CHAPTER XXXIV.

KLEITOPHON.

Persons and circumstances of Kleitophon 413

Conversation of Sokrates with Kleitophon alone: he alludes to

observations of an unfavourable character recently made by

Kleitophon, who asks permission to explain _ib._

Explanation given. Kleitophon expresses gratitude and admiration

for the benefit which he has derived from long companionship with

Sokrates 414

The observations made by Sokrates have been most salutary and

stimulating in awakening ardour for virtue. Arguments and

analogies commonly used by Sokrates _ib._

But Sokrates does not explain what virtue is, nor how it is to be

attained. Kleitophon has had enough of stimulus, and now wants

information how he is to act 415

Questions addressed by Kleitophon with this view, both to the

companions of Sokrates and to Sokrates himself 416

Replies made by the friends of Sokrates unsatisfactory _ib._

None of them could explain what the special work of justice or

virtue was 417

Kleitophon at length asked the question from Sokrates himself. But

Sokrates did not answer clearly. Kleitophon believes that Sokrates

knows, but will not tell 417

Kleitophon is on the point of leaving Sokrates and going to

Thrasymachus. But before leaving he addresses one last entreaty,

that Sokrates will speak out clearly and explicitly 418

Remarks on the Kleitophon. Why Thrasyllus placed it in the eighth

Tetralogy immediately before the Republic, and along with Kritias,

the other fragment 419

Kleitophon is genuine, and perfectly in harmony with a just theory

of Plato 420

It could not have been published until after Plato's death _ib._

Reasons why the Kleitophon was never finished. It points out the

defects of Sokrates, just as he himself confesses them in the

Apology 421

The same defects also confessed in many of the Platonic and

Xenophontic dialogues 422

Forcible, yet respectful, manner in which these defects are set

forth in the Kleitophon. Impossible to answer them in such a way

as to hold out against the negative Elenchus of a Sokratic pupil

423

The Kleitophon represents a point of view which many objectors

must have insisted on against Sokrates and Plato 424

The Kleitophon was originally intended as a first book of the

Republic, but was found too hard to answer. Reasons why the

existing first book was substituted _ib._

CHAPTER XXVI.

PLATO.

CHAPTER XXVI.

PHÆDRUS--SYMPOSION.

[Side-note: These two are the two erotic dialogues of Plato.

Phædrus is the originator of both.]

I put together these two dialogues, as distinguished by a marked

peculiarity. They are the two erotic dialogues of Plato. They have

one great and interesting subject common to both: though in the

Phædrus, this subject is blended with, and made contributory to,

another. They agree also in the circumstance, that Phædrus is, in

both, the person who originates the conversation. But they differ

materially in the manner of handling, in the comparisons and

illustrations, and in the apparent purpose.

[Side-note: Eros as conceived by Plato. Different sentiment

prevalent in Hellenic antiquity and in modern times. Position of

women in Greece.]

The subject common to both is, Love or Eros in its largest sense,

and with its manifold varieties. Under the totally different vein

of sentiment which prevails in modern times, and which recognises

passionate love as prevailing only between persons of different

sex--it is difficult for us to enter into Plato's eloquent

exposition of the feeling as he conceives it. In the Hellenic

point of view,[1] upon which Plato builds, the attachment of man

to woman was regarded as a natural impulse, and as a domestic,

social, sentiment; yet as belonging to a common-place rather than

to an exalted mind, and seldom or never rising to that pitch of

enthusiasm which overpowers all other emotions, absorbs the whole

man, and aims either at the joint performance of great exploits or

the joint prosecution of intellectual improvement by continued

colloquy. We must remember that the wives and daughters of

citizens were seldom seen abroad: that the wife was married very

young: that she had learnt nothing except spinning and weaving:

that the fact of her having seen as little and heard as little as

possible, was considered as rendering her more acceptable to her

husband:[2] that her sphere of duty and exertion was confined to

the interior of the family. The beauty of women yielded

satisfaction to the senses, but little beyond. It was the

masculine beauty of youth that fired the Hellenic imagination with

glowing and impassioned sentiment. The finest youths, and those

too of the best families and education, were seen habitually

uncovered in the Palæstra and at the public festival-matches;

engaged in active contention and graceful exercise, under the

direction of professional trainers. The sight of the living form,

in such perfection, movement, and variety, awakened a powerful

emotional sympathy, blended with aesthetic sentiment, which in the

more susceptible natures was exalted into intense and passionate

devotion. The terms in which this feeling is described, both by

Plato and Xenophon, are among the strongest which the language

affords--and are predicated even of Sokrates himself. Far from

being ashamed of the feeling, they consider it admirable and

beneficial; though very liable to abuse, which they emphatically

denounce and forbid.[3] In their view, it was an idealising

passion, which tended to raise a man above the vulgar and selfish

pursuits of life, and even above the fear of death. The devoted

attachments which it inspired were dreaded by the despots, who

forbade the assemblage of youths for exercise in the palæstra.[4]

[Footnote 1: Schleiermacher (Einleit. zum Symp. p. 367) describes

this view of Eros as Hellenic, and as "gerade den anti-modernen

and anti-christlichen Pol der Platonischen Denkungsart". Aristotle

composed [Greek: The/seis E)rôtikai\] or [Greek: E)rôtika/s],

Diogenes Laert. v. 22-24. See Bernays, Die Dialoge des

Aristoteles, p. 133, Berlin, 1863.

Compare the dialogue called [Greek: E)rôtiko/s], among the works

of Plutarch, p. 750 seq., where some of the speakers, especially

Protogenes, illustrate and enlarge upon this Platonic construction

of Eros--[Greek: a)lêthinou= de\ E)/rôtos ou)d' o(tiou=n tê=|

gunaikôni/tidi me/testin], &c. (750 C, 761 B, &c.)

In the Treatise De Educatione Puerorum (c. 15, p. 11 D-F) Plutarch

hesitates to give a decided opinion on the amount of restriction

proper to be imposed on youth: he is much impressed with the

authority of Sokrates, Plato, Xenophon, Æschines, Kebês, [Greek:

kai\ to\n pa/nta cho/ron e)kei/nôn tô=n a)ndrô=n, oi( tou\s

a)/r)r(enas e)doki/masan e)/rôtas], &c. See the anecdote about

Episthenes, an officer among the Ten Thousand Greeks under

Xenophon, in Xenophon, Anabasis, vii. 4, 7, and a remarkable

passage about Zeno the Stoic, Diog. Laert. vii. 13. Respecting the

general subject of [Greek: paiderasti/a] in Greece, there is a

valuable Excursus in Bekker's Charikles, vol. i. pp. 347-377,

Excurs. ii. I agree generally with his belief about the practice

in Greece, see Cicero, Tusc. Disp. iv. 33, 70. Bekker quotes

abundant authorities, which might be farther multiplied if

necessary. In appreciating the evidence upon this point, we cannot

be too careful to keep in mind what Sokrates says (in the

Xenophontic Symposion, viii. 34) when comparing the Thebans and

Eleians on one side with the Athenians and Spartans on the

other--[Greek: E)kei/nois me\n ga\r tau=ta no/mima, ê(mi=n de\

e)ponei/dista.] We must interpret passages of the classical

authors according to their fair and real meanings, not according

to the conclusions which we might wish to find proved.

If we read the oration of Demosthenes against Neæra (which is full

of information about Athenian manners), we find the speaker

Apollodôrus distributing the relations of men with women in the

following manner (p. 1386)--[Greek: to\ ga\r sunoikei=n tou=t'

e)sti/n, o(\s a)\n paidopoiê=tai kai\ ei)sa/gê| ei)/s te tou\s

dêmo/tas kai\ tou\s phra/toras tou\s ui(ei=s, kai\ ta\s

thugate/ras e)kdidô=| ô(s au)tou= ou)/sas toi=s a)ndra/si. Ta\s

me\n ga\r e(tai/ras, ê(donê=s e(/neka e)/chomen--ta\s de\

pallaka/s, tê=s kath' ê(me/ran therapei/as tou= sô/matos--ta\s de\

gunai=kas, tou= paidopoiei=sthai gnêsi/ôs, kai\ tô=n e(/ndon

phu/laka pi/stên e)/chein.]

To the same purpose, the speaker in Lysias ([Greek: U(pe\r tou=

E)ratosthe/nous pho/nou]--sect. 7), describing his wife,

says--[Greek: e)n me\n ou)=n tô=| prô/tô| chro/nô| pasô=n ê)=n

belti/stê; kai\ ga\r oi)kono/mos deinê\ kai\ pheidôlo\s a)gathê\

kai\ a)kribô=s pa/nta dioikou=sa.]

Neither of these three relations lent itself readily to the

Platonic vein of sentiment and ideality: neither of them led to

any grand results either in war--or political ambition--or

philosophical speculation; the three great roads, in one or other

of which the Grecian ideality travelled. We know from the Republic

that Plato did not appreciate the value of the family life, or the

purposes for which men marry, according to the above passage cited

from Demosthenes. In this point, Plato differs from Xenophon, who,

in his Oeconomicus, enlarges much (in the discourse of

Ischomachus) upon the value of the conjugal union, with a view to

prudential results and good management of the household; while he

illustrates the sentimental and affectionate side of it, in the

story of Pantheia and Abradates (Cyropædia).]

[Footnote 2: See the Oeconomicus of Xenophon, cap. iii. 12, vii.

5.]

[Footnote 3: The beginning of the Platonic Charmidês illustrates

what is here said, pp. 154-155; also that of the Protagoras and

Lysis, pp. 205-206.

Xenophon, Sympos. i. 8-11; iv. 11, 15. Memorab. i. 3, 8-14 (what

Sokrates observes to Xenophon about Kritobulus). Dikæarchus

(companion of Aristotle) disapproved the important influence which

Plato assigned to Eros (Cicero, Tusc. D. iv. 34-71).

If we pass to the second century after the Christian Era, we find

some speakers in Athenæus blaming severely the amorous sentiments

of Sokrates and the narrative of Alkibiades, as recited in the

Platonic Symposium (v. 180-187; xi. 506-508 C). Athenæus remarks

farther, that Plato, writing in this strain, had little right to

complain (as we read in the Republic) of the licentious

compositions of Homer and other poets, and to exclude them from

his model city. Maximus Tyrius, in one of his four discourses

(23-5) on the [Greek: e)rôtikê\] of Sokrates, makes the same remark as

Athenæus about the inconsistency of Plato in banishing Homer from

the model city, and composing what we read in the Symposion; he

farther observes that the erotic dispositions of Sokrates provoked

no censure from his numerous enemies at the time (though they

assailed him upon so many other points), but had incurred great

censure from contemporaries of Maximus himself, to whom he

replies--[Greek: tou\s nuni\ katêgo/rous] (23, 6-7). The

comparisons which he institutes (23, 9) between the sentiments and

phrases of Sokrates, and those of Sappho and Anakreon, are very

curious.

Dionysius of Halikarnassus speaks of the [Greek: e)gkô/mia] on

Eros in the Symposion, as "unworthy of serious handling or of

Sokrates". (De Admir. Vi Dic. Demosth. p. 1027.)

But the most bitter among all the critics of Plato, is

Herakleitus--author of the Allegoriæ Homericæ. Herakleitus repels,

as unjust and calumnious, the sentence of banishment pronounced by

Plato against Homer, from whom all mental cultivation had been

derived. He affirms, and tries to show, that the poems of

Homer--which he admits to be full of immorality if literally

understood--had an allegorical meaning. He blames Plato for not having

perceived this; and denounces him still more severely for the

character of his own writings--[Greek: e)r)r(i/phthô de\ kai\

Pla/tôn o( ko/lax, O(mê/rou sukopha/ntês--Tou\s de\ Pla/tônos

dialo/gous, a)/nô kai\ ka/tô paidikoi\ kathubri/zousin e)/rôtes,

ou)damou= de ou)chi tê=s a)r)r(e/nos e)pithumi/as mesto/s e)stin

o( a)nê/r] (Herakl. All. Hom., c. 4-74, ed. Mehler, Leiden,

1851).]

[Footnote 4: Plato, Sympos. 182 C. The proceedings of Harmodius

and Aristogeiton, which illustrate this feeling, are recounted by

Thucydides, vi. 54-57. These two citizens were gratefully

recollected and extensively admired by the Athenian public.]

[Side-note: Eros, considered as the great stimulus to improving

philosophical communion. Personal Beauty, the great point of

approximation between the world of sense and the world of Ideas.

Gradual generalisation of the sentiment.]

Especially to Plato, who combined erotic and poetical imagination

with Sokratic dialectics and generalising theory--this passion

presented itself in the light of a stimulus introductory to the

work of philosophy--an impulse at first impetuous and

undistinguishing, but afterwards regulated towards improving

communion and colloquy with an improvable youth. Personal beauty

(this is[5] the remarkable doctrine of Plato in the Phædrus) is

the main point of visible resemblance between the world of sense

and the world of Ideas: the Idea of Beauty has a brilliant

representative of itself among concrete objects--the Ideas of

Justice and Temperance have none. The contemplation of a beautiful

youth, and the vehement emotion accompanying it, was the only way

of reviving in the soul the Idea of Beauty which it had seen in

its antecedent stage of existence. This was the first stage

through which every philosopher must pass; but the emotion of love

thus raised, became gradually in the better minds both expanded

and purified. The lover did not merely admire the person, but also

contracted the strongest sympathy with the feelings and character,

of the beloved youth: delighting to recognise and promote in him

all manifestations of mental beauty which were in harmony with the

physical, so as to raise him to the greatest attainable perfection

of human nature. The original sentiment of admiration, having been

thus first transferred by association from beauty in the person to

beauty in the mind and character, became gradually still farther

generalised; so that beauty was perceived not as exclusively

specialised in any one individual, but as invested in all

beautiful objects, bodies as well as minds. The view would

presently be farther enlarged. The like sentiment would be

inspired, so as to worship beauty in public institutions, in

administrative arrangements, in arts and sciences. And the mind

would at last be exalted to the contemplation of that which

pervades and gives common character to all these

particulars--Beauty in the abstract--or the Self-Beautiful--the Idea

or Form of the Beautiful. To reach this highest summit, after mounting

all the previous stages, and to live absorbed in the contemplation of

"the great ocean of the beautiful," was the most glorious

privilege attainable by any human being. It was indeed attainable

only by a few highly gifted minds. But others might make more or

less approach to it: and the nearer any one approached, the

greater measure would he ensure to himself of real good and

happiness.[6]

[Footnote 5: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 249 E, 250 B-E.]

[Footnote 6: Plato, Sympos. pp. 210-211.

Respecting the Beautiful, I transcribe here a passage from

Ficinus, in his Argument prefixed to the Hippias Major, p. 757.

"Unumquodque è singulis pulchris, _pulchrum hoc_ Plato vocat:

formam in omnibus, pulchritudinem; speciem et ideam supra omnia,

ipsum pulchrum. Primum sensus attingit opinioque. Secundum ratio

cogitat. Tertium mens intuetur.

"Quid ipsum Bonum? Ipsum rerum omnium principium, actus purus,

actus sequentia cuncta vivificans. Quid ipsum Pulchrum? Vivificus

actus e primo fonte bonorum effluens, Mentem primo divinam idearum

ordine infinité decorans, Numina deinde sequentia mentesque

rationum serie complens, Animas tertio numerosis discursibus

ornans, Naturas quarto seminibus, formis quinto materiam."]

[Side-note: All men love Good, as the means of Happiness, but they

pursue it by various means. The name _Eros_ is confined to one

special case of this large variety.]

Such is Plato's conception of Eros or Love and its object. He

represents it as one special form or variety of the universal law

of gravitation pervading all mankind. Every one loves, desires, or

aspires to _happiness_: this is the fundamental or primordial law

of human nature, beyond which we cannot push enquiry. Good, or

good things, are nothing else but the means to happiness:[7]

accordingly, every man, loving happiness, loves good also, and

desires not only full acquisition, but perpetual possession of

good. In this wide sense, love belongs to all human beings: every

man loves good and happiness, with perpetual possession of

them--and nothing else.[8] But different men have different ways of

pursuing this same object. One man aspires to good or happiness by

way of money-getting, another by way of ambition, a third by

gymnastics--or music--or philosophy. Still no one of these is said

to love, or to be under the influence of Eros. That name is

reserved exclusively for one special variety of it--the impulse

towards copulation, generation, and self-perpetuation, which

agitates both bodies and minds throughout animal nature. Desiring

perpetual possession of good, all men desire to perpetuate

themselves, and to become immortal. But an individual man or

animal cannot be immortal: he can only attain a quasi-immortality

by generating a new individual to replace himself.[9] In fact even

mortal life admits no continuity, but is only a succession of

distinct states or phenomena: one always disappearing and another

always appearing, each generated by its antecedent and generating

its consequent. Though a man from infancy to old age is called the

same, yet he never continues the same for two moments together,

either in body or mind. As his blood, flesh, bones, &c., are in

perpetual disappearance and renovation, always coming and going--so

likewise are his sensations, thoughts, emotions, dispositions,

cognitions, &c. Neither mentally nor physically does he ever

continue the same during successive instants. The old man of this

instant perishes and is replaced by a new man during the next.[10]

As this is true of the individual, so it is still more true of the

species: continuance or immortality is secured only by perpetual

generation of new individuals.

[Footnote 7: Plato, Sympos. pp. 204-205. [Greek: Phe/re, o( e)rô=n

tô=n a)gathô=n, ti/ e)ra=|? Gene/sthai, ê)=n d' e)gô/, au)tô=|.

Kai\ ti/ e)/stai e)kei/nô| ô(=| a)\n ge/nêtai ta)gatha/? Tou=t'

eu)porô/teron, ê)=n d' e)gô/, e)/chô a)pokri/nasthai, o(/ti

eu)dai/môn e)/stai. Ktê/sei ga/r, e)/phê, a)gathô=n, oi(

eu)dai/mones eu)dai/mones; Kai\ ou)ke/ti prosdei= e)re/sthai,

i(/na ti/ de\ bou/letai eu)dai/môn ei)=nai o( boulo/menos, a)lla\

te/los dokei= e)/chein ê( a)po/krisis. . . . Tau/tên dê\ tê\n

bou/lêsin kai\ to\n e)/rôta tou=ton, po/tera koino\n ei)=nai

pa/ntôn a)nthrô/pôn, kai\ pa/ntas ta)gatha\ bou/lesthai au)toi=s

ei)=nai a)ei/, ê)\ pô=s le/geis? Ou(/tôs, ê)=n d' e)gô/, koino\n

ei)=nai pa/ntôn.]]

[Footnote 8: Plato, Sympos. p. 206 A. [Greek: ô(s ou)de/n ge

a)/llo e)sti\n ou)= e)rô=sin a)/nthrôpoi ê)\ tou= a)gathou=.]]

[Footnote 9: Plato, Sympos. p. 207 C.]

[Footnote 10: Plato, Sympos. pp. 207-208.]

[Side-note: Desire of mental copulation and procreation, as the

only attainable likeness of immortality, requires the sight of

personal beauty as an originating stimulus.]

The love of immortality thus manifests itself in living beings

through the copulative and procreative impulse, which so

powerfully instigates living man in mind as well as in body.

Beauty in another person exercises an attractive force which

enables this impulse to be gratified: ugliness on the contrary

repels and stifles it. Hence springs the love of beauty--or

rather, of procreation in the beautiful--whereby satisfaction is

obtained for this restless and impatient agitation.[11] With some,

this erotic impulse stimulates the body, attracting them towards

women, and inducing them to immortalise themselves by begetting

children: with others, it acts far more powerfully on the mind,

and determines them to conjunction with another mind for the

purpose of generating appropriate mental offspring and products.

In this case as well as in the preceding, the first stroke of

attraction arises from the charm of physical, visible, and

youthful beauty: but when, along with this beauty of person, there

is found the additional charm of a susceptible, generous,

intelligent mind, the effect produced by the two together is

overwhelming; the bodily sympathy becoming spiritualised and

absorbed by the mental. With the inventive and aspiring

intelligences--poets like Homer and Hesiod, or legislators like

Lykurgus and Solon--the erotic impulse takes this turn. They look

about for some youth, at once handsome and improvable, in

conversation with whom they may procreate new reasonings

respecting virtue and goodness--new excellences of

disposition--and new force of intellectual combination, in both

the communicants. The attachment between the two becomes so strong

that they can hardly live apart: so anxious are both of them to

foster and confirm the newly acquired mental force of which each

is respectively conscious in himself.[12]

[Footnote 11: Plato, Sympos. p. 206 E. [Greek: o(/then dê\ tô=|

kuou=nti/ te kai\ ê)/dê spargô=nti pollê\ ê( pto/êsis ge/gone

peri\ to\ kalo\n dia\ to\ mega/lês ô)di=nos a)polu/ein to\n

e)/chonta. E)sti\ ga\r ou) tou= kalou= o( e)/rôs, a)lla\--tê=s

gennê/seôs kai\ tou= to/kou e)n tô=| kalô=|.]]

[Footnote 12: Plato, Sympos. p. 209.]

[Side-note: Highest exaltation of the erotic impulse in a few

privileged minds, when it ascends gradually to the love of Beauty

_in genere_. This is the most absorbing sentiment of all.]

Occasionally, and in a few privileged natures, this erotic impulse

rises to a still higher exaltation, losing its separate and

exclusive attachment to one individual person, and fastening upon

beauty in general, or that which all beautiful persons and

beautiful minds have in common. The visible charm of beautiful

body, though it was indispensable as an initial step, comes to be

still farther sunk and undervalued, when the mind has ascended to

the contemplation of beauty _in genere_, not merely in bodies and

minds, but in laws, institutions, and sciences. This is the

highest pitch of philosophical love, to which a few minds only are

competent, and that too by successive steps of ascent: but which,

when attained, is thoroughly soul-satisfying. If any man's vision

be once sharpened so that he can see beauty pure and absolute, he

will have no eyes for the individual manifestations of it in gold,

fine raiment, brilliant colours, or beautiful youths.[13] Herein

we have the climax or consummation of that erotic aspiration which

first shows itself in the form of virtuous attachment to

youth.[14]

[Footnote 13: Plato, Symposion, p. 211.]

[Footnote 14: Plato, Symposion, p. 211 B. [Greek: o(/tan dê/ tis

a)po\ tô=nde dia\ to\ o)rthô=s paiderastei=n e)paniô\n e)kei=no

to\ kalo\n a)/rchêtai kathora=|n, schedo\n a)/n ti a(/ptoito tou=

te/lous], &c.]

[Side-note: Purpose of the Symposion, to contrast this Platonic

view of Eros with several different views of it previously

enunciated by the other speakers; closing with a panegyric on

Sokrates, by the drunken Alkibiades.]

It is thus that Plato, in the Symposion, presents Love, or erotic

impulse: a passion taking its origin in the physical and mental

attributes common to most men, and concentrated at first upon some

individual person--but gradually becoming both more intense and

more refined, as it ascends in the scale of logical generalisation

and comes into intimate view of the pure idea of Beauty. The main

purpose of the Symposion is to contrast this Platonic view of Eros

or Love--which is assigned to Sokrates in the dialogue, and is

repeated by him from the communication of a prophetic woman named

Diotima[15]--with different views assigned to other speakers. Each

of the guests at the Banquet--Phædrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus,

Aristophanes, Agathon, Sokrates--engages to deliver a panegyric on

Eros: while Alkibiades, entering intoxicated after the speeches

are finished, delivers a panegyric on Sokrates, in regard to

energy and self-denial generally, but mainly and specially in the

character of Erastes. The pure and devoted attachment of Sokrates

towards Alkibiades himself--his inflexible self-command under the

extreme of trial and temptation--the unbounded ascendancy which he

had acquired over that insolent youth, who seeks in every

conceivable manner to render himself acceptable to Sokrates--are

emphatically extolled, and illustrated by singular details.

[Footnote 15: Plat. Sympos. p. 201 D. [Greek: gunaiko\s mantikê=s

Dioti/mas, ê( tau=ta/ te sophê\ ê)=n kai\ a)/lla polla/, kai\

A)thênai/ois pote\ thusame/nois pro\ tou= loimou= de/ka e)/tê

a)nabolê\n e)poi/êse tê=s no/sou, ê)\ dê\ kai\ e)me\ ta\ e)rôtika\

e)di/daxen.]

Instead of [Greek: gunaiko\s mantikê=s], which was the old

reading, Stallbaum and other editors prefer to write [Greek:

gunaiko\s Mantinikê=s], also 211 D. I cannot but think that

[Greek: mantikê=s] is right. There is no pertinence or fit

meaning in [Greek: Mantinikê=s], whereas the word [Greek:

mantikê=s] is in full keeping with what is said about the special

religious privileges and revelations of Diotima--that she procured

for the Athenians an adjournment of the plague for ten years. The

Delphian oracle assured the Lydian king Kroesus that Apollo had

obtained from the [Greek: Moi=rai] a postponement of the ruin of

the Lydian kingdom for three years, but that he could obtain from

them no more (Herodot. i. 91).]

[Side-note: Views of Eros presented by Phædrus, Pausanias,

Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon.]

Both Phædrus[16] and Pausanias, in their respective encomiums upon

Eros, dwell upon that God as creating within the human bosom by

his inspirations the noblest self-denial and the most devoted

heroism, together with the strongest incentives to virtuous

behaviour. Pausanias however makes distinctions: recognising and

condemning various erotic manifestations as abusive, violent,

sensual--and supposing for these a separate inspiring Deity--Eros

Pandêmus, contrasted with the good and honourable Eros Uranius[17]

or Coelestis. In regard to the different views taken of Eros by

Eryximachus, Aristophanes, and Agathon--the first is medical,

physiological, cosmical[18]--the second is comic and imaginative,

even to exuberance--the third is poetical or dithyrambic:

immediately upon which follows the analytical and philosophical

exposition ascribed to Sokrates, opened in his dialectic manner by

a cross-examination of his predecessor, and proceeding to

enunciate the opinions communicated to him by the prophetess

Diotima.

[Footnote 16: Sydenham conceives and Boeckh (ad Plat. Legg. iii.

694) concurs with him, that this discourse, assigned to Phædrus,

is intended by Plato as an imitation of the style of Lysias. This

is sufficiently probable. The encomium on Eros delivered by

Agathon, especially the concluding part of it (p. 197), mimics the

style of florid effeminate poetry, overcharged with balanced

phrases ([Greek: i)so/kôla, a)nti/theta]), which Aristophanes

parodies in Agathon's name at the beginning of the

Thesmophoriazusæ, Athenæus, v. 187 C.]

[Footnote 17: Plato, Sympos. pp. 180-181.]

[Footnote 18: Respecting this view of Eros or Aphrodite, as a

cosmical, all-pervading, procreative impulse, compare Euripides,

Frag. Incert. 3, 6, assigned by Welcker (Griech. Trag. p. 737) to

the lost drama--the first Hippolytus; also the beautiful

invocation with which the poem of Lucretius opens, and the

fragmentary exordium remaining from the poem of Parmenides.]

[Side-note: Discourse of Sokrates from revelation of Diotima. He

describes Eros as not a God, but an intermediate Dæmon between

Gods and men, constantly aspiring to divinity, but not attaining

it.]

Sokrates treats most of the preceding panegyrics as pleasing

fancies not founded in truth. In his representation (cited from

Diotima) Eros is neither beautiful, nor good, nor happy; nor is he

indeed a God at all. He is one of the numerous intermediate body

of Dæmons, inferior to Gods yet superior to men, and serving as

interpreting agents of communication between the two.[19] Eros is

the offspring of Poverty and Resource (Porus).[20] He represents

the state of aspiration and striving, with ability and energy,

after goodness and beauty, but never actually possessing them: a

middle condition, preferable to that of the person who neither

knows that he is deficient in them, nor cares to possess them: but

inferior to the condition of him who is actually in possession.

Eros is always Love of something--in relation to something yet

unattained, but desired: Eros is to be distinguished carefully

from the object desired.[21] He is the parallel of the

philosopher, who is neither ignorant nor wise: not ignorant,

because genuine ignorance is unconscious of itself and fancies

itself to be knowledge: not wise, because he does not possess

wisdom, and is well aware that he does not possess it. He is in

the intermediate stage, knowing that he does not possess wisdom,

but constantly desiring it and struggling after it. Eros, like

philosophy, represents this continual aspiration and advance

towards a goal never attained.[22]

[Footnote 19: Plato, Sympos. pp. 202-203.]

[Footnote 20: What Sokrates says here in the Symposion about Eros

is altogether at variance with what Sokrates says about Eros in

Phædrus, wherein we find him speaking with the greatest reverence

and awe about Eros as a powerful God, son of Aphroditê (Phædrus,

pp. 242 D, 243 D, 257 A).]

[Footnote 21: Plato, Symposion, pp. 199-200. [Greek: O( E)/rôs

e)/rôs e)sti\n ou)deno\s ê(\ tino/s? Pa/nu me\n ou)=n

e)/stin. . . . Po/teron o( E)/rôs e)kei/nou ou(= e)/stin e)/rôs,

e)pithumei= au)tou= ê)\ ou)/? Pa/nu ge. . . . A)na/gkê to\

e)pithumou=n e)pithumei=n ou)= e)ndee/s e)stin, ê)\ mê\

e)pithumei=n, e)a\n mê\ e)ndee\s ê)=|.]]

[Footnote 22: Plato, Sympos. p. 204 A. [Greek: Ti/nes ou)=n oi(

philosophou=ntes, ei) mê/te oi( sophoi\ mê/te oi( a)mathei=s?

. . . Oi( metaxu\ tou/tôn a)mphote/rôn, ô(=n au)= kai\ o( E)/rôs.

E)sti\ ga\r dê\ tô=n kalli/stôn ê( sophi/a, E)/rôs d' e)sti\n

e)/rôs peri\ to\ kalo/n; ô(/ste a)nagkai=on E)/rôta philo/sophon

ei)=nai, philo/sophon de\ o)/nta metaxu\ ei)=nai sophou= kai\

a)mathou=s.]]

[Side-note: Analogy of the erotic aspiration with that of the

philosopher, who knows his own ignorance and thirsts for

knowledge.]

It is thus that the truly Platonic conception of Love is brought

out, materially different from that of the preceding

speakers--Love, as a state of conscious want, and of aspiration or

endeavour to satisfy that want, by striving after good or

happiness--Philosophy as the like intermediate state, in regard to

wisdom. And Plato follows out this coalescence of love and philosophy

in the manner which has been briefly sketched above: a vehement

impulse towards mental communion with some favoured youth, in the

view of producing mental improvement, good, and happiness to both

persons concerned: the same impulse afterwards expanding, so as to

grasp the good and beautiful in a larger sense, and ultimately to

fasten on goodness and beauty in the pure Idea: which is

absolute--independent of time, place, circumstances, and all variable

elements--moreover the object of the one and supreme science.[23]

[Footnote 23: Plato, Symposion, pp. 210-211.]

[Side-note: Eros as presented in the Phædrus--Discourse of Lysias,

and counter-discourse of Sokrates, adverse to Eros--Sokrates is

seized with remorse, and recants in a high-flown panegyric on

Eros.]

I will now compare the Symposion with the Phædrus. In the first

half of the Phædrus also, Eros, and the Self-Beautiful or the pure

Idea of the Beautiful, are brought into close coalescence with

philosophy and dialectic--but they are presented in a different

manner. Plato begins by setting forth the case against Eros in two

competing discourses (one cited from Lysias,[24] the other

pronounced by Sokrates himself as competitor with Lysias in

eloquence) supposed to be addressed to a youth, and intended to

convince him that the persuasions of a calm and intelligent friend

are more worthy of being listened to than the exaggerated promises

and protestations of an impassioned lover, from whom he will

receive more injury than benefit: that the inspirations of Eros

are a sort of madness, irrational and misguiding as well as

capricious and transitory: while the calm and steady friend,

unmoved by any passionate inspiration, will show himself worthy of

permanent esteem and gratitude.[25] By a sudden revulsion of

feeling, Sokrates becomes ashamed of having thus slandered the

divine Eros, and proceeds to deliver a counter-panegyric or

palinode upon that God.[26]

[Footnote 24: Plato, Phædrus, p. 230 seq.]

[Footnote 25: Plato, Phædrus, p. 237 seq.]

[Footnote 26: Eros, in the Phædrus, is pronounced to be a God, son

of Aphroditê (p. 242 E); in the Symposion he is not a God but a

Dæmon, offspring of Porus and Penia, and attendant on Aphroditê,

according to Diotima and Sokrates (p. 203).]

[Side-note: Panegyric--Sokrates admits that the influence of Eros

is a variety of madness, but distinguishes good and bad varieties

of madness, both coming from the Gods. Good madness is far better

than sobriety.]

Eros (he says) is, mad, irrational, superseding reason and

prudence in the individual mind.[27] This is true: yet still Eros

exercises a beneficent and improving influence. Not all madness is

bad. Some varieties of it are bad, but others are good. Some arise

from human malady, others from the inspirations of the Gods: both

of them supersede human reason and the orthodoxy of established

custom[28]--but the former substitute what is worse, the latter

what is better. The greatest blessings enjoyed by man arise from

madness, when it is imparted by divine inspiration. And it is so

imparted in four different phases and by four different Gods:

Apollo infuses the prophetic madness--Dionysus, the ritual or

religious--The Muses, the poetical--and Eros, the erotic.[29] This

last sort of madness greatly transcends the sober reason and

concentration upon narrow objects which is so much praised by

mankind generally.[30] The inspired and exalted lover deserves

every preference over the unimpassioned friend.

[Footnote 27: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 265-266. [Greek: to\ a)/phron

tê=s dianoi/as e(/n ti koinê=| ei)=dos. . . . to\ tê=s paranoi/as

ô(s e(\n e)n ê(mi=n pephuko\s ei)=dos.] Compare p. 236 A.]

[Footnote 28: Plato, Phædrus, p. 265 A. [Greek: Mani/as de/ ge

ei)/dê du/o; tê\n me/n, u(po\ nosêma/tôn a)nthrôpi/nôn, tê\n de/,

u(po\ thei/as e)xallagê=s tô=n ei)ôtho/tôn nomi/môn gignome/nên.]

Compare 249 D.]

[Footnote 29: Plato, Phædrus, p. 244 A. [Greek: ei) me\n ga\r ê)=n

a(plou=n to\ mani/an kako\n ei)=nai, kalô=s a)\n e)le/geto; nu=n

de\ ta\ me/gista tô=n a)gathô=n ê(mi=n gi/gnetai dia\ mani/as,

thei/a| me/ntoi do/sei didome/nês.]

Compare Plutarch, [Greek: E)rôtiko/s], c. 16. pp. 758-759, &c.]

[Footnote 30: Plato, Phædrus, p. 245 B. [Greek: mêde/ tis ê(ma=s

lo/gos thorubei/tô deditto/menos ô(s pro\ tou= kekinême/nou to\n

sô/phrona dei= proairei=sthai phi/lon.]

P. 256 E; [Greek: ê( de\ a)po\ tou= mê\ e)rô=ntos oi)keio/tês,

sôphrosu/nê| thnêtê=| kekrame/nê, thnêta/ te kai\ pheidôla\

oi)konomou=sa, a)neleutheri/an u(po\ plê/thous e)panoume/nên ô(s

a)retê\n tê=| phi/lê|** psuchê=| e)ntekou=sa], &c.]

[Side-note: Poetical mythe delivered by Sokrates, describing the

immortality and pre-existence of the soul, and its pre-natal

condition of partial companionship with Gods and eternal Ideas.]

Plato then illustrates, by a highly poetical and imaginative

mythe, the growth and working of love in the soul. All soul or

mind is essentially self-moving, and the cause of motion to other

things. It is therefore immortal, without beginning or end: the

universal or cosmic soul, as well as the individual souls of Gods

and men.[31] Each soul may be compared to a chariot with a winged

pair of horses. In the divine soul, both the horses are excellent,

with perfect wings: in the human soul, one only of them is good,

the other is violent and rebellious, often disobedient to the

charioteer, and with feeble or half-grown wings.[32] The Gods, by

means of their wings, are enabled to ascend up to the summit of

the celestial firmament--to place themselves upon the outer

circumference or back of the heaven--and thus to be carried round

along with the rotation of the celestial sphere round the Earth.

In the course of this rotation they contemplate the pure essences

and Ideas, truth and reality without either form or figure or

colour: they enjoy the vision of the Absolute--Justice,

Temperance, Beauty, Science. The human souls, with their defective

wings, try to accompany the Gods; some attaching themselves to one

God, some to another, in this ascent. But many of them fail in the

object, being thrown back upon earth in consequence of their

defective equipment, and the unruly character of one of the

horses: some however succeed partially, obtaining glimpses of

Truth and of the general Ideas, though in a manner transient and

incomplete.

[Footnote 31: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 245-246. Compare Krische, De

Platonis Phædro, pp. 49-50 (Göttingen, 1848).

Plato himself calls this panegyric in the mouth of Sokrates a

[Greek: muthiko/s tis u(/mnos] (Phædr. p. 265 D).]

[Footnote 32: The reader will recollect Homer, Iliad, xvi. 152,

where the chariot and horses of Patroklus are described, when he

is about to attack the Trojans; the mortal horse Pedasus is

harnessed to it alongside of the two immortal horses Xanthus and

Balius.]

[Side-note: Operation of such pre-natal experience upon the

Intellectual faculties of man--Comparison and combination of

particular sensations indispensable--Reminiscence.]

Those souls which have not seen Truth or general Ideas at all, can

never be joined with the body of a man, but only with that of some

inferior animal. It is essential that some glimpse of truth should

have been obtained, in order to qualify the soul for the condition

of man:[33] for the mind of man must possess within itself the

capacity of comparing and combining particular sensations, so as

to rise to one general conception brought together by reason.[34]

This is brought about by the process of reminiscence; whereby it

recalls those pure, true, and beautiful Ideas which it had

partially seen during its prior extra-corporeal existence in

companionship with the Gods. The rudimentary faculty of thus

reviving these general Conceptions--the visions of a prior state

of existence--belongs to all men, distinguishing them from other

animals: but in most men the visions have been transient, and the

power of reviving them is faint and dormant. It is only some few

philosophers, whose minds, having been effectively winged in their

primitive state for ascent to the super-celestial regions, have

enjoyed such a full contemplation of the divine Ideas as to be

able to recall them with facility and success, during the

subsequent corporeal existence. To the reminiscence of the

philosopher, these Ideas present themselves with such brilliancy

and fascination, that he forgets all other pursuits and interests.

Hence he is set down as a madman by the generality of mankind,

whose minds have not ascended beyond particular and present

phenomena to the revival of the anterior Ideas.

[Footnote 33: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 249-250. [Greek: pa=sa me\n

a)nthrô/pou psuchê\ phu/sei tethe/atai ta\ o)/nta--ê)\ ou)k a)\n

ê)=lthen ei)s to/de** to\ zô=on; a)namimnê/skesthai d' e)k tô=nde

e)kei=na ou) r(a/|dion a(pa/sê|], &c.]

[Footnote 34: Plato, Phædrus, p. 249 B. [Greek: Ou) ga\r ê(/ ge

mê/ pote i)dou=sa tê\n a)lê/theian ei)s to/de ê(/xei to\ schê=ma.

Dei= ga\r a)/nthrôpon xunie/nai kat' ei)=dos lego/menon, e)k

pollô=n i)o\n ai)sthê/seôn ei)s e(\n logismô=| xunairou/menon.

Tou=to de/ e)stin a)na/mnêsis e)kei/nôn, a(/ pot' ei)=den ê(mô=n

ê( psuchê\ sumporeuthei=sa theô=| kai\ u(peridou=sa a(\ nu=n

ei)=nai/ phamen, kai\ a)naku/psasa ei)s to\ o)\n o)/ntôs.]]

[Side-note: Reminiscence is kindled up in the soul of the

philosopher by the aspect of visible Beauty, which is the great

link between the world of sense and the world of Ideas.]

It is by the aspect of visible beauty, as embodied in

distinguished youth, that this faculty of reminiscence is first

kindled in minds capable of the effort. It is only the embodiment

of beauty, acting as it does powerfully upon the most intellectual

of our senses, which has sufficient force to kindle up the first

act or stage of reminiscence in the mind, leading ultimately to

the revival of the Idea of Beauty. The embodiments of justice,

wisdom, temperance, &c., in particular men, do not strike forcibly

on the senses, nor approximate sufficiently to the original Idea,

to effect the first stroke of reminiscence in an unprepared mind.

It is only the visible manifestation of beauty, which strikes with

sufficient shock at once on the senses and the intellect, to

recall in the mind an adumbration of the primitive Idea of Beauty.

The shock thus received first develops the reminiscent faculty in

minds apt and predisposed to it, and causes the undeveloped wings

of the soul to begin growing. It is a passion of violent and

absorbing character; which may indeed take a sensual turn, by the

misconduct of the unruly horse in the team, producing in that case

nothing but corruption and mischief--but which may also take a

virtuous, sentimental, imaginative turn, and becomes in that case

the most powerful stimulus towards mental improvement in both the

two attached friends. When thus refined and spiritualised, it can

find its satisfaction only in philosophical communion, in the

generation of wisdom and virtue; as well as in the complete

cultivation of that reminiscent power, which vivifies in the mind

remembrance of Forms or Ideas seen in a prior existence. To attain

such perfection, is given to few; but a greater or less

approximation may be made to it. And it is the only way of

developing the highest powers and virtues of the mind; which must

spring, not from human prudence and sobriety, but from divine

madness or erotic inspiration.[35]

[Footnote 35: Plato, Phædrus, p. 256 B. [Greek: ou(= mei=zon

a)gatho\n ou)/te sôphrosu/nê a)nthrôpi/nê ou)/te thei/a mani/a

dunatê\ pori/sai a)nthrô/pô|.]--245 B: [Greek: e)p' eu)tuchi/a

tê=| megi/stê| para\ theô=n ê( toiau/tê mani/a di/dotai.]

The long and highly poetical mythe, of which I have given some of

the leading points, occupies from c. 51 to c. 83 (pp. 244-257) of

the dialogue. It is adapted to the Hellenic imagination, and

requires the reader to keep before him the palæstræ of Athens, as

described in the Lysis, Erastæ, and Charmidês of Plato--visited

both by men like Sokrates and by men like Kritias (Xenoph. Memor.

i. 2, 29).]

Such is the general tenor of the dialogue Phædrus, in its first

half: which presents to us the Platonic love, conceived as the

source and mainspring of exalted virtue--as the only avenue to

philosophy--as contrasted, not merely with sensual love, but also

with the sobriety of the decent citizen who fully conforms to the

teaching of Law and Custom. In the Symposion, the first of these

contrasts appears prominently, while the second is less noticed.

In the Phædrus, Sokrates declares emphatically that madness, of a

certain sort, is greatly preferable to sobriety: that the

temperate, respectable, orthodox citizen, is on the middle line,

some madmen being worse than he, but others better: that madness

springing from human distemper is worse, but that when it springs

from divine inspiration, it is in an equal degree better, than

sobriety: that the philosophical _oestrus_, and the reminiscence

of the eternal Ideas (considered by Plato as the only true and

real Entia), is inconsistent with that which is esteemed as

sobriety: and is generated only by special inoculation from Eros

or some other God. This last contrast, as I have just observed, is

little marked in the Symposion. But on the other hand, the

Symposion (especially the discourse of Sokrates and his repetition

of the lessons of Diotima), insists much more upon the

generalisation of the erotic impulse. In the Phædrus, we still

remain on the ground of fervent attachment between two

individuals--an attachment sentimental and virtuous, displaying

itself in an intercourse which elicits from both of them active

intelligence and exalted modes of conduct: in the Symposion, such

intercourse is assimilated explicitly to copulation with

procreative consequences, but it is represented as the first stage

of a passion which becomes more and more expanded and

comprehensive: dropping all restriction to any single individual,

and enlarging itself not merely to embrace pursuits, and

institutions, but also to the plenitude and great ocean of Beauty

in its largest sense.

[Side-note: Elevating influence ascribed, both in Phædrus and

Symposion, to Eros Philosophus. Mixture in the mind of Plato, of

poetical fancy and religious mysticism, with dialectic theory.]

The picture here presented by Plato, of the beneficent and

elevating influence of Eros Philosophus, is repeated by Sokrates

as a revelation made to him by the prophetess Diotima. It was much

taken to heart by the Neo-Platonists.[36] It is a striking

manifestation of the Platonic characteristics: transition from

amorous impulse to religious and philosophical

mysticism--implication of poetical fancy with the conception of the

philosophising process--surrender of the mind to metaphor and

analogy, which is real up to a certain point, but is forcibly

stretched and exaggerated to serve the theorising purpose of the

moment. Now we may observe, that the worship of youthful masculine

beauty, and the belief that contemplation of such a face and form

was an operative cause, not only raising the admiration but also

quickening the intelligence of the adult spectator, and serving as

a provocative to instructive dialogue--together with a decided

attempt to exalt the spiritual side of this influence and

depreciate the sensual--both these are common to Plato with

Sokrates and Xenophon. But what is peculiar to Plato is, that he

treats this merely as an initial point to spring from, and soars

at once into the region of abstractions, until he gets clear of

all particulars and concomitants, leaving nothing except Beauty

Absolute--[Greek: to\ Kalo\n--to\ au)to\-kalo\n]--the "full sea of

the beautiful". Not without reason does Diotima express a doubt

whether Sokrates (if we mean thereby the historical Sokrates)

could have followed so bold a flight. His wings might probably

have failed and dropped him: as we read in the Phædrus respecting

the unprepared souls who try to rise aloft in company with the

Gods. Plato alone is the true Dædalus equal to this flight, borne

up by wings not inferior to those of Pindar[37]--according to the

comparison of Dionysius of Halikarnassus.

[Footnote 36: Porphyry, Vit. Plotini, 23.

Plato's way of combining, in these two dialogues--so as to pass by

an easy thread of association from one to the other--subjects

which appear to us unconnected and even discordant, is certainly

remarkable. We have to recognise material differences in the turn

of imagination, as between different persons and ages. The

following remark of Professor Mohl, respecting the Persian lyric

poet Hafiz, illustrates this point. "Au reste, quand même nous

serions mieux renseignés sur sa vie, il resterait toujours pour

nous le singulier spectacle d'un homme qui tantôt célèbre

l'absorption de l'âme dans l'essence de Dieu, tantôt chante le vin

et l'amour, sans grossièreté, il est vrai, mais avec un laisser

aller et un naturel qui exclut toute idée de symbolisme--et qui

généralement glisse de l'une dans l'autre de ces deux manières de

sentir, qui nous paraissent si différentes, sans s'apercevoir

lui-même qu'il change de sujet. Les Orientaux ont cherché la solution

de cette difficulté dans une interprétation mystique de toutes ses

poésies; mais les textes s'y refusent. Des critiques modernes ont

voulu l'expliquer en supposant une hypocrisie de l'auteur, qui lui

aurait fait mêler une certaine dose de piété mystique, à ses vers

plus légers, pour les faire passer: mais ce calcul parait étranger

à la nature de l'homme. Je crois qu'il faut trouver le mot de

l'énigme dans l'état général des esprits et de la culture de son

temps: et la difficulté pour nous est seulement de nous

réprésenter assez vivement l'état des esprits en Perse à cette

époque, et la nature de l'influence que le Soufisme y exerçait

depuis des siècles sur toutes les classes cultivées de la

nation."--Mohl (Rapport Annuel à la Société Asiatique, 1861, p.

89.)]

[Footnote 37: Dionys. Hal. De Adm. Vi Dic. in Demosth., p. 972,

Reiske.]

Various remarks may be made, in comparing this exposition of

Diotima in the Symposion with that which we read in the Phædrus

and Phædon.

[Side-note: Differences between Symposion and Phædrus. In-dwelling

conceptions assumed by the former, pre-natal experiences by the

latter.]

First, in the Phædrus and Phædon (also in the Timæus and

elsewhere), the pre-existence of the soul, and its antecedent

familiarity, greater or less, with the world of Ideas,--are

brought into the foreground; so as to furnish a basis for that

doctrine of reminiscence, which is one of the peculiar

characteristics of Plato. The Form or Idea, when once disengaged

from the appendages by which it has been overgrown, is said to be

recognised by the mind and welcomed as an old acquaintance. But in

the Symposion, no such doctrine is found. The mind is described as

rising by gradual steps from the concrete and particular to the

abstract and general, by recognising the sameness of one attribute

as pervading many particulars, and by extending its comparisons

from smaller groups of particulars to larger; until at length one

and the same attribute is perceived to belong to all. The mind is

supposed to evolve out of itself, and to generate in some

companion mind, certain abstract or general conceptions,

correlating with the Forms or Concepta without. The fundamental

postulate here is, not that of pre-existence, but that of

in-dwelling conceptions.

[Side-note: Nothing but metaphorical immortality recognised in

Symposion.]

Secondly, in the Phædrus and Phædon, the soul is declared to be

immortal, _à parte post_ as well as _à parte ante_. But in the

Symposion, this is affirmed to be impossible.[38] The soul yearns

for, but is forbidden to reach, immortality: or at least can only

reach immortality in a metaphorical sense, by its prolific

operation--by generating in itself as long as it lasts, and in

other minds who will survive it, a self-renewing series of noble

thoughts and feelings--by leaving a name and reputation to survive

in the memory of others.

[Footnote 38: Plato, Sympos. pp. 207-208.]

[Side-note: Form or Idea of Beauty presented singly and exclusively

in Symposion.]

Thirdly, in Phædrus, Phædon, Republic, and elsewhere, Plato

recognises many distinct Forms or Ideas--a world or aggregate of

such Entia Rationis[39]--among which Beauty is one, but only one.

It is the exalted privilege of the philosophic mind to come into

contemplation and cognition of these Forms generally. But in the

Symposion, the Form of Beauty ([Greek: to\ kalo\n]) is presented

singly and exclusively--as if the communion with this one Form

were the sole occupation of the most exalted philosophy.

[Footnote 39: Plat. Repub. v. 476. He recognises Forms of [Greek:

a)/dikon, kako/n, ai)schro/n], as well as Forms of [Greek:

di/kaion, a)gatho/n, kalo/n], &c.]

[Side-note: Eros recognised, both in Phædrus and Symposion, as

affording the initiatory stimulus to philosophy--Not so recognised

in Phædon, Theætêtus, and elsewhere.]

Fourthly, The Phædrus and Symposion have, both of them in common,

the theory of Eros as the indispensable, initiatory, stimulus to

philosophy. The spectacle of a beautiful youth is considered

necessary to set light to various elements in the mind, which

would otherwise remain dormant and never burn: it enables the

pregnant and capable mind to bring forth what it has within and to

put out its hidden strength. But if we look to the Phædon,

Theætêtus, Sophistês, or Republic, we shall not find Eros invoked

for any such function. The Republic describes an elaborate scheme

for generating and developing the philosophic capacity: but Eros

plays no part in it. In the Theætêtus, the young man so named is

announced as having a pregnant mind requiring to be disburthened,

and great capacity which needs foreign aid to develop it: the

service needed is rendered by Sokrates, who possesses an obstetric

patent, and a marvellous faculty of cross-examination. Yet instead

of any auxiliary stimulus arising from personal beauty, the

personal ugliness of both persons in the dialogue is emphatically

signified.

I note these peculiarities, partly of the Symposion, partly of the

Phædrus along with it--to illustrate the varying points of view

which the reader must expect to meet in travelling through the

numerous Platonic dialogues.

[Side-note: Concluding scene and speech of Alkibiades in the

Symposion--Behaviour of Sokrates to Alkibiades and other handsome

youths.]

In the strange scene with which the Symposion is wound up, the

main purpose of the dialogue is still farther worked out. The

spirit and ethical character of Eros Philosophus, after having

been depicted in general terms by Diotima, are specially

exemplified in the personal history of Sokrates, as recounted and

appreciated by Alkibiades. That handsome, high-born, and insolent

youth, being in a complete state of intoxication, breaks in

unexpectedly upon the company, all of whom are as yet sober: he

enacts the part of a drunken man both in speech and action, which

is described with a vivacity that would do credit to any

dramatist. His presence is the signal for beginning to drink hard,

and he especially challenges Sokrates to drink off, after him, as

much wine as will fill the large water-vessel serving as cooler;

which challenge Sokrates forthwith accepts and executes, without

being the least affected by it. Alkibiades instead of following

the example of the others by delivering an encomium on Eros,

undertakes to deliver one upon Sokrates. He proceeds to depict

Sokrates as the votary of Eros Philosophus, wrapped up in the

contemplation of beautiful youths, and employing his whole time in

colloquy with them--yet as never losing his own self-command, even

while acquiring a magical ascendency over these companions.[40]

The abnormal exterior of Sokrates, resembling that of a Satyr,

though concealing the image of a God within--the eccentric

pungency of his conversation, blending banter with seriousness,

homely illustrations with impressive principles--has exercised an

influence at once fascinating, subjugating, humiliating. The

impudent Alkibiades has been made to feel painfully his own

unworthiness, even while receiving every mark of admiration from

others. He has become enthusiastically devoted to Sokrates, whom

he has sought to attach to himself, and to lay under obligation,

by tempting offers of every kind. The details of these offers are

given with a fulness which cannot be translated to modern readers,

and which even then required to be excused as the revelations of a

drunken man. They present one of the boldest fictions in the Greek

language--if we look at them in conjunction with the real

character of Alkibiades as an historical person.[41] Sokrates is

found proof against every variety of temptation, however seductive

to Grecian feeling. In his case, Eros Philosophus maintains his

dignity as exclusively pure, sentimental, and spiritual: while

Alkibiades retires more humiliated than ever. We are given to

understand that the like offers had been made to Sokrates by many

other handsome youths also--especially by Charmides and

Euthydemus--all of them being treated with the same quiet and

repellent indifference.[42] Sokrates had kept on the

vantage-ground as regards all:--and was regarded by all with

the same mixture of humble veneration and earnest attachment.

[Footnote 40: Plato, Sympos. p. 216 C-D.]

[Footnote 41: Plato, Sympos. p. 219. See also, respecting the

historical Alkibiades and his characte, Thucyd. vi. 15; Xenoph.

Memor. i. 1; Antisthenes, apud Athenæum, xii. 534.

The invention of Plato goes beyond that of those ingenious men who

recounted how Phrynê and Lais had failed in attempts to overcome

the continence of Xenokrates, Diog. L. iv. 7: and the saying of

Lais, [Greek: ô(s ou)k a)p' a)ndro/s, a)ll' a)p' a)ndri/antos,

a)nastai/ê.] Quintilian (viii. 4, 22-23) aptly enough compares the

description given by Alkibiades--as the maximum of testimony to

the "invicta continentia" of Sokrates--with the testimony to the

surpassing beauty of Helen, borne by such witnesses as the Trojan

[Greek: dêmoge/rontes] and Priam himself (Hom. Iliad iii. 156).

One of the speakers in Athenæus censures severely this portion of

the Platonic Symposion, xi. 506 C, 508 D, v. 187 D. Porphyry (in

his life of Plotinus, 15) tells us that the rhetor Diophanes

delivered an apology for Alkibiades, in the presence of Plotinus;

who was much displeased, and directed Porphyry to compose a

reply.]

[Footnote 42: Plato, Symp. p. 222 B.

In the Hieron of Xenophon (xi. 11)--a conversation between the

despot Hieron and the poet Simonides--the poet, exhorting Hieron

to govern his subjects in a mild, beneficent, and careful spirit,

expatiates upon the popularity and warm affection which he will

thereby attract to himself from them. Of this affection one

manifestation will be (he says) as follows:--[Greek: ô(/ste ou)

mo/non philoi=o a)/n, a)lla\ kai\ e)rô=|o, u(p' a)nthrô/pôn; _kai\

tou\s kalou\s ou) peira=|n, a)lla\ peirô/menon u(p' au)tô=n

a)ne/chesthai a)/n se de/oi_], &c.

These words illustrate the adventure described by Alkibiades in

the Platonic Symposion.

Herakleides of Pontus, Dikæarchus, and the Peripatetic Hieronymus,

all composed treatises [Greek: Peri\ E)rôtos], especially [Greek:

peri\ paidikô=n e)rô/tôn] (Athenæ. xiii. 602-603).]

[Side-note: Perfect self-command of Sokrates--proof against every

sort of trial.]

Not merely upon this point but upon others also, Alkibiades

recounts anecdotes of the perfect self-mastery of Sokrates: in

endurance of cold, heat, hunger, and fatigue--in contempt of the

dangers of war, in bravery on the day of battle--even in the power

of bearing more wine than any one else, without being intoxicated,

whenever the occasion was such as to require him to drink: though

he never drank much willingly. While all his emotions are thus

described as under the full control of Reason and Eros

Philosophus--his special gift and privilege was that of

conversation--not less eccentric in manner, than potent,

soul-subduing,[43] and provocative in its effects.

[Footnote 43: Plato, Sympos. pp. 221-222.

Alkibiades recites acts of distinguished courage performed by

Sokrates, at the siege of Potidæa as well as at the battle of

Delium.

About the potent effect produced by the conversation of Sokrates

upon his companions, compare Sympos. p. 173 C-D.

In the Xenophontic Apology (s. 18), Sokrates adverts to the

undisturbed equanimity which he had shown during the long blockade

of Athens after the battle of Ægospotami, while others were

bewailing the famine and other miseries.]

[Side-note: Drunkenness of others at the close of the

Symposion--Sokrates is not affected by it, but continues his dialectic

process.]

After the speech of Alkibiades is concluded, the close of the

banquet is described by the primary narrator. He himself, with

Agathon and Aristophanes, and several other fresh revellers,

continue to drink wine until all of them become dead drunk. While

Phædrus, Eryximachus, and others retire, Sokrates remains. His

competency to bear the maximum of wine without being disturbed by

it, is tested to the full. Although he had before, in acceptance

of the challenge of Alkibiades, swallowed the contents of the wine

cooler, he nevertheless continues all the night to drink wine in

large bowls, along with the rest. All the while, however, he goes

on debating his ordinary topics, even though no one is

sufficiently sober to attend to him. His companions successively

fall asleep, and at day-break, he finds himself the only person

sober,[44] except Aristodemus (the narrator of the whole scene),

who has recently waked after a long sleep. Sokrates quits the

house of Agathon, with unclouded senses and undiminished

activity--bathes--and then visits the gymnasium at the Lykeion;

where he passes all the day in his usual abundant colloquy.[45]

[Footnote 44: In Sympos. p. 176 B, Sokrates is recognised as

[Greek: dunatô/tatos pi/nein], above all the rest: no one can be

compared with him. In the two first books of the Treatise De

Legibus, we shall find much to illustrate what is here said (in

the Symposion) about the power ascribed to him of drinking more

wine than any one else, without being at all affected by it. Plato

discusses the subject of strong potations ([Greek: me/thê]) at

great length; indeed he seems to fear that his readers will think

he says too much upon it (i. 642 A). He considers it of great

advantage to have a test to apply, such as wine, for the purpose

of measuring the reason and self-command of different men, and of

determining how much wine is sufficient to overthrow it, in each

different case (i. 649 C-E). You can make this trial (he argues)

in each case, without any danger or harm; and you can thus escape

the necessity of making the trial in a real case of emergency.

Plato insists upon the [Greek: chrei/a tê=s me/thês], as a genuine

test, to be seriously employed for the purpose of testing men's

reason and force of character (ii. p. 673). In the Republic, too

(iii. p. 413 E), the [Greek: phu/lakes] are required to be tested,

in regard to their capacity of resisting pleasurable temptation,

as well as pain and danger.

Among the titles of the lost treatises of Theophrastus, we find

one [Greek: Peri\ Me/thês] (Diog. L. v. 44). It is one of the

compliments that the Emperor Marcus Antoninus (i. 16) pays to his

father--That he was, like Sokrates, equally competent both to

partake of, and to abstain from, the most seductive enjoyments,

without ever losing his calmness and self-mastery.]

[Footnote 45: Plato, Sympos. p. 223.]

[Side-note: Symposion and Phædon--each is the antithesis and

complement of the other.]

The picture of Sokrates, in the Symposion, forms a natural

contrast and complement to the picture of him in the Phædon;

though the conjecture of Schleiermacher[46]--that the two together

are intended to make up the Philosophus, or third member of the

trilogy promised in the Sophistês--is ingenious rather than

convincing. The Phædon depicts Sokrates in his last conversation

with his friends, immediately before his death; the Symposion

presents him in the exuberance of life, health, and cheerfulness:

in both situations, we find the same attributes

manifested--perfect equanimity and self-command, proof against every

variety of disturbing agency--whether tempting or terrible--absorbing

interest in philosophical dialectic. The first of these two

elements, if it stood alone, would be virtuous sobriety, yet not

passing beyond the limit of mortal virtue: the last of the two

superadds a higher element, which Plato conceives to transcend the

limit of mortal virtue, and to depend upon divine inspiration or

madness.[47]

[Footnote 46: Einleitung zum Gastmahl, p. 359 seq.]

[Footnote 47: Plato, Phædrus, p. 256 C-E. [Greek: sôphrosu/nê

thnêtê/--e)rôtikê\ mani/a: sôphrosu/nê a)nthrôpi/nê--thei/a

mani/a.] Compare p. 244 B.]

[Side-note: Symposion of Plato compared with that of Xenophon.]

The Symposion of Plato affords also an interesting subject of

comparison with that of his contemporary Xenophon, as to points of

agreement as well as of difference.[48] Xenophon states in the

beginning that he intends to describe what passed in a scene where

he himself was present; because he is of opinion that the

proceedings of excellent men, in hours of amusement, are not less

worthy of being recorded than those of their serious hours. Both

Plato and Xenophon take for their main subject a festive banquet,

destined to celebrate the success of a young man in a competitive

struggle. In Plato, the success is one of mind and genius--Agathon

has gained the prize of tragedy: in Xenophon, it is one of bodily

force and skill--Autolykus victor in the pankration. The Symposion

of Xenophon differs from that of Plato, in the same manner as the

Memorabilia of Xenophon generally differ from the Sokratic

dialogues of Plato--that is, by approaching much nearer to common

life and reality. It describes a banquet such as was likely enough

to take place, with the usual accompaniments--a professional

jester, and a Syracusan ballet-master who brings with him a

dancing-girl, a girl to play on the flute and harp, and a handsome

youth. These artists contribute to the amusement of the company by

music, dancing, throwing up balls and catching them again, jumping

into and out of a circle of swords. All this would have occurred

at an ordinary banquet: here, it is accompanied and followed by

remarks of pleasantry, buffoonery and taunt, interchanged between

the guests. Nearly all the guests take part, more or less: but

Sokrates is made the prominent figure throughout. He repudiates

the offer of scented unguents: but he recommends the drinking of

wine, though moderately, and in small cups. The whole company are

understood to be somewhat elevated with wine, but not one of them

becomes intoxicated. Sokrates not only talks as much fun as the

rest, but even sings, and speaks of learning to dance, jesting on

his own corpulence.[49] Most part of the scene is broad farce, in

the manner, though not with all the humour, of Aristophanes.[50]

The number and variety of the persons present is considerable,

greater than in most of the Aristophanic plays.[51] Kallias,

Lykon, Autolykus, Sokrates, Antisthenes, Hermogenes, Nikeratus,

Kritobulus, have each his own peculiarity: and a certain amount of

vivacity and amusement arises from the way in which each of them

is required, at the challenge of Sokrates, to declare on what it

is that he most prides himself. Sokrates himself carries the

burlesque farther than any of them; pretending to be equal in

personal beauty to Kritobulus, and priding himself upon the

function of a pander, which he professes to exercise. Antisthenes,

however, is offended, when Sokrates fastens upon him a similar

function: but the latter softens the meaning of the term so as to

appease him. In general, each guest is made to take pride in

something the direct reverse of that which really belongs to him;

and to defend his thesis in a strain of humorous parody.

Antisthenes, for example, boasts of his wealth. The Syracusan

ballet-master is described as jealous of Sokrates, and as

addressing to him some remarks of offensive rudeness; which

Sokrates turns off, and even begins to sing, for the purpose of

preventing confusion and ill-temper from spreading among the

company:[52] while he at the same time gives prudent advice to the

Syracusan about the exhibitions likely to be acceptable.

[Footnote 48: Pontianus, one of the speakers in Athenæus (xi.

504), touches upon some points of this comparison, with a view of

illustrating the real or supposed enmity between Plato and

Xenophon; an enmity not in itself improbable, yet not sufficiently

proved.

Athenæus had before him the Symposion of Epikurus (not preserved)

as well as those of Plato, Xenophon, and Aristotle (xv. 674); and

we learn from him some of its distinctive points. Masurius (the

speaker in Athenæus, v. init.) while he recognises in the Symposia

of Xenophon and Plato a dramatic variety of characters and

smartness--finds fault with both, but especially with Plato, for

levity, rudeness, indecency, vulgarity, sneering, &c. The talk was

almost entirety upon love and joviality. In the Symposion of

Epikurus, on the contrary, nothing was said about these topics;

the guests were fewer, the conversation was grave and dull, upon

dry topics of science, such as the atomic theory ([Greek:

prophê/tas a)to/môn], v. 3, 187 B, 177 B. [Greek: E)pi/kouros de\

sumpo/sion philoso/phôn mo/non pepoi/êtai]), and even upon bodily

ailments, such as indigestion or fever (187 C). The philosophers

present were made by Epikurus to carry on their debate in so

friendly a spirit, that the critic calls them "flatterers praising

each other"; while he terms the Platonic guests "sneerers

insulting each other" ([Greek: muktêristô=n a)llê/lous

tôthazo/ntôn], 182 A), though this is much more true about the

Xenophontic Symposion than about the Platonic. He remarks farther

that the Symposion of Epikurus included no libation or offering to

the Gods (179 D).

It is curious to note these peculiarities in the compositions (now

lost) of a philosopher like Epikurus, whom many historians of

philosophy represent as thinking about nothing but convivial and

sexual pleasure.]

[Footnote 49: Xenophon, Sympos. vii. 1; ii. 18-19. [Greek:

proga/stôr], &c.]

[Footnote 50: The taunt ascribed to the jester Philippus, about

the cowardice of the demagogue Peisander, is completely

Aristophanic, ii. 14; also that of Antisthenes respecting the bad

temper of Xanthippê, ii. 10; and the caricature of the movements

of the [Greek: o)rchêstri\s] by Philippus, ii. 21. Compare also

iii. 11.]

[Footnote 51: Xen. Symp. c. 4-5.]

[Footnote 52: Xen. Symp. vi. [Greek: Au)tê\ me\n ê( paroini/a

ou(/tô katesbe/sthê], vii. 1-5.

Epiktêtus insists upon this feature in the character of Sokrates--his

patience and power of soothing angry men (ii. 12-14).]

[Side-note: Small proportion of the serious, in the Xenophontic

Symposion.]

Though the Xenophontic Symposion is declared to be an alternate

mixture of banter and seriousness,[53] yet the only long serious

argument or lecture delivered is by Sokrates; in which he

pronounces a professed panegyric upon Eros, but at the same time

pointedly distinguishes the sentimental from the sensual. He

denounces the latter, and confines his panegyric to the

former--selecting Kallias and Autolykus as honourable examples of it.[54]

[Footnote 53: Xen. Symp. iv. 28. [Greek: a)nami\x e)skôpsa/n te

kai\ e)spou/dasan], viii. 41.]

[Footnote 54: Xen. Symp. viii. 24. The argument against the

sensual is enforced with so much warmth that Sokrates is made to

advert to the fact of his being elate with wine--[Greek: o(/ te

ga\r oi)=nos sunepai/rei, kai\ o( a)ei\ su/noikos e)moi\ e)/rôs

kentri/zei ei)s to\n a)nti/palon e)/rôta au)tou=

par)r(êsia/zesthai.]

The contrast between the customs of the Thebans and Eleians, and

those of the Lacedæmonians, is again noted by Xenophon, Rep.

Laced. ii. 13. Plato puts (Symp. 182) a like contrast into the

mouth of Pausanias, assimilating the customs of Athens in this

respect to those of Sparta. The comparison between Plato and

Xenophon is here curious; we see how much more copious and

inventive is the reasoning of Plato.]

The Xenophontic Symposion closes with a pantomimic scene of

Dionysus and Ariadnê as lovers represented (at the instance of

Sokrates) by the Syracusan ballet-master and his staff. This is

described as an exciting spectacle to most of the hearers, married

as well as unmarried, who retire with agreeable emotions. Sokrates

himself departs with Lykon and Kallias, to be present at the

exercise of Autolykus.[55]

[Footnote 55: Xen. Symp. viii. 5, ix. 7. The close of the

Xenophontic Symposion is, to a great degree, in harmony with

modern sentiment, though what is there expressed would probably be

left to be understood. The Platonic Symposion departs altogether

from that sentiment.]

[Side-note: Platonic Symposion more ideal and transcendental than

the Xenophontic.]

We see thus that the Platonic Symposion is much more ideal, and

departs farther from common practice and sentiment, than the

Xenophontic. It discards all the common accessories of a banquet

(musical or dancing artists), and throws the guests altogether

upon their own powers of rhetoric and dialectic, for amusement. If

we go through the different encomiums upon Eros, by Phædrus,

Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Diotima--we shall

appreciate the many-coloured forms and exuberance of the Platonic

imagination, as compared with the more restricted range and

common-place practical sense of Xenophon.[56] All the Platonic

speakers are accomplished persons--a man of letters, a physician,

two successful poets, a prophetess: the Xenophontic personages,

except Sokrates and Antisthenes, are persons of ordinary capacity.

The Platonic Symposion, after presenting Eros in five different

points of view, gives pre-eminence and emphasis to a sixth, in

which Eros is regarded as the privileged minister and conductor to

the mysteries of philosophy, both the lowest and the highest: the

Xenophontic Symposion dwells upon one view only of Eros (developed

by Sokrates) and cites Kallias as example of it, making no mention

of philosophy. The Platonic Symposion exalts Sokrates, as the

representative of Eros Philosophus, to a pinnacle of elevation

which places him above human fears and weaknesses[57]--coupled

however with that eccentricity which makes the vulgar regard a

philosopher as out of his mind: the Xenophontic Symposion presents

him only as a cheerful, amiable companion, advising temperance,

yet enjoying a convivial hour, and contributing more than any one

else to the general hilarity.

[Footnote 56: The difference between the two coincides very much

with that which is drawn by Plato himself in the Phædrus--[Greek:

thei/a mani/a] as contrasted with [Greek: sôphrosu/nê thnêtê\] (p.

256 E). Compare Athenæus, v. 187 B.]

[Footnote 57: Plato, Phædrus, p. 249 D. [Greek: nouthetei=tai me\n

u(po\ tô=n pollô=n ô(s parakinô=n, e)nthousia/zôn de\ le/lêthe

tou\s pollou\s. . . . ai)ti/an e)/chei ô(s manikô=s

diakei/menos.]]

Such are the points of comparison which present themselves between

the same subject as handled by these two eminent contemporaries,

both of them companions, and admirers of Sokrates: and each

handling it in his own manner.[58]

[Footnote 58: Which of these two Symposia was the latest in date

of composition we cannot determine with certainty: though it seems

certain that the latest of the two was not composed in imitation

of the earliest.

From the allusion to the [Greek: dioi/kisis] of Mantineia (p. 193

A) we know that the Platonic Symposion must have been composed

after 385 B.C.: there is great probability also, though not full

certainty, that it was composed during the time when Mantineia was

still an aggregate of separate villages and not a town--that is,

between 385-370 B.C., in which latter year Mantineia was

re-established as a city. The Xenophontic Symposion affords no mark

of date of composition: Xenophon reports it as having been himself

present. It does indeed contain, in the speech delivered by

Sokrates (viii. 32), an allusion to, and a criticism upon, an

opinion supported by Pausanias [Greek: o( A)ga/thônos tou=

poiêtou= e)rastê/s], who discourses in the Platonic Symposion: and

several critics think that this is an allusion by Xenophon to the

Platonic Symposion. I think this opinion improbable. It would

require us to suppose that Xenophon is inaccurate, since the

opinion which he ascribes to Pausanias is not delivered by

Pausanias in the Platonic Symposion, but by Phædrus. Athenæus (v.

216) remarks that the opinion is not delivered by Pausanias, but

he does not mention that it _is_ delivered by Phædrus. He remarks

that there was no known written composition of Pausanias himself:

and he seems to suppose that Xenophon must have alluded to the

Platonic Symposion, but that he quoted it inaccurately or out of

another version of it, different from what we now read. Athenæus

wastes reasoning in proving that the conversation described in the

Platonic Symposion cannot have really occurred at the time to

which Plato assigns it. This is unimportant: the speeches are

doubtless all composed by Plato. If Athenæus was anxious to prove

anachronism against Plato, I am surprised that he did not notice

that of the [Greek: dioi/kisis] of Mantineia mentioned in a

conversation supposed to have taken place in the presence of

Sokrates, who died in 399 B.C.

I incline to believe that the allusion of Xenophon is not intended

to apply to the Symposion of Plato. Xenophon ascribes one opinion

to Pausanias, Plato ascribes another; this is noway inconceivable.

I therefore remain in doubt whether the Xenophontic or the

Platonic Symposion is earliest. Compare the Præf. of Schneider to

the former, pp. 140-143.]

[Side-note: Second half of the Phædrus--passes into a debate on

Rhetoric. Eros is considered as a subject for rhetorical

exercise.]

I have already stated that the first half of the Phædrus differs

materially from the second; and that its three discourses on the

subject of Eros (the first two depreciating Eros, the third being

an effusion of high-flown and poetical panegyric on the same

theme) may be better understood by being looked at in conjunction

with the Symposion. The second half of the Phædrus passes into a

different discussion, criticising the discourse of Lysias as a

rhetorical composition: examining the principles upon which the

teaching of Rhetoric as an Art either is founded, or ought to be

founded: and estimating the efficacy of written discourse

generally, as a means of working upon or instructing other minds.

[Side-note: Lysias is called a logographer by active politicians.

Contempt conveyed by the word. Sokrates declares that the only

question is, Whether a man writes well or ill.]

I heard one of our active political citizens (says Phædrus)

severely denounce Lysias, and fasten upon him with contempt, many

times over, the title of a logographer. Active politicians will

not consent to compose and leave behind them written discourses,

for fear of being called Sophists.[59] To write discourses

(replies Sokrates) is noway discreditable: the real question is,

whether he writes them well.[60] And the same question is the only

one proper to be asked about other writers on all subjects--public

or private, in prose or in verse. How to speak _well_,

and how to write _well_--is the problem.[61] Is there any art or

systematic method, capable of being laid down beforehand and

defended upon principle, for accomplishing the object _well_? Or

does a man succeed only by unsystematic knack or practice, such as

he can neither realise distinctly to his own consciousness, nor

describe to others?

[Footnote 59: Plato, Phædrus, p. 257 C.]

[Footnote 60: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 257 E, 258 D.

The two appellations--[Greek: logogra/phos] and [Greek:

sophistê/s]--are here coupled together as terms of reproach, just

as they stand coupled in Demosthenes, Fals. Leg. p. 417. It is

plain that both appellations acquired their discreditable import

mainly from the collateral circumstance that the persons so

denominated took money for their compositions or teaching. The

[Greek: logogra/phos] wrote for pay, and on behalf of any client

who could pay him. In the strict etymological sense, neither of

the two terms would imply any reproach.

Yet Plato, in this dialogue, when he is discussing the worth of

the reproachful imputation fastened on Lysias, takes the term

[Greek: logogra/phos] only in this etymological, literal sense,

omitting to notice the collateral association which really gave

point to it and made it serve the purpose of a hostile speaker.

This is the more remarkable, because we find Plato multiplying

opportunities, even on unsuitable occasions, of taunting the

Sophists with the fact that they took money. Here in the Phædrus,

we should have expected that if he noticed the imputation at all,

he would notice it in the sense intended by the speaker. In this

sense, indeed, it would not have suited the purpose of his

argument, since he wishes to make it an introduction to a

philosophical estimate of the value of writing as a means of

instruction.

Heindorf observes, that Plato has used a similar liberty in

comparing the [Greek: logogra/phos] to the proposer of a law or

decree. "Igitur, quum solemne legum initium ejusmodi esset,

[Greek: e)/doxe tê=| boulê=|], &c., Plato aliter longé quam vulgo

acciperetur, neque sine calumniâ quâdam, interpretatus est" (ad p.

258).]

[Footnote 61: Plato, Phædrus, p. 259 E. [Greek: o(/pê| kalô=s

e)/chei le/gein te kai\ gra/phein, kai\ o(/pê| mê/,

skepte/on.]--p. 258 D. [Greek: ti/s o( tro/pos tou= kalô=s te

kai\ mê\ gra/phein.]]

[Side-note: Question about teaching the art of writing well or

speaking well. Can it be taught upon system or principle? Or does

the successful Rhetor succeed only by unsystematic knack?.]

First let us ask--When an orator addresses himself to a listening

crowd upon the common themes--Good and Evil, Just and Unjust--is

it necessary that he should know what is really and truly good and

evil, just and unjust? Most rhetorical teachers affirm, that it is

enough if he knows what the audience or the people generally

believe to be so: and that to that standard he must accommodate

himself, if he wishes to persuade.[62]

[Footnote 62: Plato, Phædrus, p. 260 A.]

[Side-note: Theory of Sokrates--that all art of persuasion must be

founded upon a knowledge of the truth, and of gradations of

resemblance to the truth.]

He may persuade the people under these circumstances (replies

Sokrates), but if he does so, it will be to their misfortune and

to his own. He ought to know the real truth--not merely what the

public whom he addresses believe to be the truth--respecting just

and unjust, good and evil, &c. There can be no genuine art of

speaking, which is not founded upon knowledge of the truth, and

upon adequate philosophical comprehension of the

subject-matter.[63] The rhetorical teachers take too narrow a view of

rhetoric, when they confine it to public harangues addressed to

the assembly or to the Dikastery. Rhetoric embraces all guidance

of the mind through words, whether in public harangue or private

conversation, on matters important or trivial. Whether it be a

controversy between two litigants in a Dikastery, causing the

Dikasts to regard the same matters now as being just and good,

presently as being unjust and evil: or between two dialecticians

like Zeno, who could make his hearers view the same subjects as

being both like and unlike--both one and many--both in motion and

at rest: in either case the art (if there be any art) and its

principles are the same. You ought to assimilate every thing to

every thing, in all cases where assimilation is possible: if your

adversary assimilates in like manner, concealing the process from

his hearers, you must convict and expose his proceedings. Now the

possibility or facility of deception in this way will depend upon

the extent of likeness between things. If there be much real

likeness, deception is easy, and one of them may easily be passed

off as the other: if there be little likeness, deception will be

difficult. An extensive acquaintance with the real resemblances of

things, or in other words with truth, constitutes the necessary

basis on which all oratorical art must proceed.[64]

[Footnote 63: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 260-261.]

[Footnote 64: Plato, Phædrus, p. 262.]

[Side-note: Comparison made by Sokrates between the discourse of

Lysias and his own. Eros is differently understood: Sokrates

defined what he meant by it: Lysias did not define.]

Sokrates then compares the oration of Lysias with his own two

orations (the first depreciating, the second extolling, Eros) in

the point of view of art; to see how far they are artistically

constructed. Among the matters of discourse, there are some on

which all men are agreed, and on which therefore the speaker may

assume established unanimity in his audience: there are others on

which great dissension and discord prevail. Among the latter (the

topics of dissension), questions about just and unjust, good and

evil, stand foremost:[65] it is upon these that deception is most

easy, and rhetorical skill most efficacious. Accordingly, an

orator should begin by understanding to which of these two

categories the topic which he handles belongs: If it belongs to

the second category (those liable to dissension) he ought, at the

outset, to define what he himself means by it, and what he intends

the audience to understand. Now Eros is a topic on which great

dissension prevails. It ought therefore to have been defined at

the commencement of the discourse. This Sokrates in his discourse

has done: but Lysias has omitted to do it, and has assumed Eros to

be obviously and unanimously apprehended by every one. Besides,

the successive points in the discourse of Lysias do not hang

together by any thread of necessary connection, as they ought to

do, if the discourse were put together according to rule.[66]

[Footnote 65: Plato, Phædrus, p. 263 B. Compare Plato, Alkibiad.

i. p. 109.]

[Footnote 66: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 263-265.]

[Side-note: Logical processes--Definition and Division--both of

them exemplified in the two discourses of Sokrates.]

Farthermore, in the two discourses of Sokrates, not merely was the

process of _logical definition_ exemplified in the case of Eros--but

also the process of _logical division_, in the case of Madness

or Irrationality. This last extensive genus was divided first into

two species--Madness, from human distemper--Madness, from divine

inspiration, carrying a man out of the customary orthodoxy.[67]

Next, this last species was again divided into four branches or

sub-species, according to the God from whom the inspiration

proceeded, and according to the character of the inspiration--the

prophetic, emanating from Apollo--the ritual or mystic, from

Dionysus--the poetic, from the Muses--the amatory, from Eros and

Aphroditê.[68] Now both these processes, definition and division,

are familiar to the true dialectician or philosopher: but they are

not less essential in rhetoric also, if the process is performed

with genuine art. The speaker ought to embrace in his view many

particular cases, to gather together what is common to all, and to

combine them into one generic concept, which is to be embodied in

words as the definition. He ought also to perform the

counter-process: to divide the genus not into parts arbitrary and

incoherent (like a bad cook cutting up an animal without regard to

the joints) but into legitimate species;[69] each founded on some

positive and assignable characteristic. "It is these divisions and

combinations (says Sokrates) to which I am devotedly attached, in

order that I may become competent for thought and discourse: and

if there be any one else whom I consider capable of thus

contemplating the One and the Many as they stand in nature--I

follow in the footsteps of that man as in those of a God. I call

such a man, rightly or wrongly, a Dialectician."[70]

[Footnote 67: Plato, Phædrus, p. 265 A. [Greek: u(po\ thei/as

e)xallagê=s tô=n ei)ôtho/tôn nomi/môn.]]

[Footnote 68: Plato, Phædrus, p. 265.]

[Footnote 69: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 265-266. 265 D: [Greek: ei)s

mi/an te i)de/an sunorô=nta a)/gein ta\ pollachê= diesparme/na,

i(/n' e(/kaston o(rizo/menos dê=lon poi=ê| peri\ ou(= a)\n a)ei\

dida/skein e)the/lê|.] 265 E: [Greek: to\ pa/lin kat' ei)/dê

du/nasthai te/mnein kat' a)/rthra, ê(=| pe/phuke, kai\ mê\

e)picheirei=n katagnu/nai me/ros mêde/n, kakou= magei/rou tro/pô|

chrô/menon.]

Seneca, Epist. 89, p. 395, ed. Gronov. "Faciam ergo quod exigis,

et philosophiam in partes, non in frusta, dividam. Dividi enim

illam, non concidi, utile est."]

[Footnote 70: Plato, Phædrus, p. 266 B. [Greek: Tou/tôn dê\

e)/gôge au)to/s te e)rastê/s, ô)= Phai=dre, tô=n diaire/seôn kai\

sunagôgô=n, i(/n' oi(=o/s te ô)= le/gein te kai\ phronei=n; e)a/n

te/ tin' a)/llon ê(gê/sômai dunato\n ei)s e(\n kai\ e)pi\ polla\

pephuko\s o(ra=|n, tou=ton diô/kô kato/pisthe met' i)/chnion

ô(/ste theoi=o. kai\ me/ntoi kai\ tou\s duname/nous au)to\ dra=|n

ei) me\n o)rthô=s ê)\ mê\ prosagoreu/ô, theo\s oi)=de; kalô= de\

ou)=n me/chri tou=de dialektikou/s.]]

This is Dialectic (replies Phædrus); but it is not Rhetoric, as

Thrasymachus and other professors teach the art.

[Side-note: View of Sokrates--that there is no real Art of

Rhetoric, except what is already comprised in Dialectic--The

rhetorical teaching is empty and useless.]

What else is there worth having (says Sokrates), which these

professors teach? The order and distribution of a discourse:

first, the exordium, then recital, proof, second proof,

refutation, recapitulation at the close: advice how to introduce

maxims or similes: receipts for moving the anger or compassion of

the dikasts. Such teaching doubtless enables a speaker to produce

considerable effect upon popular assemblies:[71] but it is not the

art of rhetoric. It is an assemblage of preliminary

accomplishments, necessary before a man can acquire the art: but

it is not the art itself. You must know when, how far, in what

cases, and towards what persons, to employ these

accomplishments:[72] otherwise you have not learnt the art of

rhetoric. You may just as well consider yourself a physician

because you know how to bring about vomit and purging--or a

musician, because you know how to wind up or unwind the chords of

your lyre. These teachers mistake the preliminaries or antecedents

of the art, for the art itself. It is in the right, measured,

seasonable, combination and application of these preliminaries, in

different doses adapted to each special matter and audience--that

the art of rhetoric consists. And this is precisely the thing

which the teacher does not teach, but supposes the learner to

acquire for himself.[73]

[Footnote 71: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 267-268.]

[Footnote 72: Plato, Phædrus, p. 268 B. [Greek: e)re/sthai ei)

prosepi/statai kai\ ou(sti/nas dei= kai\ o(po/te e(/kasta tou/tôn

poiei=n, kai\ me/chri o(po/sou?]]

[Footnote 73: Plato, Phædrus, p. 269.]

[Side-note: What the Art of Rhetoric ought to be--Analogy of

Hippokrates and the medical Art.]

The true art of rhetoric (continues Sokrates) embraces a larger

range than these teachers imagine. It deals with mind, as the

medical researches of Hippokrates deal with body--as a generic

total with all its species and varieties, and as essentially

relative to the totality of external circumstances. First,

Hippokrates investigates how far the body is, in every particular

man, simple, homogeneous, uniform: and how far it is complex,

heterogeneous, multiform, in the diversity of individuals. If it

be one and the same, or in so far as it is one and the same, he

examines what are its properties in relation to each particular

substance acting upon it or acted upon by it. In so far as it is

multiform and various, he examines and compares each of the

different varieties, in the same manner, to ascertain its

properties in relation to every substance.[74] It is in this way

that Hippokrates discovers the nature or essence of the human

body, distinguishing its varieties, and bringing the medical art

to bear upon each, according to its different properties. This is

the only scientific or artistic way of proceeding.

[Footnote 74: Plato, Phædrus, p. 270 D. [Greek: A)=r' ou)ch ô(=de

dei= dianoei=sthai peri\ o(touou=n phu/seôs? Prô=ton me\n,

a(plou=n ê)\ polueide/s e)stin, ou(= peri\ boulêso/metha ei)=nai

au)toi\ technikoi\ kai\ a)/llon dunatoi\ poiei=n? e)/peita de/,

e)a\n me\n a(plou=n ê)=|, skopei=n tê\n du/namin au)tou=, ti/na

pro\s ti/ pe/phuken ei)s to\ dra=|n e)/chon ê)\ ti/na ei)s to\

pathei=n u(po\ tou=? e)a\n de\ plei/ô ei)/dê e)/chê|, tau=ta

a)rithmêsa/menos, o(/per e)ph' e(no/s, tou=t' i)dei=n e)ph'

e(ka/stou, tô=| ti/ poiei=n au)to\ pe/phuken ê)\ tô=| ti/ pathei=n

u(po\ tou=?]]

[Side-note: Art of Rhetoric ought to include a systematic

classification of minds with all their varieties, and of

discourses with all their varieties. The Rhetor must know how to

apply the one to the other, suitably to each particular case.]

Now the true rhetor ought to deal with the human mind in like

manner. His task is to work persuasion in the minds of certain men

by means of discourse. He has therefore, first, to ascertain how

far all mind is one and the same, and what are the affections

belonging to it universally in relation to other things: next, to

distinguish the different varieties of minds, together with the

properties, susceptibilities, and active aptitudes, of each:

carrying the subdivision down until he comes to a variety no

longer admitting division.[75] He must then proceed to distinguish

the different varieties of discourse, noting the effects which

each is calculated to produce or to hinder, and the different ways

in which it is likely to impress different minds.[76] Such and

such men are persuadable by such and such discourses--or the

contrary. Having framed these two general classifications, the

rhetor must on each particular occasion acquire a rapid tact in

discerning to which class of minds the persons whom he is about to

address belong: and therefore what class of discourses will be

likely to operate on them persuasively.[77] He must farther know

those subordinate artifices of speech on which the professors

insist; and he must also be aware of the proper season and limit

within which each can be safely employed.[78]

[Footnote 75: Plato, Phædrus, p. 277 B. [Greek: o(risa/meno/s te

pa/lin kat' ei)/dê me/chri tou= a)tmê/tou te/mnein e)pistêthê=|.]]

[Footnote 76: Plato, Phædrus, p. 271 A. [Greek: _Prô=ton_, pa/sê|

a)kribei/a| gra/psei te kai\ poiê/sei psuchê\n i)dei=n, po/teron

e(\n kai\ o(/moion pe/phuken ê)\ kata\ sô/matos morphê\n

polueide/s; tou=to ga/r phamen _phu/sin_ ei)=nai deiknu/nai.

_Deu/teron_ de/ ge, o(/tô| ti/ poiei=n ê)\ pathei=n u(po\ tou=

pe/phuken.

_Tri/ton_ de\ dê\ diataxa/menos ta\ lo/gôn te kai\ psuchê=s ge/nê

kai\ ta\ tou/tôn pathê/mata, di/eisi ta\s ai)ti/as, prosarmo/ttôn

e(/kaston e(ka/stô|, kai\ dida/skôn oi(/a ou)=sa u(ph' oi(/ôn

lo/gôn di' ê(\n ai)ti/an e)x a)na/gkês ê( me\n pei/thetai, ê( de\

a)peithei=.]]

[Footnote 77: Plato, Phædrus, p. 271 D. [Greek: dei= mê\ tau=ta

i(kanô=s noê/santa, meta\ tau=ta theô/menon au)ta\ e)n tai=s

pra/xesin o)/nta te kai\ pratto/mena, _o)xe/ôs_ tê=| ai)sthê/sei

du/nasthai e)pakolouthei=n], &c.]

[Footnote 78: Plato, Phædrus, p. 272 A. [Greek: tau=ta de\ ê)/dê

pa/nt' e)/chonti, _proslabo/nti kairou\s tou= po/te lekte/on kai\

e)pischete/on_, brachulogi/as te au)= kai\ e)leeinologi/as kai\

deinô/seôs, e(ka/stôn te o(/s' a)\n ei)/dê ma/thê| lo/gôn, tou/tôn

_tê\n eu)kairi/an te kai\ a)kairi/an diagno/nti_, kalô=s te kai\

tele/ôs e)sti\n ê( te/chnê a)peirgasme/nê, _pro/teron d' ou)/_.]]

[Side-note: The Rhetorical Artist must farther become possessed of

real truth, as well as that which his auditors believe to be

truth. He is not sufficiently rewarded for this labour.]

Nothing less than this assemblage of acquirements (says Sokrates)

will suffice to constitute a real artist, either in speaking or

writing. Arduous and fatiguing indeed the acquisition is: but

there is no easier road. And those who tell us that the rhetor

need not know what is really true, but only what his audience will

believe to be true--must be reminded that this belief, on the part

of the audience, arises from the likeness of that which they

believe, to the real truth. Accordingly, he who knows the real

truth will be cleverest in suggesting apparent or quasi-truth

adapted to their feelings. If a man is bent on becoming an artist

in rhetoric, he must go through the process here marked out: yet

undoubtedly the process is so laborious, that rhetoric, when he

has acquired it, is no adequate reward. We ought to learn how to

speak and act in a way agreeable to the Gods, and this is worth

all the trouble necessary for acquiring it. But the power of

speaking agreeably and effectively to men, is not of sufficient

moment to justify the expenditure of so much time and labour.[79]

[Footnote 79: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 273-274.]

[Side-note: Question about Writing--As an Art, for the purpose of

instruction, it can do little--Reasons why. Writing may remind the

reader of what he already knows.]

We have now determined what goes to constitute genuine art, in

speaking or in writing. But how far is writing, even when art is

applied to it, capable of producing real and permanent effect? or

indeed of having art applied to it at all? Sokrates answers

himself--Only to a small degree. Writing will impart amusement and

satisfaction for the moment: it will remind the reader of

something which he knew before, if he really did know. But in

respect to any thing which he did not know before, it will neither

teach nor persuade him: it may produce in him an impression or

fancy that he is wiser than he was before, but such impression is

illusory, and at best only transient. Writing is like painting--one

and the same to all readers, whether young or old, well or ill

informed. It cannot adapt itself to the different state of mind of

different persons, as we have declared that every finished speaker

ought to do. It cannot answer questions, supply deficiencies,

reply to objections, rectify misunderstanding. It is defenceless

against all assailants. It supersedes and enfeebles the memory,

implanting only a false persuasion of knowledge without the

reality.[80]

[Footnote 80: Plato, Phædrus, p. 275 D-E. [Greek: tau)to\n de\

kai\ oi( lo/goi (oi( gegramme/noi); do/xais me\n a)\n ô(/s ti

phronou=ntas au)tou\s le/gein e)a\n de/ ti e(/rê| tô=n legome/nôn

boulo/menos mathei=n, e(/n ti sêmai/nei mo/non tau)to\n a)ei/.

O(/tan de\ a(/pax graphê=|, kulindei=tai me\n pantachou= pa=s

lo/gos o(moi/ôs para\ toi=s e)pai+/ousin, ô(s d' au)tô=s par'

oi(=s ou)de\n prosê/kei, kai\ ou)k e)pi/statai le/gein oi(=s dei=

ge kai\ mê/.]]

[Side-note: Neither written words, nor continuous speech, will

produce any serious effect in teaching. Dialectic and

cross-examination are necessary.]

Any writer therefore, in prose or verse--Homer, Solon, or

Lysias--who imagines that he can by a ready-made composition, however

carefully turned,[81] _if simply heard or read without

cross-examination or oral comment_, produce any serious and permanent

effect in persuading or teaching, beyond a temporary

gratification--falls into a disgraceful error. If he intends to

accomplish any thing serious, he must be competent to originate

spoken discourse more effective than the written. The written word

is but a mere phantom or ghost of the spoken word: which latter is

the only legitimate offspring of the teacher, springing fresh and

living out of his mind, and engraving itself profoundly on the

mind of the hearer.[82] The speaker must know, with discriminative

comprehension, and in logical subdivision, both the matter on

which he discourses, and the minds of the particular hearers to

whom he addresses himself. He will thus be able to adapt the

order, the distribution, the manner of presenting his subject, to

the apprehension of the particular hearers and the exigencies of

the particular moment. He will submit to cross-examination,[83]

remove difficulties, and furnish all additional explanations which

the case requires. By this process he will not indeed produce that

immediate, though flashy and evanescent, impression of suddenly

acquired knowledge, which arises from the perusal of what is

written. He will sow seed which for a long time appears buried

under ground; but which, after such interval, springs up and

ripens into complete and lasting fruit.[84] By repeated dialectic

debate, he will both familiarise to his own mind and propagate in

his fellow-dialogists, full knowledge; together with all the

manifold reasonings bearing on the subject, and with the power

also of turning it on many different sides, of repelling

objections and clearing up obscurities. It is not from writing,

but from dialectic debate, artistically diversified and adequately

prolonged, that full and deep teaching proceeds; prolific in its

own nature, communicable indefinitely from every new disciple to

others, and forming a source of intelligence and happiness to

all.[85]

[Footnote 81: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 277-278. [Greek: ô(s oi(

r(apsô|dou/menoi (lo/goi) a)/neu a)nakri/seôs kai\ didachê=s

peithou=s e(/neka e)le/chthêsan], &c.]

[Footnote 82: Plato, Phædrus, p. 276 A. [Greek: a)/llon o(rô=men

lo/gon tou/tou a)delpho\n gnê/sion tô=| tro/pô| te gi/gnetai, kai\

o(/sô| a)mei/nôn kai\ dunatô/teros tou/tou phu/etai? . . . . O(/s

met' e)pistê/mês gra/phetai e)n tê=| tou= mantha/nontos psuchê=|,

dunato\s me\n a)mu=nai e(autô=|, e)pistê/môn de\ le/gein te kai\

siga=|n pro\s ou(\s dei=. To\n tou= ei)do/tos lo/gon le/geis

zô=nta kai\ e)/mpsuchon, ou(= o( gegramme/nos ei)/dôlon a)/n ti

le/goito dikai/ôs], &c. 278 A.]

[Footnote 83: Plato, Phædrus, p. 278 C. [Greek: ei) me\n ei)dô\s

ê(=| ta)lêthe\s e)/chei sune/thêke tau=ta (ta\ suggra/mmata) kai\

e)/chôn boêthei=n, ei)s e)/legchon i)ô\n peri\ ô(=n e)/grapse,

kai\ le/gôn au)to\s dunato\s ta\ gegramme/na phau=la a)podei=xai],

&c.]

[Footnote 84: Plato, Phædrus, p. 276 A.]

[Footnote 85: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 276-277.]

This blending of philosophy with rhetoric, which pervades the

criticisms on Lysias in the Phædrus, is farther illustrated by the

praise bestowed upon Isokrates in contrast with Lysias. Isokrates

occupied that which Plato in Euthydêmus calls "the border country

between philosophy and politics". Many critics declare (and I

think with probable reason[86]) that Isokrates is the person

intended (without being named) in the passage just cited from the

Euthydêmus. In the Phædrus, Isokrates is described as the intimate

friend of Sokrates, still young; and is pronounced already

superior in every way to Lysias--likely to become superior in

future to all the rhetors that have ever flourished--and destined

probably to arrive even at the divine mysteries of philosophy.[87]

[Footnote 86: See above, vol. ii. ch. xxi. p. 227.]

[Footnote 87: Plato, Phædrus, p. 279 A.]

When we consider that the Phædrus was pretty sure to bring upon

Plato a good deal of enmity--since it attacked, by name, both

Lysias, a resident at Athens of great influence and ability, and

several other contemporary rhetors more or less celebrated--we can

understand how Plato became disposed to lighten this amount of

enmity by a compliment paid to Isokrates. This latter rhetor, a

few years older than Plato, was the son of opulent parents at

Athens, and received a good education; but when his family became

impoverished by the disasters at the close of the Peloponnesian

war, he established himself as a teacher of rhetoric at Chios:

after some time, however, he returned to Athens, and followed the

same profession there. He engaged himself also, like Lysias, in

composing discourses for pleaders before the dikastery[88] and for

speakers in the assembly; by which practice he acquired both

fortune and reputation. Later in life, he relinquished these

harangues destined for real persons on real occasions, and

confined himself to the composition of discourses (intended, not

for contentious debate, but for the pleasure and instruction of

hearers) on general questions--social, political, and

philosophical: at the same time receiving numerous pupils from

different cities of Greece. Through such change, he came into a

sort of middle position between the rhetoric of Lysias and the

dialectic of Plato: insomuch that the latter, at the time when he

composed the Phædrus, had satisfaction in contrasting him

favourably with Lysias, and in prophesying that he would make yet

greater progress towards philosophy. But at the time when Plato

composed the Euthydêmus, his feeling was different.[89] In the

Phædrus, Isokrates is compared with Lysias and other rhetors, and

in that comparison Plato presents him as greatly superior: in the

Euthydêmus, he is compared with philosophers as well as with

rhetors, and is even announced as disparaging philosophy

generally: Plato then declares him to be a presumptuous half-bred,

and extols against him even the very philosopher whom he himself

had just been caricaturing. To apply a Platonic simile, the most

beautiful ape is ugly compared with man--the most beautiful man is

an ape compared with the Gods:[90] the same intermediate position

between rhetoric and philosophy is assigned by Plato to Isokrates.

[Footnote 88: Dion. Hal. De Isocrate Judicium, p. 576. [Greek:

desma\s pa/nu polla\s dikanikô=n lo/gôn periphe/resthai/ phêsin

u(po\ tô=n bibliopôlô=n A)ristote/lês], &c.

Plutarch, Vit. x. Oratt. pp. 837-838.

The Athenian Polykrates had been forced, by loss of property, to

quit Athens and undertake the work of a Sophist in Cyprus.

Isokrates expresses much sympathy for him: it was a misfortune

like what had happened to himself (Orat. xi. Busiris 1). Compare

De Permutation. Or. xv. s. 172.

The assertion made by Isokrates--that he did not compose political

and judicial orations, to be spoken by individuals for real causes

and public discussions--may be true comparatively, and with

reference to a certain period of his life. But it is only to be

received subject to much reserve and qualification. Even out of

the twenty-one orations of Isokrates which we possess, the last

five are composed to be spoken by pleaders before the dikastery.

They are such discourses as the logographers, Lysias among the

rest, were called upon to furnish, and paid for furnishing.]

[Footnote 89: Plato, Euthydêm. p. 306. I am inclined to agree with

Ueberweg in thinking that the Euthydêmus is later than the

Phædrus. Ueberweg, Aechtheit der Platon. Schriften, pp.

256-259-265.]

[Footnote 90: Plato, Hipp. Major, p. 289.]

From the pen of Isokrates also, we find various passages

apparently directed against the viri Socratici including Plato

(though without his name): depreciating,[91] as idle and

worthless, new political theories, analytical discussions on the

principles of ethics, and dialectic subtleties; maintaining that

the word philosophy was erroneously interpreted and defined by

many contemporaries, in a sense too much withdrawn from practical

results: and affirming that his own teaching was calculated to

impart genuine philosophy. During the last half of Plato's life,

his school and that of Isokrates were the most celebrated among

all that existed at Athens. There was competition between them,

gradually kindling into rivalry. Such rivalry became vehement

during the last ten years of Plato's life, when his scholar

Aristotle, then an aspiring young man of twenty-five, proclaimed a

very contemptuous opinion of Isokrates, and commenced a new school

of rhetoric in opposition to him.[92] Kephisodôrus, a pupil of

Isokrates, retaliated; publishing against Aristotle, as well as

against Plato, an acrimonious work which was still read some

centuries afterwards. Theopompus, another eminent pupil of

Isokrates, commented unfavourably upon Plato in his writings: and

other writers who did the same may probably have belonged to the

Isokratean school.[93]

[Footnote 91: Isokrates, Orat. x. 1 (Hel. Enc.); Orat. v.

(Philipp.) 12; Or. xiii. (Sophist.) 9-24; Orat. xv. (Permut.)

sect. 285-290. [Greek: philosophi/an me\n ou)=n ou)k oi)=mai dei=n

prosagoreu/ein tê\n mêde\n e)n tô=| paro/nti mê/te pro\s to\

le/gein mê/te pro\s to\ pra/ttein ô(/phelou=san--tê\n kaloume/nên

u(po/ tinôn philosophi/an ou)k ei)=nai phêmi/], &c.]

[Footnote 92: Cicero, De Oratore, iii. 35, 141; Orator. 19, 62;

Numenius, ap. Euseb. Præp. Evang. xiv. 6, 9. See Stahr,

Aristotelia, i. p. 63 seq., ii. p. 44 seq.

Schroeder's Quæstiones Isocrateæ (Utrecht, 1859), and Spengel's

work, Isokrates und Plato, are instructive in regard to these two

contemporary luminaries of the intellectual world at Athens. But,

unfortunately, we can make out few ascertainable facts. When I

read the Oration De Permut., Or. xv. (composed by Isokrates about

fifteen years before his own death, and about five years before

the death of Plato, near 353 B.C.), I am impressed with the belief

that many of his complaints about unfriendly and bitter criticism

refer to the Platonic School of that day, Aristotle being one of

its members. See sections 48-90-276, and seq. He certainly means

the Sokratic men, and Plato as the most celebrated of them, when

he talks of [Greek: oi( peri\ ta\s e)rôtê/seis kai\ a)pokri/seis,

ou(\s a)ntilogikou\s kalou=sin--oi( peri\ ta\s e)/ridas

spouda/zontes]--those who are powerful in contentious dialectic,

and at the same time cultivate geometry and astronomy, which

others call [Greek: a)doleschi/a] and [Greek: mikrologi/a]

(280)--those who exhorted hearers to virtue about which others knew

nothing, and about which they themselves were in dispute. When he

complains of the [Greek: perittolo/giai] of the ancient Sophists,

Empedokles, Ion, Parmenides, Melissus, &c., we cannot but suppose

that he had in his mind the Timæus of Plato also, though he avoids

mention of the name.]

[Footnote 93: Athenæus, iii. p. 122, ii. 60; Dionys. Hal. Epistol.

ad Cn. Pomp. p. 757.]

[Side-note: The Dialectician and Cross-Examiner is the only man who

can really teach. If the writer can do this, he is more than a

writer.]

This is the true philosopher (continues Sokrates)--the man who

alone is competent to teach truth about the just, good, and

honourable.[94] He who merely writes, must not delude himself with

the belief that upon these important topics his composition can

impart any clear or lasting instruction. To mistake fancy for

reality hereupon, is equally disgraceful, whether the mistake be

made by few or by many persons. If indeed the writer can explain

to others orally the matters written--if he can answer all

questions, solve difficulties, and supply the deficiencies, of

each several reader--in that case he is something far more and

better than a writer, and ought to be called a philosopher. But if

he can do no more than write, he is no philosopher: he is only a

poet, or nomographer, or logographer.[95]

[Footnote 94: Plato, Phædrus, p. 277 D-E.]

[Footnote 95: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 278-279.]

[Side-note: Lysias is only a logographer: Isokrates promises to

become a philosopher.]

In this latter class stands Lysias. I expect (concludes Sokrates)

something better from Isokrates, who gives promise of aspiring one

day to genuine philosophy.[96]

[Footnote 96: Respecting the manner in which Plato speaks of

Isokrates in the Phædrus, see what I have already observed upon

the Euthydêmus, vol. ii. ch. xxi. pp. 227-229.]

* * * * *

[Side-note: Date of the Phædrus--not an early dialogue.]

I have already observed that I dissent from the hypothesis of

Schleiermacher, Ast, and others, who regard the Phædrus either as

positively the earliest, or at least among the earliest, of the

Platonic dialogues, composed several years before the death of

Sokrates. I agree with Hermann, Stallbaum, and those other

critics, who refer it to a much later period of Plato's life:

though I see no sufficient evidence to determine more exactly

either its date or its place in the chronological series of

dialogues. The views opened in the second half of the dialogue, on

the theory of rhetoric and on the efficacy of written compositions

as a means of instruction, are very interesting and remarkable.