PLATONIC COMPOSITIONS GENERALLY.
[Side-note: Variety and abundance visible in Plato's writings.]
On looking through the collection of works enumerated in the
Thrasyllean Canon, the first impression made upon us respecting the
author is, that which is expressed in the epithets applied to him by
Cicero--"varius et multiplex et copiosus". Such epithets bring before
us the variety in Plato's points of view and methods of handling--the
multiplicity of the topics discussed--the abundance of the premisses
and illustrations suggested:[1] comparison being taken with other
literary productions of the same age. It is scarcely possible to find
any one predicate truly applicable to all of Plato's works. Every
predicate is probably true in regard to some:--none in regard to all.
[Footnote 1: The rhetor Aristeides, comparing Plato with Æschines
(_i.e._ Æschines Socraticus, disciple of Sokrates also), remarks that
Æschines was more likely to report what Sokrates really said, from
being inferior in productive imagination. Plato (as he truly says
Orat. xlvi. [Greek: U(pe\r tô=n Tetta/rôn], p. 295, Dindorf) [Greek:
tê=s phu/seôs chrê=tai periousi/a|], &c.]
[Side-note: Plato both sceptical and dogmatical.]
Several critics of antiquity considered Plato as essentially a
sceptic--that is, a Searcher or Enquirer, not reaching any assured or
proved result. They denied to him the character of a dogmatist: they
maintained that he neither established nor enforced any affirmative
doctrines.[2] This latter statement is carried too far. Plato is
sceptical in some dialogues, dogmatical in others. And the catalogue
of Thrasyllus shows that the sceptical dialogues (Dialogues of Search
or Investigation) are more numerous than the dogmatical (Dialogues of
Exposition)--as they are also, speaking generally, more animated and
interesting.
[Footnote 2: Diogen. Laert. iii. 52. Prolegom. Platon. Philosoph. c.
10, vol. vi. 205, of K. F. Hermann's edition of Plato.]
[Side-note: Poetical vein predominant in some compositions, but not in
all.]
Again, Aristotle declared the writing of Plato to be something between
poetry and prose, and even the philosophical doctrine of Plato
respecting Ideas, to derive all its apparent plausibility from poetic
metaphors. The affirmation is true, up to a certain point. Many of the
dialogues display an exuberant vein of poetry, which was declared--not
by Aristotle alone, but by many other critics contemporary with Plato--to
be often misplaced and excessive--and which appeared the more
striking because the dialogues composed by the other Sokratic
companions were all of them plain and unadorned.[3] The various
mythes, in the Phædrus and elsewhere, are announced expressly as
soaring above the conditions of truth and logical appreciation.
Moreover, we find occasionally an amount of dramatic vivacity, and of
artistic antithesis between the speakers introduced, which might have
enabled Plato, had he composed for the drama as a profession, to
contend with success for the prizes at the Dionysiac festivals. But
here again, though this is true of several dialogues, it is not true
of others. In the Parmenidês, Timæus, and the Leges, such elements
will be looked for in vain. In the Timæus, they are exchanged for a
professed cosmical system, including much mystic and oracular
affirmation, without proof to support it, and without opponents to
test it: in the Leges, for ethical sermons, and religious
fulminations, proclaimed by a dictatorial authority.
[Footnote 3: See Dionys. Hal. Epist. ad Cn. Pomp. 756, De Adm. Vi Dic.
Dem. 956, where he recognises the contrast between Plato and [Greek:
to\ Sôkratiko\n didaskalei=on pa=n]. His expression is remarkable:
[Greek: Tau=ta ga\r oi(/ te kat' au)to\n geno/menoi pa/ntes
e)pitimô=sin ô(=n ta\ o)no/mata ou)de\n dei= me le/gein]. Epistol. ad
Cn. Pomp. p. 761; also 757. See also Diog. L. iii. 37; Aristotel.
Metaph. A. 991, a. 22.
Cicero and Quintilian say the same about Plato's style: "Multum supra
prosam orationem, et quam pedestrem Græci vocant, surgit: ut mihi non
hominis ingenio, sed quodam Delphico videatur oraculo instinctus".
Quintil. x. 1, 81. Cicero, Orator, c. 20. Lucian, Piscator, c. 22.
Sextus Empiricus designates the same tendency under the words [Greek:
tê\n Pla/tônos a)neidôlopoi/êsin]. Pyrrhon. Hypotyp. iii. 189.
The Greek rhetors of the Augustan age--Dionysius of Halikarnassus and
Kækilius of Kalaktê--not only blamed the style of Plato for excessive,
overstrained, and misplaced metaphor, but Kækilius goes so far as to
declare a decided preference for Lysias over Plato. (Dionys. Hal. De
Vi Demosth. pp. 1025-1037, De Comp. Verb. p. 196 R; Longinus, De
Sublimitat. c. 32.) The number of critics who censured the manner and
doctrine of Plato (critics both contemporary with him and subsequent)
was considerable (Dionys. H. Ep. ad Pomp. p. 757). Dionysius and the
critics of his age had before their eyes the contrast of the Asiatic
style of rhetoric, prevalent in their time, with the Attic style
represented by Demosthenes and Lysias. They wished to uphold the force
and simplicity of the Attic, against the tumid, wordy, pretensive
Asiatic: and they considered the Phædrus, with other compositions of
Plato, as falling under the same censure with the Asiatic. See Theoph.
Burckhardt, Cæcili Rhet. Frag., Berlin, 1863, p. 15.]
[Side-note: Form of dialogue--universal to this extent, that Plato
never speaks in his own name.]
One feature there is, which is declared by Schleiermacher and others
to be essential to all the works of Plato--the form of dialogue. Here
Schleiermacher's assertion, literally taken, is incontestable. Plato
always puts his thoughts into the mouth of some spokesman: he never
speaks in his own name. All the works of Plato which we possess
(excepting the Epistles, and the Apology, which last I consider to be
a report of what Sokrates himself said) are dialogues. But under this
same name, many different realities are found to be contained. In the
Timæus and Kritias the dialogue is simply introductory to a continuous
exposition--in the Menexenus, to a rhetorical discourse: while in the
Leges, and even in Sophistês, Politikus, and others, it includes no
antithesis nor interchange between two independent minds, but is
simply a didactic lecture, put into interrogatory form, and broken
into fragments small enough for the listener to swallow at once: he by
his answer acknowledging the receipt. If therefore the affirmation of
Schleiermacher is intended to apply to all the Platonic compositions,
we must confine it to the form, without including the spirit, of
dialogue.
[Side-note: No one common characteristic pervading all Plato's works.]
It is in truth scarcely possible to resolve all the diverse
manifestations of the Platonic mind into one higher unity; or to
predicate, about Plato as an intellectual person, anything which shall
be applicable at once to the Protagoras, Gorgias, Parmenidês, Phædrus,
Symposion, Philêbus, Phædon, Republic, Timæus, and Leges. Plato was
sceptic, dogmatist, religious mystic and inquisitor, mathematician,
philosopher, poet (erotic as well as satirical), rhetor, artist--all
in one:[4] or at least, all in succession, throughout the fifty years
of his philosophical life. At one time his exuberant dialectical
impulse claims satisfaction, manifesting itself in a string of
ingenious doubts and unsolved contradictions: at another time, he is
full of theological antipathy against those who libel Helios and
Selênê, or who deny the universal providence of the Gods: here, we
have unqualified confessions of ignorance, and protestations against
the false persuasion of knowledge, as alike widespread and
deplorable--there, we find a description of the process of building up
the Kosmos from the beginning, as if the author had been privy to the
inmost purposes of the Demiurgus. In one dialogue the erotic fever is
in the ascendant, distributed between beautiful youths and philosophical
concepts, and confounded with a religious inspiration and _furor_
which supersedes and transcends human sobriety (Phædrus): in another,
all vehement impulses of the soul are stigmatised and repudiated, no
honourable scope being left for anything but the calm and passionless
Nous (Philêbus, Phædon). Satire is exchanged for dithyramb, and mythe,
and one ethical point of view for another (Protagoras, Gorgias). The
all-sufficient dramatising power of the master gives full effect to
each of these multifarious tendencies. On the whole--to use a
comparison of Plato himself[5]--the Platonic sum total somewhat
resembles those fanciful combinations of animals imagined in the
Hellenic mythology--an aggregate of distinct and disparate
individualities, which look like one because they are packed in the
same external wrapper.
[Footnote 4: Dikæarchus affirmed that Plato was a compound of Sokrates
with Pythagoras. Plutarch calls him also a compound of Sokrates with
Lykurgus. (Plutarch, Symposiac. viii. 2, p. 718 B.)
Nemesius the Platonist (Eusebius, Præp. Evang. xiv. 5-7-8) repeats the
saying of Dikæarchus, and describes Plato as midway between Pythagoras
and Sokrates; [Greek: meseu/ôn Puthago/rou kai\ Sôkra/tous]. No three
persons could be more disparate than Lykurgus, Pythagoras, and
Sokrates. But there are besides various other attributes of Plato,
which are not included under either of the heads of this tripartite
character.
The Stoic philosopher Sphærus composed a work in three books--[Greek:
Peri\ Lukou/rgou kai\ Sôkra/tous]--(Diog. La. vii. 178). He probably
compared therein the Platonic Republic with the Spartan constitution
and discipline.]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Republ. ix. 588 C. [Greek: Oi(=ai muthologou=ntai
palaiai\ gene/sthai phu/seis, ê(/ te Chimai/ras kai\ ê( Sku/llês kai\
Kerbe/rou, kai\ a)/llai tine\s suchnai\ le/gontai xumpephukui=ai
i)de/ai pollai\ ei)s e(\n gene/sthai . . . . Peri/plason dê\ au)toi=s
e)/xôthen e(no\s ei)ko/na, tê\n tou= a)nthrô/pou, ô(/ste tô=| mê\
duname/nô| ta\ e)nto\s o(ra=|n, a)lla\ to\ e)/xô mo/non e)/lutron
o(rô=nti, e(\n zô=on phai/nesthai--a)/nthrôpon.]]
[Side-note: The real Plato was not merely a writer of dialogues, but
also lecturer and president of a school. In this last important
function he is scarcely at all known to us. Notes of his lectures
taken by Aristotle.]
Furthermore, if we intend to affirm anything about Plato as a whole,
there is another fact which ought to be taken into account.[6] We know
him only from his dialogues, and from a few scraps of information. But
Plato was not merely a composer of dialogues. He was lecturer, and
chief of a school, besides. The presidency of that school, commencing
about 386 B.C., and continued by him with great celebrity for the last
half (nearly forty years) of his life, was his most important
function. Among his contemporaries he must have exercised greater
influence through his school than through his writings.[7] Yet in this
character of school-teacher and lecturer, he is almost unknown to us:
for the few incidental allusions which have descended to us, through
the Aristotelian commentators, only raise curiosity without satisfying
it. The little information which we possess respecting Plato's
lectures, relates altogether to those which he delivered upon the
Ipsum Bonum or Summum Bonum at some time after Aristotle became his
pupil--that is, during the last eighteen years of Plato's life.
Aristotle and other hearers took notes of these lectures: Aristotle
even composed an express work now lost (De Bono or De Philosophiâ),
reporting with comments of his own these oral doctrines of Plato,
together with the analogous doctrines of the Pythagoreans. We learn
that Plato gave continuous lectures, dealing with the highest and most
transcendental concepts (with the constituent elements or factors of
the Platonic Ideas or Ideal Numbers: the first of these factors being
The One the second, The Indeterminate Dyad, or The Great and Little,
the essentially indefinite), and that they were mystic and
enigmatical, difficult to understand.[8]
[Footnote 6: Trendelenburg not only adopts Schleiermacher's theory of
a preconceived and systematic purpose connecting together all Plato's
dialogues, but even extends this purpose to Plato's oral lectures: "Id
pro certo habendum est. sicut prioribus dialogis quasi præeparat
(Plato) posteriores, posterioribus evolvit priores--ita et in scholis
continuasse dialogos; quæ reliquerit, absolvisse; atque omnibus ad
summa principia perductis, intima quasi semina aperuisse".
(Trendelenburg, De Ideis et Numeris Platonis, p. 6.)
This opinion is surely not borne out--it seems even contradicted--by
all the information which we possess (very scanty indeed) about the
Platonic lectures. Plato delivered therein his Pythagorean doctrines,
merging his Ideas in the Pythagorean numerical symbols: and Aristotle,
far from considering this as a systematic and intended evolution of
doctrine at first imperfectly unfolded, treats it as an additional
perversion and confusion, introduced into a doctrine originally
erroneous. In regard to the transition of Plato from the doctrine of
Ideas to that of Ideal Numbers, see Aristotel. Metaphys. M. 1078, b.
9, 1080, a. 12 (with the commentary of Bonitz, pp. 539-541), A. 987,
b. 20.
M. Boeckh, too, accounts for the obscure and enigmatical speaking of
Plato in various dialogues, by supposing that he cleared up all the
difficulties in his oral lectures. "Platon deutet nur an--spricht
meinethalben räthselhaft (in den Gesetzen); aber gerade so räthselhaft
spricht er von diesen Sachen im Timaeus: er pflegt mathematische
Theoreme nur anzudeuten, nicht zu entwickeln: ich glaube, weil er sie
in den Vorträgen ausführte," &c. (Untersuchungen über das Kosmische
System des Platon, p. 50.)
This may be true about the mathematical theorems; but I confess that I
see no proof of it. Though Plato admits that his doctrine in the
Timæus is [Greek: a)ê/thês lo/gos], yet he expressly intimates that
the hearers are instructed persons, able to follow him (Timæus, p. 53
C.).]
[Footnote 7: M. Renan, in his work, 'Averroès et l'Averroïsme,' pp.
257-325, remarks that several of the Italian professors of philosophy,
at Padua and other universities, exercised far greater influence
through their lectures than through their published works. He says (p.
325-6) respecting Cremonini (Professor at Padua, 1590-1620):--"Il a
été jusqu'ici apprécié d'une manière fort incomplète par les
historiens de la philosophie. On ne l'a jugé que par ses écrits
imprimés, qui ne sont que des dissertations de peu d'importance, et ne
peuvent en aucune manière faire comprendre la renommée colossale à
laquelle il parvint. Cremonini n'est qu'un professeur: ses _cours_
sont sa véritable philosophie. Aussi, tandis que ses écrits imprimés
se vendaient fort mal, les rédactions de ses leçons se répandaient
dans toute l'Italie et même au delà des monts. On sait que les élèves
préfèrent souvent aux textes imprimés, les cahiers qu'ils ont ainsi
recueillis de la bouche de leurs professeurs. . . En général, c'est
dans les cahiers, beaucoup plus que dans les sources imprimées, qu'il
faut étudier l'école de Padoue. Pour Cremonini, cette tâche est
facile; car les copies de ses cours sont innombrables dans le nord de
l'Italie."]
[Footnote 8: Aristotle (Physic. iv. p. 209, b. 34) alludes to [Greek:
ta\ lego/mena a)/grapha do/gmata] of Plato, and their discordance on
one point with the Timæus.
Simplikius ad Aristot. Physic. f. 104 b. p. 362, a. 11, Brandis.
[Greek: A)rcha\s ga\r kai\ tô=n ai)sthêtô=n to\ e(\n kai\ tê\n
a)o/risto/n phasi dua/da le/gein to\n Pla/tôna. Tê\n de\ a)o/riston
dua/da kai\ e)n toi=s noêtoi=s tithei\s a)/peiron ei)=nai e)/legen,
kai\ to\ me/ga de\ kai\ to\ mikro\n a)rcha\s tithei\s a)/peira ei)=nai
e)/legen e)n toi=s peri\ Ta)gathou= lo/gois, oi(=s o( A)ristote/lês
kai\ Ê(raklei/dês kai\ E)stiai=os kai\ a)/lloi tou= Pla/tônos
e(tai=roi _parageno/menoi a)negra/psanto ta\ r(êthe/nta,
ai)nigmatôdô=s ô(s e)r)r(ê/thê_; Porphu/rios de\ diarthrou=n au)ta\
e)paggello/menos ta/de peri\ au)tô=n ge/graphen e)n tô| Philê/bô|].
Compare another passage of the same Scholia, p. 334, b. 28, p. 371, b.
26. [Greek: Ta\s a)gra/phous sunousi/as tou= Pla/tônos au)to\s o(
A)ristote/lês a)pegra/psato]. 372, a. [Greek: To\ methektiko\n e)n
me\n tai=s peri\ Ta)gathou sunousi/ais me/ga kai\ mikro\n e)ka/lei,
e)n de\ tô=| Timai/ô| u(/lên, ê)\n kai\ chô/ran kai\ to/pon
ô)no/maze]. Comp 371, a. 5, and the two extracts from Simplikius,
cited by Zeller, De Hermodoro, pp. 20, 21. By [Greek: a)/grapha
do/gmata], or [Greek: a)/graphoi sunou/siai], we are to understand
opinions or colloquies not written down (or not communicated to others
as writings) _by Plato himself_: thus distinguished from his written
dialogues. Aristotle, in the treatise, De Animâ, i. 2, p. 404, b. 18,
refers to [Greek: e)n toi=s peri\ Philosophi/as]: which Simplikius
thus explains [Greek: peri\ philosophi/as nu=n le/gei ta\ peri\ tou=
A)gathou= au)tô=| e)k tê=s Pla/tônos a)nagegramme/na sunousi/as, e)n
oi(=s i(storei= ta/s te Puthagorei/ous kai\ Platônika\s peri\ tô=n
o)/ntôn do/xas]. Philoponus reports the same thing: see
Trendelenburg's Comm. on De Animâ, p. 226. Compare Alexand. ad
Aristot. Met. A. 992, p. 581, a. 2, Schol. Brandis.]
[Side-note: Plato's lectures De Bono obscure and transcendental.
Effect which they produced on the auditors.]
One remarkable observation, made upon them by Aristotle, has been
transmitted to us.[9] There were lectures announced to be, On the
Supreme Good. Most of those who came to hear, expected that Plato
would enumerate and compare the various matters usually considered
_good_--_i.e._ health, strength, beauty, genius, wealth, power, &c.
But these hearers were altogether astonished at what they really
heard: for Plato omitting the topics expected, descanted only upon
arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy; and told them that The Good was
identical with The One (as contrasted with the Infinite or
Indeterminate which was Evil).
[Footnote 9: Aristoxenus, Harmon. ii. p. 30. [Greek: Katha/per
A)ristote/lês a)ei\ diêgei=to tou\s plei/stous tô=n a)kousa/ntôn para\
Pla/tônos tê\n peri\ tou= a)gathou= a)kro/asin pathei=n; prosei=nai
ga\r e(/kaston u(polamba/nonta lê/psesthai/ ti tô=n nomizome/nôn
a)nthrôpi/nôn a)gathô=n;--o(/te de\ phanei/êsan oi( lo/goi peri\
mathêma/tôn kai\ a)rithmô=n kai\ geômetri/as kai\ a)strologi/as, kai\
to\ pe/ras o(/ti a)gatho/n e)stin e(/n, pantelô=s oi)=mai para/doxon
e)phai/neto au)toi=s].
Compare Themistius, Orat. xxi. p. 245 D. Proklus also alludes to this
story, and to the fact that most of the [Greek: polu\s kai\ pantoi=os
o)/chlos], who were attracted to Plato's [Greek: a)kro/asis peri\
Ta)gathou=], were disappointed or unable to understand him, and went
away. (Proklus ad Platon. Parmen. p. 92, Cousin. 528, Stallb.)]
[Side-note: They were delivered to miscellaneous auditors. They
coincide mainly with what Aristotle states about the Platonic Ideas.]
We see farther from this remark:--First, that Plato's lectures were
often above what his auditors could appreciate--a fact which we learn
from other allusions also: Next, that they were not confined to a
select body of advanced pupils, who had been worked up by special
training into a state fit for comprehending them.[10] Had such been
the case, the surprise which Aristotle mentions could never have
been felt. And we see farther, that the transcendental doctrine
delivered in the lectures De Bono (though we find partial analogies to
it in Philêbus, Epinomis, and parts of Republic) coincides more with
what Aristotle states and comments upon as Platonic doctrine, than
with any reasonings which we find in the Platonic dialogues. It
represents the latest phase of Platonism: when the Ideas originally
conceived by him as Entities in themselves, had become merged or
identified in his mind with the Pythagorean numbers or symbols.
[Footnote 10: Respecting Plato's lectures, see Brandis (Gesch. der
Griech.-Röm. Phil. vol. ii. p. 180 seq., 306-319); also Trendelenburg,
Platonis De Ideis et Numeris Doctrina, pp. 3, 4, seq.
Brandis, though he admits that Plato's lectures were continuous
discourses, thinks that they were intermingled with discussion and
debate: which may have been the case, though there is no proof of it.
But Schleiermacher goes further, and says (Einleitung. p. 18), "Any
one who can think that Plato in these oral _Vorträgen_ employed the
Sophistical method of long speeches, shows such an ignorance as to
forfeit all right of speaking about Plato". Now the passage from
Aristoxenus, given in the preceding note, is our only testimony; and
it distinctly indicates a continuous lecture to an unprepared
auditory, just as Protagoras or Prodikus might have given. K. F.
Hermann protests, with good reason, against Schleiermacher's opinion.
(Ueber Plato's schriftstellerische Motive, p. 289.)
The confident declaration just produced from Schleiermacher
illustrates the unsound basis on which he and various other Platonic
critics proceed. They find, in some dialogues of Plato, a strong
opinion proclaimed, that continuous discourse is useless for the
purpose of instruction. This was a point of view which, at the time
when he composed these dialogues, he considered to be of importance,
and desired to enforce. But we are not warranted in concluding that he
must always have held the same conviction throughout his long
philosophical life, and in rejecting as un-platonic all statements and
all compositions which imply an opposite belief. We cannot with reason
bind down Plato to a persistence in one and the same type of
compositions.]
[Side-note: The lectures De Bono may perhaps have been more
transcendental than Plato's other lectures.]
This statement of Aristotle, alike interesting and unquestionable,
attests the mysticism and obscurity which pervaded Plato's doctrine in
his later years. But whether this lecture on _The Good_ is to be taken
as a fair specimen of Plato's lecturing generally, and from the time
when he first began to lecture, we may perhaps doubt:[11] since we
know that as a lecturer and converser he acquired extraordinary
ascendency over ardent youth. We see this by the remarkable instance
of Dion.[12]
[Footnote 11: Themistius says (Orat. xxi. p. 245 D) that Plato sometimes
lectured in the Peiræus, and that a crowd then collected to hear him,
not merely from the city, but also from the country around: if he
lectured De Bono, however, the ordinary hearers became tired and
dispersed, leaving only [Greek: tou\s sunê/theis o(milêta/s].
It appears that Plato in his lectures delivered theories on the
principles of geometry. He denied the reality of geometrical points--or
at least admitted them only as hypotheses for geometrical
reasoning. He maintained that what others called _a point_ ought to be
called "_an indivisible line_". Xenokrates maintained the same
doctrine after him. Aristotle controverts it (see Metaphys. A., 992,
b. 20). Aristotle's words citing Plato's opinion ([Greek: tou/tô| me\n
ou)=n tô=| ge/nei kai\ diema/cheto Pla/tôn ô(s o)/nti geômetrikô=|
do/gmati, a)ll' e)ka/lei a)rchê\n grammê=s; tou=to de\ polla/kis
e)ti/thei ta\s a)to/mous gramma/s]) must be referred to Plato's oral
lectures; no such opinion occurs in the dialogues. This is the opinion
both of Bonitz and Schwegler in their comments on the passage: also of
Trendelenburg, De Ideis et Numeris Platonis, p. 66. That geometry and
arithmetic were matters of study and reflection both to Plato himself
and to many of his pupils in the Academy, appears certain; and perhaps
Plato may have had an interior circle of pupils, to which he applied
the well-known exclusion--[Greek: mêdei\s a)geôme/trêtos ei)si/tô].
But we cannot make out clearly what was Plato's own proficiency, or
what improvements he may have introduced, in geometry, nor what there
is to justify the comparison made by Montucla between Plato and
Descartes. In the narrative respecting the Delian problem--the
duplication of the cube--Archytas, Menæchmus, and Eudoxus, appear as
the inventors of solutions, Plato as the superior who prescribes and
criticises (see the letter and epigram of Eratosthenes: Bernhardy,
Eratosthenica, pp. 176-184). The three are said to have been blamed by
Plato for substituting instrumental measurement in place of
geometrical proof (Plutarch, Problem. Sympos. viii. 2, pp. 718, 719;
Plutarch, Vit. Marcelli, c. 14). The geometrical construction of the
[Greek: Ko/smos], which Plato gives us in the Timæus, seems borrowed
from the Pythagoreans, though applied probably in a way peculiar to
himself (see Finger, De Primordiis Geometriæ ap. Græcos, p. 38,
Heidelb. 1831).]
[Footnote 12: See Epist. vii. pp. 327, 328.]
[Side-note: Plato's Epistles--in them only he speaks in his own
person.]
The only occasions on which we have experience of Plato as speaking in
his own person, and addressing himself to definite individuals, are
presented by his few Epistles; all of them (as I have before remarked)
written after he he was considerably above sixty years of age, and
nearly all addressed to Sicilians or Italians--Dionysius II., Dion,
the friends of Dion after the death of the latter, and Archytas.[13]
In so far as these letters bear upon Plato's manner of lecturing or
teaching, they go to attest, first, his opinion that direct written
exposition was useless for conveying real instruction to the reader--next,
his reluctance to publish any such exposition under his own
name, and carrying with it his responsibility. When asked for
exposition, he writes intentionally with mystery, so that ordinary
persons cannot understand.
[Footnote 13: Of the thirteen Platonic Epistles, Ep. 2, 3, 13, are
addressed to the second or younger Dionysius; Ep. 4 to Dion; Ep. 7, 8,
to the friends and relatives of Dion after Dion's death. The 13th
Epistle appears to be the earliest of all, being seemingly written
after the first voyage of Plato to visit Dionysius II. at Syracuse, in
367-366 B.C., and before his second visit to the same place and
person, about 363-362 B.C. Epistles 2 and 3 were written after his
return from that second visit, in 360 B.C., and prior to the
expedition of Dion against Dionysius in 357 B.C. Epistle 4 was written
to Dion shortly after Dion's victorious career at Syracuse, about 355
B.C. Epistles 7 and 8 were written not long after the murder of Dion
in 354 B.C. The first in order, among the Platonic Epistles, is not
written by Plato, but by Dion, addressed to Dionysius, shortly after
the latter had sent Dion away from Syracuse. The fifth is addressed by
Plato to the Macedonian prince Perdikkas. The sixth, to Hermeias of
Atarneus, Erastus, and Koriskus. The ninth and twelfth, to Archytas of
Tarentum. The tenth, to Aristodôrus. The eleventh, to Laodamas. I
confess that I see nothing in these letters which compels me to depart
from the judgment of the ancient critics, who unanimously acknowledged
them as genuine. I do not think myself competent to determine _à
priori_ what the style of Plato's letters _must_ have been; what
topics he _must_ have touched upon, and what topics he _could not_
have touched upon. I have no difficulty in believing that Plato,
writing a letter on philosophy, may have expressed himself with as
much mysticism and obscurity as we now read in Epist. 2 and 7. Nor
does it surprise me to find Plato (in Epist. 13) alluding to details
which critics, who look upon him altogether as a spiritual person,
disallow as mean and unworthy. His recommendation of the geometer,
Helikon of Kyzikus, to Dionysius and Archytas, is to me interesting:
to make known the theorems of Eudoxus, through the medium of Helikon,
to Archytas, was no small service to geometry in those days. I have an
interest in learning how Plato employed the money given to him by
Dionysius and other friends: that he sent to Dionysius a statue of
Apollo by a good Athenian sculptor named Leochares (this sculptor
executed a bust of Isokrates also, Plut. Vit. x. Orat. p. 838); and
another statue by the same sculptor for the wife of Dionysius, in
gratitude for the care which she had taken of him (Plato) when sick at
Syracuse; that he spent the money of Dionysius partly in discharging
his own public taxes and liturgies at Athens, partly in providing
dowries for poor maidens among his friends; that he was so beset by
applications, which he could not refuse, for letters of recommendation
to Dionysius, as to compel him to signify, by a private mark, to
Dionysius, which among the letters he wished to be most attended to.
"These latter" (he says) "I shall begin with [Greek: theo\s] (sing.
number), the others I shall begin with [Greek: theoi\] (plural)."
(Epist. xiii. 361, 362, 363.)]
[Side-note: Intentional obscurity of his Epistles in reference to
philosophical doctrine.]
Knowing as we do that he had largely imbued himself with the tenets of
the Pythagoreans (who designedly adopted a symbolical manner of
speaking--published no writings--for Philolaus is cited as an
exception to their rule--and did not care to be understood, except by
their own adepts after a long apprenticeship) we cannot be surprised
to find Plato holding a language very similar. He declares that the
highest principles of his philosophy could not be set forth in writing
so as to be intelligible to ordinary persons: that they could only be
apprehended by a few privileged recipients, through an illumination
kindled in the mind by multiplied debates and much mental effort: that
such illumination was always preceded by a painful feeling of want,
usually long-continued, sometimes lasting for nearly thirty years, and
exchanged at length for relief at some unexpected moment.[14]
[Footnote 14: Plato, Epist. ii. pp. 313, 314.]
Plato during his second visit had had one conversation, and only one,
with Dionysius respecting the higher mysteries of philosophy. He had
impressed upon Dionysius the prodigious labour and difficulty of
attaining truth upon these matters. The despot professed to thirst
ardently for philosophy, and the conversation turned upon the Natura
Primi--upon the first and highest principles of Nature.[15] Dionysius,
after this conversation with Plato, intimated that he had already
conceived in his own mind the solution of these difficulties, and the
truth upon philosophy in its greatest mysteries. Upon which Plato
expressed his satisfaction that such was the case,[16] so as to
relieve him from the necessity of farther explanations, though the
like had never happened to him with any previous hearer.
[Footnote 15: Plat. Epist. ii. 312: [Greek: peri\ tê=s tou= prô/ton
phu/seôs]. Epist. vii. 344: [Greek: tô=n peri\ phu/seôs a)/krôn kai\
prô/tôn].--One conversation only--Epist. vii. 345.]
[Footnote 16: Plato, Epist. ii. 313 B. Plato asserts the same about
Dionysius in Epist. vii. 341 B.]
[Side-note: Letters of Plato to Dionysius II. about philosophy. His
anxiety to confine philosophy to discussion among select and prepared
minds.]
But Dionysius soon found that he could not preserve the explanation in
his mind, after Plato's departure--that difficulties again crowded
upon him--and that it was necessary to send a confidential messenger
to Athens to entreat farther elucidations. In reply, Plato sends back
by the messenger what is now numbered as the second of his Epistles.
He writes avowedly in enigmatical language, so that, if the letter be
lost, the finder will not be able to understand it; and he enjoins
Dionysius to burn it after frequent perusal.[17] He expresses his hope
that when Dionysius has debated the matter often with the best minds
near him, the clouds will clear away of themselves, and the moment of
illumination will supervene.[18] He especially warns Dionysius against
talking about these matters to unschooled men, who will be sure to
laugh at them; though by minds properly prepared, they will be
received with the most fervent welcome.[19] He affirms that Dionysius
is much superior in philosophical debate to his companions; who were
overcome in debate with him, not because they suffered themselves
designedly to be overcome (out of flattery towards the despot, as some
ill-natured persons alleged), but because they could not defend
themselves against the Elenchus as applied by Dionysius.[20] Lastly,
Plato advises Dionysius to write down nothing, since what has once
been written will be sure to disappear from the memory; but to trust
altogether to learning by heart, meditation, and repeated debate, as a
guarantee for retention in his mind. "It is for that reason" (Plato
says)[21] "that I have never myself written anything upon these
subjects. There neither is, nor shall there ever be, any treatise of
Plato. The opinions called by the name of Plato are those of Sokrates,
in his days of youthful vigour and glory."
[Footnote 17: Plat. Epist. ii. 312 E: [Greek: phraste/on dê/ soi di'
ai)nigmô=n i(/n a)/n ti ê( de/ltos ê)\ po/ntos ê)\ gê=s e)n ptuchai=s
pa/thê|, o( a)nagnou\s mê\ gnô=|]. 314 C: [Greek: e)/r)r(hôso kai\
pei/thou, kai\ tê\n e)pistolê\n tau/tên nu=n prô=ton polla/kis
a)nagnou\s kata/kauson].
Proklus, in his Commentary on the Timæus (pp. 40, 41), remarks the
fondness of Plato for [Greek: to\ ai)nigmatôde/s].]
[Footnote 18: Plat. Epist. ii. 313 D.]
[Footnote 19: Plat. Epist. ii. 314 A. [Greek: eu)labou= me/ntoi mê/
pote e)kpe/sê| tau=ta ei)s a)nthrô/pous a)paideu/tous.]]
[Footnote 20: Plat. Epist. ii. 314 D.]
[Footnote 21: Plat. Epist. ii. 314 C. [Greek: megi/stê de\ phulakê\
to\ mê\ gra/phein a)ll' e)kmantha/nein; ou) ga\r e)sti ta\ graphe/nta
mê\ ou)k e)kpesei=n. dia\ tau=ta ou)de\n pô/pot' e)gô\ peri\ tou/tôn
ge/grapha, ou)/d' e)/sti su/ggramma Pla/tônos ou)de\n ou)/d' e)/stai;
ta\ de\ nu=n lego/mena, Sôkra/tous e)sti\ kalou= kai\ ne/ou
gegono/tos].
"Addamus ad superiora" (says Wesseling, Epist. ad Venemam, p. 41,
Utrecht, 1748), "Platonem videri semper voluisse, dialogos, in quibus
de Philosophiâ, deque Republicâ, atque ejus Legibus, inter
confabulantes actum fuit, non sui ingenii sed Socratici, foetus
esse".]
[Side-note: He refuses to furnish any written, authoritative
exposition of his own philosophical doctrine.]
Such is the language addressed by Plato to the younger Dionysius, in a
letter written seemingly between 362-357 B.C. In another letter,
written about ten years afterwards (353-352 B.C.) to the friends of
Dion (after Dion's death), he expresses the like repugnance to the
idea of furnishing any written authoritative exposition of his
principal doctrines. "There never shall be any expository treatise of
mine upon them" (he declares). "Others have tried, Dionysius among the
number, to write them down; but they do not know what they attempt. I
could myself do this better than any one, and I should consider it the
proudest deed in my life, as well as a signal benefit to mankind, to
bring forward an exposition of Nature luminous to all.[22] But I think
the attempt would be nowise beneficial, except to a few, who require
only slight direction to enable them to find it for themselves: to
most persons it would do no good, but would only fill them with empty
conceit of knowledge, and with contempt for others.[23] These matters
cannot be communicated in words as other sciences are. Out of repeated
debates on them, and much social intercourse, there is kindled
suddenly a light in the mind, as from fire bursting forth, which, when
once generated, keeps itself alive."[24]
[Footnote 22: Plato, Epist. vii. 341, B, C. [Greek: ti/ tou/tou
ka/llion e)pe/prakt' a)\n ê(mi=n e)n tô=| bi/ô| ê)\ toi=s te
a)nthrô/poisi me/ga o)/phelos gra/psai _kai\ tê\n phu/sin ei)s phô=s
pa=si proagagei=n_?]]
[Footnote 23: Plat. Epist. vii. 341 E.]
[Footnote 24: Plato, Epist. vii. 341 C. [Greek: ou)/koun e)mo/n ge
peri\ au)tô=n e)/sti su/ggramma ou)de mê/ pote ge/nêtai; r(êto\n ga\r
ou)damô=s e)stin ô(s a)/lla mathê/mata, a)ll' e)k pollê=s sunousi/as
gignome/nês peri\ to\ pra=gma au)to\ kai\ tou= suzê=|n, e)xai/phnês,
oi(=on a)po\ puro\s pêdê/santos e)xaphthe\n phô=s, e)n tê=| psuchê=|
geno/menon au)to\ e(auto\ ê)/dê tre/phei].
This sentence, as a remarkable one, I have translated literally in the
text: that which precedes is given only in substance.
We see in the Republic that Sokrates, when questioned by Glaukon, and
urged emphatically to give some solution respecting [Greek: ê( tou=
a)gathou= i)de/a] and [Greek: ê( tou= diale/gesthai du/namis], answers
only by an evasion or a metaphor (Republic, vi. 506 E, vii. 533 A).
Now these are much the same points as what are signified in the letter
to Dionysius, under the terms [Greek: ta\ prô=ta kai\ a)/kra tê=s
phu/seôs--ê( tou= prô/tou phu/sis] (312 E): as to which Plato, when
questioned, replies in a mystic and unintelligible way.]
[Side-note: He illustrates his doctrine by the successive stages of
geometrical teaching. Difficulty to avoid the creeping in of error at
each of these stages.]
Plato then proceeds to give an example from geometry, illustrating the
uselessness both of writing and of direct exposition. In acquiring a
knowledge of the circle, he distinguishes five successive stages. 1.
The Name. 2. The Definition, a proposition composed of nouns and
verbs. 3. The Diagram. 4. Knowledge, Intelligence, True Opinion,
[Greek: Nou=s]. 5. The Noumenon--[Greek: Au)to\-Ku/klos]--ideal or
intelligible circle, the only true object of knowledge.[25] The fourth
stage is a purely mental result, not capable of being exposed either
in words or figure: it presupposes the three first, but is something
distinct from them; and it is the only mental condition immediately
cognate and similar to the fifth stage, or the self-existent idea.[26]
[Footnote 25: Plato, Epist. vii. 342 A, B. The geometrical
illustration which follows is intended merely as an illustration, of
general principles which Plato asserts to be true about all other
enquiries, physical or ethical.]
[Footnote 26: Plat. Epist. vii. 342 C. [Greek: ô(s de\ e(\n tou=to
au)= pa=n thete/on, ou)k e)n phônai=s ou)d' e)n sôma/tôn schê/masin
a)ll' e)n psuchai=s e)no/n, ô(=| dê=lon e(/teron te o)\n au)tou= tou=
ku/klou tê=s phu/seôs, tô=n te e)/mprosthen lechthe/ntôn triô=n.
tou/tôn de\ e)ggu/tata me\n xuggenei/a| kai\ o(moio/têti, tou=
pe/mptou] (_i. e._ [Greek: tou= Au)to\-ku/klou]) [Greek: nou=s] (the
fourth stage) [Greek: peplêsi/ake, ta)/lla de\ ple/on a)pe/chei].
In Plato's reckoning, [Greek: o( nou=s] is counted as the fourth, in
the ascending scale, from which we ascend to the fifth, [Greek: to\
noou/menon], or [Greek: noêto/n]. [Greek: O( nou=s] and [Greek: to\
noêto\n] are cognate or homogeneous--according to a principle
often insisted on in ancient metaphysics--like must be known by like.
(Aristot. De Animâ, i. 2, 404, b. 15.)]
Now in all three first stages (Plato says) there is great liability to
error and confusion. The name is unavoidably equivocal, uncertain,
fluctuating: the definition is open to the same reproach, and often
gives special and accidental properties along with the universal and
essential, or instead of them: the diagram cannot exhibit the
essential without some variety of the accidental, nor without some
properties even contrary to reality, since any circle which you draw,
instead of touching a straight line in one point alone, will be sure
to touch it in several points.[27] Accordingly no intelligent man will
embody the pure concepts of his mind in fixed representation, either
by words or by figures.[28] If we do this, we have the _quid_ or
essence, which we are searching for, inextricably perplexed by
accompaniments of the _quale_ or accidents, which we are not searching
for.[29] We acquire only a confused cognition, exposing us to be
puzzled, confuted, and humiliated, by an acute cross-examiner, when he
questions us on the four stages which we have gone through to attain
it.[30] Such confusion does not arise from any fault in the mind, but
from the defects inherent in each of the four stages of progress. It
is only by painful effort, when each of these is naturally good--when
the mind itself also is naturally good, and when it has gone through
all the stages up and down, dwelling upon each--that true knowledge
can be acquired.[31] Persons whose minds are naturally bad, or have
become corrupt, morally or intellectually, cannot be taught to see
even by Lynkeus himself. In a word, if the mind itself be not cognate
to the matter studied, no quickness in learning nor force of memory
will suffice. He who is a quick learner and retentive, but not cognate
or congenial with just or honourable things--he who, though cognate
and congenial, is stupid in learning or forgetful--will never
effectually learn the truth about virtue or wickedness.[32] These can
only be learnt along with truth and falsehood as it concerns entity
generally, by long practice and much time.[33] It is only with
difficulty,--after continued friction, one against another, of all the
four intellectual helps, names and definitions, acts of sight and
sense,--after application of the Elenchus by repeated question and
answer, in a friendly temper and without spite--it is only after all
these preliminaries, that cognition and intelligence shine out with as
much intensity as human power admits.[34]
[Footnote 27: Plat. Epist. vii. 343 B. This illustrates what is said
in the Republic about the geometrical [Greek: u(pothe/seis] (vi. 510
E, 511 A; vii. 533 B.)]
[Footnote 28: Plat. Epist. vii. 343 A. [Greek: ô(=n e(/neka nou=n
e)/chôn ou)dei\s tolmê/sei pote\ ei)s au)to\ tithe/nai ta\ nenoême/na,
kai\ tau=ta ei)s a)metaki/nêton, o(\ dê\ pa/schei ta\ gegramme/na
tu/pois.]]
[Footnote 29: Plat. Epist. vii. 343 C.]
[Footnote 30: Plat. Epist. vii. 343 D.]
[Footnote 31: Plat. Epistol. vii. 343 E. [Greek: ê( de\ dia\ pa/ntôn
au)tô=n diagôgê/, a)/nô kai\ ka/tô metabai/nousa e)ph' e(/kaston,
mo/gis e)pistê/mên e)ne/teken eu)= pephuko/tos eu)= pephuko/ti.]]
[Footnote 32: Plato, Epistol. vii. 344 A.]
[Footnote 33: Plato, Epist. vii. 344 B. [Greek: a(/ma ga\r au)ta\
a)na/gkê mantha/nein, kai\ to\ pseu=dos a(/ma kai\ a)lêthe\s tê=s
o(/lês ou)si/as.]]
[Footnote 34: Plat. Epist. vii. 344 B. [Greek: mo/gis de\ tribo/mena
pro\s a)/llêla au)tô=n e(/kasta, o)no/mata kai\ lo/goi, o)/pseis te
kai\ ai)sthê/seis, e)n eu)mene/sin e)le/gchos e)legcho/mena kai\
a)/neu phtho/nôn e)rôtê/sesi kai\ a)pokri/sesi chrôme/nôn, e)xe/lampse
phro/nêsis peri\ e(/kaston kai\ nou=s, suntei/nôn o(/ti ma/list' ei)s
du/namin a)nthrôpi/nên.]]
[Side-note: No written exposition can keep clear of these chances of
error.]
For this reason, no man of real excellence will ever write and publish
his views, upon the gravest matters, into a world of spite and
puzzling contention. In one word, when you see any published writings,
either laws proclaimed by the law-giver or other compositions by
others, you may be sure that, if he be himself a man of worth, these
were not matters of first-rate importance in his estimation. If they
really were so, and if he has published his views in writing, some
evil influence must have destroyed his good sense.[35]
[Footnote 35: Plat. Epist. vii. 344 C-D.]
[Side-note: Relations of Plato with Dionysius II. and the friends of
the deceased Dion. Pretensions of Dionysius to understand and expound
Plato's doctrines.]
We see by these letters that Plato disliked and disapproved the idea
of publishing, for the benefit of readers generally, any written
exposition of _philosophia prima_, carrying his own name, and making
him responsible for it. His writings are altogether dramatic. All
opinions on philosophy are enunciated through one or other of his
spokesmen: that portion of the Athenian drama called the Parabasis, in
which the Chorus addressed the audience directly and avowedly in the
name of the poet, found no favour with Plato. We read indeed in
several of his dialogues (Phædon, Republic, Timæus, and others) dogmas
advanced about the highest and most recondite topics of philosophy:
but then they are all advanced under the name of Sokrates, Timæus,
&c.--[Greek: Ou)k e)mo\s o( mu=thos], &c. There never was any written
programme issued by Plato himself, declaring the Symbolum Fidei to
which he attached his own name.[36] Even in the Leges, the most
dogmatical of all his works, the dramatic character and the borrowed
voice are kept up. Probably at the time when Plato wrote his letter to
the friends of the deceased Dion, from which I have just quoted--his
aversion to written expositions was aggravated by the fact, that
Dionysius II., or some friend in his name, had written and published a
philosophical treatise of this sort, passing himself off as editor of
a Platonic philosophy, or of improved doctrines of his own built
thereupon, from oral communication with Plato.[37] We must remember
that Plato himself (whether with full sincerity or not) had
complimented Dionysius for his natural ability and aptitude in
philosophical debate:[38] so that the pretension of the latter to come
forward as an expositor of Plato appears the less preposterous. On the
other hand, such pretension was calculated to raise a belief that
Dionysius had been among the most favoured and confidential companions
of Plato: which belief Plato, writing as he was to the surviving
friends of Dion the enemy of Dionysius, is most anxious to remove,
while on the other hand he extols the dispositions and extenuates the
faults of his friend Dion. It is to vindicate himself from
misconception of his own past proceedings, as well as to exhort with
regard to the future, that Plato transmits to Sicily his long seventh
and eighth Epistles, wherein are embodied his objections against the
usefulness of written exposition intended for readers generally.
[Footnote 36: The Platonic dialogue was in this respect different from
the Aristotelian dialogue. Aristotle, in his composed dialogues,
introduced other speakers, but delivered the principal arguments in
his own name. Cicero followed his example, in the De Finibus and
elsewhere: "Quæ his temporibus scripsi, [Greek: A)ristote/leion] morem
habent: in quo sermo ita inducitur cæterorum, ut penes ipsum sit
principatus". (Cic. ad Att. xiii. 19.)
Herakleides of Pontus (Cicero, ibid.), in his composed dialogues,
introduced himself as a [Greek: kôpho\n pro/sôpon]. Plato does not
even do thus much.]
[Footnote 37: We see this from Epist. vii. 341 B, 344 D, 345 A. Plato
speaks of the impression as then prevalent (when he wrote) in the mind
of Dionysius:--[Greek: po/teron Dionu/sios a)kou/sas mo/non a(/pax
ou(/tôs _ei)de/nai te oi)/etai_ kai\ i(kanôs oi)=den], &c.]]
[Footnote 38: Plat. Epist. ii. 314 D.]
[Side-note: Impossibility of teaching by written exposition assumed by
Plato; the assumption intelligible in his day.]
These objections (which Plato had often insisted on,[39] and which are
also, in part, urged by Sokrates in the Phædrus) have considerable
force, if we look to the way in which Plato conceives them. In the
first place, Plato conceives the exposition as not merely written but
published: as being, therefore, presented to all minds, the large
majority being ignorant, unprepared, and beset with that false
persuasion of knowledge which Sokrates regarded as universal. In so
far as it comes before these latter, nothing is gained, and something
is lost; for derision is brought upon the attempt to teach.[40] In the
next place, there probably existed, at that time, no elementary work
whatever for beginners in any science: the Elements of Geometry by
Euclid were published more than a century after Plato's death, at
Alexandria. Now, when Plato says that written expositions, then
scarcely known, would be useless to the student--he compares them with
the continued presence and conversation of a competent teacher; whom
he supposes not to rely upon direct exposition, but to talk much
"about and about" the subject, addressing the pupil with a large
variety of illustrative interrogations, adapting all that was said to
his peculiar difficulties and rate of progress, and thus evoking the
inherent cognitive force of the pupil's own mind. That any Elements of
Geometry (to say nothing of more complicated inquiries) could be
written and published, such that an [Greek: a)geôme/trêtos] might take
up the work and learn geometry by means of it, without being misled by
equivocal names, bad definitions, and diagrams exhibiting the
definition as clothed with special accessories--this is a possibility
which Plato contests, and which we cannot wonder at his
contesting.[41] The combination of a written treatise, with the oral
exposition of a tutor, would have appeared to Plato not only useless
but inconvenient, as restraining the full liberty of adaptive
interrogation necessary to be exercised, different in the case of each
different pupil.
[Footnote 39: Plato, Epist. vii. 342. [Greek: lo/gos a)lêthê/s,
polla/kis me\n u(p' e)mou= kai\ pro/sthen r(êthei/s], &c.]
[Footnote 40: Plato (Epist. ii. 314 A) remarks this expressly: also in
the Phædrus, 275 E, 276 A.
[Greek: A)/threi dê\ periskopô=n, mê/ tis tô=n a)muê/tôn e)pakou/sê|]
is the language of the Platonic Sokrates as a speaker in the Theætêtus
(155 E).]
[Footnote 41: Some just and pertinent remarks, bearing on this
subject, are made by Condorcet, in one of his Academic Éloges: "Les
livres ne peuvent remplacer les leçons des maîtres habiles, lorsque
les sciences n'ont pas encore fait assez de progrès, pour que les
vérités, qui en forment l'ensemble, puissent êtres distribuées et
rapprochées entre elles suivant un ordre systématique: lorsque la
méthode d'en chercher de nouvelles n'a pas été réduite à des procédés
exacts et simples, à des règles sûres et précises. Avant cette époque,
il faut être déjà consommé dans une science pour lire avec utilité les
ouvrages qui en traitent: et comme cette espèce d'enfance de l'art est
le temps où les préjugés y regnent avec le plus d'empire, où les
savants sont les plus exposés à donner leurs hypothèses pour de
véritables principes, on risquerait encore de s'égarer si l'on se
bornait aux leçons d'un seul maître, quand même on aurait choisi celui
que la renommée place au premier rang; car ce temps est aussi celui
des reputations usurpées. Les voyages sont donc alors le seul moyen de
s'instruire, comme ils l'étaient dans l'antiquité et avant la
découverte de l'imprimerie." (Condorcet, Éloge de M. Margraaf, p. 349,
Oeuvres Complets, Paris, 1804. Éloges, vol. ii. Or Ed. Firmin Didot
Frères, Paris, 1847, vol. ii. pp. 598-9.)]
[Side-note: Standard by which Plato tested the efficacy of the
expository process.--Power of sustaining a Sokratic
cross-examination.]
Lastly, when we see by what standard Plato tests the efficacy of any
expository process, we shall see yet more clearly how he came to
consider written exposition unavailing. The standard which he applies
is, that the learner shall be rendered able both to apply to others,
and himself to endure from others, a Sokratic Elenchus or
cross-examination as to the logical difficulties involved in all the
steps and helps to learning. Unless he can put to others and follow up
the detective questions--unless he can also answer them, when put to
himself, pertinently and consistently, so as to avoid being brought to
confusion or contradiction--Plato will not allow that he has attained
true knowledge.[42] Now, if we try knowledge by a test so severe as
this, we must admit that no reading of written expositions will enable
the student to acquire it. The impression made is too superficial, and
the mind is too passive during such a process, to be equal to the task
of meeting new points of view, and combating difficulties not
expressly noticed in the treatise which has been studied. The only way
of permanently arming and strengthening the mind, is (according to
Plato) by long-continued oral interchange and stimulus, multiplied
comment and discussion from different points of view, and active
exercise in dialectic debate: not aiming at victory over an opponent,
but reasoning out each question in all its aspects, affirmative and
negative. It is only after a long course of such training--the living
word of the competent teacher, applied to the mind of the pupil, and
stimulating its productive and self-defensive force--that any such
knowledge can be realised as will suffice for the exigencies of the
Sokratic Elenchus.[43]
[Footnote 42: Plato, Epist. vii. 343 D. The difficulties which Plato
had here in his eye, and which he required to be solved as conditions
indispensable to real knowledge--are jumped over in geometrical and
other scientific expositions, as belonging not to geometry, &c., but
to logic. M. Jouffroy remarks, in the Preface to his translation of
Reid's works (p. clxxiv.):--"Toute science particulière qui, au lieu
de prendre pour accordées les données _à priori_ qu'elle implique,
discute l'autorité de ces données--ajoute à son objet propre celui de
la logique, confond une autre mission avec la sienne, et par cela même
compromet la sienne: car nous verrons tout à-l'heure, et l'histoire de
la philosophic montre, quelles difficultés présentent ces problèmes
qui sont l'objet propre de la logique; et nous demeurerons convaincus
que, si les _différentes sciences avaient eu la prétention de les
éclaircir avant de passer outre, toutes peut-être en seraient encore à
cette préface_, et aucune n'aurait entamé sa véritable tâche."
Remarks of a similar bearing will be found in the second paragraph of
Mr. John Stuart Mill's Essay on Utilitarianism. It has been found
convenient to distinguish the logic of a science from the expository
march of the same science. But Plato would not have acknowledged
[Greek: e)pistê/mê], except as including both. Hence his view about
the uselessness of written expository treatises.
Aristotle, in a remarkable passage of the Metaphysica ([Greek: G]. p.
1005, a. 20 seqq.) takes pains to distinguish the Logic of Mathematics
from Mathematics themselves--as a separate province and matter of
study. He claims the former as belonging to Philosophia Prima or
Ontology. Those principles which mathematicians called Axioms were not
peculiar to Mathematics (he says), but were affirmations respecting
Ens quatenus Ens: the mathematician was entitled to assume them so far
as concerned his own department, and his students must take them for
granted: but if he attempted to explain or appreciate them in their
full bearing, he overstepped his proper limits, through want of proper
schooling in Analytica ([Greek: o(/sa d' e)gcheirou=si tô=n lego/ntôn
tine\s peri\ tê=s a)lêthei/as, o(\n tro/pon dei= a)pode/chesthai, di'
a)paideusi/an tô=n a)nalutikô=n tou=to drô=sin; dei= ga\r peri\
tou/tôn ê(/kein proepistame/nous, a)lla\ mê\ a)kou/ontas zêtei=n]--p.
1005, b. 2.) We see from the words of Aristotle that many mathematical
enquirers of his time did not recognise (any more than Plato
recognised) the distinction upon which he here insists: we see also
that the term _Axioms_ had become a technical one for the _principia_
of mathematical demonstration ([Greek: peri\ tô=n e)n toi=s mathê/masi
kaloume/nôn a)xiôma/tôn]--p. 1005, a. 20); I do not concur in Sir
William Hamilton's doubts on this point. (Dissertations on Reid's
Works, note A. p. 764.)
The distinction which Aristotle thus brings to notice, seemingly for
the first time, is one of considerable importance.]
[Footnote 43: This is forcibly put by Plato, Epistol. vii. 344 B.
Compare Plato, Republic, vi. 499 A. Phædrus, 276 A-E. [Greek: to\n
tou= ei)do/tos lo/gon zô=nta kai\ e)/mpsuchon], &c.
Though Plato, in the Phædrus, declares oral teaching to be the only
effectual way of producing a permanent and deep-seated effect--as
contrasted with the more superficial effect produced by reading a
written exposition: yet even oral teaching, when addressed in the form
of continuous lecture or sermon ([Greek: a)/neu a)nakri/seôs kai\
didachê=s], Phædrus, 277 E; [Greek: to\ nouthetêtiko\n ei)=dos],
Sophistês, p. 230), is represented elsewhere as of little effect. To
produce any permanent result, you must diversify the point of view--you
must test by circumlocutory interrogation--you must begin by
dispelling established errors, &c. See the careful explanation of the
passage in the Phædrus (277 E), given by Ueberweg, Aechtheit der
Platon. Schrift. pp. 16-22. Direct teaching, in many of the Platonic
dialogues, is not counted as capable of producing serious improvement.
When we come to the Menon and the Phædon, we shall hear more of the
Platonic doctrine--that knowledge was to be evolved out of the mind,
not poured into it from without.]
[Side-note: Plato never published any of the lectures which he
delivered at the Academy.]
Since we thus find that Plato was unconquerably averse to publication
in his own name and with his own responsibility attached to the
writing, on grave matters of philosophy--we cannot be surprised that,
among the numerous lectures which he must have delivered to his pupils
and auditors in the Academy, none were ever published. Probably he may
himself have destroyed them, as he exhorts Dionysius to destroy the
Epistle which we now read as second, after reading it over frequently.
And we may doubt whether he was not displeased with Aristotle and
Hestiæus[44] for taking extracts from his lectures De Bono, and making
them known to the public: just as he was displeased with Dionysius for
having published a work purporting to be derived from conversations
with Plato.
[Footnote 44: Themistius mentions it as a fact recorded (I wish he had
told us where or by whom) that Aristotle stoutly opposed the Platonic
doctrine of Objective Ideas, even during the lifetime of Plato,
[Greek: i(storei=tai de\ o(/ti kai\ zô=ntos tou= Pla/tônos
karterô/tata peri\ tou/tou tou= do/gmatos e)ne/stê o( A)ristote/lês
tô=| Pla/tôni]. (Scholia ad Aristotel. Analyt. Poster. p. 228 b. 16
Brandis.)]
[Side-note: Plato would never publish his philosophical opinions in
his own name; but he may have published them in the dialogues under
the name of others.]
That Plato would never consent to write for the public in his own
name, must be taken as a fact in his character; probably arising from
early caution produced by the fate of Sokrates, combined with
preference for the Sokratic mode of handling. But to what extent he
really kept back his opinions from the public, or whether he kept them
back at all, by design--I do not undertake to say. The borrowed names
under which he wrote, and the veil of dramatic fiction, gave him
greater freedom as to the thoughts enunciated, and were adopted for
the express purpose of acquiring greater freedom. How far the lectures
which he delivered to his own special auditory differed from the
opinions made known in his dialogues to the general reader, or how far
his conversation with a few advanced pupils differed from both--are
questions which we have no sufficient means of answering. There
probably was a considerable difference. Aristotle alludes to various
doctrines of Plato which we cannot find in the Platonic writings: but
these doctrines are not such as could have given peculiar offence, if
published; they are, rather abstruse and hard to understand. It may
also be true (as Tennemann says) that Plato had two distinct modes of
handling philosophy--a popular and a scientific: but it cannot be true
(as the same learned author[45] asserts) that his published dialogues
contained the popular and not the scientific. No one surely can regard
the Timæus, Parmenidês, Philêbus, Theætêtus, Sophistês, Politikus,
&c., as works in which dark or difficult questions are kept out of
sight for the purpose of attracting the ordinary reader. Among the
dialogues themselves (as I have before remarked) there exist the
widest differences; some highly popular and attractive, others
altogether the reverse, and many gradations between the two. Though I
do not doubt therefore that Plato produced powerful effect both as
lecturer to a special audience, and as talker with chosen students--yet
in what respect such lectures and conversation differed from what
we read in his dialogues, I do not feel that we have any means of
knowing.
[Footnote 45: See Tennemann, Gesch. d. Phil. vol. ii. p. 205, 215, 221
seq. This portion of Tennemann's History is valuable, as it takes due
account of the seventh Platonic Epistle, compared with the remarkable
passage in the Phædrus about the inefficacy of written exposition for
the purpose of teaching.
But I cannot think that Tennemann rightly interprets the Epistol. vii.
I see no proof that Plato had any secret or esoteric philosophy,
reserved for a few chosen pupils, and not proclaimed to the public
from apprehension of giving offence to established creeds: though I
believe such apprehension to have operated as one motive, deterring
him from publishing any philosophical exposition under his own
name--any [Greek: Pla/tônos su/ggramma].]
[Side-note: Groups into which the dialogues admit of being thrown.]
In judging of Plato, we must confine ourselves to the evidence
furnished by one or more of the existing Platonic compositions, adding
the testimony of Aristotle and a few others respecting Platonic views
not declared in the dialogues. Though little can be predicated
respecting the dialogues collectively, I shall say something about the
various groups into which they admit of being thrown, before I touch
upon them separately and _seriatim_.
[Side-note: Distribution made by Thrasyllus defective, but still
useful--Dialogues of Search, Dialogues of Exposition.]
The scheme proposed by Thrasyllus, so far as intended to furnish a
symmetrical arrangement of all the Platonic works, is defective,
partly because the apportionment of the separate works between the two
leading classes is in several cases erroneous--partly because the
discrimination of the two leading classes, as well as the sub-division
of one of the two, is founded on diversity of Method, while the
sub-division of the other class is founded on diversity of Subject. But
the scheme is nevertheless useful, as directing our attention to real
and important attributes belonging in common to considerable groups of
dialogues. It is in this respect preferable to the fanciful dramatic
partnership of trilogies and tetralogies, as well as to the mystical
interpretation and arrangement suggested by the Neo-platonists. The
Dialogues of Exposition--in which one who knows (or professes to know)
some truth, announces and developes it to those who do not know
it--are contrasted with those of Search or Investigation, in which the
element of knowledge and affirmative communication is wanting. All the
interlocutors are at once ignorant and eager to know; all of them are
jointly engaged in searching for the unknown, though one among them
stands prominent both in suggesting where to look and in testing all
that is found, whether it be really the thing looked for. Among the
expository dialogues, the most marked specimens are Timæus and
Epinomis, in neither of which is there any searching or testing debate
at all. Republic, Phædon, Philêbus, exhibit exposition preceded or
accompanied by a search. Of the dialogues of pure investigation, the
most elaborate specimen is the Theætêtus: Menon, Lachês, Charmidês,
Lysis, Euthyphron, &c., are of the like description, yet less worked
out. There are also several others. In the Menon, indeed,[46] Sokrates
goes so far as to deny that there can be any real teaching, and to
contend that what appears teaching is only resuscitation of buried or
forgotten knowledge.
[Footnote 46: Plato, Menon, p. 81-82.]
[Side-note: Dialogues of Exposition--present affirmative result.
Dialogues of Search are wanting in that attribute.]
Of these two classes of Dialogues, the Expository are those which
exhibit the distinct attribute--an affirmative result or doctrine,
announced and developed by a person professing to know, and proved in
a manner more or less satisfactory. The other class--the Searching or
Investigative--have little else in common except the absence of this
property. We find in them debate, refutation, several points of view
canvassed and some shown to be untenable; but there is no affirmative
result established, or even announced as established, at the close.
Often there is even a confession of disappointment. In other respects,
the dialogues of this class are greatly diversified among one another:
they have only the one common attribute--much debate, with absence of
affirmative result.
[Side-note: The distribution coincides mainly with that of
Aristotle--Dialectic, Demonstrative.]
Now the distribution made by Thrasyllus of the dialogues under two
general heads (1. Dialogues of Search or Investigation, 2. Dialogues
of Exposition) coincides, to a considerable extent, with the two
distinct intellectual methods recognised by Aristotle as Dialectic and
Demonstrative: Dialectic being handled by Aristotle in the Topica, and
Demonstration in the Posterior Analytica. "Dialectic" (says Aristotle)
"is tentative, respecting those matters of which philosophy aims at
cognizance." Accordingly, Dialectic (as well as Rhetoric) embraces all
matters without exception, but in a tentative and searching way,
recognising arguments _pro_ as well as _con_, and bringing to view the
antithesis between the two, without any preliminary assumption or
predetermined direction, the questioner being bound to proceed only on
the answers given by the respondent: while philosophy comes
afterwards, dividing this large field into appropriate compartments,
laying down authoritative _principia_ in regard to each, and deducing
from them, by logical process, various positive results.[47] Plato
does not use the term Dialectic exactly in the same sense as
Aristotle. He implies by it two things: 1. That the process shall be
colloquial, two or more minds engaged in a joint research, each of
them animating and stimulating the others. 2. That the matter
investigated shall be general--some general question or proposition:
that the premisses shall all be general truths, and that the objects
kept before the mind shall be Forms or Species, apart from
particulars.[48] Here it stands in contrast with Rhetoric, which aims
at the determination of some particular case or debated course of
conduct, judicial or political, and which is intended to end in some
immediate practical verdict or vote. Dialectic, in Plato's sense,
comprises the whole process of philosophy. His Dialogues of Search
correspond to Aristotle's Dialectic, being machinery for generating
arguments and for ensuring that every argument shall be subjected to
the interrogation of an opponent: his Dialogues of Exposition, wherein
some definite result is enunciated and proved (sufficiently or not),
correspond to what Aristotle calls Demonstration.
[Footnote 47: Aristot. Metaphys. [Greek: G]. 1004, b. 25. [Greek:
e)/sti de\ ê( dialektikê\ peirastikê\, peri\ ô(=n ê( philosophi/a
gnôristikê/]. Compare also Rhet. i. 2, p. 1356, a. 33, i. 4, p. 1359,
b. 12, where he treats Dialectic (as well as Rhetoric) not as methods
of acquiring instruction on any definite matter, but as inventive and
argumentative aptitudes--powers of providing premisses and
arguments--[Greek: duna/meis tine\s tou= pori/sai lo/gous]. If (he says)
you try to convert Dialectic from a method of discussion into a method of
cognition, you will insensibly eliminate its true nature and
character:--[Greek: o(/sô| d' a)/n tis ê)\ tê\n dialektikê\n ê)\
tau/tên, mê\ katha/per a)\n duna/meis a)ll' e)pistê/mas peira=tai
kataskeua/zein, lê/setai tê\n phu/sin au)tô=n a)phani/sas, tô=|
metabai/nein e)piskeua/zôn ei)s e)pistê/mas u(pokeime/nôn tinô=n
pragma/tôn, a)lla\ mê\ mo/non lo/gôn].
The Platonic Dialogues of Search are [Greek: duna/meis tou= pori/sai
lo/gous]. Compare the Prooemium of Cicero to his Paradoxa.]
[Footnote 48: Plato, Republ. vi. 511, vii. 582. Respecting the
difference between Plato and Aristotle about Dialectic, see
Ravaisson--Essai sur la Métaphysique d'Aristote--iii. 1, 2, p. 248.]
[Side-note: Classification of Thrasyllus in its details. He applies
his own principles erroneously.]
If now we take the main scheme of distributing the Platonic Dialogues,
proposed by Thrasyllus--1. Dialogues of Exposition, with an
affirmative result; 2. Dialogues of Investigation or Search, without
an affirmative result--and if we compare the number of Dialogues (out
of the thirty-six in all), which he specifies as belonging to each--we
shall find twenty-two specified under the former head, and fourteen
under the latter. Moreover, among the twenty-two are ranked Republic
and Leges: each of them greatly exceeding in bulk any other
composition of Plato. It would appear thus that there is a
preponderance both in number and bulk on the side of the Expository.
But when we analyse the lists of Thrasyllus, we see that he has unduly
enlarged that side of the account, and unduly contracted the other. He
has enrolled among the Expository--1. The Apology, the Epistolæ, and
the Menexenus, which ought not properly to be ranked under either
head. 2. The Theætêtus, Parmenidês, Hipparchus, Erastæ, Minos,
Kleitophon--every one of which ought to be transferred to the other
head. 3. The Phædrus, Symposion, and Kratylus, which are admissible by
indulgence, since they do indeed present affirmative exposition, but
in small proportion compared to the negative criticism, the rhetorical
and poetical ornament: they belong in fact to both classes, but more
preponderantly to one. 4. The Republic. This he includes with perfect
justice, for the eight last books of it are expository. Yet the first
book exhibits to us a specimen of negative and refutative dialectic
which is not surpassed by anything in Plato.
On the other hand, Thrasyllus has placed among the Dialogues of Search
one which might, with equal or greater propriety, be ranked among the
Expository--the Protagoras. It is true that this dialogue involves
much of negation, refutation, and dramatic ornament: and that the
question propounded in the beginning (Whether virtue be teachable?) is
not terminated. But there are two portions of the dialogue which are,
both of them, decided specimens of affirmative exposition--the speech
of Protagoras in the earlier part (wherein the growth of virtue,
without special teaching or professional masters, is elucidated)--and
the argument of Sokrates at the close, wherein the identity of the
Good and the Pleasurable is established.[49]
[Footnote 49: We may remark that Thrasyllus, though he enrols the
Protagoras under the class Investigative, and the sub-class Agonistic,
places it alone in a still lower class which he calls [Greek:
E)ndeiktiko/s]. Now, if we turn to the Platonic dialogue Euthydêmus,
p. 278 D, we shall see that Plato uses the words [Greek: e)ndei/xomai]
and [Greek: u(phêgê/somai] as exact equivalents: so that [Greek:
e)ndeiktiko\s] would have the same meaning as [Greek: u(phêgêtiko/s].]
[Side-note: The classification, as it would stand, if his principles
were applied correctly.]
If then we rectify the lists of Thrasyllus, they will stand as
follows, with the Expository Dialogues much diminished in number:
_Dialogues of Investigation or Search._
[Greek: Zêtêtikoi/].
1. Theætêtus.
2. Parmenidês.
3. Alkibiadês I.
4. Alkibiadês II.
5. Theagês.
6. Lachês.
7. Lysis.
8. Charmidês.
9. Menon.
10. Ion.
11. Euthyphron.
12. Euthydêmus.
13. Gorgias.
14. Hippias I.
15. Hippias II.
16. Kleitophon.
17. Hipparchus.
18. Erastæ.
19. Minos.
_Dialogues of Exposition_
[Greek: U(phêgêtikoi/].
1. Timæus.
2. Leges.
3. Epinomis.
4. Kritias.
5. Republic.
6. Sophistês.
7. Politikus.
8. Phædon.
9. Philêbus.
10. Protagoras.
11. Phædrus.
12. Symposion.
13. Kratylus.
14. Kriton.
The Apology, Menexenus, Epistolæ, do not properly belong to either
head.
[Side-note: Preponderance of the searching and testing dialogues over
the expository and dogmatical.]
It will thus appear, from a fair estimate and comparison of lists,
that the relation which Plato bears to philosophy is more that of a
searcher, tester, and impugner, than that of an expositor and
dogmatist--though he undertakes both the two functions: more negative
than affirmative--more ingenious in pointing out difficulties, than
successful in solving them. I must again repeat that though this
classification is just, as far as it goes, and the best which can be
applied to the dialogues, taken as a whole--yet the dialogues have
much which will not enter into the classification, and each has its
own peculiarities.
[Side-note: Dialogues of Search--sub-classes among them recognised by
Thrasyllus--Gymnastic and Agonistic, &c.]
The Dialogues of Search, thus comprising more than half the Platonic
compositions, are again distributed by Thrasyllus into two
sub-classes--Gymnastic and Agonistic: the Gymnastic, again, into
Obstetric and Peirastic; the Agonistic, into Probative and Refutative.
Here, again, there is a pretence of symmetrical arrangement, which will
not hold good if we examine it closely. Nevertheless, the epithets point
to real attributes of various dialogues, and deserve the more
attention, inasmuch as they imply a view of philosophy foreign to the
prevalent way of looking at it. Obstetric and Tentative or Testing
(Peirastic) are epithets which a reader may understand; but he will
not easily see how they bear upon the process of philosophy.
[Side-note: Philosophy, as now understood, includes authoritative
teaching, positive results, direct proofs.]
The term _philosopher_ is generally understood to mean something else.
In appreciating a philosopher, it is usual to ask, What authoritative
creed has he proclaimed, for disciples to swear allegiance to? What
positive system, or positive truths previously unknown or unproved,
has he established? Next, by what arguments has he enforced or made
them good? This is the ordinary proceeding of an historian of
philosophy, as he calls up the roll of successive names. The
philosopher is assumed to speak as one having authority; to have
already made up his mind; and to be prepared to explain what his mind
is. Readers require positive results announced, and positive evidence
set before them, in a clear and straightforward manner. They are
intolerant of all that is prolix, circuitous, not essential to the
proof of the thesis in hand. Above all, an affirmative result is
indispensable.
When I come to the Timæus, and Republic, &c., I shall consider what
reply Plato could make to these questions. In the meantime, I may
observe that if philosophers are to be estimated by such a scale, he
will not stand high on the list. Even in his expository dialogues, he
cares little about clear proclamation of results, and still less about
the shortest, straightest, and most certain road for attaining them.
[Side-note: The Platonic Dialogues of Search disclaim authority and
teaching--assume truth to be unknown to all alike--follow a process
devious as well as fruitless.]
But as to those numerous dialogues which are not expository, Plato
could make no reply to the questions at all. There are no affirmative
results:--and there is a process of enquiry, not only fruitless, but
devious, circuitous, and intentionally protracted. The authoritative
character of a philosopher is disclaimed. Not only Plato never
delivers sentence in his own name, but his principal spokesman, far
from speaking with authority, declares that he has not made up his own
mind, and that he is only a searcher along with others, more eager in
the chase than they are.[50] Philosophy is conceived as the search for
truth still unknown; not as an explanation of truth by one who knows
it, to others who do not know it. The process of search is considered
as being in itself profitable and invigorating, even though what is
sought be not found. The ingenuity of Sokrates is shown, not by what
he himself produces, for he avows himself altogether barren--but by
his obstetric aid: that is, by his being able to evolve, from a
youthful mind, answers of which it is pregnant, and to test the
soundness and trustworthiness of those answers when delivered: by his
power, besides, of exposing or refuting unsound answers, and of
convincing others of the fallacy of that which they confidently
believed themselves to know.
[Footnote 50: In addition to the declarations of Sokrates to this
effect in the Platonic Apology (pp. 21-23), we read the like in many
Platonic dialogues. Gorgias, 506 A. [Greek: ou)de\ ga/r toi e)/gôge
ei)dô\s le/gô a(\ le/gô, a)lla\ zêtô= koinê=| meth' u(mô=n] (see
Routh's note): and even in the Republic, in many parts of which there
is much dogmatism and affirmation: v. p. 450 E. [Greek: a)pistou=nta
de\ kai\ zêtou=nta a(/ma tou\s lo/gous poiei=sthai, o(\ dê\ e)gô\
drô=], &c.]
[Side-note: The questioner has no predetermined course, but follows
the lead given by the respondent in his answers.]
To eliminate affirmative, authoritative exposition, which proceeds
upon the assumption that truth is already known--and to consider
philosophy as a search for unknown truth, carried on by several
interlocutors all of them ignorant--this is the main idea which Plato
inherited from Sokrates, and worked out in more than one half of his
dialogues. It is under this general head that the subdivisions of
Thrasyllus fall--the Obstetric, the Testing or Verifying, the
Refutative. The process is one in which both the two concurrent minds
are active, but each with an inherent activity peculiar to itself. The
questioner does not follow a predetermined course of his own, but
proceeds altogether on the answer given to him. He himself furnishes
only an indispensable stimulus to the parturition of something with
which the respondent is already pregnant, and applies testing
questions to that which he hears, until the respondent is himself
satisfied that the answer will not hold. Throughout all this, there is
a constant appeal to the free, self-determining judgment of the
respondent's own mind, combined with a stimulus exciting the
intellectual productiveness of that mind to the uttermost.
[Side-note: Relation of teacher and learner. Appeal to authority is
suppressed.]
What chiefly deserves attention here, as a peculiar phase in the
history of philosophy, is, that the relation of teacher and learner is
altogether suppressed. Sokrates not only himself disclaims the
province and title of a teacher, but treats with contemptuous banter
those who assume it. Now "the learner" (to use a memorable phrase of
Aristotle[51]) "is under obligation to believe": he must be a passive
recipient of that which is communicated to him by the teacher. The
relation between the two is that of authority on the one side, and of
belief generated by authority on the other. But Sokrates requires from
no man implicit trust: nay he deprecates it as dangerous.[52] It is
one peculiarity in these Sokratic dialogues, that the sentiment of
authority, instead of being invoked and worked up, as is generally
done in philosophy, is formally disavowed and practically set aside.
"I have not made up my mind: I am not prepared to swear allegiance to
any creed: I give you the reasons for and against each: you must
decide for yourself."[53]
[Footnote 51: Aristot. De Sophist. Elenchis, Top. ix. p. 165, b. 2.
[Greek: dei= ga\r pisteu/ein to\n mantha/nonta.]]
[Footnote 52: Plato, Protagor. p. 314 B.]
[Footnote 53: The sentiment of the Academic sect--descending from
Sokrates and Plato, not through Xenokrates and Polemon, but through
Arkesilaus and Karneades--illustrates the same elimination of the idea
of authority. "Why are you so curious to know what _I myself_ have
determined on the point? Here are the reasons _pro_ and _con_: weigh
the one against the other, and then judge for yourself."
See Sir William Hamilton's Discussions on Philosophy--Appendix, p.
681--about mediæval disputations: also Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iv. 4-7.
"Sed defendat quod quisque sentit: sunt enim judicia libera: nos
institutum tenebimus, nulliusque unius disciplinæ legibus adstricti,
quibus in philosophiâ necessario pareamus, quid sit in quâque re
maximé probabile, semper requiremus."
Again, Cicero, De Nat. Deor. i. 5, 10-13. "Qui autem requirunt, quid
quâque de re ipsi sentiamus, curiosius id faciunt quam necesse est.
_Non enim tam auctoritatis in disputando quam rationis momenta
quærenda sunt._ Quin etiam obest plorumque iis, qui discere volunt,
auctoritas eorum qui se docere profitentur; desinunt enim suum
judicium adhibere; id habent ratum, quod ab eo quem probant judicatum
vident. . . . Si singulas disciplinas percipere magnum est, quanto
majus omnes? Quod facere iis necesse est, quibus propositum est, veri
reperiendi causâ, et contra omnes philosophos et pro omnibus
dicere. . . Nec tamen fieri potest, ut qui hâc ratione philosophentur,
ii nihil habeant quod sequantur. . . Non enim sumus ii quibus nihil
verum esse videatur, sed ii, qui omnibus veris falsa quædam adjuncta
esse dicamus, tantâ similitudine ut in iis nulla insit certa judicandi
et assentiendi nota. Ex quo exsistit illud, multa esse probabilia, quæ
quanquam non perciperentur, tamen quia visum haberent quendam insignem
et illustrem, his sapientis vita regeretur."
Compare Cicero, Tusc. Disp. ii. sect. 2-3-5-9. Quintilian, xii. 2-25.]
[Side-note: In the modern world the search for truth is put out of
sight. Every writer or talker professes to have already found it, and
to proclaim it to others.]
This process--the search for truth as an unknown--is in the modern
world put out of sight. All discussion is conducted by persons who
profess to have found it or learnt it, and to be in condition to
proclaim it to others. Even the philosophical works of Cicero are
usually pleadings by two antagonists, each of whom professes to know
the truth, though Cicero does not decide between them: and in this
respect they differ from the groping and fumbling of the Platonic
dialogues. Of course the search for truth must go on in modern times,
as it did in ancient: but it goes on silently and without notice. The
most satisfactory theories have been preceded by many infructuous
guesses and tentatives. The theorist may try many different hypotheses
(we are told that Kepler tried nineteen) which he is forced
successively to reject; and he may perhaps end without finding any
better. But all these tentatives, verifying tests, doubts, and
rejections, are confined to his own bosom or his own study. He looks
back upon them without interest, sometimes even with disgust; least of
all does he seek to describe them in detail as objects of interest to
others. They are probably known to none but himself: for it does not
occur to him to follow the Platonic scheme of taking another mind into
partnership, and entering upon that distribution of active
intellectual work which we read in the Theætêtus. There are cases in
which two chemists have carried on joint researches, under many
failures and disappointments, perhaps at last without success. If a
record were preserved of their parley during the investigation, the
grounds for testing and rejecting one conjecture, and for selecting
what should be tried after it--this would be in many points a parallel
to the Platonic process.
[Side-note: The search for truth by various interlocutors was a
recognised process in the Sokratic age. Acute negative Dialectic of
Sokrates.]
But at Athens in the fourth century, B.C., the search for truth by two
or more minds in partnership was not so rare a phenomenon. The active
intellects of Athens were distributed between Rhetoric, which
addressed itself to multitudes, accepted all established sentiments,
and handled for the most part particular issues--and Dialectic, in
which a select few debated among themselves general questions.[54] Of
this Dialectic, the real Sokrates was the greatest master that Athens
ever saw: he could deal as he chose (says Xenophon[55]) with all
disputants: he turned them round his finger. In this process, one
person set up a thesis, and the other cross-examined him upon it: the
most irresistible of all cross-examiners was the real Sokrates. The
nine books of Aristotle's Topica (including the book De Sophisticis
Elenchis) are composed with the object of furnishing suggestions, and
indicating rules, both to the cross-examiner and to the respondent, in
such Dialectic debates. Plato does not lay down any rules: but he has
given us, in his dialogues of search, specimens of dialectic procedure
shaped in his own fashion. Several of his contemporaries, companions
of Sokrates, like him, did the same each in his own way: but their
compositions have not survived.[56]
[Footnote 54: The habit of supposing a general question to be
undecided, and of having it argued by competent advocates before
auditors who have not made up their minds--is now so disused
(everywhere except in a court of law), that one reads with surprise
Galen's declaration that the different competing medical theories were
so discussed in his day. His master Pelops maintained a disputation of
two days with a rival;--[Greek: ê(ni/ka Pe/lops meta\ Phili/ppou tou=
e)mpeirikou= diele/chthê duoi=n ê(merô=n; tou= me\n Pe/lopos, ô(s mê\
duname/nês tê=s i)atrikê=s di' e)mpeiri/as mo/nês sustê=nai, tou=
Phili/ppou de\ e)pideiknu/ntos du/nasthai]. (Galen, De Propriis
Libris, c. 2, p. 16, Kühn.)
Galen notes (ib. 2, p. 21) the habit of literary men at Rome to
assemble in the temple of Pax, for the purpose of discussing logical
questions, prior to the conflagration which destroyed that temple.]
[Footnote 55: Xenophon, Memorab. i. 2.]
[Footnote 56: The dialogues composed by Aristotle himself were in
great measure dialogues of search, exercises of argumentation _pro_
and _con_ (Cicero, De Finib. v. 4). "Aristoteles, ut solet, quærendi
gratiâ, quædam subtilitatis suæ argumenta excogitavit in Gryllo," &c.
(Quintilian, Inst. Orat. ii. 17.)
Bernays indicates the probable titles of many among the lost
Aristotelian Dialogues (Die Dialoge des Aristoteles, pp. 132, 133,
Berlin, 1868), and gives in his book many general remarks upon them.
The observations of Aristotle in the Metaphys. (A. [Greek: e)la/ttôn]
993, b. 1-16) are conceived in a large and just spirit. He says that
among all the searchers for truth, none completely succeed, and none
completely fail: those, from whose conclusions we dissent, do us
service by exercising our intelligence--[Greek: tê\n ga\r e(/xin
proê/skêsan ê(mô=n]. The enumeration of [Greek: a)pori/ai] in the
following book B of the Metaphysica is a continuation of the same
views. Compare Scholia, p. 604, b. 29, Brandis.]
Such compositions give something like fair play to the negative arm of
philosophy; in the employment of which the Eleate Zeno first became
celebrated, and the real Sokrates yet more celebrated. This negative
arm is no less essential than the affirmative, to the validity of a
body of reasoned truth, such as philosophy aspires to be. To know how
to disprove is quite as important as to know how to prove: the one is
co-ordinate and complementary to the other. And the man who disproves
what is false, or guards mankind against assenting to it,[57] renders
a service to philosophy, even though he may not be able to render the
ulterior service of proving any truth in its place.
[Footnote 57: The Stoics had full conviction of this. In Cicero's
summary of the Stoic doctrine (De Finibus, iii. 21, 72) we read:--"Ad
easque virtutes, de quibus disputatum est, Dialecticam etiam adjungunt
(Stoici) et Physicam: easque ambas virtutum nomine appellant: alteram
(_sc._ Dialecticam), quod habeat rationem, ne cui falso adsentiamur,
neve unquam captiosâ probabilitate fallamur; eaque, quæ de bonis et
malis didicerimus, ut tenere tuerique possimus."]
[Side-note: Negative procedure supposed to be represented by the
Sophists and the Megarici; discouraged and censured by historians of
philosophy.]
By historians of ancient philosophy, negative procedure is generally
considered as represented by the Sophists and the Megarici, and is the
main ground for those harsh epithets which are commonly applied to
both of them. The negative (they think) can only be tolerated in small
doses, and even then merely as ancillary to the affirmative. That is,
if you have an affirmative theory to propose, you are allowed to urge
such objections as you think applicable against rival theories, but
only in order to make room for your own. It seems to be assumed as
requiring no proof that the confession of ignorance is an intolerable
condition; which every man ought to be ashamed of in himself, and
which no man is justified in inflicting on any one else. If yon
deprive the reader of one affirmative solution, you are required to
furnish him with another which you are prepared to guarantee as the
true one. "Le Roi est mort--Vive le Roi": the throne must never be
vacant. It is plain that under such a restricted application, the full
force of the negative case is never brought out. The pleadings are
left in the hands of counsel, each of whom takes up only such
fragments of the negative case as suit the interests of his client,
and suppresses or slurs over all such other fragments of it as make
against his client. But to every theory (especially on the topics
discussed by Sokrates and Plato) there are more or less of objections
applicable--even the best theory being true only on the balance. And
if the purpose be to ensure a complete body of reasoned truth, all
these objections ought to be faithfully exhibited, by one who stands
forward as their express advocate, without being previously retained
for any separate or inconsistent purpose.
[Side-note: Vocation of Sokrates and Plato for the negative procedure:
absolute necessity of it as a condition of reasoned truth. Parmenidês
of Plato.]
How much Plato himself, in his dialogues of search, felt his own
vocation as champion of the negative procedure, we see marked
conspicuously in the dialogue called Parmenidês. This dialogue is
throughout a protest against forward affirmation, and an assertion of
independent _locus standi_ for the negationist and objector. The
claims of the latter must first be satisfied, before the affirmant can
be considered as solvent. The advocacy of those claims is here
confided to veteran Parmenides, who sums them up in a formidable
total: Sokrates being opposed to him under the unusual disguise of a
youthful and forward affirmant. Parmenides makes no pretence of
advancing any rival doctrine. The theories which he selects for
criticism are the Platonic theory of intelligible Concepts, and his
own theory of the Unum: he indicates how many objections must be
removed--how many contradictions must be solved--how many opposite
hypotheses must be followed out to their results--before either of
these theories can be affirmed with assurance. The exigencies
enumerated may and do appear insurmountable:[58] but of that Plato
takes no account. Such laborious exercises are inseparable from the
process of searching for truth, and unless a man has strength to go
through them, no truth, or at least no reasoned truth, can be found
and maintained.[59]
[Footnote 58: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 B. [Greek: dei= skopei=n--ei)
me/lleis tele/ôs gumnasa/menos kuri/ôs dio/psesthai to\ a)lêthe/s.
A)mê/chanon, e)/phê, le/geis, ô)= Parmeni/dê, pragmatei/an], &c.
Aristotle declares that no man can be properly master of any
affirmative truth without having examined and solved all the
objections and difficulties--the negative portion of the enquiry. To
go through all these [Greek: a)pori/as] is the indispensable first
stage, and perhaps the enquirer may not be able to advance farther,
see Metaphysic. B. 995, a. 26, 996, a. 16--one of the most striking
passages in his works. Compare also what he says, De Coelo, ii. 294, b.
10, [Greek: dio\ dei= to\n me/llonta kalô=s zêtê/sein e)nstatiko\n
ei)=nai dia\ tô=n oi)kei/ôn e)nsta/seôn tô=| ge/nei, tou=to de\
e)sti\n e)k tou= pa/sas tetheôrêke/nai ta\s diaphora/s.]]
[Footnote 59: That the only road to trustworthy affirmation lies
through a string of negations, unfolded and appreciated by systematic
procedure, is strongly insisted on by Bacon, Novum Organum, ii. 15,
"Omnino Deo (formarum inditori et opifici), aut fortasse angelis et
intelligentiis competit formas per affirmationem immediate nosse,
atque ab initio contemplationis. Sed certe supra hominem est: cui
tantum conceditur, procedere primo per negativas, et postremo loco
desinere in affirmativas, post omnimodam exclusionem." Compare another
Aphorism, i. 46.
The following passage, transcribed from the Lectures of a
distinguished physical philosopher of the present day, is conceived in
the spirit of the Platonic Dialogues of Search, though Plato would
have been astonished at such patient multiplication of experiments:--
"I should hardly sustain your interest in stating the difficulties
which at first beset the investigation conducted with this apparatus,
or the numberless precautions which the exact balancing of the two
powerful sources of heat, here resorted to, rendered necessary. I
believe the experiments, made with atmospheric air alone, might be
numbered by tens of thousands. Sometimes for a week, or even for a
fortnight, coincident and satisfactory results would be obtained: the
strict conditions of accurate experimenting would appear to be found,
when an additional day's experience would destroy this hope and
necessitate a recommencement, under changed conditions, of the whole
inquiry. It is this which daunts the experimenter. It is this
preliminary fight with the entanglements of a subject so dark, so
doubtful, so uncheering, without any knowledge whether the conflict is
to lead to anything worth possessing, that renders discovery difficult
and rare. But the experimenter, and particularly the _young_
experimenter, ought to know that as regards his own moral manhood, he
cannot but win, if he only contend aright. _Even, with a negative
result, his consciousness that he has gone fairly to the bottom of his
subject, as far as his means allowed_--the feeling that he has not
shunned labour, _though that labour may have resulted in laying bare
the nakedness of his case_--re-acts upon his own mind, and gives it
firmness for future work." (Tyndall, Lectures on Heat, considered as a
Mode of Motion, Lect x. p. 332.)]
[Side-note: Sokrates considered the negative procedure to be valuable
by itself, and separately. His theory of the natural state of the
human mind; not ignorance, but false persuasion of knowledge.]
It will thus appear that among the conditions requisite for
philosophy, both Sokrates and Plato regarded the negative procedure as
co-ordinate in value with the affirmative, and indispensable as a
preliminary stage. But Sokrates went a step farther. He assigned to
the negative an intrinsic importance by itself, apart from all
implication with the affirmative; and he rested that opinion upon a
psychological ground, formally avowed, and far larger than anything
laid down by the Sophists. He thought that the natural state of the
human mind, among established communities, was not simply ignorance,
but ignorance mistaking itself for knowledge--false or uncertified
belief--false persuasion of knowledge. The only way of dissipating
such false persuasion was, the effective stimulus of the negative
test, or cross-examining Elenchus; whereby a state of non-belief, or
painful consciousness of ignorance, was substituted in its place. Such
second state was indeed not the best attainable. It ought to be
preliminary to a third, acquired by the struggles of the mind to
escape from such painful consciousness; and to rise, under the
continued stimulus of the tutelary Elenchus, to improved affirmative
and defensible beliefs. But even if this third state were never
reached, Sokrates declared the second state to be a material amendment
on the first, which he deprecated as alike pernicious and disgraceful.
[Side-note: Declaration of Sokrates in the Apology; his constant
mission to make war against the false persuasion of knowledge.]
The psychological conviction here described stands proclaimed by
Sokrates himself, with remarkable earnestness and emphasis, in his
Apology before the Dikasts, only a month before his death. So deeply
did he take to heart the prevalent false persuasion of knowledge,
alike universal among all classes, mischievous, and difficult to
correct--that he declared himself to have made war against it
throughout his life, under a mission imposed upon him by the Delphian
God; and to have incurred thereby wide-spread hatred among his
fellow-citizens. To convict men, by cross-examination, of ignorance in
respect to those matters which each man believed himself to know well
and familiarly--this was the constant employment and the mission of
Sokrates: not to teach--for he disclaimed the capacity of teaching--but
to make men feel their own ignorance instead of believing
themselves to know. Such cross-examination, conducted usually before
an audience, however it might be salutary and indispensable, was
intended to humiliate the respondent, and could hardly fail to offend
and exasperate him. No one felt satisfaction except some youthful
auditors, who admired the acuteness with which it was conducted. "I
(declared Sokrates) am distinguished from others, and superior to
others, by this character only--that I am conscious of my own
ignorance: the wisest of men would be he who had the like
consciousness; but as yet I have looked for such a man in vain."[60]
[Footnote 60: Plat. Apol. S. pp. 23-29. It is not easy to select
particular passages for reference; for the sentiments which I have
indicated pervade nearly the whole discourse.]
[Side-note: Opposition of feeling between Sokrates and the Dikasts.]
In delivering this emphatic declaration, Sokrates himself intimates
his apprehension that the Dikasts will treat his discourse as mockery;
that they will not believe him to be in earnest: that they will
scarcely have patience to hear him claim a divine mission for so
strange a purpose.[61] The declaration is indeed singular, and
probably many of the Dikasts did so regard it; while those who thought
it serious, heard it with repugnance. The separate value of the
negative procedure or Elenchus was never before so unequivocally
asserted, or so highly estimated. To disabuse men of those false
beliefs which they mistook for knowledge, and to force on them the
painful consciousness that they knew nothing--was extolled as the
greatest service which could be rendered to them, and as rescuing them
from a degraded and slavish state of mind.[62]
[Footnote 61: Plato, Apol. S. pp. 20-38.]
[Footnote 62: Aristotle, in the first book of Metaphysica (982, b.
17), when repeating a statement made in the Theætêtus of Plato (155
D), that wonder is the beginning, or point of departure, of
philosophy--explains the phrase by saying, that wonder is accompanied
by a painful conviction of ignorance and sense of embarrassment.
[Greek: o( de\ a)porô=n kai\ thauma/zôn oi)/etai a)gnoei=n . . . dia\
to\ pheu/gein tê\n a)/gnoian e)philoso/phêsan . . . ou) chrê/seô/s tinos
e(/neken]. This painful conviction of ignorance is what Sokrates
sought to bring about.]
[Side-note: The Dialogues of Search present an end in themselves.
Mistake of supposing that Plato had in his mind an ulterior
affirmative end, not declared.]
To understand the full purpose of Plato's dialogues of
search--testing, exercising, refuting, but not finding or providing--we
must keep in mind the Sokratic Apology. Whoever, after reading the
Theætêtus, Lachês, Charmidês, Lysis, Parmenidês, &c., is tempted to
exclaim "But, after all, Plato _must_ have had in his mind some
ulterior doctrine of conviction which he wished to impress, but which
he has not clearly intimated," will see, by the Sokratic Apology, that
such a presumption is noway justifiable. Plato is a searcher, and has
not yet made up his own mind: this is what he himself tells us, and
what I literally believe, though few or none of his critics will admit
it. His purpose in the dialogues of search, is plainly and
sufficiently enunciated in the words addressed by Sokrates to
Theætêtus--"Answer without being daunted: for if we prosecute our
search, one of two alternatives is certain--either we shall find what
we are looking for, or we shall get clear of the persuasion that we
know what in reality we do not yet know. Now a recompense like this
will leave no room for dissatisfaction."[63]
[Footnote 63: Plato, Theætet. 187 C. [Greek: e)a\n ga\r ou(/tô
drô=men, duoi=n tha/teron--ê)\ eu(rê/somen e)ph' o(\ e)rcho/metha, ê)\
ê(=tton oi)êso/metha ei)de/nai o(\ mêdamê=| i)/smen; kai/toi ou)k a)\n
ei)/ê mempto\s o( toiou=tos]. Bonitz (in his Platonische Studien, pp.
8, 9, 74, 76, &c.) is one of the few critics who deprecate the
confidence and boldness with which recent scholars have ascribed to
Plato affirmative opinions and systematic purpose which he does not
directly announce. Bonitz vindicates the separate value and separate
_locus standi_ of the negative process in Plato's estimation,
particularly in the example of the Theætêtus. Susemihl, in the preface
to his second part, has controverted these views of Bonitz--in my
judgment without any success.
The following observations of recent French scholars are just, though
they imply too much the assumption that there is always some
affirmative jewel wrapped up in Plato's complicated folds. M. Egger
observes (Histoire de la Critique chez les Grecs, Paris, 1849, p. 84,
ch. ii. sect. 4):
"La philosophie de Platon n'offre pas, en général, un ensemble de
parties très rigoureusement liées entre elles. D'abord, il ne l'expose
que sous forme dialoguée: et dans ses dialogues, où il ne prend jamais
de rôle personnel, on ne voit pas clairement auquel des interlocuteurs
il a confié la défense de ses propres opinions. Parmi ces
interlocuteurs, Socrate lui-même, le plus naturel et le plus ordinaire
interprète de la pensée de son disciple, use fort souvent des libertés
de cette forme toute dramatique, pour se jouer dans les distinctions
subtiles, pour exagérer certains arguments, pour couper court à une
discussion embarrassante, au moyen de quelque plaisanterie, et pour se
retirer d'un débat sans conclure; en un mot, il a--ou, ce qui est plus
vrai, Platon a, sous son nom--_des opinions de circonstance et des
ruses de dialectique_, à travers lesquelles il est souvent difficile
de retrouver le fond sérieux de sa doctrine. Heureusement ces
difficultés ne touchent pas aux principes généraux du Platonisme. La
critique Platonicienne en particulier dans ce qu'elle a de plus
original, et de plus élevé, se rattache à la grande théorie des
_idées_ et de la _réminiscence_. On la retrouve exposée dans plusieurs
dialogues avec une clarté qui ne permet ni le doute ni l'incertitude."
I may also cite the following remarks made by M. Vacherot (Histoire
Critique de l'École d'Alexandrie, vol. ii. p. 1, Pt. ii. Bk. ii. ch.
i.) after his instructive analysis of the doctrines of Plotinus. I
think the words are as much applicable to Plato as to Plotinus: the
rather, as Plato never speaks in his own name, Plotinus
always:--"Combien faut-il prendre garde d'ajouter à la pensée du
philosophe, et de lui prêter un arrangement artificiel! Ce génie, plein
d'enthousiasme et de fougue, n'a jamais connu ni mesure ni plan:
jamais il ne s'est astreint à developper régulièrement une théorie, ni
à exposer avec suite un ensemble de théories, de manière à en former
un système. _Fort incertain dans sa marche, il prend, quitte, et
reprend le même sujet, sans jamais paraître avoir dit son dernier
mot_; toujours il répand de vives et abondantes clartés sur les
questions qu'il traite, mais rarement il les conduit à leur dernière
et définitive solution; sa rapide pensée n'effleure pas seulement le
sujet sur lequel elle passe, elle le pénétre et le creuse toujours,
sans toutefois l'épuiser. Fort inégal dans ses allures, tantôt ce
génie s'échappe en inspirations rapides et tumultueuses, tantôt il
semble se traîner péniblement, et se perdre dans un dédale de subtiles
abstractions, &c."]