In the first place, emotional love is explained as being simply the
blind groping of reason towards the Idea. It is reason which has not
yet recognized itself as such. It appears, therefore, in the {206}
guise of feeling. Secondly, the later progress of the soul's love is
simply the gradual recognition of itself by reason. When the soul
perceives that the beauty in all objects is the same, that it is the
common element amid the many, this is nothing but the process of
inductive reasoning. And this development ends at last in the complete
rational cognition of the world of Ideas, in a word, philosophy. Love
is but an instinctive reason. The animal has no feeling of the
beautiful, just because it has no reason. Love of the beautiful is
founded upon the nature of man, not as a percipient or feeling being,
but as a rational being. And it must end in the complete recognition
of reason by itself, not in the feeling and intuition, but in the
rational comprehension, of the Idea.
One can imagine what Plato's answer would be to the sort of vulgarians
and philistines who want to know what the use of philosophy is, and in
what way it is "practical." To answer such a question is for Plato
impossible, because the question itself is illegitimate. For a thing
to have a use involves that it is a means towards an end. Fire has
use, because it may be made a means towards the cooking of food. Money
is useful, because it is a means to the acquisition of goods. That
which is an end in itself, and not a means towards any further end,
cannot possibly have any use. To suggest that philosophy ought to have
use is, therefore, to put the cart before the horse, to invert the
whole scale of values. It suggests that philosophy is a means towards
some further end, instead of being the absolute end to which all other
things are means. Philosophy is not _for_ anything. Everything else is
_for_ it. And, if this seems an exaggerated or unpractical view, we may
at least {207} remember that this is the view taken by the religious
consciousness of man. Religion makes the supreme end of life the
knowledge of, and communion with, God. God is for religion what the
Idea is for philosophy. God is a figurative name for the Idea. To
place the end of life in the knowledge of the Absolute, or the Idea,
is therefore the teaching both of philosophy and religion.
4. Physics, or the Theory of Existence.
Dialectic is the theory of reality, physics the theory of existence,
dialectic of that which lies behind things as their ground, physics of
the things which are thus grounded. That is to say, physics is
concerned with phenomena and appearances, things which exist in space
and time, as opposed to the timeless and non-spatial Ideas. Things of
this kind are both corporeal and incorporeal. Physics falls therefore
into two parts, the doctrine of the outward corporeality, the world,
with its incorporeal essence, the World-Soul, and the doctrine of the
incorporeal soul of man.
_(a) The Doctrine of the World_.
If, in the dialectic, Plato has given an account of the nature of the
first principle and ground of all things, the problem now arises of
explaining how the actual universe of things arises out of that
ground, how it is derived from the first principle. In other words,
the Ideas being the absolute reality, how does the world of sense,
and, in general, the existent universe, arise out of the Ideas? Faced
with this problem, the system of Plato broke down. The things of sense
are, we are told, "copies" or "imitations" of the Ideas. {208} They
"participate" in the Ideas. So far, so good. But why should there be
any copies of the Ideas? Why should the Ideas give rise to copies of
themselves, and how is the production of these copies effected? To
these questions Plato has no answer, and he therefore has recourse to
the use of myths. Poetic description here takes the place of
scientific explanation.
This poetic description of the origin of the world is to be found in
the "Timaeus." We have seen that the Ideas are absolute Being, and
that things of sense are half real and half unreal. They are partly
real because they participate in Being. They are partly unreal because
they participate in not-being. There must be, therefore, a principle
of absolute not-being. This, in Plato's opinion, is matter. Things of
sense are copies of the Ideas fashioned out of, or stamped upon,
matter. But Plato does not understand by matter what we, in modern
times, understand by it. Matter, in our sense, is always some
particular kind of matter. It is brass, or wood, or iron, or stone. It
is matter which has determinate character and quality. But the
possession of specific character means that it is matter with the copy
of Ideas already stamped upon it. Since iron exists in great
quantities in the world, and there is a common element in all the
various pieces of iron, by virtue of which all are classed together,
there must be a concept of iron. There is, therefore, an Idea of iron
in the world of Ideas. And the iron which we find in the earth must be
matter which is already formed into a copy of this Idea. It
participates in the Idea of iron. The same remarks apply to any other
particular kind of matter. In fact, all form, all the specific
characters and {209} features of matter, as we know it, are due to the
operation of the Ideas. Hence matter as it is in itself, before the
image of the Ideas is stamped upon it, must be absolutely without
quality, featureless, formless. But to be absolutely without any
quality is to be simply nothing at all. This matter is, therefore, as
Plato says, absolute not-being. Zeller conjectures, probably rightly,
that what Plato meant was simply empty space. [Footnote 14] Empty
space is an existent not-being, and it is totally indeterminate and
formless. It accords with this view that Plato adopted the Pythagorean
tenet that the differential qualities of material substances are due
to their smallest particles being regular geometrical figures limited
out of the unlimited, that is, out of space. Thus earth is composed of
cubes. That is to say, empty space when bound into cubes (the limiting
of the unlimited) becomes earth. The smallest particles of fire are
_tetrahedra_, of air _octahedra_, of water _icosahedra_.
[Footnote 14: _Plato and the Older Academy_, chap. vii. ]
We have, then, on the one hand, the world of Ideas, on the other,
matter, an absolutely formless, chaotic, mass. By impressing the
images of the Ideas upon this mass, "things" arise, that is to say,
the specific objects of sense. They thus participate both in Being and
in not-being. But how is this mixing of Being and not-being brought
about? How do the Ideas come to have their images stamped upon matter?
It is at this point that we enter upon the region of myth. Up to this
point Plato is certainly to be taken literally. He of course believed
in the reality of the world of Ideas, and he no doubt also believed in
his principle of matter. And he thought that the objects of sense are
to be {210} explained as copies of the Ideas impressed upon matter.
But now, with the problem how this copying is brought about, Plato
leaves the method of scientific explanation behind. If the Ideas are
the absolute ground of all things, then the copying process must be
done by the Ideas themselves. They must themselves be made the
principles for the production of things. But this is, for Plato,
impossible. For production involves change. If the Ideas produce
things out of themselves, the Ideas must in the process undergo
change. But Plato has declared them to be absolutely unchangeable, and
to be thus immutable is to be sterile. Hence the Ideas have within
themselves no principle for the production of things, and the
scientific explanation of things by this means becomes impossible.
Hence there is nothing for it but to have recourse to myth. Plato can
only imagine that things are produced by a world-former, or designer,
who, like a human artist, fashions the plastic matter into images of
the Ideas.
God, the Creator, the world-designer, finds beside him, on the one
hand, the Ideas, on the other, formless matter. First, he creates the
World-Soul. This is incorporeal, but occupies space. He spreads it out
like a huge net in empty space. He bisects it, and bends the two
halves into an inner and an outer circle, these circles being destined
to become the spheres of the planets and the stars respectively. He
takes matter and binds it into the four elements, and these elements
he builds into the empty framework of the World-Soul. When this is
done, the creation of the universe is complete. The rest of the
"Timaeus" is occupied with the details of Plato's ideas of astronomy
and physical {211} science. These are mostly worthless and tedious,
and we need not pursue them here. But we may mention that Plato, of
course, regarded the earth as the centre of the world. The stars,
which are divine beings, revolve around it. They necessarily move in
circles, because the circle is the perfect figure. The stars, being
divine, are governed solely by reason, and their movement must
therefore be circular, because a circular motion is the motion of
reason.
The above account of the origin of the world is merely myth, and Plato
knows that it is myth. What he apparently did believe in, however, was
the existence of the World-Soul, and a few words upon this subject are
necessary. The soul, in Plato's system, is the mediator between the
world of Ideas and the world of sense. Like the former, it is
incorporeal and immortal. Like the latter, it occupies space. Plato
thought that there must be a soul in the world to account for the
rational behaviour of things, and to explain motion. The reason which
governs and directs the world dwells in the World-Soul. And the
World-Soul is the cause of motion in the outer universe, just as the
human soul is the cause of the motions of the human body. The cosmos
is a living being.
_(b) The Doctrine of the Human Soul_.
The human soul is similar in kind to the World-Soul. It is the cause
of the body's movements, and in it the human reason dwells. It has
affinities both with the world of Ideas and the world of sense. It is
divided into two parts, of which one part is again subdivided into
two. The highest part is reason, which is {212} that part of the soul
which apprehends the Ideas. It is simple and indivisible. Now all
destruction of things means the sundering of their parts. But the
rational part of the soul, being simple, has no parts. Therefore it is
indestructible and immortal. The irrational part of the soul is
mortal, and is subdivided into a noble and an ignoble half. To the
noble half belong courage, love of honour, and in general the nobler
emotions. To the ignoble portion belong the sensuous appetites. The
noble half has a certain affinity with reason, in that it has an
instinct for what is noble and great. Nevertheless, this is mere
instinct, and is not rational. The seat of reason is the head, of the
noble half of the lower soul, the breast, of the ignoble half, the
lower part of the body. Man alone possesses the three parts of the
soul. Animals possess the two lower parts, plants only the appetitive
soul. What distinguishes man from the lower orders of creation is thus
that he alone possesses reason.
Plato connects the doctrine of the immortality of the rational soul
with the theory of Ideas by means of the doctrines of recollection and
transmigration. According to the former doctrine, all knowledge is
recollection of what was experienced by the soul in its disembodied
state before birth. It must carefully be noted, however, that the word
knowledge is here used in the special and restricted sense of Plato.
Not everything that we should call knowledge is recollection. The
sensuous element in my perception that this paper is white is not
recollection, since, as being merely sensuous, it is not, in Plato's
opinion, to be called knowledge. Here, as elsewhere, he confines the
term {213} to rational knowledge, that is to say, knowledge of the
Ideas, though it is doubtful whether he is wholly consistent with
himself in the matter, especially in regard to mathematical knowledge.
It must also be noted that this doctrine has nothing in common with
the Oriental doctrine of the memory of our past lives upon the earth.
An example of this is found in the Buddhist Jatakas, where the Buddha
relates from memory many things that happened to him in the body in
his previous births. Plato's doctrine is quite different. It refers
only to recollection of the experiences of the soul in its disembodied
state in the world of Ideas.
The reasons assigned by Plato for believing in this doctrine may be
reduced to two. Firstly, knowledge of the Ideas cannot be derived from
the senses, because the Idea is never pure in its sensuous
manifestation, but always mixed. The one beauty, for example, is only
found in experience mixed with the ugly. The second reason is more
striking. And, if the doctrine of recollection is itself fantastic,
this, the chief reason upon which Plato bases it, is interesting and
important. He pointed out that mathematical knowledge seems to be
innate in the mind. It is neither imparted to us by instruction, nor
is it gained from experience. Plato, in fact, came within an ace of
discovering what, in modern times, is called the distinction between
necessary and contingent knowledge, a distinction which was made by
Kant the basis of most far-reaching developments in philosophy. The
character of necessity attaches to rational knowledge, but not to
sensuous. To explain this distinction, we may take as our example of
rational knowledge such a proposition as that two {214} and two make
four. This does not mean merely that, as a matter of fact, every two
objects and every other two objects, with which we have tried the
experiment, make four. It is not merely a fact, it is a necessity. It
is not merely that two and two do make four, but that they must make
four. It is inconceivable that they should not. We have not got to go
and see whether, in each new case, they do so. We know beforehand that
they will, because they must. It is quite otherwise with such a
proposition as, "gold is yellow." There is no necessity about it. It
is merely a fact. For all anybody can see to the contrary it might
just as well be blue. There is nothing inconceivable about its being
blue, as there is about two and two making five. Of course, that gold
is yellow is no doubt a mechanical necessity, that is, it is
determined by causes, and in that sense could not be otherwise. But it
is not a logical necessity. It is not a logical contradiction to
imagine blue gold, as it would be to imagine two and two making five.
Any other proposition in mathematics possesses the same necessity.
That the angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal is a
necessary proposition. It could not be otherwise without
contradiction. Its opposite is unthinkable. But that Socrates is
standing is not a necessary truth. He might just as well be sitting.
Since a mathematical proposition is necessarily true, its truth is
known without verification by experience. Having proved the
proposition about the isosceles triangle, we do not go about measuring
the angles of triangular objects to make sure there is no exception.
We know it without any experience at all. And if we {215} were
sufficiently clever, we might even evolve mathematical knowledge out
of the resources of our own minds, without its being told us by any
teacher. That Caesar was stabbed by Brutus is a fact which no amount
of cleverness could ever reveal to me. This information I can only get
by being told it. But that the base angles of an isosceles triangle
are equal I could discover by merely thinking about it. The
proposition about Brutus is not a necessary proposition. It might be
otherwise. And therefore I must be told whether it is true or not. But
the proposition about the isosceles triangle is necessary, and
therefore I can see that it must be true without being told.
Now Plato did not clearly make this distinction between necessary and
non-necessary knowledge. But what he did perceive was that
mathematical knowledge can be known without either experience or
instruction. Kant afterwards gave a less fantastic explanation of
these facts. But Plato concluded that such knowledge must be already
present in the mind at birth. It must be recollected from a previous
existence. It might be answered that, though this kind of knowledge is
not gained from the experience of the senses, it may be gained from
teaching. It may be imparted by another mind. We have to teach
children mathematics, which we should not have to do if it were
already in their minds. But Plato's answer is that when the teacher
explains a geometrical theorem to the child, directly the child
understands what is meant, he assents. He sees it for himself. But if
the teacher explains that Lisbon is on the Tagus, the child cannot see
that this is true for himself. He must either believe the word {216}
of the teacher, or he must go and see. In this case, therefore, the
knowledge is really imparted from one mind to another. The teacher
transfers to the child knowledge which the child does not possess. But
the mathematical theorem is already present in the child's mind, and
the process of teaching merely consists in making him see what he
already potentially knows. He has only to look into his own mind to
find it. This is what we mean by saying that the child sees it for
himself.
In the "Meno" Plato attempts to give an experimental proof of the
doctrine of recollection. Socrates is represented as talking to a
slave-boy, who admittedly has no education in mathematics, and barely
knows what a square is. By dint of skilful questioning Socrates
elicits from the boy's mind a theorem about the properties of the
square. The point of the argument is that Socrates tells him nothing
at all. He imparts no information. He only asks questions. The boy's
knowledge of the theorem, therefore, is not due to the teaching of
Socrates, nor is it due to experience. It can only be recollection.
But if knowledge is recollection, it may be asked, why is it that we
do not remember at once? Why is the tedious process of education in
mathematics necessary? Because the soul, descending from the world of
Ideas into the body, has its knowledge dulled and almost blotted out
by its immersion in the sensuous. It has forgotten, or it has only the
dimmest and faintest recollection. It has to be reminded, and it takes
a great effort to bring the half-lost ideas back to the mind. This
process of being reminded is education.
With this, of course, is connected the doctrine of {217}
transmigration, which Plato took, no doubt, from the Pythagoreans.
Most of the details of Plato's doctrine of transmigration are mere
myth. Plato does not mean them seriously, as is shown by the fact that
he gives quite different and inconsistent accounts of these details in
different dialogues. What, in all probability, he did believe,
however, may be summarized as follows. The soul is pre-existent as
well as immortal. Its natural home is the world of Ideas, where at
first it existed, without a body, in the pure and blissful
contemplation of Ideas. But because it has affinities with the world
of sense, it sinks down into a body. After death, if a man has lived a
good life, and especially if he has cultivated the knowledge of Ideas,
philosophy, the soul returns to its blissful abode in the world of
Ideas, till, after a long period it again returns to earth in a body.
Those who do evil suffer after death severe penalties, and are then
reincarnated in the body of some being lower than themselves. A man
may become a woman. Men may even, if their lives have been utterly
sensual, pass into the bodies of animals.
5. Ethics
_(a) The Ethics of the Individual_
Just as Plato's theory of knowledge begins with a negative portion,
designed to refute false theories of what truth is, so does his theory
of morals begin with a negative portion, intended to refute false
theories of what virtue is. These two negative departments of Plato's
philosophy correspond in every way. As he was then engaged in showing
that knowledge is not perception, as Protagoras thought, so he now
urges that {218} virtue is not the same as pleasure. And as knowledge
is not mere right opinion, neither is virtue mere right action. The
propositions that knowledge is perception, and that virtue is
pleasure, are indeed only the same principle applied to different
spheres of thought. For the Sophists whatever appeared true to the
individual was true for that individual. This is the same as saying
that knowledge is perception. For the Sophists, again, whatever
appeared right to the individual was right for that individual. This
is the same as saying that it is right for each man to do whatever he
pleases. Virtue is defined as the pleasure of the individual. This
consequence of the Sophistic principles was drawn both by many of the
Sophists themselves, and later by the Cyrenaics.
As these two propositions are thus in fact only one principle, what
Plato has said in refutation of the former provides also his
refutation of the latter. The theory that virtue is pleasure has the
same destructive influence upon morals as the theory that knowledge is
perception had upon truth. We may thus shortly summarize Plato's
arguments.
(1) As the Sophistic theory of truth destroys the objectivity of
truth, so the doctrine that virtue is the pleasure of the individual
destroys the objectivity of the good. Nothing is good in itself.
Things are only good for me or for you. There results an absolute
moral relativity, in which the idea of an objective standard of
goodness totally disappears.
(2) This theory destroys the distinction between good and evil. Since
the good is whatever the individual pleases, and since the pleasure of
one individual is the {219} displeasure of another, the same thing is
both good and evil at the same time, good for one person and evil for
another. Good and evil are therefore not distinct. They are the same.
(3) Pleasure is the satisfaction of our desires. Desires are merely
feelings. This theory, therefore, founds morality upon feeling. But an
objective morality cannot be founded upon what is peculiar to
individuals. If the moral code is to be a law binding upon all men, it
can only be founded upon that which is common to all men, the
universal reason.
(4) The end of moral activity must fall within, and not outside, the
moral act itself. Morality must have an intrinsic, not a merely
extrinsic, value. We must not do right for the sake of something else.
We must do right because it is right, and thus make virtue an end in
itself. But the Sophistic theory places the end of morality outside
morality. We are to do right, not for its own sake, but for the sake
of pleasure. Morality is thus not an end in itself, but merely a means
towards a further end.
Virtue, therefore, is not pleasure, any more than knowledge is
perception. Likewise, just as knowledge is not right opinion, so
virtue is not right action. Right opinion may be held upon wrong
grounds, and right action may be performed on wrong grounds. For true
virtue we must not only know what is right, but why it is right. True
virtue is thus right action proceeding from a rational comprehension
of true values. Hence there arises in Plato's philosophy a distinction
between philosophic virtue and customary virtue. Philosophic virtue is
founded upon reason, and understands the {220} principle on which it
acts. It is, in fact, action governed by principles. Customary virtue
is right action proceeding from any other grounds, such as custom,
habit, tradition, good impulses, benevolent feelings, instinctive
goodness. Men do right merely because other people do it, because it
is customary, and they do it without understanding the reasons for it.
This is the virtue of the ordinary honest citizen, the "respectable"
person. It is the virtue of bees and ants, who act as if rationally,
but without any understanding of what they are doing. And Plato
observes--no doubt with an intentional spice of humour--that such
people may in the next life find themselves born as bees and ants.
Plato denies philosophic virtue not only to the masses of men, but
even to the best statesmen and politicians of Greece.
As true virtue is virtue which knows at what it is aiming, the
knowledge of the nature of the highest aim becomes the chief question
of ethics. What is the end of moral activity? Now we have just seen
that that end must fall within, and not outside, the moral act. The
end of goodness is the good. What, then, is the good? What is the
supreme good, the _summum bonum_?
A note of warning is necessary before we enter upon the details of
this problem. Plato frequently speaks of all moral activity aiming at,
and ending in, happiness. With modern phrases ringing in our ears, we
might easily suppose this to mean that Plato is a utilitarian. The
utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill is distinguished by the fact that
it places the end of morality in happiness. Yet Plato was not a
utilitarian, and would unhesitatingly have condemned the theory of
Mill. He {221} would have found it identical in principle with the
Sophistic doctrine that pleasure is the end of virtue. The only
difference is that, whereas the Sophists identified virtue with the
pleasure of the individual, Mill makes it the pleasure of the
community. That act is right which leads to "the greatest happiness of
the greatest number." In practice, of course, this makes a tremendous
difference. But the principle is equally objectionable because, like
the Sophistic theory, it founds morality upon mere feeling, instead of
upon reason, and because it places the end of morality outside
morality itself. Yet the formula of Mill, that the end of morals is
happiness, seems the same as Plato's formula. What is the difference?
The fact is that what Mill calls happiness Plato would have called
pleasure. Pleasure is the satisfaction of one's desires, whether they
are noble or ignoble. Then what is happiness? It can only be defined
as the general harmonious well-being of life. Only that man is happy
whose soul is in the state it ought to be in, only in fact the just,
the good, and the moral man. Happiness has nothing to do with
pleasure. If you could conceive an absolutely just and upright man,
who was yet weighed down with every possible misery and disaster, in
whose life pleasure had no part, such a man would still be absolutely
happy. Happiness is, therefore, in Plato, merely another name for the
_summum bonum_. In saying that the _summum bonum_ is happiness, Plato
is not telling us anything about it. He is merely giving it a new
name. And we are still left to enquire: what is the _summum bonum_?
what is happiness?
Plato's answer, as indeed his whole ethics, is but {222} an
application of the theory of Ideas. But here we can distinguish two
different and, to some extent, inconsistent strains of thought, which
exist side by side in Plato, and perpetually struggle for the mastery.
Both views depend upon the theory of Ideas. In the first place, the
Idea, in Plato's philosophy, is the sole reality. The object of sense
is unreal, and merely clogs and dims the soul's vision of the Ideas.
Matter is that which obstructs the free activity of the Idea.
Sense-objects hide the Idea from our view. Therefore the world of
sense is wholly evil. True virtue must consist in flying from the
world of sense, in retiring from the affairs of the world, and even
from the beauty of the senses, into the calm of philosophic
contemplation. And if this were all, philosophy, the knowledge of the
Ideas, would be the sole constituent of the _summum bonum_. But it is
possible to regard sense-objects in another light. They are, after
all, copies of the Ideas. They are therefore a manifestation and
revelation of the ideal world. Hence Plato is compelled by this
thought to allow a certain value to the world of sense, its affairs,
and its beauty.
The result of this inconsistency is, at any rate, that Plato remains
broad and human. He does not, on the one hand, preach a purely selfish
retirement into philosophy, or a narrow ascetic ideal. He does not, on
the other hand, adopt a low utilitarian view of life, allowing value
only to that which is "practical." He remains true to the Greek ideal
of life as a harmonious play of all the faculties, in which no one
part of man is over-developed at the expense of the others.
The result is that Plato's _summum bonum_ is not a single {223} end.
It is a compound consisting of four parts. First, and chief of all, is
the knowledge of the Ideas as they are in themselves, philosophy.
Secondly, the contemplation of the Ideas as they reveal themselves in
the world of sense, the love and appreciation of all that is
beautiful, ordered, and harmonious. Thirdly, the cultivation of the
special sciences and arts. And fourthly, indulgence in pure, refined,
and innocent pleasures of the senses, excluding, of course, whatever
is base and evil.
Plato had also a specific doctrine of virtue. As already stated, he
distinguished between philosophic and customary virtue, and attached
absolute value only to the former. He does not, however, deny a
relative value to customary virtue, inasmuch as it is a means towards
true virtue. Plato saw that man cannot rise at one bound to the
pinnacles of rational virtue. He must needs pass through the
preparatory stage of customary virtue. In the man in whom reason is
not yet awakened, good habits and customs must be implanted, in order
that, when reason comes, it may find the ground ready prepared.
Socrates had taught that virtue is one. And Plato in his earlier
writings adopted this view. But later on he came to see that every
faculty of man has its place and its function, and the due performance
of its function is a virtue. He did not, however, surrender the unity
of virtue altogether, but believed that its unity is compatible with
its plurality. There are four cardinal virtues. Three of these
correspond to the three parts of the soul, and the fourth is the unity
of the others. The virtue of reason is wisdom, of the noble half of
{224} the mortal soul courage, of the ignoble appetites, temperance or
self-control, in which the passions allow themselves to be governed by
reason. The fourth virtue, justice, arises from the others. Justice
means proportion and harmony, and accrues to the soul when all three
parts perform their functions and co-operate with each other.
Following Zeller, we may add to this account of the virtues some of
Plato's views upon the details of life. And first, his opinion of
women and marriage. Here Plato does not rise above the level of
ordinary Greek morals. He has nothing specially original to say, but
reflects the opinions of his age. Women he regards as essentially
inferior to men. Moreover, the modern view of woman as the complement
of man, as possessing those special virtues of womanliness, which a
man lacks, is quite alien to Plato. The difference between men and
women is, in his view, not one of kind but only of degree. The only
specific difference between the sexes is the physical difference.
Spiritually they are quite the same, except that woman is inferior.
Hence Plato would not exclude women from the same education which man
receives. He would educate them in exactly the same way, but this
involves the imposition upon them of the same burdens. Even military
duties are not outside the sphere of women.
His views of marriage flow from the same principle. Since woman is not
the complement of man, she is in no special sense fitted to be his
companion. Hence the ideal of spiritual companionship is absent from
Plato's view of marriage, the sole object of which, in his opinion, is
the propagation of children. The natural companion {225} of a man is
not a woman, but another man. The ideal of friendship, therefore,
takes the place of the spiritual ideal of marriage in Plato and,
indeed, among the ancients generally.
Slavery is not denounced by Plato. He takes no trouble to justify it,
because he thinks it so obviously right that it needs no
justification. All that can be said to his credit is that he demands
humane and just, though firm and unsentimental, treatment of slaves.
If in these respects Plato never transcends the Greek view of life, in
one matter at least he does so. The common view of his time was that
one ought to do good to one's friends and evil to one's enemies. This
Plato expressly repudiates. It can never be good, he thinks, to do
evil. One should rather do good to one's enemies, and so convert them
into friends. To return good for evil is no less a Platonic than a
Christian maxim.
_(b) The State_.
We pass from the ethics of individual life to the ethics of the
community. Plato's "Republic" is not an attempt to paint an imaginary
and unreal perfection. Its object is to found politics on the theory
of Ideas by depicting the Idea of the State. This State is, therefore,
not unreal, but the only real State, and its reality is the ground of
the existence of all actually existent States.
We can trace here, too, the same two strains of thought as we found in
considering the ethics of the individual. On the one hand, since the
Idea alone is real, the existent world a mere illusion, the service of
the {226} State cannot be the ideal life for a rational being.
Complete retirement from the world into the sphere of Ideas is a far
nobler end, and the aims of the ordinary politician are, in
comparison, worthless baubles. Though only the philosopher is
competent to rule, yet he will not undertake the business of the
State, except under compulsion. In the political States, as they exist
in the world, the philosopher dwells with his body, but his soul is a
stranger, ignorant of their standards, unmoved by their ambitions. But
the opposite strain of thought is uppermost when we are told that it
is, after all, only in the State, only in his capacity as a citizen
and a social being that the individual can attain perfection. It is
only possible to reconcile these views in one way. If the ideals of
the State and of philosophy seem inconsistent, they must be brought
together by adapting the State to philosophy. We must have a State
founded upon philosophy and reason. Then only can the philosopher
dwell in it with his soul as well as with his body. Then only can
either the individual or the State reach perfection. To found the
State upon reason is the keynote of Plato's politics.
And this gives us, too, the clue to the problem, what is the end of
the State? Why should there be a State at all? This does not mean, how
has the State arisen in history? We are not in search of the cause,
but of the reason, or end, of the State. The end of all life is
wisdom, virtue, and knowledge. The unassisted individual cannot reach
these ends. It is only by the State that they can be brought down from
heaven to earth. The end of the State is thus the virtue and happiness
(not pleasure) of the citizens. And since this is only possible {227}
through education, the State's primary function is educational.
Since the State is to be founded upon reason, its laws must be
rational, and rational laws can only be made by rational men,
philosophers. The rulers must be philosophers. And since the
philosophers are few, we must have an aristocracy, not of birth, or of
wealth, but of intellect. The first operative principle of the State
is reason, the second is force. For it is not to be expected that the
irrational masses will willingly submit to rational laws. They must be
compelled. And since the work of the world must go on, the third
operative principle will be labour. Plato believed in the principle of
division of labour. Only he can excel at any occupation whose life is
devoted to it. Hence to the three operative principles correspond
three classes, castes, or professions. Reason is embodied in the
philosopher-rulers, force in the warriors, labour in the masses. This
division of the functions of the State is based upon the threefold
division of the soul. To the rational soul correspond the
philosopher-rulers, to the nobler half of the mortal soul the
warriors, to the appetitive soul the masses. Consequently the four
cardinal virtues belong to the State through the functioning of the
three classes. The virtue of the philosopher-rulers is wisdom, of the
warriors courage, of the masses, temperance. The harmonious
co-operation of all three produces justice.
The rulers must not cease to be philosophers. Most of their time must
be spent in the study of the Ideas, philosophy, and only a portion in
the affairs of government. This is rendered possible by the system of
taking turns. Those who are not at any particular time {228} engaged
upon government retire into thought. The duty of the warriors is the
protection of the State, both against its external enemies, and
against the irrational impulses of the masses of its own citizens.
Normally, the latter will be their chief duty, the enforcement of the
decrees of the philosopher-rulers upon the masses. The masses will
engage themselves in trade, commerce, and agriculture. Both the other
ranks are prohibited from soiling their fingers with trade or
agriculture, upon which Plato, as a Greek aristocrat, looked down with
unbounded contempt. To what rank a citizen belongs is not determined
by birth, nor by individual choice. No individual can choose his own
profession. This will be determined by the officers of the State, who
will base their decision, however, upon the disposition and
capabilities of the individual. As they have also to decide the
numbers required for each rank, the magistrates also control the birth
of children. Parents cannot have children when they wish. The sanction
of the State is required.
Since the end of the State is the virtue of the citizens, this
involves the destruction of whatever is evil and the encouragement of
whatever is good. To compass the destruction of evil, the children of
bad parents, or offspring not sanctioned by the State, will be
destroyed. Weak and sickly children will also not be allowed to live.
The positive encouragement of good involves the education of the
citizens by the State. Children from their earliest years do not
belong to their parents, but to the State. They are, therefore, at
once removed from the custody of their parents, and transferred to
State nurseries. Since the parents are to have no {229} property nor
interest in them, stringent means are adopted to see that, after
removal to the public nurseries, parents shall never again be able to
recognize their own children. All the details of the educational
curriculum are decreed by the State. Poetry, for example, is only
allowed in an emasculated form. Of the three kinds, epic, dramatic,
and lyric, the two former are banished from the State altogether,
because, in the base example of the immorality of the gods, which they
depict, they are powerful instruments in the propagation of evil. Only
lyric poetry is allowed, and that under strict supervision. The
subject, the form, even the metre, will be prescribed by the proper
authorities. Poetry is not recognized as valuable in itself, but only
as an educative moral influence. All poems, therefore, must strictly
inculcate virtue.
It is, in Plato's opinion, intolerable that the individual should have
any interest apart from the interests of the State. Private interests
clash with those of the community, and must therefore be abolished.
The individual can possess no property either in material things, or
in the members of his family. This involves the community of goods,
community of wives, and the State ownership of children from their
birth.
6. Views upon Art.
In modern times aesthetics is recognized as a separate division of
philosophy. This was not the case in Plato's time, and yet his
opinions upon art cannot be fitted into either dialectic, physics, or
ethics. On the other hand, they cannot be ignored, and there is
nothing for it, therefore, but to treat them as a sort of appendix
{230} to his philosophy. Plato has no systematic theory of art, but
only scattered opinions, the most important of which will now be
mentioned.
Most modern theories of art are based upon the view that art is an end
in itself, that the beautiful has, as such, absolute value, and not
value merely as a means to some further end. Upon such a view, art is
recognized as autonomous within its own sphere, governed only by its
own laws, judged only by its own standards. It cannot be judged, as
Tolstoi would have us believe, by the standard of morals. The
beautiful is not a means to the good. They may be indeed, ultimately
identical, but their identity cannot be recognized till their
difference has been admitted. Nor can one be subordinated to the
other.
Now this view of art finds no place at all in Plato's thought. Art is,
for him, absolutely subservient both to morals and to philosophy. That
it subserves morality we see from the "Republic," where only that
poetry is allowed which inculcates virtue, and only because it
inculcates virtue. It is no sufficient justification of a poem to
plead that it is beautiful. Beautiful or not, if it does not subserve
the ends of morality, it is forbidden. Hence too the preposterous
notion that its exercise is to be controlled, even in details, by the
State. That this would mean the utter destruction of art either did
not occur to Plato, or if it did, did not deter him. If poetry cannot
exist under the yoke of morality, it must not be allowed to exist at
all. That art is merely a means to philosophy is even more evident.
The end of all education is the knowledge of the Ideas, and every
other subject, science, mathematics, art, is introduced into the {231}
educational curriculum solely as a preparation for that end. They have
no value in themselves. This is obvious from the teaching of the
"Republic," and it is even more evident in the "Symposium," where the
love of beautiful objects is made to end, not in itself, but in
philosophy.
Plato's low estimate of art appears also in his theory of art as
imitation, and his contemptuous references to the nature of artistic
genius. As to the first, art is, to him, only imitation. It is the
copy of an object of the senses, and this again is only a copy of an
Idea. Hence a work of art is only a copy of a copy. Plato did not
recognise the creativeness of art. This view is certainly false. If
the aims of art were merely to imitate, a photograph would be the best
picture, since it is the most accurate copy of its object. What Plato
failed to see was that the artist does not copy his object, but
idealizes it. And this means that he does not see the object simply as
an object, but as the revelation of an Idea. He does not see the
phenomenon with the eyes of other men, but penetrates the sensuous
envelope and exhibits the Idea shining through the veils of sense.
The second point is Plato's estimate of artistic genius. The artist
does not work by reason, but by inspiration. He does not, or he should
not, create the beautiful by means of rules, or by the application of
principles. It is only after the work of art is created that the
critic discovers rules in it. This does not mean that the discovery of
rules is false, but that the artist follows them unconsciously and
instinctively. If, for example, we believe Aristotle's dictum that the
object of tragedy {232} is to purge the heart by terror and pity, we
do not mean that the tragedian deliberately sets out to accomplish
that end. He does so without knowing or intending it. And this kind of
instinctive impulse we call the inspiration of the artist. Now Plato
fully recognizes these facts. But far from considering inspiration
something exalted, he thinks it, on the contrary, comparatively low
and contemptible, just because it is not rational. He calls it "divine
madness," divine indeed, because the artist produces beautiful things,
but madness because he himself does not know how or why he has done
it. The poet says very wise and beautiful things, but he does not know
why they are wise and beautiful. He merely feels, and does not
understand anything. His inspiration, therefore, is not on the level
of knowledge, but only of right opinion, which knows what is true, but
does not know why.
Plato's views of art are thus not satisfactory. He is doubtless right
in placing inspiration below reason, and art below philosophy. They do
stand to each other in the relation of higher and lower. Not that such
a question can be decided by mere personal preferences. The usual
discussions whether art or philosophy is better, whether emotion or
reason is higher, are pointless and insipid, because the disputants
merely exalt their personal peculiarities. The man of artistic
temperament naturally prefers art, and says it is the highest. The
philosopher exalts philosophy above art, merely because it is his pet
hobby. This kind of discussion is futile. The matter must be decided
upon some principle. And the principle is quite clear. Both art and
philosophy have the same object, the {233} apprehension of the
Absolute, or the Idea. Philosophy apprehends it as it is in itself,
that is to say, as thought. Art apprehends it in a merely sensuous
form. Philosophy apprehends it in its truth, art in a comparatively
untrue way. Philosophy, therefore, is the higher. But while any true
philosophy of art must recognize this, it must not interpret it to
mean that art is to be made merely a means towards philosophy. It must
somehow find room for the recognition of the truth that art is an end
in itself, and it is in this that Plato fails.
Aristotle, who had no spark of artistic capacity in his composition,
whose own writings are the severest of scientific treatises, did far
greater justice to art than Plato, and propounded a far more
satisfactory theory. Plato, himself a great artist, is utterly unjust
to art. Paradoxical as it may appear, the very reason why Aristotle
could be just to art was that he was no artist. Being solely a
philosopher, his own writings are scientific and inartistic. This
enables him to recognize art as a separate sphere, and therefore as
having its own rights. Plato could not keep the two separate. His
dialogues are both works of art and of philosophy. We have seen
already that this fact exercised an evil influence on his philosophy,
since it made him substitute poetic myths for scientific explanation.
Now we see that it exercised an equally evil influence on his views of
art. As a philosopher-artist his own practice is to use literary art
solely as a means towards the expression of philosophical ideas. And
this colours his whole view of art. It is, to him, nothing but a means
towards philosophy. And this is the tap-root of his entire view of the
subject.
{234}
7. Critical Estimate of Plato's Philosophy,
If we are to form a just estimate of the value of Plato's philosophy,
we must not fritter away our criticism on the minor points, the
external details, the mere outworks of the system. We must get at the
heart and governing centre of it all. Amid the mass of thought which
Plato has developed, in all departments of speculation, that which
stands out as the central thesis of the whole system is the theory of
Ideas. All else is but deduction from this. His physics, his ethics,
his politics, his views upon art, all flow from this one governing
theory. It is here then that we must look, alike for the merits and
the defects of Plato's system.
The theory of Ideas is not a something sprung suddenly upon the world
out of Plato's brain. It has its roots in the past. It is, as
Aristotle showed, the outcome of Eleatic, Heracleitean, and Socratic
determinations. Fundamentally, however, it grows out of the
distinction between sense and reason, which had been the common
property of Greek thinkers since the time of Parmenides. Parmenides
was the first to emphasize this distinction, and to teach that the
truth is to be found by reason, the world of sense being illusory.
Heracleitus, and even Democritus, were pronounced adherents of reason,
as against sense. The crisis came with the Sophists, who attempted to
obliterate the distinction altogether, and to find all knowledge in
sensation, thus calling forth the opposition of Socrates and Plato. As
against them Socrates pointed out that all knowledge is through
concepts, reason: and Plato added to this that the concept is not a
mere rule of thought but a metaphysical reality. This was the
substance of the theory of Ideas. {235} Every philosophy which makes a
systematic attempt to solve the riddle of the universe necessarily
begins with a theory of the nature of that absolute and ultimate
reality from which the universe is derived. This absolute reality we
will call simply the Absolute. Plato's theory is that the Absolute
consists of concepts. To say that the Absolute is reason, is thought,
is concepts, is the universal--these are merely four different
expressions of the same theory. Now this proposition, that the
Absolute is reason, is the fundamental thesis of all idealism. Since
Plato's time there have been several great idealistic systems of
philosophy. That the Absolute is reason is the central teaching of
them all. Plato, therefore, is the founder and initiator of all
idealism. It is this that gives him his great place in the history of
philosophy. That the Absolute is universal thought, this is what Plato
has contributed to the philosophical speculation of the world. This is
his crowning merit.
But we must go somewhat more into details. We must see how far he
applied this principle successfully to the unravelment of the great
problems of philosophy. In lecturing upon the Eleatics, I said that
any successful philosophy must satisfy at least two conditions. It
must give such an account of the Absolute, that the Absolute is shown
as capable of explaining the world. It must be possible to deduce the
actual world of facts from the first principle. Secondly, not only
must this first principle explain the world; it must also explain
itself. It must be really ultimate, that is, we must not, in order to
understand it, have to refer to anything beyond and outside it. If we
have to do so then our ultimate is not an ultimate at all; our first
principle {236} is not first. That thing by means of which we explain
it must itself be the ultimate reality. And besides being ultimate,
our principle must be wholly intelligible. It must not be a mere
ultimate mystery; for to reduce the whole world to an ultimate mystery
is clearly not to explain it. Our first principle must, in a word, be
self-explanatory. Let us apply this two-fold test to Plato's system.
Let us see, firstly, whether the principle of Ideas explains the
world, and secondly, whether it explains itself.
Does it explain the world? Is the actual existence of things, horses,
trees, stars, men, explained by it? What, in the first place, is the
relation between things and the Ideas? Things, says Plato, are
"copies," or "imitations" of the Ideas. They "participate" in the
Ideas. The Ideas are "archetypal" of things. Now all these phrases are
mere poetic metaphors. They do not really tell us how things are
related to Ideas. But suppose we ignore this, and assume, for the sake
of argument, that we understand what is meant by "participation" and
that things are, in the literal sense, "copies" of Ideas. The question
still remains, why do such copies exist, how do they arise? Now, if
this problem is to be solved, it is not enough to show, merely as a
fact, that, by some mysterious act, copies of Ideas come into
existence. There must be a reason for it, and this reason it is the
business of philosophy to explain. This reason, too, must exist in the
nature of the Ideas themselves, and not outside them. There must be,
in the very nature of the Ideas, some inner necessity which forces
them to reproduce themselves in things. This is what we {237} mean by
saying that the Ideas are a sufficient explanation of the existence of
things. But there is in Plato's Ideas no such necessity. The Ideas are
defined as being the sole reality. They have already all reality in
themselves. They are self-sufficient. They lack nothing. It is not
necessary for them further to realize their being in the concrete
manifestation of things, because they, as wholly real, need no
realization. Why, then, should they not remain for ever simply as they
are? Why should they go out of themselves into things? Why should they
not remain in themselves and by themselves? Why should they need to
reproduce themselves in objects? There are, we know, white objects in
the universe. Their existence, we are told, is explained by the Idea
of whiteness? But why should the Idea of whiteness produce white
things? It is itself the perfect whiteness. Why should it stir itself?
Why should it not remain by itself, apart, sterile, in the world of
Ideas, for all eternity? We cannot see. There is in the Ideas no
necessity urging them towards reproduction of themselves, and this
means that they possess no principle for the explanation of things.
Nevertheless Plato has to make some attempt to meet the difficulty.
And as the Ideas are themselves impotent to produce things, Plato,
unable to solve the problem by reason, attempts to solve it by
violence. He drags in the notion of God from nowhere in particular,
and uses him as a _deus ex machina_. God fashions matter into the
images of Ideas. The very fact that Plato is forced to introduce a
creator shows that, in the Ideas themselves, there is no ground of
explanation. Things ought to be explained by the Ideas themselves,
{238} but as they are incapable of explaining anything, God is called
upon to do their work for them. Thus Plato, faced with the problem of
existence, practically deserts his theory of Ideas, and falls back
upon a crude theism. Or if we say that the term God is not to be taken
literally, and that Plato uses it merely as a figurative term for the
Idea of Good, then this saves Plato from the charge of introducing a
theism altogether inconsistent with his philosophy, but it brings us
back to the old difficulty. For in this case, the existence of things
must be explained by means of the Idea of the Good. But this Idea is
just as impotent as the other Ideas.
In this connection, too, the dualism of Plato's system becomes
evident. If everything is grounded in the one ultimate reality, the
Ideas, then the entire universe must be clasped together in a system,
all parts of which flow out of the Ideas. If there exists in the
universe anything which stands aloof from this system, remains
isolated, and cannot be reduced to a manifestation of the Ideas, then
the philosophy has failed to explain the world, and we have before us
a confessed dualism. Now not only has Plato to drag in God for the
explanation of things, he has also to drag in matter. God takes matter
and forms it into copies of the Ideas. But what is this matter, and
where does it spring from? Clearly, if the sole reality is the Ideas,
matter, like all else, must be grounded in the Ideas. But this is not
the case in Plato's system. Matter appears as a principle quite
independent of the Ideas. As its being is self-derived and original,
it must be itself a substance. But this is just what Plato denies,
calling it absolute {239} not-being. Yet since it has not its source
in the Ideas or in anything outside itself, we must say that though
Plato calls it absolute not-being, it is in fact an absolute being.
The Ideas and matter stand face to face in Plato's system neither
derived from the other, equally ultimate co-ordinate, absolute
realities. This is sheer dualism.
The source of this dualism is to be found in the absolute separation
which Plato makes between sense and reason. He places the world of
sense on one side, the world of reason on the other, as things
radically different and opposed. Hence it is impossible for him ever
to bridge the gulf that he has himself created between them. We may
expect the dualism of a philosophy which builds upon such premises to
break out at numerous points in the system. And so indeed it does. It
exhibits itself as the dualism of Ideas and matter, of the sense-world
and the thought-world, of body and soul. Not, of course, that it is
not quite right to recognize the distinction between sense and reason.
Any genuine philosophy must recognize that. And no doubt too it is
right to place truth and reality on the side of reason rather than
sense. But although sense and reason are distinct, they must also be
identical. They must be divergent streams flowing from one source. And
this means that a philosophy which considers the absolute reality to
be reason must exhibit sense as a lower form of reason. Because Plato
fails to see the identity of sense and reason, as well as their
difference, his philosophy becomes a continual fruitless effort to
overreach the dualism thus generated.
Thus the answer to our first question, whether the theory of Ideas
explains the world of things, must be {240} answered in the negative.
Let us pass on to the second test. Is the principle of Ideas a
self-explanatory principle? Such a principle must be understood purely
out of itself. It must not be a principle, like that of the
materialist, which merely reduces the whole universe to an ultimate
mysterious fact. For even if it be shown that the reason of everything
is matter, it is still open to us to ask what the reason of matter is.
We cannot see any reason why matter should exist. It is a mere fact,
which dogmatically forces itself upon our consciousness without giving
any reason for itself. Our principle must be such that we cannot ask a
further reason of it. It must be its own reason, and so in itself
satisfy the demand for a final explanation. Now there is only one such
principle in the world, namely, reason itself. You can ask the reason
of everything else in the world. You can ask the reason of the sun,
the moon, stars, the soul, God, or the devil. But you cannot ask the
reason of reason, because reason is its own reason. Let us put the
same thought in another way. When we demand the explanation of
anything, what do we mean by explanation? What is it we want? Do we
not mean that the thing appears to us irrational, and we want it shown
that it is rational? When this is done, we say it is explained. Think,
for example, of what is called the problem of evil. People often talk
of it as the problem of the "origin of evil," as if what we want to
know is, how evil began. But even if we knew this, it would not
explain anything. Suppose that evil began because someone ate an
apple. Does this make the matter any clearer? Do we feel that all our
difficulties about the existence of evil are solved? No. This is {241}
not what we want to know. The difficulty is that evil appears to us
something irrational. The problem can only be solved by showing us
that somehow, in spite of appearances, it is rational that evil should
exist. Show us this, and evil is explained. Explanation of a thing,
then, means showing that the thing is rational. Now we can ask that
everything else in the world should be shown to be rational. But we
cannot demand that the philosopher shall show that reason is rational.
This is absurd. Reason is what is already absolutely rational. It is
what explains itself. It is its own reason. It is a self-explanatory
principle. This, then, must be the principle of which we are in
search. The Absolute, we said, must be a self-explanatory principle,
and there is only one such, namely, reason. The Absolute, therefore,
is reason.
It was the greatness and glory of Plato to have seen this, and thereby
to have become the founder of all true philosophy. For to say that the
Absolute is concepts is the same as saying it is reason. It might
seem, then, that Plato has satisfied the second canon of criticism. He
takes as first principle a self-explanatory reality. But we cannot
quite so quickly jump to this conclusion. After all, the mere word
reason is not a key which will unlock to us the doors of the universe.
Something more is necessary than the mere word. We must, in fact, be
told what reason is. Now there are two senses in which we might ask
the question, what reason is, one of which is legitimate, the other
illegitimate. It is illegitimate to ask what reason is, in the sense
of asking that it shall be explained to us in terms of something else,
which is not reason. This would be {242} to give up our belief that
reason is its own reason. It would be to seek the reason of reason in
something which is not reason. It would be to admit that reason, in
itself, is not rational. And this is absurd. But it is legitimate to
ask, what reason is, meaning thereby, what is the _content_ of reason.
The content of reason, we have seen, is concepts. But what concepts?
How are we to know whether any particular concept is part of the
system of reason or not? Only, it is evident, by ascertaining whether
it is a rational concept. If a concept is wholly rational, then it is
a part of reason. If not, not. What we need, then, is a detailed
account of all the concepts which reason contains, and a proof that
each of these concepts is really rational. It is obvious that only in
this way can we make a satisfactory beginning in philosophy. Before we
can show that reason explains, that is, rationalizes the world, we
must surely first show that reason itself is rational, or rather, to
be more accurate, that _our conception_ of reason is rational. There
must not be any mere inexplicable facts, any mysteries, any dark
places, in our notion of reason. It must be penetrated through and
through by the light of reason. It must be absolutely transparent,
crystalline. How can we hope to explain the world, if our very first
principle itself contains irrationalities?
Each concept then must prove itself rational. And this means that it
must be a necessary concept. A necessary proposition, we saw, is one,
such as that two and two equal four, the opposite of which is
unthinkable. So for Plato's Ideas to be really necessary it ought to
be logically impossible for us to deny their {243} reality. It ought
to be impossible to think the world at all without these concepts. To
attempt to deny them ought to be shown to be self-contradictory. They
ought to be so necessarily involved in reason that thought without
them becomes impossible. Clearly this is the same as saying that the
Ideas must not be mere ultimate inexplicable facts. Of such a fact we
assert merely that it is so, but we cannot see any reason for it. To
see a reason for it is the same as seeing its necessity, seeing not
merely that it is so, but that it must be so.
Now Plato's Ideas are not of this necessary kind. There is, we are
told, an Idea of whiteness. But why should there be such an Idea? It
is a mere fact. It is not a necessity. We can think the world quite
well without the Idea of whiteness. The world, so far as we can see,
could get on perfectly well without either white objects or the Idea
of whiteness. To deny its reality leads to no self-contradictions. Put
it in another way. There are certainly white objects in the world. We
demand that these, among other things, be explained. Plato tells us,
by way of explanation, that there are white objects because there is
an Idea of whiteness. But in that case why is there an Idea of
whiteness? We cannot see. There is no reason. There is no necessity in
this. The same thing applies to all the other Ideas. They are not
rational concepts. They are not a part of the system of reason.
But at this point, perhaps, a glimmer of hope dawns upon us. We ask
the reason for these Ideas. Has not Plato asserted that the ultimate
reason and ground of all the lower Ideas will be found in the supreme
Idea of {244} the Good? Now if this is so, it means that the lower
Ideas must find their necessity in the highest Idea. If we could see
that the Idea of the Good necessarily involves the other Ideas, then
these other Ideas would be really explained. In other words, we ought
to be able to deduce all the other Ideas from this one Idea. It ought
to be possible to show that, granted the Idea of the Good, all the
other Ideas necessarily follow, that to assume the Good and deny the
other Ideas would be self-contradictory and unthinkable. There are
examples in Plato of the kind of deduction we require. For example, in
the "Parmenides" he showed that the Idea of the one necessarily
involves the Idea of the many, and vice versa. You cannot think the
one without also thinking the many. This means that the many is
deduced from the one, and the one from the many. Just in the same way,
we ought to be able to deduce the Idea of whiteness from the Idea of
the Good. But this is clearly not possible. You may analyse the Good
as long as you like, you may turn it in every conceivable direction,
but you cannot get whiteness out of it. The two Ideas do not involve
each other. They are thinkable apart. It is quite possible to think
the Good without thinking whiteness. And it is the same with all the
other Ideas. None of them can be deduced from the Good.
And the reason of this is very obvious. Just as the lower Ideas
contain only what is common among the things of a class, and exclude
their differences, so the higher Ideas include what is common to the
Ideas that come under them, but exclude what is not common. For
example, the Idea of colour contains what white, blue, red, and green,
have in common. But all colours {245} have not whiteness in common.
Green, for example, is not white. Hence the Idea of colour excludes
the Idea of whiteness, and it likewise excludes all the Ideas of the
other particular colours. So too the highest Idea of all contains only
what all the Ideas agree in, but all the rest falls outside it. Thus
the Idea of whiteness is perfect in its kind. And as all Ideas are
likewise perfect, the highest Idea is that in which they all agree,
namely, perfection itself. But this means that the perfection of the
Idea of whiteness is contained in the supreme Idea, but its specific
character in which it differs from other Ideas is excluded. Its
specific character is just its whiteness. Thus the perfection of
whiteness is contained in the Good, but its whiteness is not.
Consequently it is impossible to deduce whiteness from the Good,
because the Good does not contain whiteness. You cannot get out of it
what is not in it. When Plato deduced the many from the one, he did so
only by showing that the One contains the many. He cannot deduce
whiteness from goodness, because goodness does not contain whiteness.
The lower Ideas thus have not the character of necessity. They are
mere facts. And the hope that we shall find their necessity in the
supreme Idea fails. But suppose we waive this. Suppose we grant that
there must be an Idea of whiteness, because there is an Idea of the
Good. Then why is there an Idea of the Good? What is the necessity of
that? We cannot see any necessity in it. What we said of the other
Ideas applies with equal force to the highest Idea. The Good may be a
necessary Idea, but Plato has not shown it.
Thus, though Plato named reason as the Absolute, {246} and though
reason is a self-explanatory principle, his account of the detailed
content of reason is so unsatisfactory that none of the concepts which
he includes in it are really shown to be rational. His philosophy
breaks down upon the second test as it did upon the first. He has
neither explained the world from the Ideas, nor has he made the Ideas
explain themselves.
There is one other defect in Plato's system which is of capital
importance. There runs throughout it a confusion between the notions
of reality and existence. To distinguish between existence and reality
is an essential feature of all idealism. Even if we go back to the dim
idealism of the Eleatics, we shall see this. Zeno, we saw, denied
motion, multiplicity, and the world of sense. But he did not deny the
existence of the world. That is an impossibility. Even if the world is
delusion, the delusion exists. What he denied was the reality of
existence. But if reality is not existence, what is it? It is Being,
replied the Eleatics. But Being does not exist. Whatever exists is
this or that particular sort of being. Being itself is not anywhere to
be found. Thus the Eleatics first denied that existence is reality,
and then that reality exists. They did not themselves draw this
conclusion, but it is involved in their whole position.
With a fully developed idealism, like Plato's, this ought to be still
clearer. And, in a sense, it is. The individual horse is not real. But
it certainly exists. The universal horse is real. But it does not
exist. But, upon this last point, Plato wavered and fell. He cannot
resist the temptation to think of the absolute reality as existing.
And consequently the Ideas are {247} not merely thought as the real
universal in the world, but as having a separate existence in a world
of their own. Plato must have realised what is, in truth, involved in
his whole position, that the absolute reality has no existence. For he
tells us that it is the universal, and not any particular individual
thing. But everything that exists is an individual thing. Again, he
tells us that the Idea is outside time. But whatever exists must exist
at some time. Here then this central idealistic thought seems well
fixed in Plato's mind. But when he goes on to speak of recollection
and reincarnation, when he tells us that the soul before birth dwelt
apart in the world of Ideas, to which after death it may hope to
return, it is clear that Plato has forgotten his own philosophy, that
he is now thinking of the Ideas as individual existences in a world of
their own. This is a world of Ideas having a separate existence and
place of its own. It is not this world. It is a world beyond. Thus the
Platonic philosophy which began on a high level of idealistic
thinking, proclaiming the sole reality of the universal, ends by
turning the universal itself into nothing but an existent particular.
It is the old old story of trying to form mental pictures of that
which no picture is adequate to comprehend. Since all pictures are
formed out of sensuous materials, and since we can form no picture of
anything that is not an individual thing, to form a picture of the
universal necessarily means thinking of it as just what it is not, an
individual. So Plato commits the greatest sin that can be ascribed to
a philosopher. He treats thought as a thing.
To sum up. Plato is the great founder of idealism, the initiator of
all subsequent truths in philosophy. {248} But, as always with
pioneers, his idealism is crude. It cannot explain the world; it
cannot explain itself. It cannot even keep true to its own principles,
because, having for the first time in history definitely enunciated
the truth that reality is the universal, it straightway forgets its
own creed and plunges back into a particularism which regards the
Ideas as existent individuals. It was these defects which Aristotle
set himself to rectify in a purer idealism, shorn of Plato's
impurities.
{249}