had taken so much pains to\ninculcate upon Hermogenes. Instead of ridiculing Protagoras, he\nwould ridicule himself and his own theory for the benefit of\nopponents generally, one among them being Protagoras: who (if we\nimagine his life prolonged) would have had the satisfaction of\nseeing a theory, framed in direct opposition to his doctrine,\ndiscredited and parodied by his own advocate. Hermogenes, too\n(himself an opponent of the theory, though not concurring with\nProtagoras), if these etymologies were intended as caricatures,\nought to be made to receive them as such, and to join in the joke\nat the expense of the persons derided. But Hermogenes is not made\nto manifest any sense of their being so intended: he accepts them\nall as serious, though some as novel and surprising, in the same\npassive way which is usual with the interlocutors of Sokrates in\nother dialogues. Farther, there are some among these etymologies\nplain and plausible enough, accepted as serious by all the\ncritics.[39] Yet these are presented in the series, without being\nparted off by any definite line, along with those which we are\ncalled upon to regard as deliberate specimens of mock-etymology.\nAgain, there are also some, which, looking at their etymological\ncharacter, are as strange and surprising as any in the whole\ndialogue: but which yet, from the place which they occupy in the\nargument, and from the plain language in which they are presented,\nalmost exclude the supposition that they can be intended as jest\nor caricature.[40] Lastly, Kratylus, whose theory all these\netymologies are supposed to be intended to caricature, is so far\nfrom being aware of this, that he cordially approves every thing\nwhich Sokrates had said.[41]\n\n[Footnote 37: Schleiermacher, Introd. to Krat. pp. 7-10; Lassalle,\nHerakleit. ii. p. 387.]\n\n[Footnote 38: Plato, Kratylus, p. 391 B.]\n\n[Footnote 39: See, as an example, his derivation of [Greek:\n_Di/philos_] from [Greek: Dii+/ phi/los], p. 399: [Greek:\n_Mou=sa_], p. 406: [Greek: dai/m\u00f4n] from [Greek: da\u00ea/m\u00f4n], p. 398:\nfor [Greek: _A)phrodi/t\u00ea_] he takes the Hesiodic etymology, p.\n406. [Greek: _A)/r\u00eas_] and [Greek: _a)/r)r(\u00ean_] (p. 407). His\nderivation of [Greek: _ai)th\u00ea/r_--a)po\\ tou= a)ei\\ the/ein] (p.\n410) is given twice by Aristotle (De Coelo, i. 3, p. 270, b. 22;\nMeteorol. i. 3, p. 339, b. 25) as well as in the Pseudo-Aristotle,\nDe Mundo, p. 392, a. 8. None of the Platonic etymologies is more\nstrange than that of [Greek: psuch\u00ea/], quasi [Greek: phuse/ch\u00ea,\na)po\\ tou= t\u00ea\\n phu/sin o)chei=n kai\\ e)/chein] (Kratyl. p. 400).\nYet Proklus cites this as serious, Scholia in Kratylum, p. 4, ed.\nBoissonnade. Plato, in the Treatise De Legibus, derives [Greek:\ncho/ros] from [Greek: chara/] and [Greek: no/mos] from [Greek:\nnou=s] or [Greek: no/os] (ii. 1, p. 654 A, xii. 8, p. 957 D).]\n\n[Footnote 40: See Plato, Kratyl. p. 437 A-B.\n\nThis occurs in the latter portion of the dialogue carried on by\nSokrates with Kratylus, and is admitted by Lassalle to be\nseriously meant by Plato: though Lassalle maintains that the\netymologies in the first part of the dialogue (between Sokrates\nand Hermogenes) are mere mockery and parody. (Lassalle,\nHerakleitos der Dunkle, vol. ii., pp. 402-403).\n\nI venture to say that none of those Platonic etymologies, which\nLassalle regards as caricatures, are more absurd than those which\nhe here accepts as serious. Liddell and Scott in their Lexicon say\nabout [Greek: thumo/s], \"probably rightly derived from [Greek:\nthu/\u00f4] by Plat. Crat. 419 E, [Greek: a)po\\ t\u00ea=s thu/se\u00f4s kai\\\nze/se\u00f4s t\u00ea=s psuch\u00ea=s.]\" The manner in which Schleiermacher and\nSteinhart also (Einleit. zum Kratylos, pp. 552-554), analysing\nthis dialogue, represent Plato as passing backwards and forwards\nfrom mockery to earnest and from earnest to mockery, appears to me\nvery singular: as well as the principle which Schleiermacher lays\ndown (Introduct. p. 10), that Plato intended the general doctrines\nto be seriously understood, and the particular etymological\napplications to be mere mockery and extravagance (um wer weiss\nwelche Kom\u00f6die aufzuf\u00fchren). What other philosopher has ever\npropounded serious doctrines, and then followed them up by\nillustrations knowingly and intentionally caricatured so as to\ndisparage the doctrines instead of recommending them?\n\nIt** is surely less difficult to believe that Plato conceived as\nplausible and admissible those etymologies which appear to us\nabsurd.\n\nAs a specimen of the view entertained by able men of the\nseventeenth century respecting the Platonic and Aristotelian\netymologies, see the Institutiones Logic\u00e6 of Burgersdicius, Lib.\ni. c. 25, not. 1. Lehrsch (Die Sprachphilosophie der Alten, Part\ni. p. 34-35) agrees with the other commentators, that the Platonic\netymologies in the Kratylus are caricatured to deride the boastful\nand arbitrary etymologies of the Sophists about language. But he\ntoo produces no evidence of such etymologies on the part of the\nSophists; nay, what is remarkable, he supposes that _both_\nProtagoras and Prodikus agreed in the Platonic doctrine that names\nwere [Greek: phu/sei] (see pp. 17-19).]\n\n[Footnote 41: Plato, Kratylus, p. 429 C. Steinhart (Einleit. zum\nKrat. pp. 549-550) observes that both Kratylus and Hermogenes are\nrepresented as understanding seriously these etymologies which are\nnow affirmed to be meant as caricatures.\n\nAs specimens of Plato's view respecting admissible etymologies, we\nfind him in Tim\u00e6us, p. 43 C, deriving [Greek: ai)/sth\u00easis] from\n[Greek: a)i+/ss\u00f4]: again in the same dialogue, p. 62 A, [Greek:\nthermo\\s] from [Greek: kermati/zein]. In Legg. iv. 714, we have\n[Greek: t\u00ea\\n tou= nou= dianom\u00ea\\n e)ponoma/zontas no/mon]. In\nPh\u00e6drus, p. 238 C, we find [Greek: e)/r\u00f4s] derived from [Greek:\ne)r)r(\u00f4me/n\u00f4s r(\u00f4sthei=sa].\n\nAristotle derives [Greek: o)/sphus] from [Greek: i)sophue/s],\nHistor. Animal. i. 13, p. 493, a. 22: also [Greek: di/kaion] from\n[Greek: di/cha], Ethic. Nikom. v. 7, 1132, a. 31; [Greek:\nmethu/ein--meta\\ to\\ thu/ein], Athen\u00e6us, ii. 40. The\nPseudo-Aristotelian treatise [Greek: Peri\\ Ko/smou] (p. 401, a. 15)\nadopts the Platonic etymology of [Greek: Di/a-Z\u00ea=na] as [Greek:\ndi' o(\\n z\u00f4=men]\n\nPlutarch, De Primo Frigido, c. 9, p. 948, derives [Greek: kne/phas]\nfrom [Greek: keno\\n pha/ous].\n\nThe Emperor Marcus Antoninus derives [Greek: a)kti/s], the ray of\nthe Sun, [Greek: a)po\\ tou= e)ktei/nesthai], Meditat. viii. 57.\n\nThe Stoics, who were fond of etymologising, borrowed many\netymologies from the Platonic Kratylus (Villoison, de Theologi\u00e2\nPhysic\u00e2 Stoicorum, in Osann's edition of Cornutus De Natur\u00e2\nDeorum, p. 512). Specimens of the Stoic etymologies are given by\nthe Stoic Balbus in Cicero, De Nat. Deorum, ii. 25-29 (64-73).\n\nD\u00e4hne (in his Darstellung der Judisch-Alexandrinischen\nReligions-Philosophie, i. p. 73 seq.) remarks on the numerous\netymologies not merely propounded, but assumed as grounds of\nreasoning by Philo Jud\u00e6us in commenting upon the Pentateuch,\netymologies totally inadmissible and often ridiculous.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato intended his theory as serious, but his\nexemplifications as admissible guesses. He does not cite\nparticular cases as proofs of a theory, but only as illustrating\nwhat he means.]\n\nI cannot therefore accept as well-founded this \"discovery of\nmodern times,\" which represents the Platonic etymologies in the\nKratylus as intentionally extravagant and knowingly caricatured,\nfor the purpose of ridiculing the Sophists or others. In my\njudgment, Plato did not put them forward as extravagant, nor for\nthe purpose of ridiculing any one, but as genuine illustrations of\na theory of his own respecting names. It cannot be said indeed\nthat he advanced them as proof of his theory: for Plato seldom\nappeals to particulars, except when he has a theory to attack.\nWhen he has a theory to lay down, he does not generally recognise\nthe necessity of either proving or verifying it by application to\nparticular cases. His proof is usually deductive or derived from\nsome more general principle asserted _\u00e0 priori_--some internal\nsentiment enunciated as a self-justifying maxim. Particular\nexamples serve to illustrate what the principle is, but are not\nrequired to establish its validity.[42] But I believe that he\nintended his particular etymologies as _bon\u00e2 fide_ guesses, more\nor less probable (like the developments in the Tim\u00e6us, which\nhe[43] repeatedly designates as [Greek: ei)ko/ta], and nothing\nbeyond): some certain, some doubtful, some merely novel and\ningenious: such as would naturally spring from the originating\n_afflatus_ of diviners (like Euthyphron, to whom he alludes more\nthan once[44]) who stepped beyond the ordinary regions of human\naffirmation. Occasionally he proposes alternative and distinct\netymologies: feeling assured that there was some way of making out\nthe conclusion--but not feeling equally certain about his own way\nof making it out. The sentiment of belief attaches itself in\nPlato's mind to general views and theorems: when he gives\nparticular consequences as flowing from them, his belief graduates\ndown through all the stages between full certainty and the lowest\nprobability, until in some cases it becomes little more than a\nfanciful illustration--like the mythes which he so often invents\nto expand and enliven these same general views.[45]\n\n[Footnote 42: See some passages in this very dialogue, Krat. pp.\n436 E, 437 C, 438 C.\n\nLassalle remarks that neither Herakleitus nor Plato were disposed\nto rest the proof of a general principle upon an induction of\nparticulars (Herakleitos, p. 406).]\n\n[Footnote 43: Spengel justly remarks (Art. Scr. p. 52) respecting\nthe hypotheses of the Platonic commentators:--\"Platonem quidem\nliberare gestiunt, fals\u00e2, ironi\u00e2, non ex animi sententi\u00e2 omnia in\nCratylo prolata esse dicentes. Sed pr\u00e6ter alia multa et hoc\nneglexerunt viri docti, easdem verborum originationes, quas in\nCratylo, in c\u00e6teris quoque dialogis, ubi nullus est facetiis\nlocus, et seria omnia aguntur, recurrere.\"\n\nThis passage is cited by K. F. Hermann, Gesch. und Syst. d.\nPlaton. Phil. Not. 474, p. 656. Hermann's own remarks on the\ndialogue (pp. 494-497) are very indistinct, but he seems to agree\nwith Schleiermacher in singling out Antisthenes as the object of\nattack.\n\nThe third portion of Lehrsch's work, _Ueber die Sprachphilosophie\nder Alten_, cites numerous examples of the etymologies attempted\nby the ancients, from Homer downwards, many of them collected from\nthe Etymologicon Magnum. When we read the etymologies propounded\nseriously by Greek and Latin philosophers (especially the Stoic\nChrysippus), literary men, jurists, and poets, we shall not be\nastonished at those found in the Platonic Kratylus. The etymology\nof [Greek: Theo\\s a)po\\ tou= thei=n], given in the Kratylus (p.\n397 D), as well as in the Pythagorean Philolaus (see Boeckh,\nPhilolaus, pp. 168-175), and repeated by Clemens Alexandrinus, is\nnot more absurd than that of [Greek: theo\\s a)po\\ tou= thei=nai],\ngiven by Herodot. ii. 52, and also repeated by Clemens, see\nWesseling's note. None of the etymologies of the Kratylus is more\nstrange than that of [Greek: Zeu\\s-Di/a-Z\u00ea=na] (p. 396 B). Yet\nthis is reproduced in the Pseudo-Aristotelian Treatise, [Greek:\nPeri\\ Ko/smou] (p. 401, a. 15), as well as by the Stoic Zeno\n(Diogen. Laert. vii. 147). The treatise of Cornutus, De Nat. Deor.\nwith Osann's Commentary, is instructive in enabling us to\nappreciate the taste of ancient times as to what was probable or\nadmissible in etymology. There are few of the etymologies in the\nKratylus more singular than that of [Greek: a)/nthr\u00f4pos] from\n[Greek: a)nathr\u00f4=n a)\\ o(/p\u00f4pen]. Yet this is cited by Ammonius as\na perfectly good derivation, ad Aristot. De Interpret. p. 103, b.\n8, Schol. Bekk., and also in the Etymologicon Magnum.]\n\n[Footnote 44: Compare Plato, Euthyphron, p. 6 D. Origination and\ninvention often pass in Plato as the workings of an ordinary mind\n(sometimes even a feeble mind) worked upon from without by divine\ninspiration, quite distinct from the internal force, reasoning,\njudging, testing, which belongs to a powerful mind. See Ph\u00e6drus,\npp. 235 C, 238 D, 244 A; Tim\u00e6us, p. 72 A; Menon, p. 81 A.]\n\n[Footnote 45: I have made some remarks to this effect upon the\nPlatonic mythes in my notice of the Ph\u00e6don, see ch. xxv. p. 415,\nad Ph\u00e6don, p. 114.]\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates announces himself as Searcher. Other\netymologists of ancient times admitted etymologies as rash as\nthose of Plato.]\n\nWe must remember that Sokrates in the Kratylus explicitly\nannounces himself as having no formed opinion on the subject, and\nas competent only to the prosecution of the enquiry, jointly with\nthe others. What he says must therefore be received as conjectures\nproposed for discussion. I see no ground for believing that he\nregarded any of them, even those which appear to us the strangest,\nas being absurd or extravagant--or that he proposed any of them in\nmockery and caricature, for the purpose of deriding other\nEtymologists. Because these etymologies, or many of them at least,\nappear to us obviously absurd, we are not warranted in believing\nthat they must have appeared so to Plato. They did not appear so\n(as I have already observed) to Dionysius of Halikarnassus--nor to\nDiogenes, nor to the Platonists of antiquity nor to any critics\nearlier than the seventeenth century.[46] By many of these critics\nthey were deemed not merely serious, but valuable. Nor are they\nmore absurd than many of the etymologies proposed by Aristotle, by\nthe Stoics, by the Alexandrine critics, by Varro, and by the\n_grammatici_ or literary men of antiquity generally; moreover,\neven by Plato himself in other dialogues occasionally.[47] In\ndetermining what etymologies would appear to Plato reasonable or\nadmissible, Dionysius, Plutarch, Proklus, and Alkinous, are more\nlikely to judge rightly than we: partly because they had a larger\nknowledge of the etymologies proposed by Greek philosophers and\n_grammatici_ than we possess--partly because they had no\nacquaintance with the enlarged views of modern\netymologists--which, on the point here in question, are misleading\nrather than otherwise. Plato held the general theory that names,\nin so far as they were framed with perfect rectitude, held embodied\nin words and syllables a likeness or imitation of the essence of things.\nAnd if he tried to follow out such a theory into detail, without\nany knowledge of grammatical systems, without any large and\nwell-chosen collection of analogies within his own language, or any\ncomparison of different languages with each other--he could\nscarcely fail to lose himself in wonderful and violent\ntransmutations of letters and syllables.[48]\n\n[Footnote 46: Dionys. Hal. De Comp. Verbor. c. 16, p. 96, Reiske;\nPlutarch, De Isid. et Osir. c. 60, p. 375.\n\nProklus advises that those who wish to become dialecticians should\nbegin with the study of the Kratylus (Schol. ad Kratyl. p. 3, ed.\nBoiss.).\n\nWe read in the Ph\u00e6drus of Plato (p. 244 B) in the second speech\nascribed to Sokrates, two etymologies:--1. [Greek: mantik\u00ea\\]\nderived from [Greek: manik\u00ea\\] by the insertion of [Greek: t],\nwhich Sokrates declares to be done in bad taste, [Greek: oi( de\\\nnu=n a)peiroka/l\u00f4s to\\ _tau=_ e)pemba/llontes mantik\u00ea\\n\ne)ka/lasan.] 2. [Greek: oi)\u00f4nistik\u00ea\\], quasi [Greek:\noi)onoi+stik\u00ea\\], from [Greek: oi)/\u00easis, nou=s, i(stori/a]. Compare\nthe etymology of [Greek: E)/r\u00f4s], p. 238 C. That these are real\nword-changes, which Plato believes to have taken place, is the\nnatural and reasonable interpretation of the passage. Cicero\n(Divinat. i. 1) alludes to the first of the two as Plato's real\nopinion; and Heindorf as well as Schleiermacher accept it in the\nsame sense, while expressing their surprise at the want of\netymological perspicacity in Plato. Ast and Stallbaum, on the\ncontrary, declare that these two etymologies are mere irony and\nmockery, spoken by Plato, _ex mente Sophistarum_, and intended as\na sneer at the perverse and silly Sophists. No reason is produced\nby Ast and Stallbaum to justify this hypothesis, except that you\ncannot imagine \"_Platonem tam c\u00e6cum fuisse_,\" &c. To me this\nreason is utterly insufficient; and I contend, moreover, that\nsneers at the Sophists would be quite out of place in a speech,\nsuch as the palinode of Sokrates about Eros.]\n\n[Footnote 47: See what Aristotle says about [Greek: Pa/nt\u00ea] in the\nfirst chapter of the treatise De Coelo; also about [Greek:\nau)to/maton] from [Greek: au)to\\ ma/t\u00ean], Physic. ii. 5, p. 197,\nb. 30.\n\nStallbaum, after having complimented Plato for his talent in\ncaricaturing the etymologies of others, expresses his surprise to\nfind Aristotle reproducing some of these very caricatures as\nserious, see Stallbaum's note on Kratyl. p. 411 E.\n\nRespecting the etymologies proposed by learned and able Romans in\nand before the Ciceronian and Augustan age, \u00c6lius Stilo, Varro,\nLabeo, Nigidius, &c., see Aulus Gellius, xiii. 10; Quintilian,\nInst. Or. i. 5; Varro, de Lingu\u00e2 Latin\u00e2.\n\nEven to Quintilian, the etymologies of Varro appeared\npreposterous; and he observes, in reference to those proposed by\n\u00c6lius Stilo and by others afterwards, \"Cui non post Varronem sit\nvenia?\" (i. 6, 37). This critical remark, alike good tempered and\nreasonable, might be applied with still greater pertinence to the\nKratylus of Plato. In regard to etymology, more might have been\nexpected from Varro than from Plato; for in the days of Plato,\netymological guesses were almost a novelty; while during the three\ncenturies which elapsed between him and Varro, many such\nconjectures had been hazarded by various scholars, and more or\nless of improvement might be hoped from the conflict of opposite\nopinions and thinkers.\n\nM. Gaston Boissier (in his interesting \u00c9tude sur la vie et les\nOuvrages de M. Terentius Varron, p. 152, Paris, 1861) observes\nrespecting Varro, what is still more applicable to\nPlato:--\"Gardons nous bien d'ailleurs de demander \u00e0 Varron ce qu'exige\nla science moderne: pour n'\u00eatre pas trop s\u00e9v\u00e8res, remettons-le dans\nson \u00e9poque et jugeons-le avec l'esprit de son temps.** Il ne semble\npas qu'alors on r\u00e9clam\u00e2t, de ceux qui recherchaient les\n\u00e9tymologies, beaucoup d'exactitude et de s\u00e9v\u00e9rit\u00e9. _On se piquait\nmoins d'arriver \u00e0 l'origine r\u00e9elle du mot, que de le d\u00e9composer\nd'une mani\u00e8re ing\u00e9nieuse et qui en grav\u00e2t le sens dans la\nm\u00e9moire._ Les jurisconsultes eux-m\u00eames, malgr\u00e9 la gravit\u00e9 de leur\nprofession et l'importance pratique de leurs recherches, ne\nsuivaient pas une autre m\u00e9thode. Trebatius trouvait dans\n_sacellum_ les deux mots _sacra cella_: et Lab\u00e9on faisait venir\n_soror_ de _seorsum_, parce que la jeune fille se s\u00e9pare de le\nmaison paternelle pours suivre son \u00e9poux: tout comme Nigidius\ntrouvoit dans _frater fer\u00e8 alter_--c'est \u00e0 dire, un autre\nsoi-m\u00eame,\" &c.\n\nLobeck has similar remarks in his Aglaophamus (pp. 867-869):--\"San\u00e9\nita J. Capellus veteres juris consultos excusat, _mutuum_\ninterpretantes _quod ex meo tuum fiat, testamentum_ autem\n_testationem mentis_, non quod eam verborum originem esse\nputarent, sed ut significationem eorum altius in legentium animis\ndefigerent. Similiterque ecclesiastici quidam auctores, quum nomen\nPascha a gr\u00e6co verbo [Greek: pa/schein] repetunt, non per\nignorantiam lapsi, sed allusionis quandam gratiam aucupati\nvidentur.\"]\n\n[Footnote 48: Gr\u00e4fenhahn (Gesch. d. classichen Philologie, vol. i.\nsect. 36, pp. 151-164) points out how common was the hypothesis of\nfanciful derivation of names or supposed etymologies among the\nGreek poets, and how it passed from them to the prose writers. He\ndeclares that the etymologies in Plato not only in the Kratylus\nbut in other dialogues are \"etymologische monstra,\" but he\nprofesses inability to distinguish which of them are serious (pp.\n163-164).\n\nLobeck remarks that the playing and quibbling with words, widely\ndiffused among the ancient literati generally, was especially\nlikely to belong to those who held the Platonic theory about\nlanguage:--\"Is intelligat necesse est, hoc universum genus ab\nantiquitatis** ingenio non alienum, ei vero, qui imagines rerum in\nvocabulis sic ut in cer\u00e2 expressas putaret, convenientissimum\nfuisse\" (Aglaophamus, p. 870).]\n\n[Side-note: Continuance of the dialogue--Sokrates endeavours to\nexplain how it is that the Names originally right have become so\ndisguised and spoiled.]\n\nHaving expressed my opinion that the etymologies propounded by\nSokrates in the Kratylus are not intended as caricatures, but as\n_bon\u00e2 fide_ specimens of admissible etymological conjecture, or,\nat the least, of discoverable analogy--I resume the thread of the\ndialogue.\n\nThese etymologies are the hypothetical links whereby Sokrates\nreconciles his first theory of the essential rectitude of Names\n(that is, of Naming, as a process which can only be performed in\none way, and by an Artist who discerns and uses the Name-Form),\nwith the names actually received and current. The contrast between\nthe sameness and perfection postulated in the theory, and the\nconfusion of actual practice, is not less manifest than the\ncontrast between the benevolent purposes ascribed to the Demiurgus\n(in the Tim\u00e6us) and the realities of man and society:--requiring\nintermediate assumptions, more or less ingenious, to explain or\nattenuate the glaring inconsistencies. Respecting the Name-Form,\nSokrates intimates that it may often be so disguised by difference\nof letters and syllables, as not to be discernible by an ordinary\nman, or by any one except an artist or philosopher. Two names, if\ncompound, may have the same Name-Form, though few or none of the\nletters in them be the same. A physician may so disguise his\ncomplex mixtures, by apparent differences of colour or smell, that\nthey shall be supposed by others to be different, though\nessentially the same. _Beta_ is the name of the letter B: you may\nsubstitute, in place of the three last letters, any others which\nyou prefer, and the name will still be appropriate to designate\nthe letter B.[49]\n\n[Footnote 49: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 393-394.]\n\n[Side-note: Letters, as well as things, must be distinguished with\ntheir essential properties, each must be adapted to each.]\n\nTo explain the foundations of the onomastic (name-giving or\nspeaking) art,[50] we must analyse words into their primordial\nconstituent letters. The name-giving Artists have begun from this\npoint, and we must follow in their synthetical track. We must\ndistinguish letters with their essential forms--we must also\ndistinguish things with their essential forms--we must then assign\nto each essence of things that essence of letters which has a\nnatural aptitude to signify it, either one letter singly or\nseveral conjoined. The rectitude of the compound names will depend\nupon that of the simple and primordial.[51] This is the only way\nin which we can track out the rectitude of names: for it is no\naccount of the matter to say that the Gods bestowed them, and that\ntherefore they are right: such recourse to a _Deus ex machin\u00e2_ is\nonly one among the pretexts for evading the necessity of\nexplanation.[52]\n\n[Footnote 50: Plato, Kratyl. p. 425 A. [Greek: t\u00ea=| o)nomastik\u00ea=|,\n\u00ea)\\ r(\u00eatorik\u00ea=|, \u00ea)\\ \u00ea(/tis e)sti\\n \u00ea( te/chn\u00ea.]]\n\n[Footnote 51: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 424 B-E, 426 A, 434 A.]\n\n[Footnote 52: Plato, Kratyl. p. 425 E.]\n\nThis extreme postulate of analysis and adaptation may be compared\nwith that which Sokrates lays down, in the Ph\u00e6drus, in regard to\nthe art of Rhetoric. You must first distinguish all the different\nforms of mind--then all the different forms of speech; you must\nassign the sort of speech which is apt for persuading each\nparticular sort of mind. Ph\u00e6drus, pp. 271-272.]\n\n[Side-note: Essential significant aptitude consists in\nresemblance.]\n\nEssential aptitude for signification consists in resemblance\nbetween the essence of the letter and that of the thing signified.\nThus the letter _Rho_, according to Sokrates, is naturally apt for\nthe signification of rush or vehement motion, because in\npronouncing it the tongue is briskly agitated and rolled about.\nSeveral words are cited, illustrating this position.[53] _Iota_\nnaturally designates thin and subtle things, which insinuate\nthemselves everywhere. _Phi_, _Chi_, _Psi_, _Sigma_, the\nsibilants, imitate blowing. _Delta_ and _Tau_, from the\ncompression of the tongue, imitate stoppage of motion, or\nstationary condition. _Lambda_ imitates smooth and slippery\nthings. _Nu_ serves, as confining the voice in the mouth, to form\nthe words signifying in-doors and interior. _Alpha_ and _Eta_ are\nboth of them large letters: the first is assigned to signify size,\nthe last to signify length. _Omicron_ is suited to what is round\nor circular.[54]\n\n[Footnote 53: Plato, Kratyl. p. 426 D-E. [Greek: krou/ein,\nthrau/ein, e(rei/kein], &c. Leibnitz (Nouveaux Essais sur\nl'Entendement Humain, Book iii. ch. 2, p. 300 Erdm.); and Jacob\nGrimm (in his Dissertation Ueber den Ursprung der Sprache,\nBerlin, 1858, ed. 4) give views very similar to those of Plato,\nrespecting the primordial growth of language, and the original\nsignificant or symbolising power supposed to be inherent in each\nletter (Kein Buchstabe, \"urspr\u00fcnglich steht bedeutungslos oder\nueberfl\u00fcssig,\" pp. 39-40). Leibnitz and Grimm say (as Plato here\nalso affirms) that Rho designates the Rough--Lambda, the Smooth:\nsee also what he says about Alpha, Iota, Hypsilon. Compare,\nbesides, M. Renan, Orig. du Langage, vi. p. 137.\n\nThe comparison of the Platonic speculations on the primordial\npowers of letters, with those of a modern linguistic scholar so\nillustrious as Grimm (the earliest speculations with the latest)\nare exceedingly curious--and honourable to Plato. They serve as\nfarther reasons for believing that this dialogue was not intended\nto caricature Protagoras.]\n\n[Footnote 54: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 426-427.]\n\nIt is from these fundamental aptitudes, and some others analogous,\nthat the name-giving Artist, or Lawgiver, first put together\nletters to compound and construct his names. Herein consists their\nrectitude, according to Sokrates. Though in laying down the\nposition Sokrates gives it only as the best which _he_ could\ndiscover, and intimates that some persons may turn it into\nderision--yet he evidently means to be understood seriously.[55]\n\n[Footnote 55: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 426 B, 427 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates assumes that the Name-giving Lawgiver was a\nbeliever in the Herakleitean theory.]\n\nIn applying this theory--about the fundamental significant\naptitudes of the letters of the alphabet--to show the rectitude of\nthe existing words compounded from them--Sokrates assumes that the\nname-giving Artists were believers in the Herakleitean theory:\nthat is, in the perpetual process of flux, movement, and\ntransition into contraries. He cites a large variety of names,\nshowing by their composition that they were adapted to denote this\nall-pervading fact, as constituting the essence of things.[56] The\nnames given by these theorists to that which is good, virtuous,\nagreeable, &c., were compounded in such a manner as to denote what\nfacilitates, or falls in with, the law of universal movement: the\nnames of things bad or hurtful, denote what obstructs or retards\nmovement.[57]\n\n[Footnote 56: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 401 C--402 B. 436 E: [Greek: \u00f4(s\ntou= panto\\s i)o/ntos te kai\\ pherome/non kai\\ r(e/ontos phame\\n\ns\u00eamai/nein \u00ea(mi=n t\u00ea\\n ou)si/an ta\\ o)no/mata.] Also p. 439 B.]\n\n[Footnote 57: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 415-416-417, &c.]\n\n[Side-note: But the Name-Giver may be mistaken or incompetent--the\nrectitude of the name depends upon his knowledge.]\n\nMany names (pursues Sokrates), having been given by artistic\nlawgivers who believed in the Herakleitean theory, will possess\nintrinsic rectitude, if we assume that theory to be true. But how\nif the theory be not true? and if the name-givers were mistaken on\nthis fundamental point? The names will then not be right. Now we\nmust not assume the theory to be true, although the Name-givers\nbelieved it to be so. Perhaps they themselves (Sokrates intimates)\nhaving become giddy by often turning round to survey the nature of\nthings, mistook this _vertige_ of their own for a perpetual\nrevolution and movement of the things which they saw, and gave\nnames accordingly.[58] A Name-Giver who is real and artistic is\nrare and hard to find: there are more among them incompetent than\ncompetent: and the name originally bestowed represents only the\nopinion or conviction of him by whom it is bestowed.[59] Yet the\nnames bestowed will be consistent with themselves, founded on the\nsame theory.\n\n[Footnote 58: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 409**-411 C. [Greek:\nAi)ti\u00f4=ntai d\u00ea\\ ou) to\\ e)/ndon to\\ para\\ sphi/si pa/thos ai)/tion\nei)=nai tau/t\u00eas t\u00ea=s do/x\u00eas, a)ll' au)ta\\ ta\\ pra/gmata ou(/t\u00f4\npephuke/nai], &c.\n\n\"He that is giddy thinks the world turns round,\" &c.]\n\n[Footnote 59: Plato, Kratyl. p. 418 C. [Greek: Oi)=stha ou)=n o(/ti\nmo/non tou=to d\u00ealoi= to\\ a)rchai=on o)/noma t\u00ea\\n dia/noian tou=\ntheme/nou?] Also p. 419 A.]\n\n[Side-note: Changes and transpositions introduced in the name--hard\nto follow.]\n\nAgain, the names originally bestowed differ much from those in use\nnow. Many of them have undergone serious changes: there have been\nnumerous omissions, additions, interpolations, and transpositions\nof letters, from regard to euphony or other fancies: insomuch that\nthe primitive root becomes hardly traceable, except by great\npenetration and sagacity.[60] Then there are some names which have\nnever been issued at all from the mint of the name-giver, but have\neither been borrowed from foreigners, or perhaps have been\nsuggested by super-human powers.[61]\n\n[Footnote 60: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 394 B, 399 B, 414 C, 418 A.]\n\n[Footnote 61: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 397 B, 409 B.]\n\n* * * * *\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates qualifies and attenuates his original thesis.]\n\nTo this point Sokrates brings the question during his conversation\nwith Hermogenes: against whom he maintains--That there is a\nnatural intrinsic rectitude in Names, or a true Name-Form--that\nnaming is a process which must be performed in the natural way,\nand by an Artist who knows that way. But when, after laying down\nthis general theory, he has gone a certain length in applying it\nto actual names, he proceeds to introduce qualifications which\nattenuate and explain it away. Existing names were bestowed by\nartistic law-givers, but under a belief in the Herakleitean\ntheory--which theory is at best doubtful: moreover the original\nnames have, in course of time, undergone such multiplied changes,\nthat the original point of significant resemblance can hardly be\nnow recognised except by very penetrating intellects.\n\n[Side-note: Conversation of Sokrates with Kratylus: who upholds\nthat original thesis without any qualification.]\n\nIt is here that Sokrates comes into conversation with Kratylus:\nwho appears as the unreserved advocate of the same general theory\nwhich Sokrates had enforced upon Hermogenes. He admits all the\nconsequences of the theory, taking no account of qualifications.\nMoreover he announces himself as having already bestowed\nreflection on the subject, and as espousing the doctrine of\nHerakleitus.[62]\n\n[Footnote 62: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 428 B, 440 E.\n\nIt appears that on this point the opinion of Herakleitus coincided\nwith that of the Pythagoreans, who held that names were [Greek:\nphu/sei kai\\ ou) the/sei] and maintained as a corollary that there\ncould be only one name for each thing and only one thing signified\nby each name (Simplikius ad Aristot. Categ. p. 43, b. 32, Schol.\nBekk.).\n\nIn general Herakleitus differed from Pythagoras, and is described\nas speaking of him with bitter antipathy.]\n\nIf names are significant by natural rectitude, or by partaking of\nthe Name-Form, it follows that all names must be right or true,\none as well as another. If a name be not right, it cannot be\nsignificant: that is, it is no name at all: it is a mere unmeaning\nsound. A name, in order to be significant, must imitate the\nessence of the thing named. If you add any thing to a number, or\nsubtract any thing from it, it becomes thereby a new number: it is\nnot the same number badly rendered. So with a letter: so too with\na name. There is no such thing as a bad name. Every name must be\neither significant, and therefore, right--or else it is not a\nname. So also there is no such thing as a false proposition: you\ncannot say the thing that is not: your words in that case have no\nmeaning; they are only an empty sound. The hypothesis that the\nlaw-giver may have distributed names erroneously is therefore not\nadmissible.[63] Moreover, you see that he must have known well,\nfor otherwise he would not have given names so consistent with\neach other, and with the general Herakleitean theory.[64] And\nsince the name is by necessity a representation or copy of the\nthing, whoever knows the name, must also know the thing named.\nThere is in fact no other way of knowing or seeking or finding out\nthings, except through their names.[65]\n\n[Footnote 63: Plato, Kratyl. p. 429 B-C.\n\n_Sokr._ [Greek: Pa/nta a)/ra ta\\ o)no/mata o)rth\u00f4s kei=tai?]\n\n_Krat._ [Greek: O(/sa ge o)no/mata e)/sti.]\n\n_Sokr._ [Greek: Ti/ ou)=n? E(rmoge/nei t\u00f4=|de po/teron m\u00eade\\\no)/noma tou=to kei=sthai ph\u00f4=men, ei) m\u00ea/ ti au)t\u00f4=| E(rmou=\ngene/se\u00f4s pros\u00ea/kei, \u00ea)\\ kei=sthai me/n, ou) me/ntoi o)rth\u00f4=s ge?]\n\n_Krat._ [Greek: Ou)de\\ kei=sthai e)/moige dokei=, _a)lla\\ dokei=n\nkei=sthai_. ei)=nai de\\ e(te/rou tou=to tou)/noma, ou(=per kai\\ \u00ea(\nphu/sis \u00ea( to\\ o)/noma d\u00ealou=sa.]\n\nThe critics say that these last words ought to be read [Greek:\n\u00ea)\\n to\\ o)/noma d\u00ealoi=], as Ficinus has translated, and\nSchleiermacher after him. They are probably in the right; at the\nsame time, reasoning upon the theory of Kratylus, we say without\nimpropriety, that \"the thing indicates the name\".\n\nThat which is erroneously called a bad name is no name at all (so\nKratylus argues), but only seems to be a name to ignorant persons.\nThus also in the Platonic Minos (c. 9, p. 317): a bad law is no\nlaw in reality, but only seems to be a law to ignorant men, see\nabove, ch. xiv. p. 88.**\n\nCompare the like argument about [Greek: no/mos] in Xenoph.\nMemorab. i. 2, 42-47, and Lassalle, Herakleitos, vol. ii. p. 392.]\n\n[Footnote 64: Plato, Krat. p. 436 C. [Greek: A)lla\\ m\u00ea ou)ch\nou(/t\u00f4s e)/ch\u00ea|, a)ll' a)nagkai=on \u00ea)=|, ei)do/ta ti/thesthai to\\n\ntithe/menon ta\\ o)no/mata; ei) de\\ m\u00ea/, o(/per pa/lai e)g\u00f4\\\ne)/legon, ou)d' a)\\n o)no/mata ei)/\u00ea. Me/giston de/ soi e)/st\u00f4\ntekm\u00ea/rion o(/ti ou)k e)/sphaltai t\u00ea=s a)l\u00eathei/as o( tithe/menos;\nou) ga\\r a)\\n pote ou(/t\u00f4 xu/mph\u00f4na \u00ea)=n au)t\u00f4=| a(/panta. \u00ea)\\\n_ou)k e)neno/eis au)to\\s le/g\u00f4n \u00f4(s pa/nta kat' au)to\\ kai\\ e)pi\\\ntau)to\\n e)gi/gneto ta\\ o)no/mata?_]\n\nThese last words allude to the various particular etymologies\nwhich had been enumerated by Sokrates as illustrations of the\nHerakleitean theory. They confirm the opinion above expressed,\nthat Plato intended his etymologies seriously, not as mockery or\ncaricature. That Plato should have intended them as caricatures of\nProtagoras and Prodikus, and yet that he should introduce Kratylus\nas welcoming them in support of _his_ argument, is a much greater\nabsurdity than the supposition that Plato mistook them for\nadmissible guesses.]\n\n[Footnote 65: Plato, Krat. c. 111, pp. 435-436.]\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates goes still farther towards retracting it,]\n\nThese consequences are fairly deduced by Kratylus from the\nhypothesis, of the natural rectitude of names, as laid down in the\nbeginning of the dialogue, by Sokrates: who had expressly affirmed\n(in his anti-Protagorean opening of the dialogue) that unless the\nprocess of naming was performed according to the peremptory\ndictates of nature and by one of the few privileged name-givers,\nit would be a failure and would accomplish nothing;[66] in other\nwords, that a non-natural name would be no name at all.\nAccordingly, in replying to Kratylus, Sokrates goes yet farther in\nretracting his own previous reasoning at the beginning of the\ndialogue--though still without openly professing to do so. He\nproposes a compromise.[67] He withdraws the pretensions of his\ntheory, as peremptory or exclusive; he acknowledges the theory of\nHermogenes as true, and valid in conjunction with it. He admits\nthat non-natural names also, significant only by convention, are\navailable as a make-shift--and that such names are in frequent\nuse. Still however he contends, that natural names, significant by\nlikeness, are the best, so far as they can be obtained: but\ninasmuch as that principle will not afford sufficiently extensive\nholding-ground, recourse must be had by way of supplement to the\nless perfect rectitude (of names) presented by customary or\nconventional significance.[68]\n\n[Footnote 66: Plato, Kratyl. p. 387 C. [Greek: e)a\\n de\\ m\u00ea/,\ne)xamart\u00ea/setai/ te kai\\ ou)de\\n poi\u00ea/sei.] Compare p. 389 A.]\n\n[Footnote 67: Plato, Kratyl. p. 430 A. [Greek: phe/re d\u00ea/, e)a/n\np\u00ea| diallachth\u00f4=men, \u00f4= Kra/tule], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 68: Plato, Krat. p. 435 C. [Greek: e)moi\\ me\\n ou)=n\nkai\\ au)t\u00f4=| a)re/skei me\\n kata\\ to\\ dunato\\n o(/moia ei)=nai ta\\\no)no/mata toi=s pra/gmasin; a)lla\\ m\u00ea\\ \u00f4(s a)l\u00eath\u00f4=s glischra\\\n\u00ea)=| \u00ea( o)lk\u00ea\\ au)t\u00ea\\ t\u00ea=s o(moio/t\u00eatos, a)nagkai=on de\\ \u00ea)=| kai\\\nt\u00f4=| phortik\u00f4=| tou/t\u00f4| proschr\u00ea=sthai, t\u00ea=| xunth\u00ea/k\u00ea|, ei)s\no)noma/t\u00f4n o)rtho/t\u00eata; e)pei\\ i)/s\u00f4s kata/ ge to\\ dunato\\n\nka/llist' a)\\n le/goito, o(/tan \u00ea)\\ pa=sin \u00ea)\\ \u00f4(s plei/stois\no(moi/ois le/g\u00eatai, tou=to d' e)sti\\ pros\u00eakousin, ai)/schista de\\\ntou)nanti/on.]]\n\n[Side-note: There are names better--more like, or less like to the\nthings named: Natural Names are the best, but they cannot always\nbe had. Names may be significant by habit, though in an inferior\nway.]\n\nYou say (reasons Sokrates with Kratylus) that names must be\nsignificant by way of likeness. But there are degrees of\nlikeness. A portrait is more or less like its original, but it is\nnever exactly like: it is never a duplicate, nor does it need to\nbe so. Or a portrait, which really belongs to and resembles one\nperson, may be erroneously assigned to another. The same thing\nhappens with names. There are names more or less like the thing\nnamed--good or bad: there are names good with reference to their\nown object, but erroneously fitted on to objects not their own.\nThe name does not cease to be a name, so long as the type or form\nof the thing named is preserved in it: but it is worse or better,\naccording as the accompanying features are more or less in harmony\nwith the form.[69] If names are like things, the letters which are\nput together to form names, must have a natural resemblance to\nthings--as we remarked above respecting the letters Rho, Lambda,\n&c. But the natural, inherent, powers of resemblance and\nsignificance, which we pronounced to belong to these letters, are\nnot found to pervade all the actual names, in which they are\nemployed. There are words containing the letters _Rho_ and\n_Lambda_, in a sense opposite to that which is natural to them--yet\nnevertheless at the same time significant; as is evident from\nthe fact, that you and I and others understand them alike. Here\nthen are words significant, without resembling: significant\naltogether through habit and convention. We must admit the\nprinciple of convention as an inferior ground and manner of\nsignificance. Resemblance, though the best ground as far as it can\nbe had, is not the only one.[70]\n\n[Footnote 69: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 432-434.]\n\n[Footnote 70: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 434-435.]\n\n[Side-note: All names are not consistent with the theory of\nHerakleitus: some are opposed to it.]\n\nAll names are not like the things named: some names are bad,\nothers good: the law-giver sometimes gave names under an erroneous\nbelief. Hence you are not warranted in saying that things must be\nknown and investigated through names, and that whoever knows the\nname, knows also the thing named. You say that the names given are\nall coherent and grounded upon the Herakleitean theory of\nperpetual flux. You take this as a proof that that theory is true\nin itself, and that the law-giver adopted and proceeded upon it as\ntrue. I agree with you that the law-giver or name-giver believed\nin the Herakleitean theory, and adapted many of his names to it:\nbut you cannot infer from hence that the theory is true--for he\nmay have been mistaken.[71] Moreover, though many of the existing\nnames consist with, and are based upon, that theory, the same\ncannot be said of all names. Many names can be enumerated which\nare based on the opposite principle of permanence and stand-still.\nIt is unsafe to strike a balance of mere numbers between the two:\nbesides which, even among the various names founded on the\nHerakleitean theory, you will find jumbled together the names of\nvirtues and vices, benefits and misfortunes. That theory lends\nitself to good and evil alike; it cannot therefore be received as\ntrue--whether the name-giver believed in it or not.[72]\n\n[Footnote 71: Plato, Kratyl. p. 439 B-C. [Greek: E)/ti toi/nun\nto/de skeps\u00f4metha, o(/p\u00f4s m\u00ea\\ \u00ea(ma=s ta\\ polla\\ tau=ta o)no/mata\ne)s tauto\\n tei/nonta e)xapata=|, kai\\ t\u00f4=| o)/nti me\\n oi(\nthe/menoi au(ta\\ _diano\u00eathe/ntes te e)/thento_ \u00f4(s i)o/nt\u00f4n\na)pa/nt\u00f4n a)ei\\ kai\\ r(eo/nt\u00f4n--_phai/nontai ga\\r e)/moige kai\\\nau)toi\\ ou)/t\u00f4 diano\u00eath\u00ea=nai_--to\\ d', ei) e)/tuchen, ou)ch\nou)/t\u00f4s e)/chei], &c.\n\nThese words appear to me to imply that Sokrates is perfectly\nserious, and not ironical, in delivering his opinion, that the\noriginal imposers of names were believers in the Herakleitean\ntheory.]\n\n[Footnote 72: Plato, Krat. pp. 437-438 C.\n\nSokrates here enumerates the particular names illustrating his\njudgment. However strange the verbal transitions and\napproximations may appear to us, I think it clear that he intends\nto be understood seriously.]\n\n[Side-note: It is not true to say, That Things can only be known\nthrough their names.]\n\nLastly, even if we granted that things may be known and studied\nthrough their names, it is certain that there must be some other\nway of knowing them; since the first name-givers (as you yourself\naffirm) knew things, at a time when no names existed.[73] Things\nmay be known and ought to be studied, not through names, but by\nthemselves and through their own affinities.[74]\n\n[Footnote 73: Plato, Krat. p. 438 A-B. Kratylus here suggests that\nthe first names may perhaps have been imposed by a super-human\npower. But Sokrates replies, that upon that supposition all the\nnames must have been imposed upon the same theory: there could not\nhave been any contradiction between one name and another.]\n\n[Footnote 74: Plato, Krat. pp. 438-439. 438 E:--[Greek: di'\na)ll\u00ea/l\u00f4n ge, ei)/ p\u00ea| xuggen\u00ea= e)sti/, kai\\ au)ta\\ di' au(t\u00f4=n.]]\n\n[Side-note: Unchangeable Platonic Forms--opposed to the\nHerakleitean flux, which is true only respecting sensible\nparticulars.]\n\nSokrates then concludes the dialogue by opposing the Platonic\nideas to the Herakleitean theory. I often dream or imagine the\nBeautiful _per se_, the Good _per se_, and such like existences or\nEntia.[75] Are not such existences real? Are they not eternal,\nunchangeable and stationary? Particular beautiful\nthings--particular good things--are in perpetual change or flux: but\nThe Beautiful, The Good--The Ideas or Forms of these and such\nlike--remain always what they are, always the same.\n\n[Footnote 75: Plato, Krat. p. 439 C-D. [Greek: ske/psai o( e)/g\u00f4ge\npolla/kis o)neir\u00f4/tt\u00f4, po/teron ph\u00f4=me/n ti ei)=nai au)to\\ kalo\\n\nkai\\ a)gatho\\n kai\\ e(\\n e(/kaston t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n ou(/t\u00f4s, \u00ea)\\ m\u00ea/?\n. . .\n\nm\u00ea\\ ei) pro/s\u00f4po/n ti/ e)sti kalo\\n \u00ea)/ ti t\u00f4=n toiou=t\u00f4n, kai\\\ndokei= tau=ta pa/nta r(ei=n; a)ll' au)to\\ to\\ kalo\\n ou) toiou=ton\na)ei/ e)stin oi(=o/n e)stin?]]\n\nThe Herakleitean theory of constant and universal flux is true\nrespecting particular things, but not true respecting these Ideas\nor Forms. It is the latter alone which know or are known: it is\nthey alone which admit of being rightly named. For that which is\nin perpetual flux and change can neither know, nor be known, nor\nbe rightly named.[76] Being an ever-changing subject, it is never\nin any determinate condition: and nothing can be known which is\nnot in a determinate condition. The Form of the knowing subject,\nas well as the Form of the known object, must both remain fixed\nand eternal, otherwise there can be no knowledge at all.\n\n[Footnote 76: Plato, Kratyl. p. 439 D--440 A. [Greek: A)=r' ou)=n\noi(=o/n te _proseipei=n au)to\\ o)rth\u00f4s_, ei) a)ei\\ u(pexe/rchetai,\npr\u00f4=ton me\\n o(/ti, e)keino/ e)stin, e)/peita o(/ti toiou=t\u00f4n? \u00ea)\\\na)na/gk\u00ea a)/ma \u00ea(m\u00f4=n lego/nt\u00f4n a)/llo au)to\\ eu)thu\\s gi/gnesthai\nkai\\ u(pexie/nai, kai\\ m\u00eake/ti ou(/t\u00f4s e)/chein? . . .\n\nA)lla\\ m\u00ea\\n ou)d' a)\\n gn\u00f4sthei/\u00ea ge u(p' ou)deno/s. . . .\n\nA)ll' ou)de\\ gn\u00f4sin ei)=nai pha/nai ei)ko/s, ei) metapi/ptei\npa/nta chr\u00ea/mata kai\\ m\u00eade\\n me/nei.]]\n\n[Side-note: Herakleitean theory must not be assumed as certain. We\nmust not put implicit faith in names.]\n\nTo admit these permanent and unchangeable Forms is to deny the\nHerakleitean theory, which proclaims constant and universal flux.\nThis is a debate still open and not easy to decide. But while it\nis yet undecided, no wise man ought to put such implicit faith in\nnames and in the bestowers of names, as to feel himself warranted\nin asserting confidently the certainty of the Herakleitean\ntheory.[77] Perhaps that theory is true, perhaps not. Consider the\npoint strenuously, Kratylus. Be not too easy in acquiescence--for\nyou are still young, and have time enough before you. If you find\nit out, give to me also the benefit of your solution.[78]\n\n[Footnote 77: Plato, Kratyl. p. 440 C. [Greek: Tau=t' ou)=n\npo/tero/n pote ou(/t\u00f4s e)/chei, \u00ea)\\ e)kei/n\u00f4s \u00f4(s oi( peri\\\n\u00ca(ra/kleito/n te le/gousi kai\\ a)/lloi polloi/, m\u00ea\\ ou) r(a=|dion\n\u00ea)=| e)piske/psasthai, ou)de\\ pa/nu nou=n e)/chontos _a)nthr\u00f4/pou\ne)pitre/psanta o)no/masin au(to\\n kai\\ t\u00ea\\ au(tou= psuch\u00ea\\n\ntherapeu/ein_, pepisteuko/ta e)kei/nois kai\\ toi=s theme/nois\n_au)ta/_, dii+schuri/zesthai \u00f4(s ti ei)do/ta, kai\\ au)tou= te kai\\\nt\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n katagign\u00f4/skein, \u00f4(s ou)de\\n u(gie\\s ou)deno/s,\na(lla\\ pa/nta \u00f4/sper kera/mia r(ei=], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 78: Plato, Kratyl. p. 440 D.]\n\nKratylus replies that he will follow the advice given, but that he\nhas already meditated on the matter, and still adheres to\nHerakleitus. Such is the close of the dialogue.\n\n* * * * *\n\n[Side-note: Remarks upon the dialogue. Dissent from the opinion of\nStallbaum and others, that it is intended to deride Protagoras and\nother Sophists.]\n\nOne of the most learned among the modern Platonic commentators\ninforms us that the purpose of Plato in this dialogue was, \"to rub\nover Protagoras and other Sophists with the bitterest salt of\nsarcasm\".[79] I have already expressed my dissent from this\ntheory, which is opposed to all the ancient views of the dialogue,\nand which has arisen, in my judgment, only from the anxiety of the\nmoderns to exonerate Plato from the reproach of having suggested\nas admissible, etymologies which now appear to us fantastic. I see\nno derision of the Sophists, except one or two sneers against\nProtagoras and Prodikus, upon the ever-recurring theme that they\ntook money for their lectures.[80] The argument against Protagoras\nat the opening of the dialogue--whether conclusive or not--is\nserious and not derisory. The discourse of Sokrates is neither\nthat of an anti-sophistical caricaturist, on the one hand--nor\nthat of a confirmed dogmatist who has studied the subject and made\nup his mind on the other (this is the part which he ascribes to\nKratylus)[81]--but the tentative march of an enquirer groping\nafter truth, who follows the suggestive promptings of his own\ninvention, without knowing whither it will conduct him: who,\nhaving in his mind different and even opposite points of view,\nunfolds first arguments on behalf of one, and next those on behalf\nof the other, without pledging himself either to the one or to the\nother, or to any definite scheme of compromise between them.[82]\nThose who take no interest in such circuitous gropings and guesses\nof an inquisitive and yet unsatisfied mind--those who ask for\nnothing but a conclusion clearly enunciated along with one or two\naffirmative reasons--may find the dialogue tiresome. However this\nmay be--it is a manner found in many Platonic dialogues.\n\n[Footnote 79: Stallbaum, Proleg. ad Kratyl. p. 18--\"quos Plato\nhoc libro acerbissimo sale perfricandos statuit.\" Schleiermacher\nalso tells us (Einleitung, pp. 17-21) that \"Plato had much delight\nin heaping a full measure of ridicule upon his enemy Antisthenes;\nand that he at last became tired with the exuberance of his own\nphilological jests\". Lassalle shows, with much force, that the\npersons ridiculed (even if we grant the derisory purpose to be\nestablished) cannot be Protagoras and the Protagoreans\n(Herakleitos, vol. ii. pp. 376-384).]\n\n[Footnote 80: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 384 B, 391 B.]\n\n[Footnote 81: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 428 A, 440 D.]\n\n[Footnote 82: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 384 C. 391 A. [Greek: suz\u00eatei=n\ne(/toimo/s ei)mi kai\\ soi\\ kai\\ Kratu/l\u00f4| koin\u00ea=| . . . o(/ti ou)k\nei)dei/\u00ean a)lla\\ skepsoi/m\u00ean meta\\ sou=.]]\n\n[Side-note: Theory laid down by Sokrates _\u00e0 priori_, in the first\npart--Great difficulty, and ingenuity necessary, to bring it into\nharmony with facts.]\n\nSokrates opens his case by declaring the thesis of the Absolute\n(Object _sine_ Subject), against the Protagorean thesis of the\nRelative (Object _cum_ Subject). Things have an absolute essence:\nnames have an absolute essence:[83] each name belongs to its own\nthing, and to no other: this is its rectitude: none but that rare\nperson, the artistic name-giver, can detect the essence of each\nthing, and the essence of each name, so as to apply the name\nrightly. Here we have a theory truly Platonic: impressed upon\nPlato's mind by a sentiment _\u00e0 priori_, and not from any survey or\ncomparison of particulars. Accordingly when Sokrates is called\nupon to apply his theory to existing current words, and to make\nout how any such rectitude can be shown to belong to them--he\nfinds the greatest divergence and incongruity between the two. His\ningenuity is hardly tasked to reconcile them: and he is obliged to\nhave recourse to bold and multiplied hypotheses. That the first\nName-Givers were artists proceeding upon system, but incompetent\nartists proceeding on a bad system--they were Herakleiteans who\nbelieved in the universality of movement, and gave names having\nreference to movement:[84] That the various letters of the\nalphabet, or rather the different actions of the vocal organism by\nwhich they are pronounced, have each an inherent, essential,\nadaptation, or analogy to the phenomena of movement or arrest of\nmovement:[85] That the names originally bestowed have become\ndisguised by a variety of metamorphoses, but may be brought back\nto their original by probable suppositions, and shown to possess\nthe rectitude sought. All these hypotheses are only violent\nefforts to reconcile the Platonic _\u00e0 priori_ theory, in some way\nor other, with existing facts of language. To regard them as\nintentional caricatures, would be to suppose that Plato is seeking\nintentionally to discredit and deride his own theory of the\nAbsolute: for the discredit could fall nowhere else. We see that\nPlato considered many of his own guesses as strange and novel,\nsome even as laying him open to ridicule.[86] But they were\nindispensable to bring his theory into something like coherence,\nhowever inadequate, with real language.\n\n[Footnote 83: One cannot but notice how Plato, shortly after\nhaving declared war against the Relativity affirmed by Protagoras,\nfalls himself into that very track of Relativity when he comes to\nspeak about actual language, telling us that names are imposed on\ngrounds dependant on or relative to the knowledge or belief of the\nName-givers. Kratylus, pp. 397 B, 399 A, 401 A-B, 411 B, 436 B.\n\nThe like doctrine is affirmed in the Republic, vi. p. 515 B.\n[Greek: d\u00ea=lon o(/ti o( the/menos pr\u00f4=tos ta\\ o)no/mata, oi(=a\n\u00ea(gei=to ei)=nai ta\\ pra/gmata, toiau=ta e)ti/theto kai\\ ta\\\no)no/mata.]\n\nLeibnitz conceived an idea of a \"Lingua Characterica Universalis,\nqu\u00e6 simul sit ars inveniendi et judicandi\" (see Leibnitz Opp.\nErdmann, pp. 162-163), and he alludes to a conception of Jacob\nB\u00f6hme, that there once existed a Lingua Adamica or Natur-Sprache,\nthrough which the essences of things might be contemplated and\nunderstood. \"Lingua Adamica vel cert\u00e9 vis ejus, quam quidam se\nnosse, et in nominibus ab Adamo impositis essentias rerum intueri\nposse contendunt--nobis cert\u00e9 ignota est\" (Opp. p. 93). Leibnitz\nseems to have thought that it was possible to construct a\nphilosophical language, based upon an Alphabetum Cogitationum\nHumanarum, through which problems on all subjects might be\nresolved, by a _calculus_ like that which is employed for the\nsolution of arithmetical or geometrical problems (Opp. p. 83;\ncompare also p. 356).\n\nThis is very analogous to the affirmations of Sokrates, in the\nfirst part of the Kratylus, about the essentiality of Names\ndiscovered and declared by the [Greek: nomothe/t\u00eas techniko/s]]\n\n[Footnote 84: Plato, Kratyl. p. 436 D.]\n\n[Footnote 85: Plato, Krat. pp. 424-425. Schleiermacher declares\nthis to be among the greatest and most profound truths which have\never been enunciated about language (Introduction to Kratylus, p.\n11). Stallbaum, on the contrary, regards it as not even seriously\nmeant, but mere derision of others (Prolegg. ad Krat. p. 12).\nAnother commentator on Plato calls it \"eine Lehre der\nSophistischen Sprachforscher\" (August Arnold, Einleitung in die\nPhilosophie--durch die Lehre Platons vermittelt--p. 178, Berlin,\n1841).\n\nProklus, in his Commentary, says that the scope of this dialogue\nis to exhibit the imitative or generative faculty which\nessentially belongs to the mind, and whereby the mind (aided by\nthe vocal or pronunciative imagination--[Greek: lektik\u00ea\\\nphantasi/a]) constructs names which are natural transcripts of the\nessences of things (Proklus, Schol. ad Kratyl. pp. 1-21 ed.\nBoissonnade; Alkinous, Introd. ad Platon. c. 6).\n\nFicinus, too, in his argument to the Kratylus (p. 768), speaks\nmuch about the mystic sanctity of names, recognised not merely by\nPythagoras and Plato, but also by the Jews and Orientals. He\ntreats the etymologies in the Kratylus as seriously intended. He\nsays not a word about any intention on the part of Plato to deride\nthe Sophists or any other Etymologists.\n\nSo also Sydenham, in his translation of Plato's Phil\u00eabus (p. 33),\ndesignates the Kratylus as \"a dialogue in which is taught the\nnature of things, as well the permanent as the transient, by a\nsupposed etymology of Names and Words\".]\n\n[Footnote 86: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 425 D, 426 B. Because Sokrates\nsays that these etymologies may appear ridiculous, we are not to\ninfer that he proposed them as caricatures; see what Plato says in\nthe Republic, v. p. 452, about his own propositions respecting the\ntraining of women, which others (he says) will think ludicrous,\nbut which he proposes with the most thorough and serious\nconviction.]\n\n[Side-note: Opposite tendencies of Sokrates in the last half of the\ndialogue--he disconnects his theory of Naming from the\nHerakleitean doctrine.]\n\nIn the second part of the dialogue, where Kratylus is introduced\nas uncompromising champion of this same theory, Sokrates changes\nhis line of argument, and impugns the peremptory or exclusive\npretensions of the theory: first denying some legitimate\ncorollaries from it--next establishing by the side of it the\ncounter-theory of Hermogenes, as being an inferior though\nindispensable auxiliary--yet still continuing to uphold it as an\nideal of what is Best. He concludes by disconnecting the theory\npointedly from the doctrine of Herakleitus, with which Kratylus\nconnected it, and by maintaining that there can be no right\nnaming, and no sound knowledge, if that doctrine be admitted.[87]\nThe Platonic Ideas, eternal and unchangeable, are finally opposed\nto Kratylus as the only objects truly knowable and nameable--and\ntherefore as the only conditions under which right naming can be\nrealised. The Name-givers of actual society have failed in their\ntask by proceeding on a wrong doctrine: neither they nor the names\nwhich they have given can be trusted.[88] The doctrine of\nperpetual change or movement is true respecting the sensible world\nand particulars, but it is false respecting the intelligible world\nor universals--Ideas and Forms. These latter are the only things\nknowable: but we cannot know them through names: we must study\nthem by themselves and by their own affinities.\n\n[Footnote 87: Plato, Kratyl. p. 439 D. [Greek: A)=r' ou)=n oi(=on\nte proseipei=n au)to\\ o)rth\u00f4s, ei) a)ei\\ u(pexe/chetai?]]\n\n[Footnote 88: Plato, Kratyl. p. 440 C. Compare pp. 436 D, 439 B.\n\nLassalle contends that Herakleitus and his followers considered\nthe knowledge of names to be not only indispensable to the\nknowledge of things, but equivalent to and essentially embodying\nthat knowledge. (Herakleitos, vol. ii. pp. 363-368-387.) See also\na passage of Proklus, in his Commentary on the Platonic\nParmenid\u00eas, p. 476, ed. Stallbaum.\n\nThe remarkable passage in the first book of Aristotle's\nMetaphysica, wherein he speaks of Plato and Plato's early\nfamiliarity with Kratylus and the Herakleitean opinions, coincides\nvery much with the course of the Platonic dialogue Kratylus, from\nits beginning to its end (Aristot. Metaphys. A. p. 987 a-b).]\n\nHow this is to be done, Sokrates professes himself unable to say.\nWe may presume him to mean, that a true Artistic Name-giver must\nset the example, knowing these Forms or essences beforehand, and\nproviding for each its appropriate Name, or Name-Form, significant\nby essential analogy.\n\n[Side-note: Ideal of the best system of naming--the Name-Giver\nought to be familiar with the Platonic Ideas or Essences, and\napportion his names according to resemblances among them.]\n\nHerein, so far as I can understand, consists the amount of\npositive inference which Plato enables us to draw from the\nKratylus. Sokrates began by saying that names having natural\nrectitude were the only materials out of which a language could be\nformed: he ends by affirming merely that this is the best and most\nperfect mode of formation: he admits that names may become\nsignificant, though loosely and imperfectly, by convention\nalone--yet the best scheme would be, that in which they are\nsignificant by inherent resemblance to the thing named. But this\ncannot be done until the Name-giver, instead of proceeding upon\nthe false theory of Herakleitus, starts from the true theory\nrecognising the reality of eternal, unchangeable, Ideas or Forms.\nHe will distinguish, and embody in appropriate syllables, those\nForms of Names which truly resemble, and have natural connection\nwith, the Forms of Things.\n\nSuch is the ideal of perfect or philosophical Naming, as Plato\nconceives it--disengaged from those divinations of the origin and\nmetamorphoses of existing names, which occupy so much of the\ndialogue.[89] He does not indeed attempt to construct a body of\ntrue names _\u00e0 priori_, but he sets forth the real nameable\npermanent essences, to which these names might be assimilated: the\nprinciples upon which the construction ought to be founded, by the\nphilosophic lawgiver following out a good theory:[90] and he\ncontrasts this process with two rival processes, each defective in\nits own way. This same contrast, pervading Plato's views on other\nsubjects, deserves a few words of illustration.\n\n[Footnote 89: Deuschle (Die Platonische Sprachphilosophie, p. 57)\ntells us that in this dialogue \"Plato _intentionally_ presented\nmany of his thoughts in a covert or contradictory and\nunintelligible manner\". (Vieles absichtlich verh\u00fcllt oder\nwidersprechend und missverst\u00e4ndlich dargestellt wird.)\n\nI see no probability in such an hypothesis.\n\nRespecting the origin and primordial signification of language, a\ngreat variety of different opinions have been started.\n\nWilliam von Humboldt (Werke, vi. 80) assumes that there must have\nbeen some primitive and natural bond between each sound and its\nmeaning (_i.e._ that names were originally significant [Greek:\nphu/sei]), though there are very few particular cases in which\nsuch connexion can be brought to evidence or even divined. (Here\nwe see that the larger knowledge of etymology possessed at present\ndeters the modern philologer from that which Plato undertakes in\nthe Kratylus.) He distinguishes a threefold relation between the\nname and the thing signified. 1. Directly imitative. 2. Indirectly\nimitative or symbolical. 3. Imitative by one remove, or\nanalogical: where a name becomes transferred from one object to\nanother, by virtue of likeness between the two objects. (Ueber die\nVerschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues und ihren Einfluss\nauf die geistige Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechtes, p. 78,\nBerlin, 1880.)\n\nMr. Hensleigh Wedgwood, in his Etymology of the English Language\n(see Prelim. Disc. p. 10 seq.), recognises the same imitative\norigin, and tries to apply the principle to particular English\nwords. Mr. F. W. Farrar, in his recent interesting work (Chapters\non Language) has explained and enforced copiously the like\nthesis--onomatopoeic origin for language generally. He has combated\nthe objections of Professor Max M\u00fcller, who considers the principle to\nbe of little applicability or avail. But M. Renan assigns to it\nnot less importance than Mr. Wedgwood and Mr. Farrar. (See sixth\nchapter of his ingenious dissertation De l'Origine du Langage, pp.\n135-146-148.)\n\n\"L'imitation, ou l'onomatop\u00e9e, para\u00eet avoir \u00e9t\u00e9 le proc\u00e9d\u00e9\nordinaire d'apr\u00e8s lequel les premiers nomenclateurs form\u00e8rent les\nappellations. . . D'ailleurs, comme le choix de l'appellation\nn'est point arbitraire, et que jamais l'homme ne se d\u00e9cide \u00e0\nassembler des sons au hasard pour en faire les signes de la\npens\u00e9e, on peut affirmer que de tous les mots actuellement usit\u00e9s,\nil n'en est pas un seul qui _n'ait eu sa raison suffisante_, et ne\nse rattache, \u00e0 travers mille transformations, \u00e0 _une \u00e9lection\nprimitive_. Or, le motif d\u00e9terminant pour le choix des mots a d\u00fb\n\u00eatre, dans la plupart des cas, le d\u00e9sir d'imiter l'objet qu'on\nvoulait exprimer. L'instinct de certains animaux suffit pour les\nporter \u00e0 ce genre d'imitation, qui, faute de principes rationnels,\nreste chez eux inf\u00e9cond. . .\n\n\"En r\u00e9sum\u00e9, _le caprice_ n'a eu aucune part dans la formation du\nlangage. Sans doute, on ne peut admettre qu'il y ait une relation\nintrins\u00e8que entre le nom et la chose. Le syst\u00e8me que Platon a si\nsubtilement d\u00e9velopp\u00e9 dans le Cratyle--cette th\u00e8se qu'il y a des\nd\u00e9nominations naturelles, et que la propri\u00e9t\u00e9 des mots se\nreconna\u00eelt \u00e0 l'imitation plus ou moins exacte de\nl'objet,--pourrait tout au plus s'appliquer aux noms form\u00e9s par\nonomatop\u00e9e, et pour ceux-ci m\u00eames, la loi dont nous parlous n'\u00e9tablit\nqu'une convenance. _Les appellations n'ont pas uniquement leur cause\ndans l'objet appel\u00e9_ (sans quoi, elles seraient les m\u00eames dans toutes\nles langues), _mais dans l'objet appel\u00e9, vu \u00e0 travers les\ndispositions personnelles du sujet appelant_. . . La raison qui a\nd\u00e9termin\u00e9 le choix des premiers hommes peut nous \u00e9chapper; mais\nelle a exist\u00e9. La liaison du sens et du mot n'est jamais\n_n\u00e9cessaire_, jamais _arbitraire_; toujours elle est motiv\u00e9e.\"\n\nWhen M. Renan maintains the Protagorean doctrine, that it is not\nthe Object which is cause of the denomination given, but the\nObject seen through the personal dispositions of the denominating\nSubject--he contradicts the reasoning of the Platonic Sokrates in\nthe conversation with Hermogenes (pp. 386-387; compare 424 A). But\nhe adopts the reasoning of the same in the subsequent conversation\nwith Kratylus; wherein the relative point of view is introduced\nfor the first time (pp. 429 A-B, 431 E), and brought more and more\ninto the foreground (pp. 436 B-D--437 C--439 C).\n\nThe distinction drawn by M. Renan between _l'arbitraire_ and _le\nmotiv\u00e9_ appears to me unfounded: at least, it requires a peculiar\nexplanation of the two words--for if by _le caprice_ and\n_l'arbitraire_ be meant the exclusion of _all_ motive, such a\nstate of mind could not be a preliminary to any proceeding at all.\nM. Renan can only mean that the motive which led to the original\nchoice of the name, was peculiar to the occasion, and has since\nbeen forgotten. And this is what he himself says in a note to his\nPreface (pp. 18-19), replying to M. Littr\u00e9: \"L'Arien primitif a eu\nun motif pour appeler le fr\u00e8re _bhratr_ ou _fratr_, et le S\u00e9mite\npour l'appeler _ah_: peut on dire que cette diff\u00e9rence r\u00e9sulte ou\ndes aptitudes diff\u00e9rentes de leur esprit, ou du spectacle\next\u00e9rieur? Chaque objet, les circonstances restant les m\u00eames, a\n\u00e9t\u00e9 susceptible d'une foule de d\u00e9nominations: le choix qui a \u00e9t\u00e9\nfait de l'une d'elles tient \u00e0 des causes impossibles \u00e0 saisir.\"]\n\n[Footnote 90: Plato (in Tim\u00e6us, p. 29 B) recognises an essential\naffinity between the eternal Forms and the words or propositions\nin which they become subjects of discourse.]\n\n[Side-note: Comparison of Plato's views about naming with those\nupon social institutions. Artistic, systematic\nconstruction--contrasted with unpremeditated unsystematic growth.]\n\nRespecting social institutions and government, there is one\nwell-known theory to which Sir James Mackintosh gave expression in the\nphrase--\"Governments are not made, but grow\". The like phrase has\nbeen applied by an eminent modern author on Logic, to\nlanguage--\"Languages are not made, but grow\".[91] One might suppose,\nin reading the second and third books of the Republic of Plato, that\nPlato also had adopted this theory: for the growth of a society,\nwithout any initiative or predetermined construction by a special\nindividual, is there strikingly depicted.[92] But in truth it is\nthis theory which stands in most of the Platonic works, as the\nantithesis depreciated and discredited by Plato. The view most\nsatisfactory to him contemplates the analogy of a human artist or\nprofessional man; which he enlarges into the idea of an\noriginating, intelligent, artistic, Constructor, as the source of\nall good. This view is exhibited to us in the Tim\u00e6us, where we\nfind the Demiurgus, building up by his own fiat all that is good\nin the Kosmos: in the Politikus, where we find the individual\ndictator producing by his uncontrolled ordinance all that is\nreally good in the social system;--lastly, here also in the\nKratylus, where we have the scientific or artistic Name-giver, and\nhim alone, set forth as competent to construct an assemblage of\nnames, each possessing full and perfect rectitude. To this theory\nthere is presented a counter-theory, which Plato disapproves--a\nKosmos which grows by itself and keeps up its own agencies,\nwithout any extra-kosmic constructor or superintendent: in like\nmanner, an aggregate of social customs, and an aggregate of names,\nwhich have grown up no one knows how; and which sustain and\nperpetuate themselves by traditional force--by movement already\nacquired in a given direction. The idea of growth, by regular\nassignable steps and by regularising tendencies instinctive and\ninherent in Nature, belongs rather to Aristotle; Plato conceives\nNature as herself irregular, and as persuaded or constrained into\nsome sort of regularity by a supernatural or extranatural\nartist.[93]\n\n[Footnote 91: See Mr. John Stuart Mill's Logic, Book i. ch. viii.]\n\n[Footnote 92: Plato, Republic, ii. p. 369 seq., where the [Greek:\nge/nesis] of a social community, out of common necessity and\ndesire acting upon all and each of the individual citizens, is\ndepicted in a striking way. The [Greek: a)rch\u00ea] of the City (p.\n369 B) as Plato there presents it, is Aristotelian rather than\nPlatonic.]\n\n[Footnote 93: M. Destutt de Tracy insists upon the emotional\ninitiative force, as deeper and more efficacious than the\nintellectual, in the first formation of language.\n\n\"Dans l'origine du langage d'action, un seul geste dit--je veux\ncela, ou je vous montre cela, ou je vous demande secours; un seul\ncri dit, je vous appelle, ou je souffre, ou je suis content, &c.;\nmais sans distinguer aucune des id\u00e9es qui composent ses\npropositions. Ce n'est point par le d\u00e9tail, mais par les masses,\nque, commencent toutes nos expressions, ainsi que toutes nos\nconnaissances. Si quelques langages poss\u00e8dent des signes propres \u00e0\nexprimer des id\u00e9es isol\u00e9es, ce n'est donc que par l'effet de la\nd\u00e9composition qui s'est op\u00e9r\u00e9e dans ces langages; et ces signes,\nou noms propres d'id\u00e9es, ne sont, pour ainsi dire, que des d\u00e9bris,\ndes fragmens, ou du moins des \u00e9manations de ceux qui d'abord\nexprimaient, bien ou mal, les propositions tout enti\u00e8res.\"\n(Destutt de Tracy, Grammaire, ch. i. p. 23, ed. 1825; see also the\nId\u00e9ologie of the same author, ch. xvi. p. 215.)\n\nM. Renan enunciates in the most explicit terms this comparison of\nthe formation of language to the growth and development of a\ngerm:--\"Les langues doivent \u00eatres compar\u00e9es, non au cristal qui se\nforme par agglom\u00e9ration autour d'un noyau, mais au germe qui se\nd\u00e9veloppe par sa force intime, et par l'appel n\u00e9cessaire de ses\nparties\". (De l'Origine du Langage, ch. iii. p. 101; also ch. iv.\npp. 115-117.)\n\nThe theory of M. Renan, in this ingenious treatise, is, that\nlanguage is the product of \"la raison spontan\u00e9e, la raison\npopulaire,\" without reflexion. \"La reflexion n'y peut rien: les\nlangues sont sorties toutes faites du moule m\u00eame de l'esprit\nhumain, comme Minerve du cerveau de Jupiter.\" \"Maintenant que la\nraison r\u00e9fl\u00e9chie a remplac\u00e9 l'instinct cr\u00e9ateur, \u00e0 peine le g\u00e9nie\nsuffit-il pour analyser ce que les l'esprit des premiers hommes\nenfanta de toutes pi\u00e8ces, et sans y songer\" (pp. 98-99). This\ntheory appears to me very doubtful; as much as there is proved in\nit, is stated in a good passage cited by M. Renan from Will. von\nHumboldt (pp. 106-107). But there are two remarks to be made, in\ncomparing it with the Kratylus of Plato. 1. That the hypothesis of\na philosopher \"qui compose un langage de sang-froid,\" which\nappears absurd to Turgot and M. Renan (p. 92), did not appear\nabsurd to Plato, but on the contrary as the only sure source of\nwhat is good and right in language. 2. That Plato, in the\nKratylus, takes account only of _naming_, and not of the\ngrammatical structure of language, which M. Renan considers the\nessential part (p. 106: compare also pp. 208-209). Grammar, with\nits established analogies, does not seem to have been present to\nPlato's mind as an object of reflexion; there existed none in his\nday.]\n\n[Side-note: Politikus compared with Kratylus.]\n\nLooking back to the Politikus (reviewed in the last chapter), we\nfind Plato declaring to us wherein consists the rectitude of a\nsocial Form: it resides in the presiding and uncontrolled\nauthority of a scientific or artistic Ruler, always present and\ndirecting every one: or of a few such Rulers, if there be a\nfew--though this is more than can be hoped. But such rectitude is\nseldom or never realised. Existing social systems are bad copies\nof this type, degenerating more or less widely from its\nperfection. One or a Few persons arrogate to themselves\nuncontrolled power, without possessing that science or art which\njustifies the exercise of it in the Right Ruler. These are, or may\nbecome, extreme depravations. The least bad, among all the\nimperfect systems, is an aggregate of fixed laws and magistrates\nwith known functions, agreed to by convention of all and\nfaithfully obeyed by all. But such a system of fixed laws, though\nsecond-best, falls greatly short of rectitude. It is much inferior\nin every way to the uncontrolled authority of the scientific\nRuler.[94]\n\n[Footnote 94: See Plato, Politik. pp. 300-301.]\n\nThat which Plato does for social systems in the Politikus, he does\nfor names in the Kratylus. The full rectitude of names is when\nthey are bestowed by the scientific Ruler, considered in the\ncapacity of Name-giver. He it is who discerns, and embodies in\nsyllables, the true Name-Form in each particular case. But such an\nartist is seldom realised: and there are others who, attempting to\ndo his work without his knowledge, perform it ignorantly or under\nfalse theories.[95] The names thus given are imperfect names:\nmoreover, after being given, they become corrupted and transformed\nin passing from man to man. Lastly, the mere fact of convention\namong the individuals composing the society, without any\ndeliberate authorship or origination from any Ruler, bad or\ngood--suffices to impart to Names a sort of significance, vulgar and\nimperfect, yet adequate to a certain extent.[96] The Name-giving\nArtist or Lawgiver is here superseded by King Nomos.\n\n[Footnote 95: Plato, Kratyl. p. 432 E.]\n\n[Footnote 96: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 434 E, 435 A-B.\n\nThis unsystematic, spontaneous, origin and growth of language is\nset forth by Lucretius, who declares himself opposed to the theory\nof an originating Name-giver (v. pp. 1021-1060). Jacob Grimm and\nM. Renan espouse a theory, in the main, similar.]\n\n[Side-note: Ideal of Plato--Postulate of the One Wise Man--Badness\nof all reality.]\n\nIt will be seen that in both these cases the Platonic point of\nview comes out--deliberate authorship from the scientific or\nartistic individual mind, as the only source of rectitude and\nperfection. But when Plato looks at the reality of life, either in\nsocial system or in names, he finds no such perfection anywhere:\nhe discovers a divine agency originating what is good; but there\nis an independent agency necessary in the way of co-operation,\nthough it sometimes counteracts and always debases the good.[97]\nWe find either an incompetent dictator who badly imitates the true\nArtist--or else we have fixed, peremptory, laws; depending on the\nunsystematic, unauthorised, convention among individuals, which\nhas grown up no one knows how--which is transmitted by tradition,\nbeing taught by every one and learnt by every one without any\nprivileged caste of teachers--and which in the Platonic Protagoras\nis illustrated in the mythe and discourse ascribed to that\nSophist;[98] being in truth, common sense, as contrasted with\nprofessional specialty. In regard to social systems, Plato\npronounces fixed laws to be the second-best--enjoining strict\nobedience to them, wherever the first-best cannot be obtained. In\nthe Republic he enumerates what are the conditions of rectitude in\na city: but he admits at the same time that this Right Civic\nConstitution is an ideal, nowhere to be found existing: and he\npoints out the successive stages of corruption by which it\ndegenerates more and more into conformity with the realities of\nhuman society. As with Right Civic Constitution, so with Right\nNaming: Plato shows what constitutes rectitude of Names, but he\nadmits that this is an ideal seen nowhere, and he notes the\nvarious causes which deprave the Right Names into that imperfect\nand semi-significant condition, which is the best that existing\nlanguages present.[99]\n\n[Footnote 97: Plato, Tim\u00e6us, p. 68 E.]\n\n[Footnote 98: See my remarks on the Politikus, in the last\nchapter: also Protagoras, p. 320 seq.\n\nCompare Plato, Kriton, p. 48 A. [Greek: o( e)pai+/\u00f4n peri\\ t\u00f4\ndikai/\u00f4n, o( ei(=s.]\n\nIn the Menon also the same question is broached as in the\nProtagoras, whether virtue is teachable or not? and how any virtue\ncan exist, when there are no special teachers, and no special\nlearners of virtue? Here we have, though differently handled, the\nsame antithesis between the ethical sentiment which grows and\npropagates itself unconsciously, without special initiative--and\nthat which is deliberately prescribed and imparted by the wise\nindividual: common sense versus professional specialty.]\n\n[Footnote 99: See the conditions of the [Greek: o)rth\u00ea\\\npolitei/a], and its gradual depravation and degeneracy into the\nstate of actual governments, in Republic, v. init. p. 449 B, vii.\n544 A-B.]\n\n[Side-note: Comparison of Kratylus, The\u00e6t\u00eatus, and Sophist\u00eas, in\ntreatment of the question respecting Non-Ens, and the possibility\nof false propositions.]\n\nOne more remark, in reference to the general spirit and reciprocal\nbearing of Plato's dialogues. In three comparison distinct\ndialogues--Kratylus, The\u00e6t\u00eatus, Sophist\u00eas--one and the same\nquestion is introduced into the discussion: a question keenly\ndebated among the contemporaries of Plato and Aristotle. How is a\nfalse proposition possible? Many held that a false proposition and\na false name were impossible: that you could not speak the thing\nthat _is not_, or Non-Ens ([Greek: to\\ m\u00ea\\ o)/n]): that such a\nproposition would be an empty sound, without meaning or\nsignification: that speech may be significant or insignificant,\nbut could not be false, except in the sense of being\nunmeaning.[100]\n\n[Footnote 100: Plato, Kratyl. p. 429.\n\nAmmonius, Scholia [Greek: ei)s ta\\s Kat\u00eagori/as] of Aristotle\n(Schol. Brandis, p. 60, a. 10).\n\n[Greek: Tine/s phasi m\u00eade\\n ei)=nai t\u00f4=n pro/s ti phu/sei, a)lla\\\na)na/plasma ei)=nai tau=ta t\u00ea=s \u00ea(mete/ras dianoi/as, le/gontes\no(/ti ou(/t\u00f4s ou)k e)sti\\ phu/sei ta\\ pro/s ti a)lla\\ the/sei\n. . . Tine\\s de/, e)k diame/trou tou/tois e)/chontes, pa/nta ta\\\no)/nta pro/s ti e)/legon. \u00d4(=n ei)=s \u00ea)=n Pr\u00f4tago/ras o(\nsophist\u00ea/s; . . . dio\\ kai\\ e)/legen o(/ti ou)k e)/sti tina\\\npseud\u00ea= le/gein; e(/kastos ga\\r kata\\ to\\ phaino/menon au)t\u00f4=|\nkai\\ dokou=n a)pophai/netai peri\\ t\u00f4=n pragma/t\u00f4n, ou)k e)cho/nt\u00f4n\n\u00f4(risme/n\u00ean phu/sin a)ll' e)n t\u00ea=| pro\\s \u00ea(ma=s sche/sei to\\\nei)=nai e)cho/nt\u00f4n.]]\n\nNow this doctrine is dealt with in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, Sophist\u00eas, and\nKratylus. In the The\u00e6t\u00eatus,[101] Sokrates examines it at great\nlength, and proposes several different hypotheses to explain how a\nfalse proposition might be possible: but ends in pronouncing them\nall inadmissible. He declares himself incompetent, and passes on\nto something else. Again, in the Sophist\u00eas, the same point is\ntaken up, and discussed there also very copiously.[102] The Eleate\nin that dialogue ends by finding a solution which satisfies him\n(_viz._: that [Greek: to\\ m\u00ea o)\\n = to\\ e(/teron o)/ntos]). But\nwhat is remarkable is, that the solution does not meet any of the\ndifficulties propounded in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus; nor are those\ndifficulties at all adverted to in the Sophist\u00eas. Finally, in the\nKratylus, we have the very same doctrine, that false affirmations\nare impossible--which both in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus and in the Sophist\u00eas\nis enunciated, not as the decided opinion of the speaker, but as a\nproblem which embarrasses him--we have this same doctrine averred\nunequivocally by Kratylus as his own full conviction. And Sokrates\nfinds that a very short argument, and a very simple comparison,\nsuffice to refute him.[103] The supposed \"aggressive\ncross-examiner,\" who presses Sokrates so hard in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, is\nnot allowed to put his puzzling questions in the Kratylus.[104]\n\n[Footnote 101: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. pp. 187 D to 201 D. The discussion\nof the point is continued through thirteen pages of Stephan.\nEdit.]\n\n[Footnote 102: Plato, Sophist\u00eas, pp. 237 A, 264 B, through\ntwenty-seven pages of Steph. edit.--though there are some digressions\nincluded herein.]\n\n[Footnote 103: Plato, Kratyl. pp. 430-431 A-B.]\n\n[Footnote 104: Plato, The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 200 A. [Greek: o( ga\\r\ne)legktiko\\s e)kei=nos gela/sas ph\u00ea/sei.]]\n\n[Side-note: Discrepancies and inconsistencies of Plato, in his\nmanner of handling the same subject.]\n\nHow are we to explain these three different modes of handling the\nsame question by the same philosopher? If the question about\nNon-Ens can be disposed of in the summary way which we read in the\nKratylus, what is gained by the string of unsolved puzzles in the\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus--or by the long discursive argument in the Sophist\u00eas,\nushering in a new solution noway satisfactory? If, on the\ncontrary, the difficulties which are unsolved in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus,\nand imperfectly solved in the Sophist\u00eas, are real and\npertinent--how are we to explain the proceeding of Plato in the\nKratylus, when he puts into the mouth of Kratylus a distinct averment\nof the opinion, about Non-Ens, yet without allowing him, when it is\nimpugned by Sokrates, to urge any of these pertinent arguments in\ndefence of it? If the peculiar solution given in the Sophist\u00eas be\nthe really genuine and triumphant solution, why is it left\nunnoticed both in the Kratylus and the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, and why is it\ncontradicted in other dialogues? Which of the three dialogues\nrepresents Plato's real opinion on the question?\n\n[Side-note: No common didactic purpose pervading the\nDialogues--each is a distinct composition, working out its own\npeculiar argument.]\n\nTo these questions, and to many others of like bearing, connected\nwith the Platonic writings, I see no satisfactory reply, if we are\nto consider Plato as a positive philosopher, with a scheme and\nedifice of methodised opinions in his mind: and as composing all\nhis dialogues with a set purpose, either of inculcating these\nopinions on the reader, or of refuting the opinions opposed to\nthem. This supposition is what most Platonic critics have in their\nminds, even when professedly modifying it. Their admiration for\nPlato is not satisfied unless they conceive him in the\nprofessorial chair as a teacher, surrounded by a crowd of\nlearners, all under the obligation (incumbent on learners\ngenerally) to believe what they hear. Reasoning upon such a basis,\nthe Platonic dialogues present themselves to me as a mystery. They\nexhibit neither identity of the teacher, nor identity of the\nmatter taught: the composer (to use various Platonic comparisons)\nis Many, and not One--he is more complex than Typhos.[105]\n\n[Footnote 105: Plato, Ph\u00e6drus, p. 230 A.]\n\nIf we are to find any common purpose pervading and binding\ntogether all the dialogues, it must not be a didactic purpose, in\nthe sense above defined. The value of them consists, not in the\nresult, but in the discussion--not in the conclusion, but in the\npremisses for and against it. In this sense all the dialogues have\nvalue, and all the same sort of value--though not all equal in\namount. In different dialogues, the same subject is set before you\nin different ways: with remarks and illustrations sometimes\ntending towards one theory, sometimes towards another. It is for\nyou to compare and balance them, and to elicit such result as your\nreason approves. The Platonic dialogues require, in order to\nproduce their effect, a supplementary responsive force, and a\nstrong effective reaction, from the individual reason of the\nreader: they require moreover that he shall have a genuine\ninterest in the process of dialectic scrutiny ([Greek: to\\\nphilomathe/s, philo/logon])[106] which will enable him to perceive\nbeauties in what would appear tiresome to others.\n\n[Footnote 106: \tPlato, Republic, v. p. 475; compare Ph\u00e6don,\npp. 89-90. Ph\u00e6drus, p. 230 E.]\n\nSuch manner of proceeding may be judicious or not, according to\nthe sentiment of the critic. But it is at any rate Platonic. And\nwe have to recall this point of view when dismissing the Kratylus,\nwhich presents much interest in the premisses and conflicting\ntheories, with little or no result. It embodies the oldest\nspeculations known to us respecting the origin, the mode of\nsignification, and the functions of words as an instrument: and\nnot the least interesting part of it, in my judgment, consists in\nits etymological conjectures, affording evidence of a rude\netymological sense which has now passed away.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII\n\nPHILEBUS.\n\n\nThe Phil\u00eabus, which we are now about to examine, is not merely a\nDialogue of Search, but a Dialogue of Exposition, accompanied with\nmore or less of search made subservient to the exposition. It\nrepresents Sokrates from the first as advancing an affirmative\nopinion--maintaining it against Phil\u00eabus and Protarchus--and\nclosing with a result assumed to be positively established.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Schleiermacher says, about the Phil\u00eabus (Einleit. p.\n136)--\"Das Ganze liegt fertig in dem Haupte des Sokrates, und\ntritt mit der ganzen Pers\u00f6nlichkeit und Willk\u00fchr einer\nzusammenh\u00e4ngenden Rede heraus,\" &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Character, Personages, and Subject of the Phil\u00eabus.]\n\nThe question is, Wherein consists the Good--The Supreme\nGood--Summum Bonum. Three persons stand before us: the youthful\nPhil\u00eabus: Protarchus, somewhat older, yet still a young man: and\nSokrates. Phil\u00eabus declares that The Good consists in pleasure or\nenjoyment; and Protarchus his friend advocates the same thesis,\nthough in a less peremptory manner. On the contrary, Sokrates\nbegins by proclaiming that it consists in wisdom or intelligence.\nHe presently however recedes from this doctrine, so far as to\nadmit that wisdom, alone and _per se_, is not sufficient to\nconstitute the Supreme Good: and that a certain combination of\npleasure along with it is required. Though the compound total thus\nformed is superior both to wisdom and to pleasure taken\nseparately, yet comparing the two elements of which it is\ncompounded, wisdom (Sokrates contends) is the most important of\nthe two, and pleasure the least important. Neither wisdom nor\npleasure can pretend to claim the first prize; but wisdom is fully\nentitled to the second, as being far more cognate than pleasure\nis, with the nature of Good.\n\n[Side-note: Protest against the Sokratic Elenchus, and the purely\nnegative procedure.]\n\nSuch is the general purpose of the dialogue. As to the method of\nenquiry, Plato not only assigns to Sokrates a distinct affirmative\nopinion from the beginning, instead of that profession of\nignorance which is his more usual characteristic--but he also\nplaces in the mouth of Protarchus an explicit protest against the\nnegative cross-examination and Elenchus. \"We shall not let you\noff\" (says Protarchus to Sokrates) \"until the two sides of this\nquestion shall have been so discriminated as to elicit a\nsufficient conclusion. In meeting us on the present question, pray\ndesist from that ordinary manner of yours--desist from throwing us\ninto embarrassment, and putting interrogations to which we cannot\nat the moment give suitable answers. We must not be content to\nclose the discussion by finding ourselves in one common puzzle and\nconfusion. If _we_ cannot solve the difficulty, you must solve it\nfor us.\"[2]\n\n[Footnote 2: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 19 E--20 A. [Greek: pau=sai d\u00ea\\\nto\\n tro/pon \u00ea(mi=n a)pant\u00f4=n tou=ton e)pi\\ ta\\ nu=n lego/mena\n. . . ei)s a)pori/an e)mba/ll\u00f4n kai\\ a)ner\u00f4t\u00f4=n \u00f4(=n m\u00ea\\\ndunai/meth' a)\\n i(kan\u00ea\\n a)po/krisin e)n t\u00f4=| paro/nti dido/nai\nsoi. m\u00ea\\ ga\\r oi)\u00f4/metha te/los \u00ea(mi=n ei)=nai t\u00f4=n nu=n t\u00ea\\n\npa/nt\u00f4n \u00ea(m\u00f4=n a)pori/an, a)ll' ei) dra=|n tou=th' \u00ea(mei=s\na)dunatou=men, soi\\ draste/on.]\n\nThere is a remarkable contrast between the method here proclaimed\nand that followed in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus, though some eminent\ncommentators have represented the Phil\u00eabus as a sequel of the\nThe\u00e6t\u00eatus.]\n\n[Side-note: Enquiry--What mental condition will ensure to all men a\nhappy life? Good and Happiness--correlative and co-extensive.\nPhil\u00eabus declares for Pleasure, Sokrates for Intelligence.]\n\nConformably to this requisition, Sokrates, while applying his\ncross-examining negative test to the doctrine of Phil\u00eabus, sets\nagainst it a counter-doctrine of his own, and prescribes, farther,\na positive method of enquiry. \"You and I\" (he says) \"will each try\nto assign what permanent habit of mind, and what particular mental\ncondition, is calculated to ensure to all men a happy life.\"[3]\nGood and Happiness are used in this dialogue as correlative and\nco-extensive terms. Happiness is that which a man feels when he\npossesses Good: Good is that which a man must possess in order to\nfeel Happiness. The same fact or condition, looked at objectively,\nis denominated Good: looked at subjectively, is denominated\nHappiness.\n\n[Footnote 3: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 11 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Good--object of universal choice and attachment by men,\nanimals, and plants--all-sufficient--satisfies all desires.]\n\nIs Good identical with pleasure, or with intelligence, or is it a\nTertium Quid, distinct from both? Good, or The Good must be\nperfect and all-sufficient in itself: the object of desire,\naspiration, choice, and attachment, by all men, and even by all\nanimals and plants, who are capable of attaining it. Every man who\nhas it, is satisfied, desiring nothing else. If he neglects it,\nand chooses any thing else, this is contrary to nature: he does so\ninvoluntarily, either from ignorance or some other untoward\nconstraint.[4] Thus, the characteristic mark of Good or Happiness\nis, That it is desired, loved, and sought by all, and that, if\nattained, it satisfies all the wishes and aspirations of human\nnature.\n\n[Footnote 4: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 11 C. 20 C-D: [Greek: T\u00ea\\n\nta)gathou= moi=ran po/teron a)na/gk\u00ea te/leon \u00ea)\\ m\u00ea\\ te/leon\nei)=nai? Pa/nt\u00f4n d\u00ea/pou tele\u00f4/taton. Ti/ de/; i(kano\\n ta)gatho/n?\nP\u00f4=s ga\\r ou)/? kai\\ pa/nt\u00f4n ge ei)s tou=to diaphe/rein t\u00f4=n\no)/nt\u00f4=n. To/de ge m\u00ea\\n, \u00f4(s oi)=mai, peri\\ au)tou=\na)nagkaio/taton ei)=nai le/gein, \u00f4(s pa=n to\\ gign\u00f4=skon au)to\\\nth\u00eareu/ei kai\\ e)phi/etai boulo/menon e(lei=n kai\\ peri\\ au(to\\\nkt\u00ea/sasthai, kai\\ t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n ou)de\\n phronti/zei pl\u00ea\\n t\u00f4=n\na)poteloume/n\u00f4n a)/ma a)gathoi=s.]\n\n22 B: [Greek: i(kano\\s kai\\ te/leos kai\\ pa=si phutoi=s kai\\\nz\u00f4/ois ai(reto/s, oi(=sper dunato\\n \u00ea)=n ou(/t\u00f4s a)ei\\ dia\\ bi/ou\nz\u00ea=n; ei) de/ tis a)/lla \u00ea(|rei=th' \u00ea(m\u00f4=n, para\\ phu/sin a)\\n\nt\u00ea\\n tou= a)l\u00eathou=s ai(retou= e)la/mbanen a)/k\u00f4n e)x a)gnoi/as\n\u00ea)/ tinos a)na/gk\u00eas ou)k eu)dai/monos.]\n\n60 C, 61 A. 61 E: [Greek: to\\n a)gap\u00eato/taton bi/on]. 64 C:\n[Greek: tou= pa=si gegone/nai prosphil\u00ea= t\u00ea\\n toiau/t\u00ean\ndia/thesin.] 67 A.\n\n\"Omnibus natur\u00e6 human\u00e6 desideriis prorsus satisfacere\" (Stallbaum\nad Phil\u00eab. p. 18 D-E, page 139).]\n\n[Side-note: Pleasures are unlike to each other, and even opposite\ncognitions are so likewise.]\n\nSokrates then remarks that pleasure is very multifarious and\ndiverse: and that under that same word, different forms and\nvarieties are signified, very unlike to each other, and sometimes\neven opposite to each other. Thus the intemperate man has his\npleasures, while the temperate man enjoys his pleasures also,\nattached to his own mode of life: so too the simpleton has\npleasure in his foolish dreams and hopes, the intelligent man in\nthe exercise of intellectual force. These and many others are\nvarieties of pleasure not resembling, but highly dissimilar, even\nopposite.--Protarchus replies--That they proceed from dissimilar\nand opposite circumstances, but that in themselves they are not\ndissimilar or opposite. Pleasure must be completely similar to\npleasure--itself to itself.--So too (rejoins Sokrates) colour is\nlike to colour: in that respect there is no difference between\nthem. But black colour is different from, and even opposite to,\nwhite colour.[5] You will go wrong if you make things altogether\nopposite, into one. You may call all pleasures by the name\n_pleasures_: but you must not affirm between them any other point\nof resemblance, nor call them all _good_. I maintain that some are\nbad, others good. What common property in all of them, is it, that\nyou signify by the name _good_? As different pleasures are unlike\nto each other, so also different cognitions (or modes of\nintelligence) are unlike to each other; though all of them agree\nin being _cognitions_. To this Protarchus accedes.[6]--We must\nenter upon our enquiry after The Good with this mutual concession:\nThat Pleasure, which you affirm to be The Good--and Intelligence,\nwhich I declare to be so--is at once both Unum, and Multa et\nDiversa.[7]\n\n[Footnote 5: Plat. Phil\u00eab. p. 12 D-E.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Plat. Phil\u00eab. pp. 13 D-E, 14 A.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Plat. Phil\u00eab. p. 14 B.]\n\n[Side-note: Whether Pleasure, or Wisdom, corresponds to this\ndescription? Appeal to individual choice.]\n\nIn determining between the two competing doctrines--pleasure on\none side and intelligence on the other--Sokrates makes appeal to\nindividual choice. \"Would _you_ be satisfied (he asks Protarchus)\nto live your life through in the enjoyment of the greatest\npleasures? Would _any one of us_ be satisfied to live, possessing\nthe fullest measure and variety of intelligence, reason,\nknowledge, and memory--but having no sense, great or small, either\nof pleasure or pain?\" And Protarchus replies, in reference to the\njoint life of intelligence and pleasure combined, \"Every man will\nchoose this joint life in preference to either of them separately.\nIt is not one man who will choose it, and another who will reject\nit: but every man will choose it alike.\"[8]\n\n[Footnote 8: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 21 A. [Greek: de/xai' a)\\n su/,\nPr\u00f4/tarche, z\u00ea=n to\\n bi/on a(/panta \u00ea(do/menos \u00ea(dona\\s ta\\s\nmegi/stas?] 21 D-E: [Greek: ei)/ tis de/xait' a)\\n au)= z\u00ea=n\n\u00ea(m\u00f4=n], &c. 22 A: [Greek: Pa=s d\u00ea/pou tou=to/n ge ai(r\u00ea/setai\npro/teron \u00ea)\\ e)kei/n\u00f4n o(poteronou=n, kai\\ pro\\s tou/tois ge\nou)ch o( me/n, o( d' ou)/.] 60 D: [Greek: ei)/ tis a)/neu tou/t\u00f4n\nde/xait' a)/n], &c.\n\nHere again in appealing to the individual choice and judgment, the\nPlatonic Sokrates indirectly recognises what, in the The\u00e6t\u00eatus and\nother dialogues, we have seen him formally rejecting and\nendeavouring to confute--the Protagorean canon or measure.\nProtarchus is the measure of truth or falsehood, of belief or\ndisbelief, to Protarchus himself: every other man is so _to\nhimself_. Sokrates may be a wiser man, in the estimation of the\npublic, than Protarchus; and if Protarchus believes him to be\nsuch, that very belief may amount to an authority, determining\nProtarchus to accept or reject various opinions propounded by\nSokrates: but the ultimate verdict must emanate from the bosom of\nthe acceptor or rejector. I have already observed elsewhere, that\na large part of the conversation which the Platonic dialogues put\ninto the mouth of Sokrates, is addressed to individualities and\nspecialties of the other interlocutors: that this very power of\ndiscriminating between one mind and another, forms the great\nsuperiority of dialectic colloquy as compared with written\ntreatise or rhetorical discourse--both of which address the same\nterms to a multitude of hearers or readers differing among\nthemselves, without possibility of separate adaptation to each.\n(See above, ch. xxvi. pp. 50-54, on Ph\u00e6drus.)]\n\n[Side-note: First Question submitted to Protarchus--Intense\nPleasure, without any intelligence--He declines to accept it.]\n\nThe point, which Sokrates submits to the individual judgment of\nProtarchus, is--\"Would _you_ be satisfied to pass your life in the\nenjoyment of the most intense pleasures, and would you desire\nnothing farther?\" The reply is in the affirmative. \"But recollect\n(adds Sokrates) that you are to have nothing else. The question\nassumes that you are to be without thought, intelligence, reason,\nsight, and memory: you are neither to have opinion of present\nenjoyment, nor remembrance of past, nor anticipation of future:\nyou are to live the life of an oyster, with great present\npleasure?\" The question being put with these additions, Protarchus\nalters his view, and replies in the negative: at the same time\nexpressing his surprise at the strangeness of the hypothesis.[9]\n\n[Footnote 9: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 21.\n\nSuch an hypothesis does indeed depart so totally from the\nconditions of human life, that it cannot be considered as a fair\ntest of any doctrine. A perpetuity of delicious sensations cannot\nbe enjoyed, consistent with the conditions of animal organization.\nA man cannot realise to himself that which the hypothesis\npromises; much less can he realise it without those accompaniments\nwhich it assumes him to renounce. The loss stands out far more\npalpably than the gain. It is no refutation of the theory of\nPhil\u00eabus; who, announcing pleasure as the Summum Bonum, is\nentitled to call for pleasure in all its varieties, and for\nexemption from all pains. Sokrates himself had previously insisted\non the great variety as well as on the great dissimilarity of the\nmodes of pleasure and pain. To each variety of pleasure there\ncorresponds a desire: to each variety of pain, an aversion.\n\nIf the Summum Bonum is to fulfil the conditions postulated--that\nis, if it be such as to satisfy all human desires, it ought to\ncomprise all these varieties of pleasure. It ought, _e.g._, to\ncomprise the pleasures of self-esteem, and conscious\nself-protecting power, affording security for the future; it ought\nto comprise exemption from the pains of self-reproach, self-contempt,\nand conscious helplessness. These are among the greatest pleasures\nand pains of the mature man, though they are aggregates formed by\nassociation. Now the alternative tendered by Sokrates neither\nincludes these pleasures nor eliminates these pains. It includes\nonly the pleasures of sense; and it is tendered to one who has\nrooted in his mind desires for other pleasures, and aversions for\nother pains, besides those of sense. It does not therefore come up\nto the requirements fairly implied in the theory of Phil\u00eabus.]\n\n[Side-note: Second Question--Whether he will accept a life of\nIntelligence purely without any pleasure or pain? Answer--_No_.]\n\nSokrates now proceeds to ask Protarchus, whether he will accept a\nlife of full and all-comprehensive intelligence purely and simply,\nwithout any taste either of pleasure or pain. To which Protarchus\nanswers, that neither he nor any one else would accept such a\nlife.[10] Both of them agree that the Summum Bonum ought to be\nsought neither in pleasure singly, nor in intelligence singly, but\nin both combined.\n\n[Footnote 10: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 21-22.\n\nIt is to be remarked, however, that there was more than one\nGrecian philosopher who described the Summum Bonum as consisting\nin absence of pain ([Greek: a)lupi/a]); even without the large\nmeasure of intelligence which Sokrates here promises, and without\nany positive pleasure. These men would of course have accepted the\nsecond alternative put by Sokrates, which Protarchus here refuses.\nThey took their standard of comparison from the actualities of\nhuman life around them, which exhibited pain and suffering\nuniversal, frequent, and unavoidable. They conceived that if\npainlessness could be obtained, it was as much as could reasonably\nbe demanded, and that pleasure might be dispensed with. In laying\ndown any theory about the Summum Bonum, the preliminary question\nought always to be settled--What are the conditions of human life\nwhich are to be assumed as peremptory and unalterable? What\ncircumstances are we at liberty to suppose to be suppressed,\nmodified, or reversed? According as these fundamental postulates\nare given in a larger or narrower sense, the ideal Summum Bonum\nwill be shaped differently. This preliminary requisite to the\ninvestigation was little considered by the ancient philosophers.]\n\n[Side-note: It is agreed on both sides, That the Good must be a\nTertium Quid. But Sokrates undertakes to show, That Intelligence\nis more cognate with it than Pleasure.]\n\n[Side-note: Difficulties about Unum et Multa. How can the One be\nMany? How can the Many be One? The difficulties are greatest about\nGeneric Unity--how it is distributed among species and\nindividuals.]\n\nSokrates then undertakes to show, that of these two elements,\nintelligence is the most efficacious and the most contributory to\nthe Summum Bonum--pleasure the least so. But as a preparation for\nthis enquiry, he adverts to that which has just been agreed\nbetween them respecting both Pleasure and Intelligence--That each\nof them is Unum, and each of them at the same time Multa et\nDiversa. Here (argues Sokrates) we find opened before us the\nembarrassing question respecting the One and the Many. Enquirers\noften ask--\"How can the One be Many? How can the Many be One? How\ncan the same thing be both One and Many?\" They find it difficult\nto understand how you, Protarchus, being One person, are called by\ndifferent names--tall, heavy, white, just, &c.: or how you are\naffirmed to consist of many different parts and members. To this\ndifficulty, however (says Sokrates), the reply is easy. You, and\nother particular men, belong to the generated and the perishable.\nYou partake of many different Ideas or Essences, and your\npartaking of one among them does not exclude you from partaking\nalso of another distinct and even opposite. You partake of the\nIdea or Essence of Unity--also of Multitude--of tallness,\nheaviness, whiteness, humanity, greatness, littleness, &c. You are\nboth great and little, heavy and light, &c. In regard to generated\nand perishable things, we may understand this. But in regard to\nthe ungenerated, imperishable, absolute Essences, the difficulty\nis more serious. The Self-existent or Universal Man, Bull,\nAnimal--the Self-existent Beautiful, Good--in regard to these Unities\nor Monads there is room for great controversy. First, Do such unities\nor monads really and truly exist? Next, assuming that they do\nexist, how do they come into communion with generated and\nperishable particulars, infinite in number? Is each of them\ndispersed and parcelled out among countless individuals? or is it\nfound, whole and entire, in each individual, maintaining itself as\none and the same, and yet being parted from itself? Is the\nUniversal Man distributed among all individual men, or is he one\nand entire in each of them? How is the Universal Beautiful (The\nSelf-Beautiful--Beauty) in all and each beautiful thing? How does\nthis one monad, unchangeable and imperishable, become embodied in\na multitude of transitory individuals, each successively generated\nand perishing? How does this One become Many, or how do these Many\nbecome One?[11]\n\n[Footnote 11: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 15 B.]\n\n[Side-note: Active disputes upon this question at the time.]\n\nThese (says Sokrates) are the really grave difficulties respecting\nthe identity of the One and the Many: difficulties which have\noccasioned numerous controversies, and are likely to occasion many\nmore. Youthful speculators, especially, are fond of trying their\nfirst efforts of dialectical ingenuity in arguing upon this\nparadox--How the One can be Many, and the Many One.[12]\n\n[Footnote 12: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 15-16.\n\nIn reading the difficulties thus started by Sokrates, we perceive\nthem to be the same as those which we have seen set forth in the\ndialogue called Parmenid\u00eas, where they are put into the mouth of\nthe philosopher so-called; as objections requiring to be removed\nby Sokrates, before the Platonic theory of self-existent Ideas,\nuniversal, eternal and unchangeable, can be admitted. We might\nexpect that Plato having so emphatically and repeatedly announced\nhis own sense of the difficulty, would proceed to suggest some\nmode of replying to it. But this he never does. In the Parmenid\u00eas,\nhe does not even promise any explanation; in the Phil\u00eabus, he\nseems to promise one, but all the explanation which he gives\nignores or jumps over the difficulty, enjoining us to proceed as\nif no such difficulty existed.]\n\n[Side-note: Order of Nature--Coalescence of the Finite with the\nInfinite. The One--The Finite Many--The Infinite Many.]\n\nIt is a prim\u00e6val inspiration (he says) granted by the Gods to man\nalong with the fire of Prometheus, and handed down to us as a\ntradition from that heroic race who were in nearer kindred with\nthe Gods--That all things said to exist are composed of Unity and\nMultitude, and include in them a natural coalescence of Finiteness\nand Infinity.[13] This is the fundamental order of Nature, which\nwe must assume and proceed upon in our investigations. We shall\nfind everywhere the Form of Unity conjoined with the Form of\nInfinity. But we must not be satisfied simply to find these two\nforms. We must look farther for those intermediate Forms which lie\nbetween the two. Having found the Form of One, we must next search\nfor the Form of Two, Three, Four, or some definite number: and we\nmust not permit ourselves to acquiesce in the Form of Infinite,\nuntil no farther definite number can be detected. In other words,\nwe must not be satisfied with knowing only one comprehensive\nGenus, and individuals comprised under it. We must distribute the\nGenus into two, three, or more Species: and each of those Species\nagain into two or more sub-species, each characterised by some\nspecific mark: until no more characteristic marks can be\ndiscovered upon which to found the establishment of a distinct\nspecies. When we reach this limit, and when we have determined the\nnumber of subordinate species which the case presents, nothing\nremains except the indefinite mass and variety of individuals.[14]\nThe whole scheme will thus comprise--The One, the Summum Genus, or\nHighest Form: The Many, a definite number of Species or\nsub-Species or subordinate Forms: The Infinite, a countless heap of\nIndividuals.\n\n[Footnote 13: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 16 C. [Greek: \u00f4(s e)x e(no\\s\nme\\n kai\\ e)k poll\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n t\u00f4=n a)ei\\ legome/n\u00f4n ei)=nai,\npe/ras de\\ kai\\ a)peiri/an e(n au(toi=s xu/mphuton e)cho/nt\u00f4n.]]\n\n[Footnote 14: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 16 D. [Greek: dei=n ou)=n \u00ea(ma=s\n_tou/t\u00f4n ou(/t\u00f4 diakerosm\u00eame/n\u00f4n_, a)ei\\ _mi/an i)de/an_ peri\\\npanto\\s e(ka/stote _theme/nous z\u00eatei=n; eu(r\u00ea/sein ga\\r\ne)nou=san_; e)a\\n ou)=n metala/b\u00f4men, meta\\ mi/an du/o, ei)/ p\u00f4s\nei)si/, skopei=n, ei) de\\ m\u00ea/, trei=s \u00ea)/ tina a)/llon a)rithmo/n,\nkai\\ to\\ e(\\n e)kei/n\u00f4n e(/kaston pa/lin \u00f4(sau/t\u00f4s, me/chri per\na)\\n to\\ kat' a)rcha\\s e(\\n m\u00ea\\ o(/ti e(\\n kai\\ polla\\ kai\\\na)/peira/ e)sti mo/non i)/d\u00ea| tis a)lla\\ kai\\ o(/posa; _t\u00ea\\n de\\\ntou= a)pei/rou i)de/an_ pro\\s to\\ pl\u00ea=thos m\u00ea\\ prosphe/rein, pri\\n\na)/n tis to\\n a)rithmo\\n au)tou= pa/nta kati/d\u00ea| to\\n metaxu\\ tou=\na)pei/rou te kai\\ tou= e(no/s; to/te d' \u00ea)/d\u00ea to\\ e(\\n e(/kaston\nt\u00f4=n pa/nt\u00f4n ei)s to\\ a)/peiron methe/nta chai/rein e)a=|n.]\n\nPlato here recognises a Form of the Infinite, [Greek: a)pei/rou\ni)de/an]; again, p. 18 A, [Greek: a)pei/rou phu/sin].]\n\n[Side-note: Mistake commonly made--To look only for the One, and\nthe Infinite Many, without looking for the intermediate\nsubdivisions.]\n\nThe mistake commonly made (continues Sokrates) by clever men of\nthe present day, is, that they look for nothing beyond the One and\nthe Infinite Many: one comprehensive class, and countless\nindividuals included in it. They take up carelessly any class\nwhich strikes them,[15] and are satisfied to have got an\nindefinite number of individuals under one name. But they never\nseek for intermediate sub-divisions between the two, so as to be\nable to discriminate one portion of the class from other by some\ndefinite mark, and thus to constitute a sub-class. They do not\nfeel the want of such intermediate sub-divisions, nor the\nnecessity of distinguishing one portion of this immense group of\nindividuals from another. Yet it is exactly upon these\ndiscriminating marks that the difference turns, between genuine\ndialectical argument and controversy without result.[16]\n\n[Footnote 15: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 17 A. [Greek: oi( de\\ nu=n t\u00f4=n\na)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n sophoi\\ _e(\\n me/n, o(/p\u00f4s a)\\n tu/ch\u00f4si_, kai\\ polla\\\ntha=tton kai\\ bradu/teron poiou=si tou= de/ontos, _meta\\ de\\ to\\\ne(\\n a)/peira eu)thu/s_, ta\\ de\\ me/sa au)tou\\s e)kpheu/gei], &c.\n\nStallbaum conjectures that the words [Greek: kai\\ polla\\] after\n[Greek: tu/ch\u00f4si] ought not to be in the text. He proposes to\nexpunge them. The meaning of the passage certainly seems clearer\nwithout them.]\n\n[Footnote 16: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 17 A. [Greek: oi(=s\ndiakech\u00f4/ristai to/ te dialektik\u00f4=s pa/lin kai\\ to\\ e)ristik\u00f4=s\n\u00ea(ma=s poiei=sthai pro\\s a)ll\u00ea/lous tou\\s lo/gous.]]\n\n[Side-note: Illustration from Speech and Music.]\n\nThis general doctrine is illustrated by two particular\ncases--Speech and Music. The voice (or Vocal Utterance) is One--the\nvoice is also Infinite: to know only thus much is to know very little.\nEven when you know, in addition to this, the general distinction\nof sounds into acute and grave, you are still far short of the\nknowledge of music. You must learn farthermore to distinguish all\nthe intermediate gradations, and specific varieties of sound, into\nwhich the infinity of separate sounds admits of being distributed:\nwhat and how many these gradations are? what are the numerical\nratios upon which they depend--the rhythmical and harmonic\nsystems? When you have learnt to know the One Genus, the infinite\ndiversity of individual sounds, and the number of subordinate\nspecific varieties by which these two extremes are connected with\neach other--then you know the science of music. So too, in speech:\nwhen you can distinguish the infinite diversity of articulate\nutterance into vowels, semi-vowels, and consonants, each in\ndefinite number and with known properties--you are master of\ngrammatical science. You must neither descend at once from the One\nto the Infinite Multitude, nor ascend at once from the Infinite\nMultitude to the One: you must pass through the intermediate\nstages of subordinate Forms, in determinate number. All three\ntogether make up scientific knowledge. You cannot know one portion\nseparately, without knowing the remainder: all of them being\nconnected into one by the common bond of the highest Genus.[17]\n\n[Footnote 17: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 18 C-D. [Greek: kathor\u00f4=n de\\\n\u00f4(s ou)dei\\s \u00ea(m\u00f4=n ou)d' a)\\n e(\\n au)to\\ kath' au(to\\ a)/neu\npa/nt\u00f4n au)t\u00f4=n ma/thoi, tou=ton to\\n desmo\\n au)= logisa/menos\n\u00f4(s o)/nta e(/na kai\\ pa/nta tau=ta e(\\n p\u00f4s poiou=nta, mi/an e)p'\nau)toi=s \u00f4(s ou)=san grammatik\u00ea\\n te/chn\u00ean e)pephthe/gxato\nproseip\u00f4/n.]]\n\n[Side-note: Plato's explanation does not touch the difficulties\nwhich he had himself recognised as existing.]\n\nSuch is the explanation which Plato gives as to the identity of\nOne and Many. Considered as a reply to his own previous doubts and\ndifficulties, it is altogether insufficient. It leaves all those\ndoubts unsolved. The first point of enquiry which he had started,\nwas, Whether any Universal or Generic Monads really existed: the\nsecond point was, assuming that they did exist, how each of them,\nbeing essentially eternal and unchangeable, could so multiply\nitself or divide itself as to be at the same time in an infinite\nvariety of particulars.[18] Both points are left untouched by the\nexplanation. No proof is furnished that Universal Monads\nexist--still less that they multiply or divide their one and unchangeable\nessence among infinite particulars--least of all is it shown, how\nsuch multiplication or division can take place, consistently with\nthe fundamental and eternal sameness of the Universal Monad. The\nexplanation assumes these difficulties to be eliminated, but does\nnot suggest the means of eliminating them. The Phil\u00eabus, like the\nParmenid\u00eas, recognises the difficulties as existing, but leaves\nthem unsolved, though the dogmas to which they attach are the\ncardinal and peculiar tenets of Platonic speculation. Plato shows\nthat he is aware of the embarrassments: yet he is content to\ntheorize as if they did not exist. In a remarkable passage of this\nvery dialogue, he intimates pretty clearly that he considered the\ndifficulty of these questions to be insuperable, and never likely\nto be set at rest. This identification of the One with the Many,\nin verbal propositions (he says) has begun with the beginning of\ndialectic debate, and will continue to the end of it, as a\nstimulating puzzle which especially captivates the imagination of\nyouth.[19]\n\n[Footnote 18: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 15 B-C.]\n\n[Footnote 19: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 15 D. [Greek: phame/n pou\ntau)to\\n e(\\n kai\\ polla\\ u(po\\ lo/g\u00f4n gigno/mena peritre/chein\npa/nt\u00ea| kath' e(/kaston t\u00f4=n legome/n\u00f4n a)ei\\ kai\\ pa/lai kai\\\nnu=n. kai\\ tou=to ou)/te m\u00ea\\ pau/s\u00eatai/ pote ou)/te \u00ea)/rxato nu=n,\na)ll' e)/sti to\\ toiou=ton, \u00f4(s e)moi\\ phai/netai, t\u00f4=n lo/g\u00f4n\nau)t\u00f4=n a)tha/nato/n ti kai\\ a)g\u00ea/r\u00f4n pa/thos e)n \u00ea(mi=n.]\n\nThe sequel (too long to transcribe) of this passage (setting forth\nthe manner in which this apparent paradox worked upon the\nimagination of youthful students) is very interesting to read, and\nshows (in my opinion) that Stallbaum's interpretation of it in his\nnote is not the right one. Plato is here talking (in my judgment)\nabout the puzzle and paradox itself: Stallbaum represents Plato as\ntalking about his pretended solution of it, which has not as yet\nbeen at all alluded to.\n\nPlato seems to give his own explanation without full certainty or\nconfidence: see p. 16 B. And when we turn to pp. 18-19, we shall\nsee that he forgets the original difficulty which had been\nproposed (compare p. 15 B), introducing in place of it another\ntotally distinct difficulty, as if _that_ had been in\ncontemplation.]\n\n[Side-note: It is nevertheless instructive, in regard to logical\ndivision and classification.]\n\nBut though the difficulties started by Plato remain unexplained,\nstill his manner of stating them is in itself valuable and\ninstructive. It proclaims--1. The necessity of a systematic\nclassification, or subordinate scale of species and sub-species,\nbetween the highest Genus and the group of individuals beneath. 2.\nThat each of these subordinate grades in the scale must be founded\nupon some characteristic mark. 3. That the number of sub-divisions\nis definite and assignable, there being a limit beyond which it\ncannot be carried. 4. That full knowledge is not attainable until\nwe know all three--The highest Genus--The intermediate species and\nsub-species; both what they are, how many there are, and how each\nis characterised--The infinite group of individuals. These three\nelements must all be known in conjunction: we are not to pass\neither from the first to the third, or from the third to the\nfirst, except through the second.\n\n[Side-note: At that time little thought had been bestowed upon\nclassification as a logical process.]\n\nThe general necessity of systematic classification--of\ngeneralisation and specification, or subordination of species and\nsub-species, as a condition of knowing any extensive group of\nindividuals--requires no advocate at the present day. But it was\notherwise in the time of Plato. There existed then no body of\nknowledge, distributed and classified, to which he could appeal as\nan example. The illustrations to which he himself refers here, of\nlanguage and music as systematic arrangements of vocal sounds,\nwere both of them the product of empirical analogy and unconscious\ngrowth, involving little of predetermined principle or theory. All\nthe classification then employed was merely that which is included\nin the structure of language: in the framing of general names,\neach designating a multitude of individuals. All that men knew of\nclassification was, that which is involved in calling many\nindividuals by the same common name. This is the defect pointed\nout by Plato, when he remarks that the clever men of his time took\nno heed except of the One and the Infinite (Genus and\nIndividuals): neglecting all the intermediate distinctions. Upon\nthe knowledge of these _media_ (he says) rests the difference\nbetween true dialectic debate, and mere polemic.[20] That is--when\nyou have only an infinite multitude of individuals, called by the\nsame generic name, it is not even certain that they have a single\nproperty in common: and even if they have, it is not safe to\nreason from one to another as to the possession of any other\nproperty beyond the one generic property--so that the debate ends\nin mere perplexity. All pleasures agree in being pleasures\n(Sokrates had before observed to Protarchus), and all cognitions\nagree in being cognitions. But you cannot from hence infer that\nthere is any other property belonging in common to all.[21] That\nis a point which you cannot determine without farther observation\nof individuals, and discrimination of the great multitude into\nappropriate subdivisions. You will thus bring the whole under that\ntriple point of view which Plato requires:--the highest\nGenus,--the definite number of species and sub-species,--the\nundefined number of individuals.\n\n[Footnote 20: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 17 A. [Greek: oi( de\\ nu=n t\u00f4=n\na)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4n sophoi\\ e(\\n me/n, o(/p\u00f4s a)\\n tu/ch\u00f4si, kai\\ polla\\\ntha=tton kai\\ bradu/teron poiou=si tou= de/ontos, meta\\ de\\ to\\\ne(\\n a)/peira eu)thu/s, ta\\ de\\ me/sa au)tou\\s e)kpheu/gei, oi(=s\ndiakech\u00f4ristai to/ te dialektik\u00f4=s pa/lon kai\\ to\\ e)ristik\u00f4=s\n\u00ea(ma=s poiei=sthai pro\\s a)ll\u00ea/lous tou\\s lo/gous.]]\n\n[Footnote 21: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 13 B, 14 A.]\n\n[Side-note: Classification--unconscious and conscious.]\n\nHere we have set before us one important branch of logical\nmethod--the necessity of classification, not simply arising as an\nincidental and unconscious effect of the transitive employment of\na common name, but undertaken consciously and intentionally as a\ndeliberate process, and framed upon principles predetermined as\nessential to the accomplishment of a scientific end. This was a\nconception new in the Sokratic age. Plato seized upon it with\nardour. He has not only emphatically insisted upon it in the\nPhil\u00eabus and elsewhere, but he has also given (in the Sophist\u00eas\nand Politikus) elaborate examples of systematic logical\nsubdivision applied to given subjects.\n\n[Side-note: Plato's doctrine about classification is not\nnecessarily connected with his Theory of Ideas.]\n\nWe may here remark that Plato's views as to the necessity of\nsystematic classification, or of connecting the Summum Genus with\nindividuals by intermediate stages of gradually decreasing\ngenerality--are not necessarily connected with his peculiar theory\nof Ideas as Self-existent objects, eternal and unchangeable. The\ntwo are indeed blended together in his own mind and language: but\nthe one is quite separable from the other; and his remarks on\nclassification are more perspicuous without his theory of Ideas\nthan with it. Classification does not depend upon his\nhypothesis--That Ideas are not simply Concepts of the Reason, but\nabsolute existences apart from the Reason (Entia Rationis apart from\nthe Ratio)--and that these Ideas correspond to the words _Unum_,\n_Multa definit\u00e9_, _Multa indefinit\u00e9_, which are put together to\ncompose the totality of what we see and feel in the Kosmos.\n\nApplying this general doctrine (about the necessity of\nestablishing subordinate classes as intermediate between the Genus\nand Individuals) to the particular subject debated between\nSokrates and Protarchus--the next step in the procedure would\nnaturally be, to distinguish the subordinate classes comprised\nfirst under the Genus Pleasure--next, under the Genus Intelligence\n(or Cognition). And so indeed the dialogue seems to promise[22] in\ntolerably explicit terms.\n\n[Footnote 22: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 19 B, p. 20 A.]\n\n[Side-note: Quadruple distribution of Existences. 1. The Infinite.\n2. The Finient 3. Product of the two former. 4. Combining Cause or\nAgency.]\n\nBut such promise is not realised. The dialogue takes a different\nturn, and recurs to the general distinction already brought to\nview between the Finient (Determinans) and the Infinite\n(Indeterminatum). We have it laid down that all existences in the\nuniverse are divided into four Genera: 1. The Infinite or\nIndeterminate. 2. The Finient or the Determinans. 3. The product\nof these two, mixed or compounded together Determinatum. 4. The\nCause or Agency whereby they become mixed together.--Of these\nfour, the first is a Genus, or is both One and Many, having\nnumerous varieties, all agreeing in the possession of a perpetual\nMore and Less (without any limit or positive quantity): that which\nis perpetually increasing or diminishing, more or less hot, cold,\nmoist, great, &c., than any given positive standard. The second,\nor the Determinans, is also a Genus, or One and Many: including\nequal, double, triple, and all fixed ratios.[23]\n\n[Footnote 23: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 24-25.]\n\nThe third Genus is laid down by Plato as generated by a mixture or\ncombination of these two first--the Infinite and the Determinans.\nThe varieties of this third or compound Genus comprise all that is\ngood and desirable in nature--health, strength, beauty, virtue,\nfine weather, good temperature:[24] all agreeing, each in its\nrespective sphere, in presenting a right measure or proportion as\nopposed to excess or deficiency.\n\n[Footnote 24: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 26 A-B.]\n\nFourthly, Plato assumes a distinct element of causal agency which\noperates such mixture of the Determinans with the Infinite, or\nbanishment and supersession of the latter by the former.\n\n[Side-note: Pleasure and Pain belong to the first of these four\nClasses--Cognition or Intelligence belongs to the fourth.]\n\nWe now approach the application of these generalities to the\nquestion in hand--the comparative estimate of pleasure and\nintelligence in reference to Good. It has been granted that\nneither of them separately is sufficient, and that both must be\ncombined to compose the result Good: but the question remains,\nwhich of the two elements is the most important in the compound?\nTo which of the four above-mentioned Genera (says Sokrates) does\nPleasure belong? It belongs to the Infinite or Indeterminate: so\nalso does Pain. To which of the four does Intelligence or\nCognition belong? It belongs to the fourth, or to the nature of\nCause, the productive agency whereby definite combinations are\nbrought about.[25]\n\n[Footnote 25: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 27-28, p. 31 A.]\n\n[Side-note: In the combination, essential to Good, of Intelligence\nwith Pleasure, Intelligence is the more important of the two\nconstituents.]\n\nHence we see (Sokrates argues) that pleasure is a less important\nelement than Intelligence, in the compound called Good. For\npleasure belongs to the Infinite: but pain belongs to the Infinite\nalso: the Infinite therefore, being common to both, cannot be the\ncircumstance which imparts to pleasures their affinity with Good:\nthey must derive that affinity from some one of the other\nelements.[26] It is Intelligence which imparts to pleasures their\naffinity with Good: for Intelligence belongs to the more\nefficacious Genus called Cause. In the combination of Intelligence\nwith Pleasure, indispensable to constitute Good, Intelligence is\nthe primary element, Pleasure only the secondary element.\nIntelligence or Reason is the ruling cause which pervades and\ndirects both the smaller body called Man, and the greater body\ncalled the Kosmos. The body of man consists of a combination of\nthe four elements, Earth, Water, Air, and Fire: deriving its\nsupply of all these elements from the vast stock of them which\nconstitutes the Kosmos. So too the mind of man, with its limited\nreason and intelligence, is derived from the vast stock of mind,\nreason, and intelligence, diffused throughout the Kosmos, and\ngoverning its great elemental body. The Kosmos is animated and\nintelligent, having body and mind like man, but in far higher\nmeasure and perfection. It is from this source alone that man can\nderive his supply of mind and intelligence.[27]\n\n[Footnote 26: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 27-28.\n\nThe argument of Plato is here very obscure and difficult to\nfollow. Stallbaum in his note even intimates that Plato uses the\nword [Greek: a)/peiron] in a sense different from that in which he\nhad used it before: which I think doubtful.]\n\n[Footnote 27: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 29 C. 30 A: [Greek: To\\ par'\n\u00ea(mi=n s\u00f4=ma a)=r' ou) psuch\u00ea\\n ph\u00ea/somen e)/chein? . . . Po/then\nlabo/n, ei)/per m\u00ea\\ to/ ge tou= panto\\s s\u00f4=ma e)/mpsuchon o)\\n\ne)tu/gchane, tau)ta/ ge e)/chon tou/t\u00f4| kai\\ e)/ti pa/nt\u00ea\nkalli/ona?]]\n\n[Side-note: Intelligence is the regulating principle--Pleasure is\nthe Indeterminate, requiring to be regulated.]\n\nSokrates thus arrives at the conclusion, that in the combination\nconstituting Good, Reason or Intelligence is the regulating\nprinciple: and that Pleasure is the Infinite or Indeterminate\nwhich requires regulation from without, having no fixed measure or\nregulating power in itself.[28] He now proceeds to investigate\npleasure and intelligence as phenomena: to enquire in what each of\nthem resides, and through what affection they are generated.[29]\n\n[Footnote 28: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 31 A.]\n\n[Footnote 29: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 31 B. [Greek: dei= d\u00ea\\ to\\ meta\\\ntou=to, e)n \u00f4(=| te/ e)stin e(ka/teron au)toi=n kai\\ dia\\ ti/\npa/thos gi/gnesthon, o(po/tan gi/gn\u00easthon, i)dei=n \u00ea(ma=s.]]\n\n[Side-note: Pleasure and Pain must be explained together--Pain\narises from the disturbance of the fundamental harmony of the\nsystem--Pleasure from the restoration.]\n\nWe cannot investigate pleasure (Sokrates continues) apart from\npain: both must be studied together. Both pleasure and pain reside\nin the third out of the four above-mentioned Genera:[30] that is,\nin the compound Genus formed out of that union (of the Infinite\nwith the Determinans or Finient) which includes all animated\nbodies. Health and Harmony reside in these animated bodies: and\npleasure as well as pain proceed from modifications of such\nfundamental harmony. When the fundamental harmony is disturbed or\ndissolved, pain is the consequence: when the disturbance is\nrectified and the harmony restored, pleasure ensues.[31] Thus\nhunger, thirst, extreme heat and cold, are painful, because they\nbreak up the fundamental harmony of animal nature: while eating,\ndrinking, cooling under extreme heat, or warming under extreme\ncold, are pleasurable, because they restore the disturbed harmony.\n\n[Footnote 30: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 31 C. [Greek: _e)n t\u00f4=| koin\u00f4=|\nmoi ge/nei_ a(/ma phai/nesthon lu/p\u00ea te kai\\ \u00ea(don\u00ea\\ _gi/gnesthai_\nkata\\ phu/sin . . . koino\\n toi/nun u(pakou/\u00f4men o(\\ d\u00ea\\ t\u00f4=n\ntetta/r\u00f4n tri/ton e)le/gomen.] Compare p. 32 A-B: [Greek: to\\ e)k\ntou= a)pei/rou kai\\ pe/ratos kata\\ phu/sin e)/mpsuchon gegono\\s\nei)=dos.]\n\nPlato had before said that [Greek: \u00ea(don\u00ea\\] belonged to the\nInfinite (compare p. 41 D), or to the _first_ of the four\nabove-mentioned genera, not to the third.]\n\n[Footnote 31: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 31 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Pleasure presupposes Pain.]\n\nThis is the primary conception, or original class, of pleasures\nand pains, embracing body and mind in one and the same fact.\nPleasure cannot be had without antecedent pain: it is in fact a\nmere reaction against pain, or a restoration from pain.\n\n[Side-note: Derivative pleasures of memory and expectation\nbelonging to mind alone. Here you may find pleasure without pain.]\n\nBut there is another class of pleasures, secondary and derivative\nfrom these, and belonging to the mind alone without the body. The\nexpectation of future pleasures is itself pleasurable,[32] the\nexpectation of future pains is itself painful. In this secondary\nclass we find pleasure without pain, and pain without pleasure: so\nthat we shall be better able to study pleasure by itself, and to\ndecide whether the whole class, in all its varieties, be good,\nwelcome and desirable,--or whether pleasure and pain be not, like\nheat and cold, desirable or undesirable according to\ncircumstances--_i.e._ not good in their own nature, but sometimes\ngood and sometimes not.[33]\n\n[Footnote 32: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 32 C. [Greek: \u00ea(don\u00ea=s kai\\\nlu/p\u00eas e(/teron ei)=dos, to\\ ch\u00f4ri\\s tou= s\u00f4/matos au)t\u00ea=s t\u00ea=s\npsuch\u00ea=s dia\\ prosdoki/as gigno/menon.]]\n\n[Footnote 33: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 32 D.]\n\n[Side-note: A life of Intelligence alone, without pain and without\npleasure, is conceivable. Some may prefer it: at any rate it is\nsecond-best.]\n\nIn the definition above given of the conditions of pleasure, as a\nre-action from antecedent pain, it is implied that if there be no\npain, there can be no pleasure: and that a state of life is\ntherefore conceivable which shall be without both--without pain\nand without pleasure. The man who embraces wisdom may prefer this\nthird mode of life. It would be the most divine and the most akin\nto the nature of the Gods, who cannot be supposed without\nindecency to feel either joy or sorrow.[34] At any rate, if not\nthe best life of all, it will be the second-best.\n\n[Footnote 34: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 33 B. [Greek: Ou)kou=n ei)ko/s\nge ou)/te chai/rein theou\\s ou)/te to\\ e)nanti/on? Pa/nu me\\n\nou)=n ou)k ei)ko/s; a)/sch\u00eamon gou=n au)t\u00f4n e(ka/teron\ngigno/meno/n e)stin.]]\n\n[Side-note: Desire belongs to the mind, presupposes both a bodily\nwant, and the memory of satisfaction previously had for it. The\nmind and body are here opposed. No true or pure pleasure therein.]\n\nThose pleasures, which reside in the mind alone without the body,\narise through memory and by means of reminiscence. When the body\nreceives a shock which does not go through to the mind, we call\nthe fact insensibility. In sensation, the body and mind are both\naffected:[35] such sensation is treasured up in the memory, and\nthe mental part of it is recalled (without the bodily part) by\nreminiscence.[36] Memory and reminiscence are the foundations of\ndesire or appetite. When the body suffers the pain of hunger or\nthirst, the mind recollects previous moments of satisfaction,\ndesires a repetition of that satisfaction by means of food or\ndrink. Here the body and the mind are not moved in the same way,\nbut in two opposite ways: the desire belongs to the mind alone,\nand is turned towards something directly opposed to the affection\nof the body. That which the body feels is emptiness: that which\nthe mind feels is desire of replenishment, or of the condition\nopposed to emptiness. But it is only after experience of\nreplenishment that the mind will feel such desire. On the first\noccasion of emptiness, it will not desire replenishment, because\nit will have nothing, neither sensation nor memory, through which\nto touch replenishment: it can only do so after replenishment has\nbeen previously enjoyed, and through the memory. Desire therefore\nis a state of the mind apart from the body, resting upon\nmemory.[37] Here then the man is in a double state: the pain of\nemptiness, which affects the mind through the body, and the memory\nof past replenishment, or expectation of future replenishment,\nwhich resides in the mind. Such expectation, if certain and\nimmediate, will be a state of pleasure: if doubtful and distant,\nit will be a state of pain. The state of emptiness and consequent\nappetite must be, at the very best, a state of mixed pain and\npleasure: and it may perhaps be a state of pain only, under two\ndistinct forms.[38] Life composed of a succession of these states\ncan afford no true or pure pleasure.\n\n[Footnote 35: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 33 E--34 A. [Greek:\na)naisth\u00easi/an e)pono/mason . . . to\\ de\\ e)n e(ni\\ pa/thei t\u00ea\\n\npsuch\u00ea\\n kai\\ to\\ s\u00f4=ma koin\u00ea=| gigno/menon koin\u00ea=| kai\\\nkinei=sthai, tau/t\u00ean d' au)= t\u00ea\\n ki/n\u00easin o)noma/z\u00f4n\n_ai)/sth\u00easin_ ou)k a)po\\ tro/pou phthe/ggoi' a)/n.]]\n\n[Footnote 36: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 34 A-B. [Greek: s\u00f4t\u00eari/an\nai)sth\u00ea/se\u00f4s t\u00ea\\n mn\u00ea/m\u00ean.]\n\n[Greek: Mn\u00ea/m\u00ea] and [Greek: a)na/mn\u00easis] are pronounced to be\ndifferent.]\n\n[Footnote 37: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 35 C. [Greek: t\u00ea\\n psuch\u00ea\\n\na)/ra t\u00ea=s pl\u00ear\u00f4/se\u00f4s e)pha/ptesthai loipo/n, t\u00ea=| mn\u00ea/m\u00ea| d\u00ea=lon\no(/ti; t\u00f4=| ga\\r a)\\n e)/t' a)/ll\u00f4| e)pha/psaito?]\n\n35 D. [Greek: t\u00ea\\n a)/r' e)pa/gousan e)pi\\ ta\\ e)pithumou/mena\na)podei/xas mn\u00ea/m\u00ean, o( lo/gos psuch\u00ea=s xu/mpasan t\u00ea/n te o(rm\u00ea\\n\nkai\\ e)pithumi/an kai\\ t\u00ea\\n a)rch\u00ea\\n tou= z\u00f4/ou panto\\s\na)pe/ph\u00ea|nen.]\n\n[Footnote 38: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 36 A-B.\n\nThis analysis of desire is in the main just: antecedent to all\ngratification, it is simple uneasiness: gratification having been\nsupplied, the memory thereof remains, and goes along with the\nuneasiness to form the complex mental state called _desire_.\n\nBut there is another case of desire. While tasting a pleasure, we\ndesire the continuance of it: and if the expectation of its\ncontinuance be assured, this is an additional pleasure: two\nsources of pleasure instead of one. In this last case, there is no\nsuch conjunction of opposite states, pain and pleasure, as Plato\npointed out in the former case.]\n\n[Side-note: Can pleasures be true or false? Sokrates maintains that\nthey are so.]\n\nWhat do you mean (asks Protarchus) by true pleasures or pains? How\ncan pleasures or pains be either true or false? Opinions and\nexpectations may be true or false; but not pleasures, nor pains.\n\nThat is an important question (replies Sokrates), which we must\ncarefully examine. If opinions may be false or true, surely\npleasures may be so likewise. When a man holds an opinion, there\nis always some Object of his opinion, whether he thinks truly or\nfalsely: so also when a man takes delight, there must always be\nsome Object in which he takes delight, truly or falsely. Pleasure\nand pain, as well as opinion, are susceptible of various\nattributes; vehement or moderate, right or wrong, bad or good.\nDelight sometimes comes to us along with a false opinion,\nsometimes along with a true one.\n\nYes (replies Protarchus), but we then call _the opinion_ true or\nfalse--not _the pleasure_.[39]\n\n[Footnote 39: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 37.]\n\n[Side-note: Reasons given by Sokrates. Pleasures attached to true\nopinions, are true pleasures. The just man is favoured by the\nGods, and will have true visions sent to him.]\n\nYou will not deny (says Sokrates) that there is a difference\nbetween the pleasure accompanying a true opinion, and that which\naccompanies a false opinion. Wherein does the difference consist?\nOur opinions, and our comparisons of opinion, arise from sensation\nand memory:[40] which write words and impress images upon our mind\n(as upon a book or canvas), sometimes truly, sometimes\nfalsely,[41] not only respecting the past and present, but also\nrespecting the future. To these opinions respecting the future are\nattached the pleasures and pains of expectation, which we have\nalready recognised as belonging to the mind alone,--anticipations\nof bodily pleasures or pains to come--hopes and fears. As our\nopinions respecting the future are sometimes true, sometimes\nfalse, so also are our hopes and fears: but throughout our lives\nwe are always full of hopes and fears.[42] Now the just and good\nman, being a favourite of the Gods, will have these visions or\nanticipations of the future presented to him truly and accurately:\nthe bad man on the contrary will have them presented to him\nfalsely. The pleasures of anticipation will be true to the former,\nand false to the latter:[43] his false pleasures will be a\nludicrous parody on the true ones.[44] Good or bad opinions are\nidentical with true or false opinions: so also are good or bad\npleasures, identical with true or false pleasures: there is no\nother ground for their being good or bad.\n\n[Footnote 40: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 38 C. [Greek: Ou)kou=n e)k\nmn\u00ea/m\u00eas te kai\\ ai)sth\u00ea/se\u00f4s do/xa \u00ea(mi=n kai\\ to\\ diadoxa/zein\ne)gcheirei=n gi/gneth' e(ka/stote?]]\n\n[Footnote 41: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 38 E, 39. [Greek: dokei= moi\nto/te \u00ea(m\u00f4=n \u00ea( psuch\u00ea\\ bibli/\u00f4| tini\\ proseoike/nai . . . \u00ea(\nmn\u00ea/m\u00ea tai=s ai)sth\u00ea/sesi xumpi/ptousa ei)s tau)to/n, ka)kei=na\na)\\ peri\\ tau=ta/ e)sti ta\\ path\u00ea/mata, phai/nontai/ moi schedo\\n\noi(=on gra/phein \u00ea(m\u00f4=n e)n tai=s psuchai=s to/te lo/gous. . .\n\nA)pode/chou d\u00ea\\ kai\\ e(/teron d\u00eamiourgo\\n \u00ea(m\u00f4=n e)n tai=s\npsuchai=s e)n t\u00f4=| to/te chro/n\u00f4| gigno/menon . . . Z\u00f4gra/phon,\no(\\s meta\\ to\\n grammatist\u00ea\\n t\u00f4=n legome/n\u00f4n ei)ko/nas e)n t\u00ea=|\npsuch\u00ea=| tou/t\u00f4n gra/phei.]\n\nIt seems odd that Plato here puts the painter _after_ the scribe,\nand not _before_ him. The images or phantasm of sense must be\npainted on the mind before any words are written upon it if we are\nto adopt both these metaphors).\n\nThe comparison of the mind to a sheet of paper or a book begins\nwith the poets (\u00c6schyl. Prometh. 790), and passes into philosophy\nwith Plato.]\n\n[Footnote 42: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 39 E. [Greek: \u00ea(mei=s d' au)=\ndia\\ panto\\s tou= bi/ou a)ei\\ ge/momen e)lpi/d\u00f4n.] 40 E. [Greek:\nou)kou=n o( au)to\\s lo/gos a)\\n ei)/\u00ea peri\\ pho/b\u00f4n** te kai\\\nthum\u00f4=n], &c. Also 40 D.]\n\n[Footnote 43: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 40 A-B.\n\nProphets and prophecies, inspired by the Gods, were phenomena\nreceived as frequently occurring in the days of Plato.]\n\n[Footnote 44: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 40 C. [Greek: memim\u00eame/nai\nme/ntoi ta\\s a)l\u00eathei=s e)pi\\ ta\\ geloio/tera.]]\n\n[Side-note: Protarchus disputes this--He thinks that there are some\npleasures bad, but none false--Sokrates does not admit this, but\nreserves the question.]\n\nI admit this identity (remarks Protarchus) in regard to opinions,\nbut not in regard to pleasures. I think there are other grounds,\nand stronger grounds, for pronouncing pleasures to be\nbad--independently of their being false. We will reserve that question\n(says Sokrates) for the present--whether there are or are not\npleasures bad on other grounds.[45] I am now endeavouring to show\nthat there are some pleasures which are _false_: and I proceed to\nanother way of viewing the subject.\n\n[Footnote 45: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 40 E-41 A. _Sokr._ [Greek:\nOu)d' \u00ea(dona/s g', oi)=mai, katanoou=men \u00f4(s a)/llon tina\\ tro/pon\nei)si\\ pon\u00earai\\ pl\u00ea\\n t\u00f4=| pseudei=s ei)=nai.] _Protarch._ [Greek:\nPa/nu me\\n ou)=n tou)nanti/on ei)/r\u00eakas], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: No means of truly estimating pleasures and pains--False\nestimate habitual--These are the false pleasures.]\n\nWe agreed before that the state, called Appetite or Desire, was a\nmixed state comprehending body and mind: the state of body\naffecting the mind with a pain of emptiness,--the state of mind\napart from body being either a pleasure of expected replenishment,\nor a pain arising from our regarding replenishment as distant or\nunattainable. Appetite or Desire, therefore, is sometimes mixed\npleasure and pain; both, of the genus Infinite, Indeterminate. We\ndesire to compare these pleasures and pains, and to value their\nmagnitude in relation to each other, but we have no means of\nperforming the process. We not only cannot perform it well, but we\nare sure to perform it wrongly. For future pleasure or pain counts\nfor more or less in our comparison, according to its proximity or\ndistance. Here then is a constant source of false computation:\npleasures and pains counted as greater or less than they really\nare: in other words, false pleasures and pains. We thus see that\npleasures may be true or false, no less than opinions.[46]\n\n[Footnote 46: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 41-42.]\n\n[Side-note: Much of what is called pleasure is false. Gentle and\ngradual changes do not force themselves upon our notice either as\npleasure or pain. Absence of pain not the same as pleasure.]\n\nWe have also other ways of proving the point that much of what is\ncalled pleasure is false and unreal[47]--either no pleasure at\nall, or pleasure mingled and alloyed with pain and relief from\npain. According to our previous definition of pain and\npleasure--that pain arises from derangement of the harmony of our nature,\nand pleasure from the correction of such derangement, or from the\nre-establishment of harmony--there may be and are states which are\nneither painful nor pleasurable. Doubtless the body never remains\nthe same: it is always undergoing change: but the gentle and\ngradual changes (such as growth, &c.) escape our consciousness,\nproducing neither pain nor pleasure: none but the marked, sudden\nchanges force themselves upon our consciousness, thus producing\npain and pleasure.[48] A life of gentle changes would be a life\nwithout pain as well as without pleasure. There are thus three\nstates of life[49]--painful--pleasurable--neither painful nor\npleasurable. But _no pain_ (absence of pain) is not identical with\npleasure: it is a third and distinct state.[50]\n\n[Footnote 47: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 42 C. [Greek: Tou/t\u00f4n toi/nun\ne(x\u00ea=s o)pso/metha, e)a\\n t\u00ea=|de a)pant\u00f4=men \u00ea(dona\\s kai\\ lu/pas\npseudei=s e(/ti ma=llon \u00ea)\\ tau/tas phainome/nas te kai\\ ou)/sas\ne)n toi=s z\u00f4/ois.]\n\nThis argument is continued, though in a manner desultory and\ndifficult to follow, down to p. 51 A: [Greek: pro\\s to\\ tina\\s\n\u00ea(dona\\s ei)=nai dokou/sas, ou)sas d' ou)dam\u00f4=s; kai\\ mega/las\ne(te/ras tina\\s a)/ma kai\\ polla\\s phantasthei/sas, ei)=nai d'\nau)ta\\s sumpephurme/nas o(mou= lu/pais te kai\\ a)napau/sesin\no)dun\u00f4=n t\u00f4=n megi/st\u00f4n peri/ te s\u00f4/matos kai\\ psuch\u00ea=s\na)pori/as.]]\n\n[Footnote 48: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 42-43.]\n\n[Footnote 49: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 43 D. [Greek: trittou\\s bi/ous,\ne(/na me\\n \u00ea(du/n, to\\n d' au)= lup\u00earo/n, to\\n d' e(/na\nm\u00eade/tera.]]\n\n[Footnote 50: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 43 D. [Greek: ou)k a)\\n ei)/\u00ea\nto\\ m\u00ea\\ lupei=sthai/ pote tau)to\\n t\u00f4=| chai/rein.]]\n\n[Side-note: Opinion of the pleasure-hating philosophers--That\npleasure is no reality, but a mere juggle--no reality except pain,\nand the relief from pain.]\n\nNow there are some philosophers who confound this distinction:[51]\nPhilosophers respectable, but stern, who hate the very name of\npleasure, deny its existence as a separate state _per se_, and\nmaintain it to be nothing more than relief from pain: implying\ntherefore, perpetually and inevitably, the conjunction or\nantecedence of pain. They consider the seduction of pleasure in\nprospect to be a mere juggle--a promise never realised. Often the\nexpected moment brings no pleasure at all: and even when it does,\nthere are constant accompaniments of pain, which always greatly\nimpair, often countervail, sometimes far more than countervail,\nits effect. Pain is regarded by them as the evil--removal or\nmitigation of pain as the good--of human life.\n\n[Footnote 51: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 44 B-C. [Greek: kai\\ ma/la\ndeinou\\s legome/nous ta\\ peri\\ phu/sin, oi( to\\ para/pan \u00ea(dona\\s\nou)/ phasin ei)=nai . . . lup\u00f4=n tau/tas ei)=nai pa/sas\na)pothuga/s, a(\\s nu=n oi( peri\\ Phi/l\u00eabon \u00ea(dona\\s\ne)ponoma/zousin.]]\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates agrees with them in part, but not wholly.]\n\nThese philosophers (continues Sokrates) are like prophets who\nspeak truth from the stimulus of internal temperament, without any\nrational comprehension of it. Their theory is partially true, but\nnot universally.[52] It is true of a large portion of what are\ncalled pleasures, but it is not true of all pleasures. Most\npleasures (indeed all the more vehement and coveted pleasures),\ncorrespond to the description given in the theory. The moment when\nthe supposed intense pleasure arrives, is a disappointment of the\nantecedent hopes, either by not bringing the pleasure promised, or\nby bringing it along with a preponderant dose of pain. But there\nare some pleasures of which this cannot be said--which are really\ntrue and unmixed with pain. Which these are (continues Sokrates),\nI will presently explain: but I shall first state the case of the\npleasure-hating philosophers, so far as I go along with it.\n\n[Footnote 52: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 44 C. [Greek: \u00f4(/sper ma/ntesi\nproschr\u00ea=sthai/ tisi, manteuome/nois ou) te/chn\u00ea|, a)lla/ tini\nduscherei/a phu/se\u00f4s ou)k a)gennou=s], &c. Also p. 51 A.]\n\n[Side-note: Theory of the pleasure-haters--We must learn what\npleasure is by looking at the intense pleasures--These are\nconnected with distempered body and mind.]\n\nWhen we are studying any property (they say), we ought to examine\nespecially those cases in which it appears most fully and\nprominently developed: thus, if we are enquiring into hardness, we\nmust take for our first objects of investigation the hardest\nthings, in preference to those which are less hard or scarcely\nhard at all.[53] So in enquiring into pleasure generally, we must\ninvestigate first the pleasures of extreme intensity and\nvehemence. Now the most intense pleasures are enjoyed not in a\nhealthy state of body, but on the contrary under circumstances of\ndistemper and disorder: because they are then preceded by the most\nviolent wants and desires. The sick man under fever suffers\ngreater thirst and cold than when he is in health, but in the\nsatisfaction of those wants, his pleasure is proportionally more\nintense. Again when he suffers from the itch or an inflamed state\nof body, the pleasure of rubbing or scratching is more intense\nthan if he had no such disorder.[54] The most vehement bodily\npleasures can only be enjoyed under condition of being preceded or\nattended by pains greater or less as the case may be. The\ncondition is not one of pure pleasure, but mixed between pain and\npleasure. Sometimes the pain preponderates, sometimes the\npleasure: if the latter, then most men, forgetting the\naccompanying pain, look upon these transient moments as the summit\nof happiness.[55] In like manner the violent and insane man, under\nthe stimulus of furious passions and desires, experiences more\nintense gratifications than persons of sober disposition: his\ncondition is a mixed one, of great pains and great pleasures. The\nlike is true of all the vehement passions--love, hatred, revenge,\nanger, jealousy, envy, fear, sorrow, &c.: all of them embody\npleasures mixed with pain, and the magnitude of the pleasure is\nproportioned to that of the accompanying pain.[56]\n\n[Footnote 53: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 44 E. [Greek: \u00f4(s ei)\nboul\u00ea/theimen o(touou=n ei)=dous t\u00ea\\n phu/sin i)dei=n, oi(=on t\u00ea\\n\ntou= skl\u00earou=, po/teron ei)s ta\\ skl\u00earo/tta a)poble/pontes ou(/t\u00f4s\na)\\n ma=llon sunno\u00ea/saimen \u00ea)\\ pro\\s ta\\ pollosta\\ skl\u00earo/t\u00eati?]\nAnswer: [Greek: pro\\s ta\\ pr\u00f4=ta mege/thei.]]\n\n[Footnote 54: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 45-46.]\n\n[Footnote 55: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 47 A.]\n\n[Footnote 56: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 49-50 D. Plato here introduces,\nat some length, an analysis of the mixed sentiment of pleasure and\npain with which we regard scenic representations, tragedy and\ncomedy--especially the latter. The explanation which he gives of\nthe sentiment of the ludicrous is curious, and is intended to\nelucidate an obscure psychological phenomenon ([Greek: o(/s\u00f4|\nskoteino/tero/n e)sti], p. 48 B). But his explanation is not\nclear, and the sense which he gives to the word [Greek: phtho/nos]\nis a forced one. He states truly that the natural object (at least\none among the objects) which a man laughs at, is the intellectual\nand moral infirmities of persons with whom he is in friendly\nintercourse, when such persons are not placed in a situation of\npower, so as to make their defects or displeasure pregnant with\ndangerous consequences. The laugher is amused with exaggerated\nself-estimation or foolish vanity displayed by friends, [Greek:\ndoxosophi/a, doxokali/a] &c. (49 E). But how the laugher can be\nsaid to experience a mixture of pain and pleasure here, or how he\ncan be said to feel [Greek: phtho/nos], I do not clearly see. At\nleast [Greek: phtho/nos] is here used in the very unusual sense\n(to use Stallbaum's words, note p. 48 B, page 278) of \"injusta\nl\u00e6titia de malis eorum, quibus bene cupere debemus\": a sense\naltogether contrary to that which the word bears in Xen. Memor.\niii. 9, 8; which Stallbaum himself cites, as if the definition of\n[Greek: phtho/nos] were the same in both.]\n\n[Side-note: The intense pleasures belong to a state of sickness;\nbut there is more pleasure, on the whole, enjoyed in a state of\nhealth.]\n\nRecollect (observes Sokrates) that the question here is not\nwhether _more pleasure_ is enjoyed, _on the whole_, in a state of\nhealth than in a state of sickness--by violent rather than by\nsober men. The question is, about the intense modes of pleasure.\nRespecting these, I have endeavoured to show that they belong to a\ndistempered, rather than to a healthy, state both of state of body\nand mind:--and that they cannot be enjoyed pure, without a\ncountervailing or preponderant accompaniment of pain.[57] This is\nequally true, whether they be pleasures of body alone, of mind\nalone, or of body and mind together. They are false and delusive\npleasures: in fact, they are pleasures only in seeming, but not in\ntruth and reality. To-morrow I will give you fuller proofs on the\nsubject.[58]\n\n[Footnote 57: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 45 C-E. [Greek: m\u00ea/ me \u00ea(g\u00ea=|\ndianoou/menon e)r\u00f4ta=|n se, ei) _plei/\u00f4 chai/rousin_ oi( spho/dra\nnosou=ntes t\u00f4=n u(giaino/nt\u00f4n, a)ll' oi)/ou _me/getho/s_ me\nz\u00eatei=n \u00ea(don\u00ea=s, kai\\ _to\\ spho/dra_ peri\\ tou= toiou/tou pou=\npote\\ gi/gnetai e(ka/stote], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 58: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 50 E. [Greek: tou/t\u00f4n ga\\r\na(pa/nt\u00f4n au(/rion e)thel\u00ea/s\u00f4 soi lo/gon dou=nai], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates acknowledges some pleasures to be true.\nPleasures of beautiful colours, odours, sounds, smells, &c.\nPleasures of acquiring knowledge.]\n\nThus far (continues Sokrates) I have set forth the case on behalf\nof the pleasure-haters. Though I deny their full doctrine,--that\nthere is no pleasure except cessation from pain--I nevertheless\nagree with them and cite them as witnesses on my behalf, to the\nextent of affirming that a large proportion of our so-called\npleasures, and those precisely the most intense, are false and\nunreal: being poisoned and drenched in accompaniments of pain.[59]\nBut there are some pleasures, true, genuine, and untainted. Such\nare those produced by beautiful colours and figures--by many\nodours--by various sounds: none of which are preceded by any\npainful want requiring to be satisfied. The sensation when it\ncomes is therefore one of pure and unmixed pleasure. The figures\nhere meant are the perfect triangle, cube, circle, &c.: the\ncolours and sounds are such as are clear and simple. All these are\nbeautiful and pleasurable absolutely and in themselves--not simply\nin relation to (or relatively to) some special antecedent\ncondition. Smells too, though less divine than the others, are in\ncommon with them unalloyed by accompanying pain.[60] To these must\nbe added the pleasure of acquiring knowledge, which supposes\nneither any painful want before it, nor any subsequent pain even\nif the knowledge acquired be lost. This too is one of the unmixed\nor pure pleasures; though it is not attainable by most men, but\nonly by a select few.[61]\n\n[Footnote 59: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 51 A.]\n\n[Footnote 60: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 51 E. [Greek: to\\ de\\ peri\\ ta\\s\no)sma\\s \u00ea(=tton me\\n tou/t\u00f4n thei=on ge/nos \u00ea(don\u00f4=n; to\\ de\\ m\u00ea\\\nsummemi/chthai e)n au)tai=s a)nagkai/ous lu/pas], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 61: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 52 B. [Greek: tau/tas toi/nun\nta\\s t\u00f4=n math\u00eama/t\u00f4n \u00ea(dona\\s a)mi/ktous te ei)=nai lu/pais\nr(\u00eate/on, kai\\ ou)dam\u00f4=s t\u00f4=n spho/dra o)li/g\u00f4n.]]\n\n[Side-note: Pure and moderate pleasures admit of measure and\nproportion.]\n\nHaving thus distinguished the pure and moderate class of\npleasures, from the mixed and vehement--we may remark that the\nformer class admit of measure and proportion, while the latter\nbelong to the immeasurable and the infinite. Moreover, look where\nwe will, we shall find truth on the side of the select, small,\nunmixed specimens--rather than among the large and mixed masses. A\nsmall patch of white colour, free from all trace of any other\ncolour, is truer, purer, and more beautiful, than a large mass of\nclouded and troubled white. In like manner, gentle pleasure, free\nfrom all pain, is more pleasurable, truer, and more beautiful,\nthan intense pleasure coupled with pain.[62]\n\n[Footnote 62: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 53 B-C.]\n\n[Side-note: Pleasure is generation, not substance or essence: it\ncannot therefore be an End, because all generation is only a means\ntowards substance--Pleasure therefore cannot be the Good.]\n\nThere are yet other arguments remaining (continues Sokrates) which\nshow that pleasure cannot be the Summum Bonum. If it be so, it\nmust be an End, not a Means: it must be something for the sake of\nwhich other things exist or are done--not something which itself\nexists or is done for the sake of something else. But pleasure is\nnot an End: it is essentially a means, as we may infer from the\nreasonings of its own advocates. They themselves tell us that it\nis generation, not substance:--essentially a process of transition\nor change, never attaining essence or permanence.[63] But\ngeneration or transition is always for the sake of the thing to be\ngenerated, or for Substance--not substance for the sake of\ngeneration: the transitory serves as a road to the permanent, not\n_vice vers\u00e0_. Pleasure is thus a means, not an End. It cannot\ntherefore partake of the essential nature and dignity of Good: it\nbelongs to a subordinate and imperfect category.[64]\n\n[Footnote 63: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 53 C. [Greek: a)=ra peri\\\n\u00ea(don\u00ea=s ou)k a)k\u00eako/amen \u00f4(s a)ei\\ ge/nesi/s e)stin, ou)si/a de\\\nou)k e)/sti to\\ para/pan \u00ea(dona=s; kompsoi\\ ga\\r d\u00ea/ tines au)=\ntou=ton to\\n lo/gon e)picheirou=si m\u00eanu/ein \u00ea(mi=n, oi(=s dei=\ncha/rin e)/chein. . . .]\n\n53 D: [Greek: e)sto\\n d\u00ea/ tine du/o, to\\ me\\n au)to\\ kath' au(to/,\nto\\ de\\ a)ei\\ e)phie/menon a)/llou . . . to\\ me\\n semno/taton\na)ei\\ pephuko/s, to\\ de\\ e)llipe\\s e)kei/nou.]]\n\n[Footnote 64: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 54 D. [Greek: \u00ea(don\u00ea\\ ei)/per\nge/nesi/s e)stin, ei)s a)/ll\u00ean \u00ea)\\ t\u00ea\\n tou= a)gathou= moi=ran\nau)t\u00ea\\n tithe/ntes o)rth\u00f4=s th\u00ea/somen.]]\n\n[Side-note: Other reasons why pleasure is not the Good.]\n\nIndeed we cannot reasonably admit that there is no Good in bodies\nand in the universe generally, nor anywhere except in the\nmind:--nor that, within the mind, pleasure alone is good, while courage,\ntemperance, &c., are not good:--nor that a man is good only while\nhe is enjoying pleasure, and bad while suffering pain, whatever\nmay be his character and merits.[65]\n\n[Footnote 65: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 55 B.]\n\n[Side-note: Distinction and classification of the varieties of\nKnowledge or Intelligence. Some are more true and exact than\nothers, according as they admit more or less of measuring and\ncomputation.]\n\nHaving thus (continues Sokrates) gone through the analysis of\npleasures, distinguishing such as are true and pure, from such as\nare false and troubled--we must apply the like distinctive\nanalysis to the various modes of knowledge and intelligence. Which\nvarieties of knowledge, science, or art, are the purest from\nheterogeneous elements, and bear most closely upon truth? Some\nsciences and arts (we know) are intended for special professional\npractice: others are taught as subjects for improving the\nintellect of youth. As specimens of the former variety, we may\nnotice music, medicine, husbandry, navigation, generalship,\njoinery, ship-building, &c. Now in all these, the guiding and\ndirecting elements are computation, mensuration, and statics--the\nsciences or arts of computing, measuring, weighing. Take away\nthese three--and little would be left worth having, in any of the\nsciences or arts before named. There would be no exact assignable\nrules, no definite proportions: everything would be left to vague\nconjecture, depending upon each artisan's knack and practice which\nsome erroneously call Art. In proportion as each of these\nprofessional occupations has in it more or less of computation and\nmensuration, in the same proportion is it exact and true. There is\nlittle of computation or mensuration in music, medicine,\nhusbandry, &c.: there is more of them in joinery and\nship-building, which employ the line, plummet, and other instruments:\naccordingly these latter are more true and exact, less dependent\nupon knack and conjecture, than the three former.[66] They\napproach nearer to the purity of science, and include less of the\nnon-scientific, variable, conjectural, elements.\n\n[Footnote 66: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 55-56.]\n\n[Side-note: Arithmetic and Geometry are twofold: As studied by the\nphilosopher and teacher: As applied by the artisan.]\n\nBut a farther distinction must here be taken (Sokrates goes on).\nEven in such practical arts as ship-building, which include most\nof computation and mensuration--these two latter do not appear\npure, but diversified and embodied in a multitude of variable\nparticulars. Arithmetic and geometry, as applied by the\nship-builder and other practical men, are very different from\narithmetic and geometry as studied and taught by the\nphilosopher.[67] Though called by the same name, they are very\ndifferent; and the latter alone are pure and true. The philosopher\nassumes in his arithmetic the exact equality of all units, and in\nhis geometry the exact ratios of lines and spaces: the practical\nman adds together units very unlike each other--two armies, two\nbulls, things little or great as the case may be: his measurement\ntoo, always falls short of accuracy.[68] There are in short two\narithmetics and two geometries[69]--very different from each\nother, though bearing a common name.\n\n[Footnote 67: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 56 D-E. [Greek: A)rithm\u00eatik\u00ea\\n\npr\u00f4=ton a)=r' ou)k a)/ll\u00ean me/n tina t\u00ea\\n t\u00f4=n poll\u00f4=n phate/on,\na)/ll\u00ean d' au)= t\u00ea\\n t\u00f4=n philosophou/nt\u00f4n? . . .\n\nlogistik\u00ea\\ kai\\ metr\u00eatik\u00ea\\ \u00ea( kata\\ tektonik\u00ea\\n kai\\ kat'\ne)mporik\u00ea\\n t\u00ea=s kata\\ philosophi/an ge\u00f4metri/as te kai\\ logism\u00f4=n\nkatamelet\u00f4me/n\u00f4n--po/teron \u00f4(s mi/a e(kate/ra lekte/on, \u00ea)\\ du/o\ntith\u00f4=men?]\n\nCompare Aristotel. Ethic. Nikom. i. 7, p. 1098, a. 30.]\n\n[Footnote 68: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 56 D-E. [Greek: oi( me\\n ga/r\npou mona/das a)ni/sous katarithmou=ntai t\u00f4=n peri\\ a)rithmo/n,\noi(=on strato/peda du/o kai\\ bou=s du/o kai\\ du/o ta\\ smikro/tata\n\u00ea)\\ kai\\ ta\\ pa/nt\u00f4n me/gista; oi( d' ou)k a)/n pote au)toi=s\nsunakolouth\u00ea/seian, ei) m\u00ea\\ mona/da mona/dos e(ka/st\u00eas t\u00f4=n\nmuri/\u00f4n m\u00eademi/an a)/ll\u00ean a)/ll\u00eas diaphe/rousa/n tis th\u00ea/sei.]]\n\n[Footnote 69: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 57 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Dialectic is the truest and purest of all Cognitions.\nAnalogy between Cognition and Pleasure: in each, there are\ngradations of truth and purity.]\n\nWe thus make out (continues Sokrates) that there is a difference\nbetween one variety and another variety of science or knowledge,\nanalogous to that which we have traced between the varieties of\npleasure. One pleasure is true and pure; another is not so, or is\ninseparably connected with pain and non-pleasurable\nelements--there being in each case a difference in degree. So too one\nvariety of science, cognition, or art, is more true and pure than\nanother: that is, it is less intermingled with fluctuating\nparticulars and indefinite accompaniments. A science, bearing one\nand the same name, is different according as it is handled by the\npractical man or by the philosopher. Only as handled by the\nphilosopher, does science attain purity: dealing with eternal and\ninvariable essences. Among all sciences, Dialectic is the truest\nand purest, because it takes comprehensive cognizance of the\neternal and invariable--_Ens semper Idem_--presiding over those\nsubordinate sciences which bear upon the like matter in partial\nand separate departments.[70]\n\n[Footnote 70: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 57-58.]\n\n[Side-note: Difference with Gorgias, who claims superiority for\nRhetoric. Sokrates admits that Rhetoric is superior in usefulness\nand celebrity: but he claims superiority for Dialectic, as\nsatisfying the lover of truth.]\n\nYour opinion (remarks Protarchus) does not agree with that of\nGorgias. He affirms, that the power of persuasion (Rhetoric) is\nthe greatest and best of all arts: inasmuch as it enables us to\ncarry all our points, not by force, but with the free will and\nconsent of others. I should be glad to avoid contradicting either\nhim or you.\n\nThere is no real contradiction between us (replies Sokrates). You\nmay concede to Gorgias that his art or cognition is the greatest\nand best of all--the most in repute, as well as the most useful to\nmankind. I do not claim any superiority of _that_ kind, on behalf\nof my cognition.[71] I claim for it superiority in truth and\npurity. I remarked before, that a small patch of unmixed white\ncolour was superior in truth and purity to a large mass of white\ntarnished with other colours--a gentle and unmixed pleasure, in\nlike manner, to one that is more intense but alloyed with pains.\nIt is this superiority that I assert for Dialectic and the other\nsister cognitions. They are of little positive advantage to\nmankind: yet they, and only they, will satisfy both the demands of\nintelligence, and the impulse within us, in so far as we have an\nimpulse to love and strain after truth.[72]\n\n[Footnote 71: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 58 B. [Greek: Ou) tou=t' e)/g\u00f4ge\ne)z\u00ea/toun p\u00f4, ti/s te/chn\u00ea \u00ea)\\ ti/s e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea pas\u00f4=n diaphe/rei\nt\u00f4=| megi/st\u00ea kai\\ a)ri/st\u00ea kai\\ plei=sta \u00f4)phelou=sa \u00ea(ma=s.\na)lla\\ ti/s pote to\\ saphe\\s kai\\ ta)kribe\\s kai\\ to\\\na)l\u00eathe/staton e)piskopei=, ka)\\n \u00ea)=| smikra\\ kai\\ smikra\\\no)ni/nasa. Tou=t' e)sti\\n o(\\ nu=n d\u00ea\\ z\u00eatou=men.]]\n\n[Footnote 72: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 58 D. [Greek: a)ll' ei)/ tis\npe/phuke t\u00ea=s psuch\u00ea=s \u00ea(m\u00f4=n du/namis e)ra=|n te tou= a)l\u00eathou=s\nkai\\ pa/nta e(/neka tou/tou pra/ttein, tau/t\u00ean ei)/p\u00f4men], &c.]\n\nAs far as straining after truth is concerned (says Protarchus),\nDialectic and the kindred sciences have an incontestable\nsuperiority.\n\n[Side-note: Most men look to opinions only, or study the phenomenal\nmanifestations of the Kosmos. They neglect the unchangeable\nessences, respecting which alone pure truth can be obtained.]\n\nYou must see (rejoins Sokrates) that Rhetoric, and most other arts\nor sciences, employ all their study, and seek all their standard,\nin opinions alone: while of those who study Nature, the greater\nnumber confine their investigations to this Kosmos, to its\ngeneration and its phenomenal operations--its manifestations past,\npresent, and future.[73] Now all these manifestations are in\nperpetual flux, admitting of no true or certain cognition. Pure\ntruth, corresponding to those highest mental endowments, Reason\nand Intelligence--can be found only in essences, eternal and\nunchangeable, or in matters most akin to them.[74]\n\n[Footnote 73: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 59. [Greek: ei) de\\ kai\\ peri\\\nphu/se\u00f4s \u00ea(gei=tai/ tis z\u00eatei=n, oi)=sth' o(/ti ta\\ peri\\ to\\n\nko/smon to/nde, o(/p\u00ea| te ge/gone kai\\ o(/p\u00ea| pa/schei ti kai\\\no(/p\u00ea| poiei=, tau=ta z\u00eatei= dia\\ bi/ou?]]\n\n[Footnote 74: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 59.]\n\n[Side-note: Application. Neither Intelligence nor Pleasure\nseparately, is the Good, but a mixture of the two--Intelligence\nbeing the most important. How are they to be mixed?]\n\nWe have now (continues Sokrates) examined pleasure separately and\nintelligence separately. We have agreed that neither of them,\napart and by itself, comes up to the conception of Good; the\nattribute of which is, to be all sufficient, and to give plenary\nsatisfaction, so that any animal possessing it desires nothing\nbesides.[75] We must therefore seek Good in a certain mixture or\ncombination of the two--Pleasure and Intelligence: and we must\ndetermine, what sort of combination of these two contains the Good\nwe seek. Now, to mix all pleasures, with all cognitions, at once\nand indiscriminately, will hardly be safe. We will first mix the\ntruest and purest pleasures (those which include pleasure in its\npurest form), with the truest or purest cognitions (those which\ndeal altogether with eternal and unchangeable essence, not with\nfluctuating particulars). Will such a combination suffice to\nconstitute Good, or an all-sufficient and all-satisfactory\nexistence? Or do we want anything more besides?[76] Suppose a man\ncognizant of the Form or Idea of Justice, and of all other\nessential Ideas: and able to render account of his cognition, in\nproper words: Will this be sufficient?[77] Suppose him to be\ncognizant of the divine Ideas of Circle, Sphere, and other\nfigures; and to employ them in architecture, not knowing anything\nof human circles and figures as they exist in practical life?[78]\n\n[Footnote 75: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 60 C. [Greek: t\u00ea\\n ta)gathou=\ndiaphe/rein phu/sin t\u00f4=|de t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n . . . \u00f4(=| parei/\u00ea tou=t'\na)ei\\ t\u00f4=n z\u00f4/\u00f4n dia\\ te/lous pa/nt\u00f4s kai\\ pa/nt\u00ea|, m\u00eadeno\\s\ne(te/rou pote\\ e)/ti prosdei=sthai, to\\ de\\ i(kano\\n tele\u00f4/taton\ne)/chein.]]\n\n[Footnote 76: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 61 E.]\n\n[Footnote 77: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 62 A. [Greek: E)/st\u00f4 d\u00ea/ tis\n\u00ea(mi=n phron\u00f4=n a)/nthr\u00f4pos au)t\u00ea=s peri\\ dikaiosu/n\u00eas, o(/, ti\ne)/sti, kai\\ lo/gon e)/ch\u00f4n e(po/menon t\u00f4=| noei=n, kai\\ d\u00ea\\ kai\\\nperi\\ t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n a(pa/nt\u00f4n t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n \u00f4(sau/t\u00f4s\ndianoou/menos?]]\n\n[Footnote 78: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 62 A. [Greek: A)=r' ou)=n\nou(=tos i(kan\u00f4=s e)pist\u00ea/m\u00eas e(/xei ku/klou me\\n kai\\ sphai/ras\nau)t\u00ea=s t\u00ea=s thei/as to\\n lo/gon e)/ch\u00f4n, t\u00ea\\n de\\ a)nthr\u00f4pi/n\u00ean\ntau/t\u00ean sphai=ran kai\\ tou\\s ku/klous tou/tous a)gno\u00f4=n], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: We must include all Cognitions, not merely the truest,\nbut the others also. Life cannot be carried on without both.]\n\nThat would be a ludicrous position indeed (remarks Protarchus), to\nhave his mind full of the divine Ideas or cognitions only.\n\nWhat! (replies Sokrates) must he have cognition not only of the\ntrue line and circle, but also of the false, the variable, the\nuncertain?\n\nCertainly (says Protarchus), we all must have this farther\ncognition, if we are to find our way from hence to our own\nhomes.[79]\n\n[Footnote 79: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 62 B. [Greek: A)nagkai=on ga/r,\nei) me/llei tis \u00ea(m\u00f4=n kai\\ t\u00ea\\n o(do\\n e(ka/stote e)xeur\u00ea/sein\noi)/kade.]]\n\nMust we then admit (says Sokrates) those cognitions also in music,\nwhich we declared to be full of conjecture and imitation, without\nany pure truth or certainty?\n\nWe must admit them (says Protarchus), if life is to be worth\nanything at all. No harm can come from admitting all the other\ncognitions, provided a man possesses the first and most perfect.\n\n[Side-note: But we must include no pleasures except the true, pure,\nand necessary. The others are not compatible with Cognition or\nIntelligence--especially the intense sexual pleasures.]\n\nWell then (continues Sokrates), we will admit them all. We have\nnow to consider whether we can in like manner admit all pleasures\nwithout distinction. The true and pure must first be let in: next,\nsuch as are necessary and indispensable: and all the rest also, if\nany one can show that there is advantage without mischief in our\nenjoying every variety of pleasure.[80] We must put the question\nfirst to pleasures, next to cognitions--whether they can consent\nrespectively to live in company with each other. Now pleasures\nwill readily consent to the companionship of cognitions: but\ncognitions (or Reason, upon whom they depend) will not tolerate\nthe companionship of all pleasures indiscriminately. Reason will\nwelcome the true and pure pleasures: she will also accept such as\nare indispensable, and such as consist with health, and with a\nsober and virtuous disposition. But Reason will not tolerate those\nmost intense, violent, insane, pleasures, which extinguish correct\nmemory, disturb sound reflection, and consist only with folly and\nbad conduct. Excluding these violent pleasures, but retaining the\nothers in company with Reason and Truth--we shall secure that\nperfect and harmonious mixture which makes the nearest\napproximation to Good.[81]\n\n[Footnote 80: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 63 A. [Greek: ei)/per pa/sas\n\u00ea(dona\\s \u00ea(/desthai dia\\ bi/ou sumphe/ron te \u00ea(mi=n e)sti\\ kai\\\na)blabe\\s a(/pasi, pa/sas xugkrate/on.]]\n\n[Footnote 81: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 63-64.]\n\n[Side-note: What causes the excellence of this mixture? It is\nMeasure, Proportion, Symmetry. To these Reason is more akin than\nPleasure.]\n\nThis mixture as Good (continues Sokrates) will be acceptable to\nall.[82] But what is the cause that it is so? and is that cause\nmore akin to Reason or to Pleasure? The answer is, that this\nmixture and combination, like every other that is excellent,\nderives its excellence from Measure and Proportion. Thus the Good\nbecomes merged in the Beautiful: for measure and proportion\n(Moderation and Symmetry) constitute in every case beauty and\nexcellence.[83] In this case, Truth has been recognised as a third\nelement of the mixture: the three together coalesce into Good,\nforming a Quasi-Unum, which serves instead of a Real Unum or Idea\nof Good.[84] We must examine these three elements\nseparately--Truth--Moderation--Symmetry (Measure--Proportion) to find\nwhether each of them is most akin to Reason or to Pleasure. There can\nbe no doubt that to all the three, Reason is more akin than Pleasure:\nand that the intense pleasures are in strong repugnance and\nantipathy to all the three.[85]\n\n[Footnote 82: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 64 C. [Greek: Ti/ d\u00ea=ta e)n t\u00ea=|\nxummi/xei timi\u00f4/taton a(/ma kai\\ ma/list' ai)/tion ei)=nai\ndo/xeien a)\\n \u00ea(mi=n, _tou= pa=si gegone/nai prosphil\u00ea=_ t\u00ea\\n\ntoiau/t\u00ean dia/thesin?]]\n\n[Footnote 83: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 64 E. [Greek: nu=n d\u00ea\\\nkatape/pheugen \u00ea(mi=n \u00ea( ta)gathou= du/namis ei)s t\u00ea\\n tou= kalou=\nphu/sin; metrio/t\u00eas ga\\r kai\\ xummetri/a ka/llos d\u00ea/pou kai\\\na)ret\u00ea\\ pantachou= xumbai/nei gi/gnesthai.]]\n\n[Footnote 84: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 64 E-65 A. [Greek: Ou)kou=n ei)\nm\u00ea\\ mia=| duna/metha i)de/a| to\\ a)gatho\\n th\u00eareu=sai, su\\n trisi\\\nlabo/ntes, ka/llei kai\\ xummetri/a| kai\\ a)l\u00eathei/a|, le/g\u00f4men \u00f4(s\ntou=to oi(=on e(\\n o)rtho/tat' a)\\n ai)tiasai/meth' a)\\n t\u00f4=n e)n\nt\u00ea=| xummi/xei, kai\\ dia\\ tou=to \u00f4(s a)gatho\\n o)\\n toiau/t\u00ean\nau)t\u00ea\\n gegone/nai.]]\n\n[Footnote 85: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 65 C.]\n\n[Side-note: Quintuple gradation in the Constituents of the Good. 1.\nMeasure. 2. Symmetry. 3. Intelligence. 4. Practical Arts and Right\nOpinions. 5. True and Pure Pleasures.]\n\nWe thus see (says Sokrates in conclusion), in reference to the\ndebate with Phil\u00eabus, that Pleasure stands neither first nor\nsecond in the scale of approximation to Good. First comes\nMeasure--the Moderate--the Seasonable--and all those eternal Forms\nand Ideas which are analogous to these.[86] Secondly, come the\nSymmetrical--the Beautiful--the Perfect--the Sufficient--and other\nsuch like Forms and Ideas.[87] Thirdly, come Reason and\nIntelligence. Fourthly, the various sciences, cognitions, arts,\nand right opinions--acquirements embodied in the mind itself.\nFifthly, those pleasures which we have discriminated as pure\npleasures without admixture of pain; belonging to the mind itself\nbut consequent on the sensations of sight, hearing, smell.[88]\n\n[Footnote 86: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 66 A. [Greek: \u00f4(s \u00ea(don\u00ea\\ kt\u00ea=ma\nou)k e)/sti pr\u00f4=ton ou)d' au)= deu/teron, a)lla\\ pr\u00f4=ton me/n p\u00ea|\nperi\\ me/tron kai\\ to\\ me/trion kai\\ kai/rion kai\\ pa/nta o(po/sa\nchr\u00ea\\ toiau=ta nomi/zein t\u00ea\\n a)i+/dion \u00ea(|r\u00ea=sthai phu/sin.]]\n\n[Footnote 87: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 66 B. [Greek: deu/teron m\u00ea\\n\nperi\\ to\\ su/mmetron kai\\ kalo\\n kai\\ to\\ te/leon kai\\ i(kano\\n,\nkai\\ pa/nth' o(po/sa t\u00ea=s genea=s au)= tau/t\u00eas e)sti/n.]]\n\n[Footnote 88: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 66 C.]\n\nIt is not necessary to trace the descending scale farther. It has\nbeen shown, against Phil\u00eabus--That though neither Intelligence\nseparately, nor Pleasure separately, is an adequate embodiment of\nGood, which requires both of them conjointly--yet Intelligence is\nmore akin to Good, and stands nearer to it in nature, than\nPleasure.\n\n* * * * *\n\nDionysius of Halikarnassus, while blaming the highflown metaphor\nand poetry of the Ph\u00e6drus and other Platonic dialogues, speaks\nwith great admiration of Plato in his appropriate walk of the\nSokratic dialogues; and selects specially the Phil\u00eabus, as his\nexample of these latter. I confess that this selection surprises\nme: for the Phil\u00eabus, while it explicitly renounces the peculiar\nSokratic vein, and becomes didactic--cannot be said to possess\nhigh merit as a didactic composition. It is neither clear, nor\norderly, nor comparable in animation to the expository books of\nthe Republic.[89] Every commentator of Plato, from Galen\ndownwards, has complained of the obscurity of the Phil\u00eabus.\n\n[Footnote 89: Dionys. Hal. De Adm. Vi Dic. ap. Demosth. p. 1025.\n\nSchleiermacher (Einleit. p. 136) admits the comparatively tiresome\ncharacter and negligent execution of the Phil\u00eabus.\n\nGalen had composed a special treatise, [Greek: Peri\\ t\u00f4=n e)n\nPhil\u00ea/b\u00f4| metaba/se\u00f4n], now lost (Galen, De Libris Propriis, 13,\nvol. xix. 46, ed. K\u00fchn).\n\nWe have the advantage of two recent editions of the Phil\u00eabus by\nexcellent English scholars, Dr. Badham and Mr. Poste; both are\nvaluable, and that of Dr. Badham is distinguished by sagacious\ncritical remarks and conjectures, but the obscurity of the\noriginal remains incorrigible.]\n\n[Side-note: Remarks. Sokrates does not claim for Good the unity of\nan Idea, but a quasi-unity of analogy.]\n\nSokrates concludes his task, in the debate with Protarchus, by\ndescribing Bonum or the Supreme Good as a complex aggregate of\nfive distinct elements, in a graduated scale of affinity to it and\ncontributing to its composition in a greater or less degree\naccording to the order in which they are placed. Plato does not\nintimate that these five complete the catalogue; but that after\nthe fifth degree, the affinity becomes too feeble to deserve\nnotice.[90] According to this view, no Idea of Good, in the strict\nPlatonic sense, is affirmed. Good has not the complete unity of an\nIdea, but only the quasi-unity of analogy between its diverse\nelements; which are attached by different threads to the same\nroot, with an order of priority and posteriority.[91]\n\n[Footnote 90: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 66 C.]\n\n[Footnote 91: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 65 A. The passage is cited in\nnote 5, p. 363.\n\nAbout the difference, recognised partly by Plato but still more\ninsisted on by Aristotle, between [Greek: ta\\ lego/mena kath' e(\\n\n(kata\\ mi/an i)de/an)] and [Greek: ta\\ lego/mena pro\\s e(\\n (pro\\s\nmi/an tina\\ phu/sin)], see my note towards the close of the Lysis,\nvol. ii. ch. xx.\n\nAristotle says about Plato (Eth. Nikom. i. 6): [Greek: Oi( de\\\nkomi/santes t\u00ea\\n do/xan tau/t\u00ean, ou)k e)poi/oun i)de/as e)n oi(=s\nto\\ pro/teron kai\\ to\\ u(/steron e)/legon], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Discussions of the time about Bonum. Extreme absolute\nview, maintained by Eukleides: extreme relative by the Xenophontic\nSokrates. Plato here blends the two in part; an Eclectic\ndoctrine.]\n\nIn the discussions about Bonum, there existed among the\ncontemporaries of Plato a great divergence of opinions. Eukleides\nof Megara represents the extreme absolute, ontological, or\nobjective view: Sokrates (I mean the historical Sokrates, as\nreported by Xenophon) enunciated very distinctly the relative or\nsubjective view. \"Good (said Eukleides) is the One: the only real,\neternal, omnipresent Ens--always the same or like itself--called\nsometimes Good, sometimes Intelligence, and by various other\nnames: the opposite of Good has no real existence, but only a\ntemporary, phenomenal, relative, existence.\" On the other hand,\nthe Xenophontic Sokrates affirmed--\"The Good and The Beautiful\nhave no objective unity at all; they include a variety of items\naltogether dissimilar to each other, yet each having reference to\nsome human want or desire: sometimes relieving or preventing pain,\nsometimes conferring pleasure. That which neither contributes to\nrelieve any pain or want, nor to confer pleasure, is not Good at\nall.\"[92] In the Phil\u00eabus, Plato borrows in part from both of\nthese points of view, though inclining much more to the first than\nto the last. He produces a new eclectic doctrine, comprising\nsomething from both, and intended to harmonise both; announced as\napplying at once to Man, to Animals, to Plants, and to the\nUniverse.[93]\n\n[Footnote 92: Diogen. Laert. ii. 106; Cicero, Academic. ii. 42;\nXenophon, Memorab. iii. 8, 3-5.]\n\n[Footnote 93: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 64 A. [Greek: e)n tau/t\u00ea|\nmathei=n peira=sthai, ti/ _pote e(\\n te a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4| kai\\ t\u00f4=|\npanti\\ pe/phuken a)gatho/n_, kai\\ ti/na i)de/an au)t\u00ea\\n ei)=nai/\npote manteute/on.]\n\nSchleiermacher observes about the Phil\u00eabus:--\"Dieses also lag ihm\n(Plato) am Herzen, das Gute zu bestimmen nicht nur f\u00fcr das Leben\ndes Menschen, sondern auch zumal f\u00fcr das ganze Gebiet des\ngewordenen Seins,\" &c.\n\nThe partial affinity between the Kosmos and the human soul is set\nforth in the Tim\u00e6us, pp. 37-43-44.]\n\n[Side-note: Inconvenience of his method, blending Ontology with\nEthics.]\n\nUnfortunately, the result has not corresponded to his intentions.\nIf we turn to the close of the dialogue, we find that the\nprincipal elements which he assigns as explanatory of Good, and\nthe relation in which they stand to each other, stand as much in\nneed of explanation as Good itself. If we follow the course of the\ndialogue, we are frequently embarrassed by the language, because\nhe is seeking for phrases applicable at once to the Kosmos and to\nMan: or because he passes from one to the other, under the\nassumption of real analogy between them. The extreme generalities\nof Logic or Ontology, upon which Sokrates here dwells--the\nDeterminant and Indeterminate, the Cause, &c.--do not conduct us\nto the attainment of Good as he himself defines it--That which is\ndesired by, and will give full satisfaction to, all men, animals,\nand plants. The fault appears to me to lie in the very scheme of\nthe dialogue. Attempts to discuss Ontology and Ethics in one and\nthe same piece of reasoning, instead of elucidating both, only\nserve to darken both. Aristotle has already made a similar remark:\nand it is after reading the Phil\u00eabus that we feel most distinctly\nthe value of his comments on Plato in the first book of the\nNikomachean Ethics. Aristotle has discussed Ontology in the\nMetaphysica and in other treatises: but he proclaims explicitly\nthe necessity of discussing Ethics upon their own principles:\nlooking at what is good for man, and what is attainable by\nman.[94] We find in the Phil\u00eabus many just reflections upon\npleasure and its varieties: but these might have been better and\nmore clearly established, without any appeal to the cosmical\ndogmas. The parallelism between Man and the Kosmos is overstrained\nand inconclusive, like the parallelism in the Republic between the\ncollective commonwealth and the individual citizen.\n\n[Footnote 94: See especially Ethic. Nikom. i. 4, 1096-1097.\nAristotle reasons there directly against the Platonic [Greek:\ni)de/a a)gathou=], but his arguments have full application to the\nexposition in the Phil\u00eabus. He distinguishes pointedly the ethical\nfrom the physical point of view. In his discussion of friendship,\nafter touching upon various comparisons of the physiological\npoets, and of Plato himself repeating them, he says:--[Greek: ta\\\nme\\n ou)=n phusika\\ t\u00f4=n a)por\u00eama/t\u00f4n paraphei/sth\u00f4; ou) ga\\r\noi)kei=a t\u00ea=s parou/s\u00eas ske/pse\u00f4s; o(/sa d' e)sti\\n a)nthr\u00f4pika/\nkai\\ a)n\u00ea/kei ei)s ta\\ \u00ea)/th\u00ea kai\\ ta\\ pa/th\u00ea, tau=t'\ne)piskeps\u00f4/metha], Ethic. Nikom. viii. 1, 1155, b. 10.\n\nThe like contrast is brought out (though less clearly) in the\nEudemian Ethics, viii. 1. 1235, a. 30.\n\nHe animadverts upon Plato on the same ground in the Ethica Magna,\ni. 1, 1182, a. 23-30. [Greek: u(pe\\r ga\\r t\u00f4=n o)/nt\u00f4n kai\\\na)l\u00eathei/as le/gonta, ou)k e)/dei u(pe\\r a)ret\u00ea=s phra/zein;\nou)de\\n ga\\r tou/t\u00f4| ka)kei/n\u00f4| koino/n.]]\n\n[Side-note: Comparison of Man to the Kosmos, which has reason, but\nno emotion, is unnecessary and confusing.]\n\nMoreover, when Plato, to prove the conclusion that Intelligence\nand Reason are the governing attributes of man's mind, enunciates\nas his premiss that Intelligence and Reason are the governing\nattributes in the Kosmos[95]--the premiss introduced is more\ndebateable than the conclusion; and would (as he himself\nintimates) be contested by those against whose opposition he was\narguing. In fact, the same proposition (That Reason and\nIntelligence are the dominant and controlling attributes of man,\nPassion and Appetite the subordinate) is assumed without any proof\nby Sokrates, both in the Protagoras and in the Republic. The\nKosmos (in Plato's view) has reason and intelligence, but\nexperiences no emotion either painful or pleasurable: the rational\nnature of man is thus common to him with the Kosmos, his emotional\nnature is not so. That the mind of each individual man was an\nemanation from the all-pervading mind of the Kosmos or universe,\nand his body a fragmentary portion of the four elements composing\nthe cosmical body--these are propositions which had been laid down\nby Sokrates, as well as by Philolaus and other Pythagoreans\n(perhaps by Pythagoras himself) before the time of Plato.[96] Not\nonly that doctrine, but also the analysis of the Kosmos into\ncertain abstract constituent _principia_--(the Finient or\nDeterminant--and the Infinite or Indeterminate)--this too seems to\nhave been borrowed by Plato from Philolaus.[97]\n\n[Footnote 95: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 20-30.]\n\n[Footnote 96: Cicero, De Nat. Deor. i. 11, 27: De Senectute, 21,\n78; Xenophon, Memor. i. 4, 7-8; Cicero, Nat. Deor. ii. 6, 18;\nPlato, Tim\u00e6us, pp. 37-38, &c.\n\nIn the Xenophontic dialogue here referred to, Sokrates inverts the\npremiss and the conclusion: he infers that Mind and Reason govern\nthe Kosmos, because the mind and reason of man govern the body of\nman.]\n\n[Footnote 97: See Stallbaum, Prolegg. in Phil\u00eab. pp. 41-42.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato borrows from the Pythagoreans, but enlarges their\ndoctrine. Importance of his views in dwelling upon systematic\nclassification.]\n\nBut here in the Phil\u00eabus, that analysis appears expanded into a\nlarger scheme going beyond Philolaus or the Pythagoreans: _viz._\nthe recognition of a graduated scale of limits, or a definite\nnumber of species and sub-species--intermediate between the One or\nHighest Genus, and the Infinite Many or Individuals--and\ndescending by successive stages of limitation from the Highest to\nthe Lowest. What is thus described, is the general framework of\nsystematic logical classification, deliberately contrived, and\nfounded upon known attributes, common as well as differential. It\nis prescribed as essential to all real cognition; if we conceive\nonly the highest Genus or generic name as comprehending an\ninfinity of diverse particulars, we have no real cognition, until\nwe can assign the intermediate stages of specification by which we\ndescend from one to the other.[98] The step here made by Plato,\nunder the stimulus of the Sokratic dialectic, from the Pythagorean\ndoctrine of Finient and Infinite to the idea of gradual,\nsystematic, logical division and subdivision, is one very\nimportant in the history of science. He lays as much stress upon\nthe searching out of the intermediate species, as Bacon does upon\nthe Axiomata Media of scientific enquiry.[99]\n\n[Footnote 98: Ueberweg (\u00c6chtheit und Zeitf. Platon. Schriften, pp.\n204-207) considers the Phil\u00eabus, as well as the Sophist\u00eas and\nTim\u00e6us, to be compositions of Plato's very late age--partly on the\nground of their didactic and expository style, the dialogue\nserving only as form to the exponent Sokrates--partly because he\nthinks that the nearest approach is made in them to that manner of\nconceiving the doctrine of Ideas which Aristotle ascribes to Plato\nin his old age--that is, the two [Greek: stoichei=a] or factors of\nthe Ideas. 1. [Greek: To\\ e(\\n]. 2. [Greek: To\\ me/ga kai\\\nmikro/n]. This last argument seems to me far-fetched. I see no\nreal and sensible approach in the Phil\u00eabus to this Platonic\ndoctrine of the [Greek: stoichei=a] of the Ideas: at least, the\napproach is so vague, that one can hardly make it a basis of\nreasoning. But the didactic tone is undoubtedly a characteristic\nof the Phil\u00eabus, and seems to indicate that the dialogue was\ncomposed after Plato had been so long established in his school,\nas to have acquired a pedagogic ostentation.]\n\n[Footnote 99: Bacon, Augment. Scient. v. 2. Nov. Organ. Aph. 105.\n\"At Plato non semel innuit particularia infinita esse maxim\u00e9:\nrursus generalia minus certa documenta exhibere. Medullam igitur\nscientiarum, qu\u00e2 artifex ab imperito distinguitur, in mediis\npropositionibus consistere, quas per singulas scientias tradidit\net docuit experientia.\"]\n\n[Side-note: Classification broadly enunciated, and strongly\nrecommended--yet feebly applied--in this dialogue.]\n\nThough there are several other passages of the Platonic dialogues\nin which the method of logical division is inculcated, there is\nnone (I think) in which it is prescribed so formally, or\nenunciated with such comprehensive generality, as this before us\nin the Phil\u00eabus. Yet the method, after being emphatically\nannounced, is but feebly and partially applied, in the distinction\nof different species, both of pleasure and of cognition.[100] The\nannouncement would come more suitably, as a preface to the\nSophist\u00eas and Politikus: wherein the process is applied to given\nsubjects in great detail, and at a length which some critics\nconsider excessive: and wherein moreover the particular enquiry is\nexpressly proclaimed as intended to teach as well as to exemplify\nthe general method.[101]\n\n[Footnote 100: The purpose of discriminating the different sorts\nof pleasure is intimated, yet seemingly not considered as\nindispensable, by Sokrates; and it is executed certainly in a very\nunsystematic and perfunctory manner, compared with what we read in\nthe Sophist\u00eas and Politikus. (Phil\u00eabus, pp. 19 B, 20 C, 32 B-C.)\n\nMr. Poste, in his note on p. 55 A, expresses surprise at this\npoint; and notices it as one among other grounds for suspecting\nthat the Phil\u00eabus is a composition of two distinct fragments,\nrather carelessly soldered together:--\"Again after Division and\nGeneralization have been propounded as the only satisfactory\nmethod, it is somewhat strange that both the original problems are\nsolved by ordinary Dialectic without any recourse to\nclassification. All this becomes intelligible if we assume the\nPhil\u00eabus to have arisen from a boldly executed junction of two\noriginally separate dialogues.\"\n\nAcknowledging the want of coherence in the dialogue, I have\ndifficulty in conceiving what the two fragments could have been,\nout of which it was compounded. Schleiermacher (Einleit. pp.\n136-137) also points out the negligent execution and heavy march of\nthe dialogue.]\n\n[Footnote 101: See Politikus, pp. 285-286; Ph\u00e6drus, p. 265;\nXenoph. Memor. iv. 5, 12.\n\nI have already observed that Socher (Ueber Platon. pp. 260-270)\nand Stallbaum (Proleg. ad Politik. pp. 52-54-65-67, &c.) agree in\ncondemning the extreme minuteness, the tiresome monotony, the\nuseless and petty comparisons, which Plato brings together in the\nmultiplied bifurcate divisions of the Sophist\u00eas and Politikus.\nSocher adduces this as one among his reasons for rejecting the\ndialogue as spurious.]\n\n[Side-note: What is the Good? Discussed both in Phil\u00eabus and in\nRepublic. Comparison.]\n\nThe same question as that which is here discussed in the Phil\u00eabus,\nis also started in the sixth book of the Republic. It is worth\nwhile to compare the different handling, here and there. \"Whatever\nelse we possess (says Sokrates in the Republic), and whatever else\nwe may know is of no value, unless we also possess and know Good.\nIn the opinion of most persons, Pleasure is The Good: in the\nopinion of accomplished and philosophical men, intelligence\n([Greek: phro/n\u00easis]) is the Good. But when we ask Intelligence,\n_of what_? these philosophers cannot inform us: they end by\ntelling us, ridiculously enough, Intelligence of _The Good_. Thus,\nwhile blaming us for not knowing what The Good is, they make an\nanswer which implies that we do already know it: in saying,\nIntelligence of the Good, they of course presume that we know what\nthey mean by the word. Then again, those who pronounce Pleasure to\nbe the Good, are not less involved in error; since they are forced\nto admit that some Pleasures are Evil; thus making Good and Evil\nto be the same. It is plain therefore that there are many and\ngrave disputes what The Good is.\"[102]\n\n[Footnote 102: Plato, Republic, vi. p. 505 B-C. [Greek: oi( tou=to\n\u00ea(gu/menoi ou)k e)/chousi dei=xai \u00ea(/ _tis phro/n\u00easis, a)ll'_\na)nagka/zontai teleut\u00f4=ntes t\u00ea\\n tou= a)gathou= pha/nai . . .\no)neidi/zonte/s ge o(/ti ou)k i)/smen to\\ a)gatho/n, le/gousi\npa/lin \u00f4(s ei)do/si; phro/n\u00easin ga\\r au)to/ phasin ei)=nai\na)gathou=, \u00f4(s au)= sunie/nt\u00f4n \u00ea(m\u00f4=n o(/, ti le/gousin, e)peida\\n\nto\\ tou= a)gathou= phthe/gx\u00f4ntai o)/noma.]\n\nIn the Symposion, there is a like tenor of questions about Eros or\nLove. Love must be Love of something: the term is relative. You\nconfound Love with the object loved. See Plato, Symposion, pp. 199\nC, 204 C.\n\nWhen we read the objection here advanced by Plato (in the above\npassage of the Republic) as conclusive against the appeal to\n[Greek: phro/n\u00easis] absolutely (without specifying [Greek:\nphro/n\u00easis] _of what_), we are surprised to see that it is not\neven mentioned in the Phil\u00eabus.]\n\n[Side-note: Mistake of talking about Bonum confidently, as if it\nwere known, while it is subject of constant dispute. Plato himself\nwavers about it; gives different explanations, and sometimes\nprofesses ignorance, sometimes talks about it confidently.]\n\nIn this passage of the Republic Plato points out that Intelligence\ncannot be understood, except as determined by or referring to some\nObject or End: and that those who tendered Intelligence _per se_\nfor an explanation of The Good (as Sokrates does in the Phil\u00eabus),\nassumed as known the very point in dispute which they professed to\nexplain. This is an important remark in regard to ethical\ndiscussions: and it were to be wished that Plato had himself\navoided the mistake which he here blames in others. The Platonic\nSokrates frequently tells us that he does not know what Good is.\nIn the sixth Book of the Republic, having come to a point where\nhis argument required him to furnish a positive explanation of it,\nhe expressly declines the obligation and makes his escape amidst\nthe clouds of metaphor.[103] In the Protagoras, he pronounces Good\nto be identical with pleasure and avoidance of pain, in the\nlargest sense and under the supervision of calculating\nIntelligence.[104] In the second Book of the Republic, we find\nwhat is substantially the same explanation as that of the\nProtagoras, given (though in a more enlarged and analytical\nmanner) by Glaukon and assented to by Sokrates; to the effect that\nGood is tripartite,[105] _viz._: 1. That which we desire for\nitself, without any reference to consequences--_e. g._, enjoyment\nand the innocuous pleasures. 2. That which we desire on a double\naccount, both for itself and by reason of its consequences--_e.\ng._, good health, eyesight, intelligence, &c. 3. That which we do\nnot desire, perhaps even shun, for itself: but which we desire, or\nat least accept, by reason of its consequences--such as\ngymnastics, medical treatment, discipline, &c. Again, in the\nGorgias and elsewhere, Plato seems to confine the definition of\nGood to the two last of these three heads, rejecting the first:\nfor he distinguishes pointedly the Good from the Pleasurable. Yet\nwhile thus wavering in his conception of the term, Plato often\nadmits it into the discussions as if it were not merely familiar,\nbut clear and well-understood by every one.\n\n[Footnote 103: Plato, Republic, vi. p. 506 E.\n\nCompare also Republic, vii. p. 533 C. [Greek: \u00f4)=| ga\\r a)rch\u00ea\\\nme\\n o(\\ m\u00ea\\ oi)=de, teleut\u00ea\\ de\\ kai\\ ta\\ metaxu\\ e)x ou)= m\u00ea\\\noi)=de sumpe/plektai, ti/s m\u00eachan\u00ea\\ t\u00ea\\n toiau=t\u00ean o(mologi/an\npote\\ e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ean gi/gnesthai?]]\n\n[Footnote 104: Plato, Protagoras, pp. 356-7.]\n\n[Footnote 105: Plato, Republic, ii. p. 357 B.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato lays down tests by which Bonum may be determined:\nbut the answer in the Phil\u00eabus does not satisfy those tests.]\n\nIn the present dialogue, Plato lays down certain characteristic\nmarks whereby The Supreme Good may be known. These marks are\nsubjective--relative to the feelings and appreciation of sentient\nbeings--to all mankind, and even to animals and plants. Good is\nexplicitly defined by the property of conferring happiness. The\nGood is declared to be \"that habit and disposition of mind which\nhas power to confer on all men a happy life\":[106] it is perfect\nand all sufficient: every creature that knows Good, desires and\nhunts after it, demanding nothing farther when it is attained, and\ncaring for nothing else except what is attained along with\nit:[107] it is the object of choice for all plants and animals,\nand if any one prefers any thing else, he only does so through\nignorance or from some untoward necessity:[108] it is most\ndelightful and agreeable to all.[109] This is what Plato tells us\nas to the characteristic attributes of Good. And the test which\nSokrates applies, to determine whether Pleasure does or does not\ncorrespond with these attributes, is an appeal to individual\nchoice or judgment. \"Would you choose? Would _any one_ be\nsatisfied?\" Though this appeal ought by the conditions of the\nproblem to be made to mankind generally, and is actually made to\nProtarchus as one specimen of them--yet Sokrates says at the end\nof the dialogue that all except philosophers choose wrong, being\ntoo ignorant or misguided to choose aright. Now it is certain that\nwhat these philosophers choose, will not satisfy the aspirations\nof all other persons besides. It may be Good, in reference to the\nphilosophers themselves: but it will fail to answer those larger\nconditions which Plato has just laid down.\n\n[Footnote 106: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 11 E.]\n\n[Footnote 107: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 20 D-E, 61 C, 67 A. [Greek:\nau)tarkei/a], &c.\n\nSydenham, Translation of Phil\u00eabus, note, p. 48, observes--\"Whether\nHappiness be to be found in Speculative Wisdom or in Pleasure, or\nin some other possession or enjoyment, it can be seated nowhere\nbut in the soul. For Happiness has no existence anywhere but where\nit is felt and known. Now, it is no less certain, that only the\nsoul is sensible of pain and pleasure, than it is, that only the\nsoul is capable of knowledge, and of thinking either foolishly or\nwisely.\"]\n\n[Footnote 108: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 22 B, 61 A.]\n\n[Footnote 109: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 61 E, 64 C. [Greek: to\\n\na)gap\u00eato/taton bi/on pa=si prosphil\u00ea=].\n\nAristotle, Ethic. Nikomach. i. init. [Greek: ta)gatho/n, ou)=\npa/nta e)phi/etai].\n\nSeneca, Epistol. 118. \"Bonum est quod ad se impetum animi secundum\nnaturam movet.\"]\n\n[Side-note: Inconsistency of Plato in his way of putting the\nquestion--The alternative which he tenders has no fair\napplication.]\n\nIn submitting the question to individual choice, Plato does not\nkeep clear either of confusion or of contradiction. If this Summum\nBonum be understood as the End comprising the full satisfaction of\nhuman wishes and imaginations, without limitation by certain given\nactualities--and if the option be tendered to a man already\nfurnished with his share of the various desires generated in\nactual life--such a man will naturally demand entire absence of\nall pains, with pleasures such as to satisfy all his various\ndesires: not merely the most intense pleasures (which Plato\nintends to prove, not to be pleasures at all), but other pleasures\nalso. He will wish (if you thus suppose him master of Fortunatus's\nwishing-cap) to include in his enjoyments pleasures which do not\nusually go together, and which may even, in the real conditions of\nlife, exclude one another: no boundary being prescribed to his\nwishing power. He will wish for the pleasures of knowledge or\nintelligence, of self-esteem, esteem from others, sympathy, &c.,\nas well as for those of sense. He will put in his claim for\npleasures, without any of those antecedent means and conditions\nwhich, in real life, are necessary to procure them. Such being the\nstate of the question, the alternative tendered by\nPlato--Pleasure, versus Intelligence or Knowledge--has no fair\napplication. Plato himself expressly states that pleasure, though\ngenerically One, is specifically multiform, and has many varieties\ndifferent from, even opposite to, each other: among which\nvarieties one is, the pleasure of knowledge or intelligence\nitself.[110] The person to whom the question is submitted, has a\nright to claim these pleasures of knowledge among the rest, as\nportions of his Summum Bonum. And when Plato proceeds to ask--Will\nyou be satisfied to possess pleasure only, without the least spark\nof intelligence, without memory, without eyesight?--he departs\nfrom the import of his previous question, and withdraws from the\nsum total of pleasure many of its most important items: since we\nmust of course understand that the pleasures of intelligence will\ndisappear along with intelligence itself,[111] and that the pains\nof conscious want of intelligence will be felt instead of them.\n\n[Footnote 110: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 12 D.]\n\n[Footnote 111: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 21 C.]\n\n[Side-note: Intelligence and Pleasure cannot be fairly\ncompared--Pleasure is an End, Intelligence a Means. Nothing can be\ncompared with Pleasure, except some other End.]\n\nThat the antithesis here enunciated by Plato is not legitimate or\nlogical, we may see on other grounds also. Pleasure and\nIntelligence cannot be placed in competition with each other for\nrecognition as Summum Bonum: which, as described by Plato himself,\nis of the nature of an End, while Intelligence is of the nature of\na means or agency--indispensable indeed, yet of no value unless it\nbe exercised, and rightly exercised towards its appropriate end,\nwhich end must be separately declared.[112] Intelligence is a\ndurable acquisition stored up, like the good health, moral\ncharacter, or established habits, of each individual person: it is\na capital engaged in the production of interest, and its value is\nmeasured by the interest produced. You cannot with propriety put\nthe means--the Capital--in one scale, and the End--the Interest--in\nthe other, so as to ascertain which of the two weighs most. A\nprudent man will refrain from any present enjoyment which trenches\non his capital: but this is because the maintenance of the capital\nis essential to all future acquisitions and even future\nmaintenance. So too, Intelligence is essential as a means or\ncondition to the attainment of pleasure in its largest sense--that\nis, including avoidance or alleviation of pain or suffering: if\ntherefore you choose to understand pleasure in a narrower sense,\nnot including therein avoidance of pain (as Plato understands it\nin this portion of the Phil\u00eabus), the comprehensive end to which\nIntelligence corresponds may be compared with Pleasure and\ndeclared more valuable--but Intelligence itself cannot with\npropriety be so compared. Such a comparison can only be properly\ninstituted when you consider the exercise of Intelligence as\ninvolving (which it undoubtedly does[113]) pleasures of its own;\nwhich pleasures form part of the End, and may fairly be measured\nagainst other pleasures and pains. But nothing can be properly\ncompared with Pleasure, except some other supposed End: and those\ntheorists who reject Pleasure must specify some other _Terminus ad\nquem_--otherwise intelligence has no clear meaning.\n\n[Footnote 112: Compare Plato, Republic, vi. p. 505 D (referred to\nin a previous note); also Aristotel. Ethic. Nikom. i. 3, 1095, b.\n30; i. 8, 1099, a. 1.\n\nRespecting the value of Intelligence or Cognition, when the end\ntowards which it is to be exercised is undetermined, see the\ndialogue between Sokrates and Kleinias--Plato, Euthyd\u00eam. pp.\n289-292 B-E.\n\nAristotle, in the Nikomach. Ethic. (i. 4, 1096, b. 10), makes a\ndistinction between--1. [Greek: ta\\ kath' au(ta\\ di\u00f4ko/mena kai\\\na)gap\u00f4/mena]--2. [Greek: ta\\ poi\u00eatika\\ tou/t\u00f4n \u00ea)\\ phulaktika\\ \u00ea)\\\nt\u00f4=n e)nanti/\u00f4n k\u00f4lutika/]: and Plato himself makes the same\ndistinction at the beginning of the second book of the Republic.\nBut though it is convenient to draw attention to this distinction,\nfor the clear understanding of the subject, you cannot ask with\npropriety which of the two lots is most valuable. The value of the\ntwo is equal: the one cannot be had without the other.]\n\n[Footnote 113: Plato, Phil\u00eab. p. 12 D.]\n\n[Side-note: The Hedonists, while they laid down attainment of\npleasure and diminution of pain, postulated Intelligence as the\ngoverning agency.]\n\nNow the Hedonists in Plato's age, when they declared Pleasure to\nbe the supreme Good, understood Pleasure in its widest sense, as\nincluding not merely all varieties of pleasure, mental and bodily\nalike, but also avoidance of pain (in fact Epikurus dwelt\nespecially upon this last point). Moreover, they did not intend to\ndepreciate Intelligence, but on the contrary postulated it as a\ngoverning agency, indispensable to right choice and comparative\nestimation between different pleasures and pains. That\nEudoxus,[114] the geometer and astronomer, did this, we may be\nsure: but besides, this is the way in which the Hedonistic\ndoctrine is expounded by Plato himself. In his Protagoras,\nSokrates advocates that doctrine, against the Sophist who is\nunwilling to admit it. In the exposition there given by Sokrates,\nPleasure is announced as The Good to be sought, Pain as The Evil\nto be avoided or reduced to a minimum. But precisely because the\nEnd, to be pursued through constant diversity of complicated\nsituations, is thus defined--for that very reason he declares that\nthe dominant or sovereign element in man must be, the measuring\nand calculating Intelligence; since such is the sole condition\nunder which the End can be attained or approached. In the theory\nof the Hedonists, there was no antithesis, but indispensable\nconjunction and implication, between Pleasure and\nIntelligence.[115] And if it be said, that by declaring Pleasure\n(and avoidance of Pain) to be the End, Intelligence the\nmeans,--they lowered the dignity of the latter as compared with the\nformer:--we may reply that the dignity of Intelligence is exalted\nto the maximum when it is enthroned as the ruling and controuling\nagent over the human mind.\n\n[Footnote 114: Eudoxus is cited by Aristotle (Ethic. Nikom. x. 2)\nas the great champion of the Hedonistic theory. He is\ncharacterised by Aristotle as [Greek: diaphero/nt\u00f4s s\u00f4/phr\u00f4n].]\n\n[Footnote 115: The implication of the intelligent and emotional is\nwell stated by Aristotle (Eth. Nikom. x. 8, 1178, a. 16). [Greek:\nsune/zeuktai de\\ kai\\ \u00ea( phro/n\u00easis t\u00ea=| tou= \u00ea)/thous a)ret\u00ea=|,\nkai\\ au)/t\u00ea t\u00ea=| phron\u00ea/sei, ei)/per ai( me\\n t\u00ea=s phron\u00ea/se\u00f4s\na)rchai\\ kata\\ ta\\s \u00ea)thika/s ei)sin a)reta/s, to\\ d' o)rtho\\n\nt\u00f4=n \u00ea=thik\u00f4=n kata\\ t\u00ea\\n phro/n\u00easin. sun\u00eart\u00eame/nai d' au)=tai\nkai\\ toi=s pa/thesi peri\\ to\\ su/ntheton a)\\n ei)=en; ai( de\\ tou=\nsunthe/tou a)retai\\ a)nthr\u00f4pikai/. kai\\ o( bi/os d\u00ea\\ o( kat'\nau)ta\\s kai\\ \u00ea( eu)daimoni/a. \u00ea( de\\ tou= nou= kech\u00f4risme/n\u00ea], &c.\nCompare also the first two or three sentences of the tenth Book of\nEth. Nik.]\n\n[Side-note: Pleasures of Intelligence may be compared, and are\ncompared by Plato, with other pleasures, and declared to be of\nmore value. This is arguing upon the Hedonistic basis.]\n\nIn a scheme of mental philosophy, Emotion and Intellect are\nproperly treated as distinct phenomena requiring to be explained\nseparately, though perpetually co-existent and interfering with\neach other. But in an ethical discourse about Summum Bonum, the\nantithesis between Pleasure and Intelligence, on which the\nPhil\u00eabus turns, is from the outset illogical. What gives to it an\napparent plausibility, is, That the exercise of Intelligence has\npleasures and pains of its own, and includes therefore in itself a\npart of the End, besides being the constant and indispensable\ndirecting force or Means. Now, though pleasure _in genere_ cannot\nbe weighed in the scale against Intelligence, yet the pleasures\nand pains of Intelligence may be fairly and instructively compared\nwith other pleasures and pains. You may contend that the pleasures\nof Intelligence are superior in quality, as well as less alloyed\nby accompanying pains. This comparison is really instituted by\nPlato in other dialogues;[116] and we find the two questions\napparently running together in his mind as if they were one and\nthe same. Yet the fact is, that those who affirm the pleasures\nattending the exercise of Intelligence to be better and greater,\nand the pains less, than those which attend other occupations, are\nreally arguing upon the Hedonistic basis.[117] Far from\nestablishing any antithesis between Pleasure and Intelligence,\nthey bring the two into closer conjunction than was done by\nEpikurus himself.\n\n[Footnote 116: See Republic, ix. pp. 581-582, where he compares\nthe pleasures of the three different lives. 1. [Greek: O(\nphilo/sophos] or [Greek: philomath\u00ea/s]. 2. [Greek: O(\nphilu/timos]. 3. [Greek: O( philokerd\u00ea/s].\n\nAgain in the Ph\u00e6don, he tells us that we are not to weigh\npleasures against pleasures, or pains against pains, but all of\nthem against [Greek: phro/n\u00easis] or Intelligence (p. 69 A-B). This\nappears distinctly to contradict what Sokrates affirms in the\nProtagoras. But when we turn to another passage of the Ph\u00e6don (p.\n114 E), we find Sokrates recognising a class of pleasures attached\nto the exercise of Intelligence, and declaring them to be more\nvaluable than the pleasures of sense, or any others. This is a\nvery different proposition: but in both passages Plato had\nprobably the same comparison in his mind.\n\nSydenham, in a note to his translation of the Phil\u00eabus (pp.\n42-43), observes--\"if Protarchus, when he took on himself to be an\nadvocate for pleasure, had included, in his meaning of the word,\nall such pleasures as are purely mental, his opinion, fairly and\nrightly understood, could not have been different in the main,\nfrom what Sokrates here professes--That in every particular case,\nto discern what is best in action, and to perceive what is true in\nspeculation, is the chief good of man; unless, indeed, it should\nafterwards come into question which of the two kinds of pleasure,\nthe sensual or the mental, was to be preferred. For if it should\nappear that in this point they were both of the same mind, the\ncontroversy between them would be found a mere logomachy, or\ncontention about words (as between Epicureans and Stoics), of the\nsame kind as that would be between two persons, one of whom\nasserted that to a musical ear the proper and true good was\nHarmony, while the other contended that the good lay not in the\nHarmony itself, but in the pleasure which the musical ear felt\nfrom hearing it: or like a controversy among three persons, one of\nwhom having asserted that to all animals living under the northern\nfrigid zone, the Sun in Cancer was the greatest blessing; and\nanother having asserted that not the Sun was that chief blessing\nto those northern animals, but the warmth which he afforded them;\nthe third should imagine that he corrected or amended the two\nformer by saying--That those animals were thus highly blest\nneither by the Sun, nor by the warmth which his rays afforded\nthem, but by the joy or pleasure which they felt from the return\nof the Sun and warmth.\"]\n\n[Footnote 117: Plato, in Phil\u00eabus, p. 63 C-D, denounces and\ndiscards the vehement pleasures because they disturb the right\nexercise of Reason and Intelligence. Aristotle, after alluding to\nthis doctrine, presents the same fact under a different point of\nview, as one case of a general law. Each variety of pleasure\nbelongs to, and is consequent on, a certain [Greek: e)ne/rgeia] of\nthe system. Each variety of pleasure promotes and consummates its\nown [Greek: e)ne/rgeia], but impedes or arrests other different\n[Greek: e)nergei/as]. Thus the pleasures of hunting, of gymnastic\ncontest, of hearing or playing music--cause each of these [Greek:\ne)nergei=ai], upon which each pleasure respectively depends, to be\nmore completely developed; but are unfavourable to different\n[Greek: e)nergei=ai], such as learning by heart, or solving a\ngeometrical problem. The pleasure belonging to these latter,\nagain, is unfavourable to the performance of the former [Greek:\ne)nergei=ai]. Study often hurts health or good management of\nproperty; but if a man has pleasure in study, he will perform that\nwork with better fruit and result.\n\nThis is a juster view of [Greek: \u00ea(don\u00ea\\] than what we read in the\nPhil\u00eabus. The illogical antithesis of Pleasure _in genere_,\nagainst Intelligence, finds no countenance from Aristotle.\n\nSee Ethic. Nikom. vii. 13, 1153, a. 20; x. 5, p. 1175; also Ethic.\nMagna, ii. p. 1206, a. 3.]\n\n[Side-note: Marked antithesis in the Phil\u00eabus between pleasure and\navoidance of pain.]\n\nAnother remark may be made on the way in which Plato argues the\nquestion in the Phil\u00eabus against the Hedonists. He draws a marked\nline of separation between Pleasure--and avoidance, relief, or\nmitigation, of Pain. He does not merely distinguish the two, but\nsets them in opposing antithesis. Wherever there is pain to be\nrelieved, he will not allow the title of _pleasurable_ to be\nbestowed on the situation. That is not _true_ pleasure: in other\nwords, it is no pleasure at all. He does not go quite so far as\nsome contemporary theorists, the Fastidious Pleasure-Haters, who\nrepudiated all pleasures without exception.[118] He allows a few\nrare exceptions; the sensual pleasures of sight, hearing, and\nsmell--and the pleasures of exercising Intelligence, which (these\nlatter most erroneously) he affirms to be not disentitled by any\naccompanying pains. His catalogue of pleasures is thus reduced to\na chosen few, and these too enjoyable only by a chosen few among\nmankind.\n\n[Footnote 118: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 44 B.]\n\n[Side-note: The Hedonists did not recognise this distinction--They\nincluded both in their acknowledged End.]\n\nNow this very restricted sense of the word Pleasure is peculiar to\nPlato, and peculiar even to some of the Platonic dialogues. Those\nwho affirmed Pleasure to be the Good, did not understand the word\nin the same restricted sense. When Sokrates in the Protagoras\naffirms, and when Sokrates in the Phil\u00eabus denies, that Pleasure\nis identical with Good,--the affirmation and the denial do not\nbear upon the same substantial meaning.[119]\n\n[Footnote 119: Among the arguments employed by Sokrates in the\nPhil\u00eabus to disprove the identity between [Greek: \u00ea(don\u00ea\\] and\n[Greek: a)gatho/n], one is, that [Greek: \u00ea(don\u00ea\\] is a [Greek:\nge/nesis], and is therefore essentially a process of imperfection\nor transition into some ulterior [Greek: ou)si/a], for the sake of\nwhich alone it existed (Phil\u00eabus, pp. 53-55); whereas Good is\nessentially an [Greek: ou)si/a]--perfect, complete,\nall-sufficient--and must not be confounded with the process whereby it\nis brought about. He illustrates this by telling us that the\nspecies of [Greek: ge/nesis] called ship-building exists only for\nthe sake of the ship--the [Greek: ou)si/a] in which it terminates;\nbut that the fabricating process, and the result in which it ends,\nare not to be confounded together.\n\nThe doctrine that pleasure is a [Greek: ge/nesis], Plato cites as\nlaid down by others: certain [Greek: kompsoi/], whom he does not\nname, but whom the critics suppose to be Aristippus and the\nKyrenaici. Aristotle (in the seventh and tenth books of Ethic.\nNik.) also criticises and impugns the doctrine that pleasure is a\n[Greek: ge/nesis]: but he too omits to name the persons by whom it\nwas propounded.\n\nPossibly Aristippus may have been the author of it: but we can\nhardly tell what he meant, or how he defended it. Plato derides\nhim for his inconsistency in calling pleasure a [Greek: ge/nesis],\nwhile he at the same time maintained it to be the Good: but the\nderision is founded upon an assumption which Aristippus would have\ndenied. Aristippus would not have admitted that all [Greek:\nge/nesis] existed only for the sake of [Greek: ou)si/a]: and he\nwould have replied to Plato's argument, illustrated by the example\nof ship-building, by saying that the [Greek: ou)si/a] called a\n_ship_ existed only for the sake of the services which it was\ndestined to render in transporting persons and goods: that if\n[Greek: ge/nesis] existed for the sake of [Greek: ou)si/a], it was\nno less true that [Greek: ou)si/a] existed for the sake of [Greek:\nge/nesis]. Plato therefore had no good foundation for the sarcasm\nwhich he throws out against Aristippus.\n\nThe reasoning of Aristotle (E. N. x. 3-4; compare Eth. Magn. ii.\n1204-1205) against the doctrine, that pleasure is [Greek:\nge/nesis] or [Greek: ki/n\u00easis], is drawn from a different point of\nview, and is quite as unfavourable to the opinions of Plato as to\nthose of Aristippus. His language however in the Rhetoric is\nsomewhat different (i. p. 1370, b. 33).\n\nAristippus is said to have defined pleasure as [Greek: lei/a\nki/n\u00easis], and pain as [Greek: trachei=a ki/n\u00easis] (Diog. L. ii.\n86-89). The word [Greek: ki/n\u00easis] is so vague, that one can\nhardly say what it means, without some words of context: but I\ndoubt whether he meant anything more than \"_a marked change of\nconsciousness_\". The word [Greek: ge/nesis] is also very obscure:\nand we are not sure that Aristippus employed it.]\n\n[Side-note: Arguments of Plato against the intense pleasures--The\nHedonists enforced the same reasonable view.]\n\nAgain, in the arguments of Sokrates against pleasure _in genere_,\nwe find him also singling out as examples the intense pleasures,\nwhich he takes much pains to discredit. The remarks which he makes\nhere upon the intense pleasures, considered as elements of\nhappiness, have much truth taken generally. Though he exaggerates\nthe matter when he says that many persons would rejoice to have\nitch and irritation, in order that they might have the pleasure of\nscratching[120]--and that persons in a fever have greater pleasure\nas well as greater pain than persons in health--yet he is correct\nto this extent, that the disposition to hanker after intense\npleasures, to forget their painful sequel in many cases, and to\npay for them a greater price than they are worth, is widely\ndisseminated among mankind. But this is no valid objection against\nthe Hedonistic theory, as it was enunciated and defended by its\nprincipal advocates--by the Platonic Sokrates (in the Protagoras),\nby Aristippus, Eudoxus,[121] Epikurus. All of them took account of\nthis frequent wrong tendency, and arranged their warnings\naccordingly. All of them discouraged, not less than Plato, such\nintense enjoyments as produced greater mischief in the way of\nfuture pain and disappointment, or as obstructed the exercise of\ncalm reason.[122] All of them, when they talked of pleasure as the\nSupreme Good, understood thereby a rational estimate and\ncomparison of pleasures and pains, present and future, so as to\nensure the maximum of the former and the minimum of the latter.\nAll of them postulated a calculating and governing Reason.\nEpikurus undoubtedly, and I believe the other two also,\nrecommended a life of moderation, tranquillity, and meditative\nreason: they deprecated the violent emotions, whether sensual,\nambitious, or money-getting.[123] The objections therefore here\nstated by Sokrates, in so far as they are derived from the\nmischievous consequences of indulgence in the intense pleasures,\ndo not avail against the Hedonistic theory, as explained either by\nPlato himself (Protagoras) or by any theorists of the Platonic\ncentury.\n\n[Footnote 120: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 47 B.]\n\n[Footnote 121: I have already remarked that Eudoxus is\ncharacterised by Aristotle as being [Greek: diaphero/nt\u00f4s\ns\u00f4/phr\u00f4n] (Ethic. Nikom. x. 2). The strong interest which he felt\nin scientific pursuits is marked by a story in Plutarch (Non Posse\nSuaviter Vivi; see Epicur. p. 1094 A).]\n\n[Footnote 122: The equivocal sense of the word Pleasure is the\nsame as that which Plato notes in the Symposion to attach to Eros\nor Love (p. 205). When employed in philosophical discussion, it\nsometimes _is_ used (and always _ought_ to be used) in its full\nextent of generic comprehension: sometimes in a narrower sense, so\nas to include only a few of the more intense pleasures, chiefly\nthe physical, and especially the sexual; sometimes in a sense\nstill more peculiar, partly as opposed to _duty_, partly as\nopposed to _business_, _work_, _utility_, &c. Opponents of the\nHedonists took advantage of the unfavourable associations attached\nto the word in these narrower and special senses, to make\nobjections tell against the theory which employed the word in its\nwidest generic sense.]\n\n[Footnote 123: See the beautiful lines of Lucretius, Book ii.\ninit. When we read the three acrimonious treatises in which\nPlutarch attacks the Epikureans (Non Posse Suaviter Vivi, adv.\nKoloten, De Latenter Vivendo), we find him complaining, not that\nEpikurus thought too much about pleasures, or that he thought too\nmuch about the intense pleasures, but quite the reverse. Epikurus\n(he says) made out too poor a catalogue of pleasures: he was too\neasily satisfied with a small amount and variety of pleasures: he\ndwelt too much upon the absence of pain, as being, when combined\nwith a very little pleasure, as much as man ought to look for: he\nrenounced all the most vehement and delicious pleasures, those of\npolitical activity and contemplative study, which constitute the\ngreat charms of life (1097 F-1098 E-1092 E-1093-1094). Plutarch\nattacks Epikurus upon grounds really Hedonistic.]\n\n[Side-note: Different points of view worked out by Plato in\ndifferent dialogues--Gorgias, Protagoras, Phil\u00eabus--True and False\nPleasures.]\n\nWe find Plato in his various dialogues working out different\npoints of view, partly harmonious, partly conflicting, upon\nethical theory. Thus in the Gorgias, Sokrates insists eloquently\nupon the antithesis between the Immediate and Transient on the one\nhand, which he calls Pleasure or Pain--and the Distant and\nPermanent on the other, which he calls Good or Profit, Hurt or\nEvil. In the Protagoras, Sokrates acknowledges the same\nantithesis: but he points out that the Good or Profit, Hurt or\nEvil, resolve themselves into elements generically the same as\nthose of the Immediate and Transient--Pleasure and Pain: so that\nall which we require is, a calculating Intelligence to assess and\nbalance correctly the pleasures and pains in every given case. In\nthe Phil\u00eabus, Sokrates takes a third line, distinct from both the\nother two dialogues: he insists upon a new antithesis, between\nTrue Pleasures--and False Pleasures. If a Pleasure be associated\nwith any proportion, however small, of Pain or Uneasiness--or with\nany false belief or impression--he denounces it as false and\nimpostrous, and strikes it out of the list of pleasures. The small\nresidue which is left after such deduction, consists of pleasures\nrecommended altogether by what Plato calls their truth, and\naddressing themselves to the love of truth in a few chosen minds.\nThe attainment of Good--the object of the practical aspirations--is\npresented as a secondary appendage of the attainment of Truth--the\nobject of the speculative or intellectual energies.\n\n[Side-note: Opposition between the Gorgias and Phil\u00eabus, about\nGorgias and Rhetoric.]\n\nHow much the Phil\u00eabus differs in its point of view from the\nGorgias,[124] is indicated by Plato himself in a remarkable\npassage. \"I have often heard Gorgias affirm\" (says Protarchus)\n\"that among all arts, the art of persuasion stands greatly\npre-eminent: since, it ensures subservience from all, not by force,\nbut with their own free consent.\" To which Sokrates replies--\"I\nwas not then enquiring what art or science stands pre-eminent as\nthe greatest, or as the best, or as conferring most benefit upon\nus--but what art or science investigates clear, exact, and full\ntruth, though it be in itself small, and may afford small benefit.\nYou need not quarrel with Gorgias, for you may admit to him the\nsuperiority of his art in respect of usefulness to mankind, while\nmy art (dialectic philosophy) is superior in respect of accuracy.\nI observed just now, that a small piece of white colour which is\npure, surpasses in truth a large area which is not pure. We must\nnot look to the comparative profitable consequences or good repute\nof the various sciences or arts, but to any natural aspiration\nwhich may exist in our minds to love truth, and to do every thing\nfor the sake of truth. It will then appear that no other science\nor art strives after truth so earnestly as Dialectic.\"[125]\n\n[Footnote 124: Sokrates in the Gorgias insists upon the constant\nintermixture of pleasure with pain, as an argument to prove that\npleasure cannot be identical with good: pleasure and pain (he\nsays) go together but good and evil cannot go together: therefore\npleasure cannot be good, pain cannot be evil (Gorgias, pp.\n496-497). But he distinguishes pleasures into the good and the bad;\nnot into the true and the false, as they are distinguished in the\nPhil\u00eabus and the Republic (ix. pp. 583-585).]\n\n[Footnote 125: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 58 B-D-E. [Greek: Ou) tou=to\ne(/g\u00f4ge e)z\u00ea/toun p\u00f4, ti/s te/chn\u00ea \u00ea)\\ ti/s e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea pas\u00f4=n\ndiaphe/rei t\u00f4=| megi/st\u00ea kai\\ a)ri/st\u00ea kai\\ plei=sta \u00f4)phelou=sa\n\u00ea(ma=s, a)lla\\ ti/s pote to\\ saphe\\s kai\\ ta)kribe\\s kai\\ to\\\na)l\u00eathe/staton e)piskopei=, ka)\\n ei) smikra\\ kai\\ smikra\\\no)ni/nasa . . . A)ll' o(/ra; ou)de\\ ga\\r a)pechth\u00ea/sei Gorgi/a|,\nt\u00ea=| me\\n e)kei/nou u(pere/chein te/chn\u00ea| didou\\s pro\\s chrei/an\ntoi=s a)nthr\u00f4/pois, pro\\s a)kribei/an de\\ \u00ea)=| ei)=pon e)g\u00f4\\ nu=n\npragmatei/a| . . . m\u00ea/t' ei)/s tinas \u00f4)phelei/as e)pist\u00eam\u00f4=n\nble/psantes m\u00ea/te tina\\s eu)dokimi/as, a)ll' ei)/ tis pe/phuke\nt\u00ea=s psuch\u00ea=s \u00ea(m\u00f4=n du/namis e)ra=|n te tou= a)l\u00eathou=s kai\\\npa/nta e(/neka tou/tou pra/ttein.]\n\nHere, as elsewhere, I translate the substance of the passage,\nadopting the amendments of Dr. Badham and Mr. Poste (see Mr.\nPoste's note), which appear to me valuable improvements of a\nconfused text.\n\nIt seems probable enough that what is here said, conceding so\nlarge a measure of credit to Gorgias and his art, may be intended\nexpressly as a mitigation of the bitter polemic assigned to\nSokrates in the Gorgias. This is, however, altogether conjecture.]\n\nIf we turn to the Gorgias, we find the very same claim advanced by\nGorgias on behalf of his own art, as that which Protarchus here\nadvances: but while Sokrates here admits it, in the Gorgias he\nrepudiates it with emphasis, and even with contumely: ranking\nrhetoric among those employments which minister only to present\npleasure, but which are neither intended to yield, nor ever do\nyield, any profitable result. Here in the Phil\u00eabus, the antithesis\nbetween immediate pleasure and distant profit is scarcely noticed.\nSokrates resigns to Gorgias and to others of the like stamp, a\nsuperiority not merely in the art of flattering and tricking the\nimmediate sensibilities of mankind, but in that of contributing to\ntheir permanent profit and advantage. It is in a spirit contrary\nto the Gorgias, and contrary also to the Republic (in which latter\nwe read the memorable declaration--That the miseries of society\nwill have no respite until government is in the hands of\nphilosophers[126]), that Sokrates here abnegates on behalf of\nphilosophy all efficacious pretension of conferring profit or\nhappiness on mankind generally, and claims for it only the pure\ndelight of satisfying the truth-seeking aspirations. Now these\naspirations have little force except in a few chosen minds; in the\nbulk of mankind the love of truth is feeble, and the active search\nfor truth almost unknown. We thus see that in the Phil\u00eabus it is\nthe speculative few who are present to the imagination of Plato,\nmore than the ordinary working, suffering, enjoying Many.\n\n[Footnote 126: Plato, Republ. v. 473 D.]\n\n[Side-note: Peculiarity of the Phil\u00eabus--Plato applies the same\nprinciple of classification--true and false--to Cognitions and\nPleasures.]\n\nAristotle, in the commencement of his Metaphysica, recommends\nMetaphysics or First Philosophy to the reader, by affirming that,\nthough other studies are more useful or more necessary to man,\nnone is equal to it in respect of truth and exactness,[127]\nbecause it teaches us to understand First Causes and Principles.\nThe like pretension is put forward by Plato in the Phil\u00eabus[128]\non behalf of dialectic; which he designates as the science of all\nreal, permanent, unchangeable, Entia. Taking Dialectic as the\nmaximum or Verissimum, Plato classifies other sciences or\ncognitions according as they approach closer to it in truth or\nexactness--according as they contain more of precise measurement\nand less of conjecture. Sciences or cognitions are thus classified\naccording as they are more or less true and pure. But because this\nprinciple of classification is fairly applicable to cognitions,\nPlato conceives that it may be made applicable to Pleasures also.\nOne characteristic feature of the Phil\u00eabus is the attempt to apply\nthe predicates, _true_ or _false_, to pleasures and pains, as they\nare applicable to cognitions or opinions: an attempt against which\nProtarchus is made to protest, and which Sokrates altogether fails\nin justifying,[129] though he employs a train of argument both\nlong and diversified.\n\n[Footnote 127: Aristotel. Metaphys. A. p. 983, a. 25, b. 10.]\n\n[Footnote 128: Plato, Phil\u00eab. pp. 57-58. Compare Republic, vii.\npp. 531-532.]\n\n[Footnote 129: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 36 C. 38 A.\n\nThe various arguments, intended to prove this conclusion, are\ncontinued from p. 36 to p. 51. The same doctrine is advocated by\nSokrates in the Republic, ix. pp. 583-584.\n\nThe doctrine is briefly stated by the Platonist Nemesius, De\nNatur. Hominis, p. 223. [Greek: kai\\ ga\\r kata\\ Pla/t\u00f4na t\u00f4=n\n\u00ea(don\u00f4=n ai( me/n ei)si pseudei=s, ai( de\\ a)l\u00eathei=s. Pseudei=s\nme/n, o(/sai met' ai)sth\u00ea/se\u00f4s gi/gnontai kai\\ do/x\u00eas ou)k\na)l\u00eathou=s, kai\\ lu/pas e)/chousi sumpeplegme/nas; a)l\u00eathei=s de/,\no(/sai t\u00ea=s psuch\u00ea=s ei)si mo/n\u00eas au)t\u00ea=s kath' e(aut\u00ea\\n met'\ne)pist\u00ea/m\u00eas kai\\ nou= kai\\ phron\u00ea/se\u00f4s, katharai\\ kai\\\na)nepi/miktoi lu/p\u00eas, ai)=s ou)demi/a meta/noia parakolouthei=\npote/.]\n\nA brief but clear abstract of the argument will be found in Dr.\nBadham's Preface to the Phil\u00eabus (pp. viii.-xi.). Compare also\nStallbaum's Prolegg. ch. v. p. 50, seq.]\n\n[Side-note: Distinction of true and false--not applicable to\npleasures.]\n\nIn this train of argument we find a good deal of just and\ninstructive psychological remark: but nothing at all which proves\nthe conclusion that there are or can be _false pleasures_ or\n_false pains_. We have (as Sokrates shows) false remembrances of\npast pleasures and pains--false expectations, hopes, and fears of\nfuture: we have pleasures alloyed by accompanying pains, and pains\nqualified by accompanying pleasures: we have pleasures and pains\ndependent upon false beliefs: but false pleasures we neither have\nnor can have. The predicate is altogether inapplicable to the\nsubject. It is applicable to the intellectual side of our nature,\nnot to the emotional. A pleasure (or a pain) is what it seems,\nneither more nor less; its essence consists in being felt.[130]\nThere are false beliefs, disbeliefs, judgments, opinions--but not\nfalse pleasures or pains. The pleasure of the dreamer or madman is\nnot false, though it may be founded on illusory belief: the joy of\na man informed that he has just been appointed to a lucrative and\nhonourable post, the grief of a father on hearing that his son has\nbeen killed in battle, are neither of them false, though the news\nwhich both persons are made to believe may be totally false, and\nthough the feelings will thus be of short duration. Plato observes\nthat the state which he calls neutrality or indifference appears\npleasurable when it follows pain, and painful when it results from\nan interruption of pleasure: here is a state which appears\nalternately to be both, though it is in reality neither: the\npleasure or pain, therefore, whichever it be, he infers to be\n_false_[131] But there is no falsehood in the case: the state\ndescribed is what it appears to be--pleasurable or painful: Plato\ndescribes it erroneously when he calls it the same state, or one\nof neutrality. Pleasure and Pain are both of them phenomena of\npresent consciousness. They are what they seem: none of them can\nbe properly called (as Plato calls them) \"apparent pleasures which\nhave no reality\".[132]\n\n[Footnote 130: This is what Aristotle means when he says:--[Greek:\nt\u00ea=s \u00ea(don\u00ea=s d' e)n o(t\u00f4|ou=n chro/n\u00f4| te/leion to\\ ei)=dos . . .\nt\u00f4=n o(/l\u00f4n ti kai\\ telei/\u00f4n \u00ea( \u00ea(don\u00ea/] (Eth. Nik. x. 3, 1174, b.\n4).]\n\n[Footnote 131: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 43-44; Republic, ix. p. 583.\n\nI copy the following passage from Professor Bain's work on \"The\nEmotions and the Will,\" the fullest and most philosophical account\nof the emotions that I know (pp. 615-616; 3rd ed., pp. 550\nseq.):--\n\n\"It is a general law of the mental constitution, more or less\nrecognised by inquirers into the human mind, that change of\nimpression is essential to consciousness in every form. . . There\nare notable examples to show, that one unvarying action upon the\nsenses fails to give any perception whatever. Take the motion of\nthe earth about its axis and through space, whereby we are whirled\nwith immense velocity, but at a uniform pace, being utterly\ninsensible of the circumstance. . . It is the change from rest to\nmotion that wakens our sensibility, and, conversely, from motion\nto rest. A uniform condition, as respects either state, is devoid\nof any quickening influence on the mind. . . . We have repeatedly\nseen pleasures depending for their existence on previous pains,\nand pains on pleasures experienced or conceived. Such are the\ncontrasting states of Liberty and Restraint, Power and Impotence.\nMany pleasures owe their effect as such to mere cessation. For\nexample, the pleasures of exercise do not need to be preceded by\npain: it is enough that there has been a certain intermission,\ncoupled with the nourishment of the exhausted parts. These are of\ncourse our best pleasures. By means of this class, we might have a\nlife of enjoyment without pain: although, in fact, the other is\nmore or less mixed up in every one's experience. Exercise, Repose,\nthe pleasures of the different Senses and Emotions, might be made\nto alternate, so as to give a constant succession of pleasure:\neach being sufficiently dormant during the exercise of the others,\nto reanimate the consciousness when its turn comes. It also\nhappens that some of those modes of delight are increased, by\nbeing preceded by a certain amount of a painful opposite. Thus,\nconfinement adds to the pleasure of exercise, and protracted\nexertion to that of repose. Fasting increases the enjoyment of\nmeals; and being much chilled prepares us for a higher zest in the\naccession of warmth. It is not necessary, however, in those cases,\nthat the privation should amount to positive pain, in order to the\nexistence of the pleasure. The enjoyment of food may be\nexperienced, although the previous hunger may not be in any way\npainful: at all events, with no more pain than the certainty of\nthe coming meal can effectually appease. There is still another\nclass of our delights depending entirely upon previous suffering,\nas in the sudden cessation of acute pains, or the sudden relief\nfrom great depression. Here the rebound from one nervous condition\nto another is a stimulant of positive pleasure: constituting a\nsmall, but altogether inadequate, compensation for the prior\nmisery. The pleasurable sensation of good health presupposes the\nopposite experience in a still larger measure. Uninterrupted\nhealth, though an instrumentality for working out many enjoyments,\nof itself gives no sensation.\"\n\nIt appears to me that this passage of Mr. Bain's work\ndiscriminates and sets out what there is of truth in Plato's\ndoctrine about the pure and painless pleasures. In his first\nvolume (The Senses and the Intellect) Mr. Bain has laid down and\nexplained the great fundamental fact of the system, that it\nincludes spontaneous sources of activity; which, after repose and\nnourishment, require to be exerted, and afford a certain pleasure\nin the course of being exerted. There is no antecedent pain to be\nrelieved: but privation (which is only a grade and variety of\npain, and sometimes considerable pain) is felt if the exertion be\nhindered. This doctrine of spontaneous activity, employed by Mr.\nBain successfully to explain a large variety of mental phenomena,\nis an important and valuable extension of that which Aristotle\nlays down in the Ethics, that pleasure is an accessory or adjunct\nof [Greek: e)ne/rgeia a)nempo/distos (e)ne/rgeia t\u00ea=s kata\\\nphu/sin e(/xe\u00f4s] Eth. N. vii. 13, 1153, a. 15), without any view\nto obtain any separate extraneous pleasure or to relieve any\nseparate extraneous pain ([Greek: kath' au(ta\\s d' ei)si\\n\nai(retai/, a)ph' \u00f4)=n m\u00eade\\n e)piz\u00eatei=tai para\\ t\u00ea\\n\ne)ne/rgeian], E. N. x. 6, 1176, b. 6).]\n\n[Footnote 132: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 51 A. [Greek: pro\\s to\\ tina\\s\n\u00ea(dona\\s ei)=nai dokou/sas, ou)/sas d' ou)dam\u00f4=s], &c. [Greek: to\\\nphaino/menon a)ll' ou)k o)/n], p. 42 C, which last sentence is\nbetter explained (I think) in the note of Dr. Badham than in that\nof Mr. Poste.\n\nMr. Poste observes justly, in his note on p. 40 C:--\"The falsely\nanticipated pleasure in mistaken Hope may be called, as it is here\ncalled, False Pleasure. This is, however, an inaccurate\nexpression. It is not the Pleasure, but the Imagination of it\n(_i.e._ the Imagination or Opinion) that is false. Sokrates\ntherefore does not dwell upon this point, though Protarchus allows\nthe expression to pass.\" The last phrase of the passage which I\nhave thus transcribed (\"Sokrates _therefore_ does not dwell upon\nthis point\") is less accurate than that which precedes: for it\nseems to imply that the Sokrates of Phil\u00eabus _admits_ the\ninaccuracy of the expression, which seems to me not borne out by\nthe text of the dialogue. Both here and elsewhere in the dialogue,\nthe doctrine, that many pleasures are false, is maintained by\nSokrates distinctly--[Greek: to\\ \u00ea(/desthai] is put upon the same\nfooting as [Greek: to\\ doxa/zein], which may be either [Greek:\na)l\u00eath\u00f4=s] or [Greek: pseud\u00f4=s].\n\nWhen Sokrates (p. 37 B) puts the question, \"You admit that [Greek:\ndo/xa] may be either [Greek: a)l\u00eath\u00ea\\s] or [Greek: pseud\u00ea/s]: how\nthen can you argue that [Greek: \u00ea(don\u00ea/] must be always [Greek:\na)l\u00eath\u00ea/s]?\" the answer is, that pleasure is not, if we speak\ncorrectly, either true or false: neither one predicate nor the\nother is properly applicable to it: we can only so apply them by a\nmetaphor, altogether misleading in philosophical reasoning. When\nSokrates further argues (37 D), \"You admit that some qualifying\npredicates may be applied to pleasures and pain, great or small,\ndurable or transient, &c. You admit that an opinion may be correct\nor mistaken in its object, and when it is the latter you call it\n_false_: why is not the pleasure which accompanies a false opinion\nto be called false also?\" Protarchus refuses distinctly to admit\nthis, saying, \"I have already affirmed that on that supposition\nthe _opinion_ is false: but no man will call the _pleasure_ false\"\n(p. 38 A).]\n\n[Side-note: Plato acknowledges no truth and reality except in the\nAbsolute--Pleasures which he admits to be true--and why.]\n\nWhat seems present to the mind of Plato in this doctrine is the\nantithesis between the absolute and the relative. He will allow\nreality only to the absolute: the relative he considers (herein\nagreeing with the Eleates) to be all seeming and illusion. Thus\nwhen he comes to describe the character of those few pleasures\nwhich he admits to be true, we find him dwelling upon their\nabsolute nature. 1. The pleasures derived from perfect geometrical\nfigures: the exact straight line, square, cube, circle, &c.: which\nfigures are always beautiful _per se_, not by comparison or in\nrelation with any thing else:[133] and \"which have pleasures of\ntheir own, noway analogous to those of scratching\" (_i. e._, not\nrequiring to be preceded by the discomfort of an itching surface).\n2. The pleasures derived from certain colours beautiful in\nthemselves: which are beautiful always, not merely when seen in\ncontrast with some other colours. 3. The pleasures of hearing\nsimple sounds, beautiful in and by themselves, with whatever other\nsounds they may be connected. 4. The pleasures of sweet smells,\nwhich are pleasurable though not preceded by uneasiness. 5. The\npleasures of mathematical studies: these studies do not derive\ntheir pleasurable character from satisfying any previous uneasy\nappetite, nor do they leave behind them any pain if they happen to\nbe forgotten.[134]\n\n[Footnote 133: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 51 C. [Greek: tau=ta ga\\r ou)k\nei)=nai pro/s ti kala\\ le/g\u00f4, katha/per a)/lla, a)ll' a)ei\\ kala\\\nkath' au(ta\\ pephuke/nai, kai/ tinas \u00ea(dona\\s oi)kei/as e)/chein,\nou)de\\n tai=s t\u00f4=n kn\u00ea/se\u00f4n prospherei=s.]\n\n51 D: [Greek: ta\\s t\u00f4=n ph\u00f4n\u00f4=n ta\\s lei/as kai\\ lampra/s, ta\\s\ne(/n ti katharo\\n i(ei/sas me/los, ou) pro\\s e(/teron kala\\s a)ll'\nau)ta\\s kath' au(ta\\s ei)=nai, kai\\ tou/t\u00f4n xumphu/tous \u00ea(dona\\s\ne(pome/nas.]]\n\n[Footnote 134: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 62 B.\n\nWe may illustrate the doctrine of the Phil\u00eabus about pleasures and\npains, by reference to a dictum of Sokrates quoted in the\nXenophontic Memorabilia (iii. 13).\n\nSome person complained to Sokrates that he had lost his\nappetite--that he no longer ate with any pleasure ([Greek: o(/ti\na)\u00ead\u00f4=s e)/sthioi])--\"The physician Akumenus (so replied Sokrates) teaches\nus a good remedy in such a case. Leave off eating: after you have\nleft off, you will come back into a more pleasurable, easy, and\nhealthful condition.\"\n\nNow let us suppose the like complaint to be addressed to the\nPlatonic Sokrates. What would have been _his_ answer?\n\nThe Sokrates of the Protagoras would have regarded the complainant\nas suffering under a misfortune, and would have tried to suggest\nsome remedy: either the prescription of Akumenus, or any other\nmore promising that he could think of. The Sokrates of the Ph\u00e6don,\non the contrary, would have congratulated him on the improvement\nin his condition, inasmuch as the misguiding and degrading\nascendancy, exercised by his body over his mind, was suppressed in\none of its most influential channels: just as Kephalus, in the\nRepublic (i. 329), is made to announce it as one of the blessings\nof old age, that the sexual appetite has left him. The Sokrates of\nthe Phil\u00eabus, also, would have treated the case as one for\ncongratulation, but he would have assigned a different reason. He\nwould have replied: \"The pleasures of eating are altogether false.\nYou never really had any pleasure in eating. If you believed\nyourself to have any, you were under an illusion. You have reason\nto rejoice that this illusion has now passed away: and to rejoice\nthe more, because you have come a step nearer to the most divine\nscheme of life.\"\n\nSpeusippus (the nephew and successor of Plato), if he had been\npresent, would have re-assured the complainant in a manner equally\ndecided. He would have said nothing, however, about the difference\nbetween true and false pleasures: he would have acknowledged them\nall as true, and denounced them all as mischievous. He would have\nsaid (see Aul. Gell. ix. 5): \"The condition which you describe is\none which I greatly envy. Pleasure and Pain are both, alike and\nequally, forms of Evil. I eat, to relieve the pain of hunger: but\nunfortunately, I cannot do so without experiencing some pleasure;\nand I thus incur evil in the other and opposite form. I am ashamed\nof this, because I am still kept far off from Good, or the point\nof neutrality: but I cannot help myself. _You_ are more fortunate:\nyou avert one evil, _pain_, without the least alloy of the other\nevil, _pleasure_: what you attain is thus pure Good. I hope your\ncondition may long continue, and I should be glad to come into it\nmyself.\"\n\nNot only the sincere pleasure-haters, but also other theorists\nindicated by Aristotle, would have warmly applauded this pure\nethical doctrine of Speusippus; not from real agreement with it,\nbut in order to edify the audience. They would say to one another\naside: \"This is not true; but we must do all we can to make people\nbelieve it. Since every one is too fond of pleasures, and suffers\nhimself to be enslaved by them, we must pull in the contrary\ndirection, in order that we may thereby bring people into the\nmiddle line.\" (Aristot. Eth. Nikom. x. 1, 1172, a. 30.)\n\nIt deserves to be remarked that Aristotle, in alluding to these\nlast theorists, disapproves their scheme of Ethical Fictions, or\nof falsifying theory in order to work upon men's minds by edifying\nimposture; while Plato approves and employs this scheme in the\nRepublic. Aristotle even recognises it as a fault in various\npersons, that they take too little delight in bodily\npleasures--that a man is [Greek: toiou=tos oi(=os \u00ea(=tton \u00ea)\\ dei=\ntoi=s s\u00f4matikoi=s chai/r\u00f4n] (Ethic. Nikom. vii. 11, 1151, b. 24).]\n\nThese few are all the varieties of pleasure which Plato admits as\ntrue: they are alleged as cases of the absolutely pleasurable\n([Greek: Au)to-\u00ea(du/])--that which is pleasurable _per se_, and\nalways, without relation to any thing else, without dependence on\noccasion or circumstance, and without any antecedent or\nconcomitant pain. All other pleasures are pleasurable relatively\nto some antecedent pain, or to some contrasting condition, with\nwhich they are compared: accordingly Plato considers them as\nfalse, unreal, illusory: pleasures and not pleasures at once, and\nnot more one than the other.[135] Herein he conforms to the\nEleatic or Parmenidean view, according to which the relative is\naltogether falsehood and illusion: an intermediate stage between\nEns and Non-Ens, belonging as much to the first as to the last.\n\n[Footnote 135: Compare, respecting this Platonic view, Republic,\nv. pp. 478-479, and pp. 583-585, where Plato contrasts the [Greek:\npanal\u00eath\u00ea\\s] or [Greek: gn\u00easi/a \u00ea(don\u00ea/], which arises from the\nacquisition of knowledge (when the mind nourishes itself with real\nessence), with the [Greek: no/th\u00ea] (p. 587 B) or [Greek:\ne)skiagraph\u00eame/n\u00ea \u00ea(don\u00ea/, ei)/d\u00f4lon t\u00ea=s a)l\u00eathou=s \u00ea(don\u00ea=s],\narising from the pursuits of wealth, power, and other objects of\ndesire.\n\nThe comic poet Alexis adverts to this Platonic doctrine of the\nabsolutely pleasurable, here, there, and everywhere,--[Greek: to\\\nd' \u00ea(du\\ pa/nt\u00f4s \u00ea(du/, ka)kei= ka)ntha/de], Athen\u00e6. viii. 354;\nMeineke, Com. Frag. p. 453.\n\nIn the Ph\u00e6drus (258 E), we find this same class of pleasures,\nthose which cannot be enjoyed unless preceded by some pain,\nasserted to be called _for that reason slavish_ ([Greek:\na)ndrapod\u00f4/deis]), and depreciated as worthless. Nearly all the\npleasures connected with the body are said to belong to this\nclass; but those of rhetoric and dialectic are exempted from it,\nand declared to be of superior order.\n\nThe pleasure of gaining a victory in the stadium at Olympia was\nranked by Greeks generally as the maximum of pleasure: and we find\nthe Platonic Sokrates (Republ. v. 465 D) speaks in concurrence\nwith this opinion. But this pleasure ought in Plato's view to pass\nfor a false pleasure; since it was invariably preceded by the most\npainful, long-continued training.\n\nThe reasoning of Sokrates in the Phil\u00eabus (see especially pp.\n46-47) against the intense and extatic pleasures, as being never\npure, but always adulterated by accompanying pain, misfortune,\ndisappointment, &c., is much the same as that of Epikurus and his\nfollowers afterwards. The case is nowhere more forcibly put than\nin the fourth book of Lucretius (1074 seq.): where that poet\ndeprecates passionate love, and points out that pure or unmixed\npleasure belongs only to the man of sound and healthy reason.]\n\n[Side-note: Plato could not have defended this small list of\nPleasures, upon his own admission, against his opponents--the\nPleasure-haters, who disallowed pleasures altogether.]\n\nThe catalogue of pleasures recognised by Plato being so narrow\n(and much of them attainable only by a few persons), the amount of\ndifference is really very small between him and his\npleasure-hating opponents, who disallowed pleasure altogether.\nBut small as the catalogue is, he could not consistently have defended\nit against them, upon his own principles. His opponents could have\nshown him that a considerable portion of it must be discarded, if\nwe are to disallow all pleasures which are preceded by or\nintermingled with pain--or which are sometimes stronger, sometimes\nfeebler, according to the relations of contrast or similarity with\nother concomitant sensations. Mathematical study certainly, far\nfrom being all pleasure and no pain, demands an irksome\npreparatory training (which is numbered among the miseries of life\nin the Axiochus[136]), succeeded by long laborious application,\ntogether with a fair share of vexatious puzzle and disappointment.\nThe love of knowledge grows up by association (like the thirst for\nmoney or power), and includes an uncomfortable consciousness of\nignorance: nay, it is precisely this painful consciousness which\nthe Sokratic method was expressly intended to plant forcibly in\nthe student's mind, as an indispensable antecedent condition.\nRequital doubtless comes in time; but the outlay is not the less\nreal, and is quite sufficient to disentitle the study from being\ncounted as a true pleasure, in the Platonic sense. Nor could\nPlato, upon his own principles, defend the pleasures of sight,\nsound, and smell. For though he might justly contend that there\nwere some objects originally agreeable to these senses, yet all\nthese objects will appear more or less agreeable, according to the\naccompanying contrasts under which they are presented, while, in\nparticular states of the organ, they will not appear agreeable at\nall. Now such variability of estimate is among the grounds alleged\nby Plato for declaring pleasures to be false.[137]\n\n[Footnote 136: See the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Axiochus, pp.\n366-367. Compare Republic, vii. 526 C, vi. 504 C.\n\nThe Sokratic method, in creating consciousness of ignorance, is\nexhibited not less in the Xenophontic Memorabilia (iv. 2, 40) than\nin various Platonic dialogues, Alkibiades I., The\u00e6t\u00eatus, &c. We\nread it formally proclaimed by Sokrates in the Platonic Apology.\n\nAristotle repeats the assertion contained in the Phil\u00eabus about\nthe list of painless pleasures--[Greek: a)/lupoi ga/r ei)sin ai(/\nte math\u00eamatikai\\], &c. (Ethic. Nikom. x. 2, 1173, b. 16; 7, 1177,\na. 25.) He himself says in another place (vii. 13, 1153, a. 20)\nthat [Greek: to\\ the\u00f4rei=n] sometimes hurts the health, and if he\nhad examined the lives of mathematicians, especially that of\nKepler, he would hardly have imagined that mathematical\ninvestigations have no pains attached to them. He probably means\nthat they are not preceded by painful appetites such as hunger and\nthirst. But they are preceded by acquired impulses or desires,\nwhich in reference to the present question are upon same footing\nas the natural appetites. A healthy and temperate man, leading a\nregular life and in easy circumstances, knows little of hunger and\nthirst as pains: he knows them only as appetites which give relish\nto his periodical meals. It is only when this periodical\nsatisfaction is withheld that his appetite grows to a painful and\ndistressing height. So too the [Greek: philomath\u00ea/s]; his appetite\nfor study, when regularly gratified to an extent consistent with\nhealth and other considerations, is not painful; but it will rise\nto the height of a most distressing privation if he be debarred\nfrom gratifying it, excluded from books and papers, disturbed by\nnoises and intrusions. Kepler, if interdicted from pursuing his\ncalculations, would have been miserable. Jason of Pher\u00e6 was heard\nto say that he felt hungry so long as he was not in possession of\nsupreme power--[Greek: pein\u00ea=|n, o(/te m\u00ea\\ turannoi=], Aristot.\nPolitic. iii. 4, 1277, a. 24; thus intimating that the acquired\nappetite of ambition had in his mind reached the same intensity as\nthe natural appetite of hunger.]\n\n[Footnote 137: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 41-42. In the Ph\u00e6don (p. 60 B)\nSokrates makes a striking remark on the inseparable conjunction of\npleasure with pain generally.]\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates in this dialogue differs little from these\nPleasure-haters.]\n\nHow little the Sokrates of this dialogue differs, at the bottom,\nfrom the fastidious pleasure-haters, may be seen by the passage in\nwhich he proclaims that the life of intelligence alone, without\nthe smallest intermixture of pleasure or pain, is the really\nperfect life: that the Gods and the divine Kosmos have no\nenjoyment and no suffering.[138] The emotional department of human\nnature is here regarded as a degenerate and obstructive appendage:\nso that it was an inauspicious act of the sons of the Demiurgus\n(in the Tim\u00e6us[139]) when they attached the spherical head (the\nminiature parallel of the Kosmos, with the rotatory movements of\nthe immortal soul in the brain within) at the summit of a bodily\ntrunk and limbs, containing the thoracic and abdominal cavities:\nthe thoracic cavity embodying a second and inferior soul with the\nenergetic emotions and passions--the abdominal region serving as\nlodgment to a third yet baser soul with the appetites. From this\nconjunction sprang the corrupting influence of emotional impulse,\ndepriving man of his close parallelism with the Kosmos, and\npoisoning the life of pure exclusive Intelligence--regular,\nunfeeling, undisturbed. The Pleasure-haters, together with\nSpeusippus and others, declared that pleasure and pain were both\nalike enemies to be repelled, and that neutrality was the\ncondition to be aimed at.[140] And such appears to me to be the\ndrift of Plato's reasonings in the Phil\u00eabus: though he relaxes\nsomewhat the severity of his requirements in favour of a few\npleasures, towards which he feels the same indulgence as towards\nHomer in the Republic.[141] When Ethics are discussed, not upon\nprinciples of their own ([Greek: oi)kei=ai a)rchai\\]), but upon\nprinciples of Kosmology or Ontology, no emotion of any kind can\nfind consistent place.\n\n[Footnote 138: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 33 B.]\n\n[Footnote 139: Plato, Tim\u00e6us, pp. 43 A, 44 D, 69 D, 70-71. The\nsame fundamental idea though embodied in a different illustration,\nappears also in the Ph\u00e6don; where Sokrates depicts life as a\nperiod of imprisonment, to which the immortal rational soul is\ncondemned, in a corrupt and defective body, with perpetual stream\nof disturbing sensations and emotions (Ph\u00e6don, pp. 64-65).\n\nAristotle observes, De Anim\u00e2, i. p. 407, b. 2:--[Greek: e)pi/ponon\nde\\ kai\\ to\\ memi/chthai t\u00f4=| s\u00f4/mati m\u00ea\\ duna/menon\na)poluth\u00ea=nai, kai\\ prose/ti pheukto/n, ei)/per be/ltion t\u00f4=| n\u00f4=|\nm\u00ea\\ meta\\ s\u00f4/matos ei)=nai, katha/per ei)/\u00f4the/ te le/gesthai kai\\\npolloi=s sundokei=.]\n\nWe find in one of the Fragments of Cicero, quoted by Augustin from\nthe lost work Hortensius (p. 485, ed. Orelli):--\"An vero, inquit,\nvoluptates corporis expetend\u00e6, qu\u00e6 ver\u00e9 et graviter dict\u00e6 sunt \u00e0\nPlatone illecebr\u00e6 et esc\u00e6 malorum? Quis autem bon\u00e2 mente pr\u00e6ditus,\nnon mallet nullas omnino nobis \u00e0 natur\u00e2 voluptates esse datas?\"\nThis is the same doctrine as what is ascribed to Speusippus.]\n\n[Footnote 140: Aristot. Ethic. Nikom. vii. 14, p. 1153, b. 5; x.\n2, p. 1173, a. 8; Aulus Gellius, ix. 5. \"Speusippus vetusque omnis\nAcademia voluptatem et dolorem duo mala esse dicunt opposita inter\nse: bonum autem esse quod utriusque medium foret.\"\n\nCompare Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 43 D-E, 33 B.\n\nTo whom does Plato here make allusion, under the general title of\nthe Fastidious ([Greek: oi( duscherei=s]) Pleasure-haters?\nSchleiermacher (note to his translation, p. 487), Stallbaum, and\nmost critics down to Dr. Badham inclusive, are of opinion, that he\nalludes to Antisthenes--among whose _dicta_ we certainly read\ndeclarations expressing positive aversion to pleasure--[Greek:\nmanei/\u00ean ma=llon \u00ea)\\ \u00ea(sthei/\u00ean] Diog. L. vi. 3; compare ix. 101,\nand Winckelmann, Frag. Antisthen. xii. Mr. Poste, on the contrary,\nthinks it improbable that Antisthenes is alluded to (see p. 80 of\nhis Phil\u00eabus). I confess that I think so too. Mr. Poste points out\nthat these [Greek: duscherei=s] are characterised by Plato (p. 44\nB), as [Greek: ma/la deinou\\s legome/nous peri\\ phu/sin]:--whereas\nwe are informed that speculations on [Greek: phu/sis] were\nneglected by Antisthenes, who confined his attention to [Greek:\nta\\ \u00ea)thika/]. This is a strong reason for believing that\nAntisthenes cannot be here meant; and there are some other reasons\nalso.\n\nFirst, in describing the [Greek: duscherei=s], Plato notes it as\none among their attributes, that they _hold in thorough\ndetestation the indecorous pleasures_ ([Greek: ta\\s t\u00f4=n\na)sch\u00eamo/n\u00f4n \u00ea(dona/s, a(\\s ou(\\s ei)/pomen duscherei=s misou=si\npantel\u00f4=s], p. 46 A). Now this is surely not likely to have been\naffirmed about Antisthenes. It was the conspicuous characteristic\nof the Cynic sect, begun by Antisthenes, and carried still farther\nby his pupil Diogenes, that they reduced to its minimum the\ndistinction between the decorous and the indecorous.\n\nNext, we may observe that these [Greek: duscherei=s], whoever they\nwere, are spoken of with much respect by Plato, even while he\ncombats their doctrine (p. 44 C). I think it not likely that he\nwould have spoken thus of Antisthenes. We are told that there\nprevailed between the two a great and reciprocal acrimony. And\nthis sentiment is manifested in the Sophist\u00eas (p. 251 B), where\nthe opponents whom Plato is refuting are described with the most\ncontemptuous bitterness--and where Schleiermacher, and the critics\ngenerally, declare that he alludes to Antisthenes. The passage in\nthe Sophist\u00eas represents, in my judgment, the probable sentiment\nof Plato towards Antisthenes: the passage in the Phil\u00eabus is at\nvariance with it.\n\nI imagine that the [Greek: duscherei=s] to whom Plato makes\nallusion in the Phil\u00eabus, are the persons from whom his nephew and\nsuccessor Speusippus derived the doctrine declared in the first\nportion of this note. The \"vetus omnia Academia\" of Aulus Gellius\nis an exaggerated phrase; but many of the old Academy, or\ncompanions of Plato, probably held the theory that pleasure was\nonly one form of evil,--especially the pythagorising _Platonici_,\nadopting the tendencies of Plato himself in his old age. That\nSpeusippus was among the borrowers from the Pythagoreans, we know\nfrom Aristotle (Eth. Nikom. i. 4, 1096, b. 8).\n\nNow the Pythagorean canon of life, like the Orphic (both of them\nsupposed by Herodotus to be derived in great part from Egypt--ii.\n81), was distinguished by a multiplicity of abstinences, disgusts,\nantipathies, in respect to alimentation and other physical\ncircumstances of life--which were held to be of the most\nimperative force and necessity; so that offences against them were\nof all others the most intolerable. A remarkable fragment of the\n[Greek: Kr\u00ea=tes] of Euripides (ed. Dind., vol. ii. p. 912)\ndescribes a variety of this _purism_ analogous to the Orphic\nand Pythagorean:--[Greek: Pa/lleuka d' e)/ch\u00f4n ei)/mata, pheu/g\u00f4\nge/nesi/n te bro/t\u00f4n, kai\\ nekroth\u00ea/k\u00eas ou) chrimpto/menos; t\u00ea\\n\nt' e)mpsu/ch\u00f4n br\u00f4=sin e)dest\u00f4=n pephu/lagmai.] Compare Eurip.\nHippol. 957; Alexis Comicus, ap. Athen\u00e6, iv. p. 161. See the work\nof M. Alfred Maury, Histoire des Religions de la Gr\u00e8ce Antique,\nvol. iii. pp. 368-384.\n\nIt appears to me that the [Greek: duscherei=s], to whom Plato\nalludes in the Phil\u00eabus, were most probably pythagorising friends\nof his own; who, adopting a ritual of extreme rigour,\ndistinguished themselves by the violence of their antipathies\ntowards [Greek: ta\\s \u00ea(dona\\s ta\\s t\u00f4=n a)sch\u00eamo/n\u00f4n]. Plato\nspeaks of them with respect; partly because ethical theorists, who\ndenounce _pleasure_, are usually characterised in reverential\nterms, as persons of exalted principle, even by those who think\ntheir reasonings inconclusive; partly because these men only\npushed the consequences of Plato's own reasonings, rather farther\nthan Plato himself did. In fact they were more consistent than\nPlato was: for the principles laid down in the Phil\u00eabus, if\ncarried out strictly, would go to the exclusion of all\npleasures--not less of the few which he tolerates, than of the many\nwhich he banishes.\n\nThese pythagorising _Platonici_ might well be termed [Greek:\ndeinoi\\ peri\\ phu/sin]. They paid much attention to the\ninterpretation of nature, though they did so according to a\nnumerical and geometrical symbolism.]\n\n[Footnote 141: Plato, Republic, x. p. 607.]\n\n[Side-note: Forced conjunction of Kosmology and Ethics--defect of\nthe Phil\u00eabus.]\n\nIn my judgment, this is one main defect pervading the Platonic\nPhil\u00eabus--the forced conjunction between Kosmology and Ethics--the\nviolent pressure employed to force Pleasures and Pains into the\nsame classifying framework as cognitive Beliefs--the true and the\nfalse. In respect to the various pleasures, the dialogue contains\nmany excellent remarks, the value of which is diminished by the\npurpose to which they are turned.[142] One of Plato's main\nbatteries is directed against the intense, extatic, momentary\nenjoyments, which he sets in contrast against the gentle, serene,\noften renewable.[143] That the former are often purchasable only\nat the cost of a distempered condition of body and mind, which\nought to render them objects shunned rather than desired by a\nreasonable man--this is a doctrine important to inculcate: but\nnothing is gained by applying the metaphorical predicate _false_,\neither to them, or to the other classes of mixed pleasures, &c.,\nwhich Plato discountenances under the same epithet. By thus\ncondemning pleasures in wholesale and in large groups, we not only\nset aside the innocuous as well as others, but we also leave\nunapplied, or only half applied, that principle of Measure or\nCalculation which Plato so often extols as the main item in Summum\nBonum.\n\n[Footnote 142: We read in Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric (Book\ni. ch. 7, pp. 168-170) some very good remarks on the erroneous and\nequivocal assertions which identify Truth and Good--a thesis on\nwhich various Platonists have expended much eloquence. Dr.\nCampbell maintains the just distinction between the Emotions and\nWill on one side, and the Understanding on the other.\n\n\"Passion\" (he says) \"is the mover to action, Reason is the guide.\nGood is the object of the Will; Truth the object of the\nUnderstanding.\"]\n\n[Footnote 143: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 45 D. [Greek: e)n u(/brei\nmei/zous \u00ea(dona/s, ou) plei/ous le/g\u00f4], &c.\n\nSo in the Republic, also, [Greek: \u00ea(don\u00ea\\ u(perba/llousa] is\ndeclared to be inconsistent with [Greek: s\u00f4phrosu/n\u00ea] (iii. 402\nE).]\n\n[Side-note: Directive sovereignty of Measure--how explained and\napplied in the Protagoras.]\n\nIn this dialogue as well as others, Measure is thus exalted, and\nexalted with emphasis, at the final conclusion: but it is far less\nclearly and systematically applied, as far as human beings are\nconcerned, than in the Protagoras. The Sokrates of the Protagoras\ndoes not recognise any pleasures as false--nor any class of\npleasures as absolutely unmixed with pain: he does not set\npleasure in pointed opposition to the avoidance of pain, nor the\nintense momentary pleasures to the gentle and more durable. He\nconsiders that the whole course of life is a perpetual\nintermixture of pleasures and pains, in proportions variable and\nto a certain extent modifiable: that each item in both lists has\nits proper value, commensurable with the others; that the purpose\nof a well-ordered life consists, in rendering the total sum of\npleasure as great, and the total sum of pain as small, as each\nman's case admits: that avoidance of pain and attainment of\npleasure are co-ordinate branches of this one comprehensive End.\nHe farther declares that men are constantly liable to err by false\nremembrances, estimates, and comparisons, of pleasures and pains\npast--by false expectations of pleasures and pains to come: that\nthe whole security of life lies in keeping clear of such error--in\nright comparison of these items and right choice between them:\nthat therefore the full sovereign controul of each man's life must\nbe vested in the Measuring Science or Calculating\nIntelligence.[144] Not only all comprehensive sovereignty, but\nalso ever-active guidance, is postulated for this Measuring\nScience: while at the same time its special function, and the\nitems to which it applies, are more clearly defined than in any\nother Platonic dialogue. If a man be so absorbed by the idea of an\nintense momentary pleasure or pain, as to forget or disregard\naccompaniments or consequences of an opposite nature, greatly\noverbalancing it--this is an error committed from default of the\nMeasuring Science: but it is only one among many errors arising\nfrom the like deficiency. Nothing is required but the Measuring\nScience or Intelligence, to enable a man to make the best of those\ncircumstances in which he may be placed: this is true of all men,\nunder every variety of place and circumstances. Measure is not the\nGood, but the one condition which is constant as well as\nindispensable to any tolerable approach towards Good.\n\n[Footnote 144: This argument is carried on by Sokrates from p. 351\nuntil the close of the Protagoras, p. 357 A. [Greek: e)peid\u00ea\\ de\\\n\u00ea(don\u00ea=s te kai\\ lu/p\u00eas e)n o)rth\u00ea=| _t\u00ea=| ai(re/sei e)pha/n\u00ea\n\u00ea(mi=n \u00ea( s\u00f4t\u00eari/a tou= bi/ou ou)=sa_, tou= te ple/onos kai\\\ne)la/ttonos kai\\ mei/zonos kai\\ smikroterou= kai\\ por)r(\u00f4te/r\u00f4\nkai\\ e)ggute/r\u00f4, a)=ra pr\u00f4=ton me\\n _ou) metr\u00eatik\u00ea\\ phai/netai_,\nu(perbol\u00ea=s te kai\\ e)ndei/as ou)=sa kai\\ i)so/t\u00eatos pro\\s\na)ll\u00ea/las ske/psis? . . . E)pei\\ de\\ metr\u00eatik\u00ea/, a)na/gk\u00ea| d\u00ea/pou\nte/chn\u00ea kai\\ e)pist\u00ea/m\u00ea.]\n\nYet Plato in the Phil\u00eabus, imputing to the Hedonistic theory that\nit sets aside all idea of measure, regulation, limit, advances as\nan argument in the case, that Pleasure and Pain in their own\nnature have no limit (Phil\u00eabus, pp. 25-26 B, 27 E. Compare Dr.\nBadham's note, p. 30 of his edition).\n\nThe imputation is unfounded, and the argument without application,\nin regard to the same theory as expounded by Sokrates in the\nProtagoras.\n\nAt the end of the Phil\u00eabus (p. 67 B) Plato makes Sokrates exclaim,\n\"We cannot put Pleasure first among the items of Good, even though\nall oxen, horses, and other beasts affirm it\". This rhetorical\nflourish is altogether misplaced in the Phil\u00eabus: for Plato had\nalready specified it as one of the conditions of the Good, That it\nmust be acceptable and must give satisfaction to all animals, and\neven to all plants (pp. 22 B, 60 C), as well as to men.]\n\n[Side-note: How explained in Phil\u00eabus--no statement to what items\nit is applied.]\n\nIn the Phil\u00eabus, too, Measure--The Exact Quantum--The Exact\nMoment--are proclaimed as the chief item in the complex\ncalled--The Good.[145] But to what Items does Sokrates intend the\nmeasure to be applied? Not certainly to pleasures: the comparison of\nquantity between one pleasure and another is discarded as useless\nor misleading, and the comparison of quality alone is\nadmitted--_i. e._, true and false: the large majority of human pleasures\nbeing repudiated in the lump as false, and a small remnant only\nbeing tolerated, on the allegation that they are true. Nor, again,\nis the measure applied to pains: for though Plato affirms that a\nlife altogether without pains (as without pleasures) would be the\ntruly divine Ideal, yet he never tells us that the Measuring\nIntelligence is to be made available in the comparison and choice\nof pains, and in avoidance of the greater by submitting to the\nless. Lastly, when we look at the concession made in this dialogue\nto Gorgias and his art, we find that Plato no longer claims for\nhis Good or Measure any directive function, or any paramount\ninfluence, as to utility, profit, reputation, or the greater ends\nwhich men usually pursue in life:[146] he claims for it only the\nprivilege of satisfying the aspiration for truth, in minds wherein\nsuch aspiration is preponderant over all others.\n\n[Footnote 145: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 66 A. [Greek: me/tron--to\\\nme/trion--to\\ kai/rion].]\n\n[Footnote 146: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 58 B-D.]\n\nComparing the Phil\u00eabus with the Protagoras, therefore, we see that\nthough, in both, Measuring Science or Intelligence is proclaimed\nas supreme, the province assigned to it in the Phil\u00eabus is\ncomparatively narrow. Moreover the practical side or activities of\nlife (which are prominent in the Protagoras) appear in the\nPhil\u00eabus thrust into a corner; where scanty room is found for them\non ground nearly covered by the speculative, or theorising,\ntruth-seeking, pursuits. Practical reason is forced into the same\ncategories as theoretical.\n\nThe classification of _true_ and _false_ is (as I have already\nremarked) unsuitable for pleasures and pains. We have now to see\nhow Plato applies it to cognitions, to which it really belongs.\n\n[Side-note: Classification of true and false--how Plato applies it\nto Cognitions.]\n\nThe highest of these Cognitions is set apart as Dialectic or\nOntology: the Object of which is, Ens or Entia, eternal, ever the\nsame and unchangeable, ever unmixed with each other: while the\ncorresponding Subject is, Reason, Intelligence, Wisdom, by which\nit is apprehended and felt. In this Science alone reside perfect\nTruth and Purity. Where the Objects are shifting, variable, mixed\nor confounded together, there Reason cannot apply herself; no pure\nor exact truth can be attained.[147] These unchangeable Entities\nare what in other dialogues Plato terms Ideas or Forms--a term\nscarcely used in the Phil\u00eabus.\n\n[Footnote 147: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 59 C. [Greek: \u00f4(s \u00ea)\\ peri\\\ne)kei=na e)/sth' \u00ea(mi=n to/ te be/baion kai\\ to\\ katharo\\n kai\\\nto\\ a)l\u00eathe\\s kai\\ o(\\ d\u00ea\\ le/gomen ei)likrine/s, peri\\ ta\\ a)ei\\\nkata\\ ta\\ au)ta\\ \u00f4(sau/t\u00f4s a)mikto/tata e)/chonta--\u00ea)\\ deute/r\u00f4s\ne)kei/n\u00f4n o(/ ti ma/lista/ e)sti xuggene/s; ta\\ d' a)/lla pa/nta\ndeu/tera/ te kai\\ u(/stera lekte/on.] 62 A: [Greek: phron\u00f4=n\na)/nthr\u00f4pos _au(t\u00ea=s peri\\ dikaiosu/n\u00eas_, o(/, ti e)/sti, kai\\\nlo/gon e)/ch\u00f4n e(po/menon t\u00f4=| noei=n . . . ku/klou me\\n kai\\\nsphai/ras au)t\u00ea=s t\u00ea=s thei/as to\\n lo/gon e)/ch\u00f4n.]]\n\nThough pure truth belongs exclusively to Dialectic and to the\nObjects thereof, there are other Sciences which, having more or\nless of affinity to Dialectic, may thus be classified according to\nthe degree of such affinity. Mathematics approach most nearly to\nDialectic. Under Mathematics are included the Sciences or Arts of\nnumbering, measuring, weighing--Arithmetic, Metr\u00eatic,\nStatic--which are applied to various subordinate arts, and impart to\nthese latter all the scientific guidance and certainty which is found\nin them. Without Arithmetic, the subordinate arts would be little\nbetter than vague guesswork or knack. But Plato distinguishes two\nvarieties of Arithmetic and Metr\u00eatic: one purely theoretical,\nprosecuted by philosophers, and adapted to satisfy the love of\nabstract truth--the other applied to some department of practice,\nand employed by the artist as a guide to the execution of his\nwork. Theoretical Arithmetic is characterised by this feature,\nthat it assumes each unit to be equal, like, and interchangeable\nwith every other unit: while practical Arithmetic adds together\nconcrete realities, whether like and equal to each other or\nnot.[148]\n\n[Footnote 148: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 56 E.]\n\nIt is thus that the theoretical geometer and arithmetician, though\nnot coming up to the full and pure truth of Dialectic, is\nnevertheless nearer to it than the carpenter or the ship-builder,\nwho apply the measure to material objects. But the carpenter,\nship-builder, architect, &c., do really apply measure, line, rule,\n&c.: they are therefore nearer to truth than other artists, who\napply no measure at all. To this last category belong the musical\ncomposer, the physician, the husbandman, the pilot, the military\ncommander, neither of whom can apply to their processes either\nnumeration or measurement: all of them are forced to be contented\nwith vague estimate, conjecture, a practised eye and ear.[149]\n\n[Footnote 149: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 56 A-B.]\n\n[Side-note: Valuable principles of this classification--difference\nwith other dialogues.]\n\nThe foregoing classification of Sciences and Arts is among the\nmost interesting points in the Phil\u00eabus. It coincides to a great\ndegree with that which we read in the sixth and seventh books of\nthe Republic, though it is also partially different: it differs\ntoo in some respects from doctrines advanced in other dialogues.\nThus we find here (in the Phil\u00eabus) that the science or art of the\nphysician, the pilot, the general, &c., is treated as destitute of\nmeasure and as an aggregate of unscientific guesses: whereas in\nthe Gorgias[150] and elsewhere, these are extolled as genuine\narts, and are employed to discredit Rhetoric by contrast. Again,\nall these arts are here placed lower in the scientific scale than\nthe occupations of the carpenter or the ship-builder, who possess\nand use some material measures. But these latter, in the\nRepublic,[151] are dismissed with the disparaging epithet of\nsnobbish ([Greek: ba/nausoi]) and deemed unworthy of\nconsideration.\n\n[Footnote 150: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 501 A, 518 A. Compare Republic,\ni. pp. 341-342.]\n\n[Footnote 151: Plato, Republic, vii. p. 522 B.]\n\nDialectic appears here exalted to the same pre-eminence which is\nassigned to it in the Republic--as the energy of the pure\nIntellect, dealing with those permanent real Essences which are\nthe objects of Intellect alone, intelligible only and not visible.\nThe distinction here drawn by Plato between the theoretical and\npractical arithmetic and geometry, compared with numeration or\nmensuration of actual objects of sense--is also remarkable in two\nways: first, as it marks his departure from the historical\nSokrates, who recognised the difference between the two, but\ndiscountenanced the theoretical as worthless:[152] next as it\nbrings clearly to view, the fundamental assumption or hypothesis\nupon which abstract arithmetic proceeds--the concept of units all\nperfectly like and equal. That this _is_ an assumption (always\ndeparting more or less from the facts of sense)--and that upon its\nbeing conceded depends the peculiar certainty and accuracy of\narithmetical calculation--was an observation probably then made\nfor the first time; and not unnecessary to be made even now, since\nit is apt to escape attention. It is enunciated clearly both here\nand in the Republic.[153]\n\n[Footnote 152: Xenophon, Memorab. iv. 7, 2-8. The contrast drawn\nin this chapter of the Memorabilia appears to me to coincide\npretty exactly with that which is taken in the Phil\u00eabus, though\nthe preference is reversed. Dr. Badham (p. 78) and Mr. Poste (pp.\n106-113) consider Plato as pointing to a contrast between pure and\napplied Mathematics: which I do not understand to be his meaning.\nThe distinction taken by Aristotle in the passage cited by Mr.\nPoste is different, and does really designate Pure and Applied\nMathematics. Mr. Poste would have found a better comparison in\nEthic. Nikom. i. 7, 1098, a. 29.]\n\n[Footnote 153: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 56 E. [Greek: oi( d' ou)k a)/n\npote au)toi=s sunakolouth\u00ea/seian, ei) m\u00ea\\ mona/da mona/dos\ne(ka/st\u00eas t\u00f4=n muri/\u00f4n m\u00eademi/an a)/ll\u00ean a)/ll\u00eas diaphe/rousa/n\ntis th\u00ea/sei]--where it is formally proclaimed as an assumption or\npostulate. See Republic, vii. pp. 525-526, vi. p. 510 C.\n\nMr. John Stuart Mill thus calls attention to the same remark in\nhis instructive chapters on Demonstration and Necessary Truth\n(System of Logic, Book ii. ch. vi. sect. 3).\n\n\"The inductions of Arithmetic are of two sorts: first, those that\nwe have just expounded, such as One and One are Two, Two and One\nare Three, &c., which may be called the definitions of the various\nnumbers, in the improper or geometrical sense of the word\nDefinition; and, secondly, the two following Axioms. The sums of\nEquals are equal, the differences of Equals are equal.\n\n\"These axioms, and likewise the so-called Definitions, are (as\nalready shown) results of induction: true of all objects\nwhatsoever, and as it may seem, exactly true, without the\nhypothetical assumption of unqualified truth where an\napproximation to it is all that exists. On more accurate\ninvestigation, however, it will be found that even in this case,\nthere is one hypothetical element in the ratiocination. In all\npropositions concerning numbers a condition is implied without\nwhich none of them would be true, and that condition is an\nassumption which may be false. The condition is that 1 = 1: that\nall the numbers are numbers of the same or of equal units. Let\nthis be doubtful, and not one of the propositions in arithmetic\nwill hold true. How can we know that one pound and one pound make\ntwo pounds, if one of the pounds may be troy and the other\navoirdupois? They may not make two pounds of either or of any\nweight. How can we know that a forty-horse power is always equal\nto itself, unless we assume that all horses are of equal strength?\nOne actual pound weight is not exactly equal to another, nor one\nmile's length to another; a nicer balance or more exact measuring\ninstruments would always detect some difference.\"]\n\nThe long preliminary discussion of the Phil\u00eabus thus brings us to\nthe conclusion--That a descending scale of value, relatively to\ntruth and falsehood, must be recognised in cognitions as well as\nin pleasures: many cognitions are not entirely true, but tainted\nin different degrees by error and falsehood: most pleasures also,\ninstead of being true and pure, are alloyed by concomitant pains\nor delusions or both: moreover, all the intense pleasures are\nincompatible with Measure, or a fixed standard,[154] and must\ntherefore be excluded from the category of Good.\n\n[Footnote 154: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, pp. 52 D--57 B.]\n\n[Side-note: Close of the Phil\u00eabus--Graduated elements of Good.]\n\nIn arranging the quintuple scale of elements or conditions of the\nGood, Plato adopts the following descending order: I report them\nas well as I can, for I confess that I understand them very\nimperfectly.\n\n1. Measure; that which conforms to Measure and to proper season:\nwith everything else analogous, which we can believe to be of\neternal nature.--These seem to be unchangeable Forms or Ideas,\nwhich are here considered objectively, apart from any percipient\nSubject affected by them.[155]\n\n2. The Symmetrical, Beautiful, Perfect, Sufficient, &c.--These\nwords seem to denote the successive manifestations of the same\nafore-mentioned attributes; but considered both objectively and\nsubjectively, as affecting and appreciated by some percipient.\n\n3. Intelligent or Rational Mind--Here the Subject is brought in by\nitself.\n\n4. Sciences, Cognitions, Arts, Right Opinions, &c.--Here we have\nthe intellectual manifestations of the Subject, but of a character\ninferior to No. 3, descending in the scale of value relatively to\ntruth.\n\n5. Lastly come the small list of true and painless\npleasures.--These, being not intellectual at all, but merely emotional\n(some as accompaniments of intellectual, others of sensible, processes),\nare farther removed from Good and Measure than even No. 4--the\nopining or uncertain phases of the intellect.[156]\n\nThe four first elements belong to the Kosmos as well as to man:\nfor the Kosmos has an intelligent soul. The fifth marks the\nemotional nature of man.\n\n[Footnote 155: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 66 A.\n\nThe Appendix B, subjoined by Mr. Poste to his edition of the\nPhil\u00eabus (pp. 149-165), is a very valuable Dissertation, comparing\nand explaining the abstract theories of Plato and Aristotle. He\nremarks, justly contrasting the Phil\u00eabus with the Tim\u00e6us, as to\nthe doctrine of Limit: \"In the Phil\u00eabus the limit is always\nquantitative. Quality, including all the elementary forces, is the\nsubstratum that has to receive the quantitative determination.\nJust, however, as Quality underlies quantity, we can conceive a\nsubstratum underlying quality. This Plato in the Tim\u00e6us calls the\nVehicle or Receptacle ([Greek: to\\ dektiko/n]), and Aristotle in\nhis writings the primary Matter ([Greek: pr\u00f4/t\u00ea u(/l\u00ea]). The\nPhil\u00eabus, however, does not carry the analysis so far. It regards\nquality as the ultimate matter, the substratum to be moulded and\nmeasured out in due quantity by the quantitative limit\" (p. 160).\n\nI doubt whether the Platonic idea of [Greek: to\\ me/trion] is\nrightly expressed by Mr. Poste's translation--a _mean_ (p. 158).\nIt rather implies, even in Politikus, p. 306, to which he refers,\nsomething adjusted according to a positive standard or conformable\nto an assumed measure or perfection: there being undoubtedly error\nin excess above it and error in defect below it--but the standard\nbeing not necessarily mid-way between the two. The Pythagoreans\nused [Greek: kairo\\s] in a very large sense, describing it as the\nFirst Cause of Good. Proklus ad Plat. Alkib. i. p. 270-272,\nCousin.]\n\n[Footnote 156: Neither the Introduction of Schleiermacher (p. 134\nseq.), nor the elucidation of Trendelenburg (De Philebi Consilio,\npp. 16-23), nor the Prolegomena of Stallbaum (pp. 76-77 seq.),\nsucceed in making this obscure close of the Phil\u00eabus clearly\nintelligible. Stallbaum, after indicating many commentators who\nhave preceded him, observes respecting the explanations which they\nhave given: \"Ea sunt adeo varia atque inter se diversa, ut\ntanquam advers\u00e2 fronte inter ipsa pugnare dicenda sint\" (p. 72).]\n\nI see no sufficient ground for the hypothesis of Stallbaum and\nsome other critics, who, considering the last result abrupt and\nunsatisfactory, suspect that Plato either intended to add more, or\ndid add more which has not come down to us.[157] Certainly the\nresult (as in many other Platonic dialogues) is inconsiderable,\nand the instruction derivable from the dialogue must be picked out\nby the reader himself from the long train of antecedent reasoning.\nThe special point emphatically brought out at the end is the\ndiscredit thrown upon the intense pleasures, and the exclusion of\nthem from the list of constituents of Good. If among Plato's\ncontemporaries who advocated the Hedonistic doctrine, there were\nany who laid their main stress upon these intense pleasures, he\nmay be considered to have replied to them under the name of\nPhil\u00eabus. But certainly this result might have been attained with\na smaller array of preliminaries.\n\n[Footnote 157: Stallbaum, Proleg. p. 10.]\n\n[Side-note: Contrast between the Phil\u00eabus and the Ph\u00e6drus, and\nSymposion, in respect to Pulchrum, and intense Emotions\ngenerally.]\n\nMoreover, in regard to these same intense emotions we have to\nremark that Plato in other dialogues holds a very different\nopinion respecting them--or at least respecting some of them. We\nhave seen that at the close of the Phil\u00eabus he connects Bonum and\nPulchrum principally, and almost exclusively, with the Reason; but\nwe find him, in the Ph\u00e6drus and Symposion, taking a different,\nindeed an opposite, view of the matter; and presenting Bonum and\nPulchrum as objects, not of the unimpassioned and calculating\nReason, but of ardent aspiration and even of extatic love. Reason\nis pronounced to be insufficient for attaining them, and a\npeculiar vein of inspiration a species of madness, _eo nomine_--is\npostulated in its place. The life of the philosophical aspirant is\ncompared to that of the passionate lover, beginning at first with\nattachment to some beautiful youth, and rising by a gradual\nprocess of association, so as to transfer the same fervent\nattachment to his mental companionship, as a stimulus for\ngenerating intellectual sympathies and recollections of the world\nof Ideas. He is represented as experiencing in the fullest measure\nthose intense excitements and disturbances which Eros alone can\nprovoke.[158] It is true that Plato here repudiates sensual\nexcitements. In this respect the Ph\u00e6drus and Symposion agree with\nthe Phil\u00eabus. But as between Reason and Emotion, they disagree\nwith it altogether: for they dwell upon ideal excitements of the\nmost vehement character. They describe the highest perfection of\nhuman nature as growing out of the better variety of madness--out\nof the glowing inspirations of Eros: a state replete with the most\nintense alternating emotions of pain and pleasure. How opposite is\nthe tone of Sokrates in the Phil\u00eabus, where he denounces all the\nintense pleasures as belonging to a distempered condition--as\nadulterated with pain, and as impeding the tranquil process of\nReason--and where he tolerates only such gentle pleasures as are\nat once unmixed with pain and easily controuled by Reason! In the\nPh\u00e6drus and Symposion, we are told that Bonum and Pulchrum are\nattainable only under the stimulus of Eros, through a process of\nemotion, feverish and extatic, with mingled pleasure and pain: and\nthat they crown such aspirations, if successfully prosecuted, with\nan emotional recompense, or with pleasure so intense as to surpass\nall other pleasures. In the Phil\u00eabus, Bonum and Pulchrum come\nbefore us as measure, proportion, seasonableness: as approachable\nonly through tranquil Reason--addressing their ultimate recompense\nto Reason alone--excluding both vehement agitations and intense\npleasures--and leaving only a corner of the mind for gentle and\nunmixed pleasures.[159]\n\n[Footnote 158: See in the Symposion the doctrines of the\nprophetess Diotima, as recited by Sokrates, pp. 204-212: also the\nPh\u00e6drus, the second [Greek: e)gk\u00f4/mion] delivered by Sokrates upon\nEros, pp. 36-60, repeated briefly and confirmed by Sokrates, pp.\n77-78.\n\nCompare these with the latter portion of the Phil\u00eabus; the\ndifference of spirit and doctrine will appear very manifest.\n\nTo illustrate the contrast between the Ph\u00e6drus and the Phil\u00eabus,\nwe may observe that the former compares the excitement and\nirritation of the inspired soul when its wings are growing to\nascend to Bonum and Pulchrum, with the [Greek: kn\u00ea=sis] or\nirritation of the gums when a child is cutting teeth--[Greek: zei=\nou)=n e)n tou/t\u00f4| o(/l\u00ea kai\\ a)nak\u00eaki/ei, kai\\ o(/per to\\ t\u00f4=n\no)dontophuou/nt\u00f4n pa/thos peri\\ tou\\s o)do/ntas gi/gnetai o(/tan\na)/rti phu\u00f4=si kn\u00ea=si/s te kai\\ a)gana/kt\u00easis peri\\ ta\\ ou)=la,\ntau)to\\n d\u00ea\\ pe/ponthen \u00ea( tou= pterophuei=n a)rchome/nou psuch\u00ea/;\nzei= te kai\\ a)ganaktei= kai\\ gargali/zetai phu/ousa ta\\ ptera/]\n(Ph\u00e6drus, p. 251). These are specimens of the strong metaphors\nused by Plato to describe the emotional condition of the mind\nduring its fervour of aspiration towards Bonum and Pulchrum. On\nthe other hand, in the Phil\u00eabus, [Greek: kn\u00ea=sis] and [Greek:\ngargalismo\\s] are noted as manifestations of that distempered\ncondition which produces indeed moments of intense pleasure, but\nis quite inconsistent with Reason and the attainment of Good. See\nPhil\u00eabus, pp. 46 E, 51 D, and Gorgias, p. 494.]\n\n[Footnote 159: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 66.]\n\nThe comparison, here made, of the Phil\u00eabus with the Ph\u00e6drus and\nSymposion, is one among many proofs of the different points of\nview with which Plato, in his different dialogues,[160] handled\nthe same topics of ethical and psychological discussion. And upon\nthis point of dissent, Eudoxus and Epikurus, would have agreed\nwith the Sokrates of the Phil\u00eabus, in deprecating that extatic\nvein of emotion which is so greatly extolled in the Ph\u00e6drus and\nSymposion.\n\n[Footnote 160: Maximus Tyrius remarks this difference (between the\nerotic dialogues of Plato and many of the others) in one of his\ndiscourses about the [Greek: e)r\u00f4tik\u00ea\\] of Sokrates. [Greek:\nOu)de\\n ga\\r au)to\\s au(t\u00f4=| o(/moios o( S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas e)r\u00f4=n t\u00f4=|\ns\u00f4phronou=nti, kai\\ o( e)kpl\u00eatto/menos tou\\s kalou\\s t\u00f4=|\ne)le/gchonti tou\\s a)/phronas], &c. (Diss. xxiv. 5, p. 466 ed.\nReiske).]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII.\n\nMENEXENUS.\n\n\n[Side-note: Persons and situation of the dialogue.]\n\nIn this dialogue the only personages are, Sokrates as an elderly\nman, and Menexenus, a young Athenian of noble family, whom we have\nalready seen as the intimate friend of Lysis, in the dialogue\nknown under the name of Lysis.\n\n[Side-note: Funeral harangue at Athens--Choice of a public\norator--Sokrates declares the task of the public orator to be\neasy--Comic exaggeration of the effects of the harangue.]\n\n_Sokr._--What have you been doing at the Senate-house, Menexenus?\nYou probably think that your course of education and philosophy is\nfinished, and that you are qualified for high political functions.\nYoung as you are, you aim at exercising command over us elders, as\nyour family have always done before you.[1] _Menex._--I shall do\nso, if you advise and allow me, Sokrates: but not otherwise. Now,\nhowever, I came to learn who was the person chosen by the Senate\nto deliver the customary oration at the approaching public funeral\nof the citizens who have fallen in battle. The Senate, however,\nhave adjourned the election until to-morrow: but I think either\nArchinus or Dion will be chosen. _Sokr._--To die in battle is a\nfine thing in many ways.[2] He who dies thus may be poor, but he\nreceives a splendid funeral: he may be of little worth, yet he is\nstill praised in prepared speeches by able orators, who decorate\nhis name with brilliant encomiums, whether deserved or not,\nfascinating all the hearers: extolling us all--not merely the\nslain warrior, but the city collectively, our ancestors, and us\nthe living--so admirably that I stand bewitched when I hear them,\nand fancy myself a greater, nobler, and finer man than I was\nbefore. I am usually accompanied by some strangers, who admire as\nmuch as I do, and who conceive a lofty estimation both of me and\nof the city. The voice of the orator resounds in my ear, and the\nfeeling of pride dwells in my mind, for more than three days;\nduring which interval I fancy myself almost in the islands of the\nblest. I hardly come to myself or recollect where I am, until the\nfourth or fifth day. Such is the force of these orators.\n\n[Footnote 1: Plat. Menex. p. 234 B-C.]\n\n[Footnote 2: Plat. Menex. p. 235 A-B.]\n\n[Side-note: Sokrates professes to have learnt a funeral harangue\nfrom Aspasia, and to be competent to recite it himself. Menexenus\nentreats him to do so.]\n\n_Menex._--You are always deriding the orators, Sokrates.[3]\nHowever, on this occasion I think the orator chosen will have\nlittle chance of success: he will have no time for preparation,\nand will be obliged to speak _impromptu_. _Sokr._--Never fear:\neach of these orators has harangues ready prepared. Besides, there\nis no difficulty here in speaking _impromptu_. If indeed the\npurpose were to praise the Athenians in Peloponnesus, or the\nPeloponnesians at Athens, an excellent orator would be required to\npersuade or to give satisfaction. But when he exhibits before the\nvery hearers whom he praises, there is no great difficulty in\nappearing to be a good speaker.[4] _Menex._--Indeed! What! do you\nthink you would be competent to deliver the harangue yourself, if\nthe Senate were to elect you? _Sokr._--Certainly: and it is no\nwonder that I should be competent to speak, because I have learnt\nrhetoric from Aspasia (an excellent mistress, who has taught many\neminent speakers, and among them Perikles, the most illustrious of\nall), and the harp from Konnus. But any one else, even less\nwell-trained than me--instructed in music by Lamprus, and in rhetoric\nby Antiphon--would still be fully competent to succeed in praising\nAthenians among Athenians. _Menex._--What would you have to say,\nif the duty were imposed upon you?[5] _Sokr._--Probably little or\nnothing of my own. But it was only yesterday that I heard Aspasia\ngoing through a funeral harangue for this very occasion: partly\nsuggestions of the present moment, partly recollections of past\nmatters which had occurred to her when she composed the funeral\nharangue delivered by Perikles. _Menex._--Could you recollect what\nAspasia said? _Sokr._--I should be much to blame if I could not. I\nlearnt it from herself, and was near being beaten because I partly\nforgot it. _Menex._--Why do you not proceed with it then?\n_Sokr._--I fear that my instructress would be displeased, if I were to\npublish her discourse. _Menex._--Do not fear that, but proceed to\nspeak. You will confer the greatest pleasure upon me, whether what\nyou say comes from Aspasia or from any one else. Only proceed.\n_Sokr._--But perhaps you will laugh me to scorn, if I, an elderly\nman, continue still such work of pastime.[6] _Menex._--Not at all:\nI beseech you to speak. _Sokr._--Well, I cannot refuse you.\nIndeed, I could hardly refuse, if you requested me to strip naked\nand dance--since we are here alone.[7]\n\n[Footnote 3: Plat. Menex. p. 235 C. [Greek: A)ei\\ su\\\nprospai/zeis, \u00f4)= S\u00f4/krates, tou\\s r(\u00ea/toras.]]\n\n[Footnote 4: Plat. Menex. p. 235 D.\n\nAristotle refers twice to this dictum as being a true remark made\nby [Greek: S\u00f4kra/t\u00eas e)n t\u00f4=| E)pitaphi/\u00f4|], Rhetoric, i. 9, p.\n1367, b. 8, iii. 14, p. 1415, b. 30.]\n\n[Footnote 5: Plat. Menex. p. 236 A.]\n\n[Footnote 6: Plato, Menex. p. 236 C. [Greek: A)ll' i)/s\u00f4s mou\nkatagela/sei, a)/n soi do/x\u00f4 presbu/t\u00eas \u00f4)\\n e)/ti pai/zein.]]\n\n[Footnote 7: Plat. Menex. pp. 234 C, 236 C.]\n\n[Side-note: Harangue recited by Sokrates.]\n\nSokrates then proceeds to recite a funeral harangue of some length\nwhich continues almost to the end.[8] When he concludes--repeating\nhis declaration that the harangue comes from Aspasia--Menexenus\nobserves, By Zeus, Sokrates, Aspasia is truly enviable, if she, a\nwoman, is competent to compose such discourses as that.\n\n[Footnote 8: Plat. Menex. pp. 236 C, 249 C.]\n\n[Side-note: Compliments of Menexenus after Sokrates has finished,\nboth to the harangue itself and to Aspasia.]\n_Sokr._--If you do not believe me, come along with me, and you\nwill hear it from her own lips. _Menex._--I have often been in\ncompany with Aspasia, and I know what sort of person she is.\n_Sokr._--Well then, don't you admire her? and are you not grateful\nto her for the harangue? _Menex._--I am truly grateful for the\nharangue, to her, or to him, whoever it was that prompted you: and\nmost of all, I am grateful to you for having recited it.\n_Sokr._--Very good. Take care then that you do not betray me. I may\nperhaps be able, on future occasions, to recite to you many other fine\npolitical harangues from her. _Menex._--Be assured that I will not\nbetray you. Only let me hear them. _Sokr._--I certainly will.\n\n[Side-note: Supposed period--shortly after the peace of\nAntalkidas.]\n\nThe interval between these two fragments of dialogue is filled up\nby the recitation of Sokrates: a long funeral harangue in honour\nof deceased warriors, whom the city directs to be thus\ncommemorated. The period is supposed to be not long after the\npeace concluded by Antalkidas in 387 B.C. That peace was imposed\nupon Sparta, Athens, and the other Grecian cities, by the\nimperative rescript of the Persian king: the condition of it being\nan enforcement of universal autonomy, or free separate government\nto each city, small as well as great.[9]\n\n[Footnote 9: See respecting the character of the peace of\nAntalkidas, and the manner in which its conditions were executed,\nmy History of Greece, chap. 76.]\n\n[Side-note: Custom of Athens about funeral harangues. Many such\nharangues existed at Athens, composed by distinguished orators or\nlogographers--Established type of the harangue.]\n\nIt had been long the received practice among the Athenians to\nhonour their fallen warriors from time to time by this sort of\npublic funeral, celebrated with every demonstration of mournful\nrespect: and to appoint one of the ablest and most dignified\ncitizens as public orator on the occasion.[10] The discourse\ndelivered by Perikles, as appointed orator, at the end of the\nfirst Peloponnesian war, has been immortalised by Thucydides, and\nstands as one of the most impressive remnants of Hellenic\nantiquity. Since the occasion recurred pretty often, and since the\norator chosen was always a man already conspicuous,[11] we may be\nsure that there existed in the time of Plato many funeral\nharangues which are now lost: indeed he himself says in this\ndialogue, that distinguished politicians prepared such harangues\nbeforehand, in case the choice of the citizens should fall upon\nthem. And we may farther be sure, amidst the active cultivation of\nrhetoric at Athens--that the rhetorical teachers as well as their\npupils, and the logographers or paid composers of speeches, were\npractised in this variety of oratorical compositions not less than\nin others. We have one of them among the remaining discourses of\nthe logographer Lysias: who could not actually have delivered it\nhimself (since he was not even a citizen)--nor could ever probably\nhave been called upon to prepare one for delivery (since the\ncitizens chosen were always eminent speakers and politicians\nthemselves, not requiring the aid of a logographer)--but who\ncomposed it as a rhetorical exercise to extend his own celebrity.\nIn like manner we find one among the discourses of Demosthenes,\nthough of very doubtful authenticity. The funeral discourse had\nthus come to acquire an established type. Rhetorical teachers had\ncollected and generalised, out of the published harangues before\nthem, certain _loci communes_, religious, patriotic, social,\nhistorical or pseudo-historical, &c., suitable to be employed by\nany new orator.[12] All such _loci_ were of course framed upon the\nactual sentiments prevalent among the majority of Athenians;\nfurnishing eloquent expression for sympathies and antipathies\ndeeply lodged in every one's bosom.\n\n[Footnote 10: Thucyd. ii. 34.]\n\n[Footnote 11: Thucyd. ii. 34. [Greek: o(\\s a)\\n gn\u00f4/m\u00ea| te dok\u00ea=|\nm\u00ea\\ a)xu/netos ei)=nai, kai\\ a)xi\u00f4/mati pro\u00ea/k\u00ea|.]]\n\n[Footnote 12: Aristotel. Rhetoric. i. 5, p. 1360, b. 31, i. 9, p.\n1367. Dionys. Hal. Ars Rhetoric. c. 6, pp. 260-267.\n\n\"Nec enim artibus inventis factum est, ut argumenta inveniremus;\nsed dicta sunt omnia, antequam pr\u00e6ciperentur: mox ea scriptores\nobservata et collecta ediderunt\" (Quintilian, Inst. Or. v. 10).]\n\n[Side-note: Plato in this harangue conforms to the established\ntype--Topics on which he insists.]\n\nThe funeral discourse which we read in the Menexenus is framed\nupon this classical model. It dwells, with emphasis and elegance,\nupon the patriotic common-places which formed the theme of rhetors\ngenerally. Plato begins by extolling the indigenous character of\nthe Athenian population; not immigrants from abroad (like the\nPeloponnesians), but born from the very soil of Attica:[13] which,\nat a time when other parts of the earth produced nothing but\nstrange animals and plants, gave birth to an admirable breed of\nmen, as well as to wheat and barley for their nourishment, and to\nthe olive for assisting their bodily exercises.[14] Attica was\nfrom the beginning favoured by the Gods; and the acropolis had\nbeen an object of competition between Ath\u00ean\u00ea and Poseidon.[15] She\nwas the common and equal mother of all the citizens, who, from\nsuch community of birth and purity of Hellenic origin, had derived\nthe attributes which they had ever since manifested--attachment to\nequal laws among themselves, Panhellenic patriotism, and hatred of\nbarbarians.[16] The free and equal political constitution of\nAthens--called an aristocracy, or presidency of the best men,\nunder the choice and approval of the multitude--as it was and as\nit always had been, is here extolled by Plato, as a result of the\ncommon origin.\n\n[Footnote 13: Plat. Menex. pp. 237-245. 245 D: [Greek: ou) ga/r\nPe/lopes ou)de\\ Ka/dmoi ou)de\\ Ai)/guptoi/ te kai\\ Danaoi\\ ou)de\\\na)/lloi polloi/, phu/sei me\\n ba/rbaroi o)/ntes, no/m\u00f4| de\\\nE(/ll\u00eanes, sunoikou=sin \u00ea(mi=n, a)ll' au)toi\\ E(/ll\u00eanes, ou)\nmixoba/rbaroi oi)kou=men], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Plat. Menex. pp. 237 D, 238 A.]\n\n[Footnote 15: Plat. Menex. p. 237 C.]\n\n[Footnote 16: Plat. Menex. pp. 238 D, 239 A, 245 C-D. 239 A:\n[Greek: \u00ea( i)sogoni/a \u00ea(ma=s \u00ea( kata\\ phu/sin i)sonomi/an\na)nagka/zei z\u00eatei=n kata\\ no/mon, kai\\ m\u00eadeni\\ a)/ll\u00f4| u(pei/kein\na)ll\u00ea/lois \u00ea)\\ a)ret\u00ea=s do/x\u00ea| kai\\ phron\u00ea/se\u00f4s.] 245 D: [Greek:\no(/then katharo\\n to\\ mi=sos e)nte/t\u00eake t\u00ea=| po/lei t\u00ea=s\na)llotri/as phu/se\u00f4s] (_i.e._ of the [Greek: ba/rbaroi]).]\n\nAlluding briefly to the victories over Eumolpus and the Amazons,\nthe orator passes on to the battles of Marathon, Salamis, and\nPlat\u00e6a, which he celebrates with the warmth of an Hellenic\npatriot.[17] He eulogizes the generous behaviour of Athens towards\nthe Greeks, during the interval between the Persian and the\nPeloponnesian wars, contrasting it with the unworthy requital\nwhich she received from Sparta and others. He then glances at the\nevents of the Peloponnesian wars, though colouring them in a\nmanner so fanciful and delusive, that any one familiar with\nThucydides can scarcely recognise their identity--especially in\nregard to the Athenian expedition against Syracuse.[18] He\nprotests against the faithlessness of Sparta, towards the close of\nthe Peloponnesian war, in allying herself with the common\nanti-Hellenic enemy--the Great King--against Athens: and he ascribes\nmainly to this unholy alliance the conquest of Athens at the end\nof the war.[19] The moderation of political parties in Athens,\nwhen the Thirty were put down and the democracy restored, receives\nits due meed of praise: but the peculiar merit claimed for Athens,\nin reference to the public events between 403 B.C. and 387 B.C.,\nis--That she stood alone among Greeks in refusing to fraternise\nwith the Persian King, or to betray to him the Asiatic Greeks.\nAthens had always been prompted by generous feeling, even in spite\nof political interests, to compassionate and befriend the\nweak.[20] The orator dwells with satisfaction on the years\npreceding the peace concluded by Antalkidas; during which years\nAthens had recovered her walls and her ships--had put down the\nSpartan superiority at sea--and had rescued even the Great King\nfrom Spartan force.[21] He laments the disasters of Athenian\nsoldiers at Corinth, through difficulties of the ground--and at\nLech\u00e6um, through treachery. These are the latest political events\nto which he alludes.[22]\n\n[Footnote 17: Plat. Menex. pp. 240-241.]\n\n[Footnote 18: Plat. Menex. pp. 242-243.]\n\n[Footnote 19: Plat. Menex. pp. 243-244.]\n\n[Footnote 20: Plat. Menex. pp. 244-245. 244 E: [Greek: ei)/ tis\nbou/loito t\u00ea=s po/le\u00f4s kat\u00eagor\u00ea=sai dikai/\u00f4s, tou=t' a)\\n mo/non\nle/g\u00f4n o)rth\u00f4=s a)\\n kat\u00eagoroi/\u00ea, \u00f4(s a)ei\\ li/an philoikti/rm\u00f4n\ne)sti/, kai\\ tou= \u00ea(/ttonos therapi/s.] Isokrates also, in the\nOratio Panegyrica (Or. iv.), dwells upon this point, as well as on\nthe pronounced hatred towards [Greek: ba/rbaroi], as standing\nfeatures in the Athenian character (sect. 59-184). The points\ntouched upon in reference to Athens by Isokrates are in the main\nthe same as those brought out by Plato in the Menexenus, only that\nIsokrates makes them subservient to a special purpose, that of\nbringing about an expedition against Persia under the joint\nheadship of Sparta and Athens.]\n\n[Footnote 21: Plat. Menex. p. 245.]\n\n[Footnote 22: Plat. Menex. pp. 245 E, 246 A.]\n\n[Side-note: Consolation and exhortation to surviving relatives.]\n\nHaving thus touched upon the political history of Athens, he turns\nto the surviving relatives--fathers, mothers, children, &c.--of\nthe fallen warriors: addressing to them words of mingled\nconsolation and exhortation. He adopts the fiction of supposing\nthese exhortations to have been suggested to him by the warriors\nthemselves, immediately before entering upon their last\nbattle.[23] This is the most eloquent and impressive portion of\nthe harangue. The orator concludes by a few words from himself,\ninculcating on the elders the duty of resignation, and on the\nyouth that of forward and devoted patriotism.[24]\n\n[Footnote 23: Plat. Menex. pp. 247-248.]\n\n[Footnote 24: Plat. Menex. p. 249 A-C.]\n\n[Side-note: Admiration felt for this harangue, both at the time and\nafterwards.]\n\nThat this oration was much admired, not merely during the lifetime\nof Plato, but also long after his death, we know from the\ntestimony of Cicero; who informs us that it was publicly recited\nevery year on the day when the annual funeral rites were\ncelebrated, in honour of those citizens collectively who had been\nslain in the service of their country.[25] The rhetor\nDionysius[26] recognises the fact of such warm admiration, and\nconcurs generally therein, yet not without reserves. He points out\nwhat he considers defects of thought and expression--ostentatious\ncontrasts and balancing of antithetical clauses, after the manner\nof Gorgias. Yet we may easily believe that the harangue found much\nfavour, and greatly extended the reputation of its author. It\nwould please many readers who took little interest in the Sokratic\ndialectics.\n\n[Footnote 25: Cicero, Orator. c. 44, 151. \"At non Thucydides: ne\nille quidem, haud paullo major scriptor, Plato: nec solum in his\nsermonibus, qui dialogi dicuntur, ubi etiam de industri\u00e2 id\nfaciendum fuit, sed in populari oratione, qu\u00e2 est Athenis laudari\nin concione eos, qui sint in pr\u00e6liis interfecti: qu\u00e6 sic probata\nest, ut eam quotannis, ut scis, illo die recitari necesse sit.\"\n\nSee Plato, Menex. p. 249 B, about these yearly funereal rites, and\nLysias, Epitaph. s. 80.]\n\n[Footnote 26: Dionys. Hal. De Adm. Vi Dic. in Demosth. p. 1027,\ncompared with Ars Rhetoric. c. 6, pp. 260-267.]\n\n[Side-note: Probable motives of Plato in composing it, shortly\nafter he established himself at Athens as a teacher--His\ncompetition with Lysias--Desire for celebrity both as rhetor and\nas dialectician.]\n\nWhen Plato first established himself at Athens as a lecturer\n(about 386 B.C., shortly after the peace made by Antalkidas), he\nwas probably known only by Sokratic dialogues, properly so called:\nwhich Dionysius specifies both as his earliest works and as his\nproper department, wherein he stood unrivalled.[27] In these, his\nopposition to the Rhetors and Sophists was proclaimed: and if, as\nis probable, the Gorgias had been published before that time, he\nhad already declared war, openly as well as bitterly, against the\nwhole art of Rhetoric. But it would be a double triumph for his\ngenius, if, after standing forward as the representative of\nDialectic, and in that character heaping scornful derision on the\nrival art of Rhetoric, as being nothing better than a mere knack\nof juggling and flattery[28]--he were able to show that this did\nnot proceed from want of rhetorical competence, but that he could\nrival or surpass the Rhetors in their own department. Herein lies\nthe purpose of the Menexenus. I agree with Schleiermacher,\nStallbaum, and some other critics,[29] in thinking that it was\nprobably composed not long after the peace of Antalkidas, in\ncompetition with the harangue of Lysias now remaining on the same\nsubject. Though the name of Lysias is not mentioned in the\nMenexenus, yet the rivalry between him and Plato is clearly\nproclaimed in the Platonic Ph\u00e6drus: and the two funeral harangues\ngo so completely over the same ground, that intentional\ncompetition on the part of the latest, is the most natural of all\nhypotheses.\n\n[Footnote 27: Dionys. Hal. ad Cn. Pomp. De Platon. p. 762. [Greek:\ntraphei\\s me\\n e)n toi=s S\u00f4kratikoi=s dialo/gois i)schnota/tois\nou)=si kai\\ a)kribesta/tois, ou) mei/nas d' e)n au)toi=s, a)lla\\\nt\u00ea=s Gorgi/ou kai\\ Thoukudi/dou kataskeu\u00ea=s e)rasthei/s.] Compare\np. 761, the passage immediately preceding, and De Adm. Vi Dicendi\nin Demosthene, pp. 1025-1031.\n\nTo many critics Plato appeared successful in the figurative and\nmetaphorical style--[Greek: deino\\s peri\\ to\\ tropiko/n]. But\nDionysius thinks him very inferior to Demosthenes even on this\npoint, though it was not the strongest point of Demosthenes, whose\nmain purpose was [Greek: o( a)l\u00eathino\\s a)g\u00f4/n] (Dionys. ibid. p.\n1057).]\n\n[Footnote 28: Isokrates, in his last composition (Panathen. Or.\nxii.) written in very old age, shows how keenly he felt the\naspersions of jealous rivals--Sophists less successful than\nhimself--who publicly complained that he despised the lessons of\nthe poets, and thought no teaching worth having except his\nown--[Greek: a)podexame/n\u00f4n de\\ t\u00f4=n periest\u00f4/t\u00f4n t\u00ea\\n diatrib\u00ea\\n\nau)t\u00f4=n, e(/na to\\n tolm\u00earo/teron e)picheir\u00ea=sai e)me\\\ndiaba/llein, le/gonth' \u00f4(s e)g\u00f4\\ pa/nt\u00f4n kataphron\u00f4= \u00f4=n\ntoiou/t\u00f4n, kai\\ ta/s te philosophi/as ta\\s t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n kai\\ ta\\s\npaidei/as a(pa/sas a)nair\u00f4=, kai\\ ph\u00eami\\ pa/ntas l\u00earei=n pl\u00ea\\n\ntou\\s metesch\u00eako/tas t\u00ea=s e)m\u00ea=s diatrib\u00ea=s] (sect. 22). That\nwhich Isokrates complains of these teachers for saying in their\ntalk with each other, the rhetorical teachers would vehemently\ncomplain of in Plato, when he expressed forcibly his contempt for\nrhetoric in the Gorgias and the Ph\u00e6drus. One way of expressing\ntheir resentment would be to affirm that Plato could not compose a\nregular rhetorical discourse; which affirmation Plato would best\ncontradict by composing one in the received manner.]\n\n[Footnote 29: See the Einleitung of Schleiermacher to his\ntranslation of the Menexenus; also Stallbaum, Proleg. ad Menex. p.\n10, and Westermann, Gesch. der Beredtsamkeit, sect. 66, p. 134.]\n\n[Side-note: Menexenus compared with the view of rhetoric presented\nin the Gorgias--Necessity for an orator to conform to established\nsentiments.]\n\nHere then we have Plato exchanging philosophy for \"the knack of\nflattery\"--to use the phrase of the Gorgias. Stallbaum is so\nunwilling to admit this as possible, that he represents the\nPlatonic harangue as a mere caricature, intended to make the\nrhetorical process ridiculous. I dissent from this supposition; as\nI have already dissented from the like supposition of the same\ncritic, in regard to the etymologies of the Kratylus. That Plato\nmight in one dialogue scornfully denounce Rhetoric--and in\nanother, compose an elaborate discourse upon the received\nrhetorical type--is noway inconsistent with the general theory\nwhich I frame to myself, about the intellectual character and\ndistinct occasional manifestations of Plato.[30] The funeral\nharangue in the Menexenus proves that, whatever he thought about\nRhetoric generally, he was anxious to establish his title as a\ncompetent rhetorical composer: it proves farther that he was equal\nto Lysias in the epideiktic department, though inferior to\nPerikles. It affords a valuable illustration of that general\ndoctrine which the Platonic Sokrates lays down in the\nGorgias--That no man can succeed as a rhetor, unless he is in full\nharmony of spirit and cast of mind with his auditors; or unless he\ndwells upon and enforces sympathies, antipathies, and convictions,\nalready established in their minds.[31] A first-rate orator like\nPerikles, touching the chords of cherished national sentiment,\nmight hope, by such a discourse as that which we read in\nThucydides, \"adjecisse aliquid recept\u00e6 religioni\".[32] No public\norator ever appointed by the Senate to pronounce the funeral\nharangue, could have expatiated more warmly than Plato has here\ndone, upon the excellence of the Athenian constitution, and upon\nthe admirable spirit which had animated Athenian politics, both\nforeign and domestic. Plato falls far short, indeed, of the weight\nand grandeur, the impressive distinctness of specification, the\nlarge sympathies, intellectual as well as popular--with which\nthese topics are handled by Perikles in Thucydides: but his eulogy\nis quite as highflown and unreserved.\n\n[Footnote 30: Compare also the majestic picture which Plato\npresents of the ancient character and exploits of the early\nAthenians, in the mythe commenced in the Tim\u00e6us (pp. 23-24),\nprosecuted in the Kritias (pp. 113-114 seq.), but left by the\nauthor incomplete.]\n\n[Footnote 31: Plato, Gorgias, p. 510 C; see above, ch. xxiv. p.\n359.**\n\nThis appears to me the real truth, subject to very rare\nexceptions. But I do not think it true to say, as the Platonic\nSokrates is made to declare in the Menexenus, that it is an easy\nmatter to obtain admiration when you praise Athens among\nAthenians--though Aristotle commends the observation. Assuredly\nPerikles did not think so (Thucyd. ii. 35). You have a popular\ntheme, but unless you have oratorical talent to do justice to it\nyou are likely to disappoint and offend, especially among auditors\nlike the Athenians, accustomed to good speaking. Compare Plat.\nKritias, p. 107 E.]\n\n[Footnote 32: To employ the striking expression of Quintilian\n(xii. 10) respecting the great statue of Zeus at Olympia by\nPheidias.]\n\n[Side-note: Colloquial portion of the Menexenus is probably\nintended as ridicule and sneer at Rhetoric--The harangue itself is\nserious, and intended as an evidence of Plato's ability.]\n\nIn understanding fully the Menexenus, however, we have to take\naccount, not merely of the harangue which forms the bulk of it,\nbut also of the conversation whereby it is commenced and\nconcluded. Plato, speaking always through the mouth of Sokrates,\nhas to invent some fiction excusing the employment of his master\nin the unprecedented capacity of public orator. What Stallbaum\nsays (in my judgment, erroneously) about the harangue--appears to\nme perfectly true about the conversation before and after it. The\nintroductory observations, interchanged between Sokrates and\nMenexenus, certainly tend to caricature (as Aristophanes[33] does\nin the Acharneis and the Equites) the strong effects produced by\nthis panegyrical oratory on the feelings of hearers; and to\ndepreciate the task of the orator as nothing better than an easy\nand amusing pastime. To praise Athens among Athenian auditors (we\nare told) is a matter in which few speakers can fail to succeed,\nhowever poor their abilities. Moreover, the great funeral harangue\nof Perikles is represented as having been composed for him by\nAspasia[34]--a female, though remarkable among her sex--who is\nextolled as holding the highest place among rhetorical teachers,\nand is introduced here, as Aristophanes introduces her in the\nAcharneis, when he is putting a construction of discreditable\nridicule on the origin of the Peloponnesian war.[35] To make a\ngood funeral harangue (Sokrates says) requires little or no\npreliminary preparation: besides, the Rhetors have harangues ready\nprepared at home. All this _persiflage_, in harmony with the\npolemics of the Gorgias, derides and degrades the Rhetors\ncollectively. But when Plato takes the field against them as a\ncompetitor, in his own rhetorical discourse, he drops the ironical\nvein, and takes pains to deliver one really good and excellent in\nits kind. His triumph is thus doubled. He tells the Rhetors that\ntheir business is a trifling and despicable one: at the same time\nshowing them that, despicable as it is, he can surpass them in it,\nas he professes to surpass Lysias in the Ph\u00e6drus.[36]\n\n[Footnote 33: Aristoph. Acharn. 615, Equit. 640-887.\n\nThe comic exaggeration of Sokrates, in the colloquial portion of\nthe Menexenus (235 B-C) goes as far as that of Aristophanes.]\n\n[Footnote 34: By the language of Plato here, he seems plainly to\nbring his own harangue into competition not merely with that of\nLysias but also with that of Perikles. But we must not suppose for\nthat reason, that he necessarily has in view the Periklean\nharangue which we now read in Thucydides, ii. 35-43: which is the\nreal speech, reported and drest up by Thucydides in his own\nlanguage and manner. Probably the Periklean harangue was preserved\nseparately and in other reports, so that Plato may have known it\nwithout knowing the history of Thucydides. When I see the extreme\nliberty which Plato takes throughout his harangue in regard to the\nhistory of the past, I can hardly believe that he ever read\nThucydides; if he ever read the history, he certainly disregarded\nit altogether, and threw himself [Greek: e)pi\\ to\\ prosag\u00f4go/teron\nt\u00ea=| a)kroa/sei \u00ea)\\ a)l\u00eathe/steron]: like the [Greek:\nlogogra/phoi] of whom Thucydides speaks, i. 21, Lysias among them,\nthough in a less degree than Plato. \u00c6schines Sokraticus had\ncomposed among his dialogues one entitled [Greek: A)spasi/a]. See\nXenophon, Oeconom. i. 14; Cicero de Inventione, i. 31: Plutarch,\nPerikles, c. 24-32: also Bergk, De Reliquiis Comoed. Attic.\nAntiq. p. 237.]\n\n[Footnote 35: Aristoph. Acharn. 501.]\n\n[Footnote 36: The remarks of Dionysius of Halikarnassus (in the\nEpistle to Cn. Pompey about Plato, pp. 754-758) are well deserving\nof attention: especially as he had before him many writers now\nlost, either contemporary with Plato or of the succeeding\ngeneration. He notices not only Plato's asperity in ridiculing\nmost of his distinguished contemporaries, but also his marked\nrivalry against Lysias.\n\n[Greek: \u00ea)=n ga/r, \u00ea)=n me\\n t\u00ea=| Pla/t\u00f4nos phu/sei polla\\s\na)reta\\s e)chou/s\u00ea| to\\ philo/timon], &c. (p. 756).\n\nSee this subject well handled in an instructive Dissertation by M.\nLebeau (Stuttgart, 1863, Lysias' Epitaphios als \u00e4cht erwiesen, pp.\n42-46 seq.).]\n\n[Side-note: Anachronism of the Menexenus--Plato careless on this\npoint.]\n\nSuch I conceive to be the scope of the dialogue, looked at from\nPlato's point of view. In order to find a person suitable in point\nof age to be described as the teacher of Sokrates, he is forced to\ngo back to the past generation--that of Perikles and Aspasia. But\nthough he avoids anachronism on this point, he cannot avoid the\nanachronism of making Sokrates allude to events long posterior to\nhis own death. This anachronism is real, though it has been\nmagnified by some critics into a graver defect than it is in\ntruth. Plato was resolved not to speak in his own person, but\nthrough that of Sokrates. But he is not always careful to keep\nwithin the limits which consistent adherence to such a plan\nimposes.[37]\n\n[Footnote 37: Groen van Prinsterer (Prosopographia Platonica, p.\n211 seq.) adverts to the carelessness of Plato about exact\nchronology.\n\nMost of the Platonic critics recognise the Menexenus as a genuine\nPlatonic dialogue. Ast, however, includes it among the numerous\ndialogues which he disallows as spurious; and Suckow, Steinhart,\nand Ueberweg, are also inclined to disallow it. See Ueberweg, Die\nAechtheit der Platonischen Schriften, pp. 143-148. These critics\nmake light of the allusion of Aristotle in the Rhetoric--[Greek:\nS\u00f4kra/t\u00eas e)n t\u00f4=| E)pitaphi/\u00f4|]--which appears to me, I confess,\nof more weight than all the grounds of suspicion adduced by them\nto prove the dialogue spurious. The presumption in favour of the\ncatalogue of Thrasyllus counts with them, here as elsewhere, for\nnothing.]\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV.\n\nKLEITOPHON.\n\n\n[Side-note: Persons and circumstances of Kleitophon.]\n\nThe Kleitophon is an unfinished fragment, beginning with a short\nintroductory conversation between Sokrates and Kleitophon, and\nfinishing with a discourse of some length, a sort of remonstrance\nor appeal, addressed by Kleitophon to Sokrates; who makes no\nreply.\n\nSome one was lately telling me (says Sokrates) that Kleitophon, in\nconversation with Lysias, depreciated the conversation of\nSokrates, and extolled prodigiously that of Thrasymachus.\n\n[Side-note: Conversation of Sokrates with Kleitophon alone: he\nalludes to observations of an unfavourable character recently made\nby Kleitophon, who asks permission to explain.]\n\nWhoever told you so (replies Kleitophon), did not report\naccurately what I said. On some points, indeed, I did not praise\nyou; but on other points I did praise you. Since, however, you are\nevidently displeased with me, though you affect indifference--and\nsince we are here alone--I should be glad to repeat the same\nobservations to yourself, in order that you may not believe me to\nthink meanly of you. These incorrect reports seem to have made you\ndispleased with me, more than is reasonable. I am anxious to speak\nto you with full freedom, if you will allow it.[1]\n\n[Footnote 1: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 406.]\n\nIt would be a shame indeed (rejoined Sokrates), if, when you were\nanxious to do me good, I could not endure to receive it. When I\nhave learnt which are my worst and which are my best points, I\nshall evidently be in a condition to cultivate and pursue the\nlatter and resolutely to avoid the former.\n\nHear me then (says Kleitophon).\n\n[Side-note: Explanation given. Kleitophon expresses gratitude and\nadmiration for the benefit which he has derived from long\ncompanionship with Sokrates.]\n\nAs your frequent companion, Sokrates, I have often listened to you\nwith profound admiration. I thought you superior to all other\nspeakers when you proclaimed your usual strain of reproof, like\nthe God from a dramatic machine, against mankind.[2] You asked\nthem, \"Whither are you drifting, my friends? You do not seem aware\nthat you are doing wrong when you place all your affections on the\ngain of money, and neglect to teach your sons and heirs the right\nuse of money. You do not provide for them teachers of justice, if\njustice be teachable; nor trainers of it, if it be acquirable by\ntraining and habit; nor indeed have you studied the acquisition of\nit, even for yourselves. Since the fact is obvious that, while\nyou, as well as your sons, have learnt what passes for a finished\neducation in virtue (letters, music, gymnastic), you nevertheless\nyield to the corruptions of gain--how comes it that you do not\ndespise your actual education, and look out for teachers to\ncorrect such disorder? It is this disorder, not the want of\naccomplishment in the use of the lyre, which occasions such\nterrible discord, and such calamitous war, between brother and\nbrother--between city and city.[3] You affirm that men do wrong\nwilfully, not from ignorance or want of training: yet nevertheless\nyou are bold enough to say, that wrong-doing is dishonourable and\noffensive to the Gods. How can any one, then, choose such an evil\nwillingly? You tell us it is because he is overcome by pleasures:\nwell then, that again comes to unwillingness--if victory be the\nthing which every man wishes: so that, whichever way you turn it,\nreason shows you that wrong-doing is taken up unwillingly, and\nthat greater precautions ought to be taken upon the subject, both\nby individuals and by cities.\"[4]\n\n[Footnote 2: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 407 A. [Greek: e)g\u00f4\\ ga/r, \u00f4)=\nS\u00f4/krates, soi\\ suggigno/menos, polla/kis e)xepl\u00eatto/m\u00ean a)kou/\u00f4n;\nkai/ moi e)do/keis para\\ tou\\s a)/llous a)nthr\u00f4/pous ka/llista\nle/gein, o(po/te e)pitim\u00f4=n toi=s a)nthr\u00f4/pois, \u00f4(/sper e)pi\\\nm\u00eachan\u00ea=s tragik\u00ea=s theo/s, u(mei=s, le/g\u00f4n, poi= pheresthe,\na)/nthr\u00f4poi?] &c.]\n\n[Footnote 3: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 407 B-C.]\n\n[Footnote 4: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 407 D-E. [Greek: \u00f4(/ste e)k\npanto\\s tro/pou to/ ge a)dikei=n a)kou/sion o( lo/gos ai(rei=,\nkai\\ dei=n e)pime/leian t\u00ea=s nu=n plei/\u00f4 poiei=sthai pa/nt'\na)/ndra i)di/a| th' a(/ma kai\\ d\u00eamosi/a| xumpa/sas ta\\s po/leis.]]\n\n[Side-note: The observations made by Sokrates have been most\nsalutary and stimulating in awakening ardour for virtue. Arguments\nand analogies commonly used by Sokrates.]\n\nSuch, Sokrates (continues Kleitophon), is the language which I\noften hear from you; and which I always hear with the strongest\nand most respectful admiration. You follow it up by observing,\nthat those who train their bodies and neglect their minds, commit\nthe mistake of busying themselves about the subordinate and\nneglecting the superior. You farther remark, that if a man does\nnot know how to use any object rightly, he had better abstain from\nusing it altogether: if he does not know how to use his eyes, his\nears, or his body--it will be better for him neither to see, nor\nto hear, nor to use his body at all: the like with any instrument\nor article of property--for whoever cannot use his own lyre well,\ncannot use his neighbour's lyre better. Out of these premisses you\nbring out forcibly the conclusion--That if a man does not know how\nto use his mind rightly, it is better for him to make no use of\nit:--better for him not to live, than to live under his own\ndirection. If he must live, he had better live as a slave than a\nfreeman, surrendering the guidance of his understanding to some\none else who knows the art of piloting men: which art you,\nSokrates, denominate often the political art, sometimes the\njudicial art or justice.[5]\n\n[Footnote 5: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 408 B. [Greek: \u00ea)=n d\u00ea\\ su\\\npolitik\u00ea/n, \u00f4)= S\u00f4/krates, o)noma/zeis polla/kis, t\u00ea\\n au)t\u00ea\\n d\u00ea\\\ntau/t\u00ean dikastik\u00ea/n te kai\\ dikaiosu/n\u00ean \u00f4(s e)/sti le/g\u00f4n.]]\n\n[Side-note: But Sokrates does not explain what virtue is, nor how\nit is to be attained. Kleitophon has had enough of stimulus, and\nnow wants information how he is to act.]\n\nThese discourses of yours, alike numerous and admirable--showing\nthat virtue is teachable, and that a man should attend to himself\nbefore he attends to other objects--I never have contradicted, and\nnever shall contradict. I account them most profitable and\nstimulating, calculated to wake men as it were out of sleep. I\nexpected anxiously what was to come afterwards. I began by\ncopying your style and asking, not yourself, but those among your\ncompanions whom you esteemed the most[6]--How are we now to\nunderstand this stimulus imparted by Sokrates towards virtue? Is\nthis to be all? Cannot we make advance towards virtue and get full\npossession of it? Are we to pass our whole lives in stimulating\nthose who have not yet been stimulated, in order that they in\ntheir turn may stimulate others? Is it not rather incumbent upon\nus, now that we have agreed thus far, to entreat both from\nSokrates and from each other, an answer to the ulterior question,\nWhat next? How are we to set to work in regard to the learning of\njustice?[7] If any trainer, seeing us careless of our bodily\ncondition, should exhort us strenuously to take care of it, and\nconvince us that we ought to do so--we should next ask him, which\nwere the arts prescribing how we should proceed? He would\nreply--The gymnastic and medical arts. How will Sokrates or his\nfriends answer the corresponding question in their case?\n\n[Footnote 6: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 408 C. [Greek: tou/t\u00f4n ga\\r tou/s\nti ma/lista ei)=nai doxazome/nous u(po\\ sou= pr\u00f4/tous\ne)pan\u00ear\u00f4/t\u00f4n, punthano/menos ti/s o( meta\\ tau=t' ei)/\u00ea lo/gos,\n_kai\\ kata\\ se\\ tro/pon tina\\ u(potei/n\u00f4n au)toi=s_], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 7: Plato, Kleitophon, p. 408 D-E. [Greek: \u00ea)\\ dei= to\\n\nS\u00f4kra/t\u00ean kai\\ a)ll\u00ea/lous \u00ea(ma=s to\\ meta\\ tou=t' e)paner\u00f4ta=|n,\no(molog\u00ea/santas tou=t' au)to\\ a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4| prakte/on ei)=nai. _Ti/\ntou)nteu=then_? p\u00f4=s a)/rchesthai dei=n phame\\n dikaiosu/n\u00eas peri\\\nmath\u00ea/se\u00f4s?]]\n\n[Side-note: Questions addressed by Kleitophon with this view, both\nto the companions of Sokrates and to Sokrates himself.]\n\nThe ablest of your companions answered me (continues Kleitophon),\nthat the art to which you were wont to allude was no other than\nJustice itself. I told him in reply--Do not give me the mere name,\nbut tell me what Justice is.[8] In the medical art there are two\ndistinct results contemplated and achieved: one, that of keeping\nup the succession of competent physicians--another that of\nconferring or preserving health: this last, _Health_, is not the\nart itself, but the work accomplished by the art. Just so, the\nbuilder's art, has for its object the _house_, which is its\nwork--and the keeping up the continuity of builders, which is its\nteaching. Tell me in the same manner respecting the art called\nJustice. Its teaching province is plain enough--to maintain the\nsuccession of just men: but what is its working province? what is\nthe work which the just man does for us?\n\n[Footnote 8: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 409 A. [Greek: ei)po/ntos de\\\nmou=, M\u00ea/ moi to\\ o)/noma mo/non ei)p\u00ea=|s, a)lla\\ \u00f4)=de--I)atrik\u00ea/\npou/ tis le/getai te/chn\u00ea], &c,]\n\n[Side-note: Replies made by the friends of Sokrates\nunsatisfactory.]\nTo this question your friend replied (explaining Justice)--it is\nThe Advantageous. Another man near him said, The Proper: a third\nsaid, The Profitable: a fourth, The Gainful.[9] I pursued the\ninquiry by observing, that these were general names equally\napplicable in other arts, and to something different in each.\nEvery art aims at what is proper, advantageous, profitable,\ngainful, in its own separate department: but each can farther\ndescribe to you what that department is. Thus the art of the\ncarpenter is, to perform well, properly, advantageously,\nprofitably, &c., in the construction of wooden implements, &c.\nThat is the special work of the carpenter's art: now tell me, what\nis the special work, corresponding thereunto, of the art called\nJustice?\n\n[Footnote 9: Plato, Kleitoph. 409 B. [Greek: to\\ d' e(/teron, o(\\\ndu/natai poiei=n \u00ea(mi=n e)/rgon o( di/kaios, ti/ tou=to/ phamen?\nei)=pe. Ou(=tos me/n, \u00f4(s oi)=mai, _to\\ sumphe/ron_ a)pekri/nato;\na)/llos de/, _to\\ de/on_; e(/teros de/, to\\ _\u00f4)phe/limon_; o( de/,\nto\\ _lusitelou=n_. e)pan\u00ea/|ein d\u00ea\\ e)g\u00f4\\ le/g\u00f4n o(/ti ka)kei=na/\nge o)no/mata tau=t' e)sti\\n e)n e(ka/st\u00ea| t\u00f4=n techn\u00f4=n, o)rth\u00f4=s\npra/ttein, lusitelou=nta, \u00f4)phe/lima, kai\\ ta)/lla ta\\ toiau=ta;\na)lla\\ pro\\s o(/, ti tau=ta pa/nta tei/nei, e)rei= to\\ i)/dion\ne(ka/st\u00ea| te/chn\u00ea|], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: None of them could explain what the special work of\njustice or virtue was.]\n\nAt length one of your most accomplished companions, Sokrates,\nanswered me--That the special work peculiar to Justice was, to\nbring about friendship in the community.[10] Being farther\ninterrogated, he said--That friendship was always a good, never an\nevil: That the so-called friendships between children, and between\nanimals, mischievous rather than otherwise, were not real\nfriendships, and ought not to bear the name: That the only genuine\nfriendship was, sameness of reason and intelligence: not sameness\nof opinion, which was often hurtful--but knowledge and reason\nagreeing, in different persons.[11]\n\n[Footnote 10: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 409 D. [Greek: Teleut\u00f4=n\na)pekri/nato/ tis, \u00f4)= S\u00f4/krates, moi\\ t\u00f4=n s\u00f4=n e(tai/r\u00f4n, o(\\s\nd\u00ea\\ kompso/tata e)/doxen ei)pei=n, o(/ti tou=t' ei)/\u00ea to\\ t\u00ea=s\ndikaiosu/n\u00eas i)/dion e)/rgon, o(\\ t\u00f4=n a)/ll\u00f4n ou)demia=s,\nphili/an e)n tai=s po/lesi poiei=n.]]\n\n[Footnote 11: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 409 E.]\n\nAt this stage of our conversation the hearers themselves felt\nperplexed, and interfered to remonstrate with him; observing, that\nthe debate had come round to the same point again. They declared\nthat the medical art also was harmony of reason and intelligence:\nthat the like was true besides of every other art: that each of\nthem could define the special end to which it tended: but that as\nto that art, or that harmony of reason and intelligence, which had\nbeen called Justice, no one could see to what purpose it tended,\nnor what was its special work.[12]\n\n[Footnote 12: Plato, Kleitoph. p. 410 A. [Greek: kai\\ e)/legon]\n(_i.e._ the hearers said) [Greek: o(/ti kai\\ \u00ea( i)atrik\u00ea\\\no(mo/noia/ ti/s e)sti, kai\\ a(/pasai ai( te/chnai, kai\\ peri\\\no(/tou ei)si/n, e)/chousi le/gein; t\u00ea\\n de\\ u(po\\ sou= legome/n\u00ean\ndikaiosu/n\u00ean \u00ea)\\ o(mo/noian, o(/poi tei/nousa/ e)sti,\ndiape/pheuge, kai\\ a)/d\u00ealon au)t\u00ea=s o(/, ti po/t e)sti\\ to\\\ne)/rgon.]]\n\n[Side-note: Kleitophon at length asked the question from Sokrates\nhimself. But Sokrates did not answer clearly. Kleitophon believes\nthat Sokrates knows, but will not tell.]\n\nAfter all this debate (continues Kleitophon) I addressed the same\nquestion to yourself, Sokrates--What is Justice? You answered--To\ndo good to friends, hurt to enemies. But presently it appeared,\nthat the just man would never, on any occasion, do hurt to any\none:--that he would act towards every one with a view to good. It\nis not once, nor twice, but often and often, that I have endured\nthese perplexities, and have importuned you to clear them up.[13]\nAt last I am wearied out, and have come to the conviction that you\nare doubtless a consummate proficient in the art of stimulating\nmen to seek virtue; but that as to the ulterior question, how they\nare to find it--you either do not know, or you will not tell. In\nregard to any art (such as steersmanship or others), there may be\npersons who can extol and recommend the art to esteem, but cannot\ndirect the hearers how to acquire it: and in like manner a man\nmight remark about you, that you do not know any better what\nJustice is, because you are a proficient in commending it. For my\npart, such is not my opinion. I think that you know, but have\ndeclined to tell me. I am resolved, in my present embarrassment,\nto go to Thrasymachus, or any one else that I can find to help me;\nunless you will consent to give me something more than these\nmerely stimulating discourses.[14] Consider me as one upon whom\nyour stimulus has already told. If the question were about\ngymnastic, as soon as I had become fully stimulated to attend to\nmy bodily condition, you would have given me, as a sequel to your\nstimulating discourse, some positive direction, what my body was\nby nature, and what treatment it required. Deal in like manner\nwith the case before us: reckon Kleitophon as one fully agreeing\nwith you, that it is contemptible to spend so much energy upon\nother objects, and to neglect our minds, with a view to which all\nother objects are treasured up. Put me down as having already\ngiven my adhesion to all these views of yours.\n\n[Footnote 13: Plato, Kleitophon, p. 410 B. [Greek: Tau=ta de\\\nou)ch a(/pax ou)de\\ di\\s a)lla\\ polu\\n d\u00ea\\ u(pomei/nas chro/non\nkai\\ lipar\u00f4=n a)pei/r\u00eaka], &c.]\n\n[Footnote 14: Plato, Kleitophon, p. 410 C. [Greek: dia\\ tau=ta d\u00ea\\\nkai\\ pro\\s Thrasu/machon, oi)=mai, poreu/somai, kai\\ a)/llose\no(/poi du/namai, a)por\u00f4=n--e)pei\\ ei)/ g' e)the/lois su\\ tou/t\u00f4n\nme\\n \u00ea)/d\u00ea pau/sasthai pro\\s e)me\\ t\u00f4=n lo/g\u00f4n t\u00f4=n\nprotreptik\u00f4=n], &c.]\n\n[Side-note: Kleitophon is on the point of leaving Sokrates and\ngoing to Thrasymachus. But before leaving he addresses one last\nentreaty, that Sokrates will speak out clearly and explicitly.]\n\nProceed, Sokrates--I supplicate you--to deal with me as I have\ndescribed; in order that I may never more have occasion, when I\ntalk with Lysias, to blame you on some points while praising you\non others. I will repeat, that to one who has not yet received the\nnecessary stimulus, your conversation is of inestimable value: but\nto one who has already been stimulated, it is rather a hindrance\nthan a help, to his realising the full acquisition of virtue, and\nthus becoming happy.[15]\n\n[Footnote 15: Plato, Kleitophon, p. 410 E. [Greek: m\u00ea\\ me\\n ga\\r\nprotetramme/n\u00f4| se\\ a)nthr\u00f4/p\u00f4|, \u00f4)= S\u00f4/krates, a)/xion ei)=nai\ntou= panto\\s ph\u00ea/s\u00f4, protetramme/n\u00f4| de/, schedo\\n kai\\ e)mpo/dion\ntou= pro\\s te/los a)ret\u00ea=s e)ltho/nta eu)dai/mona gene/sthai.]]\n\n* * * * *\n\n[Side-note: Remarks on the Kleitophon. Why Thrasyllus placed it in\nthe eighth Tetralogy immediately before the Republic, and along\nwith Kritias, the other fragment.]\n\nThe fragment called Kleitophon (of which I have given an abstract\ncomparatively long), is in several ways remarkable. The\nThrasyllean catalogue places it first in the eighth Tetralogy; the\nthree other members of the same Tetralogy being, Republic, Tim\u00e6us,\nKritias.[16] Though it is both short, and abrupt in its close, we\nknow that it was so likewise in antiquity: the ancient Platonic\ncommentators observing, that Sokrates disdained to make any reply\nto the appeal of Kleitophon.[17] There were therefore in this\nTetralogy two fragments, unfinished works from the\nbeginning--Kleitophon and Kritias.\n\n[Footnote 16: Diog. L. iii. 59. The Kleitophon also was one of the\ndialogues selected by some students of Plato as proper to be\nstudied first of all (Diog. L. iii. 61).]\n\n[Footnote 17: M. Boeckh observes (ad Platonis Minoem, p. 11):--\"Nec\nminus falsum est, quod _spurium_ Clitophontem plerique omnes\nmutilatum putant; quem ex auctoris manibus truncum excidisse inde\nintelligitur, quod ne vetusti quidem Platonici philosophi, quibus\nantiquissima exemplaria ad manum erant, habuerunt integriorem.\nProclus in Tim\u00e6, i. p. 7. [Greek: Ptolemai=os de\\ o( Plat\u00f4niko\\s\nKleitoph\u00f4=nta au)to\\n oi)/etai ei)=nai. tou=ton ga\\r e)n t\u00f4=|\no(m\u00f4nu/m\u00f4| dialo/g\u00f4| m\u00ead' a)pokri/se\u00f4s \u00ea)xi\u00f4=sthai para\\\nS\u00f4kra/tous.] Plan\u00e9 ut in Criti\u00e2, quem ab ipso Platone non\nabsolutum docet Plutarchus in Solone.\"\n\nM. Boeckh here characterises the Kleitophon as _spurious_, in\nwhich opinion I do not concur.\n\nYxem, in his Dissertation, Ueber Platon's Kleitophon, Berlin,\n1846, has vindicated the genuineness of this dialogue, though many\nof his arguments are such as I cannot subscribe to.\n\nHe shows farther, that the first idea of distrusting the\ngenuineness of the Kleitophon arose from the fact that the\ndialogue was printed in the Aldine edition of 1513, along with the\nspurious dialogues; although in that very Aldine edition the\neditors expressly announce that this was a mistake, and that the\ndialogue ought to have been printed as first of the eighth\ntetralogy. See Yxem, pp. 32-33. Subsequent editors followed the\nAldine in printing the dialogue among the spurious, though still\ndeclaring that they did not consider it spurious.]\n\nWe may explain why Thrasyllus placed the Kleitophon in immediate\nantecedence to the Republic: because 1. It complains bitterly of\nthe want of a good explanation of Justice, which Sokrates in the\nlatter books of the Republic professes to furnish. 2. It brings\nbefore us Kleitophon, who announces an inclination to consult\nThrasymachus: now both these personages appear in the first book\nof the Republic, in which too Thrasymachus is introduced as\ndisputing in a brutal and insulting way, and as humiliated by\nSokrates: so that the Republic might be considered both as an\nanswer to the challenge of the Kleitophon, and as a reproof to\nKleitophon himself for having threatened to quit Sokrates and go\nto Thrasymachus.\n\n[Side-note: Kleitophon is genuine, and perfectly in harmony with a\njust theory of Plato.]\n\nLike so many other pieces in the Thrasyllean catalogue, the\nKleitophon has been declared to be spurious by Schleiermacher and\nother critics of the present century. I see no ground for this\nopinion, and I believe the dialogue to be genuine. If it be asked,\nhow can we imagine Plato to have composed a polemic argument, both\npowerful and unanswered, against Sokrates,--I reply, that this is\nnot so surprising as the Parmenid\u00eas: in which Plato has introduced\nthe veteran so named as the successful assailant not only of\nSokrates, but of the Platonic theory of Ideas defended by\nSokrates.\n\nI have already declared, that the character of Plato is, in my\njudgment, essentially many-sided. It comprehends the whole process\nof searching for truth, and testing all that is propounded as\nsuch: it does not shrink from broaching and developing speculative\nviews not merely various and distinct, but sometimes even\nopposite.\n\n[Side-note: It could not have been published until after Plato's\ndeath.]\n\nYet though the Kleitophon is Plato's work, it is a sketch or\nfragment never worked out. In its present condition, it can hardly\nhave been published (any more than the Kritias) either by his\ndirection or during his life. I conceive it to have remained among\nhis papers, to have been made known by his school after his death,\nand to have passed from thence among the other Platonic\nmanuscripts into the Alexandrian library at its first foundation.\nPossibly it may have been originally intended as a preparation for\nthe solution of that problem, which Sokrates afterwards undertakes\nin the Republic: for it is a challenge to Sokrates to explain what\nhe means by Justice. It may have been intended as such, but never\nprosecuted:--the preparation for that solution being provided in\nanother way, such as we now read in the first and second books of\nthe Republic. That the great works of Plato--Republic, Protagoras,\nSymposion, &c.--could not have been completed without preliminary\nsketches and tentatives--we may regard as certain. That some of\nthese sketches, though never worked up, and never published by\nPlato himself, should have been good enough to be preserved by him\nand published by those who succeeded him--is at the very least\nhighly probable. One such is the Kleitophon.\n\n[Side-note: Reasons why the Kleitophon was never finished. It\npoints out the defects of Sokrates, just as he himself confesses\nthem in the Apology.]\n\nWhen I read the Kleitophon, I am not at all surprised that Plato\nnever brought it to a conclusion, nor ever provided Sokrates with\nan answer to the respectful, yet emphatic, requisition of\nKleitophon. The case against Sokrates has been made so strong,\nthat I doubt whether Plato himself could have answered it to his\nown satisfaction. It resembles the objections which he advances in\nthe Parmenid\u00eas against the theory of Ideas: objections which he\nhas nowhere answered, and which I do not believe that he could\nanswer. The characteristic attribute of which Kleitophon complains\nin Sokrates is, that of a one-sided and incomplete\nefficiency--([Greek: phu/sis mono/k\u00f4los])--\"You are perpetually stirring\nus up and instigating us: you do this most admirably: but when we have\nbecome full of fervour, you do not teach us how we are to act, nor\npoint out the goal towards which we are to move\".[18] Now this is\nprecisely the description which Sokrates gives of his own\nefficiency, in the Platonic Apology addressed to the Dikasts. He\nlays especial stress on the mission imposed upon him by the Gods,\nto apply his Elenchus in testing and convicting the false\npersuasion of knowledge universally prevalent:--to make sure by\nrepeated cross-examination, whether the citizens pursued money and\nworldly advancement more energetically than virtue:--and to worry\nthe Athenians with perpetual stimulus, like the gadfly exciting a\nhigh-bred but lethargic horse. Sokrates describes this not only as\nthe mission of his life, but as a signal benefit and privilege\nconferred upon Athens by the Gods.[19] But here his services end.\nHe declares explicitly that he shares in the universal ignorance,\nand that he is no wiser than any one else, except in being aware\nof his own ignorance. He disclaims all power of teaching:[20] and\nhe deprecates the supposition,--that he himself knew what he\nconvicted others of not knowing,--as a mistake which had brought\nupon him alike unmerited reputation and great unpopularity.[21] We\nfind thus that the description given by Sokrates of himself in the\nApology, and the reproach addressed to Sokrates by Kleitophon,\nfully coincide. \"My mission from the Gods\" (says Sokrates), \"is to\ndispel the false persuasion of knowledge, to cross-examine men\ninto a painful conviction of their own ignorance, and to create in\nthem a lively impulse towards knowledge and virtue: but I am no\nwiser than they: I can teach them nothing, nor can I direct them\nwhat to do.\"--That is exactly what I complain of (remarks\nKleitophon): I have gone through your course,--have been\nelectrified by your Elenchus,--and am full of the impulse which\nyou so admirably communicate. In this condition, what I require\nis, to find out how, or in which direction I am to employ that\nimpulse. If you cannot tell me, I must ask Thrasymachus or some\none else.\n\n[Footnote 18: I have in an earlier chapter (ch. viii. vol. i. p.\n406) cited the passage--\"Philosophiam multis locis inchoasti: ad\nimpellendum satis, ad edocendum parum\". This is the language\naddressed by Cicero to Varro, and coinciding substantially with\nthat of Kleitophon here.]\n\n[Footnote 19: Plat. Apol. Sokr. pp. 28 E, 29 D-E, 30 A-E. 30 E:\n[Greek: proskei/menon t\u00ea=| po/lei u(po\\ tou= theou= \u00f4(/sper\ni(/pp\u00f4| mega/l\u00f4| me\\n kai\\ gennai/\u00f4|, u(po\\ mege/thous de\\\nn\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 pp. 36 D, 41 E.]\n\n[Footnote 20: Plat. Apol. Sokr. pp. 21 D-22 D, 33 A: [Greek: e)g\u00f4\\\nde\\ dida/skalos ou)deno\\s p\u00f4/pot' e)geno/m\u00ean.]]\n\n[Footnote 21: Plat. Apol. Sokr. pp. 23 A, 28 A.]\n\n[Side-note: The same defects also confessed in many of the Platonic\nand Xenophontic dialogues.]\n\nMoreover, it is not merely in the declarations of Sokrates himself\nbefore the Athenian Dikasts, but also in the Platonic Sokrates as\nexhibited by Plato in very many of his dialogues, that the same\nefficiency, and the same deficiency, stand conspicuous. The hearer\nis convicted of ignorance, on some familiar subject which he\nbelieved himself to know: the protreptic stimulus is powerful,\nstinging his mind into uneasiness which he cannot appease except\nby finding some tenable result: but the didactic supplement is not\nforthcoming. Sokrates ends by creating a painful feeling of\nperplexity in the hearers, but he himself shares the feeling along\nwith them.--It is this which the youth Protarchus deprecates, at\nthe beginning of the Platonic Phil\u00eabus;[22] and with which Hippias\ntaunts Sokrates, in one of the Xenophontic\nconversations[23]--insomuch that Sokrates replies to the taunt by\ngiving a definition of the Just ([Greek: to\\ di/kaion]), upon which\nHippias comments. But if the observations ascribed by Xenophon to\nHippias are a report of what that Sophist really said, we only see\nhow inferior he was to Sokrates in the art of cross-questioning: for\nthe definition given by Sokrates would have been found altogether\nuntenable, if there had been any second Sokrates to apply the\nElenchus to it.[24] Lastly, Xenophon expressly tells us, that\nthere were others also, who, both in speech and writing, imputed\nto Sokrates the same deficiency on the affirmative side.[25]\n\n[Footnote 22: Plato, Phil\u00eabus, p. 20 A.]\n\n[Footnote 23: Xenoph. Memor. iv. 4, 9-11.]\n\n[Footnote 24: We need only compare the observations made by\nHippias in that dialogue, to the objections raised by Sokrates\nhimself in his conversation with Euthyd\u00eamus, Xen. Mem. iv. 4, 2,\nand to the dialogue of the youthful Alkibiades (evidently borrowed\nfrom Sokrates) with Perikles, ib. i. 2, 40-47.]\n\n[Footnote 25: Xenoph. Memor. i. 4, 1. [Greek: ei) de/ tines\nS\u00f4kra/t\u00ean nomi/zousin, \u00f4(s e(/nioi gra/phousi/ te kai\\ le/gousi\nperi\\ au)tou= tekmairo/menoi, protre/psasthai me\\n a)nthr\u00f4/pous\ne)p' a)ret\u00ea\\n kra/tiston gegone/nai, proagagei=n de\\ e)p' au)t\u00ea\\n\nou)ch i(kano/n--skepsa/menoi m\u00ea\\ mo/non], &c.\n\nSee also Cicero, De Oratore, i. 47, 204, in which Sokrates is\nrepresented as saying that _concitatio_ ([Greek: protrop\u00ea\\]) was\nall that people required: they did not need guidance: they would\nfind out the way for themselves: and Yxem, Ueber Platon's\nKleitophon, pp. 5-12.]\n\n[Side-note: Forcible, yet respectful, manner in which these defects\nare set forth in the Kleitophon. Impossible to answer them in such\na way as to hold out against the negative Elenchus of a Sokratic\npupil.]\n\nThe Platonic Kleitophon corresponds, in a great degree, to these\ncomplaints of Protarchus and others, as well as to the taunt of\nHippias. The case is put, however, with much greater force and\nemphasis: as looked at, not by an opponent and outsider, like\nHippias--nor by a mere novice, unarmed though eager, like\nProtarchus--but by a companion of long standing, who has gone\nthrough the full course of negative gymnastic, is grateful for the\nbenefit derived, and feels that it is time to pass from the lesser\nmysteries to the greater. He is sick of perpetual negation and\nstimulus: he demands doctrines and explanations, which will hold\ngood against the negative Elenchus of Sokrates himself. But this\nis exactly what Sokrates cannot give. His mission from the\nDelphian God finishes with the negative: inspiration fails him\nwhen he deals with the affirmative. He is like the gadfly (his own\nsimile) in stimulating the horse--and also in furnishing no\ndirection how the stimulus is to be expended. His affirmative\ndicta,--as given in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, are for the most\npart plain, home-bred, good sense,--in which all the philosophical\nquestions are slurred over, and the undefined words, Justice,\nTemperance, Holiness, Courage, Law, &c., are assumed to have a\nsettled meaning agreed to by every one: while as given by Plato,\nin the Republic and elsewhere, they are more speculative,\nhighflown, and poetical,[26] but not the less exposed to certain\ndemolition, if the batteries of the Sokratic Elenchus were brought\nto bear upon them. The challenge of Kleitophon is thus\nunanswerable. It brings out in the most forcible, yet respectful,\nmanner the contrast between the two attributes of the Sokratic\nmind: in the negative, irresistible force and originality: in the\naffirmative, confessed barrenness alternating with honest, acute,\npractical sense, but not philosophy. Instead of this, Plato gives\nus transcendental hypotheses, and a religious and poetical ideal;\nimpressive indeed to the feelings, but equally inadmissible to a\nmind trained in the use of the Sokratic tests.\n\n[Footnote 26: The explanation of Justice given by Plato in the\nRepublic deserves to be described much in the same words as\nSokrates employs (Repub. i. p. 332 C) in characterising the\ndefinition of Justice furnished by (or ascribed to) the poet\nSimonides:--\n\n[Greek: \u00ea)|ni/xato, \u00f4(s e)/oiken, o( Sim\u00f4ni/d\u00eas poi\u00eatik\u00f4=s to\\\ndi/kaion o(\\ ei)/\u00ea.]]\n\n[Side-note: The Kleitophon represents a point of view which many\nobjectors must have insisted on against Sokrates and Plato.]\n\nWe may thus see sufficient reason why Plato, after having drawn up\nthe Kleitophon as preparatory basis for a dialogue, became\nunwilling to work it out, and left it as an unfinished sketch. He\nhad, probably without intending it, made out too strong a case\nagainst Sokrates and against himself. If he continued it, he would\nhave been obliged to put some sufficient reason into the mouth of\nSokrates, why Kleitophon should abandon his intention of\nfrequenting some other teacher: and this was a hard task. He would\nhave been obliged to lay before Kleitophon, a pupil thoroughly\ninoculated with his own negative _oestrus_, affirmative\nsolutions proof against such subtle cross-examination: and this,\nwe may fairly assume, was not merely a hard task, but impossible.\nHence it is that we possess the Kleitophon only as a fragment.\n\n[Side-note: The Kleitophon was originally intended as a first book\nof the Republic, but was found too hard to answer. Reasons why the\nexisting first book was substituted.]\n\nYet I think it a very ingenious and instructive fragment: setting\nforth powerfully, in respect to the negative philosophy of\nSokrates and Plato, a point of view which must have been held by\nmany intelligent contemporaries. Among all the objections urged\nagainst Sokrates and Plato, probably none was more frequent than\nthis protest against the continued negative procedure. This same\npoint of view--that Sokrates puzzled every one, but taught no one\nany thing--is reproduced by Thrasymachus against Sokrates in the\nfirst book of the Republic:[27] in which first book there are\nvarious other marks of analogy with the Kleitophon.[28] It might\nseem as if Plato had in the first instance projected a dialogue in\nwhich Sokrates was to discuss the subject of justice, and had\ndrawn up the Kleitophon as the sketch of a sort of forcing process\nto be applied to Sokrates: then, finding that he placed Sokrates\nunder too severe pressure, had abandoned the project, and taken up\nthe same subject anew, in the manner which we now read in the\nRepublic. The task which he assigns to Sokrates, in this\nlast-mentioned dialogue, is far easier. Instead of the appeal made\nto Sokrates by Kleitophon, with truly Sokratic point--we have an\nassault made upon him by Thrasymachus, alike angry, impudent and\nfeeble; which just elicits the peculiar aptitude of Sokrates for\nhumbling the boastful affirmer. Again in the second book, Glaukon\nand Adeimantus are introduced as stating the difficulties which\nthey feel in respect to the theory of Justice: but in a manner\ntotally different from Kleitophon, and without any reference to\nprevious Sokratic requirements. Each of them delivers an eloquent\nand forcible pleading, in the manner of an Aristotelian or\nCiceronian dialogue: and to this Sokrates makes his reply. In that\nreply, Sokrates explains what he means by Justice: and though his\nexposition is given in the form of short questions, each followed\nby an answer of acquiescence, yet no real or serious objections\nare made to him throughout the whole. The case must have been very\ndifferent if Plato had continued the dialogue Kleitophon; so as to\nmake Sokrates explain the theory of Justice, in the face of all\nthe objections raised by a Sokratic cross-examiner.[29]\n\n[Footnote 27: Plat. Repub. pp. 336 D, 337 A, 338 A.]\n\n[Footnote 28: For example, That it is not the province of the just\nman to hurt any one, either friend or foe, Repub. p. 335 D.\n\nThrasymachus derides any such definitions of [Greek: to\\ di/kaion]\nas the following--[Greek: to\\ de/on--to\\ \u00f4)phe/limon--to\\\nlusitelou=n--to\\ xumphe/ron--to\\ kerda/leon], Repub. i. p. 336,\nC-D.\n\nThese are exactly the unsatisfactory definitions which Kleitophon\ndescribes himself (p. 409 C) as having received from the partisans\nof Sokrates.]\n\n[Footnote 29: Schleiermacher (Einleitung, v. pp. 453-455)\nconsiders the Kleitophon not to be the work of Plato. But this\nonly shows that he, like many other critics, attaches scarcely the\nsmallest importance to the presumption arising from the Canon of\nThrasyllus. For the grounds by which he justifies his disallowance\nof the dialogue are to the last degree trivial.\n\nI note with surprise one of his assertions: \"How\" (he asks) \"or\nfrom what motive can Plato have introduced an attack upon\nSokrates, which is thoroughly repelled, both seriously and\nironically, in almost all the Platonic dialogues?\"\n\nAs I read Plato, on the contrary: the Truth is, That it is\nrepelled in none, confirmed in many, and thoroughly ratified by\nSokrates himself in the Platonic Apology.\n\nSchleiermacher thinks that the Kleitophon is an attack upon\nSokrates and the Sokratic men, Plato included, made by some\nopponent out of the best rhetorical schools. He calls it \"a parody\nand caricature\" of the Sokratic manner. To me it seems no\ncaricature at all. It is a very fair application of the Sokratic\nor Platonic manner. Nor is it conceived by any means in the spirit\nof an enemy, but in that of an established companion, respectful\nand grateful, yet dissatisfied at finding that he makes no\nprogress.]\n\n\n\n\nEND OF VOL. III.\n\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\nToC, Ch. 31 admissable admissible\nCh. 26 fn. 30 phi/l\u00ea=| phi/l\u00ea|\nCh. 26 fn. 33 to/de\\ to/de\nCh. 26 after fn. 125 fourth eighth\nCh. 28 fn. 47 aussitot aussit\u00f4t\nCh. 28 fn. 78 ajourd'hui aujourd'hui\nCh. 28 fn. 92 It we compare If we compare\nCh. 28 fn. 97 The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 186 C. The\u00e6t\u00eat. p. 186 D.\nCh. 28 fn. 99 tuphra/ tuphla/\nCh. 28 after fn. 143 Chapter VI Chapter VIII\nCh. 29 fn. 23 p. 130 D p. 130 E\nCh. 29 fn. 102 paphei=n pathei=n\nCh. 30 fn. 18 Ph\u00e6drus p. 229 C), Ph\u00e6drus (p. 229 C),\nCh. 31 fn. 18 e(u)=n ou)=n\nCh. 31 fn. 18 oka/stou e(ka/stou\nCh. 31 fn. 40 Is is It is\nCh. 31 fn. 47 tems temps\nCh. 31 fn. 48 ab-antiquitatis ab antiquitatis\nCh. 31 fn. 58 429-411 C. 409-411 C.\nCh. 31 fn. 63 p. . p. 88\nCh. 32 fn. 42 pho/bpn pho/b\u00f4n\nCh. 33 fn. 31 p. 373 p. 359","title":"Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, 3rd ed. Volume 3","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":206418}