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PLATO, AND THE OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.

ABERDEEN UNIVERSITY PRESS.

PLATO,

AND THE

OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES:

GEORGE GROTE

ANEW EDITION.

IN FOUR VOLUMES.
Vou. I.

LONDON: |
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1885.

The right of Translation is reserved.

ar the present Edition, with a view to the distribution into four
' volumes, there isa slight transposition of the author’s arrangement.
His concluding chapters (XXXVIII., XXXIX.), entitled ‘‘ Other
Mompanions of Sokrates,” and ‘‘ Xenophon,” are placed in the First
Volume, as chapters III. and IV. By this means each volume is made
up of. nearly related subjects, so as to possess a certain amount of
unity: cf

‘ Volume First contains the following subjects :—Speculative Philo-
sophy i in Greece before Sokrates ; Growth of Dialectic ; Other Com-
panigns of Sokrates; Xenophon; Life of Plato; Platonic Canon ;
Platéni¢. Compositions generally; Apology of Sokrates ; Kriton ;
Enthyphiron.

" Volume Second comprises :—Alkibiades I. and IJ. ; Hippias Major
“Hippids Minor ; Hipparchus—Minos ; Theages ; Eraste or Ante-
fastee—Rivales ; ; Ion; Laches; Charmides; Lysis; Euthydemus ;
Monox 5 Protagoras ; Gorgias ; Pheedon.

‘Volume Third :—Phsedrus—Symposion ; Parmenides ; Thestetus ;
Sophistes ; Politikus ; Kratylus ; Philebus; Menexenus; Kleitophon.

Volume Fourth :—Republic; Timeus and Kritiqs; Leges and
Epinomis; General Index.

The Volumes may be obtained separately

PREFACE.

Tue present work is intended as a sequel and supplement.
to my History of Greece, It describes a portion of Hellenic

philosophy: it dwells upon eminent individuals, enquiring,

theorising, reasoning, confuting, &c., as contrasted with those

collective political and social manifestations which form the

matter of history, and which the modern writer gathers from

Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon.

Both Sokrates and Plato, indeed, are interesting characters
in history as well asin philosophy. Under the former aspect,
they were described by me in my former work as copiously
as its general purpose would allow. But it is impossible to do
justice to either of them—above all, to Plato, with his extreme
variety and abundance—except in a book of which philosophy
is the principal subject, and history only the accessory.

The names of Plato and Aristotle tower above all others
in Grecian philosophy. Many compositions from both have
been preserved, though only a small proportion of the total
number left by Aristotle. Such preservation must be
accounted highly fortunate, when we read in Diogenes
Laertius and others, the long list of works on various topics
of philosophy, now irrecoverably lost, and known by little
except their titles, Respecting a few of them, indeed, we
obtain some partial indications from fragmentary extracts
and comments of’ later critics, But none of these once cele-
brated philosophers, except-Plato and Aristotle, can be fairly
appreciated upon evidence furnished by themselves. The
Platonic dialogues, besides the extraordinary genius which

vi PREFACE.

they display as compositions, bear thus an increased price
(like the Sibylline books) as the scanty remnants of a lost
philosophical literature, once immense and diversified.

Under these two points of view, I trust that the copious
analysis and commentary bestowed upon them in the present
work will not be considered as unnecessarily lengthened.
I maintain, full and undiminished, the catalogue of Plato’s
works as it was inherited from antiquity and recognised by
all critics before the commencement of the present century.
Yet since several subsequent critics have contested the canon,
and set aside as spurious many of the dialogues contained in
it, —I have devoted a chapter to this question, and to the
vindication of the views on which I have proceeded.

The title of these volumes will sufficiently indicate that
I intend to describe, as far as evidence permits, the condition
of Hellenic philosophy at Athens during the half century
immediately following the death of Sokrates in 399 zo,
My first two chapters do indeed furnish a brief sketch of
Pre-Sokratic philosophy: but I profess te take my departure
from Sokrates himself, and these chapters are inserted mainly
in order that the theories by which he found himself sur-
rounded may not be altogether unknown. Both here, and in
the sixty-ninth chapter of my History, I have done my best
to throw light on the impressive and eccentric personality
of Sokrates: a character original and unique, to whose pe-
culiar mode of working on other minds I scarcely know a
parallel in history. He was the generator, indirectly and
through others, of a new and abundant crop of compositions
—the “Sokratic dialogues”: composed by many different
authors, among whom Plato stands out as unquestionable
coryphaus, yet amidst other names well deserving respectful
mention as seconds, companions, or opponents.

It is these Sokratic dialogues, and the various companions of
Sokrates from whom they proceeded, that the present work is
intended to exhibit. They form the dramatic manifestation

PREFACE. Vii

of Hellenic philosophy—as contrasted with the formal and
systematising, afterwards prominent in Aristotle.

But the dialogue is a process containing commonly a
large intermixture, often a preponderance, of the negative
vein: which was more abundant and powerful in Sokrates
than in any one. In discussing the Platonic dialogues, I
have brought this negative vein into the foreground. It
reposes upon a view of the function and value of philo-
sophy which is less dwelt upon than it ought to be, and for
which I here briefly prepare the reader.

Philosophy is, or aims at becoming, reasoned truth: an
aggregate of matters believed or disbelieved after conscious
process of examination gone through by the mind, and
capable of being explained to others: the beliefs being
either primary, knowingly assumed as self-evident—or con-
clusions resting upon them, after comparison of all relevant
reasons favourable and unfavourable. _ “Philosophia” (in the
words of Cicero), ‘‘ex rationum collatione consistit.” This is
not the form in which beliefs or disbeliefs exist with ordinary
minds: there has been no conscious examination—there is
no capacity of explaining to others—there is no distinct set-
ting out of primary truths assumed—nor have any pains been
taken to look out for the relevant reasons on both sides, and
weigh them impartially. Yet the beliefs nevertheless exist
as established facts generated by traditional or other au-
thority. They are sincere and often earnest, governing men’s
declarations and conduct. They represent a cause: in which
sentence has been pronounced, or a rule made absolute,
without having previously heard the pleadings.’

Now it is the purpose of the philosopher, first to bring
this omission of the pleadings into conscious notice—next to
discover, evolve, and bring under hearing the matters omitted,

1Napoléon, qui de temps en temps, neuf Thermidor. “C'est un proces
sance, songeait.& Hobesplorre δὲ ἃ cévee, avec Ia finesse daa arigcn tee

sa triste fin—interrogeait un jour son courtisan.—(Hippolyte Carnot—
archi-chancelier Cambacérés sur le sur Bartre, ( 100: Paris, 1842.) Notice

Vili PREFACE.

as far as they suggest themselves to his individual reason. He
claims for himself, and he ought to claim for all others alike,
the right of calling for proof where others believe without
proof-—of rejecting the received doctrines, if upon examination
the proof given appears to his mind unsound or insufficient
—and of enforcing instead of them any others which impress
themselves upon his mind as true. But the truth which he
tenders for acceptance must of necessity be reasoned truth ;
supported by proofs, defended by adequate replies against
preconsidered objections from others. Only hereby does it
properly belong to the history of philosophy: hardly even
hereby has any such novelty a chance of being fairly
weighed and appreciated.

When we thus advert to the vocation of philosophy, we
see that (to use the phrase of an acute modern author’)
it is by necessity polemical: the assertion of independent
reason by individual reasoners, who dissent from the unrea-
soning belief which reigns authoritative in the social atmo-
sphere around them, and who recognise no ccrrection or

by the way of reason. That is its de-
finition. A system, therefore, which
reaches the truth but not by the wa

of reason, is not philosophy at all,
and has therefore no scientific worth.

1 Professor Ferrier, in his instruc-
tive volume, ‘The Institutes of Meta-
physic,’ has some valuable remarks
on the scope and purpose of Philo-
sophy. I transcribe some of them, in

abridgment.

(Sections 1-8)—‘‘A system of phi-
losophy is bound by two main re-
uisitions: it ought to be true—and
it ought to be reasoned. Philo-
sophy, in its ideal perfection, is a body
of reasoned truth. Of these obliga-
tions, the latter is the more stringent.
It is more proper that philosophy
should be reasoned, than that it should
be true: because, while truth may
perhaps be unattainable by man, to
reason is certainly his province and
within his power. . . . A system isof
the highest value only when it em-
braces both these requisitions—that
is, when it is both true, and reasoned.
But a system which is reasoned with-
out being true, is always of her
value than a system which is true
without being reasoned. The latter
kind of system is of no value: because
philosophy is the attainment of truth

Again, an unreasoned philosophy, even
though true, carries no guarantee of
its truth. It may be true, but it can-
not be certain. On the other hand,
a system, which is reasoned without
being true, has always some value.
It creates reason by exercising it. It
is employing the proper means to reach
truth, though it may fail to reach
it.” (Sections 38-41)—‘‘ The student
will find that the system here sub-
mitted to his attention is of a very
polemical character. Why! Because
philosophy exists only to correct the
inadvertencies of man’s ordinary think-
ing. She has no other mission to fulfil.
If man naturally thinks aright, he
need not be taught to think aright.
If he is already in possession of the
truth, he does not require to be put
in asion of it. The occupation of
Β osophy is gone: her office is super-

uous. Therefore philosophy assumes

refutation except from the counter-reason of others. We
see besides, that these dissenters from the public will
also be, probably, more or less dissenters from each other.
The process of philosophy may be differently performed by
two enquirers equally free and sincere, even of the same age
and country: and it is sure to be differently performed, if
they belong to ages and countries widely apart. It is essen-
tially relative to the individual reasoning mind, and to the
medium by which the reasoner is surrounded. Philosophy
herself has every thing to gain by such dissent; for it is
only thereby that the weak and defective points of each
point of view are likely to be exposed. If unanimity is not
attained, at least each of the dissentients will better under-
stand what he rejects as well as what he adopts.

The number of individual intellects, independent, inqui-
sitive, and acute, is always rare everywhere; but was com-
paratively less rare in these ages of Greece. The first topic,
on which such intellects broke loose from the common con-
sciousness of the world around them, and struck out new points
of view for themselves, was in reference to the Kosmus or
the Universe. The received belief, of a multitude of unseen
divine persons bringing about by volitions all the different
phenomena of nature, became unsatisfactory to men like
Thales, Anaximander, Parmenides, Pythagoras, Anaxagoras.
Each of these volunteers, following his own independent
inspirations, struck out a new hypothesis, and endeavoured

PREFACE.

and must assume that man does not
naturally think aright, but must be
taught to do so: that truth does not
come to him spontaneously, but must
be brought to him by his own ex-
ertions. If man does not naturall

think aright, he must think, we sha

not say wrongly (for that implies ma-
lice prepense) but inadvertently: the
native occupant of his mind must be
we shall not say falsehood (for that
too implies malice prepense) but error.
The original dowry then of universal
man is inadvertency and error.
assumption is the und and only
justification of the existence of philo-

sophy. The circumstance that philo-
sophy exists only to put right the
oversights of common binking—ren-
ders her polemical not by choice, but by
necessity. She is controversial as the
very tenure and condition of her exist-
ence: for how can she correct the slips
of common opinion, the oversights of
natural thinking, except by contro-
verting them ?”

Professor Ferrier deserves high com.
mendation for the care taken in this
volume to set out clearly Proposition

his and Counter-Proposition: the thesis

which he impugns, as well as that
which he sustains.

x PREFACE.

to commend it to others with more or less of sustaining
reason, ‘There appears to have been little of negation or
refutation in their procedure. None of them tried to dis-
prove the received point of view, or to throw its supporters
upon their defence. Each of them unfolded his own
hypothesis, or his own version of affirmative reasoned
truth, for the adoption of those with whom it might find
favour.

The dialectic age had not yet arrived. When it did
atrive, with Sokrates as its principal champion, the topics
of philosophy were altered, and its process revolutionised.
We have often heard repeated the Ciceronian dictum—that
Sokrates brought philosophy down from the heavens to the
earth: from the distant, abstruse, and complicated phenomena
of the Kosmos—in respect to which he adhered to the vulgar
point of view, and even disapproved any enquiries tending
to rationalise it—to the familiar business of man, and the
common generalities of ethics and politics. But what has
been less observed about Sokrates, though not less true, is,
that along with this change of topics he introduced a com-
plete revolution in method. He placed the negative in the
front of his procedure ; giving to it a point, an emphasis,
a substantive value, which no one had done before. His
peculiar gift was that of cross-examination, or the application
of his Elenchus to discriminate pretended from real know-
ledge. He found men full of confident beliefs on these
ethical and political topics—affirming with words which they
had never troubled themselves to define—and persuaded that
they required no farther teaching: yet at the same time
unable to give clear or consistent answers to his questions,
and shown by this convincing test to be destitute of real
knowledge. Declaring this false persuasion of knowledge, or
confident unreasoned belief, to be universal, he undertook,
as the mission of his life, to expose it: and he proclaimed
that until the mind was disabused thereof and made’ pain-

PREFACE, xi

fully conscious of ignorance, no affirmative reasoned truth
could be presented with any chance of success.

Such are the peculiar features of the Sokratic dialogue,
exemplified in the compositions here reviewed. I do not
mean that Sokrates always talked so; but that such was
the marked peculiarity which distinguished his talking from
that of others, It is philosophy, or reasoned truth, ap-
proached in the most polemical manner; operative at first
only to discredit the natural, unreasoned intellectual growths
of the ordinary mind, and to generate a painful consciousness
of ignorance. I say this here, and I shall often say it again
throughout these volumes, It is absolutely indispensable to
the understanding of the Platonic dialogues; one half of
which must appear unmeaning, unless construed with refer-
ence to this separate function and value of negative dialectic.
Whether readers may themselves agree in such estimation
of negative dialectic, is another question: but they must
keep it in mind as the governing sentiment of Plato during
much of his life, and of Sokrates throughout the whole of
life: as being moreover one main cause of that antipathy
which Sokrates inspired to many respectable orthodox con-
temporaries, I have thought it right to take constant ae-
count of this orthodox sentiment among the ordinary public,
as the perpetual drag-chain, even when its force is not abso-
lutely repressive, upon free speculation.

Proceeding upon this general view, I have interpreted the
numerous negative dialogues in Plato as being really nega-
tive and nothing beyond. I have not presumed, still less
tried to divine, an ulterior affirmative beyond what the text
reveals—neither arcana celestia, like Proklus and Ficinus,
nor any other arcanum of terrestrial character. While giving
such an analysis of each dialogue as my space permitted and

1F. A, Wolf, Vorrede, Plato, Sym- coelestia: und da er sie in seinem

pos. P vi. . Kopfe mitbrachte, so konnte es ihm
Ficinus suchte, wie er sich in der nicht sauer werden, etwas zu finden,
Zueignungsschrift seiner Version aus- was freilich jedem andern verborgea

driickt, im Platon allenthalben arcana bleiben muss.”

Xl PREFACE.

as will enable the reader to comprehend its general scope
and peculiarities—I have studied each as it stands written,
and have rarely ascribed to Plato any purpose exceeding
what he himself intimates. Where I find difficulties forcibly
dwelt upon without any solution, I imagine, not that he had
a good solution kept back in his closet, but that he had
failed in finding one: that he thought it useful, as a portion
of the total process necessary for finding and authenticating
reasoned truth, both to work out these unsolved difficulties
for himself, and to force them impressively upon the atten-
tion of others,"

Moreover, I deal with each dialogue as a separate compo-
sition. Each represents the intellectual scope and impulse
of a peculiar moment, which may or may not be in harmony
with the rest. Plato would have protested not less earnestly
than Cicero,” against those who sought to foreclose debate, in
the grave and arduous struggles for searching out reasoned
truth—and to bind down the free inspirations of his intellect
in one dialogue, by appealing to sentence already pronounced

1A striking passage from Bentham
illustrates very well both the Sokratic
and the Platonic point of view. (Prin-
ciples of Morals and Legislation, vol.
ii. ch. xvi. Ὁ. 57, ed. 123°)

“Gross ignorance descries no diffi-
culties. Imperfect knowledge finds
them out and struggles with them. It
must be perfect knowledge that over-
comes them.”

Of the three different mental con-
ditions here described, the first is that
against which Sokrates made war, 1.e.
real ignorance, and false persuasion of
knowledge, which therefore descries
no difficulties.

The second, or imperfect knowledge
struggling with difficulties, is repre-
sented by the Platonic negative dia-

ogues.

he third—or perfect knowledge
victorious over difficulties—will be
found in the following pages marked
by the character τὸ δύνασθαι λόγον
διδόναι καὶ δέχεσθαι. You do not pos-
sess ‘‘perfect knowledge,” until you
are able to answer, with unfaltering

promptitude and consistency, all the
questions of a Sokratic cross-examiner
—and to administer effectively the like
cross-examination yourself, for the pur-
pose of testing others. Ὅλως δὲ ση-
μεῖον τοῦ εἰδότος τὸ δύνασθαι διδάσκειν

ἔστιν. (Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 981,

Perfect knowledge, corresponding to
this definition, will not be found mani-
fested in Plato. Instead of it, we note
in his latter years the lawgiver’s as-
sumed infallibility.

2 Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 11, 38.

The collocutor remarks that what
Cicero says is inconsistent with what

he (Cicero) had written in the fourth
book De Finibus. To which Cicero
replies :—~

‘Tu quidem tabellis obsignatis agis
mecum, et testificaris, quid dixerim
aliquando aut scripserim Cum aliis
isto modo, qui legibus impositis dis-
putant. Nos in diem vivimus: quod-
cunque nostros animos probabilitate
percussit, id dicimus: itaque soli
sumus liberi.”

PREFACE, sili
in another preceding. Of two inconsistent trains of reason-
ing, both cannot indeed be true—but both are often useful
to be known and studied: and the philosopher, who pro-
fesses to master the theory of his subject, ought not to be a
stranger to either. All minds athirst for reasoned truth will
be greatly aided in forming their opinions by the number
of points which Plato suggests, though they find little which
he himself settles for them finally.

There have been various critics, who, on perceiving incon-
sistencies in Plato, either force them into harmony by a
subtle exegésis, or discard one of them as spurious.’ I have
not followed either course. I recognise such inconsistencies,
when found, as facts—and even as very interesting facts—in
his philosophical character. To the marked contradiction in
the spirit of the Leges, as compared with the earlier Platonic
compositions, I have called special attention. Plato has been
called by Plutarch a mixture of Sokrates with Lykurgus.
The two elements are in reality opposite, predominant at
different times: Plato begins his career with the confessed
ignorance and philosophical negative of Sokrates: he closes
it with the peremptory, dictatorial, affirmative of Ly-
kurgus.

To Xenophon, who belongs only in part to my present
work, and whose character presents an interesting contrast
with Plato, I have devoted a separate chapter. To the other
less celebrated Sokratic Companions also, I have endeavoured
to do justice, as far as the scanty means of knowledge permit:

1Since the publication of the first

must be spurious, falsely ascribed to
edition of this work, there have ap-

Sir William Hamilton.

peared valuable commentaries on the
hilosophy of the late Sir William
Hamilton, by Mr. John Stuart Mill,
and Mr. Stirling and others. The

have exposed inconsistencies, bot

grave and numerous, in some parts
of Sir William Hamilton’s writings as
compared with others. But no one
bas dreamt of drawing an inference
from this fact, that one or other of
the inconsistent trains of reasoning

Now in the case of Plato, this same
fact of inconsistency is accepted by
nearly all his commentators as a
sound basis for the inference that
both the inconsistent treatises cannot
be genuine: though the dramatic
character of Plato’s writings makes
inconsistencies much more easily sup-
posable than in dogmatic treatises
such as those of Hamilton.

xiv PREFACE,

to them, especially, because they have generally been miscon-
ceived and unduly depreciated.

The present volumes, however, contain only one half of the
speculative activity of Hellas during the fourth century 8.0.
The second half, in which Aristotle is the hero, remains still
wanting. If my health and energies continue, I hope one
day to be able to supply this want: and thus to complete
from my own point of view, the history, speculative as well
as active, of the Hellenic race, down to the date which I pre-
scribed to myself in the Preface of my History near twenty
years ago.

The philosophy of the fourth century B.c. is peculiarly
valuable and interesting, not merely from its intrinsic specu-
lative worth—from the originality and grandeur of its two
principal heroes—from its coincidence with the full display
of dramatic, rhetorical, artistic genius—but also from a fourth
reason not unimportant—because it is purely Hellenic ; pre-
ceding the development of Alexandria, and the amalgama-
tion of Oriental veins of thought with the inspirations of the
Academy or the Lyceum. The Orontes’ and the Jordan
had not yet begun to flow westward, and to impart their own
colour to the waters of Attica and Latium. Not merely
the real world, but also the ideal world, present to the minds
of Plato and Aristotle, were purely Hellenic. Even during
the century immediately following, this had ceased to be
fully true in respect to the philosophers of Athens: and it
became less and less true with each succeeding century.
New foreign centres of rhetoric and literature—Asiatic and
Alexandrian Hellenism—were fostered into importance by
regal encouragement. Plato and Aristotle are thus the
special representatives of genuine Hellenic philosophy. The
remarkable intellectual ascendancy acquired by them in
their own day, and maintained over succeeding centuries, was

1 Juvenal iii, 62 :-— ; \
‘‘ Jampridem Syrus in Tiberim defluxit Orontes,” ὅσ.

PREFACE. xv

one main reason why the Hellenic vein was enabled so long
to maintain itself, though in impoverished condition, against
adverse influences from the East, ever increasing in force.
Plato and Aristotle outlasted all their Pagan successors—
successors at once less purely Hellenic and less highly gifted.
And when Saint Jerome, near 750 years after the decease
of Plato, commemorated with triumph the victory of unlet-
tered Christians over the accomplishments and genius of
Paganism—he illustrated the magnitude of the victory, by
singling out Plato and Aristotle as the representatives of
vanquished philosophy.’

1The passage is a remarkable one
as marking both the effect produce
on a Latin scholar by Hebrew studies,
and the neglect into which even the

reatest writers of classical antiquity

ad then fallen (about 400 a.D.).

Hieronymus—Comment. in Epist.
ad Galatas, iii. 5, p. 486-487, ed. Venet.
1769 :—

‘Sed omnem sermonis elegantiam,
et Latini sermonis venustatem, stridor
lectionis Hebraic sordidavit. Nostis
enim etipse” (v.e. Paula and Eusto-
chium, to whom his letter is ad-
dressed) “quod plus quam quindecim
anni sunt, ex quo in manus meas nun-
quam Tullius, nunquam Maro, nun-

uam Gentilium lterarum guilivet
uctor ascendit: et si quid forte inde,

dum loquimur, obrepit, quasi antiqua
per nebulam somnii recordamur. Quod
autem profecerim ex lingue illius in-
fatigabili studio, aliorum judicio dere-
linquo: ego quid in med amiserim
scio . . . Siquis eloquentiam querié
vel declamationibus delectatur, habet
in utrique lingu&é Demosthenem et
Tullium, Polemonem et Quintilianum.
Ecclesia Christi non de Academia et
Lyceo, sed de vili plebeculi congre-
gataest. . . . Quotusquisque nunc
Aristotelem legit? Quanti Platonis
vel libros novére vel nomen? Vix in
angulis otiosi eos senes recolunt. Rus-
ticanos vero et piscatores nostros totus
orbis loquitur, universus mundus
sonat,’

CONTENTS.

— ome

PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY.

CHAPTER I.

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY IN GREECE, BEFORE AND IN THE TIME
oF SoKRATES,

PAGE

Change in the political condition
of Greece during the life‘of Plato
Early Greek mind, satisfled with
the belief in polytheistic per-
sonal agents, as the real produc-
ing causes of phenomena .. ..
Belief in such agency continued
among the general public, even
after the various sects of philo-
sophy hadarisen .. .. .. ..
Thales, the first Greek who pro-
pounded the hypothesis of phy-
sical agency in place of personal.
Water, the primordial substance,
OY ἀρχή .. .. we nets
Anaximander—laid down a8 ἀρχὴ
the Infinite or Indeterminate—
generation of the elements out
of it, by evolution of latent,
fundamental contraries — astro-
nomical and geological doctrines
Anaximenes —adopted Air as ἀρχὴ
—rise of substances out of it, by
condensation and rarefaction ..
Pythagoras—his life and career—
Pythagorean brotherhood—great
political influence which it ac-
quired among the Greco-Italian
cities —incurred great enmity,
and was violently put down
The Pythagoreans continue as a
recluse sect, without political
power .. .. 0. 6. we wee
Doctrine of the Pythagoreans—
Number the Essence of Things
The Monas—Apx7, or principle of
Number — geometrical concep-
tion of number—symbolical at-
tributes of the first ten numbers,
especially of the Dekad .

id.

ἐδ.

PAGE

Pythagorean Kosmos and Astro-
nomy — geometrical and _har-
monic laws guiding the move-
ments of the cosmical bodies ..

Music of the Spheres... .. ...

Pythagorean list of fundamental
Contraries—Ten opposin pairs

Eleatic philosophy—Xenophanes

His censures upon the received
Theogony and religious rites

His doctrine of Pankosmism ; or
Pantheisin—the whole Kosmos
is Ens Unum or God—Ep καὶ
Wav. Non-Ens inadmissible

Scepticism of Xenophanes—com-

aint of philosophy as unsatis-
actory .. .

His conjectures
astronomy... .. .. .. νων

Parmenides continues the doctrine
of Xenophanes—Ens Parmenid-
eum, self-existent, eternal, un-
changeable, extended—Non-Ens,
an unmeaning phrase... .. ..

He recognises a region of opinion

henomenal and relative, apart
rom Ens .. .. .. «1 os ae

Parmenidean ontology — stands
completely apart from pheno-
menolo .

Parmenidean
relative and variable ον

Parmenides recognises no truth,
but more or less of probability, in
phenomenal explanations.—His
physical and astronomical con-
ectures .. .. eee oe we

Herakleitus—his obscure style, im-
pressive metaphors, confident
and contemptuous dogmatism ..

on physics and

phenomenology -

XVlii

PAGE

Doctrine of Herakleitus—perpet-
ual process of generation and
destruction — everything flows,
nothing stands—transition of the
elements into each other back-
wards and forwards .. .. ..

Variety of metaphors employed by
Herakleitus, signifying the same
general doctrine oe ae es

Nothing permanent except the law
of process and implication of
contraries — the transmutative
force. Fixity of particulars is
an illusion for the most part: so
far as it exists, it isa sin against
the order of Nature... .. ..

Mlustrations by which Herakleitus
symbolized his perpetual force,
destroying and generating .. -.

Water—Intermediate between Fire
(Air)and Earth .. .. .. ..

Sun and Stars—not solid bodies,
but meteoric aggregations dissi-

ated and renewed—Eclipses—
ἐκπύρωσις, or destruction of the
Kosmos by fire we ee ὡν

His doctrines respecting the human
soul and human knowledge. All

- wisdom resided in the Universal
Reason — individual Reason is
worthless .. .. -. «es

By Universal Reason, he did not
mean the Reason of most men as
itis, but as it ought tobe... ..

Herakleitus at the opposite pole
from Parmenides .._ . .. ..

Empedokles—his doctrine of the
four elements and two moving or
restraining forces .. .. .. ..

Construction of the Kosmos from
these elements and forces—
action and counteraction of love
and enmity. The Kosmos alter-
nately made andunmade .. ..

Empedoklean predestined cycle o
thin eelmplote empire of Love
—Sp serus—Empire of Enmity

se ement or separation
of the elements—astronomy and
meteorology cee ne ee te

Formation of the Earth, of Gods,
men, animals, and plants .. ..

Physiology of Empedokles—Pro-
creation — Respiration — move-
ment of the blood .. ve ον

Doctrine of effluvia and pores—
explanation of perceptions—in-
tercommunication of the ele-
ments with the sentient subject
—like acting upon like see

Sense of vision .. .. .. 2...

Senses of hearing, smell, taste ..

Empedokles d ed that justice

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

Ῥ
absolutely forbade the killing of
anything that had life. His be-
lief in the metempsychosis. Suf-
ferings of life, are an expiation
for wrong done during an ante-
cedent life. Pretensions to
magical power... .. 0 .. .. ὦν

Complaint of Empedokles on the
impossibility of finding out truth

Theory of Anaxagoras—denied ge-
neration and destruction—recog-
nised only mixture and severance
of pre-existing kinds of matter

Homcomeries—small particles of
diverse kinds of matter, all mixed
together .. .. .. «2 2. ὡς

First condition of things—all the
primordial varieties of matter
were huddied together in con-
fusion. Νοῦς or reason, distinct
from all of them, supervened and
acted upon this confused mags,
setting the constituent particles
in movement .. .. .. .. ..

Movement of rotation in the mass
originated by Νοῦς on a smal
scale, but gradually extending
itself. Like particles congregate
together— distinguishable aggre-
gates areformed .. .. .. ..

Nothing (except Νοῦς) can be en-
tirely pure or unmixed; but
other things may be compara-
tively pure. Flesh, Bone, &c.,
are purer than Air or Earth |:

Theory of Anaxagoras, compared
with that of Empedokles .. ..

Suggested partly by the phenomen
of animal nutrition .. .. ..

Chaos common to both Empedo-
kles and Anaxagoras: moving
agency, different in one from
the othertheory .. .. .. ..

Νοῦς, or mind, postulated Ὁ
Anaxagoras —- how understoo
by later writers—how intended
by Anaxagoras himself .. ..

Plato and Aristotle blame Anaxa-

oras for deserting his own

Astronomy and physics of Anaxa-
goras eae ee ue te we we

His geology, meteorology, physio-
0 ΝΕ ne ee we

The doctrines of Anaxagoras were
regarded as offensive and impious

Diogenes of Apollonia recognises
one primordial element .. ..

Air was the primordial, universal
element .. .. «2 oe +e oe

Air possessed numerous and di-
verse pro erties ; was eminently
m b. 2) ea e oe ee ef

AGE

46
47

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

PAGE

Physiology of Diogenes—his de-
scription of the veins in the
human body .. .. .. .. ..

Kosmology and Meteorology.. ..

Leukippus and Demokritus —
Atomictheory.. .. .. .. .-.

Long life, varied travels, and nu-
merous compositions, of Demo-
kritus .. .. .u 5e oe ewe

Relation between the theory of
Demokritus and that of Par-
menides .. .. .. we eee

Demokritean theory — Atoms —
Flena and Vacua—Ens and Non-

1: .. «νον ων ννρ νρο ων

Primordial atoms differed only in
magnitude, figure, position, and
arrangement—they had no qua-
lities, but their movements and
combinations generated qualities

Combination of atoms—generat-
ing different qualities in the
compound... .. .. .. «εὖ ὦν

All atoms essentially separate from
each other... .. .. .. 2. ὦν

All properties of objects, except
weight and hardness, were phe-
nomenal and relative to the
observer. Sensation could give
no knowledge of the real and
absolute ee ee ee ne we

Reason alone gave true and real
knowledge, but very little of it
was attainable ΝΞ ΞΕ

No separate force required to set

62
64
65
ab.
66

xix

PAGE

the atoms in motion—they moved
by an inherent force of their
own. Like atoms naturally tend
towards like. Rotatory motion,
the capital fact of the Kosmos
Researches of Demokritus on zoo-
logy and animal generation ..
His account of mind—he identified
it with heat or fire, diffused
throughout animals, plants, and
nature generally. Mental par-
ticles intermingled throughout
all frame with corporeal par-
ticles .. .. 06. ων ee eee
Different mental aptitudes attached
to different parts of the body ..
Explanation of different sensations
and perceptions. Colours... ..
Vision caused by the outilow of
effluvia or images from objects.
Hearing .. .. .. .. ue ee
Difference of tastes—how explained
Thought or intelligence—was pro-
duced by influx of atoms from
without .. .. 6. we we ὡς
Sensation, obscure knowledge re-
lative to the sentient : Thought,
genuine knowledge-— absolute, or
Object per ὃ. .. ww ww we
Idola or images were thrown off
from objects, which determined
the tone of thoughts, feelings,
dreams, divinations, ἄς. .. ..
Universality of Demokritus— his
ethical views .. .. .. .. «.

CHAPTER II.

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHERS—GROWTH OF
DIALECTIC— ZENO AND GORGIAS.

Variety of sects and theories—
multiplicity of individual autho-
rities is the characteristic of
Greek philosophy rr

These early theorists are not
known from their own writings,
which have been lost. Import-
ance of the information of Ari-
stotle aboutthem .. .. .. ..

Abundance of speculative genius
and invention—a memorable fact
in the Hellenic mind .. .. ..

Difficulties which a Grecian philo-
sopher had to overcome—preva-
lent view of Nature, established,
impressive, and misleadin .

Views of the Ionic philosophers—
compared with the more recent
abstractions of Plato and Ari-
Β Θ ee ee ee es ee ee @e

. 1.

Parmenides and Pythagoras—more

72
75

ib.

81
82

nearly akin to Platoand Aristotle 89

Advantage derived from this va-
riety of constructive imagination
among the Greeks... .. .. ..

All these theories were found in
circulation by Sokrates, Zeno,
Plato, and the dialecticians. Im.
portance of the scrutiny of
negative Dialectic... .. .. ..

The early theorists were studied,
along with Plato and Aristotle,
in the third and second centuries
BC... ΕΞ one

N ogative attribute common to all
the early theorists—little or no
dialectic .. .. .. 1. oe ν

Zeno of Elea—Melissus .. .. ..

Zeno’s Dialectic—he refuted the
opponents of Parmenides, by

ΧΧ

PAGE
showing that their assumptions
led to contradictions and ab-
surdities .

Consequences of their assumption
of Entia Plura Discontinua.
Reductiones ad absurdum.. ..

Each thing must exist in its own
place—Grain of millet not so-
norous.. .

Zenonian arguments ‘in regard to
motion.

General pu ose and result of the
Zenonian Dialectic. Nothing is
knowable except the relative..

Mistake of supposing Zeno’s reduc-
tiones ad absurdum of an op-

onent’s doctrine, to be contra-
ictions of data generalized

05
97

from experience... 99
Zenonian Dialectic—Platonic Par.
menides . 100

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

PAG
Views of historians of philosophy.
respecting Zeno
Absolute and relative—the first,
unknowable __.. ib.
Zeno did not den motion, | as ἃ
fact, phenomenal and relative .. 102
Gorgias the Leontine — did not
admit the Absolute, even as con-
ceived by Parmenides.. 103
His reasonings against the Abso-
lute, either as Ens or Entia .. ἐδ.
Ens, incogitable and unknowable 104
Ens, even if granted to be know-
able, is still incommunicable to
others... .. .. .. .. .. 2. ἡ
Zeno and Gorgias—contrasted with
the earlier Grecian philosophers 105
New character of Grecian philo-
sophy—antithesis of affirmative
and negative—proof and dis-
proof .. .. 2 ee ἴδ.

CHAPTER IIT.

OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES,

Influence exercised by Sokrates
over his companions . 1

Names of those companions.. .. 111

Atschines — Oration of Lysias

wepninst him 112
ten Sokratic Dialogues—their
eneral character .. . . 114

Relations between the companions
of Sokrates — Their roceedings |
after the death of Sokrates ..

No Sokratic school—each of the.
companions took a line of his
OWN... .. oe ee we ee we 117

Eukleides of Megara—he blended
Parmenides with Sokrates.. .. 118

Doctrine of Eukleides about Bonum 119

The doctrine compared to that of

Plato—changesin Plato .. .. i.
Last doctrine of Plato nearly the

same as Eukleides.. . 120
Megaric succession of philosophers.

eian or Eretrian succession .. 121
Doctrines of Antisthenes and Aris-
tippus — Ethical, not transcen-

ental .. 122
Preponderance of the negative vein

in the Platonic age 123
Harsh manner in w nich historians
of ' Philosophy censure the nega-

vein
N egative method in philosophy es-
sential to the controul of the
affirmative...
Sokrates — the most persevering
. and acute Eristic of hisage ..

Platonic Parmenides—its extreme
negative character... 125.
The Megarics shared ‘the negative
impulse with Sokrates and
Plato .. 126
Eubulides — his. logical problems
or puzzles—difficulty of solving
them—many solutions attempted 128
Real character of the Megaric
sophisms, not calculated to de-
ceive, but to guard against de-
ception 1
If the process of theorising be ad-
missible, it must include nega-
tive as well as affirmative ον 1
Logical position of the Megaric phi-
losophers erroneously described
by historians of philosophy. Ne-
cessity of a complete collection
of difficulties .. 181
Sophisms propounded by Eubulides.
1, Mentiens. 2. The Veiled Man.
8. Sorites. 4. Cornutus .. .. 188
Causes of error constant—The Me-
garics = were sentinels against

Controversy of the Megarics with
Aristotle about Power. Argu-
ments of Aristotle... ib.

These arguments not valid against
the Megarici .. 186.

His argument cited and criti- 187

cised
Potential | as " disting uished from
the Actual—Whatitis.. .. .. 189

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

AGE

Diodérus Kronus — his doctrine
about τὸ δυνατόν .. 140

Sophism of Diodérus—' ο Κυριεύων 141

Question between Aristotle and
Dioddrus, depends upon whether
universal regularity of sequence
be admitted or denied . ib,

Conclusion of Dioddrus—defended
by Hobbes—Explanation given
by Hobbes..

Reasonings of Diodbrus—respect-
ing Hypothetical Propositions—
respecting Motion. His diffi-
culties about the Now of time .. 145

Motion i is always present, past, and 1

143

futur
Stilpon of Megara—His great cele.

Menedénius 6 and the Eretriacs .. "348

Open speech and licence of cen-
sure assumed by Mened@émus .. 149

Antisthenes took up Ethics prin-
cipally, but with negative Logic
intermingled ον ib.

He copied the manner of life of
Sokrates, in plainness and rig-
our 150

Doctrines of Antisthenes exclu-
sively ethical and ascetic. He
cere music, literature, and 16]

Constant friendship of Antisthenes
with Sokrates — Xenophontic
Symposion. . 15

Diogenes, successor of Antisthenes
“His Cynical perfection—strik-

effect which he produced .. ὁ.

Doc rines and smart sayings of

Diogenes—Contempt of pleasure

—training and labour required

—indifference to literature and

eometry 154
iration of Epiktétus ‘for Dio-
genes, especially for his consist-
ency in acting out his own ethical
creed ..

Admiration excited ‘by the asce-
ticism of the Cynics — Asceti-
cism extreme in the East. Com-
parison of the Indian Gymnoso-
phists with Diogenes ..

The precepts an principles laid
down by Sokrates were carried
into, fullest execution by the

08... oe ee one

Antithesis between Nature—and
Law or Convention—insisted on
by the Indian Gymnosophists .. 162

The Greek Cynics — an order of
ascetic or mendicant friars.. .. 168

Logical views of Antisthenes and

iogenes — they opposed the
Pla nic Ideas os oe en ee ib.

160

ΧΧῚ

First protest of Nominalism against
Re 164

Doctrine of Antisthenes about
predication—He admits no other
predication but identical .. .. 165

The same doctrine asserted b
Btilpo on, after the time of Ari-
stotle ..

Nominalism of Stilpon. “His rea-
sons against accidental predica-

tion

Difficulty of understanding ‘how
the same predicate could belong
to more than one subject 169

8 Analogous difficulties in the Pla-

tonic Parmenides ..

uw Menedémus disallowed all negative

predications ..

Distinction ascribed to Antisthe-
nes between simple and complex
objects. Simple objects unde- |
finable ..

Remarks of Plato on this doctrine ΤΣ

Remarks of Aristotle upon the
same .. . i

Later Grecian Cynics — Monimus
—Krates— Hipparchia .. .

Zeno of Kitium in Cyprus: .

Aristippus — life, character, and
doctrine.

Discourse of Sokrates with Ati. -

stippus ον .
Choice of Héraklés ον 17

9} Iustration afforded of the views

of aes respecting Good and

Comparison of the Xenophontic
Sokrates with the Platonic So-
-krates.. ..

Xenophontic Sokrates talking
Aristippus—Kalliklés in Platonic
Gorgias 179

Language held by Aristippus—his
scheme of 181

Diversified so versations of So-
krates, according to the cha-
racter of the hearer...

Conversation between Sokratesand
Aristip ppus 8 about the Good and
Beaut

Remarks on the conversation — --
Theory of Good ..

Good is relative to human beings
and wants in the view of So-
krates Ἵ

Aristippus ad adhered to the doctrine

1
Life and dicta of Aristippus—His
type of character ..
Aristippus acted conformably to
the advice of Sokrates.. . 187
Self mastery and inde ndence—
the great aspiration of Aristippus 188

ΧΧΙΣ

PAG
Aristippus compared with Antis-
thenes and Diogenes—Points of
agreement and disagreement be-
tweenthem .. .... .. ..1
Attachment of Aristippus to ethics
and philosophy — contempt for
other studies . .. .. .. ..
Aristippus taught as a Sophist.
His reputation thus acquired
procured for him the attentions
of Dionysius and others .. .. 1
Ethical theory of Aristippus and
the Kyrenaic philosophers... .. 105
Prudence—good, by reason of the
pleasure which it ensured, and
of the pains which it was neces-
sary to avoid. Just and honour-
able, by law or custom-—not Ὁ
nature... ... 6. 2. 66 ee ὦν
Their logical theory — nothing
knowable except the pheno-
menal, our own sensations and

Xe)

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

PAGE
feelings —no knowledge of the
absolute .. .. .. .. « .. 197
Doctrines of Antisthenes and Aris-
tippus passed to the Stoics and
Epikureans .. .. .. «2 ων
Ethical theory of Aristippus is
identical with that of the Pla-
tonic Sokrates in the Protagoras 199
Difference in the manner of stating
the theory bythetwo.. .. ..
Distinction to be made between a
eneral theory—and the _par-
icular application of it made by
the theorist to his own tastes
and circumstances... .. .. .. 201
Kyrenaic theorists after Aristippus 202
Theoddérus — Annikeris—Hegesias ἰδ.

198

ἡ Hegesias—Low estimation of life—

renunciation of pleasure —coin-
cidence with the Cynics .. ..
Doctrine of Relativity affirmed by
the Kyrenaics, as well as by

Protagoras 204

CHAPTER IV.

XENOPHON.

Xenophon—his character—essen-
tially a man of action and not a
theorist — the Sokratic element
is in him an accessory... .. .. 206

Date of Xenophon—probable year
ofhisbirth .. .. .. .. .. 207

His personal history—He consults
Sokrates—takes the opinion of
the Delphian oracle .. .. ..

His service and command with the
Ten Thousand Greeks, after-
wards under Agesilaus and the
Spartans. — He is banished from
Athens wane ee we eee 209

His residence at Skillus near Olym- 210

pia... .. wk we ek ee
Family of Xenophon — his son

Gry! us killed at Mantineia .. ἐδ.
Death of Xenophon at Corinth—
Story of the Eleian Exegete .. 211

Xenophon different from Plato and
the other Sokratic brethren .. 212
His various works—Memorabilia,
(konomikus, &. .. .. .. .. 218
Ischomachus, hero of the kono-
mikus—ideal of an active citi-
ven, cultivator, husband, house-
master, &c. .. .. ww 0. 0,
Text upon which Xenophon in-
sists—capital difference between
command over subordinates will-
ing and subordinates unwilling
Probable circumstances generating

214

215

these reflections in Xenophon’s
mind .. .. .. .. «es we oe B15
This text affords subjects for the
Hieron and Cyropsedia—Name of
Sokrates not suitable .. .. .. 216
Hieron—Persons of the dialogue
—Simonides and Hieron .. 4d,
Questions put to Hieron, view
taken by Simonides. Answer of
Hieron... .. .. .. « .. 217
Misery of governin unwilling sub-
jects declared by Hieron .. 218
Advice to Hieron by Simonides—
that he should govern well, and
thus make himself beloved by
hissubjects .. .. .. .. .. 219
Probable experience had by Xeno-
phon of the feelings at Olympia
against Dionysius oe ee ee oe 220
Xenophon could not have chosen
a Grecian despot to illustrate
his theory of the happiness of
governing willing subjects... .. 222
Cyropedia— blending of Spartan
and Persian customs — Xeno-
hon’s experience of Cyrus the
ounger .. .. 6s ee oe ὦν
Portrait of Cyrus the Great—his
education—Preface to the Cyro-
pedia .. .. 6. we we ee ον
Xenophon does not solve his own
pro lem —The governing apti-
ude and popularity of Cyrus

4b.

228

CONTENTS OF VOLUME L

PA
come from nature, not from
education ..

Views of Xenophon ‘about public
and official training of all citizens 226
Details of (80 called) Persian
education — Severe discipline —
Distribution of four ages .. 227
Evidence of the good effect of this
discipline—Hard and dry con-
dition of the body . 228
Exemplary obedience of Cyrus to
the public discipline — He had
learnt justice well—His award
about the two coats—Lesson in-
culeated upon him by the Justice-

eo
ε9
σι

229

Kenop hon’ conception of the So-

atic problems— He does not

rece ise the Sokratic order of
solution of those problems.. .. 230
Definition given by Sokrates of
Justice—Insufficient to satisfy
the exigencies of the Sokratic
Be enchus - ὃ ‘tant
iography o yrus — cons n
military success earned by suit-
able qualities—Variety of cha-

racters and situations .._.
Generous and amiable qualities of
Cyrus. Abradates and Pantheia 283

Scheme of government devised by

Cyrus when his conquests are

com leted—Oriental espotism,
y arranged . 284

Ἔ

τὸ
oO
6

E
Persian present reality—is de-

XXill
PAGE

scribed by Xenophon as tho-

roughly epraved, in strikin

contr rast to the establishment o
yrus ..

Xenophon has good experience of
military and equestrian proceed-
ings—No experience of finance
and commerce.. ..

Discourse of Xenophon on Athe-
nian finance and the condition of
Athens. His admiration of active
commerce and variety of pursuits ἐδ.

Recognised poverty among the
citizens. Plan for improvement 238

Advantage of a large number of
Metics. How these may be en-
couraged ..

Proposal to raise by voluntary con-
tributions a large sum to be em-
ployed as capital by the city.

istribution of three oboli per
head per day to all the citizens.. 1%,

Purpose and principle of this dis.
tribution .... 240

Visionary antici ations of Xeno-
phon, financial and commercial 241

Xenophon exhorts his countrymen
to maintain peace..

Difference of the latest composi-
tions of Xenophon and Plato,
from their point of view in the
earlier .. ce ee ee

ib.

. 244

CHAPTER V.

Lire oF PLATO.

Scanty information about Plato’s

bo
oad
to]

Bis “birth, parentage, and early
education ..
Karly relations of Plato with So-
rates 248

bo
rg
-

Plato's youth—service as a citizen

and sol . .. 24
Period of political ambition .. |. 251
He becomes disgusted with litics 262

He retires from Athens after the
death of Sokrates—his travels .
His is permanent establishment at

ns—386 B.C.
He commences his teaching at the
cademy .. .. .. ose

258

ib. | Scholars of Plato .
Little known about: Plato’ 8 * personal ςς
4 .

Plato as a teacher—pupils nume-
rous and wealthy, from different
cities .

Visit of Plato to the " younger
Dionysius at Syracuse, 367 B.C.
Second visit to the same—mor-
tifying failure . .

Expedition of Dion against Diony-
sius—sympathies of Plato and
the Academy . 259

Success, misconduct, ‘and death of "

Dio .
Death of Plato aged & 80, 847 B.C... 260
Aristotle... .. 4.

. 255

history

XXiV

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 1.

CHAPTER VI.

PLATONIC CANON, AS RECOGNISED BY THRASYLLUS,

PAGE
Platonic Canon — Ancient and
modern discussions .. 2
Canon established by Thrasyllus.
Presumption initsfavour .. .
Fixed residence and school at
Athens—founded by Plato and
transmitted to successors .._..
Importance of this foundation.
Preservation of Plato’s manu-

scripts. Schoollibrary.. .. 266
Secu ty, provided by the school

for distinguishing what were

Plato’s genuine writings .. .. 267

Unfinished fragments and prepara-
tory sketches, preserved and
published after Plato’s death .. 268

Peripatetic school at the Lykeum
—its composition and arrange-
men . .. 269

Peripatetic school library its re-
moval from Athens to képsis—
its ultimate restitution in a
damaged state to Athens, then 7

Inconvenience to the} Peripatetic
school from the loss of its library ἰδ.

Advantage to the Platonic school
from having preserved its MSS. 272

Conditions favourable, for preserv-
ing the genuine works of Plato ἐδ,

Historical facts as to their preser.
vation .. 1b,

roy: “of them into Tri-

s by Aristophanes
hanes, librarian at the
A onarind library

Plato’s works in the Alexandrine
library, before the time of Ari-
stophanes.. .

Kallimachus—predecessor οὐ Ari-
stophanes—his published Tables
of authors whose works were in
the library..

Large and ra id ‘accumulation of
the Alexandrine Library . ib

Plato’s works—in the library at
the time of Kallimachus_ .. 2786

First formation of the library—
intended as a copy of the Pla-
tonic and Aristotelian Μουσεῖᾳ
at Athens...

Favour of Ptolemy Soter. towards
the philosophers at Athens.. .. 279

Demetrius Phalereus—his history ὦ
and character .

274

He was chief agent in the first
establishment 0 ‘the Alexandrine
Library... ce ee εν ον

AGE

282

Ῥ
Proceedings of Demetrius in be-
ginning to collect the library
Certainty that the works of Plato
and Aristotle were among the
earliest acqu uisitions made by

him for the library

δ. | Large expenses incurred by the

Ptolemies for procuring good
. 285

MSS.

Catalogue of Platonic works, " pre-
pared by Aristophanes, is trust-
worthy.. .

No canonical or exclusive order of
the Platonic dialogues, when
arranged by Aristophanes . . 286

Other libraries and literary centres,
besides Alexandria, in which
spurious Platonic works might

et footing

Other critics besides Aristophanes,
proposed different arrangements
of the Platonic dialogues ..

Panatius, the Stoic — considered
the Phedon to be spurious —
earliest known example of a
Platonic dialogue disallowed UP
on internal grounds _..

Classification of Platonic works by
the rhetor Thrasyllus—dramatic
—philosophical .

Dramatic principle—Tetralo ies |

Philosophical principle—Dia ogues
of Search—Dialogues of Expo-
sition .. 291

Incongruity and repugnance of the
two classifications .._ . 294

ἰδ.

ib.

. 28
ib.

; Dramatic principle of f classification

— was inherited by Thrasyllus
from Aristophanes... . 205

Authority of tthe Alexandrine li-
brary — editions of Plato pub-
lished, with the Alexandrine

critical marks

Thi syllus followed the Alexan-
drine library and Aristophanes,
as to genuine Platonic works

Ten spurious dialogues, rejected by
all other critics as well as by
Thrasyllus—evidence that these
critics followed the common
authority of the Alexandrine

Threwilas did not follow an inter-
nal sentiment of his own in re-
necting dialogues as spurious .. 298

ts as to the trustworthiness
Ret the Thrasyllean Canon .. .. 299

ib.

296

207

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

XXV

CHAPTER VII.

PLATONIC CANON, AS APPRECIATED AND MODIFIED BY MopERN
CRITIOS.

PAGE
The Canon of Thrasyllus continued
to be generally acknowledged,
by the Neo-Platonists, as well as
by Ficinus and the succeeding
critics after the revival of learnin,
Serranus—his six Syzygies—lef
the aggregate Canon unchanged,
Tennemann — importance as-
signed to the Pheedrus.. .. ..
Schleiermacher—new theory about
the purposes of Plato. One phi-
losophical scheme, conceived by
Plato from the beginning — es-
sential order and interdepend-
ence of the dialogues, as contri-
buting to the full execution of
this scheme. Some dialogues
not constituent items in the
series, but lying alongside of it.
Order of arrangement .. .. .. 808
Theory of Ast—he denies the
reality of any preconceived
scheme iders the dialogues
as distinct philosophical dramas
His order of arrangement. He
admits only fourteen dialogues
as genuine, rejecting all the rest
Socher agrees with Astin denying
preconceived scheme — his ar-
rangement of the dialogues, dif-
fering from both st and
Schleiermacher — he rejects as
spurious Parmenidés, Sophistés,
Politikus, Kritias, with many
Others... .. «2 oe oe ewe
Schleiermacher and Ast both con-
sider Pheedrus and Protagoras
as early compositions — Socher
puts Protagoras into the second
period, Pheedrus into the third 807
ἘΚ. F. Hermann—Stallbaum—both
of them consider the Phezedrus :
as a late dialogue—both of them
deny preconceived order and
system their arrangements of
the dialogues—they admit new
and varying philosophical points
οὗ view .. .. oe oe ee ee ὅδ.
They reject several dialogues.. .. 809
Steinhart — agrees in rejecting
Schleiermacher’s fundamenta
ostulate — his arrangement of
he dialogues — considers the
Pheedrus as late in order—re-
jects several .... .. «. .. δ
Susemihl — coincides to a great

301

802

804

305

306

PAGE
degree with K. F. Hermann—
his order of arrangement .. .. 810

Edward Munk — adopts a diffe-
rent principle of arrangement,
founded upon the different pe-
riod which each dialogue exhi-
bits of the life, philosophical
growth, and old age, of Sokrates
~—his arrangement, founded on
this principle. He distinguishes
the chronological order of com-
position from the place allotted
to each dialogue in the syste.
matic plan.. .. .. .. .. .. 3Jl

Views of Ueberweg— attempt to
reconcile Schleiermacher and
Hermann — admits the precon-
ceived purpose for the later
dialogues, composed after the
foundation of the school, but not
for the earlier... .. .. .. ..

His opinions as to authenticity and
chronology of the dialogues,
He rejects Hippias Major,
Eraste, Theagés, Kleitophon,
Parmenidés : he is inclined to re-
ject Euthyphron and Menexenus 814

Other Platonic critics—great dis-
sensions about scheme and order
ofthe dialogues .. .. .. ..

Contrast of different points of view
instructive—but no solution has
been obtained... .. .. .. .. id.

The problem incapable of solution.
Extent and novelty of the theory
propounded by Schleiermacher
—slenderness of his proofs... .. 817

Schleiermacher’s hypothesis in-
cludes a preconceived scheme,
and a peremptory order of in-
terdependence among the dia-
logueS .. .. ee os ee new

Assumptions of Schleiermacher re-
8 Ν cling the Phedrus inadmis-
Bible .. 4. we we we ee

Neither Schleiermacher, nor an
other critic, has as yet produc
any tolerable proof for an inter-
nal theory of the Platonic dia-
logues . rr

Munk’s theory is the most ambi-
tious, and the most gratuitous,
next to Schleiermacher’s .. ..

The age assigned to Sokrates in
any dialogue is a circumstance
of littlemoment .. .. .. .. #8

316

819

tb.

820

ΧΧν}

PAGE

No intentional sequence or inter.

dependence of the dialogues can 399

bemadeout .. .. .. .. ὦν
Frinelple of arrangement adopted
by Hermann is reasonable—suc-
cessive changes in Plato’s point
of view: but we cannot explain
either the order or the causes of
these changes... .. .. .. ον
Hermann’s view more tenable than
Schleiermacher’s ce ee we
Small number of certainties, or
even reasonable presumptions, as
to date or order of the dialo.
Trilogies indicated by Plato him-

4b.

823

es 824

Positive dates of all the dialogues 898

—unknown ce ee ee νει ον
When did Plato begin to compose?
Nottillafter the death of Sokrates
Reasons for this opinion. Labour
of the composition— does not

ἐδ.

consist with youth of the author 327

Reasons founded on the personality
of Sokrates, and his relations
with Plato.. ..

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

P
Reasons, founded on the early life,
character, and position of
Plato's early life—active by neces-
sity, and to some extent ambi-
tious .. 0 6. wk we ee tes
Plato did not retire from political
life until after the restoration of
the democracy, nor devote him-
self to philosophy until after the
death of Sokrates .. .. .. ..
All Plato’s dialogues were com-
posed during the fifty-one years
after the death of Sokrates ..
The Thrasyllean Canon is more
worthy of trust than the modern
critical theories by which it has
beencondemned .. .. .. ..
Unsafe grounds upon which those
theories proceed .. ..
Opinions of Schleiermach
gtoshowthis .. . ΝΕ
Any true theory of Plato must re-
cognise all his varieties, and must
be based upon all the works in
the Canon, not upon some to the
exclusion of the rest .. .. ..

CHAPTER VIII.

PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY.

Variety and abundance visible in
Plato’s writings

Plato both sceptical πὰ ‘dog: ;

matical .. .. 2. «2 νον
Poetical vein predominant in some
compositions, but not in all
Form of dialogue — universal to
this extent, that Plato never
speaksinhisownname .. ..
No one common characteristic per-
vading all Plato’s works .. ..
The real Plato was not merely a
writer of dialogues, but also lec-
turer and president of a school.
In this last important function
he is scarcely at all known to us.
lectures taken by
Aristotle .. ,, .. 6. ee ee
Plato’s lectures De Bono obscure
and transcendental. Effect which
they produced on the auditors ..
They were delivered to miscellane-
ous auditors. They coincide
mainly with what Aristotle

id.

843

ib.

346

347

states about the Platonic Ideas 348

The lectures De Bono may perhaps
have been more transcendental
than Plato’s other lectures...

his own person .. ..

.. 349
Plato’s Bpistles—in them only he
3 ;

td,

Intentional obscurity of his

AGE
lato 830

831
833
334

335

er, tend-
ee ee 837

Epistles in reference to philoso- 360

. phicaldoctrine .. .. .. ..
Letters of Plato to Dionysius II.
about hilosophy. His anxiety
to confine philosophy to discus-

sion among select and prepared 351

minds

344 | He refuses to furnish any written,
. 852

authoritative exposition of
own philosophical doctrine _.
He illustrates his doctrine by the
successive stages of geometrical
teaching. Difficulty to avoid
the creeping in of error at each
of these stages .. .. .. ..
No written exposition can keep
clear of these chances of
@ITOr .. .. ce ce oe we we
Relations of Plato with Dionysius
II. and the friends of the de-
ceased Dion. Pretensions of
Dionysius to understand and ex-
pound Plato’s doctrines .. ..
Impossibility of teaching by writ-
ten exposition assumed by
Plato; the assumption intelll-

gible in his day

855

ἰδ.

ἀκ γε κεν, 867
Standard by which Plato tested the

efficacy of the expository process.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I,

PAGE
—Power of sustaining a Sokratic
cross-examination.. .. .. ..
Plato never published any of the
lectures which he delivered at
the Academy .. .. .. .. .. 350
Plato would never publish his phi-
losophical opinions in his own
name; but he may have pub-
lished them in the dialogues
under the name of others .. .. 360
Groups into which the dialogues
admit of being thrown.. .. .. 361
Distribution made by Thrasyllus
defective, but still useful—Dia-
logues of Search, Dialogues of
Exposition .. .. .. wu.
Dialogues of Exposition—present
affirmative result. Dialogues of
Search are wanting in that attri-
bute .. .. .. 1. we oe 5. 862
The distribution coincides mainly
with that of Aristotle—Dialec-

is]
an
oe

id.

tic, Demonstrative... .. .. ..
Classification of Thrasyllus in its
details. He applies his own
principles erroneously... .. .. 864
The classification, as it would
stand, if his principles were ap-
plied correctly.. .. .. .. .. 86
Preponderance of the searching
and testing dialogues over the
expository and dogmatical.. .. 366
Dialogues of Search—sub-classes
among them recognised by Thra-
eyllus—Gymnastic and Agonis-
tic, & .. .. ee
Philosophy, as now understood,
includes authoritative teaching,
rectitive results, direct proofs ..
6 Platonic Dialogues of Search
disclaim authority and teaching
—assume truth to be unknown
to all alike—follow a process
devious as well as fruitless.. .. 367
The questioner has no predeter-
mined course, but follows the
lead given by the respondent in
hisanswers .. .. .. .. .. tb
Relation of teacher and learner.
Appeal to authority is sup-
pressed... ww kk νν κν
In the modern world the search
for truth is put out of sight.
Every writer or talker professes
to have already found it, and to
proclaim it to others .. .. .. 869
The search for truth by various
interlocutors was a recognised
process in the Sokratic age.
Acute negative Dialectic of
Sokrates .. .. 0. 1. 1. 2. 870
Nogative procedure supposed to
be represented by the Sophists

16,

ib.

δ] To those topics, on which each

XXvii

PAGE
and the Megarici; discouraged
and censured by historians of
philosophy .. .. .. .. .. 811
Vocation of Sokrates and Plato for
the negative procedure : absolute
necessity of it as a condition of
reasoned truth. Parmenidés of
Plato .. .. 1. 2... .. oe oe 879
Sokrates considered the negative
procedure to be valuable by it-
self, and separately. His theory
of the natural state of the human
mind; not ignorance, but false °
persuasion of knowledge .. .. 878
Declaration of Sokrates in the
Apology; his constant mission
to make war against the false
persuasion of knowledge .. .. 374
Opposition of feeling between So-
rates and the Dikasts.. .. ..
The Dialogues of Search present
an end in themselves. Mistake
of supposing that Plato had in
his mind an ulterior affirmative
end, not declared .. .. .. ..
False persuasion of knowledge—
had reference to topics social,
political, ethical 376
community possesses established
dogmas, laws, customs, senti-
ments, consecrated and tradi-
tional, peculiar to itself. The
local creed, which is never for-
mally proclaimed or taught, but
18 enforced unconsciously by
every one upon every one else.
Omnipotence of King Nomos ..
Small minority of exceptional indi-
vidual minds, who do not yield
to the established orthodoxy, but
insist on exercising their own

377

judgment .. eee ΕΞ
Early appearance of a few free-
judging individuals, or free-
thinkers in Greece ..

Rise of Dialectic—Effect of the
Drama and the Dikastery .._..
Application of Negative scrutiny
ethical and social topics by |
Sokrates .. .. .. 1. «2 .. δε
Emphatic assertion by Sokrates of
the right of satisfaction for his
own individual reason .. .. ..
Aversion of the Athenian public
to the negative procedure of
Sokrates. Mistake of supposing
that that negative procedure be-
lon peculiarly to the Sophists
and the Megarici .. .. .. ..
The same charges which the histo-
rians of philosophy bring st
the Sovhists were brought by

XXVlU

PAGE
contemporary Athenians against
Sokrates. "They represent. the

standing dislike of free inquiry,
usual with an orthodox public ..
Aversion towards Sokrates aggra-
vated by his extreme publicity
of speech. His declaration,
that false persuasion of know-
ledge is universal; must be
understood as a basis in appre-
ciating Plato's Dialogues of
Search oe ee ne ee te oe
Result called Knowledge, which
Plato aspires to. Power of go-
ing through a Sokratic cross-
examination ; not attainable ex-
cept through the Platonic process
andmethod .. .. .. .. ..
Platonic process adapted to Pla-
tonic topics—man and society ..
Plato does not provide solutions
for the difficulties which he has
raised. The affirmative and
negative veins are in him com-

' pletely distinct. His dogmas
are enunciations ἃ priori of some
impressive sentiment .. .. ..
Hypothesis— that Plato had solved
his own difficulties for him-

self; but that he communicated
the solution only to a few select
auditors in oral lectures—Unten-
able... ..« we ee ee ewe
Characteristic of the oral lectures
—that they were delivered in

388

893

397

399

401

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

PAGE

Plato’s own name. In what
other respects they departed
from the dialogues, we cannot

SAY .. oe we ne we ως 402
Apart from any result, Plato has

an interest in the process of
search and debate per se. Pro-
tracted enquiry is a valuable
privilege, not a tiresome obliga-
C0) 5 .. ..ννοὸ νε νν νν νὰ
Plato has done more than any one
else to make the process of en-
quiry interesting to others, as it
wastohimself.. .. .. .. ..
Process of generalisation always
kept in view and _ illustrated
throughout the Platonic Dia-
logues of Search—general terms
and propositions made subjects
of conscious analysis .. .. ..
The Dialogues must be reviewed
as distinct compositions by the
same author, illustrating each
other, but without assignable
inter-dependence .. .. .. ..
Order of the Dialogues, chosen for
bringing them under separate
review. Apolo will come
first ; Timeus, Kritias, Leges,
Epinomislast.. .. .. .. ..
Kriton and Euthyphron come im.
mediately after Apology. The
intermediate dialogues present
no convincing frounds or any
determinate order... .. «. ὦ

CHAPTER IX.

APOLOGY OF SOKRATES.

The Apology is the real defence
delivered by Sokrates before the
Dikasts, reported by Plato, with-
out intentional transformation ..

Even if it be Plato’s own composi-
tion, it comes naturally first in
the review of his dialogues

General character of the Apology—

Sentiments entertained towards 0

Sokratesat Athens .. .. ..
Declaration from the Delphian
oracle respecting the wisdom of
Sokrates, interpreted by him as
@ mission to cross-examine the
citizens generally—The oracle is
provedtobetrue .. .. .. ..
False persuasion of wisdom is uni-
versal—the God alone is wise ..
Emphatic assertion by Sokrates of
the cross-examining mission im-
posed upon him by the God

410

. 411

413 | E

414

. 1.

He had devoted his life to the exe-
cution of this mission, and he
intended to persevere in spite of
obloquy ordanger.. .. .. ..

He disclaims the function of a

her—he cannot teach, for he
is not wiser than others. He
differs from others by being con-
scious of his own ignorance

teachers can be found. He is

perpetually seeking for them,

utinvain .. .. «2... «
Impression made by the Platonic
Apology on Zeno the Stoic ..
xtent of efficacious influence
claimed by Sokrates for himself
—exemplified by Plato through-
out the Dialogues of Search—
Xenophon and Plato enlarge it.
Assumption: by modern critics,

405

408

. 40.
2 | He does not know where competent

. 418

ib.

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

PAGE
that Sokrates is a positive
teacher, employing direct

methods for the inculcation of
theories of his own we ae
Incorrectness of such assumption
—the Sokratie Elenchus does
not furnish a solution, but works
upon the mind of the respon-
dent, stimulating him to seek for
asolution of hisown .. .. ..
Value and importance of this
process — stimulating active in-

419

ΧΧῚΧ

PAGE
dividual’ minds to theorise each
foritself .. .. .. .. .. ως 421
View taken by Sokrates about
death. Other men profess to
know what it is, and think it a
eat misfortune: he does not
ΠΟΥ͂ .. .. 20 ee we ee we 422
Reliance of Sokrates on his own
individual reason, whether agree-
ing or disagreeing with others .. 423
Formidable efficacy of established
public beliefs, generated without

any ostensible author .. .. 424

CHAPTER X.
KRrirTon.

General purpose of the Kriton .. 425
Subject of the dialogue—inter-
locutors .. .. .. oe ee we δ.
Answer of Sokrates to the appeal
made by Kriton .. .. .. .. 426
He declares that the judgment of
the general public is not worthy
of trust : he appeals to the judg-
ment of the one Expert, who 1s
wise on the matter in debate ..
Principles laid down by Sokrates
for determining the question
with Kriton. s the proceedin
recommended just or unjust
Never in any case to act unjustly 427
Sokrates admits that few will agree
with him, and that most persons
hold the opposite opinion: but
he affirms that the point is car-

.| The harangue is not a corollary

common to Sokrates with other
citizens, overlooking the spe-
cialties of his character .. 481

Still Sokrates is represented as
adopting the resolution to obey,
from his own conviction; by a
reason which weighs with him,
but which would not weigh with
others ..

from this Sokratic reason, but
represents feelin common
among Athenian citizens . 482
Emphatic declaration of the au-
thority of individual reason and
conscience, for the individual —

himself .. .. .. 1... oe 00
The Kriton is rhetorical, not dia-
lectical. Difference between

Ginal .. .. .. .. «. 4. +. 1.) Rhetoric and Dialectic.. .. .. 488
Pleading supposed to be addressed The Kriton makes powerful appeal
by the Laws of Athens to So- to the emotions, but overlooks
krates, demanding from him im- the ratiocinative difficulties, or
__ plicit obedience .. .. .. .. 428] supposes them tobe solved .. ib.
Purpose of Plato in this pleadin Incompetence of the general public
—to present the dispositions o or ista@ro.—appeal fo the profes-
Sokrates in a light different from sional Expert we ae oe we ne 435
that which the Apology had pre- Procedure of Sokrates after this
sented—unqualified submission | comparison has been declared—
instead ofdeflance .. .. . .. δι} he does not name who the trust-
Harangue of Sokrates delivered in worthy Expertis ..... .. .. tb
the name of the Laws, would Sokrates acts as the Expert him.
have been opplauded by all the self: he finds authority in his
democratical patriots of Athens 480, own reason and conscience.. .. 486
The harangue insists upon topics
CHAPTER XI.
EUTHYPHRON.
Situation supposed in the dialogue krates—Antipathy of the Athe.
—interlocutors.. .. .. .. .. 4 nians towards those who spread
Indictment by Melétus against So- heretical opinions .. .. .. .. 487

CONTENTS OF

AGE |

XXX

P
Euthyphron recounts that he is
prosecuting an indictment for
murder against his own father—
Displeasure of his friends at the
proceeding.. .. .. .. .. «
Euthyphron expresses full confi-
dence that this step of his is
both required and warranted by
iety or holiness. Sokrates asks
im—What is Holiness? ....
Euthyphron alludes to the punish-
ment of Uranus by his son Kronus
and of Kronus by his son Zeus..
Sokrates intimates his own hesita-
tion in believing these stories of
discord among the Gods. Eu-
thyphron declares his full belief
in them, as well as in many si-
milar narratives, not in so much
circulation re με ον
Bearing of this dialogue on the re-
lative position of Sokrates and
the Athenian public .. .. ..
Dramatic moral set forth by Ari-
stophanes against Sokrates and
the freethinkers, is here retorted
by Plato against the orthodox
champion .... .. .. .. .. 44
Sequel of the dialogue—Euthy-
phron gives a particular example
as the reply toa general question 444
Such mistake frequent in dialectic
discussion... .. .. .. .. «- ἐδ.
First general answer given by Eu-
thyphron—that which is pleas-
ing to the Gods is holy. Com-
ments of Sokratesthereon.. .. 445
To be luved by the Gods is not the
essence of the Holy—they love
it because it is holy. In what
then, does its essence consist ?
erplexity of Euthyphron.. .. 446
Sokrates suggests a new answer.
The Holy is one branch or va-
riety of the Just. It is that
branch which concerns ministra-

489

440

ib.

44]

tion by men tothe Gods .. .. 447
Ministration to the Gods? How?
To what purpose? .. ἐδ

Holiness—rectitudein sacrifice and
prayer — right traffi
men andthe Gods.. .. .. .. 4

This will not stand—the Gods gain

c between
48

nothing—they receive from men

VOLUME I.

PAG
marks of honour and gratitude
—they are pleased therewith
—the Holy, therefore, must
be that which is pleasing to the
Gods .. .. .. 4. 2. ee ee 448

This is the same explanation which
was before declared insufficient.
A fresh explanation is required
from Euthyphron. He breaks
off the dialogue .. .. .. ..

Sokratic spirit of the dialogue—
confessed ignorance applying
the Elenchus to false persuasion
of knowledge .. .. .. .. ον

The questions always difficult,often
impossible to answer. Sokrates
is unable to answer them, though
he exposes the bad answers of
others re)

Objections of Theopompus to the

latonic procedure ἐκ ee ee 460

Objective view of Ethics, distin-
guished by Sokrates from the
subjective... .. .. .. «ee 45

Subjective unanimity coincident
with objective dissent wee 10,

Cross-examination brought to bear
upon this mental condition by
Sokrates — position of Sokrates
and Platoin regard toit ....

The Holy—it has an essential cha-
racteristic—what is this ?—not
the fact that it is loved by the
Gods—this is true, but is not its
constituent essence... .. ..

Views of the Xenophontic Sokrates
respecting the Holy —different
from those of the Platonic So-
krates—he disallows any com-
mon absolute general type of the
Holy—he recognises an indefinite
variety of types, discordant and
relative .. .. .. we we ον

The Holy a branch of the Just—
not tenable as a definition, but
useful as bringing to view the
subordination of logical terms .. 455

The Euthyphron represents Plato’s
way of replying to the charge of
impiety, referred by Melétus
agains

452

454

tb.

okrates — comparison
with Xenophon’s way of reply-

ing .. cw we ewe ee,

CHAPTER 1.

PLATO.

PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY.

CHAPTER I.

SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY IN GREECE, BEFORE AND IN
THE TIME OF SOKRATES.

Tue life of Plato extends from 427-347 B.c. He was born in the
fourth year of the Peloponnesian war, and he died at Change in
the age of 80, about the time when Olynthus was the political
taken by the Macedonian Philip. The last years of Condition of
his life thus witnessed a melancholy breach in the ing the life
integrity of the Hellenic world, and even exhibited ;
data from which a far-sighted Hellenic politician might have
anticipated something like the coming subjugation, realised after-
wards by the victory of Philip at Cheroneia. But during the
first half of Plato’s life, no such anticipations seemed even within
the limits of possibility. The forces of Hellas, though discordant
among themselves, were superabundant as to defensive efficacy,
and were disposed rather to aggression against foreign enemies,
especially against a country then so little formidable as Mace-
donia. It was under this contemplation of Hellas self-acting
and self-sufficing—an aggregate of cities, each a political unit,
yet held together by strong ties of race, language, religion, and
common feelings of various kinds—that the mind of Plato was
both formed and matured.

In appreciating, as far‘as our scanty evidence allows, the cir-
cumstances which determined his intellectual and speculative

1--Ἱ

2 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuape. 1.

character, I shall be compelled to touch briefly upon the various
philosophical theories which were propounded anterior to So-
krates—as well as to repeat some matters already brought to view
in the sixteenth, sixty-seventh, and sixty-eighth chapters of my
History of Greece.
To us, as to Herodotus, in his day, the philosophical speculation
of the Greeks begins with the theology and cosmology
Early Greek of Homer and Hesiod. The series of divine persons
fiedwiththe and attributes, and generations presented by these
poly theistic poets, ard especially the Theogony of Hesiod, supplied
personal δ8ὺ one time full satisfaction to the curiosity of the
agents asthe . . .
real produc- Greeks respecting the past history and present agencies
rec omens. of the world around them. In the emphatic censure
bestowed by Herakleitus on the poets and philoso-
phers who preceded him, as having much knowledge but no
sense—he includes Hesiod, as well as Pythagoras, Xenophanes,
and Hekatzus: upon Homer and Archilochus he is still more
severe, declaring that they ought to be banished from the public
festivals and scourged.! The sentiment of curiosity as it then
existed was only secondary and derivative, arising out of some οἵ
the strong primary or personal sentiments—fear or hope, anti-
pathy or sympathy,—impression of present weakness,—unsatis-
fied appetites and longings,—wonder and awe under the presence
of the terror-striking phenomena of nature, ὅθ. Under this
state of the mind, when problems suggested themselves for
solution, the answers afforded by Polytheism gave more satisfac-
tion than could have been afforded by any other hypothesis.
Among the indefinite multitude of invisible, personal, quasi-
human, agents, with different attributes and dispositions, some
one could be found to account for every perplexing phenomenon.
The question asked was, not What are the antecedent conditions
or causes of rain, thunder, or earthquakes, but Who rains and
thunders? Who produces earthquakes?? The Hesiodic Greek
was satisfied when informed that it was Zeus or Poseidon. To be
told of physical agencies would have appeared to him not merely

2 Diogen. Laert. ix. 1. Πολυμαθίη Ἑκαταῖον" τόν θ᾽ “Ὅμηρον ἔφασκεν ἄξιον
νόον οὐ διδάσκει (οὐ φύει, ap. Proclum εἶναι ἐκ τῶν ἀγώνων ἐκβάλλεσθαι καὶ ῥα»
in Platon. Time. Ὁ. 81 Fp. 72, ed. πίζεσθαι, καὶ ᾿Αρχίλοχον ὁμοίως.
Schneider), Ἡσίοδον γὰρ ἂν ἐδίδαξε 2 Aristophanes, Nubes, 368, ᾿Αλλὰ
καὶ UvOaydpny, adris re Revoddved τε καὶ τίς ὕει; Herodot. vii. 129.

Cuap. 1. HESIOD. 3

unsatisfactory, but absurd, ridiculous, and impious. It was the
task of a poet like Hesiod to clothe this general polytheistic
sentiment in suitable details: to describe the various Gods, God-
desses, Demigods, and other quasi-human agents, with their
characteristic attributes, with illustrative adventures, and with
sufficient relations of sympathy and subordination among each
other, to connect them in men’s imaginations as members of the
same brotherhood. Okeanus, Gea, Uranus, Helios, Seléné,—
Zeus, Poseidon, Hades—Apollo and Artemis, Dionysus and
Aphrodité—these and many other divine personal agents, were
invoked as the producing and sustaining forces in nature, the
past history of which was contained in their filiations or contests.
Anterior to all of them, the primordial matter or person, was
Chaos.

Hesiod represents the point of view ancient and popular (to
use Aristotle’s expression!) among the Greeks, from B

. . . . . elief in

whence all their philosophical speculation took its such agency
departure; and which continued throughout their continued

among the

history, to underlie all the philosophical speculations, general ΠῚ
as the faith of the ordinary public who neither fre- after the

quented the schools nor conversed with philosophers, yarious

While Aristophanes, speaking in the name of this philosophy
popular faith, denounces and derides Sokrates as a
searcher, alike foolish and irreligious, after astronomical and
physical causes—Sokrates himself not only denies the truth of
the allegation, but adopts as his own the sentiment which
dictated it; proclaiming Anaxagoras and others to be culpable
for prying into mysteries which the Gods intentionally kept
hidden.? The repugnance felt by a numerous public, against
scientific explanation—as eliminating the divine agents and sub-
stituting in their place irrational causes,>—was a permanent fact
of which philosophers were always obliged to take account, and

1 Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 8, p. 980, Οἱ ἀρχαῖοι καὶ διατρίβοντες περὶ τὰς
ἃ. 10. Φησὶ δέ καὶ Ἡσίοδος τὴν γῆν θεολογίας---οἱ σοφώτεροι τὴν ἀνθρωπίνην
πρώτην γενέσθαι τῶν σωμάτων" οὕτως σοφίαν (Meteor. ii. i. p. 858, a.).
ἀρχαίαν καὶ δημοτικὴν συμβέβηκεν εἶναι Xenophon, Memor. iv. 7, δ; 1.1, 11-
τὴν ὑπόληψιν. ᾿ 16. Plato, Apolog. p. 26 E..

Again, in the beginning of the ὃ Plutarch, Nikias, ὁ. 28. Οὐ γὰρ
second hook of. the Meteorologica, ἠνείχοντο τοὺς φυσικοὺς καὶ perewpo-
Aristotle contrasts the ancient and λέσχας τότε καλουμένους, ὡς εἰς αἰτίας
primitive theology with the “human ἀλόγους καὶ δυνάμεις ἀπρονοήτους καὶ κα-
wisdom” which grew up subsequently: τηναγκασμένα πάθη διατρίβοντας τὸ θεῖον.

4 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. 1.

which modified the tone of their speculations without being
powerful enough to repress them.

Even in the sixth century B.c., when the habit of composing
Thales, the 10 prose was first introduced, Pherekydes and Akusi-
frst preek laus still continued in their prose the theogony, or

oundedthe mythical cosmogony, of Hesiod and the other old
οἱ Payaical poets: while Epimenides and the Orphic poets put
agony in forth different theogonies, blended with mystical
sonal. dogmas. It was, however, in the same century, and
Neen dia in the first half of it, that Thales, of Miletus (620-560
substance, B,¢.), set the example of a new vein of thought.
Instead of the Homeric Okeanus, father of all things,
‘Thales assumed the material substance, Water, as the primordial
matter and the universal substratum of everything in nature.
By various transmutations, all other substances were generated
from water; all of them, when destroyed, returned into water.
Like the old poets, Thales conceived the surface of the earth to
be flat and round; but he did not, like them, regard it as
stretching down to the depths of Tartarus: he supposed it to be
flat and shallow, floating on the immensity of the watery expanse
or Ocean.! This is the main feature of the Thaletian hypothesis,
about which, however, its author seems to have left no writing.
Aristotle says little about Thales, and that little in a tone of so
much doubt,? that we can hardly confide in the opinions and dis-
coveries ascribed to him by others.?

(‘The next of the Ionic philosophers, and the first who pub-

1 Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 8, p. 988, Handb. ἃ. Gesch. ἃ. Gr.-Rém. Phil.,
Ὁ. 21. De Coelo, ii. 18, p. 204, a. 29. vol. i οἷ 71). in Aristotle Ὁ
Θαλῆς, ὁ τῆς τοιαύτης ἀρχηγὸς φιλοσο- ee two passages in Aristotle De
dias, &e. Seneca, Naturat. ueest. vi.6. Anima, i. 2, andi. 5.

Pherekydes, Epimenides, &c., were 3 Cicero says (De NaturA Deorum,
contemporary with the earliest Tonic i. 10), ‘*Thales—aquam dixit esse

hilosophers (Brandis, Handbuch der initium rerum, Deum autem eam men-
Resch. der Gr.-Rom. Phil., 5. 23). tem, quis ex aqua cuncta fingeret.”

According to Plutarch (Aque et That the latter half of this Ciceronian
Ignis Comparatio, p. 955, init.), most statement, respecting the doctrines of
persons believed that Hesiod, by the Thales, is at least unfounded, and
word Chaos, meant Water. Zeno the probably erroneous, is recognised by
Stoic adopted this interpretation Preller, Brandis, and Zeller. Preller,
Schol. Apollon. Rhod. i. 498). On Histor. Philos. Graec. ex Fontium Locis

he other hand, Bacchylides the poet, Contexta, sect. 15; Brandis, Handbuch
and after him Zenodotus, called Air der Gr.-R. Philos. sect. $1, p. 118;
by the name Chaos (Schol. Hesiod. Zeller, Die‘Philos. der Griechen, vol. i.,
T eogon. p. 802, Gaisf.). Hermann Ὁ. 151, ed. 2.

considers that the Hesiodic Chaos Itisstated by Herodotus that Thales
nieans empty space (see note, Brandis, foretold the year of the memorable solar

Cuap. 1. ANAXIMANDER. 5

lished his opinions in writing, was Anaximander, of
Miletus, the countryman and younger contemporary
of Thales (570-520 3.c.). He too searched for an
᾿Αρχῆ, ἃ primordial Something or principle, self-
existent and comprehending in its own nature a
generative, motive, or transmutative force. Not
thinking that water, or any other known and definite
substance fulfilled these conditions, he adopted as the
foundation of his hypothesis a substance which he
called the Infinite_or Indeterminate. Under this
name he conceived Body simply, without any positive
or determinate properties, yet including the funda-
mental contraries, Hot, Cold, Moist, Dry, &., in a potential or
latent state, including farther a self-changing and self-developing
force,! and being moreover immortal and indestructible? By
this inherent force, and by the evolution of one or more of these
dormant contrary qualities, were generated the various definite
substances of nature—Air, Fire, Water, &c. But every determi-
nate substance thus generated was, after a certain time, destroyed
and resolved again into the Indeterminate mass. “ From thence
all substances proceed, and into this they relapse: each in its
turn thus making atonement to the others, and suffering the
penalty of injustice.”* Anaximander conceived separate existence
(determinate and particular existence, apart from the indetermi-
nate and universal) as an unjust privilege, not to be tolerated

Anaximan-
der---laid
clown asapx}
the Infinite
or indeter-
minate—ge-
neration of
theelements
out of it, by
evolution of
latent fun-
damental
contraries—~
astronomi-
cal and geo-
logical doc-
trines.

eclipse which happened durin
battle between the Medes and the
Lydians (Herod. i. 74. This eclipse
seems to have occurred in B.c. 585,
according to the best recent astrono-
mical enquiries by Professor Airy.
1See Zeller, Philosophie der Grie-

the ber Anaximandros,” in his Vermischte
Schriften, vol. ii. Ὁ. 178, seq. Deutinger
(Gesch. der Philos. vol. i. p. 165, Re-
gensb. 1852) maintains that this ἔκ-
κρισι of contraries is at variance with
the hypothesis of Anaximander, and
has been erroneously ascribed to him.

chen, vol. i. p. 157, seq., ed. 2nd.
Anaximander conceived τὸ ἄπειρον
as injinite matter; the Pythagoreans
and Plato conceived it as a distinct
nature by itself—as a subject, not as
ὃ predicate (Aristotel. Physic. ili. 4, p.

, & 2).

About these fundamental contraries,
Aristotle says (Physic. i. 4, init.):
ot δ᾽ ἐκ τοῦ ἑνὸς ἐνούσας τὰς ἐναντιό-
THTAS ἐκκρίνεσθαι, ὥσπερ ᾿Αναξίμανδρός
φησι. hich Simplikius explains,
ναντιότητές εἰσι, θερμὸν, ψυχρὸν, ξηρὸν,
ὑγρὸν, καὶ αἱ ἄλλαι, ἄϊο.

Compare also Schleiermacher, ‘‘ Ue-

But the testimony is sufficiently good
to outweigh this suspicion.

2 Anaximander spoke of his ἄπειρον
aS ἀθάνατον καὶ ἀνώλεθρον (Aristotel.
Physic. fii. 4, 7, Ὁ. 203, Ὁ, 15).

Simplikius ad Aristotel. Physic.
fol. 6 a. apud Preller, Histor. Philos.
Greeco-Rom. § 57, ἐξ ὧν δὲ ἡ γένεσίς
ἐστι τοῖς οὖσι, καὶ τὴν φθορὰν εἰς ταὐτὰ
γίνεσθαι κατὰ τὸ χρεών “ διδόναι γὰρ
αὐτὰ τίσιν καὶ δίκην ἀλλήλοις τῆς ἀδικίας
κατὰ τὴν τοῦ χρόνον τάξιν. Simplikius
remarks upon the poetical character
of this phraseology, ποιητικωτέροις ὀνῇν»
μασιν αὐτὰ λέγων. .

6 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. 1.

except for a time, and requiring atonement even for that. As
this process of alternate generation and destruction was unceasing,
so nothing less than an Infinite could supply material for it.
Earth, Water, Air, Fire, having been generated, the two former,
being cold and heavy, remained at the bottom, while the two
latter ascended. Fire formed the exterior circle, encompassing
the air like bark round a tree: this peripheral fire was broken
up and aggregated into separate masses, composing the sun,
moon, and stars. The sphere of the fixed stars was nearest to the
earth : that of the moon next above it: that of the sun highest
of all. The sun and moon were circular bodies twenty-eight
times larger than the earth: but the visible part of them was
only an opening in the centre, through which! the fire or light
behind was seen. All these spheres revolved round the earth,
which was at first semi-fluid or mud, but became dry and solid
through the heat of the sun. It was in shape like the section of
a cylinder, with a depth equal to one-third of its breadth or hori-
zontal surface, on which men and animals live. It was in the
centre of the Kosmos; it remained stationary because of its equal
distance from all parts of the outer revolving spheres ; there was
no cause determining it to move upward rather than downward
or sideways, therefore it remained still.? Its exhalations
nourished the fire in the peripheral regions of the Kosmos,
Animals were produced from the primitive muddy fluid of the
earth : first, fishes and other lower animals—next, in process of
time man, when circumstances permitted his development.2 We

1 Origen. Philosophumen. p. 11, ed.

Miller; Plutarch ap. Eusebium Prep.
Evang. i. 8, xv. 28-46-47; Stobaeus
Kclog. i. p. 510. Anaximander sup-

posed that eclipses of the sun and moon
were caused by the occasional closing
of these apertures (Euseb. xv. 60-51).
The part of the sun visible to us was, in
his opinion, not smaller than the earth,
and of the purest fire (Diog. Leert. ii. 1).

Eudémus, in his history of astro-
nomy, mentioned Anaximander as the
first who had discussed the itudes
and distances of the celestial bodies
Gimplikius ad Aristot. De Colo, ap.

chol. Brand. Ὁ 407 » & 12).

2 Aristotel. Meteorol. ii. 2, p. 355,
&. 21, which is referred by Alexander
of Aphrodisias to Anaximander ; also

De Colo, ii, 18, p. 295, Ὁ. 12.

A doctrine somewhat like it is
ascribed even to Thales. See Alex-
ander’s Commentary on Aristotel. Me-
taphys. i. p. 983, b. 17.

The reason here assigned by Anaxi-
mander why the Earth remained still,
is the earliest example in Greek philo-
sophy of that fallacy called the prin-
ciple of the Sufficient Reason, so well
analysed and elucidated by Mr. John
Stuart Mill, in his System of Logic,
book v., ch. 8, sect. 5.

The remarks which Aristotle himself
makes upon it are also very interesting,
when he cites the opinion of Anaxi-
mander. Compare Plato, Phsedon, p.
109, c. 182, with the citations in Wyt-
tenbach’s note. .

8 Plutarch, Placit. Philos. v. 19.

Cuap. 1. ANAXIMENES. 7

learn farther respecting the doctrines of Anaximander, that he
proposed physical explanations of thunder, lightning, and other
meteorological phenomena :! memorable as the earliest attempt
of speculation in that department, at a time when such events
inspired the strongest religious awe, and were regarded as the
most especial manifestations of purposes of the Gods. He is said
also to have been the first who tried to represent the surface and
divisions of the earth on a brazen plate, the earliest rudiment of
a map or chart.? )

The third physical philosopher produced by Miletus, seemingly
before the time of her terrible disasters suffered from
the Persians after the Ionic revolt between 500-494
B.C.. was Anaximenes, who struck out a third hypo-
thesis. He assumed, as the primordial substance, and
as the source of all generation or transmutation, Air,
eternal in duration, infinite in extent. He thus re-
turned to the principle of the Thaletian theory,
selecting for his beginning a known substance, though
not the same substance as Thales. To explain how generation of
new products was possible (as Anaximander had tried to explain
by his theory of evolution of latent contraries), Anaximenes
adverted to the facts of condensation and rarefaction, which he
connected respectively with cold and heat.? The Infinite Air,
possessing and exercising an inherent generative and developing
power, perpetually in motion, passing from dense to rare or from
rare to dense, became in its utmost rarefaction, Fire and Aither ;
when passing through successive stages of increased condensation
it became first cloud, next water, then earth, and, lastly, in its

Anaxi-
menes—
adopted
Air a8 ἀρχή
—rise 0
substances
out of it, by
condensa-
tion and

y arefaction.

1 Plutarch, Placit. Philos. iii, 8;
Seneca, Quest. Nat. 11, 18-19.

2 Strabo, i. p. 7. Diogenes Laertius
ii. 1) states that Anaximander affirmed
he figure of the earth to be spherical ;

and Dr. Whewell, in his History of the
Inductive Sciences, follows his state-
ment. But Schleiermacher (Ueber
Anaximandros, vol. ii. p. 204 of his
Sammtliche Werke) and Gruppe (Die
Kosmischen Systeme der Griechen, p.
88) contest this assertion, and prefer
that of Plutarch (ap. Eusebium Prep.
Evang. i. 8, Placit. Philos. iii. 10,
which I have adopted in the text. It
is to be remembered that Diogenes
himself, in another place (ix. 8, 21),

affirms Parmenides to have been the
first who propounded the spherical
figure of the earth. See the facts upon
this subject collected and discussed in
the instructive dissertation of L. Oet-
tinger, Die Vorstellungen der Griechen
und Rémer ueber die Erde als Him-
melskérper, ἢ; 88 ; Freiburg, 1850.
ὃ Origen. Philosophumen. c. 7; Sim-
likiusin Aristot. Physic. f. 32; Brandis,
Handb. ἃ. Gesch, ἃ. Gr.-R. Phil. p. 144.
Cicero, Academic. ii. 87, 118
‘* Anaximenes infinitum aera, sed ea,
ques ex eo orirentur, definita.’
The comic poet Philemon introduced
in one of his dramas, of which a short
fragment is preserved (Frag. 2, Mei-

8 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. CuapP. I.

utmost density, stone.’ Surrounding, embracing, and pervading
the Kosmos, it also embodied and carried with it a vital prin-
ciple, which animals obtained from it by inspiration, and which
they lost as soon as they ceased to breathe.2 Anaximenes in-
cluded in his treatise (which was written in a clear Ionic dialect)
many speculations on astronomy and meteorology, differing
widely from those of Anaximander. He conceived the Earth as
a broad, flat, round plate, resting on the air.’ Earth, Sun, and
Moon were in his view condensed air, the Sun acquiring heat by
the extreme and incessant velocity with which he moved. The
Heaven was not an entire hollow sphere encompassing the Earth
below as well as above, but a hemisphere covering the Earth
above, and revolving laterally round it like a cap round the
head. 4

The general principle of cosmogony, involved in the hypothesis
of these three Milesians—one primordial substance or Something
endued with motive and transmutative force, so as to generate all
the variety of products, each successive and transient, which our
senses Witness—was taken up with more or less modification by
others, especially by Diogenes of Apollonia, of whom I shall
speak presently. But there were three other men who struck out
different veins of thought—Pythagoras, Xenophanes, and Hera-
kleitus: the two former seemingly contemporary with Anaxi-
menes (550-490 B.c.), the latter somewhat later.

Of Pythagoras I have spoken at some length in the thirty-
seventh chapter of my History of Greece. Speculative origi-
nality was only one among many remarkable features in his
Pythagoras character. He was an inquisitive traveller, a religious
on nis Mie reformer or innovator, and the founder of a powerful
—Pythago- and active brotherhood, partly ascetic, partly political,
other. Which stands without parallel in Grecian history.

hood, great The immortality of the soul, with its transmigration

ate, (metempsychosis) after death into other bodies, either

neke, p. 840), the omnipresent and om- “947; Plutarch, ap. Euseb. P. E. i. 8.

niscient Air, to deliver the prologue: Brautarch, Placit. Philosophor. i. 8,
, toe 8 Ῥ. °

sete oe Tp οὗτός εἰμ' ἐγὼ 8 Aristotel. Dé Colo, ii. 18; Plu-

ἀμ ριον oe hina καὶ Δία. αχοῦ.-- ‘arch, Placit. Philosoph. ili. 10, p. 896.

4 Origen. Philosophum. p. 12, ed.
; ler: ὡσπερεὶ περὶ τὴν ἡμετέραν
iPlntarch, De Primo Frigido, p. κεφαλὴν στρέφεται τὸ πιλίον.

Cuap. 1. THE PYTHAGOREANS. 9

which it
acquired
among the
Greco-
Italian
cities—in-
curred great
enmity, and
was v10-
lently put
down.

of men or of other animals—the universal kindred
thus recognised between men and other animals, and
the prohibition which he founded thereupon against
the use of animals for food or sacrifice—are among
his most remarkable doctrines: said to have been
borrowed (together with various ceremonial obser-
vances) from the Egyptians. After acquiring much
celebrity in his native island of Samos and throughout Ionia,
Pythagoras emigrated (seemingly about 530 B.c.) to Kroton and
Metapontum in Lower Italy, where the Pythagorean brotherhood
gradually acquired great political ascendancy: and from whence
it even extended itself in like manner over the neighbouring
Greco-Italian cities. At length it excited so much political
antipathy among the body of the citizens,’ that its rule was
violently put down, and its members dispersed about 509 B.c.
Pythagoras died at Metapontum. ᾿

Though thus stripped of power, however, the Pythagoreans
still maintained themselves for several generations a8 he Pytha-
a social, religious, and philosophical brotherhood, goreanscon-
They continued and extended the vein of speculation recluse sect,
first opened by the founder himself. So little of pro- πο
claimed individuality was there among them, that Power.
Aristotle, in criticising their doctrine, alludes to them usually
under the collective name Pythagoreans. Epicharmus, in his
comedies at Syracuse (470 B.c.) gave occasional utterance to
various doctrines of the sect; but the earliest of them who is
known to have composed a book, was Philolaus,* the contem-
porary of Sokrates. Most of the opinions ascribed to the
Pythagoreans originated probably among the successors of
Pythagoras ; but the basis and principle upon which they pro-
ceed seems undoubtedly his.

The problem of physical philosophy, as then conceived, was

1 Herodot. ii. 81; Isokrates, Busirid.
Ene poiybius, ii. 89; Porphyry, Vit

2 Polybius, ii. ; Po i
Pythag. 54, seq. ΤΡΊΖΕΙ,

8 Diogen. Laert. viii. 7-15-78-85.

Some passages of Aristotle, however,
indicate divergences of doctrine among
the Pythagoreans themselves (Meta-
phys. A. 5, p. 986, a. 22). He probably

speaks of the Pythagoreans of his own
time when dialectical discussion had
modified the original orthodoxy of the
order. Compare Gruppe, Ueber die
Fragmente des Archytas, cap. 5, Ὁ. 61-
68. About the gradual development
of the Pythagorean doctrine, see
Brandis, Handbuch der Gr.-R. Philos.
8. 74,

10 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. I.

Doctrine of to find some primordial and fundamental ‘nature, by
the Pytha- and out of which the sensible universe was built up
oreans— ᾿ . .

umber the and produced ; something which co-existed always
Things: of underlying it, supplying fresh matter and force for

generation of successive products. The hypotheses of
Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, to solve this problem,
have been already noticed : Pythagoras solved it by saying, That
the essence of things consisted in Number. By this he did not
mean simply that all things were numerable, or that number
belonged to them as a predicate. Numbers were not merely pre-
dicates inseparable from subjects, but subjects in themselves :
substances or magnitudes, endowed with active force, and esta-
blishing the fundamental essences or types according to which
things were constituted. About water,' air, or fire, Pythagoras
said nothing? He conceived that sensible phenomena had
greater resemblance to numbers than to any one of these sub-
strata assigned by the Ionic philosophers. Number was (in his
doctrine) the self-existent reality—the fundamental material and
in-dwelling force pervading the universe. Numbers were not
separate from things? (like the Platonic Ideas), but fundamenta
of things—their essences or determining principles: they were
moreover conceived as having magnitude and active force. In
the movements of the celestial bodies, in works of human art, in
musical harmony—-measure and number are the producing and
directing agencies. According to the Pythagorean Philolaus,
“the Dekad, the full and perfect number, was of supreme and
universal efficacy as the guide and principle of life, both to the

1 Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 5, p. 985,
b. 21, Ἔν δὲ τοῖς ἀριθμοῖς, ἐδόκουν θεω-
ρεῖν ὁμοιώματα πολλὰ τοῖς οὖσι καὶ L γιγ-
vondvors, μᾶλλον i, ἐν πυρὶ καὶ γῇ Kat
ὕδατι ὃ, P. 1090, ἃ. 21.

3 ‘Aristotel etait “Ae p. 990, a. 16.
Διὸ περὶ πυρὸς ἣ τῶν ἄλλων τῶν
τοιούτων σωμάτων ΜΗ ἢ τῶν λ ἥκασιν,
&e. , (the Pythagoreans) + also
hysic. iii. 4, 8.6. Ov γὰρ
χωριστὸν ποιοῦσι ἜΗΝ Pythagorean)
τὸν ἀριθμόν, ἄς, Meta phys
1080, b. 19: τὰς μονάδας ὑπολαμβά.
γουσιν ἔχειν me 8, p. 1083,

17: ἐκεῖνοι dhe 1 Pythegoreans) τὸν
δριθμὸν τὰ ὄντα λέγουσιν: τὰ γοῦν
θεωρήματο. προσάπτουσι τοῖς σώμασιν
ὡς ἐξ ἑκαίνων ὄντων τῶν ἀοιθιῶν.

4An analogous application of this
principle (Number as the fundamental
substance and universal primary
agent) may be seen in an eminent
physical philosopher of the nineteenth
centu Oken’s Elements of Phy-
sio-Philosophy, translated by ΤᾺ],
Aphorism 57 :--- While numbers in a
mathematical sense are positions and
negations of nothing, in the philo-
sophical sense they are positions and
negations of the Eternal. Every thing
which is real, posited, finite, has be-
come this, out of numbers; or more
strictly speaking, eve Real is abso-
lutely nothing else than ἃ number.
This must be the sense entertained of

numhara in tha Pvthagnraan doetrina

Cuap, I.

THE MONAS.

Kosmos and ἴο man. The nature of number was imperative and
lawgiving, affording the only solution of all that was perplexing
or unknown; without number all would be indeterminate and

unknowable.” !

The first principle or beginning of Number, was the One or
Monas—which the Pythagoreans conceived as including both the
two fundamental contraries—the Determining and the Indeter-
minate.* All particular numbers, and through them all things,
were compounded from the harmonious junction and admixture
of these two fundamental contraries.* All numbers being either

odd or even, the odd numbers were considered as
analogous to the Determining, the even numbers to
In One or the Monad, the Odd
and Even were supposed to be both contained, not
yet separated : Two was the first indeterminate even
number ; Three, the first odd and the first determi-
nate number, because it included beginning, middle,

the Indeterminate.

The Monas
—Apxy, Or
principle of
umber—
geometrical
conception
of number—
symbolical
attributes of
the first ten
numbers,
especially of

and end. The sum of the first four numbers—One, the Dekad

—namely, that every thing, or the
whole universe, had arisen from num-
bers. This is not to be taken in a
merely quantitative sense, as it has
hitherto been erroneously ; but in an
intrinsic sense, as implying that all
things are numbers themselves, or the
acts of the Eternal. The essence in
numbers is nought else than the
Eternal. The Eternal only is or exists,
and nothing else is when a number
exists. There is therefore nothing
real but the Eternal itself; for every
Real, or every thing that is, is only a
number and only exists by virtue of a
number.”

Ibid., Aphorism 105-107 :--- Arith-
metic is the science of the second idea,
or that of time or motion, or life. It
is therefore the first science. Mathe-
matics not only begin with it, but
creation also, with the becoming of
time and of life. Arithmetic is, ac-
cordingly, the truly absolute or divine
science ; and therefore every thing in
it is also directly certain, because
every thing in it resembles the Divine.
Theology is arithmetic personified.”
——“A natural thing is nothing but
a self-moving number. An organic or
living thing is a number moving itself
out of itself or spontaneously : an in-
organic thing, however, is a number
moved by another thing: now as this

other thing is also a real number, so
then is every inorganic thing a num-
ber moved by another number, and so
on ad infinitum. The movements in
nature are only movements of numbers
by numbers: even as arithmetical com-
putation is none other than a move-
ment of numbers by numbers; but
with this difference—that in the latter,
this operates in an ideal manner, in
the former after a real.”

1 Philolaus, ed. Boeckh, p. 139, seqq.

Θεωρεῖν Set τὰ ἔργα καὶ τὰν ἐσσίαν
οὐσίαν) τῶ ἀριθμῶ καττὰν δύναμιν, ἅτις
ἐντὶ ἐν τᾷ δεκάδι " μεγάλα γὰρ καὶ παντελὴς
καὶ παντοεργὸς καὶ θείω καὶ οὐρανίω βίω
καὶ ἀνθρωπίνω ἀρχὰ καὶ ἁγεμὼν ... ἄνευ
δὲ ταύτας πάντα ἄπειρα καὶ ἄδηλα καὶ
ἀφανῆ" νομικὰ γὰρ ἁ φύσις τῶ ἀριθμῶ
καὶ ἁγεμονικὰ καὶ διδασκαλικὰ τῶ ἀπο-
ρονμένω παντὸς καὶ ἀγνοουμένω παντί.
Compare the Fr. p. 58, of the same
work.

According to Plato, as well as the
Pythagoreans, number extended to
ten, and not higher: all above ten
were multiples and increments of ten.
(Aristot. Physic. iii. 6, p. 203, Ὁ. 80),

2See the instructive explanations
of Boeckh, in his work on the Frag-
ments of Philolaus, Ὁ. 54 seq.

ὃ Philolaus, Fr, Ὁ. 62, Boeckh.—

Diogen. L. viii. 7, 85.
Υ ἁρμονία, Philolaus meant the

12 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap., 1.

Two, Three, Four = Ten (1 + 2 + 3 + 4) was the most per-
fect number of all To these numbers, one, two, three,
four, were understood as corresponding the fundamental concep-
tions of Geometry—Point, Line, Plane, Solid. Five represented
colour and visible appearance: Siz, the phenomenon of Life:
Seven, Health, Light, Intelligence, &c. : Eight, Love or Friend-
ship.? Man, Horse, Justice and Injustice, had their representa-
tive numbers: that corresponding to Justice was a square
number, as giving equal for equal.

The Pythagoreans conceived the Kosmos, or the universe, as
Pythago. 8 single system, generated out of numbers.* Of
rean Rosmoa this system the central point—the determining or

and Astro- hd e,¢ e . .
nomy—geo- limiting One—was first in order of time, and in order

metricaland of philosophical conception. By the determining in-
harmonic . . .

lawsguiding fluence of this central constituted One, portions of
the move , the surrounding Infinite were successively attracted
cosmical and brought into system: numbers, geometrical

figures, solid substances, were generated. But as the
Kosmos thus constituted was composed of numbers, there could
be no continuum: each numerical unit was distinct and separated
from the rest by a portion of vacant space, which was imbibed,
by a sort of inhalation, from the infinite space or spirit without.

musical octave: and his work included
many explanations and comparisons
respecting the intervals of the musical
scale. (Boeckh, p. 65 seq.)

1 Aristotel. De Ceelo, i. 1, p. 268, a.
10. καθάπερ γάρ φασιν οἱ Πυθαγόρειοι,
τὸ πᾶν καὶ τὰ πάντα τοῖς τρίσιν ὥρισται
τελευτὴ γὰρ καὶ μέσον καὶ ἀρχὴ τὸν
ἀριθμὸν ἔχει τὸν τοῦ παντὸς, ταῦτα δὲ

ν τῆς τριάδος. Διὸ παρὰ τῆς φύσεως
εἰληφότες ὥσπερ νόμους ἐκείνης, καὶ
πρὸς τὰς ἁγιστείας χρώμεθα τῶν θεῶν
τῷ ἀριθμῷ τούτῳ (i. 6. three). It is
remarkable that Aristotle here adopts

and sanctions, in regard tothe number 9

Three, the mystic and fanciful attri-
butes ascribed by the Pythagoreans.

2 Striimpell, eschichte der theo-
retischen Philosophie der Griechen, 8.
78. Brandis, Handbuch der Gr.-Rém.
Phil., sect. 80, p. 467 seq.

The number Five also signified mar-
riage, because it was a junction of the
first masculine number Three with the
first feminine Two. Seven signified also
καιρὸς Or Right Season. See Aristotel.

Metaphys. A. 5, p. 985, b. 26, and M. 4,
p. 1078, b. 23, compared with the com-
mentary of Alexander on the former
passage.

3 Aristotel. Ethica Magna, i. 1.

4 Aristot. Metaph. M. 6, Ὁ. 1080, Ὁ. 18,
Tov yap ὅλον οὔρανον κατασκενάζουσιν
ἐξ ἀριθμῶν. Compare p. 1075. Ὁ. 87,
with the Scholia.

A poet calls the tetraktys (conse-
crated as the sum total of the first four
numbers 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10) πηγὴν
ἀενάον φύσεως ῥιζώματ᾽ ἔχουσαν. ΤΌΣ:
tus Empiric. adv. Mathemat. vii.

5 Philolaus, ed. Boeckh, p. 91-95.
τὸ πρᾶτον ἁρμοσθὲν, τὸ ἕν ἐν τῷ μέσῳ
τῆς σφαίρας ἑστία καλεῖται---Αωμόν τε
καὶ συνοχὴν καὶ μέτρον φύσεως---πρῶτον
εἶναι φύσει τὸ μέσον.

Aristot. Metaph. N. 8 Pp. 1091, 8. 15.
φανερῶς yap λέγουσιν ἀ e Pythago-
YFeans) ws τοῦ ἑνὸς συσταθέντος---εὐθὺς
τὸ ἔγγιστα τοῦ ἀπείρον ὅτι εἵλκετο καὶ
ἐπεραίνετο ὑπὸ τοῦ πέρατος.

ρ
Aristot. Physic. iv. 6, p. 218, b. 91.

Cuap. 1. PYTHAGOREAN KOSMOS. 13

The central point was fire, called by the Pythagoreans the Hearth
of the Universe (like the public hearth or perpetual fire main-
tained in the prytaneum of a Grecian city), or the watch-tower
of Zeus. Around it revolved, from West to East, ten divine
bodies, with unequal velocities, but in symmetrical movement or
regular dance.! Outermost was the circle of the fixed stars, called
by the Pythagoreans Olympus, and composed of fire like the
centre. Within this came successively,—with orbits more and
more approximating to the centre,—the five planets, Saturn,
Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury: next, the Sun, the Moon, and
the Earth. ‘Lastly, between the Earth and the central fire, an
hypothetical body, called the Antichthon or Counter-Earth, was
imagined for the purpose of making up a total represented by
the sacred number Ten, the symbol of perfection and totality.
The Antichthon was analogous to a separated half of the Earth ;
simultaneous with the Earth in its revolutions, and corresponding
with it on the opposite side of the central fire.

The inhabited portion of the Earth was supposed to be that
which was turned away from the central fire and towards the
Sun, from which it received light. But the Sun itself was not
self-luminous: it was conceived asa glassy disk, receiving and
concentrating light from the central fire, and reflecting it upon
the Earth, so long as the two were on the same side of the central
fire. The Earth revolved, in an orbit obliquely intersecting that
of the Sun, and in twenty-four hours, round the central fire,
always turning the same side towards that fire. The alternation
of day and night was occasioned by the Earth being during a
part of such revolution on the same side of the central fire with
the Sun, and thus receiving light reflected from him: and during
the remaining part of her revolution on the side opposite to him,
so that she received no light at all from him. The Earth, with
the Antichthon, made this revolution in one day: the Moon, in

Εἶναι δ᾽ ἔφασαν καὶ ot Ἰυθαγόρειοι κε-
νόν, καὶ ἐπεισιέναι αὐτὸ τῷ οὐράνῳ ἐκ
τοῦ ἀπείρου πνεύματος, ὡς ἀναπνέοντι "
καὶ τὸ κενόν, ὃ διορίζει τὰς φύσεις, ὡς
ὄντος τοῦ κενοῦ χωρισμοῦ τινος τῶν
ἐφεξῆς καὶ τῆς διορίσεως, καὶ τοῦτ᾽ εἶναι
πρῶτον ἐν τοῖς ἀριθμοῖς " τὸ γὰρ κενὸν
διορίζειν τὴν φύσιν αὐτῶν. Stobseus

states the same, referring to the lost
work of Aristotle on the Pythagorean
osophy.
P Compare Prellér, Histor. Philos. Gr.
ex Font. Loc. Context., sect. 114-115.
1 Philolaus, p. θά. Boeckh. περὶ δὲ
τοῦτο δέκα σώματα θεῖα χορεύειν, ἄσ.

Aristot. De Coelo, ii. 18. Metaphys.

(Eclog. Phys. i. 18, p. 381, Heer.) A. 5.

PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY.

Cuap. 1.

one month :! the Sun, with the planets, Mercury and Venus, in
one year: the planets, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, in longer
periods respectively, according to their distances from the centre:
lastly, the outermost circle of the fixed stars (the Olympus, or
the Aplanes), in some unknown period of very long dura-

tion.?

The revolutions of such grand bodies could not take place,
Musicofthe in the opinion of the Pythagoreans, without pro-

Spheres.

ducing a loud and powerful sound; and as their

distances from the central fire were supposed to be arranged
in musical ratios,’ so the result of all these separate sounds was
full and perfect harmony. To the objection—Why were not
these sounds heard by us?—they replied, that we had heard
them constantly and without intermission from the hour of our
birth ; hence they had become imperceptible by habit.‘

Ten was, in the opinion of the Pythagoreans, the perfection

1The Pythagoreans supposed that
eclipses of the moon took place, some-
times by the interposition of the earth,
sometimes by that of the Antichthon,
to intercept from the moon the light of
the sun Gtobeous Eclog. Phys. i. 27,
Pr oe: eeren). Stobseus here cites

e history (ἱστορίαν) of the Pytha-
gorean philosophy by Aristotle, and

e statement of Philippus of Opus,
the friend of Plato.

2 Aristot. de Ccelo, ii. 18. Respect-
ing this Pythagorean cosmical system,
the elucidations of Boeckh are clear
and valuable. Untersuchungen iiber
das Kosmische System des Platon,
Berlin, 1852, p. 99-102; completing
those which he had before given in his
edition of the fragments of Philolaus.

Martin (in his Etudes sur le Timée
de Platon, vol. ii. Φ. 107) and Gruppe
(Die Kosmischen Systeme der Grie-
chen, ch. iv.) maintain that the original
system proposed by Pythagoras was a
geocentric system, afterwards trans-

ormed by Philolaus and other Pytha-
oreans into that which stands in the

xt. But I agree with Boeckh (Ueber
das Kosmische Syetom des Platon, p. 89
8e ἣν and with Zeller (Phil. ἃ. Griech.,
vol. 1. p. 808, ed. 2), that this point
is not made out. That which Martin
and Gruppe (on the authority of Alex-
ander Polyhistor, Diog. viil. 25, and
others) consider to be a description of
the original Pyth orean system as it
stood before Philolaus, is more pro-

bably a subsequent transformation of
it ; introduced after the time of Aris-
totle, in order to suit later astrono-
mical views.

3 Playfair observes (in his disserta-
tion on the Progress of Natural Phi-
losophy, p. 87) respecting Kepler—
‘* Kepler was perhaps the first person
who conceived that there must be
always a law capable of being ex-
pressed by arithmetic or geometry,
which connects such phenomena as
have a physical dependence on each
other”. But this seems to be exactly
the fundamental conception of the
Pythagoreans: or rather a part of
their fundamental conception, for
they also considered their numbers as
active forces bringing such law into
reality. To illustrate the determina-
tion of the Pythagoreans to make u
the number of Ten celestial bodies, αὶ
transcribe another passage from Play-
fair (p. 98). Huygens, having dis-
covered one satellite of Saturn, ‘be-
lieved that there were no more, and
that the number of the planets was now
complete. The planets, primary and
secondary, thus made up twelve—the
double of six, the first of the perfect
numbers.”

" 3 Aristot. De Coelo, ii. 9; Pliny, ΗΝ.

1. .
See the Pythagorean sytem fully
set forth by Zeller, Die Philosophie
der Griechen, vol. i. p. 802-310, ed.
n

Cuap. I. PERFECTION OF NUMBER.

and consummation of number. The numbers from
One to Ten were all that they recognised as primary,
original, generative. Numbers greater than ten were
compounds and derivatives from the decad. They
employed this perfect number not only as a basis on
which to erect a bold astronomical hypothesis, but
also as a sum total for their list of contraries. Many Hellenic
philosophers! recognised pairs of opposing attributes as per-
vading nature, and as the fundamental categories to which the
actual varieties of the sensible world might be reduced. While
others laid down Hot and Cold, Wet and Dry, as the funda-
mental contraries, the Pythagoreans adopted a list of ten pairs.
1, Limit and Unlimited ; 2. Odd and Even ; 3. One and Many;
4, Right and Left; 5. Male and Female; 6. Rest and Motion ;
7. Straight and Curve; 8. Light and Darkness; 9. Good and
Evil ; 10. Square and Oblong.? Of these ten pairs, five belong to
arithmetic or to geometry, one to mechanics, one to physics, and
three to anthropology or ethics. Good and Evil, Regularity
and Irregularity, were recognised as alike primordial and
indestructible.’

The arithmetical and geometrical view of nature, to which
such exclusive supremacy is here given by the Pythagoreans,
is one of the most interesting features of Grecian philosophy.
They were the earliest cultivators of mathematical science,* and
are to be recognised as having paved the way for Euclid and
Archimedes, notwithstanding the symbolical and mystical fancies

traries—Ten
opposing
pairs.

existing things "—ir τἀνάντια ἀρχαὶ τῶν
ὄντων.

1 Aristot. Metaphys. YP. 2, p. 1004,

Ὁ. 80. τὰ δ᾽ ὄντα καὶ τὴν οὐσίαν dpo-

λογοῦσιν ἐξ ἐναντίων σχεδὸν ἅπαντες
κεῖσθαι.
Aristot. Metaphys. A. 5 P- 986,
a. 22. He goes on to say that Alk-
meson, a semi-Pythagorean and 8
younger contemporary of Pythagoras
imself, while agreeing in the general
principle that ‘human affairs were
generally in pairs,” (εἶναι δύο τὰ πολλὰ
τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων), laid down pairs of
fundamental contraries af random (ras
ἐναντιότητας τὰς Txovoas)—Dlack an
white, sweet and bitter, good and evil,
great and little. All that you can ex-
ract from these philosophers is (con-
tinues Aristotle) the
that ‘‘contraries are t

eneral axiom
e principia of

d 28.

This axiom is to be noted as occupy-
ing a great place in the minds of the
Greek philosophers.

8 Theophrast. Metaphys. 9. Pro-
bably the recognition of one dominant
antithesis—To Ἔν--- ἀόριστος Avas—
is the form given by Plato to the
Pythagorean doctrine. Eudorus (in
Simplikius ad Aristot. Physic. fol. 39)
seems to blend the two together.
4 Aristot. Metaph. A. 56, p. 985, Ὁ,

οἱ Πυθαγορεῖοι τῶν μάτων
ἁψάμενοι πρῶτοι ταῦτα προή-
γαγον, καὶ ἐντραφέντες ἐν αὐτοῖς τὰς
τούτων ἀρχὰς τών ὄντων ἀρχὰς φήθησαν
εἶναι πάντων.

lo PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap,. I.

with which they so largely perverted what are now regarded as
the clearest and most rigorous processes of the human intellect.
The important theorem which forms the forty-seventh Proposi-
tion of Euclid’s first book, is affirmed to have been discovered by
Pythagoras himself: but how much progress was made by him
anid his followers in the legitimate province of arithmetic and
geometry, as well as in the applications of these sciences to
harmonics,! which they seem to have diligently cultivated, we
have not sufficient information to determine with certainty.
Contemporary with Pythagoras, and like him an emigrant
Bleatic from Ionia to Italy, was Xenophanes of Kolophon.
Philosophy He settled at the Phokean colony of Elea, on the
phanes, Gulf of Poseidonia ; his life was very long, but his
period of eminence appears to belong (as far as we
can make out amidst conflicting testimony) to the last thirty
years of the sixth century B.c. (530-500 B.c.). He was thus
contemporary with Anaximander and Anaximenes, as well as
with Pythagoras, the last of whom he may have personally
known.? He composed, and recited in person, poems—epic,
elegiac, and iambic—of which a very few fragments remain.
Xenophanes takes his point of departure, not from Thales or
- His cen- Anaximander, but from the same ancient theogonies
sures upon Which they had forsaken. But he follows a very diffe-
Theogony rent road. The most prominent feature in his poems
andreli- (so far as they remain), is the directness and asperity
gious rites. with which he attacks the received opinions respecting
the Gods—and the poets Hesiod and Homer, the popular
exponents of those opinions. Xenophanes not only condemns
these poets for having ascribed to the Gods discreditable ex-
ploits, but even calls in question the existence of the Gods, and
ridicules the anthropomorphic conception which pervaded the
Hellenic faith. “If horses or lions could paint, they would
delineate their Gods in form like themselves. The Ethiopians
conceive their Gods as black, the Thracians conceive theirs as
fair and with reddish hair.” Dissatisfied with much of the

1Concerning the Pythagorean doc- 2 Karsten. Xenoph Fragm.,
trines on Harmonica, see Boeckh’s 4, 9 0. phanis 5
Philolaus, ᾧ 60-84, with his copious ‘Xeno phanis Fragm. 5-6-7, seq.
and learned comments. ed Karsten : Clemens Alexandr. Strom
vy. Ῥ. 601 ; vii. p. 711

' XENOPHANES. 17

CHAP 1.

customary worship and festivals, Xenophanes repudiated devina-
tion altogether, and condemned the extravagant respect shown to
victors in Olympic contests,! not less than the lugubrious cere-
monies in honour of Leukothea. He discountenanced all
Theogony, or assertion of the birth of Gods, as impious, and as
inconsistent with the prominent attribute of immortality ascribed
to them.?, He maintained that there was but one God, identical
with, or a personification of, the whole Uranus. “The whole
Kosmos, or the whole God, sees, hears, and thinks.” The divine
nature (he said) did not admit of the conception of separate
persons one governing the other, or of want and imperfection in
any way.’

Though Xenophanes thus appears (like Pythagoras) mainly as
a religious dogmatist, yet theogony and cosmogony

ge . . His doctrine
were so intimately connected in the sixth century of Pankos-
. . mism, or
B.C., that he at the same time struck out a new philo- jaitheism
sophical theory. His negation of theogony was tanta- qe whole
mount to a negation of cosmogony. In substituting Ens Unum
one God for many, he set aside all distinct agencies in 01, G0d—Ev
the universe, to recognise only one agent, single, all- Non-Ens in-
’ 8 y Ben Snes admissible.

pervading, indivisible. He repudiated all genesis of
new reality, all actual existence of parts, succession, change,
beginning, end, etc., in reference to the universe, as well as in
reference to God. “Wherever I turned my mind (he exclaimed)
everything resolved itself into One and the same: all things
existing came back always and everywhere into one similar and
permanent nature.”* The fundamental tenet of Xenophanes
was partly religious, partly philosophical, Pantheism, or Pan-
kosmism : looking upon the universe as one real all-compre-
hensive Ens, which he would not call either finite or infinite,

1 Xenophan. Fragm. 19, p. 60, ed.
Karsten ; Cicero, Divinat. i, ξ δ.

4Xenophanis Fragment. 34-35, p.
85, ed. Karsten; Aristotel. Rhetoric.
ii. 23; Metaphys. A. 5, p. 986, b. 19.

3 Xenoph. Frag. 1-2, Ὁ. 36.

Οὗλος ὁρᾷ, οὗλος δὲ νοεῖ, οὗλος δέ τ᾽

ακονέι.

Plutarch ap. Eusebium, Prep.
Evang. i. 8; Diogen. Laert. ix. 19.

4 ‘Limon, fragment of the Silli ap.
Sext. Empiric. Hypot. Pyrrh. 1. 88,
sect. 224.

ὄππη γὰρ ἐμὸν νόον εἰρύσαιμι;
εἰς ἂν ταὐτό τε πᾶν ἀνελύετο, πᾶν δὲ
ὃν αἰεὶ

πάντῃ ἀνελκόμενον μίαν εἰς φύσιν

τσταθ᾽ ὁμόίαν.

Αἰεὶ here appears to be more con-
veniently construed with ἵσταθ᾽, not
(as Karsten construes it, p. 118) with
OV.

It is fair to presume that these lines
are ἃ reproduction of the sentiments of
Xenophanes, if not a literal transcript
of his words.

1—2

18 : PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY Cuap. I.

either in motion or at rest. Non-Ens he pronounced to be an
absurdity—an inadmissible and unmeaning phrase.

It was thus from Xenophanes that the doctrine of Pankosmism
Scepticism first obtained introduction into Greek philosophy,

οἱ eno- recognising nothing real except the universe as an
complaintof indivisible and unchangeable whole. Such a creed
philosophy was altogether at variance with common. perception,
factory. which apprehends the universe as a plurality of

substances, distinguishable, divisible, changeable, &c. And
Xenophanes could not represent his One and All, which excluded
all change, to be the substratum out of which phenomenal variety
was generated—as Water, Air, the Infinite, had been represented
by the Ionic philosophers. The sense of this contradiction,
without knowing how to resolve it, appears to have occasioned
the mournful complaints of irremediable doubt and uncertainty,
preserved as fragments from his poems. ‘No man (he exclaims)
knows clearly about the Gods or the universe: even if he speak
what is perfectly true, he himself does not know it to be true:
all is matter of opinion.” 3
Nevertheless while denying all real variety or division in the
universe, Xenophanes did not deny the variety of human per-
ceptions and beliefs. But he allowed them as facts belonging to
man, not to the universe—as subjective or relative, not as ob-
jective or absolute. He even promulgated opinions of his own
respecting many of the physical and cosmological subjects treated
by the Ionic philosophers.
Without attempting to define the figure of the Earth, he con-
sidered it to be of vast extent and of infinite depth ;°
His conjec- including, in its interior cavities, prodigious reservoirs
physics uy both of fire and water. He thought that it had at one
"time been covered with water, in proof of which he

1 Theophrastus ap. Simplikium in εἰδὼς, ἀμφὶ θεῶν re καὶ ἅσσα λέγω

Aristotel. Physic. f. 6, Karsten, p. 106; περὶ πάντων "
Arist. Μοῦ, A. δ, p. 986, b. 21: Ξενοφάνης εἰ γὰρ καὶ τὰ μάλιστα τύχοι τετελεσ-
δὲ πρῶτος τούτων ἑνίσας, ὃ γὰρ Ἰαρμε- μένον εἰπὼν,
νίδης τούτον λέγεται μαθητής,---οεἰς τὸν αὐτὸς ὁμῶς οὐκ οἶδε" δόκος δ᾽ ἐπὶ
ὅλον οὔρανον ἀποβλέψας τὸ ἕν εἶναί φησι πᾶσι τέτυκται.
y ὅεον. “ΟὐἴΏΡΑτΘ the extract from the Silli
3 Xenophan. Fragm. 14, p. 51, ed. of Timon in Sextus Empiricus—Pyrr-
Karsten. hon. Hypot. 1. 224; and the same

καὶ τὸ μὲν οὖν σαφὲς οὔτις ἀνὴρ yéver’ author, adv. Mathemat. vil. 48-52,
οὔδε τις ἔσται 8 Aristot. De Cozlo, ii. 18,

Cuap. IL XENOPHANES. 19

noticed the numerous shells found inland and on mountain tops,
together with the prints of various fish which he had observed
in the quarries of Syracuse, in the island of Paros, and elsewhere.
From these facts he inferred that the earth had once been covered
with water, and even that it would again be so covered at some
future time, to the destruction of animal and human life. He
supposed that the sun, moon, and stars were condensations of
vapours exhaled from the Earth, collected into clouds, and alter-
nately inflamed and extinguished.?

Parmenides, of Elea, followed up and gave celebrity to the
Xenophanean hypothesis in a poem, of which the
striking exordium is yet preserved. The two veins
of thought, which Xenophanes had recognised and
lamented his inability to reconcile, were proclaimed
by Parmenides as a sort of inherent contradiction in
the human mind—Reason or Cogitation declaring one
way, Sense (together with the remembrances and
comparisons of sense) suggesting a faith altogether
opposite. Dropping that controversy with the popular
religion which had been raised by Xenophanes, Par-
menides spoke of many different Gods or Goddesses,
and insisted on the universe as one, without regarding it as one
God. He distinguished Truth from matter of Opinion.’ Truth
was knowable only by pure mental contemplation or cogitation,
the object of which was Ens or Being, the Real or Absolute:
here the Cogitans and the Cogitatum were identical, one and the
same.* Parmenides conceived Ens not simply as existent, but as

Parmenides
continues
the doctrine
of Xeno-

hanes—

ns Par-
menideum,
self-exist-
ent, eternal,
unchange-
able, ex-
tended,—
Non-Ens, an
unmeaning
phrase.

1 Xenophan. Frag. p. 178, ed. Compare Lucretius, v. 458.
Karsten; Achilles Tatius, Eicaywy)

in Arat. Pheenom. p. 128, τὰ κάτω δ᾽ ἐς
ATELPOYV LCKAVEL.

his inference from the shells and

‘* ner rara foramina, terrse
Partibus erumpens primus se sustulit
eether

prints of fishes is very remarkable for
so early a period. Compare Herodotus
(ii. 12), who notices the fact, and draws
the same inference, as to Lower Egypt:
also Plutarch, De Isid. et Osirid. c. 40,
p. 867; and Strabo, i. p. 49-50, from
whom we learn that the Lydian his-
torian Xanthus had made the like ob-
servation, and also the like inference,
for himself. Straton of Lampsakus,
Eratosthenes, and Strabo himself, ap-
proved what Xanthus said.

2 Xenophanes Frag. Ὁ. 161 seq., ed.
Karsten.

Ignifer et multos secum levis abstulit
ignis...

Sic igitur tum se levis ac diffusilis sather
Corpore concreto circumdatus undique
exit: ....
Hunc exordia sunt solis luneque se-
οὐδ."

ϑ Parmenides Frag. v. 29,
4Parm. Frag. v. 40, 52-56.

τὸ γὰρ αὐτὸ νοεῖν ἐστίν τε καὶ

etyvat.
᾿Αλλὰ σὺ τῆσδ᾽ ad’ ὁδοῦ διξήσιος
εἶργε νόημα,

20 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. CHap, 1.

self-existent, without beginning or end,! as extended, continuous,
indivisible, and unchangeable. The Ens Parmenideum comprised
the two notions of Extension and Duration :2 it was something
Enduring and Extended ; Extension including both space, and
matter so far forth as filling space. Neither the contrary of Ens
(Non-Ens), nor anything intermediate between Ens and Non-Ens,
could be conceived, or named, or reasoned about. Ens compre-
hended all that was Real, without beginning or end, without
parts or difference, without motion or change, perfect and uniform

like a well-turned sphere.*
In this subject Ens, with its few predicates, chiefly negative,
consisted all that Parmenides called Truth. Everything else
belonged to the region of Opinion, which embraced

He recog: all that was phenomenal, relative, and transient: all
regionof that involved a reference to man’s senses, apprehension,
opinion,

phenonvenal and appreciation, all the indefinite diversity of ob-
andrelative, served facts and inferences. Plurality, succession,
ae from change, motion, generation, destruction, divisi f
ng. ge, , generation, destruction, division o

parts, &c., belonged to this category. Parmenides did
not deny that he and other men had perceptions and beliefs cor-
responding to these terms, but he denied their application to the
Ens or the self-existent. We are conscious of succession, but the
self-existent has no succession: we perceive change of colour and
other sensible qualities, and change of place or motion, but Ens
neither changes nor moves. We talk of things generated or
destroyed—things coming into being or going out of being—but
this phrase can have no application to the self-existent Ens, which
is always and cannot properly be called either past or future.

μηδέ σ' ἔθος πολύπειρον ὁδὸν κατὰ
τήνδε βιάσθω

νωμᾷν ἄσκοπον ὄμμα καὶ ἠχήεσσαν
ἀκονὴν

καὶ γλῶσσαν" κρῖναι δὲ λόγῳ πολύ-
ἔηνιν ἔλεγχον

ἐξ ἐμέθεν ῥηθέντα.

1 Parm. Frag. v. 81.

der theor. Phil. der Griech., s. 44)
represents it as unextended: but this
view seems not reconcilable with the
remaining fragments.

3 Parm. Frag. v. 102.

4 Parmenid. Fr. v. 96.

---- ἐπεὶ τό γε μοῖρ᾽ ἐπέδησεν

Οἷον ἀκίνητον τελέθειν τῷ πάντ᾽ ὄνομ᾽

αὐτὰρ ἀκίνητον μεγάλων ἐν πείρασι εἵναι,
εσμῶν Ὅσσα βροτοὶ κατέθεντο, πεποιθότες εἶναι
ἐστὶν, ἄναρχον, ἄπαυστον, &C. ἀληθῆ, .-, :
2Zeller (Die Philosophie der γίγνεσθαί τε καὶ ὄλλυσθαι, εἶναί τε καὶ
Griech., i. p. 408, ed. 2) maintains, in οὐκ, , .
my opinion justly, that the Ens Par- καὶ τόπον ἀλλάσσειν, διά τε χρόα φανὸν
menideum is concejved by its author ἀμείβειν"

as extended. Striimpell (Geschichte

v.75 tm

CuHapP. I. PARMENIDES.

Nothing is really generated or destroyed, but only in appearance
to us, or relatively to our apprehension. In like manner we
perceive plurality of objects, and divide objects into parts. But
Ens is essentially One, and cannot be divided.2. Though you
may divide a piece of matter you cannot divide the extension of
which that matter forms part: you cannot (to use the expression
of Hobbes?) pull asunder the ‘first mile from the second, or the
first hour from the second. The milestone, or the striking of the
clock, serve as marks to assist you in making a mental division,
and in considering or describing one hour and one mile apart
from the next. This, however, is your own act, relative to your-
self: there is no real division of extension into miles, or of
duration into hours. You may consider the same space or time
as one or as many, according to your convenience: as one hour
or as sixty minutes, as one mile or eight furlongs. But all this
is a process of your own mind and thoughts ; another man may
divide the same total in a way different from you. Your division
noway modifies the reality without you, whatever that may be—
the Extended and Enduring Ens—which remains still a con-
tinuous one, undivided and unchanged.

The Ens of Parmenides thus coincided mainly with that which
{since Kant) has been called the Noumenon—the
Thing in itself—the Absolute ; or rather with that
which, by a frequent illusion, passes for the absolute
—no notice being taken of the cogitant and believing
mind, as if cogitation and belief, cogitata and credita,
would be had without it. By Ens was understood

Parmeni-
dean onto-
logy stands
completely
apart from
p enomenoe
0.

εἴ ye γένοιτ᾽, οὐκ ἔστ᾽ " οὐδ᾽ εἴ πότε μέλλει
ἔσεσθαι"

τῶς γένεσις μὲν ἀπέσβεσται, καὶ ἄπιστος
ὄλεθρος.

1 Aristotel. De σοῖο, iii. 1. Οἱ μὲν
γὰρ αὐτῶν ὅλως ἀνεῖλον γένεσιν καὶ
φθοράν" οὐθὲν γὰρ οὔτε γίγνεσθαί φασιν
οὔτε φθείρεσθαι τῶν ὄντων, ἀλλὰ
μόνον δοκεῖν ἡμῖν" οἷον οἱ περὶ
Μέλισσον καὶ ἸΠαρμενίδην, &e.

2 Parm. Frag. v. 77.
Οὐδὲ διαίρετόν ἐστιν, ἐπεὶ πᾶν ἐστὶν
ὅμοιον,
οὐδέ τι τῇ μᾶλλον τό κεν εἴργοι μιν ξυνέ-
χεσθαι, to.
οὐδέ τι χειρότερον" πᾶν δὲ πλέον ἐστὶν
όντος "

τῷ ξυνεχὲς πᾶν ἐστίν" ἐὸν γὰρ ἐόντι
πελάζει.

Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 5, p. 986, b. 29,
with the Scholia, and Physic. i. 2, 8,
Simplikius Comm. in Physic. Aristot.
(apud Tennemann Geschichte der Phi-
los. Ὁ. i. 8, 4, vol. i. p. 170) πάντα γάρ
φησι (Παρμενίδης) τὰ ὄντα, καθὸ ὄντα,
ν ἐστίν. This chapter, in which
Tennemann gives an account of the
Eleatic philosophy, appears to me one
of the best and most instructive in his
work.

8 ‘To make parts,—or to part or
divide, Space or Time,—is nothing else
but to consider one and another within
the same: so that if any man divide

22 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. I.

the remnant in his mind, after leaving out all that abstraction, as
far as it had then been carried, could leave out. It was the mini-
mum indispensable to the continuance of thought ; you cannot
think (Parmenides says) without thinking of Something, and that
Something Extended and Enduring. Though he and others talk
of this Something as an Absolute (1.e. apart from or independent
of his own thinking mind), yet he also uses some juster language
(rd γὰρ αὐτὸ νοεῖν ἔστιν τε καὶ εἶναι), showing that it is really
relative: that if the Cogitans implies a Cogitatum, the Cogitatum
also implies no less its correlative Cogitans : and that though we
may divide the two in words, we cannot divide them in fact. It
is to be remarked that Parmenides distinguishes the Enduring or
Continuous from the Transient or Successive, Duration from
Succession (both of which are included in the meaning of the
word Time), and that he considers Duration alone as belonging
to Ens or the Absolute—to the region of Truth—setting it in
opposition or antithesis to Succession, which he treats as relative
and phenomenal. We have thus (with the Eleates) the first
appearance of Ontology, the science of Being or Ens, in Grecian
philosophy. Ens is everything, and everything is Ens. In the
view of Parmenides, Ontology is not merely narrow, but in-
capable of enlargement or application ; we shall find Plato and
others trying to expand it into numerous imposing generalities.

space or time, the diverse conceptions
he has are more, by one, than the parts
which he makes. For his first concep-
tion is of that which is to be divided—
then, of some part of it—and again of
some other part of it : and so forwards,
as long as he goes in dividing. But it
is to be noted, that here, by division, I
do not mean the severing or pulling
asunder of one space or time from
another (for does any man think that
one hemisphere may be separated from
the other hemisphere, or the first hour
from the second 7), but diversity of con-
sideration: so that division is not made
by the operation of the hands, but of
the mind.”—Hobbes, First Grounds of
Philosophy, chap. vii. 5, vol. i. p. 96,
ed. Molesworth.

“ Expansion and duration have this
farther agreement, that though they
are both considered by us as having
parts, yet their parts are not separable
one from another, not even in thought;

though the parts of bodies from which
we take our measure of the one—and
the parts of motion, from which we
take the measure of the other—may
be interrupted or separated.”—Locke,
Essay on the Human Understanding,
book ii. ch. 15, s. 11.

In the Platonic Parmenides, p.
156 D., we find the remarkable concep-
tion of what he calls τὸ ἐξαίφνης,
dromés τις φύσις--- break in the con-
tinuity of duration, an extra-temporal
moment.

1 Leibnitz says, Réponse & M.
Foucher, Ρ 117, ed. Erdmann, ‘‘ Com-
ment seroit il possible qu’aucune chose
existAt, si l’étre méme, ipsum Esse,
n’avoit Pexistence? Mais bien au con-
traire ne pourrait on pas dire avec
beaucoup plus de raison, qu'il n'y a
que lui qui existe véritablement, les

tres particuliers n’ayant rien de per-
manent? Semper generantur, et nun-
quam sunt.”

Cap. 1. PARMENIDES. Zs
Apart from Ontology, Parmenides reckons all as belonging to
human opinions. These were derived from the
observations of sense (which he especially excludes
from Ontology) with the comparisons, inferences, Plative oad
hypothesis, &c., founded thereupon: the phenomena variable.
of Nature generally.1 He does not attempt (as Plato and
Aristotle do after him) to make Ontology serve as a principle or
beginning for anything beyond itself,? or as a premiss from which
the knowledge of nature is to be deduced. He treats the two—
Ontology and Phenomenology, to employ an Hegelian word—as
radically disparate, and incapable of any legitimate union. Ens
was essentially one and enduring : Nature was essentially multi-
form, successive, ever changing and moving relative to the
observer, and different to observers at different times and places.
Parmenides approached the study of Nature from its own start-

Parmeni-
dean pheno-
menology—

1 Karsten observes that the Parme-
nidean region of opinion comprised not
merely the data of sense, but also the
comparisons, generalisations, and no-
tions, derived from sense.

“« Δοξαστὸν et νοητὸν vocantur duo
enera inter se diversa, quorum al-
erum complectitur res externas et
fluxas, notionesque que ex his ducun-
tur—alterum res sternas et a con-
spectu remotas,” &c. (Parm. Fragm.
p. 148-149).

2 Marbach (Lehrbuch der Gesch. der
Philos., 5. 71, not. 8), after pointing out
the rude philosophical expression of
the Parmenidean verses, has some just
remarks upon the double aspect of
philosophy as there proclaimed, and
upon the recognition by Parmenides of
that which he calls the “ illegitimate”
vein of enquiry along with the “‘legi-
timate.”

‘‘Learn from me (says Parmenides)
the opinions of mortals, brought to
your ears in the deceitful arrangement
of my words. This is not philosophy
(Marbach says): it is Physics. e
recognise in modern times two per-
fectly distinct ways of contemplating
Nature: the philosophical and the

hysical. Of these two, the second
ΑΝ in plurality, the first in unity:
the first teaches everything as infal-
lible truth, the second as multiplicity
of different opinions. We ought not to
ask why Parmenides, while recognisin
the fallibility of this second road o

enquiry, nevertheless undertook to
march in it,—any more than we can
ask, Why does not modern philosophy
render physics superfluous ?”

The observation of Marbach is just
and important, that the line of research
which Parmenides treated as illegi-
timate and deceitful, but which he
nevertheless entered upon, is the ana-
logon of modern Physics. Parmenides
(he says) indicated most truly the con-
trast and divergence between Ontology
and Physics; but he ought to have
gone farther, and shown how they
could be reconciled and brought into
harmony. This (Marbach affirms) was
not evenattempted, much less achieved,
by Parmenides: but it was afterwards
attempted by Plato, and achieved by
Aristotle.

Marbach is right in saying that the
reconciliation was attempted by Plato;
but he is not right (I think) in saying
that it was achieved by Aristotle—nor
by any one since Aristotle. It is the
merit of Parmenides to have brought
out the two points of view as radically
distinct, and to have seen that the
phenomenal world, if explained at all,
must be explained upon general prin-
ciples of its own, raised out of its own
data of facts—not by means of an il-
lusory Absolute and Real. The subse-
quent philosophers, in so far as they
hid and slurred over this distinction,
appear to me to have receded rather
than advanced.

24 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. I.

ing point, the same as had been adopted by the Ionic philoso-
phers—the data of sense, or certain agencies selected among
them, and vaguely applied to explain the rest. Here he felt that
he relinquished the full conviction, inseparable from his intellec-
tual consciousness, with which he announced his few absolute
truths respecting Ens and Non-Ens, and that he entered upon a
process of mingled observation and conjecture, where there was
great room for diversity of views between man and man.

Yet though thus passing from Truth to Opinions, from full
certainty to comparative and irremediable uncertainty,! Parme-
nides does not consider all opinions as equally true or equally
untrue. He announces an opinion of his own—what
he thinks most probable or least improbable—respect-
ing the structure and constitution of the Kosmos, and

Parmenides
recognises

notruth, but
more or less

pike a he announces it without the least reference to his own
phenomenal doctrines about Ens. He promises information re-
explana. specting Earth, Water, Air, and the heavenly bodies,
physicaland how they work, and how they came to be what they
eal conjeo are.2 He recognises two elementary principles or be-
ures.

ginnings, one contrary to the other, but both of them
positive—Light, comprehending the Hot, the Light, and the
Rare—Darkness, comprehending the Cold, the Heavy, and the
Dense.2 These two elements, each endued with active and vital
properties, were brought into junction and commixture by the

2 Parmen. Fr. v. 109.

ἐν τῷ σοὶ παύω πιστὸν λόγον ἠδὲ νόημα
ἀμφὶς ἀληθείης ' δόξας δ᾽ ἀπὸ τοῦδε βρο-
Tetas

criticisms on Parmenides imply (erro-
neously in my judgment) that Par-
menides did the same. The remarks
which Brucker makes both on Ari-
stotle’s criticism and on the Eleatic

μάνθανε, κόσμον ἐμῶν ἐπέων ἀπατηλὸν Goctrine are in the main just, though

ἀκονὼν the language is not very suitable.
2 Parm. Frag. ¥. 132-142. Brucker, Hist. Philosoph., part ii.
8 Aristotle (Metaphys. A. 5, p. 987, lib. ii. ch. xi. tom. 1, p. 1152-3, about

ὃ. 1) represents Parmenides as assimi-
lating one of his phenomenal principles
Heat) to Ens, and the other (Cold) to
Non-Ens. There is nothing in the

Xenophanes :--- Ex iis enim quee apud
Aristotelem ex ejus mente contra mo-
tum disputantur, ἰδοῦ Xenophanem
motis notionem aliam quam que in

fragments of Parmenides to justify this
supposed analogy. Heat as well as
Cold belongs to Non-Ens, not to Ens,
in the Parmenidean doctrine. More-
over Cold or Dense is just as much a
positive principle as Hot or Rare, in
he view of Parmenides; it is the
female to the male (Parm. Fragm.
v, 129; comp. Karsten, p. 270). Ari-
stotle conceives Ontology as a sub-
stratum for Phenomenology ; and his

physicis obtinet, sibi concepisse; et
ad verum motum progressum a non-
ente ad ens ejusque existentiam requi-
sivisse. quo sensu notionis hujus
semel admisso, sequebatur (cum illud
impossibile sit, ut ex nihilo flat ali-
quid) universum esse immobile, adeo-
que et partes ejus non ita moveri, ut
ex statu nihili procederent ad statum
existentise. Quibus admissis, de rerum
tamen mutationibus disserere poterat,

CuapP. I. PARMENIDES, οὔ

influence οὗ a Dea Genitalis analogous to Aphrodité,} with her
first-born son Eros, a personage borrowed from the Hesiodic
Theogony From hence sprang the other active forces of nature,
personified under various names, and the various concentric
circles or spheres of the Kosmos. Of those spheres, the outer-
most was a solid wall of fire—“ flammantia menia mundi’—
next under this the Ather, distributed into several circles of fire
unequally bright and pure—then the circle called the Milky
Way, which he rega-ced as composed of light or fire combined
with denser materials—then the Sun and Moon, which were
condensations of fire from the Milky Way—lastly, the Earth,
which he placed in the centre of the Kosmos.? He is said to
have been the first who pronounced the earth to be spherical, and
even distributed it into two or five zones.3 He regarded it as
immovable, in consequence of its exact position in the centre.
He considered the stars to be fed by exhalation from the Earth.
Midway between the Earth and the outer flaming circle, he sup-
posed that there dwelt a Goddess—Justice or Necessity—who
regulated all the movements of the Kosmos, and maintained
harmony between its different parts. He represented the human

quas non alterationes, generationes, et
extinctiones, rerum naturalium, sed
modificationes, esse putabat: hoc no-
mine indignas, eo quod rerum universi
natura semper maneret immutabilis,
soliusque materis sternum fluentis

articule varie inter se modificarentur.

4c ratione si Eleaticos priores expli-
cemus de motu disserentes, rationem
facile dabimus, qui de rebus physicis
disserere et phenomena naturalia ex-
plicare, salv4 isté hypothesi, potuerint.
‘Quod tamen de iis negat Aristoteles,
conceptum mottis metaphysicum ad phy-
sicum transferens;: ut, more suo, Hle-
atico systemate corrupto, ed vehemen-
tius illud premeret.”

1 Parmenides, ap. Simplik. ad Ari-
stot. Physic. fol. 9 8.
ἐν μέσῳ τούτων Δαιμων, ἣ πάντα

κυβερνᾷ, ἄς,

Plutarch, Amator, 18.

2 See especially the remarkable pas-
sage from Stobeus, Eclog. Phys. i. 23.
p. 482, cited in Karsten, Frag. Parm.
Ρ 241, and Cicero, De Natur. Deor,

. 11, s. 28, with the Commentary of
Krische, Forschungen auf dem Gebiete
der alten Philosophie, viii. p. 98, seqq.

It is impossible to make out with
any clearness the Kosmos and its gene-
ration as conceived by Parmenides.
We cannot attain more than a general
approximation to it.

Diogen. Laert. ix. 21, viii. 48;
Strabo, ii. p. 93 (on the authority of
Poseidonius). Plutarch (Placit. Philos.
iii. 11) and others ascribe to Parmenides
the recognition not of five zones, but
only of two. If it be true that Parme-
nides held this opinion about the figure
of the earth, the fact is honourable to
his acuteness ; for Leukippus, Anaxa-

oras, Archelaus, Diogenes the Apol-
oniate, and Demokritus, all thought
the earth to be a flat, round surface,
like a dish or a drum: Plato speaks
about it in so confused a manner that
his opinion cannot be made out: and
Aristotle was the first who both affirm-
ed and proved it to be spherical. The
opinion had been propounded by some
philosophers earlier than Anaxagoras,
who controverted it. See the disserta-
tion of L. Oettinger, Die Vorstellun-
en der Griechen fiber die Erde als

immelskirper, Freiburg, 1850, p. 42-
46.

26 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. 1.

race as having been brought into existence by the power of the
sun,’ and he seems to have gone into some detail respecting
animal procreation, especially in reference to the birth ot male
and female offspring. He supposed that the human mind, as
well as the human body, was compounded of a mixture of the
two elemental influences, diffused throughout all Nature: that
like was perceived and known by like: that thought and sensa-
tion were alike dependent upon the body, and upon the propor-
tions of its elemental composition: that a certain limited
knowledge was possessed by every object in Nature, animate or
inanimate.”

Before we pass from Parmenides'to his pupil and successor
Zeno, who developed the negative and dialectic side of the Eleatic
doctrine, it will be convenient to notice various other theories of
the same century : first among them that of Herakleitus, who
forms as it were the contrast and antithesis to Xenophanes and
Parmenides.

Herakleitus of Ephesus, known throughout antiquity by the

denomination of the Obscure, comes certainly after

Herakleitus Pythagoras and Kenophanes and apparently before

—his ob-

oleae bos Parmenides. Of the two first he made special men-
metaphors, tion, in one of the sentences, alike brief and contemp-
confident ~~ tuous, which have been preserved from his lost
temptuous treatise :—‘‘Much learning does not teach reason :
ogmatism.

otherwise it would have taught Hesiod and Pythago-
ras, Xenophanes and Hekateus.” In another passage Herakleitus
spoke of the “extensive knowledge, cleverness, and wicked arts”
of Pythagoras. He declared that Homer as well as Archilochus
deserved to be scourged and expelled from the public festivals.®
His thoughts were all embodied in one single treatise, which he
is said to have deposited in the temple of the Ephesian Artemis.
It was composed in a style most perplexing and difficult to
understand, full of metaphor, symbolical illustration, and anti-

1 Diogen. Laert. ix. 22.
2Parmen. Frag. v. 145; Theophras-
tus, De Sensu, Karsten, pp. 268, 270.
-Parmenides (according to Theo-
hrastus) thought that the dead body,
ving lost its flery element, had no
perception of light, or heat, or sound ;
ut that it had perception of darkness,
cold, and silence—xai ὅλως δὲ πᾶν τὸ ὃν

ἔχειν τινα γνῶσιν.

8 Diogen. L. ix. 1. Πολυμαθίη νόον
οὐ διδάσκει' Ἡσίοδον γὰρ ἂν ἐδίδαξε
καὶ Πυθαγόρην, αὗτίς τε Ἐενοφάνεα καὶ
Ἑκαταῖον, ἄο. Ib. vili. 1, 6. Πυθαγόρης
Μνησάρχου ἱστορίην ἥσκησεν ἀνθρώπων
μάλιστα πάντων, καὶ ἰκλεβάμενος ταύτας
τὰς συγγραφὰς ἐποίησεν ἑωὐτοῦ σοφίην,
πολυμαθίην, κακοτεχνίην.

HERAKLEITUS.

Cuap, I. 27

thesis: but this very circumstance imparted to it an air of
poetical impressiveness and oracular profundity.’ It exercised a
powerful influence on the speculative minds of Greece, both in
the Platonic age and subsequently: the Stoics especially both
commented on it largely (though with many dissentient opinions
among the commentators), and borrowed with partial modifica-
tions much of its doctrine.?

The expositors followed by Lucretius and Cicero
Herakleitus as having proclaimed Fire to be the

conceived

Doctrine of

universal and all-pervading element of nature ;° as
Thales had recognised water, and Anaximenes air.
This interpretation was countenanced by some strik-
ing passages of Herakleitus: but when we put
together all that remains from him, it appears that
his main doctrine was not physical, but metaphysical
or ontological: that the want of adequate general
terms induced him to clothe it in a multitude of
symbolical illustrations, among which fire was only
one, though the most prominent and most significant.
Xenophanes and the Eleates had recognised, as the only

Herakleitus
—perpetual
process of
generation
and destruc-
tion—every-
thing flows,
nothing
stands—
transition of
he ele-
ments into
each other
backwards
and for-
wards.

objective reality, One extended Substance or absolute Ens, per-
petual, infinite, indeterminate, incapable of change or modifica-

tion.

They denicd the objective reality of motion, change, gene-

ration, and destruction—considering all these to be purely

relative and phenomenal.

1Diogen. Laert. ix. 1-6. Theo-
hrastus conceived that Herakleitus
d left the work unfinished, from
eccentricity of temperament (ὑπὸ με-
λαγχολίας). Of him, as of various
others, it was imagined by some that
his obscurity was intentional (Cicero,
Nat. Deor. i. 26, 74, De Finib. 2, ὅν. The
words of Lucretius about Herakleitus
are remarkable (i. 641) :—

Clarus ob obscuram linguam magis
inter inanes

Quamde graves inter Greecos qui vera
requirunt: — ,

Omnia enim stolidi magis admirantur
amantque . .
Inversis que sub verbis latitantia

cernunt.

Even Aristotle complains of the diffi-
culty of understanding Herakleitus,

Herakleitus on the contrary denied

and even of determining the proper
punctuation (Rhetoric, iii. 5).

2 Cicero, Nat. Deor., iii. 14, 35.

3To some it appeared that Hera-
kleitus hardly distinguished Fire from
Air. Aristotel. De Anima, i, 2; Sext.
Empiric. ady. Mathemat. vii. 127-129,
ix. 360.

4 Zeller’s account of the philosophy
of Herakleitus in the second edition
of his Philosophie der Griechen, vol. i.
p. 450-496, is instructive. Marbach
also is useful (Gesch. der Phil. 8. 46-49) ;
and his (Hegelian) exposition of Hera-
kleitus is further developed by Ferdi-
nand Lassalle (Die Philosophie Hera-
kleitos des Dunklen, published 18658).
This last work is very copious and
elaborate, throwing great light upon a
subject essentially obscure and -
Cc 'Φ

28 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. 1.

everything in the nature of a permanent and perpetual substra-
tum : he laid down nothing as permanent and perpetual except
the process of change—the alternate sequence of generation and
destruction, without beginning or en’—generation and destruc-
tion being in fact coincident or identical, two sides of the same
process, since the generation of one particular state was the
destruction of its antecedent contrary. All reality consisted in
the succession and transition, the coming and going, of these
finite and particular states: what he conceived as the infinite and
universal, was the continuous process of transition from one
finite state to the next—the perpetual work of destruction and
generation combined, which terminated one finite state in order
to make room for a new and contrary state.
This endless process of transition, or ever-repeated act of
Vy generation and destruction in one, was represented by
ariety of . ‘
metaphors Herakleitus under a variety of metaphors and sym-
employedby )ols—fire consuming its own fuel—a stream of water
ingthecane always flowing—opposite currents meeting and com-
eneral bating each other—the way from above downwards,
octrine. δῃᾷ the way from below upwards, one and the same—
war, contest, penal destiny or retributive justice, the law or
decree of Zeus realising cach finite condition of things and then
destroying its own reality to make place for its contrary and
successor. Particulars are successively generated and destroyed,
none of them ever arriving at permanent existence :* the uni-
versal process of generation and destruction alone continues.
There is no Esse, but a perpetual Fieri: a transition from Esse
to Non-Esse, from Non-Esse to Esse, with an intermediate tem-
porary halt between them: a ceaseless meeting and confluence of
the stream of generation with the opposite stream of destruction :
a rapid and instant succession, or rather coincidence and coal-

1Plato, Kratylus, p. 402, and y
Thesetet. P. 152, 153. Hyev μηδ᾽ ἵστασθαι τὴν γένεσιν, ἀλλ'
Plutarch, De Ec apud Delphos, 6. 18, ἀπὸ σπέρματος ἀεὶ μεταβάλλονσαν---τὰς
802. Ποταμῷ γὰρ οὔκ ἐστιν ἐμβῆναι πρώτας φθείρονσαν γενέσεις καὶ ἡλικίας

ιγνόμενον αὐτῆς, τῷ μηδέποτε

is τῷ αὐτῷ καθ’ Ἡράκλειτον, οὐδὲ ταῖς ἐπιγιγνομέναις.

θνητῆς οὐσίας δὶς ἅψασθαι κατὰ ἕξιν" Clemens Alex. Strom. v. 14, p. 711.
GAN ὀξύτητι καὶ τάχει μεταβολῆς oxid- Κόσμον τὸν αὐτὸν ἁπάντων οὔτε τις
νησι καὶ πάλιν συνάγει, μᾶλλον δὲ θεῶν οὔτ' ἀνθρώπων ἐποίησεν: ἀλλ᾽ ἦν
οὐδὲ πάλιν οὐδὲ ὕστερον, ἀλλ᾽ ἀεὶ καὶ ἔσται πῦρ ἀείζωον, ἁπτόμενον
ἅμα συνίσταται καὶ ἀπολεί- μέτρα καὶ ἀποσβεννύμενον μέτρα. Com-
wet, πρόσεισι καὶ ἄπεισι. Ὅθεν pare also Eusebius, Prepar. Evang.
ot 8 εἰς τὸ εἶναι περαίνει rd xiv. 8,8; Diogen. L. ix. 8.

CuaP. 1. HERAKLEITUS.

escence, of contraries.

Living and dead, waking and sleeping,

light and dark, come into one or come round into each other:

everything twists round into its contrary:
and is not.!

everything both is

The universal law, destiny, or divine working (according to

Herakleitus), consists in this incessant process of

Nothing
generation and destruction, this alternation of con- ΠΟΥ
traries. To carry out such law fully, each of the law of pro.
particular manifestations ought to appear and pass plication of
away instantaneously—to have no duration of its ¢ontrares—
own, but to be supplanted by its contrary at once. mutative
And this happens to a great degree, even in cases of particu:
where it does not appear to happen: the river appears 1818 is an

. illusion for
unchanged, though the water which we touched a the most

short time ago has flowed away :? we and all around
us are in rapid movement, though we appear station-
ary: the apparent sameness and fixity is thus a

part: so far
as it exists,
it is a sin
against the
order of

delusion. But Herakleitus does not seem to have Nature.

thought that his absolute universal force was omnipotent, or
accurately carried out in respect to all particulars. Some
positive and particular manifestations, when once brought to
pass, had a certain measure of fixity, maintaining themselves for
more or less time before they were destroyed. There was a
difference between one particular and another, in this respect of
comparative durability: one was more durable, another less.®
But according to the universal law or destiny, each particular
ought simply to make its appearance, then to be supplanted and
re-absorbed ; so that the time during which it continued on the
scene was, as it were, an unjust usurpation, obtained by en-
1 Plato, So hist. p. 242 BE. Διαφερό-

μενον Ris ἀεὶ ξνμφέρεται.
tarch, Consolat. ad Apollonium

6. ion p. 106. Πότε γὰρ ἐν ἡμῖν αὐτοῖς
οὐκ ἔστιν ὁ θάνατος ; καὶ ἡ φησιν Ἣρά-

δ᾽ οὔ, ἀλλὰ πάντα καὶ ἀεὶ, ἀλλὰ λαν-
θάνειν τοῦτο τὴν ἡμετέραν αἴσθησιν---
which words doubtless refer to Hera-
Kleitus. oe Preller, Hist. Phil. Greec.

KAELTOS, | ταὺτό 7 éve Sav καὶ τεθνηκός,
καὶ τὸ ἐγρηγορὸς καὶ τὸ καθεῦδον, καὶ
νέον καὶ γηραιόν' τάδε γὰρ μεταπεσόντα
ἐκεῖνά ἐστι, κἀκεῖνα πάλιν μεταπεσόντα

“Ῥροπάο. Origenes, Refut. Heer. ix. 10,
Ὁ Geds ἡμέρη, εὐφρόνη---χείμων, θέρος--.
πόλεμος, εἰρήνη---κόρος, λίμος, &C.

2 Aristot.
80; Physic. viii. 3, p. 258, b. 9. Φασί
τινες κινεῖσθαι τῶν ὄντων οὐ τὰ μὲν τὰ

De Ceelo, fii. 1, p. 298, Ὁ.

3 Lassalie, Philosophie des Hera-
kleitos, vol. i. Pp. 54,55. ‘‘ Andrerseits
bieten die sinn ichen Existenzen gra-
duelle oder Mass-Unterschiede dar, je
nachdem in ihnen das Moment des
festen Seins tiber die Unruhe des
Werdens vorwiegt oder nicht; und
diese Graduation wird also zugleich
den Leitfaden zur Classification der
verschiedenen Existenz-formen _ bil-

en, ?

30 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. I.

croaching on the equal right of the next comer, and by sus-
pending the negative agency of the universal. Hence arises an
antithesis or hostility between the universal law or process on
one side, and the persistence of particular states on the other.
The universal law or process is generative and destructive,
positive and negative, both in one: but the particular realities in
which it manifests itself are all positive, each succeeding to its
antecedent, and each striving to maintain itself against the
negativity or destructive interference of the universal process.
Each particular reality represented rest and fixity: each held
ground as long as it could against the pressure of the cosmical
force, essentially moving, destroying, and renovating. Hera-
kleitus condemns such pretensions of particular states to separate
stability, inasmuch as it keeps back the legitimate action of the
universal force, in the work of destruction and renovation.

The theory of Herakleitus thus recognised no permanent sub-
stratum, or Ens, either material or immaterial—no

Tlustra- . .
tions b category either of substance or quality—but only a
which] avr, ceaseless principle of movement or change, generation
bolized his and destruction, position and negation, immediately
oree, de- | succeeding, or coinciding with each other.’ It is this
stroyingand nel : y :
genoratin 2. principle or everlasting force which he denotes under
so many illustrative phrases—“the common (τὸ ξυνὸν),
1 Aristot. De Ccelo, iii. 1, p. 298, rakleitean theory. He insists almost

Ὁ. 80. Οἱ δὲ τὰ μὲν ἄλλα πάντα yi- in every page (compare ii. p. 156) that
νεσθαί τέ φασι καὶ ῥεῖν, εἶναι δὲ παγίως ‘das Allgemeine” of Herakleitus is
οὐδέν, ἐν δέ τι μόνον ὑπομένειν, ἐξ οὗ ‘‘reines Werden; reiner, steter, erzeu-
ταῦτα πάντα μετασχηματίζεσθαι πέφυ- gender, Prozess”. This process cannot

κεν" ὅπερ ἐοίκασιν βούλεσθαι λέγειν ἄλλοι
τε πολλοὶ καὶ Ἡράκλειτος ὁ ᾿Εφέσιος,
See the explanation given of this pas-
sage by Lassalle, vol. ii. Ρ, 21, 39, 40,
founded on the comment of Simplikius.
He explains it as an universal law or
ideal force—die reine Idee des Werdens
selbst (p. ἫΝ and “eine unsinnliche Po-
tenz” (p. 36). Yet, in i. p. 55 of his ela-
borate exposition, he does indeed say,
about the theory of Herakleitus, ‘‘ Hier
sind zum erstenmale die sinnlichen Be-
stimmtheiten zu bloss verschiedenen
und absolut in einander tibergehenden
Formen eines identischen, ihnen zu
Grande liegenden, Substrats herab-
gesetzt”. ut this last expression
appears to me to contradict the
whole tenor and peculiarity of Las-
salie’s own explanation of the He-

with any propriety be called a sub-
stratum, and Herakleitus admitted no
other. In thus rejecting any substra-
tum he stood alone. Lassalle has been
careful in showing that Fire was not
understood by Herakleitus as a sub-
stratum (as water by Thales), but asa
symbol for the universal force or law.
In the theory of Herakleitus no sub-
stratum was recognised—no τόδε re or
ovoia—in the same way as Aristotle
observes about τὸ ἄπειρον (Physic. iii.
6, a 22-81) ὥστε τὸ ἄπειρον od δεῖ
λαμβάνειν ws τόδε τι, οἷον ἄνθρωπον
ἢ οἰκίαν, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἡ ἡμέρα λέγεται καὶ
ὃ ἀγὼν, οἷς τὸ εἶναι οὐχ ὡς οὐσία
τις γέγονεν, ard’ ἀεὶ ἐν ye
νέσει ἣ φθορᾷ, εἰ καὶ πεπερα-
ἀ ἕτερον καὶ

σμένον, ἀλλ' ἀεί γε

ἕτερον.

CuapP. 1. HERAKLEITUS. 31

the universal, the all-comprehensive (τὸ περιέχον), the governing,
the divine, the name or reason of Zeus, fire, the current of oppo-
sites, strife or war, destiny, justice, equitable measure, Time or
the Succeeding,” &c. The most emphatic way in which this
theory could be presented was, as embodied, in the coincidence
or co-affirmation of contraries. Many of the dicta cited and
preserved out of Herakleitus are of this paradoxical tenor.
Other dicta simply affirm perpetual flow, change, or transition,
without express allusion to contraries: which latter, however,
though not expressed, must be understood, since change was con-
ceived as a change from one contrary to the other.? In the Hera-
kleitean idea, contrary forces come simultaneously into action:
destruction and generation always take effect together: there is
no negative without a positive, nor positive without a negative.®
Such was the metaphysical or logical foundation of the philo-
sophy of Herakleitus: the idea of an eternal process
of change, manifesting itself in the perpetual destruc-
tion and renovation of particular realities, but having
itself no reality apart from these particulars, and ex-
isting only in them as an immanent principle or con-
dition. This principle, from the want of appropriate abstract
terms, he expressed in a variety of symbolical and metaphorical

Water—in-
termediate
between
Fire (Air)
and Earth

1 Aristotle or Pseudo-Aristotle, De
Mundo, c. 5, p. 896, Ὁ. 20. Ταὐτὸ δὲ
τοῦτο ἦν καὶ τὸ παρὰ τῷ σκοτεινῷ
λεγόμενον Ἡρακλειτῷ : “᾿συνάψειας οὗλα
καὶ οὐχὶ οὖλα, συμφερόμενον καὶ δια-
φερόμενον, συνᾷδον καὶ διᾷδον, καὶ ἐκ
πάντων ὃν καὶ ἐξ ἑνὸς πάντα." Hera-
clid. Allegor. ap. Schleiermacher (He-
rakleitos, Ὁ. 529), ποταμοῖς rots αὐτοῖς
ἐμβαίνομέν τε καὶ οὐκ ἐμβαίνομεν, εἰμέν
τε καὶ οὐκ εἰμέν : Plato, Sophist. p.
242, E., διαφερόμενον ἀεὶ ξυμφέρεται :
Aristotle, Metaphys. iii. 7, p. 1012, Ὁ. 24,
ἔοικε δ᾽ ὁ μὲν ρακλείτον λόγος, λέγων
πάντα εἶναι καὶ μὴ εἶναι, ἅπαντα ἀληθῆ
ποιεῖν : Aristot. Topic. viii. 5, p. 155, δ,
οἷον ἀγαθὸν καὶ κακὸν εἶναι ταὐτὸν,
καθάπερ Ἡράκλειτός φησιν : also Ari-
stot. Physic. i. 2, p. 186, Ὁ. Compare
the various Herakleitean phrases cited
in Pseudo-Origen. Refut. Heres.

ix. 10; also Krische, For-
aschungen auf dem Gebiete der alten
Philosophie, vol. i. Ὁ. 870-468.

Bernays and Lassalle (vol. i. Ὁ. 81)
contend, on reasonable grounds ( ough
in opposition to Zeller, p. 495), that the

following verses in the Fragments of
Parmenides refer to Herakleitus :

ols τὸ πέλειν τε καὶ οὐκ εἶναι ταὐτὸν νενό-
μισται
3 3 κ᾿ , a Φ fa ᾿
κοὺ ταὐτὸν, πάντων δὲ παλίντροπός ἐστι
κέλευθος.

The commentary of Alexander Aphro.
dis. on the Metaphysica says, ‘‘ Hera-
clitus ergo cum diceret omnem rem
esse et non esse et opposita simul con-
sistere, contradictionem veram simul
esse statuebat, et omnia dicebat esse
vera’’ (Lassalle, p. 83).

One of the metaphors by which
Herakleitus illustrated his theory of
opposite and co-existent forces, was the
pulling and pushing of two sawyers
with the same saw. See Bernays, He-
raclitea, part i. p. 16; Bonn, 1848.

2 Aristot. Physic. viii. 3, p. 258, b.
80, εἰς τοὐναντίον yap ἡ ἀλλοίωσις :
also iii. 5, p. 205, a 9, πάντα yap μετα-
βάλλει ἐξ ἐναντίον εἰς ἐναντίον, οἷον ἐκ
θερμοῦ εἰς ψυχρόν.

δ, e, Herakleitos, vol. Lp.

PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. CuHap. I.

phrases, among which Fire stood prominent.! But though Fire
was thus often used to denote the principle or ideal process itself,
the same word was also employed to denote that one of the ele-
ments which formed the most immediate manifestation of the
principle. In this latter sense, Fire was the first stage of in-
cipient reality: the second stage was water, the third earth.
This progression, fire, water, earth, was in Herakleitcan language
“the road downwards,” which was the same as “the road up-
wards,” from earth to water and again to fire. The death of fire
was its transition into water: that of water was its transition
partly into earth, partly into flame. As fire was the type of
extreme mobility, perpetual generation and destruction—so earth
was the type of fixed and stationary existence, resisting move-
ment or change as much as possible.? Water was intermediate
between the two.

Herakleitus conceived the sun and stars, not as solid bodies,
but as meteoric aggregations perpetually dissipated

Bun and and perpetually renewed or fed, by exhalation upward
solid bodies, from the water and earth. The sun became extin-

grega- guished and rekindled in suitable measure and propor-
voted and. tion, under the watch of the Erinnyes, the satellites
Belinecs— of Justice. These celestial lights were contained in
ἐκπύρωσις, troughs, the open side of which was turned towards
or destruc our vision. In case of eclipses the trough was for the
Kosmos by time reversed, so that the dark side was turned to-

wards us; and the different phases of the moon were
occasioned by the gradual turning round of the trough in which

2Diogen. Laert.

1 See a striking passage cited from
Gregory of Nyssa by Lassalle (vol. i. p.
287), illustrating this characteristic
of fire; the flame of a lamp appears
to continue the same, but it is onl
a succession of flaming particles, eac
of which takes fire and is extinguished

the same instant:—oomep τὸ ἐπὶ
τῆς θρναλλίδος πῦρ τῷ μὲν δοκεῖν ἀεὶ
τὸ αὑτὸ φαίνεται---τὸ γὰρ συνεχὲς ἀεὶ
τῆς κινήσεως ἀδιάσπαστον αὐτὸ καὶ
_ ἡνωμένον πρὸς ἑαντὸ δείκνυσι ---τῇ δὲ

ἀἁληθείς πάντοτε αὐτὸ ἑαυτὸ διαδεχό-
μενον, οὐδέποτε τὸ αὐτὸ μένει--ἢ γὰρ
ἐξελκυσθεῖσα διὰ τῆς θερμότητος ἰκμὰς
ὁμοῦ τε ξεφλογώθη καὶ εἰς
λιγνὺν ἐκκανθεῖσα μετέεποι ή-
θη, &e.

ix. 9; Clemens
Alexand. Strom. v. 14, p. 599, vi. 2,
Ῥ, 624. Πυρὸς τροπαὶ πρῶτον θάλασσα,
θαλάττης δὲ τὸ μὲν ἥμισν γῆ, τὸ δ᾽
ἥμισν πρηστήρ. A full explanation of
the curious expression πρηστήρ is given
by Lassalle (Herakl. vol. ii. p. 87-90).
See Brandis (Handbuch der Gr. Philos.
sect. xliii. p. 164), and Plutarch (De
Primo Frigido, c. 17, p. 952, F.).

The distinction made by Hera-
kleitus, but not clearly marked out
or preserved, between the ideal jire or
universal process, and the elementary
Jire or first stage towards realisation,
is brought out by Lassalle (Herakleitos,
vol. ii. p. 25-29). *

Cuap. I. HERAKLEITUS.

her light was contained. Of the phenomena of thunder and
lightning also, Herakleitus offered some explanation, referring
them to aggregations and conflagrations of the clouds, and violent
currents of winds.’ Another hypothesis was often ascribed to
Herakleitus, and was really embraced by several of the Stoics in
later times—that there would come a time when all existing
things would be destroyed by fire (ἐκπύρωσις), and afterwards
again brought into reality in a fresh series of changes. But this
hypothesis appears to have been conceived by him metaphysically
rather than physically. Fire was not intended to designate the
physical process of combustion, but was ἃ symbolical phrase for
the universal process ; the perpetual agency of conjoint destruc-
tion and renovation, manifesting itself in the putting forth and
re-absorption of particulars, and having no other reality except
as immanent in these particulars.2, The determinate Kosmos of
the present moment is perpetually destroyed, passing into fire or
the indeterminate: it is perpetually renovated or passes out of
fire into water, earth—out of the indeterminate, into the various
determinate modifications. At the same time, though Heraklei-
tus seems to have mainly employed these symbols for the purpose
of signifying or typifying a metaphysical conception, yet there
was no clear apprehension, even in his own mind, of this gene-
rality, apart from all symbols: so that the illustration came to
count as a physical fact by itself, and has been so understood by
many.® The line between what he meant as the ideal or meta-
physical process, and the elementary or physical process, is not
easy to draw, in the fragments which now remain.

1 Aristot. Meteorol. ii. 6. p. 355, a.
Plato, Republ. vi. p. 498, c. 11; Plu-
tarch, De Exilio, c. 11, p. 604 A.;
Plutarch, De Isid. et Osirid. c. 48,

. 870, E.; Diogen. L. ix. 10; Plu:

rch, Placit. Philos. ii. 17-22-24-28,

p. 80-801 5 Stobeeus, Eclog. Phys. i.
4

About the doctrine of the Stoics,
built in part upon this of Herakleitus,
see Cicero, Natur. Deor. ii. 46; Seneca,
Queest. Natur. ii. δ, vi. 16.

2 Aristot. or Pseudo-Aristot., De
Mundo, ἐκ πάντων ἕν καὶ ef ἑνὸς
πάντα.

8 See Lassalle, Herakleitos, vol. ii.
8. 26-27, p. 182-258.

Compare about the obscure and
debated meaning of the Herakleitean
ἐκπύρωσις, Schleiermacher, Heraklei-
tos, Ρ 108 ; Zeller, Philos. der Griech.
vol. 1. p. 477-479.

The word διακόσμησις stands as the
antithesis (in the language of Hera-
kleitus) to ἐκπύρωσις. A passage from
Philo Judeus is cited by Lassalle
illustrating the Hernkleitean move-
ment from ideal unity into totality
of sensible particulars, forwards and
backwards—o δὲ γονοῤῥνὴς (λόγος) ἐκ
κόσμου πάντα καὶ εἰς κόσμον ἀνάγων,
ὑπὸ θεοῦ δὲ μηδὲν οἰόμενος, Ἡρακλει-
τείου δόξης ἑταῖρος, κόρον καὶ χρησμο-
σύνην, καὶ ἕν τὸ πᾶν καὶ πάντα ἀμοιβῇ

34 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY.

CuapP. I.

The like blending of metaphysics and physics—of the abstract
and notional with the concrete and sensible—is to be

His doc- . ws .
trines re found in the statements remaining from Herakleitus
bamansout respecting the human soul and human knowledge.
Enowlodge The human soul, according to him, was an effluence or
All wisdom outlying portion of the Universal !—the fire—the per-
reided in _ petual movement or life of things. ΑΒ such, its
1 Beason nature was to be ever in movement: but it was im-
—individual . .
Reason is prisoned and obstructed by the body, which repre-
worthless.

sented the stationary, the fixed, the particular—that
which resisted the universal force of change. So long asa man
lived, his soul or mind, though thus confined, participated more
or less in the universal movement: but when he died, his body
ceased to participate in it, and became therefore vile, “fit only to
be cast out like dung”. Every man, individually considered,
was irrational ;? reason belonged only to the universal or the
whole, with which the mind of each living man was in conjunc-
tion, renewing itself by perpetual absorption, inspiration or in-
halation, vaporous transition, impressions through the senses and
the pores, ἄς. During sleep, since all the media of communica-
tion, except only those through respiration, were suspended, the
mind became stupefied and destitute of memory. Like coals
when the fire is withdrawn, it lost its heat and tended towards
extinction. On waking, it recovered its full communication with
the great source of intelligence without—the universal all-com-
prehensive process of life and movement. Still, though this was

καὶ φρενῆρες -- τοῦτον δὴ τὸν θεῖον

elodywv-—where κόρος and χρησμοσύ
μ i deat λόγον, καθ᾽ Ἡράκλειτον, δι’ ἀναπνοῆς

are used to illustrate the same i

antithesis as διακόσμησις and ἐκπύρωσις
(Lassalle, vol. i. p. 232). ;

1 Sext. Empiric. adv. Mathem. vii.
180. ἡ ἐπιξενωθεῖσα τοῖς ἡμετέροις σώ-
μασιν ἀπὸ τοῦ περιέχοντος μοίρα.

Plutarch, Sympos., p. 644.
κοπρίων ἐκβλητότεροι,

lutarch, Placit. Philos. i. 28, Ὁ. 884.

Ἡράκλειτος ἠρεμίαν καὶ στάσιν ἐκ τῶν
ὅλων ἀνήρει: ἐστὶ γὰρ τοῦτο τῶν νεκρῶν.

2See Schleiermacher, Herakleitos,
p. 522; Sext. Empir. adv. Mathem.
viii. 286

8 The passage of Sextus Empiricus
(adv. Mathem. vii. 127-184) is curious
and instructive about Herakleitus.

᾿Αρέσκει yap τῷ φυσικῷ (Heraklei-
tus) ro περιέχον ἡμᾶς λογικόν τε ὃν

νεκύες

σπάσαντες νοεροὶ γινόμεθα, καὶ ἐν μὲν
ὕπνοις ληθαῖοι, κατὰ δὲ ἔγερσιν πάλιν
ἔμφρονες. ἐν γὰρ τοῖς ὕπνοις μυσάντων
τῶν αἰσθητικῶν πόρων χωρίξφεται τῆς
πρὸς τὸ περιέχον συμφυΐας ὁ ἐν ἡμίν
νοῦς, μονῆς τῆς κατὰ ἀναπνοὴν προσ-
φύσεως σωζομένης οἱονεί τινος ῥίζης,
χωρισθείς τε ἀποβάλλει ἣν πρότερον
εἶχε μνημονικὴν δύναμιν. ἐν δὲ ἐγρηγο-
ρόσι πάλιν διὰ τῶν αἰσθητικῶν πόρων
ὥσπερ διὰ τινῶν θυρίδων προκύψας καὶ
τῷ περιέχοντι συμβάλλων λογικὴν ἀν-
δύεται δύναμιν. hen follows the
simile about coals brought near to, or
removed away from, the fire.

The Stoic version of this Heraklei-
tean doctrine, is.to be seen in Marcus
Antoninus, vill. δά, Μηκέτι μόνον

Cuap. I, HERAKLEITUS. 35

the one and only source of intelligence open to all waking men,
the greater number of men could neither discern it for them-
selves, nor understand it without difficulty even when pointed
out to them. Though awake, they were not less unconscious or
forgetful of the process going on around them, than if they had
been asleep.’ The eyes and ears of men with barbarous or stupid
souls, gave them false information.2, They went wrong by fol-
lowing their own individual impression or judgment: they lived
as if reason or intelligence belonged to each man individually.
But the only way to attain truth was, to abjure all separate
reason, and to follow the common or universal reason. Each
man’s mind must become identified and familiar with that com-
mon process which directed and transformed the whole: in so
far as he did this, he attained truth: whenever he followed any
private or separate judgment of his own, he fell into error.2 The
highest pitch of this severance of the individual judgment was
seen during sleep, at which time each man left the common world
to retire into a world of his own.‘

By this denunciation of the mischief of private judgment,
Herakleitus did not mean to say that a man ought to py univer-
think like his neighbours or like the public. In his 84! Reason,

. ς . he did not
view the public’ were wrong, collectively as well as mean the

συμπνεῖν τῷ περιέχοντι ἀέρι,
ἀλλ᾽ ἤδη καὶ συμφρονεῖν τῷ πε-
ριέχοντι πάντα νοερῷ. Οὐ γὰρ
ἧττον ἡ νοερὰ δύναμις πάντη κέχνται
καὶ διαπεφοίτηκε τῷ σπᾶσαι βονλομένῳ,
ἥπερ ἡ αἀερώδης τῷ ἀναπνεῦσαι duva-

μέν .

the Stoics, who took up the doc-
trine of Herakleitus with farther ab-
straction and analysis, distinguished
and named separately matters which
he conceived in one and named to-
gether—the physical inhalation of air
—the metaphysical supposed influx
of intelligence—ingpiration in its
Miteral end metaphorical senses. The
word τὸ περιέχον, as he conceives it,
seems to denote, not any distinct or
fixed local region, but the rotatory
movement or circulation of the ele-
ments, fire, water, earth, reverting back
into each other. Lassalle, vol. ii. p. 119-
by the word ἀναθυμίασις in the Hera-

eitean sense—cited from Heraklei-
tus by Aristotle, De Anima, i. 2, 16.

which transition also is denoted C

1 Sextus Empiricus (adv. Math. vii.
182) here cites the first words of the
treatise of Herakleitus (compare also
Aristotle, Rhet. 111. 5). λόγον τοῦδε
ἐόντος ἀξύνετοι γίγνονται ἄνθρωποι Kat
πρόσθεν ἢ ἀκοῦσαι καὶ ἀκούσαντες τὸ
πρῶτον “στοὺς δὲ ἄλλονς ἀνθρώπους
λανθάνει ὁκόσα ἐγερθέντες ποιοῦσιν
ὅκωσπερ ὁκόσα εὕδοντες ἐπιλανθάνονται.

2 Sext. Empiric. ib. vii. 126, a cita-
tion from Herakleitus.

3 Sext. Emp. ib. vii. 188 (the words
of Herakleitus) διὸ δεῖ ἕπεσθαι τῷ

vv@'—rod λόγον δὲ ἐόντος ξυνοῦ,
ζώονσιν οἱ πολλοὶ ὡς ἰδίαν ἔχοντες
ρόνησιν" ἡ δ᾽ ἔστιν οὐκ ἄλλο τι

AA ἐξήγησις τοῦ τρόπον τῆς
τοῦ πάντος διοικήσεως" διὸ καθ᾿
ὅ τι ἂν αὐτοῦ τῆς μνήμης κοινωνήσωμεν,
ἀληθεύομεν, ἃ δὲ ἂν ἰδιάσωμεν, Ψψευ»
δόμεθα.

4 Plutarch, De Superstit. ὁ. 8, p. 166,

See also the passage in Cle-
mens Alexandr. Strom. iv. 22, about
the comparison of sleep to death by
Herakleitus.

36 PRE-SOKRATIO PHILOSOPHY. Cuap, I,

Reason of individually. The universal reason to which he made
it ig butasit appeal, was not the reason of most men as it actually
ought tobe is but that which, in his theory, ought to be their
reason :! that which formed the perpetual and governing process
throughout all nature, though most men neither recognised nor
attended to it, but turned away from it in different directions
equally wrong. No man was truly possessed of reason, unless
his individual mind understood the general scheme of the
universe, and moved in full sympathy with its perpetual move-
ment and alternation or unity of contraries.2 The universal
process contained in itself a sum-total of particular contraries
which were successively produced and destroyed : to know the
universal was to know these contraries in one, and to recognise
them as transient, but correlative and inseparable, manifestations,
each implying the other—not as having each a separate reality
and each excluding its contrary. In so far as a man’s mind
maintained its kindred nature and perpetual conjoint movement
with the universal, he acquired true knowledge ; but the indi-
vidualising influences arising from the body usually overpowered
this kindred with the universal, and obstructed the continuity of
this movement, so that most persons became plunged in error and
illusion.

1Sextus Empiricus misinterprets

. 339, describing the Herakleitean doc-
the Herakleitean theory when he re- ῦτο ὲ

trine, διὰ τοῦτο ἐκ τῆς ἀναθυμιάσεως

presents it (vii, 184) as laying down
-,τὰ κοινῇ φαινόμενα, πιστὰ, ws ἂν
τῷ κοινῷ κρινόμενα λόγῳ, τὰ δὲ Kar’
»οὖ, « 2 αν ‘ .

ἰδίαν ἑκάστῳ, ψευδῆ. erakleitus de-
nounces mankind generally as in

error. Origen. Philosophum. i. 4;
Diog. Laert. ix. 1.

2'The analogy and sympathy be-
tween the individual mind and the

cosmical process—between the know-
ing and the known—was reproduced
in many forms among the ancient phi-
losophers. It appears in the Platonic
Timeeus, c. 20, p. 47 C.
To κινούμενον To κινουμένῳ γιγνώ-
σκεσθαι was the doctrine of several
hilosophers. Aristot. De Animé, i.
. Plato, Kratylus, p. 412 A: καὶ μὴν
ἢ γε ἐπιστήμη μηνύει ὡς φερομένοις
τοῖς πράγμασιν ἑπομένης τῆς ψυχῆς
μένης οὔτε προθεούσης. A remarkable
passage from the comment of Phi-
oponus (on the treatise of Aristotle
De Anima) is cited by Lassalle, ii. p.

τῆς ἀξίας λόγον, καὶ οὔτε ἀπολειπο-,

αὐτὴν ἔλεγεν (Herakleitus): τῶν γὰρ
πραγμάτων ἐν κινήσει ὄντων δεῖν καὶ
τὸ γίνωσκον τὰ πράγματα ἐν κινήσει
rane ἵνα συμπα Sep ng ee τοῖς
ἐφάπτηται καὶ ἐφαρμόζῃ αὐτοῖς.
Also Simplikius ap. Lassalle. p. 341:
ἐν μεταβολῇ yap συνεχεῖ τὰ ὄντα
ὑποτιθέμενος ὁ ἫἩράκλειτος, καὶ τὸ
γνωσόμενον αὐτὰ τῇ ἐπαφῇ γίνωσκον,
συνέπεσθαι ἐβούλετο ὡς ἀεὶ εἶναι κατὰ τὸ
γνωστικὸν ἐν κινήσει.

3Stobseus, Eclog. Phys. p. δ8:
and the passage of Philo Judseus,
cited by Schleiermacher, p. 487; as
well as more fully by Lassalle, vol.
ii. p. 265-267 (Quis rerum divinar.
heeres, 503, Mangey): ὃν γὰρ τὸ
ἐξ ἀμφοῖν τῶν ἐναντίων, οὗ τμηθέντος
νώριμα τὰ ἐναντία, Ov τοῦτ᾽ ἐστὶν ὅ
Ἴασιν Ἕλληνες τὸν μέγαν καὶ ἀοίδιμον
παρ᾽ αὐτοῖς Ἡράκλειτον, κεφαλαῖον
τῆς αὐτοῦ προστησάμενον φιλοσοφίας,
avxely ὡς εὑρέσει καινῇ; παλαιὸν γὰρ,
εὕρημα Μωύσεώς ἐστιν.

CaP I HERAKLEITUS, 37
The absolute of Herakleitus stands thus at the opposite pole as

compared with that of Parmenides: it is absolute

ὶ Herakleitus
movement, change, generation and destruction — af the PPO
negation of all substance and stability,’ except as a from Par-

menides.

temporary and unbecoming resistance of each succes-
sive particular to the destroying and renewing current of the
universal. The Real, on this theory, was a generalisation, not of
substances, but of facts, events, changes, revolutions, destructions,
generations, &c., determined by a law of justice or necessity
which endured, and which alone endured, for ever. Herakleitus
had many followers, who adopted his doctrine wholly or par-
tially, and who gave to it developments which he had not
adverted to, perhaps might not have acknowledged.” It was
found an apt theme by those who, taking a religious or poetical
view of the universe, dwelt upon the transitory and contemptible
value of particular existences, and extolled the grandeur or power
of the universal. It suggested many doubts and debates respect-
ing the foundations of logical evidence, and the distinction of
truth from falsehood ; which debates will come to be noticed
hereafter, when we deal with the dialectical age of Plato and
Aristotle.

After Herakleitus, and seemingly at the same time with

1 The great principle of Herakleitus, found in the recently published books
which Aristotle states in order to reject of the Refutatio Heeresium by Pseudo-
(Physic. viii. 3, p. 253, b. 10, φασί τινες Origen or Hippolytus—especially Book
κινεῖσθαι τῶν ὄντων οὐ Ta μὲν τὰ δ᾽ ix. Ὁ. 279-283, ed. Miller. To judge

οὐ, ἀλλὰ πάντα καὶ ἀεὶ" ἀλλὰ λανθάνειν
τοῦτο τὴν ἡμετέραν αἴσθησιν) now
stands averred in modern physical
philosophy. Mr. Grove observes, in

is instructive Treatise on the Corre-
lation of Physical Forces, p. 22:

“Οὐ absolute rest, Nature gives us
no evidence. ΑἹ] matter, as far as
we can discern, is ever in movement :
not merely in masses, as in the plane-
tary spheres, but also molecularly, or
throughout its intimate structure.
Thus every alteration of temperature
produces a molecular change through-
out the whole substance heated or
cooled: slow chemical or electrical
forces, actions of light or invisible
radiant forces, are always at play; so
that, as a fact, we cannot predicate of
any portion of matter, that it is abso-
lutely at rest.”

2 Many references to Herakleitus are

by various specimens there given, it
would appear that his juxta-positions
of contradictory predicates, with the
same subject, would be recognised as
paradoxes merely in appearance, and
not in reality, if we had his own ex-
planation. Thus he says (p. 282) ** the
pure and the corrupt, the drinkable
and the undrinkable, are one and the
same.” Which is explained as follows:
“The sea is most pure and most cor-
rupt: to fish, it is drinkable and natri-
tive; to men, it is undrinkable and
destructive.” This explanation ap-

ears to have been given by Hera
Preitus himself, θάλασσα, φησὶν, &.

These are only paradoxes in appear-
ance—the relative predicate being af-
firmed without mention of its corre-
late. When io supply the correlate
to each predicate, there remains no
contradiction at all.

38 PRE-SOKRATIO PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. I.

Parmenides, we arrive at Empedokles (about 500-430

Empedokles

τὸ doo’, B.C.) and his memorable doctrine of the Four Ele-
four ele- ments, This philosopher, a Sicilian of Agrigentum,
two moving 22d 8 distinguished as well as popular-minded
ig forces. citizen, expounded his views in poems, of which

Lucretius} speaks with high admiration, but of which
few fragments are preserved. He agreed with Parmenides, and
dissented from Herakleitus and the Ionic philosophers, in reject-
ing all real generation and destruction.?, That which existed had
not been generated and could not be destroyed. Empedokles
explained what that was, which men mistook for generation and
destruction. There existed four distinct elements—Earth, Water,
Air, and Fire—eternal, inexhaustible, simple, homogeneous,
equal, and co-ordinate with each other. Besides these four
substances, there also existed two moving forces, one contrary to
the other—Love or Friendship, which brought the elements into
conjunction—Enmity or Contest, which separated them. Here
were alternate and conflicting agencies, either bringing together
different portions of the elements to form a new product, or
breaking up the product thus formed and separating the con-
stituent elements. Sometimes the Many were combined into
One ; sometimes the One was decomposed into Many. Genera-
tion was simply this combination of elements already existing
separately—not the calling into existence of anything new:
destruction was in like manner the dissolution of some com-
pound, not the termination of any existent simple substance.
The four simple substances or elements (which Empedokles
sometimes calls by names of the popular Deities — Zeus,
Héré, Aidoneus, &c.), were the roots or foundations of every-
thing.®

From the four elements—acted upon by these two forces,

1 Lucretius, i. 731.
Carmina quin etiam divini pectoris ejus
Vociferantur, et exponunt preeclara re-
rta :
Ut vix humana videatur stirpe creatus.

2Empedokles, Frag. v. 77-83, ed.
Karaten, p. 96: ,

φύσις οὐδενός ἐστιν ἁπάντων

a ra > ΄-:Ὀ

θνητῶν, οὐδέ τις οὐλομένον θανατοῖο
τελευτὴ,

ἀλλὰ μόνον μίξις τε διάλλαξίς τε μιγέν-

ΤΩΡ
ἐστι, φύσις δ᾽ ἐπὶ τοῖς ὀνομάξεται ἀνθρώ-
ποισιν. « ...

Φύσις here is remarkable, in its
primary sense, as derivative from
φύομαι, equivalent to γένεσις. Com-
pare Plutarch adv. Koloten, p. 1111,

3Emp. Fr. v. 65.

πάντων ριῤζώματα.

Ἰέσσαρα τῶν

Cuap. I. EMPEDOKLES, 39

abstractions or mythical personifications — Empe-
dokles showed how the Kosmos was constructed. He
supposed both forces to be perpetually operative, but
not always with equal efficacy : sometimes the one
was predominant, sometimes the other, sometimes
there was equilibrium between them. Things ac-
cordingly pass through a perpetual and ever-renewed
cycle. The complete preponderance of Love brings
all the elements into close and compact unity,
Enmity being for the time eliminated. Presently the
action of the latter recommences, and a period ensues in which
Love and Enmity are simultaneously operative ; until at length
Enmity becomes the temporary master, and all union is for the
time dissolved. But this condition of things does not last. Love
again becomes active, so that partial and increasing combination
of the elements is produced, and another period commences—the
simultaneous action of the two forces, which ends in renewed
empire of Love, compact union of the elements, and temporary
exclusion of Enmity.'

This is the Empedoklean cycle of things,? divine or predestined,

Construc-.
tion of th
Kosmos
from these
elements
and forces—
action and
counter ac-
tion of love
and enmity.
The Kosmos
alternately
made and
unmade.

without beginning or end: perpetual substitution of
new for old compounds—constancy only in the general
principle of combination and dissolution. The Kos-
mos which Empedokles undertakes to explain, takes
its commencement from the period of complete em-
pire of Love, or compact and undisturbed union of all

Empedoe
klean pre-
destined
cycle of
things—
complete
empire of
Love—

Spherus—
mpire of
Ennity—
disengage-
ment or
separation
of the ele-

the elements. This he conceives and divinises under
the name of Spherus—as One sphere, harmonious,
uniform, and universal, having no motion, admitting
no parts or separate existences within it, exhibiting

Also :—
καὶ γὰρ καὶ παρὸς ἦν τε καὶ ἔσσεται
οὐδέ ποτ᾽, οἴω,
τούτων ἀμφοτέρων (Love and Dis-

1 Zeller, Philos. der Griech., vol. i.
p. 525-528, ed. 2nd.
2 Emp. Frag. v. 96, Karst., ἢ. 98:

Οὕτως ἡ μὲν ἕν ἐκ πλεόνων μεμάθηκε

ὕεσθαι, Cord) κεινώσεται ἄσπετος αἰών.
ἠδὲ πάλιν διωῤυντὸς ἑνὸς πλέον᾽ ἐκτε- These are new Empedoklean verses
λέθουσι, derived ‘from the recently published

τῇ μὲν γίγνονταί re καὶ οὔ σφισιν
ἔμπεδος αἰών"

fragments of Hippolytus (Heer. Refut.)
v an
ἡ δὲ τάδ' ἀλλάσσοντα διαμπερὲς ov-

printed by Stein, v. 110, in his
collection of the Fragments of Em-

Sapa λήγει pedokles, p. 43. Compare another
ταύτῃ δ᾽ αἰὲν ᾽ἴασιν ἀκίνητα κατὰ passage in the same treatise of Hip-
κύκλον. polytus, p. 251.

40 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. 1.

ments— no one of the four elements distinctly, “instabilis
and meteo- tellus, innabilis unda”—a sort of chuos.t At the time
rology.

prescribed by Fate or Necessity, the action of Enmity
recommenced, penetrating gradually through the interior of
Spherus, “agitating the members of the God one after another,” ἢ
disjoining the parts from each other, and distending the compact
ball into a vast porous mass. This mass, under the simultaneous
and conflicting influences of Love and Enmity, became distributed
partly into homogeneous portions, where each of the four
elements was accumulated by itself—partly into compounds or
individual substances, where two or more elements were found
in conjunction. Like had an appetite for Like—Air for Air,
Fire for Fire, and so forth: and a farther extension of this
appetite brought about the mixture of different elements in
harmonious compounds. First, the Air disengaged itself, and
occupied a position surrounding the central mass of Earth and
Water : next, the Fire also broke forth, and placed itself exter-
nally to the Air, immediately in contact with the outermost
crystalline sphere, formed of condensed and frozen air, which
formed the wall encompassing the Kosmos. A remnant of Fire
and Air still remained embodied in the Earth, but the great mass
of both so distributed themselves, that the former occupied most
part of one hemisphere, the latter most part of the other.? The
rapid and uniform rotation of the Kosmos, caused by the exterior

1 Emped. Fr. v. 59, Karsten :
Οὕτως ἁρμονίης πυκινῷ κρυφῷ ἐστή-

tion, as now explained, the whole
material of creation would rush into

ρικται ᾿ "
σφαίρος κυκλοτέρης, μονιῇ περιηγέι
αίων.
Plutarch, De Facie in Orbe Lune, 6.
2

About the divinity ascribed by Em-
pedokles to Spherus, see Aristot.

etaphys. B. 4, p. 1000, a. 29. ἅπαντα
γὰρ ἐκ τούτον (νείκους) τἄλλά ἐστι
πλὴν ὁ θεός (i. 6. Spheerus).—Et γὰρ
μὴ ἦν τὸ νεῖκος ἐν τοῖς πράγμασι, ὃν ἂν
ty ἅπαντα, ws dyoiv(Empedokles). See

eller, Hist. Philos. ex Font. Loc.
Contexta, sect. 171, 172, ed. 3. ΄

The condition of things which
Empedokles calls Spherus may be
illustrated (translating his Love and
Enmity into the modern phraseology
of attraction and repulsion) from an
eminent modern work on Physics :—

‘‘ Were there only atoms and attrac-

close contact, and the universe would
be one huge solid mass of stillness
and death. There is heat or caloric,
however, which directly counteracts
attraction, and singularly modifies the
results. It has been described by some
as a most subtile fluid pervading all
things, as water does a sponge : others
have accounted it merely a vibration
among the atoms. The truth is, that
we know little more of heat as a cause
of repulsion, than of gravity as a cause
of attraction: but we can study and
classify the phenomena of both most
accurately.” (Dr. Arnott, Elements of
Physics, vol. i. p. 26.)

2 Emp. Fr. v. 66-70, Karsten :
πάντα yap ἑξείης πελεμίζετο γυῖα θεοῖο.

ὃ Plutarch ap. Euseb. Prep. Evang.
{. 8,10; Plutarch, Placit. Philos, ii. 6,
p. 887; Aristot. Ethic. Nic. viii. 2.

Cuap. 1. EMPEDOKLES. 4]

Fire, compressed the interior elements, squeezed the water out of
the earth like perspiration from the living body, and thus formed
the sea. The same rotation caused the earth to remain unmoved,
by counterbalancing and resisting its downward pressure or
gravity.! In the course of the rotation, the light hemisphere of
Fire, and the comparatively dark hemisphere of Air, alternately
came above the horizon: hence the interchange of day and night.
Empedokles (like the Pythagoreans) supposed the sun to be not
self-luminous, but to be a glassy or crystalline body which
collected and reflected the light from the hemisphere of Fire.
He regarded the fixed stars as fastened to the exterior crystalline
sphere, and revolving along with it, but the planets as moving
free and detached from any sphere.2?~ He supposed the alterna-
tions of winter and summer to arise from a change in the propor-
tions of Air and Fire in the atmospheric regions: winter was
caused by an increase of the Air, both in volume and density, so
as to drive back the exterior Fire to a greater distance from the
Earth, and thus to produce a diminution of heat and light:
summer was restored when the Fire, in its turn increasing,
extruded a portion of the Air, approached nearer to the Earth,
and imparted to the latter more heat and light. Empedokles
farther supposed (and his contemporaries, Anaxagoras and
Diogenes, held the same opinion) that the Earth was round and
flat at top and bottom, like a drum or tambourine: that its
surface had been originally horizontal, in reference to the
rotation of the Kosmos around it, but that it had afterwards
tilted down to the south and upward towards the north, so as to
lie aslant instead of horizontal. Hence he explained the fact
that the north pole of the heavens now appeared obliquely
elevated above the horizon.‘

From astronomy and meteorology Empedokles5 proceeded to
1 Emped. Fr. 185, Karsten.
σφίγγων περὶ κύκλον ἅπαντα, Aristot.
De Coelo, ii. 18, 14; iii. 2,2. τὴν γῆν
ὑπὸ τῆς δίνης ἠρεμεῖν, &c. Empedokles

called the sea ἵδρωτα τῆς γῆς. Emp.
Fr. 451, Karsten ; Aristot. Meteor. ii. 3.

αἰθὴρ teorological doctrines of Empedokles,
are collected and explained by these
two authors. . .
4Plutarch, Placit. Philos. ii 8;
Schaubach, Anaxag. Fragm. Β 176.
Compare the remarks of Gruppe

2 Plutarch, Placit. Phil. ii. 20, p. 890.

3 Zeller, Phil. ἃ. Griech., i. p. 582-535,
2nd ed.: Karstea—De Emped. Philos.
p. 424-481,

The very imperfect notices which
remain, of the astronomical and me-

(Ueber die Kosmichen Systeme der
Griechen, p. 98) upon the obscure Welt-
Gebiude of Empedokles.

5 Hippokrates—Tlepi ἀρχαίης ἰητρικῆς
«-. 20, p. 620, vol. i. ed. Littré. καθάπερ
᾿Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ἢ ἄλλοι ot περὶ φύσιος

42 PRE-SOKRATIO PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. 1.

Formation describe the Earth, its tenants, and its furniture ;
of Gods, ᾿ how men were first produced, and how put together.
mais, aad All were produced by the Earth: being thrown up
plants. under the stimulus of Fire still remaining within it.

In its earliest manifestations, and before the influence of Discord
had been sufficiently neutralized, the Earth gave birth to plants
only, being as yet incompetent to produce animals! After a
certain time she gradually acquired power to produce animals,
first imperfectly and piecemeal, trunks without limbs and limbs
without trunks; next, discordant and monstrous combinations,
which did not last, such as creatures half man half ox ; lastly,
combinations with parts suited to each other, organizations per-
fect and durable, men, horses, &c., which continued and propa-
gated.2, Among these productions were not only plants, birds,
fishes, and men, but also the “long-lived Gods” All com-
pounds were formed by intermixture of the four elements, in
different proportions, more or less harmonious.4 These elements
remained unchanged: no one of them was transformed into
another. But the small particles of each flowed into the pores of
the others, and the combination was more or less intimate,
according as the structure of these pores was more or less adapted
to ‘receive them. So intimate did the mixture of these fine
particles become, when the effluvia of one and the pores of
another were in symmetry, that the constituent ingredients, like
colours compounded together by the painter,° could not be dis-

εγράφασιν ἐξ ἀρχῆς & τί ἐστιν ἄν-
θρωπος, καὶ ὅπως ἐγένετο πρῶτον, καὶ
omws ξνυνεπαάγη.

This is one of the most ancient allu-
sions to Empedokles, recently printed
by M. Littré, out of one of the MSS. in
the Parisian library.

1Emp. Fr. v. 258, Kar. τοὺς μὲν
wop ἀνεπεμπ᾽ ἔθελον πρὸς ὅμοιον ἱκέσ-

θαι, &.

’ Aristot., or Pseudo-Aristot. De
Plantis, i.2. εἶπε πάλιν ὁ ᾿Εμπεδοκλῆς,
ὅτι τὰ φυτὰ ἔχονσι γένεσιν ἐν κόσμῳ
ἡλαττωμένῳ, καὶ οὐ τελείῳ κατὰ τὴν
συμπλήρωσιν αὐτοῦ" ταύτης δὲ συμ-
πληρονμένης (while it is in course of
τ So οὖ. γεννᾶται | ῥῶον. ἃ ᾿
mp. . Vv. 182, 1 0, ed.
Karst. Ver.233:— ΤΠ

πολλὰ μὲν ἀμφιπρόσωπα καὶ ἀμφί-
στερν᾽ ἐφύοντο,

βουγενὴ ἀνδρόπρωρα, &c. Ver. 251 :---

Οὐλοφνεῖς μὲν πρῶτα τύποι χθονὸς

ἐξανέτελλον, dc,

Lucretius, v. 834; Aristotel. Gen.
Animal. i. 18, p. 722, b. 20; Physic. ii.
8, 2, p. 198, b. 82; De Ceelo, ili. 2, 5,
BR. 800, b. 29; with the commentary of

implikius ap. Schol. Brand. b. 612.

3 Emp. Fr. , Kar.

4 Plato, Menon. p. 76 A.; Aristot.
Gen. et Corr. i. 8, p. 824, Ὁ. 80 seq.

ὅ' Ἐμπεδοκλῆς ἐξ ἀμεταβλήτων τών
τεττάρων στοιχείων ἡγεῖτο γίγνεσθαι

ἣν τών συνθέτων σωμάτων φύσιν,

οὕτως ἀναμεμιγμένων ἀλλήλοις τῶν
πρώτων, ὡς εἴ τις λειώσας ἀκριβώς καὶ
χνοώδη ποιήσας ἰὸν καὶ χαλκῖτιν καὶ
καδμείαν καὶ μίσν μίξειεν, ὡς μηδὲν ἐξ
αὐτοῦ μεταχειρίσασθαι χωρὶς ἑτέρον.

Galen, Comm. in Hippokrat. De
Homin. Nat. t. iii p. 101. See Kar-

Cuap. I. EMPEDOKLES. 43

cerned or handled separately. Empedokles rarely assigned any
specific ratio in which he supposed the four elements to enter
into each distinct compound, except in the case of flesh and
blood, which were formed of all the four in equal portions ; and
of bones, which he affirmed to be composed of one-fourth earth,
one-fourth water, and the other half fire. He insisted merely
on the general fact of such combinations, as explaining what
passed for generation of new substances—without pointing out
any reason to determine one ratio of combination rather than
another, and without ascribing to each compound a distinct ratio
of its own. This omission in his system is much animadverted
on by Aristotle.

Empedokles farther laid down many doctrines respecting phy-
siology. He dwelt on the procreation of men and 4 ogy
animals, entered upon many details respecting gesta- of Empe-
tion and the foetus, and even tried to explain what it procreation
was that determined the birth of male or female off- {Respir
spring. About respiration, alimentation, and sensa- ment of the
tion, he also proposed theories: his explanation of °¢
respiration remains in one of the fragments. He supposed that
man breathed, partly through the nose, mouth, and lungs, but
partly also through the whole surface of the body, by the pores
wherewith it was pierced, and by the internal vessels connected
with those pores. Those internal vessels were connected with the
blood vessels, and the portion of them near the surface was alter-
nately filled with blood or emptied of blood, by the flow out-
wards from the centre or the ebb inwards towards the centre.
Such was the movement which Empedokles considered as con-
stantly belonging to the blood: alternately a projection outwards
from the centre and a recession backwards towards the centre.
_ When the blood thus receded, the extremities of the vessels were

sten, De Emped. Phil. p. 407, and metry with the inflowing particles.
Emp. Fr. v. 155. Oil and water (he said) would not mix
Galen says, however (after Aristot. together, because there was no such
Gen. et Corr. ii. 7, p. 834, a. 80), that symmetry between them—srws γὰρ
this mixture, set forth by Empedokles, ποιεῖ (Empedokles) τὴν μίξιν τῇ συμ-
is not mixture properly speaking, but μετρίᾳ τῶν πόρων" διόπερ ἔλαιον μὲν
merely close proximity. ippokrates καὶ ὕδωρ οὐ μίγνυσθαι, τὰ δὲ ἄλλα ὑγρὰ
(he says) was the first who propounded καὶ περὶ ὅσων δὴ καταριθμεῖται τὰς
the doctrine of real mixture. But ἰδίας κράσεις (Theophrastus, De Sensu
Empedokles seems to have intended et Sensili, 8. 12, vol. iL Ὁ. 651, ed.
& real mixture, in all cases where the Schneider).
structure of the pores was in sym-

44 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. 1.

left empty, and the air from without entered : when the outward
tide of blood returned, the air which had thus entered was ex-
pelled.* Empedokles conceived this outward tide of blood to be
occasioned by the effort of the internal fire to escape and join its
analogous element without.?

The doctrine of pores and effluvia, which formed so conspicuous
an item in the physics of Empedokles, was applied by

Doctrine of

effluvia and him to explain sensation. He maintained the general
Franation of 20ctrine (which Parmenides had advanced before him,
perceptions | and which Plato retained after him), that sensation
munication was produced by like acting upon like: Herakleitus
of the le before him, and Anaxagoras after him, held that it
enbjecte was produced by unlike acting upon unlike. Empe-
like acting dokles tried (what Parmenides had not tried) to apply
pon .

his doctrine to the various senses separately.2 Man
was composed of the same four elements as the universe around
him : and since like always tended towards like, so by each of the
four elements within himself, he perceived and knew the lke
element without. Effluvia from all bodies entered his pores,
wherever they found a suitable channel : hence he perceived and
knew earth by earth, water by water, and so forth.4 Empedokles,
assuming perception and knowledge to be produced by such in-
tercommunication of the four elements; believed that not man

1 Emp. Fr. v. 275, seqg. Karst.

The comments of Aristotle on this
theory of Empedokles are hardly per-
tinent: they refer to respiration by the
nostrils, which was not what Empe-
dokles had in view (Aristot. De Re-
spirat. c. 8).

2 Karsten, De Emp. Philosoph. p.

Emp. Fr. νυ. 807—76 τ᾽ ἐν μήνιγξιν
ἐεργμένον ὠγύγιον πῦρ---πῦρ δ᾽ ἔξω δια-
θρῶώσκον, ἄσ.

Empedokles illustrates this influx
and efflux of air in respiration by the
klepsydra, a vessel with one high and
narrow neck, but with a broad bottom
pierced with many small holes. When

he neck was kept closed by the finger
or otherwise, the vessel might be
plunged into water, but no water would
ascend into it throngh the holes in the
bottom, because of the resistance of the
air within. As soon as the neck was
freed from pressure, and the air within
allowed to escape, the water would

immediately rush up through the holes
in the bottom.

This illustration is interesting. It
shows that Empedcokles was distinctly
aware of the pressure of the air as
countervailing the ascending move-
ment of the water, and the removal of
that pressure as allowing such move-
ment. Vers. 286 :—

οὐδέ τ' ἐς ἄγγος 5° ὄμβρος ἐσέρχεται,

,., ἀλλάμιν εἴργει
ἀέρος ὄγκος ἔσωθε πεσὼν ἐπὶ τρήματα

πυκνά, &C.
This dealing with the klepsydra seems
to have been a favourite amusement
with children.

3 Theophrastus, De Sensu, 8. 2, p.
647, Schneid.

4 Emp. Frag, Karst. v. 267, seq.

γνώθ᾽, ὅτι πάντων εἰσὶν ἀποῤῥοαὶ

ὅσσ᾽ ἐγένοντο, ὅσ,
ib. v. 821:

γαίῃ μὲν yap γαῖαν ὁπώπαμεν, ὕδατι

᾿ὕδωρ,

ὃ

Cuap. 1. EMPEDOKLES. 45

and animals only, but plants and other substances besides, per-
ceived and knew in the same way. Everything possessed a cer-
tain measure of knowledge, though less in degree.than man, who
was a more compound structure.! Perception and knowledge
was more developed in different animals in proportion as their
elementary composition was more mixed and varied. The blood,
as the most compound portion of the whole body, was the princi-
pal seat of intelligence.?

In regard to vision, Empedokles supposed that it was operated
mainly by the fire or light within the eye, though gense of
aided by the light without. The interior of the eye Vision.
was of fire and water, the exterior coat was a thin layer of earth
and air. Colours were brought to the eye as effluvia from objects,
and became apprehended as sensations by passing into the alter-
nate pores or ducts of fire and water: white colour was fitted to
(or in symmetry with) the pores of fire, black colour with those
of water.2 Some animals had the proportions of fire and water
in their eyes better adjusted, or more conveniently located, than
others: in some, the fire was in excess, or too much on the out-
side, so as to obstruct the pores or ducts of water: in others,
water was in excess, and fire in defect. The latter were the

αἰθέρι δ᾽ αἰθέρα δῖον, ἀτὰρ πυρὶ πῦρ

ἀΐδηλον, ᾿ ᾿
στοργῇ δὲ στοργήν, νεῖκος δέ τε νείκεϊ
λνγρῳ.

Theophrastus, De Sensu, 6. 10, p. 650,
Schneid.
Aristotle says that Empedokles re-
rded each of these six as a ψυχὴ
soul, vital principle) by itself. Sextus
mpiricus treats Empedokles as con-
sidering each of the six to be a κριτή-
ριον ἀληθείας (Aristot. De Anima, i. 2;
Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. vii. 116).
1Emp. Fr. v. 313, Karst. ap. Sext.
Empir. adv. Mathem. viii. 286; also
apud Diogen. L. viii. 77.

πάντα yap ἴσθι φρόνησιν ἔχειν καὶ
νώματος αἷσαν.

Stein gives mp. Fr. v. 222-231) several
lines immediately preceding this from
the treatise of Hippolytus; but they
are sadly corrupt.

Parmenides had held the same opi-
nion before—Kat ὅλως πᾶν τὸ ὃν ἔχειν

τινὰ yowou—ap. Theophrast. De Sensu,
8. 4.

Theophrastus, in commenting upon
the doctrine of Empedokles, takes as
one of his grounds of objection—That
Empedokles, in maintaining sensation
and knowledge to be produced by in-
flux of the elements into pores, made
no difference between animated and
inanimate substances (Theophr. De
Sens. s. 12-23). Theophrastus puts
this as if it were an inconsistency or
oversight of Empedokles: but it can-
not be so considered, for Empedokles
as well as Parmenides) appears to

ave accepted the consequence, and
to have denied all such difference,
except one of degree, as to perception
and knowledge.

2 Emp. Frag. 316, Karst. αἷμα yap
ἀνθρώποις περικάρδιόν ἐστι νόημα,
Comp. Theophrast. De Sensu, 5. 11.

3 Bim. Frag. v. 301-310, Karst. τό
τ᾿ ἐν μήνιγξιν ἐεργμένον ὠγύγιον πῦρ,
ἄο. Theop r. De Sensu, Αἱ ’ 8; Ari-
stot. De Sensu, 6. 8; Aristot. De’ Gen.
et Corrupt. i. 8.

46 PRE-SOKRATIO PHILOSOPHY.

CuapP. I.

animals which saw better by day than by night, a great force of
external light being required to help out the deficiency of light
within : the former class of animals saw better by night, because,
when there was little light without, the watery ducts were less
completely obstructed—or left more free to receive the influx of
black colour suited to them.?

In regard to hearing, Empedokles said that the ear was like a

bell or trumpet set in motion by the air without;

through which motion the solid parts were brought
* into shock against the air flowing in, and caused the
sensation of sound within.? Smell was, in his view, an adjunct
of the respiratory process: persons of acute smell were those
who had the strongest breathing: olfactory effluvia came from
many bodies, and especially from such as were light and thin.
Respecting taste and touch, he gave no further explanation than
his general doctrine of effluvia and pores: he seems to have
thought that such interpenetration was intelligible by itself, since
here was immediate and actual contact. Generally, in respect to
all the senses, he laid it down that pleasure ensued when the
matter which flows in was not merely fitted in point of structure
to penetrate the interior pores or ducts (which was the condition
of all sensation), but also harmonious with them in respect to
elementary mixture.’

Empedokles held various opinions in common with the Pytha-
goreans and the brotherhood of the Orphic mysteries
—especially that of the metempsychosis. He repre-
sented himself as having passed through prior states
of existence, as a boy, a girl, a shrub, a bird, and a
fish. He proclaims it as an obligation of justice,
His beliefin absolute and universal, not to kill anything that had
the metem- 1166; he denounces as an abomination the sacrificing

or eating of an animal, in whom perhaps might dwell

Senses of
hearing,
smell,

Empedokles
declared
that justice
absolutel

psychosis.
ufferings of

1 Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 7, 8.

change in the Grecian physiological
2 Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 9-21.

int of view during a century and a

Empedokles described the ear under
the metaphor of σάρκινον dgov, “089
fleshy branch.”

ὃ Theophrast, De Sensu, 8. 9, 10.

The criticisms of Theo hrastus upon
this theory of Empedokles are ex-
tremely interesting, as illustrating the

alf, but I reserve them until I come
to the Aristotelian age. I may re-
mark, however, that Theophrastus,
disputing the doctrine of senso
effluvia generally, disputes the exis
ence of the olfactory effluvia not less
than the rest (5. 20).

Cup. L ANAXAGORAS. 41
the soul of a deceased friend or brother.! His re- life are δὰ
ligious faith, however, and his opinions about Gods, for wrote
Demons, and the human soul, stood apart (mostly in done during
a different poem) from his doctrines on kosmology dent life.
Pretensions

and physiology.

In common with many Pythago- αὶ

Ὁ magical

reans, he laid great stress on the existence of Demons Power.

(of intermediate order and power between Gods and men), some
of whom had been expelled from the Gods in consequence of
their crimes, and were condemned to pass a long period of exile,
as souls embodied in various men or animals. He laments the
misery of the human soul, in himself as well as in others, con-
demned to this long period of expiatory degradation, before they
could regain the society of the Gods.” In one of his remaining
fragments, he announces himself almost as a God upon earth,
and professes his willingness as well as ability to impart to a
favoured pupil the most wonderful gifts—powers to excite or
abate the winds, to bring about rain or dry weather, to raise men
from the dead. He was in fact a man of universal pretensions ;
not merely an expositor of nature, but a rhetorician, poet, phy-
sician, prophet, and conjurer. Gorgias the rhetor had been
personally present at his magical ceremonies.‘

None of the remaining fragments of Empedokles are more

remarkable than a few in which he deplores the
impossibility of finding out any great or comprehen-
sive truth, amidst the distraction and the sufferings
of our short life. Every man took a different road,
confiding only in his own accidental experience or

Complaint
of Empe-
dokles on
the impossi-
bility of
finding out
truth.

1 Emp. . ΨΥ, 880-410, Karsten ;
Plutarch, De Esu Carnium, p. 997-8.
Aristot. Rhetoric. i. 18,2: ἐστὶ yap,
ὃ pavrevovrat τι πάντες, φύσει κοινὸν
δίκαιον καὶ ἄδικον, κἂν μηδεμία κοινωνία
πρὸς ἀλλήλους i, μηδὲ συνθήκη --- ὡς
Ἐμπεδοκλῆς λέγει περὶ τοῦ μὴ κτείνειν
τὸ ἔμψυχον" τοῦτο γὰρ ov τισὶ μὲν
δίκαιον, τισὶ δ᾽ οὐ δίκαιον,
᾿Αλλὰ τὸ μὲν πάντων νόμιμον διά 7”
εὐρνμέδοντος
Αἰθέρος ἠνεκέως τέταται διά τ᾽ ἀπλέ-
τον αὐγῆς.

Kext, Empiric. adv. Mathem. ix.

2 Emp. . v. 5-18, Karst. ; com-
pare Herod. ἢ. 123; Plato, Phedrus
δῦ, p. 246 C.; Plutarch, De Isid. et
Osirid. ο. 26.

Plutarch observes in another place
on the large proportion of religious
mysticism blended with the philo-
sophy of Empedokles—Zwxparys, φασ-
μάτων καὶ δεισιδαιμονίας: ἀναπλέω
φιλοσοφίαν ἀπὸ ΠΙνθαγόρον καὶ Ἐμπεδοκ-
λέους δεξάμενος, εὖ μάλα βεβακχευμένην,
de. δ lutarch, De Genio Socratis, p.
580 Ὁ.

See Fr. Aug. Ukert, Ueber Daemo-
nen, Heroen, und Genien, p. 161.

3’Emp. Fr. v. 890-425, Karst,

4 Diog. Laert. viii. 50.

48 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. CHAP. 1.

particular impressions; but no man could obtain or communicate
satisfaction about the whole.} |

Anaxagoras of Klazomene, a friend of the Athenian Perikles,
and contemporary of Empedokles, was a man of far simpler and
less ambitious character : devoted to physical contemplation and’
geometry, without any of those mystical pretentions common
among the Pythagoreans. His doctrines were set
forth in prose, and in the Ionic dialect.” His theory,
like all those of his age, was all-comprehensive in its
purpose, starting from a supposed beginning, and
shewing how heaven, earth, and the inhabitants of
earth, had come into those appearances which were
exhibited to sense. He agreed with Empedokles in
departing from the point of view of Thales and other
Tonic theorists, who had supposed one primordial
matter, out of which, by various transformations, other sensible
things were generated—and into which, when destroyed, they
were again resolved. Like Empedokles, and like Parmenides
previously, he declared that generation, understood in this sense,
was a false and impossible notion: that no existing thing could
have been generated, or could be destroyed, or could undergo
real transformation into any other thing different from what it
was? Existing things were what they were, possessing their
several inherent properties: there could be no generation except
the putting together of these things in various compounds, nor any
destruction except the breaking up of such compounds, nor any
transformation except the substitution of one compound for
another.

But Anaxagoras did not accept the Empedoklean four elements
Homceome. 28 the sum total of first substances. He reckoned all
ries—small the different sorts of matter as original and primeval

Theory of
Anaxagoras
—denied ge-
neration
and destruc-
tion-—recog-
nises only
mixture and
severance of
pre-oxisting
inds of
matter.

1 Emp. Fr. v. 34, ed. Karst., p. 88.

παῦρον δὲ ζώης ἀβίον μέρος ἀθλήσαντες

2 Aristotel. Ethic. Eudem, i, 4, 5;
Diogen. Laert. ii. 10.

ὠκύμοροι, κάπνοιο δίκην ἀρθέντες, ἀπέπ-

ταν,
αὐτὸ μόνον πεισθέντες ὅτῳ προσέκυρσεν
ἕκαστος,
φάντοσ᾽ ἐλαυνόμενοι" τὸ δὲ οὖλον ἐπεύ-
, Χεται εὑρεῖν
αὕτως. οὔτ᾽ ἐπιδερκτὰ τάδ᾽ ἀνδράσιν οὔτ᾽
, ἐπακουστὰ .
ovre νόῳ περιληπτά,

8 Anaxagor. Fr. 22, p. 185, ed. Schau-
bach.—rd δὲ γίνεσθαι καὶ ἀπόλλυσθαι
οὐκ ὄρθώς νομίζονσιν οἱ “EAAnves. Οὐ-
δὲν γὰρ χρῆμα γίνεται, οὐδὲ ἀπόλ-
λνται, GAN ἀπ᾿ ἐόντων χρημάτων συμ-
μίσγεταί τε καὶ διακρίνεται" καὶ οὕτως
ἂν ὀρθώς καλοῖεν τὸ τε γίνεσθαι συμ-
μίσγεσθαι καὶ τὸ ἀπόλλυσθαι διακρίνε-
σθαι. .

ANAXAGORAS. 49

Cuap. I.

particles of

existences: he supposed them all to lie ready made, particle

in portions of all sizes, whereof there was no greatest kinds of
and no least.! Particles of the same sort he called ἘΌΝ ae:
Homceomeries : the aggregates of which formed bodies ther.

of like parts; wherein the parts were like each other and like
the whole. Flesh, bone, blood, fire,? earth, water, gold, &., were
aggregations of particles mostly similar, in which each particle
was not less flesh, bone, and blood, than the whole mass.

But while Anaxagoras held that each of these Homceomeries ὃ
was a special sort of matter with its own properties, and each of
them unlike every other: he held farther the peculiar doctrine,
that no one of them could have an existence apart from the rest.
Everything was mixed with everything: each included in itself
all the others: not one of them could be obtained pure and
unmixed. This was true of any portion however small. The
visible and tangible bodies around us affected our senses, and
received their denominations according to that one peculiar
matter of which they possessed a decided preponderance and pro-
minence. But each of them included in itself all the other
matters, real and inseparable, although latent.

In the beginning (said Anaxagoras) all things (all sorts of

1 Anaxag. Fr. 5, ed. Schaub, p. 94.

Τὰ ὁμοιομερῆ are the primordial par-
ticles themselves: ὁμοιομέρεια is the
abstract word formed from this concrete
—existence in the form or condition of
ὁμοιομερῆ. Each distinct substance has

or likely for Anaxagoras himself to
choose?

3 Anaxag. Fr. 8; Schaub. p. 101;
compare p. 118, ἕτερον δὲ οὐδέν ἐστιν
ὅμοιον οὐδενὶ ἄλλῳ. ᾿Αλλ’ ὅτεῳ πλεῖστα
ἔνι, ταῦτα ἐνδηλότατα ὃν ἕκαστόν ἐστι
OWN ὁμοιομερῆ, little particles like καὶ ἦν.

4 Lucretius, 1. 876:

each other, and each possessing the
characteristics of the substance. But Id quod Anaxagoras sibi sumit, ut
omnibus omnes

the state called ὁμοιομέρεια pervades
Res putet inmixtas rebus latitare, sed
ilu

all substances (Marbach, Lehrbuch
der Geschichte der Philosophie, s. 53,
Apparere unum cujus sint plurima
miz

note 8).
2 Lucretius, i. 830:
Nunc et Anaxagore scrutemur Home-

omerian,
Quam Grai memorant, nec nostra
dicere lingua
Concedit nobis patrii sermonis egestas.
Lucretius calls this theory Homco-
meria, and it appears to me that this
name must have been bestowed- upon
it by its author. Zeller and several
others, after Schleiermacher, conceive
the name to date first from Aristotle
and his physiological classification.
But what other name was so nat

Et magis in promptu priméque in front
locata.

Aristotel. Physic. i 4,3. Διό φασι πᾶν

ἐν παντὶ μεμῖχθαι, διότι πᾶν ἐκ παν-

τὸς ἑώρων γιγνόμενον" φαίνεσθαι δὲ

διαφέροντα καί προσαγορεύεσθαι ἕτερα

ἀλλήλων, ἐκ τοῦ μάλιστα ὑπερέχοντος, ᾿
διὰ τὸ πλῆθος ἐν τῇ μίξει τῶν ἀπείρων "'

εἰλικρινώς μὲν γὰρ ὅλον λευκὸν ἣ μέλαν

ἢ σάρκα ἢ ὀστοῦν, οὐκ εἶναι" ὅτον δὲ
πλεῖστον ἕκαστον ἔχει, τοῦτο δοκεῖν εἶναι
τὴν φύσιν τοῦ πράγματος. Also Αγίπιοῦ.
De Ceelo, iii. 8; Gen. et Corr. i. 1,

1—4

50 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuar, L

matter) were together, in one mass or mixture. In-
finitely numerous and infinite in diversity of magni-

First condi-
tion of

things—all

the primor- tude, they were so packed and confounded together
dial varie- that no one could be distinguished from the rest: no
matter were definite figure, or colour, or other property, could
together in manifest itself. Nothing was distinguishable except
senbalal the infinite mass of Air and Ather (Fire), which sur-
Reason, dis- rounded the mixed mass and kept it together." Thus
tinct from . . . . . .

all of them, all things continued for an infinite time in a state of
supervened rest, and nullity. The fundamental contraries—wet,
upon this dry, hot, cold, light, dark, dense, rare,—in their in-
mass, set- timate contact neutralised each other.? Upon this
ting the Ὁ. inert mass supervened the agency of Nous or Mind.
particlesin The characteristic virtue of mind was, that it alone
movement.

was completely distinct, peculiar, pure in itself, un-
mixed with anything else: thus marked out from all other
things which were indissolubly mingled with each other.
Having no communion of nature with other things, it was noway
acted upon by them, but was its own master or autocratic, and
was of very great force. It was moreover the thinnest and
purest of all things; possessing complete knowledge respecting
all other things. It was like to itself throughout—the greater
manifestations of mind similar to the less.®

But though other things could not act upon mind, mind
could act upon them. It first originated movement in the

1 Anaxag. . 1; Schaub. p. 65; a. 25; and De Ceelo, 111. 301, a 12

Ὁμοῦ πάντα χρήματα ἦν, ἄπειρα καὶ ἐξ ἀκινήτων γὰρ ἄρχεται (Anaxagoras)

πλῆθος καὶ σμικρότητα, Kai yap τὸ κοσμοποιεῖν.

σμικρὸν ἄπειρον ἦν. Καὶ πάντων ὁμοῦ ἃ Anaxag. Fr. 8, p. 100, Schaub.
T

ἐόντων οὐδὲν εὔδηλον ἦν ὑπὸ σμικρό-
mros. Πάντα γὰρ ἀήρ τε καὶ αἰθὴρ
κατεῖχεν, ἀμφότερα ἄπειρα ἐόντα. Ταῦτα
γὰρ μέγιστα ἔνεστιν ἐν τοῖς συμπᾶσι
καὶ πλήθει καὶ μεγέθει.

The first three words—opuot πάντα

Huara—were the commencement of
ihe A orean treatise, and were
more recolected and cited than any
other words in it. See . 16,
17, Schanbach, and p. 66-68 Ari-
stotle calls this primeval chaos τὸ

μίγμα.

Εν Anax. . 6, Schaub. p. 97;
Aristotel. Physic. i. 4, ᾧ᾿ 187, a, with
the commentary of Sim likius ap.
Scholia, p. 885; Brandis , ii, 208,

ev ἄλλα παντὸς μοῖραν ἔχει, νοῦς
δέ ἐστιν ἄπειρον καὶ αὐτοκρατὲς καὶ
μέμικται οὐδενὶ χρήματι, ἀλλὰ μόνος
αὐτὸς ἐφ᾽ éwirod ἐστιν. Et μὴ γὰρ
ep éwirod ἦν, ἀλλά τεῳ ἐμέμικτο
ἄλλῳ, μετεῖχεν ἄν ἁπάντων χρημάτων,
εἴ ἐμέμικτό τεῳ . . . . Καὶ ἀνεκώλνεν
αὐτὸν τὰ συμμεμιγμένα, ὥστε μηδενὸς
χρήματος κροτεῖν ὁμοίως, ὡς καὶ μόνον
ἐόντα ἐφ᾽ ἑωὐτοῦ, ᾿Ἐστὶ γὰρ λεπτό-
τατόν τε πάντων χρημάτων καὶ καθα-
ρώτατον, καὶ γνώμην γε περὶ παντὸς πᾶ"
σαν ἴσχει, καὶ ἰσχύει μέγιστον.
Compare Plato, Kratylus, o. 65, p.
418, c. νοῦν αὐτοκράτορα καὶ οὐδενὶ
μεμιγμένον (ὃ λέγει ᾿Αναξαγόρας),

Cuap. I. ANAXAGORAS.

quiescent mass. The movement impressed was that
of rotation, which first began on a small scale, then
gradually extended itself around, becoming more
efficacious as it extended, and still continuing to ex-
tend itself around more and more. Through the
prodigious velocity of this rotation, a separation was
effected of those things which had been hitherto
undistinguishably huddled together.! Dense was de-
tached from rare, cold from hot, dark from light, dry
from wet.2 The Homcomeric particles congregated

Movement
of rotation
in the mass
originated
by Nous on
asmall scale,
but gradu-
ally extend-
ing itself.
Like parti-
cles congre-
gate toge-
ther—dis-
tinguishable
aggregates
are formed.

together, each to its like; so that bodies were formed—definite
and distinguishable aggregates, possessing such a preponderance
of some one ingredient as to bring it into clear manifestation.’
But while the decomposition of the multifarious mass was thus
carried far enough to produce distinct bodies, each of them
specialised, knowable, and regular—still the separation can never
be complete, nor can any one thing be “cut away as with a
hatchet” from the rest. Each thing, great or small, must
always contain in itself a proportion or trace, latent if not
manifest, of everything else.* Nothing except mind can be
thoroughly pure and unmixed.

Nevertheless other things approximate in different
purity, according as they possess a more or less de-

degrees to

: Nothing
cided preponderance of some few ingredients over the (except b
remaining multitude. Thus flesh, bone, and other ontingly °

1m] i ; i ure or
similar portions of the animal organism, were (accord- Puree od,
ing to Anaxagoras) more nearly pure (with one con- but other
stituent more thoroughly preponderant and all other be compares
coexistent natures more thoroughly subordinate and tively pure.

Ὁ Anaxag. Fr. 8, Ὁ. 100, Sch. Καὶ
τῆς περιχωρήσιος τῆς συμπάσης νοῦς
ἐκράτησεν, ὥστε περιχωρῆσαι τὴν ἀρ-
ἦν. Καὶ πρῶτον ἀπὸ τοῦ σμικροῦ

Philosophumen. 8. κινήσεως Se μετέ-
χειν τὰ πάντα ὑπὸ τοῦ νοῦ κινούμενα,
συνελθεῖν τε τὰ ὅμοια, ἄς, Simplikius

ad Aristot. Physic. i. p. 188, ἃ, 18

ἤρξατο περιχωρῆσαι, ἕἔπειτεν πλεῖον πε-
ριχωρέει, καὶ περιχωρήσει ἐπὶ πλέον.
Καὶ τὰ σνυμμισγόμενά τε καὶ ἀποκρινόμε-
να καὶ διακρινόμενα, πάντα ἔγνω νοῦς.
Also Fr, 18, p. 120; Fr. 21, p. 184,
se Anaxag. Fr, 8-19, Schaubach
naxag. ΕἾ, 8-19, Schaubach.
. 3 . Fr. 8, p. 101, Schaub.
ὅτεῳ πλεῖστα évt, ταῦτα ἐνδηλότατα ἕν

ἕκαστόν ἐστι καὶ fv. Pseudo-Origen.

(p. 387, Schol. Brandis).

4 Aristotel. Physic. iii. 4, 5, p. 208,
8.. 28, ὁτιοῦν τῶν μορίων εἶναι μιγμα ὁμοίως
τῷ πάντι, &c. Anaxag. Fr. 16, p. 126,
Schaub.

Anaxag. Fr. 11, p. 119, Schaub. ov
κεχώρισται τὰ ἐν ἑνὶ κόσμῳ, ovde
ἀποκέκοπται πελέκει, &. Ἃ
12, p. 122, ἐν παντὶ πάντα, οὐδὲ χωρὶς
ἔστιν εἶναι.--- τ, 15, p. 125.

52 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Crap. I.

Flesh, Bone, latent) than the four Empedoklean elements, Air,
purerthan Fire, Earth, &c.; which were compounds wherein
Air or many of the numerous ingredients present were equally

effective, so that the manifestations were more confused
and complicated. In this way the four Empedoklean elements
formed a vast seed-magazine, out of which many distinct develop-
ments might take place, of ingredients all pre-existing within it.
Air and Fire appeared to generate many new products, while
flesh and bone did ποῦ Amidst all these changes, however, the
infinite total mass remained the same, neither increased nor

diminished.?

In comparing the theory of Anaxagoras with that of Empe-

Theory of

dokles, we perceive that both of them denied not only

Anaxagoras the generation of new matter out of nothing (in

_, Aristotle, in two places (De Ceelo,
iii. 8, p. 302, a. 28, and Gen. et Corr.
i. 1, p. 814, a. 18) appears to state that
Anaxagoras regarded flesh and bone as
simple and elementary: air, fire, and
earth, as compounds from these and
other Homeeomeries. So Zeller, Philos.
d. Griech., v. i. p. 670, ed. 2), with Rit-
ter, and others, understand him. Schau-
bach (Anax Fr. Pp. 81, 82) dissents
from this opinion, but does not give a
clear explanation. Another passage of
Aristotle (Metaphys. A. 3, p. 984. a 11)
appears to contradict the above two
passages, and to put fire and water, in

he Anaxagorearn theory, in the same

general category as flesh and bone:
he explanatory note of Bonitz, who
tries to show that the passage in the
Metaphysica is in harmony with the
other two above named passages, seems
to me not satisfactory.

Lucretius (i. 835, referred to in a
previous note) numbers flesh, bone,
fire, and water, all among the Anaxa-

orean Homceomeries; and I cannot

ut think that Aristotle, in contrast-
ing Anaxagoras with Empedokles, has
ascribed to the former language which
could only have been used by the
latter. ᾿ἙΕναντίως δὲ φαίνονται λόγοντες
οἱ περὶ ᾿Αναξαγόραν τοῖς περὶ ᾿Ἔμπε-
δοκλέα. Ὁ μὲν γάρ (Emp.) φησι πῦρ
καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ ἀέρα καὶ γὴν στοιχεῖα
τέσσαρα καὶ anda εἶναι, μᾶλλον ἣ σάρκα
καὶ ὀστοῦν καὶ τὰ τοιαῦτα τῶν ὁμοιο-
μερών. Οἱ δὲ (Anaxag.) ταῦτα μὲν
ἁπλᾶ καὶ στοιχεῖα, γῆν δὲ καὶ πῦρ καὶ
ἀέρα σύνθετα" πανσπερμίαν γὰρ εἶναι

φούτων. (Gen. et Corr. 1, 1.) The last

words (πανσπερμίαν) are fully illus-
trated bya portion of the other passage,
De Coelo, 111. 3, ἀέρα δὲ καὶ πῦρ μῖγμα
τούτων (the Homoeomeries, such as
flesh and blood) καὶ τῶν ἄλλων σπεῤ-
μάτων πάντων" εἶναι ,γὰρ ἑκάτερον αὖ-
τῶν ἐξ ἀοράτων ὁμοιομερῶν πάντων
ἡθροισμένων" διὸ καὶ γίγνεσθαι πάντα
ἐκ τούτων.

Now it can hardly be said that
Anaxagoras recognised one set of
bodies as simple and elementary, and
that Empedokles recognised another
set of bodies as such. Anaxagoras ex-
pressly denied all simple bodies, In

is theory, all bodies were compound:
Nous alone formed an_ exception.
Everything existed in everything. But
they were compounds in which par-
ticles of one sort, or of a definite num-
ber of sorts, had come together into
such positive and marked action, as

ractically to nullify the remainder.

he generation of the Homcecomeric
aggregate was by disengaging these
like particles from the confused mix-
ture in which their agency had before
lain buried (γένεσις, ἔκφανσις μόνον
καὶ ἔκκρισις τοῦ πρὶν κρυπτομένον.
Simplikius ap. Schaub. Anax. Fr. p.
115). The Homceomeric aggregates or
bodies were infinite in number : for in-
gredients might be disengaged and re-
combined in countless ways, so that the
result should always be some positive
and definite manifestations. Consi-
dered in reference to the Homceomeric
body, the constituent particles might
in a certain sense be called elements.

2 Anaxag. Fr. 14, Ὁ. 125, Schaub,

Cuap. 1. ANAXAGORAS. 53

which denial all the ancient physical philosophers with that
of

concurred), but also the transformation of one form Empe
of matter into others, which had been affirmed by ἢ of
Thales and others. Both of them laid down as a basis the ex-
istence of matter in a variety of primordial forms. They main-
tained that what others called generation or transformation, was
only a combination or separation of these pre-existing materials,
in great diversity of ratios. Of such primordial forms of matter
Empedokles recognised only four, the so-called Elements ; each
simple and radically distinct from the others, and capable of
existing apart from them, though capable also of being combined
with them. Anaxagoras recognised primordial forms of matter
in indefinite number, with an infinite or indefinite stock of
particles of each; but no one form of matter (except Nous)
capable of being entirely severed from the remainder. In the
constitution of every individual body in nature, particles of all
the different forms were combined ; but some one or a few forms
were preponderant and manifest, all the others overlaid and
latent. Herein consisted the difference between one body and
another. The Homcomeric body was one in which a confluence
of like particles had taken place so numerous and powerful, as to
submerge all the coexistent particles of other sorts. The majority
thus passed for the whole, the various minorities not being
allowed to manifest themselves, yet not for that reason ceasing to
exist: a type of human society as usually constituted, wherein
some one vein of sentiment, ethical, cesthetical, religious, politi-
cal, &c., acquires such omnipotence as to impose silence on
dissentients, who are supposed not to exist because they cannot
proclaim themselves without ruin.

The hypothesis of multifarious forms of matter, latent yet still
real and recoverable, appears to have been suggested guosested

to Anaxagoras mainly by the phenomena of animal partly bythe
nutrition.’ The bread and meat on which we feed Bf animal
nourishes all the different parts of our body—blood, παίει οι,
flesh, bones, ligaments, veins, trachea, hair, &c. The nutriment
must contain in itself different matters homogeneous with all
these tissues and organs ; though we cannot see such matters, our

1 See a remarkable passage in Plutarch, Placit. Philosoph. 1 3,

54 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap, I.

reason tells us that they must be there. This physiological
divination is interesting from its general approximation towards
the results of modern analysis.

Both Empedokles and Anaxagoras begin their constructive

Chaos, com-
mon to both
Empedokles
and Anaxa-
goras : mov-
ing agency,
different in
one from
the other
theory.

process from a state of stagnation and confusion
tantamount to Chaos ; which is not so much active
discord (as Ovid paints it), as rest and nullity arising
from the cquilibrium of opposite forces. The chaos
of Anaxagoras is in fact almost a reproduction of the
Infinite of Anaximander.’ But Anaxagoras as well
as Empedokles enlarged his hypothesis by introduc-

ing (what had not occurred or did not seem necessary
to Anaximander) a special and separate agency for eliciting
positive movement and development out of the negative and
stationary Chaos. The Nous or Mind is the Agency selected for
this purpose by Anaxagoras: Love and Enmity by Empedokles.
Both the one and the other initiate the rotatory cosmical motion ;
upon which follows as well the partial disgregation of the chaotic
mass, as the congregation of like particles of it towards each
other.
The Nous of Anaxagoras was understood by later writers as
a God ;* but there is nothing in the fragments now

Nous, a + ge ;
ind. po: remaining to justify the belief that the author him-

mind, postu-
lated by

Anaxagoras
—how un-
derstood by
later writers
—how in-
tended by
Anaxagoras
himself,

self conceived it in that manner—or that he proposed
it (according to Aristotle’s expression 5) as the cause
of all that was good in the world, assigning other
agencies as the causes of all evil. It is not charac-
terised by him as a person—not so much as the Love
and Enmity of Empedokles. It is not one but multi-

tudinous, and all its separate manifestations are alike, differing
only as greater or less. It isin fact identical with the soul, the
vital principle, or vitality, belonging not only to all men and
animals, but to all plants also.‘ It is one substance, or form of

1 This is a just comparison of Theo-
hrastus. See the passage from his p.
υσικὴ ἱστορία, referred to by Sim- 8 Aristot. Metaphys. A. p. 984, Ὁ. 17.

Ei. 3 ad Aristot. er ate i. p. 187,a. He praises Anaxagoras for this, οἷον

Compare Schaubach, Anax. Frag.
3.

885, Schol. Bran νήφων παρ᾽ εἰκῆ λέγοντας τοὺς πρότερον,
Cicero, Academ. iv. 87; Sext. Em- ἄζα. .
piric. adv. Mathematicos, ix. 6, τὸν μὲν _— 4 Aristoteles (or Pseudo-Aristot.) De
νοῦν, ὃς ἐστι κατ᾽ αὐτὸν θεὺς, ἄσ. Plantis, i. 1.

Cuap. I. ANAXAGORAS. 55

matter among the rest, but thinner than all of them (thinner
than even fire or air), and distinguished by the peculiar charac-
teristic of being absolutely unmixed. It has moving power and
knowledge, like the air of Diogenes the Apolloniate : it initiates
movement ; and it knows about all the things which either pass
into or pass out of combination. It disposes or puts in order all
things that were, are, or will be; but it effects this only by
acting as a fermenting principle, to break up the huddled mass,
and to initiate rotatory motion, at first only on a small scale, then
gradually increasing. Rotation having once begun, and the mass
having been as it were unpacked and liberated the component
Homeeomeries are represented as coming together by their own
inherent attraction! The Anaxagorean Nous introduces order
and symmetry into Nature, simply by stirring up rotatory
motion in the inert mass, so as to release the Homcomeries from
prison. It originates and maintains the great cosmical fact of
rotatory motion ; which variety of motion, from its perfect regu-
larity and sameness, is declared by Plato also to be the one most
consonant to Reason and Intelligence.? Such rotation being
once set on foot, the other phenomena of the universe are sup-
posed to be determined by its influence, and by their own ten-
dencies and properties besides : but there is no farther agency of
Nous, which only knows these phenomena as and when they
occur. Anaxagoras tried to explain them as well as he could ;
not by reference to final causes, nor by assuming good purposes
of Nous which each combination was intended to answer—but
by physical analogies, well or ill chosen, and especially by the
working of the grand cosmical rotation.®

Aristot. De Animé, i. 2, 65-6-13. secreta sunt, feruntur in eum locum,
Aristotle says that the language of quo nunc sunt.”
Anaxagoras about νοῦς and ψυχὴ was Compare Alexand. Aphrod. ap. Scho-
not perfectly clear or consistent. But lia ad Aristot. Physic. ii. p. 194, a
it seems also from Plato De Legg. xii. (Schol. Ὁ. 848 a. Brandis); Marbach,
B 967, B, that Anaxagoras made no Lehrbuch der Gesch. Philos. s. 54, note
istinction between νοῦς and ψυχή. 2, p. 82; Preller, Hist. Phil. ex Font.

Compare Plato, Kratylus, p. 400 A. Loc. Contexta, 8. 53, with his comment.
1 Anaxag. Fr. 8, and Schaubach’s 2 Plato, Phedo, c. 107, 108, p. 98;
Comm. p. 112-116. Plato, De Legg. xii. p. 967 B; Aristot.

‘Mens erat id, quod movebat mo- Metaphys. A. 4, p. 985, Ὁ. 18; Plato,
lem homceomeriarum: hac ratione, Timeus, 84 A. 88 E.
per hunc motum ἃ mente excitatum, δ Aristoph. Nub. 880, 828, αἰθέριος
secretiofactaest .... Materiaautem Atvos—Atvos βασιλεύει, τὸν Δί᾽ ἐξε-
proprie insunt vires: proprio suo AnAaxés—the sting of which applies
pondere hec, que mentis vi mota et to Anaxagoras and his doctrines.

56 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. CuapP. I.

This we learn from Plato and Aristotle, who blame Anaxa-
goras for inconsistency in deserting his own hypothesis, and
in invoking explanations from physical agencies, to

Platoand the neglect of Nous and its supposed optimising
blame Anax- purposes. But Anaxagoras, as far as we can judge
deserting by his remaining fragments, seems not to have com-
18 own hd ° bd , Φ ry
theory. mitted any such inconsistency. He did not proclaim

| his Nous to be a powerful extra-cosmical Architect,
like the Demiurgus of Plato—nor an intra-cosmical, immanent,
undeliberating instinct (such as Aristotle calls Nature), tending
towards the production and renewal of regular forms and con-
junctions, yet operating along with other agencies which
produced concomitants irregular, unpredictable, often even
obstructive and monstrous. Anaxagoras appears to conceive
his Nous as one among numerous other real agents in Nature,
material like the rest, yet differing from the rest as being
powerful, simple, and pure from all mixture,! as being endued
with universal cognizance, as being the earliest to act in point of
time, and as furnishing the primary condition to the activity of
the rest by setting on foot the cosmical rotation. The Homco-
meries are coeternal with, if not anterior to, Nous. They have
laws and properties of their own, which they follow, when once
liberated, without waiting for the dictation of Nous. What they
do is known by, but not ordered by, Nous.? It is therefore no
inconsistency in Anaxagoras that he assigns to mind one distinct
and peculiar agency, but nothing more ; and that when trying to

Anaxagoras Sivous τινὰς ἀνοήτους ava-

ὠγραφών, σὺν τῇ τοῦ νοῦ ampagiq καὶ
ἀνοίᾳ (Clemens. Alexandrin. Stromat.
ii

. Ὁ. 865).

Ko move (in the active sense, i.e. to
cause movement in) and to know, are
the two attributes of the Anaxagorean
Νοῦς (Aristotel De Anima, i. 2, p.
405, a. 18).

1 Anaxagoras, Fr. & p. 100, Schaub.

ἐστὶ yap λεπτότατόν τε πάντων χρημά-
των, ἄτα.

This means, not that νοῦς was unex-
tended or immaterial, but that it was
thinner or more subtle than either fire
orair, Herakleitus regarded τὸ περιέ-
χρο 88 λογικὸν καὶ φρενῆρες. ἷο-
genes of Apollonia considered air as

endued with cognition, and as im-
arting cognition by being inhaled.
ompare Plutarch, De Placit. Philos.

iv. ἃ.

I cannot think, with Brucker (Hist.
Philosop. part ii. b. ii. De Secté Tonica,

. 504, ed. 2nd), and with Tennemann,
es. Ph. i. 8, p. 312, that Anaxagoras
was “primus qui Dei ideam inter

Greecos ἃ materialitate quasi purifica-

vit,” &c, agree rather with Zeller

(Philos. der Griech. i. p. 680-683, ed.

2nd), that the Anaxagorean Nous is

not conceived as having either imma-
teriality or personality.

2 Simplikins, in Physic. Aristot. p.
73. καὶ ᾿Αναξαγόρας δὲ τὸν νοῦν ἐάσας,
ὥς φησιν Εὔδημος, καὶ αὐτοματίζων τὰ
πολλὰ συνίστησιν.

ANAXAGORAS. 57

ΚΈΑΡ, I.

explain the variety of phenomena he makes reference to other
physical agencies, as the case seems to require.!

In describing the formation of the Kosmos, Anaxagoras
supposed that, as a consequence of the rotation
initiated by mind, the primitive chaos broke up.
“The Dense, Wet, Cold, Dark, Heavy, came together
into the place where now Earth is: Hot, Dry, Rare,
Light, Bright, departed to the exterior region of the revolving
AKther.”? In such separation each followed its spontaneous and
inherent tendency. Water was disengaged from air and clouds,
earth from water: earth was still farther consolidated into stones
by cold. Earth remained stationary in the centre, while fire
and air were borne round it by the force and violence of the
rotatory movement. The celestial bodies—Sun, Moon, and Stars
—were solid bodies analogous to the earth, either caught origi-
nally in the whirl of the rotatory movement, or torn from the
substance of the earth and carried away into the outer region of
rotation.* They were rendered hot and luminous by the fiery
fluid in the rapid whirl of which they were hurried along. The
Sun was a stone thus made red-hot, larger than Peloponnesus :
the Moon was of earthy matter, nearer to the Earth, deriving its
light from the Sun, and including not merely plains and moun-
tains, but also cities and inhabitants.° Of the planetary move-
ments, apart from the diurnal rotation of the celestial sphere,
Anaxagoras took no notice.© He explained the periodical changes
in the apparent course of the sun and moon by resistances which
they encountered, the former from accumulated and condensed air,
the latter from the cold.” Like Anaximenes and Demokritus,
Anaxagoras conceived the Earth as flat, round in the surface, and
not deep, resting on and supported by the air beneath it. Origi-
nally (he thought) the earth was horizontal, with the axis of celestial
rotation perpendicular, and the north pole at the zenith, so that

Astronomy
and physics
of Anaxa-
goras.

1 , Diogen.. ‘Laert. ii. 8. Νοῦν. 8 Anaxag. Fr. 20, Ὁ. 138, Schau.

. ἀρχὴν

κινήσεως

Brucker, Hist. Philos, ut supra.
** Scilicet, seme] inducto in materiam
ἃ mente motu, sufticere putavit Anax-
Aagoras, juxta leges natures motisque,
rerum ortum describere.”

2 Anaxag. Fr. 19, Ὁ. 181, Schaub. ;
compare Fr. 6, p. 97; Diogen. Laert.

4See the curious passage in Plu-
tarch, Lysander 12, and_ Plato, Lege
xii. p. 967 B; Diogen. Laert. fi.
Plutarch, Placit. Philos. ii. 18.

5 Plato, Kratylus, p. 409 A; Plato,

Apol. Sok. c. 14; Xenophon, Memorab.
v

6 Schaubach, ad Anax. Fr. p. 1

7 Plutarch, Placit. Philosoph. ἵν 28,

58 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. 1.

this rotation was then lateral, like that of a dome or roof ; it was
moreover equable and unchanging with reference to every part
of the plane of the earth’s upper surface, and distributed light
and heat equally to every part. But after a certain time the
Earth tilted over of its own accord to the south, thus lowering its
southern half, raising the northern half, and causing the celestial
rotation to appear oblique.!

Besides these doctrines respecting the great cosmical bodies,
His geology, Anaxagoras gave explanations of many among the
logy striking phenomena in geology and meteorology—the
physiology. gea, rivers, earthquakes, hurricanes, hail, snow, &c.?
He treated also of animals and plants—their primary origin, and
the manner of their propagation. He thought that animals
were originally produced by the hot and moist earth ; but that
being once produced, the breeds were continued by propagation.
The seeds of plants he supposed to have been originally con-
tained in the air, from whence they fell down to the warm and
moist earth, where they took root and sprung up.“ He believed
that all plants, as well as all animals, had a certain measure of
intelligence and sentiment, differing not in kind but only in
degree from the intelligence and sentiment of men; whose
superiority of intelligence was determined, to a great extent, by
their possession of hands.’ He explained sensation by the action
of unlike upon unlike (contrary to Empedokles, who referred it
to the action of like upon like), applying this doctrine to the
explanation of the five senses separately; But he pronounced the

4 Theophrastus, Hist. Plant. iii. 2;
Diogen. Laert. li. 9; Aristot. De
Plantis, i, 2.

5 Aristot. De Plantis, i. 1; Aristot.
Part. Animal. iv. 10.

6 Theophrastus, De Sensu, sect. 1—

1 Diogenes Laert. ii. 9. τὰ δ᾽ ἄστρα
Kar’ ἀρχὰς θολοειδώς ἐνεχθῆναι, ὥστε
κατὰ κορνφὴν τῆς γῆς τὸν ἀεὶ φαινό-

μενον εἶναι πόλον, ὕστερον δὲ τὴν (γὴν)
ἕγκλισιν λαβεῖν. Plutarch, Placit. Phil.

ae? Schaubach, ad Anax. Fr. p.

Among the points to which Anaxa-
goras addressed himself was the an-
nual inundation of the Nile, which he
ascribed to the melting of the snows in
Athiopia, in the higher regions of the
river's course,--Diodor. i. 38. Hero-
dotus notices this opinion (ii. 22), call-
ing it plausible, but false, yet without
naming any one as its author. Com-
pare Euripides, Helen. 8.

8 Aristotel. De Generat. Animal.
iii. 6, iv. 1.

sect. 27-30.

This difference followed naturally
from the opinions of the two. philo-
sophers on the nature of the soul or
mind. Anaxagoras supposed it pecu-
liar in itself, and dissimilar to the
Homecomeries without. Empedokles
conceived it as a compound of the
four elements, analogous to all that
was without: hence man knew each
exterior element by its like within
himself—earth by earth, water by
water, &c.

Cuap. I. ANAXAGORAS. 59

senses to be sadly obscure and insufficient as means of knowledge.
Apparently, however, he did not discard their testimony, nor
assume any other means of knowledge independent of it, but
supposed a concomitant and controlling effect of intelligence as
indispensable to compare and judge between the facts of sense
when they appeared contradictory.1 On this point, however, it
is difficult to make out his opinions.

Anaxagoras, residing at Athens and intimately connected with
Perikles, incurred not only unpopularity, but even
legal prosecution, by the tenor of his philosophical
opinions, especially those on astronomy. To Greeks
who believed in Helios and Seléné as not merely
living beings but Deities, his declaration that the
Sun was a luminous and fiery stone, and the Moon Pious.
an earthy mass, appeared alike absurd and impious. Such was
the judgment of Sokrates, Plato, and Xenophon, as well as of
Aristophanes and the general Athenian public.2 Anaxagoras was
threatened with indictment for blasphemy, so that Perikles was

The doc-
trines of
xagoras
were re-
garded as
offensive
and im-

compelled to send him away from Athens.
That physical enquiries into the nature of things, and attempts

1 Anaxag. Fr. 19, Schaub.; Sextus
Empiric. adv. Mathem. vii. 91-140;
Cicero, Academ. i. 12.

Anaxagoras remarked that the con-
trast between black and white might
be made imperceptible to sense by a
succession of numerous intermediate
colours very finely graduated. He is
said to have aftirmed that snow was
really black, notwithstanding that it
appeared white to our senses: since
water was black, and snow was only
frozen water piers Academ. iv, 31;
Sext. Empir. Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. i. 33).
* Anaxagoras non modo id ita esse (se.
albam nivem esse) negabat, sed sibi,
uia sciret aquam nigram esse, unde

concreta esset, am ipsam esse
ne vidert quidem.” Whether Anaxa-
goras ever affirmed that snow did not
appear to him white, may reasonably
be doubted: his real affirmation pro-
bably was, that snow, though it ap-
peared white, was not really white.

d this affirmation depended upon
the line which he drew between the
fact of sense, the phenomenal, the rela-
tive, on one side—and the substratum,
the real, the absolute, on the other.
Most philosophers recognise a distinc-

tion between the two; but the line
between the two has been drawn in
very different directions. Anaxagoras
assumed as his substratum, real, or ab-
solute, the Homceomeries—numerous
primordial varieties of matter, each
with its inherent qualities. mon

these varieties he reckoned water, bu

he did not reckon snow. He also con-
sidered that water was really and abso-
lutely black or dark (the Homeric μέ-
λαν véwp)}—that blackness was among
its primary qualities. Water, when con-
solidated into snow, was so disguised
as to produce upon the spectator the
appearance of whiteness; but it

not really lose, nor could it lose, its
inherent colour. A negro covered
with white paint, and therefore lookin

white, is still really black: a whee

painted with the seven prismatic
colours, and made to revolve rapidly,
will look white, but it is still really
septi-coloured : i.e. the state of rapid
revolution would be considered as
an exceptional state, not natural to
it. Compare Plato, Lysis, c. 32, p.

217 D.
2Plato, Apol. So. 6. 14; Xenoph.
Memor. iv. 7.

60 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. I.

to, substitute scientific theories in place of the personal agency
of the Gods, were repugnant to the religious feelings of the
Greeks, has been already remarked.1 Yet most of the other
contemporary philosophers must have been open to this reproach,
not less than Anaxagoras ; and we learn that the Apolloniate
Diogenes left Athens from the same cause. If others escaped the
like prosecution which fell upon Anaxagoras, we may probably
ascribe this fact to the state of political party at Athens, and to
the intimacy of the latter with Perikles. The numerous political
enemies of that great man might fairly hope to discredit him in
the public mind—at the very least to vex and embarrass him—
by procuring the trial and condemnation of Anaxagoras.
Against other philosophers, even when propounding doctrines
not less obnoxious respecting the celestial bodies, there was not
the same collateral motive to stimulate the aggressive hostility of
individuals.

Contemporary with Anaxagoras—yet somewhat younger, as far
as we can judge, upon doubtful evidence—lived the

Di f . . . ως

Ape lonia philosopher Diogenes, a native of Apollonia in Krete.
recognises Of his life we know nothing exceptthathetaught during
mord tial some time at Athens, which city he was forced to quit

on the same ground as Anaxagoras. Accusations of
impiety were either brought or threatened against him :? physical
philosophy being offensive generally to the received religious
sentiment, which was specially awakened and appealed to by the
political opponents of Perikles.

Diogenes the Apolloniate, the latest in the series of Ionic
philosophers or physiologists, adopted, with modifications and
enlargements, the fundamental tenet of Anaximenes. There

1 Plutarch, Nikias, 23.

2 Diogen. Laert. ix. 62, The danger
incurred by Diogenes the Apolloniate
at Athens is well authenticated, on the
evidence of Demetrius the Phalerean
who had good means of knowing. And
the fact may probably be referred to
some time after the year B.C. 440, when
Athens was at the height of her power
and of her attraction for foreign visitors
—when the visits of philosophers to
the city had been multiplied by the
countenance of Perikles—and when the
political rivals of that great man had
set the fashion of assailing them in

order to injure him. This seems to me
one probable reason for determining
the chronology of the Apolloniate
Diogenes: another is, that his de-
scription of the veins in the human
body is so minute and detailed as _ to
betoken an advanced period of philo-
sophy between B.c. 440-410. See the
point discussed in Panzerbieter, Frag-
ison Diogen. Apoll. c. 12-18 (Leipsic,

Simplikius (ad Aristot. Phys. fol.
6 A) describes Diogenes as having been
σχεδὸν νεώτατος in the series of phy-
sical theorists.

UHAP. 1.

DIOGENES OF APOLLONIA. UL

was but one primordial element—and that element was air. He
laid it down as indisputable that all the different objects in this
Kosmos must be at the bottom one and the same thing: unless
this were the fact, they would not act upon each other, nor mix
together, nor do good and harm to each other, as we see that they
do. Plants would not grow out of the earth, nor would animals
live and grow by nutrition, unless there existed as a basis this
universal sameness of nature. No one thing therefore has a
peculiar nature of its own: there is in all the same nature, but
very changeable and diversified.?

Now the fundamental substance, common to all, was air.
was infinite, eternal, powerful ; it was, besides, full of
intelligence and knowledge. This latter property Priya
Diogenes proved by the succession of climatic and element.
atmospheric phenomena of winter and summer, night and day,
rain, wind, and fine weather. All these successions were dis-
posed in the best possible manner by the air: which could not
have laid out things in such regular order and measure, unless
it had been endowed with intelligence. Moreover, air was
the source of life, soul, and intelligence, to men and animals:
who inhaled all these by respiration, and lost all of them as soon
as they ceased to respire.*

Air, life-giving and intelligent, existed everywhere, formed the
essence of everything, comprehended and governed air pos.
everything. Nothing in nature could be without it: sessed nu-

. . . ., merous and
yet at the same time all things in nature partook of it diverse pro-

Air
Air was the
primordial,

1 Diogen. Ap. Fragm. ii. 6. 29 Pan-
zerb. ; Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 39.

εἰ yap τὰ ἐν τῷδε τῷ κόσμῳ ἐόν-
τα νῦν γῆ καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ τἄλλα, ὅσα
φαινεται ἐν tude τῷ κόσμῳ ἐόντα, εἰ
τουτέων τι ἦν τὸ ἕτερον τοῦ ἑτέρου
ἕτερον ἐὸν τῇ ἰδίῃ φύσει, καὶ μὴ τὸ
αὐτὸ ἐὸν μετέπιπτε πολλαχῶς καὶ ἡἧτε-
ροιοῦτο" οὐδαμῆ οὔτε μίσγεσθαι ἀλλή-
λοις ἠδύνατο οὔτε ὠφέλησις τῷ ἑτέρῳ
οὔτε βλάβη, ἄσ.

Aristotle approves this fundamental
tenet of Diogenes, the conclusion that
there must be one common Something
out of which all things came—eé ἑνὸς
ἅπαντα (Gen. et Corrupt. i. 6-7, p. 322,
a. 14), inferred from the fact that they
acted upon each other.

2 Diog. Apoll. Fr. iv.-vi. c. 36-42, Panz.

—Ov γὰρ ἂν οὕτω δέδασθαι οἷόν re
ἦν ἄνεν νοήσιος, ὥστε πάντων μέτρα
ἔχειν, χειμῶνός τε και θέρεος Kat ννκ-
τὸς καὶ ἡμέρης καὶ ὑετῶν καὶ ἀνέμων
καὶ evdtwy, καὶ τὰ ἄλλα εἴ τις βούλε-
ται ἐννοέεσθαι, εὕρισκοι ἂν οὕτω δια-
κείμενα, ὡς ἀνυστὸν κάλλιστα. “Ere δὲ
πρὸς τούτοις καὶ τάδε μεγάλα σημεῖα"
ἄνθρωπος γὰρ καὶ τὰ ἄλλα Coa ἀνα-
πνέοντα ζώει τῷ ἀέρι. Kat τοῦτο αὐτοῖς
καὶ ψνχή ἐστι καὶ νόησι-------

-- Καὶ μοὶ δοκέςξι τὸ τὴν νόησιν ἔχον
εἶναι ὁ ἀὴρ καλεόμενος ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνθρώ-
πων, SC.

Schleiermacher has an instructive
commentary upon these fragments of
the Apolloniate Diogenes (Vermischte
Schriften, vol. ii. p. 157-162; Ueber
Diogenes von Apollonia),

62 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap, I.

perties; ina different manner.) For it was distinguished by
was emi- . . . .
nentlymodi- great diversity of properties and by many gradations
fable. of intelligence. It was hotter or colder—moister or
drier—denser or rarer—more or less active and movable—ex-
hibiting differences of colour and taste. All these diversities
were found in objects, though all at the bottom were air.
Reason and intelligence resided in the warm air. So also to all
animals as well as to men, the common source of vitality,
whereby they lived, saw, heard, and understood, was air; hotter
than the atmosphere generally, though much colder than that
near the sun.” Nevertheless, in spite of this common charac-
teristic, the air was in other respects so indefinitely modifiable,
that animals were of all degrees of diversity, in form, habits, and
intelligence. Men were doubtless more alike among themselves :
yet no two of them could be found exactly alike, furnished with
the same dose of aerial heat or vitality. All other things, ani-
mate and inanimate, were generated and perished, beginning
from air and ending in air: which alone continued immortal and
indestructible.®

The intelligence of men and animals, very unequal in
character and degree, was imbibed by respiration, the

Physiol ar ° : .

of Diogenes inspired air passing by means of the veins and along
= tlsde- swith the blood into all parts of the body. Of the
of the veins veins Diogenes gave a description remarkable for its
in the . 7 .

human minuteness of detail, in an age when philosophers
body.

dwelt almost exclusively in loose general analogies.é
He conceived the principal seat of intelligence in man to be in |
the thoracic cavity, or in the ventricle of the heart, where a
quantity of air was accumulated ready for distribution.’ The

1 Diog. Ap. Fr. vi. καί ἐστι μηδὲ

The description of the veins given b
ἕν 5, τι μὴ μετέχει τούτον (air). Merd-

Diogenes 18 preserved in Aristotel.

εἰ δὲ οὐδὲ ὃν ὁμοίως τὸ ἕτερον τῷ

ἁτέρῳ'" ἀλλὰ πολλοὶ τρόποι καὶ αὐτοῦ
τοῦ ἀέρος καὶ τῆς νοήσιός εἰσιν.

Aristotel. De Animé, i. 2, p. 406, ἃ. 21.

Διογένης δ᾽, ὥσπερ καὶ ἕτεροί τινες,
ἀέρα [ὑπέλαβε τὴν ψυχήν], &.

2 Diog. Ap. Fr. vi. καὶ πάντων ζώων
δὴ ἡ ψνχὴ τὸ αὐτό ἐστιν, ἀὴρ θερμό-
τερος μὲν τοῦ ἔξω ἐν ᾧ ἐσμέν, τοῦ
ἱμέντοι παρὰ τῷ ἠελίῳ πολλὸν ψυχρό-
τερος.

8 Diogen. Apoll. Fr. v. ch. 88, Panz.

4 Diogen. Apoll. Fr. vii, ch. 48, Panz.

Hist. Animal. iii. 2: yet seemingly
only in a defective abstract, for Theo-
phrastus alludes to various opinions of
iogenes on the veins, which are not
contained in Aristotle. See Philipp-
80n, Ὕλη ἀνθρωπίνη, p. 208.
" 5 Plutarch, ΡΙδοὶῥ. Philos. iv, 6. Ἔν
ἀρτηριακῇ κοιλίᾳ τῆς καρδίας, ἥτις
ἐστὶ καὶ πνενματικής See Panzerbieter’s
commentary upon these words, which
are not very clear (c. δύ), nor easy to
reconcile with the description given by
Diogenes himself of the veins.

Cuap. I. DIOGENES OF APOLLONIA. 63
warm and dry air concentrated round the brain, and reached by
veins from the organs of sense, was the centre of sensation.
Taste was explained by the soft and porous nature of the tongue,
and by the number of veins communicating with it. The
juices of sapid bodies were sucked up by it as by a sponge: the
odorous stream of air penetrated from without through the
nostrils: both were thus brought into conjunction with the
sympathising cerebral air. To this air also the image impressed
upon the eye was transmitted, thereby causing vision :! while
pulsations and vibrations of the air without, entering through
the ears and impinging upon the same centre, generated the
sensation of sound. If the veins connecting the eye with the
brain were inflamed, no visual sensation could take place ;?
moreover if our minds or attention were absorbed in other
things, we were often altogether insensible to sensations either of
sight or of sound: which proved that the central air within us
was the real seat of sensation.? Thought and intelligence, as well
as sensation, was an attribute of the same central air within us,
depending especially upon its purity, dryness, and heat, and
impeded or deadened by moisture or cold. Both children and
animals had less intelligence than men: because they had more
moisture in their bodies, so that the veins were choked up, and
the air could not get along them freely to all parts. Plants
had no intelligence; having no apertures or ducts whereby
the air could pervade their internal structure. Our sensations
were pleasurable when there was much air mingled with the
blood, so as to lighten the flow of it, and to carry it easily to

1 Plutarch, Placit. Philosoph. iv. 18.
Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 39-41-43.
Κριτικώτατον δὲ ἡδονῆς τὴν γλῶτταν.
ἁπαλώτατον γὰρ εἶναι καὶ μανὸν καὶ τὰς
φλέβας ἁπάσας ἀνήκειν εἰς αὐτήν.

2 Plutarch, Placit. Philosoph. iv. 16;
Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 40.

8 Theophrast. De Sensu, s. 42. Ὅτι
δὲ ὁ ἐντὸς ἀὴρ αἰσθάνεται, μικρὸν ὧν
μόριον τοῦ θεοῦ, σημεῖον εἶναι, ὅτι πολ-
λάκις πρὸς ἄλλα τὸν νοῦν ἔχοντες οὔθ᾽
ὁρῶμεν οὔτ᾽ ἀκούομεν. The same opi-
nion—that sensation, like thought, isa
mental process, depending on physical
conditions—is ascribed to Strato (the
disciple and successor of Theophrastus)
by Porphyry, De Abstinentia, iii. 21.
Στράτωνος τοῦ φνσικοῦ λόγος ἐστὶν

ἀποδεικνύων, ὡς οὐδὲ αἰσθάνεσθαι To παρά-
παν ἄνεν τοῦ νοεῖν ὑπάρχει. καὶ γὰρ γράμ"
ματα πολλάκις ἐπιπορενομένονς τῇ ὄψει
καὶ λόγοι προσπίπτοντες τῇ ἀκοῇ δια»
λανθάνονσιν ἡμᾶς καὶ διαφεύγονσι πρὸς
ἑτέρους τὸν νοὺν éxovras—f καὶ λέλεκται,"
vous Oph καὶ vous ἀκούει, τἄλλα κωφὰ
καὶ τυφλά.

The expression ascribed to Diogenes
by Theop tus—o ἐντὸς ἀὴρ, μικρὸν
ὧν μόριον τοῦ θεοῦ---ἶδ so prin
by Philippson ; but the word θεοῦ seems
not well avouched as to the text, and
Schneider prints θυμοῦ. It is not im-

ossible that Diogenes may have called
he air God, without departing from
his physical theory: but this requires
proof.

64 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap, I.

all'parts: they were painful when there was little air, and when
the blood was torpid and thick.) |

The structure of the Kosmos Diogenes supposed to have been
Kosmology effected by portions of the infinite air, taking upon
and Meteo- them new qualities and undergoing various trans-
rology: formations. Some air, becoming cold, dense, and
heavy, sunk down to the centre, and there remained stationary as
earth and water: while the hotter, rarer, and lighter air as-
cended and formed the heavens, assuming through the intelli-
gence included in it a rapid rotatory movement round the
earth, and shaping itself into sun, moon, and stars, which were
light and porous bodies like pumice stone. The heat of this
celestial matter acted continually upon the earth and water
beneath, so that the earth became comparatively drier, and the
water was more and more drawn up as vapour, to serve for
nourishment to the heavenly bodies, The stars also acted as
breathing-holes to the Kosmos, supplying the heated celestial
mass with fresh air from the infinite mass without.?, Like Anaxa-
goras, Diogenes conceived the figure of the earth as flat and
round, like a drum; and the rotation of the heavens as lateral,
with the axis perpendicular to the surface of the earth, and the
north pole always at the zenith. This he supposed to have been
the original arrangement ; but after a certain time, the earth
tilted over spontaneously towards the south—the northern half
was elevated and the southern half depressed—so that the north
pole was no longer at the zenith, and the axis of rotation of the

1 Theophrastus, De Sensu, 5. 43-46;

Plutarch, Placit. Philos. v. 20. That
moisture is the cause of dulness, and
that the dry soul is the best and most
intelligent—is cited among the doc-
trines of Herakleitus, with whom Dio-
genes of Apollonia is often in harmony.
Αὔη ψνχὴ σοφωτάτη καὶ ἀρίστη. See
Schleiermach. Herakleitos, sect. 59-

64.

2Plutarch ap. Eusebium Prep.
Evang. i. 8; Aristotel. De Anima, i. 2;
Diogen. Laert. ix. 68, Διογένης κισση-
ροειδῆ τὰ ἄστρα, διαπνοίας δὲ αὐτὰ vo-
μίζει τοῦ κόσμον, εἶναι δὲ διάπυρα"
συμπεριφέρεσθαι δὲ τοῖς φανεροῖς ἄσ-
τροις ἀφανεῖς λίθους καὶ παρ᾽ αὐτὸ τοῦτ᾽
ἀνωνύμους" πίπτοντα δὲ πολλάκις ἐπὶ τῆς

γῆς σβένννσθαι" καθάπερ τὸν ἐν Αἰγὸς

ποταμοῖς πυρωδῶς κατενεχθέντα ἀ σ-
τέρα πέτρινον, This remarkable anti-
cipation of modern astronomy—the re-
cognition of aerolithes as a class of non-
luminous earthy bodies revolving round
the sun, but occasionally coming within
the sphere of the earth’s attraction, be-
coming luminous in our atmosphere,
falling on the earth, and there being ex-
tinguished—is noticed by Alex. von
Humboldt in his Kosmos, vol. i. p. 98-
104, Eng. trans. He says—‘‘The opi-
nion of. Diogenes of Apollonia entirely
accords with that of the present day,”

. 110. The charm and value of that
interesting book is greatly enhanced by
his frequent reference to the ancient
points of view on astronomical sub-
jects.

Cnap. I. DIOGENES OF APOLLONIA. 65

‘

heavens became apparently oblique.1 He thought, moreover, thai
the existing Kosmos was only of temporary duration; that it
would perish and be succeeded by future analogous systems,
generated from the same common substance of the infinite and
indestructible air.2 Respecting animal generation—and to some
extent respecting meteorological phenomena’— Diogenes also
propounded several opinions, which are imperfectly known, but
which appear to have resembled those of Anaxagoras.

Nearly contemporary with Anaxagoras and Empedokles, two
other enquirers propounded a new physical theory
very different from those already noticed—usually
known under the name of the atomic theory. This
theory, though originating with the Eleate Leukip-
pus, obtained celebrity chiefly from his pupil Demokritus of
Abdéra, its expositor and improver. Demokritus (born seem-
ingly in B.c. 460, and reported to have reached extreme old age)
was nine years younger than Sokrates, thirty-three years older
than Plato, and forty years younger than Anaxagoras. The age
of Leukippus is not known, but he can hardly have been much
younger than Anaxagoras,

Of Leukippus we know nothing: of Demokritus, very littl—
yet enough to exhibit a life, like that of Anaxagoras,

Leukippus
and Demo-
kritus—
Atomic
theory.

. ; ᾿ oo. Long life,
consecrated to philosophical investigation, and ne- varied tra-
. ΜΝ . . vels, and
glectful not merely of politics, but even of inherited yymerous
patrimony.” His attention was chiefly turned to- fompoe-
wards the: study of Nature, with conceptions less Demokri-
us.

vague, and a more enlarged observation of facts, than
any of his contemporaries had ever bestuwed. He was enabled
to boast that no one had surpassed him in extent of travelling
over foreign lands, in intelligent research and converse with
enlightened natives, or in following out the geometrical relations

1 Plutarch, Placit. Philos. ii. 8; 4Diogen. Laert. ix. 41. See the

Panzerbieter ad Diog. Ap. c. 76-78;
Schaubach ad Anaxagor. Fr. p. 175.

2 Plut. Ap. Euseb , Preep. Evang. i. 8.

3 Preller, Hist. Philosoph. Grec.-
Rom. ex Font. Loc, Contexta, sect. 68.
Preller thinks that Diogenes employed
his chief attention “in animantium
natura ex aeris principio repetenda” ;
and that he was less full “*n cogni-
tione τῶν μετεώρων". But the frag-
ments scarcely justify this.

chronology of Demokritus discussed
in Mullach, Frag. Dem. p. 12-25; and
in Zeller, Phol. der Griech., vol. i. p.
576-581, 2nd edit. The statement of
Apollodorus as to the date of his birth,
appears more trustworthy than the
earlier date assigned by Th llus
“Β 6. 470). Demokritus declared him-
self to be forty years younger than
Anaxagoras.
5 Dionys. ix. 36-39.

1—5

66 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. CuapP. 1.

of lines! He spent several years in visiting Egypt, Asia Minor,
and Persia. His writings were numerous, and on many different
subjects, including ethics, as well as physics, astronomy, and
anthropology. None of them have been preserved. But we
read, even from critics like Dionysius of Halikarnassus and
Cicero, that they were composed in an impressive and semi-
poetical style, not unworthy to be mentioned in analogy with
Plato ; while in range and diversity of subjects they are hardly

inferior to Aristotle.”
The theory of Leukippus and Demokritus (we have no means
of distinguishing the two) appears to have grown out

Relation |» of the Eleatic theory.* Parmenides the Eleate (as I
theory of a have already stated) in distinguishing Ens, the self-

and thatof existent, real, or absolute, on one side—from the
Parme- phenomenal and relative on the other—conceived the

former in such a way that its connection with the
latter was dissolved. The real and absolute, according to him,
was One, extended, enduring, continuous, unchangeable, immov-
able: the conception of Ens included these affirmations, and at
the same time excluded peremptorily Non-Ens, or the contrary
of Ens. Now the plural, unextended, transient, discontinuous,
changeable, and moving, implied a mixture of Ens and Non-Ens,
or a partial transition from one to the other. Hence (since Non-
Ens was inadmissible) such plurality, &c., could not belong to
the real or absolute (ultra-phenomenal), and could only be
affirmed as phenomenal or ielative. In the latter sense, Parme-

1 Demokrit. » p. 288, ed.
Mullach. Compare i ib. hy 41; Diogen.
Laert. ix. 85; Strabo, xy. , 708.

philosophy, the difference between the
wo was 50 marked, that Plato is said

to have had a positive antipathy to
the works of Demokritus, and a desire

Pliny, Hist. Natur. emocritus—
vi inter experimenta consumpsit,”

&e.

2 Cicero, Orat. ὁ. 20; Dionys. De
Comp. Verbor. δ | 24; Sextus mpir.
adv. eer vii. a6 Δημόκριτος,

Διὸς φώνῃ παρεικαζόμενος, dC

ἘΣΎ 48.49) enumerates the
titles of the ὡς κάρα of Demokritus, as

them into tetralogies, as he also distri-
buted the dialogues of Plato.
probably the charm of style, common

Demokritus with Plato,
daoed the rhetor thus to edit them

regard to scope and spirit of

which in- ¢

to burn them (Aristoxenus ap. Diog.
Laert. ix. 40). It could hardly be from
congeniality of doctrine that the same
r attached himself toboth. Ithas
Peet remarked that Plato never once
names Demokritus, while Aristotle cites
him very frequently, sometimes with
marked praise.
3 Simplikius, in Aristotel. Physic.
fol. 7 A. ris φιλοσοφί . κοινω τὴν
eve ς φιλοσοφίας, ov Thy v
ἰβάδισε Trapuevi8n καὶ Hevogie ht
v

. et
Laert.

τῶν ὄντων δόξαν, "
ναντίαν.

4ristotel.
Corr i. 8, Ὁ. 261, a. 81. Diogen.

Cuap. 1. DEMOKRITUS. 67

nides did affirm it, and even tried to explain it: he explained
the phenomenal facts from phenomenal assumptions, apart from
and independent of the absolute. While thus breaking down
the bridge between the phenomenal on one side and the absolute
on the other, he nevertheless recognised each in a sphere of its
own.

This bridge the atomists undertook to re-establish. They
admitted that Ens could not really change—that pemokri-
there could be no real generation, or destruction— ‘ean theory
no transformation of qualities—no transition of many Plena and
into one, or of one into many. But they denied the Vacua-—Ens
unity and continuity and immobility of Ens: they Ens.
affirmed that it was essentially discontinuous, plural, and moving.
They distinguished the extended, which Parmenides had treated
as an Unum continuum, into extcnsion with body, and extension
without body: into plenum and vacuum, matter and space.
They conceived themselves to have thus found positive meanings
both for Ens and Non-Ens. That which Parmenides called
Non-Ens or nothing, was in their judgment the vacuwm; not
less self-existent than that which he called Something. They
established their point by showing that Ens, thus interpreted,
would become reconcilable to the phenomena of sense: which
latter they assumed as their basis to start from. Assuming
motion as a phenomenal fact, obvious and incontestable, they
asserted that it could not even appear to be a fact, without sup-
posing vacuum as well as body to be real: and the proof that
both of them were real was, that only in this manner could sense
and reason be reconciled. Farther, they proved the existence
of a vacuum by appeal to direct physical observation, which
showed that bodies were porous, compressible, and capable of
receiving into themselves new matter in the way of nutrition.
Instead of the Parmenidean Ens, one and continuous, we have a
Demokritean Ens, essentially many and discontinuous: plena
and vacua, spaces full and spaces empty, being infinitely inter-
mingled.! There existed atoms innumerable, each one in itself

1 ΤΆ is chiefly in the eighth chapter ῳήθη λόγους, οἵτινες πρὸς τὴν αἴ
of the treatise De Gener. et Corr. ᾷ 8) μολογούμενα λέ ovres A ἀναιρήσσιν
that Aristotle traces the doctrine of ἁσιν οὔτε γένεσιν οὔτε φθορὰν οὔτε κίνησιν
Leukippus as having grown out of καὶ τὸ πλῆθος τῶν ὄντων, &e. (i. 8, 5),
that of the Eleates. Δεύκιππος δ᾽ ἔχειν Compare also Aristotel. De Coolo, fii.

PRE-SOKRATIO PHILOSOPHY. CuHapP. 1.

essentially a plenum, admitting no vacant space within it, and
therefore indivisible as well as indestructible : but each severed
from the rest by surrounding vacant space. The atom could
undergo no change: but by means of the empty space around,
it could freely move. Each atom was too small to be visible:
yet all atoms were not equally small ; there were fundamental
differences between them in figure and magnitude: and they
had no other qualities except figure and magnitude. As no
atom could be divided into two, so no two atoms could merge
into one. Yet though two or more atoms could not so merge
together as to lose their real separate individuality, they might
nevertheless come into such close approximation as to appear
one, and to act on our senses as a phenomenal combination

manifesting itself by new sensible properties.!
The bridge, broken down by Parmenides, between the real
and the phenomenal world, was thus in theory re-established.

4, p. 803, a. 6; Metaphys. A. 4, p. 985,
Ὁ. δ. Physic. iv. 6: λέγονσι δὲ (Demo-
kritus, &c., in proving a vacuum) ἕν μὲν
ὁτι ἡ κίνησις ἢ κατὰ τόπον οὐκ ἂν εἴη,
ov γὰρ ἂν δοκεῖν εἶναι κίνησιν εἰ
μὴ cin κενόν" τὸ γὰρ πλῆρες ἀδύνατον
εἶναι δέξασθαί τι" de.

Plutarch adv. Kolot. p. 1108. Οἷς
οὐδ᾽ ὄναρ ἐντυχὼν ὁ Κολώτης, ἐσφάλη
περὶ λέξιν τοῦ ἀνδρὸς (Demokritus) ἐν
7 διορίζεται, μὴ μᾶλλον τὸ δὲν, ἣ τὸ
μηδὲν εἰναι" δὲν μὲν ὀνομάζων τὸ σῶμα
μηδὲν δὲ τὸ κενόν, ὡς καὶ τούτον φύσιν
τινὰ καὶ ὑπόστασιν ἰδίαν ἔχοντος.

The affirmation of Demokritus—
That Nothing existed, just as much as
Something—appears a paradox which
we must probably understand as im-
plying that he here adopted, for the
sake of argument, the language of the
Eleates, his opponents. They called
the vacuum Nothing, but Demokritus
did not so callit. If (said Demokritus)
you call vacuum Nothing, then I say
that Nothing exists 13 well as Some-

The direct observations by which
Demokritus showed the existence of a
vacuum were—l. A vessel with ashes
in it will hold as much water as if
it were empty: hence we know that
there are pores in the ashes, into which
the water is received. 2. Wine can be
compressed in skins. 8. The growth
of organised bodies proves that they
have pores, through which new matter
in the form of nourishment is ad-

rates (Aristot. Physic. iv. 6, p.
Besides this, Demokritus set forth
motion as an indisputable fact, ascer-
tained by the evidence of sense: and
affirmed that motion was impossible,
except on the assumption that vacuum
existed. Melissus, the disciple of Par-
menides, inverted the reasoning, in
arguing against the reality of motion.
If it be real (he said), then there must
exist a vacuum: but no vacuum does
or can exist: therefore there is no real
motion. (Aristot. Physic. iv. 6.)

Since Demokritus started from these
facts of sense, as the base of his hypo-
thesis of atoms and vacua, so Aristotle
(Gen. et Corr. i. 2; De Anima, i. 2)
might reasonably say that he took
sensible appearances as truth. But we
find Demokritus also describing reason
as an improvement and enlightenment
of sense, and complaining how little of
truth was discoverable by man. See
Mullach, Demokritus (pp. 414, 4165).
Compare Philippson—YaAy ἀνθρωπίνη---
Berlin, 1831, ‘

1 Aristotel. Gen. et Corr. i. 8, Ὁ. 825.
8. 25, τὰ πρῶτα μεγέθη τὰ ἀδιαίρετα
στερεά. Diogen. Laert. ix. 44; Plu-
tarch, adv. Koloten, Ὁ, 1110 seq.

Zeller, Philos, diy Griech., vol. i. p.
583-688, ed. 2nd; Aristotel. Metaphys.
Z. 18, Ὁ. 1089, 8. 10, ἀδύνατον εἶναί
φησι Δημόκριτος ἐκ δύο ἕν ἣ ἐξ ἑνὸς δύο
γενέσθαι’ τὰ γὰρ μεγέθη τὰ ἄτομα τὰς
οὐσίας ποιεῖ.

Cuap. I, DEMOKRITUS. 69

For the real world, as described by Demokritus, differed entirely
from the sameness and barrenness of the Parmenidean Ens, and
presented sufficient movement and variety to supply

a basis of explanatory hypothesis, accommodated to ἘΠ ΥΩ
more or less of the varieties in the phenomenal world. fered only in

In respect of quality, indeed, all the atoms were }aenitude,

: figure, posi-
alike, not less than all the vacua: such likeness was rangoment
{according to Demokritus) the condition of their ~—they had

being able to act upon each other, or to combine as no qualities,

phenomenal aggregates.! But in respect to quantity movements
. ς and combi-
or magnitude as well as in respect to figure, they nations
differed very greatly: moreover, besides all these βοηονο ρα
diversities, the ordination and position of each atom
with regard to the rest were variable in every way. As all
objects of sense were atomic compounds, so, from such funda-
mental differences—partly in the constituent atoms themselves,
partly in the manner of their arrangement when thrown into
combination—arose all the diverse qualities and manifestations
of the compounds. When atoms passed into new combination,
then there was generation of a new substance : when they passed
out of an old combination there was destruction: when the atoms
remained the same, but were merely arranged anew in order and
relative position, then the phenomenon was simply change.
Hence all qualities and manifestations of such compounds were
not original, but derivative : they had no “ nature of their own,”
or law peculiar to them, but followed from the atomic composi-
tion of the body to which they belonged. They were not real
and absolute, like the magnitude and figure of the constituent
atoms, but phenomenal and relative—ze. they were powers of
acting upon correlative organs of sentient beings, and nullities in
the absence of such organs.? Such were the colour, sonorousness,

1 Aristotel. Gener. et Corr. i. 7, p. philosophers affirmed distinctly the
$23, Ὁ. 12. It was the opinion of De- opposite. Τὸ ὅμοιον ὑπὸ τοῦ ὁμοίου πᾶν
mokritus, that there could be no action ἀπαθές, &c. Diogenes the Apolloniate
except where agent and patient were agreed on this point generally with
alike. Φησὶ yap τὸ αὐτὸ καὶ ὅμοιον Demokritus; see above, p. 61, notel.
εἶναι τό τε ποιοῦν καὶ τὸ πάσχον' ov The facility with which these philo-
γὰρ ἐγχωρεῖν τὰ ἕτερα καὶ διαδέροντα sophers laid down general maxims is
πάσχειν ὑπ᾽ GAAjAwy’ ἀλλὰ κἂν ἕτερα constantly observable.
ὄντα ποιῇ τι εἰς ἄλληλα, οὐχ ἢ ἕτερα, 2 Aristot. Gen. et Corr, i. 2, p. 816,
GAN ἢ ταὐτόν τι ὑπάρχει, ταύτῃ τοῦτο 8. 1; Theophrast. De Sensu, 8. 68, 64.
συμβαίνειν αὐτοῖς. Manycontemporary Περὶ μὲν οὖν βαρέος καὶ κούφον καὶ

70 PRE-SOKRATIO PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. I.

taste, smell, heat, cold, &c., of the bodies around us: they were
relative, implying correlative percipients. Moreover they were
not merely relative, but perpetually fluctuating ; since the com-
pounds were frequently changing either in arrangement or in
diversity of atoms, and every such atomic change, even to a small
extent, caused it to work differently upon our organs.!

Among the various properties of bodies, however, there were
two which Demokritus recognised as not merely rela-

en a tive to the observer, but also as absolute and belonging
aerating to the body in itself. These were weight and hardness
different —primary qualities (to use the phraseology of Locke
gee com: and Reid), as contrasted with the secondary qualities
pounds. of colour, taste, and the like. Weight, or tendency

downward, belonged (according to Demokritus) to each indivi-
dual atom separately, in proportion to its magnitude: the specific
gravity of all atoms was supposed to be equal. In compound
bodies one body was heavier than another, in proportion as its
bulk was more filled with atoms and less with vacant space.?
The hardness and softness of bodies Demokritus explained by
the peculiar size and peculiar junction of their component atoms.
Thus, comparing lead with iron, the former is heavier and softer,
the latter is lighter and harder. Bulk for bulk, the lead con-
tained a larger proportion of solid, and a smaller proportion
of interstices, than the iron: hence it was heavier. But its
structure was equable throughout ; it had a greater multitude of
minute atoms diffused through its bulk, equally close to and
coherent with each other on every side, but not more close and
coherent on one side than on another. The structure of the iron,
on the contrary, was unequal and irregular, including largor

i Aristotel. Gen. et Corr. i. 2, p. 815,
Ὁ. 10. "Qore rats μεταβολαῖς τοῦ συγ-
κειμένον τὸ αὐτὸ ἐναντίον δοκεῖν ἄλλῳ

σκληροῦ καὶ μαλακοῦ ἐν τούτοις ἀφο-
ρίζει" τῶν δὲ ἄλλων αἰσθητῶν οὐδενὸς
εἶναι φύσιν, ἀλλὰ πάντα πάθη τῆς

τἰσθήσεως ἀλλοιουμένης, ἐξ ἧς γίνεσθαι καὶ ἄλλ καὶ μετακινεῖσθαι μικροῦν
Tay φαντασίαν, oe ἐμμιγνυμένον, κα ὶ ὅλως ἕτερον
peeus, Eclog. Physic. i. Ὁ. 16. φαίνεσθαι ἑνὸς μετακινὴθέν-

Φύσιν μὲν μηδὲν εἶναι χρῶμα, τὰ μὲν

γὰρ στοιχεῖα ἄποια, τά τε μεστὰ καὶ τὸ
κενόν. τὰ δ᾽ ἐξ αὐτῶν σνγκρίματα κέ-
χρῶσθαι διαταγῇ τε "Kat ῥυθμῷ καὶ
προτροπῇ

Demekritus restricted the term Φύσις
~—Nature—to the primordial atoms and
vacua Sympiiiius ad Aristot. Physic.
p. 8 .

2 Theophrastus, De_Sensu, 8. 61.
Βαρὺ μὲν οὖν καὶ κοῦφον τῷ μεγέθει
διαιρεῖ Δημόκριτος, &.

Aristotel. De Celo, iv. 2, 7, Ὁ. 809,
a. 10; Gen. et Corr. i. 8, p. 826, a. 9.
Καίτοι βαρύτερόν γε κατὰ τὴν ὑπεροχήν
φησιν εἶναι Δημόκριτος ἕκαστον τῶν
ἀδιαιρέτων, &C.

CuapP. 1. DEMOKRITUS. 71

spaces of vacuum in one part, and closer approach of its atoms in
other parts: moreover these atoms were in themselves larger,
hence there was a greater force of cohesion between them on'‘one
particular side, rendering the whole mass harder and more un-
yielding than the lead.

We thus see that Demokritus, though he supposed single
atoms to be all of the same specific gravity, yet
recognised a different specific gravity in the various.
compounds of atoms or material masses. It is to be
remembered that, when we speak of contact or com-
bination of atoms, this is not to be understood lite-
rally and absolutely, but only in a phenomenal and relative
sense ; as an approximation, more or less close, but always sufii-
ciently close to form an atomic combination which our senses
apprehended as one object. Still every atom was essentially
separate from every other, and surrounded by a margin of vacant
space: no two atoms could merge into one, any more than one
atom could be divided into two.

Pursuant to this theory, Demokritus proclaimed that all the
properties of objects, except weight, hardness, and
softness, were not inherent in the objects themselves,

All atorns
essentially
separate
from each
other.

All proper-
ties of ob-
jects,except

but simply phenomenal and relative to the observer—
“ moditications of our sensibility”. Colour, taste,
smell, sweet and bitter, hot and cold, &c., were of
this description. In respect to all of them, man
differed from other animals, one man from another,
and even the same man from himself at different
times and ages, There was no sameness of impression,
no unanimity or constancy of judgment, because there

weight and
hardness,
were pheno-
menal and
relative to
theobserver
Sensation
could give
no know-
ledge of the
real and
absolute.

was no real or objective “nature” corresponding to the

impression. From none of these senses could we at all learn
what the external thing was in itself. “Sweet and bitter, hot
and cold (he said) are by law or convention (1.¢, these names
designate the impressions of most men on most occasions, taking
no account of dissentients): what really exists is, atoms and
vacuum. ‘The sensible objects which we suppose and believe to
exist do not exist in truth ; there exist only atoms and vacuum.

1 Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 62.

72 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY.

Caap. I.

We know nothing really and truly about an object, either what
it is or what it is not: our opinions depend upon influences from
without, upon the position of our body, upon the contact and
resistances of external objects. There are two phases of know-
ledge, the obscure and the genuine. To the obscure belong all
our senses—sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch. The genuine is
distinct from these. When the obscure phase fails, when we can
no longer see, nor hear, nor smell, nor taste, nor touch—from
minuteness and subtlety of particles—then the genuine phase, or
reason and intelligence, comes intu operation.” ἢ

True knowledve (in the opinion of Demokritus) was hardly at
all attainable ; but in so far as it could be attained,

Reason ᾿

alone gave we must seek it, not merely through the obscure and
true and . νὸς ἝΝ ς .
real know- insutlicient avenues of sense, but by reason or intelli-
led tle of gence penetrating to the ultimatum of corpuscular
it was structure, farther than sense could go. His atoms
attainable.

were not pure Abstracta (like Plato’s Ideas and geo-
metrical plane figures, and Aristotle’s materia prima), but
concrete bodies, each with its own? imagnitude, figure, and
movement; too small to be seen or felt by us, yet not too small to
be seen or felt by beings endowed with finer sensitive power.
They were abstractions mainly in so far as all other qualities
were supposed absent. Demokritus professed to show how the
movements, approximations, and collisions of these atoms, brought
them into such combinations as to fourm the existing Kosmos ;
and not that system alone, but also many other cosmical systems,
independent of and different from each other, which he supposed
to exist.

How this was done we cannot clearly make out, not having
No separate before us the original treatise of Demokritus, called
force re- the Great Diakosmos. It is certain, however, that he

uiredtoset _- .
the atomsin did not invoke any separate agency to set the atoms

1 Demokritus, Fr. p. 205, Mullach ;
Sextus Empiric. adv. Mathemat. vii.
p- 185; Diogen. Laert. ix. 72.

2 Aristute]. Gen. et Corr. i. 8, p. 325,
8. 20. “Απειρα τὸ πλῆθος Kai ἀόρατα διὰ
σμικρότητα τῶν ὄγκων, KC.

Marbach observes justly that the
Demokritean atoms, though not really
objects of sense in consequence of their

smallness (of their disproportion to our
visual power), are yet spoken of as
objects of sense: they are as it. were
microscopic objects, and the γνησίη
γνώμη, OF, intelligence, is conceived as
supplying somet bing of a microscopic
power. (Marbach, Lehrbuch der Ge-
popicnte der .Philosophie, sect. 58, vol.
Lp. 94.

CnHap. 1.

much without beginning as the

that eternal motiun was no less natural, no more
required any special cause to account for it, than
“Such is the course of nature—such is
and always has been the fact,” was his ultimatum.?

eternal rest.

DEMOKRITUS.

in motion—such as the Love and Discord of Empe-
dokles—the Nous or Intelligence of Anaxagoras.
Demokritus supposed that the atoms moved by an
inherent force of their own: that this motion was as

motion—
they moved
by an inhe-
rent force of
their own.
Like atoms
naturally
tend to-
wards like.
Rotatory
motion, the
capital fact
of the Kos-
mos.

atoms themselves: 1

He farther maintained that all the motions of the atoms were
necessary—thiat. is, that they followed each other in a determinate
order, each depending upon some one or more antecedents,

according to fixed laws, which

1 Aristotel. De Ccelo, iii. 2, 3, p. 300,
Ὁ. 9. Δευκίππῳ καὶ Δημοκριίιτῳ, τοῖς
λέγουσιν ἀεὶ κινεῖσθαι τὰ πρῶτα σώ-
ματα, ἄς, (Physic. viii. 3, 8, p. 253,
b. 12, viii. 9, p. 265, b. 23; Cicero, De
Finib. i 6 17.
2 Aristot. Generat. Anima] ii. 6, p.
742, Ὁ 20: Physic viii. 1, p 252, b 32
Aristotle blames Demokritus for
thus acquiescing in the general course
of nature as an ultimatum, and for
omitting all reference to final causes.
M. Lafaist, in a good dissertation, Sur Ja
Philosophie Atomistique (Paris, 1833,
p 78), shows that this is exactly the
ultimatum of natural philosophers at
the present day. ‘‘Un phénomeéne se
passait-il, si on lui en demandait la
raison, il (Demokritus) répondait, ‘ La
chose se passe ainsi, parcequ’elle s'est
toujours passée ainsi.’ C’est, en d'autres
termes, la seule réponse que font encore
aujourd’hui les naturalistes. Suivant
eux, une pierre, quand elle n’est pas
soutenue, tombe en vertu de la. loi de
la pesanteur. Qu’est ce que la loi de Ja
pesanteur? La généralisation de ce fait
plusieurs fois observé, qu’une pierre
ombe quand elle n’est pas soutenue.
Le phénoméne dans un cas particulier
arrive ainsi, parceque toujours il est
arrivé ainsi. Le principe qu’implique
Yexplication des naturalistes modernes
est celle de Démokrite, c'est que la
nature demeure constante & elle-méme.
La, proposition de Démokrite—‘ Tel
phénoméne a lieu de cette fagon,
parceque toujours il a eu lieu de cette
méme facon’—est la premiétre forme
qu’ ait revétue le principe de la sta-
-bilité des lois naturelles.’
8 Aristotle (Physic. ii. 4, Ὁ. 196, a.

Fixed

he could not explain.®

25) says that Demokritus (he seems to
mean Jemokritus) described the mo-
tion of the atoms to form the cosmical
system, as having taken place ἀπὸ
τοῦ αὐτομάτον. Upon which Mullach
(Dem. Frag. p. 382) justly remarks—
‘‘Casu (ἀπὸ ταὐτομάτου) videntur fieri,
quae naturali quadam necessitate cu-
jus leges ignoramus evenire dicuntur.
Ned quamvis Aristoteles naturalem
Abderitani philosophi necessitatem, vi-
tato ἀνάγκης vocabulo, quod alii aliter
usurpabant, casum et fortunam vocaret
—ipse tamen Democritus, abhorrens ab
iis omnibus que destinatam causarum
seriem tollerent rerumque naturam per-
turharent, nihil juris fortune et casui
in singulis rebus concessit.”

Zeller has a like remark upon the
phrase of Aristotle, which is calculated

o mislead as to the doctrine of Demo-
kritus (Phil. ἃ, Griech., i. Ὁ. 600, 2d ed.).

Dugald Stewart, in one of the Dis-
sertations prefixed to the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, has the like comment re-
specting the fundamental principle of
the Epicurean (identical quoad hoc
with the Demokritean) philosophy.

ΕἸ cannot conclude this note without
recurring to an observation ascribed by
Laplace to Leibnitz—‘ that the blind
chance of the Epicureans involves the
supposition of an effect taking place
without a cause’, This is a very in-
correct statement of the philosophy
taught by Lucretius, which nowhere
gives countenance to such a supposi-
tion. The distinguishing tenet of this
sect was, that the order of the universe
does not imply the existence of intelit-

ent causes, but may be accounted for
y the active powers belonging to the

74 PRE-SOKRATIO PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. 1.

laws, known or unknown, he recognised always. Fortune or
chance was only a fiction imagined by men to cover their own
want of knowledge and foresight.1_ Demokritus seems to have
supposed that like atoms had a spontaneous tendency towards
like ; that all, when uncombined, tended naturally downwards,
yet with unequal force, owing to their different size, and weight
proportional to size ; that this unequal force brought them into
impact and collision one with another, out of which was gene-
rated a rotatory motion, gradually extending itself, and compre-
hending a larger and larger number of them, up to a certain
point, when an exterior membrane or shell was formed around
them.? This rotatory motion was the capital fact which both
constituted the Kosmos, and maintained the severance of its
central and peripheral masses—Earth and Water in the centre—
Air, Fire, and the celestial bodies, near the circumference.
Demokritus, Anaxagoras, and Empedokles, imagined different
preliminary hypotheses to get at the fact of rotation; but all
employed the fact, when arrived at, as a basis from which to
deduce the formation of the various cosmical bodies and their
known manifestations? In respect to these bodies—Sun, Moon,
Stars, Earth, &c.— Demokritus seems to have held several
opinions like those of Anaxagoras. Both of them conceived the
Sun as a redhot mass, and the Earth as a flat surface above and
below, round horizontally like a drum, stationary in the centre
of the revolving celestial bodies, and supported by the resistance
of air beneath.*

atoms of matter: which active powers,
being exerted through an indefinitely
long period of time, might have pro-
duced, nay must have produced, exactly
such a combination of things as that
with which we are surrounded. This
does not call in question the necessity
of a cause to produce every effect, but,
on the contrary, virtually assumes the
truth of that axiom. It only excludes
from these causes the attribute of in-
telligence. In the same way, when I
apply the words blind chance to the
throw of a die, Ido not mean to deny
that I am ultimately the cause of the

rticular event that is to take place:
put only to intimate that I do not here
act as a designing cause, in conse-
quence of my ignorance of the various
accidents to which the die is subjected

while shaken in the box. If Iam not
mistaken, this Epicurean theory ap-
proaches very nearly to the scheme
which it is the main object of the
Essay on Probabilities (by Laplace) to
inculcate.” (Stewart—First Disserta-
tion, part ii. p. 139, note.)

1 Demokrit. Frag. p. 167, ed. Mual-
lach ; Eusebius, Prep. Evang. xiv. 27.
ἄνθρωποι τύχης εἴδωλον ἐπλάσαντο
πρόφασιν ἰδίης ἀβουλίης.

2 Zeller, Phil. ἃ. Griech., i. p. 604
seq. ; Demokrit. . ἢ. 207, Mull. ;
Sext. Empiricus adv. Mathem. vii. 117.

3 Demokrit. Fragm. Ρ 208, Mullach.
Δημόκριτος ἐν ols φησι δίνῃ ἀπὸ παντὸς
ἀποκρίνεσθαι παντοίων εἰδέων, ὅσ.

D of. Laert. ix. 31-44.

4Zeller, Phil. ἃ. Griech., i. p. 612,
ed. 2nd.

Cuap. 1. DEMOERITUS.

Among the researches of Demokritus there were some relating

to animal generation, and zoology ; but we cannot
find that his opinions on these subjects were in
peculiar connection with his atomic theory.!. Nor do
we know how far he carried out that theory into

Researches
of Demo-
kritus on
zoology and
anima.

detail by tracing the various phenomenal manifesta- generation.

tions to their basis in atomic reality, and by showing what
particular magnitude, figure, and arrangement of atoms belonged
to each. It was only in some special cases that he thus connected
determinate atoms with compounds of determinate quality ; for
example, in regard tc the four Empedoklean elements. The
atoms constituting heat or fire he affirmed to be small and
globular, the most mobile, rapid, and penetrating of all: those
constituting air, water, and earth, were an assemblage of all
varieties of figures, but differed from each other in magnitude
—the atoms of air being apparently smallest, those of earth
largest.?

In regard to mind or soul generally, he identified it
or fire, conceiving it to consist in the same very small,

with heat

His account

globular, rapidly movable atoms, penetrating every-
where: which he illustrated by comparison with the
fine dust seen in sunbeams when shining through a
doorway. That these were the constituent atoms of
mind, he proved by the fact, that its first and most
essential property was to move the body, and to be
itself moved. Mind, soul, the vital principle, fire,
heat, &c., were, in the opinion of Demokritus, sub-
stantially identical—not confined to man or even
to animals, but diffused, in unequal proportions,
throughout plants, the air, and nature generally.

of mind—he
identified it
with heat or
fire, aiffused
throu hout
anim
plants, “and
nature gene-
rally. Men-
tal particles
interming-
led through-
out all the
frame with
corporeal
particles.

Sensation, thought, knowledge, were all motions of mind or of
these restless mental particles, which Demokritus supposed to be
distributed over every part of the living body, mingling and
alternating with the corporeal particles It was the essential
condition of life, that the mental particles should be maintained

1 Mullach, Demokr. Fragm. p. 895 ὁ Aristotel. ve Anima, i οὗ 2-8, p.
eqq. 408, b. p. 06 ; Cicero,

Aristotle, Gen. et Corr. οἷ 8, be Ba at Taset *Dieput, 11; 'Diogen. Laert.

a. 5; De Ceelo, iii. 8, p.
Thecphrastus, De Sensu, 8. vi 4 Aristotel. De Respirat. (c. 4, p.

76 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. I.

in proper number and distribution throughout the body ; but by
their subtle nature they were constantly tending to escane, being
squeezed or thrust out at all apertures by the pressure of air on
all the external parts. Such tendency was counteracted by the
process of respiration, whereby mental or vital particles, being
abundantly distributed throughout the air, were inhaled along
with air, and formed an inward current which either prevented
the escape, or compensated the loss, of those which were tending
outwards. When breathing ceased, such inward current being
no longer kept up, the vital particles in the interior were speedily
forced out, and death ensued.t

Though Demokritus conceived these mental particles as distri-

Different buted all over the body, vet he recognised different
mental g mental aptitudes attached to different parts of the
attached to body. Besides the special organs of sense, he con-
different, sidered intelligence as attached to the brain, passion
ody. to the heart, and appetite to the liver :* the same

tripartite division afterwards adopted by Plata. He gave an
explanation of perception or sensation in its different varicties, as
well as of intelligence or thought. Sensation and thought were,
in his opinion, alike material, and alike mental. Both were
affections of the same peculiar particles, vital or mental, within
us: both were changes operated in these particles by effluvia or
images from without ; nevertheless the one change was different
from the other.’

In regard to sensations, Demokritus said little about those of

472, 8. -5), λέγει (Demokritus) ὡς ἡ Plutarch (Placit. Philos. iv. 4),

ascribes a bipartite division of the

σχήματα τῶν σφαιροειδῶν.

ope καὶ τὸ θερμὸν ταὐτὸν, τὰ πρῶτα
ucretius, iii. 370.

Ilud in his rebus nequaquam sumere
possis,

Democriti quod sancta viri sententia
ponit ;

Corporis atque animi primordia singula

ΥἹΒ
Adpésita alternis variare ac nectere
membra.

1 Aristotel. De Respiratione, c. 4,
Ῥ. 472, a. 10; De Animé, i. 2, p. 404,
a

2 Zeller, Phil. d. Griech., 1. p. 618,
ed. 2nd.

soul to Demokritus : τὸ λογικὸν, in the
thorax: τὸ ἄλογον, distributed over all
the body. But in the next section
(iv. 5), he departs from this statement
affirming that both Demokritus an

Plato supposed τὸ ἡγεμονικὸν of the
soul to be in the head.

3 Plutarch, Placit. Philos. iv. 8.
Demokritus and Leukippus affirm
τὴν αἴσθησιν καὶ τὴν νόησιν γίνεσθαι,
εἰδώλων ἔξωθεν προσιόντων" μηδενὶ γὰρ
ἐπιβάλλειν μηδετέραν χωρὶς τοῦ προσ-
πίπτοντος εἰδώλον.

Cicero, De Finibus, i. 6, 21, ‘‘ima-
ines, que idola nominant, quorum
incursione non solum videamus, sed
etiam cogitemus,” &c.

DEMOKRITUS. 77

Crap. I.

touch, smell, and hearing; but he entered at some length into
those of sight and taste.!

Proceeding upon his hypothesis of atoms and vacua as the
only objective existences, he tried to show what
particular modifications of atoms, in figure, size, and
position, produced upon the sentient the impressions
of different colours. He recognised four fundamental
or simple colours—white, black, red, and green—of
which all other colours were mixtures and combinations.?
White colour (he said) was caused by smooth surfaces, which
presented straight pores and a transparent structure, such as the
interior surface of shells: where these smooth substances were
brittle or friable, this arose from the constituent atoms being at
once spherical and loosely connected together, whereby they
presented the clearest passage through their pores, the least
amount of shadow, and the purest white colour. From sub-
stances thus constituted, the eflluvia flowed out easily, and passed
through the intermediate air without becoming entangled or
confused with it. Black colour was caused by rough, irregular,
unequal substaiuces, which had their pores crooked and obstructed,
casting much shadow, and sending forth slowly their effluvia,
which became hampered and entangled with the intervening
medium of air. Red colour arose from the effluvia of spherical
atoms, like those of fire, though of larger size: the connection
between red colour and fire was proved by the fact that heated
substances, man as well as the metals, became red. Green was
produced by atoms of large size and wide vacua, not restricted to
any determinate shape, but arranged in peculiar order and
position. These four were given by Demokritus as the simple
colours. But he recognised an infinite diversity of compound
colours, arising from mixture of them in different proportions,
several of which he explained—gold-colour, purple, blue, violet,
leek-green, nut-brown, &c.°

Explana-
tion of
different
sensations
and percep-
tions.

Colours,

1 Theophrastus, De Sensu, 8. 64.

2 Theophrastus, De Sensu, 8. 73
seq. ; Aristotel. De Sensu, c. iv. p. 442,

10.

The opinions of Demokritus on
colour are illustrated at length by
Prantl in his Uebersicht der Farben-
lehre der Alten (p. 49 seq.). appended
to his edition of the Arstotelian

or Pseudo-Aristotelian treatise, Περὶ
Χρωμάτων (Munich, 1849).

Demokritus seems also to have at-
tempted to show, that the sensation
of cold and shivering was produced by
the irruption of jagged and ucute
atoms. See Plutarch, De Primo Fri-
gido, p. 947, 948, c. 8.

8 Theophrastus, De Sensu, s. 76-78

78 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. I.

Besides thus setting forth those varieties of atoms and atomic
Vision motions which produced corresponding varieties of
caused by colour, Demokritus also brought to view the inter-
of oto teow mediate stages whereby they realised the act of
objects. vision. All objects, compounds of the atoms, gave
Hearing. οὐ effluvia or images resembling themselves. These
effluvia stamped their impression, first upon the intervening air,
next upon the eye beyond: which, being covered by a fine
membrane, and consisting partly of water, partly of vacuum, was
well calculated to admit the image. Such an image, the like of
which any one might plainly see by looking into another person’s
eye, was the immediate cause of vision.! The air, however, was
no way necessary as an intervening medium, but rather obstruc-
tive: the image proceeding from the object would be more
clearly impressed upon the eye through a vacuum: if the air did
not exist, vision would be so distinct, even at the farthest dis-
tance, that an object not larger than an ant might be seen in the
heavens.?- Demokritus believed that the visual image, after
having been impressed upon the eye, was distributed or multi-
plied over the remaining body.’ In like manner, he believed
that, in hearing, the condensed air carrying the sound entered
with some violence through the ears, passed through the veins to
the brain, and was from thence dispersed over the body.* Both
sight and hearing were thus not simply acts of the organ of
sense, but concurrent operations of the entire frame: over all
which (as has been already stated) the mental or vital particles
were assumed to be disseminated.

Farther, Demokritus conceived that the diversities of taste

were generated by corresponding diversities of atoms,

Difference ds of atoms, of particular figure, magni-
of tastes OF compounds of atoms, of ἢ gure, magni
ΝΕ ad, tude, and position. Acid taste was caused by atoms
"rough, angular, twisted, small, and subtle, which

ἄπειρα τὰ χρώματα καὶ rods χυλοὺς κατὰ kritus: he himself proceeds to com-
τὰς μίξεις- οὐδὲν γὰρ ὅμοιον ἔσεσθαι bat it 61, δὲ > P
drepov Oarépov. ristote e Anima, ii. 7-9, Ὁ.
1 Theophrast. De Sensu, 5. 50. τὸν 419, a. 16. a, P
ἀέρα τὸν μεταξὺ τῆς ὄψεως καὶ τοῦ 3 Theophrastus, De Sensu, 5. 54.
ἐρωμένου τυποῦσθαι, ike. Aristotel. De | 4Theophrastus, De Sensu, 55, 56.
» Ὁ. 2, Ὁ. 488, 8. τὴν γὰρ φωνὴν εἶναι πυκνουμένον τοῦ
Theophrastus notices this inter- depos καὶ oes Bias εἰσιόντος, Ἢ v ree
Mediate ἀποτύπωσις ἐν τῷ ἀέρι as & = Demokritus thought that air entered
doctrine peculiar (i8/ws) to Demo- into the system ποῦ only through the

Cuap. I. DEMOKRITUS. 79

forced their way through all the body, produced large interior
vacant spaces, and thereby generated great heat: for heat was
always proportional to the amount of vacuum within.’ Sweet
taste was produced by spherical atoms of considerable bulk, which
slid gently along and diffused themselves equably over the body,
modifying and softening the atoms of an opposite character.
Astringent taste was caused by large atoms with many angles,
which got into the vessels, obstructing the movement of fluids
both in the veins and intestines. Salt taste was produced by
large atoms, much entangled with each other, and irregular. In
like manner Demokritus assigned to other tastes particular varie-
ties of generating atoms: adding, however, that in every actual
substance, atoms of different figures were intermingled, so that
the effect of each on the whole was only realised in the ratio of
the preponderating figure.” Lastly, the working of all atoms, in
the way of taste, was greatly modified by the particular system
upon which they were brought to act: effects totally opposite
being sometimes produced by like atoms upon different indi-
viduals.3

As sensation, so also thought or intelligence, was produced
by the working of atoms from without. But in what
manner the different figures and magnitudes of atoms Ἐπ λα
were understood to act, in producing diverse modifi- deena yin ᾿
cations of thought, we do not find explained. It fluxofatoms
was, however, requisite that there should be a sym- ‘om with:
metry, or correspondence of condition between the
thinking mind within and the inflowing atoms from without, in
order that these latter might work upon a man properly: if
he were too hot, or too cold, his mind went astray. Though
Demokritus identified the mental or vital particles with the

ears, but also through pores in other different shapes, is very analogous to
parts of the body, though so gently as the essential intermixture of sorts
be imperceptible to our conscious- of Homcomeries in the theory of
ness: the ears affordeda large aperture, Anaxagoras. ,
and admitted a considerable mass, ὃ Theophrast. De Sensu, 67. εἰς
1 Theophrast. De Sensu, 65-68. ὁποίαν ἕξιν ἂν εἰσέλθῃ, διαφέρειν οὐκ
3 Theophrast. De Sensu, 67. ἁπάν- ὀλίγον" καὶ διὰ τοῦτο τὸ αὐτὸ τἀναντία,
τῶν δὲ τῶν σχημάτων οὐδὲν ἀκέραιον καὶ τἀναντία τὸ αὐτὸ πάθος ποιεῖν ἐνίοτε.
εἶναι καὶ ἀμιγὲς τοῖς ἄλλοις, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν 4Theophrast. De Sensu, 58. Περὶ
ἑκάστῳ πολλὰ εἶναι . . . . οὗ δ᾽ ἂν ἐνῇ δὲ ταῦ φρονεῖν ἐπὶ τοσοῦτον εἴρηκεν,
πλεῖστον, τοῦτο μάλιστα ἐνισχύειν πρός ὅτι γίνεται συμμέτρως ἐχούσης τῆς
τα Tay αἴσθησιν καὶ τὴν δύναμιν. ψυχῆς μετὰ τὴν κίνησιν" ἐὰν δὲ wepi-
essential intermixture, in each θερμός τις ἢ περίψνχρος γένηται, μετ’
distinct substance, of atoms of all αλλάττειν φησί.

80 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. I.

spherical atoms constituting heat or fire, he nevertheless seems.
to have held that these particles might be in excess as well as in
deficiency, and that they required, as a condition of sound mind,
to be diluted or attempered with others. The soundest mind,
however, did not work by itself or spontaneously, but was put in
action by atoms or effluvia from without: this was true of the
intellectual mind, not less than of the sensational mind. There
was an objective something without, corresponding to and gene-
rating every different thought—just as there was an objective
something corresponding to every different sensation. But first,
the object of sensation was an atomic compound having some
appreciable bulk, while that of thought might be separate atoms
or vacua so minute as to be invisible and intangible. Next, the
object of sensation did not reveal itself as it was in its own
nature, but merely produced changes in the percipient, and
different changes in different percijients (except as to heavy and
light, hard and soft, which were not simply modifications of our
sensibility, but were also primary qualities Inherent in the
objects themselves’): while the object of thought, though it
worked a change in the thinking subject, yet also revealed itself
as it was, and worked alike upon all.

Hence Demokritus termed sensation, obscure knowledge—
thought, genuine knowledge? It was only by thought

sbscure (reason, intelligence) that the fundamental realities
knowledge of nature, atoms and vacua, could be apprehended :
tesentionts even by thought, however, only imperfectly, since
enuine’ § there was always more or less of subjective move-
xnowied 2, ments and conditions, which partially clouded the
or object pure objective apprehension—and since the atoms

themselves were in perpetual movement, as well as
inseparably mingled one with another. Under such obstructions,

1 Theophrastus, De Sensu, Τ1. νῦν

but also absolute, o bjective, things in
δὲ σκληροῦ μὲν καὶ μαλακοῦ καὶ βαρέος -

their own nature, ough causing in

καὶ κούφον ποιεῖ τὴν οὐσίαν, ὃ περ
(ἄπερ) ne ἧττον ἐδοξε λέγε-
σθαι πρὸς ἡ μ as, θερμοῦ δὲ καὶ
φυχροῦ καὶ τῶν ἔλλων οὐδενός.

his is ἃ remarkable point to be
noted in the criticisms of Theo, hrastus
on the doctrine of Demokritus. Demo-
kritus maintains that hot and cold are
relative to us: Hard and soft, heavy
and light, are not only relative to us,

us sensations which are like them.
Theophrastus denies this distinction
altogether : and denies it with the best
reason. Not many of his criticisms on
Demokritus are so just and pertinent

as this one.
2 Demokritus Fragm. Mullach, Ὁ.
205, 206; 8 Sext. Empir. adv.

Mathemat. vii. 185- 139, γνώμης δύο εἰσὶν
ἰδέαι" ἡ μὲν γνησίη, ἡ δὲ σκοτίη, &.

Cuap. I. DEMOKRITUS.

Demokritus proclaimed that no clear or certain knowledge was
attainable : that the sensible objects, which men believed to be
absolute realities, were only phenomenal and relative to us,—
while the atoms and vacua, the true existences or things in them-
selves, could scarce ever be known as they were :! that truth was
hidden in an abyss, and out of our reach.

As Demokritus supposed both sensations and thoughts to be
determined by effluvia from without, so he assumed a similar
cause to account for beliefs, comfortable or uncomfortable dispo-
sitions, fancies, dreams, presentiments, &. He supposed that
the air contained many effluences, spectres, images, cast off from

persons and substances in nature—sometimes even rol
ola or

from outlying very distant objects which lay beyond
the bounds of the Kosmos. Of these images, impreg-
nated with the properties, bodily and mental, of the
objects from whence they came, some were beneficent,
others mischievous : they penetrated into the human
body through the pores and spread their influence all
through the system.? Those thrown off by jealous and

images were
thrown off
from ob-
jects, which
determined
the tone of
thoughts,
feelings,
dreams, di-
vinations,

&.
vindictive men were especially hurtful, as they intlicted

suffering corresponding to the tempers of those with whom they
originated. Trains of thought and feeling were thus excited in
men’s minds ; in sleep, dreams, divinations, prophetic warnings,
and threats, were communicated: sometimes, pestilence and
other misfortunes were thus begun. Demokritus believed that
men’s happiness depended much upon the nature and character
of the images which might approach them, expressing an anxlous
wish that he might himself meet with such as were propitious. 5
It was from grand and terrific images of this nature, that he
supposed the idea and belief of the Gods to have arisen : a sup-

1 Democr. Frag., Mull. 204-5.
"Amep νομίζεται μὲν εἶναι καὶ Soba. ἔξεται τὰ 9
αἰσθητά, οὐκ ἔστι δὲ κατὰ a λή-
θειαν ταῦτα' ἀλλὰ τὰ ἄτομα μόνον
καὶ κενόν. ἡμέες δὲ τῷ μὲν ἐόντι οὐδὲν
ἀτρεκὲς ξυνίεμεν, μετάπιπτον δὲ κατά τε
σώματος. διαθιγήν, καὶ τῶν ἐπεισιόντων,
καὶ τῶν ἀντιστηριζόντων . . . . . ἐτεῇ
μέν νυν, ὅτι οἷον ἕκαστόν ἐστιν ἢ οὔκ
ἐστιν, οὐ ξυνίεμεν, πολλαχῆ δεδήλωται,

2 Demokriti Frag. i 207, Mullach ;
ext. Empiric. adv. athemat. ix. 19:
Plutarch, Sym posiac. viii. 10, p. 735 A.
8 Plutarch, Symposiue Υ. 7, p. 683 A.
4 Aristotel. Divinat. per Som-
num, p. 464, a. 5; Plutarch, Symposiac,
viii. 9, p. 733 ὅτι καὶ κόσμων ἐκτὸς
φθαρέντων καὶ σωμάτων ἀλλοφύλων ἐκ
τῆς amoppotas ἐπιῤῥεόντων, ἐνταῦθα
πολλάκις ἀρχαὶ παρεμπίπτουσι λοιμῶν
καὶ παθῶν οὐ συνήθων
5 Plutarch, De Oraculor. Defectu, p.
419. αὐτὸς εὔχεται ε«ὑλόγχων εἰδώλων
τυγχάνειν.

a1, compare Cicero, Acad. Queest. i. 18,
iog. Laert. ix. 72; Aristotel.
Metaghya. iii. 5, p. 1009, Ὁ. 10.

82 PRE-SOKRATIC PHILOSOPHY. CHAP. L

position countenanced by the numerous tales, respecting appear-
ances of the Gods both to dreaming and to waking men, current
among the poets and in the familiar talk of Greece.
Among the lost treasures of Hellenic intellect, there are few
which are more to be regretted than the works of
Universality Demokritus. Little is known of them except the
kritus—his titles: but these are instructive as well as multi-
ethica farious. The number of different subjects which they
embrace is astonishing. Besides his atomic theory,
and its application to cosmogony and physics, whereby he is
chiefly known, and from whence his title of physicus was derived
-—we find mention of works on geometry, arithmetic, astronomy,
optics, geography or geology, zoology, botany, medicine, music,
and poetry, grammar, history, ethics, ὅθ} In such universality
he is the predecessor, perhaps the model, of Aristotle. It is
not likely that this wide range of subjects should have been
handled in a spirit of empty generality, without facts or particu-
lars: for we know that his life was long, his curiosity insatiable,
and his personal travel and observation greater than that of any
contemporary. We know too that he entered more or less upon
the field of dialectics, discussing those questions of evidence
which became so rife in the Platonic age. He criticised, and is
said to have combated, the doctrine laid down by Protagoras,
‘Man is the measure of all things”. It would have been
interesting to know from what point of view he approached it :
but we learn only the fact that he criticised it adversely.? The
numerous treatises of Demokritus, together with the proportion
of them which relate to ethical and social subjects, rank him with
the philosophers of the Platonic and Aristotelian age. His

1See the list of the works of Demo- nium”.—Question. Natural. vii, 2.
kritus in Diogen. Laert. ix. 46, and in And Dionysius of Hal. (De Comp. Verb.
Mullach’s edition of the Fragments, p. ᾿ 187, K.) characterises Demokritus,
106-107. Mullach mentions here (no lato, and Aristotle (he arranges them
18) that Demokritus is cited seventy- in that order) as first among all the
eight times in the extant works of philosophers, in respect of σύνθεσις
Aristotle, and sometimes with honour- τῶν ὀνομάτων,
able mention. He is never mentioned Plutarch. adv. Koldéten, p. 1108.
by Plato. In the fragment of Philo- Among the Demokritean treatises,
demus de Musica, Demokritus is called was one entitled Pythagoras, which
ἀνὴρ οὐ φνσιολογώτατος μόνον τῶν contained probably a comment on the
ἀρχαίων, ἀλλὰ Kai περὶ τὰ ἱστορούμενα life and doctrines of that eminent man,
οὐδενὸς ἧττον πολυπράγμων (Mullach, written in an admiring spirit. (Diog.
p. 287). Seneca calls him ‘‘Demo- Laert. ix. 38.)
critus, subtilissimus antiquorum om-

Crap. 1. DEMOKRITUS. 83

Summum Bonum, as far as we can make out, appears to have
been the maintenance of mental serenity and contentment: in
which view he recommended a life of tranquil contemplation,

apart from money-making, or ambition, or the exciting pleasures
of life.}

1 Seneca, De Tranquill. Anime, cap. Cicero De Finib. v. 29; Diogen. Laert.
2. “‘Hanc stabilem animisedem Greci ix. 45. For εὐθυμία Demokritus used as
Εὐθυμίαν vocant, de quo Democriti synonyms εὐεστώ. ἀθαμβέίη, ἀταραξίη,
volumen egregium est.” Compare &c. See Mullach, p. 416.

84 DIALECTIC AND NEGATIVE PHILOSOPHY. CuapP. IT.

CHAPTER II.

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE EARLIER PHILOSOPHERS—
GROWTH OF DIALECTIC—ZENO AND GORGIAS.

THE first feeling of any reader accustomed to the astronomy and
Vari physics of the present century, on considering the
ariety of . ; . . . .
sectsand various theories noticed in the preceding chapter, is
ΣΡ ιν αν ἃ sort of astonishment that such theories should have
ofindividual been ever propounded or accepted as true. Yet there
isthe can be no doubt that they represent the best thoughts
charac: of Of sincere, contemplative, and ingenious men, fur-
Greek philo- nished with as much knowledge of fact, and as good
sophy. a method, as was then attainable. The record of
what such men have received as scientific truth or probability, in
different ages, is instructive in many ways, but in none more
than in showing how essentially relative and variable are the
conditions of human belief; how unfounded is the assumption of
those modern philosophers who proclaim certain first truths or
first principles as universal, intuitive, self-evident ; how little
any theorist can appreciate ἃ priory the causes of belief in an age
materially different from his own, or can lay down maxims as to
what must be universally believed or universally disbelieved by
all mankind. We shall have farther illustration of this truth as
we proceed : here I only note variety of belief, even on the most
fundamental points, as being the essential feature of Grecian
philosophy even from its outset, long before the age of those who
are usually denounced as the active sowers of discord, the
Sophists and the professed disputants. Each philosopher fol-
lowed his own individual reason, departing from traditional or
established creeds, and incurring from the believing public more

ΠΑΡ. II. EARLY VARIETY OF PHILOSOPHICAL BELIEF. 85
or less of obloquy ; but no one among the philosophers acquired
marked supremacy over the rest. There is no established philo-
sophical orthodoxy, but a collection of Dissenters—daAAn δ᾽ ἄλλων
γλῶσσα peptypévn—small sects, each with its own following, each
springing from a special individual as authority, each knowing
itself to be only one among many.

It is a misfortune that we do not possess a complete work, or
even considerable fragments, from any one of these

; ἘΝ These early
philosophers, so as to know what their views were theorists are
not known
when stated by themselves, and upon what reasons from their
they insisted. All that we know is derived from a ings wit
few detached notices, in very many cases preserved have heen
by Aristotle ; who, not content (like Plato) with vortance of
simply following out his own vein of ideas, exhibits the informa
in his own writings much of that polymathy which stotle about
em.

he transmitted to the Peripatetics generally, and
adverts often to the works of predecessors. Being a critic as well
as a witness, he sometimes blends together inconveniently the
two functions, and is accused (probably with reason to a certain
extent) of making unfair reports ; but if it were not for him, we
should really know nothing of the Hellenic philosophers before
Plato. It is curious to real the manner in which Aristotle
speaks of these philosophical predecessors as “the ancients” (of
ἀρχαῖοι), and takes credit to his own philosophy for having
attained a higher and more commanding point of view.'

1 Bacon ascribes the extinction of
these early Greek philosophers to Ari-
stotle, who thought that he could not
assure his own philosophical empire,
except by putting to death all his
brothers, like the Turkish Sultan. This
remark occurs more than once in Bacon
(Nov. Org. Aph. 67; Redargutio Phi-
losoph. vol. xl. Ὁ. 450, ed. ontagu).
In so far as it is a reproach, I think it
is not deserved. Aristotle’s works, in-
deed, have been preserved, and those
of his predecessors have not: but Ari-
stotle, far from seeking to destroy their
works, has been the chief medium for

reserving to us the little which we
know about them. His attention to
the works of his predecessors is some-
thing very unusual among the theorists
of the ancient world. His friends
Eudémus and Theophrastus followed

his example, in embodying the his-
tory of the earlier theories in distinct
works of their own, now unfortunately
ost.

It is much to be regretted that no
scholar has yet employed himself in
collecting and editing the f ents of
the lost scientific histories of Eudémus
(the Rhodian) and Theophrastus. A
new edition of the Commentaries of Sim-
plikius is also greatly wanted: those
which exist are both rare and unread-
able.

Zeller remarks that several of the
statements contained in Proklus’s com-
mentary on Euclid, respecting the
earliest Grecian mathematicians, are
borrowed from the γεωμετρικαὶ ἱστορίαι
of the Rhodian Eudémus (Zeller—De
Hermodoro Ephesio et Hermodoro Pla-
tonico, p. 12).

86 DIALECTIC AND NEGATIVE PHILOSOPHY, Cuap. 11.

During the century and a half between Thales and the begin-
Abundance 8 of the Peloponnesian war, we have passed in re-
of specula- view twelve distinct schemes of philosophy—Thales,
tive gen’us Anaximander, Anaximenes, Xenophanes, Pythagoras,
tion—ame- Parmenides, Herakleitus, Empedokles, Anaxagoras,
morablefact the Apolloniate Diogenes, Leukippus, and Demo-
lenic mind. kritus. Of most of these philosophers it may fairly
be said that each speculated upon nature in an original vein of
his own. Anaximenes and Diogenes, Xenophanes and Parme-
nides, Leukippus and Demokritus, may indeed be coupled to-
gether as kindred pairs—yet by no means in such manner that
the second of the two is a mere disciple and copyist of the first.
Such abundance and variety of speculative genius and invention
is one of the most memorable facts in the history of the Hellenic
mind. The prompting of intelligent curiosity, the thirst for
some plausible hypothesis to explain the Kosmos and its genera-
tion, the belief that a basis or point of departure might be found
in the Kosmos itself, apart from those mythical personifications
which dwelt both in the popular mind and in the poetical Theo-
gonies, the mental effort required to select some known agency
and to connect it by a chain of reasoning with the result—all this
is a new phenomenon in the history of the human mind.

An early Greek philosopher found nothing around him to
Difficulties stimulate or assist the effort, and much to obstruct
whichaGre- it. He found Nature disguised under a diversified
clan Pad to and omnipresent Polytheistic agency, eminently
overcome— captivating and impressive to the emotions—at once
prevalent mysterious and familiar—embodied in the ancient
ture, esta Theogonies, and penetrating deeply all the abundant
pressiveand epic and lyric poetry, the only literature of the time.
misleading. Tt ig perfectly true (as Aristotle remarks!) that
Hesiod and the other theological poets, who referred everything
to the generation and agency of the Gods, thought only of what
was plausible to themselves, without enquiring whether it would

a tistot. Metaphys. B. 4, p. 1000, ἀρ ἃς καὶ ἐκ θεῶν γεγονέναι, &c. Ari-
a Sto

. 10. le mentions them a few lines after-
Οἱ μὲν οὖν περὶ ‘Haiosov, καὶ πάντες wards as not worth serious notice.

ὅσοι θεόλογοι, μόνον ἐφρόντισαν τοῦ περὶ τῶν μνθικῶς σοφιζομένων οὐκ ἄξιον

πιθανοῦ τοῦ πρὸς αὐτούς, ἡμῶν δ᾽ μετὰ σπουδῆς σκοπεῖν.

ὠλιγώρησαν: Θεοὺς γὰρ ποιοῦντες τὰς

Cuap. 11. IONIC PHILOSOPHERS. 87

appear equally plausible to their successors ; a reproach which
bears upon many subsequent philosophers also. The contem-
porary public, to whom they addressed themselves, knew no
other way of conceiving Nature than under this religious and
poetical view, as an aggregate of manifestations by divine per-
sonal agents, upon whose volition—sometimes signified be-
forehand by obscure warnings intelligible to the privileged
interpreters, but often inscrutable—the turn of events depended.
Thales and the other Ionic philosophers were the first who
became dissatisfied with this point of view, and sought for some
“causes and beginnings” more regular, knowable, and predict-
able. They fixed upon the common, familiar, widely-extended,
material substances, water, air, fire, &c.; and they could hardly fix
upon any others. Their attempt to find a scientific basis was unsuc-
cessful; but the memorable fact consisted in their looking for one.
In the theories of these Ionic philosophers, the physical ideas
of generation, transmutation, local motion, are found __
in the foreground: generation in the Kosmos to ere ile’
replace generation by the God. Pythagoras and Son rred
Empedokles blend with their speculations a good with the
deal both of ethics and theology, which we shall More regent
find yet more preponderant when we come to the of Pilato and
cosmical theories of Plato. He brings us back to the
mythical Prometheus, armed with the geometrical and arith-
metical combinations of the Pythagoreans : he assumes a chaotic
substratum, modified by the intentional and deliberate construc-
tion of the Demiurgus and his divine sons, who are described as
building up and mixing like a human artisan or chemist. In
the theory of Aristotle we find Nature half personified, and
assumed to be perpetually at work under the influence of an
appetite for good or regularity, which determines her to aim
instinctively and without deliberation (like bees or spiders) at
constant ends, though these regular tendencies are always
accompanied, and often thwarted, by accessories, irregular,
undefinable, unpredictable. Both Plato and Aristotle, in their
dialectical age, carried abstraction farther than it had been
carried by the Ionic philosophers: Aristotle imputes to the

1 Plato (Sophistes, 242-248) observes Aristotle says about Hesiod and the
respecting these early theorists—what Theogonies—that they followed out

88 DIALECTIC AND NEGATIVE PHILOSOPHY. CuarP. II.

Tonic philosophers that they neglected three out of his four
causes (the efficient, formal, and final), and that they attended
only to the material. This was a height of abstraction first
attained by Plato and himself; in a way sometimes useful,
sometimes misleading. The earlier philosophers had not learnt
to divide substance from its powers or properties ; nor to con-
ceive substance without power as one thing, and power without
substance as another. Their primordial substance, with its
powers and properties, implicated together as one concrete and
without any abstraction, was at once an efficient, a formal, and a
material cause: a final cause they did not suppose themselves to
want, inasmuch as they always conceived a fixed terminus to-
wards which the agency was directed, though they did not con-
ceive such fixed tendency under the symbol of an appetite and
itsend. Water, Air, Fire, were in their view not simply inert
and receptive patients, impotent until they were stimulated by
the active force residing in the ever revolving celestial spheres—
but positive agents themselves, productive of important effects.
So also a geologist of the present day, when he speculates upon the
dition! of the Kosmos, reasons upon gaseous, fluid, solid,

mmective veins of thought
= whether we, the many
fable to follow them or
nd inthe dark. I dare
As true (as indeed it is
most writers on specu-
put Iam sure that all
m™would shave made the same
complaint if they had heard Plato read

1 Bacon has some striking remarks
on the contrast in this respect be-
tween the earlier philosophers and
Aristotle.

Bacon, after commending the early
Greek philosophers for having adopted
as their first principle some known
and positive matter, not a mere ab-
straction, goes on to say :— ΝΕ

*‘ Videntur antiqui illi,in inquisitione
principiorum, rationem non admodum
acutam instituisse, sed hoc solummodo
ogisse, ut ex corporibus apparentibus
et manifestis, quod maximé excelleret,
quererent, et quod tale videbatur,
principium rerum ponerent: tanquam
per excellentiam, non veré aut realiter.
- -» Quod si principium illud suum
teneant non per excellentiam, sed
simpliciter, videntur utique in duriorem

tropum incidere: cum res plané dedu-
catur ad sequivocum, neque de igne
naturali, aut naturali aere, aut aqué,
quod asserunt, preedicari videatur, sed

e igne aliquo phantastico et notionali
(et sic de ceteris) qui nomen ignis
retineat, definitionem abneget. .. .
Principium statuerunt secundum sen-
sum, aliquod ens verum : modum autem
ejus dispensandi (liberius se gerentes)
P ntasticum.” (Bacon, Parmenidis,

elesii, et Democriti Philosophia, vol.
xi., p. 115-116, ed. Montagu.)

‘‘Materia illa spoliata et passiva
prorsus humane mentis commentum
quoddam videtur. Materia prima po-
nenda est conjuncta cum principio
motis primo, ut invenitur. sec tria
(materia, forma, motus) nullo modo

scerpenda, sed tantummodo distin-

enda, atque asserenda materia (qua-

cunque ea sit), ita ornata et ap-
parata et formata, ut omnis virtus,
essentia, actio, atque motus naturalis,
ejus consecutio e+ emanatio esse possit.

mnes fers antiqui, Empedocles, An-
axagoras, Anaximenes. Heraclitus,
Democritus, de materiA prim4 in
ceteris dissidentes, in hoc convene-
runt, quod materiam activam forma

Cap. ΤΙ. PARMENIDES AND PYTHAGORAS, 89

varieties of matter, as manifesting those same laws and properties
which experience attests, but manifesting them under different
combinations and circumstances. The defect of the Ionic philo-
sophers, unavoidable at the time, was, that possessing nothing
beyend a superficial experience, they either ascribed to these
physical agents powers and properties not real, or exaggerated
prodigiously such as were real ; so that the primordial substance
chosen, though bearing a familiar name, became little better than
a fiction. The Pythagoreans did the same in regard to numbers,
ascribing to them properties altogether fanciful and imaginary.
Parmenides and Pythagoras, taking views of the Kosmos
metaphysical and geometrical rather than physical, supplied the
basis upon which Plato’s speculations were built.
Aristotle recognises Empedokles and Anaxagoras as
having approached to his own doctrine—force ab-
stracted or considered apart from substance, yet not
absolutely detached from it. This is true about
Empedokles to a certain extent, since his theory admits Love and
Enmity as agents, the four elements as patients: but it is hardly
true about Anaxagoras, in whose theory Nofis imparts nothing
more than a momentary shock, exercising what ‘modern chemists
o
infinitas phantasias peperit, de animis,
vitis, et similibus—ac si fig per ma-
teriam et formam non satisfieret, sed
ex suis propriis pendgrent illa prin-

ciplis. Sed hic nullo modo
discerpenda, sed tantummodo dis-

Parmenides
and Pytha-
goras—more
nearly akin
to Plato and
Aristotle.

nonnulla, et formam suam dispensan-
tem, atque intra se principium motis
habentem, posuerunt.” (Bacon, De
Parmenidis, Telesii, et Campanella,
Philosoph., p. 653-654, t. v.)

Compare Aphorism I. 60 of the

Novum Organum.

Bacon, Parmenidis, Telesii, et De-
mocriti Philosophia, vol. xi. ed. Mon-
tagu, p. 106-107. ‘Sed omnes feré
antiqui (anterior to Plato), Empe-
docles, Anaxagoras, Anaximenes, Hera-
clitus, Democritus, de materia prim
in ceteris dissidentes, in hoc convene-
runt, quod materiam activam, forma
nonnullé, et formam suam _ dispen-
santem, atqueintra se principium motts
habentem, posuerunt. Neque aliter
cuiquam opinari licebit, qui non ex-
porientiae plané desertor esse velit.

taque hi omnes mentem rebus sub-
miserunt.
tionibus, Aristoteles verd etiam cogita-
tiones verbis, adjudicarunt.” ... .
‘‘Omnino materia prima ponenda est
conjuncta cum forma prim4, ac etiam
cum principio mots primo, ut inveni-

At Plato mundum cogita- i

tinguenda: atque asserenda materia
(qualiscunque ea sit) ita ornata et
apparata et formata, ut omnis virtus,
essentia, actio, atque motus naturalis,
ejus consecutio et emanatio esse possit.

eque propterea metuendum, ne res
torpeant, aut varietas ista, quam
cernimus, explicari non possit—ut
postea docebimus.”

Playfair also observes, in his Dis-
sertation on the Progress of Natural
Philosophy, prefixed to the Encyclo-
peedia Britannica, p. 81 :—

‘* Science was not merely stationary,
but often retrograde ; and the reason.
ngs of Democritus and Anaxagoras
were in many respects more solid than
those of Plato and Aristotle.”

See a good summary of Aristotle's
cosmical views, in Ideler, Comm. in
Aristotel. Meteorologica, i. 2, p. 328.

tur. Nam et motiis quoque abstractio 829

90 DIALECTIC AND NEGATIVE PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. II.

call a catalytic agency in originating movement among ἃ station>
ary and stagnant mass of Homceomeries, which, as soon as they
are liberated from imprisonment, follow inherent tendencies of
their own, not receiving any farther impulse or direction from
Nofis.

In the number of cosmical theories proposed, from Thales
down to Demokritus, as well as in the diversity and

Advantage “ ΩΝ ;

derived even discordance of the principles on which they
m

variety of | Were founded—we note not merely the growth and

constructive i 1 1087 -

imagination development of scientific curiosity, but also the spon

among the taneity and exuberance of constructive imagination.!
TeCKS,

This last is a prominent attribute of the Hellenic
mind, displayed to the greatest advantage in their poetical, orato-
rical, historical, artistic, productions, and transferred from thence to
minister to their scientific curiosity. None of their known con-
temporaries showed the like aptitudes, not even the Babylonians
and Egyptians, who were diligent in the observation of the
heavens. Now the constructive imagination is not less indispen-
sable to the formation of scientific theories than to the composi-
tions of art, although in the two departments it is subject to
different conditions, and appeals to different canons and tests in
the human mind. Each of these early Hellenic theories, though
all were hypotheses and “anticipations of nature,” yet as connect-
ing together various facts upon intelligible principles, was a step
in advance; while the very number and discordance of them
(urged by Sokrates? as an argument for discrediting the purpose
common to all), was on the whole advantageous. It lessened the
mischief arising from the imperfections of each, increased the
chance of exposing such imperfections, and prevented the con-
secration of any one among them (with that inveterate and
peremptory orthodoxy which Plato so much admires® in the
Egyptians) as an infallible dogma and an exclusive mode of

1 Karsten observes, in his account
of the philosophy of Parmenides (sect.
23, Ῥ. 241) :--

_. Primum mundi descriptionem con-
sideremus. Argumentum illustre et
magnificum, cujus quanto major erat
veterum in contemplando admiratio,
tanto minor ferd in observando dili-
gentia fuit. Quippe universi ornatum
εἰ pulcritudinem admirati, ejus naturam

partiumque ordinem non sensu assequi
studuerunt, sed mente informarunt ad
eam puleri perfectique speciem que in
ipsorum animis insideret: sic ut Aris-
toteles ait, non sua cogitata suasque
notiones ad mundi naturam, sed hanc
ad illa accommodantes. Hujusmodi
queque fuit Parmenidea ratio.’

2 Xenophon, Memor. i. 1, 18-14.

3 Plato, Legg. ii. 656-657.

Cuap. 1]. IMPORTANCE OF DIALECTIC. 91

looking at facts. All the theorists laboured under the common
defect of a scanty and inaccurate experience : all of them were
prompted by a vague but powerful emotion of curiosity to
connect together the past and present of Nature by some threads
intelligible and satisfactory to their own minds; each of them
followed out some analogy of his own, such as seemed to carry
with it a self-justifying plausibility ; and each could find some
phenomena which countenanced his own peculiar view. ΑΒ far
as we can judge, Leukippus and Demokritus greatly surpassed
the others, partly in the pains which they took to elaborate their
theory, partly in the number of facts which they brought into
consistency with it. The loss of the voluminous writings of
Demokritus is deeply to be regretted.

In studying the writings of Plato and Aristotle, we must
recollect that they found all these theories pre-
existent or contemporaneous. We are not to imagine
that they were the first who turned an enquiring eye
on Nature. So far is this from being the case that
Aristotle is, as it were, oppressed both by the multi-

All these
theories
were found
in circula-
tion by
Sokrates,
Zeno, Plato,
and the dia-

tude and by the discordance of his predecessors,
whom he cites, with a sort of indulgent consciousness
of superiority, as “the ancients” (of dpyaio.).2 The
dialectic activity, inaugurated by Sokrates and Zeno,
lowered the estimation of these cosmical theories in

lecticians.
Importance
of the scru-
tiny of nega-
tive Dia-
lectic.

more ways than one: first, by the new topics of man and society,
which Sokrates put in the foreground for discussion, and treated
as the only topics worthy of discussion: next, by the great
acuteness which each of them displayed in the employment of
the negative weapons, and in bringing to view the weak part of
an opponent’s case. When we look at the number of these early
theories, and the great need which all of them had to be sifted
and scrutinised, we shall recognise the value of negative pro-
cedure under such circumstances, whether the negationist had or
had not any better affirmative theory of his own. Sokrates,

1 About the style of Demokritus,
see Cicero De Orat. i. 11. Orator. c,

20.

2 Aristot. Gen. et Corr. i. 814, a. 6;
325, a. 2; Metaphys. A. 1069, a. 25,
See the sense of ἀρχαϊκῶς, Met. N. 1089,
a. 2, with the note of Bonitz.

Adam Smith, in his very instructive
examination of the ancient systems of
Physics and Metapbysics, is. too much
inclined to criticise Plato and Ari-
stotle as if they were the earliest
theorizers, and as if they had no pre-
decessors.

92 DIALECTIO AND NEGATIVE PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. IL.

moreover, not only turned the subject-matter of discussion from
physics to ethics, but also brought into conscious review the
method of philosophising: which was afterwards still farther
considered and illustrated by Plato. General and abstract terms
and their meaning, stood out as the capital problems of philo-
sophical research, and as the governing agents of the human
mind during the process: in Plato and Aristotle, and the Dia-
lectics of their age, we find the meaning or concept corresponding
to these terms invested with an objective character, and repre-
sented as a cause or beginning ; by which, or out of which, real
concrete things were produced. Logical, metaphysical, ethical,
entities, whose existence consists in being named and reasoned
about, are presented to us (by Plato) as the real antecedents and
producers of the sensible Kosmos and its contents, or (by Ari-
stotle) as coeternal with the Kosmos, but as its underlying
constituents—the ἀρχαὶ, primordia or ultimata—into which it
was the purpose and duty of the philosopher to resolve sensible
things. The men of words and debate, the dialecticians or
metaphysical speculators of the period since Zeno and Sokrates,
who took little notice of the facts of Nature, stand contrasted in
the language of Aristotle with the antecedent physical philo-
sophers who meddled less with debate and more with facts. The
contrast is taken in his mind between Plato and Demokritus,!
Both by Stoics and by Epikureans, during the third and
Theearly second centuries B.c., Demokritus, Empedokles,
theorists ἃ Anaxagoras, and Herakleitus were studied along
along with With Plato and Aristotle—by some, even more.
Atistothe in Lucretius mentions and criticises all the four, though
the third he never names Plato or Aristotle. Cicero greatly
and secon ἡ admires the style οἵ Demokritus, whose works were
B.C. arranged in tetralogies by Thrasyllus, as those of

Plato were."

1 Aristotel. Gen. et Corr. i. 316, a. &. This remark is thoroughly
6.--διὸ ὅσοι ἐνῳκήκασι μᾶλλον ev τοῖς Baconian.
φνσικοῖς, μᾶλλον δύνανται ὑποτίθεσθαι Οἱ ἐν τοῖς λόγοις is the phrase by
τοιαύτας ἀρχὰς, at ἐπὶ πολὺ δύνανται which Aristotle characterises the
συνείρειν" οἱ δ᾽ ἐκ τῶν πολλῶν λόγων Platonicii—Metaphys. ©. 1050, Ὁ.
ἀθεώρητοι τῶν ὑπαρχόντων ὄντες, πρὸς 35.
ὀλίγα βλέψαντες, ἀποφαίνονται ῥᾷον' 2 Epikurus is said to have espe-
ἰδοι δ᾽ ἂν τις καὶ ἐκ τούτων ὅσον διαφέρον- cially admired Anaxagoras (Diog. ἴα.
σιν οἱ φυσικῶς καὶ λογικῶς σκοποῦντες, xX. 12).

Cuap. IT. ZENONIAN DIALECTIC. 93

In considering the early theorists above enumerated, there is
great difficulty in finding any positive characteristic Negative at-
applicable to all of them. But a negative character- rite to
istic may be found, and has already been indicated by all the early
Aristotle. “The earlier philosophers (says he) had nea
no part in dialectics: Dialectical force did not yet dialectic.
exist.”1 And the period upon which we are now entering
is distinguished mainly by the introduction and increasing
preponderance of this new element—-Dialectic—first made con-
spicuously manifest in the Eleatic Zeno and Sokrates ; two memo-
rable persons, very different from each other, but having this
property in common.

It is Zeno who stands announced, on the authority of Aristotle,
as the inventor of dialectic: that is, as the first

1: . ς Zeno of
person of whose skill in the art of cross-examination tlea—
and refutation conspicuous illustrative specimens Messus.
were preserved. He was among the first who composed written
dialogues on controversial matters of philosophy.? Both he, and
his contemporary the Samian Melissus, took up the defence of
the Parmenidean doctrine. It is remarkable that both one and
the other were eminent as political men in their native cities.
Zeno is even said to have perished miserably, in generous but
fruitless attempts to preserve Elea from being enslaved by the
despot Nearchus.

We know the reasoningsof Zenoand Melissusonly through scanty
fragments, and those fragments transmitted by oppo- 7.00. pia.
nents. But it is plain that both of them, especially lectic—he
Zeno, pressed their adversaries with grave difficulties, opponents
which it was more easy to deride than to elucidate. enides, by
Both took their departure from the ground occupied showing
by Parmenides. They agreed with him in recognising assumptions
the phenomenal, apparent, or relative world, the Jed to |
world of sense and experience, as a subject of know- tions and
ledge, though of uncertain and imperfect knowledge. *>srtities.

1 Aristotel. Metaphys. A, 987, Ὁ. 82. The epithets applied to Zeno by

Oi γὰρ πρότεροι διαλεκτικῆς ov per- Timon are remarkable.

eixov.—M, 1078, Ὁ. 25: διαλεκτικὴ yap ,

ἰσχὺς οὕπω τότ' ἦν, ὥστε δύνασθαι, Αμφοτερογλώσσον τε μέγα σθένος
δ. οὐκ ἀλαπαδνὸν

2 Diogen. Laert. ix. 26-28. Zijvevos revrwy ἐπιλήπτορος, ὅτ.

94 DIALECTIO AND NEGATIVE PHILOSOPHY. CuHap. 14.

Each of them gave, as Parmenides had done, certain affirmative
opinions, or at least probable conjectures, for the purpose of
explaining it.1 But beyond this world of appearances, there lay
the real, absolute, ontological, ultra-phenomenal, or Noumenal
world, which Parmenides represented as Hns unum continuum,
and which his opponents contended to be plural and discon-
tinuous. These opponents deduced absurd and ridiculous con-
sequences from the theory of the One. Herein both Zeno and
Melissus defended Parmenides. Zeno, the better dialectician of
the two, retorted upon the advocates of absolute plurality and
discontinuousness, showing that their doctrine led to conse-
quences not less absurd and contradictory than the Ens unum of
Parmenides. He advanced many distinct arguments; some of
them antinomies, deducing from the same premisses both-the
affirmative and the negative of the same conclusion.’

If things in themselves were many (he said) they must be

Conse: both infinitely small and infinitely great. Infinitely
uences of small, because the many things must consist in a
heir tion of BUmber of units, each essentially indivisible: but
Entia Plura that which is indivisible has no magnitude, or is
Discontinna. infinitely small—if indeed it can be said to have any
ad ὦ Absar- existence whatever :° Infinitely great, because each of

the many things, if assumed to exist, must have

1 Diog. Laert. ix. 24-29.

Zeller (Phil. d. Griech. i. p. 424,
note 2) doubts the assertion that Zeno
delivered probable opinions and hypo-
theses, as Parmenides had done before
him, respecting phenomenal nature.
But I see no adequate ground for such

doubt.

2 Simplikius, in Aristotel. Physic. f.
80. ἐν μέντοι τῷ συγγράμματι αὐτοῦ,
πολλὰ ὄχοντι ἐπιχειρήματα, καθ' ἕκα-
στον δείκνυσιν, ὅτι τῷ πολλὰ εἶναι
λέγοντε συμβαίνει τὰ ἐναντία λέγειν,

Cc.

8 Aristotel. Metaphys. B. 4, p. 1001,
Ὁ. 7. ὅτι εἰ ἀδιαίρετον αὑτὸ rd ἕν, κατὰ
μὲν τὸ Ζήνωνος ἀξίωμα, οὐθὲν ἂν εἴη.

ὃ γὰρ μήτε προστιθέμενον unre ἀφαι-
ρούμενον ποιεῖ τι μεῖζον μηδὲ ἔλαττον, οὔ

now εἶναι τοῦτο τῶν ὄντων, ὡς δῆλον
ὅτι ὄντος μεγέθους τοῦ ὄντος.

Seneca (Epistol. 88) and Alexander
of Aphrodisias (see the passages of
Themistius and Simplikius cited by

Brandis, Handbuch Philos. i. p. 412.
416) conceive Zeno as having dis-
sented from Parmenides, and as having
denied the existence, not only of ra
πολλὰ, but also of τὸ ἕν. But Zeno
seems to have adhered to Parmenides ;
and to have denied the existence of τὸ
év, only upon the hypothesis opposed
to Parmenides—namely, that ra πολλὰ
existed. Zeno argued thus :—Assum-
ing that the Real or Absolute is essen-
tially divisible and discontinuous, divi-
sibility must be pushed to infinity, so
that you never arrive at any ultima-
tum, or any real unit (ἀκριβῶς ἕν). If
you admit τὰ πολλὰ, you renounce
τὸ ἕν, The reasoning of Zeno, as far
as we know it, is nearly all directed
against the hypothesis of A&ntia plura
discontinua. Tennemann (Gesch. Phi-
los. i. 4, p. 205) thinks that the
reasoning of Zeno is directed against
the world of sense: in which I cannot
agree with him.

Cizap. IL. ZENONIAN DIALECTIC. 95

magnitude. Having magnitude, each thing has parts which also
have magnitude: these parts are, by the hypothesis, essentially
discontinuous, but this implies that they are kept apart from
each other by other intervening parts—and these intervening
parts must be again kept apart by others. Each body will thus
contain in itself an infinite number of parts, each having magni-
tude. In other words, it will be infinitely great.!

Again—If things in themselves were many, they would be
both finite and infinite in number. Finite, because they are as
many as they are, neither more nor less: and every number is a
finite number. Infinite, because being essentially separate,
discontinuous, units, each must be kept apart from the rest by
an intervening unit; and this again by something else inter-
vening. Suppose a multitude A, B,C, Ὁ, &. A and B would
be continuous unless they were kept apart by some intervening
unit Z. But A and Z would then be continuous unless they
were kept apart by something else—Y : and so on ad infinitum :
otherwise the essential discontinuousness could not be main-
tained.?

By these two arguments, drawn from the hypothesis which
affirmed perpetual divisibility and denied any Continuum, Zeno
showed that such μένα multa discontinua would have con-
cradictory attributes: they would be both infinitely great and
infinitely small—they would be both finite and infinite in
number. This he advanced as a reductio ad absurdum against the
hypothesis.

Again—If existing things be many and discontinuous, each of
these must exist in a place of its own. Nothing gach thing
can exist except in some place. But the place is itself Must exist
an existing something: each place must therefore place—
have a place of its own to exist in: the second place sitet of
must have a third place to exist in—and so forth ad sonorous.
infinitum.‘ We have here a farther reductio ad impossibile of the

1 Scholia ad Aristotel. Physic. p. 384 δὲ κατὰ τὸ μέγεθος πρότερον κατὰ τὴν
a. ed. Brandis. αὐτὴν ἐπιχείρησιν. Compare Zeller,

2See the argument cited by Sim- Phil. ἃ. Griech. i. p. 427.
plikius in the words of the Zenonian 4 Aristotel. Physic. iv. 1, p. 209, a.
reatise, in Preller, Hist. Philos. Greece, 22; iv. 3, Ὁ. 210, Ὁ. 23.
ex font. context. p. 101, sect. 156. ‘aristotlo here observes that the

3 Simplikius ad Aristot. Physic. f. Zenonian argument respecting place is

80. καὶ οὕτω μὲν τὸ κατὰ τὸ πλῆθος easy to be refuted; and he proceeds to
ἄπειρον ἐκ τῆς διχοτομίας ἔδειξε, τὸ give therefutation. Buthis refutation

96 DIALECTIC AND NEGATIVE PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. Il

original hypothesis: for that hypothesis denies the continuity of
space, and represents space as a multitude of discontinuous por-
tions or places.

Another argument of Zeno is to the following effect :—‘ Does
a grain of millet, when dropped upon the floor, make sound ?
No.—Does a bushel of millet make sound under the same
circumstances? Yes.—Is there not a determinate proportion
between the bushel and the grain? There is.—There must
therefore be the same proportion between the sonorousness of
the two. If one grain be noi sonorous, neither can ten thousand
grains be so.” ?}

To appreciate the contradiction brought out by Zeno, we must
recollect that he is not here reasoning about facts of sense,
phenomenal and relative—but about things in themselves, abso-
lute and ultra phenomenal realities. He did not deny the fact
of sense: to appeal to that fact in reply, would have been to
concede his point. The adversaries against whom he reasoned
(Protagoras is mentioned, but he can hardly have been among
them, if we have regard to his memorable dogma, of which more
will be said presently) were those who maintained the plurality of
absolute substances, each for itself, with absolute attributes, apart
from the fact of sense, and independent of any sentient subject.
One grain of millet (Zeno argues) has no absolute sonorousness,
neither can ten thousand such grains taken together have any.
Upon the hypothesis of absolute reality as a discontinuous multi-
tude, you are here driven to a contradiction which Zeno intends
as an argument against the hypothesis. There is no absolute
sonorousness in the ten thousand grains: the sound which
they make is a phenomenal fact, relative to us as sentients of
sound, and having no reality except in correlation with a
hearer.?

is altogether unsatisfactory. Those who
despise these Zenonian arguments as
sophisms, ought to look at the way in
which they were answered, at or near
the time.

Eudémus ap. Simplik. ad Aristot.
Physic. f.181. ἄξιον yap πᾶν τῶν ὄντων
ποὺ εἶναι" εἰ δὲ ὁ τόπος τῶν ὄντων, ποῦ

ἂν etn;

1 Aristotel. Physic. vii. 5, P: 250, a.
20, with the Scholia of Simplikius on
the passage, p. 423, ed. Brandis.

2It will be seen that Aristotle in
explaining this ἀπορία, takes into con-
sideration the difference of force in the
vibrations of air, and the different im-
presaibility of the ear. The explana-
ion is pertinent and just, if applied to
the fact of sense: but it is no reply to
Zeno, who did not call in question the
fact of sense. Zeno is impugning the
doctrine of absolute substances and
absolute divisibility. ἸῸ say that ten
thousand grains are soncrous, but that

CuHap. IL ZENONIAN DIALECTIC. 97

Other memorable arguments of Zeno against the same hypo-
thesis were those by which he proved that if it were _

admitted, motion would be impossible. Upon the err
theory of absolute plurality and discontinuous- regard to

ness, every line or portion of distance was divisible
into an infinite number of parts: before a moving body could
get from the beginning to the end of this line, it must pass
in succession over every one of these parts: but to do this
in a finite time was impossible: therefore motion was impos-
sible.*

A second argument of the same tendency was advanced in the
form of comparison between Achilles and the tortoise—the
swiftest and slowest movers. The two run a race, a certain start
being given to the tortoise. Zeno contends that Achilles can
never overtake the tortoise. It is plain indeed, according to the
preceding argument, that motion both for the one and for the
other is an impossibility. Neither one nor the other can advance
from the beginning to the end of any line, except by passing
successively through all the parts of that line: but those parts
are infinite in number, and cannot therefore be passed through in
any finite time. But suppose such impossibility to be got over:
still Achilles will not overtake the tortoise. For while Achilles
advances one hundred yards, the tortoise has advanced ten:
while Achilles passes over these additional ten yards, the tortoise
will have passed over one more yard: while Achilles is passing
over this remaining one yard, the tortoise will have got over one-
tenth of another yard : and so on ad infinitum: the tortoise will
always be in advance of him by a certain distance, which, though
ever diminishing, will never vanish into nothing.

The third Zenonian argument derived its name from the flight

of an arrow shot from a bow.

The arrow while thus carried

forward (says Zeno) is nevertheless at rest.2. For the time from

no one of them separately taken is so,
appears to him a contradiction, similar
to what is involved in saying that a
real magnitude is made up of mathe-
matical points. Aristotle does not meet
this difficulty.

1 Aristot. Physic. vi. 9, p. 239 b.,
with the Scholia, p. 412 seq. ed.
Brandis; Aristotel. De Lineis Inseca-
bilibus, p. 968, a. 19.

These four arguments against ab-
solute motion caused embarrassment
to Aristotle and his contemporaries.
τέτταρες δ᾽ εἰσὶ λόγοι Ζήνωνος οἱ
παρέχοντες τὰς δυσκολίας τοῖς λύουσιν,

Ο.

2 Aristotel. Physic. vi. 9, p, 289, Ὁ.
8-80. τρίτος ὁ νῦν ῥηθείς, ὅτι ἡ ὀϊστὸς
φερομένη ἕστηκεν.

1—7

98 DIALECTIO AND NEGATIVE PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. II.

the beginning to the end of its course consists of a multitude of
successive instants. During each of these instants the arrow is
in a given place of equal dimension with itself. But that which
is during any instant in a given place, is at rest. Accordingly
during each successive instant of its flight, the arrow is at rest.
Throughout its whole flight it is both in motion and at rest.
This argument is a deduction from the doctrine of discontinuous
time, as the preceding is a deduction from that of discontinuous
space.

A fourth argument! was derived from the case of two equal
bodies moved with equal velocity in opposite directions, and
passing each other. If the body A B were at rest, the other body
C D would move along the whole length of C D in two minutes.
But if C D be itself moving with equal velocity in the opposite
direction, A B will pass along the whole length of C D in half
that time, or one minute. Hence Zeno infers that the motion of
A B is nothing absolute, or belonging to the thing in itself—for
if that were so, it would not be varied according to the move-
ment of CD. Itis no more than a phenomenal fact, relative to
us and our comparison.

This argument, so far as I can understand its bearing, is not
deduced (as those preceding are) from the premisses of opponents:
but rests upon premisses of its own, and is intended to prove that
motion is only relative.

These Zenonian reasonings are memorable as the earliest

known manifestations of Grecian dialectic, and are

Peas dre. probably equal in acuteness and ingenuity to any-
Bult of the thing which it ever produced. Their bearing is not
Dialectic. always accurately conceived. Most of them are
Nothing is argumenta ad hominem: consequences contradictory
except the and inadmissible, but shown to follow legitimately

from a given hypothesis, and therefore serving to
disprove the hypothesis itself.2 The hypothesis was one relating

1 See the illustration of this argu-
ment at some length by Simplikius,
especially the citation from Eudémus
at the close of it—ap. Scholia ad Ari-
stotel. p. 414, ed. Brandis. .

2The scope of the Zenonian dia-
lectic, as I have here described it, is
set forth clearly by Plato, in his Par-

menides, c. 8-6, p. 127, 128. Πῶς
ὦ δήνων, τοῦτο λέγεις; εἰ πολλά
ἐστι τὰ ὄντα, ὡς ἄρα δεῖ αὐτὰ
ὅμοιά τε εἶναι καὶ ἀνόμοια, τοῦτο δὲ
δὴ ἀδύνατον.--Οὐκοῦν εἰ ἀδύνατον τά
τε ἀνόμοια ὅμοια εἶναι καὶ τὰ ὅμοια
ἀνόμοια, ἀδύνατον δὴ καὶ πολλὰ
εἷναι; εἰ γὰρ πολλὰ εἴη, πάσχοι ἂν

ZENONIAN DIALECTIC, 99

Cuap. 11.

to the real, absolute, or ultra-phenomenal, which Parmenides
maintained to be Ens Unum Continuwm, while his opponents
affirmed it to be essentially multiple and discontinuous. Upon
the hypothesis of Parmenides, the Real and Absolute, being a
continuous One, was obviously inconsistent with the movement
and variety of the phenomenal world: Parmenides himself
recognised the contradiction of the two, and his opponents made
it a ground for deriding his doctrine.’ The counter-hypothesis,
of the discontinuous many, appeared at first sight not to be open
to the same objection : it seemed to be more in harmony with
the facts of the phenomenal and relative world, and to afford an
absolute basis for them to rest upon. Against this delusive
appearance the dialectic of Zeno was directed. He retorted
upon the opponents, and showed that if the hypothesis of the
Unum Continuwm led to absurd consequences, that of the discon-
tinuous many was pregnant with deductions yet more absurd
and contradictory. He exhibits in detail several of these
contradictory deductions, with a view to refute the hypothesis
from whence they flow ; and to prove that, far from performing
what it promises, it is worse than useless, as entangling us in
contradictory conclusions. The result of his reasoning, implied
rather than announced, is—That neither of the two hypotheses
are of any avail to supply a real and absolute basis for the
phenomenal and relative world: That the latter must rest upon
its own evidence, and must be interpreted, in so far as it can be
interpreted at all, by its own analogies.

But the purport of Zeno’s reasoning is mistaken, when he is

τὰ ἀδύνατα. *Apa τοῦτό ἐστιν ὃ Zeno in another place (Phdrus, c. 97,

βούλονταί σον οἱ λόγοι; οὐκ

ἄλλο τι διαμάχεσθαι παρὰ
πάντα τ λεγόμενα, ὡς οὐ
πολλά ἐστιν; Again, 128 D.

᾿Αντιλέγει οὖν τοῦτο τὸ γράμμα πρὸς
τοὺς τὰ πολλὰ λέγοντας, καὶ ἀνταπο-
δίδωσι ταῦτα καὶ πλείω, τοῦτο βονυλό-
μενον δηλοῦν, ὡς ἔτι γελοιότερα πάσχοι
ἂν αὐτῶν ἡ ὑπόθεσις, εἰ
τολλά ἐστιν--ἢ ἡ τοῦ ὃν εἶναι
--οἴ τις ἱκανῶς ἐπεξίοι.

Here Plato evidently represents
Zeno as merely proving that contra-
dictory conclusions followed, if you
assumed a gtven hypothesis; which
hypothesis was thereby shown to be
inadmissible. But Plato alludes to

. 261) under the name of the Eleatic
alamedes, as ‘‘showing his art in
speaking, by making the same things
appear to the hearers like and unlike,
one and many, at rest and in motion”,
In this last passage, the impression
produced by Zeno’s argumentation is
rought to view, apart from the scope
and urpose with which he employed
it: which scope and purpose are indi-
cated in the passage above cited from
the Parmenides.
So also Isokrates (Encom. Helen.
init.) Ζήνωνα, τὸν ταὐτὰ δυνατὰ και
πάλιν ἀδύνατα πειρώμενον arodnivery.

1 Plato, Parmenides, p. 128 Ὁ.

100 DIALECTIC AND NEGATIVE PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. II.

conceived as one who wishes to delude his hearers by
aie eag proving both sides of a contradictory proposition.
Heno'sredue- His contradictory conclusions are elicited with the
surdumofan express purpose of disproving the premisses from
opponent's which they are derived. For these premisses Zeno
becontra- himself is not to be held responsible, since he borrows
dictions ae them from his opponents: a circumstance which
eee ric om Aristotle forgets, when he censures the Zenonian
arguments as paralogisms, because they assume the
Continua, Space, and Time, to be discontinuous or divided into
many distinct parts.’ Now this absolute discontinuousness of
matter, space, and time, was not advanced by Zeno as a doctrine
of his own, but is the very doctrine of his opponents, taken up
by him for the purpose of showing that it led to contradictory
consequences, and thus of indirectly refuting it. The sentence
of Aristotle is thus really in Zeno’s favour, though apparently
adverse to him. In respect to motion, a similar result followed
from the Zenonian reasonings ; namely, to show That motion,
as an attribute of the Real and Absolute, was no less inconsistent
with the hypothesis of those who opposed Parmenides, than with
the hypothesis of Parmenides himself :—That absolute motion
could no more be reconciled with the doctrine of the discon-
tinuous Many, than with that of the Continuous One :—That
motion therefore was only a phenomenal fact, relative to our
sensations, conceptions, and comparisons ; and having no appli-
cation to the absolute. In this phenomenal point of view,
neither Zeno nor Parmenides nor Melissus disputed the fact of
motion. ‘They recognised it as a portion of the world of sensa-
tion and experience ; which world they tried to explain, well or
ill, by analogies and conjectures derived from itself.
Though we have not the advantage of seeing the Zenonian
dialectics as they were put forth by their author,
Zenonian yet, if we compare the substance of them as handed
Platonic des down to us, with those dialectics which form the
᾿ latter half of the Platonic dialogue called Parmenides,

1 Aristotel. Physic. vi. 9, p. 239 Ὁ. Aristotle, in the second and third
Ζήνων δὲ παραλογίζεται" ov γὰρ ovy- chapters of his Physica, canvasses and
κειται ὁ χρόνος ἐκ τῶν νῦν ὄντων τῶν refutes the doctrine of Parmenides and
ἀδιαιρέτων, ὥσπερ οὐδ᾽ ἄλλο μέγεθος Zeno respecting Ens and Unum. He
οὐδέν, &. maintains that Ens and Unum are

Cuap. II. ZENONIAN DIALECTIC. 101

we shall find them not inferior in ingenuity, and certainly more
intelligible in their purpose. Zeno furnishes no positive support
to the Parmenidean doctrine, but he makes out a good negative
case against the counter-doctrine.

Zeller and other able modern critics, while admitting the
reasoning of Zeno to be good against this counter-
doctrine, complain that he takes it up too exclu- views of oe
sively ; that One and Many did not exclude each philosophy
other, and that the doctrines of Parmenides and his Zero. oting
opponents were both true together, but neither of
them true to the exclusion of the other. But when we reflect
that the subject of predication on both sides was the Real (Ens
per se), it was not likely that either Parmenides or his opponents
would affirm 1t to be both absolutely One and Continuous, and
absolutely Many and Discontinuous! If the opponents of Par-
menides had taken this ground, Zeno need not have imagined
deductions for the purpose of showing that their hypothesis led
to contradictory conclusions ; for the contradictions would have
stood avowedly registered in the hypothesis itself. If a man
affirms both at once, he divests the predication of its absolute
character, as belonging unconditionally to Ens per se; and he
restricts it to the phenomenal, the relative, the conditioned—
dependent upon our sensations and our fluctuating point of
view. This was not intended either by Parmenides or by his
opponents.

If, indeed, we judge the question, not from their standing-
point, but from our own, we shall solve the difficulty ar.omte
by adopting the last-mentioned answer. We shall and relative
admit that One and Many are predicates which do unknow-
not necessarily exclude each other; but we shall be.
refrain from affirming or denying either of them respecting the
Real, the Absolute, the Unconditioned. Of an object abso-
lutely one and continuous—or of objects absolutely many and
discontinuous, apart from the facts of our own sense and con-

equivocal — πολλαχῶς λεγόμενα. He 1That both of them could not be
farther maintained that no one before true respecting Ens per se, seams to
him had succeeded in refuting Zeno. have been considered indisputable,
See the Scholia of Alexander ad See the argument of Sokrates in
Sophistic. Elench. p. 820 b. 6, ed. the Parmenides of Plato, p. 129
Brandis. B-E.

103 DIALECTIC AND NEGATIVE PHILOSOPHY. Cuap. ΤΙ.

sciousness, and independent of any sentient subject— we
neither know nor can affirm anything. -Both these predi-
cates (One—Many) are relative and phenomenal, grounded
on the facts and comparisons of our own senses and conscious-
ness, and serving only to describe, to record, and to classify,
those facts. Discrete quantity or number, or succession of
distinct unities—continuous quantity, or motion and exten-
sion—are two conceptions derived from comparison, abstracted
and generalised from separate particular phenomena of our
consciousness ; the continuous, from our movements and the
consciousness of persistent energy involved therein—the discon-
tinuous, from our movements, intermitted and renewed, as well
as from our impressions of sense. We compare one discrete
quantity with another, or one continual quantity with another,
and we thus ascertain many important truths: but we select our
unit, or our standard of motion and extension, as we please, or
according to convenience, subject only to the necessity of adapting
our ulterior calculations consistently to this unit, when once
selected. The same object may thus be considered sometimes as
one, sometimes as many; both being relative, and depending-
upon our point of view. Motion, Space, Time, may be con-
sidered either as continuous or as discontinuous: we may reason
upon them either as one or the other, but we must not confound
the two points of view with each other. When, however, we are
called upon to travel out of the Relative, and to decide between
Parmenides and his opponents—whether the Absolute be One or
Multitudinous—we have only to abstain from affirming either, or
{in other words) to confess our ignorance. We know nothing of
an absolute, continuous, self-existent One, or of an absolute, dis-
continuous Many.
Some critics understand Zeno to have denied motion as a
fact—opposing sophistical reasoning to certain and
fone did not familiar experience. Upon this view is founded the
asafact, well-known anecdote, that Diogenes the Cynic re-
phenomenal . .
and relative. futed the argument by getting up and walking. But
I do not so construe the scope of his argument. He
did not deny motion'’as a fact. It rested with him on the evi-
dence of sense, acknowledged by every one. It was therefore
only a phenomenal fact relative to our consciousness, sensation,

CHar II. GORGIAS THE LEONTINE. 103

movements, and comparisons, As such, but as such only, did
Zeno acknowledge it. What he denied was, motion as a fact
belonging to the Absolute, or as deducible from the Absolute.
He did not deny the Absolute or Thing in itself, as an existing
object, but he struck out variety, divisibility, and motion, from
the list of its predicates. He admitted only the Parmenidean
Ens, one, continuous, unchanged, and immovable, with none but
negative predicates, and severed from the relative world of ex-
perience and sensation.

Other reasoners, contemporary with Zeno, did not agree with
him, in admitting the Absolute, even as an object

. . , τς Gorgias the
with no predicates, except unity and continuity. They Leontine—
denied it altogether, both as substratum and as pre- mit ποῦ ad
dicate. To establish this negation is the purpose of a Absolute,

᾿ . even as con:
short treatise ascribed to the rhetor or Sophist Gor- ceived by
Parmenides.

gias, a contemporary of Zeno; but we are informed
that all the reasonings, which Gorgias employed, were advanced,
or had already been advanced, by others before him.’ Those
reasonings are so imperfectly preserved, that we can make out
little more than the general scope.

Ens, or Entity per se (he contended), did not really exist.
Even granting that it existed, it was unknowable by His reason-
any one. And even granting that it both existed, {e*pgeinst
and was known by any one, still such person could lute, cither
not communicate his knowledge of it to others.? Entia.

As to the first point, Ens was no more real or existent than
Non-Ens: the word Non-Ens must have an objective meaning,
as well as the word Ens: it was Non-Ens, therefore it was, or
existed. Both of them existed alike, or rather neither of them
existed. Moreover, if Ens existed, it must exist either as One or
as Many—either as eternal or as generated—either in itself, or

1 See the last words of the Aristo-
telian or Pseudo-Aristotelian treatise,
De Melisso, Xenophane et Gorgid, p.

ἽὝἍπασαι δὲ αὗται καὶ ἑτέρων dpxato-
τέρων εἰσὶν ἀπόριαι, ὥστε ἐν τῇ περὶ
ἐκείνων σκέψει καὶ ταύτας ἐξεταστέον.

ἼΑπασαι is the reading of Mullach
in his edition of this treatise (p. 79),
in place of ἅπαντες Or ἅπαντα.

See the treatise of Aristotle or

Pseudo-Aristotle, De Melisso, Xeno-
phane, et Gorgid, in Aristot. p. 979.
, Bekker, also in Mullach’s edition,
p. 62-78. The argument of Gorgias is
also abridged by Sextus Empiric. adv.
Mathemat. vii. p. 884, sect. 65-86.

See also a copious commentary on
the Aristotelian treatise in Foss, De
GorgiA Leontino, p. 115 seq.

etextof the Aristotelian treatiseis
so corrupt as to be often unintelligible.

104 DIALECTIC AND NEGATIVE PHILOSOPHY. CnapP. II.

in some other place. But Melissus, Zeno, and other previous
philosophers, had shown sufficient cause against each of these
alternatives separately taken. Each of the alternative essential
predicates had been separately disproved ; therefore the subject,
Ens, could not exist under either of them, or could not exist at
all.

‘As to the second point, let us grant that Ens or Entia exist ;
Ens, incogi- they would nevertheless (argued Gorgias) be incogi-
tableand table and unknowable. To be cogitated is no more
unknowable. 5 attribute of Ens than of Non-Ens. The fact of
cogitation does not require Ens as a condition, or attest Ens as an
absolute or thing in itself. If our cogitation required or attained
Ens as an indispensable object, then there could be no fictitious
cogitata nor any false propositions. We think of a man flying in
the air, or of a chariot race on the surface of the sea. If our
cogitata were realities, these must be so as well as the rest: if
realities alone were the object of cogitation, then these could
not be thought of. As Non-Ens was thus undeniably the
object of cogitation, so Ens could not be its object: for what was
true respecting one of these contraries, could not be true re-
specting the other.

As to the third point: Assuming Ens both to exist and to be
Ens, even if known by you, you cannot (said Gorgias) declare or

ranted to explain it to any one else. You profess to have learnt
able, is still what Ens is in itself, by your sight or other percep-
ineommunt- tions; but you declare to others by means of words,
others. and these words are neither themselves the absolute
Ens, nor do they bring Ens before the hearer. Even though you
yourself know Ens, you cannot, by your words, enable him to
know it. If he is to know Ens, he must know it in the same
way as you. Moreover, neither your words, nor Ens itself, will
convey to the hearer the same knowledge as to you; for the same
cannot be at once in two distinct subjects; and even if it
were, yet since you and the hearer are not completely alike, so
the effect of the same object on both of you will not appear to be
like,?

1In this third branch of the argu- Gorgias travels beyond the Absolute,
ment, showing that Ens, evenif known, and directs his reasoning against the
cannot be communicable to others, communicability of the Relative or

CuaP. 11. ZENO AND GORGIAS. 105

Such is the reasoning, as far as we can make it out, whereby
Gorgias sought to prove that the absolute Ens was neither
existent, nor knowable, nor communicable by words from one
person to another.

The arguments both of Zeno and of Gorgias (the latter pre-
senting the thoughts of others earlier than himself), 7... ang
dating from a time coinciding with the younger half Gorgias—
of the life of Sokrates, evince a new spirit and pur- contrasted
pose in Grecian philosophy, as compared with the earlier
Ionians, the two first Eleates, and the Pythagoreans. philo-
Zeno and Gorgias exhibit conspicuously the new *°PBet®
element of dialectic: the force of the negative arm in Grecian
philosophy, brought out into the arena, against those who
dogmatized or propounded positive theories: the fertility of
Grecian imagination in suggesting doubts and difficulties, for
which the dogmatists, if they aspired to success and reputation,
had to provide answers. Zeno directed his attack against one
scheme of philosophy—the doctrine of the Absolute Many:
leaving by implication the rival doctrime—the Absolute One of
Parmenides—in exclusive possession of the field, yet not rein-
forcing it with any new defences against objectors. Gorgias
impugned the philosophy of the Absolute in either or both of its
forms—as One or as Many: not with a view of leaving any
third form as the only survivor, or of providing any substitute
from his own invention, but of showing that Ens, the object of
philosophical research, could neither be found nor known. The
negative purpose, disallowing altogether the philosophy of
Nature (as then conceived, not as now conceived), was declared
without reserve by Gorgias, as we shall presently find that it was
by Sokrates also.

It is the opening of the negative vein which imparts from this
time forward a new character to Grecian philosophy. New charac-
The positive and negative forces, emanating from ter Orn
different aptitudes in the human mind, are now both Philosophy -

. —antit
of them actively developed, and in strenuous anti- of affirmar

Phenomenal also. Both of his argu- not be exact or entire, even in the
ments against such communicability case of sensible facts. The sensations,
have some foundation, and serve to thoughts, emotions, &c., of one person
prove that the communicability can- are not exactly like those of another.

106 DIALECTIC AND NEGATIVE PHILOSOPHY. CuapP. II.

tive and thesis to each other. Philosophy is no longer exclu-
negative— : . . . .

roofand sively confined to dogmatists, each searching in his

proof. = imagination for the Absolute Ens of Nature, and each
propounding what seems to him the only solution of the problem.
Such thinkers still continue their vocation, but under new con-
ditions of success, and subject to the scrutiny of numerous dis-
sentient critics. It is no longer sufficient to propound a theory,!
either in obscure, oracular metaphors and _ half-intelligible
aphorisms, like Herakleitus—or in verse more or less impressive,
like Parmenides or Empedokles. The theory must be sustained
by proofs, guarded against objections, defended against imputa-
tions of inconsistency : moreover, it must be put in comparison
with other rival theories, the defects of which must accordingly
be shown up along with it. Here are new exigencies, to which
dogmatic philosophers had not before been obnoxious. They
were now required to be masters of the art of dialectic attack and
defence, not fearing the combat of question and answer—a combat
in which, assuming tolerable equality between the duellists, the
questioner had the advantage of the sun, or the preferable
position,’ and the farther advantage of choosing where to aim his
blows. To expose fallacy or inconsistency, was found to be
both an easier process, and a more appreciable display of in-
genuity, than the discovery and establishment of truth in such
manner as to command assent. The weapon of negation, refu-
tation, cross-examination, was wielded for its own results, and
was found hard to parry by the affirmative philosophers of the
day.

1The repugnance of the Heraklei- ἔνθα πολύς σφισι μόχθος ἐπειγομένοισιν
tean philosophers to the scrutiny of τύχθη,
dialectical interrogation is described ὁππότερος κατὰ νῶτα λάβῃ φάος ἠελίοιο"
by Plato in strong lan 6, ἰῦ 15 ine ἀλλ' ispin μέγαν ἄνδρα παρήλυθες ὦ
deed even caricatured. esotétus, TloAvdeuxes *
179-180.) βάλλετο δ᾽ ἀκτίνεσσιν ἅπαν ᾿Αμύκοιο

8 Theokritus, Idyll. xxii. 83; the πρόσωπον.

description of the pugilistic contest To toss up for the sun, was a practice
between Pollux and Amykus :— not yet introduced between pugilists.

Cuap. IL. APPENDIX. 107

APPENDIX.

To illustrate by comparison the form of Grecian philosophy, before
Dialectic was brought to bear upon it, I transcribe from two eminent
French scholars (Δ, Barthélemy St. Hilaire and Professor Robert
Mohl) some account of the mode in which the Indian philosophy has
always been kept on record and communicated.

M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire (in his Premier Mémoire sur le Sankhya,
pp. 5-11) gives the following observations upon the Sankhya or
philosophy of Kapila, one of the principal systems of Sanskrit philo-
sophy : date (as supposed) about 700 8.0.

There are two sources from whence the Saénkhya philosophy is
known :—

“1, Les Sofitras ou aphorismes de Kapila.
“Ὁ, Le traité déja connu et traduit sous le nom de Sinkhya
Karika, e’est ἃ dire Vers Mémoriaux du Sénkhya.

‘* Les Sofitras de Kapila sont en tout au nombre de 499, divisés en
six lectures, et répartis inégalement entre chacune d’elles. Les
Sofitras sont accompagnés d’un commentaire qui les explique, et qui
est d’un brahmane nommé le Mendiant. Le commentateur explique
avec des développements plus ou moins longs les Sofitras de Kapila, qu'il
cite un ἃ un.

‘Les Sofitras sont en général trés concis: parfois ils ne se compo-
sent que de deux ou trois mots, et jamais ils ne comprennent plus
d’une phrase. Cette forme aphoristique, sous laquelle se présente a
nous la philosophie Indienne—est celle qu’a prise la science Indienne
dans toutes ses branches, depuis la grammaire jusqu’ ἃ la philosophie,
Les Sofitras de Panini, quia réduit toutes les régles de la grammaire
sanscrite en 3996 aphorismes, ne sont pas moins concis que ceux de
Kapila. Ce mode étrange d’exposition tient dans ]'Inde ἃ la maniére
méme dont la science s'est transmise d’age en age. Un mattre n’a
généralement qu’un disciple: il lui suffit, pour la doctrine qu’il com-
munique, d’avoir des points de repére, et le commentaire oral qu’il ajoute

108 APPENDIX. Crap. 11.

‘& ces sentences pour les expliquer, met le disciple en état de les bien
comprendre. Le disciple lui-méme, une fois qu'il en a pénétré le sens
véritable, n’a pas besoin d’un symbole plus développé, et la concision
méme des aphorismes l’aide ἃ les mieux retenir. C'est wne initiation
qu'il a regue: et les sentences, dans lesquelles cette initiation se résume,
restent toujours assez claires pour lui,

“Ἢ Mais il n’en est pas de méme pour les lecteurs étrangers, et il
serait difficile de trouver rien de plus obscur que ces Sotitras. Les
commentaires mémes ne sufiisent pas toujours ἃ les rendre parfaitement
intelligibles,

‘* Le seul exemple d’une forme analogue dans l’histoire de l’esprit
humain et de la science en Occident, nous est fourni par les Aphorismes
d’Hippocrate : eux aussi s’adressaient ἃ des adeptes, et ils réclamaient,
comme les Sofitras Indiens, l’explication des maitres pour étre bien
compris par les disciples. Mais cet exemple unique n’a point tiré ἃ
conséquence dans le monde occidental, tandis que dans le monde
Indien l’aphorisme est resté pendant de longs siécles la forme spéciale
de la science: et les développements de pensce qui nous sont habituels,
et qui nous semblent indispensables, ont été reservés aux com-
mentaires.

‘‘La Sankhya Karik4 est en vers: En Gréce, Ja poésie a été pendant
quelque temps la langue de la philosophie ; Empédocle, Parménide,
ont écrit leurs systémes en vers. Ce n’est pas Kapila qui 1’a écrite,
Entre Kapila, et l’auteur de la Karika, Isvara Krishna, on doit compter
quelques centaines d’années tout au moins: et le second n’a fait que
rediger en vers, pour aider la mémoire des éléves, la doctrine que le
maitre avait laissée sous la forme axiomatique.

*©On concoit, du reste, sans peine, que ]’usage des vers mémoriaux
se soit introduit dans 1’Inde pour l’enseignement et la transmission de
la science : c’était une conséquence nécessaire de l’usage des aphorismes.
Les sciences les plus abstraites (mathematics, astronomy, algebra),
enploient aussi ce procédé, quoiqu’il semble peu fait pour leur austérité
et leur précision. Ainsi, le rhythme est, avec les aphorismes, et par
le m&me motif, la forme ἃ peu pres générale de la science dans
VInde.”

(Kapila as a personage is almost legendary ; nothing exact is know:
about him. His doctrine passes among the Indians ‘‘comme une
sorte de révélation divine ”.—Pp. 252, 253.)

M. Mohl observes as follows :—

‘Ceci m’améne aux Pouranas. Nous n’avons plus rien du Pourana
primitif, qui parait avoir été une cosmogonie, suivie d’une histoire des
Dieux et des familles héroiques. Les sectes ont fini par s’approprier

Cuap. 11]. APPENDIX. 109

ce cadre, aprés des transformations dont nous ne savons ni le nombre
ni les époques : et s’en sont servies, pour exalter chacune son dieu, et y
fondre, avec des débris de l’ancienne tradition, leur mythologie plus
moderne. Ce que les Pouranas sont pour le peuple, les six systémes
de philosophie 16 sont pour les savants. Nous trouvons ces systemes
dans la forme abstruse que les Hindous aiment 4 donner 4 leur science:
chaque école a ses aphorismes, qui, sous forme de vers mnémoniques,
contiennent dans le moins grand nombre de mots possible tous les
résultats dune école. Mais nous n’avons aucun renseignement sur les
commencements de l’école, sur les discussions que l’élaboration du
systéme ada provoquer, sur les hommes qui y ont -pris part, sur la
marche et le développement des idées : nous avons le systeme dans sa
derniére forme, et rien ne nous permet de remplir l’espace qui le sépare
des théories plus vagues que l’on trouve dans les derniers écrits de
lépoque védique, ἃ laquelle pourtant tout prétend se rattacher. A
partir de ces aphorismes, nous avons des commentaires et des traités
d’exposition et d’interprétation : mais les idées prcmicres, les termes
techniques, et le systéme entier, sont fixés antérieurement. Tous ces
systémes reposent sur une analyse’ psychologique trés raffinée; et
chacun a sa terminologie précise, et & laquelle la nétre ne répond quo
fort imparfaitement : il faut donc, sous peine de se tromper et de tromper
ses lecteurs, que les traducteurs créent une foule de termes techniques,
ce qui n’est pas la moindre difficulté de ce travail.”—R. Mohl, ‘Rapport
Annuel Fait ἃ la Société Asiatique,’ 1868, pp. 103-105; collected
édition, ‘Vingt-sept ans d’histoire des Ftudes Orientales, ᾿ vol. 1].
pp. 496, 498-9.

When the purpose simply is to imprint affirmations on the memory,
and to associate them with strong emotions of reverential belief—
mnemonic verses and aphorisms are suitable enough ; Empedokles
employed verse, Herakleitus and the Pythagoreans expressed them-
selves in aphorisms—bDrief, half-intelligible, impressive symbols, But
if philosophy is ever to be brought out of such twilight into the con-
dition of ‘‘reasoned truth,” this cannot be done without submitting
all the affirmations to cross-examining opponents—to the scrutiny of a
negative Dialectic. Itis the theory and application of this Dialectic
which we are about to follow in Sokrates and Plato.

110 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. ITI.

CHAPTER ΠῚ.
OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.

Havine dwelt at some length on the life and compositions of
Plato, I now proceed to place in comparison with him some other
members of the Sokratic philosophical family : less eminent, in-
deed, than the illustrious author of the Republic, yet still men
of marked character, ability, and influence! Respecting one of
the brethren, Xenophon, who stands next to Plato in celebrity, I
shall say a few words separately in my next and concluding
chapter.

The ascendancy of Sokrates over his contemporaries was
Influence POWerfully exercised in more than one way. He
exercisedby brought into vogue new subjects both of indefinite
Sokrates ς eye . . !
over his amplitude, and familiar as well as interesting to every
companions. one, On these subjects, moreover, he introduced, or
at least popularised, a new method of communication, whereby
the relation of teacher and learner, implying a direct transfer of
ready-made knowledge from the one to the other, was put aside.
He substituted an interrogatory process, at once destructive and
suggestive, in which the teacher began by unteaching and the
learner by unlearning what was supposed to be already known,
for the purpose of provoking in the learner’s mind a self-operative
energy of thought, and an internal generation of new notions.
Lastly, Sokrates worked forcibly upon the minds of several

* As stated in the prefatory note to this edition, the present and the following
chapter have been, for convenience, transferred from the place given to them by
the author, to their present position.

1 Dionysius of Halikarnassus con- ad Cn. Pomp. p. 762, where he contrasts
trasts Plato with τὸ Σωκράτους διδασ- the style and phraseology of Plato
καλεῖον πᾶν (De Adm. Vi Dic. Demos- with that of the Σωκρατικοὶ διάλογοι
then. p. 956.) Compare also Epistol. generally.

Cuap. III. INFLUENCE OF SOKRATES,

111

friends, who were in the habit of attending. εἴτα when he talked |
in the market-place cr the palestra. Some tried to copy his
wonderful knack of colloquial cross-examination : how far they
did so with success or reputation we do not know : but Xenophon
says that several of them would only discourse with those who
paid them a fee, and that they thus sold for considerable sums
what were only small fragments obtained gratuitously from the
rich table of their master.1 There were moreover several who
copied the general style of his colloquies by composing written
dialogues, And thus it happened that the great master,—he who
passed his life in the oral application of his Elenchus, without
writing anything,—though he left no worthy representative in
his own special career, became the father of numerous written
dialogues and of a rich philosophical literature. ?

Besides Plato and Xenophon, whose works are known to us,
we hear of Alexamenus, Antisthenes, Aschines, Aris- N

᾿ : ᾿ ᾿ : ames of

tippus, Bryson, Eukleides, Pheedon, Kriton, Simmias, those com-
Kebés, &c., as having composed dialogues of this sort. P#™0"*
All of them were companions of Sokrates ; several among them
either set down what they could partially recollect of his conver-
sations, or employed his name asa dramatic speaker of their own
thoughts. Seven of these dialogues were ascribed to Adschines,
twenty-five to Aristippus, seventeen to Kriton, twenty-three to
Simmias, three to Kebés, six to Eukleides, four to Phedon. The
compositions of Antisthenes were far more numerous: ten

1 Xenophon, Memor. i. 2, 60. ὧν from the government; which law,

τινὲς μικρὰ μέρη map ἐκείνον προῖκα
λαβόντες πολλοῦ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἐπώλουν,
καὶ οὐκ ἦσαν ὥσπερ ἐκεῖνος δημοτικοί"
τοῖς γὰρ μὴ ἔχουσι χρήματα διδόναι οὐκ
ἤθελον διαλέγεσθαι.

2: We find a remarkable proof how
long the name and conception of
Sokrates lasted in the memory of the
Athenian public, as having been the
great progenitor of the philosophy and

hilosophers of the fourth century B.c.
n Athens. It was about 806 B.c.,
almost a century after the death of
Sokrates, that Democharés (the nephew
of the orator Demosthenes) delivered
an oration before the Athenian judi-
cature for the purpose of upholding
the law proposed y Sophokles, for-
bidding philosophers or Sophists to
lecture without a license obtained

assed a year before, had determined
he secession of all the philosophers
from Athens until the law was re-
pealed. In this oration Democharés ex-
patiated on the demerits of many philo-
sophers, their servility, profligate ambi-
tion, rapacity, want of patriotism, &c.,
from which Athenzeus makes several ex-
tracts. Τοιοῦτοί εἰσιν οἱ ἀπὸ φιλοσοφίας
στρατηγοί . περὶ ὧν A μοχάρης ἔλεγεν,
--(Ώσπερ ἐκ θύμβρας οὐδεὶς ἂν δύναιτο
κατασκευάσαι λόγχην, οὔ δ᾽ ἐκ Σωκρά-
τονς στρατιώτην ἄμεμπτον.
Demetrius Phalereus also, in or near
that same time, composed a Σωκράτους
ἀπολογίαν (Diog. La. ix. 87-57). This
shows how long the interest in the
personal fate and character of Sokrates
endured at Athens.

112 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. III.

volumes of them, under a variety of distinct titles (some of them
probably not in the form of dialogues) being recorded by
Diogenes.! Aristippus was the first of the line of philosophers
called Kyrenaic or Hedonic, afterwards (with various modifica-
tions) Epikurean: Antisthenes, of the Cynics and Stoics: Euk-
leides, of the Megaric school. It seems that Aristippus, Antis-
thenes, Eukleides, and Bryson, all enjoyed considerable reputa-
tion, as contemporaries and rival authors of Plato: A‘schines,
Antisthenes (who was very poor), and Aristippus, are said to
have received money for their lectures; Aristippus being named

as the first who thus departed from the Sokratic canon. 3
/&schines the companion of Sokrates did not become (like

Eukleides, Antisthenes, Aristippus) the founder of a

The few fragments

Gischines— succession or sect of philosophers,
ΑΣΑ ΩΣ him. remaining of his dialogues do not enable us to appre-

clate their merit.

He seems to have employed the

name of Aspasia largely as a conversing personage, and to have

esteemed her highly.

1 Diogenes Laert. i. 47-61-83, vi. 15;
Athens. xi. p. 505 C.

Bryson is mentioned by Theopompus
ap. Athenzeum, xi. p. 508 ἢ. Theo-
pompus, the contemporary of Aristotle
and pupil of Isokrates, had composed
an express treatise or discourse against
Plato's dialogues, in which discourse
he affirmed that most of them were
not Plato’s own, but borrowed in large
proportion from the dialogues of
Antisthenes, Aristippus, and Bryson.
Ephippus also, the comic writer (of
the fourth century B.c., contemporary
with Theopompus, perhaps even earlier),
spoke of Bryson as contemporary wit

lato (Athenee. xi. 509 C). This is
good proof to authenticate Bryson as a
composer of ‘‘Sokratic dialogues ” be-
longing to the Platonic age, along
with Antisthenes and Aristippus:
whether Theopompus is correct
when he asserts that Plato borrowed
much from the three, is very doubt-

Many dialogues were published by
various writers, and ascribed falsely to
one or other of the viri Sokratici:
Diogenes (i. 64) reports the judgment
delivered by Pansetius, which among
them were genuine and which not so.
Paneetius considered that the dialogues

He also spoke with great admiration of

ascribed to Plato, Xenophon, Antis-
thenes, and A‘schines, were genuine
that those assigned to Phedon and
Eukleides were doubtful ; and that the
rest were all spurious. He thus re-
garded as spurious those of Alexa-
menus, Kriton, Simmias, Kebés, Simon,
Bryson, &c., or he did not know them
all. Itis possible that Panetius may
not have known the dialogues of
Bryson; if he did know them, and
believed them to be spurious, I should
not accept his assertion, becauseI think
that itis outwoighed by the contrary
testimony of Theopompus. Moreover,
though Panetius was a very able man,
our confidence in his critical estimate
is much shaken when we learn that he
declared the Platonic Phedon to be
spurious,

2 Diogen. Laert. i. 62-65; Athenseus,
xi. Pp. 507 C.

ion Chrysostom (Orat. Iv. De

Homero et Socrate, vol. ii. p. 289,
Reiske) must have had in his view some
of these other Sokratic dialogues, not
those composed by Plato or Xenophon,
when he alludes to conversations of
Sokrates with Lysikles, Glykon, and
Anytus; what he says about Anytus
can hardly refer to the Platonic
Menon.

ZISCHINES SOKRATICUS. 113

CuapP. 11.

Themistokles. But in regard to present or recent characters, he
stands charged with much bitterness and ill-nature: especially
we learn that he denounced the Sophists Prodikus and Anaxa-
goras, the first on the ground of having taught Theramenes, the
second as the teacher of two worthless persons—Ariphrades and
Arignétus. This accusation deserves greater notice, because it
illustrates the odium raised by Melétus against Sokrates as having
instructed Kritias and Alkibiades.! Moreover, we have Aischines
presented to usin another character, very unexpected in a vir
Socraticus. An action for recovery of money alleged to be owing
was brought in the Athenian Dikastery against Aischines, by a
plaintiff, who set forth his case in a speech composed by the
rhetor Lysias. In this speech it is alleged that Aischines, having
engaged in trade as a preparer and seller of unguents, borrowed
a sum of money at interest from the plaintiff; who affirms that
he counted with assurance upon honest dealing from a disciple
of Sokrates, continually engaged in talking about justice and
virtue.? But so far was this expectation from being realized,
that Aschines had behaved most dishonestly. He repaid neither
principal nor interest ; though a judgment of the Dikastery had
been obtained against him, and a branded slave belonging to him
had been seized under it. Moreover, Aschines had been guilty
of dishonesty equally scandalous in his dealings with many other
creditors also. Furthermore, he had made love to a rich woman
seventy years old, and had got possession of her property ;
cheating and impoverishing her family. His character as a pro-
fligate and cheat was well known and could be proved by many

1Plutarch, Perikles, c. 24-32; Platonic dialogues—Nept ᾿Αρετῆς, Περὶ
Cicero, De Invent. i. 31; Athenseus, Πλούτον, epi @avarov—as the works
v. 220. Some other citations will be of schines, But this is noway esta-
found in Fischer’s collection of the blished

shed.
few fragments of Alschines Sokraticus 2 Atheneeus, xiii. pp. 611-612. Πεισ-

(Leipsic, 1788, p. 68 seq.), though some θεὶς δ᾽ ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ τοιαῦτα λέγοντος,

of the allusions which he produces
seem rather to belong to the orator
Atschines. The statements of Athen-
seus, from the dialogue of Alschines
called Telaugés, are the most curious.
The dialogue contained, among other
things, τὴν Προδίκον καὶ ᾿Αναξαγόρους
τῶν σοφιστῶν διαμώκησιν, where we
see Anaxagoras denominated a Sophist
see also Diodor. xii. 39) as well as

dikus.
Fischer considers the three Pseudo-

καὶ ἅμα οἰόμενος τοῦτον Αἰσχίνην Lw-
κράτους γεγονέναι μαθητήν, καὶ περὶ
δικαιοσύνης καὶ ἀρετῆς πολλοὺς καὶ
σεμνοὺς λέγοντα λόγους, οὐκ ἄν ποτε
ἐπιχειρῆσαι οὐδὰ τολμῆσαι ἅπερ οἱ πονη»
ρότατοι καὶ ἀδικώτατοι ἄνθρωποι ἐπι»
χειροῦσι πράττειν.

e read also about another oration
of Lysias against A’schines—zepi συκο-
pavrias Diogen. Laert. ii. 68), unless
indeed it be the same oration differently
described.

1—8

114 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. 111.

witnesses. Such are the allegations against Aischines, contained
in the fragment of a lost speech of Lysias, and made in open
court by a real plaintiff. How much of them could be fairly
proved, we cannot say: but it seems plain at least that Auschines
must have been a trader as well as a philosopher. All these
writers on philosophy must have had their root and dealings in

real life, of which we know scarce anything.
The dialogues known by the title of Sokratic dialogues,! were

Written
Sokratic
Dialogues—
their gene-
ral charac-
ter.

composed by all the principal companions of Sokrates,
and by many who were not companions.
thus composed by many different authors, they formed
a recognised class of literature, noticed by the rhe-
torical critics as distinguished for plain, colloquial,

Yet though

unstudied, dramatic execution, suiting the parts to the various
peakers: from which general character Plato alone departed—

and he too not in all of his dialogues.

1 Aristotel. ap. Athensum, xi. Ὁ.
605 C ; Rhetoric, iii. 16.

Dionys. Halikarnass. ad Cn, Pomp.
de Platone, p. 762, Reiske. Τραφεὶς

lato) ἐν rots Σωκρατικοῖς διαλόγοις

νοτάτοις οὖσι καὶ ἀκριβεστάτοις, οὐ
μείνας δ᾽ ἐν αὐτοῖς, ἀλλὰ τῆς Γοργίον
καὶ Θουκνδίδον κατασκενῆς ἐρασθείς :

, De Admir. Vi Dicend. in Demos-
thene, p. 968. Again in the same
treatise De Adm. V. D. Demosth. p.
956. ἡ δὲ ἑτέρα λέξις, ἡ λιτὴ καὶ
ἀφελὴς καὶ δοκοῦσα κατασκευήν τε καὶ
ἰσχὺν τὴν πρὸς ἰδιώτην ἔχειν λόγον καὶ
ὁμοιότητα, πολλοὺς ney ἔσχε καὶ aya-
θοὺς ἄνδρας προστάτας -- καὶ οἱ τῶν
ἠθικῶν διαλόγων ποιηταί, ὧν ἦν τὸ Σω-
κρατικὸν διδασκαλεῖον πᾶν, ἔξω Πλάτω-
νος, &C.

Dionysius calls this style 6 Ξξωκρατι-
Kos χαρακτὴρ, Ὁ. 1025. I presume it is
the same to which the satirist Timon
applies the words :—

᾿Ασθενική τα λόγων Svas ἣ τριὰς ἣ ἔτι
πόρσω,
Οἷος Ξεινοφόων, yr’ Αἰσχίνον οὐκ ém-
TELONS
γράψαι--- Diogen. La. ii. 55.
Lucian, Hermogenes, Phrynichus,
Longinus, and some later rhetorical
critics of Greece judged more favour-
ably than Timon about the style of
Aischines as wellasof Xenophon. See
Zeller, Phil. ἃ, Griech. 1]. Ὁ. 171, sec.

By the Sokratic authors

ed. And Demetrius Phalereus (or the
author of the treatise which bears his
name), as well as the rhetor Aristeides,
considered Atschines and Plato as the
best representatives of the Σωκρατικὸς
χαρακτήρ, Demetr. Phaler. De Inter-
pretat. 310; Aristeides, Orat. Platon.
1. p. 85; Photius, Cods. 61 and 158;
Longinus, ap. Walz. ix. p. 559, c. 2.
Lucian says (De Parasito, 33) that
Atschines passed some time with the
elder Dionysius at Syracuse, to whom
he read aloud his dialogue, entitled
Miltiades, with great success.
An inedited discourse of Michael
Psellus, printed by Mr. Cox in his
very careful and valuable catalogue of
the MSS. in the Bodleian Library,
recites the same high estimate as hav-
ing been formed of Atschines by the
chief ancient rhetorical critics: they
reckoned him among and alongside of
the foremost Hellenic classical writers,
as having his own peculiar merits of
style—mapa μὲν Πλάτωνι, τὴν δια-
λογικὴν φράσιν, παρὰ δὲ μη τηνι nie
κοῦ Αἰσχίνου, τὴν ἐμμελῆ συνθήκην τῶν
λέξεων, παρὰ ba Θουκυδίδον, &c. See Mr.
Cox’s Catalogue, pp. 748-745. Cicero
speaks of the Sokratic philosophers
generally, as writing with an elegant
pla ulness of style (De Officiis, i. 29,
04); which is in harmony with Lu.
cian’s phrase—Aicxiins ὁ τοὺς διαλόγους
μακροὺς καὶ ἀστείους γράψας, ὥσ.

Cuap. ITI. UNIFORM DESCRIPTION OF SOKRATES. 115
generally Sokrates appears to have been presented under the
same main features: his proclaimed confession of ignorance was
seldom wanting: and the humiliation which his cross-questioning
inflicted even upon insolent men like Alkibiades, was as keenly
set forth by Aschines as by Plato: moreover the Sokratic dis-
ciples generally were fond of extolling the Demon or divining
prophecy of their master.1 Some dialogues circulating under the
name of some one among the companions of Sokrates, were
spurious, and the authorship was a point not easy to determine.
Simon, a currier at Athens, in whose shop Sokrates often con-
versed, is said to have kept memoranda of the conversations
which he heard, and to have afterwards published them:
Eschines also, and some other of the Sokratic companions, were
suspected of having preserved or procured reports of the conver-
sations of the master himself, and of having made much money
after his death by delivering them before select audiences.?
Aristotle speaks of the followers of Antisthenes as unschooled,
vulgar men: but Cicero appears to have read with satisfaction
the dialogues of Antisthenes, whom he designates as acute though
not well-instructed.2 Other accounts describe his dialogues as
composed in a rhetorical style, which is ascribed to the fact of
his having received lessons from Gorgias:4 and Theopompus
must have held in considerable estimation the dialogues of that

1Cicero, Brutus, 85, s. 292; De names. About Alschines, see Athe-
Divinatione, i. 54-122; Aristeides, Orat. nseus, xiii. p. 611 C; Diogen. Laert. ii.
Xlv. περὶ ἹῬητορικῆς, vol. ii. pp. 24-25; 62
Orat. xlvi. Ὑπὲρ τῶν Terrdpwy, vol. ii.
pe. 295-369, ed. Dindorf. It appears

y this that some of the dialogues
composed by Aischines were mistaken
by various persons for actual conver-
sations held by Sokrates. It was is intended by Aristotle when he says
argued, that because Alschines wasin- —oi ᾿Ανθισθένειοι καὶ of οὕτως ἀπαί-
ferior to Plato in ability, he wasmore δευτοι, Metaphysic. H. 3, p. 1043,
likely to have repeated accurately what Ὁ. 24. It is plain, too, that Lucian

3 Cicero, Epist. ad Atticum, xii. 88:
—‘‘viri acuti magis quam eruditi,” is
the judgment of Cicero upon Antis-
thenes. I presume that these words
indicate the same defect as that which

he had heard Sokrates say.
2Diog. L. ii. 122. He mentions a
collection of thirty-three dialogues in
one volume, purporting to be reports
of real colloquies of Sokrates, published
by Simon. But they can hardly be
regarded as genuine.
he charge here mentioned is ad-
vanced by Xenophon (see a preceding
note, Memorab. i. 2, 60), age nst some
persons (τινὲς), but without specifying

considered the compositions of Antis-
thenes as not unworthy companions
to those of Plato (Lucian, adv. Indoc-
tum, c. 27).

4 Diogen. Laert. vi.1. If it be true
that Antisthenes received lessons from
Gorgias, this proves that Gorgias must
sometimes have given lessons gratis ;
for the poverty of Antisthenes is well
known. See the Symposion of Xeno-
phon.

116 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. CuapP. IIT.

same author, as well as those of Aristippus and Bryson, when he
accused Plato of having borrowed from them largely.’

Eukleides, Antisthenes, and Aristippus, were all companions
Relations and admirers of Sokrates, as was Plato. But none of
betweenthe them were his disciples, in the strict sense of the
companions word: none of them continued or enforced his doc-
—Their pro- trines, though each used his name as a spokesman.
ceedings During his lifetime the common attachment to his
death of person formed a bond of union, which ceased at his

okrates, . 7 oe

death. There is indeed some ground for believing
that Plato then put himself forward in the character of leader,
with a view to keep the body united.2 We must recollect that
Plato though then no more than twenty-eight years of age, was
the only one among them who combined the advantages of a
noble Athenian descent, opulent circumstances, an excellent
education, and great native genius. Eukleides and Aristippus
were neither of them Athenians: Antisthenes was very poor:
Xenophon was absent on service in the Cyrcian army. Plato’s
proposition, however, found no favour with the others and was
even indignantly repudiated by Apollodorus: a man ardently
attached to Sokrates, but violent and overboiling in all his
feelings. The companions of Sokrates, finding themselves un-
favourably looked upon at Athens after his death, left the city
for a season and followed Eukleides to Megara. How long they
stayed there we do not know. Plato is said, though I think on
no sufficient authority, to have remained absent from Athens for
several years continuously. It seems certain (from an anecdote
recounted by Aristotle)4 that he talked with something like

1 Theopomp- ap. Athene. xi. ἦ 508. was probably at Megara, seems to have
See K. F. Hermann, Ueber Plato’s possessed property in Attica: for there
Schriftsteller. Motive, p. 300. existed, among the orations of Isseus, a
An extract of some length, of a pleading composed by that rhetor for
dialogue composed yy, Aischines be- some client—IIpos Εὐκλείδην τὸν Σω-
tween Sokrates and Alkibiades, is given κρατικὸν ἀμφισβήτησις ὑπὲρ τῆς τοῦ
by Aristeides, Or. xlvi. Ὑπὲρ τῶν Tet- χωρίον λύσεως (Dion. Hal., Ise., 6. 14, p.
τάρων, Vol. ii. pp. 202-204, ed. Dindorf. 612 Reiske) arpokr.— Ore τὰ ἐπικη-
. 3 Athenzeus, xi. p. 507 A-B, from the ῥυττόμενα, also under some other words
ὑπομνήματα of the Delphian Heges- by Harpokration and by Pollux, viii.
ander. Who Hegesander was, I do 48.
not know : but there is nothing im- 4 Aristot. Rhet. ii. 23, p. 1398, b. 30.
probable in the anecdote which he ἢ ws ᾿Αρίστιππος, πρὸς Πλάτωνα
recounts. ἐπαγγελτικώτερόν τι εἰπόντα, ὡς ᾧετο
8 Plato, Pheedon. pp. 69 A, 117 Ὁ. --ἀλλὰ μὴν ὁ γ᾽ ἑταῖρος ἡμῶν, ἔφη, οὐθὲν
Kukleides, however, though his school τοιοῦτον--λέγων τὸν Σωκράτην.

RELATIONS BETWEEN THE COMPANIONS. 117.

Cuap. 111.

arrogance among the companions of Sokrates: and that Aris-
tippus gently rebuked him by reminding him how very different
had been the language of Sokrates himself. Complaints too
were made by contemporaries, about Plato’s jealous, censorious,
spiteful, temper. The critical and disparaging tone of his
dialogues, notwithstanding the admiration which they inspire,
accounts for the existence of these complaints: and anecdotes are
recounted, though not verified by any sufficient evidence, of
ill-natured dealing on his part towards other philosophers who
were poorer than himself.1 Dissension or controversy on philo-
sophical topics is rarely carried on without some invidious or
hostile feeling. Athens, and the virt Sokratict, Plato included,
form no exception to this ordinary malady of human nature.

It is common for historians of philosophy to speak of a Sokra-
tic school: but this phrase, if admissible at all, is

. ἢ No Sokratic
only admissible in the largest and vaguest sense. school—
The effect produced by Sokrates upon his compa- companions
nions was, not to teach doctrine, but to stimulate took a dine

self-working enquiry, upon ethical and social subjects.

Eukleides, Antisthenes, Aristippus, each took a line of his own,
not less decidedly than Plato. But unfortunately we have no
compositions remaining from either of the three. We possess
only brief reports respecting some leading points of their doc-
trine, emanating altogether from those who disagreed with it:
we have besides aphorisms, dicta, repartees, bons-mots, &c.,
which they are said to have uttered. Of these many are evident
inventions; some proceeding from opponents and probably
coloured or exaggerated, others hardly authenticated at all. But
if they were ever so well authenticated, they would form very
insufficient evidence on which to judge a philosopher—much less

This anecdote, mentioned by Ari-
stotle, who had good means of knowing,
appears quite worthy of belief.

he jealousy and love of supremacy
inherent in Plato’s temper (τὸ φιλότι-
pov), were noticed by Dionysius Hal.
(Epist. ad Cn. Pompeium, p. 756).
Atheneus, xi. pp. 505-508. Diog.
Laert. ii. 60-65, iii. 86.

The statement made by Plato in the
Pheedon—That Aristippus and Kleom-
brotus were not present at the death of

Sokrates, but were said to be in Aigina
—is cited as an example of Plato’s ill-
will and censorious temper (Demetr.
Phaler. 8. 306). But this is unfair.
The statement ought not to be so con-
sidered, if it were true: and if not true,
it deserves a more severe epithet. We
read in Athenseus various other criti-
cisms, citing or alluding to passages
of Plato, which are alleged to indicate
ill-nature; but many of the passages
cited do not deserve the remark.

118 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. CuaP. IIL

to condemn him with asperity.!1 Philosophy (as I have already
observed) aspires to deliver not merely truth, but reasoned truth.
We ought to know not only what doctrines a philosopher main-
tained, but how he maintained them :—what objections others
made against him, and how he replied :—what objections he
made against dissentient doctrines, and what replies were made
to him. Respecting Plato and Aristotle, we possess such infor-
mation to a considerable extent :—respecting Eukleides, Antis-
thenes, and Aristippus, we are without it. All their compositions
(very numerous, in the case of Antisthenes) have perished.

EUKLEIDES.

Eukleides was a Parmenidean, who blended the ethical point
of view of Sokrates with the ontology of Parmenides,
and followed out that negative Dialectic which was
common to Sokrates with Zeno. Parmenides (I have
already said)* and Zeno after him, recognised no
absolute reality except Ens Unum, continuous, indi-
visible : they denied all real plurality : they said that the plural
was Non-Ens or Nothing, ὁ.6. nothing real or absolute, but only
apparent, perpetually transient and changing, relative, different
as appreciated by one man and by another. Now Sokrates laid
it down that wisdom or knowledge of Good, was the sum total of
ethical perfection, including within it all the different virtues :
he spoke also about the divine wisdom inherent in, or pervad-

Eukleides of
Megara—he
blended
Parmenides
with

Sokrates.

1 Respecting these ancient philo-
sophers, whose works are lost, I tran-
scribe a striki passage from Des-
cartes, who complains, in his own case,
of the injustice of being judged from
the statements of others, and not from
his own writings :—

“Quod adeo in h&c materiA verum
est, ut quamvis sepe aliquas ex meis
opinionibus explicaverim viris acutissi-
mis, et qui me loquente videbantur eas
waldé distincté intelligere: attamen cum
eas retulerunt, observavi ipsos fere sem-
ver illas ita mutavisee, ut pi'o meis

agnoscere amplius non possem. Qué
occasione posteros hic oratos volo, ut
nunquam credant, quidquam & me esse
profectum, quod ipse in lucem non
edidero. Et nullo modo miror absurda
illa dogmata, que veteribus illis philo-
sophis tribwuntur, scripta non
habemus - nec propterea udico ipsorum
cogitationes valdé ἃ ratione fuisse alie-
nas, cum habuerint prestantissima
suorum seculorum ingenia; sed tan-
tum nobis perperam esse relatas.”
(Descartes, Diss. De Methodo, p. 43.)
2 See ch. 1. pp. 19-22,

Cap. 111. EUKLEIDES OF MEGARA. 119

ing the entire Kosmos or universe. Eukleides blended together
the Ens of Parmenides with the Good of Sokrates, saying that
the two names designated one and the same thing: sometimes
called Good, Wisdom, Intelligence, God, &c., and by other names
also, but always one and the same object named and meant. He
farther maintained that the opposite of Ens, and the opposite of
Bonum (Non-Ens, Non-Bonum, or Malum) were things non-
existent, unmeaning names, Nothing,” &c. : 2.9, that they were
nothing really, absolutely, permanently, but ever varying and
dependent upon our ever varying conceptions. The One—the
All—the Good—was absolute, immoveable, invariable, indi-
visible. But the opposite thereof was a non-entity or nothing:
there was no one constant meaning corresponding to Non-Ens—
but a variable meaning, different with every man who used
it.

It was in this manner that Eukleides solved the problem which
Sokrates had brought into vogue— What is the Doctrine of
Bonum—or (as afterwards phrased) the Summum Eukleides.
Bonum? kEukleides pronounced the Bonum to be about
coincident with the Ens Unum of Parmenides. The
Parmenidean thesis, originally belonging to Transcendental
Physics or Ontology, became thus implicated with Transcendental
Ethics.3

Plato departs from Sokrates on the same point. He agrees
with Eukleides in recognising a Transcendental
Bonum. But it appears that his doctrines on this
head underwent some change. He held for some
time what is called the doctrine of Ideas: transcen-
dental Forms, Entia, Essences: he considered the
Transcendental to be essentially multiple, or to be an aggregate
—whereas Eukleides had regarded it as essentially One. This is

Thedoctrine
compared to
that of Plato
—changes
in Plato.

1 Xenophon. Memor. i. 4, 17. τὴν

τὴν as recognising only μίαν ἀρετὴν πολ-
ἐν τῷ παντὶ φρόνησιν. Compare Pla

» λοῖς ὀνόμασι καλουμένην. Cicero,

Philébus, pp. 29-30; Cicero, Nat. Deor.
ii. 6, 6, iii. 11.

2Diog. L. ii, 106. Οὗτος ἂν τὸ
ἀγαθὸν ἀπεφήνατο πολλοῖς ὀνόμασι
καλούμενον" ὅτε μὲν γὰρ φρόνησιν, ὅτε
δὲ θεόν, καὶ ἄλλοτε νοῦν καὶ τὰ λοιπά.
Τὰ δὲ ἀντικείμενα τῷ ἀγαθῷ ἀνήρει, μὴ
εἶναι φάσκων. Compare also vii. 2
161, where the Megarici are represented

Academ, li. 42

3 However, in the verse of Xeno-
phanes, the predecessor of Parmenides
--οΟὖλος ὁρᾷ, οὗλος δὲ νοεῖ, οὗλος δέ τ᾽
ἀκούει---ἰμο Universe is described as a
thinking, seeing, hearing God—Ey
καὶ Πᾶν. Sextus Empir. adv. Mathe-
mat. ix. 144; Xenophan. . Dp.
86, ed. Karsten.

120

OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. CuaP. 17

the doctrine which we find in some of the Platonic dialogues.
In the Republic, the Idea of Good appears as one of these,
though it is declared to be the foremost in rank and the most
ascendant in efficacy. But in the later part of his life, and
in his lectures (as we learn from Aristotle), Plato came to
adopt a different view. He resolved the Ideas into numbers.
He regarded them as made up by the combination of two
distinct factors :—1l. The One—the Essentially One. 2. The
Essentially Plural: The Indeterminate Dyad: the Great and
Little.—Of these two elements he considered the Ideas to be
compounded. And he identified the Idea of Good with the
essentially One—rd ἀγαθὸν with τὸ ἕν: the principle of Good
with the principle of Unity: also the principle of Evil with the
Indeterminate. But though Unity and Good were thus identical,
he considered Unity as logically antecedent, or the subject—
Good as logically consequent, or the predicate.*

This last doctrine of Plato in his later years (which does not
appear in the dialogues, but seems, as far as we can

Last doc- . . ° .

trineof make out, to have been delivered substantially in his
Flatonearly oral lectures, and is ascribed to him by Aristotle)
that of aes |W nearly coincident with that of Eukleides. Both

of them held the identity of τὸ & with τὸ ἀγαθόν.
This one doctrine is all that we know about Eukleides: what

1 Plato, Republic, vi. p. 508 E, vii. probably the memoranda taken down
617 A y Aristotle from Plato’s lecture on

2 The account given by Aristotle of
Plato’s doctrine of Ideas, as held by
Plato in his later years, appears in
various passages of the Metaphysica
and in the curious account repeate
by Aristoxenus (who had often heard
it from Aristotle—'’ApioreréAns ἀεὶ
διηγεῖτο) of the ἀκρόασις or lecture
delivered by Plato, De Bono. See
Aristoxen. Harmon. ii. Pp. 30, Meibom.
Compare the eighth chapter in this
work,—Platonic Compositions Gene-
rally. Metaphys. N. 1091, Ὁ. 18. τῶν
δὲ τὰς ἀκινήτους οὐσίας εἶναι λεγόντων
(sc. Platonici) οἱ μέν φασιν αὐτὸ τὸ
ὲν τὸ ἀγαθὸν αὐτὸ εἶναι" οὐσίαν μέν-
τοι τὸ ἣν αὐτοῦ ᾧοντο εἶναι μάλιστα
which words are very clearly explaine
by Bonitz in the note to his Com-
mentary, Pp 586: also Metaphys. 987,
Ὁ. 20, and Scholia, p. 551, b. 20, p.
667, b. 84, where the work of Ari-
stotle, Περὶ Tayadov, is referred to:

that subject, accompanied by notes of
his own.

In Schol. p. 578, a. 18, it is stated
that the astronomer Eudoxus was a
hearer both of Plato and of Eukleides.

The account given by Zeller (nil.
der Griech. ii. Ρ' 453, 2nd ed.) of this
latter phase of the Platonic doctrine
of Ideas, applies exactly to that which
we hear about the main doctrine of
Eukleides. Zeller describes the Pla-
tonic doctrine as being ‘“‘Eine Vermi-
schung des ethischen Begriffes vom
hochsten Gut, mit dem Metaphysi-
schen des Absoluten: Der Begriff
des Guten ist zunichst aus dem
menschlichen Leben abstrahirt; er
bezeichnet das, was dem Menschen
zutriglich ist. So noch bei Sokrates.
Plato verallgemeinert ihn nun zum
Begriff des Absoluten; dabei spielt
aber seine urspriingliche Bedeutung
noch fortwahrend herein, und so ent-

LAST DOCTRINE OF PLATO. 121

Cuap, ITI.

consequences he derived from it, or whether any, we do not
know. But Plato combined, with this transcendental Unum =
Bonum, a transcendental indeterminate plurality: from which
combination he considered his Ideas or Ideal Numbers to be
derivatives.

Eukleides is said to have composed six dialogues, the titles of

which alone remain. The scanty information which Megaricsuc-
Wwe possess respecting him relates altogether to his ono.
negative logical procedure. Whether he deduced phers.
any consequences from his positive doctrine of the pean,"
succession.

Transcendental Ens, Unum, Bonum, we do not
know: but he, as Zeno had been before him,! was acute in
exposing contradictions and difficulties in the positive doctrines
of opponents. He was a citizen of Megara, where he is said to
-have harboured Plato and the other companions of Sokrates,
when they retired for a time from Athens after the death of
Sokrates. Living there as a teacher or debater on philosophy, he
founded a school or succession of philosophers who were denomi-
nated Megarict. The title is as old as Aristotle, who both names
them and criticises their doctrines. None of their compositions
are preserved. The earliest who becomes known to us is Eubu-
lides, the contemporary and opponent of Aristotle; next
Ichthyas, Apollonius, Diodérus Kronus, Stilpon, Alexinus,
between 340-260 B.c.

With the Megaric philosophers there soon become confounded
another succession, called Eleian or Eretrian, who trace their
-origin to another Sokratic man—Phedon. The chief Eretrians

steht die Unklarheit, dass weder der
ethische noch der metaphysische Be-
griff des Guten rein gefasst wird.”
This remark is not less applicable
to Eukleides than to Plato, both of
them eeing in the doctrine here
criticised. Zeller says truly, that the
attempt to identify Unum and Bonum
roduces perpetual confusion. The
wo notions are thoroughly distinct
and independent. It ought not to be
called (as he phrases it) “ἃ generaliza-
tion of Bonum”. There is no common
property on_ which to found a gene-
ralization. It is a forced conjunction
‘between two disparates.
1 Plato, Parmenides, p. 128 C, where

Zeno represents himself as taking for
his premisses the conclusions of oppo-
nents, to show that they led to absurd
consequences. This seems what is
meant, when Diogenes says about
Eukleides—rais ἀποδείξεσιν ἐνίστατο
οὐ κατὰ λήμματα, ἀλλὰ κατ᾽ ἐπιφοράν
Ci. 107); Deycks, De Megaricorum

octrina, p. 34.

2 Aristot. Metaph. iv. p. 1046, Ὁ, 29.

The sarcasm ascribed to Diogenes
the Cynic implies that Eukleides was
really known as the founder of a school
—kai τὴν μὲν Ἑὐκλείδον σχολὴν ἔλεγε
χολήν (Diog. L. vi. 24)—the earliest
mention (I apprehend) of the word
σχολὴ in that sense.

122 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. CuaP. IIT.

made known to us are Pleistanus, Menedémus, Asklepiades.
The second of the three acquired some reputation.

The Megarics and Eretrians, as far as we know them, turned
Doctrines of their speculative activity altogether in the logical or
an ΟΝ intellectual direction, paying little attention to the
pus—Ethi- ethical and emotional field. Both Antisthenes and
transcan. Aristippus, on the contrary, pursued the ethical path.
dental. To the Sokratic question, What is the Bonum?
Eukleides had answered by a transcendental definition: Antis-
thenes and Aristippus each gave to it an ethical answer, having
reference to human wants and emotions, and to the different
views which they respectively took thereof. Antisthenes de-
clared it to consist in virtue, by which he meant an independent
and self-sufficing character, confining all wants within the
narrowest limits : Aristippus placed it in the moderate and easy
pleasures, in avoiding ambitious struggles, and in making the
best of every different situation, yet always under the guidance
of a wise calculation and self-command. Both of them kept clear
of the transcendental: they neither accepted it as Unum et
Omne (the view of Eukleides), nor as Plura (the Eternal Ideas
or Forms, the Platonic view). Their speculations had reference
altogether to human life and feelings, though the one took a
measure of this wide subject very different from the other: and
in thus confining the range of their speculations, they followed
Sokrates more closely than either Eukleides or Plato followed
him. They not only abstained from transcendental speculation,
but put themselves in declared opposition to it. And since the
intellectual or logical philosophy, as treated by Plato, became
intimately blended with transcendental hypothesis—Antisthenes
and Aristippus are both found on the negative side against its
pretensions. Aristippus declared the mathematical sciences to
be useless, as conducing in no way to happiness, and taking no
account of what was better or what was worse.! He declared

1 Aristotel. Metaph. B. 906, a. 32. Aristotle here ranks Aristippu
ὥστε διὰ ταῦτα τῶν σοφιστῶν τινες Among the σοφισταί.

οἷον ᾿Αρίστιππος προεπηλάκιζον αὐτὰς Aristippus, in discountenancing San
(rds μαθηματικὰς réxvas)'—ev μὲν γὰρ σιολογίαν, cited the favourite sa ng
ταῖς ἄλλαις τέχναις, καὶ ταῖς Bavav- of Sokrates that the proper study ὁ
wots, οἷον ἐν τεκτονικῇ καὶ σκντικῇ, mankind was ὅττι τοι ἐν μεγάροισι κακόν
διότι βέλτιον ἣ χεῖρον λέγεσθαι πάντα, τ᾽ ἀγαθόν τε τέτυκται.

τὰς δὲ μαθηματικὰς οὐθένα ποιεῖσθαι Plutarch, ap. Euseb. Prep. Evang.
λόγον περὶ ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν. i. 8.

CuapP. ITI. MEGARIO SPECULATION. 123

that we could know nothing except in so far as we were affected
by it, and as it was or might be in correlation with ourselves :
that as to causes not relative to ourselves, or to our own capaci-
ties and affections, we could know nothing about them.}

Such were the leading writers and talkers contemporary with
Plato, in the dialectical age immediately follow- Preponder-
ing on the death of Sokrates. The negative vein ance of the
greatly preponderates in them, as it does on the Tegative κσ
whole even in Plato—and as it was pretty sure to do, Platonic
so long as the form of dialogue was employed. Affir- δ
mative exposition and proof is indeed found in some of the later
Platonic works, carried on by colloquy between two speakers.
But the colloquial form manifests itself evidently as unsuitable
for the purpose: and we must remember that Plato was a
lecturer as well as a writer, so that his doctrines made their way,
at least in part, through continuous exposition. But it is
Aristotle with whom the form of affirmative continuous exposi-
tion first becomes predominant, in matters of philosophy.
Though he composed dialogues (which are now lost), and though
he appreciates dialectic as a valuable exercise, yet he considers
it only as a discursive preparation; antecedent, though essen-
tial, to the more close and concentrated demonstrations of
philosophy. |

Most historians deal hardly with this negative vein. They
depreciate the Sophists, the Megarics and Eretrians, Harsh man-
the Academics and Sceptics of the subsequent ages nerin which

. . ae historians of
—under the title of Eristics, or lovers of conten- philosophy
tion for itself—as captious and perverse enemies of fevative
truth. vein.

I have already said that my view of the importance and value
of the negative vein of philosophy is altogether wegative
different. It appears to me quite as essential as the pilose ph
affirmative. It is required as an antecedent, a test, essential
and a corrective. Aristotle deserves all honour for *Becontroul
his attempts to construct and defend various affirma- ®“irmative.
tive theories: but the value of these theories depends upon their

being defensible against all objectors. Affirmative philosophy,

1 Sext. Emp. adv. Math. vii. 191; Diog. L. ii. 92.

124 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. CuapP. ITI.

as a body not only of truth but of reasoned truth, holds the cham-
pion’s belt, subject to the challenge not only of competing
affirmants, but of all deniers and doubters. And this is the more
indispensable, because of the vast problems which these affirma-
tive philosophers undertake to solve: problems especially vast
during the age of Plato and Aristotle. The question has to be
determined, not only which of two proposed solutions is the
best, but whether either of them is tenable, and even whether
any solution at all is attainable by the human faculties: whether
there exist positive evidence adequate to sustain any conclusion,
accompanied with adequate replies to the objections against it.
The burthen of proof lies upon the affirmant: and the proof
produced must be open to the scrutiny of every dissentient.
Among these dissentients or negative dialecticians, Sokrates
Sokrates. Limself, during his life, stood prominent. In his
the most footsteps followed Eukleides and the Megarics: who,
prdacutee though they acquired the unenviable surname of
Mews of —_ Eristics or Controversialists, cannot possibly have sur-
passed Sokrates, and probably did not equal him, in
the refutative Elenchus. Of no one among the Megarics, pro-
bably, did critics ever affirm, what the admiring Xenophon says
about Sokrates—“that he dealt with every one in colloquial
debate just as he chose,”—+t.e., that he baffled and puzzled his
opponents whenever he chose. No one of these Megarics pro-
bably ever enunciated so sweeping a negative programme, or
declared so emphatically his own inability to communicate posi-
tive instruction, as Sokrates in the Platonic Apology. A person
more thoroughly Eristic than Sokrates never lived. And we
see perfectly, from the Memorabilia of Xenophon (who neverthe-
less strives to bring out the opposite side of his character), that
he was so esteemed among his contemporaries. Plato, as well as
Eukleides, took up this vein in the Sokratic character, and
worked it with unrivalled power in many of his dialogues.
The Platonic Sokrates is compared, and compares himself, to
Antzus, who compelled every new-comer, willing or unwilling,
to wrestle with him.!

1 Plato, Thesetet. p. 169 A. ἀλλ᾽ ἐγὼ ἄρτι παρελήρησα φάσκων σε
Theodorus. Ov pqdiov, ὦ Σώκρατες, ἐπιτρέψειν μοι μὴ ἀποδύεσθαι, καὶ οὐχὶ
σοὶ παρακαθήμενον μὴ διδόναι λόγον. ἀναγκάσειν καθάπερ Λακεδαιμόνιοι"

CuapP. IIT. SOKRATES THOROUGHLY ERISTIC.

125

Of the six dialogues composed by Eukleides, we cannot speak
positively, because they are not preserved. But they
cannot have been more refutative, and less affirmative,
than most of the Platonic dialogues; and we can june nega-
hardly be wrong in asserting that they were very tive charac-
inferior both in energy and attraction. The Thex- ~
tétus and the Parmenides, two of the most negative among the
Platonic dialogues, seem to connect themselves, by the personnel
of the drama, with the Megaric philosophers: the former dialogue
is ushered in by Eukleides, and is, as it were, dedicated to him:
the latter dialogue exhibits, as its protagonzstes, the veteran Par-
menides himself, who forms the one factor of the Megaric philo-
sophy, while Sokrates forms the other. Parmenides (in the
Platonic dialogue so called) is made to enforce the negative
method in general terms, as a philosophical duty co-ordinate with
the affirmative ; and to illustrate it by a most elaborate argu-
mentation, directed partly against the Platonic Ideas (here
advocated by the youthful Sokrates), partly against his own (the
Parmenidean) dogma of Ens Unum. Parmenides adduces
unanswerable objections against the dogma of Transcen-
dental Forms or Ideas ; yet says at the same time that there can
be no philosophy unless you admit it. He reproves the youthful
Sokrates for precipitancy in affirming the dogma, and contends
that you are not justified in affirming any dogma until you have
gone through a bilateral scrutiny of it—that is, first assuming the
doctrine to be true, next assuming it to be false, and following
out the deductions arising from the one assumption as well as
from the other.1 Parmenides then xives a string of successive

Platonic
Parmenides
—its ex-

δέ μοι δοκεῖς πρὸς τὸν Ξκίῤῥωνα μᾶλλον
τείνειν. Λακεδαιμόνιοι μὲν γὰρ ἀπιέναι
ἢ ἀποδύεσθαι κελεύουσι, σὺ δὰ Kar’
᾿Ανταῖόν τί μοι μᾶλλον δοκεῖς τὸ δρᾶμα
δρᾷν" τὸν γὰρ προσελθόντα οὐκ ανίης
πρὶν ἀναγκάσῃς ἀποδύσας ἐν τοῖς λόγοις
προσπαλαῖισαι.

Sokrates. "Aprora γε, ὦ Θεόδωρε, τὴν
νόσον μον ἀπείκασας" ἰσχυρικώ-
τερος μέντοι ἐγὼ ἐκείνων’ μυρίοι γὰρ
ἤδη μοι Ἣρακλέες τε καὶ Θησέες ἐντυ-
χόντες καρτεροὶ πρὸς τὸ λέγειν μάλ εὖ
ξυγκεκόφασιν, ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ οὐδέν τι μᾶλλον
ἀφίσταμαι. οὕτω τις ἐρὼς δεινὸς
ἐνδέδυκε τῆς περὶ ταῦύταγνμνα-
σίας" μὴ οὖν μηδὲ ov φθονήσῃς προσανα-
τριψάμενος σαυτόν τε ἅμα καὶ ἐμὲ ὀνῆσαι.

How could the eristic appetite be
manifested in stronger language either
by Eukleides, or Eubulides, or Dio-
dérus Kronus, or any of those So-
phists upon whom the Platonic com-
mentators heap so many harsh epi-
thets ? .

Among the compositions ascribed to
Protagoras by Diogenes Laertius (ix.
55), one is entitled Τέχνη ᾿Εριστικῶν,
But if we look at the last chapter of
the Treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis,
we shall Aristotle asserting ex-

licitly that there existed no Τέχνη
Ἐριστικῶν anterior to his own work
the Topica.

1 Plato, Parmen. p. 136.

126 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Crap. ΤΠ.

deductions (at great length, occupying the last half of the
dialogue)—four pairs of counter-demonstrations or Antinomies
—in which contradictory conclusions appear each to be alike
proved. He enunciates the final result as follows :—‘ Whether
Unum exists, or does not exist, Unum itself and Czetera, both
exist and do not exist, both appear and do not appear, all things
and in all ways—both in relation to themselves and in relation
to each other ”.?

If this memorable dialogue, with its concluding string of
elaborate antinomies, had come down to us under the name of
Eukleides, historians would probably have denounced it as a
perverse exhibition of ingenuity, worthy of “that litigious person,
who first infused into the Megarians the fury of disputation ”.?
But since it is of Platonic origin, we must recognise Plato not
only as having divided with the Megaric philosophers the
impulse of negative speculation which they had inherited from
Sokrates, but as having carried that impulse to an extreme point.
of invention, combination, and dramatic handling, much beyond
their powers. Undoubtedly, if we pass from the Parmenidés to
other dialogues, we find Plato very different. He has various
other intellectual impulses, an abundant flow of ideality and of
constructive fancy, in many distinct channels. But negative
philosophy is at least one of the indisputable and prominent
items of the Platonic aggregate.

While then we admit that the Megaric succession of philoso-

phers exhibited negative subtlety and vehement love
The Mega. of contentious debate, we must recollect that these
thenogative qualities were inherited from Sokrates and shared
with So- with Plato. The philosophy of Sokrates, who taught
nothing and cross-examined every one, was essentially
more negative and controversial, both in him and his
successors, than any which had preceded it. In an age when

1 Plato, Parmen. p. 166. ν εἴτ᾽ scorn of all the philosophers except
ἔστιν, etre μὴ ἔστιν, αὑτό re καὶ τἄλλα Pyrrhon :—
καὶ πρὸς αὐτὰ καὶ πρὸς ἄλληλα πάντα
πάντως ἐστί τε καὶ οὐκ ἔστι, καὶ φαίνε: AAA’ οὔ μοι τούτων φλεδόνων μέλει,
ταί τε καὶ ov φαίνεται.--- ᾿Αληθέστατα. οὐδὲ μὲν ἄλλον

See below, vol. ili. chap. xxvii. Par- Οὐδενός, οὐ Φαίδωνος, ὅτις γε μὲν---
menides. οὔδ᾽ ἐριδάντεω

ἃ ΤῊΪΒ isthe phrase of the satirical ἘΕὐκλείδον, Μεγαρεῦσιν ὃς ἔμβαλε
sillographer Timon, who spoke with λύσσαν ἐρισμοῦ.

Cap. III. THE NEGATIVE IMPULSE. 127

dialectic colloquy was considered. as appropriate for philosophical
subjects, and when long continuous exposition was left to the
rhetor—Eukleides established a succession or school! which was
more distinguished for impugning dogmas of others than for
defending dogmas of its own. Schleiermacher and others
suppose that Plato in his dialogue Euthydémts intends to expose
the sophistical fallacies of the Megaric school :? and that in the
dialogue Sophistés, he refutes the same philosophers (under the
vague designation of “the friends of Forms”) in their specula-
tions about Ens and Non-Ens. The first of these two opinions is
probably true to some extent, though we cannot tell how far:
the second of the two is supported by some able critics—yet it
appears to me untenable.’

Of Eukleides himself, though he is characterised as strongly
controversial, no distinct points of controversy have been pre-
served: but his successor Eubulides is celebrated for various
sophisms. He was the contemporary and rival of Aristotle:
who, without however expressly naming him, probably intends
to speak of him when alluding to the Megaric philosophers
generally.4 Another of the same school, Alexinus (rather
later than Eubulides) is also said to have written against
Aristotle.

11 we may trust a sarcastic bon-
mot ascribed to Diogenes the Cynic,
the contemporary of the viri Sokratici
and the follower of Antisthenes, the
term σχολὴ was applied to the visitors
of Eukleides rather than to those of
Plato—xai τὴν μὲν EvxdeiSou σχολὴν
ἔλεγε χολήν, τὴν δὲ Πλάτωνος δια-
τριβήν, κατατριβήν. Diog. L. vi.

2Schleierm. Einleitung to Plat.
Euthyd. p. 408 seq.
3 Schleierm. troduction to the
Sophistés, pp. 184-135.
ee Deycks, Megaricorum Doctrina,
Ῥ. 41 seq. Zeller, der Griech.
vol. ti. p. 180 . with his instruc-
tive note. Prantl, Gesch. der Logik,
vol, i. Ὁ. 87, and others cited by Zel-
ler.—Ritter dissents from this view,
and I concur in his dissent. To
affirm that Eukleides admitted a plu-
rality of Ideas or Forms, is to contra-
dict the only one deposition, certain
and unequivocal, which we have about
his philosophy. His doctrine is that

of the Transcendental Unum, Ens,
Bonum; while the doctrine of the
Transcendental Plura (Ideas or Forms)
belongs to Plato and others.
Deycks and Zeller (p. 185) recognise
this as a difficulty. But to me it seems
fatal to their hypothesis; which, after
all, is only an hypothesis—first origi-
nated by Schleiermacher. If it be true
that the Megarici are intended by Plato
under the appellation οἱ τῶν εἰδῶν φίλοι
we must suppose that the school had
been completely transformed before
the time of Stilpon, who is presented
as the great opponent of τὰ εἰδη.

4 Aristokles, ap. Euseb. Prep. Ev.
xv. 2. Eubulides is said not merely
to have controverted the philosophical
theories of Aristotle, but also to have
attacked his personal character with
bitterness and slander: a practice not
less common in ancient controversy
than in modern. About Alexinus,
Diog, L. ii. 109.

Among those who took lessons in
rhetoric and pronuneiation from Eubu-

128 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES, CuaP. ITI.

Eubulides—- Six sophisms are ascribed to Eubulides. 1. Ὁ

his logical ΣΙΝ ᾿ .
problems or ψευδόμενος --- Mentiens. 2. ‘O διαλανθάνων, or

buzzles-— ἐγκεκαλυμμένος---- 8. person hidden under a veil.
of solving 3. Ἠλέκτρα. 4. Swpeirns — Sorites. 5. Keparivns
ae lu. —Cornutus. 6. dddaxpos—Calvus. Of these the
tions at second is substantially the same with the third ; and

the fourth the same with the sixth, only inverted.

These sophisms are ascribed to Eubulides, and belonged
probably to the Megaric school both before and after him. But
it is plain both from the Euthydémus of Plato, and from the
Topica of Aristotle, that there were many others of similar
character ; frequently employed in the abundant dialectic col-
loquies which prevailed at Athens during the fourth and third
centuries B.C. Plato and Aristotle handle such questions and
their authors contemptuously, under the name of Eristic : but it
was more easy to put a bad name upon them, as well as upon the
Eleate Zeno, than to elucidate the logical difficulties which they
brought to view. Neither Aristotle nor Plato provided a suffi-
cient answer to them: as is proved by the fact, that several
subsequent philosophers wrote treatises expressly in reference to
them—even philosophers of reputation, like Theophrastus and
Chrysippus.? How these two latter philosophers performed their
task, we cannot say. But the fact that they attempted the task,
exhibits ἃ commendable anxiety to make their logical theory
complete, and to fortify it against objections.

lides, we read the name of the orator Φάλακρος. What number of ins
Demosthenes, who is said to have make a heap—or are many? hat
improved his pronunciation thereby. number are few? Are three grains
Diog. Laert. il. p. 108. Plutarch, x. few, and four many ?—or, where will

Orat. 21, p. 845 C. ; you draw the line between Few and
1Diog. L. ii. pp. 108-109; vii. 82. Many? The like question about the
Lucian Vit. Auct. 22. hairs on a man’s head—How many

1. Cicero, Academ. ii. pp. 30-96. must he lose before he can be said to
“Si dicis te mentiri verumque dicis, have only a few, or to be bald?
mentiris. Dicis autem te mentiri, 2 Diog. L. v. Ὁ. 49; vii. pe. 192-198.
verumque dicis: mentiris igitur.” Seneca, Epistol. p. 45. Plutarch (De
2, 3. Ὁ ἐγκεκαλυμμένος. You know Stoicor. pugnantiis, p. 1087)
your father: you are placed before some curious extracts and remarks
& person covered and concealed by a from Chrysippus; who (he Baye) spoke
thick veil: you do not know him. in the harshest terms against the Me-
But this person is your father. There- yapixa ἐρωτήματα, 83 having puzzled
fore you both know your father and and unsettled men’s convictions with-
do not know him. 5. Keparivys. That out ground—while he (Chrysippus)
which you have not lost, you have: had himself proposed puzzles and dif-
but you have not lost horns; there- ficulties still more formidable, in his
fore you have horns. 4, 6. Swpeirns— treatise κατὰ Συνηθείας,

CuapP. 111. MEGARIC SOPHISMS.

129

It is in this point of view—in reference to logical theory—that
the Megaric philosophers have not been fairly appre-

ciated. They, or persons reasoning in their manner, Realcharac-
formed one essential encouragement and condition Megaric
to the formation of any tolerable logical theory. Sct cslow
They administered, to minds capable and construc- lated to de-
tive, that painful sense of contradiction, and shock of to guard
perplexity, which Sokrates relied upon as the stimu- deception.

lus to mental parturition—and which Plato extols as
alever for raising the student to general conceptions.1 Their
sophisms were not intended to impose upon any one, but on the
contrary, to guard against imposition.? Whoever states a fallacy
clearly and nakedly, applying it to a particular case in which it
conducts toa conclusion known upon other evidence not to be
true—contributes to divest it of its misleading effect. The
persons most liable to be deceived by the fallacy are those
who are not forewarned :—in cases where the premisses are
stated not nakedly, but in an artful form of words—and where
the conclusion, though false, is not known beforehand to be false
by the hearer. To use Mr. John Stuart Mill’s phrase,’ the
fallacy is a case of apparent evidence mistaken for real evidence :
you expose it to be evidence only apparent and not real, by
giving a type of the fallacy, in which the conclusion obtained is

1 Plato, Republic, vii. pp. 523 A,
524. τὰ μὲν ἐν rats αἰσθήσεσιν ov
παρακαλοῦντα τὴν νόησιν εἰς ἐπίσκεψιν,
ὡς ἱκανῶς ὑπὸ τῆς αἰσθήσεως κρινόμενα
—ra δὲ παντάπασι διακελενόμενα ἐκεί-

ν ἐπισκέψασθαι, ὡς τῆς αἰσθήσεως
οὐδὲν ὑγιὲς ποιούσης... .. Τὰ μὲν οὐ παρα-
καλοῦντα, ὅσα μὴ ἐκβαίνει εἰς ἐναντίαν
αἴσθησιν ἅμα" τὰ δ᾽ ἐκβαίνοντα, ὡς πα-
ρακαλοῦντα τίθημι, ἐπειδὰν ἡ αἴσθησις
μηδὲν μᾶλλον τοῦτο ἢ τὸ ἐναντίον δηλοῖ.
Compare p. 524 E: the whole passage
is ory interesting.

2The remarks of Ritter (Gesch. der
Philos. ii. p. 189, 2nd ed.) upon these
Megaric philosophers are more just and
discerning than those made by most of
the historians of philosophy—‘‘ Doch
darf man wohl annehmen, dass sie
solche Trugschliisse nicht zur Taiisch-
ung, sondern zur Belehrung ftir un-
vorsichtige, oder zur Warnung vor der
Seichtigkeit gewodhnlicher Vorstel-

lungsweisen, gebrauchen wollten. So ii

viel ist gewiss, dass die Megariker
sich viel mit den Formen des Denken
beschaftigten, vielleicht mehr zu
Aufsuchung einzelner Regeln, als zur
Begrindung eines wissenschaftlichen
Zusammenhangs unter ihnen; obwohl
auch besondere Theile der Logik unter
ihren Schriften erwihnt werden.” ὶ

This is much more reasonable than
the language of Prantl, who denounces
‘“‘the shamelessness of doctrinarism”
(die Unverschamtheit des Doctrina-
rismus) belonging to these Megarici—
“the petulance and vanity which
prom ted them to seek celebrity by

tentional offences against sound com-
mon sense,” &c. (Gesch. der Logik,
pp. 39-40.—Sir Wm. Hamilton
some good remarks on these sophiems,
in his Lectures on Logic, Lect. xxili.
p. 452 seq)

3 See the first chapter of his book
v. on Fallacies, System of Logic, vol,

1—9

130 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. III.

obviously false: and the more obviously false it is, the better
suited for its tutelary purpose. Aristotle recognises, as indis-
pensable in philosophical enquiry, the preliminary wrestling
into which he conducts his reader, by means of a long string of
unsolved difficulties or puzzles—(dmdpia). He declares dis-
tinctly and forcibly, that whoever attempts to lay out a positive
theory, without having before his mind a full list of the difficul-
ties with which he is to grapple, is like one who searches without
knowing what he is looking for; without being competent to
decide whether what he hits upon as a solution be really a
solution or ποῖ Now that enumeration of puzzles which Ani-
stotle here postulates (and in part undertakes, in reference to
Philosophia Prima) is exactly what the Megarics, and various
other dialecticians (called by Plato and Aristotle Sophists)
contributed to furnish for the use of those who theorised on
Logic.

You may dislike philosophy : you may undervalue, or alto-
Ifthe pro. gether proscribe, the process of theorising. This is
cons of theo- the standing-point usual with the bulk of mankind,
missible, it ancient as well as modern: who generally dislike all
must include accurate reasoning, or analysis and discrimination of
well as ive familiar abstract words, as mean and tiresome hair-

’ splitting.? But if you admit the business of theorising
to be legitimate, useful, and even honourable, you must reckon
on free working of independent, individual, minds as the opera-
tive force—and on the necessity of dissentient, conflicting, mani-
festations of this common force, as essential conditions to any
successful result. Upon no other conditions can you obtain
any tolerable body of reasoned truth—or even reasoned quast-
truth.

1 Aristotel. Metaphys. B. 1, p. 995, 2 See my account of the Platonic
a. 33, dialogue Hippias Major, vol. ii. chap.
διὸ δεῖ τὰς δυσχερείας τεθεωρηκέναι xiii. Aristot. Metaphys. A. minor,
πάσας πρότερον, τούτων δὲ χάριν καὶ Ὁ. 996, ἃ. 9. τοὺς δὲ λυπεῖ τὸ axpe-
διὰ τὸ τοὺς Cyrovvras ἄνεν τοῦ δια- βὲς, ἢ διὰ τὸ μὴ δύνασθαι συνείρειν,
πορῆσαι πρῶτον ὁμοίους εἶναι τοῖς ποῖ ἣ διὰ τὴν μικρολογίαν" ἔχει γάρ τι τὸ
δεῖ βαδίζειν ἀγνοοῦσι, καὶ πρὸς τούτοις ἀκριβὲς τοιοῦτον, ὥστε καθάπερ ἐπὶ
οὐδ᾽ εἴ wore τὸ ζητούμενον εὕρηκεν ἣ τῶν συμβολαίων, καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν λόγων
μὴ γιγνώσκειν: τὸ γὰρ τέλος τούτῳ μὲν ἀνελεύθερον εἶναί τισι δοκεῖ. Cicero
οὐ δῆλον, τῷ δὲ προηπορηκότι δῆλον. Paradoxa, c. 2) talks of the “minutes
Aristotle devotes the whole of this terrogatiunculss " of the Stoics as
k to an enumeration of ἀπόριαε, tedious and tiresome.

Crap. ΤΙΤ. MEGARIC POSITION MISREPRESENTED. 131

Now the historians of philosophy seldom take this view of
philosophy as a whole—as a field to which the free

Logical po-

. . . . +, sys . sition of the

antithesis of affirmative and negative is indispen- fy, gariephi.
sable. They consider true philosophy as represented losophers

erroneously

by Sokrates, Plato, and Aristotle, one or other of describedby

them: while the contemporaries of these eminent philonoty
men are discredited under the name of Sophists, Necessity of
Eristics, or sham-philosophers, sowing tares among ® complete |

difficulties.

the legitimate crop of wheat—or as devils whom the
miraculous virtue of Sokrates and Plato is employed in expelling
from the Athenian mind. Even the companions of Sokrates, and
the Megarics among them, whom we know only upon the im-
perfect testimony of opponents, have fallen under this unmerited
sentence :! as if they were destructive agents breaking down an
edifice of well-constituted philosophy—no such edifice in fact
having ever existed in Greece, though there were several dissent-
ing lecture rooms and conflicting veins of speculation promoted
by eminent individuals,

Whoever undertakes, bond fide, to frame a complete and
defensible logical theory, will desire to have before him a copious
collection of such difficulties, and will consider those who pro-

1 The same charge is put by Cicero
into the mouth of Lucullus against the
Academics :— “ Similiter vos (Aca-
demici) quum perturbare, ut illi” (the
Gracchi and others) ‘‘rempublicam, sic
vos philosophiam, bené jam consti-
tutam velitis.... Tum exortus est, ut
in optima republica Tib. Gracchus, qui
otium perturbaret, sic Arcesilas, qui
constitutam philosophiam everteret”
(Acad. Prior. 1]. δ 14-16).

Even in the libe and compre-
hensive history of the Greek philo-
sophy by Zeller (vol. ii. p. 187, ed.
2nd), respectin ukleides' and the
Megarians ;—‘‘ Dagegen bot der Streit
gegen die geltenden Meinungen dem
Scharfsinn, der Rechthaberei, und dem
wissenschaftlichen Ehrgeiz, ein uner-
schépfliches Feld dar, welches denn
auch die Megarischen Philosophen
riistig ausbeuteten.”

If by ‘‘die geltenden Meinungen”
Zeller means the common sense of the
day—-that is, the opinions and beliefs
current among the ἰδιῶται, the work-
ng enjoying, non-theorising public—
it is very true that the Megaric philo-

sophers contended against them: but
Sokrates and Plato contended inst
them quite as much i we ace this the

atonic Apology, Gorgias, ublic,
Timeus, Parmentdés, &e. P

If, on the other hand, by “ die
geltenden Meinungen” Zeller means
any philosophical or logical theories
generally or universally admitted by
thinking men as valid, the answer is
that there were none such in the
fourth and third centuries B.c. Various
eminent speculative individuals were
labouring to construct such theories,
each in his own way, and each with a
certain congregation of partisans; but
established theory there wasnone. Nor
can any theory (whether accepted or
not) be firm or trustworthy, unless it
be exposed to the continued thrusta of
the negative weapon, searching out ite
vulnerable points. We know of the
Megarics only what they furnished
towards that negative testing; with-
out which, however,—as we may
learn from Plato and Aristotle them-
selves,—the true value of the affirma-
tive defences can never be measured.

132 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. ITI.

pound them as useful auxiliaries! If he finds no one to pro-
pound them, he will have to imagine them for himself. “The
philosophy of reasoning” (observes Mr. John Stuart Mill) “ must
comprise the philosophy of bad as well as of good reasoning.” 3
The one cannot be complete without the other. To enumerate
the different varieties of apparent evidence which is not real
evidence (called Fallacies), and of apparent contradictions which
are not real contradictions—referred as far as may be to classes,
each illustrated by a suitable type—is among the duties of a
logician. He will find this duty much facilitated, if there happen
to exist around him an active habit of dialectic debate: ingenious
men who really study the modes of puzzling and confuting a
well-armed adversary, as well as of defending themselves against
the like. Such a habit did exist at Athens: and unless it had
existed, the Aristotelian theories on logic would probably never
have been framed. Contemporary and antecedent dialecticians,
the Megarici among them, supplied the stock of particular
examples enumerated and criticised by Aristotle in the Topica : 8
which treatise (especially the last book, De Sophisticis Elenchis)
is intended both to explain the theory, and to give suggestions on
the practice, of logical controversy. A man who takes lessons in
fencing must learn not only how to thrust and parry, but also
how to impose on his opponent by feints, and to meet the feints
employed against himself: a general who learns the art of war
must know how to take advantage of the enemy by effective
cheating and treachery (to use the language of Xenophon), and
how to avoid being cheated himself. The Aristotelian Topica, in

1 Marbach (Gesch. der Philos. s. 91),
though he treats the Megarics as jesters
(which I do not think they were) yet
adds very justly: ‘‘ Nevertheless hese

urzles (propounded by the Megarics)

Euthydem. pp. xxiv.-xxxi. Even
Stallbaum, though full of harshness.
towards those Sophists whom he de-
scribes as belonging to the school of
Protagoras, treats the Megaric philo-

ave their serious and scientific side.
We are forced to inquire, how it hap-
ens that the contradictions shown up
them are not merely possible but
even nece ν
Both Tiedemann and Winckelmann
also remark that the debaters called
Kristics contributed greatly to the for-
mation of the theo
τρεῖς afterwards laid out by Aristotle,
WwW ckelmann, Prolegg. ad Platon.

and precepts of than

sophers with much greater respect.
Prolegom. ad Platon. Euthydem. p. 9.
2 System of Logic, Book v. 1, 1.
8 Prantl (Gesch. der Logik, vol. i
PP 48-60) ascribes to the Megarics
or nearly all the sophisms which
Aristotle notices in the Treatise De
Sophisticis Elenchis. This is more
can be proved, and more than
I think probable. Several of them are
taken from the Platonic Euthydémus.

CuapP. ITI.

SOPHISMS OF EUBULIDES.

133

like manner, teach the arts both of dialectic attack and of dia-

lectic defence.

The Sophisms ascribed to Eubulidés, looked at
point of view of logical theory, deserve that attention
which they seem to have received. The logician lays
down as arule that no affirmative proposition can
be at the same time true and false.
sophism (called Mentiens) exhibits the case of a pro-
position which is, or appears to be, at the same time

- 1 See the remarkable passages in
the discourses of Sokrates (Memorab.
fii, 1, 6; iv. 2, 15), and in that of
Kambyses to Cyrus, which repeats
the same opinion—Cyroped. i. 6, 27
—res ecting the amount of deceit,
treachery, the thievish and rapacious
qualities required for conducting war
against an enemy—({ra πρὸς τοὺς πο-
λεμίους νόμιμα, i. 6, 84).

Aristotle treats of Dialectic, as he
does of Rhetoric, as an art having its
theory, and precepts founded upon
that theory. I shall have occasion
to observe in a future chapter (xxi.),
that logical Fallacies are not gene-
rated or invented by persons called
Sophists, but are inherent liabili-
ties to error in the human intellect ;
and that the habit of debate affords
the only means of bringing them into
clear daylight, and guarding against
being deceived by them. Aristotle

ives precepts both how to thrust, and
ow to parr with the best effect: if
he had taught only how to parry, he
would have left out one-half of the art.

One of the most learned and candid
of the Aristotelian commentators—M.
Barthélemy St. Hilaire—observes as
follows (Logique d’Aristote, p. 435,
Paris, 1838) respecting De Sophist,
Elenchis :—

“* Aristote va donc s’occuper de la
marche qu'il faut donner aux discus-
sions sophistiques: et ici il serait diffi-
cile quelquefois de décider, & la ma-
niére dont les choses sont présentées
par lui, si ce sont des conseils αὐ}

onne aux Sophistes, ou & ceux qui
veulent éviter leurs ruses. Tout ce
ui précéde, prouve, au reste, que
cest en ce dernier sens qu'il faut en-
tendre la pensée du philosophe. Ceci
est. d’ailleurs la seconde portion du
traité.”

It appears to me that Aristotle in.

from the

Sophisms
pro unded
y Kubu-

Hides. ι

1. jens.
Now the first Σ᾽ The
Veiled Man.
8. Sorites.
4. Cornutus.

tended to teach or to suggest both the
two things which are here placed in
Antithesis—though I do not agree
with M. St. Hilaire’s way of putting
the alternative—as if there were one
class of persons, professional Sophists,
who fenced with poisoned weapons
while every one except them refrainé

from such weapons. Aristotle intends
to teach the art of Dialectic as a
whole; he neither intends nor wishes
that any learners shall make a bad use
of his teaching; but if they do use it
badly, the fault does not lie with him.
See the observations in the beginning
of the Rhetorica, i. p. 1855, a. 26, an

the observations put by Plato into
the mouth of Gorgias (Gorg. p. 456

Even in the Analytica Priora (ii. 19
a. 34) (independent of the Topica)
Aristotle says:—xpy δ᾽ ὅπερ φυλάτ-
τεσθαι παραγγέλλομεν ἀποκρινομένους,
αὐτοὺς ἐπιχειροῦντας πειρᾶσθαι λαν-
θάνειν. Investigations of the double
or triple senses of words (he says) are
useful—xai πρὸς τὸ μὴ παραλογισθῆναι,
καὶ πρὸς τὸ παραλογίσασθαι, opica, i.
18, p. 108, a. 26. See also other pas-
sages of the Topica where artifices are
indicated for the purpose of concealing
your own plan of proceeding and in-
ducing your opponent to make answer
in the sense which you wish, Topica,
i. 2, Ὁ. 101, a. 25; vi. 10, p. 148, ἃ. 87;
viii. 1, p. 151, Ὁ. 23; viii. 1, p. 158,
a. 6; vill. 2, p. 164, a. δ; vill. 11, p.
161, a. 24seq. You must be provided
with the means of meeting every sort
and variety of objection—rpbs γὰρ τὸν
πάντως ἐνιστάμενον πάντως ἀντιτακτέον
ἐστίν. Topic. v. 4, p. 184, a. 4.

I shall again have to touch on the
Topica, in this point of view, as
founded upon and illustrating the
Megaric logical puzzles (ch. . of
the present volume).

134 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. Itt.

true and false It is for the logician to explain how this
proposition can be brought under his rule—or else to admit
it as an exception. Again, the second sophism in the list (the
Veiled or Hidden Man) is so contrived as to involve the
respondent in a contradiction: he is made to say both that he
knows his father, and that he does not know his father. Both
the one answer and the other follow naturally from the questions
and circumstances supposed. The contradiction points to the
loose and equivocal way in which the word to know is used in
common speech. Such equivocal meaning of words is not only
one of the frequent sources of error and fallacy in reasoning, but
also one of the least heeded by persons untrained in dialectics ;
who are apt to presume that the same word bears always the
same meaning. To guard against this cause of error, and to de-
termine (or impel others to determine) the accurate meaning or
various distinct meanings of each word, is among the duties of
the logician: and I will add that the verb to know stands high
in the list of words requiring such determination—as the Platonic
Thesotétus? alone would be sufficient to teach us. Farthermore,
when we examine what is called the Sorités of Eubulidés, we
perceive that it brings to view an inherent indeterminateness of
various terms: indeterminateness which cannot be avoided, but
which must be pointed out in order that it may not mislead.
You cannot say how many grains are much—or how many grains

1 Theophrastus wrote a treatise in
three books on the solution of the
uzzle called Ὁ ψευδόμενος (see the
ist of his lost works in Diogenes L.
v. 49). We find also other treatises
entitled Meyapixds ά (which Diogenes
cites, vi. 22), —"Ayavrrucdy τῆς περὶ
τοὺς ἐριστικοὺς λόγονς θεωρίας---Σοφισ-
μάτων d, B—besides several more titles

of philosophers at Athens, on or about.
100 B. Αντέπατρος δ᾽ ὁ φιλόσοφος,
συμπόσιόν ποτε συνάγων, συνέταξε τοῖς
ἐρχομένοις ὡς περὶ σοφισμάτων ἐροῦσιν
(Atheneus, v. 186 C). Plutarch, Non
posse suaviter vivi secundum Epi-
curum, Ὁ. 1096 C; De Sanitate Pre-
cepta, c. 20, p. 188 B.

2 Various portions of the Theetétus

relating to dialectics, and bearing upon
the solution of sy ogistic problems.
Chrysippus also, in the ensuing cen-
tury, wrote a treatise in three books,
Mepi τῆς τοῦ ψενδομένον λύσεως (Diog.
vii. 107. Such facts show the im-

rtance of these problems in their
earin upon logical theory, as con-
ceived yi e ancient world. Epikurus
also wrote against the Μεγαρικοί (Diog.

x, 27).

The discussion of sophisms, or logical
difficulties (λύσεις dwopiwy), Was a
favourite occupation at the banquets

illustrate this Megaric sophism (pp.
165-188). The situation assumed in
the question of Eubulidés—having
before your eyes a person veiled—
might form a suitable addition to
the various contingencies specified in
Thesetét. pp. 192-193.

The manner in which the Platonic
Sokrates proves (Thezt. 165) that you
at the same time see, and do not see,
an object before you, is quite as sophis-
tical as the way in which Eubulidés
proves that you both know, and do
not know, your father.

Cuap. III. BENTINELS AGAINST DECEIT,

135

make a heap. When this want of precision, pervading many
words in the language, was first brought to notice in a suitable
special case, it would naturally appear a striking novelty.
Lastly, the sophism called Keparivys or Cornutus, is one of great
plausibility, which would probably impose upon most persons, if
the question were asked for the first time without any forewarn-
ing. It serves to administer a lesson, nowise unprofitable or
superfluous, that before you answer a question, you should fully
weigh its import and its collateral bearings.

The causes of error and fallacy are inherent in the compli-
cation of nature, the imperfection of language, the

᾿ Causes οὗ
small range of facts which we know, the indefinite stant the
varieties of comparison possible among those facts, Megarics
and the diverse or opposite predispositions, intellec- nele against
tual as well as emotional, of individual minds. They them.

are not fabricated by those who first draw attention tothem.1 The
Megarics, far from being themselves deceivers, served as sentinels
against deceit. They planted conspicuous beacons upon some of
the sunken rocks whereon unwary reasoners were likely to be
wrecked. When the general type of a fallacy is illustrated by a
particular case in which the conclusion is manifestly untrue, the
like fallacy is rendered less operative for the future.

Of the positive doctrines of the Megarics we know little: but
there is one upon which Aristotle enters into contro-
versy with them, and upon which (as far as can be
made out) I think they were in the right. In the
question about Power, they held that the power to
do athing did not exist, except when the thing was

Controversy
of the Me-
garics with
Aristotle
aboutPower.
Arguments
of Aristotle.

1 Cicero, in his Academ. Prior. ii.
92-94, has very just remarks on the
obscurities and difficulties in the rea-
soning process, which the Megarics
and others brought to view—and were

for so doing, as unfair and
captious reasoners—as if they had
themselves created the ditticulties—
(Dialectica) primo progressu festivé
tradit elementa loquendi et ambi-
guorum intelligentiam concludendi-
que rationem; tum paucis additis
venit ad soritas, lubricum sané et
periculosum locum, quod tu modo di-
cebas esse vitiosum interrogandi genus.
Quid ergo? istius vitii num nostra
culpa est? Rerum natura nullam

nobis dedit cognitionem finium, ut
ull& in re statuere possimus quatenus.
Nec hoc in acervo tritici solum, unde
nomen est, sed null& omnino in re
minutatim interroganti—dives, pauper
—clarus, obscurus, sit—multa, pauca,
magna, parva, longa, brevia, lata,
angusta, quanto aut addito aut dempto
certum respondeamus, non habemus.
At vitiosi sunt sorite. Frangite igitur
eos, si potestis, ne molesti sint. . . .
Sic me (inquit) sustineo, neque diutius
captiosé interroganti respondes. Si
habes quod liqueat neque respondes,
superbis: si non habes, ne tu quidem
percipis.”

The principle of the Sorites (ἡ σωρι-

136 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. III.

actually done: that an architect, for example, had no power to
build a house, except when he actually did build one. Aristotle
controverts this opinion at some length : contending that there
exists a sort of power or cause which isin itself irregular and
indeterminate, sometimes turning to the affirmative, sometimes
to the negative, to do or not to do; that the architect has the
power to build constantly, though he exerts it only on occasions:
and that many absurdities would follow if we did not admit,
That a given power or energy—and the exercise of that power—
are things distinct and separable.?

Now these arguments of Aristotle are by no means valid

These arru. #8ainst the Megarics, whose doctrine, though appa-
ments not rently paradoxical, will appear when explained to be
valid ,
ainst the no paradox at all, but perfectly true. When we say
egarici.

that the architect has power to build, we do not mean
that he has power to do so under all supposable circumstances,
but only under certain conditions: we wish to distinguish him
from non-professional men, who under those same conditions
have no power to build. The architect must be awake and
sober : he must have the will or disposition to build:® he must
be provided with tools and materials, and be secure against
destroying enemies, These and other conditions being generally
understood, it is unnecessary to enunciate them in common
speech. But when we engage in dialectic analysis, the accurate
discussion (dxpiBoAoyia) indispensable to philosophy requires us
to bring under distinct notice, that which the elliptical character
of common speech implies without enunciating. Unless these
favourable conditions be supposed, the architect is no more able
to build than an ordinary non-professional man. Now the

τικὴ aropta—Sextus adv. Gramm. 8. 68)
though differently applied, is involved
in the argument of Zeno the Eleate,
addressed to Protagoras—see Sim-
likius ad Aristot. Physic. 250, p. 423,
. 42, Sch. Brand. Compare chap. ii.
of this volume.
1 Aristot. De Interpret. p. 19, a.
6-20. ὅλως ἔστιν ἐν τοῖς μὴ ἀεὶ ἐνερ-
γοῦσι τὸ δυνατὸν εἶναι καὶ μὴ ὁμοίως"
ν οἷς ἄμφω ἐνδέχεται, καὶ τὸ εἶναι καὶ
τὸ μὴ εἶναι, ὥστε καὶ τὸ γενέσθαι καὶ τὸ
μὴ γενέσθαι.
Aristot. Metaph. Θ, 8, Ρ. 1046,
b. 29. Εἰσὶ δέ τινες, οἵ φασιν, οἷον οἱ

Μεγαρικοί, ὅταν ἐνεργῇ, μόνον δύνασθαι,
ὅταν δὲ μὴ ἐνεργῇ, μὴ δύνασθαι---οἷον
τὸν μὴ οἰκοδομοῦντα οὐ δύνασθαι οἰκοδο-
μεῖν, ἀλλὰ τὸν οἰκοδομοῦντα ὅταν οἶκο-
Sony: ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἄλλων.
Deycks (De Megaricorum Doctrinaé
pp. 70-71) considers this opinion of
θ

Megarics to be derived from
their general Eleatic theory of the
Ens Unum et Immotum. But I see

no logical connection between the

two.

3 About this condition implied in
the predicate δυνατός, see Plato, Hip-
pias Minor, p. 366 D

Cuap. III. CONTROVERSY ABOUT POWER. 137

Megarics did not deny the distinctive character of the architect,
as compared with the non-architect: but they defined more
accurately in what it consisted, by restoring the omitted condi-
tions. They went a step farther: they pointed out that
whenever the architect finds himself in concert with these
accompanying conditions (his own volition being one of the
conditions) he goes to work—and the building is produced. As
the house is not built, unless he wills to build, and has tools and
materials, &c.—so conversely, whenever he has the will to build
and has tools «nl materials, &c., the house is actually built.
The effect is not produced, except when the full assemblage of
antecedent conditions come together: but as soon as they do
come together, the effect is assuredly produced. The accomplish-
ments of the architect, though an essential item, are yet only one
item among several, of the conditions necessary to building the
house. He has no power to build, except when those other
conditions are assumed along with him: in other words, he has
no such power except when he actually does build.

Aristotle urges against the Megarics various arguments, as
follows:—1. Their doctrine implies that the architect His argu-
is not an architect, and does not possess his profes- ments cited
sional skill,! except at the moment when he is ac- cised.
tually building.—But the Megarics would have denied that their
doctrine did imply this. The architect possesses his art at all
times: but his art does not constitute a power of building except
under certain accompanying conditions.

2. The Megaric doctrine is the same as that of Protagoras,
implying that there exists no perceivable Object, and no Subject
capable of perceiving, except at the moment when perception
actually takes place.2—-On this we may observe, that the
Megarics coincide with Protagoras thus far, that they bring into
open daylight the relative and conditional, which the received
phraseology tends to hide. But neither they nor he affirm what
is here put upon them. When we speak of a perceivable Object,
we mean that which may and will be perceived, if there be a
proper Subject to perceive it: when we affirm a Subject capable
of perception, we mean, one which will perceive, under those

1 Aristot. Metaph. e. 8, 1047, 8. 8. ὅταν παύσηται (οἰκοδομῶν) οὐχ ἕξει τὴν τέχνην,
Aristot. Metaph. Θ. 8, 1047, a. 8-18 x ἔξει τὴν τέχνη

138 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. CuapP. III.

circumstances which we call the presence of an Object suitably
placed. The Subject and Object are correlates: but it is con-
venient to have a language in which one of them alone is intro-
duced unconditionally, while the conditional sign is applied to
the correlate: though the matter affirmed involves a condition
common to both.

3. According to the Megaric doctrine (Aristotle argues) every
man when not actually seeing, is blind; every man when not
actually speaking, is dumb.—Here the Megarics would have said
that this is a misinterpretation of the terms dumb and blind;
which denote a person who cannot speak or see, even though he
wishes it. One who is now silent, though not dumb, may
speak if he wills it: but his own volition is an essential condi-
tion.}

4, According to the Megaric doctrine (says Aristotle) when
you are now lying down, you have no power to rise: when you
are standing up, you have no power to lie down: so that the
present condition of affairs must continue for ever unchanged :
nothing can come into existence which is not now in being.—
Here again, the Megarics would have denied his inference. The
man who is now standing up, has power to lie down, tf he wills
to do so—or he may be thrown down by a superior force: that
is, he will lie down, ἡ some new fact of a certain character shall
supervene. The Megarics do not deny that he has power, 4f—so
and so: they deny that he has power, without the +f—that is,
without the farther accompaniments essential to energy.

1 The

uestion between Aristotle prior, is essential to speech. But since
and the

egarics has not passed out he has that power, as soon as the new

of debate with modern philosophers.
Dr. Thomas Brown observes, in his
inquiry into Cause and Effect—‘‘ From
the mere silence of any one, we cannot
infer that he is dumb in consequence
of organic imperfection. He may be
silent only because he has no desire of
speaking, not because speech would
not have followed his desire: and it is
not with the mere existence of any one,
but with his desire of speaking, that we
suppose utterance to be connected.
man who has no destre of speaking, has
in truth, and in strictness of language,
mo power of speaking, when in that
state of mind: since he not a
circumstance which, as immediately

circumstance of desire arises—-and as
the presence or absence of the desire
cannot be perceived but in its effects—
there is no inconventence in the com
language, which ascribes the power, as
tf it were possessed at all times, and in
all circumstances of mind, though un-
uestionably, nothing more is meant
than that the desire existing will be
followed by utterance.” (Brown, Essay
on the Relation of Cause and Effect,

. 200.
P This is the real sense of what Ari-
stotle calls τὸ δὰ (λέγεται) δυνατόν,
t

οἷον δυνατὸν εἶναι εἰν ὅτι βαδισειεν
ἄν, te. he will "oak are desires to do
80 (De Interpret. p. 23, a. 9-15).

Cuap. IIL POTENTIAL AND ACTUAL. 139

On the whole, it seems to me that Aristotle’s refutation of the
Megarics is unsuccessful. A given assemblage of con-

ey: . . . Potential as
ditions is requisite for the production of any act :— distin-

while there are other circumstances, which, if present guished |
at the same time, would defeat its production. We Actual —

often find it convenient to describe a state of things
in which some of the antecedent conditions are present without
the rest: in which therefore the act is not produced, yet would
be produced, if the remaining circumstances were present, and if
the opposing circumstances were absent.1 The state of things
thus described is the potential as distinguished from the actual:
power, distinguished from act or energy: it represents an
incomplete assemblage of the antecedent positive conditions—or
perhaps a complete assemblage, but counteracted by some oppos-
ing circumstances. As soon as the assemblage becomes complete,
and the opposing circumstances removed, the potential passes
into the actual. The architect, when he is not building, pos-
sesses, not indeed the full or plenary power to build, but an
important fraction of that power, which will become plenary
when the other fractions supervene, but will then at the same
time become operative, so as to produce the actual building.®

1 Hobbes, in his Computation or
Logic (chaps. ix. and x. Of Cause and
Effect. Of Power and Act) expounds
this subject with his usual perspicuity.

“Α Cause simply, or an Entire
Cause, is the aggregate of all the ac-
cidents, both of the agents, how many
soever they be, and of the patient, put
together; which, when they are all
supposed to be present, it cannot be
understood but that the effect is pro-
duced at the same instant: and if any
one of them be wanting, it cannot be
understood but that the effect is not
produced” (ix. 3).

‘Correspondent to Cause and Effect
are Power and Act: nay, those and
these are the same things, though for
divers considerations they have divers
names. For whensoever any agent
has all those accidents which are neces-
sarily requisite for the production of
some effect in the patient, then we say
that agent has power to produce that
effect if it be applied toa patient. In
like manner, whensoever any patient
has all those accidents which it is
requisite it should have for the produc-

tion of some effect in it, we say it is in
the power of that patient to produce
that effect if it be applied to a fitting
agent. Power, active and passive, are
parts only of plenary and entire power:
nor, except they be joined, can any
effect proceed from them. And there-
fore these powers are but conditional:
namely, the agent has power if it be
applied to a patient, and the patient
has power if it be applied to an agent.
Otherwise neither of them have power,
nor can the accidents which are in them
severally be properly called powers: nor
any action be said to be possible for
the power of the agent alone or the
patient alone.”

2 Aristotle does in fact t all
that is here said, in the same book and
in the page next subsequent to that
which contains his arguments against
the Megaric doctrine, Metaphys. @. 5,
1048, a. 1-24.

In this chapter Aristotle distin-
nishes powers belonging to things,
rom powers belonging to persons—

powers irrational from powers rational
—powers in which the agent acts with-

140 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. IIL.

The doctrine which I have just been canvassing is expressly
cited by Aristotle as a Megaric doctrine, and was

Dioddrus
Kronug— therefore probably held by his contemporary Eubu-
about 7) lidés. From the pains which Aristotle takes (in the
δυνατόν.

treatise ‘De Interpretatione’ and elsewhere) to explain
and vindicate his own doctrine about the Potential and the
Actual, we may see that it was a theme much debated among the
dialecticians of the day. And we read of another Megaric,
Diodorus! Kronus, perhaps contemporary (yet probably a little
later than Aristotle), as advancing a position substantially the
same as that of Eubulidés. That alone is possible (Diodorus
affirmed) which either is happening now, or will happen at some
future time. As in speaking about facts of an unrecorded past,
we know well that a given fact either occurred or did not occur,
yet without knowing which of the two is true—and therefore we
affirm only that the fact may have occurred: so also about the
future, either the assertion that a given fact will at some time

out any will or choice, from those in
which the will or choice of the agent
is one item of the aggregate of condi-
tions. He here expressly recognises
that the power of the agent, separately
considered, is only conditional ; that is,
conditional on the presence and suit-
able state of the patient, as well as
upon the absence of counteracting cir-

cumstances. But hecontends that such h

absence of counteracting circumstances
is plainly implied, and need not be
expressly mentioned in the definition.
ἐπεὶ δὲ τὸ δυνατὸν τὶ δυνατὸν καὶ
ποτὰ καὶ πῶς καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα ἀνάγκη
προσεῖναι ἐν τῷ διορισμῷ---
δυνατὸν κατὰ λόγον ἅπαν ἀνάγκη,
ὅταν ὀρέγηται, οὗ τ' ἔχει τὴν δύναμιν
καὶ ὡς ἔχει, τοῦτο ποιεῖν" ἔχει δὲ πα-
ρόντος τοῦ παθητικοῦ καὶ ὠδὶ ἔχοντος
ποιεῖν" εἰ δὲ μή, ποιεῖν οὐ ὃννή:
σεται. τὸ γὰρ μηθενὸς τῶν ἔξω κωλύ-
οντος προσδιορίζεσθαι, οὐθὲν ἔτι δεῖ"
τὴν γὰρ δύναμιν χει ὥς ἔστι δύναμις
τοῦ ποιεῖν, ἔστι δ᾽ οὐ πάντως, ἀλλ’
ἐχόντων πῶς, ἐν οἷς ἀφορισθήσεται καὶ
τὰ ἔξω κωλύοντα" ἀφαιρεῖται γὰρ ταῦτα
τῶν ἐν τῷ διορισμῷ προσόντων ἔνια.
The commentary of Alexander Aphr.
upon this chapter is well worth con-
sulting (pp. 548 of the edition of
his commentary by Bonitz, 1847).
Moreover Aristotle affirms in this
chapter, that when τὸ ποιητικὸν and

τὸ παθητικὸν come together under
suitable circumstances, the power will
certainly pass into act.
Here then, it seems to me, Aristotle
concedes the doctrine which the Me-
arics affirmed; or, if there be any
ifference between them, it is rather
verbal than real. In fact, Aristotle’s
reasoning in the third chapter (wherein
e impugns the doctrine of the Me-
garics), and the definition of δυνατὸν
which he gives in that chapter (1047,
a. 25), are hardly to be reconciled with
his reasoning in the fifth chapter.
Bonitz (Notes on the Metaphys. pp.
393-395) complains of the mira levitas
of Aristotle in his reasoning against
the Megarics, and of his omitting to
distinguish between Vermogen and
Moglichkeit. I will not use so un-
courteous a phrase; but I think his
refutation of the Megarics is both un-
satisfactory and contradicted by him-
self. I agree with the following remark
of Bonitz :—‘‘ Nec mirum, quod Mega-
rici, aliis illi quidem in rebus arguti, in
hac autem satis acuti, existentiam τῷ
δυνάμει ὄντι tribuere recusarint,” &c.
_ 1The dialectic ingenuity of Diodorus
is powerfully attested by the verse of
Ariston, applied to describe Arkesilaus
(Sextus Emp. Pyrrh. Hyp. i. p. 234):
Ἡρόσθε ΤΙλάτων, ὄπιθεν Πύῤῥων, μέσσος
Διόδωρος.

Cuap. ITI. SOPHISM OF DIODORUS KRONOS. 141

occur, is positively true, or the assertion that it will never
occur, is positively true: the assertion that it may or may
not occur some time or other, represents only our ignorance,
which of the two is true. That which will never at any time
occur, is impossible.

The argument here recited must have been older than, Dio-
dorus, since Aristotle states and controverts it: butit . ΤῊ

. . . ophism of
seems to have been handled by him in a peculiar Diodorus—
dialectic arrangement, which obtained the title of 9. Kveevv
‘O Kuptetvwr.! The Stoics (especially Chrysippus), in times some-
what later, impugned the opinion of Diodorus, though seemingly
upon grounds not quite the same as Aristotle. This probiem
was one upon which speculative minds occupied themselves for
several centuries. Aristotle and Chrysippus maintained that
affirmations respecting the past were necessary (one necessarily
true and the other necessarily false)—affirmations respecting the
future, contingent (one must be true and the other false, but
either might be true). Diodorus held that both varieties of
affirmations were equally necessary—Kleanthes the Stoic thought.
that both were equally contingent.?

It was thus that the Megaric dialecticians, with that fertility
of mind which belonged to the Platonic and Aristotelian century,
stirred up many real problems and difficulties connected with
logical evidence, and supplied matters for discussion which not
only occupied the speculative minds of the next four or five
centuries, but have continued in debate down to the present
day.

The question about the Possible and Impossible, raised be-
tween Aristotle and Diodorus, depends upon the :

. - . Question be-
larger question, Whether there are universal laws of tween Ari-
Nature or not? whether the sequences are, universally $totle and

Dioddérus,

and throughout, composed of assemblages of condi- depends
tions regularly antecedent, and assemblages of events whether

1 Aristot. De Interpret. p. 18, &. PP. and elaborate commentary b Mr. James
27-88, Alexander ad Aristot. yt. Harris (the great English Aristotelian
Prior. 34, p. 163, b. 34, Schol. Brandis. scholar of the 18th century), explaining
See also Sir William Hamilton’s Lec- the nature of this controversy, and the
tures on Logic, Lect. xxiii. p. 464. argument called ὁ Κυριεύων.

2 Arrian ad Epiktet. ii. p. 19. Upton, Compare Cicero, De Fato, c. 7-9.
in his notes on this passage of Arrian Epistol. Fam. ix. 4.

(p. 151) has embodied a very valuable

142 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. ΠῚ.

walter of regularly consequent ; though from the number and
sequence be complication of causes, partly co-operating and partly
emitted °F conflicting with each other, we with our limited

intelligence are often unable to predict the course of
events in each particular situation. Sokrates, Plato, and Ari-
stotle, all maintained that regular sequence of antecedent and
consequent was not universal, but partial only :! that there were
some agencies essentially regular, in which observation of the
past afforded ground for predicting the future—other agencies
(or the same agencies on different occasions) essentially irregular,
in which the observation of the past afforded no such ground.
Aristotle admitted a graduation of causes from perfect regularity
to perfect irregularity :—l. The Celestial Spheres, with their
included bodies or divine persons, which revolved and exercised
@ great and preponderant influence throughout the Kosmos, with
perfect uniformity ; having no power of contraries, ὦ.6.,) having
no power of doing anything else but what they actually did
(having évepyeia without δύναμις). 2 The four Elements, in
which the natural agencies were to a great degree necessary and
uniform, but also in a certain degree otherwise—either always or
for the most part uniform (rd ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ mwodd)—tending by in-
herent appetency towards uniformity, but not always attaining
it. 3. Besides these there were two other varieties of Causes
accidental, or perfectly irregular—Chance and Spontaneity :
powers of contraries, or with equal chance of contrary manifesta-
tions — essentially capricious, undeterminable, unpredictable.?
This Chance of Aristotle—with one of two contraries sure to turn
up, though you could never tell beforehand which of the two—
was a conception analogous to what logicians sometimes call an
Indefinite Proposition, or to what some grammarians have
reckoned as a special variety of genders called the doubtful gen-
der, There were thus positive causes of regularity, and positive

1Xenophon, Memor. £ 1; Plato, of asan ᾿Αρχή, but not as an αἴτιον, or
Timsous, p. 48 A. ἡ πλανωμένη αἰτία, belonging to ὕλη as the ᾿Αρχή. 1027,
Ὁ. 11. δῆλον ἄρα ὅτι μέχρι τινὸς Badi-

9 Ἢ τύχη---τὸ ὁπότερ' ἔτυχε.---τὸ ζει ἀρχῆς, αὕτη δ᾽ οὕκετι εἰς ἄλλο ἔσται

αὐτόματον are in the conception of οὖν ἡ τοῦ ὁπότερ᾽ ἔτυχεν αὕτη, καὶ αἴτιοι

Aristotle independent ᾿Αρχαί, attached τῆς γενέσεως αὐτῆς οὐθέν.

to and blending with ἀνάγκη and τὸ See, respecting the different notions

ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ. See Physic. ii. 196, of Cause held by ancient philosophers,

Ὁ. 11; Metaphys. E. 1026-1027. my remarks on the Platonic Phedon
Sometimes τὸ ὁπότερ᾽ éruxe is spoken ra, vol. iii. ch. xxv.

CuaP. IIT.

REGULARITY OF SEQUENCE.

143

causes of irregularity, the co-operation or conflict of which gave
the total manifestations of the actual universe. The principle of
irregularity, or the Indeterminate, is sometimes described under
the name of Matter, as distinguishable from, yet co-operating
with, the three determinate Causes—Formal, Efficient, Final.
The Potential—ihe Indeterminate—the May or May not be—is
characterised by Aristotle as one of the inherent principles

operative in the Kosmos.

In what manner Diodorus stated and defended his opinion

upon this point, we have no information. We know
only that he placed affirmations respecting the future
on the same footing as affirmations respecting the
past: maintaining that our potential affirmation—
May or May not be—respecting some future event,

Conclusion
of Diodérus
—defended
by Hobbes—-
Explana-

tion given

by Hobbes.

meant no more than it means respecting some past event, viz. :
no inherent indeterminateness in the future sequence, but our

1 Aristot. Metaph. E. 1027, a. 13;
A. 1071, a. 10.

ὥστε ἡ ὕλη ἔσται αἰτία, ἡ evdexo-
μένη παρὰ τὸ ὡς ἐπὶ το πολὺ ἄλλως
τοῦ συμβεβηκότος. ;

Matter is represented as the principle
of irregularity, of τὸ ὁπότερ᾽ ervxe—as
the δύναμις τῶν ἐναντίων.

In the explanation given by Alex-
ander of Aphrodisias of the Peripatetic
doctrine respecting chanve—free-will,
the principle of irregularity— τύ is
no longer assigned the material
cause, but is treated as an αἰτία xara
συμβεβηκός, distinguished from αἰτία
προηγούμενα or καθ᾽ αὑτά. The exposi-

on given of the doctrine by Alexander
is valuable and interesting. See his
treatise De Fato, addressed to the
Emperor Severus, in the edition of
Orelli, Zurich, 1824 (a very useful
volume, containin treatises of Am-
monius, Plotinus, Bardesanes, &c., on
the same subject); also several sections
of his Questiones Naturales et Morales,
ed. Spenge!, Munich, 1842, pp. 22-61-
65-123, &c. He gives, however, a dif-
ferent explanation of τὸ δυνατὸν and
τὸ ἀδύνατον in pp. 62-63, which would
not be at variance with the doctrine of
Diodorus. We may remark that Alex-
ander puts the antithesis of the two
doctrines differently from Aristotle,—
in this way. 1. Either all events hap-
pen xa’ εἱμαρμένην. 2. Or all even
o not happen καθ᾽ εἱμαρμένην, but

some events are ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν. See De
Fato, p. 14seq. This way of puttin

the question is directed more agains

the toies, who were the great adko-
Cates OF ειμαρμένη, nh agains Θ
Megaric Diodorus, The treatises of
phrysippus and the other Stoics alter
both the wording and the putting of
the thesis. We know that Chrysippus
impugned the doctrine of Diodorus,
but I do not see how.

The Stoic antithesis of τα καθ᾽ εἷμαρ-
μένην--τὰ ed’ ἡμῖν is different from
the antithesis conceived by Aristotle
and does not touch the question about
the universality of regular sequence.
Ta ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν describes those sequences
in which human volition forms one
among the appreciable conditions de-
termining or modifying the result; ra
καθ᾽ εἱμαρμένην includes all the other
sequences wherein human volition has
no appreciable influence. But the
sequence τῶν ἐφ᾽ ἡμῖν is just as regular
as the sequence τῶν καθ᾽ εἱμαρμένην :
both the one and the other are often
imperfectly predictable, because our
knowledge of facts and power of com-
parison is so imperfect.

Theophrastus discussed τὸ καθ᾽ ai-
μαρμένην, and explained it to mean
the same as τὸ κατὰ φύσιν. φανερώ-
tara δὲ Θεόφραστος δείκνυσι ταὐτὸν

ὃν τὸ καθ᾽ ε ν τῷ κατὰ φύσ
(Alexander Kobhoateias® ad stot
e Anima, ii).

144

OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.

CuapP. IIT

ignorance of the determining conditions, and our inability to

calculate their combined working.!

In regard to scientific

method generally, this problem is of the highest importance :
for it is only so far as uniformity of sequence prevails, that facts
become fit matter for scientific study.? Consistently with the
doctrine of all-pervading uniformity of sequence, the definition of
Hobbes gives the only complete account of the Impossible and
Possible : t.e. an account such as would appear to an omniscient
calculator, where May or May not merge in Will or Will not.
According as each person falls short of or approaches this ideal

2 The same doctrine as that of the
Megaric Diodorus is declared by
Hobbes in clear and explicit language
oe Grounds of Philosophy, ii. 10,
‘‘That is an impossible act, for
the production of which there is no
power plenary. For seeing plenary
power that in which all things
concur which are requisite for the
production of an art, if the power

never be plenary, there will
always be wanting some of those
things, without which the act cannot
be produced. Wherefore that act shall
never be produced: that is, that act
is impossible. And every act, which
is not impossible, is possible. Every
act therefore which is possible, shall at
some time or other be produced. For
if it shall never be produced, then
those things shall never concur which
are requisite for the production of it;
wherefore the act is impossible, by the
definition; which is contrary to what
was supposed.

** A necessary act is that, the produc-
tion of which it is impossible to hinder:
and therefore every act that shall be

roduced, shall necessarily be pro-

uced; for that it shall not be pro-
duced is impossible, because, as has
already been demonstrated, every pos-
sible act shall at some time be pro-
duced. Nay, this proposition— What
shall be shall be—is as necessary & pro-
position as this—4 man ἐδ a man,

** But here perhaps, some man will
ask whether those future things which
are commonly called contingents, are
necessary. I say, then, that generally

contingents have their necessary
causes, but are called contingents, in
respect of other events on which the
do not depend—as the which 8
be to-morrow shall be necessary, that is,

from necessary causes; but we think
and say, it happens by chance, be-
cause we do not yet perceive the causes
thereof, though they exist now. For
men commonly call that caswal or con-
tingent, whereof they do not perceive
the necessary cause: and in the same
manner they use to speak of things past,
when not knowing whether a thing be
done or not, they say, It is possible it
never was done.

‘* Wherefore all propositions concern-
ing future things, contingent or not
contingent, as this—It will rain to-
morrow, or To-morrow the sun will
rise—are either necessarily true or ne-
cessarily false: but we call them con-
tingent, because we do not yet know
whether they be true or false; whereas
their verity depends not upon our know-
ledge, but upon the foregoing of their
causes. But there are some, who,
though they will confess this whole
proposition—7Zo-morrow it will either
rain or not rain—to be true, yet they
will not acknowledge the parts of it,
as, To-morrow it will rain, or To-
morrow it will not rain, to be either
of them true by itself; because (they
say) neither this nor that is true deter-
minately. But what is this true deter-
minately, but true upon our knowledge
or evidently true? And therefore they
say no more but that it is not yet
known whether it be true or not; but
they say it more obscurely, and darken
the evidence of the truth with the same
words by which they endeavour to hide
their own ignorance.”

2 The reader will find this problem
admirably handled in Mr. John Stuart
Mill’s System of Logic, Book iii. ch.
21, and Book vi. chs. 2 and 8; also in
the volume of Professor Bain on the
Emotions and the Will, Chapter on

elief,

Cuap. LIL MAY OR MAY NOT—HOBBES. 145

standard — according to his knowledge and mental resource,
inductive and deductive—will be his appreciation of what may
be or may not be—as of what may have been or may not have
been during the past. But such appreciation, being relative to
each individual mind, is liable to vary indefinitely, and does not
admit of being embodied in one general definition.

Besides the above doctrine respecting Possible and Impossible,
there is also ascribed to Diodorus a doctrine respecting Hypo-
thetical Propositions, which, as far as I comprehend it, appears to
have been a correct οὔθ He is also said to have reasoned
against the reality of motion, renewing the arguments of Zeno
the Eleate. |

But if he reproduced the arguments of Zeno, he also em-
ployed another, peculiar to himself. He admitted

Reasonings
the reality of past motion : but he denied the reality of Diodorus
of present motion. You may affirm truly (he said) ing Hypo-
that a thing has been moved: but you cannot truly Proposi-
affirm that any thing is being moved. Since it was tions— —

ἶ respectin
here before, and is there now, you may be sure that Motion. His
it has been moved: but actual present motion you about the
cannot perceive or prove. Affirmation in the perfect Nowoftime.

tense may be true, when affirmation in the present tense neither
is nor ever was true: thus it is true to say—Helen had three
husbands (Menelaus, Paris, Deiphobus) : but it was never true to
say—Helen has three husbands, since they became her husbands
in succession.2 Diodorus supported this paradox by some
ingenious arguments, and the opinion which he denied seems
to have presented itself to him as involving the position of
indivisible minima—atoms of body, points of space, instants
of time. He admitted such minima of atoms, but not of space
or time: and without such admission he could not make in-
telligible to himself the fact of present or actual motion. He
could find no present Now or Minimum of Time ; without which

tical proposition, was true; since the
consequent might be false, though the
antecedent were true. An the-

1 Sextus Emp. Pyrrhon. Hypotyp.
ii, pp. 110-115. ἀληθὲς συνημμένον.
Adv. Mathemat. viii. 112. Philo main-

tained that an hypothetical proposition
was true, if both the antecedent and
consequent were true—‘‘If it be day
I am conversing”. Diodorus denied
that this proposition, as an Hypothe-

tical proposition was true only when,
assuming the antecedent to be true,
the consequent must be true also.

2 Sextus Empir. adv. Mathemat. x.
pp. 85-101.

1-—10

146

OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.

CuaP. ΠῚ.

neither could any present motion be found. Plato in the Parme-
nidés! professes to have found this inexplicable moment of tran-
sition, but he describes it in terms not likely to satisfy a dialectical
mind; and Aristotle denying that the Now is any portion or con-
atituent part of time, considers it only as a boundary of the past

and future.?

This opinion of Aristotle is in the main consonant with that

Motion is
always pre-
sen ᾿
and ruture.

of Diodorus ; who, when he denied the reality of pre-
sent motion, meant probably only to deny the reality
of present motion apart from past and future motion.

Herein also we find him agreeing with Hobbes, who

denies the same in clearer language.?

1 Plato, Parmenidés, p. 156 D-E.
Πότ᾽ οὖν. μεταβάλλει; οὔτε γὰρ ἑστὸς
ἂν οὔτε κέίνούμενον μετάβαλλοι, οὔτε ἐν
Χρόνῳ ὄν. (Here Plato adverts to the

ifficulties attending the supposition of
actual μεταβολή, as Diodorus to those
of actual κίνησις. Next we have Plato's
hypothesis for potting over the diffi-
culties.) *Ap’ οὖν ἐστὶ τὸ ἄτοπον τοῦτο,
ἐν ᾧ τότ' ἂν εἴη ὅτε μεταβάλλει; Τὸ
ποῖον δή; Τὸ ἐξαίφνης" ἡ ἐξαίφνης
αὕτη φύσις aromds τις ἐγκάθηται
μεταξὺ τῆς κινήσεως τε καὶ στάσεως,
ἐν χρόνῳ οὐδενὶ οὖσα, καὶ εἰς ταύτην
δὴ καὶ ἐκ ταύτης τό τε κινούμενον μετα-
βάλλει ἐπὶ τὸ ἑστάναι καὶ τὸ ἑστὸς ἐπὶ τὸ
κινεῖσθαι.

Diodorus could not make out this

vous ἄτοπος which Plato calls τὸ
«ξοίφνης,

2 To illustrate this apparent paradox
of Diodorus, affirming past motion, but
denying present motion, we may com-

are what is said by Aristotle about
he Now or Point of Present Time—
that it is not a part but a boundary
between Past and Future.

Aristot. Physic. iv. p. 218, a. 4-10.
τοῦ δὲ χρόνον τὰ μὲν γέγονε, τὰ δὲ
μέλλει, ἐστι δ᾽ οὐδὲν, ὄντος μεριστοῦ"
vd δὲ νῦν οὐ μέρος--τὸ δὲ νῦν πέρας
ἔστι (a. 24)—p. 222, a. 10-20-993, a. 90.

δὰ χρόνος καὶ ἡ κίνησις Gua κατά Te
δύναμιν καὶ κατ᾽ ἐνεργείαν.

Which doctrine is thus rendered by
Harris in his Hermes, ch. vii. pp. 101-
103-105 :-—

“Both Points and Nows being taken
as Bounds, and not as Parts, it will
follow that in the same manner as the
same point may be the end of one line
and the beginning of another—so the
same Now may the End of one

Sextus Empiricus declares

time, and the beginning of another. . .
I say of these two times, that with
respect to the Now, or Instant which
they include, the first of them is neces-
sarily Past time, as being previous to
it: the other is necessarily Future, as
being subsequent. . . From the above
speculations, there follow some conclu-
sions, which may be called paradoxes,
till they have been attentively consi-
dered. In the first place, there cannot
(strictly speaking) be any such thing
as Time Present. For if all Time
be transient, as well as continuous, it
cannot like a line be present alto-
gether, but part will necessarily be
gone and part be coming. If there-
ore any portion of its continuity were
to be present at once, it would so far
quit its transient nature, and be Time
no longer. But if no portion of its
continuity can be thus present, how
can Time possibly be present, to which
such continuity is essential ?”—Com-
pare Sir William Hamilton’s Discus-
sions on Ehilosophy, P. 681.

8 Hobbes, First Grounds of Philo-
sophy, ii. 8, 11.

‘That is said to be at rest which
during any time, is in one place; and
that to be moved, orto have been moved,
which whether it be now at rest or
moved, was formerly in another place
from that which it is now in. om
which definition it may be inferred,
first, that whatsoever is moved has been
moved: for if it still be in the same
place in which it was formerly, it is at
rest: but if it be in another place, it
has been moved, by the definition of
moved. Secondly, that what is moved,
will yet be moved: for that which is
moved, leaveth the place where it is,

Cuap. III. PAST AND PRESENT MOTION. 147

Diodorus to have been inconsistent in admitting past motion
while he denied present motion.!. But this seems not more
inconsistent than the doctrine of Aristotle respecting the Now
of time. I know, when I compare a child or a young tree with
what they respectively were a year ago, that they have grown :
but whether they actually are growing, at every moment of the
intervening time, is not ascertainable by sense, and is a matter
of probable inference only.? Diodorus could not understand
present motion, except in conjunction with past and future
motion, as being the common limit of the two: but he could
understind past motion, without reference to present or future.
He could not state to himself a satisfactory theory respecting the
beginning of motion: as we may see by his reasonings distin-
guishing the motion of a body all at once in its integrity, from
the motion of a body considered as proceeding from the separate
motion of its constituent atoms—the moving atoms preponderat-
ing over the atoms at rest, and determining them to motion,
until gradually the whole body came to move. The same argu-
ment re-appears in another example, when he argues—The wall
does not fall while its component stones hold together, for then it
is still standing : nor yet when they have come apart, for then it
has fallen.*

That Diodorus was a person seriously anxious to solve logical
difficulties, as well as to propose them, would be in- stilpon of
contestably proved if we could believe the story παν
recounted of him—that he hanged himself because celebrity.
he could not solve a problem proposed by Stilpon in the pre-
sence of Ptolemy Soter.’ But this story probably grew out of
the fact, that Stilpon succeeded Diodorus at Megara, and eclipsed
him in reputation. The celebrity of Stilpon, both at Megara and

and consequently will be moved still.
Thirdly, that whatsoever is moved, is
not in one place during any time, how
little soever that may be: for by the
definition of rest, that which is in one
place during any time, is at rest. ...

m what is above demonstrated—
namely, that whatsoever is moved,
has also been moved, and will be
moved: this also may be collected,
That there can be no conception of
motion without conceiving past an
future time.”

ἃ 3846-3

1Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. x. pp.
91-97-112-116.

2 See this point touched by Plato in
Philébus, p. 43 B.

3 Sext. Emp. adv. Math. x. 113. κίνη-
σις Kar’ εἰλικρίνειαν . . . κίνησις Kar’
ἐπικράτειαν. Compare Zeller, die Philo-

sophie, der Griechen. ii. p. 191, ed.
4 Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. x. pp.
5 Diog. L, if. 112.

OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.

148 Cuap. III.

at Athens (between 320-300 B.c., but his exact date can hardly be
settled), was equal, if not superior, to that of any contemporary
philosopher. He was visited by listeners from all parts of Greece,
and he drew away pupils from the most renowned teachers of the
day ; from Theophrastus as well as the others. He was no less
remarkable for fertility of invention than for neatness of expres-
sion. Two persons, who came for the purpose of refuting him,
are said to have remained with him as admirers and scholars.
All Greece seemed as it were looking towards him, and inclining
towards the Megaric doctrines. He was much esteemed both by
Ptolemy Soter and by Demetrius Poliorkétes, though he refused
the presents and invitations of both: and there is reason to
believe that his reputation in his own day must have equalled
that of either Plato or Aristotle in theirs. He was formidable
in disputation ; but the nine dialogues which he composed and
published are characterised by Diogenes as cold.3

Contemporary with Stilpon (or perhaps somewhat later)
was Menedémus of Eretria, whose philosophic pa-
rentage is traced to Phedon. The name of Phedon
has been immortalised, not by his own works, but by
the splendid dialogue of which Plato has made him the reciter.
He is said (though I doubt the fact) to have been a native of Elis.
He was of good parentage, a youthful companion of Sokrates in
the last years of his life‘ After the death of Sokrates, Phedon
went to Elis, composed some dialogues, and established a suc-

Menedémus
‘and the
Eretriacs.

1 This is asserted by Diogenes upon
the authority of Φίλιππος ὁ Meyapixds
whom he cites κατὰ λέξιν. We do no
know anything about Philippus.

Menedémus, who spoke with con-
tempt of the other philosophers, even
of Plato and Xenokrates, admired
Stilpon (Diog. 1. ii, 184).
2The phrase of Diogenes is here

, and must probably have been
borrowed from a partisan—acre μικροῦ
δεῆσαι πᾶσαν τὴν Ἑλλάδα ἀφορῶσαν eis
αὐτὸν μεγαρίσαι. Stilpon εὑρεσιλογίᾳ
καὶ σοφιστείᾳ προῆγε τοὺς ἄλλους--
κομψότατος (Dio . L, ii. 118-116).

8 Diog. L. fi. 119-120. ψνχροί.

“The story given by Diogenes L.

81 and 105; com Aulus Gellius,

18) about Phadon’s adventures kn

an ent to his friendship with
Sokrates, is unintelligible me.

‘‘Phedon was made captive along
with his country (Elis), sold at Athens,
and employed in a degrading capacity ;
until Sokrates induced Alkibiades or
Kriton to pay his ransom.” Now, no
such event as the capture of Elis, and
the sale of its Eupatrids as slaves,
happened at that time: the war be-
tween Sparta and Elis (described by
Xenophon, Hell. iii. 2, 21 seq.) led to no
such result, and was finished, more-
over, after the death of Sokrates.
Alkibiades had been long in exile. If,
in the text of Diogenes, where we now
read Φαίδων, Ἥλειος, τῶν εὐπατριδῶν
—we were allowed to substitute Φαίδων
MyAcos, τῶν εὐπατριδῶν---([ἢθ narra-
tive would be rendered consistent with

captured

B.C, put to death the Melians of

Cuap. ΠῚ. STILPON; MENEDEMUS AND THE ERETRIACS. 149

cession or sect of philosophers—Pleistanus, Anchipylus, Moschus.
Of this sect Menedémus,' contemporary and hearer of Stilpon,
became the most eminent representative, and from him it was
denominated Eretriac instead of Eleian. The Eretriacs, as well
as the Megarics, took up the negative arm of philosophy, and
were eminent as puzzlers and controversialists.

But though this was the common character of the two,
in a logical point of view, yet in Stilpon, as well as
Menedémus, other elements became blended with
the logical. These persons combined, in part at
least, the free censorial speech of Antisthenes with
the subtlety of Eukleides. What we hear of Menedémus is
chiefly his bitter, stinging sarcasms, and clever repartees. He did
not, like the Cynic Diogenes, live in contented poverty, but
occupied a prominent place (seemingly under the patronage
of Antigonus and Demetrius) in the government of his native
city Eretria. Nevertheless he is hardly less celebrated than

Diogenes for open speaking of his mind, and carelessness Ὁ
giving offence to others.?

Open speech
and licence
of censure
assumed by
Menedémus,

ANTISTHENES.

Antisthenes, the originator of the Cynic succession of philo-
sophers, was one of those who took up principally

᾿ Antisthenes
the ethical element of the Sokratic discoursing, which took up |
the Megarics left out or passed lightly over. He did eipally, at
not indeed altogether leave out the logical element : tive Lome
all his doctrines respecting it, as far as we hear of inter.

them, appear to have been on the negative side. But

military age, and sold into slavery the
younger males as well as the females
(Thucyd. v. 116). If Phedon had

een a Melian youth of food family,
he would have been sold at Athens,
and might have undergone the adven-
tures narrated by Diogenes. We know
that Alkibiades purchased a female

Melian 85 slave (Pseudo-Andokides
cont. Alkibiad.).

1 Diog. L. if. 105, 126 seq. There was
a statue of Menedémus in the ancient
stadium of Eretria: Diogenes speaks
as if it existed in his time, and as if he
himself had seen it (ii. 182).

2 Diog. L. ii, 129-142.

150 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. ITT.

respecting ethics, he laid down affirmative propositions,' and
delivered peremptory precepts. His aversion to pleasure, by
which he chiefly meant sexual pleasure, was declared in the most
emphatic language. He had therefore, in the negative logic, a
point of community with Eukleides and the Megarics: so that the
coalescence of the two successions, in Stilpon and Menedémus, is
a fact not difficult to explain.

The life of Sokrates being passed in conversing with a great
variety of persons and characters, his discourses were of course
multifarious, and his ethical influence operated in different
ways. His mode of life, too, exercised a certain influence of its
own.

Antisthenes, and his disciple Diogenes, were in many respects
closer approximations to Sokrates than either Plato or

He copied . .

the manner any other of the Sokratic companions. The extra-
μα in Ordinary colloquial and cross-examining force was
plainness = indeed a peculiar gift, which Sokrates bequeathed to
and rigour.

none of them: but Antisthenes took up the Sokratic
purpose of inculcating practical ethics not merely by word of
mouth, but also by manner of life. He was not inferior to his
master in contentment under poverty, in strength of will and
endurance,’ in acquired insensibility both to pain and pleasure,
in disregard of opinion around him, and in fearless exercise of a
self-imposed censorial mission. He learnt from Sokrates in-
difference to conventional restraints and social superiority, to-
gether with the duty of reducing wants to a minimum, and
stifling all such as were above the lowest term of necessity. To
this last point, Sokrates gave a religious colour, proclaiming that
the Gods had no wants, and that those who had least came
nearest to the Gods. By Antisthenes, these qualities were
exhibited in eminent measure; and by his disciple Diogenes

1 Clemens Alexandr. Stromat. ii. 20,

. 485, Potter. ἐγὼ δ᾽ ἀποδέχομαι τὸν

Αφροδίτην λέγοντα κἂν κατατοξιύσαιμι,
εἰ λάβοιμι, ὥὧσ. ;

Μανείην μᾶλλον ἣ ἡσθείην, Diog. L.

* 8.

2Cicero, de Orator. iii. 17, 62;
Diog. L. vi. 2. παρ᾽ of (Sokrates) καὶ
τὸ καρτερικὸν λαβὼν καὶ τὸ ἀπαθὲς
δηλώσας κατῆρξε πρῶτος τοῦ κυνισμοῦ:

Β0 vi. 15. The appellation of Cynics
is said to have arisen from the practice

of Antisthenes to frequent the gym-
nasium called Κυνόσαργες L. vi.
13), though other causes are also as-
signed for the denomination (Winckel-
mann, Antisth. Frag. pe. 8-10).
8 Sokrates had said, τὸ μηδενὸς δέε-
σθαι, θεῖον εἶναι" δ᾽ ὡς ἐλαχίστων,
τάτω τοῦ θείου (Xenophon, Memor.
i. 6, 10. Compare Apuleius, Apol. p.
25). Plato, rgias, p. 492 E. The
same dictum is ascribed to Diogenes.
(Diog. L. vi. 105).

Cuap. III. ANTISTHENES THE CYNIC. 151

they were still farther exaggerated. Epiktetus, a warm admirer
of both, considers them as following up the mission from Zeus
which Sokrates (in the Platonic Apology) sets forth as his
authority, to make men independent of the evils of life by
purifying and disciplining the appreciation of good and evil in
the mind of each individual.

Antisthenes declared virtue to be the End for men to aim at—
and to be sufficient per se for conferring happiness ; Doctrines of
but he also declared that virtue must be manifested Antisthenes
in acts and character, not by words. Neither much ©x¢lusively

᾿ , . . ethical and
discourse nor much learning was required for virtue ; ascetic. He

nothing else need be postulated except bodily ena ra:
strength like that of Sokrates.? He undervalued phydion”
theory even in regard to Ethics: much more in

regard to Nature (Physics) and to Logic: he also despised
literary, geometrical, musical teaching, as distracting men’s
attention from the regulation of their own appreciative sentiment,
and the adaptation of their own conduct to it. He maintained
strenuously (what several Platonic dialogues call in question)
that virtue both could be taught and must be taught: when
once learnt, it was permanent, and could not be eradicated. He
prescribed the simplest mode of life, the reduction of wants to a
minimum, with perfect indifference to enjoyment, wealth, or
power. The reward was, exemption from fear, anxiety, dis-
appointments, and wants: together with the pride of approxima-
tion to the Gods. Though Antisthenes thus despised both
literature and theory, yet he had obtained a rhetorical education,
and had even heard the rhetor Gorgias. He composed a large
number of dialogues and other treatises, of which only the titles
(very multifarious) are preserved to us.4 One dialogue, entitled
Sathon, was a coarse attack on Plato: several treated of Homer
and of other poets, whose verses he seems to have allegorised.
Some of his dialogues are also declared by Athenzeus to contain
slanderous abuse of Alkibiades and other leading Athenians.

1 Epiktetus, Dissert. iii. 1, 19-22, iil. 3 Diog. L. vi. 102-104.
21-19, iii. 24-40-60-69. The whole of 4 Ὀΐορ. L. vi. 1, 15-18 The two
the twenty-second Dissertation, Περὶ remaining fragments—Atas, ΓΟδυσσεὺς
Κυνισμοῦ, is remarkable. He couples (Winckelmann, Antisth. . pp.
Sokrates with Diogenes more closely 38-42)—-cannot well be genuine, though
than with any one else. Winckelmann seems think them
2 Diog. L. vi. 11. 80.

152

OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. CuaP. 111.

On the other hand, the dialogues are much commended by com-
petent judges; and Theopompus even affirmed that much in
the Platonic dialogues had been borrowed from those of Antis-

thenes, Aristippus, and Bryson.!

Antisthenes was among the most constant friends and followers

Constant
friendship
of Antis-

of Sokrates, both in his serious and in his playful
colloquies.2, The Symposion of Xenophon describes

thenes with both of them, in their hours of joviality. The pic-

Sokrates—
Xenophon-

ture, drawn by an author, himself ἃ friend and com-

tic Sympo- panion, exhibits Antisthenes (so far as we can interpret

sion.

caricature and jocular inversion) as poor, self-denying,

austere, repulsive, and disputatious—yet bold and free-spoken,
careless of giving offence, and forcible in colloquial repartee.®
In all these qualities, however, Antisthenes was surpassed by

Diogenes,
successor of
Antisthenes
παῖς 1
nical per-
fection—
striking
effect which
he pro-
duced.

all—constituted him
sect.

1 Athenzus, v. 220, xi. 608; Diog.
L. iii. 24-35 ; Phrynichus ap. Photium,
cod. 158; Epiktétus, ii. 16-35. Antis-
thenes is placed in the same line with
Kritias and Xenophon, as a Sokratic
writer, by Dionysius of Halikarnassus,
De Thucyd. Jud. p. 941. That there
was standing reciprocal hostility be-
tween Antisthenes and Plato we can
easily believe. Plato never names
Antisthenes: and if the latter attacked
Plato, it was under the name of Sathon.
How far Plato in his dialogues intends
to attack Antisthenes without naming
him—is difficult to determine. Pro-
bably he does intend to designate
Antisthenes as γέρων ὀψιμαθής, in
Sophist. 251. Schleiermacher and
other commentators think that he
intends to attack Antisthenes in
Philébus, Theetétus, Euthydémus, &c.
But this seems to me not certain. In
Philébus, p. 44, he can hardly include
Antisthenes among the μάλα δεινοὶ
περὶ φύσιν. Antisthenes neglected the
atudy of φύσις.

3 Xenophon, Memor. iii. 11, 17.

8 Xenophon, Memorab. iii. 11, 17;
Symposion, ii. 10, iv. 23.3.44, Plutarch

his pupil and successor Diogenes of Sindpé; whose
ostentatious austerity of life, eccentric and fearless
character, indifference to what was considered as
decency, great acuteness and still greater power of
expression, freedom of speech towards all and against

the perfect type of the Cynical

Being the son of a money-agent at Sindpé,

(Quest. Symp. ii. 1, 6, p. 632) and
Liogenes Laertius (vi. 1, 15) appear to
understand the description of Xeno-
phon as ascribing to Antisthenes a
winning and conciliatory manner. To
me it conveys the opposite impression.
We must recollect that the pleasantry
of the Xenophontic Symposion (not
very successful as pleasantry) is founded
on the assumption, by each person, of
qualities and pretensions the direct re-
verse of that which he has in reality
—and on his professing to be proud
of that which is a notorious disad-
vantage. Thus Sokrates pretends to
possess great personal beauty, and
even puts himself in competition with
the handsome youth Kritobulus; he
also prides himself on the accomplish-
ments of ἃ good μαστροπός. tis-
thenes, quite indigent, boasts of his
wealth; the neglected Hermogenes
boasts of being powerfully friended.
The passage, iv. 57, 61, which talks
of the winning manners of Antis-
thenes, and his power of imparting
popular accomplishments, is to be
understood in this ironical and inverted
sense.

Cuap. 111. PECULIARITY OF DIOGENES. 153

he was banished with his father for fraudulently counterfeiting
the coin of the city. On coming to Athens as an exile, he was
captivated with the character of Antisthenes, who was at first
unwilling to admit him, and was only induced to do so by his
invincible importunity. Diogenes welcomed his banishment,
with all its poverty and destitution, as having been the means of
bringing him to Antisthenes,! and to a life of philosophy. It
was Antisthenes (he said) who emancipated him from slavery,
and made him a freeman. He was clothed in one coarse
garment with double fold: he adopted the wallet (afterwards the
symbol of cynicism) for his provisions, and is said to have been
without any roof or lodging—dwelling sometimes in a tub near
the Metroon, sometimes in one of the public porticoes or temples:
he is also said to have satisfied all his wants in the open day.
He here indulged unreservedly in that unbounded freedom of
speech, which he looked upon as the greatest blessing of life.
No man ever turned that blessing to greater account: the string
of repartees, sarcasms, and stinging reproofs, which are attributed
to him by Diogenes Laertius, is very long, but forms only a small
proportion of those which that author had found recounted.? Plato
described Diogenes as Sokrates running mad:* and when

1 Diog. L. vi. 2, 21-49; Plutarch
Quest. Sympos. ii. 1, 7; Epiktetus,
fii. 22, 67, iv. 1, 114; Dion Chryso-
stom. Orat. viii.-ix.-x.

Plutarch quotes two lines from
Diogenes respecting Antisthenes :—
"Os με ῥάκη 7 ἤμπισχε κἀξηνάγκασε
πτωχὸν γενέσθαι καὶ δόμων ἀνάστατον----

ov γὰρ ἂν ὁμοίως πιθανὸς ἦν λέγων---
Ὅς με σοφὸν καὶ αὐτάρκη καὶ μακάριον
ἐποίησε. The interpretation given of
the passage by Plutarch is curious, but
quite in the probable meaning of the
author. However, it is not easy to re-

concile with the fact of this extreme i.

overty another fact mentioned about

iogenes, that he asked fees from
Jisteners, in one case as much as a
mina (Diog. L. vi. 2, 67).

2 Diog. L. v. 18, vi. 2, 69. ἐρωτηθεὶς
τί κάλλιστον ἐν ἀνθρώποις ἔφη---παῤῥη-»
σία. Among the numerous lost works
of Theophrastus (enumerated by
Diogen. rt. v. 48) one is Τῶν Διο-
γένους Σνναγωγὴ, ά, a remarkable evi-
dence of the impression made by the
Sayings and proceedings of Diogenes
upon his contemporaries. Compare

Dion Chrysostom, Or. ix. (vol. i. 288
seq. Reiske) for the description of the
conduct of Diogenes at the Isthmian
festival, and the effect produced by it
on spectators.

These smart sayings, of which so
many are ascribed to Diogenes, and
which he is said to have practised be-
forehand, and to have made occasions
for—ort χρείαν εἴη μεμελετηκώς (Diog.
L. v. 18, vi. 91, vii. 26)—were called
by the later rhetors Xpeta. See
Hermogenes and Theon, apud Walz,
Rhetor. Gree. i. pp. 19-201; Quintilian,

9, 4.

Such collections of Ana were ascribed
to all the philosophers in greater or
less number. Photius, in giving the
list of books from which the Sophist
Sopater collected extracts, indicates one
as Ta Διογένους τοῦ Κυνικοῦ ᾿Αποφθέγ»
ματα (Codex 161).

3 Diog. L. vi. δά: Σωκράτης μαινό
μενος. vi. 26: Οἱ δέ φασι τὸν Διογένην
αἰπεῖν, Tara τὸν Πλάτωνος τῦφον " τὸν
δὲ φάναι, Ἑτέρῳ γε τύφῳ, Διόγενες, The
term τῦφος ( vanity, self-conceit, as-
sumption of knowing better than

154 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. CuapP, III.

Diogenes, meeting some Sicilian guests at his house and treading
upon his best carpet, exclaimed—“I am treading on Plato’s
empty vanity and conceit,” Plato rejoined —“Yes, with a different
vanity of yourown”. The impression produced by Diogenes in
conversation with others, was very powerfully felt both by young
and old. Phokion, as well as Stilpon, were among his hearers.’
In crossing the sea to Aigina, Diogenes was captured by pirates,
taken to Krete, and there put up to auction as a slave: the
herald asked him what sort of work he was fit for: whereupon
Diogenes replied—To command men. At his own instance, a
rich Corinthian named Xeniades bought him and transported
him to Corinth. Diogenes is said to have assumed towards
Xeniades the air of a master: Xeniades placed him at the head
of his household, and made him preceptor of his sons. In both
capacities Diogenes discharged his duty well? As a slave well
treated by his master, and allowed to enjoy great freedom of
speech, he lived in greater comfort than he had ever enjoyed as
a freeman: and we are not surprised that he declined the offers
of friends to purchase his liberation. He died at Corinth in very
old age: it is said, at ninety years old, and on the very same day
on which Alexander the Great died at Babylon (B.c. 323). He
was buried at the gate of Corinth leading to the Isthmus: a
monument being erected to his honour, with a column of Parian
marble crowned by the statue of a dog.

In politics, ethics, and rules for human conduct, Diogenes
adopted views of his own, and spoke them out freely.

and smack He was a freethinker (like Antisthenes) as to the
sayings of ~~ popular religion: and he disapproved of marriage

Contemptof laws, considering that the intercourse of the sexes

others, being puffed up by the praise
of vulgar minds”) seems to have been
much interchanged among the ancient
philosophers, each of them charging
it upon his opponents; while the
opponents of philosophy generally
imputed it to all philosophers alike.
Pyrrho the Sceptic took credit for being
the only drudos: and he is compli-
mented as such by his _panegyrist
Timon in the Silli. Aristokles affirmed

Pyrrho had just as much τῦφον
as the rest. Eusebius, Prep. Evang.

xiv. 18.
1 Diog. L. vi. 2, 75-76.

2 Diog. L. vi. 2, 74.

Xeniades was mentioned by Demo-
kritus: he is said to have been a sceptic
(Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. vii. 48-58),
at least he did not recognise any κριτή-
ριον.

8 Diog. L. vi. 2, 77-78.

Diogenes seems to have been known
by his contemporaries under the title
of 6 Κύων. Aristotle cites from hima
witty comparison under that designa-
tion, Rhetoric, iii. 10, 1410, a. 24.
καὶ ὁ Kuwy (ἐκάλει) τὰ καπηλεῖα, τὰ
"Αττικὰ φιδίτια.

Cuap. III. TEACHING OF DIOGENES. 155

ought to be left to individual taste and preference.) pleasnre—

. . raining and
Though he respected the city and conformed to its labour re-
laws, yet he had no reverence for existing supersti- difference to
tions, or for the received usages as to person, sex, or literature

family. He declared himself to be a citizen of the met
Kosmos and of Nature.?_ His sole exigency was, independence of
life, and freedom of speech: having these, he was satisfied, fully
sufficient to himself for happiness, and proud of his own supe-
riority to human weakness. The main benefit which he derived
from philosophy (he said) was, that he was prepared for any
fortune that might befall him. To be ready to accept death
easily, was the sure guarantee of a free and independent life.’
He insisted emphatically upon the necessity of exercise or
training (ἄσκησις) both as to the body and as to the mind.
Without this, nothing could be done: by means of it everything
might be achieved. But he required that the labours imposed
should be directed to the acquisition of habits really useful ;
instead of being wasted, as they commonly were, upon objects
frivolous and showy. The truly wise man ought to set before
him as a model the laborious life of Héraklés: and he would
find, after proper practice and training, that the contempt of
pleasures would afford him more enjoyment than the pleasures
themselves.4

Diogenes declared that education was sobriety to the young,
consolation to the old, wealth to the poor, ornament to the rich.
But he despised much of what was commonly imparted as educa-
tion—music, geometry, astronomy, &c.: and he treated with
equal scorn Plato and Eukleides.5> He is said however to have
conducted the education of the sons of his master Xeniades® with-

1 Diog. Τὰ vi. 2,72. Cicero, De Nat. μετέασιν, οὕτω οἱ τοὐναντίον ἀσκηθέν-
Deor. i. 18. ; τες ἥδιον αὐτῶν τῶν ἡδονῶν καταφρο-
2Diog. L. vi. 2, 68.171, The like νοῦσι, See Lucian, Vitar. Αποῦ, c. 9,
declaration is ascribed to Sokrates. about the hard life and the happi-
Epiktétus, i. 9, 1. ness of Diogenes. Compare s. 26 about
8 Diog. L. vi. 2, 63, 72. μηδὲν the τῦφος of Diogenes treading down
ἐλευθερίας προκρίνων. Epiktétus, iv. the different τῦφος of Plato, and
1, 80. Οὕτω καὶ Διογένης λέγει, μίαν Epiktétus iii. 22, 57. Antisthenes, in
εἶναι μηχανὴν πρὸς ἐλευθερίαν ---τὸ εὖ. his dialogue or discourse called Ἥρακ-
κόλως ἀποθνήσκειν. Compare iv. 7-28, λῆς, appears to have enforced the like
. 8. . appea, to that hero as an example to
4 Diog. L. vi. 2, 70-71. καὶ γὰρ αὐτὴ others. See Winckelmann, Fragm.
τῆς ἡδονῆς ἡ καταφρόνησις ἡδυτάτη Antisthen. pp. 15-18.
προμελετηθεῖσα, καὶ ὥσπερ οἱ συνεθισ- ὅ Diog. L. vi. 2, 68-73-24-27,
θέντες ἡδέως ζῇν, ἀηδῶς ἐπὶ τοὐναντίον 6 Diog. L. vi. 2, 80-81.

156 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. ITI.

out material departure from the received usage. He caused them
to undergo moderate exercise (not with a view to athletic success)
in the palestra, and afterwards to practise riding, shooting with
the bow, hurling the javelin, slinging and hunting: he cultivated
their memories assiduously, by recitations from poets and prose
authors, and even from his own compositions : he kept them on
bread and water, without tunic or shoes, with clothing only such
as was strictly necessary, with hair closely cut, habitually silent,
and fixing their eyes on the ground when they walked abroad.
These latter features approximate to the training at Sparta (as
described by Xenophon) which Diogenes declared to contrast
with Athens as the apartments of the men with those of the
women. Diogenes is said to have composed several dialogues
and even some tragedies.1 But his most impressive display (like
that of Sokrates) was by way of colloquy—prompt and incisive
interchange of remarks. He was one of the few philosophers who
copied Sokrates in living constantly before the public—in talking
with every one indiscriminately and fearlessly, in putting home
questions like a physician to his patient.? Epiktétus,—speaking
of Diogenes as equal, if not superior, to Sokrates—draws a dis-
tinction pertinent and accurate. “ΤῸ Sokrates” (says he) “ Zeus
assigned the elenchtic or cross-examining function : to Diogenes,
the magisterial and chastising function: to Zeno (the Stoic) the
didactic and dogmatical.” While thus describing Diogenes justly
enough, Epiktétus nevertheless insists upon his agreeable person
and his extreme gentleness and good-nature:* qualities for which

1Diog. L. vi. 2, 80. Diogenes
Laertius himself cites a fact from one
of the dialogues—Pordalus (vi. 2, 20):
and Epiktotus alludes to the treatise
on Ethics by Diogenes—ev τῇ ᾿Ηθικῇ
—ii. 20, 14. It appears however that
the works ascribed to Diogenes were
not admitted by all authors as genuine

(Diog. L. c). .
2 Dion sost. Or. x.; De Servis,
p. 296 R. Or, ix. ; Isthmicus, p. 289 R.
ὥσπερ ἰατροὶ ἀνακρίνουσι τοὺς ἀσθενοῦν-
τας, οὕτως Διογένης ἀνέκρινε τὸν ἄνθρω-
πον, &.
8 Epiktétus, iif. 21,19. ὡς Σωκράτει
συνεβούλευε τὴν ἐλεγκτικὴν χώραν
ἔχειν, ὡς Διογένει τὴν βασιλικὴν καὶ
ἐπιπληκτικήν, ὡς Ζήνωνι τὴν διδασ-
καλικὴν καὶ δογματικὴν.
About τὸ ἥμερον καὶ φιλάνθρωπον of

Diogenes, see Epiktétus, iii. 24, 64;
who also tells us (iv. 11, 19), professing
to follow the statements of contem-
poraries, that the bodies both of So-

rates and Diogenes were by nature so
sweet and agreeable (ἐπίχαρι καὶ dv)
as to dispense with the necessity of
washing.

‘*Kgo certé” (says Seneca, Kpist.
108, 13-14, about the lectures of the elo-
quent Stoic Attalus) ‘“‘cum Attalum au-

irem, in vitia, in errores, in mala vitee
erorantem, szepé misertus sum generis
umani, et illum sublimem altioremque
humano fastigio credidi. Ipse regem
se esse dicebat: sed plus quam regnare
mihi videbatur, cui liceret censuram
agere regnantium.” See also his trea-
tises De Beneficiis, v. 4-6, and De
Tranquillitate Animi (c. 8), where,

Cuap. 11], CONSISTENCY OF DIOGENES. 157

probably Diogenes neither took credit himself, nor received
credit from his contemporaries. Diogenes seems to
have really possessed—that which his teacher Antis-
thenes postulated as indispensable—the Sokratic

Admiration
of Epiktétus
for Diogenes,

. . . . especi
physical strength and vigour. His ethical creed, for his con-
obtained from Antisthenes, was adopted by many acting out
successors, and (in the main) by Zeno and the Stoics his own othi-

in the ensuing century. But the remarkable feature
in Diogenes which attracts to him the admiration of Epiktétus,
is—that he set the example of acting out his creed, consistently
and resolutely, in his manner of life:! an example followed by
some of his immediate successors, but not by the Stoics, who
confined themselves to writing and preaching. Contemporary
both with Plato and Aristotle, Diogenes stands to both of them
in much the same relation as Phokion to Demosthenes in politics
and oratory: he exhibits strength of will, insensibility to applause
as well as to reproach, and self-acting independence—in antithesis
to their higher gifts and cultivation of intellect. He was un-
doubtedly, next to Sokrates, the most original and unparalleled
manifestation of Hellenic philosophy.

Respecting Diogenes and the Cynic philosophers
we have to regard not merely their doctrines, but

generally,

: : ; . Admiration
the effect. produced by their severity of life. In this excited Ὁ
. . . . the asceti-
point Diogenes surpassed his master Antisthenes, cism of the
whose life he criticised as not fully realising the {yn
lofty spirit of his doctrine. The spectacle of man extreme in
e . . bg the East—
not merely abstaining from enjoyment, but enduring Comparison
with indifference hunger, thirst, heat, cold, poverty, decree
privation, bodily torture, death, &c., exercises ἃ pista with

powerful influence on the imagination of mankind.

after lofty encomium on Diogenes, he

exclaims—‘‘Si quis de felicitate Dio-

genis dubitat, potest idem dubitare

et de Deorum immortalium statu, an
beaté degant,” &c.

1 Cicero, in his Oration in defence
of Murena (30-61-62) compliments Cato
(the accuser) as one of the few persons
who adopted the Stoic tenets with a
view of acting them out, and who did
really act them out—‘‘ Hee homo in-

eniosissimus M. Cato, autoribus eru-
Fitissimis inductus, arripuit: neque
disputandi causa, ut magna pars, sed

ita vivendi”. Tacitus (Histor. iv. 5)
ays the like compliment to Helvidius

SCUS.

M. Gaston Boissier (Etude sur la
Vie et les Ou es de Varron, pp.
118-114, Paris, 1861) expresses an
amount of surprise which I should not
have expected, on the fact that persons
adopted a hllosop cal creed for the
urpose only of debating it and de-
Fonding it, and not of acting it out.
But he recognises the fact, in regard
to Varro and his contemporaries, in
terms not less applicable to the Athe-

158 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. CHapP. ΠῚ.

It calls forth strong feelings of reverence and admiration in the
beholders : while in the sufferer himself also, self-reverence and
self-admiration, the sense of power and exaltation above the
measure of humanity, is largely developed. The extent to which
self-inflicted hardships and pains have prevailed in various
regions of the earth, the long-protracted and invincible resolu-
tion with which they have been endured, and the veneration
which such practices have procured for the ascetics who sub-
mitted to them—are among the most remarkable chapters in
history. The East, especially India, has always been, and still
is, the country in which these voluntary endurances have
reached their extreme pitch of severity ; even surpassing those
of the Christian monks in Egypt and Syria, during the fourth
and fifth centuries of the Christian era.2~ When Alexander the
Great first opened India to the observation of Greeks, one of the
novelties which most surprised him and his followers was, the
sight of the Gymnosophists or naked philosophers. These men
were found lying on the ground, either totally uncovered or with
nothing but a cloth round the loins ; abstaining from all enjoy-
ment, nourishing themselves upon a minimum of coarse vege-
tables or fruits, careless of the extreme heat of the plain, and the
extreme cold of the mountain ; and often superadding pain,
fatigue, or prolonged and distressing uniformity of posture.
They passed their time either in silent meditation or in discourse
on religion and philosophy : they were venerated as well as con-
sulted by every one, censuring even the most powerful persons in
the land. Their fixed idea was to stand as examples to all, of
endurance, insensibility, submission only to the indispensable
necessities of nature, and freedom from all other fear or authority.
They acted out the doctrine, which Plato so eloquently preaches

nian world: amidst such general prac-
tice, Antisthenes, Diogenes, Krates,
&c., stood ont as memorable exceptions.
“Tl ne faut pas non plus oublier de
quelle maniére, et dans quel esprit, les
omains lettrés étudiaient la philoso-
phie Grecque. Ils venaient écouter les
lus habiles mattres, connaitre les sectes
es plus célébres : mais ils les étudiaient
lutét en curieux, qu’ils ne s’y at-
haient en aleptes. On ne les voit
gubres approfondir un systéme et s’y
nir, adopter un ensemble de croy-

ances, et y conformer leur conduite.
On étudiait le plus souvent la philo-
sophie pour discuter. C’était seulement
une matiére ἃ des conversations sa-
vantes, un exercice et un aliment pour
les esprits curieux. Voila pourquoi la
secte Académique étoit alors mieux
accueillie que les autres,” &c.

1 Dion Chrysostom, viii. p. 275,
Reiske.

2See the striking description in
Gibbon, Decl. and Fall, ch. xxxvii. pp.
253-265.

CuapP. III. THE GYMNOSOPHISTS. 159

under the name of Sokrates in the Phedon—That the whole life
of the philosopher is a preparation for death : that life is worth-
less, and death an escape from it into a better state.’ Itis an
interesting fact to learn that when Onesikritus (one of Alex-
ander’s officers, who had known and frequented the society of
Diogenes in Greece), being despatched during the Macedonian
march through India for the purpose of communicating with
these Gymnosophists, saw their manner of life and conversed
with them—he immediately compared them with Diogenes,
whom he had himself visited—as well as with Sokrates and
Pythagoras, whom he knew by reputation. Onesikritus de-
scribed to the Gymnosophists the manner of life of Diogenes :
but Diogenes wore a threadbare mantle, and this appeared to
them a mark of infirmity and imperfection. They remarked
that Diogenes was right to a considerable extent ; but wrong for
obeying convention in preference to nature, and for being ashamed

of going naked, as they did.?

1Strabo, xv. 713 A (probably from
Onesiknvus, see Geier, Hragment.
Alexandr. Magn. Histor. p. 379).
Ἠλείστους δ᾽ αὐτοῖς εἶναι λόγους περὶ
τοῦ θανάτου νομίζειν γὰρ δὴ τὸν μὲν
ἐνθάδε βίον ὡς ἂν ἀκμὴν κνομένων εἶναι,
τὸν δὲ θάνατον γένεσιν εἰς τὸν ὄντως
βίον καὶ τὸν εὐδαίμονα τοῖς φιλοσοφή-
σασι" διὸ τῇ ἀσκήσει πλείστῃ χρῆσθαι
πρὸς τὸ ἑτοιμοθάνατον " ἀγαθὸν δὲ ἣ
κακὸν μηδὲν εἶναι τῶν συμβαινόντων
ἀνθρώποις, &C.

This is an application of the doc-
trines laid down by the Platonic So-
krates in the Phedon, p. 64 A: Κινδυ-
νεύουσι yap ὅσοι τυγχάνουσιν ὀρθῶς
ἁπτόμενοι φιλοσοφίας λεληθέναι τοὺς
ἄλλους, ὅτι οὐδὲν ἄλλο αὐτοὶ ἐπιτη-
δεύουσιν ἣ ἀποθνήσκειν τε καὶ τεθνάναι.
Compare p. 67 D.; Cicero, Tusc. Ὁ, i. 80,
Compare Epiktétus, iv. i. 30 (cited in a
former note) about Diogenes the Cynic.
Also Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 27; Vale-
rius Maximus, iii. 8, 6; Diogen. L.
Prooem. s. 6; Pliny, H. N. vii. 2.

Bohlen observes (Das Alte Indien,
ch. ii. pp. 279-289), ‘‘It is a remarkable
fact that Indian writings of the highest
antiquity depict as already existing the
same ascetic exercises as we see exist-
ing at present: they were even then
known to the ancients, who were espe-
cially astonished at such fanaticism”.

2 Strabo gives a condensed summary
of this report, made by Onesikritus

respecting his conversation with the
Indian Gymnosophist Mandanis, or
Dandamis (Strabo, xv. p. 716 B):
-- Ταῦτ᾽ εἰπόντα ἐξερέσθαι (Dandamis
asked Onesikritus), εἰ καὶ ἐν τοῖς "EA-
λησι λόγοι τοιοῦτοι λέγοιντος Εἰπόν-
τος δ᾽ (Ὀνησικρίτου), ὅτι καὶ Πνθα-
γόρας τοιαῦτα λέγοι, κελεύοι τε ἐμ-
ψύχων ἀπέχεσθαι, καὶ Σωκράτης, καὶ
Διογένης, οὗ καὶ αὖ τὸς (Onesikritus)
ἀκροάσαιτο, ἀποκρίνασθαι (Danda-
mis), ὅτι τἄλλα μὲν νομίζοι φρονίμως
αὐτοῖς δοκεῖν, ἕν δ᾽ ἁμαρτάνειν---νόμον
πρὸ τῆς φύσεως τιθεμένους" οὐ γὰρ ἂν
αἰσχύνεσθαι γυμνούς, ὥσπερ αὐτόν, διά-
ev, ἀπὸ λιτῶν ζῶντας " καὶ γὰρ οἰκίαν
ἀρίστην εἶναι, ἥτις ἂν ἐπισκενῆς ἐλα-
χίστης δέηται.

About Onesikritus, Diog. Laert. vi.
75-84; Plutarch, Alexand. c. 65; Plu-
tarch, De Fortuna Alexandri, p. 331.

The work of August Gladitsch (Ein-
leitung in das Verstandniss der Welt-

eschichte, Posen, 1841) contains an
instructive comparison between the
Gymnosophists and the Cynics, as well
as between the Pythagoreans and the
Chinese philosophers—between the
Eleatic sect and the Hindoo philo.
sophers. The points of analogy, both
in doctrine and practice, are very nu-
merous and strikingly brought out, pp.
856-377. I cannot, however, agree
his conclusion, that the doctrines and
practice of Antisthenes were borrowed,

160 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cap, 111.

These observations of the Indian Gymnosophist are a re-

The pre production and an application in practice 1 of the
ceptsand = memorable declaration of principle enunciated by
faid down Sokrates—“ That the Gods had no wants: and that
by Sokrates the man who had fewest wants, approximated most
into tallest nearly to the Gods”. This principle is first intro-
by the duced into Grecian ethics by Sokrates: ascribed to
ynics.

him both by Xenophon and Plato, and seemingly
approved by both. In his life, too, Sokrates carried the principle
into effect, up to a certain point. Both admirers and opponents
attest his poverty, hard fare, coarse clothing, endurance of cold
and privation:? but he was a family man, with a wife and
children to maintain, and he partook occasionally.of indulgences
which made him fall short of his own ascetic principle. Plato
and Xenophon—both of them well-born Athenians, in circum-
stances affluent, or at least easy, the latter being a knight, and
even highly skilled in horses and horsemanship — contented
themselves with preaching on the text, whenever they had to
deal with an opponent more self-indulgent than themselves ;
but made no attempt to carry it into practice? Zeno the Stoic
laid down broad principles of self-denial and apathy: but in
practice he was unable to conquer the sense of shame, as the
Cynics did, and still more the Gymnosophists. Antisthenes, on
the other hand, took to heart, both in word and act, the principle

not from Sokrates with exaggeration
but from the Parmenidean theory, an
the Vedanta theory of the Ens Unum
leading to negation and contempt of
the phenomenal world.

1 Onesikritus observes, respecting
the Indian Gymnosophists, that ‘they
were more striking in act than in dis-
course” (ἐν ἔργοις γὰρ αὐτοὺς κρείτο
τους ἢ λόγοις εἶναι, Strabo, xv. 718 B);
and this is true about the ic suc-
cession of philosophers, in Greece as
well as in Rome. Diogenes Laertius

writers, Ameipsias, Eupolis, Aristo-
phanes, &c., about Sokrates—is very
much the same as that of Menander
a century afterwards about Kratés.
Sokrates is depicted as a Cynic in
mode of life (Diogen. L. ii. 28; Ari-
stophan. Nubes, 104-362-415).

Zeno, though he received instruc-
tions from Kratés, was ἄλλως μὲν ev-
rovos πρὸς τὴν φιλοσοφίαν, αἰδήμων δὲ
ὡς τρὸς τὴν κυνικὴν ἀναισχυντίαν (Diog.

. Vii. 8).
‘‘Disputare cum Socrate licet, du-

(compare his prooem, s. 19, 20, and vi.
108) ranks the Cynic philosophy as a
distinct αἵρεσις : but he tells us that
other writers (especially Hippobotus)
would not reckon it as an αἵρεσις, bu
only as an ἔνστασις Biov-—practice
without theory.

2 Xenophon, Memor. i. 6, 2-5; Plato,
Sympos. 219, 220,

The language of contemporary comic

bitare cum Carneade, cum Epicuro
quiescere, hominis naturam cum Stoicis
vincere, cum Cynicis excedere,” &c.
This is the distinction which Seneca
draws between Stoic and Cynic (De
Brevitat. Vite, 14, 5). His admiration
for the “seminudus” Cynic Deme-
trius, his contemporary and compa-
nion, was extreme (Epist. 62, 2, and
Epist. 20, 18).

Cuap. III. THE GYMNOSOPHISTS. 161

of Sokrates: yet even he, as we know from the Xenophontic
Symposion, was not altogether constant in rigorous austerity.
His successors Diogenes and Krates attained the maximum of
perfection ever displayed by the Cynics of free Greece. They
stood forth as examples of endurance, abnegation—insensibility
to shame and fear—free-spoken censure of others. Even they
however were not so recognised by the Indian Gymnosophists ;
who, having reduced their wants, their fears, and their sensibili-
ties, yet lower, had thus come nearer to that which they called
the perfection of Nature, and which Sokrates called the close
approach to divinity.1 When Alexander the Great (in the first
year of his reign and prior to any of his Asiatic conquests)
visited Diogenes at Corinth, found him lying in the sun, and
asked if there was anything which he wanted—Diogenes made
the memorable reply—“ Only that you and your guards should
stand out of my sunshine”. This reply doubtless manifests the
self-satisfied independence of the philosopher. Yet it is far less
impressive than the fearless reproof which the Indian Gymnoso-
phists administered to Alexander, when they saw him in the
Punjab at the head of his victorious army, after exploits, dangers,
and fatigues almost superhuman, as conqueror of Persia and
acknowledged son of Zeus.?

1 Xenoph. Memor. i. 6, 10 (the pas-
sage is cited in a previous note).

The Emperor Julian (Orat. vi. p.
192 Spanh.) says about the Cynics—
ἀπάθειαν yap ποιοῦνται τὸ τέλος, τοῦτο
δὲ ἴσον ἐστὶ τῷ θεὸν γενέσθαι. Dion
Chrysostom (Or. vi. p. 208) says also
about Diogenes the Cynic—xai μάλιστα
ἐμιμεῖτο τῶν θεῶν τὸν βίον.

2 Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 32, 92, and the
Anabasis of Arrian, vii. 1-2-3, where
both the reply of Diogenes and that
of the Indian Gymnosophists are re-
ported. Dion Chrysostom (Orat. iv.
Balun seq. Reiske) gives a prolix

ogue between exander and
Diogenes. His picture of the effect
roduced by Diogenes upon the dif-
erent spectators at the Isthmian fes-
tival, is striking and probable.

Kalanus, one of the Indian G ο-
sophists, was persuaded, by the in-
stances of Alexander, to abandon his
Indian mode οὗ life and to come awa
with the Macedonian army—very muc
to the disgust of his brethren, who

scornfully denounced him as infirm
and even, as the slave of appetite
(ἀκόλαστον, Strabo, xv. 718). @ was
treated with the greatest consideration
and respect by Alexander and
officers ; yet when the army came into
Persis, he became sick of body and
tired of life. He obtained the reluctant
consent of Alexander to allow him to
die. A funeral pile was erected, upon
which he voluntarily burnt himself in
presence of the whole army ; who wit-
nessed the scene with every demon-
stration of military honour. See the
remarkable description in Arrian,
Anab. vii. 8. Cicero calls him ‘‘ Indus
indoctus ac barbarus” (Tusc. Disp. ii.
22, 62); but the impression which he
made on Alexander himself, Onesi-
kritus, Lysimachus, and generally upon
all who saw him, was that of res ful
γεν ον Gtrabo, ii 715 ; Arrian ,
c.). One of these an sages, who
hai come into Syria along with the
Indian envoys sent by an In king to
the Roman Emperor Augustus, burnt

1—11

162 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuar. III.

Another point, in the reply made by the Indian Gymnosophist
to Onesikritus, deserves notice: I mean the antithesis

between Na. between law (or convention) and nature (νόμος ---
ture—and = guois)—the supremacy which he asserts for Nature
vention— over law—and the way in which he understands
insisted on Nature and her supposed ordinances, This antithesis
d Gym- was often put forward and argued in the ancient
osophists.

Ethics: and it is commonly said, without any sufii-
cient proof, that the Sophists (speaking of them collectively)
recognised only the authority of law—while Sokrates and Plato
had the merit of vindicating against them the superior authority
of Nature. The Indian Gymnosophist agrees with the Athenian
speaker in the Platonic treatise De Legibus, and with the
Platonic Kallikles in the Gorgias, thus far—that he upholds the
paramount authority of Nature. But of these three interpreters,
each hears and reports the oracles of Nature differently from the
other two: and there are many other dissenting interpreters
besides! Which of them are we to follow? And if, adopting
any one of them, we reject the others, upon what grounds are we
to justify our preference? When the Gymnosophist points out,
that nakedness is the natural condition of man ; when he farther
infers, that because natural it is therefore right—and that the
wearing of clothes, being a departure from nature, is also a
departure from right—how are we to prove to him that his
interpretation of nature is the wrong one? These questions have
received no answer in any of the Platonic dialogues: though we
have seen that Plato is very bitter against those who dwell upon
the antithesis between Law and Nature, and who undertake to
decide between the two.

himself publicly at Athens, with an
exuiting laugh when he leaped upon
the funeral pile (Strabo, xv. 720 A)

—xaTa τὰ πάτρια τῶν ᾿Ινδὼν ἔθη.

who were present in considerable num-
bers—and also Lucian himself—com-
are this act to that of the Indian
ymnosophists—otros δὲ τίνος αἰτίας

The like act of self-immolation was
performed by the Grecian Cynic Pere-
us Proteus, at the Olympic festival

n the reign of Marcus Antoninus, 165
A.D. (See Clinton, Fasti Romani.) Lu-
cian, who was present and saw the pro-
ceeding, has left an animated descrip-
tion of it, but ridicules it as a piece of
silly vanity. Theagenes, the admiring
disciple of Peregrinus, and other Cynics,

ἕνεκεν ἐμβάλλει φέρων ἑαντὸν εἰς τὸ
πῦρ; νὴ Δί᾽, ὅπως τὴν καρτερίαν ἐπι-
δείξηται, καθάπερ οἱ Ἐραχμᾶνες (Lucian,
De Morte Peregrini, 25-39, &c.). ;

1 Though Seneca (De Brevitate Vit.
14) talks of the Stoics as ‘‘conquer-
ing Nature, and the Cynics as ex-
ceeding Nature,” yet the Stoic Epik-
tétus considers his morality as the
only scheme conformable to Nature

Cuapr. IIL PECULIARITY OF THE CYNICS. 163

Reverting to the Cynics, we must declare them to be in one
respect the most peculiar outgrowth of Grecian philo-

. The Greek
sophy : because they are not merely a doctrinal sect, Cynica—an
with phrases, theories, reasonings, and teachings, of order of
their own—but still more prominently a body of mendicant

practical ascetics, a mendicant order} in philosophy,
working up the bystanders by exhibiting themselves as models
of endurance and apathy. These peculiarities seem to have
originated partly with Pythagoras, partly with Sokrates—for
there is no known prior example of it in Grecian history, except
that of the anomalous priests of Zeus at Dodona, called Selli,
who lay on the ground with unwashed feet. The discipline of
Lykurgus at Sparta included severe endurance ; but then it was
intended to form, and actually did form, good soldiers. The
Cynics had no view to military action. They exaggerated the
peculiarities of Sokrates, and we should call their mode of life
the Sokratic life, if we followed the example of those who gave
names to the Pythagorean or Orphic life, as a set of observances
derived from the type of Pythagoras or Orpheus.?

Though Antisthenes and Diogenes laid chief stress upon ethical
topics, yet they also delivered opinions on logic and yogicat

evidence.’
controversy, and seemingly in

(Epiktét. Diss. iv. 1, 121-128); while
the Epikurean Lucretius claims the
same conformity for the precepts of
Epikurus.

1 Respecting the historical con-
nexion between the Grecian Cynics
and the ascetic Christian monks, see
Zeller, Philos. der Griech. ii. p. 241,

‘Homer, Wiad xvi. 283-5 :—
Ζεῦ ἄνα, Δωδωναῖε, Ἰελασγικέ, τηλόθι

ναίων,
Δωδώνης μεδέων δυσχειμέρον, ἀμφὶ δὲ
ἕέλλοι
Σοὶ ναίονσ᾽ ὑποφῆται ἀνιπτόποδες, χα"
μαιεῦναι.

There is no analogy in Grecian
history to illustrate this very curious
passage: the Excursus of Heyne fur-

nishes no information (see his edition Lae

of the Iliad, vol. vii. p. 289) except
the general remark :—“‘Selli—vi

genus et institutum affectarunt abhor-
rens ἃ communi usu, vite monachorum

Antisthenes especially was engaged in

views of
. . Antisthenes
acrimonious contro- and Dio-

mendicantium haud absimile, cum sine
vitse cultu viverent, nec corpus ablu-
erent, et humi cubarent. ta inter
barbaros non modo, sed inter ipsas
feras gentes intellectum est, eos qui
auctoritatem apud multitudinem con-
sequi vellent, externa specie, vites cultu
austeriore, abstinentia et continentia
oculos hominum in se convertere e
mirationem facere debere.”

2 Plato, Republic, x. 600 B; Legib.
vi. 782 C; Eurip. Hippol. 955; Fragm.
Kpires.

See also the citations in Athenseus
(iv. pp. 161-163) from the writers of the
Attic middle comedy, respecting the
asceticism of the Pythagoreans, O-
gous to that of the C8.

8 Among the titles of the works of
Antisthenes, preserved by Diogenes
rtius (vi. 15), several relate to dia-
lectic or logic. ᾿Αλήθεια,
διαλάγεσθαι, ἀντιλογικός. Σάθων, περὶ
τοῦ ἀντιλέγειν, α, β, γ. Περὶ Δια-
λέκτον. ερὶ Tlasdeias ἣ ὀνομάτων,

Περὶ τοῦ

164 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. CuapP. III.

Berea te versy, with Plato; whose opinions he impugned in
Platonic an express dialogue entitled Sathon. Plato on his
Ideas. side also attacked the opinions of Antisthenes, and
spoke contemptuously of his intelligence, yet without formally
naming him. At least there are some criticisms in the Platonic
dialogues (especially in the Sophistés, p. 251) which the commen-
tators pronounce, on strong grounds, to be aimed at Antisthenes :
who is also unfavourably criticised by Aristotle. We know but
little of the points which Antisthenes took up against Plato—
and still less of the reasons which he urged in support of them.
Both he and Diogenes, however, are said to have declared express
war against the Platonic theory of self-existent Ideas. The
functions of general Concepts and general propositions, together
with the importance of defining general terms, had been forcibly
insisted on in the colloquies of Sokrates; and his disciple Plato
built upon this foundation the memorable hypothesis of an
aggregate of eternal, substantive realities, called Ideas or Forms,
existing separate from the objects of sense, yet affording a certain
participation in themselves to those objects: not discernible by
sense, but only by the Reason or understanding. These bold
creations of the Platonic fancy were repudiated by Antisthenes
and Diogenes: who are both said to have declared—“ We see
Man, and we see Horse ; but Manness and Horseness we do not
see”, Whereunto Plato replied— You possess that eye by which
Horse is seen: but you have not yet acquired that eye by which
Horseness is seen ”.?
This debate between Antisthenes and Plato marks an interest-
ing point in the history of philosophy. It is the first
First protest protest of Nominalism against the doctrine of an
ism against extreme Realism. The Ideas or Forms of Plato
Realism . . .
(according to many ef his phrases, for he is not

a, B, y, δ, «. Περὶ ὀνομάτων χρήσεως, Πλάτωνι διαμφισβητῶν --ὦ ὙἹλάτων,

ἢ ἐριστικός. Περὶ ἐρωτήσεως καὶ ἀποκρί- ἔφη, ἵππον μὲν ὁρῶ, ἱππότητα δ᾽ οὐχ

σεως, &c., ἄαο. ὁρῶ" καὶ ὃς εἶπεν, ἔχεις μὲν ᾧ ἵππος
Diogenes Laertius refers to ten τόμοι ὁρᾶται τόδε τὸ ὄμμα, ᾧ δὲ ἱππότης θεω-

of these treatises. ρεῖται, οὐδέπω κέκτησαι. καὶ ἄλλοι δέ
1 Simplikius, ad Aristot. Categ. p. τινες ἦσαν ταύτης τῆς δόξης. οἱ δὰ τινὰς

66, b. 47, 67, b. 18, 68, Ὁ. 25, Schol. μεν ἀνήρουν ποιότητας, τινὰς δὲ κατε-

Brand. ; Tzetzes, Chiliad. vii. 606. λίμπανον.

τῶν δὲ παλαιῶν οἱ μὲν ἀνήρουν τὰς ᾿Ανθρωπότης occurs Ὁ. 68, a 31.

ποιότητας τελέως, τὸ ποιὸν συγχωροῦν- Compar p. 20, ἃ. 2.

τες εἶναι. ὥσπερ ᾿Αντισθένης, ὃς ποτε e same conversation is reported

Cap. 111. SELF-EXISTENT IDEAS. 165

always consistent with himself) are not only real existences
distinct from particulars, but absorb to themselves all the reality
of particulars. The real universe in the Platonic theory was
composed of Ideas or Forms—such as Manness or Horseness?
(called by Plato the ΑὐτὸΑνθρωπος and Αὐτὸ-Ἵππος), of which
particular men and horses were only disfigured, transitory,
and ever-varying photographs. Antisthenes denied what Plato
affirmed, and as Plato affirmed it. Aristotle denied it also;
maintaining that genera, species, and attributes, though distin-
guishable as separate predicates of, or inherencies in, individuals
—yet had no existence apart from individuals. Aristotle was no
less wanting than Antisthenes, in the intellectual eye required
for discerning the Platonic Ideas. Antisthenes is said to have
declared these Ideas to be mere thoughts or conceptions
(ψιλὰς ἐννοίας) : 1.e., merely subjective or within the mind,
without any object corresponding to them. This is one of the
various modes of presenting the theory of Ideas, resorted to even
in the Platonic Parmenidés, not by one who opposes that theory,
but by one seeking to defend it—vwiz., by Sokrates, when he is
hard pressed by the objections of the Eleate against the more
extreme and literal version of the theory.? It is remarkable,
that the objections ascribed to Parmenides against that version
which exhibits the Ideas as mere Concepts of and in the mind,
are decidedly less forcible than those which he urges against the
other versions.

There is another singular doctrine, which Aristotle ascribes to
Antisthenes, and which Plato notices and confutes; p utine of
alluding to its author contemptuously, but not men- Antisthenes
tioning his name. Every name (Antisthenes argued) about predi-
has its own special reason or meaning (οἰκεῖος λόγος), 24mits no

as having taken place between Dio- to require an Apology, If ποιότης was
genes and Plato, except that instead strange, ἀνθρωπότης and ἱππότης would
Οὗ ἱππότης and ἀνθρωπότης, we have be still more strange. Antisthenes
τραπεζότης and κυαθότης (Diog. L. probably invented them, to present
vi. 53). , _ the doctrine which he impugned in
We have ζωότης ---᾿ Αθηναιότης ---ἶη a dress of greater seeming absur-
Galen’s argument against the Stoics dity.
(vol. xix. P- 481, Kiihn). . Plato, Parmenidés, p. 182 B.
1We know from Plato himself See, afterwards, chapter xxvii., Par-
(Thestétus, p. 182 A) that even the menides.
word ποιότης, if not actually first in- 8 Diogen. L. vi. 8. Πρῶτός re ὡρί-
troduced by himself, was at any rate caro (Antisthenes) λόγον, εἰπών, λόγος
so recent as to be still repulsive, and ἐστὶν ὁ τὸ τί ἣν ἡ ἐστι δηλῶν,

166 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. III.

other predi- declaring the essence of the thing named, and
cation but ΙΝ
identical, | differing from every other word: you cannot there-
fore truly predicate any one word of any other, because the
reason or meaning of the two is different: there can be no true
propositions except identical propositions, in which the predicate
is the same with the subject—“man is man, good is good”.
“Man is good” was an inadmissible proposition: affirming
different things to be the same, or one thing to be many.?
Accordingly, it was impossible for two speakers really to con-
tradict each other. There can be no contradiction between them
if both declare the essence of the same thing—nor if neither of
them declare the essence of it—nor if one speaker declares the
essence of one thing, and another speaker that of another. But
one of these three cases must happen: therefore there can be no
contradiction.”
The works of Antisthenes being lost, we do not know how he
himself stated his own doctrine, nor what he said on

Thesame behalf of it, declaring contradiction to be impossible.
Sule? Plato sets aside the doctrine as absurd and silly ;
afterthe | <Aristotle—since he cites it as a paradox, apt for
time of -, dialectical debate, where the opinion of a philosopher

stood opposed to what was generally received—seems
to imply that there were plausible arguments to be urged in its
favour.* And that the doctrine actually continued to be held

1 Aristotle, Metaphy. A. 1024, b. 32,
attributes this doctrine to Antisthenes
rareme which tends to prove that
Plato meant Antisthenes, though not
naming him, in Sophist. p. 251 B,
where he notices the same doctrine.
Compare Philébus, p. 14 D.

It is to be observed that a doctrine
exactly the same as that which Plato
here censures in Antisthenes, will be
found maintained _ by the Platonic So-
krates himself, in Plato, Hippias Major,
p. 304 A. See chap. xiii. vol. ii. of the
present work.

2 Aristot. Topic. i. p. 104, Ὁ. 20.
θέσις δέ ἐστιν ὑπόληψις παράδοξος τῶν

wpinwy τινὸς κατὰ φιλοσοφίαν" οἷον
ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν ἀντιλέγειν, καθάπερ ἔφη
᾿Αντισθένης.

Plato puts this θέσις into the mouth
of Dionysodorus, in the Euthydémus—
Β- 286 Β; but he says (or makes
krates say) that it was maintained

by many persons, and that it had been
maintained by Protagoras, and even
by others yet more ancient.
Antisthenes had discussed it spe-
cially in a treatise of three sections
polemical against Plato—2a0wy, ἢ περὶ
τοῦ ἀντιλέγειν, a, B, y (Diog. L. vi. 16).
8 Aristotle GMtet. A. 1024) represents
the doctrine of Antisthenes, That con-
tradictory and false propositions are
impossible—as a consequence deduced
from the position laid down—That no
propositions except identical proposi-
tions were admissible. If you grant this
last proposition, the consequences will
be undeniable. Possibly Antisthenes
may have reasoned in this way: ‘‘ There
are many contradictory and false pro-
ositions now afloat; but this arises
rom the way in which predication is
conducted. So long as the predicate
is different from the subject, there is
nothing in the form of a proposition

Cuap. 111. PREDICATION.

167

and advocated, in the generation not only after Antisthenes but
after Aristotle—we may see by the case of Stilpon: who main-
tained (as Antisthenes had done) that none but identical proposi-
tions, wherein the predicate was a repetition of the subject, were
admissible: from whence it followed (as Aristotle observed)
that there could be no propositions either false or contradictory.
Plutarch,’ in reciting this doctrine of Stilpon (which had been
vehemently impugned by the Epikurean Kolétés), declares it to
have been intended only in jest. There is no ground for
believing that it was so intended: the analogy of Antisthenes
goes to prove the contrary.

Stilpon, however, while rejecting (as Antisthenes

had done)
the universal Ideas? or Forms, took a larger ground

ar . . Nominalism
of objection. He pronounced them to be inadmis- of Stilpon.
sible both as subject and as predicate. If you speak aecinet accie
of Man in general (he said), what, or whom, do you dental pre-

mean? You do not mean A or B, orCorD, &c.: that
is, you do not mean any one of these more than any other. You
have no determinate meaning at all: and beyond this indefinite
multitude of individuals, there is nothing that the term can
mean. Again, as to predicates—when you say, The man runs, or
The man 18 good, what do you mean by the predicate runs, or is
good? You do not mean any thing specially belonging to man:
for you apply the same predicates to many other subjects: you

to distinguish falsehood from truth
(to distinguish Theetétus sedet, from
Theetétus volat—to take the instance
in the Platonic Sophistés—p. 268).
There ought to be no propositions
except identical propositions: the form
itself will then guarantee you against
both falsehood and contradiction : you
will be sure always to give τὸν οἰκεῖον
λόγον τοῦ πράγματος." There would
be nothing inconsistent in such a pre-
cept: but Aristotle might call it silly
(εὐηθῶς), because, while shutting out
falsehood and contradiction, it would
also shut out the t body of useful
truth, and would divest language of its
usefulness as ἃ means of communica-

tion.

Brandis (Gesch. der Gr. Rémisch.
Phil. vol. fi. χοῦ. 1) gives something
like this as the probable purpose of
Antisthenes—‘‘ Nur Eins bezeichne die
Wesenheit eines Dinges—die Wesen-

heit als einfachen Triger des man-
nichfaltigen der Eigenschaften” (this is
rather too Aristotelian)—“‘ zur Abwehr
yon Streitigkeiten auf dem Gebiete der
Erscheinungen ”. Compare also Ritter
Gesch. Phil. vol. ii. p. 180. We
in the Kratylus, that there were per-
sons who maintained the rectitude of
all names: to say that a name was not
right, was (in their view) tantamount
to saying that it was no name at all,
but only an unmeaning sound (Plato,
Krat. pp. 429-430).

1 Plutarch, adv. Koloten, ἢ. 1119 C-D.

2 Hegel (Geschichte der Griech.
Philos. i. p. 128) and Marbach (Ge-
schichte der Philos. s. 91) disallow the
assertion of Diogenes, that Stilpon
ἀνήρει τὰ εἴδη. ey maintain that
Stilpon rejected the particular affirma-
tions, and allowed only general or
universal affirmations. This constrac-
tion appears to me erroneous.

say runs, about a horse, a dog, or a cat—you say good in reference
to food, medicine, and other things besides. Your predicate,
therefore, being applied to many and diverse subjects, belongs
not to one of them more.than to another: in other words, it
belongs to neither: the predication is not admissible,}

1Diog. L. ii. 118; Plutarch, adv.
Koldten, 1119-1120. εἰ περὶ ἵππον τὸ
τρέχειν κατηγοροῦμεν, οὔ φησι (Stilpon)
ταὐτὸν εἶναι τῷ περὶ οὗ κατηγορεῖται
τὸ κατηγορούμενον---κατέρον yap ἀπαι-
τούμενοι τὸν λόγον, οὐ τὸν αὐτὸν ἀποδί-
δομεν ὑπὲρ ἀμφοῖν. Ὅθεν ἁμαρτάνειν
τοὺς ἕτερον ἑτέρον κατηγοροῦντας. Ei
μὲν γὰρ ταὐτόν ἐστι τῷ ἀνθρώπῳ τὸ
ἀγαθόν, καὶ τῷ ἵππῳ τὸ τρέχειν, πῶς
καὶ σιτίον καὶ Φ, μάκου τὸ ἀγαθόν ; καὶ
νὴ Δία πάλιν λέοντος καὶ κυνὸς τὸ τρέ-
ειν, κατηγοροῦμεν; εἰ δ' ἕτερον, οὐκ
358s ἄνόρωπον ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἵπ-
πον τρέχειν λέγομεν.

Sextus Empiricus (adv. Mathem.
vii. p. 269-282) gives a different vein
of reasoning respecting predication,—

et a view which illustrates this doc-

rine of Antisthenes. Sextus does not
require that all predication shall be
restricted to identical predication: but
he maintains that you cannot define
any general word. To define, he
says, is to enunciate the essence of
that which is defined. But when
you define Man—‘‘a mortal, rational
animal, capable of reason and know-
ledge ”’—-you give only certain attri-
butes of Man, which go along with
the essence—you do not give the
essence itself. If you enumerate even
all the accompaniments (συμβεβηκότα),
you will still fail to tell me what the
essence of Man is; which is what I
desire to know, and what you profess
to do by your definition. It is useless
to enumerate accompaniments, until
ou explain to me what the essence
8 which they accompany.

These are ingenious objections, which
seem to me quite valid, if you assume
the logical subject to be a real, abso-
lute essence, apart from all or any of
its predicates. And this is a frequent
illusion, favoured even by many logi-
cians. We enunciate the subject first,
then the predicate; and because the
subject can be conceived after abstrac-
tion of this, that, or the other pre-
dicates—we are apt to i ine that it
may be conceived without all or any
of the predicates. But this is an illu-
sion, you suppress all predicates,

the subject or supposed substratum
vanishes along with them : just as the
Genus vanishes, if you suppress all the
different species of it.

“ Scais-tu au moins ce que c’est que
lamatiére? Trés-bien. .. Parexemple,
cette pierre est grise, est d’une telle
forme, a ses trois dimensions ; elle est
pesante et divisible. Eh bien (dit le
Sirien), cette chose qui te paroit étre
divisible, pésante, et grise, me dirois tu
bien ce que cest? ‘Tu vois quelques
attributs : mais le fond de la chose, le
connois tu? Non, dit autre. Tu ne
scais donc point ce aque cest que la
matiére.” (Voltaire, Micromégas, c. 7.)

‘‘Le fond de la chose”—the Din
an sich—is nothing but the name itself,
divested of every fraction of meaning :
it is tatwlus sine re. But the name
being familiar, and having been always
used with a meaning, still appears in-
vested with much of the old emotional
associations, even though it has been
stripped of all its meaning by successive
acts of abstraction. ou subtract
from four,1+1+1+1, there will re-
main zero. But by abstracting, from
the subject man, all its predicates, real
and possible, you cannot reduce it to
zero. The name man always remains,
and appears by old association to carry
with it some meaning—though the
meaning can no longer be defined.

This illusion is well pointed out ina
valuable passage of Cabanis (Du Degré
de Certitude de la Médecine, Ὁ. 61) :—

“6 pourrois d’ailleurs demander ce
qu’on entend par la nature et les causes
premiéres des maladies. Nous con-
noissons de leur nature, ce que les
faits en manifestent. Nous savons, par
exemple, que la flévre produit tels et
tels changements : ou plutdt, c’est par
ces changements qu’elle se montre ἃ nos
yeux: c'est par eux seuls qu'elle existe
pour nous. Quand un homme tousse,
crache du sang, respire avec peine,
ressent une douleur de cété, a le pouls
plus vite et pins dur, la peau plus
chaude que 8 l'état naturel—l’on
dit αὐ} est attaqué d’une pleurésie.
Mais qu’est ce donc gu’une pleurésie ἢ
On vous répliquera que c’est une ma-

Cuap ΠῚ. ACCIDENTAL PREDICATION. 169

Stilpon (like Antisthenes, as I have remarked above) seems to
have had in his mind a type of predication, similar Difficulty of
to the type of reasoning which Aristotle laid down in understand.
the syllogism : such that the form of the proposition mene ee
should be itself a guarantee for the truth of what was cate could

. ; g
affirmed. Throughout the ancient philosophy, es- more than
pecially in the more methodised debates between the 7° Sect.
Academics and Sceptics on one side, and the Stoics on the other
—what the one party affirmed and the other party denied, was,
the existence of a Criterion of Truth: some distinguishable
mark, such as falsehood could not possibly carry. To find this
infallible mark in propositions, Stilpon admitted none except
identical. While agreeing with Antisthenes, that no predicate
eould belong to a subject different from itself, he added a new
argument, by pointing out that predicates applied to one subject
were also applied to many other subjects. Now if the predicates
belonged to one, they could not (in his view) belong to the
others: and therefore they did not really belong to any. He
considered that predication involved either identity or special
and exclusive implication of the predicate with the subject.

Stilpon was not the first who had difficulty in explaining to
himself how one and the same predicate could be

Analogous
applied to many different subjects. The difficulty difficu tion
had already been set forth in the Platonic Par- tonic Par-

menidés.

menidés.t How can the Form (Man, White, Good,
&c.) be present at one and the same time in many distinct indi-

ladie, dans laquelle tous, on presque
tous, cesaccidents se trouvent combinés.
511 en manque un ou plusieurs, ce n’est
point la pleurésie, du moins la vraie
pleurésie essentielle des écoles. C’est
donc le concours de ces accidents qui la
constitue. Le mot pleurésie ne fait que
les retracer d’une maniére plus courte.
Ce mot n'est pas un étre par lui-méme:
il exprime une abstraction de l’esprit,
et réveille par un seul trait toutes les
images d’un assez grand tableau.

‘¢ Ainsi lorsque, non content de con-
noitre une maladie par ce qu’elle offre
ἃ nos sens, par ce qui seul la constitue,
et sans quoi elle n’existeroit pas, vous
demandez encore quelle est sa nature en elle-
méme, quelle est son essence—c'est comme si
vous demandiez quelle est la nature ow
Vessence d'un mot, dune pure abstrac-

tion. Il n’y a done pas beaucoup de
justesse & dire, d’un air de triomphe,
que les médecins ignorent méme la
nature de la flévre, et que sans cesse
ils agissent dans des circonstances, ou
manient des instruments, dont l’essence
leur est inconnue.”

1 Plato, Parmenidés, p. 181. Com-
are also Philébus, δ; 15, and Stall-
aum’s Proleg. to the Parmenidés,

pp. 46-47. The long commentary of

oklus (vy. 100-110. pp. 670-682 of
the edition of Stallbaurn). mply attests
the δυσκολίαν of the problem.

The argument of Parmenidés (in
the dialogue called Parmenidés) is
applied to the Platonic εἴδη and to ra
μετέχοντα. But thea ent is just as
applicable to attributes, genera,
all general predicates.

mucl
species :

170 Cuap. 11].

OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.
viduals? It cannot be present asa whole in each: nor can it
be divided, and thus present partly in one, partly in another.
How therefore can it be present at all in any of them? In
other words, how can the One be Many, and how can the Many
be One? Of this difficulty (as of many others) Plato presents no
solution, either in the Parmenidés or anywhere else.! Aristotle
alludes to several contemporaries or predecessors who felt it.
Stilpon reproduces it in his own way. It is a very real difficulty,
requiring to be dealt with by those who lay down a theory of
predication ; and calling upon them to explain the functions of
general propositions, and the meaning of general terms.

Menedémus the Eretrian, one among the hearers and admirers
of Stilpon, combined even more than Stilpon the
attributes of the Cynic with those of the Megaric.
He was fearless in character, and uncontrouled in
speech, delivering harsh criticisms without regard 1o
offence given: he was also a great master of ingenious dialectic
and puzzling controversy.” His robust frame, grave deportment,
and simplicity of life, inspired great respect; especially as he
occupied a conspicuous position, and enjoyed political influence
at Eretria. He is said to have thought meanly both of Plato and
Xenokrates. We are told that Menedémus, like Antisthenes and
Stilpon, had doctrines of his own on the subject of predication.
He disallowed all negative propositions, admitting none but
affirmative: moreover even of the affirmative propositions, he
disallowed all the hypothetical, approving only the simple and
categorical.*

It is impossible to pronounce confidently respecting these doc-
trines, without knowing the reasons upon which they were
grounded. Unfortunately these last have not been transmitted
to us. But we may be very sure that there were reasons, suffi-
cient or insufficient : and the knowledge of those reasons would
have enabled us to appreciate more fully the state of the Greek

Menedémus

disallowed

all negative
redica-
ions.

1 Aristot. Physic. i. 2, 185, b. 26-36.

Lykophron and some others anterior
to Aristotle proposed to elude the diffi-
culty, by ceasing to use the substantive
verb as copula in predication : instead
of saying Σωκράτης ἐστὶ λευκός, they
said either Swxpdms λευκός, simply,
ΟΥ Σωκράτης λαλεύκωται.

This is a remarkable evidence of
the difficulty arising, even in these
early days of logic, about the logical
function of the copula. :

3 Diog. L. ii. 127-184. ἦν γὰρ καὶ
ἐπικόπτης καὶ παῤῥησὶ Se

8 Diog. L. ii. 134.

Cap. 111. SIMPLE OBJECTS UNDEFINABLE. 171

mind, in respect to logical theory, in and before the year 300
B.C.

Another doctrine, respecting knowledge and definition, is as-
cribed by Aristotle to “the disciples of Antisthenes Distinction
and other such uninstructed persons”: it is also ascribed to

. A . . Antisthenes
canvassed by Plato in the Thestétus,’ without speci- between
fying its author, yet probably having Antisthenes in complex
view. As far as we can make out a doctrine which objects.

both these authors recite as opponents, briefly and in jects unde.
their own way, it is as follows :—“ Objects must be neble.
distinguished into—1. Simple or primary ; and 2. Compound or
secondary combinations of these simple elements. This last
class, the compounds, may be explained or defined, because you
can enumerate the component elements. By such analysis, and
by the definition founded thereupon, you really come to know
them—describe them—predicate about them. But the first class,
the simple or primary objects, can only be perceived by sense
and named: they cannot be analysed, defined, or known. You
can only predicate about them that they are like such and such
other things : ¢.9., silver, you cannot say what it is in itself, but
only that it is like tin, or like something else. There may thus
be a ratio and a definition of any compound object, whether it be.
an object of perception or of conception: because one of the
component elements will serve as Matter or Subject of the pro-
position, and the other as Form or Predicate. But there can be
no definition of any one of the component elements separately
taken : because there is neither Matter nor Form to become the
Subject and Predicate of a defining proposition.”

This opinion, ascribed to the followers of Antisthenes, is not in
harmony with the opinion ascribed by Aristotle to Antisthenes
himself (viz., That no propositions, except identical propositions,
were admissible) : and we are led to suspect that the first opinion
must have been understood or qualified by its author in some
manner not now determinable. But the second opinion, drawing
a marked logical distinction between simple and complex Objects,
has some interest from the criticisms of Plato and Aristotle:
both of whom select, for the example illustrating the opinion, the

1 Plato, Theatét, pp. 201:202, Aristotel. Metaph. H. 1048, Ὁ. 22,

172 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Crap. IL

syllable—as the compound made up of two or more letters which
are its simple constituent elements.

Plato refutes the doctrine,! but in a manner not so much to
prove its untruth, as to present it for a verbal incon-
Plato on gruity. How can you properly say (he argues) that
this doc- = you know the compound AB, when you know neither

A nor B separately? Now it may be incongruous to
restrict in this manner the use of the words know—knowledge :
but the distinction between the two cases is not denied by Plato.
Antisthenes said—“TI feel a simple sensation (A or B) and can
name it, but I do not know it: I can affirm nothing about it
in itself, or about its real essence, But the compound AB I do
know, for I know its essence: I can affirm about it that ἐξ ἐξ
compounded of A and B, and this is its essence.” Here is a real
distinction: and Plato’s argument amounts only to affirming
that it is an incorrect use of words to call the compound known,
when the component elements are not known. Unfortunately
the refutation of Plato is not connected with any declaration of
his own counter-doctrine, for Thextétus ends in a result purely
negative,

Aristotle, in his comment on the opinion of Antisthenes, makes
Remarks ot ἢ understand better what it really is :—“ Respecting
Aristotle simple essences (A or B), I cannot tell what they
upon the really are: but I can tell what they are like or

unlike, te I can compare them with other essences,
simple or compound. But respecting the compound AB, I can
tell what it really is: its essence is, to be compounded of A and
B. And this I call knowing or knowledge.”* The distinction

1 Plato, Thestét, ut supra. not because we can take them to pieces,

3. Aristot. Metaphys. H. 1048, Ὁ. 24- and Bay, they are alike in this, not alike
82, with the Scholia, p. 774, Ὁ. Br. in that, but because we feel them to

Mr. J. S. Mili observes, Syst. of be alike altogether, though in different
Logic, i. δ, 6, p. 116, ed. 9:—-" There degrees. When therefore I say—The
is still another exceptional case, in colour I saw yesterday was a white
which, though the predicate is the colour, or, The sensation I feel is one
name of a class, yet in predicating it of tightness—in both cases theattribute
we affirm nothing but resemblance: I affirm of the colour or of the other
the class being founded not on resem- sensation is mere resemblance: simple
blance in any given particular, but on likeness tosensations which Ihave had
general unanalysable resemblance. The before, and which have had that name
classes in question are those into which bestowed upon them. The names of
our simple sensations, or other simple feelings, like other concrete general
feelings, are divided. Sensations of names, are connotative: but they con-
white, forinstance, are classedtogether, note a mere resemblance. When pre-

MONIMUS—KRATES—HIPPARCHIA. 173

Cuap. ITI.

here taken by Antisthenes (or by his followers) is both real and
useful: Plato dpes not contest it: while Aristotle distinctly
acknowledges it, only that among the simple items he ranks both
Percepta and Concepta.

Monimus a Syracusan, and Krates a Theban, with his wife
Hipparchia,’ were successors of Diogenes in the Cynic

Later Gre-
vein of philosophy : together with several others of cian Cynics
less note. Both Monimus and Krates are said to —Krates—

Hipparchia

have been persons of wealthy condition,” yet their
minds were so powerfully affected by what they saw of Diogenes,
that they followed his example, renounced their wealth, and
threw themselves upon a life of poverty ; with nothing beyond
the wallet and the threadbare cloak, but with fearless indepen-
dence of character, free censure of every one, and indifference to
opinion. “I choose as my country” (said Krates) “poverty and
low esteem, which fortune cannot assail: I am the fellow-
citizen of Diogenes, whom the snares of envy cannot reach.”3
Krates is said to have admonished every one, whether they
invited it or not: and to have gone unbidden from house to

dicated of any individual feelings, the
information they convey is that of its
likeness to the other feelings which we
have been accustomed to call by the
same name.”

1 Hipparchia was a native of Ma-
roneia in Thrace; born in a conside-
rable station, and belonging to an opu-
lent family. She came to Athens with
her brother Métroklés, and heard both
Theophrastus and Kratés. Both she
and her brother became impressed with
the strongest admiration for Kratés:
for his mode of life, as well as for his
discourses and doctrine. Rejectin
various wealthy suitors, she insiste
upon becoming his wife, both against
his will and against the will of her
parents. Her resolute enthusiasm over-
came the reluctance of both. She
adopted fully his hard life, poor fare,
and threadbare cloak. She passed her
days in the same discourses and contro-
versies, indifferent to the taunts which
were addressed to her for having relin-
quished the feminine occupations of
spinning and weaving. __ Diogenes
Laertius found many 8 riking dicta
or replies ascribed to her (ἄλλα μυρία
τῆς φιλοσόφου, Vi. 96-98). He gives

an allusion made to her by the con.
temporary comic poet Menander, who
(as I before observed) handled the
Cynics of his time as Aristophanes,
Eupolis, &c., had handled Sokrates—

Ξυμπεριπατήσεις γὰρ τρίβων ἔχουσ
ἐμοῖ,
ὥσπερ Κράτητι τῷ Κυνικῷ ποθ᾽ ἡ γυνὴ.
Καὶ θυγατέρ᾽ ἐξέδωκ᾽ ἐκεῖνος, ὡς ἔφη
αὐτὸς, ἐπὶ πειρᾷ δοὺς τριάκονθ᾽ ἡμέρας.
(vi. 98,}

2 Diog, L. vi. 82-88. Μόνιμος 0 Κύων,
Sext. Emp. adv. Mathem. vii. 48-88.

About Krates, Plutarch, De Vit.
Aere Alieno, 7, p. 881 F.

3 Diog. L. vi. 98. ἔχειν δὲ πατρίδα
ἀδοξίαν τε καὶ πενίαν, ἀνάλωτα τῇ τύχῃ:
καὶ --ΔΑιογένους εἶναι πολίτης ἀνεπεβου-
Aevtov φϑόνῳ The parody or verses
of Krates, about his city of Pera (the
Wallet), vi. 85, are very spirited—

Πήρη τις πόλις ἐστὶ μέσῳ ἐνὶ οἴνοπι
τύφῳ, ἄς.
Krates composed a collection of philo-
sophical Epistles, which Diogenes pro--
nounces to be excellent, and even to
resemble greatly the style of Plato
(vi. 98).

174 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Crap. ΠῚ.

house for the purpose of exhortation. His persistence in this
practice became so obtrusive that he obtained the title of “the
Door-Opener”.! This feature, common to several other Cynics,
exhibits an approximation to the missionary character of So-
krates, as described by himself in the Platonic Apology : a feature
not found in any of the other eminent heads of philosophy—
neither in Plato nor in Aristotle, Zeno, or Epikurus.

Among other hearers of Krates, who carried on, and at the
Zeno οἵ same time modified, the Cynic discipline, we have to
Kitiumin mention Zeno, of Kitium in Cyprus, who became
Cyprus. celebrated as the founder of the Stoic sect. In him
the Cynic, Megaric, and Herakleitean tendencies may be said to
have partially converged, though with considerable modifica-
tions :? the ascetic doctrines (without the ascetic practices or
obtrusive forwardness) of the Cynics—and the logical subtleties
of the others. He blended them, however, with much of new
positive theory, both physical and cosmological. His composi-
tions were voluminous ; and those of the Stoic Chrysippus, after
him, were still more numerous. The negative and oppugning
function, which in the fourth century B.c. had been directed by
the Megarics against Aristotle, was in the third century B.c.
transferred to the Platonists, or Academy represented by Arke-
silaus : whose formidable dialectic was brought to bear upon the
Stoic and Epikurean schools—both of them positive, though
greatly opposed to each other.

ARISTIPPUS.

Along with Antisthenes, among the hearers and companions of
Sokrates, stood another Greek of very opposite dispositions, yet
equally marked and original — Aristippus of Kyréné. The
stimulus of the Sokratic method, and the novelty of the topics on
which it was brought to bear, operated forcibly upon both,

1 Diog. L. vi. 86. ἐκαλεῖτο δὲ θυρε- Epist. 29.
πανοίκτης, διὰ τὸ εἰς πᾶσαν εἰσιέναι 2 Numenius ap. Euseb. Preep. Evang.
οἰκίαν καὶ νουθετεῖν. Compare Seneca, xiv. δ.

Cuap. ITT. ZENO—ARISTIPPUS. 175

prompting each of them to theorise in his own way on the beat
plan of life.

Aristippus, a Kyrenean of easy circumstances, having heard
of the powerful ascendancy exercised by Sokrates ristippus-
over youth, came to Athens for the express purpose life, ona
of seeing him, and took warm interest in his conver- doctrine.
sation.’ He set great value upon mental cultivation and accom-
plishments ; but his habits of life were inactive, easy, and
luxurious. Upon this last count, one of the most interesting
chapters in the Xenophontic Memorabilia reports an interrogative
lecture addressed to him by Sokrates, in the form of dialogue.?

Sokrates points out to Aristippus that mankind may be dis-
tributed into two classes: 1. Those who have trained piscourse of
themselves to habits of courage, energy, bodily S¢krates
strength, and command over their desires and appe- tippus.
tites, together with practice in the actual work of life:—these are
the men who become qualified to rule, and who do actually rule.
2. The rest of mankind, inferior in these points, who have no
choice but to obey, and who do obey.2—Men of the first or ruling
class possess all the advantages of life: they perform great
exploits, and enjoy a full measure of delight and happiness, so
far as human circumstances admit. Men of the second class are
no better than slaves, always liable to suffer, and often actually
uffering, ill-treatment and spoliation of the worst kind. To
which of these classes (Sokrates asks Aristippus) do you calculate
on belonging—and for which do you seek to qualify yourself 1—
To neither of them (replies Aristippus). I do not wish to share
the lot of the subordinate multitude: but I have no relish for a
life of command, with all the fatigues, hardships, perils, &c.,
which are inseparable from it. I prefer a middle course: I wish
neither to rule, nor to be ruled, but to be a freeman: and 1 con-
sider freedom as the best guarantee for happiness. I desire only

1 Plutarch (De Curiositate, p. 516 A) 8 Xen. Memor. ii. 1,1 seq. τὸν
says that Aristippus intormed himself, μὲν ὅπως ἱκανὸς ἔσται ἄρχειν, τὸν δὲ
at the Olympic games, from Ischo- ὅπως μήδ᾽ ἀντιποιήσεται ἀρχῆς --- τοὺς
machus respecting the influence of ἀρχικούς. ae ,
kra Xen. Mem. fi. 1, 11, ἀλλ᾽ εἶναί
3 See the first chapter of the Second ris μοι δοκεῖ μέση τούτων ὁδός, ἣν
Book of the Memorabilia. πειρῶμαι ἕξειν, οὔτε δι ἀρχῆς, «
I give an abstract of the principal διὰ δουλείας, ἀλλὰ δι᾽ ἐλευθερίας, ἧπερ
oints in the dialogue, not a literal μάλιστα πρὸς εὐδαιμονίαν ἄγει,
ransiaticn.

176 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. ΠῚ.

to pass through life as easily and pleasantly as possible..—Which
of the two do you consider to live most pleasantly, the rulers or
the ruled? asks Sokrates.—I do not rank myself with either
(says Aristippus): nor do I enter into active duties of citizenship
anywhere : I pass from one city to another, but everywhere as a
stranger or non-citizen.—Your scheme is impracticable (says
Sokrates). You cannot obtain security in the way that you pro-
pose. You will find yourself suffering wrong and distress along
with the subordinates *—and even worse than the subordinates :
for a stranger, wherever he goes, is less befriended and more
exposed to injury than the native citizens. You will be sold into
slavery, though you are fit for no sort of work: and your
master will chastise you until you become fit for work.—But
(replies Aristippus) this very art of ruling, which you consider
to be happiness,’ is itself a hard life, a toilsome slavery, not only
stripped of enjoyment, but full of privation and suffering. A
man must be a fool to embrace such discomforts of his own
accord.—It is that very circumstance (says Sokrates), that he
does embrace them of his own accord—which renders them
endurable, and associates them with feelings of pride and dignity.
They are the price paid beforehand, for a rich reward to come.
He who goes through labour and self-denial, for the purpose of
gaining good friends or subduing enemies, and for the purpose of
acquiring both mental and bodily power, so that he may manage
his own concerns well and may benefit both his friends and his
country—such a man will be sure to find his course of labour
pleasurable. He will pass his life in cheerful* satisfaction, not
only enjoying his own esteem and admiration, but also extolled
and envied by others. On the contrary, whoever passes his
earlier years in immediate pleasures and indolent ease, will

1 Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 9. ἐμαντον τοίνυν
τάττω εἰς τοὺς Bovdoudvous ἣ ῥᾷστα
καὶ hora βιοτεύειν.

2 Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 12. et μέντοι ἐν ἀν-
θρώποις ὧν μήτε ἄρχειν ἀξιώσεις μήτε
ἄρχεσθαι, μήτε τοὺς ἄρχοντας ἑκὼν
θεραπεύσεις, οἶμαί σε ὃρᾷν ὡς ἐπί:
στανται οἱ κρείττονες τοὺς ἥττονας καὶ
κοινῇ καὶ ἰδίᾳ κλαίοντας καθίσαντες, ὡς
δούλοις χρῆσθαι.

t follows is yet more emphatic,
about the unjust oppression of rulers,

and the suffering on the part of sub-

ects.

3Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 17. ᾿Αλλὰ
yap, ὦ Σώκρατες, οἱ eis τὴν βασιλικὴν
τέχνην παιδενόμενοι, ἣν δοκεῖς μοι σὺ
νομίζειν εὐδαιμονίαν εἶναι.

Compare Memor. ii. 8, 4. ες

4Xen. Mem. if. 1, 19. πῶς οὐκ
οἴεσθαι χρὴ τούτους καὶ πονεῖν ἡδέως
εἰς τὰ τοιαῦτα, Kai GAY εὐφραινομένους,
ἀγαμένους μὲν ἑαντοὺς, ἐπαινουμένους
δὲ καὶ ζηλουμένους ὑπὸ τῶν ἄλλων ;

Cuap. IT. SOKRATES LECTURES ARISTIPPUS. 177

acquire no lasting benefit either in mind or body. He will have
a soft lot at first, but his future will be hard and dreary’.

Sokrates enforces his lecture by reciting to Aristippus the
memorable lecture or apologue, which the Sophist choice of
Prodikus was then delivering in lofty diction to Héraklés.
numerous auditors*—the fable still known as the Choice of
Héraklés. Virtue and Pleasure (the latter of the two being here
identified with Evil or Vice) are introduced as competing for
the direction of the youthful Héraklés. Each sets forth her case,
in dramatic antithesis. Pleasure is introduced as representing
altogether the gratification of the corporeal appetites and the
love of repose: while Virtue replies by saying, that if youth be
employed altogether in pursuing such delights, at the time when
the appetites are most vigorous—the result will be nothing but
fatal disappointment, accompanied with entire loss of the different
and superior pleasures available in mature years and in old age.
Youth is the season of labour: the physical appetites must be
indulged sparingly, and only at the call of actual want: accom-
plishments of body and mind must be acquired in that season,
which will enable the mature man to perform in after life great
and glorious exploits. He will thus realise the highest of all
human delights—the love of his friends and the admiration of his
countrymen—the sound of his own praises and the reflexion
upon his own deserts. At the price of a youth passed in labour
and self-denial, he will secure the fullest measure of mature and
attainable happiness.

“Tt is worth your while, Aristippus” (says Sokrates, in con-
cluding this lecture), “to bestow some reflexion on what is to
happen in the latter portions of your life.”

This dialogue (one of the most interesting remnants of anti-
quity, and probably reported by Xenophon from actual tmiustration
hearing) is valuable in reference not only to Aristip- 2fforded of

the views of

pus, but also to Sokrates himself. Many recent Sokrates
historians of philosophy describe Sokrates and Plato (epg

as setting up an idea of Virtue or Good Absolute (1.¢e. Evil

1 Xen. Mem. ii. 1, 20, cited from 2 Xen. Mem. fi. 1, 21-34. ἐν τῷ -

Epicharmus :— Co. ,, γράμματι τῷ περὶ Ἡρακλέους, Beep bh

μὴ τὰ μαλακὰ μώεο, μὴ τὰ σκλήρ καὶ πλείστοις ἐπιδείκνυται---μεγαλειοτέ-
ἔχῃς. ~ ροις ῥήμασιν.

1--1Ὦ

178 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. CuaP, III.

having no essential reference to the happiness or security of the
agent or of any one else) which they enforce—and an idea of
Vice or Evil Absolute (1.6. having no essential reference to suffer-
ing or peril, or disappointment, either of the agent or of any one
else) which they denounce and discommend—and as thereby re-
futing the Sophists, who are said to have enforced Virtue and
denounced Vice only relatively—t.e. in consequence of the bearing
of one and the other upon the security and happiness of the agent
or of others. Whether there be any one doctrine or style of
preaching which can be fairly ascribed to the Sophists as a class,
I will not again discuss here: but I believe that the most eminent
among them, Protagoras and Prodikus, held the language here
ascribed to them. But it is a mistake to suppose that upon this
point Sokrates was their opponent. The Xenophontic Sokrates
(a portrait more resembling reality than the Platonic) always
holds this same language: the Platonic Sokrates not always, yet
often. In the dialogue between Sokrates and Aristippus, as well
as in the apologue of Prodikus, we see that the devotion of the
season of youth to indulgence and inactive gratification of appe-
tite, is blamed as productive of ruinous consequences—as entail-
ing loss of future pleasures, together with a state of weakness
which leaves no protection against future suffering ; while great
care is taken to show, that though laborious exercise is demanded
during youth, such labour will be fully requited by the increased
pleasures and happiness of after life. The pleasure of being
praised, and the pleasure of seeing good deeds performed by one’s
self, are especially insisted on. On this point both Sokrates and
Prodikus concur.!

If again we compare the Xenophontic Sokrates with the
Comparison Platonic Sokrates, we shall find that the lecture of the
ofthe Xeno- former to Aristippus coincides sufficiently with the

hontic $0- theory laid down by the latter in the dialogue Prota-
the Platonic goras ; to which theory the Sophist Protagoras is re-
presented as yielding a reluctant adhesion. But we

shall find also that it differs materially from the doctrine main-

1Xenoph. Mem. ii. 1, 81. τοῦ πώποτε σεαντῆς ἔργον καλὸν τεθέασαι.....
δὲ πάντων ἡδίστον ἀκούσματος, ἐπαίνον τὰ μὲν ἡδέα ἐν νεότητι διαδρα-
σεαντῆς, ἀνήκοος εἶ, καὶ τοῦ πάντων μόντες, τὰ δὲ χαλεπὰ ἐς τὸ ynpas ἀποθέ-
ἡδιστον θεάματος ἀθέατος'" οὐδὲν γὰρ μενοι."

Cur. III. SOKRATES, XENOPHONTIC AND PLATONIC. 179

tained by Sokrates in the Platonic Gorgias. Nay, if we follow
the argument addressed by the Xenophontic Sokrates to Aristip-
pus, we perceive that it is in substance similar to that which the
Platonic dialogue Gorgias puts in the mouth of the rhetor Pélus
and the politician Kalliklés. The Xenophontic Sokrates distri-
butes men into two classes—the rulers and the ruled: the former
strong, well-armed, and well-trained, who enjoy life at the ex-
pense of the submission and suffering of the latter: the former
committing injustice, the latter enduring injustice. He impresses
upon Aristippus the misery of being confounded with the suffer-
ing many, and exhorts him to qualify himself by a laborious
apprenticeship for enrolment among the ruling few. If we read
the Platonic Gorgias, we shall see that this is the same strain in
which Pélus and Kalliklés address Sokrates, when they invite
him to exchange philosophy for rhetoric, and to qualify himself
for active political life. ‘Unless you acquire these accomplish-
ments, you will be helpless and defenceless against injury and
insult from others: while, if you acquire them, you will raise
yourself to political influence, and will exercise power over others,
thus obtaining the fullest measure of enjoyment which life
affords: see the splendid position to which the Macedonian
usurper Archelaus has recently exalted himself! Philosophy is
useful, when studied in youth for a short time as preface to pro-
fessional and political apprenticeship: but if a man perseveres
in it and makes it the occupation of life, he will not only be use-
less to others, but unable to protect himself; he will be exposed
to suffer any injustice which the well-trained and powerful men
may put upon him.” To these exhortations of Pélus and Kalli-
klés Sokrates replies by admitting their case as true matter of
fact. “1 know that I am exposed to such insults and injuries :
but my life is just and innocent. If I suffer, I shall suffer
wrong: and those who do the wrong will thereby inflict upon
themselves a greater mischief than they inflict upon me. Doing
wrong is worse for the agent than suffering wrong.””

There is indeed this difference between the Xenophontic

1 Plato, Gorgias, pp. 466-470-486. βούληται, καὶ vai μὰ Δία ov ye θαῤῥῶν

2 Plato, ; Gorgias, Pp. 508-509-521- πατάξαι ᾽τὴν ἄτιμον ταύτην πληγήν.
δ927 C καὶ ἔασόν τινα σοῦ καταφρονῆ- οὐδὲν γὰρ δεινὸν πείσει, ἐὰν τῷ ὄντι ἧς
σαι ὡς ἀνοήτον, καὶ προπηλακίσαι ἐὰν καλὸς κἀγαθός, ἀσκῶν ἀρετήν.

180 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. CuapP. IIT.

Xenophon. Sokrates in his address to Aristippus, and the Pla-
toikine ee tonic Kalliklés in his exhortation to Sokrates : That
Aristippus whereas Kalliklés proclaims and even vindicates it
in Platonic 85 natural justice and right, that the strong should
Gorgias. — gratify their desires by oppressing and despoiling the
weak—the Xenophontic Sokrates merely asserts such oppression
as an actual fact, notorious and undeniable,’ without either approv-
ing or blaming it. Plato, constructing an imaginary conversation
with the purpose that Sokrates shall be victorious, contrives
intentionally and with dramatic consistency that the argument
of Kalliklés shall be advanced in terms so invidious and revolting
that no one else would be bold enough to speak it out :? which
contrivance was the more necessary, as Sokrates is made not only
to disparage the poets, rhetors, and most illustrious statesmen of
historical Athens, but to sustain a thesis in which he admits himself
to stand alone, opposed to aristocrats as well as democrats. Yet
though there is this material difference in the manner of hand-
ling, the plan of life which the Xenophontic Sokrates urges upon
Aristippus, and the grounds upon which he enforces it, are really
the same as those which Kalliklés in the Platonic Gorgias urges
upon Sokrates. “ Labour to qualify yourself for active political
power ”—is the lesson addressed in the one case to a wealthy man
who passed his life in ease and indulgence, in the other case to a
poor man who devoted himself to speculative debate on general
questions, and to cross-examination of every one who would listen
and answer. The man of indulgence, and the man of specula-
tion,’ were both of them equally destitute of those active energies,

1 If we read the conversation alleged 4 If we read the treatise of Plutarch,
by Thucydides (v. 94-105-112) to have ITepi Στωικων ἐναντιωμάτων (0. 2-3, p.
taken place between the Athenian 1033 C-D), we shall see that the Stoic

enerals and the executive council of writers, Zeno, Kleanthes, Chrysippus,

elos, just before the siege of that Diogenes, Antipater, all of them
island by the Athenians, we shall see earnestly recommended a life of active
that this same language is held by the citizenship and laborious political duty,
Athenians. ‘‘ You, the Melians, being as incumbent upon philosophers not
much weaker, must submit to us who less than upon others; and that they
are much stronger; this is the universal treated with contempt a life of literary
law and necessity of nature, which we leisure and onpecula ion. Chrysippus
are not the first to introduce, but only explicitly declared οὐδὲν διαφέρειν τὸν
follow out, as others have done before σχολαστικὸν βίον τοῦ δονικοῦ, a ὁ.
us, and will do after us. Submit—or that the speculative philosopher who
it will be worse for you. No middle kept aloof from political activity, was
course, or neutrality, 15 open to you.” in substance a follower of Epikurus.

2 Plato, Gorgias, pp. 482-487-492, Tacitus holds much the same language

8 Plato, Gorgias, pp. 472-521. (Hist. iv. 5) when he says about

CuapP, ITI, MIDDLE COURSE—HOW FAR POSSIBLE.

181

which were necessary to confer power over others, or even security
against oppression by others.

In the Xenophontic dialogue, Aristippus replies to Sokrates
that the apprenticeship enjoined upon him is too

; ; ; Lan Θ
laborious, and that the exercise of power, itself hel py

. . . ristl
laborious, has no charm for him. He desires a —hisssheme

middle course, neither to oppress nor to be oppressed: °f life.

neither to command, nor to be commanded—like Otanes among
the seven Persian conspirators! He keeps clear of political
obligation, and seeks to follow, as much as he can, his own indi-
vidual judgment. Though Sokrates, in the Xenophontic dia-
logue, is made to declare this middle course impossible, yet it is
substantially the same as what the Platonic Sokrates in the
Gorgias aspires to:—moreover the same as what the real Sokrates
at Athens both pursued as far as he could, and declared to be the
only course consistent with his security.2 The Platonic Sokrates
in the Gorgias declares emphatically that no man can hope to
take active part in the government of a country, unless he be
heartily identified in spirit with the ethical and political system
of the country : unless he not merely professes, but actually and
sincerely shares, the creed, doctrines, tastes, and modes of appre-
ciation prevalent among the citizens.3 Whoever is deficient in
this indispensable condition, must be content “to mind his own
business and to abstain from active meddling with public affairs”.
This is the course which the Platonic Sokrates claims both for

Helvidius Priscus:—‘‘ingenium fl-
lustre altioribus studiis juvenis admo-
dum dedit: non, ut plerique, ut nomine
magnifico segne otium velaret, sed quo
constantior adversus fortuita rempub-
licam capesseret,” &c.

The contradiction which Plutarch
notes is, that these very Stoic philoso-
phers (Chrysippus and the others) who
affected to despise all modes of life
except active civic duty—were them-
selves, all, menof literary leisure, spend-
ing their lives away from their native
cities, in writing and talking philoso-
phy. The same might have been said
about Sokrates and Plato (except as
to leaving their native cities), both of
whom incu the same reproach for
inactivity as Sokrates here addresses
to Aristippus.

1 Herodot. fii. 80-88.

2Plato, Apol. So. p, 82 A. ἰδιω-
γεύειν, ἀλλὰ μὴ δημοσιεύειν.
8 Plato, Gorgias, pp. 6510-518 Τίς

fa Led

οὖν mor ἐστὶ τέχνη τῆς παρασκενῆς
τοῦ μηδὲν ἀδικεῖσθαι ἣ ὡς ὀλίγιστα;
σκέψαι εἴ σοι δοκεῖ ἧπερ ἐμοί. ἐμοὶ μὲν
γὰρ δοκεῖ ἥδε' ἣ αὐτὸν ἄρχειν δεῖν ἐν
τῇ πόλει ἣ καὶ τυραννεῖν, ἢ τῆς ὑπαρ-
ovons πολιτείας ἑταῖρον εἶναι.
is exactly the language which Sokrates
folds ἴο Aristippus, Xenoph. Memor.
1, 12.
ὃς ἂν, ὁμοήθης ὧν, ταὐτὰ ψέγων καὶ
ἐπαινῶν, ἐθέλῃ « χεσθαι καὶ ὑποκεῖσθαι
τῷ ἄρχοντι--εὐθὺς ἐκ νέου ἐθίζειν αὑτὸν
τοῖς αὐτοῖς χαίρειν καὶ ἄχθεσθαι τῷ
δεσπότῃ (610 D). οὐ γὰρ μιμητὴν δεῖ
᾿ αὐτοφνῶς ὅμοιον τούτοις

182 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. ITI.

himself and for the philosopher generally}: it is also the course
which Aristippus chooses for himself, under the different title of
a middle way between the extortion of the ruler and the suffer-
ing of the subordinate. And the argument of Sokrates that no
middle way is possible—far from refuting Aristippus (as Xeno-
phon says that it did)? is founded upon an incorrect assumption :
had it been correct, neither literature nor philosophy could have
been developed.

The real Sokrates, since he talked incessantly and with every
one, must of course have known how to diversify his conversation
and adapt it to each listener. Xenophon not only attests this
generally,’ but has preserved the proofs of it in his

Diversified ΜῈ .

conversa- Memorabilia —real conversations, reported though

vere tts, doubtless dressed up by himself. The conversations
according to which he has preserved relate chiefly to piety and

the charac- . . . .

ter ofthe to the duties and proceedings of active life: and to
earer,

the necessity of controuling the appetites: these he
selected partly because they suited his proclaimed purpose of
replying to the topics of indictment, partly because they were in
harmony with his own idéal. Xenophon was a man of action, re-
solute in mind and vigorous in body, performin® with credit the
duties of the general as well as of the soldier. His heroes were
men like Cyrus, Agesilaus, Ischomachus—warriors, horsemen,
hunters, husbandmen, always engaged in active competition for
power, glory, or profit, and never shrinking from danger, fatigue,

1 Plato, Gorgias, p. 526 C-D. (Com-
pare Republic, vi. p. 496 D.) ανδρὸς
ἰδιώτον ἢἣ ἄλλον τινός, μάλιστα μέν,
ὄγωγέ φημι, ὦ Καλλίκλεις, φιλοσόφον
τὰ αὐτοῦ πράξαντος καὶ ov πολυπραγ-
μονήσαντος ἐν τῷ βίῳ---καὶ δὴ καὶ σὲ
ἀντιπαρακαλῶ (Sokrates to Kalliklés)
ἐπὶ τοῦτον τὸν βίον. Upon these words
Routh remarks: ‘“Respicitur inter hzo
verba ad Calliclis orationem, qué rerum
civilium tractatio et πολνπραγμοσύνη
Soocrati persuadentur,”—which is the
same invitation as the Xenophontic
Sokrates addresses to Aristippus.
Again, in Plat. Republ. viii. pp. 549 C,

A, we read, that corruption of the
virtuous character begins by invitations
to the shy youth to de from the
quiet plan of life followed by a virtuous

ather (who ra ἑαυτοῦ πράττει) and to
enter on a career of active political
ambition. The youth is induced, by

instigation of his mother and relatives
without, to pass from ἀπραγμοσύνη to
φιλοπραγμοσύνη, which is described as
a change for the worse. Even in Xeno-
phon (Memor. iii. 11, 16) Sokrates re.
cognises and jests upon his own ἀπραγ-
μοσννη.

2 Χρη. Mem. iii. 8, 1. Diogenes L.
says (and it is probable enough, from
radi difference of character) that
Xenophon was adversely disposed to
Aristippus. In respect to other per-
sons also, Xenophon puts invidious
constructions (for which at any rate no
ground is shown) upon their purposes
in questioning Sokrates: thus, in the
dialogue (i. 6) with the Sophist Anti-
phon, hesays that Antiphon questioned

okrates in order to seduce away his
companions (Mem. i. 6, 1).

3 Xen. Mem. iv. 1, 2-8.

CuHap. III. VARIED EXHORTATIONS OF SOKRATES. 183

or privation. For a life of easy and unambitious indulgence,
even though accompanied by mental and speculative activity—
“homines ignavé opera et philosoph& sententia”—he had no
respect. It was on this side that the character of Aristippus
certainly seemed to be, and probably really was, the most defec-
tive. Sokrates employed the arguments the most likely to call
forth within him habits of action—to render him πρακτικώτερον. ἢ
In talking with the presumptuous youth Glaukon, and with the
diffident Charmides,? Sokrates used language adapted to correct
the respective infirmities of each. In addressing Kritias and
Alkibiades, he would consider it necessary not only to inculcate
self-denial as to appetite, but to repress an exorbitance of ambi-
tion.® But in dealing with Aristippus, while insisting upon
command of appetite and acquirement of active energy, he at the
same time endeavours to kindle ambition, and the love of com-
mand : he even goes so far as to deny the possibility of a middle
course, and to maintain (what Kritias and Alkibiades* would
have cordially approved) that there was no alternative open,
except between the position of the oppressive governors and that
of the suffering subjects. Addressed to Aristippus, these topics
were likely to thrust forcibly upon his attention the danger of
continued indulgences during the earlier years of life, and the
necessity, in view to his own future security, for training in
habits of vigour, courage, self-command, endurance.

1 Xenoph. Memor. iv. 5, 1. ὡς δὲ
καὶ πρακτικωτέρους ἐποίει τοὺς σννόντας
αὐτῷ, νῦν αὖ τοῦτο λέξω.

2 Xenoph. Mem. iii. capp. 6 and 7.

3Xenoph. Memor. i. 2, 16-18-24.
Respecting the different tone and
arguments employed by Sokrates, in
his conversations with different per-
sons, see ἃ good passage in the Rhetor
Aristeides, Orat. xlvi. Ὑπὲρ τῶν τεττά-
ρων, p. 161, Dindorf.

4 We see from the first two chapters
of the Memorabilia of Xenophon (as
well as from the subsequent intimation
of Aischines, in the oration against
Timarchus, p. 173) how much stress
was laid by the accusers of Sokrates on
the fact that he had educated Kritias
and Alkibiades ; and how the accusers
alleged that his teaching tended to
encourage the like exorbitant aspira-
tions in others, dangerousto established
authority, traditional, legal, parenial,
divine. Idonotdoubt (what Xenophon

affirms) that Sokrates, when he con.
versed with Kritias and Alkibiades,
held a very opposite language. But it
was otherwise when he talked with
men of ease and indulgence without
ambition, such as Aristippus. If Me-
létus and Anytus could have put in
evidence the conversation of Sokrates
with Aristippus, many points of it
would have strengthened their case

ainst Sokrates before the Dikasts,

e read in Xenophon (Mem. i. 2, 58
how the point was made to tell, tha
Sokrates often cited and commented
on the passage of the Iliad ar 188) in
which the Grecian chiefs, retiring from
the agora to their ships, are described
as being respectfully aidressed by
Odysseus—while the common soldiers
are scolded and beaten by him, for the
very same conduct: the relation which
Sokrates here dwells on as subsisting
between oi ἀρχικοὶ and οἱ ἀρχόμενοι,
would favour the like colouring.

184 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap., ITI.

Xenophon notices briefly two other colloquies between Sokrates
Conversa. 204 Aristippus. The latter asked Sokrates, “ Do you
tion be- know anything good ?” in order (says Xenophon) that
tween So- . . .
kratesand if Sokrates answered in the affirmative and gave as
Aristippus examples, health, wealth, strength, courage, bread,
Goodand &c., he (Aristippus) might show circumstances in
Beautiful. which this same particular was evil ; and might thus
catch Sokrates in a contradiction, as Sokrates had caught him
before! But Sokrates (siys Xenophon) far from seeking to fence
with the question, retirted it in such a way as to baffle the
questioner, and at the same time to improve and instruct the
by-standers.? “Do you ask meif I know anything good fora
fever?—No. Or for ophthalmic distemper?—No. Or for
hunger 7—No. Oh! then, if you mean to ask me, whether I
know anything good, which is good for nothing—I reply that I
neither know any such thing, nor care to know it.”

Again, on another occasion Aristippus asked him—“ Do you
know anything beautiful?—Yes; many things.—Are they all
like to each other?—-No; they are as unlike as possible
to each other.—How then (continues Aristippus) can that
which is unlike to the beautiful, be itself beautiful ?—Easily
enough (replies Sokrates); one man is beautiful for running ;
another man, altogether unlike him, is beautiful for wrestling.
A shield which is beautiful for protecting your body, is altogether
unlike to a javelin, which is beautiful for being swiftly and
forcibly hurled.—Your answer (rejoined Aristippus) is exactly
the same as it was when I asked you whether you knew anything
good.—Certainly (replies Sokrates). Do you imagine, that the
Good is one thing, and the Beautiful another? Do you not
know that all things are good and beautiful in relation to the
same purpose? Virtue is not good in relation to one purpose,
and beautiful in relation to another. Men are called both
good and beautiful in reference to the same ends: the

1Xenoph. Memor. iii. 8, 1. Both the same manner. See in particular
Xenophon and some of his commen- his cross-examination of Euthydémus,
tators censure this asa captious string reported by Xenophon, Memor. iv. 2;
of questions put by Aristippa 7 fan and many others like it, both in Xeno-
tiosas Aristippi queestiunculas”. Such phon and in Plato.
a cutictsm ἃ f° ghreposterous, when alle 2 Xenoph. Memor. iii. 8, 1. βουλό-
reco ο was continu μενος τοὺς συνόντας ὠφελεῖν.
examining and questioning others in -

CHaP. 111. GOOD AND BEAUTIFUL RELATIVE. 185

bodies of men, in like manner: and all things which men
use, are considered both good and beautiful, in consideration
of their serving their ends well—Then (says Aristippus)
a basket for carrying dung is beautiful?—To be sure
(replied Sokrates), and a golden shield is ugly; if the former
be well made for doing its work, and the latter badly.—Do you
then assert (asked Aristippus) that the same things are beautiful
and ugly ?—Assuredly (replied Sokrates); and the same things
are both good and evil. That which is good for hunger, is often
bad for a fever: that which is good for a fever, is often bad for
hunger. What is beautiful for running is often ugly for wrest-
ling—and vice versd. All things are good and beautiful, in rela-
tion to the ends which they serve well: all things are evil and
ugly, in relation to the ends which they serve badly.” 2

These last cited colloquies also, between Sokrates and Aris-
tippus, are among the most memorable remains of pomarks on
Grecian philosophy: belonging to one of the years the conver:
preceding 399 B.c., in which last year Sokrates Theory α of
perished. Here (as in the former dialogue) the doc- G04
trine is distinctly enunciated by Sokrates—That Good and Evil
—Beautiful (or Honourable) and Ugly (or Dishonourable—Base)
—have no intelligible meaning except in relation to human
happiness and security. Good or Evil Absolute (i.¢. apart from
such relation) is denied to exist. The theory of Absolute Good
(a theory traceable to the Parmenidean doctrines, and adopted
from them by Eukleides) becomes first known to us as elaborated
by Plato. Even in his dialogues it is neither always nor ex-
clusively advocated, but is often modified by, and sometimes
even exchanged for, the eudeemonistic or relative theory.

Sokrates declares very explicitly, in his conversation with
Aristippus, what he means by the Good and the Beau- goa isreta-
tiful: and when therefore in the name of the Good tive to hu-
and the Beautiful, he protests against an uncontrolled and wants
devotion to the pleasures of sense (as in one of the in the view
Xenophontic dialogues with Euthydemus’), what he

1 Xenoph. Memor. iii. 8, 1-9. and fortitude as well as bodily energy
2 Xenoph. Memor. iv. 5. and activity. The reason upon whic
Sokrates exhorts those with whcm these exhortations are founded is

he converses to be ring in indul- eudemonistic: that a person will

gences, and to cultivate self-command thereby escape or be able to confront

186 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. CuapP. ITI.

means is, that a man by such intemperance ruins his prospects of
future happiness, and his best means of being useful both to
himself and others. Whether Aristippus first learnt from So-
krates the relative theory of the Good and the Beautiful, or had
already embraced it before, we cannot say. Some of his ques-
tions, as reported in Xenophon, would lead us to suspect that it
took him by surprise: just as we find, in the Protagoras of Plato
that a theory substantially the same, though in different words,
is proposed by the Platonic Sokrates to the Sophist Protagoras :
who at first repudiates it, but is compelled ultimately to admit it
by the elaborate dialectic of Sokrates.! If Aristippus did not
learn the theory from Sokrates, he was at any rate fortified in it
by the authority of Sokrates ; to whose doctrine, in this respect,
he adhered more closely than Plato.

Aristippus is recognised by Aristotle? in two characters: both

Aristippus 88 a Sophist, and as a companion of Sokrates and
adirered 0 Plato. Moreover it is remarkable that the doctrine,

of Sokrates. in reference to which Aristotle cites him as one
among the Sophists, is a doctrine unquestionably Sokratic—con-
tempt of geometrical science as useless, and as having no bearing
on the good or evil of life® Herein also Aristippus followed
Sokrates, while Plato departed from him.

In estimating the character of Aristippus, I have brought into
particular notice the dialogues reported by Xenophon,

Life and

dicta of because the Xenophontic statements, with those of
Aristippus . .

—Histype Aristotle, are the only contemporary evidence (for
of character.

Plato only names him once to say that he was not
present at the death of Sokrates, and was reported to be in
Aigina). The other statements respecting Aristippus, preserved

serious dangers—and will obtain for
himself ultimately greater pleasures
than those which he foregoes (Memor.
i. 6, 8; if. 1, 81-83; fii, 12, 2-5). Too
δὲ μὴ δουλεύειν γαστρὶ μηδὲ ὕπνῳ καὶ
λαγνείᾳ οἵει τε ἄλλο αἰτιώτερον εἶναι, ἣ
τὸ ἕτερα ἔχειν τούτων ἡδίω, ἃ οὐ μόνον
ἐν χρείᾳ ὄντα εὐφραίνει, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἔλπι-
δας παρέχοντα ὠφελήσειν ἀεί; See
also Memor. if. 4, ii 10, 4, about the
importance of acquiring and cultivat-
ing friends, because a good friend is
the most useful and valuable of all
possessions. Sokrates, like Aristippus
adopts the prudential view of life, an

not the transcendental ; recommendin
sobriety and virtue on the ground o
leasures secured and pains averted.

e find Plutarch, in his very bitter
attacks on Epikurus, reasoning on the
Hedonistic is, and professing to
prove that Epikurus ed plea-
sures more and greater for the sake of
obtaining pleasures fewer and less.
See Plutarch, Non posse suaviter vivi
secundum Epicurum, pp. 1096-1099.

1 Plato, Pro Yas, PP, 851-361.

2 Aristot. Rhetoric. ii, 24; Meta-
physic. B. 996, a. 82.

Xenophon. Memor. iv. 7, 2.

Cuap. IIL. CHARACTER OF ARISTIPPUS. 187

by Diogenes and others, not only come from later authorities,
but give us hardly any facts ; though they ascribe to him a great
many sayings and repartees, adapted to a peculiar type of charac-
ter. That type of character, together with an imperfect notion
of his doctrines, is all that we can make out. Though Aristippus
did not follow the recommendation of Sokrates, to labour and
qualify himself for a ruler, yet both the advice of Sokrates, to
reflect and prepare himself for the anxieties and perils of the
future—and the spectacle of self-sufficing independence which
the character of Sokrates afforded—were probably highly useful
to him. Such advice being adverse to the natural tendencies of
his mind, impressed upon him forcibly those points of the case
which he was most likely to forget: and contributed to form in
him that habit of self-command which is a marked feature in his
character. He wished (such are the words ascribed to him by
Xenophon) to pass through life as easily and agreeably as pos-
sible. Ease comes before pleasure: but his plan of life was to
obtain as much pleasure as he could, consistent with ease, or
without difficulty and danger. He actually realised, as far as
our means of knowledge extend, that middle path of life which
Sokrates declared to be impracticable.

Much of the advice given by Sokrates, Aristippus appears to
have followed, though not from the reasons which aristippus
Sokrates puts forward for giving it. When Sokrates acted con: |
reminds him that men liable to be tempted and en- the adviveof
snared by the love of good eating, were unfit to Sokrates.
command—when he animadverts on the insanity of the passionate
lover, who exposed himself to the extremity of danger for the
purpose of possessing a married woman, while there were such
abundant means of gratifying the sexual appetite without any
difficulty or danger whatever'—to all this Aristippus assents: and
what we read about his life is in perfect conformity therewith.
Reason and prudence supply ample motives for following such
advice, whether a man be animated with the love of command or
not. So again, when Sokrates impresses upon Aristippus that

1 Xen. Mem. if. 1, δ. καὶ τηλικούς σιῶν ἐπιθυμίας ἐν ἀδείᾳ, ὅμως εἰς τὰ
τῶν μὲν ἐπικειμένων τῷ μοιχεύοντε ἐπικίνδυνα φέρεσθαι, ἄρ᾽ οὐκ ἤδη τοῦτο
κακῶν τε καὶ αἰσχρῶν, ὄντων πολ παντάπασι κακοδαιμονῶντός ἔστιν;
λῶν τῶν ἀπολυσόντων τῆς τῶν ἀφροδι- Ἔμοιγε δοκεῖ, ἔφη (᾿Αρίστιππος).

188 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. ΠῚ.

the Good and the Beautiful were the same, being relative only to
human wants or satisfaction—and that nothing was either good
or beautiful, except in so far as it tended to confer relief, security,
or enjoyment—this lesson too Aristippus laid to heart, and applied
in ἃ way suitable to his own peculiar dispositions and capacities.

The type of character represented by Aristippus is the man
who enjoys what the present affords, so far as can be

Self-mastery . . . ri .
andinde- - done without incurring future mischief, or provoking
endence-_ the enmity of others—but who will on no account en-
piration of slave himself to any enjoyment; who always main-
Aristippus.

tains his own self-mastery and independence—and
who has prudence and intelligence enabling him to regulate each
separate enjoyment so as not to incur preponderant evil in
future! This self-mastery and independence is in point of fact
the capital aspiration of Aristippus, hardly less than of Antis-
thenes and Diogenes. He is competent to deal suitably with all
varieties of persons, places, and situations, and to make the best
of each—Od γὰρ τοιούτων δεῖ, τοιοῦτος εἶμ᾽ éyo:* but he accepts
what the situation presents, without yearning or struggling for
that which it cannot present.2 He enjoys the society both of the
Syracusan despot Dionysius, and of the Hetera Lais; but he
will not make himself subservient either to one or to the other:
he conceives himself able to afford, to both, as much satisfaction
as he receives.4 His enjoyments are not enhanced by the idea
that others are excluded from the like enjoyment, and that he is
& superior, privileged man : he has no jealousy or antipathy, no
passion for triumphing over rivals, no demand for envy or
admiration from spectators. Among the Heterz in Greece were
included all the most engaging and accomplished women—for in

1 Diog. L. ii. 67. οὕτως ἦν καὶ ἑλέσθαι
καὶ καταφρονῆσαι πολύς.
2Diog. L. ii. 66. ἦν δὲ ἱκανὸς ἀρ-
μόσασθαι καὶ τόπῳ καὶ χρόνῳ καὶ προ-
σώπῳ, καὶ πᾶσαν περίστασιν ἁρμονίως
ὑποκρίνασθαι" διὸ καὶ παρὰ Διοννσί
τῶν ἄλλων ηὐδοκίμει μᾶλλον, ἀεὶ τ
προσπεσὸν εὖ διατιθέμενος " ἀπέλανε μὲν
γὰρ ἡδονῆς τῶν παρόντων; οὐκ ἐθήρα δὲ
πόνῳ τὴν ἀπόλαυσιν τῶν OV παρόντων.
orat. Epistol. i. 17, 28-24 :--
‘‘Omnis Aristippum decuit color et
status et res,
Ten
sequum.

tantem majora, fer preesentibus is
u 2?

8 Sophokles, Philoktétes, 1049 (the
words of Odysseus).

4Diog. L. ii. 76. ἔχρητο καὶ Adal
τῇ ἑταίρᾳ' πρὸς οὖν τοὺς μεμφομένους
ἔφη, Ἔχω λΔαΐδα, ἀλλ' οὐκ ἔχομαι"
ἐπεὶ τὸ κρατεῖν καὶ μὴ ἡττᾶσθαι ἡδονῶν,
ἄριστον--οὗὐ τὸ μὴ Ζρῆσθαι. ii. 77,
Διονυσίον ποτὲ ἐρομένον, ἐπὶ τί ἥκοι,
ἔφη, ἐπὶ τῷ μεταδώσειν ὧν
μεταλήψεσθαι ὧν μὴ ἔχοι.

Lucian introduces ‘Aper) and Τρυφὴ
as litigating before Δίκη or the -
session of Aristippas e litiga on

ay undecided (Bis Accusatus, oc,

ὄχοι, καὶ

Crap. IIT. KYRENAIC PLAN OF LIFE. 189

Grecian matrimony, it was considered becoming and advanta-
geous that the bride should be young and ignorant, and that as a
wife she should neither see nor know any thing beyond the
administration of her own feminine apartments and household. }
Aristippus attached himself to those Hetzera who pleased him ;
declaring that the charm of their society was in no way lessened
by the knowledge that others enjoyed it also, and that he could
claim no exclusive privilege? His patience and mildness in
argument is much commended. The main lesson which he had
learnt from philosophy (he said), was self-appreciation—to behave
himself with confidence in every man’s society: even if all laws
were abrogated, the philosopher would still, without any law,
live in the same way as he now did. His confidence remained
unshaken, when seized as a captive in Asia by order of the
Persian satrap Artaphernes : all that he desired was, to be taken
before the satrap himself. Not to renounce pleasure, but to
enjoy pleasure moderately and to keep desires under controul,—
was in his judgment the true policy of life) But he was not
solicitous to grasp enjoyment beyond what was easily attainable,
nor to accumulate wealth or power which did not yield positive
result.’ While Sokrates recommended, and Antisthenes prac-
tised, the precaution of deadening the sexual appetite by
approaching no women except such as were ugly and repulsive,®
—while Xenophon in the Cyropedia,’ working out the Sokratic
idea of the dangerous fascination of beauty, represents Cyrus as
refusing to see the captive Pantheia, and depicts the too con-

1 Xenophon, Gconomic. 111, 18, vii.
δ, Ischomachus says to Sokrates about
his wife, Kat τί av ἐπισταμένην αὐτὴν
παρέλαβον, ἣ ἔτη μὲν οὕπω πεντεκαίδεκα
γεγοννις ἦλθε πρὸς ἐμέ, τὸν δ᾽ ἔμπροσ-

ev χρόνον egy ὑπὸ πολλῆς ἐπι-
μελείας, ὅπως ὡς ἔλαχιστα μὲν
ὄψοιτο, ἐλάχιστα δ᾽ ἀκούσοιτο,
ἐλάχιστα δὲ ἔροιτο;

2 Dion. L. ii. 74. On this point his
opinion coincided with that of Dio-

enes, and of the Stoics Zeno and
hrysippus (D. L. vii. 131), who main-
tained, that among the wise wives
ought to be in common, and that all
marital jealousy ought to be discarded.
᾿Αρέσκει δ᾽ avrrts Kat κοινὰς εἶναι τὰς
ναῖκας δεῖν παρὰ τοῖς σοφοῖς wore τὸν
ἐντυχόντοα, τῇ ἐντυχούσῃ χρῆσθαι, καθά

φησι Ζήνων ἐν τῇ Wodtreiq καὶ Χρύσιπ-

πος ἐν τῷ περὶ Πολιτείας, ἀλλά τε Διο-

γένης ὁ Κυνικὸς καὶ Πλάτων" πάντας te

παῖδας ἐπίσης στέρξομεν πατέρων τρό-

πον, καὶ ἡ ἐπὶ μοιχείᾳ ζηλοτυπία περιαι-
εθήσεται. ompare Sextus Emp.
yrrh. H, iii. 205.

3 Diog. L. ii. 68. The like reply is
ascribed to Aristotle. Diog. L. v. 203
Plutarch, De Profect. in Virtut. p. 80 D.

4 Diog. L. ii. 79.

5 Diog. L. ii. 72-74.

6 Xenoph. Memor. i. 8, 11-14; Sym.
posion, iv. 38; Diog. L. vi. 8. (Ἄντι-
σθένης) ἔλεγε συνεχὲς --- Μανείην pad-
λον ἣ ἡσθείην --- καὶ --- χρὴ τοιαύταις
πλησιάξειν γυναιξίν, at χάριν εἴσονται.

Xenoph. Cyropeed. v. 1, 2-18.

190 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cnap. ITT.

fident Araspes (who treats such precaution as exaggerated
timidity, and fully trusts his own self-possession), when appointed
to the duty of guarding her, as absorbed against his will in a
passion which makes him forget all reason and duty—Aristippus
has sufficient self-mastery to visit the most seductive Hetere
without being drawn into ruinous extravagance or humiliating
subjugation. We may doubt whether he ever felt, even for Lais,
a more passionate sentiment than Plato in his Epigram expresses
towards the Kolophonian Hetzera Archeanassa.

Aristippus is thus remarkable, like the Cynics Antisthenes
Ari and Diogenes, not merely for certain theoretical

stippus . : .
compared doctrines, but also for acting out a certain plan of
ith Antis- life. We know little or nothing of the real life
Diogenes— of Aristippus, except what appears in Xenophon.

oints of . . . .
agreement The biography of him (as of the Cynic Diogenes)
aveement given by Diogenes Laertius, consists of little more
between than a string of anecdotes, mostly sayings, calculated

to illustrate a certain type of character.2 Some of
these are set down by those who approved the type, and who
therefore place it in a favourable point of view—others by those
who disapprove it and give the opposite colour.

We can understand and compare the different types of cha-
racter represented by Antisthenes or Diogenes, and by Aristip-
pus: but we have little knowledge of the real facts of their lives.
The two types, each manifesting that marked individuality
which belongs to the Sokratic band, though in many respects
strongly contrasted, have also some points of agreement. Both
Aristippus and Diogenes are bent on individual freedom and
independence of character: both of them stand upon their own
appreciation of life and its phenomena: both of them are
impatient of that servitude to the opinions and antipathies of

1 Sextus Empiricus and others de- may be seen from the expensive man-
scribe this by the Greek word ἀγωγή ner of life of Theodoté, described in
(Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. i. 150). Plato’s Xenophon, Mem. iii. 11, 4.
beautiful epigram upon Archeanassa The amorous impulses or fancies of
is given by Diogenes L. iii. 81. Com- Plato were censured by Dikssarchus.

this with the remark of Aris- See Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iv. 84, 71, with
tppus—Plutarch, Amatorius, p. 750 Davies’s note.

ν 2 This is justly remarked by Wendt

That the society of these fascinating in his instructive Dissertation, De Phi..
Hetsersee was dangerous, and exhaustive losophié Cyrenaicé, p. 8 (Gottingen,
to the purses of those who sought it, 1941).

ARISTIPPUS COMPARED WITH DIOGENES. 191

Cuap, IIT,

others, which induces a man to struggle for objects, not because
they afford him satisfaction, but because others envy him for
possessing them—and to keep off evils, not because he himself
feels them as such, but because others pity or despise him for
being subject to them: both of them are exempt from the com-
petitive and ambitious feelings, from the thirst after privilege
and power, from the sense of superiority arising out of monopo-
lised possession and exclusion of others from partnership.
Diogenes kept aloof from political life and civil obligations as
much as Aristippus ; and would have pronounced (as Aristippus
replies to Sokrates in the Xenophontic dialogue) that the task of
ruling others, instead of being a prize to be coveted, was nothing
better than an onerous and mortifying servitude,! not at all less
onerous because a man took up the burthen of his own accord.
These points of agreement are real: but the points of disagree-
ment are not less real. Diogenes maintains his free individua-
lity, and puts himself out of the reach of human enmity, by
clothing himself in impenetrable armour : by attaining positive
insensibility, as near as human life permits. This is with him
not merely. the acting out of a scheme of life, but also a matter
of pride. He is proud of his ragged garment and coarse ? fare, as
exalting him above others, and as constituting him a pattern of
endurance : and he indulges this sentiment by stinging and con-
temptuous censure of every one. Aristippus has no simila
vanity : he achieves his independence without so heavy a renun-
ciation: he follows out his own plan of life, without setting him-
self up as a pattern for others. But his plan is at the same time
more delicate ; requiring greater skill and intelligence, more of

1 It is this servitude of political life,
making the politician the slave of per-
sons and circumstances around him,
which Horace contrasts with the philo-
sophical independence of Aristippus :—

Ac ne forté roges, quo me duce, quo
lare tuter ;

Nullius addictus jurare in verba
magistri

Quo me cunque rapit tempestas, de-
feror hospes

Nune
undis,

Virtutis verse custos rigidusque sat-

elles :
Nunc in Aristippi furtim preecepta
relabor,

ο et mersor civilibus

Et mihi res, non me rebus, sub-
jungere conor.
(Epist. i. 1, 1B.)
So also the Platonic Sokrates
(Thestat. pp. 172-176) depicts forcibly
the cramped and fettered lives of
rhetors and politicians; contrasting
them with the self-judgment and in-
dependence of speculative and philo-
sophical enquirers—ws οἰκόται πρὸς
ἐλευθέρους τεθράφθαι---ὁ μὲν τῷ ὄντι ἐν
ἐλευθερίᾳ τε καὶ σχολῇ τεθραμμένος, ὃν
δὴ φιλόσοφον καλεῖς.

Diog. L. fi. 86, στρέψαντος 'Αντι-
σθένους τὸ διεῤῥωγὸς τοῦ τρίβωνος εἷς
τοὐμφανές, ‘Opw σοῦ, ἔφη (Σωκράτη),
διὰ τοῦ τρίβωνος τὴν κενοδοξίαν.

192 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. IIt.

manifold sagacity, in the performer. Horace, who compares the
two and gives the preference to Aristippus, remarks that Dio-
genes, though professing to want nothing, was nevertheless as
much dependent upon the bounty of those who supplied his
wallet with provisions, as Aristippus upon the favour of princes:
and that Diogenes had only one fixed mode of proceeding, while
Aristippus could master and turn to account a great diversity of
persons and situations—could endure hardship with patience and
dignity, when it was inevitable, and enjoy the opportunities of
pleasure when they occurred. “To Aristippus alone it is given
to wear both fine garments and rags”—is a remark ascribed to
Plato.! In truth, Aristippus possesses in eminent measure that
accomplishment, the want of which Plato proclaims to be so mis-
leading and mischievous—artistic skill in handling human affairs,
throughout his dealings with mankind.?

That the scheme of life projected by Aristippus was very
Attachment difficult, requiring great dexterity, prudence, and
of Aristip- resolution, to execute it—we may see plainly by
poe tlose. the Xenophontic dialogue ; wherein Sokrates pro-
poy coe nounces it to be all but impracticable. As far as we
other can judge, he surmounted the difficulties of it: yet
atudies. we do not know enough of his real life to determine
with accuracy what varieties of difficulties he experienced. He

1 Horat, ga bistol. i. 17, 18-24; Diog. Com re Diog. ii. 102, vi. 68,
L. vi. 46-5 where this anec Se is reported as of
“Si pranderet olus patienter, regibus Plato instead of Aristippus.)

uti Horace’ 5 view and scheme of life are

Nollet Aristippus. " “Si sciret regi- exceedingly analogous to those of Aris-
uti, » tippus. Plutarch, Fragm. De Homere,

Fastidirt olus, qui menotat.” Utrius Bi 1190; De Fortuna Alex. p. 330 D.

oru og. Laert. ii. 67. διό ποτε Στράτωνα,
Verba probes et facta, doce: vel οἱ δὲ Πλάτωνα, πρὸς αὐτὸν εἰπεῖν, Σοὶ

jumior audi μόνῳ δέδοται καὶ χλανίδα φορεῖν καὶ
Cur sit Aristipp! potior sententia. ῥάκος. The remark cannot have been
amgq made by Straton, who was not contem-

Mordacem "Cynicum sic eludebat, ut with Aristippus. Even Sokrates
lived the bounty of his rich friends,
“ Seurror ego ips ipse mihi, populo tu: and indeed could have had no other
rectius means of supporting his wife and
Splendidius muito est, Equusutme children; though he Eecepted only a
ortet, alat rex, small portion of what they tendered
Officium facio: tu posois vilia rerum, to him, declining the remainder. See
Dante minor, ¢ quamvis fers te nullius the remark, of ristippus, Diog. L. it.
egentem
Omnis Aristippum decuit color, et 2 Plato, Phedon, p. 89 Ἐ. ὅτι ἄνευ
status, 6 :

res, τέχνης τῆς περὶ τἀνθρώπεια & τοιοῦτος
Tent fert presentibus χρέσθαι & ἐπιχειρεῖ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις.

Cuap. III. ESTEEM FOR PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY. 193

followed the profession of a Sophist, receiving fees for his teach-
ing: and his attachment to philosophy (both as contrasted with.
ignorance and as contrasted with other studies not philosophy)
was proclaimed in the most emphatic language. It was better
(he said) to be a beggar, than an uneducated man :! the former
was destitute of money, but the latter was destitute of humanity.
He disapproved varied and indiscriminate instruction, maintain-
ing that persons ought to learn in youth what they were to
practise in manhood: and he compared those who, neglecting
philosophy, employed themselves in literature or physical science,
to the suitors in the Odyssey who obtained the favours of
Melantho and the other female servants, but were rejected by
the Queen Penelopé herself? He treated with contempt the
study of geometry, because it took no account, and made no
mention, of what was good and evil, beautiful and ugly. In
other arts (he said), even in the vulgar proceeding of the car-
penter and the currier, perpetual reference was made to good, as
the purpose intended to be served—and to evil as that which
was to be avoided: but in geometry no such purpose was ever
noticed.

This last opinion of Aristippus deserves particular attention,
because it is attested by Aristotle. And it confirms Aristivpus
what we hear upon less certain testimony, that Aris- taughtas a
_ tippus discountenanced the department of physical Pop rents
study generally (astronomy and physics) as well ag tion thus

ἢ . . acquired
geometry ; confining his attention to facts and rocured for
reasonings which bore upon the regulation of life. fim the at-
In this restrictive view he followed the example and Dionysius
precepts of Sokrates—of Isokrates—seemingly also of and others.
Protagoras and Prodikus—though not of the Eleian Hippias,
whose course of study was larger and more varied.5 Aristippus
taught as a Sophist, and appears to have acquired great reputa-

1 Diog. L. ii. 70; Plutarch, Fragm. 1078, a. 35. ὥστε διὰ ταῦτα καὶ τῶν
Ὑπομνήματ' εἰς Ἡσίοδον, 5. 9. ᾿Αρί- σοφιστῶν τινὲς οἷον ᾿Αρίστιππος προ e-
στιππος δὲ an’ ἐναντίας ὁ Σωκρατικὸς πηλάκιζον αὐτὰς, &.
ἔλεγε, συμβούλου δεῖσθαι χεῖρον εἶναι 4Diog. L. ii. 92. Sext. Emp. adv.
ἣ προσαιτεὶν. ον, Math. vii. 11. Plutarch, apud Euse-

Diog. L. ii. 79-80. τοὺς τῶν éy- bium Preep: Ev. i. 8, 9.
κυκλίων παιδευμάτων μετασχόντας, 5 Plato, Protagor. p. 818 E, where
ιλοσοφίας δὲ ἀπολειφθέντας, ἄς, Plu- the different methods followed b
rch. . Στρωματέων, sect. 9. Protagoras and Hippias are ind?
8 Aristot. Metaph. B. 996, a 82, M. cated.

1—13

194 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. CuapP, 111.

tion in that capacity both at Athens and elsewhere.’ Indeed, if
he had not acquired such intellectual and literary reputation at
Athens, he would have had little chance of being invited else-
where, and still less chance of receiving favours and presents
from Dionysius and other princes:* whose attentions did not
confer celebrity, but waited upon it when obtained, and doubt-
leas augmented it. If Aristippus lived a life of indulgence at
Athens, we may fairly presume that his main resources for
sustaining it, like those of Isokrates, were derived from his own
teaching : and that the presents which he received from Diony-
sius of Syracuse, like those which Isokrates received from
Nikokles of Cyprus, were welcome additions, but not his main
income. Those who (like most of the historians of philosophy)
adopt the opinion of Sokrates and Plato, that it is disgraceful for
an instructor to receive payment from the persons taught—will
doubtless despise Aristippus for such a proceeding: for my part
I dissent from this opinion, and I therefore do not concur in
the disparaging epithets bestowed upon him. And as for the
costly indulgences, and subservience to foreign princes, of which
Aristippus stands accused, we must recollect that the very same

1 Diog. Laert. ii. 62. Alexis Comi-
cus ap. Athens. xii. 544.

Aristokles (ap. Euseb. Preep. Ev. xiv.
18) treats the first Aristippus as a mere
voluptuary, who said nothing gene-

Υ περὶ τοῦ τέλους. All the doc-
trine (he says) came from the younger
Aristippus. I think this very impro-
bable. To what did the dialogues com-

sed by the first Aristippus refer?

cannot well have been younger than
Plato, and he is said have been
older than Aischines Sokraticus (Ὁ. L.
ii. 88). Compare D. L. ii, 41,

When, with these dates present to
our minds, we read the anecdotes re-
counted by Diogenes L. respecting the
sayings and doings of Aristippus with
Dionysius, we find that several of them
relate to the contrast between the

ow did he get his reputation ?

2 Several anecdotes are recounted
about sayings and doings of Aristip-
pus in intercourse with Diony-
situs. Which Dionysius is meant ?—
the elder or the younger? Probably
the elder.

It is to be remembered that Diony-
sius the Elder lived and reigned until
the nel 867 B.C., in which year his
son Dionysius the Younger succeeded
him. The death of Sokrates took
place in 899 B.c.: between which,
and the accession of Dionysius the
Younger, an interval of 32 years oc-
cu . Plato was old, be sixty
years of age, when he first visited the
younger Dionysius, shortly after the
accession of the latter. Aristippus

behaviour of Aristippus and that of
Plato at Syracuse. Now it is certain
that Plato went once to Syracuse when
he was forty years of age (Epist. vii.
init.), in 887 B.c.—and according to
one report (Lucian, De Parasito, 84),
he went there twice—while the elder
Dionysius was in the plenitude of
power: but he made an unfavourable
impression, and was speedily sent away
in displeasure. I think it very pro-
bable that Aristippus may have visited
the elder Dionysius, and may have
found greater favour with him than
Plato found (see Lucian, 1. c.), since
Dionysius was an accomplished man
and a composer of tragedies. More-
over Aristip us was 8 Kyrensan, and
wrote about Libya (Ὁ. L. ii. 88).

Cuap, ΠῚ. ETHICAL THEORY OF ARISTIPPUS. 195

reproaches were advanced against Plato and Aristotle by their
contemporaries: and as far as we know, with quite as much
foundation.!

Aristippus composed several dialogues, of which the titles alone
are preserved.2 They must however have been compositions of
considerable merit, since Theopompus accused Plato of borrowing
largely from them.

As all the works of Aristippus are lost, we cannot pretend
to understand fully his theory from the meagre

. . a . Ethical
abstract given in Sextus Empiricus and Diogenes. theory of
Yet the theory is of importance in the history of and the Ky-
ancient speculation, since it passed with some modi- renaic *philo-

fications to Epikurus, and was adopted by a large
proportion of instructed men. The Kyrenaic doctrine was
transmitted by Aristippus to his disciples Aithiops and Anti-
pater: but his chief disciple appears to have been his daughter
Arété : whom he instructed so well, that she was able to instruct
her own son, the second Aristippus, called for that reason
Metrodidactus. The basis of his ethical theory was, pleasure
and pain: pleasure being smooth motion, pain, rough motion:
pleasure being the object which all animals, by nature and
without deliberation, loved, pursued, and felt satisfaction in
obtaining—pain being the object which they all by nature hated
and tried to avoid. Aristippus considered that no one pleasure
was different from another, nor more pleasurable than another : 4
that the attainment of these special pleasurable moments, or as
many of them as practicable, was The End to be pursued in life.
By Huppiness, they understood the sum total of these special
pleasures, past, present, and future: yet Happiness was desirable

1See the epigram of the contem-
porary poet, Theokritus of Chios, in

iog. ΤΏ. v. 11; compare Atheneus,
viii. 354, xiii. 566. Aristokles, ap.
Eusebium Prep. Ev. xy. 2.

2 Diog. L. ii. 84-85.

8 Diog. L. ii. 86-87. δύο πάθη ὑφί-
στάντο, πόνον καὶ ἡδονήν" τὴν μὲν λείαν
κίνησιν, τὴν ἡδονήν, τὸν δὲ πόνον, τρα-

εἶαν κίνησιν" μὴ διαφέρειν τε ἡδονὴν
ἡδονῆς, μηδὲ ἥδιόν τι εἶναι" καὶ τὴν μὲν,
οκητὴνευὸ πᾶσι ζώοις, τὸν δὲ ἀποκρονσ-
τικόν.

4Diog. L. ti. p. 87. μὴ διαφέρειν

re ἡδονὴν ἡδονῆς, μηδὲ ἥδιόν τι εἶναι,
They did not mean by these words to
deny that one pleasure was more vehe

ment and attractive than another plea-
sure, or that one pain is more vehement

and deterrent than another pain: for
it is expressly said afterwards (8, 0)
that they admitted this, They mean

to affirm that one pleasure did not
differ from another so far forth as
pleasure: that all pleasures must be
ranked asa class, and compared with
each other in respect of intensity, dura-
bility, and other properties possessed
in greater or less degree.

196 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. TI,

not on its own account, but on account of its constituent items,
especially such of those items as were present and certainly
future! Pleasures and pains of memory and expectation were
considered to be of little importance. Absence of pain or relief
from pain, on the one hand—they did not consider as equivalent
to positive pleasure—nor absence of pleasure or withdrawal of
pleasure, on the other hand—as equivalent to positive pain.
Neither the one situation nor the other was a motion (κίνησις), 1.6.
a positive situation, appreciable by the consciousness: each was
a middle state—a mere negation of consciousness, like the
phenomena of sleep.» They recognised some mental pleasures
and pains as derivative from bodily sensation and as exclusively
individual—others as not so: for example, there were pleasures
and pains of sympathy ; and a man often felt joy at the pros-
perity of his friends and countrymen, quite as genuine as that
which he felt for his own good fortune. But they maintained
that the bodily pleasures and pains were much more vehement
than the mental which were not bodily : for which reason, the
pains employed by the laws in punishing offenders were chiefly
bodily. The fear of pain was in their judgments more operative
than the love of pleasure: and though pleasure was desirable
for its own sake, yet the accompanying conditions of many plea-
sures were so painful as to deter the prudent man from aiming
at them. These obstructions rendered it impossible for any one
to realise the sum total of pleasures constituting Happiness.
Even the wise man sometimes failed, and the foolish man some-
times did well, though in general the reverse was the truth: but
under the difficult conditions of life,a man must be satisfied if
he realised some particular pleasurable conjunctions, without
aspiring to a continuance or totality of the like.’

1 Diog. L. ii. pp. 88-89. Athenezus, mind whereby a Person becomes insen-

xil. Pp 544. ᾿ _ sible to pain, and hard to be imposed
4Diog. L. ii. 80-90. μὴ οὔσης τῆς Upon (ἀνάλγητος Kai δυσγοήτευτος).
amovias ἢ τῆς ἀηδονίας κινήσεως, ἐπεὶ ἡ 3 Diog. L. ii. 91

ἀπονία οἱονεὶ καθεύδοντός ἐστι κατά- It does not appear that the Kyrenaic
στασις -- μέσας καταστάσεις ὠνόμαζον sect followed out into detail the deri-
ἀηδονίαν καὶ ἀπονίαν. vative pleasures and pains; nor the way
_ A doctrine very different from this in which, by force of association, these
is ascribed to Aristippus in Galen— come to take precedence of the pri-
Placit. Philos. (xix. Ba 230, Kihn). mary, exercising influence on the mind
It is there affirmed t by pleasure both more forcible and more constant.
Aristippus understood, not, the plea- We find this important fact remarkably
sure of sense, but that disposition of stated in the doctrine of Kalliphon.

CuapP. ΠῚ. THE KYRENAIO SCHOOL.

197

Aristippus regarded prudence or wisdom as good, yet not as

good per se, but by reason of the pleasures which it

- er Prudence—
enabled us to procure and the pains which it enabled good, byrea-
. son οὗ the
us to avoid—and wealth as a good, for the same pleasure
reason. A friend also was valuable, for the use and Which it en-
necessities of life: just as each part of one’s own of the pains

body was precious, so long as it was present and
could serve a useful purpose.1 Some branches of
virtue might be possessed by persons who were not
wise : and bodily training was a valuable auxiliary

which it was
necessary to
avoid. Just
and honour-
able, by
law or cus-
tom—not
by nature.

to virtue. Even the wise man could never escape
pain and fear, for both of these were natural: but he would keep
clear of envy, passionate love, and superstition, which were
not natural, but consequences of vain opinion. A thorough
acquaintance with the real nature of Good and Evil would
relieve him from superstition as well as from the fear of death.?

The Kyrenaics did not admit that there was anything just,
or honourable, or base, by nature: but only by law and custom :
nevertheless the wise man would be sufficiently restrained, by
the fear of punishment and of discredit, from doing what was
repugnant to the society in which he lived. They maintained
that wisdom was attainable; that the senses did not at first
judge truly, but might be improved by study ; that progress was
realised in philosophy as in other arts, and that there were
different gradations of it, as well as different gradations of pain
and suffering, discernible in different men. The wise man, as
they conceived him, was a reality ; not (like the wise man of the
Stoics) a sublime but unattainable ideal.?

Such were (as far as our imperfect evidence goes) the ethical
and emotional views of the Kyrenaic school: their Their logical
theory and precepts respecting the plan and prospects theory—no-
of life. In regard to truth and knowledge,

ing know-
they able except

γινόμενα" τὸν φίλον τῆς χρείας ἕνεκα"
ὃ ous 1 καὶ γὰρ μέρος σώματος, μέχρις ἂν παρῇ,
λιφῶντα, ἕνεκα μὲν τῆς ἡδονῆς παρεισ- ἀσπάζεσθαι.
ἦλθεν ἡ ἀρετή" χρόνῳ δὲ ὕστερον, τὸ The like comparison is employed
περὶ αὐτὴν κάλλος κατιδοῦσα, ἰσότιμον by the Xenophontic Sokrates in the
: emorabilia (i. 2, 52-55), that men cast

away portions of their own body, 80 soon
as these portions cease to be useful.

2 Diog. L. ii. p. 92.

ὃ Diog. L. ii. p. 93.

ΠΤ, ii. 9].

198 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. ITT.

the pheno- intai
the et no- maintained that we could have no knowledge of

ownsensa- anything but human sensations, affections, feelings,
{fons and ΠΟ ὅσο, (πάθη) : that respecting the extrinsic, extra-sensa-
knowledge | tional, absolute, objects or causes from whence these
lute. feelings proceeded, we could know nothing at all.
Partly for this reason, they abstained from all attention to the
study of nature—to astronomy and physics: partly also because
they did not see any bearing of these subjects upon good and
evil, or upon the conduct of life. They turned their attention
mainly to ethics, partly also to logic as subsidiary to ethical
reasoning. ἢ

Such low estimation of mathematics and physics—and atten-
tion given almost exclusively to the feelings and conduct of
human life—is a point common to the opposite schools of Aris-
tippus and Antisthenes, derived by both of them from Sokrates.
Herein Plato stands apart from all the three.

The theory of Aristippus, as given above, is only derived from
a meagre abstract and from a few detached hints, We do not
know how he himself stated it: still less how he enforced and
vindicated it.— He, as well as Antisthenes, composed dialogues :
which naturally implies diversity of handling. Their main
thesis, therefore—the text, as it were, upon which they debated
or expatiated (which is all that the abstract gives)—affords very
inadequate means, even if we could rely upon the accuracy of
the statement, for appreciating their philosophical competence.
We should form but a poor idea of the acute, abundant, elastic
and diversified dialectic of Plato, if all his dialogues had been
lost—and if we had nothing to rely upon except the summary of
Platonism prepared by Diogenes Laertius: which summary,
nevertheless, is more copious and elaborate than the same author
has furnished either of Aristippus or Antisthenes.

In the history of the Greek mind these two last-mentioned
Doctrines of Philosophers (though included by Cicero among the
Antisthenes plebett philosopht) are not less important than Plato

as passed and Aristotle. The speculations and precepts of
mat ee Antisthenes passed, with various enlargements and
reans. modifications, into the Stoic philosophy: those of

1 Diog. L. il. p. 92. Sextus Empiric. adv. Mathemat. vi. 58.

Crap, ITI. COMPARISON WITH THE PROTAGORAS. 199

Aristippus into the Epikurean: the two most widely extended
ethical sects in the subsequent Pagan world.—The Cynic sect,
as it stood before it embraced the enlarged physical, kosmical,
and social theories of Zeno and his contemporaries, reducing to a
minimum all the desires and appetites—cultivating insensibility
to the pains of life, and even disdainful insensibility to its plea-
sures—required extraordinary force of will and obstinate resolu-
tion, but little beyond. Where there was no selection or
discrimination, the most ordinary prudence sufficed. It was
otherwise with the scheme of Aristippus and the Kyrenaics:
which, if it tasked less severely the powers of endurance, de-
manded a far higher measure of intelligent prudence. Selection
of that which might safely be enjoyed, and determination of the
limit within which enjoyment must be confined, were constantly
indispensable. Prudence, knowledge, the art of mensuration or
calculation, were essential to Aristippus, and ought to be put in
the foreground when his theory is stated.

That theory is, in point of fact, identical with the theory
expounded by the Platonic Sokrates in Plato’s Prota-
goras. ‘The general features of both are the same. Hehical

theory of

Sokrates there lays it down explicitly, that pleasure Aristippus
per se is always good, and pain per se always evil: with that of

that there is no other good (per se) except pleasure the Platonic
and diminution of pain—no other evil (per se) except the Prota-
: ᾿ goras,

pain and diminution of pleasure: that there is no

other object in life except to live through it as much as possible
with pleasures and without pains ;} but that many pleasures be-
come evil, because they cannot be had without depriving us of
greater pleasures or imposing upon us greater pains—while many
pains become good, because they prevent greater pains or ensure
greater pleasures: that the safety of life thus lies in a correct
comparison of the more or less in pleasures and pains, and in a
selection founded thereupon. In other words, the safety of life

1 Plato, Protag. p. 355 A. 4 ἀρκεῖ near the conclusion. See below, ch.
ὑμῖν τὸ ἡδέως καταβιῶναι τὸν βίον ἄνευ xxiii. of the present work.
λυπῶν; εἰ δὲ ἀρκεῖ, καὶ μὴ ἔχετε μηδὲν The language held by Aristippus to
ἄλλο φάναι εἶναι ἀγαθὸν ἣ κακόν, ὃ μὴ Sokrates, in the Xenophontic dialogue
εἰς ταῦτα τελεντᾷ, τὸ μετὰ τοῦτο ἀκούετε. (Memor. ii. 1. 9), is exactly similar to
The exposition of this theory, by the t of the Platonic Sokrates, as above
Platonic Sokrates, occupies the latter cited—éuavrdy τάττω εἰς τοὺς βουλο
portion of the Protagoras, from p.851 to μένους f ῥᾷστά re καὶ ἥδιστα βιοτεύειν.

200 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. CuaP. IIL.

depends upon calculating knowledge or prudence, the art or
science of measuring.

The theory here laid down by the Platonic Sokrates is the
Difference S#me a8 that of Aristippus. The purpose of life is

the stated almost in the same words by both: by the
ner οἱ Platonic Sokrates, and by Aristippus in the Xeno-
theory by phontic dialogue—“ to live through with enjoyment

and without suffering” The Platonic Sokrates
denies, quite as emphatically as Aristippus, any good or evil,
honourable or base, except as representing the result of an
intelligent comparison of pleasures and pains. Judicious calcu-
lation is postulated by both: pleasures and pains being assumed
by both as the only ends of pursuit and avoidance, to which cal-
culation is to be applied. The main difference is, that the pru-
dence, art, or science, required for making this calculation rightly,
are put forward by the Platonic Sokrates as the prominent item
in his provision for passing through life : whereas, in the scheme
of Aristippus, as far as we know it, such accomplished intelli-
gence, though equally recognised and implied, is not equally
thrust into the foreground. So it appears at least in the abstract
which we possess of his theory ; if we had his own exposition of
it, perhaps we might find the case otherwise. In that abstract,
indeed, we find the writer replying to those who affirmed pru-
dence or knowledge, to be good per se—and maintaining that it is
only good by reason of its consequences :! that is, that it is not
good as End, in the same sense in which pleasure or mitigation
of pain are good. This point of the theory, however, coincides
again with the doctrine of the Platonic Sokrates in the Prota-
goras : where the art of calculation is extolled simply as an in-
dispensable condition to the most precious results of human
happiness.

What I say here applies especially to the Protagoras: for I
am well aware that in other dialogues the Platonic Sokrates is
made to hold different language? But in the Protagoras he

1 Diog. L. ii. p. 91. Sokrates in the Protagoras, as to the

2 See chapters xxiii., xxix., xxxii. of general theory of liferespecting plea-
the present work, in which Ienter more sure and pain.
ully into the differences between the § Heagrees with the Platonic Sokrates
Protagoras, Gorgias, and Philébus, in in the Gorgias (see pp. 600-515), in
respect to this point, keeping aloof from active political life.

Aristippus agrees with the Platonic ἃ αὑτοῦ πράττειν, καὶ ob πολνπραγμο-

Cuap. IIT COMPARISON WITH THE PROTAGORAS. 201

defends a theory the same as that of Aristippus, and defends it
by an elaborate argument which silences the objections of the
Sophist Protagoras ; who at first will not admit the unqualified
identity of the pleasurable, judiciously estimated and selected,
with the good. The general and comprehensive manner in which
Plato conceives and expounds the theory, is probably one evi-
dence of his superior philosophical aptitude as compared with
Aristippus and his other contemporaries. He enunciates, side
by side, and with equal distinctness, the two conditions requisite
for his theory of life. 1. The calculating or measuring art. 2.
A description of the items to which alone such measurement
must be applied—pleasures and pains.—These two together
make the full theory. In other dialogues Plato insists equally
upon the necessity of knowledge or calculating prudence : but
then he is not equally distinct in specifying the items to which
such prudence or calculation is to be applied. On the other
hand, it is quite possible that Aristippus, in laying out the same
theory, may have dwelt with peculiar emphasis upon the other
element in the theory : 2.¢. that while expressly insisting upon
pleasures and pains, as the only data to be compared, he may
have tacitly assumed the comparing or calculating intelligence,
as if it were understood by itself, and did not require to be for-
mally proclaimed.

A distinction must here be made between the general
theory of life laid down by Aristippus—and the par- ἫΝ
ticular application which he made of that theory to ἐν Samade
his own course of proceeding. What we may observe betweena

eneral

is, that the Platonic Sokrates (in the Protagoras) theory—and
agrees in the first, or general theory: whether he lar apr lica-

would have agreed in the second (or application to tion οὔ ae
the particular case) we are not informed, but we may theorist to

probably assume the negative. And we find Sokrates bee and

(in the Xenophontic dialogue) taking the same nega- qrcume
tive ground against Aristippus—-upon the second
point, not upon the first. He seeks to prove that the course of

conduct adopted by Aristippus, instead of carrying with it a pre-

νεῖν ἐν τῷ Biy—which Sokrates, in the proclaimed with equal emphasis by
Gorgias (p. 526 C), proclaims as the Aristippus. Compare the Platonic
conduct of the true philosopher, is Apology, p. 31 D-E.

202 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. CnaP. 1717.

ponderance of pleasure, will entail a preponderance of pain. He
does not dispute the general theory.

Though Aristippus and the Kyrenaic sect are recognised as the
Kyrenaic _— first persons who laid down this general theory, yet
theorists various others apart from them adopted it likewise.
tippus. We may see this not merely from the Protagoras of
Plato, but also from the fact that Aristotle, when commenting
upon the theory in his Ethics,! cites Eudoxus (eminent both as
mathematician and astronomer, besides being among the hearers
of Plato) as its principal champion. Still the school of Kyréné
are recorded as a continuous body, partly defending, partly
modifying the theory of Aristippus.? Hegesias, Annikeris, and
Theodérus are the principal Kyrenaics named : the last of them
contemporary with Ptolemy Soter, Lysimachus, Epikurus, Theo-
phrastus, and Stilpon.

Diogenes Laertius had read a powerfully written book of
Theoddrus heodérus, controverting openly the received opinions
—Annikeris respecting the Gods :—which few of the philosophers
—Hegesins. § entured to do. Cicero also mentions a composition
of Hegesias.2 Of Annikeris we know none; but he, too, pro-
bably, must have been an author. The doctrines which we find
ascribed to these Kyrenaics evince how much affinity there was,
at bottom, between them and the Cynics, in spite of the great
apparent opposition. Hegesias received the surname of the
Death-Persuader : he considered happiness to be quite unattain-
able, and death to be an object not of fear, but of welcome
acceptance, in the eyes of a wise man. He started from the
same basis as Aristippus: pleasure as the expetendum, pain as
the fugiendum, to which all our personal friendships and
aversions were ultimately referable. But he considered that the
pains of life preponderated over the pleasures, even under the

1 Aristot. Ethic. Nikom. «x. 2. definite article The before the word
3 Sydenban, in his notes on Philébus Good” (p. 78). He contrasts with this
(note 39, p. 76), accuses Aristippus and prevarication the ingenuousness of
the Kyrenaics of prevarication and 1
sophistry in the statement of their (Aristot. Eth. N. x. 2). I know no
doctrine respecting Pleasure. He says evidence for either of these allegations :
that they called it indisoriminately eitherforthe prevarication of tippus
good— The or the ingenuousness of Eudoxus.
Good)—“‘they used the fallacy of ὃ Diog. L. ii. 97. Θεόδωρος.--παντά.
changing a particular term fora term πασὶν ἀναιρῶν τὰς περὶ θεῶν δόξας͵
which is universal, or viee veraf, by Diog. L. ii. 86, 97. Cicero, Tusc. Disp,
the sly omission or insertion of the i. 84, 83-84. ‘Hyyolas ὁ πεισιθάνατος.

CnapP. ITI. HEGESIAS THE DEATH-PERSUADER. 203

most favourable circumstances. For conferring pleasure, or for
securing continuance of pleasure—wealth, high birth, freedom,
glory, were of no greater avail than their contraries poverty, low
birth, slavery, ignominy. There was nothing which was, by
nature or universally, either pleasurable or painful. Novelty,
rarity, satiety, rendered one thing pleasurable, another painful,
to different persons and at different times. The wise man would
show his wisdom, not in the fruitless struggle for pleasures, but
in the avoidance or mitigation of pains: which he would accom-
plish more successfully by rendering himself indifferent to the
causes of pleasure. He would act always for his own account,
and would value himself higher than other persons: but he
would at the same time reflect that the mistakes of these others
were involuntary, and he would give them indulgent counsel,
instead of hating them. He would not trust his senses as
affording any real knowledge: but he would be satisfied to act
upon the probable appearances of sense, or upon phenomenal
knowledge. '

Such is the summary which we read of the doctrines of Hege-
sias : who is said to have enforced his views,’—of the ,,,

, . gesias—
real character of life, as containing a great prepon- Low estima-
derance of misfortune and suffering—in a manner so “onof life—
persuasive, that several persons were induced to tion of plea-
commit suicide. Hence he was prohibited by the cidencewith
first Ptolemy from lecturing in such a strain. His ‘° Cyme*
opinions respecting life coincide in the main with those set forth
by Sokrates in the Phedon of Plato: which dialogue also is
alleged to have operated so powerfully on the Platonic disciple
Kleombrotus, that he was induced to terminate his own
existence. Hegesias, agreeing with Aristippus that pleasure
would be the Good, if you could get it—maintains that the
circumstances of life are such as to render pleasure unattainable :
and therefore advises to renounce pleasure at once and systema-
tically, in order that we may turn our attention to the only
practicable end—that of lessening pain. Such deliberate renun-
ciation of pleasure brings him into harmony with the doctrine of
the Cynics.

1 Diog. L. if. 98, 94. and the doctrine of Kleanthes in Sext.
2 Compare the Pseudo-Platonic dia- Empiric. adv. Mathemat. ix. 88-92.
logue entitled Axiochus, pp. 866, 367, Lucretius, v. 196-234.

204 OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES. Cuap. ITI.

On another point, however, Hegesias repeats just the same
Doctrine of doctrine as Aristippus. Both deny any thing like

Relativit y absolute knowledge: they maintain that all our
the Kyre- knowledge is phenomenal, or relative to our own im-
well aa by pressions or affections: that we neither do know, nor

Protagoras. can know, anything about any real or supposed
ultra-phenomenal object, 2.¢, things in themselves, as distin-
guished from our own impressions and apart from our senses and
other capacities. Having no writings of Aristippus left, we
know this doctrine only as it is presented by others, and those
too opponents. We cannot tell whether Aristippus or his sup-
porters stated their own doctrine in such a way as to be open
to the objections which we read as urged by opponents. But the
doctrine itself is not, in my judgment, refuted by any of those
objections. “Our affections (πάθη) alone are known to us, but
not the supposed objects or causes from which they proceed.”
The word rendered by affections must here be taken in its most
general and comprehensive sense—as including not merely
sensations, but also remembrances, emotions, judgments, beliefs,
doubts, volitions, conscious energies, &c. Whatever we know,
we can know only as it appears to, or implicates itself somehow
with, our own minds. All the knowledge which I possess, is an
ageregate of propositions affirming facts, and the order or con-
junction of facts, as they are, or have been, or may be, relative
to myself. This doctrine of Aristippus is in substance the same
as that which Protagoras announced in other words as—“ Man is
the measure of all things”. I have already explained and illus-
trated it, at considerable length, in my chapter on the Platonic
Theetétus, where it is announced by Theetetus and controverted
by Sokrates.?

1See below, vol. iii. ch. xxviii.
Compare Aristokles ap. Eusebium,
Prep. Ev. xiv. 18, 19, and Sextus Emp.
adv. Mathemat. vii. 190-197, vi. 53.

Sextus gives a summary of this doc-
trine of the Kyrenaics, more fair and
complete than that given by Aristokles
—at least so far as the extract from the
latter in Eusebius enables us to judge.
Aristokles jmpugns it vehemently, and
tries to fasten upon it many absurd
consequences—in my ju ent with-
out foundation. It is probable that by

the term πάθος the Kyrenaics meant
simply sensations internal and external:
and that the question, as they handled
it, was about the reality of the supposed
Substratum or Object of sense, inde-
pendent of any sentient Subject. It is
also probable that, in explaining their
views, they did not take account of the
memory of past sensations—and the
expectation of future sensations, in
successions or conjunctions more or less

imil iating in the mind with
the sensation present and actual, to

Cuap. ITI.

form what is called a permanent object
of sense. I think it likely that they
set forth their own doctrine in a narrow
and inadequate manner.

But this defect is noway corrected
by Aristokles their opponent. On the
contrary, he attacks them on their
strong side: he vindicates against them
the hypothesis of the ultra is enomenal,
absolute, transcendental Object, inde-
pendent of and apart from any sensa-
tion, present, past, or future—and from
any sentient Subject. Besides that, he
assumes them to deny, or ignore, many
points which their theory noway re-
quires them to deny. He urges one
argument which, when properly under-
stood, goes not against them, but
strongly in their favour. ‘If these
philosophers,” says Aristokles (Kus.
xiv. 19, 1), ‘‘know that they experience
sensation and perceive, they must know
something beyond the sensation itself.
If I say ἐγὼ καίομαι, ‘I am being
burned,’ this is a proposition, not a
sensation. These three things are of
necessity co-essential—the sensation
itself, the Object which causes it, the
Subject which feels it (ἀνάγκη ye τρία
ταῦτα συνυφίστασθαι---τό τε πάθος αὖτ
καὶ τὸ ποιοῦν καὶ τὸ πάσχον)" In
trying to make good his conclusion—
That you cannot know the sensation
without the Object of sense—Aristokles
at the same time asserts that the Object
cannot be known apart from the sensa-
tion, nor apart from the knowing Sub-
ject. He asserts that the three are

DOCTRINE OF RELATIVITY.

205

by necessity co-essential—-i.e. impli-
cated and indivisible in substance and
existence: if clstinguishable therefore,
distinguishable only logically (Ady
χωριστὰ), admitting of being looked a
in different points of view. But this
is exactly the case of his opponents
when properly stated. They do no
deny Object: they do not deny Sub-
ject: but they deny the independent
and separate existence of the one as
well as of the other: they admit the
two only as relative to each other, or
as reciprocally implicated in the indi-
visible fact of cognition. The reason-
ing of Aristokles thus goes to prove
the opinion which he is trying to refute.
Most of the arguments, which Sextus
adduces in favour of the Kyrenaic doc-
trine, show forcibly that the Objective
Something, apart from its Subjective
correlate, is unknowable and a non-
entity ; but he does not include in the
Subjective as much as ought to be
included; he takes note only of the
present sensation, and does not include
sensations remembered or anticipated.
Another very forcible part of Sextus’s
reasoning may be found, vii. sect. 269-
272, where he shows that a logical
Subject per se is undefinable and in-
conceivable—that those who attempt.
to define Man (¢.g.) do so by speci-
fying more or fewer of the predicates
of Man—and that if you suppose all
the predicates to vanish, the Subject -
vanishes along with them.

206 XENOPHON, Crp. IV.

CHAPTER IV.
XENOPHON.

THERE remains one other companion of Sokrates, for whom a
Xenophon— dignified place must be reserved in this volume—
his charac. Xenophon the son of Gryllus. It is to him that we
tially man owe, in great part, such knowledge as we possess of
ofaction the real Sokrates. For the Sokratic conversations

raat δα related by Xenophon, though doubtless dressed up
the Sokra-' and expanded by him, appear to me reports in the
isinhim an main of what Sokrates actually said. Xenophon was
meceeeny: sparing in the introduction of his master as titular
spokesman for opinions, theories, or controversial difficulties,
generated in his own mind: a practice in which Plato indulged
without any reserve, as we have seen by the numerous dialogues
already passed in review.

I shall not however give any complete analysis of Xenophon’s
works: because both the greater part of them, and the leading
features of his personal character, belong rather to active than to
speculative Hellenic life. As such, I have dealt with them
largely in my History of Greece. What I have here to illustrate
is the Sokratic element in his character, which is important in-
deed as accessory and modifying—yet not fundamental. Though
he exemplifies and attests, as a witness, the theorising negative
vein, the cross-examining Elenchus of Sokrates—it is the pre-
ceptorial vein which he appropriates te himself and expands in
its bearing on practical conduct. He is the semi-philosophising
general; undervalued indeed as a hybrid by Plato—but by
high-minded Romans like Cato, Agricola, Helvidius Priscus, &c.

Cuap. IV. PERSONAL HISTORY OF XENOPHON. 207

likely to be esteemed higher than Plato himself? He is the
military brother of the Sokratic family, distinguished for ability
and energy in the responsible functions of command: a man of
robust frame, courage, and presence of mind, who affronts cheer-
fully the danger and fatigues of soldiership, and who extracts
philosophy from experience of the variable temper of armies,
together with the multiplied difficulties and precarious authority
of a Grecian general.2 For our knowledge, imperfect as it is, of
real Grecian life, we are greatly indebted to his works. All:
historians of Greece must draw largely from his Hellenica and
Anabasis: and we learn much even from his other productions,
not properly historical ; for he never soars high in the region of
ideality, nor grasps at etherial visions—“ nubes et inania”—like
Plato.

Respecting the personal history of Xenophon himself, we
possess but little information : nor do we know the pote of
year either of his birth or death. His Hellenica Xenophon—
concludes with the battle of Mantineia in 362 B.c. Poon at his
But he makes incidental mention in that work of an i.
event five years later—the assassination of Alexander, despot of
Phere, which took place in 357 B.c.2—and his language seems to
imply that the event was described shortly after it took place.
His pamphlet De Vectigalibus appears to have been composed
still later—not before 355 B.c. In the year 400 Bc, when
Xenophon joined the Grecian military force assembled at Sardis
to accompany Cyrus the younger in his march to Babylon, he
must have been still a young man: yet he had even then
established an intimacy with Sokrates at Athens: and he was
old enough to call himself the “ancient guest” of the Boeotian
Proxenus, who engaged him to come and take service with Cyrus.‘

1See below, my remarks on the 3 Xeno h. Hellen. vi. 4, 87. τῶν δὲ
Platonic Euthydémus, vol. ii. chap. ταῦτα πραξάντων ({.6, of the brothers of
xxii. Thébé, which brothers had assassinated

2 We may apply. to Plato and Xeno- Alexander) ἄχρι οὗ ὁδε ὁ λόγος éypd-

hon the following comparison by ¢ero, Τισίφονος, πρεσβύτατος ὧν τῶν
uripides, Supplices, 905. deusand ἀδελφῶν, τὴν ἀρχὴν εἶ

Mel leager.) The hat he was still a young man

appears from his language, Anabas. lif.

γνώμῃ͵ δ᾽ ἀδελφοῦ MeAedypov λελειμ- 1, 25. His intimacy with Sokrates,

μένος, whose advice he asked about the pro-

ἰσον παρέσχεν ὄνομα διὰ τέχνην δορός, Broxe of accepting | the invitation of

εὑρὼν ἀκριβῆ μονσικὴν ἐν ἀσπίδι." oxenus to go to Asia, is shown fii.

φιλότιμον. ἦθος, πλούσιον φρόνημα 8a δ. |p roxenus was his ξένος ἀρχαῖος,
ν τοῖσιν ἔργοις, οὐχὶ τοῖς λόγοις ἔχων, ne

208 XENOPHON. Cuap. IV.

We may suppose him to have been then about thirty years of
age ; and thus to have been born about 430 B.c.—two or three
years earlier than Plato. Respecting his early life, we have no
facts before us: but we may confidently affirm (as I have already
observed about? Plato), that as he became liable to military service
in 412 b.c., the severe pressure of the war upon Athens must have
occasioned him to be largely employed, among other citizens, for
the defence of his native city, until its capture in 405 3.c. He
seems to have belonged to an equestrian family in the census, and
therefore to have served on horseback. More than one of his
compositions evinces both intelligent interest in horsemanship,
and great familiarity with horses.

Our knowledge of his personal history begins with what he
His per- himself recounts in the Anabasis. His friend Proxe-
sonal his- nus, then at Sardis commanding a regiment of
tory alte. Hellenic mercenaries under Cyrus the younger, wrote
Sokrates— recommending him earnestly to come over and take

takes the . . .
opinion of — service, in the army prepared ostensibly against the

oan Pisidians. Upon this Xenophon asked the advice of
oracle. Sokrates: who exhorted him to go and consult the
Delphian oracle—being apprehensive that as Cyrus had proved
himself the strenuous ally of Sparta, and had furnished to her
the principal means for crushing Athens, an Athenian taking
service under him would incur unpopularity at home. Xeno-
phon accordingly went to Delphi: but instead of asking the
question broadly—“Shall I go, or shall I decline to go?”—he
put to Apollo the narrower question—“ Having in contemplation
a journey, to which of the Gods must I sacrifice and pray, in
order to accomplish it best, and to come back with safety and
success?” Apollo indicated to him the Gods to whom he ought
to address himself: but Sokrates was displeased with him for
not having first asked, whether he ought to go at all. Neverthe-
less (continued Sokrates), since you have chosen to put the ques-
tion in your own way you must act as the God has prescribed.?

The story mentioned by Strabo (ix. sonable chronology, than the analogous
408) that Xenophon served in the anecdote—that Plato distinguished
Athenian cavalry at the battle of himself at the battle of Delium. See
Delium (424 B.c.), and that his life below, ch. v.

was saved by Sokrates, [ consider to 1 See ch. v.

be not less inconsistent with any rea- 2 Xenoph. Anab. iii. 1, 4-6

Cuap. IV. HIS MILITARY SERVICE. 209

The anecdote here recounted by Xenophon is interesting,
as it illustrates his sincere faith, as well as that of His service
Sokrates, in the Delphian oracle: though we might and com:
have expected that on this occasion, Sokrates would #277"!
have been favoured with some manifestation of that ghousand
divine sign, which he represents to have warned him afterwards
so frequently and on such trifling matters. Apollo jnderAgest
however was perhaps displeased (as Sokrates was) 8 partans.—
with Xenophon, for not having submitted the ques- nished from
tion to him with full frankness: since the answer “bens.
given was proved by subsequent experience to be incomplete.}
After fifteen months passed, first, in the hard upward march—
next, in the still harder retreat—of the Ten Thousand, to the
preservation of whom he largely contributed by his energy,
presence of mind, resolute initiative, and ready Athenian
eloquence, as one of their leaders—Xenophon returned to
Athens. It appears that he must have come back not long after
the death of Sokrates. But Athens was not at that time ἃ plea-
sant residence for him. The Sokratic companions shared in the
unpopularity of their deceased master, and many of them were
absent: moreover Xenophon himself was unpopular as the active
partisan of Cyrus. After a certain stay, we know not how long,
at Athens, Xenophon appears to have gone back to Asia ; and to
have resumed his command of the remaining Cyreian soldiers,
then serving under the Lacedemonian generals against the
Persian satraps Tissaphernes and Pharnabazus. He served first
under Derkyllidas, next under Agesilaus. For the latter he
conceived the warmest admiration, and contracted with him an
intimate friendship. At the time when Xenophon rejoined the
Cyreians in Asia, Athens was not at war with the Laceda-
monians: but after some time, the hostile confederacy of Athens,
Thebes, and Corinth, against them was organised: and Agesilaus
was summoned home by them from Asia, to fight their battles in

1 Compare Anabas. vi. 1, 22, and to show the reality of divination

. 8, 1-6. (Cicero, De Divinatione, i. 25, 52, i. 54,

See also Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 88 C, 122). Antipater the Stoic collected a
and Plato, Theagés, p. 129; also below, large number of examples, illustrating
vol. ii. ch. xv. the miraculous divining power of So-

Sokrates and Xenophon are among krates. Several of these examples ap-
the most imposing witnesses cited by ar much more trifling than this inci-
Quintus Cicero, in his long pleading dent of Xenophon.

1—14

210 XENOPHON. CHap. IV.

Greece. Xenophon and his Cyreians were still a portion of the
army of Agesilaus, and accompanied him in his march into
Beotia ; where they took part in his desperate battle and bloody
victory at Koroneia.! But he was now lending active aid to the
enemies of Athens, and holding conspicuous command in their
armies, A sentence of banishment, on the ground of Laconism,
was passed against him by the Athenians, on the proposition of
Eubulus.?

How long he served with Agesilaus, we are not told. At
Hisresi: | the end of his service, the Lacedemonians provided
dence at ΟῚ him with a house and land at the Triphylian town of
Olympia. Skillis near Olympia, which they had seemingly
taken from the Eleians and re-colonised. Near this residence
he also purchased, under the authority of the God (perhaps
Olympian Zeus) a landed estate to be consecrated to the Goddess
Artemis: employing therein a portion of the tithe of plunder
devoted to Artemis by the Cyreian army, and deposited by him
for the time in the care of Megabyzus, priest of Artemis at
Ephesus. The estate of the Goddess contained some cultivated
ground, but consisted chiefly of pasture ; with wild ground,
wood and mountain, abounding in game and favourable for
hunting. Xenophon became Conservator of this property for
Artemis : to whom he dedicated a shrine and ἃ statue, in minia-
ture copy of the great temple at Ephesus. Every year he held a
formal hunting-match, to which he invited all the neighbours,
with abundant hospitality, at the expense of the Goddess. The
Conservator and his successors were bound by formal vow, on
pain of her displeasure, to employ one tenth of the whole annual
produce in sacrifices to her: and to keep the shrine and statue in
good order, out of the remainder.’

Xenophon seems to have passed many years of his life either
at Skillus or in other parts of Peloponnesus, and is said to have
died very old at Corinth. The sentence of banishment passed

1Xenoph. Anab. v. ὃ, 6; Plutarch, dypov αὐτῷ ἔδοσαν Λακεδαιμόνιοι.
Agesilaus, c. 18. Deinarchus appears to have com-
$ 3 Diog. at 61-59, ἐπὶ ὀακωνισμῷ Ῥοος ἴον ἃ οἰ οα at Athens ὃ judicial
vyhy Un’ ᾿Αθηναίων κατεγνώσθη. speec enophon, the on

SX eno h. Anab. v. 8, 8-12; Diog. of Xenophon Sokraticus. He intro-
L, ii. 52: Pausanias, v. 6, 8, duced into the speech some facts re-
φησὶ δ᾽ ὁ Acivapxos ὅτι καὶ οἰκίαν καὶ lating to the grandfather.

DEATH OF HIS SON GRYLLUS. 211}

CHAP. IV,

against him by the Athenians was revoked after the pamity of
battle of Leuktra, when Athens came into alliance Xenophon—
with the Lacedemonians against Thebes. Some of his ener:
Xenophon’s later works indicate that he must have Mantinela.
availed himself of this revocation to visit Athens: but whether
he permanently resided there is uncertain. He had brought
over with him from Asia a wife named Philesia, by whom he
had two sons, Gryllus and Diodorus.! He sent these two youths
to be trained at Sparta, under the countenance of Agesilaus : 3
afterwards the eldest of them, Gryllus, served with honour in the
Athenian cavalry which assisted the Lacedemonians and Man-
tinelans against Epameinondas, B.c. 362. In the important
combat ὃ of the Athenian and Theban cavalry, close to the gates
of Mantineia—shortly preceding the general battle of Mantineia,
in which Epameinondas was slain—Gryllus fell, fighting with
great bravery. The death of this gallant youth—himself seem-
ingly of great promise, and the son of so eminent a father—was
celebrated by Isokrates and several other rhetors, as well as by
the painter Euphranor at Athens, and by sculptors at Mantineia
itself.4

Skillus, the place in which the Lacedzemonians had established
Xenophon, was retaken by the Eleians during the
humiliation of Lacedemonian power, not long before
the battle of Mantineia.
absent at the time ; but his family were constrained
to retire to Lepreum. It was after this, we are told,
that he removed to Corinth, where he died in 355 B.c. or in some
year later. The Eleian Exegete told the traveller Pausanias,

Death of
ἘΣ
. a OrTrinta—
Xenophon himself was Story of
the Eleian
Exegetee.

1 #schines Sokraticus, in one of his
dialogues, introduced Aspasia con-
versing with Xenophon and _ his
(Xenophon’s) wife. Cicero, De Invent.
i 81, 51-54; Quintil. Inst. Orat. v. ἢ. 312.

2 Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 20.

8 Xenoph. Hellen. vii. 6, 15-16-17.
This combat of cavalry near the gates
of Mantineia was very close and
sharply contested; but at the great
battle fought a few days afterwards
the Athenian cavalry were hardly at
all engaged, vii. 5, 25.

4 Pausanias, i. 3, 8, viii. 11, 4, ix. 15,
3; Diogenes L. ii. 64. Harpokration
v. Κηφισόδωρος.

It appears that Euphranor, in his
picture represented Gryllus as engaged
in personal conflict with Epameinon
and wounding him—a compliment not
justified by the facts. The Mantineians
elieved Antikrates, one of their own
citizens, to have mortally wounded the
great Theban general with his spear,
and they awarded to him as recom.
ense immunity from public burthens
ἀτέλειαν), both for himself and hig
descendants. One of his descendants,
Kallikrates, continued even in Plu.
tarch’s time to enjoy this immunity.
Plutarch, Agesilaus, c. 85

212 XENOPHON. Cuap. IV.

when he visited the spot five centuries afterwards, that Xeno-
phon had been condemned in the judicial Council of Olympia as
wrongful occupant of the property at Skillus, through Lacede-
monian violence ; but that the Eleans had granted him indul-
gence, and had allowed him to remain.’ As it seems clearly
asserted that he died at Corinth, he can hardly have availed
himself of the indulgence; and I incline to suspect that the
statement is an invention of subsequent Eleian Exegete, after
they had learnt to appreciate his literary eminence.

From the brief outline thus presented of Xenophon’s life,

Xenophon it will plainly appear that he was quite different in
ditferent character and habits from Plato and the other So-
and the kratic brethren. He was not only a man of the
pther So: world (as indeed Aristippus was also), but he was
brethren.

actively engaged in the most responsible and difficult
functions of military command: he was moreover a landed pro-
prietor and cultivator, fond of strong exercise with dogs and
horses, and an intelligent equestrian. His circumstances were
sufficiently easy to dispense with the necessity of either compos-
ing discourses or taking pupils for money. Being thus enabled
to prosecute letters and philosophy in an independent way, he
did not, like Plato and Aristotle, open a school.? His relations,
as active coadjutor and subordinate, with Agesilaus, form a
striking contrast to those of Plato with Dionysius, as tutor and
pedagogue. In his mind, the Sokratic conversations, suggestive
and stimulating to every one, fell upon the dispositions and
aptitudes of a citizen-soldier, and fructified in a peculiar manner.
My present work deals with Xencphon, not as an historian of
Grecian affairs or of the Cyreian expedition, but only on the
intellectual and theorising side :—as author of the Memorabilia,

so that he passed his life in inde-
pendent prosecution of philosuphy and
hilomathy. But Isokrates and Theo-

5 v, 6, 3; Dicog. L. il.
2 See, in the account of Theopompus

by Photius (Cod. 176, p. 120; compare

Photius, Cod. 159, p. 102, a. 41),
the distinction taken by Theopompus:
who said that the four most celebrated
Hterary persons of his day were, his
master Isokrates, Theodektés of Pha-
eélis, Naukrates of Erythre, and him-
self (Theopompus). e himself and
Naukrates were in good circumstances,

ektés were compelled δι’ ἀπορίαν βίον,
μισθοῦ Adyous γράφειν καὶ σοφιστεύειν,
ἐκπαιδεύοντες τοὺς νέους, κἀκεῖθεν καρ-
πουμένους τὰς ὑφελείας.

Theopompus does not here present
the profession of a Sophist (as most
Platonic commentators teach us to
regard it) as a mean, unprincipled,
and corrupting employment.

HIS VARIOUS WORKS. 213

Cuap. IV.

the Cycropsdia, Cikonomikus, Symposion, Hieron, De Vecti-
galibus, &c.

The Memorabilia were composed as records of the conversations
of Sokrates, expressly intended to vindicate Sokrates
against charges of impiety and of corrupting youthful
minds, and to show that he inculcated, before every
thing, self-denial, moderation of desires, reverence for
parents, and worship of the Gods) The Gikonomikus and the
Symposion are expansions of the Memorabilia: the first’ exhi-
biting Sokrates not only as an attentive observer of the facts of
active life (in which character the Memorabilia present him also),
but even as a learner of husbandry* and family management
from Ischomachus—the last describing Sokrates and his behaviour
amidst the fun and joviality of a convivial company. Sokrates
declares*® that as to himself, though poor, he is quite as rich as
he desires to be ; that he desires no increase, and regards poverty
as no disadvantage. Yet since Kritobulus, though rich, is beset
with temptations to expense quite sufficient to embarrass him,
good proprietary management is to him a necessity. Accord-
ingly, Sokrates, announcing that he has always been careful to
inform himself who were the best economists in the city,* now
cites as authority Ischomachus, a citizen of wealth and high
position, recognised by all as one of the “super-excellent ”.5
Ischomachus loves wealth, and is anxious to maintain and even
enlarge his property: desiring to spend magnificently for the
honour of the Gods, the assistance of friends, and the support of
the city. His whole life is arranged, with intelligence and

His various
works—Me-
morabilia
Ckonomi-
kus, &c.

1 Galen calls the @konomicus the

last book of the Memorabilia (ad Hip-
okrat. De Articulis, t. xviii. p. 301,
tihn). It professes to be repeated by
Xenophon from what he himself heard
Sokrates say—jxovoa δέ ποτε αὐτοῦ
καὶ περὶ οἰκονομίας τοιάδε διαλεγομένον,

&c. Sokrates first instructs Kritobulus 4

that economy, or management of pro-
perty, is an art, governed by rules, and
dependent upon principles ; next, he
recounts to him the lessons which he
rofesses to have himself received from
schomachus.
I have already adverted to the Xeno-
hontic Symposion as containing jocu-
remarks which some erroneously cite
, 48 serious.
2 To learn in this way the actualities

of life, and the way of extracting the
eatest amount of wheat and barley
rom a given piece of land, is the sense
which Xenophon puts on the word
φιλόσοφος (Xen. CHK. xvi. 9; compare
Cyropedia, vi. 1, 41).
3Xenoph. Cdfkonom. ii. 8; xi. 8,

‘I have made some observations on
the Xenophontic Symposion, compar:
ing it with the Platonic Symposion, in
a subsequent chapter of this work, ch.
xxvi.

4 Xen. ΟἼΚΟΙ. ii. 16.

5 Xen. kon. vi. 17, xl. 8 πρὸς
πάντων καὶ ἀνδρὼν καὶ γνναικῶν, καὶ

ένων καὶ ἀστῶν, καλόν τα κἀγαθὸν
ἐπονομαζόμενον.

6 Xen. kon. xi. 9,

214 _ XENOPHON. Cuap. IV.

forethought, so as to attain this object, and at the same time to
keep up the maximum of bodily health and vigour, especially
among the horsemen of the city as an accomplished rider? and
cavalry soldier. He speaks with respect, and almost with enthu-
siasm, of husbandry, as an occupation not merely profitable, but
improving to the character: though he treats with disrespect other
branches of industry and craft.2_ In regard to husbandry, too, as
in regard to war or steersmanship, he affirms that the difference
between one practitioner and another consists, not so much in
unequal knowledge, as in unequal care to practise what both of
them know.’

Ischomachus describes to Sokrates, in reply to a string of
successive questions, both his scheme of life and his

homa- . . .
echoma Δ scheme of husbandry. He had married his wife
οὗ ie ani. before ‘she was fifteen years of age: having first
kus—ideal ascertained that she had been brought up carefully,
of an active . .
citizen, so as to have seen and heard as little as possible, and
Coo” to know nothing but spinning and weaving.‘ He de-
house- be scribes how he took this very young wife into train-

ing, so as to form her to the habits which he himself
approved. He declares that the duties and functions of women
are confined to in-door work and superintendence, while the out-
door proceedings, acquisition as well as defence, belong to men :®
he insists upon such separation of functions emphatically, as an
ordinance of nature—holding an opinion the direct reverse of
that which we have seen expressed by Plato.6 He makes many
remarks on the arrangements of the house, and of the stores
within it: and he dwells particularly on the management of
servants, male and female.

1 Xen. (kon. xi. 17-21. ἐν τοῖς
ἱππικωτάτοις τε καὶ πλουσιωτάτοις.
3 Xen. Ckon. iv. 2-8, vi δ.7. 78.

ἐλάχιστα δὲ ἀκούσοιτο, ἐλάχιστα δὲ
ἔροιτο.
Ρ The διδασκαλία addressed toSokrates

chomachus asserts that his father had
been more devoted to agriculture
(φιλογεωργότατος) than any man at

Athens ; he had bought several
pieces of ΡΝ wpovs) When out of
order, improved
them with very large profit, xx. 26.

8 Xen. kon. x 2-10.

4Xen. (kon. vii. 3-7. τὸν δ᾽ ἔμ-
προσθεν χρόνον é n, ᾿ὑπὸ πολλῆς ἐπι-
μελείας, ὅκως ὡς ἐλάχιστα μὲν yore,

by Ischomachus is in the form of ἐρώ- "

movs, xix. 15. ‘The Sokratic interro-

gation is here brought to bear upon
okrates, instead of by Sokrates;

the Elenchus in the ona tet ie c of

em, and then resold Plato.

5 Xen. Gikon. vii. 22-32.

6 See below, ch. xxxvii.

Compare also Aristotel. Politic. iii.
4, 1277, Ὁ. 25, where Aristotle lays
down the same principle as Xenophon.

Cuap. IV. COMMAND OVER SUBORDINATES.

215

It is upon this last point that he lays more stress than upon

any other. To know how to command men—is the
first of all accomplishments in the mind of Xenophon.
Ischomachus proclaims it as essential that the supe-
rior shall not merely give orders to his subordinates,
but also see them executed, and set the example of
personal active watchfulness in every way. Xeno-
phon aims at securing not simply obedience, but
cheerful and willing obedience—even attachment
from those who obey. “To exercise command over

Text upon
which
Xenophon
insists—
capital dif-
ference be-
tween com-
mand over
subordi-
nates wil-
ling, and
subordi-
nates un-
willing.

willing subjects”? (he says) “is a good more than human, granted
only to men truly consummated in virtue of character essentially
divine. To excrcise command over unwilling subjects, is a tor-

ment like that of Tantalus.”

The sentence just transcribed (the last sentence in the Gtkono-

mikus) brings to our notice a central focus in Xeno-

. Probable
phon’s mind, from whence many of his most valuable circum-
speculations emanate. ‘What are the conditions generating
under which subordinates will cheerfully obey their hese reflee-
commanders ?”—was a problem forced upon his Xenophon's

thoughts by his own personal experience, as well as
by contemporary phenomena in Hellas. He had been elected
one of the generals of the Ten Thousand : a large body of brave
warriors from different cities, most of them unknown to him
personally, and inviting his authority only because they were in
extreme peril, and because no one else took the initiative? He
discharged his duties admirably: and his ready eloquence was an
invaluable accomplishment, distinguishing him from all his
colleagues. Nevertheless when the army arrived at the Euxine,
out of the reach of urgent peril, he was made to feel sensibly the
vexations of authority resting upon such precarious basis, and per-
petually traversed by jealous rivals. Moreover, Xenophon, be-

1Xen. (ΚΟ. xxi. 10-12. 7Oovs
βασιλικοῦ --- θεῖον γενέσθαι. ὐ ya
πάνν μοὶ δοκεῖ ὅλον τοντὶ τὸ ἀγαθὸν
ἀνθρώπινον εἶναι, ἀλλὰ θεῖον, τὸ ἐθε-
λόντων ἄρχειν" σαφῶς δὲ δίδοται
τοῖς ἀληθινὼς σωφροσύνῃ τετελεσ-
μένοις. Td δὲ ἀκόντων τυραννεῖν δι-
δόασιν, ὡς ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ, obs ay ἡγῶνται
ἀξίους εἶναι βιοτεύειν, ὥσπερ ὁ TayTados

ἐν δον λέγεται. Compare also iv. 19,
Ov γὰρ xiii. 3-7.

2 The reader will find in my ‘ His-
tory of Greece,’ ch. 70, p. 103 seq., 8
narrative of the circumstances under
which Xenophon was first chosen to
command, as well as his conduct after-
wards.

216 XENOPHON. Cuap. IV,

sides his own personal experience, had witnessed violent political
changes running extensively through the cities of the Grecian
world : first, at the close of the Peloponnesian war—next, after
the battle of Knidus—again, under Lacedzmonian supremacy,
after the peace of Antalkidas, and the subsequent seizure of the
citadel of Thebes—lastly, after the Thebans had regained their
freedom and humbled the Lacedemonians by the battle of Leuk-
tra. To Xenophon—partly actor, partly spectator—these poli-
tical revolutions were matters of anxious interest ; especially as
he ardently sympathised with Agesilaus, a political partisan
interested in most of them, either as conservative or revolu-
tionary.

We thus see, from the personal history of Xenophon, how his
This tex, attention came to be peculiarly turned to the diffi-
affords sub- culty of ensuring steady obedience from subordinates,
jects for the and to the conditions by which such difficulty might
Cyropiedia be overcome. The sentence, above transcribed from
—Name of . , ᾿
Sokrates the @konomikus, embodies two texts upon which he
notsuitable. has discoursed in two of his most interesting composi-
tions—Cyropedia and Hieron. In Cyropedia he explains and
exemplifies the divine gift of ruling over cheerful subordinates :
in Hieron, the torment of governing the disaffected and refrac-
tory. For neither of these purposes would the name and person
of Sokrates have been suitable, exclusively connected as they
were with Athens. Accordingly Xenophon, having carried that
respected name through the Gikonomikus and Symposion, now
dismisses it, yet retaining still the familiar and colloquial manner
which belonged to Sokrates. The Epilogue, or concluding chapter,
of the Cyropsdia, must unquestionably have been composed after
364 B.c.—in the last ten years of Xenophon’s life: the main body
of it may perhaps have been composed earlier.

The Hieron gives no indication of date: but as a picture purely
Hieron— ellenic, it deserves precedence over the Cyropedia,
Fersons of and conveys to my mind the impression of having

e dialogue ς . .

—Simonides been written earlier. It describes a supposed conver-
and Hieron. sation (probably suggested by current traditional
conversations, like that between Solon and Kreesus) between the
poet Simonides and Hieron the despot of Syracuse ; who, shortly
after the Persian invasion of Greece by Xerxes, had succeeded his

Cuap. IV. SIMONIDES AND HIERON. 217

brother Gelon the former despot.! Both of them had been once
private citizens, of no remarkable consequence: but Gelon, an
energetic and ambitious military man, having raised himself to
power in the service of Hippokrates despot of Gela, had seized
the sceptre on the death of his master: after which he conquered
Syracuse, and acquired a formidable dominion, enjoyed after his
death by his brother Hieron. This last was a great patron of
eminent poets—Pindar, Simonides, Aschylus, Bacchylides: but
he laboured under a painful internal complaint, and appears to
have been of an irritable and’oppressive temper.’

Simonides asks of Hieron, who had personally tried both the |
life of a private citizen and that of a despot, which of Qnostions
the two he considered preferable, in regard to plea- put to
sures and pains. Upon this subject, a conversation of view taken
some length ensues, in which Hieron declares that the Py Simo. οι.
life of a despot has much more pain, and much 1688. swer of
pleasure, than that of a private citizen under middling Hieron.
circumstances :* while Simonides takes the contrary side, and
insists in detail upon the superior means of enjoyment, apparent
at least, possessed by the despot. As each of these means is
successively brought forward, Hieron shews that however the
matter may appear to the spectator, the despot feels no greater
real happiness in his own bosom: while he suffers many pains and
privations, of which the spectator takes no account. As to the
pleasures of sight, the despot forfeits altogether the first and
greatest, because it is unsafe for him to visit the public festivals
and matches. In regard to hearing—many praises, and no
reproach, reach his ears: but then he knows that the praises are
insincere—and that reproach is unheard, only because speakers
dare not express what they really feel. The despot has finer
cookery and richer unguents ; but others enjoy a modest banquet

1 Plato, Epistol. if. p. 311 A. Ari- ing founded his new city of Htna—
stot. Rhetor. ii. 16, 1891, a. 9; Cicero, θεοδμάτῳ σὺν ἐλευθεριᾳ. This does
Nat. Deo. 1. 22, 60. How high was not coincide with the view of Hieron’s
the opinion entertained about Simon- character taken by Xenophon; but
idesas a poet, may beseenillustratedin Pindar ees with Xenophon in ex.
a passage of Aristophanes, Vespe, 1362. hort Hieron to make himself popular

2See the first and second Pythian by a liberal expenditure.

Odes of Pindar, addressed to Hieron, 8 Xenoph. Hier. i. 8. εὖ ἴσθι, ὦ
especially Pyth. i. 55-61-90, with the Σιμωνίδη, ὅτι πολὺ μείω εὐφραίνονται οἱ
Scholia and Boeckh’s Commentary. τύραννοι τῶν μετρίως διαγόντων ἰδιωτῶν,
Pindar compliments Hieron upon hav- πολὺ δὲ πλείω καὶ μείζω λυποῦνται.

218 XENOPHON. Cuap. IV.

as much or more—while the scent of the unguents pleases those
who are near him more than himself! Then as to the pleasures
of love, these do not exist, except where the beloved person
manifests spontaneous sympathy and return of attachment.
Now the despot can never extort such return by his power ;
while even if it be granted freely, he cannot trust its sincerity
and is compelled even to be more on his guard, since successful
conspiracies against his life generally proceed from those who
profess attachment to him.? The private citizen on the contrary
knows that those who profess to love him, may be trusted, as
having no motive for falsehood.
Still (contends Simonides) there are other pleasures greater
Mi than those of sense. You despots possess the greatest
sery of . .
governing abundance and variety of possessions—the finest
subjects ole- chariots and horses, the most splendid arms, the
clared by _— finest palaces, ornaments, and furniture—the most
Hieron. .γἹ- . .
brilliant ornaments for your wives—the most intel-
ligent and valuable servants. You execute the greatest enter-
prises: you can do most to benefit your friends, and hurt your
enemies: you have all the proud consciousness of superior might.®
—Such is the opinion of the multitude (replies Hieron), who are
misled by appearances: but a wise man like you, Simonides,
ought to see the reality in the background, and to recollect that
happiness or unhappiness reside only in a man’s internal feelings.
You cannot but know that a despot lives in perpetual insecurity,
both at home and abroad: that he must always go armed himself,
and have armed guards around him: that whether at war or at
peace, he is always alike in danger: that, while suspecting every
one as an enemy, he nevertheless knows that when he has put to
death the persons suspected, he has only weakened the power of
the city :¢ that he has no sincere friendship with any one: that
he cannot count even upon good faith, and must cause all his
food to be tasted by others, before he eats it: that whoever has
slain a private citizen, is shunned in Grecian cities as an abomi-
1 Xen. Hieron, 4. 12-15-24. illustration of Grecian manners, espe-
2Xen. Hier. i. 26-88. Τῷ τυράννῳ cially in the distinction drawn between
οὔ wor ἐστὶ πιστεῦσαι, ws φιλεῖται. τὰ παιδικὰ ἀφροδίσια and τὰ τεκνοποιὰ
Αἱ ἐπιβονλαὶ ἐξ οὐδένων πλέονες τοῖς ἀφροδίσια.
τυράννοις εἰσὶν ἣ ἀπὸ τῶν μάλιστα φιλεῖν 3 Xen. Hier. ij. 9.

αὐτοὺς προσποιησαμένων.

This chapter affords remarkable 4 Xen. Hieron, fi. 5-17,

CHap. IV. INTERIOR LIFE OF THE DESPOT, 219

nation — while the tyrannicide is everywhere honoured and
recompensed : that there is no safety for the despot even in his
own family, many having been killed by their nearest relatives :}
that he is compelled to rely upon mercenary foreign soldiers and
liberated slaves, against the free citizens who hate him: and that
the hire of such inauspicious protectors compels him to raise money,
by despoiling individuals and plundering temples:? that the
best and most estimable citizens are incurably hostile to him,
while none but the worst will serve him for pay: that he looks
back with bitter sorrow to the pleasures and confidential friend-
ships which he enjoyed as a private man, but from which he is
altogether debarred as a despot.®

Nothing brings a man so near to the Gods (rejoins Simonides)
as the feeling of being honoured. Power and a brilliant position
must be of inestimable value, if they are worth purchasing at the
price which you describe.* Otherwise, why do you not throw up
your sceptre? How happens it that no despot has ever yet done
this?—To be honoured (answers Hieron) is the greatest of
earthly blessings, when a man obtains honour from the spon-
taneous voice of freemen. Buta despot enjoys no such satisfac-
tion. He lives like a criminal under sentence of death by
every one: and it is impossible for him to lay down his power,
because of the number of persons whom he has been obliged to
make his enemies. He can neither endure his present condition,
nor yet escape from it. The best thing he can do is to hang
himself.®

Simonides in reply, after sympathising with Hieron’s de-
spondency, undertakes to console him by showing <avice to
that such consequences do not necessarily attend Hieron by

. Simonides
despotic rule. The despot’s power is an instrument —that he

1Xenoph. Hieron, ii. 8, iif, 1, δ, οὔτε ἔχειν, οὔτε καταθέσθαι τὰ κακὰ

λυσιτελεῖ.

Compare Xenophon, Hellenic. iii. 1,
14.

2 Xen. Hieron, iv. 7-11.

3 Xen. Hieron, vi. 1-12.

4 Xen. Hieron, vii. 1-5.

5 Xen. Hieron, vii. 5-18. Ὁ δὲ τύραν-
vos, ws ὑπὸ πάντων ἀνθρώπων Kara-
κεκριμένος δι’ ἀδικίαν ἀποθνήσκειν.--καὶ
νύκτα καὶ ἡμέραν διάγει... . AAA’ εἴπερ
τῳ ἄλλῳ λυσιτελεῖ ἀπάγξασθαι, ἴσθι ὅτι
τυράννῳ ἔγωγε εὑρίσκω μάλιστα τοῦτο
λυσιτελοῦν ποιῆσαι. Μόνῳ γὰρ αὐτῷ

Solon in his poems makes the re-
mark, that for the man who once
usurps the sceptre no retreat is pos-
sible. See my ‘History of Greece,’
chap. xi. p. 132 seq.

e impressive contrast here drawn
by Hieron (c. vi.) between his condition
as a despot and the past enjoyments of

rivate life and citizenship which he

as lost, reminds one of the still more
sorrowful contrast in the Atys of
Catullus, v. 58-70.

220 XENOPHON. Cuap. IV.

should fo available for good as well as for evil. By a proper

andthus' employment of it, he may not only avoid being
make him, hated, but may even make himself beloved, beyond
by his the measure attainable by any private citizen. Even
ejects, kind words, and petty courtesies, are welcomed far
more eagerly when they come from a powerful man than from
an equal: moreover a showy and brilliant exterior seldom fails
to fascinate the spectator: But besides this, the despot may
render to his city the most substantial and important services.
He may punish criminals and reward meritorious men: the
punishments he ought to inflict by the hands of others, while
he will administer the rewards in person—giving prizes for
superior excellence in every department, and thus endearing
himself to all.?. Such prizes would provoke a salutary competi-
tion in the performance of military duties, in choric exhibitions,
in husbandry, commerce, and public usefulness of every kind.
Even the foreign mercenaries, though usually odious, might be
so handled and disciplined as to afford defence against foreign
danger,—to ensure for the citizens undisturbed leisure in their
own private affairs—to protect and befriend the honest man, and
to use force only against criminals? If thus employed, such
mercenaries, instead of being hated, would be welcome com-
panions: and the despot himself may count, not only upon
security against attack, but upon the warmest gratitude and
attachment. The citizens will readily furnish contributions to
him when asked, and will regard him as their greatest bene-
factor. “You will obtain in this way” (Simonides thus con-
cludes his address to Hieron), “the finest and most enviable of
all acquisitions. You will have your subjects obeying you
willingly, and caring for you of their own accord. You may
travel safely wherever you please, and will be a welcome visitor
at all the crowded festivals. You will be happy, without jealousy
from any one.” ¢

The dialogue of which I have given this short abstract, illus-
Probable _ trates what Xenophon calls the torment of Tantalus
experience the misery of a despot who has to extort obedience

1 Xen. Hieron, viii. 2-7. ταῦτα πάντα ποι ἧς, εὖ ἴσθι πάντων τῶν

3 Xen. Hieron, ix. 1-4. ἐν ἀνθρώποις κάλλιστον καὶ μακαριώ-

3 Xen. Hieron, x. 6-8. arov κτῆμα κεκτημένος " εὐδαιμονῶν γὰρ
4Χρηῃ. Hieron, xi. 10-12-15. κἂν οὐ φθονηθήσῃ.

Cuap. IV. THE MISERY OF A DESPOT. 221

from unwilling subjects :—eapecially if the despot be had by
one who has once known the comfort and security of of the fool:
private life, under tolerably favourable circumstances. ον

If we compare this dialogue with the Platonic Gor- against

. . Dionysius

gias, where we have seen a thesis very analogous

handled in respect to Archelaus,—we shall find Plato soaring
into a sublime ethical region of his own, measuring the despot’s
happiness and misery by a standard peculiar to himself, and
making good what he admits to be a paradox by abundant
eloquence covering faulty dialectic: while Xenophon, herein
following his master, applies to human life the measure of a
rational common sense, talks about pleasures and pains which
every one can feel to be such, and points out how many of these
pleasures the despot forfeits, how many of these pains and priva-
tions he undergoes,—in spite of that great power of doing hurt,
and less power, though still considerable, of doing good, which
raises the envy of spectators. The Hieron gives utterance to an
interesting vein of sentiment, more common at Athens than
elsewhere in Greece ; enforced by the conversation of Sokrates,
and serving as corrective protest against that unqualified worship
of power which prevailed in the ancient world no less than in
the modern. That the Syrakusan Hieron should be selected as
an exemplifying name, may be explained by the circumstance,
that during thirty-eight years of Xenophon’s mature life (405-367
Β.0.), Dionysius the elder was despot of Syrakuse ; a man of
energy and ability, who had extinguished the liberties of his
native city, and acquired power and dominion greater than that
of any living Greek. Xenophon, resident at Skillus, within a
short distance from Olympia, had probably} seen the splendid
Théory (or sacred legation of representative envoys) installed in
rich and ornamented tents, and the fine running horses sent by
Dionysius, at the ninety-ninth Olympic festival (384 B.c.): but
he probably also heard the execration with which the name of
Dionysius himself had been received by the spectators, and he
would feel that the despot could hardly shew himself there in
person. There were narratives in circulation about the interior
life of Dionysius,? analogous to those statements which Xenophon

4 Xenoph. Anab, v. 3, 11. ‘History of Greece,’ where this memor-
2 See chap. 83, vol. xi. pp. 40-50, of my able scene at Olympia is described.

222 XENOPHON. Cap. IV.

puts into the mouth of Hieron. A predecessor of Dionysius as
despot of Syracuse? and also as patron of poets, was therefore a
suitable person to choose for illustrating the first part of Xeno-
phon’s thesis—the countervailing pains and penalties which
spoilt all the value of power, if exercised over unwilling and re-
pugnant subjects.?

But when Xenophon came to illustrate the second part of
Xenophon his thesis—the possibility of exercising power in
pout toyen SUch manner as to render the holder of it popular
aGrecian and beloved—it would have been scarcely possible
illustrate for him to lay the scene in any Grecian city. The
histheory yrepugnance of the citizens of a Grecian city towards
happinessof a despot who usurped power over them, was incurable
oiling © | —however much the more ambitious individuals
subjects. among them might have wished to obtain such power
for themselves : ἃ repugnance as great among oligarchs as among
democrats—perhaps even greater. When we read the recom-
mendations addressed by Simonides, teaching Hieron how he
might render himself popular, we perceive at once that they are
alike well intentioned and ineffectual. Xenophon could neither
find any real Grecian despot corresponding to this portion of his
illustrative purpose—nor could he invent one with any shew of
plausibility. He was forced to resort to other countries and other
habits different from those of Greece.

To this necessity probably we owe the Cyropeedia : a romance

in which Persian and Grecian experience are singu-

Tending larly blended, and both of them so transformed as to
of § artan suit the philosophical purpose of the narrator.
customs— Xenophon had personally served and communicated
Xenophon'’s with Cyrus the younger: respecting whom also he had
of bymue the large means of information, from his intimate friend
‘ Proxenus, as well as from the other Grecian generals

of the expedition. In the first book of the Anabasis, we find

this young prince depicted as an energetic and magnanimous

1 Cicero, Tusc. Disp. v. 20, 57-68; of Xenophon to Dionysius at Syracuse
De Officiis, ii. 7, 24-25. ~ whether, the elder or the yo or is
ue not spe —bu e tenor o ΠῚ
Multos timebit ile, quem multi ¢nocdote points to the younger; if so,
the visit must have been later than

2 An anecdote is told about a visit 867 B.c. (Atheneus x. 427).

CuHap. IV. WHERE TO FIND A POPULAR DESPOT. 223

character, faithful to his word and generous in his friendships—
inspiring strong attachment in those around him, yet vigorous in
administration and in punishing criminals—not only courting
the Greeks as useful for his ambitious projects, but appreciating
sincerely the superiority of Hellenic character and freedom over
Oriental servitude. And in the konomikus, Cyrus is quoted
as illustrating in his character the true virtue of a commander ;
the test of which Xenophon declares to be—That his subordinates
follow him willingly, and stand by him to the death.?

It is this character—Hellenised, Sokratised, idealised—that
Xenophon paints into his glowing picture of Cyrus portraitot.
the founder of the Persian monarchy, or the Cyro- ey rus the |
pedia. He thus escapes the insuperable difficulty education
arising from the position of a Grecian despot ; who το μοῖθοθ
never could acquire willing or loving obedience, be- Cyropeedia.
cause his possession of power was felt by a majority of his sub-
jects to be wrongful, violent, tainted. The Cyrus of the Cyro-
pedia begins as son of Kambyses, king or chief of Persia, and
grandson of Astyages, king of Media; recognised according to
established custom by all, as the person to whom they look for
orders. Xenophon furnishes him with a splendid outfit of heroic
qualities, suitable to this ascendant position : and represents the
foundation of the vast Persian empire, with the unshaken fidelity
of all the heterogeneous people composing it, as the reward of a
laborious life spent in the active display of such qualities. In
his interesting Preface to the Cyropedia, he presents this as the
solution of a problem which had greatly perplexed him. He had
Witnessed many revolutions in the Grecian cities—subversions of
democracies, oligarchies, and despotisms: he had seen also private
establishments, some with numerous servants, some with few,
yet scarcely any house-master able to obtain hearty or continued
obedience. But as to herds of cattle or flocks of sheep, on the
contrary, he had seen them uniformly obedient ; suffering the

1Xenoph. Anab. 1. 9, also £ 7, 8, portion of his army, and the remark-

the address of Cyrus to the Greek able description of the trial of Orontes,
soldiers—’Onws οὖν ἔσεσθε ἄνδρες 1 6.

ἄξιοι τῆς ἐλευθερίας ,ἧς κέκτησθε, καὶ 3Xenoph. Ciconom. fv. 18.19, Κῦ-
ὑπὲρ ἧς unas εὐδαιμονίζω. Εὖ γὰρ ἴστε, ρος, εἰ ἐβίωσεν, ἄριστος ἂν δοκεῖ ἄρχων
ὅτι τὴν ἐλευθερίαν ἑλοίμην ἂν, ἀντὶ ὧν γενέσθαι---ἡγοῦμαι μέγα τεκμήριον ἄρ-
ἔχω πάντων καὶ ἄλλων πολλαπλασίων, χοντὸς ἀρετῆς εἶναι, ᾧ ἂν ἑκόντες
compared with i 5, 16, where Cyrus ἕἔπωνται, καὶ ἐν τοῖς δεινοῖς παραμένειν
gives his appreciation of the Oriental ἐθέλωσιν. Compare Anab. i. 9, 29-80,

294 XENOPHON. Cuap. IV.

herdsman or shepherd to do what he pleased with them, and
never once conspiring against him. The first inference of Xeno-
phon from these facts was, that man was by nature the most
difficult of all animals to govern. But he became satisfied that
he was mistaken, when he reflected on the history of Cyrus; who
had acquired and maintained dominion over more men than had
ever been united under one empire, always obeying him cheer-
fully and affectionately. This history proved to Xenophon that
it was not impossible, nor even difficult,? to rule mankind, pro-
vided a man undertook it with scientific or artistic competence.
Accordingly, he proceeded to examine what Cyrus was in birth,
disposition, and education—and how he came to be so admirably
accomplished in the government of men. The result is the
Cyropedia. We must observe, however, that his solution of the
problem is one which does not meet the full difficulties. These
difficulties, as he states them, had been suggested to him by his
Hellenic experience: by the instability of government in Grecian
cities. But the solution which he provides departs from Hellenic
experience, and implies what Aristotle and Hippokrates called
the more yielding and servile disposition of Asiatics:* for it
postulates an hereditary chief of heroic or divine lineage, such as
was nowhere acknowledged in Greece, except at Sparta—and
there, only under restrictions which would have rendered the
case unfit for Xenophon’s purpose. The heroic and regal lineage
of Cyrus was a condition not less essential to success than his
disposition and education : ὅ and not merely his lineage, but also
the farther fact, that besides being constant in the duties of
prayer and sacrifice to the Gods, he was peculiarly favoured by
them with premonitory signs and warnings in all difficult
emergencies.®

1 Xen. Cyrop. i. 1, 2. 5 So it is stated by Xenophon him-

2Xen. Cyrop. i. 1, 8. ἐκ τούτον δὴ
ἠναγκαζόμεθα μετανοεῖν, μὴ οὔτε τῶν
ἀδυνάτων οὔτε τῶν χαλεπῶν ἔργων ἢ τὸ
ἀνθρώπων ἄρχειν, nv τις ἐπιστα-
μένως τοῦτο πράττῃ.

8. Xen. Cyrop. i. 1, 8-8

4 Aristot. Politic. vii. 7, 1827, Ὁ. 25.
τὰ δὲ περὶ τὴν ᾿Ασίαν, διανοητικὰ μὲν
καὶ τὐχνικὰ τὴν ψυχήν, ἄθυμα δέ"
διόπερ ἀρχόμενα καὶ δουλεύοντα δια.
τ΄ Ct.

Hippokrates, De Aere, Locis, et
Aquis, c. 19-23.

self, in the speech addressed by Kroesus
after his defeat and captivity to Cyrus,
Vii. 2, 24—ayvomy ἐμαυτὸν ὅτι σοι
ἀντιπολεμεῖν ἱκανὸς ᾧμην εἶναι, πρῶτον
μὲν ἐκ θεῶν ονότι, ἔπειτα δὲ διὰ
βασιλέων πεφυκότι, ἔπειτα δὲ ἐκ παιδὸς
ἀρετὴν ἀσκοῦντι" τῶν δ᾽ ἐμῶν προγόνων
ἀκούω τὸν πρῶτον βασιλεύσαντα ἅμα τε
βασιλέα καὶ ἐλεύθερον γενέσθαι. Cyrop.
L 2,1: τοῦ Περσειδῶν γένους, ἄσ.

ὁ See the remarkable words ad-
dressed by Cyrus, shortly ‘before his
death, in sacrificing on the hill-top to

Cuap. IV. HEROIC GENIUS OF CYRUS. 225

The fundamental principle of Xenophon is, that to obtain
hearty and unshaken obedience is not difficult for a
ruler, provided he possesses the science or art of
ruling. This is a principle expressly laid down by
Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia.! We
have seen Plato affirming in the Politikus? that this
is the only true government, though very few indi-
viduals are competent to it: Plato gives to it a
peculiar application in the Republic, and points out
a philosophical or dialectic tuition whereby he
supposes that his Elders will acquire the science or art of
command. The Cyropedia presents to us an illustrative
example. Cyrus is a young prince who, from twenty-six years
of age to his dying day, is always ready with his initiative, pro-
vident in calculation of consequences, and personally active in
enforcement : giving the right order at the right moment, with
good assignable reasons. As a military man, he is not only
personally forward, but peculiarly dexterous in the marshalling
and management of soldiers; like the Homeric Agamemnon *—

Xenophon
does not
solve his
own pro-
blem—The
governing
aptitude
and popu-
larity of
Cyrus come
from nature,
not from
education,

᾿Αμφότερον, βασιλεύς τ᾽ ἀγαθός, κρατερός τ᾽ αἰχμητής.

But we must consider this aptitude for command as a spontaneous
growth in Cyrus—a portion of his divine constitution or of the
golden element in his nature (to speak in the phrase of the Pla-
tonic Republic): for no means are pointed out whereby he ac-
quired it, and the Platonic Sokrates would have asked in vain,
where teachers of it were to be found. It is true that he is made
to go through a rigorous and long-continued training: but this
training is common to him with all the other Persian youths of

Ζεὺς ἸΙατρῷος and "HAtos, Cyrop. viii. 2See what is said below about the

The special communications of the

Gods to Cyrus are insisted on by

Xenophon, like those made to So-

krates, and like the constant aid of

Athéné to Odysseus in Homer, Odyss.

ili. 221 -—

Ov γάρ πω ἴδον ὧδε θεοὺς ἀναφανδὰ

ἐλεῦντας

‘Ns κείνῳ ἀναφανδὰ παρίστατο ἸΙαλλὰς

᾿Αθήνη.

1 Xenoph. Mem. iii. 9, 10-12.

Platonic Politikus, chap. xxx.

3 Cicero, when callec upon in his
province of Cilicia to conduct warlike
operations against the Parthians, as
well as inst some refractory moun-
taineers, improved his military know-
ledge by studying and commenting on
the Cyropedia. Epist. ad Famil. ἔς, 25.
Compare the remarkable observation
made by Cicero (Acadeinic. Prior. ii.
init.) about the way in which Lucullus

e up his deficiency of military
experience by reading military books.

1—15

226 XENOPHON. Cuap. IV.

good family, and is calculated to teach obedience, not to com-
municate aptitude for command; while the master of tactics,
whose lessons he receives apart, is expressly declared to have
known little about the duties of a commander.! Kambyses in-
deed (father of Cyrus) gives to his son valuable general exhorta-
tions respecting the multiplicity of exigencies which press upon
a commander, and the constant watchfulness, precautions, fertility
of invention, required on his part to meet them. We read the
like in the conversations of Sokrates in the Memorabilia :2 but
neither Kambyses nor Sokrates are teachers of the art of com-
manding. For this art, Cyrus is assumed to possess a natural
aptitude ; like the other elements of his dispositions—his warm
sympathies, his frank and engaging manners, his ardent emula-
tion combined with perfect freedom from jealousy, his courage,
his love of learning, his willingness to endure any amount of
labour for the purpose of obtaining praise, &c., all which Xeno-
phon represents as belonging to him by nature, together with a
very handsome person. ®
The Cyropedia is a title not fairly representing the contents of
Views of the work, which contains a more copious biography
Xenophon of the hero than any which we read in Plutarch or
abontpuPlic Suetonius. But the education of Cyrus‘ is the most
training of remarkable part of it, in which the ethico-political
" theory of Xenophon, generated by Sokratic refining
criticism brought to bear on the Spartan drill and discipline, is
put forth. Professing to describe the Persian polity, he in reality
describes only the Persian education ; which is public, and pre-
scribed by law, intended to form the character of individuals so
that they shall stand in no need of coercive laws or penalties.
Most cities leave the education of youth to be conducted at the
discretion of their parents, and think it sufficient to enact and en-
force laws forbidding, under penal sanction, theft, murder, and
various other acts enumerated as criminal. But Xenophon (like
Plato and Aristotle) disapproves of this system.5 His Persian
a Compare Gyr pied, 1.6, with Me- Pay be considered as convering his
morab. iii. 1. denial of the assertion, that Cyrus had
SCyroped. ὦ 2, 1. φῦναι δὲ ὁ received a good education.
Κῦρος λέγεται, ἄο. L 8, 1.2. πάντων 5 Xenophon says the same about the
τῶν ἡλίκων διαφέρων ἐφαίνετο . . . scheme o pykurgus at Sparta, De Lac.

παῖς φύσει φιλόστοργος, to. Repub. 6.
<T have already observed that the ον,

Cuap. IV. DETAILS OF PERSIAN EDUCATION. 227

polity places the citizen even from infancy under official tuition,
and aims at forming his first habits and character, as well as at
upholding them when formed, so that instead of having any dis-
position of his own to commit such acts, he shall contract a re-
pugnance to them. He is kept under perpetual training, drill,
and active official employment throughout life, but the super-
Vision is most unremitting during boyhood and youth.

There are four categories of age :—boys, up to sixteen—young
men or ephébi, from sixteen to twenty-six—mature Details of
men, as far as fifty-one—above that age, elders. To (so-called
each of these four classes there is assigned a certain cation
portion of the “free agora”: ὦ6.,)ὄ the great square of Severe dis-
the city, where no buying or selling or vulgar occu- Distribution
pation is allowed—where the regal residence is situ- οὗ fur anes
ated, and none but dignified functions, civil or military, are car-
ried on. Here the boys and the mature men assemble every day
at sunrise, continue under drill, and take their meals; while the
young men even pass the night on guard near the government
house. Each of the four sections is commanded by superinten-
dents or officers: those superintending the boys are Elders, who
are employed in administering justice to the boys, and in teaching
them what justice is. They hold judicial trials of the boys for
various sorts of misconduct: for violence, theft, abusive words,
lying, and even for ingratitude. In cases of proved guilt, beating
or flogging is inflicted. The boys go there to learn justice (says
Xenophon), as boys in Hellas go to school to learn letters. Under
this discipline, and in learning the use of the bow and javelin
besides, they spend the time until sixteen years of age. They
bring their food with them from home (wheaten bread, with ἃ
condiment of kardamon, or bruised seed of the nasturtium), to-
gether with a wooden cup to draw water from the river: and
they dine at public tables under the eye of the teacher. The
young men perform all the military and police duty under the
commands of the King and the Elders: moreover, they accom-
pany the King when he goes on a hunting expedition—which
accustoms them to fatigue and long abstinence, as well as to the
encounter of dangerous wild animals. The Elders do not take
part in these hunts, nor in any foreign military march, nor are
they bound, like the others, to daily attendance in the agora.

228 XENOPHON. ΄ Cyap. IV. »

They appoint all officers, and try judicially the cases shown up
by the superintendents, or other accusers, of all youths or mature
men who have failed in the requirements of the public discipline.
The gravest derelictions they punish with death : where this is
not called for, they put the offender out of his class, so that he
remains degraded all his life.?

This severe discipline is by law open to all Persians who choose
Evidence of °° attend, and the honours of the state are attainable
the goodef- by all equally. But in practice it is confined to a
fect of this few: for neither boys nor men can attend it continu-
aar 1 and ously, except such as possess an independent main-
tion of the tenance ; nor is any one allowed to enter the regiment
body. of youths or mature men, unless he has previously
gone through the discipline of boyhood. The elders, by whom
the higher functions are exercised, must be persons who have
passed without reproach through all the three preceding stages :
so that these offices, though legally open to all, are in practice
confined to a few—the small class of Homotimoi.?

Such is Xenophon’s conception of a perfect Polity. It consists
in an effective public discipline and drill, begun in early boyhood
and continued until old age. The evidence on which he specially
insists to prove its good results relates first to the body. The
bodies of the Persians become so dry and hard, that they neither
spit, nor have occasion to wipe their noses, nor are full of wind,
nor are ever seen to retire for the satisfaction of natural wants. 3
Besides this, the discipline enforces complete habits of obedience,
sobriety, justice, endurance of pain and privation.

We may note here both the agreement, and the difference,
between Xenophon and Plato, as to the tests applied for measur-
ing the goodness of their respective disciplinarian schemes, In
regard to the ethical effects desirable (obedience, sobriety, &.)
both were agreed. But while Plato (in Republic) dwells much
besides upon the musical training necessary, Xenophon omits
this, and substitutes in its place the working off of all the super-
fluous moisture of the body.‘

1 Xen. Cyrop. i. 2, 6-16. καὶ qv τις ἐκκρίνουσιν" ὁ 82 ἐκκριθεὶς ἄτιμος τὸν
ἐν ἐφήβοις ἢ ἐν τελείοις ἀνδράσιν λοιπὸν βίον διατελεῖ.
ἐλλίπῃ τι τῶν νομίμων, φαίνουσι μὲν οἱ 2 Cyropeed. i. 2, 14-15.
ἐύλαρχοι ἕκαστον, καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ὁ 8 p. i. 2, 16.
ουλόμενος " οἱ δὲ γεραίτεροι ἀκούσαντες 4 See below, chap. xxxvil.

Cuap. IV, OBEDIENCE TO PUBLIC DISCIPLINE. 229

Through the two youthful stages of this discipline Cyrus is
represented as having passed; undergoing all the pyonpiary
fatigues as well as the punishment (he is beaten or obedience of

. . . yrus to the
flogged by the superintendent 1) with as much rigour public disci-
as the rest, and even surpassing all his comrades in Tine He
endurance and exemplary obedience, not less than in Justice well.
the bow and the javelin. In the lessons about justice about the
he manifests such pre-eminence, that he is appointed re conte
by the superintendent to administer justice to other culcated
boys: and it is in this capacity that he is chastised the y bin by
for his well-known decision, awarding the large coat Master.
to the great boy and the little coat to the little boy, as being
more convenient to both,’ though the proprietorship was
opposite : the master impressing upon him, as a general explana-
tion, that the lawful or customary was the Just.2 Cyrus had
been brought as a boy by his mother Mandané to visit her father,
the Median king Astyages. The boy wins the affection of
Astyages and all around by his child-like frankness and affec-
tionate sympathy (admirably depicted in Xenophon): while he
at the same time resists the corruptions of a luxurious court, and
adheres to the simplicity of his Persian training. When Man-
dané is about to depart and to rejoin her husband Kambyses in
Persis, she is entreated by Astyages to allow Cyrus to remain
with him. Cyrus himself also desires to remain: but Mandané
hesitates to allow it: putting to Cyrus, among other difficulties,
the question—How will you learn justice here, when the teachers
of it are in Persis? To which Cyrus replies—I am already well
taught in justice: as you may see by the fact, that my teacher
made me a judge over other boys, and compelled me to render
account to him of all my proceedings.* Besides which, if I am
found wanting, my grandfather Astyages will make up the
deficient teaching. But (says Mandané) justice is not the same
here under Astyages, as it is in Persis. Astyages has made
himself master of all the Medes: while among the Persians
equality is accounted justice. Your father Kambyses both
performs all that the city directs, and receives nothing more

a Gyrop. Ἵ. δι 17. This ts an ine μὲν vonwpov δίκοιον εἶναι. τὸ δὲ Sonor

enious and apposite illustration of the βίαιον.

w of property. 4 Cyropeed. i. 4, 2

230 XENOPHON. Cuap. IV.

than what the city allows: the measure for him is, not his own
inclination, but the law. You must therefore be cautious of
staying here, lest you should bring back with you to Persis
habits of despotism, and of grasping at more than any one else,
contracted from your grandfather : for if you come back in this
spirit, you wili assuredly be flogged to death. Never fear,
mother (answered Cyrus): my grandfather teaches every one
round him to claim less than his due—not more than his due:
and he will teach me the same.

The portion of the Cyropedia just cited deserves especial
Xenophon’s attention, in reference to Xenophon as ἃ companion
conception and pupil of Sokrates. The reader has been already

of the
Sokratic § familiarised throughout this work with the questions

To ieee aot habitually propounded and canvassed by Sokrates—
TOCOgM Se What is Justice, Temperance, Courage, &c.? Are
order of these virtues teachable? If they are so, where are
of those the teachers of them to be found ?—for he professed
problems. +> have looked in vain for any teachers.? I have
farther remarked that Sokrates required these questions to be
debated in the order here stated. That is—you must first know
what Justice is, before you can determine whether it be teachable
or not—nay, before you are in a position to affirm any thing at
all about it, or to declare any particular acts to be either just or
unjust.§

Now Xenophon, in his description of the Persian official dis-
cipline, provides a sufficient answer to the second question—
Whether justice is teachable—and where are the teachers
thereof? It is teachable: there are official teachers appointed :
and every boy passes through a course of teaching prolonged for
several years.—But Xenophon does not at all recognise the
Sokratic requirement, that the first question shall be fully
canvassed and satisfactorily answered, before the second is ap-
proached. The first question is indeed answered in a certain way
—though the answer appears here only as an obiter dictum, and
is never submitted to any Elenchus at all. The master explains
—What is Justice 7—by telling Cyrus, “That the lawful is just,

1Cyrop. i. 8, 17-18. Ὅπως οὖν μὴ πλέον οἴεσθαι χρῆναι πάντων ἔχειν.
ἀπολῇ μαστιγούμενος, ἐπειδὰν οἴκοι ἦτ 3 Xenoph. Memor. i. 16, iv. 4, 5.

ΝῚ

ἂν παρὰ τούτον μαθὼν ἥκῃς ἀντὶ τοῦ 8 See below, ch. xifi., ch. χχίϊ,, and
βασιλικοῦ τὸ τυραννικόν, ἐν ᾧ ἐστι τὸ Ch. xxiii.

Cap. IV THE SOKRATIO PROBLEMS. 231

and that the lawless is violent”. Now if we consider this as
preceptorial—as an admonition to the youthful Cyrus how he
ought to decide judicial cases—it is perfectly reasonable :—“ Let
your decisions be conformable to the law or custom of the
country”. But if we consider it as a portion of philosophy or
reasoned truth—as a definition or rational explanation of Justice,
advanced by a respondent who is bound to defend it against the
Sokratic cross-examination—we shall find it altogether insuffi-
cient. Xenophon himself tells us here, that Law or Custom is
one thing among the Medes, and the reverse among the Persians:
accordingly an action which is just in the one place will be
unjust in the other. It is by objections of this kind that
Sokrates, both in Plato and Xenophon, refutes explanations pro-
pounded by his respondents.*

Though the explanation of Justice here given is
untenable, yet we shall find it advanced by Sokrates
himself as complete and conclusive, in the Xeno-
phontic Memorabilia, where he is conversing’ with
the Sophist Hippias. That Sophist is represented
as at first urging difficulties against it, but afterwards
as concurring with Sokrates: who enlarges upon the
definition, and extols it as perfectly satisfactory. If

altogether

Definition
iven by
okrates of

Justice—In-

sufficient to

satisfy the
exigencies
of the

Sokratic
Elenchus,

1 Plato, Republ. v. p. 479 A. τού-

soutiendraient opiniAtrement, si la
των τῶν πολλῶν καλῶν μῶν τι ἔστιν, ὃ

témérité du hasard qui a semé les loix

οὐκ αἰσχρὸν φανήσεται; καὶ τῶν δι-
καίων, ὃ οὐκ ἄδικον; καὶ τῶν ὁσίων, ὃ
οὐκ ἀνόσιον; Compare ἘΘΡΌΆΡΙ. i. p.
881 Ο, and the conversation of So-
krates with Euthydémus in the Xeno-
hontic Memorab. iv. 2, 18-19, and
opedia, i. 6, 27-34, about what is
just and good morality towards enemies.
We read in Pascal, Pensées, i. 6, 8-9 :—
**Qn ne voit presque rien de juste et
@injuste, qui ne change de qualité en
changeant de climat. Trois degrés
@élévation du pdle renversent toute la
jirisprudence. Un méridien décide de
vérité : en peu d’années de posses-
sion, les loix fondamentales changent :
le droit a ses époques. Plaisante
ustice, qu une riviére ou une montagne
rne! Vérité au deck des Pyrénées—
efreur au dela !
' 44 Τρ confessent que la justice n’est
dans les coutumes, mais qu'elle
reside dans les loix naturelles, connues
en tout pays. Certainement ils la

humaines en avait rencontré au moins
une qui fut universelle: mais la plai-
santerie est telle, que le caprice dex
hommes s’est si bien diversifid, qu'il
n’y en a point.

‘* Le larcin, Pinceste, le meurtre des
enfans 6\ des péres, tout a eu sa place
entre les actions vertueuses. Se peut-
il rien de plus plaisant, qu'un homme
ait droit de me tuer parcequ’il demeure
au-del& de leau, et que son prince a
querelle avec le mien, quoique je n’en
aie aucune avec lui?

‘Tun dit que l’essence de la justice
est l’autorité du législateur : l'autre, la
commodité du souverain: Vautre, la
coutume présente—et c’est le plus stir.
Rien, suivant la seule raison, n’est juste
de soi: tout branle avec le temps. La
coutume fait toute l’équité, par cela

seul qu'elle est reque: c’est le
fondement mystique de son autorité.
Qui la raméne son principe,
Yanéantit.”

232 XENOPHON. CuapP. IV.

Sokrates really delivered this answer to Hippias, as a general
definition of Justice—we may learn from it how much greater
was his negative acuteness in overthrowing the definitions of
others, than his affirmative perspicacity in discovering unexcep-
tionable definitions of his own. This is the deficiency admitted
by himself in the Platonic Apology—lamented by friends like
Kleitophon—arraigned by opponents like Hippias and Thrasy-
machus. Xenophon, whose intellect was practical rather than
speculative, appears not to be aware of it. He does not feel the
depth and difficulty of the Sokratic problems, even while he
himself enunciates them. He does not appreciate all the condi-
tions of a good definition, capable of being maintained against
that formidable cross-examination (recounted by himself) where-
by Sokrates humbled the youth Euthydémus: still less does he
enter into the spirit of that Sokratic order of precedence (declared
in the negative Platonic dialogues), in the study of philosophical
questions :—First define Justice, and find a definition of it such
as you can maintain against a cross-examining adversary—before
you proceed either to affirm or deny any predicates concerning it.
The practical advice and reflexions of Xenophon are, for the most
part, judicious and penetrating. But he falls very short when
he comes to deal with philosophical theory :—with reasoned
truth, and with the Sokratic Elenchus as a test for discriminating
such truth from the false, the doubtful, or the not-proven.

Cyrus is allowed by his mother to remain amidst the luxuries
Biography Of the Median court. It is a part of his admirable
of Cyrus— disposition that he resists all its temptations,! and
military goes back to the hard fare and discipline of the Per-
success 7? . .
earned by 81818 with the same exemplary obedience as before.
suitable _ He is appointed by the Elders to command the Per-
Variety of sian contingent which is sent to assist Kyaxares (son
and situa- Οἱ Astyages), king of Media; and he thus enters upon
tions. that active military career which is described as occu:
pying his whole life, until his conquest of Babylon, and his
subsequent organization of the great Persian empire. His father
Kambyses sends him forth with excellent exhortations, many of

which are almost in the same words as those which we reail

1 Cyropeed. ἱ, δ, 1.

Cap. IV BIOGRAPHY OF CYRUS. 933

ascribed to Sokrates in the Memorabilia. In the details of
Cyrus’s biography which follow, the stamp of Sokratic influence
is less marked, yet seldom altogether wanting. The conversation
of Sokrates had taught Xenophon how to make the most of his
own large experience and observation. His biography of Cyrus
represents a string of successive situations, calling forth and
displaying the aptitude of the hero for command. The epical
invention with which these situations are imagined—the variety
of characters introduced, Araspes, Abradates, Pantheia, Chry-
santas, Hystaspes, Gadatas, Gobryas, Tigranes, &c.—the dramatic
propriety with which each of these persons is animated as
speaker, and made to teach a lesson bearing on the predetermined
conclusion—all these are highly honourable to the Xenophontic
genius, but all of them likewise bespeak the Companion of
Sokrates. Xenophon dwells, with evident pleasure, on the de-
tails connected with the rationale of military proceedings: the
wants and liabilities of soldiers, the advantages or disadvantages
of different weapons or different modes of marshalling, the duties
of the general as compared with those of the soldier, &. Cyrus
is not merely always ready with his orders, but also competent
as a speaker to explain the propriety of what he orders.! We
have the truly Athenian idea, that persuasive speech is the
precursor of intelligent and energetic action: and that it is an
attribute essentially necessary for a general, for the purpose of in-
forming, appeasing, re-assuring, the minds of the soldiers.? This,
as well as other duties and functions of a military commander,
we find laid down generally in the conversations of Sokrates,?
who conceives these functions, in their most general aspect, as a
branch of the comprehensive art of guiding or governing men.
What Sokrates thus enunciates generally, is exemplified in detail
throughout the life of Cyrus.

Throughout all the Cyropedia, the heroic qualities and per-

1 Cyropsed. v. δ, 46. λεκτικώτατος third book of the Xenophontic Me.
καὶ πρακτικώτατος. Compare the Me- morabilia. The treatise of Xenophon
morabilia, iv. 6, 1-15. called Ἱππαρχικὸς enumerates also the

yiMomorb. i. 8, τι. Hipparoh, general duties, required, from ἃ com:
th p2 yrope tie 2, th Compare δαντόμολοι are mentioned (iv. 7). Now

Bee ean tad ve bonklasin Thee, the employment, with effect, of @ pev-
gration deliver by Perikles in Thucy- δαντόμολος, is described with much

es, 11, 40. detail in the Ογσορααϊα. See the case

ὃ See the four first chapters of the of Araspes (vi. 1, 37, vi. 8, 16).

234 XENOPHON. Cuap. IV.

Generous sonal agency of Cyrus are always in the foreground,
andamiable working with unerring success and determining every
Cyrus thing. He is moreover recommended to our sympa-
Atre udates thies, not merely by the energy and judgment of a
theia. leader, but also by the amiable qualities of a generous
man—by the remarkable combination of self-command with
indulgence towards others—by considerate lenity towards sub-
dued enemies like Kroesus and the Armenian prince—even by
solicitude shown that the miseries of war should fall altogether
on the fighting men, and that the cultivators of the land should
be left unmolested by both parties.1 Respecting several other
persons in the narrative, too—the Armenian Tigranes, Gadatas,
Gobryas, &c.—the adventures and scenes described are touching :
but the tale of Abradates and Pantheia transcends them all, and
is perhaps the most pathetic recital embodied in the works of
Hellenic antiquity.? In all these narratives the vein of senti-
ment is neither Sokratic nor Platonic, but belongs to Xenophon
himself.

This last remark may also be made respecting the concluding
proceedings of Cyrus, after he has thoroughly com-

Scheme of . .
go overnment pleted his conquests, and when he establishes arrange-
ovised by ments for governing them permanently. The scheme
8 con- of government which Xenophon imagines and intro-
completed duces him as organizing, is neither Sokratic nor Pla-
despotism tonic, nor even Hellenic: it would probably have
wisely ar- been as little acceptable to his friend Agesilaus, the
ranged. marked “hater of Persia,”® as to any Athenian politi-
cian. It is altogether an Oriental despotism, skilfully organized
both for the security of the despot and for enabling him to keep
ἃ vigorous hold on subjects distant as well as near: such as the
younger Cyrus might possibly have attempted, if his brother
Artaxerxes had been slain at Kunaxa, instead of himself. ‘“Eam
conditionem esse imperandi, ut non aliter ratio constet, quam si
uni reddatur”4—is a maxim repugnant to Hellenic ideas, and
not likely to be rendered welcome even by the regulations of

1 Cyrop. iff. ΑἹ 10-88, vil. 2, 9-20, v.4, δ᾽ Xenoph. Agesilaus, vii. 7. εἰ δ᾽ ad
26, vi. 1, 37. σὺ pay, ὦ Κῦρε, καὶ καλὸν κα μισοπέρσην εἶναι--ἐξέ-
ταῦτα ὅμοιος «ὦ wpess TE καὶ συγγνώμων πλευσεν, 5, τι δύναιτο κακὸν '" ποιήσων
τῶν y ἀνθρωπίνων ἁμαρτημάτων. τὸν βάρβαρον.

2 Cyrop. vii. 8. 4Tacit. Annal. i, 6.

Cuap. IV. ORIENTAL DESPOTISM. 235

detail with which Xenophon surrounds it; judicious as these
regulations are for their contemplated purpose. The amiable
and popular character which Cyrus has maintained from youth
upwards, and by means of which he has gained an uninterrupted
series of victories, is difficult to be reconciled with the insecurity,
however imposing, in which he dwells as Great King. When
we find that he accounts it a necessary precaution to surround
himself with eunuchs, on the express ground that they are
despised by every one else and therefore likely to be more faith-
ful to their master—when we read also that in consequence of
the number of disaffected subjects, he is forced to keep a guard
composed of twenty thousand soldiers taken from poor Persian
mountaineers !—we find realised, in the case of the triumphant
Cyrus, much of that peril and insecurity which the despot
Hieron had so bitterly deplored in his conversation with Simo-
nides. However unsatisfactory the ideal of government may be,
which Plato lays out either in the Republic or the Leges—that
which Xenophon sets before us is not at all more acceptable, in
spite of the splendid individual portrait whereby he dazzles our
imagination. Few Athenians would have exchanged Athens
either for Babylon under Cyrus, or for Plato’s Magnétic colony
in Krete.

The Xenophontic government is thus noway admirable, even
as an ideal. But he himself presents it only as an py sian
ideal—or (which is the same thing in the eyes of a present
companion of Sokrates) as a quasi-historical fact, reality
belonging to the unknown and undetermined past. by Xeno-
When Xenophon talks of what the Persians are now, thoroughly
he presents us with nothing but a shocking contrast Seated
to this ideal ; nothing but vice, corruption, degeneracy contrast to
of every kind, exorbitant sensuality, faithlessness and blishment
cowardice.? His picture of Persia is like that of the of Cyrus.
Platonic Kosmos, which we can read in the Timeus:* a splendid
Kosmos in its original plan and construction, but full of defects
and evil as it actually exists. The strength and excellence of the
Xenophontic orderly despotism dies with its heroic beginner,
His two sons (as Plato remarked) do not receive the same elabo-

1 Xen. Cyrop. vii. δ, 58-70. 3 Cyrop. viii. 8.
3 See below, ch. xxxviil,

236 XENOPHON. Cuap. IV.

rate training and discipline as himself: nor can they be re-
strained, even by the impressive appeal which he makes to them
on his death-bed, from violent dissension among themselves, and
misgovernment of every kind.}

Whatever we may think of the political ideal of Xenophon,
Xenophon is Cyropdia is among the glories of the Sokratic
has goodex- family ; as an excellent specimen of the philosophical
valitary and imagination, in carrying a general doctrine into illus-
Proceedings trative details—and of the epical imagination in re-
—Noexpe- spect to varied characters and touching incident. In

rience of id stringing together instructive conversations, more-
commerce. over, it displays the same art which we trace in the
Memorabilia, 2konomikus, Hieron, &c., and which is worthy of
the attentive companion of Sokrates. Whenever Xenophon talks
about military affairs, horsemanship, agriculture, house-manage-
ment, &c., he is within the range of personal experience of his
own ; and his recommendations, controlled as they thus are by
known realities, are for the most part instructive and valuable.
Such is the case not merely with the Cyropedia and Gikono-
mikus, but also in his two short treatises, De Re Equestri and De
Officio Magistri Equitum.

But we cannot say so much when he discusses plans of
finance.

We read among his works a discourse—composed after his
sentence of exile had been repealed, aud when he

Discourse . ι,

of Xeno- | was very old, seemingly not earlier than 355 8.0. 3.--
phon on criticising the actual condition of Athens, and pro-
finance posing various measures for the improvement of the

condition finances, as well as for relief of the citizens from
οἱ Athens. poverty. He begins this discourse by a sentiment
ration of thoroughly Sokratic and Platonic, which would serve
active tod almost as a continuation of the Cyropedia. The
paren ,2f government of a city will be measured by the cha-

racter and ability of its leaders? He closes it by

another sentiment equally Sokratic and Platonic ; advising that

* Cyropeed. viii. 7, 9-19: Plato, Legg. 3 De Vectig. i, 1. ἐγὼ μὲν τοῦτο ἀεί
fii. p, 694 Ὁ ποτε νομέζω, ὁποῖοί τινες ἂν οἱ προστά-
2 Xeno ophon, ἸΠόροι--ἢ περὶ Προσό- rac ὦσι, τοιαύτας καὶ τὰς πολιτείας
sur. De Vectigalibus. See Schneider's γίγνεσθαι.
Proleg to this treatise, pp. 188-140

Cuap. IV. DISCOURSE ON ATHENIAN FINANCE. 237

before his measures are adopted, special messengers shall be sent
to Delphi and Dodona ; to ascertain whether the Gods approve
them—and if they approve, to which Gods they enjoin that the
initiatory sacrifices shall be offered! But almost everything in
the discourse, between the first and last sentences, is in a vein
not at all Sokratic—in a vein, indeed, positively anti-Platonic
and anti-Spartan. We have already seen that wealth, gold and
silver, commerce, influx of strangers, &c., are discouraged as
much as possible by Plato, and by the theory (though evaded
partially in practice) of Sparta. Now it is precisely these objects
Which Xenophon, in the treatise before us, does his utmost to
foster and extend at Athens. Nothing is here said about the
vulgarising influence of trade as compared with farming, which
we read in the (@konomikus: nor about the ethical and peda-
gogic dictation which pervades so much of the Cyropedia, and
reigns paramount throughout the Platonic Republic and Leges,
Xenophon takes Athens as she stands, with great variety of
tastes, active occupation, and condition among the inhabitants :
her mild climate and productive territory, especially her veins
of silver and her fine marble: her importing and exporting
merchants, her central situation, as convenient entrepét for com-
modities produced in the most distant lands :? her skilful artisans
and craftsmen : her monied capitalists : and not these alone, but
also the congregation and affluence of fine artists, intellectual
men, philosophers, Sophists, poets, rhapsodes, actors, &c. : last,
though not least, the temples adorning her akropolis, and the
dramatic representations exhibited at her Dionysiac festivals,
which afforded the highest captivation to eye as well as ear, and
attracted strangers from all quarters as visitors. Xenophon
extols these charms of Athens with a warmth which reminds us
of the Periklean funeral oration in Thucydides.* He no longer
speaks like one whose heart and affections are with the Spartan

1De Vect. vi. 2. Compare this

τί δὰ οἱ πολυπρό 3 τί δὲ οἱ “
with Anabas. iii, 1, δ, where Sokrates καὶ ἀρῶν φρόβατοι; τί δὲ οἰ γνώμῃ

καὶ ἀργυρίῳ δυνάμενοι χρηματίζεσθαι ;

reproves Xenophon for his evasive
manner of putting a question to the
Delphian God. Xenophon here adopts
the plenary manner enjoined by So-
krates.

2 De Vectig. c. i. 2-8.
3 De Vect. v. 3-4. Τί δὲ οἱ πολνυέλαιοι;

Kai μὴν χειροτέχναι τε καὶ σοφισταὶ
καὶ φιλόσοφοι" οἱ δὲ ποιηταὶ, οἱ δὰ τὰ
τούτων μεταχειριζόμενοι, οἱ δὲ ἀξιοθεά-
των ἣ ἀξιακούστων ἱερῶν ἣ ὁσίων ἐπι-

238 XENOPHON. Cuap. IV.

drill: still less does he speak like Plato—to whom (as we see
both by the Republic and the Leges) such artistic and poetical
exhibitions were abominations calling for censorial repression
—and in whose eyes gold, silver, commerce, abundant influx of
strangers, &c., were dangerous enemies of all civic virtue.

Yet while recognising all these charms and advantages, Xeno-
R phon finds himself compelled to lament great poverty

ecognised oe . ς
poverty among the citizens ; which poverty (he says) is often
among the urged by the leading men as an excuse for unjust
Plan forim- proceedings. Accordingly he comes forward with
provement. . ἢ . .

various financial suggestions, by means of which he
confidently anticipates that every Athenian citizen may obtain a
comfortable maintenance from the public.?

First, he dwells upon the great advantage of encouraging
metics, or foreigners resident at Athens, each of whom paid
Advantage 2 annual capitation tax to the treasury. There were
ofalarge already many such, not merely Greeks, but Orientals
number of . . . .
Metics. also, Lydians, Phrygians, Syrians, &c. :* and by ju-
dicious encouragement all expatriated men every-
couraged. where might be made to prefer the agreeable resi-
dence at Athens, thus largely increasing the annual amount of
the tax. The metics ought (he says) to be exempted from mili-
tary service (which the citizens ought to perform and might
perform alone), but to be admitted to the honours of the eques-
trian duty, whenever they were rich enough to afford it; and
farther, to be allowed the liberty of purchasing land and building
houses in the city. Moreover not merely resident metics, but
also foreign merchants who came as visitors, conducting an ex-
tensive commerce—ought to be flattered by complimentary votes
and occasional hospitalities : while the curators of the harbour,
whose function it was to settle disputes among them, should re-
ceive prizes if they adjudicated equitably and speedily.

All this (Xenophon observes) will require only friendly and

contribu outlay. He proposes to raise an ample fund for the

_ 2 De Vectig. iv. 88. καὶ ἐμοὶ μὲν δὴ τροφὴν ἀπὸ κοινοῦ γενέσθαι.
εἴρηται, ὡς ἂν ἡγοῦμαι κατασκενασθείσης 2 De Vect. ii. 8.7.
τῆς πόλεως ἱκανὴν ἂν πᾶσιν ᾿Αθηναίοις 3 De Vect. iii. 2-6

Cuap. IV. ENCOURAGEMENT OF METICS. 939

purposes of the city, by voluntary contributions ; tions 8 large
which he expects to obtain not merely from private employed

Athenians and metics, rich and in easy circumstances by the city.
—but also from other cities, and even from foreign Distriba- ὦ
despots, kings, satraps, &c. The tempting induce- oboli per

ment will be, that the names of all contributors with reat ea

their respecting contributions will be inscribed on the citizens.
public tablets, and permanently commemorated as benefactors of
the city.!| Contributors (he says) are found, for the outfit of a
fleet, where they expect no return: much more will they come
forward here, where a good return will accrue. The fund so
raised will be employed under public authority with the most
profitable result, in many different ways. The city will build
docks and warehouses for bonding goods—houses near the har-
bour to be let to merchants—merchant-vessels to be let out on
freight. But the largest profit will be obtained by working the
silver mines at Laureion in Attica. The city will purchase a
number of foreign slaves, and will employ them under the
superintendence of old free citizens who are past the age of
labour, partly in working these mines for public account, each of
the ten tribes employing one tenth part of the number—partly
by letting them out to private mining undertakers, at so much
per diem for each slave : the slaves being distinguished by a con-
spicuous public stamp, and the undertaker binding himself under
penalty always to restore the same number of them as he re-
ceived.2 Such competition between the city and the private
mining undertakers will augment the total produce, and will be
no loss to either, but wholesome for both. The mines will absorb
as many workmen as are put into them : for in the production of
silver (Xenophon argues) there can never be any glut, as there is
sometimes in corn, wine, or oil. Silver is always in demand, and
is not lessened in value by increase of quantity. Every one is
anxious to get it, and has as much pleasure in hoarding it under
ground as in actively employing it.® -The scheme, thus described,
may (if found necessary) be brought into operation by degrees,
a certain number of slaves being purchased annually until the
full total is made up. From these various financial projects, and

1 De Vect. iii. 11 2 De Vect. iv. 18-19. 8 De Vect. iv. 47.

240 XENOPHON. Cuap. IY.

especially from the fund thus employed as capital under the
management of the Senate, the largest returns are expected.
Amidst the general abundance which will ensue, the religious
festivals will be celebrated with increased splendour — the
temples will be repaired, the docks and walls will be put in
complete order—the priests, the Senate, the magistrates, the
horsemen, wi!l receive the full stipends which the old custom of
Athens destined for them. But besides all these, the object
which Xenophon has most at heart will be accomplished : the
poor citizens will be rescued from poverty. There will be a
regular distribution among all citizens, per head and equally.
Three oboli, or half a drachma, will be allotted daily to each, to
poor and rich alike. For the poor citizens, this will provide a
comfortable subsistence, without any contribution on their part :
the poverty now prevailing will thus be alleviated. The rich,
like the poor, receive the daily triobolon as a free gift: but if they
even compute it as interest for their investments, they will find
that the rate of interest is full and satisfactory, like the rate on
bottomry. Three oboli per day amount in the year of 360 days
to 180 drachmez: now if a rich man has contributed ten mine
(= 1000 drachme), he will thus receive interest at the rate of 18
per cent. per annum : if another less rich citizen has contributed
one mina (= 100 drachme), he will receive interest at the raté
of 180 per cent. per annum: more than he could realise in any
other investment.?

Half a drachma, or three oboli, per day, was the highest rate
Purposeand of pay ever received (the rate varied at different
Principle of times) by the citizens as Dikasts and Ekklesiasts, for
bution. attending in judicature or in assembly. It is this
amount of pay which Xenophon here proposes to ensure to every
citizen, without exception, out of the public treasury ; which (he
calculates) would be enriched by his project so as easily to bear
such a disbursement. He relieves the poor citizens from poverty
by making them all pensioners on the public treasury, with or

1De Vectig. vi. 1-2. Καὶ ὁ μὲν ἱερεῦσι δὲ καὶ βουλῇ καὶ ἀρχαῖς καὶ
δῆμος τροφῆς εὐπορήσει, οἱ δὲ πλούσιοι ἱππεῦσι τὰ πάτρια ἀποδώσομεν---πῶς
τῆς εἰς τὸν πόλεμον δαπάνης ἀπαλ- οὐκ ἄξιον ὡς τάχιστα τούτοις ἐγχειρεῖν,
λαγήσονται, περιονσίας δὲ πολλῆς γενο- ἵνα Eri ἐφ᾽ ἡμῶν ἐπίδωμεν τὴν πόλιν μετ
μένης, μεγαλοπρεπέστερον μὲν ἔτι ἢ νῦν ἀσφαλείας εὐδαιμονοῦσαν;

τὰς ἑορτὰς ἄξομεν, ἱερὰ 8° ἐπισκενάσο- De Vectig. iii. 9-12.
μεν, τείχη δὲ καὶ νεώρια ἀνορθώσομεν,

Cuap. IV. DREAMY CONCEPTIONS ON FINANCE, 241

without service rendered, or the pretence of service. He strains
yet farther the dangerous principle of the Thedrikon, without
the same excuse as can be shown for the Thedrikon itself on
religious grounds.! If such a proposition had been made by
Kleon, Hyperbolus, Kleophon, Agyrrhius, &c., it would have
been dwelt upon by most historians of Greece as an illustration
of the cacoethes of democracy—to extract money, somehow or
other, from the rich, for the purpose of keeping the poor in
comfort. Not one of the democratical leaders, so far as we know,
ever ventured to propose so sweeping a measure: we have it here
from the pen of the oligarchical Xenophon.

But we must of course discuss Xenophon’s scheme as a whole:
the aggregate enlargement of revenue, from his various visionary
new ways and means, on one side—against the new nticipa-
mode and increased amount of expenditure, on the Xenophon,
other side. He would not have proposed such an fancial
expenditure, if he had not thoroughly believed in the mercial.
correctness of his own anticipations, both as to the profits of the
mining scheme, and as to the increase of receipts from other
sources: such as the multiplication of tax-paying Metics, the
rent paid by them for the new houses to be built by the city,
the increase of the’ harbour dues from expanded foreign trade.
But of these anticipations, even the least unpromising are vague
and uncertain : while the prospects of the mining scheme appear
thoroughly chimerical. Nothing is clear or certain except the
disbursement. We scarcely understand how Xenophon could
seriously have imagined, either that voluntary contributors could
have been found to subscribe the aggregate fund as he proposes—
or that, if subscribed, it could have yielded the prodigious return
upon which he reckons. We must, however, recollect that he had
no familiarity with finance, or with the conditions and liabilities
of commerce, or with the raising of money from voluntary con-
tributors for any collective purpose. He would not have in-
dulged in similar fancies if the question had been about getting
together supplies for an army. Practical Athenian financiers
would probably say, in criticising his financial project—what

1 Respecting the Thedrikon at Athens, see my ‘History of Greece,’ ch. 88, pp.
492-498. ᾿

1—16

242

XENOPHON.

Cuap. IV.

Heraldus? observes upon some views of his opponent Salmasius,
about the relations of capital and interest in Attica—“Somnium
est hominis harum rerum, etiam cum vigilat, nihil scientis”.?
The financial management of Athens was doubtless defective in

1 This passage of Heraldus is cited
by M. Boeckh in his Public Economy
of Athens, B. iv. ch. 21, Ὁ. (06, ng.
Trans. In that chapter of M. Boeckh’s
work (pp. 600-610) some very instruc-
tive pages will be found about the
Xenophontic scheme here noticed.

I will however mention one or two
points on which my understanding of

he scheme differs from his. He says
Pp. 605) :—‘‘ The author supposes that

e profit upon this speculation would

amount to three oboli per day, so that

the subscribers would obtain a very b

high per centage on their shares.
Xenophon supposes unequal contribu-
tions, according tothe differentamounts
of property, agreeable to the principles
of a property-tax, but an equal distri-
bution of the receipts for the purpose
of favouring and aiding the poor.
What Xenophon is speaking of is an
income annually arising upon each
share, either equal to or exceeding the
interest of the loans on bottomry.
Where, however, is the security that
the undertaking would produce three
oboli a day to each subscriber ?”

I concur in most of what is here
said; but M. Boeckh states the matter
too much as if the three oboli per
diem were a real return arising from
the scheme, and payable to each share-
holder upon each share as he calls it.
This is an accident of the case, not the
essential feature. The poorest citizens
—for whose benefit, more than for any
other object, the scheme is contrived—
would not be shareholders at all: they
would be too poor to contribute any-
thing, yet each of them would receive
his triobolon like the rest. Moreover,
many citizens, even though able to
pay, might hold back, and decline to
pay: yet still each would receive as
much. And again, the foreigners,
kings, satraps, &c., would be contri-
butors, but would receive nothing at
all. The distribution of the triobolou
would be made to citizens only. Xeno-
phon does indeed state the proportion
of receipt to payments in the cases of
some rich contributors, as an auxiliary
motive to conciliate them. Bat we
ought not to treat this receipt as if

it were a real return yielded by the
public mining speculation, or as profit
actually brought in.

As I conceive the scheme, the daily
triobolon, and the respective contribu-
tions furnished, have no premeditated
ratio, no essential connection with
each other. The daily payment of the
triobolon to every citizen indiscrimi-
nately, is ἃ new and heavy burden
which Xenophon imposes upon the
city. But this is only one among
many other burdens, as we may see

y cap. 6. In order to augment the
wealth of the city, so as to defray
these large expenses, he proposes
several new financial measures.
these the most considerable was the
public mining speculation ; but it did
not stand alone. The financial scheme
of Xenophon, both as to receipts and
as to expenditure, is more general than
M. Boeckh allows for.

2It is truly surprising to read in
one of Hume's Essays the following
sentence. Essay XII. on Civil Liberty
Ἢ 107 ed. of Hume’s Philosophical

orks, 1825.

‘*The Athenians, though governed
by a Republic, paid near two hundred
per cent for those sums of money which
any emergence made it fnecessary for
them to borrow, as we learn from
Xenophon.”

In the note Hume quotes the follow-
ing passage from this discourse, De
Vectigalibus :--Κτῆσιν δὲ ἀπ᾽ οὐδενὸς
ἂν οὕτω καλὴν κτήσαιντο, ὥσπερ ἀφ᾽ οὗ
ἂν προτελέσωσιν εἰς τὴν ἀφορμήν. Οἱ
δέ γε πλεῖστοι ᾿Αθηναίων πλείονα λή-
ψονται κατ' ἐνιαντὸν ἣ ὅσα ἂν εἰσενέγ-
κωσιν. Οἱ γὰρ μνᾶν προτελέσαντες,
ἐγγὺς δυοῖν μνᾷν πρόσοδον ἕξουσι. Ὃ
δοκεῖ τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων ἀσφαλέστατόν τε
καὶ πολυχρονιώτατον εἶναι.

Hume has been misled by dwelling
upon one or two separate sentences.
If he had taken into consideration the
whole discourse and its declared scope,
he would have seen that it affords no
warrant for any inference as to the rate
of interest paid by the Athenian public
when they wanted to borrow. In
Xenophon's scheme there is no fixed
proportion between what a contributor

EXHORTATIONS TO A PACIFICO POLICY. 243

ὍΗΑΡ, IV.

many ways: but it would not have been improved in the hands
of Xenophon—any more than the administrative and judiciary
department of Athens would have become better under the severe
regimen of Plato.1 The merits of the Sokratic companions
—and great merits they were—lay in the region of instructive
theory.

Xenophon accompanies his financial scheme with a strong
recommendation to his countrymen that they should
abstain from warlike enterprises and maintain peace
with every one. He expatiates on the manifest ad-
vantages, nay, even on the necessity, of continued
peace, under the actual poverty of the city: for the purpose of
recruiting the exhausted means of the citizens, as well as of
favouring his own new projects for the improvement of finance
and commerce. While he especially deprecates any attempt on
the part of Athens to regain by force her lost headship over the
Greeks, he at the same time holds out hopes that this dignity
would be spontaneously tendered to her, if, besides abstaining
from all violence, she conducted herself with a liberal and con-
ciliatory spirit towards all: if she did her best to adjust
differences among other cities, and to uphold the autonomy of the
Delphian temple? As far as we can judge, such pacific exhorta-
tions were at that time wise and politic. Athens had just then
concluded peace (355 8.0.) after the three years of ruinous and
unsuccessful war, called the Social War, carried on against her
revolted allies Chios, Kos, Rhodes, and Byzantium. To attempt
the recovery of empire by force was most mischievous. There
was indeed one purpose, for which she was called upon by a wise
forecast to put forth her strength—to check the aggrandisement
of Philip in Macedonia, But this was a distant purpose: and
the necessity, though it became every year more urgent, was not

Xenophon
exhorts his
countrymen
to maintain
peace.

to the fund would

and what he forcible remarks in defendin
would receive. The Friobolon received marks in defending Rhetoric

and the Athenian statesme st

is a fixed sum to each citizen, whereas

the contributions of each would be dif- G

ferent. Moreover the foreigners and
metics would: contribute without re-
ceiving anything, while the poor citi-
zens would receive their triobolon per
head, without having contributed any-

thing.
1 ἅ visteides the Rhetor has some

the bitter criticisms of Pla the
or, : pointing out that Plato him.
self had never made trial of the diffi-
culty of governing any real community
of men, or of the necessities under
which a statesman in actual political
life was placed (Orat. xlv. Iept Ῥητο-
ρικῆς, pp. 109-110, Dindorf).
2 Xenoph. De Vectig. v. 8-8

s0 prominently manifest' in 355 B.c. as to affect the judgment
of Xenophon. ‘At that early day, Demosthenes himself did not
see the danger from Macedonia: his first Philippic was delivered
in 351 B.c., and even then his remonstrances, highly creditable to
his own forecast, made little impression on others. But when
we read the financial oration De Symmoriis we appreciate his
sound administrative and practical judgment; compared with the
benevolent dreams and ample public largess in which Xenophon
here indulges,?

We have seen that Plato died in‘347 B.c., having reached the
Difference ull age of eighty : Xenophon must have attained the
of the latest game age nearly, and may perhaps have attained it
composi-
tions of completely—though we do not know the exact year of
erate his death. With both these two illustrious companions
from their of Sokrates, the point of view is considerably modi-
point of ς . eae ἢ
viewinthe fied in their last compositions as compared to their
earlier, earlier. Xenophon shows the alteration not less
clearly than Plato, though in an opposite direction. His dis-
course on the Athenian revenues differs quite as much from the
Anabasis, Cyropedia, and (Ekonomikus—as the Leges and Epi-
nomis differ from any of Plato’s earlier works. Whatever we
may think of the financial and commercial anticipations of
Xenophon, his pamphlet on the Athenian revenues betokens a
warm sympathy for his native city—a genuine appreciation of
her individual freedom and her many-sided intellectual activity
—an earnest interest in her actual career, and even in the exten-
sion of her commercial and manufacturing wealth. In these
respects it recommends itself to our feelings more than the last
Platonic production—Leges and Epinomis—composed nearly at
the same time, between 356-347 B.c. While Xenophon in old
age, becoming reconciled to his country, forgets his early passion
for the Spartan drill and discipline, perpetual, monotonous,
unlettered — we find in the senility of Plato a more cramping
limitation of the varieties of human agency—a stricter com-

18ee my ‘History of Greece,’ ch. War, about 855 B.C. ΝΕ
86, Ρ 825 seq. 3 Respecting the first Philip ic, and
agree with Boeckh, Public Econ. the Oratio De Symmoriis of Demos-
of Athens, ut supra, p. 601, that this thenes, see my ‘History of Greece,
pamphlet of Xenophon is probably to ch. 87, pp. 401-431.
e referred to the close of the Social

Cuap. IV. CHANGE IN XENOPHON AND PLATO. 245

pression, even of individual thought and speech, under the
infallible official orthodoxy—a more extensive use of the peda-
gogic rod and the censorial muzzle—than he had ever proposed
before.

In thus taking an unwilling leave of the Sokratic family,
represented by these two venerable survivors—to both of whom
the students of Athenian letters and philosophy are so deeply
indebted—I feel some satisfaction in the belief, that both of
them died, as they were born, citizens of free Athens and of
unconquered Hellas: and that neither of them was preserved
to an excessive old age, like their contemporary Isokrates, to

witness the extinction of Hellenic autonomy by the battle of
Cheeroneia,? ,

1 Compare the touching passage in ‘‘Festinats: mortis grande solatinm
Tacitus’s description of the death of tulit, evasisse postremum illud tem-
Agricola, c. 44-45. pus,” &c.

246

LIFE OF PLATO.

CuaP. V.

CHAPTER Υ.

LIFE OF PLATO.

Or Plato’s biography we can furnish nothing better than a faint

Scanty in-
formation

about
Plato’s life.

outline. We are not fortunate enough to possess the
work on Plato’s life,’ composed by his companion and
disciple Xenokrates, like the life of Plotinus by Por-
phyry, or that of Proklus by Marinus.

Though Plato lived

eighty years, enjoying extensive celebrity—and though Diogenes
Laertius employed peculiar care in collecting information about
him—yet the number of facts recounted is very small, and of
those facts a considerable proportion is poorly attested.?

1 This is cited by Simplikius, Schol.
ad Aristot. De Ccelo, 470, a. 27; 474,
ὃ. 12, ed. Brandis.

2 Diogen. Laert. iv.1. The person
to whom Diogenes addressed his bio-
graphy of Plato was a female: possibly

he wife of the emperor Septimius
Severus (see Philostr. Vit. Apoll. i. 8),
who greatly loved and valued the
Platonic philosophy (Diog. Laert. iii.
47). Ménage (in his commentary on the
Procemium) supposes the person signi-
fied to be Arria: this alsois a mere con-
jecture, and in my judgment less pro-
ble. Weknow that the empress gave
positive encouragement to writers on
philosophy. The article devoted by
Diogenes to Plato is of considerable
length, including both biography and
exposition of doctrine. He makes re-
ference to numerous witnesses—Speu-
sippus, Aristotle, Hermodérus, Ari-
stippus, Diksarchus, Aristoxenus,
Klearchus, Herakleides, Theopompus,
Timon in his Silli or satirical poem,
Pamphila, Hermippus, Neanthes, Anti-
leon, Favorinus, Athenodérus, Timo-
theus, Idomeneus, Alexander ἐν διαδο-
xan καθ᾽ ‘HpaxAaroy, Satyrus, Onétor,
Ikimus, Euphorion, Panetius, Myron-
Aristophanes of By-

fanus, Polemon
zantium, the Alexandrine critic, An-

tigonus of Karystus, Thrasyllus,
Cc

Of the other biographers of Plato,
Olympiodorus and the Auctor Anony-
mus cite no authorities. Apuleius, in
his survey of the doctrine of Plato (De
Habitudine doctrinarum Platonis, init.
p. 667, ed. Paris), mentions only Speu-
sippus, as having attested the early
diligence and quick apprehension of
Plato, ‘‘Speusippus, domesticis in-
structus documentis, et pueri ejus acre
in percipiendo ingenium, et admi-
rand verecundie indolem laudat, et
pubescentis primitias labore atque
amore studendi imbutas refert,” &c.

_Speusippus had composed a funeral
Discourse or Encomium on Plato (Dio-
gen. iii. 1, 2; iv. 1,11). Unfortunately

iogenes refers to it only once in refer-
ence to Plato. We can hardly make
out whetherany of theauthors, whom he
cites, had made thelife of Platoa subject
of attentive study. Hermodérusis cited
by Simplikius as having written a trea-
tise περὶ Πλάτωνος. Aristoxenus, Di-
hus, and Theopompus—perhaps
also Hermippus, and Klearchus—had
good means of information.

See K. F. Hermann, Geschichte und
System der Platonischen Philosophie,
p. 97, not. 45.

Cuap. V. HIS BIRTH AND PARENTAGE. 247

Plato was born in Adgina (in which island his father enjoyed
an estate as kleruch or out-settled citizen) in the month His birth,
Thargelion (May) of the year B.c. 427.1 His family, pnd earky”
belonging to the Déme Kollytus, was both ancient education.
and noble, in the sense attached to that word at Athens. He
was son of Ariston (or, according to some admirers, of the God
Apollo) and Periktioné: his maternal ancestors had been inti-
mate friends or relatives of the law-giver Solon, while his father
belonged to a Gens tracing its descent from Kodrus, and even
from the God Poseidon. He was also nearly related to Char-
mides and to Kritias—this last the well-known and violent leader
among the oligarchy called the Thirty Tyrants.?_ Plato was first
called Aristoklés, after his grandfather ; but received when he
grew up the name of Plato—on account of the breadth (we are

1It was affirmed distinctly by Her-
modoérus (according to the statement of
Diogenes Laertius, iii. 6) that Plato was
twenty-eight years old at the time of
the death of Sokrates: that is, in May,
899 B.c. (Zeller, Phil. der Griech.
vol. ii. p. 39, ed. 2nd.) This would

lace the birth of Plato in 427 B.c.

ther critics refer his birth to 428 or
429; but I agree with Zeller in think-
ing that the deposition of Hermoddérus
is more trustworthy than any other
evidence before us.

Hermodoérus was a friend and dis-
ciple of Plato, and is even said to have
made money by publishing Plato’s
dialogues without permission (Cic.,
Epist. ad Attic. xiii, 21). Suidas,
Ἑρμόδωρος. He was also an author:
he published a treatise Περὶ Μαθημάτων
(Diog. L., Procem. 2).

See the more recent Dissertation of
Zeller, De Hermodoro Ephesio et Her-
modoro Platonico, Marburg, 1859, p.
19 seq. He cites two important pas-

es (out of the commentary of Sim-
piikius on Aristot. Physic.) referring

the work of Hermodo6rus ὁ Πλάτωνος
érapos—@ work Περὶ Πλάτωνος, on

lato.

2 The statements respecting Plato's
relatives are obscure and perplexing :
unfortunately the domestica documenta,
which were within the knowledge of
his nephew Speusippus, are no longer
accessible to us. is certain that he
had two brothers, Glaukon and Adei-
mantus: besides which, it would ap-
pear from the Parmenides (126 B) that

he had ἃ younger half-brother by the
mother’s side, named Antiphon, and
son of ilampes (compare Charmi-
des, p. 158 A, and Plut., De Frat.
Amore, 12, ἢ. 484 E). But the age,
which this would assign to Antiphon,
does not harmonise well with the chro-
nological postulates assumed in the
exordium of the Parmenides. Accord-
ingly, K. F. Hermann and Stallbaum
are led to believe, that besides the
brothers of Plato named Glaukon and
Adeimantus, there must also have been
two uncles of Plato bearing these same
names, and having Antiphon for their
ounger brother. (See Stallbaum’s
olegg. ad Charm. pp. 84, 85, and
Prolegg. ad Parmen., Part iif. Ῥ.
804-307.) This is not unlikely: but
we cannot certainly determine the
oint—more especially as we do not
now what amount of chronological
inaccuracy Plato might hold to
admissible in the personnel of
logues.

It is worth mentioning, that in the
discourse of Andokides de Mysteriis,
persons named Plato, Charmides, Anti-
phon, are named among those accused
of concern in the sacrileges of 415 B.c.
—the mutilation of the Hermes and
the mock celebration of the mysteries.
Speusippus is also named as among
the Senators of the year (Andokides
de Myst. p. 18-27, seq.). Wh
these persons belonged
family as the philosopher Plato,
cannot say. He himself was then only
twelve years old.

248 LIFE OF PLATO. CHap. V.

told) either of his forehead or of his shoulders. Endowed with a
robust physical frame, and exercised in gymnastics, not merely
in one of the palestree of Athens (which he describes graphically
in the Charmides) but also under an Argeian trainer, he attained
such force and skill as to contend (if we may credit Diksearchus)
for the prize of wrestling among boys at the Isthmian festival.
His literary training was commenced under a schoolmaster
named Dionysius, and pursued under Drakon, a celebrated
teacher of music in the large sense then attached to that
word. He is said to have displayed both diligence and remark-
able quickness of apprehension, combined too with the utmost
gravity and modesty.2, He not only acquired great familiarity
with the poets, but composed poetry of his own—dithyrambic,
lyric, and tragic: and he is even reported to have prepared a
tragic tetralogy, with the view of competing for victory at the
Dionysian festival. We are told that he burned these poems,
when he attached himself to the society of Sokrates. No com-
positions in verse remain under his name, except a few epigrams
—amatory, affectionate, and of great poetical beauty. But there
is ample proof in his dialogues that the cast of his mind was
essentially poetical. Many of his philosophical speculations are
nearly allied to poetry, and acquire their hold upon the mind
rather through imagination and sentiment than through reason
or evidence.

According to Diogenes* (who on this point does not cite his
Karly rela- authority), it was about the twentieth year of Plato’s
tions of yn 866 (407 B.c.) that his acquaintance with Sokrates
Sokrates. began. It may possibly have begun earlier, but
certainly not later—since at the time of the conversation (related
by Xenophon) between Sokrates and Plato’s younger brother
Glaukon, there was already a friendship established between
Sokrates and Plato: and that time can hardly be later than 406
B.C., or the beginning of 405 p.c.* From 406 B.c. down to 399

1 Diog. L. iii. 4; Epiktétus, i. 8-18, as to ornaments worn on the head or
εἰ δὲ καλὸς ἦν Πλάτων καὶ ἰσχυρός, &. hair, were preserved with the children
The statement of Sextus Empiricus after they ad been discontinued with
—that Plato in his boyhood had his adults. See Thuc. i. 6.
ears bored and wore ear-rings—indi- 2 Diog. L. iii. 26.
cates the opulent family to which he 3 Ibid. 6. "
belonged. (Sex. Emp. adv. Gramm. 4Xen. Mem. fii. 6,1. Sokrates was
8. 258.) Probably some of the old induced by his friendship for Plato and
habits of the great Athenian families, for Charmides the cousin of Plato, to

Cuap. V. HIS YOUTH.—RELATIONS WITH SOKRATES. 249

B.C., when Sokrates was tried and condemned, Plato seems to
have remained in friendly relation and society with him: a
relation perhaps interrupted during the severe political struggles
between 405 B.c. and 403 B.c., but revived and strengthened
after the restoration of the democracy in the last-mentioned
year.

But though Plato may have commenced at the age of twenty
his acquaintance with Sokrates, he cannot have been exclusively
occupied in philosophical pursuits between the nineteenth and the
twenty-fifth year of his age—that is, between 409-403 B.c. He
was carried, partly by his own dispositions, to other matters
besides philosophy ; and even if such dispositions had not existed,
the exigencies of the time pressed upon him imperatively as an
Athenian citizen. Even under ordinary circumstances, a young
Athenian of eighteen years of age, as soon as he was enrolled on
the public register of citizens, was required to take the memor-
able military oath in the chapel of Aglaurus, and to serve on
active duty, constant or nearly constant, for two years, in various
posts throughout Attica, for the defence of the country.1 But
the six years from 409-403 B.c. were years of an extraordinary
character. They included the most strenuous public efforts, the
severest suffering, and the gravest political revolution, that had
ever occurred at Athens. Every Athenian citizen was of neces-
sity put upon constant (almost daily) military service; patos
either abroad, or in Attica against the Lacedzemonian youth a
garrison established in the permanent fortified post of citizen and
Dekeleia, within sight of the Athenian Akropolis. So

soldier.

admonish the forward youth Glaukon
(Plato’s younger brother), who thrust
himself forward obtrusively to speak
in the public assembly before he was
twenty years of age. The two dis-
courses of Sokrates—one with the pre-
sumptuous Glaukon, the other with the
diffident Charmides—are both reported
by Xenophon.
These discourses must have taken
lace before the battle of Hgospotami :
For Charmides was killed during the
Anarchy, and Glaukon certainly would
never have attempted such acts of pre-
sumption after the restoration of the
democracy, at a time when the tide of

ublic feeling had become vehemently .

ostile to Kritias, Charmides, and all

the names and families connected

-with the oligarchical rule just over-

thrown.

I presume the conversation of So-
krates with Glaukon to have taken
place in 406 B.C. or 405 B.C.: it was in
405 B.C. that the disastrous battle of
Aigospotami occurred,

Read the oath sworn by the Ephébi
in Pollux viii. 105. schines tells us
that he served his two ephebic years
aS περίπολος τῆς χώρας, when there
was no remarkable danger or foreign
pressure. See Asch. De Fals. Legat.
8. 178. See the facts about the Athe.
nian Ephébi brought together in a
Dissertation by W. Dittenberger, p.

250 LIFE OF PLATO, Cuap. V.

habitually were the citizens obliged to be on guard, that Athens,
according to Thucydides,! became a military post rather than a
city. It is probable that Plato, by his family and its place on the
census, belonged to the Athenian Hippeis or Horsemen, who
were in constant employment for the defence of the territory.
But at any rate, either on horseback, or on foot, or on shipboard,
a robust young citizen like Plato, whose military age commenced
in 409, must have borne his fair share in this hard but indispen-
sable duty. In the desperate emergency, which preceded the
battle of Arginuse (406 B.c.), the Athenians put to sea in thirty
days ἃ fleet of 110 triremes for the relief of Mitylené; all the
men of military age, freemen, and slaves, embarking.2 We can
hardly imagine that at such a season Plato can have wished to
decline service: even if he had wished it, the Strategi would not
have permitted him. Assuming that he remained at home, the
garrison-duty at Athens must have been doubled on account of
the number of departures. After the crushing defeat of the

confusion between his name and that

1 Thue. vii. 27: ὁσημέραηἐξελαυνόντων
ὧν ἃ Ct., of Plato. It is however possible that

τῶν ἱππέων, &C. viii. 69. Anti-

phon, who is described in the begin-
ning of the Parmenides, as devoted to
ἐππικὴ, Must have been either brother
or uncle of Plato.
2 Xen. Hell. i. 6, 24. Οἱ δὲ ᾿Αθη-
vatot, τὰ γεγενημένα καὶ τὴν πολιορκίαν
πεὶ ἥκονσαν, ἐψηφίσαντο βοηθεῖν
vavoiv ἑκατὸν καὶ δέκα, εἰσβιβάξοντες
τοὺς ἐν ἡλικίᾳ ὄντας ἅπαντας, καὶ
δούλους καὶ ἐλευθέρους" καὶ πληρώ-
σαντες τὰς δέκα καὶ ἑκατὸν ἐν τριάκοντα
ἡμέραις, ἀπῆραν" εἰσέβησαν δὲ καὶ τῶν
ἱππέων πολλοί. In one of the anec-
dotes given by Diogenes (iii. 24) Plato
alludes to his own military service.
Aristoxenus (Diog. L. iii. 8) said that
Plato had been engaged thrice in
military expeditions out of Attica:
once to Tanagra, a second time to
Corinth, a third time to Delium, where
he distinguished himself. Aristoxenus
must have had fair means of informa-
tion, yet I do not know what to make
of this statement. All the three places
named are notorious for battles fought
by Athens; nevertheless chronology
utterly forbids the supposition that
Plato could have been present either
at the battle of Tanagra or at the battle
of Delium. At the battle of Delium
Sokrates was present, and is said to
have distinguished himself: hence
there is ground for suspecting some

there may have been, during the in-
terval between 410-405 B.c., partial
invasions of the frontiers of Bootia by
Athenian detachments: both Tan
and Delium were on the Bootian
frontier. The great battle of Corinth
took place in 304 B.c. Plato left.
Athens immediately after the death
of Sokrates in 809 B.C., and visited
several foreign countries during the
years immediately following; but he
may have been at Athens in 394 B.c.,
and may have served in the Athenian
force at Corinth. See Mr. Clinton,
Fast. Hell. ad ann. 395 B.c. Ido not
see how Plato could have been en-
gaged in any battle of Delium after
he battle of Corinth, for Athens
was not then at war with the Beo-
tians. ᾿

At the same time I confess that the
account given by or ascribed to Ari-
stoxenus appears to me to have been
founded on little positive information,
when we compare it with the military
duty which Plato must have done
between 410-405 B.C.

It is curious that Antisthenes also
is mentioned as having distinguished
himself at the battle of Tanagra (Diog.
vi. 1). The same remarks are appli-
cable to him as have just been made
upon Plato

Crap. V. INTEREST IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS. 251

Athenians at A®gospotami, came the terrible apprehension at
Athens, then the long blockade and famine of the city (wherein
many died of hunger); next the tyranny of the Thirty, who
among their other oppressions made war upon all free speech, and
silenced even the voice of Sokrates: then the gallant combat of
Thrasybulus followed by the intervention of the Lacedemonians
—contingencies full of uncertainty and terror, but ending in the
restoration of the democracy. After such restoration, there
followed all the anxieties, perils, of reaction, new enactments
and provisions, required for the revived democracy, during the
four years between the expulsion of the Thirty and the death of
Sokrates,

From the dangers, fatigues, and sufferings of such an historical
decad, no Athenian citizen could escape, whatever Period of
might be his feeling towards the existing democracy, political
or however averse he might be to public employment ®™>ition.
by natural temper. But Plato was not thus averse, during the
earlier years of his adult life. We know, from his own letters,
that he then felt strongly the impulse of political ambition usual
with young Athenians of good family ;! though probably not
with any such premature vehemence as his younger brother
Glaukon, whose impatience Sokrates is reported to have so
judiciously moderated.2_ Whether Plato ever spoke with success
in the public assembly, we do not know : he is said to have been
shy by nature, and his voice was thin and feeble, ill adapted for
the Pnyx.2 However, when the oligarchy of Thirty was esta-
blished, after the capture and subjugation of Athens, Plato was
not only relieved from the necessity of addressing the assembled
people, but also obtained additional facilities for rising into
political influence, through Kritias (his near relative) and Char-
mides, leading men among the new oligarchy. Plato affirms
that he had always disapproved the antecedent democracy, and
that he entered on the new scheme of government with full hope
of seeing justice and wisdom predominant. He was soon unde-
ceived. The government of the Thirty proved a sanguinary and
rapacious tyranny,‘ filling him with disappointment and disgust.

1 Plato, Epistol. vil. p. 824-825. re Fv, &e. iif, 26: αἰδήμων καὶ κόσ-
2 Xen., Mem. iii. 6. μιος. .
8 Diogen. Laert. ili. 5: ᾿Ισχνόφωνός 4 History of Greece, vol. viii. ch. 65.

252 LIFE OF PLATO. CHap. V.

He was especially revolted by their treatment of Sokrates, whom
they not only interdicted from continuing his habitual colloquy
with young men,’ but even tried to implicate in nefarious mur-
ders, by ordering him along with others to arrest Leon the Sala-
minian, one of their intended victims: an order which Sokrates,

at eril of his life, disobeyed.
Thus mortified and disappointed, Plato withdrew from public

functions. What part he took in the struggle between

He becomes the oligarchy and its democratical assailants under
he poli- Thrasybulus, we are not informed. But when the

democracy was re-established, his political ambition
revived, and he again sought to acquire some active influence on
public affairs. Now however the circumstances had become
highly unfavourable to him. The name of his deceased relative
Kritias was generally abhorred, and he had no powerful partisans
among the popular leaders. With such disadvantages, with anti-
democratical sentiments, and with a thin voice, we cannot wonder
that Plato soon found public life repulsive ;2 though he admits
the remarkable moderation displayed by the restored Demos.
His repugnance was aggravated to the highest pitch of grief and
indignation by the trial and condemnation of Sokrates (399 B.c.),
four years after the renewal of the democracy. At that moment
doubtless the Sokratic men or companions were unpopular in a
body. Plato, after having yielded his best sympathy and aid at
the trial of Sokrates, retired along with several others of them to
Megara. He made up his mind that for a man of his views and
opinions, it was not only unprofitablé, but also unsafe, to embark
in active public life, either at Athens or in any other Grecian
city. He resolved to devote himself to philosophical speculation,

1 Xen. Mem. i. 2, 86; Plato, Apol.
Sokrat. c. 20, p. 32.

2 Alian (V. H. iii. 27) had read a
story to the effect, that Plato, in con-

krates (899 B.c.). The military ser-
vice of Plato, prior to the battle of
/Xgospotami (405 B.C.), must have been
obligatory, in defence of his country,

sequence of poverty, was about to seek

military service abroad, and was buy-

ing arms for the purpose, when he was

induced to stay by the exhortation of

Sokrates, who prevailed upon him

10 devote himself to philosophy at
ome.

If there be any truth in this story, it
must refer to some time in the interval
between the restoration of the demo-
cracy (408 B.c.) and the death of So-

not deperding on his own free choice.
It is possible also that Plato may have
been for the time impoverished, like
many other citizens, by the intestine
troubles in Attica, and may have con-
templated military service abroad, like
Xenophon.

But I am inclined to think that the
story is unfounded, and that it arises
from some confusion between Plato and
Xenophon.

Crap. V. DISGUST WITH POLITICS—TRAVELS. 253

and to abstain from practical politics ; unless fortune should pre-
sent to him some exceptional case, of a city prepared to welcome
and obey a renovator upon exalted principles.1

At Megara Plato passed some time with the Megarian Euk-
leides, his fellow-disciple in the society of Sokrates, He retires
and the founder of what is termed the Megaric school from Athens
of philosophers. He next visited Kyréné, where he iter the
is said to have become acquainted with the geometri- Sokrates—
cian Theodérus, and to have studied geometry under
him. From Kyréné he proceeded to Egypt, interesting himself
much in the antiquities of the country as well as in, the conver-
sation of the priests. In or about 394 B.c.—if we may trust the
statement of Aristoxenus about the military service of Plato at
Corinth, he was again at,Athens. He afterwards went to Italy
and Sicily, seeking the society of the Pythagorean philosophers,
Archytas, Echekrates, Timzus, &c., at Tarentum and Lokri, and
visiting the volcanic manifestations of tna. It appears that
his first visit to Sicily was made when he was about forty years
of age, which would be 387 B.c. Here he made acquaintance
with the youthful Dion, over whom he acquired great intellectual
ascendancy. By Dion Plato was prevailed upon to visit the
elder Dionysius at Syracuse :? but that despot, offended by the
free spirit of his conversation and admonitions, dismissed him
with displeasure, and even caused him to be sold into slavery at
/Egina in his voyage home. Though really sold, however, Plato
was speedily ransomed by friends. After farther incurring some
risk of his life as an Athenian citizen, in consequence of the
hostile feelings of the Aiginetans, he was conveyed away safely
to Athens, about 386 B.c.°

It was at this period, about 386 B.c., that the continuous and

1 The above account of Plato’s pro- reality seems to warrant. Val. Max.
ceedings, perfectly naturalandinterest- viii. 7,8; Plin. Hist. Nat. xxx. 2.
ing, but unfortunately brief, is to be The Sophist Himerius repeats the
found in his seventh Epistle, p. 825- same general statements about Plato’s
826. early education, and extensive subse-
2 Plato, Epistol. vii. p. 824 A, 827 A. quent travels, but without adding any
8 Plut. Dion. 6. 5; Corn. Nep., Dion, new particulars (Orat. xiv. 21-25).
ii. 3; Diog. Laert. iti. 19-20; Aristides, If we can trust a passage of Tzetzes
Or. xlvi., Ὑπὲρ τῶν Τεττάρων, Ὁ. 805-806, cited by Mr. Clinton (F. H. ad B.c, 866)
ed. Dindorf. and by Welcker ( . Gr. p. 1236)
Cicero (De Fin. v. 29; Tusc. Disp. i. Dionysius the elder of Syracuse had
17), and others, had contracted a lofty composed [(among his various dramas)
idea, of Plato’s Travels, more than the a tragi-comedy directed against Plato.

254 LIFE OF PLATO. Cuar. V,

His perma. formal public teaching of Plato, constituting as it does

nent esta, go great an epoch in philosophy, commenced. But I
me

at Athens— see no ground for believing, as many authors assume,
886 B.C. that he was absent from Athens during the entire
interval between 399-386 B.c. I regard such long-continued ab-
sence as extremely improbable. Plato had not been sentenced
to banishment, nor was he under any compulsion to stay away
from his native city. He was not born “of an oak-tree or a rock”
(to use an Homeric phrase, strikingly applied by Sokrates in his
Apology to the Dikasts*), but of a noble family at Athens, where
he had brothers and other connections. A temporary retirement,
immediately after the death of Sokrates, might be congenial to
his feelings and interesting in many ways; but an absence of
moderate length would suffice for such exigencies, and there were
surely reasonable motives to induce him to revisit his friends at
home. I conceive Plato as having visited Kyréné, Egypt, and
Italy during these thirteen years, yet as having also spent part of
this long time at Athens. Had he been continuously absent
from that city he would have been almost forgotten, and would
scarcely have acquired reputation enough to set up with success
as a, teacher.?

The spot selected by Plato for his lectures or teaching was
a garden adjoining the precinct sacred to the Hero

He com-

mences his Hekadémus or Akadémus, distant from the gate of

at the & Athens called Dipylon somewhat less than a mile,
cademy.

on the road to Eleusis, towards the north. In this
precinct there were both walks, shaded by trees, and a gymna-
sium for bodily exercise ; close adjoining, Plato either inherited
or acquired a small dwelling-house and garden, his own private
property. Here, under the name of the Academy, was founded

Δ Plato, Apol. p. 34 D. Ueberweg examines and criticises

2 Stallbaum insists upon it as “ cer-
tum et indubium" that Plato was ab-
sentfrom Athens continuously, without
ever returning to it, for the thirteen
years immediately succeeding the death
of Sokrates. But I see no good evi-
dence of this, and I think it highly
improbable. See Stallbaum, Prolegg.
ad Platon. Politicum, p. 88, 39. The
statement of Strabo (xvii. 806), that
Plato and Eudoxus passed thirteen
years in Egypt, is not admissible.

the statements about Plato's travels.
He considers it probable that Plato
passed some part of these thirteen years
at Athens (Ueber die Aechtheit und
Zeltfolge der Platon. Schrift. p. 126,
127). τι Fynes Clinton thinks the
samme, F. H. B.c. 894; Append. c. 21,

Ὁ. 366.

3 Diog. Laert. ili. 7,8; Cic. De Fin.
v.1; Ὁ, 6. Zumpt, Ueber den Bestand
der philosophischen Schulen in Athen,
p. 8 (Berlin, 1843). The Academy was

Cuap. V. PUPILS IN THE ACADEMY. 255

the earliest of those schools of philosophy, which continued for
centuries forward to guide and stimulate the speculative minds
of Greece and Rome,

We have scarce any particulars respecting the growth of the
Academy from this time to the death of Plato, in 347 3B.c. We
only know generally that his fame as a lecturer became eminent
and widely diffused: that among his numerous pupils were
included Speusippus, Xenokrates, Aristotle, Demos- piatoasa
thenes, Hyperides, Lykurgus, &c.: that he was punile na.
admired and consulted by Perdikkas in Macedonia merous and
and Dionysius at Syracuse: that he was also visited ree ey a.
by listeners and pupils from all parts of Greece, ent cities.
Among them was Eudoxus of Knidus, who afterwards became
illustrious both in geometry and astronomy. At the age of
twenty-three, and in poor circumstances, Eudoxus was tempted
by the reputation of the Sokratic men, and enabled by the aid of
friends, to visit Athens : where, however, he was coldly received
by Plato. Besides preparing an octennial period or octaetéris,
and a descriptive map of the Heavens, Eudoxus also devised the
astronomical hypothesis of Concentric Spheres—the earliest
theory proposed to show that the apparent irregularity in the
motion of the Sun and the Planets might be explained, and
proved to result from a multiplicity of co-operating spheres or

agencies, each in itself regular.!

consecrated to Athéné; there was, how-
ever, a statue of Eros there, to whom
sacrifice was offered, in conjunction
with Athéné. Athenszens, xiii. 661.

At the time when Aristophanes as-
sailed Sokrates in the comedy of the
Nubes (423 B.C.), the Academy was
known and familiar as a place for

nastic exercise; and Aristophanes
ub. 995) singles it out as the proper
scene of action for the honest and mus-
cular youth, who despises rhetoric and
philosophy. Aristophanes did not an-
icipate that within a short time after
the representation of his last comedy,
the most illustrious disciple of Sokrates
would select the Academy as the spot
for his residence and philosophical lec-
tures, and would confer upon the name
ἃ permanent intellectual meaning, as
designating the earliest and most me-
morable of the Hellénic schools.
In 369 B.Cc., when the school of Plato

This theory of Eudoxus is said

was in existence, the Athenian hoplites,
marching to aid the Lacedemonians
in Peloponnesus, were ordered by Iphi-
krates to make their evening Teal in
the Academy (Xen. Hell. vi. 5, 49).
The garden, afterwards established
by Epikurus, was situated between the
gate of Athens and the Academy: so
hat a person passed by it, when he
walked forth from Athens to the Aca-
demy (Cie. De Fin. i. 1).
1 For an account of Eudoxus him-
self, of his theory of concentric spheres,
and the subsequent extensions of it,
see the instructive volume of the late
lamented Sir George Cornewall Lewis
—Historical Survey of the Ancient
Astronomy, ch. iii. sect. 8, ἢ. 146 seq.
M. Boeckh also (in his recent pub-
lication, Ueber die vierjahrigen Son-
nenkreise der Alten, vorziglich den
Eudoxischen, Ber 1863) given
an account of the life and career of

256

LIFE OF PLATO.

CHAP. V.

to have originated in a challenge of Plato, who propounded to
astronomers, in his oral discourse, the problem which they ought

to try to solve.

Eudoxus, not with reference to his
theory of concentric spheres, but to his
Calendar and Lunisolar Cycles or
Periods, quadrennial and octennial. I
think Boeckh is right in placing the
voyage of Eudoxus to Egypt at an
earlier period of the life of Eudoxus ;
that is, about 378 B.c.; and not in 362
B.C., where it is placed by Letronne and
others. Boeckh shows that the letters
of recommendation from Agesilaus to
Nektanebos, which Eudoxus took with
him, do not necessarily coincide in time
with the military expedition of Agesi-
laus to Egypt, but were more probably
of earlier date. (Boeckh, p. 140-148.)

Eudoxus lived 53 years (406-353 B.C.,
about); being born when Plato was
21, and dying when Plato was 75. He
was one of the most illustrious men
of the age. He was born in poor cir-
cumstances; but so marked was his
early promise, that some of the medical
schook at Knidus assisted him to pro-
secute his studies—to visit Athens and
hear the Sophists, Plato among them
—to visit Egypt, Tarentum (where he
studied geometry with Archytas), and
Sicily (where he studied'ra ἰατρικὰ with
Philistion). These facts depend upon
the Iivaxes of Kallimachus, which are
good authority. (Diog. L. viii. 86.

After thus preparing himself by
travelling and varied study, Eudoxus
took up the rofession of a Sophist, at
Kyzikus and the neighbouring cities
in the Propontis. He obtained great
celebrity, and a large number of pupils.
M, Boeckh says, “‘Dort lebte er als
Sophist, sagt Sotion: das heisst, er
lehrte, und hielt Vortrage. Dasselbe
bezeugt Philostratos.”

I wish to call particular attention to
the way in which M. Boeckh here de-
describes a Sophist of the fourth cen-
tury B.c. Nothing can be more cor-
rect. Every man who taught and gave
lectures to audiences more or less nu-
merous, was.so called. The Platonic
critics altogether darken the history of
philosophy, by using the word Sophist
with its modern associations (and the
unmeaning abstract Sophistic which
they derive from it), to represent a
supposed school of speculative and de-
ceptive corruptors.

Eudoxus, having been coldly re-
ceived when young and poor by Plato,

had satisfaction in revisiting Athens
at the height of his reputation, accom-
panied by numerous pupils—and in
showing himself again to Plato. The
two then became friends. Menech-
mus and Helikon, geometrical pupils
of Eudoxus, received instruction from
Plato also; and Helikon accompanied
Plato on his third voyage to Sicily
(Plato, Epist. xiii. p. 360 D; Plut.
Dion, c. 19). Whether Eudoxus ac-
companied him there also, as Boeckh
supposes, is doubtful: I think it im-
probable.

Eudoxus ultimately returned to his
native city of Knidus, where he was
received with every demonstration of
honour: a public vote of esteem and re-
cognition being passed to welcome him.
He is said to have been solicited to give
laws to the city, and to have actually
done so: how far this may be true, we
cannot say. He also visited the neigh-
pouring prince Mausélus of Karia, by
whom he was much honoured.

We know from Aristotle, that Eu-
doxus was not only illustrious as an
astronomer and geometer, but that
he also proposed a theory of Ethics,
similar in its general formula to that
which was afterwards laid down by
Epikurus. Aristotle dissents from the
theory, but he bears express testimony,
in @ manner very unusual with him, to
the distinguished personal merit and
virtue of Eudoxus (Ethic. Nikom. x. 8,

p. 1172, b. 16).
1 Respecting Eudoxus, see Diog. L.
viii. 86-91. s the life of Eudoxus

probably extended from about 406-353
B.C., his first visit to Athens would be
about 383 B.C., some three years after
Plato commenced his school. Strabo
(xvii. 806), when he visited Heliopolis
in Egypt, was shown by the guides
certain cells or chambers which were
said to have been occupied by Plato
and Eudoxus, and was assured that
the two had passed thirteen years
together in Egypt. This account de-
serves no credit. Plato and Eudoxus
visited Egy t, but not together, and
neither of them for so long as thirteen
years. Eudoxus stayed there sixteen
months (Diog. L. viii. 87). Simplikius,
Schol. ad Aristot. De Ccelo, p. 497
498, ed. Brandis, 498, a. 45. Kai
πρῶτος τῶν Ἑλλήνων Εὔδοξος ὁ Κνίδιος.

CuHap. V,

PUPILS IN THE ACADEMY.

257

Though Plato demanded no money as a fee for admission of
pupils, yet neither did he scruple to receive presents from rich

men such as Dionysius, Dion, and others.}

In the jests of

Ephippus, Antiphanes, and other poets of the middle comedy, the
pupils of Plato in the Academy are described as finely and
delicately clad, nice in their persons even to affectation, with
elegant caps and canes ; which is the more to be noticed because
the preceding comic poets derided Sokrates and his companions
for qualities the very opposite—as prosing beggars, in mean

attire and dirt.2, Such students

ws Εὔδημός τε ἐν τῷ δευτέρῳ τῆς
᾿Αστρολογικῆς ‘Ioropias ἀπεμνημόνευσα
καὶ Σωσιγένης παρὰ Εὐδήμον τοῦτο
λαβὼν, ἅψασθαι λέγεται τῶν τοιού-
των ὑποθέσεων" Πλάτωνος, ὥς φησι
Σωσιγένης, πρόβλημα τοῦτο ποιὴ-
σαμένου Tots περὶ ταῦτα ἐσπουδακόσι
«- τίνων ὑποτεθείσων ὁμαλῶν καὶ τεταγ»
μένων κινήσεων διασωθῇ τὰ περὶ tas
κινήσεις τῶν πλανωμένων φαινόμενα.
The Scholion of Sim plikius, which fol-
lows at great length, is exceedingly
interesting and va uable, in regard to
the astronomical theory of Eudoxus,
with the modifications introduced into
it by Kallippus, Aristotle, and others.
All the share in it which is claimed
for Plato, is, that he described in clear
language the problem to be solved:
and even that share depends simply
upon the statement of the Alexan-
drine Sosigenes (contemporary of Julius
Cesar), not upon the statement of
Eudémus. At least the language of
Simplikius affirms, that Sosigenes
copied from Eudémus the fact, that
Eudoxus was the first Greek who pro-

sed a systematic astronomical hypo-
Ehesis to explain the motions of the
planets—(rap Εὐδήμον τοῦτο λαβών)
not the circumstance, that Plato pro-

unded the problem afterwards men-

oned. From whom Sosigenes derived
this last information, is not indicated.
About his time, various fictions had
gained credit in Egypt respecting the
connection of Plato with Eudoxus, as
we may see by the story of Strabo above
cited. If Plato impressed upon others
that which is here ascribed to him, he
must have done so in conversation or
oral discourse—for there is nothing in
his written dialogues to that effect.
Moreover, there is nothing in the dia-
logues to make us suppore that Plato

opted or approved the theory of

must have belonged to opulent

Eudoxus. When Plato speaks of astro-
nomy, either in the Republic, or in
Leges, or in Epinomis, it 1s in a to
different spirit—not manifesting any
care to save the astronomical pheno-
mena. Both Aristotle himself (διοία-
phys. Δ. p. 1078 b.) and Simplikius,
make it clear that Aristotle warmly
espoused and enlarged the theory of
Eudoxus. Theophrastus, successor of
Aristotle, did the same. But we do
not hear that either Speusippus or
Xenokrates (successor of Plato) took
any interest in the theory. is is
one remarkable Point of divergence be-
tween Plato and the Platonists on one
side—Aristotle and the Aristotelians
on the other—and much to the honour
of the latter: for the theory of Eu-
doxus, though erroneous, was a great
step towards improved scientific con-
ceptions on astronomy, and a great
provocative to farther observation of
astronomical facts.

1 Plato, Epistol. xiii, Ὁ. $61, 3862.
We learn from this epistle that Plato
received pecuniary remittances not
merely from Dionysius, but also from
other friends (ἄλλων ἐπιτηδείων---861
C); that he employed these not only
for choregies and other costly functions
of his own, but also to provide dowry
for female relatives, and presents to
friends (868 A). .

2See Meineke, Hist. Crit. Comic.
Greec. p. 288, 289—and the extracts
there given from Ephippus and Anti-
phanes—apud Athenseum, xi. 509, xii.
644. About the poverty and dirt which
was reproached Sokrates and his
disciples, see the fragment of Ameip-
sias in Meineke, ibid. p. 208. Also
Aristoph. Aves, 1555 ; Nubes, 827; and
the Fragm. of Eupolis in Meineke, p.
552—Miod® δ᾽ ἐγὼ καὶ Σωκράτην, τὸν
πτωχὸν ἀδολέσχην.

1—17

258 LIFE OF PLATO. CuHap. V.

families ; and we may be sure that they requited their master by
some valuable present, though no fee may have been formally
demanded from them. Some conditions (though we do not know
what) were doubtless required for admission. Moreover the
example of Eudoxus shows that in some cases even ardent and
promising pupils were practically repelled. At any rate, the
teaching of Plato formed a marked contrast with that extreme
and indiscriminate publicity which characterised the conversation
of Sokrates, who passed his days in the market-place or in the
public porticoes or palestre ; while Plato both dwelt and dis-
coursed in a quiet residence and garden a little way out of
Athens. The title of Athens to be considered the training-city
of Hellas (as Perikles had called her fifty years before), was fully
sustained by the Athenian writers and teachers between 390-347 ;
especially by Plato and Isokrates, the most celebrated and largely
frequented. So many foreign pupils came to Isokrates that he
affirms most of his pecuniary gains to have been derived from
non-Athenians. Several of his pupils stayed with him three or
four years. The like is doubtless true about the pupils of
Plato.

It was in the year 367-366 that Plato was induced, by the
earnest entreaties of Dion, to go from Athens to Syra-

Visit of ἐς : .

Plato to the cuse, on a visit to the younger Dionysius, who had
Nonysius just become despot, succeeding to his father of the
at Syracuse, same name. Dionysius II., then very young, had
Second visit manifested some dispositions towards philosophy, and
to the same prodigious admiration for Plato: who was en-
fying couraged by Dion to hope that he would have

influence enough to bring about an amendment or

Meineke thinks, that Aristophanes,
in the Ekklesiazuse, 646, and in the
Plutus, $18, intends to ridicule Plato

under the name of Aristyllus: Plato’s b

name having been originally Aristokles.
But Ps see no sufficient ground for this
opinion.

1 Perikles in the Funeral Oration
(Thue. ii, 41) calls Athens τῆς Ἑλλάδος
παίδενσιν : the same eulogium is re-
peated, with greater abundance of
words, by Isokrates in his Panegyrical
Oration (or, iv. sect. 66, p. 51).

The declaration of Isokrates, that
most of his money was acquired from

foreign (non-Athenian) pupils, and the
interesting fact that many of them not
only stayed with him three or four years
ut were even then loth to depart, will
be found in Orat. xv. De Permutatione,
sect. 93-175. Plutarch (Vit. x. Orat.
838 E) goes so far as to say that Iso-
krates never required any pay from an
Athenian pupil.

Nearly three centuries after Plato’s
decease, Cicero sent his son Marcus to
Athens, where the son spent a con-
siderable time, frequenting the lectures
of the Peripatetic philosopher Kratip-
pus. Young Cicero, in an interesting

RELATIONS WITH DIONYSIUS AND DION, 959

CuHaP. V

thorough reform of the government at Syracuse. This ill-starred
visit, with its momentous sequel, has been described in my
‘History of Greece’. It not only failed completely, but made
matters worse rather than better: Dionysius became violently
alienated from Dion, and sent him into exile. Though turning
a deaf ear to Plato’s recommendations, he nevertheless liked his
conversation, treated him with great respect, detained him for
some time at Syracuse, and was prevailed upon, only by the
philosopher’s earnest entreaties, to send him home. Yet in spite
of such uncomfortable experience Plato was induced, after a
certain interval, again to leave Athens and pay a second visit to
Dionysius, mainly in hopes of procuring the restoration of
Dion. In this hope too he was disappointed, and was glad to
return, after a longer stay than he wished, to Athens,

It was in 359 B.c. that Dion, aided by friends in Peloponnesus,
and encouraged by warm sympathy and co-operation
from many of Plato’s pupils in the Academy, equip-
ped an armament against Dionysius. Notwithstand-
ing the inadequacy of his force he had the good
fortune to make himself master of Syracuse, being
greatly favoured by the popular discontent of the
Syracusans against the reigning despot: but he did not know
how to deal with the people, nor did he either satisfy their
aspirations towards liberty, or realise his own engagements.
Retaining in his hands a despotic power, similar in the main to

Expedition
of Dion
against
Dionysius—
sympathies
of Plato
and the
Academy.

that of Dionysius, he speedily becaine odious, and was success,
. . . . misconduct,
assassinated by the treachery of Kallippus, his com and death
0 10},

panion in arms as well as fellow-pupil of the Platonic
Academy. The state of Syracuse, torn by the joint evils of

the conduct of Dion after he had be-

letter addressed to Tiro (Cic. Epist.
Fam. xvi. 23), describes in animated
terms both his admiration for the per-
son and abilities, and his delight in the
private society, of Kratippus. Several
of Plato’s pupils probably felt as much
or more towards him

1 Plutarch, Dion, c. 22.

Xenokrates as well as Speusippus
Recompanied Plato to Sicily (Diog. L.
iv. 6).

To show the warm interest taken,
not only by Plato himself but also by
the Platonic pupils in the Academy in

come master of Syracuse, Plutarch
uotes both from the letter of Plato to
Dion which now stands fourth among
the Epistole Platonics, p. 320) an
also from a letter which he had read,
written by Speusippus to Dion; in
which Speusippus exhorts Dion em-
hatically to bless Sicily with good
ws and government, “in order that
he may glorify the Academy"’—orws .. .
εὐκλεᾶ θήσει τὴν ᾿Ακαδημίαν (Plutarch,
Ὁ» Adulator. et Amic. c. 29, p. 70

260 LIFE OF PLATO. Cuap. V..

anarchy and despotism, and partially recovered by Dionysius,.
became more unhappy than ever.

The visits of Plato to Dionysius were much censured, and his
Death of _otives* misrepresented by unfriendly critics; and
Plato, aged these reproaches were still further embittered by the
80, 347 BC. entire failure of his hopes. The closing years of his
long life were saddened by the disastrous turn of events at
Syracuse, aggravated by the discreditable abuse of power and
violent death of his intimate friend Dion, which brought dis-
honour both upon himself and upon the Academy. Neverthe-
less he lived to the age of eighty, and died in 348-347 B.c., leaving
a competent property, which he bequeathed by a will still extant.?
But his foundation, the Academy, did not die with him. It
passed to his nephew Speusippus, who succeeded him as teacher,
conductor of the school, or Scholarch: and was himself succeeded
after eight years by Xenokrates of Chalkédon: while another
pupil of the Academy, Aristotle, after an absence of some years
from Athens, returned thither and established a school of his own
at the Lykeum, at another extremity of the city.

The latter half of Plato’s life in his native city must have been:
Scholars one of dignity and consideration, though not of any
of Plato— political activity. He is said to have addressed the
Aristotle. Dikastery as an advocate for the accused general
Chabrias: and we are told that he discharged the expensive and
showy functions of Chorégus, with funds supplied by Dion.’

1 Themistius, Orat. xxiii. (Sophistes)
p. 285 C; Aristeides, Orat. xlvi., Ὑπὲρ
τῶν Τεττάρων, Ὁ. 234-235; Apuleius, De
Habit. Philos. Platon. p. 671.

2Diog. Laert. 111. 41-42. Seneca
(Epist. 58) says that Plato died on the
anniversary of his birth, in the month
Thargelion. .

3 Plut. Aristeides, c. 1; Diog. Laert.
ili. 23-24. Diogenes says that no other
Athenian except Plato dared to speak
publicly in defence of Chabrias ; but

his can hardly be correct, since Ari-
stotle mentions another συνήγορος
named Lykoleon (Rhet. iii. 10, P. 1411,
b. 6) We may fairly presume that the
trial of Chabrias alluded to by Ari-
stotle is the same as that alluded to
by Diogenes, that which arose out of
the wrongfal occupation of Ordpus by
the Thebans. If Plato appeared at the

occurred in 366 B.C., as Clinton sup-
poses; Plato must have been absent.
during that year in Sicily.

The anecdote given by Diogenes, in
relation to Plato’s appearance at this.
trial, deserves notice. Krobylus, one
of the accusers, said to him, ‘‘ Are you
come to plead on behalf of another?’
Are not you aware that the hemlock of
Sokrates is in store for you also?”
Piato replied: “1 affronted dangers
formerly, when I went on military ex-
pedition, for my country, and I am
prepared to affront them now in dis-
charge of my duty to a friend” (iii. 24).

This anecdote is instructive, as it
exhibits the continuance of the anti-
philosophical antipathies at Athens
among a considerable portion of the-
citizens, and as it goes to attest the
mnilitary service rendered personally by

trial, I doubt whether it could have Plat

HIS HONOURED AGE. 261

Cuap, V.

Out of Athens also his reputation was very great. When he
went to the Olympic festival of B.c. 360, he was an object of
conspicuous attention and respect: he was visited by hearers,
young men of rank and ambition, from the most distant Hellenic
cities; and his advice was respectfully invoked both by
Perdikkas in Macedonia and by Dionysius II. at Syracuse.
During his last visit to Syracuse, it is said that some of the
students in the Academy, among whom Aristotle is mentioned,
became dissatisfied with his absence, and tried to set up a new
school; but were prevented by Iphikrates and Chabrias, the
powerful friends of Plato at Athens. This story is connected
with alleged ingratitude on the part of Aristotle towards Plato,
and with alleged repugnance on the part of Plato towards
Aristotle! The fact itself—that during Plato’s absence in Sicily
his students sought to provide for themselves instruction and dis-
cussion elsewhere—is neither surprising nor blameable. And as
to Aristotle, there 1s ground for believing that he passed for an
intimate friend and disciple of Plato, even during the last ten
years of Plato’s life. For we read that Aristotle, following

Diogenes (iii. 46) gives a long list of
hearers; and Athenseus (xi. 506-509)
enumerates several from different cities
in Greece: Euphreus of Oreus (in
Kubcea), who acquired through Plato’s
recommendation great influence with
Perdikkas, king of Macedonia, and who
is said to have excluded from the
society of that king every one ignorant
of philosophy and geometry; Huagon
of Lampsakus, Timzus of Kyzikus,
Cheeron of Pelléné, all of whom tried,
and the last with success, to usurp
the sceptre in their respective cities ;
Eudémus of Cyprus; Kallippus the
Athenian, fellow-learner with Dion in
the Academy, afterwards his com-
panion in his expedition to Sicily,
ultimately his murderer ; Herakleides
and Python from Afnus in Thrace,
Chion and Leonides, also Klearchus
the despot from the Pontic Herakleia
(Justin, xvi. 5).

Several of these examples seem to
have been cited by the orator Demo-
charés (nephew of Demosthenes) in his
speech at Athens vindicating e law
proposed by Sophokles for the expul-
sion of the philosophers from Athens
(Athenee. xi. 508 F), a speech delivered
about 306 B.c. Plutarch compliments

Plato for the active political liberators
and tyrannicides who came forth from
the Academy: he considers Plato as
the real author and planner of the ex-
pedition of Dion against Dionysius,
and expatiates on the delight which
Plato must have derived from it—a
supposition very incorrect (Plutarch,
Non Posse Suav. Ὁ. 1097 B; adv. Kolé-
ten, p. 1126 B-C).

1 Aristokles, ap. Eusebium, Prep.
Evang. xv. 2: Atlian, V. H. iii. 19:
Aristeides, Or. 46, Ὑπὲρ τῶν Terrapwy,
vol. ii. p. 324-325, Dindorf.

The friendship and reciprocity of
service between Plato and Chabrias is
an interesting fact. Compare Stahr,
Aristotelia, vol. i. p. 50 seqq.

Cicero affirms, on the authority of
the Epistles of Demosthenes, that De-
mosthenes describes himself as an assi-
duous hearer as well as reader of Plato
(Cic. Brut. 31, 121; Orat. 4, 15) I
think this fact highly probable, but the
epistles which Cicero read no longer
exist. Among the five Epistles re-
maining, Plato is once mentioned with
respect in the fifth (p. 1490), but this
epistle is considered by most critics
Spurious.

262 LIFE OF PLATO. CuapP. V.

speculations and principles of teaching of his own, on the subject
of rhetoric, found himself at variance with Isokrates and the
Isokratean school. Aristotle attacked Isokrates and his mode of
dealing with the subject: upon which Kephisodérus (one of the
disciples of Isokrates) retaliated by attacking Plato and the
Platonic Ideas, considering Aristotle as one of Plato’s scholars
and adherents.?

Such is the sum of our information respecting Plato. Scanty
as it is, we have not even the advantage of contempo-

Littl . . .
Known rary authority for any portion of it. We have no
about description of Plato from any contemporary author,
ersonal friendly or adverse. It will be seen that after the

death of Sokrates we know nothing about Plato asa
man and a citizen, except the little which can be learnt from his
few Epistles, all written when he was very old, and relating
almost entirely to his peculiar relations with Dion and Dionysius.
His dialogues, when we try to interpret them collectively, and
gather from them general results as to the character and pur-
poses of the author, suggest valuable arguments and perplexing
doubts, but yield few solutions. In no one of the dialogues does
Plato address us in his own person. In the Apology alone
(which is not a dialogue) is he alluded to even as present : in the
Phedon he is mentioned as absent from illness. Each of the
dialogues, direct or indirect, is conducted from beginning to end
by the persons whom he introduces.2 Not one of the dialogues
affords any positive internal evidence showing the date of its
composition. In a few there are allusions to prove that they
must have been composed at a period later than others, or later
than some given event of known date ; but nothing more can be
positively established. Nor is there any good extraneous testi-
mony to determine the date of any one among them. For the

Aristotle in-

1Numenius, ap. Euseb. Prep. Ev.
xiv. 6, 9. οἰηθεὶς (Kephisodérus) κατὰ
Ἡλάτωνα τὸν ᾿Αριστοτέλην φιλοσοφεῖν
ἐπολέμει μὲν ᾿Αριστοτέλει, ἔβαλλε δὲ
Πλάτωνα, &. is must have hap-
ened in the latter years of Plato’s life,
or Aristotle must have been at least
twenty-five or twenty-six years of age
when he engaged in such polemics.
He was born in 384 B.C.

_20n this point Aristotle, in the
dialogues which he composed, did not

follow Plato’s example.
troduced two or more persons debating
a question, but he appeared in his own
person to give the solution, or at least
to wind up the debate. He sometimes
also opened the debate by a procem or
refatory address in his own person
Cie. ad Attic. iv. 16, 2, xiii. 19, 4).
Cicero followed the manner of Ari-
stotle, not that of Plato. His dialogues.
are rhetorical rather than dramatic.
Allthe dialogues of Aristotle are lost,

Cap. V. DATE OF THE DIALOGUES. 263

remark ascribed to Sokrates about the dialogue called Lysis
(which remark, if authentic, would prove the dialogue to have
been composed during the life-time of Sokrates) appears alto-
gether untrustworthy. And the statement of some critics, that
the Phedrus was Plato’s earliest composition, is clearly nothing
more than an inference (doubtful at best, and, in my judgment,
erroneous) from its dithyrambic style and erotic subject.?

1 Diog. L. iii. 88. Compare the Pro- 24, in the Appendix Platonica of K, F.
legomena τῆς Πλάτωνος Φιλοσοφίας, c. Hermann’s edition, p. 217.

CHaP. VI.

264 PLATONIO CANON.

CHAPTER VI.
PLATONIC CANON, AS RECOGNISED BY THRASYLLUS.

As we know little about Plato except from his works, the first
question to be decided is, Which are his real works? Where are
we to find a trustworthy Platonic Canon ?
Down to the close of the last century this question was not
much raised or discussed. The catalogue recognised
Canon—An- by the rhetor Thrasyllus (contemporary with the
cient and ΒΝ .
modern dis. Emperor Tiberius) was generally accepted as in-
cussions. = gluding none but genuine works of Plato ; and was
followed as such by editors and critics, who were indeed not
very’ numerous.’ But the discussions carried on during the
present century have taken a different turn. While editors,
critics, and translators have been greatly multiplied, some of the
most distinguished among them, Schleiermacher at the head, '
have either professedly set aside, or in practice disregarded, the
Thrasyllean catalogue, as if it carried no authority and very faint
presumption. They have reasoned upon each dialogue as if its
title to be considered genuine were now to be proved for the first

Platonic

teriore doctrin&i patefaceret, omnino
repererit neminem. Et ex ipso hoc
editionum parvo numero—nam sex
omnino sunt—nulla est recentior anno
superioris seculi secundo: ut miran-
dum sit, centum et septuagintaannorum
spatio neminem ex tot viris doctis ex-
titisse, qui ita suam crisin Platoni ad-
diceret, ut intelligentiam ejus vere

1 The following passage from Wyt-
tenbach, written in 1776, will give an
idea of the state of Platonic criticism
down to the last quarter of the last
century. To provide a new Canon for
Plato seems not to have entered his
thoughts. .

Wyttenbach, Bibliotheca Critica, vol.

i. p. 28. Review of Fischer's edition
of Plato’s Philébus and Symposion.
*‘Quee Ciceroni obtigit interpretum et
editorum felicitas, e& adeo caruit Plato,
ut non solum paucos nactus sit qui
ejus scripta typis ederent—sed qui
ejus orationi nitorem restitueret, eam-
que @ corruptelarum labe purgaret, et
sensus obscuros atque abditos ex in-

eruditionis amantibus aperiret.

“Qui Platonem legant, pauch sunt :
qui intelligant, paucissimi; qui vero,
vel ex versionibus, vel ex jejuno his-
tories philosophice compendio, de eo
judicent et cum supercilio pronuncient,
plurimi sunt.”

PLATO'S SCHOOL AT ATHENS, 265

ὍΞΒΑΡ, VI.

time ; either by external testimony (mentioned in Aristotle or
others), or by internal evidences of style, handling, and thoughts :?
as if, in other words, the onus proband lay upon any one who
believed the printed works of Plato to be genuine—not upon an
opponent who disputes the authenticity of any one or more
among them, and rejects it as spurious. Before I proceed to
examine the conclusions, alike numerous and discordant, which
these critics have proclaimed, 1 shall enquire how far the method
which they have pursued is warrantable. Is there any pre-
sumption at all—and if so, what amount of presumption—in
favour of the catalogue transmitted from antiquity by Thrasyllus,
as a canon containing genuine works of Plato and no others?

Upon this question I hold an opinion opposite to that of the
Platonic critics since Schleiermacher. The presump-
tion appears to me particularly strong, instead of par-
ticularly weak: comparing the Platonic writings with
those of other eminent writers, dramatists, orators,
historians, of the same age and country.

We have seen that Plato passed the last thirty-eight years of
his life (except his two short visits to Syracuse) as a

Canon esta-
blished by
Thrasyllus.
Presump-
tion in its
favour.

writer and lecturer at Athens; that he purchased and tienes and
inhabited a fixed residence at the Academy, near the §focl at
city. We know, moreover, that his principal pupils, founded
ἢ ἢ ; by Plato
especially (his nephew) Speusippus and Xenokrates, and trans-
mitted to

were constantly with him in this residence during his
life ; that after his death the residence became perma-
nently appropriated as a philosophical school for lectures, study,
conversation, and friendly meetings of studious men, in which
capacity it served for more than two centuries ;? that his nephew

Speusippus succeeded him there as teacher, and taught there for

Successors.

ve lectures in the gym-
In that

1To see that this is the general where he

method of proceeding, we have only to
look at the work of Ueberweg, one of
the most recent and certainly one of
the ablest among the Platonic critics.
Untersuchungen tiber die Aechtheit und
Zeitfolge der Platonischen Schriften,
Wien, 1861, p. 180-131.

2The teaching and conversation of
the Platonic School continued fixed in
the spot known as the Academy until
the siege of Athens by Sylla in 87 B.c.
The teacher was then forced to confine
himself to the interior of the city,

nasium called Ptolemzum.
gymnasium Cicero heard the lectures
of the Scholarch Antiochus, B.c. 79;
walking out afterwards to visit the
deserted but memorable site of the
poademy. (ic. De Fin. v. 1; αὶ. 6.
Zumpt, Ueber den Bestand der Philo-
sophischen Schulen in Athen, p. 14,
Berlin, 1848). The ground of the Aca-
demy, when once deserted, speedily
became unhealthy, and continues to be
so now, as Zumpt mentions that he
himself experienced in 1835.

266 PLATONIC CANON. Cuap. VL

eight years, being succeeded after his death first by Xenokrates
(for twenty-five years), afterwards by Polemon, Krantor, Krates,
Arkesilaus, and others in uninterrupted series ; that the school
always continued to be frequented, though enjoying greater or
less celebrity according to the reputation of the Scholarch.

By thus perpetuating the school which his own genius had
originated, and by providing for it permanent sup-
port with a fixed domicile, Plato inaugurated a new
epoch in the history of philosophy: this example

Importance
of this foun-
dation. Pre-
servation of

Plato's ta” was followed a few years afterwards by Aristotle,
ete Zeno, and Epikurus. Moreover the proceeding was
rary.

important in another way also, as it affected the
preservation and authentication of his own manuscripts and
compositions. It provided not only safe and lasting custody,
such as no writer had ever enjoyed before, for Plato’s original
manuscripts, but also a guarantee of some efficacy against any
fraud or error which might seek to introduce other compositions
into the list. That Plato himself was not indifferent on this
head we may fairly believe, since we learn from Dionysius of
Halikarnassus, that he was indefatigable in the work of correc-
tion: and his disciples, who took the great trouble of noting
down themselves what he spoke in his lectures, would not be
neglectful as to the simpler duty of preserving his manuscripts.
Now Speusippus and Xenokrates (also Aristotle, Hestisous, the
Opuntian Philippus, and the other Platonic pupils) must have
had personal knowledge of all that Plato had written, whether
finished dialogues, unfinished fragments, or preparatory sketches.
They had perfect means of distinguishing his real compositions
from forgeries passed off in his name: and they had every motive

to expose such forgeries (if any

1 Simplikius, Schol. Aristotel. Phy-
sic. f. 82, p. 834, Ὁ. 28, Brandis: λάβοι
δ᾽ ἂν τις καὶ παρὰ Σπευσίππον καὶ παρὰ
Ξξενοκράτους, καὶ τῶν ἄλλων οἱ παρεγέ-
ψοντο ἐν τῇ περὶ Τἀγαθοῦ τοῦ Πλάτωνος
ἀκροάσει" πάντες ἐπ συνέγραψαν καὶ
διεσώσαντο τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ. In ano-
ther passage of the same Scholia (p.
862, a. 12) Simplikius mentions Hera-
kleides (of Pontus), Hestizus, and even
Aristotle himself, as having taken notes
of the same lectures.

Hermoddrus appears to have carried

were attempted) wherever they

to have made money by selling them.
See Cicero ad Atticum, xiii. 21: Suidas
et Zenobius—Adyorriv Ἑρμόδωρος ἐμ"
πορεύεται. See Zeller, Dissert. De
Hermodoro, p.19. In the above-men-
tioned epistle Cicero compares his
own relations with Atticus, to those
of Plato with Hermodérus, Hermo-
dérus had composed 8, treatise respect-
ing Plato, from which some extracts
were given by Derkyllides (the con-
tem rary of Thrasyllus) as well as
Py imp ikius (Zeller, De Hermod. p,

some of Plato's dialogues to Sicily, and 20-21

Caap. VI. PRESERVATION OF MANUSCRIPTS. 267

could, in order to uphold the reputation of their master. If any
one composed a dialogue and circulated it under the name of
Plato, the school was a known place, and its occupants were at
hand to give information to all who enquired about the authen-
ticity of the composition. The original MSS. of Plato (either in
his own handwriting or in that of his secretary, if he employed
one’) were doubtless treasured up in the school as sacred memo-
rials of the great founder, and served as originals from which
copies of unquestionable fidelity might be made, whenever the
Scholarch granted permission. How long they continued to be
so preserved we cannot say: nor do we know what was the
condition of the MSS., or how long they were calculated to last.
But probably many of the students frequenting the school would
come for the express purpose of reading various works of Plato
(either in the original MSS., or in faithful copies taken from
them) with the exposition of the Scholarch ; just as we know
that the Roman M. Crassus (mentioned by Cicero), during his
residence at Athens, studied the Platonic Gorgias with the aid of
the Scholarch Charmadas.? The presidency of Speusippus and
Xenokrates (taken jointly) lasted for thirty-three years; and
even when they were replaced hy successors who had enjoyed no
personal intimacy with Plato, the motive to preserve the Platonic
MSS. would still be operative, and the means of verifying what
was really Platonic would still be possessed in the school. The
original MSS. would be preserved, along with the treatises or
dialogues which each successive Scholarch himself composed ;
thus forming a permanent and increasing school-library, pro-
bably enriched more or less by works acquired or purchased from
others.

It appears to me that the continuance of this school—founded
by Plato himself at his own abode, permanently domi- Security
ciliated, and including all the MSS. which he left in Provided by

he school

it—gives us an amount of assurance for the authen- for distin-
ΜΝ . wpe guishing
ticity of the so-called Platonic compositions, such as what were

1 We read in Cicero, (Academic. 2 Cicero, De Oratore, i. 11, 45-47;
Priora, ii. 4, 11) that the handwriting ‘‘florente Academia, quod eam Char-
of the Scholarch Philo. when hismanu- madas et Clitomachus et Alschines ob-
script was brought from Athens to tinebant. . . Platoni, cujustum Athenis
Alexandria, was recognised at once by cum Charmadaé diligentius legi Gor-
his friends and pupils. giam,” &c.

268 PLATONIC CANON. Cuap. VI.

Plato's does not belong to the works of other eminent con-
ῬΑ temporary authors, Aristippus, Antisthenes, Isokrates,
Lysias, Demosthenes, Euripides, Aristophanes. After the decease
of these last-mentioned authors, who can say what became of
their MSS.? Where was any certain permanent custody pro-
vided for them? Isokrates had many pupils during his life, but
left no school or μουσεῖον after his death. If any one composed a
discourse, and tried to circulate it as the composition of Iso-
krates, among the bundles of judicial orations which were sold
by the booksellers! ag his (according to the testimony of Ari-
stotle)—where was the person to be found, notorious and acces-
sible, who could say : “1 possess all the MSS. of Isokrates, and I
can depose that this is not among them!” The chances of
success for forgery or mistake were decidedly greater, in regard
to the works of these authors, than they could be for those of
Plato.

Again, the existence of this school-library explains more easily
Untinishea bow it is that unfinished, inferior, and fragmentary
fragments, Platonic compositions have been preserved. That
Paratory there must have existed such compositions I hold to
preserved be certain. How is it supposable that any author,
Ha er even Plato, could have brought to completion such
Plato's masterpieces as Republic, Gorgias, Protagoras, Sym-

" posion, &c., without tentative and preparatory sketches,
each of course in itself narrow, defective, perhaps of little value,
but serving as material to be worked up or worked in? Most of
these would be destroyed, but probably not all. If (as I believe)
it be the fact, that all the Platonic MSS. were preserved as their
author left them, some would probably be published (and
some indeed are said to have been published) after his death ;
and among them would be included more or fewer of these
unfinished performances, and sketches projected but abandoned.
We can hardly suppose that Plato himself would have pub-
lished fragments never finished, such as Kleitophon and Kritias?
—the last ending in the middle of a sentence.

1Dionys. Halik. de Isocrate, p. 576 who succeeded Theophrastus, B.C. 287,
R. δεσμὰς πάνν πολλὰς δικανικῶν λόγων bequeathed to Lykon by his will both
Ἰσοκρατείων περιφέρεσθαίφησιν ὑπὸ τῶν the succession to his school (SrarpeBny)
βιβλιοπωλῶν ᾿Αριστοτέλης. and all his books, except what he

2 Straton, the Peripatetic Scholarch written himself (πλὴν ὧν αὐτοὶ γεγρά-

CHap. VI.

SCHOOL AT THE LYKEUM.

269

The second philosophical school, begun by Aristotle and per-

petuated (after his death in 322 B.c.) at the Lykeum
on the eastern side of Athens, was established on the
That which formed the
centre or consecrating point was a Museum or chapel
of the Muses: with statues of those goddesses of the

model of that of Plato.

Peripatetic
school at
the Lykeum
—its com-
position and
arrange-
ment.

place, and also a statue of the founder. Attached to this Museum
were a portico, a hall with seats (one seat especially for the
lecturing professor), a garden, and a walk, together with a resi-
dence, all permanently appropriated to the teacher and the
process of instruction.1 Theophrastus, the friend and immediate

αμεν) What is to be done with these
tter he does not say. Lykon, in his
last will, says:—xat δύο μνᾶς αὐτῷ
(Chares, a manumitted slave) δίδωμι
καὶ τἀμὰ βίβλια τὰ ἀνεγνωσμένα' τὰ
δὲ ἀνέκδοτα Καλλίνῳ, ὅπως ἐπιμελῶς
αὐτὰ ἐκδῷ. See Diog. L. v. 62, 78.
Here Lykon directs expressly that
Kallinus shall edit with care his
(Lykon's) unpublished works. Pro-
ly Straton may have given similar
directions during his life, so that it
was unnecessary to provide in the will.
Td ἀνεγνωσμένα is equivalent to τὰ
ἐκδεδομένα. Publication was consti-
tuted by reading the MSS. aloud
before a chosen audience of friends or
critics; which readings often led to
such remarks as induced the author to
take his work back, and to correct it
for asecond recitation. See the curious
sentence extracted from the letter of
Theophrastus to Phanias (Diog. L. v.
87). Boeckh and other critics agree
that both the Kleitophon and the
Kritias were transmitted from antiquity
in the f entary state in which we
now read them: that they were com-
positions never completed. Boeckh
affirms this with assurance respectin
the Kleitophon, though he thinks tha
it is not a genuine work of Plato; on
which last point I dissent from him.
He thinks that the Kritias is a real
work of Plato, though uncompleted
(Boeckh in Platonis Minoem, p. 11).
Compare the remarks of M. Littré
respecting the unfinished sketches,
treatises, and notes not intended for
ublication, included in the Collectio
Fi pocratica (Guvres d’ Hippocrate,
vol. x. p. liv. sea) .
1 Respecting the domicile of the
Platonic School, and that of the Ari-

"νόμοι by

stotelian or Peripatetic school which
followed it, the particulars given by
Diogenes are nearly coincident: we
know more in detail about the Peri-
patetic, from what he cites out of the
will of Theophrastus. See iv. 1-6-19,
v. 51-53.

The μουσεῖον at the Academy was
established by Plato himself. Speu-
sippus placed in it statues of the
Charities or Graces. Theophrastus
gives careful directions in his will
about repairing and putting in the best
condition, the Peripatetic μονσεῖον, with
its altar, its statues of the Goddesses,
and its statue of the founder Aristotle.
The στοὰ, ἐξέδρα, κῆπος, περίπατος,
attached to both schools, are men-
tioned : the most zealous students pro-
vided for themselves lodgings close
adjoining. Cicero, when he walked
out from Athens to see the deserted
Academy, was particularly affected
by the sight of the exedra, in which
c armada had lectured (De Fin. v.
,4

There were periodical meetings,
convivial and conversational, among
the members both of the Academie
and Peripatetic schools ; and ξνμποτικοὶ
Xenokrates and Aristotle to
regulate them (Atheneus, v. 184).

Epikurus (in his interesting testa-
ment given by Diogen. Laert, x. 16-21)
bequeaths to two Athenian citizens his.
garden ‘and property, in trust for his
principal disciple the Mitylenszean Her-
Marchus, καὶ τοῖς συμφιλοσοφοῦσιν'
αὐτῷ, καὶ οἷς ἂν Ἕρμαρχος καταλί
διαδόχοις τῆς φιλοσοφίας, ἐνδιατρίβειν
κατὰ φιλοσοφίαν. He at the same
time directs all his books to be given
to Hermarchus: they would form the
school-library.

270 PLATONIO CANON.

Cuap. VI.

successor of Aristotle, presided over the school for thirty-five
years; and his course, during part of that time at least, was
prodigiously frequented by students.

Moreover, the school-library at the Lykeum acquired large

Peripatetic development and importance. It not only included
ΩΝ itg all the MS. compositions, published or unpublished,
removal , of Aristotle and Theophrastus, each of them a volu-
toSképsis— minous writer—but also a numerous collection
its ultimate (numerous for that day) of other works besides; since
τ ϑ ρα 4 DOL_- οὗ them were opulent and fond of collecting
state to books. The value of the school-library is shown by
then to what happened after the decease of Theophrastus,
Rome

when Straton succeeded him in the school (B.c. 287).
Theophrastus—thinking himself entitled to treat the library not
as belonging to the school but as belonging to himself — be-
queathed it at his death to Neleus, a favourite scholar, and a
native of Sképsis (in the Troad), by whom it was carried away to
Asia, and permanently separated from the Aristotelian school at
Athens. The manuscripts composing it remained in the posses-
sion of Neleus and his heirs for more than a century and a half,
long hidden in a damp cellar, neglected, and sustaining great
damage—until about the year 100 B.c., when they were purchased
by a rich Athenian named Apellikon, and brought back to
Athens. Sylla, after he had captured Athens (86 B.c.), took for
himself the library of Apellikon, and transported it to Rome,
where it became open to learned men (Tyrannion, Andronikus,
and others), but under deplorable disadvantage—in consequence
of the illegible state of the MSS. and the unskilful conjectures
and restitutions which had been applied, in the new copies made
since it passed into the hands of Apellikon.}

If we knew the truth, it might probably appear that the

1 The will of Theophrastus, as given
in Diogenes (v. 52), mentions the be-
quest of all his books to Neleus. But
it is in Strabo that we read the ful-

Θεοφράστῳ παρέδωκεν, ᾧπερ καὶ τὴν
σχολὴν ἀπέλιπε, πρῶτος, ὧν ἴσμεν,
σνναγαγὼν βίβλια, καὶ διδαξας
τοὺς ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ βασιλέας

lest account of this displacement of
the Peripatetic school-library, and the
consequences which ensued from it
(xiii. 608, 609). Νηλεὺς, ἀνὴρ καὶ ᾽Αρι-
στοτέλους ἠκροαμένος καὶ Θεοφράστου,
διαδεδεγμένος δὲ τὴν βιθλιοθήκην τοὺ
Θεοφράστον, ἐν q ἣν καὶ ἡ τοῦ ᾿Αριστο-
τέλους . ὁ γοῦν ᾿Αριστοτέλης τὴν ἑαυτοῦ

ΒβΒιβλιοθήκης σύνταξιν.

The kings of Pergamus, a few years
after the death of Theophrastus, ac-
quired possession of the town and ter-
ritory of Sképsis ; so that the heirs of
Neleus became numbered among their
subjects. These kings (from about the
year B.C. 280 downwards) manifested

CHAP. VI. ARISTOTELIAN LIBRARY. 271

transfer of the Aristotelian library, from the Peripa-
tetic school at Athens to the distant and obscure
town of Sképsis, was the result of some jealousy on
the part of Theophrastus ; that he wished to secure to
Neleus the honourable and lucrative post of becoming
his successor in the school, and conceived that he was furthering
that object by bequeathing the library to Neleus. If he enter-
tained any such wish, it was disappointed. The succession
devolved upon another pupil of the school, Straton of Lampsakus.
But Straton and his successors were forced to get on as well as
they could without their library. The Peripatetic school at
Athens suffered severely by the loss. Its professors possessed
only a few of the manuscripts of Aristotle, and those too the
commonest and best known. If a student came with a view to
read any of the other Aristotelian works (as Crassus went to read
the Gorgias of Plato), the Scholarch was unable to assist him:
as far as Aristotle was concerned, they could only expand and
adorn, in the way of lecture, a few of his familiar doctrines.?
We hear that the character of the school was materially altered.
Straton deserted the track of Aristotle, and threw himself into
speculations of his own (seemingly able and ingenious), chiefly
on physical topics? The critical study, arrangement, and exposi-

Incon-
venience to
the Peri-
patetic
school from
the loss of
its library.

great eagerness to collect a library at
Pergamus, in competition with that of
the Ptolemies at Alexandria. The
heirs of Neleus were afraid that these
kings would strip them of their Aristo-
telian MSS., either for nothing or for
a small price. They therefore con-
cealed the MSS. in a cellar, until they
found an opportunity of selling them
to ἃ stranger out of the country.
(Strabo, I. c.

This narrative of Strabo is one of
the most interesting pieces of informa-
tion remaining to us about literary
antiquity. He had himself received
instruction from Tyrannion (xii. 648):
he had gone through a course of Ari-
stotelian philosophy (xvi. 757), and he
had good means of knowing the facts
from the Aristotelian critics, including
his master Tyrannion. Plutarch (Vit.
Sylle, 6. 26) and Athenseus (i. 3) allude
to the same story. Athenzeus says
that Ptolemy Philadelphus purchased
the MSS. from the heirs of Neleus,
which cannot be correct.

Some critics have understood the
narrative of Strabo, as if he had meant
to affirm, that the works of Aristotle
had never got into circulation until
the time of Apellikon. Itis against
this supposition that Stahr contends
(very successfully) in his work “ Ari-
stotelia”. But Strabo does not affirm
so much as this. He does not say any-
thing to contradict the supposition
that there were copies of various
books of Aristotle in circulation,
during the lives of Aristotle and Theo-
phrastus. ᾿

1 Strabo, xiii. 6090, συνέβη δὲ τοῖς
ἐκ τῶν περιπάτων τοῖς μὲν πάλαι, τοῖς
μετὰ Θεόφραστον, οὐκ ἔχουσιν ὅλως τὰ
βίβλια πλὴν ὀλίγων, καὶ μάλιστα τῶν
ἐξωτερικῶν, μηδὲν ἔχειν φιλοσοφεῖν
πραγματικῶς, ἀλλὰ θέσεις ληκνθί-

ety.
§ 2The change in the Peripatetic
school, after the death of Theophrastus,
is pointed out by Cicero, Fin. v. 5, 18.
Compare Academ. Poster. i. 9.

Cuap. VI.

272 PLATONIC CANON.

tion of Aristotle was postponed until the first century before
the Christian era—the Ciceronian age, immediately preceding
Strabo.

This history of the Aristotelian library illustrates forcibly, by
way of contrast, the importance to the Platonic school
of having preserved its MSS. from the beginning,
without any similar interruption. What Plato left in
preserved manuscript we may presume to have never been
its MSS. = removed: those who came to study his works had the
means of doing so: those who wanted to know whether any
composition was written by him, what works he had written
altogether, or what was the correct reading in a case of obscurity
or dispute—had always the means of informing themselves.
Whereas the Peripatetic Scholarch, after the death of Theo-
phrastus, could give no similar information as to the works of
Aristotle.

We thus see that the circumstances, under which Plato left his

compositions, were unusually favourable (speaking by

school from
having

Conditions comparison with ancient authors generally) in regard
for presety- to the chance of preserving them all, and of keeping
genuine them apart from counterfeits. We have now to en-
works 0

quire what information exists as to their subsequent
diffusion.

The earliest event of which notice is preserved, is, the fact
stated by Diogenes, that “Some persons, among

Historical whom is the Grammaticus Aristophanes, distribute
their pre- the dialogues of Plato into Trilogies; placing as
servation.

the first Trilogy — Republic, Timeeus, Kritias. 2.
Sophistes, Politicus, Kratylus. 3. Leges, Minos, Epinomis.
Theaxtétus, Euthyphron, Apology. 5. Kriton, Phedon, Epistola.

1 An interesting citation by Simpli-
kius (in his commentary on the Physica
of Aristotle, fol. 216, a. 7, p. 404,
Schol. Brandis, shows us that

hrastus, while he was resident at
thens as Peripatetic Scholarch, had
custody of the original MSS. of the
works of Aristotle and that he was
applied to by those who wished to
procure correct copies. Eudémus (of
thodes) having only a defective copy
of the Physica, wrote to request that

b. 11,
Theo-

Theophrastus would cause to be written
out a certain portion of the fifth book,
and send it to him, μαρτυροῦντος περὶ
τῶν πρώτων Kat Θεοφράστον, γράψαντος
Εὐδήμῳ περί τινὸς αὐτοῦ τῶν διημαριη»
ἔνων ἀντιγράφων" ὑπὲρ ὧν, φησὶν (sc.
heophrastus) ἐπέστειλας, κελεύων με
γράφειν καὶ ἀποστεῖλαι ἐκ τῶν Φυσι-
κῶν, ἤτοι ἐγὼ οὐ συνίημι, ἣ μικρόν τι
παντελῶς ἔχει vov ἀνάμεσον τοῦ ὅπερ
ἠρεμεῖν καλῶ τῶν ὀκινήτων μόνον,
Ό.

Cuap. VL ARRANGEMENT IN TRILOGIES. 273

The other dialogues they place one by one, without any regular
grouping.” }

The name of Aristophanes lends special interest to this
arrangement of the Platonic compositions, and en-

. Α -
ables us to understand something of the date and mentee
. ς 1 . them into
the place to which it belongs. The literary and qyitogies,
critical students (Grammatict), among whom he stood by Aristo-
phanes.

eminent, could scarcely be said to exist as a class at
the time when Plato died. Beginning with Aristotle, Hera-
kleides of Pontus, Theophrastus, Demetrius Phalereus, &c., at
Athens, during the half century immediately succeeding Plato’s
decease—these laborious and useful erudites were first called into
full efficiency along with the large collection of books formed by
the Ptolemies at Alexandria during a period beginning rather
before 300 B.c.: which collection served both as model and as
stimulus to the libraries subsequently formed by the kings at
Pergamus and elsewhere. In those libraries alone could materials
be found for their indefatigable application.

Of these learned men, who spent their lives in reading, cri-
ticisiny, arranging, and correcting, the MSS. accumu-
lated in a great library, Aristophanes of Byzantium
was the most distinguished representative, in the eyes
of men like Varro, Cicero, and Plutarch.? His life
was passed at Alexandria, and seems to have been comprised
between 260-184 8.6. ; as far as can be made out. During the
latter portion of it he became chief librarian—an appointment

Aristo-
phanes, lib-
rarian atthe
Alexand-
rine library.

1 Diog. L. fii. 61-62: Ἔνιοι δέ, ὧν ἔστι τακτα (Diog. L. ix. 46, 47). It appears

kat ᾿Αριστοφάνης ὃ γραμματικός, eis
τριλογίας ἕλκουσι τοὺς διαλόγους ’ καὶ
πρώτην μὲν τιθέασιν ἧς ἡγεῖται ἸΙολι-
tela, Τίμαιος, Κριτίας - δευτέραν, Σοφι-
στής, Πολιτικός, Ἰζράτνυλος - τρίτην,
Νόμοι, Μίνως, ἜἘπινομίς τετάρτην,
Θεαίτητος, Εὐθύφρων, ᾿Απολογία'" πέμ-
πτὴν, Κρίτων, Φαίδων, ᾿Επιστολαί' τὰ
δὲ ἄλλα καθ᾽ ἕν καὶ ἀτάκτως.

The word γραμματικὸς, unfortu-
nately, has no single English word
exactly corresponding to it.

Thrasyllus, when he afterwards ap-

lied the classification by Tetralogies
fo the works of Demokritus (as he did
also to those of Plato) could only in-
clude a certain portion of the works in
his Tetralogies, and was forced to
enumerate the remainder as ἀσύν-

that he included all Plato’s works in
his Platonic Tetralogies. .

2 Varro, De Lingua Latina, v. 9, ed.
Miller. ‘Non solum ad Aristophanis
lucernam, sed etiam ad Cleanthis, lucu-
bravi.” Cicero, De Fin. v. 19, 50; Vit-
ruvius, Preef. Lib. vii.; Plutarch, ‘‘ Non
posse suaviter vivi sec. Epicurum,” p.
1095 E.

Aristophanes composed Argumenta
to many of the Attic tragedies and
comedies : he also arranged in a certain
order the songs of Alkeeus and the odes
of Pindar. Boeckh (Preefat. ad Scholia
Pindari, p. x. xi.) remarks upon the
mistake made by Quintilian as well as
by others, in supposing that Pindar ar-
ranged his own odes. Respecting the
wide range of erudition embraced by

1—18

974 PLATONIC CANON. Cap. VI.

which he had earned by long previous studies in the place, as
well as by attested experience in the work of criticism and
arrangement, He began his studious career at Alexandria at an
early age: and he received instruction, as a boy from Zenodotus,
as a young man from Kallimachus—both of whom were, in
succession, librarians of the Alexandrine library.! We must
observe that Diogenes does not expressly state the distribution of
the Platonic works into trilogies to have been first proposed or
originated by Aristophanes (as he states that the tetralogies were
afterwards proposed by the rhetor Thrasyllus, of which pre-
sently): his language is rather more consistent with the supposi-
tion, that it was first proposed by some one earlier, and adopted
or sanctioned by the eminent authority of Aristophanes. But at
any rate, the distribution was proposed either by Aristophanes
himself, or by some one before him and known to him.

This fact is of material importance, because it enables us to
infer with confidence, that the Platonic works were

wove in included in the Alexandrine library, certainly during
andrine lib- the lifetime ef Aristophanes, and probably before it.
rary, betore It is there only that Aristophanes could have known
Ones them ; his whole life having been passed in Alexan-

dria. The first formal appointment of a librarian to
the Alexandrine Museum was made by Ptolemy Philadelphus,
at some time after the commencement of his reign in 285 Β.0.,
in the person of Zenodotus ; whose successors were Kallimachus,
Eratosthenes, Apollonius, Aristophanes, comprising in all a period
of a century.’

Aristophanes, see F. A. Wolf, Prolegg.
in Homer. pp. 218-220, and Schnel-
dewin, De Hypothes. Traged. Grec.
Aristophani vindicandis, pp. 26, 27.

1 Suidas, vv. °A ἐστόφανης, Καλλί-
μαχος. Compare Clinton, Fast. Hellen.
B.C. 256-200.

2 See Ritschl, Die Alexandrinischen
Bibliotheken, ΡΡ. 16-17, &c.; Nauck,
De Aristophanis Vita et Scriptis, cap.
i. p. 68 (Halle, 1848), ‘‘ Aristophanis et
Aristarchi opera, cum opibus Biblio-
thecs Alexandrine digerendis et ad
tabulas revocandis arcté conjuncta, in eo

bstiti da est, utscriptores, in
quovis dicendi genere conspicuos, aut
breviori indice comprehen
uberiore enarratione describerent,” &c.

erent, aut 129

When Zenodotus was appointed, the
library had already attained consider-
able magnitude, so that the post and
title of librarian was then conspicuous
and dignified. But Demetrius Pha-
lereus, who preceded Zenodotus, began
his operations when there was no
library at all, and gradually accumu-
lated the number of books which
Zenodotus found. Heyne observes
justly : ‘Primo loco Demetrius Pha-
ereus preefuisse dicitur, forte re verius

uam nomine, tum Zenodotus Ephesius,
hic quidem sub Ptolemzo Philadel-
ho,” &c. (Heyne, De Genio Seculi
5 mmoram in Opuscul. i. p.

Cuap. VI.

TABLES OF KALLIMACHUS.

275

Kallimachus, born at Kyréné, was a teacher of letters at

Alexandria before he was appointed to the service
and superintendence of the Alexandrine library or
His life seems to have terminated about
230 B.c.: he acquired reputation as a poet, by his

museunl.

hymns, epigrams, elegies, but

Grammaticus than Aristophanes: nevertheless the
titles of his works still remaining indicate very
We read as titles of his

great literary activity.
works :—

Kallima-
chus—pre-
decessor
of Aristo-
phanes- his

ublished

ables of
authors
whose
works
were in
the lib-
rary.

less celebrity as a

1. The Museum (a general description of the Alexandrine

establishment).

2. Tables of the persons who have distinguished themselves
in every branch of instruction, and of the works which
they have composed—in 120 books.

3. Table and specification of the (Didaskalies) recorded
dramatic representations and competitions ; with dates
assigned, and from the beginning.

4, Table of the peculiar phrases belonging to Demokritus, and

of his works.

δ. Table and specification of the rhetorical authors.!
These tables of Kallimachus (of which one by itself, No. 2,

reached to 120 books) must have been an encyclo-

peedia, far more comprehensive

compiled, of Greek authors and literature.
tables indeed could not have been compiled before
the existence of the Alexandrine Museum. They

Large and
rapid accu-
mulation of
the Alex-
andrine
Library.

than any previously
Such

described what Kallimachus had before him in that museum, as
we may see by the general title Μουσεῖον prefixed : moreover we

may be sure that nowhere else

1See Blomfleld’s edition of the
Fragm. of Kallimachus, p. 220-221.
Suidas, v. Καλλίμαχος, enumerates a
large number of titles of poetical, lite-
rary. historical, compositions of Kalli-
machus; among them are—

Μουσεῖον. Πένακες τῶν ἐν πάσῃ παι-
δείᾳ διαλαμψάντων, καὶ ὧν σννέγραψαν,
ἐν βιβλίοις κ' καὶ ρ΄. Ἰίναξ καὶ ava-
γραφὴ τῶν κατὰ χρόνους καὶ ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς
γενομένων διδασκαλιῶν. ίναξ τῶν
Δημοκρίτον γλωσσῶν καὶ συνταγμάτων.
Πίναξ καὶ ἀναγραφὴ των ῥητορικῶν. See

could he have had access to the

also Atheneeus, xv. 669. Itappears from
Dionys. Hal. that besides the Tables
of Kallimachus, enumerating and re-
viewing the authors whose works were
contained in the Alexandrine library
or museum, there existed also Περγα-
μηνοὶ Πίνακες, describing the contents
of the library at Pergamus (Dion. H. de

dm. Vi Dic. in Demosthene, p. 994 ;
De Dinarcho, pp. 680, 668, 661).

Compare Bernhardy, Grundriss der
Griech. Litt. sect. 36, pp. 182-133
ΒΘ.

Crap. VI.

276 PLATONIC CANON.

multitude of books required. Lastly, the tables also show how
large a compass the Alexandrine Museum and library had at-
tained at the time when Kallimachus put together his compila-
tion: that is, either in the reign of Ptolemy II. Philadelphus
(285-247 8B.c.), or in the earlier portion of the reign of Ptolemy
III., called Euergetes (247-222 B.c.), Nevertheless, large as the
library then was, it continued to increase. A few years after-
wards, Aristophanes published a work commenting upon the
tables of Kallimachus, with additions and enlargements: of which
work the title alone remains.!

Now, I have already observed, that the works of Plato were
certainly in the Alexandrine library, at the time

Plato’s . : ὯΝ
works—in when Aristophanes either originated or sanctioned
at the tine the distribution of them into Trilogies. Were they
of Kalli. not also in the library at the time when Kallimachus

compiled his tables? I cannot but conclude that they
were in it at that time also. When we are informed that the
catalogue of enumerated authors filled so many books, we may be
sure that it must have descended, and we know in fact that it did
descend, to names far less important and distinguished than that
of Plato. The name of Plato himself can hardly have been
omitted. Demokritus and his works, especially the peculiar
and technical words (γλῶσσαι) in them, received special attention
from Kallimachus: which proves that the latter was not disposed
to pass over the philosophers. But Demokritus, though an emi-
nent philosopher, was decidedly less eminent than Plato: more-
over he left behind him no permanent successors, school, or
μουσεῖον, at Athens, to preserve his MSS. or foster his celebrity.
As the library was furnished at that time with a set of the works
of Demokritus, so I infer that it could not have been without a
set of the works of Plato. That Kallimachus was acquainted

_ TAthenzeas, ix. 408. ᾿Αριστοφάνης
ὃ γραμματικὸς ἐν τοῖς πρὸς τοὺς Καλλι-
μάχον πίνακας.

_. We see by another passage, Athens.
vill, 336, that this work included an
addition or supplement to the Tables
of Kallimachws. ε

ompare Etymol. Magn. v. Πίναξ.
_ ? Thus the Tables of Kallimachus
included a writer named Lysimachus,
a disciple of Theodorus or Theo-

phrastus, and his writings (Athenx.
vi. 252)—a rhetor and poet named
Dionysius with the epithet of χαλκοῦς
(Athenee. xv. 669)—and even the trea-
tises of several authors on cakes and
cookery (Athene. xiv. 643), The names
of authors absolutely unknown to us
were mentioned by him (Athene. ii. 70).
Compare Dionys. Hal. de Dinarcho,
630, 653, 661.

Cuap. VL THE ALEXANDRINE MUSEUM. 277

with Plato’s writings (if indeed such ἃ fact requires proof), wé
know, not only from his epigram upon the Ambrakiot Kleom-
brotus (whom he affirms to have killed himself after reading the
Phedon), but also from a curious intimation that he formally
impugned Plato’s competence to judge or appreciate poets—
alluding to the severe criticisms which we read in the Platonic
Republic.?

It would indeed be most extraordinary if, among the hundreds
of authors whose works must have been specified in the Tables of
Kallimachus as constituting the treasures of the Alexandrine
Museum,” the name of Plato had not been included. Moreover,
the distribution of the Platonic compositions into Trilogies,
pursuant to the analogy of the Didaskaliz or dramatic records,
may very probably have originated with Kallimachus; and may
have been simply approved and continued, perhaps with some
modifications, by Aristophanes. At least this seems more con-
sonant to the language of Diogenes Laertius, than the supposition
that Aristophanes was the first originator of it.

If we look back to the first commencement of the Alexandrine
Museum and library, we shall be still farther con-

. First forma-

vinced that the works of Plato, complete as well ag tion of the
. . . . library—

genuine, must have been introduced into it before the intended as
. a copy of

days of Kallimachus. Strabo expressly tells us that #4 Tatonic
the first stimulus and example impelling the Ptole- and art

mies to found this museum and library, were fur- Μουσεῖα at
thens.

nished by the school of Aristotle and Theophrastus at

1 Kallimachus, Epigram. 23.

Proklus in Timeum, p. 28 C. Ὁ. 64.
Schneid. μάτην οὖν φληναφοῦσι Καλλί-
μαχος καὶ Aovpts, ὡς Πλάτωνος οὐκ ὄν-
τος ἱκανοῦ κρίνειν ποιητάς.

Eratosthenes, successor οὗ Kalli-
machus as librarian at Alexandria
composed a work (now lost) entitled
TlAarwyixdv, aS well as various treatises
on philosophy and philosophers (Era-
tosthenica, Bernhardy, p. 168, 187, 197;
Suidas, v. "Eparoo@évys). He ha
passed some time at Athens, had en-
syed the lessons and conversation of

eno the Stoic, but expressed still

warmer admiration of Arkesilaus and
Ariston. He spoke in animated terms
of Athens as the great centre of con-
gregation for philosophers in his day.

He had composed a treatise, Περὶ τῶν
ἀγαθῶν: but Strabo describes him as
mixing up other subjects with philo-
sophy (Strabo, i. p. 15).

2 About the number of books, or
more properly of rolls (volumina), in
the Alexandrine library, see the en-
quiries of Parthey, Das Alexandri-
nische Museum, p. 76-84. Various
statements are made by ancient authors,
some of them with very large numbers;

d and no certainty is attainable. Many

rolls would go to form one book. Par-
they considers the statement made by
Epiphanius not improbable — 54,800
rolis in the library under Ptolemy
Philadelphus (p. 83).

The magnitude of the library at
Alexandria in the time of Eratosthenes,

278 PLATONIC CANON, CuapP. VI.

Athens.! I believe this to be perfectiy true ; and it is farther
confirmed by the fact that the institution at Alexandria comprised
the same constituent parts and arrangements, described by the
same titles, as those which are applied to the Aristotelian and
Platonic schools at Athens. Though the terms library, museum,
and lecture-room, have now become familiar, both terms and
meaning were at that time alike novel. Nowhere, as far as we
know, did there exist a known and fixed domicile, consecrated in
perpetuity to these purposes, and to literary men who took
interest therein. A special stimulus was needed to suggest and
enforce the project on Ptolemy Soter. That stimulus was
supplied by the Aristotelian school at Athens, which the Alex-
andrine institution was intended to copy : Μουσεῖον (with ἐξέδρα
and περίπατος, ἃ covered portico with recesses and seats, and a
walk adjacent), on a far larger scale and with more extensive
attributions? We must not however imagine that when this

and the multitude of writings which
he consulted in his valuable geogra-
phical works, was admitted by his oppo-
nent Hipparchus (Strabo, ii. 69).
1Strabo, xiii. 608. ὁ γοῦν ᾽Αρισ-
τοτέλης τὴν ἑαντοῦ (βιβλιοθήκην)
Θεοφράστῳ παρέδωκεν, ᾧπερ καὶ τὴν
σχολὴν ἀπέλιπε' πρῶτος, ὧν ἴσμεν,
συναγαγὼν βίβλια, καὶ διδάξας
τοὺς ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ βασιλέας
βιβλιοθήκης σύνταξιν.

Strabo (xvii. 793-794) describes the
Museum at Alexandria in the following
terms—toav δὲ βασιλείων μέρος ἐστὶ
καὶ τὸ Μουσεῖον, ἔχον περί-
warov καὶ ἐξέδραν, καὶ οἶκον
μέγαν ἐν ᾧ τὸ συσσίτιον τῶν μετεχόν-
των τοῦ Μουσείον φιλολόγων ἀνδρῶν,
ἄς, Vitruvius, v. 11.

If we compare this with the lan-

e in Diogenes Laertius respectin

e Academic and Peripatetic schoo
residences at Athens, we shall find the
same phrases employed --- μονσεῖον,
ἐξέδρα, ἄς. (Ὁ. L. iv. 19, v. 61-54),
Respecting Speusippus, Diogenes tells
us ἄν. 1)}—Xapirwy τ' ἀγάλματ' ἀνέθη-
κεν ἐν τῷ μουσείῳ τῷ ὑπὸ Πλάτωνος
ἐν ᾿Ακαδημίᾳ ἱδρυθέντι.

3 We see from hence what there was
peculiar in the Platonic and Aristo-

elian literary establishments. They
included something consecrated, per-
manent, and intended more or less for
public use. The collection of books
was not like a private library, destined

only for the proprietor and such friends
as he mizht allow--nor was it like that
of a bookseller, intended for sale and
profit, I make this remark in regard
o the Excursus of Bekker, in his
Charikles, i. 206, 216, a very interest-
ing note on the book-trade and libra-
ries of ancient Athens. Bekker dis-
putes the accuracy of Strabo’s state-
ment that Aristotle was the first
erson at Athens who collected a
ibrary, and who taught the kings of
Egypt to do the like. In the literal
sense of the words Bekker is right.
Other persons before Aristotle had
collected books (though I think Bekker
makes more of the passages which he
cites than they strictly deserve); one
example is the youthful Euthydemus
in Xenophon, Memorab. iv. 2; and
Bekker alludes justly to the remark-
able passage in the Anabasis of Xeno-
phon, about books exported to the

ellenic cities in the Euxine (Anabas.
vii. 5, 14). There clearly existed in
Athens regular professional booksel-
lers ; we see that the bookseller read
aloud to his visitors a part of the bovks
which he had to sell, in order to tempt
them to buy, a feeble foreshadowing
of the advertisements and reviews of
the present day (Diogen. L. vii. 2).
But there existed as yet nothing of
the nature of the Platonic and Aristo-
telian μουσεῖον, whereof the collection
of books, varied, permanent, and in-

Cuap. VI. PTOLEMY SOTER. 279

new museum was first begun, the founders entertained any idea
of the vast magnitude to which it ultimately attained.

Ptolemy Soter was himself an author,’ and himself knew and
respected Aristotle, not only as a philosopher but

Favour of
also as the preceptor of his friend and commander ftolemy
Alexander. To Theophrastus also, the philosophical towards the
successor of Aristotle, Ptolemy showed peculiar eae
honour ; inviting him by special message to come Athens.

and establish himself at Alexandria, which invitation however
Theophrastus declined.? Moreover Ptolemy appointed Straton
(afterwards Scholarch in succession to Theophrastus) preceptor to
his youthful son Ptolemy Philadelphus, from whom Straton
subsequently received a large present of money : 5 he welcomed
at Alexandria the Megaric philosophers, Diodorus Kronus, and
Stilpon, and found pleasure in their conversation ; he not only
befriended, but often confidentially consulted, the Kyrenaic
philosopher Theodérus.* Koldtes, the friend of Epikurus, dedi-
cated a work to Ptolemy Soter. Menander, the eminent comic
writer, also received an invitation from him to Egypt.®

These favourable dispositions, on the part of the first Ptolemy,
towards philosophy and the philosophers at Athens,
appear to have been mainly instigated and guided by
the Phalerean Demetrius: an Athenian citizen of
good station, who enjoyed for ten years at Athens
(while that city was subject to Kassander) full political ascen-
dancy, but who was expelled about 307 B.c., by the increased
force of the popular party, seconded by the successful invasion of

Demetrius
Phalereus—
his history
and charac-
ter.

tended for the use of inmates and
special visitors, was one important
fraction. In this sense it served as a
model for Demetrius Phalereus and
Ptolemy Soter in regard to Alexan-
ria.
Vitruvius (v. 11) describes the ez-
hedre a8 seats placed under ἃ covered
ortico—‘‘in quibus ‘philosophi, rhe-
bores, reliquique qui studiis delectantur,
sedentes disputare possint ”.

1 Respecting Ptolemy as an author,
and the fragments of his work on the
exploits of Alexander, see R. Geier,
Alexandri M. Histor. Scriptores, p.

4-26.

2Diog. L. v. 87. Probably this
invitation was sent about 306 B.C., dur-
ing the year in which Theophrastus

was in banishment from Athens, in
consequence of the restrictive law pro-
posed by Sophokles against the schools
of the philosophers, which law was
repealed in the ensuing year.

3 Diog. L. v. 58. Straton became
Scholarch at the death of Theophrastus
in 287 B.c. He must have been pre-
ceptor to Ptolemy Philadelphus before
this time, during the youth of the
latter ; for he could not have been at
the same time Scholarch at Athens, and
preceptor of the king at Alexandria.

4Diog. L. ii. 102, 111, 116. Plu.
tarch adv. Koléten, p. 1107. The
Ptolemy here mentioned by Plutarch
may indeed be Philadelphus.

Meineke, Menand. et Philem.
Reliq. Pref. p. xxxii.

280 PLATONIC CANON. Cwap. VI.

Demetrius Poliorkétés. By these political events Demetrius
Phalereus was driven into exile: a portion of which exile was
spent at Thebes, but a much larger portion of it at Alexandria,
where he acquired the full confidence of Ptolemy Soter, and
retained it until the death of that prince in 285 B.c. While active
in politics, and possessing rhetorical talent, elegant without being
forcible—Demetrius Phalereus was yet more active in literature
and philosophy. He employed his influence, during the time of
his political power, to befriend and protect both Xenokrates the
chief of the Platonic school, and Theophrastus the chief of the
Aristotelian. In his literary and philosophical views he followed
Theophrastus and the Peripatetic sect, and was himself among
their most voluminous writers. The latter portion of his life was
spent at Alexandria, in the service of Ptolemy Soter; after whose
death, however, he soon incurred the displeasure of Ptolemy
Philadelphus, and died, intentionally or accidentally, from the
bite of an asp.?

The Alexandrine Museum or library first acquired celebrity

Hewaschiep Under the reign of Ptolemy (JI.) Philadelphus, by
agent in the whom moreover it was greatly enlarged and its trea-
blishmont sures multiplied. Hence that prince is sometimes en-
gndrine titled the founder. But there can be no doubt that
Library. its first initiation and establishment is due to Ptolemy

(1.) Soter.2 Demetrius Phalereus was his adviser and auxiliary,

1Diog. L. iv. 14, v. 89, 75, 80;
Strabo, ix. 398; Plut., De Exil. p. 601;
Apophth. p. 189; Cic., De Fin. v. 19;
Pro Rab. 30. \

Diogenes says about Demetrius
Phalereus, (v. 80) Πλήθει δὲ βιβλίων
καὶ ἀριθμῷ στίχων, σχεδὸν ἅπαντας
παρελήλακε τοῦς κατ᾽ αὐτὸν Περιπατη-
τικούς, evraidevros ὧν καὶ πολύπειρος
παρ᾽ ὁντινοῦν.

2 Mr. Clinton says, Fast. Hell. App.
5, p. 380, 381 :

‘* Athenseus distinctly ascribes the
institution of the Μουσεῖον to Phila-
delphus in v. 203, where he is describ-
ing the acts of Philadelphus.” This
is a mistake: the passage in Atheneus
does not specify which of the two first
Ptolemies was the founder: it is per-
fectly consistent with the supposition
that Ptolemy Soter founded it. The
same may be said about the passage
cited by Mr. Clinton from Plutarch ;

that too does not determine between the
two Ptolemies, which was the founder.
Perizonius was in error (as Mr. Clinton
points out) in affirming that the pas-
sage in Plutarch determined the
foundation to the first Ptolemy: Mr.
Clinton is in error by affirming that
the passage in Atheneus determines it
to the second. Mr. Clinton has also
been misled by Vitruvius and Scaliger
(p. 889), when he affirms that the
library at Alexandria was not formed
until after the library at Pergumus.
Bernhardy (Grundriss der Griech.
Litt., Part 1. ἂ 869, 867, 369) has
followed Mr. Clinton too implicitly
in recognising Philadelphus as the
founder: nevertheless he too admits (P.
366) that the foundations were laid by
Ptolemy Soter, under the advice and
assistance of Demetrius Phalereus.
The earliest declared king of the
Attalid family at Pergamus acquired

CHaP. VI,

DEMETIRSUS PHALEREUS.

281

the link of connection between him and the literary or philoso-

phical world of Greece.

We read that Julius Cesar, when he

conceived the scheme (which he did not live to execute) of
establishing a large public library at Rome, fixed upon the
learned Varro to regulate tle selection and arrangement of the
books! None but an eminent literary man could carry such an

enterprise into effect, even at

Rome, when there existed the

precedent of the Alexandrine library: much more when Ptolemy

the throne in 241 P.c. The library at
Pergamus could hardly have been
commenced before his time: and it is
his successor, Eumenes II. (whose
reign began in 197 B.C.), who is men-
tioned as the great collector and
adorner of the library at Pergamus.
See Strabo, xiii. 624; Clinton, Fast.
Hellen. App. 6, p. 401-408. It is plain
that the library at Pergamus could
hardly have been begun before the
close of the reign of Ptolemy Philadel-
hus in Egypt, by which time the
ibrary of Alexandria had already
acquired great extension and _ re-

own.

1 Sueton. Jul. Ces. ὁ, 44. Melissus,
one of the Illustres Grammatici of
Rome, undertook by order of Augustus,
“curam ordinandarum bibliothecarum
in QOctavie porticu”. (Sueton. De
Illustr. Grammat. c. 21.

Cicero replies in the following terms
to his brother Quintus, who had written
to him, requesting advice and aid in
getting together for his own use a
collection of Greek and Latin books.
“Πρ bibliothec4 tua Grec& supplenda,
libris commutandis, Latinis compa-
randis—valdé velim ista confici, pre-
sertim cum ad meum quoque usum
spectent. Sed ego, mihi ipsi ista per
quem agam, non habeo. Neque enim
venalia sunt, gue quidem placeant: et
confict nisi per hominem et peritum
et diligentem non possunt. Chrysippo
tamen imperabo, et cum Tyrannione
loquar.” (Cic., Epist. ad Q. Fratr. iii.

Now the circulation of books was
greatly increased, and the book trade
ar more developed, at Rome when
this letter was written (about three
centuries after Plato’s decease) than it
was at Athens during the time of
Demetrius Phalereus (820-300 B.C.).
Yet we see the difficulty which the
two brothers Cicero had in collecting a
mere private library for use of the
owner simply. Good books, in a correct

and satisfactory condition, were not ta

be had for money: it was necessary to
et access to the best MSS., and to
ave special copies made, neatly and

correctly : and this could not be done,

except under the superintendence of ἃ

laborious literary man like Tyrannion,

by well taught slaves subordinate to
im.

We may understand, from this ana-
logy, the far greater obstacles which the
collectors of the Alexandrine museum
and library must have had to overcome,
when they began their work. No one
could do it, except a practised literary
man such as Demetrius Phalereus:
nor even he, except by finding out the
best MSS., and causing special copies
to be made for the use of the library.
Respecting the extent and facility of
book-diffusion in the Roman world,
information will be found in the late
Sir George Cornewall Lewis’s Enquiry
into the Credibility of Early Roman
History, vol. i. Ὁ. 196, seqq. ; also, in
the fifth chapter of the work of Adolf
Schmidt, Geschichte der Denk-und Glau-
bens-Freiheit im ersten Jahrhunderte
der Kaiser-herrechaft, Berlin, 1847;
lastly, in a valuable review of Adolf
Schmidt’s work by Sir George Lewis
himself, in Fraser’s Magazine for April,
1862, pp. 432-489. Adolf Schmidt
represents the multiplication and
cheapness of books in that day as
something hardly inferior to what it is
now—citing many authorities for this
opinion. Sir G. Lewis has shown, in
my judgment most satisfactorily, that
these authorities are insufficient, and
that the opinion is, incorrect: this
might have been shown even more fully
if the review had been lengthened. ἢ
perfectly agree with Sir G. Lewis on
he main question: yet I think he
narrows the case on his own side too
much, and that the number of copies
of such authors as Virgil and Horace,
in circulation at one time, cannot have
been so small as he imagines.

282 PLATONIC CANON. Cnap. VI.

commenced his operations at Alexandria, and when there were
only the two Movoeia at Athens to serve as precedents. Deme-
trius, who combined an organising head and political experience,
with an erudition not inferior to Varro, regard being had to the
stock of learning accessible—was eminently qualified for the
task. It procured for him great importance with Ptolemy, and
compensated him for that loss of political ascendancy at Athens,
which unfavourable fortune had brought about.

We learn that the ardour of Demetrius Phalereus was unre-
Proceedings mitting, and that his researches were extended every-

f Deme- . ἢ

trias in be. Where, to obtain for the new museum literary
ginnivg to monuments from all countries within contemporary
library. knowledge! This is highly probable: such univer-

sality of literary interest was adapted to the mixed and cosmo-
politan character of the Alexandrine population. But Demetrius
was a Greek, born about the time of Plato’s death (347 B.c.), and
identified with the political, rhetorical, dramatic, literary, and
philosophical, activity of Athens, in which he had himself taken
a prominent part. To collect the memorials of Greek literature
would be his first object, more especially such as Aristotle and
Theophrastus possessed in their libraries, Without doubt he
would procure the works of Homer and the other distinguished
poets, epic, lyric, and dramatic, as well as the rhetors, ora-
tors, &c. He probably would not leave out the works of the
virt Sokratici (Antisthenes, Aristippus, A‘’schines, &c.) and the
other philosophers (Demokritus, Anaxagoras, Parmenides, &c.).
But there are two authors, whose compositions he would most
certainly take pains to obtain—Plato and Aristotle. These were
the two commanding names of Grecian philosophy in that

1 Josephus, Antiquit. xii, 2,1. Δη-
μήτριος ὁ Φαληρεύς, ὃς ἦν ἐπὶ τῶν
βιβλιοθηκῶν τοῦ βασιλέως, σπουδάζων
εἰ δυνατὸν εἴη πάντα τὰ κατὰ τὴν
οἰκονμένην συνάγειν βίβλια, καὶ συνω-
νούμενος εἴ τί πον μόνον ἀκούσειε
σπουδης ἄξιον ἣ ἡδύ, τῇ τοῦ βασιλέως
προαιρέσει (μάλιστα γὰρ περὶ τὴν συλ-
λογὴν τῶν βιβλίων εἶχε φιλοκάλως)
σννηγωνίζετο.

at Josephus affirms here, I ap-
rehend to be perfectly true; though

6 goes on to state much that is
fabulous and apocryphal, respectin
the incidents which preceded an

accompanied the translation of the
Hebrew Scriptures. Josephus is also
mistaken in connecting Demetrius
Phalereus with Ptolemy Philadelphus.
Demetrius Phalereus was disgraced,
and died shortly after that prince’s
accession. His time of influence was
under Ptolemy Soter.

Respecting the part taken by De-
metrius Phalereus in the first getting
up of the Alexandrine Museum, see

alckenaer, Dissertat. De Aristobulo
Judaico, p. 62-57; Ritschl, Die Alex-
andrin. Biblioth. p. 17,18; Parthey, Das
Alexandrinische Museum, p. 70, 71 seq.

Cuap, VI. PLATO IN THE ALEXANDRINE MUSEUM 283

day: the founders of the two schools existing in Athens, upon
the model of which the Alexandrine Museum was to be con-
stituted.

Among all the books which would pass over to Alexandria as
the earliest stock of the new library, I know nothing

upon which we can reckon more certainly than upon that the,
the works of Plato! For they were acquisitions not Won,
only desirable, but also easily accessible. The writ- aot orong
ings of Aristippus or Demokritus—of Lysias or the earliest
Isokrates—might require to be procured (or good nn reall
MSS. thereof, fit to be specially copied) at different tho brary.

places and from different persons, without any
security that the collection, when purchased, would be either
complete or altogether genuine. But the manuscripts of Plato
and of Aristotle were preserved in their respective schools at
Athens, the Academic and Peripatetic :? a collection complete as
well as verifiable. Demetrius could obtain permission, from
Theophrastus in the Peripatetic school, from Polemon or Krantor
in the Academic school, tc have these MSS. copied for him by
careful and expert hands. The cost of such copying must doubt-
less have been considerable; amounting to a sum which few

1Stahr, in the second part of his
work ‘“ Aristotelia,” combats and re-
futes with much pains the erroneous
supposition, that there was no sufficient
publication of the works of Aristotle,
until after the time when Apellikon
urchased the MSS. from the heirs of
eleus—i.e. B.c. 100. Stahr shows
evidence to prove, that the works, at
least many of the works, of Aristotle
were known and studied before the
car 100 B.C. : that they were in the
ibrary at Alexandria, and that they
were procured for that library by
Demetrius Phalereus. Stahr says
(Thl. ii. p. 59): ‘‘Is it indeed credible
—is it even conceivable—that Deme-
trius, who recommended especially to
his regal friend Ptolemy the study of
the political works of the philosophers
—that Demetrius, the friend both of the
Aristotelian philosophy and of Theo-
hrastus, should have left the works of
he two greatest Peripatetic philoso-
phers out of his consideration? May
we not rather be sure that he would
take care to secure their works, before
all others, for his nascent library—if

indeed he did not bring them with him
when he came to Alexandria?” The
question here put by Stahr (and farther
insisted on by Ravaisson, Essai sur la
Métaphysique d’Aristote, Introd. p. 14)
is very pertinent: and I put the like
question, with slight chenge of cir-
cumstances, respecting the works of
Plato. Demetrius Phalereus was the
friend and patron of Xenokrates, as
well as of Theophrastus.

2In respect to the Peripatetic
school, this is true only during the
lifetime of Theophrastus, who died
287 B.c. I have already mentioned
that after the death of Theophras-
tus, the MSS. were withdrawn from
Athens. But all the operations of
Demetrius Phalereus were carried on
during the lifetime of Theophrastus ;
much of them, probably, in concert
with Theophrastus, whose friend and
pupil he was. e death of Theo-
phrastus, the death of Ptolemy Soter.
and the discredit and subsequen
death of Demetrius are separated
only by an interval of two or three
years.

284

PLATONIC CANON,

CuHapP. VI.

private individuals would have been either able or willing to

disburse.

But the treasures of Ptolemy were amply sufficient for

the purpose :! and when he once conceived the project of found-
ing 8 museum in his new capital, a large outlay, incurred for
transcribing from the best MSS. a complete and authentic
collection of the works of illustrious authors, was not likely to

deter him.

1 We find interesting information,
in the letters of Cicero, respecting the
librarit or copyists whom he had in his
Service ; and the still more numerous
and effective band of lilrarvi and
anagnoste (slaves, mostly home-born
whom his friend Atticus possessed an
trained (Corn. Nep., Vit. Attici, c. 13).
See Epist. ad: Attic. xii. 6; xiii. 21-44 ;
v. 12 seq.

It appears that many of the com-
positions of Cicero were copied, pre-
pared for publication, and published,

y the librarii of Atticus: who, in the
case of the Academica, incurred a loss,
because Cicero—after having given out
the work to becopied and published, and
after progress had been made in doing
this—thought fit to alter materially
both the form and the speakers intro-
duced (xiii. 13). In regard to the Ora-
tion pro Ligario, Atticussold it well, and
brought himself home (" Ligarianam
preeclaré vendidisti: posthac, quicquid
scripsero, tibi preeconium deferam,” xiii.
12). Cicero (xiii. 21) compares the re-
lation of Atticus towards himself, with
that of Hermodérus towards Plato, as
expressed in the Greek verse, λόγοισιν
Ἑρμόδωρος [ἐμπορεύεται]. (Suidas, s, v.
λόγοισιν ‘Epu. ἐμπ.)

Private friends, such as Balbus and
Cerellia (xiii. 21), considered it a pri-
vilege to be allowed to take copies of
his compositions at their own cost,
through (librarii employed for the pur-
pose. And we find Galen enumeratin
this among the noble and dignifie
ways for an opulent man to expend
money, in a remarkable passage, βλέπω

dp ge οὐδὲ πρὸς τὰ καλὰ τῶν ἔργων

απανῆσαι τολμῶντα, μηδ᾽ εἰς βιβλίων

ὠνὴν καὶ κατασκενὴν καὶ τῶν γραφόν-
των ἄσκησιν, ἥτοι γε εἰς τάχος διὰ
σημείων, ἣ εἰς καλῶν ἀκρίβειαν, ὥσπερ
οὐδὲ τῶν ἀναγινωσκόντων ὀρθῶς. (De
Cognoscendis Curandisque Animi Mor-
bis, t. v. p. 48, Kiihn.) ;

ὦ alen, Comm. ad Hippokrat.
᾿Ἐπιδημίας, vol. xvii. p. 606, 607, ed.
“Kithn.

We know from other anecdotes,? what vast sums the

Lykurgus, the contemporary of De-
mosthenes as an orator, conspicuous for
many years in the civil and financial
administration of Athens, caused a law
to be passed, enacting that an official
MS. should be made of the plays of
/Aschylus, Sophokles, and Kuripides.
No permission was granted to represent
any of these dramas at the Dionysiac
festival, except upon condition that
the applicant and the actors whom he
employed, should compare the MS, on
which they intended to proceed, with
the official MS. in the hands of the
authorised secretary. The purpose
was to prevent arbitrary amendments
or omissions in these plays, at the
pleasure of the ὑποκρίται.

Ptolemy Euergetes bortowed from
the Athenians these public and official
MSS. of Atschylus, Sophokles, and
Kuripides—on the plea that he wished
to have exact copies of them taken at
Alexandria, and under engagement to
restore them as soon as this was done.
He deposited with them the prodigious
sum of fifteen talents, as a guarantee
for the faithful restitution. When he
got the MSS. at Alexandria, he caused
copies of them to be taken on the finest
paper. He then sent these copies to
Athens, keeping the originals for the
Alexandrine library; desiring the
Athenians to retain the deposit of
fifteen talents for themselves. Ptolemy
Euergetes here pays, not merely the
cost of the finest copying, but fifteen
talents besides, for the possession of
official MSS. of the three great Athe-
nian tragedians; whose works in other
manuscripts must have been in the
library long before.

Respecting these official MSS. of
the three great tragedians, prepared
during the administration and under
the auspices of the rhetor Lykurgus,
see Plutarch, Vit. X. Orator. p. 841,
also Boeckh, Greece Tragced. Principia,
pp. 18-15. The time when Lykurgus
caused this to be done, must have been
nearly coincident with the decease of

EFFORTS TO PROCURE GOOD MBS. 285

CuapP. VI.

third Ptolemy spent, for the mere purpose of securing better and
more authoritative MSS. of works which the Alexandrine library
already possessed.

We cannot doubt that Demetrius could obtain permission, if
he asked it, from the Scholarchs, to have such copies

made. To them the operation was at once compli- expenses
mentary and lucrative; while among the Athenian br the
philosophers generally, the name of Demetrius was for procut:
acceptable, from the favour which he had shown to ing good

them during his season of political power—and that of
Ptolemy popular from his liberalities. Or if we even suppose
that Demetrius, instead of obtaining copies of the Platonic MSS.
from the school, purchased copies from private persons or book-
sellers (as he must have purchased the works of Demokritus and
others)—he could, at any rate, assure himself of the authenticity
of what he purchased, by information from the Scholarch.

My purpose, in thus calling attention to the Platonic school
and the Alexandrine Museum, is to show that the
chance for preservation of Plato’s works complete and
genuine after his decease, was unusually favourable.
I think that they existed complete and genuine in the
Alexandrine Museum before the time of Kallimachus,
and, of course, during that of Aristophanes. If there
were in the Museum any other works obtained from private
vendors and professing to be Platonic, Kallimachus and Aristo-
phanes had the means of distinguishing these from such as the
Platonic school had furnished and could authenticate, and motive
enough for keeping them apart from the certified Platonic catalogue.
Whether there existed any spurious works of this sort in the

Catalogue of
Platonic
works, pre-
pared by
Aristo-
hanes,
is trust-
worthy.

Plato, 347 B.c. See Boeckh, Staats-
haushaltung der Athener, vol. i. Ὁ.
468, ii. p. 244; Welcker, Griech. Trag.
iii. p. 908; Korn, De Publico Aschyli,
é&c., Exemplari, Lykurgo Auctore Con-

the original MSS. being retained in
the library, and registered in a sepa-
rate compartment, under the general
head of Ta ἐκ πλοίων, and with the
name of the person from whom the
acquisition had been made, annexed.

fecto, p. 6-9, Bonn, 1863

In the passage cited above from
Galen, we are farther informed, that
Ptolemy Euergetes caused inquiries
to be made, from the masters of all
vessels which came to Alexandria,
whether there were any MSS, on
board ; if there were, the MSS. were
brought to the library, carefully copied
out, and the copies given to the owners ;

Compare Wolf, Prolegg. ad Homerum,
p. clxxv. These statements tend to
show the care taken by the Alexan-
drine librarians, not only to acquire
the best MSS., but also to keep
good MSS. apart from bad, and to
record the person and the quarter
from which each acquisition had been.
made,

286 PLATONIC CANON. Cuap. VI.

Museum, Diogenes Laertius does not tell us; nor, unfortunately,
does he set forth the full list of those which Aristophanes, recog-
nising as Platonic, distributed either in triplets or in units.
Diogenes mentions only the principle of distribution adopted, and
a select portion of the compositions distributed. But as far as
his positive information goes, I hold it to be perfectly worthy of
trust. I consider that all the compositions recognised by Aristo-
phanes as works of Plato are unquestionably such ; and that his
testimony greatly strengthens our assurance for the received
catalogue, in many of those items which have been most contested
by critics, upon supposed internal grounds. Aristophanes
authenticates, among others, not merely the Leges, but also the
Epinomis, the Minos, and the Epistole.

There is another point also which I conceive to be proved by
what we hear about Aristophanes. He (or Kallimachus before
Nocanoni- him) introduced anew order or distribution of his own
calor exclu. __the Trilogies—founded on the analogy of the dra-

sive order of . ; ; . °
the Platonic matic Didaskalies. This shows that the Platonic

ἐν τα τίς "dialogues were not received into the library in any
ranged by canonical or exclusive order of their own, or in any
phanes. interdependence as first, second, third, &c., essential
to render them intelligible as a system. Had there been any
such order, Kallimachus and Aristophanes would no more have
altered it, than they would have transposed the order of the
books in the Republic and Leges. The importance of what is
here observed will appear presently, when we touch upon the
theory of Schleiermacher.

The distributive arrangement, proposed or sanctioned by

Other libra. Aristophanes, applied (as I have already remarked)

res and to the materials in the Alexandrine library only.
ry e e Γ Φ
centres, But this library, though it was the most conspicuous
esiqaes

Alexandria, portion, was not the whole, of the Grecian literary
in which aggregate. There were other great regal libraries
latonic (such as those of the kings of Pergamus and the

might get Seleukid kings") commenced after the Alexandrine
ooting

library had already attained importance, and intended

1The library of Antiochus the rion was librarian of it, seemingly
Great, or of his predecessor, is men- about 230-220 B.c. See Clinton, Fast.
tioned by Suidas, Εὐφορίων. Eupho- Ilell. B.c, 221.

Cuap. VI. TRILOGIES. 287

to rival it: there was also an active literary and philosophising
class, in various Grecian cities, of which Athens was the foremost,
but in which Rhodes, Kyréné, and several cities in Asia Minor,
Kilikia, and Syria, were included: ultimately the cultivated
classes at Rome, and the Western Hellenic city of Massalia, be-
came comprised in the number. Among this widespread literary
public, there were persons who neither knew nor examined the
Platonic school or the Alexandrine library, nor investigated what
title either of them had to furnish a certificate authenticating the
genuine works of Plato. It is not certain that even the great
library at Pergamus, begun nearly half a century after that of
Alexandria, had any such initiatory agent 68 Demetrius Phale-
reus, able as well as willing to go to the fountain-head of Pla-
tonism at Athens: nor could the kings of Pergamus claim aid
from Alexandria, with which they were in hostile rivalry, and
from which they were even forbidden (so we hear) to purchase
papyrus. Under these circumstances, it is quite possible that
spurious Platonic writings, though they obtained no recognition
in the Alexandrine library, might obtain more or less recognition
elsewhere, and pass under the name of Plato. To a certain
extent, such was the case. There existed some spurious
dialogues at the time when Thrasyllus afterwards formed his
arrangement.

Moreover the distribution made by Aristophanes
Platonic dialogues into Trilogies, and the order of
priority which he established among them was by
no means universally accepted. Some rejected alto-
gether the dramatic analogy of Trilogies as a prin-
ciple of distribution. They arranged the dialogues

of the

Other
critics,
besides Ari.
stophanes,
proposed
different
arrange-

Galen states (Comm. in Hippok. De
Nat. Hom. vol. xv. Pp. 105, Kiihn)
that the forgeries of boo
practice of tendering books for sale
under the false names of celebrated
authors, did not commence until the
time when the competition between
the kings of Egypt and the kings of
Pergamus for their respective libraries
became vehement. If this be ad-
mitted, there could have been no
forgeries tendered at Alexandria until
after the commencement of the reign

ks, and the ha

of Euergetes (B.c. 247-222): for the
competition from Pergamus could
rdly have commenced earlier than
280 B.c. In the times of Soter and
Philadelphus, there would be no such
forgeries tendered. I donot doubt that
such forgeries were sometimes success-
fully passed of: but I think Galen
does not take sufficient account of the
practice (mentioned by himself) at the
Alexandrine library, to keep faithful
record of the person and quarter from
whence each book had been acquired.

288 PLATONIC CANON. Crap, VI.

mente of the into three classes:! 1. The Direct, or purely dra-
dialogues. matic. 2. The Indirect, or narrative (diegematic).
3. The Mixed—partly one, partly the other. Respecting the
order of priority, we read that while Aristophanes placed the
Republic first, there were eight other arrangements, each
recognising a different dialogue as first in order; these eight
were, Alkibiades I., Theagés, Euthyphron, Kleitophon, Timeeus,
Phedrus, Theetétus,. Apology. More than one arrangement

began with the Apology. Some even selected the Epistolw as

the proper commencement for studying Plato’s works.
We hear with surprise that the distinguished Stoic phi-

losopher at Athens,

Panstius,
the Stoic—
considered

as not being the work of Plato.’

Panetius, rejected the Phsedon
It appears that he

the Phedon did not believe in the immortality of the soul, and

to be spuri-
ous—ear-

that he profoundly admired Plato; accordingly, he

Hest known thought it unworthy of so great a philosopher to

1Diog. L. iii. 49. Schonc, in his
commentary on the Protagoras (pp.
8-12), lays particular stress on this divi-
sion into the direct or dramatic, and
indirect or diegematic. He thinks it
probable, that Plato preferred’ one
method to the other at different
periods of life: that all of one sort,
and all of the other sort, come near
together in time.

2Diog. L iti. 62. Albinus, Εἰσα-
yoyn, 6. 4, in K. F. Hermann’s Ap-
pendix Platonica, p. 149.

3 See the Epigram out of the Antho-
logy, and the extract from the Scholia
on the Categories of Aristotle, cited by
Wyttenbach in his note on the begin-
ning of the Phedon. A more im-
portant passage (which he has not
cited) from the Scholia on Aristotle,
is, that of Asklepius on the Meta-
physica, p. 991; Scholia, ed. Brandis,

. 576, a. 88. "Ore τοῦ Πλάτωνός ἐστιν
ὁ Φαίδων, σαφῶς ὃ ᾿Αριστοτέλης δηλοῖ
--Ιαναίτιος γάρ τις ἐτόλμησε νοθεῦσαι
τὸν διάλογον. ἐπειδὴ γὰρ ἔλεγεν εἶναι
θνητὴν τὴν ψυχήν, ἐβούλετο συγκα-
τασπάσαι τὸν Πλάτωνα" ἐπεὶ οὖν ἐν τῷ
Φαίδωνι σαφῶς ἀπαθανατίξει (Plato) τὴν
λογικὴν ψυχήν, τούτον χάριν ἐνόθευσε
τὸν διάλογον. Wyttenbach vainly en-
deavours to elude the force of the pas-
Bages cited by himself, and to make out
that the witnesses did not mean toassert

that Panetius had declared the Phsedon
to bespurious. One of the reasons urged
by Wyttenbach is—‘‘ Nec illud negli-
gendum, quod dicitur ὑπὸ Tavacriou
τινὸς, ἃ Panetio gquodam neque per con-
temptum dici potuisse neque a Syriano
neque ab hoc anonymo ; quorum neuter
e& fuit doctrine inopia, ut Panetii
laudes et preestantiam ignoraret.” But
in the Scholion of Asklepius on the
Metaphysica (which passage was not
before Wyttenbach), we find the very
same expression Παναίτιός τις, and
lainly used per contemptum: for Ask-
epius probably considered it a mani-
festation of virtuous feeling to describe,
in contemptuous languaze, a philoso-
pher who did not believe in the immor-
tality of the soul. We have only to
read the still harsher and more con-
temptuous language which he employs
towards the Manicheans, in another
Scholion, p. 666, Ὁ. 5, Brandis.
Favorinus said (Diog. iii. 37) that
when Plato read aloud the Phedon,
Aristotle was the only person present
who remained to the end: all the
other hearers went away in the middle.
I have no faith in this anecdote: I
consider it, like so many others in
Diogenes, as a myth: but the inven-
tion of it indicates, that there were
many persons who had no sympathy
with the Pheedon, taking at the bottom
the same view as Panstius

Cuap. VI. ‘ TETRALOGIES, 289

waste so much logical subtlety, poetical metaphor, example of
‘ . 8, Platonic
and fable, in support of such'a conclusion. Probably dialo
he was also guided, in part, by one singularity in the open owed
Pheedon : it is the only dialogue wherein Plato men- internal
tions himself in the third person.! If Pansetius was Grounds.
predisposed, on other grounds, to consider the dialogue as un-
worthy of Plato, he might be induced to lay stress upon such a
singularity, as showing that the author of the dialogue must be
some person other than Plato. Panztius evidently took no pains
to examine the external attestations of the dialogue, which he
would have found to be attested both by Aristotle and by Kalli-
machus as the work of Plato. Moreover, whatever any one may
think of the cogency of the reasoning—the beauty of Platonic
handling and expression is manifest throughout the dialogue.
This verdict of Panztius is the earliest example handed down to
us of a Platonic dialogue disallowed on internal grounds—that
is, because it appeared to the critic unworthy of Plato: and it is
certainly among the most unfortunate examples.

But the most elaborate classification of the Platonic Classifica-
works was that made by Thrasyllus, in the days of tion of Pla-
Augustus or Tiberius, near to, or shortly after, the b the
Christian era: a rhetor of much reputation, con- Thrasyllus
sulted and selected as travelling companion by the — philoso.
Emperor Augustus.” phical.

Thrasyllus adopted two different distributions of the Platonic
works: one was dramatic, the other philosophical. The two were
founded on perfectly distinct principles, and had no inherent
connection with each other ; but Thrasyllus combined them to-
gether, and noted, in regard to each dialogue, its place in the one
classification as well as in the other.

One of these distributions was into Tetralogies, or groups of
four each. This was in substitution for the Trilogies Dramatic
introduced by Aristophanes or by Kallimachus, and _principle—
was founded upon the same dramatic analogy: the Τὸν ogies.

1Plgto, Pheedon, p. 59. Plato is Ita pears that this classification by
name also in the Apology: but this Thrasyl us was approved, or jointly
is a report, more or less exact, of the aarieaatr ἃ y bis contemporary Der-

real defence of Sokrates. lb Pinus, Εἰσαγωγὴ, 6. 4,
2 Diog. L. iii. 56; Themistius, Orat. py ΕΝ in F. Hermann’s / ppendix
viii. (Πεντετηρικὸς) p. 108 B. latonica.)

1—19

290 PLATONIC CANON. Cuap. VI.

dramas, which contended for the prize at the Dionysiac festivals,
having been sometimes exhibited in batches of three, or Trilogies,
sometimes in batches of four, or Tetralogies—three tragedies,
along with a satirical piece as accompaniment. Because the
dramatic writer brought forth four pieces at a birth, it was
assumed as likely that Plato would publish four dialogues all at
once. Without departing from this dramatic analogy, which
seems to have been consecrated by the authority of the Alexan-
drine Grammatici, Thrasyllus gained two advantages. First, he
included aux the Platonic compositions, whereas Aristophanes,
in his Trilogies, had included only a part, and had left the rest
not grouped. Thrasyllus included all the Platonic compositions,
thirty-six in number, reckoning the Republic, the Leges, and the
Epistole in bulk, each as one—in nine Tetralogies or groups of
four each. Secondly, he constituted his first tetralogy in an
impressive and appropriate manner—Euthyphron, Apology,
Kriton, Phedon—four compositions really resembling a dramatic
tetralogy, and bound together by their common bearing, on the
last scenes of the life of a philosopher! In Euthyphron, Sokrates
appears as having been just indicted and as thinking on his
defence ; in the Apology, he makes his defence ; in the Kriton,
he appears as sentenced by the legal tribunal, yet refusing to
evade the sentence by escaping from his prison ; in the Phedon,
we have the last dying scene and conversation. None of the
other tetralogies present an equal bond of connection between

group: but he condemns altogether the

1Diog. L. fil. 57. πρώτην μὲν οὖν
principle of the tet division.

τετραλογίαν τίθησι Thy κοινὴν ὑπόθεσιν ralogi
e does not mention the name of

éxoveay* παραδεῖξαι yap βούλεται ὅποιος
ἂν εἴη ὃ τοῦ ἐλοσόφον Bios. Albinus,
Introduct. ad Plat. c. 4, p. 149, in K. F.
Hermann’s Append. Platon.
Thrasyllus appears to have con-
sidered the Republic as ten dialogues
and the Leges as twelve, each book (of
Republic and of Leges) constituting
a@ separate dialogue, so that he made
the Platonic works fifty-six in all.
But for the purpose of his tetralogies
he reckoned them only as thirty-six—

© groups.
The author of the Prolegomena
τῆς Πλάτωνος Φιλοσοφίας in Hermann’s
Append. Platon. pp. 218-219, gives the
same account of the tetralogies, and of
the connecting bond which united the
our members of the first tetralogical

Thrasyllus. He lived after Proklus (p.
218), that is, after 480 A.D.

The argument urged by Wyttenbach
and others—that Varro must have con:
sidered the Phsedon as fourth in the
order of the Platonic compositions—an
argument founded on a passage in
Varro, L. L. vii. 37, which refers to
the Pheedon under the words Plato in
quarto—this argument becomes inappli-
cable in the text as given by O. Miller
—not Varro in quarto but Varro in quat-
tuor fluminibus, &. Mullach (Demo-
criti Frag. D. 98) has tried unsuccess-
fully to impugn Maller’s text, and to
uphold the word quarto with the infer-
ence resting upon it.

084". VI. PHILOSOPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 291

their constituent items; but the first tetralogy was probably
intended to recommend the rest, and to justify the system.

In the other distribution made by Thrasyllus,! Plato was
regarded not as a quasi-dramatist, butasa philosopher. phijogo.
The dialogues were classified with reference partly to pha rin-
their method and spirit, partly to their subject. His logues of
highest generic distinction was into :—1l. Dialogues Dislceaesof
of Investigation or Search. 2. Dialogues of Exposi- Exposition.
tion or Construction. The Dialogues of Investigation he
sub-divided into two classes:—1. Gymnastic. 2. Agonistic.
These were again subdivided, each into two sub-classes ; the
Gymnastic, into 1. Obstetric. 2. Peirastic. The Agonistic, into
1. Probative. 2. Refutative. Again, the Dialogues of Exposition
were divided into two classes: 1. Theoretical. 2. Practical.
Each of these classes was divided into two sub-classes: the
Theoretical into 1. Physical. 2. Logical. The Practical into 1.

Ethical. 2. Political.

The following table exhibits this philosophical classification of

Thrasyllus :—

1The statement in Diogenes Laer-
tius, in his life of Plato, is somewhat
obscure and equivocal ; but I think it
certain that the classification which he
ives in iii. 49, 50, 51, of the Platonic
ialogues, was made by Thrasyllus.
It isa portion of the same systematic
arrangement as that given somewhat
farther on (iii. 56-61), which is ascribed
by name to Thrasyllus, enumerating
the Tetralogies. iogenes expressly
states that Thrasyllus was the person
who annexed to each dialogue its
double denomination, which it has
since borne in the published editions—
Εὐθύφρων --- περὶ ὁσίου --- πειραστικός.
In the Dialogues of examination or
Search, one of these names is derived
from the subject, the other from the
method, as in the instance of Euthy-
hron just cited: in the Dialogues of
Exposition both names are derived
from the subject, first the special, next
the general. Φαίδων, ἢ περὶ ψυχῆς,
ἠθικός. Παρμενίδης, ἣ περὶ ἰδεῶν,

ἐκὸς,
hleiermacher (in the Einleitung
prefixed to his translation of Plato
p. 24) speaks somewhat loosel about
‘the well-known dialectical distribu-

tions of the Platonic dialogues, which
Diogenes has preserved wit out giving
the name of the author”. Diogenes
gives only one such dialecti (or
ogical) distribution; and though he
does not mention the name of Thra-
syllus in direct or immediate connec-
tion with it, we may clearly see that
he is copying Thrasyllus. is
well pointed out in an acute com-

mentary on Schleiermacher, by Yxem,
Logos Protreptikos, Berlin, 1841, p.
12-13.

Diogenes remarks (iii. 50) that the
distribution of the dialogues into nar-
'rative, dramatic, and mixed, is made
τραγικῶς μᾶλλον ἣ φιλοσόφως, This
remark would seem to apply more
precisely to the arrangement of the
ialogues into trilogies and tetralogies.
His word φιλοσόφως belongs very justly
to the logical distribution of Thrasyllus,
apart from the tetralogies.

Porphyry tells us that Plotinus did
not bestow any titles upon his own
discourses. The titles were bestowed
by his disciples; who did not always
agree, but gave different titles to the
ὟΝ discourse (Porphyry, Vit. Plotin.

292 PLATONIC CANON. Cuap, VL

TABLE I.

PHILOSOPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF THE WORKS OF
PLATO BY THRASYLLUS.

I. DraLocueEs or INVESTIGATION.
Searching Dialogues.
Ζητητικοί.

II. DraALocusEs or ΕἸΧΡΟΒΊΤΙΟΝ.
Guiding Dialogues.
Ὑφηγητικοί,

I. DIALOGUES OF INVESTIGATION.

Gymuastic. Agonistic.

! co πρίν ἢ
Μαιευτικοί. Πειραστικοί. Ἐνδεικτικοί. Ανατρεπτικοί.
Obstetric. Peirastic. Probative, Refutative.
Alkibiadés I. Charmidés, Protagoras, EKuthydémus.
Alkibiadés II. Menon, Gorgias,
Theagés, Ion. Hippias I.
Lachés, Kuthyphron. Hippias II.
Lysis. ΄

IJ. DraLoaues oF ΕἸΧΡΟΒΙΤΙΟΝ,
| -
Theoretical. Practical.
| δι ᾿
Φυσικοί. Λογικοί. Ἡθικοί. Πολιτικοί.
Physical, Logical. Ethical. Political.
Timeus, Kratylus. Apology. Republic.
Sophistés. Kriton. Kritias,
Politikus. Pheedon. Minos,
Parmenidés. Pheedrus, Leges.
Theeetétus. Symposion. Epinomis.
Menexenus.
Kleitophon,
Epistole.
Philébus.
Hipparchus.

Rivales.

Crap. VI.

TABLES OF CLASSIFICATION.

293

1 now subjoin a second Table, containing the Dramatic Distri-
bution of the Platonic Dialogues, with the Philosophical Distri-
bution combined or attached to it.

TABLE II.

DRAMATIC DISTRIBUTION.—PLATONIC DIALOGUES, AS
ARRANGED IN TETRALOGIES BY THRASYLLUS.

Tetralogy 1.
1, Euthyphron........ . On Holiness........ ΝΕ
2, ApologyofSokrates Ethical...............000
8, Kriton........ccsceees On Duty in Action....
4, Phedon..........000. On the Soul...........0.
2.
1. Kratylus..........06 On Rectitude in Nam-
ing
2, Theetétus........... On Knowledge .........
3. Sophistés ............ On Ens or the Existent
4, Politikus...........0. On the Art of Govern-
ing
3.
1. Parmenidés......... On Ideas........ccceceees
2. Philébus............. On Pleasure.............
3. Symposion .......... On Good........ccceeeseee
4, Phedrus .......000606 OM LOVC...cscecreceeeees
4,
1. Alkibiadés I. ..... .. On the Nature of Man
2. Alkibiadés II....... On Prayer........00000.
ὃ. Hipparchus......... On the Love of Gain..
4, Erastee...csessseceere On Philosophy.........
5.
1. Theagés.............. On Philosophy.........
2, Charmidés........... On Temperance......0.
ὃ. Lachés,........0ecee On Courage.......... tes
4. Lysis....ccccceseves ».» On Friendship .........
6.
1. Euthydémus........ The Disputatious Man
2, Protagoras......... The Sophists............
8. GOrgias......s.00 eee On Rhetoric.........00
4, Menon........0reres . On Virtue ............006

Peirastic or Testing.
Ethical.
Ethical.
Ethical.

Logical,

Logical,
Logical.
Logical.

Logical.
Ethical.
Ethical,
Ethical.

Obstetric or Evolving,
Obstetric.

Ethical,

Ethical.

Obstetric.
Peirastic,

Obstetric.
Obstetric.

Refutative,
Probative.
Refutative,
Peirastic.

294 PLATONIC CANON. CHap. VI.

7.
1, Hippiasl............ On the Beautiful ...... Refutative,
2. Hippias IT........... On Falsehood.,.......... Refutative.
8, ΙΟΏ......6 νυν εν cones On the Iliad ............ Peirastic.
4, Menexenus.......... The Funeral Oration.. Ethical.

; 8.

1. Kleitophon.......... The Impulsive ......... Ethical.
2. Republic............. On Justice.........seeeee Political.
3. Timeus...........0006 On Nature .............. Physical.
4, Kritias.........6cece0s The Atlantid....... »» Ethical.

9.
1. MinoS.........ceeees0e On Law.......ccceseseeee Political.
2. Leges .......ccsecceeee On Legislation ......... Political.
3. Epinomis ............ The Night-Assembly, Political.

or the Philosopher

4, Epistole XIII...... ose ees eee Ethical.

The second Table, as it here stands, is given by Diogenes
Laertius, and is extracted by him probably from the work of
Thrasyllus, or from the edition of Plato as published by Thra-
syllus. The reader will see that each Platonic composition has a
place assigned to it in two classifications—1. The dramatic—2.
The philosophical—each in itself distinct and independent of the
other, but here blended together.

We may indeed say more. The two classifications are not
Incongruity Only independent, but incongruous and even repug-
andrepug- nant. The better of the two is only obscurely and
nance of A imperfectly apprehended, because it is presented as
cations. = an appendage to the worse. The dramatic classifica-
tion, which stands in the foreground, rests upon a purely fanciful
analogy, determining preference for the number four. If indeed
this objection were urged against Thrasyllus, he might probably
have replied that the group of four volumes together was in
itself convenient, neither too large nor too small, for an elemen-
tary subdivision ; and that the fanciful analogy was an artifice
for recommending it to the feelings, better (after all) than selec-
tion of another number by haphazard. Be that as it may,
however, the fiction was one which Thrasyllus inherited from
Aristophanes : and it does some honour to his ability, that he has

Cuap. VI. THE TWO CLASSIFICATIONS REPUGNANT. 295

built, upon so inconvenient a fiction, one tetralogy (the first),
really plausible and impressive.’ | But it does more honour to his
ability that he should have originated the philosophical classifi-
cation ; distinguishing the dialogues by important attributes
truly belonging to each, and conducting the Platonic student to
points of view which ought to be made known to him. This
classification forms a marked improvement upon every thing (so
far as we know) which preceded it.

That Thrasyllus followed Aristophanes in the principle of his
classification, is manifest: that he adopted the dramatic p.. natic
ground and principle of classification (while amend- principle of

ing its details), not because he was himself guided by euaceet

it, but because he found it already in use and sanc- inherited by

: . . . rasyllus

tioned by the high authority of the Alexandrines— from risto-
Pp ΘΑ͂.

is also manifest, because he himself constructed and
tacked to it a better classification, founded upon principles new
and incongruous with the dramatic. In all this we trace the
established ascendancy of the Alexandrine library and its eminent
literati. Of which ascendancy a farther illustration appears,
when we read in Diogenes Laertius that editions of
Plato were published, carrying along with the text
the special marks of annotation applied by the Alex-
andrines to Homer and other poets: the obelus to
indicate a spurious passage, the obelus with two dots
to denote a passage which had been improperly
declared spurious, the X to signify peculiar locutions,
the double line or Diplé to mark important or charac-

Authority of
the Alexan-
drine
Library—
editions of
to pub-
lished, with
the Alex.
andrine
critical
marks.

Δ Τὸ is probable that Aristophanes,
in distributing Plato into trilogies,
was really influenced by the dramatic
form of the compositions to put them

lach, Democ. Frag.

attempts to restore

tetralogies.)
The compositions of Demokritus were

Pp. 100-107, who
he Thrasyllean

in a class with real dramas. But
Thrasyllus does not seem to have been
influenced by such a consideration.
He took the number four on its own
merits, and adopted, as a way of re-
commending it, the traditional ana-
logy sanctioned by the Alexandrine
librarians.

That such was the case, we may
infer pretty clearly when we learn,
that thrasyllus applied the same dis-
tribution (into tetralogies) to the works
of Demokritus, which were not dra-
matic in form. (Diog. L. ix. 45; Mul-

not merely numerous, but related to
the greatest diversity of subjects. To
them Thrasyllus could not apply the
same logical or philosophical distribu-
tion which he applied to Plato. He
published, along with the works of
emokritus, a preface, which he en-
titled Ta mpd τῆς ἀναγνώσεως τῶν
Anuoxpirov βιβλίων Diog, L. ix. 41).
Porphyry tells us, that when he
undertook, as literary executor, the
arrangement and publication of the
works of his deceased master Plotinus,
he found fifty-four discourses: which

296 PLATONIC CANON. Cuap, VI.

teristic opinions of Plato—and others in like manner. A special
price was paid for manuscripts of Plato with these illustrative
appendages :/ which must have been applied either by Alexan-
drines themselves, or by others trained in their school. When
Thrasyllus set himself to edit and re-distribute the Platonic
works, we may be sure that he must have consulted one or more
public libraries, either at Alexandria, Athens, Rome, Tarsus, or
elsewhere. Nowhere else could he find all the works together.
Now the proceedings ascribed to him show that he attached
himself to the Alexandrine library, and to the authority of its
most eminent critics.

Probably it was this same authority that Thrasyllus followed
in determining which were the real works of Plato,

Thrasylius ° : ᾿

followedthe and in setting aside pretended works. He accepted
Alexan- . . ἫΝ .

drine the collection of Platonic compositions sanctioned by
library and Aristophanes and recognised as such in the Alexan-
phanes, as drine library. As far as our positive knowledge goes,
Pldonio 10 fully bears out what is here stated : all the com-
works.

positions recognised by Aristophanes (unfortunately
Diogenes does not give a complete enumeration of those which
he recognised) are to be found in the catalogue of Thrasyllus.
And the evidentiary value of this fact is so much the greater,
because the most questionable compositions (I mean, those which
modern critics reject or even despise) are expressly included in

he arranged into six Enneads or groups
of nineeach. He was induced to prefer
this distribution, by regard to the per-
fection of the number six (τελειότητι).
He placed in each Ennead discourses
akin to each other, or on analogous
subjects (Porphyry, Vit. Plotin. 24).

1 Diog. L. iil, 65, 66. ᾿Επεὶ δὲ καὶ
σημεῖά τινα τοῖς βιβλίοις αὐτοῦ mapa-
τίθεται, φέρε καὶ περὶ τούτων τι εἴπωμεν,
ἄο. He then proceeds to enumerate
the σημεῖα, .

It is important to note that Diogenes
cites this statement (respecting the
peculiar critical marks appended to
Manuscripts of the Platonic works)
from Antigonus of Karystus in his
Life of Zeno the Stoic. Now the date
of Antigonus is placed by Mr. Fynes
Clinton in B.c. 225, before the death
of Ptolemy III. Euergetes (seo Fasti
Hellen. b.c. 225, also Appendix, 12, 80).

Antigonus must thus have been con-
temporary both with Kallimachus and
with Aristophanes of Byzantium: he
notices the marked manuscripts of
Plato as something newly edited—
(νεωστὶ ἐκδοθένταν: and we may thus
see that the work of critical marking
must have been performed either by
Kallimachus and Aristophanes them-
selves (one or both) or by some of their
contemporaries. Among the titles of
the lost treatises of Kallimachus, one is
—about the γλῶσσαι or peculiar phrases
of Demokritus. It is therefore nowa

improbable that Kallimachus should
have bestowed attention upon the pecu-
liarities of the Platonic text, and the in-
accuracies of manuscripts. The library
had probably acquired several different
manuscripts of the Platonic compo-
sitions, as it had of the Iliad and
Odyssey, and of the Attic tragedies,

Cuap. VL GENUINE PLATONIO WORKS. 997

the recognition of Aristophanes, and passed from him to Thra-
syllus—Leges, Epinomis, Minos, Epistole, Sophistés, Politikus.
Exactly on those points on which the authority of Thrasyllus
requires to be fortified against modern objectors, it receives all
the support which coincidence with Aristophanes can impart.
When we know that Thrasyllus adhered to Aristophanes on 80
many disputable points of the catalogue, we may infer pretty
certainly that he adhered to him in the remainder. In regard
to the question, Which were Plato’s genuine works? it was
perfectly natural that Thrasyllus should accept the recognition
of the greatest library then existing: a library, the written
records of which could be traced back to Demetrius Phalereus.
He followed this external authority: he did not take each dia-
logue to pieces, to try whether it conformed to a certain internal
standard—a “platonisches Gefitithl”—of his own.

That the question between genuine and spurious Platonic
dialogues was tried in the days of Thrasyllus, by ex-

. . . Ten spu-
ternal authority and not by internal feeling—we may rious dia-
see farther by the way in which Diogenes Laertius jected by all
speaks of the spurious dialogues. “The following other feet
dialogues (he says) are declared to be spurious by Thrasyllus
common consent: 1. Eryxias or Erasistratus. 2. Ake- τυ ene
phali or Sisyphus. 3. Demodokus. 4. Axiochus. 5. critics the
Halkyon. 6. Midon or Hippotrophus. 7. Pheeakes. common
8. Chelidon. 9. Hebdomé. 10. Epimenides.”! There Suthority
was, then, unanimity, so far as the knowledge of Dio- Alexandrine

genes Laertius reached, as to genuine and spurious.
All the critics whom he valued, Thrasyllus among them, pro-
nounced the above ten dialogues to be spurious: all of them
agreed also in accepting the dialogues in the list of Thrasyllus
as genuine.” Of course the ten spurious dialogues must have
been talked of by some persons, or must have got footing in some
editions or libraries, as real works of Plato: otherwise there
could have been no trial had or sentence passed upon them.

1 Diog. L. iii. 62: νοθεύονται δὲ τῶν
διαλόγων ὁμολογουμένως.

Compare Prolegomena τῆς Πλάτωνος
Φιλοσοφίας, in Hermann’s Appendix
Platonica, p. 219.

2It has been contended by some

modern critics, that Thrasyllus himself
doubted whether the Hipparchus was
Plato’s work. When I consider that
dialogue, I shall show that there is no
adequate ground for believing that
Thrasyllus doubted its genuineness,

298 PLATONIC CANON, Cuap. VL

But what Diogenes affirms is, that Thrasyllus and all the
critics whose opinion he esteemed, concurred in rejecting them.
We may surely presume that this unanimity among -the critics,
both as to all that they accepted and all that they rejected, arose
from common acquiescence in the authority of the Alexandrine
library.!. The ten rejected dialogues were not in the Alexandrine
library—or at least not among the rolls therein recognised as
Platonic.

If Thrasyllus and the others did not proceed upon this
evidence in rejecting the ten dialogues, and did not

Thrasyll . .

didnct find in them any marks of time such as to exclude
internal the supposition of Platonic authorship—they decided
sentiment upon what is called internal evidence: a critical
in rejecting Sentiment, which satisfied them that these dialogues
or eens, did not possess the Platonic character, style, manner,

doctrines, merits, ὅθ. Now I think it highly im-
probable that Thrasyllus could have proceeded upon any such
sentiment. For when we survey the catalogue of works which
he recognised as genuine, we see that it includes the widest
diversity of style, manner, doctrine, purpose, and merits: that
the disparate epithets, which he justly applies to discriminate
the various dialogues, cannot be generalised so as to leave any
intelligible “ Platonic character” common to all. Now since
Thrasyllus reckoned among the genuine works of Plato, composi-
tions so unlike, and so unequal in merit, as the Republic, Prota-
goras, Gorgias, Lysis, Parmenidés, Symposion, Philébus, Menexe-
nus, Leges, Epinomis, Hipparchus, Minos, Theagés, Epistole,
&c., not to mention a composition obviously unfinished, such as
the Kritias—he could have little scruple in believing that Plato
also composed the Eryxias, Sisyphus, Demodokus, and Halkyon.
These last-mentioned dialogues still exist, and can be appre-
ciated.2 Allowing, for the sake of argument, that we are en-

1 Diogenes (ix. 49) uses the same
phrase in regard to the spurious works
ascribed to mokritus, τὰ δ᾽ opodo-

ουμένως ἐστὶν ἀλλότρια. And I believe
at he means the same thing by it : that
the works alluded to were not recognised
in the Alexandrine library as belonging
to Demokritus, and were according!
excluded from the tetralogies (of De-
mokritus) prepared by Thrasyllus.

2The Axiochus, Eryxias, Sisyphus,
and Demodokus, are printed as Apo-
crypha annexed to most editions of
Plato, together with two other dia-
logues entitled De Justo and De Vir-
tute. The Halkyon has generally ap-
eared among the works of Lucian, but
K. F. Hermann has recently printed it
in his edition of Plato among the
Platonic Apocrypha.

Cap. VI. RESULTS. 299’

titled to assume ovr own sense of worth as a test of what is
really Plato’s composition, it is impossible to deny, that if these
dialogues are not worthy of the author of Republic and Prota-
goras, they are at least worthy of the author of the Leges,
Epinomis, Hipparchus, Minos, &c. Accordingly, if the internal
sentiment of Thrasyllus did not lead him to reject these last
four, neither would it lead him to reject the Eryxias, Sisyphus,
and Halkyon. I conclude therefore that if he, and all the other
critics whom Diogenes esteemed, agreed in rejecting the ten
dialogues as spurious—their verdict depended not upon any
internal sentiment, but upon the authority of the Alexandrine
library.’

On this question, then, of the Canon of Plato’s works (as com-
pared with the works of other contemporary authors)

‘ . . . Results as
recognised by Thrasyllus—I consider that its claim to the trust-
; : : : : worthiness
to trustworthiness is very high, as including all the δε πο Thra-
genuine works, and none but the genuine works, of 5 jilean

Plato: the following facts being either proved, or
fairly presumable.

1. The Canon rests on the authority of the Alexandrine
library and its erudite librarians ;? whose written records went

The Axiochus contains a mark of
time (the mention of ᾿Ακαδημία and
Avxetoy, p. 367), as Ε΄ ΙΑ. Wolf has
observed, proving that it was not com-
posed until the Platonic and Peri-

atetic schools were both of them in
ull establishment at Athens—that is,
certainly after the death of Plato, and
probably after the death of Aristotle.
t is possible that Thrasyllus may have
proceeded upon this evidence of time,
at least as collateral proof, in pronoun-
cing the dialogue not to be the work of
Plato. The other four dialogues con-
tain no similar evidence of date.

Favorinus affirmed that Halkyon
was the work of an author named

Leon.

Some said (Diog. L. fii. 37) that Phi-
lippus of Opus, one of the disciples of
Fizto, transcribed the Leges, ‘which
were on waxen tablets (ἐν κηρῷ , and
that the Epinomis was his work (τούτον
δὰ καὶ τὴν ᾿Επινομίδα φασὶν εἶναι, It
was robably the work of Philippus
only In the sense in which the Leges
were his work-—that he made a fair
and durable copy of parts of it from the

wax. Thrasyllus admitted it with the
rest as Platonic.

1 Mullach (Democr. Fragm. p. 100)
accuses Thrasyllus of an entire wan
of critical sentiment, and pronounces
his catalogue to be altogether without
value as an evidence of genuine Pla-
tonic works—because Thrasyllus ad-
mits many dialogues, ‘‘quos doctorum
nostri sseculi virorum acumen ὃ libro-
rum Platonicorum numero exemit ”.

This observation exactly illustrates
the conclusion which I desire to bring
out. I admit that Thrasyllus had a
critical sentiment different from that of
the modern Platonic commentators ;
but I believe that in the present case
he proceeded upon other evidence—
recognition by the Alexandrine library.
My difference with Mullach is, that I
consider this recognition (in a question
of genuine or spurious) as more trust-
worthy evidence than the critical senti-
ment of modern literati.

2Suckow adopts and defends the
opinion here stated—that Thrasyllus,
in determining which were the genuine
works of Plato and which were not

300 PLATONIC CANON. Cuap. VI.

back to the days of Ptolemy Soter, and Demetrius Phalereus,
within a generation after the death of Plato.

2. The manuscripts of Plato at his death were preserved in
the school which he founded ; where they continued for more
than thirty years under the care of Speusippus and Xeno-
krates, who possessed personal knowledge of all that Plato had
really written. After Xenokrates, they came under the care of
Polemon and the succeeding Scholarchs, from whom Demetrius
Phalereus probably obtained permission to take copies of them
for the nascent museum or library at Alexandria—or through
whom at least (if he purchased from booksellers) he could easily
ascertain which were Plato’s works, and which, if any, were
spurious.

3. They were received into that library without any known
canonical order, prescribed system, or interdependence essential
to their being properly understood. Kallimachus or Aristo-
phanes devised an order of arrangement for themselves, such as
they thought suitable.

genuine, was guided mainly by the This goes far to make out the pre-
authority of the Alexandrine library sumption which I have endeavoured
and librarians (G. F. W. Suckow, Form to establish in favour of the Canon re-
der Platonischen Schriften, pp, 170- cognised by Thrasyllus, which, how-
3175). Ueberweg admits this opinionas ever, these two authors do not fully
just (Untersuchungen, p. 195). admit.

Suckow farther considers (p. 175 K. F. Hermann, too (see Gesch. und
that the catalogue of works of esteemed Syst. der Platon. Philos. p. 44), argues
authors, deposited in the Alexandrine sometimes strongly in favour of this
library, may be regarded as dating from presumption, though elsewhere he en-
the Πίνακες of imachus, irely departs from it.

CuaP. VIL MODERN CRITICISM. 301

CHAPTER VII.

PLATONIC CANON AS APPRECIATED AND MODIFIED BY
MODERN CRITICS,

THE Platonic Canon established by Thrasyllus maintained its
authority until the close of the last century, in regard

ws ge . The C

to the distinction between what was genuine and of Thrasyl-

spurious. The distribution indeed did not continne PSP 4,

to be approved : the Tetralogies were neglected, and generally

. . acknow-

the order of the dialogues varied : moreover, doubts ledged by

were intimated about Kleitophon and Epinomis. the Neo.

But nothing was positively removed from, or posi- as well as.

tively added to, the total recognised by Thrasyllus. andthe

The Neo-Platonists (from the close of the second succeeding

century B.c., down to the beginning of the sixth the revival
of learning.

century A.D.) introduced a new, mystic, and theologi-
eal interpretation, which often totally changed and falsified
Plato’s meaning. Their principles of interpretation would have
been strange and unintelligible to the rhetors Thrasyllus and
Dionysius of Halikarnassus—or to the Platonic philosopher
Charmadas, who expounded Plato to Marcus Crassus at Athens.
But they still continued to look for Plato in the nine Tetralogies
of Thrasyllus, in each and all of them. So also continued
Ficinus, who, during the last half of the fifteenth century, did 80
much to revive in the modern world the study of Plato. He
revived along with it the neo-platonic interpretation. The
Argumenta, prefixed to the different dialogues by Ficinus, are
remarkable, as showing what an ingenious student, interpreting
in that spirit, discovered in them.

But the scholars of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth
centuries, speaking generally—-though not neglecting these neo-

302 PLATONIO CANON. Cuap. VII.

platonic refinements, were disposed to seek out, wherever they
could find it, a more literal interpretation of the Platonic text,
correctly presented and improved. The next great edition of the
works of Plato was published by Serranus and Stephens, in the
latter portion of the sixteenth century.

Serranus distributed the dialogues of Plato into six groups
Serranus— which he called Syzygies. In his first Syzygy were
his six Sy- comprised Euthyphron, Apologia, Kriton, Phxedon
Ree (coinciding with the first Tetralogy of Thrasyllus),
gate Canon ag setting forth the defence of Sokrates and of his
Tocnanges, doctrine. The second Syzygy included the dia-
τιὐπιροτῖ. logues introductory to philosophy generally, and
si ned tothe impugning the Sophists—Theagés, Eraste, Thee-

" tétus, Sophistés, Euthydémus, Protagoras, Hippias IT.
In the third Syzygy were three dialogues considered as bearing
on Logic—Kratylus, Gorgias, Ion. The fourth Syzygy contained
the dialogues on Ethics generally—Philébus, Menon, Alki-
biadés I. ; on special points of Ethics—Alkibiadés II., Char-
midés, Lysis, Hipparchus ; and on Politics—Menexenus, Politi-
kus, Minos, Republic, Leges, Epinomis. The fifth Syzygy
included the dialogues on Physics, and Metaphysics (or Theology)
—Timeus, Kritias, Parmenidés, Symposion, Pheedrus, Hippias
II. In the sixth Syzygy were ranged the thirteen Epistles, the
various dialogues which Serranus considered spurious (Kleito-
phon among them, which he regarded as doubtful), and the
Definitions.

Serranus, while modifying the distribution of the Platonic
works, left the entire Canon very much as he found it. So it
remained throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries :
the scholars who devoted themselves to Plato were content with
improvement of the text, philological illustration, and citations
from the ancient commentators. But the powerful impulse,
given by Kant to the speculative mind of Europe during the last
quarter of the eighteenth century, materially affected the point
of view from which Plato was regarded. Tennemann, both in
his System of the Platonic Philosophy, and in dealing with Plato
as a portion of his general history of philosophy, applied the
doctrines of Kant largely and even excessively to the exposition
of ancient doctrines. Much of his comment is instructive,

SERRANUS—TENNEMANN—-SCHLEIERMACHER.

Cuar. VII. 303

greatly surpassing his predecessors. Without altering the
Platonic Canon, he took a new view of the general purposes of
Plato, and especially he brought forward the dialogue Phedrus
into a prominence which had never before belonged to it, as an
index or key-note (ἐνδόσιμον) to the whole Platonic series.
Shortly after Tennemann, came Schleiermacher, who introduced
a theory of his own, ingenious as well as original, which has
given a new turn to all the subsequent Platonic criticism.
Schleiermacher begins by assuming two fundamental pos-

tulates, both altogether new. 1. A systematic unity
Schleier-

of philosophic theme and purpose, conceived by
Plato in his youth, at first obscurely—afterwards
worked out through successive dialogues ; each dia-
logue disclosing the same purpose, but the later dis-
closing it more clearly and fully, until his old age.

2, A peremptory, exclusive, and intentional order Ὁ

macher—
new theory
about the
urposes of
lato. One
philosophi-
cal scheme,
conceived
y Plato

from the
beginning
—essential
order and
interde-
pendence
of the dia-
logues, as
contribut-
ing to the
full execu-
tion of this
scheme.
Some dia-
logues not
constituent
items in the
eories, but
in ong:
ade of it. ξ
Order of ar-
rangement.

of the dialogues, composed by Plato with a view
to the completion of this philosophical scheme.
Schleiermacher undertakes to demonstrate what this
order was, and to point out the contribution brought
by each successive dialogue to the accomplishment
of Plato’s premeditated scheme.

To those who understand Platv, the dialogues them-
selves reveal (so Schleiermacher affirms) their own
essential order of sequence—their own mutual rela-
tions of antecedent and consequent. Each presup-
poses those which go before: each prepares for those
which follow. Accordingly, Schleiermacher distri-
butes the Platonic dialogues into three groups: the
first, or elementary, beginning with Phedrus, fol-
lowed by Lysis, Protagoras, Lachés, Charmidés, Euthyphron,
Parmenidés: the second, or preparatory, comprising Gorgias,
Theetétus, Menon, Euthydémus, Kratylus, Sophistés, Politikus,
Symposion, Phedon, Philébus: the third, or constructive, in-
cluding Republic, Timeeus, and Kritias. These groups or files
are all supposed to be marshalled under Platonic authority : both
the entire files as first, second, third—and the dialogues compos-
ing each file, carrying their own place in the order, imprinted in
visible characters. But to each file, there is attached what

304 PLATONIC CANON. CuapP. VII.

Schleiermacher terms an Appendix, containing one or more
dialogues, each a composition by itself, and lying not in the
series, but alongside of it (Neben-werke). The Appendix to the
first file includes Apologia, Kriton, Ion, Hippias II., Hipparchus,
Minos, Alkibiadés II. The Appendix to the second file consists
of—Theagés, Eraste, Alkibiadés I., Menexenus, Hippias [,
Kleitophon. That of the third file consists of the Leges. The
Appendix is not supposed to imply any common positive charac-
ter in the dialogues which it includes, but simply the negative
attribute of not belonging to the main philosophical column, be-
sides a greater harmony with the file to which it is attached than
with the other two files. Some dialogues assigned to the
Appendixes are considered by Schleiermacher as spurious ; some
however he treats as compositions on special occasions, or adjuncts
to the regular series. To this latter category belong the Apologia,
Kriton, and Leges. Schleiermacher considers the Charmidés to
have been composed during the time of the Anarchy, B.c. 404:
the Pheedrus (earliest of all), in Olymp. 93 (B.c. 406), two years
before :! the Lysis, Protagoras, and Lachés, to lie between them
in respect of date.

Such is the general theory of Schleiermacher, which presents
Theory of t0 us Plato in the character of a Demiurgus, contem-
Ast—he plating from the first an Idea of philosophy, and
denies the . . . .
reality of constructing a series of dialogues (like a Kosmos of
any ved schieiermacher), with the express purpose of giving
scheme— embodiment to it as far as practicable. We next
oes come to Ast, who denies this theory altogether. Ac-
loguesa8 cording to Ast, there never was any philosophical
philosophi- system, to the exposition and communication of
cal dramas. which each successive dialogue was deliberately in-
tended to contribute: there is no scientific or intentional
connection between the dialogues,—no progressive arrangement
of first and second, of foundation and superstructure: there is no
other unity or connecting principle between them than that
which they involve as all emanating from the same age, country,
and author, and the same general view of the world (Welt-
Ansicht) or critical estimate of man and nature.?_ The dialogues

1Schleierm. vol. i. p. 72; vol. ii. p. 8 2Ast, Leben und Schriften Platon’s, p. 40,

CuHaP. VIL. THEORY OF AST. 305

are dramatic (Ast affirms), not merely in their external form, but
in their internal character: each is in truth a philosophical
drama.! Their purpose is very diverse and many-sided: we
mistake if we imagine the philosophical purpose to stand alone.
If that were so (Ast argues), how can we explain the fact, that in
most of the dialogues there is no philosophical result at all?
Nothing but a discussion without definite end, which leaves
every point unsettled.? Plato is poet, artist, philosopher, blended
m one. He does not profess to lay down positive opinions. Still
less does he proclaim his own opinions as exclusive orthodoxy,
to be poured ready-prepared into the minds of recipient pupils.
He seeks to urge the pupils to think and investigate for them-
selves. He employs the form of dialogue, as indispensable to
generate in their minds this impulse of active research, and to
arm them with the power of pursuing it effectively.2 But each
Platonic dialogue is a separate composition in itself, and each of
the greater dialogues is a finished and symmetrical whole, like a
living organism 4

Though Ast differs thus pointedly from Schleiermacher in the

enunciation of his gencral principle, yet he approxi- His order of

mates to him more nearly when he comes to detail: et*°y.
for he recognises three classes of dialogues, succeeding admits only
. \ : . fourteen
each other in a chronological order verifiable (as he dialogues
i : j 1 ; as genuine,
thinks) by the dialogues themselves. His first class rejecting all
(in which he declares the poetical and dramatic ele-_ the rest.

ment to be predominant) consists of Protagoras, Phadrus, Gor-
gias, Phedon. His second class, distinguished by the dialectic
element, includes Theztétus, Sophistés, Politikus, Parmenidés,
Kratylus. His third class, wherein the poetical and dialectic

8 Ast, ib. p. 42.

4 Ast, pp. 38, 39. The general view
here taken by Ast—dweiling upon the
separate individuality as well as upon
the dramatic character of each dialogue
—calling attention to the purpose of
intellectual stimulation, and of reason-
ing out different aspects of ethical and
dialectical questions, as distinguished
from endoctrinating purpose—this gene-
ral view coincides more nearly with
my own than that of any other critic.
But Ast does not follow it out ccn-

sistently. If he were consistent with it,
he ought to be more catholic than other
critics, in admitting a large and unde-
finable diversity in the separate Pla-
tonic manifestations: instead of which,
he is the most sweeping of all repu-
diators, on internal grounds, Heis not
even satisfied with the Parmenides as
it now stands; he insists that what is
now the termination was not the real
and original termination; but that
Plato must have appended to the dia-
logue an explanation of its ἀπορίαι,
puzzles, and antinomies; which ex-
planation is now lost.

1—20

306 PLATONIC CANON. CuapP. VII.

element are found both combined, embraces Philébus, Symposion,
Republic, Timzeus, Kritias. These fourteen dialogues, in Ast’s
view, constitute the whole of the genuine Platonic works. All
the rest he pronounces to be spurious. He rejects Leges, Epino-
mis, Menon, Euthydémus, Lachés, Charmidés, Lysis, Alkibiadés
I. and II., Hippias I. and IL, Ion, Erastz, Theagés, Kleitophon,
Apologia, Kriton, Minos, Epistole—together with all the other
dialogues which were rejected in antiquity by Thrasyllus.
Lastly, Ast considers the Protagoras to have been composed in
408 B.c., when Plato was not more than 21 years of age—the
Pheedrus in 407 B.c.—the Gorgias in 404 8.0.1

Socher agrees with Ast in rejecting the fundamental hypo-
Socher thesis of Schleiermacher— that of a preconceived
agrees with scheme systematically worked out by Plato. But on
denyingpre- many points he differs from Ast no less than from
conceived Schleiermacher. He assigns the earliest Platonic

his arran e- composition (which he supposes to be Theagés), to a
dialogues, date preceding the battle of Arginuse, in 406 B.c.,
differing when Plato was about 22-23 years of age? Assuming
Ast and it as certain that Plato composed dialogues during the
macher—he lifetime of Sokrates, he conceives that the earliest of
rejects a8 them would naturally be the most purely Sokratic in

rmenidés, respect of theme,—as well as the least copious, com-
Sophistés, . . . . .
Politikus, prehensive, and ideal, in manner of handling. During
KL many the six anda half years between the battle of Argi-
others. nus and the death of Sokrates, Socher registers the
following succession of Platonic compositions :—Theagés, Lachés,
Hippias 11., Alkibiadés I., Dialogus de Virtute (usually printed
with the spurious, but supposed by Socher to be a sort of pre-
paratory sketch for the Menon), Menon, Kratylus, Euthyphron.
These three last he supposes to precede very shortly the death of
Sokrates. After that event, and very shortly after, were com-
posed the Apologia, Kriton, and Phedon.

These eleven dialogues fill up what Socher regards as the first
period of Plato’s life, ending when he was somewhat more than

thirty years of age. The second period extends to the commence-

he year of Plato’s birth: I think 407

ratte Leben und Schriften Platon’s, p. 102. These critics adopt 409 B.C. as
p.876.
2Socher, Ueber Platon’s Schriften, B.C. is the true year.

Cuap. VII. SOCHER—HERMANN—STALLBAUM. 307

ment of his teaching at the Academy, when about 41 or 42 years
old (z.c. 386). In this second period were composed Ion, Euthy-
démus, Hippias I., Protagoras, Thesetétus, Gorgias, Philébus—in
the order here set forth. During the third period of Plato’s life,
continuing until he was 65 or more, he composed Pheedrus,
Menexenus, Symposion, Republic, Timeus. To the fourth and
last period, that of extreme old age, belongs the composition of
the Leges.!

Socher rejects as spurious—Hipparchus, Minos, Kleitophon,
Alkibiadés IL, Erastz, Epinomis, Epistole, Parmenidés, So-
phistés, Politikus, Kritias: also Charmidés, and Lysis, these two

last however not quite so decisively.

Both Ast and Schleiermacher consider Phedrus
tagoras as among the earliest compositions of Plato.
Herein Socher dissents from them. He puts Prota-
goras into the second period, and Pheedrus into the
third. But the most peculiar feature in his theory
is, that he rejects as spurious Parmenidés, Sophistés,
Politikus, Kritias,

From Schleiermacher, Ast, and Socher, we pass to
K. F. Hermann?—and to Stallbaum, who has prefixed
Prolegomena to his edition of each dialogue. Both
these critics protest against Socher’s rejection of the
four dialogues last indicated: but they agree with
Socher and Ast in denying the reality of any pre-
conceived system, present to Plato’s mind in his first
dialogue, and advanced by regular steps throughout
each of the succeeding dialogues. The polemical tone
of K. F. Hermann against this theory, and against
Schleiermacher, its author, is strenuous and even
unwarrantably bitter.2 Especially the position laid

1 Socher, Ueber Platon’s Schriften,

pp. 301-459-460.
2K. F. Hermann, Geschichte und

Sophisten, der sich in

Unwahrhaftigkeit gefalle,
als einen Mann, der innerlich wohl wisse,

and Pro-

Schleier-
macher and
Ast both
consider
Pheedrus
and Pro-
tagoras as
early com-
ositions—
ocher puts
Protagoras
into the se-
cond period,
Phedrus
into the
third.

K. F. Her-
mann—
Stallbaum
—both of
them con-
sider the
Pheedrus ag
a late dia-
logue—both
of them
deny pre-
conceived

absichtlicher
mitunter fast

System der Platonischen Philosophie,

. 868, seq. Stallbaum, Disputatio de
Piatonis Fite et Scripts, prefixed to
his edition of Plato’s Works, p. xxxii.,

neq.

Ueberweg (Untersuchungen, pp.
50-52) has collected several citations
from K. Ε΄ Hermann, in which the
latter treats Schleiermacher “‘ wie einen

wie die Sache stehe (ndmlich, dass sie
so sei, wie Hermann lehrt), der sich
aber, etwa aus Lust, seine tiberlegene
Dialektik zu beweisen, Miihe gebe, sie
in einem anderen Lichte erscheinen zu
lassen; also—rdv ἥττω λόγον κρείττω
movecv—recht in rhetorisch sophistis-
cher Manier.”

We know well, from other and inde-

308 PLATONIC CANON. Cuap. VII.

order and down by Schleiermacher—that Pheedrus is the earliest
their ar- of Plato’s dialogues, written when he was 22 or 23
rangements years of age, and that the general system presiding
logues— over all the future dialogues is indicated therein as
they admit ; .
new and even then present to his mind, afterwards to be
philosophi- worked out—is controverted by Hermann and Stall-
cal points baum no less than by Ast and Socher. All three
concur in the tripartite distribution of the life of
Plato. But Hermann thinks that Plato acquired gradually and

successively, new points of view, with enlarged philosophical
development: and that the dialogues as successively composed
are expressions of these varying phases. Moreover, Hermann
thinks that such variations in Plato’s philosophy may be ac-
counted for by external circumstances. He reckons Plato’s first
period as ending with the death of Sokrates, or rather at an
epoch not long after the death of Sokrates : the second as ending
with the commencement of Plato’s teaching at the Academy,
after his return from Sicily—about 385 B.c.: the third, as extend-
ing from thence to his old age. To the first, or Sokratic stadium,
Hermann assigns the smaller dialogues: the earliest of which he
declares to be—Hippias IT., Ion, Alkibiadés I., Lysis, Charmidés,
Lachés : after which come Protagoras and Euthydémus, wherein
the batteries are opened agrinst the Sophists, shortly before the
death of Sokrates. Inimediately after the last mentioned event,
come a series of dialogues reflecting the strong and fresh impres-
sion left by it upon Plato’s mind—Apologia, Kriton, Gorgias,
Euthyphron, Menon, Hippias I.—occupying a sort of transition
stage between the first and the second period. We now enter
upon the second or dialectic period ; passed by Plato greatly at

pendent evidence, what Schleiermacher

independent evidence (except the ge-
really was,—that he was not only one

neral fact that they had a number of

of the most accomplished scholars, but
one of the most liberal and estimable
men of his age. But how different
would be our appreciation if we had
no other evidence to judge by except
the dicta of opponents, and even dis-
tinguished opponents, like Hermann!
here be any point clear in the his-
tory of philosophy, it is the uncertainty
of all judgments, respecting writers and
thinkers, founded upon the mere alle-
gations of opponents. Yet the Athenian
ophists, respecting whom we have no

approvers and admirers), are depicted
confidently by the Platonic critics in
the darkest colours, upon the evidence
of their bitter opponent Plato—and in
colours darker than even his evidence
warrants. The often-repeated calumny,
charged against almost all debaters—
τὸ τὸν ἥττω λόγον κρείττω Tovetv—by
Hermann against Schleiermacher, by
Melétus against Sokrates, by Plato
against the Sophists—ig believed only
against these last.

CuapP. VII. HERMANN—STALLBAUM—STEINHART.

309

Megara, and influenced by the philosophical intercourse which
he there enjoyed, and characterised by the composition of
Thesetétus, Kratylus, Sophistés, Politikus, Parmenidés.! To the
third, or constructive period, greatly determined by the influence
of the Pythagorean philosophy, belong Phedrus, Menexenus,
Symposion, Phedon, Philébus, Republic, Timzus, Kritias: a
series composed during Plato’s teaching at the Academy, and
commencing with Phedrus, which last Hermann considers to be
a sort of (Antritts-Programme) inauguratory composition for the
opening of his school of oral discourse or colloquy. Lastly,
during the final years of the philosopher, after all the three
periods, come the Leges or treatise de Legibus: placed by itself
as the composition of his old age.

Hermann and Stallbaum reject (besides the dialogues already
rejected by Thrasyllus) Alkibiadés TL, Theagés, they reject
Erastx, ‘Hipparchus, Minos, Epinomis: Stallbaum_ several
rejects the Kleitophon: Hermann hesitates, and is “”°8"™*
somewhat inclined to admit it, as he also admits, to a consider-
able extent, the Epistles.?

Steinhart, in his notes and prefaces to H. Miiller’s translation
of the Platonic dialogues, agrees in the main with K. Steinhart—
Ἐς Hermann, both in denying the fundamental postu- rejecting
late of Schleiermacher, and in settling the genera] Schleier-
order of the dialogues, though with some difference

macher’s
fundamen-
as to individual dialogues. He considers Ion as the

tal postu-
late—his

1K. F. Hermann, Gesch. ἃ. Syst. ἃ.
Plat, Phil., p. 496, seq. Stallbaum (p.
xxxili.) places the Kratylus during the
lifetime of Sokrates, a little earlier than
Euthydémus and Protagoras, all three
of which he assigns to Olymp. 94, 402-
400 B.c. See also his Proleg. to
Kratylus, tom. v. ps 26.

Moreover, Stallbaum places the Me-
non and Ion about the same time—a
few months or weeks before the trial of
Sokrates (Proleg. ad Menonem, tom. vi.
pp. 20, 21; Proleg. ad Ionem, tom. iv.

. 289). He considers the Euthyphron
ἐν have been actually compased at the
moment to which it professes to refer
{viz., after Melétus had preferred his

ndictment against Sokra 8), and with
a view of defending Sokrates nst
the charge of impiety (Proleg. ad Eu-
thyphron. tom. vi. pp. 138-189-142).

He places the composition of the Char-
midés about six years before the death
of Sokrates (Proleg. ad Charm. p. 86).
He seems to consider, indeed, that the
Menon and Euthydémus were both
written for the purpose of defending
Sokrates : thus implying that they too
were written after the indictment was
preferred (Proleg. ad Euthyphron. p.
145

n regard to the date of the Euthy-
phron, Schleiermacher also had de-
clared, prior to Stallbaum, that it was
unquestionably (unstreitig) com
at a period between the indictment
and the trial of Sokrates (Einl, zum
Euthyphron, vol. ii. p. 58, of his transl.
of Plato).

2Stallbaum, p. xxxiv. Herman,
pp. 424, 425.

310 PLATONIC CANON. CuaP VIL.

arrange- _— earliest, followed by Hippias I., Hippias 11., Alki-
dinlo mee biadés I., Lysis, Charmidés, Lachés, Protagoras.
considers These constitute what Steinhart calls the ethico-
drusaslate Sokratical series of Plato’s compositions, having the
in ejects common attributes—That they do not step materially
several, beyond the philosophical range of Sokrates himself—
That there is a preponderance of the mimic and plastic element
—That they end, to all appearance, with unsolved doubts and
unanswered questions.! He supposes the Charmidés to have been
composed during the time of the Thirty, the Lachés shortly after-
wards, and the Protagoras about two years before the death of
Sokrates. He lays it down as incontestable that the Protagoras
was not composed after the death of Sokrates.2 Immediately
prior to this last-mentioned event, and posterior to the Prota-
goras, he places the Euthydémus, Menon, Euthyphron, Apologia,
Kriton, Gorgias, Kratylus: preparatory to the dialectic series
consisting of Parmenidés, Theztétus, Sophistes, Politikus, the
result of Plato’s stay at Megara, and contact with the Eleatic and
Megaric philosophers. The third series of dialogues, the mature
and finished productions of Plato at the Academy, opens with
Pheedrus. Steinhart rejects as spurious Alkibiades 11., Erastz,
Theagés, &c.

Another author, also, Susemihl, coincides in the main with
the principles of arrangement adopted by K. F. Hermann for the
Platonic dialogues. First in the order of chronological composi-
tion he places the shorter dialogues—the exclusively ethical,
P least systematic ; and he ranges them in a series

usemihl— . .. ΟΣ . f
coincides indicating the progressive development of Plato’s
flearee with mind, with approach towards his final systematic
KF. Her. conceptions? Susemihl begins this early series with
order ofar- Hippias II., followed by Lysis, Charmidés, Lachés,
rangement. Protagoras, Menon, Apologia, Kriton, Gorgias, Euthy-
phron. The seven first, ending with the Menon, he conceives to
have been published successively during the lifetime of Sokrates:
the Menon itself, during the interval between his indictment and

1590 Steinhart’s Proleg. to the p. 205.
Protag. vol. i. p. 430, of Miiller’s transl. 8 F, Susemihl, Die Genetische Ent-
΄ wickelung der Platonischen Philoso-

Plato.
2 Steinhart, Prolegg. to Charmidés, phie, Leipsic, 1855, p. 9.

Cuap. VII. SUSEMIHL—MUNK. 311

his death :1 the Apologia and Kriton, very shortly after his
death ; followed, at no long interval, by Gorgias and Euthy-
phron. 2 The Ion and Alkibiadés I. are placed by Susemihl
among the earliest of the Platonic compositions, but as not
belonging to the regular series. He supposes them to have
been called forth by some special situation, like Apologia and
Kriton, if indeed they be Platonic at all, of which he does not
feel assured.®

Immediately after Euthyphron, Susemih] places Euthydémus,
which he treats as the commencement of a second series of dia-
logues: the first series, or ethical, being now followed by the
dialectic, in which the principles, process, and certainty of cog-
nition are discussed, though in an indirect and preparatory way.
This second series consists of Euthydémus, Kratylus, Thesetétus,
Phedrus, Sophistés, Politikus, Parmenidés, Symposion, Phadon.
Through all these dialogues Susemihl professes to trace a thread
of connection, each successively unfolding and determining more
of the general subject: but all in an indirect, negative, round-
about manner. Allowing for this manner, Susemihl contends
that the dialectical counter-demonstrations or Antinomies, occu-
pying the last half of the Parmenidés, include the solution
of those difficulties, which have come forward in various
forms from the Euthydémus up to the Sophistés, against
Plato’s theory of Ideas.4 The Pheedon closes the series of dialec-
tic compositions, and opens the way to the constructive dialogues
following, partly ethical, partly physical—Philébus, Republic,
Timeeus, Kritias.© The Leges come last of all.

A more recent critic, Dr. Edward Munk, has broached a new
and very different theory as to the natural order of
the Platonic dialogues. Upon his theory, they were Edward
intended by Plato® to depict the life and working of adoptsa
a philosopher, in successive dramatic exhibitions, beatin of
from youth to old age. The different moments in the mapse

life of Sokrates, indicated in each dialogue, mark the founded

1 Susemihl, ibid. pp. 40-61-89, the Pheedon.

3 Susemihl, ib. PP. 118-125, 6 Dr. Edward Munk. Die natiirliche
8 Susemihl, ib. p Ordnung der Platonischen pehriften,
4 Susemihl, ib. Ῥ᾽ 356, 8 Berlin, 1867. His scheme of

seq.
5 Susemihl, 466-470. The first ment is explained generall 25-48,
volume of Suscmibl’s work ends with &c. *P 8 7, PP. ᾿

312

PLATONIC CANON. CuaP, VII.

upon the place which Plato intended it to occupy in the series.
period The Parmenidés is the first, wherein Sokrates is
Malogue introduced as a young man, initiated into philosophy
exhit its of by the ancient Parmenidés: the Pheedon is last, de-
philoso- scribing as it does the closing scene of Sokrates.
aah, ang Plato meant his dialogues to be looked at partly in
old age, of artistic sequence, as a succession of historical dramas

his arrange-

—partly in philosophical sequence, as a record of the
progressive development of his own doctrine: the

this prin. | two principles are made to harmonize in the main,
distin though sometimes the artistic sequence is obscured
ghronolo- for the purpose of bringing out the philosophical,
gicalorder sometimes the latter is partially sacrificed to the
of composi- 1 . .

tionfrom former. Taken in the aggregate, the dialogues from
the lace Parmenidés to Phedon form a Sokratic cycle, analo-
ate i the gous to the historical plays of Shakespeare, from
systematic King John to Henry VIII? But Munk at the same
Pp .

time contends that this natural order of the dialogues
—or the order in which Plato intended them to be viewed—is
not to be confounded with the chronological order of their com-
position.? The Parmenidés, though constituting the opening
Prologue of the whole cycle, was not composed first: nor the
Pheedon last. All of them were probably composed after Plato
had attained the full maturity of his philosophy: that is, pro-
bably after the opening of his school at the Academy in 386 B.c.
But in composing each, he had always two objects jointly in
view : he adapted the tone of each to the age and situation in
which he wished to depict Sokrates:* he commemorated, in
each, one of the past phases of his own philosophising mind.

The Cycle taken in its intentional or natural order, is dis-
tributed by Munk into three groups, after the Parmenidés as
general prologue.®

1. Sokratic or Indirect Dialogues.—Protagoras, Charmidés,
Lachés, Gorgias, Ion, Hippias I., Kratylus, Euthydémus, Sym-
posion.

1 Munk, ib. p. 20.
2 Munk, ib.

2 4 Munk, ib. p. 54; Preface, p. viii.
ἃ Munk’ ibid p. 27.

5 Munk, ib. p. 60.

MUNK—UEBERWEG. 313

Cnap. VII.

2. Direct or Constructive Dialogues.—Phedrus, Philébus, Re-
public, Timeus, Kritias.

3. Dialectic and Apologetic Dialogues——Menon, Thestétus,
Sophistés, Politikus, Euthyphron, Apologia, Kriton, Pheedon.

The Leges and Menexenus stand apart from the Cycle, as
compositions on special occasion. Alkibiadés I., Hippias IL,
Lysis, are also placed apart from the Cycle, as compositions
of Plato’s earlier years, before he had conceived the general
scheme of it.}

The first of the three groups depicts Sokrates in the full vigour
of life, about 35 years of age: the second represents him an
elderly man, about 60: the third, immediately prior to his
death.? In the first group he is represented as a combatant for
truth: in the second as a teacher of truth: in the third, as a
martyr for truth.®

Lastly, we have another German author still more recent,

Frederick Ueberweg, who has again investigated the
order and authenticity of the Platonic dialogues, in a
work of great care and ability: reviewing the theories
of his predecessors, as well as proposing various modi-
fications of his own. Ueberweg compares the dif-
ferent opinions of Schleiermacher and K. F. Hermann,
and admits both of them toa certain extent, each con-
current with and limiting the other.5 The theory of
a preconceived system and methodical series, proposed
by Schleiermacher, takes its departure from the
Phedrus, and postulates as an essential condition
that that dialogue shall be recognised as the earliest
composition. This condition Ueberweg does not
admit. He agrees with Hermann, Stallbaum, and

Views of
Ueberweg—
attempt
reconcile
Schleier-
macher and
Hermann—
admits the
precon-
ceived pur-
ose for the
ater dia-
logues,

foundation
of the
school, but
not for

the earlier.

others, in

referring the Phedrus to a later date (about 386 3.c.), shortly
after Plato had established his school in Athens, when he was
rather above forty years of age. At this period (Ueberweg thinks)
Plato may be considered as having acquired methodical views
which had not been present to him before; and the dialogues

1 Munk, ib. pp. 25-84.
2 Munk, ib. p. 26.
8 Munk, ib. p. 81.

4 Ueberweg, Untersuchungen.
5 Ueberweg, p. 111.
6 Ueberweg, pp. 23-26.

314 PLATONIC CANON. CHap. VII.

composed after the Pheedrus follow out, to a certain extent, these
methodical views. In the Phedrus, the Platonic Sokrates
delivers the opinion that writing is unavailing as a means of
imparting philosophy: that the only way in which philosophy
can be imparted is, through oral colloquy adapted by the teacher
to the mental necessities, and varying stages of progress, of each
individual learner: and that writing can only serve, after such
oral instruction has been imparted, to revive it if forgotten, in
the memory both of the teacher and of the learner who has been
orally taught. For the dialogues composed after the opening of
the school, and after the Phedrus, Ueberweg recognises the
influence of a preconceived method and of a constant bearing on
the oral teaching of the school: for those anterior to that date,
he admits no such influence: he refers them (with Hermann) to
successive enlargements, suggestions, inspirations, either arising
in Plato’s own mind, or communicated from without. Ueberweg
does not indeed altogether exclude the influence of this non-
methodical cause, even for the later dialogues: he allows its
operation to a certain extent, in conjunction with the methodical:
what he excludes is, the influence of any methodical or precon-
ceived scheme for the earlier dialogues.1 He thinks that Plato
composed the later portion of his dialogues (1.¢., those subsequent
to the Phedrus and to the opening of his school), not for the
instruction of the general reader, but as reminders to his disciples
of that which they had already learnt from oral teaching: and
he cites the analogy of Paul and the apostles, who wrote epistles
not to convert the heathen, but to admonish or confirm converts
already made by preaching,?

Ueberweg investigates the means which we possess, either from

1 Ueberweg, pp. 107-110-111. “Sind
beide Gesichtspunkte, der einer me-
thodischen Absicht und der einer
Selbst-Entwicklung Platon’s durchweg
mit einander zu verbinden, so liegt es
auch in der Natur der Sache und wird
auch von einigen seiner Nachfolger
(insbesondere nachdriicklich von Suse-
mihl) anerkannt, dass der erste Ge-
sichtspunkt vorzugsweise ftir die spit-
eren Schriften von der Grindung der
Schule an—der andere vorzugsweise fiir
die friiheren—gilt.”

3 Ueberweg, pp. 80-86 ‘‘Ist uusere

obige Deutung richtig, wonach Platon
nicht fir Fremde zur Belehrung, son-
dern wesentlich fiir seine Schiiler zur
Erinnerung an den miindlichen Unter-
richt, schrieb (wie die Apostel nicht fiir
Fremde zur Bekehrung, sondern fir die
christlichen Gemeinden zur Starke und
Lauterung, nachdem denselben der
Glaube aus der Predigt gekommen
war)—so folgt dass jede Argumenta-
tion, die au den Phaedrus gegriindet
wird, nur fir die Zeit gelten kann, in
welcher bereits die Platonische Schule

bestand.

Caap. VIL UEBERWEG,

external testimony (especially that of Aristotle) or
from internal evidence, of determining the authenticity
as well as the chronological order of the dialogues.
He remarks that though, in contrasting the expository
dialogues with those which are simply enquiring and
debating, we may presume the expository to belong
to Plato’s full maturity of life, and to have been pre-
ceded by some of the enquiring and debating—yet we
cannot safely presume all these latter to be of his
early composition. Plato may have continued to
compose dialogues of mere search, even after the time
when he began to compose expository dialogues,?

315

His opinions
as to au-
thenticity
and chrono-
logy of the
dialogues.
He rejects
ippias
ajor,
Eras
Theag: és,
Kleitophon,
Parme-
nidés: he is
inclined to
Eethyph
uthyphron
and Mb.

nexenus.
Ueberweg considers that the earliest of Plato’s dia- ᾿

logues are, Lysis, Hippias Minor, Lachés, Charmidés, Protagoras,
composed during the lifetime of Sokrates: next the Apologia,
and Kriton, nut long after his death. All these (even the Prota-
goras) he reckcns among the “lesser Platonic writings”? None
of them allude to the Platonic Ideas or Objective Concepts. The
Gorgias comes next, probably soon after the death of Sokrates, at
least at some time earlier than the opening of the school in 386
Β.0.3 The Menon and Ion may be placed about the same general
period. The Phesdrus (as has been already observed) is considered
by Ueberweg to be nearly contemporary with the opening of
the school: shortly afterwards Symposion and Euthydémus : ὅ at
some subsequent time, Republic, Timeus, Kritias, and Leges,
In regard to the four last, Ueberweg does not materially differ
from Schleiermacher, Hermann, and other critics: but on another
point he differs from them materially, viz.: that instead of placing
the Theetétus, Sophistés, and Politikus, in the Megaric period or
prior to the opening of the school, he assigns them (as well as the
Pheedon and Philébus) to the last twenty years of Plato’s life.
He places Pheedon later than Timeus, and Politikus later than
Pheedon: he considers that Sophistés, Politikus, and Philébus
are among the latest compositions of Plato.6 He rejects Hippias
Major, Erastz, Theagés, Kleitophon, and Parmenidés: he is

1 Ueberweg, p. 81.

2 Ueberweg, pp. 100-105-206. ‘Kine
Anzahl kleinerer Platonischer Schrif-
ep 99

8 Ueberweg, pp. 249-267-206.
4 Ueberweg, PP, 226, 227.

5 Ueberweg, p. 2

6 Ueberweg, pp. 20h. 202.

316 PLATONIC CANON. Crap. VII.

inclined to reject Euthyphron. He scarcely recognises Menex-
enus, in spite of the direct attestation of Aristotle, which attesta-
tion he tries (in my judgment very unsuccessfully) to invalidate.?
He recognises the Kratylus, but without determining its date.
He determines nothing about Alkibiadés I. and IT.

The works above enumerated are those chiefly deserving of
notice, though there are various others also useful,

Other Pla- ; . ΝΗ
tonic ‘critics amidst the abundance of recent Platonic criticism.
_— 2 1 - ᾿ Φ

nensions All these writers, Schleiermacher, Ast, Socher, K. F.
about 4 Hermann, Stallbaum, Steinhart, Susemihl, Munk,
order of the Ueberweg, have not merely laid down general
dialogues.

schemes of arrangement for the Platonic dialogues,
but have gone through the dialogues seriatim, each endeavouring
to show that his own scheme fits them well, and each raising
objections against the schemes earlier than his own. It is indeed
truly remarkable to follow the differences of opinion among these
learned men, all careful students of the Platonic writings. And
the number of dissents would be indefinitely multiplied, if we
took into the account the various historians of philosophy
during the last few years. Ritter and Brandis accept, in the
main, the theory of Schleiermacher: Zeller also, to a certain
extent. But each of these authors has had a point of view more’
or less belonging to himself respecting the general scheme and
purpose of Plato, and respecting the authenticity, sequence, and
reciprocal illustration of the dialogues.2

By such criticisms much light has been thrown on the dia-
Contrast of logues in detail. It is always interesting to read the

pointe of different views taken by many scholars, all careful
view in- students of Plato, respecting the order and relations
structive— . . .

but no solu. Of the dialogues: especially as the views are not
jion has merely different but contradictory, so that the weak
tained. points of each are put before us as well as the strong.

But as to the large problem which these critics have undertaken
to solve—though several solutions have been proposed, in favour

1 Ueberweg, pp. 143-176-222-250.

2 Socher remarks (Ueber, Platon. p.
225) (after enumerating twenty-two
dialogues of the Thrasyllean canon,
which he considers the earliest) that
of these twenty-two, there are only two
which have not been declared spurious

by some one or more critics. He then
proceeds to examine the remainder,
among which are Sophistés, Politikus,
Parmenidés. He (Socher) declares
these three last to be spurious, which
no critic had declared before.

Cuap. VIL CRITICAL DISSENSIONS—PROBLEM INSOLUBLE. 317

of which something may be urged, yet we look in vain for
any solution at once sufficient as to proof and defensible against
objectors.

It appears to me that the problem itself is one which admits of
no solution. Schleiermacher was the first who pro- m, pro-
posed it with the large pretensions which it has since blem in-

. capable of
embraced, and which have been present more or less olution.
to the minds of subsequent critics, even when they wolty ot
differ from him. He tells us himself that he comes the theory
forward as Restitutor Platonis, in a character which no COE ioe
one had ever undertaken before And he might macher—

τς . ἢ : slenderness
fairly have claimed that title, if he had furnished of his
proofs at all commensurate to his professions. As his proofs.
theory is confessedly novel as well as comprehensive, it required
greater support in the way of evidence. But when I read the
Introductions (the general as well as the special) in which such
evidence ought to be found, I am amazed to find that there is
little else but easy and confident assumption. His hypothesis is
announced as if the simple announcement were sufficient to
recommend it*—as if no other supposition were consistent with
the recognised grandeur of Plato as a philosopher—as if any one,
dissenting from it, only proved thereby that he did not under-
stand Plato. Yet so far from being of this self-recommending
character, the hypothesis is really loaded with the heaviest
antecedent improbability. That in 406 B.c., and at the age of
23, in an age when schemes of philosophy elaborated in detail
were unknown—Plato should conceive a vast scheme of philoso-
phy, to be worked out underground without ever being pro-
claimed, through numerous Sokratic dialogues one after the
other, each ushering in that which follows and each resting upon
that which precedes: that he should have persisted throughout
a long life in working out this scheme, adapting the sequence of
his dialogues to the successive stages which he had attained, so
that none of them could be properly understood unless when

1 Schleiermacher, Einleitung, ΒΡ. suchen zur Anordnung der Plato-
22-29. ‘Diese nattirliche Folge (der nischen Werke, ’ &c.

Platonischen Gesprache) wieder herzu- 2 What I say about Schleiermacher
stellen, cliess ist, wie jedermann sieht, here will be assented to by any one
eine Absicht, welche sich sehr weit who reads his Einleitung, pp. 10, 11,
entfernt von allen bisherigen Ver- seq.

318 PLATONIC CANON, Cuap. VII.

studied immediately after its predecessors and immediately before
its successors—and yet that he should have taken no pains to
impress this one peremptory arrangement on the minds of
readers, and that Schleiermacher should be the first to detect it—
all this appears to me as improbable as any of the mystic
interpretations of Jamblichus or Proklus, Like other improba-
bilities, it may be proved by evidence, if evidence can be
produced: but here nothing of the kind is producible. We are
called upon to grant the general hypothesis’ without proof,
and to follow Schleiermacher in applying it to the separate
dialogues,

Schleiermacher’s hypothesis includes two parts. 1. A pre-
Schleler- meditated philosophical scheme, worked out con-
machers tinuously from the first dialogue to the last. 2. A

hypothesis peremptory canonical order, essential to this scheme,

precon- and determined thereby. Now as to the scheme,
scheme, though on the one hand it cannot be proved, yet on

pet al the other hand it cannot be disproved. But as to
order 0 the canonical order, I think it may be disproved.
ondence We know that no such order was recognised in the
ae ae days of Aristophanes, and Schleiermacher himself

admits that before those days it had been lost. But
I contend that if it was lost within a century after the decease of
Plato, we may fairly presume that it never existed at all, as
peremptory and indispensable to the understanding of what Plato
meant. A great philosopher such as Plato (so Schleiermacher
argues) must be supposed to have composed all his dialogues with
some preconceived comprehensive scheme: but a great philoso-
pher (we may add), if he does work upon a preconceived scheme,
must surely be supposed to take some reasonable precautions to
protect the order essential to that scheme from dropping out of
sight. Moreover, Schleiermacher himself admits that there are
various dialogues which lie apart from the canonical order and
form no part of the grand premeditated scheme. The distinction
here made between these outlying compositions (Nebenwerke)
and the members of the regular series, is indeed altogether arbi-
trary: but the admission of it tends still farther to invalidate
the fundamental postulate of a grand Demiurgic universe of dia-

1 Schleiermacher, Einleitung, p. 24.

Cuap. VII, SCHLEIERMACHER’S HYPOTHESIS GRATUITOUS. 319

logues, each dovetailed and fitted into its special place among
the whole. The universe is admitted to have breaks: so that the
hypothesis does not possess the only merit which can belong to
gratuitous hypothesis—that of introducing, if granted, complete
symmetry throughout the phenomena.

To these various improbabilities we may add another—that

Schleiermacher’s hypothesis requires us to admit that Assump-
the Pheedrus is Plato’s earliest dialogue, composed {ons o
chleier-
about 406 B.c., when he was 21 years of age, on my macher re-
computation, and certainly not more than 23: that it #pocting the
admissible.

is the first outburst of the inspiration which Sokrates
had imparted to him,! and that it embodies, though in a dim and
poetical form, the lineaments of that philosophical system which
he worked out during the ensuing half century. That Plato at
this early age should have conceived so vast a system—that he
should have imbibed it from Sokrates, who enunciated no system,
and abounded in the anti-systematic negative—that he should
have been inspired to write the Phedrus (with its abundant
veins, dithyrambic,” erotic, and transcendental) by the conversa-
tion of Sokrates, which exhibited acute dialectic combined with
practical sagacity, but neither poetic fervour nor transcendental
fancy,—in all this hypothesis of Schleiermacher, there is nothing
but an aggravation of improbabilities.

Against such improbabilities (partly external partly internal)
Schleiermacher has nothing to set except internal wojnor
reasons : that is, when he shall have arranged the Schleier-

. . ς macher, nor
dialogues and explained the interdependence as well any other
as the special place of each, the arrangement will ee a
impress itself upon all as being the intentional work duced any
of Plato himself. But these “internal reasons” proof for
(innere Griinde), which are to serve as constructive
evidence (in the absence of positive declarations) of

proof for
an internal
Plato’s purpose, fail to produce upon other minds the

theory of
the Platonic
dialogues.

1See Schleiermacher’s Einleitung
to the Pheedrus: ‘‘ Der Phaidros, der
erste Ausbruch seiner Begeisterung
vom Sokrates”.

SIf we read Dionysius of Halikar-
nassus (De Admirab. Vi Dic. in De-
mosth. pp. 968-971, Reiske), we shall
find that rhetor pointing out the

Pheedrus as 2 signal example of Plato’s
departure from the manner and cha-
racter of Sokrates, and as a speci-
men of misplaced poetical exagge-
ration. Diksarchus formed the same
opinion about the Phedrus (Diog. L.

38).
3 See the general Einleitung, p. 11.

320 PLATONIC CANON, Cuap., VIL.

effect which Schleiermacher demands. If we follow them as
stated in his Introductions (prefixed to the successive Platonic
dialogues), we find a number of approximations and comparisons,
often just and ingenious, but always inconclusive for his point :
proving, at the very best, what Plato’s intention may possibly
have been—yet subject to be countervailed by other “internal
reasons” equally specious, tending to different conclusions. And
the various opponents of Schleiermacher prove just as much and
no more, each on behalf of his own mode of arrangement, by the
like constructive evidence—appeal to “internal reasons”. But
the insufficient character of these “internal reasons” is more
fatal to Schleiermacher than to any of his opponents: because
his fundamental hypothesis—while it is the most ambitious of
all and would be the most important, if it could be proved—
is at the same time burdened with the strongest antecedent im-
probability, and requires the amplest proof to make it at all
admissible.

Dr. Munk undertakes the same large problem as Schleier-
Munk’s macher. He assumes the Platonic dialogues to have
theoryis been composed upon a preconceived system, begin-
te ethos, ning when Plato opened his school, about 41 years
and the of age. This has somewhat less antecedent impro-
fous, era I bability than the supposition that Plato conceived
bo Benlvler- his system at 21 or 23 years of age. But it is just as

much destitute of positive support. That Plato in-
tended his dialogues to form a fixed series, exhibiting the succes-
sive gradations of his philosophical system—that he farther in-
tended this series to coincide with a string of artistic portraits,
representing Sokrates in the ascending march from youth to old
age, so that the characteristic feature which marks the place and
time of each dialogue, is to be found in the age which it assigns to
Sokrates—these are positions for the proof of which we are re-
ferred to “internal reasons”; but which the dialogues do not
even suggest, much less sanction.

In many dialogues, the age assigned to Sokrates is a circum-
The age stance neither distinctly brought out, nor telling on
assignedto the debate. It is true that in the Parmenidés he is
Sokratesin noted as young, and is made to conduct himself with

any dia- “δ ; :
logueisa the deference of youth, receiving hints and admoni-

Cuap. VIL. MUNK’S ARRANGEMENT UNTENABLE. 321

tions from the respected veteran of Elea. So too in circum-

the Protagoras, he is characterised as young, but aes

chiefly in contrast with the extreme and pronounced ™oment.

old age of the Sophist Protagoras: he does not conduct himself
like a youth, nor exhibit any of that really youthful or deferen-
tial spirit which we find in the Parmenidés ; on the contrary, he
stands forward as the rival, cross-examiner, and conqueror of the
ancient Sophist. On the contrary, in the Euthydémus,' Sokrates
is announced as old ; though that dialogue is indisputably very
analogous to the Protagoras, both of them being placed by Munk
in the earliest of his three groups. Moreover in the Lysis also,
Sokrates appears as old ;—here Munk escapes from the difficulty
by setting aside the dialogue as a youthful composition, not in-
cluded in the consecutive Sokratic Cycle.2 What is there to
justify the belief, that the Sokrates depicted in the Phedrus
(which dialogue has been affirmed by Schleiermacher and Ast,
besides some ancient critics, to exhibit decided marks of juveni-
lity) is older than the Sokrates of the Symposion? or that Sckrates
in the Philébus and Republic is older than in the Kratylus or
Gorgias? It is true that the dialogues Thextétus and Euthy-
phron are both represented as held a little before the death of
Sokrates, after the indictment of Melétus against him had already
been préferred. This isa part of the hypothetical situation, in
which the dialogists are brought into company. But there is
nothing in the two dialogues themselves (or in the Menon, which
Munk places in the same category) to betoken that Sokrates 18.
old. Holiness, in the Euthyphron—Knowledge, in the Thex-
tétus—is canvassed and debated just as Temperance and Courage
are debated in the Charmidés and Lachés. Munk lays it down
that Sokrates appears as a Martyr for Truth in the Euthyphron,
Menon, and Theetétus—and as a Combatant for Truth in the
Lachés, Charmidés, Euthydémus, &. But the two groups of
dialogues, when compared with each other, will not be found to
warrant this distinctive appellation. In the Apologia, Kriton,
and Phedon, it may be said with propriety that Sokrates is re-
presented as a martyr for truth: in all three he appears not

1 Kuthydémus, c. 4, p. 272. eyévapey ἐγώ τε, γέρων ἀνήρ, καὶ ὑμεῖς.
2 Lysis, p. 228, ad fin. Καταγέλαστοι goo Munk ἐν 26 ad p "e μ

1—21

322

PLATONIC CANON. CuapP, VII.

| merely as a talker, but as a personal agent: but this is not true
of the other dialogues which Munk places in his third group.
T cannot therefore accede to this “natural arrangement of the

Platonic dialogues,” assumed to have been intended

No inten-

tional se- by Plato, and founded upon the progress of Sokrates
interde. a8 he stands exhibited in each, from youth to age—
pendence which Munk has proposed in his recent ingenious
lognes, can volume. It is interesting to be made acquainted with

that order of the Platonic dialogues which any critical
student conceives to be the “natural order”. But in respect to
Munk as well as to Schleiermacher, I must remark that if Plato
had conceived and predetermined the dialogues, so as to be read
in one natural peremptory order, he would never have left that
order so dubious and imperceptible, as to be first divined by
critics of the nineteenth century, and understood by them too in
several different ways. If there were any peremptory and inten-
tional sequence, we may reasonably presume that Plato would
have made it as clearly understood as he has determined the se-
quence of the ten books of his Republic.

The principle of arrangement proposed by K. F. Hermann
Principle of (4pproved also by Steinhart and Susemihl) is not

arrange- = open to the same antecedent objection. Not ad-
ment adopt- ΝΕ . . . :

ed by Her- mitting any preconceived, methodical, intentional,
able ©8Ystem, nor the maintenance of one and the same
successive philosophical point of view throughout—Hermann
en Plato's supposes that the dialogues as successively com-
point of . ἢ 0.
Pow: but posed represent successive phases of Plato's philo
wecannot sophical development and variations in his point of
oxplair ne view. Hermann farther considers that these varia-
order or tions may be assigned and accounted for: first pure
the causes . . . .

of these Sokratism, next the modifications experienced from
changes.

Plato’s intercourse with the Megaric philosophers,—
then the influence derived from Kyréné and Egypt — subse-
quently that from the Pythagoreans in Italy—and so forth.
The first portion of this hypothesis, taken generally, is very
reasonable and probable. But when, after assuming that there
must have been determining changes in Plato’s own mind, we
proceed to inquire what these were, and whence they arose, we
find asad lack of evidence for the answer to the question. We

Cyap. VIL HERMANN’S PRINCIPLE REASONABLE. 323

neither know the order in which the dialogues were composed,—
nor the date when Plato first began to compose,—nor the primi-
tive philosophical mind which his earliest dialogues represented,
—nor the order of those subsequent modifications which his
views underwent. We are informed, indeed, that Plato went
from Athens to visit Megara, Kyréné, Egypt, Italy ; but the
extent or kind of influence which he experienced in each, we do
not know at all! I think it a reasonable presumption that the
points which Plato had in common with Sokrates were most
preponderant in the mind of Plato immediately after the death
of his master: and that other trains of thought gradually became
more and more intermingled as the recollection of his master be-
came more distant. There is also ἃ presumption that the longer,
more elaborate, and more transcendental dialogues (among which
must be ranked the Phedrus), were composed in the full matu-
rity of Plato’s age and intellect: the shorter and less finished
may have been composed either then or earlier in his life. Here
are two presumptions, plausible enough when stated generally,
yet too vague to justify any special inferences: the rather, if we
may believe the statement of Dionysius, that Plato continued to
“comb and curl his dialogues until he was eighty years of
age ”,2

If we compare K. fF. Hermann with Schleiermacher, we see

1 Bonitz (in his instructive volume,
Platonische Studien, Wien, 1858, Ὁ. δ
points out how little we know abou
the real circumstances of Plato’s intel-
lectual and philosophical development:
ἃ matter which most of the Platonic
critics are apt to forget.

I confess that I agree with Striimpell,
that it is impossible to determine chro-
nologically, from Plato’s writings, and
from the other scanty evidence ac-
cessible to us, by what successive steps
his mind departed from the original
views and doctrines held and commu-
nicated by Sokrates (Stritmpell, Gesch.
der Praktischen Philosophie der Grie-
chen, p. 294, Leipsic, 1861).

2 Dionys. Hal. De Comp. Verbor. p.
208 ; Diog. ἴὰ iii. 87; Quintilian, viii. 6.
’ FB. A, Wolf, in a valuable note upon
the διασκενασταὶ (Proleg. ad Homer.

. Clii.), declares, upon this ground,
Phat it is impossible to determine the
time when Plato composed his best
dialogues. ‘‘Ex his collatis apparet

διασκενάζειν ἃ, veteribus magistris ad-
scitum esse in potestatem verbi em-
διασκενάζειν : ut in Scenicis propé idem
esset quod ἀναδιδάσκειν---Ὠ. e. repetito
committere fabulam, sed mutando, ad-
dendo, detrahendo, emendatam, refic-
tam, et secundis curis elaboratam. Id
enim facere solebant illi poets sepis-
simé: mox etiam alii, ut Apollonius
Rhodius. Neque aliter Plato fecit in
optimis dialogis suis: quam ob causam
exquirere non licet, quando quisque com-
positus sit; quum in scenicis fabulis
saltem ex didascaliis plerumque notum
sit tempus, quo edite sunt.”

Preller has a like remark (Hist. Phil.
ex Font. Loc. Context., sect. 250).

In regard to the habit of correcting
compositions, the contrast between
Plato and Plotinus was remarkable.
Porphyry tells us that Plotinus, when
once he had written any matter, could
hardly bear even to read it over—much
less to review and improve it (Porph.
Vit. Plotini, 8).

324 PLATONIC CANON, Cuap. VIL.

Hermann’s that Hermann has amended his position by aban-
row ore doning Schleiermacher’s gratuitous hypothesis, of a
Schleier- | preconceived Platonic system with a canonical order
machers. —_ of the dialogues adapted to that system—and by ad-
mitting only a chronological order of composition, each dialogue
being generated by the state of Plato’s mind at the time when it
was composed. This, taken generally, is indisputable. If we
perfectly knew Plato’s biography and the circumstances around
him, we should be able to determine which dialogues were first,
second, and third, &., and what circumstances or mental dispo-
sitions occasioned the successive composition of those which fol-
lowed. But can we do this with our present scanty information?
I think not. Hermann, while abandoning the hypothesis of
Schleiermacher, has still accepted the large conditions of the
problem first drawn up by Schleiermacher, and has undertaken
to decide the real order of the dialogues, together with the special
occasion and the phase of Platonic development corresponding
to each. Herein, I think, he has failed.
It is, indeed, natural that critics should form some impres-
sion as to earlier and later in the dialogues. But
prallnum- though there are some peculiar cases in which such
tainties, or impression acquires much force, I conceive that in

even reason- . - . .
able pre almost all cases it is to a high degree uncertain.

sumprors, _ Several dialogues proclaim themselves as subsequent
ee of the to the death of Sokrates. We know from internal

’ allusions that the Theztétus must have been com-
posed after 394 B.c., the Menexenus after 387 B.c., and the Sym-
posion after 385 B.c. Weare sure, by Aristotle’s testimony, that
the Leges were written at a later period than the Republic ;
Plutarch also states that the Leges were composed during the old
age of Plato, and this statement, accepted by most modern critics,
appears to me trustworthy.!_ The Sophistés proclaims itself as a
second meeting, by mutual agreement, of the same persons who
had conversed in the Theetétus, with the addition of a new com-
panion, the Eleatic stranger. But we must remark that the
subject of the Theetétus, though left unsettled at the close of
that dialogue, is not resumed in the Sophistés : in which last,

1 Plutarch, Isid. et Osirid. c. 48, p. 870.

Cuap. VII. TRILOGIES INDICATED BY PLATO.

325.
moreover, Sokrates acts only a subordinate part, while the
Eleatic stranger, who did not appear in the Thestétus, is here
put forward as the prominent questioner or expositor. So too,
the Politikus offers itself as a third of the same triplet: with this
difference, that while the Eleatic stranger continues as the ques-
tioner, a new respondent appears in the person of Sokrates
Junior. The Politikus is not a resumption of the same subject
as the Sophistés, but a second application of the same method
(the method of logical division and subdivision) to a different
subject. Plato speaks also as if he contemplated a third applica-
tion of the same method—the Philosophus : which, so far as we
know, was never realised. Again, the Timzeus presents itself as
a sequel to the Republic, and the Kritias as a sequel to the
Timeus: a fourth, the Hermokrates, being apparently announced,
as about to follow—but not having been composed.
Here then are two groups of three each (we might
Trilogies, and if the intended fourth had been realised,
Tetralogies), indicated by Plato himself. A certain by Plato
relative chronological order is here doubtless evident: himself.
the Sophistés must have been composed after the Thestétus and
before the Politikus, the Timeus after the Republic and before
the Kritias. But this is all that we can infer: for it does not
follow that the sequence must have been immediate in point of
time: there may have been a considerable interval between the
three forming the so-called Trilogy.!| We may add, that neither
in the Theetétus nor in the Republic, do we find indication that
either of them is intended as the first of a Trilogy: the marks

call them

Trilogies
indicated

1 It may seem singular that Schleier-
macher is among those who adopt this
opinion. He maintains that the So-
phistés does not follow immediately
upon the Thestétus; that Plato
ΐ ough intending when he finished
the Theextétus to proceed onward to
the Sophistés, altered his intention,
and took up other views instead: that
the Menon (and the Euthydémus) come
in between them, in immediate sequel
to the Theetétus (Einleitung zum
Menon, vol. iii. p. 326).

Here Schleiermacher introduces a
new element of uncertainty, which inva-
lidates yet more seriously the grounds
for his hypothesis of a preconceived
sequence thréughout all the dialogues.

In a case where Plato directly inti-
mates an intentional sequence, we are
called upon to believe, on ‘internal
grounds” alone, that he altered his
intention, and introduced other dia-
logues. He may have done this: but
how are we to prove it? How much
does it attenuate the value of his inten-
tions, as proofs of an internal philoso-
phical sequence? We become involved
more and more in unsupported hypo-
thesis. I think that K. Ἐς Hermann’s
objections against Schleiermacher, on
the above ground, have much foree ;
and that Ueberweg’s reply to them is
unsatisfactory. (Hermann, Gesch. und
Syst. der Platon. Phil. p. 860. Ueber-
weg, Untersuchungen, p. 82, seq.)

326 PLATONIC CANON. CuHapP, VII.

proving an intended Trilogy are only found in the second and
third of the series.

While even the relative chronology of the dialogues is thus
faintly marked in the case of a few, and left to fallible

Positive

dates of all conjecture in the remainder—the positive chronology,
logues— or the exact year of composition, is not directly
unknown.

marked in the case of any one. Moreover, at the
very outset of the enquiry, we have to ask, At what period of life
did Plato begin to publish his dialogues? Did he publish any
of them during the lifetime of Sokrates? and if so, which? Or
does the earliest of them date from a time after the death of
Sokrates ?
Amidst the many dissentient views of the Platonic critics, it is
remarkable that they are nearly unanimous in their
Pinte begin mode of answering this question.! Most of theia de-
fo compose? clare, without hesitation, that Plato published several

after the dialogues before the death of Sokrates—that is, before
death of he was 28 years of age—though they do not all agree

in determining which these dialogues were. I do not
perceive that they produce any external proofs of the least value.
Most of them disbelieve (though Stallbaum and Hermann believe)
the anecdote about Sokrates and his criticism on the dialogue
Lysis.? In spite of their unanimity, I cannot but adopt the

1 Valentine Rose (De Aristotelis Li-
brorum ordine, p. 25, Berlin, 1854),
Mullach (Democriti Fragm. p. 99), and
R. Schone (in his Commentary on the
Platonic Protagoras), are among the
critics known to me, who intimate their
belief that Plato published no Sokratic
dialogues during the lifetime of So-
krates. In discussing the matter,
Schéne adverts to two of the three
lines of argument brought forward in
my text:—1. The too early and too
copious ‘‘ productivity” which the re-

ved supposition wouldimply in Plato.
2. The improbability that the name of
Sokrates would be employed in written
dialogues, as spokesman, by any of his
scholars during his lifetime.

Schone does not touch upon the im-
probability of the hypothesis, arising out
of the early position and aspirations of
Plato himself (Schéne, Ueber Platon’s
Protagoras, p. 64, Leipsic, 1862).

2 Diog. Laert. iii. 85; Stallbaum,

Prolegg. ad Plat. Lys. P. 90; Καὶ F.
Hermann, Gesch. u. Syst. der Plat. Phil.
. 870. Schleiermacher (Einl. zum

ysis, i. p. 175) treats the anecdote
about the Lysis as unworthy of cre-
dence. Diogenes (iii. 88) mentions that
some considered the Pheedrus as Plato’s
earliest dialogue; the reason being that
the subject of it was something puerile:
λόγος δὲ πρῶτον γράψαι αὐτὸν τὸν Φαῖ-
δρον" καὶ γὰρ ἔχει μειρακιῶδές τι τὸ
πρόβλημα. Δικαίαρχος δὲ καὶ τὸν τρό-
πον τῆς γροφῆς ὅλον ἐπιμέμφεται ὡς
φορτικόν. Olympiodorus also in his
ife of Plato mentions the same report,
that the Phedrus was Plato's earliest
composition, and gives the same ground
of belief, ‘‘its dithyrambic character”.
Even if the assertion were nted,
that the Pheedrus is the earliest Pla-
tonic composition, we could not infer
that it was composed during the life-
time of Sokrates. But that assertion
cannot be granted. The twostatements,

LABOUR OF COMPOSITION. 327

ΟΒΑΡ, VII,

opposite conclusion. It appears to me that Plato composed no
Sokratic dialogues during the lifetime of Sokrates.

All the information (scanty as it is) which we obtain from the
rhetor Dionysius and others respecting the composi-
tion of the Platonic dialogues, announces them to
have cost much time and labour to their author: a
statement illustrated by the great number of inver-
sions of words which he is said to have introduced
successively in the first sentence of the Republic,
before he was satisfied to let the sentence stand.
This corresponds, too, with all that we read respecting the
patient assiduity both of Isokrates and Demosthenes.! A first-
rate Greek composition was understood not to be purchasable at
lower cost. I confess therefore to great surprise, when I read in
Ast the affirmation that the Protagoras was composed when Plato
was only 22 years old—and when I find Schleiermacher asserting,
as if it were a matter beyond dispute, that Protagoras, Phedrus,
and Parmenidés, all bear evident marks of Plato’s youthful age
(Jugendlichkeit). In regard to the Phedrus and Parmenidés,
indeed, Hermann and other critics contest the view of Schleier-
macher ; and detect, in those two dialogues, not only no marks
of “juvenility,” but what they consider plain proofs of maturity
and even of late age. But in regard to the Protagoras, most of
them agree with Schleiermacher and Ast, in declaring it to be
a work of Plato’s youth, some time before the death of Sokrates.

Reasons for
this opinion.
Labour of
the com-
position—

oes not
consist with

outh of

he author.

above cited, give {t only as a report,

, position, and a youthful composition
suggested to those who believed it by of Plato.

If Dionysius had elieved

the character and subject-matter of the
dialogue. Iam surprised that Dr. Vol-
quardsen, who in a learned volume,
recently published, has undertaken the
defence of the theory of Schleiermacher
about the Phedrus (Phiadros, Erste
Schrift Platon’s, Kiel, 1862), can repre-
sent this as a ‘‘ fseste historische Ueber-
lieferung”—the rather as he admits
that Schleiermacher himself placed no
confidence in it, and relied upon other
reasons (pp. 90-92-93). Comp. Schleier-
macher, Einl. zum Phaidros, p. 76.
Whoever will read the Epistle of Dio-
nysius of Halikarnassus, addressed to
Cneius Pompeius (pp. 751-765, Reiske),
will be persuaded that Dionysius can
neither have known, nor even believed,
that the Phsedrus was the first com-

this, it would have furnished him with
the precise excuse which his letter
required. For the purpose of his letter
is to mollify the displeasure of Cn.
Pompey, who had written to blame him
for some unfavourable criticisms on the
style of Plato. Dionysius justifies his
riticisms by allusions to the Pheedrus.
If he had been able to add, that the
Phedrus was a first composition, and
that Plato’s later dialogues were com-
paratively free from the like faults—this
would have been the most effective way
of conciliating Cn. Pompey.

1 Timseus said that Alexander the
Great conquered the Persian empire
in less time than Isokrates required
for the composition of his panegyrical
oration (Longinus, De Sublim. c. 4).

328 PLATONIC CANON. Cuap. VII.

Now on this point I dissent from them: and since the decision
turns upon “internal grounds,” each must judge for himself.
The Protagoras appears to me one of the most finished and
elaborate of all the dialogues : in complication of scenic arrange-
ments, dramatic vivacity, and in the amount of theory worked
out, it is surpassed by none—hardly even by the Republic.’ Its
merits as a composition are indeed extolled by all the critics ;
who clap their hands, especially, at the humiliation which they
believe to be brought upon the great Sophist by Sokrates. But
the more striking the composition is acknowledged to be, the
stronger is the presumption that its author was more than 22 or
24 years of age. Nothing short of good positive testimony would
induce me to believe that such a dialogue as the Protagoras could
have been composed, even by Plato, before he attained the
plenitude of his powers. No such testimony is produced or
producible. 1 extend a similar presumption, even to the Lysis,
Lachés, Charmidés, and other dialogues: though with a less
degree of confidence, because they are shorter and less artistic,
not equal to the Protagoras. All of them, in my judgment,
exhibit a richness of ideas and a variety of expression, which
suggest something very different from a young novice as the
author.

But over and above this presumption, there are other reasons
which induce me to believe, that none of the Platonic dialogues
were published during the lifetime of Sokrates. My reasons are
partly connected with Sokrates, partly with Plato.

First, in reference to Sokrates—we may reasonably doubt
Reasons, Whether any written reports of his actual conversa-
founded on tions were published during his lifetime. He was the
chteef” most constant, public, and indiscriminate of all
Sokrates, talkers: always in some frequented place, and de-
relations § siring nothing so much as a respondent with an
with Plato. audience. Every one who chose to hear him, might
do so without payment and with the utmost facility. Why then
should any one wish to read written reports of his conversations?
especially when we know that the strong interest which they
excited in the hearers depended much upon the spontaneity of his

1“ Als aesthetisches Kunstwerk ist hafteste unter den Werken Platon’s.’
der Dialog Protagoras das meister- (Socher, Ueber Platon, p. 226.)

CuaP. VIL PERSONALITY OF SOKRATES. 329
inspirations, and hardly less upon the singularity of his manner
and physiognomy. Any written report of what he said must
appear comparatively tame. Again, as to fictitious dialogues
(like the Platonic) employing the name of Sokrates as spokesman
—such might doubtless be published during his lifetime by
derisory dramatists for the purpose of raising a laugh, but not
surely by a respectful disciple and admirer for the purpose of
giving utterance to doctrines of his own. The greater was the
respect felt by Plato for Sokrates, the less would he be likely to
take the liberty of making Sokrates responsible before the public
for what Sokrates had never said.1 There is a story in Diogenes
—to the effect that Sokrates, when he first heard the Platonic
dialogue called Lysis, exclaimed—‘ What a heap of falsehoods
does the young man utter about me!”? This story merits no
credence as a fact: but it expresses the displeasure which
Sokrates would be likely to feel, on hearing that one of his
youthful companions had dramatised him as he appears in the
Lysis. Xenophon tells us, and it is very probable, that inac-
curate oral reports of the real colloquies of Sokrates may have
got into circulation. But that the friends and disciples of
Sokrates, during his lifetime, should deliberately publish
fictitious dialogues, putting their own sentiments into his mouth,
and thus contribute to mislead the public—is not easily credible.
Still less credible is it that Plato, during the lifetime of Sokrates,
should have published such a dialogue as the Phedrus, wherein
we find ascribed to Sokrates, poetical and dithyrambic effusions
utterly at variance with the real manifestations which Athenians
might hear every day from Sokrates in the market-place.? So-

1 Valentine Rose observes, in regard
to a dialogue composed by some one
else, wherein Plato was introduced as
one of the interlocutors, that it could
not have been composed until after
Plato’s death, and that the dialogues
of Plato were not composed until after
the death of Sokrates. ‘‘ Platonis autem
sermones antequam mortuus fuerit,
scripto neminem tradidisse, neque ma-
istri viventis personé in dialogis abusos
Faisse (non magis quam vivum Socratem
induxerunt Xenophon, Plato, ceeteri So-
cratici), hoc veterum mori et religioni

uivis facile concedet,” &c. (V. Rose,
‘Fristoteles Pseudepigraphus, pp. 67, 74,

Leipsic, 1863.)—Val. Rose expresses the
same opinion (that none of the Sokratic
dialogues, either by Plato or the other
companions of Sokrates, were written
until after the death of Sokrates) in his
earlier work, De Aristotelis Librorum
Ordine et Auctoritate, p. 25.

2 Diog. L. iii. 85.

3In regard to the theory (elabo-
rated by Schleiermacher, recently again
defended by Volquardsen), that the
Phedrus is the earliest among the
Platonic dialogues, composed about 406
B.C., it appears to me inconsistent also
with what we know about Lysias. In
the Platonic Phedrus, Lysias is pre-

330 PLATONIC CANON, Cuap, VII.

krates in the Platonic Apology, complains of the comic poet
Aristophanes for misrepresenting him. Had the Platonic Phe-
drus been then in circulation, or any other Platonic dialogues, he
might with equally good reason have warned the Dikasts against
judging of him, a real citizen on trial, from the titular Sokrates
whom even disciples did not scruple to employ as spokesman for
their own transcendental doctrine, and their own controversial

sarcasms,
Secondly, in regard to Plato, the reasons leading to the same
conclusion are yet stronger. Unfortunately, we know

Reasons, little of the life of Plato before he attained the age of

the early 428, that is, before the death of Sokrates: but our best
fe, charac- ΜΝ . .

ter, and means of appreciating it are derived from three

position of

to. sources. 1. Our knowledge of the history of Athens

from 409-399 B.c., communicated by Thucydides,
Xenophon, &. 2. The seventh Epistle of Plato himself, written
four or five years before his death (about 352 B.c.). 3. A few
hints from the Memorabilia of Xenophon.

To these evidences about the life of Plato, it has not been
customary to pay much attention. The Platonic critics seem to
regard Plato so entirely as a spiritual person (“like a blessed
spirit, visiting earth for a short time,” to cite a poetical phrase
applied to him by Géthe), that they disdain to take account of
his relations with the material world, or with society around
him. Because his mature life was consecrated to philosophy,
they presume that his youth must have been so likewise. But this
is ἃ hasty assumption. You cannot thus abstract any man from

sented as a λογογράφος of the highest
reputation and eminence (p. 228 A,
257 ©, and indeed throughout the
whole dialogue). Now this is quite
inconsistent with what we read from
Lysias himself in the indictment which
he preferred against Eratosthenes, not
long after the restoration of the demo-
cracy, 403 B.C. He protests therein
strenuously that he had never had
judicial affairs of his own, nor meddled
with those of others; and he expresses
the greatest apprehension from his own
ἀπειρία (sects. 4-6). I cannot believe
hat this would be said by a person
whom Pheedrus terms δεινότατος ὧν
τῶν viv γράφειν. Moreover, Lysias, in
that same discourse, describes his own

osition at Athens, anterior to the

hirty: he belonged to a rich metic
family, and was engaged along with
his brother Polemarchus in a large
manufactory of shields, employing 120
slaves (s. 20). A person thus rich and
occupied was not likely to become a
professed and notorious λογογράφος,
hough he may have been a clever and
accomplished man. Lysias was plun-
dered and impoverished by the Thirty ;
and he is said to have incurred much
expense in aiding the efforts of Thra-
sybulus. It was after this change of
circumstances that he took to rhetoric
as a profession ; and it is to some one
of these later years that the Platonic
Pheedrus refers.

Cuap. VII. EARLY LIFE OF PLATO. 29]

the social medium by which he is surrounded. The historical
circumstances of Athens from Plato’s nineteenth year to his
twenty-sixth (409-403 B.c.) were something totally different from
what they afterwards became. They were so grave and absorb-
ing, that had he been ever so much inclined to philosophy, he
would have been compelled against his will to undertake active
and heavy duty as a citizen. Within those years (as I have
observed in a preceding chapter) fell the closing struggles of the
Peloponnesian war; in which (to repeat words already cited
from Thucydides) Athens became more a military post than a
city—every citizen being almost habitually under arms: then
the long blockade, starvation, and capture of the city, followed by
the violences of the Thirty, the armed struggle under Thrasy-
bulus, and the perilous, though fortunately successful and
equitable, renovation of the democracy. These were not times
for a young citizen, of good family and robust frame,

to devote himself exclusively to philosophy and com- sate te
position. I confess myself surprised at the assertion active i,
of Schleiermacher and Steinhart, that Plato composed andto
the Charmidés and other dialogues under the Soneostent
Anarchy. Amidst such disquietude and perils he

could not have renounced active duty for philosophy, even if ke
had been disposed to do so.

But, to make the case stronger, we learn from Plato’s own
testimony, in his seventh Epistle, that he was not at that time
disposed to renounce active political life. He tells us himself,
that as a young man he was exceedingly eager, like others of the
same age, to meddle and distinguish himself in active politics.?
How natural such eagerness was, to a young citizen of his family
and condition, may be seen by the analogy of his younger brother
Glaukon, who was prematurely impatient to come forward: as

1 Steinhart, Einl. zum Laches, vol.i. | Possumus squo animo nec Memmi

p. 358, where he says that Plato com- clara, propago
posed the Charmidés, Lachés,and Pro- ‘Talibus in rebus communi desse
oras, all in 404 B.C. under the Thirty. saluti

Sc hieiermacher, Hinleitung zum Char- 2 Plato, Epist. vii. p. 824 Ὁ. Νέος
ΤᾺ] es, vo e ll. p. le 2 4 Ἁ a δὴ » “ .
The lines of Lucretius (i. 41) bear ἦν TOTE ὧν πολλοῖς δὴ ταὐτὸν ἔπαθον

1 ¢ . iT ῳήθην, εἰ θᾶττον ἐμαυτοῦ γενοίμην
emphatically upon this trying season : κύριος, ἐπὶ τὰ κοινὰ τῆς πόλεως εὐθὺς

ἰέναι. Again, 825 Εἰ ; ὥστε με, τὸ πρῶ-
Nam neque ry agere hoc patriai ἰὸν πολλῆς μεστὸν ὄντα ὁρμῆς ἐπὶ on
tempore iniquo πράττειν τὰ κοινά, KC.

332 PLATONIC CANON. Cuap. VIL.

well as by that of his cousin Charmides, who had the same incli-
nation, but was restrained by exaggerated diffidence of character.
Now we know that the real Sokrates (very different from the
Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias) did not seek to deter young
men of rank from politics, and to consign them to inactive
speculation. Sokrates gives! earnest encouragement to Char-
mides; and he does not discourage Glaukon, but only presses him
to adjourn his pretensions until the suitable stock of preliminary
information has been acquired. We may thus see that assuming
the young Plato to be animated with political aspirations, he
would certainly not be dissuaded,—nay, he would probably be
encouraged—by Sokrates.

Plato farther tells us that when (after the final capitulation of
Athens) the democracy was put down and the government of the
Thirty established, he embarked in it actively under the auspices
of his relatives (Kritias, Charmides, &., then in the ascendant),
with the ardent hopes of youth? that he should witness and
promote the accomplishment of valuable reforms. Experience
showed him that he was mistaken. He became disgusted with
the enormities of the Thirty, especially with their treatment of
Sokrates ; and he then ceased to co-operate with them. Again,
after the year called the Anarchy, the democracy was restored,
and Plato’s political aspirations revived along with it. He again
put himself forward for active public life, though with less
ardent hopes. But he became dissatisfied with the march of
affairs, and his relationship with the deceased Kritias was now
a formidable obstacle to popularity. At length, four years after
the restoration of the democracy, came the trial and condemna-
tion of Sokrates. It was that event which finally shocked and
disgusted Plato, converting his previous dissatisfaction into an
utter despair of obtaining any good results from existing govern-

1 See the two interesting colloquies place at some time before the battle οἱ
of Sokrates, with Glaukon and Char- Agospotami; perhaps about 407 or
mides (Xenoph. Mem. ili. 6, 7). 406 B.C. ; a

Charmides was killed along with 2 Plato, Epist. vii. 824 Ὁ. Kat ἐγὼ
Kritias during the eight months called θαυμαστὸν οὐδὲν ἔπαθον ὑπὸ νεότητος,
The Anarchy, at the battle fought with d&c. ΝΞ ,
Thrasybulus and the democrats (Xen. 8 Plato, Epist. vii. 825 4. Πάλιν δέ,
Hell. ii. 4,10). The colloquy οὗ Sokrates βραδύτερον μὲν, εἷλκε δέ με ὅμως ἢ πέρι
with Charmides, recorded by Xenophon τὸ πράττειν τὰ κοινὰ καὶ πολιτικά
in the Memorabilia, must have taken ἐπιθυμία.

Cuap, VII.

PLATO'S POLITICAL ASPIRATIONS.

992

ments. From thenceforward, he turned away from practice and

threw himself into speculation.?

This very natural recital, wherein Plato (at the age of 75)

describes his own youth between 21 and 28—taken in
conjunction with the other reasons just enumerated—
impresses unon me the persuasion, that Plato did not
devote himself to philosophy, nor publish any of his
dialogues, before the death of Sokrates: though he
may prebably have composed dramas, and the beau-
tiful epigrams which Diogenes has preserved. He at
first frequented the society of Sokrates, as many other
aspiring young men frequented it (likewise that of

Plato did
not retire
from politi-
cal life until
after the
restoration
of the demo-
cracy, nor
devote him-
self to philo-
sophy until
after the
death of
Sokrates.

Kratylus, and perhaps that of various Sophists?), from love of

δή μοι ταῦτά τε καὶ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους τοὺς
πράττοντας τὰ πολιτικά, &C. 325 HE: Καὶ
τοῦ μὲν σκοπεῖν μὴ ἀποστῆναι, πῆ ποτὰ
ἄμεινον ἂν γίγνοιτο περί τε αὐτὰ ταῦτα
καὶ δὴ καὶ περὶ τὴν πᾶσαν πολιτείαν, τοῦ
δὲ πράττειν αὖ περιμένειν αἰεὶ καιρούς,
τελευτῶντα δὲ νοῆσαι περὶ πασῶν τῶν
νῦν πόλεων ὅτι κακῶς ξύμπασαι πο-
λιτεύονται.

I have already stated in the 84th
chapter of my History, describing the
visit of Plato to Dionysius in Sicily,
that I believe the Epistles of Plato to
be genuine, and that the seventh
Epistle especially contains valuable
information. Some critics undoubtedly
are of a different opinion, and consider
them as spurious. But even among
these critics, several consider that the
author of the Epistles, though not Plato
himself, was a contemporary and well
informed: so that his evidence is trust-
worthy. See K. F. Hermann, Ge-
samamelte Abhandlungen, pp. 282-283.
The question has been again discussed
recently by Ueberweg (Untersuch. iiber
d. Aechth u. Zeitf. d. Plat. Schriften,
pp. 120-123-125-129), who gives his own
opinion that the letters are not by
Plato, and produces various arguments
to the point. His arguments arenoway
convincing to me: for the mysticism
and pedantry of the Epistles appear to
me in full harmony with the Timeus
and Leges, and with the Pythagorean
bias of Plato’s later years, though not
in harmony with the Protagoras, and
various other dialogues. Yet Ueberweg
also declares his full belief that the
seventh Epistle is the composition of a
well-informed contemporary, and per-

Plato, Epist. Vii. 325 C: Σκοποῦντι

fectly worthy of credit as to the facts
and K. F. Hermann declares the same
This is enough for my present purpose.

The statement, trusted by all the
critics, that Plato’s first visit to Syra-
cuse was made when he was about 40
years of age, depends altogether on the
assertion of the seventh Epistle. How
numerous are the assertions made by
Platonic critics respecting Plato, upon
evidence far slighter than that of these
Epistles! Boeckh considers the seventh
Epistle as the genuine work of Plato.
Valentine Rose also pronounces it to be
genuine, though he does not consider
the other Epistles to be so (We Ari-
stotelis Librorum Ordine, p. 25, p. 114,
Berlin, 1854). Tennemann admits the
Epistles generally to be genuine (Sys-
tem der Platon. Philos. i. p. 106).

It is undeniable that these Epistles
of Plato were recognised as genuine
and trusted by alJl the critics of anti-

uity from Aristophanes downwards.

icero, Plutarch,"Aristeides, &c., assert
facts upon the authority of the Epistles.
Those who declare the Epistles to be
spurious and worthless, ought in con-
sistency to reject the statements which
Plutarch makes on the authority of the
Epistles: they will find themselves
compelled to discredit some of the best
parts of his life of Dion. Compare
Aristeides, Περὶ Ῥητορικῆς Or. 45, pp.
90-106, Dindorf.

“Compare Plat. Protag. 312 A-B,
815 A, where the distinction is point-
edly drawn between one who visited
Protagoras ἐπὶ τέχνῃ, ὡς δημιουργὸς
ἐσόμενος, and others who came simpl
ἐπὶ παιδείᾳ, ὡς τὸν ἰδιώτην καὶ τὸν ἐλεὺύ-
θερον πρέπει

334 PLATONIO CANON.

CuHapP. VII.

ethical debate, admiration of dialectic power, and desire to
acquire a facility of the same kind in his own speech: not with
any view to take up philosophy as a profession, or to undertake
the task either of demolishing or constructing in the region of
speculation. No such resolution was adopted until after he had
tried political life and had been disappointed :—nor until such
disappointment had been still more bitterly aggravated by the
condemnation of Sokrates. It was under this feeling that Plato
first consecrated himself to that work of philosophical meditation
and authorship,—of inquisitive travel and converse with philoso-
phers abroad,—and ultimately of teaching in the Academy,—
which filled up the remaining fifty years of his life. The death
of Sokrates left that venerated name open to be employed as
spokesman in his dialogues: and there was nothing in the
political condition of Athens after 399 B.c., analogous to the
severe and perilous struggle which tasked all the energies of her

citizens from 409 .c. down to the close of the war.
I believe, on these grounds, that Plato did not publish any
dialogues during the life of Sokrates. An interval of

ΠΥ μος fifty-one years separates the death of Sokrates from
wore com- that of Plato. Such an interval is more than suffi-
uring the cient for all the existing dialogues of Plato, without
vents after the necessity of going back to a more youthful period
he deathof of his age. ΑΒ to distribution of the dialogues, earlier
Sokrates. .
or later, among these fifty-one years, we have little or
no means of judging. Plato has kept out of sight—with a

degree of completeness which is really surprising—not merely
his own personality, but also the marks of special date and the
determining circumstances in which each dialogue was composed.
Twice only does he mention his own name, and that simply in
passing, as if it were the name of a third person! As to the point

1In the Apologia, c. 28, p. 88, So-
krates alludes to Plato as present in
court, and as offering to become gua-
rantee, along with others, for his fine.

atthescene. But being obliged, by the
uniform scheme of his compositions, to
provide another narrator, he could not
suffer it to be supposed that he was

In the Pheedon, Plato is mentioned as
being sick ; to explain why he was not
resent at the last scene of Sokrates
tPhedon, Pp. 69 B). Diog. L. ili. 37.
The pathos as well as the detail of
the narrative in the Phedon makes one
imagine that Plato really was present

himself present. ,

I have already remarked that this
mention of Plato in the third person
(Πλάτων δέ, οἶμαι, ἠσθένει) was probably
one of the reasons which induced Pa-
neetius to declare the Pheedon not to be
the work of Plato.

Cuap. VII. TIME OF COMPOSITION. 335

of time to which he himself assigns each dialogue, much discussion
has been held how far Plato has departed from chronological or
historical possibility ; how far he has brought persons together
in Athens who never could have been there together, or has
made them allude to events posterior to their own decease. A
speaker in Atheneus! dwells, with needless acrimony, on the
anachronisms of Plato, as if they were gross faults. Whether
they are faults or not, may fairly be doubted: but the fact of
such anachronisms cannot be doubted, when we have before us
the Menexenus and the Symposion. It cannot be supposed, in
the face of such evidence, that Plato took much pains to keep
clear of anachronisms: and whether they be rather more or
rather less numerous, is ἃ question of no great moment.

I now conclude my enquiry respecting the Platonic Canon.
The presumption in favour of that Canon, as laid
down by Thrasyllus, is stronger (as I showed in the
preceding chapter) than it is in regard to ancient
authors generally of the same age: being traceable,
in the last resort, through the Alexandrine Museum,
to authenticating manuscripts in the Platonic school,
and to members of that school who had known and
cherished Plato himself.2 I have reviewed the doc-
trines of several recent critics who discard this Canon
as unworthy of trust, and who set up for themselves a type of what
Plato must have been, derived from a certain number of items in
the Canon—rejecting the remaining items as unconformable to
their hypothetical type. The different theories which they have
laid down respecting general and systematic purposes of Plato
(apart from the purpose of each separate composition), appear

The Thra-
syllean
Canon is
more
worthy of
trust than
the modern
critical
theories

by which
it has been
condemned.

1 Athenzeus, v. Pp. 220, 221. Didy-
mus also attacked Plato as departing
from historical truth—emiduduevos τῷ
Πλάτωνι ὡς παριστοροῦντι --- against
which the scholiast (ad Leges, i. p. 680)
defends him. Groen van Prinsterer,
Prosopogr. Plat. p. 16. The rhetor
Aristeides has some remarks of the
same kind, though less acrimonious
(Orat. xlvii. p. 435, Dind.) than the
speaker in Athenzeus.

21 find this position distinctly as-
serted, and the authority of the Thra-
syllean catalogue, as certifying the

genuine works of Plato, vindicated, by
xem, in his able dissertation on the
Kleitophon of Plato (pp. 1-8, Berlin,
1846). But Yxem does not set forth
the grounds of this opinion so fully as
the present state of the question de-
mands. Moreover, he combines it with
another opinion, upon which he insists
even at greater length, and from which I
altogether dissent—that the tetralogies
of Thrasyllus exhibit the genuine order
established by Plato himself among the
Dialogues.

336 PLATONIO CANON. Cuap. VIL.

to me uncertified and gratuitous. The “internal reasons,” upon
which they justify rejection of various dialogues, are only another
phrase for expressing their own different theories respecting Plato
as a philosopher and as a writer. For my part I decline to dis-
card any item of the Thrasyllean Canon, upon such evidence as
they produce: I think it a safer and more philosophical pro-
ceeding to accept the entire Canon, and to accommodate my
general theory of Plato (in so far as I am able to frame one) to
each and all of its contents.

Considering that Plato’s period of philosophical composition
extended over fifty years, and that the circumstances

Unsafe ΡΝ . ἜΝ
grounds of his life are most imperfectly known to us—it is
upon which surely hazardous to limit the range of his varieties,
theories on the faith of a critical repugnance, not merely sub-
proceed.

jective and fallible, but withal entirely of modern
growth : to assume, as basis of reasoning, the admiration raised
by a few of the finest dialogues—and then to argue that no com-
position inferior to this admired type, or unlike to it in dectrine
or handling, can possibly be the work of Plato. ‘The Minos,
Theagés, Epistole, Epinomis, &c., are unworthy of Plato:
nothing so inferior in excellence can have been composed by him.
No dialogue can be admitted as genuine which contradicts ano-
ther dialogue, or which advocates any low or incorrect or un-
Platonic doctrine. No dialogue can pass which is adverse to the
general purpose of Plato as an improver of morality, and a
teacher of the doctrine of Ideas.” On such grounds as these we
are called upon to reject various dialogues : and there is nothing
upon which, generally speaking, so much stress is laid as upon
inferior excellence. For my part, I cannot recognise any of
them as sufficient grounds of exception. I have no difficulty in
believing, not merely that Plato (like Aristophanes) produced
many successive novelties, “not at all similar one to the other,
and all clever ”!—bui also that among these novelties, there were
inferior dialogues as well as superior : that in different dialogues
he worked out different, even contradictory, points of view—and
among them some which critics declare to be low and objection-

1 Aristophan. Nubes, 547-8. Οὐδὲν ἀλλήλαισιν ὁμοίας, καὶ πάσας
᾿Αλλ᾽ ἀεὶ καινὰς ἰδέας εἰσφέρων σοφίζο- δεξιάς-
Mat,

UNSAFE BASIS OF MODERN THEORIES

Cap, VII. 337

able: that we have among his works unfinished fragments and
abandoned sketches, published without order, and perhaps only
after his death.

It may appear strange, but it is true, that Schleiermacher,
the leading champion of Plato’s central purpose and gy inions of
systematic unity from the beginning, lays down a Schleier-
doctrine to the same effect. He says, “Truly, nothing boeaee to
can be more preposterous, than when people demand S0w this.
that all the works even of a great master shall be of equal per-
fection—or that such as are not equal, shall be regarded as not
composed by him”. Zeller expresses himself in the same manner,

and with as little reserve.}

These eminent critics here proclaim

a general rule which neither they nor others follow out.
I find elsewhere in Schleiermacher, another opinion, not less
important, in reference to disallowance of dialogues, on purely

1Schleiermacher, Einleitung zum
Menon, vol. iii. p. 337. ‘‘ Und wahrlich,
nichts ist wohl wunderlicher, als wenn
man verlangt, dass alle Werke auch
eines grossen Meisters von gleicher
Volkommenheit seyn sollten—oder die
es nicht sind, soll er nicht verfertigt
haben.”

Compare Zeller, Phil. d. Griech.,
vol, 11. p. 322, ed. 2nd.

It is to be remembered that this
opinion of Schleiermacher refers only
to completed works of the same master.
You are not authorised in rejecting any
completed work as spurious, on the
ground that it is not equal in merit to
some other. Still less, then, are you
authorised in rejecting, on the like

ound, an uncompleted work—a pro-
essed fragment, ora preliminary sketch.
Of this nature are several of the minor
items in the Thrasyllean canon.

M. Boeckh, in his Commentary on
the dialogue called Minos, has as-
signed the reasons which induce him to
throw out that dialogue, together with
the Hipparchus, from the genuine
works of Plato (and farther to consider
both of them, and the pseudo-Platonic
dialogues De Justo and De Virtute, as
works of Σίμων ὁ σκυτεύς : with this
latter hypothesis I have here no con-
cern). e admits fully that the Minos
is of the Platonic age and irreproach-
able in style—‘‘veteris esse et Attici
scr ptoris, probus sermo, antiqui mores
totus denique character, spondent”
(p. 82). Next, he not only admits that

it is like Plato, but urges the too great
likeness to Plato as one of the points of
his case. He says that it is a bad,
stupid, and unskilful imitation of dif-
ferent Platonic dialogues: ‘‘ Pergamus
ad alteram partem nostre argumenta-
tionis, eamque etiam firmiorem, de
nimid similitudine Platonicorum aili-
quot locorum. Nam de hoc quidem
conveniet inter omnes doctos et in-
doctos, Platonem se ipsum haud posse
imitari: ni forté quis dubitet de sand
ejus mente” (p. 23). In the sense
which Boeckh intends, I agree that.
Plato did not imitate himself: in
another sense, I think that he did. I
mean that his consummate composi-
tions were preceded by shorter, partial,
incomplete sketches, which he after.
wards worked up, improved, and re-
modelled. I do not understand how
Plato could have composed such works
as Republic, Protagoras, Gorgias, Sym-
posion, Pheedrus, Pheedon, &c., without
aving before him many of these pre-
paratory sketches. That some of these
sketches should have been preserved
is what we might naturally expect;
and I believe Minos and Hipparchus
to be among them. I do not wonder
that they are of inferior merit. One
point on which Boeckh (pp. 7, 8)
contends that Hipparchus and Minos
are unlike to Plato is, that the col-
locutor with Sokrates is anonymous.
But we find anonymous talkers in
the Protagoras, Sophistés, Politikug,
and Leges. .

1—22

338 PLATONIC CANON. Cuap, VII.

internal grounds Take the Gorgias and the Protagoras. both
these two dialogues are among the most renowned of the
catalogue. both have escaped all suspicion as to legitimacy,
even from Ast and Socher, the two boldest of all disfranchising
critics. In the Protagoras, Sokrates maintains an elaborate
argument to prove, against the unwilling Protagoras, that the
Good is identical with the Pleasurable, and the Evil identical
with the Painful in the Gorgias, Sokrates holds an argument
equally elaborate, to show that Good is essentially different
from Pleasurable, Evil from Painful. What the one affirms,
the other denies. Moreover, Schleiermacher himself charac-
terises the thesis vindicated by Sokrates in the Protagoras, as
“entirely un-Sokratic and un-Platonic”.* If internal grounds
of repudiation are held to be available against the Thrasyllean
canon, how can such grounds exist in greater force than those
which are here admitted to bear against the Protagoras—That
it exhibits Sokrates as contradicting the Sokrates of the Gorgias
—That it exhibits him farther as advancing and proving, at
great length, a thesis “entirely un-Sokratic and un-Platonic” ?
Since the critics all concur in disregarding these internal objec-
tions, as insufficient to raise even a suspicion against the Prota-
goras, I cannot concur with them when they urge the like
objections as valid and irresistible against other dialogues,

I may add, as farther illustrating this point, that there are few
dialogues in the list against which stronger objections on internal
grounds can be brought, than Leges and Menexenus. Yet both
of them stand authenticated, beyond all reasonable dispute, as
genuine works of Plato, not merely by the Canon of Thrasyllus,
but also by the testimony of Aristotle.?

1 Schleiermacher, Einl. zum Protag. ference. I think they are right in so
vol. i. γυ 282. ‘‘Jene ganz unsokrat- refusing. But this only shows how
ische und unplatonische Ansicht, dass little such internal grounds are to be
das Gute nichts anderes ist als das_ trusted, as evidence to prove spurious-
Angenehme.” ness.

Ὁ also, in the Parmenides, we find 2 See Ast, Platon’s Leben und Schrif
a host of unsolved objections against ten, p. 884: and still more, Zeller,
the doctrine of Ideas, upon which in Plat. Studien, pp. 1-131, Tubingen,
other dialogues Plato so emphatically 1839. In that reatise, where Zeller
insists. Accordingly, Socher, resting has set forth powerfully the grounds
upon this discrepancy asan ‘‘internal for denying the genuineness of the
ground,” declares the Parmenides not Leges, he relied so much upon the
to be the work of Plato. Buttheothet strength of this negative case, as to
critics refuse to go along with this in- discredit the direct testimony of Ari-

CHaP VII.

THRASYLLEAN CANON ACCEPTED.

339

While adhering therefore to the Canon of Thrasyllus, I do

not think myself obliged to make out that Plato is
either like to himself, or equal to himself, or con-
sistent with himself, throughout all the dialogues
included therein, and throughout the period of fifty
years during which these dialogues were composed.

Any true
theory of
Plato must
recognise
all his varie-
ties, and
must be
based upon

Plato is to be found in all and each of the dialogues, all the

not in an imaginary type abstracted from some to
The critics reverence so
much this type of their own creation, that they insist
on bringing out a result consistent with it, either by
interpretation specially contrived, or by repudiating
Such sacrifice of the inherent diversity, and

the exclusion of the rest.

not harmonise.

works in
the Canon,
not upon
some to the
exclusion
of the rest.

what will

separate individuality, of the dialogues, to the maintenance of a
supposed unity of type, style, or purpose, appears to me an error.
In fact,! there exists, for us, no personal Plato any more than

stotle affirming the Leges to be genu-
ine. In his Phil. d Griech. Zeller
altered this opinion, and admitted the
Leges to be genuine. But Striimpell
adheres to the earlier opinion given by
Zeller, and maintains that the partial
recantation is noway justified. (Gesch.
ἃ. Prakt. Phil. ἃ. Griech p. 457.)

Suckow mentions (Form der Plat.
Schriften, 1855, p. 135) that Zeller has
in a subsequent work reverted to his
former opinion, denying the genuine-
ness of the Leges. Suckow himself
denies it also; relying not merely on
the internal objections against it, but
also on a passage of Isokrates (ad
Philippum, p. 84), which he considers
to sanction his opinion, but which (in
my judgment) entirely fails to bear
him out.

Suckow attempts to show (p. 55),
and Ueberweg partly countenances the
same opinion, that the two passages in
which Aristotle alludes to the Me-
nexenus (Rhet. i. 9, 30; iii. 14, 11) do not
prove that he (Aristotle) considered it
as a work of Plato, because he mentions
the name of Sokrates only, and not
that of Plato. But this is to require
from a witness such precise specifica-
tion as we cannot reasonably expect.
Aristotle, alluding to Ane eae at as
SAYS, Σωκράτης ἐν τῷ ᾿Επιταφίῳ: just as,
in-ailuding to the Gorgias in another
place (Sophist. Elench. 12, p. 173), he
says, Καλλικλῆς ἐν τῷ Γοργίᾳ: and

again, in alluding to the Pheedon, ὁ ἐν
Φαίδωνι Σωκράτης (De Gen. et Cor-
rupt. ii. 9, p. 335) not to mention his
allusions in the Politica to the Platonic
Republic, under the name of Sokrates.
No instance can be produced in which
Aristotle cites any Sokratic dialogue,
composed by Antisthenés, Aischines,
&c., or any other of the Sokratic com-
panions except Plato. And when we
read in Aristotle’s Politica (ii. 8, 3)
the striking compliment paid—Td μὲν
οὖν περιττὸν ἔχουσι πάντες οἱ τοῦ Sw-
κράτους λόγοι, καὶ τὸ κομψόν, καὶ τὸ
καινότομον, καὶ τὸ ζητητικόν " καλῶς δὰ
πάντα tows yaderov—we cannot surely
imagine that he intends to designate
any other dialogues than those com-
posed by Plato.

1 The only manifestation of the per-
sonal Plato is in the Epistole. I have
already said that I accept these as

enuine, though most critics do not.

consider them valuable illustrations
of his character, as far as they go.
They are all written after he was more
than sixty years of age. And most
of them relate to his relations with
Dionysius the younger, with Dion,
and with Sicilian affairs generally.
This was a peculiar and outlyin

hase of Plato’s life, during whic
Hhrongh the instigation of Dion, and
at the sacrifice of his own peace of
mind) he became involved in the world
of political action: he had to deal with

340

PLATONIC CANON.

CuHapP. VII.

there is a personal Shakespeare. Plato (except in the Epistole)
never appears before us, nor gives us any opinion as his own: he
is the unseen prompter of different characters who converse aloud
in a number of distinct dramas—each drama a separate work,
manifesting its own point of view, affirmative or negative, con-

sistent or inconsistent with the others, as the case may be.

In so

far as I venture to present a general view of one who keeps con-
stantly in the dark—who delights to dive, and hide himself, not
less difficult to catch than the supposed Sophist in his own dia-
logue called Sophistés—I shall consider it as subordinate to the
dialogues, each and all: and above all, it must be such as to
include and acknowledge not merely diversities, but also incon-

sistencies and contradictions.

real persons, passions, and interests—
with the feeble character, literary vel-
leities, and jealous apprehensions of
Dionysius—the reforming vehemence
and unpopular harshness of Dion—the
courtiers, the soldiers, and the people
of Syracuse, all moved by different pas-
sions of which he had had no practical
experience. It could not be expected
that, amidst such turbulent elements,
Plato as an adviser could effect much:
yet Ido not think that he turned his
chances, doubtful as they were, to the
best account. I have endeavoured to
show this in the tenth volume of my
History of Greece, c. 84. But at all
events, these operations lay apart from
Plato’s true world—the speculation,
dialectic, and lectures of the Academy
at Athens. The Epistole, however,
resent some instructive points, bear-
ing upon Plato’s opinions about writing
as a medium of philosophical commu-
nication and instruction to learners,
which I shall notice in the suitable
place.

11 transcribe from the instructive
work of M. Ernest Renan, Averrots et
lV Avervoisme, a passage in which he de-
precates the proceeding of critics who
presume uniform consistency through-
out the works of Aristotle, and make out
their theory partly by forcible exegesis,
partly by setting aside as spurious all
those compositions which oppose them.
The remark applies more forcibly to
the dialogues of Plato, who is much
less systematic than Aristotle :—

“On a combattu Vinterprétation ἃ’
Ibn-Roschd (Averroés), et soutenu que
Yintellect actif n’est pour Aristote qu’

une faculté de’ame. L/’intellect passif
n’est alors que la faculté de recevoir les
ῥαντάσματα: Vintellect actif n’est que
"induction s’exergant sur les φαντάσματα
et en tirant les idées générales. Ainsi
Yon fait concorder la théorie exposcée
dans le troisitme livre du Traité de
YAme, avec celle des Seconds Analy-
tiques, ot Aristote semble réduire le
role de la raison ἃ Vinduction géné-
ralisant les faits de lasensation. Certes,
je ne me dissimule pas qu’ Aristote pa-
rait souvent envisager le vovs comme
personnel ἃ Vhomme. Son attention
constante ἃ repéter que Vintellect est
identique ἃ lintelligible, que Pintellect
passe alacte quand il devient l’objet
qu’il pense, est difficile & concilier avec
VYhypothése d'un intellect séparé de
Yhomme. Mais il est dangereux de
faire ainsi coincider de force les dif-
férents apergus desanciens. Lesanciens
philosop aient souvent sans se limiter
dans un systéme, traitant le méme
sujet selon les points de vue qui s’of-
fraient ἃ eux, ou qui leur étaient offerts
par les écoles antérieures, sans s‘in-
quiéter des dissonances qui pouvaient
exister entre ces divers troncgons de
théorie. 1] est puéril de chercher ἃ les
mettre d’accord avec eux-mémes, quand
eux-mémes s’en sont pen souciés.
Autant vaudrait, comme certains cri-
tiques Allemands, declarer interpolés
tous les passages que l’on ne peut con-
cilier avec lesautres. Ainsi, la théorie
des Seconds Analytiques et celles du
troisiéme livre de l’Ame, sans se con-
tredire expressément, représentent deux
apercus profondément distincts et @ori-
gine différente, sur le fait de lintelli-

Cuap, VII.

gence.” (Averroés et l’Averroisme, Ὁ.
96-98, Paris, 1852.)

There is also in Striimpell (Gesch.
der Prakt. Phil. der Griech. vor
Aristot. p. 200) a good passage to the
same purpose as the above from M.
Renan: disapproving this presumption,
—that the doctrines of every ancient

hilosopher must of course be sys-
matic and coherent with each other

NO PERSONAL PLATO.

34]

—as ‘fa phantom of modern times”:
and pointing out that both Plato and
Aristotle founded their philosophy, not
upon any one governing ἀρχὴ alone,
from which exclusively consequences
are deduced, but upon several distinct,
co-ordinate, independent, points of
view: each of which is by turns fol-
lowed out, not always consistently with
the others.

342 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. Cuap. VIII.

CHAPTER VIII.
PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY.

On looking through the collection of works enumerated in the
Variety and _hrasyllean Canon, the first impression made upon
abundance us respecting the author is, that which is expressed in
Peple in the epithets applied to him by Cicero—“ varius et
writings. multiplex et copiosus”. Such epithets bring before
us the variety in Plato’s points of view and methods of handling
—the multiplicity of the topics discussed—the abundance of the
premisses and illustrations suggested :1 comparison being taken
with other literary productions of the same age. It is scarcely
possible to find any one predicate truly applicable to all of Plato’s
works. Every predicate is probably true in regard to some :—
none in regard to all.

Several critics of antiquity considered Plato as essentially a
Plato both sceptic—that is, a Searcher or Enquirer, not reaching
sceptical any assured or proved result, They denied to him
matical. the character of a dogmatist: they maintained that
he neither established nor enforced any affirmative doctrines.?
This latter statement is carried too far. Plato is sceptical in
some dialogues, dogmatical in others. And the catalogue of
Thrasyllus shows that the sceptical dialogues (Dialogues of Search
or Investigation) are more numerous than the dogmatical (Dia-
logues of Exposition)—as they are also, speaking generally, more
animated and interesting.

1The rhetor Aristeides, comparing gination. Plato (as he truly says Orat.
Plato with Avschines (i.e. Aischines xlvi. Ὑπὲρ τῶν Τεττάρων, p. 295, Din-
Socraticus, disciple of Sokrates also), dorf) τῆς φύσεως χρῆται περιουσίᾳ, ἄσ.
remarks that Aischines was more likel 2 Diogen. Laert. iii. 52. Prolegom.
to report what Sokrates really said, Platon. hilosoph. c. 10, vol. vi. 205, of
from being inferior in productive ima- Ε΄. F. Hermaun’s edition of Plato.

CuHap VIII POETICAL VEIN. 343

Again, Aristotle declared the writing ot Plato to be some-
poetry and prose, and even the philoso-

Poetical
phical doctrine of Plato respecting Ideas, to derive all vein predo-
its apparent plausibility from poetic metaphors, The some com-

τος ᾿ . iti
affirmation is true, up to a certain point. Many of But not in

the dialogues display an exuberant vein of poetry, 3}}

which was declared—not by Aristotle alone, but by many other
critics contemporary with Plato—to be often misplaced and
excessive—and which appeared the more striking because the
dialogues composed by the other Sokratic companions were all
of them plain and unadorned.! The various mythes, in the
Pheedrus and elsewhere, are announced expressly as soaring
above the conditions of truth and logical appreciation. Moreover,
we find occasionally an amount of dramatic vivacity, and of
artistic antithesis between the speakers introduced, which might
have enabled Plato, had he composed for the drama as ὦ profes-
sion, to contend with success for the prizes at the Dionysiac
festivals But here again, though this is true of several dialogues,
it is not true of others. In the Parmenidés, Timzeus, and the
Leges, such elements will be looked for in vain. In the Timeus,
they are exchanged for a professed cosmical system, including
much mystic and oracular affirmation, without proof to support
it, and without opponents to test it: in the Leges, for ethical

1See Dionys. Hal. Epist. ad_Cn.
Pomp. 756, De Adm. Vi Dic. Dem.
956, where he recognises the contrast
between Plato and τὸ Zwxparixdy δι-
δασκαλεῖον πᾶν. His expression is re-
markable: Tatra yap ot τε κατ᾽ αὐτὸν
γενόμενοι πάντες ἐπιτιμῶσιν ὧν τὰ ὀνό-
ματα οὐδὲν δεῖ με λέγειν. Epistol. ad
Cn. Pomp. p. 761; also 757. See also
Diog. L. iii. 87; Aristotel. Metaph. A.
991, a. 22.
icero and Quintilian say the same
about Plato’s style: ‘“‘Multum supra
rosam orationem, et quam pedestrem
Brreeci vocant, surgit: ut mihi non
hominis ingenio, sed quodam Delphico

videatur oraculo instinctus”. Quintil.
x. 1, 81. Cicero, Orator. c. 20. Lucian,
Piscator, c. 22.

Sextus Empiricus designates the
same tendency under the words τὴν

Πλάτωνος ἀνειδωλοποίησιν. Pyrrhon.
Hypotyp. iii. 189.
he Greek rhetors of the Augustan

age—Dionysius of Halikarnassus and

Kekilius of Kalakté—not only blamed
the style of Plato for excessive, over-
strained, and misplaced metaphor, but
Keekilius goes so far as to declare a de-
cided preference for Lysias over Plato.
(Dionys. Hal. De Vi Demosth. pp. 1025-
1087, De Comp. Verb. p. 196 RK; Lon-
inus, De Sublimitat. c. 82.) The num-
er of critics who censured the manner
and doctrine of Plato (critics both con-
temporary with him and subsequent
was considerable (Dionys. H. p- a
Pomp. Ρ 757). Dionysius and the
critics of his age had before their eyes
the contrast of the Asiatic style of rhe-
toric, prevalent in their time, with the
Attic style represented by Demosthenes
and Lysias. They wished to uphold
the force and simplicity of the Attic,
against the tumid, wordy, Pretensive
Asiatic: and they considered the Phe.
drus, with other compositions of Plato,
as falling under the same censure with
the Asiatic. See Theoph. Burckhardt,
Cecili Rhet. Frag., Berlin, 1863, p. 15.

344 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. Cuap. VIII.

sermons, and religious fulminations, proclaimed by a dictatorial
authority.

One feature there is, which is declared by Schleiermacher and
Form of others to be essential to all the works of Plato—the
dialogue— form of dialogue. Here Schleiermacher’s assertion,
universal to literally taken, is incontestable. Plato always puts
that Pluto his thoughts into the mouth of some-spokesman: he
speaks in never speaks in his own name. All the works of
his own Plato which we.possess (excepting the Epistles, and

the Apology, which last I consider to be a report of
what Sokrates himself said) are dialogues. But under this same
name, many different realities are found to be contained. In the
Timeus and Kritias the dialogue is simply introductory to a
continuous exposition—in the Menexenus, to a rhetorical dis-
course : while in the Leges, and even in Sophistés, Politikus, and
others, it includes no antithesis nor interchange between two
independent minds, but is simply a didactic lecture, put into
interrogatory form, and broken into fragments small enough
for the listener to swallow at once: he by his answer acknow-
ledging the receipt. If therefore the affirmation of Schleier-
macher is intended to apply to all the Platonic compositions,
we must confine it to the form, without including the spirit, of
dialogue.

It is in truth scarcely possible to resolve all the diverse mani-
N festations of the Platonic mind into one higher unity ;

o one com- - . * τ᾿
moncharac- or to predicate, about Plato as an intellectual person,
vading all anything which shall be applicable at once to the
Plato's — Protagoras, Gorgias, Parmenidés, Phedrus, Sympo-
works. sion, Philébus, Phedon, Republic, Timeus, and
Leges. Plato was sceptic, dogmatist, religious mystic and inqui-
sitor, mathematician, philosopher, poet (erotic as well as satirical),
thetor, artist—all in one : ὁ or at least, all in succession, through-

1Dikearchus affirmed that Plato and Sokrates; μεσεύων Πυθαγόρον καὶ
was a compound of Sukrates with Py- Xwxpdrovs. No three persons could be
thagoras. Plutarch calls him also a more disparate than Lykurgus, Pytha-
compound of Sokrates with Lykurgus. goras,and Sokrates. But there are be-
(Plutarch, Symposiac. viii. 2, p. 718 B.) sides various other attributes of Plato,

Nemesius the Platonist (Kusebius, which are not included under either of
Prep. Evang. xiv. 5-7-8) repeats the the heads of this tripartite character.
saying of Dikearchus, and describes The Stoic philosopher Spherus
Plato as midway between Pythagoras composed a work in three books—Lepi

CHaP. VIIL. NO COMMON CHARACTERISTIC. 345

out the fifty years of his philosophical life. At one time his
exuberant dialectical impulse claims satisfaction, manifesting
itself in a string of ingenious doubts and unsolved contradictions:
at another time, he is full of theological antipathy against those
who libel Helios and Seléné, or who deny the universal provi-
dence of the Gods: here, we have unqualified confessions of
ignorance, and protestations against the false persuasion of know-
ledge, as alike widespread and deplorable—there, we find a
description of the process of building up the Kosmos from the -
beginning, as if the author had been privy to the inmost purposes
of the Demiurgus. In one dialogue the erotic fever is in the
ascendant, distributed between beautiful youths and philosophical
concepts, and confounded with a religious inspiration and furor
which supersedes and transcends human sobriety (Phe:drus): in
another, all vehement impulses of the soul are stigmatised and
repudiated, no honourable scope being left for anything but the
calm and passionless Nous (Philébus, Pheedon). Satire is ex-
changed for dithyramb, and mythe,—and one ethical point of
view for another (Protagoras, Gorgias) The all-sufficient
dramatising power of the master gives full effect to each of these
multifarious tendencies, On the whole—to use a comparison of
Plato himself!—the Platonic sum total somewhat resembles those
fanciful combinations of animals imagined in the Hellenic
mythology—an aggregate of distinct and disparate individualities,
which look like one because they are packed in the same external
wrapper.

Furthermore, if we intend to affirm anything about Plato
as a whole, there is another fact which ought to be taken
into account.? We know him only from his dialogues, and

Avxovpyov καὶ Zwxpdrovs—(Diog. La.
vii. 178). _He probably compared
therein the Platonic Republic with the
Spartan constitution and discipline.

1 Plato, Republ. ix. 588 C. Οἷαι μυ-
θολογοῦνται παλαιαὶ γενέσθαι φύσεις,
ἢ τε Χιμαίρας καὶ ἡ Σκύλλης καὶ Kep-
βέρον, καὶ ἄλλαι τινὲς συχναὶ λέγονται
ξυμπεφυκνῖαι ἰδέαι πολλαὶ εἰς ὃν γενέσ-
Oar...» Περίπλασον δὴ αὐτοῖς ἔξωθεν
ἑνὸς εἰκόνα, τὴν τοῦ ἀνθρώπον, ὥστε τῷ
μὴ δυναμένῳ τὰ ἐντὸς ὁρᾷν, ἀλλὰ τὸ
“ἄξω μόνον ἔλυτρον ὁρῶντι, ἕν φῶον ale
Ψψεσθαι---ἄνθρωπον.

2Trendelenburg not only adopts
Schleiermacher’s theory of a precon-
ceived and systematic purpose connect-
ing together all Plato’s dialogues, but
even extends this purpose to Plato’s
oral lectures : “ [ἃ pro certo habendum
est. sicut prioribus dialogis quasi pree-
parat (Plato) posteriores, posterioribus
evolvit priores—ita et in scholis con-
tinuasse dialogos; que reliquerit, ab-
solvisse; atque omnibus ad summa
principia perductis, intima quasi se-
mina apertisse”. (Trendelenburg, De
Ideis et Numeris Platonis, p. 6.)

346

PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY.

CuHaP VIII.

from a few scraps of information. But Plato was not merely

The real
Plato was
not merely
a writer of
dialogues.
but also lec-
turer and
president

of a school.
In this last
important
function he
is scarcely
at all known
tous. Notes
of his lec-
tures taken
by Aristotle.

school, commencing

forty years) of his
function.

a composer of dialogues,
chief of a school, besides. The presidency of that

He was lecturer, and

about 386 B.c., and continued

by him with great celebrity for the last half (nearly

life, was his most important

Among his contemporaries he must have
exercised greater influence through his school than
through his writings.’
school-teacher and lecturer, he is almost unknown to
us: for the few incidental allusions which have de-
scended to us, through the Aristotelian commentators,
only raise curiosity without satisfying it. The little

Yet in this character of

information which we possess respecting Plato’s lectures, relates
altogether to those which he delivered upon the Ipsum Bonum
or Summum Bonum at some time after Aristotle became his

This opinion is surely not borne
out—it seems even contradicted—by
all the information which we possess
(very scanty indeed) about the Platonic
ectures. Plato delivered therein his

thagorean doctrines, merging his
Ideas in the Fythagorean numerical
symbols : and Aristotle, far from con-
sidering this as a systematic and in-
tended evolution of doctrine at first
imperfectly unfolded, treats it as an
additional perversion and confusion,
introduced into a doctrine originally
erroneous. In regard to the transition
of Plato from the doctrine of Ideas to
that of Ideal Numbers, see Aristotel.
Metaphys. M. 1078, b. 9, 1080, a. 12
(with the commentary of Bonitz, pp.
550 Fal), A. 987, b. 20.

M. Boeckh, too, accounts for the
obscure and enigmatical speaking of
Plato in various dialogues, by sup-
posing that he cleared up all the diffi-
culties in his oral lectures. ‘‘ Platon
deutet nur an—spricht meinethalben
rathselhaft (in den Gesetzen); aber
gerade so rathselhaft spricht er von

iesen Sachen im Timaeus: er pflegt
mathematische Theoreme nur anzudeu-
ten, nicht zu entwickeln: ich glaube,
weil er sie in den Vortrégen ausfthrte,”
&e. (Untersuchungen ἄρον das Kos-
mische System des Platon, p. 50.)

This may be true about the mathe-
matical theorems; but I confess that I
see no proof of it. Though Plato ad-

mits that his doctrine in the Timeus is.
ἀήθης λόγος, yet he expressly intimates
that the hearers are instructed persons,
able to follow him (Timeeus, Ὁ. 53 C.).
1M. Renan, in his work, ‘ Averroés
et PAverroisme,’ pp. 257-325, remarks
that several of the Italian professors of
philosophy, at Padua and other uni-
versities, exercised far greater influence
through their lectures than through
their published works. He says (p. 325-
6) respecting Cremonini (Professor at
Padua, 1590-1620):—‘‘ Tl a été jusqu’ici
apprécié d’une maniére fort incomplete
par les historiens de la philosophie.
On ne la jugé que par ses écrits im-
primés, gui ne sont que des dissertations
de peu d’importance, et ne peuvent en
aucune maniére faire comprendre la re-
nommeée colossale ἃ laquelle il parvint.
Cremonini n’est qu’un professeur : ses
cours sont sa véritable philosophie.
Aussi, tandis que ses écrits imprimés se
vendaient fort mal, les rédactions de ses
legons se répandaient dans toute I’Italie
et méme au del& des monts. On sait
que les éléves préférent souvent aux
textes imprimés, les cahiers qu’ils ont
ainsi recueillis de la bouche de leurs
rofesseurs. . . En général, c’est dans
es cahiers, beaucoup plus que dans les
sources imprimées, qu’il faut étudier
Yécole de Padoue. our Cremonini,
cette tache est facile ; car les copies 46:
ses cours sont innombrables dans le
nord de l’Italie.”

THE LECTURES. 347

CuHap. VIII.

pupil—that is, during the last eighteen years of Plato’s life.
Aristotle and other hearers took notes of these lectures: Aristotle
“even composed an éxpress work now lost (De Bono or De Philo-
sophia), reporting with comments of his own these oral doctrines
of Plato, together with the analogous doctrines of the Pytha-
goreans. We learn that Plato gave continuous lectures, dealing
with the highest and most transcendental concepts (with the
constituent elements or factors of the Platonic Ideas or Ideal
Numbers : the first of these factors being The One—the second,
The Indeterminate Dyad, or The Great and Little, the essentially
indefinite), and that they were mystic and enigmatical, difficult
tu understand.?

One remarkable observation, made upon them by Aristotle,
has been transmitted to us.2 There were lectures announced
to be, On the Supreme Good. Most of those who came to
hear, expected that Plato would enumerate and com- pipto's 160.
pare the various matters usually considered good— tures on De

ἢ ι Β -
2.6, health, strength, beauty, genius, wealth, power, scure oe

1 Aristotle (Physic. iv. p. 209, Ὁ. 84) tinguished from his written dialogues.

alludes to τὰ λεγόμενα ἄγραφα δόγματα
of Plato, and their discordance on one
point with the Timeeus.
Simplikius ad Aristot. Physic. f. 104
Ὁ. p. 362, a. 11, Brandis. ᾿Αρχὰς yap καὶ
τῶν αἰσθητῶν τὸ ὃν καὶ τὴν ἀόριστόν
ace δνάδα λέγειν τὸν Πλάτωνα. Τὴν δὰ
ἀόριστον δυάδα καὶ ἐν τοῖς νοητοῖς τιθεὶς
ἄπειρον εἶναι ἔλεγεν, καὶ τὸ μέγα δὲ καὶ
τὸ μικρὸν ἀρχὰς τιθεὶς ἄπειρα εἶναι
ἔλεγεν ἐν τοῖς περὶ Τἀγαθοῦ λόγοις, οἷς
ὁ ᾿Αριστοτέλης καὶ Ἡρακλείδης καὶ ‘Eo-
τιαῖος καὶ ἄλλοι τοῦ Πλάτωνος ἑταῖροι
παραγενόμενοι ἀνεγράψαντο
τὰ ῥηθέντα, αἰνιγματωδῶς ὡς
ἐῤῥήθη" Πορφύριος δὲ διαρθροῦν αὐτὰ
ἐπαγγελλόμενος τάδε περὶ αὐτῶν γέγραφεν
ἐν τῳ Φιλήβῳ. Compare another pas-
sage of the same Scholia, p. 884, b. 28,
p. 371, b 26. Τὰς ἀγράφους συνουσίας
τοῦ Πλάτωνος αὐτὸς ὁ ᾿Αριστοτέλης
ἀπεγράψατο. 872, ἃ. Τὸ μεθεκτικὸν ἐν
μὲν ταῖς περὶ Τἀγαθοῦ συνουσίαις μέγα
καὶ μικρὸν ἐκάλει, ἐν δὲ τῷ Τιμαίῳ ὕλην,
ἣν καὶ χώραν καὶ τόπον ὠνόμαζε. Comp
871, a. 5, and the two extracts from
Simplikius, cited by Zeller, De Hermo-
doro, pp. 20,21. By ἄγραφα δόγματα, OF
ἄγραφοι συνούσιαι, we are to understand
opinions or colloquies not written down
(or not communicated to others as
writings) by Plato himsels: thus dis-

Aristotle, in the treatise, De Anima, i.
2, p. 404, Ὁ. 18, refers to ἐν τοῖς περὶ
Φιλοσοφίας : which Simplikius thus ex-
plains περὶ φιλοσοφίας νῦν λέγει τὰ περὶ
τοῦ ᾿Αγαθοῦ αὐτῷ ἐκ τῆς Πλάτωνος ἀναγε-
γραμμένα συνονσίας, ἐν οἷς ἱστορεῖ τάς
τε Πυθαγορείους καὶ Ἰ]λατωνικὰς περὶ τῶν
ὄντων δόξας. Philoponus reports the
same thing: see Trendelenburg’s Comm.
on De Animé, p. 226. Compare Alexand.
ad Aristot. Met. A. 992, p. 581, a. 2,
Schol. Brandis.

2 Aristoxenus, Harmon. ii. p. 30.
Καθάπερ 'AptoroteAns ἀεὶ διηγεῖτο τοὺς
πλείστους τῶν ἀκουσάντων παρὰ Πλά-
Twvos τὴν περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἀκρόασιν
παθεῖν! προσεῖναι γὰρ ἕκαστον ὑπολαμ-
βάνοντα λήψεσθαί τι τῶν νομιζομένων
ἀνθρωπίνων ἀγαθῶν "---ὅτε δὲ φανείησαν
οἱ λόγοι περὶ μαθημάτων καὶ ἀριθμῶν καὶ
γεωμετρίας καὶ ἀστρολογίας, καὶ τὸ
πέρας ὅτι ἀγαθόν ἐστιν ἕν, παντελῶς
οἶμαι παράδοξον ἐφαίνετο αὐτοῖς.

Compare Themistius, Orat. xxi. Ὁ.
245 D. Proklus also alludes to this
story, and to the fact that most of the
πολὺς καὶ παντοῖος ὄχλος, Who were
attracted to Plato’s ἀκρόασις περὶ Ta-
γαθοῦ, were disappointed or unable to
understand him, and went away.
Proklus ad Platon. Parmen. p. 92,

ousin. 528, Stallb.)

348 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. Cunar VIID.
transcen=_ ' &c. But these hearers were altogether astonished
fect which at what they really heard: for Plato omitting the
they topics expected, descanted only upon arithmetic, geo-
theauditors. metry, and astronomy ; and told them that The Good

was identical with The One (as contrasted with the Infinite or
Indeterminate which was Evil).
We see farther from this remark :—First, that Plato's

They were lectures were often above what his auditors could
delivered appreciate—a fact which we learn from other allu-
langous sions also: Next, that they were not confined to a
They coin. Select body of advanced pupils, who had been
cide mainly worked up by special training into a state fit for
Aristotle comprehending them.! Had such been the case, the
states about . . . .

the Platonic Sttrprise which Aristotle mentions could never have
Ideas. been felt. And we see farther, that the transcen-

dental doctrine delivered in the lectures De Bono (though we
find partial analogies to it in Philébus, Epinomis, and parts of
Republic) coincides more with what Aristotle states and com-
ments upon as Platonic doctrine, than with any reasonings which
we find in the Platonic dialogues. It represents the latest phase
of Platonism : when the Ideas originally conceived by him as
Entities in themselves, had become merged or identified in his
mind with the Pythagorean numbers or symbols.

1 Respecting Plato’s lectures, see son, against Schleiermacher’s opinion.

Brandis (Gesch. der Griech.-Rom. Phil.
vol. ii. p. 180 seq., 306-319); also Tren-
delenburg, Platonis De Ideis et Numeris
Doctrina, pp. 8, 4, seq.

Brandis, though he admits that
Plato’s lectures were continuous dis-
courses, thinks that they were inter-
mingled with discussion and debate:
which may have been the case, though
there is no proof of it. But Schleier-
macher goes further, and says (Ein-
leitung Ὁ. 18), “Any one who can
think that Plato in these oral Vortrdgen
employed the Sophistical method of
long speeches, shows such an ignorance
as to forfeit all right of speaking about
Plato”. Now the passage from Aristo-
xenus, given in the preceding note, is
our only testimony; and it distinctly
indicates a continuous lecture to an
unprepared auditory, just as Prota-
goras or Prodikus might have given.
Κ΄. F. Hermann protests, with good rea-

(Ueber Plato’s schriftstellerische Mo-
tive, p. 289.)

The confident declaration just pro-
duced from Schleiermacher illustrates
the unsound basis on which he and
various other Platonic critics proceed.
They find, in some dialogues of Plato,
a strong opinion proclaimed, that con-
tinuous discourse is useless for the
purpose of instruction. This was a

oint of view which, at the time when

e composed these dialogues, he con-
sidered to be of importance, and desired
to enforce. But we are not warranted
in concluding that he must always
have held the same conviction through-
out his long philosophical life, and in
rejecting as un-platonic all statements
and all compositions which imply an
opposite belief. We cannot with reason
bind down Plato to a persistence in
one and the same type of composi-

ions.

Cuap. VIII.

THE LECTURES.

349

᾿

This statement of Aristotle, alike interesting and unquestion-

able, attests the mysticism and obscurity which per-
vaded Plato’s doctrine in his later years. But whether
this lecture on The Good is to be taken as a fair speci-
men of Plato’s lecturing generally, and from the time
when he first began to lecture, we may perhaps doubt :}
since we know that as a lecturer and converser he
acquired extraordinary ascendency over ardent youth.

Thelectures
De Bono
may per-
haps have
been more
transcen-
dental than
Plato’s
other lec-
tures.

We see this by the remarkable instance of Dion.?
The only occasions on which we have experience of Plato as

speaking in his own person, and addressing himself to
definite individuals, are presented by his few Epistles ;
all of them (as I have before remarked) written after
he was considerably above sixty years of age, and
nearly all addressed to Sicilians or Italians—-Diony-

Plato’s
Epistles.—
In them
only he
speaks in
his own
person.

sius IIJ., Dion, the friends of Dion after the death of the latter,

and Archytas.?

1 Themistius says (Orat. xxi. Ὁ. 245
D) that Plato somctimes lectured in
the Peirzeus, and that a crowd then
collected to hear him, not merely from
the city, but also from the country
around : if he lectured De Bono, how-
ever, the ordinary hearers became tired
and dispersed, leaving only τοὺς συνή-
θεις ὁμιλητάς.

It appears that Plato in his lectures
delivered theories on the principles of
geometry. He denied the reality of
geometrical points— or at least admitted
them only as hypotheses for geometrical
reasoning. He maintained that what
others called a point ought to be called
‘“anendevisible line”. Xenokrates main-
tained the same doctrine after him.
Aristotle controverts it (see Metaphys.
A., 992, Ὁ. 20) Aristotle’s words in
citing Plato’s opinion (τούτῳ μὲν οὖν
τῷ γένει καὶ διεμάχετο ἸΙλάτων ws ὄντι
γεωμετρικῷ δόγματι, ἀλλ' ἐκάλει ἀρχὴν
γραμμῆς τοῦτο δὲ πολλάκις ἐτίθει τὰς
ἀτόμονς γραμμάς) must be referred to
Plato’s oral lectures ; no such opinion
occurs in the dialogues. This is the
opinion both of Bonitz and Schwegler
in their comments on the passage : also
of Trendelenburg, De Ideis et Numeris
Platonis, p. 66. That geometry and
arithmetic were matters of study and
reflection both to Plato himself and to
many of his pupils in the Academy,
appears certain; and perhaps Plato

In so far as these letters bear upon Plato’s

may have had an interior circle of
pupils, to which he applied the well-

nown exclusion—pydcis ἀγεωμέτρητος
εἰσίτω. But we cannot make out
clearly what was Plato’s own profi-
ciency, or what improvements he may
have introduced, in geometry, nor what
there is to justify the comparison made
by Montucla between Plato and Des-
cartes. In the narrative respecting the
Delian problem—the duplication of
the cube—Archytas, Menzechmus, and
Eudoxus, appear as the inventors of
solutions, Plato as the superior who
prescribes and criticises (see the letter
and epigram of Eratosthenes: Bern-
hardy, Kratosthenica, pp. 176-184). The
three are said to have been blamed
by Plato for substituting instrumental
measurement in place of geometrical
proof (Plutarch, Problem. Sympos. viii.
2, pp. 718, 719; Plutarch, Vit Mar-
celli, c. 14). The geometrical construc-
tion of the Κόσμος, which Plato gives
us in the Timzeus, seems borrowed from
the Pythagoreans, though applied pro-
bably in a way peculiar to himself (see
Finger, De Primordiis Geometrie ap.
Grecos, Ρ. 38, Heidelb. 1831).

2 See Kpist. vii. pp. 327, 328,

3 Of the thirteen Platonic Epistles
Ep. 2, 3, 13, are addressed to the seconc
or younger Dionysius; Ep. 4 to Dion;
Ep 7, 8, to the friends and relatives of
Dion after Dion’s death. The 13th

350

PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY.

CuaP. VIII.

manner of lecturing or teaching, they go to attest, first, his
opinion that direct written exposition was useless for conveying
real instruction to the reader—next, his reluctance to publish
any such exposition under his own name, and carrying with
it his responsibility. When asked for exposition, he writes
intentionally with mystery, so that ordinary persons cannot

understand.

Knowing as we do that he had largely imbued himself with

Intentional

obscurity of

his Epistles

in reference

to philoso-
hical doc-
rine.

the tenets of the Pythagoreans (who designedly
adopted a symbolical manner of speaking—published
no writings—for Philolaus is cited as an exception
to their rule—and did not care to be understood,
except by their own adepts after a long apprentice-

ship) we cannot be surprised to find Plato holding a language

very similar.

Epistle appears to be the earliest of all,
being seemingly written after the first
voyage of Plato to visit Dionysius IT.
at Syracuse, in 367-366 B.C., and before
his second visit to the same place and
person, about 363-362 B.C. pistles 2
and 8 were written after his return from
that second visit, in 360 B.C., and prior
to the expedition of Dion against Dio-
nysius in 357 B.c. Epistle 4 was
written to Dion shortly after Dion’s
victorious career at Syracuse, about
355 B.c. Epistles 7 and 8 were written
not long after the murder of Dion in
354 B.c. The first in order, among the
Platonic Epistles, is not written by
Plato, but Ϊ Dion, addressed to Dio-
nysius, shortly after the latter had sent
Dion away from Syracuse. The fifth
is addressed by Plato to the Macedo-
nian prince Perdikkas. The sixth, to
Hermeias of Atarneus, Erastus, and
Koriskus. The ninth and twelfth, to
Archytas of Tarentum. The tenth, to
Aristodérus. The eleventh, to Lao-
damas. I confess that I see nothing
in these letters which compels me to
depart from the judgment of the an-
cient critics, who unanimously acknow-
ledged them as genuine. do not
think myself competent to deteymine
a priori what the style of Platg’s4etters
must have been; what top he must
have touched upon, and what topics he
could not have touched upan. have
no difficulty in believing that Plato,
writing a letter on philosophy, ma

have expressed himself with as muc

He declares that the highest principles of his

mysticism and obscurity as we now read
in Epist. 2 and 7. Nor does it sur-
prise me to find Plato (in Epist. 13)
alluding to details which critics, who
look upon him altogether as a spiritual
person, disallow as mean and unworthy.

is recommendation of the geometer
Helikon of Kyzikus, to Dionysius and
Archytas, is to me interesting: to
make known the theorems of Eudoxus,
through the medium of Helikon, to
Archytas, was no small service to geo-
metry in those days. I have an interest
in learning how Plato employed the
money given to him by Dionysius and
other friends: that he sent to Dionysius
a statue of Apollo by a good Athenian
sculptor named Leochares (this sculp-
tor executed a bust of Isokrates also,
Plut. Vit. x. Orat. p. 838); and another
statue by the same sculptor for the wife
of Dionysius, in gratitude for the care
which she had taken of him (Plato)
when sick at Syracuse; that he spent
the money of Dionysius partly in dis-
charging his own public taxes and
liturgies at Athens, partly in pro-
viding dowries for poor maidens among
his friends; that he was so beset by
applications, which he could not re-
fuse, for letters of recommendation to
Dionysius, as to compel him to signify,
by a private mark, to Dionysius, whic
among the letters he wished to be most
attended to. ‘These latter” (he says)
“ΕἼ shall begin with θεὸς (sing. number),
the others I shall begin with θεοὶ (plu-
ral)” (Epist. xiii. 861, 362, 363.)

Cuap. VIIL THE EPISTLES. 351

philosophy could not be set forth in writing so as to be intelli-
gible to ordinary persons: that they could only be apprehended
by a few privileged recipients, through an illumination kindled
in the mind by multiplied debates and much mental effort :
that such illumination was always preceded by a painful feeling
of want, usually long-continued, sometimes lasting for nearly
thirty years, and exchanged at length for relief at some unex-
pected moment.}

Plato during his second visit had had one conversation, and
only one, with Dionysius respecting the higher mysteries of
philosophy. He had impressed upon Dionysius the prodigious
labour and difficulty of attaining truth upon these matters. The
despot professed to thirst ardently for philosophy, and the con-
versation turned upon the Natura Primi—upon the first and
highest principles of Nature.? Dionysius, after this conversation
with Plato, intimated that he had already conceived in his own
mind the solution of these difficulties, and the truth upon philo-
sophy in its greatest mysteries. Upon which Plato expressed
his satisfaction that such was the case,* so as to relieve him from
the necessity of farther explanations, though the like had never
happened to him with any previous hearer.

But Dionysius soon found that he could not preserve the
explanation in his mind, after Plato’s departure—that
difficulties again crowded upon him—and that it was
necessary to send a confidential messenger to Athens
to entreat farther elucidations. In reply, Plato sends
back by the messenger what is now numbered as the
second of his Epistles. He writes avowedly in enig-
matical language, so that, if the letter be lost, the
finder will not be able to understand it; and he en-
joins Dionysius to burn it after frequent perusal ¢
He expresses his hope that when Dionysius has debated the

Letters of
Plato to
Dionysius
II. about
philosoph ἢ
is anxiety
to confine
philosophy
discus-
sion among
select and
prepared
minds,

1 Plato, Epist. ii. pp. 818, 814,

2Plat. Epist. ii. 312: περὶ τῆς τοῦ
πρώτον φύσεως. Enpist. vii, 844: τῶν

4 Plat. Epist. ii. 812 E: φραστέον δή
σοι δι᾽ αἰνιγμῶν iv’ ἄν τι ἡ δέλτος ἣ πόν-
τον ἢ γῆς ἐν πτυχαῖς πάθῃ, ὁ ἀναγνοὺς

περὶ φύσεως ἄκρων καὶ πρώτων.--- One
conversation only—Epist. vii. 345.

8 Plato, Epist. ii. 81 B. Plato
asserts the same about Dionysius in
Epist. vii. 341 B.

μὴ γνῷ. 814 C: eppwoo καὶ πείθον, καὶ
τὴν ἐπιστολὴν ταύτην νῦν πρῶτον ToA-
λάκις ἀναγνοὺς κατάκανσον.

_Proklus, in his Commentary on the
Timseus (pp. 40, 41), remarks the fond.
ness of Plato for τὸ αἰνιγματωδές.

302 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. CuaP. VITIL.

matter often with the best minds near him, the clouds will
clear away of themselves, and the moment of illumination will
supervene.'! He especially warns Dionysius against talking
about these matters to unschooled men, who will be sure to
laugh at them; though by minds properly prepared, they will
be received with the most ‘fervent welcome.? He affirms that
Dionysius is much superior in philosophical debate to his com-
panions ; who were overcome in debate with him, not because
they suffered themselves designedly to be overcome (out of
flattery towards the despot, as some ill-natured persons alleged),
but because they could not defend themselves against the Elen-
ehus as applied by Dionysius. Lastly, Plato advises Dionysius
to write down nothing, since what has once been written will
be sure to disappear from the memory; but to trust altogether
to learning by heart, meditation, and repeated debate, as a
guarantee for retention in his mind. “It is for that reason”
(Plato says)’ “that I have never myself written anything upon!
these subjects. There neither is, nor shall there ever be, any;
treatise of Plato. The opinions called by the name of Plat
are those of Sokrates, in his days of youthful vigour ond
glory.”

Such is the languaye addressed by Plato to the younger Diony-
He refnees sius, in a letter written seemingly between 362-357
tofurnish B.C. In another letter, written about ten years after-
any writen, wards (353-352 B.c.), to the friends of Dion (after
tive exposi- Dion’s death), he expresses the like repugnance to the
tion of his idea of furnishing any written authoritative exposi-
sophical —_ tion of his principal doctrines. “There never shall

be any expository treatise of mine upon them” (he
declares). “Others have tried, Dionysius among the number, to
write them down ; but they do not know what they attempt. I

1 Plat. Epist. ii. 813 D. γράμμα Πλάτωνος οὐδὲν οὔδ᾽ ἔσται" τὰ
3 Plat. Epist. if. 814 A. εὐλαβοῦ μέν- δὲ νῦν λεγόμενα, Σωκράτους ἐστὶ καλοῦ
τοι μή ποτε ἐκπέσῃ ταῦτα εἰς ἀνθρώπους κα Addataus ad superiora” (says
ἀπαιδεύτους. ᾿
8 aeons Wesseling, Epist. ad Venemam, p. 41,
4 Plat. Epis t. i. B14 Ὁ. Utrecht, 1748), ‘*Platonem videri sem-
Plat. Epist. ii. 314 C, μεγίστη δὲ per voluisse, dialogos, in quibus de
φυλακὴ τὸ μὴ γράφειν ἀλλ' ἐκμανθά- Philosophia, deque Republica atque
νειν’ ov γὰρ ἔστι τὰ γραφέντα μὴ οὐκ ejug Legibus, inter confabulantes ac-
ἐκπεσεῖν. διὰ ταῦτα οὐδὲν Tenor ἐγὼ tum init, non sui ingenii sed Socratici,
περὶ τούτων γέγραφα, οὐδ᾽ ἔστι ovy- foetus esse”.

THE EPISTLES. 353

CuapP. VIII.

could myself do this better than any one, and I should con-
sider it the proudest deed in my life, as well as a signal benefit to
mankind, to bring forward an exposition of Nature luminous to all.?
But I think the attempt would be nowise beneficial, except toa
few, who require only slight direction to enable them to find it
for themselves: to most persons it would do no good, but would
only fill them with empty conceit of knowledge, and with con-
tempt for others? These matters cannot be communicated in
words as other sciences are. Out of repeated debates on them,
and much social intercourse, there is kindled suddenly a light in
the mind, as from fire bursting forth, which, when once gene-
rated, keeps itself alive.” 3

Plato then proceeds to give an example from geometry, illus-

trating the uselessness both of writing and of direct

He illus-
exposition. In acquiring a knowledge of the circle, he ΝΥΝ
distinguishes five successive stages. 1. The Name. the succes-

2. The Definition, a proposition composed of nouns
and verbs. 3. The Diagram. 4. Knowledge, Intelli-
gence, True Opinion, Νοῦς. 5. The Noumenon—
Αὐτὸ- Κύκλος ----ἰα 68} or intelligible circle, the only true
object of knowledge.* The fourth stage is a purely
mental result, not capable of being exposed either in
words or figure : it presupposes the three first, but is

sive stages
of geometri-
cal teach-
ing. Diffi-
culty to
avoid the
creeping in
of error

at each

of these
stages.

something distinct from them ; and it is the only mental condi-
tion immediately cognate and similar to the fifth stage, or the

self-existent idea.®

1 Plato, Epist. vii. 341, B, 6,
Tov κάλλιον ἐπέπρακτ᾽ av ἡμῖν
βίῳ ἣ τοῖς τε ἀνθρώποισι μέγα ὄφελος
γράψαι καὶ τὴν φύσιν εἰς φῶς
πᾶσι προαγαΎ εἶν;

9 Plat. E ist. Vii 341 EB.

8 Plato, Epist. vii. 841 0, οὔκουν ἐμόν
ye περὶ αὑτῶν ἔστι σύγγραμμα οὐδε μή
ποτε γένηται. ῥητὸν γὰρ οὐδαμῶς ἐστιν
ὡς ἄλλα μαθήματα, ἀλλ᾽ ἐκ πολλῆς συν-
ουσίας γιγνομένης περὶ τὸ πρᾶγμα αὐτὸ
καὶ τοῦ συζῆν, ἐξαίφνης, οἷον ἀπὸ πυρὸς
πηδήσαντος ᾿ἐξαφθὲν φῶς, ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ
γενόμενον αὐτὸ ἑαυτὸ ἤδη τρέφει.

This sentence, as a remarkable one,
I have translated literally in the text:
that which precedes is given only in
substance.

Wesee in the Republicthat Sokrates,
when questioned by Glaukon, and

, ,
τε του»

ἐν τῷ

urged emphatically to give some solu-
tion respecting ἡ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ἰδέα, and
ἡ τοῦ διαλέγεσθαι δύναμις, answers
only by an evasion or ἃ metaphor (Re-
public, vi. 506 BH, 533 AN, Now
hese are much the ‘same points as
what are signifled in the letter to
Dion sius, under the terms τὰ πρῶτα
καὶ ἄκρα τῆς σεως---ἡ τοῦ πρώτου
φύσις (312 E): & ‘to which Plato, when
questioned, replies in a mystic and un-
intelligible wa:

4 Plato, E ist. vil. 842 A, B. The
geometrical i lustration which follows
is intended merely as an illustration,
of general principles which Plato
asserts to be true about all other en-
quiries, physical or ethical.

5 Plat. Kpist. vii. 842 C. ὡς δὲ ὃν
τοῦτο αὖ πᾶν θετέον, οὐκ ἐν φωναῖς

1—23

354 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. Cnap. VITI.

Now in all three first stages (Plato says) there is great liability
to error and confusion. The name is unavoidably equivocal,
uncertain, fluctuating: the definition is open to the same re-
proach, and often gives special and accidental properties along
with the universal and essential, or instead of them: the diagram
cannot exhibit the essential without some variety of the acci-
dental, nor without some properties even contrary to reality,
since any circle which you draw, instead of touching a straight
line in one point alone, will be sure to touch it in several points.
Accordingly no intelligent man will embody the pure concepts
of his mind in fixed representation, either by words or by
figures.? If we do this, we have the quid or essence, which we
are searching for, inextricably perplexed by accompaniments of
the quale or accidents, which we are not searching for.2 We
acquire only a confused cognition, exposing us to be puzzled,
confuted, and humiliated, by ar. acute cross-examiner, when he
questions us on the four stages which we have gone through to
attain it.4 Such confusion does not arise from any fault in the
mind, but from the defects inherent in each of the four stages of
progress. It is only by painful effort, when each of these is
naturally good—when the mind itself also is naturally good, and
when it has gone through all the stages up and down, dwelling
upon each—that true knowledge can be acquired. Persons
whose minds are naturally bad, or have become corrupt, morally
or intellectually, cannot be taught to see even by Lynkeus
himself. In a word,.if the mind itself be not cognate to the
matter studied, no quickness in learning nor force of memory

1 Plat. Epist. vii. 843 B. This illus-
trates what is said in the Republic
about the geometrical ὑποθέσεις (vi.

οὐδ᾽ ἐν σωμάτων σχήμασιν add’ ἐν
ψυχαῖς ἐνόν, ᾧ δῆλον ἕτερόν τε ὃν

αὐτοῦ τοῦ κύκλον τῆς φύσεως, τῶν τε

ἔμπροσθεν λεχθέντων τριῶν. τούτων δὰ
ἐγγύτατα μὲν ξνγγενείᾳ καὶ ὁμοιότητι,
Tov πέμπτον (i. 6. τοῦ Αὐτὸ-κύκλου) νοῦς
(the fourth stage) πεπλησίακε, τᾶλλα δὲ
πλέον ἀπέχει.

In Plato’s reckoning, ὁ νοῦς is
counted as the fourth, in the ascend-
ing scale, from which we ascend to the
fifth, τὸ νοούμενον, Or νοητόν. Ὁ νοῦς
and τὸ νοητὸν are cognate or homo.

eneous—according to a principle often
nsisted on in ancient metaphysics—
like must be known by like. (Aristot.
De Animé i. 2, 404, Ὁ. 16.)

510 Εἰ, 511 A; vii. 533 B.)

2 Plat. Epist. vii. 848 A. ὧν ἕνεκα
νοῦν ἔχων οὐδεὶς τολμήσει ποτὰ εἰς αὐτὸ
τιθέναι τὰ νενοημένα, καὶ ταῦτα εἰς Ope-
τακίνητον, ὃ δὴ πάσχει τὰ γεγραμμένα
τύποις.

8 Plat. Epist. vii. 848 0.

4 Plat. Epist. vii. 343 Ὁ.

δ᾽ Plato, Epistol. vii. 848 B. ἡ δὲ διὰ
πάντων αὐτῶν διαγωγή, ἄνω καὶ κάτω
μεταβαίνουσα ἐφ᾽ ἕκαστον, μόγις ἐπιστή-
μὴν ἐνέτεκεν εὖ πεφυκότος «ὖ πεφυκότι.

Cuap. VIIL WRITTEN EXPOSITION. 355

will suffice. He who is a quick learner and retentive, but not
cognate or congenial with just or honourable things—he who,
though cognate and congenial, is stupid in learning or forgetful
—will never effectually learn the truth about virtue or wicked-
ness.!_ These can only be learnt along with truth and falsehood
as it concerns entity generally, by long practice and much time.?
It is only with difficulty,—after continued friction, one against
another, of all the four intellectual helps, names and definitions,
acts of sight and sense,—after application of the Elenchus by
repeated question and answer, in a friendly temper and without
spite—it is only after all these preliminaries, that cognition and
intelligence shine out with as much intensity as human power
admits.?

For this reason, no man of real excellence will ever write and
publish his views, upon the gravest matters, into a world of spite

and puzzling contention.
lished writings, either laws proclaimed by the law-
giver or other compositions by others, you may be
sure that, if he be himself a man of worth, these were
not matters of first-rate importance in his estimation.

If they really were so, and if he has published his

In one word, when you see any pub-

No written

exposition

can keep

clear of
ese

chances

of error.

views in writing, some evil influence must have destroyed his

good sense.*

We see by these letters that Plato disliked and disapproved

the idea of publishing, for the benefit of readers

generally, any written exposition of philosophia p

prima, carrying his own name, and making him

Relations of
lato with
Dionysius
IT. and the

responsible for it. His writings are altogether dra- friends of
matic. All opinions on philosophy are enunciated ‘ede. η,
through one or other of his spokesmen: that por- ΤΕΡΟΝ
tion of the Athenian drama called the Parabasis, in to under-
which the Chorus addressed the audience directly ant Ἢ
and avowedly in the name of the poet, found no Plato's og,

favour with Plato. We read indeed in several of his

1 Plato, Epistol. vii. 344 A.

2 Plato, Epist. vii. 344 B. ἅμα γὰρ
αὐτὰ ἀνάγκη μανθάνειν, Kai Td Ψψεῦδος
ἅμα καὶ ἀληθὲς τῆς ὅλης οὐσίας.

8 Plat. Epist. vil. 344 B. μόγις δὲ
τριβόμενα πρὸς ἄλληλα αὐτῶν ἕκαστα,

ονόματα καὶ λόγοι, ὄψεις τε καὶ αἱσθή-
σεις, ἐν εὐμενέσιν ἐλέγχοις ἐλε
καὶ avev φθόνων ἐρωτήσεσι καὶ ἀπο-
κρίσεσι χρωμένων, ἐξέλαμψε σ
περὶ ἕκαστον καὶ νοῦς, συντείνων ὅτι
μάλιστ᾽ εἰς δύναμιν ἀνθρωπίνην.

ἀ ῬΙαῦ. Epist. vii. 844, C-D.

όμενα

ρόνησις

356 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. CuapP. VIII.

dialogues (Pheedon, Republic, Timeeus, and others) dogmas ad-
vanced about the highest and most recondite topics of philo-
sophy: but then they are all advanced under the name of
Sokrates, Timzeus, &.—Ovx ἐμὸς ὁ μῦθος, ἕο. There never was
any written programme issued by Plato himself, declaring the
Symbolum Fidei to which he attached his own name.! Even in
the Leges, the most dogmatical of all his works, the dramatic
character and the borrowed voice are kept up. Probably at the
time when Plato wrote his letter to the friends of the deceased
Dion, from which I have just quoted—his aversion to written
expositions was aggravated by the fact, that Dionysius II., or
some friend in his name, had written and published a philoso-
phical treatise of this sort, passing himself off as editor of a
Platonic philosophy, or of improved doctrines of his own built
thereupon, from oral communication with Plato.2 We must
remember that Plato himself (whether with full sincerity or not)
had complimented Dionysius for his natural ability and aptitude
in philosophical debate :8 so that the pretension of the latter to
come forward as an expositor of Plato appears the less prepos-
terous. On the other hand, such pretension was calculated to
raise a belief that Dionysius had been among the most favoured
and confidential companions of Plato: which belief Plato, writing
as he was to the surviving friends of Dion the enemy of Diony-
sius, is most anxious to remove, while on the other hand he
extols the dispositions and extenuates the faults of his friend
Dion. [018 to vindicate himself from misconception of his own past
proceedings, as well as to exhort with regard to the future, that
Plato transmits to Sicily his long seventh and eighth Epistles,
wherein are embodied his objections against the usefulness of
written exposition intended for readers generally.

1The Platonic dialogue was in this
respect different from the Aristotelian
dialogue. Aristotle, in his composed
dialogues, introduced other speakers,
but delivered the principal arguments

Herakleides of Pontus (Cicero, ibid.),
in his composed dialogues, introntuced
himself as a κωφὸν πρόσωπον. Plato
does not even do thus much.

2 We see this from Epist. vii. 341 B,

in his own name. Cicero followed his

example, in the De Finibus and else-

where: “Θὰ his temporibus scripsi,

᾿Αριστοτέλειον morem habent: in quo

sermo ita inducitur cseeterorum, ut penes

ipsum, st principatus”, (Cic. ad Att.
i. 19.

844 D, 345 A. Plato speaks of the im-
pression as then prevalent (when he
wrote) in the mind of Dionysius :---
πότερον Διονύσιος ἀκούσας μόνον ἅπαξ
οὕτως εἰδέναι τε οἵεται καὶ ἱκανῶς
οἶδεν, &e.

8 Plat. Epist. ii. 814 Ὁ.

Crap. VIII. WRITTEN EXPOSITION. 357

These objections (which Plato had often insisted on,! and
which are also, in part, urged by Sokrates in the

, . Tmpossibi-
Pheedrus) have considerable force, if we look to the lity of teach-
way in which Plato conceives them. In the first ten expo-
place, Plato conceives the exposition as not merely ‘tion as:
written but published : as being, therefore, presented Plato; the
. 7 . : assumption
to all minds, the large majority being ignorant, un- intelligible
prepared, and beset with that false persuasion of 1 "is day.

knowledge which Sokrates regarded as universal. In so far as
it comes before these latter, nothing is gained, and something is
lost ; for derision is brought upon the attempt to teach.? In the
next place, there probably existed, at that time, no elementary
work whatever for beginners in any science: the Elements of
Geometry by Euclid were published more than a century after
Plato’s death, at Alexandria. Now, when Plato says that written
expositions, then scarcely known, would be useless to the student
—he compares them with the continued presence and conversa-
tion of a competent teacher ; whom he supposes not to rely upon
direct exposition, but to talk much “about and about” the
subject, addressing the pupil with a large variety of illustrative
‘interrogations, adapting all that was said to his peculiar difficul-
ties and rate of progress, and thus evoking the inherent cognitive
force of the pupil’s own mind. That any Elements of Geometry
{to say nothing of more complicated inquiries) could be written
and published, such that an ἀγεωμέτρητος might take up the
work and learn geometry by means of it, without being misled
by equivocal names, bad definitions, and diagrams exhibiting the
definition as clothed with special accessories—this is a possibility
which Plato contests, and which we cannot wonder at his con-
testing.® The combination of a written treatise, with the oral

1Plato, Epist. vii. 842. λόγος ἀλη-
θής, πολλάκις μὲν ὑπ᾽ ἐμοῦ καὶ πρόσθεν
ῥηθείς, &e. .

2Plato (Epist. ii. 314 A) remarks
this expressly: also in the Phsdrus,
275 Εἰ, 276 A.

ἤΑθρει δὴ περισκοπῶν, μή τις τῶν
ἀμνήτων ἐπακούσῃ, is the language of
the Platonic Sokrates as a speaker in
the Thestétus (155 E).

8 Some just and pertinent remarks,
bearing on this subject, are made by

Condorcet, in one of his Academic
loges: ‘‘Les livres ne peuvent rem-
lacer les lecons des maitres habiles,
orsque les sciences n’ont pas encore

fait assez de progrés, pour que les

vérités, qui en forment lensemble,
puissent étres distribuées et rapprochées
entre elles suivant un ordre systéma-
tique: lorsque la méthode d’en cher-

cher de nouvelles n’a pas été réduite ἃ,

des procédés exacts et simples, ἃ des

régles sires et précises. Avant cette

358

PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY.

CuaP. VIII.

exposition of a tutor, would have appeared to Plato not only
useless but inconvenient, as restraining the full liberty of adap-
tive interrogation necessary to be exercised, different in the case

of each different pupil.

Lastly, when we see by what standard Plato tests the efficacy

Standard by
which Plato
tested the
efficacy of
the exposi-
tory process
—Power of
sustaining
a Sokratic
CTOSS8-X8"
mination.

of any expository process, we shall see yet more clearly
how he came to consider written exposition unavailing.
The standard which he applies is, that the learner
shall be rendered able both to apply to others, and
himself to endure from others, a Sokratic Elenchus or
cross-examination as to the logical difficulties in-
volved in all the steps and helps to learning. Unless
he can put to others and follow up the detective

questions—unless he can also answer them, when put to himself,
pertinently and consistently, so as to avoid being brought to con-
fusion or contradiction—Plato will not allow that he has attained
true knowledge. Now, if we try knowledge by a test so severe

époque, il faut étre déj& consommé
ns une science pour lire avec utilité
les ouvrages qui en traitent: et comme
cette espéce d’enfance de l’art est le
romps ou les préjugés y regnent avec
le plus d’empire, ot les savants sont
les plus exposes & donner leurs hypo-
théses pour de véritables principes, on
risquerait encore de s’égarer si Yon
se bornait aux lecgons d’un seul maitre,
quand méme on aurait choisi celui que
la renommée place au premier rang;
car ce temps est aussi celui des repu-
tations usurpées. Les voyages sont
donc alors le seul moyen de s'instruire
comme ils l'étaient dans l’antiquité et
avant la découverte de l’imprimerie.”
(Condorcet, Eloge de M. Margraaf, p.
349, (uvres Complets, Paris, 1804
loges, vol. ii. Or Ed. Firmin Dido
Fréres, Paris, 1847, vol. ii. pr. 598-9.)

1 Plato, Epist. vii. 348 ἢ. The dif-
ficulties which Plato had here in his
eye, and which he required to be
solved as conditions indispensable to
real knowledge—are jumped over in

eometrical and other scientific exposi-
ions, as belonging not to geometry,
&c., but to logic. M. Jouffroy remarks,
in the Preface to his translation of
Reid’s works clxxiv.) :—‘' Toute
science particulltre qui, au lieu de
prendre pour accordées les données ἃ
priori quelle implique, discute l’auto-

rité de ces données—ajoute ἃ son objet
propre celui de la logique, confond une
autre mission avec la sienne, et par
cela méme compromet la sienne: car
nous verrons tout 4-l’heure, et histoire
de la philosophie montre, quelles diffi-
cultés présentent ces problémes qui sont
Yobjet propre de la logique; et nous
demeurerons convaincus que, si les
différentes sciences avaient eu la prétention
de les éclaircir avant de passer outre,
toutes peut-étre en seraient encore a cette
préface, et aucune n’aurait entamé sa
véritable tache.”

Remarks of a similar bearing will be
found in the second paragraph of Mr.
John Stuart Mill’s Essay on Utilita-
rianism. It has been found convenient
to distinguish the logic of a science
from the expository march of the same
science. ant Plato would not have
acknowledged ἐπιστήμη, except as in-
cluding both. Hence "his view about
the uselessness of written expository
treatises.

Aristotle, ina remarkable passage of
the Metaphysica (. p. 1005, a. 20
seqq.) takes pains to distinguish the
Logic of Mathematics from Mathe-
matics themselves—as a separate pro-
vince and matter of study. He claims
the former as belonging to Philosophia
Prima or Ontology. Those principles
which mathematicians called Axioms

Cuap. VIO. THE EXPOSITORY PROCESS. 359

as this, we must admit that no reading of written expositions
will enable the student to acquire it. The impression made is
too superficial, and the mind is too passive during such a process,
to be equal to the task of meeting new points of view, and com-
bating difficulties not expressly noticed in the treatise which has
been studied. The only way of permanently arming and
strengthening the mind, is (according to Plato) by long-con-
tinued oral interchange and stimulus, multiplied comment and
discussion from different points of view, and active exercise in
dialectic debate: not aiming at victory over an opponent, but
reasoning out each question in all its aspects, affirmative and
negative. It is only after a long course of such training—the
living word of the competent teacher, applied to the mind of the
pupil, and stimulating its productive and self-defensive force—
that any such knowledge can be realised as will suffice for the
exigencies of the Sokratic Elenchus.}

Since we thus find that Plato was unconquerably averse to

were not peculiar to Mathematics (he
says), but were affirmations respecting
Ens quatenus Ens: the mathematician
was entitled to assume them so far as
concerned his own department, and his
students must take them for nted :
but if he attempted to explain or ap-
preciate them in their full bearing, he
overstepped his proper limits, through
want of proper schooling in Analytica
(ὅσα δ᾽ ἐγχειροῦσι τῶν λεγόντων τινὲς
περὶ τῆς ἀληθείας, ὃν τρόπον δεῖ ἀποδέ-
χεσθαι, δι’ ἀπαιδευσίαν τῶν ἀναλντικῶν
τοῦτο δρῶσιν’ δεῖ γὰρ περὶ τούτων
ἥκειν προεπισταμένους, ἀλλὰ μὴ ἀκούον-
τας ¢nretcv—p. 1005, b. 2.) We see
from the words of Aristotle that many
mathematical enquirers of his time did
not recognise (any more than Plato
recognised) the distinction upon which
he here insists: we see also that the
term Axioms had become a technical
one for the principia of mathematical
demonstration (περὶ τῶν ἐν rots μαθή-
μασι καλουμένων ἀξιωμάτων--Ὀ. 1005,
a. 20); Ido ποῦ concur in Sir William
Hamilton’s doubts on this point. (Dis-
sertations on Reid’s Works, note A. p.

764.

Phe distinction which Aristotle thus
brings to notice, seemingly for the first
time, is one of considerable importance.

1This is forcivly put by Plato,

Epistol. vii. 844 B. Compare Plato,
Republic, vi. 499 A. Pheedrus, 276
A-K. τὸν τοῦ εἰδότος λόγον ζῶντα Kai
ἔμψυχον, ἄο.

Though Plato, in the Phedrus, de-
clares oral teaching to be the only
effectual way of producing a permanent
and deep-seated effect—as contrasted
with the more superficial effect pro-
duced by reading a written exposition :

et even oral teaching, when addressed
n the form of continuous lecture or
sermon (avev dvaxpicews καὶ διδαχῆς,
Pheedrus, 277 Εἰ ; τὸ νουθετητικὸν εἶδος,
Sophistés, p. 230), is represented else-
where as of little effect. To produce
any permanent result, you must di-
versify the point of view—you must
test by circumlocutory interrogation—
you must begin by dispelling esta-
lished errors, &c. See the careful
explanation of the passage in the
Pheedrus (277 E), given by Ueber-
weg, Aechtheit der Platon. Schrift. pp.
16-22. Direct teaching, in many of
the Platonic dialogues, is not counted
as capable of producing serious im-
provement.

When we come to the Menon and
the Phedon, we shall hear more of
the Platonic doctrine—that knowledge
was to be evolved out of the mind, not
poured into it from without.

360 PLATONIO COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. Cuap. VIIL

Plato never PUblication in his own name and with his own re-
published sponsibility attached to the writing, on grave matters
any of the : .
lectures of philosophy—we cannot be surprised that, among
Whichhede- the numerous lectures which he must have delivered
vered at . . . ς
the Aca- to his pupils and auditors in the Academy, none were
demy. ever published. Probably he may himself have de-
stroyed them, as he exhorts Dionysius to destroy the Epistle
which we now read as second, after reading it over frequently.
And we may doubt whether he was not displeased with Aristotle
and Hestiseus} for taking extracts from his lectures De Bono, and
making them known to the public: just as he was displeased
with Dionysius for having published a work purporting to be
derived from conversations with Plato.

That Plato would never consent to write for the public in his
Plato ποιὰ OV BAM® must be taken as a fact in his character ;
never pub- probably arising from early caution produced by the
philosopht- fate of Sokrates, combined with preference for the
cal opinions Sokratic mode of handling. But to what extent he
in his but really kept back his opinions from the public, or

he mas have whether he kept them back at all, by design—I do
hem inthe not undertake to say. The borrowed names under
dialogues which he wrote, and the veil of dramatic fiction, gave
names of him greater freedom as to the thoughts enunciated,
others. .
and were adopted for the express purpose of acquiring
greater freedom. How far the lectures which he delivered
to his own special auditory differed from the opinions made
known in his dialogues to the general reader, or how far his con-
versation with a few advanced pupils differed from both—are
questions which we have no sufficient means of answering.
There probably was a considerable difference. Aristotle alludes
to various doctrines of Plato which we cannot find in the
Platonic writings: but these doctrines are not such as could
have given peculiar offence, if published ; they are, rather
abstruse and hard to understand. It may also be true (as Tenne-

mann says) that Plato had two distinct modes of handling philo-

1 Themistius mentions it as a fact Plato, ἱστορεῖται δὲ ὅτι καὶ ζῶντος
recorded (I wish he had told us where τοῦ Πλάτωνος καρτερώτατα. περὶ τούτον
or by whom) that Aristotle stoutly τοῦ δό γματος évéo ὃ ᾿Αριστοτέ Aus
opposed the Platonic doctrine of Objec- τῷ Πλάτωνι, (Scholia "ad Aristote.

tive Ideas, even during the lifetime of Analyt. Poster. p. 228 b. 16 Brandis.)

Cuap. VIIL THRASYLLUS’S DISTRIBUTION DEFECTIVE. 361

sophy—a popular and a scientific: but it cannot be true (as the
same learned author! asserts) that his published dialogues con-
tained the popular and not the scientific. No one surely can
regard the Timzus, Parmenidés, Philébus, Theetétus, Sophistés,
Politikus, &c., as works in which dark or difficult questions are
kept out of sight for the purpose of attracting the ordinary
reader. Among the dialogues themselves (as I have before re-
marked) there exist the widest differences ; some highly popular
and attractive, others altogether the reverse, and many gradations
between the two. Though I do not doubt therefore that Plato
produced powerful effect both as lecturer to a special audience,
and as talker with chosen students—yet in what respect such
lectures and conversation differed from what we read in his
dialogues, I do not feel that we have any means of knowing.

In judging of Plato, we must confine ourselves to the evidence
furnished by one or more of the existing Platonic
compositions, adding the testimony of Aristotle and a
few others respecting Platonic views not declared in
the dialogues. Though little can be predicated re-
specting the dialogues collectively, I shall say something about the
various groups into which they admit of being thrown, before I
touch upon them separately and servatem.

The scheme proposed by Thrasyllus, so far as intended to
furnish a symmetrical arrangement of all the Platonic

Groups into
which the
dialogues
admit of be-
ing thrown.

Distribu-
works, is defective, partly because the apportionment orm
of the separate works between the two leading classes syllus defec-
is in several cases erroneous—partly because the dis- still useful
crimination of the two leading classes, as well as the or ἰδῖοι es
sub-division of one of the two, is founded on diversity Dialoguesot

Exposition.

of Method, while the sub-division of the other class
is founded on diversity of Subject. But the scheme is never-
theless useful, as directing our attention to real and im-

1See Tennemann, Gesch. d. Phil.
vol. ii. p. 205, 215, 221 seq. This por-
tion of Tennemann’s History is valu-
able, as it takes due account of the
seventh Platonic Epistle, compared
with the remarkable passage in the
Phedrus about the inefficacy of written
exposition for the purpose of teaching.

But I cannot think that Tennemann
rightly interprets the Epistol. vii. I

see no proof that Plato had any secret
or esoteric philosophy, reserved for a
few chosen pupils, and not proclaimed
to the public from ap rehension of
giving offence to established creeds:
though I believe such apprehension to
have operated as one motive, deterrin

him from publishing any philosophica
exposition under his own name—any
Πλάτωνος σύγγραμμα.

362 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. CuapP. VIII.

portant attributes belonging in common to considerable
groups of dialogues. It is in this respect preferable to the
fanciful dramatic partnership of trilogies and tetralogies, as
well as to the mystical interpretation and arrangement sug-
gested by the Neo-platonists. The Dialogues of Exposition—
in which one who knows (or professes to know) some truth,
announces and developes it to those who do not know it—are
contrasted with those of Search or Investigation, in which the
element of knowledge and affirmative communication is wanting.
All the interlocutors are at once ignorant and eager to know; all
of them are jointly engaged in searching for the unknown,
though one among them stands prominent both in suggesting
where to look and in testing all that is found, whether it be
really the thing looked for. Among the expository dialogues,
the most marked specimens are Timeeus and Epinomis, in neither
of which is there any searching or testing debate at all. Repub-
lic, Pheedon, Philébus, exhibit exposition preceded or accom-
panied by a search. Of the dialogues of pure investigation, the
most elaborate specimen is the Thesxtétus: Menon, Lachés,
Charmidés, Lysis, Euthyphron, &c., are of the like description,
yet less worked out. There are also several others. In the
Menon, indeed,' Sokrates goes so far as to deny that there can be
any real teaching, and to contend that what appears teaching is
only resuscitation of buried or forgotten knowledge.

Of these two classes of Dialogues, the Expository are those
Dialoguesot Which exhibit the distinct attribute—an affirmative
Exposition result or doctrine, announced and developed by a
affirmative person professing to know, and proved in a manner
Dialogues more or less satisfactory. The other class — the
of Search Searching or Investigative—have little else in com-
are wanting mon except the absence of this property. We find in
tribute. them debate, refutation, several points of view can-
vassed and some shown to be untenable ; but there is no affir-
mative result established, or even announced as established,
at the close. Often there is even a confession of disappoint-
ment. In other respects, the dialogues of this class are
greatly diversified among one another: they have only the one

1 Plato, Menon, p. 81-82.

Cuap. VIII. THRASYLLUS'S SCHEME, AND ARISTOTLE’S. 363

common attribute—much debate, with absence of affirmative
result.

Now the distribution made by Thrasyllus of the dialogues
under two general heads (1. Dialogues of Search or

Investigation. 2. Dialogues of Exposition) coincides, bution
to a considerable extent, with the two distinct intel- coataly sith
lectual methods recognised by Aristotle as Dialectic that of Ari
and Demonstrative : Dialectic being handled by Ari- lectic, De-
monstrative,

stotle in the Topica, and Demonstration in the Pos-
terior Analytica. “ Dialectic ” (says Aristotle) “is tentative, re-
specting those matters of which philosophy aims at cognizance.”
Accordingly, Dialectic (as well as Rhetoric) embraces all matters
without exception, but in a tentative and searching way, recog-
nising arguments pro as well as con, and bringing to view the
antithesis between the two, without any preliminary assumption
or predetermined direction, the questioner being bound to pro-
ceed only on the answers given by the respondent; while philo-
sophy comes afterwards, dividing this large field into appropriate
compartments, laying down authoritative principia in regard to
each, and deducing from them, by logical process, various posi-
tive results.! Plato does not use the term Dialectic exactly in
the same sense as Aristotle. He implies by it two things :—l.
That the process shall be colloquial, two or more minds engaged
in a joint research, each of them animating and stimulating the
others. 2. That the matter investigated shall be general—some
general question or proposition : that the premisses shall all be
general truths, and that the objects kept before the mind shall be
Forms or Species, apart from particulars.2— Here it stands in

1 Aristot. Metaphys. 1'. 1004, Ὁ. 25.
ἔστι δὲ ἡ διαλεκτικὴ πειραστικὴ, περὶ ὧν
ἡ proc opie γνωριστική. Compare also

et. i. 2, p. 1856, a. 88, i. 4, p. 1859,
b. 12, where he treats Dialectic (as
well as Rhetoric) not as methods of
acquiring instruction on any definite
matter, ut as inventive and argu-
mentative aptitudes—powers of pro-
viding premisses and argumen
δυνάμεις τινὲς τοῦ πορίσαι λόγους. If
fhe says) you try to convert Dialectic

rom a method of discussion into a
method of cognition, you will insen-
sibly eliminate its true nature and
character :—oo@ δ᾽ ἄν τις ἣ τὴν δια-

λεκτικὴν ἢ ταύτην, μὴ καθάπερ ἂν δυ-
γνάμεις GAN’ ἐπιστήμας πειρᾶται κατα-
σκενάξειν, λήσεται τὴν φύσιν αὐτῶν
ἀφανίσας, τῷ μεταβαίνειν ἐπισκενάζων
εἰς ἐπιστήμας ὑποκειμένων τινῶν πραγ-
μάτων, ἀλλὰ μὴ μόνον λόγων.

The Platonic Dialogues of Search
are δυνάμεις τοῦ πορίσαι λόγους. Com-
are the Procemium of Cicero to
aradoxa.

2Plato, Republ. vi. 511, vif. 682,
Respecting the difference between
Plato and Aristotle about Dialectic,
see Ravaisson—Essai sur la Méta-
physique d’Aristote—iii. 1, 2, p.

364 PLATONIO COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. Cuap. VIII.

contrast with Rhetoric, which aims at the determination of some
particular case or debated course of conduct, judicial or political,
and which is intended to end in some immediate practical verdict
or vote. Dialectic, in Plato’s sense, comprises the whole process
of philosophy. His Dialogues of Search correspond to Aristotle’s
Dialectic, being machinery for generating arguments and for
ensuring that every argument shall be subjected to the interroga-
tion of an opponent : his Dialogues of Exposition, wherein some
definite result is enunciated and proved (sufficiently or not), cor-
respond to what Aristotle calls Demonstration.

If now we take the main scheme of distributing the Platonic
Classifi- Dialogues, proposed by Thrasyllus—1l. Dialogues of
Thrasyllus /Xposition, with an affirmative result ; 2. Dialogues
in its He of Investigation or Search, without an affirmative
applies his result—and if we compare the number of Dialogues
Sioled onro- (out of the thirty-six in all), which he specifies as
neously. § belonging to each—we shall find twenty-two specified
under the former head, and fourteen under the latter. More-
over, among the twenty-two are ranked Republic and Leges:
each of them greatly exceeding in bulk any other composition of
Plato. It would appear thus that there is a preponderance both
in number and bulk on the side of the Expository. But when
we analyse the lists of Thrasyllus, we see that he has unduly
enlarged that side of the account, and unduly contracted
the other. He has enrolled among the Expository—l. The
Apology, the Epistole, and the Menexenus, which ought not
properly to be ranked under either head. 2. The Theetétus,
Parmenidés, Hipparchus, Eraste, Minos, Kleitophon—every one
of which ought to be transferred to the other head. 3. The
Phedrus, Symposion, and Kratylus, which are admissible by
indulgence, since they do indeed present affirmative exposition,
but in small proportion compared to the negative criticism, the
rhetorical and poetical ornament: they belong in fact to both
classes, but more preponderantly to one. 4. The Republic.
This he includes with perfect justice, for the eight last books of
it are expository. Yet the first book exhibits to us a specimen of
negative and refutative dialectic which is not surpassed by any-
thing in Plato.

On the other hand, Thrasyllus has placed among the Dialogues

Cuap. VIII. RECTIFICATION OF THRASYLLUS'S LISTS. 365

of Search one which might, with equal or greater propriety, be
ranked among the Expository—the Protagoras. It is true that
this dialogue involves much of negation, refutation, and dramatic
ornament: and that the question propounded in the beginning
(Whether virtue be teachable?) is not terminated. But there
are two portions of the dialogue which are, both of them, decided
specimens of affirmative exposition—the speech of Protagoras in
the earlier part (wherein the growth of virtue, without special
teaching or professional masters, is elucidated )—and the argument
of Sokrates at the close, wherein the identity of the The classi-

Good and the Pleasurable is established.} teeoard as
If then we rectify the lists of Thrasyllus, they will stan ΚΝ
stand as follows, with the Expository Dialogues much were ον
diminished in number :— correctly.
Dialogues of Investigation or Search. Dialogues of Exposition.
Ζητητικοί. Ὑφηγητικοί.
1, Thextétus, 1. Timeus.
2. Parmenidés. 2. Leges.
8. Alkibiadés I. 3. Epinomis.
4, Alkibiadés 11. 4, Kritias.
5. Theagés. 5. Republic.
6. Lachés. 6. Sophistés.
7. Lysis. 7. Politikus.
8. Charmidés, 8, Phedon.
9. Menon. 9. Philébus.
10. Tun. 10. Protagoras,
11. Euthyphron. 11. Phedrus.
12. Euthydémus. 12. Symposion.
13. Gorgias. 13. Kratylus.
14. Hippias I. 14, Kriton.
15. Hippias IT.
16. Kleitophon. "Ν
17. Hipparchus, The Apology, Menexenus, Epis-
18. Eraste. tole, do not properly belong to
19. Minos. either head.

1 We may remark that Thrasyllus, tonic dialogue Euthydémus, Ὁ. 278
though he enrols the Protagoras under D, we shall see that Plato uses the
the class Investigative, and the sub- words ἐνδείξομαι and voy ἥσομαι as
class Agonistic, places it alone ia a exact equivalents: so that ἐνδεικτικὸς
still lower class which he calls ’Evéec- would have the same meaning as ὑφηγη-
κτικός. Now, if we turn to the Pla- τικός.

366 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. Cuap. VIII.

It will thus appear, from a fair estimate and comparison of
lists, that the relation which Plato bears to philosophy
Preponder- . :
ance of the 18 more that of a searcher, tester, and impugner, than
Sa stag that of an expositor and dogmatist—though he under-
dialogues takes both the two functions: more negative than
croository affirmative—more ingenious in pointing out difficul-
and do - 468, than successful in solving them. I must again
repeat that though this classification is just, as far
as it goes, and the best which can be applied to the dialogues,
taken as a whole—yet the dialogues have much which will not
enter into the classification, and each has its own peculiarities.
The Dialogues of Search, thus comprising more than half
Dialoguesot Of the Platonic compositions, are again distributed by
Search— § Thrasyllus into two sub-classes—Gymnastic and Ago-
ouong them nistic: the Gymnastic, again, into Obstetric and

byt nised Peirastic ; the Agonistic, into Probative and Refuta-

syllus— tive. Here, again, there is a pretence of symmetrical

vd Avonia. arrangement, which will not hold good if we examine
g 8

tic, ὅσ, it closely. Nevertheless, the epithets point to real

attributes of various dialogues, and deserve the more attention,
inasmuch as they imply a view of philosophy foreign to the
prevalent way of looking at it. Obstetric and Tentative or
Testing (Peirastic) are epithets which a reader may understand ;
but he will not easily see how they bear upon the process of
philosophy.

The term philosopher is generally understood to mean some-

Philosophy, thing else. In appreciating a philosopher, it is usual

as now to ask, What authoritative creed has he proclaimed,
understood, for disciples to swear allegiance to? What positive
author. oh. system, or positive truths previously unknown or
ing, positive unproved, has he established? Next, by what argu-
rout” —sments has he enforced or made them good? This is
proofs. the ordinary proceeding of an historian of philosophy,

as he calls up the roll of successive names. The philosopher is
assumed to speak as one having authority ; to have already made
up his mind ; and to be prepared to explain what his mind is.
Readers require positive results announced, and positive evidence
set before them, in a clear and straightforward manner. They
are intolerant of all that is prolix, circuitous, not essential to the

Cuap. VIII. PLATO AS ‘ PHILOSOPHER”. 367

proof of the thesis in hand. Above all, an affirmative result is
indispensable.

When I come tothe Timezus, and Republic, &c., I shall con-
sider what reply Plato could make to these questions. In the
meantime, I may observe that if philosophers are to be estimated
by such a scale, he will not stand high on the list. Even in his
expository dialogues, he cares little about clear proclamation of
results, and still less about the shortest, straightest, and most cer-
tain road for attaining them.

But as to those numerous dialogues which are not expository,
Plato could make no reply to the questions at all. the Plato.
There are no affirmative results:—and there is a Togucn of
process of enquiry, not only fruitless, but devious, Search
circuitous, and intentionally protracted. Theauthori- @sclaim
tative character of a philosopher is disclaimed. Not iene ᾿
only Plato never delivers sentence in his own name, assume
but his principal spokesman, far from speaking with truth to be
authority, declares that he has not made up his own 8}} alike—

mind, and that he is only a searcher along with process.
others, more eager in the chase than they 8.6.1 Philo- devious as
sophy is conceived as the search for truth still un- fruitless.
known ; not as an explanation of truth by one who knows it, to
others who do not know it. The process of search is considered
as being in itself profitable and invigorating, even though what is
sought be not found. The ingenuity of Sokrates is shown, not
by what he himself produces, for he avows himself altogether
barren—but by his obstetric aid: that is, by his being able to
evolve, from a youthful mind, answers of which it is pregnant,
and to test the soundness and trustworthiness of those answers
when delivered: by his power, besides, of exposing or refuting
unsound answers, and of convincing others of the fallacy of that
which they confidently believed themselves to know.

To eliminate affirmative, authoritative exposition, which pro-
ceeds upon the assumption that truth is already known The ques-
—and to consider philosophy as a search for unknown “oner has

. . no predeter-
truth, carried on by several interlocutors all of them mined τος

1In addition to the declarations of 506 A. οὐδὲ γάρ τοι ἔγωγε εἰδὼς λέγω
Sokrates to this effect in the Platonic ἃ λέγω, ἀλλὰ bre κοινῇ μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν (see
Apology (pp, 21-23), ye read the like Routh’s note): and even in the Repub.
in many Platonic dialogues. Gorgias, lic, in many parts of which there is much

368 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. Cuapr. VIII.

course, bat ignorant—this is the main idea which Plato inherited
ollows the ‘

lead given from Sokrates, and worked out in more than one-
by the re- half of his dialogues. It is under this general head
hisanswers. that the subdivisions of Thrasyllus fall—the Ob-
stetric, the Testing or Verifying, the Refutative. The process
is one in which both the two concurrent minds are active, but
each with an inherent activity peculiar to itself. The questioner
does not follow a predetermined course of his own, but proceeds
altogether on the answer given to him. He himself furnishes
only an indispensable stimulus to the parturition of something
with which the respondent is already pregnant, and applies
testing questions to that which he hears, until the respondent is
himself satisfied that the answer will not hold. Throughout all
this, there is a constant appeal to the free, self-determining
judgment of the respondent’s own mind, combined with a stimu-
lus exciting the intellectual productiveness of that mind to the
uttermost.

What chiefly deserves attention here, as a peculiar phase in
Relation of [86 history of philosophy, is, that the relation of
teacher and teacher and learner is altogether suppressed. So-
sarneT to krates not only himself disclaims the province and
apnea is title of a teacher, but treats with contemptuous banter

those who assume it. Now “the learner” (to use a
memorable phrase of Aristotle!) “is under obligation to
believe”: he must be a passive recipient of that which is com-
municated to him by the teacher. The relation between the two
is that of authority on the one side, and of belief generated by
authority on the other. But Sokrates requires from no man
implicit trust: nay he deprecates it as dangerous. It is one
peculiarity in these Sokratic dialogues, that the sentiment of
authority, instead of being invoked and worked up, as is generally
done in philosophy, is formally disavowed and practically set
aside. “TI have not made up my mind: I am not prepared to
swear allegiance to any creed: I give you the reasons for and
against each: you must decide for yourself.”°

dogmatism and affirmation: v.p.450E. ix. p. 165,b. 2. δεῖ γὰρ πιστεύειν τὸν
ἀπιστοῦντα δὲ καὶ ζητοῦντα ἅμα τοὺς μανθάνοντα.
λόγους ποιεῖσθαι, ὃ δὴ ἐγὼ δρῶ, &e. 2 Plato, Protagor. p. 814 B.

Aristot. De Sophist. enchis, Top. 8The sentiment of the Academic

Cuap. VIII. AUTHORITY DISAVOWED. 369

This process—the search for truth as an unknown—is in the
modern world put out of sight, All discussion is con-

In the
ducted by persons who profess to have found it or modern
learnt it, and to be in condition to proclaim it to search for
others. Even the philosophical works of Cicero are gutot sight,
usually pleadings by two antagonists, each of whom Every or:
professes to know the truth, though Cicero does not talker pro
decide between them: and in this respect they differ havealready
from the groping and fumbling of the Platonic dia- found it,

] : . and to pro-
ogues, Of course the search for truth must go on in claim ib
to others.

modern times, as it did in ancient: but it goes on
silently and without notice. The most satisfactory theories have
been preceded by many infructuous guesses and tentatives. The
theorist may try many different hypotheses (we are told that
Kepler tried nineteen) which he is forced successively to reject ;
and he may perhaps end without finding any better. But all
these tentatives, verifying tests, doubts, and rejections, are con-
fined to his own bosom or his own study. He looks back upon
them without interest, sometimes even with disgust ; least of all
does he seek to describe them in detail as objects of interest to
others. They are probably known to none but himself: for it

sect—descending from Sokrates and
Plato, not through Xenokrates and
Polemon, but through Arkesilaus and
Karneades—illustrates the same eli-
Mination of the idea of authority.
“*Why are you so curious to know what
I myself have determined on the point?
Here are the reasons pro and con:
weigh the one against the other, and
then judge for yourself.”

See Sir Wiliam Hamilton’s Discus-
sions on Philosophy—Appendix, p.
681— about medizval disputations :
also Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iv. 4-7. ‘‘Sed
defendat quod quisque sentit: sunt
enim judicia libera: nos institutum
tenebimus, nulliusque unius disciplins
legibus adstricti, quibus in philosophia
necessario pareamus, quid sit in qua-
que re maximé probabile, semper re-
quiremus.”

Again, Cicero, De Nat. Deor. i, 5
10-18. ‘Qui autem requirunt, qui
quaque de re ipsi sentiamus, curiosits
id faciunt quarh necesse est. Non enim
tam auctoritatis in disputando quam

rationis momenta querenda sunt. Quin
etiam obest plorumque iis, qui discere
volunt, auctoritas e014m qui se docere
profitentur ; desinunt enim suum judi-
cium adhibere; id habent ratum, quod
ab eo quem probant judicatum vident.
.. . 81 singulas disciplinas percipere
magnum est, quanto majus omnes?
Quod facere iis necesse est, quibus pro-
positum est, veri reperiend1 caus, et
contra omnes philosophos et pro omni-
bus dicere. .. Nec tamen fleri potest
ut qui hae ratione philosophentur if
nihil habeant quod sequantur. . . Non
enim sumus ii quibus nihil verum esse
videatur, sed ii, qui omnibus veris falsa
uedam adjuncta esse dicamus, tant&
similitudine ut in iis nulla insit certa
judicandi et assentiendi nota. Ex
quo exsistit illud, multa esse proba-
bilia, quee quanquam non perciperentur,
tamen quia visum haberent quendam
insignem et illustrem, his sapientis vita
regeretur.”
Compare Cicero, Tusc. Disp. ii. sect.
2-8-5-9. Quintilian, xii. 9-25.

/ 1—24

370 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. Car. VIII.

does not occur to him to follow the Platonic scheme of taking
another mind into partnership, and entering upon that dis-
tribution of active intellectual work which we read in the
Theeetétus. There are cases in which two chemists have carried
on joint researches, under many failures and disappointments,
perhaps at last without success. Ifa record were preserved of
their parley during the investigation, the grounds for testing and
rejecting one conjecture, and for selecting what should be tried
after it—this would be in many points a parallel to the Platonic
process.

But at Athens in the fourth century, B.c., the search for truth
by two or more minds in partnership was not so rare a phenome-
non. The active intellects of Athens were distributed between
Rhetoric, which addressed itself to multitudes, accepted all
The search established sentiments, and handled for the most part
for truth by particular issues—and Dialectic, in which a select few

various in-

terlocutors debated among themselves general questions.! Of
nised pro this Dialectic, the real Sokrates was the greatest

cess in the . ,
Sokratic master that Athens ever saw: he could deal as he

age. Acute chose (says Xenophon?) with all disputants: he
negate turned them round his finger. In this process, one

of Sokrates. person set up a thesis, and the other cross-examined
him upon it: the most irresistible of all cross-examiners was the
real Sokrates. The nine books of Aristotle’s Topica (mcluding
the book De Sophisticis Elenchis) are composed with the object
of furnishing suggestions, and indicating rules, both to the cross-
examiner and to the respondent, in such Dialectic debates. Plato
does not lay down any rules: but he has given us, in his dia-
logues of search, specimens of dialectic procedure shaped in his
own fashion. Several of his contemporaries, companions of

1Tho habit of supposing @ general ρικοῦ διελέχθη δνοῖν ἡμερῶν τοῦ μὲν
uestion to be undecided, and of having Πέλοπος, ὡς μὴ δυναμένης τῆς ἰατρικῆς
argued b competentadvocateshefore δι᾽ ἐμπειρίας μόνης συστῆναι, τοῦ Φιλίπ-
auditors who have not made up their ov δὲ ἐπιδεικνύντος δύνασθαι. (Galen,
minds—is now so disused (everywhere De Propriis Libris, c. 2, p. 16, Kiihn.)
except in a court of law), that one Galen notes (ib. 2, p. 21) the habit
reads with surprise Galen's declaration of literary men at Rome to assemble in
that the different competing medical the temple of Pax, for the purpose of
theories were so discussed in his day. discussing logical questions, prior to
His master Pelops maintained a dis- the conflagration which destroyed that
utation of two days with a rival ;— temple.
aime Πέλοψ μετὰ Φιλίππου τοῦ ἐμπει- 3 Xenophon, Memorab. i. 2.

Cuap. VIII. NEGATIVE DIALECTIC.

371

Sokrates, like him, did the same each in his own way : but their
compositions have not survived.}

Such compositions give something like fair play to the negative
arm of philosophy; in the employment of which the Eleate Zeno
first became celebrated, and the real Sokrates yet more celebrated.
This negative arm is no less essential than the affirmative, to the
validity of a body of reasoned truth, such as philosophy aspires to
be. To know how to disprove is quite as important as to know
how to prove : the one is co-ordinate and complementary to the
other. And the man who disproves what is false, or guards
mankind against assenting to it,? renders a service to philosophy,
even though he may not be able to render the ulterior service of
proving any truth in its place.

By historians of ancient philosophy, negative procedure is
generally considered as represented by the Sophists
and the Megarici, and is the main ground for those
harsh epithets which are commonly applied to both of
them. The negative (they think) can only be tolerated
in small doses, and even then merely as ancillary to
the affirmative. That is, if you have an affirmative
theory to propose, you are allowed to urge such objec-
tions as you think applicable against rival theories,
but only in order to make room for your own. It
seems to be assumed as requiring no proof that the confession
of ignorance is an intolerable condition ; which every man ought
to be ashamed of in himself, and which no man is justified in

Negative
procedure
supposed

to be repre-
sented by
the Sophists
and the
Megarici
discouraged
and cen-
sured by
historians of
philosophy.

1The dialogues composed by Ari-
stotle himself were in great measure
dialogues of search, exercises of argu-
mentation pro and con (Cicero, De
Finib. v. 4). ‘‘ Aristoteles, ut solet,
queerendi gratia, quedam subtilitatis
sue argumenta excogitavit in Gryllo,”
&c. (Quintilian, Inst. Orat. ii. 17.)

Bernays indicates the probable titles
of many among the lost Aristotelian
Dialogues (Die Dialoge des Aristoteles,

p. 132, 133, Berlin, 1868), and gives in
his book many general remarks upon
em.

The observations of Aristotle in the
Metaphys. (A. ἐλάττων 993, Ὁ. 1-16)
are conceived in a large and just spirit.
He says that among all the searchers
for truth, none completely succeed, and
none completely fail: those, from whose

conclusions we dissent, do us service
by exercising our intelligence—rhv γὰρ
ἕξιν προήσκησαν ἡμῶν. The enumera-
tion of ἀπορίαι in the following book B
of the Metaphysica is a continuation
of the same views. Compare Scholia,
p. 604, b. 29, Brandis.

2 The Stoics had tull conviction of
this. In Cicero’s summary of the Stoic
doctrine (De Finibus, iii. 21, 72) we
read :—‘‘ Ad easque virtutes, de quibus
disputatum est, Dialecticam etiam ad-
jungunt (Stoici) et Physicam : easque
ambas virtutum nomine appellant:
alteram (sc. Dialecticam), qu habeat
rationem, ne cui falso adsentiamur, neve
unquam captios& probabilitate falla-
mur; eaque, que de bonis et malis
didicerimus, ut tenere tuerique possi-
mus”

372 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. CuaP. VIII.

inflicting on any one else. If you deprive the reader of one affir-
mative solution, you are required to furnish him with another
which you are prepared to guarantee asthe true one. “Le Roi
est mort—Vive le Roi”: the throne must never be vacant. It is
plain that under such a restricted application, the full force of
the negative case is never brought out. The pleadings are left in
the hands of counsel, each of whom takes up only such fragments
of the negative case as suit the interests of his client, and sup-
presses or slurs over all such other fragments of it as make
against his client. But to every theory (especially en the topics
discussed by Sokrates and Plato) there are more or less of objec-
tions applicable—even the best theory being true only on the
balance. And if the purpose be to ensure a complete body of
reasoned truth, all these objections ought to be faithfully exhibited,
ly one who stands forward as their express advocate, without
being previously retained for any separate or inconsistent purpose.

How much Plato himself, in his dialogues of search, felt
Vocation of [18 Own vocation as champion of the negative pro-
Sokrates cedure, we see marked conspicuously in the dialogue
forthe called Parmenidés. This dialogue is throughout a
negative protest against forward affirmation, and an assertion

procedure ; : . -
absolute οἱ independent locus standi for the negationist and

necessity of Sbiector. The claims of the latter must first be satis-
ditionofrea- fied, before the affirmant can be considered as solvent.
soned truth. . .

Parmenidés The advocacy of those claims is here confided to the
of Plato. veteran Parmenides, who sums them up in a for-
midable total : Sokrates being opposed to him under the unusual
disguise of a youthful and forward affirmant. Parmenides makes
no pretence of advancing any rival doctrine. The theories which
he selects for criticism are the Platonic theory of intelligible Con-
cepts, and his own theory of the Unum: he indicates how many
objections must be removed—how many contradictions must be
solved—how many opposite hypotheses must be followed out to
their results—before either of these theories can be affirmed with
assurance. The exigencies enumerated may and do appear insur-

mountable :! but of that Plato takes no account. Such laborious

4 Plato, Parmenid. Ὁ. 136 B. δεῖ χανον, ἔφη, λέγεις, ὦ ἸΠαρμενίδη, πραγ.
σκοπεῖν--εἰ ξέλλεις τελέως γυμνασά- ματείαν
μενος κυρίως διόψεσθαι τὸ ἀληθές. ᾿Αμή- ΜΆΤΗΝ declares that no man can

CuapP. VIII

VALUE OF NEGATIVE PROCEDURE.

373

exercises are mnseparable from the process of searching for truth,
and unless a man has strength to go through them, no truth, or
at least no reasoned truth, can be found and maintained.!

It will thus appear that among the conditions requisite for

philosophy, both Sokrates and Plato regarded the
negative procedure as co-ordinate in value with the
affirmative, and indispensable as a preliminary stage.
But Sokrates went a step farther. He assigned to
the negative an intrinsic importance by itself, apart
from all implication with the affirmative; and he
rested that opinion upon a psychological ground,
formally avowed, and far larger than anything laid h
He thought that the natural
state of the human mind, among established com-
munities, was not simply ignorance, but ignorance
mistaking itself for knowledge—false or uncertified

down by the Sophists.

be properly master of any affirmative
truth without having examined and
solved all the objections and difficulties
—the negative portion of the enquiry.
To go through all these ἀπορίας 1s the
indispensable first stage, and perhaps
the enquirer may not be able to
advance farther, see Metaphysic. B.
995, a. 26, 996, a. 16—one of the most
striking passages in his works. Com-
pare also what he says, De Ceelo, ii.
204, Ὁ 10, διὸ Set τὸν μέλλοντα καλῶς
φητήσειν ἐνστατικὸν εἶναι διὰ των οἰκείων
ἐνστάσεων τῷ γένει, τοῦτο δὲ ἐστὶν ἐκ
τοῦ πάσας τεθεωρηκέναι τὰς διαφοράς.

1 That the only road to trustworthy
affirmation lies through a string of
negations, unfolded and appreciated by
systematic procedure, is strongly in-
sisted on by Bacon, Novum Organum,
ii. 15, ‘‘Omnino Deo (formarum indi-
tori et opifici), aut fortasse angelis et
intelligentiis competit formas per
affirmationem immediate nosse, atque
ab initio contemplationis. Sed certe
supra hominem est: cui tantum con-
ceditur, procedere primo per nega-
tivas, et postremo loco desinere in
affirmativas, post omnimodam exclu-
sionem.” Compare another Aphorism,

i. 46.
The following passage, transcribed
from the Lectures of a distinguished
hysical philosopher of the present
Ray is conceived in the spirit of the
Platonic Dialogues of Search, though

Sokrates
considered
the negative

rocedure to

e valuable
by itself,
and sepa-
rately. His
theory of
the natural
state of the
uman
mind ; not
ignorance,
but false
persuasion
of know-
ledge.

Plato would have been astonished at
such patient multiplication of experi-
ments :—

“1 should hardly sustain your in-
terest in stating the difficulties which
at first beset the investigation con-
ducted with this apparatus, or the
numberless precautions which the
exact balancing of the two powerful
sources Of heat, here resorted to, ren-
dered necessary. I believe the ex-
periments, made with atmospheric air
alone, might be numbered by tens of
thousands. Sometimes for a week, or
even for a fortnight, coincident and
satisfactory results would be obtained:
the strict conditions of accurate experi-
menting would appear to be found,
when an additional day’s experience
would destroy this hope and necessitate
a recommencement, under changed
conditions, of the whole inquiry. It
is this which daunts the experimenter.
It is this preliminary fight with the
entanglements of a subject so dark, so
doubtful, so uncheering, without any
knowledge whether the conflict isto]
to anything worth possessing, that ren-
ders discovery difficult and rare. But
the experimenter, and particularly the
young experimenter, ought to know
that as regards his own moral man-
hood, he cannot but win, if he only
contend aright. Even with a negative
result, the consciousness that he has gone
Jfairly to the bottom of his subject, as far

374 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY, CuaP. VIII.

belief—false persuasion of knowledge. The only way of dissi-
pating such false persuasion was, the effective stimulus of the
negative test, or cross-examining Elenchus ; whereby a state of
non-belief, or painful consciousness of ignorance, was substituted
in its place. Such second state was indeed not the best attain-
able. It ought to be preliminary to a third, acquired by the
struggles of the mind to escape from such painful consciousness ;
and to rise, under the continued stimulus of the tutelary Elen-
chus, to improved affirmative and defensible beliefs. But even
if this third state were never reached, Sokrates declared the
second state to be a material amendment on the first, which he
deprecated as alike pernicious and disgraceful.
The psychological conviction here described stands proclaimed
__ by Sokrates himself, with remarkable earnestness and
Declaration ~ . .
of Sokrates emphasis, in his Apology before the Dikasts, only a
loge fpo- month before his death. So deeply did he take to
constant heart the prevalent false persuasion of knowledge,
mission to . . ς .
make war alike universal among all classes, mischievous, and
ΐ oper difficult to correct—that he declared himself to have
suseion οἵ made war against it throughout his life, under a
" mission imposed upon him by the Delphian God ;
and to have incurred thereby wide-spread hatred among his
fellow-citizens. To convict men, by cross-examination, of igno-
rance in respect to those matters which each man believed himself
to know well and familiarly—this was the constant employment
and the mission of Sokrates: not to teach—for he disclaimed the
capacity of teaching—but to make men feel their own ignorance
instead of believing themselves to know. Such cross-examina-
tion, conducted usually before an audience, however it might
be salutary and indispensable, was intended to humiliate the
respondent, and could hardly fail to offend and exasperate him.
No one felt satisfaction except some youthful auditors, who
admired the acuteness with which it was conducted. “1 (de-
clared Sokrates) am distinguished from others, and superior to
others, by this character only—that I am conscious of my own

as his means allowed—the feeling that his own mind, and gives it firmness for
he has not shunned labour, though that future work.” (Tyndall, Lectures on

r may have resulted in laying bare Heat, considered as a Mode of Motion,
the nakedness of his case—re-acts upon Lect. x. p. 332.)

Crap. VIII. FALSE PERSUASION OF KNOWLEDGE.

375

ignorance: the wisest of men would be he who had the like
consciousness ; but as yet I have looked for such a man in
vain.” }

In delivering this emphatic declaration, Sokrates himself
intimates his apprehension that the Dikasts will treat his dis-
course as mockery; that they will not believe him to be in
earnest ; that they will scarcely have patience to hear

ς . . . O iti
him claim a divine mission for so strange a purpose.? of Feeling.
The declaration is indeed singular, and probably between
many of the Dikasts did so regard it; while those and the

who thought it serious, heard it with repugnance.
The separate value of the negative procedure or Elenchus was
never before so unequivocally asserted, or so highly estimated.
To disabuse men of those false beliefs which they mistook for
knowledge, and to force on them the painful consciousness that
they knew nothing—was extolled as the greatest service which
could be rendered to them, and as rescuing them from a degraded
and slavish state of mind.®

To understand the full purpose of Plato’s dialogues of search—

testing, exercising, refuting, but not finding or pro-
viding—we must keep in mind the Sokratic Apology.
Whoever, after reading the Theetétus, Lachés, Char-
midés, Lysis, Parmenidés, &c., is tempted to exclaim
— But, after all, Plato must have had in his mind
some ulterior doctrine of conviction which he wished
to impress, but which he has not clearly intimated,”
will see, by the Sokratic Apology, that such a presump-
tion is noway justifiable. Plato is a searcher, and has
not yet made up his own mind: this is what he him-
self tells us, and what I literally believe, though few

The Dia.
logues of
Search pre-
sent an end
in them-
selves. Mis-
take of
supposing
that Plato
d in his
mind an
ulterior
affirmative
end, not

declared

or none of

his critics will admit it. His purpose in the dialogues of search,

1 Flat. Apol. s. BP. 23-29. It is not
easy select particular passages for
reference ; for the sentiments which I
have indicated pervade nearly the
whole discourse.

2 Plato, Apol. 8S. Pp. 20-38.

8 Afistotle, in the first book of Meta-
physica (982, b. 17), when repeating a
statement made in the Theextétus of
Plato (156 Ὁ), that wonder is the

saying, that wonder is
by a painful conviction

. οὐ ἡσεώς

σαν. . .
This painful

and sense of embarrassmnt.

beginning, or point of departure, of
peeosorhy-voxblains the phrase’ b

accompani
of ignorance
ὁ δὲ

ἀπορῶν καὶ θανμάξων οἴεται ἀγνοεῖν...
διὰ τὸ φεύγειν τὴν ἄγνοιαν ἐφιλοσόφη-

τινος ἕνεκεν.

conviction of ignorance is
what Sokrates sought to bring about.

376

PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY.

CuHaP. VIII.

is plainly and sufficiently enunciated in the words addressed by
Sokrates to Thextétus—“ Answer without being daunted : for if
we prosecute our search, one of two alternatives is certain—
either we shall find what we are looking for, or we shall get clear
of the persuasion that we know what in reality we do not yet

know.

satisfaction.” }

Now a recompense like this will leave no room for dis-

What those topics were, in respect to which Sokrates found

Xenophon.

1Plato, Thestet. 187 C. ἐὰν yap
οὕτω δρῶμεν, δνοῖν θάτερον ----ἢ εὑρή-
σομεν eb ὃ ἐρχόμεθα, ἣ ἧττον οἰησό-
μεθα εἰδέναι ὃ μηδαμῇ ἴσμεν" καίτοι
οὐκ ἂν εἴη μεμπτὸς μισθὸς ὁ τοιοῦτος.
Bonitz (in his Platonische Studien,
pp. 8, 9, 74, 76, &c.) is one of the few
critics who deprecate the confidence
and boldness with which recent scholars
have ascribed to Plato affirmative
opinions and systematic purpose which
he does not directly announce. Bonitz
vindicates the separate value and sepa-
rate locus standi of the negative pro-
cess in Plato’s estimation, particularly
in the example of the Thestétus.
Susemihl, in the preface to his second
part has controverted these views of

nitz—in my judgment without any
success.

The following observations of recent
French scholars are just, though they
imply too much the assumption that
there is always some affirmative jewel
wrapped up in Plato’s complicated
folds. M. Egger observes (Histoire
de la Critique chez les Grecs, Paris,
1849, p. 84, ch. ii. sect. 4):

“La philosophie de Platon n’offre
as, en général, un ensemble de par-
es trés rigoureusement liées entre

elles. D’abord, il ne l’expose que sous
forme dialoguée : et dans ses dialogues,
ot il ne prend jamais de réle personnel,
on ne voit pas clairement auquel des
interlocuteurs fl a confiéd la défense
de ses propres opinions. Parmi ces
interlocuteurs, Socrate lui-méme, le
plus naturel et le plus ordinaire inter-

this universal belief of knowledge, without the reality ,
of knowledge—we know, not merely from the dia-
logues of Plato, but also from the Memorabilia of
Sokrates did not touch upon recondite
matters—upon the Kosmos, astronomy, meteorology.
Such studies he discountenanced as useless, and even

préte de la pensée de son disciple, use
tort souvent des libertés de cette forme
toute dramatique, pour se jouer dans
les distinctions subtiles, pour exagérer
certains arguments, pour couper court
& une discussion embarrassante, au
moyen de quelque plaisanterie, et pour
se retirer d’un débat sans conclure;
en un mot, il a—ou, ce qui est plus
vrai, Platon a, sous son nom—des
opinions de circonstance et des ruses de
dialectigue, ἃ travers lesquelles il est
souvent difficile de retrouver le fond
sérieux de sa doctrine. Heureusement
ces difficultés ne touchent pas aux
principes généraux du Platonisme. La
critique Platonicienne en particulier
dans ce qu'elle a de plus original, et de
lus élevé, se rattache a la nde
héorie des idées et de la réminiscence.
On la retrouve exposée dans plusieurs
dialogues avec une clarté qui ne permet
ni le doute ni l’incertitude.”

I may also cite the following remarks
made by M. Vacherot (Histoire Critique
de l’Ficole d’Alexandrie, vol. ii. p. 1, Pt.
ii. Bk. ii. ch. i) after his instructive
analysis of the doctrines of Plotinus. I
think the words are as much applicable
to Plato as to Plotinus: the rather, as
Plato never speaks in his own name
Plotinus always :--- Combien faut-il
prendre garde d’ajouter ἃ la pensée du
philosophe, et de lui préter un arrange-
ment artificiel! Ce génie, plein d’en-
thousiasme et de fougue, n’a
connu ni mesure ni plan: jamais il ne
s'est astreint ἃ developper réguliére-
ment une théorie, ni ἃ exposer avec

(ΒΑΡ. VITI. POPULAR OPINIONS AND BELIEFS.

377

as irreligious.! The subjects on which he interrogated were
those of common, familiar, every-day talk: those which every
one believed himself to know, and on which every one had a
confident opinion to give: the respondent being surprised that
any one could put the questions, or that there could be any
doubt requiring solution. What is justice? what is injustice?
what are temperance and courage? what is law, lawlessness, de-
mocracy, aristocracy? what is the government of mankind, and
the attributes which qualify any one for exercising such govern-
ment? Here were matters upon which every one talked fami-
harly, and would have been ashamed to be thought incapable of
delivering an opinion. Yet it was upon these matters that
Sokrates detected universal ignorance, coupled with a firm, but
illusory, persuasion of knowledge. The conversation of Sokrates
with Euthydémus, in the Xenophontic Memorabilia*—the first
Alkibiadés, Lachés, Charmidés, Euthyphron, &c., of Plato—are
among the most marked specimens of such cross-examination or
Elenchus—a string of questions, to which there are responses in
indefinite number successively given, tested, and exposed as
unsatisfactory.

The answers which Sokrates elicited and exposed were simple

‘suite un ensemble de théories, de
maniére ἃ en former un systéme, Fort
incertain dans sa marche, il prend,
quitte, et reprend le méme sujet, sans
jamais paraitre avoir dit son “er
mot; toujours il répand de vives et
abondantes clartés sur les questions
u’il traite, mais rarement il les con-
it A leur derniére et définitive solu-
tion; sa rapide pensée neffleure pas
seulement le sujet sur lequel elle
sse, elle le pénetre et le creuse tou-
jours, sans toutefois l’épuiser. Fort
inégal dans ses allures, tantdt ce génie
3’ appe en inspirations rapides et
tumultueuses, tantdt il semble se
trainer péniblement et se perdre dans
un ,dédale de subtiles abstractions,

I wish to be remarked. An experience
of nine years in the office of a public
tutor in one of the Universities, and in
that department of education to which
these sections relate, afforded me fre-
quent opportunity to observe, thatin dis-
coursing to young minds upon topics of
morality, it required much more pains
to make them perceive the difficulty than
to understand the solution: that unless
the subject was so drawn up to a point
as to exhibit the full force of an ob-
jection, or the exact place of a doubt,

fore any explanation was entered
upon—in other words, unless some
curiosity was excited, before it was
attempted to be satisfied—the teacher’s
labour was lost. When information
was not desired, it was seldom, I found,

1 Xenoph. Memor. i. 1. retained. I have made this observa-
2 Xenoph. Memor. iv. 2. A passage tion my guide in the following work :
from Paley's preface to his ‘‘Principles that is, I have endeavoured, before I

of Moral Philosophy,” illustrates well
this Sokratic process: ‘Concerning
the principle of morals, it would be
remature to speak: but concerning
he manner of unfolding and explainin
that principle, I have somewhat whic.

suffered myself to proceed in the dis-
quisition, to put the reader in complete
possession of the question: and to do it
in a way that I thought most likely to stir
up his own doubts and solicit about

ἐξ, 3»

378

To those
topics, on
which each
community
possesses
established
dogmas,
ws,
customs,
sentiments,
consecrated
and tradi-
tional, pecu-
liar to itself.
The local
creed,
which is
never for-
mally pro-
claimed or
taught, but
is enforced
uncon-
sciously by
every one
upon every
one else.
Omnipo-
tence of
King
Nomos.

1 Herodot. ii. 85-86-64; iii. 88-94,
cordance between the various institu. O

seq. i.

PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. CuaP. VIII.

expressions of the ordinary prevalent belief upon
matters on which each community possesses esta-
blished dogmas, laws, customs, sentiments, fashions,
points of view, &c., belonging to itself. When Hero-
dotus passed over to Egypt, he was astonished to find
the judgment, feelings, institutions, and practices of
the Egyptians, contrasting most forcibly with those
of all other countries. He remarks the same (though
less in degree) respecting Babylonians, Indians, Scy-
thians, and others; and he is not less impressed with
the veneration of each community for its own creed
and habits, coupled with indifference or antipathy
towards other creeds, disparate or discordant, prevail-
ing elsewhere.'

This aggregate of beliefs and predispositions to be-
lieve, ethical, religious, esthetical, social, respecting
what is true or false, probable or improbable, just or
unjust, holy or unholy, honourable or base, respect-
able or contemptible, pure or impure, beautiful or
ugly, decent or indecent, obligatory to do or obliga-

others. But the most forcible of all
illustrations are those furnished by the
riental world, when surveyed or

iv. 76-77-80. The dis-

tions established among the separate

aggregations of mankind, often pro- has

ceeding to the pitch of reciprocal
antipa hy’ the imperative character of
each in its own region, assuming the
appearance of natural right and pro-
priety—all this appears brought to
view by the inquisitive and observant
Herodotus, as well as by others (Xeno-
phon, Cyroped. i. 8-18): but many
new facts, illustrating the same thesis,
were noticed by Aristotle and the Peri-
patetics, when a larger extent of the
globe became opened to Hellenic sur-
vey. Compare Aristotle, Ethic. Nik.
i. 8, 1004, Ὁ. 156; Sextus Empiric.
Pyrr. Hypotyp. i. sect. 145-166, iii.
sect. 198-284; and the remarkable
extract from Bardesanes Syrus, cited
by Eusebius, Prep. Evang. vi., and
published in Orelli’s collection, pp.
202-219, Alexandri Aphrodis. et Ali-
orum De Fato, Zurich, 1824.

Many interesting es in illus-
tration of the same thesis might be
borrowed from Montaigne, Pascal, and

studied by intelligent Europeans, as it
been more fully during the last
century. See especially Sir William
Sleeman’s Rambles and Recollections
of an Indian Official: two volumes
which unfold with equal penetration
and fidelity the manifestations of esta-
blished sentiment among the Hindoos
and Mahomedans. Vol. i. ch. iv., de-
scribing a Suttee on the Nerbudda, is
one of the most impressive chapters in
the work: the rather as it describes
the continuance of a hallowed custom,
transmitted even from the days of
Alexander. I transcribe also some
valuable matter from an eminent liv-
ing scholar, whose extensive erudition
comprises Oriental as well as Hellenic

philosophy.

M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire (Premier
Mémoire sur le Sankhya, Paris, 1852,
pp. 892-305) observes as follows re-
specting the Sanscrit system of phi-
losophy called Sdzxkhya, the doctrine
expounded and enforced by the philo-
sopher Kapila—and respecting Buddha

CHAP. VIII,

TRADITIONAL LOCAL CREED.

379

tory to avoid, respecting the status and relations of each indi-
vidual in the society, respecting even the admissible fashions of
amusement and recreation—this is an established fact and condi-
tion of things, the real origin of which is for the most part un-
known, but which each new member of the society is born to and
finds subsisting. It is transmitted by tradition from parents to
children, and is imbibed by the latter almost unconsciously from
what they see and hear around, without any special season of
teaching, or special persons to teach. It becomes a part of each
person’s nature—a standing habit of mind, or fixed set of
mental tendencies, according to which, particular experience is

and Buddhism which was built upon
the Sankhya, amending or modifyin
it. Buddha is believed to have live
about 547 B.c. Both the system of
Buddha, and that of Kapila, are athe-
istic, as described by M. St. Hilaire.
‘*Le second point ott Bouddha se
separe de Kapila concerne la doctrine.
L’homme ne peut rester dans lincer-
titude que Kapila lui laisse encore.
L’Ame délivréee, selon les doctrines de
Kapila, peut toujours renaitre. 1] n’y
8, qu’un moyen, un seul moyen, de le
sauver,—c’est de l’andantir. Le néeant
seul est un sir asile: on ne revient
de celui 14.—Bouddha lui promet
fo néant: et c’est avec cette promesse
inouie qu'il a passionné les hommes
et converti les peuples. ue cette
monstrueuse croyance, pa ée au-
jourd’hui par trois cents millions de
sectateurs, révolte en nous les instincts
les plus énergiques de notre nature—
qu’elle souléve toutes les répugnances
et toutes les horreurs de notre 4me—
4 6110 nous paraisse aussi incompré-
hensible que hideuse—peu importe.
Une partie considérable de Yhumanité
Ya recue,—préte méme ἃ la justifier
par toutes les subtilités de la meta-
ysique la plus raffinée, et ἃ la con-
esser dans les tortures des plus affreux
supplices et les austérités homicides
dun fanatisme aveugle. Si c’est une
gloire que de dominer souverainement,
travers les 4ges, la foi des hommes,—
jamais fondateur de religion n’en eut
une plus grande que le Bouddha: car
aucun n’eut de prosélytes plus fidéles
ni plus nombreux. Mais je me trompe:
le Bouadha ne prétendait jamais fonder
une réligion. 11 n’étai que philo-
he: et instruit dans toutes les
sclences des Brahmans, il ne voulut

personnellement que fonder, & leur
exemple, un nouveau systéme. Seule-
ment, les moyens quwil employait du-
rent mener ses disciples plus loin qu'il
ne comptait aller lui méme. En
s'adressant ἃ la foule, il faut bientét
la discipliner et la régler. De 1a, cette
ordination réligieuse que le Bouddha
donnait & ses adeptes, la hiérarchie
qu'il établissait entre eux, fondée
umquement, comme la science lexi-
geait, sur le mérite divers des intelli-
gences et des vertus—la douce et sainte
morale qu'il préchait,—le détachement
de toutes choses en ce monde, si con-
venable ἃ des ascétes qui ne pensent
qu’au salut ¢éternel—le veeu de pau-
vreté, qui est la premiére loi des
Bouddhistes—et tout cet ensemble de
dispositions qui constituent un gou-
vernement au lieu d’une école.

‘Mais ce n’est l& que l’extérieur du
Bouddhisme: c’en est le développe-
ment matériel et nécessaire. Au fond,
son principe est celui du Sankhya:
seulement, il lapplique en
C'est la science qui délivre homme:
et le Bouddha ajoute—Pour que
Yhomme soit délivré & jamais, il faut
qu'il arrive au Nirvana, c’est ἃ dire,
quil soit absolument anéanti.
néant est donc le bout de la science ;
et le salut eternel, c’est Yanéantisse-
ment.”

The same line of argument is insisted
on by M. Barthélemy t. Hilaire in his
other work—Bouddha et sa_réligion,
Paris, 1862, ed. 2nd: especially in his
Chapter on the Nirvana: wherein
moreover he complains justly of the
little notice which authors take of the
established beliefs of those varieties of
the human race which are found apart
from Christian Europe.

380 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY CHap. VIII.

interpreted and particular persons appreciated: It is not set
forth in systematic proclamation, nor impugned, nor defended :
it is enforced by a sanction of its own, the same real sanction or
force in all countries, by fear of displeasure from the Gods, and
by certainty of evil from neighbours and fellow-citizens. The
community hate, despise, or deride, any individual member who
proclaims his dissent from their social creed, or even openly calls
it in question. Their hatred manifests itself in different ways at
different times and occasions, sometimes by burning or excom-
munication, sometimes by banishment or interdiction? from fire
and water ; at the very least, by exclusion from ‘that amount of
forbearance, good-will, and estimation, without which the life of
an individual becomes insupportable: for society, though its
power to make an individual happy is but limited, has complete
power, easily exercised, to make him miserable. The orthodox
public do not recognise in any individual citizen a right to
scrutinise their creed, and to reject it if not approved by his own
rational judgment. They expect that he will embrace it in the
natural course of things, by the mere force of authority and con-
tagion—as they have adopted it themselves: as they have
adopted also the current language, weights, measures, divisions
of time, &c. If he dissents, he is guilty of an offence described in
the terms of the indictment preferred against Sokrates—‘So-
krates commits crime, inasmuch as he does not believe in the
Gods, in whom the city believes, but introduces new religious
beliefs,” &c.8 “Nomos (Law and Custom), King of All” (to
borrow the phrase which Herodotus cites from Pindar *), exercises

1 This general fact is powerfully set
forth by Cicero, in the beginning of
the third Tusculan Disputation. ry:
sippus the Stoic, ‘ut est in omni _his-
torié curiosus,” had collected striking
examples of these consecrated prac-
tices, cherished in one territory, ab-
horrent elsewhere. (Cic. Tuse. Disp. i.
5, ἢ

*See the description of the treat-
ment of Aristodémus, one of the two
Spartans who survived the battle of

ermopyle, after his return home,
Herodot. vii. 231, ix. 71. The inter-
diction from communion of fire, water,
eating, sacrifice, &c., is the strongest
manifestation of repugnance : so insu
portable to the person excommunica

that it counted for a sentence of exile
in the Roman law. (Deinarchus cont.
Aristogeiton, 5. 9. Heineccius, Ant.
Rom. 1. 16, 9, 10.)

5 Xenophon. Memor. i. 1, 1. ᾿Αδικεῖ
Σωκράτης, obs μὲν ἡ πόλις νομίζει θεοὺς
ov νομίξων, ἕτερα δὲ καινὰ δαιμόνια
εἰσφέρων, ἄς. lato (Leges, x. 909,
910) and Cicero (Legib. ii. 19-25) forbid
καινὰ δαιμόνια, “separatim nemo ha-
bessit Deos,” &c.

4 Νόμος πάντων βασιλεύς (Herodot.
iii. 88). It will be seen from Herodotus,
as well as elsewhere, that the idea
really intended to be ex»ressed by the
word. Νόμος is much lager than what
is now commonly widerstood by Lavo,
It is equivalent to that which Epik-

CuHapP. VIII.

KING NOMOS.

381

plenary power, spiritual as well as temporal, over individual
minds; moulding the emotions as well as the intellect according
to the local type—determining the sentiments, the belief, and
the predisposition in regard to new matters tendered for belief,
of every one—fashioning thought, speech, and points of view, no
less than action—and reigning under the appearance of habitual,
self-suggested tendencies. Plato, when he assumes the function
of Constructor, establishes special officers for enforcing in detail
the authority of King Nomos in his Platonic variety. But even

tatus calls τὸ δόγμα -ποντα οὔ ἀνίκη-
τον τὸ δόγμα (Epiktet. iii. 16). It in-
cludes what is meant by τὸ νόμιμον
(Xenoph. Memor. iv. 4, 18-24), ra νό-
Mia, τὰ νομιζόμενα, Ta πάτρια, τὰ νό-
μαια, including both positive morality,
and social sesthetical precepts, as well
as civil or political, and even personal
habits, such as that of abstinence from
spitting or wiping the nose (Xenoph.
rop. viii 8, 8-10). The case which
erodotus quotes to illustrate his gene-
ral thesis is the different treatinent
which, among different nations, is con-
sidered dutiful and respectful towards
senior relatives and the oorpses of de-
ceased relatives; which matters come
under τἄγραπτα κἀσφαλῆ Θεῶν Νόμιμα
Soph. Antig. 440)—of immemorial an-
quity ;—

Οὐ γάρ τι νῦν ye κἀχθὲς ἀλλ᾽ ἀεί ποτε
Ζῇ ταῦτα, κοὐδεὶς οἷδεν ἐξ tov ᾽φάνη.
Νόμος and ἐπιτήδευμα run together in
Plato’s mind, dictating every hour’s
roceeding of the citizen through life

the es, Vil. 807-808-823).

e find Plato, in the Leges, which
represents the altered tone and com-
pressive orthodoxy of his old age, ex-

olling the simple goodness (εὐήθεια
of our early forefathers, who believe
implicitly all that was told them, and
were not clever enough to raise doubts,
ὥσπερ τανῦν (Legg. iii. 679, .
Plato dwells much upon the danger
of permitting any innovation on the
fixed modes of song and dance (Legg.
v. 727, vii. 797-800), and forbids it
under heavy penalties. He says that
the lawgiver both can consecrate com-
mon talk, and ought to consecrate it
“--καθιερῶσαι τὴν φήμην (Legg. 838),
the dicta of Νόμος Βασιλεύς.
Pascal describes, in forcible terms,
the wide-spread authority of Νόμος
Βασιλεύς :-—‘‘ Il ne faut pas se mécon-

naitre, nous sommes automates autant
quesprit: et delA vient que linstru-
ment, par lequel la persuasion se fait,
n’est pas la seule démonstration. Com-
bien y a-t-il peu de choses démontrées |!
Les preuves ne convainquent que
Yesprit. La coutume fait nos preuves
les plus fortes et les plus crues: elle
incline l’automate, qui entraine l'esprit
sans qu'il y pense. gui a démontré qu’il
sera demain jour, et que nous mour-
rons—et qu’y a-t-il de plus cru?
C’est donc la coutume qui nous en
ersuade, c’est elle qui fait tant de
hrétiens, c’est elle qui fait les Turcs
les Paiens, les métiers, les soldats, &c.
Enfin, il faut avoir recours ἃ elle quand
une fois l’esprit a vu ot est la vérité,
afin de nous abreuver et nous teindre
de cette créance, qui nous échappe &
toute heure; car d’en avoir toujours
les preuves présentes,c’est trop d’affaire,.
1) faut acquérir une créance plus facile,
qui est celle de Vhabitude, qui, sans
violence, sans art, sans argument, nous
fait croire les choses, et incline toutes
nos puissances & cette croyance, en
sorte que notre Ame y tombe naturelle-
ment. Quand on ne croit que par la
force de la conviction, et que l’auto-
mate est incliné & croire le contraire,
ce n’est pas assez.” (Pascal, Pensées,
ch. ἣ p. 237, ed. Louandre, Paris,
Herein Pascal coincides with Mon-
taigne, of whom he often speaks
harshly enough: ‘‘Comme de vray
nous n’avons aultre mire de la vérité
et de la raison, que l’exemple et idée
des opinions et usances du pais ot nous
sommes: 14 est tousiours la parfaicte
religion, la parfaicte police, parfaict
et accomply usage de toutes choses.”
(Essais de Montaigne, liv. i. ch. 30.)
Compare the same train of thought in
Descartes (Discours sur la Méthode,
pp. 132-139, ed. Cousin).

382 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. Cuap, VIIL

where no such special officers exist, we find Plato himself
describing forcibly (in the speech assigned to Protagoras)?}
the working of that spontaneous ever-present police by whom
the authority of King Nomos is enforced in detail—a police not
the less omnipotent because they wear no uniform, and carry

no recognised title.

There are, however, generally a few exceptional minds to
Small mines Whom this omnipotent authority of King Nomos is

rity of ex-

individual
minds, who
do not yield
to the esta-

1 Plat. Protag. 820-828. The large
sense of the word Νόμος, as conceived
by Pindar and Herodotus, must be kept
in mind, comprising positive morality,
religious ritual, consecrated habits, the
1 turns of sympathy and antipathy,
dc. M. Salvador observes, respecting
the Mosaic Law: ‘“‘Qu’on écrive tous les
rapports publics et privés qui unissent
les membres d’un peuple quelconque,
et tous les principes sur lesquels ces
rapports sont fondés—il en résultera
un ensemble complet, un véritable
systéme plus ou moins raisonnable, qui
sera l’expression exacte de la maniére
@exister de ce peuple. Or, cet ensemble
ou ce systéme est ce que les Hébreux
eppellent la tora, la loi ou la constitu-

publique—en prenant ce mot dans
le sens le plus étendu.” (Salvador,
Histoire des Institutions de Moise, liv.
i. ch. il. p. 98.

Compare also about the sense of the
word lex, as conceived by the Arabs
M. Renan, Averroés, p. 286, and
Mr. Mill’s chapter respecting the all-
comprehensive character of the Hin-
doo law (Hist. of India, ch. iv., begin-
ning): ‘‘In the law books of the
Hindus, the details of jurisprudence
and judicature occupy comparatively
a very moderate space, The doctrines
and ceremonies of religion; the rules
and practice of education; the institu-
tions, duties, and customs of domestic
life; the maxims of private morality,
and even of domestic economy; the
rules of government, of war, and of
negotiation ; all form essential parts of
the Hindu code of law, and are treated
in the same style, and laid down with

repugnant, and who claim aright to investigate and
judge for themselves on many points already settled
and foreclosed by the prevalent orthodoxy. In child-
hood and youth these minds must have gone through

the same authority, as the rules for the
distribution of justice.”

Mr. Maine, in his admirable work on
Ancient Law, notes both the all-com-
prehensive and the irresistible ascen-
dancy of what is called Law in early
societies. He remarks emphatically
that ‘‘the stationary condition of the
human race is the rule—the progressive
condition the exception—a rare excep-
tion in the history of the world”. (Chap.
i. Pp. 16-18-19 ; chap. ii. pp. 22-24.)

gain, Mr. Maine observes :—‘‘ The
other liability, to which the infancy of
society is exposed, has prevented or
arrested the progress of far the greater
part of mankind. The rigidity of an-
cient law, arising chiefly from its early
association and identification with reli-
ion, has chained down the mass of
he human race to those views of life
and conduct which they entertained at
the time when their institutions were
first consolidated into a systematic
form. There were one or two races
exempted by a marvellous fate from
this calamity: and grafts from these
stocks have fertilised a few modern
societies. But it is still true that over
the larger part of the world, the per-
fection of law has always been consi-
dered as consisting in adherence to the
ground-plan supposed to have been
marked out by the legislator. Jf in-
tellect has in such cases been exerctsed
upon Juriaprudence, ut has uniform y
prided itself on the subtle perversity ὁ
the μα ectineions it could build on anctent
texts, without discoverable departure from
their literal tenor.” (Maine, Ancient
Law, ch. iv. pp. 77-78.)

Cuap. VIII. INDIVIDUAL DISSENT. 383

blished or-
thodoxy,
but insist on
exercising

the ordinary influences,’ but without the permanent
stamp which such influences commonly leave behind.
Either the internal intellectual force of the individual iho ows

is greater, or he contracts a reverence for some new judgment.

authority, or (as in the case of Sokrates) he believes himself to
have received a special mission from the Gods—in one way or
other the imperative character of the orthodoxy around him is so
far enfeebled, that he feels at liberty to scrutinise for himself the
assemblage of beliefs and sentiments around him. If he con-
tinues to adhere to them, this is because they approve themselves
to his individual reason : unless this last condition be fulfilled, he
becomes a dissenter, proclaiming his dissent more or less openly,
according to circumstances. Such disengagement from authority
traditionally consecrated (ἐξαλλαγὴ τῶν εἰωθότων vopipov),? and
assertion of the right of self-judgment, on the part of a small

1 Cicero, Tusc. Ὁ. iii. 2; Aristof.
Ethic. Nikom. x. 10, 1179, b. 23. ὁ δὲ
λόγος καὶ ἡ διδαχὴ μή ποτ᾽ οὐκ ἐν
ἅπασιν ἰσχύῃ, ἀλλὰ δέῃ προδιειργάσθαι
τοῖς ἔθεσι τὴν τοῦ ἀκροατοῦ Wuxny πρὸς
τὸ καλῶς χαίρειν καὶ μισεῖν, ὥσπερ γὴν
τὴν θρέψονσαν τὸ σπέρμα. To the same

urpose Plato, Republ. iii. 402 A, Leg ἢ
i. 668 Β, 669 E, Plato and Aristotle
(and even Xenophon, Cyrop. i. 2, 8),
aiming at the formation of a body of
citizens, anda community very different
from anything which they saw around
them—require to have the means of
shaping the early sentiments, love,
hatred, &c., of children, in a manner
favourable to their own ultimate views.
This is exactly what Νόμος Βασιλεὺς
does effectively in existing societies,
without need of special provision for
the purpose. See to, Protagor.
825, 326.

2 Plato, Phedrus, 265 A. See Sir
Will. Hamilton's Lectures on Logic,
Lect. 29. PP. 88-90. In the Timeus
(p. 40 E) to interrupts the thread
of his own speculations on cosmogony,
to take in all the current theogony on
the authority of King Nomos, ἀδύ-
νατον οὖν θεῶν παισὶν ἀπιστεῖν, καίπε
ἄνευ τε εἰκότων καὶ ἀναγκαίων ἀποδεῖ-
ξεων λέγουσιν, GAA’ ὡς οἰκεῖα φάσκου-
σιν ἀπαγγέλλειν ἑπομένους τῷ νόμῳ
“πιστευτέον.

Hegel adverts to this severance of
the individual consciousness from the
common consciousness of the commu-
nity, as the point of departure for

philosophical theory :—‘‘On one hand
we are now called upon to find some
specificTmatter for the general form of
Good; such closer determination of
The Good is the criterion required.
On the other hand, the exigencies of
the individual subject come promi-
nently forward: this is the conse-
quence of the revolution which So-
krates operated in the Greek mind.
So long as the religion, the laws, the
political constitution, of any people,
are in full force—so long as each indi-
vidual citizen is in complete harmony
with them all—no one raises the ques-
tion, What has the Individual to do for
himself? Ina moralised and religious
social harmony, each individual finds
his destination prescribed by the esta-
blished routine; while this positive
morality, religion, laws, form also the
routine of his own mind. On the con.
trary, if the Individual no longer stands
on the custom of his nation, nor feels
himself in full agreement with the
religion and laws—he then no longer
finds what he desires, nor obtains satis-
faction in the medium around him.
When once such discord has become
confirmed, the Individual must fall
back on his own reflections, and seek
his destination there. This is what
gives rise to the question—What is the
essential scheme for the Individual ?
To what ought he to conform—what
shall he aim at? An ideal is thus set
up for the Individual. This is, the

iso Man, or the Ideal of the Wise

384 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. CuaP VIII.

minority of sdtoyvdpoves,! is the first condition of existence for
philosophy or “reasoned truth”,
Amidst the epic and lyric poets of Greece, with their varied

Early ap- productive impulse—as well as amidst the Gnomic
pearance ot philosophers, the best of whom were also poets—there
judging in- are not a few manifestations of such freely judging
dividuals, or individuality. Xenophanes the philosopher, who
in Greece.

wrote in poetry, censured severely several of the
current narratives about the Gods and Pindar, though in more
respectful terms, does the like. So too, the theories about the
Kosmos, propounded by various philosophers, Thales, Anaxi-
menes, Pythagoras, Herakleitus, Anaxagoras, &c., were each of
them the free offspring of an individual mind. But these were
counter-affirmations : novel theories, departing from the common
belief, yet accompanied by little or no debate, or attack, or
defence: indeed the proverbial obscurity of Herakleitus, and the
recluse mysticism of the Pythagoreans, almost excluded discus-
sion. These philosophers (to use the phrase of Aristotle*) had

Man, which is, in truth, the separate
working of individual self-conscious-
ness, conceived as an universal or
typical character.” (Hegel, Geschichte
er Philosophie, Part ii. PP. 132, 133.)

1 This is an expression of the learned
Huet, Bishop of Avranches ;—‘‘Si quel-
qwun me demande maintenant, ce que
nous sommes, puisque nous ne voulons
étre ni Académiciens, ni Sceptiques, ni
Eclectiques, ni d’aucune autre Secte,
je répondrai que nous sommes nétres—
cest δ dire libres: ne voulans soumettre
notre esprit & aucune autorité, et
n’approuvans que ce qui nous paroit
a’approcher plus prés de la vérité. Que
si quelqu’un, par mocquerie ou par
flatterie, nous appelle ἰδιογνώμονας---
cest ἃ dire, attachés ἃ nos propres
sentimens, nous n’y répugnerons pas.”

Huet, Traité Philosophique de la
oiblesse de l’Esprit Humain, liv. ii.
ch. xi. p. 224, ed. 1741.)

2 Aristot. Metaphys. A. 987, b. 32.
Eusebius, having set forth the dissen-
tient and discordant opinions of the va-
rious Hellenic philosophers, triumph-
antly contrasts with them the steady
adherence of Jews and Christians to one
body of truth, handed down by an uni-
form tradition from father to son, from
the first generation of man—armd πρώτης
ἀνθρωπογονίας. (Preep. Ev. xiv. 3.)

Cicero, in the treatise (not preserved)
entitled Hortensius—set forth, at some
length, an attack and a defence of phi-
losophy; the former he assigned to
Hortensius, the latter he undertook in
his own name. One of the arguments
urged by Hortensius against philo-
sophy, to prove that it was not ‘‘ vera
sapientia,’ was, that it was both a
human invention and a recent novelty,
not handed down by tradition a prin-
cipio, therefore not natural to man.
‘“‘Quee si secundum hominis naturam
est, cum homine ipso coeperit necesse
est; si vero non est, nec capere quidem
illam posset huinana natura. Ubi apud
antiquiores latuit amor iste investi-

and veritatis?” (Lactantius, Inst.

ivin. iii. 16.) The loss of this Cice-
ronian pleading (Philosophy versus
Consecrated Tradition) is much to be
deplored. Lactantius and Augustin
seem to have used it largely.

The Hermotimus of Lucian, mani-
festing all his lively Sokratic acute-
ness, is a dialogue intended to expose
the worthlessness of all speculative
philosophy. The respondent Her-
motimus ha pens to be a Stoic, but
the assailant expressly declares (c. 85)
that the arguments would be equally
valid against Platonists or Aristo-
telians. Hermotimus is advised to

Cuap, VIII. RISE OF DIALECTIC. 385

no concern with Dialectic: which last commenced in the fifth
century B.C., with the Athenian drama and dikastery, and was
enlisted in the service of philosophy by Zeno the Eleate and
Sokrates.

Both the drama and the dikastery recognise two or more
different ways of looking at a question, and require
that no conclusion shall be pronounced until opposing Rise of Dia-
disputants have been heard and compared. The Effectofthe
Eumenides plead against Apollo, Prometheus against and the
the mandates and dispositions of Zeus, in spite of
the superior dignity as well as power with which Zeus is invested :
every Athenian citizen, in his character of dikast, took an oath
to hear both the litigant parties alike, and to decide upon the
pleadings and evidence according to law. Zeno, in his debates
with the anti-Parmenidean philosophers, did not trouble
himself to parry their thrusts. He assumed the ageressive,
impugned the theories of his opponents, and exposed the contra-
dictions in which they involved themselves. The dialectic pro-
cess, in which there are (at the least) two opposite points of view
both represented—the negative and the affirmative— became
both prevalent and interesting.

T have in a former chapter explained the dialectic of Zeno, as
it bore upon the theories of the anti-Parmenidean Apvlicati

ς . . cation
philosophers. Still more important was the pro- of Negative
ceeding of Sokrates, when he applied the like scrutiny S¢rutiny to,
to ethical, social, political, religious topics. He did social topics

. . y Sokrates.
not come forward with any counter-theories: he de-
clared expressly that he had none to propose, and that he was
ignorant. He put questions to those who on their side professed
to know, and he invited answers from them. His mission, as he
himself described it, was, to scrutinise and expose false preten-
sions to knowledge. Without such scrutiny, he declares life
itself to be not worth having. He impugned the common and
traditional creed, not in the name of any competing doctrine,
desist from philosophy, to renounce καὶ ὅ σε παραπέμψει és τὸ λοιπὸν τοῦ
inquiry, to employ himself in some of βίον, τὰ κοινὰ ταῦτα φρονοῦντα, 6, 72).
the necessary affairs of life, and to Among the worthless philosophical
acquiesce in the common received speculations Lucian ranks geometry :
opinions, which would carry him the geometrical definitions (point and

smoothly along the remainder of his tine) he declares to be nonsensical and
life (ἀξιῶ πράττειν τι τῶν ἀναγκαίων, inadmissible (c. 74).

1—25

386 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. Cuap. VIIL.

but by putting questions on the familiar terms 1m which it was
confidently enunciated, and by making its defenders contradict
themselves and feel the shame of their own contradictions. The
persons who held it were shown to be incapable of defending it,
when tested by an acute cross-examiner; and their supposed
knowledge, gathered up insensibly from the tradition around
them, deserved the language which Bacon applies to the science
of his day, conducting indirectly to the necessity of that remedial
course which Bacon recommends. “Nemo adhuc tanta mentis
constantia et rigore inventus est, ut decreverit et 5101 propo-
suerit, theorias et notiones communes penitus abolere, et intel-
lectum abrasum et equum ad particularia rursus applicare.
Itaque ratio illa quam habemus, ex multa fide et multo etiam
casu, necnon ex puerilibus quas primo hausimus notionibus,
farrago quedam est et congeries.” }

Never before (so far as we know) had the authority of King
Nomos been exposed to such an enemy as this dialec-

Emphatic ; ΝΣ

assertion by tic or cross-examination by Sokrates: the prescriptive
Bok Teh of creed and unconsciously imbibed sentiment (“ratio ex
satisfaction fide, casu, et puerilibus notionibus”) being thrown
individual upon their defence against negative scrutiny brought
reason. to bear upon them by the inquisitive reason of an
individual citizen. In the Apology, Sokrates clothes his own

strong intellectual estrus in the belief (doubtless sincerely
entertained) of a divine mission. In the Gorgias, the Platonic
Sokrates asserts it in naked and simple, yet not less emphatic,
language. “You, Polus, bring against me the authority of the
multitude, as well as that of the most eminent citizens, all of
whom agree in upholding your view. But I, one man standing
here alone, do not agree with you. And I engage to compel you,
my one respondent, to agree with me.”? The autonomy or inde-

Bacon, Nov. Org. Aph. 97. I have
already cited this passage in a note on
the 6&th chapter of my ‘History of
Greece,’ pp. 612-613; in which note I

ve also alluded to other striking
passages of Bacon, indicating the con-
usion, inconsistencies, and misappre-
hensions of the “‘intellectus gibi per-
missus”. In that note, and in the
text of the chapter, I have endea-
voured to illustrate the same view of

the Sokratic procedure as that which
is here taken.

2 Plato, Gorgias, p. 472 A. καὶ νῦν,
περὶ ὧν σὺ λέγεις, ὀλίγον σοὶ πάντες
συμφήσονσι ταῦτα ᾿Αθηναῖοι καὶ οἱ ξένοι,
ἐὰν βούλῃ Kar’ ἐμοῦ μάρτνρας παρα-
σχέσθαι ὡς οὐκ ἀἁληθὴ λέγω μαρτυ-
ρήσουσί σοι, ἐὰν μὲν βούλῃ, Νικίας ὁ
Νικηράτου καὶ οἱ ἀδελφοὶ μετ᾽ αὐτοῦ---
ἐὰν δὲ βούλῃ, ᾿Αριστοκράτης ὁ Σκελλίον
--ὀἰὰν δὲ βούλῃ, ἡ Περικλέους ὅλη οἰκία

CuaP. VIII.

SOKRATES’S NEGATIVE ANALYSIS.

387

pendence of individual reason against established authority, and
the title of negative reason as one of the litigants in the process
of philosophising, are first brought distinctly to view in the

career of Sokrates.

With such a career, we need not wonder that Sokrates, though

esteemed and admired by a select band of adherents,
incurred a large amount of general unpopularity.
The public (as 1 have before observed) do not admit
the claim of independent exercise for individual
In the natural process of growth in the
human mind, belief does not follow proof, but springs
up apart from and independent of it: an immature
intelligence believes first, and proves (if indeed it
This mental tendency
is farther confirmed by the pressure and authority of
King Nomos ; who is peremptory in exacting belief,
but neither furnishes nor requires proof. The com-

reason.

ever seeks proof) afterwards,!

Aversion of
the Athe-
nian public
to the nega.
tive pro-
cedure of
Sokrates.
Mistake of
supposin
that that
negative
rocedure
elongs
eculiarly
o the So-
hists and
he Mega-
rici.

munity, themselves deeply persuaded, will not hear with calm-
ness the voice of a solitary reasoner, adverse to opinions thus
established ; nor do they like to be required to explain, analyse,
or reconcile those opinions? They disapprove especially that

ἢ ἄλλη συγγένεια, ἥντινα ἂν βούλῃ τῶν
ἔνθαδε ἐκλέξασθαι. "AAN ἐγώ σοι
εἷς ὧν οὐχ ὁμολογῶ ov γάρ με
σὺ ἀναγκάζεις, &C.

1See Professor Bain’s Chapter on
Belief ; one of the most original and
instructive chapters in his volume on
the Emotions and the Will, pp. 578-
684. [Third Ed., pp. 505-538.]

2 This antithesis and reciprocal re-
pulsion—between the speculative rea-
son of the philosopher who thinks for
himself, and the established traditional
convictions of the public—is nowhere
more strikingly enforced than by Plato
in the sixth and seventh books of the
Republic; together with the corrupt-
ing influence exercised by King Nomos,
at the head of his vehement and una-
nimous public, over those few gifted
natures which are competent to philo-
sophical speculation. See Plato, Rep.
vi. 492-498.

The unfavourable feelings with
which the attempts to analyse moralit
(especially when quite novel, as suc
attempts were in the time of Sokrates)
are received in a community — are

noticed by Mr. John Stuart Mill, in
his tract on Utilitarianism, ch. iii. pp.
88-39 :-—

‘‘The question is often asked, and
properly so, in regard to any supposed
moral standard, What is its sanction ?
What are the motives to obey it? or
more specifically, What is the source
of its obligation? Whence does it
derive its binding force? It is a ne-
cessary part of moral philosophy to
provide the answer to this question:
which though frequently assuming the
shape of an objection to the utilitarian
morality, as if it had some special
applicability to that above others,
really arises in regard to all standards,
It arises in fact whenever a person is
called on to adopt a standard, or refer
morality to any basis on which he has
not been accustomed to rest it. For
the customary morality, that which
education and opinion have conse-
crated, is the only one which presents
itself to the mind with the feeling of
being in itself obligatory: and when a
person is asked to believe that this
morality derives its obligation from

388

PLATONIO COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. CuapP. VIIT.

dialectic debate which gives free play and efficacious prominence
to the negative arm. The like disapprobation is felt even by
most of the historians of philosophy ; who nevertheless, having
an interest in the philosophising process, might be supposed to
perceive that nothing worthy of being called reasoned truth can
exist, without full and equal scope to negative as well as to

affirmative.

These historians usually speak in very harsh terms of the

The same
charges
which the
historians
of philoso-
phy brin
against the
Sophists
were
brought
by contem-
porary
Athenians
against So-
krates.
They re-
present the
standing
dislike of
ree inquiry,
usual with
an orthodox
public.

Sophists, as well as of Eukleides and the Megaric
sect ; who are taken as the great apostles of negation.
But the truth is, that the Megarics inherited it from
Sokrates, and shared it with Plato. Eukleides cannot
have laid down a larger programme of negation than
that which we read in the Apology of Sokrates,—nor
composed a dialogue more ultra-negative than the
Platonic Parmenidés: nor, again, did he depart so
widely, in principle as well as in precept, from exist-
ing institutions, as Plato in his Republic. The
charges which historians of philosophy urge against
the Megarics as well as against the persons whom
they call the Sophists—such as corruption of youth—
perversion of truth and morality, by making the
worse appear the better reason—subversion of esta-

blished beliefs—innovation as well as deception—all these were
urged against Sokrates himself by his contemporaries! and

some general principle round which
custom has not thrown the same halo,
the assertion is to hima paradox. The
supposed corollaries seem to have a
more binding force than the original
theorem: the superstructure seems to
stand better without than with what
is represented as its foundation. .. .
The difficulty has no peculiar applica-
tion to the doctrine of utility, but is
inherent in eve attempt to analyse
morality, and uce it to principles:
which, unless the principle is alread
in men’s minds invested with as muc
sacredness as any of its applications,
always seems to divest them of a part
of their sanctity.”
Epiktétus observes that the refined
doctrines acquired by the self-reasoning
hilosopher, often failed to attain that
tense hold on his conviction, which

the ‘‘rotten doctrines” inculcated from
childhood possessed over the conviction
of ordinary men. Διὰ τί οὖν ἐκεῖνοι (οἱ
πολλοὶ, οἱ ἰδιῶται) ὑμῶν (τῶν φιλοσό-
φων) ἰσχυρότεροι; Ὅτι ἐκεῖνοι μὲν τὰ
σαπρὰ ταῦτα ἀπὸ δογμάτων λαλοῦσιν;
ὑμεῖς δὲ τὰ κομψὰ ἀπὸ τῶν χειλῶν... ..
Οὕτως ὑμᾶς οἱ ἰδιῶται νικῶσι' Tlap-
ταχοῦ γὰρ ἰσχυρὸν τὸ δόγμα" ἀνίκητον
τὸ oy a. (Epiktatus, iii 16.) m
1 Themistius, in defending himself
against contemporary opponents, whom
he represents to have calumniated him,
consoles himself by saying, among
other observations, that these arrows
have been aimed at all the philo-
sophers successively—Sokrates, Plato,
Aristotle, Theophrastus. ‘O yap σο-
φιστὴς καὶ ἀλαζὼν καὶ καινότομος πρῶτον
μὲν Σωκράτους ὀνείδη ἦν, ἔπειτα TAd-
τωνὸς ἐφεξῆς, εἶθ᾽ ὕστερον ᾿Αριστοτέλους

Cuap. VIII.

SOKRATES AND THE SOPHISTS.

389

indeed against all the philosophers indiscriminately, as we learn

καὶ Θεοφράστου. (Orat. xxili. p 846,
Dindorf.)

We read in Zeller’s account of the
Platonic philosophy (Phil. der Griech.
vol, P. 368, ed. 2nd) i Bogriind

ie propddeutische Be ung
der Platcnischen Philosophie besteht
im Allgemeinen darin, dass der un-
philosophische Standpunkt aufgelost,
und die Erhebung zum _ philosophi-
schen in ihrer Nothwendigkeit nach-
gewiesen wird. Im Besondern konnen
wir drey Stadien dieses Wegs unter-
scheiden. Den Ausgangspunkt bildet
das gewShnliche Bewusstsein. Indem
die Voraussetzungen, welche Diesem fur
en Erstes und Festes gegolten hatten,
dialektisch zersetzt werden, so erhalten
wir zundchat das negative Resultat der
Sophistik, Erst wenn auch diese tiber-
wunden ist, kann der philosuphische
Standpunkt positiv entwickelt wer-

en.”

Zeller here affirms that it was the
Sophists (Protagoras, Prodikus, Hip-
pias and others) who first applied
negative analysis to the common con-
sciousness ; breaking up, by their dia-
lectic scrutiny, those hypotheses which
had before exercised authority therein,
as first principles not to be disputed.

I dissent from this position. I con-
ceive that the Sophists (Protagoras
Prodikus, Hippias) did not do wha
Zeller affirms, and that Sokrates (and
Plato after him) did doit. The nega-
tive analysis was the weapon of So-
krates, and not of Protagoras, Prodi-
kus, Hippias, &c. It was he who de-
clared (see Platonic Apology) that
false persuasion of knowledge was at
once universal and ruinous, and who
devoted his life to the task of exposing
it by cross-examination. The conver-
sation of the Xenophontic Sokrates
with Euthydémus (Memor. iv. 2), ex-
hibits a complete specimen of that
aggressive analysis, brought to bear
on the common consciousness, which
Zeller ascribes to the Sophists: the
Platonic dialogues, in which Sokrates
cross-examines upon Justice, Temper-
ance, Courage, Piety, Virtue, &c., are
of the like character; and we know
from Xenophon (Mem. i. 1-16) that
Sokrates passed much time in such exa-
minations with pre-eminent success.

I notice this statement of Zeller, not
because it is peculiar to him (for most
of the modern historians of philosoph
affirm the same; and his history, whic

is the best that I know, merely repeats
the ordinary view), but because it
illustrates clearly the view which I
take of the Sophists and Sokrates.
Instead of the unmeaning abstract
“ Sophistik,” given by Zeller and others
we ought properly to insert the wor

‘* Sokratik,” if we are to have any ab-
stract term at all.

Again—The negative analysis, which
these authors call ““ Sophistik,” they
usually censure as discreditable and
corrupting. To me it appears, on the
contrary, both original and valuable,
as one essential condition for bringing
social and ethical topics under the
domain of philosophy or ‘reasoned
truth”. -

Professor Charles Thurot (in his

tudes sur Aristote, Paris, 1860, p.
119) takes a juster view than Zeller of
the difference between Plato and the
Sophists (Protagoras, Prodikus, Hip-
pias). ‘Les Sophistes, comme tous
ceux qui dissertent superficiellement
sur des questions de philosophie, et en
particulier sur la morale et la politique,
s'‘appuyaient sur l’'autorité et le témoig-
nage; ils alléguaient les vers

oétes célébres qui passaient aux yeux

es Grecs pour des oracles de sagesse :
ils invoquaient l’opinion du commun
des hommes. Platon récusait absolu-
ment ces deux espéces de témoignages.
Ni les poétes nile commun des hommes
ne savent ce qu'ils disent, puisqu’ils
ne peuvent en rendre raison.......
Aux yeux de Platon, il n’y a d’autre
méthode, pour arriver au vrai et pour
le communiquer, que la dialectique:
qui est ἃ la fois Part d’interroger et de
répondre, et l'art de définir et de
diviser.”

M. Thurot here declares (in my
judgment very truly) that the Sophists
appealed to the established ethical
authorities, and dwelt upon or adorned
the received common-places — that
Plato denied these authorities, and
brought his battery of negative cross-
examination to bear upon them as
well as upon their defenders. M.
Thurot thus gives a totally different
version of the procedure of the Sophists
from that which is given by Zeller.
Nevertheless he perfectly agrees with
Zeller, and with Anytus, the accuser
of Sokrates (Plat. Menon, pp. 91-92),
in describing the Sophists as a class
who made money by deceiving and
perverting the minds of hearers (p. 120).

390 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. CgaP VIII.

from Sokrates himself in the Apology! They are outbursts of
feeling natural to the practical, orthodox citizen, who represents
the common sense of the time and place; declaring his antipathy
to these speculative, freethinking innovations of theory, which
challenges the prescriptive maxims of traditional custom and
tests them by a standard approved by herself. The orthodox
citizen does not feel himself in need of philosophers to tell him
what is truth or what is virtue, nor what is the difference be-
tween real and fancied knowledge. On these matters he holds
already settled persuasions, acquired from his fathers and his
ancestors, and from the acknowledged civic authorities, spiritual
and temporal ;? who are to him exponents of the creed guaran-
teed by tradition :—

** Quod sapio, satis est mihi: non ego curo
Esse quod Arcesilas erumnosique Solones.”

de gens éminens en piété et en doc-

1 Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 28 Ὁ. ἕνα
ὰ x ὦ ¢ trine, l’on ne pouvoit pas espérer de

μὴ δοκῶσιν ἀπορεῖν, τ κατὰ

πάντων τῶν φιλοσοφούντων
πρόχειρα ταῦτα λέγουσιν, ὅτι
τὰ μετέωρα καὶ τὰ ὑπὸ γῆς καὶ θεοὺς
μὴ νομίζειν καὶ τὸν ἥττω λό-
you κρείττω ποιεῖν, ἄο.

Xenoph. Memor. i. 2, 81. τὸ κοινῇ
τοῖς φιλοσόφοις ὑπὸ THY πολλῶν ἐπιτι-
μώμενον. The rich families in Athens
severely reproached their relatives who
frequented the society of Sokrates.
Xenophon, Sympos. iv, 32.

2 See this point strikingly set forth
by Plato, Politikus, 299: also Plutarch,
*Epwrixds, c. 18, 756 A. ᾿

This is the “‘auctoritas majorum,”
put forward by Cotta in his official
character of Pontifex, as conclusive per
se; when reasons are produced to sus-
tain it, the reasons fail. (Cic. Nat.
Deor. iii. 3, 5, 6, 9.)

The ‘auctoritas majorum,” pro-
claimed by the Pontifex Cotta, may be
illustrated by what we read in Father
Paul’s History of the Council of Trent,
respecting the proceedings of that
Council when it imposed the duty of
accepting the authoritative interpreta-
tion of Scripture :—‘‘ Lorsqu’on fut ἃ
opiner sur le quatriéme Article, pres-

ue tous se rendirent ἃ l’avis du Car-
inal Pachéco, qui représenta : Que
VEcriture ayant expliquée par tant

rien ajouter de meilleur : Que les nou-
velles Hérésies etant toutes nées des
nouveaux sens qu’on avoit donnés &
l'Kcriture, il étoit nécessaire d’arréter
Ia licence des esprits modernes, et de
les obliger de se laisser gouverner par
les Anciens et par )’Eglise: Et que si
quelqu’un naissoit avec un esprit sin-

lier, on devoit le forcer & le ren-
ermer au dedans de lui-méme, et &
ne pas troubler le monde en publiant
tout ce qu'il pensoit.” (Fra Paolo,
Histoire du Concile de Trente, traduc-
tion Francoise, par Le Courayer, Livre
II, Ps ity’ 285, in 1546, pontificate of
P, 289. ‘Par le second Décret, il
étoit ordonné en substance, de tenir
l’Edition Vulgate pour authentique
dans les legons publiques, les disputes,
les prédications, et les explications ;
et défendre & qui que ce fut de la
rejeter. On y dgfendoit aussi d’expli-
quer la Saint Ecriture dans un sens
contrairg & celui que lui donne la
Sainte Eglise notre Mére, et au con-
sentement unanime des Péres, quand
bien méme on auroit intention de tenir
ces explications secrétes ; et on ordon-
noit que ceux qui contreviendroient 4
cette défense fussent punis par les
Ordinaires.”

CuHap, VIII.

TRADITIONAL ORTHODOXY.

391

He will not listen to ingenious sophistry respecting these conse-
crated traditions: he does not approve the tribe of fools who
despise what they are born to, and dream of distant, unattainable
novelties :! he cannot tolerate the nice discoursers, ingenious
hair-splitters, priests of subtleties and trifles—dissenters from the
established opinions, who corrupt the youth, teaching their
pupils to be wise above the laws, to despise or even beat their
fathers and mothers,? and to cheat their creditors—mischievous

1 Pindar, Pyth. iii. 21.
Ἔστι δὲ φῦλον ev ἀνθρώποισι ματαιο-
τατον,
Ὅστις αἰσχύνων ἐπιχώρια παπταίνει τὰ
πόρσω,
vA 4 > La % ,
Μεταμώνια θηρεύων ἀκράντοις ἐλπίσιν.

2 Οὐδὲν σοφιζόμεσθα τοῖσι δαίμοσι"
Tlarpiovs παραδοχὰφ, ἃς θ᾽ ὁμήλικας
χρόνῳ .
Κεκτήμεθ᾽, οὐδεὶς αὐτὰ καταβαλεῖ λόγος,
Οὔδ᾽ εἰ δι’ ἄκρων τὸ σοφὸν ηὕρηται

φρενῶν.
(Euripides, Bacchee, 200.)
ΠΙα in his rebus vereor, ne forté
rearis
Impia te rationis inire elementa,
viamque ; i,
Endogredi sceleris. (Lucretius, i. 85.)

Compare Valckenaer, Diatrib. Eurip.
pp. 38, 39, cap. 5. .

About the accusations against So-
krates, of leading the youth to contract
doubts and to slight the authority of
their fathers, see Xenoph. Memor. i.
2, 52; Plato, Gorgias, 522 B, p. 79,
Menon, p. 70. A touching anecdote,
illustrating this displeasure of the
fathers against Sokrates, may be found
in Xenophon, Cyropeed. iii. 1, 39, where
the father of Tigranes puts to death
the σοφιστὴς who had taught his son,
because that son had contracted ἃ,

ter attachment to the σοφιστὴς
han to his own father.

Xenophon, Memor. i. 2, 9; i. 2, 49.
Apolog. So. s. 20; compare the speech
of I Kleon in Thucyd. iii. 87. Plato,
Politikus, p. 299 Εἰ.

Timon in the Silli bestows on So-
krates and his successors the title of
ἀκριβόλογοι. Diog. Laert. ii. 19. Sext.
Emp. adv. Mathem. vii. 8. Aristo-
phan. Nubes, 130, where Strepsiades
says—
πῶς οὖν γερὼν ὧν κἀπιλήσμων καὶ βραδὺς
λόγων ἀκριβὼν σχινδαλάμους μαθήσομαι;
Compare 820-369 of the same comedy

-τσύ τε λεπτοτάτων λήρων LepeD—also
Rane, 149, b. ,

When Euripides (ὁ σκηνικὸς φιλό-
σοφος) went down to Hades, he is
described by Aristophanes as giving
clever exhibitions among the male-
factors there, with great success and
applause. Ran, 771—

Ὅτε δὴ κατῆλθ᾽ Εὐριπίδης, ἐπεδείκνυτο
τοῖς λωποδύταις καὶ τοῖς βαλαντιη-
/

TOOLS . . .
ὅπερ ἔστ᾽ ἐν ἵλδον πλῆθος " οἱ δ᾽ ἀκροώ-
μενοι
τῶν ἀντιλογιῶν καὶ λνγισμῶν καὶ στρο-
ῶν
ὑπερεμάνησαν, κἀνόμισαν σοφώτατον.

These astute cavils and quibbles of
Euripides are attributed by Aristo-
phanes, and the other comic writers,
to his frequent conversations with So-

krates. nee, 1490-1500. Dionys.
Hal. Ars Rhet. 801-355. Valc-
kenaer, Diatribe in Euripid. c. 4.

Aristophanes describes Sokrates as
having stolen a garment from the
palestra (Nubes, 180); and Eupolis
also introduces him as having stolen a
wine-ladle (Schol. ad loc. Eupolis,
Fragm. Incert. ix. ed. Meineke). The
fragment of Eupolis (xi. p. 553, ᾿Αδο-
λεσχεῖν αὐτὸν ἐκδίδαξον, ὦ σοφιστά
seems to apply to Sokrates. Abou
the sympathy of the people with the
attacks of the comic writers on So.
krates, see Lucian, Piscat. c. 28.

The rhetor Aristeides (Orat. xlvi.
Ὑπὲρ τῶν Τεττάρων, pp. 406-407-408,
Dindorf), after remarking on the very
vague and general manner in which
the title Σοφιστὴς was applied among
the Greeks (Herodotus having so de-
signated both Solon and Pythagoras),
mentions that Androtion not only spoke
of the seven wise men as τοὺς ὅπτα
σοφιστάς, but also called Sokrates
σοφιστὴν τοῦτον τὸν πάνν : that Lysias
called Plato σοφιστήν, and called
Aischines (the Sokratic) by the same

PLATONIO COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY.

392 Cuap. VIIL

instructors, whose appropriate audience are the thieves and male-
factors, and who ought to be silenced if they display ability to
pervert others! Such feeling of disapprobation and antipathy
against speculative philosophy and dialectic—against the libertas
philosophandi—counts as a branch of virtue among practical and
orthodox citizens, rich or poor, oligarchical or democratical, mili-
tary or civil, ancient or modern. It is an antipathy common to
men in other respects very different, to Nikias as well as Kleon,
to Eupolis and Aristophanes as well as to Anytus and Demo-
chares. It was expressed forcibly by the Roman Cato (the
Censor), when he censured Sokrates as a dangerous and violent
citizen ; aiming, in his own way, to subvert the institutions and
customs of the country, and poisoning the minds of his fellow-
citizens with opinions hostile to the laws.2, How much courage
is required in any individual citizen, to proclaim conscientious
dissent in the face of wide-spread and established convictions, is
recognised by Plato himself, and that too in the most orthodox
and intolerant of all his compositions.2 He (and Aristotle after

title ; that Isokrates represented him.
self, and rhetors and politicians hke
himself, as φιλοσόφους, while he termed
the dialecticians and critics σοφιστάς.
Nothing could be more indeterminate
than these names, σοφιστὴς and φιλό-
godos It was Plato who applied him-
self chiefly to discredit the name go-
φιστὴς (ὁ μάλιστα ἐπαναστὰς τῷ ὄὃνό-
ματι), but others had tried to discredit
φιλόσοφος and τὸ φιλοσοφεῖν in hke
manner. It deserves notice that in the
restnctive or censonal law (proposed
by Sophokles, and enacted by the
Athenians 1n B.C. 307, but repealed in
the following year) gainst the philo-
sophers and their schools, the philo-
sophers generally are designated as
σοφισταί. Pollux, Onomast. ix. 42
ore δὰ καὶ νόμος ‘AtriKos κατὰ τῶν
φιλοσοφούντων γραφείς, ὃν Σοφοκλῆς
᾿Αμφικλείδου Σουνιεὺς εἶπεν, at τινα
κατὰ αὐτῶν προειπὼν, ἐπήγαγε, μὴ
ἐξεῖναι μηδενὶ τῶν σοφιστῶν δια-
τριβὴν κατασκενάσασθαι.
lato, Euthyphron, p. 8 C-D. ᾿Αθη-
ναίοις yap ob σφόδρα μέλει, ἄν τινα
δεινὸν οἴωνται εἶναι, μὴ μέντοι διδασ-
καλικὸν τῆς αὑτοῦ σοφίας" ὃν δ᾽ ἂν
καὶ ἄλλους οἴωνται ποιεῖν τοιούτους,
θυμοῦνται, εἶτ᾽ οὖν φθόνῳ, ὡς ov λέγεις,
εἴτε δι’ ἄλλο τι.
*Plato, Menon pp. 90-02. The

antipathy mamifested here by Anytus
against the Sophists, is the same feel-
ing which led him to indict Sokrates,
and which induced also Cato the Cen-
sor to hate the character of Sokrates,
and Greek letters genetully Plutarch,
Cato, 23: ὅλως φιλοσοφιᾳ προσκεκρον-
κὼς, καὶ πάσαν Ἑλληνικὴν μοῦσαν καὶ
παιδείαν ὑπὸ φιλοτιμίας προπηλακίζων"
ὃς γε καὶ Σωκράτη φησὶ λάλον καὶ βίαιον
ενόμενον ἐπιχειρεῖν, o τρόπῳ δυνατὸν
ἦν, τυραννεῖν τῆς πατρίδος, καταλύοντα
τὰ ἔθη, καὶ πρὸς ἐναντιας τοῖς νόμοις

δόξας ἕλκοντα καὶ μεθίσταντα τοὺς
πολίτας. Comp. Cato, Epist. ap. Plin.
H.N xxix. 7.

8 Plato, Legg. vili p 835 C. viv δε
ἀνθρώπου τολμηροῦ κινδυνεύει δεῖσθαί
τινος, ὃς παῤῥησίαν διαφιρόντως τιμῶν
ἐρεῖ τὰ δοκοῦντα ἄριστ᾽ εἶναι πόλει καὶ
πολίταις, ἐν ψυχαῖς διεφθαρμέναις τὸ
πρέπον καὶ ἑπόμενον πάσῃ τῇ πολιτείᾳ
τάττων, ἐναντία λέγων ταῖς μεγίσταισιν
ἐπιθυμίαις καὶ οὐκ ἔχων βοηθὸν ἀνθρώ-
πων οὐδένα, λόγῳ ἑπόμενος μόνῳ μόνος.

Here the dissenter who proclaims his
sincere convictions 18 spoken of with
respect: compare the contrary feeling,
Leges, ix. 881 A, and in the tenth book

ene . In the striking passage o
the Republic, referred to in i previous
note (vi. 492), Plato declares the lessons
taught by the multitude—-the contagion

CuapP. VIII. BOKRATES AND KING NOMOS.

393

him), far from recognising the infallibility of established King
Nomos, were bold enough! to try and condemn him, and to
imagine (each of them) a new Νόμος of his own, representing the
political Art or Theory of Politics—a notion which would not

have been understood by Themistokles or Aristeides.

The dislike so constantly felt by communities having esta-

blished opinions, towards free speculation and dialec-
tic, was aggravated in its application to Sokrates, be-
cause his dialectic was not only novel, but also public,
obtrusive, and indiscriminate? The name of So-
krates, after his death, was employed not merely by
Plato, but by all the Sokratic companions, to cover
their own ethical speculations : moreover, all of them
either composed works or gave lectures. But in
either case, readers or hearers were comparatively few
in number, and were chiefly persons prompted by
some special taste or interest : while Sokrates passed
his day in the most public place, eager to interrogate

Aversion
towards
Sokrates_ a
aggrava

by his ex-
treme pub-
heity of
speech His
declaration,
that false
persuasion
of know-
ledge is
universal ;
must be un-
derstood as
@ basis in ap-

Plato's Dia.

every one, and sometimes forcing his interrogations
That he could have

even upon reluctant hearers.?
been allowed to persist in this

of established custom and tradition,
communicated by the crowd of earnest
assembled believers—to be of over-
whelming and almost omnipotent force.
The individual philosopher (he says),
who examines for himself and tries to
stand against it, can hardly maintain
himself without special divine aid.

1In the dialogue called Pohtikus,
Plato announces formally and exph
citly (what the historical Sokrates
asserted before him, Xen. Mem iii 9,
10) the exclusive pretensions of the

Βασιλεὺς Τεχνικὸς (representing poli- all

tical science, art, or theory) to rule
mankind—the illusory nature of all
other titles to rule—and the mischiev-
ous working of all existing govern-
ments. The same view is developed
in the Republic and the Leges Com-
pare also Aristotel. Ethic. Nikom. x.
p. 1180, b, 27 ad fin.

In a remarkable passage of the
Legos (i. 687 D, 638 C), Plato observes,
in touching upon the discrepancy be-
tween different local institutions at
Sparta, Krete, Keos, Tarentum, &c. :—
“Tf natives of different cities argue

logues of
Search.

course of life for thirty years,

with each other about their respective
instatutions, each of them has a good
and sufficient reason. This is the
custom with us; with you perhaps rt
1s diferent. But we, who are now
conversing, do not apply our criticiams
to the private citizen ; we criticise the
lawgiver Inmself, and try to deter-
mine whether his laws are good or
bad.” ἡμῖν δ᾽ ἐστὶν οὐ περὶ τῶν
ἀνθρώπων τῶν ἄλλων ὁ λόγος, ἀλλὰ
περὶ τῶν νομοθετῶν αὐτῶν κακίας τε
καὶ ἀρετῆς King Nomos was not at
all eased to be thus put upon his

2 Cicero, Tusc. Disp. ii 3. ‘ Est
enim philosophia paucis contenta ju-
dicibus, multitudinem consulto ipsa
fugiens, eique ipsi et suspecta et in-
visa,” &c.

The extreme publicity, and indis-
criminate, aggressive conversation of
Sokrates, is strongly insisted on by
Themuatiy (Orat. ΧΧΥ. P., 384, Ὑπὲρ
τοῦ λέγειν) 85 aggravating the displea-
sure of the public against him.

3 Xenophon, Memor. iv. 2, 8-5-40.

394 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. Cuap, VIII.

when we read his own account (in the Platonic Apology) of the
antipathy which he provoked—and when we recollect that the
Thirty, during their short dominion, put him under an interdict
—is a remarkable proof of the comparative tolerance of Athenian
practice. .

However this may be, it is from the conversation of Sokrates
that the Platonic Dialogues of Search take their rise, and we
must read them under those same fundamental postulates which
Sokrates enunciates to the Dikasts. ‘ False persuasion of know-
ledge is almost universal : the Elenchus, which eradicates this,
is salutary and indispensable: the dialectic search for truth
between two active, self-working minds, both of them ignorant,
yet both feeling their own ignorance, is instructive, as well as
fascinating, though it should end without finding any truth at
all, and without any other result than that of discovering some
proposed hypotheses to be untrue.” The modern reader must be
invited to keep these postulates in mind, if he would fairly
appreciate the Platonic Dialogues of Search. He must learn to
esteem the mental exercise of free debate as valuable in itself,
even though the goal recedes before him in proportion to the
steps which he makes in advance. He perceives a lively anti-
thesis of opinions, several distinct and dissentient points of view
opened, various tentatives of advance made and broken off. He
has the first half of the process of truth-seeking, without the
last ; and even without full certainty that the last half can be
worked out, or that the problem as propounded is one which
admits of an affirmative solution.? But Plato presumes that the

sential to the process τοῦ φιλοσοφεῖν
“Kal ἐγὼ μὲν ᾧμην φιλοσοφοῦντας av-
τοὺς περὶ τοῦ πράγματος ἀντιλέγειν τὸν
ἐναντίον Adyov: οἱ δ᾽ ἄρα οὐκ ἀντέλεγον,
GAN’ ἀντέπραττον. (Lysias, Or. viii.
Κακολογιῶν, 8 12, p. 278; compare
Plat. Apolog p. 28 E )

1 Aristotel. Topica, 1. Ε 101, a. 29
with the Scholion of Alexander of
Aphrodisias, who remarks that the
habit of colloquial debate had been
very frequent in the days of Aristotle,
and afterwards; but had compara-
tively ceased in his own time, having

been exchanged for written treatises.
P. 254, b. Schol. Brandis , also Plato,
Parmenid. PP. 135, 186, and the Com-
mentary of Proklus thereupon, p. 776
seqq., and p. 917, ed. Stallbaum.

“A passage in one of the speeches
composed by Lysias, addressed by a
plaintiff in court to the Dikasts, shows

ow debate and free antithesis of op-
posite opinions were accounted 88 es-

Bacon describes his own intellectual
cast of mind, in terms which illustrate
the Platonic διάλογοι gyrriKxoi,—the
character of the searcher, doubter, and
tester, as contrasted with that of the
confident affirmer and expositor :—
“‘Me ipsum autem ad veritatis con-
templationes quam ad alia magis fabre-
factum deprehendi, ut qui mentem et
ad rerum similitudinem (quod maxi-

CuaP. VIII.

DIALOGUES OF SEARCH.

395

search will be renewed, either by the same interlocutors or by

others.

He reckons upon responsive energy in the youthful

subject ; he addresses himself to men of earnest purpose and
stirring intellect, who will be spurred on by the dialectic
exercise itself to farther pursuit—men who, having listened to
the working out of different points of view, will meditate on
these points for themselves, and apply a judicial estimate con-

formable to the measure of their own minds.

Those respon-

dents, who, after having been puzzled and put to shame by one
cross-examination, became disgusted and never presented them-
selves again—were despised by Sokrates as lazy and stupid.

mum est) agnoscendum satis mobilem,
et ad differentiarum subtilitates obser-
vandas satis fixam et intentam habe-
rem—qul et querend. desiderrum, et
dubitand, patentiam, et meditandr
voluptatem, et asserends cunctationem,
et resiprscendr facilritatem, et dispo-
nendi sollicitudinem tenerem—quique
nec novitatem affectarem, nec antiqui-
tatem admurarer, et omnem impos-
turam odissem Quare naturam meam
cum veritate quandam faimilaritatem
et cognationem habere Judicavi.” (Im-
potas Philosophici, De Interpretatione
ature Procmium

Σωκρατικῶς εἰς ἑκάτερον is the phrase
of Cicero, ad Atticum 11. 3

1 Xenoph. Mem iv. 2, 40

Mr John Stuart Mill, in his Essay
on Liberty, has the following remarks,
illustratin g Plato's Dialogues of Search
I should have been glad if I could
have transcribed here many other
puges of that admirable Essay : which
stands almost alone as an unreserved
vindication of the rights of the search-
ing individual intelligence, against the
compression and repression of King
Nomos (pp. 79-80-81) :—-

“The loss of so important an aid to
the intelligent and living apprehen-
sion of a truth, as is afforded by the
necessity of explaining it to or defend-
ing it against opponents, though not
sufficient to outweigh, is no trifling
drawback from, the benefits of its unt-
versal recognition. Where this advan-
tage cannot be had, I confess I should
like to see the teachers of mankind en-
deavouring to provide a substitute for
it: some contrivance for making the
difficulties of the question as present
to the learner’s consciousness, as if
they were pressed upon him by a dis-

sentient champion eager for his con-
version.

‘* But instead of seeking contrivances
for this purpose, they have lost those
they formerly had. The Sokratic dia-
lectics, so magnificently exemplified in
the dialogues of Plato, were a con-
trivance of this description. They
were essentially a discussion of the

eat questions of life and philosophy,

irected with consummate skull to the
purpose of convincing any one, who
ad merely adopted the common-
places of received opinion, that he did
not understand the subject—that he as
yet attached no definite meaning to
he doctrines he professed: in order
that, becoming aware of his ignorance,
he might be put in the way to attain a
stable belief, resting on a clear appre-
hension both of the meaning of doc.
trines and of their evidence. The
school-disputations of the middle
had a simular object. They were in-
tended to make sure that the pe il
understood bis own opinion, an y
necessary correlation) the opin
opposed to it—and could enforce the
grounds of the one and confute those
of the other. These last-mentioned
contests had indeed the incurable
defect, that the premisses appealed to
were taken from authority, not from
reason; and as a discipline to the
mind they were in every respect
inferior to the powerful dialectics
which formed the intellects of the
‘Socratici vir’, But the modern mind
owes far move to both than it is gene-
rally willing to admit; and the present
modes of instruction contain nothing
which in the smallest degree supplies
the place either of the one or of the
other. It is the fashion of the

396 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. CuHap. VIIL

For him, as well as for Plato, the search after truth counted as

the main business of life.
Another matter must here be noticed, in regard tc these
Dialogues of Search. We must understand how Plato

Result iow conceived the goal towards which they tend. that is,
ledge, which the state of mind which he calls knowledge or cognt-
Plato as- . . 1 oe . . .

ires to. tion. Knowledge (in his view) is not attained antil

cing of the mind is brought into clear view of the Universal
throu, ha Forms or Ideas, and intimate communion with them:
cross-exa- but the test (as I have already observed) for deter-
mination δ mining whether a man has yet attained this end or
able ne t not, is to ascertain whether he can give to others a
Platonic full account of all that he professes to know, and can
process and extract from them a full account of all that they pro-

fess to know: whether he can perform, in a manner
exhaustive as well as unerring, the double and corrclative func-
tion of asking and answering: in other words, whether he can
administer the Sokratic cross-examination effectively to others,
and reply to it without faltering or contradiction when ad-
ministered to himself.! Such being the way in which Plato con-
ceives knowledge, we may easily see that it cannot be produced,
or even approached, by direct, demonstrative, didactic communi-
cation: by simply announcing to the hearer, and lodging in his
‘memory, a theorem to be proved, together with the steps whereby
it is proved. He must be made familiar with each subject on
many sides, and under several different aspects and analogies: he
must have had before him objections with their refutation, and

resent time to disparage negative
ogic-—that which paints out weak-
nesses in theory or errors in practice,
without establishing positive truths.
Such negative criticism would indeed
be poor enough as an ultimate result,
but as a means to attaining any positive

either had forced upon him by others,
or gone through of himself, the same
mental process which would have been
required of him in carrying on an
active controversy with opponent

1 See Plato, Republic, vii 518, B, C,
about παιδεία, as developing τὴν ἐνοῦ-

knowledge or conviction worthy the
name, it cannot be valued too pighly
and until people are again systemati-
cally trained it, there will be few
great thinkers, and a low general
average of intellect, in any but the
mathematicaland physical departments
of speculation. any other subject
no one’s opinions deserve the name
of knowledge, except so far as he has

σαν ἑκάστον δύναμιν ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ : and
δ84, about ἐπιστήμη, with its test, τὸ
δοῦναι καὶ δέξασθαι λόγον. Compare also
Republic, v. 477 478, with Thertét.
175, C, D; Phsedon, 76, B, Pheedrus,
276; and Sympos. 202 A. τὸ ὀρθὰ δο-
ξάζειν καὶ avev τοῦ ἔχειν λόγον δοῦναι,
οὐκ οἷσθ᾽ ὅτι οὔτε ἐπίστασθαί ἐστιν;
ἄλογον γὰρ πρᾶγμα πῶς ἂν εἴη ἐπι-
στήμη ὶ

Cuap VIII TRUE KNOWLEDGE. 397

the fallacious arguments which appear to prove the theorem, but
do not really prove it:' he must be introduced to the principal
counter-theorems, with the means whereby an opponent will
enforce them: he must be practised in the use of equivocal terms
and sophistry, either to be detected when the opponent is cross-
examining him, or to be employed when he is cross-examining
an opponent. Al] these accomphshments must be acquired,
together with full promptitude and flexibility, before he will be
competent to perform those two difficult functions, which Plato
considers to be the test of knowledge. You may say that such a
result is indefinitely distant and hopeless: Plato considers it
attainable, though he admits the arduous efforts which 1t will
cost. But the point which I wish to show is, that if attainable
at all, it can only be attained through a long and varied course
of such dialectic discussion as that which we read in the Platonic
Dialogues of Search. The state and aptitude of mind called
knowledge, can only be generated as a last result of this con-
tinued practice (to borrow an expression of Longinus).? The
Platonic method is thus in perfect harmony and co-ordination
with the Platonic result, as described and pursued.

Moreover, not merely method and result are in harmony, but
also the topics discussed. These topics were ethical,

Platonic
social, and political : matters especially human? (to Pas tc
use the phrase of Sokrates himself) familiar to every Platonic

. . . topics—
man,—handled, unphilosophically, by speakers in the man and
assembly, pleaders in the dikastery, dramatists in the Solty.

1On this point the scholastic man-
ner of handing in the Middle Ages
furnishes a good illustration for the
Platonic dialectic I borrow a passage
from the treatise of M Hauréau, De
la Phil Scolastique, vol 11 p 190.

‘Saint Thomas pouvait s’en tenir
li: nous le comptrenons, nous avons
tout son systéme sur Porigme des idées,
et nous pouvons croire qu il n’a plus
rien ἃ nous apprendre ἃ ce sujet: mais
en scolastique, il ne suffit pas de dé-
montrer, par deux ou trois arguments,
réputés invincibles, ce que l'on sup-
pose étre la vénté, i] faut, en outre,
répondie aux objections premitre,
seconde, troisiéme, &c., &c., de divers
interlocuteuis, souvent imaginaires ;
il faut établir la parfaite concordance

de la conclusion énoncée et des con-
clusions precédentes ou subséquentes ;
il faut réprodune, ἃ Voccasion de
tout probl ine controversé, ’ensemble
de la doctrine pour laquelle on s’est
déclaré.”

2 Longinus, De Subhm. s. 8. καέτοι
τὸ πρᾶγμα δυσληπτον" ἡ γὰρ τῶν λόγων
κρίσις πολλῆς ἐστι πείρας τελευταῖον
ἐπιγέννημα Compare what is said
in a succeeding chapter about the
Hippias Minor And see also Sir W.
Hamulton’s Lectures on Logic, Lect. 35,
p 224.

3Xenoph Memor i. 1, 12-15 I
transcribe the following passage from
an article in the Edinburgh Review
(April, 1866, pp. 325-326), on the first

398

theatre.

made most interesting, varied, and abundant.

PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY.

CuaP. VIII.

Now it is exactly upon such topics that debate can be

The facts, multi-

farious in themselves, connected with man and society, depend
upon a variety of causes, co-operating and conflicting. Account
must be taken of many different points of view, each of which
has a certain range of application, and each of which serves to

limit or modify the others: the
true only on the balance, and

edition of the present work: an article

not merely profound and striking as to

thought, but indicating the most com-

prehensive study and appreciation of
he Platonic writings :—

“The enemy inst whom Plato
really fought, and the warfare against
whom was the incessant occupation of
his life and writings, was—not Sophis-
try, either 1n the ancient or modern
sense of the term, but—Commonplace.
It was the acceptance of traditional
opinions and current sentiments as an

timate fact; and bandying of the
abstract terms which express appro-
bation and disapprobation, desire and
aversion, admiration and disgust, as
if they had a meaning thoroughly
understood and universally assented
to The men of his day (like those
of ours) thought that they knew what
Good and Evil, Just and Unjust,
Honourable and Shameful, were—be-
cause they could use the words ghibly,
and affirm them of this or that, in
agreement with existing custom. But
what the property was, which these
several instances possessed in common,
justif ing the application of the term,
nobody had considered; neither the
Sophists, nor the rhetoricians, nor the
statesmen, nor any of those who set
themselves up, or were set up by
others, as wise. Yet whoever could
not answer this question was wander-
ing. in darkness—had no standard b
which his judgments were regulated,
and which kept them consistent with
one another—no rule which he knew
and could stand by for the guidance
of his life. Not knowing what Justice
and Virtue are, it was impossible to
be just and virtuous: not knowing
what Good is, we not only fail to
reach it, but are certain to embrace
evilinstead Such a condition, to any
one capable of thought, made life not
worth aving. The grand business of
human intellect ought to consist in
subjecting these terms to the most

generalities, even when true, are
under ordinary circumstances ;

rigorous scrutiny, and bringing to light
the ideas that heat the bottom of them.
Even if this cannot be done and real
knowledge attaimed, it is already no
small benefit to expel the false cpinion
of knowledge: to make inen conscious
of the things most needful to be known,
fill them with shame and uneasiness
at their own state, and rouse a pungent
internal stimulus, summoning up
their energies to attack these greatest
of all problems, and never rest until,
ay far as possible, the true solutions
arereached This is Plato’s notion of
the condition of the human mind in
his time, and of what philosophy could
do to help 1t: and any one who does
not think the desciiption applicable,
with shght modifications, to the ma-
jority of educated minds in our own
time and in all times known to us,
certainly has not brought either the
teachers or the practical men of any
time to the Platonic test ”

The Reviawer farther lustrates this
impressive description by a valuable
citation fiom Max Muller to the same
purpose (Lectures on the Science of

nguage, Second Series, pp 26-527).
“‘Such terms as Nature, Law, Free-
dom, Necessity, Body, Substance,
Matter, Church, State, Revelation,
Inspiration, Knowledge, Belief, &c.,
are tossed about in the war of words
as if νον body knew what the
meant, and as if every body use
them exactly in the same sense;
whereas most people, and particularly
those who represent public opinion,
pick up these complicated terms as
children, beginning with the vaguest
conceptions, adding to them from time
to time—perhaps correcting lkewise
at haphazard some of their involun-
tary errors—but never taking stock,
never either enquiring into the history
of the terms which they handle so
freely, or realising the fulness of their
meaning according to the strict rules
of logical definition.”

SUITABILITY OF TOPICS. 399

CuHaPp VIII.

they are liable to exception, if those circumstances undergo
important change. There are always objections, real as well as
apparent, which require to be rebutted or elucidated. To such
changeful and complicated states of fact, the Platonic dialectic
was adapted: furnishing abundant premisses and comparisons,
bringing into notice many distinct points of view, each of which
must be looked at and appreciated, before any tenable principle
can be arrived at. Not only Platonic method and result, but
also Platonic topics, are thus well suited to each other. The
general terms of ethics were familiar but undefined: the tentative
definitions suggested, followed up by objections available against
each, included a large and instructive survey of ethical pheno-
mena in all their bearings.

The negative procedure is so conspicuous, and even so prepon-

derant, in the Platonic dialogues, that no historian
Plato does

of philosophy can omit to notice it. But many of not provide
them (like Xenophon in deseribing Sokrates) assign to S°/tons
it only a subordinate place and a qualified applica- difficulties
. . . ἢ which he
tion: while some (and Schleiermacher especially) Las raised.
represent all the doubts and difficulties in the nega- The.affir.
tive dialogues as exercises to call forth the intellec- negative |
tual efforts of the reader, preparatory to full and him com.
satisfactory solutions which Plato has given in the Pletely dis-
dogmatic dialogues at the end. The first half of thig dogmas are
hypothesis I accept: the last half I believe to be tions @
unfounded. The doubts and difficulties were cer- λον ot
tainly exercises to the mind of Plato himself, and pressive

were intended as exercises to his readers ; but he has
nowhere provided a key to the solution of them. Where he
propounds positive dogmas, he does not bring them face to face
with objections, nor verify their authority by showing that
they afford satisfactory solution of the difficulties exhiLited in his
negative procedure. The two currents of his speculation, the
affirmative and the negative, are distinct and independent of
each ether. Where the affirmative is especially present (as in
Timeous), the negative altogether disappears. Timsous is made
to proclaim the most sweeping theories, not one of which the real
Sokrates would have suffered to pass without abundant cross-
examination: but the Platonic Sokrates hears them with respect-

400 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. Cuap. VIII.

ful silence, and commends afterwards. The declaration so often
made by Sokrates that he is a searcher, not a teacher—that he
feels doubts keenly himself, and can impress them upon others,
but cannot discover any good solution of them—this declaration,
which is usually considered mere irony, is literally true The
Platonic theory of Objective Ideas separate and absolute, which
the commentators often announce asif it cleared up all difficulties
—not only clears up none, but introduces fresh ones belonging to
itself. When Plato comes forward to affirm, his dogmas are
altogether @ priort: they enunciate preconceptions or hypotheses,
which derive their hold upon his belief, not from any aptitude
for solving the objections which he has raised, but from deep end
solemn sentiment of some kind or other—religious, ethical,
eesthetical, poetical, &c., the worship of numerical symmetry or
exactness, &c. The dogmas are enunciations of some grand senti-
ment of the divine, good, just, beautiful, symmetrical, &.,? which
Plato follows out into corollaries. But this is a process of itself ;
and while he is performing it, the doubts previously raised are
not called up to be solved, but are forgotten or kept out of sight.
It is therefore a mistake to suppose? that Plato ties knots in one

1 See the conversation between Me-
nippus and Sokrates. (Lucian, Dialog.
Mortuor xx )

2 Dionysius of Halikarnassus re-
marks that the topics upon which
Plato renounces the character of 8
searcher, and passes into that of a vehe-
ment affirmative dogmatist, are those
which are above human investigation
and evidence—the transcendental :
καὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖνος (Plato) τὰ δόγματα οὐκ
αὐτὸς ἀποφαίνεται, εἶτα περὶ αὐτῶν δια-
γωνίζεται' ἀλλ᾽ ἐν μέσῳ τὴν ζήτησιν
ποιούμενος πρὸς τοὺς διαλεγομένους,
φὐὑρίσκων μᾶλλον τὸ δέον δόγμα, ἢ φι-
λονεικῶν ὑπὲρ αὐτοῦ φαίνεται" πλὴν
ὅσα περὶ τῶν κρειττόνων, ἣ καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς,
λέγεται (Dion, Hal. Ars Rhet. c. 10,
p. 376, Reiske )

M Arago, in the following PASSARE,
points to a style of theorising in the
physical sciences, very analogous to
hat of Plato, generally :—

Arago, Bio

hies, vol. 1. 149
Vie de Fresnel, F P :

‘*De ces denx expli-
cations des phénoménes de la fumiére,
Pune s’appolle Ja théorie de l’¢mission ;
autre est connue sous le nom de sys-
téme des ondes. On trouve déja des
traces de la premitre dans les écrits

d’Empédocle Chez les modernes, je

pourrais citer parmi ses adh¢rents Ké-

pler, Newton, Laplace Le systeme
es ondes ne compte pas des partisans

moins illustres: Aristote, Descartes,

Hooke, Huygens, Euler, l’avaient
) εν

‘Au reste, si l’on s’étonnait de voir
d’aussi grands génies ainsi divisés, je
dirais que de leurs temps Ja question
on hitige ne pouvait étre résolue ; que
les expériences nécessaires manquaient ;
qualors les divers systétmes sur la
lumiére étaient, non des déductions
lLogiques des farts, mais, si je puis m’ex-
primer ainsi, de sumples vérités de sen-
ftiment, qu’enfin, le don de P’infailhbi-
lité n’est pas accordé méme aux plus
habiles, des qu’en sortant du domaine
des observations, et se jetant dans celui
des conjectures, us abandonnent la
marche sévére et assurée dont les
sciences se prévalent de nos jours avec
raison, et qui leur a fait faire de si
incontestables progres ”

5 Several of the Platonic critics
speak as if they thought that Plato
would never suggest any difficulty
which he had not, beforehand and
ready-made, the means of solving ; and

Cuap. VITI.

NO SOLUTIONS PROVIDED.

401

dialogue only with a view to untie them in another ; and that
the doubts which he propounds are already fully solved in his
own mind, only that he defers the announcement of the solution
until the embarrassed hearer has struggled to find it for himself.

Some critics, assuming confidently that Plato must have

produced a full breadth of positive philosophy to
countervail his own negative fertility, yet not find-
ing enough of 1t in the written dialogues—look for
Tennemann thinks, and his opinion is
partly shared by Boeckh and K. F. Hermann, that
the direct, affirmative, and highest principles of
Plato’s philosophy were enunciated only in his
lectures : that the core, the central points, the great
principles of his system (der Kern) were revealed
thus orally to a few select students in plain and
broad terms, while the dialogues were intentionally

it elsewhere.

Munk treats the idea which I have
stated in the text as ridiculous. ‘‘ Plato
(he observes) must have held pre-
posterous doctrines on the subject of
pedagogy. He undertakes to instruct
others by his writings, before he has
yet cleared up his own ideas on the
question , he proposes, in propsedeutic
writings, enigmas for his scholars to
solve, while he has not yet solved
them himself; and all this for the
praiseworthy (rrenically sar) pu ose
of correcting in their minds the false
ersuasion of knowledge.” (Die natur-
iche Ordnung der Platon Schnift. ἢ

515
that which Munk here derides, ap-
ears stated, again and again, by the
latonic Sokrates, as his real purpose.
Munk 1s at liberty to treat it as ridi-
culous, but tho ridicule falls upon
Plato himsolf. The Platonic Sokrates
disclaims the peedagogic function, de-
scribing himself as nothing more than
a fellow searcher with the rest.
So too Munk declares (p. 79-80, and
Zeller also, Philos. der Griech. vol. ii.
. 472, od 2nd) that Plato could not
Fave composed the Parmenidés, in-
cluding, as it does, such an assemblage
of difficulties and objections against
the theory of Ideas, until he possessed
the means of solving all of them him-
self. This is a bold assertion, alto-
gether conjectural; for there is no
solution of them given in any of

Hypothesis
—that Plato
had solved
all his own
difficulties
for himself ;
but that he
commnni-
cated the
solution
only toa
few select
auditors

in oral
lectures
untenable.

Plato’s writings, and the solutions to
which Munk alludes as given by
Zeller and Steinhart (even assuming
them to be satisfactory, which I do
not admit) travel much beyond the
limits of Plato.

Ueberweg maintains thea same opi-
nion (Ueber die Aechtheit der Platon.
Schriften, p 103-104); that Sokrates,
in the Platonic Dialogues, though he
appears as a Searcher, must neverthe-
less be looked upon as a matured
thinker, who has already gone through
the investigation for himself, and solved
all the difficulties, but who goes back
upon the work of search over again,
for the instruction of the interlocutors,
“The special talent and dexterity
(Virtuositat) which Sokrates displays
in conducting the dialogue, can only
be explained by supposing that he
has already acquired for himself a firm
and certain conviction on the question
discussed.”

This opinion of Ueberweg appears
to me quite untenable, as well as in-
consistent with a previous opinion
which he had given elsewhere (Pla-
tonische Welt-seele, p. 69-70)}—That
the Platonic Ideenlehre was altogether
insufficient for explanation. e im-

ression which the Dialogues of
Rearch make upon me is directly the
reverse. My difficulty is, to under-
stand how the constructor of all these
puzzles, if he has the answer ready

1—26

402 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. Cuap. VIII.

written so as to convey only indirect hints, illustrations, applica-
tions of these great principles, together with refutation of various
errors opposed to them: that Plato did not think it safe or pru-
dent to make any full, direct, or systematic revelation to the
general public.’ I have already said that I think this opinion
untenable. Among the few points which we know respecting
the oral lectures, one is, that they were delivered not to a select
and prepared few, but to a numerous and unprepared audience :
while among the written dialogues, there are some which, far
from being popular or adapted to an ordinary understanding, are
highly perplexing and abstruse. The Timeeus does not confine
itself to indirect hints, but delivers positive dogmas about the
super-sensible world : though they are of a mystical cast, as we
know that the oral lectures De Bono were also.

Towards filling up this gap, then, the oral lectures cannot be
shown to lend any assistance. The cardinal point of

Characteris-

tic of the difference between them and the dialogues was, that
Ore C- ᾿ .

tures—‘That they were delivered by Plato himself, in his own
they were .

delivered in name ; whereas he never published any written com-
Plato’s own position in his own name. But we do not know
what other enough to say, in what particular way this difference
they dle. would manifest itself. Besides the oral lectures, de-
arted from livered to a numerous auditory, it is very probable
logues, we that Plato held special communications upon. philoso-
cannot say. phy with a few advanced pupils. Here however we

are completely in the dark. Yet I see nothing, either in these
supposed private communications or in the oral lectures, to con-
trovert what was said in the last page—that Plato’s affirmative

drawn up in his pocket, can avoid
Jetting it slip out. At any rate, 1
stand upon the literal declarations,
often repeated, of Sokrates; while
Munk and Ueberweg _ contradict
them. ;

For the doubt and hesitation which
Plato puts into the mouth of Sokrates
(even in the Republic, one of his
most expository compositions) see a
remarkable passage, Rep v. Ὁ. 450 EH.
ἀπιστοῦντα δὲ καὶ ζητοῦντα ἅμα τοὺς
λόγους ποιεῖσθαι, ὃ δὴ ἐγὼ δρῶ, ἄς.

1 Tennemann, Gesch. der Philos. ii.

Ῥ. 205-220 Hermann, Ueber Plato’s

chriftsteller. Motive, pp. 290-20:.

Hermann considers this reserve and
double doctrme to be unworthy of
Plato, and ascribes it to Piotagoras
and other Sophists, on the authority
of a passage in the Thertétus (152 C),
which does not at all sustain his alle-
gation

Hermann considers ‘‘ die akroama-
tischen Lehren als Fortsetzung und
Schluss stein der schriftlichen, die dort
erst zur vollen Klaiheit principieller
Auffassung erhoben wurden, ohne je-
doch uber den nimlichen Gegenstand,
soweit die Rede auf denselben kom-
men musste, etwas wesentlich Ver-
schiedenes zu lehren” (p, 298).

CHAP. VILL THE ORAL LECTURES. 403

philosophy is not fitted on to his negative philosophy, but grows
out of other mental impulses, distinct and apart. Plato (as Ari-
stotle tells us?) felt it difficult to determine, whether the march
of philosophy was an ascending one toward the principia (ἀρχὰς),
or a descending one down from the princtpia. A good philoso-
phy ought to suffice for both, conjointly and alternately: in
Plato’s philosophy, there is no road explicable either upwards or
downwards, between the two: no justifiable mode of participation
(μέθεξις) between the two disparate worlds—intellect and sense.
The princopta of Plato take an impressive hold on the imagina-
tion : but they remove few or none of the Platonic difficulties ;
and they only seem to do this because the Sokratic Elenchus, so
effective whenever it is applied, is never seriously brought to
bear against them.

With persons who complain of prolixity in the dialogue—
of threads which are taken up only to be broken off,
devious turns and “ passages which lead to nothing”
—of much talk “about it and about it,” without any
peremptory decision from an authonsed judge—with

Apart from
any result,
Plato has an
interest in
the process

of search

such complainants Plato has no sympathy. He feels and debate

. . e - i ec ( ν

a strong interest in the process of enquiry, in the tracted en-
᾿ . . ; ᾿ quny isa
debate per se: and he presumes a like interest in his Vir pte
readers. He has no wish to shorten the process, nor privilege,
. - . }ῦ ἃ D1re-

to reach the end and dismiss the question as settled.2 some obli-

gation,

On the contrary, he claims it as the privilege of phi-

1Anstot Eth. Nik i. 4, δ. εὖ γὰρ
καὶ IlAdrwy ἠπόρει τοῦτο καὶ ἐζήτει
πότερον ἀπὸ τῶν ἀρχῶν ἣ ἐπὶ τὰς ἀρχάς
ἐστιν ἡ ὁδός.

2As an illustration of that class
of minds which take delight in the
search for truth in different directions,
I copy the following passage re-
specting Dr. Priestley, from an excel-
Jent modern _ scientific biography.
‘‘Dr Priestley had seen so much of
the evil of obstinate adherence to
opimons which time had _ rendered
decrepit, not vencrable—and had been
so 1ichly rewarded in his capacity of
natural philosopher, by his adventur-
ous explorations of new ternitories in
science—that he unavoidably and un-
consciously over-estimated the value
of what was novel, and held himself
free to change his opinions to an extent

not easily sympathised with by minds
of a different order. Some men love
to rest in truth, or at least in settled
opinions, and are uneasy till they find
repose. They alter their behefs with
great reluctance, and dread the charge
of inconsistency, even in reference
trifling matters Priestley, on the
other hand, was a follower after truth,
who delighted rn the chase, and was all
his life long pursuing, not resting an it.
On all subjects which interested him
he held by certain cardinal doctrines,
but he left the outlines of his systems
to be filled up as he gained experience,
and to an extent very few men have
done, disavowed any attempt to re-
concile his changing views with each
other, or to deprecate the charge of
inconsistency. . I thnk it must
be acknowledged by all who have

404

PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY.

CuHapP. VIII.

losophical research, that persons engaged in such discussions are
noway tied to time; they are not like judicial pleaders, who,
with a klepsydra or water-clock to measure the length of each
speech, are under slavish dependence on the feelings of the
Dikasts, and are therefore obliged to keep strictly to the point.'
Whoever desires accurate training of mind must submit to go

through a long and tiresome circuit.*

Plato regards the process

of enquiry as beng in itself, both a stimulus and a discipline, ΤῺ
which the minds both of questioner and respondent are impli-
cated and improved, each being indispensable to the other : he
also represents it as a process, carried on under the immediate
inspiration of the moment, without reflection or foreknowledge of
the result. Lastly, Plato has an interest in the dialogue, not

studied his writings, that in his
scientific researches at least he carried
this feeling too far, and that often
when he had reached a truth in which
he might and should have rested, his
dread of anything lke a too hasty
stereotyping of a supposed discovery,
induced him to welcome whatever
seemed to justify him in renewing the
pursuit of truth, and thus led him
completely astra Priestley indeed
missed many ἃ discovery, the clue to
which was 1n his hands and in his
alone, by not knowing where to stop.”

(Dr. Geo Wilson—Iife of the Hon
H Cavendish, among the publications
of the Cavendish Society, 1851, p. 110-

111)

1 Plato, Theetét p 172

2 Plato, Republic, v 450 B. μέτρον
δέ γ᾽, ἔφη, ὦ Σώκρατες, ὁ Ῥλαύκων,
τοιούτων λόγων ἀκούειν, ὅλος ὃ βίος
νοῦν ἔχουσιν. vi. 504 Ὁ. Τὴν μακροτέραν
περιιτέον τῷ τοιούτῳ, καὶ οὐχ ἧττον
μανθάνοντι πονητέον ἢ μναζομένῳ.
Also Ῥράγῃα, 274 A, Parmenid. p.
135 D, 136 D, ἀμήχανον πραγματείαν
—aborerxias, &C. Compare Politikus,
286, mn 1espect to the charge of pro-
lixity against him

In the Hermotimus of Lucian, the
assailant of philosophy draws one of
his stron est arguments from the
number of years required to examine
the doctrines of all the philosophical
sects the whole of life would be in-
sufficient (Lucian, Hermot. c. 47-48).
The passages above cited, especially
the first of them, show that Sokrates
and Plato would not have becn dis-
couraged by this protracted work.

3 Plato, Republic, iii 394 D Μαν-
τεύομαι (SayS Glaukon) σκοπεῖσθαί σε,
εἴτε παραδεξόμεθα τραγῳδίαν τε καὶ
κωμῳδίαν εἰς τὴν πόλιν, εἴτε καὶ
Ἴσως (Says Sokrates) καὶ πλείω
τούτων! οὐ γὰρ δὴ ἔγωγέ
οἷδα, ἀλλ᾽ ὅπῃ ἂν ὃ
ὥσπερ πνεῦμα
ἱἰτεὸν Kat καλῶς

most expository

We find a remarkable passage in
Des Cartes, wherem that very self-
working philosopher expresses his con-
viction that the longer he continued
enquiring, the more his own mind
would become armed for the better
appreciation of tiuth--and in which
he strongly protests against any baruer
restraining the indefinite liberty of
enquiry.

‘Et encore qu'il y en ait peut-étre
d’aussi bien sensés parmi les Perses ou
les Chinois que parm: nous, 11} me sem-
bloit que le plus utile étoit, de me
régler selon ceux avec lesquels j’aurois
ἃ vivre; et que, pour savoir quelles
étoient véritablement leurs opinions, je
devois plutot prendre garde ace quils
pratiquaient qu’ ce quwils disaient ;
non seulement & cause qu’en la corrup-
tion de nos mceurs, εὐ y a peu de gens qui
veurtllent dere tout ce qu’'ils croient—mais
ausst ἃ cause que pluseurs Urgnorent
eux mémes; car laction de la pense,
par laquelle on croit une chose étant
différente de celle par laquelle on connort
quion la croit, elles sont souvent l'une
sansl’autre. Etentre plusieurs opinions

CuHap VIII. VARIED INTEREST OF INQUIRY.

405

merely as a mental discipline, but as an artistic piece of workman-
ship, whereby the taste and imagination are charmed. The dia-
logue was to him what the tragedy was to Sophokles, and the
rhetorical discourse to Isokrates. He went on “combing and
curling it” (to use the phrase of Dionysius) for as many years
as Isokrates bestowed on the composition of the Panegyrical
Oration. He handles the dialectic drama so as to exhibit some
one among the many diverse ethical points of view, and to show
what it involves as well as what it excludes in the way of conse-
quence, We shall not find the ethical point of view always the
same: there are material inconsistencies and differences in this
respect between one dialogue and another.

But amidst all these differences—and partly indeed by reason
of these differences—Plato succeeds in inspiring his
readers with much of the same interest in the process
of dialectic enquiry which he evidently felt in his
own bosom. The charm, with which he invests the
process of philosophising, is one main cause of the
preservation of his writings from the terrible ship-
wreck which has overtaken so much of the abundant as
contemporary literature. It constitutes also one of 84
lus principle titles to the gratitude of intellectual men. This is
a merit which may be claimed for Cicero also, but hardly for
Aristotle, in so far as we can judge from the preserved portion of
the Aristotelian writings: whether for the other υἱγὲ Socratict
his contemporaries, or in what proportion, we are unable to say.
Plato’s works charmed and instructed all; so that they were

Plato has
done more
than any
one else to
make the
process of
enqui
interesting
to others,
as it was to

également recues, je ne choisissois qne

qui n’est qu’indifférent), qu’on fasse des
Jes plus moderées ; tant A cause que ce

voeux ou des contrats qui obligent ἃ y

sont toujours les plus commodes pour
la pratique, et vraisemblablement les
meilleures—tous excés ayans coutume
détre mauvais—comme aussi afin de
me détourner moins du vrai chemin
en cas que je faillisse, que si, ayant
choisi Pun des deux extrémes, c’eht
été Yautre quil eut fallu suivre

«ἘΠῚ particulitrement, je mettois entre
les exces toutes lea promesses par leaquelles
on retranche quelque chose de sa lberié ;
non que je désapprouvasse les lois,
qui pour remédier ἃ l’inconstance des
esprits foibles, permettent, lorsqu’on a
quelque bon dessein (ou méme, pour la
sureté du commerce, quelque dessein

perscvérer: mais ἃ cause que je ne
voyois au monde aucune chose qui de-
meurdft toujours en méime état, et que
comme pour mon particulrer, ze me pro-
mettors de perfectionner de plus en plus
mes jugemens, et non point de les rendre
prres, jeusse pensé commetire une grande
Jaute contre le bon sens, st, parceque
japprouvois alors quelque chose, 76 me
JSusse obligé de la prendre pour bonne
encore apres, lorequ’elle aurowt pert-étre
cessé de véire, ou que jaurors ceasé de
Vestimer tele.’ Discours de la Mé-
thode, part iii. p. 147-148, Cousin edit. ;
p. 16, Simon edit.

PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. Cuap. VIII.

406

read not merely by disciples and admirers (as the Stoic and
Epikurean treatises were), but by those who dissented from him
as well as by those who agreed with him.? The process of philo-
sophising is one not naturally attractive except to a few minds:
the more therefore do we owe to the colloquy of Sokrates and the
writing of Plato, who handled it so as to diffuse the appetite for
enquiry, and for sifting dissentient opinions. The stimulating
and suggestive influence exercised by Plato—the variety of new
roads pointed out to the free enquiring mind—are in themselves
sufficiently valuable: whatever we may think of the positive
results in which he himself acquiesced.?

I have said thus much respecting what is common to the Dia-
logues of Search, because this is a species of composition now
rare and strange. Modern readers do not understand what is
meant by publishing an enquiry without any result—a story
without anend. Respecting the Dialogues of Exposition, there
is not the like difficulty. This isa species of composition, the
purpose of which is gencrally understood. Whether the exposi-
tion be clear or obscure—orderly or confused—true or false—we
shall see when we come to examine each separately. But these
Dialogues of Exposition exhibit Plato in a different character :
as the counterpart, not of Sokrates, but of Lykurgus (Republic
and Leges) or of Pythagoras (in Timzeus).®

A farther remark which may be made, bearing upon most of
the dialogues, relates to matter and not to manner.
Everywhere (both in the Dialogues of Search and in
those of exposition) the process of generalisation 18
kept in view and brought into conscious notice,
directly or indirectly. The relation of the universal
to its particulars, the contrast of the constant and
essential with the variable and accidental, are turned

Process of
eneralisa-
ion always

kept m view

and illus-
trated
throughout
the Platonic

Dialogues of

Search—ge-

Platonic writingsalso. ‘‘ Philosophiam

1 Cicero, Tusc. Disp. fi. 3, 8.
multis locis zenchoast. : ad impellendum

Cicero farther commends the Stoic

Pansetius for having relinquished the
‘‘tristitiam atque asperitatem” of his
Stoic predecessors, Zeno, Chrysippus,
&c , and for endeavouring to reproduce
the style and graces of Plato and Ari-
stotle, whom he was always commend-
ing to his students (De Fin. iv 28, 79).
2 The observation which Cicero ap-
plies to Varro, is applicable to the

satis, ad edocendum parum” (Academ.
Poster. i. 3, 9).

I shall say more about this when E
touch upon the Platonic Kleitophon ;
an unfinished dialogue, which takes up
the point of view here indicated by
Cicero.

3 See the citation from Plutarch in
an earlier note of this chapter.

Cuap. VIIL. THE PROCESS OF GENERALISATION. 407

and returned in a thousand different ways. The neral terms
principles of classification, with the breaking down of tone ede
an extensive genus into species and sub-species, form subjects of
the special subject of illustration in two of the most analysis
elaborate Platonic dialogues, and are often partially apphed in
the rest. To see the One in the Many, and the Many in the
One, is represented as the great aim and characteristic attribute
of the real philosopher. The testing of general terms, and of
abstractions already embodied in familiar language, by interro-
gations applying them to many concrete and particular cases—is
one manifestation of the Sokratic cross-examining process, which
Plato multiplies and diversifies without limit. It is in his
writings and in the conversation of Sokrates, that general terms
and propositions first become the subject of conscious attention
and analysis. and Plato was well aware that he was here opening
the new road towards formal logic, unknown to his predecessors,
unfamiliar even to his contemporaries. This process is indeed
often overlaid in his writings by exuberant poetical imagery and
by transcendental hypothesis : but the important fact is, that 1t
was constantly present to his own mind and is impressed upon
the notice of his readers.

After these various remarks, having a common bearing upon
all, or nearly all, the Platonic dialogues, I shall pro-
ceed to give some account of each dialogue separately. The Dia-
It is doubtless both practicable and useful to illustrate be roriowad
one of them by others, sometimes in the way of ana- compost
logy, sometimes in that of contrast. But I shall not tions by the
affect to handle them as contributories to one positive ‘illustrating’
doctrinal system—nor as occupying each an inten- pach other,
tional place in the gradual unfolding of one precon- assignable
ceived scheme—nor as successive manifestations of pendence.
change, knowable and determinable, in the views of
the author. For us they exist as distinct imaginary conversations,
composed by the same author at unknown times and under
unknown specialities of circumstance. Of course it is necessary
to prefer some one order for reviewing the Dialogues, and for
that purpose more or less of hypothesis must be admitted ; but I
shall endeavour to assume as little as possible.

The order which I shall adopt for considering the dialogues

408 PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY. Cuap VIIL

Order of the coincides to a certain extent with that which some
Dialogues, Other expositors have adopted. It begins with those
tricing dialogues which delineate Sokrates, and which con-
them under fine themselves to the subjects and points of view
separate belonging to him, known as he is upon the indepen-
Apology dent testimony of Xenophon. First of all will come
first; Tm- the Platome Apology, containing the explicit negative
thas’ Loves, programme of Sokrates, enunciated by himself a
ppmoms, month before his death, when Plato was 28 year
of age. ;

Last of all, I shall take those dialogues which depart most
widely from Sokrates, and which are believed to be the products
of Plato’s most advanced age—Timeus, Kritias, and Leges, with
the sequel, Epinomis. These dialogues present a glaring contrast
to the searching questions, the negative acuteness, the confessed
ignorance, of Sokrates: Plato in his old age has not maintained
consistency with his youth, as Sokrates did, but has passed round
from the negative to the affirmative pole of philosophy.

Between the Apology and the dialogues named as last—I

Kriton ang Shall examine the intermediate dialogues according as

Huthy- they seem to approximate or recede from Sokrates and
pamedi. the negative dialectic. Here, however, the reasons

atel cay for preference are noway satisfactory. Of the many
ὁ inter. dissentient schemes, professing to determine the real
dialogues order in which the Platonic dialogues were composed,

present no 1 find a certain plausibility in some, but no conclusive
convincing .

grounds for reason in any. Of course the reasons in favour of
any dleter- each one scheme, count against all the rest. I believe
order (as I have already said) that none of Plato’s dialogues
were composed until after the death of Sokrates: but at what
dates, or in what order, after that event, they were composed, it
is impossible to determine. The Republic and Philébus rank
among the constructive dialogues, and may suitably be taken
immediately before Timaus: though the Republic belongs to the
highest point of Plato’s genius, and includes a large measure of
his negative acuteness combined with his most elaborate positive
combinations, In the Sophistés and Politikus, Sokrates appears
only in the character of a listener: in the Parmenidés also, the

part assigned to him, instead of being aggressive and victorious,

(ΒΑΡ, VIII. ORDER OF REVIEW. 409

is subordinate to that of Parmenidés and confined to an un-
successful defence. These dialogues, then, occupy a place late
in the series. On the other hand, Kriton and Euthyphron have
an immediate bearing upon the trial of Sokrates and the feelings
connected with it. I shall take them in immediate sequel to the
Apology.

For the intermediate dialogues, the order is less marked
and justifiable. In so far as a reason can be given, for pre-
ference as to former and later, I shall give it when the case
arises.

410

APOLOGY OF SOKRATES.

Cuap. IX,

CHAPTER IX.

APOLOGY OF SOKRATES.

ApoptinG the order of precedence above described, for the review
of the Platonic compositions, and taking the point of departure
from Sokrates or the Sokratic point of view, I begin with the
memorable composition called the Apology.

I agree with Schleiermacher }—with the more recent investiga-

The Apo-

logy is the
real defence
delivered by
Sokrates
before the
Dikasts,
reported

by Plato,
without
intentional
transfor-
mation.

1 Zeller is of opinion that the Apo-
logy, as well as the Kriton, were put
together at Megara by Plato, shortly
after the death of Sokrates. (Zeller,
De Hermodoro Ephesio, p. 19.)

Schleiermacher, Einl. zur Apologie,
vol. ii PP. 182-185 Ueberweg, Ueber
die Aechtheit der Plat. Schrift. p. 246.

Steinhart thinks (Einleitung, pp.
236-238) that the Apology contains
more of Plato, and less of Sokrates:
but he does not make his view very
clear to me. Ast, on the contrary
treats the Apology as spurious and
unworthy of Plato. (Ueber Platon’s
Leben und Schriften, p 477, seq.
His arguments are rather objections
against the merits of the composition,
than reasons for believing it not to
be the work of Plato. I dissent from
them entirely: but they show that an

tions of Ueberweg—and with what (until recent
times) seems to have been the common opinion,—that_
this_is in substance the real defence pronounced by
Sokrates ; reported, and of course drest up, yet not
intentionally transformed, by Plato? If such be the
case, it is likely to have been put together shortly
after the trial, and may thus be ranked among the
earliest of the Platonic compositions: for I have
already intimated my belief that Plato composed no

acute critic can make ont a plausible
case, satisfactory to himself, against
any dialogue If it be once conceded
that the question of genuine or spu-
rious is to be tried upon such purely
internal grounds of critical admiration
and complete harmony of sentiment,
Ast might have made out ἃ case even
stronger against the genuineness of
the Phaedrus, Symposion, Philébus,
Parmenidés.

2 See chapter Ixvili. of my History
of Greece.

The reader will find in that chapter
a full narrative of all the circumstances

) known to us respecting both the life

and the condemnation of Sokrates.

A very admirable account may also
be seen of the character of Sokrates,
and his position with reference to the
Athenian people, in the article entitled

HIS REAL DEFENCE.

Cuap. IX. 411

dialogues under the name οὗ Sokrates, during the lifetime of
Sokrates.

Such, in my judgment, 1s the most probable hypothesis re-
specting the Apology. But even if we discard this

hypothesis ; if we treat the Apology as a pure product be Plato’
of the Platonic imagination (like the dialogues), and position,
therefore not necessarily connected in point of time Gomer
with the event to which it refers—still there are good first in the
reasons for putting it first in the order of review. his dia
ogues.

For it would then be Plato’s own exposition, given
more explicitly and solemnly than anywhere else, of the Sokratic
point of view and life-purpose. It would be an exposition em-
bodying that umon of generalising impulse, mistrust of esta-
blished common-places, and aggressive cross-examining ardour—
with eccentric religious persuasion, as well as with perpetual
immersion in the crowd of the palestra and the market-place :
which immersion was not less indispensable to Sokrates than
repugnant to the feelings of Plato himself. An exposition,
lastly, disavowing all that taste for cosmical speculation, and that
transcendental dogmatism, which formed one among the leading
features of Plato as distinguished from Sokrates. In whichever
way we look at the Apology, whether asa real or as an imaginary
defence, it contains more of pure Sokratism than any other com-
position of Plato, and as such will occupy the first place in the
arrangement which I adopt.

Sokrates und Sein Volk, Akademischer as that which is taken in my sixty-

Vortrag, by Professor Hermann Kochly’;
a lecture delivered at Zurich in 1855,
and published with enlargements in
185

Professor Kéchly’s article (contained
in a volume entitled Akademzsche Vor-
trige, Zurich, 1859) is eminently de-
serving of perusal. It not only con-
tains a careful summary of the contem-
porary history, so far as Sokrates 1s
concerned, but it has farther the great
merit of fairly estimating that ilus-
trious man in reference to the actual
feeling of the time, and to the real
public among whom he moved. I feel
much satisfaction in seeing that Pro-
fessor Kichly’s picture, composed with-
out any knowledge of my History of
Greece, presenta substantially the same
view of Sokrates and his contemporaries

eighth chapter.

Kochly considers that the Platonic
Apology preserves the Sokratic cha-
racter more faithfully than any of
Plato’s writings; and that it repre-
sents what Sokrates said, as nearly as
the ‘“dichterische Νῦν" of Plato
would permit kochly, PP. 802-364 )

1 Dionysius Hal. rds the A
logy, not asa report of what Sokrates
really said, nor as approximating there-
unto, but as 8 pure composition of
Plato himself, for three purposes com-
bined :—1. To defend and extol So-
krates. 2 To accuse the Athenian
public and Dikasts. 3. To furnish a
picture of what a philosopher ought to

e.—All these purposes are to a cer-
tain extent included and merged in a
fourth, which I bold to be the true

412 APOLOGY OF SOKRATES.

CuaP IX.

In my History of Greece, I have already spoken of this im-
pressive discourse as it concerns the relations between Sokrates
himself and the Dikasts to whom he addressed it. I here regard
it only as it concerns Plato; and as it forms a convenient point
of departure for entering upon and appreciating the Platonic
dialogues.

The Apology of Sokrates is not a dialogue, but_a continuous
discourse addressed to the Dikasts, containing never-

General theless a few .questions and answers interchanged.
qeology— between him and the accuser Melétus in open court.
Sentiments It is occupied, partly, in rebutting the counts of the
entertained indictment (viz., 1. That Sokrates did not believe in
Sokrates the Gods or in the Demons generally recognised by

his countrymen: 2. That he was a corruptor of youth’)
—partly in setting forth those proceedings of his life out of
which such charges had grown, and by which he had become
obnoxious to a wide-spread feeling of personal hatred. By his —
companions, by those who best knew him, and by a con-
siderable number of ardent young men, he was greatly esteemed
and admired: by the general public, too, his acuteness as well as
his self-sufficing and independent character, were appreciated
with a certain respect. Yet he was at the same time disliked,
as_an_ aggressive disputant who “tilted at all he met”—who
raised questions novel as well as perplexing, who pretended’ to
special intimations from the Gods—and whose views no one
could distinctly make out.?_ By the eminent citizens of all varie-
ties—politicians, rhetors, Sophists, tragic and comic poets, artisans,
&c.—he had made himself both hated and feared.? He empha-

one,—to exhibit what Sokrates was and
had been, in relation to the Athenian
public.

The comparison drawn by Dionysius
between the Apology and the oration
De Corond of Demosthenes, appears to
me unsuitable The two are alto-

gether disparate, in spirit in purpose,

and in execution. (See Dion H. Ars
Rhet pp. 295-208: De Adm. Vi Dic
Demosth. p. 1026 )

1 Xenoph. Mem. {&. 1, 1. ᾿Αδικεῖ
Σωκράτης, obs μὲν ἡ πόλις νομίζει
θεοὺς ov νομίζων" ἕτερα δὲ καινὰ δαι-
μονια εἰσφέρων" ἀδικεῖ δὲ καὶ τοὺς νέους

διαφθείρων.

Plato, Apolog. c. 8, p. 19 Β. Σω-
κράτης ἀδικεῖ Kat περιεργάζεται, ζητῶν
τά τε ὑπὸ γῆς καὶ τὰ ἐπουράνια, καὶ τὸν
ἥττω λόγον κρείττω ποιῶν, καὶ ἄλλους
ταὐτὰ ταῦτα διδάσκων.

The reading of Xenophon was con-
formable to the copy of the indictment

reserved in the Metréon at Athens in
he time of Favorinus. There were
three distinct accusers—Melétus, Any-
tus, and Lykon. Plat. Apo] p 23-24 B.
2 Plato, Apol. ὁ. 28, p. 38 A; c. 23,

p. 3

3 Plato, Apol ὁ, 8-9, pp. 22-23, ἐκ
ταυτησὶ δὴ τῆς ἐξετάσεως πολλαὶ μὲν
ἀπέχθειαί μου γεγόνασι καὶ οἷαι χαλε-

HIS CREED—HIS MISSION. 413

Curap. EX,

tically denies the accusation of general disbelief in the Gods,
advanced by Melétus: and he affirms generally (though less
distinctly) that the Gods in whom he believed, were just the
same as those in whom the whole city believed. Especially does
he repudiate the idea, that he could be so absurd as to doubt the
divtitity of Helios and Seléné, in which all the world believed ;3
and-to adopt the heresy of Anaxagoras, who degraded these
Divinities into physical masses. Respecting his general creed,
he thus puts himself within the pale of Athenian orthodoxy.
He even invokes that very sentiment (with some doubt whether
the Dikasts will believe him?) for the justification of the ob-
noxious and obtrusive peculiarities of his life ; representing him-
self as having acted under the mission of the Delphian God,
expressly transmitted from the oracle.

According to his statement, his friend and earnest admirer
Cheerephon, had asked the question at the oracle of

Declaration

Delphi, whether any one was wiser than Sokrates?
The reply of the oracle declared, that no one was
wiser. On hearing this declaration from an infallible
authority, Sokrates was greatly perplexcd: for he
was conscious to himself of not being wise upon any
matter, great or small? He at length concluded that
the declaration of the oracle could be proved true,
only on the hypothesis that other persons were less
wise than they seemed to be or fancied themselves.
To verify this hypothesis, he proceeded to crogs-
examine the most eminent persons in many different

walks — political men, rhetors, Sophists, poets, artisans.

from the
Delphian
oracle
respecting
the wisdom
of Sokrates,
interpreted
by him as
& mission
to cross-
examine the
citizens
generally —
‘he oracle
is proved to
be tine

applying his Elenchus, and putting to them testing interroga-
tions, he found them all without exception destitute of any real
wisdom, yet fully persuaded that they were wise, and imcapable
of being shaken in that persuasion. The artisans indeed did

3 Plato, Apol. c. 6, p. 21 B. ταῦτα
γὰρ ἐγὼ ἀκούσας ἐνεθυμούμην οὑτωσί, Τί
mote λέγει ὁ θεὸς καὶ τί ποτε αἰνίτ-
τεται; ἐγὼ γὰρ δὴ οὔτε μέγα οὔτε σμι-
κρὸν ξύνοιδα ἐμαυτῷ σοφὸς ὦν: τί οὖν
mote λέγει φάσκων ἐμὲ σοφώτατον
εἶναι; οὐ γὰρ δήπον ψεύδεταί γε’ οὐ

dp θέμις αὐτῷ. Καὶ πολὺν μὲν χρόνον -
ἡπόρουν, KC.

πώταται καὶ βαρύταται, ὥστε πολλὰς
διαβολὰς am αὐτῶν γεγονέναι, ὄνομα δὰ
τοῦτο λέγεσθαι, σοφὸς εἶναι.

1 Plato, Apol.c 14, Ρ. 26 Ὁ. ὦ θαν-
μάσιε Μέλητε, ἱνα τί ταῦτα λέγεις; οὐδὰ
ἥλιον οὐδὲ σελήνην ἄρα νομίζω θεοὺς
εἶναι, ὥσπερ οἱ ἄλλοι ἄνθρωποι;

2 Plato, Apol. ὁ. 6, p 20D.

414 APOLOGY OF SOKRATES. Cuap. IX,

really know each his own special trade ; but then, on account of
this knowledge, they believed themselves to be wise on other
great matters also. So also the poets were great in their own
compositions; but on being questioned respecting these very
compositions, they were unable to give any rational or consistent
explanations: so that they plainly appeared to have written
beautiful verses, not from any wisdom of their own, but through
inspiration from the Gods, or spontaneous promptings of nature.
The result was, that these men were all proved to possess no
more real wisdom than Sokrates: but he was aware of his own
deficiency ; while they were fully convinced of their own wisdom,
and could not be made sensible of the contrary. In this way
Sokrates justified the certificate of superiority vouchsafed to him
by the oracle. He, hke all other persons, was destitute of wis-
dom ; but he was the only one who knew, or could be made to
feel, his own real mental condition. With others, and most of all
with the most conspicuous men, the false persuasion of their own
wisdom was universal and inexpugnable.!

This then was the philosophical mission of Sokrates, imposed
False per. Upon him by the Delphian oracle, and in which he
suasion of = nassed the mature portion of his life: to cross-
wisdom is . .
universal examine every one, to expose that false persuasion of
the God knowledge which every one felt, and tou demonstrate
Wise. the truth of that which the oracle really meant by
declaring the superior wisdom of Sokrates. ‘“ People suppose me
to be wise myself (says Sokrates) on those matters on which 1
detect and prove the non-wisdom of others? But that is a mis-
take. The God alone is wise: and his oracle declares human
wisdom to be worth little or nothing, employing the name of
Sokrates as an example. He is the wisest of men, who, like
Sokrates, knows well that he is in truth worthless so far as wis-
dom is concerned? The really disgraceful ignorance is—to think
that you know what you do not really know.” 4

“The God has marked for me my post, to pass my life in the

1 Plato, Apolog. 6. 8-9, pp. 22-23, 28 EK.

2 Plato, Apol. c. 9, p. 238 A. οἴονται 4 Plato, Apol. c. 17, p. 29 B καὶ
γάρ με ἑκάστοτε οἱ παρόντες ταῦτα av- τοῦτο πῶς οὐκ ἀμαθία ἐστὶν αὐτὴ ἡ
τὸν εἶναι σοφόν, ἃ ἂν ἄλλον ἐξελέγξω. ἐπονείδιστος, ἢ τοῦ οἴεσθαι εἰδέναι ἃ οὐκ

ὃ Plato, Apol c 9, p. 238 Α; 6. 17, p. older;

CuHap, IX. RESOLUTE FIDELITY TO HIS MISSION. 415

search for wisdom, cross-examining myself as well a8 pmphatic
others : I shall be disgraced, if I desert that post from assertion b
fear either of death or of any other evil”! “Even if the cross-.
you Dikasts acquit me, I shall not alter my course: 1 S*amining
shall continue, as long as 1 hold life and strength, to imposed
exhort and interrogate in my usual strain, telling by the
every one whom I meet *—You, a citizen of the great God

and intelligent Athens, are you not ashamed of busying yourself
to procure wealth, reputation, and glory, in the greatest possible
quantity ; while you take neither thought nor pains about truth,
or wisdom, or the fullest measure of goodness for your mind? If
any one denies the charge, and professes that he does take thought
for these objects,—I shall not let him off without questioning,
cross-examining, and exposing him.’ And if he appears to me to
affirm that he is virtuous without being so in reality, I shall
reproach him for carmg least about the greater matter, and most
about the smaller. This course I shall pursue with every one whom
I meet, young or old, citizen or non-citizen : most of all with you
citizens, because you are most nearly connected with me. For
this, you know, is what the God commands, and I think that no
greater blessing has ever happened to the city than this ministra-
tion of mine under orders from the God. For I go about
incessantly persuading you all, old as well as young, not to care
about your bodies, or about riches, so much as about acquiring
the largest measure of virtue for your minds. I urge upon you
that virtue is not the fruit of wealth,—but that wealth, together
with all the other things good for mankind publicly and privately,
are the fruits of virtuc.* If Iam a corruptor of youth, it is by
these discourses that I corrupt them: and if any one gives a
different version of my discourses, he talks idly. Accordingly,
men of Athens, I must tell you plainly :—decide with Anytus,
or not,—acquit me or not—I shall do nothing ditterent from
what I have done, even if I am to die many times over for it.”

1 Plato, Apol. c. 17, p. 28 E θαι, οὐκ εὐθὺς ἀφήσω αὐτὸν οὐδ᾽ ἄπειμι,
2 Plato, Apol c. 17, p.29 D. οὐ μὴ GAA’ ἐρήσομαι αὐτὸν καὶ ἐξετάσω καὶ
παύσωμαι φιλοσοφῶν καὶ ὑμῖν παρακε- ἐλέγξω, καὶ ἐάν μοι μὴ δοκῇ κεκτῆσθαι
λευόμενός τε καὶ ἐνδεικνύμενος, ὅτῳ ἂν ἀρετήν, φάναι δέ, ὀνειδιῶ, &e.
ἀεὶ ἐντυγχάνω ὑμῶν, λέγων οἷάπερ εἴωθα, 4 Plato, ΑΡΟ]. 6. 17, p. 80 Β, λέγων
; ὅτι οὐκ ἐκ χρημάτων ἀρετὴ γίγνεται, ἀλλ᾽
3 Plato, Apol.c.17,p.29E καὶ ἐάν ἐξ ἀρετῆς χρήματα καὶ τἄλλα ἀγαθὰ τοῖς
τις ὑμῶν ἀμφισβητήσῃ καὶ φῇ ἐπιμελεῖσ- ἀνθρώποις ἀπαντα καὶ ἰδίᾳ καὶ δημοσίᾳ.

416 APOLOGY OF SOKRATES. Cuap. IX.

Such is the description given by Sokrates of his own profes-
sion and standing purpose, imposed upon him as a

He had de- .

voted his duty by the Delphian God. He neglected all labour
execution of either for profit, or for political importance, or for the
this mis: Εν public service; he devoted himself, from morning till
intended to night, to the task of stirring up the Athenian public,
Fy spite of as the gadfly worries a large and high-bred but over-
ὌΝ or sleek horse :1 stimulating them by interrogation, per-

guasion, reproach, to render account of their lives and
to seek with greater energy the path of virtue. By continually
persisting in such universal cross-examination, he had rendered
himself obnoxious to the Athenians generally ;2 who were
offended when called upon to render account, and when re-
proached that they did not live rightly. Sokrates predicts that
after his death, younger cross-examiners, hitherto kept down by
his celebrity, would arise in numbers,? and would pursue the
same process with greater keenness and acrimony than he had
done.

While Sokrates thus extols, and sanctifies under the authority

Ho di of the Delphian God, his habitual occupation of in-
g-

claims the terrogating, cross-examining, and stimulating to
function of virtue, the Athenians indiscriminately—he disclaims
—he cannot altogether the function of a teacher. His disclaimer
teach, for he on this point is unequivocal and emphatic. He can-
than others. not teach others, because he is not at all wiser than
from others they. He is fully aware that he is not wise on any
by being § point, great or small—that he knows nothing at all,
ofhisown go to speak.* He can convict others, by their own
ignorance.

answers, of real though unconscious ignorance, or

1 Plato, Apol.c. 18, p 30 E. arex-
γῶς, εἰ καὶ γελοιότερον εἰπεῖν, προσκεῖ-
μενον τῇ πόλει ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ ὥσπε
ἵππῳ μεγάλῳ μὲν καὶ γενναίῳ, ὑπὸ
μεγέθους δὲ νωθεστέρῳ καὶ δεομένῳ
ἐ εἰρεσθαι ὑπὸ μύωπός τινος"
οἷον δή μοι δοκεῖ ὁ θεὸς ἐμὲ τῇ πόλει
προστεθεικέναι τοιοῦτόν τινα, ὃς ὑμᾶς
ἐγείρων καὶ πείθων καὶ ὄνει-
δίξων ἕνα ὅκαστον οὐδὲν παύομαι
τὴν ἡμέραν ὅλην πανταχοῦ προσκαθίζων.
Also ὁ 26, p 86 Ὁ.

2 Plato, Apol c 6, p. 21 D; σ. 16, p.
28 A; c. 30, p. 39 C.

ὃ Plato, Apol. c. 80, p. 88 α΄ νῦν γὰρ

τοῦτο εἴργασθε (i. ©. ἐμὲ ἀπεκτόνατε)
οἰόμενοι ἀπαλλάξεσθαι TOV
ιδόναι ἔλεγχον τοῦ βίον. τὸ
δὲ ὑμῖν πολὺ ἐναντίον ἀποβήσεται, ὡς
ἐγώ φημι. πλείους ἔσονται ὑμᾶς οἱ
ἐλέγχοντες, obs νῦν ἐγὼ κατεῖχον,
ὑμεῖς δὲ οὐκ ἠσθάνεσθε" καὶ χαλεπώ-
τέροι ἔσονται ὅσῳ νεώτεροί εἰσι, καὶ
ὑμεῖς μᾶλλον ἀγανακτήσετε, KC
I have already remarked (in chapter
Ixviii. of my general History of Greece
relating to Sokrates) that this predic-
tion was not fulfille
4 Plato, Apol. c. 6, p. 21 B. ἐγὼ γὰρ
δὴ οὔτε μέγα οὔτε σμικρὸν ξύνοιδα

CuapP. IX. HE DISCLAIMS TEACHING. 417

(under another name) false persuasion of knowledge: and be-
cause he can do so, he is presumed to possess positive knowledge
on the points to which the exposure refers. But this presump-
tion is altogether unfounded : he possesses no such positive know-
ledge. Wisdom is not to be found in any man, even among the
most distinguished : Sokrates is as ignorant as others ; and his
only point of superiority is, that he is fully conscious of his own
ignorance, while others, far from having the like consciousness,
confidently believe themselves to be in possession of wisdom and
truth. In this consciousness of his own ignorance Sokrates
stands alone ; on which special ground he is proclaimed by the
Delphian God as the wisest of mankind.

Being thus a partner in the common ignorance, Sokrates
cannot of course teach others. He utterly disclaims
having ever taught, or professed to teach. He would
be proud indeed, if he possessed the knowledge of

He does not
know where
competent

teacherscan

human and social virtue: but he does not know it pe found.
himself, nor can he find out who else knows 10.2 He_ petually

. . seeking for
is certain that there cannot be more than a few select them, but
individuals who possess the art of making mankind ™ ῖπ
wiser or better—just as in the case of horses, none but a few

practised trainers know how to make them better, while the
handling of these or other animals, by ordinary men, certainly
does not improve the animals, and generally even makes them
worse. But where any such select few are to be found, who
alone can train men—Sokrates is obliged to inquire from others ;
he cannot divme for himself.4 He is perpetually going about,
with the lantern of cross-examination, in search of a wise man :
but he can find only those who pretend to be wise, and whom
his crogs-examination exposes as pretenders.°

ἐμαυτῷ σοφὸς ὧν, ἄσ. 6. 8, p. 32 Ὁ. νόμην ἂν, εἰ ἠπιστάμην ταῦτα" ἀλλ᾽ οὐ

ἐμαυτῷ γὰρ ξυνήδειν οὐδὲν ἐπισταμένῳ,
ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν

1 Plato, Apol. c. 9, p 23 A-B.
Οὗτος ὑμῶν, & ἄνθρωποι, σοφώτατός
ἐστιν, ὅστις ὥσπερ Σωκράτης ἔγνωκεν
ὅτι οὐδενὸς ἄξιός ἐστι τῇ ἀληθείᾳ πρὸς
σοφίαν.

2 Plato, Apol ¢.4,p 20 B-C. τίς τῆς
τοιαύτης ἀρετῆς, τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης τε καὶ
πολιτικῆς, ἐπιστήμων ἐστίν; wee ἐγὼ
γοῦν καὶ αὐτὸς ἐκαλλνυνόμην τε καὶ ἡβρυ-

γὰρ aie ὦ ἄνδρες ᾿Αθηναῖοι

c. 21, 33 A ἐγὼ δὲ διδάσκαλος
μὲν οὐδενὶς πώποτ᾽ ἐγενόμην C. 4, p.
19 ΕἸ.

3 Plato, Apol c.12,p 35 Β

4 Plato, Apol. ὁ 4, p. 20

δ Plato, Apol. c. 9, p 23 Β, ταῦτ᾽
οὖν ἐγὼ μὲν ἔτι καὶ νῦν περιιὼν ζητῶ
καὶ ᾿ἐρευνῶ ΚαΤ τὸν εόν, καὶ τῶν
ἀστῶν καὶ τῶν ξένων ἂν τινα -οἴωμαι
σοφὸν εἶναι" καὶ ἐπειδάν μοι μὴ δοκῇ,

1—27

418 APOLOGY OF SOKRATES. Cap. ΙΧ.

his then is the mission and vocation of Sokrates—1. To
cross-examine men, and to destroy that false persuasion of
wisdom and virtue which is so widely diffused among them.
2. To reproach them, and make them ashamed of pursuing
wealth and glory more than wisdom and virtue.!

But Sokrates is not empowered to do more for them. He
cannot impart any positive knowledge to heal their ignorance.
He cannot teach them what WisDoM OR VIRTUE is. "

Such is the substance of the Platonic Apology of Sokrates
How strong was the impression which it made, on

Impression . :

made by the many philosophical readers, we may Judge from the
} e .
Apalony fect, that Zeno, the founder of the Stole school, being
on Zeno a native of Kition m Cyprus, deilved from the
the Stoic.

perusal of the Apology his first inducement to come
over to Athens, and devote himself to the study and teaching of
philosophy in that city.? Sokrates depicts, with fearless sin-
cerity, what he regards as the intellectual and moral deficiencies
of his countrymen, as well as the unpalatable medicine and
treatment which he was enjoined to administer to them. With
equal sincerity does he declare the mits within which that
treatment was confined.

But neither of his two most emiment companions can endure

Extentof ἴο restrict his competence within such narrow limits.
efficacious =~ Xenophon’ affirms that Sokrates was assiduous in
claimed Dy communicating useful instruction and positive edifi-
himself-- cation to his hearers. Plato sometimes, though more
oreo rarely, intimates the same: but for the most part,
throughout and in the Dialogues of Search throughout, he keeps

Respecting another statement made
by Themistius m the same page, I do
not feel soceitain He says that the ac-
cusatury discourse pronounced against

τῷ θεῷ βοηθῶν ἐνδιίκννμαι ὅτι οὐκ ἔστι
σοφός. c. 32, p 41 Β.

1 ῬΙαίο, Apol c 33, p 41 E.

2 Themistius, Orat xxiii (Sophistés)
p. 357, Dindorf. Ta δὲ ἀμφὶ Ζήνωνος
αρίδηλά τέ ἐστι καὶ ἀδόμενα ὑπὸ πολ-
λῶν, ὅτι αὐτὸν ἡ Σωκράτους ἀπολογία
ἐκ Φοινίκης ἤγαγεν εἰς τὴν Ποικίλην.

This Btatement dleset ves full belief :
it probably came fiom Zeno himself,
a voluminous writer The father of
Zeno was a merchant who traded with
Athens, and brought back books for
his son to read, Sokiatic books among
them Diogen. Laett vu 81.

Sokrates by Anytus was composed b
Polykiates, a8 ἃ λογογράφος, and paic
for. This may be the fact but the
words of Isokratesin the Busiris rather
lead me to the behef that the κατη-
γορία Σωκράτους composed by Poly-

rates was a sophistical exercise, com-
posed to acquire reputation and pupils,
not a discourse really delivered in the
Dikastery.

3 Xenophon, Memor. i 2, 64, i. 3,1,

i. 4,2, iv, 2,40; 1v 3,4

Cuap. IX

Sokrates within the circle of procedure which the
These dialogues exemplify
in detail the aggressive operations, announced therein
by Sokrates in general terms as his missionary life-

Apology claims for him.

MODERN ASSUMPTION.

419

the Dia-
logues of
Search—
Xenophon
and Plato
enlarge it.

purpose, against contemporaries of note, very different from each
other—against aspirmg youths, statesmen, generals, Rhetors,
Sophists, orthodox pietists, poets, rhapsodes, &c. Sokrates cross-
examines them all, and convicts them of humiliating ignorance :
but he does not furnish, nor does he profess to be able to furnish,

any solution of his own difficulties.

Many of the persons cross-

examined bear historical names: but I think it necessary to warn
the reader, that all of them speak both language and sentiments
provided for them by Plato, and not their own."

The disclaimer, so often repeated by Sokrates,—that he

possessed neither positive knowledge nor wisdom in
his own person,—was frequently treated by his con-
He was not supposed to be
Every one presumed
that he must himself know that which he proved
others not to know, whatever motive he might have
for affecting ignorance.” His personal manner and
homely vein of wlustration seemed to favour the
supposition that he was bantering.

temporarics as ironical.
in earnest when he made it.

1JIt might seem superfluous to give
such a waining; but many commen-
tutors speak as if they required it
They denounce the Platon.c speakers
in harsh terms, which have no perti-
nence, unless supposed to be apphed
to a real man expressing his own
thoughts and feelings

It is useless to enjoin us, as Stall-
baum and Steinhart do, to mark the
alistociatical conceit of Menon !—the
pompous ostentation and pretensive
verbosity of Protagoras and Gorgias !—
the exorbitant selfishness of Polus and
Kalliklés !—the unpudent biutahty of
Thiasymachus !|—when_ all these per-
gons speak entirely under the prompt-
ing of Plato himself

You might just as well judge of So-
krates by what we read in the Nubes
of Atistophanes, or of Meton by what
we find in the Aves, as describe the
historical characters of the above-
named personages out of the Platonic
chulogues. They ought to be appre-
ciated as dramatic pictures, drest up

Assumption
by modern
erttics, that
Sokrates 15
a positive
teacher,
employing
indirect
methods
for the
inculcation
of theories
of his own

This interpreta-

by the author for his own purpose, and
delivering such opinions as he assigns

to them—whether he intends them to

be refuted by others, or not.

9 | Plato, Apol. c. δ, p. 20 D; ¢. 9, p.
3

Aristeides the Rhetor furnishes a
valuable confirmation of the truth of
that picture of Sokrates, which we
in the Platonic Apology. All the
other companions of Sokrates who
wiote dialogues about him (not pre-
served to us), presented the same
general features 1 Avowed igno-
rance. 2 The same declaration of
the oracle concermng him 3. The
feeling of frequent signs from τὸ
δαιμόνιον.

Ὁμολογεῖται μέν γε λέγειν αὐτὸν
(Sokrates) ws ἄρα οὐδὲν ἐπίσταιτο,
καὶ πάντες τοῦτό φασιν oF
σνγγενόμενοι" ὁμολογεῖται δ᾽ αὖ
καὶ τοῦτο, σοφώτατον εἶναι Σωκράτη
τὴν Πυθίαν εἰρηκέναι, ἂς

Aristeides, Orat. χὶν. Περὶ ‘Pyro-
pixys, pp. 2a, 24, 25, Dindorf.)

420 APOLOGY OF SOKRATES. Cuap. IX.

tion ot the character of Sokrates appears in the main to be
preferred by modern critics. Of course (they imagine) an able
man who cross-questions others on the defimtions of Law, Jus-
tice, Democracy, &c., has already meditated on the subject, and
framed for himself unimpeachable definitions of these terms.
Sokrates (they suppose) is a positive teacher and theorist,
employing a method, which, though indirect and circuitous, 1s
nevertheless calculated deliberately beforehand for the purpose
of introducing and inculeating premeditated doctrines of his own.
Pursuant to this hypothesis, it 18 presumed that the positive
theory of Sokrates 1s to be found in his negative cross-examina-
tions,—not indeed set down clearly in any one sentence, so that
he who runs may read—yet disseminated in separate syHables or
letters, which may be distinguished, picked out, and put together
into propositions, by an acute detective examiner. And the
same presumption 18 usually applied to the Sokrates of the
Platonic dialogues: that 1s, to Plato employing Sokrates as
spokesman. Interpreters sift with mucroseopic accuracy the
negative dialogues of Plato, in hopes of detecting the ultimate
elements of that positive solution which he 1s supposed to have
lodged therein, and which, when found, may be put together so
as to clear up all the antecudent difficulties.
T have already said (an the preceding chapter) that I cannot
take this view either of Sokrates or of Plato. Wuith-
Incorrect. a out doubt, each of them had affirmative doctrines and
assumption convictions, though not both the same. But the
—the Sokra- . . . .
ticElenchus affirmative vein, with both of them, runs in a
doesnot —_ channel completely distinct from the negative. The
solution, — affirmative theury has its roots aliunde, and 15 neither
but works : .
uponthe generated, nor adapted, with a view to reconcile the
tt one contradictions, or elucidate the obscurities, which the
stimulating negative Elenchus has exposed. That exposure does
him to seek Ὁ Ὁ .
forasolu. indeed render the embarrassed respondent pain-
tion of his fully conscious of the want of some rational, con-
sistent, and adequate theoretical explanation: it
farther stimulates him to make efforts of his own for the supply
of that want. But such efforts must be really his own; the
Elenchus gives no farther help: it furnishes problems, but no

solutions, nor even any assurance that the problems as presented,

CHAP, IX, THE NEGATIVE PROCESS. 421

admit of affirmative solutions. Whoever expects that such
consummate masters of the negative process as Sokrates and
Plato, when they come to deliver affirmative dogmas of their
own, will be kept under restraint by their own previous Elen-
chus, and will take care that their dogmas shall not be vulner-
able by the same weapons as they had employed against others—
will be disappointed. They do not employ any negative test
against themselves. When Sokrates preaches in the Xenophontic
Memorabilia, or the Athenian Stranger in the Platonic Leges,
they jump over, or suppose to be already solved, the difficulties
under the pressure of which other disputants had been previously
discredited . they assume all the undefinable common-places to
be clearly understood, and all the inconsistent gencrahties te be
brought into harmony. Thus it is that the negative cross-
examination, and the affirmative dogmatism, are (both in Sokrates
and in Plato) two unconnected operations of thought: the one
does not lead to, or involve, or verify, the other.

Those who depreciate the negative process simply, unless
followed up by some new positive doctrine which yaje ana
shall be proof against all such attack—cannot be importance
expected to admire Sokrates greatly, even as he cess—stimu-
stands rated by himself. Even if I concurred in jating active
this opinion, I should still think myself obliged to minds to
exhibit him as he really was. But 1 do not concur each for
in the opinion. I think that the creation and fur- ‘elf.
therance of individual, self-thinking minds, each instigated to
form some rational and consistent theory for itself, is a material
benefit, even though no farther aid be rendered to the process
except in the way of negative suggestion. That such minds
should be made to feel the arbitrary and incoherent character of
that which they have imbibed by passive association as ethics
and eesthetics,—and that they should endeavour to test it by
some rational and consistent standard—would be an improving
process, though no one theory could be framed satisfactory to all.
The Sokratic Elenchus went directly to this result. Plato
followed in the same track, not of pouring new matter of
knowledge into the pupil, but of eliciting new thoughts and
beliefs out of him, by kindling the latent forces of his intellect,
A large proportion of Plato’s dialogues have no other purpose or

422 APOLOGY OF SOKRATES. Cuap, LX.

value, And in entering upon the consideration of these dia-
logues, we cannot take a better point of departure than the
Apology of Sokrates, wherein the speaker, alike honest and
decided in his convictions, at the close of a long cross-examining
career, re-asserts expressly his devoted allegiance to the negative
process, and disclaims with equal emphasis all power over the

affirmative.
In that touching discourse, the Universal Cross-Examiner
declares ἃ thorough resolution to follow his own ind1-

jew taken vidual conviction and his own sense of duty—whether
aboutdeath. agreeing Or disagreeing with the convictions of his
er men

rofessto countrymen, and whether leading to danger or to

xnow what death for himself. ‘Where a man may have posted

it is, and . ᾿ .

thinkita himself—either under his own belief that it is best,
eat mis- .

ortune, or under orders from the magistrate—there he must

he does ‘ " ay

reeknew stay and affront danger, not caring for death or any-

thing else in comparison with disgrace”! As to
death, Sokrates knows very little what it is, nor whether it is
good or evil. The fear of death, in his view, is only one case of
the prevalent mental malady—men believing themselves to know
that of which they really know nothmg. If death be an extinc-
tion of all sensation, like a perpetual and dreamless sleep, he will
regard it as a prodigious benefit compared with life: even the
Great King will not be a loser by the exchange.? If on the
contrary death be a transition into Hades, to keep company with
those who have died before—Homer, Hesiod, the heroes of the
Trojan war, &c.—Sokrates will consider it supreme happiness to
converse with and cross-examine the potentates and clever men

1 Plato, Apol c 16, p 28D.

2Plato, Apol. c 17, p 20 A. c. 82,
40 D. καὶ εἴτε δὴ μηδεμία αἴσθησίς
ἔστιν, ἀλλ᾽ οἷον ὕπνος, ἐπειδάν τις
καθεύδων μηδ᾽ ὄναρ μηδὲν ὁρᾷ, θαυμάσιον

κέρδος ἂν εἴη ὁ θάνατος.
Ast remarks (Plat. Leb. und Schrift.
p. 488) that the language of doubt and
uncertainty in which Sokrates here
speaks of the consequences of death,
18 greatly at vanance with the lan-
fuage which he 1s made to hold in the
heedon. Ast adduces this as one of
his arguments for disallowing the
authenticity of the Apology. I do not
admit the inference. I am prepaied
for divergence between the opinions

of Sokrates in different dialogues; and
I believe, moreover, that the Sokrates
of the Phedon is spokesman chosen
to argue in support of the main thesis
of that dialogue. But it is impossible
to deny the variance which Ast points
out, and which is also admitted b

Stallbaum. Steinhart indeed (Kinlel
tung, p. 246) goes the length of deny-
ing 1t, in which I cannot follow him.
The sentiment of Sokrates in the
Apology embodies the same alterna-
tive uncertainty, as what we read in
Marcus Antoninus, v. 83. Τί οὖν;
περιμένεις ἵλεως τὴν εἴτε σβέσιν εἴτε
μετάστασιν, &C.

Cuap. IX. THE INDIVIDUAL REASON. 493

of the past—Agamemnon, Odysseus, Sisyphus; thus discrimi-
nating which of them are really wise, and which of them are
only unconscious pretenders. He is convinced that no evil can
ever happen to the good man; that the protection of the Gods
can never be wanting to him, whether alive or dead.) “It 1s not
lawful for a better man to be injured by a worse. He may
indeed be killed, or banished, or disfranchised ; and these may
appear great evils, in the eye of others. But [do not think them
so. It isa far greater evil to do what Melétus is now doing—
trying to kill a man unjustly.” 3

Sokrates here gives his own estimate of comparative good and
evil. Death, banishment, disfranchisement, &c., are

no great evils: to put another man to death unjustly, Reliance of
is a great evil to the doer: the good man can suffer rs Own al
; C

no evil at all. These are given as the judyinents of reason,

᾿ ᾿ ! ΡΝ whether

Sokrates, and as dissentient from most others. agreeing or

Whether they are Sukratic or Platonic opinions, or Msagreeing
with others.

common to both-—we shall find them reappearing in
various other Platomie dialogues, hereafter to be noticed. We
have also to notice that marked feature in the character of
Sokrates?—the standing upon his own individual reasun and
measure of good and evil: nay, even pushing his confidence in it
so far, as to believe in a divine voice informing and moving him.
This reliance on the individual reason 1s sometimes recognised,

at other times rejected, in the Platonic dialogues,

1 Plato, Apol. c. 32, p 41 A-B.

2 Plato, Apol.c 18, p 30D.

3 Plat Apol c.16,p 28D. οὗ ἂν τις
ἑαυτὸν τάξῃ ἡ ἡγησάμενος βέλτιον εἶναι
ἢ Um’ ἄρχοντος ταχθῇ, ἐνταῦθα δεῖ, ὡς
ἐμοὶ δοκεῖ, μένοντα κινδυνεύειν, KC.

Xenophon, Memorab. ἱν. 8,11 φρό-
νιμὸος δέ, ὥστε μὴ διαμαρτάνειν κρίνων
τὰ βελτίω καὶ τὰ χείρω, μηδὲ ἄλλον
προσδέεσθαι, ἀλλ᾽ αὐτάρκης εἶναι πρὸς
τὴν τούτων γνῶσιν, KC.

Compare this with Memor. i. 1, 3-4-5,
and the Xenophontic Apology, 4, 5,
18, where this αὐταρκεία finds for itself
a justification in the hypothesis of a
divine monitor without

The debaters in the treatise of
Plutarch, De Genio Socratis, upon the
question of the Sokratic δαιμόνιον, in-
sist upon this resolute persuasion and
self-determination as the most indis-

Plato rejects

putabile fact in the case (6. 11, p 581
) At δὲ Σωκράτους ὁρμαὶ τὸ βέβαιον
ἔχονσαι καὶ σφοδρότητα φαίνονται πρὸς
ἅπαν, ὡς ἂν ἐξ ὀρθῆς καὶ ἰσχυρᾶς
ἀφειμέναι κρίσεως καὶ ἀρχῆς. Compare
p 58) K The speculations of the
speakers upon the οὐσία and δύναμις
τοῦ Σωκράτους δαιμονίαν, come to little
result

There is a curious passage in Plu-
tarch’s hfe of Coriolanus (c 32), where
he describes the way in which the
Gods act upon the minds of particular
men, under difficult and tiying cir-
cumstances. They do not inspire
new resolutions or volitions, but they
work upon the associative principle,
suggesting new ideas which conduct
to the appropriate volition—ov3’ ὁρμὰς
ἐνεργαζόμενον, ἀλλὰ φαντασίας ὁρμῶν
aywyous, XC.

424 APOLOGY OF SOKRATES. CuapP. IX.

it in his comments (contained in the dialogue Theztétus) on the
doctrine of Protagoras: he rejects it also in the constructive
dialogues, Republic and Leges, where he constitutes himself
despotic legislator, prescribing a standard of orthodox opinion ;
he proclaims it in the Gorgias, and implies it very generally
throughout the negative dialogues.
Lastly, we find also in the Apology distinct notice of the
formidable efficacy of established public impressions,
Formidable generated without any ostensible author, circulated in

efficacy of
established the common talk, and passing without examination

Beiets, from one man to another, as portions of accredited
oor enat any faith. “My accusers Melétus and Anytus (says
ostensible Sokrates) are difficult enough to deal with: yet far
author. ἈΝ

less difficult than the prejudiced public, who have
heard false reports concerning me for years past, and have con-
tracted a settled belief about my character, from nameless authors
whom 1 cannot summon here to be confuted.”!

It is against this ancient, established belief, passing for know-
ledge—communicated by unconscious contagion without any
rational process—against the “procés jugé mais non plaidé,”
whereby King Nomos governs—that the general mission of
Sokrates is directed. It is against the like belief, nm one of its
countless manifestations, that he here defends hinisclf before the

Dikastery.

1 Plato, Apol. c. 2, p. 18 C-D,

CHapP. X. KRITON. 425

CHAPTER X.
KRITON.

THE dialogue called Kriton is, in one point of view, a second part
or sequel—in another point of view, an antithesis or Gora)
corrective—of the Platonic Apology. For that rea- purpose οἱ
son, I notice it immediately after the Apology; “°™"™°™
though 1 do not venture to affirm confidently that it was com-
posed immediately after: it may possibly have been later, as I
believe the Phadon also to have been later.?

The Kriton describes a conversation between Sokrates and his
friend Kriton in the prison, after condemnation, and subject of
two days before the cup of hemlock was administered, the dialogue
Kriton entreats and urges Sokrates (as the sympa- locutors.
thising friends had probably done frequently during the thirty
days of imprisonment) to make his escape from the prison,
informing him that arrangements have already been made for
enabling him to escape with ease and safety, and that money as
well as good recommendations will be provided, so that he may
dwell comfortably either in Thessaly, or wherever else he
pleases. Sokrates ought not, in justice to his children ard his
friends, to refuse the opportunity offered, and thus tu throw away
his life. Should he do so, it will appear to every one as if his
friends had shamefully failed in their duty, when intervention
on their part might easily have saved him. He might have
avoided the trial altogether : even when on trial, he might easily

1 Steinhart affirms with confidence (Hinleitung, Φ 803). The fact may
that the Kriton was composed im- be so, but I do not feel thus confident
mediately after the Apo ogy, and of it when I look to the analogy of the
shortly after the death of Sokiates later Phiedon.

426 KRITON Cuap. X.

have escaped the capital sentence, Here 1s now a third oppor-
tunity of rescue, which if he declines, it will turn this grave and
painful affair into mockery, as if he and his friends were impotent
simpletons.: Besides the mournful character of the event,
Sokrates and his friends will thus be disgraced in the opinion of
every one.

“Disgraced in the opinion of every one,” replies Sokrates ?
Answer of That is not the proper test by which the propriety of
Sokrates your recommendation must be determined. I am
‘peel now, a8 I always have been, prepared to follow
madeby nothing but that voice of reason which approves
Kriton. itself to me in discussion as the best and soundest.?
We have often discussed this matter before, and the conclusions
on which we agreed are not to be thrown aside because of my
impending death. We agreed that the opinions general among
men ought not to be followed in all cases, but only in some: that
the good opinions, those of the wise men, were to be followed—
the bad opinions, those of the foolish men, to be disregarded. In
the treatment and exercise of the body, we must not attend to the
praise, the blame, or the opinion of every man, but only to those
of the one professional trainer or physician. If we disregard this
one skilful man, and conduct ourselves according to the praise or
blame of the unskilful public, our body will become corrupted
and disabled, so that life itself will not be worth having.

In like manner, on the question what is just and unjust,
He declares honourable or base, good or evil, to which our pre-
ΡΟΝ of Sent subject belongs—we must not yield to the praise
the general and censure of the many, but only to that of the one,

1 Plato, Krito. c. 5, p. 45 E. ws
ἔγωγε καὶ ὑπὲρ σοῦ καὶ ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν τῶν
σῶν ἐπιτηδείων αἰσχύνομαι, μὴ δόξῃ
ἅπαν τὸ πρᾶγμα τὸ περὶ σὲ ἀνανδρίᾳ
τινὶ τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ πεπρᾶχθαι, καὶ ἡ
εἴσοδος τῆς δίκης εἰς τὸ δικαστήριον, ὡς
εἰσῆλθες, ἐξὸν μὴ εἰσελθεῖν, καὶ αὐτὸς
ὁ ἀγὼν τῆς δίκης ὡς ἐγένετο, καὶ τὸ
τελευταῖον δὴ τουτί, ὥσπερ καταγέλως
τῆς πράξεως, κακίᾳ τινὶ καὶ ἀνανδρίᾳ
τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ διαπεφενγέναι ἡμᾶς δοκεῖν,
οἰτινές σε οὐχὶ ἐσώσαμεν οὐδὲ σὺ
σαντόν, οἷόν τε καὶ δυνατόν, εἴ τι καὶ
σμικρὸν ἡμῶν ὄφελος ἦν.

This is a remarkable passage, as

evincing that both the trial and the
death of Sokrates, even in the opinion
of his own friends, might have been
avoided without anything which they
conceived to be dishonourable to his
character.

Professor Kéchly puts this point
very forcibly in his Vortrag, referred
to in my notes on the Platonic Apology,
p. seq.

2 Plato, Krito. c. 6, p. 46 B. ὡς ἐγὼ
ov μόνον νῦν ἀλλα καὶ ἀεὶ τοιοῦτος,
οἷος τῶν ἐμῶν μηδενὶ ἄλλῳ πείθεσθαι ἣ
τῷ λόγῳ, ὃς ἂν μοι λογιζομένῳ βέλτιστος
φαίνηται.

CHaP X. CARDINAL PRINCIPLE OF SOKRATES.

whoever he may be, who is wise un these matters.}
We must be afraid and ashamed of him more
than of all the rest. Not the verdict of the many,
but that of the one man skilful about just and unjust,
and that of truth itself, must be listened to. Other-
wise we shall suffer the like debasement and corrup-
tion of mind as of body in the former case. Life will
become yet more worthless.

427

public is
not worthy
of trust : he
appeals to
the judg-
ment of the
one Expert,
who is wise
on the
matter in
debate.

True—the many may put us to

death. But what we ought to care for most, is, not simply to

live, but to live well, justly, honourably.?
Sokrates thus proceeds :—

The point to be decided, therefore, with reference to your pro-

position, Kriton, is, not what will be generally said if I decline,
but whether it will be just or unjust—right or wrong—if I com-
ply ; that is, if I consent to escape from prison against the will

of the Athenians and against the sentence of law.

To decide the point, I assume this principle, which we have

often before agreed upon in our reasonings, and

which must.stand unshaken now. laid. ciples
We ought not in any case whatever to act wrong or ΕΥ͂ eokrates
unjustly. To act so isin every case both bad for the mining the
. question
agent and dishonourable to the agent, whatever may with Kri-
be its consequences. Even though others act wrong proceatinn®
to us, We ought not to act wrong to them in return. recom |
Even though others do evil to us, we ought not to do just or
evil to them in return.‘ Rnjust!
ες νος ς ever in
This is the principle which I assume as true, though any case
I know that very few persons hold it, or ever will ean”
hold it. Most men say the contrary—that when Sokrates
other persons do wrong or harm to us, we may do admits that
wrong or harm to them in return. This is a cardinal agree with
point. Between those who affirm it, and those who him, and

1 Plato, Krito. 6. 7, p. 47 C-D. καὶ

οὕτω φροντιστέον 3, τι ἐροῦσιν οἱ πολλοὶ

δὴ καὶ περὶ τῶν δικαίων καὶ ἀδίκων, και ἡμᾶς, ἀλλ᾽ 6; τι ὁ ἐπαΐων περὶ τῶν δικαίων

“- . a , Φ a 5 Ss 2 pe
αἰσχρῶν καὶ καλῶν, καὶ ἀγαθῶν καὶ καὶ ἀδίκων,
A ε LS ~
κακῶν, περὶ ὧν viv ἡ βονλὴ ἡμὶν ἐστιν,
πότερον τῇ τῶν πολλῶν δόξῃ δεῖ ἡμᾶς

ἕπεσθαι καὶ φοβεῖσθαι αὐτήν, ἢ τῇ τοῦ δὴ τῆς σκέ

εἷς, καὶ αὐτὴ ἡ ἀλήθεια,
2 Plato, Krito. 6. 7-8, pp. 47-48.
ὃ Plato, Krito. c. 9, p. 48 E. ὅρα δὲ

ews τὴν ἀρχῆν, .
ἑνός, εἴ τίς ἐστιν ἐπαΐων, bv δεῖ καὶ aic- 4 Plato, Krito. c. 10, p. 49 Β. Οὐδὲ

χύνεσθαι καὶ φοβεῖσθαι μᾶλλον ἣ ξύμ-
παντας τοὺς ἄλλους ;

6. 8, p. 48 A. Οὐκ dpa wavy ἡμῖν δεῖ ἀδικεῖν, ὅσ,

ἀδικούμενον dpa ἀνταδικεῖν, ὡς οἱ
ν [4 ~
πολλοὶ οἵονται, ἐπειδή ye οὐδαμῶς

428

KRITON. Cuap. X.
that most deny it, there can be no common measure or reason-
oldthe ing. Reciprocal contempt is the sentiment with
ob posite which, by necessity, each contemplates the other’s
but he resolutions.’
that the Sokrates then delivers a well-known and eloquent
point is pleading, wherein he imagines the Laws of Athens to
Pleadi remonstrate with him on his purpose of secretly
supposed quitting the prison, in order to evade a sentence
to be at by logally pronounced. By his birth, and long residence
the Laws of in Athens, he has entered into a covenant to obey
Sokrates, exactly and faithfully what the laws prescribe.
demanding ‘Though the laws should deal unjustly with him, he has
implicit no right of redress against them—neither by open dis-
obedience.

obedience, nor force, nor evasion. Their rights over
him are even more uncontrolled and indefeasible than those of
his father and mother. The laws allow to every citizen full
liberty of trying to persuade the assembled public: but the
citizen who fails in persuading, must obey the public when they
enact a law adverse to his views. Sokrates having been distin-
guished beyond all others for the constancy of his residence at
Athens, has thus shown that he was well satisfied with the city,
and with those laws without which it could not exist as a city.
If he now violates his covenants and his duty, by breaking
prison like a runaway slave, he will forfeit all the reputation to
which he has pretended during his long life, as a preacher of
justice and virtue.?

This striking discourse, the general drift of which I have

Purpose of briefly described, appears intended by Plato—as far as
Fle plead- I can pretend to guess at his purpose—to set forth the

ing—to pre- personal character and dispositions of Sokrates in a

dispositions light different from that which they present in the

1Plato, Krito. c. 10, p. 49 D. Οἵδα κῶς πάσχοντα ἀμύνεσθαι ἀντιδρῶντα
γὰρ ὅτι ὀλίγοις τισὶ ταῦτα καὶ δοκεῖ κακῶς.
καὶ δόξει’ Οἷς οὖν οὕτω δέδοκται καὶ Compare the opposite impulse, to

ols μή, τούτοις οὐκ ἔστι κοινὴ

βονλή, ἀλλ᾽ ἀνάγκη τούτους
ἀλλήλων καταφρονεῖν, ὁρῶν-

revenge yourself upon your country
from which you believe yourself to
have received wrong, set forth in the

τας TA ἀλλήλων βονλεύματα.
Σκόπει δὴ οὖν καὶ σὺ εὖ μάλα, πότερον
κοινωνεῖς καὶ ξυνδοκεῖ σοι" καὶ apy w-
μεθα ἐντεῦθεν βουλενόμενοι,
ὡς οὐδέποτε ὀρθῶς ἔχοντος οὔτε τοῦ
ἀδικεῖν οὔτε τοῦ ἀνταδικεῖν, οὔτε κα-

speech of Alkibiades at Sparta after he
had been exiled by the Athenians.
Thucyd. vi. 92. τό re φιλόπολι οὐκ
ἐν ᾧ ἀδικοῦμαι ἔχω, ἀλλ᾽ ἐν ᾧ ἀσφαλῶς
ἐπολιτεύθην

ἣν.
2 Plato, Krito. 6. 11-17, pp. 50-54.

CHapP. Χ.

Apology. In defending himself before the Dikasts,
Sokrates had exalted himself into a position which
would undoubtedly be construed by his auditors as
disobedience and defiance to the city and its institu-
tions. He professed to be acting under a divine mis-
sion, which was of higher authority than the enact-
ments of his countrymen: he warned them against
condemning him, because his condemnation would be

PLEADING OF THE LAWS.

429

of Sokrates
in a light
different
from that
which the
ology
had pre.
sented—
unqualified
submission
instead of
deflance

a mischief, not to him, but to them—and because by doing so
they would repudiate and maltreat the missionary sent to them
by the Delphian God as a valuable present.!. In the judgment of
the Athenian Dikasts, Sokrates by using such language had put
himself above the laws; thus confirming the charge which his
accusers advanced, and which they justified by some of his public

remarks.

He had manifested by unmistakable language the same

contempt for the Athenian constitution as that which had been
displayed in act by Kritias and Alkibiades,? with whom his own

name was associated as teacher

1 Plato, Apol. c. 17-18, p. 29-30.

2 This was among the charges urged
against Sokrates by Anytus and the
other accusers (Xen. Mem. i. 2, 9.
ὑπερορᾷν ἐποίει τῶν καθεστώτων νόμων
τοὺς συνόντας). It was also the judg-
ment formed respecting Sokrates by
the Roman censor, the elder Cato; a
man very much like the Athenian
Anytus, constitutional and patriotic as
a citizen, devoted to the active duties
of political life, but thoroughly averse
to philosophy and speculative debate,
as Anytus is depicted in the Menon of
Plato.—Plutarch, Cato c. 23, a passage
already cited in a note on the chapter
next but one preceding.

The accusation of ‘ putting himself
above the laws,” appears in the same
way in the Nubes of Aristophanes,
1036-1400, &c. :--

ws ἡδὺ καινοῖς mpaypacw καὶ δεξιοῖς
ὁμιλεῖν

τῶν καθεστώτων νόμων ὑπερ
φρονεῖν δύνασθαι.

Compare the rhetor Aristeides—
Ὑπὲρ τῶν Τεττάρων, p. ; vol. iii.

p. 480, Dindorf.

3 The dramatic position of Sokrates
has been compared by Kéchly, p. 382,
very suitably with that of Antigoné,

who, in burying her deceased brother,

»
και

and companion. Xenophon in

acts upon her own sense of right and
family affections, in deflance of an
express interdict from sovereign autho-
rity. This tragical conflict of obli-
gations, indicated by Aristotle as an
ethical question suited for dialectic
debate (Topic. i. p. 105, b. 22), was
handled by all the three great tra-
gedians; and has been ennobled by
Sophokles in one of his best remaining
tragedies. The Platonic Apology pre-
sents many points of analogy with the
Antigoné, while the Platonic Kriton
carries us into an opposite vein of
sentiment. Sokrates after sentence,
and Antigoné after sentence, are totally
different persons. The young maiden,
though adhering with unshaken con-
viction to the rectitude of her past
disobedience, cannot submit to the
sentence of death without complaint
and protestation. Though above all
fear she is clamorous in remonstrances
against both the injustice of the sen-
tence and the untimely close of her
career: so that she is obliged to he
dragged away by the officers (Soph.
Antig. 870-877; compare 497-508, with
Plato, Krito. Ρ 49 C; Apolog. p. 28
D, 29 ©). All these points enhance
the interest of the piece, and are
suited to a destined bride in the flower
of herage. But an old philosopher of

KRITON.

430 Cuap. X

his Memorabilia recognises this impression as prevalent among
his countrymen against Sokrates, and provides what he thinks a
suitable answer to it. Plato also has his way of answering
it; and such I imagine to be the dramatic purpose of the
Kriton.

This dialogue puts into the mouth of Sokrates a rhetorical
harangue forcible and impressive, which he supposes

Harangue

of pokrates, himself to hear from personified Nomos or Athens,
the name of claiming for herself and her laws plenary and un-
the tas, , measured obedience from all her citizens, as a cove-
beenap- nant due to her from each. He declares his own
lauded b . : .

all the ὟΝ heartfelt adhesion to the claim. Sokrates is thus
mocratices made to express the feelings and repeat the language
Athens. of a devoted democratical patriot. His doctrine is

one which every Athenian audience would warmly applaud—
whether heard from speakers in the assembly, from ltigants in
the Dikastery, or from dramatists in the theatre. It is a doc-
trine which orators of all varieties (Perikles, Nikias, Kleon,
Lysis, Isokrates, Demosthenes, Aischines, Lykurgus) would be
alike emphatic in upholding: upon which probably Sophists
habitually displayed their own eloquence, and tested the talents
of their pupils. It may be considered as almost an Athenian
common-place. Hence it is all the better fitted for Plato’s
purpose of restoring Sokrates to harmony with his fellow-
citizens. It serves as his protestation of allegiance to Athens,
in reply to the adverse impressions prevalent against him. The
only singularity which bestows special pertinence on that which
is in substance a discourse of venerated common-place, is—that
Sokrates proclaims and applies his doctrine of absolute submis-

seventy years of age has no such attach-
ment to life remaining. He contem-
plates death with the eye of calm
reason : he has not only silenced ‘‘ the
child within us who fears death” (to
use the remarkable phrase of Plato
Phedon, p. 77 E), but he knows well
that what remains to him of life must be
short ; that it will probably be of little
value, with diminished powers, mental
as well as bodily ; and that if passed
in exile, it will be of no value at all.
To close his life with dignity is the
best thing which can happen to him.
While by escape from the prison he

would have gained little or nothing;
he is enabled, by refusing the means of
escape, to manifest an ostentatious
deference to the law, and to make
peace with the Athenian authorities
after the opposition which had been
declared in his Apology. Both in the
Kriton and in the Pheedon, Sokrates
exhibits the specimen of a man adher-
ing to previous conviction, unaffected
by impending death, and by the appre-
hensions which that season brings upon
ordinary minds; estimating all things
then as before, with the same tranquil
and independent reason.

Cuap, Χ. HARANGUE OF SOKRATES. 431

sion, under the precise circumstances in which many others,
generally patriotic, might be disposed to recede from it—where
he is condemned (unjustly, in his own persuasion) to suffer death
—yet has the opportunity to escape. He is thus presented as a
citizen not merely of ordinary loyalty but of extraordinary
patriotism. Moreover his remarkable constancy of residence at
Athens is produced as evidence, showing that the city was
eminently acceptable to him, and that he had no cause of con-
plaint against it.

Throughout all this eloquent appeal addressed by Athens to
her citizen Sokrates, the points insisted on are those
common to him with other citizens: the marked he bar
specialties of his character being left unnoticed. fist 8 upon
Such are the points suitable to the purpose (rather mon to
Xenophontic than Platonic, herein) of the Kriton ; Sokrates

a with other:
when Sokrates is to be brought back within the pale citizens,

of democratical citizenship, and exculpated from the the specie
charge of incivism. But when we read the language [es of his
of Sokrates both in the Apology and in the Gorgias,
we find a very different picture given of the relations between
him and Athens. We find him there presented as an isolated
and eccentric individual, a dissenter, not only departing alto-
gether from the character and purposes general among his fellow-
citizens, but also certain to incur dangerous antipathy, in so far
as he publicly proclaimed what he was. The Kriton takes him
up as having become a victim to such antipathy: yet as recun-
ciling himself with the laws by voluntarily accepting the
sentence ; and as persuaded to do 80, moreover, by a piece of
rhetoric imbued with the most genuine spirit of constitutional
democracy. It is the compromise of his long-standing dissent
with the reigning orthodoxy, just before his death Ἔν εὐφημίᾳ
χρὴ τελευτᾷν."

Still, however, though adopting the democratical vein οὗ senti-
ment for this purpose, Sokrates is made to adopt it stil so.
on aground peculiar to himself. His individuality rates is

represented
is thus upheld. He holds the sentence pronounced as adopting

1 Plato, Krito. c. 14, p. 52 B. οὐ D. φέρε yap, τί ἐγκαλῶν ἡλῖν re καὶ TH
γὰρ av more τῶν ἄλλων ᾿Αθηναίων amdv- πόλει ἐπιχειρεῖς ἡμᾶς ἀπολλύναι;
τῶν διαφερόντως ἐν αὐτῇ ἐπεδήμεις, εἰ 9 "-
μή σοι διαφερόντως ἤρεσκε" Ο. 12, p. 50 Plato, Pheedon, p. 117 Ὁ.

432 KRITON. CuHap, Χ.

the resolu- against him to have been unjust, but he renounces all
tion to obey,
from his - use of that plea, because the sentence has been legally

tion cqnvice pronounced by the judicial authority of the city, and
reason because he has entered into a covenant with the city.

weighs with He entertains the firm conviction that no one ought
him, but to act unjustly, or to do evil to others, in any case ;
would not not even in the case in which they have done in-
weigh ἢ. . . ἢ .
others. justice or evil to him. “This (says Sokrates) is my
conviction, and the principle of my reasoning. Few persons
do accept it, or ever will: yet between those who do accept it,
and those who do not—there can be no common counsel: by
necessity of the case, each looks upon the other, and upon the
reasonings of the other, with contempt.” 1

This general doctrine, peculiar to Sokrates, is decisive per se, in
Thehar- its application to the actual case, and might have
a eel been made to conclude the dialogue. But Sokrates
from this introduces it as a foundation to the arguments urged
πο ταὶς but by the personified Athenian Nomos :—which, how-
represents ever, are not corollaries from it, nor at all peculiar to

eelings ;

common Sokrates, but represent sentiments held by the
‘\thorian Athenian democrats more cordially than they were
citizens. = by Sokrates. It is thus that the dialogue Kriton
embodies, and tries to reconcile, both the two distinct elements—
constitutional allegiance, and Sokratic individuality.

Apart from the express purpose of this dialogue, however, the
Emphatic general doctrine here proclaimed by Sokrates deserves
declaration attention, in regard to the other Platonic dialogues
of the au- . . . .
thority of . which we shall soon review. The doctrine involves
individual an emphatic declaration of the paramount authority
conacience, of individual reason and conscience; for the indi-
individual Vidual himself—but for him alone. “This (says
himself, § Sokrates) is, and has long been my conviction. It is
the basis of the whole reasoning. Look well whether you agree
to it: for few persons do agree to it, or ever will: and between
those who do and those who do not, there can be no common
deliberation : they must of necessity despise each other.” Here
we have the Protagorean dogma, Homo Mensura—which Sokrates

will be found combating in the Theetétus— proclaimed by

1 Plato, Kriton c. 10, p. 49 D. ; see p. 428, note i.

Cuap. X. RHETORICAL. 433

Sokrates himself. As things appear to me, so they are to me: as
they appear to you, so they are to you. My reason and con-
science is the measure for me: yours for you. It is for you to
see whether yours agrees with mine.

I shall revert to this doctrine in handling other Platonic dia-
logues, particularly the Thestétus.

I have already observed that the tone of the Kriton is rhetori-
cal, not dialectical—especially the harangue ascribed The Kriton
to Athens. The business of the rhetorician is to isrhetorical,
plant and establish some given point of persuasion, fesse
whether as to a general resolution or a particular ference he-
fact, in the bosoms of certain auditors before him: toric and
hence he gives prominence and emphasis to some Di#lectic.
views of the question, suppressing or discrediting others, and
especially keeping out of sight all the difficulties surrounding
the conclusion at which he is aiming. On the other hand, the
business of the dialectician is, not to establish any foreknown
conclusion, but to find out which among all supposable con-
clusions are untenable, and which is the most tenable or best.
Hence all the difficulties attending every one of them must be
brought fully into view and discussed : until this has been done,
the process is not terminated, nor can we tell whether any
assured conclusion is attainable or not.

Now Plato, in some of his dialogues, especially the Gorgias,
greatly depreciates rhetoric and its purpose of persuasion : else-
where he employs it himself with ability and effect. The dis-
course which we read in the Kriton is one of his best specimens :
appealing to pre-established and widespread emotions, veneration
for parents, love of country, respect for covenants—to justify the
resolution of Sokrates in the actual case: working up these senti-
ments into fervour, but neglecting all difficulties, limits, and
counter-considerations : assuming that the familiar phrases of
ethics and politics are perfectly understood and indisputable.

But these last-mentioned elements—difficulties, qualifications,
necessity for definitions even of the most hackneyed 4, gyiton
words—would have been brought into the foreground makes
had Sokrates pursued the dialectical path, which (as posal to
we know both from Xenophon and Plato) was his real tt ee bat
habit and genius. He was perpetually engaged (says overlooks

1—28

434

the ratio-
cinative
difficulties,
or supposes
them to be
solved.

KRITON.

Cuap. Χ.

Xenophon’) in dialectic enquiry. “What is the Holy,
what is the Unholy? What is the Honourable and
the Base? What is the Just and the Unjust? &c.”
Now in the rhetorical appeal embodied in the

Kriton, the important question, What is the Just and the
Unjust (ie. Justice and Injustice in general), is assumed to be

already determined and out of the reach of dispute.

We are

called upon to determine what is just and unjust in a particular
case, as if we already knew what justice and injustice meant
generally : to inquire about modifications of justice, before we

have ascertained its essence.

This is the fundamental assump-

tion involved in the rhetorical process ; which assumption we
shall find Plato often deprecating as unphilosophical and pre-

posterous.

So far indeed Sokrates goes in this dialogue, to affirm a

1Xenoph. Mem. i. 1, 16. Αὐτὸς
δὲ περὶ τῶν ἀνθρωπείων ἀεὶ διελέγετο,
σκοπῶν, τί εὐσεβές, τί ἀσεβές τί κα-
Adv, τί αἰσχρόν" τί δίκαιον, τί ἄδικον"
τί σωφροσύνη, τί μανία" τί ἀνδρεία, τί
δειλία" τί πόλις, τί πολιτικός" τί ἀρχὴ
ἀνθρώπων, τί ἀρχικὸς ἀνθρώπων, &.
e see in Xenoph. Memor. i. 2, 40-46,
iv. 2, 37, in the Platonic dialogue Mi-
nos and elsewhere, the number of dia-
lectic questions which Sokrates might
have brought to bear upon the harangue
in the Kriton, had it been delivered by
any opponent whom he sought to per-
lex or confute. What is a law?
hat are the limits of obedience to
the laws? Are there no limits (as
Hobbes is so much denounced for
maintaining)? While the oligarchy of
Thirty were the constituted authority
at Athens, they ordered Sokrates him-
self, vogether with four other citizens,
to go and arrest a citizen whom they
considered dangerous to the state, the
Salaminian Leon. The other four
obeyed the order; Sokrates alone dis-
obeyed, and takes credit for having
done so, considering Leon to be inno-
sent. Which was in the right here?
the four obedient citizens, or the one
disohedient? Might not the four have
used substantially the same arguments
to justify their obedience, as those
which Sokrates hears from personified
Athens in the Kriton? We must re-
member that the Thirty had come into
authority by resolutions passed under
constitutional forms, when fear of

foreign enemies induced the people to
sanction the resolutions proposed by a
party among themselves. The Thirty
also ordered Sokrates to abstain from
discourse with young men; he dis-
obeyed (Xenoph. Memor. iv. 4,3). Was
he right in disobeying ?

I have indicated briefly these ques-
tions, to show how completely the rhe.
torical manner of the Kriton submerges
all those difficulties, which would form
the special matter of genuine Sokratic
dialectics.

Schleiermacher (Einleit. zum Kri-
ton, pp. 238, 234) considers the Kriton
as a composition of special occasion—
Gelegenheitsschrift—which I think is
true; but which may be said also, in my
judgment, of every Platonic dialogue.

he term, however, in Schleiermacher’s
writing, has a peculiar meaning, viz.
a composition for which there is no
place in the regular rank and file of
the Platonic dialogues, as he marshals
them. He remarks the absence of dia-
lectic in the Kriton, and he adduces
this as one reason for supposing it not
to be genuine

But it is no surprise to me to find
Plato rhetorical in one dialogue, dia-
lectical in others. Variety, and want
of system, seem to me among his most
manifest attributes.

The view taken of the Kriton by
Steinhart (Einleit. pp. 291-302), in the
first page of his very rhetorical Intro-
duction, coincides pretty much with
mine.

Crap, X. THE PUBLIC INCOMPETENT. 435

positive analogy. That Just and Honourable are, to the mind,
what health and strength are to the body :—Unjust and Base,
what distemper and weakness are to the body. And he follows
this up by saying, that the general public are incompetent to de-
termine what is just or honourable—as they are incompetent to
decide what is wholesome or unwholesome. Respecting both
one and the other, you must consult some one among the pro-
fessional Experts, who alone are competent to advise.?

Both these two doctrines will be found recurring often, in our
survey of the dialogues, The first of the two is an

obscure and imperfect reply to the great Sokratic tne of
problem—What is Justice? What is Injustice? but the general
it is an analogy useful to keep in mind, as a help to ἰδιῶται"
the exposition of many passages in which Plato is yet {ft oles
more obscure. The second of the two will also recur ΣΝ

frequently. It sets out an antithesis of great moment
in the Platonic dialogues—“ The one specially instructed, pro-
fessional, theorizing, Expert—vwersus (the ἰδιῶται of the time and
place, or) common sense, common sentiment, intuition, instinct,
prejudice,” &c. (all these names meaning the same objective
reality, but diversified according as the speaker may happen to
regard the particular case to which he is alluding). This anti-
thesis appears as an answer when we put the question— What is
the ultimate authority ? where does the right of final decision
reside, on problems and disputes ethical, political, sesthetical ?
It resides (Sokrates here answers) with some one among a few
professional Experts. They are the only persons competent.

I shall go more fully into this question elsewhere. Here
I shall merely notice the application which Sokrates ,,

ς . . rocedure

makes (in the Kriton) of the general doctrine. We of Sokrates

might anticipate that after having declared that none
was fit to pronounce upon the Just and the Unjust,
except a professional Expert,—he would have pro-
ceeded to name some person corresponding to that
designation—to justify the title of that person to con-
fidence by such evidences as Plato requires in other
dialogues—and then to cite the decision of the judge

after this
comparison
has been
declared—
he does not
name who
the trust-
worthy
Expert is.

named, on

the case in hand. This is what Sokrates would have done, if the

1 Plato, Kriton, c. 7, ἢ. 47D. τοῦ ἑνὸς, et ris ἐστιν ἐπαΐων, &c.

436 KRITON. CuapP. X.

case had been one of health or sickness. He would have said—
“YT appeal to Hippokrates, Akumenus, &c., as professional
Experts on medicine: they have given proof of competence
by special study, successful practice, writing, teaching, &c. :
they pronounce so and so”. He would not have considered
himself competent to form a judgment or announce a decision of

his own.
But here, when the case in hand is that of Just and Unjust,
the conduct of Sokrates is altogether different. He

Sokrates | gpecifies no professional Expert, and he proceeds to
Expert lay down a dogma of his own ; in which he tells us
imself : . “ye

he finds that few or none will agree, though it is funda-

puthority mental, so that dissenters on the point must despise
reason and each other as heretics. We thus see that it is he
alone who steps in to act himself the part of profes-
sional Expert, though he does not openly assume the title. The
ultimate authority is proclaimed in words to reside with some
unnamed Expert: in fact and reality, he finds it in his own
reason and conscience. You are not competent to judge for
yourself: you must consult the professional Expert : but your
own reason and conscience must signify to you who the Expert
is.
The analogy here produced by Plato—of questions about
health and sickness—is followed out only in its negative opera-
tion ; as it serves to scare away the multitude, and discredit the
Vox Populi. But when this has been done, no oracular man
can be produced or authenticated. In other dialogues, we shall
find Sokrates regretting the absence of such an oracular man,
but professing inability to proceed without him. In the Kriton,
he undertakes the duty himself; unmindful of the many
emphatic speeches in which he had proclaimed his own igno-
rance, and taken credit for confessing it without reserve,

Cuap. XI. EUTHYPHRON. 437

CHAPTER XL
EUTHYPHRON,

THE dialogue called Euthyphron, over and above its contribution
to the ethical enquiries of Plato, has a certain bearing on the
character and exculpation of Sokrates. It will therefore come
conveniently in immediate sequel to the Apology and the
Kriton.

The indictment by Melétus against Sokrates is assumed to
have been formally entered in the office of the King gination
Archon. Sokrates has come to plead to it. In the See ae
portico before that office, he meets Euthyphron: a - inter.
man of ultra-pious pretensions, possessing special locutors.
religious knowledge (either from revelation directly to himself,
or from having been initiated in the various mysteries conse-
crated throughout Greece), delivering authoritative opinions on
doubtful theological points, and prophesying future events.}

What brings you here, Sokrates (asks Euthyphron), away
from your usual haunts? Is it possible that any one can have
preferred an indictment against you ?

Yes (replies Sokrates), a young man named Melétus. He
takes commendable interest in the training of youth, I

ae ndictment
and has indicted me as a corruptor of youth. He by Melétus
says that I corrupt them by teaching belief in new 282inst ὦ
gods, and unbelief in the true and ancient Gods. Antipatny ΜΆ

Euthyph.—I understand : it is because you talk nians to-
about the Demon or Genius often communicating Wards those
with you, that Melétus calls you an innovator in heretical
religion. He knows that such calumnies find ready opinions.

1 Plato, Euthyphr. c. 2, p.“°3 Ὁ ; compare Herodot. ii. 51.

438 EUTHYPHRON. Cuap. XI.

admission with most minds.? So also, people laugh at me, when
I talk about religion, and when I predict future events in the
assembly, It must be from jealousy ; because all that I have
predicted has come true.

Sokr.—To be laughed at is no great matter. The Athenians
do not care much when they regard a man as overwise, but as
not given to teach his wisdom to others: but when they regard
him besides, as likely to make others such as he is himself, they
become seriously angry with him—be it from jealousy, as you
say, or from any other cause. You keep yourself apart, and
teach no one: for my part, I delight in nothing so much as in
teaching all that I know. If they take the matter thus seriously,
the result may be very doubtful.?

Sokrates now learns what is Euthyphron’s business at the

archontic office. Euthyphron is prosecuting an in-

Euthyphron dictment before the King Archon, against his own
ret petin , father; as having caused the death of a dependent
anindict- workman, who in a fit of intoxication had quarrelled
ment for with and killed a fellow-servant. The father of
against his Euthyphron, upon this occurrence, bound the homi-
—Displea- cide hand and foot, and threw him into a ditch: at
sure of ΠΟ the same time sending to the Exégétés (the canonical
the ing. adviser, supposed to be conversant with the divine
sanctions, whom it was customary to consult when
doubts arose about sacred things) to ask what was to be done
with him, The incident occurred at Naxos, and the messenger
was sent to the Exégétés at Athens: before he could return, the
prisoner had perished, from hunger, cold, and bonds. Euthy-
phron has indicted his father for homicide, as having caused the
death of the prisoner: who (it would appear) had remained in
the ditch, tied hand and foot, without food, and with no more
than his ordinary clothing, during the time occupied in the
voyage from Naxos to Athens, in obtaining the answer of the

Exégétés, and in returning to Naxos.

,) Plato, Euthyph. c. 2, p. 3 B: φησὶ 2 Plato, Euthyphr. c. 8, p. 8 C.-D.
γάρ we ποιητὴν εἶναι θεῶν καὶ ὡς καινοὺς ᾿Αθηναίοις γὰρ ov σφόδρα μέλει, av τινα
ποιοῦντα θεούς, τοὺς δ᾽ ἀρχαίους οὐ δεινὸν οἴωνται εἶναι, μὴ μέντοι διδασκα-
νομίζοντα, ἐγράψατο τούτων αὐτῶν λικὸν τῆς αὐτοῦ σοφίας" ὃν δ᾽ ἂν καὶ
ἕνεκα, ὥς φησιν. ο.δ,». 6 4Α.: αὐτοσχεδιά- ἄλλους οἴωνται ποιεῖν τοιούτους, θυ-
ζοντα καὶ καινοτομοῦντα περὶ τῶν θείων μοῦνται, εἶτ᾽ οὖν φθόνῳ, ὡς σὺ λέγεις,
ἐξαμαρτάνειν. εἴτε δι᾽ ἄλλο τι.

CHap XL INDICTMENT FOR MURDER. 439

My friends and relatives (says Euthyphron) cry out against me
for this proceeding, as if I were mad. They say that my father
did not kill the man:! that even if he had, the man had com-
mitted murder : lastly, that however the case may have been, to
indict my own father is monstrous and inexcusable. Such rea-
soning is silly. The only point to be considered is, whether my
father killed the deceased justly or unjustly. If justly there is
nothing to be said ; if unjustly, then my father becomes a man
tainted with impiety and accursed. I and every one else, who,
knowing the facts, live under the same roof and at the same
table with him, come under the like curse ; unless I purify my-
self by bringing him to justice. The course which I am now
taking 1s prescribed by piety or holiness) My friends indeed
tell me that it is unholy for a son to indict his father. But I
know better than they, what holiness is: and I should be
ashamed of myself if I did not.”

. , Euthyphron
I confess myself (says Sokrates) ignorant respecting expresses
the question,? and I shall be grateful if you will teach dence that
me: the rather as I shall be able to defend myself {his step οὗ
better against Melétus. Tell me what is the general required
constituent feature of Holiness? What is that com- ranted by
mon essence, or same character, which belongs to piety or’
and distinguishes all holy or pious acts? What is Sokrates
. . sys ‘ asks him
that common opposite essence, which distinguishes all τ μαι i
oliness

unholy or impious acts 74

1 According to the Attic law every

8. 81, Pp 139. The argument here em-
citizen was bound, in case any one of b

loyed by Kuthyphron is used also by

his relatives (μέχρις ἀνεψιαδῶν) or any
member of his household (oixérns) had
been put to death, to come forward as
rosecutor and indict the murderer.
This was binding upon the citizen
alike in law and in religion.
Demosthen. cont. Euerg. et Mnesi-
bul. p. 1161. Jul. Pollux, viii. 118.
Euthyphron would thus have been
considered as acting with propriety, if
the person indicted had been a stranger.
2 Plato, Euthyphron, 6. 4, Ρ. 4. Re-
specting the μίασμα, which a person
who had committed criminal homicide
was supposed to carry about with him
wherever he went, communicating it
both to places and to companions, see
Antiphon. Tetralog. i, 2, 5, 10: iii. 5.
7, p. 116; and De Herodis Cade

he Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias
480 C-D. If a man has committe

injustice, punishment is the only way
of curing him. That he should escape
unpunished is the worst thing that
can happen to him. If you yourself,
or your father, or your friend, have
committed injustice, do not seek to avert
the punishment either from yourself or
them, but rather invoke it. is is
exactly what Euthyphron is doing, and
what the Platonic Sokrates (in dialogue
Euthyphron) calls in question.

8 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 6 B.
τί yap Kat φήσομεν, οἵ ye καὶ αὐτοὶ
ὁμολογοῦμεν περὶ αὐτῶν μηδὲν εἰδέναι;

4Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 5 D.
Among the various reasons (none of
them valid in my judgment) given by

440

EUTHYPHRON. Cnap. XI.

It is holy (replies Euthyphron) to do what 1 am now doing. to
bring to justice the man who commits impiety, either by homi-
cide or sacrilege or any other such crime, whoever he be—even

Euthyphron
alludes to
the punish-
ment of
Uranus by
his son
Kronus, and
of Kronus
by his son
Zeus,

though it be your own father. The examples of the
Gods teach us this. Kronus punished his father
Uranus for wrong-doing: Zeus, whom every one
holds to be the best and justest of the Gods, did
the like by his father Kronus. I only follow their
example. Those who blame my conduct contra-
dict themselves when they talk about the (Gods

and about me.!
Do you really confidently believe these stories (asks Sokrates),

Sokrates
intimates
his own
hesitation
in believing
these stories
of discord

declares his
full belief
in them, as
well as in

einak:
Similar

narratives,
not in so
much
circulation.

are ignorant.

as well as many others about the discord and conflicts
among the Gods, which are circulated among the
public by poets and painters? For my part, I have
some repugnance in believing them ;? it is for this
reason probably, I am now to be indicted, and pro-
claimed as doing wrong. If you tell me that you are
persuaded of their truth, I must bow to your superior
knowledge. I cannot help doing so, since for my
part I pretend to no knowledge whatever about
them.

I am persuaded that these narratives are true (says
Euthyphron): and not only they, but many other
narratives yet more surprising, of which most persons
I can tell you some of them, if you like to hear.

You shall tell me another time (replies Sokrates): now let me
repeat my question to you respecting holiness.*

Ueberweg
suspecting

ὅσιον.

Untersuch. Ὁ.
he authenticity of the
Euthyphron, one is that τὸ ἀνόσιον 1856. Ὁ
reckoned as an εἶδος as well
é Ueberweg seems to think this
absurd, since he annexes to the word
a note of admiration. But Plato ex-

We see here that Euthyphron is
made to follow out the precept delivered
the Platonic Sokrates in the Them-
tétus and elsewhere—to make himself
as like to the Gods as possible—(o,ot-
wots θεῷ κατὰ τὸ δυνατόν. Thestét.
p. 176 B; compare Pheedrus, 252 C
only that he conceives the attributes

251) for

as 7d

pressly gives τὸ ἄδικον ΔΒ an εἶδος,
along with τὸ δίκαιον (Repub. ν. 476
A); and one of the objections taken
against his theory by Aristotle was,
that it’ would assume substantive
Ideas corresponding to negative terms
--τῶν ἀποφάσεων ἰδέας. See Aristot,
Metaphys. A. 990, Ὁ. 18, with the
Scholion of Alexander, p. 565, a. 81 r.
1 Plato, Euthyphron, p. 5-6.

and proceedings of the Gods differently
from Sokrates.

2 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 6 A.
“Apa ye τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν, οὗ ἕνεκα τὴν γραφὴν
φεύγω, ὅτι τὰ τοιαῦτα ἐπειδάν τις περὶ
τῶν θεῶν λέγῃ, δυσχερῶς πως ἀπο-
δέχομαι; be ἃ Re ὡς ἔοικε, φήσεωτίς με
ἐξαμαρτάνειν.

Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 6 C.

Cuap. ΧΙ, ORTHODOXY AND FREETHOUGHT

441

Before we pursue this enquiry respecting holiness, which 1s the
portion of the dialogue bearing on the Platonic ethics,

I will say one word on the portion which has pre- Beating of

ceded, and which appears to bear on the position and logue on the
character of Sokrates. He (Sokrates) has incurred positions of
odium from the Dikastery and the public, because he SoktAtes

is heretical and incredulous. ‘ He does not believe be

in those Gods in whom the city believes, but intro-
duces religious novelties”—to use the words of the indictment
preferred against him by Melétus. The Athenian public felt
the same displeasure and offence in hearing their divine legends,
such as those of Zeus and Kronus,! called in question or criticised
in an ethical spirit different from their own—as is felt by Jews or
Christians when various narratives of the Old Testament are
criticised in an adverse spirit, and when the proceedings ascribed
to Jehovah are represented as unworthy of a just and beneficent
god. We read in Herodotus what was the sentiment of pious
contemporaries respecting narratives of divine matters. Hero-
dotus keeps back many of them Ly design, and announces that
he will never recite them except in case of necessity : while in
one instance, where he has been betrayed into criticism upon a
few of them, as inconsiderate and incredible, he is seized with
misgivings, and prays that Gods and heroes will not be offended
with him.? The freethinkers, among whom Sokrates was num-
bered, were the persons from whom adverse criticism came. It
is these men who are depicted by orthodox opponents as com-
mitting lawless acts, and justifying themselves by precedents

1I shall say more about Plato’s
views on the theological legends
generally believed by his countrymen,
when I come to the language which
he puts into the mouth of Sokrates in
the second and third books of the
Republic. Eusebius considers it mat-
ter of praise when he says ‘‘that Plato
rejected all the opinions of his country-
men concerning the Gods and exposed
their absurdity "—omws re πάσας τὰς
πατρίους περὶ τῶν θεῶν ὑπολήψεις ἠθέ-
Tet, καὶ τὴν ἀτοπίαν αὐτῶν διήλεγχεν
(Prep. Evan. xiii. 1)}—the very same
thing which is averred in the indict-
ment laid by Melétus against So-

rates.

2Herodot. fi. 65: τῶν δὲ εἵνεκεν
ἀνεῖται τὰ ἱρὰ, εἰ λέγοιμι, καταβαίην
ἂν τῷ λόγῳ ἐς τὰ θεῖα πρήγματα, τὰ
ἐγὼ φεύγω μάλιστα ἀπηγεέσθαι. τὰ
καὶ εἴρηκα αὐτῶν ἐπιψαύσας, ἀναγκαί
καταλαμβανόμενος εἶπον . . .. 45. Aeé-
γουσι δὲ πολλὰ καὶ ἄλλα ἀνεπισκέπτως
οἱ Ἕλληνες" εὐήθης δὲ αὐτῶν καὶ ὅδε
ὁ μῦθός ἐστι, τὸν περὶ τοῦ Ἡρακλέος
λέγουσι . . . . ἔτι δὲ ἕνα ἐόντα τὸν
Ἡρακλέα, καὶ ἔτι ἄνθρωπον, ὡς δή φασι,
κῶς φύσιν ἔχει πολλὰς μυριάδας φο-
νεῦσαι; καὶ περὶ μὲν τούτων τοσαῦτα
ἡμῖν εἰποῦσι, καὶ παρὸ τῶν θεῶν καὶ
παρὰ τῶν ἡρώων εὐμένεια εἴη. ,

About the ἱροὶ λόγοι which he keeps
back, see cap. 51, 61, 62, 81, 170, &c.

449, EUTHYPHRON. Cap, ΧΙ.

drawn from the proceedings or Zeus.! They are, besides, espe-
cially accused of teaching children to despise or even to ill-use

their parents,”
Now in the dialogue here before us, Plato retorts this attack.

Euthyphron possesses in the fullest measure the

Dramatic ͵ ᾿ “

rth be virtues of a believer. He believes not only all that
Aristo- orthodox Athenians usually believed respecting the
porine Gods, but more besides. His faith is so implicit,
Sokrates that he proclaims it as accurate knowledge, and carries
freethink- it into practice with full confidence; reproaching
ore a by other orthodox persons with inconsistency and short-
Plato coming, and disregarding the judgment of the multi-
saodox tude, as Sokrates does in the Kriton.4 Euthyphron
champion.

stands forward as the champion of the Gods, deter-
mined not to leave unpunished the man who has committed
impiety, let him be who he may.® These lofty religious pre-
tensions impel him, with full persuasion of right, to indict his
own father for homicide, under the circumstances above de-
scribed. Now in the eyes of the Athenian public, there could
hardly be any act more abhorrent, than that of a man thus
invoking upon his father the severest penalties of law. It would
probably be not less abhorrent than that of a son beating his own
father. When therefore we read, in the Nubes of Aristophanes,
the dramatic moral set forth against Sokrates, “See the con-
sequences to which free-thinking and the new system of educa-
tion lead*®—the son Phcidippides beating his own father, and
justifying the action as right, by citing the violence of Zeus
towards his father Kronus”—we may take the Platonic Euthy-
phron as an antithesis to this moral, propounded by a defender
of Sokrates, “See the consequences to which consistent orthodoxy
and implicit faith conduct. The son Euthyphron indicts his own

1 Aristoph. Nubes, 905-1080.

2 Aristoph. Nubes, 994-1333-1444,
Xenophon, Mem. i. 2, 49. Σωκράτης--
τοὺς πατέρας προπηλακίζειν ἐδίδασκε
(accusation by Melétus).

3 Plato, Euthyphron, ce. 6, p. 6 B,
καὶ ὅτι ye τούτων θαυμασιώτερα, ἃ οἱ
πολλοὶ οὐκ ἴσασιν.

Euthy yphron belonged to the class
described in Euripides, Hippol. 45 :—

Ὅσοι “μὲν οὖν γραφάς te τῶν παλαι»

τέρων

Ἔχονσιν, αὐτοί τ᾽ εἰσὶν ἐν μούσαις
εἴ,
1σασιν, &c.

Compare also Euripid. Herakleide,
4Plato, Euthyphron, c. 4, p 5 A;
c. 6, ἌΣ 6A.

5 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 6, p. 5 E.
μὴ ἐπιτρέπειν τῷ σεβοῦντι μηδὲ “ay ὁσ-
τισοῦν τυγχάνῃ

6 Aristoph. "Nubes, 937. τὴν καινὴν
παίδευσιν, &C.

CuHap XI.

DRAMATIC MORAL RETORTED.

443

father for homicide ; he vindicates the step as conformable to the
proceedings of the gods; he even prides himself on it as
championship on their behalf, such as all religious men ought to

approve.” }

1Schleiermacher (Kinleitang zum
Euthyphron, vol. ii. pp 51-54) has
many remarks on the HKuthyphron in
which I do not concur; but his con-
ception of its ‘‘anverkennbare apolo-
getische Absicht” is very much the
same as mine. He describes Euthy-
phron as a man ‘der sich besonders
auf das Géttliche zu verstehen vorgab,
und die rechtglaubigen aus den alten
theologischen Dichtern gezogenen
Begrifie tapfer vertheidigte. Diesen
mun gerade bei der Anklage des
Sokrates mit ihm in Berithrung, und
durch den unsittlichen Streich, den
sein Eifer fiir die Frommigkeit veran-
lasste, in Gegensatz zu bringen—war
ein’ des Platon nicht unwirdiger
Gedanke” (p. 54). But when Schleier-
macher affirms that the dialogue was
indisputably composed (unstreitig)
between the indictment and the tria
of Sokrates,—and when he explains
what he considers the defects of the
dialogue, by the necessity of finishing
it in a hurry (p. 53), I dissent from
him altogether, though Steinhart
adopts the same opinion. Nor can I
perceive in what way the Euthyphron
is (as he affirms) either “ἃ natural
out-growth of the Protagoras,” or ‘‘an
approximation and preparation for the
Parmenidés ” (p. 52). Still less do I
feel the force of his reasons for hesi-
tating in admitting it to bea genuine
work of Plato.

I have given my reasons, in a pre-
ceding chapter, for believing at
Plato composed no dialogues at all
during the lifetime of Sokrates. But
that he should publish such a dialogue
while the trial of Sokrates was im-

ending, is a supposition altogether
inadmissible, in my jndgment. The
effect of it would be to make the posi-
tion of Sokrates much worse on his
trial. Herein I agree with Ueberwe
(Untersuch. Ῥ. 250), though I do no
share his doubts of the authenticity of
the dialogue.

The confident assertion of Stall-
baum surprises me. ‘‘Constat enim
Platonem eo tempore, quo Socrati
tantum erat odium conflatum, ut οἱ
judicii immineret periculum, complures
dialogos composuisse; in quibus id

egit, ut viri sanctissimi adversarios in
eo ipso genere, in quo sibi plurimum
sapere ' videbantur, inscitie et igno-
rantiss coargueret. Nam Euthy-
phronem novimus, ad vates ignorantis
rerum gravissimarum conviucendos,
esse compositum; ut in quo eos ne
pietatis quidem notionem tenere os-
tenditur. In Menone autem id agitur,
ut sophistas et viros civiles non scientia
atque arte, sed cceco quodam impetu
mentis et sorte divin& duci demon-
stretur: quod quidem ita fit, ut collo-
quium ex parte cum Anyto, Socratis
accusatore, habeatur. .... . Nam
Menonem quidem et Euthyphronem
Plato eo confecit tempore, quo Socratis
causa haud ita pridem in judicio ver-
sabatur, nec tamen jam tanta ei vide-
batur imminere calamitas, quanta
postea consecuta est. Ex quo sané
verisimiliter colligere licet Ionem, cujus
simile argumentum et consilium est,
circa idem tempus literis consignatum
esse.” Stallbaum, Prolegom. ad Pla-
tonis Ionem, pp. 288-289, vol. iv. (Comp.
Stallb. ibid., 2nd ed. pp. 339-841].

‘“‘Imo uno exemplo Euthyphronis,
boni quidem hominis ideoque ne Socrati
quidem inimici, sed ejusdem supersti-
tiosi, vel ut hodie loguuntur, orthodozi,
qualis Athenis vulgd esset religionis
conditio, declarare instituit. Ex quo
nohis quidem clarissimé videtur ap-
parere Platonem hoc unum spectavisse
ut judices admonerentur, ne popular
superstitioni in sententiis ferendis plus
justo tribuerent.” Stallbaum, Proleg.
ad Euthyphron. T. vi. Ρ' 146.

Steinhart also (in his Einleitung, p.
190) calls Euthyphron “ ein rechtglat-
biger von reinsten Wasser—ein ueber-
frommer, fanatischer, Mann,” &c.

In the two preceding pages Stall-
baum defends himself against objections
made to his view, on the ground that
Plato, by composing such dialogues at
this critical moment, would increase the
unpopularity and danger of Sokrates,
instead of diminishing it. Stallbaum
contends (p. 145) that neither Sokrates
nor Plato nor any of the other Sokratic
men, believed that the trial would end
in a verdict of guilty : which is pro-
bably true about Plato, and would
have been borne out by the event if

444 EUTHYPHRON. Crap. XI.

I proceed now with that which may be called the Platonic
Sequel of Purpose in the dialogue—the enquiry into the general
qe dia- idea of Holiness. When the question was first put to
Euthyphron Euthyphron, What is the Holy ?—he replied, “That
gives a which I am now doing.”—Sokr. That may be: but

particular ᾿ ζ
exampleas many other things besides are also holy.—Huthyph.

μα ΤΟΙΣ to Certainly.—Sokr. Then your answer does not meet
question. the question. You have indicated one particular
holy act, among many. But the question asked was—What is
Holiness generally? What is that specific property, by the
common possession of which all holy things are entitled to be
called holy? I want to know this general Idea, in order that I
may keep it in view as a type wherewith to compare each par-
ticular case, thus determining whether the case deserves to be
called holy or not.?

Here we have a genuine specimen of the dialectic interrogatory
in which Xenophon affirms? Sokrates to have passed his life, and
which Plato prosecutes under his master’s name. The question
is generalised much more than in the Kriton.

It is assumed that there is one specific Idea or essence—one
Such mis. 0bjective characteristic or fact—common to all things
takefre- called Holy. The purpose of the questioner is, to

nent in determine what this Idea is: to provide a good
discussion. efinition of the word. The first mistake made by
the respondent is, that he names simply one particular case,
coming under the general Idea. This is a mistake often recurring,
and often corrected in the Platonic dialogues. Even now, such a
mistake is not unfrequent: and in the time of Plato, when
general ideas, and the definition of general terms, had been made
so little the subject of direct attention, it was doubtless per-
petually made. When the question was first put, its bearing

Sokrates had made a different defence. there expressed his surprise at the
But this does not assist the conclusion verdict of guilty. anticipating a verdict
which Stalilbaum wishes to bring out; of acquittal. The passage declares the
for it is not the less true that the contrary: Sokrates expresses his sur-
Cinlogues of Plato, if published at that prise that the verdict of guilty had
moment, would increase the exaspera- passed by so small a majority as five ;
tion against Sokrates, and the chance, he had expected that it would pass by
Whatever iit was, that he would be a larger majority.

oun y. aum refers

mistake to © passage in the Platonic 2 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 7, p. 6 E.
Apology (p. 86 A), as if Sokrates 2 Xenoph. Memor. i. 1, 16.

Cuap. XI. ‘S HOLINESS,” “ PLEASING THE GODS.” 445

would not be properly conceived. And even if the bearing
were properly conceived, men would find it easier then, and
do find it easier now, to make answer by giving one particular
example than to go over many examples, and elicit what is
common to all.

Euthyphron next replies—That which is pleasing to the Gods
is holy: that which is not pleasing, or which is dis- First gene.
pleasing to the Gods, is unholy.—Sokr. That is the ΤΑΙ answer
sort of answer which I desired to have: now let us
examine it. We learn from the received theology, βάτοι that
which you implicitly believe, that there has been Pleasing to
much discord and quarrel among the Gods. If the Holy. Com-
Gods quarrel, they quarrel about the same matters as Bice
men. Now men do not quarrel about questions of thereon.
quantity—for such questions can be determined by calculation
and measurement: nor about questions of weight—for there the
balance may be appealed to. The questions about which you
and I and other men quarrel are, What is just or unjust, honour-
able or base, good or evil? Upon these there is no accessible
standard. Some men feel in one way, some in another ; and
each of us fights for his own opinions.’ We all indeed agree that
the wrong-doer ought to be punished: but we do not agree who
the wrong-doer is, nor what 18 wrong-doing. The same action
which some of us pronounce to be just, others stigmatise as
unjust.”

So likewise the quarrels of the Gods must turn upon these
same matters—just and unjust, right and wrong, good and
evil. What one God thinks right, another God thinks wrong,
What is pleasing to one God, is displeasing to another. The
same action will be both pleasing and displeasing to the
Gods.

1 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 8, p. 7C-D. γιγνώμεθα, καὶ ἐγὼ καὶ σὺ καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι
Περὶ τίνος δὲ δὴ διενεχθέντες καὶ ἐπὶ ἄνθρωποι πάντες ;

τίνα κρίσιν ov δυνάμενοι ἀφικέσθαι 3

ἐχθροί γε ἂν ἀλλήλοις εἶμεν Kai ὄργι- Οὐκ eae ii ate ΩΝ Ὁ.
οίμεθα; ἴσως οὐ πρόχειρόν σοί ἐστιν, “τς ΡΣ δ ἢ διδόναι δίκην. ἀλλ᾽
ἀλλ᾽ ἐμοῦ λέγοντος σκόπει, εἰ τάδ᾽ ἐστὶ OV τὸν ἀοίκουντο Sh ΣιΣΟΡ ΟΣ saalke an
γό te δίκαιον καὶ τὸ ἄδικον, καὶ καλὸν Gorey oo 4 μφισβητοῦσι, tT Spar,
καὶ αἰσχρόν, καὶ ἀγαθὸν καὶ κακόν. *Ap’ col © bre; Πράξεώς τινος περὶ Seabee
ov ταῦτα ἐστι περὶ ὧν διενεχθέντες καὶ ὁ go? Stead te ny ts
οὐ δυνάμενοι ἐπὶ ἱκανὴν κρίσιν αὐτῶν ° Mee bax. οὐδὲ GSixes. φασὶν αὑτὴν
ἐλθεῖν ἐχθροὶ ἀλλήλοις γιγνόμεθα, ὅταν TMEMPAXUA, ᾿

446

EUTHYPHRON. Cap. ΧΙ,

According to your definition of holy and unholy, therefore, the
same action may be both holy and unholy. Your definition will
not hold, for it does not enable me to distinguish the one froin
the other.!

Euthyph.—I am convinced that there are some things which
all the Gods love, and some things which all the Gods hate.
That which I am doing, for example—indicting my father for
homicide—belongs to the former category. Now that which all
the Gods love is the holy: that which they all hate, is the
unholy.? |

Sokr.—Do the Gods 1ove the noly, because it is noly? Or is

it holy for this reason, because they do love it?

re be loved Huthyph.—They love it because it is holy.2 Sokr.—
by the Gods 7, Ὁ . . .
isnotthe Then the holiness is one thing; the fact of being
the Holy loved by the Gods is another. The latter fact is not
they loveit of the essence of holiness: it is true, but only as an
holy. In accident and an accessory. You have yet to tell me
what then what that essential character is, by virtue of which
essence the holy comes to be loved by all the Gods, or to be
consist ? . . .

Perplexity the subject of various other attributes.4

chron ᾿ Euthyph.—I hardly know how to tell you what I

think, None of my explanations will stand. Your
ingenuity turns and twists them in every way. Sokr.—If 1 am

1In regard to Plato’s ethical en-

quirios enerally, and to what we shall

nd in future dialogues, we must take
note of what is here laid down,—that
mankind are in perpetual dispute, and
have not yet any determinate standard
for just and unjust, right and wrong,
honourable and base, good and evil.
Plato had told us, somewhat differently,
in the Kriton, that on these matters,
though the judgment of the many was
not to be trusted, yet there was another
trustworthy judgment, that of the one
wise man.
future comment.

2 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 11, p. 9.

8 Plato, Euthyphron, 6. 12, p. 10
A-D. The manner in which Sokrates
conducts this argument is over-subtle.
Οὐκ dpa διότι ὁρώμενόν γέ ἐστι διὰ
τοῦτο ὁρᾶται, ἀλλὰ τοὐναντίον διότι
ὁρᾶται, διὰ τοῦτο ὁρώμενον ' οὐδὰ διότι
. ἀγόμενόν ἐστι, διὰ τοῦτο ἄγεται, ἀλλὰ

διότι ἄγεται, διὰ τοῦτο ἀγόμενον“ οὐδὲ

This point will recur for Bad

διότι φερόμενον, φέρεται, ἀλλὰ διότι
φέρεται, φερόμενον.

The difference between the meaning
of φέρεται and φερόμενόν ἐστι is not
easy to see. The former may mean to
affirm the beginning of an action, the
latter the continuance: butin this case
the inference would not necessarily
follow.

Compare Aristotel. Physica, p. 185,
b. 25, with the Scholion of Simplikius,
p. 330, a. 2nd ed. Bekk. where βαδίζων
ἔστι is recognised as equivalent to

ίζει.

4 Stato, Euthyphron, c. 18, p. 11 A.
κινδυνεύεις, ἐρωτώμενος τὸ ὅσιον, ὅ, τί
wor €or, τὴν μὲν οὐσίαν μοι
αὐτοῦ οὐ βούλεσθαι δηλῶσαι, πάθος
δέ re περὶ αὐτοῦ λέγειν, ὅ, τι
πέπο νθε τοῦτο τὸ ὅσιον, φιλεῖσθαι
ὑπὸ πάντων τῶν θεῶν" ὅ, τι δὲ ὃν,
οὔπω εἶπες. . .. πάλιν εἰπὲ ἐξ ἀρχῆς,
τί ποτε ὃν τὸ ὅσιον εἴτε φιλεῖται ὑπὸ
θεῶν, etre ὅτι δὴ πάσχει.

Cuap. XL “ HOLINESS,” A BRANCH OF JUSTICE. 447

ingenious, it is against my own will;! for I am most anxious
that some one of the answers should stand unshaken. But I will
now put you in the way of making a different answer. You will
admit that all which is holy is necessarily just. But is all that
is just necessarily holy ?

Euthyphron does not at first understand the question. He
does not comprehend the relation between two words,
generic and specific with reference to each other: the a eagente a
former embracing all that the latter embraces, and newanswer.

. . . . The Holy is
more besides (denoting more objects, connoting fewer one branch

attributes). This is explained by analogies and par- $f Variety of
ticular examples, illustrating a logical distinction {tis that

. . . ranch
highly important to be brought out, at a time when which con-
there were no treatises on Logic.” So much therefore tration by
is made out—That the Holy is a part, or branch, of men to the
the Just. But what part? or how is it to be distin-
guished from other parts or branches of the just? Euthyphron
answers. The holy is that portion or branch of the Just which
concerns ministration to the Gods: the remaining branch of the
Just is, what concerns ministration to men.®

Sokr.—What sort of ministration? Other ministrations. to
horses, dogs, working cattle, &c., are intended for the Ministra-
improvement or benefit of those to whom they are tion to the |
rendered :—besides, they can only be ‘rendered by To what
a few trained persons. In what manner does the PUtPose?
ministration, called holiness, benefit or improve the Gods?
Euthyph.—-In no way: it is of the same nature as that which
slaves render to their masters. Sokr.—You mean, that it is work
done by us for the Gods. Tell me—to what end does the work
conduce? What is that end which the Gods accomplish, through
our agency as workmen? Physicians employ their slaves for the
purpose of restoring the sick to health : shipbuilders put their
slaves to the completion of ships. But what are those great
works which the Gods bring about by our agency? Futhyph.—

Their works are numerous and great. Sokr.—The like may be

1 Plato, Euthyphron, 6. 13, Ὁ. 11 D. τὸ μέρος τοῦ δικαίον εἶναι εὐσεβές τε

ἄκων εἰμὶ σοφός, &C. καὶ ὅσιον, τὸ περὶ THY τῶν θεῶν θερα-
2 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 18-14, Ὁ. 12. πείαν" τὸ δὲ περὶ τὴν τῶν ἀνθρώπων, τὸ
8 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 14, p. 12 E. λοιπὸν εἶναι τοῦ δικαίον μέρος.

448 EUTHYPHRON. Cuap. XI.

said of generals : but the summary and main purpose of all that
generals do is—to assure victory in war. So too we may say
about the husbandman: but the summary of his many pro-
ceedings is, to raise corn from the earth. State to me, in like
manner, the summary of that which the Gods perform through
our agency.!

Euthyph.—It would cost me some labour to go through the
Holiness 8838 fully. But so much T tell you in plain terms.
rectitude in If a man, when sacrificing and praying, knows what
sactisiceand deeds and what words will be agreeable to the Gods,
right traffic that is holiness: this it is which upholds the security
menand — both of private houses and public communities. The
the Gods. contrary is unholiness, which subverts and ruins
them.? Sokr.—Holiness, then, is the knowledge of rightly sacri-
ficing and praying to the Gods; that is, of giving to them, and
asking from them. To ask rightly, is to ask what we want from
them: to give rightly, is to give to them what they want
from us. Holiness will thus be an art of right traffic between
Gods and men. Still, you must tell me how the Gods are
gainers by that which we give to them. That we are gainers
by what they give, is clear enough; but what do they gain on
their side ?

Euthyph.—The Gods gain nothing. The gifts which we pre-

sent to them consist in honour, marks of respect,
This will gratitude. Sokr.—The holy, then, is that which
the Gods —_ obtains favour from the Gods: not that which is
ing they gainful to them, nor that which they love. Huthyph.
receive from __Nay : I think they love it especially. Sokr.—Then
ofhonour it appears that the holy is what the Gods love?
and grati- .
tude—they Huthyph.—Unquestionably.
are pleased = Sokr.—But this is the very same explanation which
the Holy we rejected a short time ago as untenable? It was

f
must be that agreed between us, that to be loved by the Gods was

1 Plato, Euthyphron, ὁ. 16, pp. 18, ened, emphatic, as if intended to settle
. a question which had become vexa-
2 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 16, p. 14 B. tious.

Compare this third unsuccessful answer 3 Plato, Euthyphron, c. 19, p. 15 C.
of Enthyphron. with the third answer μέμνησαι γάρ πον, ὅτι ἐν τῷ ἔμπροσθεν
assigned to Hippias (Hipp. Maj. 201 τό τε ὅσιον καὶ τὸ θεοφιλὲς ov ταὐτὸν
C-E). Both of them appear length- ἡμῖν ἐφάνη, ἀλλ᾽ ἕτερα ἀλλήλων,

Cuap. XI. ““ HOLINESS,” RECTITUDE OF WORSHIP.

not of the essence of holiness, and could not serve as
an explanation of holiness : though it might be truly
affirmed thereof as an accompanying predicate. Let
us therefore try again to discover what holiness is,
I rely upon you to help me, and I am sure that you
must know, since under a confident persuasion that
you know, you are indicting your own father for
homicide.

Euthyph.—* The investigation must stand over to
another time, I have engagements now which call me
elsewhere.”

So Plato breaks off the dialogue. It is conceived
in the truly Sokratic spirit :—an Elenchus applied to
implicit and unexamined faith, even though that faith
be accredited among the public as orthodoxy : war-
fare against the confident persuasion of knowledge,
upon topics familiar to every one, and on which deep
sentiments and confused notions have grown up by
association in every one’s mind, without deliberate

449

which is
leasing to
he Gods,

This is the
same ΘΧ-
planation
which was
before de-
clared in-
sufficient.
A fresh ex-
planation is
required
from Euthy-
phron. He
reaks off
the dia-
logue.

Sokratic
spirit of the
lalogue—

confessed
ents
applying the
Hlenchus to
false per-
suasion of
knowledge.

study, systematic teaching, or testing cross-examination. Euthy-
phron is a man who feels unshaken confidence in his own know-
ledge, and still more in his own correct religious belief. Sokrates
appears in his received character as confessing ignorance, solicit-
ing instruction, and exposing inconsistencies and contradiction
in that which is given to him for instruction.

We must (as I have before remarked) take this ignorance on
the part of the Platonic Sokrates not as assumed, but
as very real. In no part of the Platonic writings do
we find any tenable definition of the Holy and the
Unholy, such as is here demanded from Euthyphron.
The talent of Sokrates consists in exposing bad defi-
nitions, not in providing good ones. This negative
function is all that he claims for himself—with deep
regret that he can do no more. “Sokrates” (says
Aristotle 1) “ put questions, but gave no answers : for
he professed not to know.” In those dialogues where
Plato makes him attempt more (there also, against his own will

The ques-
tions always
difficult,
often im-
ssible
answer.
Sokrates jg
unable ta

exposes the
bad answers
of others.

1 Aristotel. Sophist. Elench. p. 188, καὶ οὐκ ἀπεκρίνετο"
Ὁ. 7. ἐπεὶ καὶ διὰ τοῦτο Σωκράτης ἠρώτα εἰδέναι.

1—29

ὡμολόγει yap οὐκ

450 EUTHYPHRON, CHap. XI.

and protest, as in the Philébus and Republic), the affirmative
Sokrates will be found only to stand his ground because no
negative Sokrates is allowed to attack him. I insist upon this
the rather, because the Platonic commentators usually present
the dialogues in a different light, as if such modesty on the part
of Sokrates was altogether simulated : as if he was himself, from
the beginning, aware of the proper answer to his own questions,
but refrained designedly from announcing it: nay, sometimes,
as if the answers were in themselves easy, and as if the respon-
dents who failed must be below par in respect of intelligence.
This is an erroneous conception. The questions put by Sokrates,
though relating to familiar topics, are always difficult : they are
often even impossible to answer, because they postulate and
require to be assigned a common objective concept which is not
to be found. They only appear easy to one who has never
attempted the task of answering under the pressure of cross-
examination. Most persons indeed never make any such trial,
but go on affirming confidently as if they knew, without trial.
It is exactly against such illusory confidence of knowledge that
Sokrates directs his questions : the fact belongs to our days no
less than to his.?

The assumptions of some Platonic commentators—that So-
Objections krates and Plato of course knew the answers to their

of Theo- own questions—that an honest and pious man, of
om pus to ἢ . . .
frelatonic ordinary intelligence, has the answer to the question

procedure. in his heart, though he cannot put it in words—these

assumptions were also made by many of Plato’s contemporaries,
who depreciated his questions as frivolous and unprofitable.
The rhetor and historian Theopompus (one of the most eminent
among the numerous pupils of Isokrates, and at the same time
unfriendly to Plato, though younger in age), thus criticised
Plato’s requirement, that these familiar terms should be defined :
“What 1 (said he) have none of us before your time talked about

1 See Stallbaum, Prolegg. ad Euthy- thoughts a good deal upon these sub-
phron. p. 140. jects, you may safely allow him a week

2 Adam Smith observes, in his Essay to consider of his answer”.
on the Formation of Languages (p. 20 The Platonic problem assumes, not
of the fifth volume of his collected only that he shall give an answer, but
Works), ‘‘Ask a man what relation is that it shall be an answer which he
expressed by the preposition of: and can maintain against the Elenchus of
if he has not beforehand employed his Sokrates.

Crap. XI. THE QUESTIONS ALWAYS DIFFICULT. 451

the Good and the Just? Or do you suppose that we cannot
follow out what each of them is, and that we pronounce the
words as empty and unmeaning sounds?”! Theopompus was
the scholar of Isokrates, and both of them probably took the
same view, as to the uselessness of that colloquial analysis which
aims at determining the definition of familiar ethical or political
words.2. They considered that Plato and Sokrates, instead of
clearing up what was confused, wasted their ingenuity in per-
plexing what was already clear. They preferred the rhetorical
handling (such as we noticed in the Kriton) which works upon
ready-made pre-established sentiments, and impresses a strong
emotional conviction, but presumes that all the intellectual
problems have already been solved.

All this shows the novelty of the Sokratic point of view : the
distinction between the essential constituent and the

Objective
accidental accompaniment,’ and the search for a defi- Tew of κι.
nition corresponding to the former: which search was ting ished
first prosecuted by Sokrates (as Aristotle * points out) from the
and was taken up from him by Plato. It was So- subjective.

krates who first brought conspicuously into notice the objective
intellectual, scientific view of ethics—as distinguished from thi
subjective, emotional, incoherent, and uninquiring. I mean tha
he was the first who proclaimed himself as feeling the want ὁ
such an objective view, and who worked upon other minds so a
to create the like want in them: I do not mean that he providec
satisfaction for this requirement.

Undoubtedly (as Theopompus remarked) men had used thes
ethical terms long before the time of Sokrates, and

. Subjecti
had used them, not as empty and unmeaning, but unanimity
with a full body of meaning (0.6. emotional meaning). comcutent
Strong and marked emotion had become associated jective:

with each term ; and the same emotion, similar in

1 Epiktétus, ii. 17, 5-10. To δ᾽ ἐξα-
πατῶν τοὺς πολλοὺς τοῦτ᾽ ἔστιν, ὅπερ
καὶ Θεόπομπον τὸν ῥήτορα ὅς πον καὶ
Πλάτωνι ἐγκαλεῖ ἐπὶ τῷ βούλεσθαι
ἕκαστα ὁρίζεσθαι. Τί γὰρ λέγει; Οὐδεὶς
ἡμῶν πρὸ σοῦ ἔλεγεν ἀγαθὸν ἣ δίκαιον ;

de Platone,
Historicis, p.
2 Isokrates, Helen. Encom. Or. x
init. De Permut. Or. xv. sect. 90.
ese es do not name Sokrate
and Plato, but have every appearanc

P. 757; also De Precip
82.

μὴ παρακολουθοῦντες τί ἐστι τούτων
ἕκαστον, ἀσήμως καὶ κενῶς ἐφθεγγόμεθα
τὰς nas " ΤῊ
spectin eopompus compare
Dionys. Hal. Epistol. ad én. Pompeium

of being intended to allude to them.

8 This distinction is pointedly notice
in the Euthyphron, Ὁ. 11 A.

4 Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 987, Ὁ. 2
M. 1078, b. 38.

452

BUTHYPHRON.

CuapP. XI.

character, though not equal in force—was felt by the greater
number of different minds. Subjectively and emotionally, there
was no difference between one man and another, except as to
degree. But it was Sokrates who first called attention to the
fact as a matter for philosophical recognition and criticism,—that
such subjective and emotional unanimity does not exclude the

widest objective and intellectual dissension.)
As the Platonic Sokrates here puts it in the Euthyphron —all
men agree that the person who acts unjustly must

Cross-exa-
mination
brought to
bear upon
this mental
condition by
Sokrates—
Position

of Sokrates
and Plato
in regard
to it.

be punished ; but they dispute very much who tt ὦ
that acts unjustly—which of his actions are unjust—
or under what circumstances they are so. The emo-
tion in each man’s mind, as well as the word by
which it is expressed, is the same:? but the person,
or the acta, to which it is applied by each, although
partly the same, are often so different, and sometimes

80 opposite, as to occasion violent dispute. There is

subjective agreement, with objective disagreement.

1 It is this distinction between the
subjective and the objective which isim-

plied in the language of Epiktétus, when ἀπὸ
Θ

roceeds to answer the objection
cited from Theopompus (note 1 Ὁ, 451):
Tis γάρ σοι λέγει, Θεόπομπε, ὅτι ἐννοίας
οὐκ εἴχομεν ἕκαστον τούτων φυσικάς
καὶ προλήψεις ; ᾿Αλλ᾽ οὐχ οἷόν re ἐφαρ-
μόξειν τὰς προλήψεις ταῖς καταλλήλοις
οὐσίαις, μὴ διαρθρώσαντα αὐτάς, καὶ
αὐτὸ τοῦτο σκεψάμενον, ποίαν τινὰ
ἐκά αὐτῶν οὐσίαν ὑποτακτέον.

To the same Purpose Epiktétus, in
another passage, i. 22, 4-9: Aur) ἐστὶν
ἡ τῶν ᾿Ιονδαίων, καὶ Σύρων, καὶ Αἰγνπ-
τίων, καὶ Ῥωμαίων μάχη" οὗ περὶ τοῦ,
ὅτι τὸ ὅσιον πάντων προτιμητέον, καὶ
ἐν παντὶ μεταδιωκτέον --Ἀἀλλὰ πότερόν
ἐστιν ὅσιον τοῦτο, τὸ χοιρείον φαγεῖν, ἣ
ανόσιον. ᾿

Again, Origen also, in a striking
passage of his reply to Celsus (v. p. 263,
ed. Spencer ; i. p. 614 ed. Delarue), ob-
serves that the name Justice is the same
among all Greeks (he means, the name
with the emotional associations in-
separable from it), but that the thin
designated was very different, accord-
ing to those who pronounced it:—
λεκτέον, ὅτι τὸ τῆς δικαιοσύνης ὄνομα
ταὐτὸν μὲν ἔστιν παρὰ πᾶσιν Ἕλλησιν"
ἤδη ἀποδείκνυται ἄλλη μὲν ἡ κατ᾽
"Ἐπίκουρον δικαιοσύνη, ἄλλη δὲ ἡ κατὰ

It is upon

τοὺς ἀπὸ τῆς Στοᾶς, ἀρνουμένων τὸ
τριμερὲς τῆς ψυχῆς, ἄλλη δὲ κατὰ τοὺς
Πλάτωνος, ἰδιοπραγίαν τῶν μερῶν
τῆς ψυχῆς φάσκοντας εἶναι τὴν δικαιο-
σύνην. Οὕτω δὲ καὶ ἄλλη μὲν ἡ ᾽Ἐπι-
κούρον ἀνδρία, ὧσ.
‘Jen’aime point les mots nouveaux”
(said Saint Just, in his Institutions, com-
osed during the sitting of the French
nvention, 1793), ‘je ne connais que
le juste et l’injuste: ces mots sont en-
tendus par toutes les consciences. I
faut ramener toutes les définitions ἃ la
conscience: l’esprit est un sophiste
ui conduit les vertus ἃ I’échafaud.”
f istoire Parlementaire de la Révolu-
ion Frangaise, t. xxxv. p. 277.) This is
very much the language which honest
and vehement ἰδιῶται of Athens would
hold towards Sokrates and Plato.
2Plato, EKuthyphron, p. 8, C-D,
Kuripides, Phosnisse, 499---

οἱ πᾶσι ταὐτὸ καλὸν ἔφν, σοφόν θ᾽
ἅμα

οὐκ ἦν ἂν ἀμφιλεκτὸς ἀνθρώποις ἔρις"

viv δ' οὐθ' ὅμοιον οὐδὲν οὔτ᾽ ἴσον
βρότοις, ν

πλὴν ὀνομάσαι" τὸ δ᾽ ἔργον οὐκ ἔστιν
7 ee

Hobbes expresses, in the following
terms, this fact of subjective similarity

CuaP. XI, SUBJECTIVE UNANIMITY, OBJECTIVE DISSENSION. 453

this disconformity that the Sokratic cross-examination is brought
to bear, making his hearers fee] its existence, for the first time,
and dispelling their fancy of supposed knowledge as well as of
supposed unanimity. Sokrates required them to define the
general word—to assign some common objective characteristic,
corresponding in all cases to the common subjective feeling
represented by the word. But no man could comply with his
requirement, nor could he himself comply with it, any more
than his respondents. So far Sokrates proceeded, and no farther,
according to Aristotle. He never altogether lost his hold on
particulars: he assumed that there must be something common
to them all, if you could but find out what it was, constituting
the objective meaning of the general term. Plato made a step
beyond him, though under the name of Sokrates as spokesman.
Not being able (any more than Sokrates) to discover or specify
any real objective characteristic, common to all the particulars—
he objectivised 1 the word itself: that is, he assumed or imagined
8 new objective Ens of his own, the Platonic Idea, corresponding
to the general word : an idea not common to the particulars, but
existing apart from them in a sphere of its own—yet nevertheless
lending itself in some inexplicable way to be participated by all
the particulars. It was only in this way that Plato could
explain to himself how knowledge was possible: this universal
Ens being the only object of knowledge: particulars being an
indefinite variety of fleeting appearances, and as such in them-
selves unknowable. The imagination of Plato created a new
~world of Forms, Ideas, Concepts, or objects corresponding to
general terms: which he represents as the only objects of know-
ledge, and as the only realities,

«<o-existent with great objective dis-

similitude of the objects of the passions,
similarity among mankind.

which are the things desired, feared,

“ὁ For the similitude of the thoughts
and passions of one man, to the
thoughts and passions of another, who-
ever looketh into himself and con-
sidereth what he does when he does
think, opine, reason hope, fear, &c., and
upon what grounds, e shall thereby
read and know what are the thoughts
and passions of all other men upon
the like occasions. I say the similitude
of passions, which are the same in all
men, desire, fear, hope, &c., not the

hoped, &c., for these the constitution
individual, and particular education
do so vary, and they are so easy to be
kept from our knowledge, that the
characters of man’s heart, blotted and
confounded as they are with 1 ᾿
dissembling, counterfeiting, and er-
roneous doctrines, are legible only to
him that searcheth hearts.”—Intro-
duction to Leviathan.

1 Aristot. Metaphys. M. 1078, Ὁ. 80,
1086, b. 4.

454 EUTHYPHRON. CuHaP. XI.

In the Euthyphron, however, we have not yet passed into this
The Holy Platonic world, of self-existent Forms—objects of con-
ithasan § ception—concepts detached from sensible particulars.

charac- We are still with Sokrates and with ordinary men
teristic — among the world of particulars, only that Sokrates
this?—not introduced a new mode of looking at all the particu-
the fact

thatitis lars, and searched among them for some common

loved by _ feature which he did not find. The Holy (and the

thisistrue, Unholy) is a word freely pronounced by every
butis not its ane

constituent speaker, and familiarly understood by every hearer,
essence. as if it denoted something one and the same in all
these particulars.1 What is that something—the common essence
or idea? Euthyphron cannot tell; though he agrees with
Sokrates that there must be such essence. His attempts to
explain it prove failures.

The definition of the Holy—that it is what the Gods love—is
suggested in this dialogue, but rejected. The Holy is not Holy
because the Gods love it: on the contrary, its holiness is an
independent fact, and the Gods love it because it is Holy. The
Holy is thus an essence, per se, common to, or partaken by, all
holy persons and things.

So at least the Platonic Sokrates here regards it. But the
Views of =enophontic Sokrates, if we can trust the Memora-
the Xeno- bilia, would not have concurred in this view: for we

okrates read that upon all points connected with piety or
respecting —_ religious observance, he followed the precept which

differen the Pythian priestess delivered as an answer to all
from those . .

of the who consulted the Delphian oracle on similar ques-
Platonic

Sokrates— tions—You will act piously by conforming to the law

he disallows of the city. Sokrates (we are told) not only acted
absolute upon this precept himself, but advised his friends
general ty © todo the like, and regarded those who acted other-

—he recog- wise as foolish and over-subtle triflers.2 It is plain
indefinite that this doctrine disallows all supposition of any

ory ae. general essence, called the Holy, to be discovered and
cordant and appealed to, as type in cases of doubt; and recog-
relative. nises the equal title of many separate local, dis-

2 Plato, Euthyphron, p. 6 D, 6 E. καὶ αὐτὸς ἐποίει καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις παρήνει,
3 Compare Xen. Mem. i. 8, 1. ἥ re τοὺς δὲ ἄλλως πως ποιοῦντας περιέργούς
γὰρ Πυθία νόμῳ πόλεως ἀναιρεῖ ποιοῦντας καὶ ματαίους ἐνόμιζεν εἶναι.
εὐσεβῶς ἂν ποιεῖν! Σωκράτης τε οὕτως

CHaP. ΧΙ. DEFINITION OF THE HOLY. 455

cordant, and variable types, each under the sanction of King
Nomos. The procedure of Sokrates in the Euthyphron would
not have been approved by the Xenophontic Sokrates, It is in
the spirit of Plato, and is an instance of that disposition which he
manifests yet more strongly in the Republic and elsewhere, to
look for his supreme authority in philosophical theory and not
in the constituted societies around him: thus to innovate in
matters religious as well as political—a reproach to him among
his own contemporaries, an honour to him among various sub-
sequent Christian writers. Plato, not conforming to any one of
the modes of religious belief actually prevalent in his contem-
porary world, postulates a canon, suitable to the exigencies of his
own mind, of that which the Gods ought to love and must love.
In this respect, as in others, he is in marked contrast with
Herodotus—a large observer of mankind, very pious in his own
way, curious in comparing the actual practices consecrated among
different nations, but not pretending to supersede them by any
canon of his own.

Though the Holy, and the Unholy, are pronounced to be each
an essence, partaken of by all the particulars so- ,,, Holy a
called ; yet what that essence is, the dialogue Kuthy- branch of
phron noway determines. Even the suggestion of the gust
Sokrates—that the Holy is a branch of the Just, only 238 def ΠΡ
requiring to be distinguished by some assignable usoful as
mark from the other branches of the Just—is of no view ine ©
avail, since the Just itself had been previously de- fubordina-
clared to be one of the matters in perpetual dispute. logical
It procures for Sokrates however the opportunity of terms.
illustrating the logical subordination of terms; the less general
comprehended in the more general, and requiring to be parted
off by some differentia from the rest of what this latter compre-
hends. Plato illustrates the matter at some length;! and
apparently with a marked purpose of drawing attention to
it. We must keep in mind, that logical distinctions had at
that time received neither special attention nor special names
— however they may have been unconsciously followed in
practice.

What 1 remarked about the Kriton, appears to me also true
1 Plato, Euthyphron, Ὁ. 12.

456 BHUTHYPHRON. Cuar. XL.

The Euthy. about the Euthyphron. It represents Plato’s manner
phron re- of replying to the charge of impiety advanced by

lato’s way Melétus and his friends against Sokrates, just as the
of replying four first chapters of the Memorabilia represent
charge of Xenophon’s manner of repelling the same charge.
preforred by Xenophon joins issue with the accusers,—describes
against the language and proceedings of Sokrates, so as to-
a enpaison show that he was orthodox and pious, above the
with Xeno- measure of ordinary men, in conduct, in ritual, and
estate in language ; and expresses his surprise that against
replying. § guch a man the verdict of guilty could have been re-
turned by the Dikasts.1 Plato handles the charge in the way in
which Sokrates himself would have handled it, if he had been
commenting on the same accusation against another person—and
as he does in fact deal with Melétus, in the Platonic Apology. Plato
introduces Euthyphron, a very religious man, who prides himself
upon being forward to prosecute impiety in whomsoever it is.
found, and who in this case, under the special promptings of
piety, has entered a capital prosecution against his own father.?
The occasion is here favourable to the Sokratic interrogatories,
applicable to Melétus no less than to Euthyphron. “Of course,
before you took this grave step, you have assured yourself that
you are right, and that you know what piety and impiety are.
Pray tell me, for I am ignorant on the subject: that I may know
better and do better for the future? Tell me, what is the
characteristic essence of piety as well as impiety?” It turns out
that the accuser can make no satisfactory answer :—that he
involves himself in confusion and contradiction :—that he has
brought capital indictments against citizens, without having ever
studied or appreciated the offence with which he charges them.
Such is the manner in which the Platonic Sokrates is made tu:
deal with Euthyphron, and in which the real Sokrates deals with
Melétus :* rendering the questions instrumental to two larger
purposes—first, to his habitual crusade against the false per-

1 Xenoph. Memor. i. 1, 4; also iv. 8, and his cross-examination of the pre-
11. sumptuous youth Glaukon, Plato’s

+ Plato, Euthyphron, p. δ E. bree (en i ἽΝ 11, Pp. 24 Ὁ.
ὃ Com even in Xenophon, the ἀδικεῖν φημὶ Μέλητον, ὅτι σπουδῇ

conversation of Sokrates with Kritias χαριεντίζεται, ῥᾳδίως εἰς ἀγῶνας καθι-
and Chariklés—Memorab. i. 2, 82-38: στὰς ἀνθρώπους, ke.

Crap. ΧΙ. WHAT IT REPRESENTS. 457

suasion of knowledge—next, to the administering of a logical
or dialectical lesson. When we come to the Treatise De Legibus
(where Sokrates does not appear) we shall find Plato adopting the
dogmatic and sermonising manner of the first chapters οἵ the
Xenophontic Memorabilia. Here, in the Euthyphron and in the

Dialogues of Search generally, the Platonic Sokrates is something
entirely different.

1Steinhart (Einleitung, ᾧ. 100) it as posterior to the death of So-
agrees with the opinion of Schleier- krates.

macher and Stallbaum, that the Euthy- I concur on this point with Her-
hron was composed and published mann. Indeed I have already given
uring the interval between the lodg- my opinion, that not one of the Platonic
ing of the indictment and the trial of dialogues was composed before the
Sokrates. K. F. Hermann considers death of Sokrates.

END OF VOL. L

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