GIFT OF
Miss Frances M. Molera
DEMOSTHENES
BY THE
REV. W. J. BRODRIBB, M.A.,
LATE FELLOW OF ST. JOHN*S COLLEGE,
CAMBRIDGE.
NEW YORK:
B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER,
1883,
r n
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
IXTBODUCTION, ------ 1
CHAPTEB I. OEBECE IN THE FOUBTH CENTUBY B.C., 3
" II. MACEDON AND PHILIP, 11
' III. EABLY LIFE OF DEMOSTHENES, - - 19
" IV. DEMOSTHENES ENTEBS POLITICAL LIFE, 29
" V. EABLY SPEECHES OF DEMOSTHENES ON
FOBEIGN POLICY, - - 40
" VI. FIBST SPEECH OF DEMOSTHENES AGAINST
PHILIP SPEECH FOB THE FBEEDOM OF
THE PEOPLE OF BHODES, - 51
" Vn. PHILIP AND OLYNTHUS- SPEECHES OF
DEMOSTHENES ON BEHALF OF THE
OLYNTHIANS, - 64
" VIH. DEMOSTHENES AND MEIDIAS, - 76
" IX. PHILIP MASTEB OF THEBMOPYL2B AND
OF PHOCIS PEACE BETWEEN HIM AND
ATHENS COUNSEL OF DEMOSTHENES, 82
" X. DEMOSTHENES CONTINUES HIS SPEECHES
AGAINST PHILIP, - - 91
*' XI. CH^BONEIA FALL OF GBKECE, 109
" XII. CONTEST BETWEEN DEMOSTHENES AND
.ESCHINES, - 121
" Xni. LAST DAYS OF DEMOSTHENES, 132
" XIV. DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAB, - - 138
CONCLUSION, .... 157
2 DEMOSTHENES.
able of realization, as indeed was the sincere belief of
some perfectly honest men who were politically op-
posed to Demosthenes, The highest aspects of Greek
life, and its best influences on the civilization of the
world, were intimately connected with Greece as exist-
ing according to his conception of what she ought to
be. His eloquence is. at its highest when he dwells on
her fixed resolution in past days to resist to the death
anything like foreign dictation or interference. Greece,
in his view, was nothing if she once brought herself to
endure it.
On the whole, perhaps the Greek was rather a greater
figure than the Roman orator. He was at least more
single-minded and courageous. His political career
was more dignified and consistent, and there were fewer
weak moments in his life. Cicero, it is true, was a
singularly amiable and a most accomplished man; but
he was unquestionably vain and self-complacent. De-
mosthenes gives us the idea that Athena and Greece
were always foremost in his thoughts. As an orator,
and statesman, he may claim to rank above Cicero. As
an orator, he was the master of a more fervid and im-
pressive eloquence; as a statesman, he had more sim-
plicity of purpose and greater moral courage.
The period of Demosthenes is the fourth century B. c.
A brief sketch of it seems almost due to our readers.
The speeches of Demosthenes cannot be understood
without some acquaintance with Greek politics. Mace-
don, too, and its rise to importance under king Philip,
deserves at least a short notice. The history of the
time is somewhat intricate, and could not be thoroughly
elucidated in a very moderate compass. An endeavor
has been made in the two following chapters to pre-
sent the reader with a view of its general character.
CHAPTEK I.
GREECE IN THE FOURTH TENTURY B.C.
ATHENS in the fifth century B.C was at the head of
the Greek world. Her empire, lice our own, was a
"government of dependencies." In its nature it was
somewhat precarious. Although it was not specially
oppressive, it was in many quarters an object of ex-
treme jealousy. When Athens attempted the conquest
of Sicily, it was felt that this was but a step towards
ulterior and more dangerous designs. It was a most
hazardous attempt, under existing circumstances. On
the sea, indeed, Athens was all-powerful ; but she had
formidable enemies on land very near her Thebes to
the north, Sparta to the south. After her great reverse
in Sicily, she was hardly a match for Sparta at the
head of the Peloponnese. She still struggled on, and
even won some victories, till the long contest, known as
the Peloponnesian War, came to an end in 405 B.C.
with the decisive battle of ^Egos-potami. There, in
the waters of the Hellespont, almost her entire fleet
was captured by the Spartan admiral, Lysander.
Sparta now succeeded to the headship of Greece.
She retained it down to the year 371 B.C. During this
period she contrived to make herself thoroughly hated.
Her system was to rule by means of oligarchial factions
in the different states. These factions she supported
4 LEMOSTHENE8.
by military garrisons. There was a garrison for a
time in the Cadmea, or the citadel of Thebes. It was
forced into the city, and subsequently maintained there
with a flagrant disregard of justice and equity. The
Spartan king Agesilaus coolly asserted that if it was for
Sparta's interest it was right. Altogether, the Spartan
rule was much more galling than the Athenian had
been. Spnrta, indeed, always seems to have been a
more selfish state than Athens. It is true that Athens
in her greatness had been spoken of as " a despot city;"
but there was at the same time a feeling that she
worthily represented Greece. This could hardly be
said of Sparta. She was now cultivating friendly re-
lations with Persia, and had procured the conclusion of
a peace with that power, the terms of which were by
no means honorable to Greece. This was the peace
of Antaleidas in 387 B.C. one of the land-marks, so to
say, in Greek history. It had ever been a Greek tra-
dition that the freedom and independence of the Greeks
in Asia ought to be upheld. By the peace of Antal-
eidas they were put under the dominion of Persia.
Athens would hardly have yielded such a point, and
in the days of her maritime supremacy she could and
would have made it impossible. Sparta was respon.
sible for this disgraceful concession. She made matters
worse by seeking to convert her headship of Greece
into a downright despotism. In doing this she wrought
infinite mischief, and may be almost said to have pre-
pared the way for the subsequent calamities of Greece
and its subjection to Macedon. Shs endeavored per-
sistently to break up the Greek world into a nnmber
of petty dependencies, which she might hold under
her absolute control. Her systematic policy was to
reduce Greece to a collection of separate towns and
GREECE IN THE FO URTH CENTUR Y B.C. 5
even villages, each of which should be completely in
her own power. The idea which lay at the root of
Greek strength and greatness was, that Greece should
be made up of federations, with the leading cities at
the head of them. In the face of a common foe these
federations, it was hoped and believed, would be at-
tracted to each other, and would feel that they had a
common cause. This was Panhellenism. Sparta, by
her methods of rule, weakened this idea, and thereby
undermined the foundations of the Greek world. The
feebleness and disunion of Greece in the fourth century
B.C., which were so favorable to Macedon, were, in
part at least, due to Sparta's influence. In one in-
stance she inflicted the most direct and positive mischief
upon Greece. At the head of the gulf of Torone, in
the peninsula of Chalcidice, was the prosperous city of
Olynthus, round which had grown up a confederacy
of Greek towns that might have been an effectual
barrier against Macedon, or any other northern power.
This confederacy Spnrta, true to her policy, broke up
in 379 B.C., and thus gave a heavy blow to Greek in-
terests on the coasts of Macedon and Thrace. But for
this, the JEgean and the Propontis might never have
known the presence of Macedonian cruisers, and Philip's
kingdom might have remained a poor and barbarous
territory. Olynthus, indeed, to a certain extent re-
covered herself, and becamo again a flourishing and
independent city; but the mischief which had been
already done was past remedy.
With the great battle of Leuctra in 371 B.C. Sparta's
ascendancy ceased. Thebes was now raised by the
illustrious Epameinondas into the first place in Greece.
North of the Peloponnese she could do as she pleased.
She had Thessaly quite under her control, and Macedon
6 DEMOSTH-ENES.
was little better than a dependency. Her next steps
after Leuctra, was to strengthen herself in the Pelopon-
nese, and to complete the humiliation of Sparta. This
wa^ done by the founding of the two cities Megalopolis
and Messene, under the direction of Epameinondas.
Sparta, as we have seen, aimed at breaking up and dis-
solving federations; Thebes, on the contrary, formed
the Arcadian townships, forty in number, into a con-
federacy, of which Megalopolis, the Great City, was
made the centre. Messene was then founded on Mount
Ithome, and became the rally ing-place of a population
which had long been unwillingly subject to Sparta.
What had hitherto been Spartan territory was actually
annexed to it. Sparta's limits were thus greatly nar-
rowed. On the north and on the west she was con-
fronted by independent communities, and her position
in the Peloponnese was well nigh destroyed. Though
Thebes soon fell back from the pre-eminence to which
the genius of Epameinondas had lifted her, Sparta was
never able to regain her ancient prestige.
Athens, from some cause or other, had much more
elasticity and power of recovery than Sparta. There
was a life and sprightliness about her citizens which
made them quickly forget calamities and rise to new
hopes and aspirations. So it was with them after
Leuctra. Athens at once was fired with the ambition
of winning back her old empire; and she actually suc-
ceeded in again becoming the head of a powerful con-
federacy. The disgust which Sparta had provoked
throughout the Greek world was no doubt a great help
to Athens. Once more her fleet sailed supreme over
the ^3gean. As a matter of course, the chief islands
joined her alliance. A synod of deputies from her allies
and dependents obeyed her summons, and contribu-
GREECE LN THE FO URTII CENTURY B. C. 1
tions were voted for the common cause. She had able
men such as Timotheus, Iphicrates, and Chabrias
to command her forces. At the time of Philip's acces-
sion to the throne of Macedon in 359 B.C., Athens was
the first state in Greece. She was not specially well
fitted for war on land, and was in this respect inferior
to Thebes, which could send out an army in the highest
efficiency. But by sea she was, beyond comparison,
the first power. Rhodes, Chios, Cos, and the important
cities of Perinthus and Byzantium, were he: allies,
Samos, off the coast of Lydia, and Thasos, Lemnos,
Imbros in the north of the ^Egean, had been recently
conquered by her; she was in possession of the Thra.
cian Chersonese, of Pydna and Methone on the coast
of Macedon, and of PotidaBa and other towns in the
peninsula of Chalcidice. The waters of ike JEgean
were thus an Athenian lake. But she couLl r.ot- hold
together this confederation. She had no proper control
over her generals. They were not in iac^ the servants
of the state, but men of the " Condottieri " type. As a
rule, they commanded mercenaries, for whom they
could not provide pay without systematically plunder-
ing the allies. These generals really maintained their
troops by means of " forced benevolences." It could
hardly be expected that all this would be patiently en-
dured. In 358 B. c. the Social War, as it was termed,
broke out Rhodes and Byzantium, it would seem,
leading the revolt. It lasted two years. The efforts of
Athens appear to bs rather fitful and wanting in vigor.
When a rumor came that Persia was about to support
the revolted allies with a fleet of three hundred ships,
Athens gave up the struggle and acknowledged their
inclepsndence. The confederation, of which for a
brief space she had been the he.id, was thus at an end.
8 &EMO8T&KSES,
This was a great blow to Athens. She was still
powerful by sea, but she was very much impoverished,
a large part of her revenue having been lost to her
through the secession of several of her richest allies.
Was it not now best for her to rest from her ambition,
and to think no more of " a spirited foreign policy? "
So argued one of her citizens, the famous orator
Isocrates. He complains that his countrymen "were
so tefutuated that while they themselves wanted the
meanj ol' subsistence they were undertaking to maintain
mercenaries, and were maltreating their allies and
1; vying tribute from them, in order tint they might
provide pay for the common enemies of mankind." By
these he means Ae generals, of whom also Demos-
thenes, his political opponent, s ,y , in one of his
speeches, that "they go ranging about and behaving
everywhere as the common enemies of all who wish to
)ivc i~ freedom according to their own laws." Athens,
he contends, might recover from the losses and dis-
asters of the Social War, if she would only eschew for
the future a meddling and aggressive policy, be pre-
pared for self-defence, and devote herseli to commerce
and the arts of peace. In this way she. would, with
the great natural advantages she possessed, very soon
again become rich and prosperous. This was the ad-
vice of Isocrates. It might well seem sensible and
timely. And, as a matter of fact, it suited the temper
of many of the citizens. There was a disposition to
shrink from personal efforts, and, if war became a
necessity, to leave it more and more to mercenaries.
In such a mood there were dangers, as the event
proved, to the cause both of Athens and of Greece.
A peace party was the natural result. It was in
power at Athens for some years after the conclusion of
GREECE IN THE FO URTH CENTURY D. C.
the Social War, the critical period during which Philip
of Macedou was step by step advancing to the position
he ultimately attained. It had the advocacy of the
speeches and pamphlets of Isocrates, who had the com-
mand, not undeservedly, of the public ear. It was
thus supported by the ablest journalism of the day.
Again, it had an eminently respectable man as one
of its leaders. This was Phocion, whose integrity was
proverbial. Forty-five times was he chosen general,
and he gained several victories for Athens. He was
alone sufficient to give strength to a political party.
Another of its leaders was Eubulus, a man of very
inferior type. His great aim was to put the people In
a good humor. There was a singular arrangement at
Athens by which the State defrayed the cost of the
public amusements and dramatic exhibitions for the
benefits of the poor citizens. A regular fund was pro-
vided for this purpose, and after a time the surplus of
the annual public revenue was added to it. It had
formerly been the law that this surplus should always
during war be paid into the military chest for the
defence of the State. Eubulus actually induced the
people to pass a law making it a capital offence to pro-
pose that this fund should be so applied on any future
occasion. Consequently, the only method of meeting
the costs of war was the exaction of a property tax
from the rich. War under these circumstances could
not but involve very serious and sorely felt sacrifices.
We may form some idea of the pressure of the burden
by supposing the case of an income tax of 4s. or 5s. in
the pound among ourselves. No ministry, it is clear,
could venture to declare war except under the most pal-
pable necessity, if such a tax were inevitable. Eubulus
accordingly conciliated the rich by doing his utmost to
10 DEMOSTHENES.
save them from the dreaded burden. He was, as we
should say, prime minister of Athens for sixteen years.
His position must have been a very strong one, accept-
able, as we have just seen, to rich and poor alike.
There can hardly be a doubt that his policy impaired
the Athenian character, and made the work of Demos-
thenes peculiarly difficult.
Athens thus entered on a great contest under un-
favorable conditions. She was still, from her exten-
sive trade, the richest city in Greece, and she had the
means of sending formidable fleets. But her citi-
zens liked ease and comfort, and preferred their cheer-
ful city life to foreign service. Her dominions, too,
were rather vulnerable, not being guarded by any
regular troops. If they were attacked, they had to be
defended by mercenaries, commanded by the sort of
general who has been described. Then, too, her com-
merce, with which her prosperity was closely bound
up, might be harrassed by an enterprising enemy, and
her supplies of corn from the Black Sea endangered.
Thus, in fighting Macedon she was perhaps at some
disadvantage, though we may be inclined to think that
a little more energy and vigor would have carried her
successfully through the struggle. The truth is, she
was not for a long time alive to the real danger, aricl
was consequently remiss in seizing opportunities.
There was a party which urged alliance with Thebes.
But Thebes was more hateful to an average Athenian
than Sparta had ever been. Such a party seemed
untrue to the old traditions of Athens. Hence it was
comparatively weak. Had the danger from Macedon
been distinctly foreseen, the alliance would perhaps
have been effected. Athens and Thebes united might,
it can hardly be doubteA , have confined Philip to his
own hereditary kingdom, and have saved Greece.
CHAPTER II.
MACEDON AND PHILIP.
THE name of Macedon, though it is heard of from
time to time in Greek history, can hardly be said to have
become really famous till the fourth century B.C. and
the reign of Philip. It could never have occurred to the
mind of a Greek that this outlying northern kingdom
might possibly one day be formidable to Greece and its
freedom. There were no signs pointing in this direction ;
and it may be fairly assumed that no political sagacity
could have foreseen such a result. The Macedonians
were always looked upon by the Greeks as barbarians,
although their royal family Temenids, as they were
called, from their legendary ancestors, Temenus came
from Argos, and the people themselves perhaps had
some distant affinity to the Hellenic race. For a long
period they were nothing better than a collection of
rude tribes, with scarcely any cohesion or organization,
and before the disciplined army of a Greek state they
would have been utterly powerless. They were sur-
rounded, too, by fierce and unquiet neighbors Tllyr-
ians to the west, Peeonians to the north, Thracians to
the east, all savage, warlike peoples, whom they could
only just hold in check. The country, indeed with its
rivers and rich valleys and strips of seaboard, had nat-
ural advantages which a vigorus prince wilh organiz-
12 DEMOSTHENES.
ing capacity might develop; and this was partially done
by Archelaus, who reigned from 413 B.C. to 399. He
was a man of great energy, and he may be said to have
put Macedon in the way to become a flourishing and
powerful kingdom. According to Thucydides,* he had
roads constructed, fortresses erected, and established a
standing army on a greater scale than any of his pred-
ecessors had kept up. Probably the last years of the
Peloponnesian war, which were so disastrous to Athens,
were favorable to Macedon, and enabled it to acquire
an influence on the northern coasts of the ^Egean,
which previously Athens had possessed. Still, no
doubt Archelaus deserves the credit of having steadily
applied himself to the work of strc igthening and con-
solidating his kingdom. At tae same time, he did his
best to civilize his people, and to uiins; them into con-
nection with the ck world. lie cultivated the
friendship of Athens, and sought to introduce its
literature and art. He established a grand periodical
festival on the Greek type, with all the humanizing
adjuncts of music and poetry. The great poet Euri-
pides visited his court at his special invitation, and
was treated with such favor a^d respect that he re-
mained there till his death. The philosopher Socrates
was invited, but it appears that he declined the honor.
The famous painter, Zeuxis of Heraclcia, was one of the
king's guests, and he was employed to adorn with pic
tures the royal palace at Pel la, the new capitol of
Macedonia. In fact, Archelaus was an enlightened
despot; and though he could not eradicate barbarism
and make Macedonians into Greeks, he at least gave
the higher class a varnish of Greek civilization and
culture.
* Thucydides, ii. 100.
MACEDON AND PHILIP. 13
It was not unusual for the kings of Macedon to perish
by the hands of conspirators and assassins, and this was
the fate of Archelaus. The dynasty was now changed;
and after a few years of disturbance, Amyntas, the
father of Philip, became king in 394 B.C. His reign
was not a prosperous one. Macedonia went back, and
its very existence as an independent kingdom was in
jeopardy. According to one account, Amyntas was
obliged to surrender Philip as a hostage to the Ulyr-
ians, who were then particularly troublesome. He
left his kingdom at his death, in 370 B.C., in an almost
desperate plight. The succession to the throne was
disputed, and the enemies on the border were as for-
midable as ever. Macedon, indeed, seemed on the eve
of being wholly extinguished. The eldest son and
successor of Amyntas, Alexander, was murdered; and
shortly afterwards the Theban Pelopidas was invited
into the country by the friends of the royal family,
with the view probably of securing the throne for the
two younger brothers, Perdiccas and Philip. Pelopi-
das, it seems, forced on Macedonia the adoption of this
arrangement, and took Philip with him to Thebes, as
a hostage for its being faithfully carried out Philip
passed three years at Thebes, while his brother Perdic-
cas was king. He then, in 368 B.C., was intrusted
with the government of a portion of Macedonia under
Perdiccas, and employed his time in equipping and
organizing some troops. His brother's reign had a dis-
astrous termination. He was defeated with heavy loss
by the Illyrians, and died soon afterwards. And so
Philip, now twenty-three years of age, became king of
Macedon in 359 B.C., there being only an infant son
of Perdiccas whose claim to the throne it was not dif-
14
ficult, under the circumstances, to set aside with the
national approval.
No prince could have begun his reign with gloomier
prospects than the future conqueror of Greece. He
was encompassed by enemies. There were other claim-
ants of the throne one of these being Argseus, who
was supported by Athens. He thus had to fear attack
from barbarian neighbors by land, and from Athenian
fleets by sea. The hostile attitude of the Athenians
was determined by tlieir very prudent desire to recover
the important position of Amphipolis at the mouth of
the Strymon. To Athens the possession of this place
was of the utmost value, as it was the key to a region
rich in gold and silver mines, as well as in forest-timber.
To this the people had an eye, in supporting the pre-
tensions of Argams to the throne of Macedon against
Philip. The king, however, met them promptly, and
won a victory over a little force which they had sent
to Methone on the Macedonian coast of the Gulf of
Thermae. He took some Athenian citizens prisoners;
but as he was anxious to conciliate Athens, he treated
them with marked respect, and allowed them at once
to return. He then made peace with Athens, and
waived all claim to Amphipolis, in which his pred-
ecessor had placed a Macedonian garrison. The city
was now left to itself; and the Athenians, had tfiey
been wise, would have spared no effort to secure it.
As it was, they let slip a golden opportunity of regain-
ing a position which might have been in their hands a
barrier against the growing power of Macedon, and
would have certainly enabled them to maintain their
maritime supremacy on the ^Egean.
Philip meanwhile, having freed himself for the
present from the fear of Athens, was at liberty to fence
MAC ED ON AND PHILIP. 15
off liis kingdom from the attacks of its land enemies.
He had already organized something of a military force,
and with this he prepared to strike a decisive blow at
the Illyrian, Pa3onion, and Thracian tribes, which were
perpetually crossing the Macedonian frontier in plun-
dering expeditions. It seems that these tribes, which
were scattered over what are now the provinces of
Bosnia, Servia, and Albania, were at this time being
pushed southwards by a g-eat movement of the Gauls.
The Illyrians were Maccdon's most dangerous neigh-
bors, and they had inflicted many disastrous defeats
on Philip's predecessors. Now they were at the height
of their power, and were united for purposes of war
under a chief named Bardylis, an able leader and a
brave warrior. Philip, after thoroughly vanquishing
the Poeonians, which he seems to have done easily,
turned his arms against the more formidable Illyrians,
and attacked them in western Macedonia, which they
had invaded. lie won a hard-fought battle, chiefly
through the efficiency of his cavalry. The Illyrian
army was utterly discomfited, and their chief glad to
make p ace, and cede whatever portions of Mace-
donia he had conquered and occupied. The result of
this victory was, that the Maccnorrian frontier was
pushed to the lake Lychnitis (now Okridha), and was
made far moro secure Item it had hitherto been, by the
occupation of mountain-passes through which the
Illyrian invaders used to pour into Macedonia.
The famous phalanx, which we connect specially
with the names of Macedon and Philip and Alexander,
is said to have taken part in this battle. Philip has
been credited with this military invention; but, in
truth, he can be said only to have introduced it. He
may have considerably modified it, but it had always
16 DEMOSTHENES.
been an important element in a Greek army. It was
the great Epameinondas of Thebes who seems to have
first organized it in its most powerful and effective
form. He, in fact, it was who brought the science of
war to the highest perfection hitherto known in Greece.
Philip, during his residence as a young man in Thebes,
may well have had opportunities of personal intercourse
with this illustrious general, and derived from him
many profitable hints and suggestions. At all events, he
had daily iinder his eyes the magnificent soldiers who
had fought and conquered at Leuctra. His first military
ideas were thus drawn from the best of all schools, and
we may well suppose that a deep impression was at the
same time made on his young imagination. He would
soon see that the barbarous enemies of Macedon would
never be able to stand against really well-trained troops.
He had also at Thebes the literary and philosophical
teaching which often lays the foundation of able states-
manship. Possibly he may have made the acquaintance
of Plato, and there is certainly ground for believing
that the philosopher conceived a high opinion of his
ability. Nor is it unlikely that he may also at this
time have had his admiration directed by some circum-
stance to Aristotle, whom he afterwards made the
tutor of the young Alexander. It is certain that he
became imbued with some amount of Greek culture,
and that he acquired the power of speaking and writing
the language almost as well as a professed orator or
rhetorician. He liked to look on himself, and to be
regarded by others, as thoroughly a Greek ; and this it
was, no doubt, which inclined him to be always con
siderate towards Athens, as the foremost state of Greece.
Perhaps he was not too young, before he left Thebes,
to imbibe some political notions. In such a city he
XACKDON AND PHILIP. 17
would at least have a good opportunity of getting an
insight into the character of Greek politics, and he
might have early learnt some of those weak points in
Greece which his adroitness subsequently enabled him
to turn to such profitable account.
Philip, after his victories over the Illyrians and
Paeonians, which for a time at least made Macedonia
secure on the land side, still reigned over a poor and
half -barbarous kingdom. He had much to do before
he could hope t j become a considerable power in the
Greek world. As yet, he did not possess a single town
on tho coast. He had, as we have seen, given up
Amphipolis to please the Athenians. He must have
been surprised to find that they did not make haste to
recover that important place. But they committed the
blunder, and allowed the people of Amphipolis to remain
their own masters. Soon afterwards, in 358 B. c. , Philip
thought he might as well possess himself of it; and
when the inhabitants refused to surrender, he laid siege
to the city. Envoys were sent to Athens, asking for
help; but it is possible that at this crisis the war with
the allies had just begun, and that the Athenians may
have thus found themselves fully occupied. Philip,
too, promised them in a very civil letter that he would
put them in possession of it as soon as he had taken it.
The Athenians did nothing, though it could not have
been very difficult for them to have saved the place
and secured it for themselves. This was indeed short-
sighted, as they now again had an opportunity of
securing a commanding position, and of nipping Philip's
pr.wor in the bud. It was one of those errors which
can never be retrieved. Athens lo^t prestige, as well
aiamost useful dependency. When Philip took the
city, Olynthus, which was not far distant, and was at
18 DEMOSTHENES,
the head of a group of Greek townships in the penin-
sula of Chalcidice, was seriously alarmed, and proposed
an alliance to Athens. The offer was rejected, as the
Athenians, it seems, still wished to look on Philip as
their friend, and were persuaded to trust his promise?.
The cunning prince contrived not only to buy off the
hostility of Olynthus, but actually to win its friend-
ship and to become its ally by the cession of a
disputed strip of territory near Thessalonica. The
next thing he did was to venture on an openly hostile
act against Athens by conquering and wresting from
her a most important possession, the city of Potidaea,
on the gulf of Thermae. This, too, he gave up to the
Olynthians. Pydna, also, on the shore of the same
gulf, opposite to Potidsea, likewise an Athenian pos-
session, fell into his hands through internal treachery;
and Athens, it appears, made no effort to save the
place. Thus, in a single year, 358 B.C., Philip gained
three most valuable positions on the coast, and a severe
shock was given to Athenian influence in the north of
the ^Egean. He had hitherto been poor; now he had
the means of raising an ample revenue. Master of
Amphipolis, he had free access to the gold region in
the neighborhood east of the Strymon. Here he
founded the city which we know by the familiar name
of Philippi. He had now a well-organized army, and
he was able to maintain it. In little more than two
years he had immensely increased the strength and
resources of his kingdom. But it was not till six
years afterwards that Macedon was felt to be a distinct
menace to the Greek world.
CHAPTER II [.
EARLY LIFE OP DEMOSTHENES.
WE cannot be quite certain about the year in which
Demosthenes was born. The accounts are conflicting,
and we are thrown back on somewhat doubtful infer-
ences. The year, it seems, must have been either 385-
384 B.C. or 382-381 B.C. His early life thus coincided
with an eventful period, and witnessed more than one
remarkable political change in the Greek world. In the
years immediately after his birth the supremacy of
Sparta was unquestioned. Greece lay at her feet.
Her power had made itself felt far beyond the Pelo-
ponnese, even on the northern shores of the ^Egean.
She had overthrown the city which might have become
an effectual bulwark against the terrible king of Mace-
don. Olynthus became her vassal in the year 379 B.C.
All was changed eight years afterwards. The decisive
battle of Leuctra, in 371 B.C., struck down Sparta and
gave the ascendancy to Thebes. For a few years Greece
resounded with the fame of her two illustrious citizens,
Epameinondas and Pelopidas. But when she lost
Kpameinondas, nine years after Leuctra, in the brilliant
victory of Mantineia, she lost with him the supreme
control of Greek politics, retaining merely the foremost
r.inli among the northern states. Meanwhile she had
20 DEW08THENE8.
given, as we have seen, shelter and education to the
future destroyer of Greek freedom.
Amid* these changes and revolutions, Demosthenes
grew up to manhood. His own state, Athens, had
achieved nothing specially worthy of record during
this period. Still, she was altogether the most famous
city of Greece, and was commercially prosperous. The
father of Demosthenes, who bore the same name, was
a rich and eminenty respectable citizen. He was a
merchant and a manufacturer, and belonged to the
wealthy middle class. His property was distributed in
various investments. He had two manufactories, and
each, it seems, had a good business. One was a sword
and knife manufactory, and employed thirty -two slaves.
Ttie other was a cabinet manufactory, and in this
twenty slaves were employed. He had also money
out at interest, a deposit account at one of the principal
banks, and sums lent, according to a very prevalent
Athenian practice, on ship-cargoes. He had, too, a
house of some value, and good furniture and plate;
and his wife was an heiress, and had her jewels on a
tolerably handsome scale. But the lady, whose name
was Cleobule, was not of pure Athenian blood, and
Irjr b'.rth and antecedents were not quite what could be
desired. Her father, Gylon, was a man of distinctly
blemished reputation. He had been, in fact, accused
of treason the charge against him being that he had
betrayed to the enemy the seaport town of Nympha3um
in the Crimea. He did not appear to answer the
accusation, and was, according to one account sentenced
to death in his absence. But he contrived to do well
for himself. He went to Panticapseum, now Kertch,
in the Crimea, then the capitol of the kings of Bo<-
porus, and there, through the king's favor, obtained
EARL Y LIFE OF DEMOSTHENES. 21
a grant of laud and married a rich wife. She was
sneeringly spoken of at Athens as a barbarian and a
Scythian and so ./Eschines describes her; but it is
quite possible that she may have been the daughter of
one of those many Greeks who had settled in this
remote district to carry on the business of exporting
corn to Athens. It was then, as now, a specially
corn-growing region. Gylon. it seems, made the most
of the king's favor, and traded with great success.
He was unquestionably a sharp, shrewd man ; and he
sent his two daughters well dowered to Athens, and
there they both made fairly good matches. Both got
Athenian citizens for their husbands the one marry-
ing Demochares, and the other the elder Demosthenes.
We may not unreasonably conjecture that the mother
of Demosthenes inherited some natural ability from her
sagacious and enterprising father.
It was the misfortune of Demosthenes to be left an
orphan when only seven years of age, and to fall into
the hands of unscrupulous guardians. His father died
worth fourteen talents, about 3,500 of our money.
This, according to modern notions, is a very moderate
property; but at Athens it was sufficiently large to place
its possessor in the wealthiest class, and to render him
liable to the highest rate of direct taxation. There
were much larger fortunes, no doubt, as that of Nicias,
which is said to have amounted to 100 talents, or about
24,000. Alcibiades was even richer; and Callias, who
lived at the time of the Persian war, and secured a
good share of the plunder, was what we should call a
millionaire, being reported to have been worth 200
talents. Athens, as we have seen . was, of all the Greek
cities, by far the richest, and it always contained a
number of well-to-do-citizens. The ordinary rate of
22 DEMOSTHENES.
interest was extremely high. Money lent even on good
security fetched from 12 to 20 per cent. ; and some in-
vestments, those especially on ship-cargoes hazardous,
no doubt were yet more lucrative. As much as 30
per cent, was now and then paid on this class of invest-
ments. Demosthenes asserts, in his pleadings against
his guardians, that a third part of his estate produced
an income of fifty minas. This would make the
entire income about 600 a year. Now, it appears that
a citizen could live just decently at Athens on some-
thing like seven or eight minas a-year, or about 32 ;
and in perfect comfort and respectability on fifty
minas, or about 200 a-year, provided he kept clear of
the various costly public services which were demanded
from the rich. Demosthenes, therefore, it is clear,
having but one sister, ought to have had a very amp] 2
fortune, though he could not have been described La
extremely wealthy. His father, being in business,
probably got 25 or even 30 per cent, for a large part
of his capital, and we should suppose that he was at
Athens in much the same position as a man with from
2, 000 to 3,000 a-year would be with us. Had his
will been faithfully carried out, and a third of the
income been set apart for maintenance and education,
and two-thirds profitably invested, the son must have
been decidedly rich when at the age of sixteen, ten
years after his father's death, he attained his majority.
As it was, he found himself comparatively poor.
He had to receive something less than two talents, and
his income could not have exceeded from 60 to 70
a-year. His father, we may surmise, had misgivings
about the administration of the property, as he practi-
cally endeavored to bribe tha three guardians, two of
whom were his nephews, into a faithful discharge of
EARLY LIFE OF DEMOSTHENES. 23
their trust by giving them full control over almost one
third of the property. His sister's son, Aphobus, was
to marry the widow, with a fair fortune, and to have
the house and furniture during the minority of Demos-
thenes. His brother's son, Demophon, was to have
two talents, and to marry the daughter in due time.
In all respects he seems to have carefully provided for
his two children, and to have left them in the charge
of relatives on whose fidelity he might reasonably
) eclion. The result can be ascribed only to negligence
and dishonesty. The property must have been partly
muddled away, partly actually embezzled. Admitting
that some cf the investments were precarious, and that
the business of the two manufactories was simply mis-
managed, we can hardly doubt that the trustees were
unprincipled as well as utterly careless. It is true, indeed,
that Demosthenes was taunted by his rival.zEscb.ines with
having squandered his patrimony in ridiculous follies;
and it was alleged by one of the guardians, in defending
the action, that large advances had been made. The
boy had, it would seem, rather luxurious tastes, and
in the last two years of his minority he may have
indulged them freely. But this very inadequately
explains the smallness of the sums handed over to him.
It is an all but absolute certainty that he was swindled
out of his property. The matter ended in his bringing
an action against Aphobus, and recovering a verdict
for ten talents. It is not certain whether he actually
received this amount. Aphobus was rich and influential,
and contrived to make further difficulties. We have
five speeches connected with this action three against
Aphobus, and two against a brother-in-law of Aphobus,
Onetor. It is from these speeches that we chiefly get
our information about the property of Demosthenes.
24 DEMOSTHENES.
We have not the means of knowing the precise results
of the suit, or what benefit, if any, Demosthenes de-
rived from it. Much of the estate had somehow or
other disappeared, and he had to enter on life as rather
a poor instead of a rich man.
It is probable that his misfortunes had a good effect
on his character. They may have been the source of his
intense resolution and perseverance. From early years
he had a weak constitution, and shrank from the vigor-
ous physical training which was considered an essential
element in a Greek education. He had an active
mind, and a strong craving for intellectual culture. As
became his position and expectations, he went to good
schools though his guardians, if we may believe his
statement, were shabby enough to leave his school-fees
unpaid. He had a passion for speeches and recitations ;
and it was said that he once induced his schoolmaster
to go with him to hear one of the first speakers of the
day, Callistratus, who was delivering a great political
harangue on the cession of the border-town Oropus to
the Thebans. The occasion may have been a turning-
point in his life. But he had an unlucky infirmity; he,
who was to be the greatest orator of all time, stammered
in his boyhood and youth. It would seem as if his
physical defects were too much for his mental vigor
and his ambitious aspirations.
Plutarch in his ' Life of Demosthenes ' gives us several
interesting details about his study and preparation for
the career of an orator, and it is satisfactory to find
that so high an authority as Mr. Grote thinks that they
rest on good evidence. It appsars that the youth put
himself under the instruction of Isseus, one of the first
advocates of the time, who was frequently retained in
cases connected with will's and disputes about property.
EARL T LIFE OF DEMOSTHENES. 2/>
In his speeches against his guardians he is said to have
availed himself of the counsel and guidance of this
eminent lawyer. But the most fashionable rhetoric-
professor of the day was Isocrates, and Demosthenes
was among the number of his most attentive and ad-
miring hearers; though perhaps we must not believe a
story according to which he asked the great man to
teach him a fifth part of his art for two minas, as he
could not afford the regular fee of ten minas, about
40, to learn the whole. One would like to believe
that he heard and admired some of the discourses of
Plato, who was then in the height of his philosophical
glory; and there is a tradition, mentioned by Cicero
and Tacitus, to this effect. The literary styles of the
two men are no doubt very diverse; yet, as Dr. Thirl-
wall suggests, it is not wholly improbable that the
lofty morality which Demosthenes ventured to intro-
duce into speeches addressed to Athenian assemblies
and law courts may have been inspired by the philos-
opher. That he was a devoted student of the great
History of Thucydides, that copied it out eight times,
and almost knew it by heart, we may well believe.
One of the ancient critics, Dionysius of Halycarnassus,
has elaborately pointed out resemblances in the orator
to the historian. Strangely enough Cicero, in his
Orator,* asks the question, "What Greek orator ever
borrowed anything from Thucydides?" We really fail
to see the point of this question, unless he meant to
limit the term orator to a mere pleader, and even then
we think he is wrong. But for the purpose of political
oratory there cannot be a doubt that both the style and
matter of Thucydides might be studied with infinite
profit by a man of real capacity.
* Chapter ix.
26 DEM08THENK8.
Nothing but the utmost energy and perseverance
would have enabled Demosthenes to make himself an
orator. He had, as already said, to surmount the
actual physical difficulties of a feeble constitution and
of some defect in his organs of speech. His ultimate
success was a decisive proof of a singularly exceptional
force of character. It was for this, indeed, as exhibited
throughout his whole career, that he specially deserves
admiration. We are told that he practiced speaking
with pebbles in his mouth ; that he strengthened his
lungs and his voice by reciting as he ran up hill ; that
he declaimed on the seashore amid the noise of waves
and storms. He would even pass two or three months
continuously in a subterranean cell, shaving one side
of his head, that he might not be able to show himself
in public, to the interruption of his rhetorical exercises.
But all this patient and laborious practice did not
procure immediate success. No public assembly could
be more critical and fastidious than that of Athens.
Demosthenes failed repeatedly. One of the Old citizens
found him on one of these occasions wandering about
disconsolately in the Piraeus, and tried to cheer him
up by saying, " You have a way oi speaking which re-
minds me of Peric.es, but you lose -ourself through
mere timidity and cowardice. " J.nother ',ime he was
returning to his home in deep dejection, when Patyru?,
a great and popular actor, with whom ho WP,S well ac-
quainted, entered into conversation with him. Demos-
thenes complained that though he was the most pains-
taking of all orators, and had almost sacrificed his
health to his intense application, yet he could find no
f ivor with the people, and that drunken seamen and
other illiterate persons were listened to in preference to
himself. "True," replied the actor, " but I will pro-
EARL T LIFE OF DEMOSTHENES. 27
vide you a remedy if you will repeat to me some speech
in Euripides or Sophocles." Demosthenes did so, and
then Satyrus recited the same speech in such a
manner that it seemed to the orator quite a different
passage. With the aid of such hints, joined to his own
indefatigable industry, he at last achieved a distinct
success in the law courts, and his services as an advo-
cate were in great request.
After all he had not much of which, according to
our notions, a man could reasonably claim. Suc-
cess came to him very early in life. He was, as we
should say, in large practice at the bar when he was
considerably under thirty an age at which a young
English barrister hardly hopes for a brief. Doubtless,
at Athens there were opportunities for displaying ora-
torical ability which do not exist in England. One
thoroughly successful speech before the popular assem-
bly might well make the fortune of a man as an advo-
cate. To make such a speech required, we may be sure,
marked ability and considerable training; but once
made, it must at least have opened a career in the law
courts. Athenian law, too, was probably less intricate
and difficult "ban English. It had not such a variety
of branches, as seem to be indispensable in so complex
a community as our own. The study of it must thus
have been a much less arduous task than that which
lies before the English lawyer. But it was an admi-
rable preparation for political life. Law and politics
were intermingled at Athens very much more than
among ourselves; and a lawyer was almost necessarily
something of a politician. There, questions which we
regarded as purely political, and which would be dis-
cussed with U3 only in Parliament, might come before
a law court. An accusation, for instance, might be
28
preferred against a man for proposing a law or a decree
quite at variance with the spirit of the constitution.
Such cases were frequent. It was in a prosecution of
this nature that Demosthenes, who for some few years
had had a good practice as a barrister in civil and
criminal causes, made what we may fairly call his first
appearance as a political adviser.
CHAPTER IV.
DEMOSTHENES ENTERS POLITICAL LIFE.
IN all democracies much will be expected from the
rich. This was the rule in the Greek states, and especi-
ally at Athens. There the constitution demanded a cer-
tain amount of public spirit, and prescribed various
modes in which it was to display itself. Athenians loved
a bright joyous life, and the wealthier of them were
under legal obligations to minister to the popular tastes
and contribute to the public amusements. There was
a good side to all this. It made the rich feel that they
must not use their riches merely for their own selfish
enjoyment, but that it ought to be the glory of an Athe-
nian citizen of fortune to put happiness and refinement
within the reach of every member of the community.
Pericles, in the famous funeral oration, the substance of
which Thucydides has given us, had boasted how it was
the peculiar genius of Athens to combine mtrthf ulness
and gaiety with a strong sense of political responsibility.
Poetry and music were an essential part of an Athe-
nian's life. They were intimately connected with all
the religious festivals. With us the pleasures of the
opera are necessarily confined to a select few. At
Athens the poorest citizen was enabled to gratify his
taste for such pleasures. The law imposed on a man
with a certain amount of property the liability of hav-
H
30 DEMOSTHENES.
ing to provide a chorus of singers or musicians on some
rrcat public occasion. He had to bear all the expenses
Himself. Having made up his number, he had to ob-
tain a teacher or choir-master, and to pay him for his
instruction. Ho had also, it seems, to board and lodge
the chorus during the time of its training, and he had,
further, to furnish them with suitable dresses. All
this, of course, he could do by deputy; but if he was
anxious, as ho usually would be, to do it with credit to
himself, he would find that he must give the matter
his personal attention. There was a prize for the best
performance; and this, if not instrinsically valuable,
was sure to be coveted. The choragus, as he was
called, had a stall assigned him in the theatre, and it
was part of his duty to be present during the ceremony
with his crown and robe of office. There seems to
have been every variety of chorus tragic and comic
choruses, pyrrhic choruses,and choruses of flute-players.
The expense of providing them might range from 100
to 1,200 a large sum in comparison with Athenian
wealth. Still this amount was, it appears, often ex-
ceeded in an eager competition for the prize. The suc-
cessful choragus was certain to be a popular citizen.
This, then, was one of the regular charges on the
wealthier class. There wero others. Athleticism and
gymnastic games were a prominent feature in Greek
life. At Athens one of the amusements in which they
specially delighted was running with the torch, the
runners carrying wax lights in their hands, which it
was their object not to extinguish. The race in the
time of Socrates began to be run on horseback, and the
training and preparation for it became one of the pub-
lic services, which the rich had to undertake. The
gymnasiarch, or director of these games, had to defray
DEMOSTHENES ENTERS POLITICAL LIFE. 31
all the expenses connected with the spectacle; he had
to see to and to pay for the training of the competitors,
which was on a very elaborate scale, and might involve
a comparatively heavy outlay. Another still more
burdensome obligation was the conduct of religious em-
bassies to various places. This was regarded as a duty
of the highest and most sacred kind; and whenever the
State sent out a special commission to any of the
ancient seats of Greek worship, such as Delos or Del-
phi, to consult the oracle of the god or to offer a
solemn sacrifice, it was represented by citizens of
wealth and distinction. Anything like parsimony on
such an occasion would have been thought peculiarly
discreditable, and it was the tendency of an Athenian
to go to the opposite extreme. The head of the sacred
mission entered the city whither he was bound with a
crown of gold and in a splendidly equipped chariot,
Alcibiades astonished the Greek world at the Olympic
festival with his magnificent horses and his princely
expenditure. Even in an ordinary way, however,
the performance of this duty must have teen a
costly service. A minor expense was that of giying
a public dinner to the particular tribe of which a
man was a member. This too was a burden imposed
on the rich. Last of all came the obligation to
maintain the fleet in efficiency, Athens' defence and
glory. This the trierarchy, as it was called was a
service of which we are continually hearing in the
speeches of Demosthenes, and to place it on a satis,
factory footing was an object he had specially at heart.
All these services, it must be understood, were legally
compulsory not merely enforced on the rich by public
opinion, as in our time. At Athens, no citizen who
was registered as the possessor of a certain amount of
32 DEMOSTHENES.
property could evade them. A man in England may
be obliged to serve the office of sheriff once in a way,
but to try to create public spirit by law would be
repugnant to our notions. In a Greek state there was
a much more distinct theory as to what each citizen
owed to the commonwealth; and Athens, the very
type of G-reek democracy, felt it most natural to make
these demands on her richer classes. At the same
time, she had thought fit to exempt certain persons from
the operation of this principle. There were a few
whose meritorious services might be fairly considered
to have earned them such an exemption the trierarchy
alone excepted. The privilege in some cases was ex-
tended to their descendants. Two> names were cherished
at Athens with peculiarly grateful remembrance, those
of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, the illustrious tyran-
nicides, who were believed to have given freedom and
equality to their city. To their offspring forever was
granted immunity from the public burdens we have
just described. In like manner, a statesman or a
general who had deserved well of his country might
be rewarded with the same privilege for himself and
his children. With us such men occasionally obtain
pensions, which, in a few instances, are continued to
their descendants. With the Athenians, they enjoyed
what was perhaps almost an equivalent exemption
from costly and burdensome services.
It is easy to see that many abuses might creep into
this system; and that even without any very glaring
abuses, there might be much envy and dissatisfaction.
Privileges of any kind are sure to give offence, and in
a democratical community they cannot fail to furnish a
handle to demagogues and politicians. We are there-
fore not surprised to find that at Athens in 356 B.C. a
DEMOSTHENES ENTERS POLITICAL LIFE. 33
law was proposed and carried repealing all exemptions
and immunities. The author of the law was a certain
Leptines, who was no doubt put forward as the spokes-
man of a considerable party. He contrived to get a
measure of a very sweeping kind passed, so that not
only were all existing grants of immunity abolished,
but it was declared illegal to make such grants in the
future, and even to ask or them was forbidden under
a heavy penalty. We do not know whether there was
any special impulse or provocation under which the
people of Athens allowed themselves to be persuaded
into passing this law. It roused, of course, a strong
opposition, the leader of which was a son of the famous
Chabrias, who had fallen in his country's cause, fighting
on board his ship at the siege of Chios. The son had
inherited from his father one of these honorable grants
of immunity. He was, it seems, himself utterly un-
worthy of it; but he represented a principle, and had,
we may be sure, a numerous following. Demosthenes
became his advocate, and in the year subsequent to
the passing of the law, he assailed it in a speech which
has always been much admired.
This was his first political effort. He was quite a
young man at the time thirty years of age at most,
probably less. The speech he delivered does not
exhibit the fire and force of some of his subsequent
oration>; it is calm and argumentative, and deserves
the epithet of "subtle" which Cicero* applies to it.
It is in fact a specimen throughout of close and con-
secutive reasoning. Leptines' proposal was no doubt
popular, and it was supported by many plausible argu-
ments. The circumstances of the State were such as
made any exemptions and immunities from public
*0rator, c. xxxi.
34 DEMOSTHENES.
burdens of vjry questionable expediency. Athens had
been seriously impoverished by her recent disastrous
war with her allies, and many of her richer citizens
must, for a time at least, have been sorely straitened
in their resources. To exempt such wealthy men from
burdens which there was not too much wealth left to
bear, might well seem a distinct loss to the State. It
increased the difficulty of providing for those public
festivals which were so dear to the people. It could
also no doubt be plausibly argued that exemptions had
been granted too freely, and now and then to thoroughly
unworthy persons. Many a man not particularly rich
would think himself aggrieved, when he saw some one
far richer than himself altogether exempt. The favored
few were sure to be envied, and might almost be said
to be defrauding the State of what they owed it. The
object, in fact, of the law of Leptines was, it might be
contended, to insure for Athens the due performance of
services which she had a right to claim from every citizen
of ample means. The burden, he argued, ought to fall
on all such; no exemptions ought to be granted, as it
was likely they would be granted unwisely, and the
examples of other states, such as Sparta and Thebes,
showed that these grants were unnecessary. Besides,
merit at Athens was rewarded in other ways; and in
sweeping away such rewards as these, they would be
really abolishing what was not needed by the posses-
sors, and was at the same time injurious to the State.
Thus the new law seemed on the surface a good one,
and must have enlisted popular sympathy. It promised
to get rid of invidious privileges, to distribute public
burdens equitably, and to provide for the celebration
of the festivals and games with becoming splendor.
DEMOSTHENES ENTERS POLITICAL LIFE. 35
The occasion was thus clearly one to task all the
powers of an opposition speaker. If we want a
modern analogy, we may suppose a motion brought
forward in the House of Commons in a time of
national distress, when every tax would be acutely
felt, to abolish all pensions ever granted to deserving
men and to their children. It is conceivable that such
a proposition might find supporters at a trying crisis,
and become a powerful party-cry. Demosthenes may
well have had an uphill battle to fight. But he took
the right ground, and rested his case on the highest
moral principles and the most enlightened view of
political expediency. The faith and honor of the
State, he maintained, must be superior to all other
considerations. We may say that the text of his
speech was: "A good name is better than riches."
First, he argued that it was unjust to deprive the
people of the power to grant special privileges because
they had sometimes granted them improperly.
" You might as well take from them all their constitu-
tional rights because they do not always exercise them
wisely. Even if a few undeserving persons received these
privileges, this was better than that none should be con-
ferred, and that a powerful encouragement to patriotism
should be withdrawn. To revoke gifts which the State
had bestowed would be a scandalous breach of the
national faith. It would cast a slur on democratic
government, and create an impression that such govern-
ments were as little to be trusted as those of oligarchs
and despots. It would be base ingratitude to many
distinguished foreigners for example, to the king of
Bosporus, from whose country much corn was exported
to Athens, free of duty and such men for the future
would not care to befriend the State in a time of need.
36 DEMOSTHENES.
It was nothing to the purpose to speak of Sparta and
Thebes, as proofs that these grants of exemption were
not required. The whole genius and character of those
States were so radically different, that no conclusion
could be reasonably drawn from them as to what suited
Athenians. It was of supreme importance that Athens,
as the noblest representative of Greece, should value
above all things a character for justice, generosity, and
public spirit. To attempt to bind her for all future
time by a law which might be a hurtful and dangerous
check on patriotic impulses must be inexpedient. No
one could forsee what course politics might take, and it
was possible that citizens like Harmodius and Aris-
togeiton might again be needed. All human legislation
must take account of such possibilities and contin-
gencies, improbable as they might seem at the time.
The law of Leptines was, in fact, an offence to Nemesis,
which ever waits on arrogance and presumption."
These were some of the chief arguments with which
Demosthenes combated the reasonings of his opponent.
In one passage he reminds his audience how careful
Athens had been in the past of her good name.
" You have to consider not merely whether you love
money, but whether you love also a good name, which
you are more anxious after than money; and not you
only, but your ancestors, as I can prove. For when they
had got wealth in abundance, they expended it all in
pursuit of honor. For glory's sake they never shrank
from any danger, but persevered to the last, spending
even their private fortunes. Instead of a good name,
this law fastens an opprobrium en the commonwealth t
unworthy both of your ancestors and yourselves. It
begets three of the greatest reproaches the reputa-
tion of being envious, faithless and ungrateful. That
DEMOSTHENES ENTEES POLITICAL LIFE. 37
It is altogether foreign to your character to establish a
law like this, I will endeavor to prove in a few words
by recounting one of the former acts of the State.
The Thirty Tyrants are said to have borrowed money
from the Lacedaemonians to attack the party in the
Piraeus. When unanimity was restored, and these
troubles were composed, the Lacedaemonians sent am-
bassadors and demanded payment of their money.
Upon this there arose a debate, and some contended
that the borrowers, the city party, should pay ; others
advised that it should be the first proof of harmony to
join in discharging the debt. The people, we know,
determined themselves to contribute, and share in the
expense, to avoid breaking any article of their conven-
tion. Then, were it not shameful if, at that time, you
chose to contribute money for the benefit of persons
who had injured you, rather than break your word, yet
now, when it is in your power, without cost, to do
justice to your benefactors by repealing this law, you
should prefer to break your word? "
He argues, that the envious, grudging spirit displayed
in the law is, of all things, most alien to Athenian
feeling.
' ' Every possible reproach should be avoided, but
most of all, that of being envious. Why? Because
envy is altogether the mark of a bad disposition, and
to have this feeling is wholly unpardonable. Besides,
abhorring, as our commonwealth does, everything dis-
graceful, there is no reproach from which she is further
removed than from the imputation of being envious.
Observe how strong are the proofs. In the first place,
you are the only people who have state funerals for
the dead, and funeral orations in which you glorify the
actions of brave men. Such a custom is that of a people
38 DEMOSTHENES.
which admires virtue, and does not envy others who
are honored for it. In the next place, you have ever
bestowed the highest rewards upon those who win the
garlands in gymnastic contests; nor have you, because
but few are born to partake of such rewards, envied
the parties receiving them, nor abridged your honors
on that account. Add to these striking evidences that
no one appears ever to have surpassed our State in
liberality such munificence has she displayed in re-
quiting services. All the?e are manifestations of justice,
virtue, magnanimity. Do not destroy the character for
which our State has all along been renowned ; do not,
in order that Leptines may wreak his personal malice
upon some whom he dislikes, deprive the State and
yourselves of the honorable name which you have
enjoyed throughout all time. Regard this as a contest
purely for the dignity of Athens, whether it is to be
maintained the same as before, or to be impaired and
degraded. "
The following passage is near the conclusion of the
speech. He is arguing against the impolicy of binding
the Stale for the future by such a law :
" To one thing more I beg your attention. This law
cannot be good which makes the same provision for the
future as the past. 'No one shall be exempt,' it says,
4 not even the descendents of Harmodius and Aristogei-
ton.' Good. ' Nor shall it be lawful to grant exemptions
hereafter.' Not if similar men arise ? Blame former
doings as you may, know you also the future? Oh,
but we are far from expecting anything of the kind.
I trust we are; but being human, our language and our
law should be such as not to shock religious sentiment;
and while we look for good fortune, and implore
heaven to grant it, we will rejrard all fortune as sub-
DEMOSTHENES ENTERS POLITICAL LIFE. 39
ject to human casualties. The future, I take it, is un-
certain to all men, and small occasions are productive
of great events. Therefore we will be moderate in
prosperity, and show that we have an eye to the
future."
It may be said that there is much of a modern tone
and character about this speech. Its arguments are
those of a constitutional lawyer and of a far-sighted
politician. It is quiet and temperate, and at the same
time singularly convincing. It was successful in its
immediate object, and it must have established the
reputation of Demosthenes as a political debater of the
first rank. From this time he must have felt but
little timidity or hesitation in addressing that critical
audience the Athenian popular assembly.
CHAPTER V.
EARLY SPEECHES OF DEMOSTHENES ON FOREIGN POLICY.
PERSIA in the fourth century B.C. was a more con-
siderable power than we might have supposed from the
comparative ease with which it was overthrown by
Alexander. The Great King, as he was always called,
was in the possession of immense resources. Financially
he was much stronger than the Greek world, though his
military inferiority had been more than once clearly
proved. He was still looked on by the Greeks generally
with a sort of wondering awe. He ruled in some fashion
a vast empire, and held it together by means of satraps
and vassal princes, notwithstanding occasional serious
revolts. He had had indeed, in past days, to acknowl-
edge the independence of the Asiatic Greeks; still he
was always distinctly felt as a force in Greek politics,
with which from time to time he was brought into
contact. On the whole, he was regarded as an enemy ;
but the unfortunate want of anything like hearty union
among the states of Greece tended to weaken this feel-
ing, and to make combined action against him all but
impossible. There was always, however, a vague fear
that he might some day, if violently provoked, crush
the Greek world beneath the weight of a huge bar-
barian invasion.
EARLY SPEECHES ON FOREIGN POLICY. 41
In the year 356 B.C., the second year of Athens' war
with her revolted allies, this fear rose, at Athens at least,
to a positive panic. Greek generals, as we have seen,
occasionally found it convenient to take service under
some Persian satrap, for the sake of the liberal pay
on which they could confidently reckon. In the year
above mentioned, Chares was in command of a fleet
which Athens had sent out to put down her rebellious
subjects in the Islands of the ^Egean. He was a man
thoroughly of the adventurer type; and when he found
that he could not pay his troops, which were for the
most part foreign mercenaries, he carried off his arma-
ment on his own responsibility to the aid of Artabanus,
the satrap of the country south of the Propoutis, who
was then in revolt against the Great King. Artabanus
was, at the time, in sore need of help; but Chares
gained for him a brilliant victory over the king's forces,
and he received for himself -and his soldiers a liberal re-
ward. The proceeding was, of course, utterly irreg-
ular, and gave great offence at Athens; but the success
reconciled them to it. The King of Persia was natur-
ally very indignant, and sent an embassy to Athens to
complain of this unprovoked aggression. Soon it was
rumored that he was preparing a fleet of 300 galleys
to aid their revolted allies and to attack their city.
There was intense excitement. Peace was immediately
concluded with the allies, but there was a strong feeling
in favor of declaring war against Persia. Now, it
was said, was the time for an appeal to Phanhellenic
sentiment, and to endeavor to unite Greece against her
old enemy. "We can well imagine that such language
was likely to meet with a response in many quarters,
and that it might well seem patriotic, and even prudent.
42 DEMOSTHENES.
In this case, again, Demosthenes thought it his duty
to protest. He did so in a speech delivered in 354 B.C.
He must have been, in all probability, on the unpop-
ular side. He had, too, against him the opinion of
the famous and clever rhetorician, Isocrates, who had
urged in one of his pamphlets the expediency of a
Panhellenic combination against Persia. The party of
Eubulus, backed up by a number of orators and dema-
gogues, supported this policy. To Demosthenes it
seemed an idle dream the preposterous imagination of
a knot of political adventurers. The speech in which
he opposed it is calm and statesmanlike. " In no one
of his speeches," says Mr. Grote, "is the spirit of
practical wisdom more predominant than in this his
earliest known discourse to the public Assembly." He
tells his excited countrymen some very plain home-
truths. "The Greeks," he frankly says, "are too
jealous of each other to be capable of uniting in an
aggressive war. They might indeed do so in a war of
self-defence. Should Athens declare war, the King of
Persia would be able to purchase aid from the Greeks
themselves. Such a step would consequently lar bare
the worst weaknesses of the Greek world. Their right
policy was to put Athens in a posture of defence, that
she might not be attacked unprepared. They must re-
organize their fleet. They must not shrink from personal
military service and lean upon foreign mercenaries.
They must not rest contentedly on the glorious deeds of
their ancestors, but uphold the dignity of their State by
themselves imitating their deeds, whatever temporary
sacrifices it might cost them. And they should seek
to rally round Athens a host of confederates, united to
her by the bonds of common interest and mutual con-
fidence," Borne of theee topics are finch as, tinder
EARL T SPEECHES ON FOREIGN POLICY. 43
critical circumstances, it must have required much
moral courage to urge.
A few passages from the speech will give the reader
an idea of Demosthenes' views about Persia, about the
difficulty of united action against that power, and the
immediate duties of the Athenians themselves:
"I hold the King," he says, "to be the common
enemy of all the Greeks. Still I would not for this
reason advise you without the rest to undertake a war
aga'ust him. The Greeks themselves, I observe, are
not friends to one another. On the contrary, some
have more confidence in the King than in certain of
their own people. Such being the case, I deem it
expedient and just, that all necessary preparations be
made, and that this should be the groundwork of your
resolution. Were there any plain proof that the King
of Persia was about to attack the Greeks, I think they
would join alliance, and be extremely grateful to those
who sided with them and defended them against him.
But if we rush into a quarrel before his intentions are
declared, I am afraid that we shall be driven into a
war with both with the King and with the people
whom we are axious to protect. He will suspend his
designs, if we really have resolved to attack the Greeks,
will give money to some, and promise friendship; while
they, in the wish to carry on their own war with
better success and intent on similar objects, will disre-
gard the common safety of the Greek world. I be-
seech you not to betray our country into such embar-
rassment and folly. You, I perceive, cannot adopt the
same policy in regard to the king as the other Greeks
can. Many of them, I conceive, may very well pursue
their selfish interests, and be utterly indifferent to the
national welfare. But for you it would be dishonor-
44 DEMOSTHENES.
able, even though you had suffered wrong, so to punish
the wrong-doers as to let any of them fall under the
power of the barbarian. Under these circumstances
we must be careful not to engage in the war on un-
equal terms, and not to allow him whom we suppose to
be planning mischief against the Greeks to get the
credit of appearing their friend "
Although Athens is rich, he warns the people thit
those riches will not be forthcoming on a mere vagie
rumor of hostilities from Persia. When the danger
is seen to be really imminent, then it will be time for
the State to put a pressure on its wealthy citizens.
' ' You invite the Greeks to join you. But if you
will not act as they wish, how can you expect they will
obey your call, when some of them have no good-will
towards you? Because, forsooth, they will hear from
you that Persia has designs on them? Pray, do you
imagine that they don't foresee it themselves? I am
sure they do; but at present tho fear outweighs the
enmity which some of them bear towards you and
towards each other. Athens contains treasures equal
to the rest of the Greek states put together. But the
owners of wealth are so minded that if all your orators
alarmed them with the intelligence that the King was
coming, that he was at hand, that the danger was in-
evitable if, besides the* orators, a number of persons
gave oracular warning so far from contributing, they
would not even discover their wealth or acknowledge
its possession. But if they knew that what is so ter-
rible in report was really begun, there is not a man so
foolish who would not be ready to give and foremost
to contribute. I say that we have money against the
time of actual need, but not before. And therefore I
advise you not to search for it now. Your right course
EARLY SPEECHES ON FOREIGN POLICY. 45
is to complete your other preparations. Let the rich
retain their riches for the present (it cannot be in better
hands for the state); and should the crisis come, then
take it from them in voluntary contributions."
The speech is thus concluded :
"My advice is, do not be over-alarmed at the war;
neither be led to commence it. As far as I see, no other
state of Greece has reason to fear it. All the Greeks
know that so long as they regarded Persia as their
common enemy, they were at peace with one another,
and enjoyed much prosperity. But since they have
looked on the King as a friend, and quareled about
disputes with each other, they have suffered worse
calamities than any one could possibly imprecate upon
them. Should we fear a man whom both fortune and
heaven declare to be an unprofitable friend and a useful
enemy? If it were possible with one heart and with
united forces to attack him alone, such an injury I
could not pronounce to be an injustice. But since this
cannot be, I say we must be cautious, and not afford
the King a pretence for vindicating the rights of the
other Greeks. Do not expose the melancholy condi-
tion of Greece by convoking her people when you can-
not persuade them, and making war when you cannot
carry it on. Only keep quiet, fear nothing, and pre-
pare yourselves. My advice in brief is this: Prepare
yourselves against existing enemies; and you ought
with the same force to be able to resist the King and
all others, if they attempt to injure you. But never
begin a wrong in word or deed, Let us look that our
actions, and not our speeches on the platform, be
worthy of our ancestors. If you pursue this course,
you will do service not only to yourselves, but also to
$hose who give the opposite counsel ; for you will not
46 DEMOSTHENES.
be angry witb them afterwards for errors now com-
mitted."
In this speech Demosthenes may be said to fore-
shadow the general character of his foreign policy. He
did not wish Athens to be aggressive, but simply to
hold her own with a firm hand. This, he thought, she
might well be persuaded to do. Grand schemes of
Panhellenic union against the empire of Persia, such
as floated before the imagination of Isocrates, and were
through his influence, fascinating the minds of a certain
class of political enthusiasts, he scouted as Quixotic.
Above all things, he aimed at being a practical states-
man; and of this the speech from which we have just
been quoting, delivered by him in the commencement
of his public life, is decisive evidence.
In the following year he delivered a speech which
is of considerable interest as showing his view of Greek
politics at the time. It was important, he thought, for
Athens that there should be, as we say, a balance of
power in the Greek world, and that neither Sparta nor
Thebes should be too strong. I have explained the
circumstances under which Megalopolis was founded
in 371 R.C., after the great battle of Leuctra, under
Theban influence, as the metropolis of Arcadia, and
specially as a check on Sparta. The establishment of
this city, together with the loss of the Messenian terri-
tory, which soon followed, was a terrible blow to that
state. Sparta, in fact, for the time, was reduced to a
second-rate power. She was hemmed in by enemies
on the north and on the west. It was hardly to be
expected that she would acquiesce in such humiliation.
And so, in the year 353 B.C., her king, Archidamus,
began to plan a counter-revolution, which should undo
the work of Leuctra by the destruction of Megalopolis
EAELT SPEECHES ON FOREIGN POLICY. 47
and the reconquest of Messenia. It was, however,
necessary for him to have some pretext which should
commend itself generally in Greek opinion. He was
meditating an entire un settlement of the affairs of the
Peloponnese in the interest of Sparta; and this, he
knew, would not be allowed if it were to be openly
avowed. Accordingly he put forward the policy of a
general restoration of ancient rights to the different
states. Athens would thus recover the border town of
Oropus, now in the possession of Thebes, the loss of
which had much vexed and distressed her. Thus, it
was hoped, she might be disposed to favor the Spar-
tan proposals, which, as a matter of course, the anti-
Theban party, then very strong, would back up to the
utmost of its power. The result which such a policy,
would have on Megalopolis, as a barrier in Sparta's
way, was kept in the background. The new city must
have inevitably dwindled down into an insignificant
township, and the purpose with which it had been
founded would have been frustrated.
Envoys came to Athens both from Sparta and from
Megalopolis. There was a warm and angry debate.
The bitter hatred Athenians had always felt towards
Thebans, coupled with the immediate desire of recover
ing Oropus, was enough to recommend the Spartan
proposals. It seems strange that the memory of what
Athens had suffered from the hands of Sparta did not
at once decfde the question, and open the eyes of the
people to the dangers of Sparta's insidious policy.
Some there were who saw through it and denounced
it. Demosthenes was among the number. He was
with the "Opposition;" and it appears that on this
occasion he failed. He supported the cause of Mega-
lopblie the cause, in fact, of Thebes arguing that it
48 DEMOSTHENES.
would be a grave political blunder to assist Sparta in
recovering the position which she held in Greece pre-
vious to the battle of Leuctra. His speech is subtle
and ingenious, and must have been convincing to those
who would not let themselves be carried away by an
unreasoning antipathy to everything Theban.
"The Lacedaemonians," he says, "are acting a
crafty part. They say they cannot retain the grati-
tude they feel for you for helping them in a time of
urgent need unless you now allow them to commit an
injustice. However repugnant it may be to the designs
of the Spartans that we should adopt the Arcadian
alliance" (that is, the alliance of Megalopolis), "surely
their gratitude for having been saved by us in a crisis
of extreme peril ought to outweigh their resentment
for being checked in their aggression now."
As to the bait held out by Sparta to Athens in the
prospect of the recovery of Oropus, he says:
"My opinion is, first, that our State, even without
sacrificing any Arcadian people to the Lacedaemonians,
may recover Oropus, both with their aid, if they are
minded to act justly, and that of others who hold
Theban usurpation to be intolerable. Secondly, sup-
posing that it were evident to us that, unless we permit
the Lacedaemonians to reduce the Peloponnese, we can-
not obtain possession of Oropus, allow me to say, I
deem it more expedient to let Oropus alone than to
abandon Messenia and the Peloponnese to the Lace-
daemonians. I imagine the question between us and
them would soon be about other matters. . . .
"I am sure, to judge from rational observation
and I think most Athenians will agree wiih me that
if the Lacedaemonians take Megalopolis, Messenia will
be in danger; and if they take Messenia, I predict
EARLY SPEECHES ON FOREIGN POLICY. 49
that you and the Thebans will be allies. Then it is
much better and more honorable for us to receive the
Theban confederacy as our friends and resist Lacedae-
monian ambition, than, out of reluctance to save the
allies of Thebes, to abandon them now, and have after-
wards to save Thebes herself and be in fear also for our t
own safety. I cannot but regard it a3 perilous to our
State should the Lacedaemonians take Megalopolis and
again become strong. For I see they have undertaken
the war not to defend themselves, but to recover their
ancient power. What were their designs when they
possessed that power, you perhaps know better than I,
and therefore may have reason to be alarmed."
This was plain speaking, and sound, statesmanlike
advice. It could not have been the interest of Athens
to let Sparta gain her old supremacy, as she was
certainly striving to do. It was her interest, as Demos-
thenes says towards the conclusion of his speech, not to
abandon Megolopolis and the Arcadians, and to make
them feel (should they survive the struggle) that they
had owed their deliverance not to themselves or to any
other people but the Athenians. As affairs turned
out, the dangers he apprehended never came to pass.
He could not persuade his countrymen to support
Megalopolis. They simply stood neutral. The Lace-
daemonians waged war for two years in Arcadia, and
gained some partial successes, but they could not carry
out their designs. Thebes, though she had occupation
for her soldiers in other quarters, contrived to send
an army into the Peloponnese; and after some inde-
cisive engagements, a truce was concluded, which left
matters as they were. Megalopolis and the Arcadian
confederacy escaped the peril with which Sparta had
threatened them. But the result to Athens and to
50 DEMOSTHENES.
Greece was unsatisfactory. Subsequently, when they
apprehended a similar danger from Sparta, they did
not think it worth their while to ask help from Athens.
They did not care to be refused a second time, and on
this occasion they applied to Philip. He was not the
man to miss such an opportunity; and thus Mace-
donian influence was brought to bear on the affairs of
the Peloponnese. This was the unfortunate conse-
quence of the indifference of Athens to the progress
of Spartan ambition. She gave the impression to the
Greek world that she was not in earnest in wishing to
maintain the liberties of the states of the Peloponnese,
although it had been her constant profession to do so.
This was the inference drawn from her refusal to ally
herself with Megalopolis against Sparta. Had she
been guided by the counsels of Demosthenes, she
would have assumed a dignified political attitude, and,
as events turned out, have put a stumbling-block in
the way of her future enemy and destroyer. It is
true, indeed, that ak that time there was no distinct
cause of apprehension from Macedon, and there is not
even any allusion to Philip in his speech of Demos-
thenes. We may therefore conclude that as yet he
himself feared nothing in that quarter. Still, it is not
the less to his credit that he urged Athens to adopt a
policy which would have won for her the respect and
confidence of many of the Greeks, and might have had
the effect of excluding the intrusions of a most danger-
ous foreign influence into an important part of the
Greek world.
CHAPTER VI.
FIRST SPEECH OP DEMOSTHENES AGAINST PHILIP
SPEECH FOR THE FREEDOM OF THE PEOPLE OF
RHODES.
THE year 352 B.C. brought with it the beginnings of
great events. In that year, for the first time, the King
of Macedon really showed that he might possibly be
entertaining designs fraught with peril to the Greek
world. He had prominently intervened in Greek
politics. He had taken a conspicuous part in the
Sacred or Holy War between the Thebans and Phocians.
Once, indeed, he had been utterly defeated by the
Phocian leader, Onomarchus, and hid been driven
back into his kingdom with loss and disaster, though
report made him say that "he did not fly, but fell
back like the battering-ram, to give a more violent
shock another time." He speedily again entered Thes-
saly with a more powerful army; and with the help of
his allies in that country and of the admirable Thes-
salian cavalry, he won at Pagasse a decisive victory
over Onomarchus, who perished in the flight. Now
he was completely master of Thessaly, a country which
ought to have been under the control of a Greek state,
and in which, of late, The'ian influence had been
supreme. Macedon was thus in effect the principal
52 DEMOSTHENES.
land power to the north of the Peloponnese ; and her
king had both displayed military genius, and had
shown that he was in command of an army willi which
it was already a question whether any single Greek state
could cope. The battle just fought was on a very con-
siderable scale, and could not have failed to suggest un-
pleasant apprehensions to the mind of every thinking
politician. Philip might very possibly follow up his
success with an instant invasion of northern Greece.
He did in fact advance on Thermopylae; but Athens had
forestalled him, and the famous pass was guarded by
a force before which he thought prude at to retire. The
Athenians exulted in the reflection that they had once
again been the deliverers of Greece. But their joys
were doomed to be of very brief duration.
For a few months the King of Macedon employed
himself in securing a firm hold on Thessalay. Mean-
while his cruisers and privateers, of which he had
contrived to raise a formidable number, infested the
northern islands and coasts of the ^Egean, to the great
annoyance and injury of Athenian trade. In the
autumn of 352 B.C. he hurried northwards, entered
Thrace, and took advantage of its intestine feuds, with
a view to getting the country under his control. In
November news reached Athens, the serious import of
which could not be misunderstood. Philip was be-
sieging Heraeum a place probably on the northern
coast of the Propontis, to the west of Perinthus. It
was contiguous to the Thracian Chersonese, occupied,
as we have seen, by Athenian colonists, and, as it
appears, actually garrisoned by an Athenian force.
The act was thus one of almost open hostility, and
practically equivalent to a declaration of war. But
what made it singularly alarming was, that it was a
FIRST SPEECH AGAINST PHILIP. 63
most .dangerous menace to the Athenian interests on
the north of the ^gean. It meant, in fact, peril to
the corn trade of Athens, and high prices and possibly
famine to the citizens. It showed, too, clearly enough,
that Philip, if he could, would rob the city of its most
valuable outlying possessions. Thus the eyes of the
people ought to have been thoroughly opened to the
danger which hung over them; but as soon as they
knew that Philip was ill, and next heard a report of
his death, they fell back into their love of the easy,
comfortable life at Athens, with its pleasures and
amusements, and nattered themselves with the notion
that the crisis was finally past. The peace party, with
Eubulus at its head, always strong, was now for the
moment stronger than ever; and its best representative,
the really patriotic Phocian, was too cynical to believe
in the possibility of his countrymen being roused to
the degree of effort and endurance which a serious
struggle with Macedon would demand from them.
As soon as it was known that Philip had recovered,
and was as active and aggressive as ever, there were, it
appears, several acrimonious debates in the Assembly,
with grievous complaints as to the inefficiency of the
generals and of their troops. Athens still clung to her
maritime supremacy, and it was felt to be disgraceful
that this should be threatened by a barbarian. Still,
her public men had not the moral courage to tell the
people plainly the only way by which such a disgrace
could be ended, It was painful to speak to them of
personal service on shipboard, with all its hardships
and risks. Demosthenes, in his speech on the war
with Persia, had hinted, not obscurely, at this neces-
sity. He did so far mere clearly and persistently on
the occasion we have been ascribing. At the age of
54 DEMOSTHENES.
about thirty he spoke the memorable harangue known
as the First Philippic.
The speech shows that he had now quite made up
his mind on the subject of the foreign policy of Athens.
A year ago he had not, as we may reasonably infer,
regarded Macedon as a source of real danger to the
freedom of the Greek world. He was now convinced
that Philip had designs beyond the mere establishment
of a compact and powerful northern kingdom. He
takes a broad view of the political situation, and speaks
not merely as a citizen of the foremost state of Greece,
but as a Greek on behalf of Greek security and inde-
pendence.
It was assuredly much to the honor of Demosthenes
that, as a young politician, he sounded a distinct note
of warning, which he must have known would have
jarred on the easy-going temper of his countrymen.
Their affairs, he plainly tells them, were in a very bad
plight; but there was hope, just because they had not
as yet really exerted themselves. Therefore there was
no reason for despair. Philip's power, indeed, was
already great; he had Thessaly at his feet; he had
defeated a Greek army under a brave and experienced
leader; he was now threatening the Chersonese and
the nothern coasts of the ^Egean, and with his fleet
was harassing the commerce of Athens ; still, he was
not a more formidable foe than Sparta had been ; and
the fact that he was formidable at all was due to their
own voluntary supineness, which, for the sake of
Greece and for the glory of Athens, they must shake
off once and forever. Otherwise, even if rumor had
truly asserted Philip's death, they would soon raise up
against themselves another Philip equally terrible.
FIRST SPEECH AGAINST PHILIP. 55
"You must not despond," he says at the beginning
of his speech, "under your present circumstances,
wretched as they are; for that which is worst in them
as regards the past, is best for the future. My mean-
ing is this your affairs are amiss because yon do
nothing which is required. If the result were the same,
although you performed your duties, there would be
no hope of amendment. Consider, further, what is
known to you by hearsay, and what men of experience
remember. Not long ago, how vast a power the Lace-
daemonians possessed ! Yet how nobly and admirably
did you consult the dignity of Athens, and undertook
the war against them for the rights of Greece! Why
do I mention this? To show and convince you that
nothing, if you take precaution, is to be feared; noth-
ing, if you are negligent, goes as you desire. Take for
examples, the strength of the Lacedaemonians, which
you overcame by minding your duty, and the insolent
ambition of this Philip now, which utterly confounds
us through our neglect of our interest. If any of you
think the man a formidable foe, looking at the vastness
of his present power and our loss of all our strongholds,
that is reasonable enough; only you should reflect that
there was a time when we held Pydna, and Potidaea,
and Methone, with all the adjacent country, and that
many of the nations now in league with Philip were
independent and free, and preferred our friendship to
his. Had Philip then taken it into his head that,
Athens was too formidable a foe to fight, when she
had so many fortresses to threaten his country, and he
was destitute of allies, nothing that he has accomplished
would he have attempted, and never would he have
acquired so large a dominion. But he saw cloarly
enough that such places are the open prizes of war;
56 DEMOSTHENES.
that the possessions of the absent belong to the pres-
ent, those ' of the careless to the adventurous who
shrink not from toil. Acting on that principle, he has
won everything, and keeps it either by way of con-
quest or by friendly attachment and alliance ; for all
men will side with and respect those whom they see
prepared and willing to make proper exertions. If
you will adopt this principle now, though you have
not hitherto done so and if every man, when he can
and ought to give his service to the State, be ready to
give it without excuse if the rich will contribute, if
the able-bodied will enlist, in a word, plainly, if you
will become your own masters, and cease each expect-
ing to do nothing himself, while his neighbor does
everything for him, then will you, with heaven's
permission, recover your own, and get back what has
been frittered away, and chastise Philip. Do not im-
agine that his empire is everlastingly secured to him as
to a god. There are who hate and fear and envy him,
even among those that seem most friendly; and all
feelings natural to other men exist, we may assume, in
his confederates. But DOW they are all cowed, for they
have no refuge because of your tardiness and indolence,
which I say you must abandon forthwith."
On the subject of the preparations they ought to
make, Demosthenes thus advises them:
"First, we must provide fifty war-ships, and hold
ourselves prepared in case of emergency to embark and
sail. There must, too, be an equipment of transports
for half the cavalry, and sufficient boats. This we
must have in readiness against his sudden marches
from his own country to Thermopylae the Chersonese,
Olynthus, and anywhere he likes. For he should be
made to have the idea that possibly you may rouse
FIRST SPEECH AGA1JV8T PHILIP, 57
yourselves out of this over-supineness and start off as
you did to Euboea, and very lately to Thermopylae
Such an armament, I say, ought instantly to be agreed
upon and provided. "
In the following passage, the want of skill and
method with which Athens was carrying on the con-
test is strikingly exposed :
" You, Athenians, with larger means than any people,
have never up to this day made proper use of any of
them, and your war with Philip is exactly like the
boxing of barbarians. With them, the party struck
first is always feeling for the blow; strike him any-
where else, there go his hands again; ward or look
you in the face he cannot and will not. So with you.
If you hear of Philip in the Chersonese or at Ther-
mopylaB, you vote to send a force there; if you hear of
him somewhere else, you run, so to say, after his heels
up and down, and are, in fact, commanded by him.
No plan have you devised for the war; no circum-
stance do you see beforehand, but only when you learn
that something is done or is about to be done. For-
merly, perhaps, this was allowable ; now it is come to
a crisis to be borne no longer. It seems as if some
god, in shame at our proceedings, had put this activity
into Philip. For had he been willing to remain quiet
in possession of his conquests and prizes, and attempted
nothing further, some of you, I think, would be satis-
fied with a state of things which brands our nation
with the shame of cowardice and of the foulest dis-
grace. But by continually encroaching and grasping
after more, he may possibly rouse you, if you have not
altogether despaired. I marvel, indeed, that not one
of you notices with concern and anger that the begin-
58 DEMOSTHENES.
ning of this war was to chastise Philip; the end is to
protect ourselves against his attacks."
Towards the conclusion of his speech, Demosthenes
reproaches the people with their silly fondness for
gossiping about Philip's reported movements, and bids
them remember thai he now is and long has been their
enemy:
"Some among ourselves go about and say that
Philip is concerting with the Lacedaemonians the de-
struction of Thebes and the dissolution of free states;
some, that he has sent envoys to the King;* others,
that he is fortifying cities in Illyria. So we wander
about, each inventing stories. For my part, I quite
believe that Philip is thoroughly intoxicated with the
magnitude of his exploits, and that he has many such
dreams in his imagination. Still, most assuredly his
plan of action is not such as to Jet the greatest fools
among us know what his intentions are. For the
greatest fools are these newsmongers. Let us dismiss
such talk, and remember only that Philip is an enemy
who robs us of our own, and has long insulted us;
that whenever we have expected aid from any quarter,
it has been found hostile; and that the future depends
on ourselves; and, unless we are willing to fight him
there, we shall perhaps be compelled to fight here.
This let us remember, and then we shall have deter-
mined wisely, 1 and have done with idle conjectures.
You need not pry into the future, but assure your-
selves that it will be disastrous, unless you give your
mind to your duty, and are willing to act as becomes
you."
* The king of Persia.
FIRST SPEECH AGAINS1 PHILIP. 69
The only result of this speech was, that a paltry
four or five ships were sent to the Chersonese under a
mercenary and somewhat disreputable general, Chari-
dcmus. The fact was, that there was a numerous party
at Athens who never could be persuaded that Philip
would some day be a really dangerous enemy. Persia
was the power of which they were always thinking as
the great source of peril to Greece. There were still
rumors flying about as to the gigantic preparations
which the King was said to be making against them to
revenge the defeats of Marathon and Salamis. Possibly
such reports were stimulated by Philip himself. Next
there were those who were, in fact, Philip's paid agents,
now, no doubt, a considerable class in several Greek
states. And, last of all, there was incredulity and
apathy among the Athenians themselves. All these
adverse influences were too strong for Demosthenes,
and his appeal to the patriotism of his countrymen
was made in vain.
In the speech we have been describing, Demosthenes
dwelt on the duty of Athens to put herself forward as
the champion of Greece and of its free states. In a
speech delivered some months or perhaps a year after-
wards, he reminds her that she ought to be the cham-
pion of democracy and of popular government. From
this point of view, the oration entitled "On the
freedom of the people of Rhodes" has much interest.
We rather gather, from the general tone of the speech,
that Philip's restlessness had ceased for a time, or at
all events that he had something else to do than to
threaten the possessions and the commerce of Athens.
It was made on the occasion of a deputation from the
democratic party in Rhodes, who wished the island to
pass again under Athenian control.
60 DEMOSTHENES.
Rhodes had more than once been in alliance with
Athens a connection which practically implied a cer-
tain degree of subjection and dependence. With the
close of the Peloponnesian War and the triumph of
Sparta, it was put under an oligarchy, which meant
Spartan control. About the year 396 B.C. the Athenian
general Conon, who had a powerful fleet in the ^Egean,
again forced the Rhodians to become the allies of
Athens. Four years afterwards a Spartan fleet appeared,
and this was the signal for another revolution in the
government. There was, it seems, one of those horrible
incidents with which Greek history is so often dis-
figured a massacre of the democratic leaders and of
the adherents of Athens. But the oligarchy now im-
posed on the island did not last long. The Spartan
fleet was defeated, and Rhodes and most of the islands
of the ^Egean returned to the Athenian alliance. We
may take for granted that democracy was re-established.
Then came, in 358 B.C., the Social War, the war between
Athens and her allies, which broke up the second
Athenian empire. Of this, Rhodes was the origin.
Chares, the Athenian general, of whom we have
already had occasion to speak, provoked and disgusted
the Rhodians by plunder and extortion. Cos and
Chios had similar grievances; and the three islands
threw off their connection with Athens, and began the
Social War Rhodes being the prime mover. They
were helped by Mausolus, King of Caria and a vassal
prince of the Persian empire. He was a man of con-
siderable ambition, and his idea was to annexe-Rhodes,
which was adjacent to his own territories. It was first
necessary to detach it from the Athenian alliance; and
Mausolus contrived, by intrigues with the oligarchical
party in the island, to introduce a Carian garrison ; and
FIRST SPEKCH AGAINST PHILIP. 61
once more the government was revolutionized. The
people and their leaders found themselves in a hopeless
plight, now that they had renounced their connection
with Athens, while the oligarchy was supported by
Persian influence through Mausolus. When that
king died and his queen Artemisia succeeded, the
government became so intolerably oppressive that the
papular party ventured to send an embassy to Athens,
and humbly to implore relief. It was hardly to be
expected that the embassy would be well received.
The Athenians felt that Rhodes had inflicted a grievous
injury on them by plunging them in a disastrous war,
which had ended in dissolving their confederacy. They
were in no mood to listen to the present petition.
Nevertheless it was supported by Demosthenes.
It is a hard matter to soothe the temper of people
when they feel, as the Athenians now did, that they
have suffered much from ingratitude. Popular as-
semblies, under such circumstances, are apt to be
peculiarly angry and excited. All that Demosthenes
could do was to appeal to the better and more generous
sentiments of his countrymen. They ought not, he
argued, to brood over the wrongs done to them by
these insignificant islanders, but to think only of what
was due to Athens and to Greece. It was alike thcL-
duty and interest to vindicate the freedom of an op-
pressed Greek people, and to stand by the policy of
supporting popular and democratic government against
oligarchs and tyrants. Unless they resolved to act
thus, the political constitution of Athens would itself
be imperiled. If all democracies were put down, their
own would fall at last. Demosthenes, we see, was
heartily in sympathy with democracy, and regarded it
as the special glory of Athens to be its champion and
62 DEMOSTHENES.
upholder. If at times he felt its weak side, and its
tendency to vacillation and irresolution, still he never
seems to have doubted that it was on the whole the
best and most manly type of government.
Such were his reasons for counselling the assembly
to listen favorably to the request for aid from the
Rhodians. In the following passage these views are
clearly expressed :
" Observe, men of Athens, that you have waged
many wars both against democracies and against
oligarchies. This you know without my telling; but
for what causes you have been at war with either,
perhaps not one of you considers. What are the
causes? Against democratical states your wars have
been either for private grievances, when you could not
make public satisfaction, or for territory or bound-
aries, or a point of honor, or for the leadership of
Greece. Against oligarchies you fought, not for such
things, but for your constitution and for freedom.
Therefore I would not hesitate to say that I think it
better that all the Greeks should be your enemies with
a popular government than your friends under an oli-
garchical. For with free men I consider you would
have no difficulty in making peace when you chose;
but with people under an oligarchy, even friendship I
hold to be insecure. It is impossible that the few can
be attached io the many, the seekers of power to the
lovers of constitutional equality. I marvel none of
you consider that, when the Rhodians and nearly all
peoble are drawn into this slavery, our constitution
must be in tbe same peril. It all other governments
are oligarchical, it is impossible that they will let your
democracy alone. They know too well that no "other
people wlil bring things back to freedom; therefore
SPEECH FOR THE FREEDOM OF RHODES. 63
they will wish to destroy a government from which
they apprehend mischief to themselves. Ordinary
wrong-doers you may regard as enemies to the suffer-
ers; while they who subvert constitutions and transform
them into oligarchies must be looked upon as the com-
mon enemies of all lovers of freedom."
In the opinion of Demosthenes it thus appears
that oligarchy was in fact slavery, and wholly alien
to the Greek genius. The memory of the Athens of
Pericles was deeply impressed on his mind, But
he felt he was now addressing a people singularly
prone to be misled. He hints plainly in this spnech
at the existence of an unpatriotic faction in the
State.
"It is difficult for you," he [says, "to adopt right
measures. All other men have one battle to fight
namely, against their open and avowed enemies. You
have a double contest that which the rest have, and
also a prior and a more arduous one. You must in
counsel overcome a faction which acts among you in
systematic opposition to the State. Men who desert
the politics hande.d down to them by their ancestors,
and support oligarchical measures, should be degraded
and deprived of constitutional privileges, and disquali-
fied from being your political advisers."
Again Demosthenes failed. The bitterness of Athe-
nian feeling towards the ungrateful islanders made the
people blind to higher considerations, and Rhodes re-
mained in the hands of an oligarchy. It was still
subject to Caria, and was thus really a Persian de
pendency.
CHAPTER VII.
PHILIP AND OLYNTHUS SPEECHES OF DEMOSTHENES ON
BEHALF OF THE OLYNTHIANS.
WHEN Demosthenes, some time in the year 353 B.C.,
made his first speech against Philip, there were good
grounds for an uneasy feeling throughout the Greek
world as to the king's possible movements and designs.
He had already raised Macedon to a position it had
never before held. It had become a distinct power in
the politics of Greece. For a while, however, the
usually active Philip seemed to be really resting from
his labors, and next to nothing was heard of him.
Demosthenes does not so much as allude to him in his
speech ' ' for the freedom of the people of Rhodes. " We
may fairly infer from his silence that anything like
serious apprehensions at Athens of peril from "the
barbarian," as Philip was called, had died away. The
peace party, always strong, and able to make out a
plausible case for itself, would thus be strengthened;
and it would not be easy, even in the face of manifest
danger, thoroughly to rouse the Athenians to a sense of
the duty which they owed both to themselves and to
Greece.
Philip was by this time a powerful prince; but still
he was as yet barely a match for Athens, had eho
64
PHILIP AND OLYNTHUS. 63
chosen to put forth her full strength. He had an
efficient army and a good revenue, and he also had
the luck to have other collateral advantages. He had
tools and agents in several Greek states; and he had
practically on his side at Athens very many of the rich
and well-to-do citizens, who shrank from the idea of
a war which required personal service and exertion.
It was perfectly clear that a contest with him would
have been a serious undertaking. At the same time,
his position, though strong, was not altogether secure.
He had, as we have seen, possessed himself of some of
the coast towns, and he had a fleet in the ^Egean.
Athens should never have allowed him to advance to
this point. She had flung away opportunities; but
even now it was not too late to check him with the
help of a seasonable alliance. As yet he had no hold
on the district known as Chalcidice, which juts out
with its three peninsulas into the north-west of the
^gean. It was a valuable and commanding strip of
country; and it contained thirty Greek towns, of
which the chief was the city Olynthus, .at the
head of the Toronaeau gulf. Some of these towns
regarded themselves as dependencies of Olynthus,
aud formed what was known as the Olynthian
confederacy. There was a time when even Pella,
now the capital of Macedonia, was included in their
number. Olynthus, indeed, had been quite the most
powerful city in the north of the ^Egean, and far too
proud to submit to the supremacy of either Sparta or
Athens. Sparta with much difficulty forced it, in
379 B.C., into the Lacedaemonian confederacy; and
Athens, about ten years later, very much weakened its
Influence by taking from it some of its territory and
>f its subject-towns. Still, however, it was prosperous
8
66 DEMOSTHENES
and flourishing; and it could, at an extremity, bring
into the field a considerable military force, especially
of cavalry. Although it owed Athens a grudge, it had,
as we have seen, proposed alliance when it saw its
neighbor, Amphipolis, pass into the hands of Philip.
Athens declined the offer, and Philip was clever enough
temporarily to conciliate the good will of 'the Olyn-
thians by a trifling concession of territory, intending,
no doubt, at the first convenient moment, to pick a quar-
rel with them and annex the whole district. It must
have been easy for him, in the case of a city immedi-
ately in his own neighborhood, to have his partisans
among the citizens; and it was to this that he was in-
debted for his ultimate success. The towns, too, which
were connected with Olynthus by the loose tie of feder-
ation, were no doubt singularly open to his intrigues.
Still, there was the feeling that he might become a
dangerous aggressor; and accordingly Olynthus decided
on a change of policy, and, in 352 B.C., withdrew itself
from the Macedonian alliance. The next step was to
conclude peace with Athens, and even to show a wish
for a yet closer union with that state. Athens, too,
now saw the advantage of such a union, and, indeed,
actually made overtures to that effect; but Olynthus
was not quite prepared to commit itself definitely
to an Athenian alliance, which it well knew would
be equivalent to a declaration of hostility against
Philip.
Before long, however, in the year B.C. 350, as it
seems, Philip left the Olynthians no alternative but
that of seeking powerful support. He made them feel
that they were in imminent danger by a sudden and
unprovoked attack on one of those cities of Chalcidice
which would naturally look to Olynthus for symuathy
PHILIP AND OLYNTHUS. 67
and protection. Their eyes were now completely
opened, and they instantly sent off an embassy to
Athens. Philip, indeed, tried to persuade them by
envoys that he had no intention of making war on
them; but he could not blind them. They felt sure
that they might count on a favorable reception for
their envoys at Athens, and on the prospect of assist-
ance. Nor were they disappointed. It was impossible
for the Athenians to neglect such an opportunity.
They had themselves lately proposed such an alliance,
and now it was offered them. There could be no mis-
take as to the critical nature of the situation. Philip
had attacked and taken a Greek city, and it was hardly
possible to doubt that he was feeling his way to the
conquest and annexation of the entire peninsula of
Chalcidice, with its thirty towns. Were he to be suc-
cessful, it was clear that his power would be immensely
increased. Equally clear was it that Olynthus, if well
supported, .might effectually stop his further progress.
Indeed, so sanguine were'tFe Athenians, that the gen-
eral talk now was about punishing Philip for his per-
fidy. Only one statesman and orator of any note,
Demades, who was rarely to be found on the patriotic
side, and was subsequently in all probability a mere
creature of Philip's, spoke against the proposed alli-
ance.
It was on this occasion that Demosthenes, in the
latter half probably of the year 350 B.C., delivered
three memorable speeches, commonly known as the
" Olynthiacs." He must have felt that the convictions
of the people were with him ; and yet at the same time
he lets us see, by his general tone, that he almost de-
spaired of being able to stir them to decisive action.
All that they could be persuaded to do was to send
68 DEMOSTHENES.
thirty galleys and 2,000 mercenaries. This poor little
force could not stop Philip from continuing his
attacks on the Greek towns of Chalcidice. He had
not yet entered Olynthian territory, or even declared
war against the city; but Olyuthus was sufficiently
alarmed to send a second embassy to Athens, begging
for more effectual help. A large force was now de-
spatched; but it consisted of mercenaries, and, unfor-
tunately for Athens, it was under the command of a
man who, though he had some military talent, was so
disreputable in his life that he utterly disgusted the
Olynthians.
In the speech which was probably first delivered,
Demosthenes seeks to encourage his countrymen to
take a hopeful view of affairs by pointing out to them
how it really was that Philip had risen to power, and
how numerous were the elements of weakness in his
kingdom and government.
"He has risen by conciliating and cajoling the sim-
plicity of every people which knew him not. When
one has grown strong, as lie has, by rapacity and
artifice, on the first pretext, the slightest reason, all
is overturned and broken up. If you will per-
form your duties properly, not only will it appear
that Philip's alliances are weak and precarious, but
the poor state of his native empire and power will be
revealed. To speak roundly, the Macedonian power
is very well a? a help, as it was for you in the time of
Timotheus against the Olynthians. For them, too,
against Potidsea, it was an importamt alliance. Lately,
as you know, it aided the Thessalians in their broils
and troubles against the regnant house; and indeed the
accession of any power, however small, is undoubtedly
useful. But of itself Macedon is feeble, and has num-
PHILIP AND OLYNTHU& 69
berless deficiencies. The very operations which seem
to constitute Philip's greatness his wars and his ex-
peditionshave made it more insecure than it was
originally. Do not imagine that Philip and his subjects
have the same likings. He craves glory makes that
his passion; is ready for any consequence of adventure
and peril preferring, as he does, to a life of saf sty, the
honor of achieving what no Macedonian king ever
did before. They have no share in the glorious result :
ever harassed by these excursions, they suffer and toil
without ceasing; they have no leisure for their employ-
ments or private affairs, and cannot so much as dispose
of their hard earnings, the markets of the country
being closed on account of the war. We may easily
infer from all this what is the general Macedonian feel-
ing towards Philip. His mercenaries and guards, in-
deed, have the reputation of admirable and well-trained
soldiers; but, as I heard from one who hud been born
in the country, they are no better than others. If some
of them are experienced in battles and campaigns,
Philip is jealous of such men, and drives them away
so my informant tells me wishing to keep the glory of
all action to himself. Or again, if a man is generally
good and virtuous, unable to bear Philip's daily intem-
perance, drunkenness, and indecency, he is pushed
aside and accounted as nobody. The rest about him
are brigands and parasites, and men of that character
who will get drunk and perform dances which I scruple
to name before you. My information is undoubtedly
true; for persons whom all scouted here as worse rascals
than mountebanks, Callias, the town-slave, and the
li'.;e of him antic-jesters and composers of ribald songs
to lampoon their companions, such persons Plii'ip ca-
resses and keeps about him. Small matters these may
70 DEMOXTIIEXLS.
be thought, but to the wise they are strong indications
of his character and wrong-headedness. Success per-
haps throws a shade over them now; prosperity is a
famous hider of such blemishes; but on any miscarriage
they will be fully exposed."
Though in the above passage Demosthenes speaks
contemptuously of Philip, describing him as little better
than a savage and barbarian, he warns his hearers that
if they let Olynthus fall into his hands, he will soon
carry the war into Attica itself. The third and last
of his three speeches was delivered when the Olyn-
thians entreated Athens to send out a force of her own
citizens, instead of mercenaries commanded by men of
the type of the officer whose misconduct, as we have
seen, had given them so much offence. Of all the
political orations of Demosthenes, this is perhaps the
most stirring and impressive. It is, in the opinion of
Mr. Grote, one of the most splendid harangues ever
spoken. It seems that people at Athens still talked
about punishing Philip; and there were orators, no
doubt, who flattered them into the notion that they
could do so whenever they chose. "Such tilk," says
Demosthenes, " is founded on a false basu. The facts
of the case teach us a different bsson. They bid us
look well to our own security, that we be not ourselves
the sufferers, and that we preserve our allies. There
was, indeed, a time and that, too, within ^y own
remembrance when we might have held our own, and
punished Philip besides; but now our first care must bj
to preserve our own allies. " In this speech he ventures
on a bold proposal, which would be sure to provoke
bitter opposition from the peace party of Eubulus.
"Repeal such of the existing laws as are injurious at
the present crisis I mean those which regard the public
PHILIP AND OLYXTHIT8. U
entertainments fund. I speak this out plainly. The
same men who propose such a law ought also to take
upon them to propose its repeal." In speaking thus,
Demosthenes knew that he was fighting against a most
powerful Athenian sentiment. It would cost them a
painful struggle to sacrifice the fund in question to the
exigencies of a war which also demanded personal
service. They could hardly become like the men who
won Marathon and Salamis. There was the broadest
contrast between them, as Demosthenes elaborately
points out in the following passage :
"Mark, Athenians, what a summary contrast may be
drawn between the doings in our olden time and in yours.
It is a tale brief and familiar to all. Our forefathers
for forty-five years took the leadership of Greece by
general consent, and brought as much as ten thousand
talents into the citadel; and the King of Macedonia
was submissive to them, as a barbarian should be to
Greeks. Many glorious trophies they erected for
victories won by their own fighting on land and sea,
and they are the sole people in the world who have
bequeathed a renown which envy cannot hurt. Such
were their merits in the affairs of Greece; now see
what they were at home, both as citizens and men.
Their public works are edifices and ornaments of such
beauty and grandeur in temples and their consecrated
furniture, that posterity has not the power to surpass
themo. In private they were so modest, and so attached
to the principles of our constitution, that whoever
knows the style of house which Aristides had or Mil-
tiades, and the illustrious of that day, perceives it to
be no grander than those of their neighbors. Their
politics were not for mone} r -making ; each felt it his
duty to exalt the commonwealth. By a conduct
72 DEMOSTHENES.
honorable among the Greeks, pious to the gods, brother-
like among themselves, they justly attained a high
prosperity.
" So fared matters with them under the statesmen I
have named. How fare they with you under the
worthies of our time? Is there any likeness or resem-
blance? I pass over other topics on which I could
expatiate. But observe. In the utter absence of com-
petitors (Lacedaemonians depressed, Thebans employed,
none of the rest capable of disputing the supremacy
with us), when we might hold our own securely and
arbitrate the claims of others, we have heen deprived
of our rightful territory, and spent above 1,500 talents
to no purpose. The allies whom we gained in war we
have lost in peace, and we have trained up against
ourselves an enemy thus formidable. For by whose
contrivance but our own has Philip grown strong?
This looks bad, you will say, but things at home are
better. What proof is there of this? The parapets
that are whitewashed, the roads that are repaired, the
fountains, and such trumpery things? Look at the
men of whose statemanship these are the fruits. They
have risen from beggary to opulence, from obscurity to
honor. Some have made their private homes more
splendid than the public buildings, and as the State has
declined, their fortunes have been exalted."
At last Athens roused herself to a real effort, and
sent to the relief of her ally a force of more than 2,000
native-.xAlhenian citizens. Olynthus might yet have
been saved had the Olynthians been on their guard
against traitors within, and the history of Greece, per-
haps of the world, might have been different. Philip,
meanwhile was on the frontier of its territory, after
having captured most of the towns in the peninsula.
PHILIP AND OLTX THUS. 73
At the siege of one of them, an arrow from an Olynthian
archer deprived him of an eye. But early in the year
348 B.C. he attacked Olynthus itself, after a sudden
declaration of war. The Olynthians, he said, must
quit their city, or he must quit Macedonia. But he
did not overcome them by fair fighting. They were
betrayed by a party among their fellow-citizens. It
was by bribery, as Horace says,* that "the man of
Macedon : ' opened the gates of Olynthus as of other
cities. It was to be expected that he would show no
niL'rcy. The fair city was razed to the ground, and
its population, with all the women and children, sold
into slavery.
This awful calamity sent a shudder through the
Greek world. The like of it had never been seen since
the great Persian invasion of Xerex. As many as
thirty -two free Greek cities had utterly perished in a
period of less than two years at the hands of a bar-
barian. Divided as the Greeks were among themselves,
they would have all heartily responded to the sentiment
of Demosthenes that " a barbarian should be submissive
to Greeks." It must hive shocked and shamed them to
see with their own eyes troops of poor enslaved creat-
ures, of both sexes and of Greek blood, passing through
the streets of their cities. And all this was the work of
a Macedonian, a man of inferior race, whom Greeks had
thought it almost a condescension to notice and patron-
ize. How could they expect that he would much longer
stay his hand from the destruction of the Greek cities
on the Hellespont and the Propontis, and from the
conquest of th3 rich corn-producing Chersonese? How
could they rest in peace till they saw their way to an
*Odes, iiu 16, 13
74 DEMOSTHENES.
alliance of all the states of Greece against him? It is
natural for us to reason thus. But even the proximity
of manifest danger will not always banish mutual
jealousy and distrust. Nor is it in general easy to per-
suade people that a power they have been accustomed
to disregard and despise, though its progress may
seem at times alarming, can ever become seriously
formidable to themselves. So it appears to have been
with the Greeks. After the fall of Olynthus and its
confederate cities, they still clung to their false con-
fidence
CHAPTER VIII.
DEMOSTHENES AND MEIDIAS.
AN incident about this time in the life of Demosthenes,
which gave occasion to one of his well-known speeches,
illustrates rather strikingly some of the less agreeable
phases of Athenian society. There was, of course, refine-
ment and polish of a high degree, and, on the whole,
the tone and temper of the citizens seem to have been
humane and generous. But still, even at Athens, the
scandal 3 and breaches of good taste and manners, which
one would fear are all but inseparable from democracy,
now and then made their appearance. Political rancor
and party violence reached an outrageous length, and
under their shelter the grossest acts of wrong were from
time to time committed with impunity. A rich man,
if he chose, might have plenty of influence in the State;
and along with this he would have at his command
many opportunities of injuring and oppressing thos3
whom he personally disliked. It appears that there
were several such men at Athens men who no doubt
aspired to imitate the grand airs and fashionable ex-
travagance of Alcibiades, who, clever and accomplished
as ho was, at last mads himself intolerable to ths citi-
zens of a free state. Many of those had nothing but
riches to recommend them, and wc-re pestilent fellows
76 DEMOSTHENES.
whose idea of life was really nothing better than coarse,
vulgar rowdyism.
It was the fate of Demosthenes to come into collision
with a man of this class. Early in life, at the time
when he was engaged in his suit with his guardians,
he provoked the enmity of Meidia*, a rich, well-born
man, and one of the constant supporters of the peace
party of Eubulus. The quarrel between them originated
in the following singular way. The brother of Meidias,
Thrasylochus, offered, according to a practice allowed
at Athens in the case of a trierarchy, or the provid-
ing a war-ship for the State, to exchange properties
with Demosthenes, and, in the event of the offer being
accepted, he gave the guardians privately to understand
that the lawsuit should be dropped. In this manner
he sought to defeat the legal proceedings which Demos-
thenes was taking, and, in fact, to get his just claims
set aside. The two brothers, it appears, on one occasion
actually rushed into his house, behaved "with excessive
violence, and used coarse and ribald Imguage in the
presence of his sister, then a mere girl. For this outrage
Demosthenes sued Meidias, and recovered damages ;
but he had not been able to obcain piyment. From
that time the man became his bitter enemy, and
worried and persecuted him in every possible way.
His animosity was all the more virulent as he was also
politically opposed to Demosthenes. In the year 351
B.C. both served in a military expedition to Eubcea
Meidias in the cavalry, Demosthenes as a foot soldier,
^"either of them was for any length of time with the
army. Demosthenes went back to Athens, on the
pretext that he had to undertake the important public
duty of choragus or choir-director for his tribe. It
seems that he undertook this quite voluntarily, but his
m AND MEIDIAS.
enemy hinted that he had merely done so to escape the
hardships of campaigning. And he followed up the
taunt wilh gross insult and outrage. The choir-director,
as we have seen, usually appeared, when the ceremony
was celebrated, in a special dress, and wore a crown;
and Demosthenes had ordered for the occasion a
particularly magnificent robe and a crown of gold.
Meidias contrived to break into the embroiderer's
shop where the dress had been prepared, and spoilt
the finery in which Demosthenes was to show him-
self. He went further; he struck him on the face
before the assembled audieaca, and, according to
Demosthenes' own account, was the means of losing
him the prize, which his chorus would have won.
The spectators were indignant ; and Meidias was
convicted of the crime of sacrilege, as it would seem,
on the very same day by an assembly held in the
theatre. But the affair could not rest here. It was
for a court of justice to decide how he was to be pun-
ished. Clearly, it was right that Demosthenes should
prosecute him, and this he did. He was thirty-two
years of age at the time. Meidias tried to defeat the
persecution by indicting Demosthenes on the charge
of desertion of military service, on the ground that he
had left the army in Eubcea and returned to Athens.
The indictment came to nothing; but Demosthenes, it
appears, was not decisively successful in hh proceed-
ings against Meidias. He was reproached by his rival,
^Eschines, with having compromised the affair. At
all events, it is not certain whether the case was ever
brought to trial. But the tone of the extant speech
certainly implies this; and it is really difficult to sup-
pose, looking at some passages in which he takes ere lit
to himself for having rejected a compromise and having
78 DEMOSTHENES.
brought the defendant to trial, that it was merely writ-
ten and never delivered. This is, we know, a very
general opinion, and there are reasons for it; but in tho
face of the speech as it has come down to us, it seems
a question whether it can be sustained.
The tone of the speech is savage and violent. It is
full of furious invective. But at least it is interesting
as giving us a glimpse into some of the abuses arisidg
out of wealth and insolence even in a democratical
community like Athens. We have an amusing picture
of Meidias himself; and though perhaps it is a cari-
cature, it was no doubt typical of a really existing
class. He had, it is said, got himself elected a cavalry
officer on the strength of being a rich man, and yet he
could not so much as ride through the market-place.
His single act of munificence was giving the State a
war-ship, when he knew he was not likely to incur any
personal danger. He delighted ia making a vulgar
parade of his wealth. He had built a house at Eleusis,
one of the suburbs of Athens, so big that it darkened
all the houses in the place. He used to take his wife
to the Mysteries, or to any place she had a fancy for
visiting, in a carriage and pair. He would push
through the market-place and the leading thorough-
fares, talking of his dinners and his drinking-horns so
loud that all the passers-by could hear. " Do not," says
Demosthenes in his speech, "honor and admire things
of this kind do not judge of liberality by these tests,
whether a man builds splendid houses or has many
female servants, or handsome furniture; but look who
is spirited and liberal in those things which the bulk
of you share the enjoyment of. Meidias, you v.-ill
find, has nothing of that kind about him."
DEMOSTHENES AND MEIDIAS. 79
"Will you," he asks, "let Meidias escape because
he is rich? This is pretty much the cause of his
insolence. Therefore you should rather take away the
means which enable him to be insolent than pardon
him in consideration of them. To allow an audacious
blackguard like him to have wealth at his command
is to put arms in his .hands against yourselves."
" I take it you all know his disposition, his offensive
and overbearing behavior; and some of you, I daresay,
have been wondering about tilings which they know
themselves, but have not heard from me how. Many
of the injured parties do not even like to tell all that
they have suffered, dreading this man's litigiousness,
and the fortune which makes such a despicable fellow
strong and terrible. For when a rogue and a bully is
supported by wealth and power, it is a wall of defence
against any attack. Let Meidias be stripped of his
possessions, and most likely he will not play the bully.
If he should, he will be less regarded than the humblest
man among you ; he will rail and bawl to no purpose
then, and be punished for any misbehavior like the
rest of us. Now, it seems, Polyeuctus and Timocratcs
and the ragamuffin Euctemon are his body-guard;
these are a sort of mercenaries that he keeps about
him, and others also besides them a confederate band
of witnesses, who never trouble you openly, but by
simply nodding their heads affirm and lie with perfect
case. By the powers, I do not believe they get any
good from him; but they are wonderful people for
making up to the rich, and attending on them, and
giving evidence. All this, I take it, is a danger to any
of you that live quietly by yourselves as well as you
cau; and therefore it is that you assemble together, in
order that, though taken separately you are over-
80 DEMOSTHENES.
matched by any one either in friends or riches, or in
anything else, you may collectively be more than a
match for him and put a stop to his insolence."
MeMias, according to Demosthenes, was at heart a
coward, and would be sure to make an abject appeal
to the people's pity. The following passage is towards
the end of the speech:
" I know he will have his children in court and
whine; he will talk very humbly, shedding tears and
making himself as piteous as he can. Yet the more he
humbles himself, the more ought you to detest him.
Why? Because if the outrageousness and violence of
his conduct arose out of his inability to be humble, it
would have been fair to make some allowance for his
temper, and the accident which made him what he is.
But if he knows how to behave himself properly when
ha likes, and has adopted a different line of conduct by
choice, surely it is quite evident that if he eludes
justice now, he will again become the same Mcidias
that you know him for. You must not listen to him,
then ; you must not let the present occasion, when he
is playing the hypocrite have more weight and influence
with you than the whole past of which you have had
experience.
" Perhaps he will say of me, This man is an orator.
Well; if one who advises what he thinks for your
good, without being troublesome or intrusive, is an
orator, I would not deny or refuse the name. But if
an orator be what (to my knowledge and to your knowl-
edge) certain of our speakers are impudent fellows,
enriched at your expense I can hardly be that; for
I have received nothing from you, but spent all my
substance upon you, except a mere trifle. Probably,
also, Meidias will say that all my speech is prepared.
DEMOSTHENES AND MEIDIAS. 81
I admit that I have got it up us well as I possibly
could. I were a complete simpleton indeed, if, having
suffered and still suffering such injuries, I took no pains
about the mode of stating them to you. I maintain
that Meidias has composed my speech; he who has
supplied the facts which the speech is about, may most
fairly be deemed its author, not he who has merely pre-
pared it or studied how to lay an honest case before
you."
The speech is not, we think, one of Demosthenes'
best; but it is often ingenious, and it certainly shows
singular power of invective. It suggests that what we
should call very loose practice oa the part of an advo-
cate was tolerated in an Athenian court. Demosthenes
by no means confines himself to the outrage committed
on him by Meidias, but speaks of the injuries he had
inflicted on others, and indeed attacks generally the
man's whole life and character. The attack may have
been deserved; still, the manner of it, and the circum-
stances under which it was made, point to the exist-
ence of dangers at Athens to which any citizen might
suddenly find himself exDOsed.
CHAPTER IX.
PHILIP MASTER OF THKRMOPYLCE AND OF PHOCIS
PEACE BETWEEN HIM AND ATHENS COUNSEL OF
DEMOSTHENES.
WE now enter on a period of melancholy disgrace and
humiliation for the Greek race. Within two years the
barbarian destroyer of Olynthus becomes master of the
key to Greece, the famous pass of Thermopylae, and of
the whole of Phocis, the country in which stood the
mountains of Parnassus, and the old and venerable
temple of Delphi. Events more terrific and momentous,
says Demosthenes in one of his speeches, had never
occurred either in his own time or that of any of his
predecessors. Athens was forced into a miserably
ignominous peace, and many of her citizens had
stooped to the infamy of being the mere tools and
paid agents of the " man of Macedon." Even Isocrates,
true Greek as he was in all his sympathies, as well as
thoroughly upright and high-minded, was now con-
vinced that the best wisdom for Greece was to put
itself under the leadership of this wonderfully success-
ful prince, and allow him to conduct its united armies
to the conquest of Persia.
The history of these five years is somewhat intricate.
Jt Avill be enough for the present purpose to summarize
82
PEACE BETWEEN PHILIP AND ATHENS. 81 \
the general course of events. The period was mainly
occupied in negotiations on the part of Athens with
Philip. These were ill-managed, and had a most dis-
astrous conclusion. One motive which no doubt
prompted them was the very natural desire of recover-
ing those Athenian citizens who had been captured
with the Olynthians. Towards Athens Philip had usu-
ally shown himself gracious and conciliatory. So, when
the relatives of two of the captives, both men of high
position, presented themselves as suppliants before the
Assembly, it was decided to communicate with Philip.
A favorable answer was received ; and we have reason
to believe that now there was an inclination in favor
of peace. At first it was otherwise. Even Eubulus and
his party, who held war the worst of all evils, were
constrained to speak of Philip as an enemy. They
went further; they attempted, by embassies into the
Peloponnese, to raise some sort of coalition against him.
Among other places they visited Megalopolis, where,
however, their overtures met with but a cold reception.
Athens as we have had occasion to notice, had made a
blunder some years before in not following the counsel
of Demosthenes when he advised that the Megalopoli-
tans should be supported against Sparta. .Now she
found that they were not to be roused into action by
what no doubt seemed to them a comparatively remote
danger. There would, too, have been some political
inconvenience in an alliance with them. Such an alli-
ance would have meant a rupture with Sparta, and a
friendly attitude towards Thebes, a state against which
Athenian feeling was peculiarly bitter. As soon as
ic seemed clear that there was no prospect of organizing
a combination throughout Greece against Philip, the
v,-ish for peace grew in strength, and the people were
84 DEMOSTHENES.
not averse to opening negotiations with their powerful
enemy.
It is at this juncture that the name of Demosthenes'
famous rival jEschincs first comes before us. He rose
to be one of the foremost Athenian orators and states-
men from a very lowly origin. His lather kept what
we should call a preparatory school, and he himself
began life as an inferior actor and a government clerk.
He was a man of immense industry and ability, and
was naturally endowed wiih all the qualities which go
to make an orator. He was one of the envoys sent
on the mission to the Peloponnese, which had for
its purpose the stirring up of the Greeks against
Macedonian aggression. It appears that he addressed
a very powerful appeal to the Arcadian Assembly at
Megalopolis, fiercely denouncing all traitors to the
liberties of Greece, and stigmatizing Philip as a " blood
stained barbarian." Such was the beginning of the
political life of a man who subsequently allowed him
self to become the means of furthering that "bar-
barian's " most dangerous designs upon Greece and her
liberties.
In the negotiations of this period between Athens
and Philip, ^Eschines took a leading part as an envoy.
So, too, did Demosthenes himself; and the hostile
relations between them, which subsequently gave oc-
casion to their memorable oratorical contest, date from
this time. We have for the most part to depend on
the conflicting statements of the two orators for our
knowledge of the circumstances by which Athens, two
years after the ruin of Olynthus, was drawn into a
shameful peace. It almost seems as if she wilfully
allowed herself to make one stupid blunder after
another. But this is not a true view of the case.
PEA CE BETWEEN PHILIP AND A TUENS. 85
Athens, no doubt, might have done much better under
the guidance of really firm and yery skillful statesman-
ship; but it must be remembered that the situation was
extremely complicated, and it was barely possible to
foresee even approximately the course and tendency
cf events. After the destruction of Olynlhus it must
have seemed clear that Philip was the enemy of
Greece; and that, consequently, it was the duty and
policy of Athens to regard him in this light, and
decline all negotiations with him. But as we have
seen, Athens was not able to organize a confederacy
of the Greek states against him; and if she had de-
cided to fight him, she must have felt that she would
have to fight single-handed. When to this considera-
tion was added the desire to recover some of her own
citizens, now prisoners in Philip's hands when, too,
she found that he was still courteous and conciliatory
we cannot be surprised that she shrank from a struggle
which would have tasked her resources to the utter
most. It might, perhaps, have been better and safer
for her to have made any sacrifice, and have at once
decided on war against the destroyer of thirty Greek
cities ; but it was not easy for her to see her way to
such a step alone and unsupported.
The relations, too, of the states of Greece to each
other and to Athens presented many difficulties. Never
had there been a time when it was harder to unite
them. Sparta, the leading state of the Peloponnese,
could under no circumstances be easily stimulated into
exertions in the Greek cause. Her statesmen were apt
to take a narrow and selfish view of the politics of
Greece. The other states of the Peloponnese were more
afraid of being oppressed by Spartan ascendancy, of
which they had had actual experience, than of danger
86 DEMOSTHEXK8.
from Macedon, of which they knew next to nothing.
Here, therefore, there was but a poor prospect of coali-
tion. Thebes and Phocis, the two remaining states,
were themselves engaged in the Sacred War. Phocis
had appropriated to itself the treasures of the temple
of Delphi, and had thus put itself in a false position
before the Greek world, as being guilty of sacrilege.
And as for Thebes, it had no really great and far-
sighted statesmen; nor had it, to the extent which
Athens still had, a sense of its duty to Greece. Its
policy was often particularly selfish; and even under
the most favorable circumstances, it would have been
most difficult to have persuaded Thebans to co-operate
heartily with Athenians. So anxious was it to crush
its Phocian neighbors, with whom it had long been
involved in a troublesome war, and when Philip
undertook to crush them it welcomed the offer. The
bait he held out was templing; but the Thebans ought
to have had enough Greek sentiment not to listen to
his proposals, the acceptance of which would probably
lead to the conquest and destruction of a Greek people
by a barbarian. Philip, of course, could justify himself
by saying that he was attacking those who were, in fact,
the enemies of Greece, inasmuch as by the pillage of the
sacred treasures of Delphi they had outraged the best
and truest Greek feeling. But to conquer Phocis he
must be master of Thermopylae; and if he once gained
this position, it could hardly be doubted that he would be
able to do as he pleased, and that Thebes, if he chose to
pick a quarrel with her, would be in the utmost jeopardy.
All this was recognized by Demosthenes, and, as it
Bcems, by the Athenians generally. They were quite
alive to the importance of garrisoning Thermopylae,
and they sent a force there. But the Phocian leader,
PEACE BETWEEN PHILIP AND ATHENS. 87
Phalaecus, from some sort of jealousy towards Athens,
and a fear that political intrigues would be set on foot
against him to deprive him of his influence with his
countrymen, refused to admit the Athenian troops into
possession of the important pass. It was now difficult
for the Athenians to know how to act. For anything
they knew to the contrary, Phalaecus might have some
understanding with Philip, and be willing to surrender
the pass to him. This position was perplexing and
disheartening, while to Philip it was a grand oppor-
tunity. If he could contrive to conclude peace with
Athens, and to get the Phocians excluded from it, he
would be able, with some sort of excuse, to occupy
Thermopylae and invade Phocis. And in doing this
he would have Thebes on his side.
After much negotiation, this was the result which he
managed to accomplish. Peace was concluded between
Philip and Athens, their respective allies being included.
While the negotiations were pending, and the Athe-
nian envoys were waiting at Pella for an interview
with the King, he was in Thrace, and gained some
important successes over the chief of the country,
Cersobleptes, at this time an ally of Athens. The
effect of this was to weaken and endanger the hold
which Athens had on the Thracian Chersonese, a
specially valuable possession. Indeed, peace was
made ultimately on terms which the Athenians had
not originally contemplated. This, Domosthenes main-
tained, was due to the treachous connivanace of
uEschines and some of the other envoys, who loit-
ered at Pella when they ought to have at once made
their way to Philip in Thrace, and settled matters with
him on the basis which had been mutually agreed on.
But the most terrible mistake was the exclusion of the
88 DEMOSTHENES.
Phocians from the treaty. The Athenians were some-
how cajoled into believing that Philip meant them
well; and even Demosthenes did not at the time
protest against the abandonment of Phocis. The
error was irretrievable, for it amounted to nothing
less than letting Philip become master of Thermopylae.
The Phocians could not hold the pass without support.
When they found themselves isolated, their leader,
PLalaecus, after being summoned by Philip to give up
possession of it, consented to do so under a convention,
and withdrew his forces. The surrender of Phocis to
Philip followed as a matter of course. He dealt with
the country and its towns as he had dealt two years
before with Chalcidice and its towns. Phocis was
utterly ruined. Another Greek state had now fallen
before the Macedonian destroyer, and the prospects of
Greece generally might well seem gloomy.
The calamity, however, was not so shocking to the
Greek world as one might have supposed it would have
been. The Phocians, as has been explained, had been
offenders against the common law and traditions of
Greece, and their destruction might be regarded as a
divine judgment. Even the man who executed it,
though a barbarian according to Greek notions, might
have some claim to be considered as the representative
of a sacred cause. In one sense he had been doing the
very thing which the voice of Greece had been calling
for. The Thebans were especially grateful to him, and
I forgot in their blindness the mischief which by this
last stroke he had inflicted on Greece. Now that tho
Phocians had ceased to exist as a Greek people, their
place in the Amphic'yonic Council was, when the
great Pythian festival came round after a four years'
interval, conferred on Philip. He was even nominated
PEACE BETWEEN PHILIP AXD ATHENS. 89
peesident of the august ceremony. In all this Thebes
heartily concurred, as also did several smaller states.
Athens and Sparta, indeed, held aloof. But when
Philip's envoys announced to the Athenians the new
position he had acquired with the consent of so many
Greek states, they did not like to refuse concurrence in
what a large part of Greece seemed to approve.
Strong as Philip was before, he was now immensely
strengthened, and fresh chances were open to him for
interfering actively in Greek politics. Membership of
the Amphictyonic Council was, in fact, equivalent to
naturalization. Philip was now, in theory at least, a
Greek, and no longer a barbarian. The Athenian
Isocrates could, with a show of reason, address a letter
to him, inviting him to reconcile under his leadership
the great states of Greece, and invade Asia with a view
to the overthrow of the Persian empire and the libera-
tion of the Asiatic Greeks. But the Athenians gener-
ally felt deep anger and vexation at the issue of events,
and could hardly make up their minds to sit still
under the disgrace of the surrender of Thermopylae
and the intrusion of A foreign prince into the heart of
Greece.
Demosthenes, as has been said, had no sympathy
with the ideas of Isocrates. He still clung to the belief
in a general independent Greek world, of which his
own state ought to be the most perfect representative.
Yet on this occasion he spoke in favor of the in-
glorious peace just concluded. Miserable as it was, he
argued that to break it would be to give Philip a pre-
text for uniting other Greek states in war against them.
The tone of his speech is confident and decided. The
peace was bad and dishonorable, no doubt, but to
repudiate it would be simply madness. It would be
90 DEMOSTHENES.
putting themselves gratuitously in the wrong. " The-
shadow at Delphi," as he calls the subject of the Sacred
war which had been waged between Thebes and Pho-
cis, was not worth fighting for, more especially when
they would have to fight a Greek confederacy. It
could not have been altogether pleasant to Demosthenes
to advise acquiescence in a peace which he and his
countrymen generally felt to be humiliating. But as
they had drifted into it, all they could now do was to
make the best of it, and guard themselves from new
aggressions.
CHAPTER X.
DEMOSTHENES CONTINUES HIS SPEEECHES AGAINST
PHILIP.
From the peace of 346 B.C. we may date a revolution
in the Greek world. Philip had acquired a new posi-
tion, and it was acknowleged that he had henceforth
a right to take a part in Greek politics. Even Demos-
thenes had to recognize the fact of a change of sen-
timent towards him. Isocrates could argue more
plausibly than ever that everything pointed to him as
the true head and champion of Greece, and, conse-
quently, as the predestined conqueror of Asia, the old
antagonist of Greece.
The peace just concluded was soon seen to be a
thoroughly hoilow one. Philip, it was evident, had no
intention of being really bound by it, any longer than
it answered his purpose. This the Athenians could
hardly fail to understand, however much they might
try to deceive themselves; and their feeling towards
him was made up of fear and anger. We might have
thought that he could have at once organized a Greek
confederacy against Persia with almost a certainty of
success, but he seems to have been too cautious and
astute to expose himself to any serious risks. His
policy was to secure a yet firmer footing in the Greek
91
92 DEMOSTHENES.
world. Athens, he knew, was his only formidable
enemy. There was still a possibility that she might
rous2 Greece against him, and overpower him by a
cjilition of which she would ba the head. He m tst
therefore endeavor to isolate her by political intrigues,
and, by driving her out of the Chersonese, strike a fatal
blow at the cotninerca on which hsr prosperity largely
depended.
With these views ho began to meddle with the politics
of the Pelopoanese. There circumstances favored his
designs. He had the opportunity of playing the part
of champion and deliverer to the oppressed. Sparta
was the great object of dread to the people of Argos, of
Megalopolis, and of Messene. They could not imagine
that they had any other enemy to fear. Thebes had
hitherto been their protector, but Thebes was no longer
in a condition to command their confidence. It was to
Philip that they now not unnaturally looked. It was
hardly to be expected that they would abstain from in-
voking his aid against a pressing and immediate dan-
ger, because it may have been suggested to them that
they were thereby imperiling the best interests of Greece.
What they wanted was help agiinst Sparta, and this
Philip promised them. He would, he said, soon be
with them in person; and meanwhile he sent them
some troops, and bade Sparta refrain from any attempt
on Messene.
This was a clever movement on Philip's part, and
Athens could not very well protest against it or seek to
thwart it. All that could be said was that, judging
from the past, it was an interference which ultimately
meant mischief. Demosthenes succeeded in bringing
the Athenians to this point of view. He induced them
to send an embassy, himself being at the head of it,
SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP. 93
into the Peloponnese, the express object of which was
to defeat Philip's diplomacy. He visited several of
the cities, and addressed warnings to them based on
th3 bad failh of Philip generally, and on his treatment
of Olynthus particularly. He told thenv plainly that
in their fear and hatred of Sparta they were allowing
themselves to become his accomplices in enslaving
and ruining Greece. It seems that one of the chief
arguments on which he insisted was the utter impossi-
bility of a sincere and hearty union between free states
and a despot. This would be sure to impress the
democratic party always a powerful element in a
Greek state. He was heard so he tells us himself
in one of his subsequent speeches with approbation
and applause, but he failed to convince. There were, as
he says in another speech, those in every state who were
willing to be controlled by a foreign power, if only they
could get the upper hand of their fellow-citizens. The
old love of freedom and of legal government, which
had been the great glory of Greece, seemed to be on
the wane. Still Demosthenes accomplished something.
Philip thought it necessary to send envoys to Athens
with some sort of apology for himself and his general
policy; and an embassy also came, perhaps at his sug-
gestion, from some of the states of the Peloponnese.
Athens was in a perplexing position. Philip could
plausibly say that the Athenians were unreasonably
suspicious towards him, and even, in fact, disregarding
the spirit of the peace recently concluded. The envoys
from Argos and Messene might fairly complain of the
seeming connection between Athens and Sparta, and
argue that it was a menace to the liberties of the
Peloponnese. It was a great and critical occasion, and
called for able statesmanship. It was an opportunity
94 DEMOSTHENES.
to raise yet higher the character of Demosthenes as a
public adviser, and he availed himself of it. In the
speech which he delivered in B.C. 344, known as the
second Philippic, he spoke out in the plainest lan-
guage both against Philip's insinuations and against
the ill-timed complaints of the Peloponnesian envoys,
He vindicated at the same time his own policy, and
denounced the Philippizing faction, in which his rival
uEschines was now a conspicuous figure.
Philip, he declares, was the great aggressor of the
age ; he was a plotter against the whole of Greece. He
repeats what he had said as ambassador to the people
of Messene by the way of warning from the past :
"Ye men of Messene, how do you think the Oiyn-
thians would have looked to hear anything against Philip
at those times when he surrendered to them Anthemus,
which all former kings of Macedonia claimed, when he
cast out the Athenian colonists and gave them Potidsea,
thereby incurring your enmity, and giving them the
land to enjoy? Think you that they expected such
treatment as they got, or would they have believed it
if they had been told? Nevertheless, after enjoying
for a brief space the possessions of others, they are for
a long period deprived by Philip of their own, shame-
fully expelled not only vanquished, but betrayed by
one another and sold. In truth, these too close con-
nections with despots are not safe for free states.
There are manifold contrivances for the guarding and
defending of cities as ramparts, walls, trenches, and
the like; these are all made with hands and demand
an outlay. But there is one common safeguard in the
nature of wise men which is a good security for all,
but especially for democracies against despots. What
do I mean? Mistrust. Keep this; hold to this: pre-
SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP. 95
serve this only, and you can never be injured. What
do ye desire? Freedom. Then do you not see that
with this Philip's very titles are at' variance? Every
king and despot is a foe to freedom, an antagonist to
laws. Will ya not b3ware, k-st ia seeking to be de-
livered from war you find a master? "
Yet in a speech delivered three years afterwards,
which we shall shortly notice, Demosthenes suggests
that they might entertain the thought of seeking aid
even from Persia. The suggestion, perhaps, was only
made in desperation, and must not be taken as repre-
senting anything like a change of political sentiments.
To the last Demosthenes was a believer in free and
popular governments as opposed to tyrannies and des-
potisms. Still, as he has to admit, such governments
are liable to be out-manoeuvred by cunning diplomacy.
So it had been with themselves, as he reminds them
in the present speech. They had been persuaded to
believe that Philip, if he became master of Thermo-
pylae, would humble their old enemy Thebes, and give
them Oropus and Eubrea in exchange for Amphipolis.
"All these declarations on the hustings," he says,
with the Philippizing party in his eye, " I am sure you
remember, though you are not, famous for remembering
injuries. While the mischief is only coming and pre-
paring, whilst we hear one another speak, I wish
every man, though he know it well, to be reminded
who it was persuaded you to abandon Phocis and
Thermopylae, by the possession of which Philip com-
mands the road to Attica and Peloponnese, and has
brought it to thi^ that you have now to deliberate, not
about claims and interests abroad, but about the de-
fence of your home and a war in Attica, which will be
a grievous shock to every citiZ3n when it comes; and
96 DEVOSTHEXE8.
Indeed it commenced from that day of your infatuation.
Had you not been then deceived, there would be noth-
ing now to distress the State."
One point insisted on in this speech is, that tho
struggle in the Greek states was no longer, as it had
hitherto baen, one between aristocracy and democracy,
but between Philip's party and its opponents.
The following year witnessed a memorable contest
between Demosthenes and .zEschines. It arose out of
the embassies to Philip and the various negotiations
with him, which ended, as we have seen, so unfortu-
nately for Athens and Greece. ^Eschines, it will be
remembered, was an adherent of the peace party of
Eubulus, and Demosthenes now made a great effort
to discredit him, as being, in fact, corruptly responsible
for Philip's occupation of Thermopylae, the destruction
of Phocis, and the new and powerful position which
he had been able to assume in Greece. The pleadings
of both the orators in this great cause have come down
to us, and they are specially valuable as supplying us
with materials for the history of an intricate period,
Demosthenes presses his attack with great vehemence,
and resorts, as he well knew how, to the most savage
invective. To our minds it is, as a work of art, one
of the least pleasing and satisfactory of his speeches.
There is a coarseness and vulgarity about the vitupera-
tion and that too, under circumstances in which very
strong condemnation of his rival must have been felt
to have been a mistake. He taunts ^Eschines with
having been all along the conscious tool of Philip's
cunning policy, when it was perfectly well known that
he had himself, from want of clear foresight perhaps,
not steadily opposed that policy at more than one crit-
ical point. He was not successful; but the victory won
SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP. 97
by his rival was a very poor one. .zEschiues was ac-
quitted only by thirty votes. This implies that, on
the whole, public opinion was against him, though it
may have been felt that distinct and positive evidence
was wanting. We may infer that Demosthenes' polit-
ical influence was very great. He failed probably be-
cause, as Dr. Thirlwall remarks, he had an extremely
intricate case, and could not attack ^Eschines effec-
tively without having from time to time to defend
himself and explain certain ambiguities in his own
share in the negotiations.
. Athens, as has been said, was now particularly vul-
nerable in the Thracian Chersonese and the north of
the ^Egean. To these points the restless Philip directed
his attention in 342-341 B.C. It could not be doubted
that he was meditating the annexation of this important
district, and the conquest of the Geeek cities on the
northern shore of the Propontis Perinthus, Selymbria,
and above all Byzantium. If he could achieve this,
Athens would be completely paralyzed. Her maritime
supremacy would be at an end, and her supplies of
corn would be cut off. She would cease to exist as
a commercial power. Philip's designs on Athens in
Thrace were not unlike those of Napoleon I. on Eng
land in his attacks on Egypt and Spain. It was argued
in Parliament at the time, that in carrying on war
with France in these countries, we were practically
standing on our own defence. Demosthenes took the
same line of argument against Philip. A force' had
been sent out from Athens to the Chersonese as an
army of observation on Philip's movements. The
general, Diopeithes, was an able, energetic man; and it
is interesting to us to know that he was the father of the
poet Menander. There were some disputes between
4
98 DEMOSTHENES
the Athenian colonists and the Cardians to the north
of the Chersonese. Philip seemed disposed to favor
the latter, upon which Diopeithes at once retaliated by
invading Macedonian territory. He gained some suc-
cesses, and for a while even deprived Philip of some
of his recent conquests. Considering that the peace of
346 B.C. was still in force, Athens may be said to have
been put in the wrong by her over-zealous general, and
Philip sent the people a despatch in which he formally
complained of these encroachments. All his political
adherents at Athens clamored for the instant recall of
Diopeithes. Like other Athenian generals, Diopeithes,
who commanded some mercenaries, was almost com-
pelled to provide for them by expeditions which could
not be strictly justified. Still, it might be truly argued
in his favor that he was really repelling a dangerous
aggressor. And on this ground Demosthenes pleaded his
cause, and argued that he should be continued in his
command. The speech he delivered on this occasion
"On behalf of the Chersonese," as it has been
entitled contains the clear and powerful reasonings of
a sagacious statesman.
The people, he maintains, ought to deal with their
enemies before they call their own servants to account.
It was very well for Philip to complain of an infringe-
ment of the peace in this particular instance; but was
it not notorious that he had himself deprived Athens
of her own possessions? It was a mere blind to say,
as some said, that they must make up their minds to
have either war or peace. "If it appears that from
the very first Philip has robbed us of our territories,
and has been all along incessantly gathering the spoil
of other nations, Greek and barbarian, for the materials
SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP. 99
of an attack upon you, what do they mean by saying
we must have war or peace? "
''Consider what is actually going on. Philip is
staying with a large army in Thrace, and sending for
reinforcements, as eye-witnesses report, from Macedonia
and Thessaly. Now, should he wait for the trade-
winds, and then march to the siege of Byzantium,
think ye that the Byzantines would persist in their
present folly, and would not invite and implore your
aid? I do not believe it. No; they will receive any
people, even those they distrust more than us, sooner
than surrender their city to Philip unless, indeed, he
is beforehand with them and captures it. If, then,
we are unable to sail northward, and there be no
help at h:md, nothing can prevent their destruction.
Well; let us say the Bysantines are infatuated and be-
sotted. Very likely; yet they must be rescued, because
it is good for Athens. Nor is it clear that he will not
attack the Chersonese; nay, if we may judge from the
letter he sent us, he says he will chastise the people in
the Chersonese. If the present army be kept on foot,
it will be able to defend that country, and attack some
of Philip's dominions. But if it become disbanded,
what shall we do if he march against the Chersonese?
With such facts and arguments before you, so far from
disbanding this army which Diopeithes is endeavoring
to organize for Athens, you ought yourselves to pro-
vide an additional one, to support him with funds, and
with other friendly co-operation."
In the following passage he inveighs against his
political opponents, and the extreme license of speech
allowed to them in practically advocating the interests
of Philip:
100 DEMOSTHENES.
"This, you must be convinced, is a struggle for
existence. You cannot overcome your enemies abroad
till you have punished your enemies, his ministers, at
home. They will be the stumbling-blocks which pre-
vent you reaching the others. Why, do you suppose,
Philip now insults you? To other people he at least
renders services though he deceives them, while he is
already threatening you. Look, for instance, at the
Thestaliaus. It was by many benefits conferred on
them that he seduced them into their present bondage.
And then the Olynthians, again, how he cheated them,
first giving them Potida3a and several other places,
is really beyond description. Now he is enticing the
Thebans by giving up to them Boeotia, and delivering
them from a toilsome and vexatious war. Each of
these people did get a certain advantage; but some of
them have suffered what all the world knows; others
will suffer whatever may hereafter befall them. As
for you, I recount not all that has been taken from
you, but how shamefully have you been treated and
despoiled ! Why is it that Philip deals so differently
with you and with others? Because yours is the only
state in Greece in which the privilege is allowed of
speaking for the enemy, and a citizen taking a bribe
may safely address the Assembly, though you have
been robbed of your dominions. It was not safe at
Olynthus to be Philip's advocate unless the Olynthian
commonalty had shared the advantage by possession
of Potidaea. It was not safe in Thessaly to be Philip's
advocate unless the people of Thessaly had secured the
advantage by Philip's expelling their tyrants and re-
storing the synod at Pylae. It was not safe in Thebes,
until he gave up Boeotia to them and destroyed the
Phocians. Yet at Athens, though Philip has deprived
SPEECHES AGAIKST PHILIP. 101
you of Amphipolis and the territory round Cardia
nay, is making Eubcea a forte=s as a check upon us,
and is advancing to attack Byzantium it is safe to
speak in Philip's behalf."
He thus concludes the speech:
"I will sum up my advice and sit down. You must
contribute money, and maintain the existing troops,
rectifying any abuse you may discover, but not, on any
accusation which somebody may bring, disbanding the
force. Send out ambassadors everywhere to instruct, to
warn, to accomplish what they can for Athens. Further,
I say, punish your corrupt statesmen, execrate them at
all times and places, and thereby prove that men of
virtue and honorable conduct have consulted wisely
both for others and for themselves."
It is satisfactory to learn that this speech was success-
ful, and that Diopeithes, who certainly deserved well of
his country, was continued in his command, and the
Chersonese saved for Athens.
Demosthenes was now the leading Athenian states-
man. He had shaken the influence of the peace party,
and he seems to have still further strengthened his
political position by a speech delivered about three
months after that which we have just been considering.
The speech in question has always been regarded as one
of singular power. As far as we know, nothing new
had occurred; but Philip was still in Thrace, threaten-
ing the Chersonese and the northern shores of the
Propontis, and clearly had designs on Perinthus and
Byzantium. Demosthenes repeats in substance the
arguments he had recently urged. Greece, he says, is
in the utmost peril from its miserable divisions and
apathy, and from the unique position which it has
allowed Philip to attain. As for Athens, " her affairs
1Q2 DEMOSTHENES.
had been brought so low by carelessness and negli-
gence, I fear it is a hard truth to say that if all the ora-
tors had sought to suggest, and you to pass, resolutions
for the utter ruining of the commonwealth, we could
not, methinks, be worse off than we are." It had been
said at Athens in the speeches of some of the orators,
"Wait till Philip declares war, and then it will be
lime to discuss how we shall resist him." Demosthenes'
reply is:
" If we wait till Philip avows that he is at war with
u?, we are the simplest of mortals; for he would not
declare war, though he inarched even against Athens
and Piraeus at least, if we may judge from his conduct
to others. When he sends his mercenaries into the
Chersonese, which the king of Persia and all the Greeks
acknowledge to be yours, what can be the meaning of
such proceedings? He says he is not at war. Bat I
cannot admit such conduct to be an observance of the
peace. Far otherwise. I say that by his present ad-
vance into Thrace, by his intrigues in the Peloponnese,
by the whole course of his operations with his army, he
has been breaking the peace and making war upon you,
unless, indeed, you will say that those who establish
military engines are not at war until they apply them
to the walls. But that you will not say; for whoever
prepares and contrives the means for my conquest, is
at war with me before he hurls the dart or draws the
bow. Should anything happen, what is the risk^you
run? The alienation of the Hellespont, the subjection
of Megara and Euboea to your enemy, the siding of
the Peloponnese with him. Then, can I allow that
one who sets such an engine at work against Ajthens
is at peace with her? Quite the contrary. From the
day that he destroyed Pkocis I date his commence-
SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP. 103
meiit of hostilities. So widely do I differ from your
other advisers that I deem any discussion about the
Chersonese or Byzantium out of place. Succor them
I advise that; watch that no harm befalls them; send
all necessary supplies to your troops in that quarter;
but let your deliberations be for the safety of all
Greece, as being in the most extreme jeopardy."
The Greeks, he declares, must have utterly forgotten
themselves in allowing a foreigner and a barbarian a
license ia dealing with their affairs which they had
never thought of according to such states as Athens
or Sparta. This was monstrous, and implied a fatal
degeneracy .
" I observe," says the orator, " that all people be-
ginning from yourselves have conceded to Philip a
right which in former days was the subject of contest
in every Greek war. What is this? The right ol
doing what he pleases, openly fleecing and pillaring
the Greeks one after another, attacking and enslaving
their cities. You were at the head of tho Greeks for
seventy -three years, the Lacedemonians for twenty-
nine, and the Thebans had some power in these letter
days after the battle of Leuctra. Yet neither you nor
Laccda3nionian nor Thebans were ever licensed to act
as you pleased. Far otherwise. When you, or rather
the Athenians of that time, appeared to be dealing
harshly with certain people, all the rest, even such as
had no complaint against Athens, thought proper to
side with the injured parties in a war against her. So,
when the Lacedaemonians became masters and suc-
ceeded to your empire, on their attempting to encroach
and make oppressive innovations, a general war was
declared against them even by such as had no cause
of complaint. But why mention other people? We
10J: DEMOSTHENES.
ourselves and the Lacedaemonians, although at the
outset we could not allege any mutual injuries, thought
proper to make war for the injustice that we saw done
to our neighbors. Yet all the faults committed by
the Spartans in those thirty years, and by our ancestors
in the seventy, are less than the wrongs which in
thirteen incomplete years, while Philip has been upper-
most, he has inflicted on the Greeks. Nay, they are
scarcely a fraction of them, as I may easily and briefly
show. Olynthus and Methone, and Apollonia and
thirty-two cities on the borders of Thrace, I pass over
all which he has so cruelly destroyed that c, visitor
could scarcely tell if they were ever inhabited. And
of Phocis, so considerable a people exterminated, I say
r.othing. But what is the condition of Thessaly? Has
he not taken away her constitutions and her cities, and
established tetrarchies, to parcel her out, not only by
cities, but by provinces, for subjection? Are not the
states of Eubcea now governed by despots, and Eubcea
is an island near to Thebes and to Athens? Does he
not exprersly write in his epistles, "I am at peace with
those who are willing to obey me ? " Neither Greek nor
barbaric land contains the man's ambition. And we,
the Greek community, seeing and hearing this, instead
of sending embassies to one another about it and ex-
pressing our indignation, are in such a miserable state,
so intrenched in our separate towns, that to this day
we can attempt nothing that interest or necessity re-
quires; we cannot combine for succor and alliance;
we look unconcernedly on the man's growing power,
each resolving to enjoy the interval in which another
is destroyed, not caring nor striving for the salvation
of Greece Whatever wrong the Greeks sustained
from Lacedaemonians or from us, was at least inflicted
SPEECHES AGAINST PHILIP. 105
by a genuine Greek people. It might be felt in the
same manner as if a lawful son, born to a large fortune,
committed some fault or error in the management of
it. On that ground, one would consider him open to
censure and to reproach: yet it could not be said he
was an alien and not an heir to the property which
he so dealt with. But if a slave or a spurious child
wasted and spoilt that in which he had no interest,
how much moro heinous and hateful would all have
pronounced it! "
On the decay of patriotism and the venality of public
men throughout Greece, he speaks thus:
" Thore must be some cause, some good reason, why
the Greeks were so eager for liberty then, and now are so
eager for servitude. There was something in the hearts
of the multitude then which there is not now, which
overcame the wealth of Persia, and maintained the free-
dom of Greece, and quailed not under any battle by sea
or land, the loss whereof has ruined all and thrown the
Greek world into confusion. What was this? No
subtlety or cleverness; simply this, that whoever took
a bribe from the aspirants to power or the corrupters of
Greece was universally abhorred. It was a fearful thing
to be convicted of bribery; the severest punishment was
inflicted on the guilty, and there was no intercession
or pardon. The favorable moments for enterprise
which fortune frequently offers to the careless against
the vigilant, to -them that will do nothing against those
that discharge their entire dut~, could not be bought
from orators or generals; no more could mutual con-
cord, nor distrust of tyrants and barbarians, nor any-
thing of the kind. But now all such principles have
boon sold as in open market, and principles imported
in exchange by which Greece is ruined and diseased.
106 DEMOSTHENES.
What are they? Envy, when a man gets a bribe;
laughter, if he confesses it; mercy to the convicted;
hatred of those who denounce the crime, all the usual
accompaniments of corruption. For as to ships and
men, and revenues and abundance of other material-
all, in fact, that may be reckoned as constituting national
strength, assuredly the Greeks of our day are more
fully and perfectly supplied with such advantages than
Greeks of the olden times. But they are all rendered
useless, unavailable, unprofitable by the agency of these
traffickers."
This is indeed a powerful denunciation of a state of
things which we know to be very possible, in which
the corruption of public men is tieated as a joke,
and when exposed and detected, is hardly thought to
deserve reprobation and punishment. If all that was
best in Greece had really so utterly died out, it would
seem that Demosthenes was wasting his breath in idle
declamation. But we may well believe that he clung to
tha old Athenian ideal, and could not bring himself to
despair of his country. And it is certain that this and
the preceding speech produced an effect, and Athens
made efforts which were temporarily successful. "The
*work of saving Greece," he told them before he sat
down, "belongs to you; this privilege your ancestors
bequeathed to you as the prize of many perilous exer-
tions."
As one might expect, there were those who sought
to persuade the Athenians that Philip's power for
aggression had been greatly exaggerated, and that he
was by no means so formidable as Sparta had once
been, when she led the Peloponnesian confederacy.
Demosthenes points out that Philip had introduced
what was really a new method of warfare. Athens
SPEECHES A GAINST PHILIP. 107
and Sparta, in the height of their power, had only been
able to command a citizen militia from the states in
league with them. Such a force was prepared only for
a summer campaign, and could not always follow up
its blows effectively. Philip, on the other hand, could
take the field in winter as well as in summer. His
troops were never disbanded, and they were under his
sole direction. He was, in fact, to the Greeks what
Napoleon was to the Austrians. An able and restless
despot, at the head of a well-trained standing army,
will often, fora time at least, have a decided advantage
in war over a free and constitutional state.
The next year, 340 B.C., events occurred which com-
pletely justified the warnings of Demosthenes. Philip
attempted the conquest of the cities on the Propontis,
Perinthus and Byzantium. He was foiled by prompt
intervention from Athens. There was for a brief space
a doubt whether Byzantium would accept Athenian
aid, so thoroughly had the city become estranged from
Athens in consequence of the Social War. Demos-
thenes went thither at the head of an embassy, and the
result was, that an alliance was concluded. Shortly
afterwards, the conscientious and much-respected
Phocion, though he differed politically from Demos-
thenes, sailed thither with a powerful armament and a
force of Athenian citizens. Through the influence of
Leon, one of the leading citizens of Byzantium, who
had been Phocion's fellow-student at Athens in the
Academy, they were admitted into the city, and charmed
the Byzantines by their quiet and admirable behavior.
Succors also arrived from some of the islands of the
JEgean from Cos, Chios, Rhodes. Byzantium was
now all but impregnable, and Philip was obliged to
abandon the siege both of it and of Perinthus. Even
108 DEMOSTHENES.
his own territory was invaded by Phocion, and many
of the Macedonian cruisers were captured. For Philip
it was a year of reverses, as for Athens it was one of
success and glory. The two cities on the Propontis
decreed her a vote of thanks, and displayed their
gratitude by erecting three colossal statues, represent-
ing Athens receiving a wreath at their hands in testi-
mony of their deliverance. Demosthenes, too, had his
reward. No one could question that to his counsels
and energy they owed in great measure the preservation
of the Chersonese and their supremacy at sea. Corn
cheap and abundant was for the present assured to
them. The Athenian people were in a pleased and
grateful mood, and the Assembly passed a vote of
thanks to Demosthenes, which none of his many
political enemies dared to oppose.
CHAPTER XI.
CHJBRONEIA FALL OF GREECE,
WE must now hurry on to the decisive catastrophe
which sealed the fate of Greece and of its political
independence, Its glory had been to have been rep^
resented by an aggregate of free states, of which
Athens was immeasurably the first in culture and
civilization. Its weakness and curse had been per-
petual and all but irremediable rivalries and jealousies,
which went far to neutralize its collective strength
iu the face of a real peril. It was now on the eve
of a revolution which the Greek mind, in spite of
many a warning from Demosthenes, had never been
able to bring itself to comtemplate as possible. He had
done his best, as we have seen, to retard it amid end-
less discouragements, and to the last we shall find him
faithful to the cause of which he never once seems to
have allowed himself to despair. In the train of events
which culminated in Chaeroneia we find him bearing a
conspicuous and honorable part.
Philip's career, as we have just seen, had been
temporarily checked; and at the close of the year 340
B.C. Athens might almost congratulate herself on all
danger having passed away. In the spring of 339 B.C.
the King met with another disaster. He had plunged
110 DEMOSTHENES.
into the wilds of Scythia, north of the Danube, and had
carried off a vast booty of flocks and herds from the
barbarous people; but on his return through Thrace he
was attacked by the Triballi, one of the fiercest and
most warlike of the tribes of that dangerous region.
We know \vhat it is for a regular and well-equipped
army to have to march through an intricate and hostile
country, The King of Macedon, encumbered as he
"was with spoil, was taken at a disadvantage, and if
not actually defeated, he was at least worsted, lost his
plunder, and was himself badly wounded. Thus the
year 339 B.C. seemed one of good omen fur Athens and
for Greece. And thanks to the vigorous efforts of
Demosthenes in the way of naval reform, the Athenian
fleet was now supreme in the JSgean.
Meanwhile a new sacred war in behalf of the god
and temple of Delphi was unfortunately breaking out.
It arose out of incidents which may seem to us com-
paratively trifling. An Amphictyonic Council had
assembled at Delphi in the autumn of 340 B.C., and
Athens was represented by JGsclrines. The fruitful
plain of Crisa, stretching inland from the Gulf of
Corinth to the town of Amphissa, under the mountains
of Parnassus, was the consecrated possession of Ihe
Delphic god, It was holy ground, and to' till or to
plant .it had been forbidden with a tremendous curse.
Part of it, however, adjacent to the town and port of
Cirrha, had, almost with the. sanction of Greek opinion,
been occupied and brought into cultivation for a long
period by the Locrians. Between them and the
Phocians there had been a long-standing feud, which
reached a climax in the recent Sacred War. The Loc-
rians in that war had sided with Philip and the Thebans
against their sacrilegious neighbors. Consequently,
CH^RONEIAFALL OF GEEECE. HI
after the destruction of Phocis, they had a sore feeling
towards athens as the ally of the Phocians. One of
their deputies, on the occasion of which we are speaking,
rudely gave expression to this feeling, and went so far
as to revile the Athenians, and to imply that an alliance
with such people was in itself equivalent to the guilt
of sacrilege. Possibly the man may have wished to
curry favor with the Thebans, to whose disgust some
golden shields had just been set up by the Athenians
in a new chapel at Delphi, with an inscription com-
memorating the victory of Athens over Persia and
Thebes at Platae a century and a half ago. This
small incident was dwelt upon by the Locriaa orator in
violent and intemperate language. "Do not," said he,
" permit the name of the Athenian people to be pro-
nounced among you at this holy season. Turn them
out of the sacred ground like men under a curse."
^Eschines, the Athenian representative (he describes
the affair himself in his great speech against Ctesiphon,
or, we may say, against Demosthenes), savagely re-
torted. He pointed to the plain of Crisa, visible from
the spot where they were assembled. "You see," he
said, "that plain cultivated by the Locrians, of Am-
phissa, covered with their farm-buildiqgs. You have
under your eyes the port of Cirrha, consecrated by
your forefathers' oath, now occupied and fortified."
Then he caused the ancient oracle, the oath with its
dreadful curse, to be read out before the Council.
"Here am I," he went on to say, "ready to defend
the property of the god according to your forefathers'
oalh. I stand prepared to clear my own city of her
obligations. Do you take counsel for yourselves.
You are here to pray for blessings to the gods, publicly
and individually. Where will you find voice or heart
112 DEMOSTHENES.
or courage to offer such a prayer if you let these ac-
cursed Locrians of Amphissa remain unpunished?"
The appeal of ^Eschines produced an instantaneous
effect. The excitement was prodigious ; and the Coun-
cil in a moment of fury passed a resolution that on the
morrow all the population of Delphi were to assemble
\vith spades and pickaxes, and sweep away from the
sacred plain every trace of the impious tillage and
cultivation. Next day this mad proposal was actually
carried into effect. The furious mob rushed across the
plain into the town of Cirrha, and pillaged and fired
the place. On their return, however, they were met
by the Locrians of Amphissa with an armed force, and
obliged to take refuge in Delphi. There was no blood-
shed, even under these circumstances of provocation,
as the aggrieved owners of the destroyed poperty were
restrained by a sentiment of reverence for the Amphic-
tyouic Council. Here is, indeed, a striking evidence
of the respect felt for the traditions of the god of
Delphi and his ancient temple, the centre of the
religious life of Greece. Again, on the following day,
the Council met, and after warm praise had been
bestowed on Athens as the avenger of Apollo's rights,
the people of * Amphissa were denounced as having
incurred the gilt of sacrilege; and it was finally
decided that the Amphictyonic deputies should shortly
assemble at ThermopylaB to consider how they were to
be punished.
A new sacred war was thus in effect begun six years
after the disastrous termination of the previous war in
346 B. c. That had ended in the destruction of a mem-
ber of the Gre.'k community; this was to end in the
ruin and fall of Greece. The danger was not at once
perceived at Athens. We cannot wonder at this.
CH^RONEIA.FALL Off GREECE. 113
' vindication of his countrymen at the Coun-
cil" might well seem spirited and patriotic. Athens,
through him, had stood forward as the champion of
the god of Delphi. It was easy for him to argue that
those who took a different view, and regretted the rash
act to which the Amphictyons had been prompted by
his oratory, were little better than the paid agents of
those sacrilegious Locrians, who had allowed one of
their speakers openly to insult Athens. Demosthenes,
however so he tells us at once declared in the As-
sembly, "You are bringing war into Attica, JEschines
an Amphictyonic war." The popular sentiment at the
time was in favor of ^Escbines, and this his political
rival must have known and felt. Still, Demosthenes
was able a proof this of the high respect in which he
was held to persuade the people not to send any
deputies to the special congress at Thermopylae, which
was to deliberate on the punishment of the Locrians.
Thebes, too, allowed herself to be unrepresented. War
was decided on; the Locrian territory was invaded,
and a fine imposed on the Locrians. the payment of
which, however, the army was not sufficiently power-
ful to compel.
The congress of which we have just spoken was not
the regular Amphictyouic meeting. This was held in
the autumn of 339 B.C. Philip by that time had
returned to his kingdom. The meeting was now at
Delphi; and Athens, as might be expected, took part
in it. .^Eschines again was one of her representatives.
It was on this occasion that the fatal step was taken
of invoking the aid of Philip. It is not very difficult
to understand how such a vote was carried. Macedon
itself was a member of the Council; and so, too, were
several states like TheSsaly and Phthiotis, which now
114 DEMOSTHENES.
were simply Macedonian dependencies. ^Eschines, it
may be from really corrupt motives, supported the
vote. Accordingly Philip was elected general of the
Amphictyonic army; and a request was forwarded to
him that "he would march to the aid of Apollo and
the Amphictyons, and not suffer the rights of the god
to be invaded by the impious Locrians of Amphissa."
The die was now cast. The peril to Greece might
possibly even yet have been warded off; but it was
great and imminent. And Thebes and Athens, on
whom all now depended, wore still notoriously un-
reconciled. Philip, of course, instantly accepted the
Council's invitation. He would enter Greece as the
representative of a holy cause, as well as the head of a
very powerful army. From Thermopylae he marched
straight through Phocis to Elateia, the chief Phocian
town and the key to southern Greece. It was not sixty
miles from the Athenian frontier. Here he halted and
began to establish a regular camp. This was in itself
alarming. His next step was to send a message to
Thebes inviting the co-operation of the Thebans in an
attack on Attica.
In a graphic passage in the most famous of his
speeches, Demosthenes describes the impression made
at Athens by the news that Philip was at Elateia.
" It was evening, " he says, ' ' when a messenger arrived
with tidings for the Presidents that Elateia was taken.
They rose instantly from the public supper-table; some
drove the people from the stalls in the Forum, and set
fire to the wicker-work in order to clear the space;
others sent for the generals, and called the trumpeter.
The whole city was in commotion. Next morning, at
break of day, the Presidents convoked the Senate in
the Senate House, and you repaired to the Assembly,
CH^RONEIAFALL OF GREECE. 115
and before the Senate could enter upon business, or
draw up the decree to be submitted to you, all the
people had taken their seats in the Pnyx. When the
Senate had entered when the Presidents had commu-
nicated the intelligence which had been brought to
them when the messenger had been introduced, and
related his tidings, the herald made proclamation,
' Who desires to speak? ' But no one came forward.
Again and again did the herald repeat the proclama-
tion; our country's voice called out for a man to speak
and save her; for the voice of the herald raised at the
law's command should be regarded as the voice of our
common country. Still not a man came forward."
In this crisis Demosthenes gave his counsel. It was
to the following effect:
"I said," he tells us, "that the dismay of those
who supposed that Philip could still count on the
Thebans must proceed from an ignorance of the rea
state of the case. If that were so, it would not
be at Elateia it would be on our own frontier-
that we should hear of Philip. That he had come to
make things ready for him in Thebes I knew well.
But mark, I said, how th^ matter stands. Every
man in Thebes whom money can buy, every man
whom flattery can gain, has long ago been secured.
But he is totally um;b!e to prevail upon those who
have withstood him from the beginning, and who are
opposing him still. What then has brought Philip to
Elateia? He hopes, by a military demonstration in
your neighberhood, and by bringing up his army, to
raise the courage and confidence of his friends, and to
strike terror into his enemies, so that they may be
frightened or coerced into surrendering what hitherto
they had been unwilling to concede. If, then, I said,
116 DEMOSTHENES,
we choose at this crisis to remember every ill turn
which the Thebans have done us, and to distrust them
and treat them as enemies, in the first place we shall
be doing the very thing which Philip most desires; and
next, I fear that, his present adversaries embracing his
cause, they will all fall on Attica together. If you will
be advised by me, and regard what I am about to say
as matter for reflection rather than for disputation, I
believe that my counsel will obtain your approbation,
and be the means of averting the peril \vhich now
threatens the State. What, then, do I advise ? First,
shake off this panic or rather change the direction of
your fears from yourselves to the Thebans, for they
are far nearer ruin than ourselves. The danger is theirs
before it is ours. Next, let all citizens of military age
and all your cavalry march to Eleusis, and show your-
selves to the world in arms, that the Thebans who are
on your side may be as bold as their adversaries, and
speak out in the cause of right, with the assurance
that, if there is at Elateia a force at hand to support
the party who have sold their country to Philip, your
forces are no less at the disposal of those who .would
fight for freedom, and ready to succor them in case
of attack. Make no conditions with the Thebans. It
would be unworthy on such an occasion. Simply de-
clare your readiness to succor them, on the assump-
tion that their peril is imminent, and that you are in a
better position than they to forecast the future. If
they accept ^our offer and adopt our views, we shall
have attained our object, and pursued a policy worthy
of our country. If anything should mar the project,
they will have only themselves to blame, and we shall
have nothing to blush for in our part of the transac-
tion."
CH^JRONEIAFALL OF GREECE. H7
Such was the counsel of Demosthenes in this great
crisis. It was instantly adopted by the Assembly
without a dissentient voice. The matter did not stop
here. "Not only did I make a speech," Demosthenes
tells us, " but I proposed a decree. $Tot only did I
propose the decree, but I went upon the embassy. Not
only went I on the embassy, but I prevailed on the
Thebans." At Thebes the orator had to confront the
envoys of Phtlip, backed up by the Philippizing party
and by the old Theban animosity towards Athens.
Each embassy was heard, according to Greek custom,
before the Theban Assembly. Philip had eloquent
advocates who suggested plausible reasons why he
should be allowed to march through Bceotia and to
humble the old enemy of Thebes. Unfortunately, we
have not the reply of Demosthenes. We know, how-
ever, from the historian of the time, Theopompus, that
he rose to the occasion, and convinced the wavering
Thebaus, by an impressive appeal to every Greek and
patriotic sentiment, that it was their duty and interest
to accept the offered alliance. It was a signal triumph
one, too, achieved under extreme difficulties.
It must, indeed, have been a proud moment for De-
mosthenes when he saw his country's army march
across the Attic frontier and enter Boeotia at the
Theban invitation. All distrust and jealousy had now
passed away; and the two states, between whom there
had been long and bitter rivalry, had at last made up
their mind to co-operate in a common cause. As it
had been at Byzantium, so was it now at Thebes. The
Athenian soldiers received a hearty welcome, and were
hospitably entertained in the houses of the city.
" With such cordiality," says Demosthenes in his
speech on the crown, " did they welcome you, that while
118 DEMOSTHENES.
their own infantry and cavalry were quartered outside
the walls, they received your army within their city and
their homes, among their wives and nil that they held
most precious. On that day the Thebans gave you, in
the face of all mankind, three of the highest testimonials
the first of your valor, the second of your justice,
and the third of your good conduct. For in choosing
to fight with you rather than against you, they judged
that you were better soldiers, and engaged in a better
cause than Philip; and by intrusting to you that
which they in common with all mankind regard with
the most jealous watchfulness, their children and their
wives, they manifested their confidence in your good
conduct. The result showed that they were well war-
ranted in their trust; for after the army entered their
city, not a single complaint, well or ill founded, was
made against you, so orderly was your behavior. And
when your soldiers stood side by side with their hosts
in two successive engagements, their disipline, their
equipments, their courage, were such as not only to
challenge criticism, but to command admiration."
Two slight successes, indeed, were won by the united
armies of Thebes and Athens. Of the campaign we
have no detailed narrative, and of the final battle we
have but an imperfect and unsatisfactory description.
It would have been most interesting to have had such
an account of it as Xenophon has given us of Leuctra
and Mantineia. It was fought near Chaeroneia, close
to the borders of Phocis, a town of little importance,
but memorable from its historical associations. More
than two centuries afterwards, a great victory was won
there by Sulla over an army of Mithridates. It was
too, the birthplace of Plutarch, and to it he retired
from Rome in his old age. On this occasion it would
CH^EONEIAFALL OF GREECE. 119
seem that as to numbers the forces were evenly
matched. But the Greek army was without a general
of any marked ability. Phocion, by far the best
Athenian officer, was absent with the fleet in the
JSgeari. A commander of the first order a man, for
example, of the calibre of Epameinondas might have
turned the scale, and no doubt would have done so
had there been a powerful contingent from Sparta and
the Peloponnese. United Greece, it is probable, could
even yet have crushed Philip. As it was, all may be
said to have depended on Athens and Thebes, though
a few other States furnished some soldiers. The Mace-
donian army was both skillfully commanded, and was
very formidable in itself. It was led by Philip and
by his young son Alexander; and he it was, it appears,
to whom the victory was mainly due. He was opposed
to the Theban phalanx the Sacred band, as it was called
which fell fighting to a man. It is certain that the
battle was obstinately contested, and almost equally
certain that it was decided by superiority of general-
ship. The Athenians, after their wont, dashed upon
the enemy with furious impetuosity; but a citizen
militia, however brave and enthusiastic, unless they
were victorious at the first onset, could hardly be
expected to stand long against "such troops as
Philip's trained veterans. They did, according to one
account, put the enemy to flight, and their general
exclaimed, " Let us pursue them even to Macedonia."
But the end was complete defeat for the Greek army,
and the year 338 B.C. witnessed the fall of Greek in-
dependence.
To Thebes the result was immediate ruin. Its cita*
del was at once occupied by a Macedonian garrison,
and its government put under Macedonian control.
120 DEMOSTHENES.
Athens, 1,000 of whose citizens had fallen, and 2,000
been taken prisoners, was in an agony of distress; but
she did not allow herself to despair. Isocrates, still
alive in his 99th year, though he had been politically
opposed to Demosthenes and had cherished the idea of
a united Greece under the leadership of the King of
Macedon, was heart-broken, and refused to live any
longer. He was a true patriot; and
" That dishonest victory
At Chaeroneia fatal to liberty
Killed with report that old man eloquent."
Demosthenes had fought in his countrymen's ranks,
and had fled with the rest; but though his enemies
taunted him with cowardice, he had the honor of pro-
nouncing the funeral panegyric over the fallen. His
counsels had been followed; the result had been dis-
astrous; yet he still evidently retained the confidence
and esteem of the people. Athens recovered her cap-
tured citizens without ransom, for the conqueror chose
to be generous; but the cause for which she had
fought was a thing of the past. Demosthenes must
have felt after Chaeroneia as Pitt felt after Austerlitz
when he closed the map of Europe. His efforts had
been rewarded with the gratitude of his countrymen,
but they had not been rewarded with success.
CHAPTER XII.
CONTEST BETWEEN DEMOSTHENES AND JESCHINES.
PHILIP was now the acknowledged head of the Greek
world. Phocion, Athens' best soldier, as well as a highly
honorable citizen, told the Athenians that they must
acquiesce in this result. Demosthenes had not a word
left to say on foreign policy. The subject was, in fact,
closed. He was continually and virulently attacked
by his political opponents, bt.,hewas too strong for
them. He spoke the funeral eulogy at the obsequies
of the slain in the great battle an honor to which he
was chosen in preference to ^Eschines, as well as to
Demades, who bad negotiated the peace. He held,
too, more than one important office. He was treasurer
of the Theoric fund, which provided Athens with her
grand dramatic entertainments; and in this capacity he
had a considerable control over the finances generally.
He was also superintendent of the city walls and fortifi-
cations. He must thus have had the character of an
able and upright man of business. And he continued
to follow the profession of the bar, and found abundant
employment.
In 336 B.C. Philip was assassinated. It seems that
Demosthenes, though at the time he was mourning the
death of an only daughter, showed an excessive joy by
121
122 DEMOSTHENES.
appearing in public in a white dress with a garland on
his head, and performing a solemn sacrifice of thanks-
giving. Could he have indulged in the dream that all
was now to be reversed, and Greece was again to be
free? Macedon, no doubt, with its sudden growth of
power, might have collapsed, had Philip's son and suc-
cessor been an imbecile. And it appears that Demos-
thenes thought meanly of the young Alexander. He
compared him to Margites, the hero of a comic poem
which tradition attributed to Homer. Margites was a
man who "knew many things but knew them all
badly;" he was a sort of " Jack of all trades and master
of none." Alexander was famous for the variety of his
studies and pursuits; and it was this, it may be sup-
posed, which gave point to the comparison. Demos-
thenes' idea of him was, that he was a studious,
bookish young man, of whom the world would never
hear much. The fact that he was only twenty
years of age at the time of his father's death may
have reasonably encouraged Demosthenes to believe
that Greece had some chance of throwing oft' the
yoke imposed on her by her defeat at Chaeroneia. He
did not think it wrong to correspond with Persia,
and to avail himself of Persian gold, with the view
of frustrating Philip's designs on Asia. We can
hardly censure him for this, when we remember that
it was done for' the patriotic purpose of freeing Greece
from its present position of a Macedonian dependency.
If he used questionable means, he at least had the
merit of standing by the old cause. But, of course, it
was easy for his enemies to represent his conduct in an
odious light.
Three years after Cha3roneia, Alexander, after a suc-
cessful expedition into Thrace, and a victory over the
DEMOSTHENES AND ^SCHINES.. 123
barbarous and warlike GetSB on the further bank of
the Danube, hurried with marvelous rapidity south-
wards to crush a movement of revolt in Thebes. There
was, as we have seen, a Macedonian garrison in the city.
There was, too, a powerful political party which urged
prompt submission. Alexander himself was particu-
larly anxious not to drive matters to extremities. But
the party which had instigated the movement knew
that they could not hope for mercy; and, by appealing
to the cause of Greek freedom, persuaded the people to
reject all offers of peace. The unhappy city was cap-
tured by assault, and every house but that of the poet
Pindar and those of his descendants was razed to the
ground.
"The great Eraathian conqueror bade spare
\ The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground."
It was a terrible doom, but it was approved by the
towns of Boeotia; and but for the brief grandeur to
which Thebes rose under Epameinocdas, and her share
in the battle of Chreroneia, we may almost say it was
deserved. She'had been a traitor to the common cause
in the great struggle with Persia; and afterwards, with
a peculiar baseness, she had urged Sparta to slaughter,
in cold blood, the brave Platsoans, whose only crime
was, that they had sided with Athens in the Pelopon-
nesian "War. Thebes was now blotted out of existence.
Again Athens trembled. Alexander, there was reason
to believe, was magnanimous; but it was impossible to
say how he might deal with a city which had been so
persistently hostile to his father. At the suggestion of
Demades, an embassy of congratulation was sent to
him. The people were to express their joy not only on
124 DEMOSTHENES.
his safe return from the Danube, but on the extinction
of Thebes. It \vas as Dr. Thirlwall happily calls it,
4 ' impudent obsequiousness. " Alexander's answer was
a demand for the surrender of the nine chief anti-
Macedonian orators, Demosthenes, of course included.
But the demand was waived, chiefly, it seems, through
the opportune intervention of Phocion, whom Alex-
ander highly respected.
The next year he crossed the Hellespont into Asia.
Four years from that time sufficed for the overthrow
of the Persian empire. Darius, the last king of Persia
was murdered in 330 B. c. That same year witnessed
an abortive attempt in Greece against Macedonian
supremacy. It was bravely led by a king of Sparta,
who fell in a hard fought battle near Megalopolis with
Antipater, to whom Alexander had intrusted his king-
dom during his absence. Greece could now no longer
even dream of independence. Anything like an anti-
Macedonian policy would be preposterous; and there
was thus an opportunity at Athens of attempting to
rouse popular feeling against any statesman who had
advocated that policy, the end of which had been so
fatal to Greece.
It was under these circumstances that JEschines
made a great effort to crush his old rival. It had been
proposed by Ctesiphon, in the year after Chaeroneia,
that a public tcslimonial to the worth of Demosthenes
should be given him in the form of a golden crown;
and that ths honor should be proclaimed on the
occasion of one of those great dramatic festivals, when
the city was crowded with visitors from every part
of Greece. The proposal had been approved by the
Athenian Senate, but it had yet to be submitted to the
popular assembly. ^Eschines at the time denounced
DEMOSTHENES AND ^SCIIINES. 125
it as unconstitutional, and opposed it by one of the
recognized modes of legal procedure. Technically,
indeed, the motion of Ctesiphon was illegal. Demos-
thenes, as we have stated, was holding two offices; he
was superintendent of fortifications and treasurer of
the Theoric fund. It was contrary to Athenian law
to bestow the honor of a crown on an officer before
his accounts had been audited; it was also forbidden
that such an honor should be proclaimed anywhere
else than in the Pnyx, the regular place of the people's
assembly. According to the motion of the proposer,
it would haye been proclaimed in the theatre. M$-
chines could, therefore, argue that it was in two points
illegal. But he wished to win a decisive victory ; and
he accordingly waited for some years, and finally
rested his case on the argument that Demosthenes, as
a public man, was undeserving of the honor. It is
this which gives interest to his extant speech. He
labored to convince the Athenians that his rival
could not have been thoroughly sincere in his anti-
Macedonian professions, because he had let slip three
important opportunities. Demosthenes had done
nothing, so he argued, when Alexander first crossed
into Asia; or when he was supposed to be in great
jeopardy just before the battle of Issus in 333 B.C.;
Or lastly, when Sparta, as has been stated, made an
attempt at resistance. It was in the year of this
Unsuccessful attempt the year 330 B.C., when Mace-
don was triumphant both in Asia and Greece that
this memorable cause between the two rival orators
was heard before the Athenian assembly. As might
have been expected, there was a numerous gathering both
of citizens and strangers, very many of whom were
well qualified to be keen critics of the great contest.
123 DEMOS T1IENES.
The question really to be decided and this was the
issue which JEschines was anxious to raise was, Had
Demosthenes been a "good or bad citizen? Had be
honestly at all times and seasons stood by the cause
i;i which hs so earnestly professed to believe? Demos-
thenes' reply to this question is the vindication of his
political life. The cause for which he had exerted
himself, though fit: ally unsuccessful, was, he maintain?,
the true and the right cause. Had he foreseen the end
from th:3 beginning, he would have spoken and acted
as he did. He reviews his policy from the peace of
346 B.C., concluded just after Philip's. destruction of
Phocis, down to the king's death ten years afterwards.
To all this he looks back with satisfaction and pride.
In defending himself he attacks .his rival, and de-
nounces him as really the author of the calamities
which had fallen on the Greek world. It was
through the diplomacy of JSschines, he declares, that
Philip was. admitted to Thermopylae, the beginning of
all the subsequent mischief. If it was dreadful to
think of Greece being under a foreign master, it was a
glorious fact that Athens had done her best to avert
such a disgrace.
This is the drift and purport of the great speech on
the Crown, as it is usually called. It has been well
described by Mr. Grote as a "funeral oration on ex-
tinct Athenian and Greecian freedom." " It breathes,"
says Dr. Thirl wall, " the spirit of that high philosophy
which, whether learnt in the schools or from life, has
consoled the noblest of our kind in prisons and on
scaffolds, and under every persecution of adverse
fortune, but in the tone necessary to impress a mixed
multitude with a like feeling, and to elevate it for a
while into a sphere above its own."
DEMOSTHENES AND ^ESCHIflES. 127
Some passages from this oration have already been
quoted in the preceding chapter; and it^ is due to th6
reader to give him some further specimens of, perhaps,
the greatest of all the oratorical efforts of Demosthenes.
Here is a passage in which the speaker dwells on the
generous and magnanimous temper of his countrymen
in their best days:
" Let m3 for a moment bring before your eyes one
or two of the brightest passages in the history of our
times. Lacedsemon was paramount by sea and land;
she had a belt t garrisons about the frontiers of our
territory; Euboea, Tanagra, allBaotia, Megara, JEgina,
Cleona?, every island on the coast. We had neither
ships nor walls; we were in no want (had we chosen
to remember the Decclean war) of grievances either
against Corinth cr Thebes. And yet the arms of
Athens were seen at Haliartus, and in a few days after
at Corinth. You had something better to do than to
recall the injuries of the past. . . .
"The sacrifice in either case was not made for a
benefactor, neither was it made without risk. You
held that no reason for abandoning to their fate me*
who had thrown themselves on your compassion.
Honor and renown were a sufficient motive to lead you
into danger, and who shall say you were wrong? Life
must cease ; death must come at some time, though one
should steal into a ceilar to avoid him. The brave are
ever re.idy to set forth on the path of glory, armed
with high hope acd courage, prepared to accept with-
out a murmur the fate which heaven may ordain. Thus
did your forefathers; thus did the elders among your-
selves, who interposed and frustrated the attempts of
the Thebans after their victory at Leuctra to destroy
Sparta, though from Sparta you h:icl experienced neither
128 DEMOSTHENES.
friendship nor good offices, but many grievious wrongs.
You neither quailed before the power and renown
whicn Thebes then possessed, nor were you deterred
by any thought of your past treatment by Sparta.
Thus did you proclaim to all the Greeks, that how
much soever any of them may offend against you, you
reserve your resentment for other occasions; but that
if danger threaten their existence or their liberties, you
will take no account of you will not even remember
your wrongs."
This is his answer to those who persisted in saying
that it was Philip Philip alone who had brought all
their troubles on them:
" Do not go about repeating that Greece owes all her
misfortunes to one man. No, not to one man, but to
many abandoned men distributed throughout the differ-
ent States, of whom, by earth and heaven, .zEschines is
one. If the truth were to be spoken without reserve,
I should not hesitate to call him the common scourge
of all the men, the districts, and the cities which have
perished; for the sower of the seed is answerable for
the crop. I am astonished you did not turn your f-ices
from him the moment you beheld him; but thick dark-
ness would seem to veil your eyes."
He maintains that the action of the State had been
right and honorable, though it had failed.
' ' I affirm that if the future had been apparent to us
all if you, ^Eschines, had foretold it and proclaimed
it at the top of your voice instead of preserving total
silence, nevertheless the State ought not to have devi-
ated from her course, if she had regard to her own honor,
the traditions of the past, or the judgment of poster-
ity. As it is, she is looked upon as having failed in her
policy, the common lot of all mankind when such is
DEMOSTHENES AND sESCHINES. 120
the will of heaven ; but if, claiming to be the foremost
state of Greece, she had deserted her post, she would
have incurred the reproach of betraying Greece to
Philip. If we had abandoned without a struggle all
which our forefathers braved every danger to win,
who would not have spurned you, JEschines ? God
forbid that I should so speak of the State as of my-
self. How could we have looked in the face the
strangers who flock to our city, if things had reached
their present pass Philip the chosen leader and lord
of all while others without our assistance had borne
the struggle to avert this consummation ? We ! who
have never in times past preferred inglorious safety
to peril in the path of honor. Is there a Greek or a
barbarian who does not know that Thebes at the
height of her power,- and Sparta before her ay, and
even the King of Persia himself would have been
only glad to compromise with us, and that we
might have had what we chose, and possessed our
own in peace, had we been willing to obey orders and
to suffer another to put himself at the head of Greece ?
But it was not possible, it was not a thing which the
Athenians of those days could do. It was against
their nature, their genius, and their traditions; and
no human persuasion could induce them to side with
a wrong-doer because he was powerful, and to em-
brace subjection because it was safe. No; to the last
our country has fought and jeopardized herself for
honor and glory and pre-eminence. A noble choice,
in harmony with your national character, as you tes-
tify by your respect for the memories of your ances-
tors who have so acted. And you are in the right;
for who can withhold admiration from the heroism
of the men who shrank not from leaving their city
and their fatherland and embarking in their war-ships,
130 DEMOSTHENES.
rather than submit to foreign dictation? Why,
Themistocles, who counseled this step, was elected
general; and the man who counseled submission was
stoned to death and not he only, for his wife was
stoned by your wives, as he was by you. The Athe-
nians of those days went not in quest of an orator or a
general who could help them to prosperous slavery ;
but they scorned life itself, if it were not the life of
freedom. Each of them regarded himself as the child
not only of his father and of his mother, but of his
country; and what is the difference ? He who looks
on himself as merely the child of his parents, awaits
death in the ordinary course of nature; while he who
looks on himself as the child also of his country, will
be ready to lay down his life rather than see her en-
slaved, and will hold death its.elf less terrible than
the insults and indignities which the citizens of a
state in slavery to the foreigner must endure. . . .
" Do I take credit to myself for having inspired you
with sentiments worthy of your ancestors ? Such pre-
sumption would expose me to the just rebuke of every
man who hears me. What I maintain is, that these
very sentiments are your own; that the spirit of
Athens was the same before my time, though I do
claim to have had* a share in the application of "these
principles to each successive crisis. JEschines, there-
fore, when he impeaches our whole policy, and seeks
to exasperate you against me as the author of all your
alarms and perils, in his anxiety to deprive me of
present credit, is really laboring to rob you of your
everlasting renown. If by your vote against Ctesiphon
you condemn my policy, you will pronounce yourselves
to have been in the wrong, instead of having suffered
what has befallen you through the cruel injustice of
fortune. But it cannot be : you have not been in the
DEMOSTHENES AND ^ESCHINES. 131
wrong, men of Athens, in doing battle for the freedom,
and salvation of all; I swear it by your forefathers,
who bore the battle's brunt at Marathon; by those
who stood in arms at Plataea; by those who fought
the sea-fight at Salamis; by the heroes of Artemisium,
and many more whose resting place in our national
monuments attests that, that as our country buried,
so she honored, all alike victors and vanquished.
She was right; for what brave men could do, all did,
though a higher power was master of their fate."
This, perhaps, is the most striking of the many
striking passages in this great speech. Demosthenes
carried his audience with him. His rival did not
obtain a fifth of the votes. His position as an orator
and statesman was destroyed. His discomfiture had
been witnessed by the whole Greek world. In his
mortification he left his native city for Rhodes, where
he set up a school of rhetoric. The story was told
that he once declaimed to his pupils the speech which
had driven him into exile ; and in reply to the ap-
plause with which it was greeted,*exclaimed, "What
if you had heard the beast himself speak it ?"
CHAPTER XIII.
LAST DAYS OF DEMOSTHENES.
DEMOSTHENES had won a splendid triumph, which
he survived eight years. But they were years by no
means unclouded. They were darkened by an un-
fortunate incident, which we proceed briefly to nar-
rate.
From 330 to 324 B.C., we hear nothing of the great
orator. Athens, in fact, had no politics for him to
discuss. He could have had nothing to do but to
advise private clients. By the year 324 Alexander
had returned from that long expedition in which he
had carried his arifly through the heart of Asia to the
banks of the Indus. He had left behind him one of
his old Macedonian friends in the government of the
rich satrapy of Babylonia. Harpalus (this was the
man's name) was greedy and extravagant, and wasted
the resources of his province in a luxury which he had
learnt during his residence in the East. It was said
that he loaded his table with the most costly delicacies,
and filled his gardens with exotic plants of every
variety. He had found it convenient to please the
people of Athens by splendid presents, and particu-
larly by very liberal gifts of wheat for free and gen-
eral distribution. For all this he had received votes of
thanks and been made an Athenian citizen. He was
afraid, however, to face Alexander, who, he well knew,
LAST DAYS OF DEMOSTHENES. 133
showed no mercy to delinquent satraps. So he fled
from Asia to Europe with an immense treasure of 5,000
talents (about a million and a quarter pounds sterling),
and landed at Cape Sunium, in Attica. He might
reasonably flatter himself that he would not be an
unwelcome visitor at Athens, but in this he was dis-
appointed. There was the fear of the wrath of
Alexander; and the fear, too, that Harpalus might
possibly intend to assume the position of a tyrant or
despot. His offers, whatever they were, were rejected ;
but there was a debate in the Assembly, and a rumor
reached Alexander that Athens had received him and
his armament. This was at the time untrue; but
when he sent away his ships and asked leave to be
admitted into the city with a few personal attendants,
the people, remembering his past favors, no longer
refused. Having gained his point, he tried to per-
suade them that they might defy Alexander with a
prospect of success, and that he was himself able and
willing to furnish them with the necessary funds.
Some of the orators supported his views. But he
could do nothing with Phocioii or with Demosthenes.
This was fatal to his project. Soon there came
envoys from Antipater, Alexander's deputy in Mace-
donia, requiring his surrender. But this both Phocion
and Demosthenes, notwithstanding the danger of the
crisis, opposed. So alarmed, however, were the people
at the thought of Alexander's probable vengeance, that
they decided on arresting Harpalus and sequestrating
his treasure till they could learn what view Alexander
took of the matter; and this much they did on the
motion of Demosthenes himself. It seems possible, as
has been suggested, that Demosthenes proposed this
motion with an arriere-pensee, and may have "wished
to detain Harpalus and his treasure, and to wait the
/34 DEMOSTHENES.
course of events. Harpalus contrived to escape ; but
his treasure that part of it at least which he had
brought to Athens after dismissing his fleet, and which
amounted, according to statements made by Demos-
thenes on his authority, to about 720 talents remained
behind. This, of course, ought to have been returned
and the people were, it seems, prepared to do so; but
when the money was counted it was found that there
was no more than 350 talents, barely half the original
sum. How was the deficiency to be explained ?
There was a great stir and outcry. People said that
it must have been used in bribery, and that the
missing money must have stuck to the fingers of the
orators and public men. There was a general feeling
that somebody ought to be punished, but there was
not a scrap of evidence against any one, and no means
of procuring it.
Demosthenes proposed to have the affair investigated
by the court of Areopagus. It was not easy to see what
better course could have been taken. At the same time,
the members of that court must have felt that they
could hardly hope, under the circumstances, to arrive
at a perfectly satisfactory result. ISTo doubt they com-
manded the public confidence, as they were all men of
age and experience, and were from their position above
the motives which occasionally swayed other courts.
Great latitude was allowed them ; and practically they
often decided cases not simply on the evidence before
them, but on hearsay, and on that personal knowledge
which men in their rank would be sure to possess. They
took the utmost pains with the present inquiry, and
were engaged on it for six months. They went so far as
to search the houses of the principal public men, with
the exception of one who had been lately married an
exception perhaps to be attributed to a "sense of
LAST DA YS OF DEMOSTHENES. 135
delicacy. At last they published their report, with a
list of the names of persons whom they considered
chargeable with having improperly possessed them-
selves of the missing money.
In this list appeared the name of Demosthenes as
a debtor to the amount of twenty talents. The next
step was to give the accused parties the choice of
taking their trial or of paying the sum with which the
Areopagus had debited them. Of those brought to
trial, Demosthenes was the first. He was tried before
a jury of 1,500 of his fellow-citizens, was found guilty,
and sentenced to pay a fine of fifty talents (about
12,000). It is very possible that among the jury
which condemned him there may have been many who
wished to please Alexander, and many, too, of the
friends of Harpalus. It must, however, be remem-
bered that the decision of the Areopagus could not
fail to influence their verdict. Demosthenes would
not or could not pay the fine. He was imprisoned,
but in a few days was able to escape to Trcezen, in the
territory of Argos. It was but a few months that he
remained there.
We can hardly bring ourselves to believe that he
was really guilty. Of course we can judge only
by probabilities; and it is certain that the court of
Areopagus must have had grounds for their suspicion.
We must bear in mind that they merely drew up a
list of persons whose case in their opinion required
further judicial inquiry. There is no reason for assum-
ing that they regarded the guilt of Demosthenes as
certain. The inquiry was long and difficult; and the
decision ultimately arrived at could have been hardly
meant to express confident assurance. If Demosthenes
publicly stated, on Harpalus' authority, the amount of
the treasure, it seems strange that he should have made
ISO- DEMOSTHENES.
himself a party to the disappearance of a portion of it.
It may be that the statement he made had not been
verified by him, and itmay have been altogether errone-
ous. It is pleasant to find that both Dr. Thirlwall and
Mr. Grote incline to acquit him of this mean dishonesty.
It may be worth while to mention a story told by Plu-
tarch about this painful passage in the life of Demos-
thenes. Like many of his stories, it is probably a pure
fiction, but it is at least amusing. Harpalus, he tells
us, won over the orator to his side by sending him a
singularly beautiful golden cup, his admiration of
which he had noted. Along with the cup were twenty
talents, the sum with which the Areopagus had debited
him. Shortly afterwards, when the proposals of Har-
palus were being discussed in the assembly, Demos-
thenes, who had previously opposed them, appeared
with a woolen bandage round his throat, and pretended
that he could not speak, from an attack of the quinsy.
Some wag remarked that it must be the silver quinsy.
The people laughed, but were angry. Such is the story.
But, as a fact, Demosthenes did not drop his opposition
to Harpalus. It was on his motion, as we have seen,
that Harpalus was arrested and his treasure seques-
trated.
We left the great orator in exile at Trcezen. He was
recalled soon after the death of Alexander in 323 B.C.
An attempt was then made once more to rid Greece of
the Macedonian ascendancy. It was finally crushed
by Antipater in the battle of Crannon in 322 B.C. The
conqueror demanded the surrender of the leading anti-
Macedonian orators Demosthenes, of course, among
them. Athens from this moment ceased to exist as
a free state. A Macedonian garrison was intro-
duced; there was a wholesale disfranchisement of
citizens, and anew political constitution was imposed
LAST DAYS OF DEMOSTHENES. 137
on the city. Demosthenes did not remain to be a wit-
ness of this degradation. He had been welcomed
back to his native Athens with joyful enthusiasm;
now he must leave her forever. He took refuge in
the little island of Calauria, off the coast of Argolis.
It was here that he chose to die rather than fall into
the hands of the "exile-hunters," as the emissaries
of Antipater were called. Within the precincts of
an ancient temple of Neptune, regarded of old as an
inviolable sanctuary, he swallowed poison, retaining
in his last moments sufficient presence of mind to
expire outside the sacred enclosure, to which, in
Greek belief, death would have been a pollution.
CHAPTER XIV.
DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAB.
IT has seemed most convenient not to interrupt our
sketch of the political career of Demosthenes with
any allusions to his purely forensic engagements. He
became, comparatively early in life that is to say,
when he was probably under thirty years of age a
very successful pleader in large practice. It may be as
well now to give the reader some idea of the work with
which he was occupied, and of the speeches which in
this capacity he was called on to deliver.
At Athens there was no separate and distinct class
answering to our bar. But there were professional
orators and rhetoricians in abundance, who made it
their business to compose speeches for plaintiffs and
defendants. They did not, however, as a rule, make
the speeches themselves ; they merely prepared them
and put them in the hands Of their clients, who com-
mitted* them to memory and then addressed the court.
Of course it would often happen that a man felt him-
self quite unequal to such an ordeal, and would get an
experienced speaker to plead for him. Most, however,
of the forensic speeches of Demosthenes which have
come down to us, were written for delivery by the
plaintiff or the defendant in person. Part of the
orator's art consisted in adopting them to the style and
DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAR. 139
manner of man his client happened to be. This cir-
cumstance often gives piquancy to these speeches.
They abound in amusing passages illustrative of many
varieties of Athenian life. We have descriptive touches
of the peculiar ways of the commercial rogue, of the
money-lender, of the fraudulent trustee. Fortune has
been kind in preserving for us something like thirty
orations of Demosthenes, in which these and kindred
figures present themselves to our notice. We thus
peep into the banking house and the factory, and see
the Athenian citizen bargaining with merchants and
ship-owners, or busy with his farm, or making his
last will and testament.
Athens was a city in which lawsuits could not fail
to be plentiful. It was a centre of trade, and a resort
to foreigners from all parts. Then, too, there were the
mines of Laurium along the coast; there were quarries
of marble ; and the adjacent seas were famous for their
fisheries. Athenian manufactures, too, were highly
prized. From the shores of the Black Sea and the
islands of the .^Egeau there was a good trade in corn,
timber, wine, and wool. Here were all the materials
of commerce and consequently of litigation. Many
an Athenian citizen was himself in business ; and the
city seems to have swarmed with bustling, enterprising
foreigners who found it convenient to make it their
home. The law courts had plenty of work to do-r-sq
much so, indeed, that the "law's delay" appears to
have been as familiar to Athenians as to ourselves.
" Some people," says Xenophon, if he really wrote the
treatise attributed to him on the Athenian republic,
" complain that a man often waits a twelvemonth at
Athens before he can pbtain an audience of the Senate
t>r of the popular assembly. The fact is, they have so
much to do there that it is impossible to attend to 'every
140 DEMOSTHENES.
man's application; some, therefore, are compelled to
go away unheard." Ill-natured persons, it seems,
hinted that anybody could obtain a hearing by means
of a bribe. Xenophon admits that there may be some
truth in this; but he adds, speaking from his own
knowledge, " that for no amount of gold and silver
which could be offered would it be possible for the
Athenians to transact all the business that is brought
before them." Athens, in fact, was the place to which
nearly all causes from the islands of the JEgean were
brought for trial; and to which, too, it was probably
best and safest that they should be brought. Athenian
trials were conducted in a way which to us seems
singular, and which at first sight might appear very
unfavorable to the administration of justice. Causes
were heard, as with us, before juries; but at Athens
a jury commonly numbered 500, and might number
1,000 or even more. It was, in fact, trial before a
popular assembly. There was a president, but he was
not armed with the controlling powers of an English
judge. Everything was left to the jury; the law of
the case as well as the facts was for them to decide.
To us this may seem the height of absurdity; but
still at Athens it worked moderately well, and in a
majority of cases we may believe that it secured at
least substantial justice. The Athenian juror, it is
true, had not received what we call a legal education ;
but he was naturally critical and sharp witted, and he
was well practiced in the hearing of causes. It is quite
possible that the average deeisions of an Athenian jury
may have been as good and satisfactory as those of an
English. There was, of course, a danger of their being
swayed too much at times by political considerations.
But to this we know that an English jury is also liable.
The're was another and a worse danger. The population
DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAR. 141
of Athens was comparatively small ; and so it would
often happen that plaintiff and defendant, and the
case at issue between them, would be well known to the
jurors. The Athenian pleader was continually appeal-
ing to the personal knowledge of the jury, and would
in this manner supplement deficiencies in the evidence.
"He is a scoundrel; you all know him to be one,"
this was the sort of language commonly addressed to,a
jury at Athens. JEschines, in prosecuting one Timar-
chus, dwells on the notoriety of the man's guilt and
wickedness " Such," he says, " is the testimony of the
whole people of Athens, and it is not right that they
should be convicted of perjury." This strikes us as
a very loose method of procedure. Yet we find it
repeatedly in the speeches of Demosthenes. And it is
what we must expect where the judicial system is made
thoroughly democratic. We must not be surprised at
the savage invective with which the greatest Athenian
orators thought it seemly to interlard their speeches.
Even with us and all our restrictions, advocates con-
trive occasionally to indulge in considerable license,
and did so formerly to a much greater extent; and it
is, perhaps, a question whether some of the most
offensive passages in Demosthenes and ^Eschines
might not be paralleled from English pleadings.
Another evil of the Athenian judicial system was
the division of responsibility. One out of 500 or
1,000 jurors might very well shelter himself under the
excuse, that if he decided wrongly from carelessness
or partiality, the result would not be much affected.
On the other hand, there were advantages which will
occur to the minds of those who are acquainted with
the history of free institutions. Corruption and bri-
bery cannot have been particularly easy. Nor again,
could anything like intimidation be well practiced.
142 DEMOSTHENES.
The fact, too, that rich and poor were brought to-
gether to discharge an important public function,
would have a salutary effect. It would make them
feel that they were members of one commonwealth,
and inspire them with a respect for its laws. It
would call out many of their best sentiments as well
as sharpen their intellects. Their decisions may have
sometimes been such as we with our modern ideas
cannot approve ; but, on the whole, it may be as-
sumed that they commanded the confidence of the
people. The Athenian may have had a perverse fond-
ness for listening to the wranglings of rival pleaders ;
but he did his best generally to hear both sides fairly
and to decide rightly. The jury system, with all its
accompaniments of trained oratory and carefully com-
posed speeches, was contemporaneous with the mar-
velous development of Athenian literature in the age
of Pericles. To it we. are certainly indebted for some
of the most splendid monuments of human genius.
Such numerous juries could hardly have been fit to
deal with cases involving a multitude of intricate de-
tails connected with money accounts or valuations of
property. Matters of this kind were usually referred,
as with us, to a court of arbitration public arbitra-
tors being annually appointed. Of these we hear con-
tinually in the forensic speeches of the Athenian or-
ators, and we may take it for granted that much of
the law business was disposed of by them. Indeed,
it was the regular practice to submit ordinary private
disputes to arbitrators in the first instance; but, as
might have been expected in a democratic state,
there was always an appeal from their decisions to a
jury.
On the whole it was not unlikely that justice was
fairly well administered in the Athenian courts.
DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAR. 143
Such, at all events, seems to have been the opinion of
the Greek world; and we can hardly suppose that
that opinion was without foundation. Some of the
drawbacks of the system have been already noted, and
they were no doubt considerable. A clever and un-
scrupulous advocate might have had a better chance
at Athens than he would have with us. It is, of
course, an immense advantage that a trained lawyer
should preside over a court, and sum up the case, and
point out to the jury the general principles by which
they should be guided. It is probable that the want
of this was often felt at Athens, and led occasionally
to unfortunate results. Still, we may be sure that
the average Athenian was a man of intelligence, and
perfectly open to reason. Practice, too, made him
tolerably well acquainted with his country's laws. It
is the greatest mistake to conceive of Athens as " a
fierce democracy." Her citizens were for the most
part moderately-cultivated persons, of a tolerant tem-
per, and willing to obey the laws and the constitution.
A successful Athenian advocate must have come up
to a rather high standard ; and if his invective was
sometimes coarse and offensively personal, it must
have been set off by a certain amount of wit, and have
been accompanied with acute reasoning.
Much of the litigation at Athens arose out of bot-
tomry cases that is, loans of money on the security
of a ship or of its cargo. Business of this kind was
transacted on a great scale ; and as the risk was con-
siderable, the interest charged was high as much
sometimes as thirty per cent. There seem to have
been endless trickeries connected with it. One o f
Demosthenes' speeches, for instance, was on behalf of
two joint lenders who had advanced some money on
tlje security of a wine cargo. Two brothers, mer-
144 DEMOSTHENES.
chants of Phaselis in Pampliylia, were the borrowers.
Phaselis, it appears, had a very bad commercial repu-
tation; and there were said to be more actions brought
against its traders at Athens than against all the other-
traders put together. In this case Demosthenes'
client stated that the borrowers of his money had
broken their agreement "that they had not shipped
the stipulated quantity of wine ; that they had raised a
further loan on the same security; that they had not
purchased a sufficient return cargo; that, on their
return, they had not entered the regular port of Ath-
ens, but had put into a little obscure harbor known as
* Smugglers' Creek ; ' and that, when the payment of the
loan was demanded, they falsely represented that the
vessel had been wrecked." Before the matter was set-
tled, one of the borrowers died, and his property went
to his brother, Lacritus, who, according to the lend-
ers' statement, had verbally engaged to see that the
loan should be repaid. So Lacritus was sued for the
amount, although very possibly he was not legally lia-
ble, and may merely have been a " referee " for his
brother, and have stated, as such, that to the best of
his belief they were solvent. He was a man of some
note, having been a pupil of Isocrates, and being him-
self a rather celebrated teacher of rhetoric. He was,
in fact, what the Greeks called a " sophist." On this
he seems to have presumed; and he went about brag-
ging of his connection with " the great Isocrates."
Demosthenes makes his client say: " These sophists
are a 'bad lot.' It is no affair of mine if a man
chooses to be a sophist, and to pay fees to Isocrates ;
but they must not, because they think themselves
clever, be allowed to swindle other people out of their
money. Lacritus does not trust to the justice of his
DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAR. 145
case; but he thinks that, as he has learnt oratory, he
shall be able to make you think exactly what he
pleases. Perhaps, as he is so clever, he will under-
take to prove that black is white that the money was
never borrowed at all or that it has been paid or
that the bond is waste paper or that the borrowers
had a right to use our money as they liked." It is
possible, as has been supposed, that Demosthenes is
really hitting at Isocrates in his abuse of Lacritus.
In one of his speeches he argues against the right
of a man to take a name already borne by one of his
brothers. The case is a rather singular one. Manti-
theus, the son of Mantias, brings an action against
his half-brother Bceotus for having got himself regis-
tered as Mantitheus. Boeotus was the son Mantias by
a mistress, herself an Athenian citizen, and so capa-
ble, according to Athenian law, of transmitting citi-
zenship to her offspring. Every citizen's child was
enrolled or registered on the citizen-list at an early
age, and then again subsequently on reaching man-
hood. Boeotus received his name on the first of these
occasions. Before the second registration had taken
place, his father died. Disliking the name, which
suggested a familiar Greek proverb, "like a Boeotian
hog," he contrived on this second occasion to get
himself enrolled under his brother's name of Manti-
theus. In this manner the legal designation of the
two brothers became the same. It should be noted
that at Athens a citizen was described by his own
name, by that of his father, and that of his parish or
township Attica being divided into so many town-
ships, or demes, as they were called. In a compara-
tively small community this might not be inconven-
ient. What, however, Boeotus had done, could nardly
146 DEMOSTHENES.
fail to lead to confusion. His half-brother, in the
speech composed for him by Demosthenes, hints that
matters would be all the worse, as Boeotus kept
rather questionable company. Unpleasant mistakes,
too, as he points out, would probably arise out of un-
paid debts and appearances in the law courts. In
fact, the son of the lawful wife would often be cred-
ited with the scrapes into which the son of the mis-
tress was likely to get himseli.
"You tiresome Bo3otus," says Demosthenes' client,
who really seems to have been a much-injured man,
"I would wish you, if possible, to renounce all your
bad ways; but if that is too much to hope, pray oblige
me to this extent: cease to give yourself trouble;
"cease to harass me with litigation; be content that
you have gained a franchise, a property, a father.
No one seeks to dispossess you ; nor do I. If, as you
pretend to be a brother, you act like a brother, peo-
ple will believe that you are my kinsman. But if
you plot against me, go to law with me, envy me,
slander me, it will be thought that you have in-
truded into a strange family, and treat the members
as if they were alien to you. As to me personally,
however wrong my father may have been in refusing
to acknowledge you, I certainly am innocent. It was
not my business to know who were his sons; it was
for him to show me whom I was to regard as brothers.
As long as he forebore to acknowledge you, I held
you no kinsman ; ever since he acknowledged you, I
have regarded you as he did. You have had your
portion of the inheritance after my father's death;
you participate in our religious worship, in our civil
rights no one excludes you from these. What would
you have ? Whoever hears the name will have to ask
DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAR. 147
which of us two are meant; then, if the person means
you, he will reply, ' The one whom Maiitias was com-
pelled to adopt.' Do you wish for this ? "
We pass to quite a different case. It is a dispute
between two neighboring Attic farmers.* Their
holdings were in a hilly part of Attica, and were sep-
arated by a public road. It is an action for damages
which the plaintiff, Callicles, alleged that he had sus-
tained through the obstruction of a water-course,
which carried off the drainage from the surrounding
hills. The defendant's father had built a wall on his
land, with the view of diverting the water into the
road. It seems that in Attica a proprietor might turn
off his drainage into a public way, to the great detri-
ment, as may well be supposed, of the country roads,
which, in hilly districts, must at times have been al-
most impassable. The effect of the wall in this case
was, that after heavy rains the plaintiff's farm was
overflowed, as well as the road. For this the plain-
tiff brought his action. The defendant, Demosthenes'
client, pleaded in justification that the wall in ques-
tion had been lawfully erected by his father fifteen
years ago; that no objection was then raised by the
plaintiff's family; that the so-called water-course
was not really a water-course, but was part of his
own land, as it was planted with fruit-trees, and con-
tained an old family burial ground. The stream, too,
which caused the mischief, did not come to the de-
fendant from a neighbor's farm; it flowed down the
road both above and below him: the flood which it
occasioned in wet weather was a natural misfortune,
from which others had suffered as well as the plain-
* Speech against Callicles.
148 DEMOSTHENES.
tiff only, they had never thought of going to law
about it. The def enaant broadly hints that the plain-
tiff has an eye to his property, and is trying to oust
him from it by a vexatious action. The matter in
dispute was trifling enough, and the jury must have
been inclined to laugh at the solemnity with which
they were implored to give their best attention to all
the details of the case. "There is no greater nui-
sance" (so the defendant begins his pleading) "than
a covetous neighbor, which it has been my lot to meet
with. Callicles has set his heart on my land, and
worries me with litigation. First he got his cousin
to claim it from me, but I defeated that claim. I be-
seech you all to hear me with attention not because
I am any speaker, but that you may learn by the facts
how groundless the action is." After he has ex-
plained the facts, he asks pathetically what he is to
do with the water, if he may not drain it off either
into the public road or into private ground. " Surely,"
he adds, with a touch of bucolic humor, "the plain-
tiff won't force me to drink it up?" The damage
done could not have been very ruinous, if we may
judge from a single specimen. It appears that the
mothers of the two litigants used to visit each other,
as country neighbors; and on one occasion, when the
defendant's mother was calling at the plaintiff's
house, she found the family plunged in the deepest
distress, and apparently crushed by some more than
ordinary calamity. It would seem that the rustic
mind then, as now, was peculiarly sensitive to the
most ludicrously trifling loss, and delighted in de-
scribing it with the most violent exaggeration. The
injured farmer's wife, on this occasion, pointed with
tears to four bushels of barley which had got wet and
DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAR. 149
were being dried, and to a jar of oil, which had in-
deed fallen down, but which was not damaged. For
this they wanted to claim, according to the defend-
ant, 1,000 drachms, or about 40, by way of compen-
sation. An Attic farmer, it would seem (like his
English representative), was not likely to suffer from
asking too little. There is something very character-
istic in the following remark, which Demosthenes'
client makes about his opponent: "In going to law
with me," he says, "I hold the plaintiff to be thor-
oughly wicked and infatuated."
In another* somewhat interesting case, Demos-
thenes pleads for an unfortunate man who had been
ejected from his township, and was thereby in danger
of ceasing to be an Athenian citizen. At Athens cit-
izenship was the subject of the strictest scrutiny;
and the registers of the townships were kept with
the utmost care. Every citizen, as has been already
noted, had to be twice registered; and to insure ac-
curacy, and to exclude questionable persons, the lists
were from time to time revised. Even with all these
precautions, cases of disputed citizenship not unfre-
quently occurred. In the case which we are about to
consider, Demosthenes' client had been struck off the
register of his township on the occasion of a revision.
The man's father had been taken a prisoner during
the latter part of the Peloponnesian War; and having
lived some years "in foreign parts," he spoke Attic
rather indifferently. However, on his return to
Athens, he had resumed his citizenship; and trans-
mitted it, without question, as it is alleged, to his
son. He was very poor, and he and his wife had to
* Speech against Eubulides.
150 DEMOSTHENES.
eke out a livelihood by the humblest of occupations.
His son, it seems, had made enemies in his parish,
and among them one Eubulides, against whom he
had given evidence in a court of justice. Eubulides,
when he became mayor of the township, had the reg-
isters revised, and contrived to get the man's name
struck off. He managed this by a sort of trick. The
revision of the register took place at Athens, from
which the township was about live miles distant. A
good deal of time was wasted in making speeches and
drawing up resolutions; and the case of Demosthenes'
client was taken last of all. It was now dark, and
all but about thirty members of the township had
gone home and these, it is said, were in the interest
of Eubulides. When the poor man' s name was called,
Eubulides started to his feet, assailed him with a vol-
ley of abuse, and insisted on a vote of expulsion. It
was useless to ask for an adjournment; the business
was hurried through, and sixty ballot-balls were
found in the box against him, though it seems that
only thirty townsmen were present. The result was
utter ruin to the man. Loss of citizenship meant so-
cial death, and probably slavery. He makes through
his counsel a piteous appeal to the jury, and says that
if their verdict is adverse he shall commit suicide,
that he may at least have the satisfaction of being
buried by his relatives in his native country. "I
have been shamefully treated by this Eubulides" so
he begins; "and I pray you, considering the great
importance of the present trial, and the disgrace and
ruin which attend conviction, to hear me, as you
have my opponent in silence." Further on in his
speech he touches on his poverty, and the humble
way in which his family maintain themselves.
DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAR. 151
" We confess that we sell ribbons, and live not in the
way we could wish. We are so low down in the world
that our opponent may go out of his way to abuse us.
It seems to me that our trafficking in the market-place
is the strongest proof of the falsity of this man's
charges. My mother, he says, sold ribbons in the
market-place. Well, if she was an alien, they should
have inspected the market tolls, and shown whether
she paid the alien's toll, and to what country she be-
longed. If she was a slave, the person who bought
her or the person who sold her, should have been
called to give evidence. Then he has said she was a
nurse. We do not deny she was, in those evil days*
when all our people were badly off. But you will find
many women who are citizens taking children to nurse.
Of course, if we had been rich, we should not have
sold ribbons, or have been at all in distress. But
what has that to do with my descent? Pray do not
scorn the poor (their poverty is a sufficient misfortune
for them), much less those who try to get an honest
livelihood. Poverty compels free men lo do many
mc^an and servile acts, for which they deserve to be
pitied rather than to be ruined. They tell me that
many women, citizens by birth, have become both
nurses and wool-dressers and vintagers, owing to the
misfortunes of our country at that period. I have con-
fidence) iii my case, and I come as an appellant to your
tribunal for protection. I know that the courts of law
are more powerful not only than my fellow-townsmen,
but even than the Council of the popular Assembly;
and justly so for your verdicts are in every respect
most righteous."
* The last years of the Peloponuesian War.
152 DEMOSTHENES.
He concludes his address to the jury with the threat
of suicide already mentioned.
One more of these cases must suffice. It is an
amusiug one an action, as we should say, for assault
and battery. There were, it seems, occasional out-
bursts of rowdyism even at refined Athens, and the
police were not always "on the spot" to repress them.
Some of the "fast "young men about town formed
themselves into clubs like the " Mohock Club " of the
last century, whose lawless proceedings >*"> the subject
of one of the numbers of the 'Spectator.'* "An
outrageous ambition (as the ' Spectator ' says) of doing
all possible hurt to their fellow-creatures was tlie great
cement of tliL'ir assemblies, and the only qualification
required in the members." There was a ( " J"> Athens
which called itself the Triballi, the name 01 one of the
wildest and most savage tribes of Thrace. The mem-
bers of this delightful fraternity used to commit all
manner of horrid and indecent outrages on inoffensive 4
citizens as they were taking the evening air or return-
ing home from parties. One Conon and his sons
specially distinguished themselves. Their victim on
one occasion retained Demosthenes for his counsel.
They had all been on foreign military service together,
and it was then that the practical jokes and annoy-
ances were begun of which Demosthenes' client com-
plains. Conon and his sjt would drink all day after
lunch; and so by dinner-time they were only fit for
drunken frolics. "At first," the plaintiff says, "they
played tricks on his servants; at last on himself and
his party. They would pretend that our servants
annoyed them with smoke in cooking, and were
* No. 334.
DEMOSTHENES AT THE BAR. 153
saucy; then they beat them, and played all sorts of
dirty, brutal jokes on them. We expressed our dis-
gust; and when they insulted us, we all went in a body
to the general, who gave them a severe reprimand."
In this manner a very sore feeling grew up; and when
they all returned to Athens, the assault took place
which was the ground for the action.
"When I had got back to Athens," the plaintiff
says, "I was taking a walk one evening in the market-
place with a iuend of my own age, when Ctesias,
Conon's son, passed us very much intoxicated. Seeing
us, he made an exclamation like a drunken man mut-
tering something indistinctly to himself, and went on
his way. There was a drinking-party near, at the
house of Pamphilus, the fuller. Conon and many
others were there. Ctesias got them to leave the party
and go with him to the market-place. We were near
Leocorium " (a small tempL) "when we encountered
them. As we came up, one of them rushed on my
friend and held him. Conon. and another tripped up
my heels, and threw me into the mud, and jumped on
me, and kicked me with such violence that my lip was
cut through and my eye closed up. In this plight they
left me, unable to rise or speak. As I lay I heard them
use dreadful language, some of which I should be
sorry to repeat to you. One thing you shall hear. It
proves Conon's malice, and that he was the ringleader
in the affair. He crowed, mimicking fighting-cocks
when they have won a battle; and his companions
bade him clap his elbow against his sides, like wings.
I was afterwards found by some persons who came
that way, and carried home wrhout my cloak, which
these men had carried off. When they got to the
door, my mother and the maid-servants began crying
134 DEMOSTHENES.
and bewailing. I was carried with some difficulty to a
bath; they washed me all over, and then showed me to
the doctor."
It seems to have struck Demosthenes that possibly
some of the jury would be inclined to laugh at this
somewhat ludicrously pathetic picture.
"Will you laugh," he makes his client say, "and
let Con on off, because he says we are a baud of merry
fellows who, in our adventures and amours, strike and
break the neck of any one we please? I trust not.
None of you would have laughed if you had been
present when I was dragged and stripped and
kicked, and carried to the home which I had left
strong and well ; and my mother rushed out, and the
women cried and wailed as if a man had died in the
house, so that some of the neighbors sent to ask what
was the matter. "
Conon and his associates may well have been a
terror to peaceable citizens, if we may trust the fol-
lowing little sketch of their proceedings :
"Many of you know the set. There's the grey-
headed man, who all day long has a solemn frown on
his brows, and wears a coarse mantle and single soled
shoes. But when they get together, they stick at no
wickedness or disgraceful conduct. ' These are their
fine aud spirited sayings: ' Shan't we bear witness for
one another?' 'Dosen't it become friends and com-
rades?' ' What will he bring agaiust you that you're
afraid of?' 'Some men say they saw him beaten?'
"We'll say, 'You never touched him.' 'Stripped of
his coat?' We'll say, 'They began.' 'His lip was
sewed up?' We'll say, 'Your head was broken.'
Remember," solemnly adds the plaintiff, " I pro-
duce medical evidence ; they do not for they can get
DEMOSTHESES AT THE BAR. 155
no evidence against me but what is furnished by
themselves."
It is to be hoped that the jury did not laugh, but
were persuaded by Demosthenes to make an example
of 'such offenders. Blackguardism could hardly go
further than to rob a man of his cloak, in addition to
beating and kicking him. The Athenian rowdy, if
Conon and his set were fair and average types of the
class, certainly deserved little* mercy.
CONCLUSION.
DEMOSTHENES is one of those men concerning whom,
both as a statesman and an orator, there cannot be
much difference of opinion. As a statesman, he is
unanimously eulogized by modern historians of the
first rank such as Thirwall, Grote, and Curtius. Every
one who sees anything to esteem and admire in old
Greek life, must esteem and admire Demosthenes. His
political career was a consistent one. He clung to and
worked for one idea. That idea was a free and inde-
pendent Greece, of which his own Athens had, morally
and intellectually, the right to be head. It was not,
as we have seen, the view of Isocrates; nor was it after-
wards that of the historian Polybius. Both these men
refused to believe that Greece could any longer be
what she had been. Both were honest and con-
scientious thinkers; but we can never have quite the
same feeling towards the man who is inclined to
despair of a great cause as we have towards him who
will persist in hoping against hope. It was this which
Demosthenes did through life amid many discourag3-
ments; and this gives him a moral greatness which we
believe posterity will always recognize. Such a man
would be sure in his public speeches to appeal to con-
science, to the moral sense, and to a lofty patriotism.
156
CONCLUSION. 157
The appeals may have often fallen dead; but he could
not help believing that there was still a spirit in his
countrymen which, if rightly invoked, might yet be
roused, and stir them to the deeds of their forefathers.
This was the faith of Demosthenes. This it was which
made him dislike and distrust even the noble specula-
tions and philosophy of Plato. These, he felt as
many an Englisman might have felt would tend to
carry Athenians away from the practical sphere of
politics into a shadowy realm of ideas. Athens, he
thought, ought still to assert her greatness and dignity,
and he had something in regard to her of the feeling
which Virgil has expressed in the well-known line:
" Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento."*
As an orator he has, almost without question, been
Unrivaled. Lord Brougham, in his dissertation on the
oratory of the ancients confidently pronounces this
opinion, and we are not aware that there is or has been
any dissent from it. His eloquence was the joint pro-
duct of natural genius and elaborate study. Quintil-
ian says, on the whole truly, that Cicero owed more
to study, and Demosthenes to nature. Still, as we
have seen, Demosthenes did his best to perfect his great
natural gifts by the most assiduous application. His
industry was prodigious. He left behind him a collec-
tion of exordia, or introductions to speeches, which it
seems that Cicero had by him. He was continually
revising his words and phrases. All his speeches, as
far as we know, were the result of careful preparation.
His speaking exhibited great varieties. His opponent is
often scathed with an eloquence not unlike that of the
* "Thine, Roman, be the claim to rule the world."
133 DEMOSTHENES.
late Lord Derby, when his words were inspired by a
strong moral indignation. Some of his speeches
re:nind us of the subtle and ingenious reasoning of
Mr. Gladstone. Such is the speech we have noticed,
in which he argues for the repeal of the law of
Leptines. In others, again the Olynthiac orations
especially, and that for the Crown against ^Eschines
we have passages which recall to our memories the
impassioned fervor of some of the most eloquent
speeches of Mr. Bright. There is the same impressive
appeal to the human conscience, and to the worth and
grandeur of freedom. At the same time, he was a
most dexterous master of his art. James Mill used to
point out to his famous son "how, first, Demosthenes
said everything important to his purpose at the exact
moment when he had brought the minds of his hearers
into the state most fitted to receive it ; second, how he
insinuated, gradually and indirectly, ideas which
would have roused opposition if directly presented."
Generally, he was a thoroughly successful speaker,
winning many a triumph in the Assembly and the law
court, and finally discomfiting his able rival. And it
must indeed have been att inspiriting recollection to
him when he looked back to Chaeroneia, where, thanks
to his eloquence, Athenians aXi Thebans fought side
by side in the cause of Greece.
END OP DEMOS? "'ENES.
AEI STOTLE
SIR ALEXANDER GRANT, BART., LLD.
PRINCIPAL OP THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
NEW YORK:
JOHN' B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER.
1883.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
1. THE LIFE OP ARISTOTLE 1
IL THE WORKS OP ARISTOTLE 26
m. THE "ORGANON" OP ARISTOTLE 44
IV. ARISTOTLE'S "RHETORIC" AND "ART OF POETRY". 67
V. ARISTOTLE'S "ETHICS" 87
VI. ARISTOTLE'S "POLITICS" 102
Vn. THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHY OP ARISTOTLE "... 113
VIII. THE BIOLOGY OP ARISTOTLE 128
IX. THE METAPHYSICS OP ARISTOTLE 141
X. ARISTOTLE SINCE THE CHRISTIAN ERA ... ..157
AEISTOTLE.
CHAPTER I.
THE LIFE OP ARISTOTLE.
THE dates of the chief events in the life of Aristotle,
extracted from the " Chronology" of Apollodorus (140
B.C.), have been handed down to us by Diogenes Laer-
tiusin his " Lives of the Philosophers;" and from various
other sources it is possible to fill in the outline thus af-
forded, if not with certain facts, at all events with
reasonable probabilities. Aristotle's own writings are
almost entirely devoid of personal references, yet in
them we can trace, to some extent, the progress and de-
velopment of his mind. On the whole, we know quite
as much about him, personally, as about most of the
ancient Greek writers.
Aristotle was born in the year 384 B c., at Stageira, a
Grecian colony and seaport town on the Strymonic Gulf
in Thrace, not far from Mount Athos and, what is
more important, not far from the frontier of Macedonia,
and from Pella, the residence of the Macedonian King
Amyntas. To Stageira, his birthplace, he owed the
world-famous appellation of "the Stagirite," given to
him by scholiasts and schoolmen in later days. It was
fancied by Wilhelm von Hurnboldt that Aristotle exhib-
its certain un-Greek characteristics in his neglect of form
2 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
and grace in writing, and that this is attributable to his
having been bora aud brought up in Thrace. But, on
the other hand, Aristotle's family were purely Hellenic,
and probably the colonists of Stageira lived in strict con-
formity with Greek ideas, and not without contempt for
the surrounding "barbarians." Even the court of
Macedonia, in the neighborhood, were phil- Hellenic in
their tastes, and entertained Greek artists and men of
letters. And Aristotle shows no trace in his writings
of ever having known any language beside Greek.
Probably the mere locality of his birth produced but
little influence upon him, except so far as it led to his
subsequent connection with the court of Macedon.
His father, Nicomachus, was physician to King Amyn-
tas, and it is possible that the youthful Aristotle was
taken at times to the court, and thus made the acquain-
tance of his future patron, Philip of Macedon, who was
about his own age. But all through the time of Aristo-
tle's boyhood affairs in Macedonia were troubled and
unprosperous. Amyntas was an unsuccessful ruler, and
brought his country to the verge of extinction in a war
with the Illyrians. Aristotle, as a youth, cannot have
had any inducement to take an interest in Macedonian
politics. Up to the time when he left his native city
there had appeared no indication of that which after-
wards occurred that Macedonia would conquer the
East, and become me mistress of the entire liberties of
Greece
But there is one significant tradition about Aristotla
which suggests circumstances likely to have produced
in early life a considerable influence upon 3ris habits
and pursuits. His father is said to have been an "As
clepiad " that is, he belonged to that distinguished
caste who claimed to be the descendants of Esculapius.
ARISTOTLE. 8
Now we have it, on the authority of Galen,* that " it
was the custom in Asclepiad families for the boys to be
trained by their father in the practice of dissection,
just as regularly as boys in other families learn to read
and write." If Aristotle had really been trained from
boyhood in the manner thus described, we can under-
stand how great an impulse he would have received to
those physiological researches which formed so impor-
tant a part of his subsequent achievements. But in
one place of his wrilings ("On the Parts of Animals,"!.
v. 7), he speaks of the "extreme repugnance" with
which one necessarily sees "veins, and flesh, and other
such-like parts," in the human subject. This does not
show the hardihood of a practiced dissector. But Aris-
totle's youthful dissections, if made at all, were doubt-
less made on the lower animals. At all events, we may
perhaps safely conclude about him, that he received
from his father an hereditary tendency towards physio-
logical study. But in addition to this tendency, Aris-
totle must doubtless have early manifested an interest in,
and capacity for. abstract philosophy.
We now come to the second epoch in his life. About
the year 367 B.C., when he was seventeen years old, his
father having recently died, he was sent by his guard-
ian, Proxenus of Atarueus, to complete his studies, at
Athens, " the metropolis of wisdom." f There he con-
tinued to reside for twenty years, during the greater
part of which time he attended the school of philoso-
phy which Plato had founded in the olive-groves of
Academus, on the banks of the Cephisus. He had
probabty inherited from his father means sufficient for
* Quoted by Grote, " Aristotle," i. 4.
t Plato, "Protagoras," p. 337.. Professor Jowett's translation.
4 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
his support, so that he could live without care for ti*d
acquirement of anything save knowledge. But in the
acquisition of this he manifested a zeal unsurpassed in
the annals of study. Among his fellow pupils in the
Academe he is said to have got the sobriquet of "the
Header;" while Plato himself called him "the Mind of
the School," in recognition of his quick and powerful
intelligence. In order to win time even from sleep Aris-
totle is said to have invented a plan of sleeping with a
ball in his hand, so held over a brazen dish that when-
ever his grasp relaxed the ball would descend with
a clang, and arouse him to the resumption of his
labors.
Plato's philosophy was absolutely pre-eminent in
Greece at this time. It embodied within itself all that
was best in the doctrine and the spirit of Socrates, and
beyond it there was nothing, except the mystical'
theories of the Pythagoreans (the best elements in which
Plato had assimilated), and the materialistic theories of
the Atomists, which Plato, and afterwards Aristotle,
controverted. The writings of Aristotle are quite con-
sistent with the tradition that he was for twenty years
a pupil of the Academic school. They show a long
list of thoughts and expressions borrowed from the
works of Plato, and also not unfrequently refer to the
oral teaching of Plato. They contain a logical, ethical,
political, and metaphysical philosophy, which is evi-
dently, with some modifications, the organization and
development of rich materials often rather suggested
than worked out in the Platonic dialogues. Aristotle
thus, in constructing a system of knowledge which was
destined immensely to influence the thoughts of man-
kind, became, in the first place, the disciple of Plato
and the intellectual heir of Socrates; and summed up
ARISTOTLE. 5
all the best that had been arrived at by the previous
philosophers of Greece.
The personal relationships which arose between
Aristotle and his master Plato have furnished matter for
Uncertain traditions and for much discussion. There
seems, however, to be no ground for sustaining the
charge of " ingratitude" against Aristotle. The truth
was probably somewhat as follows: Aristotle, while
engaged in imbibing deeply the philosophical thoughts
of Plato, gradually developed also his own individuality
and independence of mind. And the natural bias of
his intellect was certainly in a different direction from
that of Plato. It has been said that "every man is
born either a Platonist or an Aristotelian ;" and it would
be very fortunate if that were literally true, for then
every man would be born with a noble type of intellect.
But it is no doubt correct to say that the Platonic and
the Aristotelian type of intellect are distinct and diver-
gent. They have in common the keen and unwearied
pressure after truth, but they seek the truth under dif-
ferent aspects. Plato was ever aspiring to intuitions of
a truth which in this world could never be wholly re-
vealed, a truth of which glimpses only could be ob-
tained, partly by the most abstract powers of thought,
partly by the imagination. While richly endowed with
humor and the dramatic faculty, and the most trench-
ant insight into the fallacies of mankind, Plato was not
content with aiming at those demonstrations which
could be stated once for all, but he rather sought analo-
gies and hints of a truth which can never be definitely
expressed. Eternity, the life of the gods, the supra-
sensible world of " pure ideas," were of more reality
and importance to him than the affairs of this life.
While he was the greatest and most original of meta-
6 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
physical philosophers, he never ceased to be a poet, and,
to some extent, a mystic.
The intellectual characteristics of Aristotle, as known
to us from his works, present a great contrast to all
this. He was too much in earnest, and at the same
time too matter-of-fact, to allow poetry and the imagi-
nation any share in the quest for truth. He had no
taste for half-lights; and with regard to such great
questions as the immortality of the soul, the nature of
God, the operation of Providence, and the like, it is
evident that so far from preferring these, he rather kept
aloof from them, and only gave cautious and grudging
utterances upon them. His passion was for definite
knowledge, especially knowledge so methodized that it
could be stated in the form of a general principle, or
law. He thought that to obtain a general principle in
which knowledge was summed up, on any subject, was
of the utmost importance;* that such a principle was a
. possession for all future time, that future generations
would apply to it and work it out in detail, and thus
that it would form the nucleus of a science. And this
was the daring aim of Aristotle no less than the
foundation of all the sciences. We shall have occasion
to point out subsequently the imperfections of Aristo-
tle's method in physical science when compared with
that of modern times. But for all that, his spirit was
essentially scientific, and for the sake of science and the
naked truth he discarded all beauty and grace of style.
Plato on the other hand was an artist, and clothed all
his thoughts in beauty; and if there be (as there surely
is) f a truth which is above the truth of scientific knowl-
* See Soph. " Elench." xxxii. 13; " Eth." I. vii. 17-21.
t See Lotze's " Microcosmus," Einleitung.
ARISTOTLE. 7
edge, that was the truth after which Plato aspired.
Aristotle's aspirations were for methodized experience
and the definite.
It is easy to understand, or imagine, how two great
minds with such divergent tendencies would be unable
to continue forever to stand to each other in the rela-
tion of pupil to teacher. For a time, no doubt, the
divergence would not be discovered. Aristotle at first
would appear only as "the mind" of Plato's school.
And his first attempts at philosophical writing appear
to have been made in the form of dialogues in some-
what feeble imitation of the masterpieces of Plato.
We shall speak hereafter of this early and lighter class
of Aristotle's writings. He may have adhered for
several years to this mode of composition. But all the
while his powers, his knowledge, and his methods of
thought were maturing, and he was working his way
to the conception of a quite different mode of setting
forth philosophy. Gradually, as he grasped, or thought
he had grasped, all that Plato had to impart, his mind
would tend to dwell more on those aspects of Plato's
thought with which he did not sympathize. He would
especially feel a sort of impatience at the license al-
lowed to the imagination to intrude itself into the
treatment of philosophic questions, at the substitution
of gorgeous myths and symbolical figures for plain
exact answers of the understanding. This feeling of
impatience broke out in a polemic against that doctrine
of the eternal "Ideas" or Forms of Things, which
appears somewhat variously set forth in Plato's dia-
logues, especially in " Timaeus," "Phsedrus," and "Re-
public," and which doubtless formed a prominent
topic in Plato's discourses to his school. "We are told
8 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
by Proclus*that Aristotle "proclaimed loudly in his
dialogues that he was unable to sympathize with the
doctrine of Ideas, even though his opposition to it
should be attributed to a factious spirit." The import
of that doctrine was to disparage the world of sensible
objects. It represented that when we, by means of
our senses, apprehend, or think that we apprehend,
particular objects, we are like men sitting in a dimly-
lighted subterraneous cavern, and staring at shadows on
the wall ; that the world of sense is a world of shadows,
but that a true world exists, a world of Ideas; that
nothing is really good or beautiful in the world of
sense, but what we call good or beautiful things are
those which have a faint semblance to the Idea of the
good or the beautiful, and thus bring back to our souls
the remembrance of those Ideas, which we once -saw in
our ante-natal condition ; that the Ideas or Forms are
archetypes, in accordance with which the Creator framed
this world; that they are not only the cause of qualities
and attributes in things, such as goodness, justice,
equality, and the like, but also they are heads of classes
or universals, and that they alone have complete reality,
while the individuals, constituting the classes at the head
of which they stand, only " participate" to a certain ex-
tent in real existence. Such were some of the features
of Plato's celebrated doctrine of Ideas. That he did
not himself hold very strongly or dogmatically to its
details may be judged from the fact that in two of his dia-
logues (" Parmenides" and " Sophist") he himself points
out, and does not remove, many difficulties which attach
to them. But the main gist of the doctrine was to
assert what is called Realism; and this, under one form
* Quoted by Philoponus, ii. 2.
ARISTOTLE.
or another, Plato always maintained. "When Aristotle
attacked the doctrine of Ideas, there was the first begin-
ning of that controversy between the Realists and the
Nominalists, which so much excited the minds of men
in the middle ages. Realism, making reason indepen-
dent of the senses, asserts that the universal is more real
than the particular, that, for instance, the universal
idea of "man" in general is more real, and can be
grasped by the mind with greater certainty, than the
conception of any individual man. Nominalism, on the
contrary, asserts the superior reality of individual ob-
jects, and turns the universal into a mere name. Now
it was quite natural for Aristotle, with his tendency to-
wards physical science and experiment, and the amass-
ing of particular facts, to take the Nominalist view, so
far as to assert the reality of individual objects. But
there is reason for doubting that he ever became a
thorough and consistent Nominalist. For the present it
is sufficient to note that at the outset of his philosophical
career he appears to have made an onslaught, in several
dialogues which he wrote for the purpose, on Plato's
doctrine of Ideas. In three passages of his extant works
("Eth." I. vi. ; "Met." I. vi., XII. iv.), he gives sum-
maries of his arguments on the subject. He couches
those arguments in courteous language, and in one
place introduces them with words which have beep
Latinized into the well-known phrase Amicus Plato,
sed magis arnica Veritas. Yet the arguments themselves
appear somewhat captious. And there may have been
a youthful vehemence in the mode in which he first
urged them. Here probably first appeared "the little
rift within the lute;" this was the beginning of that
divergence of mind and attitude which, growing wider,
rendered it ultimately impossible th.at Aristotle should
10 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
be chosen to succeed Plato as inheritor of his methc,d
and head of the Academic school.
lu another set of circumstances tradition affords us
indications of the independence and self-confidence of
Aristotle having been manifested during the lifetime of
Plato. In his extant writings Plato speaks so disparag-
ingly of the art of Rhetoric, that we can hardly fancy
his giving any encouragement to the study of it among
his disciples. But none the less Aristotle appears to
have diligently labored in this, as in every other intel-
lectual province that he found open. Plato would not
separate Rhetoric from the rhetorical spirit; he regarded
the whole thing as a procedure for tickling the ears, for
flattering crowds, for subordinating truth to effect.
Aristotle, in the analytical way which became one of his
chief characteristics, separated the method of Rhetoric
from the uses to which it might be applied. He saw
that success in Rhetoric depended on general principles
and laws of the human mind, and that it would be
worth while to draw these out and frame them into a
science, especially as many of his countrymen had
already essayed to do the same, though imperfectly.
He maintained that the study of the methods of Rhetoric
was desirable and even necessary to a free citizen, for
self-defense, for the exposure of sophistry, and in the
interests of truth itself. Now, the greatest school of
Rhetoric in all Greece was at this period held in Athens
by the renowned Isocrates, who, when Aristotle arrived
at Athens, was at the zenith of his reputation. He was
now nearly seventy years old, but continued to teach
and to compose with almost unabated vigor for twenty-
eight years more. Isocrates had been the follower of
Socrates, and several leading Sophists of the latter part
of the fifth century B.C. Protagoras, Prodicus, Gor-
ARISTOTLE. 11
g;i;is, and Theramenes are named as having been his
teachers.* He was a dignified old man, full of the most
elevated sentiments. The style of his oratory had been
formed after the florid Sicilian school of Gorgias, but
was more severe and artistic than the earlier models of
that school. He professed to inculcate what he called
" philosophy," but which was really a kind of thought
standing half-way between pure speculative search for
truth, like that of Plato, and the merely worldly and
practical aims of the Sophists. It was a manly wisdom
dealing with politics and morality, analogous to the re-
flections on such subjects in which Cicero afit-r wards
indulged. The rhetorical school of Isocrates drew
pupils from all parts of Greece, from Sicily, and even
from Pontus. In it, says Cicero, " the eloquence of all
Greece was trained and perfected." The pupils re-
mained in it sometimes three or four years; they paid a
fee of 1000 drachmae each (=1000 francs, or 40); and
thus in his long life the master became one of the most
opulent citizens of Athens. " Isocrates," says Dionysus,
" had th.a educating of the best of the youth of Greece,"
and so many of his scholars became afterwards distin-
guished in various ways as orators, statesmen, gen-
erals, historians, or philosophers that a list of them
was drawn up by Hermippus. Among the number
was Speusippus, nephew to Plato, and afterwards his
successor in the headship of the Academ} 7 . And yet
it may readily be believed that there was small sym-
pathy between the Academy and the school of Isocrates,
the aims of the two being so very different. Plato and
his followers looked down with more or less contempt
* See Professor Jebb's " Attic Orators from Antiphon to Isaeos,"
ii. 5.
12 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
on the half -philosophizing of Isocrates. And at last
the youthful Aristotle came forward as a champion,
challenging and attacking the highly-reputed veteran.
Aristotle is said to have parodied on this occasion a line
of Euripides
"What! must I
In silence leave barbarians to speak ?
Never!"
and to have taken for his motto the words
"What! must I
In silence leave Isocrates to speak ?"
The acrimony of the allusion suggests to us the spirit
in which he opened the controversy. He seems to have
assailed the matter of the discourses of Isocrates, as
being of a superficial and merely oratorical character,
and also his theory of the art of rhetoric, and his mode
of teaching it. The strictures of Aristotle were an-
swered by Cephisodorus, one of the pupils of Isoc-
rates, who wrote a defense of his master in four books.
Both attack and reply have completely perished. Aris-
totle appears to have followed up his theoretical denun-
ciation of Isocrates by the practical step of opening a
school of Rhetoric in rivalry to his. What the success
of this enterprise may have been is not recorded. There
is no reason for supposing that the young Stagirite at
all succeeded in impressing the Athenians at that time
with his superior insight into the laws of Rhetoric.
The real value and scientific pre-eminence of his views
came out in the immortal treatise on Rhetoric, which
many years later he composed. But it is remarkable
that that treatise, while full of references to Isocrates,
bears no traces of any ill feeling towards him. In fact,
it would seem that time must have worked a certain
change in the character of Aristotle, for almost the only
ARISTOTLE. 13
glimpses which we have of him during his earlier resi-
dence at Athens show him somewhat petulantly at-
tacking both Plato and Isocrates; whereas his works
which we possess, and which were written later, are
calmly impersonal and devoid of all petulance of spirit.
Plato died in the year 347 B. c. , and we find that in
that year Aristotle, together with his fellow-disciple
Xenocrates, left Athens, and went to reside at Atarueus,
a town of Asia Minor. This migration was doubtless
caused by the choice of Speusippus, Plato's nephew,
to be Leader of the Academy. However natural it may
have been that Aristotle should be held disqualified by
incompatibility of opinions for becoming the representa-
tive of Plato, still it may have been unpleasant to him
to see another preferred to himself, and especially one
so inferior to himself in intellect as Speusippus. Ani
Xenocrates may have felt something of the same kind
on his own account. Accordingly the two left Athens
together. Aristotle had more than one reason for"
selecting Atarneus as his new place of abode. It was
the home of Proxenus, his guardian, of whom mention
has already been made ; and it was ruled over by Her-
meias, an enlightened prince, with whom both Aris-
totle and Xenocrates had had the opportunity of
forming a philosophic friendship. The history of Her-
meias was remarkable : he had been the slave of Eubu-
lus, the former despot of Atarneus. As happens not
uncommonly in the East, he had sprung from being
slave to be vizier, and thence to be ruler himself. He
governed beneficently; and, his mind not being devoid
of philosophical impulses, he had come to Athens and
attended the lectures of Plato. He now hospitably re-
ceived the two emigrants from Plato's school, and
entertained them at his court for three years, during
14 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
which time he bestowed the hand of Pythias, his niece,
upon Aristotle in marriage. This may be conceived to
have been a happy period of Aristotle's life, but it was
cut short by the death of his benefactor, who was
treacherously kidnapped by a Greek officer in the ser-
vice of the Persians, and put to death. Aristotle after-
wards recorded his admiration for Hermeias, in a hymn
or paean which he wrote in his honor, and in which he
likened him to Hercules and the Dioscuri, and other
heroes of noble endurance. He also perhaps alludes to
him in a well-known passage* in which he says that
" a good man does not become a friend to one who is
in a superior station to himself, unless that superiority
of station be justified by superiority of merit." If
Aristotle had Hermeias, his own former friend, in his
mind when he wrote this passage, he must have gener-
ously attributed to him moral qualities superior to his
own.
On flying from Atarneus, as they were now obliged
to do, Xenocrates returned to Athens, and Aristotle
took up his abode with his wife at Mitylene, where he
lived two or three years, until he was invited by Philip
of Macedon to become the tutor of Alexander, then a
boy of the age of thirteen. That Aristotle, the prince
of philosophers and supreme master of the sphere of
knowledge, should be called upon to train the mind of
Alexander, the conqueror of the world, seems a com-
bination so romantic, that it has come to be thought
that it must have been the mere invention of some
sophist or rhetorician. This, however, is an unneces-
sary skepticism, for antiquity is unanimous in accepting
the tradition, and there are no circumstances that we
*" Ethics," Vni. vi. 6.
ARISTOTLE. 15
know of which are inconsistent with it. Aristotle's
family connection with the royal family of Macedon
made it natural that now, when he had acquired a cer-
tain reputation in Greece, he should be offered this
charge. Unfortunately no information has been handed
down to us as to the way in which he performed its
duties. History is silent on the subject, and we can-
not even gather from any of Aristotle's own writings
his views as to the education of a prince; the treatise
on education, which was to have formed part of his
" Politics," has reached us as an incomplete or mutilated
fragment. Nothing that is recorded of Alexander tends
to throw any light on his early training, except, per-
haps, his interest in Homer and in the Attic trage-
dians, and his power of addressing audiences in Greek,
which was, of course, to a Macedonian an acquired
language. It is reasonable to suppose that Aristotle
instructed him in rhetoric, and imbued him with Greek
literature, and took him through a course of mathe-
matics. Whether he attempted anything beyond this
' ' secondary instruction " we know not. But it would be
vain to look for traces of a personal and intellectual
influence having been produced by the teacher. on the
mind of his pupil. Alexander's was a genius of that
first-rate order that grows independently of, or soon
outgrows, all education. His mind was not framed to
be greatly interested in science or philosophy; he was,
as the First Napoleon said of himself, tout d fait un
etre politique; and even during part of the period of
Aristotle's tutelage, he was associated with his father
in the business of the State. On the whole, we might
almost imagine that Aristotle's functions at the court
of Macedonia were light, and that he was allowed con-
siderable leisure for the quiet prosecution of his own
16 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
great undertakings. He seems, however, to have en-
joyed the full confidence and favor of his patrons,*
and to have retained his appointment altogether about
five years, until Philip was assassinated in the year 836
B.C., and Alexander became King of Macedonia.
For a year after the death of Philip, Aristotle still
remained, residing either at Pella or at Stageira; but
of course no longer as preceptor to Alexander, whose
mind was now totally absorbed by imperial business
and plans for the subjugation of all the peoples of the
East, while his own mind was meditating plans differ-
ent in kind, but no less vast, for the subjugation of all
the various realms of knowledge. In 335 B.C. the
preparations for Alexander's oriental campaigns were
commenced in earnest, and Aristotle then again betook
himself, after a twelve years' absence, to Athens,
whither he returned with all the prestige which could
be derived from the most marked indications of the
favor of Alexander, who ordered a statue of him to
be set up at Athens, and who is said also to have fur-
nished him with ample funds for the prosecution of
physical and zoological investigations. Athenseus com-
putes the total sum given to Aristotle in that way
at 800 talents (nearly 200,000); and, if this had
been the actual fact, it would have been, perhaps,
the greatest instance on record of the "endowment
of research." But we can only treat the statement as
* Aristotle at this time obtained the permission of Philip to
rebuild and resettle his native city, Stageira, which had been
sacked and ruined in the Olynthian war (349-347 B c.). He col-
lected the citizens, who had been scattered abroad, invited
new comers, and made laws for the community. In memory of
these services an annual festival was afterwards held in his
honor at Stageira.
ARISTOTLE. 17
at best mere hearsay. We know hov/ amounts of this
kind are invariably exaggerated; and, indeed, the whole
story may have arisen from the imagination of later
Greek writers dwelling on the relationship between the
philosopher and the king. The same may be said of
Pliny's assertion, that "thousands of men" in Alexan-
der's army were put at the orders of Aristotle for the
purposes of scientific inquiry and collection. Had this
been true, Aristotle, though far from being able to make
the use which now would be made of such an oppor-
tunity, would have been in a position which many a
biologist of the present day might envy. Even dis-
counting all such statements as uncertain and question-
able, we must still admit that Aristotle, in his fiftieth
year, was enabled, under the most favorable auspices,
to commence building up the great fabric of philosophy
and science for which he had been, all his life long,
making the plans and gathering the materials.
Aristotle, on his return, found Speusippus dead, and
Xenocrates installed as leader of the Platonic school
of Philosophy, which was held, as we have said, in the
groves of Academe, on the west of the city of Athens.
He immediately opened a rival school on the eastern
side, in the grounds attached to the Temple of the
Lyceian Apollo. From his using the covered walks
(peripatoi) in these grounds for lecturing to, and inter-
course with, his pupils, the name of "Peripatetics"
came to be given to his scholars, and to the Aristotelian
sect in general. His object being research, and the
bringing into methodized form the results of investiga-
tions, it may be asked why he should have opened a
school? Partly, this was necessitated by a regard for
his own reputation and fame, it was a method of
publication suitable before the days of printing. And
18 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
also in many ways it could be made to further his
Views. Teaching a philosophical school was a very
different thing from teaching the rudiments. It was
more like the work of a German professor, who often
does not condescend to impart anything to his class
except his own latest discoveries. The very practice of
imparting to an auditory reasoned-out conclusions is a
stimulus to their production, and at the same time a
test of their correctness. Thus, Aristotle, in his writ-
ings, frequently uses tbe term "teaching" merely to
indicate " demonstration;" and as there is reason to
believe that all his great works were written at this
time, we may conceive, with great likelihood, that all
the "demonstrations" they contain had at one time
the form of "teachings" that is to say, that they
went through the process of being read to his school.
But there was another special way in which Aristotle
was able not only to benefit his scholars, but also to
make use of them as subordinate laborers in his work.
We must remember what he was aiming at: it was to
produce what we should call an encyclopedia of all the
sciences. Such a book, nowadays, is done by many
different hands, and the different articles in it do not
aim at being original, but at compiling the latest re-
sults of the best authorities in each department. But
Aristotle sought to construct an encyclopedia with his
own hand, in which each science should appear brand-
new, originally created or quite reconstructed by him-
self. He began from the very beginning, and framed
his own philosophical or scientific nomenclature; he
traced out the laws on which human reasoning pro-
ceeds, and was the first to reduce these to science, and
to produce a Logic. He wrote anew "Metaphysics,"
"Ethics," "Politics," "Rhetoric, "and "The Art of Po-
ARISTOTLE. 19
etry,'' and while these were still on the stocks, he was en-
gaged in founding, on the largest scale, the physical and
natural sciences, especially natural philosophy, physi-
ology under various aspects (such as histology and
anatomy, embryology, psychology, the philosophy of
the senses, etc.), and, above all, natural history. Much
of this work, especially its more abstract part, was the
slowly-ripened fruit of his entire previous life. But
though he had great stores ready that only required to
be arranged and put forth, he never ceased pushing out
inquiries in all directions, and collecting fresh materials.
He had quite the Baconian zeal for experientia tabulata,
for lists and memoranda of all kinds of facts, historical,
political, psychological, or naturalistic. He loved to
note problems to be solved and difficulties to be an-
swered. Thus a boundless field of subordinate labor
was opened, in which his pupils might be employed.
The absence of any effort after artistic beauty in his
writings made it easier to incorporate here and there the
contributions of his apprentices. And his works, as we
have them, exhibit some traces of co-operative w^ork.
The Peripatetic school, after his death, followed the
direction which Aristotle had given them, and were
noted for their monographs on small particular points.
Aristotle was not a citizen of Athens, but only a
" rnetic," or foreign resident, so he took no part in pub-
lic affairs. His whole time during the thirteen years of
his second residence in the city a period coeval with
the astonishing career of Alexander in the East must
have been devoted to labors within his school, especially
in connection with the composition of his works.
From the enthusiastic passages in which he speaks of
the joys of the philosopher, we may conceive how
highly the privileges of this period so calm and yet so
20 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
intensely active were appreciated by him. But few
traditions bearing upon this part of his life have been
handed down. These chiefly point to his relations
with Alexander, with whom, as well as with Antipater,
who was acting as viceroy in Macedonia, he is repre-
sented as having maintained a friendly correspondence.
Cassauder, the son of Antipater, appears to have at-
tended his school. As time went on, the character of
Alexander became corrupted * by unchecked success,
Asiatic influences, and the all but universal servility
which he encountered. His mind became alienated
from those Greek citizens around him who showed any
independence of spirit. He quarreled with Antipater,
who was faithfully acting for him at home. On a
frivolous charge he cruelly put to death Callisthenes, a
young orator whom, on the recommendation of Aristo-
tle, he had taken in his retinue. On this and other oc-
casions he is said to have broken out into bitter expres-
sions against " the sophistries" of Aristotle that is to
say, his free and reasonable political principles. The
East, conquered physically by Alexander, had con-
quered and changed the mind of its conqueror. And
he had now fallen quite out of sympathy with his
ancient preceptor and friend. But the Athenians seem
to have been unconscious of any such change. Aristo-
tle had come to Athens as the avowed favorite and pro-
tege of Alexander, and that, too, at a moment when
Alexander (335 B.C.), by sacking the city of Thebes, and
by compelling Athens with the threat of a similar fate
to exile some of her anti-Macedonian statesmen, had
made himself the object of sullen dread and covert dis-
like to the majority of .the Athenian citizens. Some
* See Grote's " History of Greece," xii. 291, 301, 341.
ARISTOTLE. 21
portion of this feeling was doubtless reflected upon
Aristotle, but during the life of Alexander any mani-
festation of it was checked, the affairs of Athens being
administered for the time by the " Macedonian " party.
Of this party Aristotle was naturally regarded as a
pronounced adherent, and he came even to be identified
with those arbitrary and tyrannical acts of Alexander
which must in reality have been most repugnant to him.
This was especially the case in 324 B.C., when Alexander
thought fit to insult the Hellenic cities, by sending a
proclamation to be read by a herald at the Olympic
Games, ordering them to recall all citizens who were
under sentence of banishment, and threatening with in-
stant invasion any city which should hesitate to obey
this command. The officer charged with bearing this
offensive proclamation, so galling to the self-respect of
the Grecian communities, turned out to be none other
than Nicanor of Stageira, son of Proxenus the guardian
of Aristotle, and now the ward and destinedjson-in-lavv
of Aristotle himself. This unfortunate circumstance
could not fail to draw upon the philosopher, without
any fault of his own, the animosity of the Athenian
people. In the summer of the next year (383 B.C.), the
eyes of all Greece were still anxiously fixed upon the
movements of Alexander, when of a sudden the start-
ling news thrilled through every city that the life of the
great conqueror had been cut short by a violent fever at
Babylon. The news caused a sensation throughout the
states of Greece analogous to what would have been
felt throughout Europe had Napoleon been suddenly
cut off, say in the year 1810.
By the death of Alexander the position of Aristotle
at Athens was profoundly affected. The anti-Mace-
donian party at once, for the moment, regained power;
22 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
the statesmen who had hitherto protected him were
forced to fly from the city, and the spirit of reaction
included him also in its attacks. It now became clear
that Aristotle had a host of enemies in Athens. There
were three classes of persons from whom especially
these hostile ranks would naturally be recruited: 1st,
The numerous friends of the orator Isocrates, with
whom Aristotle in earlier life had put himself in com-
petition; 2d, The Platonists, who resented Aristotle's
divergence from their master and his polemic against
certain points of the Platonic system; 3d, The anti-
Macedonian party, who indiscriminately visited on
Aristotle the political acts of Alexander. Feelings
that had been long repressed and kept concealed, while
Aristotle was strong in political support, were now
licensed by the changed circumstances to come forth
into act. His enemies seized on the moment to do
him a mischief. An indictment, charging him with
"impiety," was drawn up by Euryrnedon, the chief
priest of the Eleusinian Ceres, aided by a son of
Ephorus, the historian, who had been one of the pupils
of Isocrates. Matter for this accusation was obtained
partly from Aristotle's poem written in honor of
Hermeias, and which equaled him to the demi-gods,
partly from the fact that Aristotle had placed a statue
of Hermeias in the temple at Delphi, partly also from
some passages in his published writings which were
pointed to as inconsistent with the national religion.
A philosopher's view must necessarily differ from the
popular view of the topics of religion. Yet in his ex-
tant works Aristotle is always tender and reverent in
dealing with popular beliefs; indeed, in modern times,
these works have been regarded as a bulwark of ecclesi-
astical feeling. The whole charge, if taken on its real
ARISTOTLE. 23
merits, must be considered utterly frivolous; yet those
who would have to try the case a large jury taken
from the general mass of the citizens could not be
depended on for discrimination in such a question.
They would be too subject to the currents of envy,
political, personal, and anti-philosophical, setting in
from various quarters; they would be too readily im-
bued with the odium theologicum. Nothing but a very
general popularity would have been an effectual pro-
tection at such a moment, and this it is not likely that
Aristotle ever possessed in Athens. While capable of
devoted and generous friendship, he may easily have
been cold and reserved towards general society. He
was absorbed in study, and probably lived confined
within the narrow scientific circle of his own school.
He may even have exhibited some of those proud char-
acteristics which he attributes in his "Ethics" to the
" great-souled'' man, " who claims great things for him-
self because he is worthy of them," and "who cannot
bear.to associate with any one except a friend." How-
ever this may have been, he was probably right on the
present occasion to decline submitting his life and opin-
ions to the judgment of the populace of Athens. He
availed himself of the law which gave to any accused
person the option of quitting the city before the day of
trial, and he retired to Chalcis in Eubcea, "in order,"
as he is reported to have said, "that the Athenians
might not have another opportunity of sinning against
philosophy, as they had already done once in the per-
son of Socrates."
Chalcis was the original home of the ancestry of
Aristotle, and he appears to have had some property
there; but it was especially a safe place of refuge for
him, as being occupied at this time by a Macedonian
24 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
garrison. He probably intended only to make a short
sojourn there, till circumstances should be changed.
He must have fully foreseen that in a short space of
time the Macedonian arms would prevail, and restore
at Athens the government which had hitherto protected
him. He left his school and library in charge of Theo-
phrastus, doubtless looking forward to a speedy return
to them and to the resumption of those labors which
had already consummated so much. And all this
would have happened but that, within a year's time, in
322 B.C., he was seized with illness,, and died somewhat
suddenly at Chalcis, in the sixty-third year of his age.
The story that he had taken poison may be dismissed as
fabulous. A more trustworthy account speaks of -his
having suffered from impaired digestion, the natural
result of his habits of application, and this may very
likely have been the cause of his death.
The will of Aristotle, or what professes to be such,
has 'been preserved amongst a heap of very questionable
traditions, by Diogenes Laertius. If not genuine it is
cleverly invented, and is the work of a romancer who
wished to credit the Stagirite with evidences of a gen-
erous and just disposition. The property to be disposed
of seems considerable, analogous perhaps to an estate
of 50,000 in the present day. The chief beneficiary
under the will is Nicanor (before mentioned), whom
Aristotle appoints to marry Pythias his daughter by
the niece of Hermeias so soon as she shall be of mar-
riageable age. Aristotle's first wife had died, and he
had subsequently married Herpyllis of Stageira, who
became the mother of his son Nicomachus. The will
places Nicomachus under the care of Nicanor, and
makes liberal provision for Herpyllis, who is mentioned
in terms of affection and gratitude. Several of the
ARISTOTLE. 25
&/aves are thought of, and are to be presented with
money and set at liberty; all the young slaves are to be
freed, "if they deserve it," as soon as they are grown
up. Nicanor is charged to transfer the bones of Aris-
totle's first wife Pythias to his own place of interment,
to provide and dedicate suitable busts of various mem-
bers of Aristotle's family, and to fulfill a vow formerly
made by himself of four marble figures of animals to
Zeus the Preserver and Athene the Preserver. This
last clause throws suspicion on the genuineness of the
document, for it looks like a mere imitation of the
dying injunction of Socrates: "We owe a cock to
j-Esculapius; pay the debt and do not fail." Other
points also suggest doubt: for instance, Antipater is
named as chief executor, and this detail has the appear-
ance of being the work of a forger availing himself of
a well-known name; again, there is a difficulty about
Pythias the daughter of Aristotle being too young for
marriage at the time of her father's death he had
married her mother some twenty-three years previously,
and had been subsequently married. .The terms of the
will would imply that Nicomachus was a mere child
when his father died, which is inconsistent with other
considerations. These and other points of criticism
which might be urged do not absolutely prove the will
te have been a forgery; they only leave us in doubt
about it. And, as has been said, even if regarded as a
mere fabrication, it is still a tribute of antiquity to the
virtue of Aristotle.
On the other hand, this great name did not escape
without incurring its full share of carping and detrac-
tation. And the- gossip- mongers of the later Roman em-
pire, including Fathers of the Church, have handed on
some of the hearsay reports, smart sayings of epigram-
26 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
matists, and attacks of hostile schools of philosophy,
which had beeii leveled against Aristotle. After all
they come to very little: that he had small eyes, and
thin legs, and a lisping utterance; that he passed a
wild and spendthrift youth; that he was showy and
affected in his attire, and habitually luxurious in his
table; that he chose to live at the Macedonian court
for the sake of the flesh-pots to be obtained by so do-
ing; and that he was ungrateful to Plato, these make
up the sum of the charges against him. Perhaps if we
knew all the facts, we might find that a contradictory,
or at all events a different, statement would be more
correct under each of the several heads. As it is, we
may fairly deal with these imputations as we should
witli similar aspersions on the personal history of any
great man, if they could neither be proved nor dis-
proved, and set them aside as beneath consideration.
We cannot expect to know more than the outline of
Aristotle's life, but all we know gives us the impression
of a life that, morally speaking, was singularly honor-
able and blameless. And it was the life of one who
by his intellectual achievements placed himself at the
very head of ancient thought, and won the admiration
and allegiance of many centuries. What those intel-
lectual achievements were we have now to endeavor
to set forth.
CHAPTER II.
THE WORKS OP ARISTOTLE.
A CATALOGUE of the works of Aristotle has been
handed down to us, which was made by the librarian
of the great Library at Alexandria about the year 220
AltlHTOTLK. 27
B.C. that is to say, a century after the death of the
philosopher and which gives the titles of all the books,
contained in the Library, which were attributed to the
authorship of Aristotle. These titles amount to 140
in number, but it is at first sight a most astonishing
circumstance that they do not in the least answer to
the writings which we now possess under the name of
the "works of Aristotle." All the books mentioned in
the Alexandrian catalogue are now lost; only a few frag-
ments of them have been preserved in the shape of ex-
tracts and quotations from them made by other writers;
but everything tends to show that they were quite a
different set, and different altogether in character, from
the forty treatises which stand collectively on our book-
shelves labeled " Aristotelis Opera." Under the circum-
stances it would be natural to conjecture that so (com-
paratively speaking) short a time after the death of
Aristotle, the learned keepers of the Alexandrian Library
must have known what he really wrote, and therefore
that in losing the books mentioned in the Alexandrian
catalogue we have lost the true works of Aristotle, as
ney existed 100 years after his death, and that what
as come down to us under his name, be it what it
nay, cannot be the genuine article. Other facts, liow-
;ver, and criticism of the whole question, show that
this natural supposition is incorrect, and that some-
thing like the contradictory of it is true. It is a curi-
ous story, and needs some little explanation.
The life of Aristotle after his boyhood fell, as we
have seen, into three broad divisions namely, his
first residence at Athens, from his eighteenth to his
thirty-eighth year; his residence away from Athens,
at Atameus, Mitylene, Pella, and Stageira, from hifj
thirty-eighth to his fiftieth year; and his second resi
28 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
deuce at Athens, from his fiftieth to his sixty third
year. During the first period, after studying under
Plato, he commenced authorship by writing dialogues,
which appear to have been published at the time.
They differed from the Platonic dialogues in not being
dramatic, but merely expository, like the dialogues
of Bishop Berkeley, the principal role in each being
assigned to Aristotle himself. They were somewhat
rhetorical in style, and quite adapted for popular read
ing. In them Aristotle attacked Plato's doctrine ot
Ideas, and set forth views on philosophy, the chief
good, the arts of government, moral virtue, and other
topics. Then came the second period of his life, when
he had definitely broken with the school of Plato, and
was away from all the schools of Athens, enjoying much
leisure and positions of dignity. In this period it ii
probable that be not only prosecuted his researches and
independent speculations in many branches of thought
and science, but that he learned to know his own
mission in the world, which was to stick to the matter
of knowledge, abandoning all regard for the artistic
adornment of truth. During this period we may
believe that he thoroughly doveloped the individual
character of his own mind in relation to philosophy
so that when he came back to Athens he had quite
established his own peculiar style of writing, crabbed
indeed and inelegant, but full of an exact phraseology
which he had himself constructed, and on the whole
not unsuited as a vehicle for the exposition of science
~\Ye are not able, however, to say for certain whethei
in his second period he actually composed any works,
though he must constantly have been compiling notes
and memoranda, to serve either as the materials or the
ground-plans for future treatises. The third period of
AlilSTOTLU. 29
Aristotle's life was the rich fruit-time of his genius.
We have already mentioned how he set himself to the
construction of an entire encyclopedia of science and
philosophy. What we possess as his works contain
the unfinished, but much advanced, working out of
that project. There is every reason to believe that the
great bulk of this series of writings was composed by
Aristotle during the last thirteen years of his life. He
was doubtless assisted by his school, and he must have
had many treatises on hand at one time, or rather he
had them all in his head, and when anything caused
him to drop one for a time he could go on with an-
other. Hardly any of the treatises are finished, still
less is there any trace of careful revision and " the last
hand." It is certain that many of these works were
never published during Aristotle's lifetime, and it
is even a question whether any of them were so pub-
lished.
When Aristotle died, all the MSS. of his later compo-
sitions, together with the considerable library of other
men's writings which he had got together, were under
charge of his chief disciple Theophrastus at the school
iu the Lyceum. After his decease, the Peripatetics ap-
pear to have worked to some extent at editing the un-
completed treatises, and at patching together those
which existed as yet only in disjointed fragments.
But there does not seem to have been any multiplica-
tion of copies, or what we should call " publication."
On the death of Theophrastus (which took place thirty-
five years later than that of Aristotle), the whole Peri-
patetic school-library went by his bequest to a favorite
pupil named Neleus, who took all the rolls away with
him to his home at a place called Scepsis, in the Troad.
Included among them were the MSS., many of them
80 THE ELZEVllt LIBRARY.
unique, of Aristotle's most important works, which
were thus removed from Europe. Not only was this
the case, but a few years later the kings of Pcrgamus
began seizing the books of private individuals in order
to fill their own royal library, and the family of Ne-
leus, afraid of losing the treasures they possessed
which, however, they could iittle appreciate hid away
the Peripatetic rolls and the precious MSS. of Aristotle
in a subterranean vault, where they remained for 150
years forgotten by the world. At the end of that inter-
val, the dynasty of the kings of Pergamus having passed
away, the books were brought out of their hiding-place
and sold to one Apellicou, a wealthy Peripatetic and
book-collector, who resided at Athens. They were said
to have been by this time a good deal damaged by
worms and damp; yet still it was a great thing that,
after 187 years' absence, the best productions of Aristotle
should lye restored, about 100 B.C., to the West.
The termination of this " strange eventful history"
was that in 86 B.C. Athens was taken by Syila, and the
library of Apellicon was seized and brought to Rome,
where it was placed under the custody of a librarian,
and several literary Greeks, resident in Rome, had ac-
cess to it. Tyrannion, the learned friend of Cicero, got
permission to arrange the MSS., and Andronicus of
Rhodes, applying himself with earnestness to the task
of obtaining a correct text and furnishing a complete
edition of the philosophical works of Aristotle, ar-
ranged the different treatises and scattered fragments
under their proper heads, and getting numerous tran-
scripts made, gave publicity to ageneral-ly received text
of Aristotle. There seems to be good reason for believ-
ing that " Our Aristotle," as Grote calls it, in contradis-
tinction to the Aristotie of the Alexandrian Library, is
ARISTOTLE. 31
none other than this recension of Andronicus. And
this being the case, we may well reflect how great was
the risk which these works incurred of being consigned
to perpetual oblivion. A few more years in the cellar
at Scepsis, or any one of a hundred other accidents which
might have prevented these writings from getting into
the appreciative and competent hands of Tyrannion and
Andronicus, would in all probability have made them as
if they had never been. And thus that which was actual*
ly the chief intellectual food of men in the middle ages
would have been withheld. Whether for better or
worse, men's thoughts would have had a different exer-
cise and taken a different direction. Much of ecclesias-
tical history would have been changed. And many of
the modes in which we habitually think and speak at
the present day would have been different from what
they are.
But we must return to the Alexandrian catalogue. If
the MSS. of all Aristotle's most important works were
carried off in the year 287 B.C. , to be buried in Asia 31 inor
for a century and a half, what means this list of 146
books bearing the name of Aristotle, which in 220 B.C.
were stored up in the Alexandrian Library? Were
these also all really written by Aristotle? Was he so
voluminous a composer as this would imply, as well
as a profound thinker and an original explorer of
nature in many departments? Or were the books sup-
plied to the Alexandrian collection, as the works of Ar-
istotle, mere forgeries, got up for the market, to supply
the place of the genuine writings, which for the time
had been lost to the world? The only answer that can
be given to these questions must be a conjectural one, and
probability seems to dictate an answer lying between
the two extreme hypotheses. Several of the names ap-
32 TllK ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
pearing in the catalogue remind us of the titles of Plato's
dialogues, for instance " Nerinthus," "Gryllus: or,
On Rhetoric," "Sophist," "Meuexenus." ''Sympo-
sium," " The Lover," "Alexander; or, On Colonies,"
etc. And the natural supposition is that these books,
or some of them, were none other than these early dia-
logues which Aristotle composed during his first resi-
dence in Athens. Strabo says distinctly that when, by
the bequest of Theophrastus, the Aristotelian MSS. were
taken away, the Peripatetic school had none of his
works left except a few of the more popular ones. His
dialogues had been published, and were available, and
no doubt copies of them formed the nucleus of the
books professing to be his in the Alexandrian Library.
Others of the collection may have been excerpts from
his greater works which had been made by his scholars,
and were so kept before the world when the entire
works themselves were hidden in Asia Minor. Many
others were probably monographs and papers by mem-
bers of the Peripatetic school, drawn up in Aristotle's
manner, perhaps containing his ideas, and from a sort
of reverential feeling- attributed to him and inscribed
with his name. The residue must have been forgeries
pure and simple: imitations of his dialogues, and of
such parts of his treatises as were known, All the
books in the Alexandrian list, though they were numer-
ous, appear to have been short, treating generally of
isolated questions, and quite unlike the long methodical
setting forth of entire sciences, such as we find in the
writings of Aristotle that have come down to us.
The " late of Aristotle's works" is a romantic episode
in the history of literature. But we must observe that
what in the first place rendered this train of circum-
stances possible was the rapid decay of genius in Greece.
ARISTOTLE. 33
When Aristotle died, none of his scholars was worthy
to succeed him and carry on his work. His school do
not seem lo have appreciated what was great and valu-
able in his philosophy. They went off either into rhe-
torical sermonizing on moral questions, or else into
isolated inquiries, the solution of problems, or the draw-
ing up of "papers" like those read before the Royal
Society. It was perhaps a feeling of contempt for the
Peripatetic school which induced Theophrastus, a gen-
eration after the death of Aristotle, to give away their
whole library, including the great works of their mas-
ter, to a foreign student. But for their apathy those
great works would never have been left in unique cop,
ies, and ultimately exposed to such extreme peril.
There must, however, have been a corresponding
apathy in the external public, else curiosity would have
demanded, and the love of science would have pre-
served, the results of Aristotle's later years. But the
reading world of the third century B.C. seems to have
been quite content to be put off with that which was
really un-Aristoteliau, though it bore the name of Aris-
totle with immature, rhetorical dialogues, the work of
his youth, or spurious imitations of that work, with ex-
cerpts, epitomes, "papers," and the sweepings of the
Peripatetic school.
We may take Cicero, though living two centuries
later, as a good specimen of the attitude towards Aris-
totle of a cultivated man of literature, not devoid of a
certain taste for philosophy, of those times. Cicero
often mentions, praises, and quotes Aristotle, but it is
not, "our Aristotle," but the Aristotle of Alexandria,
the writer of dialogues. Several passages of these dia-
logues have been translated and preserved by Cicero,
who extols the "golden flow of their language," using
84 THE ELZEVIR LlUiiARY
terms which are as far as possible from being applicable
to the harsh, compressed, and difficult style of Aris-
totle's scientific treatises. The latter were, indeed, too
difficult and too repulsive for Cicero, as is plain from
the story which he himself relates: Cicero had in his
Tusculau villa some of the works of Aristotle, as we at
present possess them, probably copies of the recension
of Androuicus; when asked by his friend Trebatius
what the "Topics" of Aristotle were about, he advised
him "for his own interest" to study the book for him-
self, or else to consult a certain learned rhetorician.
Trebatius, however, was repelled by the obscurity of
the writing, and the rhetorician, when consulted, con-
fessed his total ignorance of Aristotle. Cicero thinks
this no wonder, since even the philosophers know
hardly anything about him, though they "ought to
have been attracted by the incredible flow and sweet-
ness of the diction." He then proceeds to give Treba-
tius a summary of the first few pages of the " Topics"
of Aristotle, which he had apparently read up for the oc-
casion. From facts like this, it may be concluded that
in the two last centuries before the Christian era, it was
only the lighter and less valuable compositions of Aris-
totle that were generally known and admired. His
more serious and really valuable contributions to
thought and knowledge were left out of sight, ignored,
and forgotten. For the moment it seemed as if the
favorite dictum of Lord Bacon had come to pass that
"Time, like a river, bringing down to us things which
are lighter and more inflated, lets what is more weighty
and solid sink." But the result of that concatenation
of accidents which we have narrated, was completely
to reverse this sentence; so that now it may be said that
all the lighter part of Aristotle's work has been swept
ARISTOTLE. 35
away by the stream of Time, while only that which was
weighty and solid has been suffered to remain in exist-
ence. Owing to the wealth of the Roman empire, it
is likely that numerous copies were made of the entire
works of Aristotle, as edited by Androuicus both for
public libraries and*for individuals. This gave him a
better chance of survival in a collective form during
the wreck and destruction of the barbarian invasions;
and afterwards he was early taken into the protection
of the Church. The dialogues, in the meantime, and
other shorter productions, which had figured in the
Alexandrian catalogue, had no coherence with each
other, and thus were not reproduced by the copyists
and Ubrarians, as a whole. Again, they did not attract,
;;s the greater works of Aristotle did, the attention of
successive scholiasts and commentators. In short, they
fell into the neglect which, comparatively speaking,
they deserved, and disappeared, all but a few scattered
quotations. But now we can thank the Providence of
history that we possess a large portion of the best of
all that Aristotle thought and wrote. We possess it,
indeed, incomplete as he left it, and not only so, but
also edited and re edited, transposed occasionally, inter-
polated, and eked out, by the earlier Peripatetics, by
Andronicus, and perhaps by subsequent hands. Yet
still the individuality of the Stagirite shines out
through the greater part of these remains, and in study-
ing them we feel that we are brought into contact with
his mind.
If the supposition be correct that what we now pos-
sess is substantially the edition of Andronicus, it is
clear in the first plnce that he did not mean this to be
what we should call a "complete edition of the collect-
ive works of Aristotle," c-l.-o lie would have included
36 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
in it the dialogues that Cicero quotes, the hymn in
honor of Hermeias, and we know not what beside.
His object appears to have been to give to the world
the philosophy of Aristotle, hitherto virtually unknown,
as he found it in the documents contained in the
library of Apellicon. He dealt, it must be remem-
bered, not only with that collection of rolls which had
been buried in the Troad, but also with all the books
which had been got together by a wealthy hibliophilist.
The edition of Andronicus, if it corresponds with ours,
contained a body of Aristotelian science and all Aris-
totle's greatest works ; but on the one hand it excluded
his less important writings, and on the other hand it
admitted works which Aristotle certainly never wrote,
though they are full of his ideas. Andronicus may
have doubted as to the authorship of these treatises,
which modern criticism pronounces to be by later Peri-
patetic hands;* or he may have thought that they
represented or explained Aristotle, and might advan-
tageously be preseved as part of his system. However
it came about, we find included within the Aristotelian
canon a treatise" On the Universe," neatly epitomizing
his views, but quite later than his time; one "On the
Motion of Animals" of which the same may be said;
two treatises on morals, the "Eudemian Ethics" and the
"Great Ethics," which are mere paraphrases of the
"Ethics" of Aristotle; a large book of "Problems,"
with their solutions, evidently of mixed authorship; a
set of " Opuscula." or minor works, which belong to the
class of Peripatetic monographs e.g. " On Colors,"
*One of the doubtful treatises the " Rhetoric dedicated to
Alexander" is supposed to be the work of Anaximenes, a wri-
ter contemporary with Aristotle.
ARISTOTLE. 37
"On Invisible Lines," " Strange Stories," "Physiogno-
mies," etc. ; a treatise on " Rhetoric," quite different in
principle, from that of Aristotle's, and only suggested
to bj his by a fictitious dedication to Alexander, which
has been stuck on to it. One or two other suspicious
books might be mentioned, but even if everything were
deducted against which the most skeptical criticism can
make objection, less than one-fourth would be taken away
from the entire mass which is in use to be labeled " Ar-
istotle." The whole works in Bekker's octavo edition
fill 3786 pages, and out of these the books, about whose
genuineness any question has been raised, occupy only
925 pages. A solid residue remains, which may now be
briefly characterized, merely in regard to its external
form, a few remarks being added as to the chronological
order in which it seems probable that Aristotle coin-
posed the various parts.
The remains of Aristotle come before us as a torso
an incomplete and somewhat mutilated group from
antiquity. Yet they constitute a whole, and the differ-
ent treatises have an organic connection with each other.
On the one hand, these works constitute an encyclopae-
dia, for they contain a resume and reconstruction of the
sciences so far as was possible in the fourth century B.C.
But on the other hand, they are more than an encyclo-
paedia, because they are a philosophy, in which the
universe is explained from the point of view and
according to the system of one individual thinker. In
them thought and knowledge are mapped out in broad
and lucid outlines, with the details sometimes very
fully worked in, sometimes barely indicated and left to
be supplied by subsequent workers. The key to their
arrangement is to be sought from Aristotle himself.
From him we learn that science is divided into Practi-
38 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
cal, Constructive, and Theoretical. Practical science
deals with man and human action, and this branch is
copiously developed by Aristotle in his "Ethics" and
"Politics." Constructive science treats of art and the
laws by which it is to be governed. Towards this
branch Aristotle has made but a brief, though valuable,
contribution, in his unfinished or mutilated treatise
" On Poetry." Theoretical science has three great sub-
divisions, Physics, Mathematics, and Theology, other-
wise called First Philosophy or Metaphysics. For the
section of Mathematics nothing appears done in these
remains. Aristotle speaks often of Mathematics as a
great and interesting science, capable of affording high
mental delight; but he seems to have regarded it as
something tolerably finished and settled in his own
time, and therefore less requiring his attention than
other departments. Had his life been prolonged to
the age attained by Plato or Alexander von Humboldt,
he might possibly have undertaken the setting forth of
the philosophy of Mathematics. Physics, on the other
hand that is to say, the Physical and Natural Sciences
occupy 1447 pages, or fully one half, of the writings
which are undoubtedly Aristotle's. In his physical
treatises one mind may be seen grappling, at first hand,
with the provinces of almost all the different " Sec-
tions " of the British Association. Natural Philosophy,
Astronomy, Physiology, and Natural History are all
marvelously founded in these treatises, by masterly
analysis and classification of existing knowledge on the
different subjects, and by the arrangement of facts, or
supposed facts, under leading scientific ideas. Twelve
books on Metaphysics occupy about one tenth of the
genuine remains of Aristotle. These books arc obvi-
ously patched together out of the fragments of two or
ARISTOTLE. 39
three unfinished treatises. How far this was done by
the earlier Peripatetics, and how far by Andronicus,
\\e cauoot tell. But we here possess probably some of
Aristotle's latest thoughts. And the name "Meta-
physics," or " the things which follow after " Physics,"
was given to these books when they were put together,
after Aristotle's death, to indicate both chronological se-
quence in the order of composition, and also that the sub-
ject treated of lay beyond and above all physical inquiry.
In briefly grouping out the works of Aristotle, we
have hitherto omitted to mention a class of writings,
very important, and amounting to one seventh of the
whole mass, and yet which do not belong to either
Practical, Constructive, or Theoretic science, which
are not part of Philosophy, but treat of the method of
thought and the laws of reasoning, and which thus
constitute the instrument or "organ" of Philosophy
that is to say, the logical writings, which were collect-
ively named by the Peripatetic school "the Organon"
or instrument. These books stand first in modern
editions of Aristotle, and, speaking generally, they ap-
pear to have been written first of all his extant works.
The chronological sequence of composition among
Aristotle's treatises is determined by critics, conjcctu-
rally and approximately, entirely on internal evidence.
There are frequent references from one treatise to
another, but these cannot always be relied on. Often
they are mere interpolations, not having been made by
the original writer, but stuck in by the meddlesomeness
of some editor or copyist; in other cases they are
genuine, and indicate truly the order of composition.
Another piece of evidence, more strictly internal and
more to be depended on, is the greater or less develop-
ment of doctrine contained in the different works
40 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
respectively. Aristotle in the earlier, and still more in
the second period of his life, had doubtless made great
preparation for the writing of all his great works.
Still, as he successively took up each subject and
concentrated his attention upon it, he did not fail to
develop and push further his previous thought upon
it. Thus, for instance, the " Rhetoric" is full of ethical
remarks and ethical doctrine, but when we come to
read tli e "Ethics" we find the same ethical questions
repeated and treated with far greater depth and pre-
cision; and we may reasonably conclude that the
"Ethics" was the later-written treatise of the two.
Following out indications of this kind, we arrive at
the conclusion that Aristotle first took in hand the
science 'of method, and that, of all his extant works,
the "Topics" (or Logic of Probability), were first
written, all but the eighth book; next the "Analytics"
(or Logic of Demonstration); next the eighth book of
the " Topics;" next Books I. and II. of the " Rhetoric"
(which has to do with the setting forth of truth); and
then the " Sophistical Refutations" (or treatise on Fal-
lacies), which belongs to logic, yet still has a connection
with the art of rhetoric. After thus far treating of the
method of knowledge and expression, Aristotle appears
to have gone on to treat of the matter of knowledge,
and to have commenced with the practical sciences.
First he wrote his " Ethics," though these were not quite
finished, and afterwards his " Politics," and then he was
led on to take up constructive science, and to write his
small work "On Poetry," after which he reverted to
his "Rhetoric," which was a cognate subject, and added
a third book to that treatise. He now proceeded, though
leaving much that was unfinished behind him, to the
composition of his great series of physical treatises. The
ARISTOTLE. 41
first of these to be written was probably the " Physi*
cal Discourse," which unfolded the general notions of
natural philosophy, and gave an account of what Aris-
totle conceived under the terms "Nature," "Motion,"
"Time," "Space," " Causation," and the like. After
these prolegomena, to physics, he went on to treat of
the universe in orderly sequence, beginning with the
divinest part, the circumference of the whole, or outer
heaven, which, according to his views, bounded the
world, being composed of ether, a substance distinct
from that of the four elements. This region was the
sphere of the stars; and below it, in the Aristotelian
system, was the planetary sphere, with the seven planets
(the sun and moon being reckoned among the number)
moving in it. Both stars and planets he seems to have
regarded as conscious, happy beings, moving in fixed
orbits, and inhabiting regions free from all change and
chance; and these regions formed the subject of his
treatise " On the Heavens." Next to this he is thought
to have composed his work " On Generation and Cor-
ruption," in order to expound those principles of physi-
cal change (dependent on the hot, the cold, the wet,
and the dry), which in the higher parts of the universe
had no existence. This treatise formed the transition
to the sublunary sphere, immediately round the earth,
in which the meteors and comets moved, and which was
characterized by incessant change, and by the passing
of things into and out of existence, and which became
the subject of his next treatise the "Meteorologies."
The last book of this work brings us down to the earth
itself, and indeed beneath its surface, for it discusses,
in a curious theory, the formation of rocks and metals.
From this point Aristotle would seem to have started
afresh with his array of physiological treatises, the first
42 THE ELZEVIR LWliARY.
written of which may very likely have been that " On
the Parts of Animals, " as containing general principles of
anatomy and physiology. Next it seems probable that
the work "On the Soul" was produced, which was a
physiological account of the vital principle as manifested
in plants, animals, and men. A set of Appendices, as
we should now call them, on various functions con-
nected with life in general, such as sensation, memory,
sleep, dreaming, longevity, death, etc., were added by
Aristotle to his work " On the Soul." Afterwards, the
ten books of "Researches on Animals," and the five
books "On the Generation of Animals," together witli
the minor treatise " On the Progression of Animals,"
and with a collection of "Problems" which Aristotle
probably kept by him, and added to from time to time,
made up the series of his physical and physiological
writings, so far as he lived to complete them. Treatises
" On the Physiology of Plants," and "On Health and
Disease," had been promised by him, but were never
achieved. Simultaneously with some of the works now
mentioned, but in idea last of his writings, and intended
to be the crown of them all, the " Metaphysics" were
probably in course of composition when the death of
Aristotle occurred.
It has been generally fancied that Aristotle was a
very voluminous writer, and Diogenes Laertius, in
transcribing the "Alexandrian Catalogue," remarks of
him that "he wrote exceedingly many books." We,
however, have no reason for joining in this opinion.
His genuine works that have come down to us, fill
altogether less than 3000 pages, and this amount in
mere point of quantity is not anything unusual or sur-
prising. Even if these works were composed, as we;
suppose them for the ino^ part to have been, during
ARISTOTLE. 43
tli2 last thirteen years of his life, still, so far as quantity
alone is concerned, that does not imply more than the
exercise of a persistent industry. Many another man
besides Aristotle has written as much as 200 pages a
year for thirteen years successively. Nor is it necessary
to credit Aristotle with any great bulk of writings be-
yond what we possess, The writings of his early life,
the dialogues, sketches, memoranda, and first efforts of
his philosophic pen, which got to Alexandria, need not
be highly estimated, even as to mass. They were
probably eked out, as we have seen, by Peripatetic
imitators, and were thus made to assume larger pro-
portions. One important piece of Aristotle's labor has
perished, namely, his "Collection of the Constitutions
of Greek Cities." This would have been of the utmost
interest as contributing to our knowledge of ancient
history; but it was merely a compilation of facts, and
probably would not have filled more than 400 or 500
pages. On the whole, it is not for voluminousness that
Aristotle is to be wondered at. The marvel begins
when we come to contemplate the solid and compressed
contents of his writings, their vast and various scope,
and the amount of original thought given through
them to the world. It would have been enough for
any one man's lasting reputation to have created the
science of Logic, as Aristotle did; but in addition to
this he wrote as a specialist, a discoverer, and an organ
izer, on at least a dozen other of the greatest subjects,
and on each of them he was for many centuries accepted
as the one authority. Such a position it is of course
impossible for any irfodern to attain, but it was given
to the powerful mind of Aristotle to attain it, owing to
t!io peculiar circumstances of his epoch, and to the
course of succeeding history.
44 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
CHAPTER III.
THE "ORGANON" OF ARISTOTLE.
"ORGANON," or "the instrument," was, as we have
said, the name given by Aristotle's ancient editors to
his collective works on Logic. And from this of course
Bacon took the title of " Novum Organum," or "the
new instrument," for his own work, in which the prin-
ciples and method of modern science were to be devel-
oped. We find the ' Orgauon " of Aristolle, as it stands
in our editions, to consist of six treatises, respectively
entitled "Categories," "On Interpretation," First Series
of Analytics," " Second Series of Analytics," <4 Topics,"
and "Fallacies " The two first of these are quite short,
both together filling less than 60 pages, but they have
been more read and commented on, especially in the
middle ages, than all the rest of Aristotle put together.
Thousands of scholars, who considered themselves
stanch Aristotelians, and as such fought the battle of
Nominalism against the Platonists, knew not a word of
Aristotle beyond these two treatises. And yet, unfor-
tunately, it is open to considerable doubt whether either
of the two was actually written by Aristotle himself.
During the first periods of his life, Aristotle had
gradually forged the chief doctrines of his philosophy,
and a peculiar set of terms in which they were em-
bodied. When he came to write continuously, in his
third period, he often assumed these doctrines and
terms as already known, having doubtless given them
considerable publicity in oral discourse, if not in essays
and short treatises which have now been lost. And
thus it frequently happens that we meet, with terms
and doctrines the meaning of which has to be galhen d
ARISTOTLE. 45
by implication, as it is never explicitly stated. This is
the case with Aristotle's celebrated doctrine of "the
Categories," to which he repeatedly refers, without ever
telling us clearly what position in his system it is meant
to hold. Perhaps the simplest account of this doctrine
is to suy that it sprang from an analysis and classi-
fication, made by Aristotle, of the things which men
speak of. "Category," in Greek, meant "speaking
of" something. Now, when we speak of anything, we
shall find (so Aristotle implies) that we are either
speaking of "a substance" as, for instance, of a parti-
cular man; or else that we are asserting something to
be the case about something else. And what we can
assert about anything else must be either (1) some
"quality" it possesses; (2) its "quantity;" (3) some
"relation" in which it stands; (4) the "place" of its
existence; (5) the " time" of its existence; (6) its
"action," or what it does; (7) its "passion," or what
is done to it; (8) its "attitude;" or (9) its "habit" or
dress. "Substance" and the above nine modes of
speaking of it make up the list of the Ten Categories, as
enumerated by Aristotle in his "Topics" (I. 9), and also
in the little treatise which professes to treat especially
of this subject.
A complete classification of the things which we can
speak of must include everything that we can think of,
and therefore all the world. But the " Ten Categories"
of Aristotle cannot fail to strike us as a curious sum-
mary of all things in heaven and earth. Attitude and
Habit, or Dress, the 9th and 10th "Categories," are
so exclusively human that we are surprised to find
them introduced among genera of far wider application.
Some critics say that the list is both redundant in one
way and deficient iu another. They say that it is
46 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
redundant because the whole thing might be cut down
to two heads Substance and Relation; and deficient
because to none of the "Categories" could mental states
and feelings be appropriately assigned. However, Aris-
totle might perhaps have said that they came under
Quality, Action, or Passion, us the case might be. In
other parts of his works lie gives enumerations of the
"Categories," naming 8, 6, or 4, instead of 10. In one
place ("Met." VI. iv.) he names the first five " Catego-
ries," with "Motion" added as a sixth. This last would
certainly, according to his view, include the various
operations of the mind. On the whole, Aristotle does
not appear to have laid much stress on his table of
" Categories" as containing an exhaustive division of all
tilings. Probably at first this table was the result of a
study in language, made at a time when logical and
even grammatical distinctions were in their infancy.
Aristotle took the idea of a particular man say Callias
and called this " Substance," and then tried how many
different kinds of assertions could be made about him;
and when he had reduced these to 9, he was perhaps
pleased, because " Substance," and the 9 kinds of asser-
tion made about it, made up 10 "Categories," and 10
is a perfect number. He afterwards dropped this par-
ticular number, and the "Categories" which had been
brought in at the end of the list to eke it out. He
seems always to have thought a classification of the ways
in which we speak of things to be useful for obtain-
ing clear notions. But he was far too sensible to apply
his original table of " Ten Categories" as a Procrustean
bed for measuring everything in the universe. At the
same time it must be confessed that it has been preva-
lently thought that he did PO. Thus Bacon contempt-
uously accused him of "constructing the world out of
ARISTOTLE. 47
his 'Categories.'" But this arose very much from the
fact that the first book of the "Organou" was read out
of all proportion more than Aristotle's great philosoph-
ical treatises, and so it came about that the Aristotelian
schoolmen attached an exaggerated importance to the
table of which it treats, and their sins have been im-
puted to the Stagirite himself.
The little book before us, which has exercised so
much influence, might be described as a logical mono-
graph on the characteristics of some of the ''Catego-
ries." After naming the ten, without any account of
the manner in which they are arrived at, it discusses to a
certain extent the first four only. Then some chapters
are appended, which may or may not have been origi-
nally a separate paper, on the different ways in which
things are called "opposite," etc. There are two or
three hypotheses possible about the book entitled
" Categories." Either it was an early essay written by
Aristotle himself, and preserved among his MSS. : or
it consists of notes from his school, made by some
scholar during his lifetime; or else it is the work of
some Peripatetic, drawn up after his death, when the
making of such tracts had become a fashion. Style is
not a sufficient guide in such a question, because the
Peripatetics closely imitated the manner of their master.
The chief reason for thinking that this book cannot
have been his is on account of the extreme nominalism
of its doctrine. Aristotle in the "Metaphysics" (VI.
vii. 4) asserts that the universal is the "first substance,"
while the individual has a secondary and derivative ex-
istence; but it is asserted in the "Categories" that the
individual is the first substance, and that if individuals
were swept away universals would cease to exist. Ar-
istotle may have said this in the early days of his antag-
48 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
onism against, Pinto; if so, he seems to have reverted
in maturer life to something nearer approaching, though
distinguishable from, Plato's view. There are, how-
ever, unphilosophical and un- Aristotelian things in the
book as, for instance, the saying ("Cat." vii. 21) that
" if knowledge ceased to exist, the thing known might
still remain." All this looks like the work of a clever
but somewhat materialistic follower of the Peripatetic
school.
The book which we find standing second in the
" Organon" is the little treatise "On Interpretation,"
or, as it might be called, "On Language as the Inter-
preter of Thought." Its subject is that which in Logic
is called the "proposition" that is to say, it treats of
sentences which affirm or deny something. Modern
Logic is divided into three parts, treating respectively
of terms, propositions, and syllogisms; and it might for
a moment be supposed that the three works, " Catego-
ries," "On Interpolation," and "Analytics," corre-
spond to these three divisions. But this is only superfi-
cially the case; for the "Categories" does not treat
generally of simple terms, it only touches on some
characteristics of the names of Substances, Qualities,
Quantities, and Relations. And the book "On Inter-
pretation" is not a prelude to the "Analytics;" it is a
separate logical monograph on some of the character-
istics of propositions, containing, at the same time,
some remarks on words, as fit or unfit to become terms
on indefinite words, " syn-categorematic" words,
etc. The great merit of this little treatise is undeniable,
especially when considered as containing matter which
though now long accepted and perfectly trite, was in a
great measure new in the time of Aristotle, and which
served towards the clearing up of many a confusion.
ARISTOTLE. 49
All those clear statements about the nature of the prop-
osition; on what is meant by " contrariety" and "con-,
tradiction;" on "modal propositions," or propositions
in which the amount of certainty is expressed by the
words "necessarily" or "probably;" and other points
which the reader will find in the second part of Whate-
ly's "Logic," are taken almost verbatim from this
treatise. There is one point of which Whately was
especially fond namely, that " truth" is the attribute of
a proposition or assertion and of nothing else, except in
a metaphorical way. This comes from the work before
us, where it is laid down as the first characteristic of a
proposition that it must be either true or false. A dis-
tinction, however, is here drawn, for propositions ad-
mit the idea of time. Now, it is the case with regard
to propositions of past and present time for instance,
"it is raining," or "it rained yesterday" that they
must either be true or false; but with regard to future
propositions this is not the case; for suppose we say
" there will be a battle to-morrow between the Turks
and Servians" this may be probable or improbable,
but it is neither true nor false. Obviously, there is no
existing fact with which to compare such propositions,
and thus to pronounce on their truth or falsehood. But
it is argued here that if future propositions, or prophe-
cies, could be pronounced to be certainly true, it would
do away with human agenc} r and free-will. This may
seem hardly worth enunciating, but it was new at the
time when this book was written.
The writer, in considering "modal propositions,"
which assert things as necessary, probable, or possible,
introduces some discussion on "possibility," and men-
tions three heads of the possible. Ordinarily, things in
this world are first possible, and then become realized,
50 TILE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
or actual; but there is another class of things which are
always actual, and the possibility in them is only latent
or implied such are the "first substances" which have
existed from all eternity; and thirdly, there is a class
of things which always seem possible, and yet can
never be realized for instance, the greatest number or
the least quantity, which, while we speak of them, no
one can ever say that he has reached. In this passage
we find ourselves rather in the region of Metaphysics
than of Logic, and ii is remarkable that here the phrase
" first substances" is used, not, as in the " Categories,"
to denote ordinary individual existences on the earth,
but as a term to denote the eternal, primeval substances
which have never not been, such as, in Aristotle's view,
were the stars, and sun, and planets.
The treatise "On Interpretation" was evidently not
written at the same time with the " Categories," or is by
a different author, and on a different plane of thought.
It is more philosophical and more Aristotelian ; it quotes
both the "Analytics" and the work "On the Soul, "and
therefore cannot be an early production of the Stagi-
rite's. There is a tradition that Andronicus of Rhodes
held that this treatise was not written by Aristotle at
all, while Ammonius, a great commentator, argued in
favor of its genuineness. Their arguments, which have
been preserved, do not seem conclusive one way or the
other. Perhaps the only reason against considering
this to have been the writing of Aristotle himself is,
that while it obviously is as late as the period of his
great treatises, it is not in the manner of those treatises.
On the whole, it seems safest to conclude that this little
book must consist of the notes of Aristotle's oral teaching
upon the elementary bases of Logic, faithfully recording
his ideas, and often the \r\ words which he had us*- !
ARISTOTLE. 51
We may set aside, then, the " Categories" and the
" Interpretation" as of doubtful origin, and as at all
events not having been originally intended for the
place which they have so long held in the forefront of
the writings of Aristotle. We turn to that which was,
so far as we know, in reality the opening treatise of
the Aristotelian Encyclopaedia namely, the " Topics;"
and there is some peculiarity to be remarked in the
very fact that the subject with which it deals should
have been the first to be taken in hand. We know that
Aristotle founded, and all but completed, the science of
Logic; but we are apt to forget that, when he began to
write, the very idea that there was, or could be, such a
science had never come into anybody's head. What
philosophers then knew about, and practiced, and for-
mulated, was not Logic, or the science of the laws of
reasoning, but Dialectic, or the art of discussion. This
art was by no means confined to philosophers, but it
was the fashion of the day, and was widely and con-
stantly in use in Athenian society, as an intellectual
game or fencing-match. The dialogues of Plato give us
dramatic specimens of the encounter of wits which might
be seen exhibited in numerous Athenian circles from
the middle of the fifth century B.C. down to the time
of Aristotle. That restless and intellectual people who,
three and a half centuries later, were described as
" spending their time in nothing else but cither to teller
to hear some new thing," were at an earlier period pos-
sessed by an insatiate appetite for discussion and con-
troversy, whether with a view to truth or to mere vic-
tory over an opponent. Dialectic then, as an art, was
thoroughly recognized, and all but universally prac-
ticed, yet still the fundamental principles on which it
must rest had never yet been properly drawn out, and
52 Tim ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
Aristotle seems to have felt it to be the first task for
one who would build up the entire fabric of knowledge,
to lay down the laws of Dialectic as the art and science
of method. " Dialectic," he says, "is useful for three
things: for exercise of the mind, for converse with
other men, and for knowing how to question and handle
the principles of philosophy." And the object of his
" Topics" is, as he tells us, " to discover a method by
which we shall be able to reason from probabilities on
any given question, and to defend a position without
being driven to contradict our own assertions."
Properly speaking, Dialectic, as defined by Aristotle,
ought not to come first in the order of sciences, for it
is a kind of applied reasoning ; it is reasoning applied
to that which is not certain, but only probable. There-
fore the general principles of reasoning should be drawn
out first, and then these should be shown in application
to the certainties of science, after which a subordinate
branch might be added on reasoning upon probabilities.
Aristotle, however, as we have said, did not set out
with the conception of Logic, or the science of reason-
ing, as existing by itself. This only gradually dawned
upon him, and it was out of his researches in Dialectic
that he was led to develop the idea of Logic. It was
in thinking out the rules of Dialectic that Aristotle dis-
covered the principles of the Syllogism, and he was
justly proud of the discovery. There are only two
passages in all his extant writings in which he speaks of
himself: one is that in which he apologizes for differing
from Plato, " because truth must be preferred to one's
friend;" the other is the passage at the end of the
"Fallacies" (which is a sort of appendix to the
" Topics"), where he refers to his services to Dialectic.
" In regard to the process of syllogizing," he says, "I
ARISTOTLE. 53
found positively nothing said before me: I had to
work it out for myself by long and laborious research."
The discovery of the structure of the syllogism that is
to say, of the forms in which men do, and must, reason
about a great many things in life, was of course very
useful for dialectical purposes, both for exposing fal-
lacy in others and for keeping one's self straight in con-
troversy. But Aristotle, while in the course of writing
his treatise on Dialectic, seems to have been impressed
with the independent importance of the theory of the
Syllogism, and of the necessity for a simple, unapplied
Logic. So, after completing seven books of his
"Topics," he dropped the subject, and went on to
write his first and second series of " Analytics;" and it
was only after he had finished these two great works
that he returned to complete the "Topics," by the ad-
dition of an eighth book.
The "Topics," as their name implies, are the books
"treating of places," and "places" are seats of argu-
ments, or matters in which arguments may be found.
Aristotle in a long course of observation and analysis
had apparently noted down the heads of reasonings
most likely to be available for either attack or defence
in dialectical controversy, and he here sets these forth
in seven books. His object is to educate the reader to
be a skillful dialectician in Athenian arenas. He names
the four chief instruments for this purpose: 1st, To
make a large collection of propositions i.e., authorita-
tive sayings, whether of great men or of the many; 2d,
To study the different senses in which terms are used;
3d, To detect differences; 4th, To note resemblances.
The last three out of these four suggestions are ex-
panded at great length, and Aristotle tells us how to
use various logical distinctions, here brought forward
54 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
for the first time, in pulling to pieces the arguments of
an opponent for instance, how to use the heads of pretl-
icables (genus, differentia, proprium, and accident), or
the categories, or the several kinds of logical opposition,
for this purpose. The first seven books of the " Topics"
scarcely touch at all upon dialectical method, they are
quite taken up with a wearisome aud seemingly endless
list of heads of argumentation. The eighth book, writ-
ten later, adds some counsel upon the nrraiigeimiit Jind
marshalling of your arguments, whether v<.u be the re-
spondent defending a thesis, or the interrogator who
attacks it. Some of these pieces of advice might be
characterized as "dodges;" for instance, when we are
told how to conceal from our adversary what we want
to prove, till we have got him to admit something which
would really imply the point we are aiming at. In
Dialectic, as in love and war, almost everything was
fair. And yet Aristotle concludes his treatise by say-
ing, "You must, however, take care not to carry en
this exercise with every one, especially with a vulgar-
minded man. With some persons the dispute cannot
fail to take a discreditable turn. When the respondent
tries to make a show of escaping by unworthy maneu-
vers, the questioner on his part must be unscrupulous
also in syllogizing; but this is a disgraceful scene. To
keep clear of such abusive discourse, you must be cau-
tious not to discourse with commonplace, unprepared
respondents."
Athenian Dialectic has passed away, though it had a
faint and clumsy revival in the "Disputations" of the
middle ages. Even as a preparation for ordinary con-
troversy and debate, it is questionable whether a study
of Aristotle's "Topics" would nowadays be found use-
ful, except so far as the logical distinctions which it
ARISTOTLE. 55
contains might sharpen the intellect. But this latter
result might equally well be attained by studying the
ordinary logics into which all those distinctions have
been transplanted. The "Topics," at the time when it
was written, was a work of original penetration, and of
vast accumulative labor. Aristotle perhaps ought to
have foreseen that it would not be worth his while to
reduce Athenian Dialectic to a methodized system, but
he did not; and much of what he accumulated for one
purpose, came to have great value for another. The
chief merit of the " Topics" of Aristotle is, that while
intended to be the permanent regulator of Dialectic, it
became in reality the cradle of Logic.
Aristotle himself did not use the word "Logic,"
which was probably invented afterwards by the Stoics;
he spoke of " Analytic," by which he meant the science
of analyzing the forms of reasoning. We come now to
his " Prior and Posterior" (or First and Second Series
of) " Analytics." In these works he has produced noth-
ing temporary, or of merely antiquarian interest, but an
addition to human knowledge as complete in itself, as
permanent, and as irrefragable, as the Geometry of
Euclid. It is true that Aristotle did not cover and ex-
haust the entire field in reasoning, just as Euclid did
not exhaust the theory of all the properties of space.
But so far as he went Aristotle was perfect. His work
took its origin out of the examination of dialectical con-
troversies, which, at the time when he wrote, much
predominated over all that we should think worthy of
the name of physical science, and therefore his aim was
limited to the analysis of deductive reasonings. But
men still reason deductively, and will always do so;
during a great part of life we are employed, not in find-
ing out new laws of nature, but in applying what we
56 THE ELZKV1R LIBRARY.
knew before, in appealing to general beliefs, or sup-
posed classes of facts, and in drawing our positive or
negative conclusions accordingly. To all this process,
whenever it occurs, the "Analytics" of Aristotle are as
applicable as the principles of Geometry are to every
fresh mensuration.
Aristotle invented the word "Syllogism," for the pro-
cess of putting two assertions together and out of them
deducing a third. This word indeed existed before in
Greek literature, but in a general sense, meaning "com-
putation," " reckoning" or " consideration." But Aris-
totle stamped it with the technical meaning which it
has ever since borne. In introducing the word, how-
ever, it must not be supposed that he introduced, or
invented, the process of reasoning to which he applied
it, or that he ever pretended to do so. Yet he has been
ridiculed, as if this had been the case as for instance
by Locke, who says that it would be strange if God
had made men two-legged, and left it to Aristotle to
make them rational! The grammarian who first dis-
tinguished nouns from verbs and gave them cheir names,
did not invent nouns and verbs, but only called atten-
tion to their existence in language; and he who first
made rules of syntax was only recording the ways in
which men naturally speak and write, not making in-
novations in language; and so Aristotle with his " Syl-
logism" only clearly pointed out a process which had
always, though unconsciously, been carried on. There
is no doubt that, ever since they have possessed reason
at all, men have made syllogisms, though, like M. Jour-
dam making prose, they have for the most part been
unaware of it.
The "First Series of Analytics" is entirely devoted
to the theory of the Syllogism, with a few collateral dis-
ARISTOTLE. 57
missions. It has no connection with the treatise " On
Interpretation," from which, in phraseology and some
points of doctrine, it differs. It is a work which must
excite our wonder if we consider the serried mass of ob-
servations which it contains, and the absolutely com-
plete way in which it constructs a science and provides
for it an appropriate nomenclature. Though countless
generations of commentators and schoolmen have been
busy with the "Analytics," and many modern philoso-
phers have independently treated of Logic, none of
them have been able to add a single point of any im-
portance to Aristotle's theory of deductive reasoning.
The " Analytics" are of course not light reading. The
style is severely scientific, and concisely expository; not
a single grace of ornament, not a superfluous word, is
admitted. As Aristotle introduced into these treatises
a copious use of the letters A, B, C, to denote the three
terms of the syllogism, many parts read like Euclid
with the diagrams omitted. It is not necessary to at-
tempt any further description of the contents, or to give
here an account of the figures and moods of syllogisms,
of conversion of propositions, reduction of syllogisms
to the first figure, and the rest, because all these things
have found their way into modern compendium^. Are
they not written in Aldrich, and Hansel, and Whately,
many other books?
Yet there is one passage of the " Prior Analytics"
which we must quote in bare justice to Aristotle.
Owing to the too exclusive study of his logical works
in the middle ages, and owing to modern writers iden-
tifying him with the absurdities of his followers, an
idea arose that he, like the least judicious of the school
men, thought that all reasoning should be through syl-
logisms, that nature could be expounded by means of
58 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
syllogisms, and that syllogisms were a source of knowl-
edge. Hence came protests like that of Bacon, that
"the syllogism is unequal to the subtlety of nature."
But nothing could be further from the truth than Hie
whole idea. The reader may be assured that on a point
of this kind Aristotle was as sensible as Lord Bacon or
John Stuart Mill. After showing that syllogisms are
constantly used, and after analyzing their form, and
showing on what their validity depends, he proceeds to
make some remarks on the way in which the major
premise, or general statement in the syllogism, is to be
obtained. He says ("Prior Anal." I. xxx.): "There is
the same course to be pursued in philosophy, and in
every science or branch of knowledge. You must study
facts. Experience alone can give you general princi-
ples on any subject. This is the case in astronomy,
which is based on the observation of astronomical
phenomena; and it is the case with every branch of
science or art. When the facts in each branch are
brought together, it will be the province of the logician
to set out the demonstrations in a manner clear and fit
for use. When the investigation into nature is com-
plete, you will be able in some cases to exhibit a demon-
stration; in other cases you will have to say that demon-
stration is not attainable." Bacon knew very little
Aristotle at first hand; and he cannot have known this
passage, else its overwhelming good sense must have
stopped many of his remarks. And Aristotle in prac-
tice was quite true to the principles here announced.
In his "Ethics," "Politics," and "Physics," he does
not pedantically drag in the syllogism, but masses facts
together, and makes penetrating remarks upon them,
and discusses freely, by means of analogy, comparison,
ARISTOTLE. 59
and intuition, very much as the ablest writers of the
present day would do.
At the same time it must be admitted that, after fully
explaining the deductive process, he left the theory of
the inductive process, by which general laws are ascer-
tained, almost entirely unexplored. He briefly observes
("Prior Anal." II. xxiii.) that "induction, or the syl-
logism that arises from it, consists in proving the major
term of the middle by means of the minor." In other
words, suppose that we are proving that animals with-
out a gall are long-lived, we do so through our knowl-
edge that man, the horse, and the mule have no gall.
Now, in a natural deductive syllogism, we should say
All animals without a gall are long-lived ;
Man, the horse, and the mule, have no gall;
Therefore they are long-lived.
"Long-lived" is here the major term; but in the induc-
tive process we prove it of the middle term, " animals
without a gall," by means of the minor term, "man,
the horse, and the mule." So we require to state the
inductive S3 r llogism thus:
Man, the horse, and the mule are long-lived;
Man, the horse, and the mule are animals without a gall ;
Therefore (all) animals without a gall are long-lived.
Aristotle adds that, for the validity of this reasoning,
you require to have an intuition in your reason that
"man, the horse, and the mule" are, or adequately
represent, the whole class of animals without a gall.
This is, in fact, the crucial question in the inductive
process Do the instances you have got adequately
represent the whole class of similar instances, so as to
give you the key to a law of nature? For instance, if
it is found that in two or three cases a particular treat'
60 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
ment cures the cholera, how can you tell whether the
induction is adequate, and that you are justified in as-
serting, as a general principle, that "such and such a
treatment cures the cholera"? Modern logic tells us
that a statement of the kind requires verification; and
modern writers, such as Bacon, Whewell, and Mill, are
at great pains to point out the best methods of verifica-
tion Avhich after all consist in observing and experi-
menting further; in eliminating all accidental circum-
stances; in recording, and, if possible, accounting for,
the facts which go against your principle; and, finally,
in either rejecting it as unproven, or bringing it out as
completely established after passing through the ordeal
of thorough examination. But the minute and cautious
methods of experiment and observation which have
gradually come into use among scientific men in modern
times were unknown in the days of Aristotle; so it is
not to be wondered at that, having so much else to
think of, he did not enter upon this field of inquiry.
He tells us repeatedly that we must draw our general
principles from familiarity with particular facts; but
instead of suggesting methods of verification for the
validity of those principles, he merely says that they
must have the sanction of our reason. It seems to
have been his idea that, after gathering facts up to
a certain point, a flash of intuition would supervene,
telling us, " This is a law." Such, no doubt, has often
been the case, as in Newton's famous discovery of the
law of gravitation from seeing an apple fall. Yet still,
in the ordinary course of science, verification ought al-
ways to be at hand. And Aristotle, in omitting to pro-
vide for this, left a blank in his theory of the acquire-
ment of knowledge.
, Aristotle, like Plato, drew a strong line of demarka-
ARISTOTLE. 61
tion between matters in which you can have, and those
in which you cannot have, certainty; in other words,
between the region of opinion and the region of science.
Syllogistic reasoning is applicable both to certainties
and probabilities, and as such it had been formally
drawn out in the " First Analytics." Its application
by means of Dialectic to matters of opinion had been
set forth (in anticipation of the natural order of treat-
ment) in the " Topics;" and now Aristotle proceeded in
his " Second Series of Analytics" to write the logic of
science, and to exhibit the syllogism as the organ of
demonstration.
The attitude of Science is of course different from
that of Dialectic. In Dialectic two disputants are re-
quired, one of whom is to maintain a thesis, while the
other by questioning is to endeavor to draw from him
some admission which shall be repugnant to that thesis.
In Science, on the other hand, we are not to suppose
two disputants, but a teacher and a learner. Thus the
" Second Analytics" begin with the words "All
teaching and all intellectual learning arises out of previ-
ously existing knowledge." This points at once to a
characteristic of Aristotle's view of Science. In modern
times we associate Science most commonly with the
idea of the inductive accumulation of knowledge; and
thus we talk of "scientific inquiry;" but Aristotle
thinks of Science as deductive and expository, and iden-
tifies it with " teaching." If we look at the specimens
of scientific reasoning which he gives us in this book,
we shall find that a large proportion of them are taken
from Geometry. Next to this, the science most fre.
quently appealed to is Astronomy. But he also men.,
tions Arithmetic, Optics, Mechanics, Stereometry, Har
monies, and Medicine. Sometimes he refers to quea-
62 THE ELZEVIR LIBRAE F.
tions of Natural History, and at other times to questions
of Botany. He even applies his scientific method to
Ethics, and shows how \\e are to obtain a definition of
the virtue of magnanimity, by observing the leading
characteristics of those who are called magnanimous.
The Sciences are not classified here, but a comparative
scale of perfection among tiiem is indicated; and those
are generally laid down to be the most perfect Sciences
which are the most elementary and abstract. But
with all this leaning towards an ideal of pure and ab-
stract science, it is remarkable how much the Sciences
of Observation are considered in this book, and what
an enlightened and modern atmosphere breathes through
many parts of it.
In developing his idea of Science, Aristotle takes oc-
casion to controvert several opinions which had found
vogue in his day. One of these was that everything in
Science could be proved. Some men had a notion that
you could go back ad infinitum in proving the princi-
ciples from which your science was deduced: "This
principle was true because of that, and that because of
something else, and so on forever." Others fancied
that by a kind of circular reasoning the propositions of
Science might all be made to prove each other. " No,"
says Aristotle, "Science must commence from some-
thing that is not proved at all.'' Science must start
from im-mediate principles i.e., principles that cannot
be established by any middle term, or, in oilier words,
by any syllogistic reasoning. The axioms of Euclid
may give us a specimen of such principles, but, accord-
ing to Aristotle, each science had its own "primary
universal, and immediate principles;" these principles,
we are distinctly told, are not innate, but the source of
them is the Nous or Reason, which (as we have seen)
ARISTOTLE. S3
attains them intuitively, when sufficiently advised, so to
speak, by a course of inductive observation. Again,
Aristotle brings out here his opposition to Plato's theory
of Ideas: he says, that it is not necessary for Science
that the Ideas of things should have a separate exist-
ence, but only that universal ideas, or genera, should be
capable of being predicated of many individuals. Thi?
view seems to correspond with what, in modern times,
has been called Conceptualism, and which is a compro-
mise between Nominalism and Realism.
These, however, are metaphysical distinctions. An-
other point more closely belonging to the Logic of Sci-
ence is brought out against Plato namely, the separate-
ness of the Sciences, which follows from each Science
having its own appropriate principles. Plato con-
ceived, or appeared to do so, that from the principles
of Philosophy (i.e., Metaphysics) right doctrines of
Ethics and Politics could be deduced. Hence he said,
"It will never be well with the State till the kings are
philosophers, or the philosophers kings." Aristotle, on
the other hand, considered the speculative conception
of the good, as entertained by a metaphysician, to be
quite distinct from the practical conception of the good
which occupies the statesman or the moralist. In many
ways this demarkation by Aristotle of the separate
spheres of different Sciences gave rise to great clearness
of view.
The Logic of Science deals, as might be expected,
with the method of defining things that is, of saj'ing
what they are. But we do not here find the scholastic
idea of definition, per genus et differentiam , by stating
the class to which a thing belongs, and the character*
istic which separates it from the rest of that class.
Aristotle takes the more real and thorough position
54 I HE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
that, to define a thing adequately, you must state its
cause. " Science itself," he says, " is knowledge of a
cause." But what is cause? There are four kinds:
the "formal," which is the whole nature of a thing,
being the sum of the other three causes; the "ma-
terial," or the antecedents out of which the thing arises;
the "efficient," or motive power; and the "final," or
object aimed at. Speaking generally, the causes most
in use for scientific definitions are the efficient and the
final. "We define an eclipse of the moon by its efficient
cause the interposition of the earth. We define a
house by its final cause a structure for the sake of
shelter.
One quotation, as a specimen, may conclude these
glimpses of the "Later Analytics," or Aristotle's
Logic of Science: "Nature," he says, "presents a
perpetual cycle of occurrences. When the earth is wet
with rain, an exhalation rises; when an exhalation
rises, a cloud forms; when a cloud forms, rain follows,
and the earth is saturated: so that the same term
recurs after a cycle of transformations. Every occur-
rence has another for its consequent, and this conse-
quent another, and so on, till we are brought round to
the primary occurrence."
After finishing his " Later Analytics," Aristotle seems
to have taken up Rhetoric, and to have written the
main part of his treatise on that subject. He then re-
verted to Dialectic, and completed his exposition of it
by writing his book on " Sophistical Confutations,"
which now stands as the conclusion of the "Organon."
The matter treated of in this book has a close connec-
tion with that treated of in the " Topics. " The practice
of Dialectic at Athens had given scope to a class, which
gradually arose, of professional and paid disputants,
AH'iSTVTLE. 65
or professors and teachers of the art of controversy.
This professional class, who were called the " Sophists,"
got a bad name in antiquity; and Aristotle treats them
disparagingly as mere charlatans. Thus while Conten-
tiousness is arguing for victory, he describes Sophistry
as arguing for gain. The Sophist, according to Aristo-
tle, tried to confute people and make them look foolish,
employing for this purpose, not fair arguments, but
quibbles and fallacies; and all this was done iu order to
be thought clever and to get pupils. An amusing
picture of this sort of process is given in Plato's dia
logue called "Euthydemus," where two professionals
are represented as bamboozling with verbal tricks an
ingenuous youth, until Socrates by his dialectical acu-
men and superior wit rescues the victim from his tor-
mentors, and turns the tables upon them. The follow-
ing is a specimen of the "sophistical confutations" in
" Euthydernus:" Who learn, " the wise or the unwise?"
"The wise," is the reply, given with blushing and
hesitation. "And yet when you learned you did not
know and were not wise." Who are they who learn
the dictation of the grammar-master, the wise bo} r s or
the foolish boys?" "The wise." " Then after all the
wise learn." "And do they learn what they know or
what they do not know?" " The latter." " And dicta,
tion is a dictation of letters?" "Yes." "And you know
letters?" " Yes." " Then you learn what you know.'
"But is not learning acquiring knowledge?" "Yes."
"And you acquire that which you have not got
already?" "Yes." "Then you learn that which you
did not know."*
Plato's picture is, doubtless, a caricature, exaggerat-
*See Professor Jowett's Introduction to " Euthydemus" in hia
" Dialogues of Plato," i. p. 184, 2d ed.
! 66 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
ing the fallacious practice of the lower sort of profes*
sional disputants to be met with in those days at Athens.
But the dialogue "Euthydemus" seems to have sug-
gested to the scientific mind of Aristotle the idea of
classifying all the fallacies that had been or could be
employed in argument, and the "Sophistical Confuta-
tions" is the result. To the value of this book it makes
no difference how far the quibbles and deceptive reason-
ings adduced had been actually used by certain definite
individuals for mercenary purposes, or whether, histori-
cally speaking, the professional " Sophists" of Greece
were as bad as Plato had represented them. Putting
the "Sophists" of Greece quite out of consideration,
fallacy, whether voluntery or involuntary, will still
remain, and is still always incident to human reasoning.
And this it is which Aristotle undertakes to classify. It
might be thought that errors in reasoning were infinite
in number, and incapable of being reduced to definite
species; but this is not the case, because every unsound
reasoning is the counterfeit of some sound reasoning, and
only gains credence as such. But the forms of sound
reasoning are strictly limited in number, and therefore
the forms of fallacy must be limited also. Ambiguity
in language is, of course, one main source of fallacy;
and fallacy arises whenever either the major, the minor,
or the middle term of a syllogism is used with a double
meaning. It will be seen above that the quibblers in
" Euthydemus" employ the terms "wise," "learn," and
" know" in double senses so as to cause confusion.
Aristotle's account of the fallacies attaching to syl-
logistic or deductive reasoning is complete and exhaust-
ive, and has been the source of all that has subsequently
been writ en on the subject. The fallacies of amphibo-
lia, accidens, a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simplicitcr,
ARISTOTLE. 67
ignoratio elencki, petitio principii, consequents, non causa
pro causa, and plures inter rogationes have become the
property of modern times, with names Latinized from
those by which Aristotle first distinguished them; and
in Whately's and other compendiums, they may be
found duly explained. It is true that Aristotle does not
investigate the sources of error attaching to the induc-
tive process; the "idols of the tribe" and "of the den"
he left for Bacon to denounce; and the fallacies of " in-
spection," colligation and the rest to be supplied by
Whewell and Mill. But with regard to this, it must
be observed that he treats of the doctrine of Fallacies
as supplementaiy, not to the Logic of Science, but to
Dialectic. All through the "Sophistical Confutations"
we have a background of Hellenic disputation, the
questioner and the answerer are hotly engaged, and the
bystanders keenly interested, Aristotle in analyzing
fallacy is primarily contributing artistic rules for the con-
duct of the game. The local and temporary object has
passed away, and much of the original importance of
the book has accordingly been lost; but the distinctions
which were here for the first time drawn out have passed
over into Logic, and have doubtless contributed some-
what to clear up the thought and language cf Europe.
CHAPTER IV.
ARISTOTLE'S "RHETORIC" AND "ART OF POETRY."
WE have seen how Aristotle, when a young man,
during his first residence at Athens, opened a school of
Rhetoric, in rivalry to the veteran Isocrates. During
his second residence, he presided over a school, not of
Rhetoric alone, but of Philosophy and of all knowK
68 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
edge. Yet it is said that in the Peripatetic school
" Rhetoric was both scientifically and assiduously
taught."* Rhetoric had now, however, become for
Aristotle merely one in lhat wide range of sciences, each
of which he had set himself, as far as possible, to bring
to perfection. He turned to it, in due course, from his
achievements in Logic, and produced his great treatise
on this subject. Goethe said of his "Faust " that " he
had carried it for twenty years in his head, till it had
become pure gold." The first part of the " Rhetoric"
of Aristotle bears marks of having gone through a
similar process. The outlines of its arrangement are
characterized by luminous simplicity, the result of long
analytic reflection; the scientific exposition is made in
a style which is, for Aristotle, remarkably easy and
flowing; and each part of the subject is adorned with a
wealth of illustration which indicates the accumulation
of a lifetime.
Several treatises on Rhetoric had appeared in Greece
before Aristotle sat down to write about it. Only one
of these, but perhaps the best of them, has come down
to us. Curiously enough it has been preserved among
the works of Aristotle, as if it had been written by him,
and it goes by the name of the " Rhetoric addressed to
Alexander," having a spurious dedication to Alexander
the Great tacked on to it. It is believed by scholars to
be the work of Anaximenes of Lampsacus, an eminent
historian and rhetorician contemporary with Aristotle.
It is entirely practical in its aim, but it bears traces
of the sophistical leaven, and deals overmuch in those
tricks of argument and disputation which got the
* Professor Jebb's " Attic Orators," il. 431. See Diog La,ert.,
V. i. 3.
AllISTOTLE. 69
Sophists their bad name. The other lost systems of
Rhetoric by Corax, Tisias, Antiphon, Gorgias, Thrasy-
machus, and others, appear to have been all strictly
practical. Aristotle complains* that they confined
themselves too much to treating of forensic oratory,
and to expounding the methods best adapted for work-
ing on the feelings of a jury. His own aim is broader
and more philosophical: while he defines Rhetoric as
' the art of seeing what elements of persuasion attach
to any subject," he traces out these "elements of per-
suasion" to their root in the principles of human nature.
The "sources of persuasion" Aristotle reduces to
three heads: first, the personal character which the
orator is able to exhibit or assume; second, the mood
into which he is able to bring his hearers; third, the
arguments or apparent arguments which he can adduce.
That this is a correct division, we can see in a moment
by applying it to any great piece of oratory in ancient
or modern times. For instance, take the speech of
Antony over the body of Julius Caesar, as imagined by
Shakespeare, here the orator's first object evidently is
to inspire belief in himself as "a plain, blunt man,"
with no ulterior purposes, merely devoted to his friend,
bewildered by the death of that friend, unable tc un-
derstand how confessedly "honorable" men should
have brought it about. Accordingly, in the first pause
of the speech the citizens say to each other:
" 2d Cit. Poor soul ! his eyes are red as fire with weeping.
3d Cit. There's not a nobler man in Rome than Antony."
* There was another system of Rhetoric, which, perhaps,
should not be included in this number namely, the " Rhetoric
of Theodectes " which Aristotle refers to in his third book (III.
ix. 10), as containing & classification of prose periods. There was
a tradition that Aristotle contributed an introduction to the
" Rhetoric of Theodectes. "
70 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
The second object is to produce in the hearers a frame of
miud favorable to the designs of the orator, who accord-
ingly awakens in them the. passions of gratitude and love
towards the memory of Csesar by the recital of his good
deeds, then leads them on to pity and indignation at the
thought of the injustice done to him, and finally rouses
them to horror and rage by the actual sight of his
wounded corpse. Besides this assumption of a par-
ticular character, and these appeals to the passions,
there are intellectual arguments running through the
speech, to the effect that Ca3sar was unjustly accused of
ambition, and unjustly put to death. And the practical
conclusion is urged on the hearers by all these various
means that they should rise in revolt and avenge the
death of Caesar upon his murderers.
This imaginary speech belongs, of course, to the class
of deliberative oratory, the object of which is to recom-
mend some course of action. This kind, says Aristotle,
deals with the furure; while judicial oratory, in crim-
inal or civil cases, endeavors to give a certain com-
plexion to the transactions of the past. And there is
a third kind, the oratory of display, which, in proposing
toasts and the like, deals chiefly in descriptions of the
present. In each of the three kinds of oratory, the three
"sources of persuasion" above noted, must be employed.
But in order to exhibit the features of a particular char-
acter the orator must know the moral nature of man
in its various phases; and, in order to work upon the
feelings, he must know, so to speak, the inner anatomy
of the feelings. A knowledge of human nature is, of
course, essential for producing persuasion in the minds
of men, and Aristotle thus says that Rhetoric is a com.
pound of Logic and Moral Philosophy. In this trea-
tise he supplies a rich fund of psychological remarks on
ARISTOTLE. 71
the various passions and characteristics of men. In the
condensed knowledge of the world which it displays the
" Rhetoric" might be compared with Bacon's "Essays."
It might be compared also with them in this respect
that a bad and Machiavellian use might certainly be
made of some of the suggestions which it contains,
though Aristotle professes to give them solely to be
used in the cause of truth and justice.
With regard to the third "source of persuasion"
the arguments used by an orator must not be scientific
demonstrations, nor even dialectical syllogisms, but
rhetorical arguments, such as the conditions and cir-
cumstances of oratory will admit. For the orator is not
like the scientific demonstrator before his pupils, nor
is he like the dialectician with his respondent, who will
grant him the premises of his argument. The orator
has to address a crowd of listeners, with whom as yet he
is not in relation; he has to catch, without fatiguing,
their attention, and to suggest conclusions without
going through every step of the inference. All reason-
ing, however, must be either inductive or deductive,
and the arguments of Rhetoric must each belong to one
of these two forms. Aristotle, adapting special names
for the purpose, says that the enthymeme of Rhetoric
answers to the syllogism of Logic, and that the example
of Rhetoric answers to the induction of Logic.
The word "enthymeme" seems to mean etymologi-
cally "a putting into one's mind," or "a suggestion."
It is a rhetorical syllogism with premises constructed
out of "likelihoods," or " signs." Some critics consider
that it was essential to the " enthymeme" to have one of
its premises suppressed ; but Aristotle only says ("Rhet."
I. ii. 13) that this was frequently the case. The real
characteristic of the " enthymeme" was its suggestive,
72 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY,
but non-conclusive, character; for the premises, even
if expressed in full, would not be sufficient to enforce
the conclusion which is pointed at. The " euthymeme"
argues either from a "likelihood," that is a cause
which might produce a given effect, though it is not
certain to do so; or else from a "sign," that is an
effect which might have been produced by a given
cause, though it might also have been produced by
something else. To prove that A murdered B, you
may argue from the " likelihood " that he would do so,
because he was known tc have been at feud with him;
or from the "sign" that A had blood upon him. Let
us observe some of the " enthyn^emes" in the speech of
Antony:
(1.) " He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
(2.) When that the poor have cried, Ceesar hath wept;
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.
(3.) You all did see, that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?"
These three arguments are based on "signs;" acts ot
Caesar are adduced as showing in him a disinterested-
ness, a tenderness of heart, and a modesty which would
be incompatible with selfish ambition. But the reason-
ing is not conclusive, since the acts mentioned might
have flowed from other sources than good qualities of
the heart they might have been done " with a motive."
However, there is fully as much cogency here as can
ordinarily be expected to be found in the deductions of
an orator. The only inductive reasoning of which ora-
tory is capable is the " example," or historical instance.
Instead of gathering sufficient instances to establish a
lg,w, which would be the scientific method, the orator
ARISTOTLE. 73
quotes one instance pointing in the direction of a law.
Thus " Dionysius, in asking to be allowed a body-guard,
aims at establishing a tyranny; did not Pisistratus
do just the same?" The "example" is, of course, an
arguing by analogy, and the question must always be
whether the cases compared with each other are really
analogous, or whether there is any essential difference
in the circumstances. Aristotle says that some orators
deal more in examples, others more in enthymemes.
He is inclined to think that in obtaining applause the
enthymemes are the more successful.
After thus setting forth the general framework of
oratory, Aristotle proceeds to make suggestions with
regard to the matter of speeches. This will naturally
be different hi kind for the three different kinds of
oratory. Him who is to practice deliberative oratory,
Aristotle advises to study and make himself well ac-
quainted with five points relative to the State to which
he belongs: its finance; its foreign relations; the state
of its defenses; its imports and exports; and its system
of law.* In reference to the last of these, Aristotle
recommends the comparative study of political consti-
tutions, and for that end that the accounts of travelers
should be read. He adds that for political debate in
general a knowledge of the works of historians is a
valuable preparation.
These, however, are mere hints, directing the student
to funds of information which lie outside of the art of
Rhetoric. Aristotle proceeds to furnish the orator with
definitions and theories which he considered (at all
events when he was writing this treatise) to belong to
* The same points are specified in the advice given by Socrates
to a young politician Xenophon " Memorab. 1 ' iii. 6.
74 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
Rhetoric itself, though it would have perhaps been a
better classification of science if he had merely indi-
cated that a knowledge of these matters was necessary,
and had referred the student to Moral Philosophy for full
particulars with regard to them. The result is that he
gives a brilliant summary by anticipation of a consid-
erable portion of his "Ethics." As in the " Topics" he
thought it necessary to make long lists of commonplaces
for the use of the dialectician, so here he gives lists of
heads to be borne in mind by the deliberative orator,
It is not necessary for us to follow Aristotle in anticipat-
ing his theory of morals. It need only be mentioned
that, after premising that the idea of obtaining personal
good, or happiness, is what actuates men in deliberation,
lie proceeds to give what may be called a provisional
theory of happiness and its component parts; he then
specifies thirty different grounds on which a thing
might be recommended as good, and forty other grounds
upon which a thing might be shown to be compara-
tively good, or better than something else. He winds
up his instructions for the deliberate orator with brief
remarks on the scope and character of different forms of
government, which are afterwards fully expanded in the
"Politics."
Ihe oratory of display deals especially with praise
and eulogy, as we know from the specimens of it most
faitiliar to us the funeral oration, and the post-
prandial speech. The orator in this kind must have
betore him a c lear idea of what constitutes virtue, and
of \vhat is, or is considered, most honorable among
men. And for his benefit Aristotle inserts a chapter on
these subjects, though they more properly belong to
nxral science. He adds, however, some hints on the
rhetorical device of amplification in laudatory, or other,
ARISTOTLE. 75
statements. He appends the remark that a knowledge
of the theory of virtue is necessary for the deliberative
orator also, for the purposes of exhortation and ad-
vice. He thus would evidently class hortative addresses,
like the modern sermon, under the head of deliberative
oratory.
For the use of the forensic orator, who has to argue
in accusation or defense, the following equipment of
knowledge is provided by Aristotle: 1st, A brief sum-
mary of the motives of human action ; 2d, An analytical
account of pleasure and things pleasurable for these
figure most prominently among human motives; 3d, An
analysis of the moods of mind in which men commit
injustice; 4th, A distinction between different kinds
of law and right; 5th, Remarks on dsgrees of guilt;
and, 6th, Hints for dealing with statutes, documents,
and the evidence of witnesses whether these be for or
against the orator. Under the 4th head, Aristotle has
some fine remarks on the universal law of nature, and
on equity.* As a specimen the latter may be quoted:
" It is equity to pardon human feelings, and to look
to the lawgiver, and not to the law; to the spirit, and
not to the letter; to the intention, and not to the
action; to the whole, and not to the part; to the char-
acter of the actor in the long-run, and not in the pres-
ent moment; to remember good rather than evil, and
good that one has received rather than good that one
has done; to bear being injured; to wish to settle a
matter bywords rather than by deeds; lastly, to pre-
fer arbitration to judgment, for the arbitrator sees what
is equitable, but the judge only the law, and for this
* Epieikeia that quality which Mr Matthew Arnold defines
as " a sweet reasonableness."
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an arbitrator was first appointed, in order that equity
might flourish."
So much for the materials of oratory. In making
use of them it will be further necessary for the orator
to be acquainted with the leading passions and dis-
positions of men, in order that he may successfully
appeal to the feelings of his hearers. Accordingly,
the second book of the "Rhetoric" supplies him with
a treatise on the characteristics of Anger, Placability,
Friendliness, Hatred, Fear, Shame, Gratitude, Pity, In-
dignation, Envy, and Emulation ; of the three stages of
human life Youth, Maturity, and Old Age; and of the
three social conditions Rank, Wealth, and Power. In
these disquisitions there is, probably, embodied much
of the collective wisdom of Greece; but there is, doubt-
less, also a great deal of original analysis, worked out
by Aristotle himself once for all, and which has re-
mained valid ever since. Such, for instance, are
his six points of contrast between Anger and Hatred
("Rhet."H.iv. 30):
1st, Anger rises out of something personal to our-
selves; Hatred is independent of this. We may hate a
man merely because we conceive him to be of a cer-
tain description. 3d, Anger is invariably against in-
dividuals; Hatred may embrace whole classes. 3d,
Anger is to be remedied by time; Hatred is incurable.
4th, Anger wishes to inflict pain, so that its operation
may be felt and acknowledged, and thus satisfaction
obtained; Hatred wishes nothing of the kind it
merely wishes that a mischief may be done, without
caring that the source of it be known. 5th, Anger is
a painful feeling; but Hatred not. 6th, Anger, when
a certain amount of pain has been inflicted upon its
ARISTOTLE. 77
object, may easily turn into pity; Hatred, under all
circumstances, is incapable of this it desires nothing
less than the absolute destruction and non-existence of
its object.'"
"With all his subtlety and knowledge of the worl d
Aristotle does not exhibit any of the cynicism of
Hobbes or Rochefoucauld. He is far from denying the
existence of disinterested and noble feelings. Thus,
for instance, he defines friendly feeling to consist in
"the wishing a person what we think good, for his
sake and not for our own, and as far as is in our power,
the exerting ourselves to procure it." Pity he defines
to be "a sort of pain occasioned by the appearance of a
hurtful or destructive ill (such as one's self or one's con-
nections might possibly have to endure) happening
to one who does not deserve it." Here fellow-feeling
is mentioned as necessary for realizing the ills which
excite our pity, but that by no means reduces pity to
a mere selfish apprehension on our own account.
" The essence of pity," says Aristotle elsewhere ("Poet."
xxv.), "is that it is caused by the sight of undeserved
calamity." Thus it proceeds from a sense of moral
justice arising in the heart. Aristotle does not regard
men as the natural enemies of each other; on the
contrary, he thinks benevolent feelings to be natural,
and to play a considerable part in the organization of
society. He defines "kindness"* to be "that quality
* Charts, a word which can hardly be translated, as it means
not only kindness, grace, or favor, but also the reciprocal feel-
ing of gratitude for kindness. The Charites or Graces were
the Greek personifications of reciprocal feelings of kindness.
Hence the temple of the Graces symbolized the mutual services
of men to each other, on which society depends (see " Eth." V.
v.7).
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by which one does a service to him who needs it, not
in return for anything, nor in order that one may get
anything one's self, but simply to benefit the recipient."
He considers human nature to be capable of great
moral elevation in the persons of the wise and good ;
at the same time he regarded the majority of mankind
as poor creatures, though rather weak than wicked.
Thus ("Rhet." II. v. 7), he says, " the majority of men
are timid and corruptible," and in "Eth." VII. vii. 1,
it is said that "most men are in a state between conti-
nence and incontinence, but rather verging towards the
worst side."
We may conclude our extracts from the second book
of the " Rhetoric" with Aristotle's remark ou the prime
of life, which Dr. Arnold of Rugby used to be fond of
quoting: "The body," says Aristotle, "is in its prime
from the age of thirty to thirty-five, and the mind
about the age of forty-nine." It has been observed
that university undergraduates are apt to consider
these ages as set too high, while senior tutors have
been known to complain of them as only applicable
to precocious southern nations.
From what we have indicated it will be seen that the
first two books of the "Rhetoric" consist mainly of ob-
servations on human nature. Towards the close of
them Aristotle fell upon the subject of fallacious " en-
thymemes," and this led him to suspend the work he
had in hand, and to write that treatise on "Sophistical
Confutations," or "Fallacies," of which we have al-
ready given an account. After which he wrote his
" Ethics," until the subject of " Justice" turned up, and
he then went on to discuss the bases of this quality in
his " Politics." The subject of " Education" seems to
have led Aristotle from the compilation of the last-
ARISTOTLE. 79
named treatise to write his "Art of Poetry," which
naturally involved the discussion of rules of style; and
this, by an equally natural transition, suggested the
completion of the " Rhetoric," by the addition of a third
book on Style and Arrangement.
This book has of course not quite so universal an
interest as the former ones. The interest attaching to
it is necessarily to some extent antiquarian as, for
instance, when Aristotle details the five points on which
an idiomatic style in Greek depends viz., a proper
use of connective particles; and of specially appropri-
ate instead of general words; constructing the sentence
so as to avoid ambiguity; using right genders; and
right numbers. The specification of the latter points
(as well as similar injunctions in the "Art of Poetry")
show in how infantile a condition the science of Gram-
mar was in Aristotle's time. He lays down here some
of the things which " every schoolboy knows."
The book is not only a good deal limited to the in-
struction of Greek readers belonging to the fourth cen-
tury B.C., but it also deals a good deal in allusions
which such readers would perfectly understand, but
which are obscure for us. Instead of quoting at some
length the beauties of oratory, it frequently indicates
passages by merely mentioning a single word out of
them. There is generally speaking an air of scientific
dryness in its treatment even of the most poetical meta-
phors. For instance, we are told that it is far better to
call Aurora the "rosy-fingered" than the "purple-fin-
gered," and still more so than to call her the "red-fin-
gered." But charms of style from the Greek writers
appear in this book like moths and butterflies pinned on
to corks in the collection of an entomologist. Aris-
totle's fondness for classification seems carried too far
80 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
here; he incessantly analyzes and enumerates, as for in-
stance when he tells us that there are four ways by
which " flatness" in a speech is produced. The princi-
ples laid down are of course sound and sensible as, for
example, that " the chief merit of style is clearness,"
that the orator must not use poetical language, and
that his sentences must be rhythmical, without falling
into meter. Aristotle objects to having a sentence
ended with a short syllable, because the voice cannot
rest on it so as to mark a stop; he thinks that the end
of each sentence should be marked out by the rhythm,
so as not to need punctuation. He recommends the use
of the pceon, a foot consisting of three short syllables
and one long syllable (as anachronism), for the rhythmi-
cal finish of sentences. The point, however, is not
gone into with any exactness; and we are left in doubt
as to the proportion which accent bore to "quantity" in
ancient Greek oratory. On the one hand we know that
accent has had such a firm hold on the Greek language
as in the course of time utterly to overpower and elimi-
nate quantity. Thus modern Greek is spoken entirely
according to accent without regard to quantity. On
the other hand ancient Greek poetry must have been
read almost entirely in reference to the quantity of the
syllables, without regard to accent. How it stood with
ancient Greek rhythmical prose, is a question which
Aristotle does not help us to solve. In fact there is a
certain matter-of-fact bluutness, and a want of the
delicacy and humor of genius, pervading his criticisms.
And it is remarkable that his illustrations are more
drawn from poetry than from prose apparently more
from books than from living sources and that he never
mentions with appreciation the oratory of Demosthe-
nes. Some of the greatest speeches of Demosthenes,
ARISTOTLE. 81
especially his Olynthiac orations, had been spoken at
Athens when Aristotle was little more than thirty years
of age" just about the time when he was attempting to
rival Isocrates in the teaching of Rhetoric. It would
be extraordinary if these splendid harangues made no
impression upon him. But it must be observed that he
does not pass any general criticism upon Pericles, or
any other orator. And it is possible also that a fear of
offending the Macedonian royal family may have pre-
vented Aristotle from praising the anti-Macedonian
statesman, though he was the greatest orator among the
ancients.
After treating of style, Aristotle briefly discusses ar-
rangement. He divides a speech into exordium, state-
ment, proof, and peroration, and says something on the
points to be aimed at in each. He adds some shrewd
advice on the use that may be made of putting adroit
questions to an opponent; and he mentions with ap-
proval the maxim of Gorgias that "when your adver-
sary is earnest you should silence him with ridicule,
and when he tries ridicule you should silence him with
earnestness." He neatly winds up his "Rhetoric"
with the specimen of a peroration: "I have spoken
you have heard. You have the matter before you
judge of it."
Aristotle's little treatise called " Poetic," or the "Art
of Poetry," is very interesting, but it does not take the
modern or romantic view of Poetry. Aristotle does
not seek to find here
" The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the Poet's dream."
He simply defines poetry as one of the imitative
arts, "such as dancing, flute-playing, painting, etc.:
82 TUP: ELZKVlli LIBRARY.
these different arts, he says, have each their own in-
strument of imitation, and poetry uses words and
meter. However, not all metrical composition is
poetry; the verses of Empedocles are philosophy rather
than poetry they lack the quality of being imitative
that is to say, it is not their chief object to depict.
Aristotle attributes the genesis of poetry, not to any
divine impulse, but to those imitative instincts of
man, which are exhibited from earliest childhood, and
to the intellectual pleasure which we feel in seeing a
good imitation even of a painful subject, and in recog-
nizing that " this is that." Poetry then is imitation,
and accordiag to this theory the merit of a good poem
would be the same as the merit of a good photograph
exact, and mechanical resemblance. Aristotle, however,
is not consistent to this view; he evidently admits the
idea of some creativeness in the poet for instance, he
says that some poets represent men as better than they
really are; and he applauds the practice of Zeuxis, who,
in painting his Helen, combined the beauties out of
several fair faces. He seems to approach the modern
point of view when he says (xvii. 2) that " Poetry is the
province of a genius or a'madman ;" for the one can feign
and the other feels stormy passions. But it must be
observed that the word for "a genius" here, is merely
"well-natured" a word elsewhere used for one who
has a good moral disposition, and generally for one who
has natural gifts. In fact, the philosophy of the imagi-
nation was a part of psychology not at all worked out
in the time of Aristotle; there was as yet no word to
express what we mean by "imagination." When Aris-
totle uses the word phantasia, he means by it, not the
creative faculty, but an image before the mind's eye.
While the Greeks were the most imaginative of peoples,
ARISTOTLE. 63
they had not as yet analyzed the processes of imagi-
nation. And the want of a terminology connected with
this subject is felt throughout the " Poetic" of Aristo-
tle.
Poetry consists in imitation, mainly of the actions of
men; and there are three great species of it Epic
poetry, Tragedy and Comedy. Of these three kinds
Aristotle undertakes to treat; but the promise is only
fulfilled with regard to the two first; the treatise breaks
off at the point where a disquisition on Comedy might
have been expected. Comedy, according to modern
views, would hardly be reckoned to be poetry at all.
Aristotle, in stating what Comedy is, gives his famous
definition of the " ludicrous." Tragedy, he says, aims
at representing men who are above the average ; comedy,
men who are below it. But the characters in comedy
are not so much morally bad, as ugly. There is a cer-
tain pleasure derivable from ugliness, and that is the
sense of the ludicrous. " The ludicrous is some fault
or blemish not suggesting the idea of pain or death; as,
for instance, an ugly twisted face is ludicrous, if there
is no idea that the owner of it is in pain." This saying
has been the foundation of all subsequent philosophy
of laughter. Elsewhere Aristotle defines the ludicrous
as "harmless incongruity." We laugh from a pleas-
urable sense of contrast and surprise when a thing is
out of place but no serious evil seems likely to result.
Aristotle's account of Tragedy is a profound piece of
aesthetic philosophy. By implication he defends Trag-
edy against Plato, who had wished to banish the
drama from his ideal republic, as tending to make men
unmanly. Aristotle defines Tragedy as the "imitation
of some noble action, great and complete iii itself; in
melodious diction ; with different measures to suit the
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different parts; by men acting, and not by narration;
effecting through pity and fear the purging of such
feelings." The latter words contain the office and the
justification of Tragedy. Men's minds are prone to be
haunted by the feelings of pity and fear, and these are
apt to degenerate into sentimentality. Tragedy offers
noble objects whereon these feelings may be exercised;
and by tnat exercise the feelings not only receive a
right direction, but also are relieved, being removed, so
to speak, for the time from the system. After much
discussion * on the subject in Germany, there is now no
doubt that in using the term " purging" in the above
passage Aristotle was employing a medical metaphor.
This is borne out by two passages of the "Politics"
(II. vii. 11; VIII. vii. 5), which both refer in similar
terms to the relief of the passions procured by indulg-
ing them. He promised a fuller explanation of his
theory on this subject, but unfortunately has never
given it. However, we are perhaps safe in under-
standing that, while Plato objected to Tragedy as tend-
ing to make men soft by the excitement of their sym-
pathetic feelings, Aristotle said "No those feelings
will be purged and carried off from the system by the
operation of Tragedy."
As to the means by which Tragedy is to excite pity
and terror, Aristotle says that it will not do to exhibit a
purely good man falling into adversity that would
be rather horrible than tragic; nor, in the other^haud,
would the representation of a villain receiving the ret-
ribution due to his crimes be a tragical story, however
moral it might be. We require the element of un-
* See " Aristotle tiber Kunst, besonders iiber Tragodie," von
J)r, Reinkens) Vienna, 1870), p. 70-167.
AEISTOTLE. 85
deserved calamity; and yet there must be some justice,
too, in the course of events, so that while we feel sor-
row for what occurs, we shall feel also that things could
not have been otherwise. The tale of (Edipus is often
mentioned by Aristotle as a perfect subject for Trag-
edy. We may add that Mr. Tennyson's "Harold"
exhibits in this respect the same qualities; we see in it a
noble character borne along to an undeserved and ca-
lamitous doom; and yet there is a sense that this is,
partly at all events, the result of his own doing. Aris-
totle is not in favor of a tragedy ending happily. He
saj^s that poets sometimes make happy endings out of
concession to the weakness of the spectators, but that
this is quite a mistake, and that such endings are more
suitable to comedy. He praises Euripides as the " most
tragic of the poets," on account of the doleful termina-
tions of his plays, " though in other respects he did not
manage well."
Much stress has been laid, especially by the French,
on "the unities" of the drama, as supposed to be
prescribed by Aristotle's "Poetic." But in reality he
attaches no importance to the external unities of time
and place. In enumerating the differences between
tragedy and epic poetry, he says (v. 8) that "the one
generally tries to limit its action to a period of twenty-
four hours, or not much to exceed that, while the other
is unlimited in point of time." But he does not lay
this down as a law for Tragedy. The peculiarity of the
Greek drama, in which a chorus remained constantly
present and the curtain never fell, almost necessitated
"the unities;" but Aristotle only concerns himself with
internal unity, which he says (viii. 4) that Tragedy must
have, in common with every other work of art, and
which consists in making every part bear an organic re-
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lation to the whole, so that no part could be altered or
omitted without the whole suffering. This principle,
far more valuable than that of "the unities," would
seem to need re-assertion, for we might almost say that
it is habitually violated by writers of fiction in th pres-
ent day at all events by all but the very few who may
be placed in the first class.
The "Poetic" gives many notices of the rise and prog-
ress of the Greek drama, and the modifications which
tragedy and comedy went through, and much informa-
tion as to the technical divisions of a play, and other
such matters; but all these points have become the
property of manuals of " Greek Antiquities." Aristotle
notes a decadence of the drama in his own day: he com-
plains of authors spoiling their plays by introducing
episodes merely to suit particular actors : he considers
that spectacle is carried too far, and that it is a mistake
to aim at producing tragical effect by elaborate and ex-
pensive scenery and apparatus: he also thinks that act-
ing is overdone. Aristotle shows an extensive acquaint-
ance with dramatic literature; and, by mentioning it,
he makes us regret the loss of " The Flower," a play by
Agathon, which seems to have been entirely original,
and not based on any traditional story.
The remarks here made on Epic poetry are compara-
tively brief. Aristotle considers it of less importance
than Tragedy. He says that every merit which the Epic
possesses is to be found in Tragedy. Like Tragedy, the
Epic must possess unity of plot, but it may indulge to
a greater extent in episodes. Aristotle never loses an
opportunity of praising Homer, whom he considers to
be the author, not only of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey,"
but also of a comic poem called " Margites." He espe-
cially commends the art of Homer in making the action
ARISTOTLE. 87
of the "Iliad" and " Odyssey" respectively circle round
definite central events. Although it is a narrative, Epic
poetry will always be distinct from history: the one has
an artistic unity which is wanting to the other; the one
describes what might have been, the other what has
been; the one deals in universal, the other in particular,
truth. The result of this whole comparison is, that
"Poetry is more philosophical and more earnest than
History."
The " Poetic" branches off, towards its close, into an
immature disquisition on style, which led Aristotle to
go back to his "Rhetoric," and write the third book
thereof. Here he even lays down some of the elements
of grammar, and enumerates the parts of speech. He
adds a curious chapter (xxv.) on Criticisms, and how to
answer them, in which the spirit of the dialectician is
very apparent. All this shows that Aristotle was only
gradually feeling his way to 1he division of sciences.
He wrote, as it were, under pressure, on one great sub-
ject after another, and the light only dawned on him as
he went along. Could he have rewritten his works,
probably all would have been brought into lucid order.
But it is clear that the little treatise called " Poetic" not
only was never rewritten, but was never finished as its
author intended it to be.
CHAPTER V.
AKISTOTLE'S "ETHICS."
ARISTOTLE'S treatise on Morals has come down to us
entitled " Nicomacbean Ethics." This label was proba-
bly affixed to the work on account of Nicomachus, the
son of Aristotle, having had some subordinate counec-
88 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
tion with it, either as scribe or editor; and in order to
distinguish it in the Peripatetic library from the "Eu-
deraian Ethics," which is a sort of paraphrase of Aristo-
tle's treatise by his disciple Eudemus and from the
" Great Ethics, "which is a restatement of the same mat-
ter by some later Peripatetic hand. Among the Works
of Aristotle there is also included a little tract " On Vir-
tues and Vices." This is a mere paper, such as the
Peripatetic school used to produce, noting characteris-
tics of some of the Aristotelian good qualities and their
opposites, and with no pretensions to be considered
genuine.
After going through, under the guidance of Aristotle,
the theory of the reasonings by which knowledge is
obtained, and the theory of the statement by which
knowledge may be best set forth, we now enter, in
the " Nicomachean Ethics," upon some of the matter of
knowledge namely, Aristotle's theory of human life.
But what strikes us on reading the early chapters of
this treatise is that, when he began to write it, Aristotle
had no clear conception of the existence of Moral Phi-
losophy as a separate science. The question which he
proposes is, What is the end, or supreme good, aimed
at by human action? He adds that the science which
will have to settle this will be a branch of Politics that
is, of State-philosophy for the chief good of the State
and of the individual are identical, only the one is on a
grander scale than the other. In this exordium we
may notice two especially Greek features: first, the
cardinal question proposed for the philofiophj'- of human
life is not, What is the duty of man? but, What is the
chief good for man? Secondly, the individual is so far
subordinated to and identified with the State, that the
summum bonum for the latter includes that of the
ARISTOTLE. 89
former. In Aristotle's " Politics" (VII. iii. 8), the chief
good for a State is portrayed as consisting in the -de-
velopment and play of speculative thought, all fit con-
ditions thereto having been provided. The idea is a
Greek city, with a slave population doing the hare?
work, wherein the citizens for the most part can live a;*
gentlemen, and a large proportion of them may devote
their lives to intellectual pursuits. Aristotle thought
that the highest aim for a State was to turn out philos-
ophers, and that the highest aim for an individual was
to be a philosopher. Thus there is a seeming identity
of aims; yet still in writing bis " Ethics" Aristotle con-
fines himself to inquiring after " the good " for the indi-
vidual. As he goes on, it dawns upon him more and
more (see " Eth." v. 5-11), that " the man" has an in-
dependent status distinct from that of "the citizen,'*
and that in his capacity of human being each citizen
has needs, aims, and virtues of his own, irrespective
of the State. Thus by composing this work he estab-
lished the separation of Ethics from Politics these
two sciences having been previously mixed up together
by Socrates and Plato, who were the great founders of
both.
What constitutes the chief good for an individual, or
in other words, happiness? Aristotle is somewhat ab-
stract and metaphysical in arguing upon this question.
ITe says, happiness must be an end in itself, and not a
means to anything else; it must lie within the proper
sphere or function of man that function being a rational
and moral life; it must be, not a merely dormant state,
but a state of conscious vitality; and lastly, it must be
in juror-dance with the law of excellence proper to the
function of man. Thus we arrive at the general idea
th:it the highest happiness consists in the harmonious
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exercise of man's highest powers; and the treatise ends
by declaring particularly that the speculative reason is
man's highest endowment, and that the truest happiness
consists in philosophic thought.
"This," he exclaims ("Eth." X. vii. 7), "would be
perfect human happiness, if prolonged through a life
of full duration. Such a life, however, would be super-
human; for it is not as being man that one will live thus,
but by virtue of a certain divine element subsisting
within us. Just as this element far excels our com-
posite nature, so does its operation excel action accord-
ing to the moral virtues. Reason in comparison with man
is something divine, and so is the life of Reason divine
in comparison with the routine of man's life. One
must not, however, obey those who bid us "think hum-
bly as being mortal men," nay rather we should indulge
immortal longings, and strive to live up to that divine
particle within us, which, though it be small in propor-
tionate bulk, yet in power and dignity far surpasses all
the other parts of our nature, and which is indeed each
man's proper self. By living in accordance with it our
true individuality will be developed. And such a life
cannot fail to be happy above all other kinds of life."
This, then, is the "mark" which Aristotle sets before
men to "shoot at" ("Eth. "I. ii. 2) namely, the at-
tainment of a state in which one should live above the
world, occupied with philosophic thought. It is an
ideal picture, to which, however, approximations may
doubtless be made. To attain it completely would be,
according to Aristotle, to attain the life of the blessed
existences, such as the sun and the fixed stars, and of
God Himself, whose essence is Reason, and His life " a
thinking upon thought" ("Met." XI. ix. 4). This, he
ARISTOTLE. 91
admits, is impossible for us; but yet, he says, we should
aim at it. " Secondary to this," he says, " in point of
happiness, is the life of moral virtue." And here we
must notice the peculiar way in which the idea of
"virtue" is introduced into the "Ethics." Instead of
at once recognizing the law of moral obligation as the
deepest thing in man, Aristotle, as we have seen above,
introduces the idea of virtue and morality in a dry logi-
cal way, saying that the chief good for man must consist
in the realization of his powers " according to their
own proper law of excellence." Having in this color-
less and neutral way brought in the term "excellence"
or virtue, Aristotle divides it, in relation to man, into
moral and intellectual. Of the former he proceeded
immediately to treat at length ; of the latter he promised
to give an account, but only an imperfect realization of
that promise, furnished by the " Eudemian" paraphrase,
has come down to us.
Both by the way in which it is introduced, and the
terms in which it is finally dismissed ("Eth." X. viii. 1),
the moral nature of man is made to hold a subsidiary
place in Aristotle's "Ethics." Yet still we find that
almost all the treatise is taken up with discussions
directly or indirectly concerning the practical and
moral nature. And thus Aristotle, groping his way
in a science which had as yet no distinct landmarks,
contributed much towards the subsequent deeper con-
ception of ethical questions. One service which he
performed was to distinguish will from reason. Soc-
rates and Plato hart been content to describe virtue as
knowledge, or an enlightened state of the reason; but
Aristotle, like Kant in modern times, defined it as a
state of the will. Secondly, he analyzed the forma-
tion of this state, and explained it bylaw doctrine of
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"habits." By observing the various arts as, for in-
stance, harp-playing, and the like he saw that "prac-
tice makes perfect;" and concluded that as by playing
the harp a man became a harp-player, so by doing just
things a man would become just, by doing brave things
he would become brave; and, in short, that actions
have a tendency lo reproduce themselves, and thus to
produce habits or states of the will. All this is trite
enough now, but it was formulated for the first time by
Aristotle.
In laying down his famous doctrine that it is the
characteristic of virtue to preserve "the mean," Aris-
totle was not entirely original. In this, as in many
other cases, he only fixed into scientific form a concep-
tion which had been previously floating in the mind of
Greece. Hesiod, the Seven Sages, the unknown au-
thors of "Maxims," the Gnomic poets, Pindar, and the
Tragedians, had all preached the doctrine of modera-
tion a doctrine most congenial to the natural good
taste of the Hellenic people, who instinctively despised
excess in any form as unintellectual and barbarous.
What had hitherto been a universal popular dictum,
Plato raised into philosophy, by pointing out("Phile-
bus," p. 23-27) that in all things the law of "limit" is
the cause of good, while the unlimited, the unregu-
lated, the chaotic, is evil. Thus, in the human body,
the unlimited is the tendency to extremes, to disorder,
to disease; but the introduction of the limit produces a
balance of the constitution and good health. In sounds
you have the infinite degrees of deep and high, quick
and slow; but the limit gives rise to modulation and
harmony, and all that is delightful in music. In cli-
mate and temperature, where the limit has been intro-
duced, excessive heats and violent storms subside, and
ARISTOTLE. 93
the mild and genial seasons in their order follow. In
the human mind "the goddess of the limit" checks into
submission the wild and wanton passions, and gives
rise to all that is good. Thus, in contemplating all
things, whether physical or moral, there was present to
the mind of Plato the same train of associations the
same ideas of measure, proportion, balance, harmony,
moderation, and the like. Elsewhere (" Republic," p.
400) he dwells especially on the common characteris-
tics of art and morality, pointing out that measure and
symmetry are the causes of excellence in both alike.
Aristotle took over these thoroughly Greek ideas from
Plato, and adapted them to his own purpose. He
slightly changed the mode of expression: instead of
"moderation" he introduced a mathematical term,
" the mean" (for instance, 2 is the mean between 4 and
6); he used this term as the chief feature in a regular
formal definition of moral virtue; and he drew out a
table of the virtues showing that eac-i of them was a
mean between two extremes. Thus -he virtue Cour-
age lies between the vice Cowardice, v/L'ich, is fearing
too much, and the vice Rashness, whk;h is fearing too
little. And virtue generally is a balah.je between too
much and too little. It is produced ).y Hie introduc-
tion of the law of the mean into the passions, which in
themselves are unlimited. But what is this "mean"
this juste milieu and how is it ascertained? Aristotle
tells us that it is not merely the mid-point between two
external quantities, but it is the mid-point relatively to
the moral agent. What is too much for one man say,
of danger, expense, indulgence, or self-valuation may
be by no means too much for another man. The moral
mean is thus a fluctuating quantity, dependent on con-
siderations of the person and the moment. To hit
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upon it exactly requires a fine tact, for ' ' virtue is more
nice and delicate than the finest of the fine arts"
(" Eth." II. vi. 9). This tact, or sense of moral beauty,
we have by nature ("Politics," I. ii. 12); but it only
exists in perfection, after cultivation by experience, in
the mind of the wise man, and to him in all cases must
be the ultimate appeal.
Objection has been raised in modern times to the
theory of Aristotle, on the ground that it makes only a
quantitative difference between virtue and vice. A
little more or a little less does not seem to us to consti-
tute the whole difference which subsists between
" right" and "wrong." But we must remember that
the Greeks did not speak of actions as "right" or
"wrong," but as "beautiful" and "ugly." From this
point of view each action was looked upon as a work
of art; and as in art and literature, so in morals, the
great aim was to avoid the "too much" and the "too
little," and thus to attain perfection. This idea of
beauty and grace in action pervaded the Hellenic life,
and good taste seemed to stand in the place of con-
science. To attain "the beautiful" is considered by
Aristotle, if inferior to the joys of philosophy, still as a
source of very high gratification ; and he describes the
brave man ("Eth. "III. ix. 4) as consciously meeting
death in a good cause, and consciously sacrificing a
happy life, full of objects which he holds dear, because
by so doing he attains "the beautiful." If we ask,
however, what constituted the beauty of this net,
Aristotle's doctrine can only tell us that the brave man
dared and feared neither too much nor too little, but in
the proper degree and manner, considering the circum-
stances of the moment. These formulae, however, do
not appear to explain what we should consider the
ARISTOTLE. 95
moral beauty of the act in question. We should rather
point to the self-sacrifice of the act the spectacle of an
individual preferring to his own life the good of others,
the defense of his country, the maintenance of some
noble cause as what was beautiful and touching.
" The mean" may serve as a general expression for the
law of artistic beauty, but it seems not deep enough to
express what we prize most in human action.
Aristotle's table of the virtues does not, of course,
comprise the Christian qualities of humility, charity,
chastity, self-devotion, and the like. It even fa Us short
of the summary of human excellence given by Plato in
his enumeration of the five cardinal virtues (" Protag.,"
p. 349) courage, temperance, justice, wisdom, and
holiness. Aristotle separates ethics from religion, and
thus leaves out all consideration of " holiness, "-a 1 man's
conduct in relation to God. "Wisdom" ant- "Jus-
tice" he reserves to be made the subject of separate
discussions: the one as being an excellence of ths intel-
lect, and not a " mean state" of the passions; the ether as
being dependent on, and mixed up with, all the institu-
tions of the State. The table, then, thus restricted,
contains the names of nine or ten good qualities, such
as would adorn the character of a perfect Grecian gen-
tleman. They are Courage, Temperance, Liberality,
Magnificence (liberality on a larger scale); Magnanimity,
or Great-souledness; Self-respect (the same on a smaller
scale), Mildness, Wit, Truthfulness of manner, and
Friendliness. And the pairs of extremes which respec-
tively environ each of these "mean states" arc specified,
in some cases names being invented for cLcm. The
most moral of the virtues here named, from a modern
point of view, is Courage, on account of the self-sacri-
fice, the endurance of danger, pain, and death, which
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\ t implies. Temperance is far from being represented
by Aristotle as an utter self-abnegation; he says (III.
xi. 8) that the temperate man, with due regard to hts
health, and to the means at his disposal, and acting
under the law of the beautiful, will preserve a balance
in regard to the pleasures of sense. Aristotle loves the
virtues of Liberality and Magnificence (the latter mean-
ing tasteful outlay on great objects) on account of their
brilliancy. He undervalues the virtue of saving, and
erroneously considers that parsimony does more harm
than spendthrift waste. He describes Magnanimity by
drawing a fancy portrait of the " Great-souled man."
Such a man has all the Aristotelian virtues; he is great
and superior to other men, and has a corresponding lofti-
ness of soul. He will not compete for the common
objects of ambition; he will only attempt great and
important matters, and otherwise will seem inactive;
he will be open in friendship and hatred, really straight-
forward and deeply truthful, but reserved and ironical
in manner to common people. He will live for his
friend alone, will wonder at nothing, will bear no malice,
w'il be no gossip, will not be anxious about trifles, will
cp.re more to possess that which is beautiful than .that
which is profitable. His movements are slow, his voice
5-j deep, and his diction is stately.
The four last virtues in the table are qualities to adorn
the external man in society, and as such seem more
worthy of a place in Lord Chesterfield's Letters than in
a treatise of Moral Philosophy. To be mild without
being spiritless; to be friendly without servility; to have
a simple manner without either assumption or mock-
humility; and to be witty without buffooner} 7 " these
achievements constitute the minor excellences with
which Aristotle concludes his list. He was proceeding
ARISTOTLE. 97
to show that the law of the mean is exemplified in the
instinctive feelings of modesty and virtuous indigna-
tion when, through some unknown cause, his MS.
broke off (" Eth." IV. ix.8) in the middle of a sentence.
What should have followed here was, first, a dis-
sertation on the nature of Justice; and, secondly, an
account of the Intellectual excellences. And it was
very important that this part of the work should be
adequately executed. Under the head of Justice fell
to be considered ("Eth." IV. vii. 7) the relation of the
individual to truth of word and deed. And an ade-
quate account of Justice and of Wisdom might have
redeemed Aristotle's previous account of moral virtue
from that superficial appearance which it must be said
to present. But unfortunately we do not appear to
possess at first hand Aristotle's execution of this part
of his task. What happened may perhaps have been
this: when Aristotle arrived at this point, he put
aside the subject of Justice, to be treated after he had
written his " Politics" and had cleared his views on the
foundations of Justice in the State. At the same time
he put aside the subject of the Intellectual excellences,
perhaps till he should have written his "Metaphysics."
It must be remembered that he kept many parts of his
Encyclopaedia in course of construction at once, and
he would drop one pax,, and take up another, as suited
his train of thought. In the present case he did not
entirely abandon his ' Ethics," but went on to write the
three last books, merely leaving the center part to he
filled in subsequently. Doubtless the matter for that
center part was expounded to and discussed in the
Peripatetic school, but Aristotle probably never him-
self expressed it in literary form. When, however,
Bud*- 6 came to write his paraphrase of the " Ethics,"
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he was enabled to fill in the gap which still existed in
them by supplying a portion, the matter of which partly
came from school notes and partly from Aristotle's
other writings, while the language was that of Eudemus
himself, continuous with the rest of the paraphrase.
Afterwards Nicomachus, or some other editor, took
this supplementary piece from the "Eudemian Ethics"
and stuck it in as Books V., VI., VII. of the " Ethics"
of Aristotle.
The theory of Justice which has thus come down to
us as Aristotle's, is indistinctly stated in Book V. It
seems to be borrowed a good deal from the "Politics;"
it expounds the principles of Justice which exist in the
State, and merely defines Justice in the individual as
the will to conform to these principles. Thus really no
contribution to ethical science is made. It is shown
how Justice is manifested (1) in distributions by the
State (2) in correcting wrongs done between man and
man, (3) in the ordinary course of commerce. Some
first steps in political economy, being remarks on the
nature of money, on value, and on price, given in
chap, v., are perhaps the most interesting points in
this book.
Book VI. appears to be a good deal uorrowed from
Aristotle's " Organon" and treatise "On the Soul." It
is confusedly written, and two questions appear to be
mixed up in it: (1) What is the Moral Standard ?
(2) What are the Intellectual excellences? The former
question receives no definite answer; with regard to the
latter we are informed that there are two distinct and
supremely good modes of the intellect "Wisdom,"
which is the culmination of the philosophic reason, and
"Thought," which is the perfection of the practical
reason. This latter quality forms the main subject of
ARISTOTLE. 99
the book. It is described as being developed in com-
bination with the development of the moral will. It
is an ideal attribute, and we are told that "he who has
' thought' possesses all the virtues" (" Eth." VI. xiii. 6).
The distinction here indicated between the practical
and philosophic reason was undoubtedly a contribution
to psychology first made by Aristotle. It was an im-
provement upon the views of Plato, and a step towards
those of Kant.
Book VII. supplies, in the words of Eudemus, a
valuable complement to Aristotle's moral system. It
discusses the intermediate states between virtue and
vice, and especially analyzes the state called "incon-
tinence," or "weakness," as exhibited in the process of
yielding to temptation. By aid of the forms of the
syllogism it is shown how, while having good princi-
ples in our mind, we may fail tinder temptation to act
upon them. On the other hand, the idea is introduced
of an ideally vicious man, who has no conscience or re-
morse, but all his mind is in harmony with the dictates
of vice; a conception with which we may compare the
character drawn by Shelley in his portrait of Count
Cenci. The whole of this book is marked by a phrase-
ology different from and later than that of the genu-
ine parts of the 'Ethics.' It deals much in physiolo-
gical considerations, and it winds up with a modified
paraphrase of Aristotle's treatise on Pleasure, given in
Book X.
Books VIII. and IX. treat of Friendship, which, "is
either a virtue, or is closely connected with virtue ;" and
no part of the whole treatise is more pleasing or ad-
mirable. The idea of friendship has probably always
found a place among civilized nations, but it obtained
peculiar prominence among the Greeks, partly owing to
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the subordinate position assigned to women, and the
consequent rarity of sympathetic marriages. Among
the Dorians, from early times, there had subsisted a
custom by which each warrior had attached to him, as
his squire a boy whom he was expected to inspire with
becoming thoughts. The one member in this pair was
called "the inbreather,"the other "the listener." Out
of this custom sentimental relationships arose, which
Plato approving wrote his famous descriptions of those
pure and passionate attachments between persons of
the same sex, known as "Platonic love." With this
sentimentality Aristotle did not sympathize, but yet
there is no coldness in his picture of friendship. He
asserts enthusiastically the glow of the heart which is
caused by contemplating the actions of a virtuous friend
(IX. ix. 5), and declares that without this element in
life no one can be called truly happy. Lord Bacon's
splendid essay ''Of Friendship" may be compared with
these pages; but Bacon's account of the advantages of a
friend is on a lower level and less philosophical than
that given by Aristotle, who goes to the root of the
matter in saying that what a friend really does for you
is, by the joint operation of sympathy and contrast, of
quasi identity and yet diversity to intensify the sense
of your personal existence, and to give you that vivid-
ness of vitality on which happiness depends (IX. ix. 7).
In this proposition the two books culminate, but they
are full of lucid distinctions, and also of high morality.
Friendship (as has been seen above, p. 77) is represented
by Aristotle as an utterly disinterested feeling, often
culling for great self-sacrifice. Sometimes, he saj's,
the good man may be called upon to die for his friends
(IX. viii. 9); and as a delicate form of disinterestedness
he inquires whether in some cases one ought not to give
ARISTOTLE. 101
up to one's friend, instead of seizing for one's self, the
opportunity of doing noble actions.
Almost the only matter of any importance in the
"Ethics" of Aristotle which we have not already sum-
marized is his disquisition on Pleasure in Book X.
There was a good deal of abstract questioning in the
time of Aristotle as to whether Pleasure could be "the
chief good," or whether it could be considered a good
at all. The Platonists were disposed to be hard upon
Pleasure. But all this turned a good deal upon the
prior question, " What Pleasure is?" Aristotle showed
that an erroneous definition had been taken up by the
Platonic school, who considered pleasure to be a sense
of restoration a sense of our powers, after exhaustion,
being brought up to their normal state. Kant has
given a very similar definition, saying that "pleasure
is the sense of that which promotes life, pain of that
which hinders it." Aristotle says that this is wrong;
that it applies only to eating and drinking, and such
things, and that Pleasure is not " the sense of what
promotes life," but the sense of life itself; the sense of
the vital powers, the sense that any faculty whatsoever
has met its proper object. Pleasure, then, according
to the Platonists, was the accompaniment of an imper-
fect condition, like recovery after illness. According
to Aristotle it was, except in the case of certain spurious
pleasures, the play and action of that which is healthy
in us. From this point of view it is obvious that
Pleasure must in itself be a good, and that when it con-
sists in the exercise of the highest faculties (see above,
p. 89) it becomes identical with the highest happiness.
Lest it be thought that this exultation of Pleasure might
have dangerous results from a moral point of view, we
will mention one safeguard which accompanies the
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Aristotelian doctrine. He tells us that for anything to
be "good" in life, it must be an end-in-itself : that is
something desirable for its own sake, and not as a mere
means to something else; something thoroughly worthy,
in which the mind can rest satisfied. Thus all mere
amusements are excluded from being good, because they
are not ends-in-themselves. And this maxim may be
deduced from Aristotle: " Act as far as possible so that
at any moment you may be able to say to yourself,
' What I am now doing is an end-in-itself.' "
CHAPTER VI.
ARISTOTLE'S ' ' POLITICS. "
THE " Ethics " of Aristotle end with the words, " Let
us then commence our 'Politics.'" He had described
virtue and happiness, but neither of these, he says,* is
attainable by any human being apart from society.
Moral development and the full eujo3 r ment of the ex-
ercise of our powers equally demand certain external
conditions; they cannot exist save by the aid of a
settled community, social habits, the restraint and pro-
tection of laws, and even a wisely regulated system of
public education. Man is by nature a social creature;
he cannot isolate himself without becoming either more
or less than man "either a god or a beast." The State
is, therefore, a prime necessity for the " well-doing and
well-being" of the individual. In fact, says Aristotle, f
you cannot form any conception of man in his normal
condition that is to say, in a civilized condition ex
cept as a member of a State. On these grounds Aristotle
* " Eth." X. x, 823. t " Pol." I. ii. 13, 14.
ARISTOTLE. 103
proposed to go on to the writing of his "Politics " as the
complement and conclusion of his ethical treatise. But
some time probably elapsed before the design was
carried out;* and in the interval it is not unreasonable
to suppose that Aristotle, seeking, as usual, to base
theory upon experience, was engaged in making that
remarkable collection called the "Constitutions" (see
above, p. 43), which contained a history and description
of no less than 158 States, and of which numerous
fragments remain.
However this may be, the "Politics" forms a rich
repertory of facts relating to the history of Greece.
And it abounds, too, in the knowledge of human
nature, and in wise and penetrating observations on the
conduct and motives of mankind, many of which are
applicable to all times and countries. The treatise is
not entire; it breaks off in the middle of one of the
most interesting parts of all, namely, Aristotle's theory
of education. Perhaps this was one of the cases in
which Aristotle, finding that his mind was not fully
made up on a particular subject, dropped that subject
for the time, meaning to revert to it, but never actu-
ally doing so. Besides its unfinished condition, the
"Politics" also shows indications of a certain amount
of disarrangement in the order of its books. If re-
arranged according to their natural order, the books in
Bekker's edition would stand thus :
Book I. On the Family as a constituent element in
the State.
Book II. Containing a criticism of some previous
theories about the State, and of some remarkable actual
constitutions.
* Spengel, one of the most judicious of German critics, says
that " the ' Politics ' was written after the ' Ethics.' "
104 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
Books III., VII., VIII. Giving Aristotle's own con-
ception of an Ideal State, unfortunately not con-
cluded.
Books IV, VI., V. Forming a return from the ideal
point of view to practical statesmanship, and suggesting
remedies for different evils apparent in the contempo-
rary Governments of Greece.
It has been well pointed out * that in Aristotle's treat-
ment of the above-mentioned subjects three incongruous
elements may be detected: "really scientific inquiry,
aristocratic prejudice, and the dreams of a metaphysical
philosophy which soars to heaven and listens for the
eternal harmonies of nature." The scientific spirit
shows itself in the vast apparatus of history which
Aristotle employs, his researches into the customs
of barbarous tribes, and his careful recognition of the
immense variety to be found in constitutions coming
under the same general name (such as Democracy,
Aristocracy, etc.) when studied according to the peculiar
circumstances of each case. All this would constitute
his work a contribution to the science of " Comparative
Politics."
But another spirit, alien from that of free and in-
ductive inquiry, occasionally manifests itself, especially
when Aristotle appeals to " nature" either in defending
or attacking any institution. " Nature" is, of course, a
rather slippery word : it may mean either of two things
either "primitive condition," in which sense a savage
is in a state of nature; or " normal condition," in which
sense the most perfectly civilized man has attained his
natural state. The latter sense is the one which Aris-
* Mr. A. Lang's Essays on Aristotle's "Politics," p. 15 (Long-
mans, 1877).
ARISTOTLE. 105
totle generally has in his mind; he generally means by
"nature" the normal and perfect state of things, or a
power in the world working towards that normal state.
But the question arises, How do we know what is the
perfect and normal state of things? Philosophers arc
too apt to dignify by the name of " nature" any ar-
rangement for which they may have a predilection.
And Aristotle cannot be entirely exonerated from
having done so. He sometimes attributes a sort of
divine right to things as they are, calling them
"natural." Thus he treats of the family as "nat-
urally" constituted of man, wife, child, and slave.
Certain reformers of the 4th century B.C. fiad already
lifted up their voices against the institution of slavery.
They had argued that the slave was of the same flesh
and blood as his master, and might be as good as he;
and that, in short, slavery was merely an unjust and
oppressive custom which mankind could and shoul/l
alter. But to the mind of Aristotle slavery was a
necessary institution in order to provide citizens with
that amount of leisure which would enable them to
live ideal lives in the pursuit of the true and the
beautiful (see above, p. 88). Therefore with uncon-
scious bias he proceeded to argue that slavery was
" natural," on tho ground that some races of mon were
by "nature" born to serve, being deficient in that
" large discourse" of reason which other men possessed,
and which gave them a " natural" right .o command.
He seeks for external indications of this gv.at difference
between man and man, and says that si? /es are "bar-
barians" (i.e., ignorant of the Greek '.anguage and
Greek manners), and again, that they hr?e not the up^
right bearing of freemen trained in the gvmnasia. But
he admits that "nature" has failed in outwardly maik-
106 THE ELZKVJR LIBRARY.
ing with sufficient distinctness the inward difference
between the slave and his master. Yet still he is not
shaken in his doctrine, but even asserts that it is lawful
to make war on races which were intended by " nature"
to be slaves, and to reduce them to slavery. These
views may seem shocking; but yet they admit of
some palliation. Christian theologians and divines, till
within a very recent time, have defended slavery, ap
pealing in its behalf to the sanction of the Bible; and
even the virtuous Bishop Berkeley, while sojourning at
Rhode Island, became the owner of slaves. The lot of
a slave in Attica seems, generally speaking, not to have
been a b : 'l one. And Aristotle, in wishing the "natu-
rally" deKr'ent races of mankind to be brought into
bondage, sat; QS to have had some idea of the benefit
they would derive from being, as it were, sent to
school.
In another matter Aristotle appealed to "nature" not
in defending, but in attacking, one of the institutions
of society namely ; the putting out money at interest.
Aristotle had many of the prejudices of a "gentleman;"
we have seen before (r<- 96) how he admired a brilliant
liberality, and thought little of the virtue of saving.
He acknowledged that means must be forthcoming for
the maintenance of the family, but, if possible, he
would have these means come from the produce of the
soil,* crops, animals, or minerals, for these sources of
support are "natural." WUh trade and traffic he had
no sympathy, but he admitted that practically they
must go on; and he said lhat people who valued suc-
cess in such things might try and imitate the philoso-
pher Thales, who foresaw, by his astrology, on one oc-
* 4 ?Pol."l. x. 3.
ARISTOTLE. 107
casion, that there would be a great olive harvest, and
while it was still winter hired all the olive presses in
the country, and when the demand for these set in, was
able to get his own terms and realize a large sum,
"thus showing that it is easy for philosophers to be
rich, if they only cared about it." These contemptuous
expressions in regard to commerce clearly indicate that
Aristotle did not take a calm intellectual view of the
subject; he did not see that it was a subject worthy of
being reduced to a science, else he would not have left
the doing of this to Adam Smith. Yet still in a book
full of the shrewdest remarks on social arrangements
we cannot fail to be struck by the antiquated look of
the announcement that "lending money on interest
is justly abominated, and is the most unnatural of all
forms of gain, for it diverts money from its proper pur-
pose (which was to be a mere instrument of exchange)
and forces it unnaturally to breed."* This saying of
Aristotle's doubtless did something to foster the prej-
udice against "usury" and Jews, in the latter part
of the Middle Ages. The notion is apparently based
upon the first-mentioned conception of "nature" as
the primitive state of things. "Interest is not a primi-
tive institution, and therefore it is unnatural " The
very opposite of this conclusion would be thought true
nowadays. We feel now that money unspent "natu-
rally" acquires interest and compound interest, and that
in a civilized community nothing is more unnatural
than the " talent laid up in a napkin."
* Compare Shakespeare, " Merchant of Venice," Act i. scene
3:-
Antonio. Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams?
Shylock. I cannot tell ; I make it breed as fast.
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An enthusiastic and almost mystical spirit exhibits
itself in Aristotle when he discourses on the Ideal State.
Having laid it down that Happiness for the State and
for the individual is one and the same ("Pol." VII.
ii. 1), he seems for a moment to waver and hesitate as
to whether he should not retract the doctrine expressed
in the "Ethics" (see above, p. 89), that the happiness
to be found in a life of thought is incomparably
superior to that to be found in a life of action. Could
this be said of a State that is, of a whole community?
If a whole community is engaged in the fruition of
philosophical thought, must they not be isolated from
international relations and cut off from the world? But
Aristotle does not flinch ultimately from the results of
his doctrine. He says ("Pol." VII. ii. 16) that "it
is quite possible that a State may be situated in some
isolated position," enjoying good laws and knowing
nothing of war or foreign relations, and that in such a
state (VII. iii. 8) the community maybe engaged in con-
templations and thoughts which have their own end in
themselves, and do not aim at any external results. As
is the life of God or of the conscious universe (each
brooding over their own perfections), such will be the
life of the Ideal State!
This announcement of the highest end to be aimed
at by Politics is as if some modern writer, in treating
of the State, should seek to identify it with the Invis-
ible Church of God. Or, again, it may remind us of
the saying that the supreme and ultimate product of
civilization is "two or three gentlemen talking together
in a room." This paradox is true and quite Aristotelian :
mental activities are the highest things of all; enact-
ments, and police, and wars, and treaties exist for the
sake of order, of which the best fruit is the mutual play
ARISTOTLE. 109
of intelligence and the glow of friendship. But one
peculiarity of Aristotle's ideal politics is the compara-
tive smallness of their scale. Like a true Greek, he
does not think of nations and empires, but of city-
states. It has been said that the city-state was some-
thing like the University of modern times. Aristotle
regarded it as an organism of limited size, in which
every citizen should have his function, and in which
every one should be personally known to the ruler.s.
He said ("Eth." IX. x. iii.) that 100,000 citizens
would be far too many to constitute a State. Some
of the peculiarities of his Ideal State may be speci-
fied as follows: Every full citizen was to be a land-
owner, with slaves to cultivate his soil, but no great
accumulation of property in any one man's hands
was to be allowed. The citizens were to constitute a
Avarrior caste, and were each to be admitted in turn,
when of mature age, to a share in the government.
No artisan or tradesman was to be a citizen: the city
was to have a harbor, but not too near, so as not to be
flooded with strangers; the navy was to be manned by
slaves; the city itself was, for salubrity, to slope
towards the east ami to catch the winds of morning.
Lastly, the State itself was to be a perfect Sparta in
point of discipline, though aiming at something higher
than mere gymnastic and military drill. There was to
be a common primary instruction for all the citizens
from the age of seven to fourteen, and a common sec-
ondary instruction from fourteen to twenty-one. The
"branches" were to be gymnastic, letters, drawing, and
music. Everything was to be taught with a view to
culture, rather than to utility. Thus the object of
learning drawing was " to make one observant of
beauty." In regard to gymnastic, Aristotle wisely
110 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
warns against a premature strain of the powers, and
says that it is very rare for the same person to have won
a prize, as a boy, and as a man, at the Olympic games.
He lays great stress on the moral and educational influ-
ence of music, and its efficacy in "purging" the emo-
tions (see above, p. 84). He disparages pipe-playing,
which, he says, was adopted by the Athenians in the
glorious period of license succeeding their victories over
the Persians; and adds that " pipe-playing not only dis-
figures the face, but has nothing intellectual in it." It
is difficult for us to enter into many of the feeiings of
the ancients about music Aristotle lauds the "Dorian
mood;" and here his treatise breaks off, without his
having given us his theory as to instruction in litera-
ture, or as to the secondary instruction in general of his
ideal citizens.
In constructing a Utopia, Aristotle was, of course,
following the example of the celebrated " Republic" of
Plato ; but his object was to improve upon the concep-
tions of his master, whom he criticised with courtesy,
but in a prosaic spirit. Plato's "city" avowedly ex-
isted in dreamland, but Aristotle applied to it the
tests of historical experience and everyday possibility.
While accepting the idea of a city of contemplation,
Aristotle determined that its institutions should be
such as to approve themselves to practical common-
sense. The contrast between the two philosophers in
this matter is very striking the one daring, creative,
and full of the play of fancy ; the other laborious, mat-
ter-of-fact, and scientific. It is not certain that Plato's
wild suggestions for a community of wives and prop-
erty were meant to be taken seriously; but Aristotle
takes them so, and gives us the first arguments on record
against Communism. He defends the institution of
ARISTOTLE. Ill
property as "natural," and says that " it makes an un-
speakable difference in the enjoyment of a thing to feel
that it is your own." All his remarks on this point are
sagacious; but there is a singular spirit of conservatism
shown in his saying (" Pol." II. v. 16) that " if Plato's
notions had been good they would have been adopted
long ago." Instead of looking forward to a future of
discovery and progress, Aristotle rather looked back,
thinking that all perfection had been attained in the
past.
In Books IV., VI., V. of his "Politics" (see above,
p. 104), Aristotle turns from the ideal to the actual, and
lays down a theory of the different forms of government
which are possible, the causes which give rise to these
different forms, their respective merits and disadvan-
tages, and the practical means for obviating the evils to
which they are respectively exposed. Greek society was
very unstable; Athens and many other cities were, like
Paris during the last half-century, in chronic expecta-
tion of a revolution. Therefore a theory of seditions
and revolutions became an essential part of Greek polit-
ical science, and Aristotle furnishes one accordingly,
containing the wise remark that "small things are never
the cause, though they are often the occasion, of popu-
lar revolt." He shows that there are three normal forms
of government the Monarchy, or government by one
wise ruler; the Aristocracy, or government by a select
number of the wisest and best; and the " Constitution,"
or mixed government, in which democratic, monarchic,
and aristocratical elements are balanced against each
other. Each of these normal and perfect forms, wher-
ever they have existed, has followed a tendency to di-
verge into a corruption of itself the monarchy de-
generates into Tyranny, the aristocracy into Oligarchy,
112 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
and the " Constitution" into Democracy. These lowei
forms are the kinds of government which Aristotle prac-
tically finds in the world. He shows how each of them
is constantly menaced by revolution, and from what
special causes, namely, the peculiar jealousies which
each is apt to engender. He says that it is not the de-
sire of gain, so much as tenacity of rights or fancied
ights, that causes revolution. lie gives various pieces
of advice to those who administer the different forms
of government one of which is that each government
should avoid emphatically asserting its own special
character. The democracy should be as little demo-
cratic, the tyrant as little tyrannous, the oligarchy as
little exclusive and overbearing as possible so that in
each case some approach might be made to the golden
" mean," which is the true cause of political stability.
In his high appreciation of the "Constitution," or
well-mixed government, Aristotle may be thought to
have had an unconscious anticipation of the guarded
liberties, and of the combination of order with progress,
which are the blessing and the pride of England. But in
one respect he totally fails to come up to the grandeur of
the modern conception; for, as said before, he thinks
of arrangements for a city and not for a nation, and
he has no idea of those representative institutions by
which political freedom of action on a large scale may
be provided. As his views for each State were limited,
so also he did not take sufficient thought of inter-
national relations. For one moment he seemed to have
caught a glimpse of possibilities which he might have
followed out into important conclusions; for he says
("Pol." VII. vii. 3) that "owing to the happy moder-
ation of the climate of Greece, the Hellenic race pos-
sess a combination of the best qualities which fall to
ARISTOTLE. 113
the lot of the human species, being both high-spirited
and intellectual; and if they could all together form one
political State, the Greeks might govern the world."
He drops out this isolated thought, but does not pursue
it. At the moment when he was writing, the Hellenic
race was in the utmost danger; it was, in fact, doomed
to fall from its high position into political extinc-
tion, and all for the want of " solidarity, "all from these
jealousies which kept each Greek city apart from the
rest. Aristotle's peculiar relations to the court of Mace-
don may have hindered him from freely entering upon
this subject, or may have biased his views; but the real
fact seems rather to have been that, while he was a great
philosopher, he was no statesman, and that, absorbed
in the researches of science and in the dreams of an
ideal State, he did not see the actual dangers of his coun-
try so clearly as his patriotic contemporary Demosthenes
saw them. His contribution to politics was abstract
and sdentific, and as such, remains valid for all time;
his analysis of the pathology (so to speak) of oligarchies
and democracies was found to be often strikingly veri-
fied in the history of the Italian republics. And how-
ever much the views of Aristotle fall short of the re-
quirements of modern times, the "Politics" will always
form a valuable study for one who is likely to take part
in the public affairs of his country.
CHAPTER VII.
THE NATURAL PHILOSOPHY OF ARISTOTLE.
ARISTOTLE has now done with Practical and Con-
structive Science.* He turns from Man with his dis-
* See above, p. 33.
114 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
putations, reasonings, oratory, poetry, moral and social
life, to the subjects of Speculative Science to Nature,
the Universe, and God. In glancing at the series of
great treatises in which the results of his thoughts and
researches upon these subjects are embodied, it will be
convenient to divide them under the three heads of Nat-
ural Philosophy, Biology, and Metaphysics. First, then,
the "Physical Discourse," the treatise "On the Heav-
ens," that "On Generation and Destruction," and the
"Meteorologies," form together a distinct whole,* and
contain the Natural Philosophy of Aristotle, of which
let us now notice some of the salient points, leaving his
Biology and Metaphysics to form the subject of future
chapters.
Natural Philosophy, as conceived by Aristotle, was
far more metaphysical than the science which is called
by that name in the present day a science based on
mathematics, and starting, we might perhaps say, with
the doctrines of Newton's " Principia," anything which
lies beyond these doctrines being taken for granted.
But in Aristotle's Natural Philosophy nothing is taken
for granted. He commences by inquiring into the na-
ture of "Existence;" and sets himself to answer some
of the puzzles with which his predecessors, the philoso-
phers of Greece, had racked their own and other peo-
ple's brains. They had said, " How is it possible for
anything to come into existence? Out of what can it
come? It must come either out of the existent or the
non-existent. But it cannot come out of the existent,
else it would have existed already; nor can it come out
of the non-existent, for out of nothing nothing can
* On the connection of these works see some general remarks
above, p. 41.
ARISTOTLE. 115
corne." Aristotle solves this dilemma (" Phys." I. viii.)
by introducing what now seems a simple enough dis-
tinction that between the "possible" and the "actual;"
things come into existence, that is, into actuality, out
of the state of the possible. Now the possible, or po-
tential, is in one sense non-existent, as it is nothing
actual ; but, on the other hand, it is not mere nonentity,
as it is by hypothesis a possibility of existence. All this
may appear to be a mere matter of words; and it may
be asked what we gain by having the words "possibil-
ity" and "actuality" added to our vocabulary. But,
in fact, men think by means of words; and if a new
formula can clear up the notions connected with such
often-occurring terms as 'is" or "became," it is a gain,
the reality of which is shown by the perplexities to
which thinkers had been reduced to for the want of it.
Aristotle, pursuing his general reflections about Ex-
istence, says that in everything that exists you can trace
three principles: the Matter out of which the thing
arose, and which contained the possibility of its exist-
ence; the Form or actual nature which the thing pos-
sesses; and the legation or Privation of all other na-
tures. That is to say a thing is what it is by not being
what it is not. And thus all existence has a negative,
as well as a positive, side ("Phys." I. ix.). These re-
marks form a metaphysical basis to Natural Philosophy.
In the second book of his " Physical Discourse,"
Aristotle quits the region of pure abstractions, and
states, in interesting terms, his views of "Nature." He
speaks of " Nature" as "a principle of motion and rest
essentially inherent in things, whether that motion be
locomotion, increase, decay, or alteration." "It is ab-
surd to try to prove the existence of Nature; its exist-
ence is self-evident." Nature may be said in one way
116 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
to be the simplest substratum of matter in tilings pos-
sessing their own principle of motion and change; in
another way it may be called the form or law of such
things." In other words, Nature is both matter or po-
tentiality, and form or actuality; both the simple ele-
ments of a thing and its existence in perfection. It is
also the transition from the one to the other. " Nature,"
says Aristotle, " spoken of as the creation of anything,
is the path to nature."
Paley's "Natural Theology" opens with the cele-
brated argument which compares the world to a watch.
"If one were to find a watch," says Paley, "he would
surely conclude that there must have been a watch-
maker; and so from the marks of design in creation,
which are like the adaptations to special purposes of
each part in the watch, we must conclude that an in-
telligent Creator made the world." Aristotle, quite as
strongly as Paley, admits the marks of design in nature.
Hesuys(" Phys."II. viii. 14) :" The adaptation of means
to ends which we see in the procedure of the animals
makes some men doubt whether the spider, for instance,
and the ant, do not work by the light of reason or an
analogous faculty. In plants, moreover, manifest traces
of a fit and wisely-planned organization appear. The
swallow makes its nest and the spider its web by na-
ture, and yet with a design and an end; and the roots
of the plant grow downward for the sake of providing
it with nourishment in the best way. It is plain, then,
that the origin of natural things must be attributed to
design." He repudiates the notion that "the heavens
and the divinest of visible things" (" Phys."II. iv. 6) can
have been the result of the workings of blind chance.
Nor will he accept the theory of Empedocles (which
was like the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection in
ARISTOTLE. 117
its extremes! form) that blind chance hit upon the pro-
duction of life, and that whole races of monsters arid
imperfect beings perished before the moment came when
by mere accident and coincidence a creature was at-
tained sufficiently perfect to survive (" Phys."II. viii. 4).
So far from chance having been the chief force in pro-
ducing the framework of the Universe, Aristotle con-
siders chance to be a mere exception, a mere irregular-
ity, thwarting the reason and the wisdom which guides,
and has ever guided, the operations of nature.
But, while utterly denying what Mr. Darwin would
seem to point to that Reason is a result of the func-
tions of matter, and is a comparatively recent develop-
ment in the history of this globe Aristotle would
equally deny the thesis of Paley, that Reason, in the
form of an intelligent Creator, existed separately before
this world, and constructed the world as a watch-maker
constructs a watch. While he considered Reason to
have existed from all eternity, he thought that the Uni-
verse, rJervaded in all its parts by Reason, had also ex-
isted from all eternity. Thus all idea of the world hav-
ing been created was quite eliminated from the thoughts
of Aristotle. He said the world must have been eter-
nal, for everything which is created, or comes into ex-
istence, comes into the " actual " out of the "possible."
The egg and the seed are instances of the "possible,"
the fowl and the flower of the "actual." But there
must always have been a fowl before there was an egg,
and a flower before there was a seed. Therefore the
actual must always have been first; and if this be the
case with particular classes of things, we cannot con-
ceive that the whole world was ever non-existent, and
a mere possibility waiting to be called into existence
(" Metaphys." VIII. viii.).
118 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
Philosophers always acknowledge the difficulty which
there is in conceiving a beginning. Aristotle escapes
this difficulty by asserting that the Universe has existed
eternally the same as it appears to us now. He says
that there is only one Cosmos or Universe, and that out-
side of this there is " neither space, nor vacuum, nor
time." One would expect these words to mean that
the Universe extends to infinity in all directions; but,
on the other hand, Aristotle attributes a definite circular
shape to the " outside" of the Universe, which would be
incompatible with the idea of infinite extension. In
fact, his arguments to prove the above untenable posi-
tion are curious abstract quibbles, which maybe quoted
to show how oddly a philosopher of the 4th century
B.C. could reason on the physical construction of the
Universe. He says ("On the Heavens," I. ix.) that
there can be neither space nor vacuum outside the cir-
cumference of the Cosmos, for, if there were, then body
might be placed therein; but this is impossible, because
every physical body is naturally endowed with one of
three motions : it is either naturally centripetal, or nat-
urally centrifugal, or naturally revolving round the
earth. Now each of these three kinds of body has its
natural place within the Universe; the stone being cen-
tripetal has its natural place on or in the earth ; fire be-
ing centrifugal has its natural place above the air; the
stars which revolve have their natural place in the re-
volving Heaven. Thus there is no kind of body which
can naturally exist outside the Universe, and therefore
there can be no space, for space is that in which bodies
exist! That there is no Time beyond the limits of the
Universe, Aristotle proves by the more legitimate argu-
ment that " if there is no motion there can be no Time,
since Time is the measure of motion." But his coucep
ARISTOTLE. 119
tion of the "natural" motions inherent in different
classes of bodies, and his appeal to his own precon-
ceived ideas of "nature" to prove what exists, or does
not exist, outside the circumference of Heaven, are very
characteristic.
Time and Space, then, according to Aristotle, end
with the circumference of Heaven, though it is difficult
to understand how space can be conceived to come to
an end at any particular point. But the Stagirite here
becomes mystical, for he says that "the things out-
side," existing in neither space nor time, enjoy for all
eternity a perfect life of absolute joy and peace ("Heav-
ens," I. ix.). This is the region of the divine, in which
there is life and consciousness, though perhaps no per
sonality; it is increate, immutable, and indestructi-
ble.
Descending from this region if that can be called
region which is out of space altogether we come in
the Aristotelian system to the "First Heaven," the
place of tke fixed stars, which ever revolves with great
velocity from the left to the right. In a lower sphere,
revolving in the contrary direction, are the sun, moon,
and planets; and we are told that we must not suppose
that either stars or planets are composed of fire. Their
substance is ether, that fifth element, or quinta essentia,
which enters also into the composition of the human
soul. They only seem bright, like fire, because the
friction caused by the rapidity with which they are
carried round makes them red-hot. The reason why
the stars twinkle, but the planets do not, is merely that
the former are so far off that our sight reaches them in
a weak and trembling condition; hence their light
seems to us to quiver, while really it is our eyesight
which is quivering. Sun, moon, and stars alike are
120 TUP: ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
living beings, unwearied, and in the enjo3 r ment of per-
fect happiness.
It has often been said that if an ancient Greek
temple be compared with a Gothic cathedral, the one
suggests the idea of the finite, the other of the infinite.
The same thing might be said of Aristotle's Cosmology
when compared with the views of modern science.
Aristotle figured to himself a perfectly limited universe,
with the earth in the center, and the fixed stars all
round the circumference. In a circle, or globe, it may
be questioned which is the place of honor the center
or the circumference. The Pythagoreans, accordingly,
after the abstract method of those times, declared that
the center must be the most honorable position, and
that, as the element fire is more honorable than the
element earth, the center of the Universe must be
occupied by some Central Fire, and that the earth must
revolve round this like the other stars. Aristotle, uncon-
scious how much nearer to the truth this guess was than
his own, laughs at it as, the production of men "who
try to square facts to their own fancies, and who wish
to have a share in the arrangement of the Universe."
He also repudiates (" Heavens," II. xiv. 1) the theory of
Plato that the earth is packed round the axis of the
entire Universe and revolves with it, thus causing day
and night.* He maintains that the earth is the motion-
less center, but the least honorable member, of the Uni-
verse, the all-embracing circumference being the most
noble, and the heavenly bodies having a dignity in
inverse ratio to their approach towards the center. The
guesses, or intuitions, of the ancient Greeks in Aristotle's
* There is some doubt as to what Plato's theory actually
was. See "Minor Works of George Grote," vol. i. pp. 239-275,
and Professor Jowett's Introduction to the " Timaeus" of Plato.
ARISTOTLE. 121
time, or soon afterwards, hit upon something very like
au anticipation of the Copernican system. And this
was especially the case with Aristarchus of Samos, who
announced the double movement of the earth, round its
own axis and round the sun. But Aristotle certain-
ly contributed nothing towards the adoption of such
ideas. He unfortunately committed himself, on fancied
grounds of symmetry, to an opposite view.
Aristotle argued that if the earth were to move it
could only do so "unnaturally," by the application of
external force in contradiction to its own natural ten-
dency to rest round the center, and that no such forced
movement could be kept up forever, whereas the ar-
rangement of the Cosmos must be for all eternity.
Therefore the earth must be at rest! As to its shape,
Aristotle was more correct: he proved it to be spherical
(1) by the consideration that all heavy bodies are by
nature alway tending to the center, and that this pro-
cess must result in the production of a spherical mass;
(2) by the fact that the earth's shadow cast on the moon
in an eclipse is circular. He considered the bulk of the
earth to be small when compared with that of " the
other stars;" he accepts the calculations of the geome-
ters of his time that its circumference was 400,000
stades; and he says that "we must not treat with in-
credulity the opinion of those who say that the regions
near the Pillars of Hercules (or Straits of Gibraltar)
join on to India, and that the ocean to the east of
India and that to the west of Europe arc one and the
same." In support of this proposition he adduces the
fact that elephants are to be found on each side, i.e. , in
India and in Africa ("Heavens," II. xiv. 15). The
passage of Aristotle here quoted had a large share in
inflaming the imagination of Christopher Columbus,
122 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
and in sending him forth from the coasts of Spain in
search of the coasts of India; and it was the cause of
the islands of Central America being named the " West
Indies," and the aborigines of North America being
called "Red Indians." As an approximative guess at
the size and figure of the earth, the passage in question
was not a bad one, considering the time when it was
written ; but curiously enough it contains two errors,
the first of which would imply the earth to be a great
deal larger, and the second a great deal smaller, than
it really is. The mean geographical stade of the Greeks
is computed at 168 yards 1 foot and 6 inches, and thus
if 400,000 stades be assigned to the circumference of
the earth, we get a measurement of above 38,000 miles,
whereas the latest calculations would only give about
24,857 miles for a mean circumference of the earth.
Thus evidently the geometers of the time of Aristotle
were too liberal in their ideas of the earth's size. But,
on the other hand, those who identified the Atlantic
with the Pacific Ocean, and brought India opposite to
Spain, had evidently too contracted a notion of the con-
tents of our globe.
Owing to the absence of astronomical instruments,
and the generally infantile condition of physical sci-
ence in the 4th century B.C., it was only natural that
the a priori method, or guessing, should greatly pre-
dominate in the cosmical theories of that time. But
Aristotle's strength did not lie in his imagination. In
this faculty he was inferior lo other philosophers whom
in analytical power he far surpassed. Thus Alexander
von Humboldt says of him (" Cosmos," vol. i. note 48),
"the great influence which the writings of Aristotle
exercised on the whole of the Middle Ages, renders il a
cause of extreme regret that he should have been so op-
ARISTOTLE. 123
posed to the grander and juster views of the fabric of
the universe entertained by the more ancient Pythago-
rean school." There was, in fact, a want of sublimity
in the fancy of Aristotle, and it so happened that
he sometimes contemptuously rejected hypotheses
which were not only more beautiful, but more true,
than his own. We have seen that this was the case
with regard to the earth's position in the cosmical
system. And the same thing occurred as to the nature
of comets. The Pythagoreans had declared comets to be
"planets of long revolution;" but Aristotle, rejecting
this supposition, affirmed them to be transient meteors
of our atmosphere, formed out of luminous or incan-
descent matter which had been thrown off by the stars.
And to explain the reason why comets are so rare, he
said that the matter out of which they are composed
is constantly used up in forming the Milky Way.
(" Meteorol." I. viii.) " The nebulous belt, then, which
traverses the vault of the heavens, is regarded by the
Stagirite as an immense comet incessantly reproducing
itself."
Clearly, Aristotle's contribution to Natural Philosophy
did not consist in suggesting or leading the way to true
views as to the nature and arrangement of the heavenly
bodies. He not only was in advance of his age in
this respect, but was even behind it, in so far as he
refused to adopt theories, which have since turned out
to have been anticipations of the results of modern
science. But, on the other hand, it must be remembered
that those theories were incapable of verification at the
time, and had no force in themselves to command the
attention of the world. They were like the "false
dawn" in tropical countries, which appears for a few
minutes and then fades away, allowing the darkness
124 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
again to reign supreme, till the true sunrise takes place.
Unconvinced by the speculations of the Pythagorean
school and of Aristarchus of Samos, the great Alex-
andrian astronomer, Ptolemy, in the second century
of our era, reaffirmed the Aristotelian views as to the
spherical form and motion of the heavens, as to the
earth's position in the centre of the heavens, and as to
its being devoid of any motion of translation. And
the Ptolemaic system satisfied men's minds until, with
Copernicus and Galileo, modern astronomy began.
We must allow that Aristotle's cosmical ideas were
erroneous and misleading. Still we must take them as
constituting a mere fraction of his encyclopaedia of phi-
losophy, and we must recollect that .they are put forth
in works which laid out and constituted new sciences.
This was the Stagirite's achievement, the clear anatytic
separation of the different sciences, and the statement,
in outline at all events, of the questions which each
science had >to answer. Aristotle generally attempted
to furnish his own answer to these questions, and often
gave wrong answers; yet to have posited the questions
at all was a great matter, and cleared the way for the
thoughts of subsequent generations. There is no one
to whose work the saying is more appropriate than to
that of the Stagirite prudenx qucestio dimidium scien-
ticeest "It is half-way to knowledge when you know
what you have to inquire."
The leading questions started in the Natural Phi-
losophy of Aristotle are as to the nature of causation,
time, space, and motion. On the subject of motion he
went astray by taking up the idea that celestial and
terrestrial motions were different in kind that the
heavenly bodies "naturally" revolved, while bodies on
earth had each a natural motion in them, either down-
ARISTOTLE. 125
ward or upward. This belief in the absolute levity of
certain bodies as, for instance, fire was, of course,
a mistake. "Truth is the daughter of Time;" and
a few of the great discoveries of modern ages, which
appear so simple, though they were so hardly and so
late achieved, such as the Copernican system, and the
law of gravitation, have shattered the Cosmos of
Aristotle. Still it required at least fifteen centuries
before anything like a demonstration was brought
against the reality of that Cosmos and its arrange-
ments. Thus, if Aristotle be censured for the incorrect-
ness of his theories, succeeding generations of thinkers
for so long a period must also be held responsible for
their undoubting acceptance of them.
Aristotle's method in Physics, as in most other sub-
jects, consisted in this: he first endeavored to state
clearly to himself what was the problem which he had
before him, then he collected all the solutions of that
problem which had been proposed by his predecessors,
and all popular "sayings" and "notions" in regard to
it, and then he examined existing opinions by the light
of such facts as occurred to him, or which had been
previously collected by him, or else he applied logical
reasonings and general philosophical considerations in
pronouncing upon the validity of the theories of others.
A main part of the process consisted in starting ingeni-
ous difficulties to the theories in question, so that they
seldom came through the ordeal without being wholly
exploded or considerably modified. The residuum left,
or the new result arrived at, constituted the theory of
Aristotle. Such is not the procedure by which dis-
coveries are made, knowledge increased, and the bound-
aries of science extended, in modern times. But after
all, it was not a bad procedure for a man who was
126 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
writing an encyclopaedia. Aristotle had undertaken to
set forth every department of knowledge revised and
perfected, so far as possible, by the aid of stores of in-
formation and thought which he had laid up. In some
departments he was much stronger than others: in
Politics, Sociology, Psychology, and Natural History,
he had a far better array of facts than in Astronomy
and Mechanics. No one could be keener than he was
to make facts the basis of every theory; but he was
obliged to do the best he could in each case with his
materials. He set out all that was known or believed
on each subject, and added to the knowledge or criti-
cised the beliefs as well as he could. The real aids for
the advance and verification of science which exist in
modern times instruments, such as the telescope, the
microscope, the barometer, the thermometer, the spec-
troscope, and countless others ; the knowledge of many
great laws of nature; and the practice of accurately ob-
serving and carefully recording were all wanting in
the days of Aristotle. Therefore it is absurd to treat
him as if he had been a modern man of science, with a
vicious method. It may be called a mistake that he
attempted so much; still what he accomplished was
wonderful if we merely regard it as a map of the
Sciences belonging to the 4th century B.C., full of his
own additions and improvements.
There is one great science of modern days which
Aristotle failed to separate off, or sketch out, or in any
way to foreshadow and that is the science of Chem-
istry. Some erroneously spell this word " chymistry" as
though it were derived from the Greek chymos,* a juice,
* Aristotle, in treating of the sense of Taste, gives an enume-
ration of different flavors, and then says, " The other properties
of juices form a proper subject for inquiry in connection with
A1USTUTLK. 127
and as though it had been known to the Greeks. But
of course "chemistry" comes from the Semitic word
chem (which is the same as "Ham," the son of Noah),
meaning "black," and then "Egyptian." And thus
Chemistry is the black or Egyptian art, having taken
its rise out of the searches made by the Alchemists to
discover the philosopher's stone. Aristotle had no no-
tion whatever of the rich field of knowledge and power
which lay in the analysis of substances. He had no
idea of the composition of water or air. The crucible
and the retort had never been worked in Athens; the
most superficial guesswork, as to what we should call
the chemical properties of bodies, contented the philos-
ophers of the day. Aristotle's work "On Generation
and Corruption" would have been the appropriate place
for enunciating some of the laws of Chemistry; but he
does not go beyond a resolution of the " Four Elements"
into the ultimate principles of the Hot, the Cold, the
Wet, and the Dry the first pair being "active" and the
second "passive" principles. Hot and Wet, we are
told, ftfrm Air; Hot and Dry, Fire; Cold and Wet,'
Water; Cold and Dry, Earth. From these principles
Aristotle deduces the generation and destruction of phy-
sical bodies ; but on the details of a theory which now
seems puerile we need not dwell.
the physiology of plants." Thus by " juices" he means vegeta-
ble fluids, to be treated of from the point of view of Botany or
of Materia Medico,.
128 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE BIOLOGY OF ARISTOTLE.
THE word "Biology" is perhaps only about fifty
/ears old, having first come into prominent use in the
" Positive Philosophy" of Auguste Comte. It is now
quite naturalized in the vocabulary of science; and there
is an article on " Biology," by Professor Huxley, in the
recently published edition of the " Encyclopaedia Bri-
tanuica," which begins, "The Biological sciences are
those which deal with the phenomena manifested by
living matter." Yet still, in the eyes of a scholar this
modern compound is an unfortunate one. The Greeks
had two words for life, Zoe and Bios: the former
expressed life viewed from the inside, as it were the
vital principle, the functions of life, the sense of living;
the latter expressed the external form and manner of
living, such as a man's profession or career. Zoe was
applicable to the whole animated kingdom; Bios was
restricted to man, except so far as, half-metaphoricaliy,
it was applied to the habits of beasts or birds. Thus
Aristotle divided Zoe into the species '"vegetable,"
"animal," and "human;" but Bios into the species
"life of pleasure," "life of ambition," and "life of
thought." From all this, it will be seen that " Biology"
could not be used to denote a science of the phenomena
of living matter in general, without a sacrifice of ancient
Greek associiitions. '' Biology," in short, is more appro-
priate to express what we generally call Sociology ; and,
on the other hand, " Zoology" should have been used
to express wnai is now called "Biology." But the fact
was, that the word " Zoftlogy" (derived from Zoon, an
ARISTOTLE. 1CD
animal, not from Zoe, life) bad been already appro-
priated as a name for natural bistory. Hence, \vitliout
regard to classical propriety, tbe word " Biology" was
forced into service to meet a want, and to express, what
bad never been expressed before, tbe science of life in
all its manifestations from tbe lowest ascidian up to
tbe highest development of humanity, so far as that
development can be considered to be a natural evolu-
tion out of the physiological laws of life.
Aristotle had no word to express this comprehensive
idea, but assuredly he had the idea itself. He regards
the whole of nature as a continuous chain, even begin-
ning with inorganic substances and passing by imper-
ceptible gradations on to organisms, to the vegetable,
and to the zoopbjtc, and then to the animal and the
various ranks in the animal kingdom, and lastly to man
(" Researches about Animals," VIII. i. 4), "whose soul
in childhood, you might say, differs not from the
soul of the lower animals." This broad comprehensive
sweep of the philosophic eye through the realms of
nature, this finding of unity in such endless diversity,
this tracing of a continuous thread throughout the
ascending scale of life, may seem quite a matter of
course to educated persons of the present day. But
it was creditable to Aristotle to have so fully arrived
at and entertained this conception, and to have set it
forth in such firmly-drawn scientific outlines. Above
all, it was creditable to one who, though born of the
race of Esculapius (see above, p. 2), had been trained
as a dialectician and an orator, and had devoted so
much time and labor to tbe sciences connected with
words and thoughts, that he should have had the forcu
and versatility to act also as pioneer into a totally
different range of inquiries, and to collect such a mass
130 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
of facts wherewith to fill in his general sketch of
animated nature. It is probable that at all periods
of his life his studies, observations, and notes upon
matters of physical and natural science, ran on side
by side with his development of mental and moral
philosophy. Some have thought that the period of his
residence at the Court of Macedonia, when acting as
tutor to Alexander, afforded him peculiar facilities, m
the shape of royal menageries and hunters and fowlers
under his command, for the collection of materials for
his great work on animals. However this may be,
there seems no sufficient reason for taking that work
itself out of the list of those which were on the stocks
And more or less completed during the last thirteen
years of his life.
Aristotle's biological treatises, as briefly specified
Above (p. 42), consist (1) of the work "On the Parts
of Animals," which contains a distinction still valid
in physiology between "tissues" and "organs," or as
Aristotle calls them, "homogeneous 1 ' and "unhomo-
geneous" substances. He traces here, according to his
own ideas, the ascent from the inorganic to the organic
world: out of heat, cold, wetness, and dryness the four
elements are compounded; out of the four elements are
formed the homogeneous substances or tissues; out of
these are formea the organs, and out of the organs
yhe organized being. All this served as a provisional
theory, until superseded by the discoveries of chemistry.
Aristotle laid it uown as a principle of method (" Parts
of An.," I. i. 4), tiiat all which was common to the vari-
ous species of living beings should be discussed before
entering upon tneir specific differences. Therefore (2)
dhe treatise " Oa the Soul" followed next in order, and
Braced out the vital principle through its successive
ARISTOTLE. 131
ascending manifestations. To this was appended (3)
the " Parva Naturalia" or " Physiological Tracts,"
which dealt with some of the functions of living crea-
tures, whether common or special, such as sensation,
memory, dreaming, and also with the following pairs
of opposites: waking and sleeping, youth and old age,
inspiration and expiration, life and death. It was
added that there is another pair still to be treated of
namely, health and sickness. The Stagirite, as was
natural from his family traditions, always appears to
have looked forward to composing a philosophical work
on Medicine. Bu* there is no trace of this ever having
been achieved.
The 4th book on the list kept still to generalities.
This was the short treatise "On the Locomotion of
Animals," which showed how various organs in the
various creatures are adapted by nature for this pur-
pose. Next (5) the elaborate treatise "On the Genera-
tion of Animals" worked out this subject, illustrating
it with a wonderfully copious collection of facts, or
supposed facts, and of the opinions of the day; and,
lastly (6), the great treatise entitled " Researches about
Animals," formed, as it were, the conclusion of the
whole, by giving detailed observations upon many of
the various living creatures which are the products of
the working of nature's general laws.
Aristotle justly drew a distinction between the way
in which any phenomenon of nature would be con-
sidered and defined by a dialectician and by a physicist.
Thus he says ("On the Soul," I. i. 16): "Anger would
be defined by a dialectician to be ' a desire for retalia-
tion,' or something of the kind, by a physical philos-
opher it would be defined as 'a boiling up of the hot
blood about the heart.' " It is needless to say that the
133 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
Stagirite himself was great and unrivalled in his dialec-
tical definitions, those definitions which depended on
grasping the essence of facts which are patent to all
ages alike; while in his physical definitions, being
destitute of facts which only later ages have brought to
light, he was very imperfect and occasionally almost
absurd. As a specimen of this we may mention his
account of the vital principle or life, from the two
points of view. He defines the vital principle (" Soul,"
II. i. G) to be "the essential actuality of an organism;"
and this definition has met with high praise from
modern physiologists, some of whom, indeed, appear
simply to have repeated it in slightly different words.
Thus Duges defines life as "the special activity of
organized bodies;" and Beclard calls it "organization
in action."* The merit of Aristotle's definition, as
coming from an ancient Greek philosopher, consists in
its avoiding the view which would have been natural
in those times namely, that life, the vital principle or
the physical soul, was a separate entity, dwelling in the
body, liospes comesque corporis, "the body's guest and
friend," as the Emperor Hadrian called it in his dying-
verses. Aristotle said that life, or the soul, is not a
chance guest, but a function; it is to the body as sight
is to the eye; it is the perfect action of all the conditions
of the bodily organization. Thus the Pythagoreans
spoke vainly when they talked of the "transmigration
of souls," as if the soul of a man could migrate into the
body of a beast. " You might as well," said Aristotle,
" speak of the carpenter's art (which is the result of the
* These definitions are quoted in Bennett's " Text-book of Phy
siology," p. 184. See also Mr. G. H. Lewes's " Aristotle, a Page
from the History of Science," p. 230.
ARISTOTLE. 133
carpenter's tools) migrating into flutes, which are the
tools of the musician."
So much for his dialectical, or speculative, views of
life. The following are some of his opinions in detail
on the same subject, from a physical point of view,
taken from the " Physiological Tracts:" The primary
condition of life is the ''natural fire" which resides in
the heart of each living creature. This fire may be
extinguished by contrary forces, or smothered by ex-
cess of heat. Respiration is the process of cooling,
which prevents the smothering of the vital fire.
Animals require two things for existence food and
cooling. The mouth serves for both purposes, except
in the case of fishes,* who get their cooling not by air
through the lungs, but by water through the gills.
The heart is placed in the middle region of the body,
ml is not only the seat of life, but also of intelligence;
it is the first formed of all the parts. The brain is the
c-oldest and wettest part of the body, and serves con-
jointly with the respiration in cooling down the fire of
life. Three of the senses sight, sound, and smell are
located in the brain; touch and taste reside in the
heart, which also contains the "common sensorium."
or faculty of complex perceptions, such as figure, size,
motion, and number. The heart makes the blood and
sends it out by the "veins" to all parts of tbe body (of
course Aristotle was unaware of the return of the blood
10 the heart, and therefore made no distinction between
veins and arteries). Adequate warmth being the con-
dition of life, the inhabitants of hot countries are longer-
* Aristotle rejects the (true) opinion of Anaxagoras and Di-
ogenes that fishes get air out of the water which they draw
through their gills, and that they are suffocated when out of the
water because the air comes to them in too large quantities.
134 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
lived than those of cold countries; and men are longer-
lived than women. But as cooling also is required,
people with large heads, as a rule, live long.
It is hardly necessary to say that every opinion
above mentioned is mistaken, and almost every state-
ment of fact erroneous. Aristotle, however, is not
solely responsible for the doctrines, for he doubtless
inherited his ideas of anatomy and physiology from
Hippocrates and his father Nicomachus, and, in short,
from his Greek predecessors. He neither did, nor
could, create the whole of physiology afresh, as lie cre-
ated the whole science of logic. This shows the differ-
ence between a science that is simple and abstract, be-
ing dependent on a few laws of the human mind, and a
science which is infinitely complex, being dependent on
facts which have only gradually been discovered up to
a certain point during the long lapse of centuries, with
the aid of instruments which were unknown to the an-
cients. But Aristotle had distinctly the idea of the ad-
vance of physiology and medicine by means of the
study of nature. He said, "Physical philosophy leads
to medical deductions, the best doctors seek grounds
for their art in nature." Perhaps from this sentence, at
all events from the notion contained in it, the word
"physician" has come to be appropriated in modern
times by the practitioners of medicine.
Unfortunately, Aristotle not unfrequently applied di-
alectical reasonings to questions of physiology when they
were quite inappropriate. For instance, arguing
against Plato's theory of respiration namely, that
breathing results from the impact upon us of the ex-
ternal atmosphere following upon the disturbance
which is caused by the expiration of warm air he says
that this would imply expiration to be the first of the
AHISTOTLE, 135
two operations; but they alternate, and expiration is the
last, therefore inspiration must be the first! Again, he
mentions the opinion of those who said that the senses
correspond with the four elements, and that sight is
fire, trying to prove it by the fact that if the eye be
struck sparks are seen, Aristotle, however, says that
this faet is to be explained in another way : the iris of
the eye shines like a phosphorescent substance; when
the eye is struck, the sudden shock of the blow causes
the eye as an object of vision to become separate from
the eye as the organ of visiou, and thus the eye for an
instant sees ilself! Again, he says that the "white" of
the eye is unctuous, which prevents the watery vehicle
that conveys the sight from getting frozen ; the eye is
less liable to freeze than any part of the body!
Turning from these curiosities of an old-world physi-
ology, let us glance at the natural history of Aristotle,
There is something peculiar and Aristotelian about the
very terms " Natural History." They arise out of a
mistranslation of the title of Aristotle's work, " Histo-
ries about Animals," where " Histories" is used in its
primitive sense of "investigations" or "researches."
But the title has been translated Historia Ammalium,
or "History of Animals," and from this the modern
plirase " Natural History" has doubtless got crystallized
iuto its present signification. Looking to the contents
of the treatise in question, we perceive that to a great
part of it the shorter form of the word " Histories"
would have been applicable, as consisting rather of
" Stories about Animals" than of any very profound in-
vestigations with regard to them. It is probable that a
large proportion of what is here recorded came to Aris-
totle orally; and that, too, not from savants, but from
uneducated classes of people whose occupations had
136 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
put them in the way of observing the habits of certain
species such people as fishermen, sailors, sponge-div-
ers, fowlers, hunters, herdsmen, bee-keepers, and the
like. We know how difficult it is to get pure fact, un-
alloyed by fancy, from informants of this kind; arad
therefore it is no wonder that Aristotle, in compiling the
first treatise on Natural History that was ever written,
and in collecting his materials by inquiry made at first
or second hand from the working classes, should have
admitted many a "yarn" and many a " traveller's tale"
into his pages. The subject was too new to admit of
his being able by instinctive sagacity to reject the im-
probable; a judgment of that kind is only attained by
one who possesses a vast stock of well-ascertained facts,
and by unconscious analogy can argue from the known
to the unknown. In many cases Aristotle shows him-
self almost as simple as old Herodotus, with his tales of
the phoenix and other marvels.
The following may be quoted as one instance out of
many of the naivete of the Stagirite ("Animals," IX.
xlviii.): "Among marine animals there are many in-
stances recorded of the mild, gentle disposition of the
dolphin, and of its love of its children, and its affection,
in the neighborhood of Tarentum, Caria, and other
places. It is said that when a dolphin was captured
and wounded on the coast of Caria, a great multitude of
dolphins came into the harbor, until the fishermen let
him go, when they all went away together. And one
large dolphin always follows the little ones to take care
of them. And sometimes a shoal of large and small
dolphins has been seen together, nrnl two of these hav-
ing been left behind have appeared soon after support-
ing and carrying on their back a small dead dolphin
that was on the point of sinking, as if in pity for it, that
ARISTOTLE. 137
it might not be devoured by any other creature. In-
credible things are told of the swiftness of the dolphin,
which appears to be the swiftest of all animals whether
marine or terrestrial. The}' even leap over the masts of
large ships. This is especially the case when they pur-
sue a fish for the sake of food; for if it flies from them
they will pursue it, from hunger, into the depths of the
sea. And when they have to return from a great depth
they hold in their breath, as if calculating the distance,
and gathering themselves up they shoot forward like an
arrow, wishing with all speed to accomplish the dis-
tance to their breathing-place. And if a ship happen to
be in the way, they will leap over its masts. The males
and females live in pairs with each other. Ther^ is
some doubt why they cast themselves on shore, for H is
said that they do this at times without any apparent
reason."
The freshness of spirit which breathes through
this passage characterizes the whole of Aristo'le's
treatise?- which, in spite of its sometimes reminding
us of the " showman" of modern times, has excited the
enthusiastic admiration of several great authorities.
Cuvicr says, "I cannot read this work without being
ravished with astonishment. Indeed it is impossible to
conceive how a single man was able to collect and
compare the multitude of particular facts implied in
the numerous rules and aphorisms which are contained
in this book." Buffon, De Blainville, St. Hilaire, and
others,* have used similar terms of eulogy. One n>o<l-
ern zoologist. Professor Sundevall of Stockholm, has
reckoned up the number of species with which Aristotle
showed himself to be more or less acquainted, aur* he
* Quoted by Mr. G. H. Lewes in his " Aristotle," p. 270.
138 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
finds them to amount to nearly 500, the total number
of mammals described or indicated being about TO; of
birds 150; of reptiles 20; and of fishes i!6 nmking
altogether 356 species of vertebrate animals. Of the in-
vertebrate classes about 60 species of insects and arach-
nids seem to have been known to Aristotie; some 24
crustaceans and annelids; and about 40 molluscs and
radiates.* At the same time, it must be remembered
that Aristotle had no idea of the scientific system of
classification which appears in Professor SundevaH's list.
He does not seem to have labored much at the arrange-
ment of living creatures into natural orders; indeed Lc
could not have succeeded in such an attempt, for want
of a sufficient knowledge of anatomy. He was content
with the superficial, universally-received, grouping of
animals, as walking, creeping, flying, or swimming; as
oviparous or viviparous; aquatic or terrestrial; and the
like. His book contains a mass of materials, but with-
out much methodic arrangement or trace of system. It
pointed the way, however, for his successors to a sience
of zoology.
The facts given by him of course vary extremely in
correctness and in value. In his account of sponges,
for instance, Aristotle is thought to have shown sound
information, probably derived from the reports of the
professional divers. But his statements about bees,
though obtained, as he tells us, from bee-keepers, and
though " made beautiful forever" in the charming verses
of Virgil's fourth Georgic, have been quite overturned
by the microscopic discoveries of Reaumur, Hunter,
Huber, Keys, Vicat, and Dunbar. On one caroin: 1
point the ancients were all wrong: they did not uncle, r-
* See " The Natural History Review" for 1864, p. 494.
ARISTOTLE. 139
stand the sex and the functions of either the queen-bee,
the worker, or the drone.
The following account of the lion is considered to be
fairly correct (" An.," IX. xliv.): "When feeding, the
lion is extremely savage; but when he is not hungry
and is full fed, he is quite gentle. He is not either
jealous or suspicions. He is playful and affectionate
towards those animals which have been brought up with
him, and to \vhich he is accustomed. When hunted, so
long as he is in view lie never flies or cowers; and if
compelled to give way by the number of his hunters, he
retreats leisurely, at a walk, turning himself round at
short intervals. But if he reaches a covert he flies
rapidly, until he is in the open again, and then he again
retreats at a walk. If compelled to fly when on the
open plains, he runs at full stretch, but does not leap-
His manner of running is continuous, like that of a dog
at full stretch; "when pursuing his prey, however, he
throws himself upon it when he comes within reach. It
is true what they say about the lion being very much
afraid <rf tire (as Homer wrote, " the blazing fagots, that
his courage daunt"), and about his watching and singling
out for attack the person who has struck him. But
when any one misses hitting him and only annoys him,
if in his rush he succeeds in catching that person, he
does not harm him nor wound him with his claws, but
shakes and frightens him and then leaves him. Lions
are more disposed to enter towns and attack mankind
when they havo grown old, because old age renders
them unable to hunt, and because of the decay of their
teeth. They live many years; and in tiie case of a lame
lion who was captured, he had mai\y of his teeth worn
down, which some considered a sign that lions live long,
140 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
for this could not have happened to an animal who was
not aged."
The " Researches about Animals," like many other of
Aristotle's great treatises, appears to have been left in
an unfinished state. The tenth book scenes merely to
be a sort of fragmentary continuation of the seventh
book both treating of the reproduction of the human
species. In the ten books as they have come down to
us, no one can pretend to find a finished whole. It is
a question, therefore, whether the work wa? ever pub-
lished in Aristotle's lifetime, or whether it ever got, in
its present form, to the Alexandrian Library. In the
Alexandrian Catalogue, indeed, there is mention of
a work entitled " Animals" in nine books. But this
may have been a set of excerpts by some Peripatetic
scholar; we cannot tell what its exact relation to " Our
Aristotle" may have been. There is some little interest
in the question, on account of the influence that Aris-
totle is supposed to have exercised on the Septuagint
version of the Old Testament, which was begun at
Alexandria 285 B.C. that is to say, just after Aristotle's
MSS. had been carried off to Asia Minor. It has been
conjectured that the Septuagint translators, in render-
ing the Hebrew word arnebeth, or " hare," by the Greek
word dasypus (hairy-foot), instead of by the word lagos,
which had been usual in earlier classical Greek, were
following a new fashion set by Aristotle in his "Re-
searches about Animals," in which work " the modern
word dasypus had almost entirely superseded the
older."* And it is added that " there was an even yet
more striking example of Aristotle's influence on the
*Dean Stanley's "Lectures on the History of the Jewish
Church," iii. 261.
ARISTOTLE. 141
passage" (Leviticus, xi. 6): for whereas in the original
Hebrew text the hare was said to chew the cud, the
translators, having been enlightened by the natural his-
tory of Aristotle, "boldly interpolated the word NOT
into the sacred text." The facts of the case are that
Aristotle uses logos for " hare" indifferently with, and
nearly as often as, daxypus; and that in one passage
(" An.," III. xxi. 1) he cursorily contrasts the hare with
the class of ruminants. On the whole, then, it seems
most natural to believe that the Septuagint translators
used the word dazypus because it had become the fashion
in speaking Greek to use it, and that Aristotle himself
had obeyed and not created this fashion. With regard
to the other point, it is quite possible that the translators
may have seen that passage of Aristotle's above referred
to; at all events, as educated men, they were doubtless
influenced by the spread of the study of natural history,
to which Aristotle, who had died only thirty-seven years
before, had given great impetus.
CHAPTER IX.
THE METAPHYSICS OF ARISTOTLE.
SOME of Aristotle's earliest attempts at writing were
on a strictly metaphysical subject, when he attacked
the Platonic doctrine of "Ideas." He doubtless went
on from this beginning, and thought of metaphysical
questions all his life, till he had framed for himself a
more or less complete metaphysical system, traces of
which show themselves in many forms of expression
and leading thoughts in all his various scientific works.
But it seems as if he had put off to the last the under-
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taking of a direct and complete exposition of that
system; and heuce arose the name "Metaphysics,"'
which is a mere title signifying ''the things which
follow after physics" a title given by Aristotle's school
to a mass of papers which they edited after his death,
and with regard to which they wished to indicate that
chronologically these papers were composed after the
physical treatises, and also, perhaps, that the subject of
which they treated was above* and beyond the mere
physical conditions of things. The word "Meta-
physics," starting from this fortuitous origin, has come
to be generally understood in modern times as denoting
the most abstract of the sciences the science of the
forms of thought and the forms of things, the science
of knowing and being, the science that answers the
questions, How can we know anything? how can any-
thing exist? Aristotle, who, of course, was himself un-
conscious of the word "Metaphysics," had three names
which he used indifferently for this science. Some-
times he called it simply " Wisdom;" sometimes "First
Philosophy." as treating of primary substances and the
origin of things; sometimes "Theology," because all
things have their root in the divine nature.
We have already had sonic specimens of Aristotle's
metaphysical doctrines, put forward as a foundation
for natural philosophy (see above, p. 115). In his bio-
logical treatises, also, especially in that " On the Soul,"
Aristotle does not confine himself to the physical prin-
ciple of life and the functions of the animal soul, but
enters upon the mode of our acquiring knowledge, ou
perception, memory, reason, and the relation of the mind
* Thus Shakespeare speaks of " Fate and metaphysical aid,"
meaning "supernatural."
ARISTOTLE. 143
to external objects all being questions which cncroacli
upon the province of metaphysical inquiry. The sub
stantive treatise, bearing the name " Metaphysics," has
come down to us in the shape of a posthumous frag-
ment, which has been edited and eked out by the addi-
tion of other papers. The whole work, as it stands,
consists of thirteen books. Of these, seven books were
written by Aristotle as the setting forth of his ontolog}',
or science of existence; Books IX., XII., and XIII.
(on the Pythagorean and Platonic systems of numbers
and ideas) seem to have been intended to come in as
part of the same treatise, but to have been left by Aris-
totle in the condition of mere notes or materials ; Book
XI. is thought to be a separate, though very valuable
and interesting essay on the nature of the Deity; while
Books IV. and X., and the appendix to Book I., are
un-Aristotelian,* and should never have had a place
assigned to them in the " Metaphysics."
To turn to this work from the "Researches about
Animals" is like turning from White's " Selborne" to
Kant's " Critic of the Pure Reason." Metaphysical
questions are necessarily abstruse, dry, and difficult;
but the attempt has sometimes been made as, for
instance, by Plato, Berkeley, Hume, and Ferrier to
discuss them in clear, pointed language, as little as
possible removed from the ordinary language of litera
tare. Aristotle, on the other hand, at all events in
later life, aimed only at scientific precision; and h;s
"Metaphysics" is the forerunner of those German
* Book IV. consists of a list of philosophical terms and their
definitions, perhaps jotted down by some scholar. Book X. is a
paraphrase of part of the " Physical Discourse." The appendix
to Book I. is a little essay on First Principles, of which tradition
attributes the authorship to one Pasides.
144 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
philosophies which from beginning to end exhibit a
jargon of technical phraseology. In another respect,
also, Aristotle here sets an example which has been
much followed by the Germans during the present
century; for in Book I. he gives a "history of philos-
ophy" from Thales down to himself. This is a very
interesting little sketch, disclosing for the first time
the fact that human thought has a history, and that
there was a time when the word " cause," for instance,
had never been heard, and pointing to the conclusion
that every abstract word which we use is the result of
the theories, and perhaps the controversies, of former
ages. Aristotle traces the thoughts of successive Gre-
cian thinkers, advancing under a law, while each stage
at which they arrived forced them on to the next (see
"Met.," I. iii. 11), from about 600 B.C. to about 330
B.C. And this task had never been again so well
accomplished until Hegel gave his first set of lectures
on the History of Philosophy, at Jena, in 1805.
Hegel was followed in the same field by Brandis,
Schwegler, Ueberweg, Cousin, Renouvier, Ferrier,
Zeller, and many others, to whose works we must
refer for information, as to the Greek philosophers.
Suffice it to say, that Aristotle's method of procedure is
to take his own doctrine of the Four Causes (see above,
p. 64), and to show how at first philosophers only got
hold of the idea of a Material Cause, and that after-
wards they gradually arrived at the idea of Motive
Power, Form, and End, or Final Cause. On the
whole,, his brief and masterly sketch, while full of
points of light, is open to the charge of not doing
sufficient justice to the views of his predecessors.
Among them all, he seems most highly to appreciate
Anaxagoras, of whom he says that, by introducing the
ARISTOTLE. 145
idea of Reason among the causes of the existence of
the world, he was "like a sober man beginning to
speak amidst a party of drunkards." Aristotle repeats
here his old polemic against what he calls the system
of Plato, though it is doubtful whether Plato would
himself have acknowledged it. One would almost
say that Aristotle misstated Plato in order to refute
him.
The same fate, as if by way of reprisal, has often in
modern times befallen the Stagirite, who has repeatedly
been misstated, and then censured for what he never
had maintained. At the risk, however, of committing
fresh injustices of this sort, we will endeavor briefly to
sum up his views upon some of the greatest questions
which have occupied modern philosophers. First, then,
we may ask how would Aristotle have dealt with those
problems concerning the existence of Matter, and the
reality of the External World, which have been a "shib-
boleth" in the philosophic world from Bishop Berkeley,
through the days of Hume and the Scotch psychologists,
down to Kant and Hegel and the extreme idealists of
Germany? His uiterances on this subject are perhaps
chiefly to be found in the third book of his treatise " On
the Soul," beginning with the fourth chapter. On turn-
ing to them we see that he never separates existence
from knowledge. "A thing in actual existence," ho
says, " is identical with the knowledge of that thing."
Again -"The possible existence of a thing is identical
with the possibility in us of perceiving or knowing it."
Thus, until a thing is perceived or known, it can only
be said to have a potential or possible existence. And
from this a doctrine very similar to that of Ferrier might
be deduced, that " nothing exists except plus me" thai
is to say, in relation to some mind perceiving it. An*
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totle indicates, without fiilly explaining, his doctrine of
the relation of the mind to external things in a cele-
brated passage (" Soul," iii. v.), where he says that there
are two kinds of Reason in the soul the one passive,
the other constructive. " The passive Reason becomes
all things by receiving their impress; the constructive
Reason creates all things, just as light brings colors into
actual existence, while without light they would have
remained mere possibilities." Aristotle, then, appears
to be removed from the " common sense" doctrine of
" natural realism," which believes that the world would
be just what we perceive to be, even if there were no
one to perceive it; for, by his analogy, the mind con-
tributes as much to the existence of things as light does
to color; and he is equally removed from that extreme
idealism which would represent things to be merely the
thoughts of a mind, for he evidently considers that
there is a " uot-me" a factor in all existence and
knowledge which is outside of the mind, and which
may be taken to be symbolized by all the constituents
of color, except light: the mind, according to him, con-
tributes only what light does to color; all else is external
to the mind, though without the mind nothing could at-
tain to actuality. The external world, then, according
to Aristotle, is a perfectly real existence, but it is the
product of two sets of factors the one being the rich
and varied constituents of the universe, the other being
Reason manifested in perceiving minds; and, without
the presence and co-operation of this perceptive Rea-
son, all things would be at once condemned to virtual
annihilation.
As to Matter, Aristotle called it "timber, "or "the
underlying," to indicate that it is to existence as wood
is to a table, and that it is something which is implied
ARISTOTLE. K7
in all existence. Nothing can exist without Matter,
which is one of the four causes of the existence of eve-
ly tiling; but, on the other hand, it may be said that
Matter itself has no existence. Things can only be re-
alized by the mind, and so come into actual existence,
if they be endowed with Form; pure Matter denuded
of form cannot be perceived or known, and therefore
cannot be actual. Suppose we take marble as the mat-
ter or material of which a statue is composed, if we
think of the marble we attribute to it qualities color,
brilliancy, hardness, and so on, and these qualities con-
stitute Form, and the marble is no longer pure Matter.
We have to ask, then, what is the matter " underlying"
the marble? and again, if we figure to ourselves any.
thing possessing definite qualities as, for instance, any
of the simple substances of chemistry we at once have
not only matter, but form. Matter, thus, in the theory
of Aristotle, is something which must always bepresup.
posed, and which yet always eludes us, and flies back
from the region of the actual into that of the possible.
Ultimate matter, or "first timber," necessarily exists as
the condition of all thing, but it remains as one of those
possibilities which can never be realized (see above, p.
49), and thus forms the antithesis to God, the ever act-
ual. From all this it may be inferred that Aristotle
would have considered it very unphilosophical to repre-
sent Matter, as some philosophers of the present day ap-
pear to do, as having had an independent existence, and
as having contained the germs, not only of all other
things, but even of Reason itself, so that out of Mattel-
Reason was developed. According to Aristotle, it is
impossible to conceive Matter at all as actually existing,
far less as the one independent antecedent cause of all
things; and it is equally impossible to think of Reason
148 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
as non-existent, or as having had a late and derivative
origin.
Subsidiary to his theory of knowledge, Aristotle dis-
courses at some length, both in his treatise "On the
Soul" and in his " Physiological Tracts," on the Five
Senses. He affirms that the sentient soul of man is
able to discriminate between the properties of things,
" because it is itself a mean or middle term between the
two sensible extremes of which it takes cognizance hot
and cold, hard and soft, wet and dry, white and black,
acute and grave, bitter and sweet, light and darkness,
etc. We feel no sensation at all when the object touched
is exactly of the same temperature with ourselves,
neither hotter n~>r colder." * This doctrine, which is
obviously true, points to the relativity of the qualities
of things; it shows that all qualities e.g., "great"
and "small," and all the rest are named from the
human stand-point, and that, in short, "Man is the
measure of all things." Protagoras, indeed, had used
this dictum in order to throw doubt on all know-
ledge and truth, for he said that everything was rela-
tive to the individual percipient, and that what ap-
peared sweet to one man might seem bitter to another
man; thus, that there could be no truth beyond "what
anyone troweth;" any assertion might be true for the
individual who made it, and not for any one besides.
Aristotle argues against this skeptical theory, ("Meta-
phys." III. iv.); in spite of minor fluctuations in the
subjective perceptions of individuals he finds ground
for truth and certainty in the consensus of the human
race, and in science which deals with universal prop-
*Grote's "Aristotle,", vol. ii. p. 197. See "On the Soul,"
ARISTOTLE. 149
ositions obtained by reason out of particular percep-
tions.
As usual, there is a great contrast between the cor-
rectness of his general philosophy of the senses and
that of his particular scientific theory of the operation
of each sense. While the world has made no advance
upon the one which was arrived at by mere force of
thought the other, lacking the aid of instruments and
accumulated experience, has been wholly left behind,
and appears infantile when compared with the discov-
eries of a Helmholtz. The following is a specimen of
Aristotle's physiology of the senses: "Do sensations
travel to us?" he asks. " Certainly," is the reply; " the
nearest person will catch an odor first. Sound is per-
ceived after the blow which caused it. The letters of
which words are composed get disarranged by being
carried in the air (!). and hence people fail to hear what
has been said at a distance. Each sense has its own
proper vehicle. Water is the vehicle of sight, air of
sound, fire of smell, earth of touch and taste. Sensa-
tions are not bodies, but motions or affections of the
vehicle or medium along which they travel to us.
Light,* however, is an exception to this rule; it is an
existence, not a motion; it produces alteration, and
alteration of a whole mass may be instantaneous and
simultaneous, as in a mass of water freezing. Thus
Empedocles was mistaken (!) when he said that light
travels from the sun to the earth, and that there is a
moment when each ray is not yet seen, but is being
borne midway." ("Phys. Tracts." "On Sensation."
* The theory of light here given seems to be not only erro-
neous in itself, but also inconsistent with Aristotle's explanation
of the twinkling of the stars. (See above, p. 119.)
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Among the permanent contributions to mental science
which were made by Aristotle, none is more famous
than his doctrine of the "Law of Association," which
he throws out while discussing Memory and Recollec-
tion in his "Physiological Tracts." He says, "Recol-
lection is the recalling of knowledge. It implies the
existence in the mind of certain starting-points, or clues,
so that when you get hold of one you will be led to the
rest. It depends on the law of association: we recollect
when such and such a motion naturally follows such
and such; we feel the latter motion, and that produces
the former. In trying to recollect, we search after
something that is in sequence, or similarity, or contrast,
or proximity, to the thing which we want to recollect.
Milk will suggest whiteness, whiteness the air, the air
moisture, and this the rainy season, which was what we
were trying to think of. No animal but man has the
power of recollection, though many animals have mem-
ory. Recollection implies consideration and a train of
reasoning, and yet it is a bodily affection a physical
movement and presentation." Aristotle adds that " per-
sons with large heads are bad at recollecting, on account
of the weight upon their perceptive organ (!), and that
the very young and very old are so, on account of the
state of movement they are in the one in the move-
ment of growth, the other in that of decay."
These considerations, however, whether correct or
erroneous, all belong rather to psychology than to met-
aphysics. Let us conclude by endeavoring to gather
Aristotle's opinions on three great metaphysical prob-
lems: The destiny of the human soul, free will, and the
nature of God. His opinions on these subjects have to
be "gathered," because, as said above (p. 5), he had no
great taste for such speculations, and was in this respe<>:
ARISTOTLE. 151
rery unlike Plato. Over the inind of Plato the idea of
i future life had exercised an absorbing influence,
flisiug to an almost Christian hope and faith, he had
hold out, as a consolation in the hour of death, the
promise of an immortality to be spent in the fruition of
truth; and, as a motive for human actions and a basis
for morals, he had enunciated a system of future re-
wards and punishments, closely corresponding with
Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory. What had been so
prominent with Plato was by Aristotle put away into
the extreme background. In early life, indeed, he had
written a dialogue, called "Eudeinus," which turned
on the story that an exile had been told by the oracle
that within a certain time he should be " restored to his
home," and that within that time he had died, and thus
in another sense had "gone home." It is conjectured
that this youthful production may have treated of the
survival of the individual Reason into another state of
existence. But in Aristotle's maturer works, so far
from such a doctrine being laid down, and deductions
made from it, passages occur which would seem to ren-
der it untenable. "The Soul," says Aristotle, "is the
function of the body, as sight is of the eye. Some of
its parts, however, may be separable from the body, as
not arising out of the material organization. This is
the case with the Reason, which cannot be regarded as
the result of bodily conditions, but which is divine, and
enters into each of us from without. Reason, as mani-
fested in the individual mind, is twofold, constructive
and passive (see above, p. 146). The passive Reason,
v;hich receives the impressions of external things, is the
scat of memoiy, but it perishes with the body; while
the constructive Reason transcends the body, being ca-
pable of separation from it and from all things. It is
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an everlasting existence, incapable of being mingled
with matter, or affected by it; it is prior and subse-
quent to the individual mind; but though immortal, it
carries no memory with it."*
This last sentence would seem logically to exclude
the possibility of a future life for the individual, for
memory is requisite to individuality; and if all that
is immortal in us is incapable of memory, it would
seem that the only immortality possible would be that
of a Buddhist nirvana, all the actions of this life and
all individual distinctions having been erased. Thus,
it would appear that the same dicMm might be applied
to the human race that is applied (" Soul," II. iv. 4)
to the works of Nature: "Perpetuity, for which all
things long, is attained not by the individual, for that
is impossible, but by the species." These logical de-
ductions are, however, never drawn by Aristotle
himself, who in his " Ethics" (I. xi. 1) protests against
any rude contradiction of the popular opinion that the
dead retain their consciousness, and even their interest
in what passes in this world. Thus, whether he did
or did not believe in a future life has been a matter
for controversy in modern times. On the whole, while
we have hardly sufficient data for pronouncing one
way or the other, it seems certain that no part of his
philosophy, so far as we possess it, shows any trace of
the influence of this doctrine.
As to Free Will: That is a question which has
arisen out of theology, out of the ideas of the infinite
power and knowledge of a personal God, which caused
the question to be asked, Can man do anything except
what he has been predestined to do? But such a diffi-
* Collected from "Soul," II. i 7-12; III. v. 2. " Generation,' '
II. iii. 10.
ARISTOTLE. 153
cv.lty implies two conditions, both of which \vere absent
from the mind of Aristotle namely, a strong appre-
hension of the personality and will of God, and a strong
apprehension of the importance of human acts and of
the eternal consequences attached to them. Aristotle,
as we shall see, caii hardly be said to have attributed
personality to the Deity; he thought human actions to
be of comparatively small importance; and he thought
freedom to be, in a certain sense, valueless. Hence, we
only mention the problem of Free Will in connection
with him in order to show how his ideas contrast with
those of the modern world. By a curious metaphor
("Metaphys." XL x.), he figured the universe as a
household, in which the sun and stars and all the
heavens are the musters, whose high aims and important
positions prevent any of their time being left to a
merely arbitrary disposal, for till is taken up with a
round of the noblest duties and occupations. Other
parts of the universe are like the inferior members of
the family the slaves and domestic animals who can
to a great extent pursue their own devices. Under the
last category man would be ranked. Aristotle does
not regard the unchanging and perpetual motion of
the heavenly bodies as a bondage, nor what is arbi-
trary in the human will as a privilege. His cosmical
views tended to disparage the dignity of man. He
would say with the Psalmist, "What is man in com-
parison with the heavens ?" But he failed to reach the
counterbalancing thought of Kant, that "There are
two things which strike the mind with awe the starry
heavens and the moral nature of man."
Within an eternal and immutable circumference of
the heavens, Aristotle placed a comparatively narrow
spnere of the changeable, and in this, Nature, Chance,
154 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
and Human "Will were the causes at work. Readmitted
a certain amount of determinism as controlling the
human will, but he did not care to trace out the exact
proportions of this ; he merely maintained that the
individual was a "joint cause," if not the sole cause,
of his own character and actions ("Eth." III. vii. 20).
He thought that mankind had existed from all eternity,
and that there had been over and over again a constant
process of development going on, till the sciences, and
arts, and society had been brought to perfection - and
then that by some great deluge, or other natural Con-
vulsion, the race had invariably been destroyed all
but a few individuals who had escaped, and who >Aad
had to commence anew the first steps towards civiUza-
tion.
To us, in the present day, it seems absolutely clear
that when we speak of a person we do not mean a
thing, and that when we speak of a thing we do not
mean a person. In Grecian philosophy, however, tMs
was not the case, for by both Plato * and Aristotle,
God was spoken of both as personal and as impersonal,
without any reconciliation between the two points of
view, or any remark on the subject. In the same wuy
they both pass from the plural to the singular, and
speak of "the gods" or "God" as if it hardly mat-
tered which term was used. This seems at first sur-
prising, but when we look into the matter (confining
our inquiry to the views of Aristotle), certain explana-
tions offer themselves. When he speaks of " the
gods," he is partly accommodating himself to the
ordinary language of Greece, and partly he is indi-
cating the heavenly bodies, as conscious, happy ex-
*See Professor Jowett's "Dialogues of Plato Translate* "
vol. iv. p. 11.
ARISTOTLE. 155
istences, worthy to be reckoned with that Supreme
God, Who inhabits the outside of the universe, and
imparts their everlasting motion to the heavens
When he speaks of "God," he has in his mind that
Supreme Being, Who, unmoved Himself, is the cause
of motion to all things, being the object of reason and
of desire being, in short, the Good. Here the transi-
tion from a person to an abstract idea is obvious; but
if God is the object of desire to the universe and to
Nature, who or what is it that desires Him? Clearly,
reason or divine instinct is placed by this theory
within Nature itself. In other words, this is Pan-
theism: it represents Nature as instinct with God,
and God in Nature desiring God as the Idea of Good.
But Aristotle passes on from this view to describe
God as " Thought" that is, as rather more personal
than impersonal and he asks, on what does that
thought think? Thought must have an object, and it
will be determined in its character by that object; it
will be elevated or deteriorated according as the object
on which it thinks is high or low. But this cannot be
the case with God, who cannot be subject to these alter-
ations. " God, therefore, must think upon Himself;
the thought of God is the thinking upon thought."
Only for a moment ("Metaphys." XL x. 1) does
Aristotle seem to take up something like our point of
view, when he says that God may be to the world as
the general is to an army. This seems like the modern
view, because it would imply something like will in
the nature of God. But it is a mere passing metaphor,
and none of the other utterances of the Stagirite would
attribute anything like will, providence, or ordering of
affairs to the Deity. We arc told ("Eth." X. viii. 7)
that it \vould be absurd to attribute to Him
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qualities or virtues, or any human function except philo-
sophic thought. He enjoys, however, happiness of the
most exalted kind, such as we can frame but an indis-
tinct notion of by the analogy of our own highest and
most blessed moods. This happiness is everlasting,
and God "has, or rather is," continuous and eternal
life and duration.*
We have been unavoidably launched upon a solemn
subject, because any account of Aristotle which did
not sketch his theories of the Deity would have been
incomplete. It will be seen that, on the whole, his
tendency is to what we should call Pantheism. "Rea-
son is divine, and Reason is everywhere, desiring the
Good and moving the world:" that is a summary of
Aristotle's philosophy. Of all modern speculators, the
one who most nearly approaches him is John Stuart
Mill, who represents God as benevolent, but not om-
nipotent. Aristotle also would say that the desire for
the Good which runs through Nature is baffled by the
imperfect ions of matter and the irregularities of chance.
The great defect in Aristotle's conception of God is,
that he denies that God can be a moral Being. This
in fact, entirely separates God from man; it leaves only
Theology possible, but not Religion; it takes away from
morality all divine sanctions. Plato's view was differ-
ent; but even he fell short of that deep idea of God, as
the Righteous One, which was revealed to the Hebrew
nation through their lawgivers and prophets, and after-
wards through our Saviour.
* The above statement of Aristotle's views of the Deity is col-
lected from "Metaphysics," XI. vi.-x.
ARISTOTLE. 157
CHAPTER X.
ARISTOTLE SINCE THE CHRISTIAN ERA.
WE have seen above (p. 86) that in the time of Cicero
that is to say, shortly before the Christian era the
works of Aristotle were very little known even to
philosophers. The edition of those works by Andro-
nicus was made and published in the last half century
before the birth of Christ. And then three hundred
years after the death of Aristotle there began silently
and imperceptibly the first dawn of that wider reputa-
tion of him, which was destined to shine through the
whole of Europe for a thousand years with evergrow-
ing and increasing splendor.
During the period of the Roman Empire, the day
for original philosophies was gone by. The works of
Aristotle, in the form in which they were now pre-
sented to the world being a culmination of ancient
thought, and containing a dogmatic exposition of the
outlines of every science; being rich in ideas and
facts, precise in terms, and yet condensed, and often
obscure offered to the minds of intellectual men, and
especially the subtle Greeks of those times, exactly
the kind of food and employment which suited them.
To study one of these treatises, and comment upon it,
became now regarded as sufficient achievement for the
life of one man. Aristotle thus shared the honors
awarded to the sacred books of different nations; he
became placed so high as an authority, that merely to
expound or explain his meaning was a path to fame.
The race of Greek commentators, or "Scholiasts," was
spread over three or four centuries, the most distin-
guished names among them being those of Boethus,
158 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
Nicolas of Damascus, Alexander of -<Ege, Aspasius,
Adrastus, Galenus, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Por-
phyry, lamblichus, Dexippus, Theraistius, Proclus,Am-
monius, David the Armenian, Asclepius, Olympiodorus.
Simplicius, and Johannes Philoponus. The writings
of many of these worthies have been lost, and their
memory only survives through their having been
quoted in the more enduring commentaries of others.
What remains of the whole body of these Scholia is
various in worth, ranging from emptiest platitudes up
to remarks of subtlety and ability. Occasionally, but
too rarely, the Greek scholiasts preserve for us some
precious sentence or tradition of antiquity. The late
Professor Brandis has condensed into one closely-
printed quarto volume all that he considered worth
notice of the " Scfwlia upon Aristotle," and even with
some of these we might have dispensed.
Gradually Christianity took possession of the Roman
Empire, and then came the inundation of barbarians,
whose uncultivated natures had no sympathy with
literature, science, or philosoplry. Libraries were de-
stroyed, or, unused, underwent the course of natural
decay. The arts fell into abeyance, and Western
Europe, as if in order to be born again, seemed to pass
through the waters of Lethe. From the sixth to the
thirteenth century all knowledge of the Greek writers
was lost. But long before the close of this period
intellectual life had begun to stir again among the friars
and ecclesiastics of the Continent; and the chief nourish-
ment for that life consisted of a fragment from antiquity,
being none other than Latin translations* of the so-
* These translations were attributed to Boethius, the "last of
the philosophers," at the end of the fifth and beginning of tha
Sixth century.
ARISTOTLE. 159
called "Categories" and " Interpretation" of Aristotle
(see above, pp. 49-50), and of the " Introduction" of
Porphyry to the first-named of the two treatises. In
earlier and better-informed ages Aristotle had been re-
pudiated by some of the Fathers of the Church as being,
at all events, in comparison with Plato, "atheistical."
But no harm to theology could arise from a study of
the dry formula? of logic and metaphysics. Nay, these
formulae, while totally devoid of all dangerous color-
ing or character being merely some of the funda-
mental and ordinary principles of reasoning were likely
to do good service to the Church, by training her adher-
ents to argue skillfully in her behalf. Thus, the ' ' Cate-
gories" and "Interpretation" won their place as text-
books for youth; and thus the "Scholastic Philosophy,"
which consisted in lectures and disputations chiefly on
matters mooted by Aristotle, took its rise out of the
Latin translations of these Peripatetic treatises.
Afterwards a richer knowledge of Aristotle came to
the schools of the West from what might have been
considered an unlikely source namely, the Arabs in
Spain. Departing from the example of him who burned
the Alexandrian library, and from the traditionary ten-
dencies of Mahometans in all ages, the Arabs of Bag-
dad, Cairo, and Cordova indulged in a period of en-
lightenment and of intellectual activity. This period
was chiefly inaugurated by Almamun, the son of Harun-
al-Raschid, and seventh of the Abbasside Caliphs at
Bagdad (A.D. 810), who "invited the Muses from then
ancient seats. His ambassadors at Constantinople,
his agents in Armenia, Syria, and Egypt, collected ths
volumes of Grecian science; at his command they were
translated by the most skillful interpreters into the Arabic
language; his subjects were exhorted assiduously to
160 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
peruse these instructive writings; and the successor of
Mahomet assisted with pleasure and modesty at the
assemblies and disputations of the learned." " The age
of Arabian learning continued about five hundred years,
till the great irruption of the Moguls, and was coeval
with the darkest and most slothful period of European
annals."* It was during the twelfth century that the
Arabs of Cordova became the schoolmasters of the
"schoolmen," and poured a flood of learning into
Europe. The chief of them was the great Ibn-Raschid
(A.D. 1120-1198), whose name was Latinized Averroes.
Besides other philosophical works, he wrote "Commen-
taries" on all the principal works of Aristotle, and these
were translated into Latin and published abroad. Aver-
roes knew no Greek, and his commentaries were made
upon the existing Arabic versions of Aristotle; but he
quoted the translations of the text of each passage en-
tire before elucidating the meaning, and thus he brought
a great deal of the thought of Aristotle, though passed
through a double translation, to the notice of Europe.
In commenting upon Aristotle, his attention seems to
have been drawn to that passage, above referred to (p.
172), on the difference between the Constructive and the
Passive Reason. Following out this idea, he made it
the basis of a doctrine of " Monopsychism," to the effect
that the Constructive Reason is one individual substance,
being one and the same in Socrates and Plato, and all
other individuals; whence it follows that individuality
consists only in bodily sensations, which are perishable,
so that nothing which is individual can be immortal,
and nothing which is immortal can be individual.
These doctrines spread from the Arabs to the Jews of
* Gibbon's "Decline and Ful! of the Roman Empire." chap.
ARISTOTLE. 161
Spain, and from them to the Christian schools, and
Averroism became a leaven in the scholastic philoso-
phies, causing, as might be expected, the most virulent
strife between the opponents and supporters of the
theory of "Monopsychism."
In the latter part of the thirteenth century Aristotle
reached the height of his glory. At this time, partly
from Arabian copies in Spain and partly from Greek
MSS. which the Crusaders brought with them from
Constantinople, Western Christendom had obtained the
whole of his works. He was now commented on by
eminent ecclesiastics; indeed he occupied and almost
monopolized the most powerful minds of Europe.
Chief among these may be mentioned Albert "the
Great," the most fertile and learned of the schoolmen,
who has left commentaries on Aristotle which fill six
folio volumes; and his pupil, St. Thomas Aquinas, who
prepared (1260-70), through the instrumentality of the
monk Wilhelm of Moerbecke, a new translation of the
entire works after Greek originals; and who himself
wrote laborious commentaries on the "Metaphysics,"
the "Ethics," and other books. It may be observed
that by these great churchmen Aristotle is treated with
the most implicit confidence; they seem blind to all that
is Greek and pagan in his point of view; they defend
him from charges of Averroism; and treat him, in short,
as one of themselves. All this, of course, argues a great
want of the critical and historical faculty, and much
mixing up of things "syncretism," as it is called by
the learned; but historical criticism was hardly to be
looked for in the Middle Ages.
The Stagirite \vas now almost incorporated with
Christianity. The Summa Theologian of St. Thomas
Aquinas was a compound of the logic, physics, and
162 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
ethics of Aristotle with Christian divinity. But tha
highest honor of all came to him in the year 1300
A.D., when he was hailed in the "Divina Commeaia"
of Dante as "the master of those that know," sitting
as head of " the philosophic family," to whom Socrates
and Plato and all the rest must look up.* Him Dante
figured thus sitting in the " limbo," or fringe, of hell,
with all the great spirits of antiquity, who had lived
before Christianity and without baptism; they were
free from torment, but were sad, because they felt the
desire, but had no hope, of seeing God.
Dante had been a diligent and reverential student of
Aristotle, especially in the commentaries of St. Thomas
Aquinas. In his " Convito," he says that " Aristotle is
most worthy of trust and obedience, as being the master-
artist who considers of and teaches us the endf of hu-
man life to which, as men, we are ordained." In the
llth canto of the "Inferno," he follows up Aristotle's
views of the " unnatural" character of usury (see above,
p. 107), and places usurers in hell among those who do
violence to God and Nature, the reasons for which he
sets forth in a learned discourse. But the most striking
thing of all is to find that Dante, in the 24th canto of
the "Paradise," commences the statement of his own
theological creed in words taken directly from Aristotle's
definition of the Deity
* Dante, " Inferno," canto iv. 131
" Vidi il Maestro di color che sanno
Seder tra filosofica f amiglia ;
Tutti lo miran, tutti onor gli fanno.
Quivi vid' io Socrate e Platone,
Che Innanzi agli altri piu presso gli stanno."
t This, of course, refers to the " Ethics." See above, p. 88.
ARISTOTLE. 163
" I in one God believe;
One sole eternal Godhead, of whose love
All heaven its moved, himself unmoved the while." *
And iu the 27th canto, Beatrice, standing on the ninth
heaven, points to the circumference, or primum mobile,
of Aristotle (see above, p. 119), and discourses to Dante
in the following thoroughly Aristotelian terras:
" Here is the goal, whence motion on his race
Starts: motionless the centre, and the rest
All moved around. Except the soul divine,
Place in this heaven is none ; the soul divine,
Wherein the love, whk-h ruleth o'er its orb,
Iz kindled, and the virtue, that it sheds:
One circle, light and love, enclasping it,
As this doth clasp the others; and to Him,
Who draws the bound, its limit only known.
Measured itself by none, it doth divide
Motion to all, counted unto them forth,
As by the fifth or half ye count forth ten.
The vase, wherein time's roots are plunged, thou geest:
Look elsehere for the leaves."
It was not till 240 years after these verses had been
written that Copernicus propounded his system of the
motion of the earth and the other planets round the
sun; and that system only gradually won its way to ac-
ceptance, even in scientific minds, and with the aid of
the demonstrations of Galileo. Till the end of the sev-
enteenth century the Aristotelian system further elab-
orated by the Alexandrian Ptolemy and by King Al-
phonso X. of Castile (1252-1284 A. D.) maintained its
influence, and filled the literature of all Europe with a
particular train of associations.! Shakespeare lived
* Cary's Translation. See above, p. 155.
t When Shakespeare wrote
" And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,"
he was referring to the Ptolemaic or Alphonsine spheres. Thd
164 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
and died in the faith of the older system. Milton had
been bred in it as a boy, and the plan of his universe in
the "Paradise Lost" was drawn according to it. Yet
still, as a learned man, he was well acquainted with all
that could be said in favor of the Copernican system.
And he puts these arguments into the mouth of Adam
in the 8th book of " Paradise Lost." An angel, in re-
ply, reminds Adam what is, in fact, the case that
neither the motion of the sun nor of the earth can be
absolutely proved; and adds that these are matters too
high and abstruse for human inquiry. Milton's mind
was "apparently uncertain to the last which of the two
systems, the Ptolemaic or the Copernican, was the true
one."* Surely, however, if but slowly, the Copernican
theory established itself in the mind of Europe, and
when once it had been established, then a great gulf
was set between Aristotle and the modern world.
We have seen Aristotle an object of reverence to the
great scholastic philosophers and the great poet of the
Middle Ages. But we must not forget that the univer-
sities were, so to speak, founded in Aristotle that for
a long time the chief end of their being was to teach
Aristotle. Chaucer describes the zeal of the poor Ox-
ford student for this kind of learning in the following
terms:
" A clerk there was of Oxenf ord also
That unto logik hadde long y go:
As lene was his hors as Is a rake,
And he was not right fast, I undertake;
But looked holwe and thereto soberlye.
Ful threadbare was his overest courtepye.
common metaphor of a person's " sphere" is a survival of the
Same notion.
* See Professor Masson'e ^Uion of " Milton's Poetical Works"
(Macmillan, 1874), vol. i. p> *"'
ARISTOTLE. 165
For he had gotten him no benefice,
He was not worldly to have an office.
For. him was lever have at his beddes hed
Twenty bookes clothed in blake or red
Of Aristotle and his philosophie,
Than robes rich or fidel or sautrie."
This almost living picture from the fourteenth century
doubtless represented correctly the loyal and undoubt-
ing faith in tne Stagirite, to be found among many gen-
erations of students, not only at Oxford, but at Paris
and Padua, and the other seats of universities.
But a spirit of revolt against authority in general,
and especially against the authority of Aristotle, was
destined to show itself, being fostered by the progress
of time, the revival of learning, and the Reformation.
In the year 1538 we find Peter Ramus, then a youth
of twenty years of age, choosing as the subject of his
thesis for the M.A. degree, in the University of Paris,
the proposition, that "Whatever has been said by
Aristotle is false!" It may be imagined with what
consternation the announcement of this thesis, which
seemed scarcely less than blasphemous, was received
by the academical authorities. However, the young
Ramus acquitted himself with such ability, as well as
boldness, that he obtained his degree and the license to
teach. This license he employed in lecturing and
writing against the Peripatetic logic. He propounded
a method of his own in which more attention was to
be paid to the discovery of truth. He formed a sect
of Ramists, and rallied round himself the malcontent
spirits of France, Germany, and Switzerland. In some
of the universities Ramism obtained a firm hold. But
he had to fight a hard battle with the Aristotelians,
who were armed with official power, and not slow to
use it in the way of persecutioja; Jus books were often
166 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
condemned to be suppressed, and finally he was a
martyr to the cause which he had chosen. Being a
Huguenot, he was assassinated by his Aristotelian
enemies during the massacre of St. Bartholomew (1572
A.D.) The arguments of Ramus seem nowadays to
have no weight against the " Organon" of Aristotle,
but they are valid against that perverted use of the
"Organon" which constituted the Scholastic method.
It was quite necessary that the spell which Aristotle
had so long exercised over the world should be broken
and Ramus did good service in somewhat rudely as-
sailing it.
If the first great attack upon Aristotle proceeded
from a spirit of revolt within the logic schools, the
second was a direct manifestation of the results of the
Renaissance, and consisted in bringing learning and
criticism to bear upon the works of Aristotle. This
was done by Patrizzi, or Patricius, who brought out
his " Discussiones Peripateticas" at Bale in 1571. Pa-
tricius possessed a combination of character which is
fortunately not often seen, being extremely learned
and very able, but, at the same time, ill-conditioned,
egotistical, and wrong-headed. Preferring in his own
inind a sort of Neo-Platonic philosophy to the Peripa-
tetic system, he set himself to work in the book just
mentioned to pull Aristotle to pieces. The first section
of the "Discussiones" treated of the life and morals of
the Stagirite, and raked together against him all the per-
sonal charges to be found scattered through the remains
of antiquity (see above, p. 26); the second section criti-
cally assailed with great learning the genuineness of
the works of Aristotle, and proved them all to be
spurious (?). The remaining sections undertook to
refute the system of philosophy which they contained.
ARISTOTLE. 167
The attack of Patricias was overdone in malignity, yet
still it had a powerful effect in inducing men to think
for themselves when they saw the claims of their oracle
thus stringently called in question.
Another impulse to reaction against authority was
given by science itself, in the shape of discoveries
which were irreconcilable with the dicta of authority.
In the year 1592, Galileo, wishing to test the truth of
Aristotle's principle that " the velocity of falling bodies
is proportionate to their weight," ascended the leaning
tower of Pisa, and launching bodies of different weight,
demonstrated that they reached the groand simulta-
neously, and thus that the principle which had been so
long held with undoubting faith was erroneous. The
Aristotelians of Pisa, however, were so much annoyed
by this demonstraton, that they compelled Galileo to
leave the city.
Aristotle's philosophy had, since the days of St.
Thomas Aquinas, been bound up with the Catholic
Church. Therefore it is not to be wondered at that
Luther, in the commencement of the Reformation,
should have "inveighed against the Aristotelian logic
and metaphysics, or rather against the sciences them-
selves; nor was Melanchthon at that time much behind
him. But time ripened in this, as it did in theology,
the disciple's excellent understanding; and he even ob-
tained influence enough over the master to make him
retract some of that invective against philosophy which
at first threatened to bear down all human reason. Me-
lanchthon became a strenuous advocate of Aristotle, in
opposition to all other ancient philosophy. He intro-
duced into the University of "Wittenberg, to which all
Protestant Germany looked up, a scheme of dialectics
and physics, founded upon the Peripatetic school, but-
168 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
improved by his own acuteness and knowledge. Thus
in his books the physical science of antiquity is enlarged
by all that had been added in astronomy and physi-
ology. It need hardly be said that the authority of
Scripture was always resorted to as controlling a phi-
losophy which had been considered unfavorable to
natural religion."* This system of Melanchthon's got
the nickname of the "Philippic Method," and it was
received with so much favor in the Protestant Univer-
sities of Germany, as to cause these Universities to op-
pose the spread of Ramism.
Scholasticism and the love of authority died hard,
and not without ir.nny a struggle. It is recorded that
so late as the year 1629 an Act of the French Parlia-
ment was passed forbidding attacks upon Aristotle!
The Jesuits employed the Peripatetic tenets in arguing
against free-thinkers like Descartes. Even to the pres-
ent day the manuals of philosophy in Roman Catholic
eccclesiastical establishments are a resume of Aris-
totle.
Until the seventeenth century, when the authority of
Aristotle was questioned, "his disciples could always
point with scorn at the endeavors which had as yet
been made to supplant it, they could ask whether the
wisdom so long reverenced was to be set aside for the
fanatical reveries of Paracelsus, the unintelligible ideas
of Bruno, or the arbitrary hypotheses of Telesio."f But
in the seventeenth century modern philosophy took a
new and splendid start in Bacon and Descartes, while
modern science commenced its glorious career with
Galileo, Kepler, and Newton. Bacon, with his rich
* Hallam's " Introduction to the Literature of Europe. " Part
I., chap. iii.
t Hallam's Introduction. Part III., chap. iii.
ARISTOTLE. 169
scientific imagination and his stately language, was a
fitting herald of the new era. He sometimes reflects
the spirit of Ram us or Patricius, and applies to Aris-
totle harsh terms which were rather merited by the
scholastic pedants who had been Aristotelians only in
the letter. Could the Stagirite himself have returned
to the earth at this moment, he would doubtless have
declared for Galileo and Bacon against the Peripatetics.
Aristotelianism was not refuted in Europe, but its long
day was now past; it was superseded and quietly put
aside when other and fresher subjects of interest came
to fill men's minds. Bacon contributed to this result,
not by railing at the "categories" and the "syllogism,"
but by exciting people's fancy with suggestions of the
extension of human power to be gained by researches
into nature suggestions which subsequent results have
verified a hundred-fold.
From henceforth it became impossible for an educat-
ed man to be an Aristotelian, because however much he
might in his youth have learned from Aristotle, there
was so much more to be learned which was not to be
found in Aristotle, that Aristotelianism could only con-
stitute a portion of his culture.. In the Middle Ages it
had constituted the whole of culture; but that time had
gone by, and in the modern world it became possible to
gain elsewhere even most of that which the study of
Aristotle had to offer. The best of Aristotle's thought
had now come to be the common property of the world,
and men could become good logicians without reading
the "Organon," and without being conscious of the
obligations which, after all, they owed to its author.
Perhaps the period of the greatest neglect which the
memory of Aristotle underwent since the Christian era
was the eighteenth century. This was a period of an-
170 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY,
tithesis to medisevalisin, and, at the same time, a period
of mechanical philosophy and shallow learning. At
the English universities all studies, except perhaps
mathematics and verbal scholarship, were at a low
ebb. Only small portions of Aristotle were taught, and
these were ill taught, without reference to their context
and real significance. But with the nineteenth century
there came a restitution of the honors of the Stagirite,
who was now regarded in his proper light that is to
say, historically, and not as if he were an authority for
modern times. This came about with the rise of the
great German philosophies. There have been two great
periods of philosophy in the world: the period of Greek
philosophy in the 5th and 4th centuries B.C., and that
of German philosophy during the first part of the pres-
ent century. And there is a certain affinity between
the two. Kant and Hegel have more in common with
Plato and Aristotle than they have either with the scho-
lastic philosophy or with the psychological systems of
the last century. An age which produced Kant and
Hegel was likely to appreciate their ancient forerun-
ners; and Hegel advocated the study of the works of
Aristotle as "the noblest problem of classical philology."
The Germans have applied themselves to this problem
with splendid success, especially Immanuel Bekker,
Brandis, Zeller, Bonitz, Spengel, Stahr, Bernays, Rose,
and many others who might be mentioned. The great
Berlin edition of the works of Aristotle, brought out
under the auspices of the Prussian Royal Academy, is
a monument of their labors. We have seen the vicissi-
tudes of reputation through which Aristotle has passed
how at different times he was partially known, mis
conceived, over-rated, under-rated, and both praised an<
blamed on wrong grounds. Perhaps at no previous timt>
ARISTOTLE. 171
has lie been more correctly known and estimated than
he is at prerent.
The various services of Aristotle to mankind have
been to some extent indicated in the foregoing pages.
To attempt to summarize them all would be vain; but
perhaps it may be said, in a word, that Aristotle has
contributed more than any one man to the scientific
education of the w r orld. The amount of the influence
which he has exercised may partly be inferred from the
traces which his system has left in all the languages of
modern Europe. Our everyday conversation is full of
Aristotelian "fossils," that is, remnants of his peculiar
phraseology. These mostly come through Latin ren-
derings of his terms, though sometimes the original
Greek form is preserved. The following are a few
specimens of these fossils: "Maxim" is the major pre-
miss of the Aristotelian syllogism. "Principle " has the
same meaning it comes from principium, the Latin for
" beginning" or "starting-point," which was one of Ar-
istotle's terms for a major premiss. "Matter" comes
from materies, the Latin for "timber" (see above, p,
147); when we say "it does not matter," or it makes a
"material" difference, we are indebted to Aristotle for
our words. "Form," "end," "final cause," "motive,"
" energy," "actually," "category," "predicament" (tho
latter of these two being Latin for the former), the
"mean" and the "extremes," "habit" (both in the
sense of "moral habit" and of "dress"), "faculty/'
and "quintessence," are all purely Peripatetic; while
the terms "Metaphysics" and " Natural History," are
derived from two of the titles of Aristotle's works.
Aristotle, the strongest of the ancients and the oracle
of the Middle Ages, must always hold a place of honor
in the history of European thought. Writings which
172 THE ELZEVIR LIBRARY.
have interested and influenced mankind so deeply and
through so many centuries can never fall into con-
tempt, even though they may be devoid of the graces
of style and though the matter in them may be either
superseded or else absorbed into the treatises of other
authors. Nor is it from mere curiosity from a merely
antiquarian or historical point of view that the works
of the Stagirite continue to be studied. As long as the
process of higher education in modern Europe consists
so largely in imbibing the mind with the literature of
classical antiquity, so long will a study of certain works
of Aristotle remain as one of the last stages of that
process. Those works especially the "Rhetoric," "Art
of Poetry," "Ethics," and "Politics" have a remarka-
ble educational value. They form an introduction to
philosophy; they invite comparison of ancient and mod-
ern ways of thinking; they offer rich stores of information,
as to human nature so much the same in all ages; and
they train the mind to follow the Aristotelian method
of analytic insight. This method consists in concentra-
tion of the mind upon the subject in hand, marshalling
together all the facts and opinions attainable upon it,
and dwelling on these and scrutinizing and comparing
them till a light flashes on the whole subject. Such is
the procedure to be learnt, by imitation, from Aristotle.
PLATO
BY
CLIFTON W. COLLINS, M. A.
H. M. INSPEC1-OH Of SCHOOLS.
NEW YORK:
B. ALDEN, PUBLISHER,
1883,
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
THE Dialogues of Plato have been grouped together
in this little volume as their subject or argument
seemed to suit the requirements of the Chapter in
which they will be found, without regard to chrono-
logical order. Nor has the vexed question of the
"Platonic Canon," or what are or are not the gen-
uine works of Plato, been entered upon in these
pages. All the Dialogues attributed to him in
Stallbaum's edition are accepted here, and discussed
with more or less brevity, as their interest for the
general reader seemed to require.
The writer desires to express his deep sense of his
obligations to Professor Jowett for permission to use
his valuable translation of Plato, from which most
of the quotations found in the text (including the
extracts marked " J. ") have been made. Those
marked "D. "are taken from the translation of the
" Republic " by Messrs Davies and Vaughan.
The other authorities most frequently consulted are
Grote's ' Plato and the other Companions of Socrates, '
Whe well's ' Platonic Dialogues, ' Zeiler's ' Socrates and
Socratic Schools, ' and the Histories of Philosophy
by Maurice, Ritter, and Ueberweg.
The writer also wishes to record his sense of the
kindness of H. "W. Chandler (Waynflete Professor of
Moral Philosophy at Oxford), who was good enough
to read through the proofs of the first four chapters of
this volume.
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
CHAP, I. Life of Plato 1
* ' II. Philosophers and Sophists 17
Dialogues: Parmenides Sophistes
Protagoras Gorgias Hippias
Euthydemus,
' ' III. Socrates and His Friends 44
Symposium Phaedrus Apology
Crito Phaedo.
" IV. Dialogues of Search 72
Laches Charmides Lysis Meno
Euthyphro Cratylus Thesete-
tus.
" V. Plato's Ideal States 98
" VI. The Myths of Plato 131
" VII. Religion, Morality, and Art .. 151
" VIII. Later Platonism.. . 165
PLATO.
CHAPTER I.
LIFE OF PLATO.
" Eagle ! why soarest thou above that tomb,
To what sublime and star-y-paven home
Floatestthou?
I am the imago of great Plato's spirit,
Ascending Heaven; Athens doth inherit
His corpse below."
(Epitaph translated from the Greek by Shelley.)
PLATO was born at ./Egina in B.C. 430 the same
year that Pericles died of a noble family which traced
its descent from Codrus, the last hero-king of Attica.
Little is told us of his early years beyond some stories
of the divinity which hedged him in his childhood,
and a dream of Socrates,* in which he saw a cygnet
fly towards him, nestle in his breast, and then spread
its wings and soar upwards, singing most sweetly. The
next morning Ariston appeared, leading his son Plato
* Athenseus tells us of another dream, by no means so com-
plimentary to Plato, in which his spirit appeared to Socrates in
the form of a crow, which planted its claws firmly in the bald
head of the philosopher, and flapped its wings, The interpreta-
tion of this dream, according to Socrates (or Atheneeus), was,
that Plato would tell many lies about him.
2 PLATO.
to the philosopher, and Socrates knew that his dream
was fufilled.
It is easy to fill in the meagre outlines of the bi-
ography as given us by Diogenes Laertius; for Plato
lived in a momentous time, when Athens could not af-
ford to let any of her sons stand aloof from military serv-
ice, and when every citizen must have been more or less
an actor in the history of his times. Plato of course
underwent the usual training of an Athenian gentleman,
such as he has sketched it himself in the "Protagoras;"
first attending the grammar school, where he learnt his
letters, and committed to memory long passages from
the poets, which he was taught to repeat with proper
emphasis and modulation ; and the frequent quotations
from Homer in his Dialogues prove how thoroughly this
part of his mental training was carried out.* Then he
was transferred to the Master who was to infuse harmony
and rhythm into his soul by means of the lyre and vocal
music. Then he learned mathematics, for which sub-
ject he showed a special aptitude; and we hear of him
wrestling in the palaestra, where his breadth of shoul-
ders stood him in good stead, and winning prizes at the
Isthmian games. He also found time to study "the
old masters " of philosophy, and (as might be expected)
the two whose works attracted him the most were Her-
aclitus and Pythagoras. The melancholy of the one,
* Several pieces of poetry bearing Plato's name have come
down to us; and there is a graceful epitaph on "Stella,"
ascribed to him, which Shelley has thus translated:
" Thou wert the morning star among the living,
Till thy fair light had fled;
Now having died, thou art as Hesperus, giving
New splendor to the dead,"
LIFE OF PLATO. Y
and the mysticism of the other, found an echo in his
own thoughts.
He was fifteen at the time of the expedition to Sicily,
and was probably among the crowd which watched the
great fleet sail out of the harbor of Piraeus in all the
pomp and circumstance of war ; and two years after-
wards he must have shared in the general despair, when
the news came that the fleet and flower of the army
had perished, and with them the hopes of Athens.
Then Decelea (only fifteen miles from the city) was
fortified by the Spartans, and proved a very thorn in
the side of Attica; for flocks and herds were destroyed,
slaves fled thither in numbers, and watch had to be
kept by the Athenians night and day, to check the
continual sallies made from thence by the enemy.
Plato was now eighteen, and was enrolled in the list
which corresponded to the modern Landwehr, and had
to take his share in that harassing garrison duty which
fell on rich and poor alike, when the citizens (as
Thucydides tells us) slept in their armor on the ram-
parts, and Athens more resembled a military fort than,
a city.
Then followed the loss of prestige and the defection
of allies; for the subject islands either openly revolted
or intrigued secretly with Sparta; and Alcibiades, the
only Athenian who could have saved Athens, was an
exile and a renegade, using Persian gold to levy Spar-
tan troops against his country. Suddenly the Athe-
nians, with the energy of despair, made a prodigious
effort to recover the empire of the seas, which was
passing from their hands. They melted down their
treasures; they used the reserve fund which Pericles
had stored up for such an emergency; and within thirly
days they had equipped a fresh fleet of over a hundred
I PLATO.
sail. Then followed a general levy of the citizens;
every man who could bear arms was pressed into the
service ; freedom was promised to any slave who would
volunteer; and even the Knights (of whom Plato was
one) forgot the dignity of their order, hung up their
bridles in the Acropolis, and went on board the fleet as
marines. There is no reason to suppose that Plato
shunned his duty at such a crisis; and we may there-
fore conclude that he volunteered with the rest, served
with the squadron which relieved Mitylene, and was
present at the victory of Arginusse shortly afterwards.
Soon Alcibiades was recalled, and his genius gave a
different character to the war; but the success of the
Athenians was only temporary. Lysander came upon,
the scene; and on the fatal shore of JEgos-Potami the
Athenian fleet was destroyed almost without a blow
being struck. Then followed the blockade of Athens,
the consequent famine, and the despair of the citizens,
with the foe without and two rival factions within,
till at last the city surrendered, and the long walls
were pulled down to the sound of Spartan music.
We have no clue, beyond a casual reference in.
Xenophon, as to what part Plato took in subsequent
events. His own tastes and sympathies lay with
the few; and all his intimate friends were among
the oligarchs (the "good men and true," as they termed
themselves), who by a coup d'etat, effected what is
known as the Revolution of the Four Hundred. A
section of these formed the execrated Thirty Tyrants.
Critias, the master-spirit of this body, was Plato's
uncle, and probably had considerable influence over
him. But be this as it may, we find Plato attracted
by the programme in which the oligarchs pledged
themselves to reform abuses and to purge the state
LIFE OF PLATO. $
of evil-doers; and for a time, at all events, he was an
avowed partisan of the Thirty. But they soon threw
off the mask, and a Reign of Terror followed, which
made their name forever a byword among the Athe-
nians. Plato was probably in the first instance dis-
gusted by the jealous intolerance of this new party,
which drove the aged Protagoras into exile, and pro-
scribed philosophical lectures ; but when this intoler-
ance was followed by numerous assassinations, he was
utterly horrified, and at once withdrew from public
life, and from all connection with his former friends.
There was little indeed to tempt a man of Plato's
spirit and principles to meddle with the politics of his
day. The great statesmen, and with them the bloom
and brilliancy of the Periclean age, had passed away;
and the very name of Pericles, as De Quincey says,
" must have sounded with the same echo from the
past as that of Pitt to the young men of our first
Reform Bill." The long war had done its work.
Not only had it wellnigh exhausted the revenues and
strength of Athens, but it had brought in its train,
as necessary consequences, ignoble passions, a selfish
party spirit, a confusion of moral sentiments, and an
audacious skepticism, which were going far to under-
mine the foundations of right and wrong. One revo-
lution had followed another so rapidly that public
confidence in the constitution was fast disappearing;
and the worst symptom of a declining nation had
already shown itself, in that men of genius and honor
were beginning to despair of their countiy and to with-
draw from public life. We can well believe that the
picture which Plato draws of the Philosopher in his
" Republic " was no fancy sketch:
tf PLATO.
Those who belong to this small class have tasted how sweet
and blessed a possession philosophy is, and have also seen and
been satisfied of the madness of the multitude, and known that
there is no one who ever acts honestly in the administration of
states, nor any helper who will save any one who maintains the
cause of the just. Such a savior would be like a man who has
fallen among wild beasts, unable to join in the wickedness of his
friends, and would have to throw away his life before he had
done any good to himself or others. And he reflects upon all this,
and holds his peace, and does his own business. He is like one
who retires under the shelter of a wall in the storm of dust and
sleet which the driving wind hurries along; and when he sees the
rest of mankind full of wickedness, he is content if only he can
live his own life, and be pure from evil or unrighteousness, and
depart in peace and goodwill, with bright hopes.*
The next twelve years must have been the period of
Plato's greatest intimacy with Socrates; and he was the
great philosopher's constant companion until the day of
his death. He had now no ties to bind him to Athens
perhaps, indeed, he did not feel secure there and he
went to live at Megara with his friend Euclid. Then
he set out upon those travels of which we hear so
much and know so little ; ' ' and " (says an old his-
torian), "whilst studious youth were crowding to
Athens from every quarter in search of Plato for
their master, that philosopher was wandering along
the banks of the Nile or the vast plains of a barbarous
country, himself a disciple of the old men of Egypt, "f
After storing his mind with the wisdom of the Egyp-
tians, Plato is said to have gone on to Palestine and
Phoenicia to have reached China disguised as an oil
merchant to have had the " Unknown God " revealed
to him by Jewish rabbis and to have learned the
secrets of the stars from Chaldasan astronomers. But
these extended travels are probably a fiction.
* Republic, iv. (Jowett.)
t Valerius Maximus. quoted in Lewes' Hist, of Philos., i. 200.
LIFE OF PLATO. f
His visit to Sicily, however, rests on better evidence.
He made a journey thither in the year 387 B.C., with
the object of witnessing an eruption of Mount Etna
already fatal to one philosopher, Empedocles. On his
way he stayed at Tarentum with his friend Archytas,
the great mathematician, and a member of the Pytha-
gorean brotherhood. This order which, like the
Jesuits, was exclusive, ascetic, and ambitious had
formerly had its representatives in every city of Magna
Graecia, and had influenced their political history ac"
cordingly. Even then their traditions and mystic
ritual, as well as the ability shown by individual
members, daily attracted new converts. Among these
was Dion, the young brother in-law of Dionysius,
Tyrant of Syracuse. Dion was introduced by the
Pythagoreans to Plato, and their acquaintance soon
warmed into a friendship which has become historical.
There was much on both sides that was. attractive. In
Plato, Dion found the friend who never nattered, the
teacher who never dogmatized, the companion who was
never wearisome. The gracious eloquence, the charm
of manner, the knowledge of life, and, above all, the
generous and noble thoughts so frankly expressed by
Plato, must have had the same effect upon him as the
conversation of Socrates had upon Alcibiades. His
heart was touched, his enthusiasm was kindled, and he
became a new man. There dawned upon him the con-
ception of another Syracuse, freed from slavery, and
from the oppressive presence of foreign guards self-
governed, and with contented and industrious citizens
and Dion himself, the author of her liberties and the
founder of her laws, idolized by a grateful people.
These day-dreams had a strong effect on Dion; and
Plato partly shared in his enthusiasm. As in his own
PLATO.
model Republic, all might be accomplished " if philos-
ophers were kings." Even as things were, if Diony-
sius would but look with a favorable eve upon Plato
and his teaching, much might he done in the way of
easing the yoke of tyranny which pressed so heavily
upon the wretched Syracusans.
Accordingly Plato visited Syracuse in company with
Dion, and was formally presented at court. But the
results were unsatisfactory. It was not, indeed, likely
that the philosopher, who was the sworn foe of Tyranny
in the abstract, and who looked upon the Tyrant as the
incarnation of all that was evil in human nature, would,
either by flattery or plain speaking, convince Dionysius
of the error of his ways. Plato had several interviews
with Dionysius; and we are told that he enlarged
upon his favorite doctrine of the happiness of th e
virtuous and inevitable misery of the wicked, till all
who heard him were charmed by his eloquence, except
the despot himself, who in a rage ordered him to be
taken down to the market-place there and then, and
to be sold as a slave to the highest bidder; that so he
might put his own philosophy to a practical test, and
judge for himself if the virtuous man was still happy
in chains or in prison. Plato was accordingly sold, and
was "bought in" by his friends for twenty minae.
Another account is, that he was put on board a trireme
and landed at ^gina on the way home, where he was
sold, and bought by a generous stranger, who set him
at liberty and restored him to Athens. In any case,
Plato might consider himself fortunate in escaping from
such a lion's den as the court of the savage Dionysius;
and he had learnt a salutary lesson, that theoretical
politics are not so easily put into practice as men think,
.LIFE OF PLATO. $
and that caution and discretion are necessary in deal-
ing with the powers that be.
On his return to Athens, weary of politics, and
wishing to escape from the tramoil and distractions
of the town, he retired to a house and garden which
he had purchased (or inherited, for the accounts differ)
at Colonus. There, or in the famous " olive grove " of
the Academy close by, he gave lectures to, or held dis-
cussions with, a distinguished and constantly increas-
ing body of pupils. Sauntering among the tall plane
trees, or pacing those historic colonnades, might
be found all the wit and genius of the day, men
of science and men of letters artists, poets, and, in
greater numbers than all, would-be philosophers. The
pupils of Plato, unlike the poor crushed followers of
Socrates, are described by one comic poet as dandies
with curled hair, elegant dress, and affected walk ; and
we are told by another how the master's broad shoulders
towered above the rest, and how he charmed them with
his sweet speech, " melodious as the song of the cicalas
in the trees above his head.'* No one must suppose,
however, that the subjects of discussion in the Academy
were trivial or frivolous. Over the gates was to be seen
the formidable inscription "Let none but Geometri-
cians enter here; "* and, according to Aristotle, the lec-
tures were on the Supreme Good i.e., the One, as con-
trasted with the Infinite.
Twenty years thus passed, and Plato's eloquence was
daily attracting to the Academy fresh students from all
parts of Greece, when he received a second summons
to visit Sicily from his old friend and pupil Dion, with
whom he had kept up a constant correspondence.
* Sir W. Hamilton considers this tradition "at least six cen-
turies too late." Essays, p. 27, note
"10 PLATO
Dionysius I. was dead, and his empire, " fastened "
(as he expressed it) "by chains of adamant," had
passed to his son a young, vain, and inexperienced
prince, who had not inherited either the ability or
energy of his father. Dion still retained his position as
minister and family adviser, and there seemed to be at
last an opening under the new regime for carrying out
his favorite scheme of restoring liberty to the Syracu-
sans. Accordingly he spared no pains to impress the
young prince with the wisdom and eloquence of Plato;
and so successfully did he work upon his better feel-
ings, that "Dionysius," says Plutarch, "was seized
with a keen and frantic desire to hear and converse with
the philosopher." He accordingly sent a pressing invi-
tation to Plato, and this was coupled with a touching
appeal from Archytas and other Pythagoreans, who
looked eagerly forward to a regeneration of Syracuse.
Plato (though reluctant to leave his work at the Acad-
emy) felt constrained to revisit Sicily "less with the
hope of succeeding in the intended conversion of
Dionysius, than from the fear of hearing both himself
and his philosophy taunted with confessed impotence,
as fit only for the discussion of the school, and shrink-
ing from all application to practice." *
He was received at Syracuse with every mark of
honor and respect. Dionysius himself came in his
chariot to meet him on landing, and a public sacrifice
was offered as a thanksgiving for his arrival. And at
first all things went well. There was a reformation in
the manners of the court. The royal banquets were
curtailed; the conversation grew intellectual; and
geometry became so much the fashion that nothing
* Grote, Hist, of Greece, vii. 517.
pror
LIFE OF PLATO. 11
was to be seen in the palace but triangles and figures
traced in the sand. Many of the foreign soldiers were,
dismissed; and at an anniversary sacrifice, when the
herald made the usual prayer " May the gods long
preserve the Tyranny, and may the Tyrant live forever,"
Dionysus is said to have stopped him with th ;
words "Imprecate no such curse on me or mine."
S :> deeply was he impressed by Plato's earnest pleading
in behalf of liberty and toleration, that he was even
prepared, we are told, to establish a limited monarchy
in place of the existing despotism, and to restore free
government to those Greek cities in Sicily which had
been enslaved by his father. But Plato discounte-
nanced any such immediate action; his pupil must go
through the prescribed training, must reform himself,
and be Lubued with the true philosophical spirit,
before he could be allowed to put his principles into
practice. And thus, like other visionary schemes of
reform, the golden opportunity passed away forever.
The ascendancy of "the Sophist from Athens" (as
Plato was contemptuously termed) roused the jealousy
~f the old Sicilian courtiers, and their slanders poisoned
the mind of Dionysius, whose enthusiasm had already
cooled. He grew suspicious of the designs of Dion,
and, without giving him a chance of defending himself
against his accusers, had him put on board a vessel
and sent to Italy as an exile. Plato himself was de-
tained a state prisoner in the palace, flattered and
caressed by Dionysius, who appears to have had a
sincere admiration and regard for him, but at the same
time to have found the Platonic discipline too severe a
trial for his own weak and luxurious nature. At last
he was allowed to depart, after given a conditional
promise to return, in the event of Dion being recalled
12 PLATO.
from exile. It is said that, as he was embarking,
Dionysius said to him "When thou art in the
Academy with thy philosophers, thou wilt speak ill of
me." "God forbid," was Plato's answer, "that we
should have so much time to waste in the Academy as
to speak of Dionysius at all."
Ten yearj later Plato is induced for the third and
last time by the earnest appo.il of Dionysius to revisit
Syracuse, and a condition of his coming was to be the
recall of Dion. As before, he is affectionately wel-
comed, and is treated as an honored guest ; but so far
from Dion being recalled, his property, is confiscated
by Dionysius, and his wife given in marriage to another
man; and Plato (who only obtains leave to depart
through the intercession of Archytas) is himself the
bearer of the unwelcome news to Dion, whom he meets
at the Olympic games on his way home. Dion (as we
may easily imagine) is bitterly incensed at this last
insult, and immediately sets about levying an army to
assert his rights and procure his return by force. At
Olympia he parts company from Plato, and the two
friends never meet again. The remainder of Dion's
eventful career (more romantic, perhaps, than that of
any other hero of antiquity) has been well sketched
by Mr. Grote, who records his triumphant entry into
Syracuse, his short-lived popularity, the intrigues and
conspiracy of Heraclid^s, whose life he had spared, and
his base assassination by his friend Callippus.
Once more restored to Athens, Plato continued his
lectures in the Academy, and also employed himsolf in
composing those philosophical Dialogues which bear
his name, and of which some thirty have come down
to us. Several reasons probaVy contributed to mak'>
Plato throw his thoughts into this form. First, it
LIFE OF PLATO. 13
was the only way in which he could give a just idea
of the Socratic method, and of the persistent exami-
nation through which Socrates was wont to put all
comers; again, he wished to show the chain of argu-
ment gradually unwinding itself, and "by using the milder
form of discussion and inquiry, to avoid even the ap.
pearance of dogmatism, especially as he must have often
felt that he was threading on dangerous ground. Prolix
and wearisome as some of these Dialogues may often
seem to modern ears, we must remember that they were
the first specimens of their kind; that they were writ-
ten when the world was still young, when there was
little writing of any sort, and when romances, essays,
or "light literature" were unknown; while at the
same time there was a clever, highly-educated, and
sympathetic "public" ready then as now to devour,
to admire, and to criticise. After the barren wastes of
the old philosophy, with its texts and axioms, its quo-
tations from the poets, and crude abstractions from
nature, these Dialogues must have burst upon the
Athenian world as an unexpected oasis upon weary
travelers in the desert; and they must have hailed
with delight these fresh springs of truth, and these
new pastures for thought and feeling. As a new
phase of literature, we may well believe that they were
received with the same interest and surprise as the
appearance of the ' Spectator ' in the last century, or
the ' Waverly Novels ' at the beginning of our own.
They were, in fact, the canseries de Lundiof their age.
Plato assuredly knew well the lively and versatile
character of those for whom he was writing. The
grave and didactic tone of a modern treatise on philos-
ophy would have fallen very flat on the ears of an
Athenian audience, accustomed to see their gods,
14 PLA TO.
statesmen, and philosophers brought upon the sfage in
a grotesque medley and unsparingly caricatured. But
not Momus himself (;is a Greek would have said) could
have turned these Dialogues into ridicule; and their
very faults their want of method and general discur-
siveness must have been a relief after the formal
commonplaces of the Sophists. Plato himself makes
no pretence of following any rules or system.
" Whither the argument blo<vs, we will follow it,*' he
says in the "Republic," and he is fond of telling us
that a philosopher has plenty of time on his hands.
But the vivacity and variety, the subtle humor
which can never be exactly reproduced in a translation
the charming scenes which seive as a framework to
the discussion, and, above all, the purity and sweet-
ness of the language, which earned for the writer the
title of ''The Attic Bee," all these were reasons for
the popularity which these Dialogues undoubtedly
enjoyed.
There is no means of fixing the order in which they
were written, but they probably all belong to the last
forty years of his life. A story is indeed extant to the
effect that Socrates heard the " Lysis " read to him,
and exclaimed " Good heavens! what a heap of false-
hoods this young man tells about me! "but Socrates
had in all probability died some years before the
" Lysis " \\ as published. The speakers in these Dialo-
gues are no more historical than the characters in
Shakespeare's plays, and Plato was (perhaps purposely)
careless of dates and names. But the personages thus
introduced serve their purpose. They give a life and a
reality to the scenes and conversations which is want-
ing in Berkeley's Dialogues, and in all modern imita-
tions, and their tempers and peculiarities are touched
LIFE OF PLATO. 15
by a master-hand. But there is one character which
Plato never paints, and that is his own. Except in
two casual allusions, he never directly or indirectly in-
troduces himself ; and no one can argue, from the in-
ternal evidence of his writings, as to what he was or
was not. Like Shakespeare, he deserves Coleridge's
epithet of "myriad-minded," for he appears to us in
all shapes and characters. He was " skeptic, dogma-
tist, religious mystic and inquisitor, mathematical phi-
losopher, artist, poet all in one, or at least all in succes-
sion, during the fifty years of his philosophical life."*
There is one pervading feature of similarity in all the
Dialogues, and that is, the style. f If Jove had spoken
Greek (it was said of old), he would have spoken
it, like Plato; and Quintilian no mean critic-
declared that his language soared so far at times above
the ordinary pros?,, that it seemed as if the writer was
inspired by the Delphic Oracle. But these very sen-
tences which seem to us to flow so easily, and which
we think must have been written currente calamo, were
really elaborate in their simplicity; and the anecdote
of thirteen different versions of the opening sentence
in the " Republic," having been found in the author's
handwriting is probably based upon fact.
* Grote's Plato, i. 214.
t Sir Arthur Helps, himself a writer of purest English, has
given us in ' Realmah ' his ideas of what a perfect style should
b.j. Every word in his description would closely apply to Plato,
especially the concluding lines; . . . " and withal there must
b3 a sense of felicity about it, declaring it to be the product of
n happy moment, so that you feel it will not happen again to
that man who writes the sentence, nor to any other of the sons
of man, to say the like things so choicely, tersely, mellifluously,
and completely. "-Realmah, i. 175.
1G PLATO.
Up to the age of eighty one, Plato continued his liter-
ary work "combing, and curling, and weaving, and
unweaving his writings after a variety of fashions;" *
and death, so Cicero tells us, cime upon him as he
was seated at his desk, pen in hand. He was buried
among the olive-trees in his own garden; and his
disciples celebrated a yearly festival in his memory.
As might be expected, such a man did not escape
satire and detraction even in his own day. To say
that he was ridiculed by the comic poets, is merely to
say that he paid the penalty common to all eminence
at Athens; but he was accused of vanity, plagiarism,
and what not, by writers such as Antisthenes and
Aristoxenus, whose philosophy might have taught
them better. Athenreus, with whom no reputation is
sacred, devotes six successive chapters to a merciless
attack on his personal character ; and besides retailing
some paltry anecdotes as to his being fond of figs, and
inventing a musical water clock which chimed the
hours at night, he accuses him of jealousy and malev-
olence towards his brother philosophers, and tells a
story to show his arrogance, and the dislike with which
his companions regarded him. On the same evening
that Socrates died ^so says Athenseus), the select few
who had been with him in the prison, met together at
supper. Ail were sid and silent, and had not the
heart to eat or drink. But Plato filled a cup with
wine, and bade them be of good cheer, for he would
worthily fill their master's place; and he invited
Apollodorus to drink his health, and passed him the
cup. But Apollodorus refused it with indignation,
aud said, " 1 would rather have pledged Socrates in
his hemlock, than pledge you in this wine. "
* Dionysius of Halicarnassus, quoted in Sewell's Dialogues
of Plato, p. 55.
CHAPTER II.
PHILOSOPHERS AND SOPHISTS.
DIALOGUES: PARMENIDES IOPHISTES PROTAGORAS
GORGIAS HIPPIAS EUTHYDEMUS.
" Divine Philosophy,
Not harsh and rugged, as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo's lute." Milton.
"PHILOSOPHY," says Plato in his 'Theaetetus,' "begins
in wonder, for Iris is the child of Thaumas." It is
the natural impulse of the savage, wherever he sees
force and motion that he cannot explain, to invent a
god; and so the first stage of Science is a sort of
Fetishism, or worship of the powers of nature. The
Greeks, especially curious and inventive, carried this
tendency to its furthest limits; and the result was an
elaborate Mythology, in which every object and oper-
ation in the physical world was referred to a special
god. Thus the thunder was caused by the wrath of
Zeus; the earthquake was produced by Poseidon;
and the pestilence by the arrows of Apollo. Poets
Ii'v3 Homer aad Hesiod reduced these myths to a sys-
tem, and perpetuated them in their verse; and so it
may be said that Greek philosophy springs from
poetry, for in this poetry are contained the germs of
18 PLATO.
all subsequent thought. Homer, indeed, has been
called "the Greek Bible;" and every Athenian
gentleman is said to have known the Iliad and
Odyssey by heart. Their morality, it is true, was of
a rough and ready character, suited to the high spirit
of heroic times, when war and piracy were the hero's
proper profession ; but there are everywhere traces of
a strict code of honor and a ke3n sen e of rights and
duties. The oath and the marriage tie, the claims of
a je and weakness, the guest and the f-upplient, are all
respected; and though all stratagems are held to be
fair in war, Achilles, the poet's model hero, tells us
that his soul detests the liar " like the gates of hell."
Hesiod looks back with regret to the heroes of this
golden time, long since departed to the islands of the
blest. His own lot has fallen upon evil days; the
earth has lost its bloom ; the present race of men are
sadly degenerate; and Shame and Retribution, the
two last remaining virtues, have gone forever.
Simonides and Theognis complete this gloomy pic-
ture; they and the other " Gnomic " poets, fragments
of whose writings have come down to us, preach for
the most part a prudential morality, unlike the chival-
rous naivete of Homer, and expressed in mournfnl
sentences which read like verses from Ecclesiastes.
The uncertainty of fortune, the inconstancy of friends,
the miseries of poverty and sickness these are the
phases of life which strike them most.
Then come the ' ' Seven Wise Men, " of whom
Solon was one, who stand on the border-land of ro-
mance and history, like the Seven Champions of
Christendom. We know little of them beyond those
aphorisms ascribed to each of them, and said to have
been engraven in gold on the gates of Delphi, which
DTALOQ&E8. 19
became as household words in Greece, and some of
which have found their way into modern proverbs
"The golden mean," "Know thyself," "Virtue is
difficult," '* Call no man hrppy till he dies." Another
of the seven was Thales half star-gazer, half man of
business honored by Aristotle with the title of "the
first philosopher." He and those who followed him
tried to discover some one element or first principle
underlying the incessant change and motion which
they saw in the world around them. Thales believed
this principle to be Water improving on the old myth
of Occanus, the eternal river that girds the universe.
Anaximander thought the universe originally was a
bath of flames, or a ring of fire broken up into sun,
moon, and stars, while the earth remained balanced
like a column in the centre Anaximenes, again, said
that "Air ruled over all things; and the Soul being
Air, ruled in man." Thus these three Ionian philos-
ophers took each some one element as the symbol of an
abstract idea.
Then came Heraclitus of Ephesus, surnamed the
Obscure, "shooting," says Plato, "as from a quiver,
sayings brief and dark. He is oppressed with the sense
of the perpetual change in nature. Nothing is at rest,
all is in continual movement and progression. Life
and time are like a stream flowing on forever, in which
thoughts and actions appear for a moment and then
vanish. Pythagoras, again, maintained that Number
was the sacred and unchangeable principle by which
the universe was regulated; that there was a "music of
the spheres;" and that the soul itself was a harmony
imprisoned in the body; while his comtemporary Dem-
ocritus, "the first materialist," held that by some law
20 PLATO.
of necessity countless atoms had moved together in th 3
void of space, and so produced a world.
Lastly, the Eleatics took higher ground, and con-
ceived tho idea of one eternal and absolute Being whicli
alone exists, while non-existence is inconceivable.
Plurality and change, space and time, are merely illu-
sions of the senses. This doctrine is set forth at some
length by Parmenides, the founder of this school of
thought, in an epic poem, in which he has been com.
missioned, he says, by the goddess of wisdom, "to
show unto men the unchangjable heart of truth."
Plato, who always speaks of him with respect " more
honored than all the rest of philosophers put together"
has given his name to one of his Dialogues, in which
ho introduces him as vfcitin;* Athens in his old age in
company with Zeno, his friend and pupil, and there
discussing his theories with Socrates, then a young man
of twenty.
The Dialogue turns upon the difficulties involved in
the famous Eleatic saying that "the All is one, and
the many are nought;" but, by an easy transition, the
argument in the first part of the Dialogue discusses the
doctrine of Ideas the key-stone of Plato's philosophy.
This doctrine seems to have grown upon him, and en-
grossed his mind; and his poetic feeling is continually
suggesting additions and embellishments to it, just as
an artist adds fresh touches to a favorite picture. He
admits with Heraclitus, that all objects of sense are
fleeting and changeable; and he admit* with the Eleat-
ics that Being alone can really be said to exist ; but he
blends these two theories together. Everything that
we can name or see has its eternal Idea or prototype;
and this particular flower, with its sensible bloom and
i'jMjraace, ii merely the transitory image or expression
FARMED IDES. 21
of tli 3 universal Flower that never fades. And thus,
far removed from this material world of birth and
death, change and decay, Plato conceived another
world of pure and porf.ct forms, imperceptible by
earthly senses and perceived by the eye of reason alone,
each form in itself separate, unchangeable, and ever-
lasting, and each answering to soino visible object to
which it imparts a share of its own divine essence, as
the suu gives light to nature.
But (objects Parmenides in this Dialogue,) how can
you bridge over the gulf which separates the sensible
from the Ideal world? How do these earthly imita-
(ations of the Ideas partake of the essence of their di-
vine prototypes? And how far can you carry your
theory? Have the meanest as well as the noblest ob-
jects hair and mud, for instance, as well as beauty
and truth their Ideal Forms? Again, there may be
Ideas of Ideas, and so you may go on generalizing to
infinity. Lastly, they cannot be only conceptions of
the mind; while, if they are types in nature and have
a real existence, we cannot know them; for all human
knowledge is relative, and to comprehend these eter-
nal and absolute Ideas, we should require an Ideal
and absolute knowledge, such as the gods alone can
possess. Of ourselves, therefore, we cannot know
these Ideas; and yet, unless we admit that absolute
and abstract Ideas exist, all discussion nay, all phi-
losophy is at an end.
These objections, so skillfully put by Parmenides,
are not answered by Plato in this, or indeed in any
other Dialogue; and he thus makes out a strong case
against his own favorite theory. Socrates himself is
lectured by Parmenides on his defective mental train-
ing. His enthusiasm (says the old philosopher), which
22 PLATO.
makes him "keen as a Spartan hound" in the quest
of truth, is a noble impulse in itself; but it will be
useless unless he, so to speak, reads his adversary's
brief, and studies a question in all its bearings, trac-
ing all the consequences which may follow from the
assumption or denial of some hypothesis. Above all,
Socrates should cultivate "Dialectic,"* which alone
can enable him to separate the ideal from the sen-
sible, and is an indispensable exercise, although most
people regard it as mere idle talking.
Parmemdes is then prevailed upon himself to give
an example of this "laborious pastime; " though, as he
says, he shakes with fear at the thought of his self-im-
posed task, "like an old race-horse before running the
course he knows so well." He selects for examination
his own Eleatic theory, and traces the consequences
which follow from the contradictory assumptions that
" One is," and "One is not." We need not follow him
through the mazes of this chain of argument, which
result after all in two contradictory conclusions. It is
doubtful if Plato had any other object in this "leger-
demain of words" than to stimulate the curiosity of
a youthful inquirer like Socrates with a series of argu-
ments as puzzling and equivocal as the riddle in his
" Republic," to which Mr. Grote compares them: "A
man and no man, seeing and not seeing, a bird and no
bird, sitting upon wood and no wood, struck and did
not strike it with a stone and no stone." The only
difference is, that in one case the author knew the
solution of his riddle; while it may be doubted if
Plato himself held the key to the enigmas in his
"Parmenides."
* The process by which the definitions of Logic are attained.
PARMENIDES. 23
la this Dialogue we are introduced also to Zeno
''Parmenides' second self" the able exponent of
the art of Dialectic, and a type of a new stage of Greek
thought which had just commenced with the Sophists.
The appearance of these professors at Athens was a
sign of the times. Hitherto, as we have seen, philos-
ophy had resulted in rough abstractions from Nature,
or in a vague Idealism; but now thought was directed
to the practical requirements of life, and the Sophists
supplied a recognized want in the education of the
age. They were the professors of universal knowl-
edge; and, above all, they taught Rhetoric in the
view of an Athenian the most important of all branches
of learning. To speak with fluency and dignity was
not so much an accomplishment as a necessary safe-
guard at Athens, where ''Informers" abounded, where
litigation was incessant, and where a citizen was liable
to be called upon to defend his life and property any
day in one of the numerous law-courts. Again, elo-
quence, far more than with us, was a source of success
and popularity in public life; and as a French soldier
was said to carry a marshal's baton in his knapsack, so
every citizen who had the natural or acquired gift of
eloquence might aspire to rise from the ranks, and be-
come president of Athens. Provided that he had a
ready and plausible tongue, neither his poverty nor
mean descent need stand in his way; for the foremost
place in Athens had been occupied in succession by a
tanner and a lamp-seller. The small number of citizens,
as compared with slaves, made political power more
accessible thin in our over-grown democracies; and
every citizen was forced to become part and parcel of
the state in which he lived. Moreover, the Greek
Assembly was more easily moved by an appeal to their
24 PLATO.
feelings or imagination, especially on an occasion of
strong public interest, than a modern House of Com-
mons. Sometimes their enthusiasm broke through all
bounds, and Plato's description of the effect produced
by a popular orator is probably not exaggerated.
All motives, therefore policy, ambition, self-defence
combined to induce the Athenian to learn the art
of speaking, and there was an increasing demand for
teachers. The Sophists undertook to qualify the young
aspirant for political distinction; to teach him to think,
speak, and act like a citizen, to convince or cajole the
Assembly, to hold his own in the law-court, and gen-
erally to give him the power of making "the worse
seem the better reason." Their lecture-rooms were
crowded ; they were idolized by the rising generation;
and they not uncommonly made large fortunes, charg-
ing often as much as fifty drachmas (about two guineas)
a lesson ; for few of them would have the magnanimity
of Protagoras, who L j ft it to the conscience of liis pupils
to name their own fees.
The Sophists were the skeptics and rationalists of
their times, and they headed the reaction against the
dogmatism of previous philosophy. According to
them, there was nofixed standard of morality ; real knowl-
edge was impossible; tradition was false; religion was
the invention of lying prophets; law and justice were
devices of the strong to ensnare the weak ; pleasure and
pain were the only criteria of right and wrong; each
mim should use his private judgment in all matters,
and do that which seemed good in his own eyes.
We can hardly estimate the mingled feelings of fear
and dislike with which an average Athenian citizen
would regard the influence undoubtedly possessed by
this class. Patriotism and religious prejudice would
SOPH2STES, 25
intensify the hatred against these foreign skeptics; and
added to this would be the popular antipathy which
has in all times shown itself against scheming lawyers
and ambitious chuichmen
" Chicane in furs, and casuistry in lawn."
For, inasmuch as philosophy was closely blended with
their religion, the Sophist would seem to practice a
sort of intellectual simony; tampering with and selling
at a high price the divinest mysteries; holding the keys
of knowledge themselves, but refusing to impart, ex-
cept to such as came with full purses, those truths
which were to the Greek as the very bread of life.
Doubtless Plato had sufficient reason to justify the
repulsive picture which he has drawn of the Sophist iti
several of his Dialogues, as "the charlatan, the for-
eigner, the prince of esprits faux, the hireling who is
not a teacher; . . . the ' evil one,' the ideal repre-
sentative of all that Plato most disliked in the moral
and intellectual tendencies of his own age, the adver-
sary of the almost equally ideal Socrates."*
In the Dialogue called THE SOPHIST, an attempt is
made to define, by a regular logical process called
" dichotomy," the real na'ure of this many-sided
creature; no easy task says Plato," "for the animal is
troublesome, and hard to catcli." He has a variety of
characters. Firstly, he is a sort of hunter, and his art
is like the angler's, with the difference that he is a
fisher of men, and baits his hook with pleasure,
"haunting the rich meadow-lands of generous youth."
Secondly, he is like a retail trader, but his merchan-
dise is a spurious knowledge which he buys from
others or fabricates for himself as he wanders from city
"Jowett's Plato, iii. 448,
26 PL A TO.
to city. Thirdly, he is a warrior, but his tongue is his
sword with which he is eternally wrangling about right
and wrong for money. Fourthly, since education puri-
ties the soul by casting out ignorance or the false con-
ceit of knowledge, men would have you believe that
the Sophist does this; though as a matter of fact, he is
about as like the real "purgerof souls" as a wolf is
a dog. Lastly, this creature aspires to universal
knowledge, and will argue ay, and teach others to
argue about any object in creation; and, like a clever
painter, he will impose upon you the appearance for
the reality, and thus he steals away the hearts of our
young men, deceiving their ears and deluding their
senses, while he disguises his own ignorance under a
cloud of words. In fact, he is a mere imitator and
an imitator of appearance, not of reality.
"But how " (an abjector replies) "can a man be said
to affirm or imitate that which is only appearance, and
has no real existence?" This quibble is followed by a
perplexing discussion on " Not-Being " the stumbling-
block of Eleatic philosophers. To us nothing can be
simpler than the distinction between " this is not," i.e.,
does not exist and "this is not," i.e., is not true;
but so oppressed was the Eleatic with the sense of
" Being " as alone having existence, that he held that
no reality could be attached to non-being; and there-
fore falsehood, which was merely the expression of
non-being, was impossible. Nothing would be gained
by following out the threads of this difficult argument;
and we may dismiss the Eleatic theory with the con-
s'. lation that, as Professor Jowett says, Plato has effec-
tually " laid its ghost " we will hope, forever.
PROTAGORAS. 27
PROTAGORAS.
The opening of this Dialogue is highly dramatic,
Socrates is awakened before daylight by the young
Hippocrates, who is all on fire to see and hear this Pro-
tagoras, who has just come to Athens. Socrates calms
his excitement, and advises him to be sure, before he
pays his money to the great Sophist, that he will get
his money's worth; for it is a rash thing to commit his
soul to the instruction of a foreigner, before he knows
his real character, or whether his doctrines are for good
or for evil. " O my friend ! " he says, earnestly, ll pause
a moment before you hazard your dearest interests on a
game of chance; for you cannot buy knowledge and
carry it away in an earthly vessel: in your own soul
you must receive it, to b3 a blessing or a curse."
Talking thus gravely on the way, they arrive at the
house of Callias, who had spent more money on the
Sophists so Plato tells us than any other Athenian
of his times. The doorkeeper is surly, and at first
refusas to admit them, thinking that his master has had
enough of the Sophists and their friends already. But
at last they enter, and find a large company already
assembled within. Protagoras himself is walking up
and down the colonnade, declaiming to a troop of
youths who had followed him from all parts of Greece,
attracted by the music of his words, " as though he
were a second Orpheus." Hippias, another Sophist,
whom we shall meet again, is lecturing on astronomy
to a select audience in the opposite portico; while the
deep voice of Prodicus, a younger professor, is heard
from an adjoining room, where he lies still warmly
wrapped up in bed, and conversing from it to another
c : role of listeners.
28 PLATO.
Socrates at once steps up to Protagoras, and tells
him the purpose for which they have sought him;
and the great man makes a gracious answer. " Yes-
Hippocrates has done right to come to him, for he 13
not as other Sophists. He will not treat him like a
schoolboy, and weary him with astronomy and music.
No; he will teach him nobler and more useful lessons
than these; prudence, that he may order his own
house well; and political wisdom, that he may prove
himself a good citizen and a wise statesman."
"But, "asks Socrates, half incredulously, " can such
wisdom and virtue as this be really taught at all? If
it were so, would not our statesmen have taught their
own children the art by which they became great them-
selves, and the mantle of Pericles have descended in
a measure upon his sons? "
To this Protagoras replies by a parable. Man was
overlooked in the original distribution of gifts by
Epimetheus among mortal creatures, and was left the
only bare and defenceless animal in creation; and
though Prometheus strove to remedy his brother's
oversight as far as he could, by giving him fire and
other means of life, still there was no principle of
government, and man kept slaying and plundering his
brother man; till at last Jove took pity on him, and
sent Hermes to distribute justice and friendship, not
to a favored few, but to all alike. " For," said Jove,
" cities cannot exist, if a few only share in the virtues,
as in the arts ; and further, make a law by my order,
that he who has no part in reverence and justice shall
be put to death as a plague to the state." The very
fact that evil-doers are punished, not in retaliation for
past wrong, but to prevent future wrong, is a proof
that certain virtues can be acquired "from study, and
PROTAGORAS. 29
exercise, and teaching." In fact, a man's education
begins in bis cradle. From childbood he is placed
under tutors and governors, and stimulated to virtue
by admonitions, by threats, or blows. When he arrives
at man's estate, the law takes the place of his masters,
and compels him to live uprightly. He who rebels
against instruction or punishment is either exiled or
condemned to death, under the idea that he is in-
curable. "Who teaches virtue, say you? (Protagoras
continues); you might as well ask who teaches Greek.
The fact is, all men arc its teachers, parents, guard-
ians, tutors, the laws, society each and all do their
part in forming a man's character."
Socrates professes himself charmed with the elo-
quence of Protagoras; but there is one little ques-
tion further upon which he would like to have his
opinion. "Is there one virtue, or are there many?"
Protagoras, who at first argues that the virtues are
separate like the different features of a man's face
is forced much against his will to admit that holiness
is much the same as justice, and so on with the
several others.
Then a line from the poet Simonides is discussed
"It is hard to be good;" and Protagoras, who had
been hitherto the chief speaker, is himself put to the
question by Socrates, with a reminder that short
answers are best for short memories like his own.
This discussion is simply a satire on the verbal criti-
cism so common in that age, and reduced to a science
by the Sophists; when men in the very exuberance of
thought, like the Euphuists in the Elizabethan age,
fenced with sharp sayings taking, as here, some well-
known text from a poet, illustrating its meaning and
30 PLATO.
using it to point a moral, like a preacher in a modern
pulpit.
But this criticism is admitted by both sides to be a
somewhat commonplace amusement. To quote from
the poets, says Socrates, with some sarcasm, especially
when they are not present to tell us what they really
meant, is a mere waste of time; it is like listening to
a flute-girl after dinner, and betrays a dearth of inven-
tion on the part of the company. So the original
argument on the plurality of Virtue is resumed; and
it is proved, to the satisfaction at least of one dis-
putant, that knowledge is not only a power in itself,
but is also the main element in every virtue; and that
even if pleasure were the rule of life which it is not
still knowledge would be required to strike the
balance between pleasure and pain.
GORGIAS,
Among the professors of the day none was more
distinguished than Gorgias of Leontini, who came as
an ambassador to Athens to obtain her aid against
Syracuse before the great Sicilian war. His doctrines
resulted in utter Nihilism. Nothing (he said) exists;
if anything existed, it could not be known; and, even
if it could be known, such knowledge could not be
imparted. In this Dialogue he is the guest of Cal-
licles, an accomplished Athenian gentleman ; and he is
pressed by Socrates to give an account of himself and
his art. Rhetoric, replies Gorgias, is his art, and it is
used by him and by others for the best of purposes
namely, to give political freedom to all men, and
political power to a few. Of course, like other arts,
it is capable of abuse; but it is not the teachers
fault of his pupils, like a boxer in the mere wan-
G JUG I AS. 31
tonness of strength, use their weapons injuriously or
unfairly.
Socrates (who seems to consider Sophistry quite fair
in war against a Sophisi) uses a fallacy as gross as
any of those which he himself exposes in the "Euthy-
demus," and makes Gorgias contradict his previous as-
sertion. The Rhetorician is asserted to have learned
justice from his teacher granted; he is therefore, ipso
fasto, a just man, and his art is equally just. How,
then, can he act injuriously?
Polus a young pupil of Gorgias who is sitting
near, is indignant at what he rightly thinks an inten-
tional misuse of words, and plunges into the discussion
with all the impetuosity of youth. Socrates, he says,
has no right to force such a plain contradiction in
terms upon Gorgias nay, it is positive ill-breeding in
him to do so.
"Most excellent Polus," says Socrates in his po-
litest manner, "the chief object of our providing for
ourselves, friends and children, is, that when we grow
old and begin to fail, a younger generation may be at
hand to set us on our legs again in our words and ac-
tions; so now, if I and Gorgias are failing, we have
you here, ready to be help to us, as you ought to be;
and I, for my part, promise to retract any mistake
which you may think I have made on one condi-
tion."
And this condition is that his answers must be brief.
True, it is hard that Polus should be deprived of his
freedom of speech, especially in Athens; but it is
harder still, says Socrates, for his hearers, to have to
listen to long-winded arguments.
Then Socrates gives his views on Rhetoric, which
was the question they had started with. It is not,
2 PLAl'J.
strictly speaking, an art at all, but, like cookery or
music, is a mere routine for gratifying the senses, being,
in fact, a part of flattery, and the shadow of a part of
politics, aud bearing the same relation to justice that
Sophistry bears to legislation.*
In the course of his argument with Polus, Socrates
makes two statements which sound to his audience
like the wildest paradoxes truisms as they may
appear from a Christian point of view. It is better (he
says) to suffer than to do a wrong; and the evil-doer,
though possessed of infinite wealth and power, must
inevitably be miserable. Though all the world should
be against him, he will maintain this to be the truth
yes, and he will go a step further. The evil-doer
who escapes the law, and lives on in his wickedness, is
a more miserable man than he who suffers the reward
of his crimes; and though the tyrant or murderer may
avoid his earthly judge, as a sick child avoids the doc-
tor, still he carries about with him an incurable cancer in
his soul. For his own part, Socrates would heap coals
of fire upon the head of his enemy by letting him
escape punishment. "If he has stolen a sum of
money, let him keep it, and spend it on him and his,
regardless of religion and justice; and if he have done
* The following table exhibits the respective places which
Socrates considers Rhetoric and Sophistry to hold in the educa-
tion of his day:
Training.
Real. Sham.
, _ , ( Gymnastics, with its sham counterpart, Cosmetics.
I0(ly l Medicine, " " Cookery.
Of Mind $ Law ' makin > " Sophistry.
( Judging, " " " Rhetoric.
GORGIAS. 33
things worthy of death, let him not die, but rather be
immortal in his wickedness."
Callicles the shrewd man of the world is amazed
to hear such doctrines, which, if put into practice,
would, he thinks, turn society upside down. "Is your
master really in earnest, or is he joking?" he asks
Chaerephon.
"He speaks in profound earnest," is the reply.
"Yes, "says Socrates; "and my words are but the
echo of the voice of truth speaking within my breast."
But Callicles is. not to be imposed upon by such
"brave words." Gorgias was too modest, and Polus
too clumsy an opponent to point out an obvious fallacy.
Socrates has been playing fast and loose with the words
Custom and Nature, and has confounded two dis-
tinct things. To suffer wrong is better than to do
wrong by Custom, but not by Nature. Conventional
Justice is the refuge of the coward and the slave, and
was invented by ths weak in self-defence. Naturally,
Might is Right
" The good old rule, the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And they should keep who can."
Socrates is surely not too old to learn a little common-
sense. Philosophy, as a part of education, is a good
thing, no doubt, to start with. But if a man carries it
with him into later life, he becomes a useless and ridicu-
lous member of society, at the mercy of any chance
accuser; hiding in holes and corners, and whispering
to a few chosen youths, instead of standing forth
boldly before the world, and making his mark in life.
Socrates compliments Callicles on a frankness so
rarely met with, but presses him as to the exact sense
of "natural justice" i.e., the will of the stronger.
2
34 PLATO.
By ' ' stronger " Callicles explains that he means the
wise and stout-hearted politician, who has the ambition
and spirit and desires of a king; and who, moreover,
will not scruple to gratify them to the full. "Yes,"
says Collides, emphatically, "luxury, intemperance,
and license, if they are duly supported, are happiness
and virtue all the rest is a mere bauble, custom con-
trary to nature, acd nothing worth."
Socrates, in his own fashion, disproves these monstrous
doctrines, and forces Callicles, though much against
his will, to admit that pleasure and virtue are not
always identical; that really Virtue is, or should be,
the end of all our actions; that in the long-run the
just and temperate man alone is happy; and that he
who leads a robber's life is abhorred by gods and men
while upon earth, and goes down to Hades with his
soul branded with the scars of his crimes. There must
come a day of judgment and retribution, when each
man shall receive the just reward of his deeds.
Now I (concludes Socrates) am persuaded of the truth of these
things, and I consider how I shall present my soul whole and
undefiled before the Judge on that day. Renouncing the honors
at which the world aims, I desire only to know the truth, and to
live as well as I can, and, when the time comes, to die. And to
the utmost of my power, I exhort all men to do the same. And
in return for your exhortation of me, I exhort you also to take
part in the great combat, which is the combat of life, and
greater than every other earthly conflict. J.
But in spite of his triumphant defence of Virtue,
there is a bitt-T tone of isolation and loneliness in the
last part of this Dialogue. " I, and I only, am left,"
Socrates seems to say like Elijah upon Carmel
among ten thousand who know not the truth. My
own generation will not hear me or believe me; they
will not even understand me; and in the end I shall
HIPPIAS. 35
probably be accused as a physician might be arraigned
by a pastry-cook before a jury of children; and as I
cannot refer to any pleasures which I have provided
for the people, but can only appeal to my own blame-
loss life, any one may foresee the verdict. " Not that
I fear death " he says, with a noble scorn only the
coward and the profligate need fear that. There is
samething nobler than mere ease and personal safety.
"He who is truly a man, ought not to care much
how long he lives; he knows, as women say, that
none can escape the day of destiny, and therefore is
not too fond of life; all that he leaves to heaven, and
thinks how he may best spend such term as is allotted
him."
THE " GREATER " AND " LESSER " HIPPIAS.
Two short Dialogues ascribed to Plato on doubtful
grounds have come down to us bearing the name of
Hippias, who is the representative of the younger
generation of Sophists, clever and accomplished, but,
as we shall see, intolerably vain of his personal merits.
"How is it," asks Sociates on meeting him, "that
the wise and handsome Hippias has been so long away
from Athens? "
" Public business has taken up all my time," Hippias
replies; "for I am always singled out by my country-
men of E!is on any important oocnsion, as being Hie
only man who can properly represent their city, and I
have just been on an embassy to Sparta."
" Lucky fellow !" says Socrates, "to combine such
dignity and usefulness, and to get large sums from the
youth in return for that knowledge which is more
precious than any gold. But how was it that the
men of old took uo practical part in politics?"
36 PLATO.
" Because they had not the ability to combine public
and private business, as we do now."
''Ah, well," says Socrates, "I suppose wisdom has
progressed, like everything else. Gorgias and Prodicus
have, I know, made immense sums from their pupils;
but those old sages were too simple-minded to ask for
payment, or make an exhibition of their knowledge.
Nowadays, he is wisest who makes most money."
" You would be astonished," says Hippias, " if you
know what a fortune I have made. I got a hundred
and fifty minae In Sicily alone, though Protagoras was
there at the same time."
"And where djd you make most?" asks Soc-
rates. "I suppose at Spar; a, for you have been there
oftenest. "
"No," says Hippias; "not a penny could I get from
the Spartans, though they have plenty of money.
Indeed they care little for Astronomy or Music, or any
new sciences; and as for Mathematics, they can hardly
count. The only thing they cared about was Archseol-
ogy the genealogies of their gods and heroes, a -id so
forth ; and they were also greatly pleased with a lecture
I gave in the form of advice from Nestor to Neoptole-
mus on the choice of a profession."
"By the way," says Socrates, suddenly, "there is
one question which I want answered, and I have been
waiting till I could find one of you wise men to tell
me What is the Beautiful? "
Hippias at first answers that a fair maiden is a beau-
tiful thing; but Socrates shows that this is merely
a relative term, and that compared with a goddess
she would be ugly, just as the wisest man is an ape
compared with a god. There must be some Form or
Essence which makes a maiden or a lyre beautiful.
HIP1IAS. 87
It is not "gold" (as Hippias foohMily suggests), for
then Phidias would have made Athene's face of gold
instead of ivory: nor is it "the suitable," for that only
causes things in their right place to appear beautiful,
and does not really make them so. Nor, again, does
the glowing description of a prosperous life according
to Greek ideas, which is the next definition volun-
teered, satisfy Socrates.
"It is a beautiful thing, when a man has lived in
health, wealth, and honor, to reach old age, and hav-
ing buried his parents handsomely, to be buried
splendidly by his descendants/' *
Such vague language tells us nothing. Again,
Beauty is not " the useful," nor is it even "power for
the production of good," for this would make good-
ness distinct from beauty. And lastly, Beauty is not
simply "that which pleases our sight and hearing."
And then by an argument more subtle than the occa-
sion seems to require Socrates shows that the pleas-
ures from the other senses should not be excluded.
Finally, the question is left unanswered, and Hip-
pias expresses his dissatisfaction at these "shreds and
parings of argument." A man (he thinks") should take
a larger view of debate, and learn to make a telling
speech in court, instead of wasting time on this minute
criticism, which profits him nothing.
No doubt, Socrates replies, his own doubts and dif-
ficulties, which some strange power compels him to
make known, seem small and valueless to a wise man
like Hippias. It has always been hi.3 unhappy destiny
to seek and inquire, and be reviled by the world for
doing so ; but this discipline must be endured, if the
* Whewell's Platonic Dialogues, ii. 101.
3} PLATO.
result is his own improvement. la nny case, this dis-
cussion has had one advantage, for it has taught him
the truth of the old proverb, that "What is beauti-
ful is d:fficult."
In the Dialogue known as the " LESSER " HIPPIAS,
we again meet that philosopher, who has just delivered
a lecture on Homer at Athens, and who boasts that he
can talk on all subjects and answer all questions that
may be asked; in fact, he is a prof essor of every science.
Upon this, Socrates reminds him that on his last ap-
pearance at Olympia he had worn a tunic and em-
broidered girdle which he had woven himself, and a
ring which he had engraved with his own hand ; and
had brought with him a quantity of his own writings
in verse and proso, and, more wonderful than all, an
Art of Memory, which he had himself invented.
The question on which Socrates wishes now to be
enlightened by Hippias is the characters of the two
heroes of the Iliad and Odyssey. Hippias maintains
that Achilles is nobler than Ulysses, as being straight-
forward, and not mendacious. But Socrates objects to
this; the mendacious man is capable, intelligent,
and wise: if a man cannot tell a lie on occasion,
he shows his ignorance. Those who do wrong willfully
are better than those who do wrong through ignorance
or against their will just as to be willfully ungraceful
is better than to be really awkward; and as a good
runner can run fast or slow, and a good archer hit or
miss the mark when he chooses.
Again, Socrates continues, if justice is a mental
capacity, the more capable mind is the more just; a-nd
such a mind, being competent to exercise itself in
good or evil, will, if it does evil, do it willingly;
EUTHYDEMUS. 39
and therefore the willful wrong-doer is the good
man.
And with this gross paradox established by argu-
ments as sophistical as any which Socrates has else-
where exposed the Dialogue ends. He confesses
himself to be puzzled and bewildered by the conclu-
sion at which they have arrived; but (he adds) it is
no great wonder that a plain simple man like himself
should be puzzled, if the great and wise Hippias is
puzzled as well.
EUTHYDEMUS.
Nowhere is Plato's humor more sustained than in
this Dialogue, portions of which ?eem to Lave been
written in a spirit of broad farc^. The arrogance and
self-conceit of the two principal personages, the mock
humility of Socrates and the impatience of Ctesippus,
form a contrast of character as amusing as a scene in
a clever comedy.
Euthydemus and Dionysodorus are introduced as
two brothers, possessed, by their own account, of uni-
versal genius able to use their swords and fight in
armor masters, also, of legal fence, and professors of
" wrangling" generally able and willing, moreover,
to give lessons in speaking, pleading, and writing
speeches. But all these accomplishments are now, as
they frankly tell Socrates, matters of merely secondary
consideration.
" Indeed," I said, "if such occupations are regarded by you as
secondary, what must the principal one be? Tell me. I beseech
you, what that noble study is."
" The teaching of virtue, Socrates," he replied, " is our princi-
pal occupation; and we believe that we can impart it better and
quicker than any man."
" My God ! " I said, " and where did you learn that? I alwaya
thought, as I was saying just now. that your chief accomplish-
40 PLATO.
inent was the art of fighting in armor; and this was what I
used to say of you, for I remember that this was professed by
you when you were here before. But now, if you really have
the other knowledge, O forgive me: I address you as I would
superior beings, and ask you to pardon the impiety of my former
expressions. But are you quite sure about this, Dionysodorus
and Euthydemus? the promise is so vast, that a feeling of incre
dulity will creep in.
" You may take our word, Socrates, for the fact."
" Then I think you happier in having such a treasure than the
great king is in the possession of his kingdom. And please to
tell me whether you intend to exhibit this wisdom, or what you
will do. 11
"That is why we are come hither, Socrates; and our purpose
is not only to exhibit, but also to teach any one who likes to
learn. " J .
A circle is formed, and young Cleinias, a grandson
of Alcibiades, is selected as the victim to be improved
by their logic, and is questioned accordingly as to his
ideas of knowledge and ignorance. The poor youth is
puzzled and confounded by their ingenious question-
ing, and contradicts himself almost immediately; but
Socrates good-naturedly reassures him by telling him
that his tormentors are not really in earnest, and that
their jests are merely a sort of prelude to graver mys-
teries to which he will be presently admitted, as soon
as he has learnt the correct use of terms. Then
Socrates, with the gracious permission of the two
Sophists, gives an example of his own method, and
by a series of easy questions elicits from Cleinias the
admission that wisdom is the only good, that ignorance
is evil, and that to become wise is at present his heart's
desire.
Then Euthydemus begins again. "So you want
Cleinias to become wise, and he is not wise yet?"
f osrates admits t'.iis. "Then you want the boj r to be
EUTIIYDE3IUS. 41
no longer "what he is that is, you want him to be done
away with? A nice set of friends you must all be! "
Socrates is amazed at this retort; and Ctesippus,
who is a warm friend of Cleinias, is most indignant, and
calls the Sophists a pair of liars in plain language. To
this Euthydemus replies that there is no such thing
as a lis, and that contradiction is impossible. The
dispute is growing warm, when Socrates interposes.
There is no use, he says, in quarreling about words;
if by " doing away with him '' the strangers mean that
they will make a new man out of Cleinias, by all means
let them destroy the youth, and make him wise, and
all of us with him.
But if you young men do not like to trust yourselves with
them, then, fiat experiment urn in corpore senis; here I offer my
old person to Dionysodorus: lie may put me into the pot, like
Medea the Colchian, kill me, pickle me, eat me, if he will only
make mo good. Ctesippus saitl: "And I, Socrates, am ready to
commit myself to the strangers; they may skin me alive, if they
please (and I am pretty well skinned by them already), if only
my skin is made at last, not like that of Marsyas, into a leathern
bottle, but into a piece of virtue. And here is Dionysodorus
fancying that I am angry with him, when I am really not angry
at all. I do but contradict him when he seems to me to be in
the wrong; and you must not confound abuse and contradiction,
O illustrious Dionysodorus; for they are quite different things."
" Contradiction! " said Dionysodorus; "why, there never was
such a thing." J.
And then he proves in his own fashion that false-
hood has no existence; and that a man must either say
what is true or say nothing at all.
One absurd paradox follows another; and the two
brothers venture on the most extravagant assertions.
According to them, neither error nor ignorance are
possible; and they themselves have known all things
from their birth dancing, carpentering, cobbling
42 PLATO.
nay, the very number of the stars and eands; till even
Socrates loses patience, and Ctesippus cannot disguise
his disgust at their effrontery.
Several passages of arms take place, of Vnich the
following may serve as an instance :
" You say," asks Euthydemus of Ctesippus, " that you have a
dog?"
" Yes, a villain of a one," said Otesippus.
" And he has puppies? "
"Yes, and they are very like himself."
"And the dog is the father of them? "
" Yes," he said, " certainly."
" And is ho not yours? "
"To be sure he is."
" Then he is a father, and he is yours; ergo, he is your father,
ani the puppies are your brothers."
" Let me ask you one little question more," said Diouysodorus,
quickly interposing, in order that Ctesippus mi^ht not get in his
word" you beat this dog? "
Ctesippus said, laughing, "Indeed I do; and I only wish that I
could beat you instead of him."
" Then you beat your father," he said.
I should have had more reason to beat yours, said Ctesippus ;
" what could he have been thinking of when he begat such wise
sons? Much good has this father of you and other curs got out
of your wisdom. " J.
More arguments are advanced, in which the perver-
sion of words is no less gross and palpable than in the
passage above quoted even to thy most illogical mind.
The fallacies, indeed, are generally so transparent as
liaidlyto require serious refutation. The bystanders
however, are represented as being marvelously pleased
at the remarkable wit and ingenuity of the two
brethren; and Socrates professes to be overcome by
this display of their powers of reasoning. He makes
them a speech in which he gravely compliments them
oil their magnanimous disregard of all opinions besides
EUTHTDEMU8. 43
their own, and their "kind and public-spirited denial
of all differences, whether of white or black, good or
evil."
" But what appears to me to be more than all is, that this art
and invention of yours is so admirably contrived that in a very
short time it can be imparted to any one. I observe that Ctesip-
pus learned to imitate you in no time. Now this quickness of
attainment is an excellent thing ; but at the same time I would
advise you not to have any more public entertainments there
is a danger that men may undervalue an art which they have so
easy an opportunity of learning; the exhibition would be best of
all, if the discussion were confined to your two selves ; but if
there must be an audience, let him only be present who is willing
to pay a handsome fee: you should be careful of this and if
you are wise, you will also bid your disciples discourse with no
man but you and themselves. For only what is rare is valuable ;
and water, which, as Pindar says, is the best of all things, is also
the cheapest. And now I have only to request that you will re-
ceive Cleinias and me among your pupils." J.
CHAPTER III.
SOCRATES AND HIS FRIENDS.
SYMPOSIUM PJL/EDRUS APOLOGY CRITO PILEDO.
"There neither is, nor shall there ever be, any treatise of
Plato. The opinions called by the name of Plato are those of
Socrates in the days of his {youthful vigor and glory." Plato,
Ep. ii. 314 (Grote).
SOCRATES, in whom, as we have seen, Plato thus
merges his own personality, and who is the spokesman
in nearly every Dialogue, was the son of a sculptor at
Athens, and was born in the year B.C. 468. He left
his father's workshop at an early age, and devoted
himself to the task of public teaching, being, as he
believed, specially commissioned by the gods to ques-
tion and cross-examine all he met. Accordingly he
might be found, day after day, in the workships, in
the public walks, in the market-place, or in the Palaes-
tra, hearing and asking questions; careless wh: re or
when or with whom he talked. His personal ugliness
about which he makes a juke himself in the ' These-
tetus" his thick lip. s, snub nose, and corpulent body,
and besides this, his mean dress and bare feet, made
him, perhaps, the most remarkable figure in Athens,
especially when contrasted with the rich dresses and
classic features of the youths who often followed him.
THE SYMPOSIUM. 45
Yet under that Silenus mask (as Alcibiades described
it) was concealed the image of a god. None who had
over heard him speak could easily forget the steady
gaze, the earnest manner, and, above all, the impas-
sioned words which made their hearts burn within
them as they listened. Many youths would approach
the circle which always formed whenever Socrates
talked or argued, from mere curiosity or as a resource
to pass away an hour; and at first they would look
with indifference or contempt on the mean and poorly-
dressed figure in the centre; but gradually their interest
was aroused, their attention grew fixed, and then their
hearts beat faster, their eyes swam with tears, and
their very souls were touched and thrilled by the voice
of the charmer. They came again and again to listen;
and so by degrees that company of friends were formed,
whose devotion and affection to their master is the
best testimony to the magic power of his words.
Among these followers might be found men of every
shade of character the reckless and ambitious Critias,
the skeptic Pyrrho, the pleasure-seeking Aristippus,
"the madman" Apollodorus, and Euclid, who came
constantly twenty miles from Megara, although a decree
at that time existed that any Megarian found in Athens
should be put to death. Above all, Alcibiades was a
constant companion of Socrates; and men wondered
at the friendship between this strang^v-assorted pair
literally " Hyperion to a Satyr," th <: ugly barefooted
philosopher, and the graceful youth, the idol of the rising
generation, whose brilliant sayings wcr. quoted, whose
wild escapades were laughed at, whose figure artists
loved to model for their statutes of Hermes, and whose
very lisp became the fashion of the day. Surrounded
by flatterers and admirers, Alcibiades found one man
46 PLATO.
who paid him no compliments, who cared nothing for
his rank and accomplishments, yet whose words had
the effect of exciting all that was noble in his nature.
A strong attachment grew up between the two, and
they shared the same tent, and messed together in the
winter siege of Potidaea. Aldbiades himself tells us,
in the Dialogue which follows, how easily Socrates
bore the intense cold of those northern regions, and
how, " with his bare feet on the ice, and in his ordi-
nary dress, he marched better than any of the oiher
soldiers who had their shoes on." His personal cour-
age was also remarkable. On one occasion he saved
Alcibiades' life at the risk of his own; and in the disas-
trous retreat after the battle of Delium, we are told
that, while all around him were hurrying in wild
flight, he walked as unmoved "as if he were in the
streets of Athens, stalking like a pelican, and rolling
his eyes, while he calmly contemplated friends and
foes."
Though Socrates thus discharged his duties as a sol-
dier, he only twice in the course of his long life, took
any prominent part in politics. The first occasion was
when he opposed the unjust sentence of death passed
by the assembly against the generals after the battle of
Arginusae; and again when, at the peril of his own life,
he refused to obey the order of the Thirty Tyrants, and
arrest an innocent man. The "divine voice," of
which he speaks so frequently, and which interfered
and checked him at any important crisis of his life,
had forbidden him to take part in the affairs of the
state. He was, however, devoted to Athens; and
except on military service, we are told that he never
left the city walls. Two Thessalian princes once tried
to tempt him, by lavish offers of money, to settle at
THE SYMPOSIUM. 4^
their courts; but he replied with uoble independence
that it did not become him to accept benefits which he
could never hope to return, and that his bodily wants
were few, for he could buy four measures of meal for
an obolus at Athens, and there was excellent spring'
water to be got there for nothing.
One secret of the influence exercised by Socrates lay
in his genial humor, and in his entire freedom from
conventionality. He was not (he says himself) as
other men are. He conversed in the open air with all
chance-comers, rich and poor alike, instead of immur-
ing himself in a lecture-room. He would take no pay,
while the Sophists round him were realizing fortunes.
Instead of wasting time in the barren field of science,
or wearying his hearers with the subtleties of rhetoric,
he discussed the great practical questions of life and
morality, and, as Cicero said, "brought down philos-
ophy from heaven to earth." What is Truth? What is
Virtue? What is Justice? or, as he put it himself,
" All the good and evil that has befallen a man in his
home," such were the subjects of his daily conver.-a-
tiou. He was the first who openly asserted that
"The proper study of mankind is man; 1 '
that is, man's nature and happiness, his virtues and
his vices, his place in creation, and the end and object
of his life.
In the defence which Plato puts into his mouth at
his trial, Socrates gives an account of what he con-
ceived to be his own mission. His friend Chserephon
had asked the priestess of Delphi ' ' if there was any
man on earth wiser than Socrates? " and the oracle had
replied that there was none. Socrates then resolved
himself to test the truth of this reply, and accordingly
8 PLATO.
he had cross-examined statesmen, poets, philosophers,
all, in short, who had the reputation of wisdom in
their profession, and he had found that their pre-
tended knowledge was only ignorance, that God alone
was wise, that human wisdom was worthless, and that
among men he was wisest who, like himself,
" Professed
" To know this only, that he nothing knew." *
This was the great point of contrast between Socra-
tes and those professors of universal knowledge, the
Sophists. In their presence he always assumed the
humble position of a man " intellectually bankrupt,"
who knows nothing, and who is seeking for informa-
tion. He addresses some master of rhetoric or science
with a modest and deferential air; he will take it as
an infinite obligation if the great man will condescend
to relieve his doubts by answering a few easy questions
on some (apparently) obvious question of morality;
and, of course, the Sophist, to save his own reputa-
tion, has no alternative but to comply. Then Socra-
tes, like a skillful barrister, leads his unsuspecting
victim on through a series of what seem innocent ques-
tions, yet all bearing indirectly on the main point of
the argument, till at last his opponent is landed in
some gross absurdity or contradiction. This "irony"
has been well termed " a logical masked battery," and
is more or less a feature in every Dialogue of Plato.
The humor, the genial temper, and the quiet self-
possession of Socrates, must have made him a welcome
guest in many houses; and in the Dialogue called
" The Banquet " (SYMPOSIUM), we have a sketch of the
philosopher "at home," joking with his friends, and en-
* Milton, Par. Reg., iv. 294.
THE SYMPOSIUM. 49
tering into the humor of the hour; and showing that,
though he could abstain, he could also, if the occasion
required it, drink as hard and as long as any reveler
in Athens. A goodly company are assembled at Aga-
thon's house. There is the host, a handsome young
dilettante poet: there is Phasdrus, another young as-
pirant in literature: there is Pausanias the historian,
and Aristophanes the comic poet, apparently on the
best of terms with the philosopher whom he had ridi-
culed so unsparingly in the "Clouds;" there is a
doctor, Eryximachus, genial and sociable, but "pro-
fessional" throughout: there is Socrates himself, who
has put on sandals for the occasion, and who comes
late, having fallen into a trance on the way; and
lastly, there is his satellite Aristodemus, "the little
unshod disciple," who gives the history of this sup-
per-party some time after to his friend Apollodorus.
When the meal is ended, and the due libations have
been poured, and a hymn sung to the gods, Pausanias
proposes that instead of drinking and listening to the
flute-girl's music (" she may play to herself," says
the doctor, considerately, "or to the women inside, if
she prefers it ") they shall pass a sober evening, and
that each of the guests in turn shall make a speech in
praise of Love hitherto a much-neglected deity. This
prudent proposal is readily accepted by the company,
many of whom have hardly recovered from the effects
of the last night's carouse.
Phsedrus accordingly begins, in a high-flown poetic
style, an-d praises Love as being the best and oldest of
the gods, and the source of happiness in life and death.
It is Love (he says) that inspires such heroism as that
of Alcestis, who died to save her husband's life,
unlike that "cowardly harper" Orpheus, who went
50 PLATO.
alive to Hades after his wife, and was justly punished
afterwards for his impertinence. Love, again
passing that of women inspired Achilles, who
"foremost fighting fell" to avenge his friend Patro-
clus, and was carried after death to the islands of the
blest.
Pausanias follows in the same vein, but distin-
guishes between the ignoble and fleeting love of the
body and the pure and lasting love of the soul.
Aristophanes should properly have spoken next,
" but either he had eaten too much, or from some other
cause he had the hiccough." The doctor recommends
him to drink some water, or, if that fails, to "tickle
his nose and sneeze;" meanwhile he delivers his own
speech from a medical point of view and shows
how Love, like a good and great physician, reconciles
conflicting elements, and produces harmony both in
the physical world and in mankind.
Then Aristophanes (who has used the doctor's
remedy) opens, as he says, a new line of argument,
and gives a whimsical account of the origin of the sexes,
which reads as if Plato meant it as a parody of his
own myths. Once upon a time (he says) man had
three sexes and a double nature: besides this, he was
perfectly round, and had four hands and four feet,
one head, with two faces looking opposite waj's, set on
a single neck. When these creatures pleased, they
could walk as men do now, but if they wanted to go
faster, they would roll over and over with all their four
legs in the air, like a tumbler turning somersaults;
and their pride and strength were such that they made
open war upon the gods. Jupiter resented their in-
solence, but hardly liked to kill them with thunder-
bolts, as the gods would then lose their sacrifices. At
THE SYMPOSIUM. 51
last he hit upon a plan. "I will cut them in two,"
he said, " so that they shall walk on two legs instead
of four. They will then be only half as insolent, but
twice as numerous, and we shall get twice as many
sacrifices." This was done, and the two halves are
continually going about looking for one another;* and
if we mortals (says Aristophanes, with a comic air of
apprehension) are not obedient to the gods, there is
a danger that we shall be split up again, and we shall
have to go about in basso-relievo, like those figures
with only half a nose which you may see sculptured
on our columns.
Agathon, the young tragic poet, then takes up
the parable. Love is the best and fairest of the gods,
walking in soft places, with a grace that is all his own,
and nestling among the flowers of beauty. Again,
Love is
"the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the gods; desired
by those who have no part in him, and precious to those who
have the better part in him ; parent of delicacy, luxury, desire,
fondness, softness, grace ; careful of the good, uncaref ul of the
evil. In every word, work, wish, fear pilot, helper, defender,
savior; glory of gods and men." J.
Lastly, Socrates tells them a story, which he has
heard from Diotima, "a wise woman." Love is not
in reality a god at all, but a spirit which spans the
gulf between heaven and earth, carrying to the gods
the prayers of men, and to men the commands of
the gods. He is the child of Plenty and Poverty.
Like his molher, he is always poor and in misery,
* " He is the half part of a blessed man,
Left to be finished by such a she;
And she a fair divided excellence
Whose fullness of perfection lies in him."
Shakspeare, "King John."
52 PLATO.
without house or home to cover him; like his father,
" he is a hunter of men, and a bold intriguer, philoso-
pher, enchanter, sorcerer, and sophist," hovering be-
tween life and death, plenty and want, knowledge and
ignorance. Love is something more than the desire of
beauty; it is the instinct of immortality in a mortal
creature. Hence parents wish for children, who shall
come after them, and take their place and preserve their
names; and the poet and the warrior are inspired by
the hope of a fame which shall live forever. And Dio-
tima (continues Socrates) unfolded to me greater myster-
ies than these. He who has the instinct of true love, and
can discern the relations of true beauty in every form,
will go on from strength to strength until at last the
vision is revealed to him of a single science, and he
"will suddenly perceive a nature of wondrous beauty
in the likeness of no human face or form, but ab-
solute, simple, separate, and everlasting not clogged
with the pollutions of mortality, and alV the colors
and vanities of human life."
The murmur of applause with which this speech is
greeted has hardly died away, when a loud knocking
is heard at the outer gate, and the voice of Alcibiades
shouting for Agatbon. Presently he staggers in, at
the head of a troop of revelers, flushed with wine, and
crowned with a wreath of ivy-leaves and violets. Though
he is drunk already (as he tells the company), he orders
one of the slaves to fill a huge wine-cooler "holding
more than two quarts," which he drains, and then has
it filled again for Socrates, who also empties it. " "Why
are they so silent and sober?" Alcibiades asks; and
Agathon explains to him that they have all been
making speeches in praise of Love, and that it will be
his turn to speak next.
THE SYMPOSIUM. 53
Alcibiades readily absents ; but instead of taking Love
as his topic, he gives an account of his intercourse with
Socrates. His face (he says) is like those masks of
Sllenus, which conceal the image of a god: he is as
ugly as the satyr Marsyas; but, like Marsyas, he charms
the souls of all who hear him with the music of his
words. " I myself am conscious " (Alcibiades continues)
4 'that if I did uot shut nay ears against him, and fly
from the voice of the charmer, he would enchain me
until I grew old sitting at his feet. For he makes me
confess that I ought not to live as I do, neglecting the
needs of my own soul, and occupying myself with the
affairs of the Athenians; therefore I stop my ears, and
tear myself away from him. He is the only person who
ever made me feel ashamed of myself a feeling which
you might think was not in my nature, and there is
no one else who has that effect on me. . . . And
oftentimes I wish he were dead; and yet I know that I
should be much more sorry than glad, if he were to die. "
Then he goes on to tell some anecdotes of the tem-
perance of Socrates, his endurance of fatigue, and his
personal courage ; and he assures them, in conclusion,
lhat they will never find any other man who in the
least resembles this wonderful being.
Again the doors are violently opened, and a fresh
band of revelers enter. All is now confusion and
uproar. Pha3drus, the physician, and some of the
more sober spirits, wisely take their departure; while
the few who remain settle down to make a night of it.
Aristodemus (who tells the story) falls asleep himself,
and is only awakened by the cocks crowing at day-
break. All the last night's party have gone, or are
asleep on their couches in the room, except Agathon,
Aristophanes, and Socrates. These three are still pass-
54 PLATO.
ing a large wine-cup from one to the other; and
Socrates is giv'ng the two dramatists a lecture on their
own art, and proving to his own satisfaction that the
genius of Tragedy and Comedy is the same. His
hearers are much too sleepy to argue with or contra-
dict him; and at last the wine takes effect on Aris-
tophanes, who drops under the table, where Agathon
soon follows. Socrates puts them to sleep, and then
goes tranquilly on his \vay takes his bath at the
Lyceum, and passes the day as usual.
The following Dialogue, though its main purpose is
an attack upon the popular passion for Rhetoric, is
perhaps more interesting as a social picture:
PILED RUS.
It is a hot summer afternoon, and Socrates meets
young Phaedrus (who was one of the guests at Aga-
thon's banquet (walking out for air and exercise be-
yond the city walls, for he has been sitting since dawn
listening to the famous rhetorician Lysias. Socrates
banters him on his admiration for Lysias, and at last
extorts from him the confession that he has the actual
manuscript of the essay which he had heard read
hidden under his cloak; and, after some assume,!
reluctance, Phaedrus consents that they shall walk on
to some quiet spot where they can read it together.
So they turn aside from the highroad, and follow the
stream of the Ilissus cooling their feet in the water
as they walk until they reach a charming resting-
place, shaded by a plane tree, where the air is laden,
with the scents and sounds of summer, and the agnus
castus, with its purple and white blossoms, is in full
bloom; while above them the cicalas are chirruping,
and at their feet is thy soft grass and the cool water,
With images of the Nymphs who guard (ha spot.
PHffiDRUS. 55
*' My dear Phsedrus," says Socrates, "you are an
admirable guide."
"You, Socrates, are such a stay-at-home, that you
know nothing outside the city walls, and never take a
country walk."
"Very true," says Socrates; " trees and fields tell me
nothing: men are my teachers;* but only tempt me
with the chance of a discusssiou, and you may lead me
all round Attica. Read on. " And Phaedrus accord-
ingly reads the formal and rhetorical essay to which
lie had been listening in the morning. It is on a
somewhat wasted theme the advantages of a sober
friendship, which lasts a lifetime, over the jealousies
and torments caused by a spasmodic and fleeting love.
Socrates, with an irony which even Phaedrus sees
through, professes to be charmed with the balanced
phrases and the harmonious cadence of the essay which
has just been read; but he hints that, if he is allowed
to use a few commonplaces, he too might add some-
thing to what Lysias has said; and then, inspired (as
he says) by the genius loci, he delivers himself of a
speech, denouncing, in a mock heroic style, the selfish
infatuation and the wolf-like passion of the lover.
But he almost immediately pretends to be alarmed at
his own words; for the divine monitor within tells him
that he has insulted the majesty of Cupid, and forbids
him to recross the brook until he has recanted his
blasphemy. And so he does.
He had previously said that the lover was mad; but
this madness is, he explains, really akin to the inspira-
* Socrates would have agreed on this point with Dr. Johnson .
" Sir, when you have seen one green field, you have seen all
green fields. Sir, I like to look upon men. Let us walk down
Cheapside."
56 PLATO.
tion of the prophet and Pythian priestess, or the frenzy
of the poet, and is, in fact, the greatest blessing which
heaven has given to men. And then he weaves his
ideas of the origin of Love into a famous myth, which
will be found elsewhere.*
"lean fancy," says Socrates, laughingly, "that our
friends the cicalas overhead are listening to our fine
talk, and will carry a good report of us to their
mistresses the Muses. For you must know that these
little creatures were once human beings, long before
the Muses were heard of; but, when the Muses came,
they forgot to eat or drink in their exceeding love of
song, and so died of hunger; but now they sing on for
ever, and hunger and thirst no more. Let us talk,
then, instead of idling all the afternoon, or going to
sleep like a couple of slaves or sheep at a fountain-side."
Then follows a severe criticism on the Rhetoric of
the day. Truth and accurate definition, says Socrates,
are the two first requirements of good speaking; but
neither of these are necessarily found in an essay like
that of Lysias : and rhetoric, though it undoubtedly
influences the rising generation, has done little in the
way of perfecting oratory, which depends rather on the
natural genius of the speaker than on any rules of art;
indeed, Pericles himself learnt more from Anaxa-
goras than from the Rhetoricians.
Writing, continues Socrates, is far inferior to speech.
It is a spurious form of knowledge; and Thamuz, the
old King of Egypt, was right in denouncing letters as
likely to spoil men's memories, and produce an unreal
and evanescent learning. Letters, like paintings,
"preserve a solemn silence, and have not a word to
* See p. 158.
57
say for themselves;" and, like hothouse plants, they
come quickly to their bloom, and as quickly fade away.
" Nobler far," he says, "is the serious pursuit of the
dialectician, who find a congenial soil, and there with
knowledge engrafts and sows words which. are able to
help themselves and him who planted them, and are
not unfruitful, but have in them seeds which may bsar
fruit in other natures nurtered in other ways making
the seed everlasting, and the possessors happy to the
utmost extent of human happiness."*
But severe as he is on ordinary Rhetoricians, he
makes an exception in favor of Isocrates . Some divine
instinct tells him that the temper of this j r oung orator is
cast in a finer mould than that of Lysias and his coterie;
and that some day, when he grows older, his genius
will surpass all the speakers of his day.
The heat of the day is now past, and the two friends
prepare to depart; but first Socrates offers a solemn
prayer to the deities who guard this charming spot
where they have been resting all the afternoon.
"O beloved Pan, and all ye gods whose dwelling is in this
place, grant me to be beautiful in soul, and all that I possess of
outward things to be at peace with them within . Teach me to
think wisdom the only riches. And give me so much wealth,
and so much only, as a good and holy man could manage or
enjoy. Phaedrus, want we anything more? For my prayer is
finished."
P/iced. " Pray that I may be even as yourself; for the blessings
of friends are common, "t
It was hardly possible that Socrates should be popu-
lar puzzling and refuting all he met. " The world
cannot make me out" (he says to Thesetetus), "there-
* Jowett's Plato, i. 614.
t Sewell's Dialogues of Plato, 199.
58 PLATO.
fore they only say of me that I am an extremely strange
being, who drive men to their wits' end." His passion
for conversation in itself would annoy many; and they
probably regarded him as a garrulous and impertinent
pedant, whom it was wise to avoid. " I hate this beg-
gar who is eternally talking " (says Eupolis, the
comedy -writer), " and who has debated every subject
upon earth, except where to get- his dinner." And
often this vague feeling of dislike would grow into a
strong personal hatred. For no man likes to be de-
feated on his own ground, or to be forced to confess
himself ignorant of his favorite subject or theory, still
less to be stultified and made ridiculous before a crowd
of bystanders. There were numbers who had suffered
this humiliation from the unsparing "irony" of Socrates,
and their collective enmity grew daily more formidable.
Again, few who had seen the "Clouds" of Aristophanes
acted some twenty years previously, had forgotten Soc-
rates, as he appeared on the stage, dangling in a basket
between heaven and earth, the master of "the think-
ing-shop," who was ready to make, "for a considera-
tion," the worse appear the better reason. And some
probability had been given to this picture by the recent
career of two of his friends probably at that time the
most detested names in Athens Alcibiades, the selfish
renegade, and Critias, the worst of the Thirty Tyrants.
But after all, the great offence of Socrates (as Mr. Grote
points out*) was one which no society, ancient or mod-
ern, ever forgives- his disdain of conventionality, and
his disregard of the sovereign power of Custom. As we
shall see in the 'Dialogues of Search,' he questions
and criticises, and often destroys, the orthodox com-
* Plato, i. 250,
APOLOGY. 59
monplaces of morality, handed down from father to
son, and consecrated in the eyes of the Athenians by
tradition and by those mighty household goddesses,
"Use and Wont:"
"Grey nurses, loving nothing new."
In short, Socrates is a "dissenter," who will maintain
his right of private judgment, and will speak what his
conscience tells him to be right though it be his own
opinion against the world. Hence there grew up a
widespread antipathy against this man who continually
set at defiance the creed sanctioned by custom and
society. This at length found its vent in the tablet of
indictment, which was hung up one morning in the
portico where such notices were displayed "Socrates
is guilty of crime, first, for not worshipping the gods,
whom the city worships, but introducing new divini-
ties of his own; secondly, for corrupting the youth.
The penalty due is Death."
His three accusers were Anytus, a wealthy trades-
man; Meletus, an obscure poet; and Lycon, a rhetori-
cian. Socrates himself seems to have been little moved
by the danger of his position, and to have hardly
wished for an acquittal. He felt that he liad done his
work, and that " it was no wonder that the gods should
deem it better for him to die now than to live longer."*
Certainly the tone of his Defence, as we have it from
Plato, is more like a defiance than an apology; and the
speaker seems, as Cicero said, not so much a suppliant
or an accused person, as the lord and master of his
judges, f
He begins by disclaiming any resemblance to that
Socrates whom they had seen on the stage the star-
* Xen. M -in., IV. viii. 4. + Cic, de Orat., i. 54.
GO PLATO.
gazer and arch-Sophist for he knows nothing of
science, and had never taken a fee for teaching. His
life has been passed in trying to find a wiser man than
himself, and in exposing self-conceit and pretentious
ignorance. To this mission he has devoted himself, in
spite of poverty and ill-repute.
Next he turns upon Meletus, his accuser, and cross-
examines him in open court. " How can you," he
asks, "call me the corrupter of the youth, when their
fathers and brothers would bear witness that it is not
so? How can you call me the worshipper of strange
gods, when the heresies of Anaxagoras are declaimed
on the stage, and sold in our streets?"
Then he turns to the judges again. As for death,
is it likely that one who has never shunned danger on
the battle-field who darefl to record his solitary vote
at the trial of the generals, in defence of the innocent
and in defiance of the popular clamor who had
braved the anger of the Thirty Tyrants, is it likely
that he would desert the post of duty now f
"O Athenians!" he says, solemnly, "I both love and honor
you ; but as long as I live and have the power, I shall never cease
to seek the truth, and exhort you to follow it. For I seem to
have been sent by God to rouse you from your lethargy, as you
may see a gadfly stinging a strong and sluggish horse. Perhaps
you will be angry at being thus awakened from your sleep.
Shake me off, then, and take your rest, and sleep on forever,
I shall not try (as others have done) to move your pity by tears
and prayers, or by the sight of my weeping children for Socra-
tes is not as other men ai*e; and if," he concludes, " O men of
Athens, by force of persuasion or entreaty I could overpower
your oaths, then I should indeed be teaching you to believe that
there are no gods, and convict myself, in my own defence, of not
believing in them. But that is not the case, for I do believe that
there are gods, and in a far higher sense than that in which any
of my accusers believe in them. And to you and to God I com-
APOLOGY. 61
mit my cause, to be determined by you as is best, both for you
and for me." J.
It was not likely that any jury would "be convinced
by such a speech as this marked throughout by a
" contempt of court" unparalleled in Athenian history;
and accordingly Socrates was found guilty on both counts
of the indictment though by a majority of only five
votes out of some 550. It now remained for himself
to propose (as was the custom in such trials at Athens)
tome counter-penalty in place of death.
But now that he is a condemned criminal, his tone
becomes even more lofty than before. Of right, he
says, they should have honored him as a public bene-
factor, and have maintained him, like an Olympic
victor, at the expense of the nation. For his own part,
he would not even trouble himself to propose an alter-
native penalty; but as his friends wish it, and will
raise the sum (for he is too poor himself), then a ne
of thirty minse is what he will offer as the price of
life.
Such a sum (120) was plainly an utterly inade-
quate fine from an Athenian point of view, consider-
ing the gravity of the crimes of which he was accused,
and that the utmost penalty of the law was the alter-
native. The question is again put to the vote, and
Socrates is condemned to death the majority this time
being far larger than before.
Then he makes his farewell address to his judges.
They have condemned him because he would not con-
descend to tears or entreaties; and perhaps if he had
done so he might have escaped. But on such terms
he prefers death to life, and indeed it is good for him
to die; for death is either annihilation, where sense
and feeling are not, or it is a passage of the soul from
62 PLATO.
this world to another. In either case, he will be at
rest. He will sleep forever without a dream; or he
will find in Hades better men, and a juster judgment,
and truer judges, than he has found on earth; and
there he will converse with Homer and Orpheus, and
the great men cf old; questioning the heroic spirits
whom he meets there, as has been his wont to ques-
tion living men, and finding out who are wise and who
are foolish below the earth.
" What infinite delight," he concludes, " there would be in con-
versing with them and asking them questions! For in that
world they do not put a man to death for this, certainly not.
For besides being happier in that world than this, they will be
immortal, if what is said is true.
" Wherefore, O ye judges, be of good cheer about death, and
know this of a truth that no evil can happen to a good man,
either in life or after death. He and his are not neglected by the
gods; nor has my own approaching end happened by mere
chance. But I see clearly that to die and be released was better
for me ; and therefore the oracle gave no sign. For which reason
also I am not angry with my accusers or condemners; they have
done me no harm, though neither of them meant to do me any
good; and for this I may gently blame them. . . .
" The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways I to
die, and you to live. Which is better, God only knows." J.
So ends this famous defence which Plato has put into
his master's mouth; and whether the substance of it
was actually delivered or not, assuredly " few persons
will be found to wish that Socrates shculd have de-
fended himself otherwise." The account of his subse-
quent imprisonment and death is given us in the two
following Dialogues.
CRITO.
Thirty days elapsed before tlic sentence passed on
Socrates could be carried into effect. Every year the
Athenians sent a vessel on a pilgrimage to Delos, in
CEITO. 63
memory of the preservation of their city in the days
of Tbesus; and from the moment that the priest of
Apollo crowned the vessel before it left the harbor, to
the hour of its return, there intervened a, holy season,
during which the city might be polluted by no exe-
cutions. Now it happened that the vessel sailed on
the day that Socrates was condemned, and his exe-
cution was accordingly deferred for a month.
His friends daily assembled in his prison, and the
long hours were passed in conversation on the usual
subjects. One morning Crito comes earlier than usual
when it is hardly light and finds Socrates calmly
sleeping. " Why have you come at this unusual time?"
asks Socrates on waking. " I bring sad news," is the
reply; "the sacred vessel has been seen off Cape
Sunium on its way home, and will reach Athens by
to-morrow." But Socrates is prepared for this. Ha
has seen in a vision of the night "the likeness of a
woman, fair and comely, clothed in white raiment, who
called to him and said "O Socrates, the third day
hence to Pthia thou shalt go." He is inclined to be-
lieve that the dream will prove true, and that on the
third day he will be dead.
Then Crito earnestly implores him to use the little
time that is left in making his escape. Neither friends
nor money will be wanting: the jailer can be bribed,
and the mouths of the Informers stopped with gold.
He will find a home ready for him in Thessaly, where
he will be loved and honored. " It would be sheer
folly," Crito continues, " to play into the hands of
his enemies, and to leave his children outcasts on the
world. If the sentence of death is carried out, it will
be an absurd and miserable end of a trial which ought
to have been brought to another issue."
64 PLATO.
But Socrates has only one answer to these arguments,
which might have persuaded any but himself. Would
it be right or lawful for him to escape now? Shall he
who for half a century has been preaching obedience
to the law, now, in the hour of trial, stultify the precepts
of a lifetime? For all those years he has teen enjoy-
ing the privileges of citizenship and the blessings of a
free state, and shall he now be tempted by the fear of
death to break his tacit covenant with the laws, and
turn his back upon his city "like a miserable slave? ''
He can fancy the spirit of the laws themselves up-
braiding him:
" Listen, then, Socrates, to us who have brought you up.
Think not of life and children first, and of justice afterwards*
but of justice first, that you may be justified before the princes
of the world below. For neither will you nor any that belong to
you be happier or holier or juster, in this life, or happier in an
other, if you do as Crito bids. Now, you depart in innocence, a
sufferer and not a doer of evil; a victim not of laws but of men*
But if you go forth returning evil for evil and injury for injury,
breaking the covenants and agreements which you have made
with us, and wronging those whom you ought least to wrong-
that is to say, yourself, your friends, your country, and us we
shall be angry with you while you live, and our brethren, the
laws in the world below, will receive you as an enemy, for they
will know that you have done your best to destroy us. Listen,
then, to us, and not to Crito."
This is the voice which I seem to hear murmuring in my ear 3,
like the sound of the flute in the ears of the mystic; that voice,
I say, is humming in my ears, and prevents me from hearing
any other. And I know that anything more which j-ou may say
will be vain. Yet speak, if you have anything to say.
Cr. I have nothing to say, Socrates.
Soc. Then let me follow the intimations of the will of God. J.
PELEDO.
Two days after this, his friends assemble at the
prison-doors for the last time, somewhat earlier than
PH^JDO. 65
usual. There is a short delay, for the sheriffs have
come to take the chains off the prisoner preparatory to
his death.
The jailer soon admits them, and "on entering " (says Phaedo,
who had been present himself) "we found Socrates just released
from chains, and Xanthippe sitting by him holding his child in
her arms. When she saw us, she uttered a cry and said, as
women will, ' O Socrates, this is the last time that either you will
converse with your friends, or they with you ! ' Socrates turned
to Crito and said, ' Crito, let some one take her home.' Some of
Crito's people accordingly led her away, crying out and beating
herself." J.
Socrates then proceeds to talk in his usual easy
manner. He has several times been told in dreams
" to make music;'' and he has accordingly been turn-
ing some fables of ^Esop into verse. "TellEvenus
this," he says, "and bid him be of good cheer; say
that I would have him come after me, if he be a wise
man, and not tarry; and that to-day I am likely to be
going, for the Athenians say I must." Then he con-
siders the question "Why, in a case where death is
better than life, a man should not hasten his own end?"
He finds the answer to be, Because man is a prisoner,
and has no right to release himself, being, in fact, a
sort of possession of the gods, who will summon him at
their pleasure.*
"Then," says Cebes, one of the pftrty, "the wise
man will sorrow and the fool rejoice at leaving his
masters the gods, and passing out of life."
" Not so," is the reply; " for I am persuaded that I
am going to other gods, who are wise and good, and
* We may compare the argument used by Despair, and the
answer of the Red Cross Knight, in Spenser (Fairy Queen, I
ix. 40, 41).
8
66 PLATO.
also (I trust) to men departed, who are better than those
I leave behind; therefore I do not grieve, as otherwise
I might, for I have good hope that there is yet some-
thing awaiting the dead, and, as has been said of old,
some far better lot for the good man than for the
wicked."
He then explains the grounds on which he builds
this hope of immortality. Death, he says, is the
happy release of the soul from the body, In this life
our highest and purest thoughts are distracted by
cares and lusts, and diseases inherent in the flesh. He
is wisest who keeps himself pure till the hour when
the Deity Himself is pleased to release him. " Then
shall the foolishness of the flesh be purged away, and
we shall be pure, and hold converse with other pure
souls, and recognize the pure light everywhere, which
is none other than the light of truth." Hence the wise
man leaves with joy a world where his higher and
ethereal sense is trammeled by evil and impurity; and
his whole life is but a preparation for death, or rather
an initiation into the mysteries of the unseen world.
Many, as they say, join the procession in such mys-
teries; but few are really chosen for initiation.
No fear that our souls will vanish like smoke, or
that the dead sleep on forever, like Endymion. Our
souls are born again; and as life passes into death, so,
in the Circle of nature, the dead must pass into life;
for if this were not so, all things musi at last be
swallowed up in death.
Again, we have in our minds latent powers of
thought ideas of beauty and equality which are not
given us at our birth, and which we cannot have learnt
from experience. Such knowledge is but the soul's
recollection of a previous state of existence.
PH^&DO. 67
" Blank misgivings of a creature
Moving about in worlds not realized."*
It is only the mortal part of us (Socrates continues)
that dies when earth rerurns to earth. The pure soul,
herself invisible, departs to the invisible world to
the divine, the immortal, and the rational; where she
dwells in bliss, in company with the gods, released
from the errors and follies of men, their fears, their
unruly passions, and all other evils of humanity. But
the impure soul fears to go down to Hades, and haunts
the earth for a time like a restless ghost, f
Then, by a further train of reasoning, Socrates con-
cludes that the soul is beyond all doubt immortal and
imperishable. This being so, a graver question fol-
lows ''What manner of persons ought we ourselves
to be?" "If death had been the end of all things,
then the wicked would gain by dying; for they would
have been happily rid not of their bodies only, but of
their own wickedness, together with their souls. But
now, as the soul plainly appears to be immortal, no
release or salvation from evil can be found except in
the attainment of the highest virtue and wisdom. For
the soul, on her journey to the world below, carries
nothing with her but her nurture and education." After
death comes the judgment; the guardian angel of
each soul conducts her through the road with many
windings that leads to the place where all are tried.
After this the impure soul wanders without a guide in
* Wordsworth's Ode on Immortality.
t "Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp,
Oft seen in charnel -vaults and sepulchres,
Lingering, and sitting by a new-made grave,
As loth to leave the body that it loved."
Milton, "Comus," 470
158 PLATO.
helpless misery, until a certain period is accomplished,
and then she is borne away to her own place. But
the pure soul, "arrayed in her proper jewels tem-
perance, and justice, and courage, and nobility, and
truth" dwells forever in the glorious mansions re-
served for the elect.
Thus Socrates ends his noble profession of faith in
a future life with him half instinct, half conviction.
His " Non omnis moriar" has a triumphant ring about
it; and, like the swans to whom he compares himself,
" who sing more joyously on the day of their death
than they ever did berore," he rejoices in the thought
of his speedy release from life, and looks confidently
beyond the grave.
The evening is fast drawing on, and the shadows
are lengthening on the Attic hills, when Crito asks
him if he has any last directions to give about his
children or about his burial. " Bury me in any way
you like," says Socrates, with a touch of his old humor;
" but be sure that you get hold of me, and that I don't
run away from you." Then he turns to the others
and says with a smile, "I cannot make Crito believe
that I am the same Socrates who have been talking
and conducting the argument. He fancies that I am
the other Socrates whom he will soon see a dead
body and he asks, 'How he shall bury me?' You
must all be my sureties to Crito, that I shall go away,
and then he will sorrow less at my death, and not be
grieved when he sees my body burned or buried. "
Then he takes his bath, and bids farewell to his wife
and children ; and by this time the sun is low in the
heavens, and the jailer comes in to tell him that his
hour is come weeping himself as he utters the words.
PH^EDO. GO
Soon the poison is brought. Socrates takes the cup,
and
" in the gentlest and easiest manner, without the least fear or
change of color or feature, looking at the man with all his eyes,
Echecrates. as his manner was, took the cup and said, 'What do
you say about making a libation out of this cup to any god ? May
I. or not?' The man answered, ' We only prepare, Socrates, just
so much as we deem enough. 1 'I understand,' he said, '"yet I
may and must pray to the gods to prosper my journey from this
to the other world- may this, then, which is my prayer, be
granted to me.' Then, holding the cup to his lips, quite readily
and cheerfully he drank off the poison. And hitherto most of
us had been able to control our sorrow ; but now when we saw him
drinking, and saw too that he had finished the draught, we
could no longer forbear, and in spite of myself my own tears
were flowing fast; so that I covered my face and wept over my-
self, for certainly I was not weeping over him, but in the
thought of my own calamity in having lost such a companion.
Nor was I the first; for Crito, when he found himself unable to
restrain his tears, had got up and moved away, and I followed;
and at that moment, Apollodorus, who had been weeping all the
time, broke out into a loud cry which made cowards of us all.
Socrates alone retained his calmness. 'What is this strange
outcry?' he said. ' I sent away the women mainly in order that
they might not offend in this way, for I have heard that a man
should die in peace. Be quiet, then, and have patience.' When
we heard that we were ashamed, and refrained our tears; and
he walked about until, as he said, his legs began to fail, and
then he lay on his back, according to the directions, and the
man who gave him the poison now and then looked at his feet
and legs; and after a while he pressed his foot hard, and asked
him if he could feel, and he said ' No;' and then his leg, and so
upwards and upwards, and showed us that he was cold and stiff.
And he felt them himself, and said , ' When the poison reaches
the heart, that will be the end.' He was beginning to feel cold
about the groin, when he uncovered his face, for he had covered
himself up, and said (they were his last words), ' Crito, I owe a
cock to Asclepius ; will you remember to pay the debt?' 'The
debt shall be paid,' said Crito; 'is there anything else?' There
was no answer to this question ; but in a minute or two a move-
ment was heard, and the attendants uncovered him; his eyes
70 PLATO.
were set, and Crito closed his eyes and mouth, Such was the
end, Echecrates, of our friend, whom I may truly call the wisest
and justest and best of all the men whom I ha.ve ever known."
j
So ends the " Phsedo;" aud as we close the volume,
we feel as though we too had lost a friend, so simply
and yet so touchingly has every detail of that last
scene in the prison be painted for us by a master-hand.
Even across the lapse of centuries the picture rises bG-
fore us distinct and lifelike, as it was to the mind of
the writer who described it, the passionate grief of
Apollodorus, the despair of Crito, the silent tears
of Phsedo even the jailer weeping, and turning away
his face and the composure meanwhile of the cen-
tral figure of the group, talking cheerfully, and play-
ing with Phsedo's hair, who is sitting next him.
"We can well understand the mingled feelings of the
spectators of the scene. "I could hardly believe'
(says Phsedo, telling the story to Echecrates) " that I
was present at the death of a friend, and therefore I
did not pity him; his mien and his language were so
noble and fearless in the hour of death, that to me he
appeared blessed. I thought that, in going to the
other world, he could not be without a divine call,
and that he would be happy, if any man ever was,
when he arrived there; and therefore I did not pity
him, as might seem natural at such a time. But
neither could I feel the pleasure which I usually felt in
philosophical discourse. I was pleased, and I was also
pained, because I knew that he was soon to die; and this
strange mixture of feeling was shared by us all : we
were laughing and weeping by turns, especially the
excitable Apollodorus."
PUJBDQ. 71
Cicero (who was by no means tender-hearted) de-
clared that he could never read the "Phaedo" without
tears; and we all know the story of " the fair pupil of
Ascham, who, while tha horns were sounding and dogs
in full cry, sat in the lonely oriel with eyes riveted to
that immortal page which tells how meekly and
bravely the first martyr of intellectual liberty took the
cup from his weeping jailer."*
* Macaulay's Essay on Lord Bacotu
CHAPTER IV.
DIALOGUES OF SEARCH.
LACHES CHARMIDES LYSIS MENO ETJTHYPHRG
CRATYLUS TIIE^ETETUS.
" Socrates used to ask questions, but did not answer them, for
he professed not to know." Aristotle.
IN the Dialogues which follow, we have the negative
side of the teaching of Socrates strongly brought out.
Both sides of the questions raised are fully argued by
him, but no definite conclusion is arrived at. He
never, indeed, assumes any attitude of authority. He
is a searcher for truth, like the young men with whom
lio talks; the only difference being that his search is more
zealous and systematic than theirs. "We shall "(he
says in the Thea3tctus) " either find what we are look-
ing for, or we shall get rid of the idea that we know
what we really do not know. And we philosophers
have plenty of leisure for our inquiries, for we are
not tied down to time, like a barrister pleading in the
law-courts, whose speech is measured by the clock/'
Socrates had begun, as he tells us, by catechising
artisans and mechanics as to their arts and occupa-
tions (hence the constant allusions in the Dia-
logues to mechanical employments shoemaking,
DIALOG UES OF SEARCH. 73
swordmaking, and the like), and from them he had
got clear and satisfactory answers. But he found that
if he asked a man what was his real work or object in.
life, or what was the meaning of the moral terms so
frequently in his mouth, he got only vague answers or
contradictions. Hence the questions which he exam-
ines in these ' Dialogues of Search ' relate to the most
familiar and obvious terms that meet us on the thresh-
old of morality Holiness, Courage, Temperance, and
other cardinal virtues qualities which many might
possess themselves and easily recognize in others, but
which they could not explain with any logical pre-
cision.
It is true that custom and tradition had given to
these set phrases of morality a certain value and signifi-
cance in the minds of those who used them; but few
had learned to define or analyze their full meaning,
and Socrates was the first who brought them under a '
logical scrutiny examining- their various uses, fixing
their strict sense, and referring the individuals to their
proper class, or, in the words of Aristotle, rallying the
stragglers to the main body of the regiment.
In his arguments with the Sophists, as we have
seen, Socrates shows his opponents no law. He proves
himself a bitter and determined antagonist turning
where he can their own weapons against themselves,
and leaving them to find out the fallacies in his state-
ments ; nor will he listen to any long defence from them,
for, as he tells Protagoras, he has a short memory, and
expects definite categorical answers. But when talk-
ing, as in these 'Dialogues of Search,' with some young
noble of the rising generation, whose character is hardly
formed and whose heart is still fresh and pure, the
manner of Socrates entirely changes, and his voice
74 PLATO.
softens; be lays aside that terrible "irony" of his;
he adapts his questions to the youth's comprehen-
sion, encourages and sympathizes with his attempts
to answer, and uses the easiest language and the
homeliest illustrations to explain his meaning.
We may take first the Dialogue entitled LACHES, in
which Courage the instinct of a child and the habit
of a man is discussed. The speakers bear historical
names. There is Lysimachus, the son of Aristides,
and Melesios, son of Thucydides (not the historian, but
a statesman contemporary with Themistocles); but the
genius of the fathers has not in this case been inherited
by their sons, who are plain respectable citizens of
Athens, and nothing more. They are conscious, how-
ever, of their own degeneracy, and complain that their
education had been neglected, and that their fathers
had been so much engrossed in affairs of state as to
have neither time no inclination to act as tutors to
their own children. '"Both of us," says Lysimachus,
" often talk to our boys about the many noble deeds
which our fathers did in war and peace but neither
of us has any deeds of his own which he can show.
Now we are somewhat ashamed of this contrast being
seen by them, and we blame our fathers for letting us
be spoiled in the days of our youth when they were oc-
cupied with the concerns of others; and this we point
out to the lads, and tell them that they will not grow
up to honor, if they are rebellious and take no pains
about themselves; but that if they take pains they
may become worthy perhaps of the names they bear."
(The two youths, as was often the case, had been
named after their grandfathers, Aristides and Thucy-
dides.)
LACHES. 75
In their doubt as to the best mears of carying out
these good intentions, the two fathers came to Laches
and Nicias both distinguished generals and statesmen
and ask their advice in the matter; more especi-
ally as to whether the lessons of a certain swordsman.
who has just been going through a trial of arms, an*.
likely to be of use. The veterans discuss the merits of
this v new style of fencing, just as two officers no\v
might criticise the last improved rifle. Nicias is much
in favor of the youths learning it, as it will usefully
occupy their spare time, will be of real service in war,
and will set them up and give them a military air and
carriage. But Laches has no opinion of this new-
fangled invention, and thinks that if it had been
worth anything, the Spartans, the first military power
in Greece, would have adopted it. He had indeed him-
self once been witness of a ridiculous scene in which
this very swordsman had left his last invention a
spear with a billhook at the end of it sticking fast
in the rigging of the enemy's vessel, and was laughed
at by friends and foes. "'No," says Laches, "let us
jave simplicity in all things in war as well as music:
but these young men must learn something; so let us
appeal to Socrates, my old comrade in the battle-field,
who has much experience of youth."
Socrates, thus appealed to, joins in the discussion.
His opinion is that they should find some wise teacher,
not so much with a view to lessons in arms, as to a
general education of the mind. For no trifling ques-
tion, he sa}'s, is at issue. They are risking the most
precious of earthly possessions their children, upon
whose turning out well or ill depends the welfare of
fie house. For his own part, ho knows nothing of the
natter. He is neither professor nor inv.-ntor himself,
7G PLATO.
and is too poor to pay fees to the Sophists. Nicias
aud Laches are wealthier and wiser men than he; and
he will gladly abide by their decision. But why do
the.'r opinions difler?
Nicias thinks they will be drawn into a Socratic
argument, as usual, but is very willing to go through
mi examination; and Laches, though not fond of
arguing as a rule, is very ready to listen when the
m:m is in harmony with his words, and willing there-
fore to be taught by Socrates, whom he knows as not
merely a talker, but a doer of brave deeds.
Socrates thinks it will be better to consider, not
: o much the question of who are the teachers, as what
they profess to teach, namely, Virtue, or more espe-
cially that part of it which most concerns them at
present Courage. Then, by a series of questions,
he limits the vague definition first given by Laches,
and proves to him that there may be other forms of
courage as noble as that of the soldier who stands his
ground in battle such as the endurance of pain,
or poverty, or reproach; and it generally seems to be
a certain wise strength of mind, the intelligent and
reasonable fortitude of a man who foresees coming
evil and can calculate the consequences of his acts,
and is very different from the fearless courage of a
child, or the insensate fury of a wild beast. But then
the man who has this knowledge of good and evil, im-
plied in the possession of real courage, must have also
temperance and justice, and in fact all the virtues;
and this would contradict the starting point of their
discussion, in which they agreed that courage was
only a part of virtue.
" No," Socrates concludes, "we shall have to leave
off where we began, aud courage must still be to us
CUARMWES. 77
an unknown quantity. We must go to school again
ourselves, and make the education of these boys our
own education."
The introduction to the CHARMIDES is another specimen of that
dramatic description in which Plato excelled. "Yesterday
evening," says Socrates, " I came back from the camp at Pot-
idsea; and having been a good while away, I thought I would
go and look in at my old haunts. So I went into the Palaestra
of Taureas, and there I found a number of persons, most of
whom I knew, though not all. My visit was unexpected, and as
soon as they saw me coming in they "hailed me at once from all
sides; and Chserephon (who Is a kind of lunatic, you know)
jumped tip and rushed to me, seizing my hand and exclaiming,
" How did you escape, Socrates? " (I must explain that a bat-
tle had taken place at Potidaea not long before we left, the news
of which had only just reached Athens.)
" You see," I replied, " that here I am."
"The report was," said he, " that the fighting was very severe,
and that several of our acquaintance had fallen."
"That was too nearly the truth,' 1 replied L
" I suppose you were there? " said he.
"I was."
" Then sit down and tell us the whole story. 11 J.
So Socrates sits down between Chaerephon and
Critia?, and answers their eager inquiries after absent
friends. Then there enters a group of youths, laugh-
ing and talking noisily, and among them is Charmides,
a cousin of Critias, tall and handsome, and (so say his
friends) "as fair and good within as he is without."
He comes and sits near Socrates, who professes to
know a charm that will cure a headache of which he
has been complaining. This charm is a talisman given
to Socrates (as hs tells Charmides) by Zamolxis, phy-
sician to the Kicg of Thrace; but which he is only
allowed to use on the condition of his never attempt-
ing to cure the body without first curing the soul, and
then temperance in the one will produce health in the
7J PLATO.
other. But the question is, "What fy Temperance?"
It is not always what Charmides understands by it, the
quietness of a gentleman who is never flurried and never
noisy; nor is it exactly modesty, though very like it;
nor is it (as Critias defines it) "doing- one's own busi-
ness," even though our work as men be nobly and
usefully done. Nor, again, is it true that the golden
characters on the gates of Delphi, "Know thyself,"
simply meant, "Be temperate;" nor is it a " science of
sciences," as C:itias again explains it or rather, the
knowledge of what a man knows and doc j s not know.
All knowledge is relative, and must have some object-
matter; and such a universal knowledge as Critias
would itiply by temperance would in no way conduce
to our happiness.
Finally, Socrates confesses himself puzzled and
baffled. They are no nearer the truth than at starting;
and tho argument, so to speak, "turns round and
laughs in their faces." He is sorry that Charmides
has learnt , c o little from him; "and still more he con-
cludes:
" am I grieved about the charm which I learned with so much
pain and to so little profit from the Thracian, for the sake of a
thing which is nothing worth. I think, indeed, that there is a
mistake, and that I must be a bad inquirer ; for I am persuaded
that wisdom or temperance is really a great good; and happy
are you if you possess that good. And therefore examine your-
self, and sec whether you have this gift, and can do without the
charm; for if you can, I would rather advise you to regard me
simply as a fool who is never able to reason out anything; and
to rest assured that the more wise and temperate you are, the
happier you will be."
Charmides said : " I am sure I do not know, Socrates, whether
I have or have not this gift of wisdom and temperance ; for how
can I know whether I have that, the very nature of which even
3-ou and Critias, as you say, are unable to discover? (not that I
CHARMWES. 79
believe you.) And further, I am sure, Socrates, that I do need
t'.ie charm ; and, so far as I arn concerned, I shall be willing to be
charmed by you daily, until you say I have had enough."
" Very good, Charmides," said Critias; ''if you do this I shall
have a proof of your temperance that is, if you allow 3'ourself
to be charmed by Socrates, and never desert him at all."
" You may depend on my following aud not deserting him,"
paid Charmides. "If you who are my guardian command me,
I should be very wrong not to obey you."
11 Well, I do command you," he said.
"Then I will do as you say, and begin this very day." J.
In the LYSIS, the scene is again a Palsestra, near a
school kept by Micon, a friend of Socrates. It is a
half-holiday (like a saint's day in some of our public
schools) in honor of the god Herrnes; and the boys are
scattered round the courtyard, some wrestling, some
playing at dice, and others looking on. Among these
last is Lysis, of noble birth and of high promise, \viih
his friend Mencxenus. Socrates professes himself
charmed at the attachment of the two boys, and c.ills
tin-in very fortunate. All people, he says, have their
different objects of ambition horses, dogs, money,
honor, as the case maybe; but for his own part he
would rather have a good friend than all these put
together. It is what he has longed for all his life, and
hero is Lysis already supplied. " But," he asks,
" what is Friendship, and who is a friend?"
Is it sympathy is it, as the poets say, that " the gods
draw like to like" by some mysterious affinity of souls?
In that case, the bad man can be no one's friend; for he
is not always even like himself much less like any
one else; while the good man is self-sufficing, and there-
fore has no need of friends. Is not Difference rather
the principle?' Are not unlike characters attracted
by a sense of dependence, and do not the weak
80 PLATO.
thus love the strong, and the poor the rich?
But this canuot he so always, for then by this very
law of contraries the good would love the bad, and the
just the unjust. No there must be a stage of in-
difference, between these two; when one whose char-
acter is hardly formed who is neither good nor bad
courts the society of the good, from some vague desire
of improvement.
But Socrates is not satisfied yet. He thinks there
must be some final principle or first cause of friend-
ship which they have not discovered: "and here," he
says,
"I was going to invite the opinion of some older person, when
suddenly we were interrupted by the tutors of Lysis and Menex-
enus, who came upon us like an evil apparition with their brothers,
and bade them go home, as it was getting late. At first we and
the bystanders drove them off, but afterwards, as they would
not mind, and only went on shouting in their barbarous dialect,
and got angry, and kept calling the boys (they appeared to us to
have been drinking rather too much at the Hermaea, which
made them difficult to manage), we fairly gave way, and broke
up the company. I said, however, a few words to the boys at
parting. O Menexenus and Lysis, will not the bystanders go
away and say, ' Here is a jest: you two boys, aud I, an old boy,
who would fain be one of you, imagine ourselves to be friends,
and we have not as yet been able to discover what is a friend ! '"
J.
Aristotle devotes two books of his "Ethics" to this
much-debated question of Friendship always roman-
tic and interesting from a Greek point of view. He
looks upon it in a political light, as filling up the void
left by Justice in the state; and he traces its appear-
ance in different forms in different governments. It
is an extension of "Self-Love" very different from
Selfishness, for a good man (he says) will give up
honor and life and lands for his friend's sake, and
L7HIS. 81
yet reserve to himself something still more excellent
the glory of a noble deed.* But Aristotle can, no
more than Plato, give the precise grounds for any
friendship, except that it should not be cased on
pleasure or utility; and we are told of his saying
more than once to his pupils, "O my friends, there is
no friend!" Perhaps, after all, Montaigne was right
friendship is inexplicable; and the only reason that
can be given for liking such a person is the one given
by him, " Because it was he, because it was I."
The MENO of Plato, introduced in the Dialogue
which bears his name, is a very different character
from the Meno of history a traitor who did his best
to embarrass the retreat of the Ten Thousand Greeks.
Phto represents him as a "Thessalian Alcibiades" a
rich young noble, the devoted pupil of the Sophists.
He meets Socrates, and abruptly asks him the old
question, whether Virtue can be taught; and Socrates,
as usual, professes ignorance. He is not a Gorgias, that
he can answer such a question offhand "in the grand
style." He does not even know what Virtue is, much
less who are its teachers: and he adds, with mock
humility, that there is a singular dearth of wisdom at
Athens just now, for the rhetoricians have carried it
all away with them to Thrace. Perhaps Meno will
kindly enlighten him with the opinions of Gorgias on
this difficult question?
Yes, Meno will tell him. Every age and condition
of life has its special virtue. A man's virtue is states-
manship, in which he will guard his own and his
CDuntry's interests; while "a woman's virtue is to
order her house and keep what is within doors, and
* Ethics, viii. ix.
82 PLATO.
obey her husband;" a-stay-at-home view of her duties
which would find little favor with tb.3 modern advo-
cates of female suffrage.
But surely, objects Socrates, justice arid temperance
are needed by all ages and professions. Must there
not be some one common element pervading these
separate virtues, which are merely individuals of a
class, like colors and figures? Virtue, like health,
must be a common quality, though it may take various
forms.
Meno then comes to understand that a definition is
what is wanted, and accordingly quotes one from the
poets. " Virtue is the desire of the honorable, and
the power of getting it "
Bat Socrates is not satisfied with this. You must,
he says, get what is honorable with justice (or it
would not be virtuous); and justice is a p .rt of virtue.
Meno is puzzled by this, and complains that Socrates
is a wizard, and has bewitched him. His arguments
are like the shock of the torpedo they benumb and
stupefy. But Socrates declares that he is just as much
perplexed himself; he is ready, indeed, to search for
the truth, but he knows no more what the truth is
than Meno docs.
" How then " (says Meno, acutely) "can you search
for that of which you know nothing; and how, even
if you find it, can you be sure that you have got it? "
This difficulty Socrates explains by that famous
doctrine of Reminiscence, which is so important a
principle in the Platonic philosophy. The soul (as
the poets say) is immortal, and is continually dying
and being born again passing from one body to
another. During these stages of existence, in Hades
uud in the upper world, it has seen and learnt all
XKXO. 83
things, but lias forgotten the greater part of its knowl-
edge. It is capable, however, of reviving by asso-
ciation all that it has learnt for all nature is akin,
and all knowledge and learning is only reminiscence.
Socrates then proves his theory by cross-examining a
boy one of Meno's slaves who gives the successive
stages of a problem in geometry; and this implies that
th? knowledge was already latent in his mind,
Then Socrates goes on to show that knowledge is
the distinctive element of virtue, without which all
good gifts, such as health, or beauty, or strength, are
unprofitable because not rightly used; and if virtue
be knowledge, it cannot come by nature, but must
be taught.
"But who are its teachers? " ho asks, appealing to
one of the company, Anytu?, afterwards his own
accuser: for he has failed, hitherto, to find them.
" Shall Me no go to the Sophists the professed teachers
of all Greece?"
"Heaven forbid!" answers Anytus; "the Sophists
are the corruptcrs of our nation. The real teachers are
the good old Athenian gentlemen, and the statesmen
of a past age. "
But this Socrates will not allow. These great
statesmen never imparted their own wisdom to their
sons, and yet they surely would have done so had it
been possible.
Anytus is indignant that his heroes should b3 so
lightly spoken of, and angrily bids Socrates be careful
of his words, and remember that it is easier to do men
harm in Athens than to do them good.
Still the original question has not been answered,
"Is Virtue teachable?" and Socrates inclines to think
it "a gift from heaven," and that it may be directed
84 PLATO.
by another faculty, practically as useful as knowli-dire,
namely, "right opinion;" and this is a sort of divinj
instinct possessed by statesmen, but which they cirmot
impart to others. The higher form of virtue the
ideal knowledge is possessed by none ; and if a man
ould be found both possessing it and able to impart
it, he would be like Tiresias, as Ulysses saw him in
Hades, who alone had understanding in the midst of
a world of shadows.
EUTHYPHRO.
This Dialogue carries us back to the days when the
trial of Socrates was still impending. One morning
the philosopher meets the augur Euthyphro at the
entrance of the law-courts.
"What are you doing here ?" asks the augur. "I
am defendant," Socrates answers, " in a suit which a
young man named Meletus has brought against me on
a charge of corrupting the youth; and you? "
"I am prosecuting my father for murder," is the
startling reply of Euthyphro; and then he proceeds
to tell the story. A man employed on his father's
estate, in the island of Naxo?, had killed a fellow-
slave in a drunken quarrel; and his father had bound
the offender hand and foot, and thrown him into a
ditch, while he sent to inquire of a diviner at Athens
what he should do with him. But long before the mes-
senger could return, the unfortunate slave had died of
cold and hunger; and Euthyphro had felt it his duty
to prosecute his father for murder. " My friends, "
siys he, "call me impious and a madman for so doing;
but I know better than they do hi what true filial
piety consists. "
EUTIIYPIIRO. 85
" And what is Piety? "asks Socrates; ''the knowl-
edge may be of use to me in my approaching
trial?"
*' Doing as I am doing now," replies the other, in
the true spirit of a Pharisee " bringing a murderer to
justice without respect of persons, and following the
example set by the gods themselves."
But (asks Socrates again) what is the specific
character of piety? for there must be other pious
acts besides prosecuting one's father, and the gods may
disagree as to questions of right and wrong. Even
suppose they all agree in loving a certain act, the fact
of their loving it would not make it pious.
Then Euthyphro defines piety to be that branch
of justice which chiefly concerns the gods; and that
man, he says, is most pious who knows best how to
propitiate their favor by prayer and sacrifice. Thus
piety becomes a sort of business transaction, on the
mutual benefit system, between gods and men, where
worldly prosperity is bestowed on one side, and honor
and gratitude are rendered on the other.
But Socrates is not satisfied. They have, he says,
be2a arguing in a circle, and have got back to the defi-
nition they before rejected that piety is "what is
dear to the gxU:" for the honor we thus pay to
them by prayer and sacrifice is most dear to them. So
they must again seek for the true answer; and Euthy-
phro must toil him, for if any man knows the nature of
piety, it i> evidently he. But Euthyphro is in a hurry,
and cannot stay.
"If Socrates had thought like Euthyphro, he might
have died in his bed." Such is the .moral M. Cousin*
*Fragm. de Phllos. Anc., 117.
80 PLA10.
draws from this Dialogue; and undoubtedly the subse-
quent impeachment of the philosopher might be attribu-
ted in part to the enmity of the Athenian priesthood
always jealous and intolerent of any new form of faith.
Here the contrast is (as Plato probably meant it to be)
a striking one between the augur Eu thy phro perfect
in the letter of the law, but whose consistent " piety "
is impelling him to be a parricide and Socrates, even
now about to be indicted for worshipping strange gods,
yet proving a self-devoted martyr who refuses to save
to save his life by tampering with his conscience, and
who dies rather than break the law by attempting to
escape, when escape was easy.
CRATYLUS.
This Dialogue turns entirely upon etymology, and
hence it is extremely difficult to reproduce it in a
modern form, as continual reference is made to
Greek nouns and names. The humor is so extravagant
and sustained, and the derivations, which Socrates
gravely propounds, are often so fanciful and far-fetched,
that Mr. Jowett thinks Plato intended the Cratylus as a
satire upon the false and specious philology of the day;
but that the meaning of his satire (as is often the case)
has " slept in the ear of posterity."
Cratylus, an admirer of Heraclitus, has been arguing
about names with Ilcrinogenes ayoungtr brother of
the rich Callias, whom we have met before as the hos-
pitable entertainer of Protagoras and his brother
Sophists. Hermogenes maintains that names are
merely conventional signs, which can be given or
taken away at plea ure; and that any name which you
choose to give anything is correct until you change it:
while Cratylus holds that names are real and natural
EUTHYPIIRO. 87
expressions of thought, or else they would be mere in-
articulate sounds; and that all truth comes from lan-
guage. They invite Socrates, who has just joined
them, to give his opinion. "' Alas!" says Socrates,
regretfully, "if I could only have afforded to attend
that fifty-drachma course of lectures given by the great
Prodicus, who advertised them as a complete education
in grammar and language, I could have told you all
about it; but I was only able to attend the single-
drachma course, and know as little of this difficult
question as you. Still, I should like a free discussion
on the subject."
We cannot (he goes on) accept Hermogenes" prin-
ciple, that each man has a private right of nomencla-
ture: for if anybody might name anything, and give
it as many names as he liked, all meaning and distinc-
tion of terms would soon perish there being as much
truth and falsehood implied in words as in sentences.
No, speaking and naming, like any other art, should
be done in the right way, with, the right instrument,
and by the right man in the right place, "This giving
of names,' 1 he continues, "is no such light matter as
you fancy, or the work of chance persons; and Cratylus
is right in saying that things have names by nature,
and that not every man is an artificer of names, but
he only who looks to the thing which each name by
nature has, and is, will be able to express the ideal
forms of things in letters and syllables. " It is the law
that gives nam.es through the legislator, who is advised
in his work by the Dialectician, who alone knows the
right use of names, and who can ask and answer
questions properly.
The Sophists profess to teach you the correctness of
names; but if you think lightly of them, turn to the
83 PLATO,
poets. In Homer you will find that the same thing is
called differently by gods and men for instance, the
river which the gods call Xanthus, men call Scamander;
and there is a solemn and mysterious truth in this,
for of course the gods must be right. And so with
the two names that Hector's son went by Astyanax
and Scamandrius which did Homer think correct?
Clearly, the name given by the men, who are always
wiser than the women. This is another great truth;
and besides, in this case, there is a curious coiner
dence , for the names of the father and son though
having only one letter (t) the same mean the same
thing Hector being "holder," and Astyanax "de-
fender," of the city. The mere difference of syllables
matters nothing, if the same sense is retained.*
All these old heroic names, continues Socrates, carry
their history with them; and, if you analyze them
properly, you learn the character of the men or gods
who bore them. Atreus is "the stubborn" or "de-
structive;" Orestes, the wild " mountain ranger;" Zeus
himself, the lord of "life" and so on with the other
personages in Hesiod's genealogy.
Hermogenes is startled by these derivations, and
thinks Socrates must be inspired his language is so
oracular:
"Yes," say Socrates, "and I caught this inspiration
from the great Euthyphro, with whom I have been
since daybreak, listening while he declaimed; his divine
wisdom has so filled my ears and possessed my soul,
that to-day I will give myself up to this mysterious iu-
ifueace, and examine fully the history of names; to-
* So says Fluellen; they "are all one reckonings, save the
phrase is a little variations. "Henry V., act iv. sc. 7.
89
morrow I will go to some priest or sophist, and be
purified of this strange bewitchment."
Sometimes, he continues, we must change and shift
the letters to get at the real form of the word: thus
soma, "body," is the same as sema, "tomb" mean-
ing the grave in which our foul is buried, or perhaps
kept safe, as in a prison, till the last penalty is paid.
So also Pluto is the same as Flatus, and means the
giver of riches, for all wealth comes from ths world
below, where he is king. It is true that we use his
name as a euphemism for Hades, but we do so wrongly,
for there is really nothing terrible connected with that
word. It does not mean the awful "unseen" world,
as people think ; but Pluto is called Hades because he
knows (eidenai] all goodness and beauty, and thus
binds all who come to him by the strongest chains
stronger than those of Father Time himself. And
so these other awful names, such as Persephatta and
Apollo, have really nothing terrible about them, if you
examine their derivation. But Socrates will have no
more discussion about the gods he is "afraid of
them. "
"Only one more god, " pleads Hermogenes. "I should like
to know about Hermes, of whom I am said not to be a true son.
Let us make him out, and then I shall know if there is anything
in what Cratylus says."
"I should imagine," says Socrates, "that the name Hermes
has to do with speech, and signifies that he is the interpreter, or
messenger, or thief, or liar, or bargainer; language has a great
deal to say to all that sort of thing, and, as I was telling you,
the word eirein is expressive of the use of speech, and we have
improved eiremes into Hermes."
" Then I am very sure," says Hermogenes, in a tone of convic-
tian, "that Cratylus was quite right in saying that I was no trua
son of Hermes, for I am not a good hand at speeches.' 1 J.
90
Then Socrates examines the names of the various
elements, virtues, and moral qua! i lies, most of which
he derives in a manner that would shock a modern
philologist. Some of them, he says truly, have a
foreign origin, inasmuch as the Greek borrowed many
words from the Barbarians; "for the Barbarians arc
older than we are, and the orignal form of words may
have been lost in the lapse of ages " The word
dikaion "justice" says Socrates, ha? greatly puzzled
him. Some one had told him, as a great mystery,
that the word was the same as diaion the subtle and
penetrating power that enters into everything in crea-
tion; and when he inquired further, he was told that
Justi e was the Sun, the piercing or burning element
in nature. But when he quotes this beautiful notion
with great glee to a friend, he is met by the satirical
answer " What! is there then no justice in the world
when the sun goes down ? " And when Socrates begs his
friend to tell him his own honest opinion, he says, "Fire
in the abstract;" which is not very intelligible. Another
says, "No, not fire in the abstract, but the abstrac-
tion of heat in fiie." A third professes to laugh at
this, and says, with Anaxagoras, that Justice is Mind;
for Mind, they say, has absolute power, and mixes
with nothing, and governs all things, and permeates
all things. At last, he says, he found himself in
greater perplexity as to the nature of Justice than
when he began his inquiry.
Then follow other derivations, more extravagant
than any which we have noticed; but Socrates con-
cludes with a long passage of serious etymology. AY,;
should get at primary names (he says), and separate th
letters, which have all a distinct meaning thus Z ex-
presses "smoothness," r" motion," a "size," and c-
TU&&TETUS. 01
"length." When we have fixed their meaning, we
can form them into syllables and words; and add and
subtract until we get a good and true image of the idea
we intend to express. Of course there are degrees of
accuracy in this process, where nature is helped out by
custom; and a name, like a picture, may be a more or
less perfect likeness of a pe^on or thought. Great
truths may be learned through names; but there are
higher forms of knowledge, which can only be learnt
i'r.m the ideas themselves, of which our words are but
faint impressions; and " no man of sense will put him-
-elf or his education in the power of names," or believe
that the world is in a perpetual flux and transition,
" like a leaky vessel." And with this parting blow at
lleraclitus, the Dialogue, with its mixture of truth and
tietion, of jest and earnest, comes to an end. But, wild
ai.d fanciful as many of the derivations undoubtedly
arc, it must still be admitted that " the guesses of Plato
are better than all the other theories of the ancients
respecting language put together."*
THE^ETETUS.
Euclid (not the mathematician, but the philosopher
of that name) meets his friend Terpsion at the door of
his own house in Megara; and their conversation hap-
pens to turn upon TheaBtetus, whom Euclid has just
seen carried up toward Athens, almost dead of dysen-
tery, and of the wounds he had received in the battle
of Corinth. " What a gallant fellow he was, and what
a loss he will be!" says Terpsion; and then Euclid
remembers how Socrates had prophesied great things
of him in his youth, and had proved as he always
* Jowett's Plato, i. 620.
92 PLATO.
did a true prophet; for Theaetetus had more than ful-
filled the promise of his early years. Euclid had taken
careful notes of a discussion between Socrates and the
young Theaetetus in days gone by, and this paper is now
read by a servant for the benefit of Terpsion.
As Socrates said, Thcaetetus was "a reflection of his
own ugly self," both in person and character. Snub-
nosed, and witb projecting eyes, brave and patient,
slow and sure in the pursuit of knowledge, "full of
gentleness, and always making progress, like a noiseless
river of oil." His answers in the Dialogue bear out
this character: they are invariably shrewd and to the
point, and would have done credit (says his examiner)
to "many bearded men.'' Socrates is still the same
earnest disputant, professing to know nothing himself,
but willing to assist others in bringing their thoughts
to the birth; for so far, he tells Theaetetus, he has in-
herited the art of his mother Phsenarete, the midwife.
Hence those youths resort to him who are tortured by
the pangs of perplexity and doubt, and yearn to be
delivered of the conceptions which are straggling for
release within their breasts. If these children of their
f-ouls are likely to prove a true and noble offspring,
they are suffered to see the light; but if, as is often
the case, his divine inward monitor warns Socrates
that they are but lies or shadows of the truth, they are
stifled in the birth.
The question discussed is Knowledge; and the first
definition of it proposed is " sensible perception." This
Socrates connects with the old saying of Protagoras,
' Man is the measure of all things;" and this he again
links on to the still older doctrine of Heraclitus, " All
things are becoming." "These ancient philosophers"
(he say<) " the great Parmenides excepted agreed
THEJBTETUS. 93
that since we live in the midst of perpetual change and
transition, our knowledge of ail things must be rela-
tive. There is no such thing, they will tell you, as
real existence. You should not say, ' this is white or
black,' but 'it is my (or your) impression that it is so.'
And thus each man can only know what he perceives;
and so far his judg:nent is true."
"Of course" (continues Socrates), "we might
object that our senses may deceive us; that in cases
where a man is mad or dreaming who knows, indeed,
whether we are not dreaming at this very moment?
he must get false impressions : or, again, that our tastes
may become perverted ; and as wine is distasteful to a
sick man, so what is really good or true does not
appear so to us. But Protagoras would reply that the
sick man's dreams are real to him, that my impres-
sions of wine are certainly different in health and sick-
ness; but then I am different, and my impressions in
either case are true."
" I wonder (says Socrates ironically) that Protagoras did not
begin his great work on Truth with a declaration that a pig or a
dog-faced baboon, or some other strange monster which has
sensation, is the measure of all things; then, when we were
reverencing him as a god, he might have condescended to in-
form us that he was no wiser than a tadpole, and did not even
aspire to be a man would not this have produced an overpower-
ing effect? For if truth is only sensation, and one man's dis-
cernment is as good as another's, and no man has any superior
right to determine whether the opinion of any other is true or false
but each man, as we have several times repeated, is to himself the
sole judge, and everything that he judges is true and right, why
should Protagoras be preferred to the place of wisdom and in-
struction, and deserve to be well paid, and we poor ignoramuses
have to go to him, if each one is the measure of his own wis-
dom? " J.
Then Socrates takes upon himself to defend Prot-
agoras, who is made to qualify his original statement:
94 PLATO.
"Man is the measure of all things, but one man's
knowledge may be superior in proportion as his im-
pressions are better; still, every impression is true and
real, and a false opinion is impossible,"
Common-sense, replies Socrates, is against this
theory, which would reduce all minds to the same
level. Practically, men are always passing judgment
on the impressions of others, pronouncing them to be
true or false, and acting accordingly; they recognize
superior minds, and submit to teachers and rulers:
thus Protagoras himself made a large fortune on the
reputation of having better judgment than his neigh-
bors. And if one man's judgment is as good as
another's, who is to decide? Is the question to be
settled by a plurality of votes, or what shall be the
last court of appeal? Protagoras may think this or
that, but there are probably ten thousand who will
think the opposite; and, by his own rule, #^r judg-
ments are as good as his.
But even Socrates feels some compunction in thus
jittacting the theories of a dead philosopher who cannot
defend himself.
" If he could only " (he says) "get his head out of the world
below, he would give both of us a sound drubbing me for
quibbling, and you for accepting my quibbles and be off and
underground again in a twinkling," J.
Then comes a break in the main argument, and
Socrates wanders off into a digression, in which he
draws a striking contrast between the characters of the
lawyer and philosopher the former always in a hurry,
with the water-clock urging him on busy and preoc-
cupied, the slave of his clients, keen and shrewd, but
narrow-minded, and from his early years versed in the
crooked paths of deceit: while the philosopher is a
THEJSTBTV8. 93
gentleman at large, master of his owu time, abstracted
and absorbed in thought, seeing nothing at his feet, and
knowing nothing of the scandals of the clubs or the
gossip of the town hardly even acquainted with his
next-door neighbor by sight shy, awkward, and too
simple-minded to retaliate an insult, or understand the
merits of a long pedigree.*
"Knowledge then," continues Socrates, resuming
the argument, "cannot be perception; for, after all,
it is the soul which perceives, and the senses are merely
organs of the body springing from a common centre of
life. In fact, we see and hear rather through them than
with them. Furthermore, there are certain abstractions
which we (that is, the trained and intelligent few) per-
ceive with the eye of reason alone."
Then Theactetus suggests that knowledge may be de-
nned as ' ' true opinion ;" but then, says Socrates, the
old objection would be raised, that false opinion is im-
possib'e; for we must either know or not know, and in
either case we know what we know. The reply is, that
mistakes are alw a) s possible; you may think one thing
to be another. Our souls, continues Socrates, using a
metaphor which has since passed into a commonplace,
are like waxen tablets some broad and deep, where
the impressions made by sight or hearing are clear and
indelible; others cramped and narrow, where the im-
pressions from the senses are confused and crowded
together; and sometimes the wax itself is soft, or
* The Philosopher here argues that a long line of ancestors
does not necessarily make a penleman ; for any one, if he
chooses, may reckon back to the first Parent, just as Tennyson
reminds Lady Clara that:
" The grand old Gardener and his wife
Smile at the claims of long descent."
96 PLATO.
shallow, or impure, and so the impression is soon
effaced. Often, too, we put, so to speak, the shoe on
the wrong foot, or stamp with the wrong seal; and
from these wrong and hasty impressions come false
opinions. There can be no mistake when perception
and knowledge correspond; but we often have one
without the other. I may see an inscription, but not
know its meaning; or I may hear a foreigner talk, but
not understand a word he says.
But stay, says Socrates we have been rashly using
these words "know" and ' understand," while all the
time we are ignorant of what "knowledge" is. We
must try again to define the term ; and first, to have
is quite different from to possess knowledge. Our soul
is like an aviary full of wild birds, flying all about the
place, singly or in groups. You may possess them,
but you have none in hand; and until you collect,
comprehend, and grasp your winged thoughts, you
cannot be said to have them either. When you have
once caught your bird (or your thought), you cannot
mistake it; but while they are flying about, you may
mistake the ring-dove for the pigeon, and so you may
mistake the various numbers and forms of knowledge.
" Perhaps," says Theastetus, sharply, "there may be
sham birds in the aviary; and you may put forth your
hand intending to grasp Knowledge, but catch Ignor-
ance instead. How then ? "
"No," says Socrates; "it is a clever suggestion,
but if you once know the form of knowledge, you will
never mistake it for ignorance. Perhaps, however,
there may be higher forms of knowledge in other
aviaries, which help you to tell the wrong from the
right thought; but, on this supposition we might go
on imagining forms to infinity. "
THEJETETU8. 97
A third and last definition of knowledge is now pro-
posed "True opinion plus definition or explanation."
But what is explanation? is it the expression of a
man's thoughts? But every one who is not deaf and
dumb can express his thoughts. Or is it the enumera-
tion of the elements of which anything is composed?
But you may know the syllables of a name without
being able to explain the letters. Or, lastly, is expla-
nation " the perception of difference?" For instance,
(says Socrates, somewhat rudely), I know and recog-
nize Thea3tetus by his having a peculiar snub nose,
different from mine and all other snub noses in the
world. But is my perception of this difference
opinion or knowledge? If the first, I have only
opinion; if the second, I am assuming the very term
which we are trying to define.
And thus, in ih? true "Socratic manner," abrupt
and unsatisfactory as it seems to us, the Dialogue ends;
and "knowledge " remains the same unknown quantity
as before. And yet (Socrates thinks) the discussion
has not been altogether fruitless; for he has shown
Thesetetus that the offspring of his brain were not
worth the bringing up.
" If," concludes the philosopher, " you are likely to have any
more embryo thoughts, such offspring will be all the better for
our present investigation; and if you should prove barren, you
vill be less overbearing and gentler to your friends, and modest
enough not to fancy you know what you do not know. So far
only can my art go, and no further; for I know none of the se-
crets of your famous teachers, past or present." J.
CHAPTER V.
PLATO'S IDEAL STATES.
"II faut bien reflechir sur la Politique d' Aristote et sur les deux
Republiques de Platon, st Ton veut avoir une juste idee des lois
et des mceurs des anciens Grecs." Montesquieu.
THE REPUBLIC.
IN this, the grandest and most complete of all his
works, Plato blends all the stores of past thought on
religion, politics, and art, into one great constructive
effort; systematizing, and, as far as might be, reconcil-
ing the conflicting theories and the various systems
which had preceded him. Thus he first passes in
review the prudential morality of an earlier age, built
on texts from the poets and on aphorisms which had
come down from the seven sages ; he then puts to the
proof the rash self-assertion of the Sophists, and the
ingenious skepticism of the rising generation. But both
these stages of thought, when tried, are found wanting,
and the object of his search seems as far off as ever;
for perfect justice and wisdom (so Plato thinks) can-
not be found in any kingdom of this world. The
result is that he frames a State of his own, ideal in one
sense, but purely Greek in another, which was to com-
bine the iron discipline of Sparta with the many-sided
culture of Athens a city where, as her own historian
THE REPUBLIC. (
said, men might unite elegance with simplicity, and
might be learned without being effeminate.* And
then like some painter who copies a divine original,
to use his own comparison,! Plato first cleanses the
moral canvas of his visionary state, then sketches the
outline of the constitution, fills it in with the ideal
forms of virtue, and gives it a human complexion in
the god-like coloring of Homer; and the result is a
glorious picture, as the world would acknowledge, he
thinks, if they could be brought to s >e the truth; and
a picture which might be realized in history, could a
single king, or son of a king, become a philosopher.
Ethics and politics were so closely blended in
Plato's view, that he regards the virtues of the Man
as identical with those of the State, and thus exagger-
ates, says Mr. Grote, "the unity of the one and th'j
partibility of the other." But we must remember that
as the ancient state was smaller, so the public spirit
pervading it was more intense; each man was, as we
might say, citizen, soldier, and member of Parliament;
and unlike modern society, which has been defined as
" anarchy plus the policeman," where tolerance is car-
ried to its furthest limits, and where state interference
is restricted to the security of life and property,
the- Greek theory was to secure as far as possible an
absolute uniformity of sentiment and character, and
to crush anything like heresy or dissent among the
members of the social body. The siate, if it existed
at all, must be at one with itself; and they would
point to Sparta as a triumphant proof that a rational
character might b3 created by the all powerful hand of
a legislator like Lycurgus. Pericles indeed might
* Thucyd. ii. 40. t Rep., vi. 501.
100 PLATO.
boast that at Athens there were no sour looks at n
neighbor's eccentricities, and that it was emphatically
" A land, where, girt by friends and foes,
A man might say the thing he would: "
but, as we have seen in the case of Socrates, Athenian
tolerance might be tried too far, and theories which
tended in their view to outrage religion and morality,
could not be endured with the same equanimity as in
our skeptical and so-called enlightened age.
The opening scene in the "Republic " is such an ex-
cellent specimen of Plato's powers of description, that
it is well worth giving in full. It is Socrates who
speaks :
1 went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon the son of
Ariston, to offer up prayers to the goddess, and also from a wish
to see how the festival, then to be held for the first time, would
be celebrated. I was very much pleased with the native Athe-
nian procession, though that of the Thracians appeared to be no
less brilliant. We had finished our prayers, and satisfied our
curiosity, and were returning to the city, when Polemarchus, the
son of Cephalus, caught sight of us at a distance as we were on
our way towards home, and told his servant to run and bid us
wait for him. The servant came behind me, took hold of my
cloak, and said, " Polemarchus bids you wait." I turned round,
and asked him where his master was. " There he is," he replied,
"coming on behind: pray wait for him." "We will wait,"
answered Glaucon. Soon afterwards Polemarchus came up,
with Adeimantus the brother of Glaucon, and Niceratus the son
of Nicias, and a few other persons, apparently coming away
from the procession. Polemarchus instantly began: "Socrates,
if I am not deceived, you are taking your departure for the
city."
" You are not wrong in your conjecture," I replied
" Well, do you see what a large body we are? "
" Certainly I do."
" Then either prove yourselves the stronger party, or else stay
where you are."
THE REPUBLIC. 101
"No," I replied; "there is still an alternative: supposa wo
persuade you that you ought to let us go."
41 Could you possibly persuade us, if we refused to listen? "
" Certainly not," replied Glaucon.
" Make up your minds, then, that we shall refuse to listen."
Here Adeimantus interposed, and said: " Are you not aware
that towards evening there will be a torch-race on horseback in
honor of the goddess? "
" On horseback ! " I exclaimed ; " that is a novelty. Will they
carry torches, and pass them on to one another, while the horses
are racing? or how do you mean? "
" As you say," replied Polemarohus; " besides, there will be a
night festival, which it will be worth while to look at. We will
rise after dinner, and go out to see this festival; and there we
shall meet with many of our j-oung men, with whom we can
converse. Therefore, stay, and do not refuse us." D.
And so they are persuaded to return with Polemar-
chus to his home, where they find his father, the aged
Cephalus, surrounded by his sons and friends.
" You should come to see me oftener," says Cephalus
to Socrates, " now that I cannot come to you. I find
that the older one grows, the fonder one becomes of
conversation."
"And what think you of old age itself?" asks
Socrates. " Is the road to the grave rough or smooth?"
"Smooth and peaceful enough," answers Cephalus
" that is, to one of easy temper like myself; though
some old men, I know, complain bitterly of the mis-
eries of age, and mourn over the faded pleasures of
their youth."
"Yes," says Socrates; "but the world would say
that your riches make old age an easy burden."
''There is something in that; but I should say
myself that a good man could not be happy in poverty
and old age, nor again would all the wealth of Croesus
make a bad man happy."
102 PLATO.
" What do you think, then, to be the chief advan-
tage of riches? " asks Socrates.
" If I mention it," he replied, " I shall perhaps get few persons
to agree with me. Be assured, Socrates, that when a man is
nearly persuaded that he is going to die, he feels alarmed
and concerned about things which never affected him before.
Till then, he has laughed at those stories about the departed,
which tell us that he who has done wrong here must suffer for
it in the other world; but now his mind is tormented with a fear
that these stories may possibly be true. And either owing to
the infirmities of old age, or because he is now nearer to the con-
fines of the future state, he has a clearer insight into those mys-
teries. However that may be, he becomes full of misgiving and
apprehension, and sets himself to the task of calculating and
reflecting whether he has done any wrong to any one. Here-
upon, if he finds his life full of unjust deeds, he is apt to start out
of sleep in terror, as children do, and he lives haunted by gloomy
anticipations. But if his conscience reproaches him with no
injustice, he enjoyes the abiding presence of sweet Hope, that
'kind nurse of old age,' as Pindar calls it. . . . And it is this
consideration, as I hold, that makes riches chiefly valuable, I do
not say to everybody, but at any rate to the good. For they
contribute greatly to our preservation from even unintentional
deceit or falsehood, and from that alarm which would attend
our departure to the other world, if we owed any sacrifices to a
t;od, or any money to a man. They have also many other uses.
But after weighing them all separately, Socrates, I a.m inclined
to consider this service as anything but the least important
which riches can render to a wise and sensible man." D.
"So, then, this is the meaning of Justice," says
Socrates, seizing on the word Injustice " to tell the
truth and pay your debts? "
"Certainly, if we are to believe the poet Simon-
ides," says Polemarchus (for Cephalus gives up the
discussion, and quits the company); "his words are
to pay back what you owe to each is just."
" But you surely would never give back to a mad
friend a sword which he had lent you? "
THE REPUBLIC. 103
"No," says Polemarchus ; " for Simonides says again,
you should give back what is proper to each man
that is, good to your friends and evil to your foes:
and if you ask how, by making alliance with one and
going to war with the other: and in peace, Justice is of
use in ordinary dealings between man and man espe-
cially when you wish your money to be safely kept."
" That is," says Socrates, "when your money is idle
and useless then only Justice is us?ful! Again, since
tbe doctor can poison as well as heal, and the general
can overreach the enemy as well as protect himself,
Justice, if it can guard, must aho steal; and the ju.-t
man is a sort of thief, like Homer's Autolycu .
" Who best could steal, and swear he never stole."*
Your poets have brought Jus lice to a pretty pass!
And may not men make mistakes, and injure their real
friends?"
" Yes," says Polemarchus; " but by a friend I mean
one who both seems and really is one; and it is just
to injure one's enemy if he is bad, and to help one's
friend if hy is good. ''
" But hurting a man is the same as making him
worse with respect to virtue, and such inor.il injury
belongs not to good, but to its contrary, evil ; just as
it is not heat that chills, but its contrary, cold. So it
can never be just to injure either friend or foe; and this
definition must have been invented not by Simonides
but by Periander, or some other potentate, who thought
his power irresistible."
Then Thrasymacbus, who had been growing more
and more impatient, takes, advantage of a pause, and,
"like a wild beast gathering it elf up for a spring/'
bursts in upon the argument.
* Ilom. Odyss., xix. 39o.
104 PL A : o.
"No more of this foolisli compl. isance, Socrates;
answer yourself, instead of asking what justice is; and
don't tell me that it is 'the due,' or 'the profitable,'
or 'the expedient,' or ' the lucrative,' or any nonsense
of that sort. And let us have none of your usual
affectation of ignorance, if you please."
Socrates, who at first assumes to have been terror-
struck at this sudden attack, tries to soothe Thrasy-
machus. " A clever man like you," he says, "should
pity us in our perplexity, instead of treating us harshly;
we are searching for what is more precious than any
gold, and want all the assistance we can get."
Thrasymachus is somewhat pacified by this flattery,
and gives his own theory, which is substantially the
same as that we have already seen advocated by Cal-
licles in the "Gorgias," that Justice is "the Interest
of the Stronger." Rulers always legislate with a view
to their own interests; and as a shepherd fattens his
sheep for his own advantage, so do the " shepherds of
the people " regard their subjects as mere sheep, and
look only to Ihe possible profit they may get from them.
Justice is thus the gain of the strong and the loss of
the weak; for the just man's honesty is ruinous to
himself, while the unjust man, especially if he can
plunder wholesale like the tyrant, is happy and pros-
perous, and well spoken of; and thus Injustice itself is
a strong and lordlier thing than Justice.
To this barefaced sophistry Socrates replies that the
unjust man may go too far; in overreaching his neigh-
bors just and unjust alike he breaks all the rules
of art, and proves himself a.n unskillful and ignorant
workman, who has no fixed standard in life to act by.
And in an unjust ftate, where every man is thus trying
to get the betier of his neighbor, there will be endless
THE REPUBLIC. 105
discord and divisions, making all united action impos-
sible; it will be like a house divided against itself.
And as it is with the unjust state, so will it be with
the unjust man. He will be ever at war with himself,
and so unable to act decisively. Lastly, the soul (like
the ear or eye) has a work of its own to do, and a virtue
which enables it to do that work well. Justice is a
work of the soul, and the just man lives well and is
happy; and as happiness is more profitable than misery,
so is Justice more profitable than Injustice.
Thrasymachus is now in a good temper again, and
readily acquiesces in all that Socrates has said; but
G-laucon, shrewd and combative, takes upon himself
the office of "devil's advocate " (for he admits that his
own convictions are the other way), and revives the
defence of Injustice from a Sophist's point of view.
"Naturally," he says, "to do injustice is a good,
and to suffer it an evil : but as men found that the evil
was greater than the g)od, tlry made a compact of
mutual abstinence, and so justice is simply a useful
compromise under certain circumstances. If you were
to furnish the just and unjust man each with a ring
such as Gyges wore of old, making the wearer invisible
to all eyes, you would find them both following the
same lawless path; for no man would be so steeled
against temptation as to remain virtuous, if he were in-
visible. As things are, he finds honesty the best policy.
" Again, let us assume both characters the just and
unjust to be perfect in their parts, so that we may
decide which is the happier of the two. Our ideal
villain will reduce crime to a science he will have
wealth, and money, and honor, and influence all that
this world esteems precious; he will have a high repu-
tation for justice (for this is the crowning exploit of in-
106 PLATO.
jusiice); he will accomplish all his ends by force or
fraud, and the gods, whose favor he will win by cosily
offerings, will sanctify the means. While tha perfect'}-
simple and noble man, clothed only in his justice, will
buffer the worst consequences of a lifelong reputation UK-
s .eming to be that which he really is not unjust, lie
will be put in. chains, scourged, tortured, and at last
put to death. Which think you the happier of these
two?"
Then Adeimantus takes up the parable, for brother,
he says, should help brother. "Men too commonly
make the mistake of dwelling, not upon the beauty of
Justice in itself, but on the worldly advantages, the
honors, and the high reputation which attoud a just
life. It is in this spirit that parents advise their chil-
dren, and that Homer and Hesiod recount the blessings
which the gods bestow upon the pious:
" ' Like to a blameless king, who, godlike in virtue andwisdom,
Justice ever maintains; whose rich land fruitfully yields him
Harvests of barley and wheat; and his orchards are heavy with
fruitage.
Strong are the young of his flocks, and the sea gives him fish in
abundance.'*
And other poets describe the glories of a sensual para-
dise, where th^ir heroes feast GJ. coaches, crowned with
flowers, and make the fairest reward of virtue to be
'immortal drunkenness;' while they doom the unjust to
fill sieves and languish in a swamp through all eter-
nity.
" Others, again, strike out a different line, and will
tell you how narrow and difficult is the way of virtue,
and how broad and pleasant is the path of vice; and
* Horn. Odyss., xix 109 (Davies and Vaughan).
THE REPUBLIC. 107
they aRirin, too, that tlrj .ods bestow prosperity on the
v. ic.;cd aiid adversity on the good. And lastly, there
i ; a doctrine of indulgences preached by mendicant
prophet?, who profess to have power to absolve the
rich man from his sins, in this world and the next, by
spells and mystic rites; and they quote the poets to
prove that vice and atonement are equally easy.
" What is a young man to do amidst all this conflict-
ing advice? Shall he make Justice 'his strong tower
of defence,' as Pindar says; or shall he fence his char-
acter with the appearance of virtue, and so by fair
means or foul obtain that happiness which is the end of
life? The gods if at least there are gods, and if they
care for men's affairs can easily be wrought upon by
prayer and sacrifice; and we need have no fear of
Hades so long as we perform the mystic rites. And so,
if he combines injustice with the semblance of justice,
he will reap all the advantages of both, and will fare
well in both worlds.
"The blame of all this evil rests with our poets and
teachers, who have always dwelt on the glories and
rewards following on a just life, but have never ade-
quately discussed what Justice and Injustice really are.
Could we see them as they are, we should choose the
one as the greatest good, and shun the other as the
greatest evil. It rests with Socrates," concludes Adei-
mantus, " to show how Justice is itself a blessing, and
Injustice a curse, to the possessor; and to leavo to
others the task of describing the reputation and rewards
which indirectly follow from either."
Socrates agrees to this ; but he pleads that, as he has
weak eyes, he must be allowed to read the larger
writing first that is, to look for Justice in the State,
which is, after all, only the individual "writ large."
108 PLATO.
"The State springs," he says, "from the mutual
needs of men, whose simplest outfit will require food,
shelter, and clothing, so that the least possible city
must consist of four or five men; and as they will have
different natures, and one man can do one thing better
than many, there will be a natural division of labor.
Soon, however, fresh wants will arise. Smiths, car-
penters, and shepherds will be found necessary, and
thus a population will coon spring up. Then comes the
necessity of importing and exporting, and this will
produce merchants and sailors; and by degrees the ex-
change of productions will give rise to a market and a
currency. Life in such a city will bo simple and fru-
gal. Men will build, and phnr,, and till the soil. Their
food will be coarse but wholesome; and on holidays,
" spreading these excellent cakes and loaves upon mats of straw
or on clean leaves, and themselves reclining on rude beds of yew
or myrtle boughs, they will make merry, themselves and their
children, drinking their wine, wearing garlands, and singing the
praises of the gods, enjoying one another's society, and not be-
getting children beyond their means, through a prudent fear
of poverty or war." D.
Glaucon objects that if Socrates had been found! r.g
"a city of pigs," he could hardly have given them Ji^c;
and suggests that he should add the refinements of
modern life.
I see, continues Socrates, that we shall have to
enlarge and decorate our State with the fine arts, and
all the "fair humanities" of life; gold and ivory,
paintings and embroidery will be found there ; and a
host of ornamental trades will soon spring up danc-
ers, cooks, barbers, musicians, and confectioners. So
largely, in fact, will our population then increase, that
the land will not be able to support it. Hence fresh
territory must be acquired, and we must go to war to
THE REPUBLIC. 109
get it. We shall thus want a camp and a standing
army.
Now the art of war, more than any other, must be
a separate craft ; and the soldier's profession requires
not only a natural aptitude, but the study of a lifetime.
How shall we choose those who are to be our Guard-
ians? Clearly, they should have all the qualities of
well-bred dogs quick to see, swift to follow, and strong
to fight brave and spirited, gentle to friends, but fierce
against their foes. Their natures must be harmonized
by philosophy; and philosophy involves education.
In our education we will follow the old routine:
first, Music that is, all training by words and sounds.
But we will have a strict censorship of the press, and
banish from our State all those lying fables of our
mythology, as well as the terrific descriptions of the
lower world. We will lay down, instead, types to
which all tales told to children must conform. Our
music, too, shall be simple and spirited strains after
the "Dorian mood;" and in sculpture and in art we
will encourage the same pure taste. Thus, with fair
and graceful forms everywhere around them, our youth
will drink into their souls, " like gales blowing from
healthy lands," all inspirations of truth and beauty.
" In their bodily training, we will encourage a plain
and healthy diet, and there shall be no sauces or made
dishes. Thus we shall want few lawyers and few phy-
sicians; no sleepy judges, or doctors whose skill only
teaches them how to prolong worthless lives. Our
citizens will have no time to be invalids; with us it
must be " either kill or cure," and the evil body must
be left to die, and the evil soul must be put to death.
Our Rulers must be chosen from our Guardians
the best and oldest of the number; and they must bo
110 PLATO.
tested as gold is tried in the furnace by pleasure
and fear; and if they come forth unstained and un-
scathed from this trial, they shall be honored both in
life and death. And in order that we may secure a
proper esprit de corps among them, we will invent and
impress upon them a "noble falsehood." "Ye are
children of earth (wo will tell them), all brethren from
the same great mother, whom you are in duty bound
to protect. Your creator mingled gold in the nature
of your chiefs; silver in that of the soldiers ; bronze
and iron went to form the artisans and laborers. It
is your business, Guardians, to keep intact this purity
of breed. No child of gold must remain among the
artisans; no child of iron among the rulers: for the
State shall surely perish (so saith an oracle) when ruled
by brass or iron." And this story must be handed
down from father to son, as a sacred form of faith in
our State.
Now our Guardians must have neither houses, nor
lands, nor dwellings, nor storehouses of their own;
but only fixed pay, and a soldier's lodging, and a com-
mon mess-table.
Adeimantus objects that the life of the Guardians can
scarcely be happy on these terms with no money to
spend on themselves or their friends, kept on "board-
wages," and always on duty.
It is not our business (answers Socrates) to insure the
happiness of a class. But our Guardians will be happy
that is, if they do their duty, preserve the unity of the
State, maintain the golden mean between wealth and
poverty, and be ever on the watch against the spirit of
innovation dangerous even in music, doubly so in
education and leave the highest and most sacred
legislation to our ancestral god of Delphi.
THE REPUBLIC. Ill
But (he interrupts himself suddenly) we are forget-
ting Justice all this time. We must light a candle and
search our city diligently, now that we have founded
one, till we find it. Clearly our State, if it be perfect,
will contain the four cardinal virtues; and, if we can
first discover three out of the four, the unknown re-
mainder must be Justice.
Wisdom will be the science of protection, possessed
by our Guardians; and true Courage will be engrained
in the hearts of our soldiers by law and education;
and Temperance will be that social harmony pervading
.the State, and making all the citizens to be of one mind,
like strings attempered to one scale. But where is
Justice? Here at our feet, after all, for it can be noth-
ing else than our original principle of division of labor:
for a man is just when he does his own business, and
does not meddle with his neighbor's.
And, returning to Man, we shall also find three parts
in his soul corresponding to the three classes in our
State. Reason, which should rule ; Desire, which
should obey; and Passion,* which is properly the ally
of reason, and is restrained by it as a dog is restrained
by a shepherd. We shall also find the same cardinal
virtues in the man as in the State.
The just man will live uprightly, and will reduce all
the elements of his soul to unison and harmony; and
as to the original question "whether injustice, if un-
detected, pays in this life?" we may answer that it is
amoral disease and that, as in the body, so in the
soul, if the constitution is ruined, life will not be worth
having.
* There is no English equivalent for the Greek word thumos
which combines the several meanings which we express in the
words spirit, passion, honor, anger, all in one.
112 PLATO.
Then Socrates lays down the details of the system
of Communism which he proposes to carry out in his
State. "Following further our comparison of sheep-
dogs, men and women are to have the same emloy-
ment (for there is no real difference between the sexes),
and will go out to war together. Marriages must be
strictly regulated; and, as in the case of dogs or game
fowl, we must keep up the purity of breed. The best
must marry the best, and the worst the worst; and
the children of the former must be carefully reared,
while any offspring from the latter must be exposed,
There must be a public nursery, and no mother must
know her own child. Thus, where all have common
sympathies and interests, and there are no jealousies
arising from separate families or properties, the State
will be most thoroughly at unity with itself.
" These children of the State shall be present in
the battel-iield but at a safe distance to stimulate the
courage of our warriors, and accustom our young to the
rcene of their future duties. And in war, the runaway
anil coward shall bs degraded: but the brave shall be
crowned and shall wed the fair; he shall be honored
at the sacrifice and banquet, and if he falls, we shall
proclaim that Ii3 sprang from the race of gold, and now
lia-mts the earth in the form of a holy and powerful
spirit.
" War between Greek and Greek is an unnatural
feud, and therefore we will not despoil the bodies of
the dead for there is a meanness in injuring a body
whence the soul has fled ; nor will we enslave a free
Greek, nor lay waste Greek land, or burn houses, as
heretofore. "
Glaucon is willing to admit that this ideal State will
have a thousand advantages over any at present in
THE REPUBLIC. 113
existence, if only it could be realized. How is this to
be brought about?
Our State might be realized, Socrates replies, on one
condition preposterous as it will seem to the world
"philosophers must be kings;" or, failing this, the
princes of this world must be imbued with the true
philosophic spirit.
And what, then, is a philosopher? He is a rare and
perfect being, who takes all knowledge and virtue as
his portion; he is "the spectator of all time and all
existence," for he knows the absolute and real ideas of
beauty, truth, and justice far removed from the uncer-
tain twilight of opinion. He is free from the mean-
ness or injustice of petty natures; he is lordly in his
conceptions, gracious in manner, with a quick mem-
ory, and a well-adjusted mind. It is no argument,
continues Socrates, to say that among {he so-called
philosophers of the present day you will find many
rogues and fools. It is so; but the fault rests not with
philosophy itself, but with the ignorant multitude, and
with the pretentious teachers of our youth; for rare
talents may be perverted by bad training, and strong
but ill-regulated minds will produce the greatest evils.
A young and noble character has indeed little chance
of withstanding the corruptions of the age. The ful-
some compliments of friends and advisers, the sense-
less clamor of the law-court or the Assembly, combine
to ruin him; and, worse than all, the influence of the
Sophists, who act as keepers to this many -headed monster
of a poople, understanding its habits and humoring
its caprices, calling what it fancies good and what it
dislikes evil. And thus Philosophy herself is left deso-
late, and a crowd of vulgar interlopers leave their
proper trades and rush in like escaped prisoners into a
114 PLATO.
sanctuary, and profane the Temple of Truth. There'
can be but one result to such a debasing alliance as
this a host of spurious sophisms. Few and rare in-
deed are the cases where men of nobler stamp have
remained uncorrupted; whom some favorable accident,
such as exile, or indifference, or ill health or it may
be (Socrates adds, as in my own peculiar case, an in-
ward sign from heaven has saved from such entan-
glements.
Cbarly, then, the real philosopher, who is to stand
aloof from that wild beast's den which we call public
life, has no place or lot among us as things are now.
He is like some rare exotic, which, if transplanted to a
foreign soil, would soon fade and wither; for he requires
a perfect State to fulfill the perfection of his own
nature a State such as may perhaps have once existed
ia the countless ages that are passed, or even exists
now ' ' in some foreign clime far beyond the limits of
our own horizon." *
And in this State, of which we are giving the glo-
rious outlines, philosophers must rule, in spite of
their personal reluctance; for they owe us nurture-
wages for their training ; and must for a time forego
their higher life of contemplation. They will be nobly
fitted for their office, for their intellectual training will
have taken them step by step through the higher
branches of knowledge Arithmetic, Geometry, and
Astromony all studied with a view to deeper and
ideal truths. By a strict and repeated process of selec-
tion, all except those of a resolute and noble nature will
* Here, at the end of the Sixth and the beginning of the
Seventh Book in the original, comes a description of the higher
education which these philosophers must undergo, and of which
a sketch is given in chap. vii.
THE REPUBLIC. 115
be excluded from the number of these "saviors of the
State;" again and again these will be tested and ex-
amined, and a select list made, till at last the studies of
the chosen few will culminate in Dialectic, the coping-
stone of all the Sciences. Their souis will then have
mounted from gloom to daylight; they will compre-
hend first principles, and they will be privileged to
know and define in its real nature the Idea of Good.
At the age of fifty they shall be tested for their final
work, and if they come out unscathed from the trial,
the remainder of their life shall be passed partly in
philosophy, partly in practical politics till death shall
remove them to the Islands of the Blest, and a grateful
city shall honor them with monuments and sacrifices.
Such is our State, continues Socrates in the Eighth
Book, perfect, so long as its various parts shall act in
harmony; but, like other mortal productions, it is fated
to change and decay at a certain period, determined
by a mystic number. So also there is a cycle which
controls all human births for good or evil; and, in the
lapse of years, it must be that our Gaurdians will miss
the propitious time; a degenerate offspring will thus
come into being, Education will languish, and there
will be a gradual decline in the Constitution.
The first stage in this "decline and fall" will be a
Timocracy, marked by a spirit of ambition and love of
gain ; in which the art of war will preponderate, and
our Gaurdians will think lightly of philosophy and
much of political power.
Then comes an Oligarchy, where gold is all-power-
ful a.ul virtue is depreciated; and the State becomes
divided iii.o two hostile classe one enormously rich,
116 PLATO.
the other miserably poor; and in it paupers and crim-
inals multiply, and education deteriorates.
There is a change, says our theorist, in the character
of the individual citizen corresponding to each of these
changes in the form of government; but it must be
confessed that the minute analysis of the causes of
this change, and the result of certain characteristics
in each parent, would strike a modern reader as some-
thing more than fanciful.
The intemperate desire of riches, and the license and
extravagance thus encouraged, do their own work in
the State, until you find everywhere grasping misers
and ruined spendthrifts. Meanwhile the lower orders
grow turbulent and conscious of their power. Their
insubordination soon brings matters to a crisis: there
is a revolution, and a Democracy is the result. This
may be denned as "a pleasant and lawless and motley
constitution, giving equal rights to unequal persons;"
and it is pervaded by a marvelous freedom in speech
and action, and a strange diversity of character. Each
man docs what he likes in his own eyes, with a mag-
nanimous disregard of the law: he obeys or disobeys
at his own pleasure; and if some criminal be sentenced
to death or exile, you will probably meet him the next
day, come to life again, and parading the streets like a
hero. There is something splendid, concludes Socrates
comically, in the forbearance of such a commonwealth,
an.l in its entire superiority to all petty considerations.
Again, the democrat is like the democracy. Brought
up in a miserly and ignorant way by his father, the
oligarch, the young man is soon corrupted by bad com-
pany, and a swarm of passions and wild and presump-
tuous theories seize the citadel of his reason, whence
temperance and modesty are expelled. Even if net
THE REPUBLIC. 117
thoroughly reprobate, he is at the mercy of each fleet-
ing caprice, and gives way to the humor of the hour,
now reveling with wine and music, now fasting on
bread and water now an idler, and now a student; by
turns politician, general, or trader.*
In a thoroughgoing democracy we have liberty and
equality everywhere in fact there is soon a uni-
versal anarchy. Respect for rank and age soon dies
out. Father and son, teacher and scholar, master and
servant are all on the same dead level. The very
ainmals (says the speaker, with an amusing touch of
satire) becomes gorged with freedom, and will run at
you if you get in their way.
But extremes in politics produce a reaction ; and the
result of excessive freedom is excessive slavery. From
a Democracy to a Tyranny is an easy stage. Some
demagogue, who has shown unusual talent in extort-
ing money from the richer class to feed those "sting-
ing and stingless drones" of whom we spoke, is
adopted by the people as their champion, and gradually
strengthens his influence. It is always the same story
he banishes, confiscates, murders, and then his own
life is threatened, and he obtains a body-guard. Woe
to the rich man then, if he does not fly at once, for it
will be arrest and death if he lingers.
At first the Tyrant will be all smiles and promises;
but, once firmly seated, he will change his tactics. He
will employ his citizens in incessant war to weaken
* Professor Jowett quotes Dryden's well-known description of
the Duke of Buckingham
" A man so various that he seemed to be
Not one but all mankind's epitome."
He thinks that Alcibiades is referred to ; but the lines would ap.
ply equally well to Critias, Plato's uncle (Curtius, Hist. Greece,
ii. 542).
118 PLATO.
their strength, and rid the state of bold and powerful
spirits; he will increase his guards, he will plunder
the rich and humble the strong, and thus free men will
pass under the yoke of slavery.
The man who answers to the Tyrant in private life
will have his soul under (he dominion of monstro5:c
lusts and appetites, squandering and plundering, and
passing on from sin to sin.
Thus a Tyranny is the worst and most miserable
State of all. Not only are the citizens in it reduced
to slavery, and distracted by fear and grief, but the
Tyrant himself, with all his power and splendor,
never knows the blessings of peace and friendship.
Like some great slave-master in a desert, he lives
alone in a crowd: shunned and detested by those
about him, tormented by remorse, and haunted by a
lifelong terror, he is himself the most pitiable slave of
all.
The only pleasure that such a man ever knows is
mere sensual enjoyment in itself worthless and fleet-
ing. The attractions of gold or of glory are of a
nobler stamp; but the best and purest of all pleasures
that a man can feel, and the ineffable sweetness of
which the world can never realize, is that which the
philosopher alone finds in the study and contemplation
of existence. For he prunes close the hydra-headed
passions by which the many are enslaved, and sub-
jects the lion to the man, by making reason rule his
soul. Thus none can measure his happiness; but it
cannot be possessed by any in perfection, save in our
own ideal state " which does not, indeed, at present
exist in this world, but has, perhaps, its pattern laid
up in heaven for him who is willing to see it, and,
seeing i, rules his life on earth accordingly." *
*Rep. ix. ad fin.
THE REPUBLIC. 119
Such is the Platonic State, with its strange medley
of noble aspirations and impracticable details. How
far Plato himself believed it to be ideal, or how far, if he
had been Alexander's tutor, he would have triei to
carry it out in history, we have no means of telling.
But it is easy to understand his feeling, and the point
of view from which he wrote. He is weary of the pre-
tensions, the falsehood, and the low morality around
him ("it is dreadful to think," he says, " that half the
people we meet have perjured themselves in one of the
numerous law courts") and so he turns away with a
sort of despair from the sad realities of Athenian life;
and instead of writing a bitter satire, as a Roman might
have done, or waging war against the society he de-
spises in "latter-day pamphlets," he throws himself as
far as he can out of the present, with all its degrading
associations, and builds for himself (as we have seen)
a new State after a divine and perfect pattern in
a world a thousand leagues from his own.
Those " three waves " of the " Republic " (as Socrates
terms them) the communities of families and that of
property, and the assumption that philosophers must
be kings which threaten to swamp the argument even
with such friendly criticism as Glaucon and Adeimantus
venture to offer, prove with less partial opponents in-
surmountable obstacles to the realisation of the Platonic
State. Aristotle heads the list of objectors, and disap-
proves both of the end and the means to be pursued.
So far from promoting the unity of the State, he argues
that Plato's system of Communism will create an end-
less division of interests and sympathies; will tend lo
destroy the security of life and property; and, among
other evils, will do away with the virtues of charity
and liberality, by allowing no room for their exercise.
120 PLATO.
Modern critics generally touch upon the repression of
all individual energy, the cramping of all free thought
and action, and the necessary abolition of any sense of
mutual rights and obligations which are necessary parts
of Plato's system ; and De Quincey has denounced in
an eloquent passage the social immorality encouraged by
Plato's marriage regulations, and his "sensual bounty
on infanticide" cutting adrift the little boat to go
down the Niagara of violent death, in the very next
night after its launching on its unknown river of life. "*
Plato's " Republic " is the first of along series of ideal
States;! and we find the original thought "Romanized"
by Cicero, "Christianized" by St. Augustine in his
' City of God,' and in more modern times reappearing
in Sir Thomas More's ' Utopia,' and in Lord Bacon's
'New Atlantis,' with its wonderful anticipations of
modern science. We have in our own day seen speci-
mens of the same class of literature in works like
' Erewhon ' and ' The Coming Race.'
THE LAWS.
This Dialogue is the last and the longest that Plato
wrote, and bears traces of the hand of old age. The
fire and spirit of his earlier works seems gone, while
Plato himself is changed; he is not only older, but
more conservative, more dogmatic, and we must also
say more intolerant and narrow-minded than was
his wont. Much had happened since he wrote the
"Republic" to disenchant him of visionary politics.
His mission to Syracuse had proved, as we have seen
* De Quincey, viii.
t An interesting account of these States may be found in Sir
G. C. Lewis's Methods of Reasoning in Politics, II. eh. xxii.
THE LAWS. 121
a miserable failure, and his grand schemes of reform
had sadly ended in the violent death of his friend
Dion. And so the tone of the ' ' Laws " is grave, prosaic,
and even commonplace in its trivial details. The
high aspirations of the " Republic " have sobered down
into a tedious and minute legislation. The king-
philosophers, with their golden pedigree and elaborate
training, are here superseded by a council of elderly
citizens elected by vote. The celestial world of ' 'Ideas"
and the sublime heights of Dialectic have passed from
view; the study of science is curtailed; and it is
even hinted that a young man may possibly have
too much of education. But Plato seems to have
grown even more impressed than before with the be-
lief thai the State should mould the characters and
keep the consciences of its citizens: he is imbued,
says Mr. Grote, "with the persecuting spirit of medie-
val Catholicism;" there is a strict "Act of Uniformity,"
and all dissenters from it are branded as criminals;
while religion, poetry, music, and education generally
are placed under State surveillance.
The first four books of the "Laws "form a kind
of desultory preface to the detailed legislation which
occupies the remaining eight. The scene of the Dia-
logue is laid in the island of Crete, and the speakers
are three old men an Athenian, a Spartan, and a
Cretan who meet on the road to the temple of
Jupiter at Gnossus, and discuss, as they -walk, the form
of government in their respective States. Sparta and
Crete were then standing instances of the perfection to
which military training might be brought, and a war-
like ideal realized. Both cities resembled permanent
camps, with severe discipline, continual drill, a public
mc?s, and barrack HrV taking the place of family
122 PL A TO.
life and affections. But the Athenian, though not
denying the superiority of Spartan troops, finds much
to criticise in the principle of the Spartan system. It
has only developed courage, which is, after all, but a
fourth-rate virtue; and it has proceeded on the mis-
taken notion that man's natural state is war. Other
virtues such as wisdom and temperance are thus
made of little account; and Sparta has banished
pleasure, which is really as effectual a test of self-
control as pain. Wine, too, is forbidden there
though it is a most useful medium for discovering a
man's strength or weakness; indeed, at the festival of
Bacchus there ought, the Athenian thinks, to be a
drinking tournament with a sober president and all
honor should be paid to the youth who could drink
hardest and longest. For it is clear that the man with
the strongest head at the banquet will be the coolest
and most imperturbable on the battle-field. Again,
wine softens and humanizes the character; it cures
the sourness of old age, and under its influence we
renew our youth and forget our sorrows. And if you
want to try a friend's honor and integrity in, vino
veritas; ply him with wine, and you will read all the
secrets of his heart. But with all this, there should be
a stringent "Licensing Act." The times and seasons
when wine may be drunk should be strictly denned by
law; and no soldier on active service, no slave, no
judge or magistrate during his year of office, no pilot
on duty, should be allowed to drink wine at all; and,
if these precautions are carried out, a city will not
need many vineyards.
The use of wine as a means of training opens the
general question of Education, which is exanined r.gai;i
at greater length in the Seventh Book of the treutis ;
THE LAWS. 123
and then Plato passes on to the origin of society. In
the " Republic," the State is made to spring from the
mutual needs of men ; but here it is developed from
the House in fact, we find in this treatise the
"patriarchal " theory.
In the illimitable past, says Plato, there must have
been thousands and thousands of cities which rose and
flourished for a time, and then were swept away; for
at certain fixed periods a deluge comes, which covers
the whole earth and destroys all existing civilization,
leaving only a vast expanse of desert, and a few sur-
vivors on the mountain-tops. This remnant clings
together with the instinct of self-preservation. Each
little family, under the strict rule of the "house
father," lives in a primitive and simple manner oa the
produce of its flocks and herds, like the Homeric
Cyclops :
"Unsown, untended, corn and wine and oil
Spring to their hand ; but they no councils know,
Nor justice, but forever lawless go.
Housed in the hills, they neither buy nor sell.
No kindly offices demand or show;
Each in the hollow cave where he doth dwell
Gives law to wife and children, as he thinketh well."*
Gradually several of these isolated units coalesced,
and thus the family developed into the tribe, and
several tribes uniting made the State. Then came a
government, and a code of laws.
Plato next passes in review the ancient legends of
his own country the Trojan War, the Return of the
Heraclidaa, the Dorian settlement in the Peloponnese;
and he traces in the history of those times seven dis-
* Homer, Od. ix., Worsley's transl. There is an interesting
account of this patriarchal age in Maine's Ancient Law, chap. v.
124 PLATO.
tinct and recognized titles to obedience namely, the
authority of parents over children, of nobles over infe-
riors, of elder over younger, of master over slave, the
natural principle that the strong should rule the weak,
and the no less natural principle that the wise should
have dominion over the fool; and lastly, there is the
power conferred by the casting of the lot in which
Plato recognizes, as distinctly as the Hebrew legislator,
the hand of Heaven.
A great lesson, he continues, may be learned from
these ancient States for they all perished from inter-
nal discords that limited power among the rulers, and
harmony and obedience to the laws among the subjects,
are the safeguards of every community. Thus Provi-
dence wisely tempered the kingly power in Sparta
with Ephors and a Senate, and so produced a healthy
balance in the constitution ; while Persia fell from her
high place among the nations from the excess of
despotic power, and the want of good will between
the despot and his people. The great Cyris and
Darius both received a warrior's training, and won
their own way to the throne; while Cambyses and
Xerxes, born in the purple and bred in the harem,
proved weak and degenerate princes, and their ruin
was the result of their evil bringing up. Athens, again,
went wrong in the other extreme , for with us, says the
Athenian, it is always excess of freedom that does the
mischief. Of old, law was supreme in every part of
the State especially in music, with its four primitive
and simple divisions. Reverence, and the fear " which
the coward never feels," prevailed; all classes were
united, and fought for their common hearths and sepul-
chres; and the grand result was Marathon and Salamis.
But gradually a change has come over our national
THE LAWS. 125
character. There has been a growing lawlessness, be-
ginning in the Music, and spreading thence through-
out the community. We no longer any of us listen in
respectful silence to the judgment of superior interest 2 ,
1-ur are one and all become ace mp is e.l critics, ad
every one knows everything. Awe and reverence have
gone forever; and there is a shameless disregard for
authority, whether of parents, or elders, or rulers,
even the majesty of the gods is slighted, and the oaths
sworn by them are made of no account.
Here, with the Third Book, ends "the prelude" to
the " Laws." By a happy coincidence (says the Cretan
in the Dialogue), his countrymen are just going to
found a colony, and he is one of the ten commissioners
appointed to give laws to the colonists. Will the
Athenian give him some hints on the Mibject?
It is clear (replies the Athenian) th .t all legislation
should aim at carrying out three principles namely,
freedom, unity, and wisdom; and that State will be
best where the law is best administered by the rulers
who are its servants, and where the happiness of the
community is the sole object of their legislation.
" The difficulty is to find the divine love of temperate and just
institutions existing in any powerful forms of government,
whether in a monarchy or oligarchy of wealth or of birth. You
might as well hope to reproduce the charactar of Nestor, who is
said to have excelled all men in the power of speech, and yet
more in his temperance. This, however, according to the tradi-
tion, was in the times of Troy: in our own days there was noth-
ing of the sort. But if such an one either has or ever shall
come into being, or is now among us, blessed is he, and blessed
are they who hear the wise words that flow from his lips. And
this may be said of power in general: when the supreme power
in man coincides with the greatest wisdom and temperance,
then the best laws are by nature framed, and the best constitu-
tion; but in no other way will they ever come into being." J.
126 PLATO.
If you could find a despot, young, noble, and en-
thusiastic fortunate, moreover, in being advised by
some great legislator you will have your city founded
at once; for the change from a despotism to a perfect
government is the easiest of all.*
In our legislation we will head each enactment with
a prelude or preamble, to show the nature of the case
and the spirit of the law, appealing thus to the reason
of our citizens, that they be rather persuaded than
forced to obey; more especially as there are many cases
which the law can never reach, and where we can only
declare the solemn utterances of Heaven, speaking
through the law to all who are willing to hear and un-
derstand.
Our city, then, shall be built nine miles from the
sea, in a country which has more hill than plain.
There will be little timber for shipbuilding; but this
is of no importance, as we shall not aim at naval
power, nor will war be our normal state. The colon-
ists should, if possible, be all of the same country
like a swarm of bees as they will be then more united;
though perhaps a mixed multitude would be more
tractable.
The number of citizens shall be originally fixed, and
as far as possible kept at 5040, f and to each citizen
shall be awarded land sufficient to maintain his family
(for community of property cannot be carried out),
* Plato's opinion of the " Tyrant" is greatly modified, since he
declared in the "Republic" that "tyranny" was 729 degrees
removed from perfection ; but here he is probaby thinking of the
younger Dionysius (see p. 7).
t Plato gives as his reason for fixing on this number, that it is
easily divisible. He remarks also that it is not too large to ad
mit of their all knowing one another. though that would involve
a somewhat large circle of acquaintances.
THE LAWS. 127
but son shall succeed father, and none shall sell or
divide his lot, on pain of being cursed by xhe priests
as an offender against heaven and the law. There
shall bj a State currency; but no usury or accumula-
tion of private fortune shall be allowed, ;o that ex-
tremes of wealth and poverty may be equally avoided.
The State is to be governed in somewhat complicated
fashion. There are to be thirty-seven guardians of the
laws, and a council of 360 elected from the whole body
of citizens. Each department of public business is to
have its own officers. There are to be "country war-
dens," who would seem to combine the duties of modern
county court judges and rural police. For municipal
duties there are wardens of the city and market, all
with magisterial powers. There are to be law-courts
and judges though arbitration is recommended where
it is possible and there is a high court of appeal.
Marriages are to be strictly regulated, since their ob-
ject is to produce a noble and healthy offspring. Slaves
should be treated with more perfect justice than we
show to equals, and all levity and cruelty towards
them should be avoided,
Then follow some desultory remarks on education,
which should (Plato thinks) be compulsory since chil-
dren belong more to the State than to their parents
and should be directed by a competent minister of pub-
lic instruction. Infants should be reared with great
care soothed with song, "for they roar continually
the first three years of their life" and carried about in
their nurses' arms, " as you see our young nobles carry
their fighting-cocks." At the age of six, boys are to
be separated from girls, and are to learn riding and
the use of weapons. There amusements are to be
carefully watched,, as any change in them may breed
128 PLATO.
revolution in the Stale. They are to learn dancing
to o^vc them stately ami graceful movement, and
v. -catling to give them quickness and agility, and
music to humanize their :ouir. But both music and
song are to be strictly regulated; there is to be a
censorship of the press, and all objectionable poetry
is to be expunged. (Plato hints that the "homilies"
with which his laws are prefaced would be admirable
exercise to be committed to memory.) Till the age
of thirteen they are to learn their grammar and
letters; afterwards the use of the lyre, and grave and
simple melodies; and their education is to conclude
with the rudiments of science, which should, if pos-
sible, be taught in an interesting manner.
There must be a religious festival (continues the
Athenian) on every day in the year, and a monthly
meeting of all the citizens to practice warlike exer-
cises, when there should be public races for the youths
and maidens.
In the Ninth Book, we have the somewhat weari-
some details of a criminal code, in which Plato justi-
fies the title given to him by Numenius of "the
Moses who wrote in Attic Greek." Certainly some
of the regulations are much in the spirit of the writer
of Leviticus such as, that no man shall remove his
neighbor's landmark, or cut off his supply of water;
that the traveler may pluck the grapes at the time of
vintage; and we have also, as in the law of Moses,
the " avenger of blood" and purification by the priest.
Plato here, as elsewhere, attributes crime in a great
measure to ignorance a sort of moral blindness. We
should (he says) if possible, heal the distemper of the
criminal soul, or, if he be incurable, he must be put
to death. There are certain unpardonable offenders
THE LA W8. 129
the profaner of temples, the would-be tyrant, the
traitor or conspirator, and the willful shedder of inno-
cent blood, these must all suffer the extreme penalty.
He distinguishes between the various kinds of homi-
cide, in some cases a fine, in others exile, is sufficient
punishment; but for the parricide he reserves a more
awful doom he shall be slain by the judges, and his
body exposed where three ways meet, and then cast
beyond the borders; while the criminal "who h-is
taken the life that ought to be dearer to him than all
others his own " shall be buried alone in a deso-
late place, without tomb or monument to show bis
grave.
The deep-seated aversion and contempt with which
every Greek regarded trade and traders is shown in
Plato's regulations as to commerce and the market.
Among his 5,040 citizens there was not to be found a
single retail trader. Such a degrading occupation was
to be left entirely to tin resident foreigners, if any
chose to engage in it. If some great personage (" the
very idea is absurd," he says) were to open a shop, and
thus set a precedent, things might be different. As
it is, trade carries with it the stamp of dishonor.
And then follow other restrictions, the necessity for
which serves to show us that Greek shopkeepers prac-
ticed much the same imposition on their customers
as our own. There was to be no adulteration, no
tricks of sale, and all contracts were to be rigorously
adhered to.
The last two books are taken up with a number of
miscellaneous regulations respecting civil rights and
duties. The law is to take the power of will-making
into its own hands, and regulate the succession of
property " without listening to the outcry of dying
130 PLATO.
persons." Orphans "the most sacred of all deposits "
are to be protected by the State. A husband and
wife with " incompatible tempers " should be divorced.
"Witchcraft is to be punished with death. No beggar
is to be allowed in the land. No man under forty
years of age may travel abroad. Bodies are to be
exposed for three days before burial, to see if they are
really dead. Magistrates shall give a yearly account
of their office before certain public " Examiners," who
must be car^ully selected, and, if found worthy, shall
have special honors paid to them during life, and at
their death a solemn public burial, not with sorrow
or lamentation; but the corpse shall be clad in
rotes of white, and choruses of youths and men shall
chant their praises, and yearly contests in music and
gymnastics be celebrated at their tomb.
Lastly, there is to be a supreme council of twenty
members ten of the oldest citizens, and ten younger
men afterwards added to their number who shall
hold their meetings before daybreak. This council,
like a "central Conservative organ,"* is to be the
anchor of the constitution carrying out in every
detail the original intention of the founder, making
his laws irreversible as the threads of fate, and secur-
ing that uniformity of faith among the citizens, and
that belief in the unity of Virtue, which can be the
only safeguard of the " City of the Magnetos" the
new colony which they are about to found.
* Grote, iii. 447.
CHAPTER VI.
THE MYTHS OF PLATO.
"The light that never was on sea or land,
The consecration, and the poet's dream."
Wordsworth.
"As being is to Becoming," says Plato, "so Truth
is to Faith." "Where a man cannot prove, he must be
content to believe; and the myths which the philos-
opher introduces here and there are guesses after this
Truth which he believes and feels, but cannot pre-
cisety define. He is conscious that there are more
things in heaven and earth than are "dreamed of in
his philosophy," and that there are some unseen reali-
ties transcending all mortal experience; and so he
builds up his doctrine of ideas, embodies them in cir-
cumstances, gives them "a local habitation and a
name," and describes in detail the mysteries of the
unknown future and the unrecorded past. These
descriptions are not intended, he says, to be exactly
true. " No man of sense ought to affirm that." All
that he claims for them is verisimilitude. "We may
venture to think without impropriety that something
of the kind is true." Nor, again, is it desirable that
these myths should be strictly interpreted; so to in-
terpret them would, he thinks, "be the task and not
132 PLATO.
a very enviable one of some person who had plenty
of time on his hands." *
We have no means of telling how far these Myths
are the creation of Plato's own prolific fancy, or how
far they are compiled from the ancient Mysteries of
his own country, from Pythagorsean tradition, or from
oriental legends. But whatever their source may be,
his genius has given them a character and beauty of
their own; nowhere is his style so grand and impress-
ive as in these fictions, on which he lavishes, as on
some " rich strand," all the treasures of his mind.
THE CREATION OF MAN.
(From the "Timaeus.")
The world we live in, says the astronomer Timseus,
being visible, tangible, and perishable unlike the
world of etern il Ideas must have been created, and if
created, must have been the work of some great First
Cause or Architect, who fashioned it after an eternal
pattern; "for the work is the fairest of creations; and
he is the best of causes." Of this indeed we can have
no certain knowledge, but only belief or conjecture,
since after all we are but mortal men.
The Creator, being goodness himself, wished that
his work should also be good like him; and thus he
brought order out of Chaos, and " put intelligence in
soul and soul in body, and framed the universe to be
the best and fairest work in nature. And therefore,
using the language of probability, we may say that th e
world became a living soul, and truly rational, through
the providence of God." It was created of four entire
elements, blended together in geometrical proportion;
and its form was a perfect and solid sphere, smooth
* Phaedrus, 228.
THE CHE A TWN OF MAN 133
and complete, and moving in a circle. In the centre
was the soul (also compounded according to a scale of
harmony), and circulating all impressions from the
ideal essence through every part of this vast and
visible animal, which included in itself all visible
creation.
4 When the Father and Creator saw the image that he had
made of the eternal gods moving and living, he was delighted,
and in his joy determined to make his work still more like the
pattern ; and as the pattern was an eternal creature, he sought
to make the universe the same as far as it might be. Now the
nature of the intelligible being is eternal, and to bestow eternity
on the creature was wholly impossible. But he resolved to make
a moving image of eternity, and as he set in order the heaven,
he made this eternal image having a motion according to number,
while eternity rested in unity; and this is what we call time
For there were no days and nights, and months and years, be-
fore the heaven was created, but when he created the heaven he
created them also. All these are the parts of time, and the past
and future are created species of time, which we unconsciously
but wr on g\y transfer to the eternal essence; for we say indeed
that he was, he is, he will be ; but the truth is that he is ' alone
truly expresses him, and that ' was ' and ' will be ' are only to be
spoken in the generation in time, for they are motions; but that
which is immovably the same cannot become older or younger
by time, nor ever did or has become, or hereafter will be, older,
nor is subject at all to any of those states of generation which
attach to the movements of sensible things. These are the forms
of time when imitating eternity and moving in a circle measured
by number. " J.
Time was thus created with the Heavens, in order
that if one was destroyed the other might likewise
perish. Then the Deity created the moon and stars to
move in their appointed orbits some fixed, some wan-
dering, but all were bodies with living souls imitating
the eternal nature; and he "lighted a fire wuich we
now call the sun," that men might have light, and learn
from the regular succession of day and night the use of
134 PLATO.
numbers. "And the month was created when the
moon had completed her orbit and overtaken the sun,
and the year when the sun had completed its own
orbit." Of all these stars, which are really gods, the
earth our nurse, was the first and oldest, and was made
to revolve on her own axis in the centre of the spheres.*
Then the Creator commanded the other gods, of
whose generation we know nothing except from tradi-
tion, to finish his good work by weaving together
mortal and immortal elements, and forming living
creatures. To these he distributed souls equal in
number to the stars, assigning to each star a soul ; and
he showed to each the nature of the universe, and his
own decrees of destiny: declaring that whosoever lived
a righteous life upon earth ''should return again to the
habitation of his star, and there have a blessed exist-
ence;" but if he lived unrighteously, he should descend
lower and lower in the scale of creation from a man
to a woman, and from a woman to some animal, until
at last the spirit should triumph over the flesh, and his
reason, which had never become extinct, should restore
him to his first and higher self.
And in the head of man the gods put an immortal
soul, to be master of the body; and they gave to the
body itself its proper limbs and powers of movement
and sensation, and in the eyes they placed a pure and
gentle fire, which burns not, but streams forth and
mingles with the light of day. And they gave man
sight, that he might discern the unerring and intelli-
gent motion of the stars, and order his own mind with
* The various revolutions and eclipses of the heavenly bodies,
according to this Platonic myth, are much too perplexing to bo
dealt with here.
THE CREATION OF MAN. 135
like exactness; and they gave him voice and hearing,
that music might harmonize his soul.
Besides the invisible and imperishable forms of the
elements, and the visible images of these Forms
namely, the elements themselves there is a third
kind of being, a formless space or chaos, where these
images are stored up, and which is the source and
nurse of all generation. From this choas the great
Architect brought forth the four elements, and shook
them together ''in the vessel of space," and sifted and
divided them "as grain is sifted by the "winnowing
fan," and fashioned them according to certain com-
binations of form and number. Thus the earth was
formed like a cube, the most perfect and solid of all
figures; while fire took the shape of a pyramid, and
so with air and water. All these elements were
formed according to continuous geometrical propor-
tion.
[Then follows a curious but fanciful description of
the various phenomena of light, sound, and color
which, however, the reader may be spared.]
The gods (continues ThruEus) gave to man a triple
soul: firstly, an immortal soul, dwelling in the head,
with the heart acting as its guard-house, and carrying
out its commands by means of a fiery network of veins
through every part of the body: secondly, a mortal
soul, which is agnin divided the nobler part dwelling
in the breast, and, though itself moved by fear and
anger, taking the side of rea on against desire; while
the lower part, made up of unruly passions and carnal
appetites, is chained like a wild beast in the belly, far
from the council-chamber of reason, which it would
otherwise disturb. Now the gods knew that this lowest
soul would never listen to reason, and they therefore
136 PLATO.
ruled it by means of images reflected on the smooth
and brilliant surface of the liver the seat of prophetic
inspiration sometimes fair and sweet, sometimes dark
and discolored by passion.
The marrow, which binds together soul and body, u
the seed-plot of mortal life, and, like the world, was
originally formed from triangles. These arc sharpest
and freshest in our childhood, but they grow blunted
and gradually wear out in old age, till at last their fas-
tenings are loosened, and "they unfix also the bonds
of the soul, and she being released in the order of
nature joyfully flies away."
Diseases spring from the disturbance of the original
elements of which our bodies are composed; and the
soul also suffers from two mental distempers madness
and ignorance. As far as possible, nature should be
eft to iur self; but since there is a strong sympathy
between soul and body, the conditions of health in
both must be observed; the limbs should be trained by
exercise, and the mind should be educated by music
and philosophy. For no man can prolong his life be-
yond a certain time; and medicines ignorantly adminis-
tered multiply diseases and destroy the constitution.
Man should exercise in due proportion the three souls
implanted in him, more especially that highest and
divinest element in our heads, which makes us look
upwards like plants, and draws our thoughts from earth
to heaven. If he seeks wisdon and truth, then he
" must of necessity, so far as human nature is capable
of attaining immortality, become all immortal, as he is
ever serving the divine power, and having the genius
that dwells in him in the most perfect order, his hap-
piness will be complete." But if he gratifies ambition
and desire, he will degenerate into a merely mortal
Til ti ISLAND OF ATLANTIS. 137
being, and after thi-^ life will lose his high place in
creation, first passing into the form of a woman, and
then into the still lower form of an animal; for ani-
mals are only deteriorated humanity the birds being
"innocent and light-minded men/' who thought in
their simplicity that sight alone was needed to know
the truths of celestial regions; and the quadrupeds
and wild animals being all more or less brutal and
stolid, till at last the lowest stage of all is reached iu
the fishes.
" These were made out of the most entirely ignorant and
senseless beings, whom the transformers did not think any
longer worthy of pure respiration, because they possessed a soul
which was made impure by all sorts of transgression; and
instead of allowing them to respire the subtle and pure element
of air, they thrust them into the water, and gave them a deep
and muddy medium of respiration ; and hence arose the race of
fishes and oysters,and other aquatic animals, which have received
the most remote habitations as a punishment of their extreme
ignorance. These are the laws by which animals pass into one
another, both now and ever changing as they lose or gain wisdom
and folly." J.
Thus we may call the world "a visible animal com-
prehending the visible itself a visible and sensible
God, the image of Him who is intelligible, the greatest,
best, fairest, and one most perfect Universe."
THE ISLAND OF ATLANTIS.*
The day after the long discussion of the "Republic,"
Socrates meets three of his friends who had been
present Ilcrinocrates, a rising statesman, Timaeus,
* Only two fragments of this " Epic " have come down to us
the prologue and the catastrophe, found in two dialogues (the
" Timseus " and the " Critias M ), the latter of which is broken off
abruptly.
138 PLATO.
a distinguished astronomer of Loons (who gives his
name to the Dialogue just noticed), and Critias, a
young Athenian, whose accomplishments made him
seem "all mankind's epitome" being politican,
sophist, poet, musician, all in one. At their request
Socrates sums up his theories of the previous day
but professes himself to be hardly satisfied with hi<
ideal sketch. Like one who has seen animals in a
painting or at rest, and who would like to see them
in active movement, so, he tells them, he would like to
see how his imaginary State would really act in some
great crisis, and how his citizens would bear them-
selves when they went forth to war; and he appeals
to his friends to help him to exhibit his republic play-
ing a noble part in history. And then Critias tells
"an old-world story," handed down in his family from
his great-grandfather Dropidas, who had heard it from
Solon, and Solon had himself heard it in this wise.
Near the mouths of the Nile in Egypt stands the
ancient city called Sais, where Amasis the king was
born, founded by a goddess whom the Egyptians
call Neith and the Greeks Athene". Thither Solon
came in his travels, and was received with great
honor; and he asked many questions of the priests
about the times of old, and told them many ancient
legends, as he thought them, of his own land. But
one of the priests, being himself of a great age said:
" O Solon, you Greeks are always children, and there
is not an old man among you all. You have no tradi-
tions that are really gray with time, and your stories
of Deucalion and Phaeton are only the partial history
of one out of many destructions by flood and fire which
have come at certain periods upon mankind, sweeping
away states, and with them letters and all knowledge.
THE ISLAND OF ATLANTIS. 139
The Nile has preserved our land from sUch calami-
ties; and therefore we have faithful records of past
ages preserved in our temples, while you are ever
beginning your history afresh, and know nothing of
what formerly came to pass in your own land or in any
other; all your so-called genealogies are but children's
tales. You do not even know that your own city, 9,000
years ago, before the great Deluge, was foremost of all
in war and peace, and is said to have done the greatest
deeds, and to have possessed the fairest constitution of
any city under heaven. And the same great goddess
who founded our city founded yours also ; for she and
her brother Hepha3stus obtained the land of Athens as
their lot, and they planted there a race of brave men,
and gave them a fair and fertile soil, and rich pastures,
and a healthy climate. And these ancient Athenians
(so Critias tells Socrates) realized in actual life the strict
division of classes laid down in your 'Republic;' and
their guardian soldiers both men and women were
trained and went out to battle together like yours; and
none among them had house or family or gold that he
could call his own, but they had all things in common.
And the number of these guardians neither increased
nor decreased, but was always twenty thousand. And
their most famous victory was over the vast army sent
forth from the island of Atlantis.
' ' Now, this island was of a great size larger than aL
Asia and Libya together and was situated over against
the straits now called the Pillars of Hercules. It was
founded by the god Neptune, who divided the land
among the ten sons that were born to him by a mortal
woman. And the eldest, who was called Atlas, he
made king of all the island; and he made his brethren
princes under him, and gave them rule over many men
140 PLATO.
and wide provincss. And the descandents of Atlas
multiplied, and he had wealth and power such as no
other king ever had befose or since. And the soil
and climate of this island were so good, that the fruits
of the earth ripened twice a year; and there was
abundance of both minerals and rnetals, and many
elephants and other tame and wild animals of various
kinds. And the city on the mountain in the centre
of the island was a wondrous sight to behold; for
bridges were built across the 'zones of s?a' which
Neptune had made, and a canal was dug from the city
to the sea, and a fortress was built having stone walls
plated with tin and brass and the red 'mountain
bronze, ' and in the midst was the king' s palace and
the vast temple of Neptune, covered with silver, and
having pinnacles of gold and a roof of ivory.. And
within was a golden statute of the god himself riding
in a chariot drawn by six winged horses so huge
that he touched the roof; and around were a hundred
Nereids riding upon dolphins, and outside the temple
were golden statues of the ten kings and their wives.
Besides all these things there were many baths and
fountains, and public gardens and exercise grounds,
and dockyards and harbors full of merchant vessels
and ships of war.
"And the plain around the city was sheltered by
mountains, and guarded by a vast ditch 100 feet deep,
and GOO feet broad, and more then 3,000 miles long.
And the ten kings who ruled the island held council
and off ere d sacrifice together, and were sworn to assist
one another in peace and war. And they had 10,000
chariots and a fleet of 1,200 ships.
" And for many generations the people of the island
were obedient to the laws, and their kings ruled them
THE CHARIOT OF THE SOUL. 141
wisely and uprightly, setting no value on their riches,
nor caring for aught save for virtue only. But as
time went on, the divine part of their souls grew faint,
and they waxed insolent, and thus in the very pleni-
tude of their power they provoked the jealousy of the
gods, who determined to destroy them.
"It was then, or soon after, that the armies of
Atlantis were sent to conquer Athens, as they had
already conqered Libya and Tyrrhenia. But of the
war which followed we know nothing, save that
Athens stood alone in the struggle, and won a great
battle over these barbarians, and that in the space of
one day and nipht the victors and the vanquished dis-
appeared together for there was an earthquake and a
deluge, and the earth opened and swallowed up all the
warriors of Athens, while the great island of Atlantis
sink beneath the sea. And to this day the sea which
covers this island is shallow and impassable, and there
is nothing in the Atlantic Ocean save mud and sand-
banks."
THE CHARIOT OP THE SOUL.
(From the " Phaedrus.")
Our soul, which has a triple nature, is as a chariot-
eer riding in a chariot drawn by two winged steeds
one of a mortal and the other of an immortal nature.
Their wings are the divine element, which, if it
be perfect and fully nourished on the pastures of truth
and beauty, lifts the soul heavenwards to the dwelling
of the gods. There, on a certain day, gods and demi-
gods ascend the heaven of heavens Zeus leading
the way in a winged chariot to hold high festival,
and all who can may follow. The gods and the im-
mortal souls, whoic steeds have full-grown wings, are
142 ' PLATO.
carried by a revolution of the spheres into a celestial
world bej'ond, where all space is filled by a sea of
intangible essence which the mind " lord of the soul "
alone can contemplate: and here are the absolute
ideas of Truth and Beauty and Justice. And iu these
divine pastures of pure knowledge the soul feeds during
the time that the spheres revolve, and rests in perfect
happiness, and then returns to the heavens whence it
came, where the steeds feast in their stalls on nectar
and ambrosia.
But only to a few souls out of many is it granted to
see these celestial .visions. The rest are carried i::to
the gulfs of space by the plunging of the unruly
horses, or lamed by unskillful driving; and often the
wings droop or are broken, and the soul fails to see
the light, and sinks to earth " beneath the doubb load
of forgetfulness or vice." And then she takes the form
of a man, and becomes a mortal creature; and, accord-
ing to the degree in which she has attained to celestial
truth, she is implanted in one of nine classes, the
highest being that of the philosophers, artists, poets, or
lovers and the lowest stage of all, the tyrant. Ten
thousand years must be passed by the soul in this
state of probation, before she can return to the place
whence she came, and renew her wings of immortality.
And at the end of each life is a day of judgment, fol-
lowed by a period of retribution, either for good or for
evil, lasting a thousand years; and after that each soul
is free to cast lots and choose another life. Then
the soul of the man may pass into the life of a beast,
or from a beast again into that of a man. But the
soul of him who has never seen the truth will not pass
again into the human form.
THE CHARIOT OF THE SOUL. 143
liut from the souls of those who have once gazed on
celestial truth or beauty the remembrance can never
be effaced. Like some* divine inspiration, the glories
of this other worlcl possess and haunt them; and it is
because their souls are ever struggling upwards, and
fluttering like a bird that IOB(?S to soar heavenwards, and
because they are rapt in contemplation and careless of
earthly matters, that the world calls the philosopher,
the lover, and the poet "mad." For the earthly
copies of justice or temperance, or any of the higher
qualities, are seen but through a glass dimly, and few
are they who can discern the reality by looking at the
shadow.
And thus the sight of any earthly beauty in face or
form thrills the genuine lover with unutterable awe
and amazement, because it recalls the memory of the
celestial beauty seen by him once in the sphere of
eternal being. The divine wings of his soul are
warmed and glow with desire, and he lives in a sort of
ecstasy, and shudders " with the misgivings of a former
world." Often, indeed, a furious struggle takes placa
between the charioteer and the dark and vicious horse
that wishes to draw the chariot of the soul on to un-
lawful deeds, and can only be curbed by bit and bridle.
Happy are they who, with the help of the white im-
mortal steed can win the victory in this struggle, and
end their lives in a peaceful and genuine friendship.
THE GTHiSU WORLD.
(From the " Gorgias " and " Pbaedo. ")
We mortals, says Socrates, know nothing of the real
world, for we live along the shores of the Mediter-
ranean like frogs around a swamp; and we think we
are on the suiface, when we are really only in one of
144 PLATO,
those hollow places of which our earth is full. But if
a man could take wings and fly upwards, lie would seo
the true world, which is a thousand leagues above our
own; and there all things are brilliant with color,
and sparkle with gold and purple, and a purer white
than any earthly snow. And there are trees and
flowers and fruits, and jewels on all the hills, more
precious than the sardonyx or emerald. And there are
living beings there, both men and animals, dwelling
around the air; for our air is like their sea, and their
air is purest ether. And they know neither pain nor
disease; and they live longer lives than we creatures
of a day; and all their senses are keener and more
perfect; and they have temples in which their gods
really dwell, and they see them face to face, and hear
their voices, and call them by their names. Moreover,
they know the sun and moon and stars in their proper
nature.
Now the largest of all the chasms in our earth is
that which Homer calls Tartarus ; and through it
many and mighty streams of fire and water are ever
flowing to and fro, some driven upwards to our earth
by a rushing wind, and others winding in various
channels through the lower world. Of these streams
four are larger than the rest; and the first of these
is called Oceanus, which flows in a circle round the
earth. The second is Acheron, which passes through
desert places to a lake in Tartarus, where the souls of
the dead wait until such time as they are born again.
And the third river is Pyriphlegethon, which boils
with flames and falls into a lake of fire. And the
fourth river is Cocytus, and it passes into the Stygian
lake, where it receives strange powers, and then, after
many windings, it also falls into Tartarus.
THE OTHER WORLD. 145
Even in the days of Saturn the same law prevailed
as now that men should be judged, and that those
who had done good should be sent to the Islands of
the Biest, and those who had done evil should be
thrown into Tartarus. But judgment was then given
on the day of a man's death, and both the judges and
the judged were alive, and owing to men being still
arrayed in beauty or rank or wealth, and the garment
of ths body also acting as a veil to the perceptions of
the soul in the case of the judge, the judgment was
not always just. So Jupiter ordained that for the
future the naked soul of the judge, stripped of all its
gross mortality, should judge the souls that were
brought naked before him.
For when the soul separates from the body, each
part still carries with it ifs mortal features; and he
who was tall in his lifetime will be tall after death,
and he who had flowing hair will have flowing hair
still, and the slave who was branded by the scourge
will carry the scars upon his body into the other world.
So also the soul of the tyrant will bear indelible marks
of crime, and will be " full of the prints and scars of
his perjuries and misdeeds." For such a soul as his
there can be no cure; nor will there ba any pardon for
such as have been guilty of foul murder or sacrilege,
but they will be thrown into Tartarus, whence they
can never come forth, and their punishment will be
everlasting.
But those whose crimes are not unpardonable will be
condemned by the three judges to abide in Tartarus for
a year; aid a~ter that they will be cast forth on the
shores of Acheron, where they must wander lament-
ing, and calling out on those whom they have slain
or wronged on earth to pardon and deliver them; and
146 PLATO.
until their prayer is heard, they are forced to return
again to their place of torment.
Now the Three look with awe and reverence on the
face of him who has lived a life of holiness and truth
in this world, and who is probably a private citizen
or philosopher, who has done his own work and not
troubled himself about the business of oth rs, and they
send him to the Islands of the Blest, or to that purer
earth of which we spoke before; "and there," con-
tinues Socrates, "they live henceforth, freed from the
body, in mansions brighter far than these, which no
tongue may describe, and of which time would fail
me to tell. And he concludes in language almost
apostolic :
"Wherefore seeing these things are so, what ought
we not to do, to attain virtue and wisdom in this life,
when the prize is so glorious, and the hope so great?"
THE STORY OF ER.
("Republic," Book x.)
Er, the Pamphylian, a brave man, was slain in battle,
and ten days afterwards his body, which, unlike all
the other dead, was still uncorrupted, was brought
home to be buried; but on the funeral pyre he returned
to life, and told all that he had seen in the other world.
When his soul left his body (he said) he journeyed in
company with many other spirits until he came to a
certain place where there were two openings in the
earth and two in the heaven, and between them judges
were seated,
" who bade the just, after they had judged them, ascend by the
heavenly way on the right hand, having the signs of the judg-
ment bound on their foreheads; and in like manner the unjust
were commanded by them to descend by the lower way on the
THE STORY OF ER. 147
left hand ; these also had the symbols of their deeds fastened on
their backs. He drew near, and they told him that he was to be
tne messenger of the other world to men, and they bade him
hear and see all that was to be heard and seen in that place.
Then he beheld and saw on one side the souls departing at either
chasm of heaven and earth when sentence had been given on
them ; and at the two other openings other souls, some ascending
out of the earth dusty and worn with travel, some descending out
of heaven clean and bright, and always, on their arrival, they
seemed as if they had come from a long journey, and they went
out into the meadow with joy, and there encamped as at a fes-
tival, and those who knew one another embraced and conversed,
the souls which came from earth curiously inquiring about the
things of heaven, and the souls which came from heaven of the
things of earth. And they told one another of what had hap-
pened by the way, some weeping and sorrowing at the remem-
brance of the things which they had endured and seen in their
journey beneath the earth (now the journey lasted a thousand
years), while others were describing heavenly blessings and
visions of inconceivable beauty." J.
And for all evil deeds each soul suffered a ten-fold
punishment, and for its good deeds it received a ten-
fold reward. And Er heard one of the spirits ask
another, where Ardiaeus the Great was? (He had been
tyrant of some city in Pamphylia a thousand years be-
fore Er lived, and had murdered his aged father and
brother, and committed many other crimes.)
" The answer was: ' He comes not hither, and will never come.'
And 'indeed,' he said, ' this was one of the terrible sights which
was witnessed by us. For we were approaching the mouth of the
cave, and, having seen all, were about to reascend, when of a
sudden Ardiaeus appeared and several others, most of whom
ware tyrants; and there were also besides the tyrants private
individuals who had been great criminals; they were just at
the mouth, being, as they fancied, about to return to the
upper world, but the opening, instead of receiving them,
gave a roar, as was the case when any incurable or unpun-
ished sinner tried to ascend; and then wild men of fiery aspect,
who knew the meaning of the sound, came up and seized
and carried off several of them, and Ardiaeus and others
148 PLATO.
they bound head and foot and hand and threw them down
rnd flayed them with scourges, and dragged them along the
road at the side, carding them on thorns like wool, and declaring
to the pilgrims as they passed what were their crimes, and that
they were being taken away to be cast into hell. And of all the
terrors of the place, there was no terror like this of hearing the
voice; and when there was silence, they ascended with joy.'
These were the penalties and retributions, and there were bless-
ings as great. " J.
Er and his spirit companions tarried seven days in
this meadow, and then set out again on their journey,
and on the fourth day they came to a place where a
pillar of light like a rainbow, but far brighter, stretched
across heaven and earth, and in another day's journey
they reached it, and found that this light bound to-
gether the circle of the heavens, as a chain undergirds
a ship; and to either end of this pillar was fastened the
distaff of Necessity, having a shaft of adamant and a
wheel with eight vast circles of diver's colors, fitted
Into one another, and narrowing towards the centre.
And in these circles eight stars were fixed; and as the
spindle moved round, they moved with it each slowly
or swiftly according to its proper motion* And on
each circle a siren stood, singing in one note, and thus
from the eight stars arose one great harmony of sound.
And round about these circles at equal distances were
three thrones, and on these thrones were seated the
three daughters of Necessity, clothed in while robes, with
garlands on their lieads t And they also sang as they
turned the circles of the spindle Lachesis singing of
past time, Clotho of the present, and Atropos of time
that shall be. The spirits, as they arrived, were led to
Lachesis in order by a Prophet, who took from her
knees lots and samples of lives, and, mounting a
rostrum, spoke as follows: "Thus saith Lachesis,
THE HTORY OF ER. 149
daughter of Necessity. Mortal souls, behold a new
cycle of mortal life! Your genius will not choose you,
but you will choose your genius ; and let him who
draws the first lot have the first choice of life, which
shall be his destiny. Virtue is free, aad according as a
man honors or dishonors her he will enjoy her more or
less; the chooser is responsible, heaven is justified."
When he had thus spoken he cast the lots among them,
and each took up the lot which ftll near him, all but
Er himself, who was not allowed.
And these lives were of every kind, both of men
and animals, and were variously composed beauty,
an 1 wealth, and poverty, and strength, and nobility
all mingled togsther. But no definite character was
yet attached to any; for the future nature of each soul
depanded on the life it might choose. And on the
choice (so said the Prophet who had arranged the lots)
each man's happiness depended: and to choose aright
lie should know all that follows from the possession of
power and talent; and should choose the mean, and
avoid both extremes so far as he may, not in this life
o ly but in that which is to come. "Even the last
comer, if he ch6ose discreetly and will live carefully,
sliall find there is reserved for him a life neither un-
h ippy nor undesirable. Let not the fii'st be careless in
lib choice, neither let the last despair."
It was a sad yet laughable sight (said Er) to see the
manner in which the souls made their choice. For the
first c'.io?e the greatest despotism he could find, not
observing that it was ordained in his lot that he
should devour his own children; and when he found
tab oat, he lamented and beat his breast, accusing the
gods, and chance, and everything rather than himself.
And their former experience of life influenced many
150 PLATO.
In their choice: thus the soul of Orpheus chose the
life of a swan, because he hated to be born again of
woman (for womea had bafore torn him in pieces);
and Ajax chose the life of a lion, and Agamemnon
that of an eagle, because men had done them wrong;
and Thersitcs, the buffoon of the Iliad, took the ap-
propriate form of an ape. Last of all came Ulysses,
weary of his former toils and wanderings; and after
searching about for a while, he chose a quiet and ob-
s> ure life, that was lying neglected in a corner, for all
the others had passed it by.
" Now when all the souls had chosen their lives in the order of
the lots, they advanced in their turn to Lachesis, who despatched
with each of them the Destiny he had selected, to guard his life
and satisfy his choice. This Destiny first led the soul to Clotho
in such a way as to pass beneath her hand and the whirling
motion of the distaff, and thus ratified the fate which each had
chosen in the order of precedence. After touching her, the same
Destiny led the soul next to the spinning of Atropos, and thus
rendered the doom of Clotho irreversible. From thence the
souls passed straight forward under the throne of Necessity.
When the rest had passed through it, Er himself also passed
through; and they all traveled into the plain of forgetfulness,
through dreadful suffocating heat, the ground being destitute of
trees and of all vegetation. As the evening came on, they took
up their quarters by the bank of the river of Indifference, whose
water cannot be held in any vessel. All persons are compelled
to drink a certain quantity of the water; but those who are not
preserved by prudence drink more than the quantity: and each,
as he drinks, forgets everything. When they had gone to rest, and
it was now midnight, there was a clap of thunder and an earth-
quake ; and in a moment the souls were carried up to their birth,
this way and that like shooting-stars. Er himself was prevented
from drinking any of the water; but how, and by what road he
reached his body, he knew not: only he knew that he suddenly
opened his eyes at dawn, and found himself laid out upon the
funeral pyre." D:
CHAPTER VII.
RELIGION, MORALITY, AND ART.
** Religious ideas die like the sun; their last rays possessing lit-
tle heat, are spent in creating beauty." Lecky, Hist, of Morals.
IN his famous picture of the School of Athens, Raphael
has represented Plato as looking up towards heaven,
while Aristotle has his eyes intently fixed upon the
earth, and Goethe has endorsed the idea expressed in
this painting. " Plato' s relation to the world, " he says,
"is that of a superior spirit, whose good pleasure it is
to dwell in it for a time. ... He penetrates into
its depths, more that he may replenish them from the
fullness of his own nature, than that he may fathom
their mysteries. '' * Certainly the most careless reader
cannot help being struck by the persistency with which
Plato dwells upon his favorite thought, that this life
is only the first stage of an endless existence, that death
is the release of soul from body, which the wise man
welcomes with joy, and that philosophy itself is but a
" meditation of death, " or "the resembling, so far as is
possible, of rn-in to God. " f In fact, disce mori may be
* Quoted in Ueberweg's History of Philosophy, i. 103 English
transl
tPhaedo, 80; Theeet., 176,
151
152 PLATO.
said to be the text of Platonism. Perhaps, he says in
the Gorgias, Euripides was right, and our life here is
after all a death, and our body is the tomb or prison
of the soul. * And in the same spirit in which Socratv s
bids Crito not to be too careful about his burial, Plato
prohibits in his "Laws" expensive funerals" for the
bdoved one whom his relative thinks he is laying in the
earth has but gone away to complete his destiny. " The
soul, he reiterates, really makes each of us to be what
he is, and the body is only its image and shadow, and
after death all that is divine in us goes on its way to
olher gods, f Man himself is nothing more than a
puppet or plaything of the gods, acting his part on the
stage of life; with more or less success, and " with some
little share of reality. " \
Bis view of human nature, and of man's limited
powers of knowledge, is best illustrated in his own
famous allegory of the Cave, in the seventh book of
the " Republic. "
"Imagine," says Socrates, "a number of men living in an
underground cavernous chamber, with an entrance open to the
light, extending along the entire length of the cavern in which
they have been confined from their childhood, with their necks
and legs so shackled that they are obliged to sit still and look
straightforward, because their chains render it impossible for
them to turn their heads round: and imagine a bright fire burn-
ing some way off, above and behind them, and an elevated road-
way passing between the fire and the prisoners, with a low wall
built along it, like the screens which conjurors put up in front
of their audience, and above which they exibit their wonders.
. . . Also to yourself a number of persons walking behind
the wall, and carrying with them statues of men and images of
other animals wrought in wood and stone and all kinds of
* Gorgias, 492. t Laws, xii. 959.
\ Laws, vii. 803.
RELIGION, MORALITY, AND ART. 153
naterials, together with various other articles, which overtop
the wall; and, as you might expect, let some of the passers-by
be talking, and others slient." D.
*' This cave," Socrates continues, " is the world, and
the fire that lights it is the sun, and these poor pris-
oners are ourselves
' Placed with our backs to bright reality; '
aid all sights or sounds in this twilight region are but
tie shadows or echoes of real objects. And as some-
tmes a prisoner in this cave may be released from his
chains, and turned round, and led up to the light of
day; so may our souls pass upwards from the darkness
of mere opinion, and from the shadowy impressions of
sense into the pure sunlight of eternal truth, lighted
by the Idea of Good in itself the source of all truth
and beauty."
But "What is the Good?" Plato tells us, truly
enough, that it is what all men pursue under different
names, deriving its existence, seeking its reality, yet
totally unable to explain its nature; and he compares
it in a parable, as we have seen, to the sun which illu-
minates the eternal world of Ideas, but as to its own
essential nature he leaves us still in the dark. The
philosophers in his State will know it, he says, for their
souls will be enlightened, but he does not know it him-
self; and although the knowledge of it is bound up
with the existence of his Slate, and is the culmination
of his system, all that he does is to "conduct us to the
chamber where this precious and indispensable secret is
locked up, but he has no key to open the door. "*
Sometimes, indeed, he personifies this supreme Idea,
and, as in the "TimaBus" and "Philebus," abstract
* Grote's Plato, iii. 241.
154 PLATO.
goodness is merged in the concrete God. But even
here, his conception of Deity rises far above toe
jealous and sensitive occupants of Homer's Olympis,
who were immortal beings with mortal passions and
sympathies, strongly attached to persons and places,
and sharing in all the hopes and fears of their wor-
shippers. A Christian writer could hardly frame a
more exalted idea of divinity than that which Plato his
expressed in many of his Dialogues. With him the
Deity is a being of perfect wisdom and goodness, all-wise,
and all-powerful, ruling the world which he has created
by the supremacy of His reason. He can be only
known to us through some type or form; but let none
suppose that He would put on a human shape by night
or by day, to help a friend or deceive a foe; for, being
perfect goodness in Himself, such a change could be
only for the worse; and, being perfect truth, He hates
a lie either in word or in deed.*
In this conception of the Deity, Plato does but repre-
sent the tendency of Greek religion towards " Mono-
theism." Long before his time, all the deeper thinkers
had ct-ased to believe in the old mythology. Even the
sober piety of Herodotus had questioned some miracles
and rejected others; and the keen common-sense of
Thucydides had applied the historical test to the " Tale
of Troy," looking upon it as a political enterprise, and
accepting the catalogue of ships "as an authentic
muster-roll. " \ Then Eucmcrus had allegorized these
myths; and Palaephatus had softened them dpwn into
commonplace narratives of actual facts: thuia the
wings of Daedalus became a swift sailing vessel, the
dragon which Cadmus slew was King Draco, and the
* Republ., ii. + Grote's Greece, i. 333.
RELIGION, MORALITY, AND ARJ: 155
dragon's teeth were the ivory of commerce. And
philosophy had aided this progress of rationalism. More
than a century before Plato, Xenophanes had pointed
out the discrepancies involved in the popular mythol-
ogy, and had declared emphatically that there was
" one God, not to be compared to mortals in form or
thought all eye and all ear who without effort rules
all things by the insight of his mind." So again
Empedocles had recognized, amidst the crash of war-
ring elements, one holy impalpable Spirit, whom none
could come near, or touch, or see; and even Anaxagoras,
with all his materialism, had paid homage to a sover-
eign Mind which ruled the universe.
"But, ''says Professor Maurice, "there lay in the
very heart of the faith of the Greek a seed of unbelief
which was continually fructifying."* While many
clung with unwavering faith to the religion of their
fathers; while a few (as we have seen) professed a
purer and higher belief than mere anthropomorphism ;
there were others who, though they rejected the
ancient myths, accepted nothing in their place: and
the Sophists seem to have encouraged this increasing
tendency to atheism among the younger and more
skeptical spirits of this age. Prodicus maintained that
men iu olden times had deified whatever was of use
to them: thus wine was promoted into Bacchus, and
bread was dignified with the name of Ceres. Critias,
again, declared that the gods had been invented by
some crafty statesman to secure the obedience of hia
subjects; and one daring skeptic of this school,
Diagoras of Melos (subsequently banished from both
Sparta and Athens for his impious theories), had
*Hist. of Philos., i. 86,
15G PLATO.
thrown a wooden statue of Hercules into the fire, say.
ing that he might go through his thirteenth labor in the
flames.
In the tenth book of the "Laws" written, as has
been said, in his declining 3 r ears Plato makes a bold
stand against this growing impiety of his day. It
springs, he says, from one of three causes; from utter
atheism, or, second, from Epicurean apathy the
feeling that the gods exist, but never trouble them-
selves about mankind; or, thirdly, from superstition
tha gods both exist and care, but you can pacify their
anger by sacrifice. Heretics, in his ideal city, are to be
punished by solitary confinement or by death, and the
heaviest vengeance of the law is to light on the wolf
in sheep's clothing the impious hypocrite who dares
to use his priestly garb to further his own ambitious or
criminal ends. And then he gravely takes the skeptic
to task, and justifies the ways of Providence. * "Do
not " (he says> almost in the very words of the Psalmist)
"the heavens declare the glory of God?" Does not
the universal testimony of mankind teach us that a
God exists ? And woe to the rash and presumptuous
youth who presumes to charge the Deity with indolence
or neglect, merely because he sees the wicked in pros-
perity, and handing down their power to their children
after them. God is no unskillful workman, but in His
Wisdom has taken thought for all things, both small
and great. Each part of the creation has its appointed
work and purpose, and all the parts work together to
some common end. What is best for one portion is
therefore best for the whole. It is impious, indeed;
to think that this fair creation around us could have
* Laws, x. 886.
RELIGION, MORALITY, AND ART. 157
been the work of nature or chance ; or, again, that matter
could have existed before mind. Such doctrines will
sooner or later meet with their reward.
" God, as the old tradition declares, holding in His hand the
beginning, middle, and end of all that is, moves according to
His nature in a straight line towards the accomplishment of His
end. Justice always follows Him, and is the punisher of those
who fall short of the divine law. To that law, he who would be
happy holds fast, and follows it in all humility and ordtr; but
he who is lifted up with pride, or money, or honor, or beauty
who has a soul hot with folly, and youth, and insolence, and
thinks that he has no need of a guide or ruler, but is able himself to
be the guide of others, he, I say, is left deserted of God; and
being thus deserted, he takes to him others who are like himself,
and dances about in wild confusion, and many think that he is a
great man, but in a short time he pays a penalty which justice
cannot but approve, and is uttery destroyed, and his family and
city with him. Wherefore, seeing that human things are thus
ordered, what should a wise man do or think, or not do or
think ?" J.
The perfection of man's existence, according to Plato,
is to bring his nature as far as is possible into harmony
with God; and this can only be done by cultivating
the soul, which is the divinest part of us, and came to
us from heaven long before our earth-born body. *
' Honor the soul, then, " he says, in one of his homilies
in the "Laws" "as being second only to the gods;
and the best way of honoring it is to make it better.
A man should not prefer beauty to virtue, nor sell his
word for gold, nor heap up riches for his children;
since ths best inheritance he can leave them is the
spirit of reverence. Truth is the beginning of all
* We may compare with this Kant's famous saying, "On earth
there is nothing great but Man ; in Man there is nothing great
but Mind, "
158 PLATO.
good; and the greatest of] all evils is self-love; and
the worst penalty of evil-doing is to grow into likeness
with the bad: for each man's soul changes, according
to the nature of his deeds, for better or for worse. " f
In more than one passage Plato combats the objec-
tion always raised against every system of Optimism
the existence of evil, which implies, according to
the atheist, either a want of goodness in the Deity to
allow it, or a want of power to prevent it. Practically
Plato refutes this argument in much the same language
as a modern thinker might use. Evil in the creation
does not imply evil in the Creator; its existence is part
of a vast scheme of Providence: and because, with our
limited faculties, we cannot discern the final cause or
design of everything in nature (e. g., the poison of the
rattlesnake), we have no right to say, therefore, that
no such final cause exists. Listen again to Plato (speak-
ing in the person of Socrates) in the " Thesetetus."
tl Soc. Evils, Theodorus, can never perish; for there must
always remain something which is antagonistic to good. Of
necessity, they hover around this mortal sphere and the earthly
nature, having no place among the gods in heaven. Wherefore,
also, we ought to fly away thither ; and to fly thither is to become
like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like Him is to
become holy, just, and wise. But, O my friend, you cannot
easily convince mankind that they should pursue virtue or avoid
vice, not for the reasons which the many give in order, foi sooth,
that a man may seem to be good; this is what they are always
repeating, and this, in my judgment, is an old wives' fable. Let
thdai hear the truth: In God is no unrighteousness at all He is
altogether righteous; and there is nothing more like Him than
he of us who is the most righteous. And the true wisdom of
men, and their nothingness and cowardice, are nearly concerned
with this. For to know this is true wisdom and manhood, and
the ignorance of this is too plainly folly and vice. . . . There
* Laws. x.
RELIGION, MORALITY, AND AR1. 159
are two patterns set before men in nature: the one blessed and
divine, the other godless and wretched; and they do not see, in
their utter folly and infatuation, that they are growing like the
one and unlike the other, by reason of their evil deeds; and the
penalty is, that they lead a life answering to the pattern which
they resemble. And if we tell them, that unless they depart
from their cunning, the place of innocence will not receive them
after death; and that here on earth they will live ever in the
likeness of their own evil selves, and with evil friends, when
they hear this, they in their superior cunning will seem to be
listening to fools." J.
And in the same spirit the first great " type " to
which all legends must conform, in his ideal State, is that
God is good, and is the author of good alone; the evil
lie suffers to exist for the just punishment of men. And
therefore Plato will expunge from his new mythology
all those false and debasing stories which Homer tells
about the gods and heroes, with their violent passions,
loves, and hatreds; where even the great Achilles
is represented as insolent and cruel, as slaying his
captives, cursing the Sun-god himself, and dragging
Hector's body round the walls of Troy. He will have
no sensational pictures of the lower world, with all its
horrors of Styx and Tartarus, and with the souls of
the dead "fluttering like bats" in sunless caverns.
And the music shall be simple and ennobling: he
will banish the wailing Lydian and soft Ionian meas-
ures, and he will have only martial strain in the
Dorian mood, such as Tyrtaeus sang when the Spartans
marched out to battle; and he will dismiss with
honor from the State the charming and versatile poet
who can assume all shapes and speak in all voices, and
will take instead the rough but honest story-teller who
will recite simple and useful tales.*
*Rep.iii. 398.
160 PLATO.
He again attacks the poets in the last book of the
" Republic;" and here the ground of offence is their imi-
tation, which is (says Plato) two degrees removed from
reality; for taking any object, such as a bed, there is
iirst the ideal bed, created by the Deity, wliich alone
has real existence; and then there is the bed made by
the carpenter in the image of the first ; and thirdly, there
is the shadow of this image, which the painter or poet
delineates in his picture or his poem, as it may be. " I
liave a great liking and reverence for Homer" (Plato
continues), " who is the great master of all tragic poets
indeed from childhood I have loved his name; but I
love truth better. And what has Homer done for us,
after all? He has not given us laws, like Solon or
Lycurgus; he has not given us inventions, like Thales
and Anacharsis, nor has he founded a brotherhood,
like Pythagoras; nor, again, has he taught us any of
the arts of war and peace. If he had done any
real good to men, is it likely that he would have been
allowed to wander about, blind and poor? No; all
that he does is to give us a second-hand imitation of
reality, to exalt the feelings which are an inferior part
of our soul, to thrill us with pity or terror, and so ren-
der us unmanly and effeminate." " There are enough
sorrows in actual life " (he says, later on, in the " Phil-
ebus ''), without multiplying them on the stage or in
fiction."
Though Plato was more of a poet than a philosopher
himself, and in his writings was said to strike the
happy medium between poetry and prose, he is always
disposed to regard the poets, as a class, in the light of
harmless enthusiasts, often the cause of much mischief,
but hardly responsible for their actions. In an earlier
Dialogue the "Ion" Socrates meets the rhapsodist
RELIGION, MORALITY AND ART. 161
of that name, and congratulates him on having just
won the prize for recitation at a public festival. "It
must bo a fine thing ' (he says with a tinge of irony)
"to be always well dressed, and to study and recite
passages from the prince of poets; but is Ion always
master of his subject, and is his talent really an art at
ail? No " (Socrates goes on) ; "it must be inspiration
a magnetic influence, passing like an electric current
from the loadstone of divine essence into the soul of
the poet, and from thence into the souls of his hearers."
The simple-minded Ion is delighted at the idea of
being inspired, and confesses that he does feel in a sort
of ecstasy when he recites some striking passage such
as the sorrows of Andromache or Hecuba, or the scene
where Ulysses throws off his rags, leaps on to the floor
among the assembled suitors, and bends that terrible
bow of his. ' : Then " (says Ion) ' ' my eyes fill with tears,
my heart throbs, my hair stands on end, and I see the
spectators also weeping, and sympathizing with my
grief."
And the conclusion of this short but graceful Dia-
logue is, that the Deity sways the souls of men through
the rhapsodist or poet, who is himself only the vehicle
of inspiration, and knows little or nothing of the
meaning of the glorious words which it is his privilege
to utter.
Plato's own view of poetry and art, then, is, that it
should be pure, simple, and ideal free from the sen-
sational innovations of modern days; and he points
with approval to Egypt, where certain forms had been
consecrated in the temples, from which neither painter
nor sculptor was allowed to deviate, and where for ten
thousand years they had preserved their chants and the
162 PLATO.
statues of their gods unchanged.* The poet should
not be left to his own devices, for bad music, like a
bad companion, tends to corrupt the character: both
the music and the words should be supervised by the
magistrate, prizes for the best poems should be awarded
by competent judges, and the moral of every lay or
legend should be, that all earthly gifts whether health,
beauty, or wealth are as nothing in comparison with a
just and holy life. And in the "City of the Mag-
netes," where his own laws are to be promulgated, the
following is to be the theme of the music consecrated
by the State, and appointed to be sung by three choirs
children, youths, and men :
" All our three choruses shall sing to the young and tender
souls of children, reciting in their strains all the noble thoughts
of which we have already spoken, or are about to speak; and
the sum of them shall be, that the life which is by the gods
deemed to be the happiest is the holiest; we shall affirm this to
be a most certain truth, and the minds of our young disciples will
be more likely to receive these words of ours, than any others
which we might address to them. . . . -. And those who
are too old to sing will tell stories, illustrating the same virtues
as with the voice of an oracle.'' J.
We can never exactly tell how far Plato's views on
religion are an echo of his master's, or how far they are
his own original ideas. We have another description of
Socrates and his teaching in Xenophon's "Memorabilia,"
and there, like Plato, he appeals to the excellence of
the creation round him to prove the wisdom of the
great " World- builder;" he recognizes the all-pervading
and invisible presence of the Deity; he exalts the dig-
nity of man, only "lower than the angels" in the pos-
session of an immortal soul; and he points to signs and
* Laws, ii. 660.
RELIGION, MORALITY, AND ART. 163
oracles to prove how closely \ve may be brought into
actual communion with God. But in other respects,
if Xenophon can be trusted, he preached a far lower
standard of morality upholding, in fact, the utili-
tarian doctrines so strongly condemned by the Platonic
Socrates in the beginning of the "Republic." "You
should test an action," he is made to say, " by its ad-
vantages to yourself. Be just, because justice brings
its own reward with it; be modest, because immodesty
never pays in society; be brave, because you gain
glory thereby; be true and faithful, because truth will
bring you friends, the most useful of all possessions.''*
If this was really the tendency of Socratic teaching, it
is clear that Plato took far higher ground than his mas-
ter. Nothing, in f:ct, could be further from his
thoughts than to degrade Virtue into a mere calcula-
tion of the chances of more or less possible happi-
ness.
And in the "Philebus " (one of his latest Dialogues),
where the relative nature of pleasure and knowledge
is analyzed, Plato distinctly maintains that pleasures
differ in kind as well as degree,! the lowest being the
mixed pleasures of the senses, and the highest and
purest the mental enjoyment of music or mathematics.
He also holds that wisdom is "ten thousand times
better " than pleasure, since it alone satisfies the three
criteria of goodness beauty, symmetry, and truth;
while, in the scale of perfection, pleasure is degraded
by him to the fifth and sixth places.
* See Zeller's Socrates and the Socratic Schools, chap. vii.
t The utilitarian maxims are: "Pleasures differ in nothing
but in continuance and intensity" (Palcy); "The quantity of
pleasure being equal, push-pin is as good as poetry " (Bentham).'
164 PLATO.
The oiily one of Bentham's four " Sanctions "* which
he -would allow to influence our conduct would be that
described in his Myths the rewards and punishments
in a future world. Virtue per se is most excellent
being, iu fact, moral health and strength, just as Vice
is moral disease; and worldly advantages are not to
balance our actions, or influence us in the choice be-
tween good and evil. Even in prayer he maintains
that a man should not pray for gold, or honor, or
children, but simply for what is good; and the gods
will know best how to turn his prayer to his own profit.
"The prayer of a fool," he s:iys again, "is fraught
with danger, and likely to end in the opposite of what
he desires. "f In the same spirit the quotes (in his
" Alcibiades, ii.") some lines from an old poet, which,
should, he thinks, be the model for all prayers: " King
Jove, give us what is good, whether we pay for it or
not; and ward off what is dangerous, even though we
pray for it." And the spirit cf the prayer he declares
to be worth more than any offerings a man can bring
just as the oracle of Ammon had declared the simple
prayer of the Spartans to be worth more than all the
sacrifices of Athens.
In one sense Plato does not deny the "utility" of
Virtue, any more than Cudworth or Butler would have
denied it ; and it is in this sense that we must take the
famous sentence in the " Republic " which Mr. Grote
has prefixed as the motto to his three volumes: "The
noblest thing that is said now, or shall be said here-
after, is, that what is profitable is honorable, and what
is hurtful is base. "$
* See his introduction to Morals and Legislation, chap. iii.
t Laws, iii. 688. $ Rep., v. 457.
CHAPTER VIII.
LATER PLATONISM.
SPEUSTPPUS, Plato's nephew, succeeded his uncle at
the head of the Academy; and both he and those who
succeeded him appear to have taken a few texts and
phrases from their great master's writings, and on them
to have built up ethical systems of their own ; while
others like Hermodorus, traded on those " unwritten
doctrines," said to have been divulged only to a
favored few. "But all that time has brought down
to us of the later Academy is some brief and frag-
mentary writings, and some untrustworthy traditions;
and, for the most part, the memorial of these philo-
sophers have perished with them.
Even in Plato's own day, divisions had sprung up
among his followers; and one of his most promising
pupils, who for twenty years had attended lectures in
the Academy, founded that school which has ever
since divided with his own the world of thought.
"Every man is born an Aristotelian or a Platonist:'
their principles are mutually repugnant, and there is
no common ground between the two; and if Aristotle
himself could not understand his master's point of
view, there is still less chance of a modern Aristotelian
ever doing so. The very beauty of Plato's style, his
166 PLATO.
exuberant fancy, the myths and metaphors in which
he clothed his noblest thoughts, were all so many
offences to the shrewd common-sense of Aristotle, who
reasoned rigid'y from fact to fact, who analyzed the
constitutions of three hundred states before he wrote a
line of his " Politics," and whose cold and keen tem-
perament had little sympathy with a philosopher who
" poetized rather than thought."* As for the Platonic
"Ideas" the very foundation of Platonism he re-
garded them as inconceivable and impossible, or, if
possible, practically useless.
Plato's method of doubt and inquiry carried far
farther by his pupils than he ever intended it to be
resulted in the " New Academy," a school of Skeptics,
of whom Pyrrho, originally a soldier in Alexander's
army, was the leader. These Skeptics were a sign of
the times. A weariness and despair of truth was
creeping over society, and hence there grew up a feel-
ing of indifference as to all moral distinctions, which
the philosophers who professed it termed a "divine
repose." Plato had said that there was no reality
except in an ideal world, and Pyrrho and his followers
pushed this doctrine so far as to deny the existence of
any fixed standard of right and wrong, or of any cer-
tainty which sense or mind could perceive.
Socrates, it has been said, "sat for the portrait of
the Stoic sage ;"f and Stoicism perhaps owes as much
to Plato as to the Cynics, of which school it was the
legitimate offshoot. The majesty of mind, the high
ideal of a life in accordance with reason and untram-
meled by self interest, the strong sense of a personal
conscience, the doctrine that a man's soul was an ema-
* Arist., Met. ix. 5. t Noack, quoted by Ueberweg, 1ST.
LA TEE PL A TONISM. 167
nation from the Deity all these tenets might have
been held by Plato or his master. But the Stoic dis-
regarded, if he did not disbelieve in, the immortality
of the soul; and suicide, which Plato held to be
co-.vardly and impious, was looked upon by Seneca
and Epictetus as an easy and justifiable refuge against
all the evils of life.
Zeno was the first who lectured at Athens in the
Painted Porch, which gave its name (Stoa) to the sect.
His pupil Clcanthes so slow and sure that his master
compared his memory to a leaden tablet, difficult to
write upon but retaining an indelible impression
carried out in actual practice the principles of his train-
ing, drawing water and kneading dough the whole night
long, that he might have leisure for philosophy in the
day-time. Chrysippus followed, the second founder
of the "Porch," who is said to have written upwards
of seven hundred volumes j and lastly Posidonius, the
most learned of all, whose lectures at Rhodes were
heard both by Cicero and Pompey.
Rome was naturally the home of Stoicism. The
pride and "majestic egotism" which was their ideal
of virtue, suited stem and zealous characters like Cato-
or Cornutus; and this pride, when softened by religious
sentiment, produced the noblest examples of pagan
philosophy in the Emperor Marcus Aurelius and the
slave Epietetus. But though Stoicism could raise up
a school of heroes, it suppressed all softer emotions,
and set up an ideal unattainable by any except the
most exalted minds. A change was coming over
society, and the want was felt of a more tender and
attractive philosophy, and a longing for some deeper
truth than the cold comfort given by a "creed out-
worn" like paganism. Hence a reaction set in against
168 PLATO.
the casuistry and skepticism of the later Stoics in favor
of the more spiritual side of humanity. Allegory,
Mysticism, Inspiration, and Ecstasy, were the charac-
teristics of this new philosophy; a critical spirit and
the strict inductions of reason were discouraged, to
elicit divine ideas, and to subdue the senses, was held
to bj the end of life. And, like other creeds, this
dawned in the East.
Alexandria was the meeting point of Eastern and
Western civilization. In its vast gardens and libraries
xniirht be found a medley of all nations, creeds, and
languages; for the policy of the first three Ptolemys
known as SotEr, Philadelphus, and Eucrgctes
("Savior," "Loving-brother," and "Benefactor")
was a liberal and universal toleration. Accordingly,
OL temple of Isis might be found side bysidewiUi a
Jewish synagogue, or a shrine dedicated to Venus ;
and freethinkers like Stilpo or Theodorus (banished
from thoir own states in Greece for their impiety)
were received with the same welcome at court r s
the translators of the Septuagint or the high priest
from ElcusK Everything, indeed, combined to
make Alexandria the centre of attraction for philos.
ophers and men of letters. Besides the natural
charms of the place the bright sunshine, the clear
atmosphere, and the soil so rich in flowers and fruits
that '* a man/* says Ammianus, "might almost believe
himself in another world " there was the certainty of
royal favor, of learned and congenial society, and
(better than all) of a comfortable pension and a luxu-
rious residence in or near the palace. For the further
encouragement of literature, Ptolemy I. had founded
and liberally endowed the " Museum " (or, as we
should call it, "university "), with its porticos and lc-
LATER PLATON1SM. 169
ture-rooms and dining- hall, and its library of 700,COO
volumes burnt when Alexandria was besieged by
Caesar. In connection with the library there grew
up a school of grammarians and critics, Avhose lives
were passed in the usual routine of a royal literary
circle, writing, publishing, dining together, talking
scandal, and carrying on an incessant war of words.
In the learned world at Alexandria, some Jews
founded a new system of philosophy by blending
Judaism with Platonism. They sought for the
deeper truth which they believed was hidden under
every text of Scripture; intensifying all that was
miraculous or supernatural, discarding the literal
interpretation, and neglecting the ceremonial law as
being merely the symbolism which veiled the truth.
Philo headed this "mystical rationalism," tracing
Plato's world of ideas back to Moses, but giving them
a place in the Word of God as the plan of a building
has a place in the mind of a builder. And, in lan-
guage like that which Plato uses in the " Ticaoeus," he
describes how God, an invisible but ever-present
Essence, created and ruled the world by means of
ministering spirits or potencies, of whom the "Word is
highest, and second only to Himself.
Philo lived just before the Christian era; and from
his time a succession of Alexandrian Jews continued
to give to the world their transcendental theories,'
founded on one portion or another of Plato's writ-
ings; some, like Apollonius of Tyana, going back to-
Pythagoras for their inspiration, and others, like the
Therapeuta?, seeking "illumination" in a lonely and
ascetic life, until, towards the end of the second cen-
tury, the school of Neo-Platonists was founded by
Ammonius Saccas. They united the Eastern doctrine
170 PLATO.
of " emanation " with the Platonic doctrine of ideas,
believing that the ideas emanated from the One, as the
soul emanates from the ideas, and that the last and lowest
stage of emanation was the sensible and material world
around us. They held it man's duty to purify his soul,
and make it pass through various stages of perfection,
until at last it should be freed from all contamination
of the senses, and, in a sublime moment of ecstasy,
enter into actual communton with God. Four times
(so Porphyry tells us) his master Plotinus was thus
" caught up " in a celestial trance. Indeed, this phil-
osopher was so ashamed of having a body at all, that
he would tell no one who were his parents or what
was his country, and resolutely refused ever to have
his portrait taken; for it was bad enough (he said)
that his soul should be veiled at all by an earthly image,
and he would never hand down an imago of that
image to posterity. How deeply he was imbued with
Platonism may be seen from the mere titles of the fifiy-
four treatises which have come down to us. Provi-
dence, Time and Eternity, Reason, Being, Ideas, the
" Daemon " who has received each of us in charge,
such, are the subjects of some of the chapters in his
' ' Enneads. " He at one time even obtained leave of the
reigning emperor to found a city in Campania, to be
called Platonopolis, whither he and his friends were to
retire from the world ; but happily the idea was never
actually put into execution.
The next generation of Nco-Platonists carried their
Mysticism still further. They revived divination and
Astrology; they interpreted dreams and visions; they
consulted oracles; and practiced those ancient rites of
expiation which Plato himself had so strongly con-
demned, lamblichus, one of their number, traced a
LATER PLATONISM. 171
mysterious affinity between earth and heaven; and on
one of Plato's texts " all things are full of gods" he
constructed a hierarchy of heroes, daemons, angels, and
archangels. Proclus, again a fanatic -who wished
that all books might be burnt except Plato's." Timseus"
interpreted his "God-enlightened master "in his own
fashion, and perfected himself in every form of ritual,
fasting and keeping vigil, celebrating the festival of
every god in the pagan calendar, and honoring with
mysterious rites the souls of all the dead.
There was one Neo-Platonist in the reign of Trajan
whose genial and sympathetic character stands out in
strong contrast to the superstition and pedantry of Iris
age. This was Plutarch of Chseronea, better known
as a biographer than a philosopher. He discusses the
Socratic morality with calm good sense, purges the old
mythology, and preaches a purer monotheism than any
of his contemporaries.
The last of the Neo-Platonists of whom we have any
record was Boethius, who lectured at Athens; and
shortly after his time the Emperor Justinian gave the
death-blow to Greek philosophy by interdicting all in-
struction in the Platonic school.
It has been said that "Mysticism finds in Plato all
its texts," and certainly most of the Christian Mysticism
may be traced back to the Neo-Platonists. From their
time to our own we find this tendency towards a
theologia mystica appearing in one form or another,
whether it be in the secret tradition of the Jewish
Cabala in the preaching of Eckhart in the fourteenth
century in the revival of Neo-Platonism at Florence
in the days of Cosmo de Medici in the science of
sympathies taught by Agrippa and Paracelsus in
Jacob Behmen's celestial visions or in Saint Teresa's
172 PLATO.
" four degrees " of prayer necessary to reach a perfect
" quietism."
Plato was regarded by the early Fathers of the
Church in the light of another apostle to the Gentiles.
Justin Martyr, Jerome, and Lactantius, all speak of
him as the wisest and greatest of philosophers. Augus-
tine calls him his converter, and thanks God that he
became acquainted with Plato first and with the Gospel
afterwards: and Eusebius declared that "he alone of
all the Greeks had attained the Porch of Truth." It is
easy to understand the grounds of this feeling. Passages
from his Dialogues might be multiplied to prove the
close similarity which exists between them and the
Scriptures, especially the books of the Pentateuch.
The picture of the ideal Socrates preaching justice and
temperance, and opposing to the self-assertion of the
Pharisees of his age, the humility of the earnest inquirer
and the soberness of truth his declaration at his trial
that he will obey God rather than man, and fears not
those who are only able to kill the body the descrip-
tion of the just man persecuted, scourged, tortured, and
finally crucified, * such passages serve to explain the
prayer of Erasmus, who added to the invocation of
Christian saints in his litany, " Sancte Socrates, ora pro
nobis; " and the belief of so many of the Fathers that
Plato, like St. John the Baptist, was a forerunner of
Christ. Again the strong faith in the immortality of the
soul the no less strong sense of the pollution of sin
the belief that virtue is likeness to God the idea in the
I "Phaedrus " of a word sown in the heart and bringing
forth fruit in due season the parable of the " Cave "
and the Light of the upper world, are a few instances
* The literal Greek is "impaled."
LATER PLATONISM. 173
out of many which might be quoted to show the fore-
shadowings of Christianity so often traced in Plato.
Once, indeed, in the last conversation held by Soc-
rates with his friends a passage occurs which seems to
point even more directly than any we have quoted
to a Revelation hereafter to be granted. Simmias, one
of the speakers in the Dialogue, thinks it impossible to
hope for exact knowledge in the great question they are
discussing the unknown future of the soul; still, he
argues, they should persevere in the search for truth,
taking the best of human words to bear them up, " as
on a raft " through the stormy waters of life; but their
voyage on this frail bark would be perilous, unless they
might hope to meet with some securer stay some
" word from God," it might be.
Passages of this sort explain sufficiently the grounds
of the reverence with which Plato was regarded by the
Eastern Church, and especially in the school for cate-
chists at Alexandria, where Clement and Origen taught.
They even go far to justify the belief of Augustine that
Plato might perhaps have listened to Jeremiah in
Egypt, and that in his esoteric lectures in the Academy
he revealed the mystery of the Trinity to a few chosen
disciples.
Tertullian, on the other hand, declaimed bitterly ta
Carthage against all Greek philosophy. He headed the
reaction which had set in against the Gnostics of a for-
mer century, who had changed Plato's " Ideas " into a
world of JSons, and held that the Word, Wisdom, and
Power, were so many emanations from the divine mind.
Platonism, Tertullian held to be the source of all here-
sies, and denied that there could be any fellowship be-
tween the disciple of Greece and the disciple of heaven,
or between the Church and the Academy.
171 PLATO.
Boethius, as we have said, was the lost Neo-Platon-
ist; and bis "Consolations of Philosophy " is the link
between the old world and the new. Then came the
Dark Ages, when the classics were only read by monks
and churchmen, till they were revived in the schools
of Alcuin and Charlemagne.
Philosophy soon passed into scholasticism, and was
conlined to the dogmas of the Church; and through-
out the Middle Ages we find two great hostile camps
among the Schoolmen the Realists and Nominalists
each fighting under the shadow of a great name; Plato
being the first (said Milton) " who brought the monster
of Realism into the schools," in his doctrine of Ideas
so sharply criticised by Aristotle. The question at
issue between these two parties was whether Universal
had a real and substantial existence, subject to none
of the change and decay which affects particulars, or
whether (as the Nominalists argued) they were merely
general names expressive of general notions.
Early in the thirteenth century came a reaction from
the East in favor of Aristotle. His writings (which
had escaped destruction by the merest accident) had
been translated as early as the fifth century into Syriac
and Arabic; the Jews had translated them into Latin;
and the conquests of the Arabs in Spain had brought
them to the knowledge of the Schoolmen. Averraes,
the greatest of Arabian commentators, looked upon
Aristotle as the only man whom God had suffered to
attain perfection, and as the source of all true science.
He died in A.D. 1198, just before the rule of the Moors
in Spain came to an end; but " Averroism," with its
pantheistic tenets, long survived its founder.
Albert of Bollstadt, Provincial of the Dominican
order in Germany, " the universal doctor " (who bear a
LATER PLATONISM. 175
a kind of half-mythical reputation as Albertus Magnus)
reduced Aristotle's writings to a system. His pupil,
Thomas Aquinis, ' ' the angelic doctor, " soon followed in
his steps, rejecting all the texts of Platonism. denying
innate ideas, or d priori reasoning in theology; but he
is so far a realist that he recognizes the existence of
universals ante rem that is, in the divine mind; and
post rem that is, obtained by the effort of the indi-
vidual reason. His contemporary, Duns Scotus, "the
subtle doctor," went further, and assailed Platonism
with every weapon that the logic of his age supplied;
while later on, William of Ockham, "the invincible
doctor," revived Nominalism, and regarded universals
as a mere conception of the mind. Realism passed
out of date with Descartes in the sixteenth century,
and the tendency of all modern philosophy has been
distinctly towards Nominalism. Our own great philo-
sophical writers, Hobbs, Berkeley, Hume, and Locke,
all maintain that it is possible to have general names
as the signs or images of general ideas.
Bacon, the contemporary of Descartes, denounced
the wisdom of the Greeks as being " showy and dis-
putatious;" their logic he considers useless, their
induction haphazard, their dialectic "the mere chatter-
ing of children ;" and among one of the grand causes
of human error "the idols of the theatre," as he
terms them* he ranks the Platonic 4< Ideas."
Once again an attempt was made to revive Platon-
ism, at the end of the seventeenth century, by Cud-
worth, a writer of profound classical learning, who
* "I look upon the various systems of the philosophers,"
says Bacon " as merely so many plays brought out upon the
stage theories of being which are merely scenic and fictitious.
-Nov. Org., i. 44.
176 PLATO.
maintained that there were certain eternal and im-
mutable verities which can only be comprehended by
reason, can never be learned by experience, and cannot
be changed by the will or opinion of men. And in
this sense every intuitive moralist may be said to bo
a Platonist; for the doctrine of a moral sense, which
apprehends of itself the distinctions of right and
wrong, and is not merely the product of society or
association, has its origin in tte Platonic theory of
"reminiscence."
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