Alfred Edward Taylor - Plato, 1905 by gnosisclassics

PLATO By

A. E.

TAYLOR

NEW YORK

DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY 214-220 EAST 23RD STREET

Printed

Great Britain by

T. and A. Constable, Printers to His I^Iajesty at ihe

University Press, Edinburgh

3296.

FOREWORD The

following sketch

makes no claim

considered as a complete account of the philo-

sophy of

Plato.

Many

have

topics of importance

been omitted altogether, and others only treated with the utmost attainable brevity.

thought all

controversial discussion,

many

have

also

necessary to avoid, as far as possible,

cases followed

and have therefore in

my own judgment

on disput-

able points without attempting to support

the detailed reasoning which would be indispensable in a

been to

work of

sit as

larger scope.

object has

loose as possible to all the tradi-

tional expositions of Platonism,

broad outline the personpJ

and

to give in

impression

the

philosopher's thought which I have derived from

The

repeated study of the Platonic text.

works useful to the student, though comprises a few of those which

found

useful

important,

reader the opportunity to form his

by comparing

list

merely

have myself

will

give

own judgment

interpretations with those of

PLATO others.

demn

Those who are most competent

the numerous defects of

I hope,

little

to con-

book

will,

be also most indulgent in their verdict on

an attempt

compress into so small a compass

an account of the most original and influential of all philosophies.

A. E. T.

CONTENTS CHAP. I,

FAOE

Life and Writings

^Knowledge and III.

its

The Soul of Man

Objects

—Psychology,

Cosmology

Ethics,

and

,73

Politics

IV.

..-..,,,

Select Bibliography

137

149

PLATO CHAPTER LIFE

The in

AND WRITINGS

tradilional story of the

which

unusually

life

of Plato

between historical fact and romantic the

Lives

of Plato

one

fiction.

which have come down

from ancient times, the of

difficult to distinguish

earliest in date is that

the African rhetorician and romance-^vriter

Apuleius,

who

belongs to the middle and later

half of the second century a.d.

There

a longer

biography in the scrap-book commonly known as the Lives of the Philosophers by Diogenes of Laerte, a compilation

which

dates, in its present

form, from a time not long before the middle of the third century a.d.,

material

though much of

its

taken from earlier and better sources.

The remaining

'Lives' belong to the latest age

of Neo-Platonism,

Christ and later.

i.e.

the

Thus the

sixth

century after

earliest extant bio-

PLATO graphy of the philosopher comes to us from a time four hundred years after his death, and

must be taken -;g i^epresent the Platonic legend as it was current in a most uncritical age. When we try to gat behind this legend to its basis in well- accredited

fact,

singularly meagre.

the results

own

only two facts about his in the Aioology, that

obtain

are

Plato himself has recorded life.

tells us,

he was present in court

the trial of his master Socrates, and that he was

one of the friends who offered to be surety

for

the payment of any fine which might be imposed

on the old philosopher.

In the Phaedo he adds

that he was absent from the famous death-scene in

the prison, owing to an

illness,

a statement

which may, however, be no more than an artistic His contemporary Xenophon literary fiction. merely mentions him once in passing as a ber of the inner Socratic

circle.

From

further learn that Plato, as a

mem-

Aristotle

young man,

apparently before his intimacy with

Socrates,

had been a pupil of the Heraclitean philosopher Cratylus.

few anecdotes of an unfavourable

kind are related by Diogenes of Laerte on the authority of Aristoxenus of Messene, a pupil of

and a well-known writer on music, whose credibility is, however, impaired by his Aristotle,

LIFE AND WRITINGS unmistakable personal animus against Socrates

and

Plato,

and

his

anxiety to deny

The dates

philosophical originality. birth

and death

are,

them

all

of Plato's

moreover, fixed for us by

the unimpeachable authority of the Alexandrian chronologists,

whose testimony has been pre-

served by Diogenes.

We may

thus take

certain that Plato was born in the year 427 early in the great Peloponnesian war,

Xenophon, in his one the

name

and died

The way

346, at the age of eighty- one.

B.C.,

which

solitary statement, couples

of Plato with

that of Charmides, a

leader of the oligarchy of the

Thirty,' set

up by

the Spartans in Athens at the close of the Pelo-

ponnesian war, taken together with the promi-

nence given in the Platonic dialogues to Charmides

and

Critias as friends of Socrates, confirms the

later tradition, according to

was a near

which has

relative of the

oligarchs,' a fact

borne in mind in reading his

to be

severe strictures

which Plato himself two

upon Athenian democracy.

There remains, indeed, a further source of formation, which,

its

authenticity could

in-

regarded as established, would be of the very highest value.

Among

the writings ascribed to

Plato and preserved in our ancient manuscripts there

a collection of thirteen letters, purport3

PLATO ing to be written by the philosopher himself,

some

of which ostensibly contain a good deal of

In particular the seventh

autobiographical detail. letter, the longest and

most important of the

own

group, professes to contain the philosopher's vindication of his

life -long

part in the public

abstention from taking

of his country, and,

life

genuine, absolutely confirms the later story, presently to be narrated, of his political relations

with the court of Syracuse.

certain

we know

for

that they were in existence and were

regarded as Platonic early A.D.,

to the history of

that

this collection of letters, all

when they were

tYie

iji

century

first

included by the scholar

Thrasyllus in his complete edition of the works of Plato.

This, however,

not of

itself

proof of

their genuineness, since the edition of Thrasyllus

now show and Frastae.

contained works which we can spurious, such as the Theages

know from Diogenes

further

who was

phanes,

of Alexandria

century

many

B.C.

recognised.

;

librarian of the great

earlier

Aristo-

museum

towards the end of the second

but we are not told which or

our

of Laerte that cer-

had been included in the Plato by the famous scholar

tain 'letters*

edition of

to be

present

When we

collection

Aristophanes

examine the extant 4

how

letters

LIFE AND WRITINGS we seem

themselves,

they can hardly since istic

some

all

led to the conclusion that

be genuine works of Plato,

them appear

to allude to character-

doctrines of the Neo-Pythagoreanism which

arose about the beginning of the It

before Christ.

has

that Grote

among

stood

century

not surprising, therefore, or

alone,

scholars

recent

first

almost alone,

maintaining

the

genuineness of the whole set of thirteen letters

admitted into the collection of Thrasyllus.

It is

another question whether some at least of the collection,

and notably the seventh, the only importance, may not be the work

letter of real

and the problem must be said to be one upon which competent scholars are not as yet agreed. On the one side, it may be urged of Plato,

that the incidents related in the seventh letter are in no rence, as

certain

way incredible, and that their occurwe shall see directly, would explain a

increase of pessimism

writings on political philosophy. it is

Plato's

later

the other,

suspicious that the letter appears to quote

directly

from

least

four

Platonic dialogues

(the Apology, PhaedOy Republic, Lysis), and that,

apart from the account of Plato's relations with Syracuse,

contains nothing which might not

have been put together with the help of the 5

PLATO And we must remember

dialogues.

that the

desire to exhibit Plato, the great political theorist,

actually at state after

been a

work on the attempt to construct a his own heart, would at any time have

sujfficient

motive for the fabrication.

Still,

the style of the composition shows that, forgery,

at least

an early forgery, and we

shall hardly

be wrong in treating the narrative

as being, at

any

rate,

based upon a trustworthy

tradition.

Having premised of our information,

much

this

as to the sources

we may now proceed

rate in outline the biography of Plato, as

to narit

was

current early in the Christian era, omitting what is

evidently

myth

mere improving anecdote. and Perictione, was born

Plato, the son of Ariston

either in

Athens

or,

according to another account,

in Aegina, in the year 427 B.C. side

he was

mides,

closely related to Critias

members

and Char-

of the oligarchy of the

and the former the leader among spirits,

the mother's

its

Thirty,'

violent

the family going back through Dropides, a

relative of the great lawgiver Solon, to a divine first

ancestor, the

god Poseidon.

side, too, his origin

was no

the father's

less illustrious, since

Ariston was a descendant of Codrus, the last king of Athens,

who was himself sprung from 6

Poseidon.

LIFE Even

AND WRITINGS

origin, however, was not thought enough for the philosopher by his admirers, and Plato's own nephew, Speusippus, is

this

exalted

cited as an authority for the belief that the real

was the god Apollo.

father of Perictione's son

(The relationship between Plato and the family

and Charmides

we have said, made probable by the philosopher's own utterof Critias

ances,

and he

is,

also himself the authority for the

The

descent of Critias from Dropides. assertions about the

further

eminent descent of Dropides

are hardly w^orthy of credit, since

seems clear

that Solon the lawgiver was really a middle-class

merchant. itself

But the connection with Solon

shows that the family was one of the highest

distinction as families late fifth century.)

went

in the

Athens of the

a^ lad, the future

philo-

sopher was ambitious of poetical fame, and had

even composed a tragedy

But when he

for public performance.

came under the

Socrates, he devoted

sophy and burned

influence

himself entirely to philo-

all his

poems.

(That so great

an imaginative writer as Plato should have begun his literary career as a poet is likely enough,

there

and

no reason why some of the epigrams

ascribed to

him

in the

Greek Anthology should

not be genuine, but the story of the burnt tragedy 7

PLATO looks like a fabrication based upon the severe

condemnation of poetry in general and the drama in particular in the Republic

get

that,

got

Plato

according

Aristotle's

his introduction

from Socrates, but from association between Plato

when

nor must we

;

statement,

philosophy not

Cratylus.)

and

for-

The

first

Socrates took place

Plato was twenty years old, and their con-

nection lasted eight years, since the death of Socrates

falls in

master,

Plato

some years

399

B.C.

retired

After the death of the

from Athens and

in foreign travel.

the extent of these travels

spent

The accounts of become more and

more exaggerated as the narrators are increasingly removed in date from the actual events.' The seventh letter speaks merely of a voyage to Italy and Sicily undertaken apparently in con'

sequence of the writer's disgust with the proceedings of the restored Athenian democracy, which

had inaugurated of Socrates. for

its

Cicero,

career by the condemnation

who

the story of the

the earliest authority

travels,

apart

from

the

makes Plato go first to Egypt, afterwards The later Platonic legend to Italy and Sicily. more, and relates an entire professes to know romance on the subject of Plato's adventures. '

letters,'

According to this

story Plato

withdrew from

LIFE AND WRITINGS Athens on the death of Socrates, and resided

for a

while at the neighbouring city of Megara with

He then

and fellow-disciple Eucleides.

his friend

visited Gyrene, to enjoy the society of the

mathe-

matician Theodorus, Egypt, where he learned the

wisdom ciated

school

of the priests,

and

Italy,

with the members who had survived the

where he

of the

asso-

Pythagorean

forcible dissolution

of the political power of the sect.

(The

tale

ran

that he further purposed to visit the Persian

Magi, but that this scheme failed, though some writers professed to

know that

Plato had

met with

Magians and learned their doctrines in Phoenicia.)

From

Italy the legend brings

where he letter,

is said,

Plato to Sicily,

on the authority of the seventh

have arrived at the age of forty;

after twelve years of continuous travel.

i.e.

Here he

visited the court of the vigorous ruler of Syracuse,

and so displeased that arbitrary i., monarch by his freedoms of speech that he caused him to be kidnapped by a Spartan ambassador who put him up for sale in the slave -market of Aegina, where, by a singular coincidence, the people had passed a resolution that the first Dionysius

Athenian who should land on the island should be put to death. Plato was, however, saved from his danger

by a man

of Gyrene,

who ransomed

;

PLATO him and

sent

him home

truth there

may

which

differently

are

to Athens.

(How much

be in this story, the details of

given

by the

different

narrators, it is impossible to say with certainty.

The

story of the kidnapping, in particular,

told

with a good deal of discrepancy in the details

many

features of

appears entirely

are highly singular, and

unknown

writer of the seventh

every ground to regard

both Cicero and the

letter.'

Hence there is The

as pure romance.

same must be said of the story of the twelve years' unbroken travel, and the association of Plato with Oriental priests and magicians. Stories of this kind were widely circulated

the beginning of the

from

century before Christ

first

onward, when the gradual intermingling of East

and West in great

cities

Alexandria had

given rise to the fancy that Greek science and

philosophy had been originally borrowed from Oriental theosophy, a notion invented by Alex-

andrian Neo-Pythagoreans and eagerly accepted

by Jews and Christians, whom it enabled to represent the Greek sages as mere pilferers from the

Hebrew

Even the

scriptures.

alleged resi-

dence in Megara and the voyage to Cyrene, may be

no more than inventions based on the the dialogue Theaetetus

facts that

dedicated to Plato's

LIFE AND WRITINGS friend Eucleides of

Mcgara and that the Cyrcnian

mathematician Theodorus personae.

one of

So again the frequent

its

dramatis

allusions in the

dialogues to Egypt and Egyptian customs

due

may

to reminiscences of actual travel in Egypt,

but can hardly be said to show more knowledge

than an Athenian might have acquired at home

reading

and

Herodotus

traders from the Nile Delta.

with

conversing

the other hand,

the story of the visit to Italy and Sicily

con-

firmed by the fact that Plato's works, as

well

known, show considerable familiarity both with Pythagorean science and with the Pythagorean and Orphic theological ideas, and that the first dialogue in which this influence is particularly noticeable is the Gorgias, the work in which, as is

now

generally recognised,

first

time in the tone of the head of a philoIt is thus probable that

sophical school or sect. Plato's final

Plato speaks for the

settlement at Athens as a philo-

sophical teacher was actually preceded, as the tradition dating at least asserts,

by a

visit to the

from the seventh

home

letter

of Pythagoreanism,

the Greek cities of Sicily and Southern Italy.)

have

to think of Plato, then, as definitely

from about 887 B.C., in Athens as the head of a permanent seat of learning, recognised

established,

PLATO a university, as we might

The home

terminology.

our modern

call it in

of this institution was

in the north-western suburb of

Athens known as

the Academy, in consequence of the presence there of a shrine of the local hero

Here

Academus.

Plato possessed a small property, which was per-

haps (the words of the legend as preserved by Diogenes are obscure,) purchased for him by his foreign friends.

From

this circumstance the

philosophical school founded by Plato

known the

came

in later days as the Academy.'

first

institution of the kind

;

Plato's

was not contem-

rival, the rhetorician and publicist had already gathered round him a similar group of students, and the writings of

porary and Isocrates,

both authors bear traces of the rivalry between them.

Their

markedly

educational

different.

aims were, in

Isocrates desired,

first

fact,

and

foremost, to turn out accomplished and capable

men

of action, successful orators

and

politicians.

on the other hand, was convinced that though the trained intelligence ought to direct

Plato,

the course of public

life

in a well-ordered society,

the equipment requisite for such a task must

first

be obtained by a thorough mastery of the principles of science and philosophy, and was not to be derived

from

any

superficial

education in

LIFE AND WRITINGS Thus, while Plato, in well-

'general culture.'

known as

passages, describes the pupils of Isocrates

smatterers

Isocrates,

on his

and

pretenders to philosophy,'

side, depreciates those of Plato as

Of the precise nature of the Academy, unfortunately, little

unpractical theorists.

teaching in Plato's is

known, but the reports of

such

later tradition,

as they are, indicate that the author of the Re-

public carried practice,

theories

his

education

into

and made the thorough and systematic

study of exact mathematical science the founda-

The

tion of all further philosophic instruction.

the door of the

story that inscription

under

this

Academy bore

the

Let none unversed in geometry come roof,'

indeed,

is,

first

found in the

works of a mediaeval Byzantine, but

its spirit is

thoroughly Platonic.

The outward peculiarity, it must be rememby which the education given by both Plato and Isocrates differed from that afforded by

bered,

the eminent

sophists

of the last half of the fifth

century, was that their teaching was tinuous,

and

gratuitous.

that

was, in

The great

more con-

theory at

least,

sophist of the past

had

usually been a distinguished foreigner whose task of

making own

their

his pupils

good men, able

manage

private affairs and the affairs of the 13

PLATO

nation well/ had to be accomplished in the course of a flying visit of a few weeks or months, and he had also been a professional educator, depending upon his professional fees for his livelihood, and therefore inevitably exposed to the temptation to

make

instruction

his

rather than thorough.

attractive

and popular,

Plato and Isocrates, on

the other hand, were the heads of permanent schools, in

which the education of the pupil could

be steadily carried on for a protracted period, and

where he could remain long

after his

time of

pupilage proper was over, as an associate in the

They were, moreover, not subsistence upon payments by

studies of his master.

dependent

for

their pupils, sity to

and were hence

make

sense of the term, though tha'b

neither

from the neces-

free

their teaching popular in the it

had any objection

only

fair to

bad add

to the occasional

reception of presents from friends or pupils, and

that Isocrates, at least, required a fee from foreign students.

It is in virtue of this

permanent and

organised pursuit of intellectual studies, and this

absence of professionalism '

that

we may

call

from their teaching,

Plato and Isocrates the joint

what we now understand by university education. The remark I have just made about the absence of professionalism from creators of the idea of

LIFE AND WRITINGS scheme of instruction

their

will, I

hope, explain

that persistent objection to the sophists' practice of

demanding a

fee for their courses

which Grote

found so unreasonable on the part of Plato and Aristotle.

Plato's long life of quiet absorption in his self-

chosen task as a director of

scientific studies

and

a writer on philosophy, was destined to be once at

The

least disastrously interrupted.

details of his

abortive attempt to put his theories of govern-

ment

in the histories of Greece. to recapitulate

the

the leading

authority than the

Dion.

for

letters,' in

In the year 367

of sixty

B.C.,

as related in

Plutarch's

when

life

Plato was a

and had presided over the Academy

twenty years, Dionysius

leaving his

facts,

and, apparently without any other

'letters,'

man

must be sought Here it must suffice

into practice at Syracuse

kingdom

to his

of Syracuse died,

son Dionysius

weak but impressionable youth.

The

ii.,

actual

direction of affairs was, at the time, mostly in the

hands of Dion, the brother-in-law of Dionysius i. and an old friend and admirer of Plato. Plato himself had written in his Republic that truly

good government

will only

be possible when a

king becomes a philosopher, or a philosopher a king,

i.e.

when the knowledge 15

of sound prin-

PLATO government and the power

ciples of

them

in fact are united in

Dion seems

embody

the same person.

have thought that the circum-

stances at Syracuse offered a favourable oppor-

tunity for the realisation of this ideal.

Why

should not Dionysius, under the instructions of the great master, become the promised philosopher-king, and employ the unlimited power at his

command

to convert

Syracuse into something

not far removed from the ideal state of Plato's

dream

us,

enough, but, as

reminded

us,

such a project seems chimerical Professor

Bury has

properly

the universal belief of Hellas was

that a not very dissimilar task had actually been

achieved by Lycurgus for Sparta, and there was no

a priori reason for doubting that what Lycurgus had done for Sparta could be done for Syracuse by Plato. Plato was accordingly invited to Syracuse to undertake the education of the young prince. ing,

His reception was, at

first,

most promis-

but the thoroughness with which he set

about accomplishing his work foredoomed

was the

failure.

system

that nothing

first

but

the

fit

most thorough

training of intelligence in the ideas of science will ever

principle of his political

man

and methods work of

for the

governing mankind with true insight. i6

Accord-

LIFE AND WRITINGS ingly he insisted

pupil

upon beginning by putting

his

through a thorough course of geometry.

Dionysius, naturally enough, soon grew weary of this preliminary drill,

and began

the control of his preceptors.

was found sius

for

to revolt against

opportunity

banishing Dion, and though Diony-

would have liked

keep Plato with him,

the philosopher recognised that his scheme had failed,

and

speedily pressed for permission

return to Athens.

another

visit to

of reconciling result.

year or two later he paid

Syracuse, apparently in the hope

Dion and Dionysius, but without

The sequel

the

story,

the

rapid

development of Dionysius into a reckless tyrant, the expedition of Dion which led to the downfall

and

flight of Dionysius, the assassination of Dion by Callippus, another pupil of Plato, who then set himself up as tyrant, but was speedily overthrown in his turn by the half-brother of Dionysius,

belongs to the history of Sicily, not to the bio-

graphy of Plato.

disastrous

of the Syracusan

failure

not unlikely that the enterprise,

and the discredit which subsequent events cast upon the members of the Academy, have much to do with the relatively disillusioned and pessimistic tone

of Plato's political

utterances in

the Theaetetus and Politicus as contrasted with

PLATO the serenity and hopeful spirit of the greater Yet, even in his old age,

part of the Republic.

Plato seems to have clung to the belief that the

experiment which had

failed at

be successful elsewhere. Laivs, after

Syracuse might

In his latest work, the

which was possibly not circulated until his death, he still insists that the one

chance for the establishment of a really sound

form of government

lies in

the association of a

young and high-spirited prince with a wise lawgiver.

Nothing

his last return

—legend

recorded of the

of Plato after

life

from Syracuse, except that he died

says at a wedding-feast

—in

347-6, at the age of eighty-one.

His

preserved by Diogenes, and

likely

be genuine, provides

for

the year

will,

which

enough

a 'child Adeimantus,'

who was probably a relative, as the same name had been borne by one of his half-brothers. Nothing further is known which throws any light on the question whether Plato was ever married or left any descendants. The scurrilous gossip collected by writers like Athenaeus, and the late Neo-Platonic traditions v/hich

make him The

into a celibate ascetic, are equally worthless.

headship of the years to

Academy passed

first for

a few

Speusippus, a nephew of Plato, and

LIFE AND WRITINGS then to Xenocrates of Chalcedon, another of the master's immediate pupils.

genius

among

The one man

For ten or eleven

took an independent course.

master, of whose

years after the death of the school he had been a B.C. until

employed tutor to

member from about

367-6

346, he was absent from Athens, being for part of the period (343-336 B.C.) as

the future Alexander the Great, then

Crown Prince 335

of real

the disciples, Aristotle of Stageira,

of Macedonia.

his return in

he broke away from the Academy, and

organised a

new

school with himself as

The formal reverence which

its

head.

Aristotle expresses

in his writings for his predecessor

was combined

with a pugnacious determination to find him in the wrong on every possible occasion. spite of the carping

and unpleasantly

Yet, in

self-satisfied

tone of most of the Aristotelian criticism of Plato,

the thought of the later philosopher on ultimate issues of speculation

little

all

the

more than

an echo of the larger utterance of his master, and it is perhaps as much by inspiring the doctrine of Aristotle as by his that Plato has continued to our cise

own utterances own day to exer-

an influence in every department of philo-

sophic thought, which

not less potent for being

Of the

most often unsuspected. 19

direct

and enor-

PLATO mously important influence of Platonism on the development of Christian theology this

perhaps

hardly the place to speak.

The works of Plato, we have reason to believe, have come down to us absolutely entire and comThis is, no doubt, to be explained by the plete. fact that the original

preserved

the

Platonic

Academy

thence

;

has argued, would naturally find

copies, as Grote

their

manuscripts were carefully

way into the

great library at Alexandria.

does not, however, follow that everything which

our extant manuscripts of Plato contain must necessarily be Platonic. in course of time, for

would be quite

easy,

works incorrectly ascribed

to Plato, or deliberately forged in his

be imposed upon the Alexandrian

name,

librarians,

to acquire a standing in the library, side

and

by side

with genuine writings derived directly from the original

manuscripts preserved at

Academy

at Athens.

the

Indeed, the very anxiety

and

their imitators the kings

make

their great collections of

of the Ptolemies, of Pergamus, to

first

books as complete as possible, would furnish a powerful incentive to the unscrupulous to pro-

duce alleged copies of works by famous authors.

happens,

we do not know

either

how

long

the original manuscripts of Plato continued to

LIFE AND WRITINGS exist

undispersed (indeed, the very statement

that they were kept in the

Academy

infer-

ence from the probabilities of the case, and does not rest upon direct ancient testimony), nor what

works of Plato were originally included in the

The

Alexandrian library.

first

trace

which has

been preserved of the existence of an edition of Plato in that library

the statement of Diogenes

Aristophanes

Byzantium

that

the

made

an arrangement of the works of Plato, in

scholar

which certain of the dialogues were grouped together in

the

'trilogies,' or sets of three, after

fashion of the tragic dramas of the fifth century.

Diogenes gives the names of fourteen dialogues, which, together with a collection of

letters,'

been thus divided by Aristophanes into

had

five tri-

and adds that the grouping was not carried Unfortunately, he does not us the titles of the rest,' so that we have no

logies,

out 'for the rest/ tell

right to assert that everything

now included

our manuscripts was recognised as Platonic at

At a the grammarian Thrasyllus, who

Alexandria in the time of Aristophanes.

much

later date,

lived in the reigns of

Augustus and Tiberius

in the early part of the first century a.d.),

{i.e.

made

a new classification of the Platonic dialogues into *

tetralogies,' or

groups of four, on the analogy of the 21

PLATO old tragic tetralogy of three tragedies followed

The Platonic canon

a satyric play.

contained nine of these tetralogies,

the same as those

we now

possess.

thirty-

i.e.

dialogues with a collection of thirteen

five

of Thrasyllus

letters,'

Of works im-

properly ascribed to Plato he reckoned ten, five of

which are

still

No one now

extant.

supposes that anything which was

rejected by Thrasyllus is a genuine

work

of Plato,

but there has been during the last sixty years a

good deal of discussion

as to

included by Thrasyllus

whether

may

that was

all

safely be accepted.

The extreme view that nothing contained canon of Thrasyllus

in the

spurious has found no im-

portant defender except Grote, whose reasoning is

by the double assumption that every-

vitiated

thing accepted as genuine by Thrasyllus must

have been guaranteed by the Alexandrian

and that the Alexandrian

library,

librarians themselves

cannot have been misled or imposed upon. the other hand, the scepticism of those critics of

who

German

the last half of the nineteenth century,

rejected as spurious

many

of the

most im-

portant dialogues, including, in some instances,

works as

(e.g.

Plato's

the Laws) which are specifically

Aristotle, has

more untenable.

Our

proved

named

itself

even

surest guide in the matter,

AND WRITINGS

LIFE

wherever obtainable,

the evidence of Aristotle,

and an increasingly careful study of the Aristotelian

has now enabled us to say that,

text

though some of the chief dialogues are never actually

there

cited

Aristotle

tion of the Parinenides,

by him

express

words,

none of them, with the doubtful excep-

in a

way

which

not alluded to

in which, so far as

we can

dis-

he never makes use of any works except

cern,

those of Plato.

There

thus at present a general

agreement among scholars that no considerable

work

in the

canon of Thrasyllus

few dialogues of his

list

spurious.

The

which are either certainly

or possibly spurious are all of them, from the

philosophical point of view, insignificant, and no difference

made

our conception of Platonism

by our judgment upon them. A more important question than that of the genuineness or spuriousness of the few minor dialogues about which

doubt

it is

still

permissible to

presented by the problem of the order

of composition of the leading dialogues.

Until

some conclusion has been order in which Plato's principal works were com-

established as to the

posed,

impossible to form any intelligible

theory of the

Now

development of Plato's thought.

happens that the only positive piece of

PLATO information on this point which has to us

from antiquity,

Laws was

come down

the statement of Aristotle

work than the Bepublic. The dialogues themselves enable us to supplement this statement to a slight extent. Thus the Sophistes and Politicus are expressly reprethat the

a later

sented as continuations of the conversation contained in the Theaetetus, and later

must

therefore be

than that dialogue, and for a similar reason

the Timaeus must be later than the earlier books of the Republic, since

ing

the

Republic

political ii.-v.

recapitulates in its open-

and

educational theories of

And

further, a

dialogue which

quotes from another, as the Republic appears to

do from the Phaedo, and the Phaedo from the

Meno, must, of course, be quoted.

But the

results

later

than the dialogue

which can be won by

considerations of this kind carry us only a

little

way, and, in the main, students of Plato were until forty years

ago about as devoid of the means

of forming a correct conception of the develop-

ment

of Plato's

thought as students

Kant

would have been of the means of writing the if the works of Kant had come down to us entirely undated. Each scholar had his own theory of the order of the dialogues, founded upon some fanciful principle of arrange-

history of Kantianism,

LIFE ment

AND WRITINGS

which no convincing grounds could be The first step towards the definite sohition the problem by rational methods was taken for

given. of

Professor

Lewis

Campbell

from the universally recognised

Laws must, on

1867 in his

and Foliticus.

edition of the Sophistes

fact

Starting that the

linguistic grounds, as well as

the strength of ancient tradition, be regarded as Plato's

latest

composition, Professor

proposed to treat the amount of

Campbell

stylistic

resem-

blance between a given dialogue and the Laws, as ascertained by minute linguistic statistics, as a

The method

criterion of relative date.

of investi-

gation thus pointed out has been since followed

by a number of other scholars, and notably, and with the greatest wealth of

by W. Lutosand Growth of

detail,

lawski in his work on The Origin Plato's Logic. light

time,

much

additional

has been thrown on the subject by the careful investigation of the

concealed Isocrates, is

At the same

polemical

and

that while

references

numerous in

Plato

half-

The result by no means able to

in Isocrates to Plato.

are

arrange the works of

still

Plato

certain serial order, there

is,

in spite of

absolutely

some

indi-

vidual points of disagreement, a growing consensus

among

scholars as to the relative order of succes-

PLATO For a

sion of the principal dialogues.

of the to

methods just referred

which they

lead, the reader

the recent work of

may

Hans Raeder,

sophische Entwickelung.

full

account

and the

results

be referred to

Flaton's Philo-

content myself

I shall

here with a statement of what appear to be the

main

results.

genuine writings

Plato's

into four dialogues,

fall

on examination

main classes. These are: (1) Early marked by the freshness of the

dramatic portraiture, the predominant preoccupawith questions of ethics, and the absence

tion

of the great characteristic Platonic psychological, epistemological,

and

particularly of the this

metaphysical conceptions,

famous theory of

Ideas.'

group belong the dialogues which have often

been called par excellence

Socratic,'

such as the

Apology, Crito, Charmides, Laches, Euthyphro,

Euthydemus, and probably Cratylus.

The most

important members of the group are the Protagoras

and

Gorgias,

the

latter

certainly the last of the series.

being

There

almost reason,

as already said, to regard the Gorgias as probably

composed soon

after 387,

when Plato was beginning

his career as president of the

Academy.

(2)

group of great dialogues in which Plato's literary

power

at its height,

and which are 26

all

marked by

LIFE AND WRITINGS the central position given in

with

of Ideas,' scientific

them

knowledge

to the

theory

The Meno ap-

recollection.

the doctrine that

corollary,

its

pears to furnish the connecting link between this

group and the preceding

the other

;

members

are the Syinjjosiuin, Phaedo, Republic, Phaedrus.

Of these the Phaedrus has been shown, concluby Raeder, and, on independent

sively as I think,

grounds, by Lutoslawski, to be later than the Republic, which, in

to allude to the

was published

turn,

its

of a

down *

pretty certainly later

Panegyricus of 380

B.C.,

Plato's activity as a writer least

Since the Phaedrus appears

than the other two.

to that year.

dialectical

the

Isocrates,

which

second period

must have extended

(3)

of at

A group of dialogues

kind, in which

the primary

objects of consideration are logical questions, the

nature of true and of false predication, the problem

meaning of negation, the and definition. An

of the categories, the

processes of logical division

external link

provided between the dialogues

of this group by the

given in them Eleatic consists

all to

philosopher of

four

exceptional

prominence

the doctrines of the great

The

Parmenides.

great

dialogues,

Pa/mienides, Sophistes, Politicus.

Thcaetetus,

The

are undoubtedly later than the others.

group

last

two

They

are,

PLATO begun and are shown to be later than the Parmenides both by linguistic evidence and by the presence in the Sophistes of an explicit allusion to the arguments of the Parmenides. Whether the Theaetetus is also later than the Parmenides is still an open question, though it in form, continuations of the conversation

in the Theaetetus,

what looks

also contains

like a distinct reference

to that dialogue. (4)

Three important works remain which form,

linguistically, a

group by themselves and must the

be referred to the latest years of Plato's

life

Philehus, the maturest

Platonic

tinuation,

exposition of

Timaeus (with

ethics; the

its

fragmentary con-

the Critias), concerned in the main

with cosmology and physics, but including a great deal that

of high metaphysical

and

ethical

importance; and the Laws, in which the aged philosopher, without abandoning the ideals of the

Republic, undertakes the construction of such a '

second-best

form of society as might be actually

practicable not for

philosophers,' but for average

fourth -century Greeks.

Actual dates can hardly

be determined in connection with these two last groups.

can only say that the seven works

mentioned must have been written between 380 (the earliest possible date for the Phaed/i'us)

and

LIFE AND WRITINGS 847-6, the year of Plato's death,

and that the

between the third and second

difference of tone

groups of dialogues makes

almost certain that

the earliest works of the third group

fall at least

some years

It is

later

than the Phaedrus.

tempt-

ing to go a step further, and say, with Lutos-

the

that

lawski,

expressions

bitter

the

Theaetetus about the helplessness of the philo-

sopher in practical

contain

affairs

own

allusion to the failure of Plato's

which case the

at Syracuse, in

the following dialogues

but the inference

is far

may

This chapter

brief observations

later

and

all

than 367-6,

certain.

conveniently end with somei

on the form of the Platonic'

and the

writings,

personal

TJieaetetus

must be from

intervention

difficulties

which that form

creates for the interpreter of Plato's thought.

form, the philosophical w^orks of Plato are

all

dramatic

This

sations. is,

they

;

are,

one and

in point of fact,

becomes earlier

less

BtaXoyoc, conver-

true even of the Apology, which

collo quies of Socrates

judges.

all,

set speech,

but a series of

with his accuser and his

true that the dramatic element

prominent as we pass from the

works to the

later.

In the dialogues of

our last two groups, the function of the minor personages

becomes

less

and

less

important.

PLATO They

tend,

more and more,

serve as

mere

instruments for giving the chief speaker his cue,

Timaeus the conversation becomes a mere prelude to the delivery of a consecutive and unbroken cosmological discourse, and in the Laws the two minor characters have little more to do than to receive the instructions of their comuntil in the

panion with appropriate expressions of agreement.

We note, speaker

too, that in

general the position of chief

assigned to Socrates, though in three

of the later dialogues (the Sophistes, Politicus,

and Timaeus) he recedes into the background, as though Plato felt that he was passing in these works definitely beyond the bounds of the Socratic influence,

while

Laws he

the

disappears

altogether (probably because the scene of the

dialogue

laid in Crete,

where the introduction

home-keeping son of Sophroniscus would have been incongruous), and his place is taken by of the

a 'stranger from Athens,' other than Plato himself

who

palpably no

Plato's reasons

for

choosing the dialogue as the most appropriate vehicle of philosophical thought are not hard to discover.

was the natural mode of expres-

sion for a philosophic in

movement which

originated

the searching and incisive conversation

Socrates.

Most of the Socratic men '

expressed

LIFE AND WRITINGS their ideas in the guise of Socratic dialogue,

Plato

may

not have been the originator of the Moreover, Plato, as he himself

practice.

had a poor opinion of written books

problems and examina-

between independent seekers

tion of difficulties for

recommended

The dialogue form

truth.

him

tells us,

as provoca-

comparison with the actual

tive of thought, in

face-to-face discussion of

itself to

and

as the nearest literary approximation

mind with mind

the actual contact of

;

enabled him to examine a doctrine successively

from the points of view of

its

adherents and

its

opponents, and thus to ensure thoroughness in

And

the quest for truth.

more than any other form full

finally, the

dialogue,

of composition, gives

play to the dramatic gifts of portrayal of

humorous

character and

satire in

which Plato

takes rank with the greatest comic and tragic masters.

At the same

dialogue as his

mode

time, Plato's choice of the

of expression has created

a source of fallacy for his interpreters.

would avoid serious

errors, it is necessary

always

remember that the personages of one of Plato's philosophical dialogues are one and all characters to

play.

Protagoras

Platonic dialogue,

Gorgias,'

not the historical Professor

of that name, but a fictitious personage created by 31

PLATO Plato as a representative of views and tendencies

which he wishes

with

Mingled

criticise.

drawn from the actual persons whose names these characters bear, we can often find in the picture others which can be known or suspected traits

And

to belong to the writer's contemporaries.

the same thing is true, though the fact is commonly forgotten, of the protagonist of the drama,

the Platonic neither, as

Socrates.*

some

Socrates

of the older

in Plato

and more

uncritical

expositors used to assume, the historical Socrates, nor, as is too often historical

Plato, but

The

drama.

taken

for

granted to-day, the

hero

the

of the

Platonic

hero's character is largely modelled

on that of the actual Socrates, his opinions are often those of the historical Plato, but he distinct

from them both.

grave mistake of interpretation to proposition put forward by

is still

In particular,

assume that a

Socrates

must

neces-

sarily represent the views of his creator, or that

where Socrates declares himself baffled by a problem, Plato must always have been equally at a '

loss. *

irony

Plato shares to the full that gift of Attic '

which

so characteristic of the great

Athenian tragedians, and, as any attentive readshow, he has no

ing of the Protagoras will objection

exercising

it,

on occasion, at the

LIFE AND WHITINGS expense of his principal personage. ing which of the views

forward as his own, we,

In determin-

of his hero

who

are

put

are deprived of the

oral instructions dispensed to the students of the

Academy, have to observe much the same conditions and practise much the same precautions as

are required

for similar

great dramatist or novehst.

interpretation

of a

CHAPTER ^KNOWLEDGE AND

ITS OBJECTS

The word 'philosophy,' which to us has come to mean no more than a body of theories and inquiries,

has for Plato a more living and subjecPhilosophy

tive sense.

is,

as its

name

declares,

the love of wisdom, the passionate striving after truth and light which is, in some degree, the dower of every human soul. It belongs, the

Symposium is

tells

us, neither

the

wholly wise, nor to that which

complacently stupid.

mind

that

merely and

It is the aspiration of.^_e_

partly illuminated, partly confused soul towards a complete vision in

sent doubts and difficulties

may

and perplexed, which its 'pvez^

vanish.

Accord-

ing to the Theaetetus and Republic, philosophy begins in wonder, or more precisely in the mental distress we feel when confronted by conflicting perceptions,

each

apparently

famous passage

credited.

distress, in

which the soul

equally well

is,

this

state

acof

so to say, in travail

KNOWLEDGE AND with a half-formed idea,

his

the

likened to the pains

and the philosopher

of child-birth, in

ITS OBJECTS is

relation to his disciples, as

His task

spirit.

men, but

other

own thoughts

of philosophy and

not to

-is

them

help

the bu*th. its

think for bring their

This

conception

far

from being

function

presented,

the midwife

narrowly 'intellectualist' in a bad sense.

sophy

in Plato's eyes, a

is,

for

character

But

it is

less

way

than

life,'

for

Philo-

a discipline

understandinsr.

his conviction that there is a deep truth

enshrined in the crude saying of the old physiologists that

like is

of education

the

mind

known by

itself inevitably

of the things

like.'

{

His theory

dominated by the thought that

imitates

the character

habitually contemplates. | Just

because the aspiration after wisdom

the funda-

mental expression of the mind's true nature,

cannot be followed persistently without resulting in a transfiguration of our whole character JTts

ultimate effect

to reproduce in the individual

soul those very features of law, order,

and

rational

purpose which the philosopher's contemplation reveals as omnipresent in the world of genuine

Yet the starting-point

knowledge. process

of the whole

an intellectual emotion, a passion

insight into

for

truthT^The upward pilgrimage of 35

PLATO the soul begins for Plato

with

not,

Bunyan,

as for

conviction of sin/ but with that humiliating

sense of ignorance which Socrates aimed at pro-

ducing

those

who submitted

questioning. \Insight first

requisites for

for science,

sound morality, no

the

fact

'opinions' he

has 'knowledge,'

and can be justified

The

less

than

from other

that where they have

which have been won by '

cross-

In action as well as in speculation,

VBthat distinguishes the 'philosopher'

men

his

and enhghtenment are the

i.e.

mere

convictions

free intellectual inquiry

at the bar of reason.

theory of knowledge'

c entre of Plato's philoso phy.

•

thus the v ery

takes his stand

upon the fundamental assumption

that

there

is,suekatMng as science,' i.e. as a body of knowable truth which is valid alwavg an d_ahgol-

really

ujely and for every thinking mind. The problem he sets before himself in his metaphysics is to^ find the answer to the question

possible

must be

What

How

science

the general character which

ascribed to the objects of our scientific

knowledge?'

Plato may, therefore, in spite of

Kant's hasty inclusion of matists,

him among the dog-

be truly said to be a great ^

'critical'

philosoplier, and, indeed, with a partial reservation

in favour of his revered predecessor Parmenides,

KNOWLEDGE AND

ITS

OBJECTS

the earliest critical philosopher of Europe. it is

not too

problem

Kant

much

identical

Critique of

in the

Plato's

to say that Plato's

essentially

solution of

Indeed,

fundamental

with

that of

Pure Reason, though some

differs strikingly in

Kant's. (X^ja.- Kan t, -he finds his

respects from

point of departure in the broad contrast between

the world of everyday unsystematised experience,' *

and that of

science.

The world

appears

f^rpriPi of_ and confus ion; his so-called experience is made up of what Plato calls" opinions,' a multitude of conflicting and changing beliefs, some of which are of^en actually contrah e can give no satisfactory dictory of o thers grounds for regarding them as true, and can often be persuaded out of them by appeals to irrational emotion. [ Science, on the other hand, is a body of consi stent a nd fixed convictions, a system of truth s, valid absolutely, always, and members for every^jone^_jn^which^ t^ are con nected by a bond of logical necessity in a word, a body of reasone d deductions from true /

to th

strange

everydayjUTigp.iAnt.ifip. mflTi

disorder

;

—

prmciples.

What

then

the relation between

these apparently so diverse worlds, that of' opinion

and that of science'? In more modern language, of what nature are the objects cognised by *

PLATO the universal propositions of science, and are

how

they related to the particular percepts of

sense?

iPlato's

answer to this question

con-

tained 'in his famous '.Theory of jdeas,' which

thus, according to its author's intention, neither *

dogmatic

metaphysics nor poetical

imagery,

but a logical doctrine of the import of universal propositions.

The

real

character

this

central

Platonic

doctrine, as jmmarily^a theory of predication, is

weir brought out by the succinct account of

its

meaning and its logical connection with previous Greek thought given by Aristotle in his Metaphysics. \ According to Aristotle, the doctrine was a logical consequence from two premises, taken

one from Heracliteanism, the other from Socrates.

From Heracliteanism

Plato

had learned that

all

the kinds of things which our senses perceive are, 'in

.flux,'

i.e.

are constantly undergoing

of incalculable changes,

all sorts

and consequently that no

universal truths can be formulated about them. (Cf.

Locke's doctrine that

ledge of 'nature' Socrates,

all

our certain know-

From

'barely particular/)

whose methods, though used by himself

only in the discussion of 'matters of conduct,'

were really of universal application, he further learned that without universal truths there can

KNOWLEDGE AND

ITS

OBJECTS

Hence j since therejs_siicli

be no science.

a thin^^

as science, PTato inferred that the objects

and ab out which she under takes_^

science defines, to prove

which

nmversally valid conckisions cannot b^ ,

the indefinitely variable thinp^s of the sensible

There

physical world.

and

it is

thes^

wnicn

'TLaeas,'

definitions

uncha nging

therefore

physical world of entities, eternal and

supra-

entities, called

by Plato

th e ob]ects with which

are

immutable^ the

and universal truths of exact science

are concerned.,/] The rel ation between this world_~" "ot

pure logica l concepts a nd the world of every-

day

sensible" experience is that the things ot the ^;;;^

approximate and imperfect

sensible world are res emblances

the^corresponding

conc eptual

entities^om jvhich they get their various c lassnames.

This relation Plato calls participation in '

the Ideas, a phrase to which Aristotle objects that

it is

no more than a misleading imaginative

metaphor. ^ Such

the

which Aristotle prefixes

account

preliminary

to his

smashing

attack

on the Platonic metaphysics. i

When we

turn to the great dialogues, such as

the Phaedo, Republic, Timaeus^ in which the doctrine of Ideas account, so far as

is it

most prominent, we goes, fully borne out.

find this

IiLthc

Timaeus, in the only passage where Plato ever 39

PLATO directly raises the question

whether the 'Ideas'

actually exist or not, their existence

a necessary" im^Ecation distinction

between

If science

of the

true opinion

said to be

(^^^^^

and

science/

no more than true opinion, there

need be no objects except those of the physical

sensible world

opinion, there

;

science

other than true

must be a corresponding

difference

between objects of which we can only have true

and

opinion ^scientific

objects

which we

But science

knowledge.

something more than true opinion

;

have

can

assuredly

deals with |

things which cannot be perceived by the senses,

but only conceived by thought

immutably valid and logical proof

;

Ideas

;

rests

eternally

it is

rational

and

grounds

therefore exist.

again, in the three dialogues alike, \we find that

there

a standing contrast between the unity of

the 'Idea' and the multiplicity of the things

which, as Plato puts

we should

it,

participate

in the

Idea,^

which the corresponding term can be predicated. There are a countless or, as

say, of

whom we call Tnen or oxeriy of we speak of as just or beautiful, but the humanity we predicate of one man is identical with the humanity we predicate of any other the justice or beauty in virtue of which we call

host of beings things which

KNOWLEDGE AND

ITS OBJECTS

different persons or things just

always one and the same. person

may

who

unbeautiful,

cease, in Platonic language, to

in' Beauty, but Beauty

Again, a thing or

may become

beautiful

or beautiful

itself

participate

never begins nor with

ceases,

but simply

itself.

And, once more, the pure logical concepJL

eternally

identical

never fully embodied in any sensible examples

two things,

which at the

for instance,

first

blush

appear equal, on closer comparison will be found

be only approximately

which we take

so;?' the visible

diagram

to stand for a triangle, in studying

geometry, has never really the properties which

attribute to 'the triangle' in our definition;

the conduct

fThus tides,

Socrates,

larity,

may, on

praise as just

ABC,

'partake' of

justice

humanity, of triangularity,

humanity,

triangu-

man

'What

'themselves.'

'what justice

itself,'

conduct of an Aris-

the

they are not

of justice;

turn out to be only imperfectly just.

scrutiny,

something other than any one

itself,'

man

always

any one

just deed.

Considerations like these show us clearly what is '

the entity to which Plato gives the It is

Idea.'

fication

what we should now intension

name

call the

of an signi-

of a class-name, as dis-

PLATO extension.' I The extension name is what Plato means when he speaks the 'many things which partake of the one

tinguished from

its

of the

Consequently he some-

Idea or class-concept.J

times says that there exists an Idea for every

group of

many

things which 'have a

common

we find Aristotle using the expression One aver the Many as a synonym for the

name,' and '

the

Platonic Idea.

But

this restriction of the range

many

of Ideas to classes of

mon

class-concept

things with a com-

not really involved in the

general theory of the nature of the Idea, since, as the existence of significant singular terms shows us, classes

common

member

with only one

find Plato in the

Timaeus

explicitly recognising

one such concept or Idea which

by only one sensible thing,

are just as

many, (and so we

in logic as classes with

viz.

partaken of

the Idea or con-

cept of the physical universe itself as a whole (the so-called avro^Mov).

the

Ideas,*

then,

Plato means_th^^ystem_olJ:firmL&^r_.conc^ fixed

and d eterminate intension which wou ld

form„th§ contents of an ideally perfect science,

and which form the content science in so far as 'scientific/.^ the-

Before

we go

it is

of our

existing

completely and rigidly

system of universal meanings.

further,

may

be as well to

call

KNOWLEDGE AND

OBJECTS

ITS

attention to one or two points in regard to which

and has often

his doctrine is capable of being

actually been misunderstood. (1) Plato's theory of 'Ideas/ as the true objects

of knowledge, in the

not at

modern sense

concepts of science

all

a doctrine of Idealism *

of the word.

Ideas

calls the

simply because they

constitute the forms or types in accordance with

which the universe words IBea, nothing

elSo^,

more.';

merely miss his meaning

allow the Berkeleyan notion of an

state of

mind

to affect

The suggestion ,

exists

thought/

only

in a passage of the

idea

if|

as a

our interpretation of him.

that

which only '

of things is constructed; the

simply meaiJ* shape/ form/ and

Idea

something

and therefore

in a soul/

made once

in Plato's writings,

Parmenides, and

only put

With' Plato the/ Ideas' are not 'states' of the knowing mind, but objects distinct from and independent of itself, about which it has knowledge. J It is only

forward there to be promptly rejected,

with the Ne«-Platonists, who taught that objects *

of thought have no subsistence outside the think-

we come within measurable disany form of modern Idealism.' Hence

ing mind,' that tance of

'conceptual reahsm'

much

ambiguous name than 'Idealism' 43

better

and

less,

for the type of

PLATO doctrine of which !PlQ,tQ,i&..the.most illustrioiis

exponent/ -^

(2) It follows also at

are not processes

once that, since the Ideas

thought

but

we must not conceive

thought,

objects

them

as the,

thoughts of the divine mind, creative conceptions '

of God.

This interpretation of Plato

at least, as the

Alexandrian Jewish philosopher

contemporary of Christ, and has found

Philo, a

modern

notable support in less,

tell

far,

when

exact philosophy, or

how

God

;

It is

is,

none the

not easy to

Plato speaks of personal gods

or a personal God,

modating himself

times, but

thoroughly un-Platonic.

how

his time

as old,

using the language of

far

merely accom-

to the current phraseology of

but this much, at

When

least, is clear.

spoken of in connection with the

as fin the Timaeus,

where he

Ideas,'

imaginatively

portrayed as shaping the physical universe on the model of the

Ideas,' the

Ideas

are always

referred to as objects existing independently of God.

and known by ence

whatever

His

HirrLj.

never as owing their exist-

thought

about

mav have been

them.

fact,;

Plato's precise concep-

tion of God, jGod appears in the language of the

dialogues as altogether secondary in his system ;

it is

the I Ideas,' and not, as in so

many modem

KNOWLEDGE AND

ITS OBJECTS ens realis-

s}^stfimfi^.GiJd.^w]iick are, ior Plato, the

simum.l As we chapter^it

the next

shall see further in

just. because X^od

smd

the soul

arej

not for Plato entia realissima that he has to!

employ imaginative myths when he would speak of them, whereas his language, when he deals with the

Ideas,' is as

devoid of mythical

traits

as the multiplication table.

speaking of the relation between the

(3) (In

members

common

of the extension of a class- name

and the

'Idea'

intension

class-concept

which corresponds

themjPlato employs not

only the expression, regarded

by^ Aristotle

specially characteristic of him, that the various

things 'partake

equivalent phrases.l Thus

the things have '

it is

paid

communion with

Idea, or that the Idea 'is present

them; and

number of (Phae dotthsit

the Idea, but a

(KOLvcovel) to_

the

{irdpeari)

explicitjy^j^cl^d^jhatjjt^does

it is

not matter which of these expressions we use^ long as all

we understand

denote.;

same tions

to say that the things are

(fitfiijfMaTa)

copies

of Ideas ^,

of expression naturally meets us

it is

found also

imita-

This form particularly

cosmogony of the Timaeu^, side by side with the language

in the semi-mythical

but

Jtheyi,

Yet another way of expressing the

relation '

the relation, which

so^

PLATO about participation in the Republic *

Parmem<|6§,^here a number

^ being it is

raised about the nature of

expressly asked whether the

of things in the Ideas

may

participation/

participation

not be explained more

The same metaphor

in all passages

and in the

exactly by the view that they are

them.

;

of difficulties are

is,

likenesses

of course, implied

which dwell upon the impe^fg^

and merelxi^3£roximiit^ o^^

m^it

of Idjia§^m,^fixisiblfiL..things. -

clear that there is

pretation

wh ich

no ground

'Hence

for the recent inter-

distinguishes between an earlier

version of Platonism, according to which things '

participat e

Ideas,

and a Tater versio n^n

/ which they merely 'resemble' them/^ In fact, as A has~welin5eeh shown by Professor" Shorey, the whole conception of a marked difference between an earlier and a later. Platonic metaphysic has *

"y* '

no tenable foundatiqn.7 All these different meta-^ phors are intended to express one and the sam^ relation,, viz.£^^^t_jwhich

^ subject

'Socrates

'is

predicate

subsists

between the_

ofsuch^jpropositions as

monljABG

triangle,*

relation, that is^ between the individual

which

of a class ah3[ ^hejclass jo -^

[peculiarity of Plato's view

that,

the

member

belongs.7

The

whereas modern

exact logic treats this relation (denoted in the

KNOWLEDGE AND symbolism of Peano by

ITS OBJECTS

as a relation between

the individual and the exte nsion of the class ('

a man = Socrates

Socrates is

the group

men

Plato treats

'),

one member of

as a relation be-

tween the i ndividual and the intension of the

class-

name^C Socrates is a man = Socrates possesses humanity,' or humanity is found in Socrates '). '

(4)

From

the time of Aristotle to the present

day the point which has given

on the

the sharp-

Pla^_has_ always Jjjeen

est criticism of

sistence

rise to

transcendent

his in-

character of the

Ideas. 1 This character is expressed in Plato

his reiterated assertion that the Ideas are some-

thing 'separate from' (x^pt?) the things which *

participate in

their names.

totle's

theory

most

and

He /^treats

called

upon the Platonic doctrine

Plato's

to the assertion that, e.(/r

't.rifl.r>mi1fl.rit,y

a.rft

frpm^ and outRJde^^jf^all t^riangles,

and are

It is,upon_this point that Aris-

incisive attacks

turn.

amounting

or resemble them,

and objects

1-,Vn'ngs_ ar.l-.n

mVnV]i

humanity PT

ally existing

sf.

fl.pnrf.

men

that, ifLthis-is-fio, thoro-ftaa-l.

be no intelligible connection b etween the sup ;

posed woHd" of Ideas realitiesi llf

^nd

the world of concrete

the IdeaTls"' outside ^ or apart from '

' j

all sensible

reality or

things,

substance

how can '

;

be their inmost!

and again, how can know-

PLATO ledge of Ideas and their relations contribute in

anyway world

to pur scientific

knowledge of

Aristotle thus leads the

way

tlie real

in regarding

Plato's doctrine as a 'reification of concepts,' a fallacious attribution of substantive existence to

universal predicates] and condenses his objection to it in the is

statement that what science requires

not that there sliould be 'Ideas, or a One

which

something over and above the Many/

Qbut merely that one

many

attribute should be predi-

The difficulty has been felt so strongly by modern interpreters that many of them have endeavoured, in the face of Plato's cable of

subjects)

plainest declarations, to explain

away, and thus

to bring Plato's theory of predication into accord

with that of his great however,

Plato's language,

disciple.

too explicit to permit of any such

interpretation, as Aristotle was. well aware.

careful consideration will, I think, both explain its

true

meaning and throw some

light

on a

probable source of the Platonic theory which Aristotle's analysis leaves only imperfectly indi-

cated.

If_w© consider the passages, from the

Phaedo onwards, in which Plato insists most transcendent and separate' strongly on the character of the Idea and the imperfection of its sensible embodiment, we shall find that his iUus*

KNOWLEDGE AND drawn from

tratiqns are (

iTmthera_atics.au(i._of

OBJECTS

ITS

.two ^spheres, those

primarily

ill

e^^^^

mathematics and in ethics that the Idea most obviously appears as an Ideal, a conceptual limit'

which

to_^

experience

only

presents

importance attached by Plato

and proportion good,

we may

to one.

fJt

imperfect

And when we remember

approximation.

the

•

measure, order,

as characteristics of the morally

see reason to reduce the two cases

primarily from mathematics thatj

Plato has derived his conception of science and: its

concepts and their relation to the world

experience,

Now,

as Plato himself

reminds

the Republic, the visible diagrams of

mathematician are only aids

of[

usl

the

to the imagination;

they are not themselves the true objects of his reasoning.

He may

dot, or a line

represent a point by a visible

by a stroke drawn with chalk; but

these dots and strokes are not really the points

and

lines

about which he

reasoning, and have

not really the properties which he ascribes to the point and the line like

(e.g.

the visible dot

not,

the true point, a thing without parts or

magnitude

;

the visible stroke

never devoid of

breadth or absolutely straight, and so on)./ The real objects of

of,^.p4tfa-lQgical,

(

mathematical study are a system concep ts which can be thought

PLATO with exact precision but cannot be adequately I represented to sense or imagination.

Plato^s(_

theory of Ideas we have a^conception of

scieiica.

wiiich rests

upon the view that mathematics

the one and

only true science^ a consistent work-

ing out of the thought expressed by

Kant

in his

saying that every study contains only so muchj of science as

contains of pure mathematics.!

That Plato's doctrine of knowledge should thus have arisen primarily from reflection upon the concepts and methods of pure mathematics is in accord not only with the special

prominence

given both in the dialogues and, so far as we can learn, in the oral teaching of the

Academy,

mathematical study, but also with the historical fact that jpure

mathematics was in Plato's time

the only scientific study in which certain and

had been

well-established results

attained.

These same considerations also explain answer given by Plato truth possible

scLentific

the answer given by the same problem.

problem 'How possible

to the question ?

why ^

differs so greatly

Kant and

the

How is from

his followers to

For Plato the great Kantian pure d priori natural science

does not exist,

Natural

science,' in

the sense of proved universal laws of physical prqcess,

had

for

him no 50

being.

true 'science

KNOWLEDGE AND of physical nature

ITS OBJECTS

could, of course, not exist in

the fourth century

which possessed neither

B.cT;'

the appKances requisite for precise determination of physical

methods

magnitudes nor the

necessary

the

for

mathematical

establishment

general laws on the basis of individual observations.

But even had the physics

century a.d. been clear that

the

title

known

he would

of science^

still

of the twentieth

to jPlato, it is

prettyj

have refused to bestowj

upon our knowledge

of actueil j

^ature.

He would have

called attention to thei

merely approximate character of cal

measurements, and

that the course of

may

all

actual physi-

the necessity of admitting

anj actual physical process

be influenced by the presence of conditions

which are

neglected

our

formulation

'general laws of sequence/ in justification of the

view that our jresultj_are_only^~strictLy.proved, and therefore rigidly scientific, sjoj^gng as we. confine

ourselves within the domains of pure conceptual

rg^thematics, (.For just because

him the

actual physical world,

cannot be completely analysed into

combinations of logical concepts, but involves a factor of irrational sensible fact,

being an object of science pro per."^

incapable of

Any

conclu-

we may form as to its structure and history must be put forward, not as proved results of sions

PLATO but

science,

as,

a 'probable account.'

best,

The physical world is thus the proper object of opinion,' and any account of its development must be, like the narrative of Timaeus, largely mythical. (Compare once more Locke's doctrine of the extent of our knowledge of real existence of sensible things, and the position of those '

eminent logicians who hold that induction from *

observed facts

unable to lead to results which

Hence while Kant denounces all transcendent employment of the fundamental concepts of science, and confines

more than

are

probable.)

knowledge within the limits of 'possible experi-

ence,'!

that

Pkto, io put JJhe matter quite plainly, holds

all

true science

with objects which

any possible

lie

transcendent

entirely

and deals

beyond the range

'experience' of sense.

Where

^ '

experience begins, science, in his opinion, leaves

off.

That Kant does not come

due

to the

same con-

elusion seems to be

the sciences of Arithmetic and Geometry deal

to his

assumption that

with objects which are not analy sable into purely

logical concepts, but involve

tional sensuous

which Plato

when he

intuition.'

really

an element of

this

irra-

assumption

denying^ by anticipation

says in the Republic that the diagrams

of the geometers are

mere 52

aids to the imagination,

KNOWLEDGE AND

ITS

OBJECTS

and not themselves the objects of geometrical and again in the Timaeus that space is

reasoning,

apprehended not by sense but by a

kind of

bastard thought.'^"

have seen, then, what

the general char-

acter ofJh^_sjstem.^alJ?latouic Ideas^ the, true

object of scientific knowledge*.

.It^is

a world of

exactly defined logical concepts, each standing in

"immutable is

Further light

relations to the rest.

thrown upon the internal structure of

this

system by a famous passage at

sixth book of the Republic, which, taken along with

the exposition of far

in the following book,

most important

the

end of the

tl^e

single

whole of Plato's epistemology.

text

for

by the

In this passage /

Plato

concerned to distinguish four grades of

cognition,

and

class of objects.

what

is,

provide each with its appropriate

illustrates his

meaning by

in point of fact, a diagram.

a vertical line, and begins by dividing

takes into

an upper and a lower segment, the upper segment J^g^resenting 'opinion.'

knowledge

Each segment

or is

science,,

the lower

then, in turn, once

more divided into an upper and a lower part, in the same ratio in which the whole Hne was originally divided. We thus get an inferior and a superior form of 'opinion' and of knowledge 53

PLATO each

respectively, the inferior, ia

respect of

higher,, in the

same

relation in 3vhich

as a whole stands to knowledge. \

of cognition of

all,

the inferior

Plato calls eUaaia,

case, standing,

and certainty

truth

its

tha.

opinion^'

The lowest type forzn of ^op inion,'

guess-work/ with a punning

allusion to the eiKove^i or

appropriate objects. _ It

images

which arejts

the state of

mind

reflections in water and the imagery of dreams^_ê notâs^jgt^^stinguiêd from the

which

splid_^^caJ_£ealities^„Q^^

images^ the mental condition of the savage or child at the

mercy

primitive credulity,'

accepts every presentation, so long as ^

as equally true with

learned to

any

4?^ represented by

man

the substance.

truer form of cognition

mind

Tr/o-ri?, belief,

who, while

who lasts,

and has not yet

know the shadow from

more developed and

the

other,

still

the state of

recognising the existence

of nothing but the sensible, has learned to dist inguish

mere shadows and thus to make

physical things from their

or reflections or dream-images,

a distinction helween the truth- values of the two

kinds of presentation,

Such a man, though

yet not possessed of proved and universal scientific truth, has already a fair stock of tolerably system-

atised

and trustworthy convictions about the ^

KNOWLEDGE AND

ITS OBJECTS

empiricaL course of things, and, as Plato holds that this

which can be

seen,

a^tj-ined in^ the study^ of the actual

Thus

physical world.

to what we should

irlaTL^ corresponds exactly

^xperience^ and

call sensible

based on induction from such

the knowledge

experience.

we have

the highest degree of truth

Is „ taken

^further step

towards

the ideal of genuine knowledge when we pass from the higher of science..

science

Jorm '

Plato's

Scdvota,

opinion

name

he lower form_.

for this inferior grade of

which we may loosely render

u nderstanding and it is declared to be the k nowledge supplied by geometry and the kindred '

/:'

Being

mathematics as usually studied.

arts,* i.e.

'science,'

these

studies

have

for

object

their

co ncepts of a purely rational kind^ and hence

Plato observes that they use diagrams and models,'

which

for 'opinion

are realities as

of the higher realities with

cerned. of

two defects in the^rocedure mathematics :~"j£e_^athematician

But he

ordinary

mere images

which they are con-

finds

enoiploys sensiblea,ids,

even

he uses them only also makes usa

as aids to his imagination;

of a host of notions which

he has not defined

and postulates which he has

not^ j)rove^.

Hence more

Plato maintains that there Jnust be ajtill perfect

'"'"'~"

realisation

the.. ideal

of knowledge,

PLATO which

given by

science

nflllftfl

leotic^'j^Eich has for its objects

o f any

Ideas or

se nsuous^ftpr^sftTit.at.mnR

procedure of

Form s

them without the

themselves, and studies

b y him 'dia-

dialectic/ as

he describes

aid

The

it, is

two-

whaiftgor

^/fold: a_^process_._of_,aJ:ialysi^_fol^^

•j^V synthesis.^The 'dialectician will start in his turn 'with the axioms and indefinables of the ordinary

[

mathematician, but he

ultimate.

will

will treat

not regard them as

them

'hypo^

as literally

- theses,^ bases or starting-points from which he

may '

asceiii J^o^lL^t^renje^first^ principle whichjs-.

unhypotheticgl' ;^tlie]^^X>iiXihe .cognition

first

of^this^

principle hejirni_^nce__D9LQi:§_ifisc^ni^

regular gradation to the Jkncjwledga-jQfLjts ,.con- ^

sequences, pro^ngfifling thrnnghmit _^Jrnm fpfmA-^ JUL forms without _ the_aid_xit anything_3ensiblfii 1

(That

is,

seems, the dialectitian

compare

the principles assumed as ultimate by the various

branches of mathematics, and as a result of the

comparison to arrive at some \

still

firstprinciple of a logical character

evidently^Jrue^ to

Having done

more ultimate which

this,

is is

self^

then

deduce the supposed ultimates of the ordinary

mathematician, and through them their consequences, from his

axiom.

own supreme and

Only when

this has

self-evident

been done shall we

KNOWLEDGE AND have realised the ideal of

ITS OBJECTS

scientific investigation;^

the reduction _ofJyaawiL trutkto asjstematic^ody_^ of

deduction^ i):oia true and ultimate.

logical

It is clear

from

this that Plato's conception is

growing school of

closely akin to the ideal of the

mathematicians who maintain that the whole of pure mathematical science tions

a body of deduc-

from a few ultimate premises which are

of a purely logical kind^

and require

all

for their

statement no primary notions except those of logic.

Could he have met with such a

as the

Formnlaire of Professor Peano, or

formal

work the

Grv/adgesetze der

Arithmetik of Professor

Frege, he would plainly have felt that his con-

ception of 'dialectic' was there very largely justified

and

realised.

But there

are

also

very

important differences between the 'dialectic' of Plato and

the

logistic

For one thing,

^Plato, like Leibniz after him,

deduction

all

contemporary

of our

philosophical mathematicians.

dreamed

pure science from

ultimate principle/ while

the

of the single

development

exact logic has definitely shown that the principles

logic

themselves

form

body

mutually independent postulates, the number of

which the old traditional 57

logic,

with

its

three

'^^

,''' 1

PLATO A

laws of thought, seriously underestimated. still

more important

the supreme principle is

gpod^ or the /

the^

itself.

world.

the

sensible

its /

whjch

offspring

Now,

also,

itself

the*

and everything

vitality.

tlifi_l.gaiid/__is

eye else

knowledg e fir

and the

source of reality and being to the objec ts of knowledge.*;

And

all

its

the time, just as the sun

;

is)'

not

Being or Truth, but the transcendent source

itself light

^^of both. is

;

Sp^in the world of concepts,

at once the source of

.and illumination to the ^^^^

not

•

as the source of heat, the cause of.

growth and

itself

the-

the source of the light by which the

of-

us that

sun has a double function.

beholds both the sun it

tells

Idea of the good/

sun

the character

what

sensible world, the

to the world of concepts is

when wa

difference appears

asS^what^ in Plato's opinion,

far

Plato's

or growth, so the 'good'

meaning

in this

famous passageJ

from easy to grasp with precision, as he

himself seems to admit, but his general sense

may

perhaps be divined by a comparison with well-

known

passages of other dialogues.

fjtnious

page of the Fhaedo which professes,

There

it is

hard to say with what degree of accuracy, to trace the mental biography ol Socrates.;

After re-

counting his youthful dissatisfaction with the 58

KNOWLEDGE AND

OBJECTS

ITS

mutually conflicting theories of various physicists about the universe,! Socrates to say that

early

made

he hailed with rapture the saying of

Anaxagoras that

Mind which

it is

the cause of '

universe. "' This he

"^order_ and_st_rucjtui:e_m

took to

mean

that if mind. is. responsible Jbr the

universe, its existing arrangements

must be those

and he eagerly procured the book of Anaxagoras in the hope that he would find there a theory of the universe in which every

which are

detail

best,

would be justified by a proof that

was

better for things to be as the writer said than to

bejn any other wa}^

-f

reading the work he

was, however, disgusted to find that Anaxagoras

did not live up to his

most part accounted

own

principles, but for the

by hypo-

for existing facts

theses of mechanical causation, only appealing to

Mind

as the universal cause

loss for

some more

tion of a fact.

specific

when he was

This criticism of Anaxagoras, in

which Aristotle emphatically concurs,

made tant

thing '

c ^

the opportunity for distinction

and

at a

mechanical explana-

between

subordinate

—

then

drawing an the

impor- \^ true cause of a

accessory

conditions,

without which the cause would not be a cause.' "

The true cause is^

that/

of every arrangement in nature best

that things should be so';|

PLATO r^the

alleged mechanical

causes

men

of the

science are merely accessory conditions in the

absence of which the efficacy of ,lhe true cause "^

would be destroyed.

find this distinction

carefully observed in the half-mythical cosmo-

gony of

own Timae^s.

Plato's

The

true reason

or cause of the existence of the universe I

goodness

y possible

God,

^ desired that

who,

good

being

the

Himself,

His work too should be as good as

p the

accessory conditions are provided

by the character of the disorderly material is moulded by God., Thus we see that for Plato, as for the Greek mind in general, tpJ)e^oc)(^ means to be good for som^ for

out of which the universe

be the expression of a rationale

en.d or.purpose,- to

aim or

interest,

cisely that

which

on the other hand,

Evil,

disorderly!

on Plato's

is,

an irreducible element of universe,

precisely

tains, as the

irrational

rtutting

evil

because

pre-

which hampers or

frustrates the execution of rational purpose.

hence, by the way, there

(And

principles,

the physical

that universe cour

system of pure concepts does not, an

and incalculable all this

factor.)

together,

we may say

that the

supreme source the Ideas from which derive their being, would appear to mean that the whole body of truejj

recognition of the *

good,' as the '

KNOWLEDGE AND

forms an

concepts

scientific

which each member teleologically -

ITS

by the

organic unity in

connected with the rest

fact that

some

forward, or logically lead up, to

-^^^ turn, leads

to others/1

the system of scientific

it is

it,

The

them point

while

it,

in its

objective unity of

concepts

counterpart of the unity of

which

OBJECTS

thus

the

aim and purpose

the mission of philosophy, according

to Plato, to bring

^In the great

which we may

about in the philosopher's inner

of dialectical

dialogues,

safely follow the all but

unanimous

series

opinion of the latest scholars

regarding as

posterior to the Phaedo-Repuhlic group, Plato

the main turns away from his original problem of

the relation between the individual thing and the intension of the class to which

wjthjurther questions^ of logic .

This. [does not mean,

we refer it, to deal and epistemology. W

has

sometimes

beenjj

supposed, that he has abandoned or come to make|J serious modifications in his doctrine of

may

Ideas,' aSjl

be seen both from the reappearance of

familiar

theory in

the

tlie

Tionaeus and from the

manifestly bona fide ignorance of Aristotle as to

any difference

in principle

a later Platonism.

What

between an it

means

the whole theory of knowledge 6i

earlier

and

simply that

not exhausted

.'.

PLATO ^QL-S^t-S-bX-^^^J ^^^K^^^ ^9^^'?iM- ^ It is precisely in this group of dialogues that/we find Plato

anticipating the achievement of Aristotle in the

creation of a scientific logical terminology to a

him

degree which entitles

fairly

to be

called^

rather than any other one man, the creator of logic^ *^-^

In the Parmenides, Theaetetus, and Sophides'we meet,

among

other things, the

first

attempt to

construct a table of the categories, or leading scientific

conceptions required for the ordering of

experience. 7 Plato's as his

completeness. object

are

varies slightly according

list

immediate purpose demands greater or

not

perceived

Tln^ the

Theaetetus,

where_liisj-

primarily to argue thatrthe categories!

directly

by the soul herself without i.e.

are,

should say, purely intellectual a priori forms of relation, in accord

material of

its

with which mind organises the

experience,

in the list being, sameness,

unlikeness, beaut}^

number.T All

ugliness,

find

him including

difference,

all

likeness,

goodness, badness,

these^ just because they

dicated of subjects of

kinds,

can be pre-

he contends,

cannot be cognised by the activity of any sense.

^J^

less

products of sense-perception, but are!

the aid of bodily instruments/

The same dialogue provides

us,

special;

among^

other contributions to logical theory, with tho

KNOWLEDGE AND important

position

between

distinction

'change'

(klvtjo-l^),

OBJECTS two

kinds

motion, or change of

local

and

((j)opd),

ITS

alteration,

cliangc

and with a searching and

quality (aWotcoa-i^;),

acute inquiry into the nature of definition, and the conditions under which definition

Among the

possible.

contributions to terminology

we note

new words

ness),

its

'quality'

(7rofOT?;<?

= what-like-

organ,' in the sense of a bodily instrument

perception,

criterion,'

classic

Aristotle.

the

difference,'

specifically logical sense afterwards to

be made

In the Sophistes, where the ]^

particular distinction between that w^hich the soul|

perceives through the body,

perceives *by herself' '

chief kinds

or classes

and that w^hich she

in abeyance, the is

list oi^t^''

given in a briefer

form/,

as being, sameness, difference, rest (or changelessness),

motion (or change,

dialogue and

its

Kivrjac^).

And

that

continuation the Politicus are

notable for the prominence given in them, as wtII as in the introduction to the

Phileh%s, to

process of exhaustive logical division of into sub-classes as a

by successive

means towards exact

interesting,

knowledge,

as a is

acts of

definition.

the class

dichotomy Still

contribution to the theory of

the main problem with which both

the Theaetetus and Sophistes are really concerned.

PLATO M..{Jprmally the TJieaetetus deals with the question ^

What

knowledge

and aims

? '

knowledge can neither be

showing that

identified with sense-

had been held

perception, as, according to Plato,

by Protagoras, nor more generally with 'true (belief'

Ito

;

finding '

the Sophistes professes to be an attempt

illu strate

sophists.'

the process of log ical

actual

definition

satisfactory

The

rJP.fJTiit.inn

the

class

knot of both dialogues

is,

however, provided by a paradox of Plato's fellowSocratic, Antisthenes the Cynic,

who had main-

tained that no term^jcan be truly predicated of \

any '

other,

-i.e.

Plato

are identities. this

that the only .true propositions^

paradox in

had already touched upon

earlier dialogues, the

Eutkydemiis

and Cratylus, where, however; he treats

as a

mere extravagance and a fit subject for banter and parody. In the dialectical dialogues he shows himself aware of its real significance for *

the whole theory of knowledge.

Perceiving that

the very possibility of science depends upon the possibility of

making

true propositions in which \

the subject and predicate are not identical, sets

himself to work to furnish a serious refu-

tation >

the

doctrine

Antisthenes.

fimmediate consequence of that doctrine genuine

error,

'false opinion,'

An that

impossible.)

;

KNOWLEDGE AND You cannot think

what

OBJECTS

ITS not

(i.e. of any you can only think '^ is ^ you cannot think 'A is B' or 'A is if all predica-

given subject

;

tion

to the

that knowledge

Theaetetus:

may

but

beliefs,

speak of him as a

man

inculcates false beliefs for purposes of gain

but what

the sophist should protest that there

no such thing

a false

how

Theaetetus the question left

be false

to define the 'sophist,*

find ourselves obliged to

as true belief,

what the doctrine of Antisthenes

So in trying

denied/;

In _ suggesting

same thing

the

implied that there

this is exactly

who

nature of error becomes fundamental for

the inquiry of the

it is

Hence the problem

strictly identical).

unsolved, with the

consequence

dialogue reaches no positive conclusion. found,

fact,

have

illogicality in discussing

before

In the-

belief?

error is possible

that the '^

We are

been committing an

the nature of false belief

arriving at any insight into the nature

of truth. obtained.

One important

result

is,

however,

shown that error may judgments which involve a

It is elaborately

occur not only in

reference to facts of sense-experience, but in those

which both terms belong to the class which the soul perceives by herself/ as e.g. if a man should

mistakenly believe the proposition

-[-7

= 11/

PLATO We

prepared

are thus

for

logicaL

the purely

inquiry into the nature^oX errpr which meets us^ in the Sophistes.

Plato there finally solves the

puzzle by calling

between *

the

attention to

and

absolute

sophistic' view that to

distinction

The

denial.

relatiYe

think what

is false is

impossible had arisen from the argument that

thinking what

means thinking 'what is what is not is impossible,

false

not/ but to think

mere non-entity cannot even be the object any thought. Plato's reply is that when I

since

think 'A is

not

nothing at

other than

B,' I all, '

do not mean to assert that

but merely that

it is

what^isngt/in the sense in which

a denial can be said to involve thinking of

simply that which

is not,* is

something

and hence

else,

both true and subject.

false,

can

different

significant

what

from

have communion

kinds,'

with one an-

other, or can be predicated of one another,

thus

significant

non-identical

made about any '

deniaJs,-

In Platonic language, the chief

or categories,

something

predication,

and as

demanded by science, is logically unobjectionable. The familiarity of this result does not in the least detract from

thought, as

its

importance in the history of

we may

see

reflecting that

fundamental problem of Kant's chief work

the the

KNOWLEDGE AND same *

Plato's,

ITS

to justify

viz.

OBJECTS the_ universal

synthetic propositions of pure science. '

r In the account given by Aristotle in his Metaphysics of

much

that

'Plsito's

we are told down anywhere in

doctrine of 'Ideas/,

not explicitly laid

the dialogues/ and suspicion has accordingly been

upon the trustworthiness of Aristotle's representations. Such suspicion, however, seems to be excluded when we remember that Aristotle's old fellow-pupil Xenocrates was expounding Platonism at Athens during the whole period of Aristotle's activity as a teacher, and that polemical misrecast

presentation of Plato's views would, in such

cumstances, have been suicidal. Aristotle,

who appears

cir-

According to

be basing his state-

ments upon Plato's more advanced oral teaching, the doctrine of Ideas was presented in a quasi'

mathematical

forpa^ the

Ideas

being actually

spoken of as numbers/ though Plato was careful '

to distinguish these

numbers from the ordinary

which we use in counting.-] Each idea was further held to be composed of two factors, the ^One,' which was also identified with the *(jood,' and an element of indetermination and integers

plurality called the 'Indeterminate Duality,' or

the 'Great-and-Small.' In virtue of the 'participation^'

of sensible things in the

Ideas/ these two

PLATO elements, the

One and

the Great- and-Sniall,iira.

thus ultimately the constituents of the universe.X Aristotle adds that Plato regarded the objects of

the ordinary mathematical studies as forming class

intermediate between the supreme Ideas* '

Numbers and '

physical things.

physical things in so j^hemii

(many

£m?. .as.

They r esemble«^

different squares, or circles,

and

only one 'Idea' of each

forth),

whereas there

kind

they resemble the Ideas/ and

;

mai^^f

there are

differ

from

physical things, in being eternally immutable.

Thus

would seem

that, in the last resort, the

concepts or definables of science

all

presuppose

two primarily indefinable notions, that of Unity (which must be carefully distinguished, by the way, from the notion of the integer

1),

and that of

Multitude (which, again, must not be confused

with

the

Every

cardinal number).

notion of

definable concept can be exhibited as arising by a "special

mode

ponents.

of combination of these two

(To illustrate crudely what

meant, consider the character of an definition.

Suppose,

e.g.,

a rational mortal being.

com-

plainly

ordinary

we have man defined The class so defined

as is,

on the one hand, one term, or object of thought, the

determinate aggregate corresponding to a

specific class-concept

;

on the other, 68

it is

equated

KNOWLEDGE AND

ITS OBJECTS common

bj the definition with the

part of a

plurality (in this case two) of other aggregates.

The defined

once one and many,

class is thus at

or rather, a perfectly specific combination of the

one and the many.) tion

Since the objects of defini-

thus always combinations of the one

are

and the many, we readily see why Plato should have called them numbers,' and since the one *

and 'many' are not

whole

which they are combinations number 1 and the series of numbers,' but the simpler and prior*

the whole

logical concepts of plural),

primary

'ideal'

also see

a term and terms '

(in the

why he

distinguished these

numbers from the members of the The whole doctrine,

series of ordinary integers.

be the puzzle that Aristotle

in fact, ceases to

found

it,

when we

it some modern philosophy of

bring to the study of

acquaintance with

the

number, as expounded by writers Frege, and Russell, and bear in

thing like the

red.u.ctijon

mind

Peano,

that some-

of pure mathematics to

exact logic effected by these writers was avowedly the goal at which Plato was aiming in his 'dialectic.',.

The nearest approximation ascribed

Plato

to the conceptions

by Aristotle which can be

traced in the dialogues

must be sought

in the

;

PLATO Timaeus and, as has been specially shown by Henry Jackson, in the Philehus. /In the Timaeus what specially concerng^us is the o^escrip-

Dr.

tion of the formation of the

soul of the universe,'

and, at a later stage, of the souls of

human beings,

out of a combination of two ultimate elements, the

Same,' which symbolises the eternally

identical,

and

the 'Other,'

which

for

still

indeterminate mutability and variability;^

correspondence

'Closer

Philehus, in

which

summed up under indeterminate,

i.e.

determination

;

all

four

presented

things

the

that

are

categories:

(1)

everything that

indefinite variation in (2) _^e_*liniit,'

self-

stands

are

the

capable of

number, degree, quantity

quantitative and numerical

i.e.

(3) the

mixture of the

and

precisely determined magnitudes

such as a melody, or an organism

;

(4)

two,'

i.e,

quantities, tlxe.

cause-

of the rQixture/ which appears, in the Philehus, '

to be identified with purposive intelligence.

Into

the discussion of the difficulties which have been raised as to the significance of this classification it

impossible to enter in a work like

the

But it should be noted that, to judge from the examples given of the four 'classes,' present.

Pla,to is

thinking in the Philehus, as in the pas-

sage of the Timaeus just referred '

to,

of the world

KNOWLEDGE AND

ITS

OBJECTS

of everyday 'things 'jcather than of that of pure

c^n^epts/yHence identify

probably a

mistake to

any of the four classes with the '

One

and the 'Indeterminate Duality/ or to ask in ^hich class we are to look for the Ideas.' We '

should rather expect to find in his classes factors

which are analogous to, but not identical with, those of which the Ideas are composed, and which hold towards 'sensible things' the same '

by the components of the

relation as that held '

Ideas

system of

to the

And,

scientific concepts.

mixture with the measured magnitudes of the sensible world, the indeterminate and the limit will be found to

in fact,

identify the

occupy towards those magnitudes position ascribed

the 'Duality' in reference to

Cagain, in the Timaeus, while '

exactly the

Aristotle to the

the

One

and

Ideas.' /^ go

Same

and

Other in the composition of the soul are not to '

be identified with the 'One' and the 'DuaUty,' they have clearly the same functions to that particular 'mixture'

them what

the

One

and

;

they are

which results from the Duahty are to '

thej)ure logical conce^tTJ)

^T2uauDa-«p, then, Plato's doctrine of 'Ideas' to culminate in the thought that the whole

seems

existing universe forms a system exhibiting that

'^ f^

PLATO character of precise and determinate order and

law of which we find the ideal type in the interconnected

When

science. '

copies

concepts

deductive

perfected

he says that sensible things are

which are the true objects

of the Ideas

what he means is that they exhibit everywhere what we now speak of as conformity But for Plato, we must remember, the to law.' of science,

conformity

world

;

there

never complete in

an element in

the

sensible

actual sensible

all

experience which defies precise measurement and calculation.

Absolute and exact

law

found only in the ideal constructions

to be

of a pure conceptual science. so far as such uniformity in it

experience,'

it is

conformity to

Or, in other words,

actually

only approximate

exact and complete,

scendent ideal/

•

And

it is

;

verifiable

so far as

always a 'tran-

here, again, his conclusion

does not se6m to be very different from that of the profoundest

modern

and her method^

reflection

upon science

CHAPTER THE SOUL OF MAN

AND

To understand

III

—PSYCHOLOGY, ETHICS, POLITICS

scheme

Plato's

moral

and^^

political philosophy, it is necessary first of all to

be acquainted with his general conception of the

n^ure

And

of the soul.

this conception

is,

again,

by starting from the simple and psychology of Socrates. The ethical and psychological doctrine of Socrates, as we can

best approached ethics

reconstruct

by comparison of the works of

Xenophon and the notices which have come down to us of the views of the other 'Socratic men,* may be summed up in the one proposition Plato and

Primarily this pro-

that 'virtue^ is knowledge.' position

may

be said to be a p^chological oneT?

means that the one and only function of life is cognition; the mind is just a 'knowing and perceiving subject,' and nothing

mental

more._i From this one,

and only

one,

follows at once that there

is ^

virtue or '

excellence

possible

PLATO mind, the adequate performance of

teristic v/

defect _or J^yice/

one

immediately deduce

wrongdoing

really one, that all

judgment, that no for is

all

man

him without doing

the is

Hence we can

all theifamiliar

the ^cratic morality ; that

(

charac-

mal-performance

function, viz. intellectual error.) ^

its

function of knowing, and one and only

paradoxes of '

virtues

are

simply error of

know what is good, and that wrong action

can

it,

consequently always involuntary. 1 The ethical

advances

made by

Plato upon Socrates and those

Socratics who, like Antisthenes the Cynic, clung to

the simple psychology of the master, are

connected with the discovery that mental

all

life is

much more complex thing than had supposed. interesting to trace the way in which Plato

in reality a

Socrates It is is

gradually led to replace the Socratic conception

of the soul

by a view which

more complex and

does more justice to the facts of moral experience. '

'The have

earliest

group of the dialogues

seen, in the

Ikrly Socratic problem of a^rriving at "

of the

commonly

are, as

main concerned with the

pecn-;.

definitiojiS,

received moral 'virtues.' /The

course of the investigation, in most cases, proceeds as follows.

exact meaning of

It is

proposed to determine the

some currently used name of a 74

THE SOUL OF MAN virtue or moral excellence, sucli as (in the

Charmides) or

self-control

courage (in the Laches). '

Usually the respondent of the dialogue begins

the mistake of propounding an

falling into

enumeration of different instances of the virtue in

Then, upon his attention being

question.

called

by Socrates

to the difference

between the

enumeration of the members of a class and the definition of the class-concept,

pound one

he proceeds

to pro-

definitions of a loose

and

popular kind. H These definitions are tested by

comparison with some example of the virtue in question to which they will manifestly not apply,

and thus shown to be of the Republic,

insufficient, as

e.g.

Book

where the tentative definitions

what one owes/ or 'doing and harm to one's enemies,'

of 'justice' as 'paying I

good

are j

to one's friends

shown

to be defective

there are cases in which

by the

reflections that

would not be unjust

withhold repayment of a deposit, and that a virtuous

man

any one.

harm

as such will never willingly do

Socrates usually next leads

to a definition in

which the virtue under examination

identified

with some form of knowledge, as when control'

In the purely Socratic type of dialogue,

'temperance'

identified

'self-

the

Charmides with self-knowledge, or true courage, 75

PLATO in the Laches, with is

knowledge of wliat

not formidable.

found that

eYef, it is

and what,

closer examination,

are unable to say

howwhat

particular form of knowledge corresponds to the particular virtue in question, so that the identi-

of virtue with knowledge leads to an

fication

inability

distinguish any one special moral

excellence from virtue in general. Laches,

when courage has been

ledge of what

and

(Thus in the

defined as

know-

not formidable/

pointed out that a formidable thing simply means a future or impending really '

amounts

fails to

distinguished

and what

not really

from other morally excellent result in

such dialogues

thus the merely negative one that

learned our

evil,'

apply to courage in particular

The formal

qualities.)

so that the definition

to the statement that courage is

knowledge of what

and hence

evil,

we have

own ignorance about matters of the we believed ourselves

gravest import with which to

be perfectly acquainted, but

between the

it is

easy to read

lines that the true source of the diffi-

culty has been the one-sided Socratic reduction of all mental

activity to

cognition.

It is

over-simplification of the psychological facts

has

made

thi.s_

which

impossible to distinguish one form of

moral excellence from another. 76

THE SOUL OF MAN Nowhere

the defect of the Socratic moral

psychology more clearly brought out than in the the literary masterpiece of Plato's

Protagoi^as,

Here the

earliest period.

pounded

by^ jnaster possible

original question pro-

whether jnoralyirtue can be taught, to a pupil,

.as.

of Xiourse should be

virtue is simply a form of knowledge.

Protagoras

is,

becomes a professional teacher

of morals, quite sure that

can

;

Socrates feels a

doubt, due to the facts that persons

about the

careful

who

are

most

education of their children

make no attempt

to provide

them with expert

instruction in 'virtue,' as in other accomplish-

ments, and that the public assembly, which in general refuses to take the advice of a

that of

against

knowledge,

regards

citizen as to the

layman

a specialist in any branch of the

morahty

opinion

any

one

of a proposed course of

action as being equally valuable with that of any other.

In the course of the discussion which

follows, the original question

irrelevance,

virtue

replaced by the

is,

by an apparent

problem whetlier

one or many, Protagoras strongly advo-

cating the popular view that there are a variety

and that the same man may possess one of them, e.g. justice, in a high degree, and yet be sadly deficient in of entirely distinct types of virtue,

PLATO another,

courage;

e.g.

So^crates,

for

champions the doctrine that there

kind of

virtue,

ing the

now

vice

;

the

and

/pleasurable / actions

only ona.

knowledge, by expound-

familiar doctrine of egoistic

Virtue

Ijsm.

which

part,

higs

right

painful

Hedon-

estimation of

consequences

the

our

always miscalculation, and arises

from miscomputation of the relative amounts of I

\ pleasure and pain to which a given act will Thus, as Plato

lead.

careful to point out, at the

end

of the discussion the two parties have changed

Protagoras,

places.

who had been

virtue can be taught like

equally sure that

its

teachability, is

art, is

a paradox to identify

with knowledge; Socrates,

deny

sure that

any science or

who was

found

inclined to

be maintaining

knowledge and nothing

else. The conclusion of the dialogue lame has apparently caused much embarrassment to interpreters who

that

have

failed to

irony.

sympathise with Plato's dramatic

But the

make

is clear.

real point

which Plato

If Protagoras,

anxious

by treating each

moral excellence as altogether different in kind

from every other, has made it impossible to frame any single conception of 'virtue' as a whole, Socrates, by treating virtue as simply identical with knowledge, has equally failed to

make any

THE SOUL OF MAN discrimination^possible *

between

the

different

virtues.L,*!

adequate moral psychology in the dialogue Here, again,

are

virtue can be the there

are taken a step further towards a

met by the same thing

MenoP

old question

how

as knowledge,

avowedly no such thing as a recognised

science of good action with a

body of professional

teachers of

its

The answer

gested that

possibly virtue depends not

principles.

sug-

upon

knowledge but on correct opinion.' In we need not be surprised that what

scientific

that case, virtue

find in the world

not the result of

though

professional scientific instruction,

since,

knowledge can only be obtained by

proof, 'correct

opinions

who have no

knowledge.

and are thus not possessed If the discussion in the

were not arbitrarily cut short this

at the point

suggestion has been reached,

course,

have been necessary

question, in is

be held by persons

insight into the reasoned grounds

for their opinions,

real

may

about a subject

what way a

Meno where

would, of

proceed to the

correct opinion,' which

not knowledge, about the moraUy good and bad

can be produced in the this question is given

worked out

soul.

The

full

answer

by the theory of education

in the Republic,

and that theory, in

PLATO its

turn,

depends on the psychological distinction

between the

pounded most

parts

and mythically

may

which

Plato's great psychological dis-

be briefly condensed into the phrase

that the^^soul

neither a mere undifferentiated

mere

unit, nor a

plurality of independent

j It

One and ^jy

indeed, a unity, and not,

is,

Theaetetus puts

and j

disconnected activities, but both a

JJany,

ex-

and Timcieus,

imposing allegory

set forth in the

of the Phaedrus.

covery

of tha soul,

fully in the Republic

a sort of

it,

Troj an horse,' or

congeries of distinct activities, but

within which we can

the

it is

a unity

distinguish a plurality of

more naively calls Of such parts or three: a part with which we

different functions, or, as Plato

them,

parts

'kinds' there are reason,

kinds.'

the calculative or rational part j a part

with which we feel the appetitive cravings connected with the satisfaction of our organic bodily needs,_the 'appetitive part'; a part

made up of among

the higher and nobler emotions, chief

which Plato reckons the emotions of righteous indignation and scorn of what is base hence the ;

general

name

'spirited'

for this

part.' ^Later

element

with him, the

Platonism of a popular

kind was frequently content to group the second

and third

parts

together, in opposition to the

THE SOUL OF MAN rational element, under the '

irrational

common name

of the

part of the soul, a simplification for

which Plato himself prepares the way

the

Tvmaeu^^^ The existence of these distinct

ele-

ments in mental

primarily proved in the

life is

Repuhli&' by appeal to the facts of individual

Our common experience between rational judgment as

psychology. conflict is

good and appetite

the

what

taken in conjunction with

is,

the law of Contradiction, sufficient to establish the distinction between the

part of the soul which

reasons or reflects and the part wherewith we crave.' ^ The^further recognition of the spirited '

element

then based upon the consideration

that the higher emotions

may

be enlisted on the

side of reason in its struggle with appetite, as see, e.g., froniTthe

selves

which

gratification

sense of indignation with our-

arises

of an

when we have stooped

to the

appetite which reason con-

demns. /The distinction thus obtained

then

confirmed by appeal to our experience of the

broad differences in character between races and social classes.

TThus the Greeks, as a people, are

pre-eminent in

and

devoted to

science

;

the

northern barbarians are distinguished by their unreflecting impetuous

and Egyptians by F

daring

skill in

;

the Phoenicians

and devotion

com-

PLATO merce^tlie organised ministering to the appe-

So again,

tites]

fin

any

main distinguishable

society, there are three

classes

devotees of

the

knowledge, of prowess, of merchandise

;

or, again,

the wise counsellors, the daring soldiers, the indus-

Now, 'whence do these

trial class..

racial

and

differences in

class character spring, if not

from a

corresponding difference in the mental constitution of individuals, according as one or other of the

three 'kinds'

predominant

obtained becomes, as

importance not only tion,

The

shall see, of

for Plato's theory of educa-

but for his classification and estimate of the

different forms of political

and

social organisation,

and for his Philosophy of History. fact,

result thus

fundamental

may, in

be said to be the connecting thread by which

the vast range of inquiries taken up in the Republic are held together in an artistic unity.

the {Tima&Ws the same psychological distinction

reappears in a more accentuated form as the basis of

what we might

The three distinct

call

a simple Psycho-physics.]]

'parts' are there described as three

souls

one, the

immortal and having

its

rational

soul,

being

seat in the brain; the

other two, 'spirit' and 'appetite,' being mortal,

and located Jbiyely.

in the -thorax

and abdomen respec-

In the Phaedrus we find the same ideas 82

THE SOUL OF MAN symbolically expressed by the representation of

human

the soul as a

charioteer (reason) borne

a pair of horses, the one nobler (spirit), the other

baser (appetite). .

be noticed that Plato's psychological

It will

none

analysis thus corresponds to

which \

modem

Neither 'conation' nor

Both

arCj in fact,

the three

puts

parts of the soul.'

corresponding '

pleasures,'

V*will'

'life,'

;

As Plato himself '

part

with characteristic

and pains of '

must,

the scheme."

regarded as features of each of

in the Republic, for each

it,

familiar.

our modern

'feeling,' in

sense, receives a distinct place \

of those with

made us

psychology has

of course,

its

own.

there

'desires,'

In particular, scheme, be

Plato's

with intelligent choice, and thus be

identified

reasoning faculty or function.

assigned to the

Hence *

aspects

Before

of the

process.

political

represent rather three dijfferent

mental development than three different

levels of '

has been correctly said that Plato's

parts of the soul

features

of the individual psychical i

we proceed

examine the

scheme based by Plato upon

human mind,

it is

ethical

and

this analysis

desirable to say some•"

thing in general about his conception of the destiny

and dignity of the

soul.

;

well

known, Plato

PLATO repeatedly insists both upon the immortality and

There

the pre-existence of the individual soul. indeed, a difficulty as to whether

it is

tripartite soul or only to its rational part that

means

to ascribe these characteristics,

of the difficulty

is,

to the whole

The source

partly to be found in the fact

that Plato's language on these matters

almost

always tinged with a greater or smaller admixture of imaginative

myth) partly perhaps in a modifiIn the

cation of his views with advancing age.

Phaedo and Meno we hear merely of the pre^existence and deathlessness of the /soul' without

further qualification.

proof

but a hint

formal

it is

/in the Timae}i&f> 'rational' soul

soul,'

its

that the question

many might receive

we could contemplate

effects of its

mortal from

ultimately one or

a different answer

from the

by the way that our the soul may only hold good

in its incarnate s tate,

whether

In the Republic

dropped

tripartite analysis of

)

offered for th'^^immortality of the

apart

connection with the body.

we have already

said,

the

explicitly distinguished as im-

mortal concomitants, which are

\:^presented as being added expressly to adapt to its conjunction

Plato's

with a mortal body!

arguments

for

immortality and pre-

existence are set forth principally in the Meno,

THE SOUL OF MAN Phaedo, Republic, and Timaeus.

The best-known

of the arguments for immortality are those of the

whickmay

Phaedo, (1)

be summarised as follows:

the analogy of our experience of various

rhythmical processes, such as those of expansion

and contraction, sleeping and waking, that

are cyclical, or, as Plato puts arise

it is

urged

processes of the universe in general

the

from and give birth

fcase of the

opposites

it,

that

opposites

each other.

death and

life,

In the see in

experience only one half of the cycle, the process

by which

of dying,

life

on grounds of analogy

gives place to death

it is

;

but

reasonable to postulate

the existence of a corresponding reverse process

by which the dead return again

life.")

fact,

Unless there exists such a reverse process, the

must be the entire The argument thus, like many

ultimate fate of the universe cessation of

life.

of the deductions of Herbert Spencer, turns

the assu mption that

m arked of view

by is

cyclical

p rogo^^^ Jn

all

.nature^, .axfiii

rhythm and from our point ,'

exposed to the objection that the alleged

reversibility of all natural processes is in conflict

with the second law of

modern

Thermo-dynamics.^

physicist might, in fact, declare that the

ultimate extinction of absurdity,

life,

precisely the

treated by Plato as an

doom

which, in virtue

PlATO of the dissipation of energy, he anticipates for the universe.

(2)

lays stress

second analogy on which Plato

that between the soul which

knows

Like the and the objects of true knowledge. concepts which science contemplates, the soul is invisible, immaterial, incapable of dissipation into

locally separate constituents; is

material,

visible,

gredients.

while the body

whereas the body

composed

of separable in-

then

natural

is,

like the rest of the

physical world, perishable, the soul to the eternal as

infer,

that

changing

so far akin,

be imperishable.

(3)

drawn from the famous

definite consequences are

Platonic doctrine, to be explained immediately,

according to which scientific knowledge

a process of the

recollection

mind was already

and thus

of truths with which

embodied soul

after

accepted, proves

establishes at least the.

continued

possibility

really

familiar in a previous state

of existence.! This doctrine, pre-existence,

existence

death.

(4)

of the dis-

The crowning

argument of the Phaedo is an ontological one. The soul is itself the very principle of life, and produces life everywhere where it is present. Life is thus what would be called in the later *

technical language of Aristotle ^unessential attri-

bute of

soul.

Consequently death, the 2>6

opposite

•

THE SOUL OF MAN of

life,

can never be truly predicated of that whick

is Jhe. principle

A/ dead

life itself:

be a contradiction in terms. is

deathless,

and

it is

can survive death

The

an easy inference that what

absolutely indestructible.

The' flaw in this ontological argument patent.

We may

that there

have by no means proved that the soul or

anything at

It is therefore

is fairly

readily rejoin that, in proving

no such thing as a dead

would

soul'

soul, therefore,

all after

soul,

still

exists

the death of the body^

not surprising that the Republic,

while alluding in passing to the 'other' argu-

ments

should present a new

immortality,

for

argument of a moral kind intended

make

the

more certain. /This argument runs as follows. Nothing that is can be destroyed except by its own proper and specific body can only .leviL'. / Thus, e.g., the human indestructibihty of soul

perish from diseases,

etc., specific

animal

to the

organism; other causes, such as the unwhole-

someness of our food, can only bring about death indirectly

soul is

Now

the specific

wickedness, and consequently,

destructible at

destruction it

leading to some specific disease

first

of our organism.

all,

evil if

of the

the soul

the immediate cause of

its

must always be this specific evil if it must die of wickedness. *

dies of anything,

;

PLATO But experience shows that wickedness

is far

from

diminishing the soul's vitality; on the contrary, it

often appears,

capacity,

when conjoined with great mental

intensify

it."]

(Plato

is,

course,

thinking of that conjunction of mental energy

with moral perversity which we are accustomed to

L ''

*X^^ j

with such names as those of the

associate

^^rgias

^^^ ^^^^

may

^^^^ incapable of destrojdng

In the Phaed/t'us

immortality,

Phaedo, '

soul

presented

previously

for

the

all

'^11

either self- originated or

less regress,

movement and movement whatever received by communi-

the source of

cation from without.

initiated

argument

the

condensed into the general contention

process in the universe. is

it,

safely infer that it is secure against all dis-

solution.

that

If the specific 'evil'j)f

or of Napoleon.)

And,

from an end-

to escape

are obliged to hold that

from without has always

source in a prior

movement.l

Now

ultimate

or spontaneous

self- originated

that which has the power of

^spontaneous movement could cease to be,

movement

its

all

soulj Hence,

movement would

And

disappear from the universe. universal cessation of

movement

seen, unthinkable for Plato,

is,

soul

ultimately since

this

we have

infers that soul,

the ultimate source of movement,

imperishable.

THE SOUL OF MAN T he arg ument

for^pre-existence

put before

us in the Meno, and apparently with a direct reference to that dialogue, again in the Phaedo.

The ^premise upon which

based

the

epistemological doctrine that scientific knowledge is

recollection of

what we have previously known. derived from Plato's con-

This (fonviction

itself is

ception of the

transcendent

that

scientific,

character of purely

mathematical

say,

truth.

Since sense-experience never presents more than

an imperfect approximation to the relations cognised in scientific knowledge,

source of such knowledge

follows that the

not sense-experience.

_Sense-experience, at best, only serves to recall to

the

mind by suggestion non-empirical

ifirom

Socrates

illustrates

ideal concepts derived

source.

appropriate questions to an

and thus tion of

eliciting

acter,

this

Meno

the

putting

uneducated

slave,

from him a correct percep-

mathematical truths in which he has

never been instructed.

shown

position

this

Scientific

truth

thus

be of a non-empirical d priori char-

and the interpretation given by Plato fact

'learning' of a sciepce

which the soul was already

we commonly

that what

call

the

simply a process in

'recollects' truths of

which she

in unconscious possession.

She must

PLATO then, it is argued, have been in existence, and have been acquainted with these pure d priori truths, before her incarnation in the body. this

acter

same conviction of

It is

of the non-empirical char-

truth which leads Plato to

scientific

describe the process of education in the Republic

which place the essence

in opposition to views

of education in the

communication of information

from without,

as a

turning round of the eye of

the soul to behold the

light,'

and

in the Theaetetus

to liken the function of the philosophic teacher to

that of the midwife, y^^ I

In the great myths of the Gorgias, Republic,

Fhaedo, Fhaedrus, and the half-mythical cosmo-

gony of the Timaeus, these convictions as to immoi^^ tality and pre-existence are made the basis for an

imaginative picture of the fortunes and destiny of the soul, in which the details are borrowed partly

from Pythagorean astronomy, partly from the Pythagorean and Orphic religious mythology, the

main purpose

of the whole being to impress the

imagination with a sense of the eternal

signifi-

The as yet unembodied soul is pictured in the Phaedrus under the figure of a charioteer borne on a car drawn by two winged steeds (spirit and appetite), in

cance of right moral choice.

the train of the great procession of the gods,'^

THE SOUL OF MAN whose heaven,

that

move round

they

goal, as '

place above the heavens

the eternal bodiless Ideas in all their purity.

The

may

and becomes incarnate

where

be contemplated

soul which fails to con-

coursers sinks to earth,

trol its

the vault of

loses its wings,'

in a mortal body, forget-

whence

came/ Its recollections may, however, be awakened by the influence of beauty, the only 'Idea' which is capable of presentation through the medium of ting the 'imperial palace

the senses.

TLove of beauty rightly cultivated

;

develops into love of wisdom and of the 'wings'

things;

sacred

begin to sprout once more. life is over,

for the

that

life.

The

evil

After one earthly

ended, the choice of a second bodily

soul which has thrice in succession life,

that of the lover of

thereafter dismissed to live

unencum-

bered by the body in spiritual converse

thousand years, composed of ten bodily

life,

become

fully

station

lives

with

one thousand year's retribution

the period of

each

with

For others, a pilgrimage of ten

heavenly things.

after

thus

deeds done in the body, and,

chosen the worthiest

wisdom,

*"'

high and

soul

there follows a period of retribution

good and

when

all

of the

necessary before the soul can

winged

and return

her

first

the heavens, "in the Republic Plato 91

PLATO by the mouth of a witness

professes to describe

brought back from the world of the dead what

happens

one of the times of incarnation suc-

ceeding upon the close of a period of retribution.

The assembled in

heaven

nate

some returning from rewards

souls,

for the

good deeds of their

others ascending

life,

last incar-

from a purgatorial

prison-house of the evil (both here and in the

Phaedo Plato provides for the unending punishment only of one or two hopelessly bad malefactors

on a colossal

mustered before

scale), are

the thrones of the Fates and bidden to choose,

each for himself, a

life

from a number of

which are placed before them. is

set

down what

cumstances are

virtue

not on

fate^

man

shall

he hono urs

new

4ife

For each

lives

life

outward destinies and

be,

cir-

but not what degree of

accompany \t.fVnr

virf.uftjjftpgmjs

hntjm-the charaSferj^l have more or it

is left

responsibility

thereof

its

less of it acc ording as

contemns

it.j

The choice

free to the individual soul

with the chooser,

God

;

of a '

the

clear

—words which in a later age were adopted

as a battle-cry by the partisans of

human freedom

against the Stoic predestinationismT?/ According to the tastes souls,

and

and dispositions oTthe individual the degree of wisdom they have 92

THE SOUL OF MAN derived from philosophy or from experience, they

make

their choice,

vocable.

and

once made,

this,

irre-

In this process a soul which has in-

human body may come

habited a

to be incarnate

some animal of qualities akin to itself, or, vice versa, a soul which dwelt last in an animal body may become that of a human being at its in that of

next birth.

The Orphic fancy

of transmigration meets us

again not only in the Phaedo, but also in the less

highly mythical Timaeus, where the more crude pictures of hell

carded.

and purgatory have been

In the Tiviaeus the souls of those who

are hereafter to be born as

God

dis-

at the

assigned to

first

its

making

men

are fashioned by

of the world, and each

special star,

where

may

learn

those laws of the universal order of things in

obedience to which our happiness stands.

appointed time the various souls are seeds, into the

bosom

of Earth

'^^^

At the

cast,

and of the

and are brought forth thence as men

planets, literally

'sprung from the soil.' After death, those who have lived best in the body are reincarnated as

men, those who have lived worse

women,

or as

inferior animals of different kinds according to the

degree of their shortcomings.

usji^noiis^kii^^S3^ly4;i^ 93

Tjins PLato offers

PLATO It is ^ not easy to decide

these

myths

how

far

any

details of

are to be taken as seriously meant."]

According to Plato himself, the myth speakings a falsehood or

* -

is,

strictly,

fiction,' .'and its valiia

simplj in the moral effect of the emotions4t

lies

arouses upon character. of view, Plato's

own

Judged from

this point

stories of the fortunes of the

soul are to be estimated primarily as an imagi-

native expression of a dee£_corr7i£tion_of^Jl^

and good. they enable him to indi-

sjP^premejmppxtainjQg^.pf right, (jonduet liyingjjincidentally, also,

cate his opinions

on the astronomical structure of

the world, and to show by an example what might

made

mythology

of the popular

ing

myths can hardly be

have any direct

science; /all that

For, in

significance.

Plato's opinion ^knowledge is entirely

with th e_^T'flTi.ctp.ftnripnt.

r>nr>{

concerned

^pts of purc deductivfi.,

we commonly

call

the world of

experience and 'actual fact' belongs for the realm of

becoming,'

enlist-

For the

on the side of a sound morality.

Platonic philosophy the said

were

overhauled and remodelled with a view to

i.e.

him

of largely incalcul-

able change and variation, as opposed to that of

unchanging

being,'

and

for

outside the scope of science

this

reason

falls

rightly so-cal led!]

Hence, when he would speak of these matters at

THE SOUL OF MAN all,

he can only do so by means of a

which makes no claim

The

notion,

common

Platonism, that the in

which

since

myth

the

days

Neo-

the appropriate form

symbohse truths too sublime

comprehension,

rational

'likely story,'

to set forth scientific truth.

for

entirely foreign

Plato. It is precisely when he is dealing with what he regards as the ultimate realities that his language is most scientific and least mythicaj. \To return to the subject of the Platonic theory '

We can now see how Plato's

ethijcsand^jlditifif^,-.

more developed psychology enables him to escape the most obvious diflBculties created by the Socratic identification of virtue with intellectua l insight.

rational

Since the soul as well

as a

itself

rational

contains a factor,

non\

complete

moral excellence must consist in the mainten-

ance of the proper relation between the two, and

tE£3ttainrnent of the proper development ov eachTj^

But the proper

relation

between the two

isjbhat^the higher and worthier element should

rule_and the inferior obey, just as the right tion

between

classes,

upon which the

community depends,

fitter

rela-

salvation of

that the worthier and

should govern and the inferior obey.

It is

only in this relation that the inferior itself makes '

the most' of

its

powers and enjoys the highest 95

PLATO good possible to

it.

TiiejajQraLideal

thus a-

condition in which the passions. and eniotions are

developed in accord with a supreme Jaw of dictated by rational

insighW Hence Plato

life_

finds

himself in opposition at once to the one-sided intellectualisra of the Cynics^ the

most

faithful

continuers of the Socratic tradition which identi-.

mere intellectual insight, and to Hedonism which regards the gratification of desires as they arise, no matter what their character, as the chi-ef good of man.7 fies

virtue with

the fashionable

^cAgr^^'^'"^^'

of the

^'^

^ r ^y nic ,

good as

he urges that the definition

insight

is circular,

since,

when

pressed to say what is the object of such insight, you are driven to reply that it is insight into and further, that none of us would the good '

;

seriously choose as the best life one of purely intellectual insight ,

of gratified feeling.

unaccompanied by any form Against the Hedonist whose

ideal is a life of varied

and intense desires and

passions, with complete satisfaction for

Plato contends that such an ideal

them

all,

essentially

To say nothing of the vulgarity and unworthiness of some very intense

self-contradictory.

satisfactions,Hhe intensity of satisfaction depends

very largely upon the intensity of the preceding sense of want and dissatisfaction, and

is,

there-

THE SOUL OF MAN a great extent,

fore, to

illiiRory,

principal in-

most intense experiences of bodily pleasure, is the sense of relief from preceding bodily distress. (Compare Shelley's well-known line about the 'unrest which men gredient, for instance, in our

"'^

And, since our appetites grow

miscall delight.')

by what they feed on, to live for the Hedonist's end means to cultivate passions which are conbecoming more and more imperative,

stantly

while their gratifications are at the same time

becoming life

less

of the

tyrant,'

than

enabled

and

less satisfactory.

who by

any other

Hence the

his position is better

man

gratify

his

passions without scruple, so far from being the

most wretched of existJust because he always 'does what he ^

happiest, ences.

really the

he never succeeds in doing what he

pleases,'

really wishes. '

In the Republic, and more fully in the Philehus,

Plato works out

this,

line of

thought into a

dis-

tinction between two kinds of pleasure, the pure

and the m ixed.' Pure pleasures are those which do not depend on a previous painful sense of want, and are thus not mingled with the ele'

ment

mere rehef from pain."^7They are whollp and there is no element of illusion about the experience of them. Prominent among of

pleasurable,

PLATO them

are, of

purely physical pleasures, those of

the sense of smell

of others, the sesthetic plea-

;

sures derived from the contemplation of beauty of form, colour,

and

tone,

and the pleasures which

attend the acquisition of knowledge. sures of appetite are

impure

The_pleac_

mixed^; they

derive most of their intensity from the contrast

with the previous painful tension of unsatisfied appetite,

and

thus chiefly an

their

apparent delightfulness

Hence

illusion.

for the

man who

desires true happiness a small quantity of pure '

pleasure

amount of

more valuable than a very large mixed pleasure in other words, ;'

pleasures are to be estimated by their quality

rather than by their quantity.

ground

this

Plato maintains that even from the point of view, of pleasurableness itself, the life of the

wisdom/ because richer

in 'pure'

lover of

and undecep-

tive pleasure, is preferable to that of the

who

lives

for

man

the satisfaction of ambition or

appetite.

Plato's psychology further for

makes

possible

him to do justice to the consideration that a_

certain degree of moral virtue

by^ the

man who

may

be attained

has merely 'correct opinions'-

wiihout^j)hilosophic insight.

In the last

resort,

indeed, insight and virtue cannot be separated,

THE SOUL OF MAN since the 'excellence' of a soul

quate realisation of

and

its

this is only possible in a life in

action of the irrational elements rational insight into the

means

human

good,l

i.e.

which the

prescribed by into the place

nature in the scheme of things.

one who possesses this insight himself ploy

ade-

its

functions and capabilities,

to provide training

and

But

may em-

discipline for the

emotions and appetites of others who do not themselves

possess

it,

and

whom

morality

comes, therefore, as a body of right opinions as '

what

good or bad, accepted on authority

apart from personal insight into the grounds for

them.

Hence,_in the Republic, Plato

able to

recognise a higher and a lower stage of moral excellence. vtrtiie

The lower stage

what he

calls

the

of a 'citizen,' the moral state of a loyal

member

of a well-governed community, whose

emotions and appetites have been disciplined in accord with the laws of right living as laid

down

by wise rulq^s, themselves ac(][uainted by philosophy with the Ji3je-.,iiaJUir.a^.jof- society and the human soul, and the rational ends of action.

The higher

constituted by the virtue of the

genuine philosopher^ in .whom obedience

to the

laws of right living rests upon personal insight

mto^ the 'good/

The

inferior level of excellence

PLATO is

demanded

of all citizens of Plato's ideal

inunity^ and

com-

be produced in them by a

moral education, begun in their

earliest years,

which aims at the formation of character by discipline of the passions and emotions; ^]^^ superior

by the chosen few

to be attained only

as the final

outcome of an

intellectual training

which supervenes on the preliminary

discipline

the irrational nature, proceeds in order through^

the whole sphere of science^ a^d. culminates in

the 'dialectic' which reveals the true character of 'good/ cation

Thus

the

anticipates

between

scheme

Plato's

'virtues

of moral edudistinction

Aristotelian

of characterj (rjdiKal dperal)

and excellences of '

intellect/

and more distantly

the seductive but dangerous ecclesiastical conof a

ception

which

distinction

suffice for the

and the higher

between

ordinary

life

the virtues

of humanity,

qualifications of the select few

who_ aspire to perfection/ '

this

essential ^

rVirtue

scheme Socraticism has preserved its spirit by the sacrifice of its letter no longer a mere unity, since each

factor in the soul has its

precisely because '

has

function to discharge.

primacy

own

specific

its

own

excellence/

characteristic^

Yet insight retains

for the practical

100

life,

inasmuch

its.

it is

THE SOUL OF MAN the philosopher's insight: into the true r^ature of

man and

the true end of

lines along

life

whicli prescnbes the

which the subordinate patta of the *

The

soul are to be allowed to develop. .

conse-_

quence

virtue,

the quadrilateral of the since familiar

^cardinal

that with Plato the leading types of

virtues,

form a plurality of excellences

corresponding to the plurality of functions in the soul, but a plurality which

harmonious system by

made

into a

the presence of a single

guiding principle. "^

^^h e

leading forms of virtue are assumed by

Plato to bo roughly represented by the names^^

wisdom^

justice,

coura^e^ (literally

sophrosyne.

avSpela),

term has

been variously

by, temperance/ *

rendered in English

continence/

which are

valents

manliness,

This last untranslatable^/

all

self-control/ equi-

objectionable from the

implication of painful self-restraint which they

ca^^jyjth them7 Etymologically, the nearest rendering would perhaps be healthy-mindedneM/ a word which has unfortunate associations for the American branch at least of the Englishspeaking community. The uses of the word in *

Greek

which

literature it

indicate that the quality

for

stood to Plato's contemporaries was that

moralgracefulness, beauty, sense of form and lOI

;;

PLATO propertion which solence,'

the opposite of

vl3pL<;,

'in-

absence of moral good taste/ and *

inculoaipd by the traditional precept of Delphi,

'Nothing overmuch/ to

fact,

understand sophrosyne

and

of the inward

is,

ethical

our readiest way conceive

I think, to

counterpart of the

temper and manner which we know in

its

outward manifestations as 'good form.'

minor T^ree_

of these virtues are identified by Plato with the characteristic excellences of the three 'parts' pr_

functions of the

souL

Wisdom

specifically

proper discharge of function in the 'part with

which we reason'; courage fear

fear

syne

the right and perfect,

which has been trained to or be ashamed of the things a man ought to or to feel shame for, and no others sophro-^

condition of

'ispirit'

;

an ordered and disciplined condition of

For complete virtue there must

the appetites.

be perfect harmony in the execution of function

by the various p^ts of the soul. A man does his work in the world which is to live well, only when there is a due and proper subordination '

—

between the different elements in his character

when wisdom prescribes the end and rule of life when the emotions of righteous indignation, chivalry,

honour,

loyalty,

support of wisdom and

are

its law,

102

enhsted in the

and the appetites

THE SOUL OF MAN have been schooled by habit into willing obediJustice, then, the virtue

ence.

common

which

language recognises as somehow embracing the

rest,

when we speak

equivalent to a

of a

all

man

'just'

righteous man,' must consist

precisely in the maintenance of this

harmony and

due subordination between the various functions

A man

of the soul. *

part

of the soul

will

does

'just,'

own

its

when each

business

and

does not usurp functions which belong to another *

part

part,' i.e. is

when

the development of each

controlled by the maintenance of the

In this

proper subordination of lower to higher.

way

Plato in the Republic lays

down

the leading

of that conception of the moral

principles

which we, rather unjustly, have come in

common

speech with the

name

life

connect

of his disciple

Aristotle.

It is the

same

in the State, or

community

citizens, as in

the lesser internal polity

For the State

large.

To the

simply the individual

distinctions between the

of man.

man *

writ

parts' of

the soul correspond the distinctions between the three classes into which a falls,

community

naturally

the statesmen, the soldiers, the artisans and

retailers.

__The

community by

first its

of these

classes

serves the

wisdom, the second by 103

its

PLATO prowess and trained strength, the third by making provision for the satisfaction of the bodily needs.

And

the

State

governed State when

and justly

well-ordered

its institutions

and laws are

framed by the wisdom of the statesman, supported loyally against the enemy from without and sedition

from within by the valour of the

loyally

accepted and obeyed by the industrial Justice, in the

population. individual,

own

means that each organ

business

of function,

with

community

;

soldier,

as in the

each social class contenting

efficient

its

/ther§ is to be a proper sub-division

performance

its

own

itself

special

part in maintaining the existence of the com-

munity, and none usurping a part which fitted to execute.

The conception

which we sometimes

of public duty

by saying

express

individuals and classes ought

not

it is

regard

that their

powers and possessions as held in trust for the

community has never received going

exposition

than

the

more thoroughsocial

system

advocated as ideal in the Republic of Plat£/

The Republic begins as an inquiry into what we should now term an ethical rather than a political question, the question,

But

for Plato, as for

there

What

justice

Greek thought in general,

real distinotion

104

between the spheres of

THE SOUL OF MAN Qtliks^and politics is,

and what

end of human

its

we would

see

what justice

connection, with the admitted

action, happiness, or living well,' *

we must not be content

study justice and

its

workings as they reveal themselves on a small scale in the life of a single individual,

who may

very possibly be out of tune with the general organisation of his place and time

;

we must ask

what would human life be like in a community in which institutions, customs, edu-

ourselves

cational traditions, were

expressly organised

all

with a view to the complete embodiment of the principle of justice,

and how would such a com-

munity compare, in respect of satisfactoriness of life, with the communities known to us from experience and history.

Thus the Platonic

Socrates, in

order to vindicate the position that justice itself,

apart from any ulterior consequences, a better

thing than injustice, and the

life

of the just

man

a better Hfe than that of the unjust man, however

may

lucky or successful he

be, finds himself led

to consider the characteristics of the ideal State.

usual with Plato, the starting-point for the

great ideal construction

sought in what looks

at first like a very simple

experience.

;The_^first

ordered community

and prosaic

requisite

fact of

of a decently

found in the economic

105

PLATO prindpla.,4?£-.tlie_-^dmsiQii„iiLlaJ2Q^

man shall have his own special and that his abilities shall not be frittered away by compelling him to do several things mands

that each

calling,

indifferently this

rather than one thing well.

economic maxim

It is

one man, one trade/

which we subsequently discover to contain the fundamental principle of moral conduct and the basis of a philosophy of education.

its

extended significance

is its

the problem of national defence.

The,

it is

sign

application

War

evitable feature of national growth,

successful conduct of war

first

and

to,,

an in— for the

not enough to

rely,

had done everywhere except in Sparta, on the amateur valour We must have an army of the ordinary citizen. which consists of citizens who are also professional soldiers, trained mentally and morally, as well as as the Greeks of the fifth century

physically,

with a view

Thus Plato begins

military efficiency.

his organisation of society

distinguishing two classes in his community

by the _

ordinary industrial, and the trained defender or '

guardian

At a

of national safety.

later stage

the correspondence between the parts of the soul '

and the classes of the community is made complete by a further selection from the 'guardians of a smaller

group of specially able persons who 1

THE SOUL OF MAN are to form the class of statesmen.

(It

should be

has already silently indicated a

libted that Plato

marked innovation on implied that there the community.

established custom.

It is

to be no class of slaves in

Manufactures, as well as agri-

culture, the only industrial pursuit generally re-

cognised in Greece as worthy of a freeman, are to

be in the hands of the non-military

The birth

;

selection of the

from the very

guardians

citizens.) is

children

first,

to begin at

who

exhibit

superiority in the characteristics requisite for a *

guardian' are to be set apart and subjected to a

systematic educational preparation for their future duties, while care is

taken to prevent the degenera-

scheme into a hard-and-fast system of by frequent examinations and tests, and the

tion of the

castes

degrading of the unfit into a lower as

class, as well

by the promotion of the deserving and capable Thus there of a lower class to a higher.

members is

to be

aux *

throughout the State a carriere ouverte

talents.

guardian

The will

qualities specially desirable in a

be courage and gentleness, when

found in combination, and

the

object

of the

educational system will be to preserve a balance

between the two by a training which shall harden its recipients against the solicitations of pain and pleasure, while imparting to

107

them

a spirit of open-

PLATO nundedness and love of cultivation. in fact, to

Plato wishes

combine the strength and hardness of

the Spartan -character wit_h_thg^j&exibility and int erest in things of the

mind

of Jhe Athenian,

while avoiding the Spartan's tendency to intel-

narrowness and

and the and instability. His State is to unite in an ideal Greek character all that is best both in Sparta and in lectual

Athenian besetting fault

Athens,

boorishness,'

of moral

perhaps we should

levity

rather say, in

Dorian character and Ignianmtellect, just as some

modern thinkers have dreamed *

of a

union of

Hebraic moral earnestness and Hellenic '

intel-

lectual cultivation in a single type.

finds

the material for the double moral

education he desires in the current Hellenic conception

of 'gymnastics'

rudiments of

and 'music'

literature, together

(i.e.

the

with the art of

singing and accompanying oneself on the lyre), as the two branches of a gentleman's education.

But he proposes

reform both these departments.

Against the current view that gymnastic provides training for the body, music for the mind, he insists

that the ultimate object of both

to train the

imadr The object of gymnastic is to make brave and efficient soldiers, not specialised athletes who .^

can make records '

or perform special feats, but

io8

THE SOUL OF MAN com-

are useless for the general service of the

Hence the physical

munity.

'guardians'

to be

training

of his

throughout adapted to the

production of all-round military efficiency of mind

and body.

music his reforms are of a more '

far-reaching character.

the literary side, the

'musical' education of the Athenian gentleman consisted

the

first

poems

repositories

and foremost

in acquaintance with

Homer and

Hesiod, the

of accepted religious

great

and

tradition,

with some of the compositions of the gnomic and

which were to the Greek what such works as the 'wisdom literature' of the Bible

lyric poets

are

to ourselves, sources of generally venerated

To estimate the amount of an we must also add an

ethical precept.

Athenian's hterary culture,

acquaintance with the chief productions of the great national dramatists.

thinkers

But

Plato, like

him, was more

before

repelled

many than

by the moral tone of the national sacred literature, and accordingly proposes^ to subject it attracted

to drastic revision.

We cannot in a

expect a high standard of conduct

community which

immoral

stories

accustomed

about the beings

ships and reveres.

to believe

whom

wor-

Accordingly Plato lays down

two canons to be observed in 109

all tales told to

the

PLATO young about gods

God, being good^

or heroes.

cannotJ)e the author of evil ;

God cannot lie^jOn

the strength of these two principles, the greater part of the poetical mythology

at once con-,

Further, the great heroes of old must

demned.

never be represented as indulging in unseemly passions or mercenary calculations of self-interest,

nor must the unseen world be painted in the horrific colours of

mean

popular ghost-lore, unless we

our pupils to be cowards

train

But

afraid of death.

epic poetry

thoroughly overhauled, the drama Plato would, in

worse.

and comedy altogether.

fact,

and

to be thus

fares

prohibit

even

tragedy

Partly this sentence

based upon the conviction that an impressionable spectator tends to

become assimilated

character to that which for his amuseme);it,

current

drama

in his

enacted before

own him

and hence a large part of the

to be rejected as imitative of

things and person*^ which are merely vulgar and base.

Partly, Plato, with his deep-rooted convic-

tion that a

man can only play one

of life efficiently,

been given to the learning of of devotion to the *

versatile.'

superficial,

part on the stage

and that only when

drama

it,

his life has

dreads the effect

making

his citizens

would not have them

brilliantly

quick at posing, at echoing ideas or

THE SOUL OF MAN counterfeiting emotions which do not

the depths of their nature.

come from

has a horror of

and the artistic temperament.' For similar reasons he would expel from education, as tending to excite unwholesome moods of '

bohemianism

feeling,

all

the current 'modes'

or 'scales' of

music, except the Dorian and Phrygian.^,^*'

The attack upon art is renewed with even more bitterness in the last book of the Republic, which goes so far as to demand the absolute suppression of poetry. The poet, we are there told, is

mere

caricaturist.

day experience, which copy of the true

he does not even copy (The underlying thought

human

is itself

types

imperfect as are our

copies vulgar every-

mere inaccurate of things, and

Ideas

without distortion. thus that coarse and

common

everyday notions

and character, and our current ideas of conduct, 'literature' is an exaggeration of

life

and perversion even of them.)

Plato's language

shows that his judgment has been spired by hostility to letters

and

realistic

art of his time,

of the truth to represent

censure to

fall

but

him

tendencies in the it is

realistic'

own

to prohibit imaginative literature

Ill

an economy

as intending his

only upon bad

seriously means, against his

largely^ in-

and

art.

inclinations,

art as such.

PLATO / There

no more pathetic example of the irony of

iiuman history than

this spectacle of the greatest

literary genius of Greece, in his zeal for truth

clearness

proposing

vision,

and

sacrifice

which has made Greece most precious

all

the

worljsU^

The

early education thus planned

his statesmen for

them

It will be

and

by Plato

for

soldiers is intended to provide

up___to„ the„ age- jq£- incipient

-manhood.

noted that it is primarily altogether a

discipline for

character and taste

;

the strictly

intellectual educa<tion supervenes at a later stage,

and

is,

for the

select class of

most all,

judged competent to serve the rulers.

most

part, confined to the

who are community as its

the exceptional few

Before he enters upon any account of

Plato has

it,

explain and defend three para-

first to

doxical features by which the organisation of the

projected *

state

guardian classes

be marked..

there

as_ private property or a

'guardians' are to receive large the

means

(1)

In the

be no such ih fn g

The from the community at private family.^

of their support, but are to be

forbidden to amass private possessions of any kind. Indeed, they are not so

much

as to have private

houses, but are apparently to live in a kind of

perpetual garrison.

The

object of this_proyision

112

THE SOUL OF MAN is.

simply

interests,

might

prevent

private

'guardian/ which

with entire devotion to the public

conflict

welfare,

growth

the

-the part of the

and we

may

conjecture that

was sug-

gested in part by the painfully familiar fact that

even the Spartan, the most public-spirited of Greeks, usually showed himself shamelessly venal

when placed in chance to make reposed

similar

A private

underlies

object

attempt to abolish

daring

Plato's

family.

him.

which gave him the market of the trust

positions

his private

the private

family he regards as a stand-

ing temptation To disloyalty on the part of the "public servant to the public interest.

R. L. Nettleship has put

it,

As the

late

Plato's objections to

the family are explained by the associations of

We may add

such words as nepotism.' '

alive to the truth expressed

un inre

de famille

est

that he is by the epigram that

capable de tout

Moreover,

with a splendid reliance on science, Plato thought it

possible

scientific prevision

]^ropag8LtiQii._pf, the.

duce the best

to control the

Iximxan. species so as to pro-^

offspring..

Hence

his guardians are

to regard the procreation of children as a publjc service, not as

pjdj[aJteL.privileg e.

Marriages are

to take place w^hen the sagacious statesmen to

whom H

the charge of

them 113

committed, think

PLATO and between such

desirable,

judge in

And

best.

couples

they

Plato strongly maintains that

thus eliminating

all

elements of individual

caprice from the union of the sexes he

not

destroying but increasing the sanctity of -mar-

by converting. service. In the same riage,

into

spirit

nq^parents

a,re

of„pxibIic

he forbids the whole

system of 'home education.' dians,'

an act

know

Among their

his

own

'^grnir-

children.

up together from and to regard one another as one great family of which the whole elder generation are In this way he to be accounted the parents. thinks, by abolishing family selfishness, he will best promote the single-hearted devotion to the public welfare at which he aims. The^ State will All children are to be brought birth,

be truly 'one/ because every

man

'mine just what every other

citizen calls

These

communistic

proposals

it will call

were

mine.'

already

subjected to the unfavourable criticism of com'

mon

sense'

Aristotle,

and most modern

students of Plato have hastened to echo Aris-

Yet we are perhaps inclined to judgment by the fact that the

totle's objections.

unfairness of

conditions of family different is

life

among

ourselves are so

from those which Plato has

natural

in view.

us to think of the family,

114

when

THE SOUL OF MAN wisely administered, rather as the most vahiable of preparatory schools of piibHc spirit than as a

nursery of selfishness, and to point to the fact that experience shows the moral effects of even

an unsatisfactory

home

an it

must be remembered that the

institution

modem

than those of

to be better

But

for the rearing of children.

Christian family

basis of the

the existence of free

educated womanhood.

cultivated

and

Athens of

Plato, the girls

In the

married young, they

were apparently almost entirely uneducated, and were absolutely excluded from life

women far

all

outside their husband's door. this state of things

the interests of

What kind

how

produced, and

they were fitted to be entrusted with the

formation of a child's character in the

most impressionable years of

its life,

from the picture of the Athenian

by Aristophanes,

first

we can

and

learn

women drawn

their pretended champion.

Athenian society stood, Plato was probably not far

wrong

family

in his estimate of the moral effects of

life^

and

his proposals

have

all

the marit of

a serious attempt to recognise and remedy one of

the gravest faults of the existing social order (2) Plato

strikes at the very root of the evil

his second proposal,

should now

call

which demands what we

the complete enfranchisement IIS

PLATO ^

Among

iijLjEiMiiaa,.

the 'guardians'

same

to receive the

women

are

training, bodily as well as

mental, as men, and are to be employed indifferently with class,

men

in all the functions of a ruling

those of active military service not excepted.

There

no sex

in fact, to be

is,

any form of public

disqualification for Plato's

service.

object in

proposing thus to ignore sex as a fundamental

human nature is not by any means that many modem feminist champions, the exten-

fact of

sion of

woman's

her ambitions.

rights,' or

the gratification of

the sphere of duties and

It is

burdens which he is anxious to enlarge; in Jbis opinion,

is,

so long as

frojajactive citizen

services

which

life,

ought

women

societyT"^

are_ex:cluded

voluntarily foregoing the to receive

members, and these

from the female

he proodd that Plato should not have assigned woman some specific sphere of social service, but should have

half of

its

poses to recover.

Ut may

services

strike us as

preferred the paradoxical plan of introducing her as a rival of

war.

man

seems

in every sphere, even that of to

have been misled in the

matter by the undue importance he attaches to the analogy to be in -

whom,

the sexes

as is

drawn from the lower animals,

he observes, the difference between mainly one of strength and

size,T

THE SOUL OF MAN and leads

no thorough-going differentiation of

functions other than those immediately concerned

In assuming

reproduction.

that

thing would hold good in the

the same

human

species,

Plato probably seriously underestimates the influ-

ence of sex upon in

human

general, just as in

psychical development

his proposal to suppress

romantic personal love between

underestimates

emotion as dividual's

life.

spiritual force

the

man and woman

significance

determining

factor

is,

in the life that

in-

however, a fault which Plato all

Greek philosophy, but

New

with the moralists of the Old and it is

the

This underestimation of sex as a

shares not only with

ments, and

sexual

of in

the more excusable

Testa-

in him, since

he knew by experience romantic

love hardly existed except in the form of pas-

The homely Xenophon is the only Socratic man whose writings show any appreciation of love between man and woman as we understand it. We must note, sionate friendship between youths.

too, that

owing to the communistic character of

Plato's society, the feel

economic objections which we

to-day against the presence of

rivals

with men,

e.g.

in the

mental Department, have not

work to

women

of a Govern-

be considered by

him, and also that the inevitable exclusion of 117

PLATO women from many

careers

by the physical

restric-

and nursing of away with in his

tions connected with the bearing

children would be largely done

scheme by the abolition of the private home, and the transference of the duties of motherhood to the

officials

Up be

of the State nurseries.

to this point, Plato's ideal

said,

with

all its

community may

communistic elements, to be

constructed on lines already familiar to contem-

porary students of the Greek city-state.

common

jElCComplishments,

and the control of individual

choice by regard for the needs of the

community

matter of marriage and procreation, were

in^ the

already in Sparta. easily

Tj^e,

education of the sexes, at least in bodily

part

realised

From Spartan

the discipline

practice, too, Plato

have derived the ideal Qf the garrison

he contemplates

for his

life

Other ideas

guardians.*

which he adopts were already

may

the air' in

'in

consequence either of the special social necessities of the fourth century, or of the speculations of

the 'sophists.' professional

Tha. substitution of the for the amateur

soldier

trained, citizen

warrior has been noted as a characteristic of the

Greek military history of the period following on the close of the Peloponnesian war. of jlayery, silently presupposed

ii8

The by

abolition

Plato,

had

THE SOUL OF MAN been already vigorously advocated by more than one well-known

sophist

on grounds which the

conservative Aristotle finds himself forced to consider very seriously

munism,

the ideals of complete com-

;

free love, a,nd emancipation of

women

by the tragedies of Euripides,

are proved, not only

but by the burlesques of Aristophanes, to have

been quite famihar to the Athenian mind at the

end of the

fifth

might, in

corporating so

gram

ideas

and opening of the fourth century. say that Plato's object in in-

fact,

much

of the current

in his social scheme,

from

the

which they had sprung, and

ment

the

old

The

all,

conception

to^the which had

of ,duty life

of historical

third of Plato's fundamental proposals,

which he himself of

out

employ them the intensifying and ennoble-

been the foundation of the jopr^^^

(3)

new

*dt^^as^Jba-.supremi6.^^^^^ of

radical pro-

individualism

ethical

as instruments for

to rescue the

feels as

the greatest paradox

definitely takes us

beyond the limits of

current Greek political thought, and amounts to

the

triumphant

form, of the

knowledge

in a

transfigured

conception

of scientific,

reassertion,

Socratic

as the true foundation of

golitical righteousness.

moral and

Socrates had urged upon '119

PLATO the Athenian democracy, by familiar appeals to

experience such as those preserved

Xenophon, the principle that no man is fit to^ administer in practice affairs which he does not, understand; he had called, in

ment by experts

effect, for

govern-

in statesmanship.

This thought of Socrates, passed through the

mind

of Plato, reappears in the

demand

that the

Stateshall be governed by 'philosophers/^ Society will

never be well ordered until kings become

philosophers

kings.

In other

words, the highest intellect and the profoundest

employment jn The great curse of his

science are to find their proper

the direction of public

own

life.

time, Plato thinks,

be found in the

existing divorce between science ship,

a divorce which does

science

than

and statesman-

government.

less

injury to

Accordingly he

proposes that a second selection shall be

from the ranks of the 'guardian' close of the first education,

manhood.

The

made

class, at

the

and on the verge of

selected few,

who

future rulers of the community,

are to be the

will,

be ^hpse

who

by special intelle,ctual capacity and peculiar moral nobility. They are

are distinguished

to receive a

alike

thorough training in

all

the existing

branches of exact science, passing from Arithmetic, 120

THE SOUL OF MAN through j^lane and solid Geometry, to theoretical

Astronomy and Harmony, attention being throughout specially directed to the recognition of the

fundamental

and the

principles,

logical

inter-

connection upon which the unity of the different

For

'sciences'.^ depends. allots

ten years of

All that

a mere

From

this

learned in these years

prelude to the strain

Plato

training

from twenty to

life,

however,

is,

which

thirty.

is to follow.

thirty to thirty-five the statesman

to be

occupied with the crowning study of Dialectic itself,

by which he

finally

supreme vision of the 'Good/ speculative progress

is to

prepared for the

this point his

be interrupted

be forced, as Plato puts

;

in one of his

most

famous apologues, to descend again into the 'cave oferror and confusion from which science has gradually delivered him, and to impart the results of his enlightenment to those

and

maturity, set to the

only at

the

still

period of intellectual

hard work of governing men.

service, that

bound

be taken from his studies and

fifty, after

remainder

are

In other words, the lover of

in darkness.

wisdom, arrived

who

his

It is

fifteen years of active public

spend the

to be dismissed to

days _ in

contemplation of the

purely

Good,' and

121

speculative

its

offspring,

PLATO norms and concepts of

the system of the ideal -

.,o^.;-<;.^3S5^a5*«=^-

science. It is in this insistence

upon the conjunction of

the highest speculation with the nianagement.of practical affairs that Plato is

most strildngly

variance with the views of his great disciple Aria.ioflgj.

In Plato's ideal community there was to

be no group of mere abstract thinkers devoted solely to the pursuit of thej theoretic 'lifer

Hehas^

nothing of the spirk^^tjgpjtellectual disdain fqj_ active affairs tical

which led Aristotle

activity to God, and to banish '

of the ideally

god-like

man.

to it

deny prac'

from the

life

It is pretty safe to

assume that he would have dissented vigorously from the estimate of Aristotle, and apparently of Hegel, who^ seem ^'

.to

regard the mere student of

metaphysics as the highest type of since

is quite explicit

philosopher, as ence,

human

being,

on the point that the

we know him

as far fromi being

in everyday experi-

what a philosopher

might, and ought to be^as the king of current politics is

from being the true and ideal ruler We do Plato the gravest of

secundum artem. wrongs if we forget

that the Republic

no mere

collection of theoretical discussions about govern-

ment, and no mere exercise in the creation of an impossible Utopia, but a serious project of .

122

THE SOUL OF^AN by an Athenian

practical lefoi'nx put forward patriot, set

fire^

like Shelley, with a 'passion

reforming tke world/

for

QFhe Platonic conception of a community ruled by men with a great philosophy of human nature, .

and divested, by their position

the social

system, of any private ties which might lead to personal interests other

than the one interest

work for society well donej has often been compared with the theoretical constiof getting their

tution of the Catholic Church.

Plato's rulers

would, however, be saved from most of the temptations

which

have

ecclesiasticism, partly

proved

fatal

CathoHc

by the frank recognition of^^ by the

science as the foundation-stone; partly

provision that every 'guardian'

beget children for the State

normally

—a regulation

which

would make the growth of other- worldliness and the ecclesiastical conception of the spiritual '

life

almost impossible^ partly also by the

tion^ J^p^ .pesse^s private

pi-ohibi-

property which excludes

anything like the formation of a with material interests of

its

clerical order

own opposed

those of the 'lay' State. Plato follows

which

life is

absolutely swayed by devotion to

an enlightened

ideal of public good*, and., of the

his picture of the id^nl State,

123

PLATO type of

man

whoin

fullest exjpression,

number

principle finda-ite

this

the philosopher, by a sketch of

of inferior

communities and correspond-

ing inferior individual characters in which various degrees of divergence from the ideal are exhibited.

These are so arranged as cessive degenerations

form a

from the

series of suc-

ideal type, caused

by increasing departure from the principle of the due subordination of the lower to the higher alike At in the^community and in the individual soul. each fresh stage in the descent an increasingly unworthy

class in the state or

usurps the predominant

element in the soul

position, until the series

mastery of state and of soul by

closes with the

their absolutely worst elements,

quent

and the conseand moral

subversion of all real political

At the head of the scale stands the ideal community which we have described, and which life.

may '

be called indifferently an 'aristocracy' or

rule of the best,' or, in the case in

which there

only one such pre-eminently best

whole

society, a

type of

the

the product of this society

may

philoiSPpher,' but also, as

kingly jman.',

and contrast,

Similarly the ideal

peculiar tone,

it its

the 'king' or pare,

monarchy.'

man who

and gives only the

man

be called not

we have

(One

seen,

may com-

Carlyle's favourite conception

124

THE SOUL OF MAN of the king by God's grace

realised at

nently

;

ideal,

could not be realised perma-

all,

there

actual which

'The

'man who

the

In the actual world, however, this

can.*)

an element of imperfection in the

must inevitably lead

to degeneration.

particular cause of decline in national

individual character

and

found by Plata in ignor-

ance of the laws of heredity.

Sooner or

'guardians,' being

fallible,

after

all

later our

will

beget

children out of due season, and with the advent of this inferior generation to

The

society will begin.

will

neglect

the

culture of the

mind

first

power the

symptom

of education.

will

fall

of decline First,

the

be neglected for that of

the body.

Physical force, military prowess and

will

come to have the preference over Our State will be ruled by soldiers, and

skill,

wisdom.

organised rather for war than peace.

be outward loyalty to the laws

still

There will and institu-

tions of a better age, but they will not be really

the desire to amass personal grow up among the 'guardians,' who

understood, and riches will will,

however, in respect for the old traditions,

gratify their

growing avarice at

The

will

stealth.

first

be personal ambition and love of

on J^ich

quietly and

ruling spirit of suqh a State

.gro.u;},ds!

JPlafco calls it

125

distiiiQiiDn,

Himocra^^

PLATO The

details

show that the

the description

instance of such a secondjbes t jopieiy which he

has in mind

contemporary Sparta.

the timocratic State '

as is

also its characteristic pro-

man/ He

duct, the timocratic

Such

man

whom^

chivalrous high spirit no longer takes the segoni place in the control of

life,

but becomes the rulr

ing passion, obedient to law

and the magistrates,

but consumed bj ambition for personal distincJioja^fe^^Meh he lays claim primarily on the

ground of his merits as a soldier and sportsman. In mature age he will be liable, for want of a

sound rational estimate of the various goods, Such a character is to grow over- fond of money. son aspiring of an excellent often found in the father who, living under tion,

come

be put down by the unwise as a

creature of poor

an imperfect constitu-

has avoided seeking public distinctions, and

spirit.

further decline

In^an

oligarchy,

i.e.

is to

be found in ohgarchy.

a constitution based

property qualifications, wealth

treated

asjth^

chief good and poverty as disqualifying a for public

his

property/ and there are

parties in the '

life.

man's worth

haves

State— tjie

and the

126

man

measured by

thus always

two

and the poor, the In an oligarchy wo

rich

have-nots.'

up^jji

THE SOUL OF MAN what was absent from the timocracy/ a class of persons who have been permitted to ahenate their property and become paupers, and a correfind,

sponding class of the

now

them),

call

And

wealth..

we should

rich' (millionaires

who have acquired

both

the alienated

Plato contends, are

classes,

rendering

alike

spiritually

public

real

service in return for their position in the State, in

being drones in the national hive/ The possi-

development

this

bility of

greed

the

concealed,

"flSQUgh

already contained

wealth which

for

the

was

present,

timo<jracy

only

;

the law permitting complete alienation of patripaonies

needed to make Jhe^ possibility into an

mind

we ask what communities Plato has

actuality.

in this description,

natural to suppose that he

commercial

ancient Hellas. in every society

we have

in is

soul..i&^.

cold-blooded

command and

the

though those

the nyin

the

oligarchical man,'

common

but predominant in such a one as

described,

ma-nd^ _of_ the desireSj

The

thinking of great

Corinth, the Venice of

cities

would be most

who

man

whom

givea over .

to^^^-

the com-

desires are as yet gratified

and

calculating

jmafees .it.his

^h^^^

_way He good to .

the things which money can monej which can buy them.

buy,

His

PLATO maxim to

make a

profit

out of everything, and

work hard and deny himself the

fall indul-

gence of his appetites, in order to be sure of getting

his

Education

profit.

naturally

despises; honesty he values in general as the '

best policy,' but his real opinion of

when he profit

gets the chance to

with impunity,

We might liken him

e.g.

failed

dishonest

as a fraudulent trustee.

timocratic

Plato thinks this

family.

type of character very

ambitious

make a

betrayed

to the first generation of

American millionaire '

it is

common in the sons of men whose schemes have

and landed their authors in poverty and

obscurity.

One remove further from the ideal 'government by the best' stands the democracy of which Plato's own Athens furnishes him with the judgments on democracy works, though most illuminating, are

spiritual type.

and

all its

Plato's

always bitter to the last degree. forget that

was not a tyrant or an '

can never '

oligarchy,'

but the restored and triumphant democracy, that took the

life

of Socrates, and

may be

also that

and Charmides biassed his judgment more than he knew."] At any rate, he always speaks of democracy (which to the Greek his kinship with Critias

ear,

remembered, 128

synonymous with

THE SOUL OF MAN I

government

^oJass^S

') jmuch

the poor,

non-propertied

Johnson was accustomed

as Dr.

speak of Whiggery, or Burke, in his Jacobinism.

It is the

evil days, of

negation of principle,' the

constitution under which no qualification of any

Hnd^^ neither wisdom nor prowess nor even a '

stake in the country

under which

man

all

men

held about as

function

any

required of the ruler, but

and

are free fit

modern

matic description of

any public epigram-

Nietzsche's

other. 7

and one

equal,

to discharge

democracy,

ona.

and no shepherd,' exactly reproduces Plato's verdict on the democracy of the ancient world. The democracy, he says, is not so much a constiflock

tution as an

dash of

all

emporium them in it.

allowed to do pretty

^eniay obey them, he

Every true democrat

much

the laws

free to

of constitutions, with a

;

likes

;

he would rather break

it.

under no

legal ox^,

moral_ obligation to serve the public, but please himself about

He may

it.

into trouble with the law

though he were a

officers of justice. I

still '

walk the streets as

spirit

invisible to the

In a word, the 129

no one's busi-

community

ness in so free and independent a

safe as

may

conceivably get

and be sentenced

death or banishment, but as enforce the laws, he can

likes,

first

principle

PLATO of

democracy

that there should be

rip.

selection

fit by and this is why the outward sign of an ancient democracy is the use of the lot in appoint-

of the

fittest' to

govern, for

all

are equally

nature,

ing public

The

officials.

historical

from the oHgarchy of wealth

Plato thinks, might be prevented cal State

transition

such democracy, if

the oligarchi-

were wise enough to check the growth

of the discontented class of have-nots by abolish'

ing legal remedies for breach of contract, and thus

compelling the speculative financier to do business at his

own

risk.

The

oligarchical

rulers,

however, are careful not to take this step, since it

would be opposed

to their

own ambition

accumulate wealth at their neighbours' expense. Consequently,

the

class

the

becomes daily more numerous, and

dispossessed it

needs but

their

own them and to set them on deposing masters. The democratic man,' whom we

may

often find in the son of a money-loving

some

slight external occasion to reveal their

strength to

father

who has been

initiated

by companions into

the pleasures of profligacy and has learned to rebel against the paternal parsimony, resembles

the democratic State in having no fixed principle of subordination of lower to higher within him.

He makes no

selection between different impulses

130

THE SOUL OF MAN he

to action;

mood *

each and every

for gratifying

it arises,

and

for so long as it persists, is

everything by turns and nothing long.'

time he

may

ous

take a

fit

and the strenu-

for athleticism

He may

life.

even, for a while, play the

philosopher, but only so long as the

and

its

living

At one

a profligate or voluptuary, at another

mood

lasts

novelty amuses him. He is, in fact, the embodiment of that shallow versatility

which Plato dreaded

summate poseur

for his

whom Of

stage-play.

diversified

description hits off

many

guardians,' a con-

life

one long and

course, while Plato's

of the besetting weak-

we must reand not sober history.

nesses of the Athenian character,

member To take life

that it

would be

is satire,

an uncoloured account of Athenian like taking Burke's

tirades as a faithful picture of

an ti -Jacobinical

France under the

Directory, or Berkeley's caricatures in Alciphron as

a true picture of the aims

eighteenth-

century Deism.

Even ever,

in this lowest depth of social chaos,

there

remains a

still

lower

depth.

howIn

i.e.

the unfettered arbitrary rule of a

single despot,

we have passed beyond the mere

'tjrann^,'

absence of any principle of the choice fittest to

rule tp^^ii actual choice of

131

^^^^^

of the unfit-

PLATO The organisation

test.

of a tyranny

infernal parody of that of a true

a sort of

aristocracy/ as

the Middle Ages believed that the organisation of Hell

was an infernal parody of the angelic

hier-

The worst and most dangerous the community bears sway, relying

archy of Heaven. villain

tlie

physical force of picked bands of xuffiajis

who come

nearest to himself in criminality, and

the

and

best

most

law-abiding

citizens

are^

massacred or exiled or frightened into submission.

(Compare Shelley's picture of Anarchy en-

throned in the palaces of England as 'God and

In tracing the way in which

King and Law.') such a tyranny cracy,

Plato

may

from a previous demo-

arise

guided

by the thought which

has been frequently expressed in later times, that^ i^restrained democracy has a natural tendency to

generate

lawless

details of his

military

despotism.l

The

imaginary narrative are drawn from

recollections of actual

Greek

history, the

examples

prominent in his mind being manifestly the career of Pisistratus at Athens and, perhaps, that of the elder Dionysius in Sicily.

The tyrant *

begins, like

Rome,

as an extreme demagogue, the

champion of the

proletariat against the well-to-do

Caesar in

bourgeois.

When

once he has begun to shed

innocent blood in his career as demagogue, his

132

THE SOUL OF MAN fate

He must

sealed.

hirQself, or

make

be destroyed

either

himself master of the lives and

So he appeals to armed an bodyguard, (this point

liberties of his fellow-citizens.

his partisans for is

from the history of

clearly taken

and thus declares open war on the

The

rest of the story

deterioration.

Pisistratus),

constitution.

a tale of steady moral

degrees the tyrant

driven

banish the best of the citizens, to dis-

to kill or

trust the advice of those

who

are

left,

surround

himself with foreign mercenaries and emancipated

slaves,

whom

he cannot though

forced to depend but life

secretly one of utter suspicious-

ness, helplessness,

and misery.

shows signs of being

(This part of the specially

from the actual history of Dionysius terrors

i.,

drawn whose

and precautions against treachery even on

the part of his related

whom

henceforward,

apparently _on^,,,af prosperity and un-

limited power,

picture

His_ whole

trust.

own family

later writers.)

many

stories are

Thus experience con-

firms the verdict of philosophy that the tyrant's life

really

'tyrannical

whom

the most miserable of

man'

is^

The

all.

in similar fashion, the

man

the 'democratic' gratification of

impulses as they arise has given place to

all

the

complete domination of the soul^bg^^ome^nej^^se

' ^

PLATO and criminal

which the

lust to the indulgence of

man's whole

In such a man, as

life is sacrificed.

in the tyrannically governed city,

the selection of the least

fit,

see once

the worst and vilest

element in character, to have the supreme direc-

What

tion of conduct. is

we may

the misery of such a

understand when we

reflect that

life it is

one of continual remorse and growing slavery. All that

man must

best in such a

against the

life

leading,

and the symptoms

of this revolt are hard to suppress*

calmer moods, he self-disgust,

Hence, in his

a constant prey to remorse,

and the pangs of guilty conscience

Virtutem videt intahescitque the criminal satisfy as it

be in revolt

And, since

relicta.

appetite becomes

ever harder to

grows stronger and more

insistent,

he is hurried on from sin to continually fresh and worse sin, to be followed in turn, unless conscience

wholly dead, by worse terror and re-

Such men are found

morse.

among the ranks type

of the

not seen at

its

criminal

societies

all

classes,'

but the

worst and wretchedest

unless external circumstances enable the criminal to

become an actual tyrant and

obtain the

opportunity to execute his criminal will to the It will be

remembered that

it is

for

full.

such tyrants *

that Plato reserves the Hell of his eschatological

134

THE SOUL OF MAN Once more, of

myths.

course,

we must not take

the idealised picture for an historical estimate of the character of the actual 'tyrants' of the

monarchical age of Greece.

The nearest approach

actual Greek history affords us to the Platonic

must rather be looked for in the career who ruled in half-barbaric outlying districts in Plato's own and the inunediately preceding age, such as Archelaus of Macedon '

tyrant

some

of the despots

or the half-mad Alexander of Pherae.

In jL later dialogue, the Foliticus, Plato returns to the tions,

problem of the

classification of constitu-

and presents a scheme which recognises a

rather higher value in existing 'democracies* than

the Republic allowed them.

still

in the Republic,

holds that the ideally best form of govern-

ment is that of the wise philosophic monarch, who can afford to dispense with a formal code of written and unchanging law because his insight makes him competent to deal with every situation for

the public good as the

occasion

requires,

independently of prescription; the worst that of

who knows no law butjtus_pwn But intermediate between the - two

the 'tyrant' caprice.

extremes are two types of government: govern-

ment by the many.

And

select few,

and government by the

each of these forms mivy exist with 135

PLATO or without fixed laws, .so tliat

mediate types in

all:

we get

government by the few under a '

four inters

aristocracy (in the sense^of

law of the constitution

fundamental

democracy with such

;

a law; democracy without law; oligarchy (arbitrary

government by the is

that, in the

whose living wisdom law tute,

judgment

Plato's final

few).

absence of the philosopher-king, for is

an imperfect substi-

demacracx. .ij„ibe....iafexior. form, jof > goverur

ment where

there

a fixed fundamental law, but

Of the provisions work on political science, I do not speak, since his avowed object there is merely to provide a system which might be immediately workable for very average Greek settlers; and hence his abandonment of the demands for communism of goods, abolition of the private family, emancipation of women, and the rule of philosophers, must not be taken as a the better where there

the

Laws,

Plato's

not.

latest

commun-

renunciation of his ideals, especially as

ism

declared in the

better way,

Laws

itself to

and the general

be the ideally

political

scheme of

the Republic reiterated in the Timaeua.

136

CHAPTER ^"

I ,'

MAY conclude

brief

COSMOLOGY

by an exceedingly

this sketch

rSsumS of one or two of the main principles

of Plato's cosmology as given, in the Ti7aaeu&. :^

As we have

seen, Plato holds that actual sensible

fact, as it stands,

science

;

cannot be the object of exact

we must content

ourselves, in dealing

with the physical world, with probable opinions.' '

Thus the cosmology of the Timaeus is formally announced as being largely commingled with myth, and it is not always easy to say where conscious myth leaves off, and what Plato regards as ^ at least a probable account of non-mythical fact

begins,

and

it is

Eave been even

not surprising that there should in the

Academy

itself consider-

able variety of opinion as to Plato's

about the physical world.

deem says,

most desirable here

For

real views

my own

to state

part, I

what Plato

without entering far into the interminable

dfspute as to what he means.

The Timaeus

'^ is,

in form, not only a cosmology, but a cosmogony.

PLATO

^yat

merely jdescribes the struc

not

pti^ic^umverse,

•^

its

t^® story

butjpx9f®^^^^

formation."7

The

to ffie narrative, is not eternal, for

thing which

becomes,'

sant cliange.

had

according

igensible world,

i.e. it

some-

subject to inces-

and a_^ Timaeus as a

therefore a beginning

cause. "-This cause appears in the

Demiurgus or world-maker. making of the world is to be

personified deity, the

The reason

for the

maker; being good communicate his own per-

sought in the goodness of

its

he desired to something outside himself.^ .Hence he "^fashioned the changing world of sense on the himself,

fection to

model

of the

unchanging world of eternal Ideas, was possible. From the

as far as such a thing

unity of this model Plato deduces the unity of the copy, the physical universe, and therefor e_

pronounces against the doctrine of 'plurality ^

worlds.'/ is

But Plato goes

still

further

;

the visible world one and not many,

lijving

organism

rwiiiL, a.

soul and, a -body

own, a single animal,' embracing within '

minor forms of animal '

intelligible animal,' or

hends in

its logical

of animal species;

life, *

just as

its

of^^

not only it

is^a

pL its

itself all

model the

Idea of animal,' compre-

extension

all

the varied 'types'

Plato now' proceeds to describe

the formation of both soul and body of the great

138

COSMOLOGY In both cases, the formation

^jprorld-animal.

not

a creation out of nothing; what the Demiurgus does

combine

in fixed proportions

and by

definite

law elements which are presupposed as already in

existence.

The

soul

of the world

con-

structed from three elements, Sameness, Otherness,

and an entity which

described as produced by

a preliminary union of the

seem td\have a

three levels of cognition

R^uWic: '

opinions

universe

ments

Plato

Here we

known

to ns^ fro in the

about the incalculably varying world

fact,

apprehension of the intermediate

mathematical is

two.

apprehension of the immutable Ideas,

oTexisting class of

first

reference, in mythical form, to the

Empedocles

The body

objects.

composed of the

—

of the

traditional *four ele-

fire, air,

water, earth

— but

not content to accept these elements as

ultimate and unanalysable.

He 'makes

a remark-

able attempt to lay the foundations of a purely

mathematical physics by reducing the differences

between the 'elements' to differences in their geometrical

structure.

should now

call

substances are

The

molecules, as

them, of the four elementary

made

to correspond respectively to

four regular geometrical soHds: the tetrahedron,

octahedron, icosahedron, cube. first

three of these solids can

139

The all

sides of the

be constructed

PLATO by putting together right-angled triangles in which the hypotenuse is double of the shorter for the construction of the square face of

side;

the cube Plato employs four isosceles right-angled triangles.

This difference in the character of the

(

elementary

solids are built

which

from

triangles is

employed

Plato regards as the fact that '

the

regular

what

to explain

fire, air,

water

ar^

convertible into one another but not into earth. 7

CThe mathematical

analysis of matter into geo-

metrical form reaches

its

furthest point where

Plato explicitly identifies the 'matrix,' or 'substrate

of physical change, with space, thus antici-

pating the physical theory of Descartes, just as in his doctrine of

same

the

ideas.'

reminiscence

he has anticipated

conception

of 'innate

marking the superiority

of soull)ver

philosopher's

By way

body,'Tlato asserts that the soul of the world was

fashioned by as,

Jhe Demiurgus

before

its

at a later stage of the narrative,

human date of soul,

body, just

we Jud

the

soul constructed long before the destined its

incarnation in a

once formed,

human

body.

The

then figuratively spoken of

as being diffused throughout space in accordance

mth

a mathematical series which

express the

relative

distances

140

intended to

of the

various

COSMOLOGY heavenly bodies from the earth, taken as the centre of the whole system.

With

the bringing

into being of the orderly system of the heavenly

time,

bodies,

measured

regular

duration,

also

begins to be.*l Into the details of Plato's astro-

nomical system and the question of

its

Pythagorean science we cannot enter

relation to

in this brief

sketch. (

From cosmogony

proper the Timaeus proceeds

human

to consider the formation of the

The 'immortal'

tody.

souls

soul

and

human

of future

beings are fashioned by the Demiurgus himself

from the same material as had previously been

employed world

;

in the construction of the soul of the

the two inferior

we have already spoken

mortal

souls, of

which

in dealing with Plato's

psychology, are then fashioned and added to the

immortal soul by the

lesser deities, themselves

the earliest of things created after the world-soul

The very

JLtself.

sense-physiology

interesting

the

which

arise

many

Plato's

and psycho-physics we must

once more perforce pass over.

details

exceedingly difficult questions

when we attempt to interpret Plato's myth I can only say one or two

great cosmogonic

words. as ta

.There has been a good deal of discussion

whether the Demiurgus 141

is to

be thought of

PLATO as a personal deity or as j^ purely imaginative ^ pefsonification_

answer

Perhaps the true_

o|^i2E§--^^^

that he

neither the one nor the other.?

The\sharp distinction which we possess, or fancy

and

ourselves to possess, between the personal

the inipersonal, can hardly.be said to exist for anyL.

Greek thinker; 7 the very language, in

classical fact,

has no term by which to express

again,

And

it.

the 'good' figures so manifestly in the

Timaeus

the

model contemplated by the we

divine artist in constructing his work, that

cannot without confusion of thought identify at

the same time with the

(In the

artificer.

one sentence, the last of the dialogue, where according to some MSS. the identification the word

TroLTjrov is

made,

pretty clearly a false reading

MSS., due probably to mis-

for the vorjTov of other

understanding of the construction.)

The natural

inference from Plato's well-known view of soul as

movement would be

the origin of

all

activity of the

Demiurgus

that the

an imaginative

ren-

dering of the great thought of Anax^igciras, that is

mind

that has set

whether that mind

all '

it>

To ask commit an

things in order.

personal

anachronism.'/

From

the time of Xenocrates, Plato's immediate

pupil, onwards,

has been a hotly ,disputed ques142

COSMOLOGY tion

whether Plato meant seriously

to ascribe a

beginning to the physical universe, or whether his

account

only meant as a device for presenting

a logical analysis of the physical world into

its

constituent factors under the guise of an imaginative

fiction.

view was definitely

The"' latter

accepted as correct by the whole Neo-Platonic '

school,

who were anxious

to find

Plato the

^Aristotehan doctrine of the eternity of the uni-

and has perhaps, on the whole, found most favour with modern expositors. /The former interpretation, according to which Plato is perYerse,

fectly serious in ascribing a beginning to the uni-^ Yersa, was, however, that, of Aristotle,

also defended

by Plutarch

essay on The Formation of the Plato's Timaeus?!

to a conclusion for himself

express

my own

World- Soul in

The reader must be

study of the Platonic

text,

and was

in his very sensible

left to

come

by an independent

but I cannot forbear to

conviction that Plutarch

right

in maintaining that the theory of the eternity of

the world can only be read into Plato by a violent

and unnatural exegesis which strains the sense of the most obvious expressions in the interest of a foregone conclusion. ']

At the same

time, rlato does

not conceive of the world as having a beginning [inline,' since he expressly conceives of time as / 143

)

PLATO regular and measured duration, and as therefore coeval with the existence of the regularly

moving

heavenly bodies. > "^liaLjcamaJbjefora J*he.x>rder^ '

worlds' according to his narrative,

^as a state of-

things ia which there was nothing but confused-

and lawless with the

rnotion.

myth

A comparison of the Timaeus

in the Politicus with its alternate

cycles in one of

which God directs the course

the universe, while in the other

it is left

of^

to itself

and becomes in consequence more a,nd more lawless, and verges closer and closer upon dissolution into, chaos until its maker once more 'takes the me, as to the late Dr. Adam, to

helm/ fteems

suggest the

conclusion that

jPlatOj,

some

other thinkers before him, believed the history of

the universe to be of.

(decay,

made up

of alternate periods

and reconstruction, and that what we

have in the Timaeus

a picture of such a period

on one of previous disIf this is so, the materials of which the solution. Demiurgus fashions his 'world' would be, to of reconstruction following

speak roughly, the ruins of a world that had

gone before, and

why

the

\ve

should at once understand^

world,'

and not the elements, .i)r which is said to have

"tteir constituent triangles,

had a beginning.

)

One comparatively minor question I

144

of astronomy

COSMOLOGY deserves a word of special notice, since Plato's claim to be

Timaeus

concerns

cans before Copernicus in the

reckoned among the Copcrni'

Does Plato

of antiquity.

so far anticipate Copernicus as to

allow, like the Pythagoreans, of a daily revolution

The

of the earth T?

It is univer-

facts are these.

sally recognised that the [TimcLeus, besides locat-

ing the earth in the centre

the

universe,

explains the alternation of day and night, and the

paths of the sun and planets, in a way which implies

the immobility of the central earth.

and night are due of the

Day

an actual diurnal revolution

outermost heavenly vault, which carries

round with

that

it all

The apparent paths

contained in

of the sun

its

compass.'?

and planets are

then resolved each into a combination of two cular factors

cir-

an axial rotation of each in the

plane of the equator, and a motion of revolution peculiar to each planet,

the plane

the

which takes place

ecliptic,

the

opposite

sense to the daily revolution, and has a longer period, viz. the

year

of the planet in question.

This analysis would, of course, be ruined

supposed the central earth stationary.

be anything but

It happens, however, that in speaking

of the position of the earth in the solar system,

Plato employs an ambiguous and poetical word of

145

PLATO which the hteral

signification is to be

packed

which has

or 'squeezed' against something, but

also the acquired signification of confined

ment

in a

words

may

moveHis

narrow space around a thing. be rendered in English in a

way which

preserves the ambiguity of the original text thus, 'earth, our foster-mother,

which

rolled

round

about the axis that stretches from end to end of the

all.'

Now

Aristotle quotes these very words,

naming the Timaeus the interpretation

as their source,

and moves

rolled/ as a proof that

and adding

after the

words

some thinkers had denied

the immobility of the earth.

Hei3tce--Grote -has.

maintained that the Timaeus expressly

recog-..

upon its and that Plato has simply overlooked the

nises the diurnal rotation of the earth axis,

inconsistency between such a rotation of the earth

and the

rest of his astronomy.

So very glaring

oversight, however, seems so improbable, that is

much

easier to suppose that Aristotle has

an; it

been

misled by Plato's employment of a rare and ai|k

biguous word, or possibly, as was held by August

Boeckh, that some of Plato's followers had already misinterpreted the text of the Timaeus in the sense which Aristotle puts It

seems

certain,

ojq it.

however, that in his extreme

old age Plato did modify his astronomical views

146

COSMOLOGY in a

way which implies recognition Plutarch

mobility.

tells

of the earth's

twice

over

that

age' regretted having placed the

Plato 'in old

earth in the centre of the universe, a position

which should have been secured for a 'better and he gives as his authority for the

body,'

statement the unimpeachable testimony of Theophrastus,

successor

the

Aristotle,

himself been a pupil of Plato.

who had

This accords ex-

Laws

cellently with a passage of the

which

Plato denies that the paths of the planets are really composite,

has, in a^ single

and declares that each of them appearances

the

contrary,

simple and uniform motion.

This, of

spite

course, implies

one

that

the

ascribed to each planet in the

an appearance due gartli.

two motions

Timaeus must be

the real motion of the

Whether Plato conceived

of this motion

of the earth, as the later Pythagoreans did, as

one of revolution round a centre, or as one of rotation about an axis, and, in the former case,

whether he thought with the Pythagoreans that the centre in question

body

invisible to us, or

identified it with the sun, the data

us to decide.

In any

do not permit

case, it is interesting to see

that Plato's thought on these matters was progressive even in his later years, and

147

still

in-

PLATO sfcructive to

observe that, like other astronomers

he only reached the truth about the mobility by ignoring the still more funda-

of antiquity, earth's

mental truth that posite.

all

he in some

curvilinear motion

com-

sort anticipates Copernicus,

he has no presage of the infinitely profounder thought of Galileo and Newton.

148

—

A FEW BOOKS USEFUL TO THE ENGLISH STUDENT OF PLATO Plato. Greek text of the Dialogues, Opera Omnia, ed. J. Burnet.

Platonis

latest edition.

5 vols, in Scriptorum

Classicorum Bihliotheca Oxoniensis.

separate editions with commentaries of special dialogues, far the most important The Republic of Plato.

Adam.

2 vols.

Cambridge

University Press, 1902.

Other useful editions of special dialogues, with English introductions and commentaries, are

JowETT and

L. Campbell. The Republic of Plato. Oxford Clarendon Press, 1894. Th« Theaetetus of Plato. Oxford ClarenL. Campbell. don Press. Second edition, 1883. The Sophistes and Politicus of Plato. L. Campbell. Oxford Clarendon Press, 1867. W. H. Thompson. The Phaedrus of Plato. George Bell,

3 vols.

1868.

W. H. Thompson.

The Gorgias of Plato.

George

Bell,

1871.

K. G. Burt.

The Philebus of Plato.

Cambridge

Uni-

versity Press, 1897.

W. Waddell. The

Glasgow, 1894. The Phaedo of Plato. Macmillan

Parrrunides of Plato.

R. D. Archer-Hind.

and Co. Second edition, 1894. Riddell. The Apology of Plato. Press, 1867.

149

Oxford

Clarendon

PLATO Translations

The Dialogues of Plato.

JowETT.

Oxford

Clarendon

(Latest edition in 5 vols., 1892.)

Press.

Davies and Vaughan.

The Republic of Plato. MacGolden Treasury Series. F. J. Church. The Trial and Death of Socrates (translations of Euthyphro, Apology^ Crito, Phaedo). Macmillan, Golden Treasury Series. The Phaedrus^ Lysis, and Protagoras of J. Wright. Plato. Macmillan, Golden Treasury Series. S. W. Dtde. The Theaetetus of Plato. Glasgow, 1899. P. B. Shelley. The Banquet of Plato. (Translation of the Symposium.) Cassell and Co., 1887 (in Cassell's National Library). There is a translation of the Timaeus in the edition of the dialogue by E. D. Archer-Hind (Macmillan, 1888), and a French version in the monumental edition by T. H. Martin {le Timie de Platon, millan,

Paris, 1841).

IForks of Reference (a) General.

Zeller. Plato and the older Academy. Translated from Zeller, Philosophic der Griechen, by S. F. Alletne and A. Goodwin. Longmans, Green and Co. 1876.

[Original text. Philosophic der Griechen.

pt. 1.

4th edition.

G. Grote.

Vol.

ii.

Leipzig, 1889.]

Plato and the other Companions of Socrates. (Last edition in 4 vols. 1885.)

John Murray. T.

GoMPERZ. 1900-1902.)

Denker,

Griechische

vol.

[English Translation in vol.

ii.

(Leipzig,

The Greek

London, 1901-5.] The Greek Philosophers. London, 1882. The Philosophy of Greece. Grant Richards,

Thinkers, authorised translation.

A. A.

W. Benn. W. Benn. 1898.

D. G. Ritchie. Plato. (In The World's Epoch-makers.') T. and T. Clark Edinburgh, 1902. '

ISO

—

LIST OF BOOKS C.

Das Problem

Baumker.

schen Fhilosophie. J.

(6)

der Materie in der Oriechi-

Miinster, 1890.

Burnet. Early Greek Philosophy. Second edition, 1908.

A. and C. Black.

Special

PlaWs Conception of Goodness and Good (in vol. i. of Philosophical Lectures and Bemains) Lectures on Plato's Republic (vol. ii. of the same work, also published separately). London and

R. L. Nettleship. the

;

Second

Oxford.

B. BosANQUET.

edition, 1901.

Companion

to Plato's Republic.

Riv-

ington, 1895.

W. LuTOSLAWSKi.

The Origin and Growth of Plato's Longmans, Green and Co. 1897.

Logic.

Hans Raeder. Leipzig

P. Natorp.

Platon's

Philosophische

Entwichelung.

B. G. Teubner, 1905.

MiLHAUD.

Platon's Ideenlehre.

Les

Leipzig, 1903.

Philosophes-Geometres

de la

Grcce

;

Platon et ses Predecesseurs. Paris F. Alcan, 1900. J. A. Stewart. The Myths of Plato. Macmillan, 1905. P. Shorey. The Unity of Plato's Thought. Chicago :

University Press, 1903.

See also the series of articles by Professor H. Jackson on Plato's Later Theory of Ideas in Journal of Philology^ vols, x-xv (1882-1886), and J. Cook Wilson on TJie Interpretation of Plato's Timaeus. 1889.

London

D. Kutt,

Printed by T. and A. Constable, Priuters to His Jfajesty at the

Edinburgh University Press

RETURN

TO"^

CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT 202 Main Library

LOAN PERIOD HOME USE

GENERAL LIBRARY

U.C.

BERKELEY

iiiiiiiiiiiii BD0D3L3D7D