theory of Rhetoric is more Platonic than Sokratic.]
The written discourse of Lysias (presented to us as one greatly
admired at the time by his friends, Phædrus among them) is
contrasted first with a pleading on the same subject (though not
directed towards the attainment of the same end) by Sokrates
(supposed to be improvised on the occasion); next with a second
pleading of Sokrates directly opposed to the former, and intended
as a recantation. These three discourses are criticised from the
rhetorical point of view,[97] and are made the handle for
introducing to us a theory of rhetoric. The second discourse of
Sokrates, far from being Sokratic in tenor, is the most exuberant
effusion of mingled philosophy, poetry, and mystic theology, that
ever emanated from Plato.
[Footnote 97: Plato, Phædrus, p. 235 A.]
[Side-note: His theory postulates, in the Rhetor, knowledge already
assured--it assumes that all the doubts have been already
removed.]
The theory of rhetoric too is far more Platonic than Sokratic. The
peculiar vein of Sokrates is that of confessed ignorance, ardour
in enquiry, and testing cross-examination of all who answer his
questions. But in the Phædrus we find Plato (under the name of
Sokrates) assuming, as the basis of his theory, that an expositor
shall be found who _knows_ what is really and truly just and
unjust, good and evil, honourable and dishonourable--distinct
from, and independent of, the established beliefs on these
subjects, traditional among his neighbours and
fellow-citizens:[98] assuming (to express the same thing in other
words) that all the doubts and difficulties, suggested by the
Sokratic cross-examination, have been already considered, elucidated,
and removed.
[Footnote 98: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 259 E, 260 E, and 262 B.]
[Side-note: The Expositor, with knowledge and logical process,
teaches minds unoccupied and willing to learn.]
The expositor, master of such perfect knowledge, must farther be
master (so Plato tells us) of the arts of logical definition and
division: that is, he must be able to gather up many separate
fragmentary particulars into one general notion, clearly
identified and embodied in a definition: and he must be farther
able to subdivide such a general notion into its constituent
specific notions, each marked by some distinct characteristic
feature.[99] This is the only way to follow out truth in a manner
clear and consistent with itself: and truth is equally honourable
in matters small or great.[100]
[Footnote 99: Plato, Phædrus, p. 266.]
[Footnote 100: Plato, Phædrus, p. 261 A.
That truth upon matters small and contemptible deserves to be
sought out and proved as much as upon matters great and sublime,
is a doctrine affirmed in the Sophistês, Politikus, Parmenidês:
Sophist. pp. 218 E, 227 A; Politik. 266 D; Parmenid. 130 E.]
Thus far we are in dialectic: logical exposition proceeding by way
of classifying and declassifying: in which it is assumed that the
expositor will find minds unoccupied and unprejudiced, ready to
welcome the truth when he lays it before them. But there are many
topics on which men's minds are, in the common and natural course
of things, both pre-occupied and dissentient with each other. This
is especially the case with Justice, Goodness, the Honourable,
&c.[101] It is one of the first requisites for the expositor to be
able to discriminate this class of topics, where error and
discordance grow up naturally among those whom he addresses. It is
here that men are liable to be deceived, and require to be
undeceived--contradict each other, and argue on opposite sides:
such disputes belong to the province of Rhetoric.
[Footnote 101: Plato, Phædrus, p. 263 A.]
[Side-note: The Rhetor does not teach, but persuades persons with
minds pre-occupied--guiding them methodically from error to
truth.]
The Rhetor is one who does not teach (according to the logical
process previously described), but persuades; guiding the mind by
discourse to or from various opinions or sentiments.[102] Now if
this is to be done _by art_ and methodically--that is, upon
principle or system explicable and defensible--it pre-supposes
(according to Plato) a knowledge of truth, and can only be
performed by the logical expositor. For when men are deceived, it
is only because they mistake what is like truth for truth itself:
when they are undeceived, it is because they are made to perceive
that what they believe to be truth is only an apparent likeness
thereof. Such resemblances are strong or faint, differing by many
gradations. Now no one can detect, or bring into account, or
compare, these shades of resemblance, except he who knows the
truth to which they all ultimately refer. It is through the slight
differences that deception is operated. To deceive a man, you must
carry him gradually away from the truth by transitional stages,
each resembling that which immediately precedes, though the last
in the series will hardly at all resemble the first: to undeceive
him (or to avoid being deceived yourself), you must conduct him
back by the counter-process from error to truth, by a series of
transitional resemblances tending in that direction. You cannot do
this like an artist (on system and by pre-determination), unless
you know what the truth is.[103] By anyone who does not know, the
process will be performed without art, or at haphazard.
[Footnote 102: Plato, Phædrus, p. 261 A. [Greek: ê( r(êtorikê\
te/chnê psuchagôgi/a tis dia\ lo/gôn], &c.]
[Footnote 103: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 262 A-D, 273 D.]
[Side-note: He must then classify the minds to be persuaded, and
the means of persuasion or varieties of discourse. He must know
how to fit on the one to the other in each particular case.]
The Rhetor--being assumed as already knowing the truth--if he
wishes to make persuasion an art, must proceed in the following
manner:--He must distribute the multiplicity of individual minds
into distinct classes, each marked by its characteristic features
of differences, emotional and intellectual. He must also
distribute the manifold modes of discourse into distinct classes,
each marked in like manner. Each of these modes of discourse is
well adapted to persuade some classes of mind--badly adapted to
persuade other classes: for such adaptation or non-adaptation
there exists a rational necessity,[104] which the Rhetor must
examine and ascertain, informing himself which modes of discourse
are adapted to each different class of mind. Having mastered this
general question, he must, whenever he is about to speak, be able
to distinguish, by rapid perception,[105] to which class of minds
the hearer or hearers whom he is addressing belong: and
accordingly, which mode of discourse is adapted to their
particular case. Moreover, he must also seize, in the case before
him, the seasonable moment and the appropriate limit, for the use
of each mode of discourse. Unless the Rhetor is capable of
fulfilling all these exigencies, without failing in any one point,
his Rhetoric is not entitled to be called an Art. He requires, in
order to be an artist in persuading the mind, as great an
assemblage of varied capacities as Hippokrates declares to be
necessary for a physician, the artist for curing or preserving the
body.[106]
[Footnote 104: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 270 E, 271 A-D. [Greek: 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 105: Plato, Phædrus, p. 271 D-E. [Greek: dei= dê\ 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_, ê)\ mêde\ ei)de/nai pô ple/on au)tô=n
ô(=n to/te ê)/koue lo/gôn xunô/n.]]
[Footnote 106: Plato, Phædrus, p. 270 C.]
[Side-note: Plato's _Idéal_ of the Rhetorical Art--involves in part
incompatible conditions--the Wise man or philosopher will never be
listened to by the public.]
The total, thus summed up by Plato, of what is necessary to
constitute an Art of Rhetoric, is striking and comprehensive. It
is indeed an _idéal_, not merely unattainable by reason of its
magnitude, but also including impracticable conditions. He begins
by postulating a perfectly wise man, who knows all truth on the
most important social subjects; on which his country-men hold
erroneous beliefs, just as sincerely as _he_ holds his true
beliefs. But Plato has already told us, in the Gorgias, that such
a person will not be listened to: that in order to address
auditors with effect, the rhetor must be in genuine harmony of
belief and character with them, not dissenting from them either
for the better or the worse: nay, that the true philosopher (so we
read in one of the most impressive portions of the Republic) not
only has no chance of guiding the public mind, but incurs public
obloquy, and may think himself fortunate if he escapes
persecution.[107] The dissenter will never be allowed to be the
guide of a body of orthodox believers; and is even likely enough,
unless he be prudent, to become their victim. He may be permitted
to lecture or discuss, in the gardens of the Academy, with a few
chosen friends, and to write eloquent dialogues: but if he
embodies his views in motions before the public assembly, he will
find only strenuous opposition, or something worse. This view,
which is powerfully set forth by Sokrates both in the Gorgias and
Republic, is founded on a just appreciation of human societies:
and it is moreover the basis of the Sokratic procedure--That the
first step to be taken is to disabuse men's minds of their false
persuasion of knowledge--to make them conscious of ignorance--and
thus to open their minds for the reception of truth. But if this
be the fact, we must set aside as impracticable the postulate
advanced by Sokrates here in the Phædrus--of a perfectly wise man
as the employer of rhetorical artifices. Moreover I do not agree
with what Sokrates is here made to lay down as the philosophy of
Error:--that it derives its power of misleading from resemblance
to truth. This is the case to a certain extent: but it is very
incomplete as an account of the generating causes of error.
[Footnote 107: Plato, Gorg. p. 513 B, see supra, ch. xxiv.;
Republic, vi. pp. 495-496.]
[Side-note: The other part of the Platonic _Idéal_ is grand but
unattainable--breadth of psychological data and classified modes
of discourse.]
But the other portion of Plato's sum total of what is necessary to
an Art of Rhetoric, is not open to the same objection. It involves
no incompatible conditions: and we can say nothing against it,
except that it requires a breadth and logical command of
scientific data, far greater than there is the smallest chance of
attaining. That Art is an assemblage of processes, directed to a
definite end, and prescribed by rules which themselves rest upon
scientific data--we find first announced in the works of
Plato.[108] A vast amount of scientific research, both inductive
and deductive, is here assumed as an indispensable foundation--and
even as a portion--of what he calls the Art of Rhetoric: first, a
science of psychology, complete both in its principles and
details: next, an exhaustive catalogue and classification of the
various modes of operative speech, with their respective
impression upon each different class of minds. So prodigious a
measure of scientific requirement has never yet been filled up: of
course, therefore, no one has ever put together a body of precepts
commensurate with it. Aristotle, following partially the large
conceptions of his master, has given a comprehensive view of many
among the theoretical postulates of Rhetoric; and has partially
enumerated the varieties both of persuadable auditors, and of
persuasive means available to the speaker for guiding them.
Cicero, Dionysius of Halikarnassus, Quintilian, have furnished
valuable contributions towards this last category of data, but not
much towards the first: being all of them defective in breadth of
psychological theory. Nor has Plato himself done anything to work
out his conception in detail or to provide suitable rules for it.
We read it only as an impressive sketch--a grand but unattainable
_idéal_--"qualem nequeo monstrare et sentio tantum".
[Footnote 108: I repeat the citation from the Phædrus, one of the
most striking passages in Plato, p. 271 D.
[Greek: e)/peidê\ lo/gou du/namis tugcha/nei psuchagôgi/a ou)=sa,
to\n me/llonta r(êtoriko\n e)/sesthai a)na/gkê ei)de/nai psuchê\
o(/sa ei)/dê e)/chei. e)/stin ou)=n to/sa kai\ to/sa, kai\ toi=a
kai\ toi=a; o(/then oi( me\n toioi/de, oi( de\ toioi/de
gi/gnontai. tou/tôn de\ dê\ diê|rême/nôn, lo/gôn au)= to/sa kai\
to/sa e)/stin ei)/dê, toio/nde e(/kaston. oi( me\n ou)=n toioi/de
u(po\ tô=n toiô=nde logôn dia\ tê/nde tê\n aiti/an e)s ta\ toia/de
eu)peithei=s, oi( de\ toioi/de dia\ ta/de duspeithei=s], &c. Comp.
p. 261 A.
The relation of Art to Science is thus perspicuously stated by Mr.
John Stuart Mill, in the concluding chapter of his System of
Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive (Book vi. ch. xii. § 2):
"The relation in which rules of Art stand to doctrines of Science
may be thus characterised. The Art proposes to itself an end to be
attained, defines the end, and hands it over to the Science. The
Science receives it, considers it as a phenomenon or effect to be
studied, and having investigated its causes and conditions, sends
it back to Art with a theorem of the combinations of circumstances
by which it could be produced. Art then examines these
combinations of circumstances, and according as any of them are or
are not in human power, pronounces the end attainable or not. The
only one of the premisses, therefore, which Art supplies, is the
original major premiss, which asserts that the attainment of the
given end is desirable. Science then lends to Art the proposition
(obtained by a series of inductions or of deductions) that the
performance of certain actions will attain the end. From these
premisses Art concludes that the performance of these actions is
desirable; and finding it also practicable, converts the theorem
into a rule or precept."]
[Side-note: Plato's ideal grandeur compared with the rhetorical
teachers--Usefulness of these teachers for the wants of an
accomplished man.]
Indeed it seems that Plato himself regarded it as unattainable--and
as only worth aiming at for the purpose of pleasing the Gods,
not with any view to practical benefit, arising from either speech
or action among mankind.[109] This is a point to be considered,
when we compare his views on Rhetoric with those of Lysias and the
other rhetors, whom he here judges unfavourably and even
contemptuously. The work of speech and action among mankind, which
Plato sets aside as unworthy of attention, was the express object
of solicitude to Lysias, Isokrates, and rhetors generally: that
which they practised efficaciously themselves, and which they
desired to assist, cultivate, and improve in others: that which
Perikles, in his funeral oration preserved by Thucydides,
represents as the pride of the Athenian people
collectively[110]--combination of full freedom of preliminary contentious
debate, with energy in executing the resolution which might be ultimately
adopted. These rhetors, by the example of their composed speeches
as well as by their teaching, did much to impart to young men the
power of expressing themselves with fluency and effect before
auditors, either in the assembly or in the dikastery: as Sokrates
here fully admits.[111] Towards this purpose it was useful to
analyse the constituent parts of a discourse, and to give an
appropriate name to each part. Accordingly, all the rhetorical
teachers (Quintilian included) continued such analysis, though
differing more or less in their way of performing it, until the
extinction of Pagan civilisation. Young men were taught to learn
by heart regular discourses,[112]--to compose the like for
themselves--to understand the difference between such as were well
or ill composed--and to acquire a command of oratorical means for
moving or convincing the hearer. All this instruction had a
practical value: though Plato, both here and elsewhere, treats it
as worthless. A citizen who stood mute and embarrassed, unable to
argue a case with some propriety before an audience, felt himself
helpless and defective in one of the characteristic privileges of
a Greek and a freeman: while one who could perform the process
well, acquired much esteem and influence.[113] The Platonic
Sokrates in the Gorgias consoles the speechless men by
saying--What does this signify, provided you are just and virtuous?
Such consolation failed to satisfy: as it would fail to satisfy the
sick, the lame, or the blind.
[Footnote 109: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 273-274. [Greek: ê(\n ou)ch
e(/neka tou= le/gein kai\ pra/ttein pro\s a)nthrô/pous dei=
diaponei=sthai to\n sô/phrona, a)lla\ tou= theoi=s kecharisme/na
me\n le/gein du/nasthai], &c. (273 E).]
[Footnote 110: Thucyd. ii. 39-40-41.]
[Footnote 111: Plato, Phædrus, p. 288 A.]
[Footnote 112: See what is said by Aristotle about [Greek: ê(
Gorgi/ou pragmatei/a] in the last chapter of De Sophisticis
Elenchis.]
[Footnote 113: I have illustrated this point in my History of
Greece, by the example of Xenophon in his command of the Cyreian
army during its retreat.
His democratical education, and his powers of public speaking,
were of the greatest service not only in procuring influence to
himself, but also in conducting the army through its many perils
and difficulties.
See Aristot. Rhet. i. 1, 3, p. 1355, b. 1.]
[Side-note: The Rhetorical teachers conceived the Art too narrowly:
Plato conceived it too widely. The principles of an Art are not
required to be explained to all learners.]
The teaching of these rhetors thus contributed to the security,
dignity, and usefulness of the citizens, by arming them for public
speech and action. But it was essentially practical, or empirical:
it had little system, and was founded upon a narrow theory. Upon
these points Plato in the Phædrus attacks them. He sets little
value upon the accomplishments arming men for speech and action
([Greek: lektikou\s kai\ praktikou\s ei)=nai])--and he will not
allow such teaching to be called an Art. He explains, in
opposition to them, what he himself conceived the Art of Rhetoric
to be, in the comprehensive way which I have above described.
But if the conception of the Art, as entertained by the Rhetors,
is too narrow--that of Plato, on the other hand, is too wide.
First, it includes the whole basis of science or theory on which
the Art rests: it is a Philosophy of Rhetoric, expounded by a
theorist--rather than an Art of Rhetoric, taught to learners by a
master. To teach the observance of certain rules or precepts is
one thing: to set forth the reasons upon which those rules are
founded, is another--highly important indeed, and proper to be
known by the teacher; yet not necessarily communicated, or even
communicable, to all learners. Quintilian, in his Institutio
Rhetorica, gives both:--an ample theory, as well as an ample
development of rules, of his professional teaching. But he would
not have thought himself obliged to give this ample theory to all
learners. With many, he would have been satisfied to make them
understand the rules, and to exercise them in the ready observance
thereof.
[Side-note: Plato includes in his conception of Art, the
application thereof to new particular cases.--This can never be
taught by rule.]
Secondly, Plato, in defining the Art of Rhetoric, includes not
only its foundation of science (which, though intimately connected
with it, ought not to be considered as a constituent part), but
also the application of it to particular cases; which application
lies beyond the province both of science and of art, and cannot be
reduced to any rule. "The Rhetor" (says Plato) "must teach his
pupils, not merely to observe the rules whereby persuasion is
operated, but also to know the particular persons to whom those
rules are to be applied--on what occasions--within what limits--at
what peculiar moments, &c.[114] Unless the Rhetor can teach thus
much, his pretended art is no art at all: all his other teaching
is of no value." Now this is an amount of exigence which can never
be realised. Neither art nor science can communicate that which
Plato here requires. The rules of art, together with many
different hypothetical applications thereof, may be learnt: when
the scientific explanation of the rules is superadded, the learner
will be assisted farther towards fresh applications: but after
both these have been learnt, the new cases which will arise can
never be specially foreseen. The proper way of applying the
general precepts to each case must be suggested by conjecture
adapted to the circumstances, under the corrections of past
experience.[115] It is inconsistent in Plato, after affirming that
nothing deserves the name of art[116] except what is
general--capable of being rationally anticipated and prescribed
beforehand--then to include in art the special treatment required
for the multiplicity of particular cases; the analogy of the medical
art, which he here instructively invokes, would be against him on this
point.
[Footnote 114: Plato, Phædr. pp. 268 B, 272 A.]
[Footnote 115: What Longinus says about critical skill is
applicable here also--[Greek: pollê=s e)/sti pei/ras teleutai=on
e)pige/nnêma.] Isokrates (De Permut. Or. xv. sect. 290-312-316)
has some good remarks about the impossibility of [Greek:
e)pistê/mê] respecting particulars. Plato, in the Gorgias, puts
[Greek: te/chnê], which he states to depend upon reason and
foreknowledge, in opposition to [Greek: e)mpeiri/a] and [Greek:
tribê/], which he considers as dependant on the [Greek: phu/sis
stochastikê/]. But in applying the knowledge or skill called Art to
particular cases, the [Greek: phu/sis stochastikê\] is the best
that can be had (p. 463 A-B). The conception of [Greek: te/chnê]
given in the Gorgias is open to the same remark as that which we
find in the Phædrus. Plato, in another passage of the Phædrus,
speaks of the necessity that [Greek: phu/sis, e)pistê/mê], and
[Greek: mele/tê], shall concur to make an accomplished orator.
This is very true; and Lysias, Isokrates, and all the other
rhetors whom Plato satirises, would have concurred in it. In his
description of [Greek: te/chnê] and [Greek: e)pistê/mê], and in
the estimate which he gives of all that it comprises, he leaves no
outlying ground for [Greek: mele/tê]. Compare Xenophon, Memor.
iii. 1, 11; also Isokrates contra Sophistas, a. 16; and a good
passage of Dionysius Halik. De Compos. Verborum, in which that
rhetor remarks that [Greek: kairo\s] or opportunity neither has
been nor can be reduced to art and rule.]
[Footnote 116: Plato, Gorgias, pp. 464-465.]
[Side-note: Plato's charge against the Rhetorical teachers is not
made out.]
While therefore Plato's view of the science or theory of Rhetoric
is far more comprehensive and philosophical than any thing given
by the rhetorical teachers--he has not made good his charge
against them, that what they taught as an art of Rhetoric was
useless and illusory. The charge can only be sustained if we
grant--what appears to have been Plato's own feeling--that the
social and political life of the Athenians was a dirty and corrupt
business, unworthy of a virtuous man to meddle with. This is the
argument of Sokrates (in the Gorgias,[117] the other great
anti-rhetorical dialogue), proclaiming himself to stand alone and
aloof, an isolated, free-thinking dissenter. As representing his
sincere conviction, and interpreting Plato's plan of life, this
argument deserves honourable recognition. But we must remember
that Lysias and the rhetorical teachers repudiated such a point of
view. They aimed at assisting and strengthening others to perform
their parts, not in speculative debate on philosophy, but in
active citizenship; and they succeeded in this object to a great
degree. The rhetorical ability of Lysias personally is attested
not merely by the superlative encomium on him assigned to
Phædrus,[118] but also by his great celebrity--by the frequent
demand for his services as a logographer or composer of discourses
for others--by the number of his discourses preserved and studied
after his death. He, and a fair proportion of the other rhetors
named in the Phædrus, performed well the useful work which they
undertook.
[Footnote 117: Plato, Gorg. 521 D.]
[Footnote 118: Plato, Phædr. p. 228 A.]
[Side-note: Plato has not treated Lysias fairly, in neglecting his
greater works, and selecting for criticism an erotic exercise for
a private circle.]
When Plato selects, out of the very numerous discourses before him
composed by Lysias, one hardly intended for any real
auditors--neither deliberative, nor judicial, nor panegyrical, but an
ingenious erotic paradox for a private circle of friends--this is
no fair specimen of the author. Moreover Plato criticises it as if
it were a philosophic exposition instead of an oratorical
pleading. He complains that Lysias does not begin his discourse by
defining--but neither do Demosthenes and other great orators
proceed in that manner. He affirms that there is no organic
structure, or necessary sequence, in the discourse, and that the
sentences of it might be read in an inverted order:[119]--and this
remark is to a certain extent well-founded. In respect to the
skilful marshalling of the different parts of a discourse, so as
to give best effect to the whole, Dionysius of Halikarnassus[120]
declares Lysias to be inferior to some other orators--while
ascribing to him marked oratorical superiority on various other
points. Yet Plato, in specifying his objections against the erotic
discourses of Lysias, does not show that it offends against the
sound general principle which he himself lays down respecting the
art of persuasion--That the topics insisted on by the persuader
shall be adapted to the feelings and dispositions of the
persuadend. Far from violating this principle, Lysias kept it in
view, and employed it to the best of his power--as we may see, not
merely by his remaining orations, but also by the testimonies of
the critics:[121] though he did not go through the large
preliminary work of scientific classification, both of different
minds and different persuasive apparatus, which Plato considers
essential to a thorough comprehension and mastery of the
principle.
[Footnote 119: Plato, Phædrus, pp. 263-264.]
[Footnote 120: Dionysius (Judicium De Lysiâ, pp. 487-493) gives an
elaborate criticism on the [Greek: pragmatiko\s charaktê\r] of
Lysias. The special excellence of Lysias (according to this
critic) lay in his judicial orations, which were highly persuasive
and plausible: the manner of presenting thoughts was ingenious and
adapted to the auditors: the narration of facts and details,
especially, was performed with unrivalled skill. But as to the
marshalling of the different parts of a discourse, Dionysius
considers Lysias as inferior to some other orators--and still more
inferior in respect to [Greek: deinotê\s] and to strong emotional
effects.]
[Footnote 121: Dionys. Hal. (Ars Rhetorica, p. 381) notices the
severe exigencies which Plato here imposes upon the Rhetor,
remarking that scarcely any rhetorical discourse could be produced
which came up to them. The defect did not belong to Lysias alone,
but to all other rhetors also--[Greek: o(po/te ga\r _kai\ Lusi/an_
e)le/gchei, pa=san tê\n ê(mete/ran r(êtorikê\n e)/oiken
e)le/gchein.] Demosthenes almost alone (in the opinion of
Dionysius) contrived to avoid the fault, because he imitated
Plato.]
[Side-note: No fair comparison can be taken between this exercise
of Lysias and the discourses delivered by Sokrates in the
Phædrus.]
The first discourse assigned by Plato to Sokrates professes to be
placed in competition with the discourse of Lysias, and to aim at
the same object. But in reality it aims at a different object: it
gives the dissuasive arguments, but omits the persuasive--as
Phædrus is made to point out: so that it cannot be fairly compared
with the discourse of Lysias. Still more may this be said
respecting the second discourse of Sokrates: which is of a
character and purpose so totally disparate, that no fair
comparison can be taken between it and the ostensible competitor.
The mixture of philosophy, mysticism, and dithyrambic poetry,
which the second discourse of Sokrates presents, was considered by
a rhetorical judge like Dionysius as altogether inconsistent with
the scope and purpose of reasonable discourse.[122] In the
Menexenus, Plato has brought himself again into competition with
Lysias, and there the competition is fairer:[123] for Plato has
there entirely neglected the exigencies enforced in the Phædrus,
and has composed a funeral discourse upon the received type; which
Lysias and other orators before him had followed, from Perikles
downward. But in the Phædrus, Plato criticises Lysias upon
principles which are a medley between philosophy and rhetoric.
Lysias, in defending himself, might have taken the same ground as
we find Sokrates himself taking in the Euthydêmus. "Philosophy and
politics are two distinct walks, requiring different aptitudes,
and having each its own practitioners. A man may take whichever he
pleases; but he must not arrogate to himself superiority by an
untoward attempt to join the two together."[124]
[Footnote 122: See the Epistol. of Dion. Halikarn. to Cneius
Pompey--De Platone--pp. 755-765.]
[Footnote 123: Plato, Menexen. p. 237 seq. Stallbaum, Comm. in
Menexenum, pp. 10-11.]
[Footnote 124: Plato, Euthydêm. p. 306 A-C.]
[Side-note: Continuous discourse, either written or spoken,
inefficacious as a means of instruction to the ignorant.]
Another important subject is also treated in the Phædrus. Sokrates
delivers views both original and characteristic, respecting the
efficacy of continuous discourse--either written to be read, or
spoken to be heard without cross-examination--as a means of
instruction. They are re-stated--in a manner substantially the
same, though with some variety and fulness of illustration--in
Plato's seventh Epistle[125] to the surviving friends of Dion. I
have already touched upon these views in my eighth** Chapter, on the
Platonic Dialogues generally, and have pointed out how much Plato
understood to be involved in what he termed _knowledge_. No man
(in his view) could be said to know, who was not competent to
sustain successfully, and to apply successfully, a Sokratic
cross-examination. Now knowledge, involving such a competency,
certainly cannot be communicated by any writing, or by any fixed and
unchangeable array of words, whether written or spoken. You must
familiarise learners with the subject on many different sides, and
in relation to many different points of view, each presenting more
or less chance of error or confusion. Moreover, you must apply a
different treatment to each mind, and to the same mind at
different stages: no two are exactly alike, and the treatment
adapted for one will be unsuitable for the other. While it is
impossible, for these reasons, to employ any set forms of words,
it will be found that the process of reading or listening leaves
the reader or listener comparatively passive: there is nothing to
stir the depths of the mind, or to evolve the inherent forces and
dormant capacities. Dialectic conversation is the only process
which can adapt itself with infinite variety to each particular
case and moment--and which stimulates fresh mental efforts ever
renewed on the part of each respondent and each questioner.
Knowledge--being a slow result generated by this stimulating
operation, when skilfully conducted, long continued, and much
diversified--is not infused into, but evolved out of, the mind. It
consists in a revival of those unchangeable Ideas or Forms, with
which the mind during its state of eternal pre-existence had had
communion. There are only a few privileged minds, however, that
have had sufficient communion therewith to render such revival
possible: accordingly, none but these few can ever rise to
knowledge.[126]
[Footnote 125: Plato, Epistol. vii. pp. 341-344.]
[Footnote 126: Schleiermacher, in his Introduction to the Phædrus,
justly characterises this doctrine as genuine Sokratism--"die ächt
Sokratische erhabene Verachtung alles Schreibens and alles
rednerischen Redens," p. 70.]
[Side-note: Written matter is useful as a memorandum for persons
who know--or as an elegant pastime.]
Though knowledge cannot be first communicated by written matters,
yet if it has been once communicated and subsequently forgotten,
it may be revived by written matters. Writing has thus a real,
though secondary, usefulness, as a memorandum. And Plato doubtless
accounted written dialogues the most useful of all written
compositions, because they imitated portions of that long oral
process whereby alone knowledge had been originally generated. His
dialogues were reports of the conversations purporting to have
been held by Sokrates with others.
[Side-note: Plato's didactic theories are pitched too high to be
realised.]
It is an excellent feature in the didactic theories of Plato, that
they distinguish so pointedly between the passive and active
conditions of the intellect; and that they postulate as
indispensable, an habitual and cultivated mental activity, worked
up by slow, long-continued, colloquy. To read or hear, and then to
commit to memory, are in his view elegant recreations, but nothing
more. But while, on this point, Plato's didactic theories deserve
admiration, we must remark on the other hand that they are pitched
so high as to exceed human force, and to overpass all possibility
of being realised.[127] They mark out an _idéal_, which no person
ever attained, either then or since--like the Platonic theory of
rhetoric. To be master of any subject, in the extent and
perfection required for sustaining and administering a Sokratic
cross-examination--is a condition which scarce any one can ever
fulfil: certainly no one, except upon a small range of subjects.
Assuredly, Plato himself never fulfilled it.
[Footnote 127: A remark made by Sextus Empiricus (upon another
doctrine which he is discussing) may be applied to this view of
Plato--[Greek: to\ de\ le/gein o(/ti tê=| diomalismô=| tô=n
pra/xeôn katalamba/nomen to\n e)/chonta tê\n peri\ to\n bi/on
te/chnên, _u(perphtheggome/nôn e)/sti tê\n a)nthrô/pôn phu/sin_,
kai\ eu)chome/nôn ma=llon ê)\ a)lêthê= lego/ntôn] (Pyrrh. Hyp.
iii. 244).]
[Side-note: No one has ever been found competent to solve the
difficulties raised by Sokrates, Arkesilaus, Karneades, and the
negative vein of philosophy.]
Such a cross-examination involved the mastery of all the openings
for doubt, difficulty, deception, or refutation, bearing on the
subject: openings which a man is to profit by, if assailant--to
keep guarded, if defendant. Now when we survey the Greek negative
philosophy, as it appears in Plato, Aristotle, and Sextus
Empiricus--and when we recollect that between the second and the
third of these names, there appeared three other philosophers
equally or more formidable in the same vein, all whose arguments
have perished (Arkesilaus, Karneades, Ænesidêmus)--we shall see
that no man has ever been known competent both to strike and parry
with these weapons, in a manner so skilful and ready as to amount
to knowledge in the Platonic sense. But in so far as such
knowledge is attainable or approachable, Plato is right in saying
that it cannot be attained except by long dialectic practice.
Reading books, and hearing lectures, are undoubtedly valuable
aids, but insufficient by themselves. Modern times recede from it
even more than ancient. Regulated oral dialectic has become
unknown; the logical and metaphysical difficulties--which negative
philosophy required to be solved before it would allow any farther
progress--are now little heeded, amidst the multiplicity of
observed facts, and theories adapted to and commensurate with
those facts. This change in the character of philosophy is
doubtless a great improvement. It is found that by acquiescing
provisionally in the _axiomata media_, and by applying at every
step the control of verification, now rendered possible by the
multitude of ascertained facts--the sciences may march safely
onward: notwithstanding that the logical and metaphysical
difficulties, the puzzles ([Greek: a)pori/ai]) involved in
_philosophia prima_ and its very high abstractions, are left
behind unsolved and indeterminate. But though the modern course of
philosophy is preferable to the ancient, it is not for that reason
to be considered as satisfactory. These metaphysical difficulties
are not diminished either in force or relevancy, because modern
writers choose to leave them unnoticed. Plato and Aristotle were
quite right in propounding them as problems, the solution of which
was indispensable to the exigencies and consistent schematism of
the theorising intelligence, as well as to any complete
discrimination between sufficient and insufficient evidence. Such
they still remain, overlooked yet not defunct.
[Side-note: Plato's _idéal_ philosopher can only be realised under
the hypothesis of a pre-existent and omniscient soul, stimulated
into full reminiscence here.]
Now all these questions would be solved by the _idéal_ philosopher
whom Plato in the Phædrus conceives as possessing knowledge: a
person who shall be at once a negative Sokrates in excogitating
and enforcing all the difficulties--and an affirmative match for
Sokrates, as respondent in solving them: a person competent to
apply this process to all the indefinite variety of individual
minds, under the inspirations of the moment. This is a magnificent
_idéal_. Plato affirms truly, that those teachers who taught
rhetoric and philosophy by writing, could never produce such a
pupil: and that even the Sokratic dialectic training, though
indispensable and far more efficacious, would fail in doing so,
unless in those few cases where it was favoured by very superior
capacity--understood by him as superhuman, and as a remnant from
the pre-existing commerce of the soul with the world of Forms or
Ideas. The foundation therefore of the whole scheme rests upon
Plato's hypothesis of an antecedent life of the soul, proclaimed
by Sokrates here in his second or panegyrical discourse on Eros.
The rhetorical teachers, with whom he here compares himself and
whom he despises as aiming at low practical ends--might at any
rate reply that they avoided losing themselves in such unmeasured
and unwarranted hypotheses.
[Side-note: Different proceeding of Plato in the Timæus.]
One remark yet remains to be made upon the doctrine here set forth
by Plato: that no teaching is possible by means of continuous
discourse spoken or written--none, except through prolonged and
varied oral dialectic.[128] To this doctrine Plato does not
constantly conform in his practice: he departs from it on various
important occasions. In the Timæus, Sokrates calls upon the
philosopher so named for an exposition on the deepest and most
mysterious cosmical subjects. Timæus delivers the exposition in a
continuous harangue, without a word of remark or question
addressed by any of the auditors: while at the beginning of the
Kritias (the next succeeding dialogue) Sokrates greatly commends
what Timæus had spoken. The Kritias itself too (though unfinished)
is given in the form of continuous exposition. Now, as the Timæus
is more abstruse than any other Platonic writing, we cannot
imagine that Plato, at the time when he composed it, thought so
meanly about continuous exposition, as a vehicle of instruction,
as we find him declaring in the Phædrus. I point this out, because
it illustrates my opinion that the different dialogues of Plato
represent very different, sometimes even opposite, points of view:
and that it is a mistake to treat them as parts of one
preconceived and methodical system.
[Footnote 128: The historical Sokrates would not allow his oral
dialectic process to be called teaching. He expressly says "I have
never been the teacher of any one" (Plat. Apol. Sokr. pp. 33 A, 19
E): and he disclaimed the possession of knowledge. Aristotle too
considers teaching as a presentation of truths, ready made and
supposed to be known, by the teacher to learners, who are bound to
believe them, [Greek: dei= ga\r pisteu/ein to\n mantha/nonta]. The
Platonic Sokrates, in the Phædrus and Symposion, differs from
both; he recognises no teaching except the perpetual generation of
new thoughts and feelings, by means of stimulating dialectic
colloquy, and the revival in the mind thereby of the experience of
an antecedent life, during which some communion has been enjoyed
with the world of Ideas or Forms.]
[Side-note: Opposite tendencies co-existent in Plato's
mind--Extreme of the Transcendental or Absolute--Extreme of specialising
adaptation to individuals and occasions.]
Plato is usually extolled by his admirers, as the champion of the
Absolute--of unchangeable forms, immutable truth, objective
necessity cogent and binding on every one. He is praised for
having refuted Protagoras; who can find no standard beyond the
individual recognition and belief, of his own mind or that of some
one else. There is no doubt that Plato often talks in that strain:
but the method followed in his dialogues, and the general
principles of method which he lays down, here as well as
elsewhere, point to a directly opposite conclusion. Of this the
Phædrus is a signal instance. Instead of the extreme of
generality, it proclaims the extreme of specialty. The objection
which the Sokrates of the Phædrus advances against the didactic
efficacy of written discourse, is founded on the fact, that it is
the same to all readers--that it takes no cognizance of the
differences of individual minds nor of the same mind at different
times. Sokrates claims for dialectic debate the valuable
privilege, that it is constant action and re-action between two
individual minds--an appeal by the inherent force and actual
condition of each, to the like elements in the other--an ever
shifting presentation of the same topics, accommodated to the
measure of intelligence and cast of emotion in the talkers and at
the moment. The individuality of each mind--both questioner and
respondent--is here kept in view as the governing condition of the
process. No two minds can be approached by the same road or by the
same interrogation. The questioner cannot advance a step except by
the admission of the respondent. Every respondent is the measure
to himself. He answers suitably to his own belief; he defends by
his own suggestions; he yields to the pressure of contradiction
and inconsistency, _when he feels them_, and not before. Each
dialogist is (to use the Protagorean phrase) the measure to
himself of truth and falsehood, according as he himself believes
it. Assent or dissent, whichever it may be, springs only from the
free working of the individual mind, in its actual condition then
and there. It is to the individual mind alone, that appeal is
made, and this is what Protagoras asks for.
We thus find, in Plato's philosophical character, two extreme
opposite tendencies and opposite poles co-existent. We must
recognise them both: but they can never be reconciled: sometimes
he obeys and follows the one, sometimes the other.
If it had been Plato's purpose to proclaim and impose upon every
one something which he called "Absolute Truth," one and the same
alike imperative upon all--he would best proclaim it by preaching
or writing. To modify this "Absolute," according to the varieties
of the persons addressed, would divest it of its intrinsic
attribute and excellence. If you pretend to deal with an Absolute,
you must turn away your eyes from all diversity of apprehending
intellects and believing subjects.
CHAPTER XXVII.
PARMENIDES.
[Side-note: Character of dialogues immediately preceding--much
transcendental assertion. Opposite character of the Parmenides.]
In the dialogues immediately preceding--Phædon, Phædrus,
Symposion--we have seen Sokrates manifesting his usual dialectic,
which never fails him: but we have also seen him indulging in a
very unusual vein of positive affirmation and declaration. He has
unfolded many novelties about the states of pre-existence and
post-existence: he has familiarised us with Ideas, Forms,
Essences, eternal and unchangeable, as the causes of all the facts
and particularities of nature: he has recognised the inspired
variety of madness, as being more worthy of trust than sober,
uninspired, intelligence: he has recounted, with the faith of a
communicant fresh from the mysteries, revelations made to him by
the prophetess Diotima,--respecting the successive stages of
exaltation whereby gifted intelligences, under the stimulus of
Eros Philosophus, ascend into communion with the great sea of
Beauty. All this is set forth with as much charm as Plato's
eloquence can bestow. But after all, it is not the true character
of Sokrates:--I mean, the Sokrates of the Apology, whose mission
it is to make war against the chronic malady of the human
mind--false persuasion of knowledge, without the reality. It is, on the
contrary, Sokrates himself infected with the same chronic malady
which he combats in others, and requiring medicine against it as
much as others. Such is the exact character in which Sokrates
appears in the Parmenides: which dialogue I shall now proceed to
review.
[Side-note: Sokrates is the juvenile defendant--Parmenides the
veteran censor and cross-examiner. Parmenides gives a specimen of
exercises to be performed by the philosophical aspirant.]
The Parmenides announces its own purpose as intended to repress
premature forwardness of affirmation, in a young philosophical
aspirant: who, with meritorious eagerness in the search for truth,
and with his eyes turned in the right direction to look for
it--has nevertheless not fully estimated the obstructions besetting
his path, nor exercised himself in the efforts necessary to
overcome them. By a curious transposition, or perhaps from
deference on Plato's part to the Hellenic sentiment of
Nemesis,--Sokrates, who in most Platonic dialogues stands forward
as the privileged censor and victorious opponent, is here the juvenile
defendant under censorship by a superior. It is the veteran
Parmenides of Elea who, while commending the speculative impulse
and promise of Sokrates, impresses upon him at the same time that
the theory which he had advanced--the self-existence, the separate
and substantive nature, of Ideas--stands exposed to many grave
objections, which he (Sokrates) has not considered and cannot
meet. So far, Parmenides performs towards Sokrates the same
process of cross-examining refutation as Sokrates himself applies
to Theætêtus and other young men elsewhere. But we find in this
dialogue something ulterior and even peculiar. Having warned
Sokrates that his intellectual training has not yet been carried
to a point commensurate with the earnestness of his
aspirations--Parmenides proceeds to describe to him what exercises he
ought to go through, in order to guard himself against premature assertion
or hasty partiality. Moreover, Parmenides not only indicates in
general terms what ought to be done, but illustrates it by giving
a specimen of such exercise, on a topic chosen by himself.
[Side-note: Circumstances and persons of the Parmenides.]
Passing over the dramatic introduction[1] whereby the personages
discoursing are brought together, we find Sokrates, Parmenides,
and the Eleatic Zeno (the disciple of Parmenides), engaged in the
main dialogue. When Parmenides begins his illustrative exercise, a
person named Aristotle (afterwards one of the Thirty oligarchs at
Athens), still younger than Sokrates, is made to serve as
respondent.
[Footnote 1: This dramatic introduction is extremely complicated.
The whole dialogue, from beginning to end, is recounted by
Kephalus of Klazomenæ; who heard it from the Athenian Antiphon--who
himself had heard it from Pythodôrus, a friend of Zeno,
present when the conversation was held. A string of circumstances
are narrated by Kephalus, to explain how he came to wish to hear
it, and to find out Antiphon. Plato appears anxious to throw the
event back as far as possible into the past, in order to justify
the bringing Sokrates into personal communication with Parmenides:
for some unfriendly critics tried to make out that the two could
not possibly have conversed on philosophy (Athenæus, xi. 505).
Plato declares the ages of the persons with remarkable exactness:
Parmenides was 65, completely grey-headed, but of noble mien: Zeno
about 40, tall and graceful: Sokrates very young. (Plat. Parmen.
p. 127 B-C.)
It required some invention in Plato to provide a narrator,
suitable for recounting events so long antecedent as the young
period of Sokrates.]
Sokrates is one among various auditors, who are assembled to hear
Zeno reading aloud a treatise of his own composition, intended to
answer and retort upon the opponents of his preceptor Parmenides.
[Side-note: Manner in which the doctrine of Parmenides was
impugned. Manner in which his partisan Zeno defended him.]
The main doctrine of the real Parmenides was, "That Ens, the
absolute, real, self-existent, was One and not many": which
doctrine was impugned and derided by various opponents, deducing
from it absurd conclusions. Zeno defended his master by showing
that the opposite doctrine (--"That Ens, the absolute,
self-existent universe, is Many--") led to conclusions absurd in an
equal or greater degree. If the Absolute were Many, the many would
be both like and unlike: but they cannot have incompatible and
contradictory attributes: therefore Absolute Ens is not Many. Ens,
as Parmenides conceived it, was essentially homogeneous and
unchangeable: even assuming it to be Many, all its parts must be
homogeneous, so that what was predicable of one must be predicable
of all; it might be all alike, or all unlike: but it could not be
both. Those who maintained the plurality of Ens, did so on the
ground of apparent severalty, likeness, and unlikeness, in the
sensible world. But Zeno, while admitting these phenomena in the
sensible world, as _relative to us_, apparent, and subject to the
varieties of individual estimation--denied their applicability to
absolute and self-existent Ens.[2] Since absolute Ens or Entia are
Many (said the opponents of Parmenides), they will be both like
and unlike: and thus we can explain the phenomena of the sensible
world. The absolute (replied Zeno) cannot be both like and unlike;
therefore it cannot be many. We must recollect that both
Parmenides and Zeno renounced all attempt to explain the sensible
world by the absolute and purely intelligible Ens. They treated
the two as radically distinct and unconnected. The one was
absolute, eternal, unchangeable, homogeneous, apprehended only by
reason. The other was relative, temporary, variable,
heterogeneous; a world of individual and subjective opinion, upon
which no absolute truth, no pure objectivity, could be reached.
[Footnote 2: I have already given a short account of the Zenonian
Dialectic, ch. ii. p. 93 seq.]
[Side-note: Sokrates here impugns the doctrine of Zeno. He affirms
the Platonic theory of ideas separate from sensible objects, yet
participable by them.]
Sokrates, depicted here as a young man, impugns this doctrine of
Zeno: and maintains that the two worlds, though naturally
disjoined, were not incommunicable. He advances the Platonic
theory of Ideas: that is, an intelligible world of many separate
self-existent Forms or Ideas, apprehended by reason only--and a
sensible world of particular objects, each participating in one or
more of these Forms or Ideas. "What you say (he remarks to Zeno),
is true of the world of Forms or Ideas: the Form of Likeness _per
se_ can never be unlike, nor can the Form of Unlikeness be ever
like. But in regard to the sensible world, there is nothing to
hinder you and me, and other objects which rank and are numbered
as separate individuals, from participating both in the Form of
likeness and in the Form of unlikeness.[3] In so far as I, an
individual object, participate in the Form of Likeness, I am
properly called like; in so far as I participate in the Form of
Unlikeness, I am called unlike. So about One and Many, Great and
Little, and so forth: I, the same individual, may participate in
many different and opposite Forms, and may derive from them
different and opposite denominations. I am one and many--like and
unlike--great and little--all at the same time. But no such
combination is possible between the Forms themselves,
self-existent and opposite: the Form of Likeness cannot become unlike,
nor _vice versâ_. The Forms themselves stand permanently apart,
incapable of fusion or coalescence with each other: but different
and even opposite Forms may lend themselves to participation and
partnership in the same sensible individual object."[4]
[Footnote 3: Plato, Parmenid. p. 129 A. [Greek: ou) nomi/zeis
ei)=nai au)to\ kath' au)to\ ei)=do/s ti o(moio/têtos, kai\ tô=|
toiou/tô| ai)= a)/llo ti e)nanti/on, o(\ e)/stin a)no/moion?
tou/toin de\ duoi=n o)/ntoin kai\ e)me\ kai\ se\ kai\ ta\ a)/lla
a(\ dê\ polla\ kalou=men, metalamba/nein?]]
[Footnote 4: Plato, Parmenid. pp. 129-130.]
[Side-note: Parmenides and Zeno admire the philosophical ardour of
Sokrates. Parmenides advances objections against the Platonic
theory of Ideas.]
Parmenides and Zeno are represented as listening with surprise and
interest to this language of Sokrates, recognising two distinct
worlds: one, of invisible but intelligible Forms,--the other that
of sensible objects, participating in these Forms. "Your ardour
for philosophy" (observes Parmenides to Sokrates), "is admirable.
Is this distinction your own?"[5]
[Footnote 5: Plato, Parmenid. p. 130 A. [Greek: Ô)= Sô/krates, ô(s
a)/xios ei)= a)/gasthai tê=s o(rmê=s tê=s e)pi\ tou\s lo/gous;
kai/ moi ei)pe/, _au)to\s su\ ou(/tô diê/|rêsai_ ô(s le/geis,
chôri\s me\n ei)/dê au)ta\ a)/tta, chôri\s de\ ta\ tou/tôn au)=
mete/chonta?]]
Plato now puts into the mouth of Parmenides--the advocate of One
absolute and unchangeable Ens, separated by an impassable gulf
from the sensible world of transitory and variable appearances or
phenomena--objections against what is called the Platonic theory
of Ideas: that is, the theory of an intelligible world, comprising
an indefinite number of distinct intelligible and unchangeable
Forms--in partial relation and communication with another world of
sensible objects, each of which participates in one or more of
these Forms. We thus have the Absolute One pitted against the
Absolute Many.
[Side-note: What Ideas does Sokrates recognise? Of the Just and
Good? Yes. Of Man, Horse, &c.? Doubtful. Of Hair, Mud, &c.? No.]
What number and variety of these intelligible Forms do you
recognise--(asks Parmenides)? Likeness and Unlikeness--One and
Many--Just, Beautiful, Good, &c.--are all these Forms absolute and
existent _per se_? _Sokr._--Certainly they are. _Parm._--Do you
farther recognise an absolute and self-existent Form of Man, apart
from us and all other individuals?--or a Form of fire, water, and
the like? _Sokr._--I do not well know how to answer:--I have often
been embarrassed with the question. _Parm._--Farther, do there
exist distinct intelligible Forms of hair, mud, dirt, and all the
other mean and contemptible objects of sense which we see around?
_Sokr._--No--certainly--no such Forms as these exist. Such objects
are as we see them, and nothing beyond: it would be too absurd to
suppose Forms of such like things.[6] Nevertheless there are times
when I have misgivings on the point; and when I suspect that there
must be Forms of them as well as of the others. When such
reflections cross my mind, I shrink from the absurdity of the
doctrine, and try to confine my attention to Forms like those
which you mentioned first.
[Footnote 6: Plato, Parmenid. p. 130 D. [Greek: Ou)damô=s, pha/nai
to\n Sôkra/tên, a)lla\ tau=ta me/n ge, a(/per o(rô=men, tau=ta
kai\ ei)=nai; ei)=dos de/ ti au)tô=n oi)êthê=nai ei)=nai mê\ li/an
ê)=| a)/topon.]
Alexander, who opposes the doctrine of the Platonists about Ideas,
treats it as understood that they did not recognise Ideas of
worms, gnats, and such like animals. Schol. ad Aristot. Metaphys.
A. 991 a. p. 575, a. 30 Brandis.]
[Side-note: Parmenides declares that no object in nature is mean to
the philosopher.]
_Parm._--You are still young, Sokrates:--you still defer to the
common sentiments of mankind. But the time will come when
philosophy will take stronger hold of you, and will teach you that
no object in nature is mean or contemptible in her view.[7]
[Footnote 7: Plato, Parmenid. p. 130 E. [Greek: Ne/os ga\r ei)=
e)/ti, kai\ ou(/pô sou a)ntei/lêptai philosophi/a ô(s e(/ti
a)ntilê/psetai, kat' e)mê\n do/xan, o(/te _ou)de\n au)tô=n_
a)tima/seis; nu=n de\ e)/ti _pro\s a)nthrô/pôn a)poble/peis
do/xas_ dia\ tê\n ê(liki/an.]]
* * * * *
[Side-note: Remarks upon this--Contrast between emotional and
scientific classification.]
This remark deserves attention. Plato points out the radical
distinction, and frequent antipathy between classifications
constructed by science, and those which grow up spontaneously
under the associating influence of a common emotion. What he calls
"the opinions of men,"--in other words, the associations naturally
working in an untaught and unlettered mind--bring together the
ideas of objects according as they suggest a like
emotion--veneration, love, fear, antipathy, contempt, laughter, &c.[8]
As things which inspire like emotions are thrown into the same
category and receive the same denomination, so the opposite
proceeding inspires great repugnance, when things creating
antipathetic emotions are forced into the same category. A large
proportion of objects in nature come to be regarded as unworthy of
any serious attention, and fit only to serve for discharging on
them our laughter, contempt, or antipathy. The investigation of
the structure and manifestations of insects is one of the marked
features which Aristophanes ridicules in Sokrates: moreover the
same poet also brings odium on the philosopher for alleged study
of astronomy and meteorology--the heavenly bodies being as it were
at the opposite emotional pole, objects of such reverential
admiration and worship, that it was impious to watch or
investigate them, or calculate their proceedings beforehand.[9]
The extent to which anatomy and physiology were shut out from
study in antiquity, and have continued to be partially so even in
modern times, is well known. And the proportion of phenomena is
both great and important, connected with the social relations,
which are excluded both from formal registration and from
scientific review; kept away from all rational analysis either of
causes or remedies, because of the strong repugnances connected
with them. This emotional view of nature is here noted by Plato as
conflicting with the scientific. No object (he says) is mean in
the eyes of philosophy. He remarks to the same effect in the
Sophistês and Politikus, and the remark is illustrated by the
classifying processes there exhibited:[10] mean objects and
esteemed objects being placed side by side.
[Footnote 8: Plato, himself, however, occasionally appeals [Greek:
pro\s a)nthrô/pôn do/xas], and becomes [Greek: a)technô=s
dêmê/goros], when it suits his argument; see Gorgias, 494 C.]
[Footnote 9: Aristophan. Nubes, 145-170-1490.
[Greek: ti/ ga\r matho/nt' e)s tou\s theou\s u(bri/zeton,
kai\ tê=s selê/nês e)skopei=sthe tê\n e)/dran?]
Compare Xenoph. Memor. i. 1, 11-13, iv. 7, 6-7; Plutarch,
Perikles, 23; also the second chapter of the first Book of
Macrobius, about the discredit which is supposed to be thrown upon
grand and solemn subjects by a plain and naked exposition.
"Inimicam esse naturæ nudam expositionem sui."]
[Footnote 10: Plato, Sophist. p. 227 B; Politik. p. 266 D; also
Theætêt. p. 174 D.
Both the Platonic Sokrates, and the Xenophontic Sokrates,
frequently illustrate the education of men by comparison with the
bringing up of young animals as well as with the training of
horses: they also compare the educator of young men with the
trainer of young horses. Indeed this comparison occurs so
frequently, that it excites much displeasure among various modern
critics (Forchhammer, Köchly, Socher, &c.), who seem to consider
it as unseemly and inconsistent with "the dignity of human
nature". The frequent allusions made by Plato to the homely arts
and professions are noted by his interlocutors as tiresome.
See Plato, Apolog. Sokr. p. 20 A. [Greek: ô)= Kalli/a, ei) me/n
sou tô\ ui(e/e pô/lô ê)\ mo/schô e)gene/sthên], &c.
The Zoological works of Aristotle exhibit a memorable example of
scientific intelligence, overcoming all the contempt and disgust
usually associated with minute and repulsive organisms. To Plato,
it would be repugnant to arrange in the same class the wolf and
the dog. See Sophist. p. 231 A.]
* * * * *
Parmenides now produces various objections against the Platonic
variety of dualism: the two distinct but partially
inter-communicating worlds--one, of separate, permanent, unchangeable,
Forms or Ideas--the other, of individual objects, transient and
variable; participating in, and receiving denomination from, these
Forms.
[Side-note: Objections of Parmenides--How can objects participate
in the Ideas. Each cannot have the whole Idea, nor a part
thereof.]
1. How (asks Parmenides) can such participation take place? Is the
entire Form in each individual object? No: for one and the same
Form cannot be at the same time in many distant objects. A part of
it therefore must be in one object; another part in another. But
this assumes that the Form is divisible--or is not essentially
One. Equality is in all equal objects: but how can a part of the
Form equality, less than the whole, make objects equal? Again,
littleness is in all little objects: that is, a part of the Form
littleness is in each. But the Form littleness cannot have parts;
because, if it had, the entire Form would be greater than any of
its parts,--and the Form littleness cannot be greater than any
thing. Moreover, if one part of littleness were added to other
parts, the sum of the two would be less, and not greater, than
either of the factors. It is plain that none of these Forms can be
divisible, or can have parts. Objects therefore cannot participate
in the Form by parts or piecemeal. But neither can each object
possess the entire Form. Accordingly, since there remains no third
possibility, objects cannot participate in the Forms at all.[11]
[Footnote 11: Plato, Parmenid. p. 131. A similar argument, showing
the impossibility of such [Greek: me/thexis], appears in Sextus
Empiric. adv. Arithmeticos, sect. 11-20, p. 334 Fab., p. 724 Bek.]
[Side-note: Comparing the Idea with the sensible objects partaking
in the Idea, there is a likeness between them which must be
represented by a higher Idea--and so on _ad infinitum_.]
2. Parmenides now passes to a second argument. The reason why you
assume that each one of these Forms exists, is--That when you
contemplate many similar objects, one and the same ideal phantom
or Concept is suggested by all.[12] Thus, when you see many
_great_ objects, one common impression of _greatness_ arises from
all. Hence you conclude that The Great, or the Form of Greatness,
exists as One. But if you take this Form of Greatness, and
consider it in comparison with each or all the great individual
objects, it will have in common with them something that makes it
great. You must therefore search for some higher Form, which
represents what belongs in common both to the Form of Greatness
and to individual great objects. And this higher Form again, when
compared with the rest, will have something in common which must
be represented by a Form yet higher: so that there will be an
infinite series of Forms, ascending higher and higher, of which
you will never reach the topmost.[13]
[Footnote 12: Plato, Parmenid. p. 132. [Greek: Oi)=mai se e)k tou=
toiou=de e(\n e(/kaston ei)=dos oi)/esthai ei)=nai. O(/tan _po/ll'
a)/tta mega/la soi do/xê|_ ei)=nai, _mi/a tis i)/sôs dokei=
i)de/a_ ê( au)tê\ ei)=nai _e)pi\ pa/nta i)do/nti_, o(/then _e(\n
to\ me/ga ê(gei= ei)=nai_.]]
[Footnote 13: Plato, Parmenid. p. 132 A. See this process, of
comparing the Form with particular objects denominated after the
Form, described in a different metaphysical language by Mr. John
Stuart Mill, System of Logic, book iv. ch. 2, sect. 3. "As the
general conception is itself obtained by a comparison of
particular phenomena, so, when obtained, the mode in which we
apply it to other phenomena is again by comparison. We compare
phenomena with each other to get the conception; and we then
compare those and other phenomena _with_ the conception. We get
the conception of an animal by comparing different animals, and
when we afterwards see a creature resembling an animal, we compare
it with our general conception of an animal: and if it agrees with
our general conception, we include it in the class. The conception
becomes the type of comparison. We may perhaps find that no
considerable number of other objects agree with this first general
conception: and that we must drop the conception, and beginning
again with a different individual case, proceed by fresh
comparisons to a different general conception."
The comparison, which the argument of the Platonic Parmenides
assumes to be instituted, between [Greek: to\ ei)=dos] and [Greek:
ta\ mete/chonta au)tou=], is denied by Proklus; who says that
there can be no comparison, nor any [Greek: koino/tês], except
between [Greek: ta\ o(motagê=]: and that the Form is not [Greek:
o(motage\s] with its participant particulars. (Proklus ad
Parmenidem, p. 125, p. 684 ed. Stallbaum.)
This argument of Parmenides is the memorable argument known under
the name of [Greek: o( tri/tos a)/nthrôpos]. Against the Platonic
[Greek: ei)/dê] considered as [Greek: chôrista/], it is a forcible
argument. See Aristot. Metaphys. A. 990, b. 15 seq., where it is
numbered among [Greek: oi( a)kribe/steroi tô=n lo/gôn]. We find
from the Scholion of Alexander (p. 566 Brandis), that it was
advanced in several different ways by Aristotle, in his work
[Greek: Peri\ I)deô=n]: by his scholar Eudemus [Greek: e)n toi=s
peri\ Le/xeôs]: and by a contemporary [Greek: sophistê\s] named
Polyxenus, as well as by other Sophists.]
[Side-note: Are the Ideas conceptions of the mind, and nothing
more? Impossible.]
3. Perhaps (suggests Sokrates) each of these Forms is a Conception
of the mind and nothing beyond: the Form is not competent to exist
out of the mind.[14] How? (replies Parmenides.) There cannot be in
the mind any Conception, which is a Conception of nothing. Every
Conception must be of something really existing: in this case, it
is a Conception of some one thing, which you conceive as belonging
in common to each and all the objects considered. The Something
thus conceived as perpetually One and the same in all, is, the
Form. Besides, if you think that individual objects participate in
the Forms, and that these Forms are Conceptions of the mind,--you
must suppose, either that all objects are made up of Conceptions,
and are therefore themselves Concipients: or else that these
Forms, though Conceptions, are incapable of conceiving. Neither
one nor the other is admissible.[15]
[Footnote 14: Plato, Parmenid. p. 132 B. [Greek: mê\ _tô=n
ei)dô=n_ e(/kaston ê)=| _tou/tôn noê/ma_, kai\ _ou)damou= au)tô=|
prosê/kê e)ggi/gnesthai a)/llothi ê)\ e)n psuchai=s_. . . . Ti/
ou)=n? pha/nai, e(\n e(/kasto/n e)sti tô=n noêma/tôn, no/êma de\
ou)deno/s? A)ll' a)du/naton, ei)pei=n. A)lla\ tino/s? Nai/.
O)/ntos ê)\ ou)k o)/ntos? O)/ntos. Ou)ch e(no/s tinos, o(\ e)pi\
pa=sin e)kei=no to\ no/êma e)po\n noei=, mi/an tina\ ou)=san
i)de/an? Nai/.]
Aristotle (Topic. ii. 113, a. 25) indicates one way of meeting
this argument, if advanced by an adversary in dialectic
debate--[Greek: ei) ta\s i)de/as _e)n ê(mi=n_ e)/phêsen ei)=nai].]
[Footnote 15: Plato, Parmenid. p. 132 D. [Greek: ou)k a)na/gkê,
ei) ta)/lla phê\| tô=n ei)dô=n mete/chein, ê)\ dokei=n soi e)k
noê/mata o)/nta a)no/êta ei)=nai? A)ll' ou)de\ tou=to, pha/nai,
e)/chei lo/gon.]
The word [Greek: a)no/êta] here is used in its ordinary sense, in
which it is the negation, not of [Greek: noêto/s] but of [Greek:
noêtiko/s]. There is a similar confusion, Plato, Phædon, p. 80 B.
Proklus (pp. 699-701, Stall.) is prolix but very obscure.]
[Side-note: The Ideas are types or exemplars, and objects partake
of them by being likened to them. Impossible.]
4. Probably the case stands thus (says Sokrates). These Forms are
constants and fixtures in nature, as models or patterns.
Particular objects are copies or likenesses of them: and the
participation of such objects in the Form consists in being made
like to it.[16] In that case (replies Parmenides), the Form must
itself be like to the objects which have been made like to it.
Comparing the Form with the objects, that in which they resemble
must itself be a Form: and thus you will have a higher Form above
the first Form--and so upwards in the ascending line. This follows
necessarily from the hypothesis that the Form is like the objects.
The participation of objects in the Form, therefore, cannot
consist in being likened to it.[17]
[Footnote 16: Aristotle (Metaphys. A. 991, a. 20) characterises
this way of presenting the Platonic Ideas as mere [Greek:
kenologi/a] and poetical metaphor. See also the remarkable
Scholion of Alexander, pp. 574-575, Brandis.]
[Footnote 17: Plato, Parmenid. pp. 132-133.
This is again a repetition, though differently presented, of the
same argument--[Greek: o( tri/tos a)/nthrôpos]--enunciated p. 132
A.]
[Side-note: If Ideas exist, they cannot be knowable by us. We can
know only what is relative to ourselves. Individuals are relative
to individuals: Ideas relative to Ideas.]
5. Here are grave difficulties (continues Parmenides) opposed to
this doctrine of yours, affirming the existence of self-existent,
substantive, unchangeable, yet participated, Forms. But
difficulties still graver remain behind. Such Forms as you
describe cannot be cognizable by us: at least it is hard to show
how they can be cognizable. Being self-existent and substantive,
they are not _in us_: such of them as are relative, have their
relation with each other, not with those particular objects among
us, which are called _great_, _little_, and so forth, from being
supposed to be similar to or participant in the forms, and bearing
names the same as those of the Forms. Thus, for example, if I, an
individual man, am in the relation of master, I bear that relation
to another individual man who is my servant, not to servantship in
general (_i.e._ the Form of servantship, the _Servus per se_). My
servant, again, bears the relation of servant to me, an individual
man as master,--not to mastership in general (_i.e._ to the Form
of mastership, the _Dominus per se_). Both terms of the relation
are individual objects. On the other hand, the Forms also bear
relation to each other. The Form of servantship (_Servus per se_)
stands in relation to the Form of mastership (_Dominus per se_).
Neither of them correlates with an individual object. The two
terms of the relation must be homogeneous, each of them a
Form.[18]
[Footnote 18: Plato, Parmenid. p. 133 E.]
[Side-note: Forms can be known only through the Form of Cognition,
which we do not possess.]
Now apply this to the case of cognition. The Form of Cognition
correlates exclusively with the Form of Truth: the Form of each
special Cognition, geometrical or medical, or other, correlates
with the Form of Geometry or Medicine. But Cognition as we possess
it, correlates only with Truth relatively to us: also, each
special Cognition of ours has its special correlating Truth,
relatively to us.[19] Now the Forms are not in or with us, but
apart from us: the Form of Cognition is not our Cognition, the
Form of Truth is not our Truth. Forms can be known only through
the Form of Cognition, which _we_ do not possess: we cannot
therefore know Forms. We have our own cognition, whereby we know
what is relative to us; but we know nothing more. Forms, which are
not relative to us, lie out of our knowledge. _Bonum per se,
Pulchrum per se_, and the other self-existent Forms or Ideas, are
to us altogether unknowable.[20]
[Footnote 19: Plato, Parmenid. p. 134 A. [Greek: Ou)kou=n kai\
e)pistê/mê, au)tê\ me\n o(\ e)/stin e)pistê/mê, tê=s o(\ e)/stin
a)lê/theia, au)tê=s a)\n e)kei/nês ei)/ê e)pistê/mê? . . . Ê( de\
par' ê(mi=n e)pistê/mê ou) tê=s par' ê(mi=n a)\n a)lêthei/as
ei)/ê? kai\ au)= e(ka/stê ê( par' ê(mi=n e)pistê/mê tô=n par'
ê(mi=n o)/ntôn e(ka/stou a)\n e)pistê/mê su/mbainoi ei)=nai?]
Aristotle (Topica, vi. p. 147, a. 6) adverts to this as an
argument against the theory of Ideas, but without alluding to the
Parmenides; indeed he puts the argument in a different
way--[Greek: to\ d' ei)=dos pro\s to\ ei)=dos dokei= le/gesthai, oi(=on
au)tê\ e)pithumi/a au)tou= ê(de/os, kai\ au)tê\ bou/lêsis au)tou=
a)gathou=.] Aristotle argues that there is no place in this
doctrine for the [Greek: phaino/menon a)gatho/n], which
nevertheless men often wish for, and he remarks, in the Nikom.
Ethica, i. 4, 1096 b. 33--that the [Greek: au)to\-a)gatho\n] is
neither [Greek: prakto\n] nor [Greek: ktêto\n a)nthrô/pô|].]
[Footnote 20: Plato, Parmenid. p. 134 C. [Greek: A)/gnôston a)/ra
ê(mi=n kai\ au)to\ to\ kalo\n o(\ e)/sti, kai\ to\ a)gatho/n, kai\
pa/nta a(\ dê\ ô(s i)de/as au)ta\s ou)/sas u(polamba/nomen.]]
[Side-note: Form of cognition, superior to our Cognition, belongs
to the Gods. We cannot know them, nor can they know us.]
6. Again, if there be a real self-existent Form of Cognition,
apart from that which we or others possess--it must doubtless be
far superior in accuracy and perfection to that which we
possess.[21] The Form of Beauty and the other Forms, must be in
like manner superior to that which is found under the same name in
individual objects. This perfect Form of Cognition must therefore
belong to the Gods, if it belong to any one. But if so, the Gods
must have a Form of Truth, the proper object of their Form of
Cognition. They cannot know the truth relatively to us, which
belongs to _our_ cognition--any more than we can know the more
perfect truth belonging to them. So too about other Forms. The
perfect Form of mastership belongs to the Gods, correlating with
its proper Form of servantship. _Their_ mastership does not
correlate with individual objects like us: in other words, they
are not our masters, nor are we their servants. _Their_ cognition,
again, does not correlate with individual objects like us: in
other words, they do not know us, nor do we know them. In like
manner, we in our capacity of masters are not masters of them--we
as cognizant beings know nothing of them or of that which they
know. They can in no way correlate with us, nor can we correlate
with them.[22]
[Footnote 21: An argument very similar is urged by Aristotle
(Metaph. [Greek: Th]. 1050, b. 34) [Greek: ei) a)/ra tine/s ei)si
phu/seis toiau=tai ê)\ ou)si/ai oi(/as le/gousin oi( e)n toi=s
lo/gois ta\s i)de/as, polu\ ma=llon e)pistê=mon a)/n ti ei)/ê ê(
au)toepistê/mê kai\ kinou/menon ê( ki/nêsis.]]
[Footnote 22: Plato, Parmenid. p. 135 A. [Greek: Tau=ta me\ntoi,
ô)= Sô/krates, e)/phê o( Parmeni/dês, _kai\ e)/ti a)/lla pro\s
tou/tois pa/nu polla\ a)nagkai=on e)/chein ta\ ei)/dê_, ei)
ei)si\n au)tai ai( i)de/ai tô=n o)/ntôn], &c.]
[Side-note: Sum total of objections against the Ideas is grave. But
if we do not admit that Ideas exist, and that they are knowable,
there can be no dialectic discussion.]
Here are some of the objections, Sokrates (concludes Parmenides),
which beset your doctrine, that there exist substantive,
self-standing, Forms of Ideas, each respectively definable. Many
farther objections might also be urged.[23] So that a man may
reasonably maintain, either that none such exist--or that,
granting their existence, they are essentially unknowable by us.
He must put forth great ingenuity to satisfy himself of the
affirmative; and still more wonderful ingenuity to find arguments
for the satisfaction of others, respecting this question.
[Footnote 23: Plato, Parmenid. p. 134 D-E. [Greek: Ou)/koun ei)
para\ tô=| theô=| au(/tê e)/stin ê( a)kribesta/tê despotei/a kai\
au(/tê ê( a)kribesta/tê e)pistê/mê, ou)/t' a)\n ê( despotei/a ê(
e)kei/nôn] (i.e. [Greek: tô=n theô=n]) [Greek: ê(mô=n pote\ a)\n
despo/seien, _ou)/t' a)\n ê( e)pistê/mê ê(ma=s gnoi/ê ou)de/ ti
a)/llo tô=n par' ê(mi=n_; a)lla\ o(moi/ôs ê(mei=s t' e)kei/nôn
ou)k a)/rchomen tê=| par' ê(mi=n a)rchê=|, ou)de gignô/skomen tou=
thei/ou ou)de\n tê=| ê(mete/ra| e)pistê/mê, _e)kei=noi/ te au)=_]
(sc. [Greek: oi( theoi/]) [Greek: kata\ to\n au)to\n lo/gon ou)/te
despo/tai ê(mô=n ei)si\n _ou)/te gignô/skousi ta\ a)nthrô/peia
pra/gmata theoi\ o)/ntes_. A)lla\ mê\ li/an, e)/phê] (Sokrates),
[Greek: ê)=| thaumasto\s o( lo/gos, ei)/ tis theo\n a)posterê/seis
tou= ei)de/nai.]
The inference here drawn by Parmenides supplies the first mention
of a doctrine revived by (if not transmitted to) Averroes and
various scholastic doctors of the middle ages, so as to be
formally condemned by theological councils. M. Renan tells us--"En
1269, Étienne Tempier, évêque de Paris, ayant rassemblé le conseil
des maîtres en théologie . . . condamna, de concert avec eux,
treize propositions qui ne sont presque toutes que les axiomes
familiers de l'averroïsme: Quod intellectus hominum est unus et
idem numero. Quod mundus est æternus. Quod nunquam fuit primus
homo. _Quod Deus non cognoscit singularia_," &c. (Renan, Averroès,
p. 213, 2nd ed., p. 268.)]
Nevertheless, on the other side (continues Parmenides), unless we
admit the existence of such Forms or Ideas--substantive, eternal,
unchangeable, definable--philosophy and dialectic discussion are
impossible.[24]
[Footnote 24: Plato, Parmenid. p. 135 B.]
* * * * *
[Side-note: Dilemma put by Parmenides--Acuteness of his
objections.]
Here then, Parmenides entangles himself and his auditors in the
perplexing dilemma, that philosophical and dialectic speculation
is impossible, unless these Forms or Ideas, together with the
participation of sensible objects in them, be granted; while at
the same time this cannot be granted, until objections, which
appear at first sight unanswerable, have been disposed of.
The acuteness with which these objections are enforced, is
remarkable. I know nothing superior to it in all the Platonic
writings. Moreover the objections point directly against that
doctrine which Plato in other dialogues most emphatically insists
upon, and which Aristotle both announces and combats as
characteristic of Plato--the doctrine of separate, self-existent,
absolute, Forms or Ideas. They are addressed moreover to Sokrates,
the chief exponent of that doctrine here as well as in other
dialogues. And he is depicted as unable to meet them.
[Side-note: The doctrine which Parmenides attacks is the genuine
Platonic theory of Ideas. His objections are never answered in any
part of the Platonic dialogues.]
It is true that Sokrates is here introduced as juvenile and
untrained; or at least as imperfectly trained. And accordingly,
Stallbaum with others think, that this is the reason of his
inability to meet the objections: which (they tell us), though
ingenious and plausible, yet having no application to the genuine
Platonic doctrine about Ideas, might easily have been answered if
Plato had thought fit, and are answered in other dialogues.[25]
But to me it appears, that the doctrine which is challenged in the
Parmenidês is the genuine Platonic doctrine about Ideas, as
enunciated by Plato in the Republic, Phædon, Philêbus, Timæus, and
elsewhere--though a very different doctrine is announced in the
Sophistês. Objections are here made against it in the Parmenidês.
In what other dialogue has Plato answered them? and what proof can
be furnished that he was able to answer them? There are indeed
many other dialogues in which a real world of Ideas absolute and
unchangeable, is affirmed strenuously and eloquently, with various
consequences and accompaniments traced to it: but there are none
in which the Parmenidean objections are elucidated, or even
recited. In the Phædon, Phædrus, Timæus, Symposion, &c., and
elsewhere, Sokrates is made to talk confidently about the
existence and even about the cognoscibility of these Ideas; just
as if no such objections as those which we read in the Parmenidês
could be produced.[26] In these other dialogues, Plato accepts
implicitly one horn of the Parmenidean dilemma; but without
explaining to us upon what grounds he allows himself to neglect
the other.
[Footnote 25: Stallbaum, Prolegom. pp. 52-286-332.]
[Footnote 26: According to Stallbaum (Prolegg. pp. 277-337) the
Parmenidês is the only dialogue in which Plato has discussed, with
philosophical exactness, the theory of Ideas; in all the other
dialogues he handles it in a popular and superficial manner. There
is truth in this--indeed more truth (I think) than Stallbaum
himself supposed: otherwise he would hardly have said that the
objections in the Parmenides could easily have been answered, if
Plato had chosen.
Stallbaum tells us, not only respecting Socher but respecting
Schleiermacher (pp. 324-332), "Parmenidem omnino non intellexit".
In my judgment, Socher understands the dialogue better than
Stallbaum, when he (Socher) says, that the objections in the first
half bear against the genuine Platonic Ideas; though I do not
agree with his inference about the spuriousness of the dialogue.]
[Side-note: Views of Stallbaum and Socher. The latter maintains
that Plato would never make such objections against his own
theory, and denies the authenticity of the Parmenidês.]
Socher has so much difficulty in conceiving that Plato can have
advanced such forcible objections against a doctrine, which
nevertheless in other Platonic dialogues is proclaimed as true and
important,--that he declares the Parmenidês (together with the
Sophistês and Politikus) not to be genuine, but to have been
composed by some unknown Megaric contemporary. To pass over the
improbability that any unknown author should have been capable of
composing works of so much ability as these--Socher's decision
about spuriousness is founded upon an estimate of Plato's
philosophical character, which I think incorrect. Socher expects
(or at least reasons as if he expected) to find in Plato a
preconceived system and a scheme of conclusions to which every
thing is made subservient.
[Side-note: Philosophers are usually advocates, each of a positive
system of his own.]
In most philosophers, doubtless, this is what we do find. Each
starts with some favourite conclusions, which he believes to be
true, and which he supports by all the arguments in their favour,
as far as his power goes. If he mentions the arguments against
them, he usually answers the weak, slurs over or sneers at the
strong: at any rate, he takes every precaution that these counter
arguments shall appear unimportant in the eyes of his readers. His
purpose is, like that of a speaker in the public assembly, to
obtain assent and belief: whether the hearers understand the
question or not, is a matter of comparative indifference: at any
rate, they must be induced to embrace his conclusion. Unless he
thus foregoes the character of an impartial judge, to take up that
of an earnest advocate; unless he bends the whole force of his
mind to the establishment of the given conclusion--he becomes
suspected as deficient in faith or sincerity, and loses much in
persuasive power. For an earnest belief, expressed with eloquence
and feeling, is commonly more persuasive than any logic.
[Side-note: Different spirit of Plato in his Dialogues of Search.]
Now whether this exclusive devotion to the affirmative side of
certain questions be the true spirit of philosophy or not, it is
certainly not the spirit of Plato in his Dialogues of Search;
wherein he conceives the work of philosophy in a totally
different manner. He does not begin by stating, even to himself a
certain conclusion at which he has arrived, and then proceed to
prove that conclusion to others. The search or debate (as I have
observed in a preceding chapter) has greater importance in his
eyes than the conclusion: nay, in a large proportion of his
dialogues, there is no conclusion at all: we see something
disproved, but nothing proved. The negative element has with him a
value and importance of its own, apart from the affirmative. He is
anxious to set forth what can be said against a given conclusion;
even though not prepared to establish any thing in its place.
[Side-note: The Parmenidês is the extreme manifestation of the
negative element. That Plato should employ one dialogue in setting
forth the negative case against the Theory of Ideas is not
unnatural.]
Such negative element, manifested as it is in so many of the
Platonic dialogues, has its extreme manifestation in the
Parmenidês. When we see it here applied to a doctrine which Plato
in other dialogues insists upon as truth, we must call to mind
(what sincere believers are apt to forget) that a case may always
be made out against truth as well as in its favour: and that its
privilege as a certified portion of "reasoned truth," rests upon
no better title than the superiority of the latter case over the
former. It is for testing the two cases--for determining where the
superiority lies--and for graduating its amount--that the process
of philosophising is called for, and that improvements in the
method thereof become desirable. That Plato should, in one of his
many diversified dialogues, apply this test to a doctrine which,
in other dialogues, he holds out as true--is noway inconsistent
with the general spirit of these compositions. Each of his
dialogues has its own point of view, worked out on that particular
occasion; what is common to them all, is the process of
philosophising applied in various ways to the same general topics.
Those who, like Socher, deny Plato's authorship of the Parmenidês,
on the ground of what is urged therein against the theory of
Ideas, must suppose, either that he did not know that a negative
case could be made out against that theory; or that knowing it, he
refrained from undertaking the duty.[27] Neither supposition is
consistent with what we know both of his negative ingenuity, and
of his multifarious manner of handling.
[Footnote 27: Plato, Philêbus, p. 14, where the distinction taken
coincides accurately enough with that which we read in Plato,
Parmenid. p. 129 A-D.
Strümpell thinks that the Parmenidês was composed at a time of
Plato's life when he had become sensible of the difficulties and
contradictions attaching to his doctrine of self-existent Forms or
Ideas, and when he was looking about for some way of extrication
from them: which way he afterwards thought that he found in that
approximation to Pythagorism--that exchange of Ideas for Ideal
numbers, &c.--which we find imputed to him by Aristotle (Gesch.
der Griech. Phil. sect. 96, 3). This is not impossible; but I find
no sufficient ground for affirming it. Nor can I see how the
doctrine which Aristotle ascribes to Plato about the Ideas (that
they are generated by two [Greek: stoichei=a] or elements, [Greek:
to\ e(/n] along with [Greek: to\ me/ga kai\ to\ mikro/n]) affords
any escape from the difficulties started in the Parmenidês.
Strümpell considers the dialogue Parmenidês to have been composed
"ganz ausdrücklich zur dialektischen Uebung," ib. s. 96, 2, p.
128.]
[Side-note: Force of the negative case in the Parmenidês.
Difficulties about participation of sensible objects in the world
of Ideas.]
The negative case, made out in the Parmenidês against the theory
of Ideas, is indeed most powerful. The hypothesis of the Ideal
World is unequivocally affirmed by Sokrates, with its four
principal characteristics. 1. Complete essential separation from
the world of sense. 2. Absolute self-existence. 3. Plurality of
constituent items, several contrary to each other. 4. Unchangeable
sameness and unity of each and all of them.--Here we have full
satisfaction given to the Platonic sentiment, which often delights
in soaring above the world of sense, and sometimes (see Phædon) in
heaping contemptuous metaphors upon it. But unfortunately Sokrates
cannot disengage himself from this world of sense: he is obliged
to maintain that it partakes of, or is determined by, these
extra-sensible Forms or Ideas. Here commence the series of difficulties
and contradictions brought out by the Elenchus of Parmenides. Are
all sensible objects, even such as are vulgar, repulsive, and
contemptible, represented in this higher world? The Platonic
sentiment shrinks from the admission: the Platonic sense of
analogy hesitates to deny it. Then again, how can both assertions
be true--first that the two worlds are essentially separate, next,
that the one participates in, and derives its essence from, the
other? How (to use Aristotelian language[28]) can the essence be
separated from that of which it is the essence? How can the Form,
essentially One, belong at once to a multitude of particulars?
[Footnote 28: Arist. Met. A. 991, b. 1. [Greek: a)du/naton,
chôri\s ei)=nai tê\n ou)si/an kai\ ou)= ê( ou)si/a.]]
Two points deserve notice in this debate respecting the doctrine
of Ideas:--
[Side-note: Difficulties about the Cognizability of Ideas. If Ideas
are absolute, they cannot be cognizable: if they are cognizable,
they must be relative. Doctrine of Homo Mensura.]
1. Parmenides shows, and Sokrates does not deny, that these Forms
or Ideas described as absolute, self-existent, unchangeable, must
of necessity be unknown and unknowable to us.[29] Whatever we do
know, or can know, is relative to us;--to our actual cognition, or
to our cognitive power. If you declare an object to be absolute,
you declare it to be neither known nor knowable by us: if it be
announced as known or knowable by us, it is thereby implied at the
same time not to be absolute. If these Forms or Objects called
absolute are known, they can be known only by an absolute Subject,
or the Form of a cognizant Subject: that is, by God or the Gods.
Even thus, to call them _absolute_ is a misnomer: they are
relative to the Subject, and the Subject is relative to them.
[Footnote 29: Plato, Parmenid. 133 B. [Greek: ei)/ tis phai/ê
mêde\ prosê/kein au)ta\ gignô/skesthai o)/nta toiau=ta oi(=a/
phamen dei=n ei)=nai ta\ ei)/dê. . . . a)pi/thanos a)\n ei)/ê o(
a)/gnôsta au)ta\ a)nagka/zôn ei)=nai.] 134 A. [Greek: ê( de\ par'
ê(mi=n e)pistê/mê ou) tê=s par' ê(mi=n a)\n a)lêthei/as ei)/ê?
kai\ au)= e(ka/stê ê( par' ê(mi=n e(pistê/mê tô=n par' ê(mi=n
o)/ntôn e(ka/stou a)\n e)pistê/mê xu/mbainoi ei)=nai?] 134 C.
[Greek: a)/gnôston a)/ra ê(mi=n e)/sti kai\ au)to\ to\ kalo\n o(\
e)/sti, kai\ to\ a)gatho/n, kai\ pa/nta a(\ dê\ ô(s i)de/as
au)ta\s ou)/sas u(polamba/nomen.]]
The opinion here advanced by the Platonic Parmenides asserts, in
other words, what is equivalent to the memorable dictum of
Protagoras--"Man is the measure of all things--of things existent,
that they do exist--and of things non-existent, that they do not
exist". This dictum affirms universal relativity, and nothing
else: though Plato, as we shall see in the elaborate argument
against it delivered by Sokrates in the Theætêtus, mixed it up
with another doctrine altogether distinct and independent--the
doctrine that knowledge is sensible perception.[30] Parmenides
here argues that if these Forms or Ideas are known by us, they can
be known only as relative to us: and that if they be not relative
to us, they cannot be known by us at all. Such relativity belongs
as much to the world of Conception, as to the world of Perception.
And it is remarkable that Plato admits this essential relativity
not merely here, but also in the Sophistês: in which latter
dialogue he denies the Forms or Ideas to be absolute existences,
on the special ground that they are known:--and on the farther
ground that what is known must act upon the knowing mind, and must
be acted upon thereby, _i.e._, must be relative. He there defines
the existent to be, that which has power to act upon something
else, or to be acted upon by something else. Such relativeness he
declares to constitute _existence_:[31] defining existence to mean
potentiality.
[Footnote 30: I shall discuss this in the coming chapter upon the
Theætêtus.]
[Footnote 31: Plato, Sophistês, pp. 248-249. This reasoning is put
into the mouth of the Eleatic Stranger, the principal person in
that dialogue.]
[Side-note: Answer of Sokrates--That Ideas are mere conceptions of
the mind. Objection of Parmenides correct, though undeveloped.]
2. The second point which deserves notice in this portion of the
Parmenidês, is the answer of Sokrates (when embarrassed by some of
the questions of the Eleatic veteran)--"That these Forms or Ideas
are conceptions of the mind, and have no existence out of the
mind". This answer gives us the purely Subjective, or negation of
Object: instead of the purely Objective (Absolute), or negation of
Subject.[32] Here we have what Porphyry calls the deepest question
of philosophy[33] explicitly raised: and, as far as we know, for
the first time. Are the Forms or Ideas mere conceptions of the
mind and nothing more? Or are they external, separate,
self-existent realities? The opinion which Sokrates had first given
declared the latter: that which he now gives declares the former.
He passes from the pure Objective (_i.e._, without Subject) to the
pure Subjective (_i.e._, without Object). Parmenides, in his
reply, points out that there cannot be a conception of nothing:
that if there be Conceptio, there must be _Conceptum aliquid_:[34]
and that this Conceptum or Concept is what is common to a great
many distinct similar Percepta.
[Footnote 32: Plato, Parmenid. p. 132 A-B.
The doctrine, that [Greek: poio/têtes] were [Greek: philai\
e)/nnoiai], having no existence without the mind, was held by
Antisthenes as well as by the Eretrian sect of philosophers,
contemporary with Plato and shortly after him. Simplikius, Schol.
ad Aristot. Categ. p. 68, a. 30, Brandis. See, respecting
Antisthenes, the first volume of the present work, p. 165.]
[Footnote 33: See the beginning of Porphyry's Introduction to the
Categories of Aristotle. [Greek: bathuta/tê ou)/sês tê=s toiau/tês
pragmatei/as], &c. Simplikius (in Schol. ad Aristot. Categ. p. 68,
a. 28, ed. Brandis) alludes to the Eretrian philosophers and
Theopompus, who considered [Greek: ta\s poio/têtas] as [Greek:
phila\s mo/nas e)nnoi/as diakenô=s legome/nas kat' ou)demi/as
u(posta/seôs, oi(=on a)nthrôpo/têta ê)\ i(ppo/têta], &c.]
[Footnote 34: Compare Republic, v. p. 476 B. [Greek: o( gignô/skôn
gignô/skei ti\ ê)\ ou)de\n? Gignô/skei ti/], &c.
The following passage in the learned work of Cudworth bears on the
portion of the Parmenidês which we are now considering. Cudworth,
Treatise of Immutable Morality, pp. 243-245.
"But if any one demand here, where this [Greek: a)ki/nêtos
ou)si/a], these immutable Entities do exist? I answer, first, that
as they are considered formally, they do not properly exist in the
Individuals without us, as if they were from them imprinted upon
the Understanding, which some have taken to be Aristotle's
opinion; because no Individual Material thing is either Universal
or Immutable. . . . Because they perish not together with them, it
is a certain argument that they exist independently upon them.
Neither, in the next place, do they exist somewhere else apart
from the Individual Sensibles, and without the Mind, which is that
opinion that Aristotle justly condemns, but either unjustly or
unskilfully attributes to Plato. . . . Wherefore these
Intelligible Ideas or Essences of Things, those Forms by which we
understand all Things, exist nowhere but in the mind itself; for
it was very well determined long ago by Socrates, in Plato's
Parmenidês, that these things are nothing else but Noemata: 'These
Species or Ideas are all of them nothing but Noemata or Notions
that exist nowhere but in the Soul itself'. . . .
"And yet notwithstanding, though these Things exist only in the
Mind, they are not therefore mere Figments of the
Understanding. . . .
"It is evident that though the Mind thinks of these Things at
pleasure, yet they are not arbitrarily framed by the Mind, but
have certain, determinate, and immutable Natures of their own,
which are independent upon the Mind, and which are blown (quære
_not blown_) away into Nothing at the pleasure of the same Being
that arbitrarily made them."
It is an inadvertence on the part of Cudworth to cite this passage
of the Parmenidês as authenticating Plato's opinion that Forms or
Ideas existed only in the mind. Certainly Sokrates is here made to
express that opinion, among others; but the opinion is refuted by
Parmenidês and dropped by Sokrates. But the very different
opinion, which Cudworth accuses Aristotle of _wrongly_ attributing
to Plato, is repeated by Sokrates in the Phædon, Republic, and
elsewhere, and never refuted.]
This reply, though scanty and undeveloped, is in my judgment both
valid, as it negatives the Subject pure and simple, and affirms
that to every conception in the mind, there must correspond a
Concept out of (or rather along with) the mind (the one
correlating with or implying the other)--and correct as far as it
goes, in declaring what that Concept is. Such Concept is, or may
be, the Form. Parmenides does not show that it is not so. He
proceeds to impugn, by a second argument, the assertion of
Sokrates--that the form is a Conception _wholly within_ the mind:
he goes on to argue that individual things (which are _out_ of the
mind) cannot participate in these Forms (which are asserted to be
altogether _in_ the mind): because, if that were admitted, either
every such thing must be a Concipient, or must run into the
contradiction of being a _Conceptio non concipiens_.[35] Now this
argument may refute the affirmation of Sokrates literally taken,
that the Form is a Conception entirely belonging to the mind, and
having nothing Objective corresponding to it--but does not refute
the doctrine that the Form is a Concept correlating with the
mind--or out of the mind as well as in it. In this as in other
Concepts, the subjective point of view preponderates over the
objective, though Object is not altogether eliminated: just as, in
the particular external things, the objective point of view
predominates, though Subject cannot be altogether dismissed.
Neither Subject nor Object can ever entirely disappear: the one is
the inseparable correlative and complement of the other: but
sometimes the subjective point of view may preponderate, sometimes
the objective. Such preponderance (or logical priority), either of
the one or the other, may be implied or connoted by the
denomination given. Though the special connotation of the name
creates an illusion which makes the preponderant point of view
seem to be all, and magnifies the Relatum so as to eclipse and
extinguish the Correlatum--yet such preponderance, or logical
priority, is all that is really meant when the Concepts are said
to be "_in the mind_"--and the Percepts (Percepta, things
perceived) to be "_out of the mind_": for both Concepts and
Percepts are "_of the mind_, or _relative to the mind_".[36]
[Footnote 35: On this point the argument in the dialogue itself,
as stated by Parmenides, is not clear to follow. Strümpell remarks
on the terms employed by Plato. "Der Umstand, dass die Ausdrücke
[Greek: ei)=dos] und [Greek: i)de/a] nicht sowie [Greek: lo/gos]
den Unterschied, zwischen Begriff und dem durch diesen begriffenen
Realen, hervortreten lassen--sondern, weil dieselben bald im
subjektiven Sinne den Begriff, bald im objektiven Sinne das Reale
bezeichnen--bald in der einen bald in der andern Bedeutung zu
nehmen sind--kann leicht eine Verwechselung und Unklarheit in der
Auffassung veranlassen," &c. (Gesch. der Gr. Philos. s. 90, p.
115).]
[Footnote 36: This preponderance of the Objective point of view,
though without altogether eliminating the Subjective, includes all
that is true in the assertion of Aristotle, that the _Perceptum_
is prior to the _Percipient_--the _Percipiendum_ prior to the
_Perceptionis Capax_. He assimilates the former to a _Movens_, the
latter to a _Motum_. But he declares that he means not a priority
in time or real existence, but simply a _priority in nature_ or
_logical priority_; and he also declares the two to be relatives
or reciproca. The Prius is relative to the Posterius, as the
Posterius is relative to the Prius.--Metaphys. [Greek: G]. 1010,
b. 36 seq. [Greek: a)ll' e)/sti ti kai\ e(/teron para\ tê\n
ai)/sthêsin, o(\ a)nagkê pro/teron ei)=nai tê=s ai)sthê/seô=s; to\
ga\r kinou=n tou= kinoume/nou _phu/sei pro/tero/n_ e)sti; ka)\n
ei) le/getai pro\s a)/llêla tau=ta, ou)de\n ê(=tton.]
See respecting the [Greek: pro/teron phu/sei], Aristot. Categor.
p. 12, b. 5-15, and Metaphys. [Greek: D]. 1018, b. 12--[Greek:
a(plô=s kai\ tê=| phu/sei pro/teron].]
[Side-note: Meaning of Abstract and General Terms, debated from
ancient times to the present day--Different views of Plato and
Aristotle upon it.]
The question--What is the real and precise meaning attached to
abstract and general words?--has been debated down to this day,
and is still under debate. It seems to have first derived its
importance, if not its origin, from Sokrates, who began the
practice of inviting persons to define the familiar generalities
of ethics and politics, and then tested by cross-examination the
definitions given by men who thought that common sense would
enable any one to define.[37] But I see no ground for believing
that Sokrates ever put to himself the question--Whether that which
an abstract term denotes is a mental conception, or a separate and
self-existent reality. That question was raised by Plato, and
first stands clearly brought to view here in the Parmenidês.
[Footnote 37: Aristotel. Metaphys. A. 987, b. 3. M. 1078, b.
18-32.]
If we follow up the opinion here delivered by the Platonic
Sokrates, together with the first correction added to it by
Parmenides, amounting to this--That the Form is a Conception of
the mind with its corresponding Concept: if, besides, we dismiss
the doctrine held by Plato, that the Form is a separate
self-existent unchangeable Ens ([Greek: e(\n para\ ta\ polla\]):
there will then be no greater difficulty in understanding how it
can be partaken by, or be at once in, many distinct particulars,
than in understanding (what is at bottom the same question) how
one and the same attribute can belong at once to many different
objects: how hardness or smoothness can be at once in an indefinite
number of hard and smooth bodies dispersed everywhere.[38] The
object and the attribute are both of them relative to the same
percipient and concipient mind: we may perceive or conceive many
objects as distinct individuals--we may also conceive them all as
resembling in a particular manner, making abstraction of the
individuality of each: both these are psychological facts, and
the latter of the two is what we mean when we say, that all of them
possess or participate in one and the same attribute. The concrete
term, and its corresponding abstract, stand for the same facts of
sense differently conceived. Now the word _one_, when applied to the
attribute, has a different meaning from _one_ when applied to an
individual object. Plato speaks sometimes elsewhere as if he felt
this diversity of meaning: not however in the Parmenidês, though
there is great demand for it. But Aristotle (in this respect far
superior) takes much pains to point out that _Unum Ens_--and the
preposition _In_ (to be _in_ any thing)--are among the [Greek:
pollachô=s lego/mena], having several different meanings derived
from one primary or radical by diverse and distant
ramifications.[39] The important logical distinction between _Unum
numero_ and _Unum specie_ (or _genere_, &c.) belongs first to
Aristotle.[40]
[Footnote 38: That "the attribute is in its subject," is explained
by Aristotle only by saying That it is _in_ its subject, not as a
part in the whole, yet as that which cannot exist apart from its
subject (Categor. 1, a. 30-3, a. 30). Compare Hobbes, Comput. or
Logic. iii. 3, viii. 3. Respecting the number of different modes
[Greek: tou= e)/n tini ei)=nai], see Aristot. Physic. iii. p. 210,
a. 18 seq., with the Scholia, p. 373 Brandis, and p. 446, 10
Brand. The commentators made out, variously, nine, eleven, sixteen
distinct [Greek: tro/pous tou= e)/n tini ei)=nai]. In the language
of Aristotle, _genus_, _species_, [Greek: ei)=dos], and even
_differentia_ are not [Greek: e)n u(pokeime/nô|], but are
predicated [Greek: kath' u(pokeime/nou] (see Cat. p. 3, a. 20).
The _proprium_ and _accidens_ alone are [Greek: e)n
u(pokeime/nô|]. Here is a difference between his language and that
of Plato, according to whom [Greek: to\ ei)=dos] is [Greek: e)n
e(ka/stô| tô=n pollô=n] (Parmenid. 131 A). But we remark in that
same dialogue, that when Parmenides questions Sokrates whether he
recognises [Greek: ei)/dê au)ta\ kath' au)ta/] he first asks
whether Sokrates admits [Greek: dikai/ou ti ei)=dos au)to\ kath'
au(to/, kai\ kalou=, kai\ a)gathou=, kai\ pa/ntôn tô=n toiou/tôn].
Sokrates answers without hesitation, _Yes_. Then Parmenides
proceeds to ask, Do you recognise an [Greek: ei)=dos] of man,
separate and apart from all of us individual men?--or an [Greek:
ei)=dos] of fire, water, and such like? Here Sokrates hesitates:
he will neither admit nor deny it (130 D). The first list, which
Sokrates at once accepts, is of what Aristotle would call
_accidents_: the second, which Sokrates doubts about, is of what
Aristotle would call _second substances_. We thus see that the
conception of a self-existent [Greek: ei)=dos] realised itself
most easily and distinctly to the mind of Plato in the case of
_accidents_. He would, therefore, naturally conceive [Greek: ta\
ei)/dê] as being [Greek: e)n u(pokeime/nô|], agreeing
substantially, though not in terms, with Aristotle. It is in the
case of accidents or attributes that abstract names are most
usually invented; and it is the abstract name, or the neuter
adjective used as its equivalent, which suggests the belief in an
[Greek: ei)=dos].]
[Footnote 39: Aristotel. Metaphys. [Greek: D]. 1015-1016, I. 1052,
a. 29 seq. [Greek: ta\ me\n dê\ ou(/tôs e(\n ê)\ suneche\s ê)\
o(/lon; ta\ de\ ô(=n a)\n o( lo/gos ei(=s ê)=|; toiau=ta de\ ô(=n
ê( no/êsis mi/a], &c.
About abstract names, or the names of attributes, see Mr. John
Stuart Mill's 'System of Logic,' i. 2, 4, p. 30, edit. 5th. "When
only one attribute, neither variable in degree nor in kind, is
designated by the name--as visibleness, tangibleness, equality,
&c.--though it denotes an attribute of many different objects,
the attribute itself is always considered as _one_, not as
_many_." Compare, also, on this point, p. 153, and a note added by
Mr. Mill to the fifth edition, p. 203, in reply to Mr. Herbert
Spencer. The _oneness_ of the attribute, in different subjects, is
not conceded by every one. Mr. Spencer thinks that the same
abstract word denotes one attribute in Subject A, and another
attribute, though exactly like it, in Subject B (Principles of
Psychology, p. 126 seq.) Mr. Mill's view appears the correct one;
but the distinction (pointed out by Archbishop Whately) between
_undistinguishable likeness_ and _positive identity_, becomes in
these cases imperceptible or forgotten.
Aristotle, however, in the beginning of the Categories ranks
[Greek: ê( ti/s grammatikê\] as [Greek: a)/tomon kai\ _e(\n
a)rithmô=|_] (pp. 1, 6, 8), which I do not understand; and it
seems opposed to another passage, pp. 3, 6, 15.
The argument between two such able thinkers as Mr. Mill and Mr.
Spencer, illustrates forcibly the extreme nicety of this question
respecting the One and the Many, under certain supposable
circumstances. We cannot be surprised that it puzzled the
dialecticians of the Platonic Aristotelian age, who fastened by
preference on points of metaphysical difficulty.]
[Footnote 40: See interesting remarks on the application of this
logical distinction in Galen, De Methodo Medendi, Book iii. vol.
x. p. 130 seq. Aristotle and Theophrastus both dwelt upon it.]
[Side-note: Plato never expected to make his Ideas fit on to the
facts of sense: Aristotle tried to do it and partly succeeded.]
Plato has not followed out the hint which he has here put into the
mouth of Sokrates in the Parmenidês--That the Ideas or Forms are
conceptions existing only in the mind. Though the opinion thus
stated is not strictly correct (and is so pointed out by himself),
as falling back too exclusively on the subjective--yet if followed
out, it might have served to modify the too objective and absolute
character which in most dialogues (though not in the Sophistês) he
ascribes to his Forms or Ideas: laying stress upon them as
objects--and as objects not of sensible perception--but
overlooking or disallowing the fact of their being relative to the
concipient mind. The bent of Plato's philosophy was to dwell upon
these Forms, and to bring them into harmonious conjunction with
each other: he neither took pains, nor expected, to make them fit
on to the world of sense. With Aristotle, on the contrary, this
last-mentioned purpose is kept very generally in view. Amidst all
the extreme abstractions which he handles, he reverts often to the
comparison of them with sensible particulars: indeed Substantia
Prima was by him, for the first time in the history of philosophy,
brought down to designate the concrete particular object of sense:
in Plato's Phædon, Republic, &c, the only Substances are the Forms
or Ideas.
[Side-note: Continuation of the Dialogue--Parmenides admonishes
Sokrates that be has been premature in delivering a doctrine,
without sufficient preliminary exercise.]
Parmenides now continues the debate. He has already fastened upon
Sokrates several difficult problems: he now proposes a new one,
different and worse. Which way are we to turn then, if these Forms
be beyond our knowledge? I do not see my way (says Sokrates) out
of the perplexity. The fact is, Sokrates (replies Parmenides), you
have been too forward in producing your doctrine of Ideas, without
a sufficient preliminary exercise and enquiry. Your love of
philosophical research is highly praiseworthy: but you must employ
your youth in exercising and improving yourself, through that
continued philosophical discourse which the vulgar call _useless
prosing_: otherwise you will never attain truth.[41] You are
however right in bestowing your attention, not on the objects of
sense, but on those objects which we can best grasp in discussion,
and which we presume to exist as Forms.[42]
[Footnote 41: Plato, Parmenid. p. 135 C. [Greek: Prô\| ga/r, pri\n
gumnasthê=nai, ô)= Sô/krates, o(ri/zesthai e)picheirei=s kalo/n
te/ ti kai\ di/kaion kai\ a)gatho\n kai\ e(\n e(/kaston tô=n
ei)dô=n . . . kalê\ me\n ou)=n kai\ thei/a, ei)= i)/sthi, ê(
o(rmê\ ê(\n o(rma=|s e)pi\ tou\s lo/gous; e(/lkuson de\ sauto\n
kai\ gumna/sai, ma=llon dia\ tê=s dokou/sês a)chrê/stou ei)=nai
kai\ kaloume/nês u(po\ tô=n pollô=n a)doleschi/as, e(/ôs e)/ti
ne/os ei)=; ei) de\ mê\, se\ diapheu/xetai ê( a)lê/theia.]]
[Footnote 42: Plato, Parmenid. p. 135 E.]
[Side-note: What sort of exercise? Parmenides describes: To assume
provisionally both the affirmative and the negative of many
hypotheses about the most general terms, and to trace the
consequences of each.]
What sort of exercise must I go through? asks Sokrates. Zeno
(replies Parmenides) has already given you a good specimen of it
in his treatise, when he followed out the consequences flowing
from the assumption--"That the self-existent and absolute Ens is
plural". When you are trying to find out the truth on any
question, you must assume provisionally, first the affirmative and
then the negative, and you must then follow out patiently the
consequences deducible from one hypothesis as well as from the
other. If you are enquiring about the Form of Likeness, whether it
exists or does not exist, you must assume successively both one
and the other;[43] marking the deductions which follow, both with
reference to the thing directly assumed, and with reference to
other things also. You must do the like if you are investigating
other Forms--Unlikeness, Motion, and Rest, or even Existence and
Non-Existence. But you must not be content with following out only
one side of the hypothesis: you must examine both sides with equal
care and impartiality. This is the only sort of preparatory
exercise which will qualify you for completely seeing through the
truth.[44]
[Footnote 43: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 A. [Greek: kai\ au)=this
au)= e)a\n u(pothê=|, ei) e)/stin o(moio/tês ê)\ ei) mê/ e)sti,
ti/ e)ph' e(kate/ras tê=s u(pothe/seôs sumbê/setai, kai\ au)toi=s
toi=s u(potethei=si kai\ toi=s a)/llois kai\ pro\s au(ta\ kai\
pro\s a)/llêla.]]
[Footnote 44: Plato, Parmenid. p. 136 B.]
[Side-note: Impossible to do this before a numerous
audience--Parmenides is entreated to give a specimen--After much
solicitation he agrees.]