OPERTY OF THE
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GREEK “THINKERS
ΕΠ ἹΠΙΝΚ ΒΗ
Ὁ ΠΕΙΘΤΟΝΥ ὍΝ ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY
BY THEODOR GOMPERZ
PROFESSOR EMERITUS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA, AND MEMBER OF IMPERIAL ACADEMY ; HON. LL.D., DUBLIN AND CAMBRIDGE, HON. PH.D., KONIGSBERG CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE BRITISH ACADEMY FOR THE PROMOTION QF PHILOSOPHICAL, HISTORICAL, AND PHILOLOGICAL STUDIES
AUTHORIZED EDITION
VOLUME III
TRANSLATED BY
C.-6 (BER Re Pp:
BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD
LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET 1914 hy.) ς. At ff
January 1905
First Edition Reprinted
1914
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All rights reserved
Co the faemory
OF MY SISTER
JOSEPHINE VON WERTHEIMSTEIN NOV. 19, 1820: JULY 16, 1894 I DEDICATE
THIS VOLUME
ees
CON TENTS.
BOOK V.—(continued).
CHAPTER VIII. PLATO’S DOCTRINE OF THE SOUL AND
CHAPTER IX.
PLATO’S “ PHADRUS.”
CHAPTER Χ.
PLATO.
PAGE
1 | §3 5 | §4
16 | §3 20 | §4
OF IDEAS. PAGE 10 I!
eee eee 22 27
‘*PH#DO,” AND PLATO’S PROOFS OF IMMORTALITY.
CHAPTER ΧΙ. PLATO’S ‘ REPUBLIC.”
30 32 35
§ 4 §5
eee See 40 999 899 44
vi CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XII. PLATO’S “ REPUBLIC.”—(continued),
PAGE PAGE $1 Sa 77. | $5 “ . eee 90 § 2 ca 79 | §6 - ‘ 98 § 3 vee 85 | $7 ; : eee 102 § 4 eee ee 89
CHAPTER XIII. PLATO’S ETHICAL, SOCIAL, AND POLITICAL IDEAL.
§1 -ος -ἰς eee ose | 100: '| 59 τὸς δ: πος ves 218 §2 wan ihe His sve FOO δ. 505 ἘΞ ἌΡΗ προ 21 8.3 eee see cee ove TEE | §8 oes ΠΣ eee eos 124 § 4 cose τος os 11} 109 eee ooo eee we 2S §5 eee vee vee τς §=IT5
CHAPTER XIV. PLATO’S SECOND AND THIRD RESIDENCES IN SICILY.
§1 ee -ος "οὐ pastas ον Ss τὸς eee ese “τὴν 139 §2 sae eee eee 6530
CHAPTER XV. PLATO’S “EUTHYDEMUS” AND “PARMENIDES.”
§1 wee mae το eee’, Mea’ PESTS vee ese vee eos ISI §2 τος ees ae oa, 148
CHAPTER XVI. THE “THEATETUS” AND THE “CRATYLUS.”
§1 aes eee ae τον ΚΟ, ἢ 578 “ὁ: οἶς ἐν 160 § 2 eee eee see eos =157 | § 4 eee vee eee ἘΝ (37)
CHAPTER XVII. THE ‘‘SOPHIST” AND THE “STATESMAN.”
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CONTENTS. Vii
CHAPTER XVIII. PLATO'S “PHILEBUS.”
\ PAGE PAGE § I eee eee pee eee 186 § 3 eos coe eos eee 195 § 2 eee eee eee coe Ig! § 4 9.9. eee soe pee 197
CHAPTER XE. THE “TIMHUS” AND THE “CRITIAS.”
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§ 3 eee eee ποῦ ἘΠ 200 SZ eee woe τὰ soe 222 84 oes vee vee vee «211
CRAPTER 202
PLATO'S: “LAWS”
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CHAPTER XXII. RETROSPECTS AND ANTICIPATIONS. §1 a ane re see Od, ὃ 4. nts τς ous ΖΘ
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NOTES AND ADDITIONS _... eee τοῦ ἐν se ee 273
ΒΕ ΣΧ TO VOLS. II. AND III. wee she ΝΕ as ces 379
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BOOK V.—(continued). PLATO:
CHAPTER Vill PLATO'S DOCTRINE OF THE SOUL AND OF IDEAS.
1. THE learned Spanish Jesuit, José d’Acosta,* closes his account of a certain belief held by the Indians of Peru, with the remark that it approximates “ in some measure” to the Platonic doctrine of ideas. The belief to which he refers has also been met with among the Indians of North America ; here, again, the Abbe Laffiteau 7 detected points of agreement with Plato. The inhabitants of the Samoan Islands, and lastly, the Finns, present us with additional examples of the same mode of thought, the essence of which may be stated as follows: The occurrence in nature of numberless groups of similar objects, particularly animal and vegetable species, requires an explanation; this is afforded by the assumption of a primary entity or arche- type, whose relation to the corresponding objects is variously conceived. Sometimes it appears as a kind of elder and bigger brother; sometimes it is a pattern, residing in the world of spirit; or, again, it may be a god or a genius dwelling on some distant star, to whose influence par- ticular objects owe their origin and their continuance. This tendency of the human mind to refer the perpetual
* Born 1540, died 1599. f¢ Died 1755. VOL. IIL. B
2 GREEK THINKERS.
recurrence of similar qualities to a real type or model, mast be allowed no inconsiderable share in the genesis of th Platonic doctrine.
But the definite shape which this theory took in the mind of Plato must be explained from the previous hist: rv of Greek thought. “Divide the Becoming of Heraclita; by the Being of Parmenides, and you will obtain th Ideas of Plato””—such is the formula into which Herba:: compressed his view of the course of philosophic develop ment. The authentic account of the matter, which we owe to Aristotle,* is not very different: “ Plato had bee: early familiar with Cratylus and the Heraclitean doctrines touching the perpetual flux of the world of sense, and the impossibility of that world being the object-matter of science. To these doctrines he adhered in later ΠΊΕ. Moreover, Socrates, confining himself as he did to ethical speculations, and making no attempt to study nature as a whole, had sought the universal within the limit of his own subject, and had given his chief attention to the construction of definitions. Plato, who followed him, was thus led to the opinion that the realities corre- sponding to definitions are other than the objects given in sense... . This something. else. he vealed ides on entities ; the objects of sense were for him additions to the ideas, and named after them, for it was by participa- tion in the ideas (here Aristotle recalls the precedent of the Pythagoreans) that their material namesakes existed.”
This explanation may be summarized by saying that matter was volatilized into an abstraction, while con- cepts, to make the balance even, became concrete and almost material. The place of nature, with its perpetual flux, was usurped by the world of concepts, which laid claim to the fixity denied to the world of Becoming, This denial, it must be remembered, had not been made by Heraclitus alone, but also by the Eleatics, who tended more and more to relegate the things of sense to the realm of appearances. Additional support was derived by this view from certain difficulties of thought which we
* “Met,” i. 6.
GENESIS OF THE DOCTRINE. 3
have mentioned in a previons section—the problems of Inherence and Predication, in which we recognize the old enigma, formerly known as the problem of change, and concerned with the relations of the One to the Many, reappearing in a new guise, due to the Socratic study of con- cepts (cf. Vol. 11. p. 175, sgq.). Reality—so we may formulate the conclusion to which this train of thought naturally led —is to be found only in that of which the self-identity is interrupted by no change and impaired by no incon- sistency : in the content of concepts, not in individual things, each of which, in its relations of space and time, is subject to manifold variation and contradiction.
It is true that the difficulties of thought to which we have alluded were not removed by the new teaching, but only clothed in a different garb. They reappeared in the form of questions such as—How are the fleeting individual things connected with their eternal archetypes? Do they “participate” in them, or are they “copied” from them ? And what is the precise nature of this participation or process of copying? To these questions Plato never succeeded in returning a satisfactory answer; but, as Aristotle remarks in the above-quoted passage, “he left them to be investigated by others.”
But this is not the place to discuss the consequences of a doctrine whose origin we have not yet completely accounted for. We must once more draw the reader’s attention to a fundamental tendency of the human mind, and to its far-reaching effects. Abstractions are clothed by language in the same dress as objects of perception. Both are designated by substantives, and perhaps could not be designated in any other way. In the untrained mind, the Real and the Thing are so closely associated, that in ‘ordinary language the two terms are synonymous. The very word “real” is derived from res, “ἃ thing.” Forces, qualities, states, relations, are regarded as entities having the nature of things, and, when they produce lasting impressions upon the mind, as living beings endowed with will—as gods and demons, After the mythological comes an ontological stage, a naive realism (in the medizval sense),
4 GREEK THINKERS.
of which we find traces in the earlier history even of Greek thought. Plague and fever cease to be demons, but the art of healing is still a species of thing. As illustrations, take the following expressions used by the author of the treatise “On the Art.” He meets doubters in the reality of the healing art by the question—“ How could we have ever come to speak of the art of medicine as a reality if it were not so in truth?” In other words: The long series of judgments touching the laws of nature and man’s ability to perceive them and turn them to account in the care of health—this series of judgments, with its true or false conclusion: “The art of healing exists,” is put on a level with the perception of an external object, and regarded as an act of mental vision. The bare fact of a name having been given to the art of healing is taken to be a sufficient reason for ascribing objective existence to it, just as in the case of actual things. In a very similar strain the comic poet Epicharmus (cf. Vol. II. p. 265), whom we shall presently have occasion to mention as a precursor of Plato in another respect, had already drawn the inference: “The good is a thing-in-itself,” after previously calling flute-playing a “thing.” He goes on to prove that as it is the acquisition of skill in flute-playing, dancing, or weaving that makes the weaver, the dancer, or the flute-player, so it is the possession of the good that makes the good man. Not that there was any lack of protests against this objectifying of concepts, even. before Plato’s time; such a protest is contained in an expression of the sophist Antiphon, which has already been quoted (cf. Vol. I. p. 437, also 195).
We have thus two tendencies of thought; the one leading to the assumption of real types, the other to the objectifying of abstractions, the two together resulting in the promotion of concepts to the status of objective types. With these there were associated in the mind of Plato two subsidiary tendencies. The first, which went to strengthen the objectifying impulse, had its origin in the special nature of Plato’s favourite studies. These were, in the words of Hermann Bonitz, “concepts belonging to the sphere of ethics;” and again, “Mathematical concepts ;
THE A PRIORI TENDENCY. 5
in the case of the former it is the unconditional acceptance claimed by the ethical judgment, in the case of the latter, the universal validity and independence of individual caprice, which produces the appearance of objective reality.” On the other hand, the tendency towards the assumption of types was reinforced by the artistic and visionary element in Plato. Nature’s types became for him ideals, that is, esthetic patterns and standards. The disposition to see in that harmonious union of perfected excellences which we call an ideal, no mere synthesis of a mind fired with the creative impulse, but a real existence, of which the correlative object is a dim reflexion—this disposition, so congenial to artistic and imaginative natures, had certainly some share, though not, as John Stuart Mill assumed, the chief share, in the genesis of Plato’s theory.
2. Closer consideration is demanded by a tendency of thought on which we have already briefly touched, and which may be summarily described as a leaning towards the a priort. It is concerned with questions respecting the origin of concepts and judgments which do not seem to be derived from experience. Whence, it is asked, comes the concept of a line as length without breadth, or that of pure surface destitute of thickness? Whence comes the idea of a circle or a sphere, forms which do, indeed, occur in the world of sense, but never in that ideal perfection which their definitions imply? With these mathematical con- cepts are joined others—concepts of relations, such as identity or equality—whose origin in experience Plato contests on grounds exemplified in the “ Phzedo:” when- ever we speak of two things as equal, we really deny the absolute equality which our words appear to affirm ; for when this is present, the two things are no longer two, but one and indistinguishable.
To all such questions the empiricist returns one and the same answer. Whatever stock of ideas we possess is ours to deal with as we like; we may at pleasure join what is divided and divide what is joined. Length without breadth is no doubt something which experience has never presented tous. But we may disregard or overlook breadth
YOUR. TT. C
6 GREEK THINKERS.
(and, thickness too, in the case of a surface), and so, by an act of abstraction, contemplate space of one or of two dimensions. On the other hand, neither nature nor the hand of man has ever fashioned a sphere in which the exactest possible measurement would not discover im- perfection ; and absolute equality is similarly unrepresented by any concrete instance. But, along with that faculty of abstraction, we possess another, a combining faculty, by the aid of which we are enabled to construct complete equality out of partial equalities, and absolute perfection out of the different degrees of imperfection. Thinkers, however, to whom this way out of the difficulty has either not occurred or has seemed inadequate, have been obliged to seek a solution elsewhere—in the assumption that the concepts in question are gained by immediate intuition, and that the objects of these intuitions, being alien to the world of sense, are of a supersensual order, Thus yet another motive impelled Plato towards the hypothesis that there exist real archetypes of concepts, which the soul has beheld in a former life. The remembrance of these visions, so Plato held, slumbers in the soul, and is awakened to fresh life by the sight of those imperfect copies of them which experience furnishes.
Next to concepts come their combinations—judgments. It is in this quarter that the @ priort philosophy, and in particular that form of it known as the doctrine of ideas, finds its strongest support. A wide chasm, we are told, yawns between the knowledge which we derive from experience, and that which claims another and a higher origin. Knowledge of the first kind may rest on the guarantee of an experience hitherto without exception, and yet we do not feel compelled to believe in its unconditional truth ; it lacks the character of universality and necessity which distinguishes the second kind of knowledge. In all times and in all places water has quenched thirst ; we have not the slightest reason to suppose it will ever cease to do so. Still, there is nothing to prevent us from ¢hinking of a draught of water which moistens the throat but brings no feeling of refreshment, More generally, however firmly
TRUTHS OF REASON AND OF EXPERIENCE. 7
we may be convinced that the relations of succession and coexistence, the sum of which constitutes for us the present order of things, will continue to prevail, there is nothing inconceivable in the contrary supposition. On the other hand, it is inconceivable and unthinkable that the whole should ever be less than the part, that twice two should be other than four, that two straight lines should enclose a space. Nothing could be more natural than that this distinction between the truths of experience and the so- called truths of reason should have made the deepest im- pression on those who first perceived it, and should have led them to ascribe totally different origins to the two species of knowledge. For Plato, those parts of knowledge which are anterior, both in time and rank, to all experience, have their source in the world of ideas, and exhibit the relations which obtain there. Similarly, a later age speaks of “innate ideas ;” and the same mode of thought has in the course of time received a great variety of expression.
Our own day has witnessed an attempted reconciliation between the two points of view—a compromise which is at once empirical in respect of the race, and @ friori in respect of the individual. It appeals, not to the personal pre-existence assumed by Plato, but to the real pre-existence of a line of ancestors. For zons, it is assumed, our fore- fathers have been collecting experiences, the effect of which, increasing by accumulation, has been to modify the structure of our organ of thought, and to give the corre- sponding beliefs an irresistible power over our minds.
The empirical school gratefully takes note of the attempt to utilize agelong habituation and transmission by heredity in the explanation both of intellectual and moral dispositions ; at the same time, it claims that the problem now before us can be satisfactorily treated without the aid of such hypotheses. It points out that many a so- called truth of reason rests on a mere analytical or ex- planatory judgment ; it is so, for instance, in the case of the proposition, “The whole is greater than its part.’ The proposition has unconditional validity, but it does no more than unfold the thought already contained in the
8 GREEK THINKERS.
words “whole” and “part.” By a “part” we only mean one of two or more quantities which together form a total: A=a+,etc. Tosay that a+ ὁ is greater than 4, that a increased by ὁ is more than ὦ, is merely to express differently the relations implied by the use of the words “whole” and “part.” All true necessity of thought is (as John Stuart Mill has aptly remarked) necessity of inference. The inconceivability of the contrary means the impossibility of at once affirming and denying the same proposition ; and the necessary validity of a conclusion is confirmed by closing up to the denier of it every other means of escape. “All men are mortal; Gaius is a man: therefore Caius is mortal””— he who has admitted the two premisses can reject the conclusion only by simultaneously affirming and denying the mortality of mankind (which includes Caius) or the humanity of Caius. But the incompatibility of an affirmation and its correlative negative (commonly called the principle of contradiction) is, in our opinion, not so much a canon of reason as a fundamental property attaching to all perception, and, indeed, to all processes of consciousness. The very expression “incompatibility ” is not, strictly speaking, appropriate. The fundamental fact is rather this—that we are acquainted with absence as well as presence, deficiency as well as provision, omission as well as action. In these negative states the exclusion of the corresponding positives is already contained.
Nor (in spite of the hints scattered in the “ Meno”) is the case essentially different with mathematical knowledge. Here, too, necessary truth is necessary inference from hypotheses. As far as relates to geometry, with its deductions from definitions only approximately applicable to real objects, the truth of this statement is obvious enough. Next to the definitions come certain propositions, which are sometimes called “ general notions,” and some- times “axioms,” such as that equals added to equals give equal totals, or that two straight lines cannot enclose a space, The first of these asserts that if to a square yard on my right hand I join a second square yard, the sum, two square yards, is the same as when I perform a similar operation
MATHEMATICAL TRUTH. 9
on my left. But this depends on the fact that the two square yards as such, that is, abstraction being made of the matter to which they belong, and of the adjacent space, are identical, both they and their equal increments or decrements. And it is the same with other quantities— weights, forces, periods of time. Thus what the proposition amounts to is that there are certain relations—cognizable by experience—which we term “quantitative,” and which remain the same whatever may be the particular objects, or classes of objects, in which they occur. As for the axiom of the two straight lines, its significance is the following : Given that idea in the mind (nowhere completely realized) which we call a straight line, a moment’s contemplation of it is enough to teach us that where two such lines meet they must cross, and therefore diverge—a truth whose universal validity is at once placed beyond doubt by an experiment embracing all possible angles of intersection. But in order to enclose a space, two lines would need to meet at least in two points.
In arithmetic the proofs are not drawn in the same explicit manner from hypotheses ; but the reason of the omission is that one single hypothesis governs the whole subject. When we say 2 + 2=4, the meaning is not that two pairs of houses, men, or horses always give four times the accommodation, or do four times the work, of one. For this is in part not true at all, and in part only true of averages. We rather regard objects as items capable of being counted, ignoring their other attributes, and of the abstract units thus obtained we assert that in combination they remain the same as they were in isolation, thus giving expression to a second empirical truth, namely, that we are able to group these units and their combinations as we please. It is never any part of knowledge, so says the empiricist, that is given us ὦ priori, but only the faculty of performing certain operations, in particular, those of separating and combining, of inference and comparison. Plato, however, who even as an a@ priori philosopher is something of an empiricist, appeals to experiences which the soul gained before it was united to the body.
IO GREEK THINKERS.
3. To the chasm thus opened between the world of ideas and the world of sense, there corresponded a growing separation of the psychical from the corporeal. Plato here continued a process of development which had begun long before his time. Besides the Orphics and the Pythagoreans, Xenophanes may be named in this connexion. He it was, so we read, who gave to the psychic principle a new name, πνεῦμα (breath, spirit), of which later ages made much use. Such a change of name generally goes hand in hand with, and helps forward, a change of thought on the matters concerned. We have reason to suppose that in this subject, as in his religious innovations, Xenophanes reverted to old Aryan notions which had never been completely eradicated from the national consciousness. Such a notion is that according to which the soul, or breath of life, returns to celestial space and the ether which fills it. This is a con- ception to which we have been able to point as having been current in Athens during the last third of the fifth century, one to which Euripides gave literary expression (see Vol. 11. p. 84). He had been anticipated by Epicharmus, in verses which were apparently intended to console a mourner—
‘‘ What was joined is now dissevered ; every part hath sought its own: Dust to dust and breath to heaven. Is this more than thou canst bear ?”
It may be conjectured that the philosophic comedy- writer here followed in the footsteps of Xenophanes, whom he had met at the court of Hiero, on whom he bestowed the significant praise (as we gather from an allusion of Aristotle) that his doctrine was “not probable, but true,” and with whom he exhibits a far-reaching agreement on other matters. Thus he regarded the great factors of nature as gods—a primitive Aryan belief clearly traceable among the Persians, which we could only inferentially ascribe to Xenophanes (Vol. I. p. 161), but for which, in the case of Epicharmus, we have the testimony of the comic poet Menander—
“The gods of Epicharmus are the sun, The moon, the stars, fire, water, earth, and air.”
Ὁ DUALISM. ΤΊ
And just as Xenophanes represented his supreme Deity as possessing knowledge gained by the medium of no bodily organs, so we find Epicharmus saying —
“Mind is ear and eye together, blind and deaf is all beside.”
At this point the attentive reader of these volumes may perhaps feel a difficulty. Is it to be supposed that from the author of the doctrine of the All-One, in whose supreme Godhead we.recognized a species of universal soul, there proceeded influences which smoothed the way for psychic dualism? It may seem strange that it should be so, but there is no contradiction. There are points of close contact between psychic and cosmic dualism, but neither of the two necessarily implies the other. Each has a tendency to lead to the other; but the road is often long, and opposing forces may check or destroy the tendency. It was so with Orphicism; we have already spoken (Vol. I. p. 138) of the dualism which “was im- plicit in the fundamental principles of Orphicism, though the Orphics never deduced it themselves.” This was first done by Plato. To the splendour of the ideas he opposed the pettiness of individual things, to the reality of the supraterrene the unreality of nature, to the perfect goodness of the Deity the dull power which thwarts the divine rule. Similarly, he represents the soul as exiled from its first home among the gods to a body which darkens its know- ledge and clouds its happiness, in which it is enclosed as a prisoner in his cell or a dead man in his grave. The premisses of Orphic Pythagoreanism are here followed to their ultimate consequences. Expression is given to a strain of thought and feeling which exerted a persistent influence upon late antiquity, and produced long-enduring after-effects perceptible down to our own day. The speculative tendency antagonistic to old Hellenic thought owed principally to Plato a victory which, if not immediate, was none the less assured. Let us dwell for a moment on this contrast between two modes of conceiving the world.
4. Dualism is not necessarily hostile to nature. Its line of division may be drawn vertically as well as horizontally.
12 GREEK THINKERS.
Instead of opposing the Deity to the world, mind to matter, soul to body, it is possible to seek, and when found to utilize, antitheses within each of the great divisions of existence, contrasted pairs and series of entities, within the world of gods as well as in the whole animate and inanimate creation. This is what was done by Zoroastrianism, a religion which falls short of its more fortunate sisters in local and temporal extent, but hardly in intensity of immediate efficacy. It teaches that the most fundamental of all distinctions, the one which per- vades all the provinces of Being, is that between good and evil. It arrays the universe in two opposing hosts, and summons man to take his part in the never-resting conflict. Thus it has been, in a greater degree than most others, a religion of strenuous effort and struggle, leaving, it is true, to the artistic imagination little more scope than did nature-hating asceticism. The disciples of Zoroaster fulfilled their religious duty by begetting numerous children, tilling waste land, exterminating noxious beasts, subduing barbarous peoples—in a word, by extending the realm of light and order and curtailing that of darkness and death. Throughout the Avesta we seem to hear the murmurings of fountains gushing forth youth, strength, and health.
It is again to a conflict that the Orphic-Platonic dualism invites men ; but it is against himself rather than the external world that he is now bidden fight. To deepen the inner life and to make consciences more tender was the historical mission of this phase of thought. The movement begun by the Orphics and continued by Plato here joins hands with the cult of Apollo, which from its central seat exerted an influence upon the whole Greek world in the direction of a higher morality. It is not by chance that the earliest indications of a refined moral sense—a refinement which sometimes strikes us as a strange product of the ancient world—are found in the Delphic oracles. Take for an instance the story told by Herodotus of Glaucus the Spartan, who desired to appropriate illegally a sum of money entrusted to his care, and who went to the Delphic oracle for advice.
THE GREEK NATURE-RELIGION. 13
He asked whether he should retain the money and commit the necessary perjury. The Pythia replied in vigorous verse, which has been preserved— “Swear, for the truth-loving man must die one death with the perjured : Yet hath the oath which thou swearest a son; he is nameless and handless, Feet hath he none; yet swiftly he follows, nor rests from pursuing Till thy whole race be consumed, and cut off from the earth without remnant.”
Glaucus, in a fright, gives up his plan, and asks the god for pardon. But the Pythia answers, ‘To tempt the god and to do the deed is all one.” And in truth, so the pious historian makes his authority finish the tale, “ Of this Glaucus there is nowhere any posterity left; no house or hearth bears his name ; he has been blotted out of Sparta.”
In spite of this admixture of strongly marked ethical sentiment, in spite of that moral progress of the gods which was necessitated by the advance of culture and promoted by the works of the great poets (cf. p. 5, seg.), the Hellenic religion always remained, principally, a worship of the powers of nature. As such it may be compared to a garment which covers every part of the body with rich and graceful folds. With generous inclusiveness it acknowledges the claims of every aspect and every im- pulse of human nature; it provided growing-space and nutriment for every power of thought and feeling ; coupled as it was with the peculiarly Greek sense of proportion, it ennobled every kind of energetic action and passive enjoy- ment. Free and serene is the life of one who is guided and inspired by such a religion, who sees or surmises a divine element in every manifestation of nature. If with Aristotle, herein the organ and exponent of the Greek national mind, we understand by the hygiene of the soul the avoidance of all extremes, the equilibrium of the powers, the harmonious development of aptitudes, none of which is allowed to starve or paralyze the others,—then we shall comprehend that species of individual morality
14 GREEK THINKERS.
to the requirements of which the Greek religion was so exceptionally adequate. It was in the domain of social morality that this religion proved insufficient. Self- assertion and self-seeking were in almost every age of antiquity far too predominant features of Hellenic life. Characters of spotless purity in this respect were among the greatest of rarities. All the disciplinary resources of the State, both political and military, were always necessary, and barely sufficient, to keep anti-social impulses in check. Thus, at Sparta, the Lycurgean system proved ineffective outside the limits of its most stringent application and its most direct control. In those small states, which were not unlike enlarged families, love of the fatherland no doubt acquired passionate intensity. But it was insufficient to restrain the citizen from treason, whenever any exceptional temptation was put in his way. A like tale is told by the paucity of incorruptible judges, and by those outbreaks of partisan fury which shrank from no excess. In honesty and truthfulness, above all, the Hellenic nation was woefully lacking.
Such a society had much to gain from the Orphic- Pythagorean movement, whose final triumph was due to the mighty influence of Plato. The inward breach and schism within the soul, the hostility to nature and con- sequent extravagances of asceticism,—all these fruits of the movement may be called evils, but certainly not unmixed evils. They led to a deepening of the emotional life which greatly extended the domain of art and speculation, and which, in course of time, proved especially helpful by strengthening the sense of duty and reinforcing social morality (cf. Vol. I. p. 133, sgq.). To allow the individual his fullest and freest development, and yet to curb effectually those impulses in him which menace the well- being of his fellows,—here we have two ideals which human nature seems incapable of realizing simultaneously. When the one bucket rises from the well, the other must sink. In describing the Italy of the Renaissance, the home of Raphael and Michelangelo, as “a den of murderers and a place of evil resort,” Ernest Renan doubtless exaggerated, but the
PLATO'S “ PH4EDRUS.” 15
expression is not altogether without historical warrant. It is for the late heirs of an evolution occupying thousands of years to attempt a reconciliation by fusing into one new and harmonious whole the most precious among those elements of culture which their forerunners possessed separately.
16 GREEK THINKERS.
CHAPTER. 1X. PLATO’S “PHAEDRUS.”
1. IN the “Symposium” the doctrine of ideas only appears for the purpose of introducing the idea of the beautiful, and so illustrating the nature of love. But in the “ Phedrus” this doctrine occupies a far larger space ; it here takes up an almost central position, both in the theory of knowledge and in ethics, while it is most intimately connected with teaching upon the destinies of the soul. This alone would not prove that the “Phedrus” was written after the “Symposium.” But the order which we have adopted is thereby rendered necessary, at any rate for the purposes of exposition. |
“Tf any one will write a noble style, let him have a noble character.” These words of Goethe might fitly serve as a motto to the present dialogue. More exactly, the purport of this great creation, which with all its wonderful wealth has not the slightest lack of unity, may be thus stated: Without a noble disposition and noble love there can be no genuine philosophy ; without genuine philosophy, no true eloquence or artistic use of language.
The scenery of the dialogue, in which Socrates and the cultured Phzedrus are the only interlocutors, is not new to the reader (cf. Vol. II. p. 269). Here we propose to give the briefest possible account of its progress. The starting-point is a speech, highly admired by Phzedrus, which he has just heard from Lysias, the “‘most eminent writer of speeches” of the day, and which he repeats to Socrates. This little piece of declamation, as we have every reason to suppose, is authentic, and no mere fiction. It would be absurd for an author to apply to a phantom of his own invention such
REVOLT AGAINST SOCRATIC AUSTERITY. L7
searching criticism as Plato here devotes to this effusion. It is not so much a work of art as a triumph of artifice, and belongs to a class of which there were many examples in that age. We may instance the speech of Polycrates in praise of mice; his defence of the cruel tyrant Busiris ; his encomia on Clytamnestra, Helen, and Paris. These were exhibitions of wit and cleverness by which a high degree of plausibility was sought to be given to paradoxical theses, The subject of this particular specimen is the praise of self-surrender to a suitor who neither loves nor is loved. Socrates offers to treat the same theme in a still more effective manner, but in the speech which he actually delivers he only fulfils the first part of his task, by denouncing surrender to a lover and describing the evils of passion. He speaks with his head veiled, as a symbol ‘of inward dissent, and breaks off at the point where the negative part of his argument should have been followed by its more objectionable positive counterpart.
So far his aim has been merely to outbid Lysias. Now, however, impelled by a sense of religious duty towards Eros and Aphrodite, he addresses himself to the recital of a palinode, in which he at the same time endeavours to outbid himself. The great speech now begins which occupies the main portion of the dialogue. With the worldly prudence which shuns all passion he contrasts the divine madness, frenzy, or ecstasy, which he paints in the most glowing colours—the passion of the poet and the prophet, of him who thirsts after beauty and truth, of the philosopher and lover. We need have no hesitation in describing this speech as Plato’s abjuration of pure Socratism, of the exclusive cult of cold and sober reason. We are here far removed from what we might term the rationalism of Socrates. The magnitude of the interval by which, in this work, Plato is separated from the other Socratics, appears plainly if we call to mind Antisthenes’ way of thinking. His exclamation, “If I could but lay hands on Aphrodite, I would shoot her” (Vol. II. p. 143), would now seem to Plato doubly blasphemous. He would be equally out of sympathy with that other view of love,
18 GREEK THINKERS.
which regards it as a desire to satisfy sensual needs in the most harmless possible way. Passion is at once justified and ennobled. For this purpose a myth is employed, a magnificent creation, which is clothed in language of the utmost elevation and brilliance.
First, however, comes an assertion of the immortality of the soul, supported by arguments which we shall consider later on, in connexion with others of a different kind. The nature of the soul is illustrated by a figure, in which it is compared by Socrates to a yoke of horses, one a thorough- bred, the other an inferior animal (the noble and the ignoble desires), driven by a charioteer (Reason). Next, he describes the life of souls in heaven, how they take part in the pro- cession of the gods, each soul attaching itself to a kindred divinity, and how they desire to mount to the “supra- celestial space, of which no poet has yet sung, nor ever will sing worthily. ... The nature of it, however, may be
thus set forth. . . . Real truth, which is colourless, formless and intangible, can be perceived only by the charioteer of the soul... . In the procession he beholds Justice itself,
he beholds Temperance and Knowledge, not that which begins to be, not that which is different in different manifestations of what we now call existence, but the knowledge of that which has true and real existence.” Complete success in this survey is only for the divine souls ; the weaker souls see little in the throng of struggling horses ; they lose their wings and sink to earth, but not till each one has beheld some part of that which is, They are not sent to inhabit animal bodies at their first birth, but those souls which have seen the most go to the making of a human being, one who will be a friend of wisdom or beauty, inclined towards the Muses or to love ; the others are disposed of according toa scale of merit, which descends from the lawful king.and commander, the statesman, the ruler of a house or estate, the physician and the gymnast, the poet and imitative artist, the soothsayer and the priest, the artisan and the husbandman, down to the sophist, the popular orator and the tyrant. “ He who leads justly any one of the lives here named receives a better lot; he who
LOVE, THE MEDIATOR. 19
lives unjustly, a worse. No soul lives the same life twice within ten thousand years, the soul of him only excepted who has pursued philosophy with sincerity, or who has been a lover of youths and of philosophy together. These, in course of time, regain their wings; the others, after the completion of their first life, are brought to judgment,” the result of which is that some are sent to the places of punishment beneath the earth and others ascend to a region of heaven where they lead an existence corre- sponding to their mode of life on earth. After a thousand years they come to the choice of their second life, at which a human soul may be transferred to an animal body, or be retransferred to a human body after a life in an animal.
In this myth the chief mediator between the earthly life and the divine is love. For justice, temperance, and wisdom are without a visible copy, the sight of which would assuredly awake ineffable transports in us. “ But now beauty alone has this lot assigned to it, that it should be at once most bright to behold and most worthy of love.” The effluxes of beauty pour through the eyes into the soul of the beholder, which is thereby filled with warmth and relieved of the rigidity which had kept its wings from growing. And again the stream of beauty returns like an echo from the eyes of the admirer back to the fair one, moistens the roots of his wings, and causes them to shoot forth. The beloved loves in return ; though at the first he does not know whom, nor how it all befell. (No feature in the description is without its meaning. There is deliberate purpose in the mention of rigidity and its relaxation in the case of the elder, while in that of the younger only growth and its promotion are referred to.) The different gradations of the love-bond are delineated with great fulness and wealth of imagery. Lowest of all stands the brutish craving for unnatural pleasure, unattended by any respect or reverence for the object of desire. The highest stage, and with it speedy release from the earthly prison in which the exiled soul is held as a shell-fish in its shell, is attained by those in whom “the better part of the soul is victorious, leading them to an ordered life and to philosophy.” The acquisition
2Θ GREEK THINKERS.
of wings comes later for those who “ lead a coarser life, full of ambition and without philosophy.” They oppose less resistance to the pull of the unruly horses, which bring them together at an unguarded moment; afterwards the same thing will happen again, “ but not often, for they do that to which their whole soul has not consented.” But they, too, “reap no little reward from the love-madness ;” to them also it is granted “to receive wings together, when the time comes, thanks to their love.”
2. The second part of the dialogue is as closely packed with thought as the first is with images and passages of highly wrought feeling. Phzdrus intimates his approval, and at the same time expresses a doubt whether Lysias could produce anything as good; very likely he would rather retire from the contest, or even give up altogether the writing of speeches, a practice for which he has been lately reproached in scornful tones by a public orator. Thus the way is opened for a discussion of the question— Under what circumstances does the practice of rhetoric, or authorship in general, deserve praise or blame? In other words, we have a reconsideration of the same question which, in the “ Gorgias,’ was summarily disposed of by a passionately hostile verdict. This time, the wholesale condemnation of rhetoric is not repeated. What the judicious critic of the earlier dialogue says to himself to-day, Plato said to himself in the interval between the composition of the two works. He is now fully aware that the art of communicating thought is the same, whether it be used by the orator or the author, the private citizen or the legislator, whether prose or verse be the vehicle employed. As before, the older teachers of rhetoric are treated with scornful depreciation. Even the less important among them are mentioned by name, but Gorgias, the greatest of them, is only glanced at in passing, obviously because a special work has already been devoted to him, several references to which occur in the present dialogue. But those masters of language and their work are not now dismissed with a simple censure ; they are only relegated to what Plato conceives to be their proper position, much
wo REVISED VERDICT ‘ON: RAE TORIC. 2
as the statesmen were dealt with in the “Meno.” The rhetoricians, in their turn, are granted partial rehabilitation. It is not admitted that they taught real rhetoric ; they only provided a training preliminary to it. The art itself is placed on new foundations. Special knowledge is neces- sary, even for the man who wishes to deceive effectively, and not less so for the man who would guard himself from being deceived. It is by similarities that we are deceived and misled—a thought which is here developed with a suggestiveness only found in Plato’s maturest work. The knowledge of similarities and differences is again condi- tioned by the knowledge of the relations between genera and species, by the capacity of analyzing concepts, of recognizing unity in multiplicity, of combining the many into one, of breaking up classes into their subdivisions, without injuring any portion of them in the process after the manner of a bad cook. And if authorship depends for the one part upon the dialectic which is thus described and thus lauded as an outgrowth of the vision of the ideas, it also depends on psychology. Effectiveness in speech is conditioned by knowledge of the souls of those whom the speaker addresses. Again, the form of a speech must resemble that of a living being; it must possess organic unity. The thoughts and the sentences must be inwardly connected, and not merely “poured out at random,” as (according to Socrates) they are in the speech of Lysias. This speech, indeed, as Plato adds, not without a touch of complacent self-approval, has been put in their way by a “fortunate chance,” to serve as an illustration of the requirements just formulated.
At this point the dialogue takes an extraordinary course. Plato now turns his back on that art of authorship which he has set upon such deep foundations and supported by the two pillars of dialectic and psychology. Himself one of the greatest among authors, if not the greatest of all, he mounts here to a height from which he looks down upon all authorship and all rhetoric, recognizes and sets forth all their weaknesses and drawbacks with incomparable depth of insight. Writing, as he makes the Egyptian
VOL. 1Π. D
22 GREEK THINKERS,
god Ammon reproach Theuth, the inventor of it, weakens the memory. Further, the written page flies about and addresses, without distinction, the prepared and the un- prepared, the intelligent and the unintelligent alike. It cannot answer questions or solve doubts, and it is defence- less against every attack. Thus the instruction imparted by it is like a hothouse plant, which grows up rapidly but strikes no deep roots. Such is the harvest, and not fruit of real value, which springs from the seed scattered by the writer's pen. Instruction should be inscribed, not in books, but on the soul. But this is a task beyond writings and those speeches in which words are reeled off in “rhapsodist fashion,” without question and answer, with no purpose beyond that of persuasion. They merely provide aids towards the recollection of what has already been communicated, by the living utterance of one who carefully chooses his auditor, takes account of his stage of prepared- ness, answers his objections, and thus produces truly unassailable convictions. Other speeches and writings are mere “shadows ;” the composition of them is at the best a “noble pastime,” and not a really serious business. It is the Socratic cross-questioning that is here glorified. Second in rank, though at a long interval—thus we may read between the lines—comes the literary imitation of oral teaching, the dialogue as manipulated by Plato. This, too, makes no slight demand on the intellectual co-operation of the reader, and, to the extent of what is possible, restrains him from the merely passive or verbal reception of instruc- tion. This passage has been regarded, not without justice, as giving the key to the chief characteristics of the Platonic dialogues, which so often leave the final result unpro- nounced, which weave riddles “ out of contradictions,’ and scatter hints “ which can be perceived and understood only by those who really search for themselves.” The dialogue closes with a greeting to the philosophically minded young orator Isocrates, and with a prayer to the divinities of the place, in which the only boon craved is the inward beauty of the soul.
3. That which most arouses our admiration in this work
WHAT MAKES A GREAT AUTHOR, 23
is the depth of the perspective which it opens out to us. The philosopher, or lover of wisdom—and this at once proud and modest title is claimed for himself by Plato, speaking by the mouth of Socrates, at the close of the work—is able to assign everything to its right place. He does not particularly value the instrument of the orator and author, but neither does he entirely despise it ; he does not load it with abuse and obloquy, as he had done in the “Gorgias.” Behind the master of rhetorical artifices there now stands the dialectician and psychologist, behind whom again is the man, filled with enthusiasm, disdainful of all that is ignoble, aiming at the highest ends. Plato knows that no collection of writers’ tricks or mere routine makes the great author; he knows that the richest development of intelligence, a wide survey of things, and a deep insight into the nature of the human soul, are additional requisites, and that all this again is valueless unless a strong per- sonality, raised in every way above the common level, possesses both the means of style and ability to wield those weighty weapons of the intellect. It is in the expression given to this knowledge—as we have already hinted at the beginning of the chapter—that the true kernel and im- perishable value of the dialogue consists. Thus conceived, its value is incalculable, even for him who no longer believes in the existence of metaphysical entities, and to whom the philosophic love of youths appears as a grotesque garment in which an ideal sense of beauty and an imagi- native enthusiasm were once enclosed. In one respect only is the “ Phedrus”’ open to the charge of injustice, and that is in its treatment of Lysias. With an unerring eye Plato picks out a rhetorical exercise which at once bears a famous name on its front, and exhibits all the defects which he would proscribe—frivolity instead of highmindedness, shal- lowness instead of deep thought, irregular though not purposeless jumbling instead of orderly arrangement of ideas. To the objection—had it been urged against him— that he was applying to a piece of mental gymnastics a standard of judgment inappropriate to such productions, Plato would probably have answered that intellectual and
24 GREEK THINKERS.
moral habits should not be cultivated in sport which may do harm in earnest.
The fact remains not a little singular that the philosopher should have deemed it desirable to pillory the little practice- speech of a great master and with it the author himself. The explanation is probably to be found in Plato’s antipathy to Lysias—a feeling which sprang from several sources. The near kinsman of Critias and Charmides could hardly be ex- pected to regard with sympathy the energetic democrat who displayed the utmost zeal in the contest with those oligarchs. Nor were the peculiar artistic excellences of the Lysianic oratory of a kind to win Plato’s approval. lLysias was a virtuoso whose skill lay in the subtle and the minute. Grandeur, pathos, fervour, and all that savours of elevation, were foreign to his nature. On the other hand, he pos- sessed an unrivalled faculty of adapting the tone and style of a forensic speech to the idiosyncrasies of his client. Now he appears wearing a mask of naive, uncultured don- homie in the character of a deceived husband belonging to the lower middle class ; now he plays the part of a needy old pensioner who makes a jest of his poverty while pleading for an increase of his meagre allowance from the State. This art of character-drawing, for which Lysias was deservedly famous among the ancients, was by no means to Plato’s taste. We are not here dependent on inference. The author of the “ Republic” specifically proscribes the faculty of assuming any and every form at will, of reproducing the ignoble and the trivial in perfect imitations ; in which con- nexion he expressly bans the orator as well as the poet. Nor was his antipathy towards all that is “banausic” and illiberal greater in any epoch of his life than in that when he wrote the “Symposium ” and “ Phedrus,” and in these works unfurled the banner at once of exalted passion and of transcendental philosophy. The gates of heaven are opened, and before the splendour which pours out from them not only the petty art of Lysias pales, but the whole species of rhetoric which the ancients named “meagre” or “slender.” There remains a possibility, not worthy of more than passing mention, that personal friction may have
PLATO, LYSIAS, AND ISOCRATES, 25
accentuated an antagonism the roots of which lay deep in the natures of the two men. The democratically minded Lysias, even when writing in defence of Socrates, may have drawn a distinction between the philosopher and his aristocratic friends, say Critias or Alcibiades, to the dis- advantage of the latter. Another pupil of Socrates, fEschines, was attacked by him in a forensic speech with no less wit than refined malice—a fact to which the fellow- disciples could not be indifferent. Lastly, we have the attack upon Alcibiades contained in the two speeches against his son. But we prefer to lay no stress on the virulent abuse here poured out on the man who in Plato's works appears among the most intimate associates of Socrates, seeing that the Lysianic authorship of the speeches in question is not yet definitively established. Much of that which, in Lysias, repelled Plato was likely to attract him, at least temporarily, to Isocrates. The latter, as we learn more especially from his “ Areopagiticus,” was an opponent of pure democracy. In his speech “On the Pair of Horses” he casts a halo over the figure of Alcibiades. He had been familiar with Socrates, and some of his works are illuminated by the reflexion of this com- panionship. Lastly, he must have been brought near to Plato by their common antagonism to Antisthenes. We need not, therefore, be surprised to find the philosopher using him in his contest with Lysias as a kind of foil. We should not, indeed, make too much of the prophecy which Plato puts into Socrates’ mouth at the end of the dialogue: Isocrates will leave all other orators far behind him; as there is something of the philosopher in him already, and as he is of a far nobler disposition than Lysias, it would not be surprising if he were to go over to philosophy alto- gether. Those who agree with us in not regarding the “Phedrus ” as a work of early youth—a supposition which is sufficiently negatived by the Orphic-Pythagorean con- ception of the destiny of the soul—will not imagine that Plato seriously anticipated the fulfilment of this prophecy. He wrote in mature manhood (as Cicero pointed out long ago with perfect justice), and he could not expect the
26 GREEK THINKERS.
development of Isocrates, who was his scnior by nearly a decade, to take an entirely new direction. To this extent the prediction contains an expression of regret; it isa compliment not without a touch of condescension.
In truth Isocrates (436-338) was a particularly typical example of what has been called “a great man with limi- tations.” Moreover, his limitations were bound up most
intimately with his greatness. Without much wealth of ideas, he was an artist in language of the first rank. He freed Greek prose from the hampered gait and measured stiffness of its earlier representatives. He created the great smoothly rolling period—the monotonous symmetry of which, it must be admitted, has at times a soporific effect upon the reader. Now, of all one-sided talents, virtuosity of style is perhaps the one which leads the most easily to the over-appreciation of its possessor, both by himself and others. He who can express thoughts with more than common skill, and shape them with more than common smoothness and dignity, will hardly escape sharing with the sreat public the delusion that he is a wholesale producer of thoughts. And if such an artist in style rises, in his capacity of original thinker, high enough above the average level to impress, but not high enough to shock his contemporaries, his success is likely to be complete and permanent. But the strong feeling of self-satisfaction thus aroused, combined with a not wholly repressible consciousness of an inward void, moves the stylist to look with an eye of disfavour on those who equal him in mastery over speech, and far surpass him in power of thought. Such, in later years, was the relation of Isocrates to Plato. The quondam advocate, who had abandoned his old calling and wished it to be forgotten, had become the head of a distinguished school of rhetoric. In this position he believed himself to have rendered signal service to Athens and the whole of Greece, not only as the educator of numerous statesmen and authors, but also—a less well-founded claim—by his many-sided activity as a publicist. Of Plato’s genius and its far-reaching influence he had no conception. Sarcastic phrases were bandied about between the two, but it is more particularly in the works
DATE OF THE “ PHEDRUS.” a7
of Isocrates that we find unfriendly allusions to the greater of the two rivals. Sometimes, true “ philosopher” as he imagines himself to be, and fully conscious of his own immediate success, he looks down from the height of his superiority on the inventor of barren theories. Elsewhere he extends to the “ princes of the contentious art” the same condescending patronage as to the mathematicians and astronomers; he reluctantly admits that these men, who keep youths to their school-tasks longer than other teachers, do contribute, at least indirectly, towards the preparation of their pupils for life, by sharpening their wits and exercising their faculties. The bitterest expressions of his antipathy were posterior to the death of Plato, whose “ Republic” and “Laws ” were branded by him as “sophistical ” humbug.
4. The final compliment to Isocrates does not stand quite alone. Long ago certain instances have been noticed of almost verbal agreement between the “ Phedrus ” and Isocrates’ “ Speech against the Sophists.” With the majority of specialists, we hold that Plato is here the borrower, and that he desires to show his friendliness to Isocrates by this reminiscence of his writings. There is a no less striking resemblance between several passages of the “ Phedrus” and certain expressions of Alcidamas, a pupil of Gorgias, in his speech “against the Sophists,’ where the subject is the praise of improvisation as against written speeches. Here, again, chance is hardly to be thought of, and this time the borrower, if there is one, is most certainly Alci- damas. It is most probably to his attacks that a reply is made in the “Panegyric” of Isocrates. These circum- stances, if we have represented them correctly, enable us to circumscribe the date of our dialogue within fairly narrow bounds. It would follow that the “ Phedrus” was written a few years after 390 and before 380. For the speech of Isocrates “against the Sophists” was composed not long after 390, and his “ Panegyric ” in 380.
A much more difficult question to decide is that whether the “Phzdrus” preceded or followed the “Symposium,” a work which was written later than 384, and which may be rightly inferred, from the close relationship of its
28 GREEK THIHKERS.
contents, to be of approximately the same date. That the “Symposium ” is the later of the two, is a conclusion readily suggested by the greater advance which we find in this dialogue towards the refining and purifying of erotic sentiment. The argument, however, is not convincing, for the difference might very well have its cause in a change of mood. But it is the following consideration that leads us entirely to distrust this traditional reasoning: In a passage of the “Symposium” which we have already mentioned Plato looks up, with as yet unabated admiration, to the great poets and lawgivers, a Homer and a Hesiod, a Solon and a Lycurgus, to emulate whom is the philosopher's endeavour, and to equal whom is the highest goal of his ambition. Near the end of the “ Phedrus,” on the other hand, where he declares war upon authorship in general, he looks down from his height of attainment upon the authors of poems and of legislations, among whom he expressly names Homer and Solon. He thus not only removes him- self to a considerably greater distance from the current Greek estimate,—an estimate not foreign to his own youthful works ; he not only displays a stronger feeling of self- assurance ; he also gives expression to a mode of thinking which is essentially retained in his chief work, the “ Re- public,” where he banishes the poets and strikes out entirely new paths in legislation.
Still more serious difficulties await us when we seek to establish the chronological relationship of the “ Phedrus ” to the dialogue which is to occupy us next—the “ Phedo.” That the last-named is the later of the two is a conclusion for which there is internal evidence of a most convincing kind. It is not merely that in the “ Phedo” the doctrine of ideas is treated as one which has already been the sub- ject of much discussion, and has long been familiar, almost to the point of becoming a commonplace, to the wide circle of readers to which the work is addressed. More than this, the demonstrations which make up the whole content of the dialogue rest throughout on that doctrine. In the ‘‘ Pheedrus,” on the other hand, the main feature of Plato’s system is introduced, almost shyly, as though it were a
THE PHADRUS AND THE.“ PH2D0” 29
perfect novelty, or nearly so, with the words, “For one really ought to venture to speak the truth, especially in speaking about truths.”
But the priority of date thus indicated for the “ Phedrus” is contradicted by the criteria derived from language and style. A riddle is presented to us, the final solution of which has not yet been obtained. Still, to renounce, on this account, all faith in the linguistic criteria, is more than any sensible investigator would easily consent to do, The agreement of these criteria with those arising out of the subject-matter is all but complete, in respect both of the purely Socratic dialogues and of the numerous works of Plato’s old age. The theory of gravitation was not abandoned because in the first instance it explained only the main facts of the planetary motions, and did not account for all the perturbations. Similarly, the present problem would appear to be partly one of perturbations ; here, too, it may well be that the direct action of the dominant causes is masked and modified by subsidiary influences. Who would ever expect, in the case of any writings whatever, that the operation of arranging them chronologically, by the test of the author's stylistic development, would yield a perfectly definite and consistent result ; that the sum would work out without remainder? There are two possibilities which should not be lost sight of in such cases. A work may be long brooded over in the mind, and yet receive its clothing of language some time after another work much later in conception. Secondly, a work which is the earlier of two in composition and publication may, especially if its reception has been particularly favourable, have been subjected by the author to a process of revision, and may reach posterity only in its later garb. That precisely this latter was the fate of the “Phzedrus” is a view the probability of which the present author has already main- tained elsewhere.
20 GREEK THINKERS.
CHAPTER |X. THE “PHDO,” AND PLATO’S PROOFS OF IMMORTALITY.
1. IN the “Symposium” the doctrine of ideas finds only a limited application ; in the “ Phedrus” it has entered into relations with psychology, the theory of knowledge, and ethics; in the “Phzdo” it completely dominates Plato's thought. Here, too, we meet for the first time the technical term (εἶδος) by which these supernatural entities are to be henceforth designated ; they now include not only concepts of values, ethical and esthetic, but universals of every character and rank ; lastly, some attention is now given to the relations of the ideas to each other, their compatibilities and incompatibilities, as well as to the mode in which individual things participate in them. With all this the circumstance well agrees that the doctrine of ideas is here spoken of as one which has already been much debated, and which is trite and familiar to the interlocutors—there- fore also to the readers. In a word, Plato's mind has become thoroughly imbued with the doctrine of ideas, which now, if we may use the expression, not only fills the main arteries of his philosophical system, but has penetrated into its finest capillaries.
Accordingly, the exposition of this doctrine is now freed from the last remnant of mythical disguise ; it lies plain and naked before us. As long as we confine ourselves to the “ Symposium” and the “ Phedrus,’ it remains possible, if we are put to it, to explain the substantial existence of the ideas as a mere figure of speech; when we come to the “Phedo,” all such expedients or evasions become in- admissible. The future life of the soul is made an inference from its previous existence, and this again is inferred from
A DISCUSSION ON IMMORTALITY. 31
that vision of the archetypes which was vouchsafed to it in such previous existence. This brings us to the true kernel of the dialogue—a mighty structure, lavishly adorned with all the resources of art, the form of which excites our highest admiration in spite of the objections to which its argumentative content gives occasion.
The dialogue, of which the scene is laid in the prison of Socrates, is enclosed, as in a frame, by a subsidiary dialogue, which occupies the beginning, the middle, and the end of the work. At Phlius in the Peloponnese, a remote and little-visited town, Echecrates requests Phzdo, the loved disciple of Socrates (cf. Vol. 11. p. 205), to give him an account of the master’s last hours, and of the conversation which, according to report, he then held with his pupils. Plato is named as not having been present among the latter—a clear hint that the narrative lays no claim to historical accuracy in every particular. From early morning till close upon sunset, the moment when he drains the cup of hemlock, Socrates discourses with the company of friends around him, displaying as he does so the utmost calm and composure, the most untroubled confidence—that temper, in short, which has made the “ Phedo” a book of edifica- tion for mankind. It is precisely this cheerfulness in the face of death and of separation from friends and kin which moves the disciples to pained surprise. They ask Socrates to justify his demeanour. In response, he enters upon a series of disquisitions, in which the whole of life is repre- sented as a preparation for death, corporeal existence as an imprisonment of the soul, all the desires of the body as so many hindrances to pure knowledge, and yearning for death as a state of mind both natural and becoming to the wise man.
The dialogue thus centres in the question as to the con- tinued existence of the soul after separation from the body. The task of proof is one which Plato is far from taking lightly. Simmias and Cebes, two young Thebans who had formerly been pupils of the Pythagorean Philolaus, are cast for the opposition, and they play their part with such per- sistent thoroughness, with such ample resources of ingenious
32 GREEK THINKERS.
and penetrating criticism, that Socrates is compelled to ascend from weaker proofs to stronger, and from these again to the strongest of all, those which Plato himself deems irresistible. These arguments pro and con, the examination and illustration of them, will occupy us later. But it may be observed at once that the alternate exposition of them, the unwearied energy with which the tournament of demonstrations is fought to a finish, fulfils a double purpose. The conclusions finally reached are offered as the fruit of a conflict of opinions which the contestants have waged with- out fear or favour, unrestrained even by the wish to spare the feelings of the master so soon to be taken from them. Conclusions so arrived at appear invested with the highest possible degree of objective certainty. In the second place, Plato represents Socrates as lending a ready ear to all possible objections against a doctrine which at the moment must lie nearest his heart, as even pressing his friends to urge their doubts without concealment, as declaring im- placable war upon all “ misology,” that is, hatred of dis- course, or better, distaste for the critical examination of beliefs. Plato could not have paid more magnificent homage to the true philosophic spirit, or raised a nobler monument to the beloved master whom he thus depicts. Many readers of the “ Phedo” may be inclined to think the proofs of immortality unconvincing. Many of us may be repelled by the ascetic aloofness from life which is its funda- mental note. But no enemy of intellectual obscurantism, no one who is filled with the genuine spirit of truth-seeking, can hear this gospel of the unlimited liberty of thought without bowing the knee in reverence.
2. The “Phedo” is thus first and foremost an ex- pression of fearless and tireless striving for the attainment of reasoned convictions. But the emotions and the imagina- tion are by no means sent empty away. When the first two proofs have been dealt with, and an end made of the religious and ethical exhortations connected with them, a solemn silence ensues, and Socrates himself sinks into mute reverie. At this culminating point of the dialogue we seem to hear Plato’s heart beating with an unwonted throb. He
A WEALTH OF BRILLIANT IMAGES. 33 is deeply moved, and his emotion betrays itself in the manner customary with truly great authors. Image on image, thought on thought, rises from the perturbed depths of his soul as from an inexhaustible spring.
The case of those whose souls are no longer “nailed and glued” to their bodies, but who yet continue to cling to the pleasures by which they are entangled afresh in corporeal existence—the case of such is illustrated by Penelope’s endless and fruitless labour at the loom. When the other participants in the debate delay the expression of their remaining doubts, out of consideration for Socrates, the latter reminds them of the swans, whose song rises clear and jubilant in the hour of death; they are the servants of Apollo the god of prophecy, and, being them- selves prescient, they anticipate no evil at that time. The possibility that the soul may be long-lived, and yet not immortal, is illustrated by an ingenious comparison, Per- haps the soul, with its long series of incarnations, may resemble a weaver who makes and wears a number of garments in succession. Many of these he will wear out and survive, but at last one of them, which he has woven in his old age, will survive him. If we cannot find some “divine word” which will carry us through the ocean of life like a trusty vessel, then, we are told, it behoves us to take the best and most tenable of human proofs, and let them be our raft—a comparison which would certainly suggest to the Greek mind the image of Ulysses escaping from shipwreck. Seeing his friends flag in their efforts, Socrates addresses them, as a general might his “ defeated and fleeing troops,” and rallies them for a new attempt. He strokes caressingly the fair locks of Phado, who is sitting on a stool by his side, and remarks that to-morrow those locks must be shorn. “But do not mourn for me,” 50 we may paraphrase his next words, “ Rather let the hair of both of us be shorn to-day, if our argument dies, and we cannot call it back to life.’ The chief obstacle to success in such an endeavour, unwillingness to test beliefs, or “hatred of discourse,” is compared to hatred of mankind; the cause of both is blind confidence, the disillusions which
24 GREEK THINKERS.
inevitably follow that state of mind, and the resulting embitterment. Thus the discussion flows on with a continual variety of graceful turns and profound thoughts, till at last out of the conflict of arguments, as from the “eddies and surge of the Euripus,” there emerges the last and strongest proof, that with which Plato is satisfied.
A firm foundation having been found for the belief that the soul is indestructible, inferences are drawn relating to the care of it during life. For if death were the end of all, it would indeed be a “ windfall for the wicked,” who would be rid of their soul and their wickedness along with their body. But the soul is immortal, and takes with it to Hades its “education and nutriment,’ on which its weal or woe depends. The account of the world below is prefaced by a description of the earth as a sphere freely suspended in space (this Pythagorean doctrine was first promulgated by Parmenides ; cf. Vol. I. p. 182), and this state of suspension is explained by a theory due to Anaximander, as caused by the equilibrium of the earth and the homogeneity of the heavens (cf. Vol. I. p. 51). The dwellings of men are not, as commonly supposed, on the surface of the earth, but in depressions, where the waters gather together, where the air is less clear and pure, where the very rocks are corrupted and corroded. We dwell round the Mediterranean “like frogs round a marsh, and many others dwell elsewhere in many similar places. . . . But the earth itself lies pure in the pure heaven, which is commonly called the ether.” The illusion we experience is compared to that of imaginary beings dwelling at the bottom of the sea, and thinking the sea heaven because they see the sun and other celestial bodies through it. If we could grow wings and rise to the boundary of the grosser air, then, “like fishes which leap from the water,” we should see our portion of the earth, as well as the true heaven, the true light, and the true earth, And that which the sea-bottom, with its fissures and sand and infinite slime, is, compared with the earth and its loveliness, such is the world we know compared with that upper part. There all colours are far more brilliant, all plants more glorious, and the mountains are composed of precious stones.
THE “ PHAEDO” AS A WORK OF 4117. 35
This imaginative picture, to which Plato himself assigns only the value of a conjecture, probably made a stronger impression on his first readers than on us, who are to some extent reminded of the tales of the Thousand and One Nights. It is an outcome of Plato’s thirst for beauty, which, in this work so remote from all passion and sensuality, could only find satisfaction in the execution of a brilliant picture of the world. Such a picture, too, forms an effective foil to the terrors of Tartarus, which are here described shortly but with great vigour. With the penalties of the evil-doers is contrasted the reward of the good, who pass from the lower world to the earth, and finally attain a purely incor- poreal existence. This latter is spent by them in dwelling- places the description of which is not attempted. The dialogue closes with the equally simple and noble account of Socrates’ last moments, with which the educated world is fammiliar (cf. ΟΣ :p.: 110),
3. The first observation we have to make relates to the emotional effectiveness of the “ Phzdo.” This would have been greater if the confidence displayed by Socrates in the attainment of future blessedness had been somewhat less. At any rate, we are more deeply moved by the equally cheerful courage in face of death depicted in the “ Apology,” where Socrates knows nothing of any such hope, and is even unwilling to decide the question whether a dreamless sleep awaits him, to be followed by no waking, or a residence in the realm of shadows. But the value of the “ Phedo” asa philo- sophic work of art is incomparable. Indeed, it may be said to bear the impress of all Plato’s excellences ; in it we find united all that adorns his other writings, with none of the excrescences by which some of them are disfigured. The dialogue marks a stage of adjustment in Plato’s develop- ment. The acute dialectician and the imaginative poet, the fervid votary of free intellectual inquiry, and the enthu- siast glowing with intense religious emotion,—all these characters appear side by side, and none finds room at the expense of another; their voices combine in a harmony which is marred by no false note, not even that of harshness and injustice. The “ Phedo” is free from manifestations of
26 GREEK THINKERS. that Platonic hate which, though less celebrated than Pla- tonic love, is hardly less important. Such an equilibrium of qualities and powers occurs but once or twice in the career of even the most highly gifted. Nor was it permanent with Plato. When he wrote the “ Phedo” he still cherished a firm belief that the utmost acuteness and boldness in argu- ment could only strengthen, and not shake, his ethical and religious convictions. A time came when he perceived his error. That spirit of doubt which, in the “ Phzdo,” did no more than dig deep the foundations for a mighty edifice of thought, was destined, in its later activity, to undermine the stability of the whole fabric. The sceptical utterances of the “ Parmenides ” are followed, in the “ Sophist”” and the “Statesman,” by attempts at revision and adaptation. Finally, Plato rescues his dearest possessions from the storms of dialectic, which latter he abandons together with toleration and freedom of thought ; the “misology ” proscribed in the “ Phedo” is enthroned in the “ Laws,” and Socrates, the embodiment of cross-questioning, dis- appears from the stage.
Such an epoch of reconciliation and harmonious adjust- ment naturally occurs midway in the course of a thinker’s development. We have just had occasion to notice how far the “ Phedo” is removed from the “ Laws,” the terminal point of Plato’s philosophic activity. But it is also separated from his starting-point, that is, from the ‘“ Protagoras ” gsroup, by a considerable interval of time. It contains unmistakable retrospective references to the “ Meno” which are universally recognized. And it may be regarded as established that the “ Meno” presupposes the “ Protagoras ” (cf. Vol. II. p. 374). The same result may also be obtained by direct comparison. That prudential theory of ethics which is expounded, though not without reservation, in the closing portion of the “ Protagoras,” recurs in the “ Phedo,” but the virtue to which it leads is here pronounced a “shadowy image” of the true virtue which rests on inward purification ; it isa “slavish disposition of mind,” a chastity born of inchastity, a courage springing from cowardice, Plato now regards such virtues as a mere substitute, which
RELATION TO EARLIER AND LATER WORKS. 37
may suit the great mass, but is unworthy of the wise. This violent tone will be softened again in course of time. The excursions of the pendulum to right and left will be followed by a halt midway; in the “Laws” the morality which rests on Hedonism is accorded an honourable, if sub- ordinate, position, by the side of that which has an idealistic basis (cf. Vol. II. p. 323). We may observe, in passing, that the “Euthyphro” must also have preceded the “ Phzdo,” for in the latter, exactly as in the “ Republic,” piety is not numbered among the chief virtues—a feature which is doubly striking in view of the predominantly religious tone of the dialogue, and cannot possibly be due to chance (cf. Vol. II. p. 363). The posterior limit of date is determined by those passages in the sixth and seventh books of the “Republic ” in which we can hardly avoid seeing an example of self-correction on Plato’s part. The reference is to the principle of method set forth in the “ Phzdo,” according to which we rise from one hypothesis to another more com- prehensive than the first, and, in the case of each hypothesis, examine its consequences as to their agreement or disagree- ment. The above-mentioned books of the “ Republic,” on the contrary, warn us not to rest satisfied with hypotheses, but rather to use them as instruments, as finger-posts meant to indicate to us the way towards higher principles which are no longer hypothetical.
How completely the Orphic-Pythagorean mode of thought had taken possession of Plato when he wrote the “ Pheedo,” is clearly shown, even by our short sketch of the dialogue. . The “ pool of slime” of the Orphics is expressly mentioned ; so is the Pythagorean transference of human souls to brute bodies, and that in accordance with the inward relationship of the souls to the different animal species, so that, for example, robbers and tyrants become wolves, hawks, and vultures, with more transformations of a similar order (compare our account of the “ Pheedrus,” Ρ. 19).
The attitude adopted in the “Phedo” towards the question of the soul is altogether peculiar. In one of the proofs of immortality the soul is termed an absolutely
VOL. III. E
38 GREEK THINKERS.
simple substance, and is identified with the principle of knowledge. There results a contrast with the “ Phedrus,” as well as with the “Republic” and the “ Timzus,” all of which know the soul as tripartite. One is tempted, on this account, to assume an earlier phase of the Platonic psychology, and to assign to the “Phzedo” a position nearer in this respect to the purely Socratic dialogues and the intellectualism represented by them. But to develop this thought fully is to reject it. True Socratism knows nothing of the bad will, but only errors of the understand- ing. Every one wills the good; the many who do not attain it are hindered by nothing but lack of knowledge. It is quite otherwise in the “ Phzdo.” Here the “irrational parts of the soul,’ to use Aristotle's expression, are so far from being ignored, that the life of the wise man rather appears as a perpetual conflict with desires, born of the body, which stain the soul and seduce it to wrong-doing. How, then, we ask, could Plato yet pronounce the soul a simple entity, having pure reason for its essence? We may answer this question somewhat as follows. Plato has fallen into a very natural error, one by which popular phraseology is largely affected. He regards those functions of the soul which are obviously conditioned by the body as being really “affections of the body,” and he so describes them. Even such active emotions as anger or ambition are here viewed in that light. Plato will allow nothing to be of the nature of soul, except what he deems immortal, and immortality, for him, belongs only to the rational principle in man, which is intended to bear rule in him. The main idea recurs, with greater clearness of conception, in the “Republic,” and in its continuation, the “ Timzus,” which distinguishes between three souls—the intellectual, residing in the head, and the lower souls of passion and desire, seated in the breast and the belly, while immortality is conceded only to the first and most excellent of them. Thus, in spite of the apparent contradiction, the “ Phedo” stands nearer to the “ Republic” and “ Timzus,” in respect of the question of immortality, than it does to the “ Phe- drus,” which, by its image of the charioteer and the two
THE RATIONAL AND OTHER PARTS OF THE SOUL. 39
horses, acknowledges the tripartite nature of the soul in its prenatal existence as well as, indirectly, in its future life, and does not ascribe immortality solely to the rational element.
How, then, are we to interpret the fact that in the description of the under-world, which forms the closing portion of the “ Phedo,” souls appear which “by the magni- tude of their transgressions, by accumulated murders, by repeated and grievous sacrilege,” have become “ incurably ” corrupt, and have therefore been banished to Tartarus for all eternity? Can it really be that Plato is here thinking merely of an intellect which has been shattered beyond repair by a series of misdeeds and by the bodily desires which led to them? This is not very probable, though it is not altogether impossible. But what are we to say of those other souls, also deeply corrupt yet not irremediably so, which are subjected to purifying punishments, which long for release, which cry for help and implore the pardon of those against whom they have sinned? Much in this description may be mere mythical embellishment, but the souls represented as suffering torments from which they flee cannot, from the nature of the case, have been regarded by Plato as beings endowed only with thought ; he must have ascribed feeling and action to them as well. We are justified, therefore, in asserting that while Plato does indeed teach, in general terms, the exclusive immortality of the single-natured rational soul, he departs from this doctrine in the details of his exposition ; overpowered by the anthro- pomorphic instinct, which craves for these beings also the full attributes of personality, he endows and complicates the intellectual principle with elements of emotion and desire. Perhaps, if questioned on the point, he would have replied that those souls still had a remnant of corporeality clinging to them; just as he really asserts, in respect of the souls which wander, ghost-like, about graveyards, that they are not sufficiently detached from materiality, by which they are permeated, and thus, having still some share in visi- bility, have been seen by men. In that case, those as yet incompletely purified souls of the under-world would, though
40 GREEK THINKERS.
in a less degree than the souls upon earth, bear some resemblance to the sea-god Glaucus (to quote a fine simile from the “ Republic”), parts of whose body were broken off or worn off, and the defect supplied by incrustations of shellfish, stones, and seaweed.
4. The proofs of immortality offered in the “ Phzedo” are three in number, as Hermann Bonitz has shown ina masterly analysis of the work, and all are based on the doctrine of ideas. Here, however, we have to note an im- portant difference. The two first proofs, which are sent, as it were, to bear the brunt of the attack, borrow their premisses only in part from the doctrine of ideas. For the rest, Plato supports them, deliberately and consciously, by principles belonging to his predecessors, the nature-philo- sophers. For this reason those proofs are not regarded by him as unconditionally valid, and for the same reason the third argument, conceived by him as possessing irresistible cogency, is made to follow the first two at a considerable interval and clearly separated from them. Plato’s manner of effecting this separation is highly artistic and ingenious. The barrier of division is not formed solely by the controversy on the objections raised by Simmias and Cebes. The real transition is supplied by an account of Socrates’ intellectual development, the aim and object of which is to justify his abandonment of nature-study for the investigation of con- cepts, and thus to indicate that the third proof depends exclusively on the latter, without owing anything to physical speculation. The turning-point in this mental history is placed at the time when Socrates first made the acquaint- ance of the Anaxagorean doctrine of mind—a doctrine which at first inspired him with enthusiasm, but soon left him dis- illusioned, because the sage of Clazomene, though placing in the forefront the rational principle that promised so much, made only an inadequate use of it in his explanations. He, too, had been chiefly at pains to discover physical or mechanical, not final causes (cf. Vol. I. p. 216).
The main question, for Socrates, is not the agency through which anything happens, but the reason why it happens ; the true cause of everything is purpose, directed
THE FIRST PROOF OF IMMORTALITY. AI
towards the best. But the traditional mode of viewing nature does not lead to a knowledge of such true causes, rather to a knowledge of that “without which the cause could not be a cause.” It is much as if some one, instead of explaining the fact of Socrates being seated here in prison by his condemnation and his conviction that flight would be wrong, were to attribute it to his possession of bones and sinews and other parts which enable him to sit ; or as if the causes of the dialogue now in progress were stated to be sound, air, hearing, and so forth. A certain amount of biographical fact may be interwoven with this narrative, but its main purpose is to exhibit the exclusive validity of the Socratic and Platonic method of inquiry. As the story proceeds it is associated with an exposition of certain speculative difficulties, which points in the same direction.
At this point Socrates’ abandonment of natural for mental philosophy is illustrated by a brilliant simile. The contemplation of the universe, he remarks, produced upon him a blinding effect, such as is experienced by one who fixes his gaze upon the sun, say for the purpose of observing a solar eclipse. Just as that observer would look away from the great luminary to its “reflexion in water or some similar substance,’ so Socrates turned from things to concepts. Not that he is for a moment ready to admit—as Plato im- mediately adds, to correct the injustice of the comparison— that concepts are a paler copy of true reality than the things of sense.
Reduced to its tersest expression, the first proof of immortality runs as follows: The world-process consists of an alternation of contraries (the doctrine of Heraclitus) ; the earthly existence of the human soul was preceded by a life of an opposite character, which included the vision of the ideas ; it must therefore be followed by another such life in the future.
This cyclic character of all processes is brought out in a highly ingenious manner. Without cease or intermission, it is urged, there goes on an alternation of heat and cold, of sleep and waking, of the mixture and the separation of
42 GREEK THINKERS.
substances. If the course of nature followed only one direction, it would lead in the end to an eternal sameness and stagnation ; the universe would sink into a sleep of Endymion. The argument reminds us of the modern doctrine of entropy, which teaches the final extinction of all sensible motion by its conversion into molecular motion in the form of heat—a process which cannot be completely reversed. One might, indeed, be inclined to suppose that the circulation of matter was sufficient to prevent such a “lameness” of nature in respect of the organic and the inorganic world, while the alternating conditions of the soul, now parted from the body, now reattached to it, present no accurate counterpart to the above-mentioned processes of change. But though the analogy may be inexact and the reasoning based on it inconclusive, the fact remains that this argument appeals, in its first part, to real features of the order of nature, and that it is only the second premiss which is borrowed from the specifically Platonic theory of knowledge.
The second proof has the following form: All decay is a dissolution of the composite; all that is simple, on the contrary, is indissoluble, and therefore imperishable ; the ideas, which have their existence in themselves, are absolutely simple ; the knowing subject and the object of knowledge are essentially similar to each other (a doctrine taught by Empedocles and others); therefore the soul, which knows the ideas, is also simple—that is to say, indissoluble and likewise imperishable. The relations to the doctrines of the nature-philosophers extend further than we have here indicated. For the proposition that all perishing is dissolution, or division of the compounded, was asserted, as the reader will remember, by Anaxagoras and Empedocles, and by them emphatically contrasted with the popular view that things really perish (cf. Vol. I. pp. 210, 232), while the denial of all true genesis and annihilation was a common doctrine of the physicists in general. Plato himself, as we have already remarked, was not perseveringly consistent on the soul’s simplicity. Such simplicity was hard to harmonize with psychological facts, and the difficulty
THE SOUL A HARMONY OF THE BODY? 43
is nowhere more manifest than in that passage of the “Republic” in which the threefold division of the soul is maintained in respect of its life on earth while linked with the body, and denied in respect of its independent existence. Still, the doctrine of simplicity won the upper hand later on, and its predominance has lasted down to our day. It is only in recent times that it has been seriously impugned, and that cases of “double consciousness” and kindred phenomena have been invoked against the supposed un- compounded nature of the soul.
Before Plato develops his third, and, in his own view, conclusive argument, he presents us with a dis- cussion, ending in a refutation, of a rival theory—one which was afterwards championed by Peripatetics such as Aristoxenus and Diczarchus, and which was possibly due to Philolaus. According to this theory, the soul is a harmony of the body, or, as it is expressed elsewhere, of the four elements composing the body. The comparison here shadowed forth between the soul and the concordant sounds elicited from a musical instrument appears to rest on the following considerations: As the immaterial harmonies take their rise from the material strings of the lyre, so the operations of the soul have their origin in the bodily organs. In either case the invisible and intangible proceeds from the visible and tangible, the fine from the coarse, the highly valuable from the comparatively valueless. With equal right the psychical element in man might be compared to the delightful fragrance wafted from an uncomely plant. The principal purpose which the analogy served was doubtless that of breaking down the assumption that psychical processes are of higher than merely corporeal origin, and the essential part of the doctrine was clearly the thesis that the workings of the soul are the effects of bodily causes; that no special entity need be assumed as the vehicle and generator of those operations. It is, in a word, what is usually called the materialistic theory of the soul, except that it is free from the confusion of thought which regards the psychical functions as them- selves corporeal, and not merely as a product of the
44 GREEK THINKERS.
corporeal. It is thus not the heart of the theory, but only its outward vesture, which is touched by Plato’s chief objection, namely, that virtue is a concord or harmony of the soul’s functions, and would therefore be, by the theory in question, a “harmony of harmony,” which is absurd. The materialistic view does not lose its right to existence till we come to a higher stage of thought, one for which the Cyrenaic school prepared the way, but on which no ancient thinker ever fully entered. That which really puts materialism out of court is the consideration that we know absolutely nothing of any matter which exists in and for itself; our analysis of facts cannot carry us further or deeper than to the phenomena of consciousness.
The third argument rests on the principle of contra- diction: contradictory opposites exclude each other. Applied in the world of ideas, this is as much as to say that an idea cannot take up into itself the idea of its contrary. Indirect contradiction is treated similarly. The individual thing which has part in an idea (that is, a thing of which the idea is an essential attribute) is declared incapable of receiving into itself either the contrary idea or a thing which participates in the contrary idea. In sucha case the choice lies between two possibilities: the thing will cease to be what it was, will perish as such ; otherwise it will turn aside and escape unharmed. If, for example, fire, which participates in the idea of heat, is brought near to snow, which participates in the idea of cold, then, either the fire will destroy the snow, or the snow the fire. With the soul, Plato argues, it is otherwise. The soul has part in the idea of life ; the opposite of life is death ; the soul is therefore alien to death ; if, then, annihilation is brought near the soul, as it is to snow by fire or to fire by snow, the result is not that the soul perishes, but that it withdraws uninjured ; it is indestructible.
5. The irony of fate has ordained that the proof prized most highly by its author should be the one in which an impartial critic finds the greatest weaknesses. The applica- tion made of the principle of contradiction to the world of ideas belongs to the mythology of concepts. The illustration
THE THIRD PROOF. 45
of fire and snow is by no means a happy one. Heat and cold are not absolute, but relative determinations. Indeed, the snow formed from water, as a modern physicist might object, is hot in comparison with the snow of carbonic acid which is prepared in our laboratories. Nor can it be regarded as irrevocably established what is the essential attribute of a concrete thing. As regards the concluding portion of the argument, the choice lies between two inter- pretations which are equally fatal to its validity. Either, on the one hand, the soul, as the principle of life, is regarded from the first as immortal; in which case the question is evaded, and the argument reduced to a fetitio principit; while appearing to advance, it merely changes its linguistie dress. Or else, if we adopt the not improbable view of a recent interpreter, Plato is guilty of a “fallacy.” He starts from the assumption that the soul, being the vehicle of life, excludes “ death, the opposite of life.” From this, however, the only direct and legitimate inference is that the soul “in so far as, and as long as it exists, can only be alive and never dead.” But Plato illegitimately infers the im- mortality of the soul, in the sense of indestructibility. Criticism apart, it is worthy of remark that in the second argument the soul signifies the principle of knowledge, but in the third the principle of life. Thus the last proof of immortality, as was perceived long ago, has an extensive range of application ; for it includes not human souls alone, nor even the souls of animals, but also the vital energy of plants, to which the ancients gave likewise the name of “soul.” The comprehensive nature of the proof is not explicitly noticed in the “ Phedo,” but the “ Timzus” con- tains the doctrine that there is only a limited number of souls, and that these serve to animate and inform, succes- sively, organisms of the most diverse kinds.
Plato sometimes regarded the soul, not only as the principle of life, but also as the principle of all motion, and he thence deduced its immortality. In this he followed in thie tootsteps of Alcmzon (cf. Vol. I. p. 151, sg7.). The same idea is to be found in the “ Phzdrus,” and it recurs in a passage of the “ Laws.” The soul is regarded as the
46 GREEK THINKERS.
“source and spring of all movement,” as the “only self- moving thing,’ whereas everything else receives its motion from without. But that which has the source of its motion in itself, Plato contends, can neither begin nor cease to exist. In this proof, which is contained in the “ Phedrus,” we also note the first clear manifestation of Plato’s com- plete breach with the hylozoism (ascription of life to matter) of the old nature-philosophers, his degradation of matter to a lower plane (cf. Vol. I. p. 344).
As the doctrine of ideas is not mentioned in the “ Laws,” it is natural to suppose that the aged Plato had ceased to be satisfied with the demonstration, wholly built on that doctrine, which he had given in the “Phzdo.” In the “ Phedrus,” on the other hand, where the doctrine of ideas is a comparative novelty and the preaching of it a bold venture (cf. p. 28, seg.), he had not yet travelled so far as to make it the foundation of his most cherished religious con- victions. One stage of the journey from the “ Phedo” to the “Laws” is marked by a proof noticed in the tenth book of the “ Republic,’ which also evidently failed to satisfy Plato permanently. Everything—this is the gist of the argument—is destroyed by badness, both of itself and of other things, not by what is good or indifferent ; but the soul survives its own deepest corruption ; no one dies of injustice, though this is the greatest malady of the soul ; how, then, can external causes of destruction have any power over it? For this reason it must be regarded as absolutely imperishable. It is hardly necessary to point out that the words “ goodness” and “ badness” are here employed partly in the moral sense, partly in the sense of fitness and un- fitness for the battle of existence. We shall be brought back to the subject when we come to consider the position occupied in Plato’s system by the “idea of the good.”
We take our leave of the “Phzdo.” But first we must call attention to a real discovery—one proof against al contradiction which appears within the limits of this dialogue. Plato is speaking of the recollection which the soul has of the impressions received by it during its pre- existence, and he takes occasion to formulate for the first
THE LAWS OF ASSOCIATION. 47
tirne and to elucidate with unsurpassable clearness the two fundamental laws governing the association of ideas—the law of similarity and the law of contiguity. Similar images, and images which have been perceived side by side or in immediate succession, tend to reproduce each other in the mind. Our recollections of a lyre may be aroused either by its own painted semblance or by the person of the musician who played upon it. The service thus rendered by Plato can be justly appreciated only by those who know the full extent of the help which the psychology of association has given towards the unravelling of the most difficult problems in mental science, in the theory of morals as well as in the theory of knowledge. The architect of many a thought-fabric not destined to endure has here erected two mighty gate-towers at the entrance of the Temple of Truth.
48 GREEK THINKERS.
CHAPTER xa: PLATO'S “REBUBLIC.-
1. GUIDED by the progress of the doctrine of ideas, we have followed Plato to the meridian height of his productivity. Here there awaits us his most powerful creation, the “Republic.” But before we enter upon the study of it, a few subsidiary works must be mentioned which certainly did not follow the “ Republic,” though one or two of them may not be earlier in date than the first out of the ten books of the longer work. It was perhaps in an interval of that long and tedious literary labour that the “ Phaedo” saw the light—a possibility to which we shall have occa- sion to recur. One of these subsidiary works, the “Euthydemus,” we only mention now in order to reserve the discussion of it, which can hardly be separated from that of the “ Theztetus,” for a later chapter. But there are two others, curiously contrasted with each other, which invite our attention for the moment—the “Menexenus” and the “ Crito.”
The “ Menexenus” exhibits a strangely discordant cha- racter. In it Plato, as his manner is (see Vol. II. p. 309), desires at once to ridicule and to outbid the rhetoricians But the theme which he chooses for this purpose, the glorification of Athens, hardly admitted of a purely bur- lesque mode of treatment, and the mocker found himself at times overpowered by his subject and carried away into genuine emotion. “It is easier to blame than to do better ;” “Let him try for once to equal the rhetoricians he despises ;”—phrases such as these may well have been heard more than once by the author of the “ Gorgias,” and in them, possibly, we may see the impulse out of which
THE “ MENEXENUS.” 49
this parodistic show-piece grew. Plato indicates clearly enough that it is not meant seriously by making Socrates express a doubt whether such amusements befit his old age. There is bitter sarcasm in the confession of Socrates: “After hearing such a speech, I seem to myself a nobler and better man than I was before, and the impression lasts quite three or four days.” On the other hand, there is humour in the idea of making Socrates call Aspasia his teacher. He professes to do no more than reproduce the crumbs of eloquence which were left over at the prepara- tion of the great funeral-speech—that speech which Pericles delivered, and the highly gifted companion of his life is here said to have composed. For Socrates also devotes a speech to the honour of Athenians fallen in battle—by a wilful anachronism, the peace of Antalcidas, B.c. 387, is made the occasion of it—his effort is adorned with all the rhetorical tinsel usual in such circumstances, while historical and political truth is treated with the popular orator’s customary disregard for accuracy. The worst reproach, it is said, that can be brought against Athens is that she has always been too soft-hearted, and has always been ready to serve the cause of the weaker. Scorn of the bitterest kind is to be found in what is said about the Athenian constitution of the day, namely, that whether it is called a democracy, or whatever other name may be given to it, it is really an aristocracy, a government by the best. A thought which Pericles, as reported by Thucydides, ex- presses in full earnest, that no Athenian is prevented from serving the State by poverty or obscurity of origin (cf. Vol. II. p. 41), is here given a purely ironical turn. Reading these and similar passages, one is inclined to see in Plato an associate of the oligarchical revolutionaries.
Such an impression is corrected by the “ Crito.” This work gives the other side of the picture, and thus presents — a sharp contrast to the “Apology” and the “Gorgias ᾿᾿ as well as to the “ Menexenus.” We do not know what was the occasion out of which the little dialogue grew ; but we can hardly resist the impression that in writing it Plato was particularly concerned to defend himself and his friends
50 GREEK THINKERS.
against the suspicion of sympathy with revolution. “Much as we regret and condemn the imperfections and the per- versities of our national institutions, we have not the remotest desire to overturn the constitution by violence and substitute our own ideals at a stroke”—such is the message we read between the lines of the dialogue, the contents of which may be summarized as follows,
Crito, an old and tried friend of Socrates, has made every preparation for his master’s flight; now that the return of the Delian ship is imminent (cf. Vol. II. p. 110), he is ready to set everything in motion for the rescue. But Socrates refuses his co-operation, and supports his refusal by an argument which stands in glaring contradiction to the defiant audacities of the “Apology.” He begins by reminding Crito of the principles which the discussions they have had together have done so much to confirm— that life with a corrupted soul is as little desirable as life with a corrupted body ; that nothing corrupts the soul like injustice ; that the foundation of all justice is obedience to the laws ; that every one who disobeys the existing laws, whether he thinks them salutary or not, is contributing his share to the destruction of the community. Not content with this dialectic proof, Socrates brings the Athenian laws themselves on the stage, and allows them to deliver a powerful and rhetorically effective address. The main thought in it is that every citizen, by remaining a member of the common body and not leaving his country, as he is perfectly at liberty to do, has entered into a tacit contract, which no circumstances can justify him in violating.
The most remarkable feature of the “Crito” is the ethical refinement displayed in it—a refinement which goes far beyond that of the “Gorgias,” and finds a parallel only in the earlier books of the ‘‘ Republic.” All doing of injury, even to an enemy, all retaliation, even of injustice, © is prohibited, and a striking contrast is thus presented, not only to the teaching of the Xenophontean Socrates, but also to the “ Gorgias,’ where utterance is given to a wish that the unjust enemy may be preserved from cure by impunity, and, if possible, may remain an immortal villain
THE ΘΕΙ͂ΤΟ 51
(cf. Vol. II. p. 332). The traditional view, that the “ Crito” is closely related chronologically to the “ Apology,” is in contradiction with the different representations given in the two works of the world below. Faith in future rewards and punishments is not so entirely alien to the “Crito” as it is to the “ Apology.” Lastly, the relatively late date of the dialogue, as has been recently pointed out, is attested by the fact of its not being presupposed in the intro- duction to the “ Phedo.” The purpose of the “Crito” is, perhaps, most easily intelligible if we suppose it to have appeared at a time when several books of the “ Republic ” were already composed, and perhaps even published. It is as if Plato said to his countrymen, “ You know that I have devised and submitted to the public judgment certain social and political innovations, such as would revolutionize the present order of things. But do not therefore suppose that I and my pupils are plotting the violent overthrow of national institutions. We set a great value on fidelity to the laws, no less than our master did ‘when he appeared before the judges, though it was in his power not to appear,’ and again when he submitted to the penalty of death you decreed against him, though, if he had wished to evade it, there was nothing to prevent his purchasing liberty and life by an illegal flight.”
2. The composition of the “ Republic” has, during the last few decades, been made the subject of conjectures which we see the less occasion to discuss fully, as we feel bound to reject them 7z# foto, Critics have credited them- selves with such profound insight into Plato’s literary methods as to imagine they had discovered the true order in which the books of the “Republic” were written—an order differing from that in which they appear—and to represent the work as a conglomerate of disparate frag- ‘ments. Now, the “Republic” is no posthumous work ; there can be no doubt that it was published by Plato as a whole. The sequence of its parts, as we have it, is that which was finally settled upon by one of the greatest of artists in style ; and it would be truly wonderful if we could go behind that sequence and find evidences of
52 GREEK THINKERS.
another and more primitive distribution. The audacity, not to say presumption, of the attempt to do so is height- ened by an admission which the critics in question were compelled to make. Their hypotheses could not be main- tained erect without the support of auxiliary hypotheses. They were obliged to assume that before the publication of his work Plato set about making alterations in it for the purpose of fusing the discordant elements and obliterating the traces of the original arrangement. In fact, the more deeply the structure of the “ Republic” was studied, the more imperative became the need of having constant recourse to this subsidiary assumption. Thus the fabric of hypothesis, the foundations of which were insecure from the beginning, became more and more unstable. There are instances where Plato clamps together neighbouring portions of his work as with iron bands, by anticipatory statement, by retrospective reference, by continued de- velopment of the same image. Here, however, we are invited to believe that what now comes second once came first, and that the contrary appearance has been produced by Plato’s subsequent additions and modifications. Enough, we think, has been said to convince the reader that while such complicated manipulations are in themselves possible, certitude, or any near approach to certitude, in the detection of them is out of the question.
That which the minute investigation of the “ Republic” has really brought to light is, apart from a few memory-slips of the author, nothing more than what one might have taken for granted, namely, that the writing of so comprehensive a work, one teeming with so great a variety of matter, must have occupied a very considerable time, and that during the interval the restless mind of Plato was not content to stand still.
One remark here in anticipation. Like every judicious writer who seeks to convince rather than to dazzle, the author of the “ Republic” took serious counsel with himself as to how, when, and in what order he should treat the points on which the greatest opposition and most deter- mined resistance was to be expected on the part of his
tHE ΡΟΝ THE REPUBLIC.” 53
readers. The economy of paradox which he thus observes may be reduced to three main principles. Firstly, he reserves the thorny questions for a relatively advanced stage of the inquiry, at which the reader’s mind and heart have been already captured and won over. Secondly, he allows the reader time to overcome one difficulty before he presents him with another, and he is at pains to interrupt, by literary artifices, the direct sequence of the corresponding discussions. Thirdly, he treats these most difficult and most delicate parts of his subject in ascending order of difficulty-or repellency. Moreover, he not only adopts this procedure ; he announces his adoption of it in unmistakable terms. This is an observation to which we shall recur at a suitable place, and it will prove, we hope, one of our strongest weapons in the fight against the theory of rearrangement.
The “Republic” belongs to the family of reported dialogues. The discussion is continued, to the length of a good-sized octavo volume, by practically the same persons throughout, and Socrates reproduces the long colloquy in one continuous narrative. One may, perhaps, feel some surprise that a great literary artist should have set so little store by the illusion of reality as to admit so gross an improbability into his fiction. There must be some definite reason for the incongruity ; the composition of the work is, in all other respects, governed by the most purposeful calculation, and we cannot, as in many similar instances in the works of Plato’s old age, lay the responsibility on a growing indifference to external form. We are inclined to assume that Plato wished this, his principal work, to be the acknowledged presentment of his fundamental doctrines as a connected whole, and that he was therefore unwilling to dispense with unity in the framework of it. If, in the end, he recognized the necessity of reserving a portion of his system for special treatment, and of expanding the “Republic” into a trilogy, or even—as was his intention for a time—into a tetralogy, this must be set down as an after-thought which did not arise in his mind till a consider- ably later date.
MOE ITT. F
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3. The picture which meets us at the threshold of the great work is one to warm the heart. Socrates, accom- panied by Plato’s brother Glaucon, is on his way home from the Pirzeus, where he has been attending a religious festival. He is perceived from afar by Polemarchus (the philosophically-minded brother of the unphilosophical orator Lysias), who at once sends a slave in pursuit of him, and by playful threats of force compels him to retrace his steps. He conducts him to the hospitable house of his father Cephalus. The latter also greets Socrates with the most winning cordiality. It is a long time since the friends last met. The advanced age of the host supplies material for the opening portion of the dialogue. Cephalus rejoices to have escaped from the stormy passions of youth; he rejoices, too, in his possession of ample means, chiefly because he has thereby been preserved from many a temptation to injustice. He finds his true happiness in the consciousness of lifelong integrity. Thus the key-note of the whole work is struck. The naive instinct of the worthy old man grasps at once the solution which the dialogue is destined to pursue by devious paths and wide circuits. As soon as the discussion on the nature of justice assumes the true dialectical character, Cephalus disappears from the numerous auditory, called away by a religious duty, and Polemarchus his son and heir inherits, as is jestingly remarked, his father’s share in the debate.
The inquiry begins exactly as in the “Laches,” the “Charmides,” the “Euthyphro.” Starting from what is crudest and most external, it ever strives towards increased refinement and more intimate comprehension. Is justice to be identified with straightforwardness in conduct, and the restoration of that which has been borrowed from another? Certainly not; the weapon, for example, which has been borrowed from a man in sound health must not be restored to him when he is afflicted with mania. For this reason a saying of the poet Simonides, who deemed justice to consist in the “ payment of debts,” is reinterpreted to mean that a debt is that which is due—good to friends and evil to enemies.
WHAT IS $USTICE 9 55
Here the discussion leaves the straight path, to return to it presently. The objection now raised involves a strange confusion—one that will often recur—between character and capacity. The physician and the cook must be added to those who render what is due—the medicine, food, and drink, which is the due of the body whether in health or in disease. These men, then, have the power of benefiting their friends and injuring their enemies; and so has the pilot in the case of a voyage at sea. It appears, therefore, that justice, so understood, ranks after special skill in nearly every department of life ; for it is profitable, not when things are to be used, but at most when they are to lie idle. It is of service so long as a shield or a lyre needs nothing but safe custody, but if either of these must be used, the soldier’s or the musician’s art is required. Nor is this the worst that can be said of such a justice. That of which any man is the best keeper is also that, as many examples show, of which he is the best taker. Justice, then, which is a most effectual preserver of gold and goods, turns out to be an art of stealing and overreaching.
But, to be sure—here Plato returns from his playful digression to the serious consideration of his subject—the object aimed at, whether in keeping or taking, must always be that of benefiting friends or injuring enemies. This limitation is now examined closely. Whom do we consider friends? Those only who appear to us to be good. The reverse holds of enemies. But is not the appearance, both of goodness and badness, often deceptive? And does it not follow from our rule that the just man will often desire to injure the good and benefit the bad? But this cannot possibly be just ; the maxim must be revised, and will now run: It is just to injure the bad, that is, unjust man, and to benefit the good, or just man, no matter whether friends or enemies.
But the inquirers are not yet satisfied. The definition just arrived at is assailed with the help of a principle which we have already met with in the “Crito,” the principle, namely, that the just man must injure no one, not even an enemy, not even a bad enemy. For by injury all beings
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are made worse, men no less than horses or dogs. Each, too, is made worse in its own peculiar virtue or excellence, such as justice is for men. (Here, without doubt, there is introduced a confusion between “to injure” in the sense of making unserviceable, and in that of causing pain or unhappiness.) The paradoxical character of this result and its contradiction of what poets and sages have hitherto taught, are fully present to Plato’s mind.
4. He is therefore anxious to try conclusions with the prevailing view. Taking full advantage of his liberty as artist, he employs an unsympathetic personality, whose entry upon the scene is marked by violent abruptness, to embody popular opinion. Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, the rhetorician, who has already several times endeavoured to interfere in the discussion, and has been restrained with difficulty by the others present, now avails himself of a pause in the dialogue. He can no longer contain himself, and, “like a wild beast on the spring,” leaps upon Socrates and Polemarchus. In contrast with the “childish” idealism of Socrates, which nauseates him, he comes forward in the character of a case-hardened realist. Pressed to formulate a definition of his own, he declares that the just is nothing else than “the interest of the stronger,” meaning by the “stronger” the supreme authority in the State, whether the government be monarchical, aristocratic, or democratic. We cannot here forbear remarking that this definition, as long as we confine ourselves to positive law, harmonizes ex- cellently with the facts, and still more with the theories on which in ancient and modern times representative government, and its ancient equivalent, direct government by the people, have been supported. Words quite similar to those of Thrasymachus are used by an author almost contemporary with him, who set a great value on fidelity to the laws and on the rule of the people. He speaks of “the laws which benefit the many,” and brands the usurper as the man who “overthrows right and the law which is the common interest of all.” And much the same language is used to-day by those advocates of universal suffrage who maintain that this institution is the only one capable of
THRASYMACHUS INTERVENES. 57
giving full effect to the demands of the general interest. He who entertains this conviction, be it well or ill founded, cannot doubt that rulers are guided by their own interests in the exercise of their powers, and he must therefore recognize the soundness of the above formula, provided it be understood as merely asserting that the laws in force at any time and place are the expression of the interests of that factor whose influence is paramount in the government.
The polemic against this thesis starts from the obser- vation that this factor may misunderstand its own interest, that, in short, it is not infallible. Thrasymachus is perfectly willing to admit this, and amends his proposed definition accordingly. In the revised form of it the fallibility which attaches to all human effort is taken account of, and a distinction is drawn, not without subtlety, between the ruler as such and the ruler as man. When the physician or the calculator commits an error, he is, to that extent, no longer a physician or calculator, and a similar remark applies to rulers and persons in authority. Plato does not entangle him in a real contradiction until he represents him as making concessions which he might very well have avoided. The art of rule is compared with other arts, and the analogy invoked as proving that the ruler, like the physician or pilot, does not regard his own interest, but the interest of those to whose service he devotes his art. Nor does this conclusion appear in the guise of an ethical postulate, but as a truth implicit in the conceptions employed.
To meet the obvious objection that the physician does, after all, derive personal advantages from his labours, he, too, is split into two halves, the “true physician” who is a “tender of the sick,” and the “man of business” intent on gain. We have here a distinction of uncommon significance, and one which may well remind us of the recent demand that the higher callings should fully supply the material needs of those who follow them, but should not serve as sources of great wealth; Socrates, to be sure, does not distinguish between what is socially or ethically desirable and what is actual fact. As against this confusion of ideas,
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Thrasymachus’ reference to the art of a shepherd, who by no means seeks the welfare of his flock as his ultimate end, is very much to the purpose. It shows, at the least, that in the concept of “art,” or practice governed by rules, no ethical element whatever is contained, and that if the opposite view seemed to follow from the consideration of a few arts, the exercise of which benefits their object, the conclusion was surreptitiously imported into the premisses. This, of course, is not Plato’s opinion ; it is precisely at this point that he represents the vehemence of the rhetorician as degenerating into brutality, and puts one or two really offensive expressions in his mouth. As the shepherd exploits his sheep, says Thrasymachus, so the ruler exploits the ruled for his own advantage ; herein lies his happiness, and the highest degree of it is attained by the tyrant or usurper who appropriates, not piecemeal, but at a blow, the possessions of others, private as well as public, secular as well as sacred, who robs his subjects of their freedom along with their property, and who, by the very thoroughness with which he goes to work, secures himself against the scorn and infamy which overtake plunderers on a smaller scale ; is he not rather lauded and congratulated, at home as well as abroad? Thrasymachus wishes to withdraw after administering this douche to the other speakers ; but they detain him and compel him to continue the discussion.
At this point we feel constrained to ask—How much in this description of the man and his teaching is historical truth and how much fiction? The scanty remnants of his writings prove useless for the decision of this question. We have no guidance beyond general probabilities. Ina picture drawn by so great a master of characterization it is not to be doubted that many a feature has been taken from life. The rhetorician of Chalcedon, who rendered uncom- mon service to the progress of his art, cannot have been a model of meekness and patience. If he had, Plato's caricature would have missed fire altogether. Possibly he may have propounded somewhere or other that definition of justice or law here attributed to him, though not even
PERSONALITY OF THRASYMACHUS. 59
the titles of his works, which were either addresses to the people or treatises on rhetoric, give us any handle for conjecture. It must, on the other hand, be regarded as impossible that a man who followed the calling of an orator in a democratically ordered commonwealth, and who depended on the favour of public opinion, should ever have spoken in such a tone about tyranny or the overthrow of the rule of law. It is not clear why Plato should have painted him in such repulsive colours. For while he indicates at one point that what he charges against him is rather a wrangling and disputatious character than real badness, there are other passages where he does not shrink from using such expressions as, “ Do you think me mad enough to try to shave a lion or cheat Thrasymachus?” And again, “Then I saw something quite new—Thrasymachus blushing.” The causes of this bitterness are a secret we cannot penetrate. The chief point is this: Plato needed a foil for the doctrine enounced by Socrates, and thought himself at liberty to put forward the rhetorician in question to combat the main thesis of the “ Republic”—Justice makes the just man happy.
For Plato is now completely under the spell of this thesis, which is the original and fundamental doctrine of Socrates (cf. Vol. II. p. 71, sgg.). The eudemonistic basis of morals is for him so certainly the right one, the decisive question is so certainly that as to the coincidence of virtue and happiness, that it never occurs to him to suppose that any one could dispute this thesis and yet prefer the just to the unjust life. With an unmistakable backward reference to the “‘ Gorgias,” he resists the temptation to make use of such admissions as that justice is nobler, though not more useful, than its opposite, in order to draw inferences similar to those of the earlier dialogue (cf. Vol. II. pp. 332 and 345, sqq.). The objection drawn from the art of the shepherd is assigned to Thrasymachus merely in order to be refuted, and that by means of the same distinction which has been drawn between the “true physician” and the “man of business.” The shepherd, too, in so far as he is a shepherd, will only aim at the welfare of his flock. The same, it is contended,
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holds of every kind of rule or government without exception. For men never undertake these duties—such is the argu- ment adduced in proof—unless they are to be remunerated, thus clearly showing that rule, in itself, is profitable not to the rulers, but to the ruled. In every department the individual art, which is what it is by reason of its specific performance, is distinguished from the art of pay, which is the common accompaniment of all the arts.
Now, in the sphere of political activity, there are two kinds of reward, “money and honour,” and besides these there is a penalty, the fear of which induces men to accept positions of authority. It is this last motive alone—such is the somewhat surprising assertion made at this point— which makes the “best” men willing to rule ; the punish- ment of refusal is to be governed by their inferiors. Public spirit is here left out of the reckoning, and so is the craving to exercise an inborn gift ; while the two kinds of reward just mentioned are excluded as being “disgraceful,” and therefore unworthy of the “best,” who are free from avarice and ambition. This valuation of ambition is in striking contrast with the common Greek feeling, which is repre- sented by Aristotle, among others, when he calls the desire of honour the fundamental motive of political life; it also contradicts the utterances, already known to the reader, of Plato himself in the “Symposium ” (cf. Vol. II. p. 390). But the less justified the generalization, the more deeply it allows us to penetrate into Plato’s mind. To be ruled by the “worse,” that is, by the demagogues of decadent Athens, was evidently felt by him as a galling humiliation, and the overflowing bitterness of his heart left its mark on his theory.
In the closing section of the book the discussion moves in much the same direction as hitherto. An admission is wrung from Thrasymachus that the good man is wise, that justice is a kind of wisdom. As such it is stated to be a faculty, a capacity for performance. On such foundations the assertion is based that justice is the necessary condition of vigorous action, in international relations as in home affairs, in private life, and, lastly, in the individual soul.
ARE THE FUST HAPPY? 61
An appeal to experience goes hand-in-hand with the dialectic. No State and no army, no band of robbers even, or gang of thieves, can entirely dispense with justice in its unjust proceedings without damage to its internal coherence. So great is the disorganizing effect of the absence of justice from the relations of private persons, as well as of public bodies, even though no more than two men are concerned. Indeed, the discord and mutiny produced by injustice are in the end fatal, so it is urged, to the efficiency of even the individual who falls out with, and becomes hateful to, himself, no less than to the just and the gods. The demonstration reaches its culminating point in the com- parison of justice as an excellence of the soul to the faculties of hearing and sight as excellences of the ear and eye.
5. At this point the reader may possibly find himself somewhat taken aback, and inclined to think that the argu- ment has lightly leaped over many a chasm, that it has neglected the distinction between character and knowledge as well as that between the requirements of the general weal and those of private interests, or at least that the connexion here asserted to exist between them needs to be supported on much deeper foundations. If so, he is not straying too far from Plato’s path. The latter proceeds to compare the participants in the dialogue to gluttons who cannot forbear tasting each dish as soon as it is brought to table, without waiting to do justice to what has gone before. The nature of justice, says Socrates, has not yet been ascertained ; not till that has been done will it be time to deduce the consequences at which they have been too precipitately grasping. In other words, the dialogue has so far been only a “prelude,” as it is called at the beginning of the second book, intended partly for practice in dialectic, partly as preparation for the results to be obtained later. The nature of these is indicated beforehand, and by the alluring prospect held out the desire is awakened and stimu- lated for the safe acquisition and the irrefragable establish- ment of them,
Nor does this desire remain long unsatisfied. There
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follows a passage which, in its acuteness, its clearness, its genuinely scientific spirit, is truly marvellous. Plato’s brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, come forward, full of fervour and earnestness, anxious to state the question in its purest possible form and to free the kernel of it from every enveloping husk. The manner in which they reject and frustrate in advance all superficial solutions reminds us to some extent of the part played in the “ Phedo” by Simmias and Cebes. In spite of the promise contained in the closing portion of the first book, it is not the definition of justice, but its power to make the just man happy, which first engages their attention. The mode in which they approach the subject reminds us of the modern rigidly experimental method of research. But this pro- cedure is not here applied towards the solving of the ethical problem—which would be folly—but merely to its exact formulation. Two instances are to be constructed in the mind, differing in no respect whatever, except the presence or absence of the factor (here justice) whose effects are to be examined. For this purpose the “ perfectly just man” is first of all contrasted with the “ perfectly unjust man.” Justice and injustice are then “stripped” of all their usual accompaniments (good and bad reputation, rewards and punishments, and so forth), indeed, the inci- dence of these is completely transposed. Two diametri- cally opposite cases are thus brought together for comparison. In the one (A) justice is present, but all its accessories absent. In the other (B) all the accessories of justice are present, but justice itself is absent. In order to help the imagination in realizing this hypothesis, the ring of Gyges, which made its wearer invisible, is pressed into service. We are to conceive the unjust man as able, by some such means, to perpetrate whatever wrong he chooses, and yet suffer no penalty nor even any loss of honour or repute. He is to tread the path of injustice without hindrance, to its farthest limit, and be blessed all the while with abundance of worldly goods. In contrast to him we are to set his complementary opposite, the just man, who derives no profit or precedence from his virtuous acts ; who is rather,
THE METHOD OF DIFFERENCE IN ETHICS. 63
for the whole of his life, misjudged, persecuted, maltreated, tormented to the uttermost. If, and only if, it may be shown that, even on such a supposition, the just man is happier than the unjust, will the brothers consent to regard Socrates’ thesis as proven.
The place of Gyges’ ring, or the helmet of Pluto mentioned by Plato elsewhere, is taken in ordinary life, they go on to say, by successful hypocrisy, by the “ fox- like” tricks and devices of “dissembling respectability.” “ Appearance” may be substituted for “reality.” And with appearance the majority of men are very well content. Their aim is to garner in all the advantages which the appearance of justice brings, and to pay for them the least possible price. Nor need the threatened retribution of the gods inspire any fear where there is faith in the atoning power of holy works, and the maxim prevails, “ Steal, but offer sacrifice of thy stealings,”
But the object now in view is not to praise appearance, nor yet “opinions about justice and the rewards of it,” but rather to ascertain and demonstrate its own intrinsic power and efficacy. Nor is it enough to say merely that it is a good and the opposite of evil; it is required to discover what “effect each of the two produces, even when unknown to gods and men, zz the soul of its possessor.” To this thought, which he repeats with the greatest emphasis, Plato gives expression in a manner which recalls, perhaps not by accident, an utterance of Hippocrates (cf. Vol. I. p. 301).
We now come to that turning-point at which the dialogue passes over to the study of society from that of the individual. Here, too, that conception of the State as an organism, which has now become a commonplace, appears for the first time. Socrates professes his inability to find a direct solution of the problem as presented to him. It can only be reached by a circuitous route. Supposing our sight not strong enough to read a piece of small writing at a great distance, we should hail it as a happy chance if the same matter were to be found else- where written in larger characters and occupying a greater
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space. The work which justice performs, in virtue of its own essential nature, in the individual soul, will best appear if we seek first for the same quality where it is displayed on a magnified scale. It will appear most clearly of all if we endeavour to discern the “ beginnings of justice and injustice” in the “ beginnings of the common- wealth.” Thus the way is opened for the genetic study of the State.
6. If no part of Plato’s writings had been preserved except the hypothetical sketch, which now follows, of the origin of a State, the materialistic conception of history might well have claimed the great idealist for an adherent. He derives the State entirely from economic necessities. To begin with, there are the “manifold wants” of the individual, who is unable by himself to provide his food, clothing, housing, and so on, whence arises the need for co-operation and the division of labour. Then we see the circle of producers gradually widening, as indirect require- ments are added to the direct, and new operations become necessary for their satisfaction. Thus the husbandman, for example, has need of a plough, and the maker of ploughs must labour to supply his need. But not even the community is a self-contained economic unit; it cannot entirely dispense with foreign products; the imports thus rendered necessary must be paid for by a corresponding exportation, which is impossible without a production of commodities in excess of the home consumption. The need of traders, wholesale and retail, to act as interme- diaries, is not forgotten, nor that of the employment of hired labour.
After an idyllic description of this as yet simple commonwealth—in which the justice and injustice sought for are to be found in their first beginnings—there follows an account of the changes wrought by increasing luxury. As bread is supplemented by “relish,” so in every depart- ment the refined enjoyment of life is added to the satis- faction of natural wants. The city soon swarms with the ministers of luxury—with makers of artistic furniture and costly adornments, with painters, rhapsodists, actors,
A COMMUNITY IN THE MAKE. 65
dancers, courtezans, bakers, cooks, nurses, tutors, and so on, not to mention the doctors whom such a mode of life renders very necessary. The increase of population makes the bounds of the State appear too narrow. Hence the origin of war, the successful prosecution of which, accord- ing to the often and emphatically repeated principle of the division of labour, necessitates a professional army. Prominence is given to the difficulty of making the warriors or “guardians” resemble good watch-dogs in being fierce towards what is outside, and gentle towards what is inside their community. This can only be done by education.
With the question: “ How shall we educate the guardians?’ we enter upon entirely different ground. At the same time, the earlier transition from the individual to society is followed by a second transition, of more far- reaching consequence, from the real to the ideal. This procedure of Plato’s is not to be understood without some trouble.
The first impression is one of violent arbitrariness. He had undertaken to write what we might call the natural history of the State and society, in order to discover in its growth and being the growth and being of justice and injustice. Now, at a stroke, he abandons the description of actual processes, or what might pass with him for such, and begins to design a pattern State, utterly different from any- thing ever realized in history. The genetic method yields place to an ideal construction ; instead of the “So it was,” there meets us a “So ought it to be.’ Was Plato conscious of this abrupt reversal? Or how did he think it might be justified ?
To these questions the following is probably the right answer. Plato does not believe himself to be setting forth a purely subjective ideal, one out of many others equally possible. The fundamental features of it, though perhaps not every detail, are on his view, which is repeatedly and prominently expressed, capable of realization ; they are no mere pious “dreams,” but the perfectings, demanded by human nature, of what already exists. They appeared to
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him, so we may not unreasonably suppose, as a further stage in the process of natural development. And the greater the progress, the higher the perfection attained by State and society, the sooner he expects justice to appear, distinct in all its features, in the commonwealth so ordered, and similarly injustice in the opposite type. He tells us so much himself at the beginning of the fourth book.
No doubt it was impossible to attain perfect smooth- ness and continuity in the composition of a work whose purpose, apart from its numerous subsidiary subjects, was to weld together into a single whole three main themes whose internal connexion was but slight—moral philosophy, political philosophy, and the philosophy of history. In spite of the prodigious literary art which Plato brought to bear on his task—an art which is probably without parallel in the whole of prose literature, and was certainly too great to be understood and ap- preciated by all his interpreters—some harshnesses of transition were not entirely to be avoided, especially at the junction of the two last-named themes. Plato there proceeds with even greater boldness than here; in making the return journey from the ideal to the real, he represents all other forms of State as arising from the corruption of his own model commonwealth! But this is not till the beginning of the eighth book; at present we are still in the second, at the opening of the discussion upon the right education of the upper or warrior class.
7. In this section an extraordinary depth is reached. It is, indeed, a peculiarity of the work that the progress of the debate is continually supplying Plato with an occasion to treat, almost exhaustively, some great department of thought. At the threshold of education comes the nar- ration of myths. The mythical story of the gods is therefore subjected to a thorough-going examination, and the process of criticism, begun by Xenophanes and continued by Euripides, which was mainly directed against the popular notions embodied in the Homeric poems (cf. Vol. 11. p, 13 and Vol. I. p. 156), is continued with
MYTHOLOGY AND THEOLOGY. 67
incisive effect. Nor does he merely prune away those excrescences of myth which are condemned by his own or the general standard of morality; he introduces far- reaching modifications into genuinely theological doctrines, The Deity is unconditionally “good,” and for that very reason is “not the cause of everything ;” evil springs from other sources, particularly from the faults of men for which they are themselves to blame (cf. Vol. II. p. 364). This is one of the fundamental principles here insisted upon. A second, which is proclaimed with equal earnestness, appears to be directed against anthropomorphism in general: the gods are no jugglers; they do not manifest themselves in a variety of forms. For there is no power, superior to their own, which could compel them to such performances ; and just as little can beings, to whose nature all manner of lying and deceit is foreign, do such things of their own motion.
The chapter on religion—for so we may term these discussions, which are closely knit together and sharply divided by the author from what precedes and what follows—the chapter on religion contains two more points of great importance. All descriptions of the supposed terrors of the under-world, indeed all expressions likely to bring them to mind, are prohibited on account of their enervating effect, their hostility to manliness of character. The prohibition, moreover, is so emphatic and so un- conditional, that we seem to have lighted upon a stage in Plato’s development at which the “Phzdo,” at least, has been left far behind (cf. p. 48). In any case, the mind of Plato underwent several changes in this respect ; thus, in the last book of the “Republic,’ he dwells at exhaustive length on those very terrors. Lastly, he com- bats with great earnestness the belief, suggested by the poets, that the sons of the gods, or heroes, stood on a low moral level.
After the matter of the stories comes their form. In the first place, a distinction is drawn between the truly narrative and the imitative, or dramatic, mode of treat- ment ; and the second, which is not limited to the drama
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in the narrower sense of the word, but also characterizes the Homeric Epos, is decisively rejected. Two reasons are given, one general, the other of a more special order. Firstly, all the members of society are to be brought up to the strictest division of labour. “Our State,” we are told, “has no need of double, still less of multiform men. Each must follow only one business: the farmer must be a farmer only, and not a judge at the same time; the soldier must be a soldier, and not also a merchant.” But the type of character thus aimed at harmonizes ill with the capacity of assuming all manner of forms; and therefore even the greatest master of this art is to be bowed out of the ideal State. In the second place, however, that which is imitated leaves some tinge of itself upon the imitator ; and it is of importance to avoid all that might diminish nobility of soul in the ruling class, all that might degrade them to a mean and vulgar level. A similar spirit animates the prescriptions, which now follow, relating to lyric poetry, to rhythm, melody, and music in general. All of these, it is claimed, exercise a most enduring influence on the growth of character; for all that a man does, all that he hears and sees, down to the shape of household furniture, produces an effect upon him for good or bad, and must therefore be enrolled in the service of morality. All that tends towards effeminacy is banished from music, indeed, all the restless and passionate elements in it ; and for this reason the very fabrication of certain instruments, such as the flute, is prohibited.
After music comes gymnastic, the second main element in Greek education. The exclusive practice of it, we are told in effect, is brutalizing, just as that of music is enervating. As this latter name is used here in its widest sense, to designate the whole of the musical arts, so ‘‘oymnastic” comprises all that relates to the care of the body, including the whole of dietetics; even the art of healing has significant side-lights thrown upon it, which will occupy us later. That sobriety and moderation are preached, that the keeping of measure is required in respect of bodily exercises as well as other things, is only
A PROVISIONAL SOLUTION. 69
what we might expect. This branch of education, equally with the other, is treated as extending through all the stages of life, and both are carefully guarded against every innovation. Of the general regulation of the guardians’ lives we learn here only the fundamental features; they are to possess no private property, so far as this can possibly be avoided ; they are in no respect to live separate lives; all are to think of each other as brothers—an end which is to be promoted by useful lies about the different origin of the different classes in the State. Gold and silver —so the authorities are to teach—are mingled with the bodies of those called to rule and of the warriors (now termed “helpers”’) in general ; iron and copper with those of husbandmen and mechanics. Provision, however, is made against a caste-like separation of classes; for ex- ceptional ability or incapacity is to entail a rise to a higher or a descent to a lower class. But as to how the authorities are to be appointed—how those who shall rule the destinies of the State are to be selected from the general body of guardians,—on all this we receive at this stage of the work only indications, which relate exclusively to the ethical side of the subject. Those are to govern who are distinguished by the highest degree of public spirit, who display the greatest power of resistance to every species of temptation. That the problem is hereby solved only “in the rough,” is what Plato himself tells us, in a passage of the third book; and at the same time he holds out, clearly enough, a prospect of a “ more accurate” treatment later on.
8. This, and more than this, the thoughtful reader would have already said for himself. For the regulation of property is by its nature most intimately bound up with the regulation of the family, and yet the description of the latter, the rules governing “the possession of women, marriage, and the procreation of children,” are expressly reserved in the fourth book for subsequent discussion. But the decisive proof that the delineation of the ideal State which closes with this book was never intended by Plato as a real conclusion, though many eminent scholars have
VOLWIL G
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been of the contrary opinion—the decisive proof is as follows: Jn the whole of this section (as also in that part of the fifth book which several critics also assign to this “stratum ”) ¢here 15 not a single word on the subject of intellectual culture. “ Practice and habituation, not know- ledge,”—such are the designations which are retrospectively applied to the means of education here passed in review. It may be set down as absolutely impossible that the former disciple of Socrates, the thinker who in so many works has asserted and demonstrated the unconditional primacy of knowledge, should ever have entirely forgotten philosophy, science, intellect. Nor did he, in fact, forget them. In the course of these books he alludes more than once to philosophy and the philosophic temper ; indeed, he names the latter as indispensable for the guardians. But on the education of the intellect he lets fall not a syllable. And with this he was to rest content—the philosopher who knew better than any one else, and who himself affirmed in the “ Republic,” that “only he attains to the possession of wisdom who has earned it”! Since, however, the selection of men to direct the State, and, indeed, the differentiation of the upper class in general, is made to depend on their grades of scientific training and the progress accomplished by them, all this could only appear, at this early stage of the work, in dim outlines.
We have treated the point at some length because it is of importance to understand the structure of this great work, and to protect the right comprehension of it against errors which are equally dangerous and widespread. Plato went about his task with the most cautious calculation and with perfect artistic tact. It was necessary, if he was to produce anything but confusion, that his complicated subject-matter should be most carefully co-ordinated. The manifold themes, each of which he desired to treat ex- haustively, needed to be kept apart with the utmost strictness. Those anticipatory hints, too, which a prentice hand would have scattered lavishly, weakening in advance the effect of his work—with these the master was bound to observe a wise economy. Some thoughts there were which
ART IN ARRANGEMENT OF THE “ REPUBLIC.” 11
he had resolved not to impart to his readers till they were attuned to confidence and ready to lend a willing ear; all reference to these had to be avoided by every possible means, and indeed there is a part of his system over which at the outset (as he himself says) he purposely drew a veil. Of the ground-plan of the ideal State only so much might immediately be revealed as was absolutely necessary for the first stage of the inquiry, that, namely, in which the nature of justice is ascertained.
But if Plato thus allows some of the threads which he has started to run on in concealment, he gathers together with a powerful hand those which lead to his proximate goal. The nearer he approaches to this, the more vivid becomes the colouring of his exposition. Justice, which was to be found in the State, is now to be sought for in the pattern commonwealth. The manner of the search reminds us of the modern method of residues. First of all, the searchers fix their gaze on wzsdom. This virtue is distinguished from all special branches of knowledge, and identified with well-advisedness ; its seat is discovered in that small group of citizens to whom the direction of the State is entrusted. Next comes the turn of ccurage, the essence of which consists in the right knowledge of what to fear ; its source is stated to be the education prescribed by law, and its seat the whole soldier-class. Temperance is next considered, and a difference at once appears between it and the first two virtues, inasmuch as it resides not in a part but in the whole of the community. Its essence, whether in the individual or in society, consists in the fact that the better and the worse elements are in harmony, that kind of harmony, too, which rests on the predomi- nance of the higher and the subordination of the lower. One virtue, the last of the four, still remains to be detected, and that is justice. Socrates compares himself and the other speakers to a party of hunters who have surrounded a thicket. Every trail must be followed up, in order that the noble quarry may not escape. But the ground is difficult and the place dark; the searchers are on the point of giving up their task. Suddenly Socrates breaks out into
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a cry of joy; he thinks he is on the right track. What need to search for that which is within their grasp? It is a principle which they have noted long ago in connexion with the genesis of society ; one, too, of which they have made frequent use in constructing the ideal State—the principle of the division of labour, the specialization of activities. When each one has and does his rightful share, then will justice be realized. In the State, it will manifest itself in right relationships between all the citizens, in the “peculiar or special activities of each of the classes:” for a reason which we shall shortly see, Plato now enumerates three of these classes—craftsmen, helpers, and guardians, But this result, we are told, is by no means a final solution of the problem. What has now been read in the larger characters should next become legible in the smaller as well (cf. p. 63); we must turn from the State to the individual, and then from him once more to the State. Only from such continued comparisons will the full truth appear, as when two sticks rubbed together burst into bright flame. The investigation accordingly now centres primarily in the individual human being and the different parts of each separate soul.
g. That this latter does in truth consist of parts is main- tained on the strength of an unusually laborious demonstra- tion, in which not a few objections are met in anticipation. It is urged that one and the same thing cannot do or suffer contraries simultaneously. The various appearances which conflict with this principle—the principle of contradiction— vanish on closer investigation. If a man stands still, and at the same time his hands move, rest is an attribute of his body as a whole, motion of a part of it. If a top spins, remaining stationary in one spot, it is at rest relatively to the vertical direction, but in motion horizontally. But that one and the same entity should simultaneously desire and loathe one and the same object, should will and not will the same thing,—that, we are told, is an absolute impossi- bility. And yet it sometimes happens that a man feels thirsty, that is, desires to drink, and at the same time (for some reason or other, we may add, é.g., out of regard for his
THE THREE PARTS OF THE SOUL. 73
health) he refrains from drinking. We must assume here two elements in the soul, one of which bids the man drink, while the other bids him disobey the command of the first. But besides such conflicts between reason and desire, there are others between desire and the “ spirited impulses” (of the nature of anger, ambition, and so forth). Thus it befell once with that Leontius whose way lay past the place of execution. He struggled hard with the desire which awoke in him to view the corpses exposed there, and in the end, overmastered by his craving, he granted his eyes what they wanted, crying out to them as he did so, “Take your fill, miserable creatures, of the glorious spectacle.” Continuing to build on this foundation, Plato distinguishes three parts of the soul—the rational, the appe- titive, and the spirited, or emotional. This last element so long as it remains uncorrupted, takes the side of reason in any conflicts that may arise. It then attacks the refrac- tory desires, and battles with them till reason bids it cease, as a shepherd calls off his dog. It is to just such pugnacious dogs that the soldiers, or helpers, are compared ; they are kept in check by the rulers, or shepherds of the people. Thus the three orders are found for a second time in the soul of man ; for the lowest class, that of the craftsmen, is taken to represent the element of desire.
The reader may possibly find cause for astonishment in the parallel thus carried out with the boldness of genius, in which profound insight and the influence of subjective taste are curiously mingled. We refer particularly to the analogy assumed between the class of craftsmen and the appetitive part of the soul. It rests in some degree on the real kinship between the task performed by the stratum of society which is its economic foundation, and that fulfilled by the desires which subserve the nutrition and the reproduction of the individual. But the force of this comparison is increased for Plato by the aristocratic contempt which he entertains as much for the “base men and mechanics,’ who are dominated by the “love of gain,’ as for the desires which drag the soul down to earth from its ideal kingdom. Against the doctrine as a whole
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it may be objected that the assumption of different parts of the soul by no means removes the difficulty it is intended to meet. For the conflicts, which this theory claims to make intelligible, occur not only between the different parts here distinguished, but also within one and the same part. Such, for example, will be the case with the appetitive element, if the craving for food and the craving for sleep strive for precedence within the soul of a child. The really valuable element in this rudimentary psychology is the recognition that we have no right to attribute the functions of the soul to a simple substance. But just as little as we can arrive at any satisfactory result by assuming three such substances, or any other number we please—so little has the principle of contradiction any bearing on the problem. This principle could be legitimately invoked only against some such assertion as the following: A wills and at the same time does not will—it being understood that by his volition no mere desire is meant, but a real resolve, such as is admittedly an indivisible psychic act and implies an at least temporary truce, whether arising from the unanimity of the different elements in the soul or forcibly imposed on a recalcitrant minority. On the other hand, it is not violating the principle of contradiction in the slightest degree to represent conscious life as a seething tumult of mutually hostile tendencies, which, like mechanical impulses acting simultaneously, sometimes cancel each other and again blend into a resultant. The one impossibility, in either case, is that such a resultant should both exist and not exist at the same moment.
10. Plato, to be sure, marches towards his goal with vigorous strides, untroubled by any of these difficulties. “So our dream has been fulfilled,’ he makes Socrates exclaim. “ The division of labour has shown us the right way to the knowledge of justice.” As the callings within the State, so must the several “ranks within the soul” be kept apart. Its salvation lies in the avoidance of every encroachment, in the harmonious co-operation of all the parts. Such is the nature of justice, while its antithesis, “the revolt of a part against the whole soul,” the resulting
VIRTUE THE HEALTH OF THE SOUL. 15
“jangle and tangle,” is nothing else than “ injustice, incontinence, cowardice, ignorance—badness, in a word, of every kind.” As the health of the body depends on its parts being in their natural relations, some ruling, others serving, while its disease follows from the reversal of this order, so is it also in the ethical sphere. Virtue appears a= the ~ health, beauty, and fair nurture ofthe soul ;” vice, as its “disease, ugliness, and weakness.” Thus the investigation reaches an at least temporary conclusion. For henceforth “it would be ridiculous” to raise the question whether justice is really profitable to the just man or injustice harmful to the unjust, let the virtue of the one or the vice of the other be manifest to the world or not.
If this great project of establishing ethics on its natural basis and making an end for ever of the fatal discord between human standards—if this brilliant attempt, the splendour of which shines undimmed through the centuries, was not crowned with complete success, who can wonder ? With the poet-philosopher’s genius for discovering resem- blances there went a companion faculty of discrimination, which, though highly developed, was not of quite the same quality. And the magic of numbers (three parts of the soul—three classes in the State) found him an almost defenceless victim.
That the boundary between temperance and justice is blurred almost beyond recognition, that the latter virtue, indeed, tends to be confused with virtue in general, is a defect of logical rigour plain for all to see. It is closely bound up with a still deeper fault of the whole investigation, the insufficient severance of individual from social ethics. It is in consequence of this defect that the true content of justice—the sum of the demands which society makes upon us, a concept which has nothing in common with that of individual psychic hygiene, intimately as the two may be connected by action and reaction—is sometimes passed over in silence, sometimes introduced without justification.
Such are some of the objections which force themselves on the modern reader; but it is from no deference to any
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of them that Plato here subdues his tone and defers the full expression of his triumphant joy. He is saving up his more powerful notes for a much later passage, at which the final goal of the whole investigation has been reached. We may here shortly indicate what still remains to be done. The ideal State lacks as yet both its true foundation and its crowning glory—the former in the organization of the family, the latter in the government of philosophers. Not till the constitutional edifice has been completed by these additions can it be brought into comparison with its anti- thesis—the imperfect State in its many hues, its forms more and more widely diverging from the ideal: the State as presented to us in historic reality. Even then, by the side of these ideal and real types of constitutions must be placed the corresponding human types; and the latter must be exhaustively described before the whole of the materials will have been collected for the final solution of the original problem. What comes after that is of a supplementary character: additional confirmations of the result already won, new treatments of subjects which have already been dis- cussed, but which could not be fully worked out with the materials originally available ; finally, there is one of those magnificent pictures of the universe and the future life with which Plato, as the “Phzedo” and the “Gorgias” have already taught us, loved to round off his greater works.
THE EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN. Pe
CHAPTER XT.
PLATO'S “ REPUBLIC.” —(continucd).
1. FROM these anticipations we return to the beginning of the fifth book. The immediate prospect here held out is a passing in review of the “vitiated” forms of the State. At this point a diversion is introduced, by means of an artifice, of which this is not the only example in Plato’s works. Two persons in the dialogue, brothers of Plato, have been talking in subdued tones, but loud enough for Socrates to catch the question: “Shall we let him off?” The reference is to the previously reserved question of women and the family, for the immediate solution of which Glaucon and Adeimantus now press. Socrates reluctantly complies. He sees a “swarm of speeches” rise up before him. He is seized with “trembling” at the thought of the peculiar and wonderful proposals he has to make, the practicability of which will seem to his hearers as controvertible as their salutary character. Encouraged, however, by the kind assurances of his friends, he ventures upon his exposition of things “ ridiculous because unusual,” and congratulates himself (an important hint on the com- position of the work) that he did not take the plunge at what was really the more appropriate moment.
He goes on to proclaim what we generally call the emancipation of women, the placing of them on a complete equality with the male guardians, even to the extent of permitting them access to the highest offices in the State. This doctrine, which includes the participation of women in war, is defended by analogies drawn from animal life,
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and by the assertion that between the sexes there are only quantitative, and not qualitative, differences of capacity. The same maxim furnishes an answer to the objection derived from the principle of the division of labour. One might as well argue that because some shoemakers are bald, men possessed of hair should be excluded from that trade, or vice versd. ‘The average woman is declared to be not different in nature, but only weaker, and weaker in every respect, than the average man; not but what we find exceptions, and considerable superiority in “many a woman over many a man.’ Education, too, should be the same for both sexes, and received in common; Plato does not even shrink from the exposure of the female form in gymnastic exercises, seeing that “they will be clothed with virtue instead of garments.” The section concludes, in a tone of solemn earnestness, with an appro- priate quotation from Pindar, and an emphatic assertion of utility and its opposite as the only true standards for the measurement of values.
Hardly has Socrates escaped from the first “wave” which threatened to engulf him, when he sees a second and still more dangerous one approaching. ‘That which is in question is the regulation, more accurately the abolition, of the family. Plato speaks here of the com- munity of women; the expression, however, is somewhat too pointed and not exactly appropriate. [or it is not promiscuity that he has in view, but temporary marriages, arranged with the principal aim of securing the healthiest possible offspring, and regulated by the authorities on strict principles, similar to those observed by breeders of animals.
But the designation “community of women and children” is not chosen without considerable reason. It is intended to place the sharpest and strongest emphasis on the contrast with the usual division of the State into isolated families which are strange to each other and often hostile. Children are procreated “for the State ;” only the well-favoured offspring of the “best” parents is reared ; the age of generation is fixed inviolably at between twenty
ORGANIC UNITY OF SOCIETY. 79
and forty for women, between thirty and fifty-five for men. At greater ages than these liberty of sexual intercourse is allowed, but there is an express prohibition against rearing any fruit of such unions. In all circumstances infants are taken away from their mothers immediately after birth, and entrusted to the fostering care of the State. Thus every bond of union between parent and child is broken; they do not know each other as such. On the other hand, it is hailed as a great gain that all persons of about the same age will regard each other as brothers and sisters, that, in general, a widely comprehensive though hypothetical kinship takes the place of the ordinary certain but narrow ties of family. By this means it is intended to secure the highest possible degree of organic unity for the State, or rather for the class of guardians who are alone in question. The best type of community is that in which the “mine and thine” divides men least, the society whose members are no less closely bound together than the members of a physical body. Doubts are admitted by Plato only on the possibility, not on the salutary effect, of this sweeping innovation. The study of historical parallels, which are not wholly wanting, and an unprejudiced comparison of the order of life here proposed with that to which we are accustomed, will justify us, I believe, in exactly reversing this judgment.
2, As soon as Socrates has left the second of the dreaded “waves” behind him, he begins to lead up im- perceptibly to the passage in which he is finally to breast the “triple surge.” Doubts have been expressed touching the possibility of the transformation whose happy con- sequences have been painted in such glowing colours, and it is by the discussion of this possibility that the way is bridged to the greatest and most delicate of the problems. After a disquisition on international law, introduced at this stage, we may suppose, chiefly for the purpose of allowing the reader to gather fresh strength, search is made for the best possible starting-point of reform, such a starting-point as may enable the transition to be made from the old bad political system to the new salvation with the least
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expenditure of force. As before, and, indeed, much more than before, Socrates expects to be overwhelmed by a storm of contempt and obloquy ; yet shall the saving word not remain unspoken: “There can be no cure for the ills of a State, or, as I think, of the whole human race, until political power and philosophy are united, until either philo- sophers become kings, or those who are now called kings and potentates begin to pursue philosophy, not super- ficially, but in the true spirit. Not till then can our State arise and see the light.” This passage has been rightly called the key-stone of the whole work.
That Plato should have placed knowledge—the highest knowledge, scientifically trained—at the head of his commonwealth, is no more than what was to be ex- pected. But why does he fulfil this expectation so late? why has he held up his best trump for so long? Plato has himself answered the question plainly enough, partly in his simile of the three waves with their ascending degrees of menace, partly in the further course of the dialogue. After proclaiming the sovereignty of the philo- sophers, he goes on to discuss the training of the men thus called to rule, and he seizes the opportunity—we might, perhaps, more correctly say the pretext—to ex- pound his whole theory of knowledge. Similarly, in the earlier books, where the elementary education of the guardians was under discussion, he took occasion to treat exhaustively of mythology, religion, music, poetry, gymnastic, all to an extent far exceeding the require- ments of his immediate purpose. It is evident that his present theme, the most subtle and difficult of all, could only be dealt with at an advanced stage of the work. He begins by emphasizing, with the help of frequently repeated references to the anticipatory hints of earlier chapters, the enhanced refinement and rigour of the ex- position now in prospect as compared with the rougher and more summary methods of the first books. Much help, too, is promised towards the “more exact” under- standing of the theory of the tripartite soul, and of the ethics based on it, from the “longer way” which was
PHILOSOPHERS MUST RULE. 81
referred to in the fourth book and is now entered upon _ near the end of the sixth. Nothing forbids us, and every- thing invites us, to see herein the execution of a design cherished by the author from the first and gradually revealed by him with the wisest calculation.
Not many wili ever attain the highest goals. The way is barred by a natural antagonism, the operation of which Plato deplores here, and not here only. That solid thoroughness of character which is needed for sustained work in science as in other fields, is not seldom accom- panied by intellectual sluggishness ; while facility and brilliance in apprehension and creation are often found without the ballast requisite for the right ordering of life. The selection of the rare natures which unite these opposed excellences is only possible by means of that comprehen- sive intellectual training which was “passed over before.” To describe this training, and to lay for the describing of it the deepest and broadest foundation conceivable, is the task to which a part of the sixth and the whole of the seventh book are devoted.
As a preliminary, however, it is desirable to prove the fitness of Philosophy for the high office assigned to her, and to explain the misesteem under which she now labours. In itself, the philosophic nature is inwardly akin to all that is good. It is filled with the love of truth and the craving for knowledge. A deep channel is thus pro- vided, into which the whole stream of its desires may be poured. For this reason the philosopher is not covetous ; of the things he prizes there are few that gold can buy. Meanness and pettiness, too, are foreign to a spirit which is at home in all existence and in all ages. Cowardice finds no room in a soul too lofty to regard life as some- thing great. Thus all the forces of his being carry him away from injustice and towards justice. But these fortunate tendencies are opposed by others, the effect of which is partly to bring discredit on philosophy, partly to diminish the value of the philosopher.
His manifold excellences, wonderful as it sounds, are themselves of a nature to estrange him from philosophy.
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From his early youth he is beset by friends and kinsmen, later on by his fellow-citizens as well, all urging him to devote his rich gifts, from which they hope to draw great profit, to the acquisition of political power. Philosophy, too, thrives as little in the soil of a bad political consti- tution, as a plant transferred to a new and strange region. It is dwarfed or degenerates. And the better the original germ, the worse is its degenerate state. A weak nature can produce nothing great, whether good or evil. The source of corruption, however, is not to be found, as many maintain, in the sophists, but in public opinion; that mighty being which calls good that which pleases it, and bad that which displeases it—that monster which compels even the sophists to mould themselves to its caprices and hide from its outbursts of wrath. When the multitude is assembled, and the rocks—Plato has in mind the terraces of the Pnyx—tring to their shouts and the clapping of their hands, as they now praise this, now blame that, and both in Over-measure: how can the youth listen unmoved, or any ordinary education save him from being carried away by the all-conquering flood? Thus is Philosophy left “desolate ;” but there is no lack of aspirants to the vacant place at her side. Hither press, for the most part, all those who have brought their “artlets” (we might say, their little virtuosities) to the highest pitch of polish. Foremost among them is the rhetorician, or artist in style —lIsocrates seems specially aimed at—with whom the well-rounded harmony of a perfect period counts for every- thing, the inward harmony and perfection of human character for nothing. Left in isolation, the true philo- sopher feels himself as powerless against the “ madness of the many” as against the might of the whirlwind. He steps timidly aside. Just as at the onset of a dust-storm (no rare experience in Athens) a man will take shelter behind the nearest wall, so the philosopher is content if he can keep himself free from all share in the crimes with which he cannot prevent his fellow-citizens staining themselves.
If, however, potentates, or the sons of such, should ever
THE HIERARCHY OF SCIENCES. 83
be won over to the projected transformation—a prospect which cannot but remind us of Plato's Sicilian hopes, largely built on Dion—then it will be necessary to make a clean sweep of existing laws and customs, and let the State come into their hands a tabula rasa. The graduated intellectual training is next treated of, by which the “saviours ” of the State are to be fitted for the execution of their task. The curriculum follows the order of the sciences themselves, of whose scale of precedence, or hierarchy (to use a phrase coined by Auguste Comte) a rudimentary account is now given.
After the science of number comes that of space, and then that of the stars. This first arrangement is forthwith corrected by the interposition between geometry, as under- stood at that day, and astronomy, of a new branch—the measurement of solids. Astronomy is thus relegated to the fourth place, being preceded by arithmetic, plane geometry, and solid geometry. The more abstract sciences are followed by those with a more concrete subject-matter, in such wise that with each step towards concreteness a new set of attributes is introduced. Thus the realm of the numerable is more comprehensive than that of the extended ; and the conception of a solid body is generated by the addition, to the two plane dimensions, of thickness, which is the third. From pure figures in space Plato advances to bodies endowed with qualities, by taking account of the motions of solids, or “transference of depth” as he calls it. In reality, however, he only treats of celestial mechanics or astronomy. Why has he made no mention of terrestrial mechanics? Why does he not, at the least, recognize the void waiting to be filled, as he did in the case of solid geometry? This question demands an answer.
Even in the case of astronomy, he does not seek the causes of motion, but types of motion, the most perfect, con- tinuous, and orderly possible, and bound up with numerical relationships such as best satisfy mathematical thought (cf. Vol. I. p. 118). That terrestrial mechanics is in reality governed by the same laws as celestial, and that this wider
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field of knowledge amply fulfils the most exacting demands in point of simplicity and regularity,—all this was beyond the dreams of Plato’s pre-eminently deductive genius. These uniformities lie hid at a depth from which specu- lative thought cannot avail to drag them, but only the analysis of concrete processes. Such was the method pursued by Archimedes in statics, by Galilei in dynamics. The impression of order and law which the mind receives from the mere observation of the celestial phenomena, on barely correcting the immediate message of the senses, is produced in comparatively small measure by the movements of terrestrial objects. The theories, too, which were gleaned from the unanalytical observation of appearances were of a superficial order, and gave a false picture of the mode in which nature’s forces work. As an instance, we may take the belief—rejected only by the atomists—that light objects, as such, tend to rise, or again, that heavy objects fall with greater rapidity the heavier they are. Some of these views were not unacceptable to Plato, and he gathered them together in his doctrine of “natural places” (cf. Vol. I. p. 364). That which is light, as fire, tends to move upwards ; while that which is heavy, as earth and water, passes downwards—each, that is to say, towards the region where the matter of like nature with itself is accumulated. To correct these inadequate interpretations, and thereby to advance towards a statement of the laws of motion which should combine truth with simplicity, was impossible with- out an artificial isolation of the superposed natural factors which in any given case mask each other’s action: in a word, without experiment. The beginnings of disentangle- ment, moreover, were due to manipulations serving practical ends, and performed not in any spirit of scientific research. Mechanics meant originally nothing more than the theory of machines ; and it was one of the simplest of them, the lever, which gave Aristotle the first handle for an inquiry into the fundamentals of statics. His answer to the question was no doubt pitiable enough. But to raise it at all he had to observe operations which Plato despised as manual and “banausic.” ‘To make such doings the subject
PLATO AND KEPLER. 85
of scientific study would have been impossible for a man who shrugs his shoulders at experiments even when con- ducted with a purely speculative purpose, and who makes merry over musicians pricking up their ears and emulously striving to determine the smallest perceptible interval. He would have this part of physics, almost the only one which had as yet begun to be cultivated, based not on ‘sounds which are heard,” but on properties of pure numbers.
Similarly, he would prefer to treat astronomy as an exclusively mathematical science, just as Kepler did before Tycho Brahe’s observations supplied him with a solid basis of fact. It is for him, moreover, a science whose pure and stringent laws are only approximately realized by those bodies, material after all, which we see in the sky. It is no practical utility that makes this knowledge valuable, nor yet the lifting up of the mind before the mysteries of the heavens. This last way of thinking, indeed, arouses his bitter scorn. It is “simpleness of mind,’ he thinks, to prize “ceiling ornaments” more highly than the beautiful things which perhaps lie in the depths; it makes no differ- ence whether the beholder is swimming on his back or on his breast. For the “invisible and really existent,” the one mode of contemplation is as little suited as the other. The aim of these sciences is solely the “ purification and revival’ of that organ within the soul, more precious “ than ten thousand bodily eyes,’ which has been blunted and dimmed by attention to the things of sense. All our efforts must be directed to the task of raising ourselves above the “realm of Becoming” to true existence, that is, to the realm of the archetypes and, as the culmination and crown of them, to the “idea of the good.”
3. This last is compared with the sun, considered as the source not only of light and vision, but of the genera- tion and growth of visible things. The idea of the good is for Plato the highest cause at once of all knowledge and of all being. It is the central entity which at this phase of his development almost occupies the place of the supreme personal Deity. For us it is difficult, if not impossible, to srasp this thought with full clearness. A stepping-stone
ΘΙ EE. H
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towards it, as has been rightly remarked, is to be found in the “pure and divine beauty” of the “Symposium ;” a later dialogue, the “ Philebus,” will present us with a different conception of the good. The craving, seen in the “Phedo,” for a teleological treatment of natural science receives light from this part of the “ Republic.” Goodness, in the sense of benevolence and beneficence, is not foreign to the concept in question, but by no means forms the principal part of its content. Permanence, stability, well- being, order, subordination to purpose,—these are the chief ingredients in it, while Anaxagoras and the Pythagorean philosophy have been laid under contribution. It is not free from the contradictions which beset the Existing or Real of Euclides, by him identified with the good (cf. Vol. II. p. 174). To the idea of the good the other ideas owe their existence. But whence arise, we vainly ask, those archetypes or ideas which preside over the realm of the mean and the trivial, the evil and the noxious? Such ideas are necessary to the consistency of Plato’s thought, and are partially recognized, though with reluctance, by Socrates in the “ Parmenides,” The doctrine of ideas is introduced by a brilliant metaphor, in which earthly existence is compared to a sojourn in a subterranean dwelling. In this cavern men pass their whole life, prevented by chains from moving their necks or legs. Behind them there are persons passing to and fro on a raised platform, holding up all kinds of objects, wooden and stone images of animals, plants, and so on, above a breastwork or screen. Over and behind them a flame burns. Thus the shadows thrown by the images are all that the cave-dwellers can see. For them this world of shadows is the only reality. If one of them were to have his chains loosed, and be allowed to turn his head and see the light, or walk towards it, he would suffer pain ; he would hardly be able to bear the brightness of the flame, and he would think the scene before his eyes less real than that to which he had been accustomed. But suppose him dragged forcibly up the steep path which leads out of the cave into the sunlight. He would be indignant, and the dazzling glare would prevent him from
THE ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE. 87
seeing anything of what would now be offered him as truth. Only by degrees would his eye become accustomed to the light of the upper world. At first he would be able to see shadows, then reflexions in water, afterwards things them- selves ; in time he would learn to look upon the moon and stars, last of all upon the light of the Sun himself. Should he ever return to the cave, and attempt to free the others from their imprisonment and lead them up to the light, they would be furious with him, and, if they could, put him to death.
The allegory hardly needs any word of explanation. No one will need to be told that the things of earth illuminated by the real sun, the images of these things carried in the cave, and the shadows seen by the prisoners mean nothing else than the archetypes, illuminated by the ideal sun or idea of the good, the earthly copies of them, and the impressions, whose being is more that of a shadow than of a substance, produced by these copies on the senses of man. Following on this parable we have a dis- tinction drawn between four stages of knowledge and four corresponding species of the knowable. Two of them belong to the world of experience, two to the sphere of concepts. The rising scale is formed by sensible images and sensible things, by mathematical forms and archetypes or ideas. The two first compose the realm of “ opinion,” or empiricism estranged from the strict knowledge of con- cepts. Within this realm, “conjecture” is separated from “belief,” or “conviction.” The objects of the uncertain, or conjectural, stage of knowledge are no doubt to be found in those kinds of sense-perception which are frequent sources of illusion; probably, too, in the empirical laws which are valid only for a majority of cases. The objects of belief will be the more trustworthy kinds of perception and the more certain inferences which can be drawn from them. This whole world of “Becoming” has for its antithesis the world of “ Being.” The knowledge of it is made possible by two factors which in combination are termed “science ”—cognition by the understanding and the reason. To the latter we can only attain under the
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guidance of dialectic, which alone, so it is claimed, can reach its high goal without help from sense-perception, solely by the investigation of concepts. The “under- standing” is at home in the various branches of mathe- matics, the relative inferiority of which betrays itself in their incapacity to dispense entirely with the data of sense. It is true that they rise, to quote Plato’s instance, from the particular quadrilateral and the particular diagonal to the “ quadrilateral and the diagonal in themselves ;” and as this is in his language an equivalent expression for the “idea” of these forms, one does not at first see why a science occupying itself with these ideas should be inferior to any other. The difference in Plato’s eyes seems to be that the mathematician manipulates concepts which he does not reduce to their elements, while dialectic has precisely this reduction for its principal task. Rudimentary essays in this species of analysis are to be met with in Plato’s later works, especially where he refers to the fundamental concepts of limit and the unlimited. It has been remarked with some justice that such a creation as modern analytical geometry, which translates spatial concepts into numerical concepts, and represents the circle and the ellipse, for example, by slightly differing modifications of the same formula, or again, the general theory of numbers, would have in a measure satisfied the demands of Plato.
In a measure, but not wholly. For beyond a doubt he would always have reserved the first place for the science of concepts, which alone “dispenses with all hypotheses,” which gradually lifts up to the light “the eye of the soul buried in slime,’ and to which the other sciences render service only as “ fellow-helpers” and “ fellow-guides.”
The preference for dialectic expressed here and else- where in Plato bespeaks an intellectual attitude which is almost the opposite of that of modern science. For him all that is given in experience counts as a hindrance and a barrier to be broken through; we, on the other hand, while legitimately striving for greater simplicity in our conception of the universe, are learning to content our- selves more and more with what is so given, and to regard
THE EDUCATION OF THE GUARDIANS. 89
the final aim of knowledge as nothing else than the faithful reproduction of the actual, the cataloguing of primal facts which in the last resort must ever remain for us as dark and impenetrable as they are now. We know that progress in the interpretation of nature sets at best one incomprehensibility in the place of several, and with Royer Collard we exclaim, “Science will be complete when it is able to trace back ignorance to its ultimate fount.” Plato's mind, fed on dialectic and mathematics, is in the grip of that intoxication which commonly attends the exclusive or predominant study of the deductive sciences, and which may be experienced by any one who will immerse himself completely for a time in the theory of functions or some other branch of higher mathematics. The highest ab- stractions possess for our sobered thought no more than the widest sphere of validity; Plato, with the fever of altitudes upon him, overlooks the poverty of their content, and invests them with supreme worth and supreme reality.
4. The intellectual education of the guardians—for that is the point on which all this discussion bears—begins with arithmetic and ends with theology, as we may term the studies centring in the idea of the good. The first-named subject and the branches of mathematics which follow it are to be taught to members of the upper class, aged from sixteen to eighteen. After another period of two years, devoted to military training, a first selection is made, by which those qualified for higher tasks are separated from the general body of warriors. For the next ten years those who have been thus selected go through a course of instruction comparable with that given in modern universities. No change is made in the subjects of study, but the mode of treatment is more fundamental, and help is given towards understanding the inner connexions of what has already been taught in detail. A second selection follows. The less highly gifted become subordinate officers of State ; those whose power of comprehensive survey has marked them out as apt students of dialectic devote five years to this subject, after which they occupy positions of authority up to the age of fifty. Then, but not before,
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they reach the topmost rung of philosophy. What remains of their life they devote principally to philosophical con- templation; but in addition, as men not desirous of bearing rule, and for that very reason the most called to rule, they take part, as their turn comes round, in the real govern- ment of the State.
Although this scheme may strike us as being conceived in a somewhat mandarin-like spirit, two points about it should not be forgotten which distinguish it, to its advantage, from modern systems of State education. All constraint, everything that makes learning a task and a burden rather than a delightful exercise of natural powers, is repugnant to Plato; he would knock at the door, as it were, of every slumbering faculty of every individual, in order to rouse it to action. Nor does the idealist ever forget the body and its demands. Besides the continual alternation of practical and theoretical, or military and civil occupations, the uninterrupted practice of gymnastic is designed to keep the body no less fresh and efficient than the soul, and guard against the one kind of “limping” one-sidedness as much as against the other. The sallow- cheeked, narrow-chested bookworm was as little to Plato’s taste as to Goethe's.
5. The eighth book takes up again the thread which had been dropped at the beginning of the fifth. The digression there begun is brought to a close. The edifice of the perfect constitution no longer lacks foundation and coping (cf. p. 76); there is now nothing to prevent the imperfect types, whether of constitutions or of men, from being compared and contrasted with it. Nor till they have been passed in review will a final answer be possible to the question whether “the best man is also the happiest, and the worst man the most miserable.” Four forms of the State are distinguished—timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, tyranny. By timarchy or timocracy is meant not, as in Aristotle, the rule of the wealthy, which is by preference termed oligarchy, but the type of constitution realized in Crete and Sparta, the vital principle of which is the pursuit of τιμή, or honour. The descending series indicate at once
THE DEGENERATE FORMS OF POLITY. gi
the order in rank and the order in time of the constitutions, Two points are therefore prominent in the exposition— the scale of merit and the historical sequence (the “ transi- tions”) of these forms of government. This combination of two points of view is not always possible without some violence. Thus the “most laudable” of all historical con- stitutions has to be represented as a product of decay, as a pseudo-aristocracy which is a degenerate form of the real thing. But as this latter is the Platonic ideal, as yet no- where realized on earth, it is tacitly replaced first by patriarchal monarchy, then by the corresponding type of aristocracy, and the hoary past is thus credited with a political perfection which it never really possessed. In the “Timzus” and the “Critias” the vague indications here given are worked out, as far as regards the primitive age of Athens, with poetic freedom. Two motives seem to underlie this procedure of Plato’s: the striving we have already noted towards a systematic philosophy of history, and the need, felt also by Antisthenes, for supporting facts, even half-fictitious facts, by which his ideal picture might be redeemed from the character of a pure Utopia, ‘and the doubts laid to rest which even he felt as to the possibility of realization.
There are other matters, too, in connexion with which the philosopher appears in the guise of an imaginative writer. It is clearly repugnant to him to maintain a dry didactic tone throughout his historical and political expositions, He prefers to clothe them, as one may say, in parables, in which a characteristic instance takes the place of a general process. By this means he also succeeds in giving immediate expression to the analogy, partly real, partly artificial, between forms of the State and types of individual character.
All earthly things are subject to decay, and that according to a cyclic law by which the end is connected with the beginning. An attempt is made to embody this law in a mathematical expression which is famous under the name of the “Platonic number,’ and has been the despair of commentators. It is with human generation
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as with the fruits of the field—ill growths will appear occasionally. Our ignorance of these mysterious processes adds to the difficulty of taking timely precautions. The crossing of superior with inferior stocks causes the race to degenerate. Silver (Plato returns to a former image, see p. 69) receives an admixture of iron, gold of bronze. Inequality and irregularity ensue, which are everywhere the causes of enmity and war. Peace is at last made on terms which involve two consequences: the denationaliza- tion, or conversion into private property, of land, and the enslavement of the “protected,” or lower, classes. Thus a mixed form comes into being, intermediate between the ideal State and the first stage of corruption, exhibiting, therefore, some characteristics: of both. The abstinence of the upper class from all pursuit of gain, the common meals of the men, the assiduous practice of gymnastic, are features which it shares with the higher type; with the lower it agrees in the meaner value set on science, in the preference of warlike above peaceful occupations, in the increased desire for wealth. Crete, and more particularly Sparta, have here served as Plato’s models, and by trans- ferring their features to his page he himself gives us the key to some of the “historical elements” in his pattern State. The agreement extends to quite subordinate details, such as the evading of the law by accumulating treasure abroad. The chief characteristic of timarchy, however, is the predominance of the middle, or “spirited” part of the soul.
The next stage on the downward path is marked by the increased power of private interest, which has been kept in restraint by external checks rather than by internal subjugation. With the “money-chest’”’ decadence invades the State. Wealth turns the balance, and virtue kicks the beam. Oligarchy, or the rule of the rich, comes into existence. Those of slender means—by whom are always meant the less well-to-do among the upper class—lose all their share of political privileges. The State is thus more poorly supplied with talent. It is much as if the more competent but poorer pilot were compelled to yield place
THE RULE OF THE MONEY-CHEST. 93
to a less competent but richer. ITurther, the inward unity of the commonwealth is lost, for it has become divided into two hostile cities. But the greatest evil is the appearance of a proletariate, due to the fact that one man may now sell all his property and another buy it. Thus side by side with the “unduly rich” there live a number of “utterly poor.” The two classes resemble each other in being “mere consumers,” for which reason they are compared to drones. Lastly, where there are beggars there will also be a multitude of evil-doers.
And now for the corresponding type of individual character and the particular instance in which the opera- tion of general tendencies receives concrete illustration. A statesman or commander meets with failure ; informers procure his condemnation ; his lot is exile or death and the confiscation of his goods. His son, to whom the father has hitherto been an example, is terrified by the catastrophe, and makes it his aim to escape from the poverty by which he feels himself humiliated. The instinct of acquisition gains the upper hand in him. “He enthrones the appe- titive element in his soul,” and prostrates himself before it “as before the great king.” He condemns to slavery the elements of reason and courage; his mind is wholly occupied with the question how he may “make little money into more.” Thus is accomplished the transforma- tion “of the honour-loving into the money-loving youth.” He becomes miserly and small-minded, loses every noble ambition, and turns his back on intellectual culture ; “drone-like” instincts also awake in him; he develops tendencies to crime, which he will not indulge, however, unless he is certain of impunity. Otherwise, he is careful to lead a respectable life, and enjoys a reputation for integrity. In fact, “the better desires in him will for the most part triumph over the worse.” But this is due to the stress of fear, not to the might of reason. His is a divided nature ; the true virtue of a harmonious soul at one with itself is unknown to him.
The third stage of decay is called democracy. It springs from the increased activity of the same causes
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which produced oligarchy. The rich ever desire to become richer ; and they sit in the seat of authority. Accordingly, all the barriers are torn down which might prevent ex- travagance and financial ruin on the one side, and the enrichment of money-lenders and buyers-up of land on the other. (These very evils had been experienced at Thebes in the olden days, and Philolaus of Corinth had sought to meet them by his adoption laws, the object of which was to “maintain the lots of land undiminished in number.”) Impoverished and indebted members of the ruling class, who are yet in many cases men of high gifts and high aims, become, in their embitterment and their desire for inno- vation, a danger to the State—a danger to which the leading politicians keep their eyes carefully closed. For these possessors of power are too covetous to adopt the appropriate remedies, to confine business transactions within narrower bounds, or to withdraw the protection of the law from modes of acquiring excessive wealth. In the long run, it is true, the rulers themselves do not escape unharmed. Good living enervates them ; anxiety for gain drives all other interests into the background ; they cease from the exertions necessary to keep them efficient and superior to the unmoneyed class. So it comes about that the sunburnt, sinewy, and stalwart son of the people learns to despise the bloated, short-winded, helpless plutocrat who may stand beside him in the ranks. By such comparisons the masses become aware of their superiority, and feel the continuance of their exclusion from power and property as a disgrace. Only a slight impulse is then needed, say an alliance with a similar faction in a neighbouring State, to kindle a contest, which, if the poorer side wins, will lead to democracy.
Plato’s attitude towards democracy will occupy us in the sequel. This was the form of government under which he lived and worked, the one which, according to a law formulated by himself—the law of reaction—produced the most powerful effect upon his mind. The evils which he has himself experienced affect him so strongly that little room remains for other impressions. Not one gleam of
THE EVILS OF DEMOCRACY. 95
light relieves the monotonous blackness of his picture. Democracy is for him not ove constitution, but a “mart of constitutions.” So great is its inconstancy, so confusing the motley multiformity which composes its being. That he should be the “friend of the people” is the one demand made on the politician, his all-in-all that stands for every excellence and compensates every defect. The laws of democracy remain a dead letter, its freedom is anarchy, its equality the “ equality of the unequal.”
It is much the same in the breast of the individual. For the democratic man all desires are on a level. That he should respect some and discipline others is teaching to which he will not listen. All ethical conceptions are turned inside out. As libertinage becomes freedom and shamelessness manly independence, so moderation becomes weakness and pious awe imbecility. All noble qualities of character are placed under ban and driven with contumely out of the city, just as were the best men when democracy was founded. In this description there are two points of particular interest : a unique but unmistakable reference to a passage in Thucydides, and the parallel, which we have not pursued into its finest details, between the processes within the democratic soul and the corresponding political phenomena—a parallel which is often forced and over- loaded with imagery. It provokes a smile to compare this misuse of the imagination with the wholesale condemna- tion of that faculty which Plato pronounces in his attack on poetry and poets.
Democracy is followed by tyranny—the maximum of liberty by the maximum of servitude. It is, indeed, a fundamental law, the operation of which includes both nature and human life, that extremes generate each other reciprocally. Just as oligarchy was destroyed by that which under it was prized as the highest good and made the object of exclusive pursuit—by the lust of riches—-so also is it with democracy, the downfall of which is brought about by its excessive and one-sided devotion to liberty. ‘The same insatiability marks the two cases. And when evil cup-bearers give the State, which thirsts for freedom,
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too strong a draught, it loses its senses. It reviles the moderate politicians as “abominable oligarchs,” and re- proaches their adherents for plunging wilfully into slavery. The citizens soon find themselves living in a topsy-turvy world, out of which all authority has vanished. Fathers fear their sons ; metics, foreigners, and even slaves are put on a level with citizens; the very animals parade the streets with a proud air of independence and jostle who- ever will not stand out of their path. But the deciding voice in the State is that of the “drones,” of the powerful ones with stings as well as the weak and stingless, the first of which can lead the second only by offering them much honey. “A little honey,“ too, must be paid to the mass of wage-earners, here for the first time mentioned. What is thus given must first be taken from the possessors. If these, however, defend themselves in their extremity, they are accused of oligarchical designs, and the people cry for a protector. This protectorship is the root from which tyranny springs. The protector, or agent of the people, threatens the life no less than the property of the wealthy. His decoy-calls are promises involving the extinction of debts and the division of land. He goes to the length of utilizing the law-courts and procuring capital sentences. Once having tasted blood, however, he must soon face the choice between falling a victim to his enemies and seizing absolute power. His next step is the request for a body- guard, which is to secure the friend and protector of the people against hostile machinations. If this request is cranted, it is not long before he stands in the State- chariot, erect and sublime in all his glory: the tribune has become the tyrant.
His career is divided into several phases. At first he is “all smiles” and affability ; he satisfies his own faction by fulfilling his promises. But all the while the moment is approaching when he must make himself indispensable to the people. For this purpose he contrives foreign wars, by which he gains yet other advantages. The property of his opponents is eaten up by extraordinary taxation; the conduct of a campaign provides favourable opportunities
THE TYRANT, 97
for getting rid of their persons. By this means, however, he creates an accumulation of hatred against himself, and even those to whom he owes his elevation are not sparing in criticism and censure. He is thus compelled to search out “with far-seeing eye” the brave, the high-minded, the wise, to attack them, and in the end to purge the State of them. A rare purgation—the exact opposite of that accomplished by the physician when he removes noxious matter from the body and leaves what is best behind. He is thus constrained by an unblest destiny to live only with the bad or not live at all. The more hateful he becomes to the citizens, the more must he depend for support upon hirelings. These he obtains partly from abroad, but he also finds some at home by robbing the citizens of their slaves and giving the latter their freedom. But how will he feed the motley horde? First by confiscating temple- property, then by grinding the people. The latter per- ceives too late that it has run out of the smoke into the fire, that its once immoderate liberty has been exchanged for the most galling servitude of all, now that it is the slave of its own slaves. But the tyrant, the offspring of the Demos, is now under the necessity of raising his hand against his own parent.
The tragedy of the tyrant is no mere invention of Plato. This sketch owes less to the philosopher’s constructive imagination than those by which it is preceded. It borrows, indeed, from that source little more than the occasioning cause of tyranny; in reality, this should cer- tainly be sought for less in the free rein given to the desires of the many than in a deeply seated divergence of interests, and in a passionateness of temperament from which the aristocrats were no freer than the Demos. We refer particularly to the origin of the Sicilian tyranny (cf. Vol. II. p. 262, seg.), which Plato also has more especially before his mind. He has fulfilled that condition which he can only allow Socrates to refer to as an imaginary hypo- thesis ; he has “lived in the tyrant’s palace, and witnessed his daily doings.” And here we should note a transi- tion characteristic of Plato’s adaptability. He begins asa
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dispassionate observer, and describes the gradual transfor- mation of the people’s advocate, his tyrant’s progress, as an inevitable necessity accomplishing itself step by step. So far his account is not without a touch of compassion. But suddenly he becomes a fierce accuser, for whom the tyrant is the quintessence of all that is despicable and hateful, destitute from the beginning of every germ of noble feeling. Plato has been roused to strong emotion ; memories of his own experiences lend bitterness to his language ; at the same time, he is bent on demonstrating the main thesis of the “ Republic:” The most unjust of men is also the most miserable.
6. As if to lay still deeper foundations for this momen- tous decision, Plato (at the beginning of the ninth book) seeks the tyrannical nature in process of manufacture. Two generations are required for its production. Its srowth is caused by the more and more luxuriant develop- ment of passions for which democracy (here looked at with a more lenient eye, as the foil of tyanny) had prepared the ground. The wild beast which sleeps in every man, and at times, especially by night, awakes to rage and roar, is freed from every restraining curb; the herd of “wild and mutinous desires” is let loose. Out of the many passions one comes forward as master, as the “tyrant within the soul,” and the other desires form its body-guard. Here, too, are soon enrolled the baser tendencies, once repressed, but now emancipated ; the good impulses which resist them are killed or banished; the man’s soul is purged of temperance! The reader will note the minute detail of the parallel, which for Plato is no mere rhetorical ornament, but has real convincing force. The criminal nature thus produced procures the means for the satisfac- tion of its desires, at first by robbery and fraud practised on parents ; its next step is unfilial violence, just as the demagogue become tyrant will employ force against his fatherland or his mother-city. For it is out of the ranks of the common criminals, of the tyrannical natures, that here and there a tyrant. in the full sense emerges, sent forth by some ordinance of destiny. A lurid description
THE BEST. MAN THE HAPPIEST. 99
is now given of his vices, his faithlessness, his godlessness, and, with it all, of his misery, in spite of the envy he inspires ; he is full of suspicion and fear, he has no peace or rest, he is deserted and poor, for of his measureless desires he can satisfy but the smallest fraction. In reality, too, he is no ruler, but a slave, and a slave of the vilest, whom he must continually flatter that he may have them on his side. Plato has reached his goal. The cry of triumph will no longer be restrained. Let the son of Ariston make it known by herald’s cry that the best and justest man is also the happiest, the worst and most unjust the most wretched, whether the one and the other remain hidden from God and men or not (cf. pp. 62 and 74).
Just as the tyrannic type of character stands at once for the worst and most miserable, so the other types agree in point of goodness and happiness with the corresponding forms of constitution. At their head is the royal or truly aristocratic nature. After this comes the timocratic, then the oligarchic, which again is followed by the democratic.
The never-tiring author of the “ Republic” proceeds to supplement this first proof by additional corroborations of the disputed thesis. Probably he himself feels that his last argument, derived from the order of merit of the constitutions, sadly needs strengthening. <A reference to his theory of the soul has already been introduced by his assertion that in the tyrant’s soul the noblest impulses are enslaved, the lowest promoted to exclusive dominion. Corresponding to the three parts of the soul he now enumerates three kinds of pleasure: for the highest there is the pleasure of knowledge, for the middle part the pleasure of victory and honour, for the lowest, the multi- formity and vague delimitation of which is expressly recog- nized, the pleasure of gain. That this order of enumeration corresponds to the position of these pleasures in the scale of value, is inferred from experience.. The philosopher or lover of truth prefers his species of pleasure to the other two, and also the second to the third. But this valuation of his is final and incontrovertible, because his experience is the most comprehensive. From childhood upwards he
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has been familiar with the other two kinds of pleasure, while the joy of knowledge is as unknown to the mere lover of honour as it is to the mere lover of gain, the latter of whom rises at best to the love of honour, seeing that honour is paid also to riches. (Plato, like J. 5. Mill in a cognate argument, overlooks the fact that greater susceptibility to one kind of pleasure is usually coupled with a smaller capacity for enjoying other kinds.) To this must be added that the instrument of comparison and valuation, the intellect, is more highly developed in the philosopher than in the other two classes of men; hence from his verdict there can be no appeal. Thus the just man, here identified with the philosopher, has for the second time gained a victory over the unjust.
A third argument rests on the “truth and purity” of pleasures of the reason, whereas all other pleasure is but a shadow. This applies equally to the pleasures which are shot through with pain (desires, wants, cf. Vol. II. pp. 336 and 350), and to those neutral states which are felt as pleasurable or painful or neither, according to the state by which they ‘are preceded. In the same way—it is somewhat after this fashion that Plato expresses himself—a point situated ata middle level will seem low to one who approaches it from above, high to one who comes up from below. Thus quiescence of the soul is felt as painful after keen pleasure, as pleasurable after the cessation of violent pain. “ How can that which in itself is neither pleasure nor pain be in truth both?” It is not here, therefore, in the sphere of the relative, as we should say, that the home of true pleasure is to be sought. True pleasure is unknown to the mass of mankind, and they are under the same illusion as a man who, not knowing white, should see grey by the side of black, and think it white. A further development of these thoughts will meet us in the “Philebus,” and give us an occasion for the criticism of them. Plato next places the acquisition of knowledge above the nutrition of the body, on the ground that the object of knowledge is the imperish- able and the immutable, endowed with true being, as opposed to the things of sense by which the body is fed.
THE SCALE OF PLEASURES. IOI
The mass of mankind, truly, who after the manner of beasts look only downwards, struggle like them for what alone gives them pleasure, “thrusting and trampling each other with iron horns and hoofs.” Their struggle, however, resembles the Trojan war, if Stesichorus is right, and Helen herself never lived at Troy, but only her shadow.
Lastly, Plato essays the strange feat of obtaining an arithmetical expression for the relative values of the pleasures proper to the “king,” here hardly to be dis- tinguished from the philosopher, and to the lower types, down to the tyrant. His calculation starts from the as- sumption that the happiness of the highest-placed member of the series (the king) stands in the same ratio to that of the next but one (the oligarch) as this does to the happi- ness of the tyrant two more places lower down. For this last quantity, which is the measure of a “shadow ” without substance, the “superficial number,” 9 (3 x 3), is chosen, and thus the proportion obtained: 9: 81 = 81 : 720, so that to the five stages of worth and happiness there correspond five successive powers of 3 (9, 27, 81, 243, 729). Plato here , shows himself a true disciple of the Pythagoreans. That which is bizarre and arbitrary in such attempts should: not blind us to the depth of insight which divines the uni- versal sway of law, rightly refusing to make the world of soul an exception to the general order of nature. Internal consistency, or even the mere appearance of such, was necessarily substituted for the investigation of facts (cf. Vol. I. p. 120), and the very possibility of the former became a secondary question. Exact psychology has abated its pretensions since that day; the place of the ambitious scale of happiness and virtue is taken by the modest “personal equation.”
The numerical mystic now leaves the scene and makes way for the poet. Plato wishes to knit once more into a compact unity his doctrine of the tripartite soul and the system of ethics which rests on that doctrine. For this purpose he employs an image which, though grotesque to the verge of absurdity, is yet highly impressive. We are to construct in thought—and thought is “more plastic
VOL, ΤΠ: I
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than wax—” a little man, a larger lion, and a polymorphous monster. This last is to have a chaplet of heads, some of them pertaining to tame and others to wild beasts, but capable of transformation and renewal. All three—man, lion, monster—are to be supposed joined together, and enclosed in an outer husk of human form. The advocates of injustice, who would have this quality avoided merely on account of its external consequences, virtually demand that the “man within man” shall be starved, weakened, and placed at the mercy of the inferior creature at his side. But that which is really befitting is that we should utilize the help of the lion within us to discipline yet more strictly the tame part of the many-headed monster, and nourish this part to greater strength, while checking the growth of the wild part. Thus these creatures may be kept at peace with each other and with ourselves. No price would tempt us to sell our sons and daughters into slavery, still less to a savage and wicked master ; just as little is it to our profit, for the sake of whatever advantage, to place that which is best in us under bondage to that which is worst, that which is most godlike to that which is most godless and most foul. So doing, we should be guilty of worse treason than Eriphyle, who sold her husband’s life for a golden necklace. With the elabora- tion of these thoughts and a repeated exhortation to set up the ideal kingdom in the “inner city” of the soul, whether the “heavenly pattern” is ever realized on earth or not, the book is brought to a close. What remains is of a supplementary character.
7. The tenth and last book begins with a transition, the abruptness of which receives immediate justification. The fight is resumed against poetry as the arch-enemy of an order of life based on reason. It can now be carried on “ more effectually,” because the division of the soul and —as we may add—the doctrine of ideas have been ex- pounded in the interval. Poetry is treated as one of the imitative arts. They all offer imperfect semblances of reality. Their products are not truth, but appearance, and indeed, an appearance not only one but two degrees
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removed from the truth. When, for example, the cabinet- maker fashions tables and beds, that which he copies is the archetype or idea of the table or bed, which exists but once, and which may be said to have been made by the gods. Thus the painter who counterfeits these objects produces in reality only the copy of a copy, and a false one at that, for the table or bed seen sideways is not the same as when viewed from the front. The discussion on pleasure and pain, in the ninth book, where shadows of shadows have already been brought to view, would seem to be still echoing in Plato’s mind. The present argument, which inadequately separates the problems of art from those of science, and which unduly narrows the sphere of art by regarding it as pure imitation, derives its main interest from the predominance given to the ethical stand- point. Plato’s quarrel with the fine arts turns chiefly on their effects—their antagonism to his ethical ideal, their glorification of the senses, their enervating appeal to the emotions. Poetry is here the worst offender, tragic poetry —of which Homer was the real founder—the worst of all, for it “waters and feeds” those elements in the soul which ought to be “dried up.”
This attack is bitter beyond the proverbial bitterness of civil war. Plato is at feud, not with his fellow-country- men only, but with himself. He offers a spectacle never seen before his day, one of which the first astonishing repetition has been reserved for our own time—a prince among artists violently rooting up the love of art from his own soul. He acknowledges, in his pain, that he finds it difficult to fight down the admiration for Homer which he has cherished from his youth. But truth demands the sacrifice. We note with astonishment the adaptability of Plato’s mind. In order to humble the poets he elevates the sophists. The slighting tone in which he generally speaks of this class is forgotten for the moment. If Homer or Hesiod—so runs one of these arguments—had benefited his neighbours by his wisdom as much as, say, Protagoras or Prodicus, he would have been as highly honoured as these men, and not allowed to end his life as a beggar and
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rhapsodist. The great poets, however, had only “shadows of virtue ” to offer ; the most they could do in reality was to delight. But where the conduct of life is concerned there is something which stands higher than all delights: the “ great question” of whether we are becoming good or bad (cf. Vol. II. p. 337, § 5), the struggle to maintain the “polity within the soul””—for the image already employed in the ninth book is retained in this continuation. He therefore finally congratulates himself on having banished the poets from his republic. If “pleasure and pain” are not to rule instead of reason and law, only religious poetry may be tolerated, nothing will be admitted but hymns to the god and songs in praise of great men.
Religious thoughts and their expression by the aid of myth form also the conclusion of the work. Before Plato reaches that bourne, he turns the tables in a remarkable manner. Socrates requests “repayment of the loan” which he had made to the other speakers—the concession, that is to say, by which both the just man and the unjust were treated as though they remained hidden from gods and men. The hypothesis was necessary in order to determine the intrinsic value or happiness-yielding quality of virtue and its opposite—stripped of all external additions—and to institute a strict and searching comparison between justice and injustice taken each by itself. But the dialogue must not end before the just man has the “ prizes of victory” awarded to him, which at first were withheld. For by what possible means could our actions really remain hidden from the gods? Nor will the just man, as a rule, be more than temporarily misjudged by his fellows ; in the end both he and the unjust man will be known for what they are, and receive the reward or punishment which they have earned.
A mythical narrative follows, resting on the supposed testimony of Er the Pamphylian, son of Armenius, a person otherwise entirely unknown. This man fell on the field of battle, and his soul, we are told, witnessed the judgment of the dead, but after twelve days returned to his body, which was still uncorrupted, for Er had been chosen by the gods to bring men tidings of the fortunes
THE MYTH OF ER THE ARMENIAN. TO5
which await them. He saw the meadow where the ways cross of those who come down from Heaven and of those who ascend from the lower world; he rested by the foun- tain whence souls drink the draught of forgetfulness ; and he saw them fly thence, like shooting stars, amid thunder, lightning, and earthquake. He beheld the mouth of the under-world close with a mighty roar when the greatest criminals sought to pass out into the light. Above all, he witnessed the “choice of life”? made by those who after “a thousand years of wandering” stood on the threshold of a new incarnation. It is not the demon, or tutelary genius, that chooses the man; but each man chooses his own demon. His choice is free, and if evil follow he must bear the blame, not God. Quaint and humorous touches are not wanting to relieve the sombre recital of the pains of hell by which the guilty are visited, and tyrants, as before, more than the rest. Thus Ulysses, the highly renowned but also the man of many travels and many troubles, chooses for himself a modest middle-class existence. The whole narrative is a mixture of Orphic and Pythagorean myths. To the latter category belongs the transference of human souls to animal bodies, and vice versa (cf. Vol. II. p. 364 and Vol. III. p. 67). Swans and other musical birds become men. The soul of the demagogue Thersites, on the other hand, takes the form of an ape. Ajax and Agamemnon, who have suffered so grievously, desire to flee the society of men; the gloomy Ajax chooses the body of a lion, the kingly Agamemnon that of an eagle. But the teaching to which all these visions bear witness is genuinely Platonic: We should “hold with a grip of iron the belief” that the worse lot is that which causes the soul to become unjust. For ali else we need take no thought. This conviction must be held unswervingly in the lower world also, where we must beware of being dazzled “by riches and similar evil things,” lest we “fall into tyrannies and other like wickedness, whereby we shall do great and irreparable wrongs to others and suffer yet worse ourselves,”
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CHAPTER 2111. PLATO'S ETHICAL, POLITICAL, AND SOCIAL IDEAL.
1. OF the two titles borne by this great work—“ On Justice,” and “The Constitution” or “ Republic”—the second has obtained the preference. The social and political content of Plato’s creation has made a deeper impression than the ethical. In treating of the former before the latter, we shall, indirectly at least, comply with the author’s purpose: we shall proceed from the outer husk of his ideal to its kernel.
A question frequently put to experts at the present day is this—Was Plato a forerunner of the modern socialists and communists? The answer must be both Yes and No. By the side of the obvious points of agreement there are differences of the most far-reaching kind. What these modern movements strive to obtain for the community as a whole, Plato proposed to enact merely for his upper or ruling classes of warriors and guardians. For the great mass, for the classes engaged in agriculture and handi- crafts, the traditional form of the family and the old economic order were to be retained. Indeed, he is so far from advocating any emancipation of these classes that he requires them to provide the means of living for the upper classes, towards whom he places them in a relation of the strictest dependence. In describing this relation he does not even shrink from using the word “slavery,” though he means by it no more than a state of wardship salutary to the masses themselves. No clear picture is vouchsafed us of these classes. Plato is silent, and his silence is eloquent.
PEATOS CONT EMPT FORTHE MASSES, 1O7
In the course of his exposition, it has been rightly re- marked, he lets the lower orders fall completely out of sight. He will have them well and justly ruled, but he takes so little interest in them that he forgets to give us any details of the manner of ruling them. All we can gather casually is that for them, too, the division of labour is to be strictly enforced, and that “wealth” no less than “poverty” is to be kept far from them, in order that they may lack neither the desire nor the power to work. For the rest, he contents himself with comparing them to the lowest elements in the soul, with pronouncing it an impossibility for them to order their own lives inde- pendently and successfully, with discussing the question, not whether, but why, they should be held in inferior regard.
For this attitude of depreciation several causes may be assigned. Mere pride of birth and rank had something to do with it. Such feelings were present in Plato’s mind, if only as an under-current, yet not without effect. The reader will remember many instances, especially in the “ Charmides,” where he uses expressions tending to exalt his own family. The impiety of Euthyphro, who accused his own father of murder (cf. Vol. II. p. 359), appears to him in darker colours because the murdered man was only a “day-labourer.” Still stranger in our eyes is a passage of the “ Gorgias,” where a “ mechanic,” who had saved his country from destruction by inventing an engine of war, is, never- theless, spoken of in a tone of contempt, just because he laboured with his hands. In a passage of the “ Republic ” Plato condemns the brutal treatment of slaves, on the ground that the truly educated man despises them too much to be angry with them. For the rest, a class of slaves is not explicitly mentioned as existing in the ideal State ; but the prohibition against enslaving Greek prisoners of war indicates that in the case of barbarians Plato would have raised no objection. The prohibition in question occurs, it may be remarked, in a section devoted to inter- national law, and is one of a series of precepts which all agree in restricting to wars against barbarians certain
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severities which at that time were customary as between Hellenes—devastation of territory, burning of houses, and so on. A war between Hellenes, Plato says, should never bear the character of perpetual hostility, but rather that of a temporary chastisement, an enforcing of the law which only affects the guilty and not the general mass of the population.
The chief logical ground, however, on which Plato justifies his contempt for the lower classes as well as slaves, is their lack of leisure and consequently of the higher culture which leisure alone makes possible. It is this culture—the assiduous pursuit of music, gymnastics, and the sciences—which forms the true charter of the ruling class, hereby assimilated in some measure to the Pytha- gorean order. Their life is regulated on the communistic plan for the purpose of completing their education. No private ownership is allowed among them which exceeds the indispensable minimum. Their income is to provide them with a sufficient maintenance, but no superfluities. Gold and silver may not be used even for adornment or in the form of plate. The possession of private land or houses might make the members of the ruling class successful “householders and farmers,” but not good “ suardians.”
In all this Plato is not entirely independent of historical models. A ruling class which kept aloof not only from . trade and manual work, but even from agriculture, was not unknown either at Sparta or in Crete. Rudiments, too, of a communistic order of life might be observed at Sparta, where hunters, for example, were allowed to help themselves to provisions from other men’s stores—a custom which has an echo in Plato’s injunction not to lock up the storehouses. Need we remind the reader of the Lacede- monian and Cretan syssitia, or common meals of men, by which camp life was continued in time of peace? Plato modifies the institution in a manner which makes a clean sweep of all family life. Even during the continu- ance of the temporary marriages already spoken of, no common home life is possible for the couples. It is not
THE MOTIVES OF PLATOS SCHEME, 109
merely that the children are lost to the parents’ abode from an early date ; the women, too, share in the public meals; they fill posts in the army and government departments, and cannot be even temporary helpmates to their husbands. What were the reasons, we may ask, which impelled Plato towards these subversive innovations ?
2. Part of the answer he has himself supplied. He is afraid that the ruling class may misuse the unlimited power with which it is endowed, that its members may resemble dogs that attack the herds committed to their care, that they may become wolves instead of dogs. In reality, all the parts of the scheme are most closely connected. Ifthe highest intellectual training is to reign supreme, restrained by no checks on the part of the subject classes, who are deemed unqualified to exercise any control, and are yet to be preserved from every kind of exploitation, then security for the right use of power must be had in some other way. The absence of constitutional checks must be compensated by the absence of those impulses for the curbing of which constitutional forms exist. For the moderation of these impulses provision is made by an education specially designed for the purpose—a means whose efficacy Plato rates almost as highly as does Helvetius. To the credit, however, of his good sense, he did not carry his over-appre- ciation to unlimited lengths. He did not believe in the omnipotence of education. Accordingly, he found pro- tection from the abuse of power only in the absence of all separate interests on the side of the rulers, in the suppression of the family and of private property.
In this explanation there is no doubt contained a con- siderable portion of truth. That it is not the whole truth, we have cogent reasons for affirming. In the “Laws” Plato renounces the absolute character of the philosophers’ rule ; he accepts a compromise which introduces constitu- tional checks and even gives the mass of the people a share of political power. Nevertheless, he holds with unswerving fidelity to the communistic ideal, though he abandons the _ project of realizingit. “Community of women, of children, of goods,” he still pronounces to be the best. His
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endeavours do not cease to be directed towards “ the rooting out of the so-called private or particular element from every department of life... . So far as is by any means possible, all should praise or blame the same thing together, all should rejoice or grieve for the same cause.” The greatest possible emphasis is bestowed on the glorifica- tion of “life in common,” and on the injunction to destroy from among men, even from among the domestic animals, that “lack of a master” which makes for division. This endeavour after the “unification” of the commonwealth goes far beyond the design of drying up the sources of discord in public life. Plato’s quarrel is with individuality as such, and as much with the diversity of different indi- viduals as with the inward multiformity within the single soul. This latter point appears most clearly in the picture he gives of the ‘democrat,’ that is, of his Athenian con- temporaries. “Motley variety ” and “ multiplicity of forms ” are the worst reproaches which he levels against this type of man—a type which, according to him, contains in itself patterns of all possible constitutions (cf. p. 95).
Such a man is, so Plato tells us in effect, the plaything of every fleeting mood. To-day he revels in wine and banquet-music ; to-morrow he will fast on bread and water. To-day he works in the gymnasium till the sweat runs down his brow; to-morrow he will dedicate to dolce far niente. At one time he will play the philosopher, at another the politician ; he will spring to his feet from his place in the assembly, and do and say what comes into his head. If a general’s fame catches his fancy he is off soldiering ; if a speculator’s gains rouse his envy, he tries his luck in business. In short, there is no order and no discipline in his doings, and this is precisely the reason why in his own eyes his life is “so free, so sweet, so blessed.” Who can fail to perceive herein the caricature of just that brilliant type which Thucydides has painted in imperishable colours (cf. Vol. Il. p. 41)? The subject of the two pictures is the same; Athens has, perhaps, in the mean time lapsed somewhat from the height to which she had attained ; but what has changed more fundamentally is the standpoint of
CONTRAST WITH MODERN IDEALS. 101
the beholder. The versatile exercise of many-sided talents, individual character and genius,—all this is non-existent for Plato; in all that we admire he can see nothing but anarchic irregularity, bungling half-knowledge, and ama- teurish incompetence. He is free, on the other hand, from an anxiety which has troubled some of the best men of the nineteenth century—from the fear of an ever-widening divergence from the Periclean ideal, of an approach to “the Chinese ideal of making all people alike.’ The shadows alone are visible to him in the picture of his age; all the energy and fire of his nature are directed towards the realization of a new pattern, of whose latent dangers he has not the slightest suspicion.
Nor must we forget the connexion between Plato’s ethico-political ideal and his doctrine of ideas. Every separate thing or being is for him the inadequate copy of a more perfect universal. How, then, could he have laid any store on the maintenance of the “ particular,” on the multi- plication of varieties of imperfection, on individuality ? Again, we moderns regard the diversity of individuals as salutary, for the additional reason that by the multiplicity of paths entered upon the prospect is increased of progress, of the attainment of a perfection as yet unknown to us. Plato, on the other hand, could see in individual differences only impediments preventing the realization of an ideal which for him was final and complete, the sharp and certain outline of which was graven in his soul.
3. It is not to no purpose that the “guardians” are half philosophers and half aristocratic soldiers. Each of these elements has left its traces on the Platonic ideal. The Athenian oligarchs, to which circle Plato and his family belonged, were “ friends of the Lacedemonians.” Among such modes of ordering life as were put in practice in his own age and country, that followed at Sparta stood nearest his heart. Reverence for age, strict discipline of youth, a high valuation of musical, gymnastic, and military education, contempt for the “ banausic,’—all these are features common to the Platonic and the Spartan ideal. A Critias and a Charmides probably thought and felt on these matters
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much as did their young kinsman the philosopher. Of aristocratic origin, too, is the strong accent which Plato lays on “magnificence,” a quality which he more than once sets in the company of the cardinal virtues, without justifying this position on any principle. Similarly, the opposite of “magnificence,” stinginess, meanness, illiberality, is among the attributes which Plato most despises. A conviction that the pursuit of trades cannot but engender this vice strengthens what we may term an innate repugnance. In this connexion a passage in the “ Laws” is highly instruc- tive. It shows some advance towards a juster appreciation of trade and its beneficial operation in levelling down economic contrasts. The hypothesis is there allowed to stand fora moment that the “best men of all,’ or women of similar quality, might be compelled by some stroke of fate to do the work of innkeepers, to offer the longed-for refreshment or shelter to one wearied by long travel or lost in an inhospitable region. Trade would then appear in the most favourable light possible. But the thought is dropped immediately. The belief that such occupations foster an ignoble love of gain, a tendency to fraud and over-reaching, is too deeply rooted to allow the above hypothesis to appear other than ridiculous. Schiller’s distich, “The Merchant,” would have been unintelligible to Plato. With the demand for “discipline and order” there is coupled another for “symmetry and beauty” (cf. Vol. II. p. 353). This latter is the soul’s cry of one who is at once an artist devoted to the cult of beauty and a philosopher with Pythagorean leanings, one who has learnt to see and admire the reign of rule, of symmetry, of harmony and rhythm in mathematics, acoustics, and, above all, in astronomy. The Socratic moralist, too, insists no less imperatively that unquestioning obedience be paid to the commands of reason, more exactly, of utility established by reason. From the fusion of these elements there arose in Plato that ideal which is peculiar to him of inward order coupled with devotion to science, of self-mastery, of con- stancy, calmness, equanimity, and moderation. Temper- ance, in reality, takes the highest position with him, though
PLATO AND UTILITARIANISM. 113
justice is the particular virtue which he employs most frequently as a representative of virtue in general. The definition which he gives of justice is in truth more accurately applicable to temperance. “Each one of us is just "—so runs a passage of the “ Republic’”—‘“in whose soul every part does its allotted work.” How closely this resembles one of the definitions of temperance adduced in the “Charmides ” (cf. Vol. II. pp. 303 and 307)! That which is presented to us as justice is, taken strictly, a condition implied by justice. But for Plato this con- dition is more valuable than that which depends upon it. The manifestation of the ideal in the personality of each individual meant still more to him than did the service rendered by the individual to the community.
4. The utilitarians proudly reckon Plato as one of them- selves, and they have a good right to do so. There are decisive passages in which he laysan emphasis which could not be exceeded on the principle of utility. It was with deep satisfaction that Grote, the pupil of Bentham, was able to place at the head of his work on Plato this citation from the “ Republic:” “For this is and will ever remain the best of sayings, that the useful is the noble, and the hurtful is the base.” But in order to avoid a one-sided interpretation of this sentence, it must be supplemented by the fundamental Socratic and Platonic doctrine of the utility, or power to make men happy, inherent in the good or noble. The study of this principle creates a momentary impression that Plato’s thoughts moved ina circle: The useful is noble; and then again, the noble is useful. But it is not so in reality. So long as his mind moves in the region of means, he is perfectly in earnest with the doctrine of utility. His supreme standard is here that of conformity to ends; and any objection which has its source in feeling touches him, as we shall shortly have abundant occasion to observe, only in the very slightest degree. But in the sphere of ends (or, to be quite correct, of ends and the highest means which are directly subordinated to them) Plato is constrained to listen to the voice of his own feelings. In this he is not different from other thinkers, and it
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signifies but little if one proclaims an ideal while another adopts individual or collective happiness as his supreme standard. What it is that makes us happy can only in the smallest measure be determined by objective criteria ; the decision must for by far the greater part rest with feeling, beyond the possibility of appeal.
At the beginning of the fourth book of the “ Republic” expression is given to a doubt whether the lives of the cuardians are likely to be happy, deprived as they are of the good things commonly prized most highly. This doubt is admitted, though not without a reservation (“I should not be surprised if their lives were really the happiest after all”), but the objection founded upon it is dismissed with the remark that the object aimed at is not the greatest possible happiness of any one class, but of the State as a whole. This argument has been criticized on good grounds by Aristotle. And it would be indeed strange if Plato had really proposed to sacrifice the guardians to the interests of the many—if the class raised above the others, not merely by the possession of power, but by its inner worth, the class, too, which lay nearest his own heart, had been subordinated to the class which he compares with the lowest element in the soul, and which he therefore refuses to regard as capable of true well-being. Plato has himself left no room for doubt ; as early-as the middle of the fifth book he resumes the subject, reaffirms the reservation we have alluded to, and defends it with the utmost emphasis. Life in common, such as he proposes for the guardians, is, he says, free from the dissensions, the animosities, the jealousies, the acts of violence, and the strife at law which spring from the Mine and Thine ; flattery has no place in it, nor the minor evils which attend inequality. The life of the guardians, so concludes his enthusiastic eulogy, is the happiest which it is possible for man to live.
A comparison of the two passages will furnish us with an instructive clue. In the first Plato does homage, quite sincerely, to the principle of utility ; in the second he over- flows with fervent devotion to his ideal. For the decisive factor is here the satisfaction which life in common gives
THE UNIFYING TENDENCY. 15
him. He possessed no balance in which he might weigh, one against the other, the merits and the disadvantages of this mode of life and its opposite. That which in his soul turned the scale in favour of the former was an impulse cognate to his preference for universals in the theory of knowledge, an ardent longing for the abolition of all that divides and isolates men, for a state in which they “call nothing their own but their body’’—a last barrier before which one is inclined to say that the unifying tendency comes to a reluctant halt. May we not infer that the rationalistic utilitarian basis of argument is often merely an after-thought, zsthetic and ethical preferences supplying the real motive-power of his reforming zeal? This will apply with particular force to the question in connexion with which the aphorism quoted at the beginning of this section is enounced—the question of women.
Plato desired the full and many-sided development of women’s talents, the field for which, especially in the Athens of that day, was very greatly cramped ; he dreamt of their elevation from profound ignorance and subjection bordering on servitude to the power of knowledge and proud independence. He felt the charm of the ideal type of woman which he had in his mind’s eye, and of which some rudiment at least was exhibited by the Spartan women, with their fine. physical development, due to symnastic, and their celebrated beauty. The proverbial boldness which had been engendered by Spartan semi- emancipation might, he hoped, be ennobled by a completer education and transfigured into self-conscious dignity. All this, we may imagine, outweighed in his soul the rationalistic considerations by which he supports his innovation: the analogies from animal life, employed also by Antisthenes, and the argument of the “ Laws ” that the prevailing order of society allows half of its available forces to lie fallow, and withdraws them from the service of the community.
5. The picture of Plato as moralist would be incomplete without those features of sternness and severity which seem 50 surprising to us and which are so characteristic of his individuality. He would have the healing art restricted
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to surgery and the treatment of acute diseases. The dietetic medicine which was then a novelty of the day, and which served to prolong artificially the lives of sickly persons, appears to him as a “fosterer of diseases,” and is condemned accordingly. But he looks with full approval on the son of the people who seeks speedy death or speedy cure, who “has no time to be ill.” A cautiously regulated life, anxiously avoiding all risks and shielding, for example, such parts of the body as the head and feet from the exposure which should harden them, is an abomination to Plato.
Moral hardening goes side by side with physical. He condemns tragedy, principally on the ground that it supplies abundant nutriment to the feeling of pity, and thereby relaxes the emotional fibre. He who pays the tribute of tears to a stage-hero’s misfortunes diminishes his power of bearing his own sorrows unmoved. A quietness of soul bordering on rigidity is the temper which Plato would have men preserve under every stroke of fate—an injunction in giving which he is clearly combating his own nature as much as in his polemic against poetry. Far from him is the thought that on such occasions as the loss of friends or kin it is possible to mourn too little as well as too much. There is something that reminds us of the Cynics in the way in which he treats such questions with a sole eye to the protection of will-power against the dangers which threaten it on this side. It has been rightly remarked that an attempt, like that of Schopenhauer, to base ethics on compassion, would have been incomprehensible to Plato. And he would have utterly despised all the delights of sensibility as depicted by a Rousseau.
We have here a union of the Socratic and Cynic “ self- sufficiency ” (αὐτάρκεια) with such a view of life as grows out of the environment of a military aristocracy. If Aristotle, on the other hand, allows a wider scope to the softer feelings, and by his theory of “Catharsis” or emotional discharge pleads for a compromise with this part of human nature in life and art, his middle-class origin would seem to have something to do with this notable divergence from
THE QUESTION OF POPULATION. EE]
his master’s teaching. The same difference continued to divide the two schools. As much as two generations later a man who left the Academy for the Lyceum received the impression that he had come from demigods or heroes to human beings.
There was one point, however, on which Plato and Aristotle were in entire agreement—the vigorous control which they would have the State exercise over the increase of population, in respect of quality no less than quantity. For the small and narrowly circumscribed republics of Greece, impoverishment through over-population, with result- ing political disorders, was a danger of no small magni- tude, and therefore at an early date engaged the serious attention even of practical legislators, such as Pheido the Corinthian. The danger was aggravated for the ruling class by the circumstance that its income was exclusively derived from the possession of land incapable of increase. The same class was faced by the momentous problem of preserving its physical and mental superiority. The ancient mind admitted expedients in this connexion, which to the feelings of a modern man are highly revolting. Thus Plato, when he recommends the exposure of weakly or crippled infants, is in the main merely following the example of Sparta. If he and Aristotle go somewhat beyond this precedent, it is only in so far as they devote to extinction, whether before or after birth, the presumed weakly offspring of elderly parents. ‘To procreate for the State” is an often-recurring formula in which the Platonic attitude finds its strongest expression. It is necessary here to distinguish most strictly between the ends aimed at and the means employed to gain them. No one in our day would ever think of returning to the cruel practices approved by Greek lawgivers. But the great importance to the community of questions relating to the propagation of the species is being more permanently recognized, and the regard due to the common welfare and to posterity (in such matters as the hereditary transmission of grave maladies) is being inculcated with greater and greater emphasis on the individual conscience.
VOL. LL. K
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6. Aristotle subjected his master’s projects of reform to a thorough critical examination. We shall select some of his chief points and use them as pegs on which to hang our final comments. Not a little surprising is the initial attitude of Aristotle towards the Platonic social order which he finally condemns. “Legislation of this type,” he says, “makes an excellent show, and has every appearance of being a boon to humanity ; it therefore commends itself to those who hear of it, and creates the impression that it would do wonders in the way of introducing a high degree of mutual sympathy among men.” The principal reference is to the community of goods, but the community of women, of which he has spoken immediately before, is doubtless included. The object aimed at in these reforms, namely, the “unification” of society, is disapproved of on the ground that not every degree of unity is desirable for the State. It is the nature of the State to be composed of heterogeneous elements, and unity going beyond a certain measure would destroy its essence. The family must have more unity than the State, and the individual human being more still. With this objection, which we may call a logical one, goes the discussion of not a few difficulties incidental to the carrying out of the scheme in detail. But for any rejection of it on strictly fundamental principles, any expression of repugnance on ethical grounds, we may search Aristotle in vain. This is not a little noteworthy, and requires explanation.
We recur to a fact which has already been mentioned, namely, that Sparta, a State regarded by the philosophers as all but a pattern, exhibited at least the rudiments of a practical communism: the common meals of the men, the liberty accorded within certain limits of using other persons’ slaves, horses, dogs, and so forth. All this is approved of by Aristotle; indeed, he recommends a further advance in the same direction. We might add that germs of marital communism are also to be met with among the Spartans, as in the substitution for an aged husband of a younger man chosen by him, and “many other such licences,” as Xenophon calls them. Now the so-called Lycurgean
ARISTOTLE’S CRITICISM. 10
legislation did not so much create novelties as give an artificial fixity to customs handed down from the earliest antiquity ; we are thus entitled to draw some inferences as to the conditions of primitive Greece. Here, too, we may mention the account, by no means condemnatory, which Herodotus gives of the community of women among the Agathyrsi. The object of it, so he tells us, was to “make brothers” of the tribesmen, and to banish “hatred and ill will” from the wide circle of kindred. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that to the common Greek sentiment, which may be described as tinged with atavism in this respect, exclusive personal appropriation and the resulting inequality in ownership was as yet very far from seeming so much of a law of nature, or meeting with such un- conditional acceptance as it does in modern times.
There is another particular in which our comprehension of Plato’s reform-projects is greatly assisted by the criticism of his pupil. The latter, and without doubt his master as well, was acquainted with genuinely communistic institu- tions among foreign peoples. So far is he from any narrowness of horizon in this respect, that he even dis- tinguishes different kinds of land-collectivism: common ownership and common tillage on the one hand; separate ownership with common usufruct on the other, Community of women, too, is known to him as existing among the tribes of the African interior. Herodotus, we may note, had already reported the prevalence of this institution among the Agathyrsi, the Libyan Nasamones, and the Asiatic Massagetes. Thus those features of Plato’s ideal which seem the strangest to us, were not altogether out of touch with the facts of experience, real or believed to be so.
Still, the combination of these features, together with the additions peculiar to Plato, especially with regard to the class of philosophical warriors and rulers, was suffi- ciently startling to draw from this critic the somewhat rhetorical exclamation, “Shall length of time go un- regarded, and the multitude of years that are past?” In other words, The world is now very old; and had such
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a constitution been possible, some realization of it would have occurred somewhere before now. It is the standing and staple argument of all conservative minds against sub- versive innovations—an argument which appeals to us, with our greatly extended ethnographic and _ historical perspective, far less forcibly than to past generations. “The world is still in its infancy,’ says Goldsmith, in the “ Vicar of Wakefield,’ and the cry has been re-echoed a hundred times since. The truth that “the paradoxes of to-day are the commonplaces of to-morrow” is as applicable to practical reforms as to speculative knowledge. On the other hand, it is true, the complication of all human concerns, and the consequent untrustworthiness of merely deductive reasonings upon them, are now realized far more vividly than ever before ; and we require of deep-reaching innovations that they shall establish their viability as well as their usefulness, not by ratiocination merely, but by actual experiment.
Plato’s expectation that the suppression of separate families would engender a sentiment of universal brother- hood, and thus extend the power of kindred ties over the whole of a united people, moves Aristotle to contradiction. He remarks that by the very width of their extension those sentiments would lose in power; he speaks of a “watered-down ” love of kin, and thinks that “a real cousin is worth more than a son after Plato’s model.” Grote here comes to the rescue with the rejoinder that for the objects aimed at by Plato even a highly diluted sentiment of kin- ship and solidarity would have been sufficient, while intensity in such sympathies is exactly one of the elements which he would have desired to be banished from his common- wealth.
On the other hand, no answer seems possible to another objection of the Stagirite, namely, that by the funda- mentally different education and life of the ruling class and the ruled so deep a gulf would be fixed between them that they would in reality “form two states in one, and indeed two mutually hostile states.” In this expression we note a resemblance, which is no doubt more than an
PHILOSOPHIC ABSOLUTISM. 12%
innocent coincidence, to the condemnation which Plato passes on one of his “degenerate” forms of constitution, the oligarchic (cf. p. 93).
7. Here we reach the most assailable point of the Platonic project, so far as it is of a political character— the absence of any constitutional check or practical counter- poise to the power of the philosophic rulers, although this penetrates to the most intimate concerns of private life. That such a rule could not possibly last, that from the very beginning it would of necessity militate against the welfare of those entrusted to it, is no doubt more than can be proved. The theocratic despotism of the Incas is one of several instances which should teach us caution. Only so much may be definitely affirmed, that in the immense majority of cases of political and social prosperity some play of antagonistic forces has existed and has been the chief condition of success, while the sole sway of any one class or power in the State, untempered either by law or circumstance, has seldom or never proved a model worthy of imitation. Certainly such a rule has never been a source of progress. Nor indeed was progress among the advantages which Plato had in view. In this respect his ideal fell far short of the despised Athenian reality. Plato’s “Republic” could never have come into existence in a State after Plato's heart, nor any other reform-project of equal boldness. Nay, even if we suppose him to have realized his ideal, to have become a member of the new commonwealth, had he then begun to doubt the supreme excellence of his institutions, and desired to bring forward proposals for a more moderate reform, such as is found in the “Laws,” the strict censorship of his “guardians” would have effectually silenced him. We need not depict at length the ossification, the intellectual rigidity, which such a “pedantocracy” would have infallibly produced, in mar- vellous contrast with the restless, never-ceasing development of its creator.
We here observe a feature of Plato’s mind which was peculiarly detrimental to his work as reformer. We may name it shortly: “dread of friction.” The pupil of Socrates
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has realized the importance for political life of scientifically refined intelligence. This, therefore, must be freed, once for all, from the leaden resistance of folly and inertia of thought, by being endowed with absolute power. It is the same in the social and ethical sphere. He recognizes the great value of devotion to the common weal, of eleva- tion above the conflicting interests which divide mankind ; away, therefore, with all separate life, and with its organs, private property and the family! Stoutness of heart and strict conformity to reason in the conduct of life are threatened by enervating emotions and the supremacy -of - imagination; nine-tenths, therefore, of all poetry, as the main source of these dangers, must be thrown overboard. This way of thinking Plato shares with a good many others. Auguste Comte desired the annihilation of all bad, indeed of all second-rate compositions, and he would have had all useless varieties of animals and plants ex- terminated. That many a species deemed to be useless or even noxious might in course of time prove to have a value, is an obvious reflexion, but one which did not arrest his impatient striving for the abolition of the worthless. This error seems to us typical of the trend of thought represented by Plato. It is in the moral world as in the physical, where with nearly every poison a means of healing would be lost. The same powers of human nature are capable of being used with the best results, and of being misused with the worst. He who will achieve perfect goodness in any one direction by the eradication of the opposing instincts runs a risk of tampering with the roots from which goodness itself springs. The philosopher was here far behind his elder contemporary Euripides, the tragedian whom he so heartily despised. It is to the latter we owe the profound saying— “The good and evil cannot dwell apart : The world’s a mixture ;”
a thought which Otto Ludwig expresses with still greater force in the words— “Excision of my worst Were loss of what in me is best of all.”
ATSTORIC PARALLELS. 1252
And while unerring certainty in disentangling the bad from the good is something far beyond the powers of human reason, we are not so passing rich in impulses, capacities, possibilities of happiness, that we can afford to seek salvation in the maiming and impoverishment of our nature rather than in its ever-renewed discipline and culture.
Here, to our thinking, lies the double objection which is decisive against Plato’s social reforms—an objection of far sreater weight than the easy and superficial assumption that the unusual must also be the impossible. This is certainly not true of that species of communism in property which Plato demands for his class of guardians. It is not necessary, in this connexion, to decide the question whether collective management is in itself adapted to supersede private management everywhere. Plato’s dream has in any case been fulfilled more than once. What he demands is not the socialization of the means of production (which in our day can no longer be called an unexampled procedure), for the producing classes are not touched by his reform. A better parallel to his requirements is supplied by every monastic community, and on a larger scale by brotherhoods such as the Knights of the Teutonic Order, the members of which renounced private property by the vow of poverty, while a dependent and tributary peasantry, otherwise treated by the Knights with indulgent kindness, furnished the means of subsistence for the community.
These analogies belong to Medizval Europe. On the other hand, marital communism has found an exact parallel in modern America. We refer to the sect of the “ Perfec- tionists,’ founded by John Humphrey Noyes, who was born in New England in 1811. For a full generation this sect had its chief seat at Oneida in the state of New York. We do not know whether Noyes was acquainted with Plato’s scheme of reform. In any case, the form which “stirpiculture,” or human stock-breeding, took among his adherents (in 1874 they numbered nearly 300) exhibits a striking resemblance to the Platonic model. The only marriages allowed were temporary ones for the purpose of
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providing children, and these were all arranged by the head of the community ; the number and character of them depended on the economic situation of the society for the time being, and they were regulated by the endeavour to secure the greatest possible perfection in the offspring. Exclusiveness and intensity in the emotion of love was condemned as “respect of persons,’ and branded as “ sinful selfishness.”
8. In dealing with a genius like Plato it is a great pleasure to be able to exchange the part of critic for that of eulogist. We have that pleasure when we turn from communism in property and marriage to the emanci- pation of women. Plato here treads in the footsteps of his great teacher. This is proved, not only by the agreement with Xenophon and Antisthenes (cf. Vol. 11. p. 81), but by the additional consentient voice of that disciple who had the least originality, and who may therefore be taken as representing most faithfully the peculiarites of the common master. In his dialogue entitled “ Aspasia,” A%schines put in the mouth of that distinguished woman an incisive criticism of the education and mode of life traditional for her sex. We hold the opinion that in this matter the author of the “Republic” has given utterance to the pure and complete truth, almost without admixture of error, namely, that the female is the more delicate or weaker sex, but that this relative weakness only appears on striking an average, since an arrangement of all men and all women by order of capacity would yield a highly diversified series. And, further, that qualitative differences, decisive in the choice of a calling, do not exist between masculine and feminine endowment.
It is true that these propositions seem to require a somewhat more cautious statement. Even in respect of that average inferiority, it cannot as yet be regarded as established that, where intellectual gifts are concerned, it is an ultimate unalterable fact. On the other hand, the possibility is not excluded that a free field for the develop- ment of women’s talents might bring to light average differences of even qualitative order. Only so much is
THE CAPACITIES OF WOMEN. 125
certain, that these differences could never suffice to justify the limitation of callings for one half of the human race, That which is absolutely established is the fact that women have done good work and achieved notable success in a great variety of spheres which the accident of birth or the play of circumstances has opened up to them. On the other hand, the observation still holds good, that intellectual creations of the first rank, such as demand exceptionally sustained concentration, whether in poetry, music, philo- sophy, or history, have not hitherto been produced by women. But nothing can be inferred hence touching the manner of women’s education or their freedom in the choice of vocations. No one was ever educated to be a Shakespeare or a Dante, a Galilei or a Descartes; and every calling employs a great variety of powers by no means equal in value. To this must be added that the above empirical rule has merely a provisional validity, and may at any moment be broken through by a brilliant exception. In a department closely related to those just named, that of narrative literature, women have, during the last few decades, produced works in no respect inferior to those of their male rivals. The possibility must not be forgotten that the lower degree of merit hitherto observed in the productions of women may be due, in those cases where it is undeniable, more to the pressure of unfavourable circumstances than to any deficiency of talent.
In the application of these ruling principles there is, it must be confessed, a difference between our modern ideals and those of Plato, arising out of the difference between our way and his of ordering the family. When we insist on the retention of the separate family, then for a great number of cases, though by no means for all, there immediately results that very division of labour which Plato affirms so energetically as a general principle and rejects so decidedly in regard to the two sexes. Nothing can be more natural than that mothers, being kept at home by the care of their children, especially if these are numerous and of tender age, should devote themselves to household duties and to other tasks, such as sick-nursing, which are suited to their degree of physical strength.
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But though Plato’s ideal of womanhood has little prospect of complete realization, a comparison between the Athens of the fifth century and the most highly civilized nations of to-day shows that the course of development is in the direction which Plato approved, and that a considerable part of his demands have been actually fulfilled.
Xenophon gives us, in his “ CEconomicus,” a picture which is assuredly a faithful one, of the mind and life of Athenian women. The newly married Ischomachus is busy with the education of his wife, a girl barely out of her childhood, whom he is anxious to train into an active and competent housekeeper and companion of his life, healthy in body and mind. It is necessary for him, first of all, to tame her as though she were a wild animal, to overcome her shyness, and raise her towards his own level. Hitherto she has learnt almost nothing ; her mother has merely brought her up to be well-behaved and submissive to her master’s will. She knows, too, how to spin; but for the rest is inclined to leave weaving and all other house- work to her slaves, to idle her time away, and to make sure of her husband’s affection by artificially embellishing her indoor complexion and by an unsparing use of all the arts of the toilet. (Marriages for love, we note in passing, were all but unheard of, since freeborn maidens were debarred from the society of young men of their own age. It was by considerations of private interest that marriages were decided, and Plato is less violent than he seems at first sight when he proposes to consult the public interest instead.) How great is the difference between this half- Oriental seclusion and the life of the girls and women—in the same social class—of to-day! Their cheeks are bronzed with sport, they deliver lectures and take part in public meetings, they paint pictures and write books; many professions, in North America almost all, are open to them; and they are leaving farther and farther behind them the stage in which they were banished to the wash-tub and the needle, the kitchen and the nursery.
There are yet other respects in which Plato’s model has by no means remained a mere Utopia. If the work of State
PLATO FUSTIFIED BY AISTORY. 127
departments is now largely performed by trained officials, if standing armies display a far higher degree of efficiency than was possible to a burgess-militia, if the progressive division of labour has brought industry to a height of development undreamt of in antiquity,—Plato, influenced herein by Socratic intellectualism, by his hatred of the Athenian democratic amateurism, as well as by Egyptian and other foreign models, must be regarded as a precursor .of all these changes. It is true that he did not escape occasional inconsistencies. For example, the strict division of labour which he postulates is only imperfectly realized by his “ guardians,’ among whom those at least who attain the highest goal are in turn civil officials, military com- manders, and speculative philosophers. It is surprising, too, that while special training and “experience” are not wholly neglected in the governors of the state, they occupy a very subordinate space. History has here pronounced Plato not altogether in the wrong. Thus many of the most famous English politicians, though equipped with no more than a purely general education, have grappled suc- cessfully with the most difficult problems. And alternation between civil and military employments has impaired the efficiency of the great Anglo-Indian statesmen as little as that of the Roman.
But whatever our judgment on many a detail, even on many a leading thought, of this social and political scheme, the author has earned an imperishable distinction. Follow- ing the hints of his teacher Socrates, he was the first to turn upon human institutions the light of free rational investigation, and to open in the triple rampart of tradition, prejudice, and tyrannous force a breach which has since been often narrowed but never repaired.
Further, in the positive content of Plato’s chief work there were latent germs the development of which was not to be arrested ; indeed, the beginnings of that development are in part visible to us in that product of the philosopher’s old age, the “ Laws.” That harsh severity which we found so characteristic of the author of the “ Republic” will appear there in greatly diminished strength. Nor can we wonder.
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l‘or the obstacles in the path of what we now call altruism or solidarism have already been largely overcome in the “Republic.” An ideal involving the sacrifice by the indi- vidual of nearly all his separate life, which sweeps away all the barriers dividing him from his fellows—such an ideal opens a wide channel for the influx of altruistic feelings, for the devotion of each one to the interests of others. That Plato did not immediately enter the path thus traced for him was due to the high-strung idealism of his late-continued youth.
A great part of human interests, nearly all, in fact, that we mean by material welfare and its opposite, had very little significance for him, whether in his own case or in that of others ; while his contempt for the lower classes contributed to the same result from another side. Advancing age mellowed the austerity of that idealism, and at the same time diminished that prejudice against the lowly born, and even against slaves, chiefly, perhaps, because of his growing withdrawal from the influence of the aristocratic associations of his youth. All this will come before us in the “ Laws.” But besides the beginnings of an enhanced altruism which we have just noticed, the “ Republic” betrays a tendency in quite the opposite direction, towards the higher valuation of the individual. We refer particularly to the comparison of the man with the State, or πόλις, and the injunction to realize, in the single soul at least, the pattern which has been exhibited, even should it prove impossible to embody it in a commonwealth. As contrasted with the common Greek view, this injunction and the parallelism on which it rests bespeak considerable progress in the direction followed later by the Stoa and finally by Christianity. In all these respects we observe a close affinity to Cynic doctrines of which the reader will hardly need to be reminded (cf. Vol. II. pp. 152, 161 seg., 165 seg.).
g. One word more on the fundamental thesis of the “Republic,” the coincidence of happiness and justice. The critical comments with which we have accompanied our accounts of the arguments bearing on this point (cf. pp. 61 and 75) may now be fitly supplemented by a final estimate
THE BASIS OF SOCIAL) £TIHICS. 129
of their value. Earnestly as every well-disposed reader must desire to find the thesis proven, just as little can an impartial judge avoid perceiving that the soundness of the demonstration is not on a level with the greatness of its purpose. We need hardly mention the palpable ex- aggeration which reckons all external goods as nothing, and speaks of happiness even in the case of one persecuted and tormented to the uttermost. The no less high-minded but more sober-thinking Aristotle tacitly discarded these exaggerations. But they form, so we would suggest, merely the incongruous husk of a central thought which is both true and of great importance —the thought, namely, that for every one who possesses an ideal, of whatever nature, there are some values which may be termed infinite, not comparable or commensurate with any other values. Better death, or any extremity of outward suffering, than inward degradation!—such words are no rhetorical hyperbole, but a cry from the heart of every one who has any share of ethical culture. But the knowledge of that which alone makes life truly worth living is the fruit of just that education and training which the indi- vidual has gained from society. The possibility of that training is no doubt a gift of nature. Social influences could do nothing for us if we had not the inborn capacity to profit by them. But without such influences our Capacities would slumber on undeveloped. And the de- velopment achieved will be entirely different according to the surroundings in which destiny places a man. It will be of one kind, for example, among Plato’s countrymen, the slave-owning Greeks, and of a very different kind with us, to whom slavery is an abomination. It will be one thing with the Turcomans or Bedouins, for whom robbery is permissible and honourable, but quite another with us, who brand and punish robbery as a hateful crime. Social virtue, or justice, has a basis in nature, but is not therefore by any means a product of nature. The wide survey afforded us by our familiarity with numerous and funda- mentally different stages of ethical culture—differing, above all, in the scope and range of moral precepts—leaves no
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room for the shadow of a doubt on this head. But even Plato’s older contemporaries, an Herodotus or a Hippias, had already perceived this clearly enough (cf. Vol. I. p. 403). Plato’s zeal, inherited from Socrates and springing from the purest motives, for the establishment of justice or social virtue on an unassailable foundation, has dimmed the clearness of his vision, and caused him to overlook evident facts. Only so can it be explained that Plato now thought himself justified in identifying justice with efficiency, and again with the equilibrium of the soul’s powers. We should hesitate to admit his contention that no tyrant or slave-hunter, or even that no robber-captain, has ever existed who was thoroughly capable and efficient, and at the same time happy. A man of anti-social or inhuman disposition does not, as an immediate and express consequence of this disposition, suffer any loss of his capacity for action and enjoyment. Or, more accurately, he does not begin to suffer such a loss until he has granted admission to enough altruistic feeling to impair the unity and coherence of his character. Then ensues that discord and confusion, that inward conflict and disturbance of equilibrium, which destroys his happiness and his power to act, but which is as foreign to the wholly anti-social disposition as it is to the character filled and penetrated with the social spirit.
This thought, one which bridges the gulf between social ethics and the hygiene of the soul, admits of a much more general statement. Whenever the predominant element in a character is temporarily overpowered, it will resume its rights when the trouble is over, but now accompanied by painful feelings, which we name regret, repugnance, remorse, pricks of conscience, according to circumstances. And well for him who has the courage to drain the bitter cup and endure to the end the struggle between the opposing tendencies within him. Otherwise the acute disorder easily becomes a chronic malady, gradually cor- roding the powers both of feeling and of will. For in the continual shock of conflicting impulses these powers be- come weakened, much as two currents moving in opposite
FUSTICE AND THE HYGIENE OF THE SOUL. 131!
directions in the same channel. This enfeebling process is, moreover, indirectly promoted by the involuntary effort to escape from the struggle, that is, to banish the con- flicting ideas from the mind. Such efforts can hardly remain confined to a narrow region of psychic activity ; thus the normal flow of ideas is itself impeded, and injury done to the healthy working of the soul’s functions. Per- haps these results, which have been obtained from observa- tion and the analogy of natural phenomena, may one day be established by the strict methods of psycho-physical experiment. If so, the dream of Plato and Socrates would be fulfilled, and a natural basis found for social ethics in the proof of its real indispensability for the happiness of the individual. It may be objected, certainly, that the inward breach might also be healed by rooting out not the anti-social, but the social impulses. In itself, the objection holds, but it is of no practical importance. A Cyclops dwelling in lonely seclusion might make the attempt, but not a member of society in constant inter- course with his fellows, and, if not a monster or a de- humanized brute, continually bound more closely to them by new ties of conscious or unconscious sympathy.
Such a demonstration, however, with its long chain of intermediate links, seemed to Plato unnecessary. He escaped the necessity of one by setting the motives of injustice in the place of injustice itself. For him the unjust man is the luster after rule, the covetous man, the man given over to unbridled sensuality. With these types he contrasts their opposites, and thus frames an ideal which has wielded enormous influence and won the highest significance for humanity. But there is one thing which an impartial judge will not admit, namely, that Plato has succeeded in proving, as strictly as he thought he had, the greater worth of those types in respect of happiness (cf., for example, p. 99). That he who masters his desires is happier than he who is under their yoke, may be conceded without demur. But that the contem- plative or philosophic life, which Plato admits into his ideal as being the freest from desires, blesses him who
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lives it more than does the life of one born to rule, one whose energies naturally flow outwards—this is an assertion which no argument could ever make good. The taste and the talent of a Plato or an Aristotle here stand opposed to the taste and the talent of a Pericles or an Epaminondas ; and where shall we look for an umpire?
PEATO AL THE €OURT OF DIONYSIUS IT) 133
CHAPTER XIV. PLATO'S SECOND AND THIRD RESIDENCES IN SICILY.
1. PLATO himself was not always given up to contemplation. His keen ambition to make the world better did not always rest content with the long circuit of writing and teaching. Twice he attempted to take an active part in politics; on neither occasion were his efforts crowned with success. The grievous failure, with its final note of tragedy, darkened the evening of the philosopher’s life, but probably turned to the advantage of his philosophy. The further develop- ment of his political theory, as presented to us in the “Statesman” and the “ Laws,” must have been influenced by those bitter experiences. We may even conjecture that the impulse thus received extended to the other parts of his system, and forwarded that general revision of all his fundamental doctrines to which we have already alluded (cf. Vol. II. pp. 289, 290).
The royal throne of Syracuse was occupied by Diony- sius II. (367 B.c.). His familiar adviser, bound to him by a threefold bond of affinity, was Dion, the same high- minded prince who twenty years earlier had enjoyed the friendship of Plato, and received from him a stimulus which affected the whole of his subsequent life. It was Dion’s influence that moved the young prince to invite to his court the great philosopher, then in the fulness of his powers and at the zenith of his reputation. At the same time, possibly, Dionysius thought to enhance the splendour of his reign by surrounding himself with eminent thinkers
VOL. Ft L
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and writers, just as a Polycrates in Samos, a Gelo and Hiero in Syracuse itself, had made celebrated poets mem- bers of their royal households. In fact, Plato was not the only recipient of that invitation; Aristippus of Cyrene, as well as /éschines the Socratic, also resided as guests in the palace of Dionysius II. Plato forgot the wrong done him by the father; he obeyed the summons of the son, backed as it was by Dion’s urgent entreaties, and left the Academy, accompanied by a train of pupils.
A teacher whose powerful eloquence is still mirrored in his dialogues, whose forceful personality had already imposed its yoke on so many hearts, may well have thought it no chimerical undertaking to gain for the service of philosophy a great Hellenic state, ruled by a young and susceptible prince, and with the help thus obtained to bring his political ideal into being. Experiences which might have checked such hopes were wholly lacking; and the example of Sparta, whose peculiar constitution, then held to be a model of perfection in many of its parts, was regarded as the well-planned work of a single legislator, seemed to invite emulation. His first impressions, too, were in correspondence with these high-pitched expecta- tions. Plato was received with marks of the highest distinction; a royal carriage, adorned as for a great occasion, conveyed him from the harbour to the palace. Dionysius soon became a diligent pupil of the great Athenian master. A course of instruction was begun, the first stage of which, on Platonic principles, was devoted to mathematics. The fashion thus introduced in royal quarters was taken up by the crowd of courtiers with amusing eagerness, and soon the sand of the courts and paths round the palace was covered with geometrical figures.
Not intriguing politicians only, but sincere patriots, and especially the statesmen who had grown grey in the service of Dionysius I., may well have shaken their heads. The foundations of the State seemed in danger. Plutarch tells a story, which may or may not be true, to the effect that once, when sacrifice was being offered in the palace, and the
A PHILOSOPHIC INTERLUDE. 135
herald was invoking the blessing of heaven on the un- changed continuance of his master’s reign, the prince, then twenty-five years of age, was so carried away by his zeal for Plato’s teaching, that he interrupted the rite and declared that blessing a curse. An Athenian sophist—so men whispered—was attempting to debase and emasculate Syracuse, had undertaken to win by his power of speech that triumph in pursuit of which his countrymen, half a century earlier, had vainly employed their whole armed force! The conservative party did what it always does in such a case—it shortened sail, and waited for a favourable wind. Plato mean- time continued to discharge his duties as instructor, and to prepare his royal pupil to play the part of a philosophic ruler. He has been reproached with allowing the decisive moment to slip by unused. It is suggested that he ought to have turned the honeymoon of philosophic enthusiasm to better account by bringing about a change in the form of government, and procuring the liberation of the Greek cities subject to Syracuse. He is censured as an unpractical politician, who, instead of setting promptly to work, pre- ferred to dally with his office as a director of education and conscience. Such, more or less, is the judgment of George Grote, who involuntarily substitutes his own political ideal for Plato’s. The author of the “ Republic” was no believer in the universal healing power of political constitutions. His ideal, both then and for some time afterwards, was philosophic absolutism. The inward reformation of the ruler was, therefore, for him, no merely ornamental or sub- sidiary achievement, which might be omitted without much loss, but the very heart and centre of the reformer’s task. It is not want of consistency that can fairly be charged against him, but want of knowledge of human nature. This reproach, however, can be urged with greater justice against Plato’s helper and intermediary, Dion, who failed to perceive that the sudden enthusiasm of his young kins- man was but a fire of straw which flames up fiercely and soon dies out. The mistake was to cost him dear. The old conservative party, then led by Philistus, an historian and statesman who had been recalled from exile, watched
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vigilantly for Dion to make a false move. That{which is so earnestly sought is generally found. Material for an accusation was supplied by intercepted letters of Dion addressed to the Carthaginian generals—letters whose object was the conclusion of a treaty of peace, and in which a prejudiced eye could not fail to discover a trieasonable design. Nothing was easier than to represent to the occupant of the throne—suspicious as he was by mature and soon tired of an unaccustomed tutelage—thaft: his own exclusion from public business and the exaltation of Dion had been the true motives of the summons sert to Plato. The resentment thus diligently fostered broke out with full force, and an abrupt end was made of the philosophic inter- lude at the royal residence. Not but what a continuation of it was to be witnessed shortly.
2. Dion was banished ; but it was only after long delays that Plato himself received his congé, and ther: not without promising Dionysius to return at a more convenient season. With this promise Plato coupled the condition that at the same time—after the conclusion of a campaign with which for the moment the monarch was fully occuj»ied—Dion, too, should be recalled. But such a breach as had been opened between the ruler and his elder kinsman and adviser has a natural tendency to widen. The confidential position formerly occupied by the displaced friend is invaded by others who spare no pains to make themselves secure in it. Dion, too, was highly honoured in the motherland; and every token of esteem paid to the exile, such as the com- plimentary citizenship granted him by Sparta, was neces- sarily felt by Dionysius as an affront. Whether he wished it or not, Dion was sure to seem the living indictment of his royal brother-in-law. It was inevitable that the dis- contented in Syracuse, and the enemies of Dionysius every- where, should see their natural leader in the expelled prince. Dion himself, however, still hoped for a reconciliation, and he urged Plato to accept a new invitation which he re- ceived to the Syracusan court. Archytas, then at the head of the Tarentine commonwealth, joined his entreaties, and at length Plato reluctantly gave way. He had received
THE FRIENDS AT OLYMPIA. 15:7
satisfactory reports of the monarch’s changed sentiments and philosophical studies ; he was able, therefore, to embark on the Syracusan war-ship sent for his conveyance in the hope of smoothing the way for Dion’s return, and thus preparing the moral and political regeneration of the Sicilian monarchy. But his expectation was again disappointed. Indeed, the breach he hoped to heal was the rather widened. The marked predilection which Plato showed for Dion is said to have roused the jealousy of the suspectible prince. Hitherto he had done nothing to curtail the revenue which Dion received from his vast estates; he now proceeded to their confiscation. The disillusioned philosopher perceived the hopelessness of his efforts, and expressed his wish to return home. But, though he was overwhelmed with marks of distinction, his departure was not permitted, and he was detained in a kind of honourable captivity. His final release was due to the urgent representations of Archytas. He landed on the Peloponnese, and met Dion at the Olympic games (July, 360), where the banished prince and the renowned teacher formed the centre of interest for the crowds drawn by the festival from all parts of Greece.
If the two friends sought the banks of the Alpheus to avoid the gaze of the curious and enjoy the cool of the evening, there can have been no lack of varied information for them to exchange as they walked. Let us endeavour to catch a few morsels of their conversation. Plato has an attentive listener as he describes the impressions which his nephew Speusippus has received from all sorts and con- ditions of men in Syracuse, and has since carefully pre- served. If Dion speaks regretfully of the new and heavy sacrifice which has been fruitlessly made for himself and his native city by the philosopher now on the threshold of old age, Plato seeks to console him by relating the successes of his pupils at the palace—successes which have not a little increased the reputation of the Aca- demy. He tells of the astonishment which the predic- tion of a solar eclipse (May 12, 360) by his pupil Helicon of Cyzicus had aroused, and how Xenocrates won universal admiration when with genuine “Socratic strength” he
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gained the victory in the drinking contest instituted by Dionysius at the “ Pitcher-Feast,” but disdained the prize, a circlet of gold, and laid it upon the statue of a god. He speaks, too, of the pleasure with which he met Eudoxus the Cnidian, who more than two decades earlier had visited Athens and the Academy as a youth of twenty-three, and had since become the most celebrated astronomer of the age.
Meanwhile the logic of facts was pressing on to further and further consequences. Dionysius could not but expect the worst from the prince whom he had robbed and wronged so grievously, and he felt he could no longer allow him to possess, in the royal palace itself, a point of support which seemed intended for a centre of hostile intrigues. Dion’s wife, Arete, was the daughter of Dionysius I. by his marriage with Dion’s sister Aristomache. Dion had formerly maintained the claims to the throne of Arete’s brothers, while their sister Sophrosyne was at the samc time the half-sister and wife of Dionysius II., whose mother was a Locrian named Doris. This Dionysius now dis- solved Dion’s marriage, and compelled Arete to become the wife of Timocrates, one of his own familiar friends. Thus the last bond was broken by which the estranged kinsmen had hitherto been united. An open conflict was | imminent.
Three years were spent in preparations, and then Dion drew the sword. In August, 357, he left Zante for Sicily, taking with him, in five merchantmen, a small body of volunteers, chiefly composed of Peloponnesian mercenaries. Several members of the Academy accompanied him, among them Eudemus of Cyprus, who never returned, and whose untimely end was mourned by his friend Aristotle both in prose and verse (cf. Vol. II. p. 71). Timonides, too, went with the expedition ; and his notes, drawn up in the form of a diary and addressed to Speusippus, are one of the chief sources for the historical narrative of these events ; lastly, there was Callippus of evil destiny. The small number of the adventurers and their rapid triumph remind us of the thousand of Marsala and Garibaldi’s marvellous conquest
CAREER AND CHARACTER OF DION. 139
of the kingdom of Naples. In both cases the discontent of the people was the most powerful ally of the invaders. But the fickleness of the masses, who now received Dion and his company with enthusiastic jubilation and now drove them out of the city, together with the intrigues of Dion’s personal opponent, Heraclides, a returned exile, jeopardized the successes won until Dion gained the final victory, of which he was to enjoy the fruits for barely a year. Bya freak of destiny the school of idealism sent forth a politician whose actions seemed inspired by the most unscrupulous opportunism. An unworthy member of the Platonic circle, the Callippus already mentioned, assassinated Dion (in the year 354), and made himself master, though only for a short time, of Syracuse. It is foreign to the purpose of the present work to trace the changing fortunes of that struggle. All we need ask is whether, and in what way, Dion had merited his tragic end, and whether Plato was deceived in him. The affirmative is now often maintained; some think that Dion was merely an example of vulgar ambition, whose only object was to set himself in the place of Dionysius, while others imagine that he quickly fell a victim to the intoxication of power, and abandoned the high aims with which he had set out. Neither of these opinions seems to us well-founded.
3. Dion and his countrymen were separated from the first by a grave misunderstanding which it was hardly possible for them to overcome. The dwellers in the great Sicilian city were well acquainted with two things: the ruthless tyranny of their monarchs, the first and the second Dionysius, and the equally ruthless revolutionary democracy which sought the welfare of the many by the spoil of the rich, whose watchwords were “confiscation of property” and “ division of the land.” That which was wholly unknown to them, and could scarcely be made intelligible to them, was a ruler whose aim was the welfare of the people, but whose means consisted in a well-considered division of power, in a strong government, not unreservedly at the mercy of the immediate influence of the many—a government whose guiding principle might be expressed by the motto,
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“Everything for the people, little by the people.” We can well understand that the Syracusans were not ready to extend their confidence to a member of their royal family, and that they fell an easy prey to the seductive arts of a demagogue like Heraclides. For such an opponent Dion was no match. The very qualities which had enabled him to represent his country abroad with dignity, which had effectively impressed the Carthaginians on the occasion of his different embassies, diminished his fitness for the part of popular leader. His disposition was proud and reserved, he had the self-assured address of the prince and the philosopher. He possessed, moreover, another feature of the philosopher’s and idealist’s character—an exaggerated leniency, a readiness to forgive and forget past injuries, which in his dealings with Heraclides he carried beyond all reasonable limits. Nor was he able to persevere in this course to the end. At the wrong moment, and against the wish of all his adherents, he had been merciful; he had not only spared the perjurer’s forfeited life when he might legitimately have ordered his execution, but had set him once more at his own side to share his authority. At last, however, he had no choice but either to yield place to his unworthy subordinate, or procure his death without a judicial sentence. He did the latter, and thus entered upon the path of revolution which was to lead to his own destruction. In death, at least, Dion received the highest honours from the Syracusan people; and their mourning gave evidence of the deep impression which the character of the royal philosopher had made upon them in spite of all misunderstandings and differences of opinion.
The chief charge brought against Dion by modern historians we regard as entirely without foundation. He refused compliance with the popular wish, of which Heraclides was the spokesman, that he should raze the fortress into which the royal residence had been trans- formed. For this refusal he had many and good grounds. Such a demolition would have been, first and foremost, a demonstration, in which Dion would have been prevented
DION AND MODERN HISTORIANS. [41
from participating by the mere dictates of decency and regard to his family. For decades his sister Aristomache, and afterwards his niece and wife Arete, had reigned in that stronghold. The destruction of it would have been the signal for a wild outburst of popular rejoicing, for the expression of sentiments directed against all the members of the ruling family. Dion’s task was to reconcile the con- flicting parties, not to increase the forces of revolutionary radicalism. And, had these considerations not been decisive, the mere fact that his bitter and crafty opponent Heraclides was the author of the proposal, was enough to make it distasteful to him and convert the discussion of it into a trial of strength between the rivals.
The form of government which Dion intended to intro- duce was one blended out of monarchical, aristocratic, and democratic elements —a project whose agreement with Plato’s maturer suggestions can hardly be accidental. That this statement of Plutarch does not rest on mere conjecture, or on fictions current in a narrow circle, is shown by the circumstance that Dion summoned “helpers and counsellors” from the aristocratically ruled mother- city, Corinth—a fact which we have no ground for doubting, and which is in harmony with the action of Dion in copying his coinage from Corinthian models. Here, too, we have Dion’s point of closest contact with Timoleon. The latter was summoned from Corinth ten years later, after an interval in which the Syracusans had endured the despotism of Callippus, of Dion’s two sons, of the returned Dionysius, and finally of Hicetas. Or rather we should say that the mother-city, having received a request to restore order in Syracuse, entrusted the task to Timoleon as a man of high character and proved ability. He succeeded where Dion had failed. His powerful personality, together with the well-calculated measures he adopted, triumphed over the dangerous forces which were ever making for tyranny, and which, twenty years later, after the death of Timoleon (316), did in fact gain the upper hand once more, through the agency of Agathocles. Between the constitutional reform accomplished by Timoleon and that projected by Dion there
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does not exist that sharp contrast which modern historians generally claim to discern. The similarity of starting-point, the dependence upon the aristocratically ruled Corinth which is common to the two cases, are preliminary objections to that claim. And this first impression is strengthened by the little we know with certainty of the government founded by Timoleon ; by the yearly drawing of lots which placed at the head of the State some priest of the Olympian Zeus belonging to one of a limited circle of families, by the council of six hundred, which formed part of the same constitutional enactment, and which in its later development appears as the organ of oligarchic tendencies. That which principally distinguished the two high-minded men and their work, apart from the very unequal duration of their activity, was firstly their tempera- ments, and secondly—a more important matter, in our opinion—the difference in their situations. Just as the glorious and brilliant reign of Louis XIV. did not prevent the exhaustion and impoverishment of France at its close, so Syracuse, in spite of the position which it won as a great power, in spite of the military successes of its monarchs, was in the end drained of its life-blood by the endless wars with Carthage and the long-enduring civil conflict. Grass was growing in the Syracusan market-place when Timoleon entered the city. Thus the Demos with which Dion had to deal, and that which awaited Timoleon, were identical only in name. The people which had met Dion with mutinous defiance and unbridled greed became a willing and obedient instrument in the hand of Timoleon. Dion lost a great part of his popularity when he refused com- pliance with the wild cry for the division of the land. He was thus unable, whether willing or not, to trust entirely to the Demos and dispense with the aid of foreign mercenaries. Timoleon was the idol of the people, although, instead of dividing the land among the many, he brought a great number of colonists with capital into the country, and sold to the highest bidder the houses of banished owners which he might have given away. This far-reaching difference in the social and economic situation
DION AND TIMOLEON. 143
at two epochs divided by so short an interval has not hitherto, we think, received sufficient consideration. The failure to recognize this important distinction has led to comparisons in which the head of Timoleon has been encircled with an undeserved halo, while the figure of Dion has been shrouded in an equally unmerited gloom.
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CHAPTER “KY. PLATO'S “EUTHYDEMUS” AND “ PARMENIDES.”
1. Dip Dion's enterprise—so many a reader may well ask —leave no discernible trace in the long series of Plato’s writings? Such a trace, we think, is to be found in that passage of the “Statesman” which is concerned with the right of a ruler, supposed well-intentioned and qualified for his task, to coerce men for their good by conducting them from a perverse to a salutary form of polity. This right is there maintained with a warmth and eagerness such as only questions of practical politics usually inspire. We could wish to take this opportunity of bringing our study of the “Statesman’”—which is a link between the “Republic” and the “ Laws”—into close relation with our account of the former work. But a full understanding of the dialogue could not be reached by this path. For the “Statesman” is a continuation of the “ Sophist,” which in its turn takes up the thread of the “ Theztetus.” Again, two parts of this trilogy—the “Theztetus” and the “ Sophist "—presuppose the “Parmenides,” not only by isolated hints and allusions, but by their explicit mention of the fictitious conversation, on the doctrine of ideas, between the youthful Socrates and the aged Parmenides, which forms the content of the dialogue bearing the Eleatic thinker’s name. Our exposition of this whole phase of Platonic authorship must therefore start from the “Parmenides.” But first we desire to deal with a work of slighter importance, which we have hitherto ignored. This is the “Euthydemus,” which both form and matter assign to an earlier period.
THE “ EUTHYDEMUS.” 145
This earlier period, however, is not the earliest of all. For the sophists against whom Socrates now takes the field are no longer the old sophists known to the “ Hip- pias,” the “ Protagoras,” or the “ Gorgias ;” the “ Eristics” (cf. Vol. I. p. 421, seg.) and their art are now the enemy. It is true that insignificant and commonplace characters are employed to retail those excrescences of dialectic with which the “Euthydemus” is concerned, two brothers who have exchanged the arts of armed combat and of rhetoric for that of refutation and argument. But it is at his fellow- Socratics, more especially Antisthenes, that Plato strikes through these bruisers. The buffoonery of the piece furnishes us with a chronological indication which is not to be despised. This sportive, almost farcical attack must have preceded the serious polemic against Antisthenic doctrines contained in the “ Theztetus” and the “ Sophist.” The contrary order would involve an inverted climax which the artistic sense of even a less consummate master than Plato would have avoided.
The “Euthydemus” may be described as a piece of dialectical horseplay. The purpose of it is most clearly revealed in the epilogue. Socrates’ friend Crito has left the gymnasium known as the Lyceum, in which the two Eristics have been showing off their tricks. On his way he meets a rhetorician, who expresses his contempt for Eristic, and, in the superior tone of a man who regards his own art of rhetoric as the one true philosophy, includes the philosophers as a class in his depreciations. Under this artistic disguise, and by it accommodated to the dialogue form, we have no doubt that there lies a reference to a current literary event. Attacks of this nature, in which the philosophers are censured as vain disputers, in which Plato, Antisthenes, and the Megarians are lumped together without distinction, are to be found in several speeches of Isocrates. Since the character given of the unnamed rhetorician is likewise appropriate to Isocrates, in details as well as in the main point—he is a writer of speeches, but yet not accustomed to appear in public—it was a natural conclusion to suppose him aimed at here. This conjecture cannot be raised to
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the rank of acertainty. But whether the critic in question, who is relegated without anger to his proper place and for the rest is not treated altogether without respect, be Isocrates or some other, the fact remains that in this epilogue we have the key to the dialogue asawhole. Some attack of the kind just mentioned supplied Plato with an occasion for sharply differentiating his own Socratism from that of his opponents and rivals. Euthydemus and Diony- sodorus are the representatives, in caricature, of that dialectic which arose out of the school of Socrates, but at the same time owed much to impulses first given by Zeno. Paradoxical reasonings cease in this burlesque to be merely the instrument of intellectual gymnastic; as fallacies and logical pitfalls they become an end in themselves, or, rather, a means of money-making, and the primary use made of them is to dazzle and astonish, to win from crowded audiences laughter and applause that shake the very columns of the Lyceum. The alleged aim, that of guiding towards wisdom and virtue, is most glaringly contradicted by the frivolity with which from the outset all learning is declared impossible, on the ground that the wise no longer need to learn, while the ignorant are incapable of learning anything. On the one hand, the word “learn” is used to denote the acquisition of knowledge in general ; on the other, it stands for the turning to account, in that process, of knowledge already acquired, ¢g. of the ability to read in learning by heart. Such playing with the double significance of words, the tacit omission of restrictive qualifications, the use of constructions linguistically possible but inadmis- sible in regard to their matter, the summation of predicates designating entirely different relations, the interchange of the various meanings of the possessive pronoun,—all these and many other devices serve to support a series of para- doxical fallacies which perhaps culminate in the following argument: You beat this dog; he is yours ; he is a father ; therefore it is your father that you beat. Similarly, we are told that he who knows anything has knowledge, that he who has knowledge can never in any circumstances be ignorant ; consequently that whoever knows anything at all
THE THOUGHT-FUGGLERS AND ANTISTHENES. 147
must know everything and have known it always. Or again: Killing befits the butcher, therefore it is fitting to kill him ; or: Living beings (animals) belonging to me I have the right to offer in sacrifice or to sell ; Apollo belongs to me (being bound to me by an ancestral cult); he is a living being; therefore I have a right to sacrifice the god and sell him.
We come to an exquisite piece of trickery on Plato’s part. Inthe midst of the imbecilities of these word-twisters and thought-jugglers, he smuggles certain doctrines of Antisthenes. Thus the brothers are made to assert the impossibility of other than identical judgments, the im- possibility of contradiction and false statement. That in the mind of the man who founded the Cynic school these were serious and honest difficulties, there cannot be the slightest doubt. It is one of Plato’s controversial artifices to discredit the, for him, despised doctrines of an opponent (cf. Vol. II. p. 182, seg.) by the company in which he intro- duces themand the character of thosewhom he selects as their mouthpiece. Antisthenes, moreover, is brought before our thoughts by the words in which the Eristic mountebanks are first presented to our notice. The circumstance that they have passed over from rhetoric to dialectic, and that late in life, is a touch which must infallibly have reminded a contem- porary reader of Antisthenes, who traversed the same path, and who, in addition, is jeered at by Plato in the “ Sophist” as “an old man gone to school” (cf. Vol. II. p. 143).
As foil to the caricature we have an idealized portrait. The turns of the dialectical variety-artists are repeatedly relieved by plain and simple colloquies between Socrates and one of the young men present. The purport of these interludes is somewhat as follows: All good things acquire that character only by right use. Left unused they remain an inert possession ; misuse transforms them into evils, and those are the worst which have the greatest power over men’s lives. Now, the condition of right use is wisdom ; this, then, is the one absolutely good thing. The question arises—W hat is the nature of this wisdom? It is taken for granted that in it the capacity for production and that for
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the right employment of what is produced must coincide. Production alone is not enough. For the masters of even the most eminent arts are comparable to mere hunters. As the latter hand over the prey they have caught to others who know how to make use of it, so the general who has taken a city must pass it on to the statesman, so the researcher in a special science (eg. the mathematician or the astronomer) must entrust his acquisitions to the dialec- tician to whom he is subordinate. What, then, is that supreme or “royal art”? This question remains un- answered ; we shall meet it again in the “Statesman.” The most noteworthy feature of these disquisitions is the tone in which they are delivered. We are carried far from the bewildering cross-examination, the benumbing shock of the Socratic inquisition, which are described in the “Meno” by the graphic image of the torpedo (cf. Vol. II. pp. 362, 376) ; mystification and paradox are a heaven’s breadth behind us. These same disquisitions, we may remark in passing, supply a cogent proof that the “ Euthydemus” is later than the “Meno.” For while in the “ Meno” much space is given to a treatment of the question whether virtue can be taught, the same question is here affirmatively answered by Socrates in a short phrase of joyous assent. The friendly tone of his exhortations, the fatherly way in which he guides and encourages his young hearers to the acquisition of positive results, stand in violent antithesis to the sterile and repellent paradoxes of the two eristics. This far- reaching and nicely calculated contrast-effect may be regarded as the central feature of the whole dialogue. Its primary motive, however, was the settling of accounts with other schools of philosophy, more particularly the Socratic— a motive which, with heightened earnestness and increasing maturity, governs a series of subsequent dialogues. This relationship provides us with an unimpeachable chonological criterion, which compels us, as we have already remarked, to date the “ Euthydemus” before the “ Theztetus,” and the “ Parmenides” before the “ Sophist.”
2. He who turns from the “Euthydemus” to the “Parmenides” finds a great surprise awaiting him. The
SCENERY OF THE “ PARMENIDES.” 149
air of superiority and certainty with which Plato pierces through fallacies of all kinds, the scathing sarcasm with which he ridicules the thought-jugglers, hardly prepare us to see him scattering paralogisms broadcast himself. And yet it is precisely such a collection, as even the warmest admirers of Plato are bound to admit, that occupies the greater part of the “ Parmenides.” How this is possible, and possible without in any way diminishing our respect for Plato’s character as an earnest inquirer, will appear upon examining the construction of this work, perhaps the most remarkable of those which Plato wrote.
Our readers are already acquainted with the strong family feeling of the thinker who in the “ Republic” proposed the abolition of the family ; they know the pains which the great author took to immortalize the memory of his nearest kin. Here it is to his half-brother Antiphon that this honour is extended. Clearly, however, it would have been impossible to ascribe to him any speculative tendencies without doing violence to his actual character. He is presented to us, therefore, at the opening of the dialogue, as the sportsman that he was, fresh from a conference with a mechanic on the making of a bridle. More than once in the past he has heard from Pythodorus, who was bound by the ties of hospitality to Zeno the Eleatic, an account of a conversation which Parmenides and his favourite pupil had, when visiting Athens, with the then youthful Socrates. As an event is in question which took place long ago, this artifice of a narrative by a third person is perfectly legitimate. After some hesita- tion Antiphon complies with the request of Cephalus— a visitor from Clazomenz, introduced by Plato’s brothers, Adeimantus and Glaucon—and repeats what he has heard from Pythodorus. The dialogue thus reported starts from the Zenonian theses (cf. Vol. I. p. 192, seg.), which Socrates and many others had hastened to hear. Plato at once indicates the leading thought of the whole dialogue by making Zeno speak of the retribution he wishes to inflict on his master’s opponents as the motive of his chain of theses. Soon an easy transition is made to the Platonic
VOL. III, M
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doctrine of ideas, which Socrates, who is at present hardly out of his boyhood, defends with the confidence and the impetuosity of youth, so that his dogmatism provokes the aged head of the Eleatic school to criticism. A series of objections are urged against the doctrine of ideas, and remain substantially unanswered. This discussion occupies the first and much the shorter portion of the dialogue. With the object of assisting Socrates towards greater maturity, Parmenides now sets before him, as preliminary mental exercises, a long series of difficulties or “ apories,” the sting of which is directed against nothing else than the central Eleatic doctrine of the One! Thus the self-criticism of Plato is followed by that of Parmenides. It is here that Plato’s subtlety attains its highest pitch, here where true and false, admissible and invalid arguments are crowded together in exuberant variety, where contradictory con- clusions are deduced from the same premisses, and at last nothing remains but an impression of bewildering confusion. :
This dialogue has given so much trouble to the critics and commentators that there has been no lack of violent interpretations; that its genuineness has been disputed ; that, finally, an hypothesis has been raised according to which the concluding portion of the work, containing the much-desired positive solutions, has been lost, and what remains in our hands is a mere torso. From all these counsels of desperation we are saved by the view of the dialogue which we now proceed to expound—a view in which we are in partial agreement with several previous writers.
The “ Parmenides” is the product of an epoch at which the author’s mind was in a ferment. Objections, proceeding chiefly from the camp of the Megarians or Neo-Eleatics and the thinkers influenced by them, together with Plato’s own deepened reflexion, have revealed to him a number of difficulties attaching to his fundamental metaphysical doctrine. “To overcome these difficulties collectively is, for the moment at least, a task to which he feels himself unequal. But it is still harder for him to abandon the
PEALOVCRITICIZES PLATO, I51
doctrine of ideas, which has become interwoven with his whole conception of the universe, or even to clothe itina form less susceptible to attack. Whether this will ever be possible remains an open question. But that the difficulties under which his own theory labours are matched by equal or greater difficulties, the means of surmounting which is provided by his theory alone—of this he is certain. Perhaps, so he may have thought, an absolutely flawless, perfectly consistent conception of the highest things is more than what it is given to man to attain. Animated, therefore, by the purest zeal for truth, he gathers into a focus everything that can be urged against the doctrine of ideas, regardless of the distinction between arguments which seem to him answerable and those which do not as yet fall within that category. By thus stringing together the plausible objections to his own theory, he purchases the right to deal similarly with the theories of others. He proceeds, therefore, to compile another exhaustive list of possible objections, neglecting as before the difference between the tenable and the untenable, but this time selecting for attack the fundamental meta- physical doctrine of the very school from a younger branch of which had come the most violent assaults upon his own doctrine of ideas, the school, too, which stood pre-eminent above all others for exactness of thought. In this species of “retaliation,’ which after Plato’s manner becomes at the same time a process of outbidding (cf. Vol. II. p. 300, and Vol. III. p. 48), he finds consolation and satisfaction. Thus the “Parmenides” resembles the proceedings in a court of justice, where, after the pleadings, the speech for the prosecution and the speech, taking the form of a counter-charge, for the defence, the case is adjourned before a verdict is reached.
3. Let us cast a glance on both portions of the dialogue The objections against the doctrine of ideas are six in number, or, more correctly, five, since two of them are only variations of the same argument. This is the one which Aristotle designates by the technical term “the third man ;” it was due to the sophist Polyxenus, a thinker closly allied to the Megarian circle. Another allusion to it is contained
[52 GREEK THINKERS, in the tenth book of the “Republic.” If two particular things, a and J, owe their similarity to a form or idea C, in which they both participate, or from which they are both copied, whence does the similarity which obtains between the form C and the two particulars derive its origin? In order to account for this similarity, must we not assume a second, superior form D, that is, a third stage in the scale of entities ? And what is true of C in relation to a and 0 is again true of D in relation to C, and soon ad infinitum. Another difficulty is contained in the question—How can the individual things participate in the ideas ? how can an idea be present in many individuals without loss of its unity ? The difficulty recurs in the late dialogue “ Philebus,” and, according to Aristotle, Plato never saw his way clear through it. The alternative assumption—imitation instead of participation—is also propounded and met by one of the varieties of the first argument we have noticed. A further objection is one which may be termed the anti-realistic argument— How can the ideas exist elsewhere than in our consciousness ? Plato here breaks through the artistic form which he has adopted. Manifestly it is distasteful to him to allow his hated adversary, Antisthenes, the author of this objection (cf. Vol. II. p. 181), to be right even for a moment. He therefore makes Parmenides himself reply that the notions present in our mind, if there is to be any truth in them, must be notions of something ; there must exist objects corresponding to them. (In the last resort this is an appeal to the primitive unanalyzed thought which underlies language. In any case the possibility is forgotten that the universals here in question may be abstracted from the parti- culars.) The series closes with the two arguments to which Plato himself assigns the greatest weight. Even granted the existence of the ideas, how can we—here the reader is reminded of Gorgias’ chain of theses (cf. Vol. I. p. 484)— how can we come to know them? The two terms of a relation are always on the same plane. To the master there corresponds the slave, to the slave the master; but to mastership we oppose slaveship, and vice versd. Thus the real correlate of truth in itself, or the idea of truth,
A COLLECTION OF ANTINOMIES. 153
is the idea of knowledge, not knowledge in a human mind. Similarly in respect of their qualities. That knowledge which is highest, purest, most perfect, can only reside in a being of the corresponding type; not aa) man, that is to. say, but im God; We here recall the “Phzedo” and its conception of corporeality as a hindrance to unclouded knowledge. We may mention, lastly, that this whole series of difficulties is preceded by a question which Socrates propounds with great earnestness concerning the relations of the ideas among themselves, whether they can be combined and separated or no. To this question Plato endeavoured to give an answer in the « Sophist.”
Turning now to the “laborious pastime,’ as Plato himself calls it, which occupies the second portion of the dialogue, we must endeavour to be brief. If out of the Eleatic concept of unity a series of contradictory conclusions (antinomies) can be deduced, the fault is chiefly with the self-contradictory nature of that concept itself. Absolute unity, as we have already had occasion to remark (Vol. I. p. 200; see also 210), is incompatible with all succession or coexistence. It is identical with the unextended, in space asin time. And yet this unity is put forth as real, indeed as the only real, although reality is by no means strictly separated from existence in space. So understood, Being includes in itself a multiplicity of parts, and yet, as absolute unity, it is both free from all multiplicity and contrary to it. Zeno had already perceived this inner contradiction, and with its aid constructed his bewildering antinomies. The author of the “ Parmenides”’ follows in his footsteps and outbids him, giving, as he does so, free rein to his dialectical high spirits, and chiefly rejoicing to rediscover, in the Eleatic theory, the incompatibility of unity and plurality which furnished a leading objection against the doctrine of ideas. The collection of contradictions is summarized in the closing words of the dialogue, where it is laid down “that whether the One is or is not, both it and the Other, in relation to themselves as well as to each other, both are and are not, seem to be and seem not to be.” Brilliant subtlety, here
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and there a fallacy deliberately perpetrated, the want of logical training common to the whole age, are some of the features combined in these dazzling but fatiguing ratio- cinations. To the last category belong, as a comparison with other dialogues will show, the confusion of “to be” as copula with the same word as denoting existence, the confusion of identity in respect of a quality with numerical identity, and certain illegitimate conversions of judg- ments—three errors of thought which Plato shares with Gorgias (cf. Vol. I. pp. 482 and 485). We observe, further, a confusion between the reality of a concept and the reality of “all the objects or thoughts which can possibly be subordinated to it,” and another “confusion between judgment and the comparison of concepts.” The two last aberrations have been well illustrated by a con- temporary. They are arguments such as the following: “The idea ‘bird’ is not imaginary, but has being; the erifin is a bird; therefore it has being.” And again: “ Rich is not happy ; that is to say, the idea ‘ rich’ is different from the idea ‘happy ;’ consequently no rich man can be happy.” No attempt is made to separate the sound from the unsound in these proofs, and for Plato, as we have already seen, only a partial success was attainable in this direction ; such separation, so far as it was possible at the stage of logical development then reached, is left to readers and pupils. To return to our metaphor of the law court, the proceedings are adjourned before a verdict is arrived at; but for any one who knows Plato there can be no doubt that there will be a resumption. This will wear a twofold character. An earnest, comprehensive, and profound ex- amination of other men’s metaphysical doctrines will aim at the presentation in stricter form of the indirect argument for the doctrine of ideas; and the doubts and difficulties by which Plato’s mind has been racked will impel him to modify his own fundamental principle. The first of these expectations is satisfied by the “ Thezetetus,” and the second by its continuation, the “ Sophist.”
THE INTRODUCTION T0\ THE." THEZTETUS.” 155
CHAPIER- XVI THe “THEETETUS AND THE “CRATYLUS.”
1. THEZTETUS, whose name is mentioned with honour in the annals of mathematics, has been wounded before the walls of Corinth, and, more than that, he has been stricken by disease in the camp. He desires to die at home, and has been conveyed by ship to the port of Megara, where he has been met by Euclides. The latter, speaking to his friend Terpsion, who also is a pupil of Socrates, deplores the impending loss of so excellent a man. Recalling an interesting conversation in which Socrates once took part along with the mathematician Theodorus of Cyrene and the latter's pupil Theetetus, he takes pleasure in re- membering how, at that early date, Socrates discerned with the eye of a connoisseur the eminent gifts of the youth. “Euclides has accompanied his dying friend for a portion of his journey; he is tired with the long walk ; and Terpsion, who has returned from the country, is in like case. The latter has Jong desired to become acquainted with the conversation referred to, and Euclides complies with his wish by causing his own report of the dialogue to be read aloud by a slave to himself and his companion while they rest. Plato here interposes a remark on the style of this report, in which he explains, with a direct- ness unique in the whole series of his works, one of the motives which guide his art. He makes Euclides say that he has discarded the narrative form, with its wearisome repetitions of “said he,” “he agreed,” and so forth, instead of which he has introduced the interlocutors as speaking
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in their own persons. ‘This elimination of the epic element now became a constant feature, if our chronological arrange- ment is correct, of Plato’s works. Indeed, the introductory dialogue, which sometimes, as here, serves as preface to the dialogue proper, never occurs again. In his earlier productions the poet-philosopher had preferred sometimes the one form, sometimes the other. To the narrative method we owe the lifelike vividness with which the “ Protagoras” brings before our eyes the doings in that sophists’ hostelry, the house of Callias; the “ Charmides” and “ Lsysis,” the demeanour of the youths and boys in the gymnasium ; the “Symposium,” the amusements of a select portion of Athenian society ; the “ Phzdo,” the last hours of Socrates’ life ; the “Republic,” the graceful figure of the venerable Cephalus. Probably it was precisely the tedious work of writing the “Republic” which caused Plato to realize clearly the inconveniences of strict adherence to the narrative form. And it may have been the same experience which decided him to have done for the future with all such by-play, and henceforth to employ exclusively the form which hitherto he had employed mainly in his shorter © dialogues (such as “ Hippias,’ “Laches,” “Euthyphro,” “Crito,” “Meno ἢ), and only exceptionally in long works such as the “Gorgias” or “ Phedrus.” This decision was made easier for him by the increasing preponderance in interest of the matter contained in his dialogues, by that tendency towards merely didactic exposition which the long-continued practice of teaching must have brought with it, partly also, perhaps, by a gradual decay of artistic fertility. The “Theztetus” is a milestone on this path of development. We now take our leave, not without regret, of the poetic and creative genius; henceforth our business will be almost entirely with the author bent on giving instruction, for whom the dialogue becomes in the end a mere treatise varied by short interludes of rarer and rarer occurrence, while compensation is sought for the weakness in genuinely artistic construction of his latest works by an increasingly self-conscious and deliberate exhibition of mastery over language.
WHAT IS KNOWLEDGE ? 157
The ‘“ Theztetus ” itself, it must be admitted, is adorned, in spite of its date, with all the charms of mature com- position. The stream of conversation flows slowly on, with no anxious pressing towards a goal. It is marked by a tone of confident and genial superiority. An early, and apparently unintentional, warning is given that only negative results are to be expected. And this negative criticism, which will be trenchant enough, is freed at the outset from every appearance of harshness or injustice. It is not as critic that Socrates is introduced, but as accoucheur, for the son of the “esteemed and portly” midwife Phznarete assists into the world the thoughts of the youthful Theztetus, whose portrait is painted in the most sympathetic colours. It is only because at these intellectual births some dis- crimination is required between mere phantoms and genuine offspring, that it becomes incumbent on Socrates to test the thoughts of which Theeetetus is delivered, and decide whether they can live or no.
2. The scene of the dialogue is a gymnasium. The- atetus, who is warmly praised by his teacher, shows that he possesses the faculty of generalization by his treatment of aproblem in the science of numbers. Heis imperceptibly led on to answer the question—What is knowledge? His first answer is, “ Knowledge is perception.” Socrates thus gains an opportunity to weave together, out of this some- what primitive identification of knowledge and perception, out of what he claims to be inferences from the tenet of Protagoras, and out of the epistemology of Aristippus, a connected whole, which he proceeds to systematize, to defend against the more superficial of the objections against it, to acknowledge as partially justified, and yet to reject as being an inadequate account of the whole process of cog- nition (cf. Vol. 11. p. 238, and Vol. I. p. 458, seg.). The assump- tion that perception is knowledge leads, as it is made to appear, to the consequence that the same person knows and does not know the same thing at the same time. Thus, if any one hears, and therefore knows, words of a foreign language with whose meaning he is not acquainted, he both knows and does not know them. Or if he calls to minda
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perception which he no longer has, he knows it (in one sense) and does not know it (in another). Now, the identification of knowledge with perception may mean two things—either that the perceptive faculty is the sole faculty employed in knowledge (which would be a gross oversight of so obvious a faculty as memory), or that the material of per- ception is the only material of knowledge. It is the latter that is meant. For by asserting the fallacious character and untenability of the above objections, which would apply with real force to the identification in question if understood in the first sense, or to a defective discrimination between different processes involved in knowledge, he tells us clearly enough that the formula, “Perception is know- ledge” (probably one of his own coining, by the way) relates to the material or content of knowledge. All it affirms is that sense-perception is the sole source of our knowledge. Before attacking the theory involved in this formula, he frankly concedes a point contended for by Aristippus, and perhaps earlier by Protagoras, that the senses do not deceive and cannot be confuted, that each impression as it arises has subjective truth. But it does not by any means follow, as he points out, that all opinions are equally true like all sense-impressions ; the distinction between the wisdom and unwisdom of different subjects remains intact, and manifests itself most clearly in the successful prediction of the future.
This negative criticism is now interrupted by an episode consisting in a comparison between the life of the philo- sopher and that of the politician, here identified with the every-day ordinary man. A picture is painted in the strongest colours of the philosopher as a stranger to the world. He does not even know the way to the Agora; legislation, decrees of the people, electoral campaigns, are meaningless to him. We can hardly be wrong in saying that Plato could no longer have written in this tone after his second Sicilian journey (367). He would have exposed himself to the scornful reminder, “If only you had re- mained true to your ideal, how many a bitter and humiliating experience would you have saved yourself and others!”
THE SENSUALISM OF HERACLITUS. 159
We notice further an echo of the “Phzdo” (“One must strive after the speediest possible escape from life on earth”), one plain allusion to the doctrine of ideas—“ the contemplation of justice and injustice in themselves ;” lastly, the en- thusiastic preaching of the struggle after likeness with the absolutely just Deity. All these features afford us glimpses of the state of Plato's mind and feelings at the time when he wrote the “Theztetus.” In the midst of this elevated strain he descends to a somewhat lower level in an attack upon Antisthenes. It is possible that the latter, irritated by the “Euthydemus,” had in the mean time published his “Sathon,” and thus called forth a rejoinder in the + theztetus’” (cf. Vol. IL. p. £82).
Before Socrates takes his leave of the sensualistic theory of knowledge, he casts a glance upon the philosophic prin- ciple from which he believes it to have arisen—Heraclitism. The latter, he says, is in contradiction with itself. For by its assumption of universal movement, it destroys not only all real knowledge, but, if the matter be viewed rightly, all perception as well. Here we may observe that Plato perpetrates a notable fallacy. He distinguishes two kinds of motion—change of place and change of quality. He goes on to affirm, not only, as he might have done with perfect justice, that Heraclitism exhibits the two as pro- ceeding hand-in-hand throughout wide provinces of nature (cf. Vol. I. p. 66, seg.) ; he adds the assertion that unceasing movement in space cannot be allowed to things without also allowing to them unceasing change of quality ; for otherwise the contradiction would arise of the same thing being at the same time at rest and in motion. He thus falls into the same error which he had satirized so bitterly in the “ Kuthydemus:” the omission of a restrictive qualification. For there is no contradiction in saying that in one sense a thing is at rest, while in another it has motion. The variation of colour exhibited by many stars is a movement in the second or derived sense. Who would think of asserting on that ground that the stars in which this change of colour does not occur must remain for ever stationary in one place? There is deeper meaning in the
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distinction between the senses as the instruments through which we know, and the soul wztk which we know. As objects of our knowledge, general notions are specified. This is a result to which Socrates gives his assent with unusual warmth. Among those general notions are being, similarity and difference, unity and multiplicity, beauty and ugliness, goodness and badness. Sense-perception, which transfers the affections of the body to the soul, is given us from birth onwards; the fact that we acquire only by degrees the faculty of reading and interpreting sense- impressions is here overlooked; the knowledge of those general categories, on the other hand, is the fruit of long- continued and painful training.
3. A second attempt at definition runs as follows: Right conception (opinion, belief) is knowledge. Con- trasted with right opinion, we have false opinion, or error. This distinction at once raises the preliminary question— How is error possible? It is a question which we have already met more than once (cf. Vol. I. p. 486, also p. 456) ; Plato now engages in a thorough discussion of it, a dis- cussion, however, which is, perhaps, more ingenious than fertile. Repeated onslaughts are made upon the problem, but no solution is arrived at which satisfies Socrates. The obviously sound suggestion is*made that error consists in a combination of the elements of knowledge which does not correspond to reality. But this thought, after receiving a most excellent illustration, is finally dropped. The over- exacting criticism here employed—a criticism not wholly free from palpable fallacies—must be explained by Plato’s anxiety to achieve the main purpose of the dialogue. His object is to establish the truth of the doctrine of ideas by an indirect proof; all attempts, therefore, to construct a theory of knowledge without the help of that doctrine must be proved inadequate to account for any psychical facts whatever that bear on the question, the possibility of error among them. This portion of the dialogue is by no means poor in subtle distinctions and brilliant comparisons. The possession of knowledge is carefully distinguished from the acquisition of knowledge (learning) and its loss (forgetting).
HOW IS ERROR POSSIBLE ? 161
The errors of memory are illustrated by the image of the wax tablet, which is either not large enough, not soft enough, or not hard enough to receive clear impressions, to keep them distinct, and to preserve them securely. The confusion of different pieces of knowledge already acquired, that is, the errors of reproduction, he illustrates by the figure of the aviary, the inmates of which have all been caught by their possessor—a fact which is no impediment to his laying hands on a ringdove when he is hunting among his fluttering prisoners for a wood-pigeon. That error does not, however, consist in a mere interchange, in the improper combination of memory-images, or the false co-ordination of remembered with present impressions, Plato undertakes to prove from the fact that we also make mistakes in calculation—in a region, that is to say, in which our thought is occupied solely with concepts. This long excursus is followed by a very summary despatch of the attempted definition which was its starting-point. That right opinion does not amount to knowledge is proved by the art of the orator, who, in the short interval allowed him by the water-clock, often conveys to his audience, by pure persuasion, without any great depth of instruction, right Opinions on current events.
The way is thus paved for the third attempt at a definition: Knowledge is right opinion coupled with explanation. Theztetus expressly designates this defini- tion as the work of another, and the fuller version of it, which Socrates at once supplies, leaves us in no doubt as to who this other is. According to the doctrine here alluded to, there exist primary elements which are not the objects of true knowledge; the latter relates on the contrary—and here we have presented to us the counterpart of the theory of error discussed above—only to combinations, which are compared to syllables as distinguished from the elementary speech-sounds, Our readers will remember this theory as the work of Antisthenes (cf. Vol. 11. p. 183) ; they know, too, that we have not the means of following into further detail this evidently most important doctrine. Another most noteworthy fact is that Plato is here clearly combining
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self-correction with his polemic against Antisthenes. For, according to the “ Meno,” right conception or opinion is elevated to the rank of knowledge in the full sense by its association with causal explanation (cf. Vol. II. p. 373); and in the “Symposium ” right opinion is recognized as an inter- mediate stage between knowledge and ignorance only so long as it is unaccompanied by the power of explanation (cf. Vol. II. p. 393). The correspondence is here very close, and extends to the form of expression. This relationship supplies a new testimony in favour of a point on which doubt has been cast, namely, the relatively late date at which the “ Thezxtetus”’ was composed. For if Plato had been engaged upon this dialogue while he still retained those earlier convictions, he would certainly not have omitted to draw a clear and precise line of demarcation between his own doctrine and that of Antisthenes, to which it bore quite a deceptive likeness,
For the rest, Plato does not take too seriously his task of controverting this third and last attempt at a definition. He contends that the Greek word which we have translated “explanation” (Adyoc) admits of a threefold interpretation. It may mean, firstly, the expression of thought in language ; so understood, explanation adds nothing new to right opinion. Secondly, we may understand by it the orderly rehearsal or enumeration of the individual elements in the object known ; but without this right opinion would not be possible at all. Lastly, the word may stand—here our “explanation” is no longer adequate—for the statement of the distinctive character of a thing; but by this no new qualification is added to right opinion, for the opinion only becomes right when it includes the attributes by which the object thought of is distinguished from every other object. Here, we think, an appeal lies from Plato to Plato. “Ifa man has right opinion,” he makes Diotima say to Socrates, “but cannot render an account of it, do you not know that that is neither knowledge ... norignorance?” Thus the author of the “ Symposium ” recognizes a distinction which the author of the ‘“ Theextetus” denies, surely without warrant. For it is one thing to preserve in the memory
BHE τα 5 ΘΕ ΟΕ Ὁ ἸΘΣΧΕΟΤΖΟΙΜ: 163
a true copy of two objects, but quite a different thing to note their distinguishing features, to be clearly and com- pletely conscious of them, to be able, in consequence, to give an apposite and exhaustive account of their agreements and differences.
When we survey the dialogue as a whole, we observe three main arguments which Plato employs against the theories of knowledge reviewed by him. The weakest of these arguments, we are inclined to think, is that contained in the reference to mistakes made in dealing with mere numbers—mistakes, according to Plato, which require an explanation of error different to that contained in the doctrines he is impugning. The authors of those theories might have replied to their critic somewhat as follows: “You overlook the fact that these number-abstractions are always represented in our minds by symbols taken from the world of sense, and that the manipulation of these symbols is the usual, indeed, the only, source of errors in this field, which would be excluded if we were able to work with pure abstractions. The unpractised arithmetician who says 3 X 6 = 16, or confuses 53 with 35, or substitutes 10,000, which he has in his mind from a former column of numbers, for the 1000 before him, supplies us with ready examples of such mistakes, none of which can be called a negative instance disproving the theory of error under consideration.”
Of much greater weight are the other two main objec- tions: Wisdom or knowledge manifests itself chiefly by right predictions of the future; and: The “general notions,” or categories of being, of likeness and unlikeness, of unity and plurality, of good and bad, of fair and foul, are not given with sense-perception. The first of these objections is really a sub-variety of the second. For the power of pre- diction depends on that of induction ; and inductions rest, in the last resort, on comparisons. The kernel of truth contained in the two arguments is simply this: We not only receive and store up impressions of sense, but we have the further faculty of separating and combining them, as also of ascertaining agreements and differences between
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them (cf. p.9). The emotional stimuli which are received in addition to sense-impressions and in association with them, and which are the basis of the judgments of worth brought into the discussion by Plato, are another instance of what we may call, with approximate accuracy, the active reactions of the soul. We pass over the notion of Being, the many meanings of which we shall soon have a fitting opportunity for considering. To avoid unnecessary lengthiness, we make use of traditional forms of expression in handling these subjects. If we desired to abstain strictly from all metaphor and all hypothesis, we could not, for example, speak of an ego which compares sensory impres- sions or reacts upon sensory stimuli; we should have to say instead that out of the succession in time of two sensory phenomena there emerges a third phenomenon of consciousness which contains the elements common to the former two as well as those that divide them.
4. Among the works which, from the standpoint of epistemology, belong to a stage preliminary to that of the “Theztetus,’ we must reckon, along with the “Meno” and the “Symposium,” the “Cratylus.” For in this dialogue the confusion or interchange theory of error is brought forward without any qualification and without any hint of the difficulties which have just been presented to our notice. The persons of the dialogue are only three in number: Socrates ; his faithful pupil Hermogenes, who is the im- poverished brother of the rich Callias ; and Cratylus, the Heraclitean instructor of Plato’s youth (cf. Vol. II. p. 252, and Vol. III. p. 2). This work is one of the most prolific of controversy in the whole series written by our philosopher. Its purpose we conceive to be as follows: Antisthenes, as was only to be expected of a nominalist, had devoted the most careful study to language, in particular to the meaning of words, and we still possess a saying of his to the effect that ‘the investigation of words stands in the forefront of education.” Now, Plato thus sums"up the result of his inquiry at the close of the dialogue: “Things must not be learnt from names, but must be studied and investigated in themselves.” It is no longer possible to know what was
THEORIES OF LANGUAGE. 165
the direction taken by Antisthenes’ study of names, what was the matter contained in his work of five books “on education or on words.” In any case, Plato’s attack upon the claims put forward in that work supplied him with an opportunity for reviewing the linguistic theories of the day, and in parti- cular the theory of the correctness of names championed by his teacher Cratylus and other Heracliteans. This does not altogether coincide with the theory of which we have already treated (Vol. I. p. 394, seg.), and which we described as asserting the natural origin of language. On the con- trary, it assumes a name-giver, distinguished by wisdom, and working according to a set plan. It is not the opposi- tion of nature and convention, but rather that of purposeful contrivance and random caprice, that subsists between the theory of the Heracliteans and its rival. The attitude which Plato adopts towards it is difficult, but not impos- sible, to ascertain. Here, as elsewhere, his serious purpose is overshadowed by arank growth of humour and irony, besides being obscured by his tendency, now familiar to us, to outbid the objects of his satire. But this wild and wanton sport with fantastic etymologies, begun by others and now carried by him to extravagant lengths, is a very different thing from his serious conviction that the con- nexion presupposed in those theories between sound and meaning did once really exist. He explains, without a trace of irony in his manner, the significance of particular sounds, very much as Leibnitz and Jakob Grimm did ; he recognizes in the imitative movements of the speech-organs a main factor in the formation of languages, more potent than the imitation of sounds or onomatopeceia. but there is no contradiction between these admissions and the con- tention that the primitive meanings of words, as proceeding from those sources, are now mostly undiscoverable by us. For the comparison of Greek dialects had made Plato acquainted with the phenomena of phonetic change. By such change, and by tle co-operation of an element, which Plato frankly recognizes, of genuine convention or arbitrary decision—“ the caprice of linguistic usage,” as we say now —the primitive stock of sounds and meanings has been so VOU. IM N
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transformed that between its first and its last state there yawns a chasm no longer to be bridged.
But even were it otherwise, Plato contends, language would still be no appropriate key to open up for us the nature of things. Even then it would be preferable, here as elsewhere, to view the things themselves rather than their “copies.” And words—which is the main point— could at best mirror to us only the world of phenomena, the world of Becoming. But the knowledge of the ideas, or of entities existing in and for themselves, knowledge in the most proper sense, would not be furthered in the slightest degree by even the profoundest comprehension of the most primordial words. Nor can Plato refrain from pointing out a contradiction inherent in the theory he con- troverts. It is said, on the one hand (the thought is, in any case, most probably Antisthenic), that right thinking is contained in the right use of words; but, on the other hand, the makers of language are said to have displayed right thinking and deep wisdom in the work of assigning names to things, while as yet language did not exist.
We have now, we believe, given, if not an exhaustive account, yet a faithful one, and one free from subjective importations, of this remarkable dialogue, rich in flashes of genius. The “Cratylus” has many threads connecting it with the “Theztetus.” In both dialogues Antisthenes is attacked, and his paradoxes discussed relating to the im- possibility of contradiction and false statement ; in both we find the same interpretation of the Protagorean proposition that man is the measure of things; in both recognition is given to the far-reaching consequences of the fundamental tenet of Heraclitus; in both, lastly, the procedure of the Neo-Heracliteans is graphically described and genially satirized.
SOCRATES AS CHAIRMAN, 167
CHAPTER | XVIF.
THE “SOPHIST” AND THE “STATESMAN.”
I. THE concluding sentence of the “ Theetetus” promises a continuation. Socrates invites his fellow-participants in the dialogue to meet again on the morrow. The meeting takes place, and with it begins the dialogue entitled “The Sophist,” in which a new character is introduced, a stranger from Elea. It has hardly got under way before a third member of the cycle is announced—the “Statesman.” Indeed, a fourth, the “Philosopher,” is promised. But Plato rested satisfied with the trilogy instead of completing the projected tetralogy. The fact that he did not expunge the reference to his unfulfilled plan is perhaps to be ex- plained by the growing indifference to questions of literary form, which marks the last phase of his authorship. Another similar trait is his omission to take account, in this continuation, of the circumstances presupposed in the introduction to the “ Theztetus ;” nothing is said of any further reading aloud of a written report. Indeed, Plato’s carelessness in these matters goes so far that in a passage of the “Statesman” he makes an interlocutor allude to the “ Sophist” as to a dialogue in a book.
It is a peculiar situation in which we find Socrates in both dialogues. He may, perhaps, be described as the chairman of the debate. He opens the discussion in the first dialogue, opens and closes it in the second ; but in neither does he take any part in its progress. The chief reason of this, we imagine, lies in the fact that doctrines are here subjected to criticism which had been preached in
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earlier works through the mouth of Socrates. The ad- vantage which Plato drew from his adoption of the dialogue form, that of not being bound by any of the doctrines pro- pounded in his works, is considerably enhanced by this withdrawal into the background of his chief speaker. On the other hand, the replacing of Socrates by the Eleatic stranger, a man who has grown up in the circle of Par- menides and Zeno, yields Plato an advantage in a new direction. The criticism of other systems, including the Eleatic, which it was Plato’s main purpose in the “ Sophist ” to bestow, is unusually gentle and respectful in tone, being partly thrown into the form of self-correction on the part of the Eleatic; this feature not only corresponds to Plato’s personal feeling, but provides him with a welcome foil to the other polemical matter contained in the dialogue. The “ Sophist” consists of two apparently quite disparate parts —an enclosing “husk,” and an enclosed “kernel.” The link connecting the two can be indicated only to one who is already familiarized with the course followed by the dialogue and the matter contained in it.
The ostensible aim of the investigation is a definition of the sophist. With much apparent ingenuousness, the great difficulty of the subject is recognized, and a pre- paratory exercise proposed by way of practice, namely, the definition of the “angler.” The search takes a rather wide sweep. The whole of art is first divided into the pro- ductive and the acquisitive arts. Acquisition depending on voluntary exchange is next contrasted with forcible appro- priation. Distinctions are next drawn relative to the objects of pursuit, the means employed, and the time of day at which the pursuit takes place; thus the process of division gradually descends the scale till the angler is reached. Of a sudden it appears that this merely prepara- tory exercise, as it was meant to be, has conducted us to the heart of the main inquiry itself. The angler has to do with fishes, the sophist with men; to the seas, rivers, and lakes in which the angler plies his craft there corresponds the earth, with its “streams of wealth” and its luxuriant “pastures of youth,” from which the sophist draws his
DEFINITION OF THE SOPHIST. 169
sustenance. In pursuance of this hint, the chase on the dry land is now divided into that of wild and that of tame animals: among the latter must be counted Man. Human game is hunted in different ways. Open force is employed by the highwayman, the kidnapper, the tyrant, the warrior ; others use persuasion. Different varieties are distinguished of this persuasion, until at length one particular art—that which is practised in private, aims at profit, and promises the acquisition of virtue—is recognized as the art of the sophist. Can satire go further? Certainly. Plato does not rest here; he returns to the charge, and follows up his purpose with undiminished acerbity. To the art of acqui- sition belongs also that of the wholesale trader ; and here, too, the sophist, who travels from city to city with his food- stuffs for the soul, has his appropriate place. But he may also ply the same trade as a retailer with a fixed local business, or as a producer who vends his own work. Nor is he excluded from the number of those artists in acqui- sition who employ the combative method; his weapon is the spoken word, and his arena the contentious dialogue. Attention is further drawn to a series of operations whose purpose is to sift and effect separations. Where these are directed towards the elimination of what is evil or foul, they receive the common name of “ purification.” This conception is divided into two species according as the operation takes place in the corporeal or the spiritual sphere. With the sweeping, brushing, scouring, washing, to which even lifeless objects may be subjected, there is associated the inward cleansing of our bodies which is effected by the art of medicine and also by gymnastic. The purification of the soul includes, among other things, the removal of ignorance, which is achieved not least of all by refutation (cross-questioning). It is at this point that Plato finds the greatest difficulty in separating sophistic from philosophy ; his mode of attempting it is to attribute to the former a claim to omniscience. This claim of the sophists appears both in their contentious disputes, or negative eristic, and in their positive instruction. Because of its manifest unsub- stantiality this pretentious instruction is now pronounced
170 GREEK THINKERS.
amere sport. Itcan have no reference to things themselves, but only to their copies. Thus the play or sport spoken of becomes more exactly defined as a branch of the mi- metic or imitative art. The latter, again, is subdivided into two arts, one of which produces likenesses, the other delusive phantoms. The sophist is now recognized as an adept of this second species ; he is a kind of juggler or illusionist.
2. Here the second part of the dialogue is joined on to the first; the serious investigation succeeds the bitter jesting of the polemics, the purpose of which at once becomes clear. The transition is effected by the question how deception is possible, whether it does not involve that assumption of a Not-Being against which Parmenides of old uttered such insistent warnings (cf. Vol. I. p. 170). The sophistic opponent—Antisthenes is meant—will not allow us to maintain the existence of “falsehood in pro- positions and opinions,’ and thus the knowledge of the unknowable, of Not-Being. This many-facetted problem has already presented itself to us more than once (cf. Vol. I. p. 454; Vol. II. p. 185). It will be necessary for us now to approach it seriously ourselves before we can advance further. How does it come about, we have a right to ask, that we are able to speak or treat of the unreal, the non-existent ? What is the essence of this notion? We answer that it depends, in the last resort, on the idea of absence, which is only gained from judgments of com- parison. I draw two circles and mark the centre of one. I compare the circles and note the difference, the pos- session by the one circle of a point which the other lacks. The absence thus detected, the defect or loss thus ascertained, of a positive already known from another source —such is the kernel of this notion. Negative phenomena, negative raw materials of knowledge, do not, in fact, exist ; each phenomenon in itself, and according to its own immediate nature, is something positive. The appearance to the contrary arises out of a confusion which lies close at hand. Cold, for example, is a positive sensation. Why does it appear to us as the negative antithesis of heat? For
THE PROBLEM OF NEGATION. 171
no other reason, surely, than that such antitheses really occur, on the one hand, in the sphere of the causes by which these sensations are produced, and, on the other, in that of their objective as well as their subjective effects (eg. fire, no-fire—burning, not-burning—perspiring, not-perspiring). In any case the author of the “Sophist” comes nearer the recognition of this truth than Hegel does, in whose dialectic the pseudo-concept of “ Nothing,” that “fantastic hypostasy,” as Trendelenburg calls it, still plays the part of an active principle, and indeed exerts a wider influence than any other active principle.
Plato frees himself from the nightmare of the non- existent by reducing it to the positive notion of difference. Not-being has always a merely relative significance; it always denotes a being-other as opposed to being determined in some particular way. The non-existent in the province of beauty is simply the ugly, in that of goodness the bad, and so forth. The second step of this reduction is logically more assailable than the first. For, strictly speaking, the not-beautiful is αὐ else, the beautiful only excluded. But in reality, neither for practical purposes nor for the simple conveyance of information are we often led to treat of the totality of things, or of the elements of thought, with one sole exception. The negative predicate, as a rule, and especially in the dialectic articulation or subdivision of the material of knowledge, serves to exclude from a higher class one of the sub-classes which compose it, and thus to delimit indirectly the remainder of the class.
But when the spectre of absolute negation has been thus exorcised, new problems at once press for solution, and in the forefront of them is that which inquires the nature of the opposite to Not-being, of Being itself. Two fundamental theories here confront one another in irrecon- cilable opposition—the materialistic and the idealistic. For the former, only that is real or existent “which can be grasped with the hands,” and even the soul is regarded as something corporeal; by the representatives of this theory the atomistic physicists are no doubt meant. Their
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opponents have very prudently taken refuge in the realm of the invisible ; from the vantage-ground of the heavens they wage their warfare against the “earth-born,” declaring nothing else real except incorporeal entities or archetypes. By these “friends of the ideas” Plato meant none other than himself and his adherents—a stroke of humour not intelligible or credible to all Platonic students. We shall the better understand it the more clearly we perceive that the “ Sophist” introduces far-reaching modifications into the doctrine of ideas, so that the latter in its earlier form has acquired a kind of objective and historical character for its own author. Both theories are subjected to incisive criticism. Against the materialistic view the reproach is levelled that it is compelled to pronounce unreal and non- existent all that belongs to the soul, including the highest and most valuable of its qualities, such as virtue and justice. The “reverend and holy” archetypes, on the other hand, existing as they do in eternal, one might almost say pedantic, repose, are declared incapable of explaining either events in the world of phenomena or the process of knowledge. In this argument Plato falls into strange errors. Knowledge, he says, is active, to be known is to be acted upon, which is inconsistent with the changeless immobility of those highest objects of knowledge. It is chiefly, if not exclusively, by the forms of language that he has been here misled. The passive voice sometimes expresses subjection to an external influence, sometimes the relation of an action to an object not in the least degree affected by it. “The lyre is struck,” “the child is taught,” are examples of the first type ; “the sun is seen,” “ the pic- ture is admired,” of the second. Similarly, the materialist, though he denies the independent existence of immaterial entities, is not by any means bound to contest the reality of psychic phenomena, the subsistence of relations, the validity of laws. But formal correctness is here, as before, a matter of subsidiary importance. Moreover, the surplus of meaning which we have just indicated as having been imported into the word “being” was not unnoticed by Plato himself. The necessity of clearing up this notion
— ὐπυν νι
BEING IS DOING. 173
and freeing it from the inadequate concept of substantiality or existence as a thing certainly had some share in that attempted definition which makes him a precursor of the modern “energy” school. “The actual is simply and solely that which acts”—so we may sum up Plato’s wonderful utterance on the subject; and the German language, with the profound philosophy of its zwzrken and wirklich, can express the same thought with equal brevity and greater naturalness. The passage runs as follows: “I say, then, that whatever possesses any power of any kind, either to act upon anything else of whatever nature, or to be acted upon in even the slightest degree by even the most trivial of things, and even if this happen only once— every such thing, I say, truly zs; for I lay down as a definition of all things that are that their being is nothing else but power (dbvapie).”
On the strength of this definition an admission is wrung from the “friends of the ideas” that agency, and therefore also movement, cannot be lacking in these supreme entities. The latter are further recognized as possessing life, soul, and wisdom—a conclusion reached by an abrupt transition of thought springing from the increasing tendency of Plato’s late period to regard the primary principles of the universe as conscious and of the nature of soul. The doctrine of ideas has thus undergone a transformation which may not inaptly be described as a reversion to an earlier type. All ontology, we are justified in affirming, is watered-down theology (cf. p. 1). In their re-endowment with activity and soul the metaphysical entities return, as it were, to their origin. The same circle which we have already noticed has been once more accomplished (cf. Vol. 11. p. 174). At the same time, the rampart which had divided the worlds of Becoming and of Being has been broken through. The whole of the positive content of the “Sophist” may be compressed into a single phrase— Plato’s emancipation from the bonds of Eleaticism. The emancipation, however, proceeds in several different de- partments simultaneously. For Plato has before him a logical as well as an ontological problem, and the solution
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he offers of the latter depends on his treatment of the former.
The question—How are falsehood, error, and deception possible ? gives place to a second and wider question—How is assertion in general possible? This problem, already familiar to the reader as that of predication (cf. Vol. II. p. 175), is approached by Plato from its linguistic side. A proposition or sentence presupposes two kinds of words: names and words implying action (nouns and verbs). He who repeats however long a list of words such as “walks,” “runs,” “sleeps,” will never produce an assertion, any more than if he strings together terms like “lion,” “stag,” “horse,” and so forth. It is only the combination of the two elements, as in “the man learns,” “the stag runs,” that makes assertion possible. The assertion is then true or false, according as the combination does or does not correspond to the reality. ‘“Theetetus is sitting” and “Theztetus is flying” are examples in point. This earliest exposition of a theory of propositions or judgments was by no means without value in an age which as yet possessed no logic or fully developed grammar, and in which the sround had only recently been prepared, chiefly by Protagoras, for those distinctions between different parts of speech and different forms of words which even in Aristotle’s time were still imperfectly drawn. We should be glad to learn the relationship between this theory of Plato’s and that propounded in the “Theztetus” but rejected as inadequate—a theory which likewise reduced all truth and all error to combinations, and which is with great probability ascribed to Antisthenes. We _ shall hardly go wrong if we regard that repudiated theory as the germ which was carried to its full development by the labours of Plato. It would not be the first time that the successor has looked down with contempt upon the fore- runner by whose shoulders he is supported.
It is true that Plato does not regard the funda- mental epistemological problem as already solved by this linguistic analysis. It follows from the presuppositions by which his whole thought is governed that the true
THE “COMMUNION OF CLASSES.” 175
solution can only be obtained in the province of ontology— by the proof that the combinations or connexions referred to occur primarily in the real background of all phenomena, in the world of those entities which exist in and for them- selves, the objective archetypes or forms. The doctrine of ideas, as first framed by its author, may be said to wear an Eleatic aspect. Rigidity of concepts is henceforth replaced by fluidity. Plato now affirms that it is altogether un- philosophical to “separate everything from everything else,” that there can be “no more utter annihilation of all rational discourse than the detachment of each individual thing from every other.” He proclaims his belief in the “interpenetration of the archetypes” and the “ communion of classes,’ by a delicate artifice placing this profession of faith in the mouth of the Eleatic stranger, as if the latter were thus taken to witness that the abandonment of Eleatic rigidity in concepts had begun in the mind of Parmenides himself, that Plato, and not, say, the Neo-Eleatics or Megarians and their congener Antisthenes, was the true and rightful heir of the great ontologist. The theory does not deny that there are mutually exclusive ideas, as in pairs of opposites like rest and motion; other ideas, how- ever, and very many of them, are capable of forming partnerships among themselves in virtue of which the partici- pation by one thing in a plurality of ideas is made possible. It is thus that a solution is conceived to be found for the old riddle which asks how one thing can have many attributes, why its essential nature is not exhausted in the possession of a single attribute, in its acceptance of a single predicate. Or rather, an answer is returned to the twofold question—How can one subject possess many predicates? How can one predicate belong to many subjects? The ground is cut away from the rough-and- tumble dialectic of the “Euthydemus.” No support remains for such statements as that Socrates sick is an absolutely different man from Socrates well, or from Socrates who is white or musically educated—that, further, two entities which have ove quality in common are unable, for that reason, to differ in any other respect. A wide
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space is obtained for limitations, intermediate states, tran- sitions of every kind. These take the place of the old, sharply defined alternatives of thought, such as— Whoever knows anything has knowledge, and must therefore know everything ; or, There can be no such thing as opinion or con- jecture, since everything must ether be known or not known.
3. Here, we believe, we have touched the vital nerve of this dialogue, and not of this dialogue alone. The phase of Plato’s later years, the St. Luke’s summer of his philosophic career, is now plainly revealed to us. The aged thinker shivers in the heaven of his ideas. His mind and heart gain a stronger hold on particular things, particular entities, particular processes. He acknowledges the inadequacy of all absolute theories. Crude one-sidedness begins to repel him; he turns away in disgust from mere bald negation. In every quarter he is on the look out for compromises. He yearns to reconcile opposites, even such opposites as those of Being and Not-Being. Just as in the “Laws” he mixes constitutions, so in the “Timzus” he mixes primary substances, and in the “ Philebus” species of pleasure and wisdom. The new departure has already been heralded, if we examine the matter closely, in the opening portion of the “Parmenides.” The relativity of such notions as unity, plurality, and so on, has already been set forth there, and a prospect at least held out of that attempt to solve the difficulties which is made in the “Sophist.” The whole course of the “ Parmenides” may perhaps be regarded as governed by a surmise that all the hopeless tangle of these vividly delineated antinomies is due solely to the use of such notions as unity, being, and so forth, conceived absolutely and as incapable of qualifica- tion or compromise. All this is closely bound up with the circumstance that dialectic is employed more and more as an aid towards the comprehension of the universe. Plato’s aim is to gain mastery over the motley variety of phenomena. His method is that of progressive subdivision and classifica- tion proceeding by dichotomy. Nature has here pointed the way, with her species and varieties of plants, animals, inorganic formations. To follow in her footsteps, to
DIALECTIC MORE IN. .TOUCH WITH NATURE. 177
arrange all objects and all human activities in groups, and thus to descend from the most general to the most particular, or to ascend by a reversal of the process, —such is the desire of the aged Plato. In the “Sophist” he practises this method in a manner which is in part humorously polemical, and not without a touch of self- directed irony aimed at its own pedantic aspect; in the “Statesman” he employs it more seriously and upon worthier objects. A comic fragment teaches us that this method, which may be termed the method of natural history, was put in the Academy to its most appropriate purpose—the study of plants and animals. This was the school from which Aristotle went forth, whom we shall later on learn to know and admire as a natural historian in all branches of knowledge.
The change we have been considering is closely con- nected with a second. The inquirer who consents to occupy himself with particular things, who descends from the heights of abstract generality to the lowlands of con- crete fact, cannot possibly continue to lay an all-preponderant stress on distinctions in respect of value. He has to admit that the sun of knowledge—to quote Bacon’s phrase— shines on the dunghill as on the palace. Divisions and arrangements which rest on distinctions of human or even of national valuation, often clash to a ridiculous extent with the natural system of classification. We can under- stand, therefore, that for the author of the “Statesman ” the division of mankind into Greeks and barbarians is as absurd as would be their division into Phrygians and non- Phrygians. This advance towards strictly scientific modes of thought—an advance which leaves its mark in the pro- gressive development of a technical nomenclature from the “ Theetetus” onwards—likewise has its prelude in the “Parmenides.” For when, in that dialogue, Socrates expresses his doubts as to whether there are ideas of even trivial objects, such as “hairs, mud, or dirt,’ Parmenides tells him in reply that he is still young, that in his riper years he will answer the question affirmatively, and learn to think less of the opinions of men.
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But we must return to the “ Sophist.” We have still to consider a circumstance of no little importance. Plato’s peculiar proneness to the objectifying of concepts has brought about a truly wonderful result. Absolute negation had been replaced by the relative notion of difference. But this, in its turn, has become absolute. That which had barely been liquefied—we may almost say—has imme- diately turned solid again. It is no mere figure of speech in which Plato represents the “other” or “ different” into which “not-being ” has been transformed, as an independent principle pervading all things. In so declaring this non- existent to be existent or real, he throws down the glove to the champions of formal strictness of thought, the ancient Herbartians (cf. Vol. II. p. 177), whom the whole contents of the dialogue were calculated to provoke. “We shall not go unpunished ”—“ We have made ready a feast for grey- bearded beginners”—in such phrases as these, the last of which is unmistakably aimed at Antisthenes, Plato expresses at once his expectation of being attacked and his contempt for his assailants. Here we have the key to the meaning of the dialogue as a whole. We have in our hands the bond which connects its outer with its inner part. Plato brands his opponents as sophists, particularly his personal enemy, Antisthenes, who had reviled him in his “‘Sathon;” hence the definitions proposed by him— definitions which, while to all appearance strictly scientific in character, are in reality inspired by the bitterest aversion —depict the type in the most detestable colours that can be imagined. The Socratic contentious dialecticians were present to his mind in a far greater degree than the so-called sophists of an earlier generation. Plato attempts to disguise this fact by linking, not without violence, the new “sophists” to the older possessors of that name. But the truth is betrayed by the importance assigned in this description to contentious dialectic, which, on the testi- mony of Plato’s own works, such as the “ Hippias,” the “ Protagoras,” and the “ Gorgias,” was foreign to the great sophists of a former epoch. The didactic content of the dialogue is directed against those “rigid” thinkers, the
AN ATTACK ON THE MEGARIANS, 179
Megarians, and their close ally Antisthenes, while Plato anticipates their reply by his disquisitions on the nature of the sophists. To the cunning with which this is done a production of recent years offers an apt parallel. I refer to Zollner’s book on “The Nature of Comets,” in which the scientific treatment of that subject is supple- mented by certain “studies in the field of psychology and the theory of knowledge,” wherein, under the pretext of discussing obstacles to the progress of science, violent personal attacks are made on Tyndall, Hofmann, and others. In Plato’s case, however, it is something more than a mere polemical artifice that we have to deal with. His bitterness is fed by the dissatisfaction with which he looks back upon errors of his own youth. That rigidity of thought which he lashes in his rivals had not always been a stranger to his own mind. The fertile dialectic which he now begins to practise, that instrument by the aid of which he and the greatest of his pupils after him seek to master the whole breadth and depth of the phenomenal world, is sharply divided from the barren dialectic by which all access to that world is barred. The juster course is no doubt to recognize, as serious and significant, the difficulties with which one has one’s self wrestled. But it is psycho- logically intelligible that an inquirer should be angry with those of whom he knows beforehand that they will reject the help he is at last able to offer them, and continue to grope in the old maze; that he should despise their persistence as stiff-necked obstinacy; that a previously existing antagonism should be enhanced and carried to the height indicated by the definition of the sophist which is pieced together at the close of this dialogue.
4. The fruits promised in the “Sophist” are gathered in the “Statesman.” A revulsion from the abstract to the concrete, a clear insight into the complication of reality, a consequent repudiation of premature generaliza- tions and half or imperfect truths—such are some of the characteristic features of this work. With these signs of full maturity is associated an increased prolixity symp- tomatic of advancing age. Plato’s wealth of ideas is the
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same as ever, but his mastery over his thoughts is gradually losing in strictness. If an example is employed by way of illustration, an excursus is appended on the essential nature of examples in general; a question as to the too- much or too-little of discussion leads to an investigation of the idea of measure. The “cult of method,” too, does its part in impairing the unity of the work and its artistic charm as well; while the mythical story of cosmic begin- nings increases the fascination of the dialogue at the expense of its coherence.
The discussion, in which a part is taken by yet another new character—the younger Socrates—starts from the notion of science or knowledge. This is divided into theoretical and practical. The latter, spoken of also as manual art, has to do only with the production of material objects ; so that, to our surprise, the kingly art is sought for within the first category. By successive divisions the art of the herdsman is reached ; and it is very remarkable to see how, in his desire not to be misled by judgments of value, and in his obedience to his new and severely scientific method, Plato abstains from defining man by specifically psychic attributes, such as his reason or his worship of the gods, and prefers to distinguish him step by step from all other animals by purely external marks, such as his possession of two feet and his lack of horns or wings. Against the identification, due as it would appear to Antisthenes, of the king with the herdsman, it is urged that the care of the latter for the members of his flock extends through their whole life and includes their nutrition, whereas a king’s work lies in a narrower sphere. It is at this point that Plato intercalates the strange myth already alluded to, in which the following thoughts are given concrete expression: Men are no longer, as in the begin- ning, under the immediate guardianship of the Deity. In alternating periods the latter moves the universe and then again leaves it to its own motion. The human race also— the thought is worked out in a fanciful and even fantastic manner—has become independent like its dwelling-place. At a time when, for lack of divine guidance, it was on the
CLASSIFICATION OF THE ARTS. 181
brink of destruction, it received, as a gift from the gods, the arts, from the totality of which the art of the statesman has now to be isolated. The difficulties of this problem are to be made easier by a preliminary exercise, by which we are reminded of the “angler” in the “Sophist.” The subject proposed in the present instance is the “art of weaving,’ the somewhat discursive treatment of which yields manifold profit both in matter and method. We learn to distinguish the main process from subsidiary and co-operating processes; the method of dichotomy which was exclusively used in the “Sophist” is abandoned as inadequate ; varieties or sub-classes are strictly separated from parts which are not classes at all. A question raised as to whether the discussion is not being unduly lengthened leads, as we have already mentioned, to an investigation of the concept of measure. Such words as “much” and “little,” “ great” and “ small,” have a double meaning—a relative and an absolute. In the one case they express the result of a comparison—A is great or small relatively to B or C; in the other, the standard is found in the object itself to which these terms are applied. Casually as this remark seems to be dropped, it is well worthy of note when we compare it with kindred expositions in the “ Phzdo,” the “ Republic,” and the “ Theetetus.” The epistemological difficulty as to how the same thing can be at once great and small, much and little, is now passed over without mention. Plato has reached a new, and we may be permitted to say a higher, stage. He has left these old puzzles behind him. The “participation” of things in the ideas, by which a solution was formerly provided, is now very significantly absent; while the self-existent archetypes pass into the background in a manner which is very striking after their exaltation in the “Sophist.” We might almost say that in conferring divine rank upon his ideas Plato has consigned them to a sphere of dignified repose.
The “co-operating ” arts are divided into seven classes, according as they yield raw material, tools, receptacles, the means of nutrition, protection, transport, or enjoyment. In this classification we observe how things externally the
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most diverse are brought together under the unity of a common purpose: thus clothes, most sorts of arms, and again city walls, together form the class of protective instruments. Nearer to the statesman’s art, but still only related to it as subordinate processes, come the art of the general and the somewhat ironically handled services of the soothsayer and the priest. There follows a discussion on the forms of the State, of which three are mentioned: the rule of one, the rule of few, and the rule of many, or democracy. The economic standpoint, which played so great a part in the corresponding part of the “ Republic,” is now abandoned and declared inadequate. The momentous question is not whether rich or poor men, but whether wise or ignorant, are to rule the State. That knowledge can ever be imparted to any considerable number, is roundly denied. In no Greek city are there to be found as many as fifty good players at draughts, let alone so many good statesmen. Nor is it a distinction of great importance that depends on whether rule is exercised with the free consent of the ruled or against their will. The one decisive standard is that of knowledge or wisdom, with which the good will is repre- sented as inseparably united, just as in the “ Republic” the figure of the philosopher is finally fused into one with that of the just man.
There now follows the investigation which forms the kernel of the dialogue, namely, a treatment of the question whether laws are necessary and salutary. At first it is denied that they are so. It is urged as a reproach against laws that they cannot do justice to the diversity of situations and cases. “It is impossible that what is perfectly simple can be adapted to that which is never simple.” Imagine a physician setting out on a journey and leaving his patient written directions to cover the period of his projected absence ; if he returns earlier than he expected, and finds a change in the weather or other circumstances affect- ing health—what a fool he would be if he were to think himself bound by his former prescriptions, instead of taking the altered situation into account! But, to be sure, when perfect wisdom is absent, then laws, which are “the
PLATO REVISES HIS POLITICAL IDEAS. 183
fruit of long experience and the work of estimable counsellors,” present themselves, though still only as a second best, yet as an acceptable substitute. They are rules which renounce all finely graded, individual treatment of particular cases, and resemble those maxims which are given prize fighters by trainers, and which prescribe, in broad outlines, a mode of life adapted to the majority of persons and to average circumstances. Plato speaks here of a “second journey,” of a new quest for the perfect State. It is a journey that will take him from the philosophic absolutism of the “ Republic,” in which nothing is fixed by rule, to the legislation of the “ Laws,’ in which everything is fixed by rule. The “Statesman” is a half-way house on the road. Or perhaps we should say that the mind of the author has already reached the new haven, while his heart still clings to the old shore. The myth taught us that we no longer live in the golden age, that we must renounce the hope of perfection. Plato, we see, is in the early stages of pessimism ; but his progress in renunciation is as yet far short of what it will be in the “ Laws.” His heart is full of bitterness; and through the midst of the apparent calm and objectivity of his exposition there break forth from time to time notes of deep feeling, invectives against the “chorus of satyrs and centaurs,” the “jugglers,” “the most sophistic among the sophists.” His embitterment, how- ever, is no longer directed first and foremost against democracy, for which his feeling is now one of contempt rather than hatred. He regards it as the most ineffective, and therefore the worst, of the three forms of government, if these are all exercised according to law; in the contrary case, its weakness makes it the best because the least injurious. Of monarchy, the exact opposite holds on each supposition; while the intermediate form, aristocracy, occupies a middle position both for good and for evil. This revised estimate of democracy has a manifest con- nexion with the decadence and enfeeblement of Plato’s own democratic fatherland—that Athens, which the eloquence of a Demosthenes cannot galvanize into more than an occasional fit of political activity, that once proud mistress
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of the seas which has been transformed (to use the phrase of the orator Demades) into a “ gruel-sipping old woman that creeps about in slippers.” Plato’s most violent invectives now appear to be directed against other states and other statesmen. The thought naturally occurs that it is by the events in Sicily that his keenest interest and his bitterest antipathy are now aroused (cf. p. 162).
The dialogue does not close without recording a notable piece of self-correction. The subject to which it relates is nothing less than the Socratic doctrine of the unity of virtue to which Plato so long remained faithful. The occasion for this correction is planned with some care. One of the chief tasks incumbent on the governor of a state is maintained to be that of joining together dissimilar natures in marriage, and so providing for the smoothing down of opposed extremes of temperament. With this counsel he joins a statement which he designates as “strange,” ‘astonishing,’ and as “a venture ;” within virtue itself, he says, there is a kind of distinction, or rather a sharp contrast—that between self-mastery (σωφροσύνη) and courage. This, moreover, is only a particular case of a more general antithesis, which is also found in the physical world, in knowledge, and in music. In all these spheres, acuteness, vehemence, and quickness on the one hand, are opposed to gentleness, steadiness, and slowness on the other. One-sided exaggeration of the first-named qualities leads to violence, even to madness; of the second, to slackness and cowardice. Plato’s dread of what may be termed the “in-breeding of the temperaments ” is noteworthy enough ; more noteworthy still is the Heraclitean breadth of vision, as we may call it, with which he traces the antithesis throughout the twofold realm of nature and mind, and insists on the necessity for the coexistence and reconcili- ation of the opposed qualities. What is most noteworthy of all, however, is his breach with Socratic intellectualism— a breach which has often been foreshadowed, which has never been carried to its ultimate consequences, but which, in the present passage, reaches a greater depth than ever before or afterwards. ‘The self-correction appears in the guise of an
THE UNITY OF VIRTUE ABANDONED. 185
attack upon the reactionary Antisthenes, whose love of “disputing about words,” due to the rigidity of his ideas, is referred to and censured, not here only, but in other parts of Plato’s works. Plato himself, however, is nowhere freer from such tendencies than here, where he counsels us “ not to take words too seriously,” but rather to learn to under- stand “the difficult language of facts.” His liberation from Eleatic fetters is complete ; a breath of the Baconian, or modern inductive spirit has passed over his soul.
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CHAPTER XVIII. PLATO'S ‘‘ PHILEBUS.”
1. THE “ Philebus” is closely related to the “Sophist” and the “Statesman.” We have evidence of this first of all in a little peculiarity of style, which occurs sparingly in the general run of Plato’s works, more frequently in the “Theztetus,” but with great profusion in each of the three dialogues named. I refer to such turns as: “ We are now met by this argument.” “Which ?”—“ The following difference results.’ ‘Which do you mean?” The dia- logue form has become a mere external mechanism, the aid of which might easily be dispensed with. The long didactic exercitations of the ‘‘Timzus” and the “Laws” are now in prospect. The personality of the interlocutors is accordingly almost destitute of pronounced individual features. It is a significant fact in this connexion that Philebus, who pleads the cause of Hedonism or the theory of pleasure, is represented early in the dialogue as being tired, for which reason he retires into the background to make way for the colourless Protarchus. To have assigned him a more active part in the dialogue would have been to impress upon it the character of a real conflict of opinion, for which the author lacked the inclination perhaps still more than the strength. He therefore causes Socrates to deliver what is practically a monologue, while Protarchus, like the younger Socrates in the “Statesman,” merely presses him to continue, and asks for explanations.
But it is not merely in point of form that the “ Philebus” approximates to those other two dialogues. Those old
PLEASURE VERSUS WISDOM. 187
difficulties attaching to the problem of predication, the solution of which had been found in the “ Sophist,’ are now regarded as done with; they are even spoken of as “childish exhibitions” and hindrances to inquiry. Here, too, as there, the self-existent ideas are not, indeed, abandoned, but consigned to the background. Plato’s sense of reality is as strong in the “ Philebus” as in the other two dialogues ; and his chief instrument for the acquisition of truth is again classificatory dialectic—a method which after the precedent of the “Statesman,” abandons the ex- clusive use of dichotomy practised in the “Sophist,” which guards against the overleaping of “ mediate notions” (whereby we are reminded of Bacon’s axtomata media), and which is extolled in unambiguous language as the basis of all scientific discovery. Such, in truth, it was for Plato, as well as for Aristotle. For the insight of these thinkers Ὁ into causes was far in the rear of their hold upon the ordered coexistences of things. The chief school in which the knowledge of causes is gained, physical investigation, was closed to them. Not only was the art of experimenta- tion but little developed as yet, what there was of it Plato in particular despised as a mechanical craft, while both thinkers were parted by wide-reaching differences of opinion from the foremost physicists of the day, the atomists. In the “Philebus,’ as is well worth remarking, the work of classification is supported by what alone can make it fruitful and truly valuable—by abundant and acute observation. Nor is the “ Philebus ” without its preliminary dialectical exercise.» Lhe place of the ,“angler” and the “art of weaving ” (cf. pp. 168 and 181) is taken by the elements of phonetics; the different speech-sounds are divided into species, namely, mutes, sonants, and fricatives. The real subject is the nature of the good, or rather of that which, in a later age, was termed the “highest good.’ The manner of stating the question may well surprise us. As the two competitors for the highest prize, “pleasure” and “knowledge” are introduced, just as in a passage of the “Republic.” It is an obvious objection that knowledge apart from all its subsidiary services to the cause of pleasure,
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is itself a source of pleasure (as no one knew better than Plato himself), and cannot therefore be rightly opposed to pleasure in general. But the identification of knowledge with the good was a doctrine that had been actually taught by the Socratic Euclides, who was followed in this by the Cynics ; and Plato weakens the effect of the false antithesis at an early stage by proposing a compromise such as fitted in with the inclinations of his advancing years. Neither pleasure nor knowledge, so he suggests, can alone procure happiness ; this is always the fruit of a “mixture.” Here, at the very outset of the discussion, we note the peculiarity of the method, which is the same as that adopted in the second book of the “ Republic” (cf. p. 62)—the experi- mental method, or method of difference. In thought Plato strips from the life of pleasure every admixture of intelligence, from the life of intelligence every admixture of pleasure, and then compares the two lives in themselves. The insufficiency of the mere life of pleasure is proved by the argument that with the loss of memory and expec- tation two important sources of pleasure are dried up. Again, a being of the kind considered would, by reason of its deficient consciousness of self, be incapable of any other pleasures than those such as oysters and other similar sea-creatures enjoy. The other alternative, the purely intellectual life, touched by no breath of pleasure or pain, is designated, perhaps with reference to the Cynic ideal, as apathy ; it is not subjected to any profound analysis, but simply rejected as unsuited to man.
The necessity for mixture having been admitted, a question arises as to the proportional value of the two ingredients. The answer is not found on the surface. The investigation strikes back to the first principles of things, and at the outset discovers two of them—the Unlimited and the Limit. In this Plato is evidently influenced by the Pythagoreans, and at the same time by Philolaus, a con- temporary (probably a younger contemporary) of Socrates. Whatever possesses degrees of intensity is referred to the. Unlimited—obviously because these degrees constitute a continuum which is capable of infinite division. All measure
“LIMIT” AND “THE UNLIMITED” 189
and number, as well as ideas implying measure and number, such as equality, duplication, and so on, belong to the province of the Limit. From the “mixture” of the two principles proceeds all beauty and power, all order and regularity.
Thus it is with bodily health or with music, the case of which latter is explained by saying that “the high and the deep, the quick and the slow” (the raw material, so to speak, of melody and of rhythm), receive their form or articulation from the measure which limits them. The mixture itself is now recognized as a third factor; and the cause of it (for nothing is without a cause) as a fourth principle of the universe. A basis has thus been acquired for the proposed comparison of values ; pleasure and pain, as varieties of the Unlimited, have assigned to them the corresponding inferior rank, while knowledge has the superior dignity resulting from its inclusion in the domain of the Limit. At this point the strict sequence of thought is interrupted by a hymn to Intellect, as “King of the heavens and the earth.’ As in a kindred passage of the ‘“‘Sophist,” and again in the tenth book of the “ Laws,” there is an attack upon naturalism, or the theory which ascribes the cosmic processes to blindly working natural forces, and claims to dispense with a guiding intelligence in the universe. This theory is condemned with great severity, and not without a side-thrust at Leucippus or Democritus.
What follows is somewhat striking. A moment ago pleasure and pain, taken in the abstract, as we may say, have been assigned to the realm of the Unlimited ; they are now referred to the third fundamental principle, that of union or combination. Their significance for concrete existence, and particularly for animal life, is now explained by an anticipation of Kant, in which pain is regarded as a phenomenon accompanying the dissolution of union, pleasure as a concomitant of its restoration. With this physically conditioned pleasure and pain is next contrasted the purely psychical pleasure and pain of expectation, while the state of emotional indifference must be added as a
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third possibility. This last is identified with the purely intellectual life, which may very well be that of the gods, and which, among men, must have at least the second prize awarded to it. There follow some subtle psycho- logical reasonings. The pleasure which is of the soul alone is conditioned by memory. But the object of memory cannot be those impressions which affect only the body, which fade away before they reach the soul. That object must rather be supplied by those “ vibrations”’ which quiver through both body and soul, and which are named by us “sensations.” These are stored up in the memory; as recollections, they are the source of a purely psychic pleasure which Plato strictly distinguishes from the pleasure resting on desires. It is true that a purely psychic element enters into desire, namely, the expectation, based on memory, relative to what is desired. With this is coupled pleasure or pain, according as the fulfilment of desire was hoped for or doubted ; but, in addition, there is always an element of pain in desire, corresponding to the physical privation. At this point the question arises whether there are “true” and “false” pleasures and pains. The problem is evidently one which had already been much debated. This appears not only from the quickness and certainty with which answer follows upon question, but also from the circumstance that the youthful Protarchus appeals to what he has “heard” on the subject. The inapplicability of the predicates “true” and “false”’ is first of all proved by excellent arguments, which we may well assume origi- nated in hedonistic circles. It is not to the emotions themselves that those predicates should be applied, but to the notions or opinions which give rise to the emotions or are accompanied by them. On this point the scientific thinker in Plato is at feud with the moral enthusiast, and is in the end overcome by him. The distinction under consideration is maintained, not without some violence, in the teeth of the objections urged against it; as “false” pleasures are nominated those experienced in dreams, as well as that enhancement of pleasure which is conditioned by a previous pain of some magnitude. We
THE “ ENEMIES OF PHILEBUS” CRITICIZED. IOI
need not dwell on this fallacy, the source of which isa tendency of Plato, not noticeable here only, to attempt the withdrawal of ethical and esthetic valuations from the sphere of subjective feeling, and their establishment on the basis of supposed objective criteria. Just as little need we trouble ourselves about the confusion, already noted in the “Gorgias,” between the “good” in the ethical sense, and the “good” in the sense of a good thing or a valuable possession. We think it preferable to draw into prominence the most important of the penetrating obser- vations and well-founded distinctions which are supplied in profusion. There is hardly any other part of Plato’s works in which the genuinely scientific spirit shows itself so active and fruitful as in the “Philebus.” The mani- pulator of concepts is here supported by the psycho- logist; his nimble and supple dialectic is now exercised upon a wealth of the material which experience supplies. This deeply earnest endeavour after unprejudiced objectivity shows itself, among its other manifestations, by the way in which Plato turns the shafts of his polemic against certain “enemies of Philebus,’ that is, opponents of Hedonism. These thinkers, for whom he obviously has considerable sympathy, yet seem to him to have overshot the mark by denying pleasure altogether, and asserting that what passes for such is a mere negative, freedom from pain. We have no means of identifying the men here referred to and described as the representatives of a “not ignoble fasti- diousness,” and as highly successful students of nature. But they can hardly have been other than Pythagoreans personally known to Plato, and our thoughts naturally turn first to Archytas.
2. We pass on to the main results of the investigation. With great vividness of detail, and with what we may call terrible truthfulness to life, a description is given, which is at the same time a condemnation, of excess in the most violent pleasures, or those which arise out of the strongest instincts. Plato expressly guards here against the suppo- sition that these strictures are intended for Philebus—that is, the Hedonists represented by him. And, indeed, they
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stood in no need of such instruction. The “exceptionally austere” Eudoxus and the pleasure-loving Aristippus were neither of them inclined to commend that blind fury of desire which Plato paints in such repulsive colours, or to extol the sway which sensual passion exerts over the mind and soul of men. The adherents of these thinkers could not possibly assign any very exalted rank to animal pleasures, even if they simply measured them by the rational standards of intensity, duration, and freedom from admixture or purity, however little they may have cared to help Plato smooth the way for asceticism by one-sided delineations of the abnormalities here in question.
A mixture of pleasure and pain is also recognized in the purely psychic sphere in the emotions of anger, yearning, pity, and so forth. Attention is drawn to revenge, which, according to Homer, is “sweeter than honey,” and also to that “tearful joy” which tragedy affords. Even comedy itself is said to be not free from such mixture; for the faults and the weaknesses at which we laugh, sometimes at the expense of friends, are not perceived altogether without pain. Lastly, in the theatre of reality itself, “the tragedy and the comedy of life,” these mixed feelings have yet another source. These mixed products are contrasted with the pure and unmixed pleasures; before all, the elementary esthetic feelings which are here for the first time brought to light. It is not partial and relative beauty, but lasting, complete, and intrinsic beauty, that attaches to certain lines and forms, to certain colours and tones, lastly even to odours, which, though standing to some extent on a lower level, are yet ranged in this category because of their absolute freedom from pain. There follow those pleasurable feelings which accompany scientific knowledge. It is not without a certain boldness challenging contradiction that the absolute purity or free- dom from pain of these pleasures is asserted. Plato seems to forget the difficulties of learning, and that hunger for positive solutions which he has himself so vividly described in the “Meno,” as well as the discomfort produced by cross-examination. He goes further; he maintains that
DIFFERENT KINDS OF PLEASURE, 193
the smallest amount of absolutely pure pleasure is pre- ferable to the greatest amount of mixed pleasure. On what does this assertion rest? It is supported by the reintroduction of the category of truth: the unmixed, the pure, the genuine, is said to be the true. Thus Plato defends a preference incapable of logical justification by a dis- tinction alien to the subject. A second path leads to the same goal. Emphasis is laid on the distinction between Becoming and Being. “ We have heard,” that is, from the Hedonists themselves, “that pleasure is always a Becoming, never a Being.” ‘This clearly meant nothing more than that pleasure, as feeling, is an event or process in the soul, just as much as, say, thought or will. But all Becoming— it is now inferred—is the means to a Being; therefore pleasure, too, can only be a means, not an end, and there- fore no part of the good. To this is joined an ironical expression of thanks to the ‘“‘subtle school” for this suicidal admission of theirs. By Being, in the psychic sphere, so they might have replied, we are not to under- stand anything else than permanent states of the soul ; and thus the argument can only prove, at best, that these, and not momentary feelings, are objects worth the striving for. But to the objection understood in this manner, justice was done by that form of ancient Hedonism which regarded “ pleasurable states ’—for example, a contented frame of mind—as the object of life. Further, he who pronounces pleasure a good—so Plato continues—must wish to be rid of a life in which there should be neither thirst, nor hunger, nor any of the other painful feelings by which the corresponding pleasures are conditioned. The objection holds good only against that part of Hedonism which comprehénds the pleasures springing from the satisfaction of desire. And against these it is decisive only under the supposition that the pleasure of satisfaction is less in quantity than the preceding pain of privation. Even then, the Hedonists might declare that, though this pleasure is not a positive good, yet, as a diminution of an evil which would otherwise exist, it is an end very well worth the striving for. Besides this, there
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was another answer which they might have given, namely, that their theory only related to the actual world and actual human nature, and that it was altogether irrelevant to appeal to a hypothetical, perhaps not even possible, existence—an existence which in any case must be unknown to us and unknowable, such as that life free from hunger, thirst, and all other needs. Lastly, we notice once more that old confusion between good and goodness which culminates in the assertion that, for the Hedonist, even the best man of all must be regarded as bad when he is in pain, and even the worst as good when he feels pleasure.
These logical violences are immediately followed by a wave of strictly scientific reasoning. After the severe scrutiny to which pleasure has just been subjected, wisdom, the mind, and knowledge will not be spared; here, too, it is of importance to search out and cut away whatever is rotten ; only what is purest may remain and be compared with the purest parts of pleasure.
That which comes next is nothing less than the first clear definition of exact science—as knowledge based on counting, weighing, and measuring. Our readers will remember a casual allusion to this notion in Plato’s “ Euthyphro” (cf. Vol. II. p. 360), which is paralleled by a passage in the “ Republic ;” they will also remember the complaint of a reflecting physician that medicine must renounce “measure, weight, and number,” and be content with “bodily sensation” (cf. Vol. I. p. 299). The three means of exact knowledge have already appeared together in a verse of Sophocles, who terms them the invention of Palamedes, the great hero of civilization, while his pre- decessor A‘schylus had attributed to the friend of man, the Titan Prometheus, simply the invention of number as the “most ingenious of all artifices.’ With exact or quantitative knowledge there is contrasted, in the “ Philebus,” that empiricism which rests upon “ the school- ing of the senses’”—a passage in which mere practice or routine is no longer treated with the same contempt as in the “Gorgias.” After this the practical arts are divided from each other according as they use or do not use
THE TWO SOURCES OF HAPPINESS. 195
instruments of precision, such as the ruler, the compass, the measuring-line, and so forth. A deeper distinction, one already found in the “ Republic,’ exists among the exact sciences themselves. The arithmetic, for example, which deals with “unequal units’””—say, two head of cattle, or two armies—is one thing, and that which deals with units not differing in the slightest degree, is quite another. The same holds of geometry. In this whole province, pure or abstract science is thus contrasted with the knowledge which relates to the things of sense; to the first is attri- buted the highest degree of strictness and accuracy, and for the object of it we are referred to the immutable, self- existent entities.
3. Before the discussion is summarized a glance is cast backwards upon the course of the dialogue. Philebus, the champion of the Hedonists, had recognized in pleasure the appropriate end of the actions of all living creatures, and had thus identified it with the good. It was Socrates who had first maintained that the two do not coincide, and that knowledge, which others (Euclides and the Cynics) placed in the forefront, had a greater share than pleasure in the nature of the good. It had further been admitted that neither mere pleasure nor mere knowledge is sufficient for happiness, but that a mixtureis necessary. This mixture is now performed. We have, so to speak, two sources, the one of them flowing “as it were with honey,” the other “with sober and bracing water.” And our task is to mix from them, in the right proportions, the drink we require. First of all, the different species of knowledge are blended together, the purest as well as the most clouded; not those only which relate to the unchangeable and self- existent, but those, too, which have for their object the world of becoming and decay. ‘The necessity of not pro- ceeding here in too eclectic a fashion is illustrated by a forcible phrase: ‘Otherwise not one of us would even know his way home.” It is otherwise in respect of pleasures; on these, “intellect and knowledge” must themselves decide. Their verdict is that only the “true and pure” species of pleasure are admissible; not those
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which raise mad mutiny in our souls, which often impede our growth, and are for the most part ruinous to our offspring. Thus the mixture is completed to the satis- faction of the interlocutors. Search is next made for the principles governing the mixture. First of all, measure and right proportion are recognized as the principle without which no appropriate mixture could even be made, without which, indeed, there could be no real mixture at all, but at best a confused chaos. But on all hands measure and proportion are regarded as beauty and virtue, and thus the nature of the good of which we are in search has escaped into the province of beauty. With this is joined truth, which also has gone into the mixture. The good therefore is apprehended not in one, but in three forms, namely, as beauty, truth, and proportion.
The question arises once more whether pleasure or knowledge is the nearer akin to “the best in gods and men,” as the “good” is here termed. We know what the answer will be. With an emphasis which reminds us of the most emphatic passage in the “Republic” (cf. p. 99), Protarchus is invited to proclaim far and wide that pleasure is not the first of possessions, nor yet the second. The first place is, on the contrary, occupied by “ measure ;” the second by “the beautiful, the proportionate, the complete, and sufficient,” the third by “intellect and knowledge ;” the fourth by “science, arts, and right opinions ;” the fifth by those species of pleasure which are free from all admixture of pain, that is, pure. (With approximate accuracy we understand by (1) the objects of mathematics ; by (2) the realization of them in the world of appearance ; by (3) the intellectual faculties which apprehend them; by (4) their application to the domain of objective facts ; by (5) the emotional effects which they produce through the agency of the elementary esthetic feelings, resting, as they do in a preponderating degree, on relations of form.) “ But in the sixth generation,” as is said in allusion to a line of Orphic verse, “our song may be mute.” Once again the course of the investigation is summarized, and an injunction added to put less trust in the testimony “of all cattle
CRITICISM. OF THE “ PHILEBUS” 197
and all horses” than in that of discourses inspired by the philosophic Muse.
4. It is at an opportune moment that we are reminded of the “ Muse.” Plato distinguished between three souls. The truth is that in his breast such a trinity did, in fact, reign—the soul of the poet, of the ethical teacher, and of the scientific thinker. Poetic power is not yet wholly extinct in the author of the “ Philebus.” Its exercise, how- ever, is exhausted in the task of strengthening the voice of the moralist. The latter is here affected by ascetic tendencies to a degree paralleled, perhaps, only in the “Phedo.” That Orphic-Pythagorean current of feeling, as we may call it, is here encountered by another current tending towards the strictest objectivity and the most careful accuracy—a current already familiar to us in the “ Sophist”” and the “ Statesman.”
The struggle between the two currents is a moving sight; we observe with no little sympathy how Plato’s warm desire not merely to preach and enforce his ideal, but also to demonstrate its unconditional validity, en- tangles him in contradictions with the rules of method which he has himself laid down at the beginning of the dialogue. We remember his warnings not to overleap “mediate notions,” and thus to guard against false generali- zations ; this warning he himself seems to forget in the passage where he paints the extreme of sensual pleasure in repellent colours, and, at the same time, makes the extreme special case the type of each and every satisfaction of natural needs. And if even the less pure, empiric kinds of knowledge deserve some respect ‘because otherwise no one of us would even know his way home,” why—so we might ask him—why do you despise the instincts which call us into life, which preserve us in it, and which are only extinguished when our own dissolution is imminent ? It will be obvious to every reader how greatly the dithy- rambic fervour of the concluding speeches destroys the effect of the strictness in thought which he has so care- fully endeavoured to observe. There is only one point we wish to emphasize. “ Proportionality” is counted by him
VOR. ΤΠ: Ῥ
198 GREEK THINKERS. as “beauty;” it is, therefore, either identical with this quality or else related to it as one species to another species logically higher or lower than itself. In neither case is it admissible to co-ordinate it with beauty; and yet this is what Plato does when he speaks of the “ three forms of the good.”
The dialogue as a whole is not so much “dark and ponderous ’—the current judgment—as contradictory. In the beginning of it Plato is inspired by the most lively zeal to do full justice to that theory which starts from the struggle for pleasure as a primitive phenomenon in the human and animal will, and uses it as a basis on which to construct a rule of life. Accordingly, he takes “pleasure” in the widest sense, and instead of this word with its narrowing and debasing associations, he uses others, such as “joy” and “satisfaction.” He even mentions the pleasure “of the moral man in his morality, or of the reasonable man in the exercise of his reason.” With the strictly scientific investigation he goes on to combine an attack upon the life of pleasure in the vulgar sense of the word; he becomes less and less able to keep the two questions apart. Only those pleasures which are wholly without mixture, and thus entirely removed from the domain of needs, find favour in Plato’s eyes ; the natural instincts, on the other hand, on which rests the continuance of the individual and of the race, are not merely relegated by him to their appropriate place; he rather identifies them with their extreme manifestations, and thus at last rises to an invective which does not shrink even from pouring out scorn on scientific Hedonism regarded as advocating the life of pleasure.
There is yet another circumstance which detracts both from the transparency of the results and from the certainty. of the proof. Nothing is more characteristic of the period of Plato’s old age than the enormous widening of his horizon. We have already had occasion to wonder at the width of vision which in the concluding section of the “ Statesman” expands human into cosmic tendencies. It is the same in the “ Philebus.” The treatment of an ethical problem leads
A FEATURE OP FTLATOS LATE PERIOD. τοῦ
to a question touching primordial principles. Even the “sood,” to the nature of which the inquiry relates, is no longer merely the principle of human welfare, but embraces that of the cosmos as well. The question is accordingly so extended that the answer can only be found in those abstractions which, though certainly possessing the highest degree of comprehensiveness, are for that very reason poor in content. The vagueness of the solutions, and the false, or at any rate misleading, analogy are the shadows cast by that light which may be described as Heraclitean depth and width of vision. In the last phase of the doctrine of ideas —that of increasing Pythagoreanism—we shall soon see this tendency reach its culminating height; but, before that, we shall encounter it in the doctrine of the microcosm and the macrocosm which occupies so great a space in the “Timzeus, *
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CHAPTER XTX: THE “TIMZUS” AND THE “CRITIAS.”
1. AN historical novel and a scientific fairy tale—it is thus that we may describe the content of these two dialogues, without breach of the reverence due to Plato. A consider- able time after the completion of the “ Republic,” its author gathered up the threads he had allowed to drop, and set about increasing by an extension a work which was already of no mean magnitude. The same endeavour after sys- tematic completeness, shown in the expansion of a work originally created without any thought of continuation, is manifest here as in the continuation of the “ Theztetus.” The analogy goes further. In both cases Plato planned a tetralogy of which the last member is lacking in the exe- cution. In the present case the performance has lagged still further behind the intention, for even the third part of the trilogy—the “ Critias’”»—remained incomplete ; in fact, it breaks off in the middle of a sentence.
The “ Timzus ” and the “ Critias” are cemented to the “Republic” by their matter, but not by their form. New characters appear in the dialogue: besides Isocrates, there is the Timzeus who gives his name to the first of these two dialogues, a citizen and statesman of Locri, in Lower Italy, a man here praised for his philosophic training, and almost certainly a personal friend of Plato’s. The latter makes him the mouthpiece of his own theories of nature, possibly as an expression of gratitude to Timzus himself and other representatives of the Pythagorean school. The third character, who is also the chief speaker in the second
A RECAPITULATION OF THE “ REPUBLIC” 201
dialogue, which is named after him, is Plato’s highlyesteemed great-uncle, the Critias who is already well known to the reader (cf. Vol. II. pp. 250, 301); the fourth is Hermocrates, who was intended to be the chief speaker in the fourth dialogue bearing his name, like which he is for us a mere shadow. With these persons Socrates states that he has had a conversation on the previous day, and the substance of this is recapitulated in the opening portion of the “Timzus.”’ To a great extent, but by no means com- pletely, it coincides with the matter contained in the “Republic.” The material differences, as well as the variation in the persons represented as having taken part in the dialogue, have roused the astonishment of interpreters, and led some of them to hypotheses which we regard as adventurous. The two circumstances, as we believe, may be satisfactorily explained by reference to the objects which guided Plato in the composition of the “Timzeus’”’ and the “ Critias.”
The author of the “Republic” was not spared the reproach of having designed a Utopia, an unattainable ideal of the State and of society. An echo of this complaint, which for the rest is very intelligible, reaches us in the criticism to which Aristotle subjected the work of his master (cf. p. 119). There was another reproach, too, of which we learn from Crantor, a pupil of one of Plato’s pupils, and the oldest commentator on the “ Timzus:” Plato was accused of being unfaithful to the traditions of his native land, and of going to school to the Egyptians—a criticism which was doubtless made with an eye to the caste-like organization of Plato’s pattern State. To these accusations coming from without there was certainly added a feeling of uneasiness in Plato’s own breast. A scion of an ancient and noble house, a descendant of Attic kings, could not be content with the 7é/e of subversive innovator and quibbling sophist, which his projects of political reform had led Isocrates to attribute to him (cf. p. 27). To this chorus of accusing voices he answered by a narrative which was intended to turn the edge of these reproaches, and at the same time offer signal satisfaction to his own feelings
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of affection for a fatherland which he had so often felt himself compelled to censure. Truth and fiction were blended in this narrative ; but the fiction was not wholly arbitrary, and a considerable measure of self-deception preceded the deception practised on others. Plato believed that he had discovered some of the essential features of his political ideal in the dim beginnings of his native city. We have already had more than one occasion to note the shiftings of his historical perspective ; and we have seen how he came, half involuntarily, to find the image of the future mirrored in the past (cf. pp. 91 and 108). Inspired by this belief, he found in the facts of history, or in what were commonly accepted as such, a point of support for the true myth-forming faculty, which colours, supplements, and elaborates the half-known in accordance with emotional needs. Plato’s “ guardians”—that ruling class freed from all petty cares and ignoble aspirations, extending their fatherly guidance and protection to the great mass of the people—were by no means unlike a genuine aristocracy, especially that transfigured image of it which is cherished in the traditions of old and noble families. The similarity was heightened in the mind of one who credited the whole of primitive Greece with those customs and institutions of Sparta which inclined towards practical communism, and transferred them to the soil of prehistoric Athens. Even the caste-like separation of classes was not quite without its precedent in this latter quarter. There was at the least a widespread belief that in former ages such a sharply marked division had existed. Thus Aristotle, in his “Con- stitution of the Athenians,” speaks of three classes: the Eupatridz, or nobles; the agricultural peasants; and the artisans—three sections of the people, each with its own political rights and its proportion of votes in the election of the ten archons. Even so rash an innovation as the emancipation of women was not necessarily, for Plato, a product of the Socratic “thinking-shop,” as Aristophanes called it ; not “ Cloud-cuckoo-town,” but the Athens of his ancestors, was, in his belief, the original home of this practice, The guardian goddess of the city, “Athene the
WHY THE RECAPITULATION IS INCOMPLETE. 203
Defender,” who with shield and spear kept watch on the height of the Acropolis, was in this instance the guarantor of his faith, She supplied him with a proof that at one time “the business of war had been the common concern of men and women;” and if this were the case with that most unfeminine of occupations, why not with all others ? Two inferences follow from what has just been said. In the recapitulation of his political ideals with which Plato prefaces his parallels from prehistoric Athens, those features are necessarily absent of whose existence in the primitive age he could persuade neither himself nor his readers. He was thus obliged to break off that recapitulation at the point where he would otherwise have touched on the scientific education of the “ guardians,” their crowning study of dialectic, the theory of knowledge by which all those requirements were justified and invested with a deeper meaning. Secondly, the participants in the present dialogue, and therefore also in the earlier one, represented as having preceded it, were necessarily different from those of the “Republic,” and such as were better suited to the purposes of the continuation. Thus, in particular, Plato’s younger brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, are replaced by his great-uncle Critias, the representative of an earlier genera- tion, who repeats his tale of prehistoric Athens as having been told him in his early boyhood by his aged grandfather. The latter, who was also named Critias, had in his turn heard it from a close friend of his father Dropides, the far- travelled and historically learned legislator and poet Solon. 2. The quasi-historical verification is accompanied by a quasi-experimental one—a strange proceeding, which it is not too easy for us to understand. Immediately after the recapitulation to which we have alluded, Socrates lets fall the remark that he feels like a man looking at a fine painting ; he is seized, as such a man might be, with a longing to see the figures on which he has been feasting his gaze—not only at rest, but in active motion. He would like to hear of the conflicts sustained by the pattern State of its relations with other states, of the famous actions performed by its citizens. This is the cue for which Critias
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is waiting, in order to regale his audience with the narrative once told by Solon, on the authority of Egyptian priests and by them derived from the study of primeval records. Here begins the marvellous tale of the citizens of Athens in the dim prehistoric age. Plato is not content with attributing to his own and his fellow-citizens’ forefathers institutions resembling in essentials those devised by him- self in the “ Republic ;”” nor does he rest satisfied when he has repelled the charge of “ Egypticizing” by making the Egyptians themselves the borrowers. He goes on to recount the great deeds of those Athenian forefathers, more particularly their wonderful victory, gained nine thousand years ago, over the inhabitants of Atlantis, an island in the Western sea which had afterwards sunk beneath the surface. The narrative is begun in the “ Timzus,” and continued in the “ Critias,’ but not concluded. What, we are inclined to ask, was Plato’s purpose in this over-bold fiction ?
No doubt the pleasure of romancing was in itself no small allurement to the poet-philosopher; in his later period he was no longer satisfied, as when he wrote the “Symposium,” the “ Phzdrus,” the “Gorgias,” or the “ Pro- tagoras,” with the opportunities afforded him in the con- struction of the dialogue, in the word-painting of the scenery, in the richly coloured characterization of the dramatis person@, in the alternation of highly diversified styles of discourse. We can well understand that this particular tendency of Plato’s mind has now carved out a separate channel for itself, and become an independent element in his work. But while we may have here dis- covered a predisposing cause, the true ground and motive of his puzzling procedure is still to seek. Not even in the days of his old age did Plato become a mere teller of stories. Behind his romancing we have most certainly to look for a didactic purpose ; and the nature of it is indicated to us in no uncertain manner by the wish of Socrates to see the ideal figures of the “ Republic” set, as it were, in motion. The viability of these figures had been called in question ; objections had been raised, both by others and in Plato’s mind (cf. p. 128), against the practicability and
PLATO AND THE “ EXPERIMENTAL NOVEL.” 205
salutary operation of the Platonic projects. These doubts it was necessary to overcome; and the weapon of fiction seemed more effective for the purpose than the mere parallelism with the above-mentioned institutions. The paradox is not so great as it sounds; an analogous case in modern literature will serve as δὴ illustration. A highly gifted French novelist of the nineteenth century states very seriously, in his “ Experimental Novel,’ his conviction that by the long series of his own fictitious narratives he has done more for the progress of psychology than is generally accomplished by any one acute and profound observer of human nature. He believes that in the rigorously consistent deduction of action from character, the latter an assumed datum based on “human documents,” he has performed a truly scientific operation, closely akin to the experiments conducted by the student of nature. Plato, we imagine, entertained a precisely similar purpose. Deceiving himself by a process which is as intelligible in the one case as in the other, he overlooked the arbitrary element which must necessarily cleave to his description under the best of circumstances. In his con- tinuation of the “ Critias ” he would certainly have honestly endeavoured to depict characters and actions such as would necessarily arise out of the assumed situation, that is, from the institutions and educational system of the ideal State, supposed realized. He would have claimed the ideal beauty of the characters and the excellence of the actions as wit- nesses to the soundness of the projected institutions, the worthiness of the ends proposed for pursuit, and the efcacy of the means recommended for their attainment. In other words, he would have laid upon the shoulders of his fiction that task which the student of nature performs when he verifies experimentally the result of a theoretical deduction.
Plato abandoned the undertaking when barely begun. For this we need assign no other reason than that the genuine scientific spirit was after all too strong in him; that though he might project, he could not carry out a plan founded on so grievous a self-deception without becoming
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aware of its illusory character. Thus what we have before us is not the edifice as the architect designed it, but only the vestibule by which it was to be approached: the description of that mighty empire which was founded by Poseidon and ruled by his posterity, ten allied kings in each generation—an empire which surpassed all regions of the earth in the excellence of its climate and the fruitful- ness of its soil, in its abundance of precious metals, in the magnificence of its aqueducts and the splendour of its temples and palaces—an empire whose power extended over an island larger than Africa and Asia taken together, over other islands lying beyond it, and over parts of the Western Continent itself, which by force of arms had pushed its authority as far as the borders of Egypt in Africa and those of Italy in Europe.
We should be glad to know how far Plato’s fiction is based on popular legend ; how far the belief in an extensive country in the West rests on the presupposition of a not wholly unsymmetrical distribution of land between the Eastern and Western hemispheres ; how far the fact, now attested by documentary evidence, of an incursion into Libya and Egypt made by conquering “sea-nations” coming from the West. But on all these points we are left to uncertain conjecture.
3. Be that as it may, the historical romance merely supplies a framework for Plato’s theories of nature. To give an account of these is not the most delectable of tasks. Their fruitfulness stands in inverse ratio to their obscurity. The contents of the “ Timzus” have always been regarded as enigmatic ; so much so, that the con- troversy over their interpretation began in the second generation of the Platonic school, and has lasted down to the present day. It was not till late in life that the philosopher approached the investigation of nature; this part of his system was therefore subjoined by way οἱ appendix to the “ Republic,’ a work already complete in itself, in which all the other divisions of his philosophy were contained. Even then the study of nature was for him, as he tells us expressly, a labour of secondary
PLATO AS A NATURE-PHILOSOPHER. 207
importance, a kind of pastime. The limitations of Plato’s endowment are here plainly discernible, and it is still more evident that by his disdain of the most effective means of pursuing these inquiries, he has closed against himself the paths which might have led to valuable results. Indeed, this antagonism to the experimental method is even more pronounced in the “Timzus” than in the “Republic ;” what he had ridiculed in the earlier dialogue (cf. pp. 84, 85, and 187) he condemns in the later. Alluding to an experiment, probably conducted by atomists, and bearing on a question in the theory of colour, he describes such procedure as a trespassing on the divine domain, as rebellious presumption of the human intellect. Thus the most important auxiliary in the investigation of nature is no longer merely disdained, but proscribed as an impiety. From the romance of “Atlantis,” Plato passes to his theories of nature by a transition which is external in character and not a little violent. The narrative must not proceed, he says, till the origin of man has been described, and this presupposes the origin of the world. But the bond by which these two parts of the work were connected in the author’s mind was much closer and stronger. It was from the nature of justice that the investigation in the “ Republic” had set out; in the “Timzeus” he returns to the same point by a wide circuit. He supplies ethics with a cosmic foundation. The whole of nature is “ ethicized,’ and in the following manner. The analogy between individual and State is no longer sufficient for the broadened range of Plato’s thought ; it is expanded into an analogy between man and the universe. Justice, as the reader will remember, had been defined as the right relation among the different parts of the soul. To this there corresponded the right relation among the three classes of the ideal State. But Plato’s survey is now immeasurably enlarged. The threefold division is now extended to the world-soul; and on the due proportion of its three parts, the continuance of the universe is made to depend. While justice was previously regarded as the foundation of human happiness, it is now acknowledged,
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like the “good” of the “ Philebus,’ as essential to the welfare of the cosmos. The whole organic world, in its various transformations, is similarly conditioned by the ascendancy or the decline of justice. These transformations form a descending scale. Man, who is created first, sinks, as a result of moral deterioration, first into woman, then into brute form, and, continuing his downward progress from the higher through the lower animals, becomes at last a plant. Such is the kernel of the Platonic theory of descent—a descent with every right to the name, whereas our modern doctrine of the derivation of species should rather be called a theory of ascent, as involving a pro- gress upwards. One rule applies both to the individual and the race. “By the loss and gain of wisdom and unreason,’ the higher sink to the lower, and the lower again sometimes rise to the higher, in virtue of the trans- migration of souls. The Orphic doctrine of the “fall of the soul by sin” is here blended with the Pythagorean metempsychosis, and the two together expanded into a theory which embraces the whole universe. Orphic, Pythagorean, and Socratic elements unite to produce a conception of the cosmos, the greatness and sublimity of which is worthy of a thinker and poet, in whom the ethical impulses were supreme, while at the same time its lack of foundation in fact moves our astonishment. But this astonishment may be lessened by the following con- siderations. Severed as he was from the atomists by the religious temper of his mind, and thus deprived of the only school then accessible in which he might have learnt the true way to understand nature, Plato had no other choice than to follow Pythagorean teachers, who could very well teach him to require rigour in deduction and to appreciate order and harmony, but not to eschew the arbitrary assump- tion of fundamental premisses. He himself was a deductive mathematician, not by any means an inductive physicist. His physics, indeed, as has been rightly observed, were biology, and his biology a psychology tinged with ethics. There thus arose in his mind a picture of the world which fascinates by its consistency within itself, by its numerical
THE TWOFOLD CREATION. 209
symmetry, by its ethical purpose, but which is destitute of all true foundation in experience. This picture of the world we have now to examine more closely.
In the “Timzus” Plato states that he can only offer “probable opinions,” not established truth ; Plato’s inter- preter is here in much the same case. He cannot claim certainty, but only a greater or less degree of plausibility for his exegesis. Sometimes he must be more modest still, and leave to the reader the choice among an array of conflicting explanations.
Timzus begins his exposition with the creative act of the supreme Deity, to whom, as in the “Sophist” and the “Statesman,” the names are applied of “ Artificer,” “Father,” and “Generator.” He creates a universal or world-soul, by the possession of which the universe becomes an organism. As such, it is sometimes spoken of as a living being, and again even as a “blessed god.” A germ of this conception, which has already found expression in the “Philebus,” may be recognized in the Orphic myth of the world-egg, as also in a comparison employed by Ana- ximenes (cf. Vol. I. pp. 56 and 92); and it is similarly prefigured in the teaching of the Pythagorean Philolaus as to the respiration of the world (cf. Vol. I. p. 139). Further, the universal mind of Xenophanes bears consider- able resemblance to the Platonic world-soul. But there is a noteworthy difference between the two. The pantheism of Xenophanes excludes the transcendental element. On the other hand, it was possible for Plato’s mind, moving as it did in the supersensual world of ideas, to conceive the world as animated, even as a deity, without rejecting on that account the idea of a supreme Godhead standing above the world, creating it and directing it.
That act of creation is twofold. The world-soul, with its endowment of reason, was created in the image of the ideas ; and its enveloping husk, the world-body or the heavens, was fashioned after the same model. As the Deity is good, He desired that all else should be good, and, as far as possible, He ordered the world accordingly. This is a phrase of weighty import, this “as far as possible,” and
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implies a limitation of the divine power. Plato does, in fact, speak of a principle, named here “ Necessity,” which is in conflict with the good, which may be appeased or silenced by reason, but not overcome. In addition to these two principles of necessity and reason, he recognizes yet a third, the “cause of disordered motion,” which originally prevailed in the world of space, and was converted into order by the Deity. This is the point at which we encounter the first great difficulty of interpretation. We are told further on that simultaneously with the heavens, or world- body, time came into existence—a thought in which we catch at least a faint echo of the Orphic cosmogonies (cf. Vol. I. p. 86). How is this dictum to be reconciled with the assertion of that disorderly motion which preceded the world, and which must have been a process in time? This difficulty was a great stumbling-block to the ancient ex- positors. One ingenious attempt to solve it is as old as Aristotle. According to this view, Plato speaks of those motions much in the same spirit as a teacher of geometry shows his pupil a figure constructed piece by piece, for the sake of clearness, and not in order that an origin in time or relations of succession may be attributed to what is really coexistent. (Draw such and such a line, draw another meeting it at a given angle, andsoon.) Aristotle rightly condemned this way out of the difficulty as inade- quate. There is more plausibility in a second ancient solution, which may be reproduced, briefly and in modern terminology, as follows: Plato is not thinking of motions actually performed before the creation, but a tendency, an ever-present resistance to orderly motion; it is merely for the sake of greater vividness in exposition that he speaks of this as an independent factor that had once manifested itself with untrammelled freedom. We should be glad to rest content with this explanation. It is barred, however, by the circumstance that exactly the same assertion of a chaos preceding the cosmos is found in the “Statesman ;” and it is improbable in the highest degree that an author should have used the same figurative and misleading form of expression twice and in two quite different contexts.
MOTION AND PRIMARY MATTER. Sr
Turn and twist the matter as we will, there is no acquitting Plato of having confused ¢z7me, if not with the measure of time—the heavens, with the sun, moon, and stars, are regarded by him as such a measure—yet with the time, which thereby became measurable.
4. We have been speaking of the disorderly motion which preceded the beginning of things. What, then, was it that moved? This is a point which Plato had not ex- plained with perfect clearness. Are we therefore to join the number of those modern interpreters who credit him with the absurdity of assuming a motion which is a motion of nothing? Our view is rather that Plato recognizes, as substratum of this motion and of all processes of becoming, a kind of primordial matter, originally without form or qualities, which he terms sometimes the “nurse,” and again the “womb” or the “mother,” of all becoming. But this “dark and difficult” somewhat, destitute of reality in the fullest sense of the word, in face of which he confesses his perplexity with equal candour and emphasis, is in his mind so far from being identified with its ‘“‘seat’”—mere space—that, on the contrary, he affirms the assumption of empty space to be illegitimate, and banishes it entirely from his picture of the universe.
Thus the creative act does not, for Plato, mean a creation out of nothing. The cosmos, or well-ordered universe, is created in the sense that the Demiurge, or artificer, imparts form to the formless, order and regularity to the disorderly and irregular. Before we pass on, let us say a word on the Demiurge himself. Since his being consists solely in goodness, it is natural to ask whether and how he is to be distinguished from the idea of the good, to which the fore- most place was assigned in the “ Republic.” An answer, a well-considered answer, to this question is that there is no distinction at all. The following are the grounds which serve to justify this conclusion : If the Demiurge were not identical with the idea of the good, he would necessarily participate in it, or be copied from it; he would therefore occupy a lower position than that idea, which is contrary to his strongly emphasized rank as Supreme Deity. The complete
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identification of the Demiurge with the idea of the good thus seems unavoidable. But it is open to an objection which is worth consideration. It is true that the idea of the good has already been represented in the “ Republic” as an active principle, not an inert pattern, by an enhance- ment of its nature which we do not find accorded to the other ideas till we reach the “Sophist.” But it is quite certain that Plato is fully in earnest when he speaks of the fabrication of the world by the Demiurge. That the world has “become,” and has not existed from eternity, is a thesis which he affirms, amid doubts and reservations on other matters, in a tone of dogmatic certitude. How, then—we are driven to ask—can this work of creation, which is an isolated act, not a continuous influence, be ascribed to an idea, that is, to an hypostasized quality, even though it were the highest of all qualities? We know of no answer but the following: The enhancement or transfiguration of the ideas, more accurately their deification, has made further and further progress in Plato’s mind. In the “ Timzus” he roundly terms the ideas “eternal gods ;” but the names “author,” “generator,” “father,” are, as we have already observed, to be found in the “Sophist”’ and “ Statesman,” and do not meet us in the “ Timeus” for the first time. These names, we now venture to say, denote in all these dialogues the same principle which in the “ Republic” appears as “the idea of the good.” It is not for the sake of disguising his thought, or of merely presenting it in a new dress, that Plato chooses these names; he does so because in his own consciousness that supreme and divine principle has become invested with a greater degree of personality, and has thereby gained, as we learn from the “Timzus” itself and its doctrine of creation, what we have called in another connexion “an allowance of free action” (cf. Vol. I. p. 26).
Like the great natural fetishes of the old Hellenic religion, Plato’s ideas have outgrown themselves. It is thus no conscious accommodation to popular theology that we have to presuppose. Plato has, indeed, something to keep back, as is shown by his saying that “to discover the
CHE? EVIL: WORLD-SOUL”’ 213
Author and Father of this All is difficult ; to reveal Him to all, were He once discovered, would be impossible.” But his meaning, we think, is only that, although the embodi- ment of all good has become for him a divine Person, he yet rejects all anthropomorphic accretions that can possibly be dispensed with, so that this primordial principle is very unlike what passes for deity in the general mind. For the rest, Plato's inner estrangement from the popular faith is greater in the “Timzus” than anywhere else. This is apparent from his remark, made not without a touch of irony, that the assertions made touching the gods of mythology rest on no cogent or even plausible proof ; still, law and tradition ought to be trustfully followed. But what repels him in the popular religion is not its poly- theism. Even his own Supreme Godhead does not stand alone, but is surrounded by a company of “eternal gods,” the ideas ; he generates the “blessed deity’ known as the Cosmos, and those souls clad in fiery raiment, the stars. Further, the god of goodness has not fellows and sub- ordinates merely, but mighty opponents. With two of the latter we have already made acquaintance—Necessity, a dark primeval force which resists the good—and the irregularly working or “erratic cause of motion.” These agencies are fused into one and augmented in the “ Laws,” where the “beneficent” world-soul is matched against a hostile principle with “contrary powers” to its own. We have here an aspect of Plato’s theology on which it is all the more necessary to lay stress, because it has often been ignored, and sometimes even denied, by the historians of philosophy.
“ Away, then, with that evil world-soul!” So exclaims no less a critic than August Bockh; and evidently he believes himself to be doing Plato’s reputation a service by eliminating this highly important element from his theory of the gods. And yet it redounds not a little to the honour of the poet-thinker that, with all his artist’s delight in beauty, he is not blind to the evil of the world ; that he is consistent enough, in face of that evil, not to find the omnipotence of the deity compatible with his perfect
VOL. III. Q
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goodness. The latter could be supposed absolute only if there were limits and hindrances to the realization of the divine purposes. The maturer experience of added years and the gradual loss of the optimism natural to sanguine youth had doubtless contributed to make the power of evil loom larger in Plato’s outlook. Witness the doubts to which utterance had already been given in the closing portion of the “ Republic” as to the possibility of realizing the social ideal portrayed in that dialogue—doubts which find stronger expression in the “Statesman,” and the strongest of all in the “ Laws.” Nothing, then, could be more natural than that, with Plato’s view of life darkened by sad experiences, some tinge of that blackness should appear in his picture of the universe; that the powers hostile to the good, or, the same thing for him, to order and regularity, should both fill a wider space and tend to become concentrated in a single principle. In the “ Theztetus,” every good had its companion evil attached to it like ashadow. But that only applied to life on the earth, not to cosmic existence. In the “ Statesman,” periods of universal “disorder” alternate with orderly periods in which the divine goodness reigns without limita- tion or check. In the “ Timzus ” evil appears as a restrained but ever-active power, still bearing many names, and not yet comprehended under the unity of a supreme principle. In accordance with the tendencies of Plato’s later phase, such a principle would necessarily be of the nature of soul, and it is nothing to be surprised at if in the last of his works he took the final step, demanded by the whole course of his development, and provided the good world-soul with its manifest counterpart. It should be added that Plato’s pessimistic tendency is much more prominent in his treat- ment of various subordinate matters than in his presentation of the main theological and metaphysical thesis. For while the evil world-soul is spoken of as less powerful than the good, and the corresponding principles appear in the “Timzus” as disturbing elements, not as predominant forces by which the good is overpowered, the “Zoogony,” on the other hand, or theory of descent to which we have
COMPOSITION OF THE WORLD-SOUL., 215
already referred, exhibits mankind as continually sinking to lower and lower planes of existence, and wears an aspect of thorough-going pessimism. The gloomy outlook, more- over, is not relieved (exceptional cases apart) by any prospect of future restoration such as had been held out in the Orphic doctrine of the “fall of the soul by sin,” of which the influence is here apparent.
To return to the world-soul, we note that it, too, is not created out of nothing. It comes into being by a process which is, strictly speaking, not so much one of creation as of composition, such as we have already heard of in the “Philebus.” We are here brought into contact with the most abstract, we may perhaps say the most abstruse, part of Plato’s philosophy. As objects of the mixing process, we have two primary substances; and these are mixed first with each other, secondly with the product of the first mixing. These primary substances are not wholly new to the reader. In the “Philebus” they appear under the names of “limit” and “the unlimited.” In the “ Timzus” they are renamed, and we now know them as “the same” and “the other,” the second of which appellations reminds us of the “Sophist.” Yet, again, they are termed “the divisible” and “the indivisible,” and Plato’s pupils spoke in this connexion of “unity,” of “the great and the small,” or of “duality.” These are Platonic developments of Pythagorean thoughts, and remind us of the “ table of con- traries.” With the substance of the world of ideas is contrasted the substance of the physical world. On the one side we have the principle of good, unchangeable, uniform, regarded at the same time as the limiting, forming, comprehending unity. Opposed to it is the principle of evil, which is likewise the principle of change, of difference, of division and dismemberment. We should not at this point lose sight entirely of Plato’s political and ethical teaching. To efface all diversities, to realize unity in a measure far transcending the bare necessities of civic peace —such, as we have already seen, was the object pursued with single-minded earnestness in Plato’s social scheme. Once more we note the boundless extension of the aged
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philosopher’s intellectual horizon; the great factors in human weal and woe have for him become merged in cosmic principles, and these again are traced to their source in the domain of the supernatural. The doctrine prevailed in early antiquity that like is known by like; and in accordance with this the unitary principle of the world-soul, as we may shortly term it, becomes the subject of rational knowledge, the dual principle that of opinion ; the object of the higher knowledge is the ideas, of the lower the things perceptible by the senses. Much the hardest to understand is the entity produced by the mixture of the two original substances. Such being its origin, it must necessarily be intermediate in character, a mean between two extremes. Now, this position of intermediary between ideas and things was ascribed by Plato in the “Republic” to mathematical forms. Some of his followers have accordingly supposed that what is here meant is the totality of such forms. But the designation of this inter- mediate something as “substance,” or οὐσία par excellence and the nature of the mixing in the “ Philebus”’ (cf. p. 188), incline us rather to describe it, in un-Platonic terminology it must be admitted, as the realization of form in matter, or rather, the principle of such realization.
The souls of the heavenly bodies and of the beings resident on the earth were formed of the same elements as the world-soul. Man was the first of animals to be created, or rather compounded out of the material elements; and to the immortal soul within him, the first home of which had been on some fixed star, there were now joined two other mortal souls. This triad—the rational or head-soul, the spirited or breast-soul, and the appetitive or abdominal soul—has already been brought to our notice (cf. pp. 38 and 73). What is new is the detailed parallelism between the microcosm and the macrocosm. One point deserves special mention as characteristic of Plato's poetically constructive method. Where we compare he identifies. We, too, might be inclined to compare the stars, travelling in their appointed paths with changeless, equable motion, to well-ordered rational thoughts, untroubled by any
Tite, ΤΟ ΠΟ Τ᾽ OF ‘THE WORLD-SOUL. 9217
current of feeling. For the author of the “ Timzus” the rational thoughts of man are nothing less than regular rotations, performed within the human head, which he regards as copied from the spherical heaven. Similarly, the rational thoughts of the world-soul are regarded as dependent upon movements which its element of identity or unity executes in the plane of the celestial equator, while the uncertain opinions or notions of its second element, “the other,” are bound up with motions in the plane of the ecliptic, which is inclined obliquely to the equatorial plane. What reason is to opinion, such is the unvarying revolution of the sphere of the fixed stars to the motions of the planets with their “turnings and strayings.” But we are anticipating ; our present business is with the body of the world-soul, the material cosmos and its origin.
5. “Plato mathematicized nature,’ was the caustic sibe of an ancient critic.’ It is quite true’ that ‘the natural philosophy of the “ Timzus” proceeds throughout upon the assumption of mathematical regularities and corresponding rhythms, even in spheres where modern science has seldom sought and never found them. It follows the lead of an zsthetic or quasi-zsthetic sentiment, backed by the confident hope that nature will everywhere meet the demand to the full. It is easy enough to expose the baselessness of this hope and to inveigh against the arbitrariness of the resulting method; but it is a harder matter to recognize the element of legitimacy which it contains. With Plato, as with his Pythagorean predecessors, the well-founded divination of a universal reign of law was balked of its due satisfaction by an insufficient knowledge of causes; still, as we have already had occasion to remark, “it was anyhow better to look for law where it did not exist than not to look for it at all” (cf. Vol. I. p. 119). There are modern instances, too, such as that of the great Johannes Kepler and his “ Mysterium Cosmographicum,” which teach us that the boundary between the almost sportive quest of merely apparent regularities and the epoch-making discovery of comprehensive natural laws is
218 GREEK THINKERS.
sometimes very unstable. The other canon of Plato’s method in natural philosophy was of more fatal con- sequence. He adopted in dead earnest the postulate of the “ Phedo,” that all investigation should be conducted from the standpoint of “the better;” and he employed this teleological principle not only where the better was simply the more regular, but where it was the more preferable, judged by the general human or the speci- fically Greek standard, or even by his own personal taste. His instrument, here as before, is deduction a priori, which, in the best case, takes an arbitrarily selected piece of experience, and thence spins its far-reaching threads.
The universal being—such, roughly, is his argument— if it was to manifest itself, was under the necessity of becoming visible and tangible. Visibility demanded light, tangibility earth. But these two elements were not enough. In order that they might be combined into a unity, there was need of a proportional relation ; and this implied the existence of intermediate terms. Moreover, two such terms were necessary ; for in the domain of cubic or solid numbers such proportions—the reason of this is a highly controversial problem in the exposition of the “ Timzeus ”— cannot be effected by one middle term, but require two. The scheme could not be a: 8=0:6c, but must be a: 6 = Ais
By this deductive path Plato arrives at the Empedo- clean quaternary of elements, water and air supplying the required intermediates. As water is related to earth, so is fire to air ; and the series, earth, water, air, fire, exhibits a progress from the least to the highest degree of mobility. The specific nature of the four fundamental substances is deduced from their primary constituents, and ultimately the geometrical properties of the latter. In this Plato is said to have followed Philolaus, who would appear to have constructed a Pythagorean atomism in rivalry to that of Abdera. Four of the regular solids were assigned as the fundamental forms of the four elements: the cube as that of earth; the tetrahedron, or pyramid, as that of fire; the
THE COSMOS A LIVING SPHERE. 219
octahedron as that of air ; the icosahedron as that of water. The remaining regular solid, the dodecahedron, had been associated by Philolaus with the heavenly fire or ether ; Plato, probably reluctant to overstep the number of four proportional terms, perhaps, too, with the object of avoiding the pentagons of the dodecahedron, omitted this element altogether, though he admitted it again in his latest phase. It is hardly necessary to say that the tapering tongue of flame suggested the pyramid as the form of the primary constituents of fire, while the cube was assigned to the earth-element, on the ground of its comparative immobility. Now, each of the six sides of a cube can be divided into two right-angled isosceles triangles ; on the other hand, the faces of the other three fundamental solids are compounded of right-angled scalene triangles, of what was considered the most perfect form: hence was explained the trans- mutability of the corresponding elements (water, air, fire) into each cther, while earth, with its radically different triangles, occupied a position apart. The enigmatic question whether Plato conceived the interior of his primary solids to be empty, or with what he imagined them filled, can hardly admit any other answer than that those smallest triangles enclosed formless ultimate matter, the assumption of which is demanded by several other problems, insoluble without it, in the physics of the “ Timzus.” The primary triangles themselves, however, were regarded as exempt from all motion, and played the same part in the Platonic physics which Leucippus and Democritus had reserved for their atoms. Plato’s relation to the atomists, we may remark, is not a little peculiar. He knows their theories, he borrows an isolated hypothesis from them here and there, but on the whole he is uncompromisingly hostile to their conception of the universe, and he is not above attacking them with ridicule and plays upon words. Thus in combating the infinity of the universe he makes frequent use of the twofold meaning borne by a Greek word which may signify either “infinite” or “ ignorant.”
The elements having been constructed @ priori, the cosmos is now constructed out of the elements. Since the
220 GREEK THINKERS.
sphere is the most perfect of forms, the universe, the most perfect of physical existences, must be spherical. Justifi- cation is thus found for what a glance at the vault of heaven teaches the eye of the beholder. In this portion of the dialogue reasoned anthropomorphism and the artificial return to the naive ideas of nature entertained by primitive man reach their culminating height. Plato expounds, in all seriousness, the reasons why the cosmos, though a living being, is able to dispense with extremities and a mouth: the first, because of all possible motions only the most perfect is vouchsafed to it, namely, rotation in itself; the second, because that which includes everything in itself can receive no nutriment from without, while its continuance is ensured by the fact that it is not, like other beings, threatened with disease and injury by external agents. Cognate thoughts have been expressed in our own day by Gustav Theodor Fechner ; but mature science may indulge in a half-serious sport with hypotheses, which at an earlier stage is far from profitable.
6. It is not the object of the present work to register all the erroneous opinions of even great minds. Only so much need find a place here as serves for the characterization of an age or illustrates the growth of science. To this category belongs the rudiment, discernible in Plato’s astronomical teaching, of the theory of the celestial spheres—a theory which was soon to receive ample development, and which, thus elaborated, survived for centuries, nay, millennia, and was not entirely abandoned even by Copernicus. Compared with the astronomy of Philolaus, this theory may be termed at once retrograde and progressive. It was retrograde because it attached the heavenly bodies to solid supports, and thus departed further from the truth than the doctrine of those Pythagoreans who had already learnt to regard the stars as freely suspended in space. At the same time, the sphere-theory contained an element of progress, since it provided a means—appropriate in itself and capable of considerable improvement—for the faithful and accurate representation of the forces acting upon the heavenly bodies. This theory and that of Philolaus both set out
BEGINNINGS OF THE SPHERE-THEORY. 221
from what is the starting-point of all scientific astronomy, the endeavour, namely, to resolve the variable and irregular movements visible in the heavens into constant and regular movements out of which they are compounded. The manner in which this analysis was effected by the hypothesis of Philolaus is familiar to the reader (cf. Vol. I. p. 113, seg.) We do not learn how it came about that Plato, who followed that Pythagorean so closely in his dactrine of the elements, struck out an entirely different path in astronomy. In any case, this path led backwards to an archaic, one might almost say to the primitive fashion of Hellenic thought. It was possibly a religious prejudice by which Plato was here guided. The earth, he felt, ought to rest once more in the centre of the universe. It was not till the days of his extreme old age, so we learn from the most trustworthy of all authorities, Theophrastus, that Plato changed his mind on this subject. He then “repented” of having assigned to the earth the position of greatest dignity in the cosmos—a repentance which we ought perhaps to interpret in the sense that the growing depreciation of human concerns observable in the “ Laws”’ was extended to the dwelling-place of the human race. That retrogression, however, led straight to the “brazen heaven” of Homer, to a celestial sphere imagined as material, to which the fixed stars are attached. The measure of legitimacy possessed by this conception can hardly be better expressed than in the following words of an eminent American astronomer of our day :—
“Tt must be admitted that the idea of the stars being set in a hollow sphere of crystal, forming the vault of the firmament, was a very natural one. They seemed to revolve round the earth every day, for generation after generation, without the slightest change in their relative positions. If there were no solid con- nexion between them, it does not seem possible that a thousand bodies could move around their vast circuit for such long periods of time without a single one of them varying its distance from one of the others. It is especially difficult to conceive how they could all move around the same axis.”
It was not in the slightest degree unscientific to search
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for a single cause underlying these phenomena ; and if the quest ended in complete failure, this was the natural result of ignorance touching the one circumstance which affords a satisfactory explanation. Instead of the daily rotation of the earth, a daily rotation of the celestial vault was assumed. The impulse towards an ampler development of hypotheses came to Plato from the irregularities, no doubt very imperfectly known to him, which characterize the movements of the seven bodies named planets or wandering stars: the sun, the moon, and the five planets visible to the naked eye. Wecall to mind the screw-like windings of the sun which are exhibited to the eye as the result of his combined daily and yearly motions (cf. Vol. I. p. 112). That these motions, too, must be absolutely regular, and indeed strictly circular, was a presumption founded upon the daily motions of the stars, which appear to move in circles, owing to the rotation of our own abode, the earth. This presumption was further strengthened by a natural predilection for the circle, which was accorded the same precedence among curves as the sphere enjoyed among cognate solids. The attempt to solve the problem thus presented gave rise to the theory of the celestial spheres. It was required to devise a combination of circular motions which should result in motions not strictly circular. Assistance was here afforded by the analogy of the sphere of the fixed stars, corresponding to which other spheres, or else, as in the early, Platonic form of the theory, ring or hoop-shaped structures were devised, bearing the planets (in the wider sense) attached to them. This con- ception, as we at least are inclined to think, is not un- connected with the sun, moon, and star-wheels invented by Anaximander (cf. Vol. I. p. 53)—a precedent which may have influenced either Plato himself or some predecessor of his unknown to us. The mechanism was thus provided by which a solution of the aforesaid problem became possible. The hoop or sphere with the planet attached to its equator was imagined enclosed in another sphere, fixed in such a manner that without losing its own proper motion it partook in that of the enclosing sphere. Assuming
DEVELOPMENT OF THE SPHERE-THEORY. 223
that the two motions were performed round different axes and with different velocities, it was quite possible, even though the component motions were circular, that the resulting orbit of the planet should deviate from the strict circular type. This is the simplest form of the hypo- thesis, and the one with which Plato remained content. The enclosing sphere was that of the fixed stars, the enclosed rings or hoops carried the planets; of the two motions thus compounded, the first took place in the celestial equator, or in the plane of “the same,” the second in the obliquely inclined plane of the ecliptic, in the circle of “the other.” In extreme old age, when Plato was engaged upon the “Laws,” he became acquainted with the theory of the earth’s rotation round its own axis, a theory already familiar to Aristotle (cf. Vol. I. p. 120), and gave it the preference over his own former speculations. The first step towards a further development of the sphere- theory was taken by Eudoxus, an investigator who supplies a model of genius combined with sobriety. How he elaborated the doctrine, already existent in germ, how his assumption of three spheres apiece for sun and moon, of four spheres for each of the true planets, fully met all the facts of observation then known, we may learn from the concise exposition of an eminent contemporary, the first astronomer of modern Italy. We shall return to the subject in connexion with the theories of Aristotle and Callippus.
Plato’s other thoughts on things celestial exhibit a purely Pythagorean tinge. The “ harmony of the spheres” recurs in the assumption that the circles described by the planets are disposed at intervals which ensure the har- monious concord of the sounds produced by their revolutions. Like the heaven of Pythagoras, so that of Plato, together with the world-soul pervading it, is “all number and harmony” (cf. Vol. I. p. 119). His great, or world-year (cf. Vol. I. p. 143), comprehends ten thousand ordinary years.
7. The most salient feature of Plato’s physics is its anthropomorphism. The doctrine of natural places, a
224 GREEK THINKERS.
deduction from wrongly interpreted observations (cf. p. 84), is presented in a manner implying that each element must feel uncomfortable when not in the region assigned to it, and yearn after its “natural” place. At the same time, there are not wanting welcome flashes of illumination. Among such must be counted the denial of a true above and below in space; the above and below in the doctrine of natural places are not absolute but conditioned by the stratification of matter round the earth, so that the anti- podeans may use these terms in the opposite sense to ours. Here, too, we reckon the consistency with which far-reaching consequences are drawn from the denial of the void. Though only a special case is discussed, the principles appealed to are of much wider scope. Plato represents the two phases of the respiratory act, expiration and inspiration, as together forming a single recurrent motion; and in this connexion he points out that, in the absence of a void space, motion can only proceed by each moving particle displacing its neighbour, this again another, till the impulse reaches a last particle, which takes the place of the first. The image of the “revolving wheel” is here made use of; and it may be conjectured that this most obvious and graphic illustration of cyclic transference had some share in the genesis of the ring or hoop-theory of the planetary motions. A remark- able anticipation of the most modern theories is perhaps to be found in the denial of real attraction, and thus of the action at a distance thereby implied, which is made in the course of a disquisition on electric and magnetic phenomena. It should not be forgotten, however, that this denial, whether it be justifiable or not, is one which primitive thought, dominated by the daily experience of impact and pressure, is particularly ready to make.
In the biology of the “ Timzus,” nothing is so remark- able as the predominance of specifically human, indeed of ethical, points of view. The sovereignty of reason, the restraint of desire, are here invested with supreme import- ance. Thus the numerous windings of the intestines are explained as a precaution against gluttony ; by retarding the passage of digestive residues they prevent too speedy
THE “DESCENT” OF) MAN, 225
replenishment. At first we are astonished that Plato seems to have completely forgotten the structural similarity of man’s congeners among the brutes ; but this feeling dis- appears in view of what we have called Plato’s theory of descent. If animals are degenerate men, the structure of their bodies may well bear witness to a purpose which was originally confined to the human race. At the same time, we have at least occasional examples of the opposite relationship. Thus nails, which are of little use to man, but of much use (in the shape of claws) to many beasts, are said to have been bestowed on the human race at its creation with an eye to its future degeneracy.
And now for a last word on this inverted theory of descent, perhaps the most remarkable of all the theories devised by Plato’s inventive mind. This pessimistic doctrine is the legitimate offspring of his theological optimism. The spectacle of the “mutual slaughter,” to use a phrase of the “ Protagoras,” which seems almost a fundamental law of the animal kingdom, could not but raise the question of how all this accumulated mass of suffering and injustice was caused. The responsibility for it could not be allowed to rest on the Deity conceived as nerfectly good, nor yet on the antagonistic principle of “Necessity,” to which too great power would then be attributed ; man, therefore, must be regarded as having by his own fault brought about his degeneracy and the terrible evils resulting from it. We are reminded of the passage in the “ Republic” which describes the voluntary choice by disembodied souls of the worse life-destinies. Here, as there, “ God is guiltless” of all evil (cf. p. 105).
The theory of disease expounded in the “Timzus” might be passed over if it were not that the problem of will, which we have just touched upon, is there treated in a fashion which invites us to cast a glance backwards and forwards. The primary Socratic thesis: No one errs of his own free will, recurs here in connexion with “disorders of the soul,” which Plato describes collectively as “want of intelligence,’ and subdivides into “madness” and “ignorance.” The first of these is explained as the result
226 GREEK THINKERS,
of particular bodily conditions—a remarkable expansion of the Socratic doctrine. In the works of Plato’s earliest period the above-mentioned thesis occurs in what is obviously the original Socratic form, as an expression of absolute confidence in the supremacy of that knowledge which is the fruit of reflexion and instruction. No one acts against his better conviction; he who appears to do so is demented.
This addition, this restrictive qualification, is now developed into a theory. Plato enters minutely into the physical causes of madness, and for us this procedure of his has a double significance. It shows, firstly, that he no longer follows Socrates in regarding madness as an isolated phenomenon, unworthy of more than passing mention; and, secondly, that the connexion between mental and bodily processes has now gained for him an interest commensurate with that widening of his intellectual horizon, so often emphasized by us, in which Nature is now included equally with the world of mind. At the same time, it is not a little remarkable with what tenacity he clings to the Socratic formula, not only in the “Timzeus” but even in the “Laws,” although the intellectualism of which it was originally the expression has been undermined as far back as in the “Gorgias” and the “ Phedo” (cf. Vol. II. p. 353, and Vol. III. p. 38), and still more, in the “ Republic,” by the doctrine of the tripartite soul and the emphatic recognition of prac- tice and habituation as indispensable in moral education (cf. p. 70). Plato’s furthest advance in this direction is to be observed in the obviously self-critical passages on the all-sufficiency of “wisdom” and “knowledge” which are scattered up and down the “ Laws,” that terminal member in the series of the Platonic writings to which our attention must now be directed.
A POSTHUMOUS WORK. 227
CIPA PTE Rs 30x. PLATO’S “LAWS.”
I. THERE is a fine poem by Ferdinand von Saar which begins with an apostrophe to “ Autumn, sunny and mild, that gives the forests new hues.” Such is the life’s autumn of which we have the reflex in the “ Laws,” Not that in this work of Plato’s old age all is pure radiance of intellect or mild and gentle sentiment. The journey through the “Laws” lies past many a desert tract, and there are occasional utterances of almost incomprehensible severity. Taken all in all, however, it is a work of the richest maturity, permeated by serene wisdom and a mellow warmth of feeling to which nothing human is alien. At the same time, it is in no mean degree the product of a high artistic sense, obscured, as we must admit, by not a few weaknesses of execution. Many circumstances conspire to diminish the power of its appeal. As ancient critics were well aware, the “Laws” never underwent the last labours of the file. It is a posthumous work, with the publication of which Plato entrusted his pupil and amanuensis Philippus of Opus. The latter discharged his commission in precisely the manner that was to be expected of the devoted disciple of a great master. The expectant circle of pupils and readers was not kept in long suspense. Within a year the voluminous work was given to the world. This very intelligible haste, and the still more intelligible feeling of duty towards the revered head of the school, caused the editor to refrain with the most scrupulous care from all interference with the text, and all the marks of imperfection, including certain manifest contradictions, were left unobliterated.
228 GREEK THINKERS.
The contents of the book, which includes no less than a complete code of constitutional, private, and criminal law, together with philanthropic and educational institutions, were out of keeping with the dialogue-form, the artistic medium which Plato nevertheless retained from lifelong habituation. Long didactic disquisitions were thus even less avoidable than in the “Timzus.” For the whole of one book, the fifth of the twelve, a single person speaks continuously, uninterrupted by as much as a question. To this conflict between form and matter were added other defects of which Plato was well aware, though unable to remedy them. He is conscious of the tendency to repetition arising from the loquacity of age, and he excuses it by remarking that “the truth may well be said twice or thrice over.” He is equally conscious of the old man’s leaning towards digressions, and he palliates it, making a virtue of necessity, by comparing his mind to a fiery steed which it is necessary to curb and hold forcibly to the straight path.
There is yet another reproach against which Plato defends himself in anticipation of his critics. It is in no spirit of wilfulness, he says, that he has industriously employed linguistic innovations. The feature to which he alludes is one that forces itself upon the most cursory reader of the “Laws.” The text of this work is thickly sown with neologisms, both real and apparent. He borrows words and forms from the language of the poets as well as from an older stage of the Attic dialect, and in addition he employs new inventions of his own in great number. All this, together with the frequently unusual order of the words and the delicately adjusted rhythm, evidently serves the purpose of imparting to the discourse a character of solemnity and remoteness from everyday commonplace (cf. Vol. II. pp. 279, 285, and Vol. III. 156). With regard to the success of this endeavour, the author is at no pains to con- ceal his satisfaction. He makes the other personages of the dialogue praise the “speeches resembling poetry,” and hold them up as models in the manner that betokens a remark- able and not altogether pleasing degree of self-complacency.
We say “the other personages of the dialogue,” because
EXIT SOCRATES. 229
Plato himself takes part in the colloquy behind the trans- parent mask of a stranger from Athens. The disappearance of Socrates is an event for which we have been in some measure prepared by other works of Plato’s old age. In the “Sophist” and the “Statesman” we saw the chief ré/e assigned to the stranger from Elea; in the “Timzus,” to the character from whom the dialogue takes its name. Several motives may be suggested for the dismissal of Socrates from the scene.
Possibly Plato thought it unfitting to make the chief character in the “Republic” the spokesman of a new political and sociah programme ; perhaps, too, he felt that the dogmatic tone predominant in these disquisitions was too far removed from the Socratic spirit of criticism, that many an expression of rigid intolerant orthodoxy was far more suited to a Meletus than to his victim. Be that as it may, Socrates has disappeared, and in his stead we have a stranger from Athens, a man advanced in years, con- versing with two other old men, the Spartan Megillus and the Cretan Cleinias. The three have set out together, on a day in midsummer, to walk from Cnossus the old-famed city of Minos, to the grotto of Zeus on Ida, a journey of several hours. As they traverse the undulating, grassy meadows, or rest in the shade of cypresses, famous for their wonderful beauty (the wide-branched variety is meant, which still grows in the island), they entertain each other with leisurely discourse.
The high artistic sense of the author shows itself most clearly at the beginning of the dialogue. Here is a con- versation, held with a Lacedemonian and a Cretan in the native land of the latter, having for its subject questions of legislation, and opening with the praises of the divine legislators. What else could its object be, so every reader was sure to ask, than to glorify the constitutions of those Dorian pattern-states which aristocrats and philosophers vied with each other in extolling? And it is quite true that features embodied in those constitutions—the aristo- cratic régime, the stability of the institutions, the strict discipline and subjugation of the individual will—served
VOL. TEE R
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Plato as models, But in one decisive point the case was otherwise. The policy of war and conquest was one which Plato detested from his innermost soul, and on this head he did not wish his readers to be left in doubt for a moment. Hence, almost at the beginning of the dialogue, the sug- gestive question is asked: What is the object of your common meals of men and kindred institutions? The answer elicited from the other interlocutors is that the political institutions of their countries are directed towards war and conquest as the supreme end. Plato at once signifies his dissent. He sets about proving the irrationality of war by comparing the strife of city with city to that of village with village; then to that between families and individuals ; lastly, to the inward conflict in the single soul. From this argument far-reaching consequences ensue. It has served to build a bridge between politics and ethics. Whither this bridge is to lead us soon becomes abundantly clear. If war and conquest are not the supreme end in politics, how can capacity for war, or courage, claim the first place in the hierarchy of the virtues? It is not the whole of virtue, but the least valuable part of it, towards which those institutions are directed, so far as their purpose is educational. This, it may be observed, is also the chief accusation brought by Aristotle against the Lycurgean discipline. In bringing it here, Plato strikes the key-note of the whole work. Towards the end he refers in express terms to this introduction, and the intervening matter is all subordinated to the same thought. The whole of state- craft is represented as a means of education, an instrument for the attaining of perfection ; and for the author of the ‘Taws,”) if not, for. that);of | the’ .* Gorcias” ands, the “ Theaetetus,” the “ Phzdo” and the “ Philebus,” perfection is the completest and most symmetrical development of the mind and the body, the evolving of a harmony in which the whole is set high above the parts,
But we will return from this anticipation, and follow Plato’s more deliberate advance. Even if courage were the chief of the virtues—it is thus, roughly, that the argu- ment proceeds—even then, the educational means employed
A COMPLETE EDUCATION, 231
would not be the best adapted to their purpose. The education in question is a one-sided, “limping” education. For courage, taken in its highest sense as steadfastness of the soul, is exercised not only in face of danger and pain, but also in respect of pleasure (cf. the treatment of the subject in the “ Laches,” p. 299, seg., of the second volume). Against the temptations from this source youth ought to be armed, not removed from temptation altogether. As an example, he takes the pleasures of wine, complete ignorance of which is counted by Megillus among the virtues of the Spartan youth. The truth is, according to Plato, that wine is a highly important test of the steadfastness of the soul, and at the same time a strengthening tonic for it, no less than the painful ordeals by which the boys of Sparta are trained into fitness for war. This brings him to an im- portant generalization, which he illustrates by an ingenious fiction. His purpose requires a substance contrary in its effects to wine—predisposing to fear instead of to desire, diminishing instead of increasing the sense of life and energy, depressing instead of exalting. The method sug- gested for the employment of wine in education consists in first exciting the aggressive and appetitive instincts by its use, then subjecting them to restraining discipline. The imagined antithesis to wine would render a similar service in respect of the depressive emotions. It is much as if Plato had prescribed the complementary use of alcohol and the bromides.
Education is the subject on which Plato first dwells at any length. Its primary object is stated (in the second book) to be right modes of feeling, the acquisition of which should precede by a long interval the instruction of the reason, and should be finally found in agreement with the substance of such instruction. After the education of children comes that received by adults on the occasion of festivals—an education resting in the last resort on rhythm and harmony. The question arises: What works of plastic and musical art are to be counted beautiful? The answer is: That is beautiful which pertains to any excellence of soul or body or to the copy of such virtue; ugliness has
232 GREEK THINKERS.
the same relation to vices and defects. The esthetic judgment is thus reduced to an ethical one. Prominence is given to the high importance of habituation, the effect of which is to produce liking, both for good things and evil. . For we involuntarily come to resemble the things that please’ us, even when they are evil, long before we cease to be shy of praising them. For this reason Egypt is highly commended as being the only land in which, by the establishment of fixed and unalterable types in musical as well as decorative art, legislative wisdom has done its utmost to familiarize youth with beauty (cf. Vol. II. p. 256).
Since all practice of art is to be subjected to the strictest control on the part of the State, there can hardly be a more important question for the politician than that of the criterion of beauty. According to the principles here taken for granted, this coincides with the criterion of goodness. In the course of the argument the funda- mental thesis of the “Republic” recurs, the central doctrine of Socratism touching the inseparability of happiness and justice (cf. p. 59). It should be observed that Plato enounces it here with somewhat diminished confidence. All the proofs which the author of the “ Republic” accumu- lated so insatiably (cf. p. 99), and which he will supplement by a fresh batch in a later part of the “ Laws” (cf. Vol. IT. Pp. 322, seg.) have been insufficient to banish the last remnant of doubt. It is only thus that we can explain the reservation with which the great doctrine is here introduced: “ Even if this belief were not true, any not wholly useless legislator would seek to implant it in the youthful mind by means of a noble lie, the most profitable of its kind.” Art is wholly enlisted in the service of morality. For the purpose of “filling the tender souls of the young with the charm of virtue,’ songs are to be poured into their ears from every side. Three choirs are to share the singing of them, one of children, one of young, and one of elder men, the flagging spirits of these last raised by the liberal use of wine. In this connexion we have presented to us the doctrine, so familiar to Aristotle, that all art rests on imitation ; and occasion is taken to pass a strikingly depreciatory judgment on purely
THE MIXTURE OF CONSTITUTIONS. 233
instrumental music. The second main branch of Greek education, which occupies so large a space in the correspond- ing section of the “ Republic,’ is here almost omitted. There is, however, no occasion for surprise. Gymnastic is touched upon in a few words, but the exhaustive treatment of the subject is expressly reserved for a later stage.
2. In Book III. a fresh start is made. After the moralist, the historian takes up the tale. Nothing could be more natural or more reasonable. If the State is primarily that which Plato represents it to be, an institution for moral education, the ethical and pedagogic standpoint claims precedence. But its historico-philosophical com- plement must follow if the premisses of the legislator’s labours are not to remain inadequate. The new departure leads, as a matter of fact, to a highly important doctrine, the main guiding principle in the subsequent task of constitution-building. We refer to the doctrine of the necessary mixture of constitutional forms, which makes its first appearance here, and which, under the name of the division of powers or equilibrium of authority, plays so large a part in modern political theory. The path by which Plato reaches this principle is not a little noteworthy. It is much as if the author of the “Republic” regretted the meagre and somewhat arbitrary process of construction by which he had sought to explain the origin of human communities (cf. p. 64). Once more he treats of the primeval age, but in the mean time his_historico- philosophical horizon has been very greatly extended. The beginnings of culture now seem to him removed to an incalculable distance ; vast intervals of time separate us from them; mighty floods and other catastrophes have wiped out whole civilizations, or at best left a few miserable remnants of them to serve as starting-points for new developments. These are thoughts, we may note in pass- ing, that were borrowed by Aristotle from his master, who for his part would appear to have been guided by Pythagorean speculations. But in this instance speculation by itself does not satisfy him. He lays the strongest emphasis on the teachings of historical experience, and
234 GREEK THINKERS.
finds there the confirmation of the results which he has obtained from another source. He appeals to the history of the Dorian states of the Peloponnese, to that of the Persian monarchy and the Athenian democracy. Amid much that is legendary, statements occur which may well seem less improbable to us than they did to the last generation. Such, for example, is the assumption that Troy was once within the sphere of Assyrian influence ; we have now documentary evidence to show that Assyria exercised a temporary suzerainty over Lydia. But the important point is Plato’s clear perception that political structures may fall not only by force from without but by their own inherent defects, and that the chief of these fatal flaws is the exclusive dominance of a single principle of government, the one-sided exaggeration, whether of authority or of liberty. The truth is proclaimed—and herein lies an indirect criticism of the philosophers’ govern- ment proposed in the “ Republic”—that human nature is not equal to the exercise of absolute or irresponsible power. Hence arises the necessity, here asserted with the utmost emphasis, of a tempered or mixed form of constitution. Need we say how greatly it redounds to Plato’s honour that he should have won his way in his old age to this fundamental truth, valid for all ages? And yet it might never have dawned upon his mind if he had not had before his eyes an historical example of a mixed constitution, distinguished by its stability. Sparta, with its double monarchy, its aristocratic council of elders, and its demo- cratic Ephorate, served him as a pattern just as did the English constitution Montesquieu and his followers. It isa pleasing task to trace the influence of Plato’s thoughts down to the immediate present. The “fathers” of the United States’ constitution received the doctrine of the division of powers as an inviolable heritage from Montes- quieu, whose authority meant for them what that of Aristotle meant for the Middle Ages. But the author of the “Spirit of the Laws” (1748) championed this funda- mental doctrine of his with immediate reference to Polybius, who borrows in unmistakable fashion from Plato,
THE “DIVISION OF POWERS.” 235
as well as from the corresponding passages in Aristotle ; he betrays at the same time an intimate acquaintance with Plato’s “ Laws.” No doubt it is impossible to appraise the influence which ancient forerunners exercised upon him. But that this influence is negligible, that the confidence and the persistency with which Montesquieu enounced that doctrine of his, so full of consequences, were in no degree enhanced by the consciousness of treading in the footsteps of great predecessors—this, we think, is more than any one will venture to assert.
The doctrine of the balance of powers has been objected to on the ground that its strict and unqualified application in practice would lead to a deadlock. The “ division of powers,” on the other hand, may be regarded as a catch- phrase expressing, not quite satisfactorily, either of two very different things—the demand that the supreme political functions, legislative, executive, and judicial, shall be kept separate ; or, again, that the paramount element in the community shall be something less than omnipotent. But Plato and his ancient followers, Aristotle and the historian Polybius, must be acquitted of all share of responsibility for these misunderstandings and difficulties. The demand which Plato makes in the “Laws,” and which he repeats in many varied forms, is one for the “tempering,” the “moderation,” the “ mixture” of forms of government, for the reconciliation of the people’s liberty with the rulers’ authority, antagonistic to arbitrary despotism as much as to any democratic degeneracy. The root of this degeneracy, in his own country, seems to him to be the “delusion of all that they know all,” or else, as this delusion appears to spring from the presumption of the theatre-going public, that influence which he names “theatrocracy.” Plato congratulates himself on having prepared the way for this consideration by his zsthetic disquisitions earlier in the dialogue ; and there are several other instances in this book, notably at its close, in which he looks back with some com- placency on the “random truancy of the discourse” which has been so well justified by the result. This complacency reaches its highest limit in the passage where Cleinias
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manifests his anxiety to derive profit from the colloquy, so far as it has gone, and apply the theory to a purpose of immediate practical utility. A fortunate chance, he says, has brought about this conversation precisely at the moment when he is charged, as member of a committee of ten, with the duty of framing laws for a proposed new Cretan colony. The reader may perhaps remember an earlier instance of this same phrase, “a fortunate chance.” The Platonic Socrates uses it to express his satisfaction that he and Phedrus have Lysias’s speech so ready to their hand to illustrate and confirm their newly discovered rhetorical postulates (cf. p. 21). The literary artifice is one and the same in both cases. The great artist loves to conceal his purposes, and prides himself on the skill with which he can represent as the work of sportive chance what has really been prepared for long beforehand and led up to with elaborate calculation.
We see that even the flagging powers of the greatest of all authors still deserve our entire respect. He knows his business far better than some of his critics. Certain of these have seen only faults of workmanship in the “truancy of the discourse,” that is, the unconstrained and apparently planless flow of talk, which the author of the “Laws” deliberately chooses and commends. Or rather, merely because he has not from the very beginning set forth the whole of his purpose and the order of its fulfilment in clear and hard outline, they have doubted the Platonic com- position of the work, and described it as a patchwork production, more or less arbitrarily and unskilfully pieced together by the editorial hand out of several original drafts. These views, which we regard as wholly without foundation, are very widely held ; we do not, however, feel called upon to discuss them at length in the present pages, but prefer to adduce a few instances of literary art in which Plato appears as his true old self. Note the delicacy of the passage in which the characterization of the Lacedemonian constitution is placed in the mouth of the most credible of all witnesses, the aged Spartan himself, by a turn after- wards imitated by Polybius. Interrogated as to the form
EXAMPLES OF ARTISTIC POWER. 237
of polity obtaining in his native land, Megillus replies that every time he considers the question a new answer forces itself upon his mind. Sometimes he is moved to speak of a monarchy, at others of an aristocracy, or again of a democracy, and on occasion even of a tyranny. Another part of the dialogue touches on the highly subtle problem of the different forms of motion. How admirable is the tact with which Plato here breaks off the colloquy with the simple old man, trained in politics but not in science, and substitutes a monologue, just as in the “Symposium” he was moved by equally good reasons to indite a dialogue within the dialogue and at the same time preserve the character of the historical Socrates (cf. Vol. II. pp. 388, 389). How graceful, too, is the simile with which he embellishes the artifice! The difficult investigation is compared to a rapid stream which the three travellers have to cross. The Athenian stranger, as the youngest of the three and the one most versed in such hazards, proposes first of all to test the strength of the current by himself, and then, if all goes well, to help his older and less experienced comrades to cross after him. This fine image reminds us of others. There is, for example, the comparison of all living beings to marionettes worked by all manner of threads and wires. Some of these are of great strength, some are even made of iron, but one, the “delicate golden thread of reason,” has pre-eminence over the rest. Lastly, we have the signifi- cant figure which occurs in the defence of the gods against the charge of being open to bribes. If it were possible for evil-doers to gain their favour by gifts, then, it is said, they would be like dogs which can be induced to let the wolves go in peace, if only the plunderers of the flock will drop a little of their spoil for their pursuers.
The fourth book is occupied with questions preliminary to the projected legislation. In the first place attention is given to the situation and character of the locality selected for the new colony. The least possible measure of foreign intercourse is pronounced desirable ; the sea is decribed as a “sweet” but also a “salt and bitter” neighbour. In Plato's eyes, as we have already seen, trade is a source of
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ignoble and treacherous sentiments. Here, in addition, we notice his tendency towards bewildering paradox. When informed that the district is well provided with harbours, he exclaims: “What dreadful news!” There is a similarly paradoxical turn in a later passage, when Cleinias asks in some astonishment whether it is really proposed to begin the gymnastic training of the child immediately after birth, and the Athenian answers: “Certainly not ; we shall begin earlier than that.” The question as to the composition of the population is discussed with the caution characteristic of Plato’s late period. There is much, he says, to be urged both for and against the policy of selecting the colonists from a single stock. If the citizens are bound together by identity of dialect and origin, by the possession of common shrines, the inner coherence and unity of the new State is so much the greater; on the other hand, heterogeneity of population diminishes the opposition to the legislator’s enactments and leaves him a freer hand for new departures, Much in the same way the 2705 and cons are discussed of another question. “Give me a city ruled by a tyrant,” exclaims the Athenian, greatly to the astonishment of the Cretan and the Spartan. Presently he makes his meaning clearer. It is one of the happiest of conjunctures, he says, that places a highly gifted despot at the head of a State. The most radical innovations are easy for him; he can change the characters of men as with a wave of the hand; he can realize the aims of a good legislator, if he is so fortunate as to have such a one by his side, with an other- wise impossible rapidity. The Athenian stranger speaks in this connexion of personal experiences, and it is clear that he is giving expression to the wishes and hopes once entertained by Plato at the court of Dionysius. But the disappointments of those days have their echo too. Of all fortunate chances the rarest, it is said, is to find a possessor of absolute power filled with “the divine love of just and judicious action.” The dialogue proceeds to the examina- tion of the different political forms among which a choice has to be made. Just as each kind of constitution receives its name from the element to which it gives predominance,
tHE HOMILETIC PART OF THE “TAWS.” 239
so this element, as a rule, strives for no political end other than its own advantage. It is so with government by kings, by nobles, by the people; each such government, as commonly exercised, should rather be called a dis- ordering than an ordering of the State. Only then can the State be said to be truly ordered when the rulers are the “servants of the law.” Such a government deserves to be named “the rule of God.”
In order that the work taken in hand may prosper, it is well to invoke the Deity, who is in truth (a paradoxical reversal of the Protagorean thesis) “the measure of all things.” But no service is acceptable which is not accom- panied by a disposition to goodness and holiness. God, like the good man, will receive no gift from impure hands. There follows an injunction to honour the gods, whether of Olympus or the world below, and the demons and heroes with them ; filial piety is likewise commended in earnest and emphatic speeches.
After these preparations for the legislative task, the formal aspect of the question is considered. Ought the legislator to compel only, or should he both compel and persuade? Should he resemble the slave-physician who flies from patient to patient in breathless haste, issues his directions in curt bald terms, like the decree of a poten- tate, and disappears as quickly as he came? Or should he not rather take for his pattern the more scientific and humaner physician who converses genially with the patient and his family, who seeks to enlighten him on the nature of his malady and to win his assent to the treatment he thinks necessary? The difference is illustrated by an example. In dealing with the question of population, which is the first thing he has to concern himself with, the legislator has two courses open to him. He may announce, in set formal terms, that certain penalties (fines and dis- abilities partly modelled on the Spartan practice) will be enforced against bachelors; or he may couple the announcement of these penalties with a full statement of the reasons justifying them—adverting to the share in immortality granted to the human race, and admonishing
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men to secure it by the procreation of children. The interlocutors agree to give the preference to this “ double ” mode of promulgation over the first or “simple” mode. Just as the dialogue, up to the present stage, has served as a preamble to legislation as a whole, so each part will need its own preamble. The highest matters, worship of the gods and filial piety, have already been dealt with; it is now time to discuss the points which come second in importance—the soul, the body, property, the doings and dealings of men. There follows a prelude in the grand style, which occupies a considerable portion of the fifth book.
In this section the language and the thoughts are of equal elevation. That which is highest or most divine in man is the soul; to it, therefore, the greatest honour should be paid, and it is only honoured by being made better. The greatest impediments to the performance of this duty are conceit, self-indulgence, the tendency which men have to lay the blame for their greatest misfortunes not on themselves but others. Not all the gold upon the earth or beneath it can be weighed against virtue. The greatest punishment of the vicious man is his flight from good men and good discourse. The body holds the second rank. Its excellence consists—here we have the Aristotelian doctrine of the mean—not in a maximum of strength, health, beauty, and dexterity, but in a middle quality. For the excess of these advantages makes the soul bold and puffed-up ; the defect dispirited and timorous, It is the same with the possession of money and honours, Of all transgressions those against aliens deserve the severest censure. For the friendless and forsaken are worthier of pity in the eyes both of gods and men. Slaves, too, are persons whom we ought to be even less ready to injure, if possible, than our equals. For the true unfeigned love of justice is most evident in cases where wrong-doing is easy. Love of truth stands foremost of all excellences of character. Every one that does no injustice is worthy of honour. He, however, who opposes injustice with all his power deserves double praise; it is he, and not the
THE ECONOMIC FOUNDATION. 241
physician as Homer said, who “outweighs many other men” (cf. Vol. I. p. 277). The man of high character must be capable of indignation and at the same time gentle. For without noble anger, a man cannot fight against wrong without wearying, repel it without ceasing, punish it without weakness. But towards those whose vice is curable gentle- ness should be practised ; for we know that all wrong- doing is involuntary. The greatest of all evils is excess of self-love—a quality which the poets have treated too leniently. This love, like every other, blinds men, and causes them to think their own unreason wisdom. The prelude closes with that hedonistic deduction of morality which we have already dealt with in our study of the “Protagoras.” (Vol. II. pp. 322, seq.).
3. The ground is now clear for the work of legislation, which, broadly speaking, moulds itself upon the varying phases of man’s life and accompanies him from the cradle to the grave. Civil and criminal law, however, which according to the ancient practice Plato does not keep strictly separate, are preceded by constitutional law, which for its part is based upon the economic régime as on the “only enduring foundation.” The communism of the “Republic” once more receives enthusiastic praise as an ideal; but the hope of carrying it out in practice is renounced. Indeed, the class of “guardians,” to which alone it was meant to be applied, does not appear at all in the present scheme. “ No riches and no poverty” is the economic motto of the “Laws.” The inequality of property is restricted within narrow bounds; the maximum must not amount to more than five times the minimum. The land is divided into twelve districts and into 5040 lots, corresponding to the number of the citizens. This number is chosen because of its numerous divisors, and is to be maintained unchanged. Various means are proposed to this end: landed property is to be indivisible and inalienable, dowries are forbidden, the adoption of children is com- manded in certain cases, and so forth. In order that the heads of families may always be equal in number to the lots of land, the increase of population is regulated by
242 GREEK THINKERS.
the prohibition of celibacy, by the dissolution of childless marriages, by a system of honours and rewards to be con- ferred on those who fulfil their duty in this respect, by the same violent measures, it must be added, of which we read in the “Republic.” This time, however, the exposure of children is at least not explicitly mentioned ; and abortion is alluded to by the milder phrase “restraint of births.” Such measures, however, would necessarily be in frequent use ; for only the first ten years of marriage are devoted to the procreation of children “for the State.” In case of need, the population may be reduced by the emigration of colonists, while the contrary danger may be met by the admission of foreigners to citizenship—an expedient, it is true, which is sanctioned with some reluctance.
The accumulation of movable property by the citizens is guarded against in every possible way: by prohibiting the ownership of gold and silver, by interdicting trade and commerce (these occupations are reserved for aliens, who are not allowed more than twenty years’ residence in the colony), by a law against usury, and by the refusal of legal protection—a measure also adopted by Charondas—to transactions involving credit or the advancing of money. Any increase of property that may take place in spite of these precautions, as also every diminution, must be reported to those authorities whose duty it is to assess from year to year and register the capital and the income of the citizens. No more than a third part of the produce of the soil may be sold, and that only to the resident foreigners. The remaining two-thirds serve to feed the colonists and their slaves. The whole economic system is strongly reminiscent of Spartan and Cretan institutions designed to create and maintain a purely landed aristo- cracy. In the firm hand of Plato, however, the tendencies of these legislations are developed and extended with greater consistency and precision. One of these extensions affects the institution of the Syssitia, or common meals of men, to which women are now to be admitted. The emancipation of women, for the rest, is by no means abandoned, but established on a firmer basis of experience
FOUR CLASSES. OF CITIZENS. 243
by an appeal to ethnographic parallels. In this work of Plato’s old age “experience,” both the word and the thing, recurs with greater frequency than in all his earlier works put together.
The truly political institutions present us with a very different picture. Plato has here taken Athens, more par- ticularly early Athens, for his model. No section of the citizens is to be destitute of political rights, or bound to obey another section as a slave obeys his master (cf. p. 106). On the other hand, the equality of all is not to be of the mechanical type, not an “equality of the unequal.” In accordance with the first of these postulates, the distinction between a ruling and a ruled class is abandoned. Whether from his own reflexions or from the criticism of others, Plato has learnt the inadmissibility of the “two states in one” (cf. p. 120). The rights which he concedes to the general body of citizens are much the same as those enjoyed by them under the Solonic constitution—a voice in electing the officers of State, and a share in the adminis- tration of justice. Direct government by the people is practically abandoned. The graduation of political privi- leges is closely akin to that which had formerly existed in Athens, where, as we have recently learnt, it was not entirely the work of Solon, but had been prepared for by his. predecessor Draco’s creation of four classes of tax- payers. Plato, too, introduces a fourfold division of property- owners in the “ Laws.” And here we are met by a surprise. After wealth has been proscribed, one might almost say branded, participation in public life is still apportioned according to the different degrees of affluence. But the contradiction is not so glaring as it seems. Riches in the true sense are not to be found in the commonwealth treated of in the “Laws.” Differences of property, as we have already seen, are confined within comparatively narrow limits. Nor, on the other hand, is there any yawning chasm between the privileges of the more and those of the less propertied. The chief difference is that in certain circumstances the members of the two upper, or wealthier, classes are required under a penalty to give their votes in
244 GREEK THINKERS,
the elections, while the two lower classes are free to abstain. Plato’s motive in this may be inferred from his reference to the greater measure of “education and solidity,” to which a greater measure of influence is due. He probably assumed a higher level of culture among the more well- to-do, the fruit of their ampler leisure, and a correspondingly lower level in the less substantial classes, with which would be joined less contentment with their lot, and therefore greater readiness to embark on ill-considered innovations. This principle of the compulsory vote, by which a penalty is attached to abstention, seems to have been otherwise unknown to Greek political institutions; in the nineteenth century it was adopted practically by several Swiss cantons and by Belgium, while in the United States it has been at least taken into consideration.
Election is not, however, to be the only road to office ; it is to be supplemented by that drawing of lots which Plato himself had formerly censured so severely, and his master Socrates before him. The modes of election pro- posed exhibit considerable variety ; and even the combi- nation of election and lot-drawing has its place. Here, again, Plato is not without precedents taken from his own country. In Solon’s constitution the nine archons—as we learn from Aristotle’s recently discovered “Constitution of the Athenians”—were chosen by lot from candidates nominated by the four tribes. The purpose served by these election-regulations—highly artificial many of them, and unusually complicated—is evidently as follows. The mass of the people is not to be excluded from a share in the appointment of the officials, but this appointment is to be removed as far as possible from the immediate influence of the many. Further, personal preferences, the spirit of clique, and party interests are to be eliminated as far as may be, and the public choice guided towards those who enjoy the general confidence. Lastly, the ex- treme harshnesses of government by the majority are to be avoided. For these reasons the law of elections is, in several instances, not the same on the active as on the passive side, indirect modes of election are given the
VARIETY IN MODES OF ELECTION. 245
preference over direct, the process of election is divided into stages and sometimes ends in the choice by lot of a small out of a large number of elected. Or, again, the sifting and winnowing is performed by subjecting those who have received the relatively largest number of votes to a second or even a third ordeal of selection. Thus the highest officials, the “guardians of the laws,” are chosen in the following manner. The electors are all those who have fulfilled their military duties either in the cavalry or the heavy-armed division—a restriction which reminds us of a cognate provision in the Draconian constitution. By written votes, which, however, are not secret, these electors choose 300 persons; a second election, conducted in a similar manner, reduces the number to 100, and a third to 37. There follows an application of a principle otherwise almost unknown in Greece—a minimum age-limit is common enough, but here we have a maximum as well. No one may enter the college of “guardians of the law” below the age of fifty, or remain in it after the age of seventy. The council, the committee of the council (prytanes), the wardens of the city, of the land, of the market, and other officials are, broadly speaking, copied from Athenian patterns so far as their functions are con- cerned, though not in respect of their mode of appointment. Cases present themselves in which the employment of all the above-mentioned precautions is not judged sufficient, and in which the line drawn to hold the “mean between monarchy and democracy” approaches closely to modern institutions. Popular election and appointment by lot are here superseded by nomination, which is entrusted (seeing there is no monarch) to the totality of the magistrature. This body, with the sole exception of members of the council, appoints by secret vote, for a term of only five years, the holder of what Plato calls “the most important by far of all the higher offices of State.” This official is the minister of education, or “director of all education, both male and female.” He must have reached the age of fifty ; like the Athenian strategi, he must be the father of legitimate children; and in addition, he must be NOL, ἘΠ 9
246 GREEK THINKERS.
one of the thirty-seven guardians of the laws. After election, his character and qualifications are examined by a board consisting of the electing body with the omission of the guardians of the laws, that is, the eligible part of it. The limitation is not without Attic parallels.
Plato, we observe, cannot have too many or too elaborate safeguards in this connexion. That which is at stake is the object he prizes most highly of all—education, and that not of youth only, for the minister of education is at the same time the supreme censor of all music and literature. It is education which must chiefly decide whether man is to be the “tamest and most god-like” or “the wildest of all living creatures.” The provision made in the “Laws” for the training of youth extends beyond the customary Greek curriculum, which embraced only the elementary branches of knowledge, together with poetry, music, and gymnastics. Compulsory school- attendance is proposed for both sexes; the instruction to be received by them in common includes a knowledge of the laws and their preambles, as also the rudiments of geometry and astronomy—of the last-named chiefly because in view of the divine nature of the heavenly bodies erroneous ideas about their motions are regarded as irreligious. This course of study encroaches to some extent on the domain which we generally reserve for secondary education; there is, however, an absence of definite statements, not only, as in the “ Republic,” with regard to the mode of acquiring knowledge, but also in respect of the degree of higher education required. Dialectic is not alluded to by as much as a single word. Nor need we wonder. Even in the “ Republic,” in which the study of dialectic plays the most influential part, expressions of the keenest distrust towards it are not wanting. This branch of education is regarded as tending to promote resistance to authority ; and Plato’s dread of this result—a feeling towards which the contentious dialectic of the Megarians probably contributed not a little—has increased more and more. But few traces remain in the “Laws” of the spell once cast over Plato
ΘΗ ΘΕ OF THE IDEAS. 247
by classificatory dialectic, of the rage for division which was so strong upon him in the “ Sophist,” the “Statesman,” and even in the “ Philebus.”
The doctrine of ideas is not referred to in the “ Laws” by as much as a single syllable. Those problems in the investigation of concepts which had been a main motive in its genesis were regarded, after the “Sophist,” as solved. The compass of the ideas was accordingly narrowed in a manner which, though perhaps not strictly justifiable logically, is psychologically intelligible. It is pertinent, in this connexion, to observe that at the time when Aristotle was a student at the Academy, Plato had already abandoned the ideas of artificial products which are recognized in the “Republic” (cf. p. 103). In the end, both the doctrine of ideas and dialectic became for him exclusively subservient to the understanding of nature (cf. p. 176). As his pupil Xenocrates reports, the idea had been developed into “the typical cause of the beings which are always formed according to nature.” (We note, incidentally, that the theory which made the ideas types or copies to be imitated had triumphed over the theory of participation—cf. pp. 3, 30, and 152—just as was to be expected after the elevation of the ideas to the rank of gods.) The same 76, as we have already seen, is assigned to this doctrine in the “Timezus,” where the Demiurge creates things after the pattern of the ideas. Plato busied himself, in this phase, with the deduction of the ideas, as “ideal numbers,” from mathematical “primary principles.” This is a Pythagoreanizing tendency, of which some traces are found in the “Philebus,” as well as the “Timzus” (cf. pp. 188 and 215); our account of it, however, cannot conveniently be separated from that of its further development by Plato’s successors, Speusippus and Xenocrates. The sound kernel of it lies in the surmise that the essence of things is circumscribed by mathe- matical regularities. In the “ Laws” this process is carried forward another step. Only mathematics and its applica- tion to astronomy are recognized as possessing a truly
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educational value ; with these is joined at most the science of law, then scarcely in its beginnings.
Just as the Athenian archon became a member of the Areopagus after his year of office, so the “superintendent of education,” when his five years are over, belongs to what Plato calls the “nocturnal” council. This body, something between a scientific academy and a supreme legislative and controlling authority, is to meet every day in the early morning to discuss questions of political or scientific interest. The other members of this supreme council are those priests who have won prizes for virtue, the ten oldest “guardians of the laws,” and the “ superintendent of education” for the time being. The further recruiting of this body is provided for by the regulation that each of these elderly members may, with the consent of the others, appoint a man aged from thirty to forty as his junior or assistant-councillor. Although the council is expected to discuss reforms in the light of foreign experience, its main function, as is shown by the advanced age of the guardians of the laws belonging to it, is conservative. Strange as it may seem, Plato’s express declarations, as well as the extraordinary severity he brings to bear on innovators, leave no room for doubt that he regarded the institutions recommended in the “ Laws” as in their essence final and incapable of improvement.
4. This ultra-conservatism, the darkest blemish of the “Laws,” should not blind us to the brighter aspects of this work. Taught by a varied and bitter experience of life, deserted at last by the long-retained sanguine temper of youth, Plato had learnt to doubt the practicability of his ideal—the unconditional rule of philosophers—and nothing else was left him than to choose the “second-best,” as he has called it in the “Statesman,” that is, a constitutionally regulated government. But this same varied experience, together with his reflexions on history, had made him only too familiar with the imperfections peculiar to all forms of constitution, and led him to the conclusion—the ripest fruit of his political thought—that the mixture of constitutional forms is necessary to the welfare of the State. This goal
TWO KINDS OF MIXED CONSTITUTIONS. 249
can be attained only by the coexistence and co-operation of independent political forces, that is, by a mixed consti- tution in that sense of the phrase which, as we have already noted, is exemplified by Sparta in antiquity and Great Britain in modern times. Such a constitution is the result of historical processes ; it represents a compromise between different forces, one of which is in the ascending, the other in the declining phase. But for just this reason such a com- promise can only be temporary, and, above all, it cannot be transplanted to a quarter where the historical conditions presupposed by it are wanting. The type of such a mixed constitution—limited monarchy—is destined in the course of time either to revert to its primitive form of absolute or nearly absolute monarchy, in consequence of some episode of reaction, or else to be transformed into a strictly par- liamentary monarchy by the growing power of the people. So transformed, the institution may work extraordinarily well ; but a little consideration will show that it carries in itself the germ of its own destruction. Imagine the strictly parliamentary government which England now enjoys con- tinued through a course of centuries: its vazson d’étre is gone. For the prestige of the ruling dynasty, in the long run an indispensable element in the monarchical system, has its origin in the unlimited or scarcely limited power once possessed by the sovereign, and loses lustre in propor- tion as that plenitude of authority recedes into an ever more distant past.
The above reflexions seemed indispensable if we were to point out what appears to us to be the most fruitful germ of political thought in the “ Laws.” The thesis, that a tempered form of government is the best of all, retains its truth and value even in the absence of that fortunate con- junction of historical accidents which produces mixed constitutions in the strict sense. Even when ove political factor gains exclusive domination and ceases to be in any way limited by competing forces, the tempering of it is no less possible than advantageous. It is then tempered by the forms of the constitution, by the restraints which the sovereign power—be this monarch or people—imposes
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upon itself. This is the form of mixed constitution towards which Plato strives in the “Laws.” All authority is here derived from the people, but by a wealth of ingenious artifices the people prevents itself from using its own plenary powers amiss. Its renunciation of all immediate rule is almost complete; a complex and skilfully con- structed system of elections provides a highly organized body of officials, who wield a derived but none the less effectual authority. Taken in its fundamental essence, and freed from the ultra-conservative tendencies of its author, this side of the political ideal contained in the “Laws” supplies, as we think, a model not without its importance for the present and future generations of mankind.
Plato’s inventive spirit takes its boldest flight in a section where he deals with the highest political end. A college of twelve men is entrusted with the supreme control of the State. These “censors” are authorized to impeach all the other officials ; they are thus “rulers of the rulers,” and only the very best men of all may be charged with their responsible task. The mode of election here proposed by Plato is one which we may term “ election by elimination.” The whole body of citizens takes part in it. Votes are given in writing, but not secretly. Three men are to be chosen, but each elector may only vote for one; he may name any man, except himself, who is not under fifty years of age. This first nomination yields a list of names, which is arranged according to the number of votes received by each. A second election follows, limited to the upper half of the list, and so the process of sifting continues till by successive halvings the number is reduced to three. The guiding principles of this system, it will be seen, resemble those underlying the most modern schemes for the reforma- tion of electoral technique, proportional election and the representation of the minority. No vote is lost; the elected are the choice not of a majority but of the whole ; even the detail of the written, but not secret, vote complies with the requirements laid down by Thomas Hare, the chief founder of the modern movement. More accurately, this
THE OBFECT OF PUNISHMENT. 251
mode of election is a combination of the second ballot * and the principle of the vote unigue (each elector can only vote for one candidate, even though the same electoral district may return several representatives). Plato’s aim is directed towards an end which is also sought, though not as a first end, by the modern reformers—high quality in the elected. The choice should fall on men “of wonderful virtue ;” at the worst, with the elections so regulated, it will fall on the leaders of three equally balanced parties ; but as such a division of the State is unlikely, the elected will generally be the most highly respected men in whom the community has confidence. Such men are at any one time very few in number; for this reason not more than three are ever to be elected. The three men chosen at the first election of the kind, held after the foundation of the colony, are to nominate the college of twelve; afterwards, yearly elections are to fill the gaps caused by death and attainment of the upper age-limit—seventy-five years.
5. No feature of equal originality is to be found in Plato’s system of criminal law. It is chiefly distinguished by its many-sided conception of the end of punishment. The “ Gorgias ” had known but one such end, amelioration or healing of the wrong-doer ; in the “ Protagoras,” the sophist of that name is made to discourse on the deterrent purpose of punishment in a speech which seems half a travesty. Both these purposes are recognized in the “Laws,” together with a third—that of making the offender harmless,—and all three are clearly distinguished from each other. But here, as often elsewhere, there is a yawning gulf between principles and their application. Who would expect, after these highly rational expositions of principle, to meet in the “Laws” with such glaring examples of unreason as trials of animals, sentences upon inanimate objects, and kindred concessions to the primitive
* German, Stchwahl. This name is given to elections where a candidate needs an absolute majority, that is, more than half the votes cast, in order to be returned. If no candidate obtains such a majority, ‘a second election is held between the two candidates with the greatest number of votes.
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instincts of the popular mind? Yet this work contains many such. The power of tradition and old-time custom often prevails, in matters of detail, over the convictions which the thinker has gained by his own efforts. It is so especially in the treatment of the slave-class. That slaves not seldom surpass the free-born in excellence, that their fidelity to their masters and their self-sacrificing spirit has sometimes exceeded that of brothers or sons, is admitted without difficulty. But this does not prevent the same offence—for example, omission to inform against the stealer of buried treasure—being regarded leniently in the case of the free and visited with excessive severity upon the slave. And yet it is an obvious reflexion that the dependent situation of the slave makes the giving of such information, which after all may prove unfounded, much more dangerous for him than for the free man, and should therefore ensure him a more indulgent rather than a severer treatment.
The judge, it is laid down, should really try cases; procedure like that of the Attic courts, where those “dumb judges,” the jurors, take no active part in investigating the issues which they decide, is repeatedly and emphatically condemned. Herein is implicitly contained the demand that the administration of justice be placed in the hands of professional judges, and the popular tribunal (in modern phrase) replaced by a permanent judiciary. In point of fact, there are many cases in which Plato requires the employ- ment of “select” judges, in addition to which he stimulates the sense of individual responsibility by providing for the public delivery of judgment by each member of the tribunal, and institutes a court of appeal, following in this last particular the precedent of Hippodamus. An innova- tion of Plato’s is the introduction of long-term sentences ; ordinary Greek law only recognized the custody of prisoners on trial, the imprisonment of defaulting debtors to the State, and the supplementing of money fines in a few cases by a brief incarceration. The long sentence is evidently employed by Plato as a substitute for other penalties which he rejects. Among these are deprivation of honour, banishment—a penalty which Plato condemns on principle,
LEGISLATION ON MARRIAGE, 253
but allows in isolated cases, chiefly in compliance with the principle of expiation—and above all confiscation of property, a penalty at variance with the social and political principle which required the number of family land-lots to be maintained undiminished.
In the forefront of civil law is placed the regulation of the family. The possibility of any such regulation, in the true sense of the word, depends on the changed organization of society. The community of the “Laws” is a unitary whole, and occupies a position intermediate between the two social divisions of the “ Republic.’ To that extent it resembles the diffused aristocracies of Sparta and Crete. Its level of life and culture is somewhat lower than that of the “guardians,” but considerably higher than that of the “craftsmen.” With the disappearance of the ruling class, the communism, both as to family and as to property, which had distinguished it, is now abandoned (cf. p. 241). The temporary union is abolished and permanent marriage restored to the rank of universal norm. It is dissoluble, not only, as we have already remarked, in cases of childlessness or as a consequence of grave misdemeanour, but also on the ground of incompatibility of temperament. For the divorced partner who has not yet contributed his or her share of children “to family and State,’ remarriage is not only permitted but enjoined. Following the precedent of Cha- rondas, the legislator advises men not to give their children stepmothers. A divorced woman is also to be remarried when she is too young to live in the unmarried state with- out danger to her health. Less regard is paid, in these matters, to the inclinations of girls and women than we should have expected from a champion of female emanci- pation. The marriage of an heiress with the nearest kinsman is another point on which Plato follows the ordinary Greek rule as exemplified in the legislations of Athens and Gortyn, and as adopted by Charondas.
In the treatment of sexual questions in general, the “Laws” display a tendency towards ever-increasing strict- ness, not only as compared with the earlier treatise, but also within the limits of the work itself. In the “Republic,”
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we find, among other rewards of eminent courage, a right to caresses which no fellow-combatant, male or female, is entitled to reject. The marriageable age of young men is fixed in the same work as beginning at that period of life when the natural instinct has already lost its first force, without any word to indicate that youths under age are to be kept under strict control. And in the case of those who have reached the stage when “ procreation for the State” ceases to be a duty, complete liberty is allowed in this respect. It is quite otherwise in the “Laws.” The last- named privilege is expressly revoked in a passage of the sixth book ; though irregularities of this nature are still treated indulgently. In the eighth book, however, sexual intercourse outside the marriage-tie, under whatever circum- stances, is severely condemned. “Immense advantages,” in particular an enormous increase of trust and devotion on the part of wives, are expected to result from the intro- duction of the stricter code. The objection that what is demanded exceeds the strength of human nature, is met by a reference to the power of public opinion, which, when the public is really of one mind, can hardly be overrated. It is worthy of note that the author of the “ Laws” not merely preaches abstinence, but names various means by which its practice is facilitated. The education of the sexes in common, their co-operation in all walks of life, are clearly designed in part to blunt the edge of sexual appetite. The same purpose is still more obviously served by the recom- mendation that youths and girls should associate together without constraint, wearing dress which by only slightly concealing the form should do little to excite desire. Lastly and chiefly, dietary regulations and the practice of gymnastics are expressly invoked as means to the same end, the former by providing against overfeeding in the critical period of life, and the latter by supplying a vent for all surplus energy. We note, in conclusion, that the love of boys, which earlier dialogues had treated so indulgently, receives the most emphatic condemnation possible in the “Laws,’—a change probably not uninfluenced by Cynic teaching, resting, as it does, in part on a detestation of the
GROWING STRICTNESS OF THE ΚΑΘ 255
unnatural and also by a lively sense of the danger of depopulation. The sentiment in question is now admitted only in its most purified form, as limited to an “zsthetic delight” in physical beauty. The “condition of mind peculiar to the lover alternating between sensual and spiritual impulses,” a condition, that is, which was described in the “ Phedrus” and the “Symposium” as “the well- spring of the most salutary emotions, is now, in the ‘ Laws,’ condemned with the utmost severity.” Such is the well- founded comment of Ivo Bruns, whose untimely death is so much to be deplored.
We have already referred more than once to the regu- lations affecting property. Worthy of mention are the restrictions on the rights of alienation and testamentary disposition, prompted by Plato’s desire to maintain family properties intact. His commercial code is full of the spirit of distrust: fixed prices, no haggling, no advertising. His legislation dilates with affectionate fulness, but without marked originality, on all that pertains to agriculture, in- cluding bee-keeping and fruit-culture, water-rights, litigation arising out of neighbourship.
6. The most remarkable feature of the civil procedure is the regulation that a party to a suit may not make on oath any statement tending to procure him any advantage, or save him from any loss. What is chiefly interesting in this prohibition is the reason for it, which is given in a reference to the widespread unbelief of the age, favouring perjury. It is astonishing to find Plato so faint-hearted. His legislation, it must be remembered, is meant for a community brought up on the strictest pedagogic principles, every member of which is anxiously shielded throughout life from all noxious influences. And yet Plato is so terribly afraid of the miasma of infidelity spreading to his community. This is the dangerous enemy against which he fights for a whole book (the tenth), taking religious offences as a starting-point. Three species of heresy are distinguished: disbelief in the existence of the gods, disbelief in their providential care, disbelief in their incorruptibility—by which last is meant the belief that
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the favour and indulgence of divine beings may be won by the performance of holy works. The author of the “ Laws” employs all the resources of his eloquence, as well as threats of the severest penalties, for the purpose of diffusing and protecting the type of religion which he favours.
The latter by no means coincides entirely with the popular religion, but the differences, where not important ethically, are rather cloaked over than emphasized. The new State religion—it is certainly such that is proposed, to the rigid exclusion of all private cults, the Orphic as well as others—is clothed so far as may be in the garb of the old. By the side of the supreme Deity there appear numerous individual gods, foremost among them those connected with the stars. The main proof for the existence of the Divine is prefaced by an analysis of this concept by which it is reduced to the psychic, and rests upon the priority of all that pertains to soul over all that pertains to body. A review of all forms of motion leads to the conclusion that soul is the one self-moving thing, whereas all else receives its impulse to motion from without. In this doctrine Plato harks back to the “ Phedrus ” (cf. pp. 45, 46), and with it he believes himself to have made a clean sweep of all materialism and the whole of the earlier nature-philosophy. That the soul which moves and guides the world is the best soul of all, is a thesis which he supports by a reference to the well-ordered universe. Plato is here in close agree- ment with Anaxagoras, an agreement, however, which is soon exchanged for hostility. For it is to this philosopher and his followers that he alludes in the remark that some wise men regard the sun, moon, earth, and stars not as gods but as lifeless “stones,” and see in the fore-mentioned argument nothing more than a “farrago of words concocted for the mere sake of persuasion.” It is, again, to a pupil of Anaxagoras, Archelaus, that Plato seems to refer when he speaks of the distinction between “ Nature” and “ Con- vention,’ and its employment in the critical, or, as he thinks, sceptical sense (cf. Vol. I. p. 402). With a similar end in view he had already attacked, in an earlier book,
THE THREE HERESIES COMBATED, 257
Pindar’s phrase describing “ Convention as the mistress of all men” (cf. Vol. I. p. 404).
The second and third heresies are combated, in the first instance, by arguments which derive their force from the moral qualities of the gods. Goodness being once admitted as the fundamental characteristic of their nature and their power placed beyond question, failure on their part to provide for the welfare of created beings could only be attributed to levity or indolence—qualities which would place them on a lower level than even second-rate men. The third heresy, finally, is said to rest on the assumption that divine beings are prevailed upon by sacrifices to leave punishable actions unpunished, that is, to neglect their duty for the sake of profit. If so, a god would be like a pilot, persuaded by a fat morsel or a drink of wine to compass the destruction of the ship entrusted to his care with all on board, or a charioteer bribed by an enemy to betray his master, or even a dog made forgetful of his duty by a share of the robber’s booty (cf. p. 237).
This series of arguments, or rather of analogies, is no doubt mainly directed against the popular religion; the polemic against the second heresy, however, strikes at the consequences of a mode of thought which had already gained the upper hand in the scientific world. To regard the Deity as the prime source of a world-process, which, once begun, is not subject to any special intervention of Divine power—such, it is clear, was the prevalent view of, let us say, enlightened medical circles. We recall the comprehensive formula: “All is divine and all is human” (cf. Vol. I. Ὁ. 310). Even Plato did not wholly emancipate himself from this view. His endeavour, it may be said, is to construct a theory of the universe which does notrob morality of divine protection, but which at the same time makes shift with a minimum—if not an entire absence—of divine intervention. It is thus, as we conceive, that we ought to understand an exposition, the obscurity of which is probably not wholly the fault of the textual tradition. To those who doubt the divine justice, because they see no reflex of it in a world where injustice so often triumphs, Plato
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answers that their horizon is narrow, that the plan of the universe, in its coherent completeness, is beyond their ken. It is to the welfare of the whole, not of the individual part or particle, that the divine purpose is directed; the part exists for the whole, not the whole for the part; the same principle guides the action of the physician and every other skilled artificer. These arguments contain a slight, but perceptible hint of limits to the divine power (cf. pp. 67 and 213), a hint which receives more definite expression in the comparison of the Deity to a draughts-player. The latter, it is urged, can only move his men, not change them. Not that the human soul is unchangeable—the causes of its manifold changes, however, are contained in itself and in the operation of other souls upon it. All that is left for the Deity to do—and that, too, as Plato seems to suggest, not by special interventions, but by an order of nature esta- blished once for all—is to transfer the soul which has become better to a better place, and that which has become worse to a worse; by which phrase is meant the alternating association with human and animal bodies, as well as the sojourn in the place of punishment below.
This section touches on the problem of the will, and there are isolated phrases which might seem to stamp Plato as an indeterminist. This impression, however, will not bear scrutiny. The intellectualistic theory of the will upheld by Socrates, to which Plato remained so long faithful, and of which he never abandoned the formula (“No one errs voluntarily”), is not merely determinism, but determinism of a quite particular kind. For it supposes the will to be invariably determined, not simply by motives, but by a special class of motives, having the nature of knowledge or wisdom. Now, it is quite true that in the works of his old age Plato travelled a long way from this his original starting-point, and nowhere further than in the “Laws,” where, in addition to “ignorance” a second cause of wrong-doing appears in the shape of ἀκράτεια, that very “paralysis of the will” which Socrates expressly declared impossible. But, for all that, he never makes uncaused action an attribute of the soul ; on the contrary, its volitions
PLATO AND FREE WILL, 259
are explained as the effects of its nature, which nature, though admitted to be changeable, is declared not to change fer saltum or without sufficient reason. And in that section of the work (Book IX.) where the conception of free will is subjected to a searching examination, the result is merely to identify free action with purposive action. To the responsibility of the homicide A—so we venture to paraphrase Plato’s thought —it makes the greatest difference conceivable whether he killed B_ in- tentionally or unintentionally. But then, the purpose to kill, the criminal intention itself, has arisen out of an already existing corrupt condition of the will. In order that the deed may be imputed to the doer, it is by no means requisite that he should have himself wrought or chosen the condition of will which produced it. In fact, it is impossible that he should have deliberately chosen it, as impossible as it is for any one to prefer sickness to health. It may be admitted that this last comparison is inappro- priate, resting as it does on an inadequate distinction between social and individual morality (cf. Vol. IT. p. 68, seg.). But it is due to Plato to acknowledge that he kept himself free from an aberration which has survived down to our own day, and admitted the justification of punishment in every case where it can act remedially on the evil-doer’s will, no matter how formed, or deter others from the like fault.
7. After the theological arguments come the penal sanctions, in regard to which we find ourselves in no small perplexity. The attentive reader has already noticed how thin a line of division separates certain opinions held temporarily or permanently by Plato himself from the heresies which he combats with so much zeal. The “idea of the good” is certainly not a personal Deity, and yet, in the “ Kepublic” it is the crown and summit of all existence (cf. p. 85). The principle of “Necessity,” that of “erratic motion,” the ‘evil world-soul,” all of these are as many limits to the perfection of the divine power (cf. p. 214). Between the acknowledgment of these limitations and the second heresy, which doubts the sufficient providence of the gods for man, there assuredly yawns no unfathomable
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chasm. Add to this that the third heresy, or belief in the appeasing power of prayer and sacrifice, does not conflict with the popular religion ; that Plato is himself a presumptuous innovator in this respect, as well as in the rough criticism which accepted mythology receives at his hands in the “ Euthyphro,” the “ Republic,” and even the “Laws” (cf. Vol. II. p. 364, and Vol. III. p.67); that, finally, the fate of his master Socrates was still fresh in his memory ; —all these considerations, one might think, should have been enough to make him hesitate before spreading an zegis of ruthless penalties over the late-won religious views of his final phase. But it was ordained otherwise. Advanced age exerted a twofold series of influences upon the philosopher. It is as if two streams, flowing towards opposite points of the compass, were to issue from neighbouring founts. Old age made Plato at once more gentle and more severe than he had ever been before.
Let us consider first the former of these two effects. The tendencies which we found characteristic of Plato’s latest period as a whole reach their culmination in the “Laws.” “ His mind and heart,” so we wrote a propos of the “ Sophist,” “ gain a stronger hold on particular things, particular entities, particular processes.” This trait is now exemplified in the sphere of legislation. Nothing is too trivial for its regulating prevision; from the nursing and the playthings of children down to the equal development of the right and the left hand, from hunting and fishing to the different kinds of dances, and from these to the minutize of building, market, and funeral ordinances. The worth of man and of human life is not appraised by Plato higher than formerly, rather the reverse. In regard to both, the “Laws” contain strikingly pessimistic utterances. But the lot of the great mass engages his attention far more persistently than in the “ Republic.” He abates something of the ruthless thoroughness with which he had pressed for the realization of his social and political principles, but he no longer limits that realization to a select minority. The heroic standard of life has in many points made way fora humaner ideal. Thus the medical treatment of chronic
THE EFFECTS. OF OLD AGE. 261
diseases is no longer forbidden ; warm baths enjoyed in beautiful park grounds are to refresh the tired limbs of the aged. A comprehensive scheme of poor-relief is designed; no person, whether freeborn or slave, may be allowed to suffer the extreme of destitution.
The old man’s eye, purged of all illusions, the old man’s heart, which is often the more sorely disappointed the greater have been the objects of its yearnings,—these are well adapted to perceive clearly, to spy out anxiously, and to feel deeply the evils that belong to the present and the future. Old age is consequently often marked by a faint and timid spirit ; but with Plato these causes had very different effects. His literary triumphs, his intercourse with an ever-widening circle of admiring disciples, must have strengthened his self-confidence, and may well have stifled all his doubt as to his own infallibility, in spite of the manifold changes that had been wrought within his mind. Thus he becomes less and less scrupulous in his choice of weapons with which to fight against what he deems repre- hensible and to the common danger, until at last he is prepared to draw the sword of justice upon irreligion, the love of innovation, and even upon rhetoric and lawyers, those old objects of an antipathy which time has only deepened. But when we survey the field in which this intolerance disports itself, a circumstance forces itself upon our notice which may well be not altogether without significance. It is only the last three books of the “Laws” (X.—XII.)in which this tendency of Plato’s mind is revealed. We aré inclined to conjecture that this is no mere chance, The triumph of that “misology” which had been so earnestly and so successfully combated in the ‘“ Phzdo” (cf. p. 32) may not have belonged to the period of Plato’s old age as a whole, but only to its terminal phase, the last year or two of his life. Our information is that he continued writing till his death at the age of eighty, and that these latest labours were devoted to the “Laws” is testified by the unfinished state of the work. There is thus, perhaps, some justification for taking refuge in the belief that this victory of intoler- ance was due solely to the fossilizing influence of old
VOL. III. Τ
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age. One circumstance in particular seems to support this conjecture. :
In close neighbourhood to the bloodthirsty sentences passed upon irreclaimable freethinkers, upon proposers of political innovations, who are by no means necessarily apostles of subversion, even upon contentious advocates who make, or appear to make, a perverse use of their art,—in close neighbourhood to all this we meet with a contempt for individuality, an indifference to every form of personal initiative, a disposition, as we may even say, to enslave men’s souls, which is absolutely astonishing. The fatal endeavour after “unity” here reaches a height of develop- ment which reminds us of the Jesuit-ruled state of Paraguay. A system which may perhaps have had its use for the purpose of introducing roving Indian tribes to settled and civilized ways, is here applied to the highly cultivated Greeks of the fourth century before Christ. We refer to the passage in the last book, in which military discipline is held up as a model for the whole of civic life. A wish is expressed for a state of things in which no one should ever do anything alone and for himself, in which every one should everywhere and always look up to a superior, in which every act, from the greatest to the smallest, should be performed in obedience to an order, just as the soldier in camp stands and walks, washes and feeds, leaves his bed and seeks it, all on the word of com- mand. Is any proof necessary that this desire to keep men in lifelong leading-strings is an expression of the same temper which banishes the freethinker to the re- formatory (σωφρονιστήριον), there to languish in his cell, deprived of all except spiritual consolation, and in the end to be delivered up, if the “nocturnal council” fails in its work of conversion, to the axe of the executioner ?
Let us turn to another and more edifying side of the picture. It is said that at the hour of death images of childhood and early youth hover round us. It is of such thoughts that we are reminded by the concluding portion of the “Laws.” We find there a repetition and emphatic reassertion of some fundamental thoughts of the book: the
MEMORIES OF AN EARLIER STAGE. 263
little worth of mere courage, the divine nature of the soul, its precedence over the body, its immortal sovereignty, and its generation of all motion. But side by side with all this the Socratic problems and methods with which we are so familiar come once more into view. The old riddle of the unity or plurality of virtue is once more discussed and once more left unsolved. The Socratic induction, with its time-honoured instances of the pilot, the general, and the physician, once more parades before our eyes. Dialectic, too, makes an unexpected entry, and its object is now declared, in words strikingly like a passage in the “Phedrus” (cf. p. 21), to be the “contemplation of the One in the Many and the Unlike.” Such may well have been the meditations amid which the aged thinker sank to rest.
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CHAPTER OOXR
RETROSPECTS AND ANTICIPATIONS.
1. A LONG series of creations has defiled before us : we have passed in review the whole of the works which were un- doubtedly written by Plato. When we look back from the end to the beginning, our first feeling is one of intense astonishment, called forth by an unexampled wealth of intellect, a never-resting, never-tiring labour of thought. Our admiration grows when we remember the thinker’s earnest and persevering zeal for the improvement of men and the perfecting of society. It is still further increased when we think of the many-sidedness of Plato’s mind—a quality displayed not only in the diversity of subjects treated, but just as much so in the varying manner of treat- ing them. This continual process of change follows a very remarkable course. It may be said, and the assertion is a paradox only in appearance, that Plato was just as much one-sided as many-sided. Having once entered upon a path, he pursues it with the utmost self-confidence, un- troubled by warning voices and the objections that may occur to his mind. Like many an epoch-making thinker, he is not afraid of extreme solutions. Then comes a reaction, constraining him to acknowledge the elements of truth which he has hitherto neglected. Such is the case in his works on political philosophy. First we have the exclusive and unlimited sovereignty of philosophers, then the model of a mixed constitution permeated by reciprocal checks and limitations ; first over-bold deduction, then cautious, almost timid empiricism, Physiology has lately taught us
PLATO AND NATURAL SCIENCE. 265
that certain poisons can only be resisted by antidotes which the threatened organism produces for itself. But this healthful reaction does not set in unless the poison has been administered in sufficient quantity. In such cases it may be said with truth, though it sounds startling, that he who drains the poisoned draught to the dregs is nearer recovery than he who puts it too precipitately from his lips. It is the same with the great original thinker. When he has trodden the path of error to the end, he is nearer to the truth than if he had halted half-way.
2. Plato’s successes were not the fruits of that soil which Greek speculation, prior to the appearance of Socrates, had cultivated by preference. It must be affirmed without reserve that Plato’s theory of nature as a whole, as also that held by his greatest pupil Aristotle, in spite of many _ an advance on points of detail, stood far behind the achieve- ments and surmises of the older nature-philosophers. This was rightly judged by Bacon, and, in more recent times, by Schopenhauer. Plato was as much wanting in feeling for nature as Anaxagoras had been—that predecessor whom he valued above the others. His inverted theory of descent is as exactly a reversal of the truth as the Clazomenian’s theory of matter had been (cf. Vol. I. p. 210). The teleo- logical method of investigation which Anaxagoras suggested, which the “ Phedo” preached, and the “ Timzus” made an effort to practise, has only evinced a temporary fruitfulness within the domain of biology as a heuristic expedient.
But, methods apart, in the fundamentals of astronomy, a science which exerts a far-reaching influence on men’s conception of the universe, the Ionians, as well as the atomists, came much nearer the truth than did Plato and Aristotle. They had already surmised what the telescope and the spectroscopic prism have since converted into irre- fragable certainty, namely, that the stars, too, are under the dominion of change, which is not to be regarded as a characteristic peculiar to the sublunary world (cf. Vol. I. p. 366). And even relatively to the Pythagoreans, who were Plato’s chief teachers in natural philosophy, the return to the geocentric theory is a long step backwards. Turning to
266 GREEK THINKERS.
the two chief instruments in the investigation of nature, we note that one of them, the experimental method, was contemned by Plato (the reader is familiar with the point, cf. pp. 84, 187, and 207); the other, mathematics, he no doubt prized highly and raised in the general esteem by interweaving it with many of his doctrines. That, in addition to the stimulus and indirect influence which he exercised upon this branch of research, he left the world indebted to him for original contributions to it, we are very willing to believe; though the ancient statements to that effect are lacking in definiteness. Nor can we determine with certainty whether the rudiment of the sphere-theory was Plato’s own work, or only borrowed by him. The few obscure sentences in which Plato speaks of this theory do not in themselves give the impression that a discoverer is here announcing to his fellow-workers for the first time the results of his laborious investigations. But if, in this instance, it is not permitted to do more than doubt, we regard it as altogether inadmissible to class Eudoxus, who as a Hedonist in ethics was an opponent of Plato, among the members of Plato’s school, on the ground that in early youth he attended some of Plato’s lectures.
3. The vast and varied influence which proceeded from Plato and affected the history of the world, may perhaps be best summed up in the remark that without Plato we should have had no Aristotle, no Carneades, no Augustine.
Through the intermediacy of Aristotle (384-322) Plato contributed, after all, to the progress of physical research— much less, it must be admitted, in connexion with the knowledge of causal successions than with that of the ordered coexistence of things. The classification of natural objects grew in the soil of the Platonic dialectic. The inter- minable divisions of the “Sophist” and the “ Statesman” disgust and weary us sometimes by their excess of petty detail ; we should not forget, however, that we are here in the school which sent forth the great arranger and classifier, the morphologist par excellence. Both teacher and pupil transferred this method, the method of natural history, to
PLATO AND CARNEADES. 267
the field of mental science ; the exact differentiation of forms of inference is wholly, that of political and poetical forms partly, due to the pupil. But, by the employment of this method on its native ground, natural history itself, Aristotle prepared the way for, if he did not himself work out, results of the highest importance dealing with causal connexions. For one of his creations, comparative anatomy, was an indispensable preliminary to the construction of the theory of descent.
But while Plato’s school produced in Aristotle the great encyclopedist, the collector and orderer of a vast stock of knowledge, above all, the arbiter of medizval thought both in East and West, there is another point at which its in- fluence penetrates into the modern world still more deeply. The critical spirit of antiquity reached its culmination in the New Academy. Even the “laborious pastime” of the “ Parmenides” was not labour lost (cf. p. 153). Plato’s immediate successors, it is true, retained only the quasi- Pythagoreanism and the ethical aspirations of his latest years. But with Arcesilaus (died 241) came the triumph of the critical and dialectical tendency of the Platonic mind, which had derived some of its strength from Megarian in- fluences. The movement reached its apogee in Carneades (213-129), who surpassed all his predecessors and successors in subtlety of thought, whose piercing criticism shattered the confidence of the dogmatic schools, and in particular drove the Stoa to a comprehensive revision of its doctrines. His theory of probability at the same time gave an impulse towards the creation of an inductive logic which was re- presented in the later Epicureanism as well as in the medical schools of the Methodics and Empirics. Carneades has been rightly named the David Hume of antiquity. But he also reminds us of Michel de Montaigne, the great questioning spirit of the Renaissance, by his audacious criticism, which made full use of all the contradictions of traditions and accepted standards, which respected no barrier. And though Montaigne’s relation to Carneades may be the same as his relation to Plato (“I was a Platonist in this respect before I knew that there had ever
268 GREEK THINKERS.
been a Plato”), he was, in any case, accurately acquainted with his teachings.
Finally, in Augustine (354-430 A.D.), two streams united which for several centuries had battled against each other —Neo-Platonism and Christianity. The first opened at Athens, Plato’s school was also the last to be closed in that city (in 529, by Justinian). The form of Platonism re- presented in that school in its last period had been Zhe philosophy of dying antiquity, just as it afterwards became the philosophy of the dawning Renaissance. In the Greek East, indeed, the Platonic tradition was never wholly extinct. As late as in the eighth century, John of Damascus, the systematizer of that day’s theology and philosophy, drew from a Neo-Platonist source as well as from the Fathers of the Church ; and as early as in the eleventh century we find Constantine Psellus appearing asa fully developed Platonist in respect both of the form and the substance of his teaching. That even in the two intervening centuries interest in Plato had not died out in Byzantium, is shown by the date of the two chief manuscripts of his works. In the West, Platonism, after a short hibernation, awoke to new life at the least as early as the end of the ninth century ; in the course of the next few centuries the campaign against that petrified Aristotelianism, known as Scholasticism, is opened under its banner and carried on with continually increasing vigour. But though deeply permeated by mystic elements, finding life’s supreme end in the ecstatic contemplation of the divine, Neo-Platonism did not allow its origin in the great critical intellect of Plato to be entirely forgotten. Thus it may be noted in this connexion that the Primordial Essence or First Cause of Plotinus (204-269 A.D.), the true systematizer of the school, is regarded neither as self- knowing nor even as knowable, still less as having life or personality, but as something transcending all these deter- minations—a conception in which we recognize without difficulty the after-effects of the trenchant criticism applied by Carneades to the current ideas about God.
But the mystical elements are of Platonic origin equally with the critical. The exalted mysticism which we meet
PLATO AND MYSTICISM. 269
with in the “Symposium ” (cf. Vol. II. p. 396) is a fountain from which both late antiquity and the Middle Ages drew copiously. The Sufism of Islam, German mysticism, the Jewish Kabbalas, are one and all saturated with Platonic thoughts. Mysticism is alien to the scientific spirit, but by no means so hostile to it as appears at first sight. It is with mysticism much as it is with war. There is an in- finite deal to be said against both, but both have saved mankind from other and far worse evils than themselves. Mysticism is the great specific against aridity of heart and woodenness of intellect. A stream of warm life issues from its hidden depths, gently dissolving and lightly wash- ing away the clogging relics of an outlived past. It proves as fatal to the sham knowledge which wrangles over for- mulz, burrows among words, clutches at the letter, as it is to strait-laced conventionality and self-righteous pharisaism.
In the mind of Augustine, that genius in self-observa- tion and depth of spiritual insight, Christian and Platonic elements were fused together. His “Confessions,” that precious work, which by its strength of feeling, its vividness of delineation, the penetrating power of its self-analysis, has won a place of honour in the world’s literature, and which moves us now as forcibly as it once did Petrarch— this work has gained for its author the name of the first modern man. His influence upon later ages has been of incalculable depth. The Catholic Church numbers him among the foremost of those who have shaped her destinies. Yet also that form of Protestantism which has ploughed most deeply into the souls of men—the faith of Calvin— has been most permanently influenced by Augustine and his doctrine of predestination. In taking his stand upon self-consciousness as the foundation of all knowledge, where- in he shows himself pre-eminently a powerful thinker partly inspired by Platonism, he became the predecessor of Des- cartes, the creator of modern philosophy.
4. Now that we have named the great Christian Platonist, it will be well, in order to guard against every possible misunderstanding, to add a word on the specific character of Plato’s ethics. Its central pivot is the concept of justice,
270 GREEK THINKERS.
The relaxed austerity of Plato’s old age gave considerable scope to mere benevolence, without, for all that, encroach- ing upon the privileged position of justice. After this virtue, and only imperfectly distinguished from it, comes σωφροσύνη, that self-discipline supported by a sense of one’s own worth which, in Plato still more than elsewhere, bears a character of proud and dignified reserve. The incomplete severance of the two domains is regrettable ; it is excusable on the ground of their intimate action and reaction upon eachother. For not only is self-discipline the indispensable condition for the fulfilment of social duty ; the latter reacts on the former, and so promotes the health of the soul. The absence of duties to society, the freedom of the will from all restraints, leads to psychic disintegration (madness of the Czsars, and so forth). In its exaggeration, temper- ance becomes asceticism. This principle, the practice of which is the most effectual hunger-cure for pleasure-sated epochs, plays in the “ Phedo” a part which, supposing that only this work and a few kindred to it had been preserved, would inevitably have produced a fundamentally false im- pression. These works present to us a thinker for whom everything corporeal is merely a hindrance to knowledge and the present of no other account than as a preparation for the future: who would have guessed that this same thinker, far from becoming a penitent anchorite, would in other writings lavish the most devoted thought on the care of the body in all its branches, as well as on the ordering of economic and social conditions ; that he would one day glory in the labour and research he had bestowed on these objects with the emphasis displayed by the “ Athenian stranger” at the close of the “Laws”? In this, his latest work, more than in any other, Plato made his peace with the genius of his people; he returned in large measure to the old Hellenic ideal which sought the harmonious develop- ment of the whole personality.
Flight from the world, asceticism, hostility to nature— all these visited Plato’s soul without taking permanent pos- session of it. A feature which they resemble, and which they perhaps strengthened, was the depreciation, common
THE ACADEMICS. 271
to all Socratics, of the external goods enjoyed either by individuals or associations of men. That the happiness even of a State does not rest on its size or its riches, is a conviction which the mature old man’s wisdom of the “Laws” held as inviolably as the youthful impetuosity of the “Gorgias” had done. None the less, those extreme tendencies, among which must be reckoned the principle of avoiding all resort to force (cf. pp. 50 and 55), having once gained the vantage-ground of incorporation in Plato’s works, exerted an equally powerful influence on the world. The character of this influence was determined in no in- considerable measure by the defects of that view of nature which was held by Plato and retained by Aristotle, par- ticularly by the geocentric hypothesis and the anthropo- centric ideas based upon it. Had the final fall of this hypothesis been consummated in the third century before Christ, when all the intellectual conditions were propitious for the change (cf. Vol. I. p. 122), instead of being delayed till the sixteenth after Christ, the whole development of Western humanity would have taken a different course. But sometimes the safety of an army’s movements demands the recall of a flying column sent far in advance. Taken all in all, it may have been better that the dangerous revision of the theory of the universe was postponed toa maturer phase of the human mind.
5. These great and distant after-effects were beyond the ken of the youths who thronged round the admired teacher in the Academy. They attended the school of Plato just as they attended that of Isocrates, just as, a few decades earlier, men had hung on the lips of a Prodicus or a Protagoras. Philosophy was pursued more in the spirit of Callicles than in that of Socrates (cf. Vol. II. p. 334). The object was to gain the means for successful competition in the field of politics by training and sharpening the intel- lectual faculties. Thus the most eminent statesmen of the Athens of that day were temporarily pupils of Plato— Lycurgus the wise administrator and financier no less than Hyperides the successful advocate, Demosthenes the leader of the radical-national party equally with Phocion the head
272 GREEK THINKERS.
of the peace-party. All shades of political sentiment and activity were represented among Plato’s disciples. Clearchus set himself up as ruler of Heracleia; Chion and Leonidas conspired against him; Leon of Byzantium who snatched his native city from the claws of Philip, and Python who beat the recruiter’s drum for the same Philip in every corner of Greece,—all these alike had been Academics. Besides Dion, the philosopher in the palace, there was Cheron of Pellene, a tyrant in the Greek and also in the modern acceptation of the word, who overthrew the constitution of his country by the aid of Macedonian lances, and who shrank from no deed of violence. Hermias, the eunuch and former slave, who founded a throne in the city of Atarneus in Northern Asia Minor, and who received the support of Philip in the struggle against Persia, was also a member of the Academy. So, too, was Euphrzus of Oreus in Eretria, who for a long time enjoyed favour and high esteem at the court of Perdiccas III., but who ended as a passionate opponent of Philip, and took his own life in prison to avoid falling into the hands of his generals. It was a comparatively meagre band of disciples that chose the pursuit of science for their life’s calling. From this narrower circle we shall see men proceed who, partly in the Academy, partly outside it, carried on and developed the teachings of Plato, foremost among them the man whose name has so often appeared in these pages—Aristotle of Stagira.
NOTES AND: ADDITIONS.
VOL.
Book IV.—CHAPTER I.
(THE citations from AZschylus are taken from the edition of Kirchhoff ; those from Euripides from that of Nauck. Sophocles and Aristo- phanes are quoted from Dindorf’s Poete Scenic Grect; the tragic fragments from Nauck’s collection of fragments, ed. 2.)
Page 3. Theognis: cf. v. 349 (Poete Lyrict Greci, ed. Bergk, ii. 150, 4th ed.) ; also Homer, //zad, iv. 35 ; similarly /7., xxii. 347 ; xxiv. 212. Some other passage, now lost, must have been in the mind of Philodemus : De /ra, col. viii. 18, seg. (ed. Gomperz).
Page 4. Cf. Tylor, Authropology (London, 1881), p. 414, seg. The treatise of Miklosich: Dze Blutrache bet den Slaven, Vienna, 1887, supplies much more than what is promised in the title. On this point the true appreciation has been greatly hindered by the narrow outlook of classical learning, and similarly by the view, till lately prevalent, that the Homeric poems everywhere give a picture of primitive antiquity. In essentials, the process of development in Greece cannot have been other than the process elsewhere. In- dividual revenge was succeeded by family or hereditary revenge, which on its side constituted an important advance. The Australians and New Guinea natives remain at this stage tothis day; the remnants of the custom among Corsicans, Albanians, etc., are well known. The further stages of the development sometimes take the form, (1) private blood-requital, (2) public blood-requital ; at other times, (1) private blood-revenge, (2) private compensation (weregeld), (3) public regulation of the compensation. Sometimes, in special conditions of social conformation, bloodless is again replaced by bloody requital. That in Greece also blood-requital was a primzval custom, A‘schylus already knew better than many of his commentators. ᾿Αντὶ δὲ πληγῆς govias poviay πληγὴν τινέτω, δράσαντι παθεῖν, τριγέρων μῦθος τάδε paves (Choéph., 304, 56φ.).
Page 7. A‘schylus. The quotations are from Suff/., 507-8, Eum.,
274 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
553-5, Fragm., 381. A valuable collection in Haigh, The Tragic Drama of the Greeks (Oxford, 1896), p. 86, seq.
Page 8. On the Oresteza, now compare also the suggestive introduction of Wilamowitz in his translation. For the characteristics of Aischylus and Sophocles generally, above all see Rohde’s Psyche, li. 224 (ed. 2), and his lecture, Dze Religion des Griechen, Heidel- berg, 1895.
Page 9. Besides Rohde (of. cé¢., p. 237), Johannes Hooykaas, De Sophoclis Gdipode Coloneo (Leyden, 1896), has lately treated the “moral order of the world” in Sophocles with penetration and convincing truth. (Below) “One of the most pious:” cf. Schol. on Soph., Zvectra, 831. ‘One of the honest Athenians:” so his con- temporary Ion calls him in A¢heve@us, xiii. 603 C.
Page 10. “ Not to be born,” etc.: cf. Ad. Col., 1224, seg. (Below) Cf. Herodot., vi. 98. (Below) Euripides: Translation of Fragm., 449.
Page 11. “ Children who turn out ill,” etc. : Fragm., 571. With the above, cf. on having children, A4/c., 882, seg. ; Androm., 418, seg. ; Med., 1098, seg.; Suppl., 1089, seg. (Bottom) Cf. Eurip., Fragm., 285.
Page 12 (Middle). Thucyd., iii. 81, seg. (Middle) Advantage of a middle station: cf. Eurip., SufA/., 244, and Fragm., 626. (Bottom) Grotto in Salamis: ancient Life of Euripides, 1. 61 (p. vi. in Nauck’s ed.).
Page 12. Eurip., Fragm., 910 and 913. “If gods do evil,” etc. : Fragm., 292,7. (Below) On the treatment of legendary matter by Euripides compared with older poets, cf. Welcker, Gétterlehre, ii. 90 ; Leopold Schmidt, Ethzk der Griechen,i. 17; Christ, Griech. Lit. Gesch., § 121.
Page 14. Euripides on athletes: cf. Fragm.,201 and 282. (Below) Cf. Zroad., 884, seq.
Page 15. Cf. the collection in Nauck’s Introduction, Note 67. Euripides raises his voice against war and conquest, Su/p/., 491, seg. ; Fragm., 286, 10-12.
Page 16. Plato calls the milder treatment of slaves “spoiling ” (θρύπτειν) in Laws, vi. 777 C. But cf. 776 D-E.
Page 17. Cf. Eurip., Κι; 486; JJed., 582. Of “Sophistic,” of “extreme individualism,” Pohlmann speaks in many passages (Geschichte des antiken Communismus und Soctalismus). (Below) Hesiod, Works and Days, 602, where the lines (generally recognized as misplaced) θῆτά τ᾽ ἄοικον ποιεῖσθαι καὶ ἄτεκνον ἔριθον δίζεσθαι κέλομαι admit no other interpretation. (Below) Theognis, especially 53, seg. (Poete Lyr. Gr., 124, Bergk, ed. 4).
Page 19. “Let the alien serve the Hellene,” etc. Eurip., /pA. zx Aul., 1400, seq.
Page 20. Xenophon, Avad., vii. 6. (Below) Aristotle: cf. Po/., i. c.2and 5. (Below) //., xxii.371. The tragic poet Moschion (transition
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 275
between the 5th and 4th centuries); cf. Fragm., 3. Herodot., ix. 79. Incidental disapproval of insults to dead bodies even as early as I1., xxii. 395 and xxiii. 176. (Below) The remark that Homer does not use the name “ Hellenes” as a collective term, nor yet oppose bar- barians to Greeks, is as old as Thucyd., 1. 3. The Mavéaanves of 74, ii. 530, and the description of the Carians as βαρβαρόφωνοι (zb7d., 867), prove at the utmost, if they prove so much, that that part, the so- called “ Catalogue of Ships,” is the work of a later age. The words of the Amphictyonic oath in A‘schines’ Jz Creszph., §§ 109, seg.
Page 21 (Bottom). Ernst Curtius, in his Greek History, has described the services of Delphi to civilization in many passages, with penetration if not without occasional exaggeration.
Page 22 (Top). Mardonius, in Herodot., vil. 9. The poet of “ enlightenment,” z.e. Euripides, Supf/., 491, seg. (Bottom) Armistice. I1., vii. 408, seg.
Page 23, 1.3. Athene, Z/., viii. 379; Diomedes, //., xi. 395. H. Weil has excellently treated the matter in his essay, L’//zade et /e drott des gens dans la vieille Gréce, Rev. de Philologie, 1885, p. 161 seg., reprinted in “tudes sur Vantiguité Grecgue (Paris, 1900), p. 183, seg. (Below) Life and freedom of the conquered: cf. Calli- cratidas in Xenoph., Hed/enx., i. 6, 14, and Plato, Rep~., v. 469 c. For what follows, cf. Thucyd., 111. 68, 2, and Pausan., ix. 15, 2.
Page 24. Cf. Jlzad, vi. 62. Against butchery of prisoners: Thucyd., iii. 58, 2; 66, 2; 67, 3. (Below) “Flames devour the city,” etc.: J/zad, ix. 593, seg. On the Thebans and the Syracusans, see Pausan., ix. 15, 2, and Thucyd., vii. 86. For what follows : Torone, Thucyd., v. 3; Scione., zdzd., 32 ; Platzea, iii. 68, 2; Melos, v. 116.
Page 25 (Middle). Cf. Thucyd., 11. 67, seg. Thucyd.: z.e. v. 85, seg. This dialogue is treated by Dionysius of Halicarnassus, De Thucyd., ο. 47-42 ; Grote, vii. 157 (2nd ed.).
Page 26. ‘“‘Death-sentence on the inhabitants of Mytilene:” cf. Thucyd., ili. 35, seg.
Page 27. Support of the disabled: cf. the speech of Lysias (24) “for the invalid” (ὑπὲρ τοῦ ἀδυνάτου). Prosecution by wives: cf. Meier and Schémann, Der Attische Process, 11. p. 509 (2nd ed.). Provision for widows and orphans: cf. Girard, L’Education Athénienne, p. 32 seg.» Schémann, Griechische Alterthiimer, i. 562 (4th ed.). Orphans of fallen soldiers: cf. Gilbert, Griechishe Staatsaltertiimer, i. 328. Quotation from the J/zad, xxii. 495. Legal protection of the slave: Meier and Schémann, of. cé¢., Ὁ. 625, seg. Similar laws elsewhere also: eg. at Gortyn in Crete; cf. Meues Stadtrecht von Gortyn (ed. Biicheler and Zittelmann), p. 95, seg.
Page 28. Cf. the instructive essay of 5. Spitzer in the Zez¢schr. f. dsterr. Gymin., 1894, p. 1, seg., Zur Geschichte der internationalen Moral bet den Griechen. It is specially remarkable that in Thucyd., vii. 18, the Spartans ascribe their failure in the Archidamian war to
276 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
their παρανόμημα, their violation of the terms of the peace, and now draw ‘new hope from the same act on the part of the Athenians.
Page 29. “School of Greece.” In the funeral oration in Thucyd., ii. 41, Pericles calls Athens τῆς Ελλάδος παίδευσιν.
Book IV.—CHAPTER II.
Page 30. Praise of Athens in Eurip., 4Zed., 824, seg.; Alc., 452; Troad., 207, seg.; Fragmt., 360, 5, seg.,981. In Aristophanes, Athens is several times called “violet-crowned.” (Below) Capture of Miletus, cf. Herodot., vi. 21.
Page 32 (Middle). “One family of high repute:” ze. that of Isagoras; cf. Herodot., v. 66. Nelidze and Acacidz ; the former from Pylos in Messenia, the latter from A°gina. “ Hospitality:” cf. Strabo, x. 471; and Plutarch, Czmon,x. 8. Ernst Curtius: Alterthum und Gegenwart, 11. 30.
Page 33. On the stability of life of the Athenian constitution, cf. the author’s essay, Aristoteles und seine neuentdeckte Schrift, Deutsche Rundschau, 1891, p. 219, seg.
Page 34. “Abundance of light” and “ purity of air,” praised by Euripides, JZed., 823 ; Aristides, Panathen., §§ 97 and Io! (i. 156 and 162, ed. Dindorf). (Below) Aristoph., “Qpa (Fragm., i. 536, ed. Kock). The statements about the climate rest on the twelve years’ observations of the astronomer Julius Schmidt. His publication is quoted by Kurt Wachsmuth, Die Stadt Athen im Alterthum, i. 94, note 1. Ernst Curtius, οὗ. céz., p. 34.
Page 35 (Top). Herodotus, i. 60. (Bottom) Here our exposition owes much to the work of Emile Boutmy, equally rich in facts and thoughts: Le Parthénon et le génie grec, Paris, 1897; first sketch, Philosophie de Varchitecture en Gréce, 1870.
Page 38 (Middle). Wilhelm von Humboldt, /deen su einem Versuch, die Granzen der Wirksamkeit des Staates zu bestimmen, Werke, vii. p. 10-11. John Stuart Mill, Zzderzy (ch. ill. p. 107, Scott Library ed.). (Below) Herodot., v. 78.
Page 40 (Bottom). Thucydides or Pericles: funeral oration of Pericles in Thucyd., ii. 37, seg.
Page 42 (Bottom). On the material advance of Athens after the Persian wars, see Beloch, Grzech. Gesch., i. 395.
Page 43 (Middle). Thucyd., iv. 55. (Bottom) On Pericles, Thucyd., iv. 65, 6.
Book IV.—CHAPTER III.
Page 46. Birth of Socrates. The date of his death is fixed as May, 399 (Diog. Laert., ii. 44) ; the length of his life is given by Plato in Crito, 52 c, as seventy years, but in Afol/., 17 1), as more than seventy years. In the latter passage the variation of the manuscripts between ἑβδομήκοντα and πλείω ἑβδυμήκοντα is to be decided in favour of the
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 277
latter reading, because no motive can be discerned for the interpolation of πλείω, and, on the other hand, the rounding-off of the number is very easily possible on the ground of the rhetorically coloured style of the Crz¢o. Cf. our remark on Book III.ch.vi. “The Graces :” on this, cf. Furtwangler in Roscher’s Lexicon der Mythologie, i. 881 ; also Studniczka, Zettschr. f. osterr. Gymn., 1886, p. 684. (Middle) Archelaus. The fragment of Ion in Diog. Laert., ii. 23. Cf. also Theophrastus in Doxogr. Gr., 479,17; to this belong also 546, 11, and 567, 1. (Below) Cicero’s saying : 7sc.,v. 4,10, and Acad. Post., i. 4,15. Zeller (1. 1037, ed. 5) hesitates to believe this testimony.
Page 47. The narrative is drawn from Plato, Sympostum, 220 C; cf. also 174 D. (Below) Aristotle, Azad. Post., ii. 13 (97 Ὁ; 21).
Page 48. Zopyrus. The sources of this information are now most complete in R. Forster, Scrzptores Physiognomonici (Teubner Coll.) Proleg., vii. seg. The version quoted from Joannes Cassianus, Collationes, xiii. 5, 3 (FOrster, p. x., ἢ. 1) seems specially important. This probably contains the direct words of Phzedo’s dialogue (Diog. Laert., ii. 9), which is generally—and without doubt justly—recognized as the original source. (Below) “ Outbursts of violent rage :” attested by Spintharus, the father of Aristoxenus, not a too trustworthy autho- rity for things of this kind (Miiller, Fragm. Hist. Grec., ii. 280).
Page 49. On irony, as peculiar to Socrates and as the opposite of ἀλαζόνεια, see Aristotle, Vic. E7¢h., ii. and iv. 13, also Eud. Et¢h., iii. 7,and Magn. Mor., i. 33, and further Plato, ReZ., i. 337 A, E; Symp, 216 C; Meno, 80A; Afol., 23 C;also Xenophon, JZemor.,iv. 4-10. The fundamental meaning of the word is “pleasure in mystifying.” The narrowing of the meaning given in the text is very easily compre- hensible, because self-depreciation, contradicting as it does the needs and interests of life, is unexpected, and therefore much more adapted to deceive than its opposite, boastfulness. The first Character of Theophrastus gives the above narrower meaning in its prefixed definition, but the older and wider meaning in its description.
Page 50 (Middle). “Beggarly prater:” so the comic poet Eupolis calls Socrates (Fragm., i. 351, Kock). (Below) “ Barefoot, as if to spite the shoemakers:” so the comic poet Ameipsias (i. 672, Kock). The traits that follow are taken from Aristoph., Clouds, 361, and Plato, Phedo, 117 B. (Bottom) Apollodorus and Chzrephon : cf. Groen van Prinsterer, Prosopographia Platonica, p. 204, seg. ; also Eupolis, i. 322, Kock.
Page 51. The order is taken from the Afology, 32 C-E. On the trial of the Generals, cf. 4pology, 32 B, C ; Xenophon, /e//e2., i. 714, seg.; Memor., i. 1. 18, and iv. 4,2; lastly Diodor., xiii. 100, seg. ; of modern writers Grote, 7252. of Greece, vill. 242, seg. (2nd ed.) ; Max Frankel, Die Adtischen Geschworenengerichte, Ὁ. 79, seg. ; Kenyon’s remarks on Aristotle, ᾿Αθηναίων Πολιτεία, C. 34 (beginning), and the author’s pamphlet Dze Schrift vom Staatswesen der Athener, Ὁ. 17, Seq.
VOL, III. U
278 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
Page 55,§3. Aristotle, Me¢aph., M. c. 4 (1078 b, 27, seg.). (Bottom) The distinction stated in the text is at least implied in the entry of Socratic sentences under the head of παραβολή. Cf. Aristotle, Rhetoric, B. 20 (1393 b, 3), with expositions, such as we read in Xenophon, Memor., iii. 9. 10.
Page 56 (Middle). Xenophon, AZemor., iv. 2. 13, seg. Cf. also Plato, Rep., 1..331 C.
Page 57. Xenophon, Aemor., iv. 6, 15, and i. 2, 37; similarly Plato, Gorg., 491 A; also Symf., 221 E.
Page 58. “ Did he propose,” etc.: Xenophon, Memor., 111. 6 and 7 ; then ili. 9, 10.
Page 59. “Misology:” cf. Plato, Phedo, 89 C. The next quotation, Afol., 38 A.
Page 60. Aristotle denies the theory of ideas to Socrates, Me/aph., M. iv. 1078 B, 30, and 1086 B, 4.
Page 61 (Bottom). Xenophon, @com., i., and iv. 18.
Page 62. “ Pilgrimage to Delphi:” cf. Aristotle in Diog. Laert., ii. 23; also Memor., iv. 2, 24, seg.; and Plutarch, /# Colotam, c. 20. (Below) “Fields and trees:” Phedrus, 230 D. ‘‘Mysians and Pisidians :” Memor., iii. 5, 26; Azad., ili. 2, 23.
Page 63. On the pamphlet of Polycrates, cf. Isocrates, O7., xi. § 4. We know, on the authority of Favorinus, Diog. Laert., ii. 39, that it was not composed till several years after the execution of Socrates. Cobet especially (.Vove Lectiones, 662, seg.) has made it very probable that Xenophon, in the AZemoradbilia, makes frequent reference to this pamphlet. (Below) “The turns of phrase, the formulas :” cf. the definition of φθόνος, 111. 9, 8, and of σχολή, ili. 9, 9, similarly iii. ὃ, 6 (on the beautiful dung-basket), and further, 111. 4.
Page 64 (Top). The right method in principle has been shown by Karl Joél, Der Echte und der Xenophontische Socrates, i. p. 64, seg.
Book IV.—CHAPTER IV.
Page 66. “No man errs of his own free will” (οὐδεὶς ἑκὼν ἁμαρτάν ει), The numerous Platonic references in C, F. Hermann, Geschichte und System der Platonischen Philosophie, p. 330, note 328.
Page 67. On the denial of the irrational part of the soul and the impossibility of ἀκρασία, cf. Aristotle, Wc. ἴδ.) H. 3, 1145 Ὁ, 233 1147 b, 14, seg. ;1200b, 25; Magn. Mor., A. 1 (similarly ch. 20, 1190 b, 28), also ch. 10,1187 4,6. “Video meliora,” εἰς. : Ovid, Metamorfh., vii. 20, seg. (Below) “ Great ‘one-eyed men :’” so Bentham is called by Mill, Dissertations and Discussions, i. 357.
Page 68. “French writer of comedies:” Sardou, La Famille Benotton, p. 118 (Paris, 1889).
Page7o. Epicharmus, /ragm.,78 (Com. Grec. Fragm., ed. Kaibel, i. I, 104.=Ahrens, fr. 56), οὐδεὶς ἑκὼν πονηρὸς οὐδ᾽ ἄταν ἔχων. The two last words altered to ἄκων μάκαρ in Aristot., Vic. £¢h., Το i. 7, 1113 Ὁ, 15.
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 279
Page 71. Cleanthes. The quotation forms the motto of this book. Besides Clement, /.c., this sentence also appears in Cicero, De Legibus, i. 12, 33 (with the addition, /d enim querebatur caput esse exitiorum omnium), and in a slightly altered form, De Of, iii. 3, 11. The elegy of Aristotle in Bergk, Poéte Lyr. Gr., ed. 4,11. 336, seg. At the beginning of the last line the tradition has od viv, which the author (Wzener Studien, ii. 1) has emended οὐ δίχα. Cf., for example, Dion’s Oration, iii. 39 (i. 40, 14, Arnim), ὀυ δίχα θεὶς τό τε αὑτοῦ, x.7.A. The author believes with Bernays (Ges. Abhandlungen, i. 141, seg. = Rhein. Mus., xxxiii. 232, seg.) that Socrates, not Plato, is here meant (compare, now, my Platonische Aufsdtze, 111. end). Line 3, ᾿Ανδρὸς ὃν οὐδ᾽ αἰνεῖν τοῖσι κακοῖσι θέμις, can be referred precisely to the unworthy representatives (as Aristotle regarded them) of Socrates, like Aristippus and Antisthenes.
Page 72. “Slavish condition :” cf. Plato, Symp., 215 E, and Xeno- phon, Memor., iv. 2, 22.
Page 74. Xenophon, /evz., ill. 9, 4: Σοφίαν... καὶ σωφροσύνην οὐ διώριζεν. The structure of the Socratic moral philosophy has been nowhere better exhibited than in the forgotten doctoral disserta- tion of the Englishman, W. F. Hurndall, De Philosophia Morali Socratis (Heidelburg, 1853). L. Dissen’s programme, De Philosophia Morali in Xenophontis de Socrate Commentartis Tradita (Gottingen, 1812), also deserves mention. (Below) Here we follow Zeller’s admirable exposition of the eudzmonistic basis of morality in Xenophon (Phil. der Gr., 11. 1, 152, ed. 4).
Page 78. J. S. Mill, System of Logic, bk. v. ch. 1, § 33.
Page 79. “That is, and ever will be:” Plato, Rep., v. 457 B. (Below) Xenophon, MJemor., iii. 8. 3, 6, 7 and iv. 6, 9.
Page 80. “The reproach was urged :” cf. Xenophon, MZemor., i. 2, 49, seg., and i. 2,9, seg. (Bottom) Criticism of the appointment of officers by lot ; e.g. Memor., i. 2,9; 111, 9,10. Georges Perrot (Essazs sur le droit public et privé de la République Athénienne, Paris, 1867, p. 10, seg., 54, 71) has excellently indicated the right points of view for estimating this institution.
Page 81. No depreciation of hand labour: Xenophon, AJemor., ii. 7, 6, seg., and Ccon., in many places. (Below) Capacity of the female sex ; cf. Xenophon, Sym., ii. 12 (even courage seems teachable, since this woman has learned to go through such dangerous perform- ances ; Antisthenes in Diog. Laert., vi. 1, 12, “‘ The virtue of man and woman is the same,” and especially Plato in the Republic and the Laws.
Page 82. Confucius. The quotation from the 39th book of the Li Ki according to Legge’s translation (Sacred Books of the East, xxviii. Ρ. 412). Cf. also Lanessan, La Morale des philosophes Chinozs, p. 28, and G. von der Gabelentz, Confucius und seine Lehre (Leipzig, 1888), p- 43, seg. “‘Reproach of eudzemonism :” zézd., p. 22. Alltruistic spirit of the Confucian doctrine, Z7-K7, Bk. 39, 1; similarly Giles, Gems of Chinese Literature, p. 3, seg., tbid., p. 1; comparison with Socrates.
280 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
The Chinese State paper in Giles, p. 161. Confucius’ doubts of immortality in von der Gabelentz, of. cét., p. 11, seg. (Below) Socrates and the question of immortality: cf. Plato, Afol., ad fin., and Xenophon, Cyrop., Vill. 7, 19.
Page 84. “Then bythe earth his body :” Corpus Iuscr. Alt., i. 442. For what follows, cf. Rohde, Psyche, ii. 257, ed. 2; also Briickner’s lecture User die Entwickelung der Bestattung in Attika, Berliner ° Philol. Wochemschr., 1892, Nos. 13 and 14.
Page 85,§5. Socrates’ relation to religion is excellently treated by K. Joel, Der Echte und der Xenophontische Socrates, i. 69, seg. (a work of which the second and altogether more comprehensive part appeared too late to be used below).
Page 86. “The good” simply : Xenophon, 776 107... 1. 3, 2. (Below) “ According to the laws of the State ” (νόμῳ πόλεως): Xenophon, Alemor., i. 3, 13 iv. 3, 16; iv. 6, 3.. Also for what follows, cf. AZemor., i. 3. 3.
Page 87. Socrates and Delphi: cf.note to p. 62, and further Plato, Phedrus, 229 E, and AZol. in many places, Xenophon, JZemor., iv. 2, 24, and Azab., iii. 1, 5 seg. On dreams, cf. Plato, Phedo, 60 E and 61A; Apol., 33 C; Crito,44 A-B. Δαιμόνιον : cf. Xenoph., Memor., i. 1, 4; decisive on the other side, Plato, AZol., 31 D. Zeller counts the “cases of its intervention” (ii. 1, 80, note 2, ed. 4).
Page 90 (Top). The two theological sections of the Memorabilia are i. 4 and iv. 3. On these and the judgment of ancient and modern times on them, cf. Joél, of. czz., 118, seg. We agree tothe verdict (zd7d., Ρ- 120) that ‘fin any case 1. 4 has more claim to belong to the genuine Socrates than iv. 3.” (Below) Desertion of natural philosophy by So- crates: cf. Aristotle, AZetapl., A. 6,987 Β 1, and De Anima, A. 1,642 A, 25. His polemic against natural philosophers in Xenophon, AZemmor., i. I, II, seg., iv. 7, 6, seg.,and (probably more Xenophontic than Socratic)
ait, 715. BooK IV.—CHAPTER V.
Page 92 (Bottom). Eupolis (i. p. 351 and 355, Kock). On Protagoras, tbid., p. 297.
Page 93. Telecleides: zdéd., p. 218. Ameipsias: p. 672. Aristo- phanes, Birds, 1281, seg., 1553, seg. ; Frogs, 1491, seg.
Page 94 (Middle). ‘‘ King Vortex :” in Aristoph., Clouds, 380, seq., and 1471. (Bottom) Invitation by King Archelaus: attested by Aristotle, Rez, B. 23, 1398 a, 24.
Page 95 (Top). “Reads out of yellow rolls:” cf. Xenophon, Memor., i. 6,14. Gifts of his friends: principal passage, Quintilian, Inst., xii. 7, 9; indirectly acknowledged by Plato, Afo/., 33 B. The quotation from the Clouds of Aristophanes, 144, seg.
Page 96. On Critias, see below, p. 302.
Page 97. On Anytus, see Plato, Meno. 90 B ; Isocrates, Or., xviii.
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 281
§ 23; Diodor., xii. 64; Xenoph., Hed/en., iii. passim. What Xenophon (A fpol., § 29, seg.) relates about the relations of Socrates with the son of Anytus may be regarded as worth little credit. (Below) Lycon: an unimportant politician, often jeered by the comic poets; cf. the Scholia on Plato, AZol., 23 E. Meletus: a mediocre poet, author of an Gdifodeia, similarly jeered by the comic poets, and also for his thinness ; cf. Scholia on 4fo/., 18 B and i. p. 793, Kock. He is called “young and unknown” by Plato (E£uthyphr., 2 B), where also his appearance is described.
Page 98 (Top). The exact words of the indictment in Diog. Laert., ii. 5, 40. On the external details of the procedure which follow, cf. Meier and Schémann, Aé¢. Process, 160, seg. and 181, seg. (2nd ed.). Curt Wachsmuth’s corrections (Dze Stadt Athen in Alterthum, ii. 377, seg.) are again corrected through Aristot., ’A@ny. Πολιτ. Col. 32, the most complete explanation by Sandys, p. 240 of his edition. Cf. also Daremberg-Saglio, Dzctton. des Antig., 11. p. 195. Incense and prayer certainly attested by Aristoph., Wasps, 860. The number of the jury is clear from Diog. Laert., ii. 41, combined with Plato, 4fo/., 36a. Only Plato has rounded off the number 31 to 30; and Diogenes by a slight inaccuracy, speaks of a majority of 281 votes, instead of 281 votes which form the majority. It is not necessary to assume a textual error in Diogenes, like Kéchly, Redex und Vortrage, p. 370. Observe the large number of the jury, not much less than the tenth part of the 6000, who were qualified to apply ostracism and similar legal measures. Sucha considerable part of the Athenian people must have been strongly impressed by the aggressive tone of the defence, and perceived in it the proof of the reproach against Socrates : ὑπερορᾶν ἐποίει τῶν καθεστώτων νόμων τοὺς συνόντας (Xenoph., Memor., i. 2. 0).
Page 99 (Top). On the persons described here, cf. Plato, AZo/., 33 6-34 8, alsoGrcoen van Prinsterer, Prosopographia Platonica (Leyden, 1823); and further the bust of Antisthenes in Schuster, Portrats der Griechischen Phtlosophen (Leipzig, 1876), plate I. 6, and similarly the bust of Plato, now acknowledged as authentic, cf. Benndorf, Fahres- hefte des ost. arch. Instituts, 11. 250.
Page 100. ‘‘ Adaptation of the truth to the exigencies of style :” the author treated this more thoroughly at the Cologne Congress of Philologists in the autumn of 1895. He still remains far removed from holding the Afology (with Martin Schanz, Platons Apologie, Leipzig, 1893, Introduction, p. 74), for a “ free creation” of Plato, although he now approaches Schanz’s view somewhat nearer than he did.
Page Io1 (Bottom). When I oppose the view that Socrates desired death at any price, I do not thereby agree with those who deny to Xenophon the Apology attributed to him (cf. § 33). Evenif Xenophon had been in Athens, instead of staying in Asia Minor, he would not have been able to see through the purposes and motives of Socrates with infallible certainty.
282 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
Page 107 (Middle). “As has recently been remarked:” here I follow my son, H. Gomperz, Grundlegung der neusokratischen Philo- sophie, p. 28.
Page 108. “ Useful lie :” cf. Plato, Rep., 111. 389 Ὁ.
Page 110 (Middle). On Socrates’ prison-poems, cf. Plato, Phedo, 60 c, and further Diog. Laert., ii. 42: ᾿Αλλὰ καὶ παιᾶνα κατά Tivas ἐποίησεν. According to the same writer, ii. 62, a doubt about the genuineness of this pzean was expressed in antiquity. But, on the other hand, the criticism of the versified A°sopian fables, indicated in the words, οὐ πάνυ ἐπιτετευγμένως, should not be taken as expressing a doubt of their genuineness. Whether the two lines there quoted are genuine or not, does not admit of decision. The same is true of the small fragment in Atheneus, xiv. 628, F (Bergk, Poete Lyr. Gr., ii. 287, ed. 4). There seems to me no ground for doubting, like Schanz in Hermes, xxix. 602, the actual fact stated by Plato.
Page 111(Top). In my judgment the best accounts and judgments of the trial are given by H. KéGchly, of. cz¢., and Grote in the 68th chapter of the /Z7st. of Greece. Peter Forchhammer’s treatise, Dze Athener und Sokrates. Die Gesetzlichen und der Revolutionar (Berlin, 1837), is not at all worthless, although not completely free from caprice. (Below) Hegel, Gesammelte Werke, xiv. p. 81 seg. (Bottom) J. S. Mill, Zzderty, ch. iii.
Page 114 (Top). ‘‘ Alcibiades and Critias.” When Isocrates, Ov, xl. § 5, maintains that before the denunciation of Polycrates no one had any knowledge of Alcibiades having been a disciple of Socrates, either (1) although he is a fellow-countryman and a contemporary, he does not know the truth, or (2) he refuses to know it in the heat of his polemic against Polycrates, or (3) he plays inadmissibly with the word “ pupil” or “ disciple” (μαθητής). For Plato’s Sympostum allows no contradiction, any more than the openings of the Profagoras (481 D) or the Gorgias (519 A). Xenophon, JZemor., i. 2, 12, seg. (Below) “Xenophon quotes the ‘ accuser’ :” AZemor., 1. 2-9, seq.
Page 115 (Bottom). Bentham, Works, x. p. 583.
Page 116 (Top). Epictetus, i. 9, 1 (ed. ἘΠ᾿ Schenkl, p. 32, 9).
Page 117 (Middle). Cf. Plato, Crvz7o, 45 E, ‘Os εἰσῆλθες ἐξὸν μὴ εἰσελθεῖν. 52 C, ‘AAA’ ἤρου ὡς ἔφησθα mpd τῆς φυγῆς θάνατον, and above Ἔν αὐτῇ τῇ δίκῃ ἐξῆν σοι φυγῆς τιμήσασθαι. Xenoph., AMJemor., iv. 4. 4, ᾿Αλλὰ ῥᾳδίως ἂν ἀφεθεὶς ὑπὸ τῶν δικαστῶν εἰ καὶ μετρίως τι τούτων ἐποιήσε. (Bottom) “ Re- pentance of the Athenians :” cf. Diog. Laert., ii. 43 ; and Diodor., xiv.
37, ad fin. Page 118. /éschines, 772: Zzmarchum, § 173.
Book IV.—CHAPTER VI.
Page 119. “ Personal beauty :” Diog. Laert., ii. 6. 48. Except this section, Xenophon’s writings are also the only authority for his
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 283
life, besides incidental statements of ancient writers. (Below) τ Dilettante, in Goethe’s sense of the word.” “That is exactly the nature of dilettanti, that they do not know the difficulties that inhere in a subject, and that they always want to undertake something for which they have no powers” (Goethe’s Gesfrache, ed. Biedermann, vi. 35). (Below) “On hunting:” L. Radermacher (?heix. Mus., li. and 111.) has certainly proved that its language shows many divergences from that of Xenophon’s other writings. Yet the possibility of explaining these discrepancies by long distance in time does not seem to the present writer to be quite excluded. The spirit of the little work certainly shows complete correspondence. with the cognate writings of Xenophon.
Chronology of Xenophon. Since at his first public appearance after the arrest of the generals he speaks of his youth, which makes him appear scarcely qualified to take a command (A4zad., iil. 1, 25), probably he had not then (401) yet reached the age of thirty. So he was born, in any case, not before 430, probably not till the beginning of the “twenties ” of the fifth century. His death cannot have happened before the end of the “ fifties” of the fourth century. There are two reasons : (1) Xenophonendsthe He//enzca with the battle of Mantineia. and in the Agesz/aus he presupposes the death of that king. That would not require him to live long after 360. But the statement in the Hedlenica (vi. 4, 37), according to Sauppe’s just remark (“‘ £2 Capitel aus Xenophon’s ‘EXAnund,” Nachr. der Gotting. Ges. der Wtss., 1882, No. 10), points at least to 357. (2) Kaibel (Hermes, xxv. 597), though in my view he does not prove that the “ Peace-Speech” of Isocrates is used in the περὶ πόρων, does prove the identity of the political situation presupposed in both works. But, since this speech of Isocrates falls in the middle of the “fifties” (Blass, A7ttesche Beredsamkett, ii. 299, 2nd ed.), this indication also leads to the same period as the expression in the He//enzca. The work of E. Schwartz, fiinf Vortrage tiber den Griechischen Roman, did not reach me until this chapter was finished. His treatment of Xenophon corresponds in many points with mine. We should be glad to know what is the foundation for his view that Antisthenes died at a time when Xeno- phon’s romance on Cyrus could not yet have been composed. In modern literature may be mentioned the character of Xenophon in Gutschmid, A/ezne Schriften, iv. 328, also the few pages relating to Xenophon in Mahaffy, Problems of Greek History, pp. 100, seg., 118, 127.
Page 120 (Middle). On this younger Aspasia, cf. Plut., dr/axerx., xxvi. 4 (Vite, 1221, 15, seg., ed. Dohner).
Page 121 (Top). Xenophon’s inquiry at the Delphian oracle, Anab., il. τ. 4-11.
Page 122. The inaccurate statement, which often recurs in modern times, that Xenophon lead the retreat of the Ten Thousand,
284 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
appears in antiquity, probably for the first time in Pausanias, ix. 15. 3. (Bottom) “ Number of petty anecdotes : cf. iii. 4. 46, seg., and iv. 4. 12.
Page 123 (Middle). “ Themistogenes of Syracuse :” the statement in Xenophon’s He/lentca, 111. 1. (Below) The investigation of the agreements and differences in the narratives of Xenophon and Diodorus would lead us too far. Diirrbach’s attempt to explain these agreements by the use of a common source (L’ Afologie de Xénophon dans [7 Anabase, Rév. des Etudes Grecgues, Vi. 343, 5€9.), very suspicious in itself, is completely overthrown by the way in which Diodorus (xiv. 29. 3) makes use of the passage Azab., iv. 7. 21, so important as a piece of effective writing. Also compare Diod., xiv. 30. 2 with Axnad., iv. 8. 21.
Page 124 (Bottom). On Scillus, cf. Azad., v. 3.
Page 125, Grylus: cf. Aristotle in Diog. Laert., ii. 6. 55, and Quintil., Zzst., ii. 17.14. See the author’s essay, Die Herculanischen Rollen, Zeitschr. fiir δε 1277. Gymn., 1866, p. 701, seg. Cf. also Jakob . Bernays, Die Dialoge des Aristoteles, pp. 62 and 157.
Page 126 (Middle). Cf. Cyropedia, 111. 1-22, and Economicus, xii. 12; similarly xx. 2,21. With respect to women, cf. on one side the whole Zconomicus, and on the other the already quoted expressions on female courage in the Sywzfostum.
Page 127 (Top). The relation of the two Symfoséa has greatly occupied scholars. It can now be taken as proved that Xenophon’s work followed its Platonic namesake. Cf. Ivo Bruns, AZtische Liebes- theorten, etc., in Neue Fahrbiicher f. d. Class. Alterthum, 1900, 1 Abt. p. 17, seg. (Bottom) Striking passages of the Hedlenica: iv. τ. 29; ἵν. 1. 5. $27.2 ν- ἡ. 2G, S07. WIA. 50; τό... Vile 2: 0.
Page 128 (Middle). Speeches οὗ Theramenes and Critias: Hed/en., i. 3 5 Ol Procies: vs 3.113:
Page 129, ὃ 3. Plutarch, in his Life of Agesilaus, especially in ch. v., 27 2720.
Page 132 (Top). Spartan features in the Cyrofedia : e.g. syssitia, 11. I, 253; military drill, ii. 3. 21. (Below) Discipline, Cyropedia, vill. I. 2; official hierarchy, viii. I. 15; responsibility, v. 3. 50; division of labour, ii. 1. 21 and villi. 2. 5.
Page 133. ‘Humour of a blunt guard-room type:” i. 3. 10; li. 2; vil. 5. 40; sport, 1. 6. 39 ; art of horsemanship, iv. 3. 15, seg.
Page 136 (Top). Hzpparch., ix. 8. For what follows, cf. zd2d., 9, ad fin. Cf. also the characteristic passage, Cyvopfedia, i. 6. 44, seg. (Bottom) ‘“ One critic in particular: ” August Krohn, in Sohrates und Xenophon.
Page 137 (Bottom). ‘‘Conversation with Lamprocles :” AZemor.,ii. 7.
Page 138. ‘ Exhortation to patience:” M/emor., ii. 3. (Below) Aristarchus, AZemor., ii. 7; Eutherus, ii. 8. For what follows, ef. iii, 12. On behaviour at table, ill. 14. “ But to give a complete ACGOUNE,” Cte. τ ἴν Ὁ. 1:
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 285
Book IV.—CHAPTER VII.
Antisthenes is treated by Diog. Laert., vi. 1. The fragments are collected by A. W. Winckelmann, Axtisthenis Fragmenta (Zurich, 1842). The chronological questions are discussed thoroughly, but with little profit, by Chappuis, Awdisthéne (Paris, 1854), p. 171, seg. Probably the only decisive fact is that Plato (Sophzst, 251 B) mocks him as a “ belated learner,” which must mean that he was no longer young when he associated with Socrates. It agrees with this that he had before that been a pupil of Gorgias; and accordingly it does not sound incredible that he urged the youths whom he had instructed (in rhetoric, we must suppose) to join in his companionship with Socrates (Diog. Laert., vi. I. I, 2). So he would be consideraly older than Plato. Every attempt at more exact dating breaks down through the untrustworthy character of the anecdotes, and the ambiguity and uncertainty of the chronological data. Ferd. Diimmler has done great service to the understanding of Antisthenes. Cf. his Axtisthenica (Bonn, 1882), now in his Kleine Schriften, i. 10-78; De Antisthenis Logica, ibid., 1-9; Akademika (Giessen, 1889). This too early lost investigator (1859-1896) was learned, acute, wonderfully many-sided, and untiringly active. Destiny denied him his full maturity. His attempt to trace back not only the Cynic but the Heraclitean element in Stoicism to Antisthenes was attractive, but in my judgment untenable. Diimmler did not observe that Antisthenes, who in his theory of knowledge stood so near to the Megarians or late Eleatics, could not be also a half-Heraclitean, without becoming a confused eclectic. But to put him down as that, without strict proof, on the ground of some combinations very plausible in themselves, would be the height of caprice, and, in fact, a grievous wrong to a defenceless thinker, whose works are lost, and whose doctrine we know almost exclusively through bitter polemical allusions in his opponents, Plato and Aristotle.
Page 141 (Top). Cf. Xenoph., AZemor., iii. 9, 10, seg.
Page 143 (Top). “ Blasphemous exclamations: ” in Clement Alex., Strom., 11, 20, p. 485, ed. Potter. (Below) ‘Attacks upon Pericles and Alcibiades:” cf. Athenzeus, v. 220, C—D and xiii. 589, E.
Page 144. “On the Nature of Animals:” cf. Diog. Laert., vi. I. 15. Examples from animal life, e.g., Dion., O7., 40. 174, ii. (Reiske) = ii. 54. 24 (Arnim) and 68. 364, ii. (Reiske) = ii. 178. 18 (Arnim), ad fim. (Below) “Idealization of uncivilized peoples :” cf. Rohde, Grech. Roman, p. 214 (2nd ed.). Much instructive matter alsoin Dimmler, Prolegomena zum Platonischen Staat (Kleine Schrift, i. 150, seg.). The Homeric line, /7., xiii. 5, 6.
Page 145. I take this exposition from the sixth oration of Dion. Chr., Διογένης ἢ περὶ τυραννίδος, especially p. 206, seg. (Reiske) = 1. 88.14 (Arnim). The oration is certainly what it professes to be—a
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collection of Cynic thoughts and expressions. The polemic against Plato’s Profagoras seems not to have been noticed before, but is unmistakable. Cf. especially Dion., doc. czz., p. 21, seg., with Protagoras, 321 A-C. (Bottom) Rousseau, Discours sur les Sctences et les Arts, 2.9 partie, note I.
Page 147 (Bottom). Both these quotations from Tolstoi are brought together and discussed by Melchior de Vogiié, in his work Le Roman Russe, pp. 310, 311. He refers to the “vertige séculaire Oriental,” whose doctrines are revived “ dans la frénésie gui précipite une partie de la Russie vers cette abnégation intellectuelle et morale, parfois stupide de quiétisme, parfois sublime de dévouement” (p. 313).
Page 150,§ 4. Cf. Diog. Laert., vi. 9. 105, and vi. I. 11.
Page 151 (Top). MDiog. Laert., vi. 1.3. (Middle) Prometheus and Heracles. Here we draw from Dion’s eighth oration, Διογένης ἢ περὶ ἀρετῆς. (Bottom) “When Julian ascended the throne:” cf. Dion, Or. ad Alexandrinos, 657 (Reiske) = i. 269. 11 (Arnim): Τῶν δὲ Κυνικῶν λεγομένων ἔστι μὲν ἐν TH πόλει πλῆθος οὐκ ὀλίγον : also Julian’s sixth and seventh Epistles : Εἰς τοὺς ἀπαιδεύτους κύνας; and Πρὸς Ἡράκλειον κυνικόν (i. 234-310, ed. Hertlein). The cowardice which the Cynics at Antioch are said to have displayed during the revolt (January, 387 A.D.), in contrast with the monks, is emphasized by John Chrysostom, xlix. p. 173, ed. Migne; cf. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, iii. p. 48, 2nd ed. (More exact dates in Rauscher, Fahrd. d. Christl. Kirche unter Theodosius, pp. 512-520.)
Page 152. “ Illusion ;” ‘‘ freedom from illusion: ” τῦφος and ἀτυφία. (Below) On Crates, cf. Diog. Laert., vi. 5. He was living when Ptolemy Philadelphus ascended the throne (285 B.c.); cf. Hense, Proleg. ad Telet. Rel., p. 27. The fragments of his poems are collected in Bergk, Poéte Lyr. Gr., ii. 364 (4th ed.), partly repeated in Curt Wachsmuth, Corpusculum Poésis Epice Grace Ludibunde, li. 192, seg. (2nd ed.). Fragments of his tragedies in Nauck, p. 809, seg. Add the supplements in Nauck’s Tragice Dictionis Index, p- xxvil., and the present writer’s Nachlese zu den Bruchsticken der Grtech. Tragtker, p. 48, seg. On Bion, cf. note on pp. 243, 244. On Teles, cf. notes on § 6. (Below) On the behaviour of the Roman Cynics, and especially on Peregrinus, cf. Bernays, Lucian und die Kyniker mit einer Ubersetzung der Schrift Lucian’s “ Uber das Lebensende des Peregrinus” (Berlin, 1879).
Page 153. In spite of the allusion to passages of the Odyssey, I do not agree with Wachsmuth in counting the fragment among the σίλλοι of Crates. So also his explanation of the last line, “ Zevrva... gue jacet in medio philosophorum fastu,” seems to me much too narrow. He is speaking not “de dogmaticorum placitis,” but of the common current view of life. (Middle) Here I draw from the thirteenth oration of Dion, in estimating which I find myself entirely confirmed by Arnim, Leben und Werke des Dio von Prusa (1898), p. 256, seg.
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 287
Like him, I took Diimmler’s view, that Dion here uses the Archelaus of Antisthenes, to be wrong. But it may be regarded as extremely likely that Dion has made spoil of an early Cynic, perhaps Anti- sthenic, work. Cf. Ov., 13. 424 (Reiske) = 1. 182. 20, seg. (Arnim).
Page 154. “ Heaped unmeasured condemnation.” This is stated by Athenzeus, v. 220 D : ‘O δὲ πολιτικὸς αὐτοῦ διάλογος ἁπάντων καταδρομὴν περιέχει τῶν ᾿Αθήνησιν δημαγωγῶν. He is said also to have reviled his teacher Gorgias in his Arvchelaus, as Athenzus states in the same passage; he similarly inveighed against Isocrates (Diog. Laert., vi. I. 15). We agree with most investigators in regarding the declamations Azas and Odysseus (Orat. Aitt., τι. 167, seg.), attributed to Antisthenes, as spurious. (Bottom) Here also I draw from Dio’s thirteenth oration.
Page 155. Diogenes is treated (very fully) by Diog. Laert., vi. 2; a not very trustworthy monograph in G6ttling’s Gesammelte Abhand- lungen, 1. 251, seg.; a massive collection of apophthegms in Mullach’s Fragm. Phtlosoph., ii. 295, seg. ‘Compared his teacher to a trumpet :” cf. Dion, O7., viii. 275 (Reiske) = i. 96. 3, seg. (Arnim). “Socrates gone mad.” The saying is attributed to Plato by Diog. Laert., vi. 2. 54 (where Cobet has bracketed the words without reason) ; and AZlian, Var. Hist., xiv. 33.
Page 156. ‘“Coining false money.” The explanation here given comes from Diels’ Aus dem Leben des Cynikers Diogenes, in the Festgabe in honour of Zeller, by the editors of the Arch. f. Gesch. der Philos. (Berlin, 1894), pp. 3-6. I now accept this result as quite certain. “Two ancient monographs.” As authors of these mono- graphs, the names of Menippus and a certain unknown Eubulus are mentioned. (According to information kindly supplied by Professor Bywater, “ Eubulides” and “ Hermippus” have no manuscript authority.) We have really before us, apparently, an imaginary story by the Cynic poet Menippus, a Διογένους πρᾶσις, which may have been suggested by the real sale of Plato at Aigina, and in its own turn have given a model to Lucian’s Βίων Πράσεις. “ According to Dion.” The words of Dion are: Ἐπεὶ δὲ ἀπέθανεν 6 "AvticOevns .. . μετέβη εἰς Κόρινθον, Or., viii. 276 (Reiske) = 1. 96. 17, seg. (Arnim), “ Xeniades the Corinthian :” Diog. Laert., vi. 2. 30, seg.
Page 157 (Top). ‘Health, strength, and cheerfulness :” cf. Julian, Or., vi. 195 A (= i. 252. 21, Hertlein), and Epictetus, Dzsserz,, ili. 22. 88, and iv. 11. 22 (= p. 277. 4 and 391. 22, Schenkl). (Middle) ἐς Diogenes and ‘the Craneion:” cf. Pausanias, ii. 2. 4; Plutarch, De Exilio, vi.; Alexander, xiv.; Alciphro, iii. 60; Dion, iv. 147; vi. 199; ix. 289 (Reiske) = i. 58. 4, i. 84. 4, i. 103. 17 (Arnim); Curtius, Peloponnes., ii. 529. (Bottom) On his death, cf. Diog. Laert., vi. 2. 76, seg. If the poet Cercidas was really a contemporary of Diogenes, as is almost universally believed (cf. Steph. Byz., s.v. Μεγάλη πόλις, and Meineke, Avalecta Alexandrina, p. 390), there can
288 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
be no doubt of the suicide. The verses given in Diog. Laert., /.c., are treated by Bergk, Poéte Lyr. Gr., ii. 513, 4th ed. On the origin of the name there were already disputes in antiquity. Cf. Elias’ (formerly called ‘ David”) Commentary on the Categories, in Commentaria in Aristot., xviii. pp. 111, 112 (Berlin, 1900). The obviously right view is found in H. Weber, De Dzone Chrysostomo Cynicorum Sectatore, p. 103, seg. The dog was the type of shameless- ness, and the Cynics flouted all custom and seemliness. But on their own side they pointed to all the excellent qualities of the dog —its fidelity, watchfulness, sharp discrimination, etc. The nickname seems to have been given already to Antisthenes.
The picture of Diogenes has been greatly distorted by later exaggerations. The beggar’s life, to which many apophthegms and later stories refer, he can only occasionally have led. His dwelling in the tub was only a momentary expedient, which he selected certainly not without the purpose of displaying his freedom from wants (Diog. Laert., vi. 2. 23). It is difficult to penetrate to the historical truth, because later times have obviously delighted to transfer the features of the later Cynicism to its earlier representatives, above all to Diogenes, who was exalted to a type. But we come near to original when we fix our eyes on the picture, which can be recognized in the exhortations of Teles less than a hundred years after his death. Thus we find in him (p. 31. 4, ed. Hense) the. saying which Diogenes gave as his reason for not pursuing his escaped slave: “If Manes can live without Diogenes, why not Diogenes without Manes?” At the time when Teles wrote, therefore, Diogenes was believed to be the owner of a slave, which is not compatible with beggary in the strict sense. And since it can be proved that Teles drew most of such matter from Bion, the picture gains a further attestation of antiquity.
Page 158. Monimus, Onesicritus, Metrocles, Hipparchia, are treated in this order by Diog. Laert., vi. C 3, seg. Crates’ poems have been mentioned already (p. 153). His supposed letters are very barren, sometimes filled with apophthegms elsewhere attributed to Diogenes and Antisthenes; sometimes, like No. 24 (Hercher, Epistolographt Gre@ci, p. 213), bad to the point of absurdity. On the other hand, the letters attributed to Diogenes (zdzd., p. 235, seg.) can be treated as a not quite worthless authority (cf. Weber, of. céz., p. 93, note 1). Comedy, as might be expected, has bitterly attacked the Cynics. Thus Menander makes Monimus carry not one, but three beggars’ wallets; in Philemon it is not enough for Crates to wear the same garment in summer and winter ; he wears a lighter robe in winter, and a heavier one in summer. Even Crates’ wife, Hipparchia, is not spared (cf. Kock, Fragm. Com., ii. 523; iii. 35 ; iii. 72). The visit of Onesicritus to the so-called Gymnosophists of India is narrated in great detail by Strabo, xv. p. 716, probably following Onesicritus’ work on Alexander. (Middle) “ Book-dramas
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 289
of Diogenes.” The remains of these dramas, which have frequently been regarded as spurious (but in the present writer’s opinion wrongly, as he tried to prove in Zeztschr. f. osterr. Gymn., 1878, p. 255), are in Nauck, 7rag. Fragm., p. 807, seg.; cf. his 7ragice Dictionis Index, p. xxvi., seg. “(ὃ 6) The remains of Teles, preserved chiefly in Stobzeus, are collected, revised, and provided with an excellent introduction by Otto Hense, 7 6115 Religuzas edidit, Prolegomena scripsit O. H. (Freiburg, 1889).
Page 160 (Top). The G@dipus of Diogenes certainly treated the question of incest in the manner which we know from Dion, x., ad fix., the Atreus or Thyestes treated the question of cannibalism, according to Diog. Laert., vi. 2.73. The extreme of his contempt for moral custom is given in Dion, vi. 203, seg. (Reiske) = i. 86, 7 (Arnim). That he was also occupied with the thought that men should dispense with the use of fire, and return to the ὠμοφαγία of the beasts, is clear from Julian, Ov., VI. i. 250. 20, seg. (Hertlein). To this the story was attached that the eating of raw flesh had brought him to his death. Plutarch, Aguane an Ignis, etc., 11. 6, and De Esu Carnium, 1. 6 (Moralia, ed. Diibner, 1170. 40, and 1217. 49); cf. also Diog. Laert., vi. 2, 34. (Below) “ The ‘Republic’ of Diogenes.” Its genuineness is discussed by the present writer, of. czz., 254.
Page 161. ‘‘ Observation, first made by Plutarch.” Plutarch (or rather Eratosthenes in) De Alerandri Fortuna, 329 A = Moralia, 403, 404, Diibner. Similarly in Strabo, i. p.66. Here, and for what follows, cf. the instructive essay of Eduard Schwartz, Hekatdos von Teos, Rhein. Mus., x\. 233, seg. ; and the remarkable excerpts from Suidas, treated by Ulrich Kohler, -ragm. zur Diadochengeschichte (Berliner Sitzungs- berichte, Feb. 26, 1891). (Below) “A single flock under a single shepherd :” cf. Plutarch, /.c. The ‘‘ bone-money” in Athenzeus, iv. 159 C, and Philodemus, treated by the present writer, oc. czt.
Page 162 (Top). ‘‘Community of children.” On this and what follows, cf. Diog. Laert., vi. 2.72. (Below) “ Free love:” Diog. Laert., 1.¢., Τὸν πείσαντα τῇ πεισθείσῃ συνεῖναι, Compared with vii. 131, according to Zeno and Chrysippus, Ὥστε τὸν ἐντυχόντα τῇ ἐντυχούσῃ χρῆσθαι. (Below) “ Relevant works οἵ Antisthenes :” the titles in Diog. Laert., vi. 16, seg.
Page 163. “ Kindness and gentleness :” cf. Origen, Contra Celsum iii. 50 (p. 142, Spencer); Aristides, ii. 400, seg. (Dindorf); Epict., Dissert., iii. 24. 64 (p. 297, 1, Schenkl).
Page 164 (Middle). Antisthenes. Hisconfession of monotheism, previously known only by the imitation by Cicero, De Nat. Deor., i. 10. 26, can now be read in Philodemus, De Pzetate, p.72 of my edition : Map’ ᾿Αντισθένει δ᾽ ἐν μὲν τῷ Φυσικῷ λέγεται τὸ κατὰ νόμον εἶναι πολλούς, κατὰ δὲ φύσιν ἕνα, That the divinity cannot be known from any image is said by Antisthenes in Clem. Alex., Protrefz., vii. 71 (61, Potter), repeated in Strom., v. 108 (714, Potter). Cf. Jakob Bernays, Lucian und die
200 NOTES AND ADDITIONS,
Kyniker, p. 31, seg. The jest of Diogenes in Diog. Laert., vi. 2. 37 and 72. Other versionsin Bernays, of. czz., Ὁ. 95. In the apophthegm in Joan. Damasc. (appendix to Stob., Floril., iv. 199. 76, ed. Meineke), Antisthenes puts himself on the level of the popular religion.
Page 165. “Antisthenes is said.” The sayings of Antisthenes and Diogenes in Clem. Alex., Protreft., p. 64 (Potter), Diog. Laert., vi. 4; Plutarch, De Aud. Poet. iv. (Moralia, Dibner, 26. 4), watered down in Diog. Laert., vi. 2. 39. (Bottom) Abundant extracts from the Γοήτων Φώρα of CEnomaus in Eusebius, Prep. Ev., v. 19, seg., and vi. 7. On ᾿ his Κυνὸς αὐτοφωνία, cf. Crusius Rhein. Mus., xliv. 309, seg. Of his tragedies, now completely vanished, Julian speaks with horror in O7., vii. 210 B (=i. 273. 6, Hertlein) ; while he quotes with approval a saying of his on the antiquity of Cynicism and its independence of the teaching of the founders of schools (vi. 187 C =i. 242. 22, Hertlein). The personal friendship of Génomaus with the Rabbi Meir isa unique incident in the history of civilization ; cf. Compfes rendus of the Académie des Inscriptions, 1883, p. 258.
Page 166. “The physicians also.” The retort belongs to Anti- sthenes (Diog. Laert., vi. 6; cf. Bernays, of. εζί., p. 92).
Book IV.—CHAPTER VIII.
Page 171. “Grey-bearded beginners,” “‘ poverty-stricken intellects:” cf. Plato, Sofhzst, 251 B, C; Aristotle, Metaph., A. 1024 B, 32; H. 3. 1043 B,24. (Bottom) “The first impulse.” We were thinking of Gustav Hartenstein’s paper, Uber die Bedeutung der megarischen Schule fiir die Geschichte der metaphystschen Probleme (1847), now included in Historisch-Phtlos. Abhandlungen, 127. seq.
Page 173, $2. On Euclides and his disciples, cf. Diog. Laert., ii. 10, especially § 106. Cf. Ferd. Deycks, De Megaricorum Doctrina (Bonn, 1827).
Page 175 (Top). This judgment on Abelard belongs to Windel- band, Azst. of Philos., trans. Tufts (Macmillan, 1893), p. 308, note 2.
Page 177(Tap). ‘‘An eminent historian of philosophy :” Windel- band, of. ci¢., p. 299, note 2. (Middle) The quotation from Zeller, Gesch. d. Deutschen Philos., p. 840, seg. “ Contaminating judgments :” cf. H. Gomperz, Zur Psychologie der logischen Grundthatsachen (1897), chap. 3, especially p. 54, seg.
Page 181 (Bottom). Cf. Diog. Laert., vi. 2, 53; Simplicius, Jz Aristotelis Categorias, f.66 Β (674, Brandis); Ammonius, /z Porphyriz Isagogen, 22 B ; Theopomp., #ragm., 335, Fragm. Histor. Gr@c., i. 331, where C. Miiller’s doubts may be regarded as unfounded.
Page 182 (Middle). “An allusion in Plato... :” Sophist, Lc.
Page 183 (Top). “All propositions but those of the identifying type:” Aristotle, Met, A. 29, 1024 B, 32; and Plato, Sophzst, Lc. (Middle) “ Definitions:” cf. Diogenes, vi.1, 3. For what follows, cf.
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 201
Aristotle, Met, H. 3, 1043 Β, 24, compared with Plato, Theetetus, 201 E, seg.
Whether the solution proposed by us, p. 183, seg., is the right one, may be contested. But there is absolutely no justice in the accusation which is often made, that by admitting no propositions but identical ones Antisthenes made an end of all science. It would be necessary to go further, and maintain that he had given up his right to speak of the warmth of the sunshine or the coldness of ice. In reality, all that he can have declared inadmissible—for reasons which we have explained repeatedly in the text—must have been the use of the verb “to be” in such utterances. If this was the case, he must, like Lycophron (cf. Vol. II. p. 179, and Vol. I. p. 493), have employed other linguistic forms for this purpose. If he did adopt the course we have conjectured, he was a predecessor of Thomas Brown (cf. Mill, Logic, bk. ii. ch. 3, § 6).
Page 185 (Top). “Maintained that all contradiction is im- possible :” Aristotle, Zez., /.c. (for his μακρὸς λόγος, 1043 b, 26; cf. also N. 3, 1091a, 7 with Schwegler’s comments) ; also 7ofccs, A. 11, 104 B, 20. Add Plato, Euthydemus, 285 D, seg. ; Cratylus, 429 D, seg. Cf. also the gibe of Isocrates at the beginning of the Helena. The work of Antisthenes against Plato was named Σάθων ἢ περὶ τοῦ ἀντιλέγειν, Diog. Laert., vii. 16. (Middle) “ Investigation of names :” Epictet., Dzssert., i. 17, 12(17, 11, Schenkl), ᾿Αρχὴ παιδεύσεως ἣ τῶν ὀνομάτων ἐπίσκεψις.
Page 188 (second par.). Timon’s satiric verse, /ragm., 41, Poésts Ludibunda,ed. Wachsmuth, ii. 152 (ed. 2): Οὐδ᾽ ἐριδάντεω | Εὐκλείδεω, Meya- pedow ds ἔμβαλε λύσσαν ἐρισμοῦ, Should not lead us astray. The anecdote related by Plutarch (J/or., 560, 46, and 593, 14, Dibner), De Cohibenda Ira, 14, and De Fraterno Amore, 18, shows that he was considered a model of gentleness. His brother, in a violent rage, ejaculates, “I shall perish unless I have my revenge on you.” To which he answers, “And I, unless I conciliate you.” For what follows, see Diog. Laert., ii. 10. 107. In that passage the titles of six dialogues by Euclides are mentioned. Unfortunately, no part of any of them has been preserved. Panztius doudted their genuineness, together with that of Phzedo’s dialogues, while he rejected absolutely the remainder of the Socratic dialogue literature, apart from Plato, Xenophon, Antisthenes, and Aschines (Diog. Laert., ii. 64). Asa critical historian of literature, this eclectic Stoic seems to us not to possess the slightest authority. Because he thought highly of Plato, but did not share his belief in immortality, he rejected the Phedo/ Similarly, he attributed the writings of Ariston the Stoic to Ariston the Peripatetic, doubtless on no other ground than that he disliked the Stoic’s Cynicism. Clearly, also, it was a perfectly arbitrary proceeding on his part to refer Aristophanes’ mockery of Socrates (Frogs, 1493, seg.), not to the philosopher, but to an otherwise entirely unknown poet of the same name. At this stage we can only express our convictions; we shall
292 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
enter more fully into Panztius’s rejections in our notes on pp. 211 and 282.
Page 189 (Middle). On Eubulides, cf. Diog. Laert., ii. 108, seg. On his ill-mannered polemic against Aristotle, cf. chiefly Eusebius, Prep. Evang., xv. 2,5; Athenzeus, vill. 354 C. The latter writer also quotes (x. 437 D) two spiteful lines from a comedy of his (cf. ii. 431, Kock). (Bottom) On the “ Heap,” see chiefly Diog. Laert., vii. 82 ; Cicero, Acad. Priora, ii. 29 ; Sextus Pyrrh., ii. 253 ; and Adv. Mathem., vii. 416 (117, τὸ and 281, 17, Bekker).
Page 192 (Middle). On the “ Liar,” cf. firstly Cicero, 7c, § 95; Gellius, Noctes Attice, xviii. 2. το. (Below) The quotation from Aristotle, Soph. E/., xxv. 180 B, 2.
Page 193 (Middle). Chrysippus: according to Diog. Laert., vii. 197. Theophrastus: according to Diog. Laert., v. 49, fiz. (Bottom) “Electra,” or “The Man in Disguise:” cf. Lucian, Vitarum Auctio, 22 (562); Diog. Laert., vii. 198; Aristotle, Sofi. E7., xxiv. 179 A, 33.
Page 194 (Middle). Epicurus: cf. the author’s pamphlet, WVeue Bruchstiicke Epikurs (Vienna, 1876), p.7: Διὸ καὶ ῥᾳδίως ἅπαντες καταγε- λῶσιν ὅταν τις ὁμολογήσαντός τινος μηδ᾽ ἐνδέχεσθαι ταὐτὸ ἐπίστασθαί τε καὶ μὴ ᾿πίστασθαι προφέρῃ τὸν συγκεκαλυμμένον. The author of the catch is presently censured as a sophist. (Next par.) Cf. Diog. Laert., vii. 187 and ii. 135 ; also vi. 38 ; Gellius, oct. A7t., xvi. 2. 4, seg. (very judicious). Mentioned also by Aristotle, of. cz¢., xxii. 178 A, 29.
Page 195, ὃ 8. Alexinus : von Arnim has shown some ingenuity in recognizing and restoring a fragment of this philosopher’s work, Περὶ ᾿Αγωγῆς : Hermes, xxvii. 65, seg. I cannot set as high a value as Arnim does (zdzd., p. 70) on the anecdote in Diog. Laert., ii. 109. By the terminus ante quem, 282/1, of that work, his date is fixed more definitely than it has been before. (Below) Stilpo: cf. Diog. Laert., i Gs τι:
Page 196 (Top). “A thorough man of the world:” this is the correct interpretation of the πολιτικώτατος of Diog. Laert., loc. cit, § 114; cf. v. Wilamowitz’s Antigonos von Karystos, p. 142, in spite of Susemihl’s objection (Alerandrin. Lit. Gesch., i. 17). On Stilpo as an ethical philosopher, cf. particularly Seneca, Z/zs¢., ix. I and 18 ; also Teles, 45, 10 Hense. (Middle) The solitary fragment has been treated by the author, Ahezn. Mus., 32. 477, seg.: Στίλπωνι (read Στίλπων) Μητροκλεῖ" [this dialogue is known to Diog. Laert., ii. 120] ἐνεβρίμει τῷ Στίλπωνι Μητροκλῆς. The quotation by Teles (p. 14, Hense) cannot be completely disentangled from the quoter’s additions. Cf. von Wilamowitz (of. cz¢., p. 360), who has admirably restored the opening words. Cancelling two interpolations of the critics, I read : Ti λέγεις, φησί, καὶ τίνων ἣ φυγή, ποίων ἀγαθῶν στερίσκει, τῶν περὶ ψυχὴν ἢ τῶν περὶ τὸ σῶμα ἢ τῶν ἐκτός ; (Bottom) Gibes of Crates at Stilpo: Diog. Laert., ii. 118. In the same passage a gibe of Stilpo at Crates. It seems to me a comparatively harmless exchange of banter.
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 293
Page 197 (Top). “ Denying the possibility of predication:” I see no reason to interpret Diog. Laert., 11. 119, ἀνήρει καὶ τὰ εἴδη, as referring solely to a polemic against Plato’s doctrine of ideas. The context is against this view; and it is altogether preferable to understand a denial of substantial existence to class-concepts in general. Cf. what is reported of the Eretrian school, and therefore pre-eminently of Stilpo’s pupil Menedemus: ᾿Ανήρουν τὰς ποιότητας ὡς οὐδαμῶς ἐχούσας τι κοινὸν οὐσιῶδες, ἐν δὲ τοῖς καθ᾽ ἕκαστα καὶ συνθέτοις ὑπαρχούσας (Simplicius, In Aristotelis Categorias, 68 A 24, Brandis). (Bottom) Abelard: cf. the quotation in L. Stein, Psychologie der Stoa, ii. 64. The following is also quoted there: “Nec rem ullam de pluribus dici, sed nomen tantum concedimus.”
Page 198 (Top). Cf. Plutarch, Agazust Colotes, 22 (Mor., 1369, Dibner). (Middle) “A well-informed writer :” Aristocles in Euseb.. Prep. Evang., xiv. 17. 1. (§ 9) We have little information on the facts of Diodorus’ life; cf. p. 201, ὃ 10. He is treated of more fully by Brandis, Griechisch-romische Philosophie, ii. 1. 124, seg., and Ritter, Geschichte der Philosophie, ii. 137, seg. There are also some very judicious remarks in Tennemann, ii. 146, seg. Thus he says of the corpuscular theory attributed to Diodorus (Euseb., Prep. Evang., xiv. 23,4; Sextus, Adv. Mathem., x. 85 (= 493, 11, Bekker) ; Stob., Ec/oga, i. 310 and 350(= i. 128, roand 143, 20, Wachsmuth) ; Simplic., Jz Phys., 920, 20, Diels) : “Τὰ appears, therefore, more probable that he assumed the atoms of Leucippus merely as an hypothesis for the sake of the | latter [the arguments against motion]” (of. cé¢., 151). The chief passages relating to those arguments are Sextus, doc. c7¢., and x. 112, seg. (499, 5, seg., Bekker). Our view (pp. 199, 200) agrees fairly closely with that of Prantl (Gesch. der Logtk, τ. 55, 56.).
Page 200 (Middle). The argument against possibility was known as 6 κυριεύων λόγος. This phrase is not, in our opinion, to be inter- preted as “the victorious (or invincible) argument,” but refers, like all analogous designations (6 ἀργὸς λόγος, 6 αὐξανόμενος, ὁ ψευδόμενος, etc.), to the substance of it. This was perceived long ago by Gassendi (Opera, Lyon, 1658, i. p. 52, A), who, however, found no following. The best translation is possibly “ The theorem of omnipotence ” (Cicero, Ad Familiares, ix. 4). His fullest discussion of the question in De Fato, ch. 6, seg. Cf. Epictetus, ii. 19, seg. (169, 70, Schenkl) ; Plutarch, De Stotcorum Repugn., 46 (Mor., 1291, 30, Dibner); Alex- ander, 75. Arzstot. Analyt. Prior., 183, 4 (Wallies). More in Gercke, Chrysippea, p. 725, seg. (Leipzig, 1885).
Page 204(Top). Hermann Bonitz, in his commentary on Aris- totle’s Metaphysics, Θ. 6, 1048 Ὁ (p. 395, note 1), ‘‘ Mira levitate, ut dicam quod sentio, Aristoteles his notionibus defungitur,” etc. With this Grote agrees (P/a/o, 111. 495, note): “1 will not use so uncourteous a phrase ; but I think his refutation of the Megarics is both unsatis- factory and contradicted by himself.” ‘The contradiction is between
VOL. IL x
204 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
Metaphysics, ®. 3, particularly 1047 a, 25, and Θ. 5, 1048 a, 1-24. Zeller’s judgment on the controversy (ii. 1, 257, ed. 4) is one with which I cannot agree. On what follows, cf. Clemens, S¢voz., iv. 19, 619 (Potter). The name only borne by men is Theognis ; and Menexene is at least a feminine formed contrary to analogy from Menexenus. On Diodorus’ use of particles as names, ᾿Αλλαμήν for a slave, Mév and Δέ for his own sons, see Ammon., /z Avistot. de Interpret., p. 38, 17 (Busse) ; and Stephanus in his commentary on the same work, p. 9, 21 (Hayduck). For his doctrine that ambiguities do not exist, cf. Aulus Gellius, xi. 12. All this is closely bound up with his championship of the theory of convention, as Stephanus (/oc. cz¢.) expressly testifies and Ammonius indicates sufficiently clearly. Sextus (Pyrrhon., ii. 245 = p. 115, 13, Bekker) tells a good story. The great Alexandrian physician Herophilus is summoned to attend Diodorus, who has dislocated his shoulder, and proves to him, by the Zenonian argument against the possibility of motion, which Diodorus had revived, that the latter could not have sustained the injury in question. (§ 10) On the origin of Diodorus, his pupils, and his fame, cf. Diog. Laert., 11.111. (Below) Zeno: according to Diog. Laert., vil. 25.
Page 205 (Top). Clinomachus: cf. Diog. Laert., ii. 112. Phado: Diog. Laert. treats of him, ii. ch.9. The few fragments of him are discussed by Preller, Ausgewahlte Aufsatze, p. 370, recently by von Wilamowitz, Hermes, xiv. 189, seg. There, too, are expressed what seem the right conclusions as to his intermediate position between Antisthenes and Aristippus. We shall meet with his personality again in the dialogue of Plato named after him. (Bottom) Menedemus : Diog. Laert. devotes to him the seventeenth chapter of the second book. An analysis of the sources is given by v. Wilamowitz, Aziz- gonos von Karystos, 86, seg. The circle of Menedemus, Ζόζα., 140, 2.
Page 206 (Bottom). The fragments of Lycophron in Nauck, ed. 2, p. 817. It is a Satyric drama dealing with literary history.
Page 207 (Top). “The first of these qualities: ” cf. Plutarch, De Adulatore et Amico, 11 (Mor., 66, 46, Diibner), On his doctrine of virtue—unity of virtue—cf. the same author in De Virtute Morali, 2 (Mor., 535, 1,D). Witty sayings of Menedemus in Plutarch, De Pro- fectibus in Virtute, το (Mor., 97, 37, D), and De Vittoso Pudore, 18 (648, 42, D). Inthe same author, De Stoicorum Repugn., x. 11 (1268, 18, D), Chrysippus speaks of the former fame of Stilpo and Mene- demus, a fame which in his time was already dimmed.
Page 208 (Middle). ‘ Denied the substantial existence . . .:” see our note to p. 197 (top).
NOTES AND ADDITIONS, 295
Book IV.—CHAPTER ΙΧ,
Page 209, seg. The description of the locality is founded mainly on Heinrich Barth,Wanderungen durch die Kiistenlander des Mittel- meeres, i. ch. 8; Elisée Reclus, Wouvelle géographie universelle, xi. p. 8, seg.; Beechey, Proceedings of the Expedition to explore the North Coast of Africa, p. 434, seg. (Bottom) Pindar’s phrase, Py//., iv. 7. The quotation from Barth: of. cz¢., p. 425.
Page 211,§2. Aristippus is treated of by Diog. Laert., ii. ch. 8. Cf. H. von Stein, De Philosophta Cyrenaica (pars prima), Gottingen, 1885. “A disciple of Socrates :” 2.6. Ischomachus. Cf. Plutarch, De Curiosttate, ch. 2 (Mor., 624, 38, seg., Diibner). On his intercourse with Socrates, cf. Xen., Mem., ii. 1, and iil. 8. Xenophon ascribes to him a remarkably independent attitude. ‘“‘ Gave instruction for pay :” an ancient witness to this is Phanias of Eresus, a fellow-student of Theophrastus, reported in Diog. Laert., ii. ch. ὃ, §65. Called a sophist by Aristotle, J7ez., B. 2, 996 ἃ,32. “His stay at the Syracusan court :” whether this was in the reign of the older or the younger Dionysius cannot be determined with certainty. Grote is certainly right (Plaza, iii. 549, seg.) in regarding the anecdotes referring to the simultaneous residence of Plato and Aristotle as “illustrative fiction.” He thinks the visit was more probably paid to Dionysius I. ‘“ Aristotle’s know- ledge of Aristippus’ doctrines :” JZe¢., M. 4, 1078 a, 32, compared with the above-mentioned passage. Theopompus, quoted in Athenzus, ix. 508,C. The διατριβαὶ mentioned there also appear in the list of his writings given by Diog. Laert., 11. 84: ἔνιοι δὲ καὶ διατριβῶν αὐτόν φασιν ἐξ γεγραφέναι, οἱ δ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ὅλως γράψαι' ὧν ἐστι καὶ Σωσικράτης 6 Ῥόδιος, This 15 the same writer who agreed with Panzetius in assigning the writings of Ariston the Stoic to Ariston the Peripatetic, in spite of the evidence of titles and subjects (Diog. Laert., vii. 163). Immediately afterwards Diogenes makes Paneetius himself—in glaring contradiction with his wholesale rejection in ii. 64 (cf. above, p. 291)—admit the genuineness of twelve named writings, thus indirectly repudiating as spurious several others mentioned before. We possess a small fragment in Demetrius, De Elocutione, § 296: of δὲ ἄνθρωποι χρήματα μὲν ἀπολείπουσι τοῖς παισίν, ἐπιστήμην δὲ οὐ συναπολείπουσιν τὴν χρησομένην τοῖσιν ἀπολει- φθεῖσι. Cf. Demetrit Phaleret qui dicttur libellus,... 1,. Radermacher (Leipzig, 1901), p. 60, 27, and p. 121.
Page 212 (Top). ᾿Αρίστιππος ἢ Καλλίας is mentioned among Stilpo’s dialogues by Diog. Laert., ii. 120 ; and Speusippus’ ᾿Αρίστιππος in iv. 5. “The man who makes himself master... :” this saying is recorded by Stobzeus, //or., xvii. 18 (= lil. 493, 15 Hense). “I possess... : ἔχω, οὐκ Zxoum,in Diog, Laert., ii. 75, and in other authors: Horace, Epist., i.17,24,and i. 1, 18,9. “Almost unwilling praise of Aristotle :” Rhet., B. 23, 1398 Ὁ, 29. “Strain of sunny cheerfulness :” cf. A‘lian,
296 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
Var. Hist., 14,6 (ii. 160, 23, seg., Hercher). On the bust probably representing Aristippus, cf. Franz Winter, p. 436, seg. in the “Festschrift ” dedicated to me.
Page 213 (Top). Cicero: “ Magnis illi et divinis bonis hanc licentiam assequebantur ” (De Officizs, i. 41, 148). Highly noteworthy is the praise of Maximus Tyrius, D7ss., vii. ch. 9, p. 125. Against the malicious anecdotes which Athenzeus derived mainly from Hegesandrus (xii. 544, ch. 63) may be set others, such as those in Plutarch, De Cohibenda Ira, 14 (Mor., 561, 2 D). Aristippus, who is disputing with A%schines, here derives as much lustre from his calm equability as from the unwilling acknowledgment of his superiority by his fellow- pupil and opponent. Montesquieu, quoted by Karl Hillebrand, Zeiten, Volker und Menschen, v. 14. (Middle) Plato, Theetetus, 156 A (κομψότεροι), and Phzlebus, 53 C (κομψοί). (Bottom) “ The field of scientific interest ... :” cf. Sextus, Adv. Math., vii. 11 (192, 24, seg., Bekker). There is quite a Socratic ring in the words quoted by Eusebius, Preps. Evang., 1. 8, 9, on the authority of Plutarch, The reproach against mathematics in Aristotle, JZez., B. 2, 996 a, 32.
Page 214 (Middle). ‘“ But for the purpose of establishing its true nature ...:” the chief theses in his deduction of Ethics are given by Diog. Laert., il. 85, seg.
Page 215 (Bottom). The “gentle motion” finding its way into consciousness (Diog. Laert., ii. 85) is more accurately defined and illustrated by Aristocles, quoted in Eusebius, Prep. Evang., xiv. 18, 32.
Page 216 (Middle). ‘One pleasure does not differ... :” uy διαφέρειν τε ἡδονὴν ἡδονῆς, Diog. Laert., 11. 87. (Bottom) “Sum of pleasurable sensations :” quoted by Diogenes, Zoc. cit. The modern utilitarian is J. S. Mill, U¢¢/ctarianism (1863), p. 53.
Page217(Top). ‘“‘ Wisdom’ was declared to be,” to end of par. : cf. Diog. Laert., ii. ΟἹ and 967. (Bottom) The saying of Antisthenes quoted in Athenzeus, xii. p. 513 A.
Page 218 (Bottom). Eudoxus is designated a Hedonist by Aristotle, Eth. Nic., A. 12, 1101 Ὁ; 27, and K. 2, 1172 b, 9, with the laudatory addition, 15, seg.: ἔπιστεύοντο δ᾽ οἱ λόγοι διὰ τὴν τοῦ ἤθους ἀρετὴν μᾶλλον ἢ δι᾿ αὐτούς" διαφερόντως γὰρ ἐδόκει σώφρων εἶναι.
Ραρε 220 (Τορ). “Aristippus himself is reported ... : cf. Diog. Laert., 11. 68. (Bottom) “They appealed ... :” as reported by Diog. Laertt., 11. Go.
Page 221 (Top). Hegesias: on him and his surname, see Diog. Laert., ii. 86. On his book and its effects, see Cicero, Zuscul., i. 34, 83, 4, and Plutarch, De A more Prolis, ch. 5 (Mor., 602, 24, D). “ Held happiness to be unattainable ... :” Diog. Laert.,ii. 94, 5. (Bottom) On Anniceris and his teaching, cf. Diog. Laert., ii. 96, 7, and Clemens, Strom., 11. ch. 21, 498 (Potter).
Page 223(Top). “Still, they held it for an established truth... :” cf. Diog. Laert., ii. 93. (Middle) “ Again, the English divine... :”
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 297
cf. Paley, Moral Philosophy (Edinb. 1852), p. 59, seg.: “ Therefore, private happiness is our motive, and the will of God our rule.’ The only difference which Paley acknowledges between prudence and duty is the following : “that in the one case we consider what we shall gain or lose in the present world : in the other case we consider also what we shall gain or lose in the world to come.”
Page 224 (Middle). ‘“ The second mode of connexion... :” cf. particularly Guyau, Za Morale d’ Epicure, which is also my source for the quotations from d’Alembert and Holbach (p. 270, seg.).
Page226( Middle). “‘Thatsupposed fundamental phenomenon ....’ This will be an appropriate place for at least ove quotation from Bentham (Works, ed. Bowring, i. 1): “‘ Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, azz and pleasure... In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire, but in reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility recognizes this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law.”
Page 228 (Middle). The reference is to David Hartley’s Odserva- tions on Man (1749), and James Mill’s Analysts of the Phenomena of the Human Mind (first published, 1829 ; edited in 1869 by J. S. Mill, in greatly expanded form, with notes by Bain, Findlater, and Grote).
race 230 (Top). “Our modes of beige. afiectedy. 24 3 the sentence runs: Méva τὰ πάθη καταληπτὰ (εἶναι). Thus Aristocles in Euseb., Prep. Evang., xiv. 19, 27122.,) agreeing almost verbally with Sext. Emp., Adv. Math., vii. 190, seg. (232, 19, Bekker). Similarly, Plutarch, Against Colotes, 24, 2 (Mor., 1370, 21, D), and Cicero, Acad. Prior., ii. 46. 142: “Aliud... Cyrenaicorum, qui preter permotiones tntimas nihil putant esse judicii : cf. Diog. Laert., ii. 92.
Page 231 (Top). Plato: cf. vol. 1. pp. 456, seg.,and 589. The assumption that in Zhe@fetus, 152 D, Plato is expounding and criticizing the theory of Aristippus is now shared by Zeller (ed. 5, i. 1098, seg.), though he strongly contested it in ed. 4, ii. 1. 350, note 2. It now meets with only isolated opposition, such as that of Tiirk, Satura Viadrina (1896), p. 89, seg. The objections which we have to urge against this highly estimable treatise have already been embodied in the text. (Bottom) The words expressing dogmatic certainty in these accounts are: ἀληθῆ, τὴν ἐνάργειαν ἔχον ἀπερίσπαστον, ἀδιάψευστα, ἄψευστα, ἀπλανεῖς, τὸ ἀναμάρτητον, ἀνεξελεγκτως.
Page 232 (Middle). The illusions here referred to are partly mentioned by Sextus, /oc. c¢¢., and partly by Aristotle, J7ez., Tr. 6, 1011 a, 33, and in many other passages ; cf. Judex Aristotelicus, p. 165 A, 31, 82g:
Page 234(Top). “The sensation itself remains undeniable. ... :” cf. Sextus, loc. cit, 196 (233, 26, B): ἕκαστος yap τοῦ ἰδίου πάθους ἀντιλαμβάνεται With Plato, Zheetetus, 160 C: ἀληθὴς ἄρα ἐμοὶ ἣ ἐμὴ
ε
208 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
αἴσθησις. (Middle) The quotation from James Mill, Axalyszs, ed. 1, i. 71. The passage in Plato’s 7hee/etus, 157 B, C.
Page 235(Top). ‘“ Modes of being affected .. . :” Sextus, Joc. cit, 194 (233, 15, Bekker). “An English psychologist :” J. 5. Mill, 4x Examination of Sir W. Hamiilton’s Philosophy, ed. 1, 203; the German-Austrian physicist is Ernst Mach, Bettrage zur Analyse der Empfindungen, ed. 3 (Jena, 1902), p. 6.
Page 236 (Bottom). “ Activities, processes, and all the invisible :” πράξεις δὲ καὶ γενέσεις καὶ πᾶν τὸ ἀόρατον, Theetet., 155 E.
Page 237 (Top). “ He will, of course, begin... .) The thought expressed here needs a more exact statement. No contradiction arises if I first declare that I know matter only as something tangible, visible, and so forth, so that I cannot without confusion retain this conception and at the same time make abstraction of every perceiving subject, and if I afterwards refer particular sensations or possibilities of sensations to other such sensations and possibilities as their causes (that is, invariable and unconditional antecedents). The Cyrenaics, on the other hand, would have been guilty of real inconsistency if they had denied all substantial existence, and yet at the same time had explained the totality of phenomena as arising from the motion of substances. But it is important not to forget that the exposition given by Plato, in which such a contradiction appears to be contained, is anything but an authentic report of Cyrenaic doctrine. (Middle) “This would accord ...:” cf. Seneca, £/., 89, 12 ; Sextus, Adv. Math., vii. 11 (192, 3, Bekker). (Bottom) The work of Philodemus here mentioned bears the title Περὶ Σημείων καὶ Σημειώσεων, and was first edited by the author in 1865. The allusion in Plato’s Republic, v. 516 C. It was not entirely overlooked by Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, bk. 111. § 31. But it was Ernst Laas who first noticed the allusion to the ancient theory of induction; and spoken words of his were the occasion of Paul Natorp treating the subject in his Forschungen zur Geschichte des Erkenntnisproblems im Altertum, Ὁ. 148, seg., where he explained the reference as being to Protagoras.
Page 239 (Middle). Thezetetus: 157 E, seg. (Bottom) The quota- tion is from Helmholtz, Physzol. Optck., ed. 1, 444, 5. The following quotation is taken from a treatise written by Ernst Mach in 1868, and cited in his Contributions to the Analysis of the Sensations (trans. Williams, Chicago, 1897), p. 9, note.
Page 240 (Bottom). The attitude of the modern phenomenalists to the problem of inherence may be illustrated by the following quotation: “Thing, body, matter, are nothing apart from their complexes of colours, sounds, and so forth—nothing apart from their so-called attributes. That Protean, supposititious problem, which springs up so much in philosophy, of a szzg/e thing with many attributes, arises wholly from a mistaking of the fact, that summary
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 299
comprehension and precise analysis, although both are provisionally justifiable and for many purposes profitable, cannot and must not be carried on szwzultaneously ” (Mach, of. cit., p. 6).
Page 241 (Top). On Theodorus, cf. especially Diog. Laert., ii. 86 and 97, seg. Sayings of his betokening frank candour are reported by Diog. Laert., Zoc. czt.,and by Plutarch, De Exzlio, 16 (Mor., 732, 18, D). That which is given by Philo, Qvod Omnis Probus Liber, ch. 18 (ii. 465, Mangey), is only aspun-out, bombastic version of Plutarch’s anecdote. See also Cicero, 7usc., i. 43, 102 ; Plutarch, Az Vitiosttas ... sufficiat, 3, fin. (Mor., 604, 35, D); Stobzeus, Flor., ii. 33. (Bottom) The assumption that Theodorus was a denier of the gods in the true sense, although favoured by Cicero, is contradicted by De Natura Deorum, i. I, 2 (and many other passages). The words of Sextus, Adv. Math., Ix. 55 (404, 20, Bekker), τὰ παρὰ τοῖς Ἕλλησι θεολογούμενα ποικίλως ἀνασκευάσας, can hardly relate to a total, and therefore szp/e, rejection of the belief in gods. Another point is the alleged indebtedness of Epicurus to Theodorus’ criticism (Diog. Laert., 11. 97}; and lastly we have an anecdote, which, being without moral, is not altogether worthless, touching a dialectic wrangle between Theodorus and Stilpo, in which unquestioning faith in the gods is presupposed (Diog. Laert., 11. 100). Plutarch, De Commun. Notttiis, 31, 4 (Mor., 1315, 28, Ὁ), proves nothing. I am inclined, therefore, to allow considerable weight to the opinion expressed by Clemens (ProfrePz., 11. 24, 20, Potter) to the effect that the name of atheist has been unjustly bestowed on Theodorus and certain others: σωφρόνως βεβιωκότας καὶ καθεωρακότας ὀξύτερόν που. . . τὴν ἀμφὶ τοὺς θεοὺς τούτους πλάνην.
Page 242 (Top). ‘‘A late ecclesiastical writer :” Epiphanius, Adv. Hereses, iii. 2, 9, 24 (Doxogr., 591,25): Θεόδωρος... Beto... μὴ εἶναι θεῖον καὶ τούτου ἕνεκεν προὐτρέπετο πάντας κλέπτειν ἐπιορκεῖν ἁρπάζειν Kal μὴ ὑπεραποθνήσκειν πατρίδος. If there really were any among his pupils who so understood his teaching, he had ample ground for saying that some took with the left hand what he offered with the right (Plutarch, De Tranquillitate Animzi, ch.5 (Mor., 566, 31, D). (Middle) “ Joy and sorrow:” χαρά and λύπη (Diog. Laert., ii. 98). The best right to be considered a true fragment of Theodorus belongs to the demonstration, quoted by Stobzeus, /7or., 119, 16, of the unlawfulness of suicide. How can that act be other than repugnant to a man for whom the accidents of life have no significance; for whom only the beautiful is good, and only the ugly evil? (Instead of αἰσχρὸν τὸ κακόν, it is obvious that we ought to read, τὸ αἰσχρὸν κακόν.)
We cannot acquiesce in the tradition which ranges Euhemerus among the members of the Cyrenaic school—a tradition which, though subject to all manner of reservations and restrictions, still finds acceptance. “ There is not the slightest hint in any of the authorities ” —so Erwin Rohde justly remarked long ago—* which speaks for this assumption” (Der griechische Roman, ed. 2. 241, note 1). The
300 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
Cyrenaic school has no manner of responsibility for the mistake of Euhemerus—a mistake due to the influence of the Alexander-cult— which consisted in making one real and effectual factor in the genesis of religions, the deification of men, the only factor in the process (cf. also Vol. I. p. 523, where we might have referred more plainly to the dei- fication of living men, which is still continually taking place in India).
Page 243 (Middle). On Bion, cf. Diog. Laert., iv. ch. 7; a thorough investigation in Hense’s Te/etis Religuie, Prolegomena, p. xlvi. seg. It must be admitted that the course of his education, as described by our chief source, labours under chronological impossi- bilities. I cannot, however, agree with those who attribute the statement that he attended the school of Crates the Academic to a confusion with Crates the Cynic. For the testimony of Diogenes Laertius is corroborated on this point by that of a well-read scholar, the compiler of the Jzdex Academicorum Herculanensis (cf. the author’s Die herculanische Biographie des Polemon in Philosophische Aufsitze Eduard Zeller gewidmet, p. 149). I prefer, therefore, on obvious grounds, to abandon the chronological order of Bion’s studies rather than the individual facts recorded, derived as these doubtless are, both in this and other instances, from the inscription-registers of the schools themselves. For this very same reason, these statements prove nothing at all as to any permanent influencing of the pupil by the teacher; nor must we forget that even advanced age was not incompatible with the attending of lectures. (Bottom) The two burlesque verses are discussed by Wachsmuth, Poests Greca Ludibunda, fin. On p.75 of that work there is much excellent matter on Bion and against his detractors. Erwin Rohde’s judgment is expressed in Griech. Roman, ed. 2, p. 268, note. Hense (of. εΖέ., p. xlvi.) shows admirably that Bion’s own humorous description of a superstitious person loaded with amulets “‘like a peg” was transferred to Bion himself and his deathbed conversion. Cf. Diog. Laert., iv. 54—and its appeal to the local gossip of Chalcis, where Bion died !— with Plutarch, De Sufersictione, ch. 7 (AZor., 199, 200, D).
Book V.—CHAPTER I.
Plato is treated of very fully in the whole of the third book of Diogenes Laertius. Out of the almost unmanageable mass of modern literature we may single out Zeller’s Philos. d. Gr., 11. 1 (ed. 4), pp. 389-986; George Grote, Plato and the other Companions of Socrates, London, 1865, 3 vols. (pp. 465-602 of vol. 111. is all that is devoted to the other Socratics) ; some other writings of the first importance will be named in the separate sections. Of editions of Plato’s works we may mention the Zurich edition, complete in one volume, for its convenience in use ; that by Martin Schanz, unfortu- nately not yet finished, for the copious critical apparatus; that of
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 301
K. F. Hermann (in the Teubner collection) for its handy size; and the most recent by John Burret (four volumes published so far) for the prominence given to essentials in the afparatus criticus and for the extensive use made, at least in the second volume, of external sources of tradition. Friedrich Schleiermacher’s translation has exerted a lasting influence on Platonic study by the introductions prefixed to the separate dialogues.
Plato’s life was written first of all by his immediate pupils. Speu- sippus, his nephew and successor as head of the school, gave the world a Πλάτωνος ἐγκώμιον ; cf. Diog. Laert., iii. 2 and iv. 5; the first passage should be corrected from the second by transposition. His second successor, Xenocrates, wrote a Blos (Fraguz., 53, Heinze). Books on Plato were also written by his pupils Hermodorus (/udex Academ., col. vi., and Simplicius, Jz Avristotelis Phys., 247, 33, Diels) and Philippus (Suidas, sb voc.); sections were devoted to him in the biographical works of Neanthes and Hermippus, and several Peri- patetics, e.g. Aristoxenus and Clearchus treated of him in separate writings. Nothing considerable remains beyond that book of Dio- genes Laertius. There are, firstly, the parts relating to Plato of the Philodemic Judex Academicorum Herculanensis, worked up _ by Bicheler, and more recently by Mekler; next, a short biography by Olympiodorus (second half of the sixth century), or, more accurately, written down by a pupil of his from his lectures ; then the Prolegomena composed by Olympiodorus himself (cf. Freudenthal in Hermes, xvi. 208, seg.) both in the sixth volume of Hermann’s edition ; the first, biographical, half of the Prolegomena, also in Westermann, Bzogr, Greci, pp. 388-395 ; lastly, the life in Suidas (sd voc.).
Page 249 (zzz¢.). “An eminent contemporary :” Alexander Bain. (Bottom) Immanuel Kant: cf. Friedr. Paulsen in Deutsche Runa- schau, August, 1898, p. 198: “I might have entitled my exposition ‘Kantius Platonizans.’ ”
Page 250 (Middle). “Traces of the relationship :” cf. Adalbert Merx, Jdeen und Grundlininien einer allgemeinen Geschichte der Mystik, especially p. 9, notes 12 and 26. (Second par.) According to the testimony of Apollodorus, reported in Diog. Laert., iii. 2, Plato was born on the seventh of the month Thargelion, in a year of the eighty- eighth Olympiad, which, to agree with the statements as to his age, must have been the first—that is, in the spring of 427. He died while engaged in the work of authorship (Dionys., De Compos. Verb., v. 208, 11, Reiske ; Cic., Cato Major, v.13). Again, according to the decisive testimony of Apollodorus, in the archonship of Theophilus, 348-7 (cf. Diog. Laert., v. 9, seg. ; Judex Acad., col.ii.; Dionys., dd Amme@., 5, 262, 17, Usener). On Plato’s family, see chiefly the ¢es¢zonza in Plato’s own dialogues : Charmides, 155 A (relationship with Solon) and 157 E (his family extolled by Solon, Anacreon, etc.) ; also Republic, 11. 308 A, and 7imceus,20 E. The seventh book of the Zaws further
302 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
contains autobiographical material ; for here, as Lutoslawski has also remarked (Plato's Logic, p. 498), the vesture of dialogue is broken through, and Plato discloses himself as the Athenian stranger. (Bottom) Critias: the “philosopher among men of the world and man of the world among philosophers” (he is so styled in a scholium to Plato’s 7z@us, 20 A) suffers to this day from this two- fold character of his. We seek in vain for a complete account of his personality. The beginnings of one may be found in two memoranda of Th. Bergk (Griech. Lit. Gesch., iv. 342). Even the remnants of his authorship have not been reunited since N. Bach’s collection (Leipzig, 1827). The considerable fragment of his book-drama Szsy/hus has already been mentioned in the present work (Vol. I. p. 389), and studied more closely in the author’s Beitrage zur Kritik und Erklarung griechischer Schriftsteller, i. 36, seg.; the other poetical fragments may be found in Bergk’s Poete Lyr. Gr., ed. 4, ii. 279, seg. ; the re- mains of his Polztics are contained in Fragmenta Hist. Grec., ii. 68, seg. ; the few philosophical fragments are waiting to be edited afresh (cf. the author’s Beztrdge, loc. ctt.). On his prose style, cf. the author’s Apologie der Hetlkunst, p. 105, seg. His Politics are devoted to the description of manners rather than constitutions. The fragment of his book, Oz the Nature of Love, which is taken from Galen’s Glossary, sub voc. Avoavins (in Bach, p. 103), exhibits him asa precursor of Theophrastus in the delineation of types of character. The chief testimony relating to his doctrine of the soul is found in Aristotle, De Anima, A. 2 (αἷμα τὴν ψυχὴν εἶπε).
Page 251 (Middle). Aristotle, A/ez., Τ᾿ 16, 1416 Ὁ; 26, seg. This declaration (“If any one desired to praise Critias, he would have to tell his story at great length, for few know him ”) hardly admits of any other interpretation than that Aristotle regarded Critias as a mis- understood man. It is remarkable that Aristotle, who here couples Critias with Achilles, in another passage (Awad. Post., B. 13, 97 Ὁ, 17) sets Alcibiades in the same company. In both passages he goes out of his way to name the two men and treat them as heroes, whereas in his ᾿Αθηναίων Πολιτεία he carefully avoids mentioning them. Probably he judged the political influence of both of them pernicious, but saw in each a personality of commanding genius, towering above the common stature. “Τὸ excite the tributary peasants...” This action of Critias seems to us, as it did to Grote (7252. of Greece, ed. 2, vili. 317: “he is said .. .”), not completely established as a fact; the source of the statement is the accusing speech of his mortal enemy Theramenes (in Xenophon, //e//ex., 11. 3, 36). (Bottom) The quotation from Niebuhr: A7ezne historische und philologische Schriften, 1st collection, 475, Seg.
Page 252 (Middle). The intimacy of Critias and Charmides is evident from Xenophon, JZevz., 111, 6 and 7; i. 2,6; also Symp., init. Damon: cf. Vol. I. pp. 386 and 575. (Bottom) Cratylus: on him, cf.
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 303
Aristotle, W7ez., A. 6 (¢z7t.), and Tr. 5, 1010 a, 10; also Plato, Thee/er., 189 A, and Cratylus, 440 C.
Page 253 (Bottom). That Plato performed military service may be assumed as a matter of course, though the different statements relating to the subject have “blended truth with falsehood ;” cf. W. Christ, Platonische Studien, p. 58, where it is endeavoured to give probability to the view that Plato served in the cavalry.
Page 254 (second par.). The possibility of some of the purely Socratic dialogues having been composed in the master’s lifetime was unconditionally rejected by Grote on the following grounds : A dialogue so composed ez‘her contained a true report, and then the copy must have paled before the original, or e/se it put un-Socratic thoughts in the mouth of Socrates, and then Plato must have been guilty of an undutifulness we should never have expected of him (P/a/o, i. 199). This dilemma does not seem to me decisive on the point. All the loyalty in the world need not have prevented Plato from inventing occasions for the dialogues and participants in them, as well as the speeches of the latter, or from modifying and rearranging such speeches so as to produce a work of art far superior to the haphazard course of an actual conversation. (Bottom) This report of Plato’s failure in the law court is taken by Diog. Laert. (ii. 41) from a late author, Justus of Tiberias (czvca 100 B.C.).
Page 255 (Below). “ Resided for a while at Megara...” This is attested by Hermodorus, who is cited in Diog. Laert., ii. 106, and ili. 6. The order of Plato’s travels is given according to Cicero, De Fin., v. 29, 87, and De Repudl., i. 10,16. But it is hardly likely that there was an absolutely trustworthy tradition on the subject ; in any case incidental visits to Athens are very possible (cf. Vol. 11. p. 336), as no one would remain absent from his home for so long without necessity. On the condition of Egypt at that date, cf. Ed. Meyer, Geschichte des alten Agyptens, p. 394. (Bottom) “ You Greeks are boys :” Ἕλληνες ἀεὶ παῖδές ἐστε, T71@us, 22 B. The following quota- tions are from Herodotus, ii. 84, and Plato’s Laws, ii. 656 D, seg. ; vil. 799 A and 819 B.
Page 256 (Bottom). Strabo, xvii. 806. On the local features of Heliopolis, cf. Diimichen, Geschichte Agyptens, 256, seg.; Maspero, Flistoire ancienne des peuples de POrient classigue, i. Ὁ. 505; Aus Mehemet Ali’s Reich, by the author of the Briefe ecnes Verstorbenen (Furst Putickler-Muskau), i. 356; Jul. Braun, Aéstorische Land. schaften, p. 56; Meyer’s Reisebicher, Agypten, p. 206, seg.
Page 257 (Top). Strabo (/oc. εἴ.) makes Plato and Eudoxus arrive at Heliopolis together. The length of their stay there he fixes (not without reservation—ds εἴρηταί τισι) at thirteen years, wherein he appears to have confused the total duration of Plato’s travels with his Egyptian sojourn. Much greater credibility attaches to the statement given by Diog. Laert., vill. 87, that Eudoxus spent one year and four
204 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
months in Egypt. The chronological impossibility of the two having been there simultaneously has been recently confirmed by Susemihl, Rhein. Mus., liii. 626, seg. (Bottom) What is here said as to Theuth and Dhuti rests on Plato’s Phedrus, 274 C, and the information given by Brugsch, Religion und Mythologie der alten Egypter, pp. 440, 446.
Page 258 (Top). Passage in Plato’s Statesman,290 Ὁ E. Ac- cording to an oral communication of my colleague, Professor Krall, the Egyptian king is in truth “the supreme priest of all the Egyptian deities.” Professor Krall also refers to the Egyptian accession-rites, as described by Nigidius Figulus, p. 124, in the edition by A. Swoboda. (Middle) Theodorus: cf. Diog. Laert., iii. 6. Theodorus is an inter- locutor in Plato’s 7heetetus, Sophist, and Statesman. His transition “from pure speculation ” (ἐκ τῶν ψιλῶν λόγων) to a special science is mentioned by himself in 7heetetus,165 A. More self-characterization, zbid., 143 B, C,and 145 A. Plato may have made his acquaintance at Athens, where he appears to have stayed shortly before the death of Socrates (cf. 7heezetus, 143 A,and Xenophon, J/em., iv. 2, 10), and where Theztetus became his pupil. Theodorus is mentioned as a mathematician, along with Hippocrates of Chios; cf. Allman, Greek Geometry, p. 58. The most important testimony is that of Eudemus (fragmenta, p. 114, Spengel) ; then Iamblichus, De Communi Mathem. Scientia, ch. xxv. (p. 77, seg., Festa). He is assigned to the circle of the Pythagoreans by Iamblichus, De Vita Pyth., ch. xxxvi. (p. 193, 4, Nauck). Plato calls him a friend of Pythagoras, 7hee/etus, 161 B and 168 E,
Page 299 (Top). The names of numerous Pythagoreans, natives of Tarentum, are given by Iamblichus, De Vita Pyth., ch. xxxvi. (p. 198, Nauck). Ταραντῖνοι was the title of comedies by the younger Cratinus and Alexis (ii. 291 and 378, Kock). The Pythagoreans, we may remark in passing, were the butt of much ridicule, both in these and other comedies. The two poets named each produced a Πυθαγορίζουσα, and Aristophon a Πυθαγοριστής (il. 279, 280, 290, 370, K). Cf. also the Μνήματα of Antiphanes, zdzd,, p. 76. (Middle) “Tarentum at Carnival-time:” cf. Plato, Laws, i. 637 B. On the social and political conditions there, cf. Aristotle, Po/., Z. 1320 Ὁ, 9. Thes ituation of Tarentum is here described from the author’s personal observation. On the advantages and the history of Tarentum, cf. Strabo, vi. 278, seg.. and Polybius, x. 1. The friend- ship of Plato and Archytas is coupled with that of Damon and Phintias, by Iamblichus, De Vita Pyth., ch. xxvii. (p. 92, seg., Nauck). (8 3) Archytas is treated of by Diog. Laert., viii. 4. Aristoxenus wrote a biography of him (according to Athenzeus, xi. 545 A); Aristotle composed three books on his philosophy, and in addition compiled extracts from his writings (Diog. Laert., v.25). With his flute-playing (Athenzeus, iv. 184 E) are connected his investigations into the theory
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 305
of music (cf. von Jan in Pauly-Wissowa’s Real-Encyclopedie, ii. 1, 600, seg.) On his kindness to children and slaves, cf. lian, Varia Historia, xii. 15, and Athenzeus, xli. 519 B, with which the statement that he invented children’s rattles (Aristotle, Po/., © 6, 1340 b, 26) excellently agrees.
Page 260 (Top). “Archytas at the head of a confederation of cities ;” according to Suidas, swb voc. ᾿Αρχύτας. On his end, cf. Horace, Odes, i. 28, with Kiessling’s comments. (Par. 2) He is termed the founder of mechanics by Diog. Laert., Joc. cz¢. As to the invention of that flying dove (concerning which, besides Favorinus, quoted verbatim by Aulus Gellius, oct. .4.22., x. 12, 9, seg., ““many and eminent ” authors have written most positively), there is no ground for doubt, although the employment of compressed air is not otherwise met with till considerably later, in connexion with Ctesibius, there, to be sure, on a large scale (cf. Susemihl, Alexander Lit. Gesch., 735, n. 153). The testimony of Eudemus, in his history of geometry, may be found in Spengel’s Eudemit Fragmenia, p. 45. Fuller details of his achieve- ments in mathematics, as well as a discussion on the spuriousness of the philosophical writings attributed to him, are given by E. Wellman (Pauly-Wissowa, of. cz?.).
Page 261 (Top). The first of the two fragments here discussed is taken from Porphyrius’ commentary on the “Harmony” of Ptolemzus (p. 236, seg.), newly edited by Blass in his important essay, De Archyta ... Fragmentis Mathematicis, “ Mélanges Graux,” 573, seg. ; the second from Aristotle’s Prodlems, xvi.9,915 a, 25. Aristotle, by the way, has two more quotations from Archytas: the definitions of a calm (sea or wind), (Wezaph., H. 2, 1043 a, 21, seg.), and an ingenious comparison (Ae, 0. 11,1412 a, 12). (Middle) Charactersof Archytas : anecdotes and apophthegms illustrating his self-command, his sociability, his steadfastness, are given by Iamblichus, De Vzta Pyth., 31, 197 (141, 8, seg., Nauck) ; by Cicero, Cato Major, xii. 41 ; and Leelius, xxiii. 88 (the remainder are repetitions).
Page 262 (par. 2). On the two phases of tyranny, cf. a work, now out of date, which, though disfigured by many errors of detail, is yet on the whole excellent : Dze Tyrannis in thren beiden Perioden bet den alten Griechen..., by H. 6. Plass (2 vols., Bremen, 1852). It is, so far as I know, the first attempt to judge the great historical phenomenon of tyranny with insight and justice ; cf., ¢.¢., vol. i. 130, seg. On Gelon and his mercenaries, cf. Beloch, Gr. Gesch., i. 443. See further the History of Greece by Grote, against whose tendency to minimize the violent acts of democracies we must be on our guard. Thus Thucyd., v. 4, cited by Grote, vii. 191 (ed. 2), decisively con- tradicts Grote’s narrative on p. 163, seg. Cf., too, Aristotle, Po/zz,, E. 5, 1305 a, 4. It is clear, from these passages, that divisions of land were by no means unheard-of occurrences. ‘“ Proverbial abundance :” Σικελὸς στρατιώτης in Zenob., v. 89 (Paremiogr. Gre@ct, i.
3206 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
157, 3; cf. ii.2 08, 1; 641, 9, and 770, 7). (Bottom) Treitschke: Polttik, ii. 338. Speech of Alcibiades in Thucydides, vi. 17, 2. A speech which contains, so to speak, the philosophy of the Sicilian tyranny.
Page 264. The author speaks of Syracuse from personal observation.
Page 265 (Top). The remains of the mimes of Sophron and Xenarchus have now been collected with the greatest completeness, and explained by Georg Kaibel, Com. Grec. Fragm., 1. 1, 152-182. An interesting characterization of them in Otto Jahn, Aus der Alter- tumswissenschaft, p. 56. The imitations belong in part to Theocritus and Moschus, in part to Herondas, who was coarser than his model. Plato’s preference is attested by Duris, in Athenzus, xi. 504 B, as well as by Diog. Laert., iii. 18. On Epicharmus, cf. note on ch. 8, § 3. On the “ Theorem of Becoming ” (αὐξανόμενος λόγος) and its statement by Epicharmus, cf. Bernays, Rhein. Mus., New Series, viii. 280, seg. (= Ges. Abhandlungen, i. 109, seg.). The fragments of Epicharmus are again to be found best treated in Kaibel, of. cz¢., p. 88, seg. The line given by us in free rendering is fragment 170 in that collection, p. 122. Kaibel, however, seems to have erred, in company with von Wilamowitz (Heracles, i. 29, ed. 1), in rejecting, as not written by Epicharmus, a considerable number of philosophic and sententious fragments; see the authors comments in the contrary sense in Beitrage zur Krittk und Erklarung griechischer Schriftsteller, vii. 5, seg. (Vienna, 1900).
Page 266 (Middle). ‘‘ The heavily laden tables of Syracuse :” cf. Republic, iii. 404. D: Συρακοσίαν δε. . . τράπεζαν καὶ Σικελικὴν ποικιλίαν ὄψου, κιτιλ. Also Gorgias, 518 B. (Below) Moral sermons addressed to Dionysius are placed in Plato’s mouth: by Diog. Laert., 111, 18, and again by Plutarch, Dzo, ch. 5 (1144, 5, Dohner).
Page 267 (Top). “The most bloodstained of all creatures, adversary of all right and justice.” I allude here to Herodotus, v. Q2: τοῦ οὔτε ἀδικώτερον οὐδέν ἐστι. . . οὔτε μιαιφονώτερον. The remains of Dionysius’ poems, in Nauck’s 77γαρ. Grec. Fragmi., ed. 2, p. 793-6. (Below) “ Despotic power... .” The original is 4 yap τυραννὶς ἀδικίας μήτηρ ἔφυ.
Page 268 (Middle). Cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, fudicium de Lysia, p. 519 (Reiske) and the fragment there preserved of Lysias’ Olympic oration ; also Diodorus, xiv. 109.
Page 269 (Top). The narrative of Plato’s being sold into slavery appears in different versions. Cf. Plutarch, 2220, ch. 5 ; Diodorus, xv.7 ; Diog. Laert., ili. 19, seg. ; Aristides, speech, xlvi. 233 (ii. 306, Dindorf). Of these, the most credible in itself is the first-named. The doubts as to the authenticity of the whole story, such as are expressed by Diimmler, Academica, 210, are wholly without foundation, and, as Diels has observed, Zur Textgeschichte der aristotelischen Physik,
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 307
p. 23, they are contradicted by an incidental allusion of Aristotle, Physics, B. 8, 199 Ὁ, 20. The chronological position of the event, as Zeller remarks, ii. 1, 406, ed. 4, is fixed by the circumstance that it would have been impossible after the Peace of Antalcidas (487). With this agrees the statement in the 7th Platonic or pseudo-Platonic epistle, which, in any case, is based upon good sources, 324 A. On the purchase of a plot of land, cf., besides Diog. Laert., ili. 19, 20, also Plutarch, De Euaz/,, 10 (Mor., 728, 38, Diibner). (§ 6) Cf. Plato’s Phedrus, 229 A, seg.
Page 270 (par. 2). On the locality, cf. Bursian, Geographie von Griechentand, i. 323, and Wachsmuth, Athen tut Altertum, 1. 255, seg., 262, seg. Ancient accounts: Cicero,De ἔζης, v.1, 1-2; Diog. Laert., ili. 7, seg. ; [Diceearchi] Descriptio Grecia, 1 (Fragm. Hist. Gr,, ii. 581); Pausanias, i. chs. 29 and 250.» Athencus,, xii. 561 D; E; Plutarch, (ζητοῖ, 13 fin. (Vite, 582,18, Déhner) ; Aristophanes, Clouds, 1006, seg. (Bottom) “ Frugal banquets:” cf. Athenzus, x. 419 C; also Plutarch, De Sanitate Precepta, ch. 9, jin., Quest. Conviv., procemium (Mor., 151, 40 and 834, 33, Diibner). The same in A:lian, Var. Hzst., ii, 18.
Page 271 (Top). Founder’s birthday banquets: cf. Plutarch’s Quest. Conviv., viii. 1, 1, and 2, 1; Porphyr., Veta Plotin., ch. 2. On the cult of the Muses in children’s schools, cf. Theophrastus, Characters, 22 (ἀνελευθερία), AXschines, /z Timarchum, § 10, as also on the cult of Hermes in the gymnasia, add the scenery of Plato’s Lysts, 206 D; further, EAzgramm. Gr., ed. Kaibel, No. 295. Daily offerings in the Academy to the Muses may be conjectured from the account in the /udex Acad. Hercul., col. vii., of Xenocrates’ conduct after the entry of the Macedonian garrison: ὡς οὔτε τὰ Μουοσεῖα θῦσαι τότε, κιτιλ. (Below) The distich is preserved by Philodemus in the Index Acad., col. vi.—
Τάσδε θεῇσι θεὰς Χάριτας Μούσαις ἀνέθηκεν Σπεύσιππος λογίωνεἵνεκα δῶρα τελῶν.
The restoration Ao(yi)wy is unavoidable ; but as the ordinary meaning of the word, “ oracular responses,” seems hardly appropriate, I have hazarded the conjecture that λόγια may here have been used in the sense of “knowledge,” “learning,” just as λόγιος denotes a scholar. Speusippus would then have addressed to the patron goddesses of all science the thanks due to his uncle for the παιδεία he had received. A statue of Plato, the work of the sculptor Silanion, was also placed in the chapel of the Muses by a Persian named Mithridates (Diog. Laert., ili. 25). On the lecture-halls recently discovered in Delos and Olympia, cf. P. Paris in the Dictionnaire des Antiguités, Daremberg- Saglio, sub voc. “ Exedra.” (Bottom) On the dress and bearing of the Academics, cf. the satire of the comic poets, Antiphanes and Ephippus (ii. 23 and 257, Kock).
308 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
Page 272 (Top). ‘‘ Dion of Syracuse:” Various instances are recorded of his pecuniary services to Plato : repayment of the emanci- pation-money to Anniceris, and, when the latter refused to accept it, purchase of the plot of land for the same amount, Diog. Laert., iii. 20 ; the costly work of Philolaus purchased for Plato, Diog., iii. 9; the expenses of achoregia borne for him, Diog., iii. 3 ; and Plutarch, Dzo, ch. 17, 2 (Vet@, 1150, 47, Dohner) ; also Avéstides, ch. 1, 4 (380, 30, D). (Middle) ‘‘ Modest beginnings:” cf. Antigonus of Carystus, in Athenzeus, xii. 547 D-F, where the simplicity native to the Academy is contrasted with Peripatetic luxury. And though Antigonus is contrasting the Peripatos under Lycon with the Academy under Plato and Speusippus, a glance at Plato’s and Aristotle’s wills (Diog. Laert., iii. 41, seg., and v. I1, seg.) will suffice to confirm what we have said in the text. On the absence of a school library, cf. the author’s Platontsche Aufsdtze, ii. (Vienna, 1899). On the absence of corporate rights— contrary to the prevalent view that the philosophic schools of that time possessed the legal form of religious associations, or θίασοι---566 Beitrage sur Krittk und Erklarung Griechischer Schriftsteller, vii. Ῥ- 9; 56.
The analogy in question has been pointed out by G. Lumbroso (Ricerche Alessandrine, Publications of the Turin Academy, 1873, ii. 260, seg., ch. 4) and Usener (Preuss. Fahré., vol. liii. part 1, Oxganisation der wissenschaftlichen Arbeit., p. 7). Von Wilamowitz declares more definitely for this identification (A ztzgonus von Karystus, 263, seg.), and so now does Erich Ziebarth, Das grtechische Veretnswesen, “ Preis- schriften der Jablonowsky’schen Gesellschaft,” Leipzig, 1896. The latter speaks of the Alexandrine Museum asa “‘ prominent example ” in which we still clearly recognize “the influence of the organization of the Attic philosophical associations” (p. 73), without noticing that the statement quoted immediately afterwards from Strabo (xvii. 794), to the effect that the Museum possessed χρήματα κοινά, iS in flat contradiction with what we read in the philosophers’ wills. These so-called associations lacked all corporate rights and all legal position relatively to the out- side world, not, indeed, in the late Roman times, but at the period into which we are introduced by the philosophers’ wills, which have been preserved. They possessed an inward tendency to become corporations ; but evidently the Attic legislation denied them the possibility of realizing this tendency otherwise than by the circuitous method of fictions and moral pressure. That in these institutions, as in all others devoted to instruction, private religious observances had something to do with the legal form of the associations, may be asserted, but cannot be proved. The quotation from Theophrastus’ will is as follows in the original: ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἂν ἱερὸν κοινῇ κεκτημένοις (Diog. Laert., v. 53). What is here said as to the procedure at the . election of the school-heads is taken from various passages of the Index Acad.,, particularly col, vii., also from Diog. Laert., iv. 32; cf.
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 309
the author’s essay, Die Akademie und ihr vermetintlicher Philo- Macedonismus, Wiener Studien, iv. p. 109. On Plato’s assistants, cf. note on Vol. III. 177, and Bergk, Fiinf Abhandlungen, p. 63, seg.
Page 273 (par. 2). The incidental allusions of Aristotle are collected and commented on by Zeller, ii. 1, 416, seg., ed. 4, and ii. 2, 64, ed. 3, where also is given what can be ascertained about Plato’s work, Περὶ τοῦ ᾿Αγαθοῦ. The amusing episode is known to us through Aristoxenus (see Marquardt, Harmontsche Fragmente, Ὁ. 44). Accord- ing to this narrative, the title of that very course of lectures just mentioned, “On the Good,” had attracted a numerous audience which promptly melted away when it became apparent that Plato did not propose to treat of such human goods as strength, health, riches, but on the highest abstractions of his doctrine of ideas in its quasi- Pythagorean form. The comparison with the Semznxar is due to P. Natorp, Archiv f. Gesch. ὦ. Philos, xii. 42. “In his own little garden.” The statement, with the names of the authorities for it, is given by Diog. Laert., iii. 5. The “garden on the hill Colonus” is clearly identical with the plot of ground mentioned in Plato’s will, situate in the Deme Eiresidz. It is quite unnecessary to assume Plato’s possession of another piece of land, disposed of before he made his will, and different both from the above-mentioned and the neighbouring property in the Deme Iphistiadz (Diog. Laert., iii. 41, seg.; cf. Léper, Athen. Mittetlungen, xvii. 394, seg.). ‘‘ Academy” sometimes means the whole district (thus in Xenophon, He//ez., vi. 5, 49, or Juscr. Att., 111. 61), sometimes the τέμενος, then again the gymnasium, or Plato’s school as a community without reference to place. ‘Still greater intimacy... :” meals taken daily in common are indicated by the narrative in Cicero, 7wsc., v. 32, 91 : “‘ Xenocrates
. . abduxit legatos ad cenam in Academiam : iis apposuit tantum
quod satis esset, nullo apparatu.” This, therefore, was no banquet, but a daily meal ; and nothing is more probable than that in this particular, too, the succeeding heads of the school followed the master’s precedent. Athenzus (i. 4 E) reports that the table was laid for twenty-eight ; the number seems to me neither mystic nor incredible. Apart from the limits dictated possibly by space or expense, Plato may well have liked to gather his guests round him at three tables, nine at each, for the number of the Muses was a favourite one in antiquity. On what follows, compare the discussion on drinking-clubs in Plato’s Laws, particularly i. 639 E, with the complaint of the lack of well-ordered drinking-societies (see also our text, Vol. III. p.231). On the “table- rules” and “ drinking-regulations ” (νόμος συσσιτικός and συμποτικός are the expressions), cf. Athenzeus, v. 178 F, v. 186 B, i. 3 F, explained by Berek, of. céz., Ὁ. 67, and Proclus, /z Platon. Rempudbl., i. 8, 12, seg., ed. Kroll.
Page 274 (Middle). On the “torch-race” (Pausan., i. 30, 2), cf. Weckelin’s essay so entitled in Hermes, vii. 437, Seg.
VOR, ΤΠ ¥
310 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
Book V.—CHAPTER II.
Page 276. “We learn from Aristotle :” σχεδὸν δὲ παραπλησίως καὶ περὶ τοῦς Νόμους ἔχει τοὺς ὕστερον γραφέντας (Pol., B. 6, ad init.) ; cf. Diog. Laert., iil. 37. (Below) The distinction between genuine (γνήσιοι), unanimously rejected (vodevovra . . . ὁμολογουμένως), and doubtful dialogues, in Diog. Laert., ili. 57 ; cf. ii.64 and 105.
Page 277. “Of the remaining three-fourths . .. condemned as spurious:” by C. Schaarschmidt, Die Sammlung der platonischen Schriften, etc. (Bonn, 1866). “ Aristotle’s warning :” Pol., B. 6.1265 a, 10. (Below) “A hot-headed critic:” Josef Socher, User Platon’s Schriften, p. 265 (Munich, 1820). (Below) “Α second has been con- demned.” I quote Ueberweg, Untersuchungen 1667. die Echtheit und Zeitfolze platontscher Schriften, Ὁ. 180 (Vienna, 1861).
Page 278 (Top). Schleiermacher: in his translation of Plato, i. 1. 25 (3rd ed.). (Below) “Citations contained in the writings of Aristotle :” the principal collection in Ueberweg, of. c7t., 131, 56.) who names his predecessors, and in Bonitz, Judex Aristotelicus (fifth volume of the Berlin Academy’s edition), s.v. Πλάτων. (Middle) The misuse of this method may be exemplified by the following quotations: Suckow, Dze wessensch. und kiinstl. Form der Plat. Schriften, p. 180: “The list teaches us which dialogues besides these” (z.e. besides eight principal works mentioned above) “ may possibly be genuine, so that the collection may be completed from their number.” Similarly, Schaarschmidt (of. cé¢., p. 83): “For as soon as it is established that some parts of this corpus have to be separated as spurious, for the remaining parts also their merely external attestation seems to lose all value as a testimony to their genuineness.” Whoever thinks, we may ask, of proceeding in such a way with other ancient writers? Of Lysias, for instance, there were in antiquity 425 orations, of which the critics recognized little more than half as genuine (cf. [Plutarch] Vzte Decem Oratorum, 3, Moralia, 1018, 48, Dibner). None of us regards that judgment of Czecilius and Dionysius as decisive ; yet nobody tbinks of refusing to regard an extant speech as genuine, except when it is guaranteed by contem- porary or nearly contemporary evidence. The burden of proof always falls on one who disputes the tradition, not on one who accepts it ; it may not in itself possess full cogency, but it always creates a pre- sumption that weighs heavy in the scale. (Below) “ And it is only in recent years:” cf. Bonitz, in Hermes, 111. 447, Seq.
Page 279 (Middle). I take the statistics of language from the pioneering researches, long left unknown, of Lewis Campbell, Sophestes and Politicus of Plato, p. xxxi. (Oxford, 1867).
Page 281 (Middle). “Replies to them.” I refer to the writings of Colotes (a favourite pupil of Epicurus) against Plato’s Zyszs and
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. vty
Euthydemus, of which the Herculanean rolls have preserved miserable remnants. Much more considerable remains of the Laches (Brit. Mus. Pap., 187 verso), without an author’s name, but in my judgment not without bearing on the question. (Below) The list of Aristophanes is preserved to us by Diog. Laert. (iil. 61), that of Thrasyllus (generally but without decisive reasons identified with the mathematician of the same name, a contemporary of Augustus and Tiberius; cf. Cobet, Mnemosyne, N.S., iii. 160) by Diog. Laert., ili. 56, seg. That Thra- syllus did not compile his list on the ground of his personal impression has been rightly concluded from the following fact. To a certain dialogue, of which he incidentally expresses a doubt—probably not even then a merely subjective doubt—he still does not refuse admis- sion into his list (Diog. Laert., ix. 37, εἴπερ of ᾿Αντερασταὶ Πλάτωνός εἰσιν). So he must be guided by an authority, and that can scarcely be any other than Aristophanes, whose list, so far as it is known to us, completely coincides with his own (cf. Grote, P/azo, i. 165).
Page 282. ‘“‘ Had their origin . . . in the catalogues of the great libraries.” Cf. Diels, in Hermes, xxii. p. 414. (Below) The genuine- ness of the Hifparchus is doubted in ALlian, Var. Hist, viii. 2 (εἰ δὴ ὁ Ἵππαρχος Πλάτωνός ἐστι τῷ ὄντι), that of the A/czbzades 7} τὰ Athenzus, vi. 506 c (Ὁ γὰρ δεύτερος ὑπό τινων Ξενοφῶντος εἶναι λέγεται), the 4: 227107)15 in Diog. Laert., iii. 37 (τούτου δὲ καὶ τὴν ᾿Επινομίδα φασὶν εἶναι) :- cf. also the Prolegomena οἵ Olympiodorus, ch. 25 (vi. 218, Hermann), and Suidas, s.v. :Adcopos. (Below) My conjecture, that Philippus had been Plato’s amanuensis, rests on the /zdex Acad., col. iii., where the ἀναγραφεὺς τοῦ Πλάτωνος καὶ ἀκουστὴς is also called ἀστρολόγος. This description applies to Philippus : Plato’s great age is there in question; and there is certainly an intrinsic probability that the private secretary of Plato was also the editor of his remains. It may be remarked in passing that I cannot agree with the practically universal assumption that Philippus was the actual author of the ZAzvomzs. Going to the bottom of the matter, one can find nothing beyond the inconclusive φασὶν of Diogenes and two weak arguments of Olympiodorus, Zoc. cit, except the remark thrown out by Boeckh in an early work (/z Platonis Minem., etc.), that the £Azzomzs contains much astronomical matter, and that Philippus was an astronomer. Boeckh, then in his twenty- first year, intended to strengthen this proof (p.76) ; in fact, he often repeated this view in his later writings, without supporting it by any new grounds. Neither has that been done from any other quarter, and so I should like to raise the question whether this somewhat weak argu- ment outweighs the intrinsic improbability that Plato’s trusted friend has so grossly betrayed his trust. For the author of the Zpznomis, if he is not Plato, certainly wishes to present the appearance of being Plato. Any one else would be more likely to do that than the pupil entrusted with the editing of the remains, And let it not be objected, that in the judgment of these questions antiquity had a less severe
ae NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
standard than ours. That is true for certain times and certain kinds of literature, but not for this case. In the case of the 7zmaus we shall observe the earnestness and zeal with which the immediate disciples, a Speusippus and a Xenocrates, strove to elicit the true opinion of the master from his writings. (Below) “The inepti- tudes of certain Stoics and Neo-Platonists.” Panzetius, who rejected the Phedo, has been mentioned above (p. 295). This rejection is so monstrous that the utmost toil has been expended in explaining away the statement, and converting the rejection of the genuine- ness into a dislike of the contents. So Zeller, in the Commentationes Mommsenian@, p. 402, seg. But his principal argument, that one witness to the statement betrays his ignorance by speaking of “a certain Panetius,” is not valid. That Παναίτιός τις is, as Grote already saw (Plato, i. 157), said rather in contempt. Quite similarly, the by no means unlearned Aristocles, in Eusebius, Prep. Evang., xiv. 18. 27, mentions ᾿Αναξάρχου τινός ; so the famous sceptic is called by him, Αἰνησίδημός τις (2b2d., 29). The caprice of Panetius may be compared with the Neo-Platonic daring, which did not shrink from rejecting the Republic; cf. Freudenthal, in Hermes, xvi. 201, seg.
Page 283 (Top). The weakest grounds for rejection seem to belong to the /oz, which the genius shown in the simile of the magnet would be alone enough to defend (§33 D). (As the magnet attracts the iron, and the iron attracts other iron as soon as it becomes magnetic, so the Muse is related to the poet, and the poet to the hearers, and these again, when they recite the work, to other hearers.) A vigorous defender of the much-attacked dialogue has lately appeared in Walther Janell, Questiones Platonice, 325, seg. (Below) “ The letters :” the case with these is that neither a general rejection nor the contrary can be proved tenable. In fact, some such conclusion is no longer con- tested. Even von Wilamowitz, who in this line sometimes goes furthest in scepticism, declares, ‘I could easily accept the Platonic letter” (216. the sixth) “as genuine” (Aristoteles und Athen., i. 334; Anm., 33). On the other hand, Blass (Rhezx. Mus., liv. ΒΞ 36) ‘strikes out the first letter” (but that is a letter of Dion to Dionysius), expresses objections also to the twelfth, and will “simply not” speak of the five which are not transmitted in the MSS. of Plato. Christ also regardsseveral, among them the seventh and eighth, as suspicious (Platonische Studien, Munich, 1885, p. 26). He remarks very per- tinently that the thirteen letters which Thrasyllus mentions (Diog, Laert., ili. 6), and which therefore, on the grounds stated above, are almost certainly meant by the ἐπιστολαί of the Aristophanic list (Diog. Laert., 111. 62), are in any case too old for any one to speak of “ sophists’ school-exercises ” and the like (p. 25). The main a prior¢ objection also against the genuineness of the letters, more often felt than expressed, the contradiction between the “ world of ideals,” in which his works show him dwelling and the everyday cares which take up
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 413
no small part of Plato’s letters, is best exhibited by Christ, and deprived of its force (zé¢d@., p. 26). What he produces to prove the genuineness of the thirteenth letter seems to me very well worthy of attention ; é¢.g. the allusion by Aristotle (J7Ze¢afi., A. 5, 1015 A, 25) to a passage of this letter (362 B)—an allusion of exactly the same kind as that which has served to confirm the truth of a statement of biography (cf. note on p. 269). Wilamowitz’s remarks on the other side (/fermes, xxxill. 492, Seg.) seem tome to be overthrown by Blass, loc. cit., and by anticipation by Christ, with whose view of the age of Plato’s mother I agree.
On the whole, the conservative tendency in these questions is perceptibly gaining the upper hand. Grote, it is true, who wished to exempt the whole Corpus Platonicum, as Thrasyllus attests it, from all attack, certainly went beyond the mark. For we believe that we have refuted his fundamental premiss, the assumption of a school-library which preserved the writings of Plato, and which Aristophanes could still consult (Platontsche Aufsdtze, ii.) ; and no words need be spent on his incidental attempts to interpret out of existence the expressions of doubt in antiquity (6.0. Plato, i. 167, seg.). But his mockery of the misuse of the “ Platonic sense,” his indication of the grotesque contradictions of subjective criticism, have borne fruit. Through the growth also of the historical sense, the ground has been cut from under hazardous constructions. To-day it scarcely seems credible to us that the most pre-eminent veteran in the study of the history of philosophy, a little more than sixty years ago, declared the Laws to be un-Platonic, against the express testimony of Aristotle. Here a place may be found for a double caution. (1) Observe the astonishing inconsequence, which is not seldom committed in this sphere. A positive testimony to genuineness by Athenzeus or A¢lian is reckoned as null; but a faintly indicated doubt of these very writers, even when it directly contradicts the testimony of the Alexandrians five hundred years earlier, is to be a sufficient ground, not merely to counter-balance it in the particular case, but to put the whole Corpus Platonicum in the dock. (2) But as regards. rejection on internal grounds, our exposition in the text (pp. 277-280) may be followed by a warning drawn from personal experience. Any one who broods over and steeps himself in one of the less prominent dialogues, easily perceives many objections, which seem to justify a sentence of rejection. But if one reads a number of the dialogues in quick succession, it happens many times that a single impression of that kind is corrected and set aside by a second impression. What seemed objectionable in A is repeated in B, and this time in union with excellences which exclude every thought of non-Platonic origin.
Page 283 (Bottom). “When... we read in a late author:”
both quotations from Diog. Laert., iii. 38 (on the other side Cicero, Orat., xiii. 41) and iii. 35.
414 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
Page 284(Top). ‘“ Meno” and “ Symposium :” cf. Sym#., 193 A, Meno, 90 A, compared with Xen., Hed/er., 111. 5. 1. Upto the present, no other at all certain explanation has been found for these allusions. (Below) “ The comparative study.” For the questions here treated the foundation was laid by the prize essay of Friedrich Ueberweg, crowned by the Vienna Academy, Uzdersuchungen tiber die Echthett und Zettfolge platontscher Schriften (Vienna, 1861), The mutual back-references and anticipations in the Platonic writings have been followed up with important results by Siebeck, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Philosophie, p. 107, seg. (2nd ed.). The present writer has also entered this field (P/atonische Aufsatze, i.).
Page 285. The investigation of the statistics of the language was started by two researchers independent of each other, but essentially agreeing in their results. Lewis Campbell came first, in his edition mentioned above (note on p. 279), which has been followed by an important excursus in his and Jowett’s edition of the Repudlic, τι. 46, seg. (Oxford, 1894), and further by an essay on the place of the Parmenides (Classical Review, vol. x.). Next came Wilhelm Ditten- berger, with his paper (1881, in Hermes, xvi. 421, seg.), Sprachliche Kriterien fiir die Chronologie der platonischen Dialoge. The most important further contributions have been added by M. Schanz, in Hermes, xxi. (1886), 439, seg. ; Constantin Ritter, Untersuchungen uber Plato (Stuttgart, 1888); and Hans von Arnim, in the Winter Pro- gramme of the University of Rostock, 1896-7, De Platonis Dialogis OQuestiones Chronologice. The whole literature on this subject may be found, collected and estimated, in Lutoslawski’s work, 7he Origin and Growth of Plato’s Logic (London, 1897). The present writer has reported on the progress of this branch of study in the Zeztschr. Jur Philos. und Philos. Kritik, vol. 109, p. 162, seg., and in the Anzeiger der Kats. Akademie der Wissenschaften, April 20, 1898.
Book V.—CHAPTER III.
Page 288. Karl Friedrich Hermann: in his work, Geschichte und System der Platonischen Philosophie, 1st (and only) part (Heidelberg, 1839). Hermann’s principal service was that he freed Platonic study from the spell of Schleiermacher’s ingenious but deceitful construction. According to it, Plato in his early youth had thought out a plan of philosophic production, and executed it in the course of his long life. Every preceding dialogue had prepared the reader for a successor, the totality of the dialogues together had formed a course of philosophy, Apart from its inadequate proof and the violence with which it is applied to particulars, the hypothesis suggests three decisive objections. How wonderful it would be, if even a philosophic genius had sketched a plan in his early youth to embrace his whole career; yet more wonderful, if he had kept to it, never diverted by inward growth or
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 315
outward influences ; and finally, most wonderful of all, he is supposed to have regarded the succession of his works and the gradation of the teaching to be drawn from them as so supremely important, and yet not to have transmitted it to posterity by any plain and easily recognizable sign! By overturning this phantom, Hermann left the ground free for the historical treatment of the whole matter, and at the same time made possible the unprejudiced understanding and equitable estimate of the separate writings, whereby they were rescued —so far as first principles went—from the sway of the hypercritical mania for rejection. (Below) Aristotle, Mefaph., A. 6 and M. 4 (1078 b, 30, ἀλλ᾽ ὁ μὲν Swxpdrys τὰ καθόλου ov χωριστὰ ἐποίει; K.T.A-).
Page 289 (Top). “Predecessors of K. F. Hermann:” I am thinking especially of Friedrich Ast, Platon’s Leben und Schriften (Leipzig, 1816). This scholar did, it is true, put the Profagoras at the head of the “Socratic” dialogues, which certainly is approximately right (p. 56); but he joined the Phedrus to it as second, and (after the Gorgias) the Phedo as fourth.
Page 290 (Top). The characteristic marks and description of Plato’s aged period are best given by Campbell in the writings above cited. His assignments of time agree almost throughout with those of Dittenberger (οὔ. czz.). As early as 1854 Friedrich Ueberweg came fairly near to the now accomplished solution of this problem. In his paper, Uber die platonische Weltseele (Rhein. Mus., N. F., ix.), to which we are inclined to award the first place among all the studies on Plato that we know, he has distinguished three series of writings, according to the presence, absence, and modifications of the theory of ideas. He counts the PAedrus in the second group, the Timeus in the third, at the head of which he puts the Parmenides (p. 52, seg.). At this time he was as yet untouched by the scepticism which afterwards made him nibble at the genuineness of the Parmenides and the Sophzsts (p. 70).
Page 296, ὃ 3. Siebeck has here committed an instructive error. In the Repudslic, iv. 430 B, a definition of “ courage” is given, and at the same time, in 430 C, a more exact research into the matter is promised. Here can be recognized only an unfulfilled promise, the announce- ment of a purpose which is only inadequately carried out in Bk. vi. 486 A,B. But Siebeck refers this announcement tothe Laches (op. cit, p. 127), which he therefore makes later than Δ᾽ 2., iv. But, since he makes the Pro¢agoras, not without probability, later than the Laches (p. 120), and the Gorgzas and Meno later than the Profagoras, quite rightly, and the Piedrus later than the Gorgzas, just as rightly (p. 129), thus (to say nothing of the opposing evidence of linguistic criteria), the middle period of Plato’s authorship is incredibly over- weighted, and his early creative period practically emptied. Any one who looks more carefully, moreover, will by no means conclude with Siebeck, from the comparison of Δ ῤ., iv. 430 C, with Laches, 196 D,
316 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
that the Laches contains “the fulfilment of the promise given in Rep., 430 C.” In the Laches the conception of animal courage is elicited, and 2αγὲ passu elaborated from many single cases ; but in the Republic it is handled with certainty as a possession of long standing. The much more probable inference is the opposite order. When von Arnim also (De Platonis Dial. Quest. Chronol., p. 19) makes the Laches later than we do, though not so late as Siebeck, he seems to me to be overrating the cogency of some few answer-formule.
Page 300. It belongs to the most extraordinary delusions of hypercriticism, that even the charming Charmides, not less than the Lysts, “two jewels in the crown of the Platonic work, small, but of the finest polish” (Lehrs, Plato’s Phadrus und Gastmadl, xv.), have been victims of excision at the hands of Ast, Socher, and others, down to the latest times.
Page 305 (Bottom). The parallel to Charmdes, 174 B, in Gorgias, 449 B, has been pointed out by my revered teacher Bonitz, in P/aton. Stud. 251 (3rd ed.), a work to which here and elsewhere our expositions owe much.
Book V.—CHAPTER IV,
Page 310. George Grote, Plato, ii. 45.
Page 314. “The second fallacy:” against Bonitz’s view, that the reasoning here treated (Profag., 332 A) “is not seriously meant by Plato” (of. cit¢., p. 265), in my judgment the fact is decisive that Plato, while he was still a pure Socratist, could not be fully conscious of the double sense of ἀφροσύνη. For such a strict distinction is incompatible with the intellectualist doctrine, according to which the will is determined exclusively by knowledge. It is strange that Bonitz mistakes this, and at the same time has overlooked the fact that in this discussion Plato is exactly on the level of the Xenophontic Socrates. Bonitz himself formulates the ‘‘dictum, whose proof is here undertaken,” which he supposes not to be seriously meant, as σωφροσύνη Kal copia ταὐτό, without ever remembering, as it seems, the sentence of the Memorabilia (iil. 9. 4), σοφίαν... καὶ σωφροσύνην οὐ διώριζεν.
If Plato, as Bonitz has rightly remarked, goes further in this passage than anywhere else, in the identification of the separate virtues, this can be explained, in my view of the dialogue, apart from the young author’s comparative want of independence, by the difference of the points of view which prevail here and elsewhere. In the Protagoras the object is to expound and to confirm, in opposition to the current view and its embodiment in a brilliant representative, the inner connexion of the Socratic principles. So it might easily happen, that the several doctrines appear in the form most sharply
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 207
accented and furthest removed from common opinion, while the points of contact between the new and the usual opinion, which are really present and on other occasions are consciously appreciated, are here unduly neglected. Hence comes this liking for paradox, which has’ also caused the surprising hedonistic colouring of the final discussion.
Page 315. ‘“* Laborious pastime:” cf. Parmenides, 317 Ὁ (πραγμα- τειώδη παιδιὰν παίζειν).
Page 318 (Bottom). The thought formerly occurred to the writer, and similarly to Teichmiiller (Zz¢terarische Fehden, ii. p. 52), that Plato is here (Protag., 349 E, seg.) disputing against Xenophon (Memor., iv. 6, 10, seg.). But, not to speak of the almost insoluble chronological difficulties, it would have been a very odd kind of polemic, only perceptible to a reader here and there.
Page 322. “The reader of the Platonic Laws :” v. 732 E. This parallel would of itself be sufficient to dispose of the once common and not yet extinct view that the ‘‘ hedonistic” discussion at the end of the Profagoras is not meant seriously. Moreover, the 9th book of the Refudlic also contains a passage (576 E-588 A), a discussion, in which the sensations of pleasure and pain (ἡδοναὶ and λῦπαι) are named and discussed as the elements of happiness and its opposite (εὐδαιμονία and ἀθλιότη5).
BooK V.—CHAPTER V.
The succession of thoughts and the structure of the Gorgias are eminently well expounded by Bonitz, of. cz¢., pp. 1-46.
Page 331. “ The surprise of ancient as well as modern readers :” cf. note on p. 342.
Page 335 (Bottom). “A pupil of the Pythagoreans.” The many and strong traces of Pythagorean influence in the Gorgzas have been till now scarcely noticed by the commentators, and in any case not duly estimated. In Schleiermacher’s and Jowett’s introductions, also in Grote’s Plato, ch. xxii., I find no expression pointing that way. In Gercke’s introduction (Platon’s ausgewahlte Dialoge, ekrlairt von H. Sauppe, lil. herausg. von A. Gercke), we meet a quite cursory indication of a single passage (493 A), with the remark, “ He” (that is, the his- torical Socrates) “ would never have had recourse to Pythagorean doctrines.” But hither belong also the passages referred to in the text (465 B-C, 505 E, 507 E-508 A), and much besides.
Page 340, § 6. The description of the judgment of the dead is the first of the eschatological myths which occur in Plato. They have been treated as a whole by Dohring (Archiv fur Gesch. der Philos., 1893, Vi. 475, seg.) and A. Dieterich (Vekyia), who agree in essentials, Both derive these representations from Orphic-Pythagorean sources, Dieterich’s proof of the correspondence of Plutarch, De Latenter Vivendo, ad fin. (Moratia, 1382, 12, seg., Dibner), with Rep., 614 E,
318 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
and the origin of both representations from a lost poem of Pindar, seems to me quite successful. Among Doéhring’s remarks, we call special attention to those which relate to the deeper meaning which Plato gives to the theory of retribution (Vol. III. p. 92).
Page 342 (Top). “A lost dialogue of Aristotle :” on this lost dialogue, entitled Νήρινθος, cf. Bernays, Die Dialoge des Aristoteles, p. 89, seg. For what follows, cf. Athenzeus, xi. 505, D-E. (Below) ‘Debate on the value of rhetoric:” cf. Quintil., ii. 15, 24, seg., the present writer’s essay, Die herculanischen Rollen, in Zettschr. fiir osterr. Gymn., 1866, p. 697, seg. The two orations of Aristides are called πρὸς Πλάτωνα περὶ ῥητορικῆδ. In the oration ὑπὲρ τῶν τεττάρων is found the passage (ii. 99, 7, Dindorf) to which I refer in Vol. II. pp. 331, 343, εἶτ᾽ ἐλέγχειν μὲν βούλεται ῥητορικήν, κατηγορεῖ δὲ τῶν τυράννων Kal δυναστῶν, τὰ ἄμικτα μιγνύς. The reply of Porphyrius is mentioned by Suidas, 5.0. Πορφύριος.
Page 343. The discovery of the connexion between the pamphlet of Polycrates and the Gorgzas is the merit of Gercke in his introduc- tion (of. cet., p. xlii., seg.). His assumption that Libanius has used Lysias’ defence of Socrates is superfluous. Gercke has overlooked an important point of correspondence. Libanius, ὃ 139 (p. 70, Rogge, Amsterdam, 1891), quotes among the accusations the following : ἀλλ᾽ ἀργούς, φησιν, ἐποίει Σωκράτης, with great prolixity as far as ὃ 146 (p. 73, Rogge). I compare the saying in Gorgias, 515 E, ταυτὶ yap ἔγωγε ἀκούω, Περικλέα πεποιηκέναι ᾿Αθηναίους ἀργοὺς καὶ δειλοὺς καὶ λάλους καὶ φιλαργύρου“, εἰς μισθοφορίαν πρῶτον καταστήσαντα, It is, as We Say, a case of the enemy’s guns turned on himself. It would have been strange if the πτωχὸς ἀδολέσχης, aS Socrates is called in Eupolis (cf. note on p. 50), had not been also assailed with the reproach of making the Athenians chatterers, which Plato accordingly reproduces in kal λάλους, And since μισθοφορία is mentioned immediately afterwards, we cannot help thinking of the leading democratic statesmen in the “nineties” of the fourth century, who, like Agyrrhius, extended and increased the pay- ments, and so continued the work of Pericles (cf. Aristotle, ᾿Αθην. Πολιτ,, col. xxi., with Kenyon’s remarks, p. 131, 3rd ed.). The second important accusation may be read in Libanius, § 167, seg. (p. 82, Rogge). The accuser has just praised Solon and Theseus, καὶ διεξηει τοὺς τοῖς σοφισταῖς ov auyyevouevous, ws ἀγαθοὺς ἄνδρας γεγενημένους, τὸν Μιλτιάδην, τὸν Θεμιστοκλέα, τὸν ᾿Αριστείδην, κιτιλ. “ΡΙ]αῖο᾽ 5 answer,” as Gercke rightly remarks (of. cz¢., p. xlvii.), “stands in the σογρΖας," namely, in the counter-accusation of just those honoured guides of the Athenian state. That these inferences are right, there seems to me no room for doubt. Libanius has certainly used some not extant source ; there are a number of passages, which absolutely exclude the idea of free fiction, which are only intelligible as replies to accusations recorded in a tradition, for which Plato’s 4Afology and Xenophon alike leave us in the lurch ; ¢.g., above all, the passage just mentioned
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 319
(§ 167). Now, since one of the few points which we know in Polycrates’ pamphlet is the reference to Conon’s services (Favorinus in Diog. Laert., ii. 39), and this very Conon with his comrade Thrasybulus is treated in Libanius (§ 177, p. 86, Rogge), no doubt on the main question can remain. Of Wilamowitz’s inversion of the relation (Berlin. Sitzungs-Berichte, Oct. 26, 1899), it will be time enough to judge when we are made acquainted with the grounds of this view.
Page 345. The fallacies here exhibited are found in the Gorgias, 474 E, seg., 476 B, seg.; the first member of the second pair (p. 349) in 497 E, seg., the second paralogism (p. 350) in 496 E, seg.
Page 349 (Middle). Cf. Rudolf von Jhering, Scherz und Erust in der Furisprudenz (Leipzig, 1884), p. 245, seg.: “Im juristischen Begriffshimmel.”
Page 350. “ Precisely as in the Laws :” v. 734, C-D.
Page 351. “Sometimes recognizes a variety of goods, of which wisdom is the highest :” Laws, i. 631 B-C. “* Not merely the highest, but the only good:” Luthydemus, 281 E. (Bottom) “A previous want.” Here may be mentioned Guyau, Esguisse @une morale sans obligation ni sanction, who proves very convincingly that the desire which precedes the enjoyment need by no means be always felt as pain. Extreme hunger is torture, appetite is pleasant. Before the satisfaction of a desire comes, not pain, but a sensation of pleasure, if the desire keeps short of a certain degree of intensity, and its satis- faction is held to be attainable and easily attainable.
Page 353 (Top). The two contradictory passages, Gorgas, 460 B (οὐκοῦν κατὰ τοῦτον τὸν Adyov Kal 6 τὰ δίκαια μεμαθηκὼς δίκαιος) and 525 C (οὐ γὰρ οἷόν τε ἄλλως [2.6. without punishment] ἀδικίας ἀπαλλάττεσθαι).
Page 354 (Middle). The juxtaposition of the differing ethical standards : Laws, ii. 663 D and v. 734.
Page 356. Passage on the “judgment of the dead,” 525 D. (Below) Pindar, /ragm., 133, Bergk, preserved by Plato (Jeno, 81 B), Empedocles (457, seg., ed. Stein).
Book V.—CHAPTER VI.
Page 358. Piety (ὁσιότη5) appears as one of the cardinal virtues in Protag., 330 B, Gorg., 507 B (καὶ μὴν περὶ μὲν ἀνθρώπους τὰ προσήκοντα πράτ- των δίκαι᾽ ἂν πράττοι, περὶ δὲ θεοὺς ὅσια), Laches, 199 1) ; on the other hand, the Republic, iv. 441 (--443 Β, only knows the other four cardinal virtues. Our dialogue was understood as early as Schleiermacher (i. 2, 38, 3rd ed.) to be a necessary hint towards the elimination of ὁσιότης (but with reference only to the /yvofagoras). Others, as Lutoslawski notices, P/ato’s Logic, p. 200, have also brought in the Gorgzas. Our chronological order, though for quite different reasons, also appears in
320 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
K. F. Hermann, Geschichte und System, etc., p. 480. On the rejections of Ast and others, I prefer silence.
Page 359. With the criticism of the myths of Kronos and Uranus, cf. Rep., il. 378.
Page 361 (Bottom). “It has long been recognized.” I am here thinking of Bonitz’s excellent discussion, Platonische Studien, 227, seg. (3rd ed.), especially p. 234, seg.
Page 366. ‘“ Many believers in revealed religion :” on the moral positivism of certain nominalists, cf. Ueberweg-Heinze, Grusdriss, ii. 226; also 309, seg. (8th ed.). Information on many details in Cathrein, /oralphilosophie, 1. 530 (2nd ed.). Not only Occam and Gerson, but Descartes and Pufendorf appear among the classics of moral positivism.
Page 367 (Top). Kant, Werke, x. 184, seg. (ed. Rosenkranz and Schubert). A lofty irony, playing with the facts, is characteristic of the Exthyphro, and proclaims itself at the very beginning. The accuser of Socrates is not reviled as in the Gorgias (486 B, κατηγόροι τυχὼν πάνυ φαύλου καὶ μοχθηροῦ), but treated with cold and towering contempt. The art is also lofty, which knows how to interweave, unconstrained and as it were unintentionally, the single case with the discussion of first principles to which it gives rise. Great also is the logical maturity of the writer. Notice the distinction between οὐσία and πάθος (11 A), ἐπὶ πλέον (the further extension) of a conception, the application of the word ὑπόθεσις, which seems to be entirely wanting in the Profagoras group, and is here used more technically than in the Gorgias (454 C). Finally, the precision with which the con- ception of ὅσιον is subordinated to that of δίκαιον (12 D), in sharp contrast to their co-ordination, agreeing with the popular view, in the Gorgias (507 B), offers a further and desirable proof of the chrono- logical order which we support. Moreover, the Euwthyfhro affords perhaps the most decisive instance to disprove Grote’s view of the “dialogues of search” as genuinely coming to no result. (Below, § 3). The genuineness of the 4Zez0, doubted by Ast and Schaar- schmidt, is, thanks to Aristotle, better attested than that of the Protagoras and Gorgias. Cf. the passages in Ueberweg’s Unter- suchungen, p. 139.
Page 368 (Middle). On Gorgias’s definition of colour, see Vol. I. p- 594-
Page 369. “ Utterance of Xenophanes:” cf. AZeno, 80 D, ἢ εἰ καὶ 6 τι μάλιστα ἐντίχοις αὐτῷ, mas εἴσει ὅτι τοῦτό ἐστιν ὃ σὺ οὐκ ἤδησθα ; with Xenophanes, Fragm. 14 (Mullach) (referred to in Vol. 1. pp. 164 and 310): εἰ yap καὶ τὰ μάλιστα τύχοι τετελεσμένον εἰπών, AUTOS ὅμως οὐκ οἶδε, K.T.A.
Page 370 (Top). Pindar, Fragm., 134 (Bergk, Poete Lyr. Gr., 1. 428) (4th ed.). On the geometrical discussion in chapter 15, cf. Cantor, Vorlesungen uber Geschichte der Mathematik, 1. 204, seq. (2nd ed.). What is there given is “the proof of the theorem of Pythagoras for the case of the isosceles right-angled triangle.”
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 321
Page 371 (Middle). The bribing of Ismenias, here mentioned, has been applied as chronological criterion not to be disregarded, p. 284 above.
Page 373 (Top). “ The work of binding them.” The connexion between reminiscence (ἀνάμνησι5) and the apprehension of causes (αἰτίας λογισμός) remains obscure, so long as “cause” is thought of as the actual causal process, which of course is discovered empirically, Plato is rather thinking of reason than of cause. The word “ deduc- tion” is wanting, but deductive knowledge is that which he has here in his eye, which alone seems to him to offer indisputable certainty, and for whose visible presentation mathematics offers him the most appropriate examples. (Below, § 4) Here I borrow much from my treatise, Platonische Aufsdtze, i. p. 5, seg. (Vienna, 1887). Probably, also, the fact may be used as evidence of the chronological place of the Meno, that in several passages, where there would be a motive for it (74 A and 88 A), piety is not mentioned as a separate virtue. So far as this criterion goes, it suggests that the Euthyphro preceded the AZeno.
Page 375 (Middle). ‘“ Palinode to the Gorgzas:” observe the glaring contrast between—
Gorgias, 516 E-517 A. Meno, 93 A.
Sw. ᾿Αληθεῖς dpa... οἱ ἔμπροσθεν Sw. Ἔμοιγε, ὦ ~Avute, καὶ εἶναι λόγοι ἦσαν, ὅτι οὐδένα ἡμεῖς ἴσμεν δοκοῦσιν ἐνθάδε ἀγαθοὶ τὰ πολιτικὰ, ἄνδρα ayabby γεγονότα τὰ πολιτικὰ καὶ γεγονέναι ἔτι οὐχ ἧττον ἣ εἶναι. ἐν τῇδε τῇ πέλει.
Page 377 (Top). Praise of Aristides in the Gorgzas, εἷς δὲ καὶ πάνυ ἐλλόγιμος γέγονε (in reputation for righteous government) καὶ eis τοὺς ἄλλους “EAAnvas ᾿Αριστείδης ὁ Λυσιμάχου (526 B).
Page 378. Retrospective reference in the Phaedo (72 E, seg.) to the εχ (81 A, seg.). Cf. Schleiermacher, ii. 3, 11 (3rd ed.); Ueberweg, Untersuchungen, 289, seg.; Siebeck, Untersuchungen, iii. (2nd ed.). Siebeck recognizes also “the priority of the Profagoras to the Afeno and Gorgias” (op. cit., p. 129), while Ueberweg (οὐ. cit, Ρ- 296) remarks with full justice, “‘The J7ezo must at least be later than the Gorgzas.”
Book V.—CHAPTER VII.
Page 379. “Aristotle speaks in a certain passage :” ἐρωτικοὶ λόγοι, in the middle of a polemic against Plato, Pod7trcs, B. 4, 1262 ἢ, with reference to the speech of Aristophanes in the Symposium. (Below) ‘Goethe expressed himself :” Gesfrdache, ed. Biedermann, vii. 294.
Page 380 (Top). The point of view mentioned here has been emphasized by Wilamowitz, Gétting. gel. Anzeigen, 1896, p. 636. The Theraic inscriptions in question, in Jascr7pt. Grece Insul. Maris
aoe NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
A. g@i, fase. iii., ed. Hiller von Gartringen, No. 536, seg. On Spartan customs, cf. Gilbert, Handbuch der Griech. Staatsaltertumer, i. 70, on Cretan customs, especially Ephorus in Strabo, x. (483-4). (Bottom) “ Albanian Studies,” p. 166. The instructive work of Havelock Ellis on Sexual Inversion, p. 5, has given me the reference.
Page 381 (Middle). The stories of Agesilaus and Xenophon in Xenoph., 4 ges., 5. 5, and Ion in Athenzeus, xiii. 603-4. (Below) On the later perversion of the friendship of Achilles and Patroclus, cf. the collection in Roscher’s Lexicon der Mythologie, i. 43, 45, seq.
Page 382 (Top). Cf. Mahaffy, Greek Life and Thought from Alexander’s Death, p. 254 (2nd ed.). (Middle) “We marry in order that,” etc.: [Demost.] O~., lix.,§ 122. (Bottom) The genuine- ness of the Zyszs, attacked by Ast, Socher, etc., is sufficiently assured by the numerous allusions of Aristotle alone (cf. Ueberweg, Unter- suchungen, 172, seg.), but of course @ fortioré by its intrinsic quality. The parallel with the SymwpPoscum, which in some passages becomes verbal agreement, while the Symostum is worked out in an in- comparably greater style, and separated from the Socratic phase of apparent inconclusiveness by its positive solutions, scarcely allows a doubt either of the chronological neighbourhood of the two dialogues or of the order Lysis, Symposium.
Page 383, § 2. The fragments of Agathon in Nauck, 592, seg. (2nd ed.).
Page 393 (Bottom). “An allusion to the Charmiudes:” 2.6. 205 E, compared with Charmides, 163 B. As regards the relation to the Meno, cf. Symp., 202 A, with Meno, 97 A, seg.
Page 394. “Judgment pronounced on the poets :” cf. 209 A, seg., as against Gorgzas, 502 B. “Justification of ambition :” 208 C, com- pared with PeZ., 1. 347 B. (Below) Our view of the internal structure is approached most nearly by Arnold Hug (Platon’s Symposium, Leipzig, 1876).
Page 396. “Dion, to whom Plato dedicated an epitaph.” The small poem (in Bergk, Poete Lyr. Gr., il. p. 301, 4th ed.) ends with the line ὦ ἐμὸν ἐκμήνας θυμὸν ἔρωτι Δίων. On this one point—the ‘reference to Dio ”—I have the pleasure of finding myself in agreement with Paul Natorp, in his latest work, Plato’s ldeenlehre eine Einfuhr- ung in den Idealismus (Leipzig, 1903), p. 166, note 1. The extent to which our views diverge on other matters may be best seen from the manner in which Natorp (zdzd., p. 171) conceives the final goal of the love-throes described by Diotima: “ But if the beautiful represents simply that which is according to law, the ove beautiful necessarily signifies the /aw of uniformity itself; that is, the ultimate, central union of all particular knowledge in the primary law of knowledge itself, in its basis of pure method.” That there is no ground for doubting the genuineness of this and other Platonic poems, I share the conviction with von Wilamowitz.
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 23%
VOR. ΤΠ Book V.—CHAPTER VIII.
Page 1, § 1. Cf. above all Tylor, Przmztive Culture, ii. 222. D’Acosta’s Historia de las Indias is accessible to me only in the French translation (Paris, 1592). There the passage quoted by Tylor is on p. 214, seg. Laffiteau, Weurs des Sauvages Américains, i. p. 360, also quoted by Debrosses, Du Culte des Dieux fétiches, p. 59, gives the information on the belief of the Iroquois, that every kind of animal has its archetype in the land of souls, ce gud revient aux idées de Platon,
Page 2 (Top). Herbart, Ges. Werke, xii. 81. The account by Aristotle, efaph., A. 6, and similarly M. 4.
Page 4(Top). (Hippocrates, Περὶ Τέχνης, ὃ 2, vi. 3, 4, ed. Littré), cf. the author’s Apologize der Hetlkunst, pp. 44 and 107, seg. (Middle) Epicharmus. In Kaibel, Com. Grec. Fragm., i. 1, p. 123 (Fragm. 171 = 41 Lorenz). (Below) ‘In the words of Hermann Bonitz:” Platonische Studien, p. 201 (3rd ed.).
Page 5. “As John Stuart Mill assumed:” in Déssertations and Discusstons, 11. 348, seq.
Page 7. “An attempted reconciliation:” this attempt belongs to Herbert Spencer. (Below) “The empirical school,” etc.: cf. especially the sections on this matter in Mill’s Logzc, above all book ii. chs. 5-7; similarly Helmholtz, User den Ursprung und die Bedeutung der Geometrischen Axtome, Populaire Aufsatze, p. 23, seq., and his Zdahlen und Messen, erkenntnistheoretisch betrachtet, in Philosophische Aufsdtze, Eduard Zeller gewidmet, p. 17, seg., and in the same connection Kronecker, Uber den Zahlbegriff, p. 263, seg Stallo’s polemic against Mill (Zheorzes and Concepts of Modern Physics, p. 138, seg.) is partly, but only partly, to the point. Much nearer to our, that is to the empirical, position, than Stallo, whom he himself introduced to the German public, comes Ernst Mach, in the excursuses on the theory of knowledge which he has appended to his Principien der Warmelehre; cf. also his Analyse der Empfindungen, 264, seg. (3rd ed.).
Page 10, ὃ 3. Xenophanes and his πνεῦμα : according to Diog. acre, 1.0 τὸν ΟΡ donde, ον. 11 256 (2nd -éd.):.. (Middle) For the ancient Aryan conceptions in general, cf. Darmesteter, Zend-Avesta, i. 187 (Sacred Books of the East, iv.), where traces of the doctrine of the return of the components of man to the elements are proved to be also found in the Azg-Veda and the Edda. (Below) The quotation from Epicharmus; /ragm. 246 Kaibel = ὃ Lorenz. The present writer has lately treated the genuineness of this and similar fragments (Bettrage zur Kritik und Erklarung, etc., vii. p. 5, seg.), and also the far-reaching correspondences between
39
324 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
Epicharmus and Xenophanes (zdzd., p. 9). Intercourse of both at the court of Hiero; according to the Marmor Parium in C. 7. G., ii. p. 302, Clem. Alex., Strom, i. 14, 64 (353 Potter), Plut. Apophthegm, 175 (Moralia, 208, 29, seg. ed. Diibner). ‘An allusion of Aristotle :” Metaph, T. 5, 1010a, 5, treated by the present writer, Beztrage, iii. 8, seq., where the verse is recovered, εἰκότως μὲν οὐκ ἔφα τόδ᾽ ἀλλ᾽ ἀλαθέως ἔφα, NOW Fragm. 252 Kaibel. (Bottom) Menander, in fragments of Epicharmus, 239 Kaibel = 11 Lorenz; the next fragment, 249 Kaibel, = 2 Lorenz.
Page 12 (Bottom). “Story told by Herodotus: ” vi. 86.
Page 14. Renan, Les Aféfres, Introd., p. Ixiv. Cf. also his profound remarks in “7252. du Peuple a’Israél, iv. 359-60.
Book V.—CHAPTER IX.
Page 16. “ These words of Goethe:” Gesprache mit Eckermann, p. IOI.
Page 17 (Top). “Speech of Polycrates in praise of mice,” etc.: cf. Blass, Adtische Beredsamkett, ii. 367, seg. (2nd ed.).
Page 20 (Middle). An unmistakable reference back to the Gorgias in the Phedrus, 260 E: ὥσπερ yap ἀκούειν δυκῶ,. . . οὐκ ἔστι τέχνη, ἀλλ᾽ ἄτεχνος τριβηῆ. Plato holds fast to his newly attained estimate of rhetoric, even in the Polzticus, 304 A (cf. Thompson, Phedrus, Introd., p. xvi.). Another echo of the Gorgzas (452 E) in Phedrus, 261 A. The hasty gliding over the name of the venerated orator (Γοργίαν. . . ἐάσωμεν εὕδειν) corresponds best with this chronology. Plato could not have permitted himself this liberty, unless he had already dealt with him to the best of his power. 260 A and 260 D also remind us of that dialogue.
Page 21 (Middle). ‘‘Organic unity.” The comparison of a work of literary art to an organism appears here for the first time (Piedrus, 264 C and 268 D), and recurs, as Thompson pointed out (of. c¢., p. 103), in Philebus, 64 B, and a little modified in Pol¢ticus, 377 B. Here, as so often, Aristotle follows the steps of his master (Poe/zcs, ch. 23, 1459 A, 20). The thought was also frequent with the young Goethe (Weimar ed., 37. 315).
Page 22 (Bottom). ‘“‘ This passage . . . search for themselves :” cf. Schleiermacher, Eznlectung zu Platon’s Werken, i. 1. 16 (3rd ed.).
Page 24 (Top). Plato’s political aversion from Lysias and pre- ference for Isocrates is treated excellently by Niebuhr, Vortrage uber alte Geschichte, li. 212. (Middle) “ This art of character-drawing :” cf. the ancient judgments in Blass, of. c7¢., i. 392 (2nd ed.). Ifthe realistic quality of Sophron’s mimes attracted Plato (cf. Vol. II. p. 264), but repelled him in Lysias’ forensic speeches, the contradiction is more in the words than in the fact. That kind of mime, which we partly know from the fragments and still more from Theocritus’ imitations,
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 325
illuminated every-day life by a freely playing humour ; the advocacy of Lysias sticks fast to every-day life, and is likely to have seemed to the author of the Republic an offence against his prohibition: τὰ δ᾽ ἀνελεύθερα μήτε ποιεῖν μήτε δεινοὺς εἶναι μιμήσασθαι (111. 395 C; cf. also 396 D, 397 A, 398 A, and further the judgment against everything “banausic,” vi. 495 D).
Page 25 (Top). “A‘schines was attacked by him:” cf. note on p. 124. (Middle) The influence of Socratic teaching on Isocrates is treated thoroughly, and on the whole convincingly, in spite of many less weighty arguments, by Schréder, Questiones [socratee Due (Utrecht, 1859, pp. 1-41). Some particulars are mentioned by ancient tradition : [Plutarch] Vzte Decem Oratorum, iv. 35 (Mor., 1022, 16, Diibner). The final compliment also at the end of the Piedrus is scarcely intelligible without personal relations between the two. (Below) “ Antagonism to Antisthenes: ” cf. Blass, of. εΖί., 11. 45 (2nd ed.). That at the time when Plato wrote the Phedrus he was already unfavourable to Antisthenes, may not improbably be inferred from the ridicule on the interpretation of myths, 229 B, seg. (Bottom) The much-disputed statement of Cicero (Orator., xiii. 42), “ες de adulescente Socrates auguratur, at ea de seniore scribit Plato et scribit zequalis,” we take to be completely justified. Our view of the famous prophecy was anticipated a gene- ration ago by Thompson (of. εΖί., pp. 182, 183), and Constantin Ritter has also judged likewise, though not without some exaggeration (Untersuchungen iiber Plato, p. 133).
Page 26. The relations between Isocrates and Plato have been an object of almost endless discussion. The foundation was laid by Leonhard Spengel, who did much service to the understanding of Plato as well as of Aristotle, in the paper /sokrates und Platon (Munchener Akademie-Schriften, 1855). Isocrates speaks of his ‘ philosophy ” in Orat., xii. § 9, xv. ὃ 50; cf. also ὃ 41 ; in opposition to the barrenness of the ~ “so-called philosophy,” §$ 270 and 181, and with direct reference to Plato in Or.,x. ad znzt. ; on the “ princes of the contentious art,” in xv. § 261. The raving outburst against the dead Plato in v. ὃ 12 came a year after Plato’s death, and so, probably, under the immediate impression of the fresh-published Zaws and their expressions of com- plete hostility to the rhetorical profession (xi. 937, 938). Isocrates’ self-appreciation is probably expressed most strongly in xii. 13 and xv. 46, seq.
Page 27, § 4. The correspondence between Phedrius, 269 D and Isocrates’ Sophists (xili.) §§ 15-18 was first observed and discussed, not by Reinhardt, De /socratis 4 mulis, as Blass erroneously states (of. cit, ii, 29, 2nd ed.), but long before by Spengel (of. cz¢., p. 17). The present writer agrees with those who hold Plato for the borrower, like Blass, 1.c.; Uberweg, Philologus, xxvii. 177; Bergk, Fiinf Abhandlungen, etc., p- 31; Siebeck, Untersuchungen, 129, seg.; Zycha (16th Leopoldstadter Gym- nastal-Programm, Vienna, 1880), p. 23; Natorp, Hermes, xxxv. 389, seg. ;
VOL, ΠΕ Z
326 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
and (less decidedly) Thompson, of. cz, p. 120. The most thorough proof is given by Siebeck, /.c., who has most strictly investigated the relation of both works. Closely connected with this is the important question of the date of the Phedrus. The anonymous ancient statement that it was P/a/o’s first-fruit (cf. Vol. II. p. 283) has found much support. Schleiermacher, though he gives no authority to that tradition (P/afon’s Werke, i. τ, p. 53, 3rd ed.), yet believes that the purpose of the dialogue and the method of its fulfilment “indisputably ” secure to it “ the earliest place among all the works of Plato” (of. c#¢., p. 47). Bonitz also defends the early composition of the Ph@drus. He finds, briefly stated, that the various subjects treated are not brought into such complete and unconstrained connexion as might be expected from Plato’s perfected skill. “Τὸ excellences, which can only be attained by an artist of genius, are united defects, in which we must recognize the artist just beginning” (Platon. Studien, 292, 3rd ed.). We may answer, I think, that the blame for the defects mentioned by Bonitz lies not with insufficient skill in the mastery of the task, but in its too great difficulty. The thinness of the “connecting threads,” the obviousness of the “joints in the structure,” both recur to an increased degree in the Repudlic and the Laws. To judge the Phedrus with complete equity, Bonitz should have compared it with these works, not with the “small works, unimportant in content,” nor yet with the “perfected works,” of which the content, while supremely important, is incomparably more uniform. The latest attempt to claim the Phedrus for Plato’s early period has been made by Usener (/ehezn. Mus., Xxxv. 131, seg.). According to him, Plato wrote the Phedrus “surprisingly early, as early as his twenty-fifth year,” z.e. 403 or 402. To say nothing of all other reasons, that is, in my judgment, quite excluded by the way in which Lysias appears as “ the most important speech-writer of his time: ” δεινότατος τῶν viv... γράφειν (228 A). For Lysias, as Grote (P/a/o, i. 200) points out in a similar connexion, delivered a speech in 403,in which he speaks of his “inexperience.” This might, as a last resort, be explained as want of practice in public appearance. But the surrounding words, μὴ διὰ τὴν ἐμπειρίαν ἀναξίως καὶ ἀδυνάτως. . . τὴν κατηγορίαν ποιήσωμαι (Orat., xil. § 3), make it appear quite impossible, as I judge with Blass, of. ctt., i. 542 (2nd ed.), that he was then already a celebrated speech- writer. Also this oration describes his personal fortunes and the overthrow which they received under the rule of the Thirty Tyrants. Before it he was very well off, and has only lately become poor. This is a second decisive reason against the view that before that he had been an orator by profession, and an expert, so that he could be opposed to the “layman” (ἰδιώτης), as is done in the Phedrus, t.c. Compare what we have collected on the low esteem of such a “ banausic ” occupation in Vol. I. p. 580 (note on p. 417). Only reasons of absolutely overwhelming strength would enable us to make
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 327
such a presupposition. In truth, the date of none of Lysias’ orations leads us further back than that time. Usener’s proof rests chiefly on the notice in Cicero, Brutus, xii. 48: “ Nam Lysiam primo profiteri solitum artem dicendi; deinde, quod Theodorus esset in arte subtilior, in orationibus autem ieiunior, orationes eum scribere aliis ccepisse, artem removisse.” Although Aristotle may be Cicero’s authority (cf. § 46), the words of his statement are not before us, and the possi- bility of a free reproduction by Cicero cannot be excluded. In a word, we are not at all driven to assume that the two activities of Lysias were mutually exclusive, and that his career as a teacher had already preceded his earliest forensic speeches. Preferably the con- clusions arising from the facts of his life compel us to interpret the notice in Aristotle and Cicero as meaning that at first, but not before 403, he was a teacher of rhetoric, and that this occupation more and more gave way to his activity as speech-writer and advocate. The statement of Isocrates (O7., xv. 41), quoted by Reinhardt (De /socratzs A-mulis, p. 4), that no speech-writer ever became a teacher of rhetoric, cannot make us doubt our view. Taken strictly, it may be true; but, so taken, neither does it contradict the account of Lysias’ life to which we are compelled by the facts. That the transition from one to the other of these occupations was effected by entirely giving up the first before the second was begun, may be true of Isocrates, who began as an advocate and ended as a teacher, and who, moreover, was anxious to obliterate the traces of his short career of advocacy (cf. Vol. I. p. 417). But there cannot have been a rule without exception, which, even in the reverse order, was bound to apply to Lysias or Antiphon.
The very remarkable echo of the Phedrus, 275 D, 276 D-E, 277 E, in the Oration of Alcidamas, §§ 27 and 35, has been noticed by Zycha (op. cit.. p. 25, seg.), and the polemic of Isocrates (Panegyricus, Or. iv. § 11, seg.) against Alcidamas by Reinhardt (of. cz¢., p. 16) ; Zycha has best used his observation for the chronological fixing of the Phedrus. The date of 380 or 381 was the most usual for the Panegyricus (cf. Blass, of. cit., p. 251, 2nd ed.), and has lately been determined more exactly by von Wilamowitz (Aristoteles und A then., ii. 380) by means of the obvious reference to the Olympian festival (Midsummer, 380). Whether the oration was “already finished in the second half of 381,” as Judeich affirms (AK7ecnastat. Studien, p- 137, seg.), and Beloch denies (Griech. Gesch., ii. 219), need not trouble us. On the date of the Sophists, cf. Blass, of. cz¢., pp. 17, 22.
Page 28 (Top). ‘‘The great poets and lawgivers.” Thetwo passages here mentioned are Sym., 200 C-D, and Phedrus, 277 E, with 278 C, It may be objected that in Rep., x. 599 D-E, Lycurgus and Solon are again named with honour. Yet it must not be forgotten that Plato always paid high honour to Solon personally, as a friend of his ancestors, and in that passage he required Lycurgus to contrast with Homer, whom he is there blaming, In that part of the Aepud/rc, the
328 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
Sophists, as well as the legislators, are treated very leniently. The latest attempt to prove the priority of the Phedrus (Ivo Bruns, Attische Liebestheorien, Neue Fahrbiicher, 1900, p. 17, seg.) is ingenious, but by no means free from artificial and violent constructions. The main argument may be exactly reversed. The Sympostum knows nothing of personal immortality; its place is taken by the continuation of individual existence through bodily and intellectual posterity. But in the Phedo, the Republic, and the Laws, the question of individual immortality is supremely important for Plato. In the Laws, as we shall see, he even repeats a proof of immortality already given in the Phedrus. Hence the separate attitude of the Sy#fostum in this respect, so far as it proves anything, proves its own priority, not that of the Phedrus. (Below) “ Already been the subject of much discussion.” The passages of the Phedo chiefly referred to are 76 D and 100 B;: εἰ μὲν ἔστιν ἃ θρυλοῦμεν ἀεὶ, and én’ ἐκεῖνα τὰ πολυθρύλητα, both about the doctrine of ideas, while it is said of the same doctrine, in Phedrus, 247 C, τολμητέον yap οὖν τό γε ἀληθὲς εἰπεῖν. Before Plato “dared” to announce the doctrine of ideas in the name of Socrates, and thereby in his own, he had put it into the mouth of the prophetess Diotima (Symp., 211 E), and there too with reference only to the idea of beauty.
Page 29. The question here discussed has been minutely treated by the present writer in Platon. Aufsatze,i.(Zur Zeitfolge Platontscher Schriften). His conjecture, that the PAedrus is extant in a second redaction, appears to him still (or rather again, for at one time he for- sook it) as the only path of rescue from many other insoluble diffi- culties. There seems to him little force in the objection raised against it, that Plato, if he had published the PA@drus at a later date in a second edition, would have thought himself obliged, by the troubled relations with Isocrates which had intervened, to cancel the prophecy relating to him. In truth it contained from the first only a very con- ditional and relative praise (cf. pp. 25, 26). That on the occasion of a revision of the text, which is all that we suppose, the author of the already widely known work was bound to cancel an expression which belonged to its substance,—we think too highly of Plato to assume that. (Blass agrees with us, in A@tische Beredsamkeitt, iii. 2. 392, 2nd ed.)
Book V.—CHAPTER X,
Page 30 (Bottom). Here I am glad to agree precisely with Windel- band (Platon, p.77). I point this out the more gladly, because the tendency to minimize the doctrine of ideas, and the monstrous suppo- sition that Plato was misunderstood by Aristotle in regard to his principal doctrine, have in these days been very considerably diffused. A rough refutation of this view, but in my judgment quite to the point,
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 329
may be read in a fetter of Lehrs’ (Briefe von und an Lobeck und Lehrs, p. 1002, 1003).
Page 31 (Bottom). Philolaus. On his system of the universe, cf. Book I. chap. iv. We shall meet with him again in considering the Tim@us, and reserve further information till then.
Page 36 (Bottom). On the reference in the Phedo to the Meno, cf. note on Vol. II. p. 378. The morality of prudence is called a “ shadowy image” of true virtue in Phedo, 69 B.
Page 37 (Middle). A correction of the rules of method found in Phedo, 101 D-E, is contained in fep., vi. 511 A-B, and vii. 533 B-D. (Similar observations in Lutoslawski, Plato’s Logic, 308-310 and 312.) Similarly, Rep., x. 611 B, in the words, ὡς νῦν ἡμῖν ἐφάνη ἡ ψυχή (2.6. as composite), seems to look back to the now abandoned doctrine of the simplicity of the soul, as itis represented in the Phedo. (Cf. Schultess, Platonische Forschungen, pp. 49, 55, who, however, defends the order which we reject—Phedo, Phedrus, Republic, tbid., p. 58.) We regard as equally erroneous the view supported by others, that the 7heetetus precedes the Phedo. This appearance is, it is true, produced by the fact that difficulties which are discussed in Phedo, 96 D, seg., and solved in 102 B, seg., by means of the doctrine of ideas, emerge again in The@etetus, 154 C, without finding a solution. In general, it is true, such a relation speaks for the order which in this case we oppose. But for this time the inference is not conclusive. For in the Vheetetus those difficulties are not discussed simply in themselves, but as corollaries, which spring from the doctrines of other schools there attacked, and of which the solution cannot be got from those schools. In other words, it is the critical survey of the theories of Aristippus and Antisthenes that leads Plato back to difficulties which, from his own point of view and by his own means, he thinks he has already solved. In the Republic also (vil. 523, seg.) Plato comes back to these difficulties, and yet we have just seen that this and the neighbouring books in any case followed the Phedo. It might be a temptation to bring down the Phedo very late, that it finds the most trustworthy grounds of virtue in the rewards and punishments of a future life (especially 107 C), while the Republic tries to prove that even on earth the life of the just man is the happiest, the life of the unjust the most miserable. But a conclusion based on that would belong to the class of those which prove too much. For then we must also put the Phedo after the Laws (v. 732 E, seg.), which is obviously impossible, on internal and external grounds alike. We readily concede this much only, that the Phedo must have been composed at a time when the coincidence of justice and happiness was not so unshakably certain to the philosopher as it was in other periods of his life. That hesitations even in this fundamental conviction were not wanting we learn from the very same Laws (ii. 663 B-E). The PAedo stands just as far removed from the end as from the beginning of the Platonic series.
330 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
Besides what we have said about its relation to the Profagoras, another sign of that date is, as Grote remarks (P/a/o, ii. 152), the manner in which Socrates is spoken of at the end, ἀνδρὸς... τῶν τότε. .. ἀρίστου, K.T.A.
Page 40(Top). “The sea-god Glaucus.” The simile in Δεῤ., x. 611 C-D. On the whole preceding discussion, cf. Phedo, 82 E, seg. (especially 83 D), and 93 D, 94 B, seg. (Below, § 4) See Bonitz’s masterly analysis in his Platonische Studien, 293, seg.(ed. 3). There also (p. 310, note 9) the much-discussed question, whether Pi@do, 96 A, seq., is a description of Socrates’ mental development or of Plato’s own, receives what is plainly the only right answer: “ Plato... isnot giving an historical account, but laying down in outline the reasons which lead from the philosophy of nature to the philosophy of concepts.” That does not, in my judgment, exclude the possibility that certain details may also possess historical truth; ¢.g. the combined impression of admiration and disillusionment which Socrates received from the teaching of Anaxagoras. Cf. what was remarked on pp. 46, 47 of Vol. 11., about his earlier intercourse with the Anaxagorean Archelaus.
Page 43. The view of the soul as a harmony of the body appears as represented by Diczearchus in Aétius (cf. Doxographi, p. 387, 5). In general, cf. Zeller, i. 1. 444, seg. (5th ed.). Macrobius (Somnuzum, i. 14) ascribes this theory to Philolaus and Pythagoras. Aristotle rcfers to them, without mention of a name (De Axnzma, A. 4, Politics, @. 5, ad fin.). The testimony on Aristoxenus in Zeller, ii. 2.888, note 1 (3rd ed.).
Page 45 (Middle). “A recent interpreter :” Windelband, P/azon, 137. (Bottom) PA@edrus, 245 C, seg. ; Laws, x. 854 E, seg.
Page 46 (Middle). “In the tenth book of the Aepudlic:” Rep., x. 608 D, seg. (Bottom) 1 am thinking of Phedo, 73 C, seg.
BooK V.—CHAPTER XI.
Page 48 (Middle). We regard the much-disputed genuineness of the Menexenus as secured by Aristotle’s allusions (Aheforic, A. 9. 1367, Ὁ ὃ, and r. 14.1415, b30). The latter testimony, especially with the introduction, 6... λέγει Σωκράτης ἐν τῷ ἐπιταφίῳ, allows no con- tradiction, since Aristotle does not in any demonstrable case quote any other writings than Platonic dialogues in this manner. Uberweg’s expedient (Untersuchungen, p. 146) breaks down on passages like Politics, B 6. 1265, A. 10, where of τοῦ Σωκράτους λόγοι appears as pre- cisely the collective name for the Platonic dialogues, I regard also the genuineness of AheZoric, ili. as certain, following Diels’ exposition in the Abhandlungen des konigl. preuss. Akad. der Wissensch., 1886. On the purpose of the author of the AZenwexenus, I think exactly like Grote (Pato, ili. 8), Diels, of. 72.) p. 21, and Wendland, Hermes,
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 331 xxv. 180. Grote is only wrong in refusing to acknowledge raillery in the working out of the subject, while others overlook that Plato, carried away by his subject, sometimes has quite forgotten his purpose of parody.
Page 49. Whether Aenexenus, 238 C-D, is exactly modelled on passages of the Periclean funeral oration (Thuc., ii. 37), can scarcely be decided. The jest (236 B) that Aspasia has glued together scraps from her own oration, seems to favour our conjecture. I do not accept the objection that Plato did not know the history of Thucydides. It is incredible in itself, and besides, there seems to me an agreement, which cannot be accidental, between Ae~., vili. 560 D-E, and Thuc.,, iii. 82, 83.
Page 50 (Bottom). “In the earlier books of the Republic :” especially i. 335 B-D.
Page 51 (Top). “As has been recently pointed out:” by Dr. Heinrich Gomperz, Uber die Abfassungszeit des Platonischen Kriton, Zettschr. f. Philos. und Philos. Kritik, vol. cix. pp. 176-179. (δ 2) To go thoroughly into the opposing views on the composition of the Republic, as they are represented especially by A. Krohn, Der Platonische Staat (Halle, 1876) ; E. Pfleiderer, Zur Losung der Pla- tonischen Frage (Freiburg, 1888) ; and also by Windelband, P/atox (Stuttgart, 1900), is impossible in this place. I may just refer, first of all, to the replies of Zeller, 11. 1. 558, seg. (4th ed.), and Campbell, Republic, ii. 1, seg.; and further, cf. Apelt, Ber’. Phzlol. Wochenschr., November 10, 1888; Siebeck, Untersuchungen, 271 (2nd ed.) ; Hirmer, Extstehung und Composttion der Platonischen Poltteza (Leipzig, 1897) ; Grimmelt, De Retpublice Compos. (Berlin, 1887) ; Westerwiek, De Rep. Plat. (Minster, 1887). On the dates of the single parts, I believe that I, agreeing with others, have obtained the following results. The earlier books presuppose the Gorgzas ; compare i. 348 E with Gorgias, 474 C, seg., and iv. 438 D with Gorgias, 476, 477. With equal certainty the Phedrus precedes at least the fourth and fifth books of the Republic, which is clear from the comparison of eZ., v. 454 A with Phedrus, 265 C and 273 E, and of iv. 435 A-441 C with Phadrus, 246 A, seg. The later books of the Refudlic, as we have seen, look back to the Phedo. That the Phedo itself must have been composed after /ef., ii. and iii., is an apparent but not really cogent inference. It is true that in these books “there is no trace of a doctrine of immortality strictly so called” (Rohde, Psyche, 11. 267, ed. 2), but not true that “ the rewards which are held out to it (justice) after death are only mentioned ironically.” No more ironically than the prosperity on earth which is appointed for the just man by the gods, or the good and evil fame which are assigned to the just and the unjust man in this life (ii. 363). The object in these parts is rigorously to demonstrate the power of justice in itself to give happiness, to cut it free from all rewards and punishments, whether real or supposed, in this
332 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
life orthe next. This point of view, the effort to make the strictest ap- plication of the method of difference, prevails here without limit. Plato has to do only with this isolation (διάστασις), with the uncompromising completion of his thesis (γυμνωτέος δὴ πάντων πλὴν δικαιοσύνης, ii. 360 E and 361 C). This tendency is further heightened by another, by the polemic against the vulgar view of the under-world. which sees in Hades merely a place of horror and wailing. The φύλακος are to be steeled against this feeling, which enfeebles the soul. (Beginning of 111.) The fear of punishment, which awaits transgressors according to the Orphic view—a view shared, and in many dialogues expressed by Plato himself—here, we may say, never comes into his spiritual field of vision; any regard to it would, in fact, introduce an element injurious to the exposition and weakening to its power. Therefore also the way in which the “‘ muddy pool” (363 D) is mentioned proves nothing against the priority of Phedo, 69 C.
Page 58. The few fragments of the speeches of Thrasymachus, in Oratores Atticé (Zurich ed.), pp. 162-164.
Page 64 (Middle). I cannot agree with the opinion of many scholars—to whom, however, Campbell (on /é., 111. 86) does not belong—that the community described in Δ ε., il. 372, is intended to represent the Cynic ideal. There is no lack of points of contact, but also no lack of characteristic differences. Any ironical intention of Plato is absolutely out of the question. The abusive name, “ pigs’ commonwealth,” is put into the mouth of Glaucon, whose desire for more luxurious furnishing of society is immediately expressed at full length by Socrates in the words, ὄψα δὴ καὶ μῦρα καὶ θυμιάματα καὶ ἑταῖραι καὶ πέμματα, ἕκαστα τούτων παντοδαπά (373 A), which certainly are no ideal demands in Plato’s sense. And, most important of all, the description “healthy ” (ὥσπερ ὑγιής tis), is applied to the earlier model of primitive simplicity, while the succeeding social life of greater luxury is called by Socrates φλεγμαίνουσα πόλις (372 E), Arthur Fairbanks also agrees with me (“The Stoical Vein in Plato’s hkepublic,” Philosophical Review, x. 17).
Page 66 (Top). What is here said about the stages of a process of natural development requires justification and limitation. In fact, there are two opposing currents. The degeneration of constitutions described in the eighth book of the Repudlic corresponds to the gradual decadence of organisms described in the 7z@us. Both corre- spond to the primitive Greek way of thinking, which is suggested in the Homeric οἷοι νῦν βροτοί εἰσιν, and fully pictured in the Hesiodic doctrine of the ages. With the opposite view we have already met in Vol. I. 388, and not less in Vol. I. 297. Something similar is found in Plato, not only in the Profagoras (cf. Vol. 1. p 389), but also where he is speaking in his own name, in the Po/¢ticus (274 B-C), in connexion, it is true, with the doctrine of cyclical succession of progress and retro- gression. This doctrine is also tacitly assumed as the foundation of
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 333
the expositions in the Republic. Cf. Rohde, Der Griechische Roman, 216, note 2 (2nd ed.).
Page 69 (end of § 7). Cf. Ref., 111. 414 A: ὡς ἐν τύπῳ, μὴ δι᾽ ἀκριβείας, also vi. 502 D, seg.
fee 70 (Top). Of music Plato says, ἔθεσι παιδεύουσα τοὺς φύλακας
. εὐαρμοστίαν τινά, οὐκ ἐπιστήμην παραδιδοῦσα ; and vil. 518 E: ἔθεσί τε καὶ ἀσκήσεσιν. (Below) “ Alludes more than once to philosophy . . .:” ii. 376 C, iii. 410 E, 411 C-F, v. 456 A. On the necessity of sunawie nation under the λογιστικόν, cf. iv. 441 E. (Middle) “ Only he attains to the possession . . .:” vi. 494 D.
Page 71 (Top). “ Drew a veil :” παρεξιόντος καὶ παρακαλυπτομένου τοῦ λόγου, Vi. 503 B.
Page 73 (Middle). “Soldiers or helpers:” ἐπίκουρο. As the use of this expression has been made a test in the discrimination of the supposed “strata” of the work, a few remarks on it may be in place here. The division of the φύλακες into ἄρχοντες and mere ἐπίκουροι is accomplished by degrees and quite naturally. Compare iti. 414 B with passages of book iv., such as 434 C, 440 D, 441 A, where, instead of ἄρχοντες, Plato speaks simply of the βουλευτικὸν γένος. In books ii. and iii. up to nearly the end of the latter, everywhere where the character and education of the upper class is described as opposed to the φαῦλοί re καὶ χειροτέχναι (iil. 405 A), no occasion had arisen for that differentiation. It would only have introduced confu- sion, as, instead of ove class, two sub-classes would have had to be mentioned. That differentiation does not take place till the ¢hree parts of the soul are recognized, and the parallelism with the ¢hree classes taken in hand, not till the study of science, by which the division is effected, is in near prospect. Both in the Repudlcc and in the Laws it is not so much the exaggeration of literary defects, as blind- ness to literary excellences, which has provided hyper-criticism with its sharpest weapons.
Book V.—CHAPTER XII.
Page 80 (Top). “Until political power and philosophy are united.” The important passage is Rep., v. 473 D, partly repeated in vi. 487 E. (Par. 2) One of the most important passages bearing on the arrangement of the work is vi. 502 D, seg. How can any one read this part, with its accumulated references to the preceding books, without recognizing the artistic interweaving of the different threads, the well-calculated ascent of the exposition from the coarser to the more subtle? (Compare v. 502 E, seg., with iii. 412 E and 413 D; or vi. 504 A-B with iv. 427 Ὁ, seg., 435 D, and iii. 414 A.) Again and again, in 502 and 503, the enhanced subtlety (ἀκρίβεια) of the discus- sion is emphasized—a subtlety that could only be offered to the reader after he has been thoroughly prepared for it, and become fascinated by
334 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
the work, whereas previously he has had to content himself with an exposition given in rough outline.
Page 83(Top). ‘‘Scale of precedence, or hierarchy.” The absolutely earliest rudiments of the hierarchy of the sciences are to be found, perhaps, not in Plato, 7ef., vii. 525 B, but in Philolaus, who treated of the sequence of the sciences under the mystic garb of the theory of numbers. For what else is the meaning of his making the ideas of point, line, surface, body, physical quality, and soul, correspond, in that order, to the first six numbers? I am not inclined to see here, as Zeller does (i. 443, ed. 5), “a weak attempt” at analysis, but a highly remarkable anticipation of most important theories. Cf. Diog. Laert., Vili. 25, especially, ἐκ δὲ τούτων (that is, from the points, which for their part have arisen from the numbers) τὰς γραμμάς, ἐξ ὧν τὰ ἐπίπεδα σχήματα" ἐκ δὲ τῶν ἐπιπέδων τὰ στερεὰ σχήματα, ἐκ δὲ τούτων τὰ αἰσθητὰ σώματα. In this respect Aristotle followed Plato; cf. AZefaph., A. 2, 982 a, 27 (αἱ ἐξ ἐλαττόνων [sc. ἐπιστῆμαι] ἀκριβέστεραι) ; Analyt. Post., A. 27, 87 a, 30; and De Ce/o, T. 1, 299 a, 16, etc.—passages in which the fundamental principles underlying all classification of the sciences are expressed with wonderful pregnancy. It would be worth while to trace the further development of the theory, with its chief stages: Descartes (Preface to the Przuczpza, 111. 1, ed. Cousin), Hobbes (Ofera Lat., ed. Molesworth, 111. 87, iv. 28, e¢ a/.), then d’Alembert (cf. Dzscours Pré- liminaire de ? Encyclopédie), Ampere (Essat sur la Philosophie des Sciences, Paris, 1834), down to Comte and Spencer. Dilthey (Archiv, xiii. 358-360 and 466, seg.) has lately contributed a valuable beginning towards this task. Cf. also Edmond Goblot, Zssaz sur la Classification des Sciences (Paris, 1898). The contradictions which arise in the treat- ment of this theme are partly due to the fact that the chronological or historical sequence of the sciences corresponds largely but not entirely to the logical sequence, while the third point of view, the didactic, has little in common with the two others. Comte, like Plato, placed astronomy immediately after mathematics. Spencer (Zssays, iii. p. 6) raised objections against this juxtaposition, which Littré (Auguste Comte et la Philos. Postt., p. 294) endeavoured to repel. It is obvious that astronomy, taken in the widest sense, is a branch of physics. But it is otherwise with /’astronomie mécanique, which is, as Littré expresses it, une étude de gravitation. As such, it may precede terrestrial mechanics, because it exhibits to us a particular mechanical force, perhaps the most fundamental of all, acting on an overwhelmingly great scale, and thus practically without modification or check.
Page 84 (Bottom). “The beginnings of disentanglement :” cf. Mach, Die Mechantk in threr Entwickelung, ed. 3, p. 8, seg., where reference is made to Aristotle’s treatment of the lever problem. The passage in question is, Μηχανικά, ch. 1, 847 A, 28, seg.
Page ὃς (Top). ‘‘Who shrugs his shoulders at experiments.” I am here thinking of Repuddic, vii. 531 A. The light and the shadow of
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 335
Plato’s scientific thought are equally displayed in what is related by Plutarch, Lzfe of Marcellus, ch. 14, 5 (Vite, p. 364, 46, Déhner), and Quest. Conviv., vill. 2, τ, 7 (Mor., 876, 9, Dibner). Plato is repre- sented as having been angry with Eudoxus and Archytas because they employed instruments and apparatus for the solution of a problem, instead of relying solely on reasoning. The problem in question certainly was one of pure geometry—the so-called Delian problem of the duplication of the cube. It is clear that Plato desired geometry to retain its newly acquired character of a deductive science, and not lapse, say, into the old Egyptian methods. But the expression of lofty disdain in Plutarch’s narrative (πολλῆς kal φορτικῆς Bavavooupylas), agreeing as it does with the passage just cited from the Repudlic and with another in the 7zw@us which will occupy us shortly, allows us to draw more far-reaching inferences. Had Archi- medes or Galilei been a contemporary of Plato’s, had they carried out in his presence their fundamental experiments ‘in statics and dynamics, they would hardly have fared better than Eudoxus and Archytas. As we learn from Diogenes Laertius (viii. 13 : οὗτος πρῶτος τὰ μηχανικὰ ταῖς μαθηματικαῖς προσχρησάμενος ἀρχαῖς μεθώδευσε), Archytas himself laid the foundation of a scientific study of mechanics ; and it may be that Plato’s silence on these beginnings, which were known to the world in his own time, has something to do with an opinion of his that Archytas had made an insufficient use of mathematical principles. (Below) Kepler and Tycho Brahe: cf. Rudolf Wolf, Geschichte der Astronomie (Gesch. α΄. Wissensch.in Deutschland, xvi.), p. 286, seg. ; also Newcomb, Popular Astronomy, p. 66.
Page 86 (Top). “ Pure and divine beauty :” Jowett and Camp- bell (Plato’s Republic, ii. 306) refer here to Symfostum, 211 D, E, and to Phedrus, 250 D. See also the thoughtful remarks on the Idea of the Good, p. 306 of the same work. (Middle) “A brilliant metaphor.” The simile of the cave occurs at the beginning of Republic, vii.
Page 88 (Middle). “It has been remarked with some justice:” cf. D. Peipers, Die Erkenntnistheorie Plato's, p. 588 and p. 594 note.
Page 89 (Top). ‘Science will be complete ...” My source for the quotation from Royer Collard is Taine, Les Philosophes classiques du XIX°” Siécle en France, ed. 7, p.28. The strictly empirical mode of thought described in what precedes has already been under our notice in the case of Democritus, cf. Vol. I. p. 363. In the century just over it was maintained by no one with greater consistency and fruitfulness than by J. S. Mill; compare, ¢.g., System of Logic, bk. iii. ch. 12, “ Of the Explanation of Laws of Nature,” especially the conclusion, § 6.
Page 90 (Middle). “‘ Limping’ one-sidedness.” It is no little to Plato’s credit that he did not censure the “limping” one-sidedness of the mere sportsman and hunter more severely than that of the man
226 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
who cultivates his mind to the entire neglect of his body (vii. 535 D: χωλὸς δὲ Kal 6 τἀναντία τούτου μεταβεβληκὼς Thy φιλοπονίαν). It is no less characteristic that in the choice of rulers he desires comeliness of form to be taken into consideration, so far as possible, as well as mental and moral qualities: Τοὺς δὲ yap βεβαιοτάτους καὶ τοὺς ἀνδρειοτά- τους προαιρετέον, καὶ κατὰ δύναμιν τοὺς εὐειδεστάτους (535 A). The ascetic author of the δσαο has here become a true and complete Hellene once more.
Page g1 (Top). ‘ Patriarchal monarchy... aristocracy:” cf. ix. 576 D, then 580 B; iv. 445 D is highly important for the express declaration that the ideal state may be termed monarchy just as well as aristocracy. And, in fact, when we come to 587 D, we find the ἀριστοκρατικός identified with the βασιλικός, and timocracy, the first degenerate form of government, is represented by Plato in viii. 544 E and 545 C as arising out of that same aristocracy. I am, therefore, entirely unable to agree with Zeller when he says (ed. 4, ii. 1, 925) that Plato is here concerned only with the scale of worth, or “ideal development,” and not at all with the “historical development ”—a circumstance “which Aristotle . . . quite fails to recognize in his criticism, Po/zz., v. 12.” Itis none of our business, I think, to extricate Plato from the contradictions in which he has, without any doubt, involved himself ; or at least only to the extent of attributing to him the thought that the patriarchal monarchy of the first ages formed the most important approximation to the ideal state. (Bottom) “ The analogy, partly real...” Jowett and Campbell rightly remark, on viii. 559, that the analogy between political and individual types “begins to fail more and more.” “ The ‘ Platonic number:’” Δ εῤ., viii. 546 B-C. A vast amount has been written on this number, both in ancient and modern times. It is only recently that the commentary of Proclus on the passage has become known to us (Procli tx Platonis Rem Publ. Comment., ii. 36, seg., Kroll, with important explanations by Hultsch, who writes with uncommon authority on the subject, p. 400 seg., of the same work). Through the intermediacy of Proclus (410- 485 A.D.) we make the acquaintance of the treatises by ancient scholars on this difficult problem, the final solution of which has not yet been won, but to the elucidation of which the best contributions had already been made by Hultsch himself (Zeztschr. f. Mathematik u. Physthk, Xxvii.).
Page 92 (Middle). ‘‘ Historical elements.” I allude here to K. F, Hermann’s essay, Deze historischen Elemente des platonischen Staatsideals, Ges. Abhandlungen usw., p. 132, seg. “ Accumulating treasure abroad:” at least one allusion to this may be detected in 548 A. This mode of evading the Spartan prohibition against own- ing the precious metals is treated of by Posidonius in Athenzeus, vi. 233 F, and probably the inscription no, 68 in Rohl’s Zuscr. Gr. Antiguiss. relates to the same subject.
’
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 537
Page 94 (Top). “Philolaus of Corinth:” on his legislature, cf. Aristotle, Politics, B 12, 1274 A, B. (Bottom) “The law of reaction.” This law is hinted at in fef., ili. 388 D, fully stated in 563 E. The reaction against Athenian many-sidedness and individuality is most conspicuous in the repeated emphasis laid on the division of labour, e.g. 111, 394 E and 397 E, and in the glorification of life in common, kep., v. 462 B, or Laws, v. 739 C, D.
Page 95 (Middle). Thucydides. On this allusion, cf. note to p. 49. “Overloaded with imagery:” see especially 560 A, B; the condemnation of the imagination in x. 603 A.
Page 99 (Top). “Plato has reached his goal...” We may here note the highly artistic manner in which Plato returns to the original problem of the work by means of the words, *Ap’ οὖν... ds ἂν φαίνηται πονηρότατος, καὶ ἀθλιώτατος φανήσεται ; (Rep., ix. 576 C). An inferior writer would not have been able to dispense with a forced transition. He would have left the long historico-philosophical digression, which occupies the whole of bk. viii. and the first section of bk. ix., and returned to the main problem by some such phrase as, “ We will now resume our discussion of the old question whether justice makes the just man happy.” As it is, the transition is brought about quite naturally and as it were spontaneously. But this result, when we come to look into it, is only made possible by the fact that after the last degenerate form of constitution, tyranny, has been dealt with, the personal character of the tyrant is described with great minuteness. And the right to this fulness of description has only been acquired by a previous detailed parallelism between the several forms of state and the corresponding types of men. This parallelism, we observe, has not been carried through entirely without violence, especially in the passage where the rise of democracy is deduced from the democratic type. We may perhaps venture to say that this whole modus procedendi was in large measure dictated by artistic considera- tions, and that what seems violent in the earlier stages of it was partly intended to facilitate the passage from the historical back to the ethical theme, and free it from every suspicion of violence.
Page 100(Top). “]. 8. Mill in acognate argument:” U?z/¢tarian- 7572: che ii, ps 12:
Page 103 (Below). “The first astonishing repetition :” Leo Tolstoi, who entirely agrees with Plato ; see Gegen die Moderne Kunst (Berlin, H. Steinitz), p. 152.
Page 104 (Middle), We have already (at the end of the chapter on the Phedo, p. 46) treated of the proof of immortality given in this passage (x. 608 ἢ). From the circumstance that Glaucon at the outset speaks as if he had never before heard of the immortality of the soul, far-reaching consequences have been deduced with regard to the composition of the Repudlic. The argument again appears to prove too much. How could Plato have here introduced the doctrine
”
338 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
of immortality “as a paradox”’(Rohde’s expression, Psyche, ii. 267,ed.2), when he had presupposed that doctrine in the Gorgias and the Crzto, and carefully demonstrated itin the Phedrus and the Phedo ? Surely no one will venture to set down the tenth book of the Repudlic as earlier than allthese works. Such a chronological order could soon be proved impossible by decisive arguments. But the hypothesis that Plato is here treating the question of the soul and immortality for the first time, is more than sufficiently negatived by the wording of the passage. In 611 B we must not stop at the words, ὡς viv ἡμῖν ἑφάνη ἡ ψυχή, but go on to what immediately follows: Ὅτι μὲν τοίνυν ἀθάνατον ψυχή, καὶ ὁ ἄρτι λόγος καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι ἀναγκάσειαν ἄν. Bothcertainly refer back to the Phiedo (cf. note to p. 46). The circumstance that the whole question of immortality appears here in the guise of a newly arisen problem, is and must remain strange, whatever view we take of the original order in which the books of the Republic were written. It may be partly explained by the reflexion that the introduction of a new argument finds its best motive in an antecedent expression of doubt, and that its convincing force stands out most strongly against the background of emphatically stated disbelief. In the use of this artifice, however, the great artist has for once overshot the mark. The literary economy of a part has been served at the expense of that of the whole. It may be set down as an error on Plato’s part that in bk. vi. (496 E, 498 C, D) he makes his brother Glaucon assent to several doctrines which involve the belief in immortality, and then, in bk. x., makes him reject that belief in the first instance. But this error gives us no trustworthy instruction on the chronological order of the books. It teaches us at the most that the author of this highly complex work, one which occupied him during a long series of years, did not write with all the details of his plan continually present to his mind, and that his final revision left something to be desired in point of thoroughness and accuracy. Let me here say a last word on the composition of the Repudslic. To those who believe that bks, viii. and ix. were written before bks. vi. and vii., the following reply may be made: It is quite incorrect that bks. viii. and ix. connect immediately with the earlier books. The sections which treat of the doctrine of ideas are indispensably presupposed by the preference given to philosophy, to the knowledge of the eternal essences—a preference so strongly marked at the close of bk. ix. that it leads to the morally superior or just man being confounded with the philosopher, from which even the βασιλεύς almost ceases to be dis- tinguished (cf. especially 587 B). It may be termed a sheer impossibility that these sections were written as the immediate con- tinuation of those parts of the work which know nothing of philosophical training, or intellectual training of any kind, in which music and gymnastic are regarded as sufficient instruments of education even for the ruling class.
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 339
Book V.—CHAPTER XIII.
Page 106 (Bottom). “Slavery:” cf. the important passage, x. 590 C, 19:
Page 107 (Top). “ It has been rightly remarked :” by Jowett and Campbell (Plato’s Republic, iii. p. 224): “The lower classes have no real place in the Repudlic; they fade away into the distance.” “ἐς Wealth’ no less than ‘ poverty:’” Fef., ii. 374 B, and iv. 421 C, seg. For what follows, cf. ix. 590 C. (Below) “A passage of the Gorgzas:” 512 E, seg. In what follows the reference is to Fef., viii. 549 A, then to v. 469 C, seg. ; see also 470, 471.
Page 108 (end of par. 2). “‘ Householders and farmers,’ but not good ‘ guardians : iii.417 A. (Below) “ Rudiments of communism at Sparta:” cf. Xenophon, Respub/. Lacedem., ch. vi. 4.
Page 109, ὃ 2. The simile of the dogs and wolves: iti. 416 A.
(Bottom) “Community of women .. . :” this important utterance in Laws, v. 739 C, D, supplemented by xii. 942 C. Page 110(Middle). “Suchamanis....” The passages referred
to here and immediately above are Δ ε., vill. 561 C, seg., and 557 Ὁ. My translation largely follows Oncken, Staatslehre des Aristoteles, i. 118.
Page 111 (Top). “ Some of the best men of the nineteenth century.” I am thinking of Tocqueville’s Democracy tn America, and J. S. Mill’s Liberty.
Page 112 (Top). “ Magnificence:” μεγαλοπρέπεια, which appears in Rep., tii. 402 C, and vii. 536 A, as a virtue by the side of σωφροσύνη and ἀνδρεία, Although the high position thus given to the quality is not “justified on any principle,” mankind may well be grateful to Plato for this enlargement of the modern ideal, especially in a democratic age with a tendency to give what are sometimes called the “huckstering virtues” an undue preponderance. Plato pronounced a “commonalty of thinkers” an “ impossibility” (ΜΚ εῤ., vi. 494 A: φιλόσοφον. . . πλῆθος ἀδύνατον εἶναι); a high-souled “ magnificent ” commonalty would not have seemed to him any more credible. (Below) The passage from the Laws, xi. 918, 919.
Page 113 (Top). The quotation from the Repudlic; iv. 441 E, (Middle) “ The best of sayings . . . :” κάλλιστα γὰρ δὴ τοῦτο Kal λέγεται καὶ AeA erat, ὅτι τὸ μὲν ὠφέλιμον καλόν, τὸ δὲ βλαβερὸν αἰσχρόν (v. 457 B).
Page 114 (Below). The passages in the Refudlic are iv. 420 B, and v. 465 E, seg. Aristotle’s criticism is in Polztics, B. 5, fin. I cannot agree with Campbell and Jowett (Plato’s Republic, iti. 162, 163) in regarding this criticism as a grave misunderstanding.
Page 115 (Top). “ Call nothing their own but their body:” διὰ τὸ μηδὲν ἴδιον ἐκτῆσθαι πλῆν τὸ σῶμα (Rep., v. 464 19). (Bottom) “ Analogies from animal life :” e.g. εξ.) v. 451 Ὁ, 459 A, 466 D, 467 B; cf. also
340 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
Laws, vii. 814 B. The example of the animals is also cited against the love of boys and in favour of strict monogamy in Laws, viii. 836 C and 840 D, E. “The argument of the Zaws:” vii. 805 B. (ὃ 5) On the restriction of the healing art, see FefZ., 111. 405 C, seg.; on the hardening 7ég¢me, principally Laws, xii. 942 D, E.
Page 116 (par. 2). ‘“ Moral hardening:” Aef., x. 606 B, D ; also 603 E, seg., and 111. 387 D, seg.
Page 117 (Top). “The Academy and the Lyceum:” cf. Diog. Laert., iv. 22, and Index Acad. Hercul., col. xv. The saying is one of Arcesilaus, reported by his contemporary, Antigonus of Carystus. (Below) “ Pheido the Corinthian :” cf. Aristotle, Politics, B. 6, 1265 B, 12. He wished τὸ πλῆθος τῶν πολιτῶν to remain unchanged as well as their property in land. (Middle) “Exposure οὗ... infants:” on this and kindred matters, see Ref., v. 459 D, 460 C, and 461 A-C. The hardly less severe precepts of Aristotle may be found in Pol¢‘tics, H. 16. Cf., on this subject, the instructive remarks of Grote (P/a?o, iii. 220, seq.).
Page 118, § 6. Aristotle’s criticism of Plato: Politics, Β, 1-5, that of the Laws, 6-7. The remark quoted occurs in B. 5, 1263 b, 15. (Bottom) “All this is approved of by Aristotle:” of. czt., 1265 a, 13, seg. The quotation from Xenophon, Aespubl. Lacedem., ch.i.7-10. Instead of ‘ primitive Greece,” I might have spoken of the primftive Aryan period; see the articles “ Keuschheit” and “Zeugungshelfer” in O. Schrader’s Real-Lexicon der Indogermanischen Altertumskunde,
Page 119(Top). Herodotus: iv. 104. Fragment 653 of Euripides (Protestlaus), Κοινὸν γὰρ εἶναι χρῆν γυναικεῖον λέχος, is not wholly irrelevant. It is true we should need to know the dramatic situation out of which this exclamation arose, in order to measure its significance (cf. kindred paradoxes in AHzffolytus, 618, seg., and Medea, 573, seg.). Perhaps the intention was to rebuke the excess of conjugal love which caused Laodamia to follow her husband to the grave. The line shows at the least, just as much as the mad pranks of the Ecclesiazuse, that such thoughts were not entirely strange to the Athenian public of that day. An opinion was once widely held that in the comedy referred to, Aristophanes had Plato and his Republic in his mind. This opinion, with its corollary that a part of the Republic was published as early as 392, may now be considered as out of date. See H. Dietzel’s essay on the subject in the Zeztschrift f. Gesch. u. Lit. d. Staatswissenschaft, i. (Leipzig, 1893), p. 373, seg. Zeller has a full discussion of it, ed. 4, 11. I, 551, seg. See also Ivo Bruns’ pamphlet, /rawenemancipation in Athen. (Kiel, 1900), pp. 22-25. The chief point is that Aristophanes treats the community of women as a hitherto unheard-of thought, and that the public could not possibly have detected an allusion to Plato which was not hinted at in a single syllable. Further, the Lyszstrate, which was performed as early as 411, contains passages which remind us
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 341
of Plato’s emancipation of women; no one, however, could explain these passages as in any way dependent on Plato, who was only sixteen years old at the time. Lastly, the above hypothesis has been supported by a statement found in Aulus Gellius (oct. AZz,, xiv. 3. 3, 4), to the effect that two books of the Republic were published independently, and that Xenophon’s Cyrofedia was partly intended as a polemic against them. But this statement has turned out to be quite unhistorical (see Zeller, of. cit, p. 488, and the copious literature cited by Martin Herz, in his edition of Gellius, ii. 206). The decisive circumstance here is that the first two books of the Republic do not contain a single word on the projects of reform which Aristophanes is supposed to be ridiculing in the £cclesiazuse. Moreover, it is absolutely impossible to see how Plato could have published the two introductory books as an independent work. On the other hand, Gellius (/oc. εἴ.) and Diogenes Laertius (iii. 34) would appear to have been right in remarking that the words of Laws, iii. 694 C, παιδείας δὲ ὀρθῆς οὐχ ἧφθαι τὸ παράπαν (Sc. τὸν Κῦρον), are meant as a thrust against the above-named work of Xenophon. (Middle) “ Different kinds of land-collectivism :” shown to be known by Aristotle in Poézfzcs, B. 5, 1263 a, 1-8. “Community of women in African tribes:” zézd., B. 3, 1262 a, 19-22; cf. Herodotus, iv. 172, on the (Libyan) Nasamones and Massagetes. (Bottom) “Shall length of time... .” These remarkable words of Aristotle occur in of. cé¢., 1264 A, 1: ὅτι χρὴ προσέχειν τῷ πολλᾷ χρόνῳ καὶ τοῖς πολλοῖς ἔτεσι. The last word is not to be corrected to ἔθνεσιν, as is done by Bernays (Ges. Abhandlungen, 1.177; cf. Vahlen, in Zectschrift f. osterr. Gymn., xxl. 829, seq.).
Page 120 (Top). “ Re-echoed a hundred times: ἢ e.g. by Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, p. 490: “In reality we are but on the threshold of civilization.” Similar expressions occur not infrequently in the works of Guizot and J. S. Mill, of Maine and Tylor. (Middle) Aristotle’s criticisms: of. cit, 1261 Ὁ, 22, and 1262 Ὁ, 15. Grote’s polemic, Plato, iii, 220, note d. (Bottom) “ Another objection of the Stagirite :” op. cit., 1264 a, 24: ἐν μιᾷ γὰρ πόλει δύο πύλεις ἀναγκαῖον εἶναι, καὶ ταύτας ὑπεναντίας ἀλλήλαις, Compared with Aefp., vill. 551 D: τὸ μὴ μίαν ἀλλὰ δύο ἀνάγκῃ εἶναι τὴν τοιαύτην πόλιν, τὴν μὲν πενήτων τὴν δὲ πλουσίων, οἰκοῦντας ἐν τῷ αὐτῷ, ἀεὶ ἐπιβουλεύοντας ἀλλήλοις: and iv. 422 E: δύο wey... πολεμία ἀλλήλαις, ἡ μὲν πενήτων, ἡ δὲ πλουσίων.
Page 121 (Above). “ Thetheocratic despotism of the Incas.” The mention of this empire leads me to notice an analogy between the old Peruvian and the Platonic legislations. According to Prescott, History of the Conquest of Peru (New York, 1847), i. 112-115, all the girls of from eighteen to twenty years of age were every year married by the State to the young men of twenty-four, and dowered with a piece of land, which received an increase at the birth of each child. But the consent of the parents was necessary, and the wishes
vol. III. 2A
342 NOTES AND ADDITIONS,
of the parties concerned were not left unregarded. (Bottom) “Pedantocracy.” The expression was coined by J. S. Mill and adopted by Comte; cf. their newly published correspondence (Paris, 1899) in many passages.
Page 122 (Bottom). Otto Ludwig, Genofeva-Fragment (Dramat. Fragmente, Berl., 1891, p. 275). The preceding quotation from Euripides, /ragm., 21, 3/4.
Page 123 (Middle). ‘Socialization of the means of production.” I call this no longer unexampled, on the strength of Franz Oppenheimer’s account (in Julius Wolff’s Zeztschr. f. Soctal- Wissenschaft, ii. 194, seg.) of the successful attempts in that direction of which Southern California has been the theatre still more than the Mormon state. (Bottom) On the Perfectionists of Oneida, cf. Charles Nordhoff, The Com- munestic Societies of the United States (London, 1875), pp. 259-301, especially pp. 276 and 291. The other publications relating to this subject, including a reply of J. H. Noyes himself to W. Hepworth Dixon’s account in his Mew America, may be disregarded. This parallel has also been referred to recently (1902) by Lewis Campbell, in his short but uncommonly valuable monograph, Plato’s Republic, pp. 103 and 105.
Page 124 (Middle). A®schines. So far we have only spoken of this Socratic once and at slight length (Vol. I. p. 426). Diogenes Laertius treats of him in 11. ch. 7. The not very numerous fragments were collected by K. F. Hermann, in De 4 schints Socratici Religuiis (Gottingen, 1850), supplemented by Hirzel, Der Dialog, i. 138,139. A luminous characterization is given in the latter work, pp. 129-140. The relics of his dialogues exhibit an apparently artless, but in reality highly artistic, kind of literary miniature-painting. Antiquity saw in them the truest copy of the actual dialogues in which Socrates took part. Their content was partly political; in the Alczbzades, the praise of Themistocles took up considerable space. His personality is exhibited in a very disagreeable light by the remains of a plaintiffs speech by Lysias (cf. p. 25). According to this speech, he paid court to an old woman, “‘ whose teeth might be counted more easily than the fingers of one hand,” swindled her, and brought her family to beggary (in Athenzeus, xili. 611, 612). There is better attestation for his long residence at the court of Dionysius II. (Diog. Laert., ii. 63), where he met with Plato. The relations of the two are very differently described by different authorities. | Diogenes’ statement (ii. 61), that Plato ignored A®schines at the Syracusan court, is in flat contradiction with what is told us by Plutarch (De Adulatore et Amico, ch. 26; Mor., p. 81. 14, Diibner), and the latter writer is corroborated to some extent by the fact that Plato mentions fEschines twice (AZology, 33 E, and Phedo, 59 B). There seems no doubt that his dialogue Asfasza had for its content what we have stated in the text; cf. Natorp, in Phz/ologus, 51, 489, seg., and
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 343
von Wilamowitz, Hermes, 35. 552. I cannot, however, agree with the latter writer in denying all inferences as to the historical Aspasia. It would be exceedingly strange if three authors (Plato, Xenophon, and Aschines) had agreed in fictitiously endowing the companion of Pericles: with what we might very reasonably have expected her to possess—a highly cultivated mind and intellectual influence. For I cannot admit the contention that Xenophon’s praise of Aspasia (Zcon., iii. 13) may have been intended merely as a compliment to A‘schines, ‘in whose dialogue Aspasia appeared in company with Xenophon and his young wife.” This seems to me by no means “obvious.” For if von Wilamowitz’s conception of Aspasia were the objectively correct one, Xenophon could not possibly have been gratified to find himself, and still less his real or fictitious young wife, joined with her in a dialogue.
Page 126 (Top). Xenophon’s description (Cconomicus, vii. 4, seg.) is made good use of by Ivo Bruns, in the pamphlet which we have already mentioned (/rauen-Emancipation in Athen, Ὁ. 29).
Page 128 (Middle). The comparison of the individual with the πόλις, and the appended injunction, occur in Δ᾽ 62.,) ix. 591 E, 592 A,
Book V.—CHAPTER XIV,
Our chief sources are Plutarch’s Life of Dzow and the relevant sections of Diodorus’ sixteenth book. I have not ventured to utilize Plato’s Epzst/es, in view of the controversy still pending as to their authenticity.
Page 134 (par. 2). The details given here and in the sequel are taken from Plutarch’s Dio, ch. 13, ΤΆ (Vite, 1148, seg., Dohner). The expression τυραννίδα (Plutarch, of. cz¢., 1149, 8) is certainly un- historical, for at that period it had long been a word of evil sound. The official title of Dionysius II. was at all events not βασιλεύς, but ἄρχων OY ἡγεμών. Σικελίας ἄρχων is the title of Dionysius I. in an Athenian decree (C. J. A., ul. 51; cf. Ad. Wilhelm, Wiener Fahres- hefte, iii. 170, and U. Kohler, Athen. Mitteilungen, i. 19).
Page 135 (Middle). “The judgment of George Grote :” History of Greece, xi, 103. Grote certainly supports his judgment by an appeal to Plato’s Zfzs¢,, ili. 315 E; but the authenticity of this epistle would need to be fully established before we should be justified in drawing conclusions from it as to Plato’s own thoughts and views.
Page 137 (Bottom). Speusippus: cf. Plutarch, Dvo, ch. 22, 2 (Vit@, 1153, 28, D.). Helicon. The solar eclipse predicted by him (Plutarch, of. ΟΣ 19, 3 = 1152, 11) must be identified with that numbered 2035 in Oppolzer’s Kanon der Finsternisse, and dated May 12, 360 B.c. The victory of Xenocrates in the drinking contest at the Pitcher-Feast is glanced at by Diog. Laert., iv. ch. 2, 8, and fully related
244 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
in the Zudex Acad. Hercul., coll. 8 and 4 (treated by the author in the collection of essays dedicated to Zeller, p. 143).
Page 138 (par.3). The narrative of Diodorus exhibits astonishing divergences in historical detail from that of Plutarch. One of Dio- dorus’ main sources was Ephorus. Plutarch made special use of Timonides, besides whom he cites Ephorus and Theopompus for special details, together with the censorious Timzeus, whom he very rightly mistrusts. It is generally recognized that this latter was a source of Cornelius Nepos (cf. Holm, Szczlcen tm Altertum, 11. 374, seg.), on the strength of the agreement of Nepos, zo, 2, with Plutarch, ch. 6, where Timzeus is cited. I cannot, however, here give the com- plete justification for my conviction that the unfavourable verdict on Dion, which is found in Nepos alone, is entirely due to the malevolence of Timzus. (Bottom) “ Eudemus of Cyprus:” cf. p. 71. Aristotle wrote a dialogue entitled, Εὔδημος ἢ περὶ Ψυχῆς, of which not inconsider- able relics have been preserved (Berlin Academy edition, 1479 B, seg.). Timonides: οἱ. Plutarch, \af. c7z., ch. 35,/3 (1161,,22). That Callippus belonged to the Platonic circle is undisputed. The Platonic Epistle, vii. 333 E, and also Plutarch, of. czt., ch. 54, 77222. (1170, 37), seek to qualify the closeness of his association ; the hostile Athenzeus, on the other hand (xi. 508 E), refuses to allow the qualification ; the one is as intelligible as the other, and complete certainty in such a case seems unattainable.
Page 139, § 3. The greater the divergences between the accounts given by Diodorus and Plutarch, the more weight must be given to their agreement in judging Dion’s character. Indeed, the expres- sions of Diodorus, who, as far as we can see, was not influenced by the Platonics, have a still more enthusiastic ring about them than those of Plutarch: cf. Diodorus, xvi. 6, 4; 20,2. Grote’s account (xi. 172) is based exclusively on the narrative of Nepos—a narrative which has been recognized by us as quite untrustworthy, and which, in any case, stands entirely alone.
Page 141 (Middle). ‘‘ Helpers and counsellors:” cf. Plutarch, op. Cit., 53, 1 (1170, 14): Μεταπέμπεται δὲ ἐκ Κορίνθου συμβούλους καὶ συνάρχοντας. Our allusion to Dion’s coinage is derived from Bury’s flistory of Greece (London, 1900, p. 672). The chief sources for what follows are Plutarch’s Life of Zzsoleon, and Diodorus, xvi. 66, seg. (Bottom, and p. 142) Comparison of Timoleon with Dion: I am here in agreement with Beloch, Grzechtsche Geschichte, ii. 578, seg., who expresses himself on the constitution founded by Timoleon, perhaps too positively, but certainly in the main justly (p. 587, seg.). The expression ‘democratic Jaws,” used by Diodorus (xvi. 70), should, according to the context, be taken as referring to civil and penal rather than to constitutional legislation. A really democratic system of government is contradicted by the institution, mentioned immediately afterwards, of the priesthood of the Olympic Zeus as the ἐντιμοτάτη
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 345
ἀρχή. The possible objection, that this priestly office was invested with the dazzling semblance of an authority it did not really exercise, has the ground cut from under it by Diodorus himself, who remarks : Τῶν yap ‘Pwuaiwy μεταδόντων τοῖς Σικελιώταις τῆΞ πολιτείας 7 τῶν ἀμφιπόλων ἀρχὴ ἐταπεινώθη: which certainly points to a more than nominal im- portance of the office. The constitution established by Timoleon with the assistance of Corinthian legislators (Plut., 7zo/., ch. 24, 2 = Vite, 296, 47, D.) cannot, from all that we know, have been very unlike the mixed constitution projected by Dion (Plut., Dzo, 53, 2 = 1170, 20). Just as Timoleon may be said to have continued Dion’s policy, so Agathocles resumed the tradition of the demagogue Heraclides. When the rich and highly placed had been partly butchered, partly hunted into exile, when, after this “ purging of the city,” Agathocles had been chosen dictator (στρατηγὸς αὐτοκράτωρ), he at once promised the poor extinction of debts and division of the land (Diodorus, xix.
ch. 9, I-5). BooK V.—CHAPTER XV.
Page 144 (Middle). ‘“ Passage of the S/acesman:” 296, B-E. (Bottom) “ The Zuthydemus.” After Ast, several writers have contested the genuineness of this dialogue. It is attested by Thrasyllus, and therefore, probably also, indirectly, by Aristophanes. The various references in Aristotle (cf. Ueberweg, Untersuchungen, 174, and Bonitz, Platonische Studien, ed. 3, 135, note 27) cannot be regarded as finally establishing its authenticity, for the sophisms there treated of were certainly not invented entirely by Plato. Considerable weight should be allowed to the polemical writing of Colotes already mentioned, Πρὸς τὸν Πλάτωνος Εὐθύδημον (cf. note to Vol. II. p. 281), of which, how- ever, we only know the title. Taken all in all, the Euthydemus is no better and no worse attested than, say, the Profagoras ; no reasons, however, worth taking seriously have been urged against its Platonic origin.
Page 145 (Top). Euthydemus and Dionysodorus are real, if not very important, personalities. On the former, cf. Aristotle, Soph. Etlench., 20 (177 B, 12); Rhetoric, B, 24 (1401 A, 27); Plato, Cratylus, 386 D. Dionysodorus is mentioned by Xenophon as a teacher of military science (JZem., 111. 1, 1). The polemic against the Megarians and Antisthenes was first detected by Schleiermacher (ed. 3, il. 1, 276); as far as regards Antisthenes it was examined in detail by K. Urban, Uber die Erwahnungen der Philosophie des Antisthenes in den platontschen Schriften, Konigsberger Gymnasial-Programm, 1882. (Bottom) This passage of the Euthydemus (304 D, seg.) has received various interpretations, which may be found indicated in Winckelmann’s special edition of the dialogue (p. xxxiv., seg.). The conjecture which has found most favour is the one according to
246 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
which the passage refers to Isocrates ; it is a conjecture which was first propounded by Schleiermacher in 1805, in the introduction to his translation of the dialogue, and shortly afterwards, in 1806, by Hein- dorf, Platonts Dialogi Selecti, iii. 4135. Welcker, Spengel, and many others have accepted it. Full certainty is, however, lacking ; and in any case a conjecture of this nature, though very plausible, cannot serve as basis for far-reaching conclusions touching Plato’s literary chronology. Itis from the relation of the strictures in this dialogue to the prophecy concerning Isocrates at the close of the Phedrus that such conclusions have been largely drawn. With our interpretation of the two passages, in which the first-named is regarded as a very qualified censure and the second a very qualified compliment, little room remains for such inferences. And even if the expressions in the Euthydemus could be taken to imply a decided antipathy to Isocrates, no crucial argument would result as to the chronological order of the two dialogues. For the changes in the personal relations of the two men may, indeed, but need not, have followed a straight course. A momentary tension may have yielded to a more friendly understanding, and this in its turn have been replaced by renewed and heightened discord. (Such want of harmony existed in any case between Isocrates and Plato at the time when the latter wrote the sixth book of the Republic. Compare 500 B with the rejoinder of Isocrates in Oration xv., ‘On the Exchange of Property ”—published in 352—§ 260, one of the most certain among the many conjectured polemical references. See Spengel, Phlologus, xix. 596, seg., and Bergk, Funf Abhana- lungen, Ὁ. 38.) Thus, even supposing the allusion established, it is by no means intrinsically impossible that the EAwthydemus may have preceded the Phedrus, or, according to my hypothesis, the first edition of it. (Cf. von Arnim, in the Rostock “ Winterprogramm,” 1896- 7, p. 21.) Iam inclined to placethe Euthydemus at least well towards the end of Plato’s first stylistic period, to which it is assigned by the linguistic criteria. For it is the dialogue in which the polemic against Antisthenes and the Megarians begins which is continued in the Theetetus and Sophist,; it displays, moreover, a maturity of thought such as characterizes these later works, and not those of the early period. (See, for example, 290 B, seg., where the special branches— arithmetic, geometry, astronomy—are subordinated to the philosophic master-science, or dialectic.) The faculty, too, of viewing from the same standpoint things very different externally, must have reached a high stage of development in Plato when he co-ordinated military commanders and special researchers, compared them, just as if it were the obvious thing to do, with hunters and fishers, and brought them all together under the common category of acquisition. We are here not so far behind the dialectical works of the late period, and a long way ahead of a Profagoras or a Gorgias. That the Meno, which presupposes the Profagoras and the Gorgias, is itself prior to
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 347
the Euthydemus, may, I think, be abundantly proved. I owe some- thing here to the apposite remark of Bonitz: “The possibility of teaching wisdom, and hence, by a necessary connexion, virtue as well, is conceded to Socrates by Cleinias in Euthydemus, 282 C. as an established truth; now, this same possibility is under demon- stration throughout the Meno” (Platonische Studien, ed. 3, 122, note). A different judgment on the relation of the two dialogues, and, I venture to say, a very perverse one, is that of Steinhart, in his intro- duction (Platons sammitl. Werke ubersetzt von H. Muller, ii. 26). I have also derived no little help from the above-mentioned essay of Bonitz in the grouping and arrangement of the various sophisms, as well as in their reduction to general categories.
Page 148, § 2. The genuineness of the Parmenides, which is attested by no mention or allusion on the part of Aristotle, has been frequently attacked in recent times. Two main reasons have been urged against it. Both have been formulated with most precision by Ueberweg, in Untersuchungen uber die Echtheit und Zettfolge platonischer Schriften, pp. 180, 181 (see p. 277 of the second volume, and note). The most telling reply to both has been given by Clemens Baumker. This scholar has shown that the most ‘ overwhelming objection ” against the doctrine of ideas, the argument of the so-called τρίτος ἄνθρωπος, is not removed out of the works of Plato by cancelling the Parmenides ; that “a quite similar train of thought” recurs in Re/., x. 597 C; further, that this argument, as had been already pointed out by Grote (P/afo, ii. 271), was not the work of Plato, but of Polyxenus, a so-called sophist closely allied to the Megarians (Rhetx. Mus., 34, 82, 3). There is thus no force in Ueberweg’s dilemma that we must either deny the Parmenides to Plato or make Aristotle “guilty of plagiarism,” since he gives “no hint whatever that he has borrowed this argument, on which he lays the greatest stress, from Plato him- self.” Nor can we fail to be astonished at the liberality which the de- structive critics show in enriching Greek literature with an ever-fresh supply of philosophic writers of the first rank. The Parmenides is a marvellous product of dialectic subtlety. So much even those can- not refuse to admit who view the dialogue very differently from the latest Neo-Platonists. These—agreeing herein with Hegel (see Kuno Fischer’s Hegel, p. 1054)—have regarded it as ‘‘the true unveiling of all the mysteries of the Divine Essence,” and have accordingly expounded it in many-volumed commentaries. We may instance Proclus (best edited by Victor Cousin in collaboration with Lévesque, 1864, and lately translated into French by Chaignet, 2 vols., Paris, 1900) and Damascius (recently edited, for the first time completely, by Ruelle, Paris, 1889). The objections to which the dialogue was supposed to be open from the linguistic standpoint have been defi- nitively cleared away by O. Apelt, Gottinger Gel. Anzeigen, 1894, p.75; seg., supplemented by Phzlolog. Anzeiger, 14, 194.
248 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
For my conception of the dialogue I am most indebted to Otto Apelt’s masterly Untersuchungen uber den Parmentdes des Plato, (Weimar, 1879). In regard to its date, I am so far in agreement with him as to place the Parmenides before the T7hee/etus and the Sophzst— a position demanded by the material (cf. Apelt, of. cz¢., pp. 51-54) as well as by the linguistic criteria. The allusions in Sophist, 217 C, and Theetetus, 183 E, seg., to the meeting of Socrates and Parmenides are quite decisive on the point ; and, as the meeting in question is obviously a fictitious incident, no difference of opinion ought ever to have arisen. This decisive argument, by the way, was urged long ago, so far as the Sofhzst is concerned, by Schleiermacher (Platon’s Werke, ed. 3, ii. 2, Ρ. 95). Schleiermacher likewise recognized the priority of the Parmenides to the Theetetus (ed. 3, 11. 1, p. 125, seg.), though the applicability of the above argument escaped him in this case. Camp- bell (in his comment on Sofhzst, 217 C) mentions, for the sake of completeness, the possibility that when Plato wrote that passage he had already planned the Parmenzdes, but not written it; the possibility, no doubt, exists, but there is not the slightest ground for regarding it as even a probability. The “fairly early date” assumed by Apelt (op. cit., p. 56) can be accepted only in this relative sense. Or need we prove that a considerable time must have elapsed since the first promulgation of the doctrine of ideas before Plato’s critics or Plato himself could light on the “overwhelming” objections which are treated of in the first part of the dialogue ?
Between the Refudlic, or the greater part of it by far, and the Tim@us—these are the widest limits within which the criteria of style and substance allow us to place this dialogue (cf. Dittenberger, in Hermes, xvi. 337, seg., and Apelt, of. cet, p. 51). The two great constructive works are separated by an intervening stratum of dialectic. The negative arm of the Platonic philosophy would seem to have craved exercise and activity after its long rest and before the rest that awaited it.
Page 150 (Bottom). “ Megarians or Neo-Eleatics.” It is not against Euclides himself—to do this man honour is perhaps the main purpose of the prelude to the Zhe@zetus—but against the thinkers trained by him and their congeners that Plato, not yet by any means an aged man, directs his polemic. This alone is enough to suggest that of the two Euclides was the older, and that he had already made speed to found his school. There are several other circumstances which support this conjecture. In the introduction to the 7heefetus Euclides speaks of his repeated visits to Athens shortly before the time when Socrates drained the cup of poison (ὁσάκις ᾿Αθήναζε ἀφικοίμην, 143 A). Thus at that time he was no longer in the number of Socrates’ pupils, in the strict sense; and his discipleship must be placed in an earlier epoch. Moreover, Aristotle, who was a grand-pupil of Socrates, had for a contemporary a great-great-grand-pupil of
πα “Ὁ ΡΡΔὸ Ψ᾿Ν
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 349
Socrates, in the person of Diodorus, who was indirectly a pupil of Eubulides, the pupil of Euclides (cf. Diog. Laert., ii, 111).
Page 153 (par. 2). ‘‘Laborious pastime :” see note to Vol. II. pe srs, pate 2:
Page 154 (Top). ‘Comparison with other dialogues:” such a comparison has been carried out with acuteness and judgment by Apelt, pp. 8-11. From this source are taken the quotations further on.
Book V.—CHAPTER XVI.
Page 155. The testimonies relating to Theatetus as a mathema- tician may be found in Allman, Greek Geometry from Thales to Euclid, p. 206, seg. Cf. also Cantor, Vorlesungen uber Geschichte der Mathematik, ed. 2, 1.) especially pp. 222-224. The date of the Theetetus has exercised scholars hardly less than that of the Phedrus. It is no doubt definitely established that this dialogue preceded the Sopfhis¢ and the Statesman, which form its continuation, but which, it must be admitted, do not seem to have followed it immediately. (See Dittenberger in Hermes, xvi. 345, but more particularly the important remarks of Janell, Quest. Plat., 294 and 306, seg., on the greatly increased diligence of Plato in avoiding the hiatus.) Equally certain, in my opinion, is the priority of the Parmenides (see the remarks above). To this I will add that the investigations based on statistics of language decisively assign the Theetetus to the second period of Plato’s style, and now make an attempt to fix the date of its composition within still narrower limits. In this case the attempt bids fair to be more successful than usual. The d¢erminus a quo is supplied by Plato’s allusion (in 174 D-175 B) “‘to panegyric speeches in which kings of his own day had been glorified. Such panegyrics did not exist before the Awagoras of Isocrates, that is, at least not before 374. Thus writes Erwin Rohde, in the Philologus, 49, 230, seg.(= Kleine Schriften, i.277). The same scholar had previously written (in 1881, AZ. Schr., i. 259, seg.), “ Now we... know from the Εὐαγόρας of Isocrates (ὃ 5, seg., and especially § 8) that this was the frst attempt to glorify a contemporary in a prose encomium. Isocrates wrote the Εὐαγόρας after the death of his hero, that is, after 374 (Diodorus, xv. 47), probably not long after, perhaps in 370.” The ¢erminus ad quem is provided by the argument stated on p. 158 of this volume, based on the episode of 173 D-E. The date of the 7heetetus thus lies somewhere between 374 and 367. On the other hand, I do not think that the battle near Corinth, mentioned in the introduction, in which Theetetus was wounded, can be utilized for the purposes of chronology. With approximately equal probability, this battle may be placed either in the late nineties or in the year 368 ; and, above all, we lack every means of measuring
350 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
the interval of time between the ‘composition of the work itself” and the “event to which it alludes” (Rohde, of. cz¢., p. 276). A second indication, utilized by Rohde, namely, the reference (175 A-B) to the encomium on a Spartan king who counted twenty-five ancestors, ought also, I think, to be eliminated from the discussion, for the simple reason that the number of ancestors may have been slightly rounded off. (See the debate between Rohde, AZ. Schr., 1. 256-308, and Zeller, Berliner Sitzungsberichte, 1886, No. 37, Archiv, iv. 189, seg., and v. 289, seg. In this connexion we may also refer to Bergk, Funf Abhandlungen, etc.. 1-40. This writer also appeals to the trial of Chabrias. He interprets the passage in the 7heetetus : ὅταν ἐν δικαστηρίῳ . . . ἀναγκασθῇ [that is, the philosopher] περὶ τῶν mapa πόδας o - διαλέγεσθαι, γέλωτα παρέχει, 174 C, as referring to the ill success which Plato is said to have had as that general’s advocate. But how improbable it is that Plato should have thus revived the memory of his own fiasco, apart from the doubt as to its historical character!) There is much excellent matter on the priority of the Republic to the Theetetus in Lutoslawski’s work, Plato’s Logic, pp. 396, seg. The whole question is admirably treated by Dr. Michael Jezienicki in a work marred by linguistic and typographical errors, but equally rich in knowledge and thought: User die Abfassungszeit der platonischen Dialoge Theaitet und Sophistes (Lemberg, 1887). (Bottom) “He makes Euclides say:” 143 C, The substitution of the narrative for the purely dramatic form was employed by Teich- miiller as a criterion for dating the works of Plato in his pamphlet, Die Rethenfolge der platonischen Dialoge (Leipzig, 1879). He there far overshot the mark, as his manner was ; the limited sense in which I think his observation valuable has been explained in the text.
Page 159 (Top). “An echo of the Phedo:” 176 B. “ An allusion to the doctrine of ideas:” 175 C. “Struggle after likeness with the... Deity:” 176 B. I speak of his attack on Antisthenes as descending to a lower level, not so much because of the allusion to his Thracian mother (174 A, compared with Diog. Laert., vi. 1, 1), without which the reference to Antisthenes might not have been sufficiently clear, as because of its twofold repetition with opprobrious adjuncts: ov μόνον Θράττάις, ἀλλὰ καὶ τῷ ἄλλῳ ὄχλῳ, and Opdrrais μὲν οὐ παρέχει οὐδ᾽ ἄλλῳ ἀπαιδεύτῳ οὐδενί (174 Cand 175 D). Note also the echo in Aristotle, W/etaph., H. 3, 1043 Ὁ, 24: οἱ ᾿Αντισθένειοι καὶ of οὕτως ἀπαίδευτοι. This abusive epithet may have become a stock expression of the school. Itis not improbable that in his Ἡρακλῆς ἢ περὶ Φρονήσεως καὶ Ἰσχύος Antisthenes may have taxed the “Sophist” Prometheus through the mouth of his hero with useless brooding and dreamy aloofness from the world, aiming herein at Plato. The latter would then have taken his revenge by his gibe at the “ Thracian woman,” and the “other uneducated rabble,” after preparing the way by the story of Thales falling into a well while gazing at the stars, and being
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 351
mocked at by the handmaid who was accompanying him (Diog. Laert., i. 34). (Cf. Biicheler, Rez. Mus., 24, 450, and Diimmler, Antisthenica, Ὁ. 14 = Kleine Schriften, i. 21, 5e9.) The gibe attributed to Diogenes (Diog. Laert., vi. 28) also recalls that legend.
Page 160 (Bottom). The following fallacy may be noted: In 189 A, the psychical object of a δοξάζειν is confused with an externally real object (Ὁ δὲ 89) δοξάζων οὐχ ἕν τι δοξάζει ;---Ανάγκη---Ὁ δ᾽ ἕν τι δοξάζων οὐκ ὄν τι;--Ξυγχωρῶ----Ὁ ἄρα μὴ ὃν δοξάζων, οὐδὲν δοξάζει).
Page 162 (Top). The complete agreement in expression, namely, between Z7heeietus, 201 C, Ἔφη δὲ τὴν μὲν μετὰ λόγου ἀληθῆ δόξαν ἐπιστήμην εἶναι, and Symposium, 202 A, Τὸ ὀρθὰ δοξάζειν καὶ ἄνευ τοῦ ἔχειν λόγον δοῦναι οὐκ οἶσθ᾽, ἔφη [namely, Diotima], ὅτι οὔτε ἐπίστασθαί ἐστι. .. οὔτε ἀμαθία. Again, in Meno, 97 A, seg., ὀρθὴ δόξα becomes ἐπιστήμη by the addition of the αἰτίας λογισμός.
Page 163 (Top). I may here refer to Bonitz’s excellent treatment of the dialogue in Platontsche Studien, ed. 3, pp. 47-92.
Page 164,§ 4. As the entirely groundless doubts on the genuine- ness of the Cratylus have not been voiced for decades, I do not think it necessary to dwell onthem. They were cleared away by Theodor Benfey, in Uber die Aufgabe des platon. Dialogs Cratylus (from the Abhandlungen der Gott. gelehrt. Gesellschaft, Gottingen, 1866), and by Lehrs in the short appendix to his translation of the Phedrus and the Syspostum, where (p. 144) he pithily sums up the result of the dialogue : ‘‘ Language, whether we adopt the one theory of it or the other, is not an instrument by which we can gain the knowledge of things.” (Bottom) “ The investigation of words .. .:” cf. note to p. 185 (middle). Plato’s summing up : Cratylus, 439 B.
Page 165 (Bottom). Leibnitz discusses the meaning of the ὦ, 7, and v sounds in Nouveaux Essais sur Pentendement humain, bk. iii. ch.1. Jakob Grimm: Uber den Ursprung der Sprache (Berlin, 1858, Pp. 39, 56.).
Page 166 (Bottom). The close kinship of the 7eetetus and the Cratylus has been pointed out recently by Carlo Giussani, in Za Questione del Linguaggio secondo Platone e secondo Epficuro (Milan, 1896), p. 3 of the separate reprint from the publications of the Lombard Institute: “Il Cratilo ἃ una specie di complemento del Teeteto” (here follows an excellent account of the purpose of the 7ee/etus). Which of the two dialogues is the earlier, Giussani leaves open. Similarly, Diels, Elementum (Leipzig, 1899), p. 18: “To the many points of contact between the Cratylus and the 7hecetetus belongs also the simile of the letters...” The satire on the Neo-Heracliteans : Crat., 411 C; Theet., 180 A. The sport with etymologies, lastly, is not foreign to the Zheetetus (199 C-E). Here, to be sure, both dialogues also join hands with the Phedrus (244 B-D and 251 C).
352 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
Book V.—CHAPTER XVII.
The genuineness of the Sofhzst and the S/atesman is sufficiently attested by the Aristotelian references alone, as is abundantly proved in Ueberweg’s if anything too cautious disquisition (Untersuchungen, 152-171). (Cf. note to Vol. II. p. 277.) Seeing that the self-criticism practised by Plato in the Sofhzst as well as the Parmenides has led to these works being suspected, it is almost matter for regret that the Phedrus has been protected against such attacks by the invulnerable character of its credentials. If the case had been otherwise, the treatment of this dialogue by the critics might have afforded us great entertainment. Why should not one or other of them have rejected it from among Plato’s works, on the ground, say, that ‘‘one of the greatest among authors could not possibly have looked down upon all authorship with that contempt which Plato shows for it in the Phedrus. The voice that speaks to us in these pages is the voice of jealous impotence, not that of creative genius rejoicing in its strength ”?
Page 167 (end of par. 1). The words of Statesman, 284 B, καθάπερ ἐν τῷ Σοφιστῇ, do not seem to me, if considered impartially, to bear any other interpretation.
Page 168 (Top). ‘Gentle and respectful in tone:” compare especially 242 C: μῦθόν twa, «7A. Plato corrects the “great” Par- menides much as a son might a father whose way of thinking seems to him a little old-fashioned. It is possibly for the purpose of providing this mode of treatment with an appropriate setting that the criticism of the Eleatic position, which is promised in the 7hee/etus, is there deferred, on the pretext of lack of time (180 E and 183 E). (Middle) The “enclosing husk” is spoken of by Bonitz, in his valuable sections on the Sophist (Platonische Studien, p. 152, seq., ed. 3). But the inner bond of union between the two parts of the dialogue will be sought for in vain, even in Bonitz’s pages, as I have already said in my necrologue (Berlin, Calvary, 1889, p. 14 of the separate reprint). I ventured, in the same essay, to point out what seems to me adefect in the Platonische Studien taken in general : “The picture of Plato which results from them is all too lacking in temporal and local colour, as well as in definite individuality. His strong personal sympathies and antipathies . . . and likewise the exigencies of his polemics are too completely overshadowed by the purely didactic purposes ascribed to him.”
Page 171 (Top). Trendelenburg: Logtsche Untersuchungen, 11. 149, note. The whole section xii., “ Die Verneinung,” is extremely instructive ; so, too, is the section of Sigwart’s Logic (part i. ch. 4) dealing with the same subject. The author, however, has nowhere found the problem in question solved to his complete satisfaction.
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 353
(Bottom) I am confident that the materialists here alluded to are the adherents of Democritus. It has been recently supposed that Antisthenes is aimed at; but the illegitimacy of this view is abun- dantly evident from 251 C—D, where he and his followers are made the objects of attack, in words which make it clear beyond a doubt that up to the present nothing has been said about them. Again, the “corporeal soul” of 247 B is, in my opinion, an unmistakable reference to the “ soul-atoms ” of Leucippus and Democritus.
Page 172 (Top). “Friends of the ideas.” On the identity of these men (τοὺς τῶν εἰδῶν φίλου5) a controversy still rages in the camp of Plato-students. My opinion may be best expressed in the words of Grote (P/azo, iii. 482): “To affirm that Eukleides admitted a plurality of Ideas or Forms, is to contradict the only one deposition, certain and unequivocal, which we have about his philosophy.” In fact, all that we know of the positive metaphysics of the Megarians is just this fidelity of theirs to the Eleatic doctrine of unity. To ascribe to them a sort of doctrine of ideas was an unfortunate thought of Schleier- macher’s—a counsel of desperation, only adopted because, like many others, he could not make up his mind to credit Plato with so humorous and so impersonal a criticism of his own fundamental doctrine. I differ from these weighty authorities with the lighter heart, because I find myself in agreement with a large number of exact Plato-students. Besides Grote, I may mention Ueberweg (Untersuchungen, 277); Campbell (Jxtroduction, p. 75); Dittenberger (Hermes, xvi. 343); Jowett (Translation of Plato, 11. 446) ; Hirzel (Hermes, viii. 128); Felice Tocco (Atene e Roma, 1. 40); Windel- band (Plazo, pp. 88 and Io1, note); von Arnim (Dio von Prusa, p. 22); Diels (Elementum, p. 19, note). It is true that Ueberweg and Campbell prefer to regard the “ friends of the ideas” as Academics who had remained at a stage of thought which Plato had left, while for Windelband, as formerly for Socher (see Vol. II. p. 277 and note), any criticism of the doctrine of ideas is a ground for doubting the authenticity of the work in which it occurs. Apelt (Bectrage zur Geschichte der griechischen Philosophie, p. 90) has set out on a venture- some quest for traces of a doctrine of ideas among the Megarians. He starts from a notice in Diogenes Laertius (ii. 119) relating to Stilpo, the first words of which unequivocally state the exact contrary (ἀνηΐρει καὶ τὰ εἴδη), and on the remainder of which little more is to be said beyond what we have already said in the text (Vol. II. pp. 197, 198). The second example by which the predication difficulty is explained in the sense of Abelard’s “rem de re praedicari monstrum” can hardly have any other meaning than the following : You show me an object, and say it is “ vegetables ;” but you are maintaining an absurdity, for you are identifying that which was not in existence a few days ago with that which has existed for thousands of years. (Below) “ Chiefly, if not exclusively.” It is probable that this error was also due partly to
354 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
that singular feature of ancient theories of perception which appears most clearly in the teaching of Alcmzeon and Empedocles on vision (Vol. I. pp. 150 and 235). The “ fire in the eye ” combines with the fire outside it ; the subjective and the objective factor in perception are supposed to be similar, and to act each upon the other. Thus the way was opened for the fallacy here in question.
Page 173 (end of par. 1). This most noteworthy passage occurs in 247 D-E. The thought is presently repeated in 248 C. (Middle) “Conscious and of the nature of soul:” compare Campbell’s par- ticularly thoughtful introduction to the Sophzst, especially p. lxxvi., where he points to the analogies in the PAz/ebus, the 77me@us, and the Laws, as well as many passages in his commentary. Besides Laws, xii. 967 D, Timeus, 34 C, is specially considered as bearing on the high rank given to the psychic principle. But Campbell’s just view of the case has been recklessly exaggerated by Lutoslawski, and by Ritter before him, who refused the doctrine of ideas all place in the works of Plato’s late period, and contended that the ideas were there superseded by souls. In forming these conclusions, they have over- looked such passages as 7zmceus, 51 D, in which the substantial existence of the ideas is affirmed with an emphasis hardly to be found elsewhere (παντάπασιν εἶναι καθ᾽ αὑτὰ ταῦτα, ἀναίσθητα ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν εἴδη, νοούμενα μόνον). Otherwise, Lutoslawski could not have made his emphatic remark on PAzlebus, 59 C: “It is very important to observe that eternal ideas (ἀεὶ κατὰ τὰ αὐτά) are not now separate, self-existing, or independent existences (αὐτὸ καθ᾽ αὑτό) as they were in earlier dialogues” (Plato’s Logic, p. 465). At the same time, he places the 77mcus, quite rightly, as I think, later than the PAz/edbus. And here I am compelled, with much regret, to tax this meritorious investigator with an almost incredible piece of carelessness. In Phzlebus, 15 B, he finds “a very clear indication that the separate existence of ideas is deemed im- possible” (of. cét., 467). The wording of the passage quoted is as follows : μετὰ δὲ τοῦτ᾽ ἐν τοῖς γιγνομένοις αὖ καὶ ἀπείροις εἴτε διεσπασμένην καὶ πολλὰ γεγονυῖαν, εἰθ᾽ ὅλην αὐτὴν αὑτῆς χωρίς, ὃ δὴ πάντων ἀδυνατώτατον φαίνοιτ᾽ ἄν, ταὐτὸν καὶ ἕν ἅμα ἐν ἑνί τε καὶ πολλοῖς γίγνεσθαι. Lutoslawski runs together the two words χωρίς and ἀδυνατώτατον, and he is clearly of the opinion that it is the separate existence of the ideas which is pronounced the most impossible thing in the world! If so, this would indeed be the most remarkable passage in the whole of Plato. The adaptability of the philosopher would have reached an unexampled height. He would not only have denied, but even declared absurd, that which, for Aristotle, was the most distinctive peculiarity of his own teaching: ἀλλ᾽ ὁ μὲν Σωκράτης τὰ καθόλου οὐ χωριστὰ ἐποίει. . . οἱ δ᾽ ἐχώρισαν (Metaph., M. 4, 1078 Ὁ, 30—with several other passages to the same effect). In reality, χωρίς is to be taken with αὑτῆς, just as in the passage of the Parmenrdes, which treats of the same problem (the participation of things in the ideas : καὶ οὐδέν τι μᾶλλον αὐτὴ αὑτῆς χωρίς
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 355
ἐστιν (131 B). That which is really pronounced impossible here is the self-renunciation of the idea, which can no more become absolutely and entirely bare of itself than it can be taken up into the infinite manifold of particular things, and at the same time maintain its inde- pendent existence. More accurately, its etry into the particular things is incredible, its absorption into them the greatest of impossi- bilities. Just as untenable, though free from the above error of inter- pretation, is the assertion of Ritter (Plazo’s Laws, Commentary, p. 355, seg.) that “in all the extensive works of Plato,” which we have ground to believe he wrote in his old age, in the “ Sophzst, Statesman, Philebus, Time@us, as also in the Laws .. . a ‘doctrine of ideas,’ similar to the one presented to us in Zeller’s exposition, is nowhere to be discovered,” with the single exception that in the Sofhzst, 264 B, seg., “the con- ception of motionless and incorporeal ideas, which have nothing in common with the variable things of the phenomenal world, which are inaccessible to all perception by the senses, and which can only be apprehended by the reason, is radically rejected.”
Page 173 (Bottom). ‘‘Plato’s emancipation from the bonds of Eleaticism.” The process to which I refer in these terms has been fully and adequately explained by Campbell, in his Introduction to the Sophist, lix., seq.
The views here advocated on the transformation of the doctrine of ideas—views which have been defended in a special manner by Bonitz (Platonische Studien, ed. 3, p. 152, seg.)—are open to a plausible objec- tion. In the Republic, which we regard as earlier in date than the Sophist, one idea, that of the Good, is already endowed with activity (Campbell alludes to this, Republic, ii. p. 42), and is indeed spoken of as the highest active principle (cf. p. 481, seg.). How, then, it may be asked, is it possible to say that this change in the theory of the ideas is not made till the Sophzst? We answer: It was at this one supreme point that Plato first broke through the limits of his original doctrine. He may not at first have fully realized all the consequences of the innovation ; afterwards, the involuntary beginning may have carried him further in the same direction, and the desire for con- sistency and inner coherence may have united with the other factors we have named to produce this transformation. From the revision of the doctrine of ideas there follow very naturally the other changes which we meet further on—the abandonment of ideas of relations and of artificial products, likewise the abandonment of the theory of “participation ” (of the μετέχειν). Cf. note to p. 247.
Otto Apelt has treated this point in a widely different manner (Beitrage zur Geschichte der griech. Philosophie, p. 67, seg., and In- troduction to the reissue, under his supervision, of Stallbaum’s edition, pp. 27-32). Here I can deal with his views only in summary fashion. We welcome the information, which he gives us, that the κοινωνία τῶν γενῶν is not an absolute innovation in the Soffzst. It has already
256 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
had its prelude in Phedrus, 265 1), seg., and in Repudlic, v. 476 A. But we fail to see the slightest force in Apelt’s chief argument (Be7z- trage, p. 84): “Substances can only be either bodies or spiritual essences ; Ζῇ then, the ideas are substances, there is nothing else left for them than to be spiritual essences ;” from which the further inference is drawn that the ideas always were for Plato what they were for him in the Sofhzst. There is here a no doubt unintentional ambiguity. A substance may be conceived as incorporeal and as imperceptible by the senses, without being for that reason regarded as spiritual in the sense of possessing consciousness. That the παντελῶς ὄν is a σεμνὸν καὶ ἅγιον, νοῦν οὐκ €xov—this is an assumption that Plato rejects in Sophist, 249 A; but that it is an absurd, self-contradictory hypothesis, he does not suggest by as much asa single word. Just as little—I might almost have said still less—is this his view of the assertion that those substances must be denied life and movement. And how was he to attribute consciousness, life, or motion to the archetypes of tables and beds which he mentions in the Republic (cf. p. 103), to negative concepts, or to the concepts of relations? Apelt’s position, that the doctrine of ideas receives no modification in the Sophist, is, in my opinion, entirely destitute of foundation.
Page 175 (Top). “Plato now affirms...” The quotation is from Sofhist, 259 D-E. Bonitz seems to me to be mistaken in so far as he contends that the positive solutions contained in the dialogue derive all their value and significance from the fact that “for Plato every logical relation, precisely as such, has the force of objective reality” (of. czt., p. 196). He misses the point that Plato here addresses himself to the old ἀπορίαι, which had gained currency and influence independently of the doctrine of ideas, and that he comes as near a final solution of them as was possible, subject to the presuppositions which governed his own and his contemporaries’ thought.
Page 176 (Middle). ‘‘The Parmenides:” 129 Ὁ, This passage sheds new light on the purpose of the Euthydemus. One is inclined to conjecture that when Plato wrote this dialogue he was already fully aware that no small number of puzzles and pitfalls owe their existence to the absolute use of purely relative terms, to the tendency (Campbell, Introduction to the Soffhzst, p. 60) “ to view every subject in the light of abstract alternatives, to apply the language of logic immediately to the sensible world.” As I am on the subject of anticipations, I may also remark here that the recognition and explanation of the μὴ ὄν, as found in the Soffist, had already been prepared for in 7hegtetus, 189 B, I mean in the passage where the ψευδῆ δοξάζειν is reduced to an ἀλλοδοξεῖν, though it is true that Plato does not here rest satisfied with the explanation.
Page 177 (Top). “A comic fragment:” namely, of Epicrates (ii. 287, seg., Kock). It was Usener who first drew attention to this
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 357
fragment, which is of considerable length and very valuable. Its full importance is only perceived when it is used to illustrate Plato’s late period. Unfortunately, it cannot be dated with any accuracy, and it is not worth the trouble to discuss fully the unauthoritative chronological statements which have been made on the /floruzt of this poet (in Meineke, Com. Grec. Fragm., 1. 414, and in Bergk, Rhezz. Mus., 34, 329). Only so much may be said that the appearance of Speusippus and Menedemus (of Pyrrha) as Plato’s assistants points to an epoch very considerably removed from the beginnings of the Academy. (Below) “ For the author of the Statesman :” 262 D-E; see also Rarmenides, 130 C. Very characteristic of the tendency here in question is the passage, Sophist, 227 B, where the general’s art and the art of louse-catching are coupled as coming under the common concept of the hunter’s art, and the natural objection drawn from their difference in dignity expressly overridden. Here, too, belongs the dictum of the Statesman, 272 C, that from anything and everything which Nature produces something is to be learnt. Cf. Campbell’s Essays, i. ὃ 30 (Republic, ii. 41).
Page 178 (Middle). The quotations are from Sofhzst, 254 Ὁ and 251 ἘΠ:
Page 179 (Top). Cf. J.C. Ετ. Zéllner, Uber die Natur der Kometen, ed. 2 (Leipzig, 1872), p. 163, seg. (§ 4) I find it hard to understand how any one can doubt that the S¢a/esmman “ forms the bridge from the Republic to the Laws,” as Rohde puts it (K7letne Schriften, i. 275). The criteria of matter are in accord with those of language. My conjecture, that Plato’s second Sicilian residence is to be placed between the 7heezetus on the one side, and the Sophzst and States- man on the other, has already been expressed in the text, pp. 144 and 158. Good grounds for assuming an interval between the Sopfzs¢ and the Statesman are given by Rohde (of. cz¢., p. 262, note 1).
Page 180 (Top). “ Excursus on the... nature of examples:” Statesman, 278 C ; “investigation of the idea of measure :” 283 E, seg. ; “cult of method:” 286 D : τὴν μέθοδον αὐτὴν τιμᾶν Tod κατ᾽ εἴδη δυνατὸν εἶναι διαιρεῖν. (Below) On the Cynic identification of the king with the shepherd, cf. note to Vol. II.p.161. It is more important to point out (with Hirzel, Hermes, vill. 127, seg.) that this is another instance of self- correction on Plato’s part. Indeed, there are two instances. In the Republic, the ruler had been compared with the shepherd (ili. 416 A, seg., and iv. 440 D), and with the queen-bee (vii. 520 B). The first comparison is revoked by Statesman, 267 C, seg., the second by 201 Ε΄.
Page 181 (Middle). ‘Casually as this remark seems to be dropped ...:” with Statesman, 283 D, compare Phedo, 96 1), seg., and 102 B,; “γι; Repubitc, 523 Ey 52a. A525 ° A, seg. The case its somewhat different with TZheefetus, 154 C (see note to p. 37). (Bottom) ‘ Means of enjoyment : ἢ elsewhere in Plato, as in Aristotle,
VOR. EL. 2B
358 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
μιμητική is the generic idea to which the various fine arts are subordinated ; here (288 C) παίγνιον, that is, sport or play, appears as the higher unity, which comprehends under itself painting, music, decoration and adornment (κόσμος) of all kinds. Campbell rightly says in his commentary, “ We have here the larger kind of which μιμητική 15 a part.”
Page 184 (Top). Demades. The quotation is from Oradores Attict, 11: 315. DB.
Page 185. ‘Not to take words too seriously.” Plato’s words are: τὸ μὴ σπουδάζειν ἐπὶ τοῖς ὀνόμασιν, 261 E; and μετατιθέμενα δ᾽ εἰς τὰς τῶν πραγμάτων μακρὰς καὶ μὴ ῥᾳδίους συλλαβάς. In the first passage the allusion to Antisthenes is made unmistakable by the immediately following words: πλουσιώτερος εἰς τὸ γῆρας ἀναφανήσει φρονήσεως, Compared with Sophist, 251 C, where the πενία τῆς περὶ φρόνησιν κτήσεως which belongs to πρεσβυτέροις ἀνθρώποις is spoken of with direct reference to a doctrine of Antisthenes. It is certain, too, that Antisthenes is aimed at in 306A. With my final remark, cf. Jowett, The Dialogues of Plato, iii. 568: “ But nowhere has the spirit of modern inductive philosophy been more happily described.”
Book V.—CHAPTER XVIII.
The genuineness of the P&zlebus, which some scholars have disputed, is sufficiently guaranteed by the allusions of Aristotle, particularly Eth. Wec., K. 2, 1172 Ὁ, 28, compared with PAz/ebus, 20 B and 61 B. Or where else are we to suppose that Plato expressed the opinions there attributed to him by Aristotle? (Cf. Ueberweg, Untersuchungen, 148, seg.; and Bonitz, /udex Aristotelicus, sub voc. Πλάτων.) The chronological position of the dialogue between the Statesman and the 7zmeus seems to me perfectly well established ; compare Campbell, Essays (Republic, ii. 46, seg.), and Rohde, K/ezne Schriften, i. 262. Ueberweg, too, places the PAz/ebus near the Sophist and Statesman (Untersuchungen, 207, seg., and 267). The “ pecu- liarity of style ” noted in the text is one which I have since treated more fully in Platonische Aufsatze, iii. It is only the great and well-earned authority of Zeller that induces me to combat shortly the opinion which he tenaciously holds, that the PAz/ebus preceded the Republic. All that has been learnt in the last few decades about the develop- ment of Plato’s language and style speaks against that view. No men- tion has so far been made of the arguments, tending in the same direction, of Hirzel (Der Dialog, i.251) and Ivo Bruns (Das Literarische Portrat, etc., p.272). Zeller’s proof rests on the relation of the discus- sions in Republic, vi. 505-509 and ix. 581-587 to the kindred matter in the Phzlebus. The question is one of very great interest from the point of view of method. If an author treats the same problem twice in
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 359
substantially the same manner, except that his exposition is more compressed in the one instance and more expanded in the other, two explanations are possible. The author may have intended to clear the way for the longer and fuller discussion of his subject by the shorter one, or the latter may follow the former as a kind of condensed extract. Which of these hypotheses is the correct one we must learn from the careful and nicely balanced examination of each particular case. We have already come across examples of the second type (cf. Vol. 11. p- 393). On the other hand, the short excursus on the idea of measure contained in the Sfafesman cannot, in my opinion, be regarded as a résumé of the comprehensive investigation of the same subject in the Philebus (Siebeck expresses the same view, but less decidedly, in Untersuchungen zur Philosophie der Griechen, ed. 2, p. 118). Zeller’s positive assertions (ed. 4, ii. I, p. 548) do not, as I think, bear close examination. He names a number of passages in the Phzlebus, and asks why, if all these were backward references to the Republic, there was any need for Plato to write the PAzlebus at all. Here, at all events, a distinction is necessary. The fundamental problem of the Philebus is mentioned in Repudlic, vi. 505 B, in a few words: ἀλλὰ μὴν καὶ τόδε γε οἶσθα, ὅτι τοῖς μὲν πολλοῖς ἡδονὴ δοκεῖ εἶναι τὸ ἀγαθόν, τοῖς δὲ κομψοτέροις φρόνησις. This brevity proves, in my opinion, merely that at the time when Plato wrote this part of the Republic, he was able to assume his readers acquainted with the teaching of Euclides, who, according to Diog. Laert., ii. 106, identified τὸ ἀγαθόν with φρόνησις, likewise with the Deity and with νοῦς. Why we are to suppose a backward reference here to PAz/ebus, 11 B-E, etc., I cannot imagine. In point of logic and depth the advantage is certainly with the Philebus, while in the Republic (τος B-C) Plato rests content with objections against the two doctrines drawn from very near the surface. The champions of φρόνησις are said to revolve in a circle because they cannot avoid defining this notion more exactly as φρόνησις τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ; and the advocates of ἡδονή are taxed with inconsistency because they are unable to deny the existence of “bad” ἡδοναί as well as good. It is true that the passages of the ninth book, 583 B, sez., which Zeller matches with parallel passages in the PAz/edus, contain a discussion on the various kinds of pleasure marked by great subtlety —a subtlety which is only exceeded by the Phz/edus itself. The chief difference is that the exposition in the PAz/edus is completer and more intricate than that in the Republic. I am entirely of the opinion of Campbell, who pronounces the hypothesis demanded by the whole character of the two works perfectly legitimate, namely, “that Plato had arrived at this general conception of the relative worth of Pleasure, Thought, and the Good, before giving to it the full and complex expressions which the PAz/edus contains” (of. cit., p. 23). Page 187 (Top). “Abandonment of dichotomy :” S7¢atesman, 287 C, and Phzlebus, τό D. Warning against the overleaping of
260 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
mediate notions: Phzlebus,17 A (τὰ δὲ μέσα αὐτοὺς ἐκφεύγει). Dialectic the chief instrument of all discoveries : 16 C.
Page 188 (Bottom). Philolaus: cf. the beginning (which has been preserved) of his work Περὶ Φύσεως. The fragment is contained in Diog. Laert., viii. 85, and has been critically treated by Reiske, more recently by Diels, Hermes, 24, 321 (see also his Parmenides, p. 66). Itis perhaps best written as follows: Φύσις ἃ τῶ κόσμω ἁρμόχθη ἐξ ἀπείρων τε kal περαινόντων, kal ὅλος κόσμος καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτῷ πάντα.
Page 189 (Middle). ‘‘ King of the heavens and the earth:” see Philebus, 28 C. The polemic against naturalism, 28 C-29 A; Sophist, 246 A and 247 B; Laws, x. 891 C, seg.
Page 190 (Middle). On the opposition between real and merely apparent pleasure (PAzledus, 51 A, seg.), Grote has written brilliantly and in a manner highly characteristic of his whole mode of thought (Plato, iii. 604, seg.).
Page 191 (Top). Compare Philebus, 55 B, with Gorgzas, 499 B, discussed pp. 350, 351 of the second volume. (Middle) There is considerable conflict of opinions as to who these ‘enemies of Philebus” (44 B) are. The literature bearing on the subject is catalogued by R. G. Bury, The Phzlebus of Plato, Cambridge, 1897, Ρ. 95, seg. The hypothesis, that Antisthenes is referred to, seems to me entirely inadmissible. He and his adherents could not possibly have been described as δεινοὶ τὰ περὶ φύσιν. Even a Zeller, in order to maintain this hypothesis, is obliged to adopt the violent interpretation that what is here meant is the φύσις of ἡδονή (ed. 4, 11. 309, note: “.. . thus he might very well, in the present connexion, be termed δεινὸς τὰ sept iow”). Equally illegitimate, as I think, is the assumption that those ‘“‘allies” whom Plato follows “like prophets” (44 C, D) are Democritus and his adherents (Hirzel, Untersuchungen zu Cicero's philosophischen Schriften, i. 141, seg., and Natorp, Archiv, iii. 521). The three features mentioned in Phzlebus, 44 B-E: (1) the strongly emphasized δυσχέρειαν, Or repugnance for pleasure, that is, ascetic or nearly ascetic sentiments; (2) eminent achievements in natural science ; (3) friendly relations to Plato;—these three, as Grote recognizes (0. cét., 609, seg.), seem to apply, in their entirety, only to Pythagoreans.
Page 192 (Top). On Eudoxus as a Hedonist we only possess the condensed notices contained in two passages of the Vicomachean Ethics (see note to Vol. II. p. 218). Usener’s assertion that it was his theory of pleasure and not that of Aristippus that furnished Plato’s Phzlebus with an “occasion and subject” (Organisation der wissensch. Arbeit, p. 16), seems hardly capable of being proved. Usener finds it striking that the PAz/ebus should contain words which remind of the καταστη- ματικαὶ ἡδοναί of Epicurus (Diog. Laert., x. 136), although states of pleasure were allowed no space in the system of at least the older Cyrenaics (Diog. Laert., 11, 87-90). Such must be his meaning in
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 361
referring to the fact that “‘ideas emerge in the PAz/ebus which other- wise do not occur before Epicurus.” But the allusion supposed to be contained in PAzlebus, 42 1), is merely apparent. The entrance upon a state is not itself a state, but a process. For an example of the “return to the normal state” there spoken of, we may take the effect of food on the hungry or of drink on the thirsty. The resulting pleasure is momentary, and has nothing in the world to do with the permanent pleasures or pleasurable states of Epicurus (see Diog. Laert., ii. 87-90). We observe, too, that this reference is put in the mouth, not of Protarchus, but of Socrates, who speaks of widely held opinions (εἴρηταί που πολλάκι5). There is thus no justification for the hypothesis that it is the voice of Eudoxus that speaks to us here, and that we ought therefore to see in him, so far as this point is concerned, a precursor of Epicurus. But, even supposing this view correct, how are we to infer from it that Plato contented himself with making only one of the two contemporary champions of Hedonism the target of his dolemic? Both thinkers based their common doctrine on the same fundamental phenomena of animal life ; of the two, Aristippus was in any case the more influential. The severity of Plato’s tone suggests, moreover, that he is striking at Aristippus, on whom he casts else- where—at the beginning of the PA@do—a by no means friendly side-glance. I leave it open whether the somewhat coarse invective of the final words (οἱ πάντες βόες τε καὶ ἵπποι) are Or are not intended to suggest Aristippus’ name. Dimmler’s arguments on the subject, in Akademtka, p. 167, need not detain us. The careless haste with which he treats it is shown even by an external indication, his repetition of an error of the pen or press which appears in Usener’s pages.
Page 194 (Middle). On the conception of exact science, compare Philebus, 55 E, with Luthyphro, 7 B, seg., and Republic, x. 602 D. “ Measure, weight, and number,” which are joined by Plato in these passages, are similarly connected by the author of the work Ox Ancient Medicine, ix. (i. 588, Littré), and again by the author of the work Ox Diet, ch. 2 (vi. 470, L.). Sophocles, -ragm., 399 N : Σταθμῶν ἀριθμῶν καὶ μέτρων εὑρήματα. Aischylus, Prometheus, 461: Καὶ μὴν ἀριθμόν, ἔξοχον σοφισμάτων. (Bottom) The wide interval between the PAzledus and the Gorgias is shown by 55 E, where the καταμελετᾶν ἐμπειρίᾳ καί τινι τριβῇ is placed second only to strictest and most exact procedure, while in Gorgias, 463 B, the arts of cookery and dress, etc., are com- prehended under this very notion of ἐμπειρία καὶ τριβή, and opposed te τέχνη in general. A similar contempt is shown in 501 A, and much the same again in Phedrus,270 B. In his passionate denunciation of lawyer-like rhetoric, the aged author of the last books of the Laws (xi. 938 A) returns to the modes of thought and speech which had distinguished the work of his youth.
Page 196 (par. 2). In my appreciation of the scale of goods, I
262 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
gratefully acknowledge my indebtedness to Apelt, Archiv, ix. p. 20, se¢g., an essay which contains much other valuable matter ; e.g. what is said (p. 17) on the difference between “the good” in the Philebus and the “idea of the good” in the Repudlic.
Page 197 (Bottom). ‘‘ Because otherwise no one of us would even know his way home:” PAz/., 62 B.
Page 198 (end of par. 1). Cf.65 A. A comparison of 64 E and 6; Ὁ brings to light a very remarkable argument in a circle. “Truth? was made an ingredient in the mixture. With what justification? Apparently only because the “true” pleasures (falsely so called, by the way) occur in it, and because the ἐπιστῆμαι likewise participate in truth. But the latter is only a property, either of the ἡδοναί or the ἐπιστῆμαι. Here it is hypostasized. It is next said that νοῦς is either completely or almost completely identical with truth— a statement in which subjective knowledge and the object of knowledge are strangely confused. The inference is then drawn that φρόνησις has a much larger share in the mixture than ἡδονή, that is, is in a much higher degree a constituent element of the good. (Middle) “ Pleasure of the moral man ...:” 12 D: ἥδεσθαι δὲ καὶ τὸν σωφρονοῦντα αὐτῷ τῷ σωφρονεῖν. .. ἥδεσθαι δ᾽ αὐτὸν φρονοῦντα αὐτῷ τῷ φρονεῖν.
In conclusion, it is fitting to remark that Schleiermacher’s Intro- duction not only contains many thoughts of great delicacy, as all his introductions do, but also is by no means blind to logical weaknesses. If, in spite of such defects, the closing portion of the dialogue holds the modern reader spell-bound, the reason of this, apart from the charm of style, is chiefly the following. The Hedonists appear as cold calculators, as representatives of a refined selfishness, a temperate sensuality ; Plato is all fervour and enthusiasm. Now, our conception of the character of the older Hedonists, of whose writings hardly a fragment has reached us, rests on no solid foundation. But it may be taken for granted that a researcher of the calibre of Eudoxus cannot have been lacking in enthusiasm. Nor are we entirely thrown back on inferences. Epicurus, too, was a Hedonist in ethics, that is, he no less than Aristippus and Eudoxus, founded ethics on the striving after pleasure which is a root-phenomenon of all life. But who would affirm that his real character, or that of his disciple Lucretius, bore any correspondence to the popular conception of him? Epicurus, at all events, was no “epicure” |
ΒΟΟΚ V.—CHAPTER XIX.
Page 200 (Top). That a long interval lies between the completion of the Republic and the composition of the 7zm@us is proved, in the first place, by the criteria of style and language. There is further the trustworthy information of Crantor, who, moreover, was “the first commentator on Plato” (in Proclus’ commentary on the 77zmc@us,
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 363
p- 24 E, quoted on p. 201 of this volume), of which the text is: σκώπτεσθαι μέν φησιν αὐτὸν ὑπὸ τῶν τότε ws οὐκ αὐτὸν ὄντα τῆς Πολιτείας εὑρετὴν ἀλλὰ μεταγράψαντα τὰ Αἰγυπτίων" τὸν δὲ τοσοῦτον ποιήσασθαι τῶν σκωπτόντων λόγον, ὥστ᾽ ἐπ’ Αἰγυπτίους ἀναπέμψαι τὴν περὶ ᾿Αθηναίων καὶ ᾿Ατλαντίνων ταύτην ἱστορίαν ὧς τῶν ᾿Αθηναίων κατὰ ταύτην (ησάντων ποτὲ τὴν πολιτείαν.
Page 201 (Top). Hermocrates: cf. Cvritias, 108 A-B; also Timeus, 20 A. The opinion opposed to ours, that the recapitulation at the opening of the Zzmeus refers to an earlier sketch of the Republic, is principally represented by Rohde, Psyche, ii. 266, notes (2nd ed.), and von Arnim, De Retpublice Platonis Compositione ex Tima@o Illustranda (Rostock Winter Programme, 1898). I have tried to show on p. 203 that this hypothesis is unnecessary. The Republic as it lies before us decidedly does not give the impression of being a véchaufgfé of a previous work. If it were, many harsh tran- sitions would have been smoothed over, many violences in the structure softened. Further, it is not very probable that the same person whom Plato thought the fittest mouthpiece of his cosmological speculations, also possessed the qualifications to make a character in his principal work of social polity. Finally and principally, how can it be explained that the 7z#@us, which shows all the signs of Plato’s late period, should be appended by its author to a comparatively early work, which must be older than even the earliest books of our Republic?
Page 202. “Aristotle,in his Constitution of the Athentans :” ᾿Αθην. MloAit., C. 13 (Kenyon, p. 43, 3rd ed.), in essentials agreeing with Crittas, p. 110 B, except that the nobility whom Aristotle calls εὐπατρίδαι are described by Plato, in imitation of Egypt, as the warrior caste (τὸ μάχιμον).
Page 203 (Top). Cf. τας, 110 B. (Bottom) “ Τὸ 566 the figures
- In active motion : cf. 7zma@us, 19 B: εἰς ἐπιθυμίαν ἀφίκοιτο θεάσασθαι κινούμενα.
Page 205. “Α highly gifted French novelist :” cf. Zola, Le Roman Expérimental, p. 7: “Puis Pexpérimentateur parait et institue l’ex- périence, je veux dire fazt mouvoir les personnages” (so Plato, in the passage quoted), “dans une histoire particuli¢re, pour y montrer que la succession des faits y sera telle,” etc. Cf. also § 8, p. 12, seg., and p. 30: “ Puisque la médecine qui était un art, devient une science, pourquoi la littérature elle-méme ne deviendrait-elle pas une science, grace ἃ la méthode expérimentale?” Or p. 17, “ Donc, les romanciers naturalistes sont bien en effet des moralistes expérimentateurs.” Much more reasonable is p. 48, where observation and analysis appear as the principal tools of the “ romancier expérimentateur,”
Page 206 (Middle). Cf. Zzmeus, 24 E-25 D; and Cretas, 113 B seg. Rohde calls the whole narrative of Atlantis “the freest fiction, attached, at the utmost, to some cosmological and geographical
264 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
theories” (Griechischer Roman, 213, 2nd ed.). Further, in note 2, “When Plato (Z7zmeus, 25 D) makes the destruction of Atlantis the cause of the ocean’s becoming muddy and shallow, and therefore inaccessible, at least the fact thus explained stood firm in his belief, as in the belief of all antiquity,” with a reference to Miillenhoff, Deutsche Altertumskunde, i. 78 and 420. To me the connexion with a popular legend continues to seem more probable. People saw, or thought they saw, τοὺς ᾿Αθηναίους. .. νικῶντας τὸν πρὸς ᾿Ατλαντίνους πόλεμον, ON the πέπλος of Athene (Scholia on the opening of the Republic). Christ’s conjecture also (Platonische Studien, 55, seq.), that the Atlantic legend had an historical background in the invasion of the Northern peoples, may be not entirely devoid of foundation. Moreover, it remains obscure why Plato calls Atlantis an island, although it is said to have been larger than Asia and Libya put together. Compare on this and kindred questions, H. Berger, Gesch. der wissensch. Erdkunde der Griechen, ii.125,also 141. The boldness with which Plato puts the prehistoric Athenians at the head of mankind borders on the incredible. Cf. Critias, 112 E, ἐπὶ πᾶσαν Εὐρώπην καὶ ᾿Ασίαν. . . ἐλλόγιμοί τε ἦσαν καὶ ὀνομαστότατοι πάντων τῶν τότε. (Below) “ Always been regarded as enigmatic.” Differences of opinion on the explanation of the 7z#z@us, as early as the immediate pupils of Plato, such as Xenocrates and Speusippus, are attested, both directly and indirectly, by Plutarch, in his eminently remarkable work, which is unique in the ancient treatment of philosophical history : “On the creation of the soul in the Z7z:@us” (περὶ τῆς ἐν Τιμαίῳ ψυχογονία----- Moralia, 1238-60, ed. Diibner, separate edition by Berthold Miller, Breslau, 1873). Besides the commentary of Crantor, named above (p. 201), there were others by the Peripatetics Eudorus and Adrastus, the Stoic Poseidonius, etc. There are extant a fragment of Galen’s commentary in the original, edited by Daremberg (Paris, 1848); the commentary and the Latin translation of the Neo-Platonist Chalcidius, most recently edited by Wrobel (Leipzig, 1876) ; and that of Proclus, edited by Schneider (Breslau, 1846). (Bottom) “A labour of secondary importance :” Z7ma@us, 59 C-D.
Page 207 (Middle). ‘‘Proscribed as an impiety:” Zzmceus, 68 D : εἰ δέ τις τούτων ἔργῳ σκοπούμενος βάσανον λαμβάνοι, τὸ τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης καὶ θείας φύσεως, ἢγνοηκὼς ἂν εἴη διάφορον. What is here rejected is the attempt at what we call chemical synthesis and analysis. (Below) “But the bond,” etc. I cannot find the same thoughts except in Alberti, Uber Geist und Ordnung der platonischen Schriften (Leipzig, 1864), p. 17.
Page 208 (Top). This doctrine of a descending scale or degene- ration in 77zmc@us, 41 D, seg. (Bottom) ‘‘As has been rightly observed:” cf. Grote, P/atvo, 111. 251.
Page 209 (Top). ‘‘Greater or less degree of plausibility:” εἰκότες λόγοι, εἰκότες μῦθοι, are Names given to his expositions by the author of
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 365
the Zimeus, in 29 B-D, 48 D-E, 57 D,59 C. (Par. 3) The act of creation. Perhaps it is advisable on this occasion to present to the reader the stock of reasons on both sides which have determined our judgment. To take the creative act for a mere figure was a course that already commended itself to ancient interpreters from Xenocrates onward, with a view to escaping the Aristotelian objections (cf. Ueberweg, Rhein. Mus., 1x. 78, seg.). Latest of all, R. Wahle (Archiv, xiv. 145, seg.), following in the wake of, many others, has entered on a more cogent method of proof for the theory that “ the Demiurge is no ideal, metaphysical potency.” For “all kinds of being and becoming, of body and spirit, have already been used by Plato in the construction of his world and its souls, so that nothing is left for the Demiurge. The principle of the permanent, change, mixtures, everything, has been distributed ; what besides could the nature of the Demiurge be? Nothing... . Only in a figure could it be, at the utmost, the personifi- cation of power, of the effect of the self-existent forms on the principle that invests itself with them.” Plausible as all this sounds, yet hesi- tation is suggested, first of all, by the parallels in the Soffzst and Statesman,to which our exposition points. The figurative presentations, the “accommodation,” of which Wahle speaks (of. cz¢., p. 150), must in any case have grown out of the purposes which prevail in the 7zmeus. But now, compare expressions on the Demiurge in 7zmeus, 28 C, τὸν μὲν οὖν ποιητὴν καὶ πατέρα τοῦδε τοῦ παντός, OY 37 C, 6 γεννήσας πατήρ, with - Statesman, 269 D, παρὰ τοῦ γεννήσαντος μετείληφεν (that is, the γεννήσας of the οὐρανός and κόσμος, 270 A) παρὰ τοῦ δημιουργοῦ, or 273 B, τὴν τοῦ δημιουργοῦ καὶ πατρὸς. .. διδαχήν, and further with Sofhist, 265 C, μῶν ἄλλου τινὸς ἢ θεοῦ δημιουργοῦντος φήσομεν ὕστερον γίγνεσθαι πρότερον οὐκ ὄντα; The mistrust thus awakened—a mistrust which is always appropriate in the face of a purely deductive treatment of a question of history or interpretation—leads us to those considerations which we have presented on pp. 211, 212. If in all this there can be any suggestion of “accommodation,” it is accommodation to Plato’s own religious feeling, not to any popular opinions, which he opposes more freely and absolutely in the 7z@us (40 E, quoted on p. 213) than any- where else. It was simply the development of his own religious meta- physics that made it difficult for him to attach himself to the current mythical conceptions. The more intimately, we may venture to add, Plato occupied himself with the process of the world’s formation, the greater was the importance that the dynamical side of the supreme world-principle assumed in his eyes. This now becomes a genuinely moulding and producing being, and therefore more and more becomes furnished with will, and, so far, with personality. Such a progress, moreover, is probably visible as early as the tenth book of the Republic, in the passage where the Deity, in no uncertain words, 15 called the creator (Demiurge), as of all other things, so of the ideas (596 B-C). This want of complete clearness is also noticed by
266 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
Theophrastus (quoted by Simplicius, Jz Phys., p. 26, 11-13, Diels). While he distinguishes God from the Good in the Platonic doctrine, he yet unites them at the same time into one principle : δύο τὰς ἀρχὰς . . . τὸ μὲν ὑποκείμενον ws ὕλην (ὡς ὕλην ὑποκείμενον ?), ὃ προσαγορεύει πανδεχές, τὸ δὲ ὡς αἴτιον καὶ κινοῦν, ὃ προσάπτει τῇ τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ ἀγαθοῦ δυνάμει. (Middle) “Found expression in the PAzlebus:” 30 A. (Bottom) “As far as possible : καὶ κατὰ δύναμιν ὅτι κάλλιστα καὶ ἄριστα (Timeus, 42 E), and φλαῦρον δὲ μηδὲν εἶναι κατὰ δύναμιν (30 A).
Page 210 (Top). “The first great difficulty of interpretation.” The passage 38 B: χρόνος δ᾽ οὖν μετ᾽ οὐρανοῦ γέγονεν, and its relation to 10 A, οὐχ ἡσυχίαν ἄγων ἀλλὰ κινούμενον πλημμελῶς καὶ ἀτάκτως, present perhaps the greatest difficulty of all in the explanation of the 7zmceus. See Aristotle, De C/o, i. 10 (279, 280), and Simplicius on the passage (pp. 303, 304, Heiberg). Simplicius, 1 may remark, adduced Sfates- man, 273 B, but did not make the same use of it that I have done.
Page 211, § 4. The passages bearing on the problem of the primordial matter are: 7zmc@us, 49 A, 51 A, 52 B. Especial attention is due to the triad, emphasized so strongly in 52 A-D, of the ὄν (ze. the world of ideas), of χώρα (2.6. space), and of γένεσις (2.6. the sub- stratum of material processes) ; and with 52 A should be compared the exact parallels in 27 D-28 A. The emphatic denial of empty space occurs principally in the theory of respiration, which I have reproduced on p. 224. The apparent contradiction between this denial of κενόν and the διάκενα mentioned in several passages (58 B, 60 E, 61 A-B) is removed by Deichmann and his critic Diimmler in a perfectly legitimate manner. They point out that the διάκενα “ are not meant as true voids existing between the elementary particles ; the name is to be interpteted relatively to definite individual bodies ” (Deichmann, Das Problem des Raumes in der griechischen Philosophie, p. 65, and Diimmler, AZezne Schriften, i. 292). Diimmler continues, with perfect justice, “The element-forming triangles which constitute the elementary crystals do so by bounding full space, not empty space, and they cannot divide up the whole original mass.” This is fully decided by the passage 58 A-B in particular. The opinion of the most ancient interpreters has been retained not only by the two scholars just named, but by Bonitz, K. F. Hermann, Brandis, Ueberweg (Rhein. Mus.,ix. 59, seg.. where he gives references to the earlier literature), and Grote (P/ado, iii. 248). The most important modern commentator on the 7zmeus, Henri Martin, wavers on this point; compare his Etudes sur le Timée, ii. 180, with the page following. The opposite view, that Plato’s primordial matter is nothing else than space, originated with Bockh (KVetne Schriften, iii. 124, seg.), and has received the assent of Zeller (ed. 4, 11. 1, 727, seg.), and finally of Windelband (Plazo, pp. 89 and 106, seg.). Nothing decisive is to be extracted from Aristotle. His words in the Physics (A. 2, 209 Ὁ, 11): διὸ καὶ Πλάτων τὴν ὕλην καὶ τὴν χώραν TabTd φησιν εἶναι ἐν τῷ Τιμαίῳ, can
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 367
hardly, considering the context, mean anything else than that space and matter, according to Plato, coincide in their extension, in other words, that Plato knows nothing of space denuded of matter. (Bottom) “ A well-considered answer :” given by Ueberweg, (hezu. Mus., ix. 69.
Page 212 (Top). “ Fully in earnest.” Here, too, I must again refer to Ueberweg (of. czt., p. 76, note 40), who insists on the highly important but often neglected distinction between Plato’s mythical expositions and those which are meant seriously, though not presented as claiming absolute certainty. The word γέγονεν (sc. 6 κόσμος) is not even subject to this last limitation ; it is the answer, given in the most positive manner conceivable, to the question, πότερον ἦν ἀεὶ. .. ἢ γέγονεν. .« .« 3 (28 B). That Plato is fully in earnest about the creation of the world, has recently been acknowledged, though not without reserve, by R. Heinze (Xenocrates, Ὁ. 51), by Apelt (Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Philos., viii.), and long before these by Stumpf, whose treatise, Verhalinis des platonischen Gottes zur Idee des Guten, is only known to me at second hand. (Bottom) “To discover... :” Tim., 28 E.
Page 213 (Middle). ‘Eternal gods.” The ideas are called ἀΐδιοι θεοί in 37 C; the cosmos a εὐδαίμων θεός in 34 B. The might of “Necessity ’—here appeased and compliant—is specially mentioned in 56 C; together with the “erratic cause of motion,” it appears in 48 A. The last passage contains a significant phrase: The world was created ἐξ ἀνάγκης τε καὶ vod συστάσεως. The evil world-soul is spoken of in Laws, x. 896 E and 898 C. (Below) August Béckh, Kleine Schriften, 111. 130.
Page 214 (Middle). “In the 7heetetus:” 176 A (ὑπεναντίον γάρ τι τῷ ἀγαθῷ ἀεὶ εἶναι ἀνάγκη. I am here entirely in agreement with Ueberweg- Heinze, i. 174, 8th ed.
Page 215 (Top). Creation of the world-soul: 77zmcus, 36 E, seg. (Middle) “ Plato’s pupils :” cf. Aristotle, Physzcs, T. 4, 203 Δ; 15: Πλάτων δὲ δύο τὰ ἄπειρα, τὸ μέγα καὶ τὸ μικρόν. Similarly, Physics, A. 2, 209-210; also JZe/aph., A. 6, 988 a, 13: ὅτι αὕτη δυάς ἐστιν, τὸ μέγα καὶ τὸ μικρόν.
Page 216 (Middle). ‘‘Some of his followers :” especially Xeno- crates, who has been followed by many moderns. I have the more confidence in my interpretation from the agreement of R. Heinze (Xenocrates, p. 22, seg.), who explains the μικτὸν γένος of the Philedus in a similar manner, without any reference to the Zzmeus. In pissing, I may remark that I cannot understand why Heinze (af. cit. p. 21), as also Ueberweg and Heinze in several passages, make the Philebus follow the 7zmeus. 1 hope I have made sufficiently plain the close connexion of the PAz/ebus with the companion dialogues, Sophist and Statesman. Perhaps, as a last desperate shift, it might occur to some one to place all three dialogues later than the 77meus.
368 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
But this may easily be shown to be illegitimate. For the Phzlebus begins as a rearguard of the other two, and ends as an advance-guard of the Zzmeus. In it a kind of dynastic change is accomplished. The sceptre passes from dialectic to mathematics, from which it is not again wrested. (Par. 2) For this section, see in particular 41 D-E, 69 C, seg., 44 A-D, 39 C, 40 B.
Page 217, ὃ 5. The contemptuous expression is known to us from an addition by an unknown hand to Alexander’s commentary on the Metaphysics (A. 5, 985 4, 23), Anonym. Urbin., inBrandis’ Scholia in Aristotelem, p. 539 A, fin. : Ὁμοίως τούτοις καὶ Πλάτων, περὶ οὗ ἔλεγόν τινες ὡς κατεμαθηματικεύσατο τὴν φύσιν. On the thoughts expressed in what follows, cf. Alex. von Humboldt, Kosmos, i. 98: “The planetary system, considered with respect to its absolute magnitude and the relative position of the axes, . . . does not offer any greater degree of natural necessity [that is, in the sense of ‘intrinsic and causal connexion’] than the distribution of sea and land,... than the outline of the continents or the height of mountain-chains. No universal law governing these details is to be discovered either in the celestial spaces or in the inequalities of the earth’s crust. These are facts of nature, resulting from the conflict of many different forces working under unknown conditions.”
Page 218 (par. 2). The difficulties of the theory of the elements which is introduced in 31 B, and expounded in 53, seg., have been discussed with especial insight and impartiality by H. Martin, in Etudes sur le Timée, ii. 239, seg. The solution which he gives of the problem of proportion (i. 338) is approved by Béckh (Das kosmische System des Platon, p. 17); Grote (Plato, 111. 252) and Jowett (2714 Dialogues of Plato, ii. 512) reject it, hardly on good grounds. Plato’s statement is correct only if the numbers considered are powers of primes. He was, however, quite justified in making prime numbers— linear numbers, as the Greeks called them—the basis of his theory, since every number which is not prime, being the product of factors, as such expresses the measure of a surface or a solid. (Bottom) Philolaus : This Pythagorean of Crotona has been mentioned a good many times in the present work (see Vol. I. pp. 112, seg., 250, 285, 544; Vol. III. pp. 31, 43, 188, 209). The most important testimony for our present purpose is found in Sfobzeus, i. 10 (p. 18, 5, Wachs- muth): καὶ τὰ ἐν τᾷ σφαίρᾳ σώματα πέντε ἐντί. . . πῦρ, ὕδωρ καὶ ya καὶ ἀὴρ καὶ ὁ τὰς σφαίρας ὁλκὰς (?) πέμπτον. It will be well to begin by answering the doubts raised by Ueberweg-Heinze (i. 66, ed. 8): “The doctrine of the five regular solids must not be regarded as pre-Platonic, for Plato bears witness (Ref., vii. 528 B) that in his time no solid geometry was as yet in existence.” But this is to draw a much too detailed inference from a general statement. Plato might very well regret the absence of a system of solid geometry rivalling plane in depth and extent, and yet have such a rudimentary
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 369
acquaintance with the subject as is implied by his recognizing the existence of the five regular solids. We may observe that the com- plaint referred to recurs in Laws, vii. 819 D, seg. On the ground of doctrines ascribed to Philolaus, in the London papyrus (see note to Vol. I. p. 285), his chronological position has now been more exactly determined by Diels (in Hermes, 28, 417), who makes him a younger rather than an older contemporary of Socrates. He shows signs of dependence on Alcmzon, on Hippasus, and probably on Prodicus. The most important of his fragments, which at one time were regarded with much suspicion, are now acknowledged on good grounds as genuine—by Zeller (Hermes, 10, 178, seg.), by Rohde (Psyche, ii. 170, ed, 2), by Diels (Parmenides, p. 66). The fragment quoted in Vol. 1. p. 250 of the present work is supplied by Clemens, S¢vom., iii. 518, Potter. Béckh’s pioneer monograph has been already mentioned (Vol. 1. note to p. 112). The fragments may be found in Chaignet, Pythagore et la Philosophie Pythagorcienne, i, 226, seg., and in Mullach, Fragmenta Philos. Gr@c., il. 1, seq.
Page 219 (Top). “Admitted it again in his latest phase.” That Plato did so recognize the ether as a fifth element, may be inferred with great probability from the agreement of his pupils Speusippus, Xenocrates, and the author of the Zpznomis (cf. R. Heinze, Xenocrates, p. 68.). (Middle) “ The enigmatic question. ..:” see note to p. 211, § 4. (Below) Allusions to the theories of the atomists in 77m., 52 E (the winnowing-fan), 59 C (specific gravity). We may also note a reference to Anaximenes in 49 C, to Anaxagoras in 56 C. The double meaning of ἄπειρος is played on in 55 C; a somewhat similar passage is Philebus, 17 C. (Bottom) “The elements having been constructed: ” for this paragraph, cf. especially 33 B, seg.
Page 220 (Middle). Plato’s astronomical theories are set forth in kep., x. (the vision of Er) 616 B, seg. Timc@us, 38 B, seg., and Laws, vii. 821, seg. Besides these, we have the concluding portion of the Phedo, and the allusions in Phedrus, 246 E, seg. Epinomis, 982 A, seg., provides a supplement which can only be used with caution because of its doubtful origin. The chief passage bearing on the rudiment of the sphere-theory is 7z@us, 39 A. A lucid statement of that theory is given by Whewell, Hzstory of the Inductive Sciences, i. 113, seg. The works of Schiaparelli, cited in the note to Vol. I. p. 110, are of fundamental importance; they have since been supple- mented by an essay in the periodical Avene ὁ Roma,i. No.2. There is one point, however, on which I venture to differ from Schiaparelli and his numerous followers. That the sphere-theory was a mere mechanism of representation, and not an account of supposed facts, is a conjecture to which, as far as I can see, tradition lends no support whatever. The hoops or rings imagined by Plato were solid, not immaterial ; and the later champions of the theory believed in equally solid, if transparent spheres.
270 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
Page 221 (Middle). ‘Theophrastus: in Plutarch, Platonice Ques- tiones, viii. 1. 1, 3 (AZor., 1231, 37, Diibner), and Lzfe of Numa, ch. 11, 2 (Vite, 80,24, Déhner). Where Plato finally supposed the centre of the universe to be, is unfortunately not reported; it may be that his utterances on the subject were quite indefinite (“another and a better”). The second passage suggests the central fire ; it does not, however, demand this solution, but, more closely considered, is rather against than for it. This statement of Plutarch, and a passage in the Laws which we shall have to speak of shortly, have been wrongly interpreted as proving Plato a precursor of Copernicus; carried away by the reaction against this error, no less a person than Béckh (Das kosmische System des Platon, p. 146) as well as H. Martin (in his great work, Wémoire sur Vhistoire des Hypothéses Astronomiques, etc., Paris, 1881, p. 131) have gone the length of declaring the state- ment of Theophrastus to be worthless. To this I cannot agree, any more than could G. C. Lewis (Astronomy of the Ancients, p. 143). The statement remains obscure, but it is absolutely trustworthy. On Plato’s contempt in the Zaws for human concerns, see vii. 803 B in that work : Ἔστι δὴ τοίνυν τὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων πράγματα μεγάλης“ μὲν σπουδῆς οὐκ ἄξια. Shortly afterwards Plato calls man “a plaything of God” (repeated from i. 644 D). (Bottom). The quotation is from Newcomb, Popular Astronomy, Pp. 4.
Page 223 (Middle). In the Laws, vii. 821, seg., Plato refers enigmatically to a doctrine only lately made known to him, on the nature of which the interpreters differ. Schiaparelli, in J Precursoré dt Copernico, p. 20, believes, on grounds which appear to me con- vincing, that the expression can only be understood as referring to the earth’s rotation, and he quotes Zfzuom7s, 987 B. in support of his view. I follow his great authority in opposition to Bockh (Das kosmische System des Platon, p. 48, seg.) and Martin (A/émozre, etc., p. 85, seg.). Aristotle was probably acquainted with the earth’s rotation (cf. Vol. I. p. 119) ; and, considering that the works in question do not belong to Aristotle’s later writings, it is not at all incredible, a 27,207, that Plato also was acquainted with this discovery of the younger Pythagoreans at the time when he wrote the seventh book of the Laws. Another remarkable circumstance must be mentioned, which is that in De Cela, ii. 13, Aristotle interprets a passage of the 777@us (40 B) as teaching the rotation of the earth. It is now universally acknow- ledged that this interpretation is erroneous. (Grote’s attempted rehabilitation was unanimously rejected by the experts.) Now, Schiaparelli (p. 17, seg.) points out that this strange misunderstanding on the part of Aristotle becomes in acertain degree explicable if he had in his mind conversations or lectures of Plato in which the motionless state of the earth (really retained by him in the 77z@us) was given up. No tenable result has been obtained by the attempt to combine Plato’s allusion in the Zaws and the statement of Theophrastus referred to
NOTES AND ADDITIONS, ΔΙ
above. (Par. 2) Βδοκῃ (K7eine Schriften, iii. 135, seg.) treats of the musical phenomena of Plato’s heaven, and of the world-soul pervading it, with unsurpassed learning and an ingenuity which all acknowledge as triumphant. (§7) ‘ The doctrine of natural places,” no above and below, antipodeans: 77maus, 60 B-C, 62, 3.
Page 224 (Middle). Theory of respiration : 79 B-80 C. For what follows, compare 80 C. This whole section is illustrated by Plutarch, Questiones Platonice, vii. (Mor., 1229-1231, Diibner). (Bottom) Con- volutions of the intestines, etc.: 7z@eus,73 A. Purpose of nails: 76 D-E.
Page 225 (Bottom). Theory of disease: 82 A, seg. On mental diseases, 86 B, seg.
Page 226 (Middle). ‘‘ Connexion between mind and body:” a rudiment of these theories may be found in the Phedo, cf. p. 434.
Book V.—CHAPTER XX.
Any one desiring to make himself rapidly acquainted with the matter contained in the Zaws may be advised to use Constantin Ritter’s summary, Plato’s Gesetze, Darstellung des Inhalts, a volume which, apart from the copious index, only contains 126 pages. The commentary which has lately been published by the same author contains much that is excellent, but not seldom leaves the reader in the lurch. A commentary which should shed a uniform light on all parts of the work would be a difficult but a very welcome performance.
Page 227 (Below). “ Philippus of Opus :” see note to Vol. II. pp. 276 and 282. Also Prolegomena ad Philosophiam Platonis, ch. 24, in Hermann, vi. p.218. (Bottom) “ Within a year.” This is clear from the malicious allusion of Isocrates in his PAz/ippus (composed between April and July, 346 ; cf. Blass, Grzechische Beredsamikett, ii. 314, ed. 2). (See pp. 26 and 325 above.) These chronological facts have been noticed long ago.
Page 228 (Middle). ‘The truth may well be said .. .:” quoted from Laws, xii., 956 E. On what follows, cf. 111.701 C-D. (Par. 2) Cf. iv. 715 C, where the innovations spoken of are certainly less those of word-formation than of the employment of words; still, he could hardly speak of the latter without being reminded of the former. (Bottom) The remarkable self-complacency in vil. 811 D-E.
Page 229 (Middle). What is said about the cypresses rests on personal observation (see also Theophrastus, Hzst. Plant, 1. 2, 2; iii. 1, 6 ; iii. 2,65; iv. 1, 3). The cypress appears as a special gift of Crete to the gods in Hermippus (Fragm. Com. Gr@c., i. 243; Frg., 63, Kock).
Page 230 (Middle). Aristotle, Politics, B. 9, where there is an allusion to Laws, i. 630 D-E.
372 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
Pages 233-255. On the filiation of the theory of the division of powers, cf. Montesquieu, 2. 2712} des Lots, book xi. chap. 6, seg., especially chap. 11 ad fiz. : “ Les Grecs nimaginérent point la vraie distribution des trois pouvoirs dans le gouvernement d’un seul ; ils ne limaginérent que dans le gouvernement de plusieurs, et ils appelérent cette sorte de constitution polis.” There, too, is the reference to Aristotle’s Politics, namely, to A. 8, 1293 Ὁ, 33: ἔστι γὰε ἡ πολιτεία ὡς ἁπλῶς εἰπεῖν μῖξις ὀλιγαρχίας καὶ δημοκρατίας. In book xi. chap. 17, Mon- tesquieu speaks of the division of powers in the Roman republic, and refers to the sixth book of Polybius, that is, to the celebrated passage in which the mixed form of government is treated of fully and held up as an ideal. Now, Polybius, as a glance at vi. 11, §§ 11, 12, and at Laws, iv. 712 D, will show, quite obviously leans on Plato, though R. Scala ignores this relationship in his book on Polybius. On the canonic reputation which Montesquieu had for Hamilton and Madison, the chief creators and exponents of the North-American constitution, Mr. Bryce speaks in 716 American Commonwealth, p. 282, ed. 3.
Page 234 (Top). ‘“‘ Troy ... within the sphere of Assyrian in- fluence :” see note to Vol. I. p. 47.
Page 235 (par. 2). This objection was anticipated by Montesquieu himself, book xi. chap. 6, p. 269 A (Geuvres completes, Paris, 1835). It was worked out by Bentham, in his Book of Fallacies (ii. p. 545, ed. Bowring). It is equally unnecessary here to treat particularly of Montesquieu’s precursors, Locke and Buchanan, or of the criticism which Montesquieu’s theory has received in our own day. (Bottom) The consciousness of well-calculated and successful composition finds particularly strong expression at the close of the third book. If the parallel with the PAedrus had been observed, it would have forestalled many groundless judgments on the genesis of the Laws. The same artifice is employed in both passages in identical language—
Laws, ili. 702 B. Phedrus, 262 C-D. ἔοικε KATA τύχην τινὰ ἡμῖν TA τῶν καὶ μὴν κατὰ τύχην γέ τινα, ὡς
λόγων τούτων πάντων ὧν διεξήλθομεν ἔοικεν ἐῤῥηθήτην τὼ λόγω. γεγονέναι.
An equally convincing passage is that in which the “ truancy of the discourse,” the πλάνη τοῦ λόγου, is spoken of (682 E—683 A).
Page 236 (par. 2). I leave for another place (Platonische Aufsadtze, iii.) the controversy with the widely spread view that the work is quite destitute of any strict composition; that it was “put together” by Philippus, “with little skill, from a number of sketches ” (Windelband, P/atoz, p. 62), whether it was that Philippus added a great deal of his own, or confined himself to intertwining two sketches. The first of these theories is maintained by Ivo Bruns (Platon’s Gesetze, Weimar, 1880), the second by Theodor Bergk (Finf Abhandlungen, etc. (Leipzig, 1883), pp. 41-116). The objections
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. ye:
which are really present can be explained by the certainly tedious and wearying labour on the comprehensive work, whose discrepancies would have required a smoothing and harmonizing revision more than any other work of Plato. That the Zaws did not get this from their author is a well-attested and obvious fact. (Bottom) “A few instances of literary art: ” cf. Laws, iv. 712 1), and notes to pp. 233-235. I take the next example from x. 892 D-894 B, the one following from i. 645 A, the last from x. 906 C-D.
Page 238 (Top). “What dreadful news!” The paradoxical exclamation, Πάπαι, οἷον λέγεις, iv. 704 C. The second paradoxical term, vil. 789 A.
Page 239 (Bottom). “The Spartan practice :” proofs in Sch6mann- Lipsius, Griech. Altert., 1.27 (4th ed.).
Page 241. ‘‘ Excess of self-love.” In the words, ὃ λέγουσιν ὡς φίλος αὑτῷ πᾶς ἄνθρωπος (v. 731 E), I think I recognize an allusion to sayings of poets like Euripides, Medea, 86, ‘Os πᾶς τις αὑτὸν τοῦ πέλας μᾶλλον φιλεῖ: Fragm. 460, Φιλῶν μάλιστ᾽ ἐμαυτὸν οὐκ αἰσχύνομαι: or Sophocles, Gd. Col. 309, Tis yap ἐσθ᾽ ὃς οὐχ αὑτῷ φίλος; Above I have taken over a sentence from vi. 777 D, probably the most valuable moral utterance of Plato, and incorporated it in reproducing the procemium of v.—the words, διάδηλος yap ὃ φύσει καὶ μὴ πλαστῶς σέβων τὴν δίκην, μισῶν δὲ ὄντως τὸ ἄδικον ἐν τούτοις τῶν ἀνθρώπων, ἐν οἷς αὐτῷ ῥάδιον ἀδικεῖν, (Bottom) ‘‘ Dowries are forbidden :” probably after the ancient Spartan model ; cf. Dareste, La science du droit en Gréce (Paris, 1893), p. 61.
Page 242 (Middle). ‘“‘ Adopted by Charondas :” Theophrastus, in Stobeus Floril., 44.22 ad fin., ἢ ὥσπερ Χαρώνδας καὶ Πλάτων; (Laws, xi. οἵ D). Οὗτοι γὰρ παραχρῆμα κελεύουσι διδόναι καὶ λαμβάνειν" ἐὰν δέ τις πιστεύσῃ. μὴ εἶναι δίκην, αὐτὸν γὰρ αἴτιον εἶναι τῆς ἀδικίας.
Page 243 (Middle). “Under the Solonic constitution:” cf. Aristotle, Politics, B. 12, 1724 a, 16, seg., ἐπεὶ Σόλων ye ἔοικε τὴν ἀναγκαιοτάτην ἀποδιδόναι τῷ δήμῳ δύναμιν, τὸ τὰς ἀρχὰς αἱρεῖσθαι καὶ εὐθύνει». What is said of Dracon just below rests on the newly discovered ᾿Αθηναίων Πολιτεία, ch. 4.
Page 244. ‘The compulsory vote.” I take the remark on com- pulsory voting from Bryce, American Commonwealth, ii. 150 (3rd ed.). On the additions to the Belgian constitution, which include com- pulsory voting, cf. H. Triepel, Wahlrecht und Wahlpflicht (Dresden, 1900), p. 20, seg. In regarding the vote not as a personal right but as a public duty, Plato is the precursor of J. 5. Mill, Gneist, Robert Mohl, Zacharia, Lassalle, Laband, Seydel, Herbert Spencer. Cf. Leo Wittmayer, Unser Reichsratswahlrecht (Vienna, 1901), pp. 168-177. (Middle) “ Constitution of the Athenians ;” ’A@y. MoArr., ch. 8, ad zit, with Kenyon’s remarks, p. 26 (3rd ed.).
Page 246 (Bottom). Fears of the misuse of dialectic are expressed by Plato in Repudlic, vii. 537 D-538 A. “ But few traces remain. .. .” So far as these traces go, they certainly exhibit the spirit and the
VOL, Nr 2.0
374 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
method of the dialogue-triad, Sophist, Statesman, Philebus. They occur in the following passages, which are dealt with by Campbell on p. lit. of his Zztroduction to the Statesman: vi. 751 A; vii. 814 C and 824 A; vill. 841 C; x. 894 A and 895 C; xii. 944 B and 945 C.
Page 247 (Top). Aristotle: cf. Mefaph., A, 9, 990 ὁ, 15-17, and 991 b, 5-7 (denial of the ideas both of relations and of artificial products). Xenocrates: afud Proclum, Jz Plat. Parmen., p. 136, Cousin (= p. 691, Stallbaum): εἶναι τὴν ἰδέαν θέμενος αἰτίαν παραδειγματικὴν τῶν κατὰ φύσιν ἀεὶ συνεστώτων. With this Aristotle perfectly agrees in Metaph., A. 4, 1070 a, 18, διὸ δὴ οὐ κακῶς 6 Πλάτων ἔφη Bri εἴδη ἐστὶν ὁπόσα φύσει. (Bottom) The later deduction of the ideas from mathe- matical “ primary principles” is attested by Aristotle, Me/aph., M. 4, 1078 ἢ, 9-12 ; N. I, 1087 b, 7, seg., also A. 6, 988 a, 7, seg. Of the literature bearing on the subject, I may specially mention Ueberweg’s Untersuchungen, 202, seg., his often-quoted treatise in Rhein. Mus., 9, 52, seg.; Heinze’s Xenocrates, 37, seg., though I cannot agree with the contradiction (p. 52 in the last-named work) of Zeller (Berliner Sitzungs-Berichte, 1887, p. 198) and Apelt, Bertrage, p. 83. A good deal of truth, mixed with a little error, seems to me to be contained in Jackson’s comprehensive dissertations on “ Plato’s Later Theory of Ideas” (Fournal of Philology, x.-xv.). The attempt there made to prove Plato a precursor of Berkeley does not strike me as successful. One of his results, the chronological priority of the Phzledus to the Timeus, 1 regard, though for different reasons, as definitely established.
Page 248 (Top). “The science of law.” The praise of this study as an instrument of general education—a sentiment not elsewhere paralleled in Plato, or indeed in any other ancient author—occurs in xli. 957 B-C. (Bottom) ‘ Mixture of constitutional forms.” This, in my opinion, most important and fertile factor of Plato’s political thought, may well be illustrated by a few quotations : ili. 693 B, ὡς ἄρα ov δεῖ μεγάλας ἀρχὰς οὐδ᾽ αὖ ἀμίκτους νομοθετεῖν (cf. 692 A-C). As the two fundamental forms (οἷον unrépes) he names in the sequel monarchy and democracy, the one-sided exaggeration of which is exemplified by the Persians and the Athenians. Both, he contends, have in a manner experienced the same fate : ἐκείνοις μὲν ἐπὶ πᾶσαν δουλείαν ἄγουσι τὸν δῆμον, ἡμῖν δ᾽ αὖ τοὐναντίον ἐπὶ πᾶσαν ἐλευθερίαν προτρέπουσι τὰ πλήθη (111. 699 Ἐ)). And again he says, with reference to the election of the council : μέσον ἂν ἔχοι μοναρχικῆς καὶ δημοκρατικῆς πολιτείας . . « δοῦλοι yap ἂν καὶ δεσπόται οὐκ ἄν ποτε γένοιντο φίλοι (vi. 756 E).
Page 250 (Middle). The election of the censors (εὔθυνοι) is treated of in book xii. 945 B, seg. That the votes are not secret, I infer from the words, ὃν ἂν ἕκαστος αὐτῶν ἡγῆται πάντῃ ἄριστον εἶναι TARY αὑτοῦ. This last limitation could have no meaning if there were no means οὗ checking the voting. Such a means is supplied if the voting-tablet bears the voter’s signature. Precisely this regulation is found in vi.
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. 375
753 C, where the election of the guardians of the laws is in question ; and therefore I see no objection against assuming that this mode of voting is contemplated here too. That each voter could only vote for one candidate is clear from the first words of the above sentence, especially taken in connexion with the words which immediately pre- cede : τῷ θεῷ ἀποφαινουμένους ἄνδρας αὑτῶν τρεῖς, after which we yet read, not os . .. ἀρίστους, but ὃν... ἄριστον. As every one can see to whom questions of electoral technique are not wholly unfamiliar, the whole subsequent process of elimination has meaning and purpose only on this supposition. If space permitted, I should have liked to put before the reader more of the abundant materials for comparison which have been kindly placed at my disposal by Dr. Leo Wittmayer. The votre unique is a special case of the vofe /imité, which was in use a short time ago at the elections of Italian deputies ; it exists to-day in Brazil for the election of deputies, at Hamburg for the election of burgess-committees by the whole body of burgesses. (The Platonic election system is treated with accuracy, fulness, and insight by Dareste, inthe Annuaire... des Etudes grecques, 1883, p. 65, seq. Part of his article is repeated on p. 54, seg., of the work quoted in the note to p. 241.) Thomas Hare, Yhe £lection of hepresentatives, Parliamentary and Municipal (London, 1859).
Page 251 (Bottom). The purposes of punishment are stated in ix. 854 D, 860 B, 862, 863, and xi. 934 A-B. The subject is also touched on in v. 728 C.
Page 252 (par. 2). The “dumb judges” are condemned in three passages widely separated from each other : vi. 766 D (ἄφωνος & αὖ δικαστὴς . . . οὐκ ἄν ποτε ἱκανὸς γένοιτο), ix. 876 B (δικαστήρια φαῦλα καὶ ἄφωνα), and xii. 957 Β (ὅσα δὲ περί τε σιγὴν δικαστῶν. .. τὰ μὲν εἴρηται, k.7.A.)—a Circumstance which, so far as it goes, does not exactly bring grist to the mill of the χωρίζοντες, (Bottom) Hippodamus: cf. Vol. I. ΒΡ. 499, 410.
Page 253 (Below). Charondas : Diodorus, xii. 12, zz¢., compared with Laws, xi.930 B. For what follows, cf. 2624, 930 C. In vi.774 E there is no hint of girls having any voice at all in their own disposal. But in 771 E a certain amount of social intercourse is prescribed between young people before marriage (probably more than Attic custom required). On heiresses, compare xi. 924 E with Hermann- Thalheim, Griech. Rechtsaltertiimer, p. 57, ed. 3, and Das Recht von Gortyn, p. 30 (Biicheler and Zittelmann). (Bottom) “In the Re- public:” v. 468 B-C ; cf. also ili. 403 B. For what follows, cf. Δ᾽ 22.) v. 460 E and 461 B-C,
Page 254. “In a passage of the sixth book... in the eighth book :” vi. 784 E—785 A; viii. 838.
Page 255 (Top). Cf. Zaws, vi. 772 A, 841 A, with echoes in ii. 666 A and viii. 835 D-E. On what follows, cf. viii. 837, 838 E. The quotation from Bruns’ A¢fische Liebestheorien, 32. (8 6) “ Widespread
570 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
unbelief of the age.” The remarkable passage in proof, xii. 948 Ὁ. The most widely spread of the three heresies is said to be the third, which, of course, was closely interwoven with the popular belief. But we learn with astonishment that also μέρος μέν τι. .. ἀνθρώπων τὸ παράπαν οὐχ ἡγοῦνται θεούς, οἱ δ᾽ οὐ φροντίζειν ἡμῶν αὐτοὺς διανοοῦνται.
Page 256 Anaxagoras : cf. x. 886 D-E. Archelaus: 889 E.
Page 257 (Top). “ Pindar’s phrase: ” iii. 690 B (cf. Stallbaum on the passage). (Bottom) This equally important and difficult passage is in x. 903.
Page 258 (Middle). “The problem of the will.” On Plato’s theory of the will, his only apparent indeterminism and the changes in his theory, Tobias Wildauer has thrown much light in his model book, Die Psychologie des Willens bet Sokrates, Platon und Aristoteles, ii. (Innsbruck, 1879).
Page 260(Bottom). “The medical treatment of chronic diseases.” On this I am referring to a work chronologically near to the Laws, the Zzmeus (89 C) : διὸ παιδαγωγεῖν δεῖ διαίταις πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα, καθ᾽ ὅσον ἂν ἢ τῷ σχολή. The delight with which the baths surrounded by pleasure-grounds are depicted (vi. 761 B-D) reminds us of the similar description in Crzt#ias, 117 A-B; we may believe that we are here conscious of a personal preference of Plato’s.
Page 262 (end of par. 2). The triumph of “misology” and intolerance was not complete at the last. Even in the passage where he desires to fight heresy with the aid of the executioner, Plato’s deep- rooted sense of truth wrings from him the confession that unbelief and moral corruption do not necessarily go hand-in-hand : ᾧ γὰρ ἂν μὴ γομίζοντι θεοὺς εἶναι vd παράπαν ἦθος φύσει προσγένηται δίκαιον, k.7-A. (x. 908 B).
Book V.—CHAPTER XXI,
Page 265 (Middle). Bacon: cf. Mov. Org.,§ 77: “Tum demum philosophiz Aristotelis et Platonis}; tamquam tabulze ex materia leviore et minus solida, per fluctus temporum servate sunt,” with which may be compared the praise of the amtiguzores in ὃ 71. Schopenhauer: cf. Kober, Arthur Schopenhauer’s Philosophie, p. 52. It is true that in the passages there quoted only Aristotle is named. But the error there named as the most fatal of all, the geocentric theory, was common to Aristotle and Plato, equally with the fundamental physical theory of the “ natural places.”
Page 266 (Top). Plato’s services to mathematics are insisted on with great ardour, but at the same time with strong emphasis on his more mediate influence, in sharp contrast to the real creators of the science, by Eudemus, the highest authority of antiquity, in his history of geometry (Eudemi Fragmenta, 114, 115, ed. Spengel). Against the erroneous inclusion of the achievements of Archytas, Theztetus, etc., in the category of “ Plato and the Academy,” Allman has lately given
NOTES AND ADDITIONS. Giz
a justified warning (Greek Geometry from Thales to Euclid, p. 214,215). Very similarly, Zeuthen, in Geschichte der Mathematik im Altertum und Mittelalter (Copenhagen, 1896), p. 19: “Even these” (the later Academics), “however, do not ascribe to him personal mathematical investigations of greater importance, but rather show themselves inclined to claim for him the honour for the methods which came into use in his time, and to make him the adviser of those who made the real forward steps in mathematics.” (This tendency is already shown in the account used by Philodemus, /zdex Acad. Hercul., col. v., now in Mekler, p. 15.) The solution of the Delian problem, which occupied Plato, is due, not to him, but to Archytas and Eudoxus (cf. Eutocius, in the commentary on De Sphera et Cylindro, Archimedis Opera, iii. 106, ed. Heiberg). As regards Eudoxus, a pupil and biographer of this great and exact researcher, himself a devotee of exactness, has given us precise dates, which directly convict as false the assumption of a real course of study under Plato. According to these dates, he attended Plato’s lectures for two months at the age of twenty-three (Diog. Laert., viii. 86).
Page 267 (Bottom). Montaigne, £ssazs, ili. 12 (iv. 211, seg. ed. Louandre). On Carneades and the distinction between his scepticism and Pyrrho’s, Montaigne speaks (ii. 12 = ili. 368, seg.) in words which remind us of the opening of Sextus Empiricus’s Pyrrhonian sketches.
Page 268 (Top). On John of Damascus and his use of the “so- called Dionysius Areopagites” by the side of both the Gregories, Basil, etc., even in his religious doctrine, cf. Krumbacher’s masterly Geschichte der Byzantin. Lit., 172 (ist ed.) A Neo-Platonist, Porphyrius, is one of his philosophical authorities. On Psellus, besides Krumbacher (σῷ. ctt., 174, Seg.), see the monograph on him by Aurelio Covotti (Naples, 1898). (Middle) In antiquity, Plato’s works were collected into two volumes. A copy of the first volume is found in the codex written on the verge of the tenth century (896), found by E. D. Clarke in the monastery of St. John in Patmos, and called sometimes ‘‘Clarkianus” after its discoverer, sometimes “ Bodleianus” after its place of deposit, the Oxford University Library transformed by Sir Thomas Bodley. A copy of the second volume, mutilated at the beginning, is contained in a Parisian MS. of the ninth century. (Bottom) Plotinus. Not quite identical, but similar thoughts on the effect of scepticism on Plotinus, in R. Wahle, Geschichtlicher Uberblick uber die Entwicklung der Philosophie (Vienna, 1895), pp. 42, 43, 45. (Below) See the paper of Adalbert Merx, quoted in the note to Vol. II. p. 250.
Page 269 (Middle). Petrarch. Voigt enlarges on the enthusiasm with which Petrarch read Augustine’s Confessions (Wiederbelebung des Classischen Altertums, p. 51, seg.). (Cf. also Burckhardt, Cudtur der Renaissance, ii. 19 (4th ed.).) Windelband (Τὴ. of Philosophy, Eng. tr., p. 383) gives a similar character of St. Augustine. (Bottom of par. 2) The frequently noticed kinship between Augustine and
378 NOTES AND ADDITIONS.
Descartes, and not less the essential points that separate them, are thoroughly illustrated by Dr. H. Leder, Untersuchungen iiber Augustin’s Erkenninisstheorte (Marburg, 1901), p. 76, seq.
Page 271 (δ 5). fPlato’s pupils are treated thoroughly by Zeller (ii. I. 420, seg., and 986, seg., 4th ed.). The present writer has tried to confirm the trustworthiness of the statement that Demosthenes was a pupil, in Zeztschr. fiir osterr. Gym. (1865), p. 819, seg. On the political attitude of certain Platonists, and against the imaginary picture of the Academy as a kind of ‘‘ Nationalverein,” see the present writer’s essay quoted in the note to Vol. II. p. 272.
ΓΕ ΤΟΥ ν ΘΟ is AND ITE.
N.B.—As in the Index to the First Volume, the following references to the text of the work are intended to carry with them references to the corresponding portions of the Notes and Additions (Vol. 711. pp. 273-378). The author's indices are reserved for publication with the final volume.
A
Abelard, ii. 175, 186
Abstractions, the hypostasy of, ii. 203, 208, iil. 3
Academy, the, ii. 270, 271, 272, 273, ili, 308
Adeimantus, ii. 99, ili. 62
fEschines, the Socratic, 111. 25, 134, 342
ZEschines, the orator, ii. 118
Aéschylus, ii. 6, 7, 8
Agathocles, ili. 141
Agathon, ii. 383, 387
Agathyrsi, the, lil. 179
Agesilaus, ii. 124, 381
Agyrrhius, il. 344
Alcibiades, 11. 47, 50, 72, 95, 114; 392, 394, Seg., ill. 25
Alcidamas, iii. 27
Alcmzon, 111. 45
d’Alembert, 11. 224
Alexander the Great, 11. 19, 161
Alexinus of Megara, il. 195
All-one, doctrine of, 111. 11
Altruism, of the Cynics, 11, 163; deduction of, 11. 222
Amphictyonic League, the, ii. 21
Anaxagoras, ii, 46, 85, 97, ili. 43
Anaximander, ii. 37
Anaximenes, ii. 158
Anniceris, the Cyrenaic, il. 221, 222
Anthemion, ii. 371
Antigonus of Carystus, ii. 206
Antigonus Gonatas, 11. 206, 207
Antisthenes, ii. 81, $9, 95, 114, 139, 197, 244, 293, 356, ili. 25, 91, 145, 147, 152, 159, 161, 162, 164, 166, 170, 178, 185, 350; his life, ii. 142 ;
writings, ii. 142, 182 ; teachers, ii. 182 ; teaching, il. 150; on the gods, 11, 165; politics, ii. 1543 on the nature of animals, li. 144; on pleasure, 11. 217; on predication and the theory of knowledge, li. 183
me νος li. 97, 99, 114, 116, 253, 343, 371
Apaturia, the, ii. 52
Apollodorus, 11. 50
** Apology,” Plato’s, ii. 85, 100, seq.
Arabia, ll. 4
Aratus, 11. 206
Archelaus of Macedonia, ii. 46, 60, 73» 94; 332, 341
Archidamus, ii. 128
Archytas, ii. 243, 259, 260, 261, Iii. 191
Areopagus, the, ii. ὃ
Arginusee, battle of, 11, 51
Aristarchus of Samos, ii. 208
Aristides, ii. 377
Aristippus, ii. 95, 114, 244, ill. 134, 158; life and character, ii. 211, 212; his, ethics, ii: 213-255 ; theory of knowledge, ii. 231
Aristocles, 11. 230
Aristomache, iii. 138
Ariston, 11. 161
Aristophanes, the comedian, ii. 93, 94, 103; the ‘‘Clouds,” ii. 17; in the ‘‘Symposium,” ii. 386, 387 ; allusions to Plato? 111. 340, 341
Aristophanes of Byzantium, 11. 281
Aristotle, ii. 47, ili. 132 ; his witness on the teaching of Socrates, 11. 55, 56, 59, 60, 64, 69, 89, 104; on the Megarians, il. 171, 203; on
380
Cratylus, ii. 253; on Critias, ii. 251; on Archytas, ii. 260; on Plato’s life, 11. 269, 273; on the origin of the doctrine of ideas, iii. 2; his references attest the genuineness of Plato’s works, ii. 278; pupil of Plato, iii. 266 ; his views on poetry, ili. 116; rhetoric, ii. 328 ; pleasure, pain, and happi- ness, iil. 227, ili. 1293 criticizes Plato’s political science, iii. 118, 119, 120; on the history of civiliza- tion, 111. 233 ; on slave-raids, ii. 20; his elegy on Eudemus, 11. 71; his ** Rules for the Table,” ii. 274
Aristoxenus, iii. 43
Art, ili. 102, seg.
Arts and pseudo-arts, 11, 339
Aspasia, ill. 343
Association (in psychology), 111. 46
Astronomy, 111. 83, 35
Athens and the Athenians, 11. 27, 30, seq. ; contrast with Sparta, il. 40; Socrates’ opinion of, 11, 309
Atlantis, tale of, ili. 204, seg.
Atomism, ili. 171
Augustine, St., 111. 269
Avesta, the, 111. 12
B
Bacon, Francis, ii. 57 Balance of power, the, iii. 235 ‘* Banausic ” occupations, iii. 24
Barbarians, attitude of Greeks to- |
wards, il. 19
Beauty, the Idea of, ii. 392; male beauty, ii. 302
Beggar’s wallet, of the Cynics, 11. 153
Bentham, Jeremy, ii. 216, 219, 224, 225, 226
Berkeley, George, ii. 187, 234
Bernays, Jakob, ii. 164
Bion of Borysthenis, ii. 148, 152, 164, 165, 243, 244
Bockh, August, iii. 213
Bonitz, Hermann, il. 204, 365, iii. 4, 40 .
Byron, Lord, ii. 149
ς
τ Coesarism,” ii. 133 Callias, ii. 308 Callimachus, ii. 211 Callippus, iii. 138, 139 Callixenus, 11. 52, 54
INDERUTO VOLS. 1.+ AND II,
| Cannonus, decree of, ii. 54
Carneades, 11. 211, iii. 267
‘*Cave,” Plato’s, iii. 86, seg.
‘* Censors,” ili. 250
Cercidas, 11. 157
Cherephon, ii. 50, IOI, 105, 301, 326
** Charmides,”’ dialogue, ii. 300, seg.
Charmides, ii. 50, 96, 252, 301, 1]. 24/001
Chinese ethics, ii. 83
Chrysippus, 11. 193
Cicero, ii. 200, 111. 25 ; on Socrates and Aristippus, ii. 213
Cleanthes, ii. 71, 73
Clinomachus of Thurii, ii. 205
Clisthenes, ii. 18, 39
Communism, iii. 118, 119; Plato’s relation to, iii. 106
Comte, iii. 122
Ι Confucius, ii. $2
Contradiction, problem of, ii. 185
| Copenhagen, bombardment of, ii. 25
Corporeality, as hindrance to know- ledge, ili. 11
Courage, definition of, ii. 297, seq.
Crates, il. 152, 153, 158, 162, 165, 195
“ἐ Cratylus,” dialogue, iii. 164
Cratylus, 11. 252, 253, 266, 111]. 2, 164
Creation, in the ‘* Timzeus,” iii. 209 ; Plato’s view of the, iii. 365
Crete, political institutions of, iii. ΟἹ, 92, 108
**Critias,” dialogue, iii. 200, seg.
Critias, 11. 51, 56,96, 114, 118, 250, 251, 252, 301, i. 24,255 111
**Crito,” dialogue, iii. 49, seg.
Critobulus, il. 61
Cromwell, Oliver, ii. 43
Curtius, Ernst, ii. 32, 34
Cynics, the, ii. 139, seg., iii. 116; mode of life, ii. 151 ; their religion, il. 146, 164
Cyrenaics, their theory of knowledge, 11. 229, seg. ; of sensation, ii. 239
Cyrene, situation and history of, ii. 209, 210
D
** Dzemon” of Socrates, the, ii. 87
Delphi and the Delphic oracle, ii. 21, 105, 165, ili, 12; consulted by Socrates, ii. 87; by Xenophon, 11. 120
Demetrius of Phalerum, ii. 242
“** Demiurge,” the, iii. 211, 212
Democracy, iii. 93, 94
INDEX TO VOLS.
Demosthenes, 11. 189
** Descent,” Plato’s theory of, iii. 208, 225
Diagoras, ii. 85, 242
Diczearchus, 111. 43
Dilettantism, 11. 119
Diodorus the historian, ii. 85
Diodorus Cronus, ii. 198, seg. 3 gave strange names, li, 204
Diogenes of Apollonia, ii. 90
Diogenes of Sinope, ii. 148, 205 ; life, ii. 205 ; works, ii. 156, 158, 162; attitude towards the gods, li. 165
Dion of Prusa, 11. 153
Dion of Syracuse, iii. 135, seg. ; his friendship with Plato, ii. 396
Dionysius II., ii. 263, 266, 267, 268, iii. 133, seg.
Diotima, 11. 389, seq.
‘* Disorderly ” motion, iii. 210
Dissen, L., iii. 279
Dualism, iil. 11
Diimmler, Ferd., ii. 235
E
Eclipse, predicted by Helicon, 111. 137
Education, iii. 66, seg., 83, 89, 90, 250; 231 270; 527:
Egypt, ili. 2323 Plato’s visit to, ii. 255, 256
Eleatics, the, ii. 233
Elections, political, iii. 244, seq.
** Electra,” the, fallacy, ii. 193
Elements, the, iii. 218, seg.
Elian-Eretrian school, the, ii. 205
Empedocles, ii. 356
England, 11. 25, 28
English constitution, the, ii. 249
Enlightenment, age of, and humanity, ii. 19
Epaminondas, ii. 130
Ephialtes, ii. 18
Ephorus, ii, 123
Epicharmus, ii. 69, 84, 265, 266, iil. 4,10
Epictetus, ii, 116
Epicurus, ii. 188, 194, 223, 225, 242,
244 ‘*Epimetheus,” ii. 321 Eratosthenes, 11. 161, 211 Eros, Plato’s doctrine of, ii. 111, 19 Eschatology, 111. 105 Eubulides, ii. 189, 203, 204 Euclid, ii. 208 Euclides of Megara, ii. 89, 188, 205,
391,
II, AND III. 381
255, iil. 86 ; his life and character, li. £73 Eudemus of Cyprus, ii. 71, iii. 138 Eudoxus, il. 219, 257, iil. 223 Eugammon, li. 211 Euhemerus, iii. 299 Eupatridz, the, 11. 17 Eupolis, ii. 92 ΠΕ ge li. 10, 5¢g., 19, 30, 84, 97, 107 Euryptolemus, ii. 52, 53, 54 Eusebius, ‘‘ Preep. Evan.,” ii. 231 ““ Euthydemus,” dialogue, iii. 145 **Euthyphro,” dialogue, ii. 358, seg. ; its chronological position, 11. 363 Exact science, definition of, ili. 194 ““ Excluded Middle,” principle of, ii.
195
F
** Fall of the soul by sin,” the, ii. 364 Family, the, ili. 78, 79, 253 Fechner, 111. 220
Franklin, Benjamin, 11. 45
Freedom of speech in antiquity, 11, 111
G
Gabelentz, G. von, ii. 83
Generals, trial of the Athenian, 11. SI, seg.
Geometry, origin of knowledge of, ll. 370
Glaucon, iii. 62
Glaucus the Spartan, 111. 12
Goethe, ii. 379
Goldsmith, ti. 120
«“ς Good,” meanings of, ii. 350, 351, iii. 85, 86; ‘‘table of goods,” iii. 196
‘‘ Gorgias,” dialogue, ii. 154, 326, seg.
Gorgias, ii. 143, ill. 154
Greeks, the, keenness of their senses, ii. 35; their romantic feeling, 11. 382; their nature-religion, 111. 13
Grote, George, li. 25, 104, lll. 120, 135, 168; misled by the ‘* Pro- tagoras,” 11. 310
Gymnastic, ili. 68
H
Hartley, ii. 228 a ‘¢ Heap,” the, fallacy, ii. 189
202
Hedonism, ii. 349; of Aristippus, ii, 218; of Plato, ii. 322, seg.
Hegesias, ii. 221
Helicon of Cyzicus, iii. 137
Hellenic race, consciousness of its unity, li. 20
Helmholtz, ii. 239
Helots, ii. 27
Helvetius, ii. 224, 111. 109
Heracles as patron saint of the Cynics, ii. 151, 166
Heraclides, iii. 140
Heraclitus, ii. 385, iii. 2
Herbart, 1: ἘΠ. ΠῚ 171, 177, 188
Hero-worship, il. 333, 334
Herodotus, 11. 5, 8, 12, 17, 20, 35, 38, 90, 208, 391, 111, 103, 119
Hipparchia, ii. 148, 158, 162
‘* Hippias,”’ the lesser, dialogue, ii. 291, seg.
Hippias of Elis, ii. 15, 223, 315
Hippocrates, il. 35
Hippodamus of Miletus, il. 135
Hobbes, 11. 230
Holbach, ii. 224 ;
Homer, ti; 23; 4, 5, 20; 22, 20. 140; 391, ill. 103
‘* Horned Man,”’ the, fallacy, ii. 194
Humboldt, W. von, ii. 38
Hume, David, 111. 267
Hurndall, W. F., ili. 279
Hypotheses, iil. 37
Ι
Ideas, Plato’s doctrine of, ii. 176, 180, ἜΡΩΣ Il: Δ τ7.. 28, 40; ὃν. τεῦ.» 150, ség., 173, 175, 181, 247, 355
Induction, Socratic, 11. 56
‘‘Inherence,” problem of, 11. 175, ség., 182, ili. 3
Intellectualism, ii. 66
International morality and law, ii.
9
Terai error, il. 294
Ion of Chios, ii. 46
Ionians, characteristics of the, ii. 36
Ismenias, ii. 371
Isocrates, ili. 22, 25, seg., 145, 146
Italy of the Renaissance, 111, 14
J
Joel, K., iii. 280 John of Damascus, ili. 268 Judgment of the dead, the, ii. 340,
341
INDEX ‘TO ΟΣ, ΤΕ ANB 117.
Jung-Stilling, ii. 88 Justice, definition of, iii. 55, seq.
K
Kant, ii. 249; on religion, ii. 366, 367
Kepler, iii. 217
Knowledge, theory of, iii. 157 seg. ; distinguished from ‘ right opinion,” 1, 372; 374, 393
L
Laas, Ernst, ii. 237
‘* Laches,” dialogue, ii. 296
Language, theories of, ii. 204, iii. 164, seg.
“‘ Laws,” the, dialogue, iii. 227, seg.
Legislation, iii. 239, seg.
Leibnitz, ii. 224
Leodamas, ii. 260
Leon of Salamis, ii. 51
“Lesser Hippias,” dialogue, ii. 291, Seq.
Leucippus, ii. 230, 232
‘* Liar,” the, fallacy, ii. 192
Limited monarchy, iii. 249
Linguistic criteria, iii. 29
Locke, John, ii. 187, 230
Logic, the beginnings of, ii. 318 ; of the Cyrenaics, ii. 237
Lucian, 11. 155, 165
Lycon, 11. 99, 116
Lycophron, ii. 179, 206
Lysias, 11. 118, 111. 16, seg., 326
** Lysis,’”’ dialogue, ii. 382, seg.
M
Mach, Ernst, ii. 235, 240
** Magnificence,”’ ill. 112
** Man in Disguise,” fallacy, ii. 193
Mathematics and mathematical truth, lil. 8, seg., 23
Matter, ancient doctrines of, ii. 236, ili. 211 ; Plato’s doctrine of, ili. 366
Mechanics, history of, iii. 84
Megara, situation and history of, ii. 171
Megarian school, the, ii. 170, seg., lil. 145, 253
Meleager, ii. 165
Meletus, ii. 97, 542.) 104, 116, 358
Melissus, li. 174
Melos, ii. 25
INDEX TO VOLS.
Menander, iii. 10
Menedemus of Eretria, ii. 205, 206, 208, 241
Menedemus of Pyrrha, ii. 273
Menexenus, iii. 43
Menippus, ii. 165
‘*Meno,” dialogue, il. chronological position of, ii, 374
Metrocles, ii. 148, 158, 195
Miletus, ii. 30, 33, 43
Mill, James, ii. 228, 234
Mill, John Stuart, ii. 38, 78, 111, 235, ili. 5, 8, 100
Mitylene, ii. 26
Mixed constitutions, 111, 233, s¢q.
Monimus, ii. 158
Montaigne, iii. 267
Montesquieu, li. 213, ill, 234
Moschion, ii. 20
Murder, expiation of, ii. 4
Music, iii. 68; of the Greeks, 11, 35
Mysticism, ii. 250, 111, 268
N
“ς Natural places,” doctrine of, 111. 84, 223
Nature and Convention, 11. 333
Nature-religion of the Greeks, ili. 13
Necessary truth, iii. 6, seq.
Negation, problem of, iil. 170, 171
Newton, Isaac, ii. 47
Nicias, il. 96, 332, 355
Niebuhr, ii. 251
Nocturnal Council, the, iii. 248
Nominalism, ii. 177, 181
Number, the Platonic, iii. 01
O
(Enomaus of Gadara, ii. 165
Oligarchy, 111, 92, 93
Olympia, il. 21
Orphicism, ii. 336, 352, 355, 364, 11]. 11: 12. 54, 208, 210
Ρ
Paley, il. 223
Panetius, 111, 291
‘‘ Parmenides,” dialogue, iii. 148, seg.
Parmenides, il. 174, lil. 2, 34, 170
Parthenon, the, ii. 35
Pausanias, King of Sparta, ii. 20
Perception and knowledge, iil. 157, Seq.
367, SCT. 5 |
II. AND II. 383
Peregrinus the Cynic, ii. 152
Pericles, ii. 41, 43, 72, 324, 3275 329
Persians, their belief in the divinity of the sun, etc., iii. 10
‘* Phedo,” dialogue, iii. 30, seg.
Phzedo of Elis, ii, 205
** Pheedrus,” dialogue, iii. 16, seq. ; its mise én scene, 11. 269
| Pheido of Corinth, iii. 117
Phenomenalism, 11. 211, iii. 298
‘* Philebus,” dialogue, iii. 186, seg.
Philippus of Opus, iii. 226
Philistus, iii. 135
Philodemus, ii. 237
Philolaus of Corinth, ili. 43, 94, 188, 209, 220, 221
Philosophers, rule of, iii. 80
Philosophic nature, the, iii. 81, 82
Phocion, ii. 158
Phrynichus, his ‘‘ capture of Miletus,” ii, 30
Piety, nature of, li. 359, seq.
Pindar, ii. 7, 356
Pisistratus, li. 34, 38
Platea, treatment of, by the Spartans,
ll. 24
Plato, birth and family, ii. 250; life, 11. 250, seg., lil. 133, seg. ; travels, 11. 254, seg. ; in Egypt, ii. 256, seq. ; Cyrene,” 1-258 Ὁ ΠΆΙΣ ΠΡ 250: Sicily, ii. 261, ili. 133 ; sold as a slave, ii. 269 ; his financial position, 1 272; his teachers, 11,252, 258 ; influenced by Archytas, ii. 259 ; by Isocrates, 111, 27; by Socrates, il. 47, 288, 289, 294, 295; by Hera- cliteans, 11. 252, 253 ; by the Orphics and Pythagoreans, 11. 259, 336, 351, 3525 364, 11]. 37, 215, 221, 223, 233, 247; his family pride, ii. 250 ; his contempt for the lower orders, iii. 107, 108; his contempt for the ‘““hanausic,” 11. Si; i. 24 3. his ascetic tendency, iii. 28; his in- tolerance, 111, 179, 248, 255, 291; his severity, 111, 115, 116, 127 ; his pessimism, ili. 214; unemotional tone in early dialogues, li. 324; the xsthetic impulse, iii. 35; his love of natural beauty, 11. 269 ; his ‘dread of friction,” ili. 121; his mathematical studies and bent, i. 258, 335, 330, ill. 217, 248; his capacity for self-criticism and self- correction, il. 277, iil. 37, 1843 founds the Academy, ii. 269, 270 ; as lecturer, ii. 273 ; his assistants, ii. 2733 influence of his teaching vocation on himself, ii. 373, seg. 3
384
his influence on the world, ii. 249, 250, 111, 264, seg. ; his anticipation of modern conditions, iii. 127; authenticity of the works attributed to him, 49.9295, 's77., 1. 312, sa7. 5 chronology of his works, ii. 254, 275, S¢g., 290, iil. 148; wrote a tragedy? ii. 252; general view of the series of his writings, ii. 289 ; their division into trilogies, etc., ii. 281, 286; the best editions, iii. 300, seg. ; influence of his life on his works, iii. 158; his language, il. 279, 284, 2853 style, ili. 26, 186, 228; characteristics of his later phase, ili. 176, 198, 260 ; artistic and constructive methods, ii. 388, 393, lil. 35, 52, 53, 66, 70, 71, 155, 156, 176, 181, 184, 216, 229, 236, 337, 359; his historical sense, iii. 202; his use of myths, ii. 309, ii. 17, 104, seg., 180; exaggeration, iii. 129 ; tendency to outbid, ii. 309, iii. 151; love of paradox, ili. 238 ; humour, 111, 172; plays on words, ili. 219; imagery, lli. 33, 41, 102 ; fallacies, li. 313, 314, 345, Seq., iii. 38, 45, 46, 75, 172, 101, 1933 changes in tone and sentiment, il. 279; his nearest approach to the Cynics, ii. 356; his relation to Eleaticism, iii. 173, 175; his re- ligion and theology, 111. 66, 256 ; his ethics, iil. 36, 50; relation to Hedonism and utilitarianism, 11. 79, 322, seq., iil. 113 5 on punishment, ii. 311, 317; on the notion of the good, ili. 85, 86; not an indeter- minist, iii. 258; his psychology, ii. 353, iii. 37, 102; on pleasure, Iii. 99, seg. ; the Platonic eros, ii. 391, S€q., ili, 19, seg. ; his views on art, iii. 67, 102 ; on music, iii. 232 ; on poetry, iii. 116; on rhetoric, ii. 20, seg.; his political and social thought, ii. 331, ill. 90, seg., 106, 547.) 182, seg.; attitude towards Athens and contemporary politics, ii. 333, iii. 46, 49, 50; slavery, ili. 107; women, 111. 115, seg., 124, seq.; communism, iii. 118, 119; educa- tion, iii. 66, seg, 109; his natural science, iii. 83, 84, 224, 301, seg. ; relation to the atomists, 111. 219 ; contempt for experiment, il. 85, 207; his astronomy, iii. 34, 85; invents the sphere-theory, ili. 220 ; medicine, iii. 115, 116; a source of information on Aristippus, ii. 231 ;
INDEX TO VOLS. IT. AND III.
on the Megarians, ii. 1713 on Socrates, ii. 50, 53, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 87, 88, 100
Pleasure, ii. 349, 350, ili. 189, seg. 2 views of Aristippus, Bentham, and Mill on, ii. 216
Plotinus, iil. 268
Poetry, iii. 102, seg., 116
Polus of Agrigentum, ii. 326
Polycrates wrote against Socrates, ii. 63, 114, 118, 343, 394, 395, 11]. 17
Polyxenus, ili. 151, 347
Population, question of, iii. 117
Prayer, ii. 362
Predication, problem of, ii. 175, 547.» 197, 111. 3, 174, 353
Procedure, legal, in the ‘* Laws,” iii. 252, Seq.
Prodicus, 11. 242, 314, 315, lil. 103
Prometheus, legend of, ii. 145, 153
‘¢ Protagoras,” dialogue, 11. 308, seq.
Protagoras, ii. 85, 92, 93, 94, 97, 144, 231, 233, il. 103, 158
Punishment, purpose of, ili. 251
Pythagoreanism, ii. 259, 111. 34, 199, 209, 215, 223, 233
R
Realism, ii. 177, 181
Relations, ideas of, ili. 5
** Republic,” dialogue, iii. 51, sez. 3 rearrangement theory of its com- position, 111. 51, 69, 70, δὲ
Rhetoric, definition and nature of, ii. 327, seg.; Plato’s views cn, lil. 20, seg.
Rotation of the earth, known to Plato? ili. 315
Rousseau, ii. 142, 145, 148, ili. 116
Russian pessimism, 11. 148
Sacrifice, li. 362
Schleiermacher, ii. 231, 374, 376, 378
Schools of philosophy, 111. 308
Schopenhauer, ili. 116
Scientific classification, ili. 177, 175
Scione, ii. 24
Sensation, subjectivity of, ii. 230; Cyrenaic theory of, ii. 239
Sextus Empiricus, 11. 230
Sicily, history of, ii. 262, 263, iii. 133, 5€g-
Simonides, poem of, ii. 315, seg.
Slavery, iii. 107 ; at Athens, 11]. 27
INDEX: TO VOLS. If. AND. III, 385
Socialism, Plato’s relation to, iii. 106
Socrates, birth, facts of his life, ii. 46; his teachers, ii. 46 ; his mode of life and work, ii. 48; his trial, ii. 98; his death, ii. 110; public opinion on him after his death, 1]. 118 ; his character, ii. 45 ; natural tendencies, ii. 48; his concentra- tion, ii. 47 ; his ‘‘ dzmon,” ii. 87 ; his participation in public life, ii. 54; his relation to Alcibiades, ii. 304, seg.; his teaching, ii. 66; sources for our knowledge of it, 11. 60, seg.; his intellectualism, il. 66 ; his definitions, ii. 55; his habit of starting from the obvious, li. 57 ; his irony, ii. 49; his doctrine of involuntary error, ii. 66; practical effects of his teaching, ii, 78; Athenian opinion on his influence, 11. 113; his utilitarianism, ii. 80 ; his views on public life, ii. 115 ; on appointment by lot, 11, 80; on slavery, ii. 81; what he would think of modern society, ii. 78; his freedom from prejudice, ii. 58 ; his religious views, ii. 85; his attitude towards natural science, ii. 91 ; Plato’s homage to him, ii. 254; the Platonic Socrates, iii. 229 ; schools of Socratism, 11. 205 ; general view of Socratism, 11. 244
Solon, 11. 34, 344
‘¢ Sophist,” dialogue, iii. 167, seg.
Sophocles, ii. 9, 97
Sophron, ii. 265
Sophroniscus, ii. 46
Σωφροσύνη, iil. 138
Soul, the, immortality of, ii. 84, iil. 40, seg.; simile of the horses, iii. 18 ; a harmony of the body, iii. 43, 44; the source of motion, ili. 45 ; of threefold nature, 111. 72, 73, 102
Sparta, social and political conditions Of, 1. O1, 92, 10a, FEI, 115, 118, 234; contrasted with Athens, ii.
40
Speculative life, the, iil. 131
Speusippus, ii. 271, 273, 274, 111, 137
Sphere-theory, the, ili. 220, seq.
Sphodrias, ii. 128
‘* Statesman,” dialogue, iil. 179, seq.
Statesmen, Athenian, condemnation of, ii, 338, 339; apology to, il. 375, seg.; have inferior sons, ii, 372
Stilpo, ii. 195, 205, 206, 207, 208, 240, 241, 242
Stylists, literary, ili, 26
o
Suicide among the Cynics, ii. 152
Sun and moon, opinions of Plato and Aristotle on, ii. 86
“* Symposium,” dialogue, ii. 383, seg. ; date, il. 393, ili. 27, 28
Syracuse, description of, ii. 264
Syssitia, ii. 40
ἠδ
Telegonia, the, ii. 211
Teles, li, 152, 211, 244
Temperance, definition of, ii. 303, seg.; Greek idea of, ii. 300, 301
Ten Thousand, retreat of the, ii. 120
Teutonic Order, compared to Plato’s guardians, ill. 123
«ς Thezetetus,” dialogue, ill. 155, seg.
Theetetus, ii. 260
“* Thebais,” the, ii. 23
Thebans, the, ii. 24; dangerous to Hellas, 11. 130
Themistocles, ii. 327, 329
Theodorus, ii. 220, 240, 241, 258
Theognis, ii. 3, 4, 17; 172
Theophrastus, ii. 46, 193, 211; his will, ii. 269
Theramenes, ii. 130, 394
Thirty Tyrants, the, 11. 51
Thrasyllus, ii. 281, 282
Thrasymachus of Chalcedon, iii. 55, SEQ.
Thrasymachus of Corinth, 11. 205
Thucydides, li. 12, 25, 26, 35, 41, 43, ili, 95, 110
“ς Timzeus,”’ dialogue, ili. 200, seq.
Timocracy, iil. 92
Timocrates, ili. 138
Timoleon, ili, 141, seg.
Timonides, ill. 138
Tolstoi, ii. 337, lll. 103, 337
Torone, li. 24
Torpedo, Socrates compared to, ii. ou i
Transmigration of souls, 11. 370
Tyranny and tyrants, il. 95, seq.
U
United States, the, ii. 20
Unity, absolute, iii. 153
Unity of virtue, ii. 299, 312, 313, 319, iii. 184
| Utilitarianism, ii. 140, iil. 113, seg.
286 INDEX TO ΤΟ IT.. AND TIT.
V
Virtue, coincident with happiness, ii. 3543 possibility of teaching it,
li. 311, 312, 370, 372 Volney, ii. 223 Voltaire, ii. 244
W Well-being, notion of, ii. 336 Wine, Plato on the uses of, ili, 231 Women, iii. 77, 78, 115, seg., 124 World-soul, the, iii. 213, 216
Χ
Xeniades, ii. 156 Xenocrates, 11. 274, ill. 137
Xenophanes, ii. 14, 89, 369, iii. 10,
II, 209
Xenophon, ii. 20, 53, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 72, 73, 74, 76, 81, 83, 86, 87, 90, 96, 382, ili. 118;
his life, ii. 119, seg. ; not the leader of the Ten Thousand, ii. 122; his life in retirement, ii. 124; his cha- racter, li. 119 ; intellectual defects, 126 ; his religion, ii. 135 ; as apo- logist of Socrates, ii. 114, 395; his “‘CEconomicus,” ii. 62, 119, iii. 126; ‘‘Symposium,” ii. 62, 127; “Ὁ Memorabilia,” ii. 63, 75, 79, 136 ; ‘*Hellenica,” ii. 123, 128 ; ‘‘ Cyro- pedia,” ii. 131; other writings, li. 133, 134
Z
Zalmoxis, ii. 302
Zeno of Elea, ii. 188, 195, 244, iii. 149, Ξε.
Zeno the Stoic, ii. 195, 204
Zeus, conceived as judge, ii. 56
Zola, iii. 205, 363
Zollner, ili. 179
Zopyrus, ii. 48
Zoroastrianism, 111, 12
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