CHAPTER XIII

PLATO

The belief in human immortality, construed in a theological or

philosophical sense, had at this time hardly penetrated to circles

of ordinary lay folk. Socrates himself, when it came to such

inquiries into the unknowable, never claimed to provide an answer

that differed from that which would be given by the majority of his

fellow citizens out of the accumulated wisdom of their ancestors.

Where in the pages of Plato he is allowed to give undisguised

expression to his natural and homely vigour--in the _Apology_--he

shows little anticipation of an immortal life of the soul. Death, he

thinks, either brings complete unconsciousness to men, like a

dreamless sleep, or else it means the transition of the soul to

another life in the realm of the Souls--a realm which, to judge by

his allusions, has much more resemblance to the Homeric Hades than

to any of the visionary countries imagined by theologians or

theologically minded poets.[1\13] Both possibilities he accepts with

complete equanimity, trusting in the righteousness of the

controlling gods,[2\13] and he looks no further. How should he know

with certainty where everyone was ignorant?[3\13]

With a like absence of concern it is possible that the majority of

the cultured (who were just beginning to separate themselves from

the rest of the community) left unsettled the problem of the

Unknown.[4\13] Plato assures us that it was in his time a widespread

belief of the populace that the outgoing soul-breath of the dying

was caught up by the winds--especially if its exit took place in

stormy weather--and was dispersed, blown away, into nothing.[5\13]

In other ways, too, we may suppose that the orthodox Greek, when

death approached, allowed his fancy to picture what might await his

soul on the other side of death's threshold.[6\13] But it is certain

that the belief in an unending life of the soul--a life with no end

because it had no beginning--was not among these thoughts. Plato

himself lets us see how strange such a conception was even to those

who were capable of following and understanding a philosophical

discussion. Towards the end of the long dialogue upon the best kind

of State his Sokrates asks Glaukon with apparent irrelevance "are

you not aware that {464} our soul is _immortal_ and never perishes?"

Whereupon, we are told, Glaukon looked at him in astonishment and

said, "No, in truth, of that I was not aware: can you then assert

any such thing?"[7\13]

The idea that the soul of man may be everlasting and imperishable

seemed thus a paradoxical freak to one who was no adept in the

theological doctrine of the soul. If in later times the case was

altered, no one contributed more effectually or more permanently to

bring that change about than the great thinker and poet who

established the theological conception of personal immortality in

the very heart of philosophy and then gave back the idea

strengthened and made more profound to its parent theology, while he

himself extended the influence of that idea far beyond the bounds of

school or sect by the far-reaching power of his own unaging writings

which belong, not to the schoolroom, but to the greatest

achievements of literature whether of Greece or of mankind. It is

beyond calculation what power has been wielded since their first

appearance by the Platonic dialogues in the confirmation,

dissemination, and precise definition of the belief in

immortality--a power that with all its alteration in the passage of

the centuries has maintained itself unbroken into our own times.

§ 2

Plato had not always given his assent to the belief in immortality.

At any rate, it must have remained very much in the background of

his thoughts and his belief in the days when he still regarded the

world from the point of view of a slightly more developed

Socraticism. Not only at that period (in the _Apology_) does he make

his Sokrates go to his death without the most distant approach to a

belief in the undying vitality of his soul, but also in the first

sketch of his Ideal State--a sketch made while the influence of the

Socratic view of life still prevailed with him--the belief in

immortality is omitted and even excluded.[8\12] It seems as if Plato

did not reach the higher conception of the nature and value of the

soul, its origin and destiny reaching out beyond all temporal

limitation, until the great change which came over his philosophy

had been completed. The world of ever-changing Appearance

manifesting itself to the senses in perpetual flux and efflux--this

in its inessential, unseizable unreality he abandoned to the

criticisms of Herakleitos. But above it, in accordance with his own

deepest longings and, as it seemed, implied as its real object by

the Socratic search itself after {465} conceptual knowledge, stood a

world of unchangeable Being without beginning or end, to which all

the appearances of this lower world owed such reality as they

possessed. "Being" itself, the totality of the Ideas, remained

uncontaminated with "Becoming" and passing away; remained the

highest goal and supreme aim standing high above all that aspired to

it, or felt a longing for its complete and unlimited fullness.[9\13]

This everlasting reality holds itself aloof from the stream of

appearance and is not to be grasped within that stream; it is not

manifested in the deceitful ever-changing perception of the senses,

nor yet in the Opinion that is based upon them; it can only be

apprehended, without any assistance from the senses, by the pure

intuition of the Reason.[10\13] This world of everlasting

self-identical Being exists outside the thought and knowledge of

man, but it first reveals itself to man in the activity of his own

thinking;[11\13] and at the same time there is revealed to him a

higher power than the mere capacity to abstract the unsubstantial

general conceptions from the multiplicity of experience--a power

that is the highest capacity of the soul, enabling it to voyage out

beyond all experience and with infallible knowledge[12\13] to soar

of its own independent power upwards to a transcendental world of

permanent and essential reality. The highest capacity that belongs

to man, the soul of his soul, is not enclosed within this world that

surrounds his senses in its restless flood. Like the objects that

are the last goal of its study the soul itself is raised to where it

can for the first time find a form of activity worthy of its natural

powers. It achieves a new distinction, a priestlike dignity, as an

intermediary between the two worlds to both of which it belongs.

The soul is a pure spiritual essence; it contains nothing within it

that is material, nothing of the "place" where Becoming is shaped

into a distant resemblance to Being.[13\13] It is incorporeal and

belongs to the realm of the "invisible", which in this immaterialist

doctrine counts as the most real of all, more real than the most

solid matter.[14\13] It is not one of the Ideas; on the contrary it

seems to partake in one of the Ideas--that of Life--only as other

appearances share in their Ideas.[15\13] But it stands nearer to the

whole world of the everlasting Ideas than anything else that is not

itself an Idea; of all the things in the world it is "most like" to

the Idea.[16\13]

But it has also a share in Becoming. It cannot simply remain with

the Ideas in unaltered other-world transcendence. It has its origin

indeed in that other world beyond Appearance. It was from the

beginning, uncreated[17\13] like the Ideas and like {466} the Soul

of the World to which it is akin.[18\13] It is "older than the

body"[19\13] to which it must link itself; it does not come into

being at the same time as the body, but is only drawn down from its

spiritual state of being into the realm of matter and becoming. In

the _Phaedrus_ this "fall into birth" appears as the necessary

result of an intellectual "fall" which takes place within the soul

itself.[20\13] In the _Timaeus_, however, with its study of the

general life of the whole world-organism, the animation of the

living creature has now to be explained as arising out of the

plan--not from a failure of the plan--of the Creator.[21\13] The

soul thus seems to be destined from the beginning to give life to a

body. It is not only the knowing and thinking element in a world of

inanimate things, it is also the source of all movement. Itself in

motion from the beginning it bestows the power of movement upon the

body with which it is associated; without it, there would be no

movement in the world, and no life either.[22\13]

But though enclosed within the body it remains a stranger to the

body. On its side it has no need of the body and is not conditioned

by it. It remains independently associated with it as its mistress

and leader.[23\13] Even in their united existence there is a great

gulf fixed between the soul and all that is not soul;[24\13] body

and soul never fuse into one, however closely they may be bound up

with each other. And yet the body and its impulses have the power to

influence profoundly the immortal being that dwells within it. By

its union with the body the soul can be made unclean; "diseases"

such as folly and unrestrained passion come to it from the

body.[25\13] It is not beyond the reach of change like the Ideas, to

which it is akin without being of their nature; on the contrary, it

can degenerate entirely. The evil influences of the body penetrate

to its inmost being; even in its everlasting, immaterial, spiritual

nature it can derive something "corporeal"[26\13] from such a

sinister partnership.

It is bound to the body by influences of a lower kind which attach

themselves to the pure power of knowledge that alone is proper to

it. At the outset of his speculations Plato, like other thinkers

before him,[27\13] had thought of the different capacities of the

soul, alternately in conflict or alliance with each other, as

"parts" of unequal rank and value, bound up together within the soul

of man.[28\13] Even in the previous life of the soul, in the other

world, the reasoning power of the soul is, according to the

_Phaedrus_, already coupled with "Temper" and "Desire"; it is these

in fact which drag down the soul into the realm of the material; and

the three parts still {467} remain indissolubly united in the

everlasting life which awaits the soul after its release from the

body.

But in proportion as the philosopher extends and elevates his

conception of the soul, and as he becomes more convinced of its

eternal destiny and vocation to a life of unending blessedness in a

realm of unchangeable being, the more impossible does it seem to him

that this candidate for immortality in the realm of the everlasting

Forms can be a composite amalgam of elements capable of being

resolved again by division and analysis[29\13]--that the reasoning

faculty can be for ever united with Effort and Desire, which

perpetually threaten to drag it downwards into materiality. The soul

in its true and original nature is now for him simple and

indivisible.[30\13] Only with its enclosure in the body does the

everlasting, thinking soul, whose tendency is towards the eternal,

acquire impulses and desires[31\13] that have their origin in the

body and belong to the body,[32\13] that only adhere to the soul

during the period of its earthly life, that with their separation

from their immortal associate will pass away, since they are

themselves mortal and such as perish with the body.

The soul, to which sense-perception,[33\13] feeling, emotion, and

desire are only added from outside, is in its own imperishable

nature nothing but pure capacity of thought and knowledge--with

which indeed the power to will that which is conceived in thought,

seems to be directly associated. It is destined for the "other"

world, for the intuition and undistorted reflection in its

consciousness of the immaterial essences. Banished to this earth

amid the restless change and alteration of all being, and not

uninfluenced by the forces of bodily life, it must endure a brief

exile here.[34\13] Not unscathed does it leave behind it, in death,

its ill-assorted companion, the body.[35\13] Then it goes into an

intermediate region of bodiless existence in which it must do

penance for the misdeeds of its life on earth, and free itself from

their effects.[36\13] After that it is driven away once more into a

body and transported to a fresh life upon earth, the character of

which it chooses for itself in accordance with the special nature

that it had evolved in its earlier incarnation upon earth.[37\13]

Though no organic connexion exists between them, yet there is a

certain "symmetry"[38\13] between the individual soul and the body

that is lent to it.

Thus, the soul lives through a series of earthly lives[39\13] of the

most varied character; it may even sink so low as the animals in the

course of its incarnations.[40\13] Its own merits, the success or

failure of its conflict with the passions and desires of the {468}

body, decide whether or not its lives shall lead it upwards to a

nobler type of existence. Its task is plain: it must _free_ itself

from its impure companions, sensual Lust and the darkening of the

powers of Reason. If it can succeed in this it will find once more

the "way upwards"[41\13] which at last leads it into complete

immunity from renewed incarnation and brings it home again into the

kingdom of everlasting untroubled Being.

§ 3

It is evident that in what he thus, clothing philosophy in the

language of poetry, says of the origin, destiny, and character of

the soul, which though beyond time is yet placed within time, and

though beyond space is yet the cause of all movement within

space--that in all this Plato is following in the track of the

_theologians_ of earlier times. Only in the poetry and speculative

thought of _theologi_, not in any physiologists' doctrine, did he

find the conception, imaginatively expressed and pointing in the

direction which he also followed, of a multiplicity of independent

souls whose existence had been from all time and was not first begun

in the material world with the creation of a living organism; of

souls enclosed in the corporeal as though in a foreign, hostile

element, which survive their association with the body, passing

through many such bodies and yet preserving themselves intact after

the destruction of each of those bodies, immortal, endless (for they

are without beginning),[42\13] and alive from the very beginning of

Time. The souls, moreover, have life as distinct, complete, and

indivisible personalities, not as mere dependent emanations of a

simple common Source of all life.

The theory of the eternity and indestructibility of the individual

souls, of the personal immortality of the souls, is difficult to

reconcile with more specifically Platonic doctrine--with the

doctrine of the Ideas.[43\13] And yet it is undeniable that from the

moment that he first adopted this theory--and adopted it, too,

precisely in connexion with the philosophy of the Ideas--he adhered

to it steadfastly and without deviating from its essential meaning.

The process by which he arrived at it is not to be found in the

"proofs" by which he attempts in the _Phaedo_ to establish the truth

of the soul's immortality in which he himself already believed.

Those proofs in reality do not prove what they are intended to prove

(and what considered as a fact of experience is unproved and as an

axiom necessary to thought is beyond proof); they cannot therefore

be the reasons that led the philosopher to {469} hold his

conviction. He has in fact borrowed this article of his faith from

the creeds which already contained it. He himself scarcely conceals

the fact. As authority for the main outlines of the soul's history

as given by himself he refers us almost apologetically, and as

though excusing himself for not providing a philosophical proof, to

the _theologi_ and priests of the mysteries.[44\13] And he himself

becomes the philosophical poet, completely and without concealment,

when in imitation of the poetry of edification he, too, gives a

picture of the soul's sojourn in an intermediate station of its

pilgrimage or describes the stages of its earthly existence[45\13]

that lead the soul down even to the animal.

For such mythological expressions of the inexpressible the

philosopher himself claims no more than symbolical truth.[46\13] He

is fully in earnest, however, with the fundamental conception of the

soul as an independent substance that enters from beyond space and

time into the material and perceptible world, and into external

conjunction with the body, not into organic union with it; that

maintains itself as a being of spiritual essence in the midst of the

flux and decay of the material world, though at the same time its

pure brightness is overshadowed through this conjunction and must

purify itself from the effects; that _can_ disentangle

itself,[47\13] even to the extent of complete severance from the

embrace of the material and the perceptible. All that is essential

in this conception he derives from the theologians, but he brings it

into close relationship with his own philosophy which depends upon a

conviction of the absolute opposition between Being and Becoming,

and upon the dualistic division of the world into matter and mind--a

dualism that applies also to the relations of soul and body and

throughout the whole realm of Appearance. The soul which stands

half-way between the unity and unchangeability of Being and the

ever-varying multiplicity of matter has in this realm of fragmentary

and subordinate validity, into which it is temporarily exiled, the

power to reflect the Ideas and represent them in its own

consciousness clear and unfalsified. The soul in its complete

independence of sense-perception and of concepts derived from the

senses is alone able to pursue the "Quest of Reality".[48\13] In

this pursuit the body with which it is associated is nothing but a

hindrance and a serious one. The soul has a hard struggle against

the tendencies of the body in spite of its independence and

aloofness. Just as, in the creation of the universe, matter, though

not a cause is at least a subordinate cause which by its influence

and exigencies gives {470} various hindrances[49\13] to the "Mind"

that shapes and orders the world, so, too, the soul finds in this

ephemeral and inconstant Matter, with its stirring and tumultuous

unrest, a serious obstacle to its own proper activity. This is the

evil, or the cause of evil,[50\13] which must be overthrown in order

that the mind may win its way to freedom and final rest and security

in the realm of pure Being. Plato often speaks of the _katharsis_,

the purification, after which man must strive.[51\13] He takes both

the word and the idea from the theologians, but he gives it a higher

meaning while yet preserving unmistakably the analogy with the

_katharsis_ of the _theologi_ and mystery-priests. It is not the

pollution which comes from contact with sinister _daimones_ and from

all that belongs to them, that is to be avoided, but rather the

dulling of the power of knowledge and of willing what is known

(regarded as a simultaneously created power) due to the world of the

senses and its fierce impulses.[52\13] Man's effort must be directed

not so much to ritual purity, as to the preservation of his

knowledge of the eternal from eclipse through the deceptive

illusions of the senses; towards the concentration and gathering

together of the soul within itself;[53\13] its withdrawal from

contact with the ephemeral as the source of pollution and

debasement.

Thus, even in this philosophic reinterpretation of ritual abstinence

in terms of a spiritual release and emancipation, the effort after

"purity" retains its _religious_ sense. The world of the Ideas, the

world of pure Being, to which only the pure soul can attain,[54\13]

is a world of divinity. The "Good" as the highest of the Ideas, the

loftiest pattern, the supreme aim to which all Being and Becoming

tend, which is at the same time more than all the Ideas--the first

cause of all Being and all knowledge--is also God.[55\13] The soul

for which, in its desire and longing for the full being of the Idea,

the knowledge of the "Good" is the "supreme science",[56\13] enters

hereby into the closest communion with God. The "turning away" of

the soul from the many-coloured image to the sun of the highest

Idea, is itself[57\13] a turning towards the divine, towards the

luminous source of all Being and Knowing.

Thus exalted, philosophic inquiry turns to _enthousiasmos_.[58\13]

The way which leads upwards from the lower levels of Becoming to

Being, is discovered by means of _dialectic_, which in its

"comprehensive view"[59\13] is able to unite the distracted

ever-moving flood of multifarious Appearance into the ever-enduring

unity of the Idea which is reflected in Appearance. Dialectic

travels through the whole range of the Ideas, graduated one above

the other, till it reaches the last and {471} most universal of the

Ideas. In its upward course it passes by an effort of sheer logic

through the whole edifice of the highest concepts.[60\13] Plato is

the most subtle of dialecticians; he almost carries subtlety to

excess in his eager pursuit of every intricacy of logic--and of

paralogism. But he combined to a remarkable degree the cold

exactitude of the logician with the enthusiastic intensity of the

seer; and his dialectic, after its patient upward march step by step

from concept to concept, at last soars to its final goal in a single

tremendous flight, in which the longed-for realm of the Ideas

reveals itself in a moment of immediate vision. So the Bacchant in

his ecstasy saw divinity suddenly plain, and so too in the nights

consecrated by the mysteries the _epoptês_ beheld the vision of the

Goddesses in the torch-lit glare of Eleusis.[61\13]

To this loftiest height whence a view is obtained of "colourless,

formless Being, beyond the reach of every contact", inaccessible to

sense-perception, it is dialectic that shows the way; and dialectic

now becomes a way of salvation in which the soul finds once more its

own divine nature and its divine home. The soul is closely akin to

godhead and like it[62\13]--it is itself something divine. The

reason in the soul is divine,[63\13] and comprehends everlasting

Being immediately by its power of thought. "If the eye were not

sunlike, it could never see the sun";[64\13] if the mind were not

akin by nature to the good,[65\13] the highest of the Ideas, it

could never comprehend the Good, the Beautiful, and all that is

perfect and eternal. In its power of recognizing the eternal the

soul bears within itself the surest proof that it is itself

eternal.[66\13]

The "purification" by means of which the soul gets rid of[67\13] the

defacement that has overtaken it during its earthly life reveals

again the divine in man. Even on earth the philosopher is thus

rendered immortal and godlike.[68\13] As long as he can continue in

a state of pure intellectual knowledge and comprehension of the

everlasting, for so long is he living, already in this life, "in the

Islands of the Blest."[69\13] By expelling all traces of the

corruptible and the mortal in and about himself, he is more and more

to "become like God";[70\13] so that when it is at last set free

from this earthly existence, his soul may enter into the divine, the

invisible, the pure, the eternally self-identical, and as a

disembodied mind remain for ever with that which is its kin.[70a\13]

At this point, language that can only make use of physical imagery

becomes totally inadequate.[71\13] A goal is set before the soul

that lies outside all physical nature, beyond time and space,

without past or future, an ever-present _now_.[72\13] {472}

The soul can escape out of time and space and find its home in

eternity, without at the same time losing its own self in the

General and Universal that stands above time and space. We must not

inquire what sort of personality and individual distinctness can yet

remain with the soul when it has cast off all effort, desire,

sense-perception, and everything related to the world of change and

multiplicity, to become once more a pure mirror of the eternal. Nor

must we ask how it is possible to think of a spirit removed above

space and time and all the multiplicity of matter and yet personal

and separate in its personality.[73\13] For Plato the Souls live on

as they had been in the beginning--individual beings conscious of

themselves in a time that has no end and is beyond all time. He

teaches a personal immortality.

§ 4

There is an "other-worldly" tone in this philosophy, and its

doctrine of the soul. Far beyond the world in which life has placed

man lies the realm of pure Being, the good, the perfect, and the

unspoilt. To reach that realm at last, to free the mind from the

unrest and illusion of the senses, to be rid of the desires and

emotions that would "nail"[74\13] it down here below, to sever its

connexion[75\13] with the body and bodily things--that is the soul's

highest duty. The only reason why it is banished into this world is

that it may all the more completely separate itself from the world.

To die--to be dead inwardly to all that is visible, material,

physical--that is the goal and the fruit of philosophy.[76\13] "To

be ready and fit to die" is the hall-mark of the complete

philosopher. For such, philosophy is the deliverer that frees him

for all time from the body[77\13]--from its desires, its

restlessness, its wild passions[78\13]--and gives him back again to

the eternal and its silence.

To be pure, to be free from evil, to die already in this temporal

world--these are the oft-repeated exhortations which the philosopher

addresses to the immortal soul. Ascetic morality here again demands

from man what is essentially a quite negative proceeding. But this

denial of the world is only a step leading on to the most supremely

positive behaviour. _Katharsis_ is only the gateway to philosophy;

and it is philosophy which teaches man how to reach what alone is

positive, the only true and unconditional Being; instructs him how

to reach the clear and perfect understanding of the only permanent

good and how to merge himself utterly in that good.[79\13] The soul

of the thinker yearns after Reality;[80\13] {473} death is for it

not merely the annihilation of the chains of the body that impede

it, but a very positive "acquisition of intellectual

knowledge"[81\13] to which it is urged on by its proper

nature--which is therefore also a fulfilment of its proper task. So

the turning aside from the physical and the ephemeral is at the same

time and without transition a turning towards the eternal and the

divine. The flight from the things of this world is in itself an

entry into that other world, and a becoming like to the

divine.[82\13]

But the true realities are not to be found in this world. To grasp

them plainly in its thought--to recover the untroubled vision of its

spiritual eye--the soul must divest itself entirely of all the

stress and distraction of the earthly. For this mundane world, the

mirage that encompasses the senses, the philosopher has nothing but

denial. Because it gives no foothold for true knowledge the whole

world of Becoming has no independent value for his science. The

apprehension of that which is never more than relative, which

simultaneously manifests contrary qualities in itself, can only

serve as stimulus and invitation to the search for what is

absolute.[83\12] In this realm of doubtful shadows the soul finds

nothing but obscure reminders of that which it had once beheld

plainly. The beauty of the physical world which is apprehended by

the noblest of the senses, the eye, serves indeed to recall to the

soul's memory the Beautiful-in-itself, of which that other is but a

pale copy, and to disclose to the soul what is really its own

property, what it had brought with it ready made from an earlier

existence beyond the bounds of all matter.[84\13] But the

observation of beauty here below must lead beyond itself at once and

conduct the mind out of the world of mere appearance to the pure

forms of the Ideal world. The process of Becoming tells us nothing

about the nature of Being; the thinker learns nothing from this

source--in fact he learns no _new_ knowledge or wisdom of any kind

in this world; he only recovers what he had before and always

possessed in latent form.[85\13] The treasure, however, lies beyond

the limits of this world. He must turn away his gaze from the

shadow-figures upon the wall of the cave of this world, and direct

it towards the sun of eternity.[86\13] He is placed in this world of

perpetual change; to it his senses and his understanding are

directly referred; and yet he must disdain and rise superior to, and

flee from, all that this world offers, giving himself up immediately

and entirely to the unseen, and taking flight from this world to

that where he will become like God, and be purified and justified by

the power and might of his knowledge.[87\13] {474}

Earthly life as it actually is will remain strange to him, and he a

stranger in earthly life,[88\13] despised as a fool for his

inaptitude in earthly affairs by the great majority of those who are

so versed in such things.[89\13] He has something higher to think

about--the salvation of his own soul. He will not live for the

community, but for himself, and his real task.[90\13] Human

interests seem to him hardly worth troubling about,[91\13] the state

itself hopelessly corrupt, founded as it is upon deception and

passion and injustice. At the same time, he himself of course would

be the real statesman,[92\13] the leader who could guide his fellow

citizens to their true salvation--acting not as the servant of their

lusts, but as a doctor who gives help to the sick.[93\13] It is "not

ships and harbours and walls and taxes and such trivialities"[94\13]

that he would give the city, but justice and health and everything

else which after this life can stand before the stern judgment of

the other world.[95\13] This would be the best mode of life,[96\13]

and he could show them the way to it; no worldly power or greatness

can do as much--none of the great statesmen of the past,

Themistokles, Kimon, and Perikles, understood anything of all this;

all their efforts were nothing but blind error and wandering.[97\13]

At the climax of his life and of his philosophical development Plato

completed an ideal picture of the State, drawn in accordance with

the principles and the requirements of his own philosophy. It rests

upon a broad foundation--the multitude of its inhabitants divided

strictly into classes that in themselves and their manner of life

are to display, like a beacon that can be seen afar, the virtue of

Justice. At one period this had seemed to include all that was

necessary for the completion of the ideal State; but now, far above

that level, pointing upwards into the lofty _aether_ above the

earth, a final consummation reveals itself to him, to which all mere

mundane things serve but as support and furtherance. A small

minority of the citizens, the philosophers, form this last pinnacle

of the building. Here on earth and in this state that is organized

in conformity with justice, they will serve the state, as in duty

bound and not for their own satisfaction, and take part in

government.[98\13] As soon as duty is fulfilled they will return to

the supramundane contemplation which is the aim and content of their

whole life's activity. To provide a place where these contemplatives

may live, where they may be educated for their vocation, the highest

there is; to allow _dialectic_ as a form of living to take its place

in the activity of worldly civilization as an object of men's

effort[99\13]--to bring about all this the Ideal State is built up

step by step. The {475} bourgeois social virtues and their firm

establishment and interconnexion, which had once seemed the real and

sufficient reason for the erection of the whole edifice of the

state--seen from this elevation, these no longer retain their

independent importance. "The so-called virtues" all pale before the

highest capacity of the soul, which is the mystic beholding of the

eternal.[100\13] The chief mission of the perfect wise man is no

longer to fulfil his obligations to the others that stand without.

To make his own inner life fit and ready for self-emancipation is

now his real and immediate task. Mysticism aims at a personal

salvation such as the individual can only obtain for himself. Good

works are no longer necessary when the mind has no further connexion

with earthly life and conduct. When it comes to dealing with

practical earthly affairs he who possesses the highest virtue will

have all these others added unto him.[101\13] Virtue belongs to him;

it is his real condition of being; but the particular virtues he

will rarely need to use.

This lofty pinnacle is accessible to but a few. God alone and a

small[102\13] company of mortals are able to approach in pure

thought to the everlasting Reality, the sole object of certain,

plain and unchanging Knowledge. The majority of men can never become

philosophers.[103\13] And yet, according to this philosophy, the

crown of all life belongs to the philosopher. This is no religion

for the poor in spirit. Science--the supreme knowledge of the

highest Being--is a pre-condition of salvation. To know God is to

become like God.[104\13] It is easy to see why such a message of

salvation could not attract a wider community of believers. It could

not have done so without being false to its own nature. To a few

lofty spirits among mankind, it offers a reward that beckons from

eternity. Freedom from life in the corruptible body is the prize it

offers; that and a never-ending union with true Reality--a return to

what is everlasting and divine. A symbol of what the philosopher has

achieved after his death will be provided by the community by whom

the departed will be honoured as a Daimon.[105\13]

Such then is the ideal vision of a civilization in which the belief

in the soul's immortality and its vocation to an everlasting life in

the kingdom of the gods was held with profound and serious

conviction. The belief in immortality here becomes the corner-stone

of a building, the architect of which regards all earthly things as

only valid for the moment, and therefore of profound unimportance.

For him only the Heaven of the spiritual world with its everlasting

laws and {476} patterns seriously matters. He discards without a

regret the whole of Greek culture as it had expressed itself in

state and society, custom and art--an art that will last as long as

humanity itself. He demands an aristocracy, and an aristocracy

measured by a standard of what is the "best" that was quite beyond

the reach of any possible human society even though it were as

deeply impregnated with aristocratic ideas as Greek society always

was. And the final aim and ideal sought by this organization of life

on earth was to be the superseding of all earthly life . . .

The mind of Plato, equally ready to receive as to give, was not

likely to become immobilized for ever in a mystic rapture of vision.

Even when he had finished the _Republic_ he did not cease to reshape

his system at many points and in many directions, while some special

problems were taken up again for further and repeated study. Even a

second sketch of a political system was left behind by him in which

he sought to lay down rules for the guidance of life among the

multitude who are still regarded as completely shut out from the

realm of the everlasting Forms. To this end the highest aims of

human endeavour are almost left out of sight and practical rules for

reaching the attainable "better" are supplied for the benefit of the

majority. He had learnt resignation at many points. Nevertheless,

the profound conviction of all his thoughts remained unchanged; the

claims that he put before the world and mankind remained essentially

the same. For this reason after generations have not been mistaken

in seeing in him the priestly man of wisdom, who with warning finger

points the immortal spirit of man on its way from this feeble world

upwards to the everlasting life.

NOTES TO CHAPTER XIII

[1\13: Pl., _Ap._ c. 32 f. (40 C ff.).]

[2\13: _Ap._ 41 C D.]

[3\13: _Ap._ 29 A B, 37 B.]

[4\13: Xen. _Cyrop._ 8, 7, 17, makes the dying Kyros justify his

faith that the soul survives the body rather on the lines of popular

belief and the cult of souls than from would-be-philosophical

considerations (§ 20; see above, chap. v, n. 178). In spite of this

he allows the question to remain undecided--as though of little

importance--whether, in fact, the soul then leaves the body and

lives on or whether ~me/nousa hê psuchê\ en tô=| sô/mati

sunapothnê/skei~, § 21. In either eventuality he will after death

~mêde\n e/ti kako\n pathei=n~, § 27.--Arist., _SE._ xvii, p. 176b,

16, ~po/teron phthartê\ ê\ atha/natos hê psuchê\ tô=n zô/|ôn, ou

diô/ristai toi=s polloi=s~--in this question they ~amphidoxou=si~.]

[5\13: Pl., _Phd._ 70 A, 77 B, 80 D. This belief of the ~polloi/~

and ~pai=des~ looks indeed much more like a piece of superstition

than a denial of the continued life of the ~psuchê/~ (in which light

Pl. represents it). We have already met with the soul as a

wind-spirit more than once: when it leaves the body the other

wind-spirits carry it off and away with themselves (cf. above, chap.

i, n. 10), esp. when a high wind is blowing (cf. the German popular

belief that when a man hangs himself a storm arises: Grimm, p. 635:

cf. Mannhardt, _Germ. Myth._ 270 n. In other words, the "furious

host", the personified storm-spirits--Grimm, p. 632; cf. Append.

vii--come and carry away with them the poor unquiet soul).]

[6\13: Cf. Pl. _Rp._ 330 D E. There is more about these matters in

the speech against Aristogeiton, [D.] 25, 52-3. In spite of the

popular form in which it is put such an opinion is not to be claimed

at once as a popular and generally held belief: the author of this

speech is a follower of Orpheus, a fact which he himself betrays in

§ 11.]

[7\13: Pl. _Rp._ 608 D.]

[8\13: It is probable that in the ~Politei/a~ two essentially

distinct stages of Platonic doctrine are found side by side with

only an external bond of union, and that in particular what is said

in Bk. v, 471 C ff., to the end of Bk. vii about the ~philo/sophoi~,

their education and position in the state (and outside politics), is

an extraneous addition to the completed picture of the ~kalli/polis~

which is given in Bks. ii--v, 471 C: an afterthought not originally

included in the plan of the whole book and not anticipated in the

beginning of it. This seems to me to emerge unmistakably from a

careful and unprejudiced study of the whole work and to have been

completely demonstrated by Krohn and Pfleiderer. That Plato himself

regarded the first sketch of an ideal state as a separate work

(which may even have been actually published separately: Gellius,

14, 3, 3), is shown by the beginning of the _Timaeus_. Here--with

the implication of quite a different staging of the dialogue and a

different introduction from what we now read in _Rp._, Bk. i, c.

1--ii, c. 9--we have an exact recapitulation of the subject of the

inquiry in the ~Politei/a~ from ii, 10, 367 E, to v, 460 C, with the

definite statement (19 AB) that thus far and no farther had the

discussion gone "yesterday". The stages in which the whole work was

composed seem then to be divisible as follows: (1) Sketch of the

state of the {478} ~phu/lakes~ (in brief) embodied in a dialogue

between Sokrates, Kriton, Timaios, Hermokrates, and another

companion: in subject matter agreeing (apart from the introduction)

substantially with _Rp._ ii, 10, 367 E, to v, 460 C. (2)

Continuation of this sketch in the story of ancient Athens and the

people of Atlantis. Its completion is transferred elsewhere because

in the meantime the ~Politei/a~ itself has been extended and into

the empty framework of the ~Ti/m.~ thus left available the account

of the creation of the world given by Timaios is very loosely

inserted: the frame-narratives of the ~Ti/maios~ and ~Kriti/as~

never being completed. (3) Continuation of the first sketch (still

virtually along the lines originally laid down) in _Rp._ v, 460

D-471 C (in which 466 E ff. is a brief account of the behaviour of

the state in time of war--a substitute for the longer and more

detailed statement on the same subject in _Tim._ 20 B f.), and in

viii, ix (the greater part), and x, second half (608 C ff.). (4)

Finally the whole work receives its crown and completion in a

section that was, however, not foreseen in the older parts of the

design, for it disturbs part of that original design's independence

and validity and does more than merely supplement it--the

introduction of the ~philo/sophoi~ and their special type of

"virtue", v, 471 C-vii fin.; ix, 580 D-588 A; x, part 1 (to 608

B).--Then came the final editing of the whole: insertion of the new

introduction, i, 1-ii, 9 (not necessarily left until the completion

of the whole; necessary bringing into harmony of the divergent

elements by a few excisions, qualifications, etc.; and probably a

literary revision and polishing of the whole book.--The whole thus

finally produced reveals its origin clearly enough in the outgrowing

of a first plan and its replacement by a second that has naturally

suggested itself in the course of the author's own continued

development. At the same time Plato could claim that the whole

edifice, in spite of much extension and rebuilding in a different

style of architecture, should be considered as a unity in the form

in which he finally left it (as a noteworthy monument, too, of his

own alteration of view). He himself in the sublimest moments of his

mystic flight in Bks. vi and vii in no sense rejects the groundwork

of the ~kalli/polis~ of ii-v (though not, indeed, designed

originally as such), but merely reduces it to the position of a

substructure which remains a necessary and sole foundation even for

the mystic pinnacle and preserves its absolute validity for the

great majority of the citizens who inhabit the ~kalli/polis~ (for

the ~philo/sophoi~ are still regarded as very few in number) for

whom it is a school for the exhibition of political virtue.--In the

first sketch, then, there is no trace of a doctrine of immortality

that can be properly so called, and the popular belief in a

continued life of the soul after death has for Plato, at this stage

at least, no serious weight or importance. The ~phu/lakes~ are not

to trouble about what may follow death (iii, 1 ff.); the main

purpose in view is to show that ~dikaiosu/nê~ is its own reward, and

the rewards which are anticipated for it after death are only

ironically alluded to (ii, 363 CD; cf. 366 AB); Sokrates means to do

without such hopes (366 E ff.). The ~athanasi/a psuchê=s~ is only

introduced as a paradox in x, 608 D (in the continuation of the

first sketch) for which proof is sought; whereupon the importance of

the question as to what may await the soul after death emerges (614

A ff.) as well as the necessity of taking thought not for this short

life but ~hupe\r tou= ha/pantos chro/non~ (608 C), of which nothing

had been said or could have been said in iii-v. Finally in vi-vii

the indestructibility of the soul is implied in its sublimest form.

It is evident that Plato's own views on these matters had undergone

changes in the course of time, and that these {479} changes are

reflected in the various strata of the ~Politei/a~ even after its

final editing. (Cf. Krohn, _Platon. Staat_, p. 265; Pfleiderer,

_Platon. Frage_, p. 23 f., 35 ff., 1888.)]

[9\13: The Appearance ~bou/letai, ore/getai, prothumei=tai ei=nai~

what its Idea _is_: _Phd._ 74 D, 75 AB. The Ideas are thus

teleological causes like the divine ~nou=s~ of Aristotle which,

unmoved itself, ~kinei= hôs erô/menon~ (just as matter has a desire

for form, potentiality for actuality). Plato it is true did not keep

to this method of illustrating rather than explaining the relation

between the Appearance and the unmoved Idea.]

[10\13: ~noê/sei meta\ lo/gou perilêpto/n~, _Tim._ 27 D. ~hou=

ou/pot' a\n a/llô| epila/boio ê\ tô=| tê=s dianoi/as logismô=|~,

_Phd._ 79 A. ~autê\ di' hautê=s hê psuchê\ ta\ koina\ phai/netai

peri\ pa/ntôn episkopei=n~, _Tht._ 185 D.]

[11\13: The _prius_ in the case of man is really the perception of

his own mental activity in ~no/êsis meta\ lo/gou~ as being a process

essentially different from ~do/xa met' aisthê/seôs alo/gou~. It is

inference from the former alone that leads to the conclusion that

the ~noou/mena~ exist: _Tim._ 51 B-52 A. It is the Ideas that we

grasp in abstract thought: ~autê\ hê ousi/a hê=s lo/gon di/domen

kai\ erôtô=ntes kai\ apokrino/menoi~, _Phd._ 78 D.]

[12\13: The ~epistê/mê~ which ~dialektikê/~ alone can give (_Rp._

533 DE is ~anama/rtêtos~ (_Rp._ 477 E.]

[13\13: Of the three ~ei/dê~ or ~ge/nê~--the ~o/n~, the

~gigno/menon~ and the ~en hô=| gi/gnetai~ (the ~chô/ra~) of _Tim._

48 E f., 52 ABD)--the third at any rate is quite foreign to the

soul. Like the World-Soul (_Tim._ 35 A, along with which it is

"mixed" (41 D), the individual soul also is a middle term between

the ~a/meres~ of the Idea and the ~kata\ ta\ sô/mata meristo/n~,

having a share in both.]

[14\13: True, unalterable Being belongs only to the ~aeide/s~ and

therefore also to the soul: _Phd._ 79 A f.]

[15\13: _Phd._ c. 54-6 (105 B-107 B).]

[16\13: ~homoio/teron psuchê\ sô/mato/s esti tô=| aeidei=~ (and that

= ~tô=| aei\ hôsau/tôs e/chonti~), _Phd._ 79 B. ~tô=| thei/ô| kai\

athana/tô| kai\ noêtô=| kai\ monoeidei= kai\ adialu/tô| kai\

hôsau/tôs kata\ tauta\ e/chonti heautô=| homoio/taton psuchê/~, 80

AB.]

[17\13: ~age/nêton~, _Phdr._ c. 24, 245 D (~aï/dios~ simply, _Rp._

611 B). The creation of the souls in _Tim._ is only intended to

represent the origin of the spiritual from the ~dêmiourgo/s~ (not

the coming into being of the soul _in time_): see Siebeck, _Ges. d.

Psychol._ i, 1, 275 ff. Still, it remains impossible to say whether

Plato whenever he speaks of the pre-existence of the soul always

means that the soul existed without beginning.]

[18\13: As to the relation of the individual soul to the soul of the

universe, neither the mythical account in _Timaeus_ nor the briefer

allusion in _Phileb._ 30 A allows us to conclude that the soul of

our body is "taken from" the soul of the ~sô=ma tou= panto/s~. In

reality the fiction of a "World-Soul" is intended to serve quite

other purposes than the derivation of the individual soul from a

single common source.]

[19\13: _Tim._ 34 C; _Lg._ 891 A-896 C.]

[20\13: Acc. to the account in _Phdr._ 246 C, the soul suffers its

downfall into the earthly existence if ~ho tê=s ka/kês hi/ppos~,

i.e. the ~epithumi/a~ in the soul, tends towards the earth--247 B.

It must, therefore, be the result of the preponderance of the

appetitive impulses. This, however, can only happen if the

~logistiko/n~ of the soul has become too weak to drive the

soul-chariot any longer as its duty was. Hence the supporting wings,

i.e. the ~no/êsis~, of the soul-horse fall off. It is thus a

weakening of the cognitive part of the soul that causes its downfall

into materiality (just as it is the measure of their capacity for

knowledge that determines {480} the character of the ~ensôma/tôsis~

of the souls, and their return to the ~to/pos huperoura/nios~ is

equally determined by their recovery of the purer form of knowledge:

248 C ff., 249 AC). Thus it is not, as in Empedokles, a

religio-moral transgression that leads to the incarnation of the

souls, but a failure of intellect, an intellectual fall in sin.]

[21\13: The soul is, acc. to the account in _Tim._, created in order

that by animating and governing a body, it may complete the sum of

creation: without the ~zô=|a~ the ~ourano/s~ (the universe) would be

~atelê/s~, _Tim._ 41 B ff. Acc. to this teleological motivation of

the being and the ~ensôma/tôsis~ of the soul, this latter, the

~ensôma/tôsis~, would have belonged to the original plan of the

~dêmiourgo/s~ and there would be no purpose in the creation of the

souls (by the ~dêmiourgo/s~ and the inferior gods) unless they were

destined to the animation of the ~zô=|a~ and conjunction with

~sô/mata~. But it is obviously inconsistent with all this that the

_object_ of the soul's endeavour should be to separate itself as

soon as possible and as completely as possible from the body and

everything material in order to get back again to immaterial life

without any body--42 BD. This is a relic of the original

_theological_ view of the relation between body and soul. In _Phd._

(and usually in Plato) it displays itself unconcealed; but it was far

too closely bound up with the whole of Plato's ethic and metaphysics

not to make its illicit appearance even when as in _Tim._ he wished

to keep the physiological side to the fore.]

[22\13: _Phdr._ 245 C-246 A. The soul is ~to\ hauto\ kinou=n~, and

indeed continually, ~aeiki/nêton~, it is ~toi=s a/llois ho/sa

kinei=tai pêgê\ kai\ archê\ kinê/seôs~ (the body only _seems_ to

move itself, but it is really the soul within which moves it--246

C). If the soul were to perish, ~pa=s ourano\s pa=sa/ te ge/nesis~

would be at a standstill. The conception of the "soul" as the

~aeiki/nêton~ was already well and long established in Plato's time

(see above, chap. xii, n. 150). In the form in which he introduces

it here (as a proof of the imperishability of the soul) he may have

modelled his conception on that of Alkmaion (Arist., _An._ 405a,

29): see Hirzel, _Hermes_, xi, 244. But Plato here and throughout

_Phdr._ is speaking of the individual soul (~psuchê/~ collective

singular). So too in _Lg._ 894 E ff., 896 A ff. (~lo/gos~ of the

soul: ~hê duname/nê autê\ hautê\n kinei=n ki/nêsis~. It is the

~aiti/a~ and the issue of all movement in the world, the source of

life; for life belongs to that which ~auto/ hauto\ kinei=~ 895 C.)

As distinguished from the ~psuchê\ enoikou=sa en ha/pasi toi=s

kinoume/nois~ we do not hear of the (double World-Soul until 896 E.

There is in fact ~ki/nêsis~ in plenty in the world besides that of

the animated organisms.]

[23\13: _Phd._ 93 B (c. 43) and often.]

[24\13: ~psuchê/~ on the one side, ~pa=n to\ a/psuchon~ on the

other. _Phdr._ 246 B and so generally.]

[25\13: _Tim._ 86 B ff. (c. 41).--In brief: ~kako\s hekô\n oudei/s,

dia\ de\ ponêra\n he/xin tina\ _tou= sô/matos_ kai\ apai/deuton

trophê\n~ (education of the soul) ~ho kako\s gi/gnetai kako/s~, 86

E.]

[26\13: ~to\ sômatoeide\s ho\ tê=| psuchê=| hê homili/a te kai\

xunousi/a tou= sô/matos . . . enepoi/êse xu/mphuton ktl.~ _Phd._ 81

C, 83 D.]

[27\13: Pythagoreans, see above (chap. xi, n. 55); hardly Demokritos

(_Dox._, p. 390, 14). The trichotomy can exist very well side by

side with the dichotomy (which also appears) into ~logistiko/n~ and

~alo/gistikon~, the last being simply divided again into ~thumo/s~

and ~epithumi/a~.]

[28\13: In the first sketch of the Republic (ii-v). Here it is

admittedly bound up with the three classes or castes of the state,

but it has not been invented for the benefit of these classes. On

the contrary, the {481} trichotomy of the soul is original and the

division of the citizen body into three parts is derived and

explained from it; cf. 435 E.--The view that Plato was never quite

serious about the threefold division of the soul but always spoke of

it as something semi-mythical or as a temporarily adopted

hypothesis, will not appear plausible on an unprejudiced study of

the passages in the Platonic writings that deal with the threefold

division of the soul.]

[29\13: _Rp._ x, 611 A-E (c. 11), shows clearly that the reason

which made Plato abandon his conception (given in the first sketch

of the _Rep._ and still maintained in the _Phaedrus_) of the natural

trichotomy of the soul into parts or divisions was the consideration

of its immortality and vocation to intercourse with the ~thei=on

kai\ atha/naton kai\ aei\ o/n~.--The emotions and passions by which

the soul is "fettered" ~hupo\ tou= sô/matos~, explain its tendency

to clothe itself in another body after death, _Phd._ 83 C ff. If the

emotions and passions were indissolubly linked to the soul the

latter could never escape from the cycle of rebirths.--On the other

hand, if only the ~logistiko/n~, as the only independently existing

side of the soul, goes into the place of judgment in the other world

there would seem to be no reason that should tempt this simple

uncompounded soul to renewed ~ensôma/tôsis~, a process which implies

materiality and desire. (This difficulty troubled Plotinos too.)

Plato takes into view the possibility of an inner corruption of the

pure and undivided intellectual soul which makes a future state of

punishment and purgatory possible and intelligible and explains the

existence (until a complete return to purity is achieved) of a

tendency or constraint to renewed ~ensôma/tôsis~ even without a

permanent association with the ~thumoeide/s~ and the

~epithumêtiko/n~.]

[30\13: ~tê=| alêthesta/tê| phu/sei~ the soul is ~monoeide/s~,

_Rep._ x, c. 11 (611 B, 612 A). Hence it is ~to\ para/pan adia/lutos

ê\ eggu/s ti tou/tou~, _Phd._ 80 B.]

[31\13: The intellect-soul ~atha/naton archê\n thnêtou= zô/|ou~ is

the creation of the ~dêmiourgo/s~; the other faculties of the soul,

~thumo/s~, ~epithumi/a~ (and ~ai/sthêsis~ therewith), ~psuchê=s

ho/son thnêto\n~ (_Tim._ 61 C), are all added to the soul at the

moment of its union with the body by the subordinate deities: _Tim._

41 D-44 D; 69 A-70 D (c. 14, 15, 31). The same idea appears in _Rp._

x, 611 BC. ~to\ aeigene\s me/ros tê=s psuchê=s~ is distinguished

from the ~zôogene/s~: _Polit._ 309 C.]

[32\13: ~to\ sô=ma kai\ hai= _tou/tou_ epithumi/ai~, _Phd._ 66 C.

The soul moved by passion suffers ~hupo\ sô/matos~, 83 CD. In death

the soul is ~kathara\ pa/ntôn tô=n peri\ to\ sô=ma kakô=n kai\

epithumiô=n~, _Crat._ 404 A.]

[33\13: _Tim._ 43 C. It is only as a result of this violent and

contradictory excitement through the physical perception of Becoming

that the soul _becomes_ ~a/nous~ (which is **originally foreign to

it) ~ho/tan eis sô=ma endethê=| thnêto/n~, 44 A. (It will in time

become ~e/mphrôn~ once more and can become wise, 44 BC. In the case

of the animals, which can be inhabited by the same soul, it will

remain always ~a/phrôn~--one may suppose.)]

[34\13: ~. . . smikro\n chro/non, oude\n me\n ou=n pro\s to\n

ha/panta (chro/non)~. _Rp._ 498 D.]

[35\13: In accordance with popular thought (but obviously also in

perfect seriousness and without any special concession) death is

regarded as ~tê=s psuchê=s apo\ tou= sô/matos apallagê/~, _Phd._ 64

C; _Gorg._ 524 B. Hence, it usually happens that the soul ~mêde/pote

eis Ha/idou katharô=s aphike/sthai, all' aei\ tou= sô/matos anaple/a

exie/nai~, _Phd._ 83 D. (--~aei\~, i.e. with the exception of the

few complete ~philo/sophoi~ that do not need further purification in

Hades, and this is, in fact, the doctrine of the _Phd._ itself; cf.

114 C, 80 E, 81 A.)]

[36\13: Purgatory, punishment and rewards in the other world:

_Gorg._ {482} 523 ff.: _Rp._ x, c. 13 ff., 614 A ff. (vision of Er,

son of Armenios in the continuation of the first version of the

~politei/a~); _Phd._ 110 B-114 C. We must not here go into the

details of the individual myths in which it is still perhaps

possible to distinguish what parts Plato has taken out of ancient

poetry and popular legend and what comes from theological and

particularly Orphic doctrinal poetry--or even (_Rp._ x) from

Oriental fables--and how much he has added independently on his own

account. (A few remarks will be found in G. Ettig, _Acherunt.,_

_Leipz. Stud._ xiii, 305 ff.; cf. also Döring, _Arch. Ges. Phil._

1393, p. 475 ff.; Dieterich, _Nekyia_, 112 ff.) He usually

distinguishes three classes among the souls (only apparently two in

_Phdr._ 249 A): those who are affected with curable faults, the

hopelessly and incurable guilty (who are condemned to _eternal_

punishment in Tartaros without rebirth: _Gorg._ 525 C ff.; _Rp._ 615

D; _Phd._ 113 E); and, thirdly the ~hosi/ôs bebiôko/tes, di/kaioi

kai\ ho/sioi~. This is the system of _Gorg._ 525 BC, 526 C; _Rp._

615 BC. (With these come also the ~a/ôroi~, 615 C, who neither

deserve punishment nor reward--of them Er said ~a/lla, ouk a/xia

mnê/mês~. Perhaps older theologians had already concerned themselves

with these, not being satisfied with the fate assigned by popular

mythology to the ~a/ôroi~--see Append. vii--it would have been a

natural subject for the professional attention of these Schoolmen of

popular superstition.) In _Phd._ 113 D ff. the question is even more

minutely dealt with. Here we have (1) ~hoi me/sôs bebiôko/tes~ (che

visser' senz' infamia e senza lode), (2) ~hoi ania/tôs e/chontes~,

(3) ~hoi ia/sima hêmartêko/tes~, (4) ~hoi diaphero/ntôs hosi/ôs

bebiôko/tes~, and (5) the élite of these ~ho/sioi~, the real

philosophers, ~hoi philosophi/a| hikanô=s kathera/menoi~--these are

not born again. To the other classes are assigned their appropriate

purgation, reward or punishment. Here classes 2, 3, and 4 correspond

to the three classes of _Rp._ and _Gorg._ (which may perhaps be

modelled on the divisions popularized by older theological

poetry--see above, chap. xii, n. 62). Novelties are the ~me/sôs

bebiôko/tes~ and the true philosophers. For these last the abode

upon the ~maka/rôn nê=soi~ (_Gorg._ 526 C), or, what comes to the

same thing, upon the surface of the earth (_Phd._ 114 BC), is no

longer sufficient. They go ~es maka/rôn tina\s eudaimoni/as~ (115

D), which means that they are really freed entirely from temporal

existence and enter into the unchanging "Now" of eternity. (As far

as the complete escape of the ~philo/sophoi~ is concerned the

account in _Rp._ x, c. 13 [614 A-615 C] does not contradict that of

_Phd._ The only reason why this is not mentioned in _Rp._ is that

these absolutely enfranchized souls could not appear upon the

~leimô/n~ there mentioned: 614 E.)--Of these various accounts that

of _Phd._ seems to be the latest. In _Lg._ there is yet another

indefinite allusion to the necessity of undergoing a judgment after

death: 904 C ff.]

[37\13: _Choice_ of their new state of life by the souls in the

other world, _Rp._ 617 E ff.; _Phdr._ 249 B. The purpose of this

arrangement is made clear by _Rp._ 617 E; ~aiti/a helome/nou; theo\s

anai/tios~ (cf. _Tim._ 42 D). It is, in fact, a theodicy and at the

same time secures the complete responsibility of every man for his

own character and deeds (cf. 619 C). There is no idea of founding a

determinist theory upon it.--The choice is guided by the special

character of the soul (which it has developed in its previous life)

and its tendencies (cf. _Phd._ 81 E; _Lg._ 904 BC). For the same

reason there is no choice on the occasion of the soul's first

~ensôma/tôsis~ (_Tim._ 41 E): after that, in later births, a definite

descent in well-marked stages _in peius_, can be observed, each

conditioned by the degree of corruption attaching to the soul

(_Tim._ 42 B ff.). {483} All of which can very well co-exist with a

choice of its own fate by the soul conditioned by its own nature.]

[38\13: ~xummetri/a~, _Tim._ 87 D.]

[39\13: At least three (as in Pi., _O._ ii, 75 ff.), acc. to _Phdr._

249 A. Between each two births there is an intervening period of

1,000 years (_Rp._ 615 A; _Phdr._ 249 AB). This cuts away the ground

from such myths as that of the various "lives" of Pythagoras (see

Append. x).]

[40\13: Incarnation in animals, _Phdr._ 249 B; _Rp._ 618 A, 620 ff.;

_Phd._ 81 E; _Tim._ 42 BC. That this part was any less seriously

meant than any other part of his doctrine of metempsychosis is not

in the least suggested by Plato himself. Acc. to _Tim._ 91 D-92 B,

_all_ the animals have souls that had once inhabited the bodies of

men (see Procl., _in Rp._ ii, 332 Kroll; he is trying to harmonize

_Tim._ and _Phdr._). In fact, the idea that a man's soul might

inhabit an animal was precisely the great difficulty in Plato's

doctrine of the soul. If, as is said in _Phdr._ 249 BC, a real

animal-soul cannot enter into a human body because it does not

possess ~no/êsis~ or the power of "dialectic" which constitutes the

essential part of the human soul's activity, how can a real human

soul enter into an animal's body when it is obvious that as an

animal it can make no use of its ~no/êsis~? (For this very reason

many Platonists--those who were not satisfied with ingenious or

artificial interpretations: cf. Sallust., _de Dis_ 20; Procl., _in

Tim._ 329 DE--denied the entrance of the human soul into animals;

cf. Aug. _CD._ X, 30, and partic. Nemes., p. 116 Matth. Lucr. iii,

760, already seems to have such Platonists in mind.) The

~logistiko/n~ of the soul seems to be absent from animals or to be

present but undeveloped as in children: _Rp._ iv, 441 A B (or does

it remain permanently bound in ~aphrosu/nê~? see above, this chap.,

n. 33. Just such a theory put forward by exponents of

~metempsu/chôsis~ who would make the ~psuchê/~ always the same but

not always equally active, is attacked by Alex. Aphr., _de An._, p.

27 Br.). But acc. to the later doctrine of Plato the ~logistiko/n~

comprises the whole contents of the soul before it enters a body; if

the animals do not possess it then they do not strictly speaking

possess a soul (~thumo/s~ and ~epithumi/a~ in themselves are not the

soul; they are only added to the soul when it first enters into a

body). It seems certain that Plato adopted the view that the soul

migrates into the bodies of animals from the theologians and

Pythagoreans, while he still believed that the soul was not pure

power of thought but also (as still in _Phdr._) included ~thumo/s~

and ~epithumi/a~ in itself. Later, because it was difficult to do

without the migration-theory of the soul on account of its ethical

importance, he allowed the idea to remain side by side with his

reorganized and sublimated doctrine of the soul. (On the other hand,

metempsychosis into plants--which are certainly also ~zô=|a~, though

they only have to ~to\ epithumêtiko/n~, _Tim._ 77 B--was never

adopted by him from Empedokles; cf. Procl., _in Rp._ ii, 333 Kr.,

and for the same reason: this idea was unimportant and indifferent

from an ethical point of view.)]

[41\13: ~tê\n eis to\n noêto\n to/pon tê=s psuchê=s a/nodon~, _Rp._

517 B.]

[42\13: ~epeidê\ de\ age/nêto/n esti, kai\ adia/phthoron auto\

anagkê ei=nai~, _Phdr._ 245 D--the ancient argument from the fact

that the individual soul (and of this Plato is speaking) has no

beginning to the conclusion that its life can have no end.]

[43\13: This much may be conceded to Teichmüller's observations.

"The individual, and the individual soul, is not an independent

principle but only a resultant of the compounding of the Idea and

the principle of Becoming"--though this is not how Plato regards the

{484} matter; hence in Plato--"the individual is not eternal (i.e.

not necessarily), and the eternal Principles are not individual",

_Stud. z. Ges. d. Begr._, p. 115, 142 (1874). But all that

Teichmüller has to say under this head is in reality only a

_criticism_ of the Platonic doctrine of the soul and does not help us

to determine what exactly that doctrine was. Plato speaks always of

the immortality, i.e. the eternity, of the individual soul; nowhere

does he confine indestructibility to the "common nature" of the

soul; and this fact is not even remotely explained by appealing as

Teichmüller does to an alleged "orthodoxy" to which Plato is

supposed to be accommodating his words. If from no other passage we

should be obliged to conclude definitely from _Rp._ 611 A that Plato

believed in the existence of a plurality of souls and in their

indestructibility: ~aei\ a\n ei=en hai autai/ (psuchai/). ou/te ga\r

a/n pou ela/ttous ge/nointo mêdemia=s apollume/nês, ou/te hau=

plei/ous~. Here the predicate of the first sentence is indubitably

~ei=en~ only; it is affirmed that always the same souls will exist,

not that ~hai autai\ ei=en~ ("the souls are always the same ones")

as Teichmüller supposes, _Platon. Frage_, 7 ff., and it is asserted

with all possible plainness that the plurality of individual souls,

of which a definite number exist, is indestructible.]

[44\13: E.g. appeal made to ~teletai/, palaioi\ lo/goi en

aporrê/tois lego/menoi~, and particularly to Orphic doctrine, in

those places where he is speaking of the inward difference between

the soul and all that is corporeal, of the soul's "death" in earthly

life, of its enclosure in the ~sô=ma~ as its ~sê=ma~ in punishment

of its misdeeds--of punishment and purification after death in

~Ha/idês~, of the migration of the soul, its imperishability,

dwelling of the pure in the neighbourhood of the gods (_Phd._ 61 BC,

63 C, 70 C, 81 A, 107 D ff.; _Gorg._ 493 A; _Crat._ 400 BC; _Men._

81 A; _Lg._ 870 DE, 872 E). This also is the origin of the tendency

to compare the highest philosophical activity, or the beholding of

the Ideas before all time, with the ~epoptei=ai~ of the mysteries:

_Phdr._ 250 B; cf. Lob., _Agl._ 128.]

[45\13: Nine (an ancient sacred number) stages from the

~philo/sophos~ downwards to the ~tu/rannos~, _Phdr._ 248 DE.]

[46\13: This is frequently stated in individual myths; cf. also

_Phd._ 85 CD.]

[47\13: _Phdr._ 250 C (~o/streon~): _Rp._ 611 CD (Glaukos).]

[48\13: ~tê\n tou= o/ntos thê/ran~, _Phd._ 66 C (~ho/tan autê\ kath'

hautê\n pragmateu/êtai hê psuchê\ peri\ ta\ o/nta~, _Tht._ 187 A.

~autê=| tê=| psuchê=| theate/on auta\ ta\ pra/gmata~, _Phd._ 66 D).]

[49\13: ~xunai/tia~, _Tim._ 46 C ff. ~nou=s kai\ ana/gkê~, 47 E ff.

(~ho theo/s~ is ~pollô=n anai/tios~, namely ~tô=n kakô=n~, _Rp._ 379

AC).]

[50\13: The ~sô=ma~ with which the soul is bound up is a ~kako/n~,

_Phd._ 66 B (~desmoi/~ of the soul, 67 D). The ~kaka/~ in the world

are regularly said to come from matter until in _Lg._, side by side

with the ~**euerge/tis psuchê/~ of the world, there appears an evil

World-Soul that works evil.]

[51\13: Particularly in _Phd._, ~kathareu/ein--ka/tharsis--hoi

philosophi/a| hikanô=s kathêra/menoi~ in contrast with the

~aka/thartoi psuchai/~, 67 A ff., 69 BC, 80 E, 82 D, 108 B, 114 C.

Katharsis of the soul through dialectic Soph. 230 C ff. Express

allusion to the analogous requirement of ~ka/tharsis~ by ~hoi ta\s

teleta\s hêmi=n katastê/santes~, _Phd._ 69 C.]

[52\13: ~_ka/tharsis_ ei=nai tou=to xumbai/nei, to\ chôri/zein ho/

ti ma/lista apo\ tou= sô/matos tê\n psuchê\n kai\ ethi/sai autê\n

kath' hautê\n pantacho/then ek tou= sô/matos sunagei/resthai/ te

kai\ hathroi/zesthai, kai\ oikei=n kata\ to\ dunato\n kai\ en tô=|

nu=n paro/nti kai\ en tô=| e/peita mo/nên kath' hautê=n, ekluome/nên

hô/sper ek desmô=n ek tou= sô/matos~, _Phd._ 67 C. Thus

~dikaiosu/nê~ and {485} ~andrei/a~, and more particularly

~phro/nêsis~, are ~katharmo/s tis~, 69 BC. ~lu/sis te kai\

katharmo/s~ of ~philosophi/a~, 82 D.]

[53\13: ~philosophi/a~ teaches the soul ~eis hautê\n xulle/gesthai

kai\ hathroi/zesthai~ and to ~anachôrei=n~ from the ~apa/tê~ of the

senses ~ho/son mê\ ana/gkê autoi=s chrê=sthai~, _Phd._ 83 A.--~ea\n

kathara\ hê psuchê\ apalla/ttêtai . . . pheu/gousa to\ sô=ma kai\

sunêthroisme/nê autê\ eis hautê/n~, 80 E, 76 C.]

[54\13: ~. . . katharoi\ apallatto/menoi tê=s tou= sô/matos

aphrosu/nês . . . gnôso/metha di' hêmô=n autô=n pa=n to\

eilikrine/s, mê\ katharô=| ga\r katharou= epha/ptesthai mê\ ou

themito\n ê=|~, _Phd._ 67 AB.]

[55\13: For the ~agatho/n, hê tou= agathou= ide/a, aiti/a~ both of

~alê/theia~ and of ~epistê/mê~ but identical with neither (they are

only ~agathoeidê=~) and ~e/ti meizo/nôs timête/on~--cause of the

~gignôsko/mena~ and not only of ~gignô/skesthai~, of both ~ei=nai~

and ~ousi/a, ouk ousi/as o/ntos tou= agathou= all' e/ti epe/keina

tê=s ousi/as presbei/a| kai\ duna/mei hupere/chontos~--see _Rp._ vi,

c. 19 (508 A ff.), 517 BC. Here ~to\ agatho/n~, as the reason and

active cause of all Being is itself placed beyond and above Being

(as it is regularly with the Neoplatonics) and identified with

Godhead (the ~thei=os nou=s~, _Phil._ 22 C); this last is, however,

in _Tim._ set side by side with the Ideas, of which ~to\ agatho/n~

is now the highest.]

[56\13: ~hê tou= agathou= ide/a me/giston ma/thêma~, _Rp._ 505 A.]

[57\13: The ~periagôgê/~ of the soul, _Rp._ vii init.]

[58\13: The philosopher, ~exista/menos tô=n anthrôpi/nôn

spoudasma/tôn kai\ pro\s tô=| thei/ô| gigno/menos, _enthousia/zôn_

le/lêthe tou\s pollou/s~, _Phdr._ 249 D.]

[59\13: ~ho ga\r sunoptiko\s dialektiko/s~, _Rp._ 537 C. ~eis mi/an

ide/an sunorô=nta a/gein ta\ pollachê=| diesparme/na~ (and again

~kat' ei/dê te/mnein~ what is unified)--this is the business of the

~dialektiko/s~, _Phdr._ 265 D. ~ek pollô=n aisthê/seôn eis he\n

logismô=| xunairou/menon (ie/nai~, _Phdr._ 249 B.]

[60\13: Gradual ascent of dialectic upwards to ~auto\ ho\ e/stin

agatho/n~, _Rp._ 532 A f., 511 BC, 534 B ff. to ~auto\ to\ kalo/n~,

_Smp._ c. 28-9 (211 B). Its aim is ~epanagôgê\ tou= belti/stou en

psuchê=| pro\s tou= ari/stou en toi=s ou=si the/an~, _Rp._ 532 C.]

[61\13: The philosophic ~erôtiko/s~ at the end of the dialectic

ascent ~_exai/phnês_ kato/psetai/ ti thaumasto\n tê\n phu/sin kalo/n

ktl.~, _Smp._ 210 E--exactly as in the ~te/lea kai\ epoptika\

mustê/ria~, 210 A. ~holo/klêra kai\ hapla= kai\ eudai/mona pha/smata

muoumenoi/ te kai\ epopteu/ontes en augê=| kathara=|~, _Phdr._ 250

C.--it is a visionary and a suddenly acquired apprehension of the

world-order, not one obtained in discursive thought. We may compare

the way in which Plotinos, with a recollection of such Platonic

passages, describes the arrival of ~e/kstasis--ho/tan hê psuchê\

_exai/phnês_ phô=s la/bê| ktl.~ (5, 3, 17; cf. 5, 5, 17).]

[62\13: The soul ~e/oike tô=| thei/ô|~, _Phd._ 80 A. It is

~xuggenê\s tô=| te thei/ô| kai\ athana/tô| kai\ tô=| aei\ o/nti~,

_Rp._ 611 E--~sugge/neia thei/a~ of men; _Lg._ 899 D. The eternal

and immortal is, as such, divine. The real _Ego_ of man, the

~atha/naton, psuchê\ eponomazo/menon~, after death goes ~para\

theou\s a/llous~, _Lg._ 959 B.]

[63\13: The ~thei=on, athana/tois homô/numon~, part of the soul is

~atha/natos archê\ thnêtou= zô/|ou~, _Tim._ 41 C, 42 E. The

~phro/nêsis~ of the soul (its "wing" _Phdr._ 246 D) ~tô=| thei/ô|

e/oiken~, _Alc._^1 133 C.--In _Tim._ 90 A C this ~kuriô/taton tê=s

psuchê=s ei=dos~ is actually called the _~dai/môn~_ which man has

~xu/noikon en hautô=|~.]

[64\13: The eye is ~hêlioeide/staton tô=n peri\ ta\s aisthê/seis

orga/nôn~, _Rp._ 508 B.--Goethe is alluding either to these words or

to the phrase of Plotinos taken from them, 1, 6 (~peri\ tou=

kalou=~), 9.]

[65\13: ~epistê/mê kai\ alê/theia~ are both ~agathoeidê=~, _Rp._ 509

A--the soul something ~theoeide/s~, _Phd._ 95 C.] {486}

[66\13: From the ~philosophi/a~ of the soul and from the question

~hô=n ha/ptetai kai\ hoi/ôn ephi/etai homiliô=n~ its real nature can

be discerned as one which is ~xuggenê\s tô=| thei/ô| kai\ athana/tô|

kai\ tô=| aei\ o/nti~, _Rp._ 611 DE; _Phd._ 79 D. With the

~xuggene/s~ of the soul we achieve contact with the ~o/ntôs o/n~,

_Rp._ 490 B. If the Ideas are everlasting, so must our soul be,

_Phd._ 76 DE. By its power of ~phronei=n atha/nata kai\ thei=a~ the

~anthrôpi/nê phu/sis~ has itself a share ~kath' ho/son ende/chetai~

(i.e. with ~nou=s~) in ~athanasi/a~, _Tim._ 90 BC. This thinking

"part" of the soul ~pro\s tê\n en ouranô=| xugge/neian apo\ gê=s

hêma=s ai/rei, hôs o/ntas phuto\n ouk e/ggeion all' oura/nion~,

_Tim._ 90 A.]

[67\13: ~_lu/ein_ tê\n psuchê\n~ from the body and from

sense-perception, _Phd._ 83 AB, 65 A, 67 D. ~lu/sis~ and

~katharmo/s~ of the soul by ~philosophi/a~, _Phd._ 82 D. ~lu/sis

kai\ i/asis tô=n desmô=n~ (of the body) ~kai\ tê=s aphrosu/nês~,

_Rp._ 515 C.]

[68\13: ~thei=os eis to\ dunato\n anthrô/pô| gi/gnetai~--said of the

true philosopher, _Rp._ 500 D; ~atha/natos~, _Smp._ 212 A. The

~philo/sophos~ is perpetually in contact with the ~o\n aei\~ and the

~thei=on~, which last is with difficulty recognizable by the eyes of

~tê=s tô=n pollô=n psuchê=s~, Soph. 254 A.--~kai/ moi dokei= theo\s

me\n~ (as e.g. Empedokles called himself) ~anê\r oudamô=s ei=nai,

_thei=os_ mê/n; pa/ntas ga\r egô\ tou\s philoso/phous toiou/tous

prosagoreu/ô~ _Soph._ 216 B (where ~thei=os~ is used in quite a

different sense from that it has in other passages where Plato

speaks of ~chrêsmô|doi\ kai\ theoma/nteis~ as ~thei=oi~, _Men._ 99

C, and of the insight and virtue of the unphilosophic as coming

~thei/a| moi/ra| a/neu nou=~).]

[69\13: _Rp._ 519 C, 540 B.--~tê=s tou= o/ntos the/as, hoi/an

_hêdonê\n_ e/chei, adu/naton a/llô| gegeu=sthai plê\n tô=|

philoso/phô|~, _Rp._ 582 C (cf. _Phileb._).]

[70\13: The flight ~enthe/nde ekei=se~ produces ~homoi/ôsin theô=|

kata\ to\ dunato\n~, _Tht._ 176 B. ~homoiou=sthai theô=|~, _Rp._ 613

A (~to\ katanooume/nô| to\ katanoou=n exomoiô=sai~, _Tim._ 90 D).]

[70a\13: The soul that has through philosophy become completely

"pure" is withdrawn from the cycle of Rebirth and from the whole

material world. Even as early as _Phdr._ the souls of the

~philosophê/santes~ after a third ~ensôma/tôsis~ are exempt for the

remainder of the ~peri/odos~ of 10,000 years, while the real and

unwavering (~aei/~) philosopher remains _for ever_ free from the

body. That at least must be the meaning of 248 C-249 A. The subject

is then treated in more detail in _Phd._: Release of the

~philosophi/a| hikanô=s kathêra/menoi~ for ever from life in the

body (~a/neu sôma/tôn zô=si to\ para/pan eis to\n e/peita chro/non~,

114 C)--entry of the pure soul to its kin (~eis to\ xuggene/s~, 84

B) and its like (~eis to\ ho/moion autê=|, to\ aeide/s~, 81 A), and

~eis theô=n ge/nos~, 82 B--and to the ~tou= thei/ou te kai\

katharou= kai\ monoeidou=s xunousi/a~, 83 E. Still more

mythologically expressed--_Tim._ 42 BD (~ho tô=n kakô=n katharo\s

to/pos~ _Tht._ 177 A). Throughout we have the release theory of the

theologians re-expressed in a philosophical and more elevated manner

(Orphic: ~memuême/noi~, _Phd._ 81).]

[71\13: ~. . . ou rha/|dion dêlô=sai . . .~ , _Phd._ 114 C.]

[72\13: To the ~aï/dios ousi/a, to\ _e/sti_ mo/non kata\ to\n

alêthê= lo/gon prosê/kei~ _Tim._ 37 E.]

[73\13: It is true that not until it becomes associated with the

body does the soul, by obtaining ~ai/sthêsis~, ~epithumi/a~,

~thumo/s~, and all the other faculties that bring it into touch with

Becoming and Changing, obtain what can strictly be called its

individual personality. The perfectly adequate comprehension in

thought of the ever-Unchanging by the bodiless and free soul would

have no individualized content. We must not, however, (with Teichm.,

_Pl. Fr._ 40), conclude from this that Plato knew nothing of an

immortality of the individual and of {487} individuality. He did not

distinctly raise the question of the seat and origin of

individuality in the soul. He is content to suppose that a plurality

of individual souls was living before their entanglement with

Becoming, and to conclude from this that in eternity, too, after

their last escape from ~ge/nesis~, the same number of individual

souls will still be living. Numerical distinctness (which affects in

a scarcely intelligible manner the spaceless and immaterial) has to

do duty with him for qualitative distinctness which would alone be

able to account for the self-consciousness of this plurality. Acc.

to the picture given in _Tim._ c. 14 (41 D ff.) the souls created by

the ~dêmiourgo/s~ are evidently all alike (hence also is ~ge/nesis

prô/tê tetagme/nê mi/a pa=sin~, 41 E), and only when they are in the

~sô=ma~, and bound up with mortal portions of soul, do they react in

different ways to what affects them from without--and so become

different. (This is so, however, in the pre-existent period, too,

acc. to _Phd._: but in that account ~thumo/s~ and ~epithumi/a~ are

also bound up with the soul in pre-existence.) The influence of the

lower soul-partners and of the ~trophê\ paideu/seôs~ (_Tim._ 44 B)

makes the ~logistika/~ also of the souls differ among themselves.

This acquired individual characterization, the fruit of differing

~paidei/a kai\ trophê/~--something quite the reverse of the "common

nature" of "soul" in general which Teichmüller supposes to be meant

here: _Stud._ 143--is taken with it by the soul to the place of

judgment, i.e. Hades, _Phd._ 107 D. When, however, by the best

~trophê\ paideu/seôs~ it has become completely pure and free from

all the trammels of the physical and perishable and departs into

bodiless existence in the ~aeide/s~--then in truth all individual

distinctness has been dissolved out of it. Still, it must endure for

ever as a self-conscious personality; for that this is what Plato

meant cannot be doubted.]

[74\13: _Phd._ 83 D.]

[75\13: ~chôri/zein ho/ti ma/lista apo\ tou= sô/matos tê\n

psuchê\n~, _Phd._ 67 C. ~anachôrei=n~, 83 (quite in the manner of

genuine mysticism--it is the "separateness" of the man who is to

behold god, of which Eckhart speaks).]

[76\13: _Phd._ 64 A ff., 67 E.]

[77\13: _Phd._ 114 C.]

[78\13: ~tou= sô/matos pto/êsis kai\ mani/a~, _Crat._ 404 A.]

[79\13: ~tô=| xuggenei= plêsia/sas kai\ migei\s tô=| o/nti o/ntôs~,

_Rp._ 490 B.]

[80\13: The soul ~eô=sa chai/rein to\ sô=ma kai\ kath' ho/son

du/natai ou koinônou=sa ore/getai tou= o/ntos~, _Phd._ 65 C. In the

same way the Appearance yearns after the Idea; see above, this

chap., n. 9.]

[81\13: ~tê=s phronê/seôs ktê=sis~, _Phd._ 65 A ff.]

[82\13: ~peira=sthai chrê= enthe/nde ekei=se pheu/gein ho/ti

ta/chista. phugê\ de homoi/ôsis theô=| kata\ to\ dunato/n~, _Tht._

176 AB.]

[83\13: _Rp._ 523 A-524 D.]

[84\13: Beyond all other things it is the ~ka/llos~ of the world of

Appearance that awakes the memory of that which has once been seen

in the world of Ideas: _Phdr._ 250 B, 250 D ff.; _Smp._ c. 28 ff.

(210 A ff.). Plato gives a peculiar reason for this, but in reality

it is due to a vigorous re-emergence of the fundamental artistic

sense--the aesthetic element in his philosophic speculation and

enthusiasm--which the thinker had so violently suppressed in

obedience to his theory that the ~aisthê/seis~ and all the arts are

merely imitations of deceptive imitations of the only true Reality.]

[85\13: Not ~ma/thêsis~--only ~ana/mnêsis~, _Phdr._ 249 BC; Men. c.

14 ff. (80 D ff.); _Phd._ c. 18 ff. (72 E ff.). (This theory occurs

regularly in Plato in close connexion with the theory of the soul's

migrations; {488} and it appears that he did as a matter of fact

derive it from the anticipations and suggestions of earlier teachers

of metempsychosis: see above, chap. xi, n. 96.)]

[86\13: _Rp._ vii init.]

[87\13: ~homoi/ôsis de\ theô=| di/kaion kai\ ho/sion meta\

phronê/seôs gene/sthai~, _Tht._ 176 B.]

[88\13: ~eis agora\n ouk i/sasi tê\n hodo/n ktl.~, _Tht._ 173 D ff.]

[89\13: _Tht._ 172 C-177 C. The philosopher is unskilled in the life

of the everyday world and its arts, and is quite indifferent towards

them. Commonplace people, if he is at any time drawn into the

affairs of the market place or the law courts, regard him as

~euê/thês, ano/êtos, geloi=os~. Sometimes ~do/xan para/schoint' a\n

(hoi o/ntôs philo/sophoi) hôs panta/pasin e/chontes manikô=s~,

_Soph._ 216 D; _Rp._ 517 A--passages from the later writing of

Plato. Even as early as _Phdr._ 249 D ~exista/menos tô=n

anthrôpi/nôn spoudasma/tôn kai\ pro\s tô=| thei/ô| gigno/menos

nouthetei=tai hupo\ tô=n pollô=n hôs parakinô=n ktl.~]

[90\13: ~idiôteu/ein alla\ mê\ dêmosieu/ein~ is the injunction made

to the philosopher, _Ap._ 32 A; at least, in ~po/leis~ as they are,

_Rp._ 520 B. After death comes the reward ~andro\s philoso/phou ta\

hautou= pra/xantos kai\ ou polupragmonê/santos en tô=| bi/ô|~,

_Gorg._ 526 C. ~hô/sper eis thêri/a a/nthrôpos empesô/n~ the true

philosopher will ~hêsuchi/an e/chein kai\ ta\ hautou= pra/ttein~,

_Rp._ 496 D.]

[91\13: ~ta\ tô=n anthrô/pôn pra/gmata mega/lês me\n spoudê=s ouk

a/xia~, _Lg._ 803 B.]

[92\13: _Gorg._ 521 D. ~ho hôs alêthô=s kubernêtiko/s~, _Rp._ 488 E

(cf. also _Men._ 99 E, 100 A).]

[93\13: Not ~dia/konos kai\ epithumiô=n paraskeuastê/s~ but rather

an ~iatro/s~, _Gorg._ 518 C, 521 A; cf. 464 B ff.]

[94\13: _Gorg._ 519 A. All these worldly matters seem to him

~phluari/ai~: just as all the Appearances in the world of Becoming

are for him but ~phluari/ai~, _Rp._ 515 D.]

[95\13: _Gorg._ c. 78 ff. (522 B ff.).]

[96\13: ~hou=tos ho tro/pos a/ristos tou= bi/ou~, _Gorg._ 527

E--(this is the real subject of the _Gorg._, viz. ~ho/ntina chrê\

tro/pon zê=n~, 500 C, and not the nature of ~rhêtorikê/~--and it is

this which gives its special emotional tone to the dialogue).]

[97\13: _Gorg._ 515 C ff., 519 A ff. Summary: ~oude/na hêmei=s

i/smen a/ndra agatho\n gegono/ta ta\ politika\ en tê=|de tê=|

po/lei~, 517 A.]

[98\13: ~ouch hôs kalo/n ti all' hôs anagkai=on pra/ttontes~, _Rp._

540 B.]

[99\13: It is now the ~skopo\s en tô=| bi/ô|~--inaccessible to the

~apai/deutoi--hou= stochazome/nous dei= ha/panta pra/ttein~, _Rp._

519 C.]

[100\13: The ~a/llai aretai\ kalou/menai~ (even including ~sophi/a~

regarded as practical shrewdness: _Rp._ 428 B ff.) as ~eggu\s ou=sai

tô=n tou= sô/matos~ become of secondary importance compared with the

virtue of ~phro/nêsis~, i.e. of dialectic and the contemplation of

the Ideas, _Rp._ 518 DE. This alone is ~theio/teron~, something

~mei=zon~ than those bourgeois virtues, _Rp._ 504 D--philosophy

stands high above ~dêmotikê/ te kai\ politikê\ aretê/, ex e/thous te

kai\ meletê=s gegonui=a a/neu philosophi/as te kai\ nou=~, _Phd._ 82

BC.--This, too, rightly understood, is the real point of the inquiry

in _Meno_. Explicitly, indeed, the dialogue only concerns itself

with that ~aretê/~ which is commonly so regarded and is based on

~alêthê\s do/xa~, coming into existence by instinct (~thei/a

moi=ra~); which, however, to the philosopher is not ~aretê/~ in the

proper sense of the word; that name he would only give to

~epistê/mê~, the only sort of knowledge that can be learnt and

acquired as a permanent possession, depending as it does upon the

doctrine of Ideas. To ~epistê/mê~ he this time only makes distant

allusion.] {489}

[101\13: _Rp._ vii, c. 15 (535 A, 536 D); cf. vi, c. 2, 5 (485 B,

487 B; 489 D, 490 E.]

[102\13: ~kai\ tou= me\n (do/xês alêthou=s) pa/nta a/ndra mete/chein

phate/on, _nou=_ de\ theou/s, anthrô/pôn de\ ge/nos brachu/ ti~,

_Tim._ 51 E.]

[103\13: ~philo/sophon plê=thos adu/naton ei=nai~, _Rp._ 494 A.

~phu/seis~ of a completely philosophical kind, ~pa=s hêmi=n

homologê/sei oliga/kis en anthrô/pois phu/esthai kai\ oli/gas~,

_Rp._ 491 B.]

[104\13: "That into which I sink myself--that becomes one with me:

when I think on Him I _am_ as God that is the Fount of Being"--the

true mystic note. For the mystics, knowledge of an object is real

oneness with the thing known; knowledge of God is union with God.]

[105\13: _Rp._ 540 B.]

{{490}}