Produced by Sue Asscher
THE DIALOGUES OF PLATO
CHARMIDES
By Plato
Translated into English with Analyses and Introductions By B. Jowett,
M.A.
Master of Balliol College
Regius Professor of Greek in the University of Oxford
Doctor in Theology of the University of Leyden
TO MY FORMER PUPILS
in Balliol College and in the University of Oxford who during fifty
years have been the best of friends to me these volumes are inscribed in
grateful recognition of their never failing attachment.
The additions and alterations which have been made, both in the
Introductions and in the Text of this Edition, affect at least a third
of the work.
Having regard to the extent of these alterations, and to the annoyance
which is naturally felt by the owner of a book at the possession of it
in an inferior form, and still more keenly by the writer himself, who
must always desire to be read as he is at his best, I have thought that
the possessor of either of the former Editions (1870 and 1876) might
wish to exchange it for the present one. I have therefore arranged that
those who would like to make this exchange, on depositing a perfect
and undamaged copy of the first or second Edition with any agent of the
Clarendon Press, shall be entitled to receive a copy of a new Edition at
half-price.
PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.
The Text which has been mostly followed in this Translation of Plato is
the latest 8vo. edition of Stallbaum; the principal deviations are noted
at the bottom of the page.
I have to acknowledge many obligations to old friends and pupils. These
are:--Mr. John Purves, Fellow of Balliol College, with whom I have
revised about half of the entire Translation; the Rev. Professor
Campbell, of St. Andrews, who has helped me in the revision of several
parts of the work, especially of the Theaetetus, Sophist, and Politicus;
Mr. Robinson Ellis, Fellow of Trinity College, and Mr. Alfred Robinson,
Fellow of New College, who read with me the Cratylus and the Gorgias;
Mr. Paravicini, Student of Christ Church, who assisted me in the
Symposium; Mr. Raper, Fellow of Queen's College, Mr. Monro, Fellow of
Oriel College, and Mr. Shadwell, Student of Christ Church, who gave me
similar assistance in the Laws. Dr. Greenhill, of Hastings, has also
kindly sent me remarks on the physiological part of the Timaeus, which I
have inserted as corrections under the head of errata at the end of the
Introduction. The degree of accuracy which I have been enabled to attain
is in great measure due to these gentlemen, and I heartily thank them
for the pains and time which they have bestowed on my work.
I have further to explain how far I have received help from other
labourers in the same field. The books which I have found of most
use are Steinhart and Muller's German Translation of Plato with
Introductions; Zeller's 'Philosophie der Griechen,' and 'Platonische
Studien;' Susemihl's 'Genetische Entwickelung der Paltonischen
Philosophie;' Hermann's 'Geschichte der Platonischen Philosophie;'
Bonitz, 'Platonische Studien;' Stallbaum's Notes and Introductions;
Professor Campbell's editions of the 'Theaetetus,' the 'Sophist,' and
the 'Politicus;' Professor Thompson's 'Phaedrus;' Th. Martin's 'Etudes
sur le Timee;' Mr. Poste's edition and translation of the 'Philebus;'
the Translation of the 'Republic,' by Messrs. Davies and Vaughan, and
the Translation of the 'Gorgias,' by Mr. Cope.
I have also derived much assistance from the great work of Mr. Grote,
which contains excellent analyses of the Dialogues, and is rich in
original thoughts and observations. I agree with him in rejecting as
futile the attempt of Schleiermacher and others to arrange the Dialogues
of Plato into a harmonious whole. Any such arrangement appears to me not
only to be unsupported by evidence, but to involve an anachronism in
the history of philosophy. There is a common spirit in the writings of
Plato, but not a unity of design in the whole, nor perhaps a perfect
unity in any single Dialogue. The hypothesis of a general plan which
is worked out in the successive Dialogues is an after-thought of the
critics who have attributed a system to writings belonging to an age
when system had not as yet taken possession of philosophy.
If Mr. Grote should do me the honour to read any portion of this work
he will probably remark that I have endeavoured to approach Plato from a
point of view which is opposed to his own. The aim of the Introductions
in these volumes has been to represent Plato as the father of Idealism,
who is not to be measured by the standard of utilitarianism or any
other modern philosophical system. He is the poet or maker of ideas,
satisfying the wants of his own age, providing the instruments
of thought for future generations. He is no dreamer, but a great
philosophical genius struggling with the unequal conditions of light
and knowledge under which he is living. He may be illustrated by the
writings of moderns, but he must be interpreted by his own, and by his
place in the history of philosophy. We are not concerned to determine
what is the residuum of truth which remains for ourselves. His truth may
not be our truth, and nevertheless may have an extraordinary value and
interest for us.
I cannot agree with Mr. Grote in admitting as genuine all the
writings commonly attributed to Plato in antiquity, any more than with
Schaarschmidt and some other German critics who reject nearly half of
them. The German critics, to whom I refer, proceed chiefly on grounds
of internal evidence; they appear to me to lay too much stress on the
variety of doctrine and style, which must be equally acknowledged as a
fact, even in the Dialogues regarded by Schaarschmidt as genuine, e.g.
in the Phaedrus, or Symposium, when compared with the Laws. He
who admits works so different in style and matter to have been the
composition of the same author, need have no difficulty in admitting
the Sophist or the Politicus. (The negative argument adduced by the same
school of critics, which is based on the silence of Aristotle, is not
worthy of much consideration. For why should Aristotle, because he has
quoted several Dialogues of Plato, have quoted them all? Something must
be allowed to chance, and to the nature of the subjects treated of in
them.) On the other hand, Mr. Grote trusts mainly to the Alexandrian
Canon. But I hardly think that we are justified in attributing much
weight to the authority of the Alexandrian librarians in an age when
there was no regular publication of books, and every temptation to forge
them; and in which the writings of a school were naturally attributed to
the founder of the school. And even without intentional fraud, there was
an inclination to believe rather than to enquire. Would Mr. Grote accept
as genuine all the writings which he finds in the lists of learned
ancients attributed to Hippocrates, to Xenophon, to Aristotle? The
Alexandrian Canon of the Platonic writings is deprived of credit by the
admission of the Epistles, which are not only unworthy of Plato, and in
several passages plagiarized from him, but flagrantly at variance with
historical fact. It will be seen also that I do not agree with Mr.
Grote's views about the Sophists; nor with the low estimate which he has
formed of Plato's Laws; nor with his opinion respecting Plato's doctrine
of the rotation of the earth. But I 'am not going to lay hands on my
father Parmenides' (Soph.), who will, I hope, forgive me for differing
from him on these points. I cannot close this Preface without expressing
my deep respect for his noble and gentle character, and the great
services which he has rendered to Greek Literature.
Balliol College, January, 1871.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS.
In publishing a Second Edition (1875) of the Dialogues of Plato in
English, I had to acknowledge the assistance of several friends: of
the Rev. G.G. Bradley, Master of University College, now Dean of
Westminster, who sent me some valuable remarks on the Phaedo; of Dr.
Greenhill, who had again revised a portion of the Timaeus; of Mr. R.L.
Nettleship, Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, to whom I was indebted
for an excellent criticism of the Parmenides; and, above all, of the
Rev. Professor Campbell of St. Andrews, and Mr. Paravicini, late Student
of Christ Church and Tutor of Balliol College, with whom I had read over
the greater part of the translation. I was also indebted to Mr. Evelyn
Abbott, Fellow and Tutor of Balliol College, for a complete and accurate
index.
In this, the Third Edition, I am under very great obligations to Mr.
Matthew Knight, who has not only favoured me with valuable suggestions
throughout the work, but has largely extended the Index (from 61 to 175
pages) and translated the Eryxias and Second Alcibiades; and to Mr
Frank Fletcher, of Balliol College, my Secretary. I am also considerably
indebted to Mr. J.W. Mackail, late Fellow of Balliol College, who read
over the Republic in the Second Edition and noted several inaccuracies.
In both editions the Introductions to the Dialogues have been enlarged,
and essays on subjects having an affinity to the Platonic Dialogues have
been introduced into several of them. The analyses have been corrected,
and innumerable alterations have been made in the Text. There have been
added also, in the Third Edition, headings to the pages and a marginal
analysis to the text of each dialogue.
At the end of a long task, the translator may without impropriety point
out the difficulties which he has had to encounter. These have been far
greater than he would have anticipated; nor is he at all sanguine that
he has succeeded in overcoming them. Experience has made him feel that a
translation, like a picture, is dependent for its effect on very minute
touches; and that it is a work of infinite pains, to be returned to in
many moods and viewed in different lights.
I. An English translation ought to be idiomatic and interesting, not
only to the scholar, but to the unlearned reader. Its object should not
simply be to render the words of one language into the words of another
or to preserve the construction and order of the original;--this is the
ambition of a schoolboy, who wishes to show that he has made a good use
of his Dictionary and Grammar; but is quite unworthy of the translator,
who seeks to produce on his reader an impression similar or nearly
similar to that produced by the original. To him the feeling should be
more important than the exact word. He should remember Dryden's quaint
admonition not to 'lacquey by the side of his author, but to mount up
behind him.' (Dedication to the Aeneis.) He must carry in his mind a
comprehensive view of the whole work, of what has preceded and of what
is to follow,--as well as of the meaning of particular passages. His
version should be based, in the first instance, on an intimate knowledge
of the text; but the precise order and arrangement of the words may be
left to fade out of sight, when the translation begins to take shape. He
must form a general idea of the two languages, and reduce the one to the
terms of the other. His work should be rhythmical and varied, the
right admixture of words and syllables, and even of letters, should be
carefully attended to; above all, it should be equable in style. There
must also be quantity, which is necessary in prose as well as in verse:
clauses, sentences, paragraphs, must be in due proportion. Metre and
even rhyme may be rarely admitted; though neither is a legitimate
element of prose writing, they may help to lighten a cumbrous
expression (Symp.). The translation should retain as far as possible
the characteristic qualities of the ancient writer--his freedom, grace,
simplicity, stateliness, weight, precision; or the best part of him will
be lost to the English reader. It should read as an original work, and
should also be the most faithful transcript which can be made of the
language from which the translation is taken, consistently with the
first requirement of all, that it be English. Further, the translation
being English, it should also be perfectly intelligible in itself
without reference to the Greek, the English being really the more lucid
and exact of the two languages. In some respects it may be maintained
that ordinary English writing, such as the newspaper article, is
superior to Plato: at any rate it is couched in language which is very
rarely obscure. On the other hand, the greatest writers of Greece,
Thucydides, Plato, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Pindar, Demosthenes, are
generally those which are found to be most difficult and to diverge most
widely from the English idiom. The translator will often have to convert
the more abstract Greek into the more concrete English, or vice versa,
and he ought not to force upon one language the character of another.
In some cases, where the order is confused, the expression feeble, the
emphasis misplaced, or the sense somewhat faulty, he will not strive in
his rendering to reproduce these characteristics, but will re-write the
passage as his author would have written it at first, had he not been
'nodding'; and he will not hesitate to supply anything which, owing to
the genius of the language or some accident of composition, is
omitted in the Greek, but is necessary to make the English clear and
consecutive.
It is difficult to harmonize all these conflicting elements. In a
translation of Plato what may be termed the interests of the Greek
and English are often at war with one another. In framing the English
sentence we are insensibly diverted from the exact meaning of the Greek;
when we return to the Greek we are apt to cramp and overlay the English.
We substitute, we compromise, we give and take, we add a little here
and leave out a little there. The translator may sometimes be allowed to
sacrifice minute accuracy for the sake of clearness and sense. But he is
not therefore at liberty to omit words and turns of expression which the
English language is quite capable of supplying. He must be patient and
self-controlled; he must not be easily run away with. Let him never
allow the attraction of a favourite expression, or a sonorous cadence,
to overpower his better judgment, or think much of an ornament which is
out of keeping with the general character of his work. He must ever be
casting his eyes upwards from the copy to the original, and down again
from the original to the copy (Rep.). His calling is not held in much
honour by the world of scholars; yet he himself may be excused
for thinking it a kind of glory to have lived so many years in the
companionship of one of the greatest of human intelligences, and in
some degree, more perhaps than others, to have had the privilege of
understanding him (Sir Joshua Reynolds' Lectures: Disc. xv.).
There are fundamental differences in Greek and English, of which some
may be managed while others remain intractable. (1). The structure of
the Greek language is partly adversative and alternative, and partly
inferential; that is to say, the members of a sentence are either
opposed to one another, or one of them expresses the cause or effect
or condition or reason of another. The two tendencies may be called the
horizontal and perpendicular lines of the language; and the opposition
or inference is often much more one of words than of ideas. But modern
languages have rubbed off this adversative and inferential form: they
have fewer links of connection, there is less mortar in the interstices,
and they are content to place sentences side by side, leaving their
relation to one another to be gathered from their position or from
the context. The difficulty of preserving the effect of the Greek
is increased by the want of adversative and inferential particles in
English, and by the nice sense of tautology which characterizes all
modern languages. We cannot have two 'buts' or two 'fors' in the same
sentence where the Greek repeats (Greek). There is a similar want of
particles expressing the various gradations of objective and subjective
thought--(Greek) and the like, which are so thickly scattered over the
Greek page. Further, we can only realize to a very imperfect degree
the common distinction between (Greek), and the combination of the
two suggests a subtle shade of negation which cannot be expressed
in English. And while English is more dependent than Greek upon the
apposition of clauses and sentences, yet there is a difficulty in using
this form of construction owing to the want of case endings. For the
same reason there cannot be an equal variety in the order of words or an
equal nicety of emphasis in English as in Greek.
(2) The formation of the sentence and of the paragraph greatly differs
in Greek and English. The lines by which they are divided are generally
much more marked in modern languages than in ancient. Both sentences
and paragraphs are more precise and definite--they do not run into
one another. They are also more regularly developed from within.
The sentence marks another step in an argument or a narrative or a
statement; in reading a paragraph we silently turn over the page and
arrive at some new view or aspect of the subject. Whereas in Plato we
are not always certain where a sentence begins and ends; and paragraphs
are few and far between. The language is distributed in a different way,
and less articulated than in English. For it was long before the true
use of the period was attained by the classical writers both in poetry
or prose; it was (Greek). The balance of sentences and the introduction
of paragraphs at suitable intervals must not be neglected if the harmony
of the English language is to be preserved. And still a caution has to
be added on the other side, that we must avoid giving it a numerical or
mechanical character.
(3) This, however, is not one of the greatest difficulties of the
translator; much greater is that which arises from the restriction
of the use of the genders. Men and women in English are masculine
and feminine, and there is a similar distinction of sex in the words
denoting animals; but all things else, whether outward objects or
abstract ideas, are relegated to the class of neuters. Hardly in some
flight of poetry do we ever endue any of them with the characteristics
of a sentient being, and then only by speaking of them in the feminine
gender. The virtues may be pictured in female forms, but they are not so
described in language; a ship is humorously supposed to be the sailor's
bride; more doubtful are the personifications of church and country as
females. Now the genius of the Greek language is the opposite of
this. The same tendency to personification which is seen in the Greek
mythology is common also in the language; and genders are attributed to
things as well as persons according to their various degrees of strength
and weakness; or from fanciful resemblances to the male or female form,
or some analogy too subtle to be discovered. When the gender of any
object was once fixed, a similar gender was naturally assigned to
similar objects, or to words of similar formation. This use of genders
in the denotation of objects or ideas not only affects the words
to which genders are attributed, but the words with which they are
construed or connected, and passes into the general character of the
style. Hence arises a difficulty in translating Greek into English
which cannot altogether be overcome. Shall we speak of the soul and
its qualities, of virtue, power, wisdom, and the like, as feminine or
neuter? The usage of the English language does not admit of the former,
and yet the life and beauty of the style are impaired by the latter.
Often the translator will have recourse to the repetition of the word,
or to the ambiguous 'they,' 'their,' etc.; for fear of spoiling the
effect of the sentence by introducing 'it.' Collective nouns in Greek
and English create a similar but lesser awkwardness.
(4) To use of relation is far more extended in Greek than in English.
Partly the greater variety of genders and cases makes the connexion of
relative and antecedent less ambiguous: partly also the greater number
of demonstrative and relative pronouns, and the use of the article, make
the correlation of ideas simpler and more natural. The Greek appears
to have had an ear or intelligence for a long and complicated sentence
which is rarely to be found in modern nations; and in order to bring
the Greek down to the level of the modern, we must break up the long
sentence into two or more short ones. Neither is the same precision
required in Greek as in Latin or English, nor in earlier Greek as in
later; there was nothing shocking to the contemporary of Thucydides and
Plato in anacolutha and repetitions. In such cases the genius of
the English language requires that the translation should be more
intelligible than the Greek. The want of more distinctions between the
demonstrative pronouns is also greatly felt. Two genitives dependent
on one another, unless familiarised by idiom, have an awkward effect
in English. Frequently the noun has to take the place of the pronoun.
'This' and 'that' are found repeating themselves to weariness in the
rough draft of a translation. As in the previous case, while the feeling
of the modern language is more opposed to tautology, there is also a
greater difficulty in avoiding it.
(5) Though no precise rule can be laid down about the repetition of
words, there seems to be a kind of impertinence in presenting to the
reader the same thought in the same words, repeated twice over in the
same passage without any new aspect or modification of it. And the
evasion of tautology--that is, the substitution of one word of precisely
the same meaning for another--is resented by us equally with the
repetition of words. Yet on the other hand the least difference of
meaning or the least change of form from a substantive to an adjective,
or from a participle to a verb, will often remedy the unpleasant effect.
Rarely and only for the sake of emphasis or clearness can we allow an
important word to be used twice over in two successive sentences or even
in the same paragraph. The particles and pronouns, as they are of most
frequent occurrence, are also the most troublesome. Strictly speaking,
except a few of the commonest of them, 'and,' 'the,' etc., they ought
not to occur twice in the same sentence. But the Greek has no such
precise rules; and hence any literal translation of a Greek author is
full of tautology. The tendency of modern languages is to become more
correct as well as more perspicuous than ancient. And, therefore, while
the English translator is limited in the power of expressing relation or
connexion, by the law of his own language increased precision and also
increased clearness are required of him. The familiar use of logic, and
the progress of science, have in these two respects raised the standard.
But modern languages, while they have become more exacting in their
demands, are in many ways not so well furnished with powers of
expression as the ancient classical ones.
Such are a few of the difficulties which have to be overcome in the work
of translation; and we are far from having exhausted the list. (6) The
excellence of a translation will consist, not merely in the faithful
rendering of words, or in the composition of a sentence only, or yet
of a single paragraph, but in the colour and style of the whole work.
Equability of tone is best attained by the exclusive use of familiar and
idiomatic words. But great care must be taken; for an idiomatic phrase,
if an exception to the general style, is of itself a disturbing element.
No word, however expressive and exact, should be employed, which makes
the reader stop to think, or unduly attracts attention by difficulty
and peculiarity, or disturbs the effect of the surrounding language.
In general the style of one author is not appropriate to another; as in
society, so in letters, we expect every man to have 'a good coat of his
own,' and not to dress himself out in the rags of another. (a) Archaic
expressions are therefore to be avoided. Equivalents may be occasionally
drawn from Shakspere, who is the common property of us all; but they
must be used sparingly. For, like some other men of genius of the
Elizabethan and Jacobean age, he outdid the capabilities of the
language, and many of the expressions which he introduced have been laid
aside and have dropped out of use. (b) A similar principle should be
observed in the employment of Scripture. Having a greater force and
beauty than other language, and a religious association, it disturbs the
even flow of the style. It may be used to reproduce in the translation
the quaint effect of some antique phrase in the original, but rarely;
and when adopted, it should have a certain freshness and a suitable
'entourage.' It is strange to observe that the most effective use of
Scripture phraseology arises out of the application of it in a sense
not intended by the author. (c) Another caution: metaphors differ in
different languages, and the translator will often be compelled to
substitute one for another, or to paraphrase them, not giving word for
word, but diffusing over several words the more concentrated thought of
the original. The Greek of Plato often goes beyond the English in its
imagery: compare Laws, (Greek); Rep.; etc. Or again the modern word,
which in substance is the nearest equivalent to the Greek, may be found
to include associations alien to Greek life: e.g. (Greek), 'jurymen,'
(Greek), 'the bourgeoisie.' (d) The translator has also to provide
expressions for philosophical terms of very indefinite meaning in the
more definite language of modern philosophy. And he must not allow
discordant elements to enter into the work. For example, in translating
Plato, it would equally be an anachronism to intrude on him the feeling
and spirit of the Jewish or Christian Scriptures or the technical terms
of the Hegelian or Darwinian philosophy.
(7) As no two words are precise equivalents (just as no two leaves of
the forest are exactly similar), it is a mistaken attempt at precision
always to translate the same Greek word by the same English word. There
is no reason why in the New Testament (Greek) should always be rendered
'righteousness,' or (Greek) 'covenant.' In such cases the translator may
be allowed to employ two words--sometimes when the two meanings occur
in the same passage, varying them by an 'or'--e.g. (Greek), 'science'
or 'knowledge,' (Greek), 'idea' or 'class,' (Greek), 'temperance'
or 'prudence,'--at the point where the change of meaning occurs. If
translations are intended not for the Greek scholar but for the general
reader, their worst fault will be that they sacrifice the general effect
and meaning to the over-precise rendering of words and forms of speech.
(8) There is no kind of literature in English which corresponds to the
Greek Dialogue; nor is the English language easily adapted to it. The
rapidity and abruptness of question and answer, the constant repetition
of (Greek), etc., which Cicero avoided in Latin (de Amicit),
the frequent occurrence of expletives, would, if reproduced in a
translation, give offence to the reader. Greek has a freer and more
frequent use of the Interrogative, and is of a more passionate and
emotional character, and therefore lends itself with greater readiness
to the dialogue form. Most of the so-called English Dialogues are but
poor imitations of Plato, which fall very far short of the original. The
breath of conversation, the subtle adjustment of question and answer,
the lively play of fancy, the power of drawing characters, are wanting
in them. But the Platonic dialogue is a drama as well as a dialogue, of
which Socrates is the central figure, and there are lesser performers as
well:--the insolence of Thrasymachus, the anger of Callicles and Anytus,
the patronizing style of Protagoras, the self-consciousness of Prodicus
and Hippias, are all part of the entertainment. To reproduce this living
image the same sort of effort is required as in translating poetry. The
language, too, is of a finer quality; the mere prose English is slow in
lending itself to the form of question and answer, and so the ease of
conversation is lost, and at the same time the dialectical precision
with which the steps of the argument are drawn out is apt to be
impaired.
II. In the Introductions to the Dialogues there have been added some
essays on modern philosophy, and on political and social life. The chief
subjects discussed in these are Utility, Communism, the Kantian and
Hegelian philosophies, Psychology, and the Origin of Language. (There
have been added also in the Third Edition remarks on other subjects.
A list of the most important of these additions is given at the end of
this Preface.)
Ancient and modern philosophy throw a light upon one another: but they
should be compared, not confounded. Although the connexion between
them is sometimes accidental, it is often real. The same questions
are discussed by them under different conditions of language and
civilization; but in some cases a mere word has survived, while nothing
or hardly anything of the pre-Socratic, Platonic, or Aristotelian
meaning is retained. There are other questions familiar to the moderns,
which have no place in ancient philosophy. The world has grown older in
two thousand years, and has enlarged its stock of ideas and methods of
reasoning. Yet the germ of modern thought is found in ancient, and we
may claim to have inherited, notwithstanding many accidents of time and
place, the spirit of Greek philosophy. There is, however, no continuous
growth of the one into the other, but a new beginning, partly
artificial, partly arising out of the questionings of the mind itself,
and also receiving a stimulus from the study of ancient writings.
Considering the great and fundamental differences which exist in ancient
and modern philosophy, it seems best that we should at first study them
separately, and seek for the interpretation of either, especially of the
ancient, from itself only, comparing the same author with himself and
with his contemporaries, and with the general state of thought and
feeling prevalent in his age. Afterwards comes the remoter light which
they cast on one another. We begin to feel that the ancients had the
same thoughts as ourselves, the same difficulties which characterize all
periods of transition, almost the same opposition between science and
religion. Although we cannot maintain that ancient and modern philosophy
are one and continuous (as has been affirmed with more truth respecting
ancient and modern history), for they are separated by an interval of
a thousand years, yet they seem to recur in a sort of cycle, and we are
surprised to find that the new is ever old, and that the teaching of the
past has still a meaning for us.
III. In the preface to the first edition I expressed a strong opinion
at variance with Mr. Grote's, that the so-called Epistles of Plato were
spurious. His friend and editor, Professor Bain, thinks that I ought to
give the reasons why I differ from so eminent an authority. Reserving
the fuller discussion of the question for another place, I will shortly
defend my opinion by the following arguments:--
(a) Because almost all epistles purporting to be of the classical age
of Greek literature are forgeries. (Compare Bentley's Works (Dyce's
Edition).) Of all documents this class are the least likely to be
preserved and the most likely to be invented. The ancient world swarmed
with them; the great libraries stimulated the demand for them; and at a
time when there was no regular publication of books, they easily crept
into the world.
(b) When one epistle out of a number is spurious, the remainder of
the series cannot be admitted to be genuine, unless there be some
independent ground for thinking them so: when all but one are spurious,
overwhelming evidence is required of the genuineness of the one: when
they are all similar in style or motive, like witnesses who agree in the
same tale, they stand or fall together. But no one, not even Mr. Grote,
would maintain that all the Epistles of Plato are genuine, and very few
critics think that more than one of them is so. And they are clearly all
written from the same motive, whether serious or only literary. Nor is
there an example in Greek antiquity of a series of Epistles, continuous
and yet coinciding with a succession of events extending over a great
number of years.
The external probability therefore against them is enormous, and the
internal probability is not less: for they are trivial and unmeaning,
devoid of delicacy and subtlety, wanting in a single fine expression.
And even if this be matter of dispute, there can be no dispute that
there are found in them many plagiarisms, inappropriately borrowed,
which is a common note of forgery. They imitate Plato, who never
imitates either himself or any one else; reminiscences of the Republic
and the Laws are continually recurring in them; they are too like
him and also too unlike him, to be genuine (see especially Karsten,
Commentio Critica de Platonis quae feruntur Epistolis). They are full of
egotism, self-assertion, affectation, faults which of all writers Plato
was most careful to avoid, and into which he was least likely to
fall. They abound in obscurities, irrelevancies, solecisms, pleonasms,
inconsistencies, awkwardnesses of construction, wrong uses of words.
They also contain historical blunders, such as the statement respecting
Hipparinus and Nysaeus, the nephews of Dion, who are said to 'have been
well inclined to philosophy, and well able to dispose the mind of their
brother Dionysius in the same course,' at a time when they could not
have been more than six or seven years of age--also foolish allusions,
such as the comparison of the Athenian empire to the empire of Darius,
which show a spirit very different from that of Plato; and mistakes of
fact, as e.g. about the Thirty Tyrants, whom the writer of the letters
seems to have confused with certain inferior magistrates, making them
in all fifty-one. These palpable errors and absurdities are absolutely
irreconcilable with their genuineness. And as they appear to have a
common parentage, the more they are studied, the more they will be found
to furnish evidence against themselves. The Seventh, which is thought to
be the most important of these Epistles, has affinities with the Third
and the Eighth, and is quite as impossible and inconsistent as the rest.
It is therefore involved in the same condemnation.--The final conclusion
is that neither the Seventh nor any other of them, when carefully
analyzed, can be imagined to have proceeded from the hand or mind of
Plato. The other testimonies to the voyages of Plato to Sicily and the
court of Dionysius are all of them later by several centuries than the
events to which they refer. No extant writer mentions them older
than Cicero and Cornelius Nepos. It does not seem impossible that so
attractive a theme as the meeting of a philosopher and a tyrant, once
imagined by the genius of a Sophist, may have passed into a romance
which became famous in Hellas and the world. It may have created one of
the mists of history, like the Trojan war or the legend of Arthur, which
we are unable to penetrate. In the age of Cicero, and still more in
that of Diogenes Laertius and Appuleius, many other legends had gathered
around the personality of Plato,--more voyages, more journeys to visit
tyrants and Pythagorean philosophers. But if, as we agree with Karsten
in supposing, they are the forgery of some rhetorician or sophist, we
cannot agree with him in also supposing that they are of any historical
value, the rather as there is no early independent testimony by which
they are supported or with which they can be compared.
IV. There is another subject to which I must briefly call attention,
lest I should seem to have overlooked it. Dr. Henry Jackson, of Trinity
College, Cambridge, in a series of articles which he has contributed to
the Journal of Philology, has put forward an entirely new explanation of
the Platonic 'Ideas.' He supposes that in the mind of Plato they took,
at different times in his life, two essentially different forms:--an
earlier one which is found chiefly in the Republic and the Phaedo, and
a later, which appears in the Theaetetus, Philebus, Sophist, Politicus,
Parmenides, Timaeus. In the first stage of his philosophy Plato
attributed Ideas to all things, at any rate to all things which
have classes or common notions: these he supposed to exist only by
participation in them. In the later Dialogues he no longer included in
them manufactured articles and ideas of relation, but restricted them to
'types of nature,' and having become convinced that the many cannot be
parts of the one, for the idea of participation in them he substituted
imitation of them. To quote Dr. Jackson's own expressions,--'whereas
in the period of the Republic and the Phaedo, it was proposed to pass
through ontology to the sciences, in the period of the Parmenides and
the Philebus, it is proposed to pass through the sciences to ontology':
or, as he repeats in nearly the same words,--'whereas in the Republic
and in the Phaedo he had dreamt of passing through ontology to the
sciences, he is now content to pass through the sciences to ontology.'
This theory is supposed to be based on Aristotle's Metaphysics, a
passage containing an account of the ideas, which hitherto scholars have
found impossible to reconcile with the statements of Plato himself. The
preparations for the new departure are discovered in the Parmenides and
in the Theaetetus; and it is said to be expressed under a different
form by the (Greek) and the (Greek) of the Philebus. The (Greek) of the
Philebus is the principle which gives form and measure to the (Greek);
and in the 'Later Theory' is held to be the (Greek) or (Greek) which
converts the Infinite or Indefinite into ideas. They are neither (Greek)
nor (Greek), but belong to the (Greek) which partakes of both.
With great respect for the learning and ability of Dr. Jackson, I find
myself unable to agree in this newly fashioned doctrine of the Ideas,
which he ascribes to Plato. I have not the space to go into the question
fully; but I will briefly state some objections which are, I think,
fatal to it.
(1) First, the foundation of his argument is laid in the Metaphysics of
Aristotle. But we cannot argue, either from the Metaphysics, or from any
other of the philosophical treatises of Aristotle, to the dialogues
of Plato until we have ascertained the relation in which his so-called
works stand to the philosopher himself. There is of course no doubt
of the great influence exercised upon Greece and upon the world by
Aristotle and his philosophy. But on the other hand almost every one who
is capable of understanding the subject acknowledges that his writings
have not come down to us in an authentic form like most of the dialogues
of Plato. How much of them is to be ascribed to Aristotle's own hand,
how much is due to his successors in the Peripatetic School, is a
question which has never been determined, and probably never can be,
because the solution of it depends upon internal evidence only. To
'the height of this great argument' I do not propose to ascend. But one
little fact, not irrelevant to the present discussion, will show
how hopeless is the attempt to explain Plato out of the writings of
Aristotle. In the chapter of the Metaphysics quoted by Dr. Jackson,
about two octavo pages in length, there occur no less than seven or
eight references to Plato, although nothing really corresponding to them
can be found in his extant writings:--a small matter truly; but what a
light does it throw on the character of the entire book in which they
occur! We can hardly escape from the conclusion that they are not
statements of Aristotle respecting Plato, but of a later generation of
Aristotelians respecting a later generation of Platonists. (Compare
the striking remark of the great Scaliger respecting the Magna
Moralia:--Haec non sunt Aristotelis, tamen utitur auctor Aristotelis
nomine tanquam suo.)
(2) There is no hint in Plato's own writings that he was conscious of
having made any change in the Doctrine of Ideas such as Dr. Jackson
attributes to him, although in the Republic the platonic Socrates speaks
of 'a longer and a shorter way', and of a way in which his disciple
Glaucon 'will be unable to follow him'; also of a way of Ideas, to
which he still holds fast, although it has often deserted him (Philebus,
Phaedo), and although in the later dialogues and in the Laws the
reference to Ideas disappears, and Mind claims her own (Phil.; Laws).
No hint is given of what Plato meant by the 'longer way' (Rep.), or 'the
way in which Glaucon was unable to follow'; or of the relation of Mind
to the Ideas. It might be said with truth that the conception of the
Idea predominates in the first half of the Dialogues, which, according
to the order adopted in this work, ends with the Republic, the
'conception of Mind' and a way of speaking more in agreement with modern
terminology, in the latter half. But there is no reason to suppose that
Plato's theory, or, rather, his various theories, of the Ideas
underwent any definite change during his period of authorship. They are
substantially the same in the twelfth Book of the Laws as in the Meno
and Phaedo; and since the Laws were written in the last decade of his
life, there is no time to which this change of opinions can be ascribed.
It is true that the theory of Ideas takes several different forms, not
merely an earlier and a later one, in the various Dialogues. They are
personal and impersonal, ideals and ideas, existing by participation or
by imitation, one and many, in different parts of his writings or even
in the same passage. They are the universal definitions of Socrates, and
at the same time 'of more than mortal knowledge' (Rep.). But they
are always the negations of sense, of matter, of generation, of the
particular: they are always the subjects of knowledge and not of
opinion; and they tend, not to diversity, but to unity. Other entities
or intelligences are akin to them, but not the same with them, such as
mind, measure, limit, eternity, essence (Philebus; Timaeus): these and
similar terms appear to express the same truths from a different point
of view, and to belong to the same sphere with them. But we are not
justified, therefore, in attempting to identify them, any more than
in wholly opposing them. The great oppositions of the sensible and
intellectual, the unchangeable and the transient, in whatever form of
words expressed, are always maintained in Plato. But the lesser
logical distinctions, as we should call them, whether of ontology or
predication, which troubled the pre-Socratic philosophy and came to the
front in Aristotle, are variously discussed and explained. Thus far we
admit inconsistency in Plato, but no further. He lived in an age before
logic and system had wholly permeated language, and therefore we must
not always expect to find in him systematic arrangement or logical
precision:--'poema magis putandum.' But he is always true to his own
context, the careful study of which is of more value to the interpreter
than all the commentators and scholiasts put together.
(3) The conclusions at which Dr. Jackson has arrived are such as might
be expected to follow from his method of procedure. For he takes words
without regard to their connection, and pieces together different
parts of dialogues in a purely arbitrary manner, although there is no
indication that the author intended the two passages to be so combined,
or that when he appears to be experimenting on the different points of
view from which a subject of philosophy may be regarded, he is secretly
elaborating a system. By such a use of language any premises may be made
to lead to any conclusion. I am not one of those who believe Plato to
have been a mystic or to have had hidden meanings; nor do I agree
with Dr. Jackson in thinking that 'when he is precise and dogmatic,
he generally contrives to introduce an element of obscurity into the
expostion' (J. of Philol.). The great master of language wrote as
clearly as he could in an age when the minds of men were clouded by
controversy, and philosophical terms had not yet acquired a fixed
meaning. I have just said that Plato is to be interpreted by his
context; and I do not deny that in some passages, especially in the
Republic and Laws, the context is at a greater distance than would be
allowable in a modern writer. But we are not therefore justified in
connecting passages from different parts of his writings, or even from
the same work, which he has not himself joined. We cannot argue from
the Parmenides to the Philebus, or from either to the Sophist, or
assume that the Parmenides, the Philebus, and the Timaeus were 'written
simultaneously,' or 'were intended to be studied in the order in
which they are here named (J. of Philol.) We have no right to connect
statements which are only accidentally similar. Nor is it safe for the
author of a theory about ancient philosophy to argue from what will
happen if his statements are rejected. For those consequences may never
have entered into the mind of the ancient writer himself; and they
are very likely to be modern consequences which would not have been
understood by him. 'I cannot think,' says Dr. Jackson, 'that Plato would
have changed his opinions, but have nowhere explained the nature of the
change.' But is it not much more improbable that he should have changed
his opinions, and not stated in an unmistakable manner that the most
essential principle of his philosophy had been reversed? It is true that
a few of the dialogues, such as the Republic and the Timaeus, or
the Theaetetus and the Sophist, or the Meno and the Apology, contain
allusions to one another. But these allusions are superficial and,
except in the case of the Republic and the Laws, have no philosophical
importance. They do not affect the substance of the work. It may be
remarked further that several of the dialogues, such as the Phaedrus,
the Sophist, and the Parmenides, have more than one subject. But it
does not therefore follow that Plato intended one dialogue to succeed
another, or that he begins anew in one dialogue a subject which he has
left unfinished in another, or that even in the same dialogue he always
intended the two parts to be connected with each other. We cannot argue
from a casual statement found in the Parmenides to other statements
which occur in the Philebus. Much more truly is his own manner described
by himself when he says that 'words are more plastic than wax' (Rep.),
and 'whither the wind blows, the argument follows'. The dialogues of
Plato are like poems, isolated and separate works, except where they are
indicated by the author himself to have an intentional sequence.
It is this method of taking passages out of their context and placing
them in a new connexion when they seem to confirm a preconceived theory,
which is the defect of Dr. Jackson's procedure. It may be compared,
though not wholly the same with it, to that method which the Fathers
practised, sometimes called 'the mystical interpretation of Scripture,'
in which isolated words are separated from their context, and receive
any sense which the fancy of the interpreter may suggest. It is akin
to the method employed by Schleiermacher of arranging the dialogues
of Plato in chronological order according to what he deems the true
arrangement of the ideas contained in them. (Dr. Jackson is also
inclined, having constructed a theory, to make the chronology of Plato's
writings dependent upon it (See J. of Philol. and elsewhere.) It may
likewise be illustrated by the ingenuity of those who employ symbols to
find in Shakespeare a hidden meaning. In the three cases the error is
nearly the same:--words are taken out of their natural context, and thus
become destitute of any real meaning.