This dialogue is carried on between Sokrates and Alkibiades. It introduces Alkibiades as about twenty years of age, having just passed through the period of youth, and about to enter on the privileges and duties of a citizen. The real dispositions and circumstances of the historical Alkibiades (magnificent personal beauty, stature, and strength, high family and connections, great wealth already possessed, since his father had died when he was a child, — a full measure of education and accomplishments — together with exorbitant ambition and insolence, derived from such accumulated advantages) are brought to view in the opening address of Sokrates. Alkibiades, during the years of youth which he had just passed, had been surrounded by admirers who tried to render themselves acceptable to him, but whom he repelled with indifference, and even with scorn. Sokrates had been among them, constantly present and near to Alkibiades, but without ever addressing a word to him. The youthful beauty being now exchanged for manhood, all these admirers had retired, and Sokrates alone remains. His attachment is to Alkibiades himself: to promise of mind rather than to attractions of person. Sokrates has been always hitherto restrained, by his divine sign or Dæmon, from speaking to Alkibiades. But this prohibition has now been removed; and he accosts him for the first time, in the full belief that he shall be able to give improving counsel, essential to the success of that political career upon which the youth is about to enter.1

Questions put by Sokrates, in reference to Alkibiades in his intended function as adviser of the Athenians. What does he intend to advise them upon? What has he learnt, and what does he know?

Sokr. — You are about to step forward as adviser of the public assembly. Upon what points do you intend to advise them? Upon points which you know better than they? Alk. — Of course. Sokr. — All that you know, has been either learnt from others or found out by yourself. Alk. — Certainly. Sokr. — But you would neither have learnt any thing, nor found out any thing, without the desire to learn or find out: and you would have felt no such desire, in respect to that which you believed yourself to know already. That which you now know, therefore, there was a time when you believed yourself not to know? Alk. — Necessarily so. Sokr. — Now all that you have learnt, as I am well aware, consists of three things — letters, the harp, gymnastics. Do you intend to advise the Athenians when they are debating about letters, or about harp-playing, or about gymnastics? Alk. — Neither of the three. Sokr. — Upon what occasions, then, do you propose to give advice? Surely, not when the Athenians are debating about architecture, or prophetic warnings, or the public health: for to deliver opinions on each of these matters, belongs not to you but to professional men — architects, prophets, physicians; whether they be poor or rich, high-born or low-born? If not then, upon what other occasions will you tender your counsel? Alk. — When they are debating about affairs of their own.

How, or from whom, has Alkibiades learnt to discern or distinguish Just and Unjust? He never learnt it from any one; he always knew it, even as a boy.

Sokr. — But about what affairs of their own? Not about affairs of shipbuilding: for of that you know nothing. Alk. — When they are discussing war and peace, or any other business concerning the city. Sokr. — You mean when they are discussing the question with whom they shall make war or peace, and in what manner? But it is certain that we must fight those whom it is best to fight — also when it is best — and as long as it is best. Alk. — Certainly. Sokr. — Now, if the Athenians wished to know whom it was best to wrestle with, and when or how long it was best which of the two would be most competent to advise them, you or the professional trainer? Alk. — The trainer, undoubtedly. Sokr. — So, too, about playing the harp or singing. But when you talk about better, in wrestling or singing, what standard do you refer to? Is it not to the gymnastic or musical art? Alk. — Yes. Sokr. — Answer me in like manner about war or peace, the subjects on which you are going to advise your countrymen, whom, and at what periods, it is better to fight, and better not to fight? What in this last case do you mean by better? To what standard, or to what end, do you refer?3 Alk. — I cannot say. Sokr. — But is it not a disgrace, since you profess to advise your countrymen when and against whom it is better for them to war, — not to be able to say to what end your better refers? Do not you know what are the usual grounds and complaints urged when war is undertaken? Alk. — Yes: complaints of having been cheated, or robbed, or injured. Sokr. — Under what circumstances? Alk. — You mean, whether justly or unjustly? That makes all the difference. Sokr. — Do you mean to advise the Athenians to fight those who behave justly, or those who behave unjustly? Alk. — The question is monstrous. Certainly not those who behave justly. It would be neither lawful nor honourable. Sokr. — Then when you spoke about better, in reference to war or peace, what you meant was juster — you had in view justice and injustice? Alk. — It seems so.

Answer amended. Alkibiades learnt it from the multitude, as he learnt to speak Greek. — The multitude cannot teach just and unjust, for they are at variance among themselves about it. Alkibiades is going to advise the Athenians about what he does not know himself.

Sokr. — How is this? How do you know, or where have you learnt, to distinguish just from unjust? Have you frequented some master, without my knowledge, to teach you this? If you have, pray introduce me to him, that I also may learn it from him. Alk. — You are jesting. Sokr. — Not at all: I love you too well to jest. Alk. — But what if I had no master? Cannot I know about justice and injustice, without a master? Sokr. — Certainly: you might find out for yourself, if you made search and investigated. But this you would not do, unless you were under the persuasion that you did not already know. Alk. — Was there not a time when I really believed myself not to know it? Sokr. — Perhaps there may have been: tell me when that time was. Was it last year? Alk. — No: last year I thought that I knew. Sokr. — Well, then two years, three years, &c., ago? Alk. — No: the case was the same then, also, I thought that I knew. Sokr. — But before that, you were a mere boy; and during your boyhood you certainly believed yourself to know what was just and unjust; for I well recollect hearing you then complain confidently of other boys, for acting unjustly towards you. Alk. — Certainly: I was not then ignorant on the point: I knew distinctly that they were acting unjustly towards me. Sokr. — You knew, then, even in your boyhood, what was just and what was unjust? Alk. — Certainly: I knew even then. Sokr. — At what moment did you first find it out? Not when you already believed yourself to know: and what time was there when you did not believe yourself to know? Alk. — Upon my word, I cannot say.

Answer farther amended. The Athenians do not generally debate about just or unjust — which they consider plain to every one — but about expedient and inexpedient, which are not coincident with just and unjust. But neither does Alkibiades know the expedient. He asks Sokrates to explain. Sokrates declines: he can do nothing but question.

Sokr. — Since, accordingly, you neither found it out for yourself, nor learnt it from others, how come you to know justice or injustice at all, or from what quarter? Alk. — I was mistaken in saying that I had not learnt it. I learnt it, as others do, from the multitude.4 Sokr. — Your teachers are none of the best: no one can learn from them even such small matters as playing at draughts: much less, what is just and unjust. Alk. — I learnt it from them as I learnt to speak Greek, in which, too, I never had any special teacher. Sokr. — Of that the multitude are competent teachers, for they are all of one mind. Ask which is a tree or a stone, — a horse or a man, — you get the same answer from every one. But when you ask not simply which are horses, but also which horses are fit to run well in a race — when you ask not merely about which are men, but which men are healthy or unhealthy — are the multitude all of one mind, or all competent to answer? Alk. — Assuredly not. Sokr. — When you see the multitude differing among themselves, that is a clear proof that they are not competent to teach others. Alk. — It is so. Sokr. — Now, about the question, What is just and unjust — are the multitude all of one mind, or do they differ among themselves? Alk. — They differ prodigiously: they not only dispute, but quarrel and destroy each other, respecting justice and injustice, far more than about health and sickness.5 Sokr. How, then, can we say that the multitude know what is just and unjust, when they thus fiercely dispute about it among themselves? Alk. — I now perceive that we cannot say so. Sokr. — How can we say, therefore, that they are fit to teach others: and how can you pretend to know, who have learnt from no other teachers? Alk. — From what you say, it is impossible.

Comment on the preceding — Sokratic method — the respondent makes the discoveries for himself.

Such is the commencing portion (abbreviated or abstracted) of Plato’s First Alkibiadês. It exhibits a very characteristic specimen of the Sokratico-Platonic method: both in its negative and positive aspect. By the negative, false persuasion of knowledge is exposed. Alkibiades believes himself competent to advise about just and unjust, which he has neither learnt from any teacher nor investigated for himself — which he has picked up from the multitude, and supposes to be clear to every one, but about which nevertheless there is so much difference of appreciation among the multitude, that fierce and perpetual quarrels are going on. On the positive side, Sokrates restricts himself to the function of questioning: he neither affirms nor denies any thing. It is Alkibiades who affirms or denies every thing, and who makes all the discoveries for himself out of his own mind, instigated indeed, but not taught, by the questions of his companion.

Humiliation of Alkibiades. Other Athenian statesmen are equally ignorant. But the real opponents, against whom Alkibiades is to measure himself, are, the kings of Sparta and Persia. Eulogistic description of those kings. To match them, Alkibiades must make himself as good as possible.

By a farther series of questions, Sokrates next brings Alkibiades to the admission that what is just, is also honourable, good, expedient — what is unjust, is dishonourable, evil, inexpedient: and that whoever acts justly, and honourably, thereby acquires happiness. Admitting, first, that an act which is good, honourable, just, expedient, &c., considered in one aspect or in reference to some of its conditions — may be at the same time bad, dishonourable, unjust, considered in another aspect or in reference to other conditions; Sokrates nevertheless brings his respondent to admit, that every act, in so far as it is just and honourable, is also good and expedient.10 And he contends farther, that whoever acts honourably, does well: now every man who does well, becomes happy, or secures good things thereby: therefore the just, the honourable, and the good or expedient, coincide.11 The argument, whereby this conclusion is here established, is pointed out by Heindorf, Stallbaum, and Steinhart, as not merely inconclusive, but as mere verbal equivocation and sophistry — the like of which, however, we find elsewhere in Plato.12

But good — for what end, and under what circumstances? Abundant illustrative examples.

Alkibiades, puzzled and humiliated, confesses his ignorance. Encouragement given by Sokrates. It is an advantage to make such discovery in youth.

The dialogue then continues. Sokr. — We wish to become as good as possible. But in what sort of virtue? Alk. — In that virtue which belongs to good men. Sokr. — Yes, but good, in what matters? Alk. — Evidently, to men who are good in transacting business. Sokr. — Ay, but what kind of business? business relating to horses, or to navigation? If that be meant, we must go and consult horse-trainers or mariners? Alk. — No, I mean such business as is transacted by the most esteemed leaders in Athens. Sokr. — You mean the intelligent men. Every man is good, in reference to that which he understands: every man is bad, in reference to that which he does not understand. Alk. — Of course. Sokr. — The cobbler understands shoemaking, and is therefore good at that: he does not understand weaving, and is therefore bad at that. The same man thus, in your view, will be both good and bad?17 Alk. — No: that cannot be. Sokr. — Whom then do you mean, when you talk of the good? Alk. — I mean those who are competent to command in the city. Sokr. — But to command whom or what — horses or men? Alk. — To command men. Sokr. — But what men, and under what circumstances? sick men, or men on shipboard, or labourers engaged in harvesting, or in what occupations? Alk. — I mean, men living in social and commercial relation with each other, as we live here; men who live in common possession of the same laws and government. Sokr. — When men are in communion of a sea voyage and of the same ship, how do we name the art of commanding them, and to what purpose does it tend? Alk. — It is the art of the pilot; and the purpose towards which it tends, is, bringing them safely through the dangers of the sea. Sokr. — When men are in social and political communion, to what purpose does the art of commanding them tend? Alk. — Towards the better preservation and administration of the city.18 Sokr. — But what do you mean by better? What is that, the presence or absence of which makes better or worse? If in regard to the management of the body, you put to me the same question, I should reply, that it is the presence of health, and the absence of disease. What reply will you make, in the case of the city? Alk. — I should say, when friendship and unanimity among the citizens are present, and when discord and antipathy are absent. Sokr. — This unanimity, of what nature is it? Respecting what subject? What is the art or science for realising it? If I ask you what brings about unanimity respecting numbers and measures, you will say the arithmetical and the metrêtic art. Alk. — I mean that friendship and unanimity which prevails between near relatives, father and son, husband and wife. Sokr. — But how can there be unanimity between any two persons, respecting subjects which one of them knows, and the other does not know? For example, about spinning and weaving, which the husband does not know, or about military duties, which the wife does not know, how can there be unanimity between the two? Alk. — No: there cannot be. Sokr. — Nor friendship, if unanimity and friendship go together? Alk. — Apparently there cannot. Sokr. — Then when men and women each perform their own special duties, there can be no friendship between them. Nor can a city be well administered, when each citizen performs his own special duties? or (which is the same thing) when each citizen acts justly? Alk. — Not so: I think there may be friendship, when each person performs his or her own business. Sokr. — Just now you said the reverse. What is this friendship or unanimity which we must understand and realise, in order to become good men?

Platonic Dialectic — its actual effect — its anticipated effect — applicable to the season of youth.

Know Thyself — Delphian maxim — its urgent importance — What is myself? My mind is myself.

I cannot know myself, except by looking into another mind. Self-knowledge is temperance. Temperance and Justice are the conditions both of happiness and of freedom.

Alkibiades feels himself unworthy to be free, and declares that he will never quit Sokrates.

Since temperance consists in self-knowledge, neither of these professional men, as such, is temperate: their professions are of a vulgar cast, and do not belong to the virtuous life.23 How are we to know our own minds? We know it by looking into another mind, and into the most rational and divine portion thereof: just as the eye can only know itself by looking into another eye, and seeing itself therein reflected.24 It is only in this way that we can come to know ourselves, or become temperate: and if we do not know ourselves, we cannot even know what belongs to ourselves, or what belongs to others: all these are branches of one and the same cognition. We can have no knowledge of affairs, either public or private: we shall go wrong, and shall be unable to secure happiness either for ourselves or for others. It is not wealth or power which are the conditions of happiness, but justice and temperance. Both for ourselves individually, and for the public collectively, we ought to aim at justice and temperance, not at wealth and power. The evil and unjust man ought to have no power, but to be the slave of those who are better than himself.25 He is fit for nothing but to be a slave: none deserve freedom except the virtuous.

Second Alkibiades — situation supposed.

Danger of mistake in praying to the Gods for gifts which may prove mischievous. Most men are unwise. Unwise is the generic word: madmen, a particular variety under it.

Relation between a generic term, and the specific terms comprehended under it, was not then familiar.

Sokr. — You seem absorbed in thought, Alkibiades, and not unreasonably. In supplicating the Gods, caution is required not to pray for gifts which are really mischievous. The Gods sometimes grant men’s prayers, even when ruinously destructive; as they granted the prayers of Œdipus, to the destruction of his own sons. Alk. — Œdipus was mad: what man in his senses would put up such a prayer? Sokr. — You think that madness is the opposite of good sense or wisdom. You recognise men wise and unwise: and you farther admit that every man must be one or other of the two, — just as every man must be either healthy or sick: there is no third alternative possible? Alk. — I think so. Sokr. — But each thing can have but one opposite:27 to be unwise, and to be mad, are therefore identical? Alk. — They are. Sokr. — Wise men are only few, the majority of our citizens are unwise: but do you really think them mad? How could any of us live safely in the society of so many mad-men? Alk. — No: it cannot be so: I was mistaken. Sokr. — Here is the illustration of your mistake. All men who have gout, or fever, or ophthalmia are sick; but all sick men have not gout, or fever, or ophthalmia. So, too, all carpenters, or shoemakers, or sculptors, are craftsmen; but all craftsmen are not carpenters, or shoemakers, or sculptors. In like manner, all mad men are unwise; but all unwise men are not mad. Unwise comprises many varieties and gradations of which the extreme is, being mad: but these varieties are different among themselves, as one disease differs from another, though all agree in being disease and one art differs from another, though all agree in being art.28

Frequent cases, in which men pray for supposed benefits, and find that when obtained, they are misfortunes. Every one fancies that he knows what is beneficial: mischiefs of ignorance.

(We may remark that Plato here, as in the Euthyphron, brings under especial notice one of the most important distinctions in formal logic — that between a generic between a term and the various specific terms comprehended under it. Possessing as yet no technical language for characterising this distinction, he makes it understood by an induction of several separate but analogous cases. Because the distinction is familiar now to instructed men, we must not suppose that it was familiar then.)

Mistake in predications about ignorance generally. We must discriminate. Ignorance of what? Ignorance of good, is always mischievous: ignorance of other things, not always.

Sokr. — You ought not to denounce ignorance in this unqualified manner. You must distinguish and specify. Ignorance of what? and under what modifications of persons and circumstances? Alk. — How? Are there any matters or circumstances in which it is better for a man to be ignorant, than to know? Sokr. — You will see that there are such. Ignorance of good, or ignorance of what is best, is always mischievous: moreover, assuming that a man knows what is best, then all other knowledge will be profitable to him. In his special case, ignorance on any subject cannot be otherwise than hurtful. But if a man be ignorant things of good, or of what is best, in his case knowledge on other subjects will be more often hurtful than profitable. To a man like Orestes, so misguided on the question, “What is good?” as to resolve to kill his mother, it would be a real benefit, if for the time he did not know his mother. Ignorance on that point, in his state of mind, would be better for him than knowledge.31 Alk. — It appears so.

Special accomplishments, without the knowledge of the good or profitable, are oftener hurtful than beneficial.

Sokr. — Follow the argument farther. When we come forward to say or do any thing, we either know what we are about to say and do, or at least believe ourselves to know it. Every statesman who gives counsel to the public, does so in the faith of such knowledge. Most citizens are unwise, and ignorant of good as well as of other things. The wise are but few, and by their advice the city is conducted. Now upon what ground do we call these few, wise and useful public counsellors? If a statesman knows war, but does not know whether it is best to go to war, or at what juncture it is best — should we call him wise? If he knows how to kill men, or dispossess them, or drive them into exile, — but does not know upon whom, or on what occasions, it is good to inflict this treatment — is he a useful counsellor? If he can ride, or shoot, or wrestle, well, — we give him an epithet derived from this special accomplishment: we do not call him wise. What would be the condition of a community composed of bowmen, horsemen, wrestlers, rhetors, &c., accomplished and excellent each in his own particular craft, yet none of them knowing what is good, nor when, nor on what occasions, it is good to employ their craft? When each man pushes forward his own art and speciality, without any knowledge whether it is good on the whole either for himself or for the city, will not affairs thus conducted be reckless and disastrous?32 Alk. — They will be very bad indeed.

It is unsafe for Alkibiades to proceed with his sacrifice, until he has learnt what is the proper language to address to the Gods. He renounces his sacrifice, and throws himself upon the counsel of Sokrates.

Different critical opinions respecting these two dialogues.

Sokr. — The Lacedæmonians, when they offer sacrifice, pray simply that they may obtain what is honourable and good, without farther specification. This language is acceptable to the Gods, more acceptable than the costly festivals of Athens. It has procured for the Spartans more continued prosperity than the Athenians have enjoyed.34 The Gods honour wise and just men, that is, men who know what they ought to say and do both towards Gods and towards men — more than numerous and splendid offerings.35 You see, therefore, that it is not safe for you to proceed with your sacrifice, until you have learnt what is the proper language to be used, and what are the really good gifts to be prayed for. Otherwise your sacrifice will not prove acceptable, and you may even bring upon yourself positive mischief.36 Alk. — When shall I be able to learn this, and who is there to teach me? I shall be delighted to meet him. Sokr. — There is a person at hand most anxious for your improvement. What he must do is, first to disperse the darkness from your mind, next, to impart that which will teach you to discriminate evil from good, which at present you are unable to do. Alk. — I shall shrink from no labour to accomplish this object. Until then, I postpone my intended sacrifice: and I tender my sacrificial wreath to you, in gratitude for your counsel.37 Sokr. — I accept the wreath as a welcome augury of future friendship and conversation between us, to help us out of the present embarrassment.

Grounds for disallowing them — less strong against the Second than against the First.

The two dialogues, called First and Second Alkibiadês, of which I have just given some account, resemble each other more than most of the Platonic dialogues, not merely in the personages introduced, but in general spirit, in subject, and even in illustrations. The First Alkibiadês was recognised as authentic by all critics without exception, until the days of Schleiermacher. Nay, it was not only recognised, but extolled as one of the most valuable and important of all the Platonic compositions; proper to be studied first, as a key to all the rest. Such was the view of Jamblichus and Proklus, transmitted to modern times; until it received a harsh contradiction from Schleiermacher, who declared the dialogue to be both worthless and spurious. The Second Alkibiadês was also admitted both by Thrasyllus, and by the general body of critics in ancient times: but there were some persons (as we learn from Athenæus)38 who considered it to be a work of Xenophon; perceiving probably (what is the fact) that it bears much analogy to several conversations which Xenophon has set down. But those who held this opinion are not to be considered as of one mind with critics who reject the dialogue as a forgery or imitation of Plato. Compositions emanating from Xenophon are just as much Sokratic, probably even more Sokratic, than the most unquestioned Platonic dialogues, besides that they must of necessity be contemporary also. Schleiermacher has gone much farther: declaring the Second as well as the First to be an unworthy imitation of Plato.39

The supposed grounds for disallowance are in reality only marks of inferiority.

The two dialogues may probably be among Plato’s earlier compositions.

But I must here repeat, that because I find, in this or any other dialogue, some peculiarities not usual with Plato, I do not feel warranted thereby in declaring the dialogue spurious. In my judgment, we must look for a large measure of diversity in the various dialogues; and I think it an injudicious novelty, introduced by Schleiermacher, to set up a canonical type of Platonism, all deviations from which are to be rejected as forgeries. Both the First and the Second Alkibiadês appear to me genuine, even upon the showing of those very critics who disallow them. Schleiermacher, Stallbaum, and Steinhart, all admit that there is in both the dialogues a considerable proportion of Sokratic and Platonic ideas: but they maintain that there are also other ideas which are not Sokratic or Platonic, and that the texture, style, and prolixity of the Second Alkibiadês (Schleiermacher maintains this about the First also) are unworthy of Plato. But if we grant these premisses, the reasonable inference would be, not to disallow it altogether, but to admit it as a work by Plato, of inferior merit; perhaps of earlier days, before his powers of composition had attained their maturity. To presume that because Plato composed many excellent dialogues, therefore all that he composed must have been excellent, is a pretension formally disclaimed by many critics, and asserted by none.43 Steinhart himself allows that the Second Alkibiadês, though not composed by Plato, is the work of some other author contemporary, an untrained Sokratic disciple attempting to imitate Plato.44 But we do not know that there were any contemporaries who tried to imitate Plato: though Theopompus accused him of imitating others, and called most of his dialogues useless as well as false: while Plato himself, in his inferior works, will naturally appear like an imitator of his better self.

Analogy with various dialogues in the Xenophontic Memorabilia — Purpose of Sokrates to humble presumptuous young men.

I agree with Schleiermacher and the other recent critics in considering the First and Second Alkibiadês to be inferior in merit to Plato’s best dialogues; and I contend that their own premisses justify no more. They may probably be among his earlier productions, though I do not believe that the First Alkibiadês was composed during the lifetime of Sokrates, as Socher, Steinhart, and Stallbaum endeavour to show.45 I have already given my reasons, in a previous chapter, for believing that Plato composed no dialogues at all during the lifetime of Sokrates; still less in that of Alkibiadês, who died four years earlier. There is certainly nothing in either Alkibiadês I. or II. to shake this belief.

Fitness of the name and character of Alkibiades for idealising this feature in Sokrates.

Plato’s manner of replying to the accusers of Sokrates. Magical influence ascribed to the conversation of Sokrates.

If Plato wished to idealise this feature in the character of Sokrates, no name could be more suitable to his purpose than that of Alkibiades: who, having possessed as a youth the greatest personal beauty (to which Sokrates was exquisitely sensible) had become in his mature life distinguished not less for unprincipled ambition and insolence, than for energy and ability. We know the real Alkibiadês both from Thucydides and Xenophon, and we also know that Alkibiades had in his youth so far frequented the society of Sokrates as to catch some of that dialectic ingenuity, which the latter was expected and believed to impart.49 The contrast, as well as the companionship, between Sokrates and Alkibiades was eminently suggestive to the writers of Sokratic dialogues, and nearly all of them made use of it, composing dialogues in which Alkibiades was the principal name and figure.50 It would be surprising indeed if Plato had never done the same: which is what we must suppose, if we adopt Schleiermacher’s view, that both Alkibiadês I. and II. are spurious. In the Protagoras as well as in the Symposion, Alkibiades figures; but in neither of them is he the principal person, or titular hero, of the piece. In Alkibiadês I. and II., he is introduced as the solitary respondent to the questions of Sokrates — κολαστηρίου ἕνεκα: to receive from Sokrates a lesson of humiliation such as the Xenophontic Sokrates administers to Glaukon and Euthydemus, taking care to address the latter when alone.51

The purpose proclaimed by Sokrates in the Apology is followed out in Alkib. I. Warfare against the false persuasion of knowledge.

I conceive Alkibiadês I. and II. as composed by Plato among his earlier writings (perhaps between 399-390 B.C.)52 giving an imaginary picture of the way in which “Sokrates handled every respondent just as he chose” (to use the literal phrase of Xenophon53): taming even that most overbearing youth, whom Aristophanes characterises as the lion’s whelp.54 In selecting Alkibiades as the sufferer under such a chastising process, Plato rebuts in his own ideal style that charge which Xenophon answers with prosaic directness — the charge made against Sokrates by his enemies, that he taught political craft without teaching ethical sobriety; and that he had encouraged by his training the lawless propensities of Alkibiades.55 When Schleiermacher, and others who disallow the dialogue, argue that the inordinate insolence ascribed to Alkibiades, and the submissive deference towards Sokrates also ascribed to him, are incongruous and incompatible attributes, — I reply that such a conjunction is very improbable in any real character. But this does not hinder Plato from combining them in one and the same ideal character, as we shall farther see when we come to the manifestation of Alkibiades in the Symposion: in which dialogue we find a combination of the same elements, still more extravagant and high-coloured. Both here and there we are made to see that Sokrates, far from encouraging Alkibiades, is the only person who ever succeeded in humbling him. Plato attributes to the personality and conversation of Sokrates an influence magical and almost superhuman: which Cicero and Plutarch, proceeding probably upon the evidence of the Platonic dialogues, describe as if it were historical fact. They represent Alkibiades as shedding tears of sorrow and shame, and entreating Sokrates to rescue him from a sense of degradation insupportably painful.56 Now Xenophon mentions Euthydemus and other young men as having really experienced these profound and distressing emotions.57 But he does not at all certify the same about Alkibiades, whose historical career is altogether adverse to the hypothesis. The Platonic picture is an idéal, drawn from what may have been actually true about other interlocutors of Sokrates, and calculated to reply to Melêtus and his allies.

Difficulties multiplied for the purpose of bringing Alkibiades to a conviction of his own ignorance.

Looking at Alkibiadês I. and II. in this point of view, we shall find them perfectly Sokratic both in topics proclaimed and in manner — whatever may be said about unnecessary prolixity and common-place here and there. The leading ideas of Alkibiadês I. may be found, nearly all, in the Platonic Apology. That warfare, which Sokrates proclaims in the Apology as having been the mission of his life, against the false persuasion of knowledge, or against beliefs ethical and æsthetical, firmly entertained without having been preceded by conscious study or subjected to serious examination — is exemplified in Alkibiadês I. and II. as emphatically as in any Platonic composition. In both these dialogues, indeed (especially in the first), we find an excessive repetition of specialising illustrations, often needless and sometimes tiresome: a defect easily intelligible if we assume them to have been written when Plato was still a novice in the art of dialogic composition. But both dialogues are fully impregnated with the spirit of the Sokratic process, exposing, though with exuberant prolixity, the firm and universal belief, held and affirmed by every one even at the age of boyhood, without any assignable grounds or modes of acquisition, and amidst angry discordance between the affirmation of one man and another. The emphasis too with which Sokrates insists upon his own single function of merely questioning, and upon the fact that Alkibiades gives all the answers and pronounces all the self-condemnation with his own mouth58 — is remarkable in this dialogue: as well as the confidence with which he proclaims the dialogue as affording the only, but effective, cure.59 The ignorance of which Alkibiades stands unexpectedly convicted, is expressly declared to be common to him with the other Athenian politicians: an exception being half allowed to pass in favour of the semi-philosophical Perikles, whom Plato judges here with less severity than elsewhere60 — and a decided superiority being claimed for the Spartan and Persian kings, who are extolled as systematically trained from childhood.

Sokrates furnishes no means of solving these difficulties. He exhorts to Justice and Virtue — but these are acknowledged Incognita.

The main purpose of Sokrates is to drive Alkibiades into self-contradictions, and to force upon him a painful consciousness of ignorance and mental defect, upon grave and important subjects, while he is yet young enough to amend it. Towards this purpose he is made to lay claim to a divine mission similar to that which the real Sokrates announces in the Apology61 A number of perplexing questions and difficulties are accumulated: it is not meant that these difficulties are insoluble, but that they cannot be solved by one who has never seriously reflected on them — by one who (as the Xenophontic Sokrates says to Euthydemus),62 is so confident of knowing the subject that he has never meditated upon it at all. The disheartened Alkibiades feels the necessity of improving himself and supplicates the assistance of Sokrates:63 who reminds him that he must first determine what “Himself” is. Here again we find ourselves upon the track of Sokrates in the Platonic Apology, and under the influence of the memorable inscription at Delphi — Nosce teipsum. Your mind is yourself; your body is a mere instrument of your mind: your wealth and power are simple appurtenances or adjuncts. To know yourself, which is genuine Sophrosynê or temperance, is to know your mind: but this can only be done by looking into another mind, and into its most intelligent compartment: just as the eye can only see itself by looking into the centre of vision of another eye.64

Prolixity of Alkibiadês I. — Extreme multiplication of illustrative examples — How explained.

Alkibiadês II. leaves its problem avowedly undetermined.

Throughout the various Platonic dialogues, we find alternately two distinct and opposite methods of handling — the generalising of the special, and the specialising of the general. In Alkibiadês I, the specialising of the general preponderates — as it does in most of the conversations of the Xenophontic Memorabilia: the number of exemplifying particulars is unusually great. Sokrates does not accept as an answer a general term, without illustrating it by several of the specific terms comprehended under it: and this several times on occasions when an instructed reader thinks it superfluous and tiresome: hence, partly, the inclination of some modern critics to disallow the dialogue. But we must recollect that though a modern reader practised in the use of general terms may seize the meaning at once, an Athenian youth of the Platonic age would not be sure of doing the same. No conscious analysis had yet been applied to general terms: no grammar or logic then entered into education. Confident affirmation, without fully knowing the meaning of what is affirmed, is the besetting sin against which Plato here makes war: and his precautions for exposing it are pushed to extreme minuteness. So, too, in the Sophistês and Politikus, when he wishes to illustrate the process of logical division and subdivision, he applies it to cases so trifling and so multiplied, that Socher is revolted and rejects the dialogues altogether. But Plato himself foresees and replies to the objection; declaring expressly that his main purpose is, not to expound the particular subject chosen, but to make manifest and familiar the steps and conditions of the general classifying process — and that prolixity cannot be avoided.66 We must reckon upon a similar purpose in Alkibiadês I. The dialogue is a specimen of that which Aristotle calls Inductive Dialectic, as distinguished from Syllogistic: the Inductive he considers to be plainer and easier, suitable when you have an ordinary collocutor — the Syllogistic is the more cogent, when you are dealing with a practised disputant.67

Sokrates commends the practice of praying to the Gods for favours undefined — his views about the semi-regular, semi-irregular agency of the Gods — he prays to them for premonitory warnings.

It has been seen that Alkibiadês I, though professing to give something like a solution, gives what is really no solution at all. Alkibiadês II., similar in many respects, is here different, inasmuch as it does not even profess to solve the difficulty which had been raised. The general mental defect — false persuasion of knowledge without the reality — is presented in its application to a particular case. Alkibiades is obliged to admit that he does not know what he ought to pray to the Gods for: neither what is good, to be granted, nor what is evil, to be averted. He relies upon Sokrates for dispelling this mist from his mind: which Sokrates promises to do, but adjourns for another occasion.

Comparison of Alkibiadês II. with the Xenophontic Memorabilia, especially the conversation of Sokrates with Euthydemus. Sokrates not always consistent with himself.

Sokrates here ascribes to the Spartans, and to various philosophers, the practice of putting up prayers in undefined language, for good and honourable things generally. He commends that practice. Xenophon tells us that the historical Sokrates observed it:68 but he tells us also that the historical Sokrates, though not praying for any special presents from the Gods, yet prayed for and believed himself to receive special irregular revelations and advice as to what was good to be done or avoided in particular cases. He held that these special revelations were essential to any tolerable life: that the dispensations of the Gods, though administered upon regular principles on certain subjects and up to a certain point, were kept by them designedly inscrutable beyond that point: but that the Gods would, if properly solicited, afford premonitory warnings to any favoured person, such as would enable him to keep out of the way of evil, and put himself in the way of good. He declared that to consult and obey oracles and prophets was not less a maxim of prudence than a duty of piety: for himself, he was farther privileged through his divine sign or monitor, which he implicitly followed.69 Such premonitory warnings were the only special favour which he thought it suitable to pray for — besides good things generally. For special presents he did not pray, because he professed not to know whether any of the ordinary objects of desire were good or bad. He proves in his conversation with Euthydêmus, that all those acquisitions which are usually accounted means of happiness — beauty, strength, wealth, reputation, nay, even good health and wisdom — are sometimes good or causes of happiness, sometimes evil or causes of misery; and therefore cannot be considered either as absolutely the one or absolutely the other.70

Remarkable doctrine of Alkibiadês II. — that knowledge is not always Good. The knowledge of Good itself is indispensable: without that, the knowledge of other things is more hurtful than beneficial.

Knowledge of Good — appears postulated and divined, in many of the Platonic dialogues, under different titles.

The stress which is laid here upon the knowledge of good, as distinguished from all other varieties of knowledge — the identification of the good with the profitable, and of the knowledge of good with reason (νοῦς), while other varieties of knowledge are ranked with opinion (δόξα) — these are points which, under one phraseology or another, pervade many of the Platonic dialogues. The old phrase of Herakleitus — Πολυμαθίη νόον οὐ διδάσκει — “much learning does not teach reason” — seems to have been present to the mind of Plato in composing this dialogue. The man of much learning and art, without the knowledge of good, and surrendering himself to the guidance of one or other among his accomplishments, is like a vessel tossed about at sea without a pilot.76

The Good — the Profitable — what is it? — How are we to know it? Plato leaves this undetermined.

Hippias Major — situation supposed — character of the dialogue. Sarcasm and mockery against Hippias.

Real debate between the historical Sokrates and Hippias in the Xenophontic Memorabilia — subject of that debate.

Both these two dialogues are carried on between Sokrates and the Eleian Sophist Hippias. The general conception of Hippias — described as accomplished, eloquent, and successful, yet made to say vain and silly things — is the same in both dialogues: in both also the polemics of Sokrates against him are conducted in a like spirit, of affected deference mingled with insulting sarcasm. Indeed the figure assigned to Hippias is so contemptible, that even an admiring critic like Stallbaum cannot avoid noticing the “petulans pene et proterva in Hippiam oratio,” and intimating that Plato has handled Hippias more coarsely than any one else. Such petulance Stallbaum attempts to excuse by saying that the dialogue is a youthful composition of Plato:1 while Schleiermacher numbers it among the reasons for suspecting the dialogue, and Ast, among the reasons for declaring positively that Plato is not the author.2 This last conclusion I do not at all accept: nor even the hypothesis of Stallbaum, if it be tendered as an excuse for improprieties of tone: for I believe that the earliest of Plato’s dialogues was composed after he was twenty-eight years of age — that is, after the death of Sokrates. It is however noway improbable, that both the Greater and Lesser Hippias may have been among Plato’s earlier compositions. We see by the Memorabilia of Xenophon that there was repeated and acrimonious controversy between Sokrates and Hippias: so that we may probably suppose feelings of special dislike, determining Plato to compose two distinct dialogues, in which an imaginary Hippias is mocked and scourged by an imaginary Sokrates.

Opening of the Hippias Major — Hippias describes the successful circuit which he had made through Greece, and the renown as well as the gain acquired by his lectures.

One considerable point in the Hippias Major appears to have a bearing on the debate between Sokrates and Hippias in the Xenophontic Memorabilia: in which debate, Hippias taunts Sokrates with always combating and deriding the opinions of others, while evading to give opinions of his own. It appears that some antecedent debates between the two had turned upon the definition of the Just, and that on these occasions Hippias had been the respondent, Sokrates the objector. Hippias professes to have reflected upon these debates, and to be now prepared with a definition which neither Sokrates nor any one else can successfully assail, but he will not say what the definition is, until Sokrates has laid down one of his own. In reply to this challenge, Sokrates declares the Just to be equivalent to the Lawful or Customary: he defends this against various objections of Hippias, who concludes by admitting it.3 Probably this debate, as reported by Xenophon, or something very like it, really took place. If so, we remark with surprise the feebleness of the objections of Hippias, in a case where Sokrates, if he had been the objector, would have found such strong ones — and the feeble replies given by Sokrates, whose talent lay in starting and enforcing difficulties, not in solving them.4 Among the remarks which Sokrates makes in illustration to Hippias, one is — that Lykurgus had ensured superiority to Sparta by creating in the Spartans a habit of implicit obedience to the laws.5 Such is the character of the Xenophontic debate.

Hippias had met with no success at Sparta. Why the Spartans did not admit his instructions — their law forbids.

Upon this Sokrates asks — In which of the cities were your gains the largest: probably at Sparta? Hip. — No; I received nothing at all at Sparta. Sokr. — How? You amaze me! Were not your lectures calculated to improve the Spartan youth? or did not the Spartans desire to have their youth improved? or had they no money? Hip. — Neither one nor the other. The Spartans, like others, desire the improvement of their youth: they also have plenty of money: moreover my lectures were very beneficial to them as well as to the rest.6 Sokr. — How could it happen then, that at Sparta, a city great and eminent for its good laws, your valuable instructions were left unrewarded; while you received so much at the inconsiderable town of Inykus? Hip. — It is not the custom of the country, Sokrates, for the Spartans to change their laws, or to educate their sons in a way different from their ordinary routine. Sokr. — How say you? It is not the custom of the country for the Spartans to do right, but to do wrong? Hip. — I shall not say that, Sokrates. Sokr. — But surely they would do right, in educating their children better and not worse? Hip. — Yes, they would do right: but it is not lawful for them to admit a foreign mode of education. If any one could have obtained payment there for education, I should have obtained a great deal; for they listen to me with delight and applaud me: but, as I told you, their law forbids.

Comparison of the argument of the Platonic Sokrates with that of the Xenophontic Sokrates.

Sokr. — Do you call law a hurt or benefit to the city? Hip. — Law is enacted with a view to benefit: but it sometimes hurts if it be badly enacted.7 Sokr. — But what? Do not the enactors enact it as the maximum of good, without which the citizens cannot live a regulated life? Hip. — Certainly: they do so. Sokr. — Therefore, when those who try to enact laws miss the attainment of good, they also miss the lawful and law itself. How say you? Hip. — They do so, if you speak with strict propriety: but such is not the language which men commonly use. Sokr. — What men? the knowing? or the ignorant? Hip. — The Many. Sokr. — The Many; is it they who know what truth is? Hip. — Assuredly not. Sokr. — But surely those who do know, account the profitable to be in truth more lawful than the unprofitable, to all men. Don’t you admit this? Hip. — Yes, I admit they account it so in truth. Sokr. — Well, and it is so, too: the truth is as the knowing men account it. Hip. — Most certainly. Sokr. — Now you affirm, that it is more profitable to the Spartans to be educated according to your scheme, foreign as it is, than according to their own native scheme. Hip. — I affirm it, and with truth too. Sokr. — You affirm besides, that things more profitable are at the same time more lawful? Hip. — I said so. Sokr. — According to your reasoning, then, it is more lawful for the Spartan children to be educated by Hippias, and more unlawful for them to be educated by their fathers — if in reality they will be more benefited by you? Hip. — But they will be more benefited by me. Sokr. — The Spartans therefore act unlawfully, when they refuse to give you money and to confide to you their sons? Hip. — I admit that they do: indeed your reasoning seems to make in my favour, so that I am noway called upon to resist it. Sokr. — We find then, after all, that the Spartans are enemies of law, and that too in the most important matters — though they are esteemed the most exemplary followers of law.8

The Just or Good is the beneficial or profitable. This is the only explanation which Plato ever gives and to this he does not always adhere.

Perhaps Plato intended the above argument as a derisory taunt against the Sophist Hippias, for being vain enough to think his own tuition better than that of the Spartan community. If such was his intention, the argument might have been retorted against Plato himself, for his propositions in the Republic and Leges: and we know that the enemies of Plato did taunt him with his inability to get these schemes adopted in any actual community. But the argument becomes interesting when we compare it with the debate before referred to in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, where Sokrates maintains against Hippias that the Just is equivalent to the Lawful. In that Xenophontic dialogue, all the difficulties which embarrass this explanation are kept out of sight, and Sokrates is represented as gaining an easy victory over Hippias. In this Platonic dialogue, the equivocal use of the word νόμιμον is expressly adverted to, and Sokrates reduces Hippias to a supposed absurdity, by making him pronounce the Spartans to be enemies of law: παρανομούς bearing a double sense, and the proposition being true in one sense, false in the other. In the argument of the Platonic Sokrates, a law which does not attain its intended purpose of benefiting the community, is no law at all, — not lawful:9 so that we are driven back again upon the objections of Alkibiades against Perikles (in the Xenophontic Memorabilia) in regard to what constitutes a law. In the argument of the Xenophontic Sokrates, law means a law actually established, by official authority or custom — and the Spartans are produced as eminent examples of a lawfully minded community. As far as we can assign positive opinion to the Platonic Sokrates in the Hippias Major, he declares that the profitable or useful (being that which men always aim at in making law) is The Lawful, whether actually established or not: and that the unprofitable or hurtful (being that which men always intend to escape) is The Unlawful, whether prescribed by any living authority or not. This (he says) is the opinion of the wise men who know: though the ignorant vulgar hold the contrary opinion. The explanation of τὸ δίκαιον given by the Xenophontic Sokrates (τὸ δίκαιον = τὸ νόμιμον), would be equivalent, if we construe τὸ νόμιμον in the sense of the Platonic Sokrates (in Hippias Major) as an affirmation that The Just was the generally useful — Τὸ δίκαιον = τὸ κοινῇ σύμφορον.

Lectures of Hippias at Sparta not upon geometry, or astronomy, &c., but upon the question — What pursuits are beautiful, fine, and honourable for youth.

There exists however in all this, a prevalent confusion between Law (or the Lawful) as actually established, and Law (or the Lawful) as it ought to be established, in the judgment of the critic, or of those whom he follows: that is (to use the phrase of Mr. Austin in his ‘Province of Jurisprudence’) Law as it would be, if it conformed to its assumed measure or test. In the first of these senses, τὸ νόμιμον is not one and the same, but variable according to place and time — one thing at Sparta, another thing elsewhere: accordingly it would not satisfy the demand of Plato’s mind, when he asks for an explanation of τὸ δίκαιον. It is an explanation in the second of the two senses which Plato seeks — a common measure or test applicable universally, at all times and places. In so far as he ever finds one, it is that which I have mentioned above as delivered by the Platonic Sokrates in this dialogue: viz., the Just or Good, that which ought to be the measure or test of Law and Positive Morality, is, the beneficial or profitable. This (I repeat) is the only approach to a solution which we ever find in Plato. But this is seldom clearly enunciated, never systematically followed out, and sometimes, in appearance, even denied.

Question put by Sokrates, in the name of a friend in the background, who has just been puzzling him with it — What is the Beautiful?

Hippias thinks the question easy to answer.

I shall come willingly (replied Sokrates). But first answer me one small question, which will rescue me from a present embarrassment. Just now, I was shamefully puzzled in conversation with a friend, to whom I had been praising some things as honourable and beautiful, — blaming other things as mean and ugly. He surprised me by the interrogation — How do you know, Sokrates, what things are beautiful, and what are ugly? Come now, can you tell me, What is the Beautiful? I, in my stupidity, was altogether puzzled, and could not answer the question. But after I had parted from him, I became mortified and angry with myself; and I vowed that the next time I met any wise man, like you, I would put the question to him, and learn how to answer it; so that I might be able to renew the conversation with my friend. Your coming here is most opportune. I entreat you to answer and explain to me clearly what the Beautiful is; in order that I may not again incur the like mortification. You can easily answer: it is a small matter for you, with your numerous attainments.

Justice, Wisdom, Beauty must each be something. What is Beauty, or the Beautiful?

Hippias does not understand the question. He answers by indicating one particularly beautiful object.

Sokr. — My disputatious friend will not accept your answer. He wants you to tell him, What is the Self-Beautiful? — that Something through which all beautiful things become beautiful. Am I to tell him, it is because a beautiful maiden is a beautiful thing? He will say — Is not a beautiful mare a beautiful thing also? and a beautiful lyre as well? Hip. — Yes; — both of them are so. Sokr. — Ay, and a beautiful pot, my friend will add, well moulded and rounded by a skilful potter, is a beautiful thing too. Hip. — How, Sokrates? Who can your disputatious friend be? Some ill-taught man, surely; since he introduces such trivial names into a dignified debate. Sokr. — Yes; that is his character: not polite, but vulgar, anxious for nothing else but the truth. Hip. — A pot, if it be beautifully made, must certainly be called beautiful; yet still, all such objects are unworthy to be counted as beautiful, if compared with a maiden, a mare, or a lyre.

Second answer of Hippias — Gold, is that by the presence of which all things become beautiful — scrutiny applied to the answer. Complaint by Hippias about vulgar analogies.

Third answer of Hippias — questions upon it — proof given that it fails of universal application.

Hip. — I have another answer to which your friend can take no exception. That, by the presence of which all things become beautiful, is Gold. What was before ugly, will (we all know), when ornamented with gold, appear beautiful. Sokr. — You little know what sort of man my friend is. He will laugh at your answer, and ask you — Do you think, then, that Pheidias did not know his profession as a sculptor? How came he not to make the statue of Athênê all gold, instead of making (as he has done) the face, hands, and feet of ivory, and the pupils of the eyes of a particular stone? Is not ivory also beautiful, and particular kinds of stone? Hip. — Yes, each is beautiful, where it is becoming. Sokr. — And ugly, where it is not becoming.15 Hip. — Doubtless. I admit that what is becoming or suitable, makes that to which it is applied appear beautiful: that which is not becoming or suitable, makes it appear ugly. Sokr. — My friend will next ask you, when you are boiling the beautiful pot of which we spoke just now, full of beautiful soup, what sort of ladle will be suitable and becoming — one made of gold, or of fig-tree wood? Will not the golden ladle spoil the soup, and the wooden ladle turn it out good? Is not the wooden ladle, therefore, better than the golden? Hip. — By Hêraklês, Sokrates! what a coarse and stupid fellow your friend is! I cannot continue to converse with a man who talks of such matters. Sokr. — I am not surprised that you, with your fine attire and lofty reputation, are offended with these low allusions. But I have nothing to spoil by intercourse with this man; and I entreat you to persevere, as a favour to me. He will ask you whether a wooden soup-ladle is not more beautiful than a ladle of gold, — since it is more suitable and becoming? So that though you said — The Self-Beautiful is Gold — you are now obliged to acknowledge that gold is not more beautiful than fig-tree wood?

Farther answers, suggested by Sokrates himself — 1. The Suitable or Becoming — objections thereunto — it is rejected.

Hip. — I acknowledge that it is so. But I have another answer ready which will silence your friend. I presume you wish me to indicate as The Beautiful, something which will never appear ugly to any one, at any time, or at any place.16 Sokr. — That is exactly what I desire. Hip. — Well, I affirm, then, that to every man, always, and everywhere, the following is most beautiful. A man being healthy, rich, honoured by the Greeks, having come to old age and buried his own parents well, to be himself buried by his own sons well and magnificently. Sokr. — Your answer sounds imposing; but my friend will laugh it to scorn, and will remind me again, that his question pointed to the Beautiful itself17 — something which, being present as attribute in any subject, will make that subject (whether stone, wood, man, God, action, study, &c.) beautiful. Now that which you have asserted to be beautiful to every one everywhere, was not beautiful to Achilles, who accepted by preference the lot of dying before his father — nor is it so to the heroes, or to the sons of Gods, who do not survive or bury their fathers. To some, therefore, what you specify is beautiful — to others it is not beautiful but ugly: that is, it is both beautiful and ugly, like the maiden, the lyre, the pot, on which we have already remarked. Hip. — I did not speak about the Gods or Heroes. Your friend is intolerable, for touching on such profanities.18 Sokr. — However, you cannot deny that what you have indicated is beautiful only for the sons of men, and not for the sons of Gods. My friend will thus make good his reproach against your answer. He will tell me, that all the answers, which we have as yet given, are too absurd. And he may perhaps at the same time himself suggest another, as he sometimes does in pity for my embarrassment.

2. The useful or profitable — objections — it will not hold.

To this Sokrates objects: The suitable, or becoming, is what causes objects to appear beautiful — not what causes them to be really beautiful. Now the latter is that which we are seeking. The two conditions do not always go together. Those objects, institutions, and pursuits which are really beautiful (fine, honourable) very often do not appear so, either to individuals or to cities collectively; so that there is perpetual dispute and fighting on the subject. The suitable or becoming, therefore, as it is certainly what makes objects appear beautiful, so it cannot be what makes them really beautiful.20

3. The Beautiful is a variety of the Pleasurable — that which is received through the eye and the ear.

You cannot therefore say that Power, taken absolutely, is beautiful. You must add the qualification — Power used for the production of some good, is beautiful. This, then, would be the profitable — the cause or generator of good.24 But the cause is different from its effect: the generator or father is different from the generated or son. The beautiful would, upon this view, be the cause of the good. But then the beautiful would be different from the good, and the good different from the beautiful? Who can admit this? It is obviously wrong: it is the most ridiculous theory which we have yet hit upon.25

Objections to this last — What property is there common to both sight and hearing, which confers upon the pleasures of these two senses the exclusive privilege of being beautiful?

Answer — There is, belonging to each and to both in common, the property of being innocuous and profitable pleasures — upon this ground they are called beautiful.

The objector, however, must now be dealt with. He will ask us — Upon what ground do you make so marked a distinction between the pleasures of sight and hearing, and other pleasures? Do you deny that these others (those of taste, smell, eating, drinking, sex) are really pleasures? No, surely (we shall reply); we admit them to be pleasures, — but no one will tolerate us in calling them beautiful: especially the pleasures of sex, which as pleasures are the greatest of all, but which are ugly and disgraceful to behold. He will answer — I understand you: you are ashamed to call these pleasures beautiful, because they do not seem so to the multitude: but I did not ask you, what seems beautiful to the multitude — I asked you, what is beautiful.28 You mean to affirm, that all pleasures which do not belong to sight and hearing, are not beautiful: Do you mean, all which do not belong to both? or all which do not belong to one or the other? We shall reply — To either one of the two — or to both the two. Well! but, why (he will ask) do you single out these pleasures of sight and hearing, as beautiful exclusively? What is there peculiar in them, which gives them a title to such distinction? All pleasures are alike, so far forth as pleasures, differing only in the more or less. Next, the pleasures of sight cannot be considered as beautiful by reason of their coming through sight — for that reason would not apply to the pleasures of hearing: nor again can the pleasures of hearing be considered as beautiful by reason of their coming through hearing.29 We must find something possessed as well by sight as by hearing, common to both, and peculiar to them, — which confers beauty upon the pleasures of both and of each. Any attribute of one, which does not also belong to the other, will not be sufficient for our purpose.30 Beauty must depend upon some essential characteristic which both have in common.31 We must therefore look out for some such characteristic, which belongs to both as well as to each separately.

This will not hold — the Profitable is the cause of Good, and is therefore different from Good — to say that the beautiful is the Profitable, is to say that it is different from Good but this has been already declared inadmissible.

Remarks upon the Dialogue — the explanations ascribed to Hippias are special conspicuous examples: those ascribed to Sokrates are attempts to assign some general concept.

Nevertheless the objector will not be satisfied even with this. He will tell us — You declare the Beautiful to be Pleasure producing good. But we before agreed, that the producing agent or cause is different from what is produced or the effect. Accordingly, the Beautiful is different from the good: or, in other words, the Beautiful is not good, nor is the Good beautiful — if each of them is a different thing.34 Now these propositions we have already pronounced to be inadmissible, so that your present explanation will not stand better than the preceding.

Analogy between the explanations here ascribed to Sokrates, and those given by the Xenophontic Sokrates in the Memorabilia.

Thus finish the three distinct explanations of Τὸ καλὸν, which Plato in this dialogue causes to be first suggested by Sokrates, successively accepted by Hippias, and successively refuted by Sokrates. In comparing them with the three explanations which he puts into the mouth of Hippias, we note this distinction: That the explanations proposed by Hippias are conspicuous particular exemplifications of the Beautiful, substituted in place of the general concept: as we remarked, in the Dialogue Euthyphron, that the explanations of the Holy given by Euthyphron in reply to Sokrates, were of the same exemplifying character. On the contrary, those suggested by Sokrates keep in the region of abstractions, and seek to discover some more general concept, of which the Beautiful is only a derivative or a modification, so as to render a definition of it practicable. To illustrate this difference by the language of Dr. Whewell respecting many of the classifications in Natural History, we may say — That according to the views here represented by Hippias, the group of objects called beautiful is given by Type, not by Definition:35 while Sokrates proceeds like one convinced that some common characteristic attribute may be found, on which to rest a Definition. To search for Definitions of general words, was (as Aristotle remarks) a novelty, and a valuable novelty, introduced by Sokrates. His contemporaries, the Sophists among them, were not accustomed to it: and here the Sophist Hippias (according to Plato’s frequent manner) is derided as talking nonsense,36 because, when asked for an explanation of The Self-Beautiful, he answers by citing special instances of beautiful objects. But we must remember, first, that Sokrates, who is introduced as trying several general explanations of the Self-Beautiful, does not find one which will stand: next, that even if one such could be found, particular instances can never be dispensed with, in the way of illustration; lastly, that there are many general terms (the Beautiful being one of them) of which no definitions can be provided, and which can only be imperfectly explained, by enumerating a variety of objects to which the term in question is applied.37 Plato thought himself entitled to objectivise every general term, or to assume a substantive Ens, called a Form or Idea, corresponding to it. This was a logical mistake quite as serious as any which we know to have been committed by Hippias or any other Sophist. The assumption that wherever there is a general term, there must also be a generic attribute corresponding to it — is one which Aristotle takes much pains to negative: he recognises terms of transitional analogy, as well as terms equivocal: while he also especially numbers the Beautiful among equivocal terms.38

Concluding thrust exchanged between Hippias and Sokrates.

We read in the Xenophontic Memorabilia a dialogue between Sokrates and Aristippus, on this same subject — What is the Beautiful, which affords a sort of contrast between the Dialogues of Search and those of Exposition. In the Hippias Major, we have the problem approached on several different sides, various suggestions being proposed, and each successively disallowed, on reasons shown, as failures: while in the Xenophontic dialogue, Sokrates declares an affirmative doctrine, and stands to it — but no pains are taken to bring out the objections against it and rebut them. The doctrine is, that the Beautiful is coincident with the Good, and that both of them are resolvable into the Useful: thus all beautiful objects, unlike as they may be to the eye or touch, bear that name because they have in common the attribute of conducing to one and the same purpose — the security, advantage, or gratification, of man, in some form or other. This is one of the three explanations broached by the Platonic Sokrates, and afterwards refuted by him, in the Hippias: while his declaration (which Hippias puts aside as unseemly) — that a pot and a wooden soup-ladle conveniently made are beautiful is perfectly in harmony with that of the Xenophontic Sokrates, that a basket for carrying dung is beautiful, if it performs its work well.39 We must moreover remark, that the objections whereby the Platonic Sokrates, after proposing the doctrine and saying much in its favour, finds himself compelled at last to disallow it — these objections are not produced and refuted, but passed over without notice, in the Xenophontic dialogue, wherein Sokrates affirms it decidedly.40 The affirming Sokrates, and the objecting Sokrates, are not on the stage at once.

Rhetoric against Dialectic.

“My dear Hippias,” (replies Sokrates) “you are a happy man, since you know what pursuits a man ought to follow, and have yourself followed them, as you say, with good success. But I, as it seems, am under the grasp of an unaccountable fortune: for I am always fluctuating and puzzling myself, and when I lay my puzzle before you wise men, I am requited by you with hard words. I am told just what you have now been telling me, that I busy myself about matters silly, petty, and worthless. When on the contrary, overborne by your authority, I declare as you do, that it is the finest thing possible to be able to set out well and beautifully a regular discourse before the public assembly, and bring it to successful conclusion — then there are other men at hand who heap upon me bitter reproaches: especially that one man, my nearest kinsman and inmate, who never omits to convict me. When on my return home he hears me repeat what you have told me, he asks, if I am not ashamed of my impudence in talking about beautiful (honourable) pursuits, when I am so manifestly convicted upon this subject, of not even knowing what the Beautiful (Honourable) is. How can you (he says), being ignorant what the Beautiful is, know who has set out a discourse beautifully and who has not — who has performed a beautiful exploit and who has not? Since you are in a condition so disgraceful, can you think life better for you than death? Such then is my fate — to hear disparagement and reproaches from you on the one side, and from him on the other. Necessity however perhaps requires that I should endure all these discomforts: for it will be nothing strange if I profit by them. Indeed I think that I have already profited both by your society, Hippias, and by his: for I now think that I know what the proverb means — Beautiful (Honourable) things are difficult.”42

Men who dealt with real life, contrasted with the speculative and analytical philosophers.

Concrete Aggregates — abstract or logical Aggregates. Distinct aptitudes required by Aristotle for the Dialectician.

Hippias accuses Sokrates of never taking into his view Wholes, and of confining his attention to separate parts and fragments, obtained by logical analysis and subdivision. Aristophanes, when he attacks the Dialectic of Sokrates, takes the same ground, employing numerous comic metaphors to illustrate the small and impalpable fragments handled, and the subtle transpositions which they underwent in the reasoning. Isokrates again deprecates the over-subtlety of dialectic debate, contrasting it with discussions (in his opinion) more useful; wherein entire situations, each with its full clothing and assemblage of circumstances, were reviewed and estimated.44 All these are protests, by persons accustomed to deal with real life, and to talk to auditors both numerous and commonplace, against that conscious analysis and close attention to general and abstract terms, which Sokrates first insisted on and transmitted to his disciples. On the other side, we have the emphatic declaration made by the Platonic Sokrates (and made still earlier by the Xenophontic45 or historical Sokrates) — That a man was not fit to talk about beautiful things in the concrete — that he had no right to affirm or deny that attribute, with respect to any given subject — that he was not even fit to live unless he could explain what was meant by The Beautiful, or Beauty in the abstract. Here are two distinct and conflicting intellectual habits, the antithesis between which, indicated in this dialogue, is described at large and forcibly in the Theætêtus.46

Antithesis of Absolute and Relative, here brought into debate by Plato, in regard to the Idea of Beauty.

When Hippias accuses Sokrates of neglecting to notice Wholes or Aggregates, this is true in the sense of Concrete Wholes — the phenomenal sequences and co-existences, perceived by sense or imagined. But the Universal (as Aristotle says)47 is one kind of Whole: a Logical Whole, having logical parts. In the minds of Sokrates and Plato, the Logical Whole separable into its logical parts and into them only, were preponderant.

Hippias Minor — characters and situation supposed.

One other point deserves peculiar notice, in the dialogue under our review. The problem started is, What is the Beautiful — the Self-Beautiful, or Beauty per se: and it is assumed that this must be Something,48 that from the accession of which, each particular beautiful thing becomes beautiful. But Sokrates presently comes to make a distinction between that which is really beautiful and that which appears to be beautiful. Some things (he says) appear beautiful, but are not so in reality: some are beautiful, but do not appear so. The problem, as he states it, is, to find, not what that is which makes objects appear beautiful, but what it is that makes them really beautiful. This distinction, as we find it in the language of Hippias, is one of degree only:49 that is beautiful which appears so to every one and at all times. But in the language of Sokrates, the distinction is radical: to be beautiful is one thing, to appear beautiful is another; whatever makes a thing appear beautiful without being so in reality, is a mere engine of deceit, and not what Sokrates is enquiring for.50 The Self-Beautiful or real Beauty is so, whether any one perceives it to be beautiful or not: it is an Absolute, which exists per se, having no relation to any sentient or percipient subject.51 At any rate, such is the manner in which Plato conceives it, when he starts here as a problem to enquire, What it is.

Hippias has just delivered a lecture, in which he extols Achilles as better than Odysseus — the veracious and straightforward hero better than the mendacious and crafty.

This is contested by Sokrates. The veracious man and the mendacious man are one and the same — the only man who can answer truly if he chooses, is he who can also answer falsely if he chooses, i.e. the knowing man — the ignorant man cannot make sure of doing either the one or the other.

Mendacious men (answers Hippias, to a string of questions, somewhat prolix) are capable, intelligent, wise: they are not incapable or ignorant. If a man be incapable of speaking falsely, or ignorant, he is not mendacious. Now the capable man is one who can make sure of doing what he wishes to do, at the time and occasion when he does wish it, without let or hindrance.55

Analogy of special arts — it is only the arithmetician who can speak falsely on a question of arithmetic when he chooses.

You see, therefore, Hippias, that the distinction, which you drew and which you said that Homer drew, between Achilles and Odysseus, will not hold. You called Achilles veracious, and Odysseus, mendacious: but if one of the two epithets belongs to either of them, the other must belong to him also.58

Issue here taken — Sokrates contends that those who hurt, or cheat, or lie wilfully, are better than those who do the like unwillingly — he entreats Hippias to enlighten him and answer his questions.

Upon this point, Hippias (says Sokrates), I dissent from you entirely. I am, unhappily, a stupid person, who cannot find out the reality of things: and this appears plainly enough when I come to talk with wise men like you, for I always find myself differing from you. My only salvation consists in my earnest anxiety to put questions and learn from you, and in my gratitude for your answers and teaching. I think that those who hurt mankind, or cheat, or lie, or do wrong, wilfully — are better than those who do the same unwillingly. Sometimes, indeed, from my stupidity, the opposite view presents itself to me, and I become confused: but now, after talking with you, the fit of confidence has come round upon me again, to pronounce and characterise the persons who do wrong unwillingly, as worse than those who do wrong wilfully. I entreat you to heal this disorder of my mind. You will do me much more good than if you cured my body of a distemper. But it will be useless for you to give me one of your long discourses: for I warn you that I cannot follow it. The only way to confer upon me real service, will be to answer my questions again, as you have hitherto done. Assist me, Eudikus, in persuading Hippias to do so.

It is better to have the mind of a bowman who misses his mark only by design, than that of one who misses even when he intends to hit.

What is true about the bodily movements depending upon strength, is not less true about those depending on grace and elegance. To be wilfully ungraceful, belongs only to the well-constituted body: none but the badly-constituted body is ungraceful without wishing it. The same, also, about the feet, voice, eyes, ears, nose: of these organs, those which act badly through will and intention, are preferable to those which act badly without will or intention. Lameness of feet is a misfortune and disgrace: feet which go lame only by intention are much to be preferred.64

Dissent and repugnance of Hippias.

Sokr. — Nevertheless — it seems so: from what we have said. Hip. — It does not seem so to me. Sokr. — I thought that it would have seemed so to you, as it does to me. However, answer me once more — Is not justice either a certain mental capacity? or else knowledge? or both together?66 Hip. — Yes! it is. Sokr. — If justice be a capacity of the mind, the more capable mind will also be the juster: and we have already seen that the more capable soul is the better. Hip. — We have. Sokr. — If it be knowledge, the more knowing or wiser mind will of course be the juster: if it be a combination of both capacity and knowledge, that mind which is more capable as well as more knowing, — will be the juster that which is less capable and less knowing, will be the more unjust. Hip. — So it appears. Sokr. — Now we have shown that the more capable and knowing mind is at once the better mind, and more competent to exert itself both ways — to do what is honourable as well as what is base — in every employment. Hip. — Yes. Sokr. — When, therefore, such a mind does what is base, it does so wilfully, through its capacity or intelligence, which we have seen to be of the nature of justice? Hip. — It seems so. Sokr. — Doing base things, is acting unjustly: doing honourable things, is acting justly. Accordingly, when this more capable and better mind acts unjustly, it will do so wilfully; while the less capable and worse mind will do so without willing it? Hip. — Apparently.

Remarks on the dialogue. If the parts had been inverted, the dialogue would have been cited by critics as a specimen of the sophistry and corruption of the Sophists.

I will here again remind the reader, that in this, as in the other dialogues, the real speaker is Plato throughout: and that it is he alone who prefixes the different names to words determined by himself.

Polemical purpose of the dialogue — Hippias humiliated by Sokrates.

Now, if the dialogue just concluded had come down to us with the parts inverted, and with the reasoning of Sokrates assigned to Hippias, most critics would probably have produced it as a tissue of sophistry justifying the harsh epithets which they bestow upon the Athenian Sophists — as persons who considered truth and falsehood to be on a par — subverters of morality — and corruptors of the youth of Athens.69 But as we read it, all that, which in the mouth of Hippias would have passed for sophistry, is here put forward by Sokrates; while Hippias not only resists his conclusions, and adheres to the received ethical sentiment tenaciously, even when he is unable to defend it, but hates the propositions forced upon him, protests against the perverse captiousness of Sokrates, and requires much pressing to induce him to continue the debate. Upon the views adopted by the critics, Hippias ought to receive credit for this conduct, as a friend of virtue and morality. To me, such reluctance to debate appears a defect rather than a merit; but I cite the dialogue as illustrating what I have already said in another place — that Sokrates and Plato threw out more startling novelties in ethical doctrine, than either Hippias or Protagoras, or any of the other persons denounced as Sophists.

Philosophical purpose of the dialogue — theory of the Dialogues of Search generally, and of Knowledge as understood by Plato.

In a former chapter, I tried to elucidate the general character and purpose of those Dialogues of Search, which occupy more than half the Thrasyllean Canon, and of which we have already reviewed two or three specimens — Euthyphron, Alkibiadês, &c. We have seen that they are distinguished by the absence of any affirmative conclusion: that they prove nothing, but only, at the most, disprove one or more supposable solutions: that they are not processes in which one man who knows communicates his knowledge to ignorant hearers, but in which all are alike ignorant, and all are employed, either in groping, or guessing, or testing the guesses of the rest. We have farther seen that the value of these Dialogues depends upon the Platonic theory about knowledge; that Plato did not consider any one to know, who could not explain to others all that he knew, reply to the cross-examination of a Sokratic Elenchus, and cross-examine others to test their knowledge: that knowledge in this sense could not be attained by hearing, or reading, or committing to memory a theorem, together with the steps of reasoning which directly conducted to it: — but that there was required, besides, an acquaintance with many counter-theorems, each having more or less appearance of truth; as well as with various embarrassing aspects and plausible delusions on the subject, which an expert cross-examiner would not fail to urge. Unless you are practised in meeting all the difficulties which he can devise, you cannot be said to know. Moreover, it is in this last portion of the conditions of knowledge, that most aspirants are found wanting.

The thesis maintained here by Sokrates, is also affirmed by the historical Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia.

Now the Greater and Lesser Hippias are peculiar specimens of these Dialogues of Search, and each serves the purpose above indicated. The Greater Hippias enumerates a string of tentatives, each one of which ends in acknowledged failure: the Lesser Hippias enunciates a thesis, which Sokrates proceeds to demonstrate, by plausible arguments such as Hippias is forced to admit. But though Hippias admits each successive step, he still mistrusts the conclusion, and suspects that he has been misled — a feeling which Plato70 describes elsewhere as being frequent among the respondents of Sokrates. Nay, Sokrates himself shares in the mistrust — presents himself as an unwilling propounder of arguments which force themselves upon him,71 and complains of his own mental embarrassment. Now you may call this sophistry, if you please; and you may silence its propounders by calling them hard names. But such ethical prudery — hiding all the uncomfortable logical puzzles which start up when you begin to analyse an established sentiment, and treating them as non-existent because you refuse to look at them — is not the way, to attain what Plato calls knowledge. If there be any argument, the process of which seems indisputable, while yet its conclusion contradicts, or seems to contradict, what is known, upon other evidence — the full and patient analysis of that argument is indispensable, before you can become master of the truth and able to defend it. Until you have gone through such analysis, your mind must remain in that state of confusion which is indicated by Sokrates at the end of the Lesser Hippias. As it is a part of the process of Search, to travel in the path of the Greater Hippias — that is, to go through a string of erroneous solutions, each of which can be proved, by reasons shown, to be erroneous: so it is an equally important part of the same process, to travel in the path of the Lesser Hippias — that is, to acquaint ourselves with all those arguments, bearing on the case, in which two contrary conclusions appear to be both of them plausibly demonstrated, and in which therefore we cannot as yet determine which of them is erroneous — or whether both are not erroneous. The Greater Hippias exhibits errors, — the Lesser Hippias puts before us confusion. With both these enemies the Searcher for truth must contend: and Bacon tells us, that confusion is the worst enemy of the two — “Citius emergit veritas ex errore, quam ex confusione”. Plato, in the Lesser Hippias, having in hand a genuine Sokratic thesis, does not disdain to invest Sokrates with the task (sophistical, as some call it, yet not the less useful and instructive) of setting forth at large this case of confusion, and avowing his inability to clear it up. It is enough for Sokrates that he brings home the painful sense of confusion to the feelings of his hearer as well as to his own. In that painful sentiment lies the stimulus provocative of farther intellectual effort.72 The dialogue ends but the process of search, far from ending along with it, is emphatically declared to be unfinished, and, to be in a condition not merely unsatisfactory but intolerable, not to be relieved except by farther investigation, which thus becomes a necessary sequel.

Aristotle combats the thesis. Arguments against it.

This is the same view which is worked out by the Platonic Sokrates in the Hippias Minor: beginning with the antithesis between the veracious and mendacious man (as Sokrates begins in Xenophon); and concluding with the general result — that it belongs to the good man to do wrong wilfully, to the bad man to do wrong unwillingly.

Mistake of Sokrates and Plato in dwelling too exclusively on the intellectual conditions of human conduct.

They rely too much on the analogy of the special arts — They take no note of the tacit assumptions underlying the epithets of praise and blame.

Both Sokrates and Plato (in many of his dialogues) commit the error of which the above is one particular manifestation — that of dwelling exclusively on the intellectual conditions of human conduct,76 and omitting to give proper attention to the emotional and volitional, as essentially co-operating or preponderating in the complex meaning of ethical attributes. The reasoning ascribed to the Platonic Sokrates in the Hippias Minor exemplifies this one-sided view. What he says is true, but it is only a part of the truth. When he speaks of a person “who does wrong unwillingly,” he seems to have in view one who does wrong without knowing that he does so: one whose intelligence is so defective that he does not know when he speaks truth and when he speaks falsehood. Now a person thus unhappily circumstanced must be regarded as half-witted or imbecile, coming under the head which the Xenophontic Sokrates called madness:77 unfit to perform any part in society, and requiring to be placed under tutelage. Compared with such a person, the opinion of the Platonic Sokrates may be defended — that the mendacious person, who can tell truth when he chooses, is the better of the two in the sense of less mischievous or dangerous. But he is the object of a very different sentiment; moreover, this is not the comparison present to our minds when we call one man veracious, another man mendacious. We always assume, in every one, a measure of intelligence equal or superior to the admissible minimum; under such assumption, we compare two persons, one of whom speaks to the best of his knowledge and belief, the other, contrary to his knowledge and belief. We approve the former and disapprove the latter, according to the different intention and purpose of each (as Aristotle observes); that is, looking at them under the point of view of emotion and volition — which is logically distinguishable from the intelligence, though always acting in conjunction with it.

Value of a Dialogue of Search, that it shall be suggestive, and that it shall bring before us different aspects of the question under review.

Again, the analogy of the special arts, upon which the Platonic Sokrates dwells in the Hippias Minor, fails in sustaining his inference. By a good runner, wrestler, harper, singer, speaker, &c., we undoubtedly mean one who can, if he pleases, perform some one of these operations well; although he can also, if he pleases, perform them badly. But the epithets good or bad, in this case, consider exclusively that element which was left out, and leave out that element which was exclusively considered, in the former case. The good singer is declared to stand distinguished from the bad singer, or from the ἰδιώτης, who, if he sings at all, will certainly sing badly, by an attribute belonging to his intelligence and vocal organs. To sing well is a special accomplishment, which is possessed only by a few, and which no man is blamed for not possessing. The distinction between such special accomplishments, and justice or rectitude of behaviour, is well brought out in the speech which Plato puts into the mouth of the Sophist Protagoras.78 “The special artists (he says) are few in number: one of them is sufficient for many private citizens. But every citizen, without exception, must possess justice and a sense of shame: if he does not, he must be put away as a nuisance — otherwise, society could not be maintained.” The special artist is a citizen also; and as such, must be subject to the obligations binding on all citizens universally. In predicating of him that he is good or bad as a citizen, we merely assume him to possess the average intelligence, of the community; and the epithet declares whether his emotional and volitional attributes exceed, or fall short of, the minimum required in the application of that intelligence to his social obligations. It is thus that the words good or bad when applied to him as a citizen, have a totally different bearing from that which the same words have when applied to him in his character of special artist.

Antithesis between Rhetoric and Dialectic.

The value of these debates in the Platonic dialogues consists in their raising questions like the preceding, for the reflection of the reader — whether the Platonic Sokrates may or may not be represented as taking what we think the right view of the question. For a Dialogue of Search, the great merit is, that it should be suggestive; that it should bring before our attention the conditions requisite for a right and proper use of these common ethical epithets, and the state of circumstances which is tacitly implied whenever any one uses them. No man ever learns to reflect upon the meaning of such familiar epithets, which he has been using all his life — unless the process be forced upon his attention by some special conversation which brings home to him an uncomfortable sentiment of perplexity and contradiction. If a man intends to acquire any grasp of ethical or political theory, he must render himself master, not only of the sound arguments and the guiding analogies but also of the unsound arguments and the misleading analogies, which bear upon each portion of it.

Hipparchus — Question — What is the definition of Lover of Gain? He is one who thinks it right to gain from things worth nothing. Sokrates cross-examines upon this explanation. No man expects to gain from things which he knows to be worth nothing: in this sense, no man is a lover of gain.

Gain is good. Every man loves good: therefore all men are lovers of gain.

In the dialogue called Hipparchus, the debate turns on the definition of τὸ φιλοκερδὲς or ὁ φιλοκερδής — the love of gain or the lover of gain. Sokrates asks his Companion to define the word. The Companion replies — He is one who thinks it right to gain from things worth nothing.1 Does he do this (asks Sokrates) knowing that the things are worth nothing? or not knowing? If the latter, he is simply ignorant. He knows it perfectly well (is the reply). He is cunning and wicked; and it is because he cannot resist the temptation of gain, that he has the impudence to make profit by such things, though well aware that they are worth nothing. Sokr. — Suppose a husbandman, knowing that the plant which he is tending is worthless — and yet thinking that he ought to gain by it: does not that correspond to your description of the lover of gain? Comp. — The lover of gain, Sokrates, thinks that he ought to gain from every thing. Sokr. — Do not answer in that reckless manner,2 as if you had been wronged by any one; but answer with attention. You agree that the lover of gain knows the value of that from which he intends to derive profit; and that the husbandman is the person cognizant of the value of plants. Comp. — Yes: I agree. Sokr. — Do not therefore attempt, you are so young, to deceive an old man like me, by giving answers not in conformity with your own admissions; but tell me plainly, Do you believe that the experienced husbandman, when he knows that he is planting a tree worth nothing, thinks that he shall gain by it? Comp. — No, certainly: I do not believe it.

Apparent contradiction. Sokrates accuses the companion of trying to deceive him. Accusation is retorted upon Sokrates.

None of these persons (concludes Sokrates) correspond to your description of the lover of gain. Where then can you find a lover of gain? On your explanation, no man is so.3 Comp. — I mean, Sokrates, that the lovers of gain are those, who, through greediness, long eagerly for things altogether petty and worthless; and thus display a love of gain.4 Sokr. — Not surely knowing them to be worthless — for this we have shown to be impossible — but ignorant that they are worthless, and believing them to be valuable. Comp. — It appears so. Sokr. — Now gain is the opposite of loss: and loss is evil and hurt to every one: therefore gain (as the opposite of loss) is good. Comp. — Yes. Sokr. — It appears then that the lovers of good are those whom you call lovers of gain? Comp. — Yes: it appears so. Sokr. — Do not you yourself love good — all good things? Comp. — Certainly. Sokr. — And I too, and every one else. All men love good things, and hate evil. Now we agreed that gain was a good: so that by this reasoning, it appears that all men are lovers of gain while by the former reasoning, we made out that none were so.5 Which of the two shall we adopt, to avoid error. Comp. — We shall commit no error, Sokrates, if we rightly conceive the lover of gain. He is one who busies himself upon, and seeks to gain from, things from which good men do not venture to gain.

Precept inscribed formerly by Hipparchus the Peisistratid — ”Never deceive a friend”. Eulogy of Hipparchus by Sokrates.

Sokrates allows the companion to retract some of his answers. The companion affirms that some gain is good, other gain is evil.

The Companion resumes: Apparently, Sokrates, either you do not account me your friend, or you do not obey Hipparchus: for you are certainly deceiving me in some unaccountable way in your talk. You cannot persuade me to the contrary.

Questions by Sokrates — bad gain is gain, as much as good gain. What is the common property, in virtue of which both are called Gain? Every acquisition, made with no outlay, or with a smaller outlay, is gain. Objections — the acquisition may be evil — embarrassment confessed.

Sokr. — In like manner, bad gain, and good gain, are (both of them) gain alike — neither of them more or less than the other. Such being the case, what is that common quality possessed by both, which induces you to call them by the same name Gain?10 Would you call Gain any acquisition which one makes either with a smaller outlay or with no outlay at all?11 Comp. — Yes. I should call that gain. Sokr. — For example, if after being at a banquet, not only without any outlay, but receiving an excellent dinner, you acquire an illness? Comp. — Not at all: that is no gain. Sokr. — But if from the banquet you acquire health, would that be gain or loss? Comp. — It would be gain. Sokr. — Not every acquisition therefore is gain, but only such acquisitions as are good and not evil: if the acquisition be evil, it is loss. Comp. — Exactly so. Sokr. — Well, now, you see, you are come round again to the very same point: Gain is good. Loss is evil. Comp. — I am puzzled what to say.12 Sokr. — You have good reason to be puzzled.

Recapitulation. The debate has shown that all gain is good, and that there is no evil gain — all men are lovers of gain — no man ought to be reproached for being so. The companion is compelled to admit this, though he declares that he is not persuaded.

Minos. Question put by Sokrates to the companion. What is Law, or The Law? All law is the same, quatenus law: what is the common constituent attribute?

Sokr. — Let me remind you of what has passed. You contended that good men did not wish to acquire all sorts of gain, but only such as were good, and not such as were evil. But now, the debate has compelled us to acknowledge that all gains are good, whether small or great. Comp. — As for me, Sokrates, the debate has compelled me rather than persuaded me.14 Sokr. — Presently, perhaps, it may even persuade you. But now, whether you have been persuaded or not, you at least concur with me in affirming that all gains, whether small or great, are good. That all good men wish for all good things. Comp. — I do concur. Sokr. — But you yourself stated that evil men love all gains, small and great? Comp. — I said so. Sokr. — According to your doctrine then, all men are lovers of gain, the good men as well as the evil? Comp. — Apparently so. Sokr. — It is therefore wrong to reproach any man as a lover of gain: for the person who reproaches is himself a lover of gain, just as much.

Answer — Law is, 1. The consecrated and binding customs. 2. The decree of the city. 3. Social or civic opinion.

Comp. — What should Law be, Sokrates, other than the various assemblage of consecrated and binding customs and beliefs?15 Sokr. — Do you think, then, that discourse is, the things spoken: that sight is, the things seen? that hearing is, the things heard? Or are they not distinct, in each of the three cases — and is not Law also one thing, the various customs and beliefs another? Comp. — Yes! I now think that they are distinct.16 Sokr. — Law is that whereby these binding customs become binding. What is it? Comp. — Law can be nothing else than the public resolutions and decrees promulgated among us. Law is the decree of the city.17 Sokr. — You mean, that Law is social opinion. Comp. — Yes I do.

Suggestion by Sokrates — Law is the good opinion of the city — but good opinion is true opinion, or the finding out of reality. Law therefore wishes (tends) to be the finding out of reality, though it does not always succeed in doing so.

Objection taken by the Companion — That there is great discordance of laws in different places — he specifies several cases of such discordance at some length. Sokrates reproves his prolixity, and requests him to confine himself to question or answer.

Sokr. — Still — I think, myself, that law is opinion of some sort; and since it is not evil opinion, it must be good opinion. Now good opinion is true opinion: and true opinion is, the finding out of reality. Comp. — I admit it. Sokr. — Law therefore wishes or tends to be, the finding out of reality.19 Comp. — But, Sokrates, if law is the finding out of reality — if we have therein already found out realities — how comes it that all communities of men do not use the same laws respecting the same matters? Sokr. — The law does not the less wish or tend to find out realities; but it is unable to do so. That is, if the fact be true as you state — that we change our laws, and do not all of us use the same. Comp. — Surely, the fact as a fact is obvious enough.20

Farther questions by Sokrates — Things heavy and light, just and unjust, honourable and dishonourable, &c., are so, and are accounted so everywhere. Real things are always accounted real. Whoever fails in attaining the real, fails in attaining the lawful.

Sokr. — Well, then! do you think that just things are just and unjust things are unjust? Comp. — I think they are. Sokr. — Do not all men in all communities, among the Persians as well as here, now as well as formerly, think so too? Comp. — Unquestionably they do. Sokr. — Are not things which weigh more, accounted heavier; and things which weigh less, accounted lighter, here, at Carthage, and everywhere else?21 Comp. — Certainly. Sokr. — It seems, then, that honourable things are accounted honourable everywhere, and dishonourable things dishonourable? not the reverse. Comp. — Yes, it is so. Sokr. — Then, speaking universally, existent things or realities (not non-existents) are accounted existent and real, among us as well as among all other men? Comp. — I think they are. Sokr. — Whoever therefore fails in attaining the real fails in attaining the lawful.22 Comp. — As you now put it, Sokrates, it would seem that the same things are accounted lawful both by us at all times, and by all the rest of mankind besides. But when I reflect that we are perpetually changing our laws, I cannot persuade myself of what you affirm.

That which is right is the regal law, the only true and real law — that which is not right, is not law, but only seems to be law in the eyes of the ignorant.

Sokr. — Perhaps you do not reflect that pieces on the draught-board, when their position is changed, still remain the same. You know medical treatises: you know that physicians are the really knowing about matters of health: and that they agree with each other in writing about them. Comp. — Yes — I know that. Sokr. — The case is the same whether they be Greeks or not Greeks: Those who know, must of necessity hold the same opinion with each other, on matters which they know: always and everywhere. Comp. — Yes — always and everywhere. Sokr. — Physicians write respecting matters of health what they account to be true, and these writings of theirs are the medical laws? Comp. — Certainly they are. Sokr. — The like is true respecting the laws of farming — the laws of gardening — the laws of cookery. All these are the writings of persons, knowing in each of the respective pursuits? Comp. — Yes.23 Sokr. — In like manner, what are the laws respecting the government of a city? Are they not the writings of those who know how to govern — kings, statesmen, and men of superior excellence? Comp. — Truly so. Sokr. — Knowing men like these will not write differently from each other about the same things, nor change what they have once written. If, then, we see some doing this, are we to declare them knowing or ignorant? Comp. — Ignorant — undoubtedly.

Minos, King of Krete — his laws were divine and excellent, and have remained unchanged from time immemorial.

Question about the character of Minos — Homer and Hesiod declare him to have been admirable, the Attic tragedians defame him as a tyrant, because he was an enemy of Athens.

Sokr. — Can you tell me which of the ancient kings has the glory of having been a good lawgiver, so that his laws still remain in force as divine institutions? Comp. — I cannot tell. Sokr. — But can you not say which among the Greeks have the most ancient laws? Comp. — Perhaps you mean the Lacedæmonians and Lykurgus? Sokr. — Why, the Lacedæmonian laws are hardly more than three hundred years old: besides, whence is it that the best of them come? Comp. — From Krete, they say. Sokr. — Then it is the Kretans who have the most ancient laws in Greece? Comp. — Yes. Sokr. — Do you know those good kings of Krete, from whom these laws are derived — Minos and Rhadamanthus, sons of Zeus and Europa? Comp. — Rhadamanthus certainly is said to have been a just man, Sokrates; but Minos quite the reverse — savage, ill-tempered, unjust. Sokr. — What you affirm, my friend, is a fiction of the Attic tragedians. It is not stated either by Homer or Hesiod, who are far more worthy of credit than all the tragedians put together. Comp. — What is it that Homer and Hesiod say about Minos?26

That Minos was really admirable — and that he has found out truth and reality respecting the administration of the city — we may be sure from the fact that his laws have remained so long unaltered.

The Hipparchus and Minos are analogous to each other, and both of them inferior works of Plato, perhaps unfinished.

Sokr. — Now take the case of the good lawgiver and good shepherd for the body — If we were asked, what it is that he prescribes for the body, so as to render it better? we should answer, at once, briefly, and well, by saying — food and labour: the former to sustain the body, the latter to exercise and consolidate it. Comp. — Quite correct. Sokr. — And if after that we were asked, What are those things which the good lawgiver prescribes for the mind to make it better, what should we say, so as to avoid discrediting ourselves? Comp. — I really cannot tell. Sokr. — But surely it is discreditable enough both for your mind and mine — to confess, that we do not know upon what it is that good and evil for our minds depends, while we can define upon what it is that the good or evil of our bodies depends?29

Hipparchus — Double meaning of φιλοκερδὴς and κέρδος.

State or mind of the agent, as to knowledge, frequent inquiry in Plato. No tenable definition found.

In Hipparchus, the question put by Sokrates is, about the definition of ὁ φιλοκερδὴς (the lover of gain), and of κέρδος itself — gain. The first of these two words (like many in Greek as well as in English) is used in two senses. In its plain, etymological sense, it means an attribute belonging to all men: all men love gain, hate loss. But since this is predicable of all, there is seldom any necessity for predicating it of any one man or knot of men in particular. Accordingly, when you employ the epithet as a predicate of A or B, what you generally mean is, to assert something more than its strict etymological meaning: to declare that he has the attribute in unusual measure; or that he has shown himself, on various occasions, wanting in other attributes, which on those occasions ought, in your judgment, to have countervailed it. The epithet thus comes to connote a sentiment of blame or reproach, in the mind of the speaker.30

Admitting that there is bad gain, as well as good gain, what is the meaning of the word gain? None is found.

Purpose of Plato in the dialogue — to lay bare the confusion, and to force the mind of the respondent into efforts for clearing it up.

The same question comes back in another form, after Sokrates has given the liberty of retractation. The Collocutor maintains that there is bad gain, as well as good gain. But what is that common, generic, quality, designated well as good by the word gain, apart from these two distinctive epithets? He cannot find it out or describe it. He gives two definitions, each of which is torn up by Sokrates. To deserve the name of gain, that which a man acquires must be good; and it must surpass, in value as well as in quantity, the loss or outlay which he incurs in order to acquire it. But when thus understood, all gains are good. There is no meaning in the distinction between good and bad gains: all men are lovers of gain.

Historical narrative and comments given in the dialogue respecting Hipparchus — afford no ground for declaring the dialogue to be spurious.

Minos. Question — What is the characteristic property connoted by the word νόμος or law?

This question was discussed by the historical Sokrates, Memorabilia of Xenophon.

Definitions of law — suggested and refuted. Law includes, as a portion of its meaning, justice, goodness, usefulness, &c. Bad decrees are not laws.

Sokrates affirms that law is everywhere the same — it is the declared judgment and command of the Wise man upon the subject to which it refers — it is truth and reality, found out and certified by him.

Definitions of νόμος are here given by the Companion, who undergoes a cross-examination upon them. First, he says, that Νόμος = τὰ νομιζόμενα. But this is rejected by Sokrates, who intimates that Law is not the aggregate of laws enacted or of customs held binding: but that which lies behind these laws and customs, imparting to them their binding force.35 We are to enquire what this is. The Companion declares that it is the public decree of the city: political or social opinion. But this again Sokrates contests: putting questions to show that Law includes, as a portion of its meaning, justice, goodness, beauty, and preservation of the city with its possessions; while lawlessness includes injustice, evil, ugliness, and destruction. There can be no such thing as bad or wicked law.36 But among decrees of the city, some are bad, some are good. Therefore to define Law as a decree of the city, thus generally, is incorrect. It is only the good decree, not the bad decree, which is Law. Now the good decree or opinion, is the true opinion: that is, it is the finding out of reality. Law therefore wishes or aims to be the finding out of reality: and if there are differences between different nations, this is because the power to find out does not always accompany the wish to find out.

Reasoning of Sokrates in the Minos is unsound, but Platonic. The Good, True, and Real, coalesce in the mind of Plato — he acknowledges nothing to be Law, except what he thinks ought to be Law.

Plato worships the Ideal of his own mind — the work of systematic constructive theory by the Wise Man.

That the reasoning of Sokrates in this dialogue is confused and unsound (as M. Boeckh and other critics have remarked), I perfectly agree. But it is not the less completely Platonic; resting upon views and doctrines much cherished and often reproduced by Plato. The dialogue Minos presents, in a rude and awkward manner, without explanation or amplification, that worship of the Abstract and the Ideal, which Plato, in other and longer dialogues, seeks to diversify as well as to elaborate. The definitions of Law here combated and given by Sokrates, illustrate this. The good, the true, the right, the beautiful, the real — all coalesce in the mind of Plato. There is nothing (in his view) real, except The Good, The Just, &c. (τὸ αὐτο-ἀγαθὸν; αὐτο-δίκαιον — Absolute Goodness and Justice): particular good and just things have no reality, they are no more good and just than bad and unjust — they are one or the other, according to circumstances — they are ever variable, floating midway between the real and unreal.39 The real alone is knowable, correlating with knowledge or with the knowing Intelligence Νοῦς. As Sokrates distinguishes elsewhere τὸ δίκαιον or αὐτο-δίκαιον from τὰ δίκαια — so here he distinguishes (νόμος from τὰ νομιζόμενα) Law, from the assemblage of actual commands or customs received as laws among mankind. These latter are variable according to time and place; but Law is always one and the same. Plato will acknowledge nothing to be Law, except that which (he thinks) ought to be Law: that which emanates from a lawgiver of consummate knowledge, who aims at the accomplishment of the good and the real, and knows how to discover and realise that end. So far as “the decree of the city” coincides with what would have been enacted by this lawgiver (i. e. so far as it is good and right), Sokrates admits it as a valid explanation of Law; but no farther. He considers the phrase bad law to express a logical impossibility, involving a contradiction in adjecto.40 What others call a bad law, he regards as being no real law, but only a fallacious image, mistaken for such by the ignorant. He does not consider such ignorant persons as qualified to judge: he recognises only the judgment of the knowing one or few, among whom he affirms that there can be no difference of opinion. Every one admits just things to be just, — unjust things to be unjust, — heavy things to be heavy, — the existent and the real, to be the existent and the real. If then the lawgiver in any of his laws fails to attain this reality, he fails in the very purpose essential to the conception of law:41 i. e. his pretended law is no law at all.

Different applications of this general Platonic view, in the Minos, Politikus, Kratylus, &c. Natural Rectitude of Law, Government, Names, &c.

Eulogy on Minos, as having established laws on this divine type or natural rectitude.

In the Minos, this general Platonic view is applied to Law: in the Politikus, to government and social administration: in the Kratylus, to naming or language. In the Politikus, we find the received classification of governments (monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy) discarded as improper; and the assertion advanced, That there is only one government right, true, genuine, really existing — government by the uncontrolled authority and superintendence of the man of exalted intelligence: he who is master in the art of governing, whether such man do in fact hold power anywhere or not. All other governments are degenerate substitutes for this type, some receding from it less, some more.42 Again, in the Kratylus, where names and name-giving are discussed, Sokrates43 maintains that things can only be named according to their true and real nature — that there is, belonging to each thing, one special and appropriate Name-Form, discernible only by the sagacity of the intelligent Lawgiver: who alone is competent to bestow upon each thing its right, true, genuine, real name, possessing rectitude by nature (ὀρθότης φύσει).44 This Name-Form (according to Sokrates) is the same in all languages in so far as they are constructed by different intelligent Lawgivers, although the letters and syllables in which they may clothe the Form are very different.45 If names be not thus apportioned by the systematic purpose of an intelligent Lawgiver, but raised up by insensible and unsystematic growth — they will be unworthy substitutes for the genuine type, though they are the best which actual societies possess; according to the opinion announced by Kratylus in that same dialogue, they will not be names at all.46

The Minos was arranged by Aristophanes at first in a Trilogy along with the Leges.

The Kretan Minos (we here find it affirmed), son, companion, and pupil of Zeus, has learnt to establish laws of this divine type or natural rectitude: the proof of which is, that the ancient Kretan laws have for immemorial ages remained, and still do remain,47 unchanged. But when Sokrates tries to determine, Wherein consists this Law-Type? What is it that the wise Lawgiver prescribes for the minds of the citizens — as the wise gymnastic trainer prescribes proper measure of nourishment and exercise for their bodies? — the question is left unanswered. Sokrates confesses with shame that he cannot answer it: and the dialogue ends in a blank. The reader — according to Plato’s manner — is to be piqued and shamed into the effort of meditating the question for himself.

Explanations of the word Law — confusion in its meaning.

Theagês — has been declared spurious by some modern critics — grounds for such opinion not sufficient.

Persons of the dialogue — Sokrates, with Demodokus and Theagês, father and son. Theagês (the son), eager to acquire knowledge, desires to be placed under the teaching of a Sophist.

This is among the dialogues declared by Schleiermacher, Ast, Stallbaum, and various other modern critics, to be spurious and unworthy of Plato: the production of one who was not merely an imitator, but a bad and silly imitator.1 Socher on the other hand defends the dialogue against them, reckoning it as a juvenile production of Plato.2 The arguments which are adduced to prove its spuriousness appear to me altogether insufficient. It has some features of dissimilarity with that which we read in other dialogues — these the above-mentioned critics call un-Platonic: it has other features of similarity — these they call bad imitation by a falsarius: lastly, it is inferior, as a performance, to the best of the Platonic dialogues. But I am prepared to expect (and have even the authority of Schleiermacher for expecting) that some dialogues will be inferior to others. I also reckon with certainty, that between two dialogues, both genuine, there will be points of similarity as well as points of dissimilarity. Lastly, the critics find marks of a bad, recent, un-Platonic style: but Dionysius of Halikarnassus — a judge at least equally competent upon such a matter — found no such marks. He expressly cites the dialogue as the work of Plato,3 and explains the peculiar phraseology assigned to Demodokus by remarking, that the latter is presented as a person of rural habits and occupations.

Sokrates questions Theagês, inviting him to specify what he wants.

Theagês desires to acquire that wisdom by which he can govern freemen with their own consent.

Sokr. — You desire wisdom: but what kind of wisdom? That by which men manage chariots? or govern horses? or pilot ships? Theag. — No: that by which men are governed. Sokr. — But what men? those in a state of sickness — or those who are singing in a chorus — or those who are under gymnastic training? Each of these classes has its own governor, who bears a special title, and belongs to a special art by itself — the medical, musical, gymnastic, &c. Theag. — No: I mean that wisdom by which we govern, not these classes alone, but all the other residents in the city along with them — professional as well as private — men as well as women.5

Incompetence of the best practical statesmen to teach any one else. Theagês requests that Sokrates will himself teach him.

Theag. — No, Sokrates. I have heard of the language which you are in the habit of using to others. You pointed out to them that these eminent statesmen cannot train their own sons to be at all better than curriers: of course therefore they cannot do me any good.8 Sokr. — But what can your father do for you better than this, Theagês? What ground have you for complaining of him? He is prepared to place you under any one of the best and most excellent men of Athens, whichever of them you prefer. Theag. — Why will not you take me yourself, Sokrates? I look upon you as one of these men, and I desire nothing better.9

Sokrates explains how this has sometimes happened — he recites his experience of the divine sign or Dæmon.

Sokr. — You do not know how this happens; I will explain it to you. From my childhood, I have had a peculiar superhuman something attached to me by divine appointment: a voice, which, whenever it occurs, warns me to abstain from that which I am about to do, but never impels me.13 Moreover, when any one of my friends mentions to me what he is about to do, if the voice shall then occur to me it is a warning for him to abstain. The examples of Charmides and Timarchus (here detailed by Sokrates) prove what I say: and many persons will tell you how truly I forewarned them of the ruin of the Athenian armament at Syracuse.14 My young friend Sannion is now absent, serving on the expedition under Thrasyllus to Ionia: on his departure, the divine sign manifested itself to me, and I am persuaded that some grave calamity will befall him.

Theagês expresses his anxiety to be received as the companion of Sokrates.

These facts I mention to you (Sokrates continues) because it is that same divine power which exercises paramount influence over my intercourse with companions.15 Towards many, it is positively adverse; so that I cannot even enter into companionship with them. Towards others, it does not forbid, yet neither does it co-operate: so that they derive no benefit from me. There are others again in whose case it co-operates; these are the persons to whom you allude, who make rapid progress.16 With some, such improvement is lasting: others, though they improve wonderfully while in my society, yet relapse into commonplace men when they leave me. Aristeides, for example (grandson of Aristeides the Just), was one of those who made rapid progress while he was with me. But he was forced to absent himself on military service; and on returning, he found as my companion Thucydides (son of Melesias), who however had quarrelled with me for some debate of the day before. I understand (said Aristeides to me) that Thucydides has taken offence and gives himself airs; he forgets what a poor creature he was, before he came to you.17 I myself, too, have fallen into a despicable condition. When I left you, I was competent to discuss with any one and make a good figure, so that I courted debate with the most accomplished men. Now, on the contrary, I avoid them altogether — so thoroughly am I ashamed of my own incapacity. Did the capacity (I, Sokrates, asked Aristeides) forsake you all at once, or little by little? Little by little, he replied. And when you possessed it (I asked), did you get it by learning from me? or in what other way? I will tell you, Sokrates (he answered), what seems incredible, yet is nevertheless true.18 I never learnt from you any thing at all. You yourself well know this. But I always made progress, whenever I was along with you, even if I were only in the same house without being in the same room; but I made greater progress, if I was in the same room — greater still, if I looked in your face, instead of turning my eyes elsewhere — and the greatest of all, by far, if I sat close and touching you. But now (continued Aristeides) all that I then acquired has dribbled out of me.19

Remarks on the Theagês — analogy with the Lachês.

Chief peculiarity of the Theagês — stress laid upon the divine sign or Dæmon.

Plato employs this divine sign here to render some explanation of the singularity and eccentricity of Sokrates, and of his unequal influence upon different companions.

Sokrates, while continually finding fault with other teachers, refused to teach himself — difficulty of finding an excuse for his refusal. The Theagês furnishes an excuse.

Plato employs the Sokratic Dæmon, in the Theagês, for a philosophical purpose, which, I think, admits of reasonable explanation. During the eight (perhaps ten) years of his personal communion with Sokrates, he had had large experience of the variable and unaccountable effect produced by the Sokratic conversation upon different hearers: a fact which is also attested by the Xenophontic Memorabilia. This difference of effect was in no way commensurate to the unequal intelligence of the hearers. Chærephon, Apollodôrus, Kriton, seem to have been ordinary men:—25 while Kritias and Alkibiades, who brought so much discredit both upon Sokrates and his teaching, profited little by him, though they were among the ablest pupils that he ever addressed: moreover Antisthenes, and Aristippus, probably did not appear to Plato (since he greatly dissented from their philosophical views) to have profited much by the common companionship with Sokrates. Other companions there must have been also personally known to Plato, though not to us: for we must remember that Sokrates passed his whole day in talking with all listeners. Now when Plato in after life came to cast the ministry of Sokrates into dramatic scenes, and to make each scene subservient to the illustration of some philosophical point of view, at least a negative — he was naturally led to advert to the Dæmon or divine inspiration, which formed so marked a feature in the character of his master. The concurrence or prohibition of this divine auxiliary served to explain why it was that the seed, sown broadcast by Sokrates, sometimes fructified, and sometimes did not fructify, or speedily perished afterwards — when no sufficient explanatory peculiarity could be pointed out in the ground on which it fell. It gave an apparent reason for the perfect singularity of the course pursued by Sokrates: for his preternatural acuteness in one direction, and his avowed incapacity in another: for his mastery of the Elenchus, convicting men of ignorance, and his inability to supply them with knowledge: for his refusal to undertake the duties of a teacher. All these are mysterious features of the Sokratic character. The intervention of the Dæmon appears to afford an explanation, by converting them into religious mysteries: which, though it be no explanation at all, yet is equally efficacious by stopping the mouth of the questioner, and by making him believe that it is guilt and impiety to ask for explanation — as Sokrates himself declared in regard to astronomical phenomena, and as Herodotus feels, when his narrative is crossed by strange religious legends.26

Plato does not always, nor in other dialogues, allude to the divine sign in the same way. Its character and working essentially impenetrable. Sokrates a privileged person.

Erastæ — subject and persons of the dialogue — dramatic introduction — interesting youths in the palæstra.

Two rival Erastæ — one of them literary, devoted to philosophy — the other gymnastic, hating philosophy.

Question put by Sokrates — What is philosophy? It is the perpetual accumulation of knowledge, so as to make the largest sum total.

As soon as Sokrates begins his interrogatories, the two youths relinquish4 their geometrical talk, and turn to him as attentive listeners. Their approach affects his emotions hardly less than those of the Erastes. He first enquires from the athletic Erastes, What is it that these two youths are so intently engaged upon? It must surely be something very fine, to judge by the eagerness which they display? How do you mean fine (replies the athlete)? They are only prosing about astronomical matters — talking nonsense — philosophising! The literary rival, on the contrary, treats this athlete as unworthy of attention, speaks with enthusiastic admiration of philosophy, and declares that all those to whom it is repugnant are degraded specimens of humanity.

In the case of the body, it is not the maximum of exercise which does good, but the proper, measured quantity. For the mind also, it is not the maximum of knowledge, but the measured quantity which is good. Who is the judge to determine this measure?

It appears after some debate (in which the other or athletic Erastes sides with Sokrates8) that in regard to exercise and food it is not the great quantity or the small quantity, which is good for the body — but the moderate or measured quantity.9 For the mind, the case is admitted to be similar. Not the much, nor the little, of learning is good for it but the right or measured amount. Sokr. — And who is the competent judge, how much of either is right measure for the body? Erast. — The physician and the gymnastic trainer. Sokr. — Who is the competent judge, how much seed is right measure for sowing a field? Erast. — The farmer. Sokr. — Who is the competent judge, in reference to the sowing and planting of knowledge in the mind, which varieties are good, and how much of each is right measure?

The philosopher is one who is second-best in several different arts — a Pentathlus — who talks well upon each.

On what occasions can such second-best men be useful? There are always regular practitioners at hand, and no one will call in the second-best man when he can have the regular practitioner.

Sokr. — You mean that the philosopher is to be second-best in several distinct pursuits: like the Pentathlus, who is not expected to equal either the runner or the wrestler in their own separate departments, but only to surpass competitors in the five matches taken together.13 Erast. — Yes — I mean what you say. He is one who does not enslave himself to any one matter, nor works out any one with such strictness as to neglect all others: he attends to all of them in reasonable measure.14

Philosophy cannot consist in multiplication of learned acquirements.

Sokrates changes his course of examination — questions put to show that there is one special art, regal and political, of administering and discriminating the bad from the good.

Sokr. — If then you have correctly defined a philosopher to be one who has a second-rate knowledge on many subjects, he is useless so long as there exist professional artists on each subject. Your definition cannot therefore be correct. Philosophy must be something quite apart from this multifarious and busy meddling with different professional subjects, or this multiplication of learned acquirements. Indeed I fancied, that to be absorbed in professional subjects and in variety of studies, was vulgar and discreditable rather than otherwise.16

In this art the philosopher must not only be second-best, competent to talk — but he must be a fully qualified practitioner, competent to act.

Close of the dialogue — humiliation of the literary Erastes.

Sokr. — Now let me ask you. You said that it was discreditable for the philosopher, when in company with a physician or any other craftsman talking about matters of his own craft, not to be able to follow what he said and comment upon it. Would it not also be discreditable to the philosopher, when listening to any king, judge, or house-master, about professional affairs, not to be able to understand and comment? Erast. — Assuredly it would be most discreditable upon matters of such grave moment. Sokr. — Shall we say then, that upon these matters also, as well as all others, the philosopher ought to be a Pentathlus or second-rate performer, useless so long as the special craftsman is at hand? or shall we not rather affirm, that he must not confide his own house to any one else, nor be the second-best within it, but must himself judge and punish rightly, if his house is to be well administered? Erast. — That too I admit.20 Sokr. — Farther, if his friends shall entrust to him the arbitration of their disputes, — if the city shall command him to act as Dikast or to settle any difficulty, — in those cases also it will be disgraceful for him to stand second or third, and not to be first-rate? Erast. — I think it will be. Sokr. — You see then, my friend, philosophy is something very different from much learning and acquaintance with multifarious arts or sciences.21

Remarks — animated manner of the dialogue.

Definition of philosophy — here sought for the first time — Platonic conception of measure — referee not discovered.

The antithesis between the philo-gymnast, hater of philosophy, — and the enthusiastic admirer of philosophy, who nevertheless cannot explain what it is — gives much point and vivacity to this short dialogue. This last person is exhibited as somewhat presumptuous and confident; thus affording a sort of excuse for the humiliating cross-examination put upon him by Sokrates to the satisfaction of his stupid rival. Moreover, the dramatic introduction is full of animation, like that of the Charmidês and Lysis.

View taken of the second-best critical talking man, as compared with the special proficient and practitioner.

It is here handled in Plato’s negative, elenchtic, tentative, manner. By some of his contemporaries, philosophy was really considered as equivalent to polymathy, or to much and varied knowledge: so at least Plato represents it as being considered by Hippias the Sophist, contrary to the opinion of Protagoras.22 The exception taken by Sokrates to a definition founded on simple quantity, without any standard point of sufficiency by which much or little is to be measured, introduces that governing idea of τὸ μέτριον (the moderate, that which conforms to a standard measure) upon which Plato insists so much in other more elaborate dialogues. The conception of a measure, of a standard of measurement — and of conformity thereunto, as the main constituent of what is good and desirable — stands prominent in his mind,23 though it is not always handled in the same way. We have seen it, in the Second Alkibiadês, indicated under another name as knowledge of Good or of the Best: without which, knowledge on special matters was declared to be hurtful rather than useful.24 Plato considers that this Measure is neither discernible nor applicable except by a specially trained intelligence. In the Erastæ as elsewhere, such an intelligence is called for in general terms: but when it is asked, Where is the person possessing such intelligence, available in the case of mental training — neither Sokrates nor any one else can point him out. To suggest a question, and direct attention to it, yet still to leave it unanswered — is a practice familiar with Plato. In this respect the Erastæ is like other dialogues. The answer, if any, intended to be understood or divined, is, that such an intelligence is the philosopher himself.

Plato’s view — that the philosopher has a province special to himself, distinct from other specialties — dimly indicated — regal or political art.

The second explanation of philosophy here given — that the philosopher is one who is second-best in many departments, and a good talker upon all, but inferior to the special master in each — was supposed by Thrasyllus in ancient times to be pointed at Demokritus. By many Platonic critics, it is referred to those persons whom they single out to be called Sophists. I conceive it to be applicable (whether intended or not) to the literary men generally of that age, the persons called Sophists included. That which Perikles expressed by the word, when he claimed the love of wisdom and the love of beauty as characteristic features of the Athenian citizen — referred chiefly to the free and abundant discussion, the necessity felt by every one for talking over every thing before it was done, yet accompanied with full energy in action as soon as the resolution was taken to act.25 Speech, ready and pertinent, free conflict of opinion on many different topics — was the manifestation and the measure of knowledge acquired. Sokrates passed his life in talking, with every one indiscriminately, and upon each man’s particular subject; often perplexing the artist himself. Xenophon recounts conversations with various professional men — a painter, a sculptor, an armourer — and informs us that it was instructive to all of them, though Sokrates was no practitioner in any craft.26 It was not merely Demokritus, but Plato and Aristotle also, who talked or wrote upon almost every subject included in contemporary observation. The voluminous works of Aristotle, — the Timæus, Republic, and Leges, of Plato, — embrace a large variety of subjects, on each of which, severally taken, these two great men were second-best or inferior to some special proficient. Yet both of them had judgments to give, which it was important to hear, upon all subjects:27 and both of them could probably talk better upon each than the special proficient himself. Aristotle, for example, would write better upon rhetoric than Demosthenes — upon tragedy, than Sophokles. Undoubtedly, if an oration or a tragedy were to be composed — if resolution or action were required on any real state of particular circumstances — the special proficient would be called upon to act: but it would be a mistake to infer from hence, as the Platonic Sokrates intimates in the Erastæ, that the second-best, or theorizing reasoner, was a useless man. The theoretical and critical point of view, with the command of language apt for explaining and defending it, has a value of its own; distinct from, yet ultimately modifying and improving, the practical. And such comprehensive survey and comparison of numerous objects, without having the attention exclusively fastened or enslaved to any one of them, deserves to rank high as a variety of intelligence whether it be adopted as the definition of a philosopher, or not.

Philosopher — the supreme artist controlling other artists.

Plato undoubtedly did not conceive the definition of the philosopher in the same way as Sokrates. The close of the Erastæ is employed in opening a distant and dim view of the Platonic conception. We are given to understand, that the philosopher has a province of his own, wherein he is not second-best, but a first-rate actor and adviser. To indicate, in many different ways, that there is or must be such a peculiar, appertaining to philosophy — distinct from, though analogous to, the peculiar of each several art — is one leading purpose in many Platonic dialogues. But what is the peculiar of the philosopher? Here, as elsewhere, it is marked out in a sort of misty outline, not as by one who already knows and is familiar with it, but as one who is trying to find it without being sure that he has succeeded. Here, we have it described as the art of discriminating good from evil, governing, and applying penal sanctions rightly. This is the supreme art or science, of which the philosopher is the professor; and in which, far from requiring advice from others, he is the only person competent both to advise and to act: the art which exercises control over all other special arts, directing how far, and on what occasions, each of them comes into appliance. It is philosophy, looked at in one of its two aspects: not as a body of speculative truth, to be debated, proved, and discriminated from what cannot be proved or can be disproved — but as a critical judgment bearing on actual life, prescribing rules or giving directions in particular cases, with a view to the attainment of foreknown ends, recognised as expetenda.28 This is what Plato understands by the measuring or calculating art, the regal or political art, according as we use the language of the Protagoras, Politikus, Euthydêmus, Republic. Both justice and sobriety are branches of this art; and the distinction between the two loses its importance when the art is considered as a whole — as we find both in the Erastæ and in the Republic.29

Ion. Persons of the dialogue. Difference of opinion among modern critics as to its genuineness.

Rhapsodes as a class in Greece. They competed for prizes at the festivals. Ion has been triumphant.

Functions of the Rhapsodes. Recitation — Exposition of the poets. Arbitrary exposition of the poets was then frequent.

I hold it to be genuine, and it may be comparatively early; but I see no ground for the disparaging criticism which has often been applied to it. The personage whom it introduces to us as subjected to the cross-examination of Sokrates is a rhapsode of celebrity; one among a class of artists at that time both useful and esteemed. They recited or sang,3 with appropriate accent and gesture, the compositions of Homer and of other epic poets: thus serving to the Grecian epic, the same purpose as the actors served to the dramatic, and the harp-singers (κιθαρῳδοὶ) to the lyric. There were various solemn festivals such as that of Æsculapius at Epidaurus, and (most especially) the Panathenæa at Athens, where prizes were awarded for the competition of the rhapsodes. Ion is described as having competed triumphantly in the festival at Epidaurus, and carried off the first prize. He appeared there in a splendid costume, crowned with a golden wreath, amidst a crowd which is described as containing more than 20,000 persons.4

The popularity of the Rhapsodes was chiefly derived from their recitation. Powerful effect which they produced.

Ion both reciter and expositor — Homer was considered more as an instructor than as a poet.

The Rhapsodes, in so far as they interpreted Homer, were probably not less disposed than others to discover in him their own fancies. But the character in which they acquired most popularity, was, not as expositors, but as reciters, of the poems. The powerful emotion which, in the process of reciting, they both felt themselves and communicated to their auditors, is declared in this dialogue: “When that which I recite is pathetic (says Ion), my eyes are filled with tears: when it is awful or terrible, my hair stands on end, and my heart leaps. Moreover I see the spectators also weeping, sympathising with my emotions, and looking aghast at what they hear.”8 This assertion of the vehement emotional effect produced by the words of the poet as declaimed or sung by the rhapsode, deserves all the more credit — because Plato himself, far from looking upon it favourably, either derides or disapproves it. Accepting it as a matter of fact, we see that the influence of rhapsodes, among auditors generally, must have been derived more from their efficacy as actors than from their ability as expositors.

Plato disregards and disapproves the poetic or emotional working.

Ion devoted himself to Homer exclusively. Questions of Sokrates to him — How happens it that you cannot talk equally upon other poets? The poetic art is one.

The reader must keep in mind, in following the questions put by Sokrates, that this pædagogic and edifying view of Homer is the only one present to the men of the Sokratic school — and especially to Plato. Of the genuine functions of the gifted poet, who touches the chords of strong and diversified emotion — “qui pectus inaniter angit, Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet” (Horat. Epist. II. 1, 212) — Plato takes no account: or rather, he declares open war against them, either as childish delusions9, or as mischievous stimulants, tending to exalt the unruly elements of the mind, and to overthrow the sovereign authority of reason. We shall find farther manifestations on this point in the Republic and Leges.

Explanation given by Sokrates. Both the Rhapsode and the Poet work, not by art and system, but by divine inspiration. Fine poets are bereft of their reason, and possessed by inspiration from some God.

Analogy of the Magnet, which holds up by attraction successive stages of iron rings. The Gods first inspire Homer, then act through him and through Ion upon the auditors.

I can explain it (says Sokrates). Your talent in expounding Homer is not an art, acquired by system and method — otherwise it would have been applicable to other poets besides. It is a special gift, imparted to you by divine power and inspiration. The like is true of the poet whom you expound. His genius does not spring from art, system, or method: it is a special gift emanating from the inspiration of the Muses.13 A poet is a light, airy, holy, person, who cannot compose verses at all so long as his reason remains within him.14 The Muses take away his reason, substituting in place of it their own divine inspiration and special impulse, either towards epic, dithyramb, encomiastic hymns, hyporchemata, &c., one or other of these. Each poet receives one of these special gifts, but is incompetent for any of the others: whereas, if their ability had been methodical or artistic, it would have displayed itself in all of them alike. Like prophets, and deliverers of oracles, these poets have their reason taken away, and become servants of the Gods.15 It is not they who, bereft of their reason, speak in such sublime strains: it is the God who speaks to us, and speaks through them. You may see this by Tynnichus of Chalkis; who composed his Pæan, the finest of all Pæans, which is in every one’s mouth, telling us himself, that it was the invention of the Muses — but who never composed anything else worth hearing. It is through this worthless poet that the God has sung the most sublime hymn:16 for the express purpose of showing us that these fine compositions are not human performances at all, but divine: and that the poet is only an interpreter of the Gods, possessed by one or other of them, as the case may be.

This comparison forms the central point of the dialogue. It is an expansion of a judgment delivered by Sokrates in the Apology.

Homer is thus (continues Sokrates) not a man of art or reason, but the interpreter of the Gods; deprived of his reason, but possessed, inspired, by them. You, Ion, are the interpreter of Homer: and the divine inspiration, carrying away your reason, is exercised over you through him. It is in this way that the influence of the Magnet is shown, attracting and holding up successive stages of iron rings.17 The first ring is in contact with the Magnet itself: the second is suspended to the first, the third to the second, and so on. The attractive influence of the Magnet is thus transmitted through a succession of different rings, so as to keep suspended several which are a good way removed from itself. So the influence of the Gods is exerted directly and immediately upon Homer: through him, it passes by a second stage to you: through him and you, it passes by a third stage to those auditors whom you so powerfully affect and delight, becoming however comparatively enfeebled at each stage of transition.

Platonic Antithesis: systematic procedure distinguished from unsystematic: which latter was either blind routine, or madness inspired by the Gods. Varieties of madness, good and bad.

Special inspiration from the Gods was a familiar fact in Grecian life. Privileged communications from the Gods to Sokrates — his firm belief in them.

The contrast between systematic, professional, procedure, deliberately taught and consciously acquired, capable of being defended at every step by appeal to intelligible rules founded upon scientific theory, and enabling the person so qualified to impart his qualification to others — and a different procedure purely impulsive and unthinking, whereby the agent, having in his mind a conception of the end aimed at, proceeds from one intermediate step to another, without knowing why he does so or how he has come to do so, and without being able to explain his practice if questioned or to impart it to others — this contrast is a favourite one with Plato. The last-mentioned procedure — the unphilosophical or irrational — he conceives under different aspects: sometimes as a blind routine or insensibly acquired habit,19 sometimes as a stimulus applied from without by some God, superseding the reason of the individual. Such a condition Plato calls madness, and he considers those under it as persons out of their senses. But he recognises different varieties of madness, according to the God from whom it came: the bad madness was a disastrous visitation and distemper — the good madness was a privilege and blessing, an inspiration superior to human reason. Among these privileged madmen he reckoned prophets and poets; another variety under the same genus, is, that mental love, between a well-trained adult, and a beautiful, intelligent, youth, which he regards as the most exalted of all human emotions.20 In the Ion, this idea of a privileged madness — inspiration from the Gods superseding reason — is applied not only to the poet, but also to the rhapsode who recites the poem, and even to the auditors whom he addresses. The poet receives the inspiration directly from the Gods: he inoculates the rhapsode with it, who again inoculates the auditors — the fervour is, at each successive communication, diminished. The auditor represents the last of the rings; held in suspension, through the intermediate agency of other rings, by the inherent force of the magnet.21

Condition of the inspired person — his reason is for the time withdrawn.

We must remember, that privileged communications from the Gods to men, and special persons recipient thereof, were acknowledged and witnessed everywhere as a constant phenomenon of Grecian life. There were not only numerous oracular temples, which every one could visit to ask questions in matters of doubt — but also favoured persons who had received from the Gods the gift of predicting the future, of interpreting omens, of determining the good or bad indications furnished by animals sacrificed.22 In every town or village — or wherever any body of men were assembled — there were always persons who prophesied or delivered oracles, and to whom special revelations were believed to be vouchsafed, during periods of anxiety. No one was more familiar with this fact than the Sokratic disciples: for Sokrates himself had perhaps a greater number of special communications from the Gods than any man of his age: his divine sign having begun when he was a child, and continuing to move him frequently, even upon small matters, until his death: though the revelations were for the most part negative, not affirmative — telling him often what was not to be done — seldom what was to be done — resembling in this respect his own dialogues with other persons. Moreover Sokrates inculcated upon his friends emphatically, that they ought to have constant recourse to prophecy: that none but impious men neglected to do so: that the benevolence of the Gods was nowhere more conspicuous than in their furnishing such special revelations and warnings, to persons whom they favoured: that the Gods administered the affairs of the world partly upon principles of regular sequence, so that men by diligent study might learn what they were to expect, — but partly also, and by design, in a manner irregular and undecypherable, such that it could not be fathomed by any human study, and could not be understood except through direct and special revelation from themselves.23

Ion does not admit himself to be inspired and out of his mind.

Here, as well as elsewhere, Plato places inspiration, both of the prophet and the poet, in marked contrast with reason and intelligence. Reason is supposed to be for the time withdrawn or abolished, and inspiration is introduced by the Gods into its place. “When Monarch Reason sleeps, this mimic wakes.” The person inspired (prophet or poet) becomes for the time the organ of an extraneous agency, speaking what he neither originates nor understands. The genuine gift of prophecy24 (Plato says) attaches only to a disabled, enfeebled, distempered, condition of the intelligence; the gift of poetry is conferred by the Gods upon the most inferior men, as we see by the case of Tynnichus — whose sublime pæan shows us, that it is the Gods alone who utter fine poetry through the organs of a person himself thoroughly incompetent.

Homer talks upon all subjects — Is Ion competent to explain what Homer says upon all of them? Rhapsodic art. What is its province?

Sokr. — But Homer talks upon all subjects. Upon which of them can you discourse? Ion. — Upon all. Sokr. — Not surely on such as belong to special arts, professions. Each portion of the matter of knowledge is included under some special art, and is known through that art by those who possess it. Thus, you and I, both of us, know the number of our fingers; we know it through the same art, which both of us possess — the arithmetical. But Homer talks of matters belonging to many different arts or occupations, that of the physician, the charioteer, the fisherman, &c. You cannot know these; since you do not belong to any of these professions, but are a rhapsode. Describe to me what are the matters included in the rhapsodic art. The rhapsodic art is one art by itself, distinct from the medical and others: it cannot know every thing; tell me what matters come under its special province.26 Ion. — The rhapsodic art does not know what belongs to any one of the other special arts: but that of which it takes cognizance, and that which I know, is, what is becoming and suitable to each variety of character described by Homer: to a man or woman — to a freeman or slave — to the commander who gives orders or to the subordinate who obeys them, &c. This is what belongs to the peculiar province of the rhapsode to appreciate and understand.27 Sokr. — Will the rhapsode know what is suitable for the commander of a ship to say to his seamen, during a dangerous storm, better than the pilot? Will the rhapsode know what is suitable for one who gives directions about the treatment of a sick man, better than the physician? Will the rhapsode know what is suitable to be said by the herdsman when the cattle are savage and distracted, or to the female slaves when busy in spinning? Ion. — No: the rhapsode will not know these things so well as the pilot, the physician, the grazier, the mistress, &c.28 Sokr. — Will the rhapsode know what is suitable for the military commander to say, when he is exhorting his soldiers? Ion. — Yes: the rhapsode will know this well: at least I know it well.

Conclusion. Ion expounds Homer, not with any knowledge of what he says, but by divine inspiration.

Sokr. — Perhaps, Ion, you are not merely a rhapsode, but possess also the competence for being a general. If you know matters belonging to military command, do you know them in your capacity of general, or in your capacity of rhapsode? Ion. — I think there is no difference. Sokr. — How say you? Do you affirm that the rhapsodic art, and the strategic art, are one? Ion. — I think they are one. Sokr. — Then whosoever is a good rhapsode, is also a good general? Ion. — Unquestionably. Sokr. — And of course, whoever is a good general, is also a good rhapsode? Ion. — No: I do not think that. Sokr. — But you do maintain, that whosoever is a good rhapsode, is also a good general? Ion. — Decidedly. Sokr. — You are yourself the best rhapsode in Greece? Ion. — By far. Sokr. — Are you then also the best general in Greece? Ion. — Certainly I am, Sokrates: and that too, by having learnt it from Homer.29

The generals in Greece usually possessed no professional experience — Homer and the poets were talked of as the great teachers — Plato’s view of the poet, as pretending to know everything, but really knowing nothing.

Knowledge, opposed to divine inspiration without knowledge.

It seems strange to read such language put into Ion’s mouth (we are not warranted in regarding it as what any rhapsode ever did say), as the affirmation — that every good rhapsode was also a good general, and that he had become the best of generals simply through complete acquaintance with Homer. But this is only a caricature of a sentiment largely prevalent at Athens, according to which the works of the poets, especially the Homeric poems, were supposed to be a mine of varied instruction, and were taught as such to youth.31 In Greece, the general was not often required (except at Sparta, and not always even there) to possess professional experience.32 Sokrates, in one of the Xenophontic conversations, tries to persuade Nikomachides, a practised soldier (who had failed in getting himself elected general, because a successful Chorêgus had been preferred to him), how much the qualities of an effective Chorêgus coincided with those of an effective general.33 The poet Sophokles was named by the Athenians one of the generals of the very important armament for reconquering Samos: though Perikles, one of his colleagues, as well as his contemporary declared that he was an excellent poet, but knew nothing of generalship.34 Plato frequently seeks to make it evident how little the qualities required for governing numbers, either civil or military, were made matter of professional study or special teaching. The picture of Homer conveyed in the tenth book of the Platonic Republic is, that of a man who pretends to know everything, but really knows nothing: an imitative artist, removed by two stages from truth and reality, — who gives the shadows of shadows, resembling only enough to satisfy an ignorant crowd. This is the picture there presented of poets generally, and of Homer as the best among them. The rhapsode Ion is here brought under the same category as the poet Homer, whom he has by heart and recites. The whole field of knowledge is assumed to be distributed among various specialties, not one of which either of the two can claim. Accordingly, both of them under the mask of universal knowledge, conceal the reality of universal ignorance.

Illustration of Plato’s opinion respecting the uselessness of written geometrical treatises.

Lachês. Subject and persons of the dialogue, Whether it is useful that two young men should receive lessons from a master of arms. Nikias and Lachês differ in opinion.

Sokrates is invited to declare his opinion. He replies that the point cannot be decided without a competent professional judge.

The discussion is invited, or at least dramatically introduced, by two elderly men — Lysimachus, son of Aristeides the Just, — and Melêsias, son of Thucydides the rival of Perikles. Lysimachus and Melêsias, confessing with shame that they are inferior to their fathers, because their education has been neglected, wish to guard against the same misfortune in the case of their own sons: respecting the education of whom, they ask the advice of Nikias and Lachês. The question turns especially upon the propriety of causing their sons to receive lessons from a master of arms just then in vogue. Nikias and Lachês, both of them not merely distinguished citizens but also commanders of Athenian armies, are assumed to be well qualified to give advice. Accordingly they deliver their opinions: Nikias approving such lessons as beneficial, in exalting the courage of a young man, and rendering him effective on the field of battle: while Lachês takes an opposite view, disparages the masters of arms as being no soldiers, and adds that they are despised by the Lacedæmonians, to whose authority on military matters general deference was paid in Greece.1 Sokratês, — commended greatly by Nikias for his acuteness and sagacity, by Lachês for his courage in the battle of Delium, — is invited to take part in the consultation. Being younger than both, he waits till they have delivered their opinions, and is then called upon to declare with which of the two his own judgment will concur.2

Those who deliver an opinion must begin by proving their competence to judge — Sokrates avows his own incompetence.

Sokr. — The question must not be determined by a plurality of votes, but by superiority of knowledge.3 If we were debating about the proper gymnastic discipline for these young men, we should consult a known artist or professional trainer, or at least some one who had gone through a course of teaching and practice under the trainer. The first thing to be enquired therefore is, whether, in reference to the point now under discussion, there be any one of us professionally or technically competent, who has studied under good masters, and has proved his own competence as a master by producing well-trained pupils. The next thing is, to understand clearly what it is, with reference to which such competence is required.4 Nikias. — Surely the point before us is, whether it be wise to put these young men under the lessons of the master of arms? That is what we want to know. Sokr. — Doubtless it is: but that is only one particular branch of a wider and more comprehensive enquiry. When you are considering whether a particular ointment is good for your eyes, it is your eyes, and their general benefit, which form the subject of investigation — not the ointment simply. The person to assist you will be, he who understands professionally the general treatment of the eyes. So in this case, you are enquiring whether lessons in arms will be improving for the minds and character of your sons. Look out therefore for some one who is professionally competent, from having studied under good masters, in regard to the general treatment of the mind.5 Lachês. — But there are various persons who, without ever having studied under masters, possess greater technical competence than others who have so studied. Sokr. — There are such persons: but you will never believe it upon their own assurance, unless they can show you some good special work actually performed by themselves.

Nikias and Lachês submit to be cross-examined by Sokrates.

Both of them give opinions offhand, according to their feelings on the special case — Sokrates requires that the question shall be generalised, and examined as a branch of education.

Appeal of Sokrates to the judgment of the One Wise Man — this man is never seen or identified.

This portion of the dialogue, which forms a sort of preamble to the main discussion, brings out forcibly some of the Platonic points of view. We have seen it laid down in the Kriton — That in questions about right and wrong, good and evil, &c., we ought not to trust the decision of the Many, but only that of the One Wise Man. Here we learn something about the criteria by which this One man may be known. He must be one who has gone through a regular training under some master approved in ethical or educational teaching: or, if he cannot produce such a certificate, he must at least cite sufficient examples of men whom he has taught well himself. This is the Sokratic comparison, assimilating the general art of living well to the requirements of a special profession, which a man must learn through express teaching, from a master who has proved his ability, and through conscious application of his own. Nikias and Lachês give their opinions offhand and confidently, upon the question whether lessons from the master of arms be profitable to youth or not. Plato, on the contrary, speaking through Sokrates, points out that this is only one branch of the more comprehensive question as to education generally — “What are the qualities and habits proper to be imparted to youth by training? What is the proper treatment of the mind? No one is competent to decide the special question, except he who has professionally studied the treatment of the mind.” To deal with the special question, without such preliminary general preparation, involves rash and unverified assumptions, which render any opinion so given dangerous to act upon. Such is the judgment of the Platonic Sokrates, insisting on the necessity of taking up ethical questions in their most comprehensive aspect.

We must know what virtue is, before we give an opinion on education. Virtue, as a whole, is too large a question. We will enquire about one branch of virtue — courage.

Question — what is courage? Lachês answers by citing one particularly manifest case of courage. Mistake of not giving a general explanation.

Sokr. — “We will pursue a line of enquiry which conducts to the same result; and which starts even more decidedly from the beginning.10 We are called upon to advise by what means virtue can be imparted to these youths, so as to make them better men. Of course, this implies that we know what virtue is: otherwise how can we give advice as to the means of acquiring it? Lachês. — We could give no advice at all. Sokr. — We affirm ourselves therefore to know what virtue is? Lachês. — We do. Sokr. — Since therefore we know, we can farther declare what it is.11 Lachês. — Of course we can. Sokr. — Still, we will not at once enquire as to the whole of virtue, which might be an arduous task, but as to a part of it — Courage: that part to which the lessons of the master of arms are supposed to tend. We will first enquire what courage is: after that has been determined, we will then consider how it can best be imparted to these youths.”

Second answer. Courage is a sort of endurance of the mind. Sokrates points out that the answer is vague and incorrect. Endurance is not always courage: even intelligent endurance is not always courage.

Confusion. New answer given by Nikias. Courage is a sort of intelligence — the intelligence of things terrible and not terrible. Objections of Lachês.

Surely not all endurance (rejoins Sokrates)? You admit that courage is a fine and honourable thing. But endurance without intelligence is hurtful and dishonourable: it cannot therefore be courage. Only intelligent endurance, therefore, can be courage. And then what is meant by intelligent? Intelligent — of what — or to what end? A man, who endures the loss of money, understanding well that he will thereby gain a larger sum, is he courageous? No. He who endures fighting, knowing that he has superior skill, numbers, and all other advantages on his side, manifests more of intelligent endurance, than his adversary who knows that he has all these advantages against him, yet who nevertheless endures fighting. Nevertheless this latter is the most courageous of the two.15 Unintelligent endurance is in this case courage: but unintelligent endurance was acknowledged to be bad and hurtful, and courage to be a fine thing. We have entangled ourselves in a contradiction. We must at least show our own courage, by enduring until we can get right. For my part (replies Lachês) I am quite prepared for such endurance. I am piqued and angry that I cannot express what I conceive. I seem to have in my mind clearly what courage is: but it escapes me somehow or other, when I try to put it in words.16

Questions of Sokrates to Nikias. It is only future events, not past or present, which are terrible; but intelligence of future events cannot be had without intelligence of past or present.

Nikias. — Courage is intelligence of things terrible, and things not terrible, both in war and in all other conjunctures. Lachês. — What nonsense! Courage is a thing totally apart from knowledge or intelligence.17 The intelligent physician knows best what is terrible, and what is not terrible, in reference to disease: the husbandman, in reference to agriculture. But they are not for that reason courageous. Nikias. — They are not; but neither do they know what is terrible, or what is not terrible. Physicians can predict the result of a patient’s case: they can tell what may cure him, or what will kill him. But whether it be better for him to die or to recover — that they do not know, and cannot tell him. To some persons, death is a less evil than life:— defeat, than victory:— loss of wealth, than gain. None except the person who can discriminate these cases, knows what is really terrible and what is not so. He alone is really courageous.18 Lachês. — Where is there any such man? It can be only some God. Nikias feels himself in a puzzle, and instead of confessing it frankly as I have done, he is trying to help himself out by evasions more fit for a pleader before the Dikastery.19

Courage therefore must be intelligence of good and evil generally. But this definition would include the whole of virtue, and we declared that courage was only a part thereof. It will not hold therefore as a definition of courage.

Sokr. — You do not admit, then, Nikias, that lions, tigers, boars, &c., and such animals, are courageous? Nikias. — No: they are without fear — simply from not knowing the danger — like children: but they are not courageous, though most people call them so. I may call them bold, but I reserve the epithet courageous for the intelligent. Lachês. — See how Nikias strips those, whom every one admits to be courageous, of this honourable appellation! Nikias. — Not altogether, Lachês: I admit you, and Lamachus, and many other Athenians, to be courageous, and of course therefore intelligent. Lachês. — I feel the compliment: but such subtle distinctions befit a Sophist rather than a general in high command.20 Sokr. — The highest measure of intelligence befits one in the highest command. What you have said, Nikias, deserves careful examination. You remember that in taking up the investigation of courage, we reckoned it only as a portion of virtue: you are aware that there are other portions of virtue, such as justice, temperance, and the like. Now you define courage to be, intelligence of what is terrible or not terrible: of that which causes fear, or does not cause fear. But nothing causes fear, except future or apprehended evils: present or past evils cause no fear. Hence courage, as you define it, is intelligence respecting future evils, and future events not evil. But how can there be intelligence respecting the future, except in conjunction with intelligence respecting the present and the past? In every special department, such as medicine, military proceedings, agriculture, &c., does not the same man, who knows the phenomena of the future, know also the phenomena of present and past? Are they not all inseparable acquirements of one and the same intelligent mind?21

Remarks. Warfare of Sokrates against the false persuasion of knowledge. Brave generals deliver opinions confidently about courage without knowing what it is.

No solution given by Plato. Apparent tendency of his mind, in looking for a solution. Intelligence — cannot be understood without reference to some object or end.

Here ends the dialogue called Lachês, without any positive result. Nothing is proved except the ignorance of two brave and eminent generals respecting the moral attribute known by the name Courage: which nevertheless they are known to possess, and have the full sentiment and persuasion of knowing perfectly; so that they give confident advice as to the means of imparting it. “I am unaccustomed to debates like these” (says Lachês): “but I am piqued and mortified — because I feel that I know well what Courage is, yet somehow or other I cannot state my own thoughts in words.” Here is a description24 of the intellectual deficiency which Sokrates seeks to render conspicuous to the consciousness, instead of suffering it to remain latent and unknown, as it is in the ordinary mind. Here, as elsewhere, he impugns the false persuasion of knowledge, and the unconscious presumption of estimable men in delivering opinions upon ethical and social subjects, which have become familiar and interwoven with deeply rooted associations, but have never been studied under a master, nor carefully analysed and discussed, nor looked at in their full generality. This is a mental defect which he pronounces to be universal: belonging not less to men of action like Nikias and Lachês, than to Sophists and Rhetors like Protagoras and Gorgias.

Object — is supplied in the answer of Nikias. Intelligence — of things terrible and not terrible. Such intelligence is not possessed by professional artists.

Here, as elsewhere, Plato (or the Platonic Sokrates) exposes the faulty solutions of others, but proposes no better solution of his own, and even disclaims all ability to do so. We may nevertheless trace, in the refutation which he gives of the two unsatisfactory explanations, hints guiding the mind into that direction in which Plato looks to supply the deficiency. Thus when Lachês, after having given as his first answer (to the question, What is Courage?) a definition not even formally sufficient, is put by Sokrates upon giving his second answer, — That Courage is intelligent endurance: Sokrates asks him25 — “Yes, intelligent: but intelligent to what end? Do you mean, to all things alike, great as well as little?” We are here reminded that intelligence, simply taken, is altogether undefined; that intelligence must relate to something — and when human conduct is in question, must relate to some end; and that the Something, and the End, to which it relates, must be set forth, before the proposition can be clearly understood.

Postulate of a Science of Ends, or Teleology, dimly indicated by Plato. The Unknown Wise Man — correlates with the undiscovered Science of Ends.

Perfect condition of the intelligence — is the one sufficient condition of virtue.

The ulterior, yet not less important, estimate of the comparative worth of different ends, is reserved for that unknown master whom Nikias himself does not farther specify, and whom Lachês sets aside as nowhere to be found, under the peculiar phrase of “some God”. Subjectively considered, this is an appeal to the judgment of that One Wise Man, often alluded to by Plato as an absent Expert who might be called into court — yet never to be found at the exact moment, nor produced in visible presence: Objectively considered, it is a postulate or divination of some yet undiscovered Teleology or Science of Ends: that Science of the Good, which (as we have already noticed in Alkibiadês II.) Plato pronounces to be the crowning and capital science of all — and without which he there declared, that knowledge on all other topics was useless and even worse than useless.26 The One Wise Man — the Science of Good — are the Subject and Object corresponding to each other, and postulated by Plato. None but the One Wise Man can measure things terrible and not terrible: none else can estimate the good or evil, or the comparative value of two alternative evils, in each individual case. The items here directed to be taken into the calculation, correspond with what is laid down by Sokrates in the Protagoras, not with that laid down in the Gorgias: we find here none of that marked antithesis between pleasure and good — between pain and evil — upon which Sokrates expatiates in the Gorgias.

Dramatic contrast between Lachês and Sokrates, as cross-examiners 150 CHAPTER XIX. CHARMIDES. Scene and personages of the dialogue. Crowded palæstra. Emotions of Sokrates 153 Question, What is Temperance? addressed by Sokrates to the temperate Charmides. Answer, It is a kind of sedateness or slowness 154 But Temperance is a fine or honourable thing, and slowness is, in many or most cases, not fine or honourable, but the contrary. Temperance cannot be slowness

ib.

Second answer. Temperance is a variety of the feeling of shame. Refuted by Sokrates

ib.

Third answer. Temperance consists in doing one’s own business. Defended by Kritias. Sokrates pronounces it a riddle, and refutes it. Distinction between making and doing 155 Fourth answer, by Kritias. Temperance consists in self-knowledge

ib.

Questions of Sokrates thereupon. What good does self-knowledge procure for us? What is the object known, in this case ? Answer: There is no object of knowledge, distinct from the knowledge itself 156 Sokrates doubts the possibility of any knowledge, without a given cognitum as its object. Analogies to prove that knowledge of knowledge is impossible 156 All knowledge must be relative to some object 157 All properties are relative — every thing in nature has its characteristic property with reference to something else

ib.

Even if cognition of cognition were possible, cognition of non-cognition would be impossible. A man may know what he knows, but he cannot know what he is ignorant of. He knows the fact that he knows: but he does not know how much he knows, and how much he does not know 158 Temperance, therefore, as thus defined, would be of little or no value 159 But even granting the possibility of that which has just been denied, still Temperance would be of little value. Suppose that all separate work were well performed, by special practitioners, we should not attain our end — Happiness

ib.

Which of the varieties of knowledge contributes most to well-doing or happiness? That by which we know good and evil 160 Without the science of good and evil, the other special science will be of little or of no service. Temperance is not the science of good and evil, and is of little service 161 Sokrates confesses to entire failure in his research. He cannot find out what temperance is: although several concessions have been made which cannot be justified

ib.

Temperance is and must be a good thing: but Charmides cannot tell whether he is temperate or not ; since what temperance is remains unknown 162 Expressions both from Charmides and Kritias of praise and devotion to Sokrates, at the close of the dialogue. Dramatic ornament throughout

ib.

The Charmides is an excellent specimen of Dialogues of Search. Abundance of guesses and tentatives, all ultimately disallowed 163 Trial and Error, the natural process of the human mind. Plato stands alone in bringing to view and dramatising this part of the mental process. Sokrates accepts for himself the condition of conscious ignorance 164 Familiar words — constantly used, with much earnest feeling, but never understood nor defined — ordinary phenomenon in human society 165 Different ethical points of view in different Platonic dialogues 167 Self-knowledge is here declared to be impossible

ib.

In other dialogues, Sokrates declares self-knowledge to be essential and inestimable. Necessity for the student to have presented to him dissentient points of view

ib.

Courage and Temperance are shown to have no distinct meaning, except as founded on the general cognizance of good and evil 168 Distinction made between the special sciences and the science of Good and Evil. Without this last, the special sciences are of no use

ib.

Knowledge, always relative to some object known. Postulate or divination of a Science of Teleology 169 Courage and Temperance, handled both by Plato and by Aristotle. Comparison between the two 170 CHAPTER XX. LYSIS. Analogy between Lysis and Charmides. Richness of dramatic incident in both. Youthful beauty 172 Scenery and personages of the Lysis

ib.

Origin of the conversation. Sokrates promises to give an example of the proper way of talking to a youth, for his benefit 173 Conversation of Sokrates with Lysis

ib.

Lysis is humiliated. Distress of Hippothalês 177 Lysis entreats Sokrates to talk in the like strain to Menexenus

ib.

Value of the first conversation between Sokrates and Lysis, as an illustration of the Platonico-Sokratic manner 177 Sokrates begins to examine Menexenus respecting friendship. Who is to be called a friend? Halt in the dialogue 178 Questions addressed to Lysis. Appeal to the maxims of the poets. Like is the friend of like. Canvassed and rejected

ib.

Other poets declare that likeness is a cause of aversion; unlikeness, of friendship. Reasons pro and con. Rejected 179 Confusion of Sokrates. He suggests, That the Indifferent (neither good nor evil) is friend to the Good 180 Suggestion canvassed. If the Indifferent is friend to the Good, it is determined to become so by the contact of felt evil, from which it is anxious to escape 180 Principle illustrated by the philosopher. His intermediate condition — not wise, yet painfully feeling his own ignorance 181 Sokrates dissatisfied. He originates a new suggestion. The Primum Amabile, or object originally dear to us, per se: by relation or resemblance to which other objects become dear

ib.

The cause of love is desire. We desire that which is akin to us or our own 182 Good is of a nature akin to every one, evil is alien to every one. Inconsistency with what has been previously laid down 183 Failure of the enquiry. Close of the dialogue 184 Remarks. No positive result. Sokratic purpose in analysing the familiar words — to expose the false persuasion of knowledge

ib.

Subject of Lysis. Suited for a Dialogue of Search. Manner of Sokrates, multiplying defective explanations, and showing reasons why each is defective 185 The process of trial and error is better illustrated by a search without result than with result. Usefulness of the dialogue for self-working minds 186 Subject of friendship, handled both by the Xenophontic Sokrates, and by Aristotle

ib.

Debate in the Lysis partly verbal, partly real. Assumptions made by the Platonic Sokrates, questionable, such as the real Sokrates would have found reason for challenging 188 Peculiar theory about friendship broached by Sokrates. Persons neither good nor evil by nature, yet having a superficial tinge of evil, and desiring good to escape from it 189 This general theory illustrated by the case of the philosopher or lover of wisdom. Painful consciousness of ignorance the attribute of the philosopher. Value set by Sokrates and Plato upon this attribute 190 Another theory of Sokrates. The Primum Amabile, or original and primary object of Love. Particular objects are loved through association with this. The object is Good 191 Statement by Plato of the general law of mental association

ib.

Theory of the Primum Amabile, here introduced by Sokrates, with numerous derivative objects of love. Platonic Idea. Generic communion of Aristotle, distinguished by him from the feebler analogical communion 192 Primum Amabile of Plato, compared with the Prima Amicitia of Aristotle. Each of them is head of an analogical aggregate, not member of a generic family 194 The Good and Beautiful, considered as objects of attachment

ib.

CHAPTER XXI. EUTHYDEMUS. Dramatic and comic exuberance of the Euthydêmus. Judgments of various critics 195 Scenery and personages

ib.

The two Sophists, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus: manner in which they are here presented 196 Conversation carried on with Kleinias, first by Sokrates, next by the two Sophists

ib.

Contrast between the two different modes of interrogation 197 Wherein this contrast does not consist 198 Wherein it does consist 199 Abuse of fallacies by the Sophists — their bidding for the applause of the by-standers

ib.

Comparison of the Euthydêmus with the Parmenidês 200 Necessity of settling accounts with the negative, before we venture upon the affirmative, is common to both: in the one the process is solitary and serious; in the other, it is vulgarised and ludicrous 201 Opinion of Stallbaum and other critics about the Euthydêmus, that Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus represent the way in which Protagoras and Gorgias talked to their auditors 202 That opinion is unfounded. Sokrates was much more Eristic than Protagoras, who generally manifested himself by continuous speech or lecture

ib.

Sokrates in the Euthydêmus is drawn suitably to the purpose of that dialogue 203 The two Sophists in the Euthydêmus are not to be taken as real persons, or representatives of real persons 204 Colloquy of Sokrates with Kleinias — possession of good things is useless, unless we also have intelligence how to use them

ib.

But intelligence — of what? It must be such intelligence, or such an art, as will include both the making of what we want, and the right use of it when made 205 Where is such an art to be found? The regal or political art looks like it; but what does this art do for us? No answer can be found. Ends in puzzle 206 Review of the cross-examination just pursued by Sokrates. It is very suggestive — puts the mind upon what to look for 207 Comparison with other dialogues — Republic, Philêbus, Protagoras. The only distinct answer is found in the Protagoras 208 The talk of the two Sophists, though ironically admired while it is going on, is shown at the end to produce no real admiration, but the contrary

ib.

Mistaken representations about the Sophists — Aristotle’s definition — no distinguishable line can be drawn between the Sophist and the Dialectician 210 Philosophical purpose of the Euthydêmus — exposure of fallacies, in Plato’s dramatic manner, by multiplication of particular examples 211 Aristotle (Soph. Elench.) attempts a classification of fallacies: Plato enumerates them without classification 212 Fallacies of equivocation propounded by the two Sophists in the Euthydêmus

ib.

Fallacies — à dicto secundum quid, ad dictum simpliciter — in the Euthydêmus 213 Obstinacy shown by the two Sophists in their replies — determination not to contradict themselves 214 Farther verbal equivocations

ib.

Fallacies involving deeper logical principles — contradiction is impossible. — To speak falsely is impossible 215 Plato’s Euthydêmus is the earliest known attempt to set out and expose fallacies — the only way of exposing fallacies is to exemplify the fallacy by particular cases, in which the conclusion proved is known aliunde to be false and absurd 216 Mistake of supposing fallacies to have been invented and propagated by Athenian Sophists — they are inherent inadvertencies and liabilities to error, in the ordinary process of thinking. Formal debate affords the best means of correcting them 217 Wide-spread prevalence of erroneous belief, misguided by one or other of these fallacies, attested by Sokrates, Plato, Bacon, &c., — complete enumeration of heads of fallacies by Mill 218 Value of formal debate as a means for testing and confuting fallacies 221 Without the habit of formal debate, Plato could not have composed his Euthydêmus, nor Aristotle the treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis

ib.

Sokrates stands alone in this confession. Unpopularity entailed by it 233 Answer of Menon — plurality of virtues, one belonging to each different class and condition. Sokrates enquires for the property common to all of them

ib.

Analogous cases cited — definitions of figure and colour 235 Importance at that time of bringing into conscious view, logical subordination and distinctions — Neither logic nor grammar had then been cast into system

ib.

Definition of virtue given by Menon: Sokrates pulls it to pieces 236 Menon complains that the conversation of Sokrates confounds him like an electric shock — Sokrates replies that he is himself in the same state of confusion and ignorance. He urges continuance of search by both 237 But how is the process of search available to any purpose? No man searches for what he already knows: and for what he does not know, it is useless to search, for he cannot tell when he has found it

ib.

Theory of reminiscence propounded by Sokrates — anterior immortality of the soul — what is called teaching is the revival and recognition of knowledge acquired in a former life, but forgotten

ib.

Illustration of this theory — knowledge may be revived by skilful questions in the mind of a man thoroughly untaught. Sokrates questions the slave of Menon 238 Enquiry taken up — Whether virtue is teachable? without determining what virtue is 239 Virtue is knowledge — no possessions, no attributes, either of mind or body, are good or profitable, except under the guidance of knowledge

ib.

Virtue, as being knowledge, must be teachable. Yet there are opposing reasons, showing that it cannot be teachable. No teachers of it can be found 239 Conversation of Sokrates with Anytus, who detests the Sophists, and affirms that any one of the leading politicians can teach virtue 240 Confused state of the discussion. No way of acquiring virtue is shown

ib.

Sokrates modifies his premisses — knowledge is not the only thing which guides to good results — right opinion will do the same

ib.

Right opinion cannot be relied on for staying in the mind, and can never give rational explanations, nor teach others — good practical statesmen receive right opinion by inspiration from the Gods 241 All the real virtue that there is, is communicated by special inspiration from the Gods 242 But what virtue itself is, remains unknown

ib.

Remarks on the dialogue. Proper order for examining the different topics, is pointed out by Sokrates

ib.

Mischief of debating ulterior and secondary questions when the fundamental notions and word are unsettled

ib.

Doctrine of Sokrates in the Menon — desire of good alleged to be universally felt — in what sense this is true 243 Sokrates requires knowledge as the principal condition of virtue, but does not determine knowledge, of what ? 244 Subject of Menon; same as that of the Protagoras — diversity of handling — Plato is not anxious to settle a question and get rid of it 245 Anxiety of Plato to keep up and enforce the spirit of research 246 Great question discussed among the Grecian philosophers — criterion of truth — Wherein consists the process of verification?

ib.

None of the philosophers were satisfied with the answer here made by Plato — that verification consists in appeal to pre-natal experience 247 Plato’s view of the immortality of the soul — difference between the Menon, Phædrus, and Phædon 249 Doctrine of Plato, that new truth may be elicited by skilful examination out of the unlettered mind — how far correct ?

ib.

Plato’s doctrine about à priori reasonings — different from the modern doctrine 251 Plato’s theory about pre-natal experience. He took no pains to ascertain and measure the extent of post-natal experience 252 Little or nothing is said in the Menon about the Platonic Ideas or Forms 253 What Plato meant by Causal Reasoning — his distinction between knowledge and right opinion

ib.

This distinction compared with modern philosophical views 254 Manifestation of Anytus — intense antipathy to the Sophists and to philosophy generally 255 The enemy of Sokrates is also the enemy of the sophists — practical statesmen 256 The Menon brings forward the point of analogy between Sokrates and the Sophists, in which both were disliked by the practical statesmen 257 CHAPTER XXIII. PROTAGORAS. Scenic arrangement and personages of the dialogue 259 Introduction. Eagerness of the youthful Hippokrates to become acquainted with Protagoras 260 Sokrates questions Hippokrates as to his purpose and expectations from Protagoras

ib.

Danger of going to imbibe the instruction of a Sophist without knowing beforehand what he is about to teach 262 Remarks on the Introduction. False persuasion of knowledge brought to light 263 Sokrates and Hippokrates go to the house of Kallias. Company therein. Respect shown to Protagoras 264 Questions of Sokrates to Protagoras. Answer of the latter, declaring the antiquity of the sophistical profession, and his own openness in avowing himself a sophist

ib.

Protagoras prefers to converse in presence of the assembled company 266 Answers of Protagoras. He intends to train young men as virtuous citizens

ib.

Sokrates doubts whether virtue is teachable. Reasons for such doubt. Protagoras is asked to explain whether it is or not.

ib.

Explanation of Protagoras. He begins with a mythe 267 Mythe. First fabrication of men by the Gods. Prometheus and Epimetheus. Bad distribution of endowments to man by the latter. It is partly amended by Prometheus 267 Prometheus gave to mankind skill for the supply of individual wants, but could not give them the social art — Mankind are on the point of perishing, when Zeus sends to them the dispositions essential for society 268 Protagoras follows up his mythe by a discourse. Justice and the sense of shame are not professional attributes, but are possessed by all citizens and taught by all to all 269 Constant teaching of virtue. Theory of punishment 270 Why eminent men cannot make their sons eminent 271 Teaching by parents, schoolmaster, harpist, laws, dikastery, &c.

ib.

All learn virtue from the same teaching by all. Whether a learner shall acquire more or less of it, depends upon his own individual aptitude 272 Analogy of learning vernacular Greek. No special teacher thereof. Protagoras teaches virtue somewhat better than others 273 The sons of great artists do not themselves become great artists 274 Remarks upon the mythe and discourse. They explain the manner in which the established sentiment of a community propagates and perpetuates itself 274 Antithesis of Protagoras and Sokrates. Whether virtue is to be assimilated to a special art 275 Procedure of Sokrates in regard to the discourse of Protagoras — he compliments it as an exposition, and analyses some of the fundamental assumptions 276 One purpose of the dialogue. To contrast continuous discourse with short cross-examining question and answer 277 Questions by Sokrates — Whether virtue is one and indivisible, or composed of different parts? Whether the parts are homogeneous or heterogeneous ?

ib.

Whether justice is just, and holiness holy? How far justice is like to holiness? Sokrates protests against an answer, “If you please” 278 Intelligence and moderation are identical, because they have the same contrary 279 Insufficient reasons given by Sokrates. He seldom cares to distinguish different meanings of the same term

ib.

Protagoras is puzzled, and becomes irritated 280 Sokrates presses Protagoras farther. His purpose is, to test opinions and not persons. Protagoras answers with angry prolixity

ib.

Remonstrance of Sokrates against long answers as inconsistent with the laws of dialogue. Protagoras persists. Sokrates rises to depart 281 Interference of Kallias to get the debate continued. Promiscuous conversation. Alkibiades declares that Protagoras ought to acknowledge superiority of Sokrates in dialogue 282 Claim of a special locus standi and professorship for Dialectic, apart from Rhetoric

ib.

Sokrates is prevailed upon to continue, and invites Protagoras to question him

ib.

Protagoras extols the importance of knowing the works of the poets, and questions about parts of a song of Simonides. Dissenting opinions about the interpretation of the song 283 Long speech of Sokrates, expounding the purpose of the song, and laying down an ironical theory about the numerous concealed sophists at Krete and Sparta, masters of short speech 283 Character of this speech — its connection with the dialogue, and its general purpose. Sokrates inferior to Protagoras in continuous speech 284 Sokrates depreciates the value of debates on the poets. Their meaning is always disputed, and you can never ask from themselves what it is. Protagoras consents reluctantly to resume the task of answering 285 Purpose of Sokrates to sift difficulties which he really feels in his own mind. Importance of a colloquial companion for this purpose 287 The interrupted debate is resumed. Protagoras says that courage differs materially from the other branches of virtue 288 Sokrates argues to prove that courage consists in knowledge or intelligence. Protagoras does not admit this. Sokrates changes his attack

ib.

Identity of the pleasurable with the good — of the painful with the evil. Sokrates maintains it. Protagoras denies. Debate 289 Enquiry about knowledge. Is it the dominant agency in the mind? Or is it overcome frequently by other agencies, pleasure or pain ? Both agree that knowledge is dominant 290 Mistake of supposing that men act contrary to knowledge. We never call pleasures evils, except when they entail a preponderance of pain, or a disappointment of greater pleasures 291 Pleasure is the only good — pain the only evil. No man does evil voluntarily, knowing it to be evil. Difference between pleasures present and future — resolves itself into pleasure and pain 292 Necessary resort to the measuring art for choosing pleasures rightly — all the security of our lives depend upon it 293 To do wrong, overcome by pleasure, is only a bad phrase for describing what is really a case of grave ignorance 294 Reasoning of Sokrates assented to by all. Actions which conduct to pleasures or freedom from pain, are honourable 295 Explanation of courage. It consists in a wise estimate of things terrible and not terrible

ib.

Reluctance of Protagoras to continue answering. Close of the discussion. Sokrates declares that the subject is still in confusion, and that he wishes to debate it again with Protagoras. Amicable reply of Protagoras 297 Remarks on the dialogue. It closes without the least allusion to Hippokrates 298 Two distinct aspects of ethics and politics exhibited: one under the name of Protagoras; the other, under that of Sokrates 299 Order of ethical problems, as conceived by Sokrates

ib.

Difference of method between him and Protagoras flows from this difference of order. Protagoras assumes what virtue is, without enquiry 300 Method of Protagoras. Continuous lectures addressed to established public sentiments with which he is in harmony 301 Method of Sokrates. Dwells upon that part of the problem which Protagoras had left out

ib.

Antithesis between the eloquent lecturer and the analytical cross-examiner 303 Protagoras not intended to be always in the wrong, though he is described as brought to a contradiction

ib.

Affirmation of Protagoras about courage is affirmed by Plato himself elsewhere

ib.

The harsh epithets applied by critics to Protagoras are not borne out by the dialogue. He stands on the same ground as the common consciousness 304 Aversion of Protagoras for dialectic. Interlude about the song of Simonides 305 Ethical view given by Sokrates worked out at length clearly. Good and evil consist in right or wrong calculation of pleasures and pains of the agent

ib.

Protagoras is at first opposed to this theory 306 Reasoning of Sokrates 307 Application of that reasoning to the case of courage

ib.

The theory which Plato here lays down is more distinct and specific than any theory laid down in other dialogues 308 Remarks on the theory here laid down by Sokrates. It is too narrow, and exclusively prudential 309 Comparison with the Republic 310

Dramatic contrast between Lachês and Sokrates, as cross-examiners.

This is the doctrine to which the conclusion of the Lachês points, though the question debated is confessedly left without solution. It is a doctrine which seems to have been really maintained by the historical Sokrates, and is often implied in the reasonings of the Platonic Sokrates, but not always nor consistently.

Scene and personages of the dialogue. Crowded palæstra. Emotions of Sokrates.

Question, What is Temperance? addressed by Sokrates to the temperate Charmides. Answer, It is a kind of sedateness or slowness.

The two persons with whom Sokrates here carries on the discussion, are Charmides and Kritias; both of whom, as historical persons, were active movers in the oligarchical government of the Thirty, with its numerous enormities. In this dialogue, Charmides appears as a youth just rising into manhood, strikingly beautiful both in face and stature: Kritias his cousin is an accomplished literary man of mature age. The powerful emotion which Sokrates describes himself as experiencing,2 from the sight and close neighbourhood of the beautiful Charmides, is remarkable, as a manifestation of Hellenic sentiment. The same exaltation of the feelings and imagination, which is now produced only by beautiful women, was then excited chiefly by fine youths. Charmides is described by Kritias as exhibiting dispositions at once philosophical and poetical:3 illustrating the affinity of these two intellectual veins, as Plato conceived them. He is also described as eminently temperate and modest:4 from whence the questions of Sokrates take their departure.

But Temperance is a fine or honourable thing, and slowness is, in many or most cases, not fine or honourable, but the contrary. Temperance cannot be slowness.

Second answer. Temperance is a variety of the feeling of shame. Refuted by Sokrates.

Third answer. Temperance consists in doing one’s own business. Defended by Kritias. Sokrates pronounces it a riddle, and refutes it. Distinction between making and doing.

Charmides next declares Temperance to be a variety of the feeling of shame or modesty. But this (observes Sokrates) will not hold more than the former explanation: since Homer has pronounced shame not to be good, for certain persons and under certain circumstances.8

Fourth answer, by Kritias. Temperance consists in self-knowledge.

Questions of Sokrates thereupon. What good does self-knowledge procure for us? What is the object known, in this case? Answer: There is no object of knowledge, distinct from the knowledge itself.

Sokr. — I cannot tell you whether I admit it or not, until I have investigated. You address me as if I professed to know the subject: but it is because I do not know, that I examine, in conjunction with you, each successive answer.13 If temperance consists in knowing, it must be a knowledge of something. Krit. — It is so: it is knowledge of a man’s self. Sokr. — What good does this knowledge procure for us? as medical knowledge procures for us health — architectural knowledge, buildings, &c.? Krit. — It has no object positive result of analogous character: but neither have arithmetic nor geometry. Sokr. — True, but in arithmetic and geometry, we can at least indicate a something known, distinct from the knowledge. Number and proportion are distinct from arithmetic, the science which takes cognizance of them. Now what is that, of which temperance is the knowledge, — distinct from temperance itself? Krit. — It is on this very point that temperance differs from all the other cognitions. Each of the others is knowledge of something different from itself, but not knowledge of itself: while temperance is knowledge of all the other sciences and of itself also.14 Sokr. — If this be so, it will of course be a knowledge of ignorance, as well as a knowledge of knowledge? Krit. — Certainly.

Sokrates doubts the possibility of any knowledge, without a given cognitum as its object. Analogies to prove that knowledge of knowledge is impossible.

All knowledge must be relative to some object.

Sokr. — According to your explanation, then, it is only the temperate man who knows himself. He alone is able to examine himself, and thus to find out what he really knows and does not know: he alone is able to examine others, and thus to find out what each man knows, or what each man only believes himself to know without really knowing. Temperance, or self-knowledge, is the knowledge what a man knows, and what he does not know.15 Now two questions arise upon this: First, is it possible for a man to know, that he knows what he does know, and that he does not know what he does not know? Next, granting it to be possible, in what way do we gain by it? The first of these two questions involves much difficulty. How can there be any cognition, which is not cognition of a given cognitum, but cognition merely of other cognitions and non-cognitions? There is no vision except of some colour, no audition except of some sound: there can be no vision of visions, or audition of auditions. So likewise, all desire is desire of some pleasure; there is no desire of desires. All volition is volition of some good; there is no volition of volitions: all love applies to something beautiful — there is no love of other loves. The like is true of fear, opinion, &c. It would be singular therefore, if contrary to all these analogies, there were any cognition not of some cognitum, but of itself and other cognitions.16

All properties are relative — every thing in nature has its characteristic property with reference to something else.

But even if cognition of cognition be possible, I shall not admit it as an explanation of what temperance is, until I have satisfied myself that it is beneficial. For I have a presentiment that temperance must be something beneficial and good.19

Temperance, therefore, as thus defined, would be of little or no value.

Let us concede for the present discussion (continues Sokrates) that cognition of cognition is possible. Still how does this prove that there can be cognition of non-cognition? that a man can know both what he knows and what he does not know? For this is what we declared self-knowledge and temperance to be.20 To have cognition of cognition is one thing: to have cognition of non-cognition is a different thing, not necessarily connected with it. If you have cognition of cognition, you will be enabled to distinguish that which is cognition from that which is not — but no more. Now the knowledge or ignorance of the matter of health is known by medical science: that of justice known by political science. The knowledge of knowledge simply — cognition of cognition — is different from both. The person who possesses this last only, without knowing either medicine or politics, will become aware that he knows something and possesses some sort of knowledge, and will be able to verify so much with regard to others. But what it is that he himself knows, or that others know, he will not thereby be enabled to find out: he will not distinguish whether that which is known belong to physiology or to politics; to do this, special acquirements are needed. You, a temperate man therefore, as such, do not know what you know and what you do not know; you know the bare fact, that you know and that you do not know. You will not be competent to cross-examine any one who professes to know medicine or any other particular subject, so as to ascertain whether the man really possesses what he pretends to possess. There will be no point in common between you and him. You, as a temperate man, possess cognition of cognition, but you do not know any special cognitum: the special man knows his own special cognitum but is a stranger to cognition generally. You cannot question him, nor criticise what he says or performs, in his own specialty — for of that you are ignorant:— no one can do it except some fellow expert. You can ascertain that he possesses some knowledge: but whether he possesses that particular knowledge to which he lays claim, or whether he falsely pretends to it, you cannot ascertain:— since, as a temperate man, you know only cognition and non-cognition generally. To ascertain this point, you must be not only a temperate man, but a man of special cognition besides.21 You can question and test no one, except another temperate man like yourself.

But even granting the possibility of that which has just been denied, still Temperance would be of little value. Suppose that all separate work were well performed, by special practitioners, we should not attain our end — Happiness.

Which of the varieties of knowledge contributes most to well-doing or happiness? That by which we know good and evil.

But let us even concede — what has been just shown to be impossible — that through temperance we become aware of what we do know and what we do not know. Even upon this hypothesis, it will be of little service to us. We have been too hasty in conceding that it would be a great benefit if each of us did only what he knew, committing to others to do only what they knew. I have an awkward suspicion (continues Sokrates) that after all, this would be no great benefit.23 It is true that upon this hypothesis, all operations in society would be conducted scientifically and skilfully. We should have none but competent pilots, physicians, generals, &c., acting for us, each of them doing the work for which he was fit. The supervision exercised by temperance (in the sense above defined) would guard us against all pretenders. Let us even admit that as to prediction of the future, we should have none but competent and genuine prophets to advise us; charlatans being kept aloof by this same supervision. We should thus have every thing done scientifically and in a workmanlike manner. But should we for that reason do well and be happy? Can that be made out, Kritias?24

Without the science of good and evil, the other special science will be of little or of no service. Temperance is not the science of good and evil, and is of little service.

Krit. — You will hardly find the end of well-doing anywhere else, if you deny that it follows on doing scientifically or according to knowledge.25 Sokr. — But according to knowledge, of what? Of leather-cutting, brazen work, wool, wood, &c.? Krit. — No, none of these. Sokr. — Well then, you see, we do not follow out consistently your doctrine — That the happy man is he who lives scientifically, or according to knowledge. For all these men live according to knowledge, and still you do not admit them to be happy. Your definition of happiness applies only to some portion of those who live according to knowledge, but not to all. How are we to distinguish which of them? Suppose a man to know every thing past, present, and future; which among the fractions of such omniscience would contribute most to make him happy? Would they all contribute equally? Krit. — By no means. Sokr. — Which of them then would contribute most? Would it be that by which he knew the art of gaming? Krit. — Certainly not. Sokr. — Or that by which he knew the art of computing? Krit. — No. Sokr. — Or that by which he knew the conditions of health? Krit. — That will suit better. Sokr. — But which of them most of all? Krit. — That by which he knew good and evil.26

Sokrates confesses to entire failure in his research. He cannot find out what temperance is: although several concessions have been made which cannot be justified.

Temperance is and must be a good thing: but Charmides cannot tell whether he is temperate or not; since what temperance is remains unknown.

Thus then, concludes Sokrates, we are baffled in every way: we cannot find out what temperance is, nor what that name has been intended to designate. All our tentatives have failed; although, in our anxiety to secure some result, we have accepted more than one inadmissible hypothesis. Thus we have admitted that there might exist cognition of cognition, though our discussion tended to negative such a possibility. We have farther granted, that this cognition of cognition, or science of science, might know all the operations of each separate and special science: so that the temperate man (i.e. he who possesses cognition of cognition) might know both what he knows and what he does not know: might know, namely, that he knows the former and that he does not know the latter. We have granted this, though it is really an absurdity to say, that what a man does not know at all, he nevertheless does know after a certain fashion.30 Yet after these multiplied concessions against strict truth, we have still been unable to establish our definition of temperance: for temperance as we defined it has, after all, turned out to be thoroughly unprofitable.

Expressions both from Charmides and Kritias of praise and devotion to Sokrates, at the close of the dialogue. Dramatic ornament throughout.

The Charmides is an excellent specimen of Dialogues of Search. Abundance of guesses and tentatives, all ultimately disallowed.

Here ends the dialogue called Charmidês32 after the interchange of a few concluding compliments, forming part of the great dramatic richness which characterises this dialogue from the beginning. I make no attempt to reproduce this latter attribute; though it is one of the peculiar merits of Plato in reference to ethical enquiry, imparting to the subject a charm which does not naturally belong to it. I confine myself to the philosophical bearing of the dialogue. According to the express declaration of Sokrates, it ends in nothing but disappointment. No positive result is attained. The problem — What is Temperance? — remains unsolved, after four or five different solutions have been successively tested and repudiated.

Trial and Error, the natural process of the human mind. Plato stands alone in bringing to view and dramatising this part of the mental process. Sokrates accepts for himself the condition of conscious ignorance.

The Charmidês (like the Lachês) is a good illustrative specimen of those Dialogues of Search, the general character and purpose of which I have explained in my eighth chapter. It proves nothing: it disproves several hypotheses: but it exhibits (and therein consists its value) the anticipating, guessing, tentative, and eliminating process, without which no defensible conclusions can be obtained — without which, even if such be found, no advocate can be formed capable of defending them against an acute cross-examiner. In most cases, this tentative process is forgotten or ignored: even when recognised as a reality, it is set aside with indifference, often with ridicule. A writer who believes himself to have solved any problem, publishes his solution together with the proofs; and acquires deserved credit for it, if those proofs give satisfaction. But he does not care to preserve, nor do the public care to know, the steps by which such solution has been reached. Nevertheless in most cases, and in all cases involving much difficulty, there has been a process, more or less tedious, of tentative and groping — of guesses at first hailed as promising, then followed out to a certain extent, lastly discovered to be untenable. The history of science,33 astronomical, physical, chemical, physiological, &c., wherever it has been at all recorded, attests this constant antecedence of a period of ignorance, confusion, and dispute, even in cases where ultimately a solution has been found commanding the nearly unanimous adhesion of the scientific world. But on subjects connected with man and society, this period of dispute and confusion continues to the present moment. No unanimity has ever been approached, among nations at once active in intellect and enjoying tolerable liberty of dissent. Moreover — apart from the condition of different sciences among mature men — we must remember that the transitive process, above described, represents the successive stages by which every adult mind has been gradually built up from infancy. Trial and error — alternate guess and rejection, generation and destruction of sentiments and beliefs — is among the most widespread facts of human intelligence.34 Even those ordinary minds, which in mature life harden with the most exemplary fidelity into the locally prevalent type of orthodoxy, — have all in their earlier years gone through that semi-fluid and indeterminate period, in which the type to come is yet a matter of doubt — in which the head might have been permanently lengthened or permanently flattened, according to the direction in which pressure was applied.

Familiar words — constantly used, with much earnest feeling, but never understood nor defined — ordinary phenomenon in human society.

We shall follow Plato towards the close of his career (Treatise De Legibus), into an imperative and stationary orthodoxy of his own: but in the dialogues which I have already reviewed, as well as in several others which I shall presently notice, no mention is made of any given affirmative doctrine as indispensable to arrive at ultimately. Plato here concentrates his attention upon the indeterminate period of the mind: looking upon the mind not as an empty vessel, requiring to be filled by ready-made matter from without — nor as a blank sheet, awaiting a foreign hand to write characters upon it — but as an assemblage of latent capacities, which must be called into action by stimulus and example, but which can only attain improvement through multiplied trials and multiplied failures. Whereas in most cases these failures are forgotten, the peculiarity of Plato consists in his bringing them to view with full detail, explaining the reasons of each. He illustrates abundantly, and dramatises with the greatest vivacity, the intellectual process whereby opinions are broached, at first adopted, then mistrusted, unmade, and re-made — or perhaps not re-made at all, but exchanged for a state of conscious ignorance. The great hero and operator in this process is the Platonic Sokrates, who accepts for himself this condition of conscious ignorance, and even makes it a matter of comparative pride, that he stands nearly alone in such confession.35 His colloquial influence, working powerfully and almost preternaturally,36 not only serves both to spur and to direct the activity of hearers still youthful and undecided, but also exposes those who have already made up their minds and confidently believe themselves to know. Sokrates brings back these latter from the false persuasion of knowledge to the state of conscious ignorance, and to the prior indeterminate condition of mind, in which their opinions have again to be put together by the tentative and guessing process. This tentative process, prosecuted under the drill of Sokrates, is in itself full of charm and interest for Plato, whether it ends by finding a good solution or only by discarding a bad one.

Different ethical points of view in different Platonic dialogues.

The Charmidês is one of the many Platonic dialogues wherein such intellectual experimentation appears depicted without any positive result: except as it adds fresh matter to illustrate that wide-spread mental fact, — (which has already come before the reader, in Euthyphron, Alkibiadês, Hippias, Erastæ, Lachês, &c., as to holiness, beauty, philosophy, courage, &c., and is now brought to view in the case of temperance also; all of them words in every one’s mouth, and tacitly assumed by every one as known quantities) the perpetual and confident judgments which mankind are in the habit of delivering — their apportionment of praise and blame, as well as of reward and punishment consequent on praise and blame — without any better basis than that of strong emotion imbibed they know not how, and without being able to render any rational explanation even of the familiar words round which such emotions are grouped. No philosopher has done so much as Plato to depict in detail this important fact — the habitual condition of human society, modern as well as ancient, and for that very reason generally unnoticed.37 The emotional or subjective value of temperance is all that Sokrates determines, and which indeed he makes his point of departure. Temperance is essentially among the fine, beautiful, honourable, things:38 but its rational or objective value (i.e., what is the common object characterising all temperate acts or persons), he cannot determine. Here indeed Plato is not always consistent with himself: for we shall come to other dialogues wherein he professes himself incompetent to say whether a thing be beautiful or not, until it be determined what the thing is:39 and we have already found Sokrates declaring (in the Hippias Major), that we cannot determine whether any particular object is beautiful or not, until we have first determined, What is Beauty in the Absolute, or the Self-Beautiful? a problem nowhere solved by Plato.

Self-knowledge is here declared to be impossible.

In other dialogues, Sokrates declares self-knowledge to be essential and inestimable. Necessity for the student to have presented to him dissentient points of view.

Courage and Temperance are shown to have no distinct meaning, except as founded on the general cognizance of good and evil.

This is an important point of view, which I shall discuss more at length when I come to the Platonic Theætetus. I bring it to view here only as contrasting with different language held by the Platonic Sokrates in other dialogues; where he insists on the great value and indispensable necessity of self-knowledge, as a preliminary to all other knowledge — upon the duty of eradicating from men’s minds that false persuasion of their own knowledge which they universally cherished — and upon the importance of forcing them to know their own ignorance as well as their own knowledge. In the face of this last purpose, so frequently avowed by the Platonic Sokrates (indirectly even in this very dialogue),41 we remark a material discrepancy, when he here proclaims self-knowledge to be impossible. We must judge every dialogue by itself, illustrating it when practicable by comparison with others, but not assuming consistence between them as a postulate à priori. It is a part of Plato’s dramatic and tentative mode of philosophising to work out different ethical points of view, and to have present to his mind one or other of them, with peculiar force in each different dialogue. The subject is thus brought before us on all its sides, and the reader is familiarised with what a dialectician might say, whether capable of being refuted or not. Inconsistency between one dialogue and another is not a fault in the Platonic dialogues of Search; but is, on the contrary, a part of the training process, for any student who is destined to acquire that full mastery of question and answer which Plato regards as the characteristic test of knowledge. It is a puzzle and provocative to the internal meditation of the student.

Distinction made between the special sciences and the science of Good and Evil. Without this last, the special sciences are of no use.

Knowledge, always relative to some object known. Postulate or divination of a Science of Teleology.

This cognition of good and evil — the science of the profitable — is here (in the Charmidês) proclaimed by Sokrates to have a place of its own among the other sciences; and even to be first among them, essentially necessary to supervise and direct them, as it had been declared in Alkibiadês II. Now the same supervising place and directorship had been claimed by Kritias for Temperance as he defines it — that is, self-knowledge, or the cognition of our cognitions and non-cognitions. But Sokrates doubts even the reality of such self-knowledge: and granting for argument’s sake that it exists, he still does not see how it can be profitable. For the utmost which its supervision can ensure would be, that each description of work shall be scientifically done, by the skilful man, and not by the unskilful. But it is not true, absolutely speaking (he argues), that acting scientifically or with knowledge is sufficient for well doing or for happiness: for the question must next be asked — Knowledge — of what? Not knowledge of leather-cutting, carpenter’s or brazier’s work, arithmetic, or even medicine: these, and many others, a man may possess, and may act according to them; but still he will not attain the end of being happy. All cognitions contribute in greater or less proportion towards that end: but what contributes most, and most essentially, is the cognition of good and evil, without which all the rest are insufficient. Of this last-mentioned cognition or science, it is the special object to ensure profit or benefit:42 to take care that everything done by the other sciences shall be done well or in a manner conducing towards the end Happiness. After this, there is no province left for temperance — i.e., self-knowledge, or the knowledge of cognitions and non-cognitions: no assignable way in which it can yield any benefit.43

Courage and Temperance, handled both by Plato and by Aristotle. Comparison between the two.

Two points are here to be noted, as contained and debated in the handling of this dialogue. 1. Knowledge absolutely, is a word without meaning: all knowledge is relative, and has a definite object or cognitum: there can be no scientia scientiarum. 2. Among the various objects of knowledge (cognita or cognoscenda), one is, good and evil. There is a science of good and evil, the function of which is, to watch over and compare the results of the other sciences, in order to promote results of happiness, and to prevent results of misery: without the supervision of this latter science, the other sciences might be all exactly followed out, but no rational comparison could be had between them.44 In other words, there is a science of Ends, estimating the comparative worth of each End in relation to other Ends (Teleology): distinct from those other more special sciences, which study the means each towards a separate End of its own. Here we fall into the same track as we have already indicated in Lachês and Alkibiadês II.

Analogy between Lysis and Charmidês. Richness of dramatic incident in both. Youthful beauty.

Scenery and personages of the Lysis.

Origin of the conversation. Sokrates promises to give an example of the proper way of talking to a youth, for his benefit.

Lysis, like Charmidês, is an Athenian youth, of conspicuous beauty, modesty, and promise. His father Demokrates represents an ancient family of the Æxonian Deme in Attica, and is said to be descended from Zeus and the daughter of the Archêgetês or Heroic Founder of that Deme. The family moreover are so wealthy, that they have gained many victories at the Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean games, both with horses and with chariots and four. Menexenus, companion of Lysis, is somewhat older, and is his affectionate friend. The persons who invite Sokrates into the palæstra, and give occasion to the debate, are Ktesippus and Hippothalês: both of them adults, yet in the vigour of age. Hippothalês is the Erastes of Lysis, passionately attached to him. He is ridiculed by Ktesippus for perpetually talking about Lysis, as well as for addressing to him compositions both in prose and verse, full of praise and flattery; extolling not only his personal beauty, but also his splendid ancestry and position.1

Conversation of Sokrates with Lysis.

Lysis is humiliated. Distress of Hippothalês.

Lysis entreats Sokrates to talk in the like strain to Menexenus.

Value of the first conversation between Sokrates and Lysis, as an illustration of the Platonico-Sokratic manner.

Sokrates begins to examine Menexenus respecting friendship. Who is to be called a friend? Halt in the dialogue.

I have given at length, and almost literally (with some few abbreviations), this first conversation between Sokrates and Lysis, because it is a very characteristic passage, exhibiting conspicuously several peculiar features of the Platonico-Sokratic interrogation. Facts common and familiar are placed in a novel point of view, ingeniously contrasted, and introduced as stepping-stones to a very wide generality. Wisdom or knowledge is exalted into the ruling force with liberty of action not admissible except under its guidance: the questions are put in an inverted half-ironical tone (not uncommon with the historical Sokrates9), as if an affirmative answer were expected as a matter of course, while in truth the answer is sure to be negative: lastly, the purpose of checking undue self-esteem is proclaimed. The rest of the dialogue, which contains the main substantive question investigated, I can report only in brief abridgment, with a few remarks following.

Questions addressed to Lysis. Appeal to the maxims of the poets. Like is the friend of like. Canvassed and rejected.

Other poets declare that likeness is a cause of aversion; unlikeness, of friendship. Reasons pro and con. Rejected.

Sokrates now takes up a different aspect of the question, and turns to Lysis, inviting him to consider what has been laid down by the poets, “our fathers and guides in respect of wisdom”.12 Homer says that the Gods originate friendship, by bringing the like man to his like: Empedokles and other physical philosophers have also asserted, that like must always and of necessity be the friend of like. These wise teachers cannot mean (continues Sokrates) that bad men are friends of each other. The bad man can be no one’s friend. He is not even like himself, but ever wayward and insane:— much less can he be like to any one else, even to another bad man. They mean that the good alone are like to each other, and friends to each other.13 But is this true? What good, or what harm, can like do to like, which it does not also do to itself? How can there be reciprocal love between parties who render to each other no reciprocal aid? Is not the good man, so far forth as good, sufficient to himself, — standing in need of no one — and therefore loving no one? How can good men care much for each other, seeing that they thus neither regret each other when absent, nor have need of each other when present?14

Confusion of Sokrates. He suggests, That the Indifferent (neither good nor evil) is friend to the Good.

It appears, therefore, Lysis (continues Sokrates), that we are travelling in the wrong road, and must try another direction. I now remember to have recently heard some one affirming — contrary to what we have just said — that likeness is a cause of aversion, and unlikeness a cause of friendship. He too produced evidence from the poets: for Hesiod tells us, that “potter is jealous of potter, and bard of bard”. Things most alike are most full of envy, jealousy and hatred to each other: things most unlike, are most full of friendship. Thus the poor man is of necessity a friend to the rich, the weak man to the strong, for the sake of protection: the sick man, for similar reason, to the physician. In general, every ignorant man loves, and is a friend to, the man of knowledge. Nay, there are also physical philosophers, who assert that this principle pervades all nature; that dry is the friend of moist, cold of hot, and so forth: that all contraries serve as nourishment to their contraries. These are ingenious teachers: but if we follow them, we shall have the cleverest disputants attacking us immediately, and asking — What! is the opposite essentially a friend to its opposite? Do you mean that unjust is essentially the friend of just — temperate of intemperate — good of evil? Impossible: the doctrine cannot be maintained.15

Suggestion canvassed. If the Indifferent is friend to the Good, it is determined to become so by the contact of felt evil, from which it is anxious to escape.

Principle illustrated by the philosopher. His intermediate condition — not wise, yet painfully feeling his own ignorance.

Yet hold! Are we on the right scent? What reason is there to determine, on the part of the indifferent, attachment to the good? It will only have such attachment under certain given circumstances: when, though neither good nor evil in itself, it has nevertheless evil associated with it, of which it desires to be rid. Thus the body in itself is neither good nor evil: but when diseased, it has evil clinging to it, and becomes in consequence of this evil, friendly to the medical art as a remedy. But this is true only so long as the evil is only apparent, and not real: so long as it is a mere superficial appendage, and has not become incorporated with the essential nature of the body. When evil has become engrained, the body ceases to be indifferent (i.e., neither good nor evil), and loses all its attachment to good. Thus that which determines the indifferent to become friend of the good, is, the contact and pressure of accessory evil not in harmony with its own nature, accompanied by a desire for the cure of such evil.18

Sokrates dissatisfied. He originates a new suggestion. The Primum Amabile, or object originally dear to us, per se: by relation or resemblance to which other objects become dear.

The cause of love is desire. We desire that which is akin to us or our own.

The two young collocutors with Sokrates welcome this explanation heartily, and Sokrates himself appears for the moment satisfied with it. But he presently bethinks himself, and exclaims, Ah! Lysis and Menexenus, our wealth is all a dream! we have been yielding again to delusions! Let us once more examine. You will admit that all friendship is on account of something and for the sake of something: it is relative both to some producing cause, and to some prospective end. Thus the body, which is in itself neither good nor evil, becomes when sick a friend to the medical art: on account of sickness, which is an evil — and for the sake of health, which is a good. The medical art is dear to us, because health is dear: but is there any thing behind, for the sake of which health also is dear? It is plain that we cannot push the series of references onward for ever, and that we must come ultimately to something which is dear per se, not from reference to any ulterior aliud. We must come to some primum amabile, dear by its own nature, to which all other dear things refer, and from which they are derivatives.20 It is this primum amabile which is the primitive, essential, and constant, object of our affections: we love other things only from their being associated with it. Thus suppose a father tenderly attached to his son, and that the son has drunk hemlock, for which wine is an antidote; the father will come by association to prize highly, not merely the wine which saves his son’s life, but even the cup in which the wine is contained. Yet it would be wrong to say that he prizes the wine or the cup as much as his son: for the truth is, that all his solicitude is really on behalf of his son, and extends only in a derivative and secondary way to the wine and the cup. So about gold and silver: we talk of prizing highly gold and silver — but this is incorrect, for what we really prize is not gold, but the ulterior something, whatever it be, for the attainment of which gold and other instrumental means are accumulated. In general terms — when we say that B is dear on account of A, we are really speaking of A under the name of B. What is really dear, is that primitive object of love, primum amabile, towards which all the affections which we bear to other things, refer and tend.21

Good is of a nature akin to every one, evil is alien to every one. Inconsistency with what has been previously laid down.

Is it then true (continues Sokrates) that good is our primum amabile, and dear to us in itself? If so, is it dear to us on account of evil? that is, only as a remedy for evil; so that if evil were totally banished, good would cease to be prized? Is it true that evil is the cause why any thing is dear to us?22 This cannot be: because even if all evil were banished, the appetites and desires, such of them as were neither good nor evil, would still remain: and the things which gratify those appetites will be dear to us. It is not therefore true that evil is the cause of things being dear to us. We have just found out another cause for loving and being loved — desire. He who desires, loves what he desires and as long as he desires: he desires moreover that of which he is in want, and he is in want of that which has been taken away from him — of his own.23 It is therefore this own which is the appropriate object of desire, friendship, and love. If you two, Lysis and Menexenus, love each other, it is because you are somehow of kindred nature with each other. The lover would not become a lover, unless there were, between him and his beloved, a certain kinship or affinity in mind, disposition, tastes, or form. We love, by necessary law, that which has a natural affinity to us; so that the real and genuine lover may be certain of a return of affection from his beloved.24

Failure of the enquiry. Close of the dialogue.

But is there any real difference between what is akin and what is like? We must assume that there is: for we showed before, that like was useless to like, and therefore not dear to like. Shall we say that good is of a nature akin to every one, and evil of a nature foreign to every one? If so, then there can be no friendship except between one good man and another good man. But this too has been proved to be impossible. All our tentatives have been alike unsuccessful.

Remarks. No positive result. Sokratic purpose in analysing the familiar words — to expose the false persuasion of knowledge.

Subject of Lysis. Suited for a Dialogue of Search. Manner of Sokrates, multiplying defective explanations, and showing reasons why each is defective.

Thus ends the main discussion of the Lysis: not only without any positive result, but with speakers and hearers more puzzled than they were at the beginning: having been made to feel a great many difficulties which they never felt before. Nor can I perceive any general purpose running through the dialogue, except that truly Sokratic and Platonic purpose — To show, by cross-examination on the commonest words that what every one appears to know, and talks about most confidently, no one really knows or can distinctly explain.26 This is the meaning of the final declaration put into the mouth of Sokrates. “We believe ourselves to be each other’s friends, yet we none of us know what a friend is.” The question is one, which no one had ever troubled himself to investigate, or thought it requisite to ask from others. Every one supposed himself to know, and every one had in his memory an aggregate of conceptions and beliefs which he accounted tantamount to knowledge: an aggregate generated by the unconscious addition of a thousand facts and associations, each separately unimportant and often inconsistent with the remainder: while no rational analysis had ever been applied to verify the consistency of this spontaneous product, or to define the familiar words in which it is expressed. The reader is here involved in a cloud of confusion respecting Friendship. No way out of it is shown, and how is he to find one? He must take the matter into his own active and studious meditation: which he has never yet done, though the word is always in his mouth, and though the topic is among the most common and familiar, upon which “the swain treads daily with his clouted shoon“.

The process of trial and error is better illustrated by a search without result than with result. Usefulness of the dialogue for self-working minds.

This was a proper subject for a dialogue of Search. In the dialogue Lysis, Plato describes Sokrates as engaged in one of these searches, handling, testing, and dropping, one point of view after another, respecting the idea and foundation of friendship. He speaks, professedly, as a diviner or guesser; following out obscure promptings which he does not yet understand himself.27 In this character, he suggests several different explanations, not only distinct but inconsistent with each other; each of them true to a certain extent, under certain conditions and circumstances: but each of them untrue, when we travel beyond those limits: other contradictory considerations then interfering. To multiply defective explanations, and to indicate why each is defective, is the whole business of the dialogue.

Subject of friendship, handled both by the Xenophontic Sokrates, and by Aristotle.

Debate in the Lysis partly verbal, partly real. Assumptions made by the Platonic Sokrates, questionable, such as the real Sokrates would have found reason for challenging.

In truth, no one general solution is attainable, such as Plato here professes to search for.29 In one of the three Xenophontic dialogues wherein the subject of friendship is discussed we find the real Sokrates presenting it with a juster view of its real complications.30 The same remark may be made upon Aristotle’s manner of handling friendship in the Ethics. He seems plainly to allude to the Lysis (though not mentioning it by name); and to profit by it at least in what he puts out of consideration, if not in what he brings forward.31 He discards the physical and cosmical analogies, which Plato borrows from Empedokles and Herakleitus, as too remote and inapplicable: he considers that the question must be determined by facts and principles relating to human dispositions and conduct. In other ways, he circumscribes the problem, by setting aside (what Plato includes) all objects of attachment which are not capable of reciprocating attachment.32 The problem, as set forth here by Plato, is conceived in great generality. In what manner does one man become the friend of another?33 How does a man become the object of friendship or love from another? What is that object towards which our love or friendship is determined? These terms are so large, that they include everything belonging to the Tender Emotion generally.34

Peculiar theory about friendship broached by Sokrates. Persons neither good nor evil by nature, yet having a superficial tinge of evil, and desiring good to escape from it.

The debate in the Lysis is partly verbal: i.e., respecting the word φίλος, whether it means the person loving, or the person loved, or whether it shall be confined to those cases in which the love is reciprocal, and then applied to both. Herein the question is about the meaning of words — a word and nothing more. The following portions of the dialogue enter upon questions not verbal but real — “Whether we are disposed to love what is like to ourselves, or what is unlike or opposite to ourselves?” Though both these are occasionally true, it is shown that as general explanations neither of them will hold. But this is shown by means of the following assumptions, which not only those whom Plato here calls the “very clever Disputants,”35 but Sokrates himself at other times, would have called in question, viz.: “That bad men cannot be friends to each other — that men like to each other (therefore good men as well as bad) can be of no use to each other, and therefore there can be no basis of friendship between them — that the good man is self-sufficing, stands in need of no one, and therefore will not love any one.”36 All these assumptions Sokrates would have found sufficient reason for challenging, if they had been advanced by Protagoras or any other opponents. They stand here as affirmed by him; but here, as elsewhere in Plato, the reader must apply his own critical intellect, and test what he reads for himself.

This general theory illustrated by the case of the philosopher or lover of wisdom. Painful consciousness of ignorance the attribute of the philosopher. Value set by Sokrates and Plato upon this attribute.

Another theory of Sokrates. The Primum Amabile, or original and primary object of Love. Particular objects are loved through association with this. The object is, Good.

Still, however, Sokrates is not fully satisfied with this hypothesis, but passes on to another. If we love anything, we must love it (he says) for the sake of something. This implies that there must exist, in the background, a something which is the primitive and real object of affection. The various things which we actually love, are not loved for their own sake, but for the sake of this primum amabile, and as shadows projected by it: just as a man who loves his son, comes to love by association what is salutary or comforting to his son — or as he loves money for the sake of what money will purchase. The primum amabile, in the view of Sokrates, is Good; particular things loved, are loved as shadows of good.

Statement by Plato of the general law of mental association.

This is a doctrine which we shall find reproduced in other dialogues. We note with interest here, that it appears illustrated, by a statement of the general law of mental association — the calling up of one idea by other ideas or by sensations, and the transference of affections from one object to others which have been apprehended in conjunction with it, either as antecedents or consequents. Plato states this law clearly in the Phædon and elsewhere:41 but he here conceives it imperfectly: for he seems to believe that, if an affection be transferred by association from a primitive object A, to other objects, B, C, D, &c., A always continues to be the only real object of affection, while B, C, D, &c., operate upon the mind merely by carrying it back to A. The affection towards B, C, D, &c., therefore is, in the view of Plato, only the affection for A under other denominations and disguises.42 Now this is doubtless often the case; but often also, perhaps even more generally, it is not the case. After a certain length of repetition and habit, all conscious reference to the primitive object of affection will commonly be left out, and the affection towards the secondary object will become a feeling both substantive and immediate. What was originally loved as means, for the sake of an ulterior end, will in time come to be loved as an end for itself; and to constitute a new centre of force, from whence derivatives may branch out. It may even come to be loved more vehemently than any primitive object of affection, if it chance to accumulate in itself derivative influences from many of those objects.43 This remark naturally presents itself, when we meet here for the first time, distinctly stated by Plato, the important psychological doctrine of the transference of affections by association from one object to others.

Primum Amabile of Plato, compared with the Prima Amicitia of Aristotle. Each of them is head of an analogical aggregate, not member of a generic family.

But apart from and beyond such generic unity, which implied a common essence belonging to all, Aristotle recognised a looser, more imperfect, yet more extensive, communion, founded upon common relationship towards some Ἀρχὴ — First Principle or First Object. Such relationship was not always the same in kind: it might be either resemblance, concomitance, antecedence or consequence, &c.: it might also be different in degree, closer or more remote, direct or indirect. Here, then, there was room for graduation, or ordination of objects as former and latter, first, second, third, &c., according as, when compared with each other, they were more or less related to the common root. This imperfect communion was designated by Aristotle under the title κατ’ ἀναλογίαν, as contrasted with κατὰ γένος: the predicate which affirmed it was said to be applied, not κατὰ μίαν ἰδέαν or καθ’ ἕν, but πρὸς μίαν φύσιν or πρὸς ἕν:45 it was affirmed neither entirely συνωνύμως (which would imply generic communion), nor entirely ὁμωνύμως (which would be casual and imply no communion at all), but midway between the two, so as to admit of a graduated communion, and an arrangement as former and later, first cousin, or second, third cousin. Members of the same Genus were considered to be brothers, all on a par: but wherever there was this graduated cousinship or communion (signified by the words Former and Later, more or less in degree of relationship), Aristotle did not admit a common Genus, nor did Plato admit a Substantive Idea.46

The Good and Beautiful, considered as objects of attachment.

Dramatic and comic exuberance of the Euthydêmus. Judgments of various critics.

Scenery and personages.

The two Sophists, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus: manner in which they are here presented.

Sokrates recounts (to Kriton) a conversation in which he has just been engaged with two Sophists, Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus, in the undressing-room belonging to the gymnasium of the Lykeium. There were present, besides, Kleinias, a youth of remarkable beauty and intelligence, cousin of the great Alkibiades — Ktesippus, an adult man, yet still young, friend of Sokrates and devotedly attached to Kleinias — and a crowd of unnamed persons, partly friends of Kleinias, partly admirers and supporters of the two Sophists.

Conversation carried on with Kleinias, first by Sokrates, next by the two Sophists.

Contrast between the two different modes of interrogation.

The two Sophists, having announced themselves as competent to teach virtue and stimulate pupils to a virtuous life, are entreated by Sokrates to exercise their beneficent influence upon the youth Kleinias, in whose improvement he as well as Ktesippus feels the warmest interest. Sokrates gives a specimen of what he wishes by putting a series of questions himself. Euthydêmus follows, and begins questioning Kleinias; who, after answering three or four successive questions, is forced to contradict himself. Dionysodorus then takes up the last answer of Kleinias, puts him through another series of interrogations, and makes him contradict himself again. In this manner the two Sophists toss the youthful respondent backwards and forwards to each other, each contriving to entangle him in some puzzle and contradiction. They even apply the same process to Sokrates, who cannot avoid being entangled in the net; and to Ktesippus, who becomes exasperated, and retorts upon them with contemptuous asperity. The alternate interference of the two Sophists is described with great smartness and animation; which is promoted by the use of the dual number, peculiar to the Greek language, employed by Plato in speaking of them.

Wherein this contrast does not consist.

This mode of dialectic, conducted by the two Sophists, is interrupted on two several occasions by a counter-exhibition of dialectic on the part of Sokrates: who, under colour of again showing to the couple a specimen of that which he wishes them to do, puts two successive batches of questions to Kleinias in his own manner.6 The contrast between Sokrates and the two Sophists, in the same work, carried on respectively by him and by them, of interrogating Kleinias, is evidently meant as one of the special matters to arrest attention in the dialogue. The questions put by the couple are made to turn chiefly on verbal quibbles and ambiguities: they are purposely designed to make the respondent contradict himself, and are proclaimed to be certain of bringing about this result, provided the respondent will conform to the laws of dialectic — by confining his answer to the special point of the question, without adding any qualification of his own, or asking for farther explanation from the questioner, or reverting to any antecedent answer lying apart from the actual question of the moment.7 Sokrates, on the contrary, addresses interrogations, each of which has a clear and substantive meaning, and most of which Kleinias is able to answer without embarrassment: he professes no other design except that of encouraging Kleinias to virtue, and assisting him to determine in what virtue consists: he resorts to no known quibbles or words of equivocal import. The effect of the interrogations is represented as being, not to confound and silence the youth, but to quicken and stimulate his mind and to call forth an unexpected amount of latent knowledge: insomuch that he makes one or two answers very much beyond his years, exciting the greatest astonishment and admiration, in Sokrates as well as in Kriton.8 In this respect, the youth Kleinias serves the same illustrative purpose as the youthful slave in the Menon:9 each is supposed to be quickened by the interrogatory of Sokrates, into a manifestation of knowledge noway expected, nor traceable to any teaching. But in the Menon, this magical evocation of knowledge from an untaught youth is explained by the theory of reminiscence, pre-existence, and omniscience, of the soul: while in the Euthydêmus, no allusion is made to any such theory, nor to any other cause except the stimulus of the Sokratic cross-questioning.

Wherein it does consist.

The contrast does not consist in this — that Sokrates so contrives his string of questions as to bring out some established and positive conclusion, while Euthydemus and his brother leave everything in perplexity. Such is not the fact. Sokrates ends without any result, and with a confession of his inability to find any. Professing earnest anxiety to stimulate Kleinias in the path of virtue, he is at the same time unable to define what the capital condition of virtue is.10 On this point, then, there is no contrast between Sokrates and his competitors: if they land their pupil in embarrassment, so does he. Nor, again, does Sokrates stand distinguished from them by affirming (or rather implying in his questions) nothing but what is true and indisputable.11

Abuse of fallacies by the Sophists — their bidding for the applause of the by-standers.

Comparison of the Euthydêmus with the Parmenidês.

Such is the real contrast between Sokrates and the two Sophists, and such is the real scene which we read in the dialogue. The presence, as well as the loud manifestations of an indiscriminate crowd in the Lykeium, are essential features of the drama.14 The point of view which Plato is working out, is, the abusive employment, the excess, and the misplacement, of logical puzzles: which he brings before us as administered for the humiliation of a youth who requires opposite treatment, in the prosecution of an object which they do not really promote and before undiscerning auditors, for whose applause the two Sophists are bidding.15 The whole debate upon these fallacies is rendered ridiculous; and when conducted with Ktesippus, degenerates into wrangling and ribaldry.

Necessity of settling accounts with the negative, before we venture upon the affirmative, is common to both: in the one the process is solitary and serious; in the other, it is vulgarised and ludicrous.

Opinion of Stallbaum and other critics about the Euthydêmus, that Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus represent the way in which Protagoras and Gorgias talked to their auditors.

This important proposition — That before a man can be entitled to lay down with confidence any affirmative theory, in the domain of philosophy or “reasoned truth,” he must have had before him the various knots tied by negative dialectic, and must find out the way of untying them — is a postulate which lies at the bottom of Plato’s Dialogues of Search, as I have remarked in the eighth chapter of this work. But there is much difference in the time, manner, and circumstances, under which such knots are brought before the student for solution. In the Parmenidês the process is presented as one both serious and indispensable, yet requiring some precautions: the public must be excluded, for they do not understand the purpose: and the student under examination must be one who is competent or more than competent to bear the heavy burthen put upon him, as Sokrates is represented to be in the Parmenidês.18 In the Euthydêmus, on the contrary, the process is intended to be made ridiculous; accordingly these precautions are disregarded. The crowd of indiscriminate auditors are not only present, but are the persons whose feelings the two Sophists address — and who either admire what is said as dexterous legerdemain, or laugh at the interchange of thrusts, as the duel becomes warmer: in fact, the debate ends with general mirth, in which the couple themselves are among the loudest.19 Lastly, Kleinias, the youth under interrogation, is a modest novice; not represented, like Lysis in the dialogue just reviewed, as in danger of corruption from the exorbitant flatteries of an Erastes, nor as requiring a lowering medicine to be administered by a judicious friend. When the Xenophontic (historical) Sokrates cross-examines and humiliates Euthydêmus (a youth, but nevertheless more advanced than Kleinias in the Platonic Euthydêmus is represented to be), we shall see that he not only lays a train for the process by antecedent suggestions, but takes especial care to attack Euthydêmus when alone.20 The cross-examination pursued by Sokrates inflicts upon this accomplished young man the severest distress and humiliation, and would have been utterly intolerable, if there had been by-standers clapping their hands (as we read in the Platonic Euthydêmus) whenever the respondent was driven into a corner. We see that it was hardly tolerable even when the respondent was alone with Sokrates; for though Euthydêmus bore up against the temporary suffering, cultivated the society of Sokrates, and was handled by him more gently afterwards; yet there were many other youths whom Sokrates cross-examined in the same way, and who suffered so much humiliation from the first solitary colloquy, that they never again came near him (so Xenophon expressly tells us)21 for a second. This is quite enough to show us how important is the injunction delivered in the Platonic Parmenidês — to carry on these testing colloquies apart from indiscriminate auditors, in the presence, at most, of a few select companions.

That opinion is unfounded. Sokrates was much more Eristic than Protagoras, who generally manifested himself by continuous speech or lecture.

Sokrates in the Euthydêmus is drawn suitably to the purpose of that dialogue.

Now, in this opinion, I think that there is much of unfounded assumption, as well as a misconception of the real contrast intended in the Platonic Euthydêmus. Comparing Protagoras with Sokrates, I maintain that Sokrates was decidedly the more Eristic of the two, and left behind him a greater number of active disciples. In so far as we can trust the picture given by Plato in the dialogue called Protagoras, we learn that the Sophist of that name chiefly manifested himself in long continuous speeches or rhetoric; and though he also professed, if required, to enter into dialectic colloquy, in this art he was no match for Sokrates.23 Moreover, we know by the evidence of Sokrates himself, that he was an Eristic not only by taste, but on principle, and by a sense of duty. He tells us, in the Platonic Apology, that he felt himself under a divine mission to go about convicting men of ignorance, and that he had prosecuted this vocation throughout many years of a long life. Every one of these convictions must have been brought about by one or more disputes of his own seeking: every such dispute, with occasional exceptions, made him unpopular, in the outset at least, with the person convicted: the rather, as his ability in the process is known, upon the testimony of Xenophon24 as well as of Plato, to have been consummate. It is therefore a mistake to decry Protagoras and the Protagoreans (if there were any) as the special Eristics, and to represent Sokrates as a tutelary genius, the opponent of such habits. If the commentators are right (which I do not think they are) in declaring the Athenian mind to have been perverted by Eristic, Sokrates is much more chargeable with the mischief than Protagoras. And the comic poets, when they treated Sokrates as a specimen and teacher of Eristic, proceeded very naturally upon what they actually saw or heard of him.25

The two Sophists in the Euthydêmus are not to be taken as real persons, or representatives of real persons.

The fact is, that the Platonic Sokrates when he talks with the two Sophists in the dialogue Euthydêmus, is a character drawn by Plato for the purpose of that dialogue, and is very different from the real historical Sokrates, whom the public of Athens saw and heard in the market-place or gymnasia. He is depicted as a gentle, soothing, encouraging talker, with his claws drawn in, and affecting inability even to hold his own against the two Sophists: such indeed as he sometimes may have been in conversing with particular persons (so Xenophon26 takes pains to remind his readers in the Memorabilia), but with entire elimination of that characteristic aggressive Elenchus for which he himself (in the Platonic Apology) takes credit, and which the auditors usually heard him exhibit.

Colloquy of Sokrates with Kleinias — possession of good things is useless, unless we also have intelligence how to use them.

But intelligence — of what? It must be such intelligence, or such an art, as will include both the making of what we want, and the right use of it when made.

The conversation of Sokrates with the youth Kleinias is remarkable for its plainness and simplicity. His purpose is to implant or inflame in the youth the aspiration and effort towards wisdom or knowledge (φιλοσοφία, in its etymological sense). “You, like every one else, wish to do well or to be happy. The way to be happy is, to have many good things. Every one knows this: every one knows too, that among these good things, wealth is an indisputable item:28 likewise health, beauty, bodily activity, good birth, power over others, honour in our city, temperance, justice, courage, wisdom, &c. Good fortune does not count as a distinct item, because it resolves itself into wisdom.29 — But it is not enough to have all these good things: we must not only have them but use them: moreover, we must use them not wrongly, but rightly. If we use them wrongly, they will not produce their appropriate consequences. They will even make us more miserable than if we had them not, because the possession of them will prompt us to be active and meddlesome: whereas, if we have them not, we shall keep in the back-ground and do little.30 But to use these good things rightly, depends upon wisdom, knowledge, intelligence. It thus appears that the enumerated items are not really good, except on the assumption that they are under the guidance of intelligence: if they are under the guidance of ignorance, they are not good; nay, they even produce more harm than good, since they are active instruments in the service of a foolish master.31

Where is such an art to be found? The regal or political art looks like it; but what does this art do for us? No answer can be found. Ends in puzzle.

“But what intelligence do we want for the purpose? Is it all intelligence? Or is there any one single variety of intelligence, by the possession of which we shall become good and happy?32 Obviously, it must be must be such as will be profitable to us.33 We have seen that there is no good in possessing wealth — that we should gain nothing by knowing how to acquire wealth or even to turn stones into gold, unless we at the same time knew how to use it rightly. Nor should we gain any thing by knowing how to make ourselves healthy, or even immortal, unless we knew how to employ rightly our health or immortality. We want knowledge or intelligence, of such a nature, as to include both acting, making, or construction and rightly using what we have done, made, or constructed.34 The makers of lyres and flutes may be men of skill, but they cannot play upon the instruments which they have made: the logographers compose fine discourses, but hand them over for others to deliver. Even masters in the most distinguished arts — such as military commanders, geometers, arithmeticians, astronomers, &c., do not come up to our requirement. They are all of them varieties under the general class hunters: they find and seize, but hand over what they have seized for others to use. The hunter, when he has caught or killed game, hands it over to the cook; the general, when he has taken a town, delivers it to the political leader or minister: the geometer makes over his theorems to be employed by the dialectician or comprehensive philosopher.35

Review of the cross-examination just pursued by Sokrates. It is very suggestive — puts the mind upon what to look for.

“Where then can we find such an art — such a variety of knowledge or intelligence — as we are seeking? The regal or political art looks like it: that art which regulates and enforces all the arrangements of the city. But what is the work which this art performs? What product does it yield, as the medical art supplies good health, and the farmer’s art, provision? What good does it effect? You may say that it makes the citizens wealthy, free, harmonious in their intercourse. But we have already seen that these acquisitions are not good, unless they be under the guidance of intelligence: that nothing is really good, except some variety of intelligence.36 Does the regal art then confer knowledge? If so, does it confer every variety of knowledge — that of the carpenter, currier, &c., as well as others? Not certainly any of these, for we have already settled that they are in themselves neither good nor bad. The regal art can thus impart no knowledge except itself; and what is itself? how are we to use it? If we say, that we shall render other men good — the question again recurs, Good — in what respect? useful — for what purpose?37

Comparison with other dialogues — Republic, Philêbus, Protagoras. The only distinct answer is found in the Protagoras.

The argument of Sokrates, which I have thus abridged from the Euthydêmus, arrives at no solution: but it is nevertheless eminently suggestive, and puts the question in a way to receive solution. What is the regal or political art which directs or regulates all others? A man has many different impulses, dispositions, qualities, aptitudes, advantages, possessions, &c., which we describe by saying that he is an artist, a general, a tradesman, clever, just, temperate, brave, strong, rich, powerful, &c. But in the course of life, each particular situation has its different exigencies, while the prospective future has its exigencies also. The whole man is one, with all these distinct and sometimes conflicting attributes: in following one impulse, he must resist others — in turning his aptitudes to one object, he must turn them away from others — he must, as Plato says, distinguish the right use of his force from the wrong, by virtue of knowledge, intelligence, reason. Such discriminating intelligence, which in this dialogue is called the Regal or political art, — what is the object of it? It is intelligence or knowledge, — But of what? Not certainly of the way how each particular act is to be performed — how each particular end is to be attained. Each of these separately is the object of some special knowledge. But the whole of a man’s life is passed in a series of such particular acts, each of which is the object of some special knowledge: what then remains as the object of Regal or political intelligence, upon which our happiness is said to depend? Or how can it have any object at all?

The talk of the two Sophists, though ironically admired while it is going on, is shown at the end to produce no real admiration, but the contrary.

Mistaken representations about the Sophists — Aristotle’s definition — no distinguishable line can be drawn between the Sophist and the Dialectician.

Philosophical purpose of the Euthydêmus — exposure of fallacies, in Plato’s dramatic manner, by multiplication of particular examples.

The received supposition that there were at Athens a class of men called Sophists who made money and reputation by obvious fallacies employed to bring about contradictions in dialogue — appears to me to pervert the representations given of ancient philosophy. Aristotle defines a Sophist to be “one who seeks to make money by apparent wisdom which is not real wisdom“:— the Sophist (he says) is an Eristic who, besides money-making, seeks for nothing but victory in debate and humiliation of his opponent:— Distinguishing the Dialectician from the Sophist (he says), the Dialectician impugns or defends, by probable arguments, probable tenets — that is, tenets which are believed by a numerous public or by a few wise and eminent individuals:— while the Sophist deals with tenets which are probable only in appearance and not in reality — that is to say, tenets which almost every one by the slightest attention recognises as false.42 This definition is founded, partly on the personal character and purpose ascribed to the Sophist: partly upon the distinction between apparent and real wisdom, assumed to be known and permanent. Now such pseudo-wisdom was declared by Sokrates to be the natural state of all mankind, even the most eminent, which it was his mission to expose: moreover, the determination, what is to be comprised in this description, must depend upon the judges to whom it is submitted, since much of the works of Aristotle and Plato would come under the category, in the judgment of modern readers both vulgar and instructed. But apart from this relative and variable character of the definition, when applied to philosophy generally — we may confidently assert, that there never was any real class of intellectual men, in a given time or place, to whom it could possibly apply. Of individuals, the varieties are innumerable: but no professional body of men ever acquired gain or celebrity by maintaining theses, and employing arguments, which every one could easily detect as false. Every man employs sophisms more or less; every man does so inadvertently, some do it by design also; moreover, almost every reasoner does it largely, in the estimation of his opponents. No distinct line can be drawn between the Sophist and the Dialectician: the definition given by Aristotle applies to an ideal in his own mind, but to no reality without: Protagoras and Prodikus no more correspond to it than Sokrates and Plato. Aristotle observes, with great truth, that all men are dialecticians and testers of reasoning, up to a certain point: he might have added that they are all Sophists also, up to a certain point.43 Moreover, when he attempts to found a scientific classification of intellectual processes upon a difference in the purposes of different practitioners — whether they employ the same process for money or display, or beneficence, or mental satisfaction to themselves — this is altogether unphilosophical. The medical art is the same, whether employed to advise gratis, or in exchange for a fee.44

Aristotle (Soph. Elench.) attempts a classification of fallacies: Plato enumerates them without classification.

Though I maintain that no class of professional Sophists (in the meaning given to that term by the Platonic critics after Plato and Aristotle) ever existed — and though the distinction between the paid and the gratuitous discourser is altogether unworthy to enter into the history of philosophy — yet I am not the less persuaded that the Platonic dialogue Euthydêmus, and the treatise of Aristotle De Sophisticis Elenchis, are very striking and useful compositions. This last-mentioned treatise was composed by Aristotle very much under the stimulus of the Platonic dialogue Euthydêmus, to which it refers several times — and for the purpose of distributing the variety of possible fallacies under a limited number of general heads, each described by its appropriate characteristic, and represented by its illustrative type. Such attempt at arrangement — one of the many valuable contributions of Aristotle to the theory of reasoning — is expressly claimed by him as his own. He takes a just pride in having been the first to introduce system where none had introduced it before.45 No such system was known to Plato, who (in the Euthydêmus) enumerates a string of fallacies one after another without any project of classifying them, and who presents them as it were in concrete, as applied by certain disputants in an imaginary dialogue. The purpose is, to make these fallacies appear conspicuously in their character of fallacies: a purpose which is assisted by presenting the propounders of them as ridiculous and contemptible. The lively fancy of Plato attaches suitable accessories to Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus. They are old men, who have been all their lives engaged in teaching rhetoric and tactics, but have recently taken to dialectic, and acquired perfect mastery thereof without any trouble — who make extravagant promises — and who as talkers play into each other’s hands, making a shuttlecock of the respondent, a modest novice every way unsuitable for such treatment.

Fallacies of equivocation propounded by the two Sophists in the Euthydêmus.

Fallacies — à dicto secundum quid, ad dictum simpliciter — in the Euthydêmus.

Thus, for example, if we take the first sophism introduced by the two exhibitors, upon which they bring the youth Kleinias, by suitable questions, to declare successively both sides of the alternative — “Which of the two is it that learns, the wise or the ignorant?” — Sokrates himself elucidates it by pointing out that the terms used are equivocal:46 You might answer it by using the language ascribed to Dionysodorus in another part of this dialogue — “Neither and Both”.47 The like may be said about the fallacy in page 284 D — “Are there persons who speak of things as they are? Good men speak of things as they are: they speak of good men well, of bad men badly: therefore, of course, they speak of stout men stoutly, and of hot men hotly. Ay! rejoins the respondent Ktesippus, angrily — they speak of cold men coldly, and say that they talk coldly.”48 These are fallacies of double meaning of words — or double construction of phrases: as we read also in page 287 D, where the same Greek verb (νοεῖν) may be construed either to think or to mean: so that when Sokrates talks about what a predication means — the Sophists ask him — “Does anything think, except things having a soul? Did you ever know any predication that had a soul?”

Obstinacy shown by the two Sophists in their replies — determination not to contradict themselves.

“But you also” (retorts Sokrates upon the couple), “do not you also know some things, not know others? — By no means. — What! do you know nothing? — Far from it. — Then you know all things? — Certainly we do, — and you too: if you know one thing, you know all things. — What! do you know the art of the carpenter, the currier, the cobbler — the number of stars in the heaven, and of grains of sand in the desert, &c.? — Yes: we know all these things.”

Farther verbal equivocations.

Fallacies involving deeper logical principles — contradiction is impossible. — To speak falsely is impossible.

But (retorts Ktesippus upon the couple) your father is different from my father. — Not at all. — How can that be? — What! is your father, then, the father of all men and of all animals? — Certainly he is. A man cannot be at the same time a father, and not a father. He cannot be at the same time a man, and not a man — gold, and not gold.53

Plato’s Euthydêmus is the earliest known attempt to set out and expose fallacies — the only way of exposing fallacies is to exemplify the fallacy by particular cases, in which the conclusion proved is known aliunde to be false and absurd.

Other puzzles cited in this dialogue go deeper:— Contradiction is impossible — To speak falsely is impossible.56 These paradoxes were maintained by Antisthenes and others, and appear to have been matters of dialectic debate throughout the fourth and third centuries. I shall say more of them when I speak about the Megarics and Antisthenes. Here I only note, that in this dialogue, Ktesippus is represented as put to silence by them, and Sokrates as making an answer which is no answer at all.57 We see how much trouble these paradoxes gave to Plato, when we read the Sophistês, in which he handles the last of the two in a manner elaborate, but (to my judgment) unsatisfactory.

Mistake of supposing fallacies to have been invented and propagated by Athenian Sophists — they are inherent inadvertencies and liabilities to error, in the ordinary process of thinking. Formal debate affords the best means of correcting them.

The Euthydêmus of Plato is memorable in the history of philosophy as the earliest known attempt to set out, and exhibit to attention, a string of fallacious modes of reasoning. Plato makes them all absurd and ridiculous. He gives a caricature of a dialectic debate, not unworthy of his namesake Plato Comicus — or of Aristophanes, Swift, or Voltaire. The sophisms appear for the most part so silly, as he puts them, that the reader asks himself how any one could have been ever imposed upon by such a palpable delusion? Yet such confidence is by no means justified. A sophism, perfectly analogous in character to those which Plato here exposes to ridicule, may, in another case, easily escape detection from the hearer, and even from the reasoner himself. People are constantly misled by fallacies arising from the same word bearing two senses, from double construction of the same phrase, from unconscious application of a dictum secundum quid, as if it were a dictum simpliciter; from Petitio Principii, &c., Ignoratio Elenchi, &c. Neither Plato himself, nor Aristotle, can boast of escaping them.58 If these fallacies appear, in the examples chosen by Plato for the Euthydêmus, so obviously inconclusive that they can deceive no one — the reason lies not in the premisses themselves, but in the particular conclusions to which they lead: which conclusions are known on other grounds to be false, and never to be seriously maintainable by any person. Such conclusions as — “Sokrates had no father: Sophroniskus, if father of Sokrates, was father of all men and all animals: In beating your dog, you beat your father: If you know one thing, you know everything,” &c., being known aliunde to be false, prove that there has been some fallacy in the premisses whereby they have been established. Such cases serve as a reductio ad absurdum of the antecedent process. They make us aware of one mode of liability to error, and put us on our guard against it in analogous cases. This is a valuable service, and all the more valuable, because the liability to error is real and widespread, even from fallacies perfectly analogous to those which seem so silly under the particular exemplifications which Plato selects and exposes. Many of the illustrations of the Platonic Euthydêmus are reproduced by Aristotle in the Treatise de Sophisticis Elenchis, together with other fallacies, discriminated with a certain method and system.59

Wide-spread prevalence of erroneous belief, misguided by one or other of these fallacies, attested by Sokrates, Plato, Bacon, &c., — complete enumeration of heads of fallacies by Mill.

This view of the case appears to me incomplete and misleading. It substitutes the rare and accidental in place of the constant and essential. The various sophisms, of which Plato in the Euthydêmus gives the reductio ad absurdum, are not the inventions of Sophists. They are erroneous tendencies of the reasoning process, frequently incident to human thought and speech: specimens of those ever-renewed “inadvertencies of ordinary thinking” (to recur to a phrase cited in my preface), which it is the peculiar mission of philosophy or “reasoned truth” to rectify. Moreover the practice of formal debate, which is usually denounced with so much asperity — if it affords on some occasions opportunity to produce such fallacies, presents not merely equal opportunity, but the only effective means, for exposing and confuting them. Whately in his Logic,60 like Plato in the Euthydêmus, when bringing these fallacies into open daylight in order that every one may detect them, may enliven the theme by presenting them as the deliberate tricks of a Sophist. Doubtless they are so by accident: yet their essential character is that of infirmities incident to the intellectus sibi permissus: operative at Athens before Athenian Sophists existed, and in other regions also, where these persons never penetrated.

Value of formal debate as a means for testing and confuting fallacies.

Without the habit of formal debate, Plato could not have composed his Euthydêmus, nor Aristotle the treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis.

Probable popularity of the Euthydêmus at Athens — welcomed by all the enemies of Dialectic.

Without the experience acquired by this habit of dialectic debate at Athens, Plato could not have composed his Euthydêmus, exhibiting a reductio ad absurdum of several verbal fallacies — nor could we have had the logical theories of Aristotle, embodied in the Analytica and Topica with its annexed treatise De Sophisticis Elenchis, in which various fallacies are discriminated and classified. These theories, and the corollaries connected with them, do infinite honour to the comprehensive intellect of Aristotle: but he could not have conceived them without previous study of the ratiocinative process. He, as the first theorizer, must have had before him abundant arguments explicitly laid out, and contested, or open to be contested, at every step by an opponent.64 Towards such habit of formal argumentation, a strong repugnance was felt by many of the Athenian public, as there is among modern readers generally: but those who felt thus, had probably little interest in the speculations either of Plato or of Aristotle. That the Platonic critics should themselves feel this same repugnance, seems to me not consistent with their admiration for the great dialectician and logician of antiquity: nor can I at all subscribe to their view, when they present to us the inherent infirmities of the human intellect as factitious distempers generated by the habit of formal debate, and by the rapacity of Protagoras, Prodikus, and others.

Epilogue of Plato to the Dialogue, trying to obviate this inference by opponents — Conversation between Sokrates and Kriton.

I think it probable that the dialogue of Euthydêmus, as far as the point to which I have brought it (i.e., where Sokrates finishes his recital to Kriton of the conversation which he had had with the two Sophists), was among the most popular of all the Platonic dialogues: not merely because of its dramatic vivacity and charm of expression, but because it would be heartily welcomed by the numerous enemies of Dialectic at Athens. We must remember that in the estimation of most persons at Athens, Dialectic included Sokrates and all the viri Sokratici (Plato among them), just as much as the persons called Sophists. The discreditable picture here given of Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus, would be considered as telling against Dialectic and the Sokratic Elenchus generally: while the rhetors, and others who dealt in long continuous discourse, would treat it as a blow inflicted upon the rival art of dialogue, by the professor of the dialogue himself. In Plato’s view, the dialogue was the special and appropriate manifestation of philosophy.

Altered tone in speaking of Euthydêmus — Disparagement of persons half-philosophers, half-politicians.

Kriton asks Sokrates for advice about the education of his sons — Sokrates cannot recommend a teacher — tells him to search for himself.

Sokr. — I understand the man. He belongs to that class whom Prodikus describes as the border-men between philosophy and politics. Persons of this class account themselves the wisest of mankind, and think farther that besides being such in reality, they are also admired as such by many: insomuch that the admiration for them would be universal, if it were not for the professors of philosophy. Accordingly they fancy, that if they could once discredit these philosophers, the prize of glory would be awarded to themselves, without controversy, by every one: they being in truth the wisest men in society, though liable, if ever they are caught in dialectic debate, to be overpowered and humbled by men like Euthydêmus.67 They have very plausible grounds for believing in their own wisdom, since they pursue both philosophy and politics to a moderate extent, as far as propriety enjoins; and thus pluck the fruit of wisdom without encountering either dangers or contests. Krit. — What do you say to their reasoning, Sokrates? It seems to me specious. Sokr. — Yes, it is specious, but not well founded. You cannot easily persuade them, though nevertheless it is true, that men who take a line mid-way between two pursuits, are better than either, if both pursuits be bad — worse than either, if both pursuits be good, but tending to different ends — better than one and worse than the other, if one of the pursuits be bad and the other good — better than both, if both be bad, but tending to different ends. Such being the case, if the pursuit of philosophy and that of active politics be both of them good, but tending to different objects, these men are inferior to the pursuers of one as well as of the other: if one be good, the other bad, they are worse than the pursuers of the former, better than the pursuers of the latter: if both be bad, they are better than either. Now I am sure that these men themselves account both philosophy and politics to be good. Accordingly, they are inferior both to philosophers and politicians:68 they occupy only the third rank, though they pretend to be in the first. While we pardon such a pretension, and refrain from judging these men severely, we must nevertheless recognise them for such as they really are. We must be content with every one, who announces any scheme of life, whatever it be, coming within the limits of intelligence, and who pursues his work with persevering resolution.69

Euthydêmus is here cited as representative of Dialectic and philosophy.

Who is the person here intended by Plato, half-philosopher, half-politician? Is it Isokrates?

This is a valuable admonition, and worthy of Sokrates, laying full stress as it does upon the conscientious conviction which the person examining may form for himself. But it is no answer to the question of Kriton; who says that he had already heard from Sokrates, and was himself convinced, that philosophy was of first-rate importance — and that he only desired to learn where he could find teachers to forward the progress of his son in it. As in so many other dialogues, Plato leaves the problem started, but unsolved. The impulse towards philosophy being assured, those who feel it ask Plato in what direction they are to move towards it. He gives no answer. He can neither perform the service himself, nor recommend any one else, as competent. We shall find such silence made matter of pointed animadversion, in the fragment called Kleitophon.

Variable feeling at different times, between Plato and Isokrates.

The person, whom Kriton here brings forward as the censor of Sokrates and the enemy of philosophy, is peculiarly marked. In general, the persons whom Plato ranks as enemies of philosophy are the rhetors and politicians: but the example here chosen is not comprised in either of these classes: it is a semi-philosopher, yet a writer of discourses for others. Schleiermacher, Heindorf, and Spengel, suppose that Isokrates is the person intended: Winckelmann thinks it is Thrasymachus: others refer it to Lysias, or Theodorus of Byzantium:73 Socher and Stallbaum doubt whether any special person is intended, or any thing beyond some supposed representative of a class described by attributes. I rather agree with those who refer the passage to Isokrates. He might naturally be described as one steering a middle course between philosophy and rhetoric: which in fact he himself proclaims in the Oration De Permutatione, and which agrees with the language of Plato in the dialogue Phædrus, where Isokrates is mentioned by name along with Lysias. In the Phædrus, moreover, Plato speaks of Isokrates with unusual esteem, especially as a favourable contrast with Lysias, and as a person who, though not yet a philosopher, may be expected to improve, so as in no long time to deserve that appellation.74 We must remember that Plato in the Phædrus attacks by name, and with considerable asperity, first Lysias, next Theodorus and Thrasymachus the rhetors — all three persons living and of note. Being sure to offend all these, Plato might well feel disposed to avoid making an enemy of Isokrates at the same time, and to except him honourably by name from the vulgar professors of rhetoric. In the Euthydêmus (where the satire is directed not against the rhetors, but against their competitors the dialecticians or pseudo-dialecticians) he had no similar motive to address compliments to Isokrates: respecting whom he speaks in a manner probably more conformable to his real sentiments, as the unnamed representative of a certain type of character — a semi-philosopher, fancying himself among the first men in Athens, and assuming unwarrantable superiority over the genuine philosopher; but entitled to nothing more than a decent measure of esteem, such as belonged to sincere mediocrity of intelligence.

Persons of the Dialogue.

Question put by Menon — Is virtue teachable? Sokrates confesses that he does not know what virtue is. Surprise of Menon.

Sokrates stands alone in this confession. Unpopularity entailed by it.

Menon. — Can you tell me, Sokrates, whether virtue is teachable — or acquirable by exercise — or whether it comes by nature — or in what other manner it comes? Sokr. — I cannot answer your question. I am ashamed to say that I do not even know what virtue is: and when I do not know what a thing is, how can I know any thing about its attributes or accessories? A man who does not know, Menon, cannot tell whether he is handsome, rich, &c., or the contrary. Menon. — Certainly not. But is it really true, Sokrates, that you do not know what virtue is? Am I to proclaim this respecting you, when I go home?2 Sokr. — Yes — undoubtedly: and proclaim besides that I have never yet met with any one who did know. Menon. — What! have you not seen Gorgias at Athens, and did not he appear to you to know? Sokr. — I have met him, but I do not quite recollect what he said. We need not consider what he said, since he is not here to answer for himself.3 But you doubtless recollect, and can tell me, both from yourself, and from him, what virtue is? Menon. — There is no difficulty in telling you.4

Answer of Menon — plurality of virtues, one belonging to each different class and condition. Sokrates enquires for the property common to all of them.

Analogous cases cited — definitions of figure and colour.

Importance at that time of bringing into conscious view, logical subordination and distinctions — Neither logic nor grammar had then been cast into system.

Definition of virtue given by Menon: Sokrates pulls it to pieces.

All this preliminary matter seems to be intended for the purpose of getting the question clearly conceived as a general question — of exhibiting and eliminating the narrow and partial conceptions which unconsciously substitute themselves in the mind, in place of that which ought to be conceived as a generic whole — and of clearing up what is required in a good definition. A generic whole, including various specific portions distinguishable from each other, was at that time little understood by any one. There existed no grammar, nor any rules of logic founded on analysis of the intellectual processes. To predicate of the genus what was true only of the species — to predicate as distinctively characterizing the species, what is true of the whole genus in which it is contained — to lose the integrity of the genus in its separate parcels or fragments12 — these were errors which men had never yet been expressly taught to avoid. To assign the one common meaning, constituent of or connoted by a generic term, had never yet been put before them as a problem. Such preliminary clearing of the ground is instructive even now, when formal and systematic logic has become more or less familiar: but in the time of Plato, it must have been indispensably required, to arrive at a full conception of any general question.13

Menon complains that the conversation of Sokrates confounds him like an electric shock — Sokrates replies that he is himself in the same state of confusion and ignorance. He urges continuance of search by both.

Menon having been thus made to understand the formal requisites for a definition, gives as his definition of virtue the phrase of some lyric poet — “To delight in, or desire, things beautiful, fine, honourable — and to have the power of getting them“. But Sokrates remarks that honourable things are good things, and that every one without exception desires good. No one desires evil except when he mistakes it for good. On this point all men are alike; the distinctive feature of virtue must then consist in the second half of the definition — in the power of acquiring good things, such as health, wealth, money, power, dignities, &c.14 But the acquisition of these things is not virtuous, unless it be made consistently with justice and moderation: moreover the man who acts justly is virtuous, even though he does not acquire them. It appears then that every agent who acts with justice and moderation is virtuous. But this is nugatory as a definition of virtue: for justice and moderation are only known as parts of virtue, and require to be themselves defined. No man can know what a part of virtue is, unless he knows what virtue itself is.15 Menon must look for a better definition, including nothing but what is already known or admitted.

But how is the process of search available to any purpose? No man searches for what he already knows: and for what he does not know, it is useless to search, for he cannot tell when he has found it.

Theory of reminiscence propounded by Sokrates — anterior immortality of the soul — what is called teaching is the revival and recognition of knowledge acquired in a former life, but forgotten.

Illustration of this theory — knowledge may be revived by skilful questions in the mind of a man thoroughly untaught. Sokrates questions the slave of Menon.

I do not believe this doctrine (continues Sokrates). Priests, priestesses, and poets (Pindar among them) tell us, that the mind of man is immortal and has existed throughout all past time, in conjunction with successive bodies; alternately abandoning one body, or dying — and taking up new life or reviving in another body. In this perpetual succession of existences, it has seen every thing, — both here and in Hades and everywhere else — and has learnt every thing. But though thus omniscient, it has forgotten the larger portion of its knowledge. Yet what has been thus forgotten may again be revived. What we call learning, is such revival. It is reminiscence of something which the mind had seen in a former state of existence, and knew, but had forgotten. Since then all the parts of nature are analogous, or cognate — and since the mind has gone through and learnt them all — we cannot wonder that the revival of any one part should put it upon the track of recovering for itself all the rest, both about virtue and about every thing else, if a man will only persevere in intent meditation. All research and all learning is thus nothing but reminiscence. In our researches, we are not looking for what we do not know: we are looking for what we do know, but have forgotten. There is therefore ample motive, and ample remuneration, for prosecuting enquiries: and your doctrine which pronounces them to be unprofitable, is incorrect.16

Enquiry taken up — Whether virtue is teachable? without determining what virtue is.

Sokrates proceeds to illustrate the position, just laid down, by cross-examining Menon’s youthful slave, who, though wholly untaught and having never heard any mention of geometry, is brought by a proper series of questions to give answers out of his own mind, furnishing the solution of a geometrical problem. The first part of the examination brings him to a perception of the difficulty, and makes him feel a painful perplexity, from which he desires to obtain relief:17 the second part guides his mind in the efforts necessary for fishing up a solution out of its own pre-existing, but forgotten, stores. True opinions, which he had long had within him without knowing it, are awakened by interrogation, and become cognitions. From the fact that the mind thus possesses the truth of things which it has not acquired in this life, Sokrates infers that it must have gone through a pre-existence of indefinite duration, or must be immortal.18

Virtue is knowledge — no possessions, no attributes, either of mind or body, are good or profitable, except under the guidance of knowledge.

Virtue, as being knowledge, must be teachable. Yet there are opposing reasons, showing that it cannot be teachable. No teachers of it can be found.

Conversation of Sokrates with Anytus, who detests the Sophists, and affirms that any one of the leading politicians can teach virtue.

Yet again there are other contrary reasons (he proceeds) which prove that it cannot be teachable. For if it were so, there would be distinct and assignable teachers and learners of it, and the times and places could be pointed out where it is taught and learnt. We see that this is the case with all arts and professions. But in regard to virtue, there are neither recognised teachers, nor learners, nor years of learning. The Sophists pretend to be teachers of it, but are not:21 the leading and esteemed citizens of the community do not pretend to be teachers of it, and are indeed incompetent to teach it even to their own sons — as the character of those sons sufficiently proves.22

Confused state of the discussion. No way of acquiring virtue is shown.

Sokrates modifies his premisses — knowledge is not the only thing which guides to good results — right opinion will do the same.

Right opinion cannot be relied on for staying in the mind, and can never give rational explanations, nor teach others — good practical statesmen receive right opinion by inspiration from the Gods.

Sokrates continues his argument: The second premiss of the first syllogism — that virtue is knowledge — is true, but not the whole truth. In proving it we assumed that there was nothing except knowledge which guided us to useful and profitable consequences. But this assumption will not hold. There is something else besides knowledge, which also guides us to the same useful results. That something is right opinion, which is quite different from knowledge. The man who holds right opinions is just as profitable to us, and guides us quite as well to right actions, as if he knew. Right opinions, so long as they stay in the mind, are as good as knowledge, for the purpose of guidance in practice. But the difference is, that they are evanescent and will not stay in the mind: while knowledge is permanent and ineffaceable. They are exalted into knowledge, when bound in the mind by a chain of causal reasoning:24 that is, by the process of reminiscence, before described.

All the real virtue that there is, is communicated by special inspiration from the Gods.

But what virtue itself is, remains unknown.

Remarks on the dialogue. Proper order for examining the different topics, is pointed out by Sokrates.

Mischief of debating ulterior and secondary questions when the fundamental notions and word are unsettled.

Doctrine of Sokrates in the Menon — desire of good alleged to be universally felt — in what sense this is true.

The propriety of the order marked out, but not pursued, by Sokrates is indisputable. Before you can enquire how virtue is generated or communicated, you must be satisfied that you know what virtue is. You must know the essence of the subject — or those predicates which the word connotes ( = the meaning of the term) before you investigate its accidents and antecedents.31 Menon begins by being satisfied that he knows what virtue is: so satisfied, that he accounts it discreditable for a man not to know: although he is made to answer like one who has never thought upon the subject, and does not even understand the question. Sokrates, on the other hand, not only confesses that he does not himself know, but asserts that he never yet met with a man who did know. One of the most important lessons in this, as in so many other Platonic dialogues, is the mischief of proceeding to debate ulterior and secondary questions, without having settled the fundamental words and notions: the false persuasion of knowledge, common to almost every one, respecting these familiar ethical and social ideas. Menon represents the common state of mind. He begins with the false persuasion that he as well as every one else knows what virtue is: and even when he is proved to be ignorant, he still feels no interest in the fundamental enquiry, but turns aside to his original object of curiosity — “Whether virtue is teachable“. Nothing can be more repugnant to an ordinary mind than the thorough sifting of deep-seated, long familiarised, notions — τὸ γὰρ ὀρθοῦσθαι γνώμαν, ὀδυνᾷ.

Sokrates requires knowledge as the principal condition of virtue, but does not determine knowledge, of what?

The confession of Sokrates that neither he nor any other person in his experience knows what virtue is — that it must be made a subject of special and deliberate investigation — and that no man can know what justice, or any other part of virtue is, unless he first knows what virtue as a whole is32 — are matters to be kept in mind also, as contrasting with other portions of the Platonic dialogues, wherein virtue, justice, &c., are tacitly assumed (according to the received habit) as matters known and understood. The contributions which we obtain from the Menon towards finding out the Platonic notion of virtue, are negative rather than positive. The comments of Sokrates upon Menon’s first definition include the doctrine often announced in Plato — That no man by nature desires suffering or evil; every man desires good: if he seeks or pursues suffering or evil, he does so merely from error or ignorance, mistaking it for good.33 This is true, undoubtedly, if we mean what is good or evil for himself: and if by good or evil we mean (according to the doctrine enforced by Sokrates in the Protagoras) the result of items of pleasure and pain, rightly estimated and compared by the Measuring Reason. Every man naturally desires pleasure, and the means of acquiring pleasure, for himself: every man naturally shrinks from pain, or the causes of pain, to himself: every one compares and measures the items of each with more or less wisdom and impartiality. But the proposition is not true, if we mean what is good or evil for others: and if by good we mean (as Sokrates is made to declare in the Gorgias) something apart from pleasure, and by evil something apart from pain (understanding pleasure and pain in their largest sense). A man sometimes desires what is good for others, sometimes what is evil for others, as the case may be. Plato’s observation therefore cannot be admitted — That as to the wish or desire, all men are alike: one man is no better than another.34

Subject of Menon; same as that of the Protagoras — diversity of handling — Plato is not anxious to settle a question and get rid of it.

The second portion of Plato’s theory, advanced to explain what virtue is, presents nothing more satisfactory. Virtue is useful or profitable: but neither health, strength, beauty, wealth, power, &c., are profitable, unless rightly used: nor are justice, moderation, courage, quick apprehension, good memory, &c., profitable, unless they are accompanied and guided by knowledge or prudence.35 Now if by profitable we have reference not to the individual agent alone, but to other persons concerned also, the proposition is true, but not instructive or distinct. For what is meant by right use? To what ends are the gifts here enumerated to be turned, in order to constitute right use? What again is meant by knowledge? knowledge of what?36 This is a question put by Sokrates in many other dialogues, and necessary to be put here also. Moreover, knowledge is a term which requires to be determined, not merely to some assignable object, but also in its general import, no less than virtue. We shall come presently to an elaborate dialogue (Theætêtus) in which Plato makes many attempts to determine knowledge generally, but ends in a confessed failure. Knowledge must be knowledge possessed by some one, and must be knowledge of something. What is it, that a man must know, in order that his justice or courage may become profitable? Is it pleasures and pains, with their causes, and the comparative magnitude of each (as Sokrates declares in the Protagoras), in order that he may contribute to diminish the sum of pains, increase that of pleasures, to himself or to the society? If this be what he is required to know, Plato should have said so — or if not, what else — in order that the requirement of knowledge might be made an intelligible condition.

Anxiety of Plato to keep up and enforce the spirit of research.

Great question discussed among the Grecian philosophers — criterion of truth — Wherein consists the process of verification?

None of the philosophers were satisfied with the answer here made by Plato — that verification consists in appeal to pre-natal experience.

Plato’s view of the immortality of the soul — difference between the Menon, Phædrus, and Phædon.

Since all nature is in universal kindred, communion, or interdependence, that which we hear or see here, recalls to the memory, by association, portions of our prior forgotten omniscience.40 It is in this recall or reminiscence that search, learning, acquisition of knowledge, consists. Teaching and learning are words without meaning: the only process really instructive is that of dialectic debate, which, if indefatigably prosecuted, will dig out the omniscience buried within.41 So vast is the theory generated in Plato’s mind, by his worship of dialectic, respecting that process of search to which more than half of his dialogues are devoted.

Doctrine of Plato, that new truth may be elicited by skilful examination out of the unlettered mind — how far correct?

Plato’s doctrine about à priori reasonings — Different from the modern doctrine.

Plato’s theory about pre-natal experience. He took no pains to ascertain and measure the extent of post-natal experience.

The mind of the slave questioned by Sokrates is discovered to be pregnant. Though he has received no teaching from any professed geometer, he is nevertheless found competent, when subjected to a skilful interrogatory, to arrive at last, through a series of mistakes, at correct answers, determining certain simple problems of geometry. He knows nothing about geometry: nevertheless there exist in his mind true opinions respecting that which he does not know. These opinions are “called up like a dream” by the interrogatories: which, if repeated and diversified, convert the opinions into knowledge, taken up by the respondent out of himself.46 The opinions are inherited from an antecedent life and born with him, since they have never been taught to him during this life.

Little or nothing is said in the Menon about the Platonic Ideas or Forms.

It is thus that Plato applies to philosophical theory the doctrine (borrowed from the Pythagoreans) of pre-natal experience and cognitions: which he considers, not as inherent appurtenances of the mind, but as acquisitions made by the mind during various antecedent lives. These ideas (Plato argues) cannot have been acquired during the present life, because the youth has received no special teaching in geometry. But Plato here takes no account of the multiplicity and diversity of experiences gone through, comparisons made, and acquirements lodged, in the mind of a youthful adult however unlettered. He recognises no acquisition of knowledge except through special teaching. So, too, in the Protagoras, we shall find him putting into the mouth of Sokrates the doctrine — That virtue is not taught and cannot be taught, because there were no special masters or times of teaching. But in that dialogue we shall also see Plato furnishing an elaborate reply to this doctrine in the speech of Protagoras; who indicates the multifarious and powerful influences which are perpetually operative, even without special professors, in creating and enforcing ethical sentiment. If Plato had taken pains to study the early life of the untaught slave, with its stock of facts, judgments, comparisons, and inferences suggested by analogy, &c., he might easily have found enough to explain the competence of the slave to answer the questions appearing in the dialogue. And even if enough could not have been found, to afford a direct and specific explanation — we must remember that only a very small proportion of the long series of mental phenomena realised in the infant, the child, the youth, ever comes to be remembered or recorded. To assume that the large unknown remainder would be insufficient, if known, to afford the explanation sought, is neither philosophical nor reasonable. This is assumed in every form of the doctrine of innate ideas: and assumed by Plato here without even trying any explanation to dispense with the hypothesis: simply because the youth interrogated had never received any special instruction in geometry.

What Plato meant by Causal Reasoning — his distinction between knowledge and right opinion.

This distinction compared with modern philosophical views.

What Plato meant by this “causal reasoning, or computation of cause,” is not clearly explained. But he affirms very unequivocally, first, that the distinction between true opinion and knowledge is one of the few things of which he feels assured47 — next, with somewhat less confidence, that the distinction consists only in the greater security which knowledge affords for permanent in-dwelling in the mind. This appears substantially the same distinction as what is laid down in other words towards the close of the dialogue — That those, who have only true opinions and not knowledge, judge rightly without knowing how or why; by an aptitude not their own but supplied to them from without for the occasion, in the nature of inspiration or prophetic œstrus. Hence they are unable to teach others, or to transfer this occasional inspiration to any one else. They cannot give account of what they affect to know, nor answer scrutinizing questions to test it. This power of answering and administering cross-examination, is Plato’s characteristic test of real knowledge — as I have already observed in my eighth chapter.

Manifestation of Anytus — intense antipathy to the Sophists and to philosophy generally.

The enemy of Sokrates is also the enemy of the sophists — Practical statesmen.

Why are you so bitter against the Sophists? asks Sokrates. Have any of them ever injured you? Anyt. — No; never: I have never been in the company of any one of them, nor would I ever suffer any of my family to be so. Sokr. — Then you have no experience whatever about the Sophists? Anyt. — None: and I hope that I never may have. Sokr. — How then can you know about this matter, how far it is good or bad, if you have no experience whatever about it? Anyt. — Easily. I know what sort of men the Sophists are, whether I have experience of them or not. Sokr. — Perhaps you are a prophet, Anytus: for how else you can know about them, I do not understand, even on your own statement.49

The Menon brings forward the point of analogy between Sokrates and the Sophists, in which both were disliked by the practical statesmen.

The enemy and accuser of Sokrates is here depicted as the bitter enemy of the Sophists also. And Plato takes pains to exhibit the enmity of Anytus to the Sophists as founded on no facts or experience. Without having seen or ascertained anything about them, Anytus hates them as violently as if he had sustained from them some personal injury; a sentiment which many Platonic critics and many historians of philosophy have inherited from him.51 Whether the corruption which these Sophists were accused of bringing about in the minds of youth, was intentional or not intentional on their part — how such corruption could have been perpetually continued, while at the same time the eminent Sophists enjoyed long and unabated esteem from the youth themselves and from their relatives — are difficulties which Anytus does not attempt to explain, though they are started here by Sokrates. Indeed we find the same topics employed by Sokrates himself, in his defence before the Dikasts against the same charge.52 Anytus has confidence in no one except the practical statesmen: and when a question is raised about their power to impart their own excellence to others, he presently takes offence against Sokrates also. The same causes which have determined his furious antipathy against the Sophists, make him ready to transfer the like antipathy to Sokrates. He is a man of plain sense, practical habits, and conservative patriotism — who worships what he finds accredited as virtue, and dislikes the talkers and theorisers about virtue in general: whether they debated in subtle interrogation and dialectics, like Sokrates — or lectured in eloquent continuous discourse, like Protagoras. He accuses the Sophists, in this dialogue, of corrupting the youth; just as he and Melêtus, before the Dikastery, accused Sokrates of the same offence. He understands the use of words, to discuss actual business before the assembly or dikastery; but he hates discourse on the generalities of ethics or philosophy. He is essentially μισόλογος. The point which he condemns in the Sophists, is that which they have in common with Sokrates.

Scenic arrangement and personages of the dialogue.

Introduction. Eagerness of the youthful Hippokrates to become acquainted with Protagoras.

This dialogue enters upon a larger and more comprehensive ethical theory than anything in the others hitherto noticed. But it contains also a great deal in which we hardly recognise, or at least cannot verify, any distinct purpose, either of search or exposition. Much of it seems to be composed with a literary or poetical view, to enhance the charm or interest of the composition. The personal characteristics of each speaker — the intellectual peculiarities of Prodikus and Hippias — the ardent partisanship of Alkibiades — are brought out as in a real drama. But the great and marked antithesis is that between the Sophist Protagoras and Sokrates — the Hektor and Ajax of the piece: who stand forward in single combat, exchange some serious blows, yet ultimately part as friends.

Sokrates questions Hippokrates as to his purpose and expectations from Protagoras.

Danger of going to imbibe the instruction of a Sophist without knowing beforehand what he is about to teach.

Sokr. — You are now intending to visit Protagoras, and to pay him for something to be done for you — tell me what manner of man it is that you are going to visit — and what manner of man do you wish to become? If you were going in like manner to pay a fee for instruction to your namesake Hippokrates of Kos, you would tell me that you were going to him as to a physician — and that you wished to qualify yourself for becoming a physician. If you were addressing yourself with the like view to Pheidias or Polykleitus, you would go to them as to sculptors, and for the purpose of becoming yourself a sculptor. Now then that we are to go in all this hurry to Protagoras, tell me who he is and what title he bears, as we called Pheidias a sculptor? Hipp. — They call him a Sophist.4 Sokr. — We are going to pay him then as a Sophist? Hipp. — Certainly. Sokr. — And what are you to become by going to him? Hipp. — Why, judging from the preceding analogies, I am to become a Sophist. Sokr. — But would not you be ashamed of presenting yourself to the Grecian public as a Sophist? Hipp. — Yes: if I am to tell you my real opinion.5 Sokr. — Perhaps however you only propose to visit Protagoras, as you visited your schoolmaster and your musical or gymnastical teacher: not for the purpose of entering that career as a professional man, but to acquire such instruction as is suitable for a private citizen and a freeman? Hipp. — That is more the instruction which I seek from Protagoras. Sokr. — Do you know then what you are going to do? You are consigning your mind to be treated by one whom you call a Sophist: but I shall be surprised if you know what a Sophist is6 — and if you do not know, neither do you know what it is — good or evil — to which you are consigning your mind. Hipp. — I think I do know. The Sophist is, as the name implies, one cognizant of matters wise and able.7 Sokr. — That may be said also of painters and carpenters. If we were asked in what special department are painters cognizant of matters wise and able, we should specify that it was in the workmanship of portraits. Answer me the same question about the Sophist. What sort of workmanship does he direct? Hipp. — That of forming able speakers.8 Sokr. — Your answer may be correct, but it is not specific enough: for we must still ask, About what is it that the Sophist forms able speakers? just as the harp-master makes a man an able speaker about harping, at the same time that he teaches him harping. About what is it that the Sophist forms able speakers: of course about that which he himself knows?9 Hipp. — Probably. Sokr. — What then is that, about which the Sophist is himself cognizant, and makes his pupil cognizant? Hipp. — By Zeus, I cannot give you any farther answer.10

Remarks on the Introduction. False persuasion of knowledge brought to light.

Sokr. — Do you see then to what danger you are going to submit your mind? If the question were about going to trusting your body to any one, with the risk whether it should become sound or unsound, you would have thought long, and taken much advice, before you decided. But now, when it is about your mind, which you value more than your body, and upon the good or evil of which all your affairs turn11 — you are hastening without reflection and without advice, you are ready to pay all the money that you possess or can obtain, with a firm resolution already taken to put yourself at all hazard under Protagoras: whom you do not know — with whom you have never once talked — whom you call a Sophist, without knowing what a Sophist is? Hipp. — I must admit the case to be as you say.12 Sokr. — Perhaps the Sophist is a man who brings for sale those transportable commodities, instruction or doctrine, which form the nourishment of the mind. Now the traders in food for the body praise indiscriminately all that they have to sell, though neither they nor their purchasers know whether it is good for the body; unless by chance any one of them be a gymnastic trainer or a physician.13 So, too, these Sophists, who carry about food for the mind, praise all that they have to sell: but perhaps some of them are ignorant, and assuredly their purchasers are ignorant, whether it be good or bad for the mind: unless by accident any one possess medical knowledge about the mind. Now if you, Hippokrates, happen to possess such knowledge of what is good or bad for the mind, you may safely purchase doctrine from Protagoras or from any one else:14 but if not, you are hazarding and putting at stake your dearest interests. The purchase of doctrines is far more dangerous than that of eatables or drinkables. As to these latter, you may carry them away with you in separate vessels, and before you take them into your body you may invoke the Expert, to tell you what you may safely eat and drink, and when, and how much. But this cannot be done with doctrines. You cannot carry away them in a separate vessel to be tested; you learn them and take them into the mind itself; so that you go away, after having paid your money, actually damaged or actually benefited, as the case may be.15 We will consider these matters in conjunction with our elders. But first let us go and talk with Protagoras — we can consult the others afterwards.

Sokrates and Hippokrates go to the house of Kallias. Company therein. Respect shown to Protagoras.

Such is the preliminary conversation of Sokrates with Hippokrates, before the interview with Protagoras. I have given it (like the introduction to the Lysis) at considerable length, because it is a very characteristic specimen of the Sokratico-Platonic point of view. It brings to light that false persuasion of knowledge, under which men unconsciously act, especially in what concerns the mind and its treatment. Common fame and celebrity suffice to determine the most vehement aspirations towards a lecturer, in one who has never stopped to reflect or enquire what the lecturer does. The pressure applied by Sokrates in his successive questions, to get beyond vague generalities into definite particulars — the insufficiency, thereby exposed, of the conceptions with which men usually rest satisfied — exhibit the working of his Elenchus in one of its most instructive ways. The parallel drawn between the body and the mind — the constant precaution taken in the case of the former to consult the professional man and to follow his advice in respect both to discipline and nourishment — are in the same vein of sentiment which we have already followed in other dialogues. Here too, as elsewhere, some similar Expert, in reference to the ethical and intellectual training of mind, is desiderated, as still more imperatively necessary. Yet where is he to be found? How is the business of mental training to be brought to a beneficial issue without him? Or is Protagoras the man to supply such a demand? We shall presently see.

Questions of Sokrates to Protagoras. Answer of the latter, declaring the antiquity of the sophistical profession, and his own openness in avowing himself a sophist.

Protagoras prefers to converse in presence of the assembled company.

Answers of Protagoras. He intends to train young men as virtuous citizens.

Sokrates doubts whether virtue is teachable. Reasons for such doubt. Protagoras is asked to explain whether it is or not.

Explanation of Protagoras. He begins with a mythe.

Sokr. — That is a fine talent indeed, which you possess, if you do possess it; for (to speak frankly) I thought that the thing had not been teachable, nor intentionally communicable, by man to man.23 I will tell you why I think so. The Athenians are universally recognised as intelligent men. Now when our public assembly is convened, if the subject of debate be fortification, ship-building, or any other specialty which they regard as learnable and teachable, they will listen to no one except a professional artist or craftsman.24 If any non-professional man presumes to advise them on the subject, they refuse to hear him, however rich and well-born he may be. It is thus that they act in matters of any special art;25 but when the debate turns upon the general administration of the city, they hear every man alike — the brass-worker, leather-cutter, merchant, navigator, rich, poor, well-born, low-born, &c. Against none of them is any exception taken, as in the former case — that he comes to give advice on that which he has not learnt, and on which he has had no master.26 It is plain that the public generally think it not teachable. Moreover our best and wisest citizens, those who possess civic virtue in the highest measure, cannot communicate to their own children this same virtue, though they cause them to be taught all those accomplishments which paid masters can impart. Periklês and others, excellent citizens themselves, have never been able to make any one else excellent, either in or out of their own family. These reasons make me conclude that social or political virtue is not teachable. I shall be glad if you can show me that it is so.27

Mythe. First fabrication of men by the Gods. Prometheus and Epimetheus. Bad distribution of endowments to man by the latter. It is partly amended by Prometheus.

Prometheus gave to mankind skill for the supply of individual wants, but could not give them the social art. Mankind are on the point of perishing, when Zeus sends to them the dispositions essential for society.

There was once a time when Gods existed, but neither men nor animals had yet come into existence. At the epoch prescribed by Fate, the Gods fabricated men and animals in the interior of the earth, out of earth, fire, and other ingredients: directing the brothers Prometheus and Epimetheus to fit them out with suitable endowments. Epimetheus, having been allowed by his brother to undertake the task of distributing these endowments, did his work very improvidently, wasted all his gifts upon the inferior animals, and left nothing for man. When Prometheus came to inspect what had been done, he found that other animals were adequately equipped, but that man had no natural provision for clothing, shoeing, bedding, or defence. The only way whereby Prometheus could supply the defect was, by breaking into the common workshop of Athênê and Hephæstus, and stealing from thence their artistic skill, together with fire.29 Both of these he presented to man, who was thus enabled to construct for himself, by art, all that other animals received from nature and more besides.

Protagoras follows up his mythe by a discourse. Justice and the sense of shame are not professional attributes, but are possessed by all citizens and taught by all to all.

Still however, mankind did not possess the political or social art; which Zeus kept in his own custody, where Prometheus could not reach it. Accordingly, though mankind could provide for themselves as individuals, yet when they attempted to form themselves into communities, they wronged each other so much, from being destitute of the political or social art, that they were presently forced again into dispersion.30 The art of war, too, being a part of the political art, which mankind did not possess — they could not get up a common defence against hostile animals: so that the human race would have been presently destroyed, had not Zeus interposed to avert such a consummation. He sent Hermês to mankind, bearing with him Justice and the sense of Shame (or Moderation), as the bonds and ornaments of civic society, coupling men in friendship.31 Hermês asked Zeus — Upon what principle shall I distribute these gifts among mankind? Shall I distribute them in the same way as artistic skill is distributed, only to a small number — a few accomplished physicians, navigators, &c., being adequate to supply the wants of the entire community? Or are they to be apportioned in a certain dose to every man? Undoubtedly, to every man (was the command of Zeus). All without exception must be partakers in them. If they are confined exclusively to a few, like artistic or professional skill, no community can exist.32 Ordain, by my authority, that every man, who cannot take a share of his own in justice and the sense of shame, shall be slain, as a nuisance to the community.

Constant teaching of virtue. Theory of punishment.

This fable will show you, therefore, Sokrates (continues Protagoras), that the Athenians have good reason for making the distinction to which you advert. When they are discussing matters of special art, they will hear only the few to whom such matters are known. But when they are taking counsel about social or political virtue, which consists altogether in justice and moderation, they naturally hear every one; since every one is presumed, as a condition of the existence of the commonwealth, to be a partaker therein.33 Moreover, even though they know a man not to have these virtues in reality, they treat him as insane if he does not proclaim himself to have them, and make profession of virtue: whereas, in the case of the special arts, if a man makes proclamation of his own skill as a physician or musician, they censure or ridicule him.34

Why eminent men cannot make their sons eminent.

Teaching by parents, schoolmaster, harpist, laws, dikastery, &c.

All learn virtue from the same teaching by all. Whether a learner shall acquire more or less of it, depends upon his own individual aptitude.

The fact is, they do teach it: and that too with great pains.38 They begin to admonish and lecture their children, from the earliest years. Father, mother, tutor, nurse, all vie with each other to make the child as good as possible: by constantly telling him on every occasion which arises, This is right — That is wrong — This is honourable — That is mean — This is holy — That is unholy — Do these things, abstain from those.39 If the child obeys them, it is well: if he do not, they straighten or rectify him, like a crooked piece of wood, by reproof and flogging. Next, they send him to a schoolmaster, who teaches him letters and the harp; but who is enjoined to take still greater pains in watching over his orderly behaviour. Here the youth is put to read, learn by heart, and recite, the compositions of able poets; full of exhortations to excellence and of stirring examples from the good men of past times.40 On the harp also, he learns the best songs, his conduct is strictly watched, and his emotions are disciplined by the influence of rhythmical and regular measure. While his mind is thus trained to good, he is sent besides to the gymnastic trainer, to render his body a suitable instrument for it,41 and to guard against failure of energy under the obligations of military service. If he be the son of a wealthy man, he is sent to such training sooner, and remains in it longer. As soon as he is released from his masters, the city publicly takes him in hand, compelling him to learn the laws prescribed by old and good lawgivers,42 to live according to their prescriptions, and to learn both command and obedience, on pain of being punished. Such then being the care bestowed, both publicly and privately, to foster virtue, can you really doubt, Sokrates, whether it be teachable? You might much rather wonder if it were not so.43

Analogy of learning vernacular Greek. No special teacher thereof. Protagoras teaches virtue somewhat better than others.

How does it happen, then, you ask, that excellent men so frequently have worthless sons, to whom, even with all virtue from these precautions, they cannot teach their own virtue? This is not surprising, when you recollect what I have just said — That in regard to social virtue, every man must be a craftsman and producer; there must be no non-professional consumers.44 All of us are interested in rendering our neighbours just and virtuous, as well as in keeping them so. Accordingly, every one, instead of being jealous, like a professional artist, of seeing his own accomplishments diffused, stands forward zealously in teaching justice and virtue to every one else, and in reproving all short-comers.45 Every man is a teacher of virtue to others: every man learns his virtue from such general teaching, public and private. The sons of the best men learn it in this way, as well as others. The instruction of their fathers counts for comparatively little, amidst such universal and paramount extraneous influence; so that it depends upon the aptitude and predispositions of the sons themselves, whether they turn out better or worse than others. The son of a superior man will often turn out ill; while the son of a worthless man will prove meritorious. So the case would be, if playing on the flute were the one thing needful for all citizens; if every one taught and enforced flute-playing upon all others, and every one learnt it from the teaching of all others.46 You would find that the sons of good or bad flute-players would turn out good or bad, not in proportion to the skill of their fathers, but according to their own natural aptitudes. You would find however also, that all of them, even the most unskilful, would be accomplished flute-players, if compared with men absolutely untaught, who had gone through no such social training. So too, in regard to justice and virtue.47 The very worst man brought up in your society and its public and private training, would appear to you a craftsman in these endowments, if you compared him with men who had been brought up without education, without laws, without dikasteries, without any general social pressure bearing on them, to enforce virtue: such men as the savages exhibited last year in the comedy of Pherekrates at the Lenæan festival. If you were thrown among such men, you, like the chorus of misanthropes in that play, would look back with regret even upon the worst criminals of the society which you had left, such as Eurybatus and Phrynondas.48

The sons of great artists do not themselves become great artists.

But now, Sokrates, you are over-nice, because all of us are teachers of virtue, to the best of every man’s power; while no particular individual appears to teach it specially and ex professo49 By the same analogy, if you asked who was the teacher for speaking our vernacular Greek, no one special person could be pointed out:50 nor would you find out who was the finishing teacher for those sons of craftsmen who learnt the rudiments of their art from their own fathers — while if the son of any non-professional person learns a craft, it is easy to assign the person by whom he was taught.51 So it is in respect to virtue. All of us teach and enforce virtue to the best of our power; and we ought to be satisfied if there be any one of us ever so little superior to the rest, in the power of teaching it. Of such men I believe myself to be one.52 I can train a man into an excellent citizen, better than others, and in a manner worthy not only of the fee which I ask, but even of a still greater remuneration, in the judgment of the pupil himself. This is the stipulation which I make with him: when he has completed his course, he is either to pay me the fee which I shall demand — or if he prefers, he may go into a temple, make oath as to his own estimate of the instruction imparted to him, and pay me according to that estimate.53

Remarks upon the mythe and discourse. They explain the manner in which the established sentiment of a community propagates and perpetuates itself.

Antithesis of Protagoras and Sokrates. Whether virtue is to be assimilated to a special art.

Such is the discourse composed by Plato and attributed to the Platonic Protagoras — showing that virtue is teachable, and intended to remove the difficulties proposed by Sokrates. It is an exposition of some length: and because it is put into the mouth of a Sophist, many commentators presume, as a matter of course, that it must be a manifestation of some worthless quality:55 that it is either empty verbiage, or ostentatious self-praise, or low-minded immorality. I am unable to perceive in the discourse any of these demerits. I think it one of the best parts of the Platonic writings, as an exposition of the growth and propagation of common sense — the common, established, ethical and social sentiment, among a community: sentiment neither dictated in the beginning, by any scientific or artistic lawgiver, nor personified in any special guild of craftsmen apart from the remaining community — nor inculcated by any formal professional teachers — nor tested by analysis — nor verified by comparison with any objective standard: but self-sown and self-asserting, stamped, multiplied, and kept in circulation, by the unpremeditated conspiracy of the general56 public — the omnipresent agency of King Nomos and his numerous volunteers.

Procedure of Sokrates in regard to the discourse of Protagoras — he compliments it as an exposition, and analyses some of the fundamental assumptions.

In many of the Platonic dialogues, Sokrates is made to dwell upon the fact that there are no recognised professional teachers of virtue; and to ground upon this fact a doubt, whether virtue be really teachable. But the present dialogue is the only one in which the fact is accounted for, and the doubt formally answered. There are neither special teachers, nor professed pupils, nor determinate periods of study, nor definite lessons or stadia, for the acquirement of virtue, as there are for a particular art or craft: the reason being, that in that department every man must of necessity be a practitioner, more or less perfectly: every man has an interest in communicating it to his neighbour: hence every man is constantly both teacher and learner. Herein consists one main and real distinction between virtue and the special arts; an answer to the view most frequently espoused by the Platonic Sokrates, assimilating virtue to a professional craft, which ought to have special teachers, and a special season of apprenticeship, if it is to be acquired at all.

One purpose of the dialogue. To contrast continuous discourse with short cross-examining question and answer.

When the harangue, lecture, or sermon, of Protagoras is concluded, Sokrates both expresses his profound admiration of it, and admits the conclusion — That virtue is teachable — to be made out, as well as it can be made out by any continuous exposition.57 In fact, the speaker has done all that could be done by Perikles or the best orator of the assembly. He has given a long series of reasonings in support of his own case, without stopping to hear the doubts of opponents. He has sailed along triumphantly upon the stream of public sentiment, accepting all the established beliefs — appealing to his hearers with all those familiar phrases, round which the most powerful associations are grouped — and taking for granted that justice, virtue, good, evil, &c., are known, indisputable, determinate data, fully understood, and unanimously interpreted. He has shown that the community take great pains, both publicly and privately, to inculcate and enforce virtue: that is, what they believe in and esteem as virtue. But is their belief well founded? Is that which they esteem, really virtue? Do they and their elegant spokesman Protagoras, know what virtue is? If so, how do they know it, and can they explain it?

Questions by Sokrates — Whether virtue is one and indivisible, or composed of different parts? Whether the parts are homogeneous or heterogeneous?

Whether justice is just, and holiness holy? How far justice is like to holiness? Sokrates protests against an answer, “If you please”.

Intelligence and moderation are identical, because they have the same contrary.

Sokr. — Now let us examine what sort of thing each of these parts is. Tell me — is justice some thing, or no thing? I think it is some thing: are you of the same opinion?60 Prot. — Yes. Sokr. — Now this thing which you call justice: is it itself just or unjust? I should say that it was just: what do you say?61 Prot. — I think so too. Sokr. — Holiness also is some thing: is the thing called holiness, itself holy or unholy? As for me, if any one were to ask me the question, I should reply — Of course it is: nothing else can well be holy, if holiness itself be not holy. Would you say the same? Prot. — Unquestionably. Sokr. — Justice being admitted to be just, and holiness to be holy — do not you think that justice also is holy, and that holiness is just? If so, how can you reconcile that with your former declaration, that no one of the parts of virtue is like any other part? Prot. — I do not altogether admit that justice is holy, and that holiness is just. But the matter is of little moment: if you please, let both of them stand as admitted. Sokr. — Not so:62 I do not want the debate to turn upon an “If you please“: You and I are the debaters, and we shall determine the debate best without “Ifs”. Prot. — I say then that justice and holiness are indeed, in a certain way, like each other; so also there is a point of analogy between white and black,63 hard and soft, and between many other things which no one would pronounce to be like generally. Sokr. — Do you think then that justice and holiness have only a small point of analogy between them? Prot. — Not exactly so: but I do not concur with you when you declare that one is like the other. Sokr. — Well then! since you seem to follow with some repugnance this line of argument, let us enter upon another.64

Insufficient reasons given by Sokrates. He seldom cares to distinguish different meanings of the same term.

Protagoras is puzzled, and becomes irritated.

Sokrates thus seems to himself to have made much progress in proving all the names of different virtues to be names of one and the same thing. Moderation and intelligence are shown to be the same: justice and holiness had before been shown to be nearly the same:66 though we must recollect that this last point had not been admitted by Protagoras. It must be confessed however that neither the one nor the other is proved by any conclusive reasons. In laying down the maxim — that nothing can have more than one single contrary — Plato seems to have forgotten that the same term may be used in two different senses. Because the term folly (ἀφροσύνη), is used sometimes to denote the opposite of moderation (σωφροσύνη), sometimes the opposite of intelligence (σοφία), it does not follow that moderation and intelligence are the same thing.67 Nor does he furnish more satisfactory proof of the other point, viz.: That holiness and justice are the same, or as much alike as possible. The intermediate position which is assumed to form the proof, viz.: That holiness is holy, and that justice is just — is either tautological, or unmeaning; and cannot serve as a real proof of any thing. It is indeed so futile, that if it were found in the mouth of Protagoras and not in that of Sokrates, commentators would probably have cited it as an illustration of the futilities of the Sophists. As yet therefore little has been done to elucidate the important question to which Sokrates addresses himself — What is the extent of analogy between the different virtues? Are they at bottom one and the same thing under different names? In what does the analogy or the sameness consist?

Sokrates presses Protagoras farther. His purpose is, to test opinions and not persons. Protagoras answers with angry prolixity.

Remonstrance of Sokrates against long answers as inconsistent with the laws of dialogue. Protagoras persists. Sokrates rises to depart.

Meanwhile Sokrates pursues his examination, with intent to prove that justice (δικαιοσύνη) and moderation (σωφροσύνη) are identical. Does a man who acts unjustly conduct himself with moderation? I should be ashamed (replies Protagoras) to answer in the affirmative, though many people say so. Sokr. — It is indifferent to me whether you yourself think so or not, provided only you consent to make answer. What I principally examine is the opinion itself: though it follows perhaps as a consequence, that I the questioner, and the respondent along with me, undergo examination at the same time.69 You answer then (though without adopting the opinion) that men who act unjustly sometimes behave with moderation, or with intelligence: that is, that they follow a wise policy in committing injustice. Prot. — Be it so. Sokr. — You admit too that there exist certain things called good things. Are those things good, which are profitable to mankind? Prot. — By Zeus, I call some things good, even though they be not profitable to men (replies Protagoras, with increasing acrimony).70 Sokr. — Do you mean those things which are not profitable to any man, or those which are not profitable to any creature whatever? Do you call these latter good also? Prot. — Not at all: but there are many things profitable to men, yet unprofitable or hurtful to different animals. Good is of a character exceedingly diversified and heterogeneous.71

Interference of Kallias to get the debate continued. Promiscuous conversation. Alkibiades declares that Protagoras ought to acknowledge superiority of Sokrates in dialogue.

Claim of a special locus standi and professorship for Dialectic, apart from Rhetoric.

Sokrates is prevailed upon to continue, and invites Protagoras to question him.

Protagoras extols the importance of knowing the works of the poets, and questions about parts of a song of Simonides. Dissenting opinions about the interpretation of the song.

Long speech of Sokrates, expounding the purpose of the song, and laying down an ironical theory about the numerous concealed sophists at Krete and Sparta, masters of short speech.

Character of this speech — its connection with the dialogue, and its general purpose. Sokrates inferior to Protagoras in continuous speech.

He then proceeds to deliver a long harangue, the commencement of which appears to be a sort of counter-part and parody of the first speech delivered by Protagoras in this dialogue. That Sophist had represented that the sophistical art was ancient:80 and that the poets, from Homer downward, were Sophists, but dreaded the odium of the name, and professed a different avocation with another title. Sokrates here tells us that philosophy was more ancient still in Krete and Sparta, and that there were more Sophists (he does not distinguish between the Sophist and the philosopher), female as well as male, in those regions, than anywhere else: but that they concealed their name and profession, for fear that others should copy them and acquire the like eminence:81 that they pretended to devote themselves altogether to arms and gymnastic — a pretence whereby (he says) all the other Greeks were really deluded. The special characteristic of these philosophers or Sophists was, short and emphatic speech — epigram shot in at the seasonable moment, and thoroughly prostrating an opponent.82 The Seven Wise Men, among whom Pittakus was one, were philosophers on this type, of supreme excellence: which they showed by inscribing their memorable brief aphorisms at Delphi. So great was the celebrity which Pittakus acquired by his aphorism, that Simonides the poet became jealous, and composed this song altogether for the purpose of discrediting him. Having stated this general view, Sokrates illustrates it by going through the song, with exposition and criticism of several different passages.83 As soon as Sokrates has concluded, Hippias84 compliments him, and says that he too has a lecture ready prepared on the same song: which he would willingly deliver: but Alkibiades and the rest beg him to postpone it.

Sokrates depreciates the value of debates on the poets. Their meaning is always disputed, and you can never ask from themselves what it is. Protagoras consents reluctantly to resume the task of answering.

No remark is made by any one present, either upon the circumstance that Sokrates, after protesting against long speeches, has here delivered one longer by far than the first speech of Protagoras, and more than half as long as the second, which contains a large theory — nor upon the sort of interpretation that he bestows upon the Simonidean song. That interpretation is so strange and forced — so violent in distorting the meaning of the poet — so evidently predetermined by the resolution to find Platonic metaphysics in a lyric effusion addressed to a Thessalian prince85 — that if such an exposition had been found under the name of Protagoras, critics would have dwelt upon it as an additional proof of dishonest perversions by the Sophists.86 It appears as if Plato, intending in this dialogue to set out the contrast between long or continuous speech (sophistical, rhetorical, poetical) represented by Protagoras, and short, interrogatory speech (dialectical) represented by Sokrates — having moreover composed for Protagoras in the earlier part of the dialogue, an harangue claiming venerable antiquity for his own accomplishment — has thought it right to compose for Sokrates a pleading with like purpose, to put the two accomplishments on a par. And if that pleading includes both pointless irony and misplaced comparisons (especially what is said about the Spartans) — we must remember that Sokrates has expressly renounced all competition with Protagoras in continuous speech, and that he is here handling the weapon in which he is confessedly inferior. Plato secures a decisive triumph to dialectic, and to Sokrates as representing it: but he seems content here to leave Sokrates on the lower ground as a rhetorician.

Purpose of Sokrates to sift difficulties which he really feels in his own mind. Importance of a colloquial companion for this purpose.

Moreover, when Sokrates intends to show himself off as a master of poetical lore (περὶ ἐπῶν δεινὸς), he at the same time claims a right of interpreting the poets in his own way. He considers the poets either as persons divinely inspired, who speak fine things without rational understanding (we have seen this in the Apology and the Ion) — or as men of superior wisdom, who deliver valuable truth lying beneath the surface, and not discernible by vulgar eyes. Both these views differ from that of literal interpretation, which is here represented by Protagoras and Prodikus. And these two Sophists are here contrasted with Sokrates as interpreters of the poets. Protagoras and Prodikus look upon poetical compositions as sources of instruction: and seek to interpret them literally, as an intelligent hearer would have understood them when they were sung or recited for the first time. Towards that end, discrimination of the usual or grammatical meaning of words was indispensable. Sokrates, on the contrary, disregards the literal interpretation, derides verbal distinctions as useless, or twists them into harmony with his own purpose: Simonides and other poets are considered as superior men, and even as inspired men in whose verses wisdom and virtue must be embodied and discoverable87 — only that they are given in an obscure and enigmatical manner: requiring to be extracted by the divination of the philosopher, who alone knows what wisdom and virtue are. It is for the philosopher to show his ingenuity by detecting the traces of them. This is what Sokrates does with the song of Simonides. He discovers in it supposed underlying thoughts (ὑπονοίας):88 distinctions of Platonic Metaphysics (between εἶναι and γενέσθαι), and principles of Platonic Ethics (οὐδεὶς ἕκω κακός) — he proceeds to point out passages in which they are to be found, and explains the song conformably to them, in spite of much violence to the obvious meaning and verbal structure.89 But though Sokrates accepts, when required, the task of discussing what is said by the poets, and deals with them according to his own point of view — yet he presently lets us see that they are witnesses called into court by his opponent and not by himself. Alkibiades urges that the debate which had been interrupted shall be resumed and Sokrates himself requests Protagoras to consent. “To debate about the compositions of poets” (says Sokrates), “is to proceed as silly and common-place men do at their banquets: where they cannot pass the time without hiring musical or dancing girls. Noble and well-educated guests, on the contrary, can find enough to interest them in their own conversation, even if they drink ever so much wine.90 Men such as we are, do not require to be amused by singers nor to talk about the poets, whom no one can ask what they mean; and who, when cited by different speakers, are affirmed by one to mean one thing, and by another to mean something else, without any decisive authority to appeal to. Such men as you and I ought to lay aside the poets, and test each other by colloquy of our own. If you wish to persist in questioning, I am ready to answer: if not, consent to answer me, and let us bring the interrupted debate to a close.”91

The interrupted debate is resumed. Protagoras says that courage differs materially from the other branches of virtue.

“We are all more fertile and suggestive, with regard to thought, word, and deed, when we act in couples. If a man strikes out anything new by himself, he immediately goes about looking for a companion to whom he can communicate it, and with whom he can jointly review it. Moreover, you are the best man that I know for this purpose, especially on the subject of virtue: for you are not only virtuous yourself, but you can make others so likewise, and you proclaim yourself a teacher of virtue more publicly than any one has ever done before. Whom can I find so competent as you, for questioning and communication on these very subjects?”93

Sokrates argues to prove that courage consists in knowledge or intelligence. Protagoras does not admit this. Sokrates changes his attack.

Identity of the pleasurable with the good — of the painful with the evil. Sokrates maintains it. Protagoras denies. Debate.

Sokrates then shows that the courageous men are confident men, forward in dashing at dangers, which people in general will not affront: that men who dive with confidence into the water, are those who know how to swim; men who go into battle with confidence as horse-soldiers or light infantry, are those who understand their profession as such. If any men embark in these dangers, without such preliminary knowledge, do you consider them men of courage? Not at all (says Protagoras), they are madmen: courage would be a dishonourable thing, if they were reckoned courageous.96 Then (replies Sokrates) upon this reasoning, those who face dangers confidently, with preliminary knowledge, are courageous: those who do so without it, are madmen. Courage therefore must consist in knowledge or intelligence?97 Protagoras declines to admit this, drawing a distinction somewhat confused:98 upon which Sokrates approaches the same argument from a different point.

Enquiry about knowledge. Is it the dominant agency in the mind? Or is it overcome frequently by other agencies, pleasure or pain? Both agree that knowledge is dominant.

Sokr. — You say that some men live well, others badly. Do you think that a man lives well if he lives in pain and distress? Prot. — No. Sokr. — But if he passes his life pleasurably until its close, does he not then appear to you to have lived well? Prot. — I think so. Sokr. — To live pleasurably therefore is good: to live disagreeably is evil. Prot. — Yes: at least provided he lives taking pleasure in fine or honourable things.99 Sokr. — What! do you concur with the generality of people in calling some pleasurable things evil, and some painful things good? Prot. — That is my opinion. Sokr. — But are not all pleasurable things, so far forth as pleasurable, to that extent good, unless some consequences of a different sort result from them? And again, subject to the like limitation, are not all painful things evil, so far forth as they are painful? Prot. — To that question, absolutely as you put it, I do not know whether I can reply affirmatively — that all pleasurable things are good, and all painful things evil. I think it safer — with reference not merely to the present answer, but to my manner of life generally — to say, that there are some pleasurable things which are good, others which are not good — some painful things which are evil, others which are not evil: again, some which are neither, neither good nor evil.100 Sokr. — You call those things pleasurable, which either partake of the nature of pleasure, or cause pleasure? Prot. — Unquestionably. Sokr. — When I ask whether pleasurable things are not good, in so far forth as pleasurable — I ask in other words, whether pleasure itself be not good? Prot. — As you observed before, Sokrates,101 let us examine the question on each side, to see whether the pleasurable and the good be really the same.

Mistake of supposing that men act contrary to knowledge. We never call pleasures evils, except when they entail a preponderance of pain, or a disappointment of greater pleasures.

Sokr. — Let us penetrate from the surface to the interior of the question.102 What is your opinion about knowledge? Do you share the opinion of mankind generally about it, as you do about pleasure and pain? Mankind regard knowledge as something neither strong nor directive nor dominant. Often (they say), when knowledge is in a man, it is not knowledge which governs him, but something else — passion, pleasure, pain, love, fear — all or any of which overpower knowledge, and drag it round about in their train like a slave. Are you of the common opinion on this point also?103 Or do you believe that knowledge is an honourable thing, and made to govern man: and that when once a man knows what good and evil things are, he will not be over-ruled by any other motive whatever, so as to do other things than what are enjoined by such knowledge — his own intelligence being a sufficient defence to him?104 Prot. — The last opinion is what I hold. To me, above all others, it would be disgraceful not to proclaim that knowledge or intelligence was the governing element of human affairs.

Pleasure is the only good — pain the only evil. No man does evil voluntarily, knowing it to be evil. Difference between pleasures present and future — resolves itself into pleasure and pain.

Sokr. — You speak well and truly. But you are aware that most men are of a different opinion. They affirm that many who know what is best, act against their own knowledge, overcome by pleasure or by pain. Prot. — Most men think so: incorrectly, in my judgment, as they say many other things besides.105 Sokr. — When they say that a man, being overcome by food or drink or other temptations, will do things which he knows to be evil, we must ask them, On what ground do you call these things evil? Is it because they impart pleasure at the moment, or because they prepare disease, poverty, and other such things, for the future?106 Most men would reply, I think, that they called these things evil not on account of the present pleasure which the things produced, but on account of their ulterior consequences — poverty and disease being both of them distressing? Prot. — Most men would say this. Sokr. — It would be admitted then that these things were evil for no other reason, than because they ended in pain and in privation of pleasure.107 Prot. — Certainly. Sokr. — Again, when it is said that some good things are painful, such things are meant as gymnastic exercises, military expeditions, medical treatment. Now no one will say that these things are good because of the immediate suffering which they occasion, but because of the ulterior results of health, wealth, and security, which we obtain by them. Thus, these also are good for no other reason, than because they end in pleasures, or in relief or prevention of pain.108 Or can you indicate any other end, to which men look when they call these matters evil? Prot. — No other end can be indicated.

Necessary resort to the measuring art for choosing pleasures rightly — all the security of our lives depend upon it.

Sokr. — It thus appears that you pursue pleasure as good, and avoid pain as evil. Pleasure is what you think good: pain is what you think evil: for even pleasure itself appears to you evil, when it either deprives you of pleasures greater than itself, or entails upon you pains outweighing itself. Is there any other reason, or any other ulterior end, to which you look when you pronounce pleasure to be evil? If there be any other between reason, or any other end, tell us what it is.109 Prot. — There is none whatever. Sokr. — The case is similar about pains: you call pain good, when it preserves you from greater pains, or procures for you a future balance of pleasure. If there be any other end to which you look when you call pain good, tell us what it is. Prot. — You speak truly. Sokr. — If I am asked why I insist so much on the topic now before us, I shall reply, that it is no easy matter to explain what is meant by being overcome by pleasure; and that the whole proof hinges upon this point — whether there is any other good than pleasure, or any other evil than pain; and whether it be not sufficient, that we should go through life pleasurably and without pains.110 If this be sufficient, and if no other good or evil can be pointed out, which does not end in pleasures and pains, mark the consequences. Good and evil being identical with pleasurable and painful, it is ridiculous to say that a man does evil voluntarily, knowing it to be evil, under the overpowering influence of pleasure: that is, under the overpowering influence of good.111 How can it be wrong, that a man should yield to the influence of good? It never can be wrong, except in this case — when the good obtained is of smaller amount than the consequent good forfeited or the consequent evil entailed. What other exchangeable value can there be between pleasures and pains, except in the ratio of quantity — greater or less, more or fewer?112 If an objector tells me that there is a material difference between pleasures and pains of the moment, and pleasures and pains postponed to a future time, I ask him in reply, Is there any other difference, except in pleasure and pain? An intelligent man ought to put them both in the scale, the pleasures and the pains, the present and the future, so as to determine the balance. Weighing pleasures against pleasures, he ought to prefer the more and the greater: weighing pains against pains, the fewer and the less. If pleasures against pains, then when the latter outweigh the former, reckoning distant as well as near, he ought to abstain from the act: when the pleasures outweigh, he ought to do it. Prot. — The objectors could have nothing to say against this.113

To do wrong, overcome by pleasure, is only a bad phrase for describing what is really a case of grave ignorance.

Sokr. — Well then — I shall tell them farther — you know that the same magnitude, and the same voice, appears to you greater when near than when distant. Now, if all our well-doing depended upon our choosing the magnitudes really greater and avoiding those really less, where would the security of our life be found? In the art of mensuration, or in the apparent impression?114 Would not the latter lead us astray, causing us to vacillate and judge badly in our choice between great and little, with frequent repentance afterwards? Would not the art of mensuration set aside these false appearances, and by revealing to us the truth, impart tranquillity to our minds and security to our lives? Would not the objectors themselves acknowledge that there was no other safety, except in the art of mensuration? Prot. — They would acknowledge it. Sokr. — Again, If the good conduct of our lives depended on the choice of odd and even, and in distinguishing rightly the greater from the less, whether far or near, would not our safety reside in knowledge, and in a certain knowledge of mensuration too, in Arithmetic? Prot. — They would concede to you that also. Sokr. — Well then, my friends, since the security of our lives has been found to depend on the right choice of pleasure and pain — between the more and fewer, greater and less, nearer and farther — does it not come to a simple estimate of excess, deficiency, and equality between them? in other words, to mensuration, art, or science?115 What kind of art or science it is, we will enquire another time: for the purpose of our argument, enough has been done when we have shown that it is science.

Reasoning of Sokrates assented to by all. Actions which conduct to pleasures or freedom from pain, are honourable.

For when we (Protagoras and Sokrates) affirmed, that nothing was more powerful than science or knowledge, and that this, in whatsoever minds it existed, prevailed over pleasure and every thing else — you (the supposed objectors) maintained, on the contrary, that pleasure often prevailed over knowledge even in the instructed man: and you called upon us to explain, upon our principles, what that mental affection was, which people called, being overcome by the seduction of pleasure. We have now shown you that this mental affection is nothing else but ignorance, and the gravest ignorance. You have admitted that those who go wrong in the choice of pleasures and pains — that is, in the choice of good and evil things — go wrong from want of knowledge, of the knowledge or science of mensuration. The wrong deed done from want of knowledge, is done through ignorance. What you call being overcome by pleasure is thus, the gravest ignorance; which these Sophists, Protagoras, Prodikus, and Hippias, engage to cure: but you (the objectors whom we now address) not believing it to be ignorance, or perhaps unwilling to pay them their fees, refuse to visit them, and therefore go on doing ill, both privately and publicly.116

Explanation of courage. It consists in a wise estimate of things terrible and not terrible.

Sokr. — Let us now revert to the explanation of courage, given by Protagoras. He said that four out of the five parts of virtue were tolerably similar; but that courage differed greatly from all of them. And he affirmed that there were men distinguished for courage; yet at the same time eminently unjust, immoderate, unholy, and stupid. He said, too, that the courageous men were men to attempt things which timid men would not approach. Now, Protagoras, what are these things which the courageous men alone are prepared to attempt? Will they attempt terrible things, believing them to be terrible? Prot. — That is impossible, as you have shown just now. Sokr. — No one will enter upon that which he believes to be terrible, — or, in other words, will go into evil knowing it to be evil: a man who does so is inferior to himself — and this, as we have agreed, is ignorance, or the contrary of knowledge. All men, both timid and brave, attempt things upon which they have a good heart: in this respect, the things which the timid and the brave go at, are the same.121 Prot. — How can this be? The things which the timid and the brave go at or affront, are quite contrary: for example, the latter are willing to go to war, which the former are not. Sokr. — Is it honourable to go to war, or dishonourable? Prot. — Honourable. Sokr. — If it be honourable, it must also be good:122 for we have agreed, in the preceding debate, that all honourable things were good. Prot. — You speak truly.123 I at least always persist in thinking so. Sokr. — Which of the two is it, who (you say) are unwilling to go into war; it being an honourable and good thing? Prot. — The cowards. Sokr. — But if going to war be an honourable and good thing, it is also pleasurable? Prot. — Certainly that has been admitted.124 Sokr. — Is it then knowingly that cowards refuse to go into war, which is both more honourable, better, and more pleasurable? Prot. — We cannot say so, without contradicting our preceding admissions. Sokr. — What about the courageous man? does not he affront or go at what is more honourable, better, and more pleasurable? Prot. — It cannot be denied. Sokr. — Courageous men then, generally, are those whose fears, when they are afraid, are honourable and good — not dishonourable or bad: and whose confidence, when they feel confident, is also honourable and good?125 On the contrary, cowards, impudent men, and madmen, both fear, and feel confidence, on dishonourable occasions? Prot. — Agreed. Sokr. — When they thus view with confidence things dishonourable and evil, is it from any other reason than from ignorance and stupidity? Are they not cowards from stupidity, or a stupid estimate of things terrible? And is it not in this ignorance, or stupid estimate of things terrible, and things not terrible — that cowardice consists? Lastly,126 — courage being the opposite of cowardice — is it not in the knowledge, or wise estimate, of things terrible and things not terrible, that courage consists?

Remarks on the dialogue. It closes without the least allusion to Hippokrates.

Protagoras is described as answering the last few questions with increasing reluctance. But at this final question, he declines altogether to answer, or even to imply assent by a gesture.127 Sokr. — Why will you not answer my question, either affirmatively or negatively? Prot. — Finish the exposition by yourself. Sokr. — I will only ask you one more question. Do you still think, as you said before, that there are some men extremely stupid, but extremely courageous? Prot. — You seem to be obstinately bent on making me answer: I will therefore comply with your wish: I say that according to our previous admissions, it appears to me impossible. Sokr. — I have no other motive for questioning you thus, except the wish to investigate how the truth stands respecting virtue and what virtue is in itself.128 To determine this, is the way to elucidate the question which you and I first debated at length:— I, affirming that virtue was not teachable — you, that it was teachable. The issue of our conversation renders both of us ridiculous. For I, who denied virtue to be teachable, have shown that it consists altogether in knowledge, which is the most teachable of all things: while Protagoras, who affirmed that it was teachable, has tried to show that it consisted in every thing rather than knowledge: on which supposition it would be hardly teachable at all. I therefore, seeing all these questions sadly confused and turned upside down, am beyond measure anxious to clear them up;129 and should be glad, conjointly with you, to go through the whole investigation — First, what Virtue is, — Next, whether it is teachable or not. It is with a provident anxiety for the conduct of my own life that I undertake this research, and I should be delighted to have you as a coadjutor.130 Prot. — I commend your earnestness, Sokrates, and your manner of conducting discussion. I think myself not a bad man in other respects: and as to jealousy, I have as little of it as any one. For I have always said of you, that I admire you much more than any man of my acquaintance — decidedly more than any man of your own age. It would not surprise me, if you became one day illustrious for wisdom.

Two distinct aspects of ethics and politics exhibited: one under the name of Protagoras; the other, under that of Sokrates.

Such is the end of this long and interesting dialogue.131 We remark with some surprise that it closes without any mention of Hippokrates, and without a word addressed to him respecting his anxious request for admission to the society of Protagoras: though such request had been presented at the beginning, with much emphasis, as the sole motive for the intervention of Sokrates. Upon this point132 the dialogue is open to the same criticism as that which Plato (in the Phædrus) bestows on the discourse of Lysias: requiring that every discourse shall be like a living organism, neither headless nor footless, but having extremities and a middle piece adapted to each other.

Order of ethical problems, as conceived by Sokrates.

Difference of method between him and Protagoras flows from this difference of order. Protagoras assumes what virtue is, without enquiry.

In the last speech of Sokrates in the dialogue,133 we find him proclaiming, that the first of all problems to be solved was, What virtue really is? upon which there prevails serious confusion of opinions. It was a second question — important, yet still second and presupposing the solution of the first — Whether virtue is teachable? We noticed the same judgment as to the order of the two questions delivered by Sokrates in the Menon.134

Method of Protagoras. Continuous lectures addressed to established public sentiments with which he is in harmony.

Method of Sokrates. Dwells upon that part of the problem which Protagoras had left out.

Antithesis between the eloquent lecturer and the analytical cross-examiner.

Protagoras not intended to be always in the wrong, though he is described as brought to a contradiction.

Affirmation of Protagoras about courage is affirmed by Plato himself elsewhere.

The harsh epithets applied by critics to Protagoras are not borne out by the dialogue. He stands on the same ground as the common consciousness.

But whatever may have been the intention of Plato, if we look at the fact, we shall find that what he has assigned to Sokrates is not always true, nor what he has given to Protagoras, always false. The positions laid down by the latter — That many men are courageous, but unjust: that various persons are just, without being wise and intelligent: that he who possesses one virtue, does not of necessity possess all:141 — are not only in conformity with the common opinion, but are quite true, though Sokrates is made to dispute them. Moreover, the arguments employed by Sokrates (including in those arguments the strange propositions that justice is just, and that holiness is holy) are certainly noway conclusive.142 Though Protagoras, becoming entangled in difficulties, and incapable of maintaining his consistency against an embarrassing cross-examination, is of course exhibited as ignorant of that which he professes to know — the doctrine which he maintains is neither untrue in itself, nor even shown to be apparently untrue.

Aversion of Protagoras for dialectic. Interlude about the song of Simonides.

As to the arrogant and exorbitant pretensions which the Platonic commentators ascribe to Protagoras, more is said than the reality justifies. He pretends to know what virtue, justice, moderation, courage, &c., are, and he is proved not to know. But this is what every one else pretends to know also, and what every body else teaches as well as he — “Hæc Janus summus ab imo Perdocet: hæc recinunt juvenes dictata senesque”. What he pretends to do, beyond the general public, he really can do. He can discourse, learnedly and eloquently, upon these received doctrines and sentiments: he can enlist the feelings and sympathies of the public in favour of that which he, in common with the public, believes to be good — and against that which he and they believe to be bad: he can thus teach virtue more effectively than others. But whether that which is received as virtue, be really such — he has never analysed or verified: nor does he willingly submit to the process of analysis. Here again he is in harmony with the general public; for they hate, as much as he does, to be dragged back to fundamentals, and forced to explain, defend, revise, or modify, their established sentiments and maxims: which they apply as principia for deduction to particular cases, and which they recognise as axioms whereby other things are to be tried, not as liable to be tried themselves. Protagoras is one of the general public, in dislike of, and inaptitude for, analysis and dialectic discussion: while he stands above them in his eloquence and his power of combining, illustrating, and adorning, received doctrines. These are points of superiority, not pretended, but real.

Ethical view given by Sokrates worked out at length clearly. Good and evil consist in right or wrong calculation of pleasures and pains of the agent.

Protagoras is at first opposed to this theory.

Virtue, according to this theory, consists in a right measurement and choice of pleasures and pains: in deciding correctly, wherever we have an alternative, on which side lies the largest pleasure or the least pain — and choosing the side which presents this balance. To live pleasurably, is pronounced to be good: to live without pleasure or in pain, is evil. Moreover, nothing but pleasure, or comparative mitigation of pain, is good: nothing but pain is evil.143 Good, is identical with the greatest pleasure or least pain: evil, with greatest pain: meaning thereby each pleasure and each pain when looked at along with its consequences and concomitants. The grand determining cause and condition of virtue is knowledge: the knowledge, science, or art, of correctly measuring the comparative value of different pleasures and pains. Such knowledge (the theory affirms), wherever it is possessed, will be sure to command the whole man, to dictate all his conduct, and to prevail over every temptation of special appetite or aversion. To say that a man who knows on which side the greatest pleasure or the least pain lies, will act against his knowledge — is a mistake. If he acts in this way, it is plain that he does not possess the knowledge, and that he sins through ignorance.

Reasoning of Sokrates.

Protagoras agrees with Sokrates in the encomiums bestowed on the paramount importance and ascendancy of knowledge: but does not at first agree with him in identifying good with pleasure, and evil with pain. Upon this point, too, he is represented as agreeing in opinion with the Many. He does not admit that to live pleasurably is good, unless where a man takes his pleasure in honourable things. He thinks it safer, and more consistent with his own whole life, to maintain — That pleasurable things, or painful things, may be either good, or evil, or indifferent, according to the particular case.

Application of that reasoning to the case of courage.

The theory which Plato here lays down is more distinct and specific than any theory laid down in other dialogues.

Sokrates proceeds to apply this general principle in correcting the explanation of courage given by Protagoras. He shows, or tries to show, that courage, like all the other branches of virtue, consists in acting on a just estimate of comparative pleasures and pains. No man affronts evil, or the alternative of greater pain, knowing it to be such: no man therefore adventures himself in any terrible enterprise, knowing it to be so: neither the brave nor the timid do this. Both the brave and the timid affront that which they think not terrible, or the least terrible of two alternatives: but they estimate differently what is such. The former go readily to war when required, the latter evade it. Now to go into war when required, is honourable: being honourable, it is good: being honourable and good, it is pleasurable. The brave know this, and enter upon it willingly: the timid not only do not know it, but entertain the contrary opinion, looking upon war as painful and terrible, and therefore keeping aloof. The brave men fear what it is honourable to fear, the cowards what it is dishonourable to fear: the former act upon the knowledge of what is really terrible, the latter are misled by their ignorance of it. Courage is thus, like the other virtues, a case of accurate knowledge of comparative pleasures and pains, or of good and evil.144

Remarks on the theory here laid down by Sokrates. It is too narrow, and exclusively prudential.

Such is the ethical theory which the Platonic Sokrates enunciates in this dialogue, and which Protagoras and others accept. It is positive and distinct, to a degree very unusual with Plato. We shall find that he theorises differently in other dialogues; whether for the better or the worse, will be hereafter seen. He declares here explicitly that pleasure, or happiness, is the end to be pursued; and pain, or misery, the end to be avoided: and that there is no other end, in reference to which things can be called good or evil, except as they tend to promote pleasure or mitigate suffering, on the one side — to entail pain or suffering on the other. He challenges objectors to assign any other end. And thus much is certain — that in those other dialogues where he himself departs from the present doctrine, he has not complied with his own challenge. Nowhere has he specified a different end. In other dialogues, as well as in the Protagoras, Plato has insisted on the necessity of a science or art of calculation: but in no other dialogue has he told us distinctly what are the items to be calculated.

Comparison with the Republic.

I perfectly agree with the doctrine laid down by Sokrates in the Protagoras, that pain or suffering is the End to be avoided or lessened as far as possible — and pleasure or happiness the End to be pursued as far as attainable — by intelligent forethought and comparison: that there is no other intelligible standard of reference, for application of the terms Good and Evil, except the tendency to produce happiness or misery: and that if this standard be rejected, ethical debate loses all standard for rational discussion, and becomes only an enunciation of the different sentiments, authoritative and self-justifying, prevalent in each community. But the End just mentioned is highly complex, and care must be taken to conceive it in its full comprehension. Herein I conceive the argument of Sokrates (in the Protagoras) to be incomplete. It carries attention only to a part of the truth, keeping out of sight, though not excluding, the remainder. It considers each man as an individual, determining good or evil for himself by calculating his own pleasures and pains: as a prudent, temperate, and courageous agent, but neither as just nor beneficent. It omits to take account of him as a member of a society, composed of many others akin or co-ordinate with himself. Now it is the purpose of an ethical or political reasoner (such as Plato both professes to be and really is) to study the means of happiness, not simply for the agent himself, but for that agent together with others around him — for the members of the community generally.145 The Platonic Sokrates says this himself in the Republic: and accordingly, he there treats of other points which are not touched upon by Sokrates in the Protagoras. He proclaims that the happiness of each citizen must be sought only by means consistent with the security, and to a certain extent with the happiness, of others: he provides as far as practicable that all shall derive their pleasures and pains from the same causes: common pleasures, and common pains, to all.146 The doctrine of Sokrates in the Protagoras requires to be enlarged so as to comprehend these other important elements. Since the conduct of every agent affects the happiness of others, he must be called upon to take account of its consequences under both aspects, especially where it goes to inflict hurt or privation upon others. Good and evil depend upon that scientific computation and comparison of pleasures and pains which Sokrates in the Protagoras prescribes: but the computation must include, to a certain extent, the pleasures and pains (security and rightful expectations) of others besides the agent himself, implicated in the consequences of his acts.147

The discourse of Protagoras brings out an important part of the whole case, which is omitted in the analysis by Sokrates 311 The Ethical End, as implied in the discourse of Protagoras, involves a direct regard to the pleasures and pains of other persons besides the agent himself 312 Plato’s reasoning in the dialogue is not clear or satisfactory, especially about courage 313 Doctrine of Stallbaum and other critics is not correct. That the analysis here ascribed to Sokrates is not intended by Plato as serious, but as a mockery of the sophists 314 Grounds of that doctrine. Their insufficiency 315 Subject is professedly still left unsettled at the close of the dialogue 316 CHAPTER XXIV. GORGIAS. Persons who debate in the Gorgias. Celebrity of the historical Gorgias 317 Introductory circumstances of the dialogue. Polus and Kalliklês 318 Purpose of Sokrates in questioning. Conditions of a good definition

ib.

Questions about the definition of Rhetoric. It is the artisan of persuasion 319 The Rhetor produces belief without knowledge. Upon what matters is he competent to advise? 319 The Rhetor can persuade the people upon any matter, even against the opinion of the special expert. He appears to know, among the ignorant 320 Gorgias is now made to contradict himself. Polus takes up the debate with Sokrates 321 Polemical tone of Sokrates. At the instance of Polus he gives his own definition of rhetoric. It is no art, but an empirical knack of catering for the immediate pleasure of hearers, analogous to cookery. It is a branch under the general head flattery

ib.

Distinction between the true arts which aim at the good of the body and mind — and the counterfeit arts, which pretend to the same, but in reality aim at immediate pleasure 322 Questions of Polus. Sokrates denies that the Rhetors have any real power, because they do nothing which they really wish 323 All men wish for what is good for them. Despots and Rhetors, when they kill any one, do so because they think it good for them. If it be really not good, they do not do what they will, and therefore have no real power 324 Comparison of Archelaus, usurping despot of Macedonia — Polus affirms that Archelaus is happy, and that every one thinks so — Sokrates admits that every one thinks so, but nevertheless denies it 325 Sokrates maintains — 1. That it is a greater evil to do wrong, than to suffer wrong. 2. That if a man has done wrong, it is better for him to be punished than to remain unpunished 326 Sokrates offers proof — Definition of Pulchrum and Turpe — Proof of the first point 327 Proof of the second point

ib.

The criminal labours under a mental distemper, which though not painful, is a capital evil. Punishment is the only cure for him. To be punished is best for him 328 Misery of the Despot who is never punished. If our friend has done wrong, we ought to get him punished: if our enemy, we ought to keep him unpunished 329 Argument of Sokrates paradoxical — Doubt expressed by Kalliklês whether he means it seriously 330 Principle laid down by Sokrates — That every one acts with a view to the attainment of happiness and avoidance of misery

ib.

Peculiar view taken by Plato of Good — Evil — Happiness 331 Contrast of the usual meaning of these words, with the Platonic meaning

ib.

Examination of the proof given by Sokrates — Inconsistency between the general answer of Polus and his previous declarations — Law and Nature 332 The definition of Pulchrum and Turpe, given by Sokrates, will not hold 334 Worse or better — for whom? The argument of Sokrates does not specify. If understood in the sense necessary for his inference, the definition would be inadmissible

ib.

Plato applies to every one a standard of happiness and misery peculiar to himself. His view about the conduct of Archelaus is just, but he does not give the true reasons for it 335 If the reasoning of Plato were true, the point of view in which punishment is considered would be reversed 336 Plato pushes too far the analogy between mental distemper and bodily distemper — Material difference between the two — Distemper must be felt by the distempered persons 337 Kalliklês begins to argue against Sokrates — he takes a distinction between Just by Law and Just by nature — Reply of Sokrates, that there is no variance between the two, properly understood 338 What Kalliklês says is not to be taken as a sample of the teachings of Athenian sophists. Kalliklês — rhetor and politician 339 Uncertainty of referring to Nature as an authority. It may be pleaded in favour of opposite theories. The theory of Kalliklês is made to appear repulsive by the language in which he expresses it 340 Sokrates maintains that self-command and moderation is requisite for the strong man as well as for others. Kalliklês defends the negative 343 Whether the largest measure of desires is good for a man, provided he has the means of satisfying them? Whether all varieties of desire are good? Whether the pleasurable and the good are identical? 344 Kalliklês maintains that pleasurable and good are identical. Sokrates refutes him. Some pleasures are good, others bad. A scientific adviser is required to discriminate them 345 Contradiction between Sokrates in the Gorgias, and Sokrates in the Protagoras

ib.

Views of critics about this contradiction 346 Comparison and appreciation of the reasoning of Sokrates in both dialogues

ib.

Distinct statement in the Protagoras. What are good and evil, and upon what principles the scientific adviser is to proceed in discriminating them. No such distinct statement in the Gorgias 347 Modern ethical theories. Intuition. Moral sense — not recognised by Plato in either of the dialogues 348 In both dialogues the doctrine of Sokrates is self-regarding as respects the agent: not considering the pleasures and pains of other persons, so far as affected by the agent 349 Points wherein the doctrine of the two dialogues is in substance the same, but differing in classification

ib.

Kalliklês, whom Sokrates refutes in the Gorgias, maintains a different argument from that which Sokrates combats in the Protagoras 350 The refutation of Kalliklês by Sokrates in the Gorgias, is unsuccessful — it is only so far successful as he adopts unintentionally the doctrine of Sokrates in the Protagoras 351 Permanent elements — and transient elements — of human agency — how each of them is appreciated in the two dialogues 353 In the Protagoras

ib.

In the Gorgias 354 Character of the Gorgias generally — discrediting all the actualities of life 355 Argument of Sokrates resumed — multifarious arts of flattery, aiming at immediate pleasure 357 The Rhetors aim at only flattering the public — even the best past Rhetors have done nothing else — citation of the four great Rhetors by Kallikles 357 Necessity for temperance, regulation, order. This is the condition of virtue and happiness 358 Impossible to succeed in public life, unless a man be thoroughly akin to and in harmony with the ruling force 359 Danger of one who dissents from the public, either for better or for worse

ib.

Sokrates resolves upon a scheme of life for himself — to study permanent good, and not immediate satisfaction 360 Sokrates announces himself as almost the only man at Athens, who follows out the true political art. Danger of doing this 361 Mythe respecting Hades, and the treatment of deceased persons therein, according to their merits during life — the philosopher who stood aloof from public affairs, will then be rewarded

ib.

Peculiar ethical views of Sokrates — Rhetorical or dogmatical character of the Gorgias 362 He merges politics in Ethics — he conceives the rulers as spiritual teachers and trainers of the community

ib.

Idéal of Plato — a despotic lawgiver or man-trainer, on scientific principles, fashioning all characters pursuant to certain types of his own 363 Platonic analogy between mental goodness and bodily health — incomplete analogy — circumstances of difference

ib.

Sokrates in the Gorgias speaks like a dissenter among a community of fixed opinions and habits. Impossible that a dissenter, on important points, should acquire any public influence 364 Sokrates feels his own isolation from his countrymen. He is thrown upon individual speculation and dialectic 365 Antithesis between philosophy and rhetoric

ib.

Position of one who dissents, upon material points, from the fixed opinions and creed of his countrymen 366 Probable feelings of Plato on this subject — Claim put forward in the Gorgias of an independent locus standi for philosophy, but without the indiscriminate cross-examination pursued by Sokrates 367 Importance of maintaining the utmost liberty of discussion. Tendency of all ruling orthodoxy towards intolerance 368 Issue between philosophy and rhetoric — not satisfactorily handled by Plato. Injustice done to rhetoric. Ignoble manner in which it is presented by Polus and Kalliklês 369 Perikles would have accepted the defence of rhetoric, as Plato has put it into the mouth of Gorgias 370 The Athenian people recognise a distinction between the pleasurable and the good: but not the same as that which Plato conceived 371 Rhetoric was employed at Athens in appealing to all the various established sentiments and opinions. Erroneous inferences raised by the Kalliklês of Plato 373 The Platonic Idéal exacts, as good, some order, system, discipline. But order may be directed to bad ends as well as to good. Divergent ideas about virtue 374 How to discriminate the right order from the wrong. Plato does not advise us 375 The Gorgias upholds the independence and dignity of the dissenting philosopher

ib.

CHAPTER XXV. PHÆDON. The Phædon is affirmative and expository 377 Situation and circumstances assumed in the Phædon. Pathetic interest which they inspire

ib.

Simmias and Kebês, the two collocutors with Sokrates. Their feelings and those of Sokrates 378 Emphasis of Sokrates in insisting on freedom of debate, active exercise of reason, and independent judgment for each reasoner 379 Anxiety of Sokrates that his friends shall be on their guard against being influenced by his authority — that they shall follow only the convictions of their own reason 380 Remarkable manifestation of earnest interest for reasoned truth and the liberty of individual dissent 381 Phædon and Symposion — points of analogy and contrast 382 Phædon — compared with Republic and Timæus. No recognition of the triple or lower souls. Antithesis between soul and body 383 Different doctrines of Plato about the soul. Whether all the three souls are immortal, or the rational soul alone 385 The life and character of a philosopher is a constant struggle to emancipate his soul from his body. Death alone enables him to do this completely 386 Souls of the ordinary or unphilosophical men pass after death into the bodies of different animals. The philosopher alone is relieved from all communion with body 387 Special privilege claimed for philosophers in the Phædon apart from the virtuous men who are not philosophers 388 Simmias and Kebês do not admit readily the immortality of the soul, but are unwilling to trouble Sokrates by asking for proof. Unabated interest of Sokrates in rational debate 390 Simmias and Kebês believe fully in the pre-existence of the soul, but not in its post-existence. Doctrine — That the soul is a sort of harmony — refuted by Sokrates

ib.

Sokrates unfolds the intellectual changes or wanderings through which his mind had passed 391 First doctrine of Sokrates as to cause. Reasons why he rejected it

ib.

Second doctrine. Hopes raised by the treatise of Anaxagoras 393 Disappointment because Anaxagoras did not follow out the optimistic principle into detail. Distinction between causes efficient and causes co-efficient 394 Sokrates could neither trace out the optimistic principle for himself, nor find any teacher thereof. He renounced it, and embraced a third doctrine about cause 395 He now assumes the separate existence of ideas. These ideas are the causes why particular objects manifest certain attributes 396 Procedure of Sokrates if his hypothesis were impugned. He insists upon keeping apart the discussion of the hypothesis and the discussion of its consequences 397 Exposition of Sokrates welcomed by the hearers. Remarks upon it 398 The philosophical changes in Sokrates all turned upon different views as to a true cause

ib.

Problems and difficulties of which Sokrates first sought solution 399 Expectations entertained by Sokrates from the treatise of Anaxagoras. His disappointment. His distinction between causes and co-efficients 400 Sokrates imputes to Anaxagoras the mistake of substituting physical agencies in place of mental. This is the same which Aristophanes and others imputed to Sokrates 401 The supposed theory of Anaxagoras cannot be carried out, either by Sokrates himself or any one else. Sokrates turns to general words, and adopts the theory of ideas 403 Vague and dissentient meanings attached to the word Cause. That is a cause, to each man, which gives satisfaction to his inquisitive feelings 404 Dissension and perplexity on the question. — What is a cause? revealed by the picture of Sokrates — no intuition to guide him 407 Different notions of Plato and Aristotle about causation, causes regular and irregular. Inductive theory of causation, elaborated in modern times

ib.

Last transition of the mind of Sokrates from things to words — to the adoption of the theory of ideas. Great multitude of ideas assumed, each fitting a certain number of particulars 410 Ultimate appeal to hypothesis of extreme generality 411 Plato’s demonstration of the immortality of the soul rests upon the assumption of the Platonic ideas. Reasoning to prove this 412 The soul always brings life, and is essentially living. It cannot receive death: in other words, it is immortal 413 The proof of immortality includes pre-existence as well as post-existence — animals as well as man — also the metempsychosis or translation of the soul from one body to another 414 After finishing his proof that the soul is immortal, Sokrates enters into a description, what will become of it after the death of the body. He describes a Νεκυία 415 Sokrates expects that his soul is going to the islands of the blest. Reply to Kriton about burying his body 416 Preparations for administering the hemlock. Sympathy of the gaoler. Equanimity of Sokrates

ib.

Sokrates swallows the poison. Conversation with the gaoler 417 Ungovernable sorrow of the friends present. Self-command of Sokrates. Last words to Kriton, and death

ib.

Extreme pathos, and probable trustworthiness of these personal details 419 Contrast between the Platonic Apology and the Phædon

ib.

Abundant dogmatic and poetical invention of the Phædon compared with the profession of ignorance which we read in the Apology 421 Total renunciation and discredit of the body in the Phædon. Different feeling about the body in other Platonic dialogues 422 Plato’s argument does not prove the immortality of the soul. Even if it did prove that, yet the mode of pre-existence and the mode of post-existence, of the soul, would be quite undetermined 423 The philosopher will enjoy an existence of pure soul unattached to any body 425 Plato’s demonstration of the immortality of the soul did not appear satisfactory to subsequent philosophers. The question remained debated and problematical 426

The discourse of Protagoras brings out an important part of the whole case, which is omitted in the analysis by Sokrates.

As to this point, we shall find the Platonic Sokrates not always correct, nor even consistent with himself. This will appear especially when we come to see the account which he gives of Justice in the Republic. In that branch of the Ethical End, a direct regard to the security of others comes into the foreground. For in an act of injustice, the prominent characteristic is that of harm, done to others — though that is not the whole, since the security of the agent himself is implicated with that of others in the general fulfilment of these obligations. It is this primary regard to others, and secondary regard to self, implicated in one complex feeling — which distinguishes justice from prudence. The Platonic Sokrates in the Republic (though his language is not always clear) does not admit this; but considers justice as a branch of prudence, necessary to ensure the happiness of the individual agent himself.

The Ethical End, as implied in the discourse of Protagoras, involves a direct regard to the pleasures and pains of other persons besides the agent himself.

Now in the Protagoras, what the Platonic Sokrates dwells upon (in the argument which I have been considering) is prudence, temperance, courage: little or nothing is said about justice: there was therefore the less necessity for insisting on that prominent reference to the security of others (besides the agent himself) which justice involves. If, however, we turn back to the earlier part of the dialogue, to the speech delivered by Protagoras, we see justice brought into the foreground. It is not indeed handled analytically (which is not the manner of that Sophist), nor is it resolved into regard to pleasure and pain, happiness and misery: but it is announced as a social sentiment indispensably and reciprocally necessary from every man towards every other (δίκη — αἰδὼς), distinguishable from those endowments which supply the wants and multiply the comforts of the individual himself. The very existence of the social union requires, that each man should feel a sentiment of duties on his part towards others, and duties on their parts towards him: or (in other words) of rights on his part to have his interests considered by others, and rights on their parts to have their interests considered by him. Unless this sentiment of reciprocity — reciprocal duty and right — exist in the bosom of each individual citizen, or at least in the large majority — no social union could subsist. There are doubtless different degrees of the sentiment: moreover the rights and duties may be apportioned better or worse, more or less fairly, among the individuals of a society; thus rendering the society more or less estimable and comfortable. But without a certain minimum of the sentiment in each individual bosom, even the worst constituted society could not hold together. And it is this sentiment of reciprocity which Protagoras (in the dialogue before us) is introduced as postulating in his declaration, that justice and the sense of shame (unlike to professional aptitudes) must be distributed universally and without exception among all the members of a community. Each man must feel them, in his conduct towards others: each man must also be able to reckon that others will feel the like, in their behaviour towards him.148

Plato’s reasoning in the dialogue is not clear or satisfactory, especially about courage.

If we thus compare the Ethical End, as implied, though not explicitly laid down, by Protagoras in the earlier part of the dialogue, — and as laid down by Sokrates in the later part — we shall see that while Sokrates restricts it to a true comparative estimate of the pains and pleasures of the agent himself, Protagoras enlarges it so as to include a direct reference to those of others also, coupled with an expectation of the like reference on the part of others.149 Sokrates is satisfied with requiring from each person calculating prudence for his own pleasures and pains: while Protagoras proclaims that after this attribute had been obtained by man, and individual wants supplied, still there was a farther element necessary in the calculation — the social sentiment or reciprocity of regard implanted in every one’s bosom: without this the human race would have perished. Prudence and skill will suffice for an isolated existence; but if men are to live and act in social communion, the services as well as the requirements of each man must be shaped, in a certain measure, with a direct view to the security of others as well as to his own.

Doctrine of Stallbaum and other critics is not correct. That the analysis here ascribed to Sokrates is not intended by Plato as serious, but as a mockery of the sophists.

The application which Sokrates makes (in the Protagoras) of his own assumed Ethical End to the explanation of courage, is certainly confused and unsatisfactory. And indeed, we may farther remark that the general result at which Plato seems to be aiming in this dialogue, viz.: That all the different virtues are at the bottom one and the same, and that he who possesses one of them must also possess the remainder — cannot be made out even upon his own assumptions. Though it be true that all the virtues depend upon correct calculation, yet as each of them applies to a different set of circumstances and different disturbing and misleading causes, the same man who calculates well under one set of circumstances, may calculate badly under others. The position laid down by Protagoras, that men are often courageous but unjust — just, but not wise — is noway refuted by Plato. Nor is it even inconsistent with Plato’s own theory, though he seems to think it so.

Grounds of that doctrine. Their insufficiency.

Some of the Platonic commentators maintain,150 that the doctrine here explicitly laid down and illustrated by Sokrates, viz.: the essential identity of the pleasurable with the good, of the painful with the evil — is to be regarded as not serious, but as taken up in jest for the purpose of mocking and humiliating Protagoras. Such an hypothesis appears to me untenable; contradicted by the whole tenor of the dialogue. Throughout all the Platonic compositions, there is nowhere to be found any train of argument more direct, more serious, and more elaborate, than that by which Sokrates here proves the identity of good with pleasure, of pain with evil (p. 351 to end). Protagoras begins by denying it, and is only compelled to accept the conclusion against his own will, by the series of questions which he cannot otherwise answer.151 Sokrates admits that the bulk of mankind are also opposed to it: but he establishes it with an ingenuity which is pronounced to be triumphant by all the hearers around.152 The commentators are at liberty to impeach the reasoning as unsound; but to set it aside as mere banter and mockery, is preposterous. Assume it even to be intended as mockery — assume that Sokrates is mystifying the hearers, by a string of delusive queries, to make out a thesis which he knows to be untrue and silly — how can the mockery fall upon Protagoras, who denies the thesis from the beginning?153 The irony, if it were irony, would be misplaced and absurd.

Subject is professedly still left unsettled at the close of the dialogue.

The commentators resort to this hypothesis, partly because the doctrine in question is one which they disapprove — partly because doctrines inconsistent with it are maintained in other Platonic dialogues. These are the same two reasons upon which, in other cases, various dialogues have been rejected as not genuine works of Plato. The first of the two reasons is plainly irrelevant: we must accept what Plato gives us, whether we assent to it or not. The second reason also, I think, proves little. The dialogues are distinct compositions, written each with its own circumstances and purpose: we have no right to require that they shall be all consistent with each other in doctrine, especially when we look to the long philosophical career of Plato. To suppose that the elaborate reasoning of Sokrates in the latter portion of the Protagoras is mere irony, intended to mystify both Protagoras himself and all the by-standers, who accept it as earnest and convincing — appears to me far less reasonable than the admission, that the dialectic pleading ascribed to Sokrates in one dialogue is inconsistent with that assigned to him in another.

Persons who debate in the Gorgias. Celebrity of the historical Gorgias.

Introductory circumstances of the dialogue. Polus and Kalliklês.

Purpose of Sokrates in questioning. Conditions of a good definition.

Questions about the definition of Rhetoric. It is the artisan of persuasion.

Here, as in the other dialogues above noticed, the avowed aim of Sokrates is — first, to exclude long speaking — next, to get the question accurately conceived, and answered in an appropriate manner. Specimens are given of unsuitable and inaccurate answers, which Sokrates corrects. The conditions of a good definition are made plain by contrast with bad ones; which either include much more than the thing defined, or set forth what is accessory and occasional in place of what is essential and constant. These tentatives and gropings to find a definition are always instructive, and must have been especially so in the Platonic age, when logical distinctions had never yet been made a subject of separate attention or analysis.

The Rhetor produces belief without knowledge. Upon what matters is he competent to advise?

The Rhetor can persuade the people upon any matter, even against the opinion of the special expert. He appears to know, among the ignorant.

Sokr. — But are there not other persons besides the Rhetor, who produce persuasion? Does not the arithmetical teacher, and every other teacher, produce persuasion? How does the Rhetor differ from them? What mode of persuasion does he bring about? Persuasion about what? Gorg. — I reply — it is that persuasion which is brought about in Dikasteries, and other assembled multitudes — and which relates to just and unjust.9 Sokr. — You recognise that to have learnt and to know any matter, is one thing — to believe it, is another: that knowledge and belief are different — knowledge being always true, belief sometimes false? Gorg. — Yes. Sokr. — We must then distinguish two sorts of persuasion: one carrying with it knowledge — the other belief without knowledge. Which of the two does the Rhetor bring about? Gorg. — That which produces belief without knowledge. He can teach nothing. Sokr. — Well, then, Gorgias, on what matters will the Rhetor be competent to advise? When the people are deliberating about the choice of generals or physicians, about the construction of docks, about practical questions of any kind — there will be in each case a special man informed and competent to teach or give counsel, while the Rhetor is not competent. Upon what then can the Rhetor advise — upon just and unjust — nothing else?10

Gorgias is now made to contradict himself. Polus takes up the debate with Sokrates.

You mean (replies Sokrates) that he, who has learnt Rhetoric from you, will become competent not to teach, but to persuade the multitude:—that is, competent among the ignorant. He has acquired an engine of persuasion; so that he will appear, when addressing the ignorant, to know more than those who really do know.12

Polemical tone of Sokrates. At the instance of Polus he gives his own definition of rhetoric. It is no art, but an empirical knack of catering for the immediate pleasure of hearers, analogous to cookery. It is a branch under the general head flattery.

Distinction between the true arts which aim at the good of the body and mind — and the counterfeit arts, which pretend to the same, but in reality aim at immediate pleasure.

Polus now interferes and takes up the conversation: challenging Sokrates to furnish what he thinks the proper definition of Rhetoric. Sokrates obeys, in a tone of pungent polemic. Rhetoric (he says) is no art at all, but an empirical knack of catering for the pleasure and favour of hearers; analogous to cookery.14 It is a talent falling under the general aptitude called Flattery; possessed by some bold spirits, who are forward in divining and adapting themselves to the temper of the public.15 It is not honourable, but a mean pursuit, like cookery. It is the shadow or false imitation of a branch of the political art.16 In reference both to the body and the mind, there are two different conditions: one, a condition really and truly good — the other, good only in fallacious appearance, and not so in reality. To produce, and to verify, the really good condition of the body, there are two specially qualified professions, the gymnast or trainer and the physician: in regard to the mind, the function of the trainer is performed by the law-giving power, that of the physician by the judicial power. Law-making, and adjudicating, are both branches of the political art, and when put together make up the whole of it. Gymnastic and medicine train and doctor the body towards its really best condition: law-making and adjudicating do the same in regard to the mind. To each of the four, there corresponds a sham counterpart or mimic, a branch under the general head flattery — taking no account of what is really best, but only of that which is most agreeable for the moment, and by this trick recommending itself to a fallacious esteem.17 Thus Cosmetic, or Ornamental Trickery, is the counterfeit of Gymnastic; and Cookery the counterfeit of Medicine. Cookery studies only what is immediately agreeable to the body, without considering whether it be good or wholesome: and does this moreover, without any truly scientific process of observation or inference, but simply by an empirical process of memory or analogy. But Medicine examines, and that too by scientific method, only what is good and wholesome for the body, whether agreeable or not. Amidst ignorant men, Cookery slips in as the counterfeit of medicine; pretending to know what food is good for the body, while it really knows only what food is agreeable. In like manner, the artifices of ornament dress up the body to a false appearance of that vigour and symmetry, which Gymnastics impart to it really and intrinsically.

Questions of Polus. Sokrates denies that the Rhetors have any real power, because they do nothing which they really wish.

The same analogies hold in regard to the mind. Sophistic is the shadow or counterfeit of law-giving: Rhetoric, of judging or adjudicating. The lawgiver and the judge aim at what is good for the mind: the Sophist and the Rhetor aim at what is agreeable to it. This distinction between them (continues Sokrates) is true and real: though it often happens that the Sophist is, both by himself and by others, confounded with and mistaken for the lawgiver, because he deals with the same topics and occurrences: and the Rhetor, in the same manner, is confounded with the judge.18 The Sophist and the Rhetor, addressing themselves to the present relish of an undiscerning public, are enabled to usurp the functions and the credit of their more severe and far-sighted rivals.

All men wish for what is good for them. Despots and Rhetors, when they kill any one, do so because they think it good for them. If it be really not good, they do not do what they will, and therefore have no real power.

This is the definition given by Sokrates of Rhetoric and of the Rhetor. Polus then asks him: You say that Rhetoric is a branch of Flattery: Do you think that good Rhetors are considered as flatterers in their respective cities? Sokr. — I do not think that19 they are considered at all. Polus. — How! not considered? Do not good Rhetors possess great power in their respective cities? Sokr. — No: if you understand the possession of power as a good thing for the possessor. Polus. — I do understand it so. Sokr. — Then I say that the Rhetors possess nothing beyond the very minimum of power. Polus. — How can that be? Do not they, like despots, kill, impoverish, and expel any one whom they please? Sokr. — I admit that both Rhetors and Despots can do what seems good to themselves, and can bring penalties of death, poverty, or exile upon others: but I say that nevertheless they have no power, because they can do nothing which they really wish.20

Comparison of Archelaus, usurping despot of Macedonia — Polus affirms that Archelaus is happy, and that every one thinks so — Sokrates admits that every one thinks so, but nevertheless denies it.

To do evil (continues Sokrates), is the worst thing that can happen to any one; the evil-doer is the most miserable and pitiable of men. The person who suffers evil is unfortunate, and is to be pitied; but much less unfortunate and less to be pitied than the evil-doer. If I have a concealed dagger in the public market-place, I can kill any one whom I choose: but this is no good to me, nor is it a proof of great power, because I shall be forthwith taken up and punished. The result is not profitable, but hurtful: therefore the act is not good, nor is the power to do it either good or desirable.23 It is sometimes good to kill, banish, or impoverish — sometimes bad. It is good when you do it justly: bad, when you do it unjustly.24

Sokrates maintains — 1. That it is a greater evil to do wrong, than to suffer wrong. 2. That if a man has done wrong, it is better for him to be punished than to remain unpunished.

Polus. — A child can refute such doctrine. You have heard of Archelaus King of Macedonia. Is he, in your opinion, happy or miserable? Sokr. — I do not know: I have never been in his society. Polus. — Cannot you tell without that, whether he is happy or not? Sokr. — No, certainly not. Polus. — Then you will not call even the Great King happy? Sokr. — No: I do not know how he stands in respect to education and justice. Polus. — What! does all happiness consist in that? Sokr. — I say that it does. I maintain that the good and honourable man or woman is happy: the unjust and wicked, miserable.25 Polus. — Then Archelaus is miserable, according to your doctrine? Sokr. — Assuredly, if he is wicked. Polus. — Wicked, of course; since he has committed enormous crimes: but he has obtained complete kingly power in Macedonia. Is there any Athenian, yourself included, who would not rather be Archelaus than any other man in Macedonia?26 Sokr. — All the public, with Nikias, Perikles, and the most eminent men among them, will agree with you in declaring Archelaus to be happy. I alone do not agree with you. You, like a Rhetor, intend to overwhelm me and gain your cause, by calling a multitude of witnesses: I shall prove my case without calling any other witness than yourself.27 Do you think that Archelaus would have been a happy man, if he had been defeated in his conspiracy and punished? Polus. — Certainly not: he would then have been very miserable. Sokr. — Here again I differ from you: I think that Archelaus, or any other wicked man, is under all circumstances miserable; but he is less miserable, if afterwards punished, than he would be if unpunished and successful.28 Polus. — How say you? If a man, unjustly conspiring to become despot, be captured, subjected to torture, mutilated, with his eyes burnt out and with many other outrages inflicted, not only upon himself but upon his wife and children — do you say that he will be more happy than if he succeeded in his enterprise, and passed his life in possession of undisputed authority over his city — envied and extolled as happy, by citizens and strangers alike?29 Sokr. — More happy, I shall not say: for in both cases he will be miserable; but he will be less miserable on the former supposition.

Sokrates offers proof — Definition of Pulchrum and Turpe — Proof of the first point.

Sokr. — Which of the two is worst: to do wrong, or to suffer wrong? Polus. — To suffer wrong. Sokr. — Which of the two is the most disgraceful? Polus. — To do wrong. Sokr. — If more ugly and disgraceful, is it not then worse? Polus. — By no means. Sokr. — You do not think then that the good — and the fine or honourable — are one and the same; nor the bad — and the ugly or disgraceful? Polus. — No: certainly not. Sokr. — How is this? Are not all fine or honourable things, such as bodies, colours, figures, voices, pursuits, &c., so denominated from some common property? Are not fine bodies said to be fine, either from rendering some useful service, or from affording some pleasure to the spectator who contemplates them?30 And are not figures, colours, voices, laws, sciences, &c., called fine or honourable for the same reason, either for their agreeableness or their usefulness, or both? Polus. — Certainly: your definition of the fine or honourable, by reference to pleasure, or to good, is satisfactory. Sokr. — Of course therefore the ugly or disgraceful must be defined by the contrary, by reference to pain or to evil? Polus. — Doubtless.31 Sokr. — If therefore one thing be finer or more honourable than another, this is because it surpasses the other either in pleasure, or in profit: if one thing be more ugly or disgraceful than another, it must surpass that other either in pain, or in evil? Polus. — Yes.

Proof of the second point.

The criminal labours under a mental distemper, which though not painful, is a capital evil. Punishment is the only cure for him. To be punished is best for him.

Sokr. — Now let us take the second point — Whether it be the greatest evil for the wrong-doer to be punished, or whether it be not a still greater evil for him to remain unpunished. If punished, the wrong-doer is of course punished justly; and are not all just things fine or honourable, in so far as they are just? Polus. — I think so. Sokr. — When a man does anything, must there not be some correlate which suffers; and must it not suffer in a way corresponding to what the doer does? Thus if any one strikes, there must also be something stricken: and if he strikes quickly or violently, there must be something which is stricken quickly or violently. And so, if any one burns or cuts, there must be something burnt or cut. As the agent acts, so the patient suffers. Polus. — Yes. Sokr. — Now if a man be punished for wrong doing, he suffers what is just, and the punisher does what is just? Polus. — He does. Sokr. — You admitted that all just things were honourable: therefore the agent does what is honourable, the patient suffers what is honourable.33 But if honourable, it must be either agreeable — or good and profitable. In this case, it is certainly not agreeable: it must therefore be good and profitable. The wrong-doer therefore, when punished, suffers what is good and is profited. Polus. — Yes.34 Sokr. — In what manner is he profited? It is, as I presume, by becoming better in his mind — by being relieved from badness of mind. Polus. — Probably. Sokr. — Is not this badness of mind the greatest evil? In regard to wealth, the special badness is poverty: in regard to the body, it is weakness, sickness, deformity, &c.: in regard to the mind, it is ignorance, injustice, cowardice, &c. Is not injustice, and other badness of mind, the most disgraceful of the three? Polus. — Decidedly. Sokr. — If it be most disgraceful, it must therefore be the worst. Polus. — How? Sokr. — It must (as we before agreed) have the greatest preponderance either of pain, or of hurt and evil. But the preponderance is not in pain: for no one will say that the being unjust and intemperate and ignorant, is more painful than being poor and sick. The preponderance must therefore be great in hurt and evil. Mental badness is therefore a greater evil than either poverty, or disease and bodily deformity. It is the greatest of human evils. Polus. — It appears so.35

Misery of the Despot who is never punished. If our friend has done wrong, we ought to get him punished: if our enemy, we ought to keep him unpunished.

Sokr. — The money-making art is, that which relieves us from poverty: the medical art, from sickness and weakness: the judicial or punitory, from injustice and wickedness of mind. Of these three relieving forces, which is the most honourable? Polus. — The last, by far. Sokr. — If most honourable, it confers either most pleasure or most profit? Polus. — Yes. Sokr. — Now, to go through medical treatment is not agreeable; but it answers to a man to undergo the pain, in order to get rid of a great evil, and to become well. He would be a happier man, if he were never sick: he is less miserable by undergoing the painful treatment and becoming well, than if he underwent no treatment and remained sick. Just so the man who is mentally bad: the happiest man is he who never becomes so; but if a man has become so, the next best course for him is, to undergo punishment and to get rid of the evil. The worst lot of all is, that of him who remains mentally bad, without ever getting rid of badness.36

Argument of Sokrates paradoxical — Doubt expressed by Kallikles whether he means it seriously.

This dialogue between Sokrates and Polus exhibits a representation of Platonic Ethics longer and more continuous than is usual in the dialogues. I have therefore given a tolerably copious abridgment of it, and shall now proceed to comment upon its reasoning.

Principle laid down by Sokrates — That every one acts with a view to the attainment of happiness and avoidance of misery.

Peculiar view taken by Plato of Good — Evil — Happiness.

Plato has ranked the Rhetor in the same category as the Despot: a classification upon which I shall say something presently. But throughout the part of the dialogue just extracted, he treats the original question about Rhetoric as part of a much larger ethical question.43 Every one (argues Sokrates) wishes for the attainment of good and for the avoidance of evil. Every one performs each separate act with a view not to its own immediate end, but to one or other of these permanent ends. In so far as he attains them, he is happy: in so far as he either fails in attaining the good, or incurs the evil, he is unhappy or miserable. The good and honourable man or woman is happy, the unjust and wicked is miserable. Power acquired or employed unjustly, is no boon to the possessor: for he does not thereby obtain what he really wishes, good or happiness; but incurs the contrary, evil and misery. The man who does wrong is more miserable than he who suffers wrong: but the most miserable of all is he who does wrong and then remains unpunished for it.44

Contrast of the usual meaning of these words, with the Platonic meaning.

Examination of the proof given by Sokrates — Inconsistency between the general answer of Polus and his previous declarations — Law and Nature.

Plato distinguishes two general objects of human desire, and two of human aversion. 1. The immediate, and generally transient, object — Pleasure or the Pleasurable — Pain or the Painful. 2. The distant, ulterior, and more permanent object — Good or the profitable — Evil or the hurtful. — In the attainment of Good and avoidance of Evil consists happiness. But now comes the important question — In what sense are we to understand the words Good and Evil? What did Plato mean by them? Did he mean the same as mankind generally? Have mankind generally one uniform meaning? In answer to this question, we must say, that neither Plato, nor mankind generally, are consistent or unanimous in their use of the words: and that Plato sometimes approximates to, sometimes diverges from, the more usual meaning. Plato does not here tell us clearly what he himself means by Good and Evil: he specifies no objective or external mark by which we may know it: we learn only, that Good is a mental perfection — Evil a mental taint — answering to indescribable but characteristic sentiments in Plato’s own mind, and only negatively determined by this circumstance — That they have no reference either to pleasure or pain. In the vulgar sense, Good stands distinguished from pleasure (or relief from pain), and Evil from pain (or loss of pleasure), as the remote, the causal, the lasting from the present, the product, the transient. Good and Evil are explained by enumerating all the things so called, of which enumeration Plato gives a partial specimen in this dialogue: elsewhere he dwells upon what he calls the Idea of Good, of which I shall speak more fully hereafter. Having said that all men aim at good, he gives, as examples of good things — Wisdom, Health, Wealth, and other such things: while the contrary of these, Stupidity, Sickness, Poverty, are evil things: the list of course might be much enlarged. Taking Good and Evil generally to denote the common property of each of these lists, it is true that men perform a large portion of their acts with a view to attain the former and avoid the latter:—that the approach which they make to happiness depends, speaking generally, upon the success which attends their exertions for the attainment of and avoidance of these permanent ends: and moreover that these ends have their ultimate reference to each man’s own feelings.

The definition of Pulchrum and Turpe, given by Sokrates, will not hold.

Sokrates provides a basis for his intended proof by asking Polus,45 which of the two is most disgraceful — To do wrong — or to suffer wrong? Polus answers — To do wrong: and this answer is inconsistent with what he had previously said about Archelaus. That prince, though a wrong-doer on the largest scale, has been declared by Polus to be an object of his supreme envy and admiration: while Sokrates also admits that this is the sentiment of almost all mankind, except himself. To be consistent with such an assertion, Polus ought to have answered the contrary of what he does answer, when the general question is afterwards put to him: or at least he ought to have said — “Sometimes the one, sometimes the other”. But this he is ashamed to do, as we shall find Kallikles intimating at a subsequent stage of the dialogue:46 because of King Nomos, or the established habit of the community — who feel that society rests upon a sentiment of reciprocal right and obligation animating every one, and require that violations of that sentiment shall be marked with censure in general words, however widely the critical feeling may depart from such censure in particular cases.47 Polus is forced to make profession of a faith, which neither he nor others (except Sokrates with a few companions) universally or consistently apply. To bring such a force to bear upon the opponent, was one of the known artifices of dialecticians:48 and Sokrates makes it his point of departure, to prove the unparalleled misery of Archelaus.

Worse or better — for whom? The argument of Sokrates does not specify. If understood in the sense necessary for his inference, the definition would be inadmissible.

Plato applies to every one a standard of happiness and misery peculiar to himself. His view about the conduct of Archelaus is just, but he does not give the true reasons for it.

But worse, for whom? For the spectators, who declare the proceedings of Archelaus to be disgraceful? For the persons who suffer by his proceedings? Or for Archelaus himself? It is the last of the three which Sokrates undertakes to prove: but his definition does not help him to the proof. Turpe is defined to be either what causes immediate pain to the spectator, or ulterior hurt — to whom? If we say to the spectator — the definition will not serve as a ground of inference to the condition of the agent contemplated. If on the other hand, we say — to the agent — the definition so understood becomes inadmissible: as well for other reasons, as because there are a great many Turpia which are not agents at all, and which the definition therefore would not include. Either therefore the definition given by Sokrates is a bad one — or it will not sustain his conclusion. And thus, on this very important argument, where Sokrates admits that he stands alone, and where therefore the proof would need to be doubly cogent — an argument too where the great cause (so Adam Smith terms it) of the corruption of men’s moral sentiments has to be combated — Sokrates has nothing to produce except premisses alike far-fetched and irrelevant. What increases our regret is, that the real arguments establishing the turpitude of Archelaus and his acts are obvious enough, if you look for them in the right direction. You discover nothing while your eye is fixed on Archelaus himself: far from presenting any indications of misery, which Sokrates professes to discover, he has gained much of what men admire as good wherever they see it. But when you turn to the persons whom he has killed, banished, or ruined — to the mass of suffering which he has inflicted — and to the widespread insecurity which such acts of successful iniquity spread through all societies where they become known — there is no lack of argument to justify that sentiment which prompts a reflecting spectator to brand him as a disgraceful man. This argument however is here altogether neglected by Plato. Here, as elsewhere, he looks only at the self-regarding side of Ethics.

If the reasoning of Plato were true, the point of view in which punishment is considered would be reversed.

Sokrates proceeds next to prove — That the wrong-doer who remains unpunished is more miserable than if he were punished. The wrong-doer (he argues) when punished suffers what is just: but all just things are honourable: therefore he suffers what is honourable. But all honourable things are so called because they are either agreeable, or profitable, or both together. Punishment is certainly not agreeable: it must therefore be profitable or good. Accordingly the wrong-doer when justly punished suffers what is profitable or good. He is benefited, by being relieved of mental evil or wickedness, which is a worse evil than either bodily sickness or poverty. In proportion to the magnitude of this evil, is the value of the relief which removes it, and the superior misery of the unpunished wrong-doer who continues to live under it.50

Plato pushes too far the analogy between mental distemper and bodily distemper — Material difference between the two — Distemper must be felt by the distempered persons.

Throughout the whole of this dialogue, Plato intimates decidedly how great a paradox the doctrine maintained by Sokrates must appear: how diametrically it was opposed to the opinion not merely of the less informed multitude, but of the wiser and more reflecting citizen — even such a man as Nikias. Indeed it is literally exact — what Plato here puts into the mouth of Kallikles — that if the doctrine here advocated by Sokrates were true, the whole of social life would be turned upside down.51 If, for example, it were true, as Plato contends, — That every man who commits a crime, takes upon him thereby a terrible and lasting distemper, incurable except by the application of punishment, which is the specific remedy in the case — every theory of punishment would, literally speaking, be turned upside down. The great discouragement from crime would then consist in the fear of that formidable distemper with which the criminal was sure to inoculate himself: and punishment, instead of being (as it is now considered, and as Plato himself represents it in the Protagoras) the great discouragement to the commission of crime, would operate in the contrary direction. It would be the means of removing or impairing the great real discouragement to crime: and a wise legislator would hesitate to inflict it. This would be nothing less than a reversal of the most universally accepted political or social precepts (as Kallikles is made to express himself).

Kallikles begins to argue against Sokrates — he takes a distinction between Just by Law and Just by nature — Reply of Sokrates, that there is no variance between the two, properly understood.

It will indeed be at once seen, that the taint or distemper with which Archelaus is supposed to inoculate himself, when he commits signal crime — is a pure fancy or poetical metaphor on the part of Plato himself.52 A distemper must imply something painful, enfeebling, disabling, to the individual who feels it: there is no other meaning: we cannot recognise a distemper, which does not make itself felt in any way by the distempered person. Plato is misled by his ever-repeated analogy between bodily health and mental health: real, on some points — not real on others. When a man is in bad bodily health, his sensations warn him of it at once. He suffers pain, discomfort, or disabilities, which leave no doubt as to the fact: though he may not know either the precise cause, or the appropriate remedy. Conversely, in the absence of any such warnings, and in the presence of certain positive sensations, he knows himself to be in tolerable or good health. If Sokrates and Archelaus were both in good bodily health, or both in bad bodily health, each would be made aware of the fact by analogous evidences. But by what measure are we to determine when a man is in a good or bad mental state? By his own feelings? In that case, Archelaus and Sokrates are in a mental state equally good: each is satisfied with his own. By the judgment of by-standers? Archelaus will then be the better of the two: at least his admirers and enviers will outnumber those of Sokrates. By my judgment? If my opinion is asked, I agree with Sokrates: though not on the grounds which he here urges, but on other grounds. Who is to be the ultimate referee — the interests or security of other persons, who have suffered or are likely to suffer by Archelaus, being by the supposition left out of view?

What Kalliklês says is not to be taken as a sample of the teachings of Athenian sophists. Kalliklês — rhetor and politician.

Here, then, we commence with Kallikles: who interposes, to take up the debate with Sokrates. Polus (says Kallikles), from deference to the opinions of mankind, has erroneously conceded the point — That it is more disgraceful to do wrong, than to suffer wrong. This is indeed true (continues Kallikles), according to what is just by law or convention, that is, according to the general sentiment of mankind: but it is not true, according to justice by nature, or natural justice. Nature and Law are here opposed.53 The justice of Nature is, that among men (as among other animals) the strong individual should govern and strip the weak, taking and keeping as much as he can grasp. But this justice will not suit the weak, who are the many, and who defeat it by establishing a different justice — justice according to law — to curb the strong man, and prevent him from having more than his fair share.54 The many, feeling their own weakness, and thankful if they can only secure a fair and equal division, make laws and turn the current of praise and blame for their own protection, in order to deter the strong man from that encroachment and oppression to which he is disposed. The just according to law is thus a tutelary institution, established by the weak to defend themselves against the just according to nature. Nature measures right by might, and by nothing else: so that according to the right of nature, suffering wrong is more disgraceful than doing wrong. Hêraklês takes from Geryon his cattle, by the right of nature or of the strongest, without either sale or gift.55

Uncertainty of referring to Nature as an authority. It may be pleaded in favour of opposite theories. The theory of Kalliklês is made to appear repulsive by the language in which he expresses it.

Several commentators have contended, that the doctrine which Plato here puts into the mouth of Kalliklês was taught by the Sophists at Athens: who are said to have inculcated on their hearers that true wisdom and morality consisted in acting upon the right of the strongest and taking whatever they could get, without any regard to law or justice. I have already endeavoured to show, in my History of Greece, that the Sophists cannot be shown to have taught either this doctrine, or any other common doctrine: that one at least among them (Prodikus) taught a doctrine inconsistent with it: and that while all of them agreed in trying to impart rhetorical accomplishments, or the power of handling political, ethical, judicial, matters in a manner suitable for the Athenian public — each had his own way of doing this. Kalliklês is not presented by Plato as a Sophist, but as a Rhetor aspiring to active political influence; and taking a small dose of philosophy, among the preparations for that end.57 He depreciates the Sophists as much as the philosophers, and in fact rather more.58 Moreover Plato represents him as adapting himself, with accommodating subservience, to the Athenian public assembly, and saying or unsaying exactly as they manifested their opinion.59 Now the Athenian public assembly would repudiate indignantly all this pretended right of the strongest, if any orator thought fit to put it forward as over-ruling established right and law. Any aspiring or subservient orator, such as Kalliklês is described, would know better than to address them in this strain. The language which Plato puts into the mouth of Kalliklês is noway consistent with the attribute which he also ascribes to him — slavish deference to the judgments of the Athenian Dêmos.

Sokrates maintains that self-command and moderation is requisite for the strong man as well as for others. Kalliklês defends the negative.

Kalliklês is made to speak like one who sympathises with the right of the strongest, and who decorates such iniquity with the name and authority of that which he calls Nature. But this only shows the uncertainty of referring to Nature as an authority.60 It may be pleaded in favour of different and opposite theories. Nature prompts the strong man to take from weaker men what will gratify his desires: Nature also prompts these weaker men to defeat him and protect themselves by the best means in their power. The many are weaker, taken individually — stronger taken collectively: hence they resort to defensive combination, established rules, and collective authority.61 The right created on one side, and the opposite right created on the other, flow alike from Nature: that is, from propensities and principles natural, and deeply seated, in the human mind. The authority of Nature, considered as an enunciation of actual and wide-spread facts, may be pleaded for both alike. But a man’s sympathy and approbation may go either with the one or the other; and he may choose to stamp that which he approves, with the name of Nature as a personified law-maker. This is what is here done by Kalliklês as Plato exhibits him.62 He sympathises with, and approves, the powerful individual. Now the greater portion of mankind are, and always have been, governed upon this despotic principle, and brought up to respect it: while many, even of those who dislike Kalliklês because they regard him as the representative of Athenian democracy (to which however his proclaimed sentiments stand pointedly opposed), when they come across a great man or so-called hero, such as Alexander or Napoleon, applaud the most exorbitant ambition if successful, and if accompanied by military genius and energy — regarding communities as made for little else except to serve as his instruments, subjects, and worshippers. Such are represented as the sympathies of Kalliklês: but those of the Athenians went with the second of the two rights — and mine go with it also. And though the language which Plato puts into the mouth of Kalliklês, in describing this second right, abounds in contemptuous rhetoric, proclaiming offensively the individual weakness of the multitude63 — yet this very fact is at once the most solid and most respectable foundation on which rights and obligations can be based. The establishment of them is indispensable, and is felt as indispensable, to procure security for the community: whereby the strong man whom Kalliklês extols as the favourite of Nature, may be tamed by discipline and censure, so as to accommodate his own behaviour to this equitable arrangement.64 Plato himself, in his Republic,65 traces the generation of a city to the fact that each man individually taken is not self-sufficing, but stands in need of many things: it is no less true, that each man stands also in fear of many things, especially of depredations from animals, and depredations from powerful individuals of his own species. In the mythe of Protagoras,66 we have fears from hostile animals — in the speech here ascribed to Kalliklês, we have fears from hostile strong men — assigned as the generating cause, both of political communion and of established rights and obligations to protect it.

Whether the largest measure of desires is good for a man, provided he has the means of satisfying them? Whether all varieties of desire are good? Whether the pleasurable and the good are identical?

Kalliklês now explains, that by stronger men, he means better, wiser, braver men. It is they (he says) who ought, according to right by nature, to rule over others and to have larger shares than others. Sokr. — Ought they not to rule themselves as well as others:67 to control their own pleasures and desires: to be sober and temperate? Kall. — No, they would be foolish if they did. The weak multitude must do so; and there grows up accordingly among them a sentiment which requires such self-restraint from all. But it is the privilege of the superior few to be exempt from this necessity. The right of nature authorises them to have the largest desires, since their courage and ability furnish means to satisfy the desires. It would be silly if a king’s son or a despot were to limit himself to the same measure of enjoyment with which a poor citizen must be content; and worse than silly if he did not enrich his friends in preference to his enemies. He need not care for that public law and censure which must reign paramount over each man among the many. A full swing of enjoyment, if a man has power to procure and maintain it, is virtue as well as happiness.68

Kalliklês maintains that pleasurable and good are identical. Sokrates refutes him. Some pleasures are good, others bad. A scientific adviser is required to discriminate them.

Sokr. — I think on the contrary that a sober and moderate life, regulated according to present means and circumstances, is better than a life of immoderate indulgence.69 Kall. — The man who has no desires will have no pleasure, and will live like a stone. The more the desires, provided they can all be satisfied, the happier a man will be. Sokr. — You mean that a man shall be continually hungry, and continually satisfying his hunger: continually thirsty, and satisfying his thirst; and so forth. Kall. — By having and by satisfying those and all other desires, a man will enjoy happiness. Sokr. — Do you mean to include all varieties of desire and satisfaction of desire: such for example as itching and scratching yourself:70 and other bodily appetites which might be named? Kall. — Such things are not fit for discussion. Sokr. — It is you who drive me to mention them, by laying down the principle, that men who enjoy, be the enjoyment of what sort it may, are happy; and by not distinguishing what pleasures are good and what are evil. Tell me again, do you think that the pleasurable and the good are identical? Or are there any pleasurable things which are not good?71 Kall. — I think that the pleasurable and the good are the same.

Contradiction between Sokrates in the Gorgias, and Sokrates in the Protagoras.

Views of critics about this contradiction.

This debate between Sokrates and Kalliklês, respecting the “Quomodo vivendum est,”74 deserves attention on more than one account. In the first place, the relation which Sokrates is here made to declare between the two pairs of general terms, Pleasurable — Good: Painful — Evil: is the direct reverse of that which he both declares and demonstrates in the Protagoras. In that dialogue, the Sophist Protagoras is represented as holding an opinion very like that which is maintained by Sokrates in the Gorgias. But Sokrates (in the Protagoras) refutes him by an elaborate argument; and demonstrates that pleasure and good (also pain and evil) are names for the same fundamental ideas under different circumstances: pleasurable and painful referring only to the sensation of the present moment — while good and evil include, besides, an estimate of its future consequences and accompaniments, both pleasurable and painful, and represent the result of such calculation. In the Gorgias, Sokrates demonstrates the contrary, by an argument equally elaborate but not equally convincing. He impugns a doctrine advocated by Kalliklês, and in impugning it, proclaims a marked antithesis and even repugnance between the pleasurable and the good, the painful and the evil: rejecting the fundamental identity of the two, which he advocates in the Protagoras, as if it were a disgraceful heresy.

Comparison and appreciation of the reasoning of Sokrates in both dialogues.

Distinct statement in the Protagoras. What are good and evil, and upon what principles the scientific adviser is to proceed in discriminating them. No such distinct statement in the Gorgias.

That in the list of pleasures there are some which it is proper to avoid, — and in the list of pains, some which it is proper to accept or invite — is a doctrine maintained by Sokrates alike in both the dialogues. Why? Because some pleasures are good, others bad: some pains bad, others good — says Sokrates in the Gorgias. The same too is said by Sokrates in the Protagoras; but then, he there explains what he means by the appellation. All pleasure (he there says), so far as it goes, is good — all pain is bad. But there are some pleasures which cannot be enjoyed without debarring us from greater pleasures or entailing upon us greater pains: on that ground therefore, such pleasures are bad. So again, there are some pains, the suffering of which is a condition indispensable to our escaping greater pains, or to our enjoying greater pleasures: such pains therefore are good. Thus this apparent exception does not really contradict, but confirms, the general doctrine — That there is no good but the pleasurable, and the elimination of pain — and no evil except the painful, or the privation of pleasure. Good and evil have no reference except to pleasures and pains; but the terms imply, in each particular case, an estimate and comparison of future pleasurable and painful consequences, and express the result of such comparison. “You call enjoyment itself evil” (says Sokrates in the Protagoras),75 “when it deprives us of greater pleasures or entails upon us greater pains. If you have any other ground, or look to any other end, in calling it evil, you may tell us what that end is; but you will not be able to tell us. So too, you say that pain is a good, when it relieves us from greater pains, or when it is necessary as the antecedent cause of greater pleasures. If you have any other end in view, when you call pain good, you may tell us what that end is; but you will not be able to tell us.”76

Modern ethical theories. Intuition. Moral sense — not recognised by Plato in either of the dialogues.

In the Gorgias, too, Sokrates declares that some pleasures are good, others bad — some pains bad, others good. But here he stops. He does not fulfil the reasonable demand urged by Sokrates in the Protagoras — “If you make such a distinction, explain the ground on which you make it, and the end to which you look“. The distinction in the Gorgias stands without any assigned ground or end to rest upon. And this want is the more sensibly felt, when we read in the same dialogue, that — “It is not every man who can distinguish the good pleasures from the bad: a scientific man, proceeding on principle, is needed for the purpose”.77 But upon what criterion is the scientific man to proceed? Of what properties is he to take account, in pronouncing one pleasure to be bad, another good — or one pain to be bad and another good — the estimate of consequences, measured in future pleasures and pains, being by the supposition excluded? No information is given. The problem set to the scientific man is one of which all the quantities are unknown. Now Sokrates in the Protagoras78 also lays it down, that a scientific or rational calculation must be had, and a mind competent to such calculation must be postulated, to decide which pleasures are bad or fit to be rejected — which pains are good, or proper to be endured. But then he clearly specifies the elements which alone are to be taken into the calculation — viz., the future pleasures and pains accompanying or dependent upon each with the estimate of their comparative magnitude and durability. The theory of this calculation is clear and intelligible: though in many particular cases, the data necessary for making it, and the means of comparing them, may be very imperfectly accessible.

In both dialogues the doctrine of Sokrates is self-regarding as respects the agent: not considering the pleasures and pains of other persons, so far as affected by the agent.

According to various ethical theories, which have chiefly obtained currency in modern times, the distinction — between pleasures good or fit to be enjoyed, and pleasures bad or unfit to be enjoyed — is determined for us by a moral sense or intuition: by a simple, peculiar, sentiment of right and wrong, or a conscience, which springs up within us ready-made, and decides on such matters without appeal; so that a man has only to look into his own heart for a solution. We need not take account of this hypothesis, in reviewing Plato’s philosophy: for he evidently does not proceed upon it. He expressly affirms, in the Gorgias as well as in the Protagoras, that the question is one requiring science or knowledge to determine it, and upon which none but the man of science or expert (τεχνικὸς) is a competent judge.

Points wherein the doctrine of the two dialogues is in substance the same, but differing in classification.

Kalliklês, whom Sokrates refutes in the Gorgias, maintains a different argument from that which Sokrates combats in the Protagoras.

There are however various points of analogy between the Protagoras and the Gorgias, which will enable us, after tracing them out, to measure the amount of substantial difference between them; I speak of the reasoning of Sokrates in each. Thus, in the Protagoras,80 Sokrates ranks health, strength, preservation of the community, wealth, command, &c., under the general head of Good things, but expressly on the ground that they are the producing causes and conditions of pleasures and of exemption from pains: he also ranks sickness and poverty under the head of Evil things, as productive causes of pain and suffering. In the Gorgias also, he numbers wisdom, health, strength, perfection of body, riches, &c., among Good things or profitable things81 — (which two words he treats as equivalent) — and their contraries as Evil things. Now he does not expressly say here (as in the Protagoras) that these things are good, because they are productive causes of pleasure or exemption from pain: but such assumption must evidently be supplied in order to make the reasoning valid. For upon what pretence can any one pronounce strength, health, riches, to be good — and helplessness, sickness, poverty, to be evil — if no reference be admitted to pleasures and pains? Sokrates in the Gorgias82 declares that the pleasures of eating and drinking are good, in so far as they impart health and strength to the body — evil, in so far as they produce a contrary effect. Sokrates in the Protagoras reasons in the same way — but with this difference — that he would count the pleasure of the repast itself as one item of good: enhancing the amount of good where the future consequences are beneficial, diminishing the amount of evil where the future consequences are Unfavourable: while Sokrates in the Gorgias excludes immediate pleasure from the list of good things, and immediate pain from the list of evil things.

The refutation of Kalliklês by Sokrates in the Gorgias, is unsuccessful — it is only so far successful as he adopts unintentionally the doctrine of Sokrates in the Protagoras.

Each of the two dialogues, which I am now comparing, is in truth an independent composition: in each, Sokrates has a distinct argument to combat; and in the latest of the two (whichever that was), no heed is taken of the argumentation in the earlier. In the Protagoras, he exalts the dignity and paramount force of knowledge or prudence: if a man knows how to calculate pleasures and pains, he will be sure to choose the result which involves the greater pleasure or the less pain, on the whole: to say that he is overpowered by immediate pleasure or pain into making a bad choice, is a wrong description — the real fact being, that he is deficient in the proper knowledge how to choose. In the Gorgias, the doctrine assigned to Kalliklês and impugned by Sokrates is something very different. That justice, temperance, self-restraint, are indeed indispensable to the happiness of ordinary men; but if there be any one individual, so immensely superior in force as to trample down and make slaves of the rest, this one man would be a fool if he restrained himself: having the means of gratifying all his appetites, the more appetites he has, the more enjoyments will he have and the greater happiness.84 Observe — that Kalliklês applies this doctrine only to the one omnipotent despot: to all other members of society, he maintains that self-restraint is essential. This is the doctrine which Sokrates in the Gorgias undertakes to refute, by denying community of nature between the pleasurable and the good — between the painful and the evil.

Permanent elements — and transient elements — of human agency — how each of them is appreciated in the two dialogues.

To me his refutation appears altogether unsuccessful, and the position upon which he rests it incorrect. The only parts of the refutation really forcible, are those in which he unconsciously relinquishes this position, and slides into the doctrine of the Protagoras. Upon this latter doctrine, a refutation might be grounded: you may show that even an omnipotent despot (regard for the comfort of others being excluded by the hypothesis) will gain by limiting the gratification of his appetites to-day so as not to spoil his appetites of tomorrow. Even in his case, prudential restraint is required, though his motives for it would be much less than in the case of ordinary social men. But Good, as laid down by Plato in the Gorgias, entirely disconnected from pleasure — and Evil, entirely disconnected from pain — have no application to this supposed despot. He has no desire for such Platonic Good — no aversion for such Platonic Evil. His happiness is not diminished by missing the former or incurring the latter. In fact, one of the cardinal principles of Plato’s ethical philosophy, which he frequently asserts both in this dialogue and elsewhere,85 — That every man desires Good, and acts for the sake of obtaining Good, and avoiding Evil — becomes untrue, if you conceive Good and Evil according to the Gorgias, as having no reference to pleasure or the avoidance of pain: untrue, not merely in regard to a despot under these exceptional conditions, but in regard to the large majority of social men. They desire to obtain Good and avoid Evil, in the sense of the Protagoras: but not in the sense of the Gorgias.86 Sokrates himself proclaims in this dialogue: “I and philosophy stand opposed to Kalliklês and the Athenian public. What I desire is, to reason consistently with myself.” That is, to speak the language of Sokrates in the Protagoras — “To me, Sokrates, the consciousness of inconsistency with myself and of an unworthy character, the loss of my own self-esteem and the pungency of my own self-reproach, are the greatest of all pains: greater than those which you, Kalliklês, and the Athenians generally, seek to avoid at all price and urge me also to avoid at all price — poverty, political nullity, exposure to false accusation, &c.”87 The noble scheme of life, here recommended by Sokrates, may be correctly described according to the theory of the Protagoras: without any resort to the paradox of the Gorgias, that Good has no kindred or reference to Pleasure, nor Evil to Pain.

In the Protagoras.

In the Gorgias.

Now in the Protagoras, the permanent element is very pointedly distinguished from the transient, and is called Knowledge — the Science or Art of Calculation. Its function also is clearly announced — to take comparative estimate and measurement of the transient elements; which are stated to consist of pleasures and pains, present and future — near and distant — certain and uncertain — faint and strong. To these elements, manifold yet commensurable, the calculation is to apply. “The safety of life” (says Sokrates88) “resides in our keeping up this science or art of calculation.” No present enjoyment must be admitted, which would impair it; no present pain must be shunned, which is essential to uphold it. Yet the whole of its value resides in its application to the comparison of the pleasures and pains.

Character of the Gorgias generally — discrediting all the actualities of life.

In the Protagoras, these calculable elements are two-fold — immediate pleasures and pains — and future or distant pleasures and pains. Between these two there is intercommunity of nature, so that they are quite commensurable; and the function of the calculating reason is, to make a right estimate of the one against the other.90 But in the Gorgias, no mention is made of future or distant pleasures and pains: the calculable element is represented only by immediate pleasure or pain — and from thence we pass at once to the permanent calculator — the mind, sound or corrupt. You must abstain from a particular enjoyment, because it will taint the soundness of your mind: this is a pertinent reason (and would be admitted as such by Sokrates in the Protagoras, who instead of sound mind would say, calculating intelligence), but it is neither the ultimate reason (since this soundness of mind is itself valuable with a view to future calculations), nor the only reason: for you must also abstain, if it will bring upon yourself (or upon others) preponderating pains in the particular case — if the future pains would preponderate over the present pleasure. Of this last calculation no notice is taken in the Gorgias: which exhibits only the antithesis (not merely marked but even over-done91) between the immediate pleasure or pain and the calculating efficacy of mind, but leaves out the true function which gives value to the sound mind as distinguished from the unsound and corrupt. That function consists in its application to particular cases: in right dealing with actual life, as regards the agent himself and others: in ἐνεργεία, as distinguished from ἕξις, to use Aristotelian language.92 I am far from supposing that this part of the case was absent from Plato’s mind. But the theory laid out in the Gorgias (as compared with that in the Protagoras) leaves no room for it; giving exclusive prominence to the other elements, and acknowledging only the present pleasure or pain, to be set against the permanent condition of mind, bad or good as it may be.

Argument of Sokrates resumed — multifarious arts of flattery, aiming at immediate pleasure.

Indeed there is nothing more remarkable in the Gorgias, than the manner in which Sokrates not only condemns the unmeasured, exorbitant, maleficent desires, but also depreciates and degrades all the actualities of life — all the recreative and elegant arts, including music and poetry, tragic as well as dithyrambic — all provision for the most essential wants, all protection against particular sufferings and dangers, even all service rendered to another person in the way of relief or of rescue93 — all the effective maintenance of public organised force, such as ships, docks, walls, arms, &c. Immediate satisfaction or relief, and those who confer it, are treated with contempt, and presented as in hostility to the perfection of the mental structure. And it is in this point of view that various Platonic commentators extol in an especial manner the Gorgias: as recognising an Idea of Good superhuman and supernatural, radically disparate from pleasures and pains of any human being, and incommensurable with them: an Universal Idea, which, though it is supposed to cast a distant light upon its particulars, is separated from them by an incalculable space, and is discernible only by the Platonic telescope.

The Rhetors aim at only flattering the public — even the best past Rhetors have done nothing else — citation of the four great Rhetors by Kallikles.

Necessity for temperance, regulation, order. This is the condition of virtue and happiness.

Sokr. — Do you know any public speakers who aim at anything more than gratifying the public, or who care to make the public better? Kall. — There are some who do, and others who do not. Sokr. — Which are those who do? and which of them has ever made the public better?96 Kall. — At any rate, former statesmen did so; such as Miltiades, Themistokles, Kimon, Perikles. Sokr. — None of them. If they had, you would have seen them devoting themselves systematically and obviously to their one end. As a builder labours to construct a ship or a house, by putting together its various parts with order and symmetry — so these statesmen would have laboured to implant order and symmetry in the minds and bodies of the citizens: that is, justice and temperance in their minds, health and strength in their bodies.97 Unless the statesman can do this, it is fruitless to supply the wants, to fulfil the desires and requirements, to uphold or enlarge the power, of the citizens. This is like supplying ample nourishment to a distempered body: the more such a body takes in, the worse it becomes. The citizens must be treated with refusal of their wishes and with punishment, until their vices are healed, and they become good.98

Impossible to succeed in public life, unless a man be thoroughly akin to and in harmony with the ruling force.

Danger of one who dissents from the public, either for better or for worse.

Sokrates resolves upon a scheme of life for himself — to study permanent good, and not immediate satisfaction.

Kall. — But if he does not liken himself to the despot, the despot may put him to death, if he chooses? Sokr. — Perhaps he may: but it will be death inflicted by a bad man upon a good man.104 To prolong life is not the foremost consideration, but to decide by rational thought what is the best way of passing that length of life which the Fates allot.105 Is it my best plan to do as you recommend, and to liken myself as much as possible to the Athenian people — in order that I may become popular and may acquire power in the city? For it will be impossible for you to acquire power in the city, if you dissent from the prevalent political character and practice, be it for the better or for the worse. Even imitation will not be sufficient: you must be, by natural disposition, homogeneous with the Athenians, if you intend to acquire much favour with them. Whoever makes you most like to them, will help you forward most towards becoming an effective statesman and speaker: for every assembly delight in speeches suited to their own dispositions, and reject speeches of an opposite tenor.106

Sokrates announces himself as almost the only man at Athens, who follows out the true political art. Danger of doing this.

Such are the essential conditions of political success and popularity. But I, Kalliklês, have already distinguished two schemes of life; one aiming at pleasure, the other aiming at good: one, that of the statesman who studies the felt wants, wishes, and impulses of the people, displaying his genius in providing for them effective satisfaction — the other, the statesman who makes it his chief or sole object to amend the character and disposition of the people. The last scheme is the only one which I approve: and if it be that to which you invite me, we must examine whether either you, Kallikles, or I, have ever yet succeeded in amending or improving the character of any individuals privately, before we undertake the task of amending the citizens collectively.107 None of the past statesmen whom you extol, Miltiades, Kimon, Themistokles, Perikles, has produced any such amendment.108 Considered as ministers, indeed, they were skilful and effective; better than the present statesmen. They were successful in furnishing satisfaction to the prevalent wants and desires of the citizens: they provided docks, walls, ships, tribute, and other such follies, abundantly:109 but they did nothing to amend the character of the people — to transfer the desires of the people from worse things to better things — or to create in them justice and temperance. They thus did no real good by feeding the desires of the people: no more good than would be done by a skilful cook for a sick man, in cooking for him a sumptuous meal before the physician had cured him.

Mythe respecting Hades, and the treatment of deceased persons therein, according to their merits during life — the philosopher who stood aloof from public affairs, will then be rewarded.

Peculiar ethical views of Sokrates — Rhetorical or dogmatical character of the Gorgias.

Sokrates then winds up the dialogue, by reciting a Νέκυια, a mythe or hypothesis about judgment in Hades after death, and rewards and punishments to be apportioned to deceased men, according to their merits during life, by Rhadamanthus and Minos. The greatest sufferers by these judgments (he says) will be the kings, despots, and men politically powerful, who have during their lives committed the greatest injustices, — which indeed few of them avoid.113 The man most likely to fare well and to be rewarded, will be the philosopher, “who has passed through life minding his own business, and not meddling with the affairs of others”.114

He merges politics in Ethics — he conceives the rulers as spiritual teachers and trainers of the community.

Idéal of Plato — a despotic lawgiver or man-trainer, on scientific principles, fashioning all characters pursuant to certain types of his own.

The argument of Sokrates in the Gorgias is interesting, not merely as extolling the value of ethical self-restraint, but also as considering political phenomena under this point of view: that is, merging politics in ethics. The proper and paramount function of statesmen (we find it eloquently proclaimed) is to serve as spiritual teachers in the community: for the purpose of amending the lives and characters of the citizens, and of converting them from bad dispositions to good. We are admonished that until this is effected, more is lost than gained by realising the actual wants and wishes of the community, which are disorderly and distempered: like the state of a sick man, who would receive harm and not benefit from a sumptuous banquet.

Platonic analogy between mental goodness and bodily health — incomplete analogy — circumstances of difference.

Sokrates in the Gorgias speaks like a dissenter among a community of fixed opinions and habits. Impossible that a dissenter, on important points, should acquire any public influence.

Plato forgets two important points of difference, in that favourite and very instructive analogy which he perpetually reproduces, between mental goodness and bodily health. First, good health and strength of the body (as I have observed already) are states which every man knows when he has got them. Though there is much doubt and dispute about causes, preservative, destructive, and restorative, there is none about the present fact. Every sick man derives from his own sensations an anxiety to get well. But virtue is not a point thus fixed, undisputed, indubitable: it is differently conceived by different persons, and must first be discovered and settled by a process of enquiry; the Platonic Sokrates himself, in many of the dialogues — after declaring that neither he nor any one else within his knowledge, knows what it is — tries to find it out without success. Next, the physician, who is the person actively concerned in imparting health and strength, exercises no coercive power over any one: those who consult him have the option whether they will follow the advice given, or not. To put himself upon the same footing with the physician, the political magistrate ought to confine himself to the function of advice; a function highly useful, but in which he will be called upon to meet argumentative opposition, and frequent failure, together with the mortification of leaving those whom he cannot convince, to follow their own mode of life. Here are two material differences, modifying the applicability of that very analogy on which Plato so frequently rests his proof.

Sokrates feels his own isolation from his countrymen. He is thrown upon individual speculation and dialectic.

In Plato’s two imaginary commonwealths, where he is himself despotic law-giver, there would have been no tolerable existence possible for any one not shaped upon the Platonic spiritual model. But in the Gorgias, Plato (speaking in the person of Sokrates) is called upon to define his plan of life in a free state, where he was merely a private citizen. Sokrates receives from Kallikles the advice, to forego philosophy and to aspire to the influence and celebrity of an active public speaker. His reply is instructive, as revealing the interior workings of every political society. No man (he says) can find favour as an adviser — either of a despot, where there is one, or of a people where there is free government — unless he be in harmony with the sentiments and ideas prevalent, either with the ruling Many or the ruling One. He must be moulded, from youth upwards, on the same spiritual pattern as they are:117 his love and hate, his praise and blame, must turn towards the same things: he must have the same tastes, the same morality, the same idéal, as theirs: he must be no imitator, but a chip of the same block. If he be either better than they or worse than they,118 he will fail in acquiring popularity, and his efforts as a competitor for public influence will be not only abortive, but perhaps dangerous to himself.

Antithesis between philosophy and rhetoric.

Position of one who dissents, upon material points, from the fixed opinions and creed of his countrymen.

Herein consists the real antithesis between Sokrates, Plato, and philosophy, on the one side — Perikles, Nikias, Kleon, Demosthenes, and rhetoric, on the other. “You,” (says Sokrates to Kalliklês),120 “are in love with the Athenian people, and take up or renounce such opinions as they approve or discountenance: I am in love with philosophy, and follow her guidance. You and other active politicians do not wish to have more than a smattering of philosophy; you are afraid of becoming unconsciously corrupted, if you carry it beyond such elementary stage.”121 Each of these orators, discussing political measures before the public assembly, appealed to general maxims borrowed from the received creed of morality, religion, taste, politics, &c. His success depended mainly on the emphasis which his eloquence could lend to such maxims, and on the skill with which he could apply them to the case in hand. But Sokrates could not follow such an example. Anxious in his research after truth, he applied the test of analysis to the prevalent opinions — found them, in his judgment, neither consistent nor rational — constrained many persons to feel this, by an humiliating cross-examination — but became disqualified from addressing, with any chance of assent, the assembled public.

Probable feelings of Plato on this subject. Claim put forward in the Gorgias of an independent locus standi for philosophy, but without the indiscriminate cross-examination pursued by Sokrates.

That in order to succeed politically, a man must be a genuine believer in the creed of King Nomos or the ruling force — cast in the same spiritual mould — (I here take the word creed not as confined to religion, but as embracing the whole of a man’s critical idéal, on moral or social practice, politics, or taste — the ends which he deems worthy of being aspired to, or proper to be shunned, by himself or others) is laid down by Sokrates as a general position: and with perfect truth. In disposing of the force or influence of government, whoever possesses that force will use it conformably to his own maxims. A man who dissents from these maxims will find no favour in the public assembly; nor, probably, if his dissent be grave and wide, will he ever be able to speak out his convictions aloud in it, without incurring dangerous antipathy. But what is to become of such a dissenter122 — the man who frequents the same porticos with the people, but does not hold the same creed, nor share their judgments respecting social expetenda and fugienda? How is he to be treated by the government, or by the orthodox majority of society in their individual capacity? Debarred, by the necessity of the case, from influence over the public councils — what latitude of pursuit, profession, or conduct, is to be left to him as a citizen? How far is he to question, or expose, or require to be proved, that which the majority believe without proof? Shall he be required to profess, or to obey, or to refrain from contradicting, religious or ethical doctrines which he has examined and rejected? Shall such requirement be enforced by threat of legal penalties, or of ill-treatment from individuals, which is not less intolerable than legal penalties? What is likely to be his character, if compelled to suppress all declaration of his own creed, and to act and speak as if he were believer in another?

Importance of maintaining the utmost liberty of discussion. Tendency of all ruling orthodoxy towards intolerance.

The questions here suggested must have impressed themselves forcibly on the mind of Plato when he recollected the fate of Sokrates. In spite of a blameless life, Sokrates had been judicially condemned and executed for publicly questioning received opinions, innovating upon the established religion, and instilling into young persons habits of doubt. To dissent only for the better, afforded no assurance of safety: and Plato knew well that his own dissent from the Athenian public was even wider and more systematic than that of his master. The position and plan of life for an active-minded reasoner, dissenting from the established opinions of the public, could not but be an object of interesting reflection to him.123 The Gorgias (written, in my judgment, long after the death of Sokrates, probably after the Platonic school was established) announces the vocation of the philosopher, and claims an open field for speculation, apart from the actualities of politics — for the self-acting reason of the individual doubter and investigator, against the authority of numbers and the pressure of inherited tradition. A formal assertion to this effect was worthy of the founder of the Academy — the earliest philosophical school at Athens. Yet we may observe that while the Platonic Sokrates in the Gorgias adopts the life of philosophy, he does not renew that farther demand with which the historical Sokrates had coupled it in his Apology — the liberty of oral and aggressive cross-examination, addressed to individuals personally and indiscriminately124 — to the primores populi as well as to the populum tributim. The fate of Sokrates rendered Plato more cautious, and induced him to utter his ethical interrogations and novelties of opinion in no other way except that of lectures to chosen hearers and written dialogue: borrowing the name of Sokrates or some other speaker, and refraining upon system (as his letters125 tell us that he did) from publishing any doctrines in his own name.

Issue between philosophy and rhetoric — not satisfactorily handled by Plato. Injustice done to rhetoric. Ignoble manner in which it is presented by Polus and Kalliklês.

As a man dissenting from received opinions, Sokrates had his path marked out in the field of philosophy or individual speculation. To such a mind as his, the fullest liberty ought to be left, of professing and defending his own opinions, as well as of combating other opinions, accredited or not, which he may consider false or uncertified.126 The public guidance of the state thus falls to one class of minds, the activity of speculative discussion to another; though accident may produce, here and there, a superior individual, comprehensive or dexterous enough to suffice for both. But the main desideratum is that this freedom of discussion should exist: that room shall be made, and encouragement held out, to the claims of individual reason, and to the full publication of all doubts or opinions, be they what they may: that the natural tendency of all ruling force, whether in few or in many hands, to perpetuate their own dogmas by proscribing or silencing all heretics and questioners, may be neutralised as far as possible. The great expansive vigour of the Greek mind — the sympathy felt among the best varieties of Greeks for intellectual superiority in all its forms — and the privilege of free speech (παῤῥησία), on which the democratical citizens of Athens prided themselves — did in fact neutralise very considerably these tendencies in Athens. A greater and more durable liberty of philosophising was procured for Athens, and through Athens for Greece generally, than had ever been known before in the history of mankind.

Perikles would have accepted the defence of rhetoric, as Plato has put it into the mouth of Gorgias.

This antithesis of the philosophical life to the rhetorical or political, constitutes one of the most interesting features of the Platonic Gorgias. But when we follow the pleadings upon which Plato rests this grand issue, and the line which he draws between the two functions, we find much that is unsatisfactory. Since Plato himself pleads both sides of the case, he is bound in fairness to set forth the case which he attacks (that of rhetoric), as it would be put by competent and honourable advocates — by Perikles, for example, or Demosthenes, or Isokrates, or Quintilian. He does this, to a certain extent, in the first part of the dialogue, carried on by Sokrates with Gorgias. But in the succeeding portions — carried on with Pôlus and Kalliklês, and occupying three-fourths of the whole — he alters the character of the defence, and merges it in ethical theories which Perikles, had he been the defender, would not only have put aside as misplaced, but disavowed as untrue. Perikles would have listened with mixed surprise and anger, if he had heard any one utter the monstrous assertion which Plato puts into the mouth of Polus — That rhetors, like despots, kill, impoverish, or expel any citizen at their pleasure. Though Perikles was the most powerful of all Athenian rhetors, yet he had to contend all his life against fierce opposition from others, and was even fined during his last years. He would hardly have understood how an Athenian citizen could have made any assertion so completely falsified by all the history of Athens, respecting the omnipotence of the rhetors. Again, if he had heard Kalliklês proclaiming that the strong giant had a natural right to satiate all his desires at the cost of the weaker Many — and that these latter sinned against Nature when they took precautions to prevent him — Perikles would have protested against the proclamation as emphatically as Plato.127

The Athenian people recognise a distinction between the pleasurable and the good: but not the same as that which Plato conceived.

If we suppose Perikles to have undertaken the defence of the rhetorical element at Athens, against the dialectic element represented by Sokrates, he would have accepted it, though not a position of his own choosing, on the footing on which Plato places it in the mouth of Gorgias: “Rhetoric is an engine of persuasion addressed to numerous assembled auditors: it ensures freedom to the city (through the free exercise of such a gift by many competing orators) and political ascendency or command to the ablest rhetor. It thus confers great power on him who possesses it in the highest measure: but he ought by no means to employ that power for unjust purposes.” It is very probable that Perikles might have recommended rhetorical study to Sokrates, as a means of defending himself against unjust accusations, and of acquiring a certain measure of influence on public affairs.128 But he would have distinguished carefully (as Horace does) between defending yourself against unjust attacks, and making unjust attacks upon others: though the same weapon may suit for both.

Rhetoric was employed at Athens in appealing to all the various established sentiments and opinions. Erroneous inferences raised by the Kalliklês of Plato.

Farther, neither Perikles, nor any defender of free speech, would assent to the definition of rhetoric — That it is a branch of the art of flattery, studying the immediately pleasurable, and disregarding the good.129 This indeed represents Plato’s own sentiment, and was true in the sense which the Platonic Sokrates assigns (in the Gorgias, though not in the Protagoras) to the words good and evil. But it is not true in the sense which the Athenian people and the Athenian public men assigned to those words. Both the one and the other used the words pleasurable and good as familiarly as Plato, and had sentiments corresponding to both of them. The pleasurable and painful referred to present and temporary causes: the Good and Evil to prospective causes and permanent situations, involving security against indefinite future suffering, combined with love of national dignity and repugnance to degradation, as well as with a strong sense of common interests and common obligations to each other. To provide satisfaction for these common patriotic feelings — to sustain the dignity of the city by effective and even imposing public establishments, against foreign enemies — to protect the individual rights of citizens by an equitable administration of justice — counted in the view of the Athenians as objects good and honourable: while the efforts and sacrifices necessary for these permanent ends, were, so far as they went, a renunciation of what they would call the pleasurable. When, at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, the Athenians, acting on the advice of Perikles, allowed all Attica to be ravaged, and submitted to the distress of cooping the whole population within the long walls, rather than purchase peace by abnegating their Hellenic dignity, independence, and security — they not only renounced much that was pleasurable, but endured great immediate distress, for the sake of what they regarded as a permanent good.130 Eighty years afterwards, when Demosthenes pointed out to them the growing power and encroachments of the Macedonian Philip, and exhorted them to the efforts requisite for keeping back that formidable enemy, while there was yet time — they could not be wound up to the pitch requisite for affronting so serious an amount of danger and suffering. They had lost that sense of Hellenic dignity, and that association of self-respect with active personal soldiership and sailorship, which rendered submission to an enemy the most intolerable of all pains, at the time when Perikles had addressed them. They shut their eyes to an impending danger, which ultimately proved their ruin. On both these occasions, we have the pleasurable and the good brought into contrast in the Athenian mind; in both we have the two most eminent orators of Grecian antiquity enforcing the good in opposition to the pleasurable: the first successfully, the last vainly, in opposition to other orators.

The Platonic Idéal exacts, as good, some order, system, discipline. But order may be directed to bad ends as well as to good. Divergent ideas about virtue.

Lastly, it is not merely the political power of the Athenians that Perikles employs his eloquence to uphold. He dwells also with emphasis on the elegance of taste, on the intellectual force and activity, which warranted him in decorating the city with the title of Preceptress of Hellas.131 All this belongs, not to the pleasurable as distinguished from the good, but to good (whether immediately pleasurable or not) in its most comprehensive sense, embracing the improvement and refinement of the collective mind. If Perikles, in this remarkable funeral harangue, flattered the sentiments of the people — as he doubtless did — he flattered them by kindling their aspirations towards good. And Plato himself does the same (though less nobly and powerfully), adopting the received framework of Athenian sentiment, in his dialogue called Menexenus, which we shall come to in a future chapter.

How to discriminate the right order from the wrong. Plato does not advise us.

The issue, therefore, which Plato here takes against Rhetoric, must stand or fall with the Platonic Idéal of Good and Evil. But when he thus denounces both the general public and the most patriotic rhetors, to ensure exclusive worship for his own Idéal of Good — we may at least require that he shall explain, wherein consists that Good — by what mark it is distinguishable — and on what authority pre-eminence is claimed for it. So far, indeed, we advance by the help of Plato’s similes132 — order, discipline, health and strength of body — that we are called upon to recognise, apart from all particular moments of enjoyment or suffering, of action or quiescence, a certain permanent mental condition and habit — a certain order, regulation, discipline — as an object of high importance to be attained. This (as I have before remarked) is a valuable idea which pervades, in one form or another, all the Hellenic social views, from Sokrates downward, and even before Sokrates; an idea, moreover, which was common to Peripatetics, Stoics, Epikureans. But mental order and discipline is not in itself an end: it may be differently cast, and may subserve many different purposes. The Pythagorean brotherhood was intensely restrictive in its canons. The Spartan system exhibited the strictest order and discipline — an assemblage of principles and habits predetermined by authority and enforced upon all — yet neither Plato nor Aristotle approve of its results. Order and discipline attained full perfection in the armies of Julius Caesar and the French Emperor Napoleon; in the middle ages, also, several of the monastic orders stood high in respect to finished discipline pervading the whole character: and the Jesuits stood higher than any. Each of these systems has included terms equivalent to justice, temperance, virtue, vice, &c., with sentiments associated therewith, yet very different from what Plato would have approved. The question — What is Virtue? — Vir bonus est quis? — will be answered differently in each. The Spartans — when they entrapped (by a delusive pretence of liberation and military decoration) two thousand of their bravest Helot warriors, and took them off by private assassinations,133 — did not offend against their own idea of virtue, or against the Platonic exigency of Order — Measure — System.

The Gorgias upholds the independence and dignity of the dissenting philosopher.

The Phædon is affirmative and expository.

Situation and circumstances assumed in the Phædon. Pathetic interest which they inspire.

Simmias and Kebês, the two collocutors with Sokrates. Their feelings and those of Sokrates.

The interest felt by most readers in the Phædon, however, depends, not so much on the argumentative exposition (which Wyttenbach2 justly pronounces to be obscure and difficult as well as unsatisfactory) as on the personality of the expounding speaker, and the irresistible pathos of the situation. Sokrates had been condemned to death by the Dikastery on the day after the sacred ship, memorable in connection with the legendary voyage of Theseus to Krete, had been dispatched on her annual mission of religious sacrifice at the island of Delos. The Athenian magistrates considered themselves as precluded from putting any one to death by public authority, during the absence of the ship on this mission. Thirty days elapsed between her departure and her return: during all which interval, Sokrates remained in the prison, yet with full permission to his friends to visit him. They passed most of every day in the enjoyment of his conversation.3 In the Phædon, we read the last of these conversations, after the sacred vessel had returned, and after the Eleven magistrates had announced to Sokrates that the draught of hemlock would be administered to him before sunset. On communicating this intelligence, the magistrates released Sokrates from the fetters with which he had hitherto been bound. It is shortly after such release that the friends enter the prison to see him for the last time. One of the number, Phædon, recounts to Echekratês not only the conduct and discourse of Sokrates during the closing hours of his life, but also the swallowing of the poison, and the manner of his death.

Emphasis of Sokrates in insisting on freedom of debate, active exercise of reason, and independent judgment for each reasoner.

More than fifteen friends of the philosopher are noted as present at this last scene: but the only two who take an active part in the debate, are, two young Thebans named Kebês and Simmias.4 These friends, though deeply attached to Sokrates, and full of sorrow at the irreparable loss impending over them, are represented as overawed and fascinated by his perfect fearlessness, serenity and dignity.5 They are ashamed to give vent to their grief, when their master is seen to maintain his ordinary frame of mind, neither disquieted nor dissatisfied. The fundamental conception of the dialogue is, to represent Sokrates as the same man that he was before his trial; unmoved by the situation — not feeling that any misfortune is about to happen to him — equally delighting in intellectual debate — equally fertile in dialectic invention. So much does he care for debate, and so little for the impending catastrophe, that he persists in a great argumentative effort, notwithstanding the intimation conveyed by Kriton from the gaoler, that if he heated himself with talking, the poison might perhaps be languid in its operation, so that two or three draughts of it would be necessary instead of one.6 Sokrates even advances the position that death appears to him as a benefit rather than a misfortune, and that every true philosopher ought to prefer death to life, assuming it to supervene without his own act — suicide being forbidden by the Gods. He is represented as “placidus ore, intrepidus verbis; intempestivas suorum lacrimas coercens” — to borrow a phrase from Tacitus’s striking picture of the last hours of the Emperor Otho.7 To see him thus undisturbed, and even welcoming his approaching end, somewhat hurts the feelings of his assembled friends, who are in the deepest affliction at the certainty of so soon losing him. Sokrates undertakes to defend himself before them as he had done before the Dikasts; and to show good grounds for his belief, that death is not a misfortune, but a benefit, to the philosopher.8 Simmias and Kebês, though at first not satisfied with the reasonings, are nevertheless reluctant to produce their doubts, from fear of mortifying him in his last moments: but Sokrates protests against such reluctance as founded on a misconception of his existing frame of mind.9 He is now the same man as he was before, and he calls upon them to keep up the freedom of debate unimpaired.

Anxiety of Sokrates that his friends shall be on their guard against being influenced by his authority — that they shall follow only the convictions of their own reason.

Indeed this freedom of debate and fulness of search — the paramount value of “reasoned truth” — the necessity of keeping up the force of individual reason by constant argumentative exercise — and the right of independent judgment for hearer as well as speaker — stand emphatically proclaimed in these last words of the dying philosopher. He does not announce the immortality of the soul as a dogma of imperative orthodoxy; which men, whether satisfied with the proofs or not, must believe, or must make profession of believing, on pain of being shunned as a moral pestilence, and disqualified from giving testimony in a court of justice. He sets forth his own conviction, with the grounds on which he adopts it. But he expressly recognises the existence of dissentient opinions: he invites his companions to bring forward every objection: he disclaims all special purpose of impressing his own conclusions upon their minds: nay, he expressly warns them not to be biassed by their personal sympathies, then wound up to the highest pitch, towards himself. He entreats them to preserve themselves from becoming tinged with misology, or the hatred of free argumentative discussion: and he ascribes this mental vice to the early habit of easy, uninquiring, implicit, belief: since a man thus ready of faith, embracing opinions without any discriminative test, presently finds himself driven to abandon one opinion after another, until at last he mistrusts all opinions, and hates the process of discussing them, laying the blame upon philosophy instead of upon his own intellect.10

Remarkable manifestation of earnest interest for reasoned truth and the liberty of individual dissent.

“For myself” (says Sokrates) “I fear that in these my last hours I depart from the true spirit of philosophy — like unschooled men, who, when in debate, think scarcely at all how the real question stands, but care only to make their own views triumphant in the minds of the auditors. Between them and me there is only thus much of difference. I regard it as a matter of secondary consequence, whether my conclusions appear true to my hearers; but I shall do my best to make them appear as much as possible true to myself.11 My calculation is as follows: mark how selfish it is. If my conclusion as to the immortality of the soul is true, I am better off by believing it: if I am in error, and death be the end of me, even then I shall avoid importuning my friends with grief, during these few remaining hours: moreover my error will not continue with me — which would have been a real misfortune — but will be extinguished very shortly. Such is the frame of mind, Simmias and Kebês, with which I approach the debate. Do you follow my advice: take little thought of Sokrates, but take much more thought of the truth. If I appear to you to affirm any thing truly, assent to me: but if not, oppose me with all your powers of reasoning: Be on your guard lest, through earnest zeal, I should deceive alike myself and you, and should leave the sting in you, like a bee, at this hour of departure.”

Phædon and Symposion — points of analogy and contrast.

This is a remarkable passage, as illustrating the spirit and purpose of Platonic dialogues. In my preceding Chapters, I have already shown, that it is no part of the aim of Sokrates to thrust dogmas of his own into other men’s minds as articles of faith. But then, most of these Chapters have dwelt upon Dialogues of Search, in which Sokrates has appeared as an interrogator, or enquirer jointly with others: scrutinising their opinions, but disclaiming knowledge or opinions of his own. Here, however, in the Phædon, the case is altogether different. Sokrates is depicted as having not only an affirmative opinion, but even strong conviction, on a subject of great moment: which conviction, moreover, he is especially desirous of preserving unimpaired, during his few remaining hours of life. Yet even here, he manifests no anxiety to get that conviction into the minds of his friends, except as a result of their own independent scrutiny and self-working reason. Not only he does not attempt to terrify them into believing, by menace of evil consequences if they do not — but he repudiates pointedly even the gentler machinery of conversion, which might work upon their minds through attachment to himself and reverence for his authority. His devotion is to “reasoned truth”: he challenges his friends to the fullest scrutiny by their own independent reason: he recognises the sentence which they pronounce afterwards as valid for them, whether concurrent with himself or adverse. Their reason is for them, what his reason is for him: requiring, both alike (as Sokrates here proclaims), to be stimulated as well as controlled by all-searching debate — but postulating equal liberty of final decision for each one of the debaters. The stress laid by Plato upon the full liberty of dissenting reason, essential to philosophical debate — is one of the most memorable characteristics of the Phædon. When we come to the treatise De Legibus (where Sokrates does not appear), we shall find a totally opposite view of sentiment. In the tenth book of that treatise Plato enforces the rigid censorship of an orthodox persecutor, who makes his own reason binding and compulsory on all.

Phædon — compared with Republic and Timæus. No recognition of the triple or lower souls. Antithesis between soul and body.

The natural counterpart and antithesis to the Phædon, is found in the Symposion.12 In both, the personality of Sokrates stands out with peculiar force: in the one, he is in the fulness of life and enjoyment, along with festive comrades — in the other, he is on the verge of approaching death, surrounded by companions in deep affliction. The point common to both, is, the perfect self-command of Sokrates under a diversity of trying circumstances. In the Symposion, we read of him as triumphing over heat, cold, fatigue, danger, amorous temptation, unmeasured potations of wine, &c.:13 in the Phædon, we discover him rising superior to the fear of death, and to the contagion of an afflicted company around him. Still, his resolute volition is occasionally overpowered by fits of absorbing meditation, which seize him at moments sudden and unaccountable, and chain him to the spot for a long time. There is moreover, in both dialogues, a streak of eccentricity in his character, which belongs to what Plato calls the philosophical inspiration and madness, rising above the measure of human temperance and prudence.14 The Phædon depicts in Sokrates the same intense love of philosophy and dialectic debate, as the Symposion and Phædrus: but it makes no allusion to that personal attachment, and passionate admiration of youthful beauty, with which, according to those two dialogues, the mental fermentation of the philosophical aspirant is asserted to begin.15 Sokrates in the Phædon describes the initial steps whereby he had been led to philosophical study:16 but the process is one purely intellectual, without reference to personal converse with beloved companions, as a necessity of the case. His discourse is that of a man on the point of death — “abruptis vitæ blandimentis”17 — and he already looks upon his body, not as furnishing the means of action and as requiring only to be trained by gymnastic discipline (as it appears in the Republic), but as an importunate and depraving companion, of which he is glad to get rid: so that the ethereal substance of the soul may be left to its free expansion and fellowship with the intelligible world, apart from sense and its solicitations.

Different doctrines of Plato about the soul. Whether all the three souls are immortal, or the rational soul alone.

We have here one peculiarity of the Phædon, whereby it stands distinguished both from the Republic and the Timæus. The antithesis on which it dwells is that of the soul or mind, on one hand — the body on the other. The soul or mind is spoken of as one and indivisible: as if it were an inmate unworthily lodged or imprisoned in the body. It is not distributed into distinct parts, kinds, or varieties: no mention is made of that tripartite distribution which is so much insisted on in the Republic and Timæus:— the rational or intellectual (encephalic) soul, located in the head — the courageous or passionate (thoracic), between the neck and the diaphragm — the appetitive (abdominal), between the diaphragm and the navel. In the Phædon, the soul is noted as the seat of reason, intellect, the love of wisdom or knowledge, exclusively: all that belongs to passion and appetite, is put to account of the body:18 this is distinctly contrary to the Philêbus, in which dialogue Sokrates affirms that desire or appetite cannot belong to the body, but belongs only to the soul. In Phædon, nothing is said about the location of the rational soul, in the head, — nor about the analogy between its rotations in the cranium and the celestial rotations (a doctrine which we read both in the Timæus and in the Republic): on the contrary, the soul is affirmed to have lost, through its conjunction with the body, that wisdom or knowledge which it possessed during its state of pre-existence, while completely apart from the body, and while in commerce with those invisible Ideas to which its own separate nature was cognate.19 That controul which in the Republic is exercised by the rational soul over the passionate and appetitive souls, is in the Phædon exercised (though imperfectly) by the one and only soul over the body.20 In the Republic and Timæus, the soul is a tripartite aggregate, a community of parts, a compound: in the Phædon, Sokrates asserts it to be uncompounded, making this fact a point in his argument.21 Again, in the Phædon, the soul is pronounced to be essentially uniform and incapable of change: as such, it is placed in antithesis with the body, which is perpetually changing: while we read, on the contrary, in the Symposion, that soul and body alike are in a constant and unremitting variation, neither one nor the other ever continuing in the same condition.22

The life and character of a philosopher is a constant struggle to emancipate his soul from his body. Death alone enables him to do this completely.

The difference which I have here noted shows how Plato modified his doctrine to suit the purpose of each dialogue. The tripartite soul would have been found inconvenient in the Phædon, where the argument required that soul and body should be as sharply distinguished as possible. Assuming passion and appetite to be attributes belonging to the soul, as well as reason — Sokrates will not shake them off when he becomes divorced from the body. He believes and expects that the post-existence of the soul will be, as its pre-existence has been, a rational existence — a life of intellectual contemplation and commerce with the eternal Ideas: in this there is no place for passion and appetite, which grow out of its conjunction with the body. The soul here represents Reason and Intellect, in commerce with their correlates, the objective Entia Rationis: the body represents passion and appetite as well as sense, in implication with their correlates, the objects of sensible perception.23 Such is the doctrine of the Phædon; but Plato is not always consistent with himself on the point. His ancient as well as his modern commentators are not agreed, whether, when he vindicated the immortality of the soul, he meant to speak of the rational soul only, or of the aggregate soul with its three parts as above described. There are passages which countenance both suppositions.24 Plato seems to have leaned sometimes to the one view, sometimes to the other: besides which, the view taken in the Phædon is a third, different from both — viz.: That the two non-rational souls, the passionate and appetitive, are not recognised as existing.

Souls of the ordinary or unphilosophical men pass after death into the bodies of different animals. The philosopher alone is relieved from all communion with body.

The philosopher (contends Sokrates) ought to rejoice when death comes to sever his soul altogether from his body: because he is, throughout all his life, struggling to sever himself from the passions, appetites, impulses and aspirations, which grow out of the body; and to withdraw himself from the perceptions of the corporeal senses, which teach no truth, and lead only to deceit or confusion: He is constantly attempting to do what the body hinders him from doing completely — to prosecute pure mental contemplation, as the only way of arriving at truth: to look at essences or things in themselves, by means of his mind or soul in itself apart from the body.25 Until his mind be purified from all association with the body, it cannot be brought into contact with pure essence, nor can his aspirations for knowledge be satisfied.26 Hence his whole life is really a training or approximative practice for death, which alone will enable him to realise such aspirations.27 Knowledge or wisdom is the only money in which he computes, and which he seeks to receive in payment.28 He is not courageous or temperate in the ordinary sense: for the courageous man, while holding death to be a great evil, braves it from fear of greater evils — and the temperate man abstains from various pleasures, because they either shut him out from greater pleasures, or entail upon him disease and poverty. The philosopher is courageous and temperate, but from a different motive: his philosophy purifies him from all these sensibilities, and makes him indifferent to all the pleasures and pains arising from the body: each of which, in proportion to its intensity, corrupts his perception of truth and falsehood, and misguides him in the search for wisdom or knowledge.29 While in the body, he feels imprisoned, unable to look for knowledge except through a narrow grating and by the deceptive media of sense. From this durance philosophy partially liberates him, — purifying his mind, like the Orphic or Dionysiac religious mysteries, from the contagion of body30 and sense: disengaging it, as far as may be during life, from sympathy with the body: and translating it out of the world of sense, uncertainty, and mere opinion, into the invisible region of truth and knowledge. If such purification has been fully achieved, the mind of the philosopher is at the moment of death thoroughly severed from the body, and passes clean away by itself, into commerce with the intelligible Entities or realities.

Special privilege claimed for philosophers in the Phædon apart from the virtuous men who are not philosophers.

On the contrary, the soul or mind of the ordinary man, which has undergone no purification and remains in close implication with the body, cannot get completely separated even at the moment of death, but remains encrusted and weighed down by bodily accompaniments, so as to be unfit for those regions to which mind itself naturally belongs. Such impure minds or souls are the ghosts or shadows which haunt tombs; and which become visible, because they cling to the visible world, and hate the invisible.31 Not being fit for separate existence, they return in process of time into conjunction with fresh bodies, of different species of men or animals, according to the particular temperament which they carry away with them.32 The souls of despots, or of violent and rapacious men, will pass into the bodies of wolves or kites: those of the gluttonous and drunkards, into asses and such-like animals. A better fate will be reserved for the just and temperate men, who have been socially and politically virtuous, but simply by habit and disposition, without any philosophy or pure intellect: for their souls will pass into the bodies of other gentle and social animals, such as bees, ants, wasps,33 &c., or perhaps they may again return into the human form, and may become moderate men. It is the privilege only of him who has undergone the purifying influence of philosophy, and who has spent his life in trying to detach himself as much as possible from communion with the body — to be relieved after death from the obligation of fresh embodiment, that his soul may dwell by itself in a region akin to its own separate nature: passing out of the world of sense, of transient phenomena, and of mere opinion, into a distinct world where it will be in full presence of the eternal Ideas, essences, and truth; in companionship with the Gods, and far away from the miseries of humanity.34

Simmias and Kebês do not admit readily the immortality of the soul, but are unwilling to trouble Sokrates by asking for proof. Unabated interest of Sokrates in rational debate.

Such is the creed which Sokrates announces to his friends in the Phædon, as supplying good reason for the readiness and satisfaction with which he welcomes death. It is upon the antithesis between soul (or mind) and body, that the main stress is laid. The partnership between the two is represented as the radical cause of mischief: and the only true relief to the soul consists in breaking up the partnership altogether, so as to attain a distinct, disembodied, existence. Conformably to this doctrine, the line is chiefly drawn between the philosopher, and the multitude who are not philosophers — not between good and bad agents, when the good agents are not philosophers. This last distinction is indeed noticed, but is kept subordinate. The unphilosophical man of social goodness is allowed to pass after death into the body of a bee, or an ant, instead of that of a kite or ass;35 but he does not attain the privilege of dissolving connection altogether with body. Moreover the distinction is one not easily traceable: since Sokrates36 expressly remarks that the large majority of mankind are middling persons, neither good nor bad in any marked degree. Philosophers stand in a category by themselves: apart from the virtuous citizens, as well as from the middling and the vicious. Their appetites and ambition are indeed deadened, so that they agree with the virtuous in abstaining from injustice: but this is not their characteristic feature. Philosophy is asserted to impart to them a special purification, like that of the Orphic mysteries to the initiated: detaching the soul from both the body and the world of sense, except in so far as is indispensable for purposes of life: replunging the soul, as much as possible, in the other world of intelligible essences, real forms or Ideas, which are its own natural kindred and antecedent companions. The process whereby this is accomplished is intellectual rather than ethical. It is the process of learning, or (in the sense of Sokrates) the revival in the mind of those essences or Ideas with which it had been familiar during its anterior and separate life: accompanied by the total abstinence from all other pleasures and temptations.37 Only by such love of learning, which is identical with philosophy (φιλόσοφον, φιλομαθὲς), is the mind rescued from the ignorance and illusions unavoidable in the world of sense.

Simmias and Kebês believe fully in the pre-existence of the soul, but not in its post-existence. Doctrine — That the soul is a sort of harmony — refuted by Sokrates.

Sokrates unfolds the intellectual changes or wanderings through which his mind had passed.

If the arguments whereby Sokrates proves the immortality of the soul are neither forcible nor conclusive, not fully satisfying even Simmias39 to whom they are addressed — the adverse arguments, upon the faith of which the doctrine was denied (as we know it to have been by many philosophers of antiquity), cannot be said to be produced at all. Simmias and Kebês are represented as Sokratic companions, partly Pythagoreans; desirous to find the doctrine true, yet ignorant of the proofs. Both of them are earnest believers in the pre-existence of the soul, and in the objective reality of Ideas or intelligible essences. Simmias however adopts in part the opinion, not very clearly explained, “That the soul is a harmony or mixture”: which opinion Sokrates refutes, partly by some other arguments, partly by pointing out that it is inconsistent with the supposition of the soul as pre-existent to the body, and that Simmias must make his election between the two. Simmias elects without hesitation, in favour of the pre-existence: which he affirms to be demonstrable upon premisses or assumptions perfectly worthy of trust: while the alleged harmony is at best only a probable analogy, not certified by conclusive reasons.40 Kebês again, while admitting that the soul existed before its conjunction with the present body, and that it is sufficiently durable to last through conjunction with many different bodies — still expresses his apprehension that though durable, it is not eternal. Accordingly, no man can be sure that his present body is not the last with which his soul is destined to be linked; so that immediately on his death, it will pass away into nothing. The opinion of Kebês is remarkable, inasmuch as it shows how constantly the metempsychosis, or transition of the soul from one body to another, was included in all the varieties of ancient speculation on this subject.41

First doctrine of Sokrates as to cause. Reasons why he rejected it.

Second doctrine. Hopes raised by the treatise of Anaxagoras.

“You compel me (says Sokrates) to discuss thoroughly the cause of generation and destruction.43 I will tell you, if you like, my own successive impressions on these subjects. When young, I was amazingly eager for that kind of knowledge which people call the investigation of Nature. I thought it matter of pride to know the causes of every thing — through what every thing is either generated, or destroyed, or continues to exist. I puzzled myself much to discover first of all such matters as these — Is it a certain putrefaction of the Hot and the Cold in the system (as some say), which brings about the nourishment of animals? Is it the blood through which we think — or air, or fire? Or is it neither one nor the other, but the brain, which affords to us sensations of sight, hearing, and smell, out of which memory and opinion are generated: then, by a like process, knowledge is generated out of opinion and memory when permanently fixed?44 I tried to understand destructions as well as generations, celestial as well as terrestrial phenomena. But I accomplished nothing, and ended by fancying myself utterly unfit for the enquiry. Nay — I even lost all the knowledge of that which I had before believed myself to understand. For example — From what cause does a man grow? At first, I had looked upon this as evident — that it was through eating and drinking: flesh being thereby added to his flesh, bone to his bone, &c. So too, when a tall and a short man were standing together, it appeared to me that the former was taller than the latter by the head — that ten were more than eight because two were added to them45 — that a rod of two cubits was greater than a rod of one cubit, because it projected beyond it by a half. Now — I am satisfied that I do not know the cause of any of these matters. I cannot explain why, when one is added to one, such addition makes them two; since in their separated state each was one. In this case, it is approximation or conjunction which is said to make the two: in another case, the opposite cause, disjunction, is said also to make two — when one body is bisected.46 How two opposite causes can produce the same effect — and how either conjunction or disjunction can produce two, where there were not two before — I do not understand. In fact, I could not explain to myself, by this method of research, the generation, or destruction, or existence, of any thing; and I looked out for some other method.

Disappointment because Anaxagoras did not follow out the optimistic principle into detail. Distinction between causes efficient and causes co-efficient.

“It was at this time that I heard a man reading out of a book, which he told me was the work of Anaxagoras, the affirmation that Nous (Reason, Intelligence) was the regulator and cause of all things. I felt great satisfaction in this cause; and I was convinced, that if such were the fact, Reason would ordain every thing for the best: so that if I wanted to find out the cause of any generation, or destruction, or existence, I had only to enquire in what manner it was best that such generation or destruction should take place. Thus a man was only required to know, both respecting himself and respecting other things, what was the best: which knowledge, however, implied that he must also know what was worse — the knowledge of the one and of the other going together.47 I thought I had thus found a master quite to my taste, who would tell me, first whether the earth was a disk or a sphere, and would proceed to explain the cause and the necessity why it must be so, by showing me how such arrangement was the best: next, if he said that the earth was in the centre, would proceed to show that it was best that the earth should be in the centre. Respecting the Sun, Moon, and Stars, I expected to hear the like explanation of their movements, rotations, and other phenomena: that is, how it was better that each should do and suffer exactly what the facts show. I never imagined that Anaxagoras, while affirming that they were regulated by Reason, would put upon them any other cause than this — that it was best for them to be exactly as they are. I presumed that, when giving account of the cause, both of each severally and all collectively, he would do it by setting forth what was best for each severally and for all in common. Such was my hope, and I would not have sold it for a large price.48 I took up eagerly the book of Anaxagoras, and read it as quickly as I could, that I might at once come to the knowledge of the better and worse.

Sokrates could neither trace out the optimistic principle for himself, nor find any teacher thereof. He renounced it, and embraced a third doctrine about cause.

“Now, it is this sort of cause which I would gladly put myself under any one’s teaching to learn. But I could neither find any teacher, nor make any way by myself. Having failed in this quarter, I took the second best course, and struck into a new path in search of causes.52 Fatigued with studying objects through my eyes and perceptions of sense, I looked out for images or reflections of them, and turned my attention to words or discourses.53 This comparison is indeed not altogether suitable: for I do not admit that he who investigates things through general words, has recourse to images, more than he who investigates sensible facts: but such, at all events, was the turn which my mind took. Laying down such general assumption or hypothesis as I considered to be the strongest, I accepted as truth whatever squared with it, respecting cause as well as all other matters. In this way I came upon the investigation of another sort of cause.54

He now assumes the separate existence of ideas. These ideas are the causes why particular objects manifest certain attributes.

Procedure of Sokrates if his hypothesis were impugned. He insists upon keeping apart the discussion of the hypothesis and the discussion of its consequences.

“I now assumed the separate and real existence of Ideas by themselves — The Good in itself or the Self-Good, Self-Beautiful, Great, and all such others. Look what follows next upon this assumption. If any thing else be beautiful, besides the Self-Beautiful, that other thing can only be beautiful because it partakes of the Self-Beautiful: and the same with regard to other similar Ideas. This is the only cause that I can accept: I do not understand those other ingenious causes which I hear mentioned.55 When any one tells me that a thing is beautiful because it has a showy colour or figure, I pay no attention to him, but adhere simply to my own affirmation, that nothing else causes it to be beautiful, except the presence or participation of the Self-Beautiful. In what way such participation may take place, I cannot positively determine. But I feel confident in affirming that it does take place: that things which are beautiful, become so by partaking in the Self-Beautiful; things which are great or little, by partaking in Greatness or Littleness. If I am told that one man is taller than another by the head, and that this other is shorter than the first by the very same (by the head), I should not admit the proposition, but should repeat emphatically my own creed, — That whatever is greater than another is greater by nothing else except by Greatness and through Greatness — whatever is less than another is less only by Littleness and through Littleness. For I should fear to be entangled in a contradiction, if I affirmed that the greater man was greater and the lesser man less by the head — First, in saying that the greater was greater and that the lesser was less, by the very same — Next, in saying that the greater man was greater by the head, which is itself small: it being absurd to maintain that a man is great by something small.56 Again, I should not say that ten is more than eight by two, and that this was the cause of its excess;57 my doctrine is, that ten is more than eight by Multitude and through Multitude: so the rod of two cubits is greater than that of one, not by half, but by Greatness. Again, when One is placed alongside of One, — or when one is bisected — I should take care not to affirm, that in the first case the juxtaposition, in the last case the bisection, was the cause why it became two.58 I proclaim loudly that I know no other cause for its becoming two except participation in the essence of the Dyad. What is to become two, must partake of the Dyad: what is to become one, of the Monad. I leave to wiser men than me these juxtapositions and bisections and other such refinements: I remain entrenched within the safe ground of my own assumption or hypothesis (the reality of these intelligible and eternal Ideas).

Exposition of Sokrates welcomed by the hearers. Remarks upon it.

“Suppose however that any one impugned this hypothesis itself? I should make no reply to him until I had followed out fully the consequences of it: in order to ascertain whether they were consistent with, or contradictory to, each other. I should, when the proper time came, defend the hypothesis by itself, assuming some other hypothesis yet more universal, such as appeared to me best, until I came to some thing fully sufficient. But I would not permit myself to confound together the discussion of the hypothesis itself, and the discussion of its consequences.59 This is a method which cannot lead to truth: though it is much practised by litigious disputants, who care little about truth, and pride themselves upon their ingenuity when they throw all things into confusion.” —

The philosophical changes in Sokrates all turned upon different views as to a true cause.

Problems and difficulties of which Sokrates first sought solution.

If we are to take that which precedes as a description of the philosophical changes of Plato himself, it differs materially from Aristotle: for no allusion is here made to the intercourse of Plato with Kratylus and other advocates of the doctrines of Herakleitus: which intercourse is mentioned by Aristotle61 as having greatly influenced the early speculations of Plato. Sokrates describes three different phases of his (or Plato’s) speculative point of view: all turning upon different conceptions of what constituted a true Cause. His first belief on the subject was, that which he entertained before he entered on physical and physiological investigations. It seemed natural to him that eating and drinking should be the cause why a young man grew taller: new bone and new flesh was added out of the food. So again, when a tall man appeared standing near to a short man, the former was tall by the head, or because of the head: ten were more than eight, because two were added on: the measure of two cubits was greater than that of one cubit, because it stretched beyond by one half. When one object was added on to another, the addition was the cause why they became two: when one object was bisected, this bisection was the cause why the one became two.

Expectations entertained by Sokrates from the treatise of Anaxagoras. His disappointment. His distinction between causes and co-efficients.

That which is interesting here to note, is the sort of Cause which first gave satisfaction to the speculative mind of Sokrates. In the instance of the growing youth, he notes two distinct facts, the earliest of which is (assuming certain other facts as accompanying conditions) the cause of the latest. But in most of the other instances, the fact is one which does not admit of explanation. Comparisons of eight men with ten men, of a yard with half a yard, of a tall man with a short man, are mental appreciations, beliefs, affirmations, not capable of being farther explained or accounted for: if any one disputes your affirmation, you prove it to him, by placing him in a situation to make the comparison for himself, or to go through the computation which establishes the truth of what you affirm. It is not the juxtaposition of eight men which makes them to be eight (they were so just as much when separated by ever so wide an interval): though it may dispose or enable the spectator to count them as eight. We may count the yard measure (whether actually bisected or not), either as one yard, or as two half yards, or as three feet, or thirty-six inches. Whether it be one, or two, or three, depends upon the substantive which we choose to attach to the numeral, or upon the comparison which we make (the unit which we select) on the particular occasion.

Sokrates imputes to Anaxagoras the mistake of substituting physical agencies in place of mental. This is the same which Aristophanes and others imputed to Sokrates.

With this description of Cause Sokrates grew dissatisfied when he extended his enquiries into physical and physiological problems. Is it the blood, or air, or fire, whereby we think? and such like questions. Such enquiries — into the physical conditions of mental phenomena — did really admit of some answer, affirmative, or negative. But Sokrates does not tell us how he proceeded in seeking for an answer: he only says that he failed so completely, as even to be disabused of his supposed antecedent knowledge. He was in this perplexity when he first heard of the doctrine of Anaxagoras. “Nous or Reason is the regulator and the cause of all things.” Sokrates interpreted this to mean (what it does not appear that Anaxagoras intended to assert)63 that the Kosmos was an animal or person64 having mind or Reason analogous to his own: that this Reason was an agent invested with full power and perpetually operative, so as to regulate in the best manner all the phenomena of the Kosmos; and that the general cause to be assigned for every thing was one and the same — “It is best thus”; requiring that in each particular case you should show how it was for the best. Sokrates took the type of Reason from his own volition and movements; supposing that all the agencies in the Kosmos were stimulated or checked by cosmical Reason for her purposes, as he himself put in motion his own bodily members. This conception of Cause, borrowed from the analogy of his own rational volition, appeared to Sokrates very captivating, though it had not been his own first conception. But he found that Anaxagoras, though proclaiming the doctrine as a principium or initiatory influence, did not make applications of it in detail; but assigned as causes, in most of the particular cases, those agencies which Sokrates considered to be subordinate and instrumental, as his own muscles were to his own volition. Sokrates will not allow such agencies to be called Causes: he says that they are only co-efficients indispensable to the efficacy of the single and exclusive Cause — Reason. But he tells us himself that most enquirers considered them as Causes; and that Anaxagoras himself produced them as such. Moreover we shall see Plato himself in the Timæus, while he repeats this same distinction between Causes Efficient and Causes Co-efficient — yet treats these latter as Causes also, though inferior in regularity and precision to the Demiurgic Nous.65

The supposed theory of Anaxagoras cannot be carried out, either by Sokrates himself or any one else. Sokrates turns to general words, and adopts the theory of ideas.

In truth, the complaint which Sokrates here raises against Anaxagoras — that he assigned celestial Rotation as the cause of phenomena, in place of a quasi-human Reason — is just the same as that which Aristophanes in the Clouds advances against Sokrates himself.66 The comic poet accuses Sokrates of displacing Zeus to make room for Dinos or Rotation. According to the popular religious belief, all or most of the agencies in Nature were personified, or supposed to be carried on by persons — Gods, Goddesses, Dæmons, Nymphs, &c., which army of independent agents were conceived, by some thinkers, as more or less systematised and consolidated under the central authority of the Kosmos itself. The causes of natural phenomena, especially of the grand and terrible phenomena, were supposed agents, conceived after the model of man, and assumed to be endowed with volition, force, affections, antipathies, &c.: some of them visible, such as Helios, Selênê, the Stars; others generally invisible, though showing themselves whenever it specially pleased them.67 Sokrates, as we see by the Platonic Apology, was believed by his countrymen to deny these animated agencies, and to substitute instead of them inanimate forces, not put in motion by the quasi-human attributes of reason, feeling and volition. The Sokrates in the Platonic Phædon, taken at this second stage of his speculative wanderings, not only disclaims such a doctrine, but protests against it. He recognises no cause except a Nous or Reason borrowed by analogy from that of which he was conscious within himself, choosing what was best for himself in every special situation.68 He tells us however that most of the contemporary philosophers dissented from this point of view. To them, such inanimate agencies were the sole and real causes, in one or other of which they found what they thought a satisfactory explanation.

Vague and dissentient meanings attached to the word Cause. That is a cause, to each man, which gives satisfaction to his inquisitive feelings.

It is however singular, that Sokrates, after he has extolled Anaxagoras for enunciating a grand general cause, and has blamed him only for not making application of it in detail, proceeds to state that neither he himself, nor any one else within his knowledge, could find the way of applying it, any more than Anaxagoras had done. If Anaxagoras had failed, no one else could do better. The facts before Sokrates could not be reconciled, by any way that he could devise, with his assumed principle of rational directing force, or constant optimistic purpose, inherent in the Kosmos. Accordingly he abandoned this track, and entered upon another: seeking a different sort of cause (τῆς αἰτίας τὸ εἶδος), not by contemplation of things, but by propositions and ratiocinative discourse. He now assumed as a principle an universal axiom or proposition, from which he proceeds to deduce consequences. The principle thus laid down is, That there exist substantial Ideas — universal Entia. Each of these Ideas communicates or imparts its own nature to the particulars which bear the same name: and such communion or participation is the cause why they are what they are. The cause why various objects are beautiful or great, is, because they partake of the Self-Beautiful or the Self-Great: the cause why they are two or three is, because they partake of the Dyad or the Triad.

Dissension and perplexity on the question. — What is a cause? revealed by the picture of Sokrates — no intuition to guide him.

Different notions of Plato and Aristotle about causation, causes regular and irregular. Inductive theory of causation, elaborated in modern times.

Last transition of the mind of Sokrates from things to words — to the adoption of the theory of ideas. Great multitude of ideas assumed, each fitting a certain number of particulars.

Ultimate appeal to hypothesis of extreme generality.

There is yet another point which deserves attention in this history given by Sokrates of the transitions of his own mind. His last transition is represented as one from things to words, that is, to general propositions:77 to the assumption in each case of an universal proposition or hypothesis calculated to fit that case. He does not seem to consider the optimistic doctrine, which he had before vainly endeavoured to follow out, as having been an hypothesis, or universal proposition assumed as true and as a principle from which to deduce consequences. Even if it were so, however, it was one and the same assumption intended to suit all cases: whereas the new doctrine to which he passed included many distinct assumptions, each adapted to a certain number of cases and not to the rest.78 He assumed an untold multitude of self-existent Ideas — The Self-Beautiful, Self-Just, Self-Great, Self-Equal, Self-Unequal, &c. — each of them adapted to a certain number of particular cases: the Self-Beautiful was assumed as the cause why all particular things were beautiful — as that, of which all and each of them partakes — and so of the rest.79 Plato then explains his procedure. He first deduced various consequences from this assumed hypothesis, and examined whether all of them were consistent or inconsistent with each other. If he detected inconsistencies (as e.g. in the last half of the Parmenidês), we must suppose (though Plato does not expressly say so) that he would reject or modify his fundamental assumption: if he found none, he would retain it. The point would have to be tried by dialectic debate with an opponent: the logical process of inference and counter-inference is here assumed to be trustworthy. But during this debate Plato would require his opponent to admit the truth of the fundamental hypothesis provisionally. If the opponent chose to impugn the latter, he must open a distinct debate on that express subject. Plato insists that the discussion of the consequences flowing from the hypothesis, shall be kept quite apart from the discussion on the credibility of the hypothesis itself. From the language employed, he seems to have had in view certain disputants known to him, by whom the two were so blended together as to produce much confusion in the reasoning.

Plato’s demonstration of the immortality of the soul rests upon the assumption of the Platonic ideas. Reasoning to prove this.

We here see where it was that Plato looked for full, indisputable, self-recommending and self-assuring, certainty and truth. Among the most universal propositions. He states the matter here as if we were to provide defence for an hypothesis less universal by ascending to another hypothesis more universal. This is illustrated by what he says in the Timæus — Propositions are cognate with the matter which they affirm: those whose affirmation is purely intellectual, comprising only matter of the intelligible world, or of genuine Essence, are solid and inexpugnable: those which take in more or less of the sensible world, which is a mere copy of the intelligible exemplar, become less and less trustworthy — mere probabilities. Here we have the Platonic worship of the most universal propositions, as the only primary and evident truths.81 But in the sixth and seventh books of the Republic, he delivers a precept somewhat different, requiring the philosopher not to rest in any hypothesis as an ultimatum, but to consider them all as stepping-stones for enabling him to ascend into a higher region, above all hypothesis — to the first principle of every thing: and he considers geometrical reasoning as defective because it takes its departure from hypothesis or assumptions of which no account is rendered.82 In the Republic he thus contemplates an intuition by the mind of some primary, clear, self-evident truth, above all hypotheses or assumptions even the most universal, and transmitting its own certainty to every thing which could be logically deduced from it: while in the Phædon, he does not recognise any thing higher or more certain than the most universal hypothesis — and he even presents the theory of self-existent Ideas as nothing more than an hypothesis, though a very satisfactory one. In the Republic, Plato has come to imagine the Idea of Good as distinguished from and illuminating all the other Ideas: in the Timæus, it seems personified in the Demiurgus; in the Phædon, that Idea of Good appears to be represented by the Nous or Reason of Anaxagoras. But Sokrates is unable to follow it out, so that it becomes included, without any pre-eminence, among the Ideas generally: all of them transcendental, co-ordinate, and primary sources of truth to the intelligent mind — yet each of them exercising a causative influence in its own department, and bestowing its own special character on various particulars.

The soul always brings life, and is essentially living. It cannot receive death: in other words, it is immortal.

It is from the assumption of these Ideas as eternal Essences, that Plato undertakes to demonstrate the immortality of the soul. One Idea or Form will not admit, but peremptorily excludes, the approach of that other Form which is opposite to it. Greatness will not receive the form of littleness: nor will the greatness which is in any particular subject receive the form of littleness. If the form of littleness be brought to bear, greatness will not stay to receive it, but will either retire or be destroyed. The same is true likewise respecting that which essentially has the form: thus fire has essentially the form of heat, and snow has essentially the form of cold. Accordingly fire, as it will not receive the form of cold, so neither will it receive snow: and snow, as it will not receive the form of heat, so neither will it receive fire. If fire comes, snow will either retire or will be destroyed. The Triad has always the Form of Oddness, and will never receive that of Evenness: the Dyad has always the Form of Evenness, and will never receive that of Oddness — upon the approach of this latter it will either disappear or will be destroyed: moreover the Dyad, while refusing to receive the Form of Oddness, will refuse also to receive that of the Triad, which always embodies that Form — although three is not in direct contrariety with two. If then we are asked, What is that, the presence of which makes a body hot? we need not confine ourselves to the answer — It is the Form of Heat — which, though correct, gives no new information: but we may farther say — It is Fire, which involves the Form of Heat. If we are asked, What is that, the presence of which makes a number odd, we shall not say — It is Oddness: but we shall say — It is the Triad or the Pentad — both of which involve Oddness.

The proof of immortality includes pre-existence as well as post-existence — animals as well as man — also the metempsychosis or translation of the soul from one body to another.

After finishing his proof that the soul is immortal, Sokrates enters into a description, what will become of it after the death of the body. He describes a Νεκυία.

Such is the ground upon which Sokrates rests his belief in the immortality of the soul. The doctrine reposes, in Plato’s view, upon the assumption of eternal, self-existent, unchangeable, Ideas or Forms:84 upon the congeniality of nature, and inherent correlation, between these Ideas and the Soul: upon the fact, that the soul knows these Ideas, which knowledge must have been acquired in a prior state of existence: and upon the essential participation of the soul in the Idea of life, so that it cannot be conceived as without life, or as dead.85 The immortality of the soul is conceived as necessary and entire, including not merely post-existence, but also pre-existence. In fact the reference to an anterior time is more essential to Plato’s theory than that to a posterior time; because it is employed to explain the cognitions of the mind, and the identity of learning with reminiscence: while Simmias, who even at the close is not without reserve on the subject of the post-existence, proclaims an emphatic adhesion on that of the pre-existence.86 The proof, moreover, being founded in great part on the Idea of Life, embraces every thing living, and is common to animals87 (if not to plants) as well as to men: and the metempsychosis — or transition of souls not merely from one human body to another, but also from the human to the animal body, and vice versâ — is a portion of the Platonic creed.

Sokrates expects that his soul is going to the islands of the blest. Reply to Kriton about burying his body.

Having completed his demonstration of the immortality of the soul, Sokrates proceeds to give a sketch of the condition and treatment which it experiences after death. The Νεκυία here following is analogous, in general doctrinal scope, to those others which we read in the Republic and in the Gorgias: but all of them are different in particular incidents, illustrative circumstances, and scenery. The sentiment of belief in Plato’s mind attaches itself to general doctrines, which appear to him to possess an evidence independent of particulars. When he applies these doctrines to particulars, he makes little distinction between such as are true, or problematical, or fictitious: he varies his mythes at pleasure, provided that they serve the purpose of illustrating his general view. The mythe which we read in the Phædon includes a description of the Earth which to us appears altogether imaginative and poetical: yet it is hardly more so than several other current theories, proposed by various philosophers antecedent and contemporary, respecting Earth and Sea. Aristotle criticises the views expressed in the Phædon, as he criticises those of Demokritus and Empedokles.88 Each soul of a deceased person is conducted by his Genius to the proper place, and there receives sentence of condemnation to suffering, greater or less according to his conduct in life, in the deep chasm called Tartarus, and in the rivers of mud and fire, Styx, Kokytus, Pyriphlegethon.89 To those who have passed their lives in learning, and who have detached themselves as much as they possibly could from all pleasures and all pursuits connected with the body — in order to pursue wisdom and virtue — a full reward is given. They are emancipated from the obligation of entering another body, and are allowed to live ever afterwards disembodied in the pure regions of Ideas.90

Preparations for administering the hemlock. Sympathy of the gaoler. Equanimity of Sokrates.

Sokrates swallows the poison. Conversation with the gaoler.

Sokrates then retires with Kriton into an interior chamber to bathe, desiring that the women may be spared the task of washing his body after his decease. Having taken final leave of his wife and children, he returns to his friends as sunset is approaching. We are here made to see the contrast between him and other prisoners under like circumstances. The attendant of the Eleven Magistrates comes to warn him that the hour has come for swallowing the poison; expressing sympathy and regret for the necessity of delivering so painful a message, together with admiration for the equanimity and rational judgment of Sokrates, which he contrasts forcibly with the discontent and wrath of other prisoners under similar circumstances. As he turned away with tears in his eyes, Sokrates exclaimed — “How courteous the man is to me and has been from the beginning! how generously he now weeps for me! Let us obey him, and let the poison be brought forthwith, if it be prepared: if not, let him prepare it.” “Do not hurry” (interposed Kriton): “there is still time, for the sun is not quite set. I have known others who, even after receiving the order, deferred drinking the poison until they had had a good supper and other enjoyments.” “It is natural that they should do so” (replied Sokrates). “They think that they are gainers by it: for me, it is natural that I should not do so — for I shall gain nothing but contempt in my own eyes, by thus clinging to life, and saving up when there is nothing left.”93

Ungovernable sorrow of the friends present. Self-command of Sokrates. Last words to Kriton, and death.

Extreme pathos, and probable trustworthiness of these personal details.

His friends, who had hitherto maintained their self-control, were overpowered by emotion on seeing the cup swallowed, and broke out into violent tears and lamentation. No one was unmoved, except Sokrates himself: who gently remonstrated with them, and exhorted them to tranquil resignation: reminding them that nothing but good words was admissible at the hour of death. The friends, ashamed of themselves, found means to repress their tears. Sokrates walked about until he felt heavy in the legs, and then lay down in bed. After some interval, the attendant of the prison came to examine his feet and legs, pinched his foot with force, and enquired whether he felt it. Sokrates replied in the negative. Presently the man pinched his legs with similar result, and showed to the friends in that way that his body was gradually becoming chill and benumbed: adding that as soon as this should get to the heart, he would die.95 The chill had already reached his belly, when Sokrates uncovered his face, which had been hitherto concealed by the bed-clothes, and spoke his last words:96 “Kriton, we owe a cock to Æsculapius: pay the debt without fail.” “It shall be done“ (answered Kriton); “have you any other injunctions?” Sokrates made no reply, but again covered himself up.97 After a short interval, he made some movement: the attendant presently uncovered him, and found him dead, with his eyes stiff and fixed. Kriton performed the last duty of closing both his eyes and his mouth.

Contrast between the Platonic Apology and the Phædon.

Abundant dogmatic and poetical invention of the Phædon compared with the profession of ignorance which we read in the Apology.

But though the personal incidents of this dialogue are truly Sokratic — the dogmatic emphasis, and the apparatus of argument and hypothesis, are essentially Platonic. In these respects, the dialogue contrasts remarkably with the Apology. When addressing the Dikasts, Sokrates not only makes no profession of dogmatic certainty, but expressly disclaims it. Nay more — he considers that the false persuasion of such dogmatic certainty, universally prevalent among his countrymen, is as pernicious as it is illusory: and that his own superiority over others consists merely in consciousness of his own ignorance, while they are unconscious of theirs.98 To dissipate such false persuasion of knowledge, by perpetual cross-examination of every one around, is the special mission imposed upon him by the Gods: in which mission, indeed, he has the firmest belief — but it is a belief, like that in his Dæmon or divine sign, depending upon oracles, dreams, and other revelations peculiar to himself, which he does not expect that the Dikasts will admit as genuine evidence.99 One peculiar example, whereby Sokrates exemplifies the false persuasion of knowledge where men have no real knowledge, is borrowed from the fear of death. No man knows (he says) what death is, not even whether it may not be a signal benefit: yet every man fears it as if he well knew that it was the greatest evil.100 Death must be one of two things: either a final extinction — a perpetual and dreamless sleep — or else a transference of the soul to some other place. Sokrates is persuaded that it will be in either case a benefit to him, and that the Gods will take care that he, a good man, shall suffer no evil, either living or dead: the proof of which is, to him, that the divine sign has never interposed any obstruction in regard to his trial and sentence. If (says he) I am transferred to some other abode, among those who have died before me, how delightful will it be to see Homer and Hesiod, Orpheus and Musæus, Agamemnon, Ajax or Palamêdes — and to pass my time in cross-examining each as to his true or false knowledge!101 Lastly, so far as he professes to aim at any positive end, it is the diffusion of political, social, human virtue, as distinguished from acquisitions above the measure of humanity. He tells men that it is not wealth which produces virtue, but virtue which produces wealth and other advantages, both public and private.102

Total renunciation and discredit of the body in the Phædon. Different feeling about the body in other Platonic dialogues.

If from the Apology we turn to the Phædon, we seem to pass, not merely to the same speaker after the interval of one month (the ostensible interval indicated) but to a different speaker and over a long period. We have Plato speaking through the mouth of Sokrates, and Plato too at a much later time.103 Though the moral character (ἦθος) of Sokrates is fully maintained and even strikingly dramatised — the intellectual personality is altogether transformed. Instead of a speaker who avows his own ignorance, and blames others only for believing themselves to know when they are equally ignorant — we have one who indulges in the widest range of theory and the boldest employment of hypothesis. Plato introduces his own dogmatical and mystical views, leaning in part on the Orphic and Pythagorean creeds.104 He declares the distinctness of nature, the incompatibility, the forced temporary union and active conflict, between the soul and the body. He includes this in the still wider and more general declaration, which recognises antithesis between the two worlds: the world of Ideas, Forms, Essences, not perceivable but only cogitable, eternal, and unchangeable, with which the soul or mind was in kindred and communion — the world of sense, or of transient and ever-changing appearances or phenomena, never arriving at permanent existence, but always coming and going, with which the body was in commerce and harmony. The philosopher, who thirsts only after knowledge and desires to look at things105 as they are in themselves, with his mind by itself — is represented as desiring, throughout all his life, to loosen as much as possible the implication of his soul with his body, and as rejoicing when the hour of death arrives to divorce them altogether.

Plato’s argument does not prove the immortality of the soul. Even if it did prove that, yet the mode of pre-existence and the mode of post-existence, of the soul, would be quite undetermined.

Such total renunciation of the body is put, with dramatic propriety, into the mouth of Sokrates during the last hour of his life. But it would not have been in harmony with the character of Sokrates as other Platonic dialogues present him — in the plenitude of life — manifesting distinguished bodily strength and soldierly efficiency, proclaiming gymnastic training for the body to be co-ordinate with musical training for the mind, and impressed with the most intense admiration for the personal beauty of youth. The human body, which in the Phædon is discredited as a morbid incumbrance corrupting the purity of the soul, is presented to us by Sokrates in the Phædrus as the only sensible object which serves as a mirror and reflection of the beauty of the ideal world:106 while the Platonic Timæus proclaims (in language not unsuitable to Locke) that sight, hearing, and speech are the sources of our abstract Ideas, and the generating causes of speculative intellect and philosophy.107 Of these, and of the world of sense generally, an opposite view was appropriate in the Phædon; where the purpose of Sokrates is to console his distressed friends by showing that death was no misfortune, but relief from a burthen. And Plato has availed himself of this impressive situation,108 to recommend, with every charm of poetical expression, various characteristic dogmas respecting the essential distinction between Ideas and the intelligible world on one side — Perceptions and the sensible world on the other: respecting the soul, its nature akin to the intelligible world, its pre-existence anterior to its present body, and its continued existence after the death of the latter: respecting the condition of the soul before birth and after death, its transition, in the case of most men, into other bodies, either human or animal, with the condition of suffering penalties commensurate to the wrongs committed in this life: finally, respecting the privilege accorded to the souls of such as have passed their lives in intellectual and philosophical occupation, that they shall after death remain for ever disembodied, in direct communion with the world of Ideas.

The philosopher will enjoy an existence of pure soul unattached to any body.

Plato’s demonstration of the immortality of the soul did not appear satisfactory to subsequent philosophers. The question remained debated and problematical.

CHAPTER XII.

ALKIBIADES I. AND II.

ALKIBIADES I. — ON THE NATURE OF MAN.

Situation supposed in the dialogue. Persons — Sokrates and Alkibiades.

1 Plato, Alkib. i. 103, 104, 105. Perikles is supposed to be still alive and political leader of Athens — 104 B.

I have briefly sketched the imaginary situation to which this dialogue is made to apply. The circumstances of it belong to Athenian manners of the Platonic age.

Some of the critics, considering that the relation supposed between Sokrates and Alkibiades is absurd and unnatural, allege this among their reasons for denying the authenticity of the dialogue. But if any one reads the concluding part of the Symposion — the authenticity of which has never yet been denied by any critic — he will find something a great deal more abnormal in what is there recounted about Sokrates and Alkibiades.

In a dialogue composed by Æschines Socraticus (cited by the rhetor Aristeides — Περὶ Ῥητορικῆς, Or. xlv. p. 23-24), expressions of intense love for Alkibiades are put into the mouth of Sokrates. Æschines was γνήσιος ἑταῖρος Σωκράτους, not less than Plato. The different companions of Sokrates thus agreed in their picture of the relation between him and Alkibiades.

Exorbitant hopes and political ambition of Alkibiades.

You are about to enter on public life (says Sokrates to Alkibiades) with the most inordinate aspirations for glory and aggrandisement. You not only thirst for the acquisition of ascendancy such as Perikles possesses at Athens, but your ambition will not be satisfied unless you fill Asia with your renown, and put yourself upon a level with Cyrus and Xerxes. Now such aspirations cannot be gratified except through my assistance. I do not deal in long discourses such as you have been accustomed to hear from others: I shall put to you only some short interrogatories, requiring nothing more than answers to my questions.2

2 Plato, Alkib. i. 106 B. Ἆρα ἐρωττᾷς εἴ τινα ἔχω εἰπεῖν λόγον μακρόν, οἵους δὴ ἀκούειν εἴθισαι; οὐ γάρ ἐστι τοιοῦτον τὸ ἐμόν. I give here, as elsewhere, not an exact translation, but an abstract.

Questions put by Sokrates, in reference to Alkibiades in his intended function as adviser of the Athenians. What does he intend to advise them upon? What has he learnt, and what does he know?

3 Plato, Alkib. i. 108 E – 109 A.

ἴθι δή, καὶ τὸ ἐν τῷ πολεμεῖν βέλτιον καὶ τὸ ἐν τῷ εἰρήνην ἄγειν, τοῦτο τὸ βέλτιον τί ὀνομάζεις; ὥσπερ ἐκεῖ ἐφ’ ἐκάστῳ ἔλεγες τὸ ἄμεινον, ὅτι μουσικώτερον, καὶ ἐπὶ τῷ ἑτερῳ, ὅτι γυμναστικώτερον· πειρῶ δὴ καὶ ἐνταῦθα λέγειν τὸ βέλτιον.… πρὸς τί τεινει τὸ ἐν τῷ εἰρήνην τε ἄγειν ἄμεινον καὶ τὸ ἐν τῷ πολεμεῖν οἷς δεῖ; Alkib. Ἀλλὰ σκοπῶν οὐ δύναμαι ἐννοῆσαι.

How, or from whom, has Alkibiades learnt to discern or distinguish Just and Unjust? He never learnt it from any one; he always knew it, even as a boy.

4 Plato, Alkib. i. 110 D-E. ἔμαθον, οἶμαι, καὶ ἐγὼ ὥσπερ καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι … παρὰ τῶν πολλῶν.

5 Plato, Alkib. i. 112 A. Sokr. Τί δὲ δὴ; νῦν περὶ τῶν δικαίων καὶ ἀδίκων ἀνθρώπων καὶ πραγμάτων, οἱ πολλοὶ δοκοῦσί σοι ὁμολογεῖν αὐτοὶ ἑαυτοῖς ἢ ἀλλήλοις; Alkib. Ἥκιστα, νὴ Δί’, ὦ Σώκρατες. Sokr. Τί δέ; μάλιστα περὶ αὐτῶν διαφέρεσθαι; Alkib. πολύ γε.

Sokr. — No: not from what I say, but from what you say yourself. I merely ask questions: it is you who give all the answers.6 And what you have said amounts to this — that Alkibiades knows nothing about what is just and unjust, but believes himself to know, and is going to advise the Athenians about what he does not know himself?

6 Plato, Alkib. i. 112-113.

Alk. — But, Sokrates, the Athenians do not often debate about what is just and unjust. They think that question self-evident; they debate generally about what is expedient or not expedient. Justice and expediency do not do not always coincide. Many persons commit great crimes, and are great gainers by doing so: others again behave justly, and suffer from it.7 Sokr — Do you then profess to know what is expedient or inexpedient? From whom have you learnt — or when did you find out for yourself? I might ask you the same round of questions, and you would be compelled to answer in the same manner. But we will pass to a different point. You say that justice and expediency are not coincident. Persuade me of this, by interrogating me as I interrogated you. Alk. — That is beyond my power. Sokr. — But when you rise to address the assembly, you will have to persuade them. If you can persuade them, you can persuade me. Assume me to be the assembly, and practise upon me.8 Alk. — You are too hard upon me, Sokrates. It is for you to speak and prove the point. Sokr — No: I can only question: you must answer. You will be most surely persuaded when the point is determined by your own answers.9

7 Plato, Alkib. i. 113 D. Οἶμαι μὲν ὀλιγάκις Ἀθηναίους βουλεύεσθαι πότερα δικαιότερα ἢ ἀδικωτερα· τὰ μὲν γὰρ τοιαῦτα ἡγοῦνται δῆλα εἶναι, &c.

8 Plato, Alkib. i. 114 B-C. This same argument is addressed by Sokrates to Glaukon, in Xenoph. Memor. iii. 6, 14-15.

9 Plato, Alkib. i. 114 E.

Οὐκοῦν εἰ λέγεις ὅτι ταῦθ’ οὕτως ἔχει, μάλιστ’ ἂν εἴης πεπεισμένος;

Comment on the preceding — Sokratic method — the respondent makes the discoveries for himself.

10 Plato, Alkib. i. 115 B — 116 A.

Οὐκοῦν τὴν τοιαύτην βοηθείαν καλὴν μὲν λέγεις κατὰ τὴν ἐπιχείρησιν τοῦ σῶσαι οὗς ἔδει· τοῦτο δ’ ἐστὶν ἀνδρία· … κακὴν δέ γε κατὰ τοὺς θανάτους τε καὶ τὰ ἕλκη.…

Οὐκοῦν ὧδε δίκαιον προσαγορεύειν ἑκάστην τῶν πράξεων· εἴπερ ᾖ κακὸν ἀπεργάζεται κακὴν καλεῖς, καὶ ᾖ ἀγαθὸν ἀγαθὴν κλητέον.

Ἀρ’ οὖν καὶ ᾖ ἀγαθὸν καλόν, — ᾖ δὲ κακὸν αἰσχρόν; Ναί.

Compare Plato, Republic, v. p. 479, where he maintains that in every particular case, what is just, honourable, virtuous, &c., is also unjust, dishonourable, vicious, &c. Nothing remains unchanged, nor excludes the contrary, except the pure, self-existent, Idea or general Concept. — αὐτὸ-δικαιοσύνη, &c.

11 Plato, Alkib. i. 116 E.

12 The words εὖ πράττειν — εὐπραγία have a double sense, like our “doing well”. Stallbaum, Proleg. p. 175; Steinhart, Einl. p. 149.

We have, p. 116 B, the equivocation between καλῶς πράττειν and εὖ πράττειν, also with κακῶς πράττειν, p. 134 A, 135 A; compare Heindorf ad Platon. Charmid. p. 172 A, p. 174 B; also Platon. Gorgias, p. 507 C, where similar equivocal meanings occur.

Alkibiades is thus reduced to a state of humiliating embarrassment, and stands convicted, by his own contradictions and confession, of ignorance in its worst form: that is, of being ignorant, and yet believing himself to know.13 But other Athenian statesmen are no wiser. Even Perikles is proved to be equally deficient — by the fact that he has never been able to teach or improve any one else, not even his own sons and those whom he loved best.14 “At any rate” (contends Alkibiades) “I am as good as my competitors, and can hold my ground against them.” But Sokrates reminds him that the real competitors with whom he ought to compare himself, are foreigners, liable to become the enemies of Athens, and against whom he, if he pretends to lead Athens, must be able to contend. In an harangue of unusual length, Sokrates shows that the kings of Sparta and Persia are of nobler breed, as well as more highly and carefully trained, than the Athenian statesmen.15 Alkibiades must be rescued from his present ignorance, and exalted, so as to be capable of competing with these kings: which object cannot be attained except through the auxiliary interposition of Sokrates. Not that Sokrates professes to be himself already on this elevation, and to stand in need of no farther improvement. But he can, nevertheless, help others to attain it for themselves, through the discipline and stimulus of his interrogatories.16

13 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 118.

14 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 118-119.

15 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 120-124.

16 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 124.

But good — for what end, and under what circumstances? Abundant illustrative examples.

17 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 125 B.

Ὁ αὐτὸς ἄρα τούτῳ γε τῷ λόγῳ κακός τε καὶ ἀγαθός.

Plato slides unconsciously here, as in other parts of his reasonings, à dicto secundum quid, ad dictum simpliciter.

18 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 126 A. τί δέ; ἢν σὺ καλεῖς εὐβουλίαν, εἰς τί ἐστιν; Alk. Εἰς τὸ ἄμεινον τὴν πόλιν διοικεῖν καὶ σώζεσθαι. Sokr. Ἀμεινον δὲ διοικεῖται καὶ σώζεται τίνος παραγιγνομένου ἢ ἀπογιγνομένου;

Alkibiades, puzzled and humiliated, confesses his ignorance. Encouragement given by Sokrates. It is an advantage to make such discovery in youth.

Alk. — In truth, I am puzzled myself to say. I find myself in a state of disgraceful ignorance, of which I had no previous suspicion. Sokr. — Do not be discouraged. If you had made this discovery when you were fifty years old, it would have been too late for taking care of yourself and applying a remedy: but at your age, it is the right time for making the discovery. Alk. — What am I to do, now that I have made it? Sokr. — You must answer my questions. If my auguries are just, we shall soon be both of us better for the process.19

19 Plato, Alkib. i. 127 D-E. Alk. Ἀλλὰ μὰ τοὺς θεούς, οὐδ’ αὐτὸς οἶδα ὅ τι λέγω, κινδυνεύω δὲ καὶ πάλαι λεληθέναι ἐμαυτὸν αἴσχιστ’ ἔχων.

Sokr. Ἀλλὰ χρὴ θαῤῥεῖν· εἰ μὲν γὰρ αὐτὸ ᾖσθου πεπονθὼς πεντηκονταέτης, χαλεπὸν ἂν ἦν σοι ἐπιμεληθῆναι σαυτοῦ· νῦν δὲ ἢν ἔχεις ἡλικίαν, αὔτη ἐστίν, ἐν ᾗ δεῖ αὐτὸ αἰσθέσθαι.

Alk. Τί οὖν τὸν αἱσθόμενον χρὴ ποιεῖν;

Sokr. Ἀποκρίνεσθαι τὰ ἐρωτώμενα, καὶ ἐὰν τοῦτο ποιῇς, ἂν θεὸς ἐθέλῃ, εἴ τι δεῖ καὶ τῇ ἐμῇ μαντείᾳ πιστεύειν, σύ τε κἀγὼ βελτιόνως σχήσομεν.

Platonic Dialectic — its actual effect — its anticipated effect — applicable to the season of youth.

Here we have again, brought into prominent relief, the dialectic method of Plato, under two distinct aspects: 1. Its actual effects, in exposing the false supposition of knowledge, in forcing upon the respondent the humiliating conviction, that he does not know familiar topics which he supposed to be clear both to himself and to others. 2. Its anticipated effects, if continued, in remedying such defect: and in generating out of the mind of the respondent, real and living knowledge. Lastly, it is plainly intimated that this shock of humiliation and mistrust, painful but inevitable, must be undergone in youth.

Know Thyself — Delphian maxim — its urgent importance — What is myself? My mind is myself.

The dialogue continues, in short questions and answers, of which the following is an abstract. Sokr. — What is meant by a man taking care of himself? Before I can take care of myself, I must know what myself is: I must know myself, according to the Delphian motto. I cannot make myself better, without knowing what myself is.20 That which belongs to me is not myself: my body is not myself, but an instrument governed by myself.21 My mind or soul only, is myself. To take care of myself is, to take care of my mind. At any rate, if this be not strictly true,22 my mind is the most important and dominant element within me. The physician who knows his own body, does not for that reason know himself: much less do the husbandman or the tradesman, who know their own properties or crafts, know themselves, or perform what is truly their own business.

20 Plato, Alkib. i. 129 B. τίν’ ἂν τρόπον εὑρεθείη αὐτὸ τὸ αὐτό;

1 Plato, Alkib. i. 103, 104, 105. Perikles is supposed to be still alive and political leader of Athens — 104 B.

3 Plato, Alkib. i. 108 E – 109 A.

4 Plato, Alkib. i. 110 D-E. ἔμαθον, οἶμαι, καὶ ἐγὼ ὥσπερ καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι … παρὰ τῶν πολλῶν.

6 Plato, Alkib. i. 112-113.

8 Plato, Alkib. i. 114 B-C. This same argument is addressed by Sokrates to Glaukon, in Xenoph. Memor. iii. 6, 14-15.

9 Plato, Alkib. i. 114 E.

10 Plato, Alkib. i. 115 B — 116 A.

11 Plato, Alkib. i. 116 E.

12 The words εὖ πράττειν — εὐπραγία have a double sense, like our “doing well”. Stallbaum, Proleg. p. 175; Steinhart, Einl. p. 149.

13 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 118.

14 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 118-119.

15 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 120-124.

16 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 124.

17 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 125 B.

20 Plato, Alkib. i. 129 B. τίν’ ἂν τρόπον εὑρεθείη αὐτὸ τὸ αὐτό;

21 Plato, Alkib. i. 128-130. All this is greatly expanded in the dialogue — p. 128 D: Οὐκ ἄρα ὄταν τῶν σαυτοῦ ἐπιμελῇ, σαυτοῦ ἐπιμέλει; This same antithesis is employed by Isokrates, De Permutatione, sect. 309, p. 492, Bekker. He recommends αὐτοῦ πρότερον ἢ τῶν αὐτοῦ ποιεῖσθαι τὴν ἐπιμέλειαν.

22 Plato considers this point to be not clearly made out. Alkib. i. 130.

I cannot know myself, except by looking into another mind. Self-knowledge is temperance. Temperance and Justice are the conditions both of happiness and of freedom.

23 Plato, Alkib. i. 131 B.

24 Plato, Alkib. i. 133.

25 Plato, Alkib. i. 134-135 B-C.

Πρὶν δέ γε ἀρετὴν ἔχειν, τὸ ἄρχεσθαι ἄμεινον ὑπὸ τοῦ βελτίονος ἢ τὸ ἄρχειν ἀνδρὶ, οὐ μόνον παιδί.… Πρέπει ἄρα τῷ κακῷ δουλεύειν· ἄμεινον γάρ.

Alkibiades feels himself unworthy to be free, and declares that he will never quit Sokrates.

Sokr. — How do you feel your own condition now, Alkibiades. Are you worthy of freedom? Alk. — I feel but too keenly that I am not. I cannot emerge from this degradation except by your society and help. From this time forward I shall never leave you.26

26 Plato, Alkib. i. 135.

ALKIBIADES II.

Second Alkibiades — situation supposed.

The other Platonic dialogue, termed the Second Alkibiades, introduces Alkibiades as about to offer prayer and sacrifice to the Gods.

Danger of mistake in praying to the Gods for gifts which may prove mischievous. Most men are unwise. Unwise is the generic word: madmen, a particular variety under it.

27 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 139 B.

Καὶ μὴν δύο γε ὑπεναντία ἑνὶ πράγματι πῶς ἂν εἴη;

That each thing has one opposite, and no more, is asserted in the Protagoras also, p. 192-193.

28 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 139-140 A-B.

Καὶ γὰρ οἱ πυρέττοντες πάντες νοσοῦσιν, οὐ μένντοιοἱ νοσοῦντες πάντες πυρέττουσιν οὐδὲ ποδαγρῶσιν οὐδέ γε ὀφθαλμιῶσιν· ἀλλὰ νόσος μὲν πᾶν τὸ τοιοῦτόν ἐστι, διαφέρειν δέ φασιν οὓς δὴ καλοῦμεν ἰατρος τὴν ἀπεργασίαν αὐτῶν· οὐ γὰρ πᾶσαι οὔτε ὅμοιαι οὔτε ὁμοίως διαπράττονται, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὴν αὐτῆς δύναμιν ἑκάστη.

Relation between a generic term, and the specific terms comprehended under it, was not then familiar.

Frequent cases, in which men pray for supposed benefits, and find that when obtained, they are misfortunes. Every one fancies that he knows what is beneficial: mischiefs of ignorance.

Sokr. — Whom do you call wise and unwise? Is not the wise man, he who knows what it is proper to say and do — and the unwise man, he who does not know? Alk. — Yes. Sokr. — The unwise man will thus often unconsciously say or do what ought not to be said or done? Though not mad like Œdipus, he will nevertheless pray to the Gods for gifts, which will be hurtful to him if obtained. You, for example, would be overjoyed if the Gods were to promise that you should become despot not only over Athens, but also over Greece. Alk. — Doubtless I should: and every one else would feel as I do. Sokr. — But what if you were to purchase it with your life, or to damage yourself by the employment of it? Alk. — Not on those conditions.29 Sokr. — But you are aware that many ambitious aspirants, both at Athens and elsewhere (among them, the man who just now killed the Macedonian King Archelaus, and usurped his throne), have acquired power and aggrandisement, so as to be envied by every one: yet have presently found themselves brought to ruin and death by the acquisition. So, also, many persons pray that they may become fathers; but discover presently that their children are the source of so much grief to them, that they wish themselves again childless. Nevertheless, though such reverses are perpetually happening, every one is still not only eager to obtain these supposed benefits, but importunate with the Gods in asking for them. You see that it is not safe even to accept without reflection boons offered to you, much less to pray for boons to be conferred.30 Alk. — I see now how much mischief ignorance produces. Every one thinks himself competent to pray for what is beneficial to himself; but ignorance makes him unconsciously imprecate mischief on his own head.

29 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 141.

30Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 141-142.

Mistake in predications about ignorance generally. We must discriminate. Ignorance of what? Ignorance of good, is always mischievous: ignorance of other things, not always.

31 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 144.

32 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 145.

Special accomplishments, without the knowledge of the good or profitable, are oftener hurtful than beneficial.

Sokr. — If, then, a man has no knowledge of good or of the better — if upon this cardinal point he obeys fancy without reason — the possession of knowledge upon special subjects will be oftener hurtful than profitable to him; because it will make him more forward in action, without any good result. Possessing many arts and accomplishments, and prosecuting one after another, but without the knowledge of good, — he will only fall into greater trouble, like a ship sailing without a pilot. Knowledge of good is, in other words, knowledge of what is useful and profitable. In conjunction with this, all other knowledge is valuable, and goes to increase a man’s competence as a counsellor: apart from this, all other knowledge will not render a man competent as a counsellor, but will be more frequently hurtful than beneficial.33 Towards right living, what we need is, the knowledge of good: just as the sick stand in need of a physician, and the ship’s crew of a pilot. Alk. — I admit your reasoning. My opinion is changed. I no longer believe myself competent to determine what I ought to accept from the Gods, or what I ought to pray for. I incur serious danger of erring, and of asking for mischiefs, under the belief that they are benefits.

33 Plato, Alkib. ii. 145 C:

Ὅστις ἄρα τι τῶν τοιούτων οἶδεν, ἐὰν μὲν παρέπηται αὐτῷ ἡ τοῦ βελτίστου ἐπιστήμη — αὕτη δ’ ἦν ἡ αὐτὴ δήπου ἥπερ καὶ ἡ τοῦ ὠφελίμου — φρόνιμόν γε αὐτὸν φήσομεν καὶ ἀποχρῶντα ξύμβουλου καὶ τῇ πόλει καὶ αὐτὸν αὑτῷ· τὸν δὲ μὴ τοιοῦτον, τἀναντία τούτων. (Τουοῦτον is Schneider’s emendation for ποιοῦντα.) Ibid. 146 C: Οὐκοῦν φαμὲν πάλιν τοὺς πολλοὺς διημαρτηκέναι τοῦ βελτίστου, ὡς τὰ πολλά γε, οἶμαι, ἄνευ νοῦ δόξῃ πεπιστευκότας; Ibid. 146 E: Ὁρᾷς οὖν, ὅτε γ’ ἔφην κινδυνεύειν τό γε τῶν ἄλλων ἐπιστημῶν κτῆμα, ἐάν τις ἄνευ τῆς τοῦ βελτίστου ἐπιστήμης κεκτημένος ᾖ, ὀλιγάκις μὲν ὠφελεῖν βλάπτειν δὲ τὰ πλείω τον ἔχοντ’ αὐτό. Ibid. 147 A: Ὁ δὲ δὴ τὴν καλουμένην πολυμάθειάν τε καὶ πολυτεχνίαν κεκτημένος, ὀρφανὸς δὲ ὢν ταύτης τῆς ἐπιστήμης, ἀγόμενος δὲ ὑπὸ μιᾶς ἑκάστης τῶν ἄλλων, ἆρ’ οὐχὶ τῷ ὄντι δικαίως πολλῷ χειμῶνι χρήσεται, ἅτ’, οἶμαι, ἄνευ κυβερνήτου διατελῶν ἐν πελάγει, &c.

34 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 148.

35 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 150.

36 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 150.

37 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 151.

Different critical opinions respecting these two dialogues.

38 Athenæus, xi. p. 506.

39 See the Einleitung of Schleiermacher to Alkib. i. part ii. vol. iii. p. 293 seq. Einleitung to Alkib. ii. part i. vol. ii. p. 365 seq. His notes on the two dialogues contain various additional reasons, besides what is urged in his Introduction.

Grounds for disallowing them — less strong against the Second than against the First.

Here Ast agrees with Schleiermacher fully, including both the First and Second Alkibiades in his large list of the spurious. Most of the subsequent critics go with Schleiermacher only half-way: Socher, Hermann, Stallbaum, Steinhart, Susemihl, recognise the First Alkibiadês, but disallow the Second.40 In my judgment, Schleiermacher and Ast are more consistently right, or more consistently wrong, in rejecting both, than the other critics who find or make so capital a distinction between the two. The similarity of tone and topics between the two is obvious, and is indeed admitted by all. Moreover, if I were compelled to make a choice, I should say that the grounds for suspicion are rather less strong against the Second than against the First; and that Schleiermacher, reasoning upon the objections admitted by his opponents as conclusive against the Second, would have no difficulty in showing that his own objections against the First were still more forcible. The long speech assigned in the First Alkibiadês to Sokrates, about the privileges of the Spartan and Persian kings,41 including the mention of Zoroaster, son of Oromazes, and the Magian religion, appears to me more unusual with Plato than anything which I find in the Second Alkibiadês. It is more Xenophontic42 than Platonic.

40 Socher, Ueber Platon’s Schriften, p. 112. Stallbaum, Prolegg. to Alkib. i. and ii. vol. v. pp. 171-304. K. F. Hermann, Gesch. und Syst. der Platon. Philos. p. 420-439. Steinhart, Einleitungen to Alkib. i. and ii. in Hieronymus Müller’s Uebersetzung des Platon’s Werke, vol. i. pp. 135-509.

41 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 121-124.

Whoever reads the objections in Steinhart’s Einleitung (p. 148-150) against the First Alkibiadês, will see that they are quite as forcible as what he urges against the Second; only, that in the case of the First, he gives these objections their legitimate bearing, allowing them to tell against the merit of the dialogue, but not against its authenticity.

42 See Xenoph. Œkonom. c. 4; Cyropæd. vii. 5, 58-64, viii. 1, 5-8-45; Laced. Repub. c. 15.

The supposed grounds for disallowance are in reality only marks of inferiority.

43 Stallbaum (Prolegg. ad Alcib. i. p. 186) makes this general statement very justly, but he as well as other critics are apt to forget it in particular cases.

44 Steinhart, Einleitung, p. 516-519. Stallbaum and Boeckh indeed assign the dialogue to a later period. Heindorf (ad Lysin, p. 211) thinks it the work “antiqui auctoris, sed non Platonis”.

Steinhart and others who disallow the authenticity of the Second Alkibiadês insist much (p. 518) upon the enormity of the chronological blunder, whereby Sokrates and Alkibiadês are introduced as talking about the death of Archelaus king of Macedonia, who was killed in 399 B.C., in the same year as Sokrates, and four years after Alkibiades. Such an anachronism (Steinhart urges) Plato could never allow himself to commit. But when we read the Symposion, we find Aristophanes in a company of which Sokrates, Alkibiades, and Agathon form a part, alluding to the διοίκισις of Mantineia, which took place in 386 B.C. No one has ever made this glaring anachronism a ground for disallowing the Symposion. Steinhart says that the style of the Second Alkibiadês copies Plato too closely (die ängstlich platonisirende Sprache des Dialogs, p. 515), yet he agrees with Stallbaum that in several places it departs too widely from Plato.

The two dialogues may probably be among Plato’s earlier compositions.

45 Stallbaum refers the composition of Alkib. i. to a time not long before the accusation of Sokrates, when the enemies of Sokrates were calumniating him in consequence of his past intimacy with Alkibiades (who had before that time been killed in 404 B.C.) and when Plato was anxious to defend his master (Prolegg. p. 186). Socher and Steinhart (p. 210) remark that such writings would do little good to Sokrates under his accusation. They place the composition of the dialogue earlier, in 406 B.C. (Steinhart, p. 151-152), and they consider it the first exercise of Plato in the strict dialectic method. Both Steinhart and Hermann (Gesch. Plat. Phil. p. 440) think that the dialogue has not only a speculative but a political purpose; to warn and amend Alkibiades, and to prevent him from surrendering himself blindly to the democracy.

I cannot admit the hypothesis that the dialogue was written in 406 B.C. (when Plato was twenty-one years of age, at most twenty-two), nor that it had any intended bearing upon the real historical Alkibiades, who left Athens in 415 B.C. at the head of the armament against Syracuse, was banished three months afterwards, and never came back to Athens until May 407 B.C. (Xenoph. Hellen. i. 4, 13; i. 5, 17). He then enjoyed four months of great ascendancy at Athens, left it at the head of the fleet to Asia in Oct. 407 B.C., remained in command of the fleet for about three months or so, then fell into disgrace and retired to Chersonese, never revisiting Athens. In 406 B.C. Alkibiades was again in banishment, out of the reach of all such warnings as Hermann and Steinhart suppose that Plato intended to address to him in Alkib. i.

Steinhart says (p. 152), “In dieser Zeit also, wenige Jahre nach seiner triumphirenden Rückkehr, wo Alkibiades,” &c. Now Alkibiades left the Athenian service, irrevocably, within less than one year after his triumphant return.

Steinhart has not realised in his mind the historical and chronological conditions of the period.

Analogy with various dialogues in the Xenophontic Memorabilia — Purpose of Sokrates to humble presumptuous young men.

If we compare various colloquies of Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, we shall find Alkibiadês I. and II. very analogous to them both in purpose and spirit. In Alkibiadês I. the situation conceived is the same as that of Sokrates and Glaukon, in the third book of the Memorabilia. Xenophon recounts how the presumptuous Glaukon, hardly twenty years of age, fancied himself already fit to play a conspicuous part in public affairs, and tried to force himself, in spite of rebuffs and humiliations, upon the notice of the assembly.46 No remonstrances of friends could deter him, nor could anything, except the ingenious dialectic of Sokrates, convince him of his own impertinent forwardness and exaggerated self-estimation. Probably Plato (Glaukon’s elder brother) had heard of this conversation, but whether the fact be so or not, we see the same situation idealised by him in Alkibiadês I., and worked out in a way of his own. Again, we find in the Xenophontic Memorabilia another colloquy, wherein Sokrates cross-questions, perplexes, and humiliates, the studious youth Euthydemus,47 whom he regards as over-confident in his persuasions and too well satisfied with himself. It was among the specialties of Sokrates to humiliate confident young men, with a view to their future improvement. He made his conversation “an instrument of chastisement,” in the language of Xenophon: or (to use a phrase of Plato himself in the Lysis) he conceived. “that the proper way of talking to youth whom you love, was, not to exalt and puff them up, but to subdue and humiliate them”.48

46 Xenoph. Memor. iii. 6.

47 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2.

48 Xenoph. Mem. i. 4, 1. σκεψάμενοι μὴ μόνον ἃ ἐκεῖνος (Sokrates) κολαστηρίου ἕνεκα τούς πάντ’ οἰομένους εἰδέναι ἐρωτῶν ἤλεγχεν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἃ λέγων συνημέρευε τοῖς συνδιατρίβουσιν, &c. So in the Platonic Lysis, the youthful Lysis says to Sokrates “Talk to Menexenus, ἵν’ αὐτὸν κολάσῃς” (Plat. Lysis, 211 B). And Sokrates himself says, a few lines before (210 E), Οὕτω χρὴ τοῖς παιδικοῖς διαλέγεσθαι, ταπεινοῦντα καὶ συστέλλοντα, καὶ μὴ ὥσπερ σὺ χαυνοῦντα καὶ διαθρύπτοντα.

Fitness of the name and character of Alkibiades for idealising this feature in Sokrates.

23 Plato, Alkib. i. 131 B.

24 Plato, Alkib. i. 133.

25 Plato, Alkib. i. 134-135 B-C.

26 Plato, Alkib. i. 135.

27 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 139 B.

28 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 139-140 A-B.

29 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 141.

30Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 141-142.

31 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 144.

32 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 145.

33 Plato, Alkib. ii. 145 C:

34 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 148.

35 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 150.

36 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 150.

37 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 151.

38 Athenæus, xi. p. 506.

41 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 121-124.

42 See Xenoph. Œkonom. c. 4; Cyropæd. vii. 5, 58-64, viii. 1, 5-8-45; Laced. Repub. c. 15.

43 Stallbaum (Prolegg. ad Alcib. i. p. 186) makes this general statement very justly, but he as well as other critics are apt to forget it in particular cases.

44 Steinhart, Einleitung, p. 516-519. Stallbaum and Boeckh indeed assign the dialogue to a later period. Heindorf (ad Lysin, p. 211) thinks it the work “antiqui auctoris, sed non Platonis”.

46 Xenoph. Memor. iii. 6.

47 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2.

49 The sensibility of Sokrates to youthful beauty is as strongly declared in the Xenophontic Memorabilia (i. 3, 8-14), as in the Platonic Lysis, Charmidês, or Symposion.

50 Stallbaum observes (Prolegg. ad Alcib. i. p. 215, 2nd ed.), “Ceterum etiam Æschines, Euclides, Phædon, et Antisthenes, dialogos Alcibiadis nomine inscriptos composuisse narrantur”.

51 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2, 8.

49 The sensibility of Sokrates to youthful beauty is as strongly declared in the Xenophontic Memorabilia (i. 3, 8-14), as in the Platonic Lysis, Charmidês, or Symposion.

The conversation reported by Xenophon between Alkibiades, when not yet twenty years of age, and his guardian Perikles, the first man in Athens — wherein Alkibiades puzzles Perikles by a Sokratic cross-examination — is likely enough to be real, and was probably the fruit of his sustained society with Sokrates (Xen. Memor. i. 2, 40).

50 Stallbaum observes (Prolegg. ad Alcib. i. p. 215, 2nd ed.), “Ceterum etiam Æschines, Euclides, Phædon, et Antisthenes, dialogos Alcibiadis nomine inscriptos composuisse narrantur”.

Respecting the dialogues composed by Æschines, see the first note to this chapter.

51 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2, 8.

Plato’s manner of replying to the accusers of Sokrates. Magical influence ascribed to the conversation of Sokrates.

52 The date which I here suppose for the composition of Alkib. i. (i.e. after the death of Sokrates, but early in the literary career of Plato), is farther sustained (against those critics who place it in 406 B.C. or 402 B.C. before the death of Sokrates) by the long discourse (p. 121-124) of Sokrates about the Persian and Spartan kings. In reference to the Persian monarchy Sokrates says (p. 123 B), ἐπεί ποτ’ ἐγὼ ἥκουσα ἀνδρὸς ἀξιοπίστου τῶν ἀναβεβηκότων παρὰ βασιλέα, ὃς ἔφη παρελθεῖν χώραν πάνυ πολλὴν καὶ ἀγαθήν — ἣν καλεῖν τοὺς ἐπιχωρίους ζώνην τῆς βασιλέως γυναικός, &c. Olympiodorus and the Scholiast both suppose that Plato here refers to Xenophon and the Anabasis, in which a statement very like this is found (i. 4, 9). It is plain, therefore, that they did not consider the dialogue to have been composed before the death of Sokrates. I think it very probable that Plato had in his mind Xenophon (either his Anabasis, or personal communications with him); but at any rate visits of Greeks to the Persian court became very numerous between 399-390 B.C., whereas Plato can hardly have seen any such visitors at Athens in 406 B.C. (before the close of the war), nor probably in 402 B.C., when Athens, though relieved from the oligarchy, was still in a state of great public prostration. Between 399 B.C. and the peace of Antalkidas (387 B.C.), visitors from Greece to the interior of Persia became more and more frequent, the Persian kings interfering very actively in Grecian politics. Plato may easily have seen during these years intelligent Greeks who had been up to the Persian court on military or political business. Both the Persian kings and the Spartan kings were then in the maximum of power and ascendancy — it is no wonder therefore that Sokrates should here be made to dwell upon their prodigious dignity in his discourse with Alkibiades. Steinhart (Einl. p. 150) feels the difficulty of reconciling this part of the dialogue with his hypothesis that it was composed in 406 B.C.: yet he and Stallbaum both insist that it must have been composed before the death of Sokrates, for which they really produce no grounds at all.

53 Xen. Mem. i. 2, 14. τοῖς δὲ διαλεγομένοις αὐτῷ πᾶσι χρώμενον ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ὅπως βούλοιτο.

54 Aristoph. Ran. 1431. οὐ χρὴ λέοντος σκύμνον ἐν πόλει τρέφειν. Thucyd. vi. 15. φοβηθέντες γὰρ αὐτοῦ (Alkib.) οἱ πολλοὶ τὸ μέγεθος τῆς τε κατὰ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ σῶμα παρανομίας ἐς τὴν δίαιταν, καὶ τῆς διανοίας ὧν καθ’ ἓν ἕκαστον, ἐν ὅτῳ γίγνοιτο, ἔπρασσεν, ὡς τυραννίδος ἐπιθυμοῦντι πολέμιοι καθέστασαν, &c.

55 Xenoph. Memorab. i. 2, 17.

56 Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iii. 32, 77; Plutarch, Alkib. c. 4-6. Compare Plato, Alkib. i. p. 127 D, 135 C; Symposion, p. 215-216.

57 Xenoph. Memor. iv. 2, 39-40.

The purpose proclaimed by Sokrates in the Apology is followed out in Alkib. I. Warfare against the false persuasion of knowledge.

58 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 112-113.

59 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 127 E.

60 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 118-120.

Difficulties multiplied for the purpose of bringing Alkibiades to a conviction of his own ignorance.

61 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 124 C-127 E.

62 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2, 36. Ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μέν, ἔφη ὁ Σωκράτης, ἴσως, διὰ τὸ σφόδρα ποστεύειν εἰδέναι, οὐδ’ ἔσκεψαι.

63 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 128-132 A.

64 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 133.

A Platonic metaphor, illustrating the necessity for two separate minds co-operating in dialectic colloquy.

Sokrates furnishes no means of solving these difficulties. He exhorts to Justice and Virtue — but these are acknowledged Incognita.

At the same time, when, after having convicted Alkibiades of deplorable ignorance, Sokrates is called upon to prescribe remedies — all distinctness of indication disappears. It is exacted only when the purpose is to bring difficulties and contradictions to view: it is dispensed with, when the purpose is to solve them. The conclusion is, that assuming happiness as the acknowledged ultimate end,65 Alkibiades cannot secure this either for himself or for his city, by striving for wealth and power, private or public: he can only secure it by acquiring for himself, and implanting in his country-men, justice, temperance, and virtue. This is perfectly Sokratic, and conformable to what is said by the real Sokrates in the Platonic Apology. But coming at the close of Alkibiadês I., it presents no meaning and imparts no instruction: because Sokrates had shown in the earlier part of the dialogue, that neither he himself, nor Alkibiades, nor the general public, knew what justice and virtue were. The positive solution which Sokrates professes to give, is therefore illusory. He throws us back upon those old, familiar, emotional, associations, unconscious products and unexamined transmissions from mind to mind — which he had already shown to represent the fancy of knowledge without the reality — deep-seated belief without any assignable intellectual basis, or outward standard of rectitude.

65 Plat. Alkibiad. i. p. 134.

Prolixity of Alkibiadês I. — Extreme multiplication of illustrative examples — How explained.

66 Plato, Politikus, 285-286.

67 Aristotel. Topic. i. 104, a. 16. Πόσα τῶν λόγων εἴδη τῶν διαλεκτικῶν — ἔστι δὲ τὸ μὲν ἐπαγωγή, τὸ δὲ συλλογισμός… ἔστι δ’ ἡ μὲν ἐπαγωγὴ πιθανώτερον καὶ σαφέστερον καὶ κατὰ τὴν αἴσθησιν γνωριμώτερον καὶ τοῖς πολλοῖς κοινόν· ὁ δὲ συλλογισμὸς βιαστικώτερον καὶ πρὸς τοὺς ἀντιλογικοὺς ἐνεργέστερον.

Alkibiadês II. leaves its problem avowedly undetermined.

Sokrates commends the practice of praying to the Gods for favours undefined — his views about the semi-regular, semi-irregular agency of the Gods — he prays to them for premonitory warnings.

68 Xenoph. Mem. i. 3, 2; Plat. Alk. ii. p. 143-148.

69 These opinions of Sokrates are announced in various passages of the Xenophontic Memorabilia, i. 1, 1-10 — ἔφη δὲ δεῖν, ἃ μὲν μαθόντας ποιεῖν ἔδωκαν οἱ θεοί, μανθάνειν· ἃ δὲ μὴ δῆλα τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἐστί, πειρᾶσθαι διὰ μαντικῆς παρὰ τῶν θεῶν πυνθάνεσθαι· τοὺς θεοὺς γάρ, οἷς ἂν ὦσιν ἵλεῳ, σημαίνειν — i. 3, 4; i. 4, 2-15; iv. 3, 12; iv. 7, 10; iv. 8, 5-11.

70 Xenoph. Memor. iv. 2, 31-32-36. Ταῦτα οὖν ποτὲ μὲν ὠφελοῦντα ποτὲ δὲ βλάπτοντα, τί μᾶλλον ἀγαθὰ ἢ κακά ἐστιν;

Comparison of Alkibiadês II. with the Xenophontic Memorabilia, especially the conversation of Sokrates with Euthydemus. Sokrates not always consistent with himself.

This impossibility of determining what is good and what is evil, in consequence of the uncertainty in the dispensations of the Gods and in human affairs — is a doctrine forcibly insisted on by the Xenophontic Sokrates in his discourse with Euthydêmus, and much akin to the Platonic Alkibiadês II., being applied to the special case of prayer. But we must not suppose that Sokrates adheres to this doctrine throughout all the colloquies of the Xenophontic Memorabilia: on the contrary, we find him, in other places, reasoning upon such matters, as health, strength, and wisdom, as if they were decidedly good.71 The fact is, that the arguments of Sokrates, in the Xenophontic Memorabilia, vary materially according to the occasion and the person with whom he is discoursing: and the case is similar with the Platonic dialogues: illustrating farther the questionable evidence on which Schleiermacher and other critics proceed, when they declare one dialogue to be spurious, because it contains reasoning inconsistent with another.

71 For example, Xen. Mem. iv. 5, 6 — σοφίαν τὸ μέγιστον ἀγαθόν, &c.

We find in Alkibiadês II. another doctrine which is also proclaimed by Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia: that the Gods are not moved by costly sacrifice more than by humble sacrifice, according to the circumstances of the offerer:72 they attend only to the mind of the offerer, whether he be just and wise: that is, “whether he knows what ought to be done both towards Gods and towards men”.73

72 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 149-150; Xen. Mem. i. 3. Compare Plato, Legg. x. p. 885; Isokrat. ad Nikok.

73 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 149 E, 150 B.

But we find also in Alkibiadês II. another doctrine, more remarkable. Sokrates will not proclaim absolutely that knowledge is good, and that ignorance is evil. In some cases, he contends, ignorance is good; and he discriminates which the cases are. That which we are principally interested in knowing, is Good, or The Best — The Profitable:74 phrases used as equivalent. The knowledge of this is good, and the ignorance of it mischievous, under all supposable circumstances. And if a man knows good, the more he knows of everything else, the better; since he will sure to make a good use of his knowledge. But if he does not know good, the knowledge of other things will be hurtful rather than beneficial to him. To be skilful in particular arts and accomplishments, under the capital mental deficiency supposed, will render him an instrument of evil and not of good. The more he knows — and the more he believes himself to know — the more forward will he be in acting, and therefore the greater amount of harm will he do. It is better that he should act as little as possible. Such a man is not fit to direct his own conduct, like a freeman: he must be directed and controlled by others, like a slave. The greater number of mankind are fools of this description — ignorant of good: the wise men who know good, and are fit to direct, are very few. The wise man alone, knowing good, follows reason: the rest trust to opinion, without reason.75 He alone is competent to direct both his own conduct and that of the society.

74 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 145 C. Ὅστις ἄρα τι τῶν τοιούτων οἶδεν, ἐὰν μὲν παρέπηται αὐτῷ ἡ τοῦ βελτίστου ἐπιστήμη — αὐτὴ δ’ ἦν ἡ αὐτὴ δήπου ἡπερ καὶ ἡ τοῦ ὠφελίμου — also 146 B.

75 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 146 A-D. ἄνευ νοῦ δόξῃ πεπιστευκότας.

76 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 147 A. ὁ δὲ δὴ τὴν καλουμένην πολυμάθειάν τε καὶ πολυτεχνίαν κεκτημένος, ὀρφανὸς δὲ ὢν ταύτης τῆς ἐπιστήμης, ἀγόμενος δὲ ὑπὸ μιᾶς ἑκάστης τῶν ἄλλων, &c.

Knowledge of Good — appears postulated and divined, in many of the Platonic dialogues, under different titles.

What Plato here calls the knowledge of Good, or Reason — the just discrimination and comparative appreciation of Ends and Means — appears in the Politikus and Euthydêmus, under the title of the Regal or Political Art, of employing or directing77 the results of all other arts, which are considered as subordinate: in the Protagoras, under the title of art of calculation or mensuration: in the Philêbus, as measure and proportion: in the Phædrus (in regard to rhetoric) as the art of turning to account, for the main purpose of persuasion, all the special processes, stratagems, decorations, &c., imparted by professional masters. In the Republic, it is personified in the few venerable Elders who constitute the Reason of the society, and whose directions all the rest (Guardians and Producers) are bound implicitly to follow: the virtue of the subordinates consisting in this implicit obedience. In the Leges, it is defined as the complete subjection in the mind, of pleasures and pains to right Reason,78 without which, no special aptitudes are worth having. In the Xenophontic Memorabilia, it stands as a Sokratic authority under the title of Sophrosynê or Temperance:79 and the Profitable is declared identical with the Good, as the directing and limiting principle for all human pursuits and proceedings.80

77 Plato, Politikus, 292 B, 304 B, 305 A; Euthydêmus, 291 B, 292 B. Compare Xenophon, Œkonomicus, i. 8, 13.

78 Leges, iii. 689 A-D, 691 A.

79 Xenoph. Memor. i. 2. 17; iv. 3. 1.

80 Xenoph. Memor. iv. 6, 8; iv. 7, 7.

The Good — the Profitable — what is it? — How are we to know it? Plato leaves this undetermined.

But what are we to understand by the Good, about which there are so many disputes, according to the acknowledgment of Plato as well as of Sokrates? And what are we to understand by the Profitable? In what relation does it stand to the Pleasurable and the Painful?

These are points which Plato here leaves undetermined. We shall find him again touching them, and trying different ways of determining them, in the Protagoras, the Gorgias, the Republic, and elsewhere. We have here the title and the postulate, but nothing more, of a comprehensive Teleology, or right comparative estimate of ends and means one against another, so as to decide when, how far, under what circumstances, &c., each ought to be pursued. We shall see what Plato does in other dialogues to connect this title and postulate with a more definite meaning.

CHAPTER XIII.

HIPPIAS MAJOR — HIPPIAS MINOR.

Hippias Major — situation supposed — character of the dialogue. Sarcasm and mockery against Hippias.

1 Plato, Alkib. i. 103, 104, 105. Perikles is supposed to be still alive and political leader of Athens — 104 B.

53 Xen. Mem. i. 2, 14. τοῖς δὲ διαλεγομένοις αὐτῷ πᾶσι χρώμενον ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ὅπως βούλοιτο.

55 Xenoph. Memorab. i. 2, 17.

56 Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iii. 32, 77; Plutarch, Alkib. c. 4-6. Compare Plato, Alkib. i. p. 127 D, 135 C; Symposion, p. 215-216.

57 Xenoph. Memor. iv. 2, 39-40.

58 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 112-113.

59 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 127 E.

60 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 118-120.

61 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 124 C-127 E.

62 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 2, 36. Ἀλλὰ ταῦτα μέν, ἔφη ὁ Σωκράτης, ἴσως, διὰ τὸ σφόδρα ποστεύειν εἰδέναι, οὐδ’ ἔσκεψαι.

63 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 128-132 A.

64 Plato, Alkib. i. p. 133.

65 Plat. Alkibiad. i. p. 134.

66 Plato, Politikus, 285-286.

68 Xenoph. Mem. i. 3, 2; Plat. Alk. ii. p. 143-148.

70 Xenoph. Memor. iv. 2, 31-32-36. Ταῦτα οὖν ποτὲ μὲν ὠφελοῦντα ποτὲ δὲ βλάπτοντα, τί μᾶλλον ἀγαθὰ ἢ κακά ἐστιν;

71 For example, Xen. Mem. iv. 5, 6 — σοφίαν τὸ μέγιστον ἀγαθόν, &c.

72 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 149-150; Xen. Mem. i. 3. Compare Plato, Legg. x. p. 885; Isokrat. ad Nikok.

73 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 149 E, 150 B.

75 Plato, Alkib. ii. p. 146 A-D. ἄνευ νοῦ δόξῃ πεπιστευκότας.

77 Plato, Politikus, 292 B, 304 B, 305 A; Euthydêmus, 291 B, 292 B. Compare Xenophon, Œkonomicus, i. 8, 13.

78 Leges, iii. 689 A-D, 691 A.

79 Xenoph. Memor. i. 2. 17; iv. 3. 1.

80 Xenoph. Memor. iv. 6, 8; iv. 7, 7.

1 Stallbaum, Prolegg. in Hipp. Maj. p. 149-150; also Steinhart (Einleitung, p. 42-43), who says, after an outpouring of his usual invective against the Sophist: “Nevertheless the coarse jesting of the dialogue seems almost to exceed the admissible limit of comic effect,” &c. Again, p. 50, Steinhart talks of the banter which Sokrates carries on with Hippias, in a way not less cruel (grausam) than purposeless, tormenting him with a string of successive new propositions about the definition of the Beautiful, which propositions, as fast as Hippias catches at them, he again withdraws of his own accord, and thus at last dismisses him (as he had dismissed Ion) uninstructed and unimproved, without even leaving behind in him the sting of anger, &c.

2 Schleierm. Einleitung. p. 401; Ast, Platon’s Leben und Schriften, p. 457-459.

It requires a powerful hatred against the persons called Sophists, to make a critic take pleasure in a comedy wherein silly and ridiculous speeches are fastened upon the name of one of them, in his own day not merely honoured but acknowledged as deserving honour by remarkable and varied accomplishments — and to make the critic describe the historical Hippias (whom we only know from Plato and Xenophon — see Steinhart, note 7, p. 89; Socher, p. 221) as if he had really delivered these speeches, or something equally absurd.

How this comedy may be appreciated is doubtless a matter of individual taste. For my part, I agree with Ast in thinking it misplaced and unbecoming: and I am not surprised that he wishes to remove the dialogue from the Platonic canon, though I do not concur either in this inference, or in the general principle on which it proceeds, viz., that all objections against the composition of a dialogue are to be held as being also objections against its genuineness as a work of Plato. The Nubes of Aristophanes, greatly superior as a comedy to the Hippias of Plato, is turned to an abusive purpose when critics put it into court as evidence about the character of the real Sokrates.

K. F. Hermann, in my judgment, takes a more rational view of the Hippias Major (Gesch. und Syst. der Plat. Phil. p. 487-647). Instead of expatiating on the glory of Plato in deriding an accomplished contemporary, he dwells upon the logical mistakes and confusion which the dialogue brings to view; and he reminds us justly of the intellectual condition of the age, when even elementary distinctions in logic and grammar had been scarcely attended to.

Both K. F. Hermann and Socher consider the Hippias to be not a juvenile production of Plato, but to belong to his middle age.

2 Schleierm. Einleitung. p. 401; Ast, Platon’s Leben und Schriften, p. 457-459.

Real debate between the historical Sokrates and Hippias in the Xenophontic Memorabilia — subject of that debate.

3 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 4, 12-25.

4 Compare the puzzling questions which Alkibiades when a youth is reported to have addressed to Perikles, and which he must unquestionably have heard from Sokrates himself, respecting the meaning of the word Νόμος (Xen. Mem. i. 2, 42). All the difficulties in determining the definition of Νόμος, occur also in determining that of Νόμιμον, which includes both Jus Scriptum and Jus Moribus Receptum.

5 Xen. Mem. iv. 4, 15.

Opening of the Hippias Major — Hippias describes the successful circuit which he had made through Greece, and the renown as well as the gain acquired by his lectures.

Here, in the beginning of the Hippias Major, the Platonic Sokrates remarks that Hippias has been long absent from Athens: which absence, the latter explains, by saying that he has visited many cities in Greece, giving lectures with great success, and receiving high pay: and that especially he has often visited Sparta, partly to give lectures, but partly also to transact diplomatic business for his countrymen the Eleians, who trusted him more than any one else for such duties. His lectures (he says) were eminently instructive and valuable for the training of youth: moreover they were so generally approved, that even from a small Sicilian town called Inykus, he obtained a considerable sum in fees.

Hippias had met with no success at Sparta. Why the Spartans did not admit his instructions — their law forbids.

6 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 283-284.

7 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 284 C-B.

8 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 285.

Comparison of the argument of the Platonic Sokrates with that of the Xenophontic Sokrates.

9 Compare a similar argument of Sokrates against Thrasymachus — Republic, i. 339.

The Just or Good is the beneficial or profitable. This is the only explanation which Plato ever gives and to this he does not always adhere.

Lectures of Hippias at Sparta not upon geometry, or astronomy, &c., but upon the question — What pursuits are beautiful, fine, and honourable for youth.

I resume the thread of the Hippias Major. Sokrates asks Hippias what sort of lectures they were that he delivered with so much success at Sparta? The Spartans (Hippias replies) knew nothing and cared nothing about letters, geometry, arithmetic, astronomy: but they took delight in hearing tales about heroes, early ancestors, foundation-legends of cities, &c., which his mnemonic artifice enabled him to deliver.10 The Spartans delight in you (observes Sokrates) as children delight in old women’s tales. Yes (replies Hippias), but that is not all: I discoursed to them also, recently, about fine and honourable pursuits, much to their admiration: I supposed a conversation between Nestor and Neoptolemus, after the capture of Troy, in which the veteran, answering a question put by his youthful companion, enlarged upon those pursuits which it was fine, honourable, beautiful for a young man to engage in. My discourse is excellent, and obtained from the Spartans great applause. I am going to deliver it again here at Athens, in the school-room of Pheidostratus, and I invite you, Sokrates, to come and hear it, with as many friends as you can bring.11

10 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 285 E.

11 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 286 A-B.

Question put by Sokrates, in the name of a friend in the background, who has just been puzzling him with it — What is the Beautiful?

Hippias thinks the question easy to answer.

Oh — yes — a small matter (replies Hippias); the question is easy to answer. I could teach you to answer many questions harder than that: so that no man shall be able to convict you in dialogue.12

12 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 286 C-D.

Sokrates then proceeds to interrogate Hippias, in the name of the absentee, starting one difficulty after another as if suggested by this unknown prompter, and pretending to be himself under awe of so impracticable a disputant.

Justice, Wisdom, Beauty must each be something. What is Beauty, or the Beautiful?

All persons are just, through Justice — wise, through Wisdom — good, through Goodness or the Good — beautiful, through Beauty or the Beautiful. Now Justice, Wisdom, Goodness, Beauty or the Beautiful, must each be something. Tell me what the Beautiful is?

Hippias does not understand the question. He answers by indicating one particularly beautiful object.

Hippias does not conceive the question. Does the man want to know what is a beautiful thing? Sokr. — No; he wants to know what is The Beautiful. Hip. — I do not see the difference. I answer that a beautiful maiden is a beautiful thing. No one can deny that.13

13 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 287 A.

Sokr. — I understand. You follow the analogy suggested by Herakleitus in his dictum — That the most beautiful ape is ugly, if compared with the human race. So you say, the most beautiful pot is ugly, when compared with the race of maidens. Hip — Yes. That is my meaning. Sokr. — Then my friend will ask you in return, whether the race of maidens is not as much inferior to the race of Gods, as the pot to the maiden? whether the most beautiful maiden will not appear ugly, when compared to a Goddess? whether the wisest of men will not appear an ape, when compared to the Gods, either in beauty or in wisdom.14 Hip. — No one can dispute it. Sokr. — My friend will smile and say — You forget what was the question put. I asked you, What is the Beautiful? — the Self-Beautiful: and your answer gives me, as the Self-Beautiful, something which you yourself acknowledge to be no more beautiful than ugly? If I had asked you, from the first, what it was that was both beautiful and ugly, your answer would have been pertinent to the question. Can you still think that the Self-Beautiful, — that Something, by the presence of which all other things become beautiful, — is a maiden, or a mare, or a lyre?

14 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 289.

Second answer of Hippias — Gold, is that by the presence of which all things become beautiful — scrutiny applied to the answer. Complaint by Hippias about vulgar analogies.

15 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 290.

Third answer of Hippias — questions upon it — proof given that it fails of universal application.

16 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 291 C-D.

17 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 292 D.

18 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 293 B.

Farther answers, suggested by Sokrates himself — 1. The Suitable or Becoming — objections thereunto — it is rejected.

Sokrates then mentions, as coming from hints of the absent friend, three or four different explanations of the Self-Beautiful: each of which, when first introduced, he approves, and Hippias approves also: but each of which he proceeds successively to test and condemn. It is to be remarked that all of them are general explanations: not consisting in conspicuous particular instances, like those which had come from Hippias. His explanations are the following: —

1. The suitable or becoming (which had before been glanced at). It is the suitable or becoming which constitutes the Beautiful.19

19 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 293 E.

20 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 294 B-E.

2. The useful or profitable — objections — it will not hold.

2. The useful or profitable. — We call objects beautiful, looking to the purpose which they are calculated or intended to serve: the human body, with a view to running, wrestling, and other exercises — a horse, an ox, a cock, looking to the service required from them — implements, vehicles on land and ships at sea, instruments for music and other arts all upon the same principle, looking to the end which they accomplish or help to accomplish. Laws and pursuits are characterised in the same way. In each of these, we give the name Beautiful to the useful, in so far as it is useful, when it is useful, and for the purpose to which it is useful. To that which is useless or hurtful, in the same manner, we give the name Ugly.21

21 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 295 C-D.

Now that which is capable of accomplishing each end, is useful for such end: that which is incapable, is useless. It is therefore capacity, or power, which is beautiful: incapacity, or impotence, is ugly.22

22 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 295 E. Οὐκοῦν τὸ δυνατὸν ἕκαστον ἀπεργάζεσθαι, εἰς ὅπερ δυνατόν, εἰς τοῦτο καὶ χρήσιμον· τὸ δὲ ἀδύνατον ἄχρηστον; … Δύναμις μὲν ἄρα καλόν — ἀδυναμία δὲ αἰσχρόν;

Most certainly (replies Hippias): this is especially true in our cities and communities, wherein political power is the finest thing possible, political impotence, the meanest.

Yet, on closer inspection (continues Sokrates), such a theory will not hold. Power is employed by all men, though unwillingly, for bad purposes: and each man, through such employment of his power, does much more harm than good, beginning with his childhood. Now power, which is useful for the doing of evil, can never be called beautiful.23

23 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 296 C-D.

24 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 297 B.

25 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 297 D-E. εἰ οἷόν τ’ ἐστίν, ἑκείνων εἶναι (κινδυνεύει) γελοιότερος τῶν πρώτων.

3. The Beautiful is a variety of the Pleasurable — that which is received through the eye and the ear.

3. The Beautiful is a particular variety of the agreeable or pleasurable: that which characterises those things which cause pleasure to us through sight and hearing. Thus the men, the ornaments, the works of painting or sculpture, upon which we look with admiration,26 are called beautiful: also songs, music, poetry, fable, discourse, in like manner; nay even laws, customs, pursuits, which we consider beautiful, might be brought under the same head.27

26 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 298 A-B.

27 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 298 D.

Professor Bain observes: — “The eye and the ear are the great avenues to the mind for the æsthetic class of influences; the other senses are more or less in the monopolist interest. The blue sky, the green woods, and all the beauties of the landscape, can fill the vision of a countless throng of admirers. So with the pleasing sounds, &c.” ‘The Emotions and the Will.’ ch. xiv. (The Æsthetic Emotions), sect. 2, p. 226, 3rd ed.

Objections to this last — What property is there common to both sight and hearing, which confers upon the pleasures of these two senses the exclusive privilege of being beautiful?

3 Xenoph. Mem. iv. 4, 12-25.

5 Xen. Mem. iv. 4, 15.

6 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 283-284.

7 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 284 C-B.

8 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 285.

9 Compare a similar argument of Sokrates against Thrasymachus — Republic, i. 339.

10 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 285 E.

11 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 286 A-B.

12 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 286 C-D.

13 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 287 A.

14 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 289.

15 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 290.

16 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 291 C-D.

17 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 292 D.

18 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 293 B.

19 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 293 E.

20 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 294 B-E.

21 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 295 C-D.

23 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 296 C-D.

24 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 297 B.

25 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 297 D-E. εἰ οἷόν τ’ ἐστίν, ἑκείνων εἶναι (κινδυνεύει) γελοιότερος τῶν πρώτων.

26 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 298 A-B.

27 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 298 D.

28 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 298 E, 299 A.

29 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 299 D-E.

30 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 300 B. A separate argument between Sokrates and Hippias is here as it were interpolated; Hippias affirms that he does not see how any predicate can be true of both which is not true of either separately. Sokrates points out that two men are Both, even in number, while each is One, an odd number. You cannot say of the two that they are one, nor can you say of either that he is Both. There are two classes of predicates; some which are true of either but not true of the two together, or vice versâ; some again which are true of the two and true also of each one — such as just, wise, handsome, &c. p. 301-303 B.

31 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 302 C. τῇ οὐσίᾳ τῇ ἐπ’ ἀμφότερα ἑπομένῃ ᾦμην, εἴπερ ἀμφότερά ἐστι καλά, ταύτῃ δεῖν αὐτὰ καλὰ εἶναι, τῇ δὲ κατὰ τὰ ἕτερα ἀπολειπομένῃ μή. καὶ ἕτι νῦν οἶομαι.

28 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 298 E, 299 A.

Μανθάνω, ἂν ἴσως φαίη, καὶ ἐγώ, ὅτι πάλαι αἰσχύνεσθε ταύτας τὰς ἡδονὰς φάναι καλὰς εἶναι, ὅτι οὐ δοκεῖ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις· ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ οὐ τοῦτο ἠρώτων, ὃ δοκεῖ τοῖς πολλοῖς καλὸν εἶναι, ἀλλ’ ὃ, τι ἔστιν.

29 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 299 D-E.

Answer — There is, belonging to each and to both in common, the property of being innocuous and profitable pleasures — upon this ground they are called beautiful.

Now there is one characteristic which may perhaps serve. The pleasures of sight and hearing, both and each, are distinguished from other pleasures by being the most innocuous and the best.32 It is for this reason that we call them beautiful. The Beautiful, then, is profitable pleasure — or pleasure producing good — for the profitable is, that which produces good.33

32 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 303 E. ὅτι ἀσινέσταται αὗται τῶν ἡδονῶν εἰσι καὶ βέλτισται, καὶ ἀμφότεραι καὶ ἑκατέρα.

33 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 303 E. λέγετε δὴ τὸ καλὸν εἶναι, ἡδονὴν ὠφέλιμον.

34 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 303 E — 304 A. Οὔκουν ὠφέλιμον, φήσει, τὸ ποιοῦν τἀγαθόν, τὸ δὲ ποιοῦν καὶ τὸ ποιούμενον, ἕτερον νῦν δὴ ἐφάνη, καὶ εἰς τὸν πρότερον λόγον ἥκει ὑμῖν ὁ λόγος; οὔτε γὰρ τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἂν εἴη καλὸν οὔτε τὸ καλὸν ἀγαθόν, εἴπερ ἄλλο αὐτῶν ἑκάτερόν ἐστιν.

These last words deserve attention, because they coincide with the doctrine ascribed to Antisthenes, which has caused so many hard words to be applied to him (as well as to Stilpon) by critics, from Kolôtes downwards. The general principle here laid down by Plato is — A is something different from B, therefore A is not B and B is not A. In other words, A cannot be predicated of B nor B of A. Antisthenes said in like manner — Ἄνθρωπος and Ἀγαθὸς are different from each other, therefore you cannot say Ἄνθρωπος ἐστιν ἀγαθός. You can only say Ἄνθρωπος ἐστιν Ἄνθρωπος — Ἀγαθός ἐστιν ἀγαθός.

I have touched farther upon this point in my chapter upon Antisthenes and the other Viri Sokratici.

Remarks upon the Dialogue — the explanations ascribed to Hippias are special conspicuous examples: those ascribed to Sokrates are attempts to assign some general concept.

35 See Dr. Whewell’s ‘History of the Inductive Sciences,’ ii. 120 seq.; and Mr. John Stuart Mill’s ‘System of Logic,’ iv. 8, 3.

I shall illustrate this subject farther when I come to the dialogue called Lysis.

36 Stallbaum, in his notes, bursts into exclamations of wonder at the incredible stupidity of Hippias — “En hominis stuporem prorsus admirabilem,” p. 289 E.

37 Mr. John Stuart Mill observes in his System of Logic, i. 1, 5: “One of the chief sources of lax habits of thought is the custom of using connotative terms without a distinctly ascertained connotation, and with no more precise notion of their meaning than can be loosely collected from observing what objects they are used to denote. It is in this manner that we all acquire, and inevitably so, our first knowledge of our vernacular language. A child learns the meaning of Man, White, &c., by hearing them applied to a number of individual objects, and finding out, by a process of generalisation of which he is but imperfectly conscious, what those different objects have in common. In many cases objects bear a general resemblance to each other, which leads to their being familiarly classed together under a common name, while it is not immediately apparent what are the particular attributes upon the possession of which in common by them all their general resemblance depends. In this manner names creep on from subject to subject until all traces of a common meaning sometimes disappear, and the word comes to denote a number of things not only independently of any common attribute, but which have actually no attribute in common, or none but what is shared by other things to which the name is capriciously refused. It would be well if this degeneracy of language took place only in the hands of the untaught vulgar; but some of the most remarkable instances are to be found in terms of art, and among technically educated persons, such as English lawyers. Felony, e.g., is a law-term with the sound of which all are familiar: but there is no lawyer who would undertake to tell what a felony is, otherwise than by enumerating the various offences so called. Originally the word felony had a meaning; it denoted all offences, the penalty of which included forfeiture of lands or goods, but subsequent Acts of Parliament have declared various offences to be felonies without enjoining that penalty, and have taken away that penalty from others which continue nevertheless to be called felonies, insomuch that the acts so called have now no property whatever in common save that of being unlawful and punishable.”

38 Aristot. Topic, i. 106, a. 21. Τὰ πολλαχῶς λεγόμενα — τὰ πλεοναχῶς λεγόμενα — are perpetually noted and distinguished by Aristotle.

Analogy between the explanations here ascribed to Sokrates, and those given by the Xenophontic Sokrates in the Memorabilia.

39 Xen. Mem. iii. 6, 2, 7; iv. 6, 8.

Plato, Hipp. Maj. 288 D, 290 D.

I am obliged to translate the words τὸ Καλόν by the Beautiful or beauty, to avoid a tiresome periphrasis. But in reality the Greek words include more besides: they mean also the fine, the honourable or that which is worthy of honour, the exalted, &c. If we have difficulty in finding any common property connoted by the English word, the difficulty in the case of the Greek word is still greater.

40 In regard to the question, Wherein consists Τὸ Καλόν? and objections against the theory of the Xenophontic Sokrates, it is worth while to compare the views of modern philosophers. Dugald Stewart says (on the Beautiful, ‘Philosophical Essays,’ p. 214 seq.), “It has long been a favourite problem with philosophers to ascertain the common quality or qualities which entitle a thing to the denomination of Beautiful. But the success of their speculations has been so inconsiderable, that little can be inferred from them except the impossibility of the problem to which they have been directed. The speculations which have given occasion to these remarks have evidently originated in a prejudice which has descended to modern times from the scholastic ages. That when a word admits of a variety of significations, these different significations must all be species of the same genus, and must consequently include some essential idea common to every individual to which the generic term can be applied. Of this principle, which has been an abundant source of obscurity and mystery in the different sciences, it would be easy to expose the unsoundness and futility. Socrates, whose plain good sense appears, on this as on other occasions, to have fortified his understanding to a wonderful degree against the metaphysical subtleties which misled his successors, was evidently apprised fully of the justice of the foregoing remarks, if any reliance can be placed on the account given by Xenophon of his conversation with Aristippus about the Good and the Beautiful,” &c.

Stewart then proceeds to translate a portion of the Xenophontic dialogue (Memorab. iii. 8). But unfortunately he does not translate the whole of it. If he had he would have seen that he has misconceived the opinion of Sokrates, who maintains the very doctrine here disallowed by Stewart, viz., That there is an essential idea common to all beautiful objects, the fact of being conducive to human security, comfort, or enjoyment. This is unquestionably an important common property, though the multifarious objects which possess it may be unlike in all other respects.

As to the general theory I think that Stewart is right: it is his compliment to Sokrates, on this occasion, which I consider misplaced. He certainly would not have agreed with Sokrates (nor should I agree with him) in calling by the epithet beautiful a basket for carrying dung when well made for its own purpose, or a convenient boiling-pot, or a soup-ladle made of fig-tree wood, as the Platonic Sokrates affirms in the Hippias (288 D, 290 D). The Beautiful and the Useful sometimes coincide; more often or at least very often, they do not. Hippias is made to protest, in this dialogue, against the mention of such vulgar objects as the pot and the ladle; and this is apparently intended by Plato as a defective point in his character, denoting silly affectation and conceit, like his fine apparel. But Dugald Stewart would have agreed in the sentiment ascribed to Hippias — that vulgar and mean objects have no place in an inquiry into the Beautiful; and that they belong, when well-formed for their respective purposes, to the category of the Useful.

The Xenophontic Sokrates in the Memorabilia is mistaken in confounding the Beautiful with the Good and the Useful. But his remarks are valuable in another point of view, as they insist most forcibly on the essential relativity both of the Beautiful and the Good.

The doctrine of Dugald Stewart is supported by Mr. John Stuart Mill (‘System of Logic,’ iv. 4, 5, p. 220 seq.); and Professor Bain has expounded the whole subject still more fully in a chapter (xiv. p. 225 seq., on the Æsthetic Emotions) of his work on the Emotions and the Will.

The concluding observations of this dialogue, interchanged between Hippias and Sokrates, are interesting as bringing out the antithesis between rhetoric and dialectic — between the concrete and exemplifying, as contrasted with the abstract and analytical. Immediately after Sokrates has brought his own third suggestion to an inextricable embarrassment, Hippias remarks —

Concluding thrust exchanged between Hippias and Sokrates.

“Well, Sokrates, what do you think now of all these reasonings of yours? They are what I declared them to be just now, — scrapings and parings of discourse, divided into minute fragments. But the really beautiful and precious acquirement is, to be able to set out well and finely a regular discourse before the Dikastery or the public assembly, to persuade your auditors, and to depart carrying with you not the least but the greatest of all prizes — safety for yourself, your property, and your friends. These are the real objects to strive for. Leave off your petty cavils, that you may not look like an extreme simpleton, handling silly trifles as you do at present.”41

41 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 304 A.

42 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 304 D-E.

Rhetoric against Dialectic.

Here is a suitable termination for one of the Dialogues of Search: “My mind has been embarrassed by contradictions as yet unreconciled, but this is a stage indispensable to future improvement”. We have moreover an interesting passage of arms between Rhetoric and Dialectic: two contemporaneous and contending agencies, among the stirring minds of Athens, in the time of Plato and Isokrates. The Rhetor accuses the Dialectician of departing from the conditions of reality — of breaking up the integrity of those concretes, which occur in nature each as continuous and indivisible wholes. Each of the analogous particular cases forms a continuum or concrete by itself, which may be compared with the others, but cannot be taken to pieces, and studied in separate fragments.43 The Dialectician on his side treats the Abstract (τὸ καλὸν) as the real Integer, and the highest abstraction as the first of all integers, containing in itself and capable of evolving all the subordinate integers: the various accompaniments, which go along with each Abstract to make up a concrete, he disregards as shadowy and transient disguises.

43 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 301 B. Ἀλλὰ γὰρ δὴ σύ, ὦ Σώκρατες, τὰ μὲν ὅλα τῶν πραγμάτων οὐ σκοπεῖς, οὐδ’ ἐκεῖνοι, οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι, κρούετε δὲ ἀπολαμβάνοντες τὸ καλὸν καὶ ἕκαστον τῶν ὄντων ἐν τοῖς λόγοις κατατέμνοντες· διὰ ταῦτα οὕτω μεγάλα ὑμᾶς λανθάνει καὶ διανεκῆ σώματα τῆς οὐσίας πεφυκότα. Compare 301 E.

The words διανεκῆ σώματα τῆς οὐσίας πεφυκότα correspond as nearly as can be to the logical term Concrete, opposed to Abstract. Nature furnishes only Concreta, not Abstracta.

Men who dealt with real life, contrasted with the speculative and analytical philosophers.

44 Aristophan. Nubes, 130. λόγων ἀκριβῶν σχινδαλάμους — παιπάλη. Nub. 261, Aves, 430. λεπτοτάτων λήρων ἱερεῦ, Nub. 359. γνώμαις λεπταις, Nub. 1404. σκαριφισμοῖσι λήρων, Ran. 1497. σμιλεύματα — id. 819. Isokrates, Πρὸς Νικοκλέα, s. 69, antithesis of the λόγοι πολιτικοὶ and λόγοι ἐριστικοί — μάλιστα μὲν καὶ ἀπὸ των καιρῶν θεωρεῖν συμβουλεύοντας, εἰ δὲ μὴ, καθ’ ὅλων τῶν πραγμάτων λέγοντας — which is almost exactly the phrase ascribed to Hippias by Plato in this Hippias Major. Also Isokrates, Contra Sophistas, s. 24-25, where he contrasts the useless λογίδια, debated by the contentious dialecticians (Sokrates and Plato being probably included in this designation), with his own λόγοι πολιτικοί. Compare also Isokrates, Or. xv. De Permutatione, s. 211-213-285-287.

45 Xen. Mem. i. 1, 16.

46 Plato, Theætêt. pp. 173-174-175.

Concrete Aggregates — abstract or logical Aggregates. Distinct aptitudes required by Aristotle for the Dialectician.

47 Aristot. Physic. i. 1. τὸ γὰρ ὅλον κατὰ τὴν αἴσθησιν γνωριμώτερον, τὸ δὲ καθόλου ὅλον τι ἐστι· πολλὰ γὰρ περιλαμβάνει ὡς μέρη τὸ καθόλου. Compare Simplikius, Schol. Brandis ad loc. p. 324, a. 10-26.

Antithesis of Absolute and Relative, here brought into debate by Plato, in regard to the Idea of Beauty.

48 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 286 K. αὐτὸ τὸ καλὸν ὅ, τι ἔστιν. Also 287 D, 289 D.

49 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 291 D, 292 E.

50 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 294 A-B, 299 A.

51 Dr. Hutcheson, in his inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, observes (sect. i. and ii. p. 14-16): —

“Beauty is either original or comparative, or, if any like the terms better, absolute or relative; only let it be observed, that by absolute or original, is not understood any quality supposed to be in the object, which should of itself be beautiful, without relation to any mind which perceives it. For Beauty, like other names of sensible ideas, properly denotes the perception of some mind.… Our inquiry is only about the qualities which are beautiful to men, or about the foundation of their sense of beauty, for (as above hinted) Beauty has always relation to the sense of some mind; and when we afterwards show how generally the objects that occur to us are beautiful, we mean that such objects are agreeable to the sense of men, &c.”

The same is repeated, sect. iv. p. 40; sect. vi. p. 72.

Herein we note one of the material points of disagreement between Plato and his master: for Sokrates (in the Xenophontic Memorabilia) affirms distinctly that Beauty is altogether relative to human wants and appreciations. The Real and Absolute, on the one hand, wherein alone resides truth and beauty — as against the phenomenal and relative, on the other hand, the world of illusion and meanness — this is an antithesis which we shall find often reproduced in Plato. I shall take it up more at large, when I come to discuss his argument against Protagoras in the Theætêtus.

Hippias Minor — characters and situation supposed.

I now come to the Lesser Hippias: in which (as we have already seen in the Greater) that Sophist is described by epithets, affirming varied and extensive accomplishments, as master of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, poetry (especially that of Homer), legendary lore, music, metrical and rhythmical diversities, &c. His memory was prodigious, and he had even invented for himself a technical scheme for assisting memory. He had composed poems, epic, lyric, and tragic, as well as many works in prose: he was, besides, a splendid lecturer on ethical and political subjects, and professed to answer any question which might be asked. Furthermore, he was skilful in many kinds of manual dexterity: having woven his own garments, plaited his own girdle, made his own shoes, engraved his own seal-ring, and fabricated for himself a curry-comb and oil-flask.52 Lastly, he is described as wearing fine and showy apparel. What he is made to say is rather in harmony with this last point of character, than with the preceding. He talks with silliness and presumption, so as to invite and excuse the derisory sting of Sokrates, There is a third interlocutor, Eudikus: but he says very little, and other auditors are alluded to generally, who say nothing.53

52 Plato, Hipp. Minor, 368.

53 Plato, Hipp. Minor, 369 D, 373 B.

Ast rejects both the dialogues called by the name of Hippias, as not composed by Plato. Schleiermacher doubts about both, and rejects the Hippias Minor (which he considers as perhaps worked up by a Platonic scholar from a genuine sketch by Plato himself) but will not pass the same sentence upon the Hippias Major (Schleierm. Einleit. vol. ii. pp. 293-296; vol. v. 399-403. Ast, Platon’s Leben und Schriften, pp. 457-464).

Stallbaum defends both the dialogues as genuine works of Plato, and in my judgment with good reason (Prolegg. ad Hipp. Maj. vol. iv. pp. 145-150; ad Hipp. Minor, pp. 227-235). Steinhart (Einleit. p. 99) and Socher (Ueber Platon, p. 144 seq., 215 seq.) maintain the same opinion on these dialogues as Stallbaum. It is to be remarked that Schleiermacher states the reasons both for and against the genuineness of the dialogues; and I think that even in his own statement the reasons for preponderate. The reasons which both Schleiermacher and Ast produce as proving the spuriousness, are in my view quite insufficient to sustain their conclusion. There is bad taste, sophistry, an overdose of banter and derision (they say very truly), in the part assigned to Sokrates: there are also differences of view, as compared with Sokrates in other dialogues; various other affirmations (they tell us) are not Platonic. I admit much of this, but I still do not accept their conclusion. These critics cannot bear to admit any Platonic work as genuine unless it affords to them ground for superlative admiration and glorification of the author. This postulate I altogether contest; and I think that differences of view, as between Sokrates in one dialogue and Sokrates in another, are both naturally to be expected and actually manifested (witness the Protagoras and Gorgias). Moreover Ast designates (p. 404) a doctrine as “durchaus unsokratisch” which Stallbaum justly remarks (p. 233) to have been actually affirmed by Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia. Stallbaum thinks that both the two dialogues (Socher, that the Hippias Minor only) were composed by Plato among his earlier works, and this may probably be true. The citation and refutation of the Hippias Minor by Aristotle (Metaphys. Δ. 1025, a. 6) counts with me as a strong corroborative proof that the dialogue is Plato’s work. Schleiermacher and Ast set this evidence aside because Aristotle does not name Plato as the author. But if the dialogue had been composed by any one less celebrated than Plato, Aristotle would have named the author. Mention by Aristotle, though without Plato’s name, is of greater value to support the genuineness than the purely internal grounds stated by Ast and Schleiermacher against it.

Hippias has just delivered a lecture, in which he extols Achilles as better than Odysseus — the veracious and straightforward hero better than the mendacious and crafty.

In the Hippias Minor, that Sophist appears as having just concluded a lecture upon Homer, in which he had extolled Achilles as better than Odysseus: Achilles being depicted as veracious and straightforward, Odysseus as mendacious and full of tricks. Sokrates, who had been among the auditors, cross-examines Hippias upon the subject of this affirmation.

Homer (says Hippias) considers veracious men, and mendacious men, to be not merely different, but opposite: and I agree with him. Permit me (Sokrates remarks) to ask some questions about the meaning of this from you, since I cannot ask any from Homer himself. You will answer both for yourself and him.54

32 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 303 E. ὅτι ἀσινέσταται αὗται τῶν ἡδονῶν εἰσι καὶ βέλτισται, καὶ ἀμφότεραι καὶ ἑκατέρα.

33 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 303 E. λέγετε δὴ τὸ καλὸν εἶναι, ἡδονὴν ὠφέλιμον.

35 See Dr. Whewell’s ‘History of the Inductive Sciences,’ ii. 120 seq.; and Mr. John Stuart Mill’s ‘System of Logic,’ iv. 8, 3.

36 Stallbaum, in his notes, bursts into exclamations of wonder at the incredible stupidity of Hippias — “En hominis stuporem prorsus admirabilem,” p. 289 E.

38 Aristot. Topic, i. 106, a. 21. Τὰ πολλαχῶς λεγόμενα — τὰ πλεοναχῶς λεγόμενα — are perpetually noted and distinguished by Aristotle.

39 Xen. Mem. iii. 6, 2, 7; iv. 6, 8.

41 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 304 A.

42 Plat. Hipp. Maj. 304 D-E.

45 Xen. Mem. i. 1, 16.

46 Plato, Theætêt. pp. 173-174-175.

48 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 286 K. αὐτὸ τὸ καλὸν ὅ, τι ἔστιν. Also 287 D, 289 D.

49 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 291 D, 292 E.

50 Plato, Hipp. Maj. 294 A-B, 299 A.

51 Dr. Hutcheson, in his inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, observes (sect. i. and ii. p. 14-16): —

52 Plato, Hipp. Minor, 368.

53 Plato, Hipp. Minor, 369 D, 373 B.

54 Plat. Hipp. Minor, 365 C-D.

The remark here made by Sokrates — “The poet is not here to answer for himself, so that you cannot put any questions to him” is a point of view familiar to Plato: insisted upon forcibly in the Protagoras (347 E), and farther generalised in the Phædrus, so as to apply to all written matter compared with personal converse (Phædrus, p. 275 D).

This ought to count, so far as it goes, as a fragment of proof that the Hippias Minor is a genuine work of Plato, instead of which Schleiermacher treats it (p. 295) as evincing a poor copy, made by some imitator of Plato, from the Protagoras.

55 Plat. Hipp. Minor, 366 B-C.

You, Hippias (says Sokrates), are expert on matters of arithmetic: you can make sure of answering truly any question put to you on the subject. You are better on the subject than the ignorant man, who cannot make sure of doing the same. But as you can make sure of answering truly, so likewise you can make sure of answering falsely, whenever you choose to do so. Now the ignorant man cannot make sure of answering falsely. He may, by reason of his ignorance, when he wishes to answer falsely, answer truly without intending it. You, therefore, the intelligent man and the good in arithmetic, are better than the ignorant and the bad for both purposes — for speaking falsely, and for speaking truly.56

56 Plato, Hippias Minor, 366 E. Πότερον σὺ ἂν μάλιστα ψεύδοιο καὶ ἀεὶ κατὰ ταὐτὰ ψευδῆ λέγοις περὶ τούτων, βουλόμενος ψεύδεσθαι καὶ μηδέποτε ἀληθῆ ἀποκρίνεσθαι; ἤ ὁ ἀμαθὴς εἰς λογισμοὺς δύναιτ’ ἂν σοῦ μᾶλλον ψεύδεσθαι βουλομένου; ἢ ὁ μὲν ἀμαθὴς πολλάκις ἂν βουλόμενος ψευδῆ λέγειν τἀληθῆ ἂν εἴποι ἄκων, εἰ τύχοι, διὰ τὸ μὴ εἰδέναι — σὺ δὲ ὁ σοφός, εἴπερ βούλοιο ψεύδεσθαι, ἀεὶ ἂν κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ ψεύδοιο;

Analogy of special arts — it is only the arithmetician who can speak falsely on a question of arithmetic when he chooses.

What is true about arithmetic, is true in other departments also. The only man who can speak falsely whenever he chooses is the man who can speak truly whenever he chooses. Now, the mendacious man, as we agreed, is the man who can speak falsely whenever he chooses. Accordingly, the mendacious man, and the veracious man, are the same. They are not different, still less opposite: nay, the two epithets belong only to one and the same person. The veracious man is not better than the mendacious — seeing that he is one and the same.57

57 Plato, Hipp. Minor, 367 C, 368 E, 369 A-B.

58 Plat. Hipp. Minor, 360 B.

Sokrates then tries to make out that Achilles speaks falsehood in the Iliad, and speaks it very cleverly, because he does so in a way to escape detection from Odysseus himself. To this Hippias replies, that if Achilles ever speaks falsehood, he does it innocently, without any purpose of cheating or injuring any one; whereas the falsehoods of Odysseus are delivered with fraudulent and wicked intent.59 It is impossible (he contends) that men who deceive and do wrong wilfully and intentionally, should be better than those who do so unwillingly and without design. The laws deal much more severely with the former than with the latter.60

59 Plat. Hipp. Minor, 370 E.

60 Plat. Hipp. Minor, 372 A.

Assistance from me (says Eudikus) will hardly be needed, for Hippias professed himself ready to answer any man’s questions.

Yes — I did so (replies Hippias) — but Sokrates always brings trouble into the debate, and proceeds like one disposed to do mischief.

Eudikus repeats his request, and Hippias, in deference to him, consents to resume the task of answering.61

61 Plat. Hipp. Min. 373 B.

Sokrates then produces a string of questions, with a view to show that those who do wrong wilfully, are better than those who do wrong unwillingly. He appeals to various analogies. In running, the good runner is he who runs quickly, the bad runner is he who runs slowly. What is evil and base in running is, to run slowly. It is the good runner who does this evil wilfully: it is the bad runner who does it unwillingly.62 The like is true about wrestling and other bodily exercises. He that is good in the body, can work either strongly or feebly, — can do either what is honourable or what is base; so that when he does what is base, he does it wilfully. But he that is bad in the body does what is base unwillingly, not being able to help it.63

62 Plat. Hipp. Min. 373 D-E.

63 Plat. Hipp. Min. 374 B.

64 Plat. Hipp. Min. 374 C-D.

Again, in the instruments which we use, a rudder or a bow, — or the animals about us, horses or dogs, — those are better with which we work badly when we choose; those are worse, with which we work badly without design, and contrary to our own wishes.

It is better to have the mind of a bowman who misses his mark only by design, than that of one who misses even when he intends to hit.

It is better to have the mind of a bowman who misses his mark by design, than that of one who misses when he tries to hit. The like about all other arts — the physician, the harper, the flute-player. In each of these artists, that mind is better, which goes wrong only wilfully — that mind is worse, which goes wrong unwillingly, while wishing to go right. In regard to the minds of our slaves, we should all prefer those which go wrong only when they choose, to those which go wrong without their own choice.65

65 Plat. Hipp. Min. 376 B-D.

Having carried his examination through this string of analogous particulars, and having obtained from Hippias successive answers — “Yes — true in that particular case,” Sokrates proceeds to sum up the result:—

Sokr. — Well! should we not wish to have our own minds as good as possible? Hip. — Yes. Sokr. — We have seen that they will be better if they do mischief and go wrong wilfully, than if they do so unwillingly? Hip. — But it will be dreadful, Sokrates, if the willing wrong-doers are to pass for better men than the unwilling.

Dissent and repugnance of Hippias.

66 Plat. Hipp. Min. 375 D. ἡ δικαιοσύνη οὐχι ἢ δύναμίς τίς ἐστιν, ἢ ἐπιστήμη, ἢ ἀμφότερα;

Sokr. — Now the good man is he that has the good mind: the bad man is he that has the bad mind. It belongs therefore to the good man to do wrong wilfully, to the bad man, to do wrong without wishing it — that is, if the good man be he that has the good mind? Hip. — But that is unquestionable — that he has it. Sokr. — Accordingly, he that goes wrong and does base and unjust things wilfully, if there be any such character — can be no other than the good man. Hip. — I do not know how to concede that to you, Sokrates.67 Sokr. — Nor I, how to concede it to myself, Hippias: yet so it must appear to us, now at least, from the past debate. As I told you long ago, I waver hither and thither upon this matter; my conclusions never remain the same. No wonder indeed that I and other vulgar men waver; but if you wise men waver also, that becomes a fearful mischief even to us, since we cannot even by coming to you escape from our embarrassment.68

67 Plat. Hipp. Min. 375 E, 376 B.

68 Plato, Hipp. Min. 376 C.

Remarks on the dialogue. If the parts had been inverted, the dialogue would have been cited by critics as a specimen of the sophistry and corruption of the Sophists.

69 Accordingly one of the Platonic critics, Schwalbe (Œuvres de Platon, p. 116), explains Plato’s purpose in the Hippias Minor by saying, that Sokrates here serves out to the Sophists a specimen of their own procedure, and gives them an example of sophistical dialectic, by defending a sophistical thesis in a sophistical manner: That he chooses and demonstrates at length the thesis — the liar is not different from the truth-teller — as an exposure of the sophistical art of proving the contrary of any given proposition, and for the purpose of deriding and unmasking the false morality of Hippias, who in this dialogue talks reasonably enough.

Schwalbe, while he affirms that this is the purpose of Plato, admits that the part here assigned to Sokrates is unworthy of him; and Steinhart maintains that Plato never could have had any such purpose, “however frequently” (Steinhart says), “sophistical artifices may occur in this conversation of Sokrates, which artifices Sokrates no more disdained to employ than any other philosopher or rhetorician of that day” (“so häufig auch in seinen Erörterungen sophistische Kunstgriffe vorkommen mögen, die Sokrates eben so wenig verschmaht hat, als irgend ein Philosoph oder Redekünstler dieser Zeit”). Steinhart, Einleitung zum Hipp. Minor, p. 109.

I do not admit the purpose here ascribed to Plato by Schwalbe, but I refer to the passage as illustrating what Platonic critics think of the reasoning assigned to Sokrates in the Hippias Minor, and the hypotheses which they introduce to colour it.

The passage cited from Steinhart also — that Sokrates no more disdained to employ sophistical artifices than any other philosopher or rhetorician of the age — is worthy of note, as coming from one who is so very bitter in his invectives against the sophistry of the persons called Sophists, of which we have no specimens left.

Polemical purpose of the dialogue — Hippias humiliated by Sokrates.

That Plato intended to represent this accomplished Sophist as humiliated by Sokrates, is evident enough: and the words put into his mouth are suited to this purpose. The eloquent lecturer, so soon as his admiring crowd of auditors has retired, proves unable to parry the questions of a single expert dialectician who remains behind, upon a matter which appears to him almost self-evident, and upon which every one (from Homer downward) agrees with him. Besides this, however, Plato is not satisfied without making him say very simple and absurd things. All this is the personal, polemical, comic scope of the dialogue. It lends (whether well-placed or not) a certain animation and variety, which the author naturally looked out for, in an aggregate of dialogues all handling analogous matters about man and society.

But though the polemical purpose of the dialogue is thus plain, its philosophical purpose perplexes the critics considerably. They do not like to see Sokrates employing sophistry against the Sophists: that is, as they think, casting out devils by the help of Beelzebub. And certainly, upon the theory which they adopt, respecting the relation between Plato and Sokrates on one side, and the Sophists on the other, I think this dialogue is very difficult to explain. But I do not think it is difficult, upon a true theory of the Platonic writings.

Philosophical purpose of the dialogue — theory of the Dialogues of Search generally, and of Knowledge as understood by Plato.

70 Plato, Republ. vi. 487 B.

Καὶ ὁ Ἀδείμαντος, Ὦ Σώκρατες, ἔφη, πρὸς μὲν ταῦτά σοι οὐδεὶς ἂν οἷος τ’ εἴη ἀντειπεῖν· ἀλλὰ γὰρ τοιόνδε τι πάσχουσιν οἱ ἀκούοντες ἐκάστοτε ἂ νῦν λέγεις· ἡγοῦνται δι’ ἀπειρίαν τοῦ ἐρωτᾷν καὶ ἀποκρίνεσθαι ὑπὸ τοῦ λόγου παρ’ ἕκαστον τὸ ἐρώτημα σμικρὸν παραγόμενοι, ἀθροισθέντων τῶν σμικρῶν ἐπὶ τελευτῆς τῶν λόγων, μέγα τὸ σφάλμα καὶ ἐναντίον τοῖς πρώτοις ἀναφαίνεσθαι … ἐπει τό γε ἀληθὲς οὐδέν τι μᾶλλον ταύτῃ ἔχειν.

This passage, attesting the effect of the Sokratic examination upon the minds of auditors, ought to be laid to heart by those Platonic critics who denounce the Sophists for generating scepticism and uncertainty.

71 Plato, Hipp. Minor, 373 B; also the last sentence of the dialogue.

72 See the passage in Republic, vii. 523-524, where the τὸ παρακλητικὸν καὶ ἐγερτικὸν τῆς νοήσεως is declared to arise from the pain of a felt contradiction.

There are two circumstances which lend particular interest to this dialogue — Hippias Minor. 1. That the thesis out of which the confusion arises, is one which we know to have been laid down by the historical Sokrates himself. 2. That Aristotle expressly notices this thesis, as well as the dialogue in which it is contained, and combats it.

The thesis maintained here by Sokrates, is also affirmed by the historical Sokrates in the Xenophontic Memorabilia.

Sokrates in his conversation with the youthful Euthydemus (in the Xenophontic Memorabilia) maintains, that of two persons, each of whom deceives his friends in a manner to produce mischief, the one who does so wilfully is not so unjust as the one who does so unwillingly.73 Euthydemus (like Hippias in this dialogue) maintains the opposite, but is refuted by Sokrates; who argues that justice is a matter to be learnt and known like letters; that the lettered man, who has learnt and knows letters, can write wrongly when he chooses, but never writes wrongly unless he chooses — while it is only the unlettered man who writes wrongly unwillingly and without intending it: that in like manner the just man, he that has learnt and knows justice, never commits injustice unless when he intends it — while the unjust man, who has not learnt and does not know justice, commits injustice whether he will or not. It is the just man therefore, and none but the just man (Sokrates maintains), who commits injustice knowingly and wilfully: it is the unjust man who commits injustice without wishing or intending it.74

73 Xen. Mem. iv. 2, 19. τῶν δὲ δὴ τοὺς φίλους ἐξαπατώντων ἐπὶ βλαβῇ (ἵνα μηδὲ τοῦτο παραλείπωμεν ἄσκεπτον) πότερος ἀδικώτερός ἐστιν, ὁ ἑκὼν ἢ ὁ ἄκων;

The natural meaning of ἐπὶ βλαβῇ would be, “for the purpose of mischief”; and Schneider, in his Index, gives “nocendi causâ”. But in that meaning the question would involve an impossibility, for the words ὁ ἄκων exclude any such purpose.

74 Xen. Mem. iv. 2, 19-22.

Aristotle combats the thesis. Arguments against it.

Aristotle,75 in commenting upon this doctrine of the Hippias Minor, remarks justly, that Plato understands the epithets veracious and mendacious in a sense different from that which they usually bear. Plato understands the words as designating one who can tell the truth if he chooses — one who can speak falsely if he chooses: and in this sense he argues plausibly that the two epithets go together, and that no man can be mendacious unless he be also veracious. Aristotle points out that the epithets in their received meaning are applied, not to the power itself, but to the habitual and intentional use of that power. The power itself is doubtless presupposed or implied as one condition to the applicability of the epithets, and is one common condition to the applicability of both epithets: but the distinction, which they are intended to draw, regards the intentions and dispositions with which the power is employed. So also Aristotle observes that Plato’s conclusion — “He that does wrong wilfully is a better man than he that does wrong unwillingly,” is falsely collected from induction or analogy. The analogy of the special arts and accomplishments, upon which the argument is built, is not applicable. Better has reference, not to the amount of intelligence but to the dispositions and habitual intentions; though it presupposes a certain state and amount of intelligence as indispensable.

75 Aristotel. Metaphys. Δ. p. 1025, a. 8; compare Ethic. Nikomach. iv. p. 1127, b. 16.

Mistake of Sokrates and Plato in dwelling too exclusively on the intellectual conditions of human conduct.

76 Aristotle has very just observations on these views of Sokrates, and on the incompleteness of his views when he resolved all virtue into knowledge, all vice into ignorance. See, among other passages, Aristot. Ethica Magna, i. 1182, a. 16; 1183, b. 9; 1190, b. 28; Ethic. Eudem. i. 1216, b, 4. The remarks of Aristotle upon Sokrates and Plato evince a real progress in ethical theory.

77 Xen. Mem. iii. 9, 7. τοὺς διημαρτηκότας, ὧν οἱ πολλοὶ γιγνώσκουσι, μαινομένους καλεῖν, &c.

They rely too much on the analogy of the special arts — They take no note of the tacit assumptions underlying the epithets of praise and blame.

55 Plat. Hipp. Minor, 366 B-C.

57 Plato, Hipp. Minor, 367 C, 368 E, 369 A-B.

58 Plat. Hipp. Minor, 360 B.

59 Plat. Hipp. Minor, 370 E.

60 Plat. Hipp. Minor, 372 A.

61 Plat. Hipp. Min. 373 B.

62 Plat. Hipp. Min. 373 D-E.

63 Plat. Hipp. Min. 374 B.

64 Plat. Hipp. Min. 374 C-D.

65 Plat. Hipp. Min. 376 B-D.

66 Plat. Hipp. Min. 375 D. ἡ δικαιοσύνη οὐχι ἢ δύναμίς τίς ἐστιν, ἢ ἐπιστήμη, ἢ ἀμφότερα;

67 Plat. Hipp. Min. 375 E, 376 B.

68 Plato, Hipp. Min. 376 C.

70 Plato, Republ. vi. 487 B.

71 Plato, Hipp. Minor, 373 B; also the last sentence of the dialogue.

72 See the passage in Republic, vii. 523-524, where the τὸ παρακλητικὸν καὶ ἐγερτικὸν τῆς νοήσεως is declared to arise from the pain of a felt contradiction.

74 Xen. Mem. iv. 2, 19-22.

75 Aristotel. Metaphys. Δ. p. 1025, a. 8; compare Ethic. Nikomach. iv. p. 1127, b. 16.

77 Xen. Mem. iii. 9, 7. τοὺς διημαρτηκότας, ὧν οἱ πολλοὶ γιγνώσκουσι, μαινομένους καλεῖν, &c.

78 Plato, Protagoras, 322.

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