seems to imply that this childless citizen would not be likely to
make any will, but that having adopted a son, the son so adopted
would hardly be satisfied unless he inherited the whole.]
If the father dies intestate, leaving only daughters, the nearest
relative who has no lot of his own shall marry one of the
daughters, and succeed to the lot. The nearest is the brother of
the deceased; next, the brother of the deceased's wife (paternal
and maternal uncles of the maiden); next, their sons; next, the
parental and maternal uncle of the deceased father, and their
sons. If all these relatives be wanting, the magistrates will
provide a suitable husband, in order that the lot of land may not
remain unoccupied.[429] If a citizen die both intestate and
childless, two of his nearest unmarried relatives, male and
female, shall intermarry and succeed to his property: reckoning in
the order of kinship above mentioned.[430] In thus imposing
marriage as a legal obligation upon persons in a certain degree of
kinship, Plato is aware that there will be individual cases of
great hardship and of repugnance almost insurmountable. He
treats this as unavoidable: providing however that there shall be
a select judicial Board of Appeal, before which persons who feel
aggrieved by the law may bring their complaints, and submit their
grounds for dispensation.[431]
[Footnote 429: Plato, Legg. xi. p. 924-925.]
[Footnote 430: Plato, Legg. xi. p. 925 C-D. These provisions
appear to me not very clear.]
[Footnote 431: Plato, Legg. xi. p. 926 B-D. He directs also (p.
925 A) that the Dikasts shall determine the fit season when these
young persons become marriageable by examining their naked bodies:
that is, the males quite naked, the females half naked. A
direction seemingly copied from Athenian practice, and
illustrating curiously the language of Philokleon in Aristophanes,
Vesp. 598. See K. F. Hermann, Vestig. Juris Domestici ap. Platonem
cum Græciæ Institutis Comparata, p. 27.]
[Side-note: Plato's general coincidence with Attic law and
its sentiment.]
These provisions deserve notice as showing how largely Plato
coincides with the prevalent Attic sentiment respecting family and
relationship. He does not award the slightest preference to
primogeniture, among brothers: he grants to agnates a preference
over cognates: he regards it as a public misfortune that any house
shall be left empty, so as to cause interruption of the sacred
rites of the family: lastly, he ensures that the family, in
default of lineal male heirs, shall be continued by inter-marriage
with the nearest relatives--and he especially approves the
marriage of an heiress with her paternal or maternal uncle. On
these points Plato is in full harmony with his countrymen, though
he dissents widely from modern sentiment.
[Side-note: Tutelage of Orphans--Disagreement of Married
Couples--Divorce.]
Respecting tutelage of orphans, he makes careful provision against
abuse, as the Attic law also did: he tries also to meet the cases
of family discord, where father and son are in bitter wrath
against each other. A father may formally renounce his son, but
not without previously obtaining the concurrence of a _conseil
de famille_: if the father has become imbecile with age, and
wastes his substance, the son may institute a suit as for lunacy,
but not without the permission of the Nomophylakes.[432]
Respecting disagreement between married couples, ten of the
Nomophylakes, together with ten women chosen as supervisors of
marriages, are constituted a Board of reference,[433] to obtain a
reconciliation, if it be possible: but if this be impossible, then
to divorce the couple, and unite each with some more suitable
partner. The lawgiver must keep in view, as far as he can, to
obtain from each married couple a sufficiency of
children--that is, one male and one female child from each, whereby
the total of 5040 lots may be kept up.[434] If a husband loses his
wife before he has these two children, the law requires him to
marry another wife: but if he becomes a widower, having already
the sufficiency of children, he is advised not to marry a second
wife (who will become stepmother), though not prohibited from
doing so, if he chooses. So also, if a woman becomes a widow, not
having the sufficient number of children, she must be compelled to
marry again: if she already has the sufficient number, she is
directed to remain in the house, and to bring them up. In case she
is still young, and her health requires a husband, her relatives
will apply to the Female Supervisors of Marriage, and will make
such arrangements as may seem advisable.[435]
[Footnote 432: Plato, Legg. xi. pp. 928-929.]
[Footnote 433: Plato, Legg. xi. pp. 929-930.]
[Footnote 434: Plato, Legg. xi. p. 930 D. [Greek: pai/dôn de\
i(kano/tês a)kribê\s a)/r)r(ên kai\ thê/leia e)/stô tô=|
no/mô|.]]
[Footnote 435: Plato, Legg. xi. p. 930 C.]
[Side-note: Neglect of Parents.]
Against neglect of aged parents by their children, Plato both
denounces the most stringent legal penalties, and delivers the
most emphatic reproofs: commending with full faith the ancient
traditional narratives, that the curse of an offended parent
against his sons was always executed by the Gods, as in the cases
of Oedipus, Theseus, Amyntor, &c.[436] In the event of
lunacy, he directs that the lunatic shall be kept in private
custody by his relatives, who will be fined if they neglect the
duty.[437]
[Footnote 436: Plato, Legg, xi. p. 931-932.]
[Footnote 437: Plato, Legg, xi. p. 934 D.]
_Hurt or damage_, not deadly, done by one man to
another.--Plato enumerates two different modes of inflicting
damage:--1. By drugs (applied externally or internally), magic, or
sorcery. 2. By theft or force.[438]
[Footnote 438: Plato, Legg. xi. p. 932 E-933 E. Both these come
under the general head [Greek: o(/sa tis a)/llos a)/llon
_pêmai/nei_.]]
[Side-note: Poison--Magic--Incantations--Severe
punishment.]
As to the first mode, if the drug be administered by a physician,
he must be put to death: if by one not a physician, the Dikasts
will determine the nature of his punishment. And in the case of
magical arts, or incantations, if the person who resorts to them
be a prophet, or an inspector of prodigies, he must be put to
death: another person doing the same will be punished at the
discretion of the Dikasts. Here we see that the prophet is
ranked as a professional person (the like appears in Homer) along
with the physician,[439]--who must know what he is about, while
another person perhaps may not know. But Plato's own opinion
respecting magical incantations is delivered with singular
reserve. He will neither avouch them nor reject them. He intimates
that a man can hardly find out what is true on the subject; and
even if he could, it would be harder still to convince others.
Most men are in serious alarm when they see waxen statuettes hung
at their doors or at their family tombs; and it is useless to
attempt to tranquillise them by reminding them that they have no
certain evidence on the subject.[440] Here we see how Plato
discourages the received legends and the current faith, when he
believes them to be hurtful--as contrasted with his vehemence in
upholding them when he thinks them useful: as in the case of the
paternal curse, and the judgments of the Gods. The question of
their truth is made to depend on their usefulness.[441] The Gods
are made to act exactly as he thinks they ought to act. They are
not merely invoked, but positively counted on, as executioners of
Plato's ethical sentences.
[Footnote 439: Plato, Legg. xi. p. 933 C. [Greek: ô(s prô=ton me\n
to\n e)picheirou=nta pharma/ttein ou)k ei)do/ta ti/ dra=|, ta/ te
kata\ sô/mata, e)a\n mê\ tugcha/nê| e)pistê/môn ô)\n i)atrikê=s,
ta/ te au)= peri\ ta\ magganeu/mata, e)a\n mê\ ma/ntis ê)\
teratosko/pos ô)\n tugcha/nê|.]
Homer, Odys. Xvii. 383:--
. . . [Greek: tô=n oi(\ dêmioergoi\ e)/asi,
ma/ntin, ê)\ i)ê/têra kakô=n, ê)\ te/ktona dou/rôn,
ê)\ kai\ the/spin a)oido/n], &c.]
[Footnote 440: Plato, Legg. xi. p. 933 B. [Greek: a)/n pote
i)/dôsi/ pou kê/rina mimê/mata peplasme/na.] Compare Theokritus,
Idyll, ii. 28-59.
See the remarkable narrative of the death of Germanicus in Syria,
supposed to have been brought about by the magical artifices
wrought under the auspices of Piso (Tacitus, Ann. ii. 69).]
[Footnote 441: Cicero, Legg, ii. 7, 16. "Utiles autem esse has
opiniones, quis neget, cum intelligat, quam multa firmentur
jurejurando," &c.]
[Side-note: Punishment is inflicted with a view to future
prevention or amendment.]
Respecting the second mode of damage--by theft or
violence--Plato's law forms a striking contrast to that which has
been just set forth. The person who inflicts damage must repay it,
or make full compensation for it, to the sufferer: small, if the
damage be small--great, if it be great. Besides this, the guilty
person must undergo some farther punishment with a view to correction
or reformation. This will be smaller, if he be young and seduced by
the persuasion of others; but it must be graver, if he be
self-impelled by his own desires, fears, wrath, jealousy, &c.
Understand, however (adds Plato), that such ulterior punishment is
not imposed on account of the past misdeed--for the past cannot be
recalled or undone--but on account of the future: to ensure that
he shall afterwards hate wrong-doing, and that those who see him
punished shall hate it also. The Dikasts must follow out in detail
the general principle here laid down.[442]
[Footnote 442: Plato, Legg. xi. pp. 933-934. Compare Plato,
Protagor. p. 324 B.]
This passage proclaims distinctly an important principle in regard
to the infliction of legal penalties: which principle, if kept in
mind, might have lead Plato to alter or omit a large portion of
the Leges.
[Side-note: Penalty for abusive words--for libellous
comedy. Mendicity forbidden.]
Respecting _words of abuse, or revilement_, or insulting
derision.--These are altogether forbidden. If used in any temple,
market, or public and frequented place, the magistrate presiding
must punish the offender forthwith, as he thinks fit: if
elsewhere, any citizen by-stander, being older than the offender,
is authorised thrash him.[443] No writer of comedy is allowed to
ridicule or libel any citizen.
[Footnote 443: Plato, Legg. xi. p. 935 C-D. The Attic law
expressly forbade the utterance of abusive words against any
individual _in an office or public place_ upon any pretence
(Lysias, Or. ix. Pro Milite, s. 6-9). Demosthenes (contra Konon.
p. 1263) speaks of [Greek: kakêgori/a] or [Greek: loidori/a] as in
itself trifling, but as forbidden by the law, lest it should lead
to violence and blows.]
Mendicity is strictly prohibited. Every mendicant must be sent
away at once, in order that the territory may be rid of such a
creature.[444] Every man, who has passed an honest life, will be
sure to have made friends who will protect him against the
extremity of want.
[Footnote 444: Plato, Legg. xi. p. 936 C. [Greek: o(/pôs ê( chô/ra
tou= toiou/tou zô/ou kathara\ gi/gnêtai to\ para/pan.]]
[Side-note: Regulations about witnesses on judicial
trials.]
The rules provided by Plato about witnesses in judicial trials and
indictments for perjury, are pretty much the same as those
prevalent at Athens: with some peculiarities. Thus he permits a
free woman to bear witness, and to address the court in support of
a party interested, provided she be above forty years of age.
Moreover, she may institute a suit, if she have no husband: but
not if she be married.[445] A slave or a child may bear witness at
a trial for murder; provided security be given that they will
remain in the city to await an indictment for perjury, if
presented against them.
[Footnote 445: Plato, Legg. xi. p. 937 A-B.
It appears that women were not admitted as witnesses before the
Athenian Dikasteries. Meier und Schömann, Der Attische Prozess,
pp. 667-668. The testimony of slaves was received after they had
been tortured; which was considered as a guarantee for truth,
required in regard to them, but not required in regard to a
free-man. The torture is not mentioned in this Platonic treatise.
Plato treats a male as _young_ up to the age of thirty (compare
Xenoph. Memor. i. 2, 35), a female as _young_ up to the age
of forty (pp. 932 B-C, 961 B).]
[Side-note: Censure of forensic eloquence, and the teachers
of it. Penalties against contentious litigation.]
Among Plato's prohibitions, we are not surprised to find one
directed emphatically against forensic eloquence, and against
those who professed to teach it. Every thing beneficial to man
(says he) has its accompanying poison and corruption. Justice is a
noble thing, the great civilising agent in human affairs: to aid
any one in obtaining justice, is of course a noble thing also. But
these benefits are grossly abused by men, who pretend to possess
an art, whereby every one may be sure of judicial victory, either
as principal or as auxiliary, whether his cause be just or
unjust:--and who offer to teach this art to all who pay a
stipulated price. Whether this be (as they pretend) a real art, or
a mere inartificial knack--it would be a disgrace to our city, and
must be severely punished. Whoever gives show of trying to pervert
the force of justice in the minds of the Dikasts, or indulges in
unseasonable and frequent litigation, or even lends his aid to
other litigants--may be indicted by any citizen as guilty of abuse
of justice, either as principal or auxiliary. He shall be tried
before the Court of Select Judges: who, if they find him guilty,
will decide whether he has committed the offence from love of
money, or from love of contention and ambitious objects. If from
love of contention, he shall be interdicted, for such time as the
Court may determine, from instituting any suit at law on his own
account as well as from aiding in any suit instituted by
others.[446] If from love of money, the citizen found guilty shall
be capitally punished, the non-citizen shall be banished in
perpetuity. Moreover the citizen convicted of committing this
offence even from love of contention, if it be a second
conviction for the offence, shall be put to death also.[447]
[Footnote 446: Plato, Legg. xi. p. 938 B. [Greek: tima=|n au)tô=|
to\ dikastê/riou o(/sou chrê\ chro/nou to\n toiou=ton mêdeni\
lachei=n di/kên mêde\ xundikê=sai.] I cannot understand why
Stallbaum, in his very useful notes on the Leges, observes upon
this passage (p. 330):--"[Greek: lagcha/nein di/kên] de
caussidicis accipiendum, qui caussam aliquam pro aliis in foro
agendam ac defendendam suscipiunt". This is the explanation
belonging to [Greek: xundikê=sai]: [Greek: lachei=n di/kên] is the
well known phrase for a plaintiff or a prosecutor as principal.]
[Footnote 447: Plato, Legg. xi. pp. 937 E, 938 C.]
[Side-note: Many of Plato's laws are discharges of ethical
antipathy. The antipathy of Melêtus against Sokrates was of the
same character.]
The vague and undefined character of this offence, for which Plato
denounces capital punishment, shows how much his penal laws are
discharges of ethical antipathy and hostility against types of
character conceived by himself--rather than measures intended for
application, in which he had weighed beforehand the practical
difficulties of singling out and striking the right individual. On
this matter the Athenian public had the same ethical antipathy as
himself; and Melêtus took full advantage of it, when he brought
his accusation against Sokrates. We know both from the Apologies
of Plato and Xenophon, and from the Nubes of Aristophanes--that
Sokrates was rendered odious to the Athenian people and Dikasts,
partly as heterodox and irreligious, but partly also as one who
taught the art of using speech so as to make the worse appear the
better reason. Both Aristophanes and Melêtus would have
sympathised warmly with the Platonic law. If there had been any
Solonian law to the same effect, which Melêtus could have quoted
in his accusatory speech, his case against Sokrates would have
been materially strengthened. Especially, he would have had the
express sanction of law for his proposition of death as the
penalty: a proposition to which the Athenian Dikasts would not
have consented, had they not been affronted and driven to it by
the singular demeanour of Sokrates himself when before them. It
would be irrelevant here to say that Sokrates was not guilty of
what was imputed to him: that he never came before the Dikastery
until the time of his trial--and that he did not teach "the art of
words". If he did not teach it, he was at least believed to teach
it, not merely by Aristophanes and by the Athenian Dikasts, but
also by intelligent men like Kritias and Charikles,[448] who knew
him perfectly well: while the example of Antiphon shows that a man
might be most acute and efficacious as a forensic adviser, without
coming in person before the Dikastery.[449] What the defence
really makes us feel is, the indefinite nature of the charge:
which is neither provable nor disprovable, and which is
characterised, both by Xenophon and in the Platonic Apology, as
one of the standing calumnies against all philosophising men.[450]
Here, in the Platonic Leges, this same unprovable offence is
adopted and made capital: the Select Platonic Dikasts being
directed to ascertain, not only whether a man has really committed
it, but whether he has been impelled to commit it by love of
money, or by love of victory and personal consequence.
[Footnote 448: Xenophon, Memor. i. 2, 31 seq.]
[Footnote 449: Thucydid. viii. 68.]
[Footnote 450: Plato, Apol. Sokr. p. 23.
Such was the colloquial power of Sokrates, in the portrait drawn
by Xenophon (Mem. i. 2, 14), "that he handled all who conversed
with him just as he pleased--[Greek: toi=s de\ dialegome/nois
au)tô=| pa=si chrô/menon e)n toi=s lo/gois o(/pôs bou/loito.]
Kritias and Alkibiades (Xenophon tells us) sought his society for
the purpose of strengthening their own oratorical powers as
political men, and of becoming [Greek: krei/ttone tô=n
suggignome/nôn] (i. 2, 16). Looked at from the point of view of
opponents, this would be described as the proceeding of one who
himself both could pervert justice--and who taught others to
pervert it also. This was the picture of Sokrates which the
accusers presented to the Athenian Dikastery: as we may see by the
language of Sokrates himself at the beginning of the Platonic
Apology.]
[Side-note: Penalty for abuse of public trust--wrongful
appropriation of public money--evasion of military service.]
The twelfth and last Book of the Treatise De Legibus deals with
various cases of obligation, not towards individuals, but towards
the public or the city. Abuse of trust in the character of a
public envoy is declared punishable. This offence (familiar to us
at Athens through the two harangues of Demosthenes and Æschines)
is invested by Plato with a religious colouring, as desecrating
the missions and commands of Hermês and Zeus.[451] Wrongful
appropriation of the public money by a citizen is also made
capital. The penalty is to be inflicted equally whether the sum
appropriated be large or small: in either case the guilt is equal,
and the evidence of wicked disposition the same, for one who has
gone through the public education and training.[452] This is quite
different from Plato's principle of dealing with theft or wrongful
abstraction of property from private persons: in which case, the
sentence of Plato was, that the amount of damage done, small or
great, should be made good by the offender, and that a certain
ulterior penalty should be inflicted sufficient to deter him as
well as others from a repetition.
[Footnote 451: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 941 A.]
[Footnote 452: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 941: compare xi. p. 934 A.]
Provision is farther made for punishing any omission of military
service either by males or females, or any discreditable
abandonment of arms.[453] The orders of the military
commander must be implicitly and exactly obeyed. The actions of
all must be orderly, uniform, and simultaneous. Nothing can be
more mischievous than that each should act for himself, separately
and apart from others. This is confessedly true as to war; but it
is no less essential as to the proceedings in peace.[454]
Suppression of individuality, and conversion of life into a
perpetual, all-pervading, drill and discipline--is a favourite
aspiration always present to Plato.
[Footnote 453: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 944. It is curious to compare
this passage of Plato with the two orations of Lysias [Greek:
kata\ Theomnê/stou] A and B (Oratt. x.-xi.). Plato enjoins upon
all accusers the greatest caution and precision in the terms used
to indicate what they intended to charge upon the accused. To call
a man [Greek: r(i/psaspis] is a more aggravated offensive
designation than to call him [Greek: a)poboleu\s o(/plôn], which
latter term is more general, and may possibly be applied to those
who have lost their arms under the pressure of irresistible
necessity, without any disgrace. On the other hand, we read in
Lysias, that the offence which was punishable under the Attic law
was [Greek: o(/plôn a)pobolê/], and that to assert falsely
respecting any citizen, [Greek: ta\ o(/pla a)pobe/blêke], was an
[Greek: a)po/r)r(êton] or forbidden phrase, which exposed the
speaker to a fine of 500 drachmæ (sect. 1-12). But to assert
respecting any man that he was [Greek: r(i/psaspis] was not
expressly [Greek: a)po/r)r(êton] (compare Lysias cont. Agorat.,
Or. xiii. ss. 87-89), and the speaker might argue (successfully or
not) that he had said nothing [Greek: a)po/r)r(êton], and was not
guilty of legal [Greek: kakêgori/a].--There is another phrase in
this section of Plato to which I would call attention. He
enumerates the excusable cases of losing arms as follows--[Greek:
o(po/soi kata\ krêmnô=n r(iphe/ntes a)pô/lesan o(/pla ê)\ kata\
tha/lattan] (p. 944 A). Now the cases of soldiers being thrown
down cliffs are, I believe, unknown until the Phokian prisoners
were so dealt with in the Sacred War, as sacrilegious offenders
against Apollo and the Delphian temple. Hence we may probably
infer that this was composed after the Sacred War began,
B.C. 356. See Diodorus and my 'Hist. of Greece,' chap.
87, p. 350 seq.]
[Footnote 454: Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 942 B-945. [Greek: e(ni/ te
lo/gô| to\ chôri/s ti tô=n a)/llôn pra/ttein dida/xai tê\n
psuchê\n e)/thesi mê/te gignô/skein mê/t' e)pi/stasthai to\
para/pan, a)ll' a)thro/on a)ei\ kai\ a(/ma kai\ koino\n to\n bi/on
o(/, ti ma/lista pa=si pa/ntôn gi/gnesthai.]]
A Board of Elders is constituted by Plato, as auditors of the
proceedings of all Magistrates after their term of office.[455]
The mode of choosing these Elders, as well as their duties,
liabilities, privileges, and honours, both during life and after
death, are prescribed with the utmost solemnity.
[Footnote 455: Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 946-948.]
[Side-note: Oaths. Dikasts, Judges, Electors, are to be
sworn: but no parties to a suit, or interested witnesses, can be
sworn.]
Plato forbids the parties in any judicial suit from swearing: they
will present their case to the court, but not upon oath. No
judicial oath is allowed to be taken by any one who has a
pecuniary interest in the matter on hand. The Dikasts--the judges
in all public competitions--the Electors before they elect to a
public trust--are all to be sworn: but neither the parties to
any cause, nor (seemingly) the witnesses. If oaths were taken
on both sides, one or other of the parties must be perjured: and
Plato considers it dreadful, that they should go on living with
each other afterwards in the same city. In aforetime Rhadamanthus
(he tells us) used to settle all disputes simply, by administering
an oath to the parties: for in his time no one would take a false
oath: men were then not only pious, but even sons or descendants
of the Gods. But now (in the Platonic days) impiety has gained
ground, and men's oaths are no longer to be trusted, where
anything is to be gained by perjury.[456]
[Footnote 456: Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 948-949.]
[Side-note: Regulations about admission of strangers, and
foreign travel of citizens.]
Strict regulations are provided, as to exit from the Platonic
city, and ingress into it. Plato fears contamination to his
citizens from converse with the outer world. He would introduce
the peremptory Spartan Xenelasy, if he were not afraid of the
obloquy attending it. He strictly defines the conditions on which
the foreigner will be allowed to come in, or the citizen to go
out. No citizen is allowed to go out before he is forty years of
age.[457] Envoys must be sent on public missions; and sacred
legations (theôries) must be despatched to the four great Hellenic
festivals--Olympic, Pythian, Nemean, and Isthmian. But private
citizens are not permitted to visit even these great festivals at
their own pleasure. The envoys sent must be chosen and trustworthy
men: moreover, on returning, they will assure their youthful
fellow-citizens, that the home institutions are better than
anything that can be seen abroad.[458]
[Footnote 457: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 950.]
[Footnote 458: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 951.]
Special travellers, between the ages of fifty and sixty, will also
be permitted to go abroad, and will bring back reports to the
Magistrates of what they have observed. Strangers are admitted
into the city or its neighbourhood, under strict supervision;
partly as observers, partly as traders, for the limited amount of
traffic which the lawgiver tolerates.[459] Thus scanty is the
worship which Plato will allow his Magnêtes to pay to Zeus
Xenius.[460] He seems however to take credit for it as liberal
dealing.
[Footnote 459: Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 952-953.]
[Footnote 460: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 953 D-E. [Greek: Tou/tois dê\
toi=s no/mois u(pode/chesthai/ te chrê\ pa/ntas xe/nous te kai\
xe/nas kai\ tou\s au(tô=n e)kpe/mpein, timô=ntas xe/nion Di/a, mê\
brô/masi kai\ thu/masi ta\s xenêlasi/as poioume/nous, katha/per
poiou=si nu=n thre/mmata Nei/lou, mêde\ kêru/gmasin a)gri/ois.]
Stallbaum says in his note (p. 384):--"[Greek: mê\ brô/masi kai\
thu/masi]--peregrinos non expellentes coenis et sacrificiis, h.
e. eorum usu iis interdicentes". This surely is not the right
explanation. Plato means to say that the Egyptian habits as to
eating and sacrifice were intolerably repulsive to a foreigner. We
may see this from [Greek: kêru/gmasi], which follows. The
peculiarities of Egypt, which Herodotus merely remarks upon with
astonishment, may well have given offence to the fastidious and
dictatorial spirit of Plato.]
[Side-note: Suretyship--Length of prescription for
ownership, &c.]
Plato proceeds with various enactments respecting suretyship--time
of prescription for ownership--keeping men away by force either
from giving testimony in court or from contending at the public
matches--receiving of stolen goods--private war or alliance on the
part of any individual citizen, without the consent of the
city--receipt of bribes by functionaries--return and registration
of each citizen's property--dedications and offerings to the
Gods.[461] No systematic order or classification can be traced in
the successive subjects.
[Footnote 461: Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 954-956.]
[Side-note: Judicial trial--three stages. 1. Arbitrators.
2. Tribe-Dikasteries. 3. Select Dikastery.]
In respect to judiciary matters, he repeats (what had before been
directed) his constitution of three stages of tribunals. First,
Arbitrators, chosen by both parties in the dispute. From their
decision, either party may appeal to the Tribe-Dikasteries,
composed of all the citizens of the Tribe or Dême: or at least,
composed of a jury taken from these. After this, there is a final
appeal to the Select Dikastery, chosen among all the Magistrates
for the time being.[462] Plato leaves to his successors the
regulations of details, respecting the mode of impannelling and
the procedure of these Juries.
[Footnote 462: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 956.]
[Side-note: Funerals--proceedings prescribed--expense
limited.]
Lastly come the regulations respecting funerals--the cost,
ceremonies, religious proceedings, mode of showing sorrow and
reverence, &c.[463] These are given in considerable detail,
and with much solemnity of religious exhortation.
[Footnote 463: Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 957-958.]
[Side-note: Conservative organ to keep up the original
scheme of the lawgiver. Nocturnal Council for this purpose--how
constituted.]
We have now reached the close. The city has received its full
political and civil outfit: as much legal regulation as it is
competent for the lawgiver to provide at the beginning. One
guarantee alone is wanting. Some security must be provided for the
continuance and durability of the enactments.[464] We must
have a special conservative organ, watching over and keeping up
the scheme of the original lawgiver. For this function, Plato
constitutes a Board, which, from its rule of always beginning its
sittings before daybreak, he calls the Nocturnal council. It will
comprise ten of the oldest Nomophylakes: all those who have
obtained prizes for good conduct or orderly discipline: all those
who have been authorised to go abroad, and have been approved on
their return. Each of these members will introduce into the Synod
one young man of thirty years of age, chosen by himself, but
approved by the others.[465] The members will thus be partly old,
partly young.
[Footnote 464: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 960 C-D. Compare Plato,
Republ. vi. p. 497 D: [Greek: o(/ti de/êsoi/ ti a)ei\ e)nei=nai
e)n tê=| po/lei, lo/gon e)/chon tê=s politei/as to\n au)to\n
o(/nper kai\ su\ o( nomothe/tês e)/chôn tou\s no/mous
e)ti/thês.]]
[Footnote 465: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 961 A-B.]
This Nocturnal council is intended as the conservative organ of
the Platonic city. It is, in the city, what the soul and head are
in an animal. The soul includes Reason: the head includes the two
most perfect senses--Sight and Hearing. The fusion, in one, of
Reason with these two senses ensures the preservation of the
animal.[466] In the Nocturnal council, the old members represent
Reason, the young members represent the two superior senses,
serving as instruments and means of communication between Reason
and the outer world. The Nocturnal council, embracing the agency
of both, maintains thereby the life and continuity of the
city.[467]
[Footnote 466: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 961 D.]
[Footnote 467: Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 964 D-965 A.]
It is the special duty of this council, to serve as a perpetual
embodiment of the original lawgiver, and to comprehend as well as
to realise the main purpose for which the city was put together.
The councillors must keep constantly in view this grand political
end, as the pilot keeps in view safe termination of the voyage--as
the military commander keeps in view victory, and the physician,
recovery of health. Should the physician or the pilot either not
know his end, or not know the conditions under which it may be
attained--his labour will be in vain. So, if there does not exist
in the city an authority understanding the great political end and
the means (either by laws or human agents) of accomplishing it,
the city will be a failure. Hence the indispensable necessity
of the Nocturnal council, with members properly taught and
organised.[468]
[Footnote 468: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 962 B. [Greek: dei= . . .
ei)=nai/ ti to\ gignô=skon e)n au)tô=|] (the city) [Greek: prô=ton
me\n tou=to o(\ le/gomen, to\n skopo/n, o(/stis pote\ o(
politiko\s ô)\n ê(mi=n tugcha/nei, e)/peita o(/ntina tro/pon dei=
metaschei=n tou/tou kai\ ti/s au)tô=| kalô=s ê)\ mê\ sumbouleu/ei
tô=n no/môn au)tô=n prô=ton, e)/peita a)nthrô/pôn.]
[Side-note: This Council must keep steadily in view the one
great end of the city--Mistakes made by existing cities about the
right end.]
The great political end must be one, and not many. All the arrows
aimed by the central Conservative organ must be aimed at one and
the same point.[469] This is the chief excellence of a
well-constituted conservative authority. Existing cities err all
of them in one of two ways. Either they aim at one single End, but
that End bad or wrong: or they aim at a variety of Ends without
giving exclusive attention to any one. Survey existing cities: you
will find that in one, the great purpose, and the main feature of
what passes for justice, is, that some party or faction shall
obtain or keep political power, whether its members be better or
worse than their fellow-citizens: in a second city, it is
wealth--in a third freedom of individuals--in a fourth, freedom
combined with power over foreigners. Some cities, again, considering
themselves wiser than the rest, strive for all these objects at
once or for a variety of others, without exclusive attention to
any one.[470] Amidst such divergence and error in regard to the
main end, we cannot wonder that all cities fail in attaining it.
[Footnote 469: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 962 D. [Greek: dei= dê\
tou=ton] (the nocturnal synod) . . . [Greek: pa=san a)retê\n
e)/chein, ê(=s a)/rchei to\ mê\ plana=sthai pro\s polla\
stochazo/menon, a)ll' ei)s e(\n ble/ponta pro\s tou=to a)ei\ ta\
pa/nta oi(=on be/lê a)phie/nai.]]
[Footnote 470: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 962 D-E. Compare Aristot. Eth.
Nikom. x. 1180, a. 26.]
[Side-note: The one end of the city is the virtue of its
citizens--that property which is common to the four varieties of
Virtue--Reason, Courage, Temperance, Justice.]
The One End proposed by _our_ city is, the virtue of its
citizens. But virtue is fourfold, or includes four
varieties--Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice. Our End is and
must be One. The medical Reason has its One End, Good Health:[471]
the stratêgic Reason has its One End--Victory: What is that One End
(analogous to these) which the political Reason aims at? It must
be that in which the four cardinal virtues--Courage, Prudence,
Temperance, Justice--are One, or coincide: that common
property, possessed by all and by each, which makes them to be
virtue, and constitutes the essential meaning of the name, Virtue.
We must know the four as four, that is, the points of difference
between them: but it is yet more important to know them as One--to
discern the point of essential coincidence and union between
them.[472]
[Footnote 471: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 963 A-B. [Greek: nou=n ga\r
dê\ kubernêtiko\n me\n kai\ i)atriko\n kai\ stratêgiko\n ei)/pomen
ei)s to\ e(\n e)kei=no oi(= dei= ble/pein, to\n de\ politiko\n
e)le/gchontes e)ntau=th' e)sme\n nu=n . . . Ô)= thauma/sie, su\
de\ dê\ poi= skopei=s? Ti/ pot' e)kei=no/ e)sti to\ e(\n, o(\ dê\
saphô=s o( me\n i)atriko\s nou=s e)/chei phra/zein, su\ d' ô)\n
dê\ diaphe/rôn, ô(s phai/ês a)/n, pa/ntôn tô=n e)mphro/nôn, ou)ch
e(/xeis ei)pei=n?]]
[Footnote 472: Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 963 E-964 A.]
[Side-note: The Nocturnal Council must comprehend this
unity of Virtue, explain it to others, and watch that it be
carried out in detail.]
To understand thoroughly this unity of virtue, so as to act upon
it themselves, to explain it to others and to embody it in all
their orders--is the grand requisite for the supreme Guardians of
our city--the Nocturnal council. We cannot trust such a function
in the hands of poets, or of visiting discoursers who announce
themselves as competent to instruct youth. It cannot be confided
to any less authority than the chosen men--the head and senses--of
our city, properly and specially trained to exercise it.[473] Upon
this depends the entire success or failure of our results. Our
guardians must be taught to see that one Idea which pervades the
Multiple and the Diverse:[474] to keep it steadily before their
own eyes, and to explain and illustrate it in discourse to others.
They must contemplate the point of coincidence and unity between
Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice: as well as between the
many different things called Beautiful, and the many different
things called Good.[475] They must declare whether the name
Virtue, common to all the four, means something One--or a Whole or
Aggregate--or both together.[476] If they cannot explain to us
whether Virtue is Manifold or Fourfold, or in what manner it is
One--they are unfit for their task, and our city will prove a
failure. To know the truth about these important matters--to be
competent to explain and defend it to others--to follow it out in
practice, and to apply it in discriminating what is well done
and what is ill done--these are the imperative and
indispensable duties of our Guardians.[477]
[Footnote 473: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 964 D.]
[Footnote 474: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 965 C. [Greek: to\ pro\s mi/an
i)de/an e)k tô=n pollô=n kai\ a)nomoi/ôn dunato\n ei)=nai
ble/pein.]]
[Footnote 475: Plato, Legg. xii. pp. 965 D, 966 A-B.]
[Footnote 476: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 965 D. [Greek: pri\n a)\n
i(kanô=s ei)/pômen ti/ pote/ e)stin, ei)s o(\ blepte/on, _ei)/te
ô(s e(\n, ei)/te ô(s o(/lon_, ei)/te _a)mpho/tera_, ei)/te
o(/pôs pote\ pe/phuken; ê)\ tou/tou diaphugo/ntos ê(ma=s
oi)o/metha/ pote ê(mi=n i(kanô=s e(/xein ta\ pro\s a)retê/n, peri\
ê(=s ou)/t' ei) polla/ e)st', ou)/t' ei) te/ttara, ou)/th' ô(s
e(/n, dunatoi\ phra/zein e)so/metha?]]
[Footnote 477: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 966 B.]
[Side-note: They must also adopt, explain, and enforce upon
the citizens, an orthodox religious creed. Fundamental dogmas of
such creed.]
Farthermore it is also essential that they should adopt an
orthodox religious creed, and should be competent to explain and
defend it. The citizens generally must believe without scrutiny
such dogmas as the lawgiver enjoins; but the Guardians must master
the proofs of them.[478] The proofs upon which, in Plato's view,
all true piety rests, are two[479] (he here repeats them):--1.
Mind or soul is older than Body--anterior to Body as a moving
power--and invested with power to impel, direct, and controul
Body. 2. When we contemplate the celestial rotation, we perceive
such extreme exactness and regularity in the movement of the stars
(each one of the vast multitude maintaining its relative position
in the midst of prodigious velocity of movement) that we cannot
explain it except by supposing a Reason or Intelligence pervading
and guiding them all. Many astronomers have ascribed this regular
movement to an inherent Necessity, and have hereby drawn upon
science reproaches from poets and others, as if it were
irreligious. But these astronomers (Plato affirms) were quite
mistaken in excluding Mind and Reason from the celestial bodies,
and in pronouncing the stars to be bodies without mind, like earth
or stones. Necessity cannot account for their exact and regular
movements: no other supposition is admissible except the constant
volition of mind in-dwelling in each, impelling and guiding them
towards exact goodness of result. Astronomy well understood is, in
Plato's view, the foundation of true piety. It is only the
erroneous astronomical doctrines which are open to the current
imputations of irreligion.[480]
[Footnote 478: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 966 D.]
[Footnote 479: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 967 E.]
[Footnote 480: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 967 A-D. [Greek: dianoi/ais
boulê/seôs a)gathô=n peri\ teloume/nôn . . . mê/pot' a)\n
a)/psucha o)/nta ou(/tôs ei)s a)kri/beian thaumastoi=s logismoi=s
a)\n e)chrê=to, nou=n mê\ kektême/na . . . to/n te ei)rême/non e)n
toi=s a)/strois nou=n tô=n o)/ntôn.]]
These are the capital religious or kosmical dogmas which the
members of the Nocturnal Council must embrace and expound to
others, together with the mathematical and musical teaching
suitable to illustrate them. Application must be made of these
dogmas to improve the laws and customs of the city, and the
dispositions of the citizens.[481]
[Footnote 481: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 967 E.]
When this Nocturnal Council, with its members properly trained and
qualified, shall be established in the akropolis--symbolising the
conjunction of Reason with the head or with the two
knowledge-giving senses--the Magnêtic City may securely be
entrusted to it, with certainty of an admirable result.[482]
[Footnote 482: Plato, Legg. xii. p. 969 B.]
* * * * *
EPINOMIS.
[Side-note: Leges close, without describing the education
proper for the Nocturnal Counsellors. _Epinomis_--supplying
this defect.]
Here closes the dialogue called Leges: somewhat prematurely, since
the peculiar training indispensable for these Nocturnal
Counsellors has not yet been declared. The short dialogue called
Epinomis supplies this defect. It purports to be a second day's
conversation between the same trio.
[Side-note: The Athenian declares his plan of
education--Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy.]
The Athenian--adverting to the circumstances of human life
generally, as full of toil and suffering, with few and transient
moments of happiness--remarks that none except the wise have any
chance of happiness; and that few can understand what real wisdom
is, though every one presumes that there must be something of the
kind discoverable.[483] He first enumerates what _it is not_.
It is not any of the useful arts--husbandry, house-building,
metallurgy, weaving, pottery, hunting, &c.: nor is it
prophecy, or the understanding of omens: nor any of the elegant
arts--music, poetry, painting: nor the art of war, or navigation,
or medicine, or forensic eloquence: nor does it consist in the
natural endowments of quick wit and good memory.[484] True wisdom
is something different from all these. It consists in arithmetic,
geometry, astronomy, leading to a full comprehension of the
regular movements of the Kosmos--combined with a correct religious
creed as to the divine attributes of the Kosmos and its planetary
bodies which are all pervaded and kept in harmonious rotation
by divine, in-dwelling, soul or mind.[485] It is the God
Uranus (or Olympus, or Kosmos), with the visible Gods included
therein, who furnishes to us not only the gifts of the seasons and
the growth of food, but also varied intelligence, especially the
knowledge of number, without which no other knowledge would be
attainable.[486] Number and proportion are essential conditions of
every variety of art. The regular succession of night and day, and
the regularly changing phases of the moon--the comparison of
months with the year--first taught us to count, and to observe the
proportions of numbers to each other.[487]
[Footnote 483: Plato, Epinom. pp. 973-974.]
[Footnote 484: Plato, Epinom. pp. 975-976.]
[Footnote 485: Plato, Epinom. pp. 976-977.]
[Footnote 486: Plato, Epinom. pp. 977-978.]
[Footnote 487: Plato, Epinom. pp. 978-979.]
[Side-note: Theological view of Astronomy--Divine
Kosmos--Soul more ancient and more sovereign than Body.]
The Athenian now enters upon the directly theological point of
view, and re-asserts the three articles of orthodoxy which he had
laid down in the tenth book of Leges: together with the other
point of faith also--That Soul or Mind is older than body: soul is
active and ruling--body, passive and subject. An animal is a
compound of both. There are five elementary bodies--fire, air,
æther, water, earth[488]--which the kosmical soul moulded, in
varying proportions, so as to form different animals and plants.
Man, animals, and plants were moulded chiefly of earth, yet with
some intermixture of the other elements: the stars were moulded
chiefly from fire, having the most beautiful bodies, endowed with
divine and happy souls, and immortal, or very long-lived.[489]
Next to the stars were moulded the Dæmons, out of æther, and
inhabitants of that element: after them, the animals inhabiting
air, and Nymphs inhabiting water. These three occupy intermediate
place between the stars above and man below.[490] They serve as
media of communication between man and the Gods: and also for the
diffusion of thought and intelligence among all parts of the
Kosmos.[491] The Gods of the ordinary faith--Zeus, Hêrê, and
others--must be left to each person's disposition, if he be
inclined to worship them: but the great visible Kosmos, and the
sidereal Gods, must be solemnly exalted and sanctified, with
prayer and the holiest rites.[492] Those astronomers who ignore
this divine nature, and profess to explain their movements by
physical or mechanical forces, are guilty of grave impiety. The
regularity of their movements is a proof of their divine nature,
not a proof of the contrary, as some misguided persons
affirm.[493]
[Footnote 488: Plato, Epinom. pp. 980-981. We know, from a curious
statement of Xenokrates (see Fragm. of his work [Greek: Peri\ tou=
Pla/tônos bi/ou], cited by Simplikius, ad Aristot. Physic. p. 427,
a. 17, Schol. Brandis), that this quintuple elementary scale was a
doctrine of Plato. But it is not the doctrine of the Timæus. The
assertion of Xenokrates (good evidence) warrants us in believing
that Plato altered his views after the composition of Timæus, and
that his latest opinions are represented in the Epinomis. Zeller
indeed thinks that the dodekahedron in the Timæus might be
construed as a fifth element, but this is scarcely tenable.
Zeller, Philos. der Griechen, vol. ii. p. 513, ed. 2nd.]
[Footnote 489: Plat. Epinom. pp. 981-982.]
[Footnote 490: Plat. Epinom. pp. 983-984.]
[Footnote 491: Plat. Epinom. p. 984.]
[Footnote 492: Plat. Epinom. pp. 984 D-985 D.]
[Footnote 493: Plat. Epinom. pp. 982 D, 983 C.]
[Side-note: Improving effects of the study of Astronomy in
this spirit.]
Next, the Athenian intimates that the Greeks have obtained their
astronomical knowledge, in the first instance, from Egypt and
Assyria, but have much improved upon what they learnt (p. 987):
that the Greeks at first were acquainted only with the three
[Greek: phorai\]--the outer or sidereal sphere ([Greek:
A)planê\s]), the Sun, and the Moon--but unacquainted with the
other five or planetary [Greek: phorai\], which they first learned
from these foreigners, though not the names of the planets (p.
986): that all these eight were alike divine, fraternal agents,
partakers in the same rational nature, and making up altogether
the divine [Greek: Ko/smos]: that those who did not recognise all
the eight as divine, consummately rational, and revolving with
perfectly uniform movement, were guilty of impiety (p. 985 E):
that these kosmical, divine, rational agents taught to mankind
arithmetic and the art of numeration (p. 988 B): that soul, or
plastic, demiurgic, cognitive force (p. 981 C), was an older and
more powerful agent in the universe than body--but that there were
two varieties of soul, a good and bad, of which the good variety
was the stronger: the good variety of soul produced all the good
movements, the bad variety produced all the bad movements (p. 988
D, E): that in studying astronomy, a man submitted himself to the
teaching of this good soul and these divine agents, from whom
alone he could learn true wisdom and piety (pp. 989 B-990 A): that
this study, however, must be conducted not with a view to know the
times of rising and setting of different stars (like Hesiod) but
to be able to understand and follow the eight [Greek: periphora/s]
(p. 990 B).
[Side-note: Study of arithmetic and geometry:
varieties of proportion.]
To understand these--especially the five planetary and difficult
[Greek: periphora\s]--arithmetic must also be taught, not in the
concrete, but in the abstract (p. 990 C, D), to understand how
much the real nature of things is determined by the generative
powers and combination of Odd and Even Number. Next, geometry also
must be studied, so as to compare numbers with plane and solid
figures, and thus to determine proportions between two numbers
which are not directly commensurable. The varieties of proportion,
which are marvellously combined, must be understood--first
arithmetical and geometrical proportions, the arithmetical
proportion increasing by equal addition (1 + 1 = 2), or the point
into a line--then the geometrical proportion by way of
multiplication (2 × 2 = 4; 4 × 2 = 8), or the line raised into a
surface, and the surface raised into a cube. Moreover there are
two other varieties of proportion ([Greek: to\ ê(mio/lion] or
sesquialterum, and [Greek: to\ e)pi/triton] or sesquitertium) both
of which occur in the numbers between the ratio of 6 to 12
(_i.e._ 9 is [Greek: to\ ê(mio/lion] of 6, or 9 = 6 + 6/2;
again 8 is, [Greek: to\ e)pi/triton] of 6, or 8 = 6 + 6/3). This
last is _harmonic proportion_, when there are three terms, of
which the third is as much greater than the middle, as the middle
is greater than the first (3 : 4 : 6)--six is greater than four by
one-third of six, while four is greater than three by one-third of
three (p. 991 A).
[Side-note: When the general forms of things have thus been
learnt, particular individuals in nature must be brought under
them.]
Lastly, having thus come to comprehend the general forms of
things, we must bring under them properly the visible individuals
in nature; and in this process interrogation and cross-examination
must be applied (p. 991 C). We must learn to note the accurate
regularity with which time brings all things to maturity, and we
shall find reason to believe that all things are full of Gods (p.
991 D). We shall come to perceive that there is one law of
proportion pervading every geometrical figure, every numerical
series, every harmonic combination, and all the celestial
rotations: one and the same bond of union among all (p. 991 E).
These sciences, whether difficult or easy, must be learnt: for
without them no happy nature will be ever planted in our cities
(p. 992 A). The man who learns all this will be the truly wise and
happy man, both in this life and after it; only a few men can
possibly arrive at such happiness (p. 992 C). But it is these
chosen few who, when they become Elders, will compose our
Nocturnal Council, and maintain unimpaired the perpetual purity of
the Platonic City.
[Side-note: Question as to education of the Nocturnal
Council is answered in the Epinomis.]
Such then is the answer given by the Epinomis, to the question
left unanswered in the Leges. However unsatisfactory it may
appear, to those who look for nothing but what is admirable in
Plato--I believe it to represent the latest views of his old age,
when dialectic had given place in his mind to the joint ascendancy
of theological sentiment and Pythagorean arithmetic.[494]
[Footnote 494: In connection with the treatise called Epinomis,
the question arises, What were the modifications which Plato's
astronomical doctrines underwent during the latter years of his
life? In what respect did they come to differ from what we read in
the Platonic Timæus, where a geocentric system is proclaimed:
whether we suppose (as Boeckh and others do) that the Earth is
represented as stationary at the centre--or (as I suppose) that
the Earth is represented as fastened to the centre of the kosmical
axis, and revolving with it. The Epinomis delivers a geocentric
system also.
Now it is upon this very point that Plato's opinions are said to
have changed towards the close of his life. He came to repent that
he had assigned to the Earth the central place in the system; and
to conceive that place as belonging properly to something else,
some other better (or more powerful) body. This is a curious
statement, made in two separate passages by Plutarch, and in one
of the two passages with reference to Theophrastus as his witness
(Plutarch, Vit. Numæ, c. 11; Platonic. Quæst. 8, p. 1006 C).
Boeckh (Untersuchungen über das Kosmische System des Platon, pp.
144-149) and Martin (Études sur le Timée, ii. 91) discredit the
statement ascribed by Plutarch to Theophrastus. But I see no
sufficient ground for such discredit. Sir George Lewis remarks
very truly (Historical Survey of the Astronomy of the Ancients, p.
143):--"The testimony of Theophrastus, the disciple of Aristotle,
and nearly his contemporary, has great weight on this point. The
ground of the opinion alludes to the Pythagorean doctrine
mentioned by Aristotle, that the centre is the most dignified
place, and that the earth is not the first in dignity among the
heavenly bodies. It has no reference to observed phenomena, and is
not founded on inductive scientific arguments. . . . The doctrine
as to the superior dignity of the central place, and of the
impropriety of assigning the most dignified station to the earth,
was of Pythagorean origin and was probably combined with the
Philolaic cosmology."
This remark of Sir George Lewis deserves attention, not merely
from the proper value which he assigns to the testimony of
Theophrastus, but because he confines himself to the exact matter
which Theophrastus affirmed; _viz._, that Plato in his old
age came to repent of his own cosmical views on one particular
point and on one special ground. Theophrastus does not tell us
what it was that Plato supposed to be in the centre, after he had
become convinced that it was too dignified a place for the earth.
Plato _may_ have come to adopt the positive opinion of
Philolaus (that of a central fire) as well as the negative opinion
(that the Earth was not the central body). But we cannot affirm
that he _did_ adopt either this positive opinion or any other
positive opinion upon that point. I take Theophrastus to have
affirmed exactly what Plutarch makes him affirm, and no more: that
Plato came to repent of having assigned to the earth the central
place which did not befit it, and to account the centre the fit
place "for some other body better than the Earth," yet without
defining what that other body was. If Theophrastus had named what
the other body was, surely Plutarch would never have suppressed
the specific designation to make room for the vague [Greek:
e(te/rô| tini\ krei/ttoni].
There is thus, in my judgment, ground for believing that Plato in
his old age (after the publication of the Treatise De Legibus)
came to distrust the geocentric dogma which he had previously
supported; but we do not know whether he adopted any other dogma
in place of it. The geocentric doctrine passed to the Epinomis as
a continuation of the Treatise De Legibus. The phrase which
Plutarch cites from Theophrastus deserves notice--[Greek:
Theo/phrastos de\ kai\ prosistorei= tô=| Pla/tôni presbute/rô|
genome/nô| _metamelei=n_, ô(s ou) prosê/kousan a)podo/nti
tê=| gê=| tê\n me/sên chô/ran tou= panto/s.] Plato
_repented_. Whoever reads the Treatise De Legibus (especially
Books vii. and x.) will see that Plato at that period of his life
considered astronomical errors as not merely errors, but heresies
offensive to the Gods; and that he denounced those who supported
such errors as impious. If Plato came afterwards to alter his
astronomical views, he would _repent_ of his own previous
views as of a heresy. He came to believe that he had rated the
dignity of the Earth too high; and we can see how this change of
view may have been occasioned. Earth was looked upon by him, as
well as by many others, in two distinct points of view. 1. As a
cosmical body, divine, and including [Greek: tou\s chthoni/ous
theou/s]. 2. As one of the four elements, along with water, air,
and fire; in which sense it was strung together with [Greek:
li/thoi], and had degrading ideas associated with it (Plato, Apol.
Sokr. p. 26 D). These two meanings, not merely distinct but even
opposed to each other, occur in the very same sentence of De
Legibus, x. p. 886 D. The elemental sense of Earth was brought
prominently forward by those reasoners whom Plato refutes in Book
x.: and the effect of such reasonings upon him was, that though he
still regarded Earth as a Deity, he no longer continued to regard
Earth as worthy of the cosmical post of honour. At that age,
however, he might well consider himself excused from broaching any
new positive theory.]
[Side-note: Problem which the Nocturnal Council are
required to solve, What is the common property of Prudence,
Courage, Temperance, Justice, by reason of which each is called
Virtue?]
Assuming that the magistrates of the Nocturnal Council have gone
through the course of education prescribed in the Epinomis, and
have proved themselves unimpeachable on the score of
orthodoxy--will they be able to solve the main problem which he has
imposed upon them at the close of the Leges? There, as elsewhere,
he proclaims a problem as indispensable to be solved, but does not
himself furnish any solution. What is the common property, or
point of similarity between Prudence, Courage, Temperance,
Justice--by reason of which each is termed Virtue? What are the
characteristic points of difference, by reason of which Virtue
sometimes receives one of these names, sometimes another?
[Side-note: The only common property is that all of them
are essential to the maintenance of society, and tend to promote
human security and happiness.]
The proper way of answering this question has been much debated,
from Plato's day down to the present. It is one of the fundamental
problems of Ethical Philosophy.
The subjective matter of fact, implied by every one who designates
an act or a person as virtuous, is an approving or admiring
sentiment which each man knows in his own bosom. But Plato assumes
that there is, besides this, an objective connotation: a
common object or property to which such sentiment refers. What is
that common object? I see no other except that which is indicated
by the principle of Utility: I mean that principle which points
out Happiness and Unhappiness, not merely of the agent himself,
but also of others affected or liable to be affected by his
behaviour, as the standard to which these denominations refer.
Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice, all tend to prevention and
mitigation of unhappiness, and to increase of happiness, as well
for the agent himself as for the society surrounding him. The
opposite qualities--Timidity, Imprudence, Intemperance,
Injustice--tend with equal certainty either to increase positively
the unhappiness of the agent and of society, or to remove the
means for warding it off or abating it. Indeed there is a certain
minimum of all the four--Courage, Prudence, Temperance,
Justice--without which or below which neither society could hold
together, nor the life of the individual agent himself could be
continued.
[Side-note: Tendency of the four opposite qualities to
lessen human happiness.]
Here then is one answer at least to the question of Plato.
Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice--all of them mental
attributes of rational voluntary agents--have also the common
property of being, in a certain minimum degree, absolutely
essential to the life of the agent and the maintenance of
society--and of being, above that degree, tutelary against the
suffering, and beneficial to the happiness, of both. This tutelary
or beneficent tendency is the common objective property signified
by the general term Virtue; and is implicated with the subjective
property before mentioned--the sentiment of approbation. The four
opposite qualities are designated by the general term Vice or
Defect, connoting both maleficent tendency and the sentiment of
disapprobation.
[Side-note: A certain measure of all the four virtues is
required. In judging of particular acts instigated by each, there
is always a tacit reference to the hurt or benefit in the special
case.]
This proposition will be farther confirmed, if we look at all the
four qualities--Courage, Prudence, Temperance, Justice--in another
point of view. Taking them in their reference to Virtue, each of
them belongs to Virtue as a part to the whole,[495] not as one
species contradistinguished from and excluding other species.
The same person may have, and ought to have, a certain measure of
all: he will not be called virtuous unless he has a measure of
all. Excellence in any one will not compensate for the entire
absence of the others.
[Footnote 495: Compare Plato, Legg. i. p. 629 B, where he
describes [Greek: tê\n xu/mpasan a)retê\n--dikaiosu/nê kai\
sôphrosu/nê kai\ phro/nêsis ei)s tau)to\n e)lthou=sa met'
a)ndrei/as]: also pp. 630 C-E, 631 A, where he considers all these
as [Greek: mo/ria a)retê=s], but [Greek: phro/nêsis] as the first
of the four and [Greek: a)ndrei/a] as the last.
See also iii. pp. 688 B, 696 C-D, iv. p. 705 D.]
A just and temperate man will not be accounted virtuous, if (to
use an Aristotelian simile) he be so extravagantly timid as to
fear every insect that flits by, or the noise of a mouse.[496] All
probability of beneficent results from his agency is effaced by
this capital defect: and it is the probability of such results
which constitute his title to be called virtuous.
[Footnote 496: Aristot. Ethic. Nikomach. vii. 6, p. 1148, a. 8;
Politic. vii. 1, p. 1323, a. 29. [Greek: ka)\n psophê/sê| mu=s . . .
dediô\s ta\s parapetome/nas mui/as.]]
When we speak of the four as qualities or attributes of men (as
Plato does in this treatise, while considering the proper type of
character which the lawgiver should aim at forming) we speak of
them in the abstract--that is, making abstraction of particular
circumstances, and regarding only what is common to most men in
most situations. But in the realities of life these particulars
are always present: there is a series of individual agents and
patients, acts and sufferings, each surrounded by its own distinct
circumstances and situation. Now in each of these situations an
agent is held responsible for the consequences of his acts, when
they are such as he knows and foresees, or might by reasonable
care know and foresee. An officer who (like Charles XII. at
Bender) marches up without necessity at the head of a corporal's
guard to attack a powerful hostile army of good soldiers, exhibits
the maximum of courage: but his act, far from being commended as
virtue, must be blamed as rashness, or pitied as folly. If a
friend has deposited in my care a sword or other deadly weapon (to
repeat the very case put by Sokrates[497]), justice requires me to
give it back to him when he asks for it. Yet if, at the time when
he asks, he be insane, and exhibits plain indications of being
about to employ it for murderous purposes, my just restoration of
it will not be commended as an act of virtue. When we look at
these four qualities--Courage, Prudence, Temperance,
Justice--not in the abstract, but in reference to particular acts,
agents, and situations--we find that before a just or courageous
act can be considered to deserve the name of Virtue, there is always
a tacit supposition, that no considerable hurt to innocent persons
is likely or predictable from it in the particular case. The
sentiment of approbation, implied in the name Virtue, will not go
along with the act, if in the particular case it produce a certain
amount of predictable mischief. This is another property common to
all the four attributes of mind--Courage, Prudence, Temperance,
Justice:--and forming one of the conditions under which they
become entitled to the denomination of Virtue.
[Footnote 497: Plato, Republic, i. p. 331 C; Xenoph. Memor. iv. 2,
17; Cicero, De Officiis, iii. 25.]
[Side-note: Plato places these four virtues in the highest
scale of Expetenda or Bona, on the ground that all the other Bona
are sure to flow from them.]
In the first books of the Leges, Plato[498] puts forward Courage,
Prudence, Temperance, Justice, as the parts or sorts of Virtue:
telling us that the natural rectitude of laws consists in
promoting, not any one of the four separately, but all the four
together in their due subordination. He classifies good things
(Bona or Expetenda) in a triple scale of value.[499] First, and
best of all, come the mental attributes--which he calls
divine--Prudence or Intelligence, Temperance, Justice, and
Courage: Second, or second best, come the attributes of
body--health, strength, beauty, activity, manual dexterity: Third,
or last, come the extraneous advantages, Wealth, Power,
Family-Position, &c. It is the duty of the lawgiver to employ his utmost
care to ensure to his citizens the first description of Bona
(the mental attributes)--upon which (Plato says) the second and third
description depend, so that if the first are ensured, the second
and third will be certain to follow: while if the lawgiver,
neglecting the first, aims at the second and third exclusively or
principally, he will miss all three.[500] Here we see, that while
Plato assigns the highest scale of value to the mental
attributes, he justifies such preference by assuring us that they
are the essential producing causes of the other sorts of Bona. His
assurance is even given in terms more unqualified than the
realities of life will bear out.
[Footnote 498: Plato, Legg. i. pp. 627 D, 631 A-C.]
[Footnote 499: Plato, Legg. i. p. 631 B-D, iii. p. 697 B. This
tripartite classification of Bona differs altogether from the
tripartite classification of Bona given at the commencement of the
second book of the Republic. But it agrees with that, the "tria
genera Bonorum," distinguished by Aristotle in the first Book of
the Nikomachean Ethics (p. 1098, b. 12), among which [Greek: ta\
peri\ psuchê/n] were [Greek: kuriô/tata kai\ ma/lista a)gatha/].
This recognition of "tria genera Bonorum" is sometimes quoted as
an opinion characteristic of the Peripatetics; but Aristotle
himself declares it to be ancient and acknowledged, and we
certainly have it here in Plato.]
[Footnote 500: Plato, Legg. i. p. 631 C. [Greek: ê)/rtêtai d' e)k
tô=n thei/ôn tha/tera, kai\ e)a\n me\n de/chêtai/ tis ta\ mei/zona
po/lis, kta=tai kai\ ta\ e)la/ttona; ei) de\ mê/, ste/retai
a)mphoi=n.]
The same doctrine is declared by Sokrates in the Platonic Apology,
pp. 29-30. [Greek: le/gôn, o(/ti ou)k e)k chrêma/tôn a)retê\
gi/gnetai, a)ll' e)x a)retê=s chrê/mata kai\ ta)/lla a)gatha\
toi=s a)nthrô/pois a(/panta kai\ i)di/a| kai\ dêmosi/a|] (30 B).]
[Side-note: In thus directing the attention of the Council
to the common property of the four virtues, Plato enforces upon
them the necessity of looking to the security and happiness of
their community as the paramount end.]
When Plato therefore proclaims it as the great desideratum for his
Supreme Council, that they shall understand the common relation of
the four great mental attributes (Courage, Prudence, Temperance,
Justice) to each other as well as to the comprehensive whole,
Virtue--he fastens their attention on the only common property
which the four can be found to possess: _i.e._ that they are
mental attributes required in every one for the security and
comfort of himself and of society. To ward off or mitigate the
suffering, and to improve the comfort of society, is thus
inculcated as the main and constant end for them to keep in view.
It is their prescribed task, to preserve and carry forward that
which he as lawgiver had announced as his purpose in the beginning
of the Leges.
[Side-note: But he enjoins also other objectionable ends.]
In thus taking leave of Plato, at the close of his longest,
latest, and most affirmative composition, it is satisfactory to be
able to express unqualified sympathy with this main purpose which,
as departing lawgiver, he directs his successors to promote. But
to these salutary directions, unfortunately, he has attached
others noway connected with them except by common feelings of
reverence in his own mind and far less deserving of sympathy. He
requires that his own religious belief shall be erected into a
peremptory orthodoxy, and that heretics shall be put down by the
severest penalties. Now a citizen might be perfectly just,
temperate, brave, and prudent--and yet dissent altogether from the
Platonic creed. For such a citizen--the counterpart of Sokrates at
Athens--no existence would be possible in the Platonic community.
[Side-note: Intolerance of Plato--Comparison of the
Platonic community with Athens.]
We must farther remark that, even when Plato's ends are
unexceptionable, the amount of interference which he employs
to accomplish them is often extravagant. As a Constructor, he
carries the sentiment of his own infallibility--which in a certain
measure every lawgiver must assume--to an extreme worthy only of
the kings of the Saturnian age:[501] manifesting the very minimum
of tolerance for that enquiring individual reason of which his own
negative dialogues remain as immortal masterpieces. We trace this
intolerance through all the dialogue Leges. Even when he
condescends to advise and persuade, he speaks rather in the tone
of an encyclical censor, than of one who has before him a
reasonable opponent to be convinced. The separate laws proposed by
Plato are interesting to read, as illustrating antiquity: but most
of them are founded on existing Athenian law. Where they depart
from it, they depart as often for the worse as for the better--so
far as I can pretend to judge. And in spite of all the
indisputable defects, political and judicial, of that glorious
city, where Plato was born and passed most of his days--it was, in
my judgment, preferable to his Magnêtic city, as to all the great
objects of security, comfort, recreation, and enjoyment. Athens
was preferable, even for the ordinary citizen: but for the men of
free, inquisitive, self-thinking, minds--the dissentient minority,
who lived upon that open speech of which Athenian orators and
poets boasted--it was a condition of existence: since the Platonic
censorship would have tolerated neither their doctrines nor their
persons.
[Footnote 501: Plato, Politikus, pp. 271 E, 275 A-C.]
APPENDIX.
Since the commencement of the present century, with its increased
critical study of Plato, different and opposite opinions have been
maintained by various authors respecting the genuineness or
spuriousness of the Treatise De Legibus. Schleiermacher (Platons
Werke, I. i. p. 51) admitted it as a genuine work of Plato, but
ranked it among the Nebenwerke, or outlying dialogues:
_i.e._, as a work that did not form an item or stepping-stone
in the main Platonic philosophical series (which Schleiermacher
attempts to lay out according to a system of internal sequence and
gradual development), but was composed separately, in general
analogy with the later or more constructive portion of that
series. On the other hand, Ast (Platons Leben und Schriften, pp.
376-392) distinctly maintains that the Treatise De Legibus is not
the composition of Plato, but of one of his scholars and
contemporaries, perhaps Xenokrates or the Opuntian Philippus. Ast
supports this opinion by many internal grounds, derived from a
comparison of the treatise with other Platonic dialogues.
Zeller (in his Platonische Studien, Tübingen, 1839, pp. 1-144)
discussed the same question in a more copious and elaborate
manner, and declared himself decidedly in favour of Ast's
opinion--that the Treatise De Legibus was not the work of Plato,
but of one among his immediate scholars. But in his History of
Grecian Philosophy (vol. ii. pp. 348-615-641, second edition),
Zeller departs from this judgment, and pronounces the Treatise to
be a genuine work of Plato--the last form of his philosophy,
modified in various ways.
Again Suckow (in his work, Die wissenschaftliche und künstlerische
Form der Platonischen Schriften, Berlin, 1855, I. pp. 111-118
seq.) advocates Zeller's first opinion--that the Treatise De
Legibus is not the work of Plato.
Lastly Stallbaum, in the Prolegomena prefixed to his edition of
the Treatise, strenuously vindicates its Platonic authorship. This
is also the opinion of Boeckh and K. F. Hermann; and was,
moreover, the opinion of all critics (I believe) anterior to Ast.
To me, I confess, it appears that the Treatise De Legibus is
among the best authenticated works of the Platonic collection. I
do not know what better positive proof can be tendered than the
affirmation of Aristotle in his Politics--distinct and
unqualified, mentioning both the name of the author and the title
of the work, noting also the relation in which it stood to the
Republic, both as a later composition of the same author, and as
discrepant on some points of doctrine, analogous on others. This
in itself is the strongest _primâ facie_ evidence, not to be
rebutted, except by some counter-testimony, or by some internal
mark of chronological impossibility: moreover, it coincides with
the consentient belief of all the known ancient authors later than
Aristotle--such as Zeno the Stoic, who composed a treatise in
seven books--[Greek: Pro\s tou\s Pla/tônos No/mous] (Diog. Laert.
vii. 36), Persæus, the Alexandrine critics, Cicero, Plutarch,
&c. (Stallbaum, Prolegg. p. xliv.) Aristophanes Grammaticus
classified both Leges and Epinomis as Plato's works. The arguments
produced in Zeller's Platonische Studien, to show that Aristotle
may have been mistaken in his assertion, are of little or no
force. Nor will it be material to the present question, even if we
concede to Zeller and Suckow another point which they contend
for--that the remarks of Aristotle upon Plato's opinions are often
inaccurate at least, if not unfair. For here Aristotle is produced
in court only as a witness to authenticity.
Among the points raised by Suckow, there is indeed one, which if
it were made out, would greatly invalidate, if not counterbalance,
the testimony of Aristotle. Suckow construes the passage in the
Oration of Isokrates ad Philippum (p. 84, § 14)--[Greek: o(moi/ôs
oi( toiou=toi tô=n lo/gôn a)/kuroi tugcha/nousin o)/ntes toi=s
no/mois kai\ tai=s politei/ais tai=s u(po\ tô=n sophistô=n
gegramme/nais]--as if it alluded to the Platonic Republic, and to
the Treatise De Legibus; but as if it implied, at the same time,
that the two treatises were not composed by the same author, but
by different authors, indicated by the plural [Greek: sophistô=n].
If this were the true meaning of Isokrates, we should then have
Aristotle distinctly contradicted by another respectable
contemporary witness, which would of course much impair the value
of his testimony.
But Stallbaum (p. lii.) disputes altogether the meaning ascribed
by Suckow to the words of Isokrates, and contends that the plural
[Greek: sophistô=n] noway justifies the hypothesis of a double
authorship. So far, I think, he is decidedly right: and this
clears away the only one item of counter-testimony which has yet
been alleged against Aristotle as a witness. Stallbaum, indeed,
goes a step farther. He contends that the passage above cited from
Isokrates is an evidence on his side, and against Suckow:
that Isokrates alludes to Plato as author of both Republic and
Leges, and thus becomes available as a second contemporary
witness, confirming the testimony of Aristotle. This is less
certain; yet perhaps supposable. We may imagine that Isokrates,
when he composed the passage, had in his mind Plato
pre-eminently--then recently dead at a great age, and the most
illustrious of all the Sophists who had written upon political theory.
The vague and undefined language in which Isokrates speaks, however,
sets forth, by contrast, the great evidentiary value of Aristotle's
affirmation, which is distinct and specific in the highest degree,
declaring Plato to be the author of Leges.
To contradict this affirmation--an external guarantee of unusual
force--Zeller produces a case of internal incredibility. The Legg.
cannot be the work of Plato (he argues) because of the numerous
disparities and marked inferiority of style, handling, and
doctrine, which are very frequently un-Platonic, and not seldom
anti-Platonic. Whoever will read the Platonische Studien, will see
that Zeller has made out a strong case of this sort, set forth
with remarkable ability and ingenuity. Indeed, the strength of the
case, as to internal discrepancy, is fully admitted by his
opponent Stallbaum, who says in general terms (Prolegg. vol. ii.
p. v.)--"Argumentatio quidem ac disserendi ratio, quæ in Legibus
regnat, ubi considerata fuerit paullo accuratius, dubitare nemo
sanè poterit, quin multa propria ac peculiaria habere judicanda
sit, quæ ab aliorum librorum Platonicorum usu et consuetudine
longissimé recedant". He then proceeds to enumerate in detail many
serious points of discrepancy. See the second part (ch. xv.) of
his Prolegomena, prefixed to Book v. Legg., and in Prolegg. to his
edition of 1859, pp. lv.-lix. But in spite of such undeniable
force of internal improbability, Stallbaum still maintains that
the Treatise is really the work of Plato. Of course, he does not
admit that the whole of the internal evidence is nothing but
discrepancy. He points out also much that is homogeneous and
Platonic.
I agree with his conclusion (which is also the subsequent
conclusion of Zeller) respecting the authorship of Legg. To me the
testimony of Aristotle appears conclusive. But when I perceive how
strong are the grounds for doubt, so long as we discuss the
question on grounds of internal evidence simply (that is, by
comparison with other Platonic dialogues) while yet such doubts
are over-ruled, by our fortunately possessing incontestable
authenticating evidence _ab extra_--an inference suggests
itself to me, of which Platonic critics seem for the most part
unconscious. I mean the great fallibility of reasonings founded
simply on internal evidence, for the purpose of disproving
authenticity, where we have no external evidence,
contemporary or nearly contemporary, to controul them. In this
condition are the large majority of the dialogues. I do not affirm
that such reasonings are never to be trusted; but I consider them
eminently fallible. To compare together the various dialogues,
indeed, and to number as well as to weigh the various instances of
analogy and discrepancy between them, is a process always
instructive. It is among the direct tasks and obligations of the
critic. But when, after detecting discrepancies, more or less
grave and numerous, he proceeds to conclude, that the dialogue in
which they occur cannot have been composed by Plato, he steps upon
ground full of hypothesis and uncertainty. Who is to fix the limit
of admissible divergence between the various compositions of a man
like Plato? Who can determine what changes may have taken place in
Plato's opinions, or point of view, or intellectual powers--during
a long literary life of more than fifty years, which we know only
in mere outline? Considering that Plato systematically lays aside
his own personal identity, and speaks only under the assumed names
of different expositors, opponents, and respondents--which of us
can claim to possess a full and exhaustive catalogue of all the
diverse phases of Platonism, so as to make sure that some
unexpected variety has no legitimate title to be ranked among
them?
For my part, I confess that these questions appear to me full of
doubt and difficulty. I am often surprised at the confidence with
which critics, upon the faith of internal evidence purely and
simply, pronounce various dialogues of the Platonic collection to
be spurious. A lesson of diffidence may be learnt from the Leges:
which, if internal evidence alone were accessible, would stand
among the questionable items of the Platonic catalogue--while it
now takes rank among the most unquestionable, from the complete
external certificate which has been fortunately preserved to us.
Stallbaum, who maintains the authenticity of the Platonic Leges,
disallows altogether that of the Epinomis. In his long and learned
Prolegg. (vol. iii. p. 441-470), he has gone over the whole case,
and stated at length his reasons for this opinion. I confess that
his reasons do not satisfy me. If, on the faith of those reasons,
I rejected the Epinomis, I should also on the grounds stated by
Ast and Zeller reject the Leges. The reasons against the Leges are
of the same character and tenor as those against the Epinomis, and
scarce at all less weighty. Respecting both of them, it may be
shown that they are greatly inferior in excellence to the Republic
and the other masterpieces of the Platonic genius, and that they
contain points of doctrine and reasoning different from what we
read in other Platonic works. But when, from these premisses,
I am called upon to admit that they are not the works of Plato, I
cannot assent either about the one or the other. I have already
observed that I expect to find among his genuine compositions,
some inferior in merit, others dissentient in doctrine--especially
in compositions admitted to belong to his oldest age. All critics
from Aristophanes down to Tennemann, have admitted the Epinomis as
genuine: and when Stallbaum contends that Diogenes mentions doubts
on the point entertained even in antiquity--I think he is not
warranted by the words of that author, iii. 37: [Greek: e)/nioi/
te phasi\n o(/ti Phi/lippos o( O)pou/ntios tou\s No/mous au)tou=
(Pla/tônos) mete/grapsen o)/ntas e)n kêrô=|; tou/tou de\ kai\ tê\n
E)pinomi/da phasi\n ei)=nai.] I do not think we can infer from
these words anything more than this--that "Philippus transcribed
the Epinomis also out of the waxen tablet as he had transcribed
the Leges". The persons (whosoever they were--[Greek: e)/nioi]) to
whom Diogenes refers, considered Philippus as in part the author
of the [Greek: No/moi]; because he had first transcribed them in a
legible form from the rough original, and might possibly have
introduced changes of his own in the transcription. If they had
meant to distinguish what he did in respect to the Leges, from
what he did in respect to the Epinomis: if they had meant to
assert that he transcribed the Leges, but that he composed the
Epinomis as an original addition of his own; I think they would
have employed, not the conjunction [Greek: kai\], but some word
indicating contrast and antithesis.
But even if we concede that the persons here alluded to by
Diogenes did really believe, that the Epinomis was the original
composition of Philippus and not of Plato--we must remember that
all the critics of antiquity known to us believed the
contrary--that it was the genuine work of Plato. In particular,
Aristophanes Grammaticus acknowledges it as such; enrolling it in
one trilogy with the Minos and the Leges. The testimony of
Aristophanes, and the records of the Alexandrine Library in his time,
greatly outweigh the suspicions of the unknown critics alluded to by
Diogenes; even if we admit that those critics did really conceive
the Epinomis as an actual composition of Philippus.
THE END.
GENERAL INDEX.
A.
Absolute and relative, radically distinct points of view, i. 23
_n._;
of Xenophanes, 18;
of Parmenides, 20-24, 66;
agrees with Kant's, 21;
of Herakleitus, 29;
and Parmenides opposed, 37;
of Anaxagoras, homoeomeries, 59 _n._;
of Demokritus, 71, 80;
of Zeno, 93, 101;
Gorgias the Leontine reasoned against, as ens or entia, 103;
and relative, antithetised by Plato in regard to the beautiful,
ii. 54;
Plato's argument against, iii. 204, 227;
to Plato the only real, 385;
an objective, impossible, 294 _n._, 298 _n._;
see _Relative_.
Abstract, dialectic deals with, rhetoric with concrete, ii. 52,
53;
and concrete aggregates, _ib._;
terms, debates about meaning, iii. 76-78;
different views of Aristotle and Plato, 76;
and concrete, difference not conspicuous in Plato's time, 229.
Academy, the, i. 254;
decorations, 269 _n._;
Platonic school removed, 87 B.C., 265 _n._;
library founded for use of inmates and special visitors, 278
_n._;
Cicero on negative vein of, 131 _n._
Achilleus, and the tortoise, i. 97;
preferred by Hippias to Odysseus, ii. 56.
Acoustics, to be studied by applying arithmetical relations and
theories, iv. 74.
Actual and potential, Aristotle's distinction, iii. 135 _n._,
i.** 139.
[Greek: A)dikê/mata], iv. 367, 368.
Ælian, ii. 85 _n._
Æschines, Sokraticus, dialogues of, i. 112, 114 _n._, 115,
211 _n._;
Lysias' oration against, 112.
Æsculapius, belief in, ii. 418 _n._
Æthiops, i. 195.
Affirmative, see _Negative_.
Aggregate, see _Whole_.
[Greek: Ai)dô/s], meaning, ii. 269 _n._
[Greek: Ai)/sthêsis], relation to [Greek: e)pistê/mê], iii. 164
_n._;
conceptions of Aristotle and Plato compared, _ib._;
connected by Plato with [Greek: a)i+/ssô], iv. 235 _n._;
see _Sense_.
[Greek: A)kolasi/a], derivation, iii. 302 _n._
[Greek: A)lê/theia], derivation, iii. 302 _n._
Alexander of Aphrodisias, on Chance, i. 143 _n._
Alexandrian Museum founded as a copy of the Platonic and
Aristotelic [Greek: mousei=a] at Athens, i. 277;
date of foundation, 280;
Demetrius Phalereus chief agent in its establishment,
_ib._;
its contents, 275;
rapid accumulation of books, _ib._;
under charge of Aristophanes, 273;
contained Plato's works before time of Aristophanes, 274;
editions of Plato issued, 295;
its authority followed by ancient critics, 297, 299.
Alexis, iii. 387 _n._
Alkibiadês, when young, frequented Sokrates' society, ii. 21;
attachment of Sokrates to, iii. 8;
fitness as ideal in _Alkibiadês I._ and _II._, ii. 22;
see _Alkibiadês I._ and _II._ and _Symposion._
_Alkibiadês_ I. and II., different critical opinions, ii. 17;
date, i. 306, 308-11, ii. 22;
authenticity, i. 306-7, 309-10, ii. 2 _n._, 17;
prolixity, 26;
circumstances and interlocutors, 1;
fitness of historical Alkibiadês for ideal, 22;
no bearing on the historical Alkibiadês, 20 _n._;
the Platonic picture an ideal, 22;
illustrates Sokratico-Platonic method in negative and positive
aspect, 7;
actual and anticipated effects of dialectic, 11;
analogy with Xenophontic dialogues, 21, 29;
Alkibiadês as Athenian adviser, 2;
advises on war and peace, his standard the just and unjust, 3;
whence knowledge of it, 4;
from the multitude, their judgment worthless, 5;
the expedient and inexpedient substituted, 6;
the just identified with the good, honourable, expedient, 7;
ignorance of Athenian statesmen, eulogy of Spartan and Persian
kings, 8;
Alkibiadês must become good--for what end and how, 8-10;
confesses his ignorance, 10;
will never leave Sokrates, 12;
Delphian maxim--the mind the self, 11;
self-knowledge, from looking into other minds is temperance, 11;
situation in _Second_, 12;
danger of prayer for mischievous gifts--most men unwise,
_ib._;
instances of injurious gifts--mischiefs of ignorance, 14;
depend on the subject-matter, _ib._;
few wise public counsellors, why called wise, 15;
special accomplishments often hurtful, if no knowledge of the
good, 16;
Sokrates on prayer and sacrifice, _ib._;
Sokrates' purpose, to humble presumptuous youths, 21;
his mission against false persuasion of knowledge, 24;
his positive solutions illusory, 26-7;
opinion embraces all varieties of knowledge save of the good,
30;
the good, how known--unsolved, 31.
Allegorical interpretation of poets, ii. 285;
see _Mythe_.
[Greek: A)lupi/a], the Good, iii. 338 _n._;
not identical with pleasure, 353, 377;
and pleasure included in Hedonists' end, _ib._;
is a negative condition intermediate between pleasure and pain,
iv. 86.
Amabile primum, ii. 181, 191;
approximates to Idea of Good, 192;
the Good, 194;
compared with Aristotle's _prima amicitia_, _ib._
[Greek: A(martê/mata], iv. 367, 368.
Amazons, iv. 196.
Ana of philosophers, i. 153 _n._
Analogical and generic wholes, ii. 47, 193 _n._, iii. 365.
Analogy, Aristotle first distinguished [Greek: o(mô/numa], [Greek:
sunô/numa], and [Greek: kat' a)nalogi/an]**, iii. 94 _n._;
see _Metaphor_.
[Greek: A)na/mnêsis] different from [Greek: mnê/mê], iii. 350
_n._;
see _Reminiscence_.
[Greek: A)nathumi/asis], i. 35 _n._
Anaxagoras, chiefly physical, i. 48;
physics, 49;
homoeomeries, 48, 52 _n._, 53, 55-6, 58 _n._;
essential intermixture of Demokritean atoms analogous, 79
_n._;
denied generation and destruction, 48;
and simple bodies, 52 _n._;
chaos, 50, 50 _n._, 54;
Nous, relation to the homoeomeries, 54-57;
originates rotatory movement in chaotic mass, 50;
exercised only a catalytic agency, 55;
alone pure and unmixed, 50;
immaterial and impersonal, 56 _n._;
its two attributes, to _move_ and to _know_,
_ib._;
compared with Herakleitus' [Greek: perie/chon], _ib._;
Plato's Idea of Good, ii. 412;
represented later as a god, i. 54;
his own view of it. _ib._;
theory as understood by Sokrates, ii. 393, 400, 402 _n._;
Hegel on, 403 _n._;
erroneously charged with inconsistency, i. 56, ii. 394, 407;
animal bodies purer than air or earth, i. 51;
suggested partly by the phenomenon of animal nutrition, 53;
air and fire, 52, 56 _n._;
astronomy, 57;
his geology, meteorology, and physiology, 58;
his heresy, Sokrates on, 413;
threatened prosecution for impiety, 59;
accused of substituting physical for mental causes, ii. 401;
opposed Empedokles' theory of sensation, i. 58;
theory of vision, iv. 237 _n._;
illusions of sense, i. 59 _n._;
compared with Empedokles, 52;
relation to Anaximander, 54;
agreement with Diogenes of Apollonia, 64;
influence on Aristotle, 89.
Anaximander, philosophy, i. 5;
Infinite reproduced in chaos of Anaxagoras, 54;
relation to Empedokles, _ib._
Anaximenes, i. 7.
Angler, definition of, iii. 189.
Animal bodies purer than air or earth, i. 51;
generation, Empedokles on, 42;
Demokritus' researches in, 75;
kosmos the copy of the [Greek: Au)to/zôon]**, iv. 223, 235
_n._, 263;
genesis of inferior from degenerate man, 252;
genesis of, 421.
Annikeris, i. 202.
[Greek: A)no/êta], meaning, iii. 65 _n._
Antalkidas, peace of, iii. 404.
_Anterastæ_, see _Erastæ_.
[Greek: A)nthrô/pina, ta/], iv. 302 _n._
Antipater, i. 195.
Antisthenes, works, i. 111, 115, 163 _n._;
constant friend of Sokrates, 152;
copied manner of Sokrates in plainness and rigour, 150, 158
_n._;
ethical, not transcendental, 122, 149;
and ascetic, 151, 160;
did not borrow from the Veda, 159 _n._;
only identical predication possible, iii. 221, 223, 232
_n._, 252, i. 165;
coincidence with Plato, ii. 47 _n._;
refutation of, in _Sophistês_, iii. 223, 390 _n._, i.
163, 165;
misconceived the function of the copula, iii. 221;
errors due to the then imperfect logic, 241;
fallacies of, ii. 215;
not caricatured in _Kratylus_, iii. 304 _n._, 322
_n._;
on pleasure, 389 _n._;
compared with Aristippus, i. 190;
antipathy to Plato, 151, 152 _n._, 165;
opposed Platonic ideas, 164;
the first protest of Nominalism against Realism, _ib._;
qualities non-existent without the mind, iii. 74 _n._;
distinction of simple and complex objects, i. 171;
simple undefinable, _ib._;
Aristotle on, 172;
Plato, _ib._;
Mill, _ib._ _n._;
Aristotle on school of, 115;
doctrines developed by Stoics, 198.
Antoninus, Marcus, view of death, i.
422 _n._;
etymologies, iii. 308 _n._;
_Pius_, compared to Sokrates, ii. 382 _n._, iii. 21
_n._
Anytus, hostility to Sophists, ii. 240;
and philosophy generally, 255.
[Greek: A)/peiron], see _Infinite_.
Aphorisms of Herakleitus and the Pythagoreans, i. 106.
Aphroditê, influence very small in Platonic state, iv. 197, 359
_n._
[Greek: A)phrosu/nê], equivoque, ii. 279.
Apollo, to be consulted for religious legislation, iv. 34, 137
_n._, 325, 337;
Xenophon on, i. 237;
consulted by Xenophon under Sokrates' advice, 208.
Apology, naturally the first dialogue for review, i. 411;
authenticity, 304, 306, 410, 422 _n._, ii. 421 _n._;
date, i. 306-8, 311, 313, 330;
Zeno, the Stoic, attracted to Athens by perusal of, 418;
its general character, 412;
is Sokrates' real defence not intentionally altered 410;
testimony to truth of general features of Sokrates' character
in, 419 _n._;
differently set forth in _Kriton_, 428;
Sokrates' mission, to combat false persuasion of knowledge, 374,
ii. 24;
influence of public beliefs, generated without any ostensible
author, i. 424;
Sokrates' judgment on poets, expanded, ii. 129;
compared with _Gorgias_, 362 _n._, 368;
_Phædon_, 419;
_Kleitophon_, iii. 421;
_Antigone_ of Sophokles, i. 429, _n._
Appetite subordinated by Plato and Aristotle to reason and duty,
iv. 204;
soul, 245;
analogous to craftsmen in state, 39.
À priori, Plato's dogmas are, i. 399;
reasonings, Plato differs from moderns, ii. 251;
element of cognition, iii. 118.
Archelaus of Macedonia, ii. 325, 333 _n._, 334, 336.
Archilochus, censured by Herakleitus, i. 26.
[Greek: A)retê/], derivation, iii. 301 _n._
Arêtê, i. 195.
Argos, bad basis of government, iv. 310.
Argumenta ad Hominem, i. 98.
Aristeides, pupil of Sokrates, ii. 102;
reply to _Gorgias_, 371 _n._, i. 243 _n._;
belief in dreams, iii. 146 _n._
Aristippus, works, i. 111, 116;
ethical, not transcendental, 122;
discourse of Sokrates with, 175;
the choice of Herakles, 177;
Sokrates on the Good and Beautiful, 184;
good is relative to human beings and wants, 185;
relativity of knowledge, iii. 126 _n._, i. 198, 204;
the just and honourable, by law, not nature, 197;
prudence, a good from its consequent pleasures, _ib._;
acted on Sokrates' advice, 187, 199, 201;
aspiration for self-mastery, 188;
ethical theory, 195, 200 _n._;
compared with Diogenes and Antisthenes, 190;
developed by Epikurus, 198;
scheme of life, 181, 188;
Horace's analogous, 192 _n._;
pleasure a generation, iii. 378 _n._;
communism of wives, i. 189 _n._;
contempt for geometry and physics, 186, 192;
taught as a Sophist, 193;
intercourse with Dionysius, _ib._;
antipathy to Xenophon, 182 _n._
Aristogeiton, iii. 4 _n._
Aristophanes, the _Euthyphron_ a retort against, i. 442;
connects idea of immorality with free thought, iv. 166;
Sokrates in the _Nubes_, 230 _n._;
function of poet, 306 _n._;
_Nubes_ analogous to Plato's _Leges_, 277;
_Vespæ_, 298 _n._;
_Aves_, 329 _n._
Aristophanes [Greek: grammatiko/s], librarian at Alexandria, i.
273;
labours, _ib._ _n._;
first to arrange Platonic canon, 286;
catalogue of Plato trustworthy, 285;
division of Plato into trilogies, 273;
principle followed by Thrasyllus, 295, 299.
Aristotle and Plato represent pure Hellenic philosophy, i.
_xiv_;
St. Jerome on, _xv_;
MSS., 270, 283;
Arabic translation, iv. 213 _n._;
zoological works, iii. 62 _n._;
lost Dialogues, i. 262 _n._;
different in form from Plato's, 356 _n._;
style, 405;
no uniform consistency, 340 _n._;
relation to predecessors, 85, 91;
importance of his information about early Greek philosophy, 85;
as historian, misled by his own conceptions, 24 _n._;
contrasts "human wisdom" with primitive theology, 3 _n._;
treatment of his predecessors compared by Bacon to conduct of a
Sultan, 85 _n._;
blames Ionic philosophy for attending to _material_ cause
alone, 87;
abstractions of, compared with Ionians, _ib._;
erroneously identified heat with Parmenides' ens, 24 _n._;
on Zeno's arguments, 93;
on Anaxagorean homoeomeries, 52 _n._;
charges Anaxagoras with inconsistency, 56;
relation to Empedokles and Anaxagoras, 89;
approves of fundamental tenet of Diogenes of Apollonia, 61
_n._;
Demokritus often mentioned in, iv. 355 _n._;
blames Demokritus for omitting final causes, i. 73 _n._;
on flux of Herakleitus, iii. 154 _n._;
accused of substituting physical for mental causes, ii. 401
_n._;
_cause_, difference from Plato, 407;
controversy with Megarics about Power, i. 135;
depends on question of universal regularity of sequence, 141;
Megarics defended by Hobbes, 143;
Aristotle's arguments not valid, 136-9;
himself concedes the doctrine, 139 _n._;
distinction of actual and potential, iii. 135 _n._, i. 139;
graduation of causes, 142;
motion, coincides nearly with Diodôrus Kronus, 146;
and Hobbes, _ib._;
chance, 142;
physics retrograded with, 89 _n._;
sphericity of kosmos, 25 _n._, iv. 225 _n._;
_Demiurgus_ little noticed in, 255;
Plato's geometrical theory of the elements, 241 _n._;
espoused and enlarged astronomical theory of Eudoxus, i. 257
_n._;
reason of the kosmos, different from Sokrates' conception, ii.
402 _n._;
on Eudoxus, iii. 375 _n._, 379 _n._;
time, 103;
friend of Ptolemy Soter, i. 279;
pupil of Plato, 260;
opposition during Plato's lifetime, 360 _n._;
mode of alluding to Plato, iii. 186 _n._;
on Plato's lectures, i. 347;
on poetical vein in Plato, 343, iv. 255 _n._;
Plato's tendency to found arguments on metaphor, ii. 337
_n._;
ontology substratum for phenomenology, i. 24 _n._;
_philosophia prima_, 358 _n._, iii. 230 _n._,
382;
_materia prima_, i. 72;
view of logic of a science, different from Plato's, 358
_n._;
on Plato's ideas, 348, 360 _n._, ii. 192, 194 _n._,
410 _n._, iii. 64 _n._, 65 _n._, 66 _n._, 67
_n._, 77 _n._, 78, 245, 367 _n._, iv. 214
_n._, i. 120 _n._;
generic and analogical aggregates, ii. 193, iii. 365 _n._;
_Sophistês_ an approximation to Aristotle's view, 247;
definition of _ens_, 230 _n._, 242 _n._;
on _the different_, 238 _n._;
partly successful in fitting on the ideas to facts of sense, 78;
percept prior to the percipient, 76 _n._;
conception of [Greek: ai)/sthêsis], 165 _n._;
Plato's theory of vision, iv. 237 _n._;
Plato's doctrine of naming, iii. 286 _n._, 294 _n._,
325 _n._;
etymologies, 301 _n._, 307 _n._, 308 _n._;
no analysis or classification of propositions before, 222;
propositions, some true, others false, assumed, 249;
definition of simple objects, i. 172;
on only identical predication possible, 166, 171;
more careful than Plato in distinguishing equivoques, ii. 170,
279 _n._;
equivocal meaning of _know_, 213 _n._;
indeterminate predicates Ens, Unum, Idem, &c., iii. 94;
first to attempt classification of fallacies, ii. 212;
De Sophisticis Elenchis, 222;
first distinguished [Greek: o(mô/numa], [Greek: sunô/numa], and
[Greek: kat' a)nalogi/an], iii. 94 _n._;
two methods, coincide with Thrasyllus' classification, i. 303;
basis of dialectic, 133 _n._;
negative method, its necessity as a condition of reasoned truth,
372 _n._;
distinct aptitudes required for dialectic, ii. 54;
on dissecting function of dialectic, 70 _n._;
distinction of dialectic and eristic, 221 _n._;
precepts for debate, iii. 91 _n._;
Rhetoric, 43;
on _Menexenus_, 409 _n._, 412 _n._;
distinction of ends, 374 _n._;
good the object of universal desire, 372 _n._;
threefold division of good, iv. 428 _n._;
no common end among established [Greek: no/mima], iii. 282
_n._;
combats Sokrates' thesis in _Memorabilia_ and _Hippias
Minor_, ii. 67;
lying not justifiable, iii. 386 _n._;
meanings of justice, iv. 102;
meaning of [Greek: phu/sei], iii. 294 _n._;
on opposition of natural and legal justice, ii. 340 _n._;
nature, iv. 387 _n._;
on Law, ii. 92 _n._;
theory of politics to resist King Nomos, i. 392;
on virtue is knowledge, ii. 67 _n._, 290 _n._;
divine inspiration, 131 _n._;
[Greek: sophi/a] and [Greek: phro/nêsis], 120 _n._;
on [Greek: to\ a)dikei=n be/ltion tou= a)dikei=sthai], 333
_n._;
treatment of courage and temperance, compared with Plato's, 170;
derivation of [Greek: sôphrosu/nê], iii. 301 _n._;
on pleasure, 383 _n._, 386 _n._;
pleasure not a generation, 378 _n._;
painless pleasures of geometry, 357, 388 _n._;
on intense pleasures, 376 _n._;
on Antisthenes, 253 _n._;
school of Antisthenes, i. 115;
on friendship, ii. 186;
_prima amicitia_, compared with Sokrates' _amabile
primum_, 194;
on Plato's reminiscence, 250 _n._;
immortality of soul, 420 _n._;
relation of body to soul, iii. 389 _n._;
on function of lungs, iv. 245 _n._;
liver, 258 _n._;
Plato's physiology and pathology compared with, 260;
definition of _sophist_, ii. 210;
equally with Sophists, laid claim to universal knowledge, iii.
219;
on _Homo mensura_, 120 _n._, 128 _n._, 131
_n._, 132 _n._, 149 _n._, 152;
cites from the _Protagoras_, ii. 290 _n._;
category of relation, iii. 128 _n._;
the Axioms of Mathematics, i. 358 _n._;
ethics and politics treated apart, iv. 138;
three ends of political constructor, 328 _n._;
education combined with polity, 142, 184;
on principle that every citizen belongs to the city, 187, 189
_n._;
training of Spartan women, 188;
views on teaching, iii. 53 _n._;
chorus of elders only criticise, iv. 297 _n._;
importance of music in education, 151 _n._, 305;
ethical and emotional effects conveyed by sense of hearing, 307
_n._;
implication of intelligence and emotion, iii. 374 _n._;
view of tragic poetry, iv. 317 _n._;
Plato's ideal state, 139 _n._;
it is two states, 185;
objection valid against his own ideal, 186 _n._;
the Demos adjuncts, not members of state, 184;
Plato's state impossible, in what sense true, 189;
democracy and monarchy _not_ mother-polities, 312
_n._;
oligarchical character of Plato's second _idéal_, 334
_n._;
_idéal_ of character, different from Spartan, 182;
differs from Plato on slavery, 344 _n._;
land of citizens, 327 _n._;
number of citizens limited, 198-201, 326 _n._;
communism, 180** _n._;
Plato's family restrictions, 329 _n._;
on marriage, 189, 198-202;
on infanticide, 202;
recognised Malthus' law of population, _ib._;
allusions to _Leges_, 272 _n._, 432;
prayer and sacrifice, 394.
Arithmetic, Pythagorean, i. 15;
modern application of their principle, 10 _n._;
subject of Plato's lectures, 349 _n._;
twofold, iii. 359, 394;
to be studied, iv. 423;
awakening power of, 71, 72;
value of, 329 _n._, 352;
acoustics to be studied by relations and theories of, 74;
proportionals, 224 _n._, 423;
its axioms from induction, 353 _n._;
Mill on assumption in axioms of, iii. 396 _n._
Art, the supreme, is philosophy, ii. 119, 120;
disparaged by Plato, 355;
relation to science, iii. 43 _n._, 45, 155, 263;
relation to morality, see _Education_, _Poets_**.
Ascetic life of philosopher, ii. 386;
Pythagoreans, iii. 390 _n._;
Orphics, _ib._;
Cynics, i. 151, 157;
Diogenes compared with Indian Gymnosophists and Selli, 157, 159
_n._, 163 _n._;
Indian Gynmosophists, antiquity of, 159 _n._;
Selli, 163 _n._
Aspasia, iii. 402, i. 112, 211 _n._
Association of Ideas, i. 423 _n._;
Plato's statement of general law of, ii. 191;
Aristotle, _ib._ _n._;
Straton on, iii. 166 _n._
Ast, theory of Platonic canon, i. 304;
admits only fourteen, 305;
on _Apology_, 422 _n._;
_Lachês_, ii. 151;
_Hippias Major_, 33 _n._;
_Kratylus_, iii. 310 _n._;
_Menexenus_, 412 _n._;
_Timæus_, iv. 255 _n._;
_Leges_, 431, 434.
Astronomy, ancient, i. 3;
of Anaxagoras, 57;
modern, doctrine of aerolithes anticipated by Diogenes of
Apollonia, 64 _n._;
first systematic Greek hypothesis propounded by Eudoxus, 255;
Planets, meaning in Plato's age, iv. 354 _n._, 422;
Demokritus' idea of motions of, 355 _n._;
Plato's idea of motions of, _ib._;
Sokrates avoided, i. 376;
Plato's relation to theory of Eudoxus, 257 _n._;
theological view of, iv. 421;
advantages of this view, 422;
object of instruction in, 354;
must be studied by ideal figures, not observation, 73.
Atheist, loose use of term, iv. 382 _n._
Athenians, proceedings of Sokrates repugnant to, i. 387;
statesmen, ignorance of, ii. 8, 360;
characteristics of, 118;
customs of, iii. 24 _n._;
intellect predominant in, iv. 38;
Plato's _idéal_ of character, 147, 151;
ancient, citizens of Plato's state identified with, 266;
general coincidence of Platonic and Attic law, 364, 374
_n._, 403, 406, 430;
taxes of, i. 242 _n._
Athens, less intolerance at, than elsewhere, iii. 277, iv. 396;
lauded, iii. 405, 409 _n._;
by Xenophon, i. 238;
funeral harangues at, iii. 401-5;
hatred to [Greek: ba/rbaroi], 406 _n._;
and Persia compared, iv. 312;
excess of liberty at, _ib._;
change for worse at, after Persian invasion, 313;
contrast in Demosthenes and _Menexenus_, 315 _n._,
318;
Plato's aversion to dramatic poetry at, 316;
peculiar to himself, 317;
Aristotle differs, _ib._ _n._;
Plato's ideal compared with, 430;
secession of philosophers from, i. 111 _n._
Atlantic, unnavigable, the belief in Plato's age, iv. 270.
Atlantis, iv. 215;
description of, 268;
corruption and wickedness of people, 269;
address of Zeus, _ib._;
submergence, 270.
Atoms, atomic theory, i. 65;
relation to Eleatics, 66;
of Demokritus, differ, only in magnitude, figure, position, and
arrangement, 69;
generate qualities by movements and combinations, _ib._,
70;
possess inherent force, 73;
not really objects of sense, 72 _n._;
essentially separate from each other, 71;
yet analogous to the homoeomeries of Anaxagoras, 79 _n._;
different from Platonic _Idea_ and Aristotle's _materia
prima_, 72;
mental, 75;
thought produced by influx of, 79.
Attikus, iv. 242 _n._
Augustine, St., iii. 303 _n._
Austin, meaning of law, ii. 92 _n._
Authority, early appearance in Greece of a few freethinkers, i.
384;
multiplicity of individual authorities characteristic of Greek
philosophy, 84;
distinguished them from contemporary nations, 90;
advantages, _ib._;
influence of, on most men, 378-82, 392, 424, ii. 333, iv. 351;
Aristophanes connects idea of immorality with free thought, 166;
freedom of thought essential to philosophy, i. 383, 394
_n._, ii. 368, iii. 151 _n._;
the basis of dialectic, 147, 297, 337 _n._;
all exposition an assemblage of individual judgments, 139;
belief on, relation to _Homo mensura_, 142, 143, 293;
Sokrates asserts right of satisfaction for his own individual
reason, i. 386, 423, 436, ii. 233;
individual reason authoritative to each, i. 432;
Plato on difficulty of resisting, 392 _n._;
combated by Plato, 398 _n._;
Plato's dissent from established religious doctrine, iv. 161,
163;
danger of one who dissents from the public, ii. 359, 364, 366;
dignity and independence of philosophic dissenter, upheld, 375;
individual reason worthless, Herakleitus, i. 34;
of public judgment, nothing, of expert, everything, 426, 435;
different view, 446 _n._;
Sokrates does not name, but himself acts as, expert, 435;
appeal to, suppressed in Academic sect, 368 _n._;
Epiktetus on, 388 _n._;
Cicero, 369, 384 _n._;
Bishop Huet, _ib._;
Council of Trent, 390 _n._;
Dr. Vaughan, iv. 380 _n._;
see _Orthodoxy_.
Averroism, iii. 68 _n._
Axiomata media, iii. 52, 369.
Axioms of Mathematics, Aristotle's view, i. 358 _n._;
of Arithmetic and Geometry, from induction, iii. 396 _n._,
iv. 353 _n._
B.
Bacon, importance of negative method, i. 373 _n._, 386;
on doubt, 394 _n._;
misrepresents Aristotle's treatment of his predecessors, 85
_n._;
contrasts Plato and Aristotle with Pre-Sokratic philosophy, 88
_n._;
_Idola_, ii. 218;
anticipation of nature, 219 _n._;
relativity of mental and sensational processes, iii. 122
_n._;
axiomata media, 52, 369.
Badham, Dr., on _Philêbus_, iii. 365 _n._, 381 _n._,
389 _n._, 392 _n._, 396 _n._
Bain, Prof., on the Beautiful, ii. 50 _n._;
the Tender Emotion, 188 _n._;
law of mental association, 192 _n._;
analysis of Belief, 218;
reciprocity of regard indispensable to society, 312 _n._;
relativity of knowledge, iii. 123 _n._;
on pleasures, 383 _n._
Batteux, iv. 229 _n._
Bayle, iv. 233.
Beautiful, the, as translation of [Greek: to\ kalo/n], ii. 49
_n._;
Hippias' lectures at Sparta on, 39;
what is, _ib._;
instances given, 40;
gold makes all things beautiful, 41;
not the becoming or the profitable, 43, 50 _n._;
a variety of the pleasurable, 45;
inadmissible, _ib._;
Dugald Stewart, Mill, and Bain on, 50 _n._;
Plato's antithesis of relative and absolute, 54;
difference of Sokrates and Plato, 55;
as object of attachment, 194;
aspect of physical, awakens reminiscence of Ideas, 422, iii. 4,
14;
Greek sentiment towards youths, 1;
stimulus to mental procreation, 4, 6, 18;
different view, _Phædon_, _Theætêtus_,
_Sophistês_, _Republic_, _ib._;
exaltation of Eros in a few, love of beauty _in genere_, 7,
16;
love of, excited by musical training, iv. 27;
and the good, iii. 5 _n._;
Idea of, exclusively presented in _Symposion_, 18;
discourse of Sokrates with Aristippus, i. 184.
Beckmann, book-censors, iv. 379 _n._
Belief, Prof. Bain's analysis, ii. 218;
causes of, variable, iii. 150;
always relative to the believer's mind, 292, 297;
sentiments of disbelief and, common, but grounds different with
different men and ages, 296;
and conjecture, two grades of opinion, iv. 67;
Plato's canon of, 231.
Bentham, meaning of Law, ii. 92 _n._
Berkeley, theory of, iv. 243 _n._;
implication of subject and object, iii. 123 _n._;
his use of _sensation_, 165 _n._
Bion, on Plato's doctrine of reminiscence, ii. 249 _n._
Body, animal bodies purer than air or earth, Anaxagoras doctrine,
i. 51;
Plato's antithesis of soul to, ii. 384;
soul prior to and more powerful than, iv. 386, 419, 421;
relation of mind to organs of, iii. 159;
Aristotle, 389 _n._;
Monboddo, iv. 387 _n._;
discredit of, in _Phædon_, ii. 422;
life a struggle between soul and, 386, 388, iv. 233, 235
_n._;
derivation of [Greek: sô=ma], iii. 301 _n._;
alone reflects beauty of ideal world, ii. 422, iii. 4, 14;
Ideas gained through bodily senses, ii. 422;
of kosmos, iv. 225;
genesis of, 421;
Demiurgus prepares for man's construction, places a soul in each
star, 235;
Demiurgus conjoins three souls and one body, 233;
generated gods fabricate cranium as miniature of kosmos with
rational soul rotating within, 235;
generated gods mount cranium on a tall body, 236;
genesis of women and inferior animals from degenerate man, 252;
this degeneracy originally intended, 263;
organs of sense, 236;
vision, sleep, dreams, _ib._;
sleep, doctrine of Herakleitus, i. 34;
principal advantages of sight and hearing, iv. 237;
each part of the soul is at once material and mental, 257;
thoracic soul, function of heart and lungs, 245;
Empedokles' belief as to the movement of the blood, i. 43;
Empedokles illustrated respiration by _klepsydra_, 44
_n._;
abdominal soul, function of liver, iv. 245, 258;
seat of prophetic agency, 246;
function of spleen, _ib._;
object of length of intestinal canal, 247;
bone, flesh, marrow, nails, mouth, teeth, _ib._;
general survey of diseases, 249;
diseases of mind from, _ib._;
intense pleasures belong to distempered, iii. 355, 391;
preservative and healing agencies, iv. 250;
training should be simple, 28.
Boeckh, on _Minos_ and _Hipparchus_, i. 337 _n._,
ii. 93;
_Kleitophon_, iii. 419 _n._;
_Timæus_, iv. 224 _n._, 226 _n._, 227 _n._,
241 _n._;
_Leges_, 273 _n._, 355 _n._;
_Epinomis_, 424 _n._;
Xenophon's financial schemes, i. 242 _n._
Boethius, on Plato's reminiscence, ii. 250 _n._